Author's Note: I'm going to heavily draw on Legends material, books and games, for events in the Clone War that involve characters not focused on in the Clone Wars cartoon. But Korkie will be intersecting occasionally. For example I can't have him sit out all the Mandalore episodes now can I?
Chapter 4: The Gauntlet
The blaster fire, even from a heavy blaster pistol, was a simple feat for Korkie to deflect. However, he quickly noticed that the strange Near Human, a species he had certainly never seen or heard of, was methodically placing the bolts to different vitals and extremities, trying to force him out of position and into allowing an opening to form.
However, a vital aspect of the Dooku-Yoda school of Being a Jedi, of which his master and Qui-Gon Jinn had both been a part, was that when you know your opponent is setting a trap, you make them think they've caught you. Spring the trap on your own terms, then counterattack.
So Korkie began acting as if he were flagging in his stamina. He made sure his blocks were sloppy and slightly over extended as the battle continued and stopped advancing as far with each barrage. He prioritized selling the charade over accelerating his plan however, making certain he only began to slowly seem to be lagging so as to not alert his foe to the trap.
The gambit paid off when, a dozen rounds of blaster fire later, he faked an over extension and the bounty hunter/assassin raised a wrist to attempt to fire off a rocket at him.
The young Jedi threw off all veneer of fatigue and grabbed the rocket out of the air with telekinesis as it had just barely left its launcher.
He squeezed.
In a blinding flash of light the rocket exploded, and when he blinked away the stars he saw a gorey and mangled corpse of a bounty hunter.
He had to take a few seconds to breath heavily however, telekinesis was not his strongest skill. It required a lot of focus and exertion for him. More so than an entire battle's worth of his battle precognition or physical enhancement that came oh so naturally to him.
And while its size was small the rocket had been moving very quickly, so catching it at speed and then crushing it had equated to exerting a sizable amount of force with the Force. That was simply physics. And while the Force gave one the tools to…skim physics, one could not avoid them entirely. Inertia, mass, and acceleration all existed. The reason Master Yoda gave his whole "size matters not" speech to the younglings wasn't that it didn't matter at all, but merely that allowing it to matter in your mind actually damaged your ability to allow the Force to flow through you strongly enough to affect the large object due to your own doubts.
Centering his mind once more, Korkie strode purposefully past the acrid, smoking corpse of the assassin and into the antechamber leading to one of the artifact vaults.
Trying to break through the door with a red lightsaber was a robust and bald man with billowing black and gray robes.
"I don't think you should be here, friend," Korkie stated, slowly and with a confidence he did not actually feel. There had been reports that Dooku was training dark acolytes in the arts of the Dark Side, but that none of them were strong enough to be considered a true apprentice of his.
Hopefully this man was one of the weaker acolytes, Korkie was confident in himself in general, but the Battle of Geonosis had left scars on that trait of his. A lingering doubt, survivor's guilt.
The man pulled his saber away from the door and waved it threateningly at Korkie.
"So, a jumped up padawan got past my droids and Vandalor? Almost impressive, but I think I'll be killing you now. I can't have a padawan of all things getting in my way, the Master would kill me."
And with that he fell into a painfully traditional Makashi stance and lunged forward with a Force Jump enhanced thrust.
The young padawan snapped his saber up through an equally traditional upwards deflection. Makashi would require either exceptional defenses to await an eventual opening or exceptional strength to power through.
Soresu was not one of his best forms, though Niman was. He could use Niman…or Ataru here. And Ataru had the added benefit of focusing on a level of mobility that would do well against an opponent of such bulk. His Form II was extremely rigid and inflexible, as opposed to flowing and flexible perfection and precision of his master's or Dooku's.
And thus Korkie let himself fall back into the Force, ducking and weaving and flipping around his opponent's thrusts and attempts at riposte.
The predictability and the rigidity of his opponent's fighting style made things easy at first for Korkie. He was trying to whittle away at his opponent's defenses and stamina and force an opening he could utilize to end the fight in a single sweeping cleave.
However his opponent's frustration and rage built as his thrusts failed to find purchase.
"Just. Stand. Still. And. Die!" The bald man roared.
"I don't think I will!" Korkie snarked back. And then immediately regretted it as he felt the Dark Side surge in his opponent and saw his entire demeanor and fighting stance change.
The man pivoted into something like a bastardized version of Djem So and swung his saber two handed like a bat at Korkie who could not adjust his trajectory mid-air.
The instinctual and enraged nature of the response had allowed the man to sneak past his precognition, which was heavily based on sensed intent,
He barely got his saber up into position to stop himself from being bisected, but the brute force of the swing sent Korkie flying away and slamming into the wall.
"Oof!" The breath shot out of his lungs and he barely had time to roll out of the way before the acolyte's saber slammed into the ground where he had landed at the base of the wall.
The fight had completely changed. Where he was dodging just as many blows as before he could afford to block them an entire magnitude less. The power behind each swing could send Korkie flying into the walls or support pillars, and knock him silly just enough that he might not be able to respond with his typical alacrity.
Breathing heavily, Korkie determined that something had to change in the fight, or he would be pasted before reinforcements got down to this level.
Sighing, he fell into the second stance of Niman, the High Ready Stance. Blade held vertically over his head at a slight angle, perfect for coming down in sweeping strikes or blocks across the body, and hand out palm forward with his arm mostly extended but his elbow bent slightly. Ready to utilize what bits of telekinesis he was capable of, but most importantly to misdirect the opponent's focus and undermine their own determination.
Because that is what Form VI, the Moderation Stance, turned a lightsaber duel into. A duel of willpower, determination, and mental fortitude.
Mental fortitude was Korkie's secret weapon. Unusual for one of his age, he had a mind that when in combat fell into an unbreakable and unshakeable state. Just like the ancestral Beskar he wore in a small amulet around his neck. The only piece of his mother he had as a Jedi.
The next exchange was furious, and yet neither of them touched the other, even in a bladelock. Korkie thrust forward into a rapid series of strikes that his opponent attempted to sweep away, but Korkie's blade was never there to connect with, every motion had been a feint meant to put the opponent off guard. Using his average telekinetic skills he pushed and pulled lightly on his opponent's robes, boots, and weapon. All small pushes meant to agitate and send the man into a paranoid state.
And as his opponent became more and more agitated, off guard, and paranoid, Korkie began to reveal why Niman was also known as The Way of the Rancor. Because once it had drawn you into the flow of battle, it would shift to push forward like a battering ram.
Just as his opponent started to become used to his small push and pulls, Korkie leaned away from a strike and fell into a two handed low guard, and burst forward with Force enhanced speed slashing up and out. As a hastily moved red lightsaber moved into position to block, Korkie completed the Pushing Slash with a burst of telekinetic power he had not previously been showing.
The acolyte was unprepared and went flying backwards into one of the four pillars of the room, Korkie's first major blow he had struck in this fight.
Korkie pushed his offensive, believing he had finally turned the fight. And truly, for the next few moments he held the advantage. The corrupted Force user fully fell onto the defensive and barely blocked most of Korkie's follow-up strikes.
The young padawan was proving why offensive masters of Niman, such as Exar Kun, had been greatly feared the galaxy over in the distant past. The Niman masters of peace had mastered the defensive and Force aspects of the style. Korkie however, was a Mandalorian of a powerful and vigorous bloodline. A history of warriors sung in his heart with every beat. And as his blood drummed in his ears he felt as if he could sense the spirits of his ancestors guiding his hands to hit harder, strike faster, leap further, and push with the Force.
That was until he actually scored a slash across the man's arm, digging a burning furrow along his bicep.
"Rawg!" The bald acolyte bit out in rage, rage fueled by pain now. Rage that he channeled into one of the largest telekinetic blasts of Force energy Korkie had ever been subject to. It threw him bodily backwards into the door to the artifact vault.
Groaning he slumped down to the floor, bow-legged and flagging. He tipped his head up to see his opponent approaching in a rage. Then he grinned.
"So, do you yield?" Korkie grunted out at his opponent as his grin broadened even further.
"Why in blazes would I do that you insipid little brat? I'm going to decapita-" His words were cut off however, as a green lightsaber blade sawed through the air and his neck, decapitating him instead.
"Well, that was rather poetically timed, wasn't it, Master?" Korkie deactivated his lightsaber and popped his right shoulder back into the socket as a severe looking blond woman in brown Jedi robes stepped out of the shadows.
"You almost had it handled, Padawan," Keelyvine Reus stated, "Unfortunately the rages of the Dark Side can make their wielders unpredictable."
She frowned, "Let us get you back to the infirmary and then we shall debrief. You did good work today."