Suddenly, he dove at me. Andy was fast, but I was faster. I slammed my strongest side kick into his armored gut. That kick would have knocked anyone else through a wall, but kicking Andy was like kicking a mountain. He crashed into me and slammed me to the floor, laughing. I pushed both hands against his chest armor with all my strength, but I couldn’t budge him. So I concentrated.
I knew I was being mean, but I couldn’t think of any other way to escape. My hair poofed as I pounded images of my own lifeless body into Andy’s mind. Andy’s eyes grew wide. Horror filled his suddenly pale face, and he gaped down at me. He raised himself to his knees, shaking in horror, covering his mouth with his forearm.
“Noooo!” he screamed, his face a mask of anguish. I pulled my hands away, and Andy’s expression changed immediately. Color came back to his cheeks, and he started to laugh.
“You love me,” I said, grinning, feeling a bit ashamed of myself.
“Yes, I do, you little brat!” He picked me off the ground, crushing me with a hug. “But if you ever do that to me again, I will kill you!”
“Put her down, please, Andor,” the Kilodan mumbled. “Students, listen carefully…this ought to be good. Lynn.”
“Well,” I said, smiling at Andy, “sometimes I get a little too overconfident about my speed. I’m faster than Andy, and my plan was to knock him on his butt. But he’s just too strong. When he had me down, I was completely helpless. So I did a Heart Piercer. I made him think he had killed me.”
“That was just nasty,” Andy said. “Next time I try to annihilate you, be civil.”
“You can see,” the Kilodan talked over us, “how useless a punch or kick is against so powerful an opponent. But the mind has no such limitations. If you channel your thoughts and emotions into weapons, your abilities will be most impressive. But if you can turn your opponent’s thoughts and emotions into weapons, you will be invincible. Andor, please explain.”
Andy folded his hands, closed his eyes, and began to speak as if reciting a passage he’d memorized for a school play. “Each Psi Weapon is unique. Some disrupt your opponent’s perception. Others affect their memory or distort their reasoning. All tug at emotion in one form or another. The Heart Piercing Dagger, as demonstrated by my heartless partner, causes the victim, in this case me, to believe he has done something terrible to a person he cares deeply about, in this case the selfish brat. If I didn’t love the thankless creature as though she were my own annoying little sister, the technique would have had no effect on me at all. As it stands, my heart has been shattered and my soul left bitter and empty by her thoughtless attempt at—”
“A bit less embellishment, perhaps?” the Kilodan muttered.
Andy nodded, clearing his throat. “Yes, let’s move on to the Thought Saber. Cool technique. Usually takes the form of a sword, although it can be anything that comes to mind. Use this weapon and you hear the emotions—screams of anguish, shouts of joy. It can slice through steel, but won’t cause physical harm to a person. However, the Thought Saber does have the interesting side effect of temporarily severing the connection between mind and body. Variations of the technique include War Hammers, which, of course, only Knights and other low IQ brutes use. Dark Emotions feed that sort of barbaric weapon. As you know, Dark Emotions…jealousy, guile, greed…are the realm of the Knights. Psi Fighters use the Pure Emotions.
“Which brings us to the Mental Blast, technique of choice for unleashing Pure Emotion. If you use joy or anger, the Mental Blast will knock an opponent off his feet. If you use something as powerful as fear, you must be careful not to kill him. That’s a no-no, considered bad form by those in power at the Academy. Unchain sheer fury, and you will completely blow away your opponent’s mind.”
Then Andy got very serious and looked straight at me. “And our most powerful weapon, the only one that can actually change a person’s heart. The Memory Lash. An emotional whip. Crack the whip, and you’ll raise memories like welts. Your opponent becomes his own victim. He remembers the most heartless things he ever did. He feels everything his victims felt: the agony, the terror, the sorrow. If he is capable of remorse, he will change in ways you can’t imagine. This is not a technique to take lightly. You will see everything he sees, feel everything he feels. It can be ugly. Be sure you’re up to it before you use it.
“And now, a happier topic.” Andy pulled his Amplifier from his belt. “The beautiful little piece of modern technology that makes all this possible.”