Damiana was quick, and fierce.  The blow was a true blow, not an attempt to elicit a reaction, which was good.  The battle meditation was instinctive and appropriate, and its ability to modify its body was definitely something that would cause an enemy to underestimate it.  The blow was warded off by Simetra and the traditional follow up countered effectively....but the Sith Lord's follow up did not simply push the staff away or smash into Damiana's weapon to force her back or or to make her withdraw the weapon.  Instead Simetra Swung her staff under Dimiana's weapon with one hand and she grasped the other end of her own weapon with the other.  Then she yanked it into her body, lodging the staff against her chest and keeping it there with her own staff.<br/><br/>"This technique will not work against a lightsaber," she commented blandly, stating the patently obvious as though Damiana were a child.  She narrowed her eye and moaned, a rumbling, rasping noise that grew in intensity.  The effect was immediately obvious, even to the Sense-inept androgyne; she had imbued the staff with the Force herself after all.  Now Darth Simetra was pushing that imbuement out, and infecting the staff with her own Force power instead - gaining control over the weapon without causing it to lose the power that made it able to block lightsabers.  Such a technique might work on other weapons such as Cortosis blades....<br/><br/>Xollen could sense the disruptive power of Simetra's controlling mantra; it ate at the edges of her new found self control, grasped and crumbled the edges of her newly formed psychic 'Eye of the Hurricane'.  The effect was minute, but not pleasant; the droid and the other scientist would feel it, though it was focused enough not to disrupt their experiments.  At the moment, at least.