History speaks of the origin of the Clone Wars on Geonosis, and the first major clash between the Jedi and the Sith. The Colosseum draws inspiration from the fabled Petranaki arena, certainly, but was built with a more contemporary audience in mind. Located on the planet that serves as the new seat of the Brotherhood's central power, [REDACTED], the structure was rebuilt and renovated from the shell of an ancient foundation that had barely weathered away against the planets ever-changing climate.

High walls, tall enough for even the most savvy Jedi to find unscalable, line a large field of ancient sand and sediment the size of a holoball field. The spectators' chairs are divided into neatly organized sections with seats bunched close together to accommodate anywhere up to a few thousand people. At the center, an elongated platform “box” has been constructed with a central throne of stone with various seats of smaller scale lined beside it in both directions.

Two large holo-projection screens are set up on each side of the Colosseum, offering different angles of the fight via Holocam Drones.

While unassuming at first glance and looking very much like an archaic gladiatorial arena, the Colosseum features a medley of traps and surprises built into the floor and walls at random intervals. These obstacles include, but are hardly limited to: retractable nozzles that can shoot out gouts of flame; battery-coils that can spit out tendrils of electric current; receding floor panels with electric shock panels; deep pits with sharpened spikes and more. At some points, the ground can simply erupt upwards and create a concentrated, if not impromptu angular-platform that could be used as a springboard or temporary high ground. While seemingly random, these obstacles are handled and triggered by a manned-operator in a control room within.

Outside the fighting arena, the Colosseum features on-site, state of the art medical facilities that can bring nearly anyone back from the brink of the death and offer a full team of trainers, doctors, and rehabilitation units. There is also a neatly kept armory a basic training center with mechanical-dummies, and private sparring chambers.

Blood. Dark and crimson, it stained the sand in grisly reminders of previous battles fought in this arena. The thought of innocents being slaughtered for distraction wrenched A’lora from the darkened entrance beneath terraced boxes.

The Grand Master’s announcer raised a gauntleted fist in a caricature of showmanship.

“Lords and denizens of the Brotherhood!” the staccato of the commentator’s voice projected across the amphitheatre, “For decades, we have fought against those that would threaten us without the strength to overcome our dominion. Our armies have waged wars in bloodshed for dominance over our enemies. Tonight, we will witness as our combatants fight not for allegiance, but for sport.”

Operatic vibrato reverberated between tiered arrangements. Overlooking all others, Darth Pravus’ seating was like that of his position—imposing, dominant and carven of stone. Above all else, the loge allowed the Grand Master to be seen at all times—a reminder of the dogmatic authority he held over tonight’s entertainment.

“Watch, as the reigning champion of Clan Arcona clashes with the High Councillor of Clan Odan-Urr. Revel in the bloodshed as contenders in allied factions battle for supremacy!”

Tendrils of dread flickered from the Grand Master’s loge. Worming between throngs of spectators, it slithered into their thoughts causing the applause to diminish to a frightened stillness.

Timeros’ unblinking gaze and towering posture gave form to an inhuman aura. A’lora wasn’t even certain that the man standing in the arena’s center was, in fact, a Human at all. Regardless where his loyalties lie, the dark energies pulsating from his core signalled a true reflection of his darker tendencies.

“I have been waiting,” the skeletal visage rasped in otherwise clear tones. “Know that for now I am your adversary, A’lora Kituri. While I stand beside Atyiru in many things, it is always the values of the Shadow Clan that I cherish first—not the figurehead that sits on the Serpentine Throne.”

Shadows pinstriped across the sand-covered floor concealing the hypogeum underfoot. Each of the darkened bands was a silhouette of the Grand Master’s own armoured figure standing with the rising sun at his back. His fingers traced a monstrous claw over the coarse sands and clenched like a vice to signal the beginning.

“Fight!”

---

All thoughts of negotiation vanished in the glow of a lightsaber. A’lora ignited each end of the double-bladed staff. Flashes of green and red cascaded over the gladiatorial combatants, highlighting lavender skin and dark clothing in equal measure.

Chiselled features as expressionless as stone contrasted against the Togruta’s inborn ferocity. Precognitive grace afforded the Arconan the advantage of enduring the storm of blades with little effort. Clockwork reflexes turned each of the Councillor’s strikes off-target with ruthless efficiency.

“Weak. Sloppy.” Timeros berated, scissoring the twin blades against the Togruta’s green one. She had the superior leverage; he was no fool. He needed to gauge the extent of her fears, but seen no purchase past her savage exterior.

“Perhaps this ‘alliance’ really means so little. Arcona does not need the helpless as allies.” He mused, muscles and joints tensed against the strain of maintaining a failing block against the woman’s saberstaff.

She retorted without words, instead raising the hilt of her lightsaber high to a crouch beneath his towering frame. Using his own weight—or what remained of it in his corpse-like state—to pull him in for a killing stroke, she released the pressure of the lock to transfer that momentum into the opposite edge.

Sidestepping nonchalantly beside his opponent, the Elder freed his dual weapons from the embrace. Flashes of white showered the windswept earth in a torrent of embers. Drawing the foremost blade back against the impact of an offset strike allowed him to jab with the other in an unembellished riposte.

All he needed was a single mistake—a fault in his foe’s simultaneous offense and defense.

Clairvoyant admonition shattered the Arconan’s single-minded intent. The ball of his foot collided with something solid, eliciting a metallic “clang.” The dusty façade beneath his heel stirred, seconds before the ground electrified.

Less than a moment more, and the Elder would have felt the waves of electricity coursing through his extremities in a most unpleasant sensation. An extension of his will, the lightsaber in his ashen grip collided with the Odanite’s once more, deliberately relaxing his foothold on the hazardous element.

His feint allowed the vicious Togruta to overwhelm him, the trailing blade catching the underside of his amethyst one with enough impact to kickoff a well-conducted backflip. Not as careless as he originally anticipated, the Consul resisted chasing down his withdrawal long enough for the energized particles to discharge.

Even so, her hesitance was both a blessing and curse. Sand turned to glass beneath her feet, gouts of fire blasting craters in the arena. Thankful to have forgone the traditional robes of the Jedi in favour of far less substantial garments, she easily rolled through the dissipating faucet of flame without suffering substantial burns and minimal risk to her wardrobe; the latter’s edges having frayed under the intense heat.

Timeros’ cold stare gave off no sign of emotion. He regarded the Fallanassi with no more than a flick of his wrist in a mock salute. Jaunts and cheers erupted from the concentric rings of spectators, rising to pay tribute to their gladiator of choice—that being, the Force-user that would win them their bets.

“If this is how the alliance is to end, so be it.” A’lora snarled at the Arconan from behind sharpened canines. She was, by all appearances, a feral creature sharing more traits with the Akul than most sentient beings. As far as Timeros was concerned, she wasn't Arconan and therefore, inferior to his command over the Force.

“No,” Timeros’ unemphasized voice replied sedately, “the alliance will continue, but I will remind you where the Jedi stand in it.”

In that moment, invisible fingernails traced a shiver down her spine. Sweat that glistened in the sunlight, both from the physical exertions and heat of the flaming nozzles, now felt like cold water.

Dark figures materialized in her thoughts, drawing out her darkest fears in the form of a false vision into the near future. “Worms!” a voice echoed distant, but so near to her consciousness, “Our hounds will taste flesh tonight. We will bathe in the blood of vermin that consider themselves our equals.”

Shadows passed into her mind, gnawing into her brain. She tried to cast them out; to banish the nightmarish ‘vision’ appearing in front of her. Long-handled knives plunged into chest cavities while monsters—Tuk’ata and Terentateks—digested the entrails of alien species no longer under the protection of the Iron Throne.

“No!” She endeavoured to compose herself, feeling as though her mind was a scale on the balancing point between courage and despair. Her resolve was in check, but fleeting.

“I will not…” A’lora struggled with the words, clutching at her forehead in agony, “...succumb.” With a final word, the horrors were shattered, driven to the recesses of her mind from whence they came.

One moment Timeros was there, the next he was gone. In fighting against her polluted visions, A’lora lost sight of the pastel figure for mere moments. Staccato bursts of movement carried an otherwise fragile shell across the sand-dusted boards. His timing was perfect. Faultless. Each time his muscles coiled he moved with efficiency, closing the distance between them. Elevated platforms rose of their own accord between the duellists, forming the angular groundwork of his punishment.

Jagged peaks burst from the arena floor, clutching upwards like the fingers of a god and sending scattered grains of sand rolling across their slanted surfaces. Timeros vaulted and weaved his way through the impromptu obstacles, sabers humming eagerly in his hands as he made for the Seer.

She’s more resilient than I had expected, the Arconae reflected as he tore across the suddenly-unstable terrain. Still, the chestnut-clad Togruta now rapidly filling his vision seemed shaken, at the very least, by the sheer abhorrence coursing through the Entar’s soul.

Welcome, your Excellency, to your allies’ true face.

With a final leap, the Adept flung himself into the sky in a grey and amethyst blur and propelled across the arena, seemingly held aloft by the audience’s thousand-throated roar of appreciation. If the Odanite was shaken by the clamor she did not show it, instead raising her saber. The dual ends gleamed as she sliced the air in an acrobatic whirl of her own.

Timeros contorted as he descended, a spine-bending feat of dexterity that turned him into a tangled mass of limbs, twisting through the Consul’s attacks. He veered up instantly, dual sabers snapping inwards and towards the Togruta’s bared midriff. She was already gone, however, stepping from reach with an immediacy of purpose that belied the Jedi’s contemplative nature. Too late, the Entar remembered that A’lora’s rank was more than a simple honorific.

The violet-skinned alien twisted on the balls of her feet as Timeros’ searing weapons flew by ineffectively, the reversed motion bringing up her saber’s off end as her precognitive elusion concluded. “A Seer in truth as well as name,” Atyiru had once called her. “A marionette dancing to future’s tune, wrapped in strings of her own design”. The amber-eyed woman now made use of those strings, natural agility working in tandem with augured comprehension to strike at the Entar.

An amethyst gout of flame suddenly reversed course, neatly intersecting the emerald-hued blade. The parry struck the woman’s saber with unnatural speed and force, wrenching her lightsaber aside and forcing her to stumble forward.

’Inevitable’ is a coward’s word, the rang the Arconae’s silent verdict. The future is not preordained. It is claimed and wrought from potential with one’s own hands. It may not include you, Seer.

For an instant, the Consul appeared to lose her balance, her feet moving unsteadily across the sand-covered rocks. Knowing better than to fight her forward stagger, the Togruta accepted the inevitable and instead moved with her momentum, launching herself up and turning her deflected strike into an airborne spiral.

The Adept dove into the future, a thousand possibilities collapsing into certainty. His nerves spasmed as the dark side seized control, forcing him down just before emerald blades sizzled overhead like murderously spinning rotors.

A’lora landed with a gymnast’s finesse, dancing further up one of the elevated platforms as she did, saberstaff weaving a defensive whorl. It was a sore necessity, as the Adept wasted little time in resuming his offensive. He fell upon the amber-eyed female like a rancor on a herd of eopie.

He struck at the retreating Consul with blinding speed, twin sabers flitting back and forth so quickly it seemed as if the blades had simply bypassed the intervening space altogether. His first lunge foundered upon the emerald barrier, deflected harmlessly to the side. A sharp, abrasive cut, however, slipped underneath the Seer’s defense and scored a glancing hit on her forearm, smooth violet skin suddenly disfigured by a hideous burn.

The savage alien hissed in pain, undeniably beautiful features distorted into a rictus of agony as she fell back towards the raised platform’s edge. Timeros pressed his advantage, compressing then uncoiling with sinuous grace in a surge of aggression. His sabers angled out, then in, simultaneous arcs that terminated across her raised arms. In this, however, he had miscalculated, and his wavelike motion broke upon an invisible shore, amethyst crests rolling to a halt against the Consul’s unseen shield.

There was no form or grace to A’lora’s rejoinder, only the brusque directness of a soul in pain. She had neither the time nor the space for a complex maneuver, opting instead to piston her arms forward and drive her weapon’s hilt into the taller man’s face. As the Arconae recoiled in agony, her saber leapt for his throat.

Instinct saved the Entar, the dark side coming alive with whispered admonitions as he twisted away from the viridian beam, the gleaming plasmic flame passing before his face and an ozone tang mixing with the acrid scent of the Odanite’s scorched forearm. Undaunted, the Consul spun the the saberstaff immediately, hands twisting in muscle memory as the second blade ascended, as if to skewer the Krath from below.

Timeros shot into the air like a comet in reverse, his Force-fueled ascent inches ahead of the Consul’s rising blade. His left hand snaked out in midair, suddenly empty as a spinning wheel of amethyst detached from his soaring form. In its stead, he reached behind the Seer and grasped the extended end of her back-strapped quarterstaff. The Arconan juked violently as his ascent leveled, spinning like a ball on a chain and careening into a maladroit horizontal slide. Beneath him, the Togruta was scarcely less affected and gave a startled yelp as both combatants tumbled over the platform’s side.

The crowd roared as the pair plummeted the ten-foot distance in a tangle of plunging flesh. The Force coursed through their bodies, commingling with natural agility and concluding their joined fall into a roll. Timeros rose to his feet before the alien, pain a Force-suffused memory, his hand already raised as his boots found purchase upon the sandy foundation. A’lora veered up only moments later, her saber already raised to deflect the Entar’s strike.

He did not strike. Instead, the emaciated Human unleashed a single scarlet bolt, snatching his telekinetically lifted Westar from the air just moments before pulling the trigger. The Seer was caught off-guard, her defensive stroke hastily modified into a sideways parry that forced her arms into an awkward cross.

In the next instant, Timeros’ boot hit her weapon’s hilt. The kick was artless and direct, but it was backed by the Elder’s command of the dark side, and it sent the alien stumbling back. Her head smashed against the platform’s rocky surface, lekku torn and bleeding as they scraped against the uneven stone. Before she could recover, the Arconae leveled his blaster and—

wrenched himself away, rolling across the sands as a storm of metal slugs sailed overhead. The Adept craned his neck as he rose, looking for the source of the sudden attack. Immediately, he noticed that a section of the wall had slid away, revealing a battery of automated slugthrowers. Apparently, the arena’s masters had seen fit to intervene on the Odanite’s behalf. He responded immediately, a small projectile slipping from his belt, hurled by unseen hands. A moment later, a blinding flash and wave of pressure flooded the arena, throwing up dusty clouds as his concussion grenade turned the weaponry into torn fragments.

Boos and hisses issued from the stands as the Arconae turned, the onlookers aggravated by his blunt refusal to dance to the arena’s tune. The cold-faced Human ignored the jeering mob as he turned back towards the Consul: their enjoyment held less relevance to him than even his foe, still pressed against the...she was gone.

The Entar completed his turn with calm grace, but the span of seconds had given his adversary the chance to disappear. He opened himself to the Force, but his supernatural senses revealed only a lifeless void among the sand, beset on all sides by the bloodthirst and rising frustration of the still-braying crowd. The Togruta had, for all intents and purposes, vanished from his sight and mind.

Timeros gave no outward sense of frustration as he holstered his blaster and recalled his second lightsaber from where he had hurled it, letting the weapon rest loosely in his hand.

I will find you, A’lora, he promised silently, invisible tendrils of dread writhing about his slender features as he set out in a random direction. Alliance or not, the Odanite would learn a valuable lesson today. The future was not crafted from visions. Her agreement with Arcona was, at best, a map to a territory she was only now exploring. In the face of reality, the provisions required amendment, and Timeros would be all too happy to scribe his terms upon the hapless Consul’s flesh.

Shimmering curtains enveloped the Togruta’s lithe form in a masque of illusions. Whether Timeros’ trained gaze would pierce the veil and see through the façade or continue to expend his energies outward, she resolved to skirt around his field of vision like an Akul lurking amidst Turu-grass.

Timeros caught the subtle deformations wrapped around an invisible figure. Hiding within sight. How courageous, he thought, shifting the faint outline into his peripheral vision, pretending not to notice the slow-moving assailant. Casting no shadows, the glimmer of bent light drew closer—

until it was well within range. Crimson bolts sailed harmlessly through the flickering shroud without breaking course. Heat dissipated from the plasmic projectiles, leaving little more than faint blaster marks along the risen obstacles. Flaring warnings came all too late for the Arconan, who stood on the receiving end of a quarterstaff. Sheer blunt force against the tendons behind his unprotected kneecaps triggered the nerves running to his brain. Searing sensations darted through his nervous system, causing involuntary responses that forced him into a tumble across rocks and sand.

It came down again, the gnarled end aimed for his head. Darting fingers wrapped around his opponent’s legwraps before it missed its mark, saving him from the concussion that would have followed. She let out a startled yelp, taking a single unbalanced stride from his prone figure, his hand almost dragging her lavender chest across him. Instead, she centered her weight downward, rolling far enough to avoid the careening stream of plasma that could have severed her leg.

Spattering chortles of amusement closed the now several-meter distance between the combatants, “Such heroism. Even someone so well-versed in the future should have struck its hand before waiting for its retribution.” Bruised muscles brought his leg underneath him, coiled like a serpent poised to lunge.

As if echoing an imitation of the gesture, she hissed in frustration, “Someone so perceptive should still have their footing.” Trills rattled through brain-tails draped across her shoulders; the cerulean patterning embedded in their off-white surface almost washed out in the stark lighting of the arena.

Timeros shuffled the shooting pains from the battered tendons into the furthest recesses of his mind, drawing on the Force to ignore the discomfort; medical attention would need to wait. Force-fuelled adrenaline filled the muscle groups in his thighs, working like pistons that brimmed his being with raw power.

Crimson-hued bolts illuminated the earth below Timeros, dual Westars unloading their cells in a pinwheel of bolts. Death rained down on the Togruta, who struggled to turn aside each of the plasmic discharges before either one carved a smoldering crater in her chest. A marionette of impossible angles, A’lora turned aside all but one of those that would sear against her flesh. Smooth lavender skin congealed into a cauterized mass of charred tissue. Even worse than the heat was the smell that followed, that of overdone meat.

Chiselled features contorted in a grimace, Timeros’ injured leg buckled under the pressure of landing on solid ground. Whatever moment he needed to recuperate was cut short from the clattering of machines underfoot. Chains rattled in the din, taut against the gridwork of gears clashing against one another. Off-guard, the Arconan had no maneuverable space to dodge the intersecting paths of bladed contraptions sliding along tracks beneath the false floor.

Bouncing light reflected from the folded steel rising from slatted boards. Unfurled in unison, the gyrations along the blades’ axis deformed the air around the quarrelsome ‘allies’. Loose fabric from Timeros’ cloak and A’lora’s loincloth fluttered against the whirwind.

---

Blue-streaked monitors fed an overhead view of the locked gladiators, showing the angular tangents on which the blades moved through the colosseum. Dressed in battle vestments, Darth Pravus shifted his gaze between the holocam recordings and the live spectacle. Gold glinted off the accents of his armour whenever the light beamed at his back through narrow windows.

Both will live, or none at all.

Revealing no hint of his machinations, the Grand Master stood arms crossed in contemplative thought. As intrigued about the battle prowess of the contenders as he was curious about the Consul’s fabled visions, Timeros was selected unknowing to the Arconan for his unorthodox command of the Force. Fear is an unmistakable emotion, as is all of those that the Jedi turn from—one that he would exploit, reading the Consul’s horrors like a tome.

---

A’lora hesitated, the frail form of her opponent cornered as a bantha being led to the slaughter.

Is this what he wants?

The dark visage of the Grand Master loomed above her, his helmeted face revealing nothing of his intentions. Am I to let someone else die for his entertainment?

“No.” She breathed, retrieving the all too-familiar length of the quarterstaff around her shoulders. A single motion buried it half between the guise of boards, half above for when this challenge was over. Gears and chains screeched to a halt, locking against the tension and around the end of a staff.

“Foolish mistake.” Timeros’ thoughts projected onto her’s. Tendrils of Force-fuelled fear extended from his fingertips, slithering into the Consul’s fleshy exterior. Buried within her mind, the coils of terror pulled the fears back to the surface—still fresh, gnawing at her emotions. The ruckus of the savage crowd combined with the lingering traces of Timeros’ earlier intrusion had already weakened her resolve.

She struggled against its grasp, maintaining some form of consciousness that hadn’t lost sight of the grim Arconan. Chills returned to wrack at her skin, making her lack of clothing somewhat uncomfortable. She wavered her gaze between the audience and her opponent, apprehensive of the voices that slid down the walls. Cries came from the concentric rings of observers—not cheers of support, but the distinct howls of a cornered animal.

A voice carried an alarming scream from between the stands, eliciting a round of blood-curdling battlecries from all those considered to be “undesirables” and ungifted with the grand power of the Force. Crimson seeped into the sands, throats slit from ear to ear with crude daggers. Lashing out like a horde of uncaged Tuk’ata, a group of multi-coloured aliens turned on their handlers and would-be executioners.

“Cease and desist, fools.” Among the rampant cries of the oppressed, Dacien’s cackling voice somehow managed to reflect off the tiered infrastructure around the arena. Air sizzled ahead of the ionized particles discharged from his fingertips into the countless unknown faces of those destined to to the slaughter. Blisters and boils formed on flesh, rising and popping while the furred and ‘undesirable’ dissidents writhed in the final throes of death.

Once the first activist was dealt with, there was no need for him to continue the electric judgement. Cerulean bolts arced between bodies from the original recipient of his cruelty. Those caught in the epicenter faced with a faster demise than those further afield. Within minutes, blackened corpses scorched with lightning littered the amphitheatre in piles of smoking flesh and charred bone.

The flesh had sunk into the sands beneath the stands when she shifted it back into her field of vision, covered beneath the bloodied arena. Wherever the remains lay scattered, the ground rose to cover the mess while leaving behind the faintest trace of violence. Horrified, the scene was all too real to A’lora’s mind and the blood belonged to the dozens of undesirables that were a figment of her imagination; her darkest fears came to light in the recesses of the arena.

Lingering even after the horrors of her own imagination, the scene still occurred, etched in the Togruta’s brain as if placed there with a chisel. Timeros’ command over her fears was absolute, flawless. Old bloodstains formed the hook that made her fear-induced hallucination all too real. Her mind was her worst enemy, molded by her own nightmares. Whooping hollers still radiated from the tiered stands, aside from those few that fell silent. Dacien had seen fit to restore order where an unwelcome fight between his students broke out; he so hated distractions. In doing so, the Headmaster had unwittingly played his part in making the High Councillor’s fears a reality.

“Dacien. He… killed them.” A’lora exasperated in rattled breaths, “All of this, to make our alliance seem trivial?”

“It is trivial,” the Arconan answered, “I merely saw fit to make you understand. An alliance with a weaker foe is no alliance. Pravus and his ilk will not stop at the extermination of these undesirables. Anyone who opposes them will face the noose. Whatever Atyiru’s motives may be, in the end, to battle a superior foe one needs fodder.”

“And Odan-Urr is fodder.” She asked, still steadying herself from his intrusions. She felt drained.

“You will soon find your place in the galaxy. And it is not at our side.”

The stone-faced Adept waited with stoic calm as A’lora processed his final demands, the light of understanding finally dawning on her savage features. Beneath the Arconae’s composed surface his mind worked furiously, reaching into his battered kneecaps and suffusing it with the rancid power of the dark side. His bruised flesh healed with agonizing languor - the Entar was far more fit to destroy than he was to heal - but the fire in his nerves was, at last, receding.

Eventually the Consul nodded, forehead dipping up and down as if to gore him with her montrals. If this is how it must be, unspoken words slipped into his mind, I will account for my Clan. Odan-urr will be no footnote to Arcona’s triumph.

A din broke out amongst the crowd, its rising murmur not unlike the howl of an incipient tempest as the two combatants faced off in silence and stillness. As if in obligation, Timeros holstered his blasters once more, reaching for the familiar weight of his sabers. The Consul raised her own weapon in return, shafts of green plasma humming eagerly for the Elder's blood. For a moment, the two simply locked gazes, daring each other to move first. Then the sands crunched with footfalls as both combatants burst into motion at once, Force-augmented muscles thrusting them from standstill to sprint.

Timeros surged across the gap, weaving lithely between the arced nest of half-risen blades. His lightsabers sprang to life, unfurling into a blazing amethyst lotus whose petals stretched in a complicated, crossing pattern that elicited an approving bellow from the crowd. The Arconae paid no heed to the spectators. His perspective had been crushed to a single point, every neuron aligned into the singular goal of making the battle painful, brutal and, above all, short.

You cannot serve besides us, his thoughts rang with frigid certainty. If you will not serve beneath us, you might not serve at all.

A’lora met him halfway in a scintillating verdant tempest, connected blades flitting back and forth in an acrobatic leap that terminated into a vicious downstroke. The Entar accepted it calmly upon his lightsaber, unruffled by her savagery and displaying only icy determination to her fiery resolve. He turned the burning shaft aside, using the sheer velocity of her attack to push her slightly off balance - and into the waiting metal blades of the half-sprung trap.

The Consul tore herself away, free hand pressing against the gleaming steel and pushing off of its side. She narrowly avoided being skewered, managing to turn her sideways momentum into a toe-twirling spin and a wide, horizontal slice, dangerous overextended.

Timeros met the cyclonic whorl with a shimmering pillar of amethyst fire. He allowed their weapons to clash then grind together in a spark-filled crackle that, for a moment, outshone the blazing sunlight. Then he slipped away, smooth steps placing him on the opposite side of the thin metal barrier.

A’lora moved in tandem with her foe, turning nimbly to face him, dual-bladed saber already reversing course. Yet even as she did so, she felt the Force take control of her motions, wrenching control away from her muscles and aborting her slash into a vertical whirl. She had only begun to register her prescient defense when the Adept’s second lightsaber burst through the metal in a searing flash that would have pierced her gut had she not batted it away the instant it erupted from the barrier.

Understanding crackled across the Seer’s skull moments before the Arconan’s other saber did, racing down the gap between her twirling saberstaff. Working furiously, she altered her saber’s course once more, parrying his downstroke with an upward motion that likewise sliced through the steel contraption and sent a metal shard tumbling to the ground. The Togruta’s riposte was forceful and unhesitating as she threw herself into a spin, spiralling around the barrier and lunging blindly behind herself as her feet left the ground.

Timeros jerked away, uncoiling like a spring, deliberate and graceful as the saber flew by. His blades snapped like pincers, moving inwards as if to skewer the Odanite in midair, then abruptly halted as she moved to block. Instead, his foot shot forward, Force-battened muscles arresting the Consul’s gyre and and hooking around her ankle to sweep her legs out from underneath her.

A’lora hit the floor with the grind of sand against flesh, breath knocked from her lungs and saber held awkwardly to her side. Yet there was no time for thought and she threw herself away one-handed, somehow managing to find balance as she veered to her feet just before twin sabers pierced the sands and turned them into molten glass.

The Seer’s staff flicked into place, dual ends weaving a defensive barrier as she regained her posture. Her mind delved into the Force, illusory selves springing forth in lavender-skinned multitudes to distract the Arconae. Yet her respite was short-lived. The Adept’s presence fell upon her like a curtain made of lead, smothering her connection to the Force. Her wits crumbled beneath the strain, and the illusions wavered, flickering in and out of being as the Consul struggled to maintain their existence.

The distraction lasted only a moment, but it was enough: Timeros darted forward, sabers flitting inwards, and the illusion shattered against the Arconae’s resolve as he set about demolishing his beleaguered foe.

Dual streams of light lashed at the Odanite with blinding speed, turning the air into an amethyst haze. The Consul spun her staff defensively, catching the first blow on the end of her saber, but a second was already inbound, slipping through her defenses with serpentine grace. The Togruta contorted to avoid it, narrowly slipping over the blade as it licked the sands beneath her feet.

Had A’lora hoped for any respite, she would have been sorely disappointed. As it was, she knew better, but the sheer ferocity of her foe still shook her. Timeros’ sabers flashed forward without an instant’s hesitation or doubt, hitting her like a series of kicks in the kidney. Where she had chosen to show mercy the Arconae displayed none, his every strike made in contentious defiance of the Grand Master’s edict against murder. He accelerated abruptly and twisted around her hastily constructed defenses, sabers nearing her flesh in exploratory strikes then retreating just as suddenly, until her balance began to tatter and fray against the alacrity of a veteran Marauder.

The Togruta attempted to retreat, trading ground for time in hopes of outlasting her foe’s inhuman swiftness. It proved useless. The Entar’s weapons formed a tunnel, flashing lances of light seemingly materializing out of thin air whenever she deviated from the path he chose for her, forcing her back into the aborted trap from which he had been saved.

The Force was lightning and thunder at once. It was understanding. It was, above all, life, and its brightest part screamed into the back of A’lora’s skull just moments before Timeros’ sabers arced down from both sides. She brought up her staff just in time, both blades rising and catching a gout of purple fire on either side. As the weapons locked in a conflagration of sparks, stillness set into the arena, and even the onlookers seemed to hold their collective breaths.

Perspiration dripped from the duelists’ brows as adrenaline faded and fatigue set in, aching muscles struggling in vain to overcome, but succeeding only at a fragile impasse. For a moment, the two balanced in a near-perfect stalemate.

The next instant, Timeros’ mind blazed with power as he reached into the dark side, marshalling its awful strength and channeling it into existence, hammering down upon A’lora’s discarded quarterstaff with his will alone. The Neti branch had already been battered when she had used it to disarm the mechanical trap. Faced with the Adept’s telekinetic assault, it shattered completely, snapping like a twig against the unseen force.

By the time the Consul noticed the sudden grinding of gears and chains, she was already too late. Freed from the tensile stress, the trap had begun to move - right into the hapless Togruta. For a moment, there was only all-consuming pain, drowning out all other sensations and enveloping her in a haze of red.

The Seer snapped back into awareness, the sheer force of agony coursing through her veins forcing her back into lucity. She coughed up blood as she lay pinned against the floor. A throbbing sensation near her chest informed her that the blade had pierced a lung and exited through her back.

As the pain faded away, she could hear dim footfalls upon the sands, medical droids ready to carry her away. Likewise, she was dimly aware of Pravus’ voice, announcing her foe the victor. Yet her slowly dimming vision focused on one thing in particular: a calm and blue-eyed gaze, still locked onto her own.

I am altering the deal, A’lora, frigid words etched into her mind. Pray that I don’t alter it any further.