Beneath the surface of Lake Paonga lies the Gungan capital. Otoh Gunga is constructed in such a manner that leaves the Gungan city trapped beneath water pressures converging on the lake’s vertical center and floating between the surface of the lake and the lakebed. Its location makes the capital difficult to find without knowing its precise location, remaining untouched during the Separatist occupation of Naboo.

Water-breathing species would be able to swim easily to its bubble-shaped buildings; however, those unable to remain submerged without air would find the distance impossible to swim. Therefore, breathing apparatuses are essential for those determined to make the journey themselves and without the aid of Gungan bongos.

Its bubble-like buildings are in fact hydrostatic force-fields that contain breathable atmospheres for their occupants and have special portals that allow theinhabitants to enter and exit. Since the Gungans actually grew the building material of their cities from the natural plasma of Naboo and bubble wort extract, the structure of Otoh Gunga is a hub and spoke design. Each of the bubble-like buildings are compartmentalized units, able to be sealed off at a moment’s notice.

The Gungan Grand Army utilizes patrols that make regular visits between the compartments. Favouring spears, atlatls, Electropoles and cestas for throwing boomas, these soldiers are the staunch defenders of Otoh Gunga. Sometimes armed with distributed Gungan personal energy shields capable of turning aside blaster bolts, these warriors are too-often underestimated, lending to their victories over the Trade Federation.

The otherworldly sensation of a nearing presence took a similar shape in his mind as the muted illumination in Otho Gunga’s southern foyer bubble did in his eyes, an iridescent pattern of faint bright lines and dark shapes. Both felt equally alive to Jorm until he broke focus and let his senses snap back into his head.

The Kiffar collected the sabacc cards he’d kept his hands busy with and pocketed the deck as he rose from the low set waiting area, just before a separately framed section of the bubble started glowing faintly when something pressed against it from the outside. Something became someone as the person passed the Gungan airlock and shook residual water out of its clothes.

“Hello Raiju,” Jorm said quietly. His trademark smile colored the words cheerful. The Nautolan stopped in his tracks and turned his head to face the speaker.

“Jorm. You’re not whom I expected. Somehow, I can’t believe this is a coincidence either. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Only his very first words sounded surprised, confidence reasserting itself as he spoke and bought time to think. Meanwhile, he stepped away from the entrance.

“Business, Raiju. Can you imagine what exactly?” Jorm kept his tone friendly. No need to clobber him before I said my piece, he thought.

“Sorry, but no. I don’t deal with you Excidiacs much, and I think Alara doesn’t quite want me dead yet either. Enlighten me, please,” the Battlelord kept the conversation going while he swiftly assessed his surroundings.

Jorm could see those lidless dark obs which passed as eyes dart towards the plain cutoff spherical room, twenty meters across and more than half as high at the center, with shoals of native fish dancing behind the translucent walls - courtesy of the Gungan people, he mentally commented to himself - the exits and adjacent control panels glowing with the red signals of an internal lockdown - courtesy of that keykard I snatched - and of course Jorm himself. What can I say, I just rock.

“It’s true you don’t deal with us much directly,” the Kiffar answered in the same voice as before, “but you did a deal with a kid named Morty. You know, short human, brown hair, always looks like he’s gonna start crying?” Raiju’s eyes fixed on Jorm’s ever smiling face. “Oh.”

“ ‘Oh’ indeed, Raiju. You should know that prices vary with supply and demand, and that pocket change and threats ain’t good enough to pay for your pick-me-ups.”

The amphibian Battlelord didn’t cow, but replied in an even voice. “I have to admit I was in a bad spot back there. I do have money now, though.” He slowly and carefully slid two fingers into a pocket and withdrew some credit chips. “I’ll pay up, with a little extra for Morty and your travel expenses, and we part ways like businessmen.” “Now that would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” Jorm agreed.

Then he spent a flicker of mental effort on his own body, which went from relaxed idleness into an acceleration that defied the limits of physiology. Raiju’s shorter but broader figure grew to fill out Jorm’s vision as the Battlemaster crossed the meters between them in the time it took to blink.

Raiju wasn’t caught unprepared. He threw himself to the side almost as swiftly as his opponent came on, and the Kiffar’s outstretched hands only brushed against a trailing arm instead of digging into a green neck. Jorm rebounded from the organic wall with a backflip, causing a dozen of yellow and silver fish to flee from the impact, and faced Raiju again.

“It would send a completely wrong message to my distributors, though,” Jorm told the Nautolan, who had put some distance between them again. Raiju’s hand rested on the hilt of his lightsaber, a warning that left the other man unfazed.

“If you insist, we can slug it out, Jorm,” Raiju tried again, “but I suggest we take it to a more private time and place.” “Now there’s some advice you should’ve given yourself when you went shopping, greenface,” Na’trej retorted and launched himself at Raiju for the second time, his own lightsaber snap-hissing to life and setting the bubble alight with the radiance of a captured sun.

This time, Raiju didn’t just dodge.

Dripping wet and still holding the cold of the lake, the metallic tube that Raiju rested his hand upon should have felt like the dead weight his clothes carried. However, like a blanket an infant drew security from, the Nautolan had felt a sense of comfort from the weapon as he gripped it firmly as one would do with a hammer. Raiju would never be able to explain why he had grabbed it, it wasn’t a conscious decision. Nor could he explain how he managed to side step Jorm’s vertical slash from the floor as the Kiffar activated his own weapon.

His body had just acted.

However, it had been a conscious decision to clock the insufferable Kiffar; and Raiju enjoyed making that decision. If only the butt of his lightsaber hadn’t been blunt, then when Raiju had drilled his hilt into the Kiffar’s temple it would have done more than stagger the idiot with a howl of pain. Alas, Raiju settled for the minor victory and used the moment to again gain some distance and make his way to the nearest hatch.

Locked and certainly would not respond to any of his fumbling on the terminal, Raiju knew that he was not opening this path. However, as he approached he was met with a pair of telescoped eyes blurred by the wort extract door. Pounding on the door, the Nautolan howled in hopes the potential ally could hear him.

“Hey! You gotta help me!” Raiju started, attempting to force some panic in his voice, and taking a pause to look over his shoulder. Raiju’s voice of panic was helped when he saw Jorm advancing with his amber blade raised. “I’m locked in here with a psychopath! He has a lightsaber!”

“A lightsaber?” A distorted voice answered, and Raiju watched as the pair of eyes moved to look past him.

For much of the galaxy, to view open displays of a lightsaber was an incredible rarity. Relics of a lost order, even fewer people believing in the bedtime tales of Sith; the splendor of the weapon had been lost. Even here on Naboo, one of the most recent high profile displays of lightsaber combat, haven’t seen the weapon in over sixty years. So when Jorm’s blade passed through the air, within millimetres of the Nautolan’s rubbery skin, Raiju could forgive the bystander for their lack of concern.

Even when his two hearts were hammering within his chest.

Unless you’ve seen the weapon melt through a man like a hot knife through hard nerf butter, the hums of the weapon were no more imposing than the glowsticks children played with. Yet, to Raiju it was enough to send chills down his spine; even though he had managed to move once again in the knick of time by throwing himself to the ground. Huddled in the corner of the exit, the Nautolan looked up at the grinning face of Jorm but his focus was elsewhere. Even when the Kiffar turned his body to stick his amber blade deep into the Nautolan’s chest, Raiju remained focused on a point beyond his left hand which he raised to aim at the Kiffar. To the unaware, it may have looked like he was going to stop the blade on his palm.

Then the Battlelord released the energy he had been collecting, directing it towards the Kiffar. The impact of the action drilled into Jorm, lifting and throwing him back several metres away from the Nautolan. As Raiju regained his feet, he hammered on the wort extract hatch again; drawing the attention of more than just one pair of eyes this time.

“Get the guards!” Raiju roared as the eyes disappeared.

The hue that covered the chamber quickly darkened as Raiju ignited his weapon. An orangish red blade leapt from the device in Nautolan’s right hand as he slowly stepped towards the fallen Kiffar. Yet, when Raiju stopped it was not to see Jorm stand. Instead, the Kiffar rolled and contorted his body so that the momentum flipped him back onto his feet while accompanied by a fit of laughter.

“So now that we are finally in private, will you fight?” Jorm chuckled throwing himself towards the Battlelord again.

The enclosed dome nature of the chamber intensified each clash of the lightsabers, sending the echoes of the crackling to radiate off the bubbled walls in a thunderous response. Jorm struck first, whipping his amber blade at the Battlelord’s just to kiss the orange blade before the Kiffar swung and hopped around the Nautolan. Raiju in turn maintained his ground; keeping his knees bent while he merely shuffled his body in the direction needed. The Nautolan kept his focus on not the other man but the blade, catching it every time it leapt at him and batting it from its intended course hoping to cause disruption.

If any bystanders had returned to the scene, they would have likely felt the Kiffar was playing with the Nautolan. Jorm danced around Raiju, moving around the room in such an ambitious display all the while grinning to himself like a fool. Raiju’s movements were much more stark in comparison, often seen as just batting away the efforts of the hurried combatant, and soon he had been shuffled right into the centre of the chamber; where there was even more space for Jorm to move. Yet, when the pair had made it dead center of the room; it was Raiju who whipped his blade this time.

Casting it, not at the laughing Kiffar, but at the mechanical claw above them that held the bubble wort extract in place. The blade chewed through two of the “fingers” of the contraption while it sailed in its arc, returning to Raiju’s warm embrace with a surge of lake water following behind it.

Jorm pressed his toes into the ground and leapt away from the band of water that crashed into the floor with tremendous pressure. It was as wide as his shoulders, but thin as window glass. In fact, Jorm could see Raiju smile on the other side. Cheeky bugger. But it looks like the structure holds.

“That won’t help you, Raiju,” he exclaimed.

“It will help you even less, Jorm,” the Battlelord retorted with certainty in his voice.

The Kiffar shook his head and called his mind to order. He had been too agitated by the long wait, bored out of his mind even by his own standards.

He had ignored his instincts when they told him to dodge - but I’ll tell people it was a lucky shot, can’t take all the blame - and he had given Raiju way too much time.

Jorm gathered the throbbing pain in his temple and put it in a neat bundle with the cold and wetness that started seeping into his shoes. Then he threw these sensations out of his mind, slammed an imaginary door on them, and yanked an imaginary chair under the doorknob.

With his mind clear and drowning doom somewhat imminent, he couldn’t help but feel alive and reinvigorated. The water had risen enough to submerge his toes halfway and implied a certain urgency.

“Well then, Raiju. Let’s dance.”

Jorm surged forward and narrowly avoided the overpowered waterfall with his shoulders while swinging his blade through the icy liquid.

A sudden burst of steam clung to the citrine shaft of energy and followed the horizontal swing to Raiju’s right side, where it dispersed upon impact on the Nautolan’s sunset-colored sword.

Raiju’s forceful counter set Jorm into a spiral, but instead of fighting it, he supported the motion. A tickle in his neck made him continue his pirouette in a crouch, and Raiju’s blade swept harmlessly over his head.

The Kiffar’s blade swept in low and went for his opponent’s legs. Only a desperate jump up and backwards kept Raiju ambulatory. The stench of burned clothing told both men just how close the Nautolan had come to a passable Vader impression.

Jorm followed suit, driven by exhilaration. Yet the quiet voice of warning in his head still had his attention when Raiju looked at him judgingly and balled his fist. The Battlemaster could feel the ethereal energies converging and coiling.

But two can play this game! A mental effort reached out like a furious gust of wind and tore at the threads of power the Nautolan had arranged so carefully, just as both Jorm’s feet and Raiju’s fist hit the ground not a meter apart.

A cone of ankle-high water surged up and wet Jorm up to mid-shin. To the Kiffar, the unleashed and clipped Force felt like the landing after jumping from a stair’s first step. Or second, on a good day.

Raiju’s face was caught between shock and surprise. That look was quickly replaced with the view of Jorm’s foot crashing into it with all the force of a Marauder in motion. The lightsaber flew from the Battlelord’s hand as he fell against the wall, and Jorm picked it up and threw it into a nearby trash can.

Then he darted to the side and flicked his blade in a short arc that intersected with Raiju’s blaster, aimed at where Jorm had stood just a moment ago. With a disapproving shake of his head, he placed the tip of his saber down in the rising water, between the Nautolan’s legs and close to where they met the pelvis. A column of steam rose sizzling.

“Stop,” Jorm said coldly. His mouth was the only smiling thing about him. Raiju took the hint and kept his hands in the open, dropping the useless rear half of his blaster. His eyes swam unfocused in his skull, the faux nose was flattened, and both lips were split and leaked greenish blood.

The Kiffar retrieved his comlink from a belt pocket and quick-dialed a contact without ever taking his eyes off Raiju.

“Come,” he spoke into the device and pocketed it again.

“Now listen, and listen closely, greenface,” he addressed the Nautolan propped up against the wall, “the poodoo you pulled on Morty will never happen again to one of my network, understood? Otherwise, I’ll cut off your tentacles and sell them as marital performance aids. All of them.”

Jorm’s saber moved as he spoke, trailing lightly over Raiju’s body up to circle his head close enough to make its heat felt. Then it trailed down again, cutting through a pocket on the way.

The Kiffar beckoned with his hand, and the credit chips brandished earlier flew up into his grasp. He shoved them down the same pocket as his cards and backed away from Raiju, sloshing through shin-high water as he went. Na’trej could hear the subtle hum of the Bongo engine seconds before the organic looking craft with the familiar driver appeared behind the airlock, and he thought he saw Kang recognize it too.

Jorm holstered his saber, pointed a finger pistol at Raiju, and winked. Then he inhaled deeply and went out into the icy dark of Lake Paonga.

Despite the chill that held in his clothes, the cold of the lake water still stole the Nautolan’s breath. It cascaded from the breach and hammered both combatants, flushing them to the sides of the room and apart from one another. Struggling to regain his feet, Raiju leaned on the wall for support before taking in the spectacle of the lake’s invasion.

Already the room had filled to waist height; completely covering the sunken seating area. It wouldn’t be long until it had filled the entire room. Yet, across the room, the howling laughter of the Kiffar pierced the roar of the lake crashing in.

“What a way to go!” Jorm cackled.

“Go?!” The Nautolan eyed the psycho, struggling against the growing current. “Have you no desire to live? We could work something out here.”

“Our fates were already sealed, Raiju!” Jorm continued to laugh as he pulled a slugthrower from his side. While the corners of the man’s mouth kept twitching, a new look of determination appeared to cast across the Kiffar’s face.

Raiju didn’t wait for the Kiffar to proceed. Immediately, the Nautolan dove into the rising water and kicked forward from the wall. While the current was strong, Raiju managed to crawl across the floor to the sunken seating area before the surge brought him back to the reaches of the Kiffar. Once he pulled himself down into the seating area, Raiju held onto one of the seated benches and looked back towards the legs that dangled from the surface.

Then, he waited.

Over a dozen of years spent in the oceans of Glee Anslem had shown the Nautolan the best predatory tactics of the sea. Sharks don’t bother to struggle with their prey, they bleed or tire them and wait for the sea to do the rest - and Raiju was okay with that. However, Jorm didn’t seem to agree with that plan.

The Kiffar had seemed to give up on the slugthrower and had requipped this lightsaber in a desperate gambit, diving for the Nautolan with the amber blade stretched out in front of him. Raiju wasn’t going to take the bait, and kicked off the bench and pushed himself towards other side of the seating area and readied himself again. Jorm on the other hand tried to change course but after the second time Raiju kicked off away from the Kiffar, he tried to return to the surface - and that was when Raiju struck.

Kicking off from the seating again, the Nautolan launched himself towards the Kiffar’s feet. Tugging on them firmly, he tried to pull the Kiffar back down towards the floor but when Jorm’s amber blade threatened the Nautolan; he released and dropped back - only to tug on the Kiffar’s feet again before the man could reach the surface. Jorm’s struggle against Raiju’s grasp was more intense this time, likely from panic setting. Furiously, the Kiffar kicked at the Nautolan but Raiju’s grip held firm. Pulling himself towards the Kiffar, Raiju extended his right leg and drove it deep into the Kiffar’s crotch.

Muffled by the water, a choked sound of pain escaped Jorm just before he began flailing for the surface. Wildly, his legs and arms swept the immediate area to deter the Nautolan before the Kiffar kicked for the surface again. Amidst the struggle, Raiju noticed a dark gray hilt drop from the Kiffar’s grasp and slowly sink to the bottom, sounding a slight ping into the water just as it struck the flooring. With this in mind, Raiju returned to the surface.

Through the conflict, the water had continued to climb and this was most prevalent when the Nautolan had returned to the surface. What had once been several feet deep was now only a few feet from the ceiling, though Raiju noticed the water level wasn’t rising as quickly - likely from the air pocket that remained. Turning to the Kiffar, Raiju was very even with his tone.

“It doesn’t have to end this way, Jorm. We can still sort out things with your distributors.”

There was no verbal response from the Kiffar. One moment he was sucking air from the ceiling, and the next moment he was splashing towards the Nautolan with a fist raised. Raiju took a moment to energize his body, pumping it full of a comforting warmth against the cold lake water. Feeling his muscles strengthened from the channeling, Raiju waited for the Kiffar to bring his fist down and then he hugged the man’s arm and pulled his body towards the surface while raising his feet towards the ceiling. Once he felt his feet planted firmly, the Nautolan kicked from the ceiling and released the energy stored in his body.

Launching himself like a torpedo, the Nautolan sailed from the ceiling back towards the floor of the chamber - dragging the Kiffar into the depths below. Submerged once again, clinging to the other with deadly purpose, and still watching the creepy grin of Jorm hold its form; Raiju felt the Kiffar struggle against his grip but the Nautolan hold tight. Even with the Kiffar drove his other hand into the Nautolan’s side, Raiju held tight and tried to turn his body away from the next impact. In several successions, blow after blow stuck into the Nautolan before the arm began to flail in desperate. Fingers clawed that the Nautolan’s skull while teeth could be felt clamping down on Raiju’s arm.

Yet, still the Nautolan held firm onto the Kiffar; waiting for the final struggle from his prey. Finally, after several long moments of pause, Raiju cautiously began to release the Kiffer and while life seemed to have escaped Jorm; his mouth still held his insane grin.