Two towering, tinted, transparisteel doors slide open to grant you access to the central chamber of the Combat Training Halls. The main room is wide and open and as large as as a holoball field. Tall walls stretch towards a domed ceiling that is made up of rows of ambient lights that spread out and fill the room with soft even lighting that eliminates any shades or shadows. Those same walls are lined around the perimeter with racks and stacks of varied weaponry: everything from swords and polearms to rifles and flamethrowers.

There are two signs that hover over each weapon rack to create an alternating motif in the Combat Training Hall: “No Explosions” and “Accorded Neutral Territory”. While the first is fairly obvious, the second speaks to the single law of the Training Halls: all members of the Brotherhood are welcome, and no member is to be killed or maimed without incurring the wrath of the Grand Master and the Inquisitorius.

A trio of training dummies are statically set up and spread out in a line, each made out of a blend of alloys and padding that can withstand blows from any standard weaponry with the exception of lightsaber blades. To the side of the dummies, a large sparring mat has been stretched out to create a larger footprint than the typical shockboxing ring. The padding is good for helping teach new combat students how to take a fall without injury and offers firm footing, but the hard rubber mat is hardly forgiving.

Behind the sparring area is a door that leads to a small archives that combat students can use to view holorecordings of fights and duels from the past as well as relevant information on combat tactics, techniques, and forms. On the opposite side of the archives at the far end of central room is the locker room that members can safely store their equipment.

The final and probably most important element of the Combat Training Hall is the onsite Med Ward. The maglock door is sealed off and can only be opened by an attending Medic. The Medical facilities feature state of the art bacta tanks for recovery and aftercare. A combination of observation and waiting room rests adjacent to the recovery center and features two large monitors that display a live feed of the central room.

The Combat Halls are staffed around the clock, allowing combat students and mentors alike to come and go as they please at odd or regular hours. It also reserved for members looking to prove their worth to compete in the Antei Combat Center.

[Venue Note: Weapons incorporated into your match are allowed to be used, even if not listed on your Weapon Load Out for the match itself. Skill usage and all other ACC rules and guidelines still applies.]

The air was cold and sterile on his burning skin, as cold and sterile as everything that lied beneath it, down to his very core. Like the heat that had gathered in his muscles and flushed his skin as he worked, there was passion and anger, a fury unfathomable, built and stoked and stored; but directing it was not wrath, but cruelty. He was a sword, steel tempered by forge flames, hard and cold and sharp as it rose from the ashes and embers.

James Malum, as few knew him by, pulled himself up slowly yet again in another deliberate heave, muscles bunching, abdomen taut, breath a short, sharp hiss. He lifted his chin over the bar he grasped and then lowered himself back down slowly, feeling the pull and sting of life in every fiber of tissue cording his triceps and deltoids. The thrum of his heart, the force of his breathing, all reminded him of being alive, with his blood hot and sweat dripping into his eyes. Not like battle, not even close. Not like having a world shatter at his fingertips. Nothing like the completeness, the satisfaction, of obliterating thousands of lives or snuffing just one, just because he could, just because if he couldn't have it his way, then nobody would.

But it was something.

James came to the training centers on Arx for something. For time to replenish himself, to build up his dark desires and furies, stoking coals in his stomach to smolder. He'd use all that rage, later. He'd leap from shuttles or buildings, he'd tear through legions, he'd do anything, everything, alone or with a squad under his command. He'd use it, deliberate and brilliant, a cold smile on his face all the while, and he'd be victorious; and then he'd do it again.

But that meant training, and there were few better places. Arx was a cold world, where nothing could be trusted. He found it suited him, he who trusted nothing, not even himself, who kept enemies close and friends distant. His Clanmates didn't bother him here, with pesky musings of camaraderie, and he didn't have to be concerned with logging reports with his sergeants or any other unit assigned to him. He could simply be, saber or blade in hand, a Master of his form, a true Knight.

He had no desire for peace, but he enjoyed the simplicity at times like these, the quiet—

"HEY, ASSHOLE. Quit holdin' onto the bar like it's the dick you don't know what to do with and move already. Some of us are here to work."

The young Knight's head turned suddenly to see an older woman standing across from him, arms crossed in impatience, hip cocked. Her visible skin was covered in scars, her dark hair pulled back in a short tail, narrow eyes slitted at him. She wore full combat apparel, weapons hanging off of her. Despite the abundance of other hand-bars just like the one he used in the nearly unpopulated training center, she was obviously waiting for him.

James arched one cool brow, firing back, "You don't seem ready to train. You're supposed to have proper equipment for a gym." His tone was indulgent despite his stern expression, like speaking to a child or idiot.

"First round's full-kitted, second is stripped down," replied the other Human, not backing away or removing her glare. "If you can't run under the weight of your own kark, you can't run at all, and you're frakking useless. Now move, before I make you."

The Sith outright barked a laugh at that, a coughing sound with only strangled mirth, so often was it unused. But he couldn't help it. He sensed no strength in the Force from the woman, meaning she was one of those mundanes in the Brotherhood ranks kept around for chattel. What a disrespectful Clan she must have been from, and how mistaken to challenge him. Mundanes were such strange creatures, unconcerned with the darkness that slithered and wove among them, unable to smell it or feel it in their bones like he could.

He decided then, as he dropped from the workout machinery, that this one would learn, in a minute or two.

Not deigning to look at her or reply, James strode over to the locker area and wiped himself down, feeling eyes still on him, prickling down his spine. He ignored it, dressing in his SpecForce armor again and donning his arms with the efficiency that had been carved into him. All but the knife he'd already had on him, anyway; he was never without a weapon.

When he turned back, the woman had not taken up the equipment, despite her nattering about it. Instead she was watching him, predatory. If only she knew who the real predator in the room was.

"You think you can make me do anything?" the feared Knight called, raising his voice to echo across the space, the way his will echoed across the ether of the Force as he reached out into it and gripped the rack of training equipment and weaponry near where she stood. "You're not even worth this."

Snapping his arm across his body, he flung the entire rack and all its accoutrements in a God's grasp, the invisible kinetic force slamming the items into the woman. James' smooth-planed, spry features curled in a remorseless, feral little smirk.

But, wait—

The Palatineian stared, blinking his cerulean eyes. She'd— dodged? No, not entirely, she was on the ground, a large bruise already blooming across most of her face and nose and lips split, but she was regaining her footing and—

She howled. With laughter. She rolled her head back and guffawed, rising from her crouch with grace and swaying, stretching. Like a waking nexu. With an air of ease she shucked off her gloves and dropped her gunbelt, the items falling into the mess around her along with the broken shelf and wooden weapons. Next went more of her armor, pads falling so she was down to a skintight bodysuit. When she was finished, she stepped out of the mess and prowled towards him, stopping a few meters away. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck and her knuckles, flexed her arms and sank into a fighting stance. James watched it all in disbelief, noting the number of scars appearing with each movement.

She twitched a finger at him. Obscenely.

"C'mon, baby boy. My husband-honey just decided to go off awhile and I could use a reeeal good time. I saw you ain't got a scar on ya. Lemme pop that Alderaanian cherry."

His face was only hot from his earlier workout, surely. James reeled only a moment before quickly recalibrating, a necessity as she suddenly charged at him. His heart fluttered with a warning from the Force, dark whispers heralding pain, and then a kick was cracking into his side with explosive strength.

The Sith hit the mats with a soundless scream, all the air knocked out of him while the ache radiated up through his chest and down his groin. Had he not put on his armor, he could tell, she might have just broken his ribs.

"Son of a banshee," the Knight gasped as he struggled to his knees only to flatten himself again, cheek pressed to sweat-steeped plastic, to flee the crescent kick that followed the first. The woman swept over him, and he shoved up as her leg trailed away, throwing his hands out to shove her off-balance.

She grunted but toppled with the attack, rolling over her shoulders even as she hit the ground hard to spring back up. Her face had purpled now, but the swelling almost made her look happy.

Two fists raised in front of her. She taunted again, "Aww, baby boy, don't be like that. You were talking so big earlier. Why don'tcha show me what you can do with that saber? I promise I can show you a few new tricks too."

Well, if she wanted to die so badly, he'd oblige. All humor gone and impatience rising in its place, James grasped his lightsaber and activated the blade. The crimson light erupted, straight and deadly, primed for her throat. He cared little for the center's rules.

"That's better. Oh, and you can call me Mrs. Tameike, by the way. What do I call you, huh? A snack?" She cackled again. He couldn't tell whether she was flirting or mocking, trying to needle him into confusion, but he wouldn't let it work any further. He'd annihilate her.

"I'm more than you could ever be," James replied coldly, and then shot forward with the Force thrumming in his bones, a bullet from a gun.

James barreled towards his target, allowing not a fiber of muscle in his body to hinder him from sprinting as fast as he possibly could. Reaching into the back of his belt, he produced a sleek dagger no longer than the palm of his hand. He gripped the wrapping of the handle tightly, knowing that his raw and powerful methods of armed combat often resulted in him losing control over the blade. As he nearly reached the seemingly amused woman, he honed onto the deep scar across the bridge of her nose; that was where he intended to strike. As he swept his leg to the outside of her body, he brought the blade across his chest in a striking motion with all the strength that his body offered him. He waited a moment for the sound of blade connecting with flesh to ring out in a cacophonous splurch, but it never came. The force of his arm coming down towards his hip alone was enough to buckle his knee into a lunge.

“Did you mean for that little thing of yours to hit me now?” her voice rung out, the tone unmistakably gleeful and mildly condescending.

His scowl turned from a momentary confusion to mere annoyance. He turned his head to see that she had dodged his blade with relative ease. Knowing he was in an exposed position, he quickly leaned forward, shifting his body over his front foot. The Arconan saw what he was trying to do and quickly chambered her leg for a side kick in an attempt to send him sprawling off balance, but it was too late. James swiftly pivoted on the front leg he had planted into the ground, sending his back foot into the crease of the leg she still had on the ground. The force of his leg sweep caused her leg to buckle, promptly resulting in her falling to the ground. As the now staggered Reaver gasped for air, James scrambled to the floor, nearly forgetting to pick up his dagger,

“You have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy this,” James spoke, his voice piercing the air like a bitter wind cuts through skin on a cold Winter day.

He looked down at his latest victim, hoping to savor the look of terror on her face. But when his eyes came across her glance, she showed no fear. James reached out into the Force, feeling through her soul, trying to find anything even resembling fear. He failed.

What the frack… how is this even possible?

As his mind became lost in the thought that he had not been able to inspire terror within his enemy, the now recuperated mercenary took the opportunity for what it was worth. She quickly rolled back onto her shoulders and sprang up onto her feet, kicking the Sith in his chin mid-flight. He sprawled back, not expecting the blow. As he wiped the blood from the crease of his mouth, she swiftly moved in on him. Before he had the opportunity to raise his guard, she grabbed him by the collar of his armor with both hands; she then kicked him square in the abdomen and rolled back onto the floor with her foot still planted against his chest, sending him flying backwards onto the hard mat. As the Sith lied on his stomach coughing up blood, the mercenary swaggered over to him, spinning a pistol around her finger.

“Poor babe, I thought you’d last a bit longer with me. It’s tough playing with big girls now isn’t it?”

Through the blood in his throat and the pain seering from his stomach, James felt nothing but rage. Being humiliated by this despotic seductress? As the anger kindled deep in his spirit, burned furiously throughout his body, tore away any sense of self-control the Knight could muster, he channeled it through the Force. As she raised her pistol to the temple of his head, he called upon the might of the Force, a call that was answered. As her finger twitched on the trigger, she was suddenly thrown backwards by a wave of energy. Although the wave did not strike hard enough to deal bodily harm, she was dumbfounded by the sudden tide of energy nonetheless.

James slowly staggered to his feet, grasping his stomach in agony. He knew that fighting in this condition would be no small feat. As he lightly bent his knees into a ready position, he let his mind dissipate. In mere moments he could feel the dark side of the Force flowing through his mind, steaming through his blood, and seeping into his very essence. As he let the cold feeling overtake him, the Arconan stood in confusion.

“Uh, you alright there, bud? You know it takes two to have a good time.”

Despite her booming voice echoing through the combat hall, he didn’t hear it. When he opened his eyes, it was revealed that his deep cerulean blue corneas had become a midnight black. As he locked eyes with the mercenary, who had now put her hand on her hip in a semi-confused manner, he pulled both of his lightsabers from his belt.

“You want a fight? Well, it seems your wish has been granted,” he spoke, letting his face twist into a small grin of amusement.

The Dark was patient, and greedy, and generous. The Dark gave James all that he wanted.

And then it gave more.

It split him open at the seams, spilled free and soaked him, drowned him, poured out his soul so it could pour more in and when there was no more room left still it gave. The Dark filled him, bursting veins and capillaries, blackening his eyes, coating his tongue. It webbed up his bones and coated his muscles with its wrath he was strong.

With a swing of his arm and a twist of his hips, James threw himself into the air, spiraling about while his two blades scythed towards his opponent. Tameike darted back from his first ferocious strike but couldn't completely dodge the second that followed it, flowing. The plasma sliced shallowly through the cross-bar block of her forearms, cutting a burning slash through muscle that drew a snarling, strangled scream of agony. Her arms dropped and she dropped too, rolling back on one shoulder and kicking out with the momentum to sweep the Sith's leg as he continued his stride in a deadly executioner's swing. James barely noticed the foot hooking around his ankle or the other stamping into his knee, leveraging the leg-lock before he tumbled backwards. The air left his lungs once again when he hit the mat, and her hands briefly snagged at his belt before she was scrambling away.

Tameike spat more mockery at him in a pained voice while she retreated, "Enjoy that shot, baby boy. It's the deepest you'll ever be in a woman."

He didn't care or hear. The adrenaline pounding through him rattled his marrow and sang with the Darkness, his world focused on only one goal: removing the damn mouthy woman's head from her shoulders. His rage boiled, directed and controlled by his keen will, and he was back on his feet in an instant as he kipped upright, sabers at the ready to bisect her.

Tameike was just scant meters away, twisting something in her shaking hands. His racing mind recognized it as his own bacta bomb moments before the blue cloud of salvific mist bloomed around her. James grit his teeth, nearly vibrating in place with the need to charge, but waited. It would give her wound seconds to heal, but he was going to end this properly, not mindlessly attack.

Three breaths.

His heartbeat raced.

Two breaths.

He gripped his sabers tighter, leaned onto the balls of his feet.

One breath.

The medicinal fog began to dissipate, and a shape moved within.

James moved.

The Palatinean leapt forward, shouting. Crimson flame erupted into being and caught his weapons, plasma crashing against plasma with a cry. James's eye twitched as he quickly realized Tameike was using a lightsaber too, if a shoto that could hardly catch the length of both his blades while she held him at with a two-handed grip. He hadn't seen her get it from her things, but had lost track of her gun too. Her glare was a rising sun over their locked lengths, red and burning.

Snarling, the Sith pulled back and struck out again in a brutal, rapid blur of slashes, stabs, and cuts with one of his sabers, holding the other back at the ready. He was a master of his form, but it didn't lend well to his former dual-bladed mindset. Tameike managed to parry or dodge several strikes, but her movements were laughable by comparison, no skill or guiding grace. She wielded a lightsaber like one did a machete, and had James been less intent, he'd have laughed.

A quick slash made a sizzling gap overtop the other Human's facial scar, blood spraying over the bridge of her nose and cheeks, the light of his saber so close blinding her. She recoiled and dove aside, but they were matched in speed with the Force in him and she had only time to bring her lightsaber blindly up to block. Again their sabers just barely locked, and she struggled, eyes screwed shut, tears on her face, pushing up from her crouched position. James tasted victory.

His arm trembled, and then buckled.

All his limbs buckled, and he sagged so suddenly that only their saber-lock kept him upright as fatigue stole into his body like a tidal wave smashing back against the shore. Alarm filled him, and Tameike's thin, watering eyes opened and widened in shock, then narrowed in utter glee. She actually smiled and winked at him.

Then, she shoved, throwing him back flat. His poor, bruised back and ribs met the mats for a third time as he shook all over, muscles gone weak as a newborn calf's. He couldn't even lift his head in that single moment as the woman darted over him and smacked his weapons away, sitting on his chest. James gave an, "Oomph!"

"Tsk, baby boy, baby boy," cried bloody Tameike, overly dramatic. She cradled his cheek in one hand, the red, puffy burns of just-closed saber wounds still bright and swollen on her arms where he could see. The other hand kept the shoto saber right next to his jugular, encouraging him not to move. "You blew your load already? Aww, it's okay, you'll get better. Promise."

"Would. You. Shut. Up," wheezed the Knight. She adjusted her position so that she was straddling him, powerful thighs pinning his own and clamping his arms to his sides, her abdomen flexing as she shimmied on his middle. It only made breathing harder.

A sudden, stabbing flare of agony was his answer, and he gasped a shout as the woman withdrew the just the tip of her blade from his torso. The hole in his armor smoked at the edges, plastics melted to his bubbled flesh, but it was filled just as fast as one of her fingertips replaced it, burrowing in with a nasty twist. James yowled.

"Naughty boy," cooed Tameike, tone teasing and smirk as mean as it was entertained. She curled the digit she had in the flesh wound, pressing at the viscera walls and drawing a sound of pain for each swipe. Her voice dropped into something dangerous. "Don't you ever frakking talk back to me, you useless, pathetic little skidmark, or I will cut you open and hang you on a rope of your own entrails."

Then, the tone brightened again. "Oooor maybe I'll have to spank you. Depends how good you are for me."

Growling, James attempted to focus, gathering his will and reaching for the Force again to electrocute the woman to death, but she jabbed another hole into him, and his concentration shattered at the smell of his own charting meat. She did it a few more times, twisting and curling her finger in each raw opening like a sick game.

"Ready for two, hmm?" she taunted after a few minutes of the slow, embarrassing torture. She tapped her bloody fingertip against his lips, pushing lightly as if wanting him to open his mouth. "Or do I need to whip you some more?"

"Stop it, Satsi," came a new voice, cutting across the daze of pain and exhaustion and heat clouding James's world. Tameike straightened up and twisted on top of him, and that bit of distraction was enough for him to heave her off and roll aside, dragging himself away as rapidly as possible. His eyes, gone blue again, scanned for his weapons. He'd kill everyone and then maybe himself if it meant he could forget this day.

"Ventus," 'Satsi' greeted behind him, picking herself up and grinning at the Combat Master as his projection appeared in the center of the sparring area, streamed from the control room. "What's up, pretty and punchable?"

The hologram sighed. "Why don't you have a seat over there? Quit harassing the trainees."

"But it's so fun."

The Elder seemed exasperated, muttering a, "and this is why I'm retiring," before he shook his head and cut the connection. The man was renowned for his reticence, and rightly so, it seemed.

James had just gotten his things together and gotten back to his feet when he felt a shiver of warning down his spine, heralding a tap on his shoulder. He pivoted, wincing from his numerous injuries, to see Tameike grinning at him, tonguing her teeth.

"So...where were we?" she purred.

And James Malum, for once, knew then a name that he never wanted to learn, and a bit of fear to go with it.

James ignited his sabers and twirled them around his head in an adorned fashion before crossing them together in front of his body as a guard. The brilliant crimson of his blades shone dramatically on his pale features, accentuating his sharp cheekbones and slender face. Despite the brilliant light, not a gleam of it escaped his jet black eyes. Satsi raised her blasters towards James, holding his gaze within their sights. Although she was not intimidated by the presence of the Sith, to her merely a boy wasting his time frivolously pursuing power obtainable by only a rare few, she was off put by his expression and features; what had been a scowl of anger and vexation had turned inscrutable and vacant, like he was merely a hollow puppet. The gaze of his eyes were similarly dismaying, the inky veil looking lifeless and unoccupied. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul; if this was true he had surely already bartered his away.

Suddenly, he chambered the saber in his dominant hand to the opposite side of his body, keeping the other blade keenly tilted in front of his face as a guard. Satsi wasted no time, immediately firing a cannonade of slugs towards him. James quickly swiped a few slugs out of the air with his free saber and, within a few moments, impeded the incoming barrage with a barrier conjured out of the Force. Although he was lucky to not be severely injured on his weak side, he was grazed in the shoulder and ribs, now bleeding out. Despite the pain enveloping his side, the Force had control over his body and senses, dulling the agony. James saw the Arconan quickly reloading for a second onslaught of steel fury and acted accordingly. He took his chambered saber and swung it across his body, releasing the hilt mid-action, causing it to go spinning towards Satsi. As it soared the the air, James motioned his hand forward, concentrating the power of the Force upon the lightsaber. Its motion suddenly accelerated dramatically, nearly reaching the neck of the alarmed mercenary. She swiftly bent backwards, barely dodging the weapon.

“Sithspit! Don’t you treat your ladies with a bit of respect?”

“Trust me, I’m not done with you, yet.”

He quickly pulled his hand back and, as if the saber was attached on a string, it suddenly boomeranged back towards Satsi. She rolled out of the way, again narrowly avoiding contact with the crimson blade. James continued his assault, effortlessly flicking the lightsaber through the air; but every attempt was denied by the nimble mercenary’s unmatched feats of agility and stamina. As his amusement turned into frustration, the Sith drew out the primal Force of the dark side within him and focused it all within the blade he was controlling, The saber began spinning fast enough that the blade of energy homogenized into a crimson disk. With all of the energy vested within him, he catapulted the saber towards Satsi for a killing blow. She hastily grabbed an object from her side belt, it appeared to be a bleached bone no longer than half a foot in length; but when she pressed the bone, a blade of magnificent red shot up.

She uses a lightsaber? How the frack can she keep it under control…?

As the saber shot towards her, she pushed herself off the ground, cartwheeling above the crimson disc; in a split instant she jabbed the center of the blade where the hilt layed and landed back on the floor. The saber flew across the room and hit the ground, rupturing into pieces of kyber and metal. James stood dumbfounded at the remarkable feat of acrobatics and swordsmanship he just borne witness to. As he stared, nearly petrified, he could feel the darkness leaving his body, his conscious mind returning to his own agency, and his senses being undamped. All of the pain, emotion, and stimulation his body had just went through all suddenly hit him at once; the pain of a torn jaw, broken ribs, gunshot wounds all surging through his very being and rupturing his emotional essence.

The mere task of staying conscious was tedious enough to prevent him from screaming in agony and falling to the floor. As he poured every ounce of power left in his broken body to staying upright, Satsi quickly drew her slugthower and shot the shattered Sith in both of his kneecaps. He unceremoniously fell to the floor, smashing his nose on the mat as a last testament to his defeat. The Reaver walked over to the half-dead body of James. She ran her finger through the grooves of her slugthrower with admiration and looked down at him as if contemplating whether to end him or not.

“You… win. Do it, end me. Take my honor as your own.”

Satsi looked down at James, his face caked in his own blood and covered in bruising. Despite the look of shattered honor on his face, she couldn’t help but smirk. “I’m not going to kill you, silly. I just wanted the fracking pull-up bar. Besides, what’s the fun in killing you? If I did that I wouldn’t be able to kick your ass again.”

With that, Satsi undid her combat armor and cast it aside for someone else to worry about, nonchalantly walking over to the bar. Despite all the feelings that were brewing inside James’s soul, he couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. He may have been defeated, but at least he knew he had a long way to go and a lot of ego to shed.