Below the offices and living quarters of the Headmaster and his Praetor lies the Hall of Secrets—a room dedicated to the members of the Dark Council, and practically unknown by the rest of the Brotherhood. The spacious room is highly secured, with a curving stone ceiling and thick, stone walls. Any noise from the rest of the Academy is completely muted, the silence of this place like a tomb. You were summoned here, the note still clenched in your hand, but so far you haven't seen a soul.

There are a nine cubicles—one for each Councilor—made from transparent crystal, which divides the room evenly into sections. Glancing into one, you see that it contains a small console. You walk towards it and tap in a simple command. Immediately the crystal walls grow opaque, obscuring the interior from view and sealing you within. It seems obvious that this is a secure study for the Council, where its members come to access artifacts, holocrons, or other data, without the prying eyes of the Academy watching.

You reverse the command and step back into the Hall. Glancing around, you search for the person who summoned you. Most of the cubicles are currently transparent, but the furthest one is dark—currently in use. You step towards it just as the walls flicker back to transparency revealing a single figure with weapon in hand…

A smile crossed Evant Taelyan’s face as the figure came into focus and he recognized who it was. Yet, somewhere in the back of his mind he knew the circumstances and location of their meeting was not so straightforward. Yet calm came over him as the unknown cleared itself. The rest of the cubicles in the area were empty.

“Dante, were you summoned here as well?” Evant announced as he took a step towards his fellow Palatinean, yet stopped as he recognized no change in his demeanor.

“No, but I summoned you,” Dante stood firm, his unignited lightsaber at the ready in the hand of the skilled saberist, “I must stop you.”

Taking a few steps back, Evant looked past to the formerly opaque cubicle and saw a collection of documents and tomes. It was a dark secret he wanted none to know of but those most loyal in his service. The calm had left him, replaced by anger at Dante for questioning his methods, and bidding him to this of all places to do it.

“I must ensure you don’t succeed in finding this weapon of mass destruction, for the safety of the House and Empire.”

“The resulting safety and security of our Empire justifies the means I choose to get there, this weapon will help us get there,” Evant responded, having difficulty masking the anger in his tone.

“You think I don’t know of questionable means? I strike fear into the citizens of the Empire, carry out orders that result in the torture and murder of dissenters daily. What you are doing is far worse, recklessly pursuing powerful Dark Side weapons.”

“You have no idea what they are capable of.”

“Neither do you.”

Both men stood for a moment in silence. Both were pursuing the same ends, with uncertain means. There would be no agreeing to disagree, when both would do anything to protect their Empire.

In the silent moments that followed, Evant’s mind raced with his next move. Countless plans followed through and few ended well against the Obelisk Primarch. So he acted quickly, when every plan that gave him the first move seemed to logically work out better. He could tell by his hesitation Dante had hoped he would simply give up his pursuits, but there was no way the Sith Warrior would pass the opportunity for the Empire to acquire such a weapon.

Reaching out with the Force he hammered a simple command into the cubicle between him and Dante and with several steps back, ducked behind the newly formed wall. Immediately the familiar sound of blaster fire erupted into the small silent room, as crimson bursts of light tore apart the crystal dividers between the rooms.

As the shattered glass began to fall and clear the space between them, Evant ignited his lightsaber as he took several steps back and thrust a violet bolt of electricity towards Dante. The Sith Sorcerer hoping to keep some distance between them, difficult in what was essentially a dueling chamber with desks.

Absorbing the incoming energy with his outstretched hand, Dante said quietly, "The young always choose the quicker and easier way, but I'm surprised that you are the one who fell to into such a trap." The Obelisk brought his saber up and summoned the amethyst blade to life. Dante made another small jibe at the Aedile by saying "Maybe it is time that my old apprentice should retake his place at the Emperor's side” as the deadly game began.

"I am doing this for the Empire!" yelled Evant as he reached out with the Force again and threw a series of desks at his opponent. The Empire had given him purpose, and now he was willing to destroy anything to preserve it.

With a flip of his wrist, Dante brought his saber up and sliced through the desks one by one as he tried to reduce the distance between himself and the Sith in the now nearly destroyed chamber. Shattered remains of furniture, books, and data pads littered the floor between them, and the lights swayed and flickered as they cast dancing shadows around the darkening room. .

Shaking his head in disbelief at Dante’s method of defeating that attack, Evant still found it odd that someone so strong in the Force almost always used a non-Force method while fighting. “I will not give up on this mission, Dante” Evant said as he attempted to land an augmented strike against the much larger man. A shimmering blue blade flowed through the air with incredible speed as it came across from right to left.

Dante’s saber moved left to block the sweeping strike, and he nearly simultaneously jumped to his right to evade the inevitable follow up attack to the near miss. Moving to his right, the Primarch looked for an opening in the Sith’s footwork, but there was none that were overly apparent and worth taking a risk so early in this duel. Patience was needed of any true Obelisk, whether it be waiting for days for a target to appear or picking apart another warrior in combat.

Swaying side to side and slightly crouching, Evant tried to present as small of a target as possible as he awaited the move from the Field Marshal. He knew it would be swift and deadly, but he steeled himself for the attack that he needed to survive before he could counterattack.

Suddenly, the Obelisk leapt into the air and brought his blade up for a death from above style attack upon the much smaller Sith.

Evant sensed the attack's ferocity and rolled to his and tried a stabbing counterattack from his crouched position, but the strike meant to cut off his opponent's leg simply met air as Dante had already back flipped out of his attack and was ready to press the attack against the now outstretched and overextended Sith.

Moving in quickly to take advantage of his opponent's counterattack, Dante used his left hand to pull the extended right arm of his opponent towards him as he also brought his knee up in an augmented attack against Evan't exposed stomach. The snapping of ribs released a series of audible cracks as the Aedile was thrown backwards onto his back by the force of the blow.

With Evant on his back and injured, the Obelisk moved to his right and back a few steps and said "Evant... it is time to end this folly. Surrender to me, and we can discuss this with the Emperor.."

Writhing in pain from his fractured body, Evant struggled to find the breath to respond, “I have every intention… on delivering this weapon to him.”

The much larger Obelisk Marauder stood over him, trying to decide what to do. The simple fact that Dante didn't want him dead was the only reason he was still alive. As he lay on the ground fighting against the pain of his injuries the Force brought about a soothing numbness to his entire body, yet it almost didn't matter. His mind was so caught up in the right words to inspire Dante to his cause, or failing that, leave this cursed chamber alive.

“We take this research as is to him, right now,” Dante demanded, his tone showing that it was a non-negotiable position.

For far too long the Archangels, Thrans and Dantes of Scholae Palatinae garnered all the favor of the Emperor. Evant had been building his own inner circle of loyalty within the House, rung by rung climbing the ladder and growing in influence and power. He couldn't stand the thought of suffering a setback. He had worked too long to prove himself to be undermined by someone who had nothing more to gain than the throne itself.

“The fact alone that you drug me here to this room, to outright challenge me in private, to handle this off the record… tells me more than any words,” Evant stated exhaustedly as he pulled himself to a sitting position, to test Dante’s resolve.

The Obelisk disengaged his lightsaber, the violet blade going dark, leaving only the slowly swaying lights to light the chaos spread across the hall from their brief engagement. It certainly had erupted into violence, and the Obelisk had fired the first shots.

Passion for the security of the Empire knew no bounds, both men knew that. It was so much less about the weapon, and so much more about their status and position in the Empire. Evant cracked a grin, an appreciation that at least in that moment both he and Dante knew what they were really fighting for.

Just as the lights came to a standstill and the room was caste in a deafening silence, a powerful wave of energy erupted from the Sith Warrior and pushed everything away from him. As desks, tablets, chairs, shattered glass, and the Obelisk Primarch were knocked back away from him.

Slow to his feet from his injuries, the Sith Warrior handled his lightsaber high on the grip and ignited his sapphire blade. With his lead foot pointed at his slightly disoriented opponent he turned his body and took a defensive stance as best he could to fight his injuries. His skills in the Force unable to properly heal during the short break that had just ended as Evant, himself a skilled saberist, prepared for the coming assault.

He had no idea if Dante would kill him, or drag his crumpled body back to the Emperor, but whatever he had planned it was going to happen either way so he sure as hell wasn't about to go quietly.

The longer that the fight continued, the more chances that Evant would get lucky and manage to hurt or disable the veteran Obelisk, and there was too much at stake for Dante to not end up on the winning side of this battle.

Taking the fight to his opponent, Dante bounded off of the wall in a leaping attack that nearly sliced Evant’s left arm cleanly off, but the Aedile managed to block the main blow. Forced backwards and into a crouch by the momentum of his opponent’s attack, Evant immediately tried to counterattack with a diagonal slash meant to cut Dante off at the knees.

His blade met empty air as Dante had already jumped straight up and above the wounded Aedile. The Primarch’s leg lashed out and caught Evant directly under his chin, and the Aedile went flying into an unconscious heap.

The Field Marshal hit his comm button signal, and, within moments, a squad of heavily armored stormtroopers appeared through the blast door. One of the sergeants had a set of special prisoner manacles that Dante had received from the Justicar of the Brotherhood. He went and applied the item to Evant’s arms. Two of the troopers had non-standard packs that looked like boxes more than combat gear on their backs.

“Grab him, and let’s get the hell out of here before the camera interference is cut off,” said Dante as he looked over the scene where his men stood over the fallen Aedile. “I don’t feel like explaining to the Headmaster why one of the rooms in the Academy was just destroyed.”

Evant’s body was drug out by the troopers as Dante took a last look back before tossing the plasma grenade back into the room and closing the blast door. The blast of the explosive could be heard from the safety of the corridor, and the group waited until the fire suppression systems kicked on before leaving for the hangar.

Hopefully, Dante thought to himself, Evant wouldn’t wake up before their arrival on Judecca where the Emperor was waiting for them.