Elevated over a ravine, the Massassi Arena has withstood the tests of time. It is arranged in a circular formation and made by a slab of stone that connects the opposite slopes of the ravine. On its eastern side, the floating arena leads to a staircase and into a near-vertical cliff face. Because of its nearly unsupported vantage that overlooks a several hundred-meter fall, even the smallest creatures can feel the occasional motion the platform makes as the breeze brushes across its cold surface.

Adding to the adrenaline rush of standing within the slab’s concentric patterns carved into the rock, barriers and obstacles echo the Massassi’s commitment to taking every advantage over their opponents. Pillars ring the outer edge without guardrails linking them, some remaining intact and others having toppled into the arena or over the perilous heights to the ground far below. Weeds and other flora cover each surface as nature seeks to reclaim the ravine and eventually send the arena itself to the depths.

A creaky rope-bridge leads away towards another ancient suspended platform with the same weathered, upturned stones. Mossy footing, and uneven ground make each of these platforms unique in small subtle ways. While there is no seating for formal spectators, the ancient stones of the Massassi Arena hold an omniscient, aged wisdom that speak to the things they have seen and the battles fought through history.

A third rope-bridge leads to yet another platform, completing the triad of battlegrounds that make up the Massassi Arena.

Kalsunor.

Relics of a bygone era, the remnants of the One Sith threat still lingered on its surface, strewn beneath the foliage and overgrowth. Dirt and grime covered those devices; cloistered in stone chambers and compartments once belonging to the Massassi and Kalsunorans who had left traces of their own dead civilizations, long ago. A’lora Kituri had been here once before, during the occupation of Brotherhood forces hell-bent on a Crusade to reclaim the former Sith Worlds.

Rhythmic thuds from her quarterstaff against dirt and stone followed the former Consul’s footfalls while she stalked the ancient ruin in search of one such relic that might aid Odan-Urr on her return. However, it wasn’t the influence of her visions alone that guided her to this site. She had accessed the Sentinel Network’s records during her time as Consul to find references to something which might provide clarity in decoding the nature of the artifact obtained from the Collective.

The sounds of her approach terminated at the edge of the dais before her, standing—or rather hanging—despite the tests of time. One step across the threshold onto the circular platform was denoted with an audible crack followed by a slab of stone falling to the depths below. Nimble, despite the branch that she held for balance, the Togruta made several deft strides towards the center of the dais and further from the treacherous edge of unsupported masonry. She could hear and feel the wind rustling, moving both across and beneath the structure, instilling her with a sense of vertigo as the ground continued to shake. On the edge of her hearing, a dissimilar, piercing noise cut through the breeze. That sound was replaced with an audible thunk that likewise, she heard and felt as the point of a dagger embedded itself into the knotted shaft of her quarterstaff.

Klaxons and warnings erased her momentary vertigo as the Councillor turned her gaze to follow the direction of the offending dagger, reaching with her free hand to pull the object free from its resting place and discarding it along the decrepit stonework.

“Well, I don’t mean to offend, miss...” a voice carried from the direction of the wind, “but that artifact that you’re looking for belongs to the Sith; to me.”

Against the dust and debris careening towards her, A’lora Kituri found the hulking figure of a hooded Shaevalian arming the next object of his arsenal. Tracking the tip of his arrow in the Togruta’s direction, DarkHawk let loose the first of a trio of bolts aimed for his contestant, correcting the final two shots as the howling wind forced the first off-balance. The time between each shot was more than enough for the Togruta to erect a barrier around herself, dispersing the impact of the plasma across an invisible surface.

With her target now marked in her line of sight, A’lora dodged the rest of the oncoming bolts with relative ease, the Shaevalian unable to maintain a correct shot against both the wind and his opponent’s agile dexterity. Errant bolts of plasma scored the Massassi stonework as his opponent vaulted over the concentric barriers and obstacles blockading the distance to the bridge on which he stood. Once again finding herself at the perilous boundary of the circular arena, the Togruta drew and ignited the dual-coloured blades of her lightsaber in one deft motion, severing the ties holding the bridge to its anchor. Rotted boards began to fall beneath the Shaevalian’s feet, affording little more than enough purchase for DarkHawk to avoid certain death with a Force-assisted leap that, along with the current at his back, carried the Sith over the head of his adversary. Masonry and tangled vines gave under the force of his landing as the Sadowan’s knee and fist crashed against the dais. The added weight sent rumbles down to the support structure resting beneath the dais, shaking the Odanite off-balance while she charged in for the kill.

“Fool.” The Councillor shouted in her guttural accent above the tell-tale signs of imminent collapse. “You’ll send us both to meet the depths!”

DarkHawk quickly stood erect, “Not quite a fool Ma’am, just willing to embrace fate…” Darkhawk said sadistically. In one swift motion, the Shaevalian fired his Nightsister bow, severing another tethered lifeline of the two Equite’s foundation. Both Dark Jedi leapt to the main Massassi arena, as the ancient link to the combat stage fell crashing against the mountainside. DarkHawk landed igniting his long hilted saber, the Togruta nimbly landed in front of the Battlelord, rage amplifying inside her.

The cobalt hue from the Sadowan’s saber echoed off his helm, enough for Togruta to view her mirrored image starring deathly calm back at herself. The two Dark Jedi moved almost in unison together as they parried each other's attacks. The Augur moved from right-to-left, crossing her left foot behind her right, and settled into a back stance. DarkHawk countered the move by shifting his position from closed to open, moving left-to-right to narrow the gap even further.

DRK-1 had already postured itself into a pre-programmed sequence of flanking movements before the two combatants began to trade blows. Movements which mimicked the chase of a big Onyx Stalker closing in on its prey. The droid then shot skyward and started hovering about two meters above the surface, circling the two combatants. DRK-1 began a course of imaging scans, completing a facial recognition sweep of its Master’s assailant. A series of long drawn out beeps and whizzes burst through Takagari’s COMM unit. “You have got to be kidding me…” DarkHawk thought to himself.

The Augur’s saber parries were by far, more than practiced. They were precise, controlled and without flaw. She moved almost as if by rote, her body moving and working without her concentration, much to DarkHawk's chagrin. She was toying with him, looking for an opening. Her weapon, an extension of her body. DarkHawk kept the Augur at his twelve o’clock position, the cobalt and emerald blades cracked and sparked as they hammered against one another.

A'lora used her teal blade to easily block a high slash of Takagari’s saber, which was intended to remove the Augur’s head from her shoulders. As the Augur crashed her saber against her adversary’s blade, she dropped her center of balance to spin around under the Sadowan’s arm, carrying her momentum counter-clockwise, garnering an opening to stab at the Sadowan’s head with her emerald blade.

DarkHawk barely had enough time to repel the blow, simultaneously executing a switch step technique, reversing his open stance as he dispatched the blow. His foe's blade seethed short. Takagari baked in reaction, his blade battering the blow away played poorly, drawing the tip of the Augur's blade into the meat of his shoulder as A'lora lunged forward. A small trickle of blood trailed down the front of the Battlelord’s chest from the wound. The Sadowan snarled through gritted teeth as the shock wave of pain raced down his left arm. A’lora surely expected that to be a killing stroke. Though the small subtle movement of repositioning his feet, not only spared his life but by closing his stance allowed DarkHawk to make the Augur overextend herself ever so slightly.

Takagari relinquished his left hand from his saber and seized A'lora’s saber hand, pivoting his body closer into the Augur’s. The Shaevalian dropped his weight slightly, letting his long arm serve as a lever to wrench the diminutive A'lora's elbow forward, drawing the Togruta further into her own lunge, off balance and staggering. There it was, the opening that Takagari was looking for. In one fluid motion, the Wraith carried the Augur’s momentum over executing a hip toss sending her crashing to the ground. The air exited her lungs as the Equite felt the impact resonate through her entire body.

Surprisingly to A'lora, DarkHawk did not follow up with any killing blow of his own. Flexing her diaphragm repeatedly to replenish essential air back into her lungs, the Dark Jedi kipped up to her feet once again, double-bladed saber at the ready, spinning around to parry any incoming onslaught. Instead, DarkHawk had shuffled back a few feet and extended a salute with his saber. Takagari took to one knee in proper genuflection towards a ranking member of the Brotherhood.

“Augur A'lora Kituri, of House Satele Shan, of Clan Odan-Urr…” DarkHawk said with an intonation of respect.

A’lora held her double-bladed saber high, the emerald and teal blades ready for another assault. The Augur made a quick mental note of the last exchange and she would not reiterate that same mistake. Though she was oddly intrigued by the gesture she was just given, the Augur stood poised...ready. DarkHawk remained motionless to substantiate his respect towards his senior.

“How do you know me Sith?” the Augur growled. The Battlelord slowly raised his left hand and gestured to his droid.

“I believe our paths have been brought together under the same circumstances, Ma’am...” DarkHawk replied stoically.

A’lora brought her saber down to center and quickly glanced over to the small DRK-1 droid hovering to her right. At that very moment, an overwhelming rush of adrenaline raced through both Dark Jedi. The Augur shifted her attention back to the Battlelord, only to find a throwing knife cutting a wave through the air. A’lora could feel the assistance of the Force guiding the blade on its trajectory. The Togruta drank from the Force fueling herself, she brought her saber up to deflect this new incursion. Midway through her blocking movement, the seasoned Equite realized the offense was not intended for her. The former Consul watched as the knife hurdled past her line of sight and found its target, sinking deep into the skull of an oncoming Technocratic Guild member.

The Technocrat’s helmet fell to the stone with a sharp impact, its cracked visor encasing the dagger’s blade while blood rose to meet its hilt. The silent gasp of the unwitting soldier fell to a low gurgle in the throes of his death, blood clogging the air passages in his throat. Within earshot, the sounds of blasterfire alerted the former Consul to the threat at her heels as two more of the Collective’s agents levelled blasters in the direction of both combatants. Beset on all sides, she seized the confusion to deliver a crushing blow across the faceplate of DarkHawk’s helmet, determined to break free from the potential crossfire. With a staggering thump, the Sith was caught off-guard when the cerulean blade of his opponent’s lightsaber became akin to a long-handled staff, shattering, rather than melting through his centralized HUD.

As his tactical readouts fizzled out to broken glass and static, the Sadowan lost his balance, sputtering blood and teeth behind one of the stone barricades. On sensing the imminent danger posed to its owner, DRK-1 bounded from its spot within the Togruta’s peripheral vision, priming its shock welder to deliver a surge of electricity into the offending organic. Scorching heat and searing skin burned A’lora’s senses as the droid’s shock welder scored the back of her shoulder black from its lavender hue. It was a short-lived sensation as blaster bolts intended for the Councillor mangled the spherical droid’s chassis, disabling the mechanical drone.

“I’ll have to work on the formalities,” the Sith quipped around a mouthful of blood. Finding his feet, DarkHawk forced himself to observe the situation while his head pounded from the trauma, made difficult with the loss of his tactical readouts. In the heat of battle, another tether was severed under concentrated fire, the platform rocking in unison with the gusts of wind blanketing the arena. “One more, and it all comes crashing down. Like it or not, we’ll be gunned down if we don’t work to get out of this mess.”

Suppressing the still-burning pain from her should as best as she could with the Force, A’lora shook her lekku in derision. “I don’t like it. If this is how it ends, so be it. That artifact does not belong in the hands of the Sith; it was not designed to be used as a tool for destruction.”

“I’m glad we’re all on the same page,” DarkHawk responded with as much sarcasm as he could muster, the feeling beginning to return to his jaw. Inverting the hilt of his lightsaber, DarkHawk plunged its crimson blade into the stone at his feet. Molten rock and slag pooled around the plasma as it scored a trail through the delicate rock on which the combatants stood. Another shudder, and the dais itself began to form channels, breaking off into several smaller platforms that lacked the foundations of the whole. Screams scattered to the wind as the Collective agents now found themselves tumbling into the abyss. With a final salute, the Sith bounded across his section of the deteriorating arena, his pack expanding into a set of cloth wings as he took flight.

The artifact was lost, buried somewhere at the bottom of the ravine. A’lora however, persevered. Even while the ground fell untold heights, she clutched to a tangle of vines along the ravine’s wall during her descent. Whatever the artifact would have revealed about Odan-Urr’s esoteric crystal might have been better left undiscovered, after all.

The Augur watched as the Technocrat warrior crashed face first at the base of the eastern rock stairs. The blade had sunk deep into the tempral lobe, slamming to the rock floor face first entombed the knife even deeper, nearly to its hilt Blood began to pool around the Technocrat’s head, staining the ancient rocks crimson. From A’lora’s view, it looked as if this would-be assasin’s head was suspending itself off the rock floor. The corpse’s nervous system emitted a wave of electricity through its body, causing massive full body convulsions.

“Don’t think for one second that squares our matters assassin.…” A’lora said in a malevolent undertone.

DarkHawk never waivered his eyes off the Augur, by this time he was quite versed in how dangerous she could be. But this exchange was merely a distraction, the mission still needed to be accomplished. The sound of footsteps approached, four Techncrats crested through the forest line and began charging down the rock stairase. One adorned quite impressive cybernetic legs, spinning a rather nemesing vibro-ax. Using the power beind his cybernetics, the guild member lept from the top of the stairs and onto the arena floor.

“You’re about to get a chance to make it up to me Ma’am…” DarkHawk said sarcastically.

A’lora rolled her eyes and scoffed at the comment. The Togruta was directing her attention to the three guild members baring down on her. For a split second, the Augur considered unstrapping her quarterstaffs and dispencing a beat down of epic proportions. “These clowns are disrupting my mission…” she exclaimed to herself.

Her anger stirring, A’lora tightened her grip on the double-bladed saber, feeling the contour of her death weilding instrument’s handgrip melt into her. That rage unleased a fury of Form Seven Juyo attacks by the Augur. She allowed herself to surrender to her teachings as she had so many times before in combat. Her techniques remained precise, A’lora ravaged through the first two guild members. A dense cloud of blood and machine oil engulfed the scene as the Togruta cleaved her saber strikes through both cybernetic and organic parts of her assailants.

DarkHawk wasted no time attacking the axe weilding brute in front of him. The guild member took an overhead counter-clockwise swipe at the charging Shaevalian. Dropping to his knees, the Equite slid under the blow and slightly behind the over extending Technocrat. DarkHawk popped up to his feet and executed a potent skipping side kick to the base of the guild member’s spine. The Battlelord’s heal slammed precisely into his opponent lumbar, what should have sounded similar to snapping twigs, consisted more of a dense vibration of flesh.

Spinning clockwise, the Quaestor drop to one knee again, using multiple Juyo strikes of his own, severed through the right leg of the guild member. As the leg seperated, the amputation caused the cybernetic assailant to crash down towards the stone floor. Before the half man, half machine completely hit the ground, DarkHawk split the brute’s skull with his cobalt blade, peeling the organic tissue of his brain back like ripe fruit.

A’lora squared herself off against the last guild member. His blaster at the ready and she could feel his trigger finger as he fired. Instantly the Togruta brought up her right hand and raised her Force barrier. The blaster bolts had little chance against the Augur’s well trained Tutaminis. The guild member’s last coherant vison was of A’lora severing his blaster hand, then all went dark. The guild member’s head rolled off the edge of the arena and fell into the depths of the trench below.

DarkHawk was rummaging through the pockets of the dead Technocrat’s outer coat when the Augur caught his attention. DarkHawk rolled out of the way of an incoming saber strike, his roll placed him dangerously close to the arena’s edge.

“YOU!!!!!! Your interference with my mission is egregious…Sith…” A’ora sneered. She held her saber with one hand, at her four o’clock ready for the final battle.

DarkHawk standing, deactivated his saber, placing it back on his utility belt.

“What…what are you doing?” she demanded. A’lora drank from the Force, feeding her farsight. Only visons of blood and the stone floor were present. She adeptly moved right into her ability of illusion. Before she could bridge her connection, a blast of Force lighting engulfed her entire body. The Augur staggered back, realizing the blow was not meant to eradicate, but just enough to break her concentration.

That mere act was a nothing more than an insult to A’lora as if the Battlelord just spat in her face. She reared back ready to charge when DarkHawk began to float an apocalyptic looking holocron and a leather pouch in front of him. A’lora’s eyes narrowed in on the Battlelord, “That belongs to me..” she exclaimed.

DarkHawk, now taking the holocron between his thumb and forefinger, “I told you Ma’am, what you are looking for belongs to the Sith…” he said with a devious smile. In one fluid motion, he sent the pouch across the arena to the Augur. The Equite dropped it at A'lora's feet, she looked down and was almost astonished at the number of credits the pouch contained.

“For your inconvenience Ma’am,” DarkHawk said. A’lora realizing she had momentarily taken her gaze off the Sadowan. She looked up to watch the Battlelord step off the arena and into the abyss.

“NOOOOOOOO…..” she screamed.

DarkHawk tucked himself into a ball and transition himself into a dive. Gaining enough speed from the plunge, the Equite depressed a button on his gauntlet, which extracted a large pair of wings housed within his wingpack. The mechanical appendages cut through the air and allowed the Quaestor to glide safely through the enourmous ravine.