Unlike the Gungan’s submerged capital below Naboo, Jan-gwa rests partially underwater; the majority of the city remaining above the water’s surface. A waterfall runs along the cliffs behind Jan-gwa, creating a veil of mist around the base of the city’s rounded platforms. Nocturnally illuminated, domed structures encompass the center of each platform and are home to Jan-gwa’s Gungan inhabitants. Some of the these structures extend below the water’s surface, creating an anchor that keeps Jan-gwa from floating with the currents and provides shelter to hundreds of Gungans.

Etched into the cliff walls are several faces of unknown origin. Resembling a humanoid with unembellished features, these carvings are not reminiscent of the city’s Gungan inhabitants—perhaps an indication that some other civilization might have resided near the floating city.

Jang-gwa City one of the most bizarre and baffling locales Grot had ever visited. The strange, sloping, bubble-shaped architecture of the Gungans was like nothing else on Naboo, and rose half out of the water like a collection of bubbles in the froth of the nearby waterfall. Sheer, grey cliffs towered up through the mist, the ancient carved faces on their surface just visible in the gloomy illumination at night.

Grot was disturbed by the faces most of all. Weathered away by wind and rain, their alien features still clung stubbornly to the cliffs and leered down evilly through the mists. They reminded the mercenary of the stories his mother used to tell by the fire to frighten him. Evil spirits which lurked in the woods— gangly, bright-eyed insects with razor claws which they used to slice and steal the skin of their prey. They lurked quietly in the mist wearing their stolen skins as a disguise to trick young children and unwary hunters into their lair.

"Oi! Yousa gonna buy anything?"

Grot growled in response, scaring off the bartender who interrupted him. The Gungan stalked off muttering, his jowls shaking as he quietly cursed the Trandoshan. His thoughts thusly interrupted, Grot turned from the window he'd been staring out of and turned inside towards the club.

The club was dark, dank, and insufferably popular. The sort of place the rich go to feel alive, and the poor go to stay alive scamming the rich. Blue light brightly illuminated the dance floor and pulsed with a bassy dance track that thrummed through the air. The sound was low and distorted as if it were being played underwater, and had a distinctly disorienting sensation to it that the intoxicated patrons loved. Farther in the back there were gambling tables surrounded by gangsters and cheats, and off to the side a set of doors lead to the private VIP rooms, with a pair of thickset bouncers barring the way.

The people in the club were just as eclectic as the city they resided in. Jang-gwa was the one place the eccentric and reclusive society of the Gungans collided with the outside world, with decidedly chaotic results. Diplomats rubbed shoulders with tribal chiefs, and tourists got harassed by tribal warriors on the towns sloping walkways. Gangsters and thugs found the city an attractive port to do business, shipping drugs and illicit goods into the secretive Gungan cities, and the eyes of Gungan police were ever watchful for their activities and those of foreign spies.

It was a report by these police that brought Grot hunting here, though the mist made his skin itch and his armor swelter with humidity. A Zeltron trawling the cities entertainment district, making trouble and sending the gangsters running scared.

A Sith making trouble in Jang-gwa

Grot scanned the bar one last time and hissed in frustration. He'd been here for hours, and was determining quickly that tonight would be yet another failure. This was the third bar he'd been to tonight, and still no sign of the mysterious Zeltron. He stood, his heavy armor thudding as he got to his full height, and made his way to the door. Yet on his way he stopped, turning up his head and sniffing the air. He felt his heart beat faster, his face flush and hormones frizz and fly as a thick pheromone cocktail started to worm its way insidiously into his system. The unmistakable scent of his prey.

A Zeltron.

The mercenary whirled around, snarling in victory. Sure enough at the other side of the dance floor was pink-skinned Zeltron, giggling and hanging off the arm of a well-dressed business as they stumbled out of the VIP lounge. Flustered and red-faced, the businessman followed her like a lost puppy as they wormed through the dance-floor over to the bar, a bottle swinging in the redheaded alien's hand.

Grot stalked over to confront them, the crowd parting as he marched up to the pair and stopped them just short of their destination. The Zeltron maintained a careful, flippant air but her eyes were suddenly shrewd. She looked in his direction cautiously, but the man had no such inhibitions and moved in front of her protectively.

"Seraine." Grot growled, glaring down behind his helmet at the redhead.

"Hey stooge, back off—"

"Baby, it's alright, just, like, an old ex." The zeltron murmured sweetly in a fake, bubblegum voice. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt. I'll get the bouncer to handle him." She twirled her hair to punctuate her sentence, fluttering her eyes at the good-looking businessman.

"Erinyes, I can take this nerf-herder—"

"Go back to the room, honey." Her voice was still sweet, but laced with hidden power and strength. The man's eyes glazed and he nodded uneasily, breaking off towards the exit. The Zeltron sighed, letting a little frustration show, and turned to face the mercenary.

With a smile she continued her path to the bar and Grot fell in behind her. "So, who are you? And, like, where did you hear that name?" She asked, her hips swaying as she walked.

"Grot. We know much morr about you than your name. You've not been subtle."

"I could if I wanted to," Erinyes said with a sly smile and grabbed a drink from the bartender. "Don't tell me those two gangster goons went and hired a merc to shake me down? Oh I'm sooo terrified!" She punctuated her act with a fake swoon, raising her hand to her forehead and squealing with laughter. Grot hissed with anger, seething at her mockery, but tried to keep his cool.

"You have been gone a long time Seraine. The Brotherhood does not forget its own."

Erinyes eyes flickered at the mention of the brotherhood, and she took a sip of her drink to cover it. Her mind raced with possibilities, and she spent a moment considering her next words.

"What gave me away?" She asked.

"Not everyday a Gungan detective winds up dead with a lightsaber wound in his gullet."

"Hmph! Honestly, that pompous frog is still giving me headaches…," she murmured, furrowing her brow. Her voice was mocking again as she asked, "What exactly are you going to do about it jar-head?"

Grot hissed at the jibe, feeling his blood rise. "The Gungan? Nothing. You? You get a choice. A Sith of your esteem is not something that can be left alone. Your too much of a threat, but also an asset. Arcona wants to offer you employment, and protection. The Shadow Clan can see you well rewarded for your skill."

Erinyes made a show of considering the offer. She tucked a long, slim finger under her chin and took a delicate sip of her drink, humming in that high-pitched bubblegum voice she liked to affect. Waiting just long enough to annoy the Trandoshan she smiled and declared, "Nope! Not ready to settle down yet sweety, and certainly not with Arcona. Now trot on back to your master like a good pup and let him know."

The woman punctuated her speech with a laugh, but inwardly prepared for violence. She reached down to her lightsaber, ready to react at a moments notice. Grots shoulder heaved with anger, and he clutched his hands into tight fists.

"You will regret that, witch!"

The mercenary turned around in a huff and the sith relaxed slightly as he trudged away. She poured a bit more from her bottle into a glass, but felt an icy chill run up her spine and prick at the nape of her neck before she could drink it. Without thinking she flung the bottle at Grot, who was spinning back on his heel, a pistol in his hand in moments. Three loud shots rang out and the deadly accurate missiles rocketed towards Erinyes.

Her sabers were out before the first shot, the bright blades springing to life in a flutter of motion as she jumped up to the bar. The trio of slugs evaporated on her whirling blades, spatters of slag and molten metal singing her dress and casting bright sparks into the air. With supernatural speed she leped from the bar, her body spinning with grace and ease through the air as she tried to close the distance.

Below her the bottle of alcohol found its mark, spattering harmlessly across the Trandoshan's thick armor, but dousing his helmet with bright green liquid. He directed his aim upward, but with his vision so clouded the shots went wide around the aerial Sith. Dropping his pistol in desperation, Grot drew his sword in a last ditch defense as the Zeltron descended upon him.

There was a brief moment of surprise for Erinyes as, far from melting through the sword, her sabers sparked and locked against the alchemically treated blade. Dodging diagonally away, the Trandoshan took advantage of her momentary distraction with a kick, the heavy armored boot connecting firmly with her stomach. Erinyes fell backwards, the wind knocked out of her, but swiftly transitioned into a roll. With a backflip she jumped out of the way any follow-up and took cover behind the bar.

"You're no ordinary merc are you!" She called out, struggling to be heard as the club panicked around them. Patrons and staff alike struggled to flee the area, crying and screaming as they went. She took advantage of her brief safety to consider a plan of attack, but her opponent would not surrender the initiative so easily.

"I am a hunter!" Grot growled back proudly, reaching towards his belt, "and I always get my prey!" With only a few seconds of hesitation to cook the grey orb in his hand, he sent it sailing over the bar towards Erinyes. Peeking out from cover, the Zeltron saw the mad red flashing of a thermal detonator zooming towards her.

“Maybe you should hunt for a more original slogan!” Erinyes winced at the bruise she felt forming where Grot had kicked her, not to mention how the shrapnel from his slugthrower rounds had ruined her dress. She couldn’t afford to worry about that now, though, not with a thermal detonator sailing toward her. The Force had already warned her of the impending danger, and if Trandoshans weren’t so kriffing strong, Erinyes might’ve just pinned the explosive to his hand before he'd had the chance to throw it. Instead, she deactivated her lightsabers and extended one hand to telekinetically “catch” the thermal detonator, then flicked her wrist to return the weapon to its sender.

Grot, to his credit, had a better head for self-preservation than he did for branding. The hunter hissed with surprise and annoyance as he saw the silver sphere reverse its course. He turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, his long, loping stride carrying him over any obstacle his sheer body mass didn’t knock aside. At the last possible second, as the thermal detonator’s blinking light turned to a steady glow and its beeping was replaced with a whine, the Trandoshan hurled himself at the now-unguarded doors of the VIP room. A crack reverberated through the bar, and Grot tumbled forward into the empty space as everything glowed white.

Erinyes, meanwhile, had bolted at the same time as her opponent. Instead of plowing through the obstacles in her path, she drew on the Force and used a table as a springboard to leap atop a wall sconce. The fragile fixture started to give way the moment her foot touched it, but by the time the ornament landed on the floor, Erinyes had already pivoted and launched herself up to the domed ceiling. With her lightsabers still occupying her hands, the Adept didn’t have much choice but to land on her back on a crossbeam, as though she’d failed an attempt at a high jump. The landing was far less graceful than she normally demanded of herself, but at least it meant that she was looking away from the thermal detonator when it went off.

Blinding light flashed through the club when the baradium fusion reaction began. The cacophonic dance music fizzled into nothing as the power conduits feeding the audio system were vaporised, replaced by the hiss of flash-heated steam when the torrent of energy finished scouring the floor away and met the water below the building. For a brief moment, the Adept caught the scent of singed hair, and yelped a little when she realised the edge of the thermal detonator’s blast had fried the tips of her waist-length mane. Thankfully, the cloud of steam that now erupted through the bar prevented Erinyes’ hair from fully igniting. Sighing with relief, the Zeltron briefly debated who she should be more worried about: the Trandoshan, or whatever her stylist would do to her when she tried to explain what happened.

No matter how much Erinyes feared her stylist’s wrath, though, Grot was definitely the more urgent problem. Erinyes reached out with her Force senses to divine the Trandoshan’s location through the blinding steam: there, on the far side of the bar. Then, she craned her neck back to look “up” at the floor and ignited her left-hand lightsaber. Still tracking her opponent’s movements with the Force, Erinyes flung the active weapon at the Trandoshan. Guided by the Adept’s will, the spinning lightsaber burned an amethyst trail through the mist as it sliced toward Grot. She sensed a spike of pain from the Trandoshan when her blade slashed through the wall and struck him, but it was quickly replaced by anger and determination to keep fighting; the attack hadn’t done enough damage to neutralise him as a threat.

Frowning, Erinyes drew the Force into her body she waited for her lightsaber to return. The second the cylindrical hilt hit her palm, she rolled sideways off the ceiling beam and let herself fall to the floor, landing with a cat’s grace despite her ten-centimetre stilettos—which, in hindsight, was probably what had given her away as a Sith Elder in the first place. She heard Grot’s footsteps echoing across the bar as he stomped in the general direction of where the lightsaber had come from. His pace was slow and deliberate, and Erinyes sensed him shove his anger out of his mind.

Well, he wouldn’t be a very good hunter if he rushed headlong into everything, she mused to herself. Still, Erinyes suspected that if she could keep Grot disoriented long enough to close the distance, the battle would be over quickly; the hunter didn’t seem like the type who would lure an opponent into melee range by pretending he was a distance fighter. Not wanting to waste the relative safety of the steam cloud obscuring Grot's vision, Erinyes cocked her arm and flung her lightsaber a second time. A moment later, another spike of pain blossomed in Erinyes’ Force senses, and the Trandoshan’s roar echoed through the club, followed by the sound of a heavy object crashing into the floor. She felt his anger rearing up again, and how it took more effort for him to shove it aside than before. Good.

The adept picked up her pace, effortlessly leaping over the gaping hole in the bar’s floor as she approached her opponent through the fog. By instinct, she raised her hand to catch her returning lightsaber, only to hurl it at Grot a third time. He’d probably figured out what her trick was by now, she guessed, but his knowing her tricks wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t stop her from doing it. With the way the steam was cloaking everything in the bar, by the time she got close enough for Grot to see her and line up a shot, it would be too la–

Suddenly, twin thunderclaps erupted from Grot’s direction, followed by a faint glow and a bang. Erinyes stopped in her tracks when she felt her telekinetic hold over her lightsaber break, blinking in confusion. How did he do that? He’s not Force-sensi– The Adept let out an annoyed growl when she realised what had happened. He shot it out of the air. He kriffing shot it out of the air. Her remaining lightsaber dropped into her right hand, and the amethyst blade flared to life almost of its own accord. The self-righteous Gungan with his “meesa gonna take you in” had been irritating, but nothing a quick stab with a lightsaber and a few drinks someone else paid for hadn’t fixed. She could’ve lived with this lizard crashing her party; it wasn’t exactly hard to find businessmen with wandering eyes and full credit chips. Replacing her dress wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be a hassle, and “hassle” was one of Erinyes’ least favourite words. Her lightsabers, though? Those were two of the few things she valued enough to never leave them behind, no matter how long she spent wandering the galaxy, and now this reptile-shaped pain in the ass had literally blown one of them to pieces. Oh, she knew full well that it was partly her own fault for letting herself get predictable—anyone who hunts Dark Jedi for a living isn’t stupid enough to fall for the same trick three times in a row—but why take it out on herself when she had a much more satisfying target nearby?

Another flash of light brought Erinyes’ attention fully back to her surroundings, this one accompanied by a roaring whoosh. The Force sketched an image in the Adept’s mind, and she reached out with her free hand to telekinetically seize a nearby table. With a flick of her wrist, Erinyes sent the piece of furniture soaring—just in time to knock Grot’s jetpack, which had been rocketing directly at her, off-course. The personal propulsion unit shot upward and smashed a gaping hole in the ceiling, and the chill of the night air was stark against Erinyes’ skin as the steam that had filled the club began pouring out of the newly-created vent.

Conveniently, the jetpack’s passage had left a contrail swirling in the mist. Erinyes refreshed the Force energy flowing through her body and charged forward, following the clear trail that, ironically, led straight to the hunter. When Grot’s silhouette appeared in the thinning fog, Erinyes felt a warning in the Force and launched herself into the air, twisting into a corkscrew maneuver that any starfighter pilot would’ve envied. The rounds from Grot’s slugthrower pistols passed harmlessly beneath her, and the Adept extended her lightsaber forward like the point of a spear.

The Trandoshan must have seen the lightsaber blade cut a streak through the mist, because he had the presence of mind to duck as the Zeltron sailed towards him. He also must’ve realised that shooting her at this range would be a lot harder than shooting one of her lightsabers, since by the time Erinyes landed and spun to face him, Grot had dropped his pistols and drawn his sword. “Scorekeeper smiles today. Many Jagganath points for your death,” he said, with a rasping hiss that Erinyes assumed was the Trandoshan equivalent of a chuckle.

With a deep breath to banish her pain and fatigue, Erinyes let her Force senses fade—she didn’t exactly need them anymore—then seized one of the VIP room’s chairs with the Force and hurled it at Grot. The Trandoshan snarled swatted the flying furniture aside with his sword, only to see the Adept emerge from the chair’s shadow, having used her Force-amplified speed to close the distance between them in an eyeblink. Erinyes allowed herself the barest of smiles as she slashed horizontally across Grot’s torso, hearing the sizzle of vaporising blood and smelling burnt flesh as her lightsaber carved a deep gash through his stomach. The Trandoshan staggered back, clutching the fresh wound, and Erinyes fixed him with a venomous glare.

“You should’ve kept walking.” There was no trace of the pink-skinned party girl left in the Zeltron’s voice; now, it was only the angry Sith Adept. “Time to see your Scorekeeper’s smile firsthand.”

Grot stumbled backwards and snarled. He gritted his teeth from the sheer pain of his wounds and it took all his concentration not to cry out in agony. The club lighting flickered intermittently and the music still droned from a lone, undamaged speaker. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Erinyes twirled her remaining lightsaber menacingly as she advanced. "Give it up Trando', I don't have a lot of time to deal with you before the Gungans come knocking"

"Sham ba lu mi lowe guage!" Grot hissed back, reverting to his native tongue. Reaching down to his belt with a free hand he drew a grey and orange tube. With a quick flick of the wrist it was activated, and a cloud of sickly green gas began to pour out as he summoned the last of his energy to charge.

Erinyes didn't have to speak Dosh to get that message.

Their two blades clashed, dull steel against plasma, and the room filled with a mist of Grot's own making. The mercenary felt like an evil spirit had come alive and inhabited his body, a terrible, bug-eyed spirit with razor claws.

Erinyes dodged backwards, holding her breath as the gas engulfed her. With her power and will she could slow her body and stretch a single breath out beyond the limits of a mere mundane— though the mercenary seemed to have no such concerns for the poison. She felt her body slow and her mind fog as she fought, her muscles crying out for oxygen.

Even able to predict every strike and blow she could no longer move fast enough to parry them all, and settled for twisting and dodging around. The sharp blade shredded her dress and drew remarkably close to her skin as the Trandoshan charged forward, growling like an animal and hooting in his strange, alien tongue. Her muscles screamed, her head ached, The fight was drawing put beyond all reason and it was a struggle to keep moving under such pressure.

Grot, however, could not keep ignoring his wounds, and as he went in for a strike he stumbled, the pain overwhelming him as he did. Erinyes leapt in for the kill, her blade flashing, but a sudden twist of Grot's torso surprised her. Far from a killing blow her blade went to the side as she dodged a strike meant for her neck, severing the Trandoshan's arm even as his blade ripped a gash in her cheek.

The arm went soaring off and the canister rolled away with it. With a short thrust of her powers the Zeltron sent it skimming into the other room so the gas could start to dissipate. With a smile she looked down to the Trandoshan on the floor.

He was shaking with shock, his eyes wide and his mouth open. He coughed wetly, trying to struggle out some indecipherable words. With his remaining arm he raised it weakly and pointed at her. She sneered and leaned down, cupping his chin and chancing a breath.

"Good luck in Gungan jail, Trando, I hear they treat terrorists real well."

She straightened up, her face starting to feel oddly numb around the cut. She tried to turn and walk away, eager to get out of the club as the sirens grew louder and closer, but stumbled. Her legs felt weak and her head swam. Behind her, the Trandoshan gave a wet sickly laugh before going quiet, passing out entirely.

Poison, Erinyes thought, stumbling her way out as fast as she could. Evading the police just got a lot more troublesome.

Unfortunately for Erinyes, fear wasn’t the strong emotion Zeltrons were known for inspiring; if Grot was bothered by her threat, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he pulled a cylindrical object from his belt, and whipped it at Erinyes’ feet. The Adept’s leap over his head had left Grot with a chance to reclaim his advantage, and he seized it.

Erinyes sensed the impending danger and sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage while she focused on slowing her body’s metabolism. The moment the grenade hit the ground, a green-white gas came spewing out and coated the floor of the room: dioxis. One breath of that, and she was dead. Erinyes wasn’t too concerned, though; Grot was a ranged fighter, and if his tactics up to now had been any indication, the grenade was just a distraction All she had to do was wait until he ran to take up a firing position, and she could charge out after him without ever having to worry about the poisonous gas.

Except, Grot wasn’t moving. He wasn’t retreating. He wasn’t attacking. He just stood there, his bulk filling the doorframe, hiss-laughing inside his full-coverage armour… armour that must have been environmentally sealed. That was his plan, Erinyes realised. All Grot had to do was force her to stay in the room full of poisonous gas until she took a breath, and it would all be over.

Well, kriff.

As the poisonous gas approached knee height, Erinyes came up with a plan; not a great plan, but under the circumstances, a bad plan was better than none. The Adept stabbed her lightsaber into the floor, then spun in a circle, leaving a molten orange trail around her. Grot clued in to the Adept’s strategy at about 180° and charged forward, swinging his Sith sword low in a bit to cut Erinyes’ legs off at the knee. Rather than bother parrying, Erinyes launched herself into a no-handed cartwheel and let the Trandoshan’s weapon pass harmlessly beneath her until it smacked against the blade of her lightsaber. The impact pushed Erinyes’ blade forward just enough for the two ends of the circle to join, and a metallic creaking sounded through the room as the flooring came free, followed by a splash when the piece of structure hit the water below… and the heavier-than-air dioxis went rushing out after it, venting harmlessly into the atmosphere, just as Erinyes’ lungs felt like they were about to burst. With more caution than she usually employed, the Adept leapt on to a table, getting her face as far away from the poisonous gas as she could before she dared take a breath.

Her relief only lasted a moment before she heard an object, another kriffing grenade, bounce off a nearby wall. Erinyes growled with frustration and extended her free hand toward the object, palm outward, willing a protective field into existence. Barriers didn’t handle explosions well, she knew, but the alternative was diving for cover and landing face-first in the dioxis cloud that was still sinking through the floor. At the last second, the Force warned Erinyes to shut her eyes and look away; an oddly sentimental gesture for a Sith, she thought, until the room flashed bright enough for her to see it through her eyelids.

The sonic imploder’s blast slammed into Erinyes’ shield and shattered it, and the Adept felt herself spinning as the sonic assault disrupted her sense of balance. She managed to stop herself from falling off the table, instead dropping to one knee and turning her wooziness into a spin as she searched for Grot. Unsurprisingly, the Trandoshan was nowhere to be seen; it seemed that, unlike the dioxis, the sonic imploder had been a distraction. At least he’d left his pistols behind, Erinyes noted as she climbed down from the table. Two quick swipes of her lightsaber severed the barrels from the firing chambers, rendering each weapon useless, the Adept spitefully hoped that Grot was as attached to the pistols as she’d been to her destroyed lightsaber.

Once she’d finished defacing her opponent’s weapons, Erinyes emerged from the VIP room into the bar proper, casting her senses out through the Force to locate the Trandoshan. She had barely taken a step when felt another warning through the Force. By instinct, she raised her lightsaber, and heard a deafening boom—another gunshot, much louder than the ones from Grot’s pistols had been—before something slammed into the lightsaber’s blade and sent needles of red-hot metal spraying across the front of her body. The direction of the shot confirmed what Erinyes’ Force senses had told her: Grot had taken up a firing position on the far side of the bar, one elbow resting against a tabletop to steady the long gun he cradled.

“Coward!” Erinyes hadn’t really planned to berate Grot, but now that the insult had slipped out, there was no point in stopping herself. She wasn’t even doing it to try to throw him off his game; she was just frustrated at how the Trandoshan kept forcing her to chase him around the bar, and yelling at him made her feel better.

The comment must’ve stung his pride, though. Grot’s head rose from where he’d been lining up another shot, and Erinyes heard him snarl. “I should kill you for that insult, Sith. I am a hunter, not a coward.”

“What else do you call someone runs away from their prey? You ran when I first told you to frak off. You ran when I turned your thermal detonator against you, and again when you thought you’d have to fight me face to face instead of hiding behind the scope of your rifle. A Trandoshan turning tail and running from a Zeltron? You’re no hunter. You’re a coward, and your Scorekeeper is the god of cowards.” Belatedly, Erinyes wished she’d paid more attention during the Shadow Academy’s lecture on Dun Möch. Maybe she’d read up on it during the trip to wherever she decided to go after she left Naboo.

“Silence!” Grot’s head snapped back down behind the scope of his rifle. In the same moment, Erinyes’ eyes flickered up to the ceiling. As she felt another warning through the Force, she took a deep breath to focus herself, then reached toward a large speaker above Grot’s head and focused her will into telekinetically ripping it from its mountings. When the Trandoshan heard the screech of twisting metal, he looked up and spat something that sounded like a curse, realising that if he stayed in position long enough to take his shot, he’d have several hundred pounds of electronics land directly on his skull.

The next thing Erinyes heard was the crash of the speaker shattering itself and the table beneath it under its weight. When she poked her head out from behind the bar, she saw that Grot was mid-leap, having successfully avoided the falling object—and completely unable to dodge the lightsaber that Erinyes promptly hurled at his stupid reptilian face, despite her fatigue making the weapon feel like its blade actually weighed something. Without solid ground under him, all the Trandoshan could do was raise his arm to block the path of Erinyes’ lightsaber, for what little that gesture was worth.

To Erinyes’ great displeasure, the gesture turned out to be worth quite a bit. A flash and a crackle of energy rang through the air when the lightsaber met Grot’s arm. Personal shield generator, she realised. How many tricks did this kriffing lizard have? At this rate, he might outlast her after all; the mental strain of using the Force to compensate for Grot’s penchant for ranged weapons was taking its toll. If she wanted to win this fight, she’d have to do it fast.

“You know, I take back what I said. You’re not a coward; you’re a fraud. A cheater. A con man. You’re trying to tell people you’re some great hunter, but a Jawa could take down a Sith with a thermal detonator and poison gas. The only way it could be easier is if I stood here and let you shoot me, and you can’t even pull that off,” Erinyes snorted.

Grot’s nostrils flared, and Erinyes heard him start to snarl before he cut himself off. “Scared, Sith? Trying to talk your way out?”

“Hardly.” If the Trandoshan wasn’t taking the bait, Erinyes decided, she’d have to try a more direct approach. She pressed her will against Grot’s, hammering against his mental defences and layering her anger over his own. “I have no reason to fear someone who won’t fight me like a warrior.”

Finally, finally, the dam restraining Grot’s fury broke. The Trandoshan howled something in his native language and tossed his slugthrower rifle aside, and Erinyes felt a warning through the Force as he barrelled towards her, yanking his Sith sword from its scabbard. The Adept practically cackled with glee as she drew the Force inward to quicken her movements, then charged headlong at the enraged Trandoshan, lightsaber glowing like a burning brand through the air.

The first attack was a downward chop that aimed to split Erinyes in half like a log. Erinyes let the Force guide her a half-step to the side, twirling her lightsaber to protect that side of her body in case the Trandoshan managed to divert the path of his strike to follow her, but Grot had committed too far, and his Sith sword smashed a new hole in the club’s floor. For a split-second, Erinyes saw flickers of emotion in the hunter’s eyes: confusion as the mind trick wore off, shame as he figured out that he’d been duped, anger ignited by his own humiliation, and finally fear, when Grot realised that Erinyes had him exactly where she wanted him.

Then the Trandoshan’s momentum carried him forward, and the moment was gone. Erinyes turned an about-face as she took a two-handed grip on her lightsaber, then slashed horizontally at Grot. The Trandoshan threw himself forward, trying to escape Erinyes’ reach, but the tip of the Adept’s lightsaber burned through the backs of his thighs and caused him to stumble. Erinyes leapt and twisted in mid-air, snapping her lightsaber down and into Grot’s path, forcing the Trandoshan to stop and parry the attack.

Still sailing through the air, Erinyes grinned and tapped her lightsaber’s activation stud to extinguish the blade, then immediately re-ignited it on the other side of Grot’s block. The Trandoshan hissed in alarm and reflexively jerked to one side. The panicked movement brought his head out of the weapon’s path, but with his arms effectively hugging Erinyes’ lightsaber, it was impossible for him to avoid the blade before it sliced through his shoulder.

The sharp hiss of air venting from Grot’s environmentally-sealed armour was quickly drowned out by his howl of agony. The Trandoshan’s right arm and sword clattered to the floor, and Erinyes had to scramble not to trip over the detached limb as she lunged at her opponent. Distracted by the pain and shock of his injury, Grot tried to back away, but he didn’t have a snowball’s chance on Mustafar of dodging the Adept’s diagonal downward strike before her lightsaber cleaved through his left thigh. Erinyes let her momentum carry her forward until her shoulder slammed into the Trandoshan’s stomach and sent him crumpling to the floor, gasping and gurgling in pain as he fought to stay conscious.

“Oh, shut up, you kriffing wuss,” Erinyes growled as she extinguished her lightsaber. “This dress cost an arm and a leg, you know, and it’s your own damn fault that they were yours. Besides, you should be thanking me—I’m sure the police will be grateful that you helped them catch the psychopath who blew up a bar with a thermal detonator.” The Adept cocked her head to the side as the sound of approaching sirens caught her ear. “Look, here they come now.”

“You… y-you’ll pay…” Whatever Grot had intended to say was lost in a jumble of his native language and pained groaning.

“Hey. Remember what I said about your slogan? Nobody takes generic threats seriously nowadays, either.” With a self-satisfied smirk, the Adept tucked her lightsaber back in its wrist holster, and started for the exit. On her way out of the bar—and after concentrating far harder than she should’ve needed to—a bottle of Merenzane Gold sailed through the air and into Erinyes’ palm, and she pulled the cork out with her teeth before taking a deep swig. By the time the police speeders arrived to take the Trandoshan troublemaker into custody, the Adept had disappeared into the night.