Built from the shell of an ancient foundation, the Arx Colosseum has undergone renovations to allow multiple new configurations for battle. Its spectator setup remains largely the same, with high walls, tall enough for even the most savvy Jedi to find unscalable that lead up to spectator chairs which are divided into nearly organized sections to accommodate several thousand people. At the center, an elongated platform “box” contains a central throne of stone with various seats of smaller scale lined beside it in both directions. Two large holo-projection screens are set up on each side of the Colosseum, offering different angles of the match bia holocam drones.

Today’s setup is known as The Shanty Town.

Hundreds of shipping containers line the arena floor, some stacked tall, others singular obstacles forming the walls of a complex maze. Each has been converted to function as housing, windows, doors, even furnishments added to further sell the illusion of it being a living town.

While the only real life contained within is today’s combatants, that is far from the only level of danger found within.

Dozens of armed and battle-ready droids hide in wait. Turrets and barricades line the narrow passageways of the town. Expertly hidden mines wait to trigger with every step. Make no mistake, the Shanty Town is ready to kill all who enter it. Embracing its chaos, and surviving is no easy feat.

Kamjin peered around the corner of the shipping container he was hugging. When Idris had approached him to participate in the latest skill contest, he had thought himself more than up for the task. However, now, it felt like being back in the HuttBall arena thirty years past his prime. He was getting too old to sneak around in a maze of shipping containers. Worse, he was unaware that Idris would be setting up dangerous traps throughout it versus a single opponent.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Kamjin muttered to himself as he braved the exposed corridor. To his shock, a Nautolan stepped out in response. It’s not often that the Justicar found himself at a loss for words. “Hey, are you my opponent?”

The oceanic black skin, stretched over bulking muscles, of the Nautolan seemed muted in the sunlight. As the man approached, he made several movements with his hands. Kamjin didn’t recognize the sign language but knew he was trying to communicate. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Kamjin said, his hand fumbling to remember something in Imperial basic sign language. He stopped quickly before embarrassing himself as the Nautolan clearly was trying to communicate. “I don’t understand,” Kamjin repeated. “Are we here to fight?” He made two fists and knocked them together. “Or are we here to work together?” He opened his fists and shook his hands while raising his eyebrows in anticipation for a reply.

If Foxen could process the emotions that were bubbling beneath his subconscious, he’d have been annoyed instead of the nothing that permeated his conscious mind. In a blur of motion he whipped out his DE-21 pistol, “We fight.” Kamjin muttered a curse as he ignited his blood-red blade and blocked the barrage of slugs sent his way. Unlike blaster fire the slugs melted into molten slag, dropping as he looked for cover. There was no way up given the ridiculously high stack of containers. He made a note to question the Combat Master’s budget if he survived this encounter.

He ignited his icy blue blade and, rather crudely, cut a hole in the nearest container. The usual elegance was ruined by the rapidly approaching Nautolan, who was benefiting from not having any blaster fire directed back at him. As soon as the container's wall fell to the ground with a thud, Kamjin ducked into the opening.

Foxen rushed forward, skidding to a halt outside the reach of the glowing hole. He replaced his slugthrower in favor of his Beskar Kal dagger and peered into the abyss. On the other side of the container, another glowing hole, this time made with more care, steamed in the fractured light. He stepped cautiously into the container. If ever there was a time he wished he could blink, this was it. He exhaled and took in the situation. In a blur he round-housed behind him.

Kamjin grunted as the foot connected with his gut. He didn’t have time to think about how the Nautolan had figured out he had tried to conceal himself. While doubled over the Justicar rushed at Foxen, tackling him to the ground. The trained Imperial attempted to grapple the Nautolan into a choke hold, struggling with the multiple headtails. Foxen went for a reverse with better success, grabbing onto the Justicar’s arm and painfully pulling it up the Justicar’s back.
Kamjin howled with pain as he scrambled both feet up the wall of the container and propelled himself back with augmented strength.

Foxen’s grip slackened and the Justicar took the opportunity to sprint out the other side of the container for more open ground.

One might have thought the Justicar to be intelligent enough not to tackle and put himself into grappling position with a much more physically massive foe.

Then again, intelligence wasn't exactly a job requirement for being a loyalist lackey touting the law of tyrants.

Shocked.

He's shocked.

With a flex of his abdominal muscles and pump of his legs, the Nautolan hybrid kipped back upright and prowled after his opponent through the second slag-dripping opening. He didn't rush. This ramshackle arena was littered with traps and other banthafodder "creative obstacles." He had counted 37 mines between the starting gate pen and their current position alone.

It was ridiculous. But the mission was: defeat the enemy. And so he would.

Confirm.

Lap'limez was waiting for him on the other side, swiping a crimson plasma blade at him in a casually deceptive manner meant to appear like a poor feint. Foxen recognized the form; he had been watching and practicing it with Flyndt for hours upon hours. So instead of twisting back away from the stab only to end up bisected when it was redirected, he reversed his grip and clocked his arm up, backhanding the lightsaber away from his sternum and back towards the Human's ageless and tired face. The Justicar yelled, baring stim-stained teeth when Foxen bared down, shoving the blade close enough with sheer weight and force to fill the immediate space around them with the stench of smoking skin and hair and bubbling fat.

"GAH!" roared the Human, jerking his head back and instinctively trying to push in return. It was futile, and the Nautolan saw one hand twitch towards his belt for another lightsaber before aborting to maintain his two-handed grip on the current weapon, holding it at bay. Snarling, Kamjin's eyes bled a fetid yellow as he surged forward with the same strength that had allowed him to escape before. His boots dug furrows in the churned sand as he bullied Foxen backwards enough to break the lock, saber sliding along beskar with a stringent song.

The Nautolan flowed with his disengagement, spinning the momentum into another roundhouse kick that slammed into the Justicar and sent him sprawling. His red blade deactivated as it rolled from his grip, a furious, blacken-edged weal of puckered red imprinted vertically across his face from chin to nose to hairline, red eyes unblinking staring him down. The pencil-pushing judge, jury, and executioner stared back and spat.

"Alright, you overgrown frog," he seethed, gaze burning. He lifted a hand and the discarded saber whipped back through the air and home to his palm before Foxen could stomp on it. The blade reignited as Lap'limez rose to his feet. "If that's how you want to play it…just wait right there."

Foxen expected another lunge after that basic attempt at taunting. Instead, he watched as the Justicar turned and ran. And that seemed…not worth chasing yet.

He was…waiting…right…there…

The vision blurred. The mind reared back and roared, screeching:

DENY DENY DENY.

RESET.

CONFIRM MISSION: MISSION: DEFEAT ENEMY.

The hybrid shook his head viciously, brain rebooting its own algorithm from the invading malware command.

He spotted Kamjin now 8.9 m away.

1.03 seconds of befuddlement followed before Foxen took off after the fraker, steps placed with utmost care that would look like drunken leapfrogging to the observers in the stands. He sheathed his dagger and drew the pistol again with newly enthusiastic lethal intent as he barreled towards his quarry, quickly gaining even against what was obviously preternatural speed.

He had tried to offer a chance for the male to forfeit. For no violence. It was what Flyndt would have wanted, what both of them would have preferred— no more fraking trauma. The Human hadn't understood, and there was no way he was going to type to a jediit of such power. This murder was absolved. If the Grand Tyrant was upset his lapdog was killed in this arena, that was too bad. He still owed the winner a boon.

Or so was their hope for this self-stroking fiasco.

Foxen skidded to a stop, aimed, and fired. Kamjin pivoted on his toe and batted the bullets into molten droplets that littered the ground. Red eyes tracked one such ounce of metal land a precarious 2 cm from a mine. His finger paused on the trigger.

One explosion would surely trigger the others in a chain, and there were a lot around them. This was too dangerous.

Baring teeth, he holstered the slugthrower and was reaching for his beskar when he saw what was just ahead of Lap'limez: another mine.

And the Justicar was about to fraking step on it.

The hand reached for small knives. The arm chambered. Foxen calculated angles, threw.

One.

Two.

Three.

PINGPINGPING! rang the sheet metal of the shipping containers building a dystopia around them. One after another the throwing knives ricocheted off the walls and speared the fabric of Kamjin's cape before carrying on into the opposite container, nailing him there in a length at intervals that would support his dispersed weight and arrested momentum. The Human jerked to a halt as he was yanked slightly sideways and choked by the clasp of his decades-out-of-fashion cloak, eyes bulging slightly with the breath. He hung suspended, tipping forward, for 4.6 seconds of relief.

And then a fraking goddamn ripping sound started and Foxen swore in silence and dove.

A massive black hand, four-fingered, clamped around the back of the Justicar's neck just as he dropped those last few feet. His straight, burned nose hung centimeters above the mine, now clearly visible and obvious even to him this close. Foxen could feel him swallow, nearly pressed to his back as he was, arm outstretched, holding the Human back from incinerating them both in sheer stupidity.

He was not dying because of a cheap fanboy knockoff of First Order regalia. He had too much with Flyndt to live for.

The Justicar wheezed.

"I'm going to push us back now…" he warned, showing a glimmer of aptitude and survival instinct. His free hand lifted palm out, away from the mine but still at the ground, to telekinetically leverage them back up.

Unfortunately, that was the moment when a "door" in one corrugated container apartment opened on the second level, issuing forth a battle droid that immediately opened fire down upon them.

The hell with it, Kamjin thought as he saw the battle droid open fire. He threw his energy forward, pushing both Foxen and himself against the wall. He smirked as this had the immediate benefit of avoiding the barrage of blaster fire and the secondary benefit of knocking the wind out of the Nautolan. With a sweep of his left hand he sent the mine careening towards the battle droid.

As the mine slammed into the droid, it exploded into thousands of metallic fragments. Kamjin pulled his tattered cloak over his face to shield himself from the debris. “Sithspit!” He had forgotten about the searing cut on his face. “Enough of this. No more Mister nice Hutt…I mean, Justicar,” Kamjin said, slowly tilting his head checking for a concussion. Why had he said Hutt?

Kamjin stretched out his arms and the ground shook. Dozens of mines rose from the ground. Kamjin grunted as the pulsing detonator lights strained in battle between metallic precision and mystic energy fields trying to prevent fate. If Foxen’s red eyes could have blinked they would have when realization hit him.

He knew what was coming as thirty-seven mines, in a row, came hurling at him. Foxen scrambled to his feet. He hoped the narrow corridor the shipping containers had made would be close enough as he began to parkour his way between the two walls. The mines began to explode where he had been. His heart raced as his body became flushed with lactic acid. He felt his muscles burn from the strain as he struggled to stay ahead of the mushrooming fireball.

He saw that the Justicar had already begun beating his own escape from the destruction he had unleashed. The human was dual wielding his blood-red and icy blue sabers as other battle droids had rushed to the scene, attracted by the explosions. Foxen heard an echoing deny in his head as he had one objective at the moment; survival.

Despite the years of training, exercise, and resolve, the explosion caught up to Foxen. The Nautolan felt himself propelled unnaturally forward in the air. As his limbed flailed he overtook the Justicar. Kamjin looked up in shock at the flying Nautolan. He chuckled to himself. Remembering an old saying about ‘when Nautolan’s fly’ and continued to turn the battle droids into molten slag.

Foxen came to a skidding halt on the dusty ground. His skin was red and raw from the roadburn, but he was alive. He was mad. He might not have been processing it like a normal humanoid, but he was furious at the Justicar. As he pushed himself off the ground he cocked his vambrace. Dozens of whistling birds rocketed forth towards the Justicar.

Kamjin glanced over the shoulder of the most recent battle droid and saw the barrage approaching him. He’s still alive? Kamjin thought as he locked his hilts together. Like a waterfall, the blue and red blades became violet. With his now free hand, he lifted the battle droid up to the brunt of the attack.

Yet again a wall of fire exploded near him. Before he could clear his vision, he was knocked to the ground. He momentarily caught the vision of some weirdly shaped bird flying past him. But the wings were metallic. That couldn’t be right.

Above him, Foxen hovered on his winged jetpack. He was going to kill this man and, with any luck, he’d get to do it with his bare hands.

The Justicar, even with dilated pupils in the bright light that indicated concussion, wasted little time reacting to his flight. The Human struck out with both hands, one pointed at Foxen's hovering form, the other in the direction of yet more approaching droids climbing over slagged scrap metal shanties. White-violet light seethed along his smoking arms and coruscated through the superheated air with a violent, vicious crackling, striking out at massive durasteel bodies and the flying Mandalorian alike.

Foxen juked aside with a snarl, clumsy in flight compared to on the ground, and barely managed to dodge the lashing tongues of lightning. The droids were not programmed for survival as he was; they barreled on regardless of the assault, singular in blasting Kamjin away, only stopping when their chassis exploded. More shrapnel tore through the arena, slicing into skin and sinew and steel.

Above and around them, an ignored buzz, the crowd roared. Thirty-seven explosions and light shows were approved. The rage brought sharpness. The pain brought focus, burning with every heartbeat so badly that it was impossible to slip back into the echoes of memory. And the Mission gave it all absolute focus.

Survive: confirm.

Win this match, win the boon: confirm.

Kill the Justicar: con-fraking-firm.

Snarling, the Nautolan hybrid twisted himself back around in a long and dangerous arc, unable to make rapid pinpoint aerial maneuvers with his bulk. It was enough, though, to send him on the right course, and he swooped low through the carcasses of rent containers and carbines to smash into Lap'limez.

The Human saw and sensed him coming, of course, and threw his hands back up to toss Foxen backwards with an invisible wall?will of kinetic force. The Nautolan pinwheeled midair with it, headtails flying, but was uncaring of the disorientation. He had a target. He lifted his vambrace again, aimed, and fired.

The fibrocord shot out, not pushed like Foxen was, and coiled with a whistling srrk around the Sith's legs. Kamjin’s shout was cut off in his pancaked diaphragm when the Mandalorian mercilessly engaged maximum thrusters and yanked the Justicar along with him. Abruptly, Kamjin was flying too.

They didn't get too high with the excessive mass of two adult males, barely above the ledge of the viewing ring some twenty meters up, but it was enough for his plan. With a slash, Foxen's beskar dagger sliced cleanly through the line, and Kamjin fell.

The Nautolan twisted and dove after him.

Cries and roaring rose from the crowd as the Justicar plummeted, the wild anticipation of a drop and impact. Kamjin was a Master of the Force, however. As the sandy, dry wind whipped his heavily armored robes and short salted hair, burning his eyes, he gritted his teeth and defied his fate, extending his hands. Just as he had pushed them away from the mine before, this time he pushed again, causing an enormous plume of the arena's dirt floor to erupt into the sky with the rebuke of a comet falling. Foxen trailed him as a dark tail.

They dropped into the dust cloud.

A collective gasp rose from the stands.

Camera droids swarmed like angry killiks.

Kamjin floated there, stretched out just above the floor of debris, utterly still. His grimace stretched into a wild, giddy grin, and he laughed as he gently flopped the last few inches.

And then seven meters above him, Foxen cut his jetpack engines entirely and dropped down with a chambered knee upon the Human's back.

A SNAP and a series of crunching, grinding crkcrkcrkcracks were so loud they drowned out the Justicar's sudden scream. Foxen bore down, grabbing the man by the back of his neck, hand encompassing nearly his whole head. His knee ground into Kamjin's lower back, rolling over crushed lumbar vertebrae and snapped sacrum, the other pining further down the broken leg that sprawled at a 123° angle now loose from its shattered hip cradle. While his trick had worked, he hadn't achieved his goal of snapping the spine completely, as Kamjin's omniscience had warned him in a heartbeat to try and roll away.

Annoying.

To the Justicar's credit, the jediit was still resisting. Unwilling tears leaked from his burnished, rot-yellow eyes, stained teeth bared back at Foxen's unmoved and unblinking face as the Nautolan reversed his grip on his dagger and lifted the Human's head to place it under his chin. Though it sliced into his neck to do it, still Kamjin spoke, power lacing his voice once more.

"Let…me…go. Go walk. Onto that mine."*

Foxen felt the fingers digging into his mind, the command thrusting into gray matter spaces uninvited, violating with every word. It pushed inside him, trying to break, taking...

DENY.

NO.

NO.

No no no.

No. He would not be a slave in a pit like this again. He would not lose his mind, lose himself, again. He wouldn't.

He had a Mission.

He had a Home to go back to— Flyndt.

Whose feathers he wore around his neck under this armor, armor Flyndt had helped craft him just for this.

Confirm, he thought, a roar back, and wrestled and threw off his mental aggressor. Back in their burned and broken bodies there was only stillness, the crowd rising to boos for the moment suspended too long with a knife at the throat.

Foxen breathed in.

No, he wasn't going to be like he had been under that collar anymore. He would choose parameters: win, but non-lethally when possible.

The Nautolan hybrid withdrew his blade and slammed the Justicar's face down into the ground. Once. Twice.

Again.

Again.

And again.

Only when he was certain the concussion and broken facial bones would be too much to summon lightning and make brain invasions did he stop, rising and taking his opponent with him. With his legs – bound and partially shattered – dragging behind him, face a swollen pulp around the burn wound, Kamjin looked more Hutt than Human.

Foxen turned and found one of the camera droids. He locked red eyes on it, then lifted his free hand, pounded his chest twice, then lifted two fingers up and out towards the sky. It was a salute to his Omwati, and whether or not they knew the meaning, the spectators still yowled for it. He only cared for a few voices in that cacophony, though.

Lifting Kamjin over one shoulder and feeling his skin peel in a burnt strip with the motion, Foxen looked for the nearest gate and started towards it. He'd throw the Justicar to the medics and let them deal with it.

He had another fight to win.