As Karran Val’teo stepped out into the Arx Colosseum, the sun sat high in the sky, washing out all shadows that might be cast by the shanty town that filled the space. The Sith scanned the scenery ahead of him, cycling through the different filters built into the viewplate of his helmet. His opponent, who was still unknown to him, was not yet visible. The Zabrak’s head moved constantly while he observed his surroundings, as he had to compensate for near total blindness in his left eye. But he was not helplessly blind; the ancestors had seen fit to bless him with a spare.
“Two-Five, go scout and report to me what you find.” The small BD unit that sat on his shoulder cocked its head and then did its best imitation of a sentient rolling its eyes. “Tsst! No sass, Two-Five. Please do as I ask.”
The small droid gave a begrudging but affirmative bee-deet as it hopped down and disappeared into the maze of the arena.
The facade of a shanty town before him was built faithfully to what it was supposed to imitate. Shipping containers stacked to various heights created a diverse environment with many hiding places. At its very center stood the tallest structure—by Karran’s estimate, ten containers tall. The Zabrak calculated in his head, albeit somewhat slowly. Math had never been his greatest strength, but he concluded it had to be around twenty-five meters tall.
“No games of hide-and-seek today,” he muttered to himself.
He drew upon the Force to enhance the muscles in his legs and leaped toward the nearest structure, a single-story shipping container “home.” The force of his bulk impacting against the roof caused the corrugated durasteel to buckle slightly. As the Sith drew himself up to his full height, a high-pitched ringing sounded at the back of his skull, as the Force warned him of imminent danger directly below him.
He looked down as his hearts beat in his chest. He spun away from the spot where he had landed, just as powerful bolts of green energy pierced the metal. As he spun, the Zabrak pulled one of his lightsabers from its leather holster at his thigh, ignited it, and stabbed it downward. His twisting momentum allowed the crimson blade to carve a quick hole in the container's roof and let him drop down into the interior. Now he saw his attacker: an IG model assassin droid armed with a bowcaster. Karran made two quick, practiced movements. The first pulled his blade up diagonally from his left hip up to the right in a reversed grip from where it had remained after he dropped into the room, slashing through the droid’s weapon as it was being pointed in his direction. In the second, he switched his grip to allow for a downward diagonal strike as he stepped forward with his left foot to close the distance. The blade cut from the droid’s right shoulder to its left hip, and it crumpled as sparks flickered from its torso.
Assassin droids. It seemed he would find more than just an unknown sentient opponent in the Colosseum today.
The Sith deactivated his saber and holstered it with a modest flourish before returning to where he had dropped into the container. He summoned a quick burst of strength to jump out of the hole he had cut moments before.
After a series of quick, Force-enhanced jumps, Karran now stood atop one of the mid-sized structures.
“An excellent place to start.”
He dropped to the ground, keeping his mind open to the Force and his senses focused. Still no sign of his enemy. He sniffed and then exhaled sharply through his nose. He smelled only the dry sand. It smelled clean. It was not like the sands of Iridonia, which were rich with the smells of desert plants and acid rains. It was more like his homeworld of Tatooine, where the twin suns had baked away any sign of life. There was no breeze to carry fresh air or new smells.
He straightened his posture and turned his attention to the stack of containers he had just leaped from. With a quick motion, his saber glowed once again. It roared as though it contained the very soul of the Krayt Dragon Pearl contained within. He lashed out once at the corner of the durasteel box and jumped lengthwise along the structure to do the same at the other. The metal creaked and groaned with each cut under the cumulative weight of the identical containers it supported.
The Sith stepped back to observe the now-leaning structure. He reached out with a hand and made a slow pushing motion. The durasteel screamed as the containers tumbled over into the next tower, which was now leaning but refused to fall.
Morax Darkblade’s ears perked as the sound of tearing metal filled the arena, followed by a concussive boom that could be felt even through the heavy boots of his armor.
“What kind of animal did they put in here with me?”
Another round of wrenching durasteel and crashes echoed through the still air. In the distance, the Anzati could see one of the stacks of shipping containers tip to the side and collide with one adjacent to it.
“HK, watch my back.”
Finally, the central tower fell. The shipping containers began to fall in various directions before crashing to the ground, followed by a series of explosions where the debris had fallen. These explosions seemed to set off a chain reaction. The shrapnel created by the detonations scattered, which triggered more explosions.
An intriguing display of violence and destruction. Curious.
Darkblade’s eyes widened slightly behind the viewplate of his helmet, not in fear but in anticipation.
Just outside of the Taldryan’s peripheral vision, a small droid just barely poked its head out to see the sentient and his droid companion. It cycled through the functions of its photoreceptors until the built-in holocam was activated. A short recording of the two figures and their location was all it needed before the droid scampered away.
Karran exhaled as he surveyed the results of his handiwork. The mines had been unexpected, but they had worked toward his plan spectacularly. Before he could become too wrapped up in his self-satisfaction, he heard the whistle of a droid, accompanied by the sound of servos and skittering feet.
“Two-Five. Did you find something?”
As if to answer, the droid projected the recording of the armored sentient and his accompanying droid. Karran examined the figures in the holoprojection. The sentient was wearing a cloak, not dissimilar to his own, which bore an emblem of some kind. However, as much as the Sith wracked his brain, he could not identify it.
“Good work, Two-Five. Take me to them.”
The droid bwirred in the affirmative and took back off through the maze of the shanty town.
The arena was sizable, but not so large that two people could not eventually find each other. Karran skidded to a stop behind cover as he spotted the two figures from the recording. He took a few breaths to steady himself as he kneeled to his little droid.
“Two-Five, I need you to handle his droid with your SCOMP link. I’ll worry about him.”
The BD unit took off like a spooked womp rat across the sand as Karran leaped up to gain the advantage of higher ground. As quick as the little droid was, Two-Five was hard to miss as it dashed toward the HK unit. It quickly drew its blaster and began to fire. Two-Five ducked to the side to dodge the bolts as it closed the distance.
Karran opened himself to the Force and let it stoke the flames within him. He let out a bestial roar and channeled all of his strength into a jump, igniting his lightsaber as he moved through the air.
Darkblade heard the roar and looked up to see an imposing figure hurtling through the air with a crimson saber already ignited. In a moment, he drew his own lightsaber and brought it up to defend. The two blades crashed against each other, followed by a furious flurry of practiced strikes battering against an impenetrable defense of clockwork motions.
As Karran drew near to his target, he felt his connection to the Force weaken. He slowed his assault as the withdrawal caught him off guard momentarily.
If the Force is not with me, then I can only rely on my strength.
Karran redoubled his attack, hammering against his opponent's defense, ignoring the two droids as he sought to push the more heavily armored man back into a corner.
