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 Bridges.

High-suspended walkways cross and weave through multiple levels of platforms. Some are solid, metal and duracrete crafting an unmoving foundation. Others are mere rope and wood, swaying with even the most gentle of breezes.

Below the walkways is a void filled with mist, the ground unseen for combatants and spectators alike. Periodic ripples of electrical energy can be seen through the mist, hinting to the deadly nature of the arena floor below.

Selika stood in what passed for the locker room spaces within the arena, a dimly lit space that occupied the void spaces below the grandstands, readying herself for her next match by pulling on the various pieces of her armor. The Plagueian Consul's third match of this tournament had her annoyed more than the awful weather and tiresome locales of the prior rounds put together.

"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" Selika demanded of the room's only other occupant.

"Did what, exactly?" Idris' electronically distorted voice replied dryly.

"Oh don't give me that blank-helmeted ignorant look," Selika shot back. "You set this match up, and probably had it on the docket from the start."

"I'd never engage in such underhanded, duplicitous behavior," the Voice said. "I just input the order of the competitor's numbers and sort, it's totally random."

"Please," Selika went on, shaking her head. "Raised as a noblewoman, eschews physical combat, talented in tricks of the mind and illusion? Lucine could be my mini-me!"

"Except for the red hair and the four inches she has on you," Idris pointed out helpfully.

"Oh shut it," Selika said with a sigh. "What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"I could think of several things…" Idris said trailing off.

"To you," Selika snapped. "What did I ever do to you?"

"Well, when I was your Praetor you never did give me the code to the Matron's executive washroom."

"The what?" Selika asked incredulously. "The Matron was barely this side of a derelict at the time. There wasn't an executive washroom! We were lucky that the refreshers even flushed!"

Idris finally lost the ability to maintain his facade of seriousness, the snickers that had been hidden beneath his helmet finally escaping into full-fledged laughter.

"Had you going there for a second, didn't I?" Idris said.

"Karking Mandalorians. You're absolutely insufferable," Selika said, the last accompanied by a theatrical eye roll.

"And that's why you hired me, of course. Have fun with your match," Idris offered, spinning on his heel and heading for the exit.

"Oh I'm sure it will be a hoot," Selika answered under her breath to no one in particular, the Voice now out of earshot.

Locking down the final shin guard strap, Selika grabbed her helmet from the bench. Shoving the headgear into the crook of her arm, she crossed the room and stepped into the lift that would take her to the arena floor. This time, unlike the last two matches, the lift moved upward instead of down once she was aboard. After a few seconds of travel, the doors on the far side of the lift car swished open to reveal the current configuration of the arena.

Selika involuntarily smiled as a cool, dry breeze blew across her face as she stepped out into the open air. The arena was criss-crossed by various suspended walkways connecting platforms seemingly at random. Selika's eyes were first drawn to the mists crackling with unseen energy that stretched out below, but another cold gust of wind drew her gaze skyward. The air above her was distorted ever so slightly by the indicative haze of a magcon field that seemed to cover the entire arena, the subtle blue glow of massive emitters ringing the stadium barely visible beyond the crowd.

"If you could have climate-controlled the entire arena, why didn't you do it before?" Selika muttered.

Looking across the arena, Selika could see her opponent featured on the large holoscreen that dominated the space directly across from where her own entrance was. It was a similar image to the one on the mirrored screen above her that showed Selika herself instead. On the display that Selika was watching Lucine tossed her hair over her shoulder, the red hair contrasting sharply against the dark suit of armor she wore. Selika sneered as the assembled crowd cheered the emergence of the two combatants, the throng obviously ready to see the sort of bloodsport they had paid for.

Coming to such pedestrian blows is beneath both of us, Selika thought dismissively.

Surveying the various platforms, Selika picked a large, centrally located platform several meters below the entrance level as her destination. Turning back to the Arconan, Selika saw Lucine looking directly at her. Selika offered a subdued wave, calling upon the Force to project her thoughts towards her adversary.

"I'll meet you there in the center," Selika spoke through the Force accompanied by the mental image of her chosen platform.

Selika saw Lucine's head cock to the side for a moment before the other woman nodded in agreement. Satisfied that she had been understood, Selika made her way across the duracrete walkway that extended out before her. It was only a few minutes before she had crossed the handful of bridges and platforms to reach her destination. The platform she had chosen was host to a handful of shipping containers of various types arranged around the periphery. These ranged in size from one large container the size of those who had made up the shanty town from round one all the way down to crates that were not even a meter tall. Selecting two of the smaller containers Selika grasped them with the Force and moved them to a position in the center of the platform, the two containers a few feet apart. Selika sat herself down on the container nearest to her facing the other, placing her helmet and lightsaber on the crate beside her. The former Arconan Consul dropped out of the air on the other side of the platform just as Selika finished, the Force having slowed the woman's fall as she jumped down from a platform above.

"Please," Selika offered congenially, gesturing to the crate before her.

Lucine strode across the platform and took a seat, her confident gait somewhat betrayed by the hint of suspicion that Selika barely sensed from her. Selika had to admit that the Arconan's mental defenses were formidable, as it was only her own considerable skill at reading one's essence in the Force that had allowed Selika to catch even the barest glimpse of the truth below the facade.

"Not what I was expecting, I have to admit," Lucine said with a raised eyebrow.

"Come now," Selika replied, "I can't imagine you want this to descend into something so banal as two women punching one another to the delight of the assembled audience."

"Well, no," Lucine agreed. "I take it you have something else in mind?"

"An appropriate turn of phrase," Selika answered with a smile "I'd offer a battle of the mind, a true test of our abilities against one another."

Selika didn't need her Force senses to see her opposite number's suspicion this time, it was painted on her face plainly by the Arconan's frown.

"I'll even let you go first. Just imagine," Selika continued conspiratorially, leaning closer to Lucine as she spoke, "what valuable secrets you might find rooting around in here." Selika offered the last as she tapped her index finger on her right temple.

"It would deprive the mob of their circuses," Lucine said, seeming to warm to the idea.

"A delightful bonus," Selika concurred with a dark smile.

"All right," Lucine decided, "I accept."

"Then the first chance is yours," Selika acknowledged.

The two women both closed their eyes, their breathing becoming slow and even. Those who could sense the energies of the Force would have seen the two as mirrored nexuses of power reaching out for one another. The overwhelming majority of the crowd, however, could not, and as a result the assembly began to grow restless. Suddenly the combatant's eyes snapped open, pure dark orbs seemingly having replaced the eyes of both women. As they remained stock-still, the crowd began to vocally register their growing displeasure.

Selika opened her eyes and found herself where she had been, seated atop a crate on one of the arena's platforms. Her opponent was nowhere to be seen, and Lucine's absence was not the only difference. The world around Selika seemed darker, the colors washed out and giving everything a flat appearance. It was the telltale sign of a Force driven mindscape. Selika looked around with both her eyes and Force senses, trying to locate her enemy.

"Oh now, this seems interesting," Lucine's telepathic voice echoed within Selika's mind.

"Find something, did you?" Selika inquired. The Plagueian Consul pushed out even further, her Force presence seeking that of Lucine but finding nothing. The other woman was very talented, much to Selika's chagrin. "Why don't you share it with the rest of the class?"

Everything rippled around Selika, like the heat of a mirage writ large. When her vision stabilized once more, Selika's eyes widened. She was now seated in a polished, high-backed chair made of wood. Gone was the openness of the arena, replaced by a large chamber that still dwarfed the space that Idris had built. Flickering shadows cast by torches danced on the walls, with most of the light illuminating the space coming from a huge floor-to-ceiling window that offered an expansive view. When she had first seen it, she had known this view only from holograms taken of the old Plagueian homeworld. This time, it was from her memory. It was the echo of Kapsina that had remained in the Ethereal Realm, and she was once again seated in the throne room of the ersatz Dark Tower.

"What do you know," Lucine's voice rang out, this time heard seemingly through Selika's ears and not her mind. "Even the Dread Lord has something buried, deep down, that she dreads."

Selika turned around, knowing what she would see. Lucine was seated easily on a throne atop a raised dais, a self-satisfied smile on her face. Suddenly, with the same ripple that had accompanied the morphing of the arena into a throne room, Lucine changed into a wraith-like form that wore the twisted features of another former Plagueian Consul. She didn't have to ask him his name this time, the ghost conjured up from the otherness of the ether was known to her.

"Faethor," Selika whispered.

"Your assistance, your… cooperation, is not required," the image of Faethor said. As he dissolved from the insubstantial form of a wraith to one that was even less corporeal, Selika was frozen in place. She couldn't move, couldn't even flinch. She wanted to scream as his shadowy form flashed towards her, to do something to stop this from happening again, but Selika was incapable of playing out any other role than the one in her memory. The image of Faethor enveloped her, driving her conscious mind back again into the darkness.

Selika struggled against the cold fear that gripped her, the sense that she had lost control of her own body to another threatening to drag her farther and farther down into the inky blackness. She lashed out around herself, searching for any avenue of escape. Then, suddenly, her flails through the Force brushed up against something, someone. It wasn't the Grand Master who had wrestled control of her body, the secret fear lurking in the darkness each time she closed her eyes. It was someone far less powerful, far less dangerous.

Lucine, not Faethor,Selika thought to herself, using the repeated phrase to center herself. The fear that had gripped her shifted into anger, pushing away the darkness around her as she wrestled back control over her emotions once more. Never again!

The Force rippled out from Selika's mind and drove away the blackness that had enveloped her, blasting away the illusion of the Dark Tower in a raging fire. Once again she was seated on a crate in the dull, drab mindscape. The difference now, however, was that Lucine was sitting across from her.

"My turn," Selika growled through gritted teeth, driving her own tendrils of Force energy deep into Lucine's mind.

Idris shook his head as he observed the match, a term that could only be loosely applied to what he was witnessing. Selika and Lucine sat facing each other on one of the central platforms, unmoving and with their eyes closed. The only movement came from Lucine’s droid, which poked at the redhead with its spindly appendages, trying to get its mistress to move.

Observing drying paint or growing moss would have been more interesting.

The growing restlessness of the crowd made it clear that they agreed. Boos and catcalls filled the air as the audience voiced their displeasure. They were here to see blood, and the atmosphere thrummed with tension and growing anger as they were denied the violence that they wanted.

Selika is doing this on purpose, Idris thought ruefully as he began to consider ways to calm the crowd before he had a riot on his hands.

Suddenly, Selika gasped and gave a slight jerk backward. The first movement he had seen from either woman since they had met on the platform. Her eyes narrowed as she gritted her teeth in anger. “My turn.”

The cacophony from the crowd abated slightly and Idris felt his hopes rise. Were they finally going to get to the business of fighting?

But Selika simply straightened up and closed her eyes once more.

Idris groaned as the chorus of boos became deafening. Finally, he retrieved his datapad and began to rearrange the match schedule. It’ll take at least two dance routines to get them to calm down…

Lucine’s momentary feeling of victory was quickly replaced by a blinding headache as tendrils of the Force battered against her mental defenses. She closed her eyes tightly, digging her nails into the palms of her hands as she fought to keep her opponent from exploring too deeply into her mind.

“Did I hit a nerve, darling?” she asked her voice tight with pain and concentration. “If it makes you feel better, I suspect it is a very normal thing for a Sith to fear failure and loss of control.”

Selika smiled faintly, but there was nothing friendly in her expression. But she did not reply. Not verbally, anyway.

Lucine’s headache quickly subsided as her surroundings began to fade and shift. The arena shrank as mist from the void drifted upward, solidifying to form walls. The platform in front of her slowly rose, shifting in shape and color until it took the form of a coffin resting upon a dais.

A red-headed woman lay inside the coffin, her red curls artfully arranged over a silk pillow. The mortician had done a good job. A heavy layer of paint managed to obscure the woman’s gray flesh, and fillers hid the wasted appearance she’d had in her final days before death.

”Childhood trauma?” Selika’s voice was full of scorn. ”Well. How very pedestrian.”

Lucine tore her eyes from her mother’s face and scanned the room, searching for her adversary. She had to admit the illusion was artfully done. The gathered crowd was exactly as she remembered them. She could smell the incense, the cut flowers, and the expensive perfumes of those present. She could feel the tears burning the corners of her eyes, even though she had told herself on that day that she would not cry.

She unfolded herself from the chair she had been crouching on to see into the coffin and jumped down. Now, the people who were present looked even larger, just as they had when they loomed over her in her memory.

It is just that, a memory, she told herself harshly as she began to push through the crowd. On that day, she had gone looking for her father, but now she searched for her enemy. The small knots of people parted as she passed, but she could hear their murmured conversation.

“—mycoblastosis, how awful!”

“Serves her right. Thousands died from tainted bacta from their production facilities. It’s poetic that the same outbreak would kill her too.”

“— family fortune is gone. It all went to pay for the settlement with the outbreak survivors.”

“—pure malfeasance.”

“—those poor girls. No one will touch them now. To be so young, with no prospects….”

At the time, the snippets of conversation had made little sense to her. But even then, she could hear the spite and malice in their voices, thinly veiled by concern and sympathy. Just as propriety demanded. Fellow members of the Coruscanti elite, alleged friends of her mother, crowing about her family’s misfortune under the guise of paying their final respects.

She hated them.

“Of course, it is the daughters that I pity the most.”

Lucine whipped her head toward the voice that rose above the murmur. Arcelia Del Garda, her mother’s closest friend, stood at the center of a throng of people. Though her silk gown was of the highest quality, the rich fabric and fashionable cut of her dress did little to draw the eye from the older woman’s decidedly frog-like features.

Arcelia turned her gaze toward her, and her wide, crimson lips split into a saccharine smile. “Come here, child.”

Lucine stood there, glaring at her as she tried to peer past the illusion. She studied the woman intently, searching for some flaw in the image.

The older woman gestured toward her for the benefit of her audience. “Look at this! Messy hair and mismatched shoes? And that dress is at least two years out of fashion. Her father cannot even dress her properly. Not that it’s surprising. What would a smuggler know about social graces?”

Selika was not there, and Lucine was not interested in hearing anymore. She turned away and continued to push through the crowd. But she could still hear Arcelia’s voice ringing behind her. “Mark my words, the Vasano family is done!” She did not bother to disguise her glee as she said it.

Lucine pushed her way through the crowd, but she found no evidence of her enemy. At last, she arrived at a small door that stood partly hidden behind a large floral arrangement. She did not want to go in. She knew what was in there. But with no evidence of Selika in the main sanctuary, there was only one other place she could be hiding.

She pushed open the door and found her father.

Tarvoth Vasano slumped in a chair, cradling a baby in his arms. His face was an emotionless mask, but he could not bring himself to hide the defeat in his eyes or the sag of his shoulders. The infant cooed and giggled, blissfully ignorant of her father’s despair. Sunlight streamed in from a nearby window and seemed to catch them in an almost celestial light.

For a moment, it felt exactly like it had that day. She could feel her anger forming knots in her stomach, rage at those smug strangers who were so gleeful about the downfall of her family. Grief for a mother lost and for the clear despair she saw in her father.

But this was just an illusion, no matter how masterfully it had been woven. And though it was tempting to allow herself to become lost in it, she could not afford to do that.

She closed her eyes tightly as she marshaled all her will into rejecting the image before her. When she opened them once more, she found that the scene was still there. She was still inside the illusion but was no longer locked in the form of her seven-year-old self. Instead, she stood beside the image of the red-headed girl, who looked up at her father with unvarnished concern and love.

The illusion of the memory continued, unabated. Child-Lucine scowled as she looked back toward the door. “Daddy, they’re saying mean things about us and Mommy!”

Tarvoth laughed dryly, but his wry smile did little to mask the pain in his eyes. “I thought as much. Sorry, kiddo. I shouldn’t have let you wander that viper nest alone.”

Lucine scanned the room slowly as the memory continued to play. The room was small, only a fraction of the size of the sanctuary. Its furnishings were sparse: a desk, a few chairs and a bookshelf. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her lightsaber as she began to walk a slow circuit around the room, searching for her unseen opponent.

“I hate them! I hate them all!”

“I do too, kiddo. But listen. It’s really important that you pretend to like them. You gotta smile and laugh and learn how to play their games.”

Lucine’s hand passed through the desk. She ran her hand along its length but felt nothing but air. She walked a wide circle around the man and his daughter, giving them a wide berth as she made her way toward the bookshelf.

“Isn’t that like lying?”

Lucine reached toward the bookshelf, but her hand passed right through the cracked spines of the holobooks. Another fabrication. Was she mistaken? Was Selika back in the sanctuary? With the sheer number of people there, she could have easily missed something. She paused, trying to decide her next steps.

“Look, it’s like this. You, me and your sister, we’re family, and family is all that matters. We’ve gotta stick together and do everything we can to help each other. Those people out there? They don’t matter. So it's okay to lie to them.”

“But why do we have to lie?”

Tarvoth started to speak, but his words were cut off by a wracking cough. He doubled over, clutching the infant to his chest as his body spasmed uncontrollably. When the fit finally subsided, his voice sounded hoarse. “Because I’ve been all over, kiddo,” he wheezed. “Those people are real frakkers, but this is still the best life I can give you and your sister. So we gotta do whatever it takes to make sure you’ve got good lives.”

”I’ve had just about enough of this tawdry melodrama.” Selika said, the disgust in her voice unmistakable. She sounded close. ”Do you need a hint?”

“And here I thought you were just feeling voyeuristic,” Lucine replied. Selika’s voice was coming from the sanctuary. She strode across the room and passed through the door without even bothering to open it.

The smell hit her first. The stink of an unwashed body and the sickly sweet stench of decay. The emotions hit next. Crushing despair. The sting of betrayal. All-consuming grief. Suffocating helplessness.

“No!” Lucine gasped as she recoiled backward.

The illusion of the memory vanished in a blink, but not before she saw her father’s gray, wasted form and heard his ragged breathing as he struggled to force air into his ruined lungs.

Selika lounged on her crate, a cat-like smile on her face. It took Lucine a moment to realize what she was smirking about.

She could feel cold metal pressed against the hollow of her throat. The tip of her lightsaber emitter, held there by her own hand. Her finger was on the ignition switch. While she had been flailing about in the illusion, Selika had taken control of her body.

Smile and laugh and learn how to play their games.

Lucine pulled her weapon away from her throat with deliberate slowness and clipped it to her belt, before beginning to clap slowly. “Well done, darling. It seems I am in the presence of a true master of the craft. That was quite a trip down memory lane!”

Her smile never faltered as she reached deep within herself, drawing upon every ounce of pain and anger and fear that filled her. She crafted it, shaping her emotions and the Force into an illusion of her own. She had seen something in Selika’s mind, something that she had hoped to save for later. But no. Now she wanted the Krath adherent to suffer. She did not have Selika's power, but she would make up for it with creativity and spite.

“Allow me to return the favor.”

Lucine's mental assault smashed into Selika with such force that it nearly knocked the shorter woman from atop the crate she sat upon. The violence of the attack seemed to come out of nowhere, with Lucine's outward calm having hidden her true intention. The blackness closed in around her once again as Selika flailed wildly in search of mental footing upon which she could center herself once more to fight back. Still, the buffeting mental assault kept her unable to retaliate.

Through the darkness were flashes of images and snapshots of her life. Each of them harbored some pain within the memories they showed. Leaving the Dark Council, Ronovi's betrayal of Clan Plagueis, how she had danced like a trained monkey-lizard to the tune of the Collective on Nancora Prime. Failure after failure that she had somehow escaped, each leaving its own scar upon her psyche.

So many to choose from, her opponent's telepathic voice echoed in Selika's head. But all of these are small, insignificant things.

Finally, Selika's mind found purchase, and her hands seemed to close on something solid. It took her a moment to realize what she felt, and then it dawned on her. Vertical metal bars, each hand wrapped around one spaced evenly apart. The blackness receded and left her in a place she knew very well and one she had hoped never to see again. Selika found herself locked inside a small cage just over a meter high in a dark, windowless storage room. The rough fabric of the basic tunic she wore chafed against her skin as the smells of mildew and grime mixed with industrial solvent and engine grease assaulted her nose. She was once again a young girl enslaved by the Black Sun.

"Selika?" came a quiet, whispered voice from behind her. Selika froze as equal parts terror and anguish gripped her. "Selika, I want to go home."

Selika tried to resist turning, knowing what she would find there, but could not stop herself. In the other cage that occupied the room was the weak, crying girl who had been her friend for as long as she could imagine. "Celes…"

The cage, however, stood open as an angry guard blocked the opening. The man raised his fingers to his cheek, wiping away the blood that Celes's fingernails had drawn from his skin as the girl had tried to fight back. "You shouldn'a done that, girly," the guard growled as he bent over and, wrapping his hands around Celes's hair, began to drag her out.

Selika remembered this night; she knew what was going to happen next. The guard would pull Celes to her feet and throw her across the room. Her head would strike the duracrete wall and snap her neck, and the girl would die in front of her. Unwilling to let it happen again, Selika reached out through the bars and screamed for him to stop. She tried to wrap her own Force grip around the nameless guard's neck and squeeze the life from him, but she was powerless to stop it. The Force remained elusive, unable to be bent to her will. Squeezing her eyes shut, Selika couldn't bring herself to watch it happen. She heard Celes slam into the wall with a wet crunch, the girl's cries forever silenced.

The guard's footsteps noisily crossed the room to Selika's cage, just as she had remembered. She heard her own gate open as the man's grip closed around her wrist and yanked Selika roughly from the cage. Selika opened her eyes, her gaze locked with the now lifeless stare of her friend. Just like before, Selika knew what she had to do. With tears streaming down her face, Selika pushed herself up into a kneeling position, turned to face her assailant, and screamed at him.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!"

This time, the raw, unfocused Force ability she had once called upon failed to manifest. This time, instead of the guard, she found herself face-to-face with an unexpected foe.

"Now, that's no way to talk to family," Tolcon Roh scolded her. The bearded face of Selika's uncle was locked in an expression of judgment that Selika found all too familiar. The man stepped closer to her, resting his hand patronizingly on her head as he had often done when she was younger. Selika's mind raced. This wasn't the way it had happened at all. She had found her uncle after she had escaped. It made no sense for him to be here now.

"What are you doing here?" Selika asked, her mind clouded with confusion.

"Oh my darling, I was always here." Tolcon smiled at her, but the joy the expression promised never actually reached his eyes. "From the beginning. Do you think the mob came for your family by accident? You're smarter than that, you've always known it was me. I just happened to be off-world when the unrest erupted? And your place of captivity being just a short airspeeder ride from my estate? This was always my design." Tolcon pushed Selika away, his eyes narrowing as he shook his head at her dismissively. "Pathetic."

Selika's mind whirled as pain roiled within her. Her eyes darted around, unfocused, until she fixed on a length of discarded pipe. Grasping it in her hand, she jumped to her feet and swung it with as much force as she could muster. The improvised weapon struck the older man in the head, staggering him as he tried to maintain his balance. Selika didn't let him recover, slamming the pipe across his face again. Tolcon dropped to the ground as Selika brought the weapon down again and again, feeling the bone crunch with each successive blow. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Selika finally dropped the pipe to the floor with a clang and shouted into the air. "Enough! Your mind games won't work, Arconan!"

"Princess," came a soft voice from the body at her feet. Selika's heart stopped as all the color drained from her face.

"No," Selika said, her gaze falling to see that it was no longer her uncle who was lying battered and broken at her feet.

"It's ok, princess. You'll be ok," sputtered her father, blood running down out of his mouth.

"Papa!" Selika cried, dropping to her knees. "Please!"

Selika held her father to her as the life seeped out of him, each breath weaker than the last. "Please don't leave me again, papa!" Her agonized wails did nothing to stop the inevitable, her tears mingling with the man's blood as she rocked back and forth. It was a few minutes before she realized he was gone, finally feeling that his chest no longer moved. Realizing what she had done, Selika pushed herself away from her father's body. Her movement finally stopped as her back found the bars of the cage she had inadvertently crawled back into.

Selika's vision cleared as she wiped some of the tears from her eyes, revealing Lucine standing between her father's corpse and the cage. "I've always found that those who scoff at childhood trauma tend to have a giant, gaping wound in there somewhere." Shaking her head, the former Consul walked over to Selika's cage. With an easy motion, Lucine pulled the cage gate downward and locked it into place with a click.

"The thing that I realized once I was rooting around in there," she said, pointing at Selika's head, "is pretty simple. You need to admit it to yourself. For all the things you've done and the power you've amassed, you will always be the scared little girl. You like to think you're superior, better than those so-called 'mundanes' of yours that can't touch the Force. But the truth is, you're still terrified of them."

"Yes," came Selika's flat, lifeless response.

"You like to think you've crafted all of these defenses," Lucine said, moving to kneel down next to where Selika sat in the cage. "But they're not defenses. In that deep down, dark little corner of your soul, you'll always be locked in this cage. And there's no place I could put you that would hurt you more than right here."

Selika finally realized that Lucine was right. The realization hit her like a speeder truck, and with it came clarity. The place where she found herself now wasn't Lucine's handiwork, it was her own. This place and the horrors that inhabited it had always been lurking within her. Her adversary hadn't shaped this; her illusion had simply pushed Selika's mind down into the darkest reaches of her own subconscious and allowed the Plagueian's inner demons to torture her. With this sudden clarity, Selika could finally reach beyond the mirage and feel the Force's power again.

"That reminds me of something my uncle used to say," Selika said quietly. "Don't wound what you cannot kill."

Before Lucine could respond, Selika blasted apart the illusion and violently expelled the other woman's presence from her mind.

Selika's eyes opened again, this time in the vibrant sunlight of reality. The darkness that had replaced both women's eyes was gone as the mindscape had been torn apart. Selika could see that Lucine's hand was raised to her nose, the woman wiping away a trickle of blood. The force of her eviction from Selika's mind had obviously had some physiological effects.

Before the Arconan could renew her mental assault, Selika gathered the Force into a spectral fist and slammed it across the other woman's face. The blow knocked Lucine from atop the crate she sat on and dropped her face down onto the duracrete of the platform. Selika rose from her own seat and stepped over to face her opponent. Blanketing Lucine with the Force, Selika pulled back her foot to kick the other woman. Lucine tried to form a barrier to protect herself, but the Force was just out of her reach due to Selika's efforts.

"Oh, that's too bad," Selika mocked, delivering a savage kick to Lucine's midsection. Her armor dissipated most of the kick's energy, but there was still enough to drive the air from Lucine's lungs with a loud huff.

"What happened to the battle of the mind?" Lucine gasped after she was able to once again catch her breath.

"See, there is one thing you should have realized while you were looking around in my mind," Selika explained. "I cheat."

Selika drove another kick into the Arconan's midsection as the crowd cheered, finally getting some of the spectacle that they felt they had paid to see.

“It’s fine. This is fine,” Idris muttered to himself as he hastily tapped away at his datapad. As the minutes continued to pass without any action, the crowd had become more and more restless. Their boos were so loud that the air vibrated with them. More than a few had begun throwing things toward the motionless combatants. Concession snacks and garbage rained down, and a few particularly enterprising spectators had managed to pry up the colosseum chairs themselves to dump into the arena. Most of the detritus fell harmlessly into the yawning void, but some landed on the platform where they stood.

But Idris had learned from the last few matches how fickle the crowd could be, and so he had instituted a few emergency counter-measures. Operation: Let Them Eat Salad was already in effect, as vendors circulated through the crowd, selling rotten fruit and vegetables to the disaffected spectators. It would give them something to throw other than furniture.

There was a possibility it would not be enough. The Voice was in the process of recruiting fellow Mandalorians for Operation: M-pop when the tenor of the crowd’s roar changed. He glanced up to see Lucine on the ground, blood leaking from her nose as Selika hovered over her. As he watched, Selika lashed out with her foot, kicking the redhead in the ribs.

“It’s about time,” he muttered. The boos had subsided somewhat, but the crowd was still restless from being denied their sport for so long. After a moment’s consideration, he kept the other Mandalorians on standby. If this match did not end with anything other than a spectacular finish, then Operation: M-Pop would be a go.

Lucine curled into a ball, protecting herself as much as possible as Selika kicked her again and again. “You cheat,” she gasped as she tried to pull air into her protesting lungs. “Of course you do. Your kind usually does.”

“And that is why ‘my kind’ will always win,” Selika replied with a sneer. With Lucine’s connection to the Force cut off, she could afford to take her time and beat a few lessons into the girl.

She drew back her foot to kick her again but before she could complete the movement, Lucine’s droid skittered between them, waving its slender arms in a vain attempt to protect its mistress. Selika growled under her breath and aimed a kick at the Seeker droid, sending it tumbling.

It was all the distraction Lucine needed. Her arm shot out, sunlight glinting off the blade in her hand. She slammed a stiletto through the top of Selika's boot, pinning her foot to the ground. The older Sith yowled in pain and surprise.

Lucine felt the Force return to her. The pain from her bloodied nose and aching ribs was already beginning to fade into the background, dulled by her augmented control over her body. She rolled to her feet, narrowly avoiding being pelted by a head of wilted lettuce.

When did the crowd start throwing produce?

It was a question that would have to be answered another time. She drew her lightsaber and fell into a guard position even as Selika removed the slender knife that impaled her foot and tossed the bloodied weapon to the side.

“I suspect your father would disagree with your assertion,” Lucine said with a mocking edge to her voice. She extended her will toward Selika once more. She might have been done with their mental battle, but Lucine was not.

Selika’s eyes narrowed slightly as her father’s battered image appeared, lying a few feet away from her. His eyes, once full of life, now stared sightlessly at the sky above. His skin was a patchwork of raw abrasions and blue-black bruises, and half of his face sagged slightly from the beating that had shattered his skull.

It was an obvious illusion, and a desperate attempt to play on her emotions. But knowing it was a ploy did not stop the stab of grief at the sight of him as freshly uncovered emotions stirred within her.

Selika buried them once more, hiding the raw wounds with a sneer. “I’m not sure what’s worse: your pathetic attempt to play on my memories or the fact that you want to settle this with weapons. We’re Force-users, girl! Act like it!”

The Krath adherent punctuated her statement with another telekinetic blow, this one aimed at the side of Lucine’s head. But the redhead anticipated the attack and ducked out of the way.

“Not my best work, I know,” Lucine said nonchalantly as she waved her hand, causing the illusion to vanish. A brown-spotted banana splattered where the illusion had been just a moment before. She glanced at something behind Selika, and a slow smile spread across her blood-streaked face. “But I did manage to distract you from them,” she added.

The first thing Selika noticed was the boos of the crowd. No… they weren’t just booing. They were baying for blood and death. And it sounded louder.

She whipped her head around to see that a crowd of onlookers had spilled out of the stands and were now crossing the bridges as they made their way toward their platform. Though there was only a small group of them now, more and more of them were coming. She could see the expressions on their faces, their eyes alight with cruelty and their mouths open wide as they screamed for blood that they had been denied. It was a mirror image of the crowds that had come for her family, the night her childhood had ended.

“You are correct to fear them, you know,” Lucine said as she backed away from the tidal wave of rioters that raced toward their platform. “They hate you and everything that you stand for. You take such pride in your ability to use the Force, but at the end of the day, there are more of them than there are of you.”

Selika’s heart hammered in her chest. She pictured her father’s battered face, his swollen lips mouthing a single word. “Run...”

Celes’s face appeared in her mind, a look of pleading in her glassy eyes. “Run…”

Faethor’s pale visage leered at her. “Run...”

She whirled, ignoring the pain that shot through her foot with every step as she bolted for the furthest edge of the platform. There was a bridge there. If she could cross it, if she could put some distance between herself and them, then she might be able to buy time while Idris got the crowds under control.

The screams of the crowd were getting louder behind her. The bridge was a few feet away now. So close. In her haste to escape, she accidentally kicked a rotten melon rind that had landed on the platform. It flew ahead of her—

—and fell right through the bridge.

Selika skidded to a halt so sharply that she nearly lost her balance, her feet mere inches from the edge of the platform. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look around.

The bridge flickered out of existence. The howls for blood gave way to cheers, the audience mollified now that they were receiving their spectacle. She whipped around and saw that the mob was gone. Lucine stood alone in the center of the refuse-littered platform.

The redhead shoved her hand toward Selika, but the Krath adherent stepped to the side, avoiding the invisible blow that would have shoved her into the void. She snarled and lashed out with her own power, tendrils of energy wrapping around the largest shipping container. “You want to play with memories? Fine!”

The shipping container lifted into the air and hurtled toward Lucine. Instinct took over. She dove forward and out of the way, shielding her head with her arms. A gust of air swept over her as the crate sailed overhead before crashing onto the platform and skidding over the edge.

When she lifted her head from her arms, the platform had vanished. Instead, she found herself in a dimly lit warehouse. Two knots of people stood facing one another, rival gangs that had come together for a meeting in the midst of a gang war.

“Oh, no…” she breathed. She had hoped that Selika would have missed this particular memory, but it seemed that she had not.

A Human man stood in front of her, clutching a length of rusted pipe. His handsome features were stricken with horror and indecision, but as she watched, his expression solidified into something else. Determination.

“I’m sorry, Red,” he said with genuine grief in his voice. “But this is the only way I can save my crew.”

“It’s just an illusion…” Lucine muttered. She hauled herself to her feet as she assumed a defensive stance once more. She could not see beyond the illusory warehouse walls, but she knew Selika was there, knew that she would counterattack at any moment.

Her words from that night rang in her ears, ”You don’t have to do this! There has to be another way.”

He shook his head. “Their terms were clear. Either you die, or they sweep the territory and kill my whole crew in the process. I can’t let that happen. They’re my family.” His shoulders sagged for a moment before he lifted the pipe. “I’m sorry, Red.”

Lucine turned her head away from the scene before her, partly to search for Selika’s incoming attack and partly to avoid seeing what was coming next.

”Don’t! Please! I love—”

The pipe arced downward. Pain exploded in her head as an invisible blow of Force energy struck her behind her ear. Stars exploded in front of her eyes even as a second blow landed, this time slamming into her abdomen, driving the breath from her lungs.

Another blow landed. And another. And another. Each telekinetic strike was timed to sync perfectly with the thud of metal against flesh and the crack of shattering bone.

Another blow of invisible force slammed into her head, driving her to her knees. She could taste blood in her mouth. Darkness hovered at the edge of her vision, threatening to swallow her up. Her father’s gaunt, pallid face hung in the shadows, but she could not be certain if he was part of the illusion or a trick caused by a head injury.

”...family is all that matters. We’ve gotta stick together…”

“You lie…” she wheezed as hot blood spilled from her lips.

A moment later, something heavy slammed into the back of her head once more. She fell face-first onto the platform and did not get up again.

“... huh,” Idris said as he watched Selika strike a victory pose. “Well. That was an ending, I guess.”

But not a very satisfying one. It had looked as if Lucine had simply stood there, her body contorting as if she was being assaulted by some invisible force. An unsatisfying end to a boring match.

The boos from the crowd made it clear that they felt the same way. Half-eaten concession stand food, rotten produce and the occasional piece of furniture rained from the stands as those in attendance made their displeasure clear.

Selika swept the crowd with a disdainful look before striding off the field, leaving her opponent for the medics to clean up.

“Illusionists are the worst,” Idris muttered, sending a transmission to four other Mandalorians who stood in readiness. “Fine. Operation M-Pop it is.”

The crowd was surly now, but they would come around. How could they not, when they would soon be treated to a five Mandalorian dance routine, led by Idris himself? He had composed the music specifically for just such an emergency.

Maybe next time he actually would tweak the match lineup, just to keep this sort of thing from happening again. But that was a thought for another time. For now, it was time for the galaxy-wide debut of the Backstreet ‘Synced Mandalore Boys.

He was certain that the crowd would love it.