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.

A singular figure stood at the edge of the highest duracrete bridge.

Marick Tyris Arconae looked out over the arena with his ever-watchful too-blue gaze. A myriad of bridges lay below him, some duracrete and durasteel, others made of natural materials that swayed precariously. His opponent for this match could come from any direction at any moment. Too-blue eyes cast downward to look at the crackling fog in the dark abyss below, assessing the danger it likely posed. There was no way to tell what the cloud held, whether it was poisonous or contained something living that could prove more deadly than the hazard itself.

The Elder reached out through the Force, attempting to sense his foe, only to be answered by stillness and silence.

Marick’s watch was broken for a moment as a harsh breeze blew through the arena, kicking up dust and tossing the man’s cloak and ashen locks into the wind. He raised a hand for a heartbeat to shield his eyes from the assaulting detritus. When he dropped it, his opponent was standing silently on the duracrete bridge below and parallel to him.

Sivall’s sanguine eyes returned his gaze from her lower vantage point. They squinted for a moment before she pulled back the hood and mask meant to obscure her features. It was likely that Marick had identified her by the sabers visible at her hips alone, but all the same she wanted to show her face to the man she looked up to so dearly. Her raven locks, now free of the cowl, fell loosely around her features as they had been freed of their usual bun.

“Envoy Sivall,” he regarded her, his voice measured and monotonous.

“Exarch,” her reply came with a soft frown, filled with a stark contrast of conflicting emotion.

A few moments passed in silence. Marick stood with his arms folded behind him as he patiently waited for Sivall to gather her thoughts. His Chiss opponent brought her hands in front of her and began to pick at the gloves covering her fingers, her frown unwavering, eyes downcast at the duracrete surface at her feet. Once she had formulated coherent sentences, Sivall dropped her hands to her side and looked back up at her superior.

“I don’t want to fight you, Marick. I didn’t come here to fight fellow Shadesworn.”

Her intonation signified the exhaustion she felt deep in her bones and there was a roughness to her voice that was not normally present. Sivall’s last match had clearly taken its toll on the woman.

“Yet, here we are.”

Marick’s reply didn’t hold any malice or any hidden hints of blame. She could feel him urging her to think, allowing her to come up with alternative routes on her own before he supposited his. The Quaestrix’s jaw set hard, aggravated, as she sought a way to complete this match without potentially hurting another Arconan.

But then the idea came.

Sivall’s eyes snapped to the droids idly circling Marrick from a distance, no doubt trying to take advantage of the scenic shots they could get from the pairs’ positioning. They would be circling them for most of the match, happily out of range of any attacks but filming with crystal clarity for the crowd nonetheless. What if…

“Do you think that we could petition to get the holofeed of this match after the fight?”

One of Marrick’s eyebrows raised before he traced Sivall’s line of sight to the hovering droids. She hoped he would understand her intention without having to speak– prayed even. They could spar, make it dramatic, and use it as promotional material for the Envoy Society. It was the best way, in her mind, to make the fight realistic but mean something more than just fighting her clanmates for the sake of someone else’s enjoyment.

Marick’s face remained neutral as the wheels turned in his mind. Formulating. Calculating.

When the Exarch caught onto what Sivall was hinting at, there was no change in his expression except maybe, potentially, the faintest, barely perceivable upwards quirk of a corner of his mouth. As quick as it had potentially appeared, the change was gone, but Sivall could feel in the air between them, through the Force, that he understood her intentions.

“I see,” he replied, nodding once.

Sivall drew her sabers first, their white blades humming softly as she held them in a defensive position in front of her. Her grip on the hilts was reversed and the smaller Shoto saber was tucked under her full-sized blade. Marick gave her a moment to prepare, a singular moment to breathe, before he shot off his vantage point like a slugthrower bullet. His own sabers carved gorgeous arcs as black as night through the air before clashing with Sivall's. Despite fully knowing that he was coming, the Chiss woman was still caught off guard by the speed and ferocity of Marick’s attack.

She had faced off against Elders before, trained with Ruka on multiple occasions, but it did not prepare her for this fight. The crowd gasped then roared in excitement at the startling shower of black and white playing out before them. Sivall gathered all her strength and pushed Marick away, the force pulling a grunt from deep in her chest as she struggled.

Marick landed gracefully on his feet nearby, not a hair out of place. Despite it probably being inappropriate given the circumstances, Sivall still spared a moment to balk at how absolutely unfair that fact was.

A voice very familiar to both fighters and belonging to a certain white haired Miraluka called out from the stands, as if reading Sivall’s mind.

“I KNOW RIGHT?!”

The response drew a snort from the Chiss woman, who then tried her best to cover it up with a cough.

Marick turned at the sound of his wife's voice, keeping his expression neutral as he located her in the crowd. Atyiru had claimed a front-row seat and was protectively hovering over their daughter, her cybernetic arms on either side of Kirra like guardrails. The seven-year-old wore a matching sundress to her mother and peered excitedly over the reinforced railing. When Kirra noticed her father looking their way, her expression brightened like the moon on a starless night. She beamed, waved excitedly, and while it would have been hard to hear her voice over the din of the arena’s ambiance, her encouragement radiated out towards him through the Force without needing to say the words themselves.

Go-Papa-go!

Marick offered her a small, secret smile that faded almost as quickly as it appeared. Then he turned his attention back to one his top Envoys—

The Exarch stood alone among the amalgamation of arches and winding walkways. She was nowhere to be seen. It was just him and the ominous, swirling miasma below. When he listened carefully, he could hear the ghostly whistle of the wind winding through the intricate lattice of bridges.

“Mhm,” the former Shadow hummed—an acknowledgement of his own fault as much as it was a nod of respect to his now-concealed opponent. Perhaps he was getting old?

Or just tired.

Following that same sentiment, the half-Hapan rolled his shoulders to stretch the scarred skin left behind from his last match. It did not affect his mobility, but it was still sore and stiff. And itchy. Bacta was a wondrous thing, but burn marks tended to take longer to heal than cuts, abrasions, or even tears. Pain and discomfort were nothing new to him, and easy enough to be shut away.

Instead, he focused on utilizing what he knew about his opponent. As Exarch, it was his job to know each of his Envoys’ strengths and weaknesses. And he knew Zosi'val'ria’s file better than most, thanks to also tracking her progress within the Shadow Clan. He kept background tabs on many, but her progression and eventual succession to Quaestrix of House Galeres had definitely caught his attention. He also knew that weight, that burden of leadership better than most as well, having ascended the ranks in a similarly brisk fashion.

So out of respect for all that she had accomplished, it seemed fair to support her idea of using the footage from this fight to benefit the Envoy Corps. That was the kind of creative introspection the Brotherhood needed, times being what they were.

Marick glanced down at his newly crafted lightsaber and frowned. He was curious to test the new design out in a real battle, but realized that this was not the time nor place. While the Force Lord could intuit a slight advantage in technique based on his initial exchange with the Chiss, he was still more comfortable with a single saber. He clipped Resonance to his belt and tightened his fingers around the familiar, molded hilt of his Radiant lightsaber, and then silently toggled the alternate-phase emitter to its stun setting.

The hum of the black-cored blade became the only sound he heard as he focused his senses on his immediate surroundings. The crowd and the cameras faded into the background of his awareness. Now, where would she—

A glowing white blade materialized from the shadows and arched gracefully towards Tyris’ neck. The silent strike split the air with deadly precision, and would have likely landed against a less learned foe. Marick was already in motion, swerving his lithe frame around and under Sivall’s lightsaber. In the same flowing motion, he moved his own saber into the perfect position to parry the Equite's follow-up stab.

Their eyes met, crimson against sapphire. Their blades locked. Sivall regained her footing. Understanding passed wordlessly between the two Arconans as they broke apart and then met once again on equal ground.

The colosseum roared to life as porcelain plasma charged into onyx flourishes of parabolic light. This is what they had come to see.

—

Sivall knew from observing Marick’s previous fights that a prolonged engagement would favor the Elder Arcanist. If the Shadow was going to have any chance of victory or impressing the Exarch, she would need to think fast. She would need to think outside the box. And she would somehow need to catch a retired spymaster and the Brotherhood’s Gray Fang off his guard.

No pressure.

Her wrists worked from the recesses of her respective hilts, leaving more range for extension in her reverse-grip attacks. Shien was more known for combating blasters, but the Envoy remained in perpetual motion, using the full length of the bridge, the side-rails, whatever space she could utilize to lash out from disparate and diverse angles. Ataru was a prime pairing, especially as her asymmetrical blades broke up the typical, poetic pattern of a more holobook duel.

Marick’s boots wove smoothly across the duracrete plating of the winding walkway as he wound his lightsaber in tight, concentric coils that redirected her attacks away from his center. He parried each attempt to circumvent his guard with poise and patience, moving only as much as was required to keep up with her pace.

With every sweep and swing that failed to find purchase, Sivall felt her breathing become more labored. There was no break in his bulwark, no gaps in his metaphorical armor for her to exploit. His form was better. He had more experience.

But he was running out of platform.

Marick seemed to sense the sudden lack of duracrete, even as his foot failed to find solid purchase behind him. He reflexively shifted all of his weight to the balls of his feet, anchoring himself in place. In the same concurrent motion, reached out a hand towards Sivall’s waist and made a grasping gesture. The Envoy felt an unseen hand close around her like a vice, arresting her forward momentum and lifting her up into the air while the Exarch recovered his footing.

Panic flooded through her waking, conscious mind as she tried to fight the telekinetic restraint. But the sleeping mind that lay beneath it roared in defiance. It was the hard-earned instinct and persistence forged from a lifetime of hardship, everything from being sold away as a slave to her apprenticeship under Zujenia and her tutelage with Ruka. In fact, she had been drilled on this exact scenario with the Mirialan. Repeatedly. Her vacmi had prepared her for this, so she could never be collared again.

The Force surged through the Quaestrix and, simple as stretching after a long rest, Marick’s hold over her snapped and was gone. Now free, she landed adroitly on the balls of her feet, sabers at the ready.

Marick did not seem perturbed by her clever feat. In fact, he seemed pleased. As much as a stone statue could be, at least. Her heart pounded with excitement as adrenaline coursed through her. As she readied her next stratagem, her mind skidded to a sudden halt as she watched Marick wave his hand and flex his fingers in a weird, intricate pattern.

She grit her teeth and braced for some kind of assault through the Force, but nothing happened.

Sivall blinked once. Marick still stood a few meters away, his expression a neutral mask as he repeated the series of motions with his free hand.

Was he trying to flash her with some kind of...street...hutt...gang sign? Was she supposed to signal it back to him?

When the Exarch calmly repeated the gesture a third time, realization struck her like a hammer. He was using sign language to try and tell her something. How would he have known—oh, right, he had access to her file. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it made perfect sense.

My right shoulder, he was saying. She correlated that new data with what her eidetic memory recalled from his previous match with Evelyn and...was he giving her a hint at one of his weaknesses? A flush of anger crept up her neck at the idea of needing some kind of hand out, but it quickly passed as the Exarch flashed a quick grin and winked at her.

Sivall stared blankly, her frustration fading into buffered confusion. She had to have imagined that. Was it a trick of the light or her fatigue? Marick didn’t grin. Did he? She had watched so many of his briefings on missions. Did he even know what a wink was!?

Before she recovered enough to respond, the Exarch leapt towards a new bridge, one that was made of wooden slats and interlaced suspension ropes. It wobbled when he landed, but he seemed nonplussed. Then he made an inviting gesture down towards her to join him, as the crowd began to chant for more.