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 Elements.

A singular large circular platform sits in the center of the arena elevated just off the main arena floor. Floating walkways jutting off to smaller platforms floating above the central one. At first glance, this setup appears simple, solid ground beneath your feet, nothing to worry about beyond falling off to the arena’s floor and the dangers of your opponent.

Yet once the match starts, that story changes. The landscape of the platforms shifts and changes cycling at random through vortexes of strong wind, rushing water geysers, shaking and rumbling earthquakes, and vents of fire.

Watch your foot, as each step might signal a change of the elements.

The crowd was not on his side as he was dropped into the arena…he was a Jedi Master, that wasn’t a big surprise, that the folk congregating to watch death matches on Arx wouldn’t cheer for him. A quick glance around the arena revealed very little, it was a raised circle with other smaller ones arrayed around it. Something felt off, and he felt a familiar presence… one he hadn’t felt since…

“Turel! Mate!” came an inebriated shout from one of the smaller platforms. “Been too long, me lad…when was tha last time we, ah…saw each other?”

He sighed, and looked over, seeing the familiar grey and white tufted tail waving at him, attached to a drunken Ryn who was laying on his belly, chin propped up on one hand, a bottle in the other.

“New Tython, the marketplace. Do you recall that, Kordath?” he asked with a tight hold on his emotions, though some of his annoyance bled through. Sure the two had fought together, served in Arcona together, and later as allies when he returned to Odan-Urr.

“Uhh…” the Ryn trailed off, squinting, trying to recall, “I gots a shadow of a vague impression that I pissed ya off there?”

“You stole my wife’s under—” Turel bit back his shout, aware of the holocams floating around them. “You stole something important to Vorsa.”

Kordath stared at him a long, quiet moment before his cheeks turned a bit red.

“Aye, we was quite tha scamps back in our day, eh? Nice gray in yer mane there, makes ya look distinguished.”

“Back in our… how old do you think I am?”

Kordath shrugged and took a swig from his bottle, “do nae know, hard ta tell how ya smoothies age. How is tha big tree lady, anyway? Ya get any splinters recently?” he winked and laughed.

Sorenn let out a sigh and pinched his brow, beginning to walk down to the main platform, heading over towards where Kordath was lounging despite this being meant to be a fight.

“Vorsa is fine…and splinters are none of your business.”

“Aye…fair…ya know I never did judge ya fer being a dendrophiliac, mate, luv is luv and all that, who cares if yer inta that, ah…,” he smirked to himself, feeling drunkenly clever, “sappy stuff.”

“You know we’re meant to be fighting, Bleu?” asked Turel, standing over the drunk now, looking down, hand twitching towards the saber hilt on his belt.

“Aye…right…what fun is that though?”

“Pretty sure it is a rule of this place,” Turel gestured at the arena.

Kordath blew a raspberry, lips pursed and blowing obscenely.

“Oh aye…lad gets a rule named after ‘im and he can nae help but bring it up at every chance,” grumbled Kordath, slowly getting to his feet. He looked his old comrade in the eye, squinting, and offered his bottle over. “Would nae be tha first time neither of gave tha’ clamorin’, bloodthirsty masses what they want, eh?”

The Sentinel stared at the bottle being offered by a man he…could at least somewhat trust, he didn’t think it would be poisoned at least. Something in the arena clicked to ‘on, and wind began bursting up from the center of the platforms, causing both men’s hair to flutter and sway. Turel sighed and took the bottle, taking a swig of the whiskey…then staring at it, then at Kordath, handing it back.

“When did you start getting mid-shelf whiskey?”

“I retired, gotta enjoy stuff…gettin’ too old ta live off tha bottom shelf, ya know?”

Turel sighed and looked up around them, the holocams tracking them still.

“We have to do something, else who knows what they’ll do to us. How about we promise to not maim each other, so we both go home to our families after this?”

“Ya really wanna fight?” Kord sounded disappointed, looking around as well, then looking his ‘opponent’ up and down. He took another swig, and glanced at the man’s waist, noticing a familiar, rectangular shape…he grinned and offered the bottle back to Sorenn.

“What?” asked Turel, narrowing his eyes and taking a drink as well, before following the Ryn’s gaze. “Oh…they’ll shoot us if we do that, Bleu, you know they will.”

“Nah, not if we do it right,” goaded the Arcanist, reaching out to pluck the deck of cards from Turel’s belt. He pulled them out of their case and, with a surprising amount of coordination for his current state, began shuffling them. “What’d’ya say? Winner takes all, or whatever…time ta…time ta…d…d…” Kordath coughed and spat off the side of the platform, watching the blasting air-jets carry it up and away into the stands, before looking back to Turel.

“Time ta deal?”

The Ryn’s grin was backlit by the arena’s elemental machine switching to bursting flames, shooting into the air.

“Sure, why not?” Turel replied with an exasperated sigh before plopping onto the ground. They didn’t exactly have a card table available.

Kordath followed suit and sat down on the platform to begin dealing out cards from the deck under the Jedi’s watchful eye. “Oi, yer eyein’ me like a hangry rancor,” the Ryn smiled as he shuffled the cards with a flourish, “I ain’t gonna cheat ya. Don’t need to.”

“Can’t con a con,” the Odanite retorted. Turel shifted his gaze up to watch for the camera drones. He imagined orders were being shouted in control rooms. There’s no way Idris would let them just sit and play sabaac. The arena crowd was already starting to boo.

Both players studied their hands with their best sabaac faces. Turel resisted the urge to try to glean information from the Ryn’s mind. It was too early in the game for such tactics. Kordath was about to make the first play when the platform rotated horizontally and hurricane-force winds began to blow. The pair scrambled to keep the deck from blowing away while hiding their respective hands from one another.

“Well, I guess they don’t want us playing,” Turel shouted over the wind as he squatted over the cards.

“Bloody ‘ell–since when do you let em’ tell ya what to do?” Kord inquired in a loud but annoyed tone. He seemed determined to continue.

The Arconan had a point and Turel knew it. He had a history of thumbing his nose at the combat center’s rules. He took a deep breath and focused on the currents of the Force around him. A translucent bubble of light side energy manifest in a protective cocoon around the pair, shutting out the wind for the moment.

Kordath relaxed his posture and sat back down. Without saying anything, he also called upon the Force to bolster the barrier, hoping to lighten the Jedi's mental load.

Turel smiled as he shifted some of his focus back to the game. He had no idea how long he could stay in sync with Kord to maintain the combined barrier but it was worth it just to stick it to the man. He knew some murder droids or unholy abominations would be unleashed next to keep up the action but for now their little act of defiance was enough.

“I believe it was your turn.”

Cards were dealt, and after some creative use of the environment around them exploding against their joined barrier, bits of rubble as chips. The hand pot, going to the winner of each hand, swapped back and forth pretty regularly, while the growing pile of small stones for the sabacc pot continued to grow.

Both men could sense the frustrations of those who came expecting blood sport from the audience, while others were focused and curious…Kordath had never understood gambling as a spectator sport, but there were whole shows on the holonet dedicated to it so what did he know. As the cards went back and forth, bits of stone wagered and conversation were shared as well.

“So, how’s tha…uhh…Kiast…” Kordath swayed slightly in his cross-legged spot, dealing the next hand, grimacing noticeably when he looked at his cards.

“Stuffy, a lot of tradition and stiff-backed Sephi who think they know better,” the Human’s face was more schooled as he looked at his own hand.

“Oh, aye…can see why tha Jedi feel right at home there,” the Ryn grinned as he spoke, taking a swig from his bottle, before offering it across the makeshift playing field.

“Hah hah,” Turel rolled his eyes in response, taking the bottle and leaning back to take a pull from it, the bottle getting lighter by the moment. His gaze directed to the sky, he didn’t see Kordath slip a card out of the deck and set it under his furry thigh.

“And how’s Selen?” he asked, wiping his lips on his sleeve. “Still on fire?”

“Nae, been havin’ some infestation issues, some ancient folk thinkin’ their gods…,” Kord took the bottle back and set it aside.

The men spoke in almost perfect unison, “Typical Sith.”

The sense of anger and annoyance from above them in the arena was growing with each passing hand. Kordath would occasionally slip a card off to hide under his leg when Turel wasn’t looking, and Turel was handling his cards so methodically. At first, he thought it was just because the man was getting as soused as he was, pinching the corner of cards carefully and squinting at them.

He squinted as the man did it once more, and suddenly the hand was Turel’s…again.

“Oi…,” Kordath grumbled, looking at the card in his hand, and pinching along the upper right corner as he’d seen Sorenn do. The image on the card, a four of staves, flickered and turned into a face card, Endurance. “You…bloody…is nothin’ sacred!?”

“What?”

The Jedi’s face was the picture of innocence as he collected his winnings.

“Yer usin’ bloody a trick deck! Ya bleedin’ cheat!”

“Well you’re hiding cards away.”

“...how’d ya see that?’

“I didn’t, but I know you.”

“Oh, aye, cause I’m a Ryn I’m a cheat!?” shouted Bleu, well and fully inebriated, tossing the cards down.

“No, because you’re you!” shouted back Sorenn, also letting his cards drop to the ground.

“Oughta kick yer arse,” mumbled Kordath, struggling to his feet. The barrier around them had flickered and died when the two men began to lose their cool, but the elemental blasts around them had ceased. Neither noticed, not realizing that the fight runners watching were impatiently hoping this would lead to an actual fight finally, and didn’t seem to want to distract the men.

Bleu scooped up his bottle, and the foam hand he’d been using to cushion his bum, turning and waving it threateningly at his old comrade.

“Because I’m me, eh? Cause what, all Arconans be cheats?”

“Not all! Just you!” responded Turel, getting to his feet as well, eyes flickering to the foam finger in confusion.”What does that say on it?”

The question came out of left field, confusing the Ryn enough that he turned the hand to look at it, squinting drunkenly. The Force told him it was coming, and if he’d been sober it would have been an obvious ploy, but he was so surprised at the underhanded tactic that he never even considered dodging.

At least the foam hand cushioned some of the blow when Turel punched it into his face.

While hitting Kordath with his own foam finger was cathartic for Turel it caused enough of a break in concentration for both men that the Force bubble shielding them from the tempest in the arena faded away.

“Now look what ya did!” the Ryn shouted over the wind as he rubbed his chin while holding on to a break in the floor for dear life.

“Worth it!” the Jedi retorted as he crouched down to avoid being blown off the platform. He could barely focus through the gale, but Turel swore he saw a giant wave of water heading their way. “TIME TO GO!” The Odanite turned to put the wind at his back and dashed for the next platform. He called upon the currents of the Force to augment his leg muscles before making the leap.

Meanwhile, Kordath gripped the gap in the platform with all his might as the wall of water rushed over him. The Arconan did not particularly care for water, but had enough experience to exhale before it hit. The rush of water almost broke his grip and felt like it was power washing his fur off. When the wave receded, Kord noticed that while his fur remained in place, his boxers did not. “Oh well,” he muttered to himself. It wasn’t his first time being nude on camera and it wouldn’t be the last.

Turel landed on the adjacent platform with a practiced roll and quickly hopped up. The ground was so hot it nearly burned his hands and knees. Jets of flame began shooting up out of the platform in random and shifting patterns. “Oh frak,” the Jedi mouthed. Somewhere Idris was having a laugh at their expense. A warning shot across the Force as Turel dodged and weaved between the pillars of flame. Just as he was reaching the edge to jump back to the central platform a jet of fire caught his back side, ignited his pants and jacket and causing minor burns. The surge of pain disrupted his concentration and his jump was falling short of the central platform.

The wind on the central platform had began to calm as Kordath noticed Turel leaping from the adjacent floor with smoke emanating from behind him. The arc of the Jedi’s jump was short of the central platform. For half a second he contemplated letting the Odanite fall but dismissed the thought. Even though the human was a sad excuse for a hypocritical Jedi, and a card cheat to boot, he was in many extended family. The Ryn reached out through the Force and grabbed Turel, giving enough of a boost to hit the floor of the platform with a thud.

“HOT OW OW OW!”

“OI! YER ARSE IS ON FIRE MATE!!”

“PUT IT OUT!!” Turel screamed as he rolled around frantically, trying to extricate himself from his jacket.

Instinctively, Kord began beating Turel with the foam finger to try to extinguish the flames, which elicited more cries of pain as he was hitting burns. The human continued to writhe on the ground while Kord changed tactics and kicked Turel’s side hard to roll him over to a nearby puddle left from the wave.

Steam rose as the small fire was put out. Turel winced as the dirty water stung his burned back and buttocks. It hurt like hell but was nothing some time in a bacta tank wouldn’t fix. He looked up at the Ryn in all his natural glory. Shedding his burned jacket and pants, the Jedi slowly rose to his feet. Standing up in nothing but an undershirt, he made eye contact with Kord.

“...thanks for saving me. I think you win.”

“I guess…”

Turel took Kordath’s foam finger’d hand and raised it high for the cameras. If the arena could handle brutal violence, they could handle some light inter-species male nudity.