When you are traversing the wild and untouched landscapes of the savannah, just remind yourself that you are never the apex predator. The vast and desolate area of sand, rocks, dead and ancient trees are all the same blood-orange color for a simple reason: to hide your worst nightmare from your sight, the Akul. A large, bipedal and orange furred mammal, the Akul are the top predators that hunt all sorts of bovine, dog, hooved and giant mammals. Using their extraordinary sense of smell, they can trace your scent from days long past and track you down without mercy.

Throughout the Savannah, tall and wispy Turu-grass stretches out into long ranging fields. Watering holes are sparse and spread thin, and the terrain offers little safety from the blazing sun that hangs overhead. When the sun retreats and gives way to moonlight, the Savannah becomes almost chill, but the night is dark and full of wild creatures. In the Savannah, it’s hunt or be hunted.

Rayze looked around the endless savannah in which he found himself, a feeling of annoyance threatening to bubble forth in a useless and verbose display of his severe displeasure at his current predicament. He wasn’t built for the heat, and having found himself dealing with it over his most recent flurry of missions for the Clan, he was beginning to long for the relative comfort of a dogfight in deep space.

At least in my cockpit I get to control the temperature. Here it’s just oppressively hot.

The grumbling was fuelled by Rayze’s frustration at the seeming lack of success that he had achieved so far in his search for a ship that had crash landed in the region some time back. While the craft’s disappearance had originally been ignored, recent information had highlighted the fact that the ship, apparently belonging to a member who had tried to escape from Odan-Urr to deliver information in exchange for protection from Arcona, held information that may still be valuable. As such, the powers that be had decided to ship one of the Clan’s foremost pilots off to find this mythical information laden craft and to suck it’s databanks dry.

Needless to say, Rayze had so far found a whole pile of nothing.

That being said, he felt as though his luck might be turning as his commlink chirped and he pulled it out. Clicking the channel open, he was greeted by the mechanical chitterings of the R9 droid that was sat in his XJ X-Wing some kilometers back.

“Come on, you know I don’t speak excitable droid. Send a message to my datapad.”

Turning off the commlink and clipping it back to his belt, the Warlord retrieved his datapad and opened it, reading the text as it cycled onto the device and letting a wolfish smile spread across his face.

Thank the Sith I told that droid to monitor the sensors while I covered the area on foot

The droid had apparently spotted another ship making its way towards Rayze’s location, and it had been transmitting an identity consistent with that of a ship owned by Clan Odan-Urr. There was only one conceivable reason for a vessel owned by the Jedi Clan to be in the vicinity, and that was to secure the information that the ship which Rayze was looking for held.

“Looks like my stay on this hellhole is reaching it’s end.”

The words were spoken to noone in particular, and glancing at the datapad one final time, the Warlord put the device away and began to move swiftly in the direction that the droid had indicated the enemy craft had come to rest. Rayze covered the ground quickly, knowing that the enemy craft would almost certainly pick up his presence as he approached and, more importantly, he wasn’t particularly deft at being stealthy anyway. It didn’t take long for him to see the Odan-Urr vessel, and he knew that he would have to take care of the situation before he would be able to grab whatever intel he could from the ship he had been sent to find, assuming it was there at all.

I have to assume there are crew aboard the ship, but my first priority is dealing with anyone that might be outside as they are the most likely to cause me problems

As he moved closer to the ship, Rayze spotted a tall humanoid walking around outside the vessel, obviously looking for something. Slowly pulling out his blaster, the human tried to line up a shot on the other person and, thinking he had a decent opening, fired. The crimson bolt shot through the air and would have taken the humanoid in the chest, had the being not chosen that exact moment to bend down to pick something up.

Blast! That’s the element of surprise gone.

Knowing that his presence was definitely now known, the young Warlord holstered his blaster and rose up fully, plucking his lightsaber from his belt and breaking into a run towards his opponent. His weapon sprang to crimson life in his hand as he moved, covering the distance between the two with frightening speed.

Xan dropped what he was going for and pulled out his saber. He was barely able to get his yellow saber up in time as the Warlord's blade came down in a overhand strike. Xan's blade began to be pushed down by his opponents shear strength. Xan threw himself backwards, and pulled his saber away, barely avoiding the rest of the strike.

"Who are you?" the Dashade asked, quite scared of his foe's strength.

"I am the one and only Rayze Erinos Arconae," the Sith said, with no small amount of pride. "And who are you?"

"I am a Dashade," Xan stated his Wobow mindset taking control.

"I know that, do you think I am stupid?" the Warlord asked angrily.

"I don't know you that well, infact I have never heard of you untill today," the medic replied. "So for all I know you might be. No offense intended of course. You are definitely far stronger than I."

"I... don't know how to reply to that," Rayze said, his pride first angered, then appeased by both the insult then the compliment, lowering his lightsaber.

"I am a medic, sir," Xan replied, stalling for time. "If you are experiencing slight confusion I could help. I recommend bacta, it generally helps with everything."

"I'm not experiencing any confusion," the Warlord relied, annoyed by the Dashades antics.

"Now sir if you're not compliant with your doctor, then things will only get worse," Xan replied evenly.

"How are you a doctor?! You are a Dashade!" Rayze said confused, annoyed and his pride no longer wounded.

"That I am sir," the medic replied. "Don't worry, I won't eat away at your life force. I am here to help you."

"I am done with this conversation," the Warlord said casually. "Either you think I am a fool, or you are one. You're going to die either wa--"

Rayze was cut short as Xan threw himself to the ground, and tripped the human. Both sabers rolled off to the side. Xan then tackled his prone foe, wrestling the stronger man. Rayze, more used to conventional martial arts had no response for a few seconds. He called on the Force, increasing his already powerful strength, and broke free of the Dashade, and began to launch a flurry of strong and fast attacks.

The Dashade pushed to rely almost solely on defence had trouble keeping up with Rayze. Several seconds went by, and Xan took almost two dozen blows from the human. While they were all simply punches, the strength of the human put the Dashade on the edge. He felt every blow, and he knew if he were a non reptilian then bruises would be showing up on his skin.

Did you think I would be gone for too long? Eat him! Xan's hunger said to him.

Rayze pulled back from assaulting the Dashade with a flurry of punches that the monstrous humanoid had managed to somehow weather and watched as some strange expression passed over the Jedi’s face. Taking the momentary advantage granted by his opponent’s distraction, the Sith dashed backwards and plucked his lightsaber from where it had fallen when he’d had been tackled. With his right foot he kicked the Dashade’s lightsaber hilt towards him, the Warlord’s pride precluding him from fighting an opponent unarmed when he himself had a weapon. Nodding down towards the hilt at the other Force user’s feet, Rayze began to speak even as he ignited the crimson lightsaber he held in his right hand.

“Pick up your weapon and fight Dashade, I don’t enjoy fighting unarmed opponents.”

The monster scooped up the hilt that Rayze had kicked his way and ignited the weapon, the saffron blade bursting to life as he brought the weapon around to await the Warlord’s attack. Not wishing to let the Jedi down, Rayze leapt forwards and slammed his lightsaber down in a thunderous overhand strike, his crimson blade smashing into the Dashade’s saber and sending a cascade of sparks around the pair, the alien only managing to keep the strike at bay thanks to his own force-augmented strength. The Jedi stepped back, but Rayze was already moving forwards after him, this time his blade sweeping down low and up towards the monster’s midsection. His strike was parried away deftly by his opponent and the Erinos nodded once towards the other Force user, an overt admission of the Dashade’s abilities with a saber. Not willing to wait around and lose the initiative, Rayze danced forwards and swung his blade horizontally towards the Jedi’s left flank, the strike augmented by the Force to give it an extra burst of power. While the Dashade may have been able to withstand a regular strike and hold his ground, the Warlord’s overly powerful blow was too much for the monster, and he found his lightsaber batted to the side with seeming ease and, panicking, he lashed out with a fist instead. Rayze, overextended by the strength of his own strike, felt himself trying to move backwards without even realising as his body reacted to a warning from the Force. His dodge helped him to avoid the worst of the strike, but the blow glanced off his cheek and caused a curse to emerge from his lips as he stepped backwards and glared over at his opponent.

“Really? This is all you have? You arrive on a ship from Odan-Urr and then you talk to me like I’m a fool, and you can’t even put up a decent fight. You’re pathetic.”

Pushing the slight pang of pain in his cheek aside, Rayze brought his lightsaber up into his favoured ready stance and set his feet, his eyes blazing with fury.

“If you’re not willing to fight, then I will just butcher you like the monster you are, Dashade.”

Anger and rage swelled within the Arconae’s chest and, his battle fury reaching a fever pitch, he charged.