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.

The susurration of the long grass had a calming effect on Valtiere as he stalked through the Savannah, eyes constantly roving the landscape, acutely aware of the host of dangers surrounding him at every moment. He held his pistol in one hand, a knife in the other. As he shook sweat from his brow, he questioned his mission yet again.

“A scroll?” Valtiere cocked an eyebrow at the Consul. He stood at ease, arms folded across his chest.

The Shadow Lady regarded him sightlessly, a grin cocking her features. “Not just a scroll. A treatise on Sith Alchemy, long thought lost, but recently tracked down. Whoever holds it can gain favour with the Dark Council. They love all that ‘Darker-than-Thou’ poodoo.” She seemed very pleased with herself as she spoke, as if realising such informality would irk the Rollmaster.
“Why pick me, then? Why not one of your Force Users? I suppose the risk of them attempting to gain personal power is too high.” He sniped derisively.

Atyiru tapped her nose twice, smile becoming conspiratorial as she leant forward slightly.

“Halfway there. I also took into account who one of our esteemed rivals sent.” She grinned as the holo flashed to life.

Valtiere smiled back.

His head poked up above the grass, surveying the area he had spent so many days in. He could have taken the scroll and left, setting off for Shili in his own ship he could pilot rather than commandeering a capital ship to massage his ego. But then he wouldn’t be able to have the opportunity to stick it to another Force User.

Seabr'imsto'nedansr strode back and forth, Charric pistol in his hand, a beast in the trappings of civility. The man styled himself as some sort of naval commander, a leader of men. But talk amongst the ‘mundanes’ of the Brotherhood told a different tale: A man that didn’t even have the basics of tactics or leadership down. A man who didn’t know how to operate the ships he ‘commanded’. As with many cases in the Brotherhood. The actual officers of the Navy took up his slack and minimised his damage to their brethren.

The Chiss looked frustrated, though it was hard to tell with those soulless red eyes. Valtiere smiled to himself, a private smile. He patted the pack on the ground beside him, the scroll tube safely held within. Nikola shouldered it, tightening the straps for easy movement. The commander looked about himself again, a final check.

Three loud retorts rocked the quiet savannah. Brimstone spluttered, dodging the deadly slugs, Charric pistol rising in the same move. “Who goes there?!” He yelled, eyes casting about behind him, face etched with confusion and rage. Valtiere stood, pistol in hand, scroll tube in the other, a smile on his face. “Seabr'imsto'nedansr!” Valtiere called out over the grass, purposefully mangling the pronunciation as much as possible. “Seems you’ve been outwitted. By a mundane. How unfortunate. Plageuis’ Loss is Arcona’s gain!” He chuckled lightly. “And any task you embark on is certainly a loss.” He saw the jaw of the Chiss working furiously at this insolence, simmering with rage. Valtiere was over eight metres away, safely out of range of the Chiss’ mundane weapons. When he saw Brimstone’s other fist clenching, however, he turned and ran towards a copse of trees, weaving in an uneven pattern. The Force tended to be more...nebulous in regards to the range of application.

He heard the Chiss blundering after him, unable to keep up, even when using the Force to amplify himself. He smiled as he heard the Chiss splutter again, then a crash as he fell into the grass, tripped by a tripline of woven grass. Weak individually, but strong as a whole. Like the Brotherhood, if one wanted to see meaning in things. Valtiere disappeared into the copse of trees, lightning crackling after him as he dodged around a trunk, moving more slowly, cautiously, as he stopped at a tree.

The Commander felt the rumble of a telekinetic blow landing somewhere out of sight. Brimstone was tearing up the ground, laying waste to the simple traps, nothing more than woven grass bound tightly at ankle level. Still, it gave Valtiere enough time to scramble up the tree, straining his human senses.

“Come out, worm!” The Chiss roared, stalking into the copse. He looked about himself, having switched to his rifle now. Valtiere knew the Battlemaster would be using the extrasensory abilities of the Force to find him. He kept still, arms and legs supported in twisted, dry branches. He kept a hand over one eye, ruining depth perception, but hiding the telltale blue light of the simulacrum. Such an awkward position was uncomfortable.

Brimstone had stopped, crouched down, smaller animals scurrying away with various noises of discontent. He was eying something. Valtiere smiled, the Commander knowing it meant the next stage of his plan. A dead animal, shot by a slugthrower just as Brimstone set foot on the planet. And dead animals brought scavengers, and scavengers brought predators.

The Chiss rose, looking up into the trees. He was obviously working out where his opponent was, the Force acting as a guiding hand.

His saving grace came in the form of a low growl, followed by answering calls. Large orange forms padded into the copse, forms made for hunting and murder. Three majestic beasts revealed themselves, confident menace radiating from them, poised to strike, united in purpose.

The Akul had come.

Brimstone stared at the three Akul that were trudging along a path that might be near him. Forcing himself to regain his composure, he squatted down and watched intently through the tall grass. He already had dealt with these beasts before when he arrived earlier. And he knew they were exceptional hunters due to their heightened sense of smell.

But he also knew that his adversary was nearby too. He was able to pick him up through the Force. But something didn't seem right. The item wasn't giving off the noticeable "feelings" an item of importance would give, which is what was the original object of this mission. Brimstone knew for a fact that he would be able to sense any dark presence within any artifact, yet he wasn't sensing this.

Slowing down his breathing to a trickle, he watched as the Akul stopped in their tracks and begun sniffing the ground where they were standing. As he watched, he noticed, that they stopped heading towards him and started veering off to the west. Towards the Arconan. "Ha! Mundane, you forget your little traps you laid in wait for me, held your scent behind" Brimstone thought to himself as he watched the enormous creatures start heading in the opposite direction.

Nikola's smirk at the chance encounter turned into a troublesome worry as he watched the beast change paths....one that was leading towards his hiding spot. "Fraking Sith! Must be using some sort of beast control to change their mind" he thought, as he adjusted his slugthrower to one hand while trying to figure out how to escape the incoming rampage.

Brimstone watched and calculated where they were heading, while still cursing under his breath at falling for the simplest traps possible. "Have I been away from my troops that long that I forgotten basic tactics 101?" he pondered as he watched. He had to give the soldier credit. Coming to a gun fight with a knife is usually not a great idea. Looking at his rifle and at the beasts, he knew he'd only get a couple shots off, whereas, his blasters, which he had better training with, he might be able to kill all three if need be. With its base 30 meter range, and a bit of modification he did to both of them to increase range and energy output, he could easily hit them at 50 meters.

But even though his adversary was an Arconan, Brimstone didn't feel right. He knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against multiple Akul. He remembered all his troops he led in battle and the numerous ones that died under his watched. There was no honor in lopsided defeats. He then decided instead of just letting these beast trample the soldier, he was going to help defeat them.

One of the Akul that was snorting the ground, lifted its head quickly and bellowed out a howl that reverberated the landscape. The other two lifted their heads also as the first took off in a sprint towards its intended hunt. Nikola realized they had found him and knew it was a matter of seconds before they would trample him. Giving up his concealment to try to not only run, but to defend himself, he opened fire on the lead Akul that was charging for him.

Brimstone used his ability in the Force and took off in a dead sprint behind the creatures. Replacing his blasters back in their holsters while running, he whipped out his lightsaber, and in a loud battle cry, used his left hand to unleash a torrent of blue forked lightning at the two beasts bringing up the rear. Both creatures stumbled from the sudden, and shocking, impact. Brimstone somersaulted over the first and landed directly on the second one, impaling his ignited crimson blade deep in the beast's skull. He then ducked out of the way as he sensed multiple slugs whizzing by his head.

Nikola had opened fire on the first beast and as it staggered from some of the hits, multiple shots overshot their target and nearly hit the Chiss.

The third beast recovered its footing and charged at the grounded prey and before it could make its mark, Brimstone, grabbed it with the Force and hurled it forward through the air. As it landed with a huge thud that kicked up dirt and rocks, Nikola seized the moment to jump on its back and open fire with his weapon, landing multiple slugs into its head and neck, killing it instantly.

Then he immediately turned his attention back at Brimstone, aiming his weapon at him. Unfortunately, Brimstone thought of the same idea and had one of his charric's in his hand too, aiming at the human.

"Looks like we have a bothan standoff my friend" retorted the Arconan.

"It also looks like you got screwed by your contacts too" replied Brimstone.

"How so?"

"Because that scroll you have strapped to your back, isn't even a real scroll you came searching for" the Chiss retorted.

"And how would you know that?" Nikola replied, while still holding a bead on the Plagueis member.

Lowering his weapon and replacing it back in the holster, Brimstone just smiled. "Because I would have felt its dark energies this close. I knew something wasn't right and I had to get close enough to it and you to get a more accurate sense. That you have there is a forgery I bet, and who ever you paid for it, knew you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, especially, being a Mundane.

Nikola watched the Sith lower his weapons and with hesitation, did the same. He knew the Chiss was right that he couldn't "sense" any "Force". "Ok, then what do you suggest?"

"A little truce. I bet those who sold you that poodoo is and has multiple real items. We hunt them down and split the wealth" the Chiss replied. "And by the way, use my basic name of Brimstone. Your vocal chords don't properly say my name."

"Greetings, my name is Nikola Valtiere."

As the Chiss walked off, confident in their fledgeling alliance, Valtiere reloaded his pistol, holstered it, and pulled out the scroll. He scanned the document. It was crowded with information. If it was a fake, a forgery, then no matter. A fake document was still a document. It held information on Alchemy. A scroll didn’t need to be steeped in the dark side to be read by eyes. Even if the ‘merchant’ that had sold him the information on the location of a good fake, it was useful.

He rolled up the scroll, sealed the tube, and put it back in his bag. The Chiss had decided to barrel off, expecting Valtiere to follow. He shrugged, following for now. The Commander pulled out his pistol again, fully reloaded.

“You need to head North a bit.” Valtiere said, pointing. The Chiss looked at him, then nodded, turning in that direction. The Commander had to slow his pace to stop his long legs from outstripping his part time ally.

Eventually, they came to a crude tent, the living arrangements of one used to living in the wilderness. A man shambled out of the shelter. Eyes inquisitive first, then lighting with recognition. A broken smile cracked his face, brown teeth placed haphazardly in red gums

“So, Battlemaster.” Valtiere started.
“I’ve actually gone by military titles, such a-”
“Battlemaster” Valtiere interrupted. “This is the ‘merchant’ you referred to. He sold me information. I dug up the scroll.” He called out to the man. “Hail! This man here, seems to think you sold me false information. Care to refute him?” He asked mildly, false levity injected into his tone. The man cackled, the sound quickly becoming a wheeze.

“Yes, I sent you off to dig up a fake scroll that I planted in the middle of Akul territory.” He replied, grin creasing his face into a mass of wrinkles. Valtiere’s eye flicked to the side, the prosthetic staring forward. He could see the anger building in the Chiss again, but directed at the man in front of him, rather than Valtiere himself.

“But I can sense no darkness emanating from the scroll! A relic on the arts of the Sith should be imbued with the Dark Side!” The Chiss retorted, becoming flustered. The old man’s grin stayed fixed on his face, seemingly too baffled to change to any other expression.

“It’s a scroll! A treatise on alchemy! Now, if I had been giving out the vague location of a Holocron, then yes, the ‘dark aura’ would make sense. I’m sure you’d have found it instantly, powerful in the Force as you are.” He said, grin souring on his face, obviously tired of being questioned.

“But.” The old man raised a crooked finger, weathered like dried meat, “This is a scroll. A scrap of once great lore reduced down to naught but words on paper, any lingering taint of darkness washed away by the sands of time.” He sounded almost sad, then, an old man remembering the vigours of youth.

Brimstone had become quiet, wheels of his mind turning as the information was fed in and processed, drawn in by the man’s oratory. Only too late did the Chiss sense danger, a hand clamping down on his shoulder as the muzzle of a pistol pressed into the small of his back.

“If you move, I shoot. If you try and use the Force, I shoot. I’m faster than you, we both know that.” Valtiere growled, voice low, every syllable enunciated. “Even the Force can’t heal a severed spinal column.” He added, a grin colouring his tone.

“You dare?!” Brimstone yelled, arm sweeping around, knocking the pistol. The blow was weak, as the Chiss had to twist, and Valtiere was able to step back, a shot cracking through the air, stopping at an invisible barrier that the Sith had formed in the small space about himself. The Battlemaster seemed to look disappointed in the Commander as Valtiere kept backpedalling. Slowly, he pulled out his pair of Charric blasters, bringing them up to bear.

He fired, blue bolts spitting forth. Valtiere kept moving backward, but the Chiss was a good shot. The shots struck.

“Kind of warm.” Valtiere muttered. His frantic movement had allowed him to get out of the operational range of the pistols. The Chiss growled, throwing the weapons aside. He moved to pull out his lightsaber.

Valtiere careened into the Chiss, knocking the weapon from his grasp into the long grass that surrounded them. The desperate grin that stretched across Valtiere’s face was disconcerting. Sheer luck had given him the opening. He scrambled up quickly, dropping his pistol and drawing his tulwar. He drove down with the curved blade, glimmering as it caught the sun.

Brimstone rolled out the way, the blade catching his uniform as he dodged the deadly sweep of the weapon. He pushed himself up, pulling out his Sapphire Blade, a symbol of his achievement in the Brotherhood. The short gladius was deadly in the right hands. And Brimstone was an accomplished duellist. He thrust forward, the Force empowering him, his strikes moving faster.

But not fast enough, as Valtiere dodged nimbly to the left, the curved blade of his weapon slicing out at Brimstone’s arm, drawing a red line and a hiss of pain from the Chiss.

“Maybe you should have focussed more on your physical state than playing admiral.” Valtiere smirked, again dodging aside, from Brimstone’s thrust as he overextended, again using the Force to squeeze some speed out. Valtiere spun, slicing Brimstone’s back, red stark against the white of the uniform.

Brimstone turned again, malice in his eyes. He thrust a hand forward, and Valtiere felt as if a massive hand slammed him in the sternum, knocking him back, winded. He scrambled back up, blade held ahead of him like a holy icon.

“Why focus on my physical state when I can draw on the powers of the Force, mundane” Brimstone spat, the bleeding of his wounds already slowing to a trickle, his supernatural powers allowing him to heal himself. The pair were breathing heavily, winded by their struggles for supremacy.

“True.” Valtiere noted, sheathing his weapon, seemingly demure in defeat. Then he grinned again.

“But I can run faster than you.” He responded, turning on his heel, powering away, dodging around and over obstacles that hid in the long grass. He heard Brimstone roar in anger, crashing through the foliage after him as Valtiere increased the distance, making for his ship’s landing site, trusting in his speed to carry him from danger.

Nikola Valtiere knew for a fact that he had to make distance in order to get to his ship. He had zero chance of survival against a Force sensitive if the battle dragged on. Even with all his modifications, they wouldn't last long under a relentless attack. He had to make it back to his Stealth X in order to escape. He had landed and placed it near the mountainside in ordere to hide it's familiar signature from any ships that were in orbit.

Brimstone on the other hand, used the Force to enhance his strength in his legs as he picked up speed. His quarry was only about 40 meters in front of him. He kept shooting at Nikola and even as shots hit, they didn't seem to slow the Arconan down. He then shot past him and into the dried grasses ahead of Valtiere, which caused them to catch fire. This completely caught the Human off-guard as had to adjust his trajectory of escape due to the flames that erupted and spreed in haste.

As he ran to the east, he tried to glance at his adversaries pursuit and completely ran into the backside of a large Akul, which startled the creature and knocked him off his feet into the grass. "Frak!" he cursed as the creature turned and attacked. Rolling to he side, with his tulwar still in hand, he thrust upwards and found its mark in the underside of the creatures throat. Not taking the time to finish off his kill, Nikola got back on his feet and took off running while the creature collapsed to the ground, bleeding profusely.

Brimstone on the other hand, kept down the same path, headed towards the mountains that was the Arconan's original trajectory. He realized that there was going to be some sort of ship nearby if his mundane was to leave the planet. So he made his way towards it and in relatively short time, found the Stealth X parked next to the an over crop of boulders that were perched precariously above. He then took position to hide out of sight, but near the ship, to await his prey.

Nikola made it to his ship's location and stopped to search around before going into the cockpit. He couldn't see the Chiss anywhere close with his bionic eye and figured he had made his escape.

"Ahem!"

The sudden sound behind him made his spine curl as he realized that Brimstone was behind him.

"Nice ship you have here" Brimstone retorted as he walked from behind it and patted its wing. "Too bad you are not Force sensitive, or it would serve you even better."

"You ain't powerful enough to destroy it, and since we are pretty much at a stalemate, why don't we just part ways" retorted Valtiere.

"True, I could try to slice-n-dice it till I am Blue in the face, but I had something else in mind."

Nikola watched as the Chiss open fire on the rock ledge above the ship. Then with the Force, Brimstone grabbed the largest boulder he had loosen and it fell, landing on the site of the canopy of its cockpit, crushing it from beneath it sheer mass.

"YOU FRAKING SITH!" yelled the human as he watched his beloved ship get crushed. The rage inside him unleashed as he took off with his tulwar in hand and attacked the Chiss. Brimstone turned and casually opened up with arcs of blue lightning that engulfed the human and stopped him dead in his tracks. As Nikola was being shocked, he dropped his blade and got hurled backwards from the impact of the attack. The lightning subsided as he hit the ground hard, bouncing his head off the hardened clay of the land.

He went for his blaster to try to get a shot off, but Brimstone yanked it out of his grasp and tossed it to the side.

"Go ahead and kill me, Sith!" Valtiere spatted at the approaching Chiss.

"I told you before, I ain't going to kill you. But I will make you and your fellow Arconans wish they didn't upset this Sith" retorted Brimstone causally. He then ignited his blade and plunged it into one of Valtiere's durasteel legs, severing it from the knee joint.

As he finished and started to walk away, he stopped to look at his fallen adversary. "Tell your Consul, my condolences."