Lava is mined as a precious natural resource on this volatile and volcanic world. The opposing gravitational forces of the twin gas giants closest to Mustafar tear apart the planet’s surface to reveal the mineral-rich lava flows underneath. Once serving as the capital world for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, remnants of their past influence still linger. Massive mining facilities - originally constructed by the Techno Union - are still maintained by the native Mustafarians, an egocentric people who would like nothing more than to squeeze minerals for the purposes of trade and commerce from their volcanic planet.

Other than in the pursuit of business interests, few arrive on Mustafar save for those needing to incinerate evidence in its vast expanses of magma. What little curiosity is given to the volcanic planet is thwarted by a natural scanning interference caused by intense geological activity. Pirates, smugglers, criminals and scum all value this world’s ability to dump bodies, tracked cargo shipments and other unwanted articles—the singular reason for the Black Sun’s interest in the Outer Rim world.

Droids, machines and conveyor belts create the workings of an efficient system to extract the minerals and have it prepared for refinement and transportation. Lacking a suitable surface, metal walkways are shielded against the heat to allow workers passage throughout the facilities. Even with the worst of the heat being shielded against, Mustafar’s temperature remains less than comfortable to most species lacking exoskeletons.

Beyond the blistering heat of the volcanic world, Mustafar served as the battlefield for the fabled final duel between Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.

The mustafarian's body fell to the ground as the melodic humming of Arron's lightsaber ceased.

“I tried to be civil,” Arron said to the corpse. At least he was able to get the passcodes he needed. It wasn’t his fault the man had been so stubborn about coughing them up.

Arron walked over to the room's computer console and set to work downloading the information Xen'Mordin so badly wanted. It took longer than he would have wanted, and Arron took to watching the door. It would only be a matter of time before someone came looking for the dead man on the floor, and that would make everything….complicated.

Arron hated complicated .

The second the information had finished downloading, Arron grabbed the data disk, and made for the door and the walkways that would lead to the space platforms. The sooner he was off this planet and it’s damnable heat the better.

At least that was his plan.

“I can’t let you take that disc,” came a lilting feminine voice from down the hall behind him.

Arron spun on his heels, his lightsaber immediately coming out and activated, and assumed a combat ready stance. He didn’t recognize the togruta woman standing before him, but the unusual weapon held in her right hand drew his attention. A lightsaber Pike was not a common weapon.

“I’m genuinely not interested in fighting you,” she said, sounding hopeful, “if you give me the disk we both walk away from this.”

Arron couldn’t help the smirk that came to his face.

“Come on,” he said. “You don’t honestly expect me to go for that, do you?”

The young woman's shoulders slumped.

“I suppose not,” she sighed. It was the last words she uttered before Arron burst forward and slashed through her form….only for her to shimmer and vanish, leaving Arron confused.

“Did you think I would be that easy to kill?” she asked, now standing behind him.

Arron turned on his feet, just quickly enough to block her saber strike.

“No,” he grunted out, “ I suppose not.”

Her offer was sincere; after all, she knew that being a Cathar had branded him something else—something undesirable. The few that weren’t in hiding were looked down on as inferior species, meant as slaves until their frail bodies ceased usefulness. She was disheartened that Arron would rather risk damaging a dwindling species further, than giving over something so trivial to his own advancement. Otherwise, it was ironic that he would rather serve to further a cause built on the namesake of someone who founded an empire on the foundations of intolerance towards non-Humans.

A cascade of colours reflected off the Cathar’s mechanical arm, forming bands of different-coloured hues across its skeletal surface. His reflexive counter was well-timed, blocking the green blade of A’lora’s unorthodox lightsaber with feline grace before evading the blunt end. His attack came in the form of a downward sweep that should have severed it in two; but, to his misfortune, she no longer wielded a single blade. Conjoined at the middle, the two ends of her lightsaber came together to re-align a mechanism in what had been the blunt end of a long hilt. Streaming into the arc of his stroke, a cerulean river of plasma ignited to block his incoming blow.

“Here I thought the Jedi had fallen,” Arron’s sable mane stood on end, “instead, it look like the Sith are outmatched in their resourcefulness. Tell me—isn’t trickery a Sith tool?”

Rivulets of sweat rolled over the white markings adorning A’lora’s otherwise lavender skin, dissipating into steam as droplets fell onto the contained jets of plasma or the durasteel beneath her feet. He must have felt it too—the heat of Mustafar’s volatile surface as it collected beneath his dark fur. Matted with moisture, his hairs clung together into hundreds of locks.

“Deceit isn’t exclusive to one side of the Force, Arron.” Her muscles coiled to brace her defense against the weight of his counterattack, “Or has Xen’Mordin managed to blind even his idol’s enemies to fight for his cause? We don’t need to be rivals in this; Odan-Urr can shelter those who cannot fit into Pravus’ new order.”

Her amber gaze matched his, “Just give me the disk, Arron.”

Matched in strength, the combatants found themselves at a standstill. Bearing down on the cerulean blade with the force of his overhead swing, Arron had the advantage of momentum while A’lora had the subtle raw strength of someone accustomed to honing their muscles. Not willing to risk his life in a test of strength, Arron retaliated with a surprise of his own to settle the score.

Extending from their metallic sheathes, five claws of the same material brushed against the skin of her forearm, rending flesh as it tore the skin to her wrist. The blood collected underneath her arm before staining the lava-scorched durasteel crimson. Most of the liquid fell between the gaps of the expanded metal into the tumultuous inferno being harvested for its precious materials.

An agonized scream pierced Arron’s ears, sounding closer to that of a cornered animal than a wounded one. Outmatched against his now-unobstructed offense, she reeled a meter backward. Losing the resistance from her defense, Arron’s blade continued with the pressure he had exerted against hers and severed a railing to his left.

Given a brief moment of respite to recover from the initial shock, A’lora gritted her teeth. Arron sensed that the woman was poised to strike, but winced noticeably when she instead held the wound to the remaining section of railing. Sizzling like raw meat tossed into a fire, the heated metal cauterized her forearm as a lightsaber’s blade would have.

“The information on this doesn’t concern the Jedi, A’lora Kituri. Let me return it, and tend that wound.” Arron offered.

“It concerns us a great deal,” she hissed, more from the burning sensation than outrage, “that disk contains the whereabouts of those like us: outcasts, and unwanted things.”

Those like us.

He realized that she had directed the phrase at him, rather than addressing the Jedi alone. Arron felt a tinge of regret, knowing that the data he held could condemn others to his fate, Cathar among them. Being marked was something he knew all too well; running from the wrong people was no life: it was a sentence. Still, he had to ask himself—was it a trial to test his devotion to Scholae Palatinae?

Arron stared at the stranger, tumbling her words over in his mind, his thoughts moving at light speed, the way they so often did when he had to make a choice. Unlike some of his….allies for lack of a better word, there were only a few in the Brotherhood he would deign to call friend-he didn’t hate the Jedi purely on principle.

But not hating them wasn’t the same as supporting them, and it certainly didn’t mean throwing everything away for some of them.

This one had gotten in his way, and for him that would make everything simple.

But then she had to start talking, and worse, she had to start making sense.

As much as he wanted to, Arron couldn’t get the words of his mind. Those like us. Outcasts and unwanted things. Those like us.

His thoughts caught on those three in particular. He tightened his grip on his saber. Those like us? She wasn’t like him, no matter what she thought. He had suffered long before the Grandmaster's pathetic purge, in ways this stranger would never know, and he had come out alive, without anyone's help.

Who was she to moralize to him? The very thought, and all the hellish memories she had dredged up with her little speech was making his blood boil.

“Those like us, huh?” he spoke with a deceptive calmness to his gravely voice. Arron took on a combat stance, and he all but roared:

“YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!”

Arron surged forward, his anger guiding his actions now, and assaulted his opponent with renewed vigor. His overhead slash was parried, A'lora spinning her blade to turn he counter into an attack with the opposite end of her saber.

Arron pivoted on his heels, dodging the stab by stepping past it. He ducked when she slashed, and rolled backward. Arron jumped into the air, and grabbed a low hanging brace in the ceiling, swinging his feet forward to kick the Togruta in the head.

She stumbled backward as he dropped back to the floor.

“Maybe you’re right, about Pravus, and Xen and everything else.” A'lora glared at him in equal parts anger and sadness, but she raised her weapon nonetheless and prepared for the final engagement.

“Then why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Because it doesn’t matter. No one will chain me again. Not the Emperor, not the Grandmaster, and not the Jedi.”

The two warrior's blades met, humming with anticipation of the battle to come.

Errant specks of matter passed between the jets of plasma, leaving the interlocked streams as molten particles that showered over the arms of the combatants. Burst after burst of the sparks formed with each contact, whether against their rival’s lightsaber or the lava-scorched durasteel. A’lora’s attacks came as a chaotic symphony of strikes and counterstrikes; the alternating blades producing little to no pattern in their movement. Her wound, though cauterized, had forced her to favour her left hand.

As if to illustrate how dire Arron’s position was, he could hear the magma roiling beneath his feet and watch as bubbles formed on its surface to his left. Soon, the reservoir would begin to rise with the injection of gas meant to bring heavier metals to the surface. His instincts for survival kicked at his mind, screaming like a caged animal sensing its demise.

He wanted to dig his fingers into his skull, tearing out her words as she intruded on his mind, “I have broken free from their bonds, Arron. You are still chained, but don’t know it. Come with me, and cast them aside.”

“Get out!” an almost unrecognizable voice bellowed from him. Arcing between his fingers, white-violet energy crackled to life. Forking as it sizzled through the air, the streams caught onto the green blade of A’lora’s lightsaber, which turned towards him while the end opposite deactivated. Elongating to its original length, he found himself faced against the same unorthodox tool he fought earlier. Now aimed at his face, the glowing blade stuck out like a lightning rod. As his white-purple bolts collided with the force field surrounding the stream of plasma, it bounced to the metal railing guarding him from a rising pool of magma. Combined with the thermal heat from the molten liquid, the Force lightning proved too much for the barrier to handle.

Glowing red-hot, the railing began to buckle under the intense exchange of energies. Next, the attached beams began to distort under the weight of the combatants in their weakened state. Arron felt himself sliding backwards when the platform shifted, realizing that the bubbling magma was beginning to consume the structure from behind him. Sensing that he had two choices—tumbling back into the reservoir or spearing himself on the end of a lightsaber pike—he made a decision that he decided he might not come to regret.

Clinking against metallic digits, the holodisc was produced from the folds of his coat without unnecessary theatrics. If Xen’Mordin asked after its whereabouts, he would tell the truth—the version without the Togruta glowering at him from the other end of the bridge. A flick of the wrist was all the effort it took for him to launch the data into the chamber of molten rock and metal.

Having reached a mutual understanding, the High Councillor offered a solemn nod in gratitude. Without a word—not even an offer—she left him to reflect on his own, gazing at the floating components before those, too, sunk beneath the blanket of lava. In those moments of rumination, he realized the significance of the moment.

His bonds were cut.