Hidden in Felucia’s jungle lies a two hundred meter expanse marking the ancient burial site of this world’s deadliest creatures and the location of innumerable remnants of hundreds, if not thousands of rancors. A circular enclosure of sun-bleached bones are arranged in the center of the cemetery—no doubt the former dwelling of a powerful practitioner of the Force. Cobwebs cling to the fallen beasts, a testament to the primordial age of some of the creatures.

Somewhat obscured by surrounding cliffs and the luminescent jungle, the dusted bones and carcasses are cast in a faint shadow, leaving just enough light to see by. The atmosphere is thick and stifling, with a strong overtone of dust and bone suspended in the still air. The taint of the Dark Side's influence has polluted the landmark over time, giving form to a dreadful aura that has scared off scavengers determined to sell off a rancor tusk or two. Unlike most of Felucia, the area is nearly devoid of life aside from ravenous predators dwelling within the hollowed-out husks of dead rancors.

The graveyard was eerily quiet.  Every time he’d been here before, there were always the normal ambient noises one would hear from scavengers and predators that always lurked about.  This time there was nothing.  Armad stopped along the path, and pushed his senses outward through the Force, trying to feel for who or what else was actually out there.  A few seconds later, he couldn’t tell if there was anyone out there or not.  It was as if there was something blocking him, both in the Force and visually.  If it was someone, then they were indeed powerful to be nearby and not able to sense or see them.  

“I know you’re there, show yourself!” Armad yelled out to the small valley of bones.  When silence answered him, Armad figured that no one was there, but there was this pestering notion that someone was nearby.

Slowly turned in a circle, Armad surveyed the immediate area for anything that might resemble a trap. Having not seen or sensed any electronic devices, Armad set himself for what he was going to do next. Having thought up a way to see who or what was around, Armad would send a cloud of dust outward in an attempt to catch it billowed around the unseen. Armad pulled the Force into himself, directed it along his right arm down to his right fist, quickly dropped to one knee punched the ground, sending a cloud of dust up and outward. The Sith jumped back up to see if the dust billowed around anything. Quickly looked straight ahead, to his left, behind him. When he started to look to his right, someone materialized out of thin air, looking straight ahead.

Instinct took over at that moment, as surprise was not something that the Sith was accustomed to. “Gah!” Armad yelled as he jumped away to his left, drawing his blaster and fired a couple of wild shots at the figure, both of which didn't come near their intended target. Armad landed on his feet a couple of meters away, still had his blaster aimed at the figure, he was able to calm himself to get a better look at who it was. “Darkblade?” Armad questioned as he looked around his blaster to get a better look. It was at this point that the Dark Jedi burst out laughing.

“Sithspit, you mynock! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Armad screamed at Darkblade, who was still laughing. Armad holstered his blaster and started to walk back over to the Quaestor of Shar Dakhan, wondering why he was here to begin with. Though it didn't really take him long to figure out why the Anzati was on Felicia. Armad had been tasked with securing data from a datapad that was rumored to contain information on the Brotherhood’s Jedi. It was unknown what would be on the datapad, or if it was reliable or not. He was to copy its contents and bring it back to the Inquisitorius. That was probably why Darkblade was here.

“So, what brings you out this way?” Armad queried, as he extended his hand in greeting, knowing the answer.

“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.” Darkblade quipped taking Armad’s hand and gave it a good shake. “Also, a copy of that datapad you've got there.”

The handshake ended, both withdrew their hands slowly. Armad eyed the Anzati questionably, trying to see if he'd been joking, but he knew better. Armad took a step back to put a little space between himself and the Quaestor.

“Now, I know about your reputation for not accepting failure, especially when it comes to a mission. In fact, you are rather known for your harsh punishment of failure of any kind.” Armad stated, held his hands up in front of him in a mock gesture of surrender. “So, if I let you have a copy of this information, when I was given explicit orders to not let anyone see it until they've checked its validity. How would you view that?” Armad challenged, making an emphasis by pointing at Darkblade.

Darkblade stood there a moment, his hand outstretched, as if he had expected the datapad to be placed there without question. “Well now, that would be quite the quandary.” Darkblade responded after a few moments of introspection and withdrew his hand. “I have an answer for that. I would just take it from you.” The Anzati calmly stated, as he unclipped his lightsaber but didn't ignite it.

“Any time you want to try,” Armad challenged,as he unclipped his lightsaber and spread his arms in an open challenge. Then pivoted backwards on his right foot, the Battlemaster set himself at an angle towards Darkblade so that he could raise his right arm and point his lightsaber at the waiting Anzati. “Come and get it.” The Sith taunted, ignited his lightsaber as if to punctuate that there was nothing left to say.

Not missing a beat, Darkblade ignited his lightsaber and rushed forward. He aimed an upwards cross swing meant to knock Armad's up and backward. Having foreseen that as a probable opening move, Armad started pivoted backward on his left foot with the strike to diminish the force on his lightsaber . This allowed him to swing his own lightsaber up in a tight overhead arc to strike at the Dark Jedi’s right shoulder. The Savant had seen that coming, so with his first strike’s momentum, he continued the arc, almost mimicking Armad’s movement to block the attack. Darkblade immediately moved to strike at Armad’s head, and met only empty air as the Umbaran had turned sideways. It was at this point that Armad saw the lanvarok on the Quaestor’s wrist, and remembered that Darkblade was known for randomly bringing that, and his Sith Sword with him on his missions. Having missed seeing that in the beginning, Armad wondered if he actually did bring the sword with him this time, he’d have to be wary of that, as that would change the dynamic of this duel.

Armad spun full circle to his right, after he knocked Darkblade’s lightsaber away, intent on a backhand sweep aimed at the Anzati’s knees. The Savant witnessed the Battlemaster's spin and saw that his blade was aimed to go low. Darkblade cartwheeled over the crimson blade of Armad, landed on his feet and pointed his own lightsaber at the Umbaran. While Armad finished his spin, ended in the same stance he’d started in, facing the Dark Jedi, but this time with his lightsaber pointed towards the ground.

Both combatants stared at each other, faces void of emotions as sweat dripped down their foreheads. The graveyard was silent except for the heavy breathing of Armad and Darkblade. The animals had scattered off to their hiding places as the battle erupted, and only the brave dared to take a peek at the Dark Jedi dueling it out.

“You fight well, a true master of your form,” Darkblade grunted towards the Umbaran. Although seemingly more skilled, Darkblade noted that there was little power behind his swings, making it fairly easy to parry or block strikes that he was able to see coming. The only advantage the Anzat had in their duel seemed to be his superior strength. Walking backwards, Darkblade disengaged and tried to create some distance. Once he had a few meters between them the Seeker relaxed slightly.

Armad stood tall and proud, his white hair swayed slightly as wind swept through the graveyard causing sinister sounds in the skeletons of the many deceased rancors. At the sight of Darkblade relaxing, the Techweaver shrugged his shoulders and threw out his left hand towards the Anzat. Fueled by his anger at this unnecessary confrontation, lightning erupted from his fingertips and raced towards the Quaestor in blinding speed.

The crackling sound echoed throughout the graveyard, lighting the ground and the surrounding area in an eerie kind of way, casting shadows across the many bones and skulls that littered the ground.

Having no real reaction to it, Darkblade dropped to the ground in an almost comical way as he heard the lightning sizzle past his head and could feel its scorching heat on the back of his neck, landing on his hands and feet in a parallel way on the ground, as if doing a push up. The oddity of the situation caused Armad to smirk.

“So even the mighty Quaestor can be caught off-guard. This is quite amusing. Shadow’s Bane will have a laugh when I tell them about this,” the Battlemaster taunted as he tried to fight off the taxing effect the power of using lightning had on his body.

Without giving Darkblade the time to recover, he grabbed his blaster pistol in his left hand and fired off a quick succession of blasts whilst running towards the vulnerable Anzat. Armad cursed as he watched the bolts miss their mark, peppering the ground around his intended target, throwing up dirt where they struck.

I’ve got to practice more with this damned blaster, he thought to himself.

Leaping high into the air he brought his lightsaber down in a mighty two-handed strike aimed at severing the arm of the downed Anzat.

Thinking quickly, Darkblade rolled onto his back and called on the Force. He felt it seeping into him as it wrapped around and infusing his muscles, hardening them and giving him the necessary strength to block the blow.

As the Techweaver gave a mighty bellow and crashed down on the Anzat, he felt perplexed as he realised his blow had been blocked with relative ease.

“My turn,” the Anzat said as he concentrated on his position, preparing his counter attack.

Both combatants were instantaneously enveloped in a cloud of pure darkness. Feeling, but not being able to see how or where, Armad realised Darkblade had slipped away from their saber lock.

“Your tricks won’t save you, Quaestor!” the Umbaran shouted blindly around him.

As he had watched the cloud of darkness form and envelope both of them, Armad had felt Darkblade disengage from his attack. Normally, being in the dark was nothing for him to worry about, but for some reason he couldn’t see anything around him. When he tried to reach out with the Force, he found that while he could feel the Force, he was not able to sense anyone around him. This caused him a moment of panic as he wondered if Darkblade was powerful enough to stop him from using the Force. Quickly putting that out of his mind, the Sith tried to focus on what he would need to do to re-even the odds.

Armad didn’t want to give Darkblade a free chance to strike, so he figured out a way to suss out his opponent. Taking the chance that Darkblade couldn’t see within the sphere of darkness, Armad grabbed his Fire Whip off his belt with his left hand, and flicked it out in front of him to extend it to its full length. He hoped that he would catch some part of his opponent or distract him enough so he could put them both back on even levels.

Darkblade had managed to roll out from under Armad’s blade as soon as he had created the sphere of pure darkness. Knowing that the Umbaran would not be able to see despite ultraviolet vision, he had the upper-hand and he wanted to use that. As the blackness cloud did not affect him, Darkblade was able to watch his opponent. With a little concentration, Darkblade was able to focus on Armad in an attempt to block whatever Force power that Armad decided to use while at a disadvantage. Since he hadn’t felt a build up of energy for an attack, Darkblade assumed that he’d just thwarted Armad’s attempt to sense where he had escaped to. The Savant knew he had been successful when he witnessed a very brief moment of panic flash across the Battlemasters’ face.

Darkblade grew curious when Armad grabbed a weird type of whip from his belt with his left hand, flicked it forward, unraveling it to it’s full length. The Anzat wondered what he planned on doing with that, when the Umbaran dropped into a low spin, causing the whip to fully extend, effectively creating a six meter detection circle.

In an effort to keep his slight advantage, Darkblade stopped concentrating on keeping the darkness sphere up, and started to run toward the Battlemaster. After a couple of steps, the Savant leaped as high as he could with a small aid from the Force, turning as he did to put himself into a spin. As the Dark Jedi neared the apex of his jumping spin, he drew his Sith Sword and threw it directly in the path of the whip, cleanly separating the whip from the hilt. Darkblade landed just to the left of his sword, dropping to one knee to lessen the impact, his left hand grabbing the hilt.

Armad sensed Darkblade’s presence as he was completing his spin. He felt a small prick of danger just before he heard the thunk of something hitting the ground in front of him, and felt a small tug on his whip and his arm flew faster in its continued arc. Not waiting to figure out what had caused the destruction of his precious Fire Whip, Armad jumped back as far as he could, landing several meters beyond the edge of the now shrinking darkness sphere. The Battlemaster gave a vexed sigh as he looked at the useless hilt of the Fire Whip. Armad quickly looked up at the almost dissipated dark sphere, when four discs were launched from the darkness towards him. Armad dropped the destroyed hilt and brought his lightsaber up to block the incoming projectiles.

Dancing side to side, and with a precision that could only come from years of study, destroyed or avoided the first three discs. The fourth disc, Armad jumped to up and to his left, spinning and letting the disc fly past harmlessly. Just after it flew past the Umbaran’s head, he extended his left hand, grabbed ahold of it, and pulled as hard as he could with the Force, slingshotted it back toward the practically gone dark cloud and the Anzat that was still standing there with his right arm raised.

Not being able to effectively aim by doing it that way, Armad had done his best when he released the disc and it whizzed past Darkblade’s head and sank into a rib bone behind him. The Battlemaster gave a small smile at the look of surprise on the Savants face.

“I have a feeling that this could go on for a while,” Armad stated as he started to walk toward the Dark Jedi. “I’m assuming that we are pretty evenly matched.”

“I still have all my weapons.” Darkblade taunted as he patted the pommel of his Sith Sword. “Besides, I only need a few more moments to get what I need.”

“How’s that?” Armad asked as he squinted at his fellow Sadowan.

Reaching behind his back, Darkblade pulled out a datapad and tapped a couple of commands. “I’ve been downloading the information from your datapad this whole time. Shouldn’t be too much longer before I’ve got it all.” The Savant said as he waggled it a bit. “Oh, and look. Eighty percent.”

Armad continued to walk forward, his lightsaber still ignited, but without drawing attention to his left hand, he focused on the datapad as he closed his fist. The Techweaver was rewarded with a spark and the sound of the datapad dying. “Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.” Armad taunted as he stopped just out of Darkblade’s range.

The Seeker just stared at his datapad in disbelief for a moment, as Armad could almost visibly see the anger as it welled up within the Sadowan. Anger as Armad hadn’t seen before was being directed at him from Darkblade’s eyes as he looked up. In the blink of an eye, the Dark Jedi dropped the dead datapad, picked up his Sith Sword in his left hand and leapt into an attack.

Armad was immediately on the defensive. It was all he could do to keep the onslaught of the dual blades of Darkblade from severing a limb or killing him outright. The flurry and speed of the attacks were enough that a couple made it through, scoring small cuts in his armor or skin. The Sith had seen a few openings that he could have taken to cause some damage to the Dark Jedi, but they would have been killing blows or he would have taken more damage than he could have given.

Armad felt that this duel was going to come to an end, and soon. He was not disappointed, as Darkblade’s next few moves were very deliberate, as opposed to the rage filled flurry of strikes that he'd been fending off. He didn't know what he did or how, but the Savant had maneuvered their blades that had somehow left his torso completely exposed.

Time slowed, as Darkblade dropped his lightsaber and shot the last disc from his lanvarok into the right side of his chest. It sliced his personal datapad in half and imbedded into his armor, ending what felt like an inch into his flesh. The force of the disc hitting him caused him to stumble backward, which was enough to give him the space and time to gather the Force in his left hand and thrust it toward the Anzat. The Force push slammed into Darkblade making him take a couple of steps back.

Both Sadowans stood there panting from the exertion of the duel. Darkblade with his hands on his knees taking deep breaths, while Armad was trying to yank the disc out of his body and armor, to no avail.

Standing up, Darkblade looked at the Techweaver panting, “Now neither of us has it.” The Seeker was now smiling, probably from the realization that just came over Armad. He had a choice, go get another datapad and retrieve the information and lead the Seeker directly to it, or chalk the mission up as a failure and report to the Clan Summit what had transpired.

“I hate you, you know that right?” Armad laughed as he disengaged his lightsaber and clipped back on his belt. He started walking back to to his waiting transport.

“You owe me a new datapad.” Darkblade stated as he returned his weapons to their proper place and turned to walk with his fellow Sadowan, as he had landed his transport next to Armad's.

“You owe me for more than that!” Armad countered as he picked pieces of his useless datapad out of the cut in his clothes. “And you ARE paying to have my armor fixed.” Armad deadpanned, flicking the disc lodged in his armor, making a slight dinging sound. They both got a chuckle out of that as they continued toward their ships.

The Battlemaster still didn't know what he was going to do about that information. He still had some time to figure that out though, either way, he was in trouble.

The Anzat had escaped the engagement fairly easily. However, he began to notice fatigue setting in as the Techweaver had kept the Anzat on the defensive ever since their duel began. Now that Darkblade had the opportunity to attack, he had to make it count.

The Seeker scowled at the sound of Armad laughing.

“I cannot see you, but I can sure as frak sense you,” the Ragnosian said as Darkblade realised he had let his guard slip and allowed himself to be found through the Force if anyone was looking.

He has good reactions, the Savant thought as he quickly wrapped the Force around him, allowing himself to become one and hide within its shadows, careful to keep a small box in his mind focused on staying hidden as he began to plan his next moves.

That should fix that particular problem, he thought as he circled around looking into the blackness and tried to find a weak side to attack. He had little time as the shroud of darkness had already begun to dissipate, having lost his concentration when he had to focus on keeping himself hidden from the Umbaran searching for him through the Force.

SNAP

Darkblade’s eyes opened wide as he realized he had momentarily forgotten where they were.

The graveyard was littered with bones from the many dead creatures that spent their final moments here. In his split efforts to survive, defend himself, shroud himself and then look for an opening on which he could capitalize on, he had not looked at where he was standing. His error was instantly used to the Techweavers advantage, who whirled around at the sound and with a warrior’s shout he shot out of the cloud with the speed of a rancor in heat.

Armad barreled into the Anzat, both tumbling to the ground as lightsabers flailed about in the rising dust cloud that began to surround them as they continued to scuffle. Their outfits began to take on a brown and white colour as the dirt and crushed bone rubbed off on them.

Both Armad and Darkblade had extinguished their lightsabers and left them in the dust as they continued to brawl and grapple on the ground, punching and kicking each other as they tried to gain the upper hand and position themselves on top of the other in order to try to knock them out with a well placed punch.

The Seeker realized he was starting to lose to the heavier and taller Techweaver. Armad had easily gained the upper hand utilizing grappling techniques that Darkblade was unfamiliar with. Never realising that the Sith was actually a very good brawler until now, the Anzat felt panic as he began to understand the situation he was in. He had miscalculated and underestimated the Umbaran.

The Battlemaster pushed Darkblade onto his back and began to raise a knee to plant it down on the Anzat’s chest and keep him pinned to the ground. In the brief moment the Techweaver was only balanced on one knee, the Savant pulled himself up, doing a sit up, and pushed with all his might and heaved the Ragnosian off of him.

The Umbaran gave a yell of surprise, as he landed on his rear end first before having the momentum of the push and gravity plop him down onto his back.

Quick as a snake, Darkblade aimed his Lanvarok at his opponent before him. At this range, he wouldn't need to aim to cause at least some sort of damage to the Sith.

Armad must have come to the same conclusion as he slowly hefted his hands up in surrender.

“Now,” Darkblade said with a weary voice, “give me that datapad and we can both walk away unscathed.”

The Sith realized he was defeated, and complied as he reached into his robes slowly and pulled out the pad.

“Good. Don’t move a muscle or I swear on the Ancients that I will shoot you,” the Anzat said as he slowly stood up keeping his Lanvarok aimed at the Techweaver.

Reaching out with the Force, Darkblade searched for a familiar signature around him and reached out his arm willing the Force to bring him his lightsaber. As his weapon traveled through the air to him and reached his hand, he ignited it and pointed it down at the Ragnosian before him, never taking his eyes off him.

“Kindly toss me the datapad, Armad,” the Seeker said.

Armad complied, giving him the datapad with an underhand toss before laying flat on the ground, taking deep breaths.

“You realize my contractor will have my head if I return empty handed?” the Umbaran asked.

“Lie, tell him you never had it, or that what you thought was the original but it turned out to be a fake,” the Quaestor responded as he turned away from the fallen Battlemaster and walked out towards his ship which lay a few klicks from the graveyard. Darkblade smirked to himself, happy to have won the duel and outsmarting his opponent.

As Armad watched the Dakhani Quaestor walk away and out of sight, he stood up from the ground and brushed himself off. Walking towards his lightsaber and picking it up, he clipped it back to his belt as he began to laugh. It started off low and ended as a hysterical howl that echoed throughout the graveyard, masking what it really was and making it sound like a wounded animal.

The Sith patted his chest, the familiar feeling of the original datapad reassured him that he had made the right choice.

Better to piss off a Quaestor than the Consul of Naga Sadow, he thought to himself as he began his journey back to his ship.