The Godless Matron is home to many, resembling a micro-society for those who wish to live outside the typical rule of the galaxy. The Lucrehulk-class battleship's massive hangers have been converted into dwellings as a result. Chute Town is the most notable of these makeshift towns. Many shops and storefronts have been constructed to take advantage of the higher volume of foot traffic. In addition, many ships and crews arrive into Chute Town to sell their "well-earned" commodities, weapons, or artifacts. It is commonplace to find the best and the worst gear the galaxy has to offer, it is only a matter of how big your pocketbook is. The streets are patrolled regularly by the crew of the Matron itself, leaving would-be miscreants to be more wary, lest they find themselves on the receiving end of a pirate's sense of justice.

It is built mostly out of spare durasteel panels from derelict ships, dismantled machinery, or any other source or material the pirates could scavenge. It spans the length of the massive portside hangar of the Matron, reaching from its heavily protected reactor — hidden behind triple-reinforced blast doors and a guard retinue — all the way to the hangar entrance where the many incoming ships unload their cargo. It is more than a mile long, over five hundred feet wide and up to three stories tall, covering most of the floor. Chute Town's streets are a miniature maze, weaving in between buildings on several levels. Verticality is key for the masses of shops and bars to operate without interfering with one another. The main street is nicknamed Murder alley, mostly because all the weapon shops are prominently opened there.

Illumination banks are staggered along the walkways and buildings to provide enough light for the society to function. Still, the streets are left dim with a low hanging fog built up from the collective humidity of so many people in one space. For those calling it their home, there is no such thing as off hours. A large crowd bustles along at all hours, an exotic assortment of individuals from countless planets and the warring gangs that divvy up the territory within. It's the perfect place for those looking to disappear in the crowd.

The massive converted bay that housed Chute Town was large enough to have its own eddies and flows of air, as warm air from furnaces and kitchens rose through the colder air above and swirled through the space. The air processing units, long past their recommended design life, weren't quite up to the task of filtering out the various smells from the sentients and refuse packed together and so the entire space was filled with warring stenches, all of which seemed to be assaulting Selika's senses at once. Her eyes and nose began to burn as she strode past a particularly fragrant cantina, spices and sweat mixing together to form a particularly pungent brew. As oppressive as all of that was, it still wasn't enough to dull her senses to the threat that she had felt ever since the ship from Seraph had come aboard.

Leave it to the self styled Imperials to cause trouble, Selika thought.

Each of the clans was always trying to test the limits of the Dark Council at nearly every opportunity, and the Palatainaens were no different. Since she had assumed the position of Herald a year ago Selika had faced all manner of challenges, ranging from the overly confident journeyman to the more cautious equite. At no time before now, however, had she had to deal with anything on this level. The holofeeds had offered only a view of a figure clothed in a hooded robe, and what laughably passed for customs aboard the old battleship had not taken any names. But, the level of power the intruder possessed radiated out from them in the Force like a beacon. There were only a few within the ranks of the Imperial clan who could wield power such as what she felt. Whomever it was, the only person Selika could trust to handle such a threat was herself.

Maybe it's Kaeth. This sort of arrogance would be in line with the former Plagueian. Or maybe a more reclusive Palpatine, Natth or Arania perhaps, Selika mused.

The presence seemed to stop just beyond the next makeshift building, as if they had finally realized that they were being followed. Rounding the corner, Selika saw the same figure she had seen on the holofeeds in the control center.

"So, I take it you were never taught to greet your host when you arrive?" Selika playfully challenged.

Turning, the cloaked form before replied in a deep, male voice. "Of course, but that usually doesn't apply when one is certain that their host isn't going to welcome them."

Pulling down his hood, the figure was revealed to be Darth Aeternus. The fact that it was a Sith Lord as opposed to just any of the elders of Scholae Palatinae was enough to give Selika momentary pause, but she was quick to recover her composure before it could show on her face.

"Perhaps," she responded, not trusting herself to say more.

"My business here is nothing you should be concerned with," Aeternus said spreading his hands, his tone bordering on deference. "I'm her to secure a shipment for the Empress, nothing more."

Selika almost missed the subtle press on her mind exerted by the former councilor as he tried to disarm her with more than his charms.

"Come now, what kind of rube do you take me for Korras?" Selika snarked back at him, putting a special emphasis on the name he carried before he attained the status of Darth. "Do you think I couldn't hear the jangle of the near-armory you have concealed beneath your robe?"

The brown haired man shrugged. "It was worth a try," he said with a smile.

Raising his hand out in front of him, Aeternus made a subtle gesture. His saber drifted out from under his robes, the cyan blade springing to life as it bathed the alley in harsh shadows. The weapon drifted forward slowly, but with purpose, toward its intended target. Selika centered herself, her eyes focused intently on the weapon yet making no move to raise her own. As the blade was about to surge forward and slash down through her Selika reached out toward the jagged hilt, wrapping tendrils of Force energy around it, and stopped it cold. She could feel her opponent straining to push the blade forward, sweat beading on his forehead under the exertion. Selika's breathing remained even as she focused all her energy on keeping the lightsaber from moving forward.

"Is it still worth a try, Korras?" Selika asked softly.

The fellow elder set his jaw in determination, and suddenly the weapon flew back into his outstretched hand. Before Selika could refocus herself, he was charging forward with Force-aided speed. It was all Selika could do to raise and activate her own weapon to catch Aeternus's blade, but force of the blow drove her down and left the taller man looming above her. The realization that facing the Sith Lord directly might have been an error began to creep into Selika's mind.

"It just might be," Aeternus said with a sneer.

Driving his blade down further, Aeternus ignited his other saber. The twin blades hissed from their mount on his left wrist, their UV light barely visible. As he drove it forward, Selika was forced to jump back to prevent being stabbed in the guts.

With his opponent now on the back foot, he drove forward with several aggressive strikes, forcing the Herald to block again and again in quick succession, with the few counterstrikes she did manage turned away easily. Several cuts had left her robes slashed in places, but Aeternus had not yet found an opening for a killing blow.

He felt more than saw the presence of others around them. A quick glance told him that this was more than mere bystanders coming to watch the fight. It seemed that a small group of whatever passed for a security force had come to assist their commander, but they were reluctant to fire into the swirling melee that the two elders were engaged in.

The moment’s distraction gave Selika the opening she needed. Aeternus felt her powers closing on his mind, not unlike a razorcat’s claw closing on their prey. He saw a small smile creep on her lips but answered that in kind.

Where most in his situation would try to resist her, Aeternus knew his skill of the mind was not even near enough to attempt that. Instead, he opened his mind to her entirely: his anger, his fury, his rage, normally tightly contained and tapped into, washed out at her. Her eyes widening, a gasp escaped her lips as she attempted to overcome the mental feedback.

The Sith Lord was not one to relent. His strikes kept coming, with the raw emotions flowing from him even making the security troops around them nervous.

“You can call me whatever you like. You will find it won’t manage to anger me even more.”

The next strike was enough to drive Selika to her knees. Keeping his lightsaber aimed at her, he mentally grasped the tendrils of the force around them. Raising his left hand at the nearest security guard who was ready to fire, he released the full power of the dark side. Tendrils of eldritch energy flowing from him, the guard was killed almost instantly as lightning enveloped him. From him, it flowed to the next, and others around him, until only those who had not raised their weapons were left standing.

With that taken care off, he turned back to Selika. “Now.. about those weapons?”

It had taken Selika a moment, but she had mentally steadied herself after being caught off guard by the Dark Lord. It was as if she had been ready to push against something with all of her strength, only to find that there was nothing to resist her. She had mentally flailed for balance as Aeternus's wrath had enveloped her at every turn. His choice to momentarily shift his focus away from her, however, had given Selika the opening she needed, especially as the man before her had laid himself bare and done nothing to close his mind to her.

"This is the only weapon I need," she hissed, conjuring illusory sensation across her opponent's nerve endings.

As pain danced throughout his body, Aeternus screamed and staggered backwards. Most Sith saw illusion as something to fool the eye or the ear and neglected the other senses, treating them almost as an afterthought. Selika had always found that tactile illusions could be the most powerful, and were something she took special pleasure in. Now, Aeternus was momentarily at her mercy.

"Do you feel that?" Selika asked, rising to her feet as Aeternus gritted his teeth and grasped blindly for the Force. "For someone to feel what you're feeling now, they would have to be on fire."

Selika knew, however, that her advantage could not last. The Sith Lord would either throw off her illusion by establishing his mental defences, or use the Force to control the sensation of pain and shut it away. She needed to concoct a plan, and do so quickly. The few bystanders who had remained standing after Aeternus's outburst were now quickly fleeing the vicinity, not that any of them had been capable of providing assistance in any event. It would be the Adept and the Master, just as it should have remained. Her mind working at a fevered pace, Selika realized there was likely only one way that she could stop a warrior such as Aeternus.

Finally regaining his mental balance, the former Master at Arms swept the pain away as if washing the dust of a long journey from his body. His senses clearing, Aeternus saw that his Force-called lightning had arced to several of the lights in the area, leaving only a few pools of light separated by darkness. The Herald was standing in a doorway framed in one such light, saber at the ready.

"And yet your attack was but a momentary distraction, offering no permanent wound," Korras chided her grimly, "whereas mine will draw real blood."

A flick of his wrist sent one of Aeternus's blades leaping out from his belt, whistling through the air towards the Herald. Before the emerald blade could find its mark Selika retreated into the interior, moving more quickly than Aeternus had thought her capable of. He moved to follow her, his sabers at the ready as he crossed the threshold. The interior was a tangle of junk stacked throughout, looking like the home of the galaxy's messiest hoarder lit with flickering, intermittent light. Low walls and narrow vertical beams framed the space, the violet of Selika's blade visible in between them as she moved.

Aeternus stalked her through the building, lashing out with his blade whenever she was in reach. No matter what, however, his blade never seemed to find its mark, instead tugging its way through metal or even seeming to almost shimmer through her as the tip would graze her body. Growing frustration bubbled up within the Sith, his normal grim demeanor in combat beginning to crack. Then, finally, just as he was nearly ready to yell out in anger, she was before him.

"You finally decided to stop trying to run," he said evenly, seeing that she had reached a dead end.

"You could say that," Selika replied with confidence and raised her blade into a classic guard position.

Aeternus slashed his blade down at hers, but instead of meeting a block his weapon simply passed through hers and then her body as well with a blue shimmer. The momentum of the strike carried him through her, his body passing through hers as she seemed to vanish. Whirling, the Sith Lord saw his real prey standing several meters away framed in the door through which he had entered.

Selika smiled as she watched the dawning realization spread across his face. "You never did manage to push me out, just clamp down on the pain."

With her concentration now freed from maintaining her influence on Aeternus's mind, Selika was free to reach out with the Force more directly. Pulling against a beam that her opponent's blade had nearly severed, Selika was able to shift it just enough that the remaining metal buckled under the weight it could now no longer support. Aeternus saw in his mind's eye what was about to happen mere heartbeats before it did and called a barrier into being around him.

Selika had lead him through the building with a purpose, guiding him to damage most of the load bearing members that comprised the structure. The failure of the last beam brought the entire place down atop Aeternus, the stories above collapsing one after another. His barrier held against the onslaught, but several tons of durasteel was now piled atop him. Selika, having backed away with haste as the collapse started, now shielded herself behind a barrier of her own as dust billowed outward. She could sense that her opponent still lived, but it would take him several hours at least to dig his way out.

Pulling a comlink from her belt, Selika thumbed the device on. "Get security down here immediately, all of them. Bring the heavy weapons. I want Korras thrown off this ship the instant he crawls out from under where I buried him. And tell him that he's no longer welcome aboard the Matron as long as I'm her master."

Selika blinked in surprise. “weapons?”, she started angrily. “You come here, attack me, decimate my troops, and still ask for weapons?”

Aeternus shrugged. “I did ask.”, he answered. “I do not think you would have provided any to anyone who did not manage to handle themselves. Why do you think Elincia sent me?”

The herald sneered in anger. “I’ll send your corpse back to your so-called empress as an answer.”

foregoing any further niceties, Selika shot up from the ground, knocking Aeternus’ regular saber aside, and managed to get up before his saberclaw had activated again. Briefly caught off-guard, the sith lord had to take a few steps back before regaining the measure of his opponent. He sensed that she was using the force to further increase her speed, putting him at a slight disadvantage. However, unlike his own aggressive strikes, Selika focussed more on the defense. He expected it would just be a matter of time until he would find an opening.

After several strikes and counterstrikes, however, Selika suddenly turned off her saber in the middle of a strike. Not expecting this, Aeternus nearly lost his balance when the block he was making did not connect. As her saber re-activated, even a wild parry with his saberclaw was not enough to deflect it completely, and it cut deeply into his right shoulder, almost taking the limb of completely.

Her risky attack might have paid off, but it had left her overextended, and it cost her dearly. While his right arm flopping around uselessly might have been enough to leave most incapacitated, and easily dispatched, but Aeternus didn’t even seem to notice. His saberclaw came up again, and took her arm off at the elbow, causing the limb and lightsaber to fall on the ground. Unlike him, Selika did scream in surprise and pain.

Raising the flat of his hand at her, her sent her flying a few meters back, almost doubling her over with the strength of the force-punch to her gut. It landed her in the middle of a stall filled with explosives of some sort. Before she could even grab anything to throw at him, more lightning filled the air around her, cooking the grenades, and causing a chain reaction of explosions with her at the center of it.

“You should have listened when I asked.”