So named because it is located one thousand, three hundred, and thirteen levels from the core of Coruscant, Level 1313 is distanced from the politics of the upper levels. Overlooking the chasm burrowing further into Coruscant’s core, one can watch freighters transporting their illicit cargo between levels. One misstep would send the careless careening into the bottomless pit, or aid the local gangs in staging “accidents.”

Weathered duracrete forms the retainer along the chasm wall, built in concentric rings that descend down an untold height. Strengthened with solid durasteel braces, maintenance has not been needed this far into Coruscant for a long time. Nevertheless, droids pre-programmed to fill in the cracks and crevices that might form in the walls float on repulsorlifts without drawing attention from the criminal gangs. The gangs themselves are focused on their next smuggling operation or struggle for control over Coruscant’s scum-filled underbelly.

Level 1313 was, honestly, not as bad as people say. It was grimy, sure. The droids that kept every surface on the upper levels polished and free of trash ventured down here once a century at most and the air was thick with exhaust, mostly fallen from the skyways far above. But the people were friendly. In the short walk over from the hanger, Teikhos had been solicited by partially clothed beings of multiple species, felt up by would-be pickpockets, and had an amusing conversation with a child that wanted to sell him a bridge. It wasn’t wholesome, but it was comfortable, especially compared to Arx and the other war zones he so often found himself in.

Teikhos wasn’t surprised by the extra attention. 1313 wasn’t the kind of neighborhood that saw many Zeltrons, much less foppish ones in capes, to say nothing of Jedi openly displaying a lightsaber. His colleagues kept telling him to be more subtle but to Teikhos the Jedi represented hope—depriving people of that just to spare himself a few minutes of street harassment seemed like an unworthy trade.

Someone had tipped the Sentinel Network off to a junk shop down here owned by a self-proclaimed bigshot calling himself Jimbi Scrabbles. Jimbi traded in all manner of things scavenged or stolen from the upper levels, mostly operating as a speeder chop shop. He popped up on SeNet’s scanners when he started selling off alleged artifacts from the old Jedi Temple. Most of the time, these guys were just peddling junk, but the Council thought it was worth sending someone to check.

Scrabbles' shop came into view as Teikhos rounded a corner. It was centered on a large hangar but had expanded haphazardly into neighboring spaces as the business grew. It looked like they were closed—at least that was Teikhos' guess as to why the front door had been cut out of its frame, apparently by a lightsaber.

Yeah, I'm the one who needs to be more subtle, Teikhos grumbled to himself. I guess word travels fast. Lightsaber in hand, he stepped over the threshold.

The lights were out. The only illumination was the occasional sparking husk of a security droid, the blue glow of Teikhos' lightsaber, and a similar green glow from deeper into the facility. Scrabbles had purchased a few B-1 combat droids. They were probably more than enough to shoo away difficult customers or the gangs that frequented this area, but they did little to deter a trained Force user. The things had probably not even slowed him down.

The Jedi picked his way through the stacks of speeder parts and power converters, towards the glow and a desperate voice. Coming closer, he saw a figure in black and gray towering over the sweaty, huffing man he had backed into a corner. They were behind what was probably the main counter where Jimbi sat, spending his hours eyeballing security monitors and watching holonovellas while customers wandered through the scrap. Teikhos could only assume the shorter, wider Human was Jimbi Scrabbles. The tall, hooded being holding an emerald lightsaber didn't seem the junk peddler type.

Teikhos paused for half a second, trying to think of something clever to say. The hooded figure didn't give him the chance. Maybe it was the blue glow or the hum of the lightsaber, or maybe just the Force, but the man noticed the Jedi behind him. He twisted, his off hand lashing out towards Teikhos as neon arcs of lightning bit out at the Zeltron. The lightning flared for a moment then left the room pitch black except for the twin plasma blades.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust back to the dim lighting, but Appius saw the Jedi standing unharmed.

“Does that usually work?” Teikhos asked casually, flicking his lightsaber over in a flourish. Clever comment achieved, he thought.

“Often enough,” Appius answered. With a wave of his free hand he seized Scrabbles with the Force and hurled him across the room and into an open cabinet. With another flick of the wrist, the door closed and muffled the man's screams. “This one is mine, Jedi.”

“I appreciate your flare for the dramatic, Mister...?” Teikhos let the question hang in the air for a moment, but his opponent didn't seem to feel the need to identify himself. “Well, regardless, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave now. Whatever Jedi artifacts dear Jimbi has are staying with the Jedi.”

The Human's face twisted in confusion for a moment. “I don't care about Jedi garbage,” he spat. “I'm here for that sack of Hutt shab in the cabinet.”

"I don't suppose you have a warrant?"

Appius smirked within the shadowy depths of his hood. His off hand slipped under his cloak and emerged a heartbeat later, a bounty tracking fob dangling casually from one finger. “Jimbi doesn't just deal in speeder parts. His real business is a little more exotic. Women, sometimes children.” The Human nodded his head to one side, indicating the closed door behind the counter. “He's got an entire studio down there, if you don't believe me. But he got his paws on the wrong little girl a few weeks back.” With a flick of his wrist, the fob disappeared back under his cloak. “My client was very specific about which parts I'm supposed to bring back.”

“Oh,” Teikhos replied. He couldn't help a disgusted glance at the cabinet. The banging and muffled screams were now significantly less compelling. “Well, I can't say I'm big on murder, either. How about we take him to the real authorities? Odan-Urr will match the bounty.”

Appius reached up with his free hand, letting his lightsaber, still active, dangle down to one side. He pulled off his hood, revealing a pale face and the distorted eyes of one who wallowed in the Dark Side. He made a show of cracking his neck.

“After careful consideration…” he began, but abruptly his free hand jerked out and then pulled back.

Teikhos ducked and brought his weapon up, angled across his body. The Force was his ally, and no amount of temporal trickery could deceive it. With the gesture, Appius ripped a swoop chassis from its resting place and hurled it at Teikhos' head. As the Zeltron ducked underneath it, the Mandalorian followed up with another lightning blast that once again bit harmlessly into the Jedi's saber.

Amid the crash of the swoop into the wall, Teikhos lunged forward, the tip of his blade poised to take off his opponent's fingers. But Appius, too, had the Force on his side, and with ample warning he was able to shuffle back out of reach.

Appius paused for a heartbeat, quietly reevaluating the mincing laandur. The Zeltron was nimble, probably counting on Appius to exhaust himself on Force-based attacks—but too hesitant to take this opportunity to press forward.

With a deep breath, Appius drew on the pulsing darkness within himself and forced strength into his limbs, charging forward with an overhead slash so violent and powerful that Teikhos didn't even try to block it. The Zeltron danced to one side, slashing over Appius' guard. But drawing on the Force, Appius’ arms blurred up to intercept the strike and riposte, just barely missing the Jedi.

“Enough,” the Jedi said. Appius felt something like nausea or dizziness but not either. He struggled to call on the Force to empower himself, but the bonfire within him now burned like a candle, weak and fleeting.

“I recognize you, now that I can see you clearly,” Teikhos continued. “Appius Wight, I'm getting tired of toying with you. We're going to get you the help you need, whether you want it or not.”

Appius huffed. The adrenaline was flowing through him; no sorcery could take that—or his hate—from him. And he had plenty of hate for the Zeltron standing stone still before him. Roaring like a wounded rancor, the Mandalorian charged forward, an emerald blade in either hand now.

Apparently, members of Odan-Urr had nothing better to do in their spare time than keep tabs on fallen Jedi. As his hate filled him from his core and spread through his body, he only had one thing on his mind: eliminating the damned Zeltron!

Luckily for the Sorcerer, Teikhos hadn't anticipated the second weapon Appius possessed and was immediately pressed onto the defensive to avoid having his head removed from his shoulders. Once again his agility proved useful in this endeavour as he narrowly backed away from a horizontal attack that swung past the bridge of his nose, bringing his saber up to parry the follow-up strike from the second lightsaber. Blue crashed into green in a glorious showing of sparks and colour that would have served as a fantastic showing for anyone who could have seen it.

With the Defender's lightsaber locked into place, Appius took the opportunity to press his assault further as he pushed the Odanite across the scrapyard. Yet, no matter how aggressive Appius was, no matter how much he pressed on and attacked over and over again with twin blades, Teikhos never countered. Not because he couldn't, and not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't do so without causing serious harm to his opponent. He had said he was going to get Appius the help he needed and he stuck by those words. His belief in the Living Force demanded it.

Unfortunately, that unwillingness to attack came back to bite him hard, unaware of just how close he was to a particularly large scrap pile that he was being pushed back against, a fact that the Human Force User was more than happy to take advantage of. As soon as the Zeltron's thigh glanced against the hyperdrive generator just behind him, his attention was divided between staying upright and defending against Appius onslaught. Given the moment he needed, the Sorcerer put as much strength as he could muster into his arms to force the slightly older man off his feet. His two lightsabers crashed into Teikhos' one, and though the purple-robed being held firm against the initial attack, it was successful in shifting the Zeltron's weight to topple him over the hard object and onto his back with his legs dangling comically up in the air.

That's when Appius felt it, like a breath of fresh air to polluted lungs; he felt the full power of the Force flow through his veins with each heartbeat. The candle that flickered within him raged like an inferno once more and he was damn well going to take advantage of it!

Immediately the Dark Side pushed through his legs, strengthening them to an abnormal level as he leapt into the air and brought his sabers down underneath him. Teikhos went wide-eyed before applying the Force himself to push himself out of Appius' trajectory. The Zeltron spun in the air and landed on his feet on top of a pile of debris, blue blade still nestled safely in his hand.

"Appius, stop this. Surely you realise you are fighting a losing battle?" Teikhos yelled from the top of the pile.

The Human in question didn't respond, instead choosing to remain just a few feet away, twirling his emerald lightsabers in hand and taking deep breaths to recompose himself after his recent exertion.

"There's no more reason to continue this fight. You are already tired," the Defender continued. "You and Jimbi will come with me to Odan-Urr. He can answer for his crimes, hand over the Jedi artifacts, and I can get you the help you need."

"Help!?" Appius objected. "That's the thing I can't stand anymore about Jedi like you. Did I ask for your help?"

Teikhos remained dead silent and slowly tightened the grip on his lightsaber.

"You don't understand, Jetii, I'm far beyond redemption now. I've done too many horrible things, caused too much pain…"

"No one is beyond redemption," Teikhos interjected.

"Oh, really?" Appius inquired. "Tell me, have you ever redeemed someone who killed an entire platform's worth of innocent people just to stop an enemy? Have you ever redeemed someone who betrayed every principle they ever held dear? Have you ever redeemed someone who is a literal demagolka? Because every time I look in the mirror that's what I see. I don't see Appius Wight anymore. He died when I turned to the Dark Side. All I see is nothing more than a shell of the man I once was behind amber eyes."

The two Force Users stayed quiet, only the humming of their lightsabers providing any light for the backdrop to their conflict amongst the scrap and metal of the junkyard.

"You're lying," Teikhos finally answered, much to the Sorcerer's surprise. "You call yourself irredeemable. I say you are just using that as an excuse for your actions. You are refusing to take responsibility for what you've done and are just taking it out on whatever pathetic little bounty you can find."

The Zeltron gestured to the cabinet where Jimbi was still locked within, where faint murmurs could still be heard from inside.

"My case in point?" Teikhos said. "You don't have to continue on down this path, Appius. This is not what the Living Force has planned for you, I can feel it! Please, come with me to Odan-Urr, we can get you the help you so desperately…"

His speech was cut short when he felt the Force send a subconscious warning through his body. Sure enough, he began to feel his airways tighten as he was slowly lifted off the pile of junk he was standing on. He gasped for air, yet no relief could be found. His muscles began to burn from the lack of oxygen that his body craved.

"I think you need to worry about helping yourself before anyone else, Jetii," Appius said with a smug tone in his voice, his right arm outstretched towards the Zeltron.

His vision began to dim and blur in his eyes. Horrid screeching rang in his ears and he knew he had to do something or perish under the Sorcerer's wrath. Immediately he summoned the Force within himself and allowed it to coarse through his body. It built up like a flood waiting to burst from a dam until he suddenly released it all at once. The powerful pulse of energy released Teikhos from Appius' grasp and dropped him back to the ground. The Warden carefully rubbed his throat and took the Mystic's sudden surprise as an opportunity to launch himself at his fellow Force User. He knew now that he had to attack him if anyone had any hope of getting out alive.

Appius held up both sabers to block the first of Teikhos' strikes, though that was exactly what the Odanite was hoping for. As his blue crashed into the twin emerald blades, he performed a quick flick of the wrist as his lightsaber sliced through the hilt in the Taldryanite's less dominant hand.

The Mystic recoiled from shock and gritted his teeth and released a series of curses that he fully intended the Zeltron to hear in-between hard, panting breaths.

"You'll pay for that, Odanite!" Appius sneered loudly.

"My name is Teikhos," replied the Defender. "And you don't have a say in the matter!"

The pair of Force Users launched themselves at each other as jade and sapphire blades clashed into each other once more.