Arx’s Colosseum is a monument to the original Petranaki arena on Geonosis, the site where the Clone Wars began with an epic clash between Jedi and Sith. However, instead of confining itself to a decrepit ruin, the Colosseum stands as an example of what the Geonosian arena once was.

Walls tall enough to be unscalable for even the most practiced Force-user surround a theatre the size of a holoball field, floored with sandy soil. Above, rows of seats are packed together into sections for spectators to observe the carnage. The dignitaries who preside over the gladiator matches instead find themselves in an elongated platform “box”, with the large stone throne reserved for the most prestigious among them, flanked by smaller seats for their companions. Large holo-projection screens occupy each of the Colosseum’s walls, displaying images of the combat below streamed by the cam droids that circle the arena.

The arena floor itself is, naturally, more dangerous than it appears. A wide assortment of traps are concealed beneath the dirt and sand, including but not limited to: retractable fire-spewing nozzles, power coils firing bolts of lightning, electrified floor panels, deadfalls lined with spikes, and even obelisks that simply erupt from the ground. These traps are operated by sentient technicians in the Colosseum’s control room, well away from the fighting.

You and another member of the Brotherhood have been tasked by the Headmistress of the Shadow Academy with gathering research data on a wide variety of dangerous creatures. In addition to the normal raucous crowds, sophisticated scanning equipment has been set up around the Colosseum floor to monitor the creatures’ behavior and vital signs under a variety of circumstances—including combat and injury.

Your goal in this scenario is twofold: provoke the creatures and hold their attention for long enough that the Shadow Academy scanners can collect a wide variety of physiological data, and prevent the creatures from destroying the scanning equipment placed in the Colosseum by the Academy researchers. Once those tasks are complete, you will be free to leave the arena (if you can) and claim your reward.

The Headmistress would strongly prefer the creature be left alive and useful after the experiment is finished. She would also "prefer" that you not interfere with the research by attempting to rescue the creature, but you may do so at your own peril.

"Hold still, dear. Just a little more."

"Atyiru...that's enough already."

"I say when it's enough, thank you very much. Now, come on. Lean forward."

Marick let out a breath and obliged. Atyiru reached out and cupped his cheeks, gently massaging. Then she moved to his jaw, forehead, throat. The back of his neck. And of course, over his nose and all around his ears.

"Tsk. Let me get the tips."

"You have already applied more than a sufficient amount—"

"Give me your earsies or so help me Ashla and Bogan."

This time he did sigh, but it was a fond thing, just for her. She beamed back, and dabbed an extra dollop of the sunscreen she was wielding like a weapon on the tip of his nose.

Were he not a master of controlling his own body, down to every steeled nerve, he might have sneezed. As it was, he pushed his ashen hair back to give her better access and held still while she smeared more lotion over the very tops of the shells of his ears. He felt a little glob drip inside and nearly twitched violently.

"We're not in the swamps., dear. You'll get sunburn, and we can't have that. People like to wave it off all willy-nilly, but those are first degree burns, you know! The epidermal layer is destroyed, and your body becomes dehydrated, and then blood oxygenation is diminished and it's no good at all. There! All done. Was that so bad?" Atyiru asked, tutting at him and turning away. "Biddy, sweetberry, come here!"

"I have a hood. And I did not say it was bad in the first place."

"Well you thought it."

Marick did not deign to prod that particular trap and instead watched as his little droid left its perch atop a nearby crate to hop over to the Miraluka. She crouched down, smiling and cooing, and squirted more of the UV-absorbing lotion into her palm and dabbed it onto the top of Biddy's "head." The droid gave a few happy beeps.

"Beep!" Atyiru responded gleefully. Biddy didn't seem offended by whatever it was she said in her ignorance, just beeping back. "There you go, dear! All set and protected!"

If the Hapan smiled softly at his wife's behavior, well, there was only Biddy there to see it.

"Too bad Wynnie isn't here. He could surely find Biddy an appropriate hat to trade for."

"Don't enable him."

"With permission."

The Hapan snorted quietly, flipping his hood back up as his droid jumped up onto Atyiru's shoulder and then onto his. His partner turned her attention lastly to Ivoshar, who sat patiently as ever, eyes alert, staring fixedly at the door while his ears swiveled around to each sound the two Near-Humans could not hear. The Miraluka stroked over the cythraul's scarred muzzle and hugged into his broad chest. Ivoshar slotted his nose briefly between her shoulder and ear, rumbling.

"I know, my little wind, but Marry's here. I'll be perfectly alright, you see? And perhaps have a word with Ciara or that Rajhin fellow about this 'no pets in the stands' policy. First of all, rude. Secondly, discriminatory against all animal species! And thirdly, rude again. Even if they do not understand you, Ivo, that is no excuse to be so xenophobic in their thinking…"

"Atyiru," Marick reminded her. "We are already twelve minutes and forty-nine seconds late."

"Yes, yes." She gave Ivoshar one last pat, the two of them pressing their foreheads together. The cythraul barked low at the Hapan, who inclined his head. They both knew how hard it could be, keeping their person safe. "Don't worry so, little wind. I sense the violence too. We're here to help. I'm going to make everything alright."

Ivoshar only grunted.

The former assassin sympathized with this as well. He had no desire to be present, but Ciara had asked for help, specifically with healing, and Atyiru, being Atyiru, had answered. She had even asked Zujenia to babysit their newborn, so that both of them could attend. The trip from the Dajorra system was the quietest, longest sleep either of them had gotten in a month.

Leaving the cythraul behind with a foreboding half-growl, half-whine, the couple proceeded out into the hallway an attendant had earlier indicated would lead them to the arena proper. As they moved, the sounds of shouting and stamping and roaring grew louder and louder, shaking the very walls, vibrating the air. The thudding was monstrous. Surely the crowd could not make so much noise? But it seemed so. The stifling air prickled with anxious, indeed violent energy, and Marick felt it on his skin and in his bones, the Force humming with it. Atyiru's stride was steady, her head lifted and grin bright, but she gripped the edge of his cloak, and he knew how much it shook her, that hunger and restlessness. How much she loathed the sport and glorified battle.

They finally emerged out of an enormous, sunlit archway that spewed them into the uppermost ring of the stands. Briefly, the glare had him squinting. He blinked once to recover, and his too-blue eyes darted about, scanning.

And then everything became absolutely wrong, because he absorbed then in a crystalline second the scene before them.

Stands full of onlookers. Screens splayed with vidfeeds. Cam droids in the air. Equipment everywhere. Banners, whiffs of smoke, shouts. The stink of many sweating bodies. The stink of burnt flesh, blood, and ozone. Screaming. Cheering.

Roaring.

He knew about Ciara's creatures and her experiments. He had been drawn into culling some of them while attending to a meeting with Archenscova at the Consul's order — and because he had owed Lucine a favor. He had known the Shadow Academy was recruiting Arconans and anyone else who would come to recapture the escaped beasts for further study.

He had not known the Headmistress would be including colosseum combat in her studies.

He had not known there would be creatures in distress and under duress here today. Creatures such as, apparently, a behemoth krayt dragon.

Here, with his extremely martyrdom-inclined wife.

He had miscalculated. And he knew what was coming the moment she stiffened at the sound of another roar.

"Marick," the Miraluka whispered, grave. She had gone mountain-still beside him. "Marick, it is being hurt."

"Atyiru..." he began.

"They're hurting it."

Please, he almost said, but didn't. A part of him — the part that had died when she did, that was still grieving — had hoped motherhood would make Atyiru more inclined to caution, to putting Kirra first, and thus to being more careful with herself. But Atyriu was Atyiru. She would put no one else above any other, and she would always put others first.

Atyiru was Atyiru. And he loved her. So instead of insisting otherwise, he merely sighed and flicked back his shaed, the cloak revealing one of his visibly-placed lightsabers.

"Let us take care of it, then," the Hapan told her, and watched the Miraluka vault forward without even a heartbeat of hesitation, landing graceful as a dancer several rows down between a group of startled spectators and bounding across the seats. He took off after her at a silent, deadly sprint. It was strange to be visible, doing so. To be unmasked by the Force and under the shining sun, plain in view as he deftly leapt in a supernatural arc straight down to the bottom of the stands and began running, perfectly balanced, along the rim of the railing. But it was not a terrible thing, for the red-resin rings they carried bonded them in blood, and he could follow that tether anywhere.

He would follow her anywhere.

Atyiru cut a serpentine path down the stands, parallel to his straight one, and met him at the edge of one of the massive sweeps of stairs that lead up to the apex and down into the colosseum's innards. With barely a pause for breath, they both were moving again, his pace matched to hers, down to the edge of the viewing area, right up to the lip of the pit.

And then Atyriu just jumped.

"Biscuits," Marick actually cursed, just like she would have. But he was already outstretching a hand habitually to guide the motion of his telekinetic grip, shaping his will to catch her. The Miraluka slowed to a near stop in mid-air, as if an angel unto earth, toes pointed down and arms outstretched, and then dropped the last few feet into a crouch when Marick released her. He followed, throwing himself out into gravity's mercy with the Force flooding through his every bit of sinew, empowering his leap and flexing with the absorbed recoil of his fall as he met the hard-packed ground with barely a thump, crouched beside his wife. His dark shaed settled around him. Her brilliantly-colored sashes and white robes billowed in the breeze. They stood in unison, and Atyiru belted out as loud as she could.

"ENOUGH! THIS IS OVER! NO ONE IS HURTING ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE!"

Her voice, powerful as it was, shaking him to his bones as it always had, did not carry far in the immense bowl of the bloodbath. Not over the roaring of the crowd, excited for sport, and not over the roaring of the krayt dragon or the shouting of those fighting it.

"CIARA TEARNAN ROTHWELL TARENTAE!" she tried again, and Marick reached out and gently turned her by the arm to face the direction of the nearest cam droid, her blindfolded face filling a screen, shouting at the Headmistress in her box seat far away. "CALL THIS OFF, NOW!"

No response. Either the Dark Councilor did not care or was unimpressed with the insolence of her guest. A wave of her olive hand announced for the trial to continue, and the announcer was busily bellowing about two new figures unexpectedly joining the fray. Marick paid neither her nor anyone else watching any mind. He had already catalogued their value as threats and dismissed them for their relative lack of exigence. His quicksilver gaze instead assessed the area in a matter of heartbeats.

The arena pit was the scene following some sort of slow massacre. Here and there lay pieces of bodies, humanoid and animal: the foreleg of an acklay, the foot of, perhaps, a Devoarian, given the silver-hued blood trail. Some wounds on the corpses were evidently from lightsabers while others hinted at the traps he knew riddled the Colosseum: the smoldering scorch on a softly-keening rancor from liquid flames; the remains of a demolished floor panel that would have been electrified; a harpooned mastiff phalone down in an open spike pit. His too-blue eyes counted casualties and countermeasures one by one and still the former Voice and Combat Master knew there were many more waiting for them and the dragon both. There were no other beasts currently left standing — perhaps demolished by the dragon, perhaps by previous combatants — but a straggling of three humanoids in arms and armor remained. One of them outstretched a hand towards the krayt and lampooned it with an explosion of lightning, causing the animal to bellow and swipe out with one massive forelimb.

Then there was the various recording equipment. Brand new for the occasion, the chromium lot glittered in juxtaposition to the filth-smeared walls and floor. It would likely be sending feeds back to the control room, where the technicians that ran the traps were, or directly to Ciara herself. He knew what he would have done to secure the data. But it did not matter. Not at this moment.

There were twenty-three meters between Atyiru and the rampaging krayt. The distance was almost irrelevant, for the beast's size and speed, and for Atyiru's absolute inability not to throw herself directly at the most dangerous thing present and inform it of her adoration. Marick sighed once, taking Biddy off his shoulder and setting him down.

Then he moved.

One of his lightsaber slipped from its sheath as it was called to his hand. He pointed himself directly at the trio of Brethren-turned-bait and sprinted for them. The most expedient solution would be the simplest: remove the stimulus that was hurting the krayt.

The dragon struck out again as he ran, scattering its opponents, who leapt away with Force-enhanced ability or on the wings of a jetpack. Marick took the opportunity without slowing his stride, not even needing the quick flick of his wrist in order to send his saber streaking through the air and slicing through the jetpack's fuel tanks. The liquid ignited in a flashburn, sending the armored figure in an explosively violent spiral across the stadium.

The crowd whooped. The Hapan kept running, unwilling to pause when the krayt was thrashing about. His gaze skittered briefly over the scaled body, spotting blood, cracks, and burns littering its hide, shafts of spears and arrows stuck in it, and there, a chain on one of its hind legs the size and thickness of a docking clamp. That explained the odd movements and tight range; it couldn't move much farther than its current position on its stomach.

His eyes snapped back in front of him, the intervening seconds enough for Atyiru to have caught up in her own amplified dash. She leaped lightly over an open pit and curved her path towards another of the attackers, who was darting in and out to leave plasmic slashes all along the dragon's left flank. Marick followed right at her heels.

Slowing, Atyiru spun low, stepped twice, and slid right up to the Acolyte as he retreated again. She reached out to his saber-arm, grasped his hand by the thumb, and wrenched it back off the emitter with a perfunctory, perfect crack. The man screamed as he dropped his weapon, and the Miraluka released him, shoving him back behind her.

"Go," she intoned, command woven into her voice, shivering with threads of Dark and Light. "Seek medical attention, and be gone from here, or your knee will be next."

"I'll go," the pale-faced man echoed, trembling as his eyes dilated, and then stood and jogged towards the pit entrances.

"I AM THE LAST," bellowed the remaining Zabrak combatant, a Sith apprentice if judging by his robes, his profile highlighted on the screens. He beat his spear against his energy shield. "I WILL SLAY THE DRAGON AND ABSORB ITS SOUL, AND WITH IT, ITS POWER!"

His proclamation earned him a mixture of jeers and approving roaring from the crowd, promptly before the krayt's jaws slammed shut upon him. It was less of a shearing bite and more simply a massive weight that crushed, leaving behind a skin-sewn bag of bone splinters and bile. His helmet, flattened like a can, shone bloody under the lights.

"Oh!" Atyiru gasped, clutching her stomach, as if she was the one bitten in two. Her teeth bared, and it was no smile. "Oh, no...no, no more death. No more hurt. This needs to stop."

Marick's eyes flicked over the arena. The krayt tossed its head back, shaking bloodspray from its muzzle, kicking at its shackling and roaring in fury. It shook through them both, so loud and so close that his eardrums pulsed just shy of bursting. Without a word, they both retreated, racing out of range as the dragon stomped and snapped again. At a safe distance, Atyiru stopped. The Hapan skidded to a halt next to her.

"It's still hurting."

"The combatants have been stopped," he commented. "But the test will not. It is chained. Ciara will not release it. She will simply send more combatants, or use the traps and droids."

"Then we stop the test."

The former assassin looked at his wife. She still wasn't smiling. Her smile only fell when she was truly angry, the stormwall of her fury a cold, looming thing, righteous and windblown. Her white hair lifted in the breeze. Red sand sat on her white boots. Her clenched fists glowed with the light of her whirring cybernetics.

He looked up, at the equipment, the recording droids, the packed-full stands and the box with the Headmistress and her entourage. He looked back over his shoulder, at the krayt that would surely destroy them if given the chance. He looked down, at the splatters of viscera and plate that had been flung away.

Marick kicked the spearman's fallen weapon up into his hand. Shook off the hand still holding on to it. Tested the heft. A pike, well-balanced, with one sharp, piercing end and a mechanism for charge dispersion.

It would do.

"Alright," he agreed, and then telekinetically flung the pike like a javelin and guided its arc to spear one of the cam droids straight through. Metal crunched as it fell straight down, a dropping stone. One of the vidscreens went black. The audience booed.

"What did you do?"

"Taking down the testing equipment seems fastest."

"I won't be much help there, I'm afraid. But I can help our new friend."

Marick almost closed his eyes, almost sighed, but it still was not the time.

"Be careful."

She didn't smile, but she did tap one finger to her lips, like a hush, a secret they both knew. "I can't die, silly," she'd told him once, "I can't die, because I've got to protect you."

Atyiru pirouetted on her tiptoes and tore back towards the dragon. The Hapan fixed his eyes on the downed droid, focusing on the spear punched through it, and summoned the object back to his hand. It shrieked and grated, then pulled free and whistled as it sailed into his grip. He assessed his next best target, then decided on blinding the viewers and control room operators first. Narrowing his eyes at another two cam droids, he lifted the spear again in one hand, using the other to direct his lightsaber once more. Both weapons hovered on either side of him before he jerked his fingers and sent them at the machines. The pinwheel of plasma bisected one droid entirely, but the pike, this time, hit the outer metal shell at just the wrong angle to skim off and rebound to the side.

Another windscreen went out, worsening the crowd's discontent. And yet, moments after, they were screeching again, excited about something.

Marick turned and saw his partner bounding up onto the krayt's tail and running, stumbling, up its length before diving for its hindquarters. The dragon writhed, trying to reach back to pluck her off with its teeth, but couldn't quite manage. Atyiru, dauntless, was dragging herself up along its spine, wiggling between the protrusions on its back and pulling out the occasional spear haft as she went. She seemed to be aiming for its head, but it did not appear as if she'd get that far as the creature snarled and heaved.

"IT'S OKAY, WE'RE HERE TO HELP YOU, LET ME HELP YOU!" Atyiru was shouting praises and comforting phrases as if the krayt might listen.

The krayt did not, in fact, listen. It just raged even more.

His eye twitched. He did not pause to search out the pike, simply calling his saber back to hand and running for the pair.

"I just— want you to— knowaaaahhh! I'm! Proud. OF YOU!" she yelled as she was thrashed this way and that like the dragon was a wild fathier trying to buck off its rider. "I'm— sor— SORRY! I DIDN'T— getheresoooooneeeerrrr ahhhh! We came— as quick— as we cooooOOOOUUULLLDMAAAAARRRYYYYY!"

Her apologies turned into a sheer scream as the Miraluka was finally thrown free, tumbling through the air like a child's toy thrown out the window of a moving speeder.

Marick’s body was already moving before his mind could think. His lightsabers returned to his hands and he quickly deactivated and clipped each one to his belt. In the same smooth motion, he broke into a natural sprint—arms pumping like pistons, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, and the wind whipping his ashen hair back from his face.

The Master instinctively accounted for Atyiru’s trajectory, the shifting yet sturdy sand beneath his boots and the turbulent terrain in his path. For the moment, he tuned out the understandably cross krayt dragon that was a snapped chain away from going on a literal roaring rampage.

He focused, instead, on wrapping the Force fully around his body like a cowl and cloak. With carefully timed bursts of bolstered speed, the Master juked left around a sudden sinkhole that tried to slow him down. He planted, pivoted, and then doubled back to the right before vaulting over a sudden break in the sandy ground.

The Hapan landed atop a plateau of stone. It lurched beneath his feet the second his boots touched down on it. Balancing carefully, he rode the rocky ridge that jutted up from the arena floor and pointed up towards Arx Primus. As the makeshift ramp reached its peak, Marick released the last of his augmented strength and springboarded himself into the air in an arc to intercept Atyiru.

The Adept’s robes and colored sashes billowed in the wind like a streaking comet. He reached out for her, his own cloak dragging in the wind behind him. He’d lost her once, and he would never let it happen again.

Never again—

Before he could reach her, a pair of spine-like spears launched from a hidden compartment in the colosseum sidewall. On instinct alone, Marick managed to dip his shoulder and angle himself towards the ground. He landed in a deep crouch, a brief pain shooting through his knees at the unexpected impact. Atyiru continued to sail by over his head, on a collision course for the sidewall.

No.

Marick whipped his head around and focused his will. With a defiant grunt, the Master reached out with both hands and grabbed ahold of Atyiru through the Force. He was just in time, as the Miraluka’s momentum halted just before she would have been flattened—unironically—against the high wall. “—RRRIIIIIIICCCCCKKKKK—oooh! How fortunate!” Atyiru hummed optimistically.

A sheen of sweat crossed the Hapan's brow as he lowered his arms, and Atyiru’s body followed. Her toes touched down, delicate as a dancer.

The Arcanist took a moment to catch his breath, idly reaching out into the Living Force and drawing from its plentiful reserves to refuel his own. He jogged over towards Atyiru, who was dusting off her robes and wrinkling her pert, freckled nose. She was not mad at the dragon for refusing her aid. Just disappointed.

Marick smiled as he approached her. No matter how many times she put herself in danger, he would be there. Simple as—

—a giant, spike-lined tail, thick as a tree trunk, swept towards the diminutive Hapan. Decades of discipline and a whisper form the Force gave Marick enough time to drop prone. All four of his limbs spread out to the sides, lithe as a loth-cat, to catch him. The tail, meanwhile completed its slow, powerful arc, trampling through the space that Marick had occupied moments prior.

“Go!” he growled through gritted teeth.

“But Marry—”

“Stay out of its range, I’ll try to keep it distracted,” Marick hissed in response as he rolled back to his feet and reactivated both of his lightsabers. He tossed them aside, catching both blue blades before they could fall, and then made a circling motion with both of his hands that the sabers mimicked. The spinning pinwheel of light did indeed seem to draw the dragons attention.

The krayt let out a terrifying roar of pain and agony. Its torso turned slowly as its gigantic head reeled around to face the shift Hapan. Its slitted, reptilian eyes met Marick’s and blinked once. In that brief exchange the Master realized that Atyiru had been right. This was no simple creature. It was an intelligent, sapient beast that had been imprisoned against its will. Marick might have known a thing or two about that, and blinked back once in response to the dragon.

For a heartbeat, it seemed that there was some kind of understanding. And then the krayt dragon roared and tried to take a bite out of both the colosseum floor, and Marick. The Hapan leapt backwards with a push from the Force, grinding his molars and sending both lightsabers into attack vectors. He strafed right as he directed the azure blades telekinetically with the corners of his mind. The rest of his awareness fed off the obstacles in the arena, ducking, dipping, and hopping over traps, raking claws, and allegedly venomous fangs.

“If only someone would make a toothbrush big enough for a dragon,” he heard Atyiru lecturing in the distance. Out of the corner of his eye, as he dodged for his life, he saw Biddy nodding attentively from her shoulder. “That’s why they get so angry, little one. All of those teeth and no toothbrush.”

Marick sighed as he continued his dance, hoping for once that someone, anyone really, from the Dark Council would come and put an end to this whole charade. More camera-drones deployed from the vomitoriums, fanning out into formation. The giant videscreens continued to broadcast. Despite the interruption, the crowd was getting their bloodsport. For now.

The dragon seemed to be losing interest in trying to catch the elusive Arcanist. Like a pair of synchronous X-wings, Marick’s lightsabers broke off and attempted to use their aerodynamic profiles to weave patterns around the krayt’s head. The krayt slowed its motion, and went still, too still, before animating suddenly and snapping its razor-lined mouth closed around one of the levitating lightsabers. The blue blade of plasma winked out of existence as the beast seemed to swallow it whole with little reaction. It roared smugly, daring the lone remaining lightsaber to join its companion inside its stomach.

Marick recalled the lightsaber to his hand and tried to think of anything else he could leverage or use to his advantage. As he did, he noticed that the dragon’s cries of pain were significantly less than they were minutes prior. Almost as if the things that caused it pain in the first place were heal—

—healing. His too-blue eyes blinked rapidly as he spotted Atyiru and Biddy, standing in the shadow cast by the canyon krayt. She had one hand gently touching its back leg, so delicate and faint that the large creature probably neglected to register it. All the while, the Adept poured wave after wave of healing Force energy into the krayt’s body, humming a silent prayer to Ashla and Bogan for coming to her aid.

Three things happened in dreadful clarity in front of Marick’s preternatural awareness.

First, the krayt dragon’s earlier wounds sealed around whatever lingering weapons had been left stuck to its hide.

Second, the great beast flexed its hind legs and took a bold step forward.

Third, a link in the string of heavy chains that was anchoring it in place snapped.

“Son of a biscuit,” Marick swore as he readied himself to try and fight a less angry but unrestrained mythical creature that had survived for centuries at the top of the food chain.

The dragon took another step.

Metal screamed. Snapped. The broken link wrenched wider. More followed, a quick and sudden series of ringing durasteel shouts, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, as the krayt reared up as much as its heavy body could on its hindquarters and lunged forward.

It was like an earthquake and a tidal wave all at once. Dust and sand and rock boiled up as the dragon tried to dive beneath them. It met metal, the foundations of the colosseum, and the sounds of rending indicated its fearsome claws and immense weight were succeeding in part at tearing through. There would be tunnels collapsing. The stadium shook. Even Marick lost his balance, and worse, lost sight of Atyiru. People in the stands screamed not for sport but in fear.

And then all at once, electricity exploded along the dragon's frame. It keened and thrashed in abject agony, in frustration, in defiance. The Hapan wasted no time to watch and vaulted smoothly back to his feet, summoning his dropped blade back to hand and sprinting for the outer edge of the stadium wall. He ran along it, gaze clocking back and forth between the area around and in front of him and the krayt. He spied the silver of the shackles still on its legs, which now glowed in indication of their activation: shock devices. Chains might have trailed from them, but the krayt was not free. Thousands of amperages of voltage pumped through it, slowing its rampage and forcing it to curl in on itself further.

The dust roiled, rising. The former assassin slipped around a fallen mass of data-gathering equipment as once more the fervor of the crowd shifted, a moment of unsure, anxious buzzing swelling back into jubilant cries of victory and calls for blood. They were even more vicious now that they had been scared. People always were. It was in their design. Simple, calculable.

"Arconae," rolled the Headmistress' dark, rhythmic voice over the speakers, thick with her accent and thick with the threat of her power. It echoed doubly in their minds, crystalline compared to the noise around them, diamonds in wine. "While I did invite you here in order to repair the physical condition of my experiments, it was for the purpose of these tests, not to their detriment. I will give you this one chance. Leave the arena now, or you will be made to leave it, in whatever condition that may entail."

A pause. Just a moment in the eye of the hurricane. And then another voice in answer, riding on the wind—

"I will never turn my back on someone who need me!" cried his partner from somewhere in the arena pit. His head snapped around towards the sound and he began running again, directly towards it, even though the writhing, wailing krayt lay in his path.

"Very well," was their condemnation, a second before panels that had not been torn apart and ripped out in the dragon's fury opened and began issuing thick smoke, further adding to the obscurity around them.

It was instinct that led him to cover his mouth and nose with one arm, to think of the towel in one of his cloak pockets and of giving it to Atyiru to cover her own with. Neither action was necessary, of course. They could both regulate their breathing, even stop it and fight on without entirely. He turned his will to just that, ceasing the movement of his lungs while his heart pumped on, steady and calm.

As the smog rolled over him and much of the arena floor, Marick was forced to slow his pace. He could stop his breathing perfectly fine, but he could not see.

But that didn't matter.

It didn't matter, because he knew. Marick stopped and held out his off-hand, waited one beat. Two. Three heartbeats.

A warm, sure grip caught him and pulled, and he flowed with it, because this was them. Atyiru may have been blind, but she could always see, the current carrying him, his light in a dark ocean; like on the nighttime plains of Bhargebba; like in the ritual caverns carved through Bosthirda; like in the forges underneath the graveyards of Begeren; like through the devastation of Antei and, so long after, Arx. She guided him along, and after several heartbeats made longer for his control over them, with nothing but the ground underneath and the cacophony of audience and beast attacking his ears, they emerged from the edge of the cloud.

Atyriu's robes were no longer white, covered in brown and rust shades and dirtied from the smoke. It smeared on her cheeks, in her curls. Marick could feel it on his eyelashes, fine and coarse and irritating. Burning.

Burning, perhaps, too much. Clinging to her, perhaps, too much.

Marick went still. Opened his mouth and, very deliberately, inhaled. Tasted the smoke on his tongue, let the scent coil in his nose. More burning. Not just acrid, but chemical and sweet. Not a poison he knew, but...

Something was wrong with that.

Distantly, he thought he heard a click. In his chest, behind his eyes, through his veins, the Force shouted an alarm.

A few slow heartbeats—

"Barrier!" he barked, and grabbed Atyiru tightly, pulling them together and down to the ground, knowing she would be vulnerable to sustain a shield. The Miraluka complied without hesitation, without question, stiffening as protective coronas limned them in light. A flicker in the corner of his eye, and he knew a massive one, bigger than anything he'd before seen, bloomed around the dragon.

Click.

And then the fire came.

The smoke — the gas — ignited in a rush, air whooshing, flame bright and brilliant and burning. Marick bared his teeth in a hiss of pain as his eyes were briefly blinded in the sudden fulmination, heard Atyiru groan and gasp in his arms. But he did not feel the heat. Their clothing did not turn to cinders nor their hair to ash. Their skin didn't bubble. Her barriers wavered against the distorted shimmer of so much heat, such flame.

But they held. Sweat poured down Atyiru's brow, and she was shaking, but they held long enough for the exothermic reaction to culminate, the fire gone as quick as it had come, its gaseous fuel meant to incinerate on the spot, not linger. The air was too hot, dangerously so, and tasted of burnt as their shields utterly crumbled, winking out of existence. Marick dragged the Miraluka a little closer, wrapping his cloak futilely around them to try and stave off the prickling of being lightly cooked. Were he still breathing normally, it would likely have damaged his throat. He thought of her insistence on sunscreen.

"H-how…" she warbled, choked, started coughing.

"Your breathing," he reminded in an exhale, urgent, and she shuddered and nodded and her chest ceased moving.

They got up, Atyriu a little unsteady, and ushered one another farther from where the cloud had once been, towards marginally cooler air, in the center of the arena. Once there, ears folded back, she tried again.

"How— how is Dottie? Are they burned? All I can sense from them is more pain. I've controlled my breathing, and Dottie's, but...Marick, did they burn?"

"Dot— you've named the dragon." Of course she had. Names were important, after all.

"Names are important."

Something settled in his chest. "I know." He turned and scanned over the massive shape of the krayt again. It was moving sluggishly, stiffly, but its scarred hide appeared mostly unburnt, save some patches. Obviously, Atyriu had not been entirely able to protect it. But she had tried. She was trying so hard. "Dottie is not severely burned, but was electrocuted."

"I'll heal them again."

The words were determined, but the Adept was obviously drained, between her previous efforts and Ciara's quite literal attempt at burning them. "Atyiru...you could. But I do not think Dottie will be receptive to your efforts or our friendship. This is becoming untenable."

"We can't leave Dottie. Or any of the others. Chains, gladiator battles, electroshock, traps...This is torture!"

"And if Dottie kills the hundreds of people and creatures here in the process of escaping, as just nearly happened?"

Atyiru's lips thinned into a line. For a moment, it seemed she would argue. But he knew. He knew that she knew. She was a medic, a healer, a leader, and more than anything, someone who cared for every life, valued each equally. She knew how impractical this had been from the start, and she knew how dangerous it had gotten for others. Her shoulders slumped with sorrow, and her hands trembled. Her grief was a physical thing, bleeding off of her in waves, and each one was harder and harder to stand in the undertow of than the last.

Then, she clenched her fists. Locked her jaw and lifted her chin. And while the grief remained, so did the resolve he knew so well of her, the same kind that lived in him. They both carried those burdens, the weight of worlds, so heavy on their backs as to crush them, slowly grind them into the dirt and dust from whence they came. But they also carried them together.

"I know you carry a stone," she'd said to him once. "And I can't help that. I can't take it away, nor would I try. But I can help you carry it, if you'll let me."

Atyriu's lightsaber lit in her hand when she drew it, spears of clamoring, multicolored light coalescing from either end. She turned her face towards the battered krayt.

"Save the mother, lose the babe," she recited in the smallest whisper, a catechism he'd heard from her many a solemn time, bent over in a burning battlefield or crouched in a makeshift field hospital or standing in the too-bright white halls of a medcenter. "I'm sorry. We can't free you. But we can give you mercy. Oh, Dottie." Her voice shook, then settled, stronger than ages and eons. "We're here. You're safe."

"Biddy," Marick bid. "It's time."

Perking, the little droid opened its compartment and ejected the Hapan's hidden shoto lightsaber, which he called quickly to hand. Biddy bounced on Atyiru's shoulder and whirred a happy beep, pleased just to be useful and uncomprehending of the grim situation. He would not understand why Atyriu would not beep happily back at him. He would not understand why she set him gently on the ground.

"Thank you," the former assassin told the droid in her stead. He ignited his own blades, armed once more with two in hand.

The krayt — Dottie — roared. As one, they dashed forward in silent answer.

Their steps fell into synchronicity. Both of them were fast, fast enough to reach their goal without aid of the Force, both sliding into the smooth, half-turned stances of Soresu masters as they spun their sabers in scintillating circles.

The throat, Atyriu's mental instruction murmured in his mind. The heart will be too hard to reach from our angle. Its hide and skull are likely extremely thick. All will be painful and cruel, but perhaps cutting the throat the least so, save the panic Dottie will feel.

Marick adjusted his course accordingly, darting out in front of the krayt yet again while Atyiru ran for its flank and leapt up onto its forepaw, climbing its limb again to get closer to its breast. Its eyes followed him, head turning to track his movements and the glow of his blades as he loosed them into the air. His too-blue eyes flickered over the dragon's long, thick, scale-bearded throat and his weapons followed.

Dottie's neck extended as the dragon snapped at him, forcing the Hapan to piece a part of his mind towards channeling the Force into his legs and propelling his backwards leap. The other fragment of his attention that moved his sabers kept them going, and another watched as Atyiru leapt again with amplified agility from her perch on its paw, saber a streak haloing her.

Marick's attacks landed first, and then Atyiru's, and one one after another after another the plasmic blades scoured over the beast's jugular in quick succession. Partially-cauterized lines splint scales and skin, but did not slice all the way through. Sheets of blood splattered from the lacerations, and Dottie bellowed in pain as Atyiru rolled through her landing beneath its jaw and came back up stained head to toe in scarlet. She slid, skidding, and then was suddenly flying as the krayt batted her away in one fell swoop of its forearm.

"Atyriu!" Marick shouted, ignoring how his own senses screamed. It cost him as the dragon swung around with an alacrity that chains and wounds had previously checked, Marick twisting too late to leapt over the tail that swept at him again. The whip of muscle and bone slammed into his side.

There was air, then impact. He fell, tumbling across the ruined, ripped ground like a discarded doll. He laid in a heap for one breathless moment, utterly dazed, black in his vision and swimming up his skull. Pain drummed at his senses, but he breathed hard, once, through clenched teeth and pushed it down, locking it under a wall and will of iron.

Atyiru, he thought. No.

It was not true, and he did not permit it.

Marick numbed his nerves entirely, trusting muscle memory to operate without his mind behind it. He oriented his limbs and commanded them to move, first to his knees, then to standing. Both his legs still worked, if poorly on the right. One arm did not, also the right, and he ignored the bone jutting out almost two inches in the wrong direction at his elbow. He searched the field and found that the krayt dragon was still bleeding, little spurts splattering in curtains every time it moved, and move it did. It was charging for a figure of ruinous red, glowing all along her arms, as Atyriu stumbled upright herself and raised her saberstaff, bracing before the oncoming beast. Her small, tiny figure of light, unflinching against the storm that dwarfed her, determined to protect, to save the storm itself.

Marick inhaled the Force until he felt about to burst with it, thrumming with it, all through him. Until he was one with it, and it with him. He and it, both instruments.

The Master sprang forward, empty-handed, a tool to kill for mercy's sake.

Raw power flowed freely through Marick’s ragged body—a miasma of dark and light side energy swirling to form the muddled gray aura only sight through the Force could reveal. Pain was an afterthought, and his mind carried on with crystalline clarity. Even with a direct tether to the slipstreams of the Living Force, however, there was only so much the Elder Arcanist could do in his current state.

A buried part of his consciousness—his sleeping mind—was trying to assess his array of wounds in order to prioritize which parts were most crucial to address. It had originally been trained in medicine with the intent of causing harm, but now, it might have been what instinctively was keeping him from fainting.

The exposed bone from the compound fracture in his right arm, obviously, would get infected if it was not treated soon. Trying to set it or splint it would take too long. Contusions and fresh lacerations lined the skin and muscles of his side and his ribcage felt tender to even a light touch. His robes had been torn at the torso from his tumble through the arena, revealing a portion of a dark pattern inked into his chest. The runic symbols around the Arcona emblem peeked out to reaffirm his status as one of the Clan’s reverant title holders.

Marick Tyris Arconae took what he could from the Force. He felt tendons and sinew slowly stitch back together. Too slow. He was running out of time.

She was in danger, though. Nothing else mattered.

The krayt dragon drunkenly staggered as it let out a feral roar laced with anguish and agony. Its slitted, reptilian eyes blinked rapidly but found an outlet for its rage in the glowing beacon of a lone, intransigent woman wielding the twin blades of her Seraphim staff.

One singular thought consumed Marick’s waking mind, driving him forward: This beast will not make an orphan of my daughter.

The Master bolted forward with a faint limp, extending his functional arm out to the side. He could not see the inactive hilts of his lightsabers out of the corner of his eyes, but instinctively knew that they were there and called out to them with the Force.

He counted heartbeats in his head. One beat...two...three...

The steady metronome seemed to help him tune out everything in the arena—the blinding lights overhead, the roaring crowds desperate for more bloodsport, the judgemental eyes of the Headmistress and her aides. It all faded as his vision narrowed.

The dragon charged.

Atyiru stood her ground.

...five...six...

Marick’s left arm shot forward with a purpose. Two lightsabers hilts, one long and one short, hurtled towards the dragon's flank from different directions. A guttural, amplified sound burst free from the depths of the Hapan’s diaphragm, materialized into an otherworldly, resonant battle cry. He poured all of his fears, his hopes, his dreams into the defiant bellow. They fused with thoughts of his daughter, her future, to Atyiru, his partner, and their future together.

The dragon whipped its head towards the ancient taunt. A side effect of the experimentation had allowed them to remember their past, and a sound they had not heard since a time long forgotten. Dott’er’aga Scalestrong, third of their name, had lost both their sire and mate to such a shout—a Thu'um as the krayt dragon legends cited. It was a tall tale told from the Tatooine sky*lines to the outer *rim.

Whether this memory was truly the dragon’s or not was of little consequence. What mattered was that the krayt turned its attention away from Atyiru and towards its source.

Seven...

Marick clenched his fist as he counted the final beat. In response, his telekinetically controlled lightsabers activated their azure blades and lashed out with abandon for the krayt’s eyes. As they had before, Dottie tried to snap their massive maw down on the small buzzing blades of plasma. But the sabers were too quick, flitting and zipping away like minatature starfighters.

The krayt dragon shrieked, the shrill, bone-curdling siren sweeping through the seats of the amphitheater.

“Dottie...we’re s-sorry,” Atyiru whispered, her legs trembling as she lowered her saberstaff to the side. While she could not see what transpired, she could feel it, process it, on a visceral level few understood.

Marick did. Breath ragged, matted hair veiling his dust-smeared visage, he never stopped running towards her, even as his puppeted blades finally failed to avoid the rabid retaliation of the blinded dragon. Dottie’s jaws chomped down on the pair of lightsabers as Marick’s control over them wavered.

He pushed his body to move faster until he felt a sharp pain in his knee, as if someone had shot it with an arrow. His foot was caught clumsily on an overturned stone, sending him staggering forward. His functioning left arm caught his fall before he would have unceremoniously face planted.

Life before death, Marick reminded himself as he pushed himself back up to his feet again, vision blurring, new abrasions joining the rest of half-healed lacerations. Even if he had to break every bone in his body, though, he would save her. No matter the cost.

Marick finally made it to Atyiru’s side. He wrapped his working arm around his wife's waist and awkwardly started to drag her away from the storming krayt dragon.

“But Marry...”

“I know.”

The two Arconae leaned against one another as they shuffled towards the exit to the arena. He leaned left, she leaned right, and they somehow balanced each other out. Faintly, he began to feel the Defender’s familiar healing aura stretching out to cover both of them as they moved. Even the Elder medic, however, had her limits.

As Marick’s returned focus battled against the receding waves of fatigue, he could barely hear the crowd. The Hapan could not tell if they were cheering or jeering. He thought he imagined the dragon behind them, unable to see, relying on scent and sound alone. Maybe he would get lucky and Dottie would instead get a sliver of revenge and take it out on the clamoring audience.

Marick dared a glance over his shoulder, and was *un*surprised to see the krayt crashing its way towards the couple.

Of course.

Atyiru’s lips formed a thin, determined line he knew all too well. He nodded once, and the two turned together as one. Shoulder to shoulder, they each raised a forward-facing barrier. Two translucent, overlapping coronas formed a protective wall out in front of them.

Marick shifted his weight and slid his leg backwards for balance. He froze in place as his heel bumped up against something odd and metallic. His too-blue eyes darted down to his feet, eyes locking onto the pressure plate he had nearly stepped on. The Arcanist blinked a few times as he took quick inventory of the remaining obstacles surrounding the duo. When he glanced over his shoulder, he spotted a large panel popping up from the ground just behind them. It had not been there moments earlier.

From the revealed panel, a pointed, steel-tipped arrowhead protruded into view. Almost as if it were set to guard the stone portcullis that provided egress from the arena, preventing any combatants from escaping.

Dottie roared and closed in, uncaring of any potential danger. They were, evidently, disinterested in charring their meal first, but intent on swallowing them whole.

“On my mark, take down your barrier,” Marick explained to his partner.

He had expected her to protest or look at him as if he were crazy. Instead, she simply bobbed her head and let the corner of her lips quirk into a small, secret smile.

I trust you, mika yirue.

Marick lowered his barrier, leaving Atyiru to maintain her own. He moved his foot over the pressure plate and kept his weight pressed down against it.

The krayt dragon closed in, rearing its head back to telegraph its snapping lunge.

“Now,” Marick spoke quietly but firmly with unwavering resolve.

Atyiru let her barrier drop.

Marick took his weight off the pressure plate. All he had to do was push Atyiru aside, and hopefully he would be quick enough to dodge. A sudden vertigo threatened his balance as his vision blurred again.

Servos started to churn as the trap’s weapon coiled.

Atyiru’s ears twitched at the sound, just as the Force whispered a dire warning.

The servos clicked into place, followed immediately by a spring operated ballista firing a high velocity spear into the space that the two Arconae occupied.

Marick started to evade, but his motions were lagged and languid. Too slow. Before he could shove Atyiru out of the way—having already accepted his body as a casualty of necessity—the Defender threw herself at Marick and tackled him to the ground and out of the deadly projectiles path.

The spear shot forward through the now empty space, and pierced straight through the krayt dragon’s gaping mouth to skewer out through the back of its skull. Blood and ichor spilled out like a fountain, drenching the sandy arena floor.

The krayt dragon of unusual size thrashed in place, worming and writhing, before finally collapsed onto its side and going still.

The colosseum went silent.

Marick grunted as he tried to look past Atyiru, who had landed flatly on top of him in her efforts to knock him out of the way. When he noticed the dragon was no longer moving, he let his head rest back down on the ground and tried to remain as still as possible. Maybe if he didn’t move, the pain wouldn’t find him.

It did.

“I’m sorry, Atyiru...” the Hapan whispered up at the Miraluka.

“That’s okay, silly. I told you I can’t die, because I’m going to protect you. Even if it means I can’t save...everyone,” while her tone was somber, she leaned her face towards his and let her nose touch his. That small gesture, combined the upward curve to her lips, was all Marick needed before his consciousness slipped and everything went dark.