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.

His finger squeezed down on the trigger. Slowly. Gently. A low, whirring song rose in the humid corridor as Sasha’s barrels spun, air whistling softly through their gaps. He feathered the trigger, and the whirr lowered and rose in pitch, grim music to his ears. Nikola grinned at the sound.

“I like your gun!” a bright, cheery voice commented at his side. Heavy armor creaked as the hulking Zabrak looked down at his counterpart. Though she was about a head shorter than him, Sera made up for it with a grin as blinding as the Iridonian sun, bright and toothy and pure. She had her helm tucked under her armand one foot bobbing in the sand. They were to be called out any moment now, facing an uncertain setting and an unknown threat, and here she was, happy as could be, making googly eyes at-

Sera reached up on her tip-toes and poked Nikola directly in the forehead, at the base of one of his larger crown-horns. The soldier sputtered, giving the younger Zabrak a cross look, but she only grinned in return.

“Like your horns, too. You polish those yourself?”

He regarded her with a cold, stony stare. She stared right back...and he found a surprising amount of steel hidden behind her blue-eyed gaze. Nikola grunted softly, and gave his Aedile a slight nod.

“You know what they are wanting us to do?” he asked, his accent rough and harsh. “What are we killing?”

“Not killing. Just fighting. Give the Head-lady a good show, protect their scanner-thingies, and do our best to keep from getting our heads bitten off, we’ll be good. The creatures didn’t ask for this, and we’re not gonna hurt ‘em more than we need to. So, put your pretty gun-...”

“*Sasha,” he interjected, his voice emphatic.

“Put Sasha on stun. Easy enough, yeah? As for the beastie itself…”

Sera gave Nikola another shrug and a grin. As the gate before them rattled, slowly lifting out of the sand, the younger Zabrak stepped forward, pulling two long daggers from her belt. She was practically bouncing as she stepped out onto the packed sand of the arena floor.

“I am thinking that you do not know what ‘easy’ means!” the soldier called out after her. Still, he followed, dark armor clattering as he moved into the open. The arena was massive, hundreds of meters across, massive walls trapping them within. Tens of thousands of people could fit into the tiered seats that lined the pit, but today they were only sparsely occupied, a few dozen forms scattered throughout, most wearing long, white and grey robes that marked them as Academy researchers.

But, they were of no consequence today. Not in his job description. Pausing at Sera’s side, Nikola unslung the helmet strapped to his blaster pack and slid it on, blinking as the targeting reticle came online. It didn’t have the same flashy crest for his horns that Sera’s had, but it gave him a great view of the arena around them. The beast hadn’t been released quite yet, which gave them more time to study their surroundings.It seemed relatively plain, barren of extra decor or obvious obstacles...which only made him more suspicious.

“Lookie here,” Sera stated, tapping on his shoulder as they moved farther in. She swiped a gauntleted hand through the arena’s sand, over an odd, even hole in the floor. Perfectly circular, perhaps two inches wide. Looking up, Nikola could see more of them, scattered across the fighting pit, arrayed in neat, curving lines that spiraled out from the center.

“Dare you to stick your-...”

“No.”

“What if I made that an order? Aedile’s command?” she offered, cocking her head.

“No, again.”

“C’mon, Nikkie. You need to live it up a little more. Smile!”

The soldier just stared at her. Even with the helmet blocking his face, she could sense that his face hadn’t moved even an inch. Before she could test Nikola’s sanity farther, however, a low rumble cut through the arena’s relative silence. That rumble turned into a ferocious, blood curdling howl of rage and anger. Another massive gate across the arena from the duo slowly yawned open, a gaping stretching to release…

Nothing. The cage beyond the door seemed empty.

The sand boiled directly underneath Sera’s feet for just a second, before something burst out and all hell broke loose.

The Force’s scream echoed in the back of Sera’s mind, primal and sharp. It drove her to move, to act, sending her lunging to the side just as an enormous limb shot from the sand, clawing through the air where she had stood only a moment before. Her mind, running on impulse, immediately jumped to Sand Caulker, one of the Iridonian apex predators that she had grown up alongside. But, as she scrambled away, daggers in her hand, that theory was very quickly disproved.

The creature that rose from the arena’s floor was massive, and covered with a thick coat of sandy, shaggy hair. It might have been white, once, but it was difficult to discern that through the dirt and blood matted in. She got a flashing glimpse of five-inch claws and two, curved black horns before the grasping paw swept towards her. She rolled out of its path, somersaulting backwards onto her feet and came to rest on her toes.

The thing just kept rising. Two meters, then three, then five, tall enough to cast her in its shade as the wampa turned and loosed an ear-piercing roar, fang-filled jaws stretching wide. Sera growled her animalistic defiance right back, pointed teeth bared as she brandished her daggers.

And then, of course, Sasha joined in. And she most certainly wasn’t set to stun, as Sera had asked.

A stream of crimson blaster bolts exploded against the wampa’s back. A score of steaming holes punched through fur and hide, flesh bursting off in smoking gobbets. But, the creature’s blubber and muscle were thick, resisting the scouring heat of Nikola’s fire. That wasn’t all, though There was a gleam there that Sera hadn’t noticed before. The dull shine of durasteel.

Plates of spiked armor had been attached to the creature’s torso, banding around its waist and shoulders, enough to absorb a great portion of Nikola’s fire. There was a particularly nasty piece attached to its left wrist, a hook of metal that acted as an extended blade. The pieces weren’t strapped on. Rather...it looked like they’d been bolted directly into the beast’s flesh

Those bastards. Those sick, cruel bastards.

The wampa whirled on Nikola, turning towards the larger, far more painful threat. One massive paw swept through the sand before it, throwing a wave of dark grit into the soldier’s face as he backed up, step by step, his cascade of fire blowing through the obscuring cloud, never ceasing. In turning on him, the beast left its back exposed to Sera, and her blades. The thick flesh and armor that had defended it against Nikola gave her plenty of places to grip. Springing at the last moment, her right hand wound into the fur that hung along one of the plates, while the dagger in her left served as a decent climbing pick, sinking deep into the beast’s flesh, creating a pivot that allowed her to start climbing.

Up and up. A long way to go.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?” the soldier shouted, hefting Sasha up.

“CLIMBING! JUST KEEP DOING THE HEAVY-WEAPONS GUY THING!”

“WHAT ELSE WOULD I BE DOING!?!?”

True to his word Nikola kept doing the "heavy-weapons guy thing". A rain of crimson fire kept flowing from Sasha's barrels as he kept the wampa's attention on him while Sera kept climbing it's back. His barrage didn't manage to keep the creatures attention for long however, which is to be expect with Sera stabbing daggers into it's back to climb. As she went to impale it's shoulder blade with one of her knives the wampa shook itself hard and roared before grabbing her leg and threw her towards the blaster fire.

"STOOOOP SHOOOTIIING!" was all Nikola heard before he saw her start flying towards him. He released the trigger around the same time she came crashing into his chest causing them both to get knocked backwards rolling in the sand. With a grunt Nikola slowly got up and looked over towards the Aedile.

"You hurt?" he asked

"I just went flying through the air Nikkie, what do you think?" Sera replied as she got up. "Luckily it's tall and threw me over your shots mostly."

The wampa roared once more before charging towards the pair clearly enraged. Nikola looked around for Sasha before finding her a good meter away from them and started to run to get it. At the same time Sera stepped off with a run towards the wampa before shooting it with one of her tranquilizer darts from her vambraces.

Around the same time Nikola managed to pick Sasha back up and reattach the sling before yelling, "Do I still need to keep it alive?"

Sera glanced between Nikola and the wampa, bright blue eyes narrowing beneath her visor, cracked when she was thrown. A part of her hated the thought of it, the injustice of slaughtering such a noble, powerful creature for no reason. Self-defense was one thing, sure. But they weren’t going to take the fur, harvest the meat, honor it as every hunter should. The wampa would rot in a lab, a final insult piled upon everything that had already been done to it. And so, so much had been done to it. The evidence was in the fur, once a thick, pure white, now matted, crusty and stiff with sweat and dry blood. The shiny bald patches where sutures had been removed and burns had scoured away hair follicles. The places where the armored plates had been bolted into its flesh, driven into muscle and bone. She could feel it. Sense its pain, its anger, its confusion. It didn’t know where it was, or why it was there. Just the thought was horrible. Anathema. The Zabrak grit her teeth, circling around the beast’s left while Nikola slowly trundled along its right. Threatened from both sides, and bleeding from dozens of wounds, the wampa backed up, its breath coming in low, shuddering gasps. Her tranquilizer dart, buried in the creature’s shoulder, seemed to have about as much effect as a kiss. Sera glanced over to Nikola, fists tightening on her daggers’ grips, and gave a short nod.

“Killing it is a mercy,” she stated finally. Her eyes flitted to the beast, watching as it looked between the two of them, a ferocious growl building in its chest. “Just like before. You keep its attention, I’ll—"

KA-CHICK.

Sera didn’t get to finish. The sharp click resonated through the arena, a vibration shooting through the hard-packed soil. Then, a twelve-foot spike shot from a hole in the sand just in front of her. If she’d been standing a few more inches ahead, it would have skewered right through her. The Force truly was with her.

KA-CHICK.

KA-CHICK.

KA-CHICK.

The needle-pointed spike retracted as quickly as it had shot out, and Sera immediately fell into a loose, ready stance as more burst from the sand. They seemed to appear randomly, with a clock-like rhythm, each spike preceded by an audible click as the mechanism holding it in place retracted. The bulk was concentrated around the trio, indicating some measure of intent in how they were being released.

Sera dodged left, then rolled to her right, avoiding another cluster of shooting blades. Unfortunately, her partner wasn’t quite as fast. Nikola was a natural athlete, a trained soldier. His armor fit him like a second skin, but the additional burden of Sasha in his hands and the massive battery pack on his back slowed him. He turned around one blade as it emerged, pivoting onto his back foot to bring Sasha to bear on the wampa, the barrels already spinning. But, even as he depressed the trigger and let loose with a tide of seething plasma, another spike shot from the dirt r...right beneath his left boot. It pierced through rubber and plastic and flesh and bone without even a moment of resistance, the sound of its mechanism muffled beneath the tearing of flesh.

Nikola gasped at the sudden pain before letting loose a ferocious roar. He didn’t let go of the trigger for even a moment, Sasha's cooling vents releasing a fog of smoke and steam as he unleashed hell upon the wampa.

The creature was even less graceful than the soldier. Pikes sliced across its flesh, burying in its feet and flanks as they shot forth, but the arena operators seemed to be specifically aiming not to kill it. No, they wanted it in a frenzy. The snowy beast unleashed a snarl of feral rage, blood-speckled spittle flying from its maw as it reached out two muscle-banded arms and snatched a pair of spikes as they jutted from the sand. Sera’s eyes widened as she watched the thing tense, grip tightening, before it ripped them free of their housing beneath the arena.

It glanced between her and Nikola, shuddering as the soldier packed another energy-cell into his heavy repeater and let fly another salvo of burning blast bolts. She could feel it, weighing the options in its feral mind.

Then, it cocked back, and threw both spikes directly at Nikola like improvised javelins. They sailed between the bolts that sparked against its armor, arcing directly towards the larger Zabrak’s face. Sera screamed into the air, pausing in her charge and reaching out with one hand, a telekinetic grip closing around one of the spears in mid flight. There was nothing she could do for the other.

Which, she didn’t really need to worry about. Even with a spike through his foot, Nikola curved his body, and the javelin just glanced off the side of his helmet, spraying shattered plasteel and cracked acrylic. It seemed to give the helm a savage, one-sided grin.

“I HAVE HIS ATTENTION!” the soldier bellowed. He reached to his belt with one hand, drawing a grenade that he tossed towards his fellow warrior. “HE HAS NO HELMET! AIM FOR THE HORNS!”

The C-25 frag grenade sailed through the air towards Sera. When she caught it, Nikola yelled out, “TWIST THE TOP TO PRIME IT.”

Sera hesitated for a second before priming the grenade and throwing it at the wampa’s head. The wampa, however, decided—right at that moment— it would be a good time to charge towards the man with the blaster cannon. This, of course, caused the grenade to go flying behind it. It went off with a massive boom a good seven meters behind it, causing shrapnel to fly out in a three hundred sixty degree radius, peppering its back and causing it to roar out in pain.

Around the same time as the grenade went off, another round of clicking sounds as another salvo of the spike traps shot up from underneath the trio in the arena. The two Zabraks, after the last round, had been able to identify the sound and were able to dodge to the side. Sera managed to evade the traps once again, but Nikola wasn’t as lucky. He jumped back as soon as he heard the clicks, but a spike came up behind him, skewering the battery pack for Sasha. With the pack now ruined, he let it fall and unhooked the blaster cannon from it.

Nikola was starting to feel faint from the blood loss—caused by the giant hole in his foot from the first spike trap—and was now without his main weapons battery pack. He looked towards the wampa and saw that it was pinned in place from the last round of spikes. He watched it roar and flail wildly. Before Sera could say anything, Nikola unclipped a thermal detonator off his belt, primed it, and then heaved it, hoping it would land underneath the creature’s feet.

“NIKKIE WHAT WAS THA-” Sera was cut off as the distinct sound of a thermal detonator went off, vaporizing most of the wampa, killing it on detonation. She just looked at what little was left of the wampa, before turning and glaring at Nikola as he limped his way towards her.

“Sorry. It was the quickest and least painful way for me to end it.” He was glad that she couldn’t see through his visor. He knew it wasn’t the most honorable way to finish it off, but at least he put it out of its misery.

Sera sighed before walking over to Nikola and supported his bad side. The two Zabraks leaned on each other as they slowly limped out of the arena. With the wampa now dead the Academy staff were going to be less than pleased with them. Before any more traps went off, they were trying to leave as soon as possible.