The cavernous chamber was built to swallow sound. Even the faintest footfall seemed to sink into its black stone floor without echo. A cold stillness hung in the air, broken only by the hiss of unseen torches flaring to life along the walls. Each flame cast warped shadows that crawled upward, painting the jagged ceiling in restless shapes.
Connie stood in the center of the chamber, the Force washing over her like a tide. Her senses spread wide, combing every corner of the room for movement, for intent, for the telltale hum of danger. She had come prepared for treachery, aware that the one she faced did not fight with honor, but with cunning. Her breathing steadied, her weapon readied, her mind reaching outward.
Yet the chamber whispered back to her with only silence.
Unseen, Lucien moved in the shadows.
The Dark Side coiled tightly around him, whispering secrets into his ear, feeding his patience. He had cloaked himself in a mantle of nothingness—Force Cloak, wrapping his body in bending light and muffled sound. He became a walking void, invisible to the naked eye, inaudible to the sharpest ear. Where her senses brushed against the edges of the chamber, they skimmed past him, failing to catch hold of the predator that stalked her from the dark.
He moved slowly, deliberately. Each step was placed with surgical care, like a shadow sliding across a wall. His left hand trailed along the ancient stone, fingertips dragging across runes carved by forgotten acolytes. His right gripped the hilt of his Sith Sword, its blade dull yet throbbing faintly with malice, eager to taste blood. The weapon had no hum like a lightsaber, no betraying flicker of energy, only silence, sharp and suffocating.
Connie shifted her stance. Her brow furrowed. She knew he was here. The Force told her so, a faint ripple at the edges of her perception, like the breath before a storm. But where? Her eyes scanned the chamber, tracking shadows that seemed to move with too much intent, torches that guttered when no wind blew. She tightened her grip.
Lucien’s lips curled into the faintest smile.
Enough games.
Light and sound snapped back to him in an instant, revealing the tall, dark figure now standing at the edge of the torchlight. Black robes stirred in the faint heat of the flames, and the glint of the Sith Sword caught Connie’s eye like a predator’s tooth. His presence slammed back into the chamber like a stone hurled into water, an unmistakable wave of Dark Side intent crashing against her senses.
Connie pivoted toward him instantly, weapon raising in guard. Her voice cut the silence like steel scraping stone. “Show yourself, coward.”
"Must you disturb a gentleman at his home, my dear?"
“If this is your home, Lucien, then it stinks of rot, like you.”
In a blur, the space where he had stood collapsed into nothing.
A ripple in the Force, a twist in the air, and Lucien was gone. The torch beside him flared briefly, disturbed by displaced air, then guttered back into its steady flame. In that same heartbeat he reappeared too close, directly to Connie’s flank within striking distance. The teleport left no time for warning, only the sudden awareness of a shadow materializing with a blade already descending.
Steel shrieked against air as the Sith Sword came down in a vicious arc.
But Lucien’s attack was not merely physical.
Even as his blade sought flesh, his mind reached into the abyss of the Dark Side, calling forth a tide of dread. His will condensed into a wave of psychic venom that burst outward. It carried not just fear, but a primal weight designed to crush reason, to freeze muscle, to remind the living of death’s inevitability. The chamber itself seemed to contract with it, shadows stretching wider, the air tightening with suffocating pressure.
To Connie it would come like the sudden awareness of a predator’s jaws closing in, every nerve screaming of danger, every instinct warning that she stood on the edge of annihilation.
Lucien’s eyes blazed with cold satisfaction as blade and fear struck together, physical and spiritual in unison. He relished the orchestration: the silence of the cloak, the shock of the teleport, the suffocating dread of Terror. The duel had only just begun, but he intended to make it a symphony of despair.
“Fear looks exquisite on you. I think I’ll draw it out a little longer.”
“Fear is for the weak, Lucien. And I see only weakness hiding behind theatrics.”
Still, beneath the calm mask, his mind worked quickly. He knew better than to underestimate her. Connie’s senses were sharp, her discipline strong. Terror alone would not break her; it would only stagger, only wound the edges of her will. A single blade strike would not end her; she had faced worse than Sith before.
This was no duel of equals. Connie might command more power in the Force, but this was his lair. And in his lair, every hunter becomes the hunted.
His cloak snapped back as he pressed the attack, moving with deliberate precision. The Sith Sword came alive in his grip, heavy but perfectly balanced for his reach and strength. He sought not to overwhelm her with speed but with inevitability, each strike angled to herd, to pressure, to force her into mistakes. The blade hummed faintly as it carved the air, ancient metal drinking in the tension of the fight.
Around them, the torches seemed to burn lower, as if the chamber itself bowed to the darkness now thickening between the combatants. Shadows danced madly along the walls, echoing their clash in distorted pantomime.
Lucien’s voice, low and resonant, slipped into the chaos as his blade sought her guard. “You already feel me in your mind. How much longer before you belong to me?”
“Keep talking. Every word tells me where to cut.”
The moment balanced on a knife’s edge. Connie had only instants to decide, whether to parry steel, resist fear, or attempt to break the rhythm he had forced upon her. Lucien pressed closer, eyes fixed on hers with predatory hunger, ready to taste the next move she dared to make.
