Master Seraine "Erinyes" Taldrya Ténama vs. Boss Itzo Maelemi

The darkest rooms of the Tempest Crown Cantina hide many secrets, shady dealings, and unsavory types. The Backroom Ring is one of those secrets. Known to many as top tier entertainment on Nancora, but restricted, open to only those who can pay to fight. And it is lucrative.

Fifty feet in length and width, the Backroom Ring is a square room used long ago as a water cistern, now repurposed into a bloody combat arena. The ceiling is low enough for the taller fighters to feel claustrophobic whilst the walls are layered in dented durasteel plating equipped with shock prods and deadly spikes. Humid air fills the room along with the stench of sweat and bile. Neon lights dot the ceiling in the middle of the room, splashing color and shadows in circles further out. No seating arrangements are available, only cam droids showing live feeds on the cantina screens. Speakers bolted into the walls spread the crowd's cheers in the ring, blasting fighters with their energy.

The ring is segmented into square panels, each capable of independent activation. Pressure plates hidden beneath the surface trigger traps when stepped on. Most panels do nothing, but some discharge electrical bursts strong enough to stagger even armored fighters. Others superheat, glowing dull orange before cooling, forcing constant movement. Some panels are purposefully unstable, collapsing underfoot without warning, to disrupt balance. Many and varied traps exist underneath the floor, constantly innovated on and changed from day to day. Gravity projectors under the arena can alter gravity, making combatants float or pinning them to the floor. The ceiling hides gas vents, misting combatants with stimulants or pacifying and disorientating them.

There is no place for elaborate maneuvers here, no space to breathe or rest. The Backroom Ring is made for pure close combat. No high ground, no distance, only brutality as panic and pain close in.

Whoever this Itzo Maelemi was, Erinyes didn't think much of his decision to bring a droid with him into the ring. If someone wasn't willing to face their own battles, how trustworthy could they be? Those were the ones you had to worry about stabbing you in the back, and that made things complicated.

Complicated should be reserved for cocktails.

It didn't help matters that she couldn't actually see him. Was he a Force-user? Was he one of those sneaky types? Was she just too distracted by that damn B2 trying to blast her brains out to take a proper look? All she'd managed so far was a quick glance around as she backflipped out of the way of the first volley of blaster fire.

Fine. She'd deal with the droid first, then her real opponent. One of her lightsabers came into her hand and ignited, amethyst lightning crackling around its blade. Supremely confident, the droid began closing to melee range, and extended its shock prod with a vocoded, ominous laugh. That part made Erinyes smile; at least whoever programmed it had a sense of humour.

Just as the Emissary went to start deboning the droid like a sy-hen, the Force tingled up the back of her spine, and desert-hot air rose up the legs of her trousers. Damn this arena, she thought, skipping backwards to avoid the impromptu hot plate. The B2 seemed unaffected by the trap, clank-charging forward with its twin blaster cannon still firing.

On a whim, Erinyes reversed direction and cut diagonally downward. Her lightsaber sheared the emitter tips off the droid's blaster as she blazed past, and an explosion from the gas chamber sent wires and sprockets scattering in a cone across where she'd been standing a moment before. She spun and went to give the droid a coup de grace, but the Force sang another warning, and she brought her lightsaber up to catch a torrent of lightning coming from... nothing?

No. There was the Zabrak she was supposed to be fighting, emerging from under a rippling curtain of Force energies. A krayt dragon's howl echoed through the arena as Itzo ignited his vibrant red blade, matched only by the roar of the crowd through the arena's loudspeakers. Apparently, they wanted to see lightsabers as much as they wanted to see blood.

"He finally shows himself," Erinyes called out, ducking under the B2's belated backhand. Smoke began to rise around the droid as whatever was on the bottom of its feet burned off against the superheated floorplate. The Emissary leapt away, but felt the plate she landed on give under her weight the split-second she landed, and was on the move again. The battle droid thundered after her, swinging its shock prod.

"You having trouble with the droid?" the crime boss taunted back, watching the exchange with a smirk.

"Me? I was trying to be–" Erinyes twisted aside the droid swung the shock prod dangerously close, and lopped it off with a pass of her lightsaber. "–merciful. If he keeps interrupting our fight like this, I'm not going to hold back."

“What can I say, he loves to fight.” Itzo chimed back as he twirled his blade in the air, tiny residual sparks still dancing between the fingertips on his free hand. He scanned the Zeltron up and down, taking in all her features while the chaotic neon lights danced across the arena. ‘Another beautiful Force User. How does this keep happening to me?’ Ken took another wild swing at her with his damaged prod, functioning only as a blunt object at this point. Erinyes deftly stepped underneath the haymaker and skipped over to an adjacent panel. The droid attempted to follow, but prolonged exposure to the hot plate had fused the bottoms of his feet to the floor.

“Uh, Boss?” Ken called out, but Itzo was already closing the gap across the arena. He channeled the Force into his legs and leapt forward, skipping several potentially hazardous panels and landing on the one directly beside his opponent. Her crackling amethyst blade was ready, the two lightsabers colliding with an explosion of sparks. A huge roar thundered through the speakers and filled the arena, so loud that the panels beneath their feet began to quake. Itzo took a moment to study her face up close. Her pale pink skin was clean and blemish free, suspiciously so considering her well maintained Elder robes and her obvious skill with a lightsaber. His eyes were naturally drawn to her lips, beautiful and voluptuous and slightly pouty…

In that moment of distraction the Zeltron pushed her blade up, spinning Itzo’s lightsaber away and exposing his midsection. She outstretched her palm and sent the Force crashing into his chest, sending him sprawling back into the center of the arena and his lightsaber hilt clattering against the wall beneath a sparking shock-prod. Itzo gulped in air desperately as he sat up, reaching out to pull his hilt back to his hand instinctively. As the cool metal collided with his palm, the Zabrak felt himself begin to lift off the arena floor. He looked around panicking and noticed the panel below was illuminated with a blue-purple glow.

“Anti-gravity traps? You gotta be karkin’ kidding me!” He shouted as he twisted in the air. Erinyes had closed the gap between them but held up just short of the panel, choosing instead to watch her opponent struggle against the current.

“You really should be paying more attention.” She smirked at him, though Itzo only caught glimpses of it as he spun.

“Ken, what are you even doing?!” The Zabrak reached out toward his droid companion and pulled with the Force, simultaneously ripping the melted feet from the hot plate and freeing Itzo from the trap. As he flew past he threw a kick at Erinyes, but she ducked it easily. Just before he would collide with Ken, Itzo spun his momentum to the side, using the Force to pull his body to the ground. He tucked his shoulder into the impact and rolled quickly to his feet, igniting his blade once again with a howl and a roar from the speakers. Ken took a couple uneasy steps forward, checking his balance, then turned and nodded at Itzo.

“Looks like we’re back to two against one. Maybe you should go ahead and give up.” The Zabrak suggested sarcastically, knowing that would never be considered. Erinyes turned her head slightly to the side with another smile as a second lightsaber hilt floated up into the air beside her and ignited.

"You're awfully bent on getting me to surrender, aren't you? Sounds like you're in over your head." Erinyes grasped her second lightsaber.

"Not while I still function!" the battle droid bellowed, charging at Erinyes from behind. The Emissary sensed the attack coming and skipped to one side, but was caught off-guard when jets in the arena's ceiling poured a cloud of bone-white gas on top of her. The lungful of chemicals made her mind and body feel leaden, like a too-long night on the town. They also made it so that when the B2 planted its metal fist in her gut, it didn't really hurt, nor did skidding along the arena floor and into the spiked wall. By that time, she'd lost enough momentum that the spikes scratched her more than they impaled her. The shock prods gave her a nasty jolt, though, which cut through some of the mental fog.

Interestingly, Itzo didn't seem to be keen on infringing on his droid's duel despite Erinyes' vulnerability. Was the Zabrak reluctant to fight? Conserving his energy? Erinyes didn't really have time to think about it as the droid clanked towards her, unsteady on its half-molten feet but no less enthusiastic for it. She rolled sideways to avoid a kick, then back to the other side when Ken took to a robotic knee and tried to punch her head into the ground. The pressure set off another trap in the floor, this one a simple pit, but the droid lurched forward with his momentum. Erinyes flicked one of her lightsabers out, severing Ken's punching arm at the shoulder joint and sending the limb falling into the pit.

"'Tis but a scratch!" Ken declared, standing upright and chambering his leg for another kick.

"A scratch? Your arm's off!" Erinyes blurted out. She telekinetically grabbed the droid's supporting leg and yanked it forward and up, sending him tumbling into an approximation of a front split. While Ken recovered, Erinyes finally pushed herself back to a stand—or at least a crouch, when Itzo's invisible push hit her and sent her skidding on one knee. It wasn't enough to keep the Emissary back for long when she tapped into her Marauder's speed and bolted for the Zabrak, leaving Ken to eat her proverbial dust.

To the delight of the crowds behind the loudspeakers, red and purple flashes cut ozone-scented streaks through the air. Itzo met Erinyes' attacks blow for blow with his conservative, efficient Form III. He never quite scored a counterattack, but he was never more than millimetres away, and the Emissary's reaction times were getting slower as the drugs worked their way through her system.

The fight would decided by an oversized ego and poor impulse control.

"My turn!" Ken's vocoder roared, despite it clearly not being his turn. He charged in with his remaining arm raised in a haymaker meant to take the Emissary's head off her shoulders. Erinyes heard the droid's footsteps even before she sensed the attack coming, and dove sideways to.avoid the blow. Itzo didn't have time to react fully when the threat to Erinyes became a threat to him, and the battle droid's fist crashed into a reactive plasma shield that sprung up from Itzo's armour.

That gave Erinyes an idea. She summoned her concentration through the mental fog and gestured with two fingers, and Ken's arm cocked back for another blow. "Ken! Stop it!" Itzo barked, momentarily confused at how his droid could've turned on him.

"I'm trying, Master!" Ken sputtered. The plasma shield flared again, then a third time. Metal screeched and smoke began to rise from Ken's joints as his servos strained against their own movements.

Itzo now realised that Erinyes was telekinetically controlling his droid, and turned around to deal with the problem—only to have his attention dragged back when Ken threw another punch the plasma shield fired yet again. "Damn it, Ken!" he roared at his betraying companion, his anger starting to boil over at the stress of the situation. "Power yourself off! You're not helping!" His mood was soured even further by Erinyes' giggling from... the ceiling? Apparently she had been caught in an anti-gravity trap when she avoided Ken's punch, and was having plenty of fun being an agent of chaos.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground wasn't improving. "I can take her!" the battle droid declared, as though oblivious to the damage he was causing to his master. One of his legs had joined his uncontrolled arm in forcing the Zabrak to stay on the defensive, distracted by his plasma shield's depleting charge instead of turning his attention to the real problem.

With a growl of frustration, Itzo decided he had no choice but to deal with Ken more definitively. He drew on his will and poured it the battle droid's circuits. "Shut down, Ken!" There was no chance of a mere battle droid resisting a skilled practitioner of Mechu-Deru, and Ken immediately slumped forward, his optical sensors going dark. Itzo only hoped that his droid wasn't standing on one of the arena's many trap tiles. Finally, he could deal with the Emissary, who was still stuck on the ceiling.

Erinyes hadn't wasted this chance, though. The time Itzo had spent dealing with Ken gave her the opportunity to flush some of the gas' effects from her body, making it more of a mild narcotic than a powerful sedative. As Itzo approached, she propelled herself along the ceiling in something of a crawl, then dropped to the floor with lightsabers in hand when she escaped the anti-gravity field. Itzo was ready for her, unleashing another telekinetic blast in the hopes of catching her off-guard. Erinyes returned the favour, and the resulting blast sent both of them tumbling to the floor. To Itzo's dismay, his plasma shield's emitters flashed for the last time and began to smoke.

That was all the encouragement Erinyes needed to switch her lightsabers to training mode and lay into her opponent. She darted forward, illuminated by sparks and jets of flame as traps went off around her. Without her being distracted by Ken or heavily weighed down by drugs, there was little to prevent her from unleashing her full wrath on the Zabrak. Even when Itzo could sense the attacks coming—and he often did—his single lightsaber couldn't move quickly enough to stop two of hers. Her Trakàta, especially, left him forced to evade attacks when her blades vanished and reappeared on the other side of his guard.

The first strike landed across the side of Itzo's left thigh, sending his muscles into a spasm and hampering his movements. From there, his prospects just got worse. Erinyes drew deeply on the Force to keep her stamina up while she wore his guard down; there was just no other way to break through a Soresu user's defence. Eventually, she had driven Itzo to his knees and pinned his lightsaber hand to the floor with one of her boots. She raised one of her blades, and flicked a switch to reactivate its killing mode.

"Next time, try bringing three."

Voom.

With a grin on his face and a renewed resolve, Itzo pushed the attack quickly. Erinyes’ ability to wield her lightsaber hilt independently from her body was a skill he found himself strangely jealous of. Ever since he had discovered his Force sensitivity at a young age, the Zabrak focused his training intently on two subjects: bladed combat and the telekinetic manipulation of objects. Now it seemed he was up against someone who rivaled him in both areas. As Itzo closed from one side, Ken approached from the other, a tactic they had deployed often in a fight to distract and confuse lesser opponents.

Erinyes was unfazed by the strategy. While she turned to face Itzo directly, crackling amethyst blade extended in front of her, the second hilt spun towards Ken, who abruptly stopped a few feet away. The two lightsabers crashed into each other repeatedly, each blow raining sparks down into the arena. The B2 droid held up its destroyed shock prod in an attempt to appear threatening, but the lightsaber continued to hover in the air, essentially preventing Ken from engaging the Zeltron in melee combat. He turned his crimson ‘eye’ toward Itzo in a way that said, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

“Maybe. Help. Me?!” The Zabrak grunted angrily as he exchanged blow after blow with Erinyes. He couldn’t seem to make an attack she hadn’t anticipated. Every strike he aimed, she was ready. There was already sweat beginning to trickle down between his horns, but he had no time to wipe it away. It took every bit of his focus to keep his opponent at bay. He could feel the strain in his arms building. The Zeltron brought her blade down hard from above and Itzo narrowly deflected it at the last second. He looked over at his stationary bodyguard droid and willed the Force through its circuits, overriding the preservation protocols that were preventing him from engaging.

Suddenly the B2 droid lurched forward, raising his arms high above his head for a heavy slam attack. Once he was within range the independent lightsaber went to work carving at the metal frame. Itzo could feel the pressure building up on his opponent.

‘This is my only shot. Got to get her while her attention is divided.’ He thought to himself as he leaned into his blows. Even with Ken now involved in the fight, he still wasn't gaining any ground, and his energy was still rapidly depleting. On the other side, the B2 droid was being taken apart piece by piece. With every swing his arms became smaller and smaller, until finally the blade carved through his chest vertically and severed the droid in two. The separate halves clattered to the arena floor.

“No!” Itzo called out over the roar of the crowd, pumping through the speakers. The anger that was building inside quickly shifted to concern as Erinyes released the hilt from her grip. Now both amethyst blades twisted in the air beside her, seemingly deflecting his slowing attacks without effort. The Zabrak felt his grip on the lightsaber loosening as he swung until suddenly it flew from his hand. His opponent saw the opening coming and released her telekinetic hold on her own hilts, causing them to drop to the ground beside her. Instead she channeled the Force into her palms and once again slammed that energy into Itzo’s chest, launching him into the wall of shock prods.

The Zabrak screamed in pain from the impact and subsequent electrocution before falling to the arena floor, limp and barely conscious. The lights in the arena stabilized on Erinyes as the crowd grew even louder. She spun in a circle, flourishing her robes, and bowed, picking her two lightsabers up from the ground. She stepped over the destroyed B2 frame and exited the arena confidently.