Adept Terran Koul vs. Adept Celevon Werd'a

You had arrived on Arx after hearing word of a fighting tournament. It had been set up by the Combat Master and had been advertised as a Revival of the long held tradition of naming a Champion of the Antei Combat Center. As you had arrived at the signup table after waiting in line, you were met by a Trandoshan who looked you up and down, said nothing, and slid a form attached to a clipboard to you. A cheap chain linked a pen to the clipboard.

You read it over and it was a standard legal waiver noting that you could not hold the Combat Master or the Brotherhood liable for any injuries or even potential death that occurred during the tournament. You were entering this tournament of your own free will. Any and all repercussions of doing so were at no one’s fault but your own.

You signed, and the Trandoshan hissed with delight as he pointed to a door behind the table. A cheap paper sign was taped to the door that read “ACC Championship Introductory Meeting” in what looked to be felt-tipped black marker. You stepped inside the dark room and that is the last thing you remember until you woke up just now.

The world around you was dark… and soft. The area that you lay on felt just a bit more firm than a standard pillow. A quick check of yourself revealed that you still wore and carried everything you had when you had signed the waiver. While vision was extremely limited, you could tell that someone else was in the room with you. Four ceiling lights clicked on, one at a time, giving the room a bright glow beneath the four lights, but an eerie darkness outside of their radiance. You were in a padded room with a barred and sealed door. Every surface of the room was covered in thick, firm padded square tiles. You lay on a bed made of the same material in one corner of the room, while someone laid in another bed in the opposite corner. It was too dark to make out their figure well.

A holoprojection dropped from the ceiling, giving the room a pale blue glow. It was Combat Master Vincent Brujah. The Sith smirked as he began speaking.

“So, you’ve signed up for the tournament? Where I come from, that makes you a little crazy. I’ve taken you to a more appropriate environment for someone with your condition.”

As he smiled, pink mist began spraying from the ceiling at the same location as the lights. Slowly, what little you could see of the full room began to tint pink. The Combat Master’s smile grew wider.

“And if you weren’t crazy before… well… we can fix that. The effects of this drug will be pleasant… at first. You must be careful, though. Take too big of a dose and things can get downright terrifying, or so I’ve heard. Prolonged exposure will result in death.”

He shrugged slightly.

“The only way out of this room and into safe air is when I tell my crew to open the door, and I’m only going to do that when there is one of you left capable of walking away. Until then, enjoy the ride.”

The holoprojection blinked away. There was no starting whistle. No horn. No audience. Just silence, dim light, and the realization that the longer you sit there, the closer you would come to death.

It was the itch, external and insistent, that woke him. It crawled up the back of his neck, raising the thin hairs on end. It drew him up from the dark and directed his groggy focus inward towards the phantom tightness in his chest. Slower than he liked, he followed it inward to his lungs, spread his awareness throughout the epithelial cells there, and subtly twisted. There was pain, a lurching feeling of profound wrongness, and then his breathing slowed. The insistent itch faded and he focused back outwards to the self-satisfied Sith's holographic smirk.

"...exposure will result in death."

The Kiffar tsked dismissively as he turned his attention away from the fading hologram to his fellow prisoner. The dim lights glinted off the fellow's beskar armor and the design triggered a dim memory. Though they'd never met, he knew the Mandalorian trapped with him from Arcona's records. He reached out tentatively and felt Celevon's alertness and suspicion. He waved easily in the Erinos' direction as he leveraged himself up from the padded bed.

"Well, this is a fine pickle. Shall we get out of here and see to the bloody Sith that tried to turn us into puppets?"

The taller man stood as well, his archaic helmet turning to scan the room, slow and methodical. A short grunt was the only reply.

Terran shook his head, then moved towards the nearest light, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever mechanism was releasing the toxin into the room. As he did, he called back over his shoulder to his new acquaintance.

"Or we could go at it? Make a show of it. First to draw blood?"

The half-Umbaran scoffed. "Why would I waste my time drawing your blood? It would be better spent showing this so-called Combat Master the error of his ways."

The Arconan swallowed a scoff of his own as he turned to face Celevon. "Okay then. At least we're aiming in the same direction. Poison's not exactly my forte, but I imagine we'll want to make our exit sooner rather than later. I've got a few explosives on me, but I rather suspect they'll have the chamber magnetically sealed."

Celevon nodded dismissively, as if he had already considered and rejected the idea himself. He gestured loosely towards the cell's door and took a few steps in that direction. "Magnetic shielding is irrelevant to my training."

As the Odanite strode towards the cell's barred door, a scrap of flimsiplast caught Terran's eye. He knelt down directly below the light fixture that housed one of the toxin emitters and pried it out from the padded floor's seams. It was scuffed and the haphazard writing was nearly illegible. A label of some sort, hastily discarded, it was printed with a long string of Aurabesh - the name of some unpronounceable chemical compound. It looked to have been affixed to whatever canister was loaded into the toxin dispensers - probably with the same level of care and attention to detail as the "Introductory Meeting" sign or the liability waiver's cheap clipboard.

"Tetrahydrachl..." Terran started to sound it out, then shook his head dismissively. "Hey, Blackwolfe: any idea what this osik does?" He held it up, label facing the Erinos' visor.

Celevon turned and focused on it briefly from the distance. Terran could practically hear the visor clicking into focus as he zoomed in on the scrap of flimsiplast. The voice that answered was somehow both flat and dismissive as he waved towards the label.

"Tetrahydrachlorinitrium. Alchemically enhanced. For the weak-willed, it brings euphoria. Then terror. Finally, death." A note of impatience crept into his voice. "As the holorecording said."

"Well, that's not in my sabacc deck," Terran said, a wry smirk crossing his lips.

Celevon grunted again and turned back towards the door. He took a step towards it and the itch came back, crawling down Terran's spine and drawing his eyes towards the sealed door. He focused - outward this time, towards the door - and felt a deep well of malevolence emanating from it. He couldn't walk the flow of time the way some of his Clanmates could, but his sense of danger was as finely tuned as they came. Faster than thought he sharpened his focus to a knife's edge and turned it on the scrap of flimsiplast. He traced it back through the hours to the hand that had dropped it, then out through the facility, his consciousness spiraling through the corridors, finally fixing in an eastward direction. Celevon took a second step.

Terran stood, ignoring the slight popping in his knees, and gestured back towards the wall nearest the bed on which the Odanite had woken. "I'm not sure what you have in mind, but I think we ought to eschew the door. Our target is in that direction."

The faceless half-Umbaran turned back towards the Kiffar and paused for a moment. Despite the helmet, Terran could feel the Mandalorian's measuring gaze as he considered the suggestion. The moment stretched to seconds before Celevon finally nodded, slightly, then turned to the nearby wall. Well, at least we're working together, Terran thought as he moseyed carefully over the padded floor towards the taller man.

The Blade Master stopped before the padded wall and stretched out a single hand. Something in his posture shifted as he seemed to sink into himself. That was it. Then Terran felt an unnatural wrenching through the Force, as if reality's skein was twisted upon itself, and the wall dissolved into a powdery dust. Celevon gestured dismissively and the powder combusted, burning to ash - and, after a moment, to nothing at all. A man-sized hole was left in the wall, leading into a dimly-lit hallway.

The half-Umbaran stepped through the opening and Terran followed, ducking lower than necessary beneath a haphazardly erected piece of scaffolding. He glanced back up at it, noting the missing ceiling panels that likely gave access to the vents above their former cell, then scanned the rest of the hallway. Discarded paint cans, used paintbrushes, and various other bits of refuse littered the corridor. This time, Terran did scoff.

"Someone doesn't believe in dotting their Creshes and crossing their Forns."

"Apparently," Celevon replied, similarly noting the hallway's ramshackle state. "I take it you can track our would-be puppet master?"

There was an edge to Celevon's voice, one that put the Kiffar on edge in turn. He tried to shake it off, nodding further down the hall. "That way. The hallways twist and turn, but whoever armed the toxin dispensers is about a klick in that direction."

The Mandalorian nodded, then paused to study the Kiffar. His masked face was unreadable, but Terran felt a sense of wariness from him - and he felt the same wariness creep into the back of his own mind. The two men had common cause, but were otherwise strangers. Can I trust him, or is this all part of some elaborate ruse to make me drop my guard? Terran tried to shake off the thought, but it persisted. There was something sinister about the masked Mandalorian. Something in his unyielding demeanor that belied trust.

Terran forced an easy, practiced grin, then sent his own awareness inward towards his lungs. The adjustments he had made to his own respiration were still slowing his oxygen use and strengthening his body's ability to filter out toxins. He ought to be able to shrug off such a brief exposure.

Still, he thought, forcing himself to meet the former Arconan's gaze with a guileless grin, it never hurts to be careful.

Celevon paused a moment longer, continuing to stare into the Kiffar's eyes, then turned and headed down the disused hallway.

Behind him, Terran checked the clearance on his blasters, easing them loosely in their holsters. The intrusive thought repeated like a mantra. It never hurts to be careful...