Legend Zig Kaliska vs. Anselm Valreyes

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.

As Zig’s grogginess faded, her frustration at the Combat Master’s message—and its many unspoken implications—was replaced by a sharp, sudden panic. Her heart raced as she looked around frantically, noting the padded walls, ceiling, and singular door that looked to be heavily reinforced. Her chest constricted, rising and falling frantically as her vision darkened and narrowed.

No no no no, she thought as she patted her armor down, working her way up from her legs to her shoulders to her...

“...helmet.”

A dull dink echoed as she smacked the side of her visored helmet with her gauntlet-clad fist. She took a slow, steadying breath.

“Goddamit, Vince—”

You are absolutely right, Zigrah'sahe. Your suit does fully seal out environmental contaminants—

“—Thanks Clive, I get it now,” she replied tightly to the integrated artificial intelligence in her armor. “Toggle infrared filtering at fifteen percent opacity on my overlay,” she continued, the blunt banter grounding her a bit. With her apprehension abated—for the moment—Zig let a cold, calculative logic fortify her nerves.

She looked around for a vent of some kind, but nothing stood out. She idly wondered how they pulled that one off, because otherwise she would have just tried to break the delivery mechanism or reverse engineer it to work as an exhaust vent. Fortunately, the Combat Master’s goal seemed to be about creating a spectacle, not to kill the contestants. Directly, at least. She knew all about dioxis from Alaisy. The gas was a sickly green while this gas was clearly pink and bright. Not to be sexist and suggest that pink gas couldn’t be deadly, but it kind of killed the whole gothic asylum motif. Whatever this pink stuff was, it seemed to be more of a psychological poison than a, you know, the stop-your-breathing kind of poison. Which, thanks to Alaisy...

“At least then I’d know how to control my—”

“NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR WEIRD KINKS ZIG,” a mechanical yet distinctly feminine voice shouted.

“‘Clair!” Zig said excitedly as she turned to see the reprogrammed Ascendent drone hovering in the air just above her shoulder. “You’re here. Great, see if you can laser the door—”

“I already tried while you were conveniently taking a nap. There is some kind of cortosis-like weave on the door that shorts out my composite beam. So, unless you have some other brilliant ideas, we’re stuck in this room.” Princess Eclair ranted as she hovered in circles around the armored Zygerrian. “You know how I feel about tightly confined spaces, Zig.”

“Okay, okay, just see what you can do about that door!”

Princess Eclair huffed, which was a weird noise for a droid to make, but she did so nonetheless as she floated off towards the door.

“Now, let’s just see who we’re...”

A fit of coughing drew Zig’s attention to the far side of the cell. She squinted through the pink haze and saw the outline of a tall man with long hair tied back into a tail. She took a careful step towards the figure, who was leaning against the padded wall for support. Another step. Her visor optics helped her to make out the features of the coughing man. She first recognized the familiar attire and style it was worn in, then landed on the x-shaped scar on his right cheek. She immediately felt a wave of relief and concern flood her body at the same time.

“Anselm! Thank god it’s you and not some rando,” Zig exclaimed, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Do you have a rebreather or anything?”

“Zig...?” the Human asked, his eyes seeming to fixate on her helmet with its distinct, pointed ear molds.

“The one and only. Do you have anything like a rebreather?” she asked again, trying to keep calm despite the continued hiss of unseen gas dispensers.

Anselm chuckled, his usually deep voice pitching a bit higher and threatening to become a giggle. “It’s an aqua one...does that count?” he asked as he fished it out of his storage compartment on his belt.

Zig took it and quickly examined the apparatus. Despite being designed to breathe under water, it did have two small oxygen cartridges. She tapped a few buttons, turned the device over once or twice, then took out her all-kit tool and started to poke and prod at it.

“What are you...heheh, doing?”

“Tweaking this to buy you some time,” the lifelong Scavenger explained absently. She was silently scolding herself for not thinking to check on her cellmate sooner. She had no way to calculate or factor in how much Anselm had breathed in already so she had to work quick.

A few moments later she was satisfied with her work. She pushed the device up into Anselm’s face. “Now put this in your mouth.”

Instead of complying, Anselm started to laugh loudly, his shoulders shaking with the sudden motion. Clearly amused by the unintentional innuendo. But then the laughter cut out and a swift, strong sweep of Valreyes’ hand swatted the breathing apparatus from Zig’s grip. It clattered to the floor and disappeared into the mist.

“I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty gooood as is,” the former Prince of Embers replied.

“Don’t be an idiot, you’ll die if you ingest too much of that stuff, and your sister would literally kill me if I let anything bad happen to you here.”

“Sorry that I’m not my sister. You’d probably be more into this if I were though, wouldn’t you, Kaliska?” Anselm grinned coyly as his posture shifted into a fighting stance.

“BURN. THAT WAS A SICK BURN,” came Eclair’s disembodied voice from the far side of the misty room.

I detect no burns... Clive corrected.

“Quiet, both of you,” Zig hissed under her breath as she took another step back from Valreyes.

Whether Anselm had seriously meant the words or not, the verbal jab struck a nerve. Zig was proud of who she was, but it seemed that sometimes a former Prince needed to be reminded that manners were important when talking to your friends.

“You want to go, your highness?” Zig snapped, her gloved fists rising in front of her as she tucked her elbows into her sides and shifted her weight back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Let’s see how tough you really are.”

Despite her barbed words, it was Anselm who struck first. There was no formal technique or tell in his stance, so the motion was sharp, sudden, and no doubt augmented through the Force. Zig barely managed to dip beneath the first punch, slapped aside the second with her forearm, and then crossed both of her arms in front of her to block the roundhouse kick that followed. Valreyes pushed off Kaliska’s parry, spun on his back leg, and then launched into a series of sweeps and slashes from his booted heel. Each attack was angled, aggressive and precise.

All the while, Anselm laughed. It took all of Zig's concentration and training to weave, wriggle, and wind her way around the flurry of blows. Some landed, but her armor did well to deter any actual damage. She trained daily in her armor for exactly this kind of scrap, though, and while it was clear that Anselm was more talented and versatile, he was fighting with more fury than finesse.

With her initial temper tampered with the familiar adrenaline of a fist fight, worry crept back into Zig Kaliska's chest as she looked around for the dropped aquatic breather.

Anselm felt…good. He hadn’t felt this kind of high since his university days, after sneaking some of his father's merchandise. He felt light and free. And he really, really, really wanted to fight. With an amused and almost predatory smile, he traded blows with the bat-eared Arconan. This was the test, wasn’t it? Weren't they supposed to fight each other? Anselm wanted that belt. He would definitely be able to hold that over his dear little sister after all. And she would absolutely hate to admit he was better than her!

Zig seemed distracted as she was clearly searching around for something while they fought. Anselm laughed at the openings she was allowing, and he capitalized on them. Ducking under a thrown fist, he grasped Zig’s arm and flipped her over and onto her back, crashing onto the padded floor. That armor of hers protected her from the blunt trauma, but that didn’t stop Anselm from straddling her form and punching her helmet.

“You really just gonna take it like this, Zig? Adele says you’re always so enthusiastic about rolling around on the ground.”

“You and your sister really need to start keeping some things to yourselves.” The Zygerrian kicked him off of her, sending him crashing against a nearby wall. She then crawled around, looking for the discarded rebreather.

“ZIG I’M FIRING AT HIM.”

“Clair, no! We don’t want to kill him!”

“TOO LATE!”

The floating Princess Eclair aimed her red eye at the laughing Anselm as she charged her composite beam and fired the missile of energy his way. He rolled out of the way before it could connect. Standing up, he faced the droid with a feral grin.

“Hey, Princess, that wasn’t very nice. You need to take a seat.”

Reaching his hand out, he channeled his control with the Force and began to increase the droid’s weight. Her repulsor-lift tech fought valiantly, but with a crushing thud she was forced to drop against the padded ground, sparking at the gravitational field forced upon her.

“ZIG, I DON’T LIKE THIS!”

Zig stared in horror at her droid's sparking form, trying desperately to fight against Anselm’s power.

“GODDAMMIT ANSELM!”

Raising her left arm towards the man, a stream of flame darted out of her vambrace, washing over the burn-scarred human. Embracing the flames, he let go of Princess Eclair and took control of the intense fire engulfing him. As Zig disengaged her flamethrower, she stared wide-eyed at Anselm through her visor.

The flames danced around Anselm, slowing and condensing under his control before wrapping around his hands like gloves of live fire. The silver ring around his eyes glowed intensely as he locked eyes with Zig. The maniacal grin on his face told of his advanced reaction to the gas. He was fully afflicted by the substance, and only the fight mattered now.

“Oh, my God.”

“ZIG, THIS GUY IS SCARING ME!” Princess Eclair slowly rose off the floor, shaking with the effort, then flew off to the opposite side of the room.

“Hey Zig, I think I have the hots for you,” Anslem bit out with a smirk.

In the blink of an eye, he teleported in front of her, his flame-covered fist crashing hard against her helmet. The metal glowed red under the intense, superheated contact from his flames after she fell to the ground, knocked over by his enhanced strength.

“I think it’s time you found out exactly why I am the Prince of Embers!”

The fires surrounding his hands burned far more intensely, losing their red-orange glow and shifting to a more bluish hue. The air in the room grew hotter and hotter, the padding on the walls peeling and burning in some spots. As the smoke-fueled rage began to overtake his control, he lifted his flame-covered arms to the air, bringing his hands together and forming a ball of wildfire.

“OK ZIG, I HAVE TO ADMIT IT. THAT’S REALLY HOTTT!”

“The temperature does seem quite high,” Clive added inside her helmet.

“DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE A FIRE KINK NOW?”

“Shut up, you two!” Zig yelled to her AI and Eclair. The flames were so bright, she had to look away from the intense heat. She reached into her pack and pulled out a grenade. Activating it, she threw it towards Anselm and hit the ground as she turned away from the device.

The cryoban grenade went off, drawing what little moisture was left in the air and freezing it instantly. Shards of ice met intense flame, and the two opposing forces combined violently, throwing Anselm off his feet, crashing against a padded wall. Steam blanketed and filled the room, mixing with the pink smoke. The room’s temperature stabilized, and the remaining heat simmered against the lingering ice, melting it quickly and causing more steam.

“Holy frak,” was all Zig could say as she wiped condensation from her helmet’s visor. Anselm was leaning, hunched over against the far padded wall.

“Ok Zig. Now THAT was hot. Still not a good kink though. You should stop doing that strange stuff. No one wants to see that.”

“God dammit, Claire.”

“Do you think he’s dead?” Princess Eclair hovered next to Zig, still shaking and sparking from the damage she received.

“Scanners indicate an elevated heart rate. Indicative of high levels of stress on the body. Most likely the gas.” Clive informed the Zygerrian after scanning the man’s body

The sound of coughing came from the crumpled form of Anselm as he placed one hand against the wall. Slowly, he stood up, righting himself. His eyes were bloodshot, and a line of blood ran down from his mouth. He still stared at Zig with a ferocious grin.

“Adele’s gonna kill me for sure,” Zig said to herself.

Wiping the blood from his mouth, Anselm pulled out his pair of Kyuzo Petar daggers. Breathing heavily, he faced off against Zig. His stance was broken, clearly affected strongly by the poisonous gas running through his veins. But his will was set, and there was no backing down now.

“She’s gonna have to get in line. You’re mine. And I don’t feel like sharing.”

“Ok, I can live with the bad fire puns, but the possessive holo-boyfriend bit is getting very old very fast.”

Anselm's laugh was usually warm and honest. His real one, at least, when he didn’t feel like he had to put on the image of a crime syndicate heir. The cackle that escaped his throat now was a broken, bitter rasp. He lunged forward, both bladed and bronzium knuckles scything towards Zig with frenzied fervor. There was no technique behind any of the lunges or the rolling of his fists, but he moved with preternatural agility that Zig struggled to keep up with.

This was bad. Even if Anselm could regulate his body with the Force somehow, the use of exothermic energy alone in the sealed room meant that oxygen was already waning. If she didn’t get him to use the rebreather, he was going to die.

“Clair, find that rebreather, now!”

“AND DO WHAT WITH IT, ZIG!?” the Ascendent drone wobbled back and forth midair as if accenting its design. “IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVE THUMBS. OR LIMBS OF ANY KIND”

Princess Eclair is absolutely right, as her model does indeed lack thumbs or any kind of motorized limb.

Zig felt the corner of her eye twitch beneath her helmet. She ducked, dipped, and used a quick repulsor blast from her palm to try to create some separation between the two fighters. Anselm crossed his arms protectively in front of him and dug his heels into the soft ground, anchoring himself with a burst of balance from the Force. While this stalled his attack momentarily, she had expected him to fly backward at least a few paces. Figured.

“Just find it, mark it, so I can grab it,” she growled.

There was no room to maneuver, so Zig activated her wrist-shield and parried and slapped aside as many strikes as she could as she backpedalled into a padded wall. Moving on instinct, she disengaged her shield and threw herself into a sidelong roll. Anselm—hyperfocused and unrelenting—slashed wildly at the wall where Zig had been a moment prior, like an angry acklay.

The padded material was torn asunder, chunks of insulation and fabric fibers falling away in ruined clumps.

Zig blinked. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? The door was obviously rated to hold up against something as strong as a lightsaber, but why would they make the same investment in the walls behind the padding?

“I FOUND IT,” Eclair called out.

“Great!” Zig called back, her mind working frantically. ”Try using your composite beam on the wall behind the padding. Clive, use her optic feed to try and figure out what material it's made out of.”

“YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT YOUR SUIT AI POKING AROUND MY FEED, ZIG”

Analyzing, Clive confirmed as she mentally swiped away a few warning notifications of processing power limitations in her HUD.

“Ziggie Ziggie Zig...” Anselm coughed as he seemed to reconsider his choice of weapon. A shiver of dread raced down her spine as she saw him draw his lightsaber, the snap-hiss piercing the eerie, dampened silence of their confines. “Why won’t you play with me?”

Zig scurried to where Eclair had marked the rebreather to have fallen. She grabbed it and activated her wrist-shield once again, the semi-translucent blue shimmer contrasting against the pink mist. Anselm could have finished her easily were he not sick, so instead he stalked towards her with both hands gripping his lightsaber.

Goddammit, Vincent, she swore as she stowed the rebreather in her pack and replaced it with a sonic imploder. This was going to suck

“Clair, brace!” Zig activated the imploder, rolled it towards Anselm, and then threw herself behind the remaining bed and curled into a ball.

“BRACE FOR WHAT ZI—”

WHOOOOOMP

Anselm lay motionless on the floor. Ears ringing despite her helmet's protection, Zig scrambled over to the prone man and rolled him over. She felt for a pulse. It was faint. Swearing, she took the rebreather and forced it into his mouth.

“Clair, stim him,” Zig said.

“WITHOUT HIS CONSENT? SEEMS TO BE GOING AROUND. I MEAN REALLY, ZIG...” the Ascendent drone seemed flustered, but her experimental shielding seemed to have prevented her circuits from being overly affected by the concussive aural force of the imploder.

“I don’t care, just do it,” the Zygerrian snapped. Her head hurt. She was tired. She was done with this game.

Princess Eclair, for her part, complied, and Anselm’s chest seemed to rise and fall at what she hoped was a sign that he would be okay. She fixed ships and droids, not organics.

Analysis complete, Clive chimed. Panting, hair matted to her brow beneath her visor, Zig studied the readout on her HUD. Without the threat of a drugged Force wielder assaulting her, she was able to actually think. She grunted as she dragged Anselm to the far side of the room. Then, she did a few quick calculations as she used her wrist-blaster to clear more of the wall padding.

Zig took out a roll of denton tape and hummed as she lined it across the metal plating. She started to whistle while she worked.

“ZIG. WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the Zygerrian drawled as she drew out her fancy new FWG-5 Smart Pistol.

She moved to the far side of the room where she had left Anselm, and Eclair floated frantically to keep pace.

Zig raised the pistol and leveled it at the wall that was now lined with denton.

“”HEY VINCENT.” Zig yelled through her helmet. “Open the karkin’ doors, or I will blow a giant hole in your little experiment!”

Then, she removed her helmet, coughing as she inhaled the mist. “Otherwise, you’re not going to have anyone to fight in your damn tournament.”

Anselm charged at Zig, swinging and slashing wildly with his blades. His attacks and movements were erratic, but aimed to kill. Not just trying to win this ‘match’, but to overwhelm and destroy his ‘enemy’ completely. Zig weaved through each attack, the metal of the blades gleaming as they glided off her beskar armor as she blocked the blows. She was holding back, not wanting to kill the drugged prince.

“ZIG, HE’S TRYING TO KILL YOU!”

“I can see that, Clair.”

“YOU SHOULD MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T!”

“I concur with that statement. Shall I monitor and memorize his movements to give you a proper plan of defense?” Clive injected

“You both need to shut up! I’m concentrating here!”

“ZIG KEEP HIM BUSY!" The droid yelled along their private comms "I’M FIRING AT HIM AGAIN!”

“Goddammit, Eclair! Stay out of this!”

The droid set herself up behind Anselm, placing him between herself and Zig. She fired another particle beam at his back, but he twisted himself out of the way. The beam collided with Zig’s chest plate, knocking the Zygerrian on her back.

“OOPS! SORRY ZIG!”

“Zig, it would seem Princess Eclair hit you instead of our opponent,” Clive spoke matter-of-factly in her helmet.

“Yeah…I’m pretty sure I felt that, Clive.” Zig groaned from the ground as she lay there, momentarily stunned by the blast.

“Just doing my job of keeping you apprised. Also, you might want to get up. He looks like he’s about to capitalize—”

Anselm stepped over Zig’s downed form, and flames caressed along the blades of his knives. He smiled wickedly down at her as blood dripped from his nose. His hands shook; clearly the poisonous gas still pouring into the room was progressing fast.

“Guess you couldn’t bring the heat today, Zig. But I can!”

Anselm whipped his body around, launching the Kyuzo Petar from his right hand at the floating droid who was aiming another particle beam at his back. The blade slashed into Princess Eclair’s chassis. With an eruption of sparks, the droid clattered to the padded ground. Zig stared in shock through her visor at the droid’s unmoving form.

“Eclair!”

Zig attempted to get up and push past her fellow Arconan, but he stepped onto her chest and pushed her back down.

“Shouldn’t be leading your pets into danger, Zig. They might get hurt.” Anselm laughed as he knelt and placed a hand on her chest plate. His hand glowed red as it burst into flames again. “This armor won’t save you if it melts onto your body!”

Where his hand lay, the beskar glowed brightly. Zig winced in pain as she felt the inside of her armor heat up. Anselm was going to boil her alive inside her suit! Zig fought back, punching and kicking, trying to get the man off of her. He seemed unaffected, his control over himself almost totally lost to the effects of this gas.

“Goddammit, Vincent! You crazy sonofa…”

Zig placed her gloved hand against Anselm’s chest and activated its repulsor field. Electricity rushed through Anselm’s system, negating his control over his fire. The man shook, crimson red streaming from his nose and eyes. Frozen in place, he coughed as the electric field ended, blood coating his lips. He stared down at Zig and grinned again.

“You…you call that lightning? It’s nothing…nothing like Ade…”

His sister's name died on his lips as his eyes went glassy. He tipped over, falling off Zig and landing beside her. Zig pushed up to her feet and ran over to the darkened form of Princess Eclair.

“Clive! Status report on Eclair!”

“Systems critical, but she is not offline. She powered down to prevent further damage to herself.”

Zig sighed in relief as she noticed the gas clearing from the room. Vincent must have determined this fight was over. The Zygerrian turned and looked at the crumbled body of Anselm. Walking over, she knelt by his side to check him over. He was still breathing, however shallow. She was silently grateful that he survived. The man wasn’t normally this…unhinged. He had clearly been deeply affected by the Combat Master’s intervention.

“At least Adele won’t kill me now. I hope.”

“The woman is far crazier than her brother. When she hears about this, she might still kill you. I put the odds at an eighty-seven percent certainty.”

“Clive?”

“Yes, I know…shut up.”

“Please and thank you.”