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.