Justicar Kamjin the Hutt vs. Colonel Shanree Argentin

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.

Thud, Thud, Thud...Thud, Thud, Thud. Kamjin blinked his bulbous amber eyes as he awoke in the weirdly sterile padded room. He had been having such a wonderful dream until the hoverslid's motor had started to go out. Thud, Thud, Thud. Yes, just like that, he thought. That horrid, dull, thud of something pounding.

"This is a joke! Let me out and assign me my true opponent."

That's odd...no hoverslid Kamjin had ever been on had a vocal modulator. Turning, he saw a tall Miralukan pounding on the wall. "I may be blind but even I know that Hutt isn't a member of the Brotherhood." Kamjin took offense to that. He was, after all, the Justicar. Everyone knew it...he had paid everyone to know it. It had even gotten him access to this swanky, invite-only event that imposter had signed up for.

"Now see here." Kamjin cringed, that wasn't meant as a pun. "I am the Justicar of the Brotherhood and, good sir, I'm confident they'll let us out momentarily. This is just a misunderstanding." Kamjin was starting to wish he had read the datapad on what he had intercepted. It was all a blur now. A holoprojector dropped from the ceiling and started talking.

"I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Now get me an opponent that's worthy of my experience!"

Kamjin wasn't paying attention to the Miralukan nor the projected humanoid. He smelled it before he saw it. A pink mist was filling the room. He felt euphoria. Like nothing could go wrong. He filled his massive lungs as the humanoid turned to face him. "Fine, if this is how it's going to be, then I'm going to end it quickly."

Kamjin didn't like the look of this man. He clearly was a fighter and...Kamjin was not. The bulky Hutt grabbed the lightsaber on his belt and activated it. The cyan blade illuminated the dark cloth covering the man's eyes. "Stay back! I know how to use this!" Kamjin waved the lightsaber like a club in front of him. "I assure you that no harm will come to you if we just work together!"

With a lunge of his massive frame, Kamjin closed the distance and slashed at the Miralukan. The cyan blade sung through the air as he swept the man's chest. "I am sorry. You left me no choice."

The man stumbled backward. His hands grasped at his chest. A smile came over his face as he was unhurt. Kamjin stared at the lightsaber. "They told me it was genuine."

"You really thought to attack me with a training saber?" The man rushed at the Hutt. The man tucked in his arms as he spun around his leg. The heel connected hard on the side of Kamjin's head.

"Argh!" Kamjin's head snapped to the side as he juggled the lightsaber. The Miralukan landed on his striking foot and like a serpent coiled and launched an attack with his other foot. The lightsaber extinguished itself as it flew from Kamjin's hand. "The sooner you go down the sooner we can get out of here. I don't know about you but I don't want to die because of this gas."

Kamjin's head was swirling. Gas? Death? He felt great. This guy was nuts. "I don't know what you're..."

"Did you not listen to the Combat Master? This gas is going to kill us."

Kamjin did not like being interrupted. As the Miralukan went in for another hit, the Hutt grabbed his foot and, pivoting his massive frame, flung the man against the wall. In a normal room the man would have cracked his back. In this playroom the man merely had the wind knocked out of him. Kamjin roared as he used his arms to help propel his frame forward. He was going to ram the man into submission!

The wind was knocked out of his chest. Shanree would have been seeing stars if he had any eyes with which to see. His head spun, ringing like a bell from its impact with the padded wall. That padding had probably saved him from a concussion, if not worse, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t kriffing hurt. It wasn’t the first time his bell had been rung however, and a soldierly voice shouted at him in his head, “GET ON YOUR FEET! GET! ON! YOUR! FEET!”

He listened out of instinct as his chest desperately sought to fill itself with air once more, inadvertently inhaling more of the gaseous toxin. Shanree rolled over his shoulder into a crouched fighting stance, hacking and wheezing as he alternately fought for air and not to breathe in the mist all around him. Unsteady on his feet, he stumbled backwards a few steps as the Hutt crashed bodily into the same wall he’d thrown the Taldryan Army Colonel into.

Shanree stabilized himself and reached for the Wroshyr wood saber hilt over his shoulder, “You want to do this the hard way? Fine.”

Colonel Argentin was starting to feel pretty good, probably a side-effect of the Combat Master’s toxin. Sure, the Hutt had gotten the drop on him, but the deluded slug was way out of his depth. He spun the saber hilt in his hand expertly. He wouldn’t need its emerald blade to dispatch this opponent, he’d give him a gentle knock on the skull and it would be lights out. Shanree launched himself at Kamjin the Hutt and was again surprised by the massive creature’s speed. Kamjin’s face contorted itself into sudden fright as he turned and saw the length of dense Kashyyykian wood swinging towards his head. The saber hilt sailed over Kamjin as he flinched and ducked under it. It impacted the padded wall with a dull but very serious thud. A practiced martial artist, Shanree didn’t miss a beat. He spun his body and swung again, hitting the Hutt in his shoulder.

“Ow!” Kamjin yelped with each subsequent hit of the Miralukan’s fighting stick. He put his hands and arms up defensively, shielding his face from the man’s lightning fast strikes, “Stop hitting me!”

Failing to grab the saber hilt or the man attacking him Kamjin snarled in frustration and rushed forward with explosive energy. Shanree was knocked to the floor as the Hutt’s chest collided with him. He again rolled over his shoulder, and then again, as Kamjin lurched into the air and brought the whole of his girth down on the floor where he’d initially landed. The ground rumbled with the impact. Shanree was on him again, his second saber hilt in his off-hand. His strikes landed on spongey, leathery flesh with about the same effect as his first attack had had upon the wall-padding. Kamjin roared as he rolled over, seeking to crush his assailant, to no avail. Shanree danced out of the way, and leapt over the sweep of the great slug’s muscular tail. He spun, inverted in the air, and lashed out by hurling the length of wood in his right hand at the Hutt’s head.

It hit Kamjin on the side of his skull with a crack. A diminutive hand on a laughably small arm raced to cup his injury “Ah, frack! That hurt!”

Kamjin grabbed the saber hilt and hurled it back at Shanree like a petulant child, but child-like wonder and awe crossed his face as Shanree caught it effortlessly. The Colonel sank into a Teras Kasi fighting stance, slowly circling and sweeping his arms in a traditional manner until his whole body was poised for the next round.

“So cool.” Kamjin’s eyes were filled with genuine appreciation and his irises were dilated, as wide as a fist, “You’re like… one of those holo-movie fighters! Like Broos Ri!”

Heady with the effects of the toxin Shanree was momentarily disarmed and he stood up straight, “Wait, what? No, Broos practices Fing Shun. This is Teras Kasi, like Ket Lee.”

"Ket Lee? Never saw him. Was a fan of Lu Lee and the 36th Chamber of Shon-Ju..." Kamjin coughed before he finished his thought. Was the room getting smaller?

"Those were horrid studio holo-movies. They lacked real..." Kamjin wasn't listening. He hacked after each breath. The pinkish haze was burning his eyes. What was it this guy was talking about? Kamjin roared as he rolled his bulky frame to the side, narrowly avoiding another chop to the head. The man was obsessed with trying to beat him with those wooden hilts.

Kamjin spat phlegm on the ground as he struggled to breathe. His hand found his own hilt. His belly shook from his monstrous laugh as he ignited his blade. The man shimmered in front of him...saying something he couldn't hear. In a blink the man was gone and Kamjin, the Justicar himself, stood in front of the Hutt. No, that was a dream. Kamjin didn't care.

"I am the Justicar!" Kamjin began swinging his cyan blade wildly as he propelled his body forward. The Miralukan raised his forearms to take the blow. The training saber bounced back. Kamjin stared at it in bewildered amusement that it didn't slice the man. Though, to his mind's eye, Kamjin heard the true Justicar berating him.

"Impostor. Fraud. Fool."

"I'll show you who the fool is!" Kamjin lunged at the Miralukan again. Shanree dove out of the way, rolling neatly across the padded floor before settling into a crouch. Reaching out with the Force, he strained as he lifted the hulking Hutt from the ground and sent him flying into the wall. The cyan blade extinguished as the hilt fell from Kamjin's hand. Shanree coughed up blood. The gas was affecting him more than it was the Hutt.

"The gas...it's getting worse." Kamjin stared at the Miralukan, not hearing the words. To the Hutt there was just the ghostly image of the man he was impersonating...no, the man who had stolen Kamjin's own greatness. Kamjin pushed himself up only to let out an expletive. The Miralukan had closed the distance with a mighty leap. The Wroshyr-wood lightsaber hilt came down hard into Kamjin's eye socket. The scream was muffled in the padded cell, but the thrashes of Kamjin's tail shook the environment.

Shanree lost his footing as Kamjin writhed in pain. "My eye!!" Shanree grasped at his chest as he coughed up more blood. The Miralukan's lungs burned with each breath. He didn't have time to be fancy. He just needed this to end. He'd been around the galaxy...he'd seen these in all the worst bars. He could run the bucking Hutt. With a strained effort, he righted himself. He leapt onto Kamjin's back as the Hutt tried to toss him off.

Shanree's thighs burned as he clasped them around the Hutt. Kamjin rose up to his full height and slammed back into the ground. Shanree somehow managed to grasp the collar of Kamjin's armor with a free hand. Pulling out his other hilt as Kamjin prepared to rise up, the Miralukan brought both hilts crashing down into Kamjin's head.

The Hutt staggered for a moment. "I really didn't like Ket Lee..." The Hutt collapsed to the floor.

"Congratulations. Shanree, you are the victor." The mechanical voice intoned. The gas began to escape into the ventilation and the door opened.

Kamjin spun his hands in front of him like a toddler imitating something he’d seen on a datapad, “Slime on, slime off. Just like that?”

Shanree was feeling really good, and fairly annoyed, but good, “Sure. Just keep practicing– wait… I’m supposed to be… Uh… I’m uh…”

Shanree looked down, in his own way, at the saber hilts in his hands. He turned them over and examined them, in his own way, with confused curiosity as his mind sought an answer for the question. The trouble was he kept forgetting what the question was. Kamjin continued to giggle as he wove his arms around, laughably small as they were, now more out of some carefree glee than any attempt to imitate Shanree’s martial arts. Wait, Shanree looked down once more at his saber hilts and remembered: he was using them. He was using them to do martial arts. He was using his Teras Kasi martial arts– on the Hutt! With the question back in his grasp the answer slid into place as well.

“Hey, uh… Kamjin, is it?” The Hutt transformed in his perception into something more grotesque and horrifying.

The fake Justicar’s attention refocused on Shanree, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!”

“Right”, Shanree slid back into his fighting stance, “This might hurt a bit.”

Kamjin mimicked Shanree’s stance, despite being a eight foot tall slug weighing ten times his opponent. He giggled a little as he mimicked Colonel’s commanding baritone, “This might hurt a bit–”

Kamjin blinked, and in that heartbeat’s moment Shanree became movement itself. A length of Wroshyr slammed into Kamjin’s jaw sending spit and slim flying off into the air. The Hutt reeled from the attack. The fun was suddenly gone, the warmth of the toxin had vanished and in its place was the cold bile of growing terror. Kamjin reacted with sudden fear as the drug affected him more and more. The Miralukan was like a spirit who flitted from place to place, whose body seemed not to be bound by the limitations of reality. In one moment he was there and his painful blows assaulted him, and the next he was behind and the pain followed. Kamjin roared, lashing out wherever he thought to find his adversary.

Shanree danced around the beastly slug’s inept attacks. The Force revealed to him the Hutt’s true face and it was monstrous. Kamjin was a Dragonsnake that must be slain and Shanree was the Jedi Knight who would bravely face him. His heart was filled with terror, but terror was no stranger to the old soldier. He did what he always did when faced with dread for his own mortality– he attacked. Shanree cartwheeled over the Hutt’s tail swatting at him wildly. An emerald blade sprung noiselessly to life and swept through Kamjin’s tail as it swung back his way. The cauterized lump of flesh plopped to the floor accompanied by the Hutt’s wails of pain.

Blinded by pain and terror Kamjin swung the weight of his body around, hitting the Miralukan despite his attempts to dodge yet again. Shanree was knocked to the ground and while he attempted to roll out of the way of the Hutt’s following attack he found that Kamjin had learned and was prepared. The fake Justicar body slammed him into the hard floor of the padded room, but instead of the shriek and pop of a humanoid a fifth his mass Kamjin lifted himself up in confusion to see what had become of the martial artist. He gasped at what he saw and recoiled as the terror again overtook him. Shanree lay there, his body encased in the shimmer of something that couldn’t quite be seen, a barrier that had protected him from the crushing attack.

The Colonel climbed to his feet, breathing heavily from the effort of willing the Force. Kamjin watched and under the influence of the Combat Master’s toxin he froze, “You– you should be dead! A little puddle of bone and blood! I object!”

“Shut up, Dragonsnake. I’m gonna slay you.” Shanree stumbled towards Kamjin drunkenly.

Again, an emerald blade emerged from one of his Wroshyr wood saber hilts. Kamjin the Hutt began looking around in desperation for anything he could use to save himself. He backed away from the Miraluka who advanced on him holding the point of his lightsaber towards his opponent. Kamjin heard it clatter beneath him before he saw it. He looked down and there was his training lightsaber. The Hutt snatched it up, ignited it, and held it before him to defend himself. Shanree advanced on him, one step at a time until their saber tips were nearly touching.

When Kamjin swung first it was laughably easy for Shanree to parry and disarm the weapon from the Hutt. Kamjin had run out of room to back up and his cauterized tail started to pile up on the padded wall behind him. All but cornered he did all that he could do– Kamjin lunged forward expecting to have to dive around the lightsaber. Instead Shanree danced out of the way, leapt up on the Hutt’s back, and with one foot on Kamjin’s shoulder he flipped his saber hilt around deftly in his hand and plunged it down into his broad pate. Kamjin’s body became rigid and stiff as the sword’s blade of light rendered his brain’s fatty material. Shanree leapt off of him as the slug teetered over. He twirled the lightsaber around in his hand as the blade disappeared back into its hilt, before he sheathed each Wroshyr wood saber with a smooth, practiced motion.

Now, with the terror still present and no enemy before him he started to freak out. The walls were uniform and there was not obvious door. There was no means of escape. He was trapped, stuck in this box with the corpse of a slug who thought he was the Justicar of the Brotherhood, “Let me out of here! LET ME OUT!!!!!”