Dr. Sivall Zoria vs. Major Agroz "The Harmacist"

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.

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 dim lights set into the ceiling hummed weakly and flickered once or twice in the silence that spread in the few seconds after the Combat Master’s hologram disappeared. You could hear a pin drop in the room. Agroz and Sivall had been thrown in opposing corners, dumped carelessly like dirty laundry. It was obvious that the Antei Combat Crew didn’t care if they had dislocated any joints or broken any bones when they were discarded here.

Even groggy, the sanguine eyes of the female Chiss piled in the corner narrowed at the spot where Vincent’s face used to be with enough wrath to burn a hole through duracrete. Her raven colored hair had been tossed out of its normal pinned-up style and her Envoy robes looked like she had just slept in them. Which she had, for however long she had been unconscious. A sickly flush had already settled in her features. How long had they been stuck in this room already, inhaling this unknown substance?

Poison? How incredibly extra. She knew the Brotherhood well enough; Vincent could have just thrown a lightsaber in the middle of the room and tapped an airhorn to signify the start a death match.

“Really, Vincent?! Poison?!” Her shout at nothing was absorbed by the padded walls of their cell. She knew she should have anticipated that he would pull something shady, considering her documentation of their previous battle finished with him throwing her kriffing droid into molten metal. Her eyes swung to her opponent–

Agroz had begun to laugh.

Soft at first, then a little more unhinged. A sinking feeling settled into her chest as the mountain of armor gripped at his ribs. Whatever he was laughing seemed to be the funniest thing he had ever heard. Was it the poison? Was he hallucinating–

“How very humorous that they chose poison for this match, given my expertise.”

Of course he specialized in poison.

Agroz rose with the fluid motions of a person who did not let their bulk affect their agility. Sivall’s eyes watched him, assessing each movement as she stumbled to a standing position as well. His posture was lax, confident, almost bored. Wheels spun in her head and she realized that his suit, like the ones her family wore, was likely a sealed unit. He wasn’t feeling the poison at all even though she was. She needed to change that. She needed to change that right now.

He had sabers. She could feel through the Force that he was also Force Sensitive, and that there was something… dark in him. Something profoundly off. She would not last in a battle against him; he’d overpower her in no time, especially if she couldn’t solve the drug problem before he started wailing on her.

The Chiss medic threw her hands up, gritting her teeth. She wasn’t afraid of taking the coward’s way out. Whatever substance was being pumped into the room was beginning to make it hard to think and she would be unable to formulate proper strategy any minute now. The room began to wobble dangerously and her pulse hammered in her ears.

“Listen! Listen, please.” She began to plead as the mountain of armor made a movement towards her. He stalled, probably curious, which gave her enough time to reach into her bag at her feet and pull her breath mask from its pocket, her eyes never leaving him. She slapped it on and the fresh air felt better than anything she had ever felt. She focused on herself, willing the Force to pull the gas from her veins and neutralize it.

“Okay, I know it would be easier for you to wipe me off the face of the galaxy and move on with your day but I’d really like us to both live to continue on to our future matches. I’m not interested in dying here.”

Agroz crossed his arms, his head tilting slightly. Was he assessing her?

“Go on.”

“The Combat master said he’d only open the door once one of us was incapacitated. He never said we couldn’t try to escape… Not to mention they can’t really do anything once we’re actually outside. What are they going to do, try and stop you? You look like you could lay a hutt out on his ass…”

“Because I could.”

“Riiiggghtt. I assume your suit is sealed, yeah? You only have a limited amount of time before the air in that suit runs out…”

Oh kark, what if he was a species that didn’t breathe air? What if the suit was just filled with a fluorocarbon? Her bargaining chip would be gone… Anxiety bubbled up more and she knew it wasn’t just the drug this time. The pink tint to her vision had disappeared as well as the fog that had assailed her mind.

“And on top of that, we don’t know what he’s using. It could be a flammable gas. Igniting a saber or using certain Force abilities could kill us both, setting the whole room ablaze or causing the substance to detonate. Would you like to be set on fire? I have been before– it wasn’t fun. It takes a long time for you to get burned enough to not feel it anymore.”

Agroz barked out a laugh and mumbled something humorous to himself in a garbled language she didn’t understand. She was stuck in this room with a maniac.

“You are a smart little Chiss.”

Slowly Agroz awakened. Whatever had knocked him out must have been rather potent, or someone rather powerful. Probably the former, given that he felt nothing to indicate he had been physically attacked. Slowly, as the Combat Master spoke, he rose from the bed.

Poison? Pathetic.

He looked at the much smaller Chiss across the room. She came to a few correct conclusions fairly quickly. She was right about his suit being sealed, for one. She was probably right about his ability to destroy her outright as well. But, she did have an interesting point. Brujah had said his crew would open the door when one of them could no longer leave the room, but not that they couldn't try to escape. She was, in fact, a smart little Chiss.

Her anxiety in that particular moment paid off for Agroz. Her slowed reaction time prevented her from successfully dodging the ichor potion he launched across the room. The potion accomplished two things. The first, was that it disrupted her concentration, allowing him to reach her telepathically. He deliberately waited to reveal this until after the second effect hit. The potion exploded against the floor in front of Sivall, releasing a green smoke that she found herself unable to avoid inhaling. What she felt was not, as she had feared, the debilitating effects of another poison. She instead felt The Force surge within her.

We're probably better off if we breathe as little as possible. Agroz spoke telepathically. I have an idea, but we still need to stop the poison from distributing itself in this room. Think you can hit the lights if I'm able to clear a path?

Sivall cocked her head. How was he going to clear a potentially flammable particulate from the air between her and the lights? She didn't know. But, she followed his gaze. saw what he was thinking. The lights, being where the poison was dispensed from, might just stop functioning if they were shocked badly enough. She nodded in agreement.

The Gen’dai focused for a moment, stretching out his arm. His hand opened, and the mist parted, opening a path between Sivalland one of the lights. The Chiss raised an eyebrow for a moment, then turned and launched a burst of lightning at the now unobscured light. The light flickered for a second, then exploded, sending sparks raining down. The very air in the room violently shifted.

Didn't think of that. Agroz’s voice echoed in the Chiss’ mind.

Maybe this would work a bit better if we stood directly under the light? She suggested, mild irritation slipping through despite the lack of verbal communication. Yet again,Agroz had to admit she was right. The lights were dealt with without further issue, aside from some minor discoloration due to raining sparks that weren't quite avoided.

Ok, that worked. Now what? Sivall asked.

Now, I suggest we wait for the poison to settle to the ground, and for our eyes to adjust to the dark.