Gruud vs. Taro "Saint" Priak

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.

Euphoria faded and the dull edge of tension neglected to slice but tore through the psyche. Perhaps not the brightest sentient in the Galaxy. Gruud could still perceive that if he didn't get out in time. His mind would be shredded and left in tatters like the tapestries of a fallen Empire.

The once pleasurable experience that left him wanting more began to transform from invigoration to nightmare. Perhaps the other being in the room felt the same way as they stood, a towering monstrosity clawing at the mask that covered their face.

Fight then flight. Gruud's brow furrowed as he churned up enough rage in his belly to bulldoze anything in his path without any inkling of remorse.

“Wai…” The being before Gruud was only able to muster the beginning of a sentence and in unison tossed a halting hand straight out. Clearly the Force had told him everything he needed to know about the Warlord of Gamorr.

A shriek squeal erupted from the porcine creature as the rippling muscles of his biceps flexed and the bed he had been laying on became a projectile. Taro slid to the side as the bed crashed into the wall next to him. Yet with an unexpected speed and ferocity he was caught off guard as Gruud closed the gap. Arg'garok in hand, he slid the haft up and underneath Taro's jaw with a snarl as he pinned him to the wall.

This wasn't the first time Taro had to deal with a brute. In fact, the criminal underworld was rife with them. Most of the time to counter such seemingly mindless aggression. A more gentle hand was required. Besides, up close and personal would work in his favor here.

The hybrid feigned struggle, the bite of the Arg'garok pressed against his armor leaving his more eloquent soft parts relatively safe. If anything it allowed him to bide his time as the Force which lingered like a leashed pet waited for the call.

Twisting the energies around him with sheer will, like a phantom, he vanished. The Gamorrean sank forward into the wall as there was an immediate emptying of space and looked over his shoulder as Taro reappeared behind him and drew his weapon as if it were a fluid blur of motion. Before the Alpha could even fully grasp what was happening, a shot rang out that glanced off of the Gamorrean’s beskar.

Perhaps if he had enough time to charge it… it wouldn't have mattered. The Mandalorians that forged Gruud's armor have blessed hands. Probably by the Angels of Iego but that's a tale for another time.

A contrived smirk crossed the saturated lips of the tusked one as he killed off even more brain cells by trying to use his giant cranium as a battering ram. Lunging forward was probably foolish as Taro pistol-whipped the smug punam. It barely caused a flinch as the tiny gap was once again closed. The barrel chested brute spun with the athleticism of a train - maybe not intellectually sound but that's exactly what he wanted Taro to think as he threw a wild swing that he knew the graceful hybrid would side step.

Oftentimes it was the blow you didn't see coming… well, Taro saw that too as the Arg'garok swept low at his ankles causing him to hop. The massive weapon swept to the left of Gruud following a linear trajectory that aligned an even more massive shoulder with Taro's sternum. Just as Priak's feet reconnected with the floor, Gruud activated his heavy-duty jetpack. Twin fires burst from his back like the hellacious breath of a hydra and ‘fwo0o0osh!’ he propelled forward like a meaty cannon ball.

Taro folded onto the massive shoulder and the two smashed into the wall with enough force to crack the duracrete beneath the padding. It was hard to tell which was worse for wear but it was a bold move. Maybe, just maybe, the fumes filling the arena were taking their toll.

Even with its durasteel inlays, there was only so much Taro’s light armor could do to mitigate the damage caused by Gruud’s flying maneuver. The initial impact of the Gamorrean’s shoulder and his solar plexus knocked the wind out of him. However, the second collision with the firm padding of the room sent a sharp pain shooting through Taro’s side. It was the type of pain that told him that something was wrong – a broken rib, maybe, but he didn’t have time to check.

Gruud stepped backward to create space for another swing of his Arg'garok. He hefted it above his head and swung downward with a mighty roar, intending to punctuate their brief skirmish in gruesome fashion.

But the Force screamed a warning that Taro’s body answered apace. A quick shuffle to his left placed him just outside the weapon’s path, leaving it to carve a jagged scar in the padded wall. Two shots with Cheap Lesson, one of his MW-20 Bryar Pistols, halted the behemoth’s advance long enough for Taro to retreat to the opposite end of the room. The third slipped between a gap in Gruud’s armor where there was no troublesome beskar, and took a chunk of meat from his arm with it.

“Kragnuk!” Gruud hissed while clutching the wound tightly. The flesh that hadn’t been instantly cauterized by the heat of the blaster bolt started to bleed, staining his thick fingers and the white padded floor crimson.

Taro kept his blaster trained on his assailant. “So he does speak,” he said, a sharp twang common amongst many Outer Rim residents accenting his baritone voice. He used his free hand to remove his helmet, which emitted a sharp hiss when the air-tight seal broke. The damned thing had a polarized visor that left him nearly blind in the room’s poor lighting. That meant he’d have to contend with the strange gas, but he liked the odds of surviving a slow death compared to what that brute would do to him if he continued to fight with a handicap. “I ain’t your enemy. At least I wasn’t ‘til you tried to put me through the wall.”

Gruud shook his head, though to Taro he looked more like a raging orbak with the way he thrashed and jerked. “No … you put me here. You’re working with them aren’t you? To take my beskar’gam … First, I’m going to kill you, then I’ll kill them too!”

Taro raised a hairless brow. “What’re you talkin’ about, man? I woke up here, same as you. Get ahold of yourself.”

Although his breathing remained shallow on account of the pain that jabbed in his side, that didn’t stop a warm buzzing sensation and an accompanying lightness from spreading through his body. It even numbed the pain in his ribs enough for him to mostly ignore it.

And that couldn’t have been better timed, because Gruud charged him again. Taro raised his pistol to fire another shot but Gruud batted it aside with his Arg'garok’s pommel. The axe’s business end whipped around with frightening speed to cleave the hybrid in twain. Were it not for Taro snatching his war shield from his back at the last minute, it would have. The axe collided with his shield and flung him through the air like a toy cast aside in the midst of a child’s tantrum.

For a moment, everything in the room went sideways. Taro tapped into the Force again and vanished, shunted from his original position to another that gave him a view of his attacker from a new, more advantageous angle. The momentum that had initially thrown Taro aside now accelerated his descent toward Gruud’s exposed flank. He swung his shield downward with everything he could muster, smashing its quadranium edge into the back of the Gamorrean’s helmet hard enough to stagger him. The shield wouldn’t get through that beskar, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t rattle his brain with it.

“I understand, now,” Taro said, voice low as he started to circle the Gamorrean powerhouse with slow, cautious steps. The bitter taste of realization lingered on his lips after every spoken word. “This is a set up, isn’t it? You think you’re gonna turn me in to those Pub bastards? Collect my bounty?” Ire rose within him like a nascent flame that grew with every moment spent in this damned room, with his enemy, and with that pale pink mist that continued to seep through the vents above their heads.

His time in New Republic’s custody had changed him. He’d been a survivor for as long as he could remember, but incarceration had left him with a brutal streak and too many sleepless nights. It had exposed him to the New Republic’s true nature. As much as the Pubs liked to peddle talk of freedom and progress to those out-of-touch citizens of the Core, he had personally experienced the way it treated those it considered undesirable. They’d locked him and countless others up like animals, but he’d refused to give them the satisfaction of turning into one. “I ain’t lettin’ you win, and I ain’t goin’ back to no karkin’ prison.”

Without saying another word, Taro snatched the sonic imploder from his belt, twisted its metal shell to activate it, and hurled it toward Gruud’s face.

His arm was throbbing, still, it paled in comparison to what the imploder could do. Gruud's eyes grew wide with anxiety as he leapt to the side. His belly skidded across the floor as he rolled into a ball and took cover with clenched eyelids as he braced for–

One eye popped open as an unusual amount of time had passed without a bang. He looked at Taro and he could see that his remarkable, judging eyes were locked onto him as he stood with a curious head-tilt.

The Gamorrean realized at that moment there was no imploder. Nothing. Zilch. He rubbed his head. Clearly Brujah's concoction was much more powerful and bizarre than he imagined. In fact it made him question what was in fact reality. He looked at his arm and dug his thumb into the wound but growled when the sting of burnt flesh ended his curiosity. Nope, that was very real.

Angry and slightly embarrassed, Gruud pushed himself to his feet and with a short burst of fuel, propelled himself forward. The edge of his Arg'garok sliced horizontally, aimed for Taro's throat as Gruud crashed back down like a meteor. Having the wherewithal and speed to do so, Gruud's quarry backpedaled. Why he didn't attempt to finish the Gamorrean with his blasters was a mystery. Perhaps bewilderment clouded his judgement.

“Shiny belt is mine!” Gruud bellowed in his native tongue and whipped the butt of his weapon around. It wasn't much but the slight clip to Taro's heel as he backed away was enough to make him slightly stumble. However, just as he recovered, Gruud unleashed the coiled power of his tree-trunk-like legs and drove the sole of his boot into Taro's gut.

The air rushed from his lungs and the nightsisters themselves couldn't have prepared him for the flashing stars in a sea of black. It was quick and his vision would return, but as the haze cleared, he saw a green fist growing larger as it encroached upon his jaw with a crack. Blood splattered onto the mats and the metallic tasting sanguine liquid filled Taro's mouth as his jaw was now sitting nearly an inch to the right.

He dropped to one knee and leaned into the wall as he tried to collect himself. The Force flooded his pain receptors and frantically worked to numb them but unfortunately for him, he lacked the speed and skill of the Circle of Healers. Gruud growled once more and brought his Arg'garok straight down with a grunt. The hope was to deliver a killing blow, the reality was the voice of the Force. Everything within Taro screamed at him to move. He would do just that. But it wasn't how you would think. With the speed of a Gunslinger, Taro unsheathed his vibro-dagger and quickly sank it into Gruud's leading forearm before he had the opportunity to complete his maneuver.

Gruud let go of his Arg'garok and the heavy metal lost its precision and momentum. The pain was intense as the dagger hummed and continued to cut even as it remained embedded in his arm. The beast took a step back and gripped the handle of the dagger and with a hesitant tug he ripped it from his flesh.

He roared and tossed it to the side, but as he took a step forward to end it. Three shots rang out in quick succession. One lanced through his gut, another hit his shoulder, the third streaked past his head and seared the flesh of the left side of his head. Gruud stopped in his tracks and locked eyes with Taro's which were seen taking aim beyond a smoking barrel.

“It didn't have to end this way.” His finger began to squeeze the trigger and Gruud stood tall, ready to accept the fate of a warrior.

Taro sneered and as soon as he pulled the trigger the wall behind him imploded in a rush of fire and debris. Gruud was blown across the room and pieces of Taro splattered to the floor.

Ominous smoke filled the room replacing the gas. Gruud's ears were ringing but he was very much alive, albeit worse for wear. He pushed a large piece of duracrete off of his chest and rolled to his side to look at the hole in confusion. Just then he heard a shrill but familiar cackle as the smoke started to clear. He squinted through the impairment and sitting on the outside of the room was -

“Boss?”

A kowakian monkey-lizard holding the Relby V-10 Gruud thought someone had stolen.

Gruud's forehead dropped to the floor and he started to laugh and wince from the pain of his injuries as he watched Boss Chomp begin to chew on the barrel.

A hologram of Brujah clapping zipped into the room affixed to a drone. He looked around the room via video feed and was not only impressed but appalled.

“We're taking this out of your winnings. Oh and someone get that blaster away from that, that, creature.”

A flash of intense, white light filled the room faster than either combatant could react. A wave of concussive force spread from the bursting canister, knocking them both on their asses.

Taro’s heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his face. His ears rang incessantly with a shrill whine that drowned out even the sound of his labored breathing. Pain lanced through his side with renewed intensity. As he struggled to his feet, his eyes followed an invisible path up from the ground to the hunched silhouette of his opponent.

Gruud shook his head in a pointless attempt to shake off the daze the sonic imploder had left him in. His mouth opened to scream, but he heard no sound escape his lips. He ripped his helmet off his head and tossed it aside. The beskar had shielded him from the worst of it, but the heat produced by the imploder detonating so close left him with several small burns on places left unprotected by the armored plates. What a karking nuisance this was turning out to be. He turned and started in Taro’s direction with lumbering steps, each of which sent pain rippling through his left foot.

With each step Gruud took forward, Taro took one back. This continued until he was pressed against the firm padding of the wall behind him. His muscles tensed in anticipation of continued conflict, primed to move at a moment’s notice. There was no way that this behemoth could outlast him. He just had to keep Gruud from getting those oversized hands on him. His chances of doing that would increase dramatically after he took one of his ichor tonics.

He managed to unclip one of his leather waterskins from his belt and even raise it to his lips to drink, but Gruud had other plans. A clubbing hook knocked the waterskin from Taro’s hand and sent him stumbling to his right. The contents of the waterskin spilled out onto the floor as Gruud pressed forward in spite of the pain in his leg. As much of an inconvenience as it was, it wasn’t going to keep him from beating Taro to death for trapping him here.

Taro turned just in time to see Gruud’s hand shooting out to seize his neck. He tried to break the grip, but the Gamorrean’s physical strength was too much for him to overcome. The next thing he knew, he was being lifted into the air only to be slammed onto his back. His mouth flew open not just from the shock of the impact, but also in a desperate attempt to breathe.

Breathe, dammit.

Gruud’s grip tightened around Taro’s throat, digging his thick fingernails into the skin enough to draw blood. “Squirm, karker. Makes it more enjoyable for me,” he said through a pair of gritted tusks.

Taro jerked and kicked wildly against the ground as his body instinctually attempted to free himself from his attacker’s clutches. He wanted – he needed – to live. In his thrashing, his hand found the vibrodagger on his hip and gripped it tightly, stabbing wildly at Gruud. It didn’t matter what he hit, as long as he hit something.

Gruud roared when the oscillating blade slipped between beskar plates and sank deep into his side, forcing him to retreat like a wounded animal.

Taro gasped and erupted into a fit of hacking coughs when the hands left his throat. “I’m not … I’m not goin’ back to prison, ya hear?” he said between ragged breaths. “You’re ‘gonna have to kill me.”

“That’s the plan,” Gruud fired back while ripping the vibrodagger from his side, “And I’m going to use your knife to do it.”

“More dangerous men than you have tried,” Taro said while placing his hand on the butt of his second Bryar pistol, High Price. He had to end this now before he inhaled any more of that damned gas. All he needed was one shot.

As the two combatants waited for their moment to strike, a tense quiet overtook the room. The only thing either of them heard was the soft hiss of the overhead vents continuing to pump that pale pink gas into the room. A chill shot down the back of Taro’s neck, which he rightly recognized as a warning from the Force of impending danger. There was a glint of light against the vibrodagger’s blade when Gruud flung it in his direction.

Taro unholstered High Price and fired, placing a single shot between the Gamorrean’s eyes. The dagger sliced through Taro’s shoulder as it flew past. Gruud collapsed into a bloody heap on the far end of the room.

A few moments after the bout’s deadly conclusion, a distant click pulled Taro’s attention to the doors on the other side of the room. They slid open, causing the pink mist circling against the floor to flow outward as two figures wearing masks stepped into the room.

“Congratulations,” said the taller of the two. Taro recognized his voice as the Combat Master, the same one who’d appeared on the holoprojector when he woke up here. “You’ve survived this round. Good work. You’ll want to rest up because there are many more to come, and this was a walk in the park compared to what I have planned for you.”

The second figure crossed the distance between them and quickly pressed a hyposyringe into his arm before he could pull away. “It won’t be long until the antidote starts to reverse the effects of the poison,” they said.

Taro snatched his arm away shortly afterward, and hobbled away to collect his other weapons off the floor. “This was a load of bantha druk,” he muttered to himself. He’d had his fill of poison gas and confined spaces for a while.