When you are traversing the wild and untouched landscapes of the savannah, just remind yourself that you are never the apex predator. The vast and desolate area of sand, rocks, dead and ancient trees are all the same blood-orange color for a simple reason: to hide your worst nightmare from your sight, the Akul. A large, quadrupedal and orange furred mammal, the Akul are the top predators that hunt all sorts of bovine, dog, hooved and giant mammals. Using their extraordinary sense of smell, they can trace your scent from days long past and track you down without mercy.

Throughout the Savannah, tall and wispy Turu-grass stretches out into long ranging fields. Watering holes are sparse and spread thin, and the terrain offers little safety from the blazing sun that hangs overhead. When the sun retreats and gives way to moonlight, the Savannah becomes almost chill, but the night is dark and full of wild creatures. In the Savannah, it’s hunt or be hunted.

Wind rustled in the grass, a canvas of white on which bending stalks painted waves of red. From Timeros’ perspective, it seemed almost as if he had wounded the land itself.

The Arconae waved away the impression; other matters took priority over the visual spectacle of the endless grasslands. One such matter, in fact, was standing before him, and appeared far from amused at his intrusion.

“Your Excellency,” he intoned. “We meet again.”

A’lora’s eyes narrowed at the honorific, one of her hands reflexively reaching to her chest, once speared by the Arconan now before her. “I am no longer Consul,” she spat out. “Why are you here?”

Because Pravus was missing. Because everyone who understood the Brotherhood knew that war was coming. Because his Consul spent her days supporting a Jedi Clan whose survival required precious resources Arcona needed for itself, if it was to prosper. Because the only way to solve the alliance was to force the matter.

Because you left for your home planet and provided me with an excuse.

He did not reply in words, nor did he need to. His sudden wave of hostility was all the Togruta required and, from the tightening of the woman’s muscles, she was just as aware as he was.

The wind’s rustle intensified; as if on cue, the Augur was in a different sort of rustle entirely, bolting through the meter-high foliage, her savage features a rictus of concentration as her lightsaber materialized in her hands. Timeros, too, moved with all the fluidity of a well-oiled machine, the cadence of his motion timed with his footfalls so that, when he met A’lora, his own saber was unfurling and his Westar was gripped loosely in his hand.

They met in a chromatic storm, green, blue and purple hazes of light flickering among a rapidly scattering pattern of red and white as their initial strikes decapitated the grass. The Odanite struck first, the emerald end of her lightsaber whirling sharply up from a crouch.

Timeros parried diagonally, his lightsaber hammering down against her staff but pushed backwards by the force of his opponent’s two-handed blow. Sensing an opportunity, the Togruta twisted her body right, circling her staff’s other end towards the Arconae’s thighs and forcing him to hop over the scything blade. As his feet left the ground, the Augur carried through her motion, spinning and pulling her weapon’s foreha-

No!

The Force fell across A’lora’s mind like a shadow, an ominous warning of things to come. The Augur, true to her name, knew better than to underestimate the truth of her vision and was rolling across the grass before she even realized what was happening.; By the time Timeros’ finger fell on his Westar’s trigger and a storm of bolts completely annihilated the patch of ground his marble-skinned opponent had stood on just moments before, she was already gone, a shadow of crackling Turu-grass.

The Jedi had improved, the Elder mused, as his mind scoured the fields like a hawk-bat, sensing her presence somewhere ahead of him, hidden from sight by the meter-high stalks. But, he observed as he raised his blaster and prepared to unleash another barrage upon her proximate location, not by enough.

He froze.

A’lora rose from the grass, her jawline set hard with concentration. To her side stood a second woman, identical in all aspects. Two Jedi, both seemingly sizing up the Entar as if he were prey.

Timeros’ mind raced for a moment as he realized the insidious foothold the Jedi had gained upon his mind. A’lora was a hunter as he was a killer, adept at ambush. Her ability to use her native planet’s vegetation to her advantage should not have come as a surprise.

The Adept launched into a dash, spraying fire as he went and weaving a net of bolts. The Togruta scattered in response, then reconverged around the Arconae, only for him to relinquish his robes, slipping from them like a snake and telekinetically hurling it at the nearest image. The woman halted, then vanished as the robes flew through her suddenly-ephemeral form.

The other Togruta seemed momentarily bewildered but recovered quickly, bringing down one end of her saber-staff, a diagonal slice aimed straight for the Entar’s defenseless forearm.

A metallic scrape and the whiff of burning fabric was the first warning A’lora got; the hissing flash of Timeros’ reactivating lightsaber the second.

Klaxons flared through the Togruta’s senses; too late, for the Elder’s lightsaber had already severed the cerulean blade at its emitter. Simultaneously, the pressure on his forearm nudged a shot wide from the Westar in his grip, the singed sleeve revealing the unscathed forearm. Dented with a reminder, the bracer that absorbed the saber’s energy fell to the ground, its clasp broken.

Crossing back over the arc of his initial backhanded swing, the magenta blade of Timeros’ lightsaber crashed sidelong to meet the Togruta’s, drawn back from Timeros’ forearm to swing about her right shoulder. As the saberstaff’s working end was brought down, the other was forced in the opposite direction, the resulting movement a fluid scattering of attacks and counters woven into a choreography.

Exchanging strike for strike, the combatants married each other’s weaknesses to their strengths. Though the Arconae was the better swordsman, even the Elder would not dare to match the primal ferociousness of A’lora’s form for fear of exchanging fatal blows, just as she struggled to maintain contact with his evasive footwork extending the distance between them.

Even with the determination of a ruthless killer, Timeros had not accounted for the savagery that was absent during their last meeting, or the utter lack of self-preservation she expressed on the battlefield. His unblinking focus lent to another advantage in her favour at the wave of a hand. Engulfed in an instantaneous white light, the focus of his scrutiny compelled his tear-starved eyes to wince in protest.

His sight returned after a moment’s respite, bloodshot and scouring for his target.

More illusions, he grimaced at witnessing the same trick, used twice. Unwilling to fight against figments of his imagination, the Arconae armed and tossed a baradium grenade at the centermost clone. The resulting explosion shattered the illusions from his mind, blasting the legitimate Councillor several feet backwards to land beneath the brush.

Out the corner of his perception, Timeros caught the glint of movement; hungry eyes glowering from the Turu-grass. Drawn like insects waiting for the feast, he dismissed. It wasn’t until Timeros levelled his gaze to match that of his recovering opponent that the Arconae realized her attention wavered, staring off into the foliage; a minute detail that issued a twitch from his finger. Without forcing his attention from his opponent, Timeros fired three shots in the general direction of the distraction; an estimated assurance that one would find its mark.

Stalks seared in the wake of blaster fire; distressed howls scattered to the wind behind the retreat of several orange-furred creatures. Flashes of a brighter, glowing orange added to the palette of white and red that fluctuated with the terrain as smoke began to form and rise above the Turu-grass. The scent filtered through A’lora’s nostrils, the wind changing course to the east.

As the flames grew higher, more animals fled while others clawed the earth, seeking shelter. Drums beat in the distance, conjoined with distant shouts that reverberated through the open plains. A group of native gatherers ran across the savannah without giving attention to the ruckus between the combatants, leaving baskets and tools in their tracks.

The village… it’s heading for the village.

Timeros watched the shift across the former Consul’s features; the tension of her muscles, the crease in her brow and the twitching of her head-tails. Oscillating between the desire - the need - for vengeance and her obligation to the tribe she was raised in, A’lora’s mind and soul battled for a mutual accord.

“Seem familiar, Excellency?” Timeros’ voice tangled with the howling winds, “Another world burns, with no allies to douse the flames. Yet, the Jedi take no action, waging their wars and drawing others to their downfall.” Mixing words with truth was but one means in the Elder’s arsenal, the Force working in unison with this contrivance to cultivate the rift between the Councillor’s feelings.

How the weak fall, Timeros mused in satisfaction. Even if she were to survive, I’ve already won. Yet, it is time to end this.

Timeros shifted on his feet with the grace of a hawk-bat, swooping for the kill. The blaster fell from his outstretched fingers, replaced with a second lightsaber. His heel matted the foliage in his wake, the Force invigorating the tendons and muscles that propelled his mass forward. Unbeknownst to him, the defeated Councillor still possessed a purpose in defeat, borne of absolute rage.

The inferno roared with the pangs of its birth, reaching around itself like a million-armed demon, an orange monster shaped by wind and geography and chasing after the fuel it needed to grow. Suddenly, the grasslands were filled with a heat that even the relentless sunlight could not anticipate.

Timeros, by contrast, remained cold, ignoring his incipient triumph as he fell into a murderer’s focus and bore down on the lone Togruta, heedless of the sudden maelstrom of emotions emanating from Odan-Urr’s former potentate.

A mistake.

If the Entar had become colder still following the destructive rage around him, the Togruta seemed, if anything, invigorated. His first strike almost became his last as the Augur batted away his saber with absolute fury, her hammer blow accompanied by a primal scream.

The Adept stumbled, momentarily overpowered by the Jedi’s Force-battened muscles, feet finding little purchase against the flattened remains of the grass. Snarling, the Augur hammered again, her ferocity a sudden flare across the Arconae’s mind.

Furious. Powerful. Careless.

He avoided the bite of her blade, but only just, by flattening into a tangled mass of limbs, contorting out of the way and then scything upwards, slashing up with clinical precision at the Jedi’s knee. Yet furious as she was, the former Consul had not entirely given up on self-preservation. True to her rank, the Augur felt the blow before it could connect and hurled herself sideways, feet stomping out one tendril of flame as she rose, framed by the fire that threatened her home. Frenzied as she was, she paid it no heed, instead jumping forward with reckless abandon.

Had Timeros expected any mercy from the Jedi, he would have been sorely disappointed. The Jedi’s strikes fell quickly and furiously, sequenced in a pattern as rapacious as it was reckless. Her swordsmanship held no thought for escape or even survival: instead, the pack-minded woman held within her only the desire to destroy.

An emerald saber scythed in from the side. The Entar stepped lithely back, then forward, both lightsabers snapping together like scissors. Yet the Togruta was already ahead of him, mind peering into the future, and his blades hit only each other as she ducked underneath and jumped, crashing into the Elder shoulder-first.

The pair went tumbling over, hissing with pain as they rolled across the fiery landscape, flames licking at robes and exposed skin. Their sabers gouged the ground as they fell, both combatants seeking an exposed angle and failing, finally separating as their momentum ran out.

Neither could rest, however. The dark side whispered at Timeros, its putrid touch lending vigor and foresight as he instinctively rolled aside, knuckles whitening around his lightsaber as he planted his fist into the ground and pushed, hurling himself into the air and over a patch of flames. The Adept spun as he rose, seeing A’lora’s staff crash into the earth moments later, her lightsaber lying at her feet. She discarded the staff moments after and snatched it up, glaring daggers at the Entar as she advanced, ready to end him.

And then, she was ended.

As A’lora stepped forward, the Force came alive inside her mind, exploding with a fire that dwarfed the conflagration around her. Yet, caught in the throes of her mania, the warning came too late and a small cylinder near her feet likewise exploded. The blast hurled the Odanite backwards with its force even as a sticky, glue-like substance enveloped her and trapped her, fixing her motionlessly in place, her saber still outstretched towards the blank-faced Arconae.

Timeras watched the spectacle of his telekinetically-triggered grenade impassively, separated from the Augur by an arm’s length of rapidly-spreading flame. For a moment, he considered leaving the imprisoned Jedi to the fire that now wholly surrounded her; there would be a certain poetry in having her destroyed by the inferno that would soon consume her village.

Then, the Elder shook his head, resolve hardening. He holstered his saber as A’lora’s rage dimmed, her mania run out at last. “Make it quick,” she gasped.

He offered her a curt nod, and then reached for his remaining Westar, blaster bolts puncturing skin and proving that the Togruta, like the Turu-grass of her homeland, was likewise white on one side, red on the other.

Then, he turned around and strode away from the flames, speaking into his comlink as he left her village to its fate.

Timeros was committed to the momentum of his footfalls. Tendons and muscles reacted above his natural abilities, the Force channelling into each movement that drew him nearer to his target. Beams of magenta stretched in either direction, leaving red-white confetti behind his blurred visage. There was no time to waste with final words or an ostentatious execution; after all, none would be alive to witness these formalities. Time was limited, as was this chance to drive Arcona out of this ‘alliance’ that would drain its resources to the bitter end.

He would kill the Councillor, and be done with it.

But something was wrong - had gone wrong, he corrected himself. His precognitive senses flared too late - he overcommitted himself, believing the Councillor’s mind to have fragmented completely. It wasn’t until his blades scythed in for the kill that her gaze, bowed in defeat, rose to meet his.

“I’ve made my choice, Arconae,” she seethed. Flecks of gold rimmed her otherwise amber irises, emitting a sort of light on their own that was visible even within the sockets shadowing their orbs.

Witness a monster of your own making, Timeros.

With a turn of the mechanism, his target’s lightsaber extended, resembling that of a staff. In a dangerous move that would otherwise have been a death sentence, she allowed his momentum to overwhelm her footing. All three of the connected blades shot overhead as the two combatants rolled with the force of the Elder’s charge.

Without the courtesy of a warning, the blunt end of her hilt connected with the Arconan’s jaw, aided by the force of their colliding bodies. Carried across the prone form of the Togruta with a kick, Timeros was launched onto his back amidst the Turu-grass and whichever insects called it “home.”

Bruised and exhausted, the two combatants lain across from each other; the collision with her heel drove the air from Timeros’ lungs. Smoke filtered through them with each ragged inhalation, coughing up crimson rivulets. He forced himself to blink, seeing nothing. All he could taste was the metallic bitterness filling his mouth. A’lora felt likewise, the perspiration rolling off her lavender skin in thick beads of sweat.

How long had it been? Seconds, minutes?

Timeros could hear the rustle of his opponent rising to her feet, using the saberstaff’s length as a crutch.

Move, the Force told him, and so he heeded its command. His legs sailed overhead into a backwards somersault, dodging the sluggish movements of the Councillor’s weak attacks that burned an orange-trimmed furrow into the ground.

“End this!” the Togruta screamed, drawing the ignited end of her lightsaber along the ground in a trail of fire towards him, “Or I will.”

Timeros’ sight blurred into focus, blinking in excess of a light pressure. Grasping handfuls of grass and dirt, his fingers flexed for the familiarity of a lightsaber, finding instead the handle of his Westar among a scattering of decapitated grass and smoldering ash. Bent on one knee, the Elder levelled its barrel to mark out a target on her forehead. With a jolt, crimson bursts materialized between them. The first was batted clumsily away, the second missed entirely.

Mixing with the particulate matter hanging in the air, the first droplets of rain coalesced from the clouds - a blessing that came too late for the village. Ahead of the Togruta, he could hear the shrill cries and wails that often accompanied the loss of loved ones. Though she did not react in kind, the subtle twitching of her Lekku told Timeros all he needed to know; he had hit home, in a literal sense of the word.

And in doing so, this battle ends.

With an audible ‘blip,’ the Elder withdrew one of the two bio-adhesive grenades tucked into the folds of his armour. With each depression of the trigger, his subsequent shots were inaccurate; deliberate, considering his original task was no longer needed.

Intent on killing the Arconae where he knelt as retribution, A’lora’s feet continued on until she could no longer move. Hardening into a shell around each foot, the grenade’s paste-like substance retained effectiveness even despite her best efforts. She was stuck.

A blood-curdling scream left her violet lips. She looked to her village, searching for solace among its smoldering remains but found none. The Elder was gone, having left to listen to his adversary's infuriated growls turn to cries of anguish from a distance.