Private Afternoon Fury

[Silara IX]

Location: Kryptus’ Blood Pit, Varanin Academy - Dromund Kaas
Time: Afternoon
Attire: Training Outfit
Equipment: Synthetic Crystal Lightsaber - Standard Blade
Tag: Seris Velmora

Training duels in Varanin Academy were rarely fought with dedicated training lightsabers. Instead, acolytes and apprentices were given real lightsabers and blades to fight with, albeit with the former slightly downtuned in power output so that a direct strike would inflict a searing third-degree burn, rather than catastrophic amputation. Naturally, armor was forbidden in such bouts, so that neither participant could exempt herself from the painful lesson attached to a blow taken from a lightsaber.

Dressed in her black training outfit, Silara IX stepped into the colosseum, the heat coaxing sweat from her pores as her gaze swept across the area. For all intents and purposes, this fight was her initiation into the informal social hierarchy of Varanin Academy, and by extension, the greater Sith Kabal. Although only a few students were watching from the stands, the strand-cast knew that word of her performance here, whether it was good or bad, would travel far beyond the Blood Pit.

Indeed, it was quite possible that by the time morning arrived, the student body would have come to a collective decision as to whether she was strong or weak.

Silara came to a stop near the middle of the arena, her features splotched with red spots as she glanced up at the hulking Cragmoloid Sith Knight overseeing the fight. She was vaguely familiar with one who she would be fighting, but she did not truly know her. She knew only that her name was Seris Velmora, and that she had recently returned from the chaotic proving ground of the Sith Covenant in the Core. She was a Rajakzânkut like Silara herself, meaning that they would be evenly matched.

“I am ready,” Silara hissed, her voice steady despite the flutter in her chest.

The Cragmoloid merely nodded in response, before turning his gaze toward the opposite end of the arena. It was then that the tall, lean figure of her opponent emerged from the shadowed doors. Silara’s eyes twitched with a mixture of anticipation and unease, lips pursing into a thin line as she watched the woman stride gracefully across the sand, twin lightsabers exposed on her hips!

 

[Seris Velmora]

Location: Kryptus Blood Pit, Varanin Academy, Dromund Kaas
Objective: Violence!
Outfit: Training Outfit
Tag: Silara IX

Another day, another academy. Following the events of Humbarine, agents of the Eternal Father had learned of Seris’ injuries and instead of allowing her to return to Coruscant to heal, they brought her to Dromund Kaas. To the Varanin Academy where Seris was deemed a liability and sent to the Covenant to learn structure or cause chaos away from her creators.

Now she was completely healed and sent to the blood pit to prove she was ready to be sent back to the Covenant. Her opponent was a fellow Rajakzânkut. ”Better”. That started Seris’ negative emotions spiraling…

Not because she feared them. Because she hated what they represented. Another face shaped by the same hands. Another body grown in vats and conditioned through pain, doctrine, and chemical obedience. Another reminder that somewhere beneath all the rage and hunger clawing inside her chest, there were strings attached to her existence whether she liked it or not.

Seris wanted to believe she was more than a manufactured weapon. The problem was that violence always felt right.

The blood pit beneath Varanin Academy was carved directly into the black stone foundations of the complex. Humid heat rolled upward from vents hidden beneath the grated floor. The air smelled of iron, wet earth, ozone, and old blood that no amount of cleaning droids could fully erase. Crimson lights pulsed through the chamber in uneven intervals while acolytes crowded the upper walkways, their voices blending into a low predatory murmur.

Some came to gamble. Others came to study. Most simply came to watch someone break.

Seris walked out to the center of the arena with one hand flexing slowly at her side. Fresh scars crossed her ribs beneath the stripped-down combat attire they had issued her. Proof she had survived Humbarine. Proof she had failed to die when perhaps some of her handlers had quietly hoped she would.

Her amber eyes lifted toward the opposite side of the arena as the gate behind her began to grind closed. The sound scraped through her nerves. For a brief moment she saw herself standing across from her. Same engineered perfection. Same predatory posture. Same weaponized beauty designed to distract from the violence underneath.

The other Rajakzânkut stepped into the red light and Seris’ expression twisted slightly. Short but powerful. Thick legs like stabilizers beneath an otherwise graceful frame. The woman’s exposed skin gleamed beneath the arena lights while black and crimson fabrics clung tightly enough to emphasize every calculated curve. Even the outfit was intentional. Elegant enough to hold attention. Minimal enough to invite underestimation.

A weapon pretending to be art. Or maybe the other way around.

Seris’ gaze lingered briefly on the heaviness in the woman’s thighs and stance. Strong base. Explosive movement potential. Probably liked closing distance fast. The way she carried herself screamed confidence drilled through repetition and punishment.

Another laboratory monster pretending she had agency. Another reminder of what Seris herself looked like from the outside. That irritated her more than it should have. “Cute,” Seris muttered under her breath, voice edged with venom. “They made another one.”

The Force around her churned violently, emotional control already slipping despite everything the instructors here had tried to hammer into her. Restraint. Patience. Discipline. Structure.

Worthless lessons. They wanted weapons that obeyed until the moment they were unleashed. Seris only understood the second part.

Her fingers curled tighter as adrenaline flooded her bloodstream. The scars in her mind left by Humbarine still burned hot beneath the surface. The flashes of blaster fire. The sewage tunnels. The pain. The exhilaration. The terrifying realization that every time she cut loose, some part of her enjoyed losing control more than she enjoyed winning.

That frightened her. Which only made her angrier.

The crowd noise faded beneath the pounding of her heartbeat as she rolled her shoulders loose and tilted her head slightly toward her opponent. A slow grin spread across her face, sharp and unstable. Not confident. Hungry.

“You know what the funny thing is?” she called across the pit, her voice carrying easily through the chamber. “I don’t even care if I pass.”

Her eyes drifted once more over the other woman, assessing, provoking, looking for the slightest twitch of ego or irritation to exploit. Then a crimson glow ignited in her hand with a violent snap-hiss. The unstable light painted sharp red highlights across her face and throat as she lowered into a loose aggressive stance. “I just want to hurt something.”

 

[Silara IX]

Location: Kryptus’ Blood Pit, Varanin Academy - Dromund Kaas
Time: Afternoon
Attire: Training Outfit
Equipment: Synthetic Crystal Lightsaber - Standard Blade
Tag: Seris Velmora

Silara IX pursed her lips in focus as her sister Rajakzânkut approached, a casual, yet seemingly arrogant grin spreading across her sculpted features in the process. The strand-cast’s gaze lingered as she quietly sized her up. Her opponent was tall and athletic in build, her form stricken with scars across a chiseled midsection. Her dark hair was done up in twin tails, mirroring the twin lightsaber on her hips. Thick, horizontal Sith war tattoos were set on each of her cheekbones, drawing Silara’s gaze upward towards her amber-hued eyes, each burning with a sadistic, predatory glow.

Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Her sister tilted her head then, and Silara unconsciously mirrored the motion as she anxiously tied her hair into a high bun, sweeping the strands up and away from her face. Seris spoke then announcing that she did not care about passing whatever trial this fight might represent. Silara batted her lashes in momentary confusion. However, it did not take long for her opponent’s intentions to become clear as the searing snap-hiss of one of her lightsabers shattered the tension in the air, bathing her features under a crimson glow.

The unstable light painted sharp red highlights across her face and throat as she lowered into a loose aggressive stance. “I just want to hurt something.”

It was then that the Cragmoloid Sith extended both of his arms to either side, gesturing for the two strand-casts to stay back.

“Seris Velmora,” the Cragmoloid looked towards her sister Rajakzânkut, his tone carrying a silent warning. “Silara the Ninth,” he glanced back towards Silara, his beady-eyed gaze scrutinizing her. “You will fight to three lightsaber strikes or severe injury,” he continued. “The first one to land these strikes or otherwise cause injury such that her opponent is unable to continue, will be declared the winner.” He paused then, his eyes shifting from one strand-cast to the other.

“Are these rules understood?”

“Yes, my lord,” Silara answered affirmatively. She ignited her lightsaber, the crimson blade coming to life with a soft, lethal hiss as she settled into Ataru’s opening stance. In that, she held the weapon vertically with both palms, while positioning the blade in a balanced two-handed guard to the left side of her body, her legs coiled like springs.

“Then, you may begin!” The Cragmoloid stepped back several paces, clearing the arena floor for the coming fight!

 

[Seris Velmora]

Location: Kryptus Blood Pit, Varanin Academy, Dromund Kaas
Objective: Violence!
Outfit: Training Outfit
Tag: Silara IX

“Yes, my lord.” Seris answered without taking her eyes off Silara. The acknowledgment came low and flat, more obligation than respect.

Her unstable crimson blade remained angled overhead as she shifted fully into the opening posture of Djem So. Two hands wrapped around the hilt. Dominant foot planted behind her. The blade held above her head and slightly back at a sharp descending angle, poised less like a guard and more like a predator preparing to bring an executioner’s strike crashing downward.

Power. Pressure. Overwhelming force. That was what the form demanded. And Seris had never lacked aggression.

Across from her, Silara held herself in the coiled readiness of Ataru. Light on her feet. Spring-loaded. Built for motion. Seris recognized it immediately. Fast. Acrobatic. Evasive. The kind of style that tried to drown opponents beneath angles and momentum.

Her lip curled faintly. Good. The Cragmoloid stepped backward and gave the signal. Seris moved instantly. No circling. No testing strike. No patience. The grated arena floor groaned beneath the sudden violence of her forward burst as she closed distance with alarming speed. Her first step was almost reckless in its commitment, dark hair whipping behind her as the Force surged hard through her muscles.

Djem So might have been designed around power counterattacks and dominant defense, but Seris wielded it like a battering ram. The crimson blade came down in a brutal overhead arc aimed directly at Silara’s upper guard with enough force to split defense apart through sheer impact alone. The unstable saber snarled through the humid air, its violent edge crackling as Seris put her entire body behind the strike. Not refined. Not elegant. Heavy. Angry.

Her amber eyes burned with savage focus as the attack descended. She wanted to feel resistance. Wanted to feel Silara either withstand the blow or break beneath it. Either outcome would tell her something useful.

The Force churned violently around her emotions, feeding speed into strength and strength into aggression until it became difficult to tell where instinct ended and fury began. And beneath all of it lingered the ugly truth twisting in her chest: Part of Seris desperately wanted Silara to hit back hard enough to justify unleashing everything.

 

[Silara IX]

Location: Kryptus’ Blood Pit, Varanin Academy - Dromund Kaas
Time: Afternoon
Attire: Training Outfit
Equipment: Synthetic Crystal Lightsaber - Standard Blade
Tag: Seris Velmora

Silara IX read her opponent’s sudden burst of forward movement through the electromagnetic rhythm of neurotransmitter surges. Her instinctive utilization of Hassat-durr illuminated Seris’s body in ghost-light within her awareness, the sudden voltaic cascade firing down her hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, and yet more muscle groups in a coordinated surge of muscular potential. And yet, even recognizing that her opponent would rush forward in an explosive burst of acceleration just moments before it actually occurred, she was still nearly stunned as she watched her sister Rajakzânkut close the distance separating them with alarming speed, her eyes frozen open as anxious fear rushed into her psyche.

Then, came focus. An ultra-lethal martial clarity that her mind had been engineered to process in the face of adversity, so that violence became an innate, reflexive response. Fight, rather than flight.

In that, Silara first moved. Processing the sudden electrochemical spike firing down her opponent’s deltoids, the strand-cast dropped her hips, their exaggerated breadth becoming a counterweight while her shoulders pivoted. In the same motion, her front left foot slid left and forward, executing a tight diagonal step that carried her form into the blind radius of the lightsaber’s descending crimson arc, cutting into the tight circle where Seris's own committed momentum might make mid-swing correction geometrically difficult.

Seris’s unstable saber snarled past Silara’s right shoulder then, heat washing over bare skin along her neck. Then, willing the Force into her legs, she exploded off of the ground in a preternaturally swift lateral leap, carrying the Hapan strand-cast into a twisting arc around her opponent’s flank before touching down a meter to her left-rear.

Silara was turning the moment her boots touched the ground, hips rotating as her body coiled like a spring. The lightsaber in her left hand, which had been held low and trailing during the evasion, now whipped downward in a tight, left-to-right diagonal slash aimed for the gap between Seris's trailing elbow and ribcage. In that, the strike came as a swift, explosive riposte, intended to force Seris to twist against her own momentum or risk suffering a searing burn to her flesh!

 

[Seris Velmora]

Location: Kryptus Blood Pit, Varanin Academy, Dromund Kaas
Objective: Violence!
Outfit: Training Outfit
Tag: Silara IX

The snarl of her blade cut empty air. Seris’ strike missed. The realization hit a fraction of a second after the follow-through dragged her weight forward, her teeth baring as heat washed past Silara instead of through her. The absence of impact sent a sharp, ugly spike of frustration straight through her chest.

A low, feral growl tore free from her throat. “—Fast…” Not admiration. Annoyance. Her head snapped toward the shift in presence behind her, the Force already screaming warning as Silara moved through her blind radius. Seris didn’t whirl wildly to meet it. Didn’t chase the speed. She hunted it.

Pivoting instead at a controlled, stalking pace, her trailing foot dragged just enough to re-center her weight. Her shoulders rolled as she tracked Silara’s reappearance with burning amber eyes, letting the other woman complete the arc rather than overcommitting to intercept. There. The counter came.

Seris’ blade snapped down and back in a sharp, efficient motion, catching Silara’s diagonal slash just before it could bite into the exposed line of her ribs. The impact cracked through the air with a violent hiss as crimson met crimson.

For a moment, the world narrowed to the shriek of energy. Their blades locked. Humming. Grinding. Seris leaned into it immediately, her strength pressing forward through the bind, muscles tightening beneath her skin as she bore down with brute force rather than finesse. The unstable edge of her saber spat erratic flares of light across both their faces, illuminating the tension between them.

Close now. Close enough to feel the other woman’s breath. Close enough to see the precision in her eyes. Seris’ lips pulled back slightly, something sharp and dangerous flickering there. “Good.” It wasn’t praise. It was permission.

Her off-hand tore free from the hilt without warning. The Force surged hard—violent, unrefined, and immediate. Seris thrust her palm forward at point-blank range, channeling a sudden burst of telekinesis straight into Silara’s center mass. Not subtle. Not controlled. Just raw kinetic intent meant to break distance and rip her opponent out of the blade lock.

The pressure hit like a shockwave. And Seris moved with it. The instant resistance gave—whether a stagger, a forced step, or even the smallest shift—she lunged, refusing to let the space remain empty for more than a heartbeat. Her saber whipped up from the bind into a savage, unrefined arc, a wild horizontal strike aimed across Silara’s midsection.

Not clean. Not disciplined. Fast, angry, and slightly overcommitted—driven more by instinct and momentum than form. The kind of strike meant to overwhelm, to force a reaction, to drag the fight back into chaos where Seris felt most alive.

Her eyes burned as she pressed forward into it, already prepared to chain the next motion before this one even finished. No pause. No reset. Just pressure.