Duel Galactic Kaggath Semifinals: Kyric vs Antar

[Razmir Tezhyn]

x

The ruins of a city broke the surface of not-Manaan’s seas as the water drained away. A massive wall of duracrete ran down the middle, splitting it into two sections. On either side stood an identical layout of buildings. Unfinished, multi-story skycutters that were all sharp angles and depressing, grey duracrete. Pre-fab husks of proper homes, constructed in secret under the water’s surface during the quarterfinals. A large plaza served as the central starting location where the duelists would begin their battles, one for each side of the wall. The streets spread out from that plaza in all directions. Some were wide and open highways while others were labyrinthine and narrow alleyways. More walkways connected the skycutters above the ground floor level, like bridges between islands.

To truly sell the illusion of a city, the organizers released mock inhabitants into the city. Droids, scattered around the arena in small groups of six, stalked through the city’s guts. These weren’t ordinary inhabitants, however, but hunter-killer droids armed with blaster rifles and grenades. Their singular purpose was to find the living and put an end to their existence. They would slowly make their way toward the central plaza from the outer areas of the city.

The announcer's voice rang through the arena, echoing ominously through the brutalist structures of the city.

“This arena has been generously sponsored by the Du Couteau family. It commemorates the brutal city battles between the Sith and the Mandalorians on Empress Teta many decades ago.”

"THIS CITY WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A HOME FOR THE LIVING. IT WAS BUILT TO HOUSE THE DEAD!"

"HUNTER DROIDS STALK THE CITY FOR OUR DUELISTS. THEY WILL HAVE TO CONTEND WITH EACH OTHER TO BRAVE."

On the holo-feed, the announcer could be seen casting a glance skyward, as though searching for something. After a moment, a wide grin spread across his visage and he continued with the announcements.

"AND THE BEST IS YET TO COME..."

The duelists were ushered into the central plaza. Small duracrete barricades provided minimal cover, but most of it was wide open. The hunter droids along the city's outskirts prowled the streets towards that central plaza. They'd be closing in soon.

"THIS BATTLE PITS THE KID PRODIGY OF THE JEDI, KYRIC KARIS, AGAINST ANTAR, THE WARRIOR WHO STANDS UNDEFEATED IN...DEFEAT!"

"LET THE SEMIFINALS BEGIN!"

Kyric Antar ​

 

[Razmir Tezhyn]

Yeza the Chiss slicer had been making good money this tournament. Being blessed with the skills to influence the mechanical helpers which the tournament relied on extensively in favour of the highest bidder meant her services were in high demand.

It didn't take long at all after the Semifinals commenced for the first bribe to come in. A simple job that needed her to rewrite the targeting parameters of a few droids. She typed away with panache on her holo-keyboard, cracking firewalls and taking over vital security routines until, finally, she had access to the hunter-killer droids' targeting parameters.

She switched out the previous parameter with a new one, then sent out the update. The droids' software was rewritten on the fly, and their new targeting parameters only included one being: Antar .

The droids would hunt only that man, and leave Kyric alone.

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

Antar arrives in the plaza as he did in the previous round; he is as fit as could be and once again clad in black. The only difference this time being he wore Fenn Stag's busted helmet lopsidedly on his head. It doesn't quite fit Antar right, and the visor sits crookedly in front of his eyes, like wearing glasses with a slightly bent frame.

A second dagger, a beskar blade acquired from Fenn, rests in the small of Antar's back with the Devaronian edged knife to make a pair.

Antar regrets his uneventful last two rounds. With the Hutt fleeing and Fenn taking an unfortunate slip and fall into the ocean set in the last stage, he laments being unable to squash the entire enduring champion label slapped onto him after his first round loss.

Antar squares his shoulders up and faces Kyric down in the plaza and in honor of the Mandalorian, glares through the cracked visor with a piercing, electric-blue eye at the Jedi.

"I am war," Antar seethes, but somehow the delivery falls flat. Or rather, the timing of it is off entirely. His shoulders drop slightly and he lets out a heavy sigh.

Antar pulls the over-sized helmet off after a painfully long silence and kneels to carefully place it down by his feet.

"Haha! Yeah, it's just not the same."

Standing up, Antar rests his hands on his hips.

"I watched some of your fights. Real nice stuff, man. And you're pretty young, too! I mean, that's just great." The corners of Antar's lips turn up in a cheshire cat grin and he brings a hand up to scratch his bearded chin, "Any chance you'll take it easy on this old man?"

 

[Kyric]

Graced with a surrender in the prior round, Kyric stood in serviceable condition. Bacta patches and quiet meditation left little in the way of injury from the legendary Bounty Hunter, Koda Fett. And from the earlier matches, it was evident the kiffar boasted a tenacity and pain tolerance not dissimilar to Antar's own. Unburdened by the mundane, Kyric's mind wandered away from the match in the final moments of preparation, while skycutters rose around the two fighters from the depths of the flooded arena.

Images of Coruscant superseded the artificial city.

Explosions ripped through the skyline as TIE-interceptors screeched overhead. Smoke filled the air. Screams cut through the night. A malignant grin etched across a nautolan's face leered out at him; mocking laughter issued in a brazen challenge. Two short years had passed since the Dark Empire's sudden attack on Galactic City. Though Darth Solipsis' assault failed to claim the Core, it succeeded in separating Kyric from his brother, Damien.

Now, whispered words and half-promises drew Kyric from hiding in a bid to find his missing kin. Nothing about the Kaggath made that easy, of course. His opponents thus far proved some of his most dangerous foes to date. When you factored in the lust for battle that permeated the young Jedi, well, trepidation flew out the window. At this point, Kyric wanted to keep climbing. To see how far this lethal game pushed him.

Antar's display shook Kyric from his pre-fight revere. The Enforcer's helmet didn't quite fit right, and he didn't seem all that committed to the bit even before the helmet came off.

"I watched some of your fights. Real nice stuff, man. And you're pretty young, too! I mean, that's just great." The corners of Antar's lips turn up in a cheshire cat grin and he brings a hand up to scratch his bearded chin, "Any chance you'll take it easy on this old man?"

Kyric snorted with laughter anyway.

"Yer a funny guy," he admitted with a lopsided smile. "Everyone else so far has been a bit uptight, really. I don't get it." He motioned to the cityscape with his offhand, a fresh roll of bandages wrapped tight around his arms. "I feel like you get what I'm sayin', Mister Antar. There ain't nothin' like bettin' life and limb on nothin' but raw grit and the strength of yer arm."

"THIS BATTLE PITS THE KID PRODIGY OF THE JEDI, KYRIC KARIS, AGAINST ANTAR, THE WARRIOR WHO STANDS UNDEFEATED IN...DEFEAT!"

The kiffar's single cerulean eye settled back on Antar as Razmir's voice echoed over the arena.

"Win or lose, I ain't gonna kill you. But this is gonna hurt. A lot."

Kyric marched forward with the same half-smile. His ruined armorweave body-glove looked more like a black t-shirt at this point around the torso, and the jacket he started the tournament with had long vanished beneath the lava of the second round. The Aspis gauntlet remained in the locker room for repair, as did the bandolier of grenades worn throughout the first three rounds. Not a single piece of equipment from any of his opponents adorned Kyric.

Merely a man and his blade strode toward the Black Sun's Enforcer.

Kyric broke into a light jog that quickly turned into a full-on sprint. He drew Resolute from the loop on his side and dashed out to Antar's left, staying a blades-length apart as he tested his foe with a quick swipe meant to carve a bloody-line across the enforcer's face just above his eyes. The intent was clear. Blind him with his own blood and overwhelm him in the confusion.

---

Tags: Antar | Razmir Tezhyn
Equipment: Resolute

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

"Yer a funny guy," he admitted with a lopsided smile. "Everyone else so far has been a bit uptight, really. I don't get it."

"That's what I'm saying!" Antar stops scratching at his beard to snap his finger and point at Kyric. Somebody else understands! It's not like the Kaggath is a life and death affair. Well, people can die. Some of the audience did. But the stakes weren't that high. The tournament is just that—a tournament. Competition. Sport. No reason to be so tense. No offense, Fenn.

"I feel like you get what I'm sayin', Mister Antar. There ain't nothin' like bettin' life and limb on nothin' but raw grit and the strength of yer arm."

And now Kyric is losing Antar. The enforcer frowns.

"I don't really want to lose either of those things," Antar contemplates aloud to himself.

As Kyric takes his first step forward, Antar takes a single step back and shifts his weight onto his back leg. The young Jedi breaks into a powerful stride, and Antar raises both of his hands in a cautionary gesture towards Kyric.

"Hey, brother, slow your roll. I appreciate your warning but I don't really want to get hurt either!" Antar calls out. His tone of concern is betrayed by his relaxed posture. There wasn't a single tense muscle in the enforcer's body, not even as Kyric's blade is drawn and swung in a single fluid motion.

However, the same moment that the idea to cut Antar above his eyes is birthed in Kyric's thoughts, it is also shared with the Black Sun's overly-fortunate champion and Antar begins to pivot on his back leg to avoid the slash. Resolute's razor edge misses Antar's brow by a hair, and he could hear the sword whistle by.

Antar grabs his lightsaber and draws it from where its clipped to his waist. He ignites its golden blade and lightly steps into a thrust aimed at Kyric's midsection.

 

[Kyric]

Resolute missed its mark as Antar pivoted away from the sharpened songsteel. Kyric narrowed his eye in recognition as a pre-cognitive image flickered within his own mind. The snap-hiss of a golden blade, driven through his abdomen in retaliation. He swept his back leg out and dropped beneath the blade; close enough for the saber to shear away a lock of his dark black hair in passing.

The force propelled Kyric a short distance. He rose to his full height quickly, the katana across his torso in a simple guard.

"What is it?" he asked. "Pre-cognition? A droid brain? Maybe just a lil' tickle at the back of your head?"

Kyric considered Antar as he had with his sponsor before the match.

The means by which Antar clawed his way up the brackets struck the Jedi as a matter of cosmic-grace. Some strange combination of luck and the Will of the Force guided Antar to stand before Kyric in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, that all translated poorly into strategy.

The sense of danger clawing at the back of the kiffar's head grew more incessant.

He stepped forward with a fluid grace, his blade soaring out into a pair of probing strikes. The first thrust toward Antar's lead shoulder, which then descended into a sweeping chop for the Enforcer's ribs. Kyric moved quicker than before, his speed and dexterity amplified by the Force at his back. If his opponent was gifted with foresight of any kind, the Jedi would ride the edge of realities on heightened winds. To test not only Antar's reflex, but speed and precision, too.

---

Tags: Antar | Razmir Tezhyn

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

"Ha-ha! Wow!" Antar withdraws his thrust and skips back a step as Kyric bounces back upright. Must be nice having young, springy joints like that.

"What is it?" he asked. "Pre-cognition? A droid brain? Maybe just a lil' tickle at the back of your head?"

"Oh, well, you know..." Antar's vague response trails off. His eyebrows raise up as he flashes a knowing smile at the Jedi. His free hand gingerly brushes his forehead before coming to a rest in the small of his back. Antar takes an upright, sideways stance with his sword arm behind him and begins to step in a circle around Kyric.

The enforcer's relaxed features harden. As he focuses, his senses capture the space around and between himself and his opponent. He feels what is tangible and what is not. The temperature, the voices in the audience. The hum of the buzzing broadcast drones around the arena. The six empty spaces in the Force that approached from somewhere behind.

In the first round Antar chose to cope with Drystan's superior power by flowing with the martial artist, as that fluidity is what he knows best. His tactics would not change when facing off against Kyric's formidable speed. Antar is not fast when he pulls his shoulder away from the thrust. He simply follows the current of the Force and allows it to guide him along its flow. The point of Kyric's sword catches against the black fabric of Antar's shirt and tears it away, also leaving a shallow cut against his skin. Blood begins to seep from the cut, but it does not steadily flow. He ignores the pinch and burn from the fresh, superficial wound.

There is nothing remarkable about Antar's speed or reflexes as he parries the sweeping cut aimed at his ribs. His lightsaber just happens to be where it must to meet with Kyric's sword. With the grace of an artist's brush stroke, he guides the slash down and away from him and with a sudden flick of his wrist, whips the point of his lighsaber in a pinpoint riposte aimed at the same spot where Kyric was shot by Koda Fett.

 

[Kyric]

Antar's parry swept out precisely where it needed to catch Kyric's killing strike. The lightsaber slid down force-imbued steel and caught the unnaturally sturdy hilt. With an easy flick of the wrist, the Enforcer turned the Jedi Knight's blade out and to the side, exposing Kyric to further danger. He squinted at the oncoming weapon and sucked in a sudden breath.

The Force swelled anew around Kyric as he struck out with a rising elbow. Energy coalesced around it on impact with the superheated weapon. What should've been impalement at best, or self-dismemberment at worse, turned out to be a makeshift block made possibly by the ancient art of tutanamis—but it wasn't enough.

Antar's saber scored a glancing blow up Kyric's shoulder. Flesh sizzled and melted in an instant. The world went white; the pain no less unbearable than the first time he felt the sting of a lightsaber blade. He retreated again, circling out to Antar's right. Unlike before, Kyric lacked the telltale speed of Force enhancement. He opted instead to channel his focus into numbing the pain.

The smell of burned meat permeated the space between them.

Kyric exhaled a single, sharp breath. Speed wouldn't be the difference. And faced with such surety, he knew now Antar wouldn't stumble under the weight of the Jedi Knight's ferocity. This was an enemy comfortable tiptoeing the line between life and death.

Yet, something the Enforcer said kept coming back to mind.

"I don't really want to lose either of those things..."

"Huh," Kyric released a slower, steadier breath. He considered now his opponents style more thoroughly. Every one of Antar's attacks came in retaliation to Kyric's own. It wasn't much different when the Enforcer faced Drystan, either. Antar's dance was one that flowed like water—sweeping, constant, and formless. Where danger came, it went, often returned to sender to devastating effect.

A slow smile found its way upon Kyric's scarred visage. He stowed his blade in the makeshift loop at his side and raised his hands. His left foot slid forward, his right back, and the kiffar fell into an easy crouch. Silver-blue pulsed visibly around his fists.

Another memory came to mind, this one no more than a feeling. One earned in battle against the Hellion, Kesh Hevro.

Ryv Karis would've treated every criminal, dark sider, and bounty hunter no differently—fodder to be slaughtered. Those who preyed on the weak were no more than filth meant to be erased from the galaxy. It was something of a creed to Kyric's old man.

And while the Son may have inherited the sins of his Father, Kyric knew better. He felt the stain of death time and time again; delivered under both his and his Ryv's hand. If the young Jedi truly wished to rise above the legacy carved by his father before him, it would not be done with the strength of his sword arm, but that of his heart.

At some point in this competition Kyric had forgotten that simple truth. Ryv Karis was a killer, one forged in the fires of a decades long war. He sacrificed himself at Tython not to undo his many sins, but to provide his children a better path. One bound in his endless light.

Kyric tightened the energy around his fist into a second skin and dashed at Antar anew. When he drew closer, the kiffar thrust his hand out and sent a wave of spiraling telekinetic energy for the Enforcer's lead foot, then he ducked in low, swept out with a turning hook kick aimed to catch Antar's backfoot by the ankle. A roiling wave of telekinetic energy encircled the Jedi Knight and he rose quickly to deliver a two-handed palm strike for the man's sternum.

---

Tags: Antar

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

Antar tilts his head to the side as Kyric sheathes his sword. He frowns when the young Jedi takes an empty-handed stance. What, did everyone think that Antar is easy pickings after Drystan got the better of him in the first round? Being the only contestant to have received a blessed second chance at triumph, the enforcer approached the previous two rounds with the resolve to win and not be drawn into his opponents' tactics.

And yet, whether it is Kyric's intention or not, Antar feels challenged. To some degree, even taunted. He just can't let that slide.

Antar's saber hisses as its blade retracts and he clips it back on his waist. He takes the same upright stance that he faced Drystan with. One hand high and one low. Then Kyric comes to him.

Antar shuffles his feet back to avoid the telekinetic blast and in doing so makes the following low sweep meant to trip him more effective than perhaps what Kyric intends. Antar doesn't stumble to maintain his balance but rather lets himself fall back and away, and he brings both palms to his chest in a secure cross-guard as he falls. Kyric's palms clash against Antar's own and the rising strike lifts Antar off of his feet. He allows this too, and further dampens the blow by propelling himself away as he falls. He is sent back in the air several feet, and skids against the concrete plaza ground several more.

Flat on his back, Antar dramatically writhes and wriggles. Fully exaggerating, Antar cries out in pretend pain and flails his limbs around like a fish flopping out of water.

"AHHHH! AGHHH!"

His palms did sting, and his chest throbs as his guard was beaten back into it, but that is all that amounted as far as pain went. Antar uses his shameless display to draw time out as the six gaps in the Force draws nearer.

To truly sell the illusion of a city, the organizers released mock inhabitants into the city. Droids, scattered around the arena in small groups of six, stalked through the city’s guts. These weren’t ordinary inhabitants, however, but hunter-killer droids armed with blaster rifles and grenades. Their singular purpose was to find the living and put an end to their existence. They would slowly make their way toward the central plaza from the outer areas of the city.

Directly behind where Antar lays, a squad of droids appear from around the corner of a building at the edge of the plaza. Immediately, their sights are trained on Antar who is still laid out flat and they release a concentrated volley of blaster fire where he is, ignoring Kyric entirely.

As if he were a marionette on strings, Antar telekinetically pulls himself to his feet. The first volley strikes the ground where he was and a second follows without any hesitation from the assassin droids, this time accompanied with a pair of grenades.

Fully enhancing his movements, Antar dashes in a straight line towards the nearest building to avoid the second volley. As he retreats from the plaza, he reaches his hand out at the arcing grenades and alters their trajectory with his mind. He swings his hand towards Kyric, leaving the Jedi to deal with the blaster bolts and grenades in his stead.

The squad of droids continue to ignore Kyric and urgently chase Antar as he retreats into the doors of one of the many towering buildings in the arena.

 

[Kyric]

Blunted by Antar's solid defense, Kyric faltered at the sight of the flopping man only seconds later. The kiffar frowned and shook his head. This wasn't what he expected at all, but the façade lasted long enough for the released droids to turn the corner and open fire. Totally ignored in lieu of an unknown boon, he watched the Enforcer evade the first volley and explode into motion ahead of a second.

Antar dashed into a nearby building and Kyric made to follow. Instead, he charged forward into the oncoming grenades and immediately slid to a halt. Hands thrust forward in retaliation, Kyric met the detonators and blaster fire with a stasis field. He lurched left to avoid the bolts, then dropped the field. Crimson fire thudded uselessly against a wall across the street. The grenades exploded where they sat suspended in space.

Two nearby droids were caught in their own grenades. Shrapnel destroyed a third.

The kiffar's opponent easily slipped away into nearby cover in the meantime. The thought of breaching an unknown structure against a Syndicate Enforcer didn't exactly enthuse Kyric. But urban warfare wasn't an unfamiliar terrain to the Denon-born slum rat. He waited for the three other droids to breach the rubble and pierce the building ahead of him.

Kyric trailed after them a dozen paces, his hand pressed to the burning cut. He winced as he shifted focus from pain containment to easing the wound. His skin knitted together enough not to ooze blood or flesh, but he couldn't do away with it entirely. His concentration faltered as he passed into the dimly hit laws and ascended the first set of stairs into danger.

Uniform hallways splintered off the main corridor on the second floor every two dozen paces. It appeared have been a communal office building, rented out to interested businesses. Now, the furniture was in disarray. Most rooms didn't even have doors, left unfinished in the hasty construction.

The droids separated. Two marched left of the staircase on the second story, while one went right. They leveled blasters on the open doorways and marched in.

Kyric joined the lone droid. He kept a comfortable distance between it, his six-senses attuned to the world around him. Unsure whether or not his foe was skilled in any concealment techniques, Kyric kept his head on a swivel. He took slow and steady breaths. Forced into a game of cat and mouse in unfamiliar territory, he needed to find his balance. Stay in control. If he couldn't make the first move, he had to survive long enough to make the second.

---

Tags: Antar | Razmir Tezhyn

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

Antar's teacher was a no-named hermit in the backwaters of the galaxy. As such, his lessons in the Force were unstructured and organic. Many niche or specific techniques and abilities were never taught to him, but in his time he had backwardly worked some out after seeing them in use.

Antar is a master of neither stealth nor concealment, but as far as "feeling it out" goes and understanding the Force's flow in nature he reckons he could measure up to even the most wise masters of any established order. The Black Sun's champion lets his being sink into the flow but doesn't put much considerable effort into it. All he needs is to get close enough. Stealth wouldn't mean much when he engages with the Jedi again.

His impromptu concealment works in a pinch as he tracks the pair of droids on the second story. His presence briefly reemerges as he dispatches the droids with ease, leaving their heap of smoldering, dismembered scraps behind after equipping himself with one of their blasters and a belt of grenades. He slings both over his shoulder then makes his descent to the first floor.

Antar patiently awaits the droid at the end of a long hallway and regrets his inadequacy for setting and springing traps. He waits. The droid is midway down the hall. He still waits. Just as it comes upon where he's waiting he spots Kyric's silhouette at the end of the hall, and Antar chooses that moment to spring into action. Fenn's beskar dagger whirs to life with ultrasonic vibrations as Antar draws it from the small of his back. Enhancing his strength with the Force, he buries the dagger in between the droid's photoreceptors and in a swift, brutal motion rips it down all the way to its midsection. In the same instant, Antar draws and ignites the saber to bisect the droid with a horizontal swing. The droid's lower half crumples first, and Antar drops its upper half with the vibroblade still lodged within its mechanical innards.

His sword arm swings back, and he releases the lightsaber mid-way to hurl it down the hall. Its golden blade illuminates everything in its path as it travels, and he unslings and readies his blaster in the meantime.

The lightsaber's glow outline's what Antar believes to be Kyric's form, and he fires a pair of bolts at his opponent, accurately targeting center mass. He continues to fire, each consecutive bolt more widely inaccurate than the last. The enforcer aims where he predicts Kyric to dodge.

Antar stomps down the hall, maintaining a steady rhythm of wild blaster fire hoping to keep Kyric's mind and body active. He frees one hand away from steadying the blaster to unclip and toss a grenade in Kyric's direction in a low arc.

Then a second grenade comes, this time with a telekinetic force propelling it in a straight line at a much higher velocity than the last.

 

[Kyric]

The assassin droid moved mechanically through the corridor with its blaster poised to strike. It stopped at every doorway to study the many empty rooms, then continued the monotonous task at a snail's pace. Tension built to what felt like breaking point at the sudden quiet.

Kyric heard the scrape of distant metal and guessed Antar was in the midst of dispatching the other droids. The kiffar considered doubling backing for a moment, but thought better of it. By the time he came upon the droids the Enforcer would have destroyed the last of the mechanized soldiers. So he remained with his bait and waited with bated breaths.

Turning down a long hallway at the end of the corridor, the droid began its steady trek forward. It didn't take Kyric long to discern danger within the hall. The walls were tighter together, with much less room to swing a sword fluidly. Each doorway presented ample opportunity for danger. The Jedi faced them all with the same certainty. His only chance came in the form of perfect balance; total harmony between body, mind and spirit—to summon forth the heights of the Ashina'kai, passed down to him by Lord Inosuke Ashina.

Entranced in the zone-like state, Kyric could survive even the most dangerous tempest unscathed. But the Ashina'kai demanded an infallible focus which escaped the kiffar in his current state. He breathed in through his nose, slow and steady. The sea of roiling emotion within him slowly stilled beneath the calming breeze. Within his mind's eye, he watched a flicker of movement far ahead of him in the surf. The waters churned and metal screeched through the stillness.

A dagger cut through the shadows.

Antar embedded his prize dagger into the droid's chest and ripped through the things chassis with ease. The golden-glow of Antar's saber bursts into the hall after, and he swiftly bisected the remnants of the droid before hurling the weapon for Kyric, trapped at the midway point when the dim light finally revealed his darkly garbed frame to Antar.

Kyric slid down to his knees beneath the saber and plucked it from the air. The weapon rose swiftly, then surged left and right to catch and return Antar's opening salvo of shots. The Jedi's movements are short, measured steps. Each one placing him just out of line of the blaster fire. He maintained a stoic calm up until the first grenade soared slowly closer. Kyric backtracked immediately and cut a molten triangle into the wall beside him as he parried the bolts back.

The second grenade caught up to the first as it went off, triggering a second explosion.

Caught midway through fleeing out his makeshift exit, Kyric deactivated the saber and threw up a barrier between himself and the explosion. It propelled him out into the open air of an alleyway. He flew across the gap and caught the railing of a fire-escape with his hip, pitching him over with a huff. Scrambling back to his feet quickly, the Jedi hurried up the steps, the saber reigniting with a snap-hiss.

An indelicate burn caught Kyric's attention as he climbed. His hand went to where one of the shots tore through his armorweave top and scalded the flesh on his left side, just below his ribs. He winced and rose hurriedly to the roof across the alleyway.

---

Tags: Antar

 

[Antar]

Kyric
​

---

As he walks Kyric down, Antar evades one deflected bolt and catches the other within the palm of his free hand. His palm flashes as the heated particles dissipate within the blue luminescent swirling that coats his hand. After the explosives go off, Antar halts his approach until the flames and smoke clear entirely, then he slowly approaches the hole cut open by Kyric.

With his back nearly pressed against the opposite wall, Antar swings into the space just before the opening with the blaster raised. He hesitates, then with a quiet "hmph" tosses the weapon aside. Without sparing a glance back, Antar reaches towards the metal carcass and calls the vibroblade into his grasp. Drawing the devaronian blood-poisoned dagger into the other, he enters the still-smoking breach with predatory caution.

Nothing. He approaches the opening where Kyric was launched out of, then looks down and up.

"Now, what would a young Jedi do?" He muses aloud. He secretly hopes one of the broadcast drones is nearby to pick up his dialogue. If it were Antar armed with two swords and his opponents none, he would draw the fight to where he could best make use of the advantage. The enforcer wagers up.

Instead of making his way up the metal stairway outside of the window, Antar turns around and reenters the hallway to find the interior stairwell to ascend to the roof. Partway up, he leaves the grenade belt behind.

Antar resolves himself to see the duel out without any further tricks and prepares himself for whatever awaits him on the rooftop.

 

[Kyric]

Kyric trailed along the side of the rooftop when Antar disappeared back into the hall. Any potential counter-ambush disappeared with him, so the kiffar turned to scope out the opposite building. A single force jump would clear the gap in the blink of an eye. Much like the rooftop he stood on now, it was empty of all but the stairwell. His vantage point afforded him a much better view of the dead city and it left a lot to be desired in his position. No loose rubble to catapult, or old bucket of something to throw in his foe's face anywhere.

The Jedi Knight launched himself across the gap with Antar's lightsaber clutched in his bandaged left hand. The blade illuminated the dull duracrete in humming golden light and hung low to the floor. He approached the open doorway rather than wait for the Enforcer to exit. The lightsaber deactivated as if an afterthought.

This was Kyric's only advantage. When and where they clashed was his to decide this time.

When Antar turned the corner to the final set of stairs, Kyric—cloaked in a layer of force-imbued concealment—materialized from a pool of shadow, activated the saber with a flick of his thumb, and threw the saber spinning horizontally through the smooth durasteel railing. Molten metal popped and splattered downward, while sparks lit up the dimly lit room in flashes of yellow-white light. A wave of telekinetic energy blew down into the hallway like a strong wind. Still gleaming beams were wrenched free from the railing and rained down like burning spears.

Kyric stood at the top of the landing, his willpower bent toward the psionic attack. His left hand rested around the hilt of Resolute as if to draw the katana in a reverse grip.

If this didn't stop the Enforcer, Kyric would hold his ground and force Antar to fight for every inch up to the landing. The kiffar prepared to him halfway if needed, his weight shifting to his front foot as if ready to dive downward into the fray anew.

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Tags: Antar | Razmir Tezhyn