Kade Kelborn vs. Lady Shambleau

[Sal Katarn]

The chill air of night crept in on the sands of the Petranaki Arena and with it came the spectacle of the midnight games. In the twilight of the Techno Union, a powerful technocrat emerged on Geonosis. He appeased the populace with bloody gladiatorial games in the arena while he robbed them blind with taxes.

There were some whispers that he was a Sith and that the games were merely a test to seek out an apprentice.

Kade Kelborn cared little for those rumors. Sith or no, the technocrat paid victors well. That alone was incentive, even without factoring in the crowd. He could hear their roars now, a thunderous droning, rising and falling in pitch with the rhythm of the fight. Boos of disdain, whoops of exultation.

Bounty hunters seldom had crowds cheering their names. And Kade could not deny the hunger in his heart to hear their roars of approval, to feel the thunder of blood in his head; risking life for the sake of glory and wealth.

He stood now in front of the portcullis, clad in the armor of his people. Greaves, a kneepad and cuisses shielded the front of his thighs and shins, while a kama combat skirt hung to just above the knee for protection against the jetpack's flames.

The warrior rolled a shoulder. His enemy would go for gaps in the armor, unless they'd brought heavy firepower. The most likely point of attack seemed to be the gap between vambrace and shoulder pauldron. That's where he would strike. Take out the arms, render the opponent incapable of wielding equipment. If he took to the sky his armpits would be especially vulnerable. Other problem areas also presented themselves, but Kade's thoughts - already run through a dozen times before - were cut short when the sounds of battle drew to a close and the crowd's shouting rose to a crescendo.

A thrill of excitement raced through him, set his heart pounding and his limbs shaking. The Kelborn clansman curled his fingers tight around the shield emitter in his left hand. The right hand remained conspicuously empty, though the hilt of the sheathed beskad poking up above the right shoulder seemed to indicate otherwise.

"A well fought match," boomed the voice of the announcer. "And now, for our next bout."

The portcullis groaned and began to rise.

"From the mighty clans of Manda'yaim-"

Kade took in deep breath and offered up a prayer to the old god.

"Destroyer, long have I been a reaper of souls in the name of Kad Ha'rangir. Now favor blade in blood this day."

Sand crunched beneath his heavy boots as he strode out into the torch-lit arena.

"-the warrior in red and black. Kade Kelborn."

He stared into the towering stands, where a crowd of tens of thousands cheered into the night. Kade roared back and raised a fist to the heavens.

The announcer continued on, booming voice drawing all attention to the other end of the arena...

[member="Lady Shambleau"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Kade Kelborn"]

"FROM THE...that can't be right, uh...FROM THE SWAMPY WATERLINE OF MEEKA-"

"Mika," said Shambleau, but nobody could hear her.

"-LAAAAYDEEEEE SHAMBLEAU."

She looked, she knew, like an Omwati, a Zeltron, or an Umbaran -- none of them known for being particularly impressive. As equipment went, she didn't have much. Basic armour -- flexible stuff, not long enough to snare her tentacles when she took her true form. A basic personal deflector shield generator, because she was Ke'dem and Ke'dem tanked. Just the one sabre. That was about it.

Well, that and the Pius Dea spells rolling through the back of her mind. She rolled her neck, and inhuman joints clicked. Her crimson lightsabre hissed to life, and she spun it once in her right hand, experimentally. She'd lost the other blade on Cularin last week, to some manwench who brought a squad to a duel.

Red light. Dummmm.

Yellow light. Dummmm.

Green light. Deeeeeem.

 

[Sal Katarn]

Meeka? A place unknown to Kade. No matter. The sand drank any blood offered, regardless of origin.

The Kelborn warrior tilted his chin down, face grim beneath the expressionless T-visor.

"Infrared," he intoned. The heads-up-display activated special imaging capabilities. The sands before him shifted to a grey, while the stands around came alive with thousands of hot white forms, but Kade only focused on one heat signature: the female aruetii, Shamble-Blue.

Kade stalked forward a few steps, stopped, then said loudly, voice muffled by his helmet.

"Fight well."

He doubted she heard him above even the crowd's whispering. Trying to drown them out or ignore them would be futile. So Kade chose instead to revel in it and give them the show they desired.

Without further comment he raised his left arm, aimed the Dur-24 wrist laser and fired with a verbal command.

Bwop

The lancet of red plasma as powerful as a blaster rifle whooshed through the night air and straight toward her center mass.

[member="Lady Shambleau"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Kade Kelborn"]

Shambleau's ignited sabre whipped up into a vertical Makashi salute. The bolt slammed into her blade a tentaclewidth above the emitter. It struck with unusual force for a wrist laser, driving her back half a step until her boots dug into the sand. She'd botched the block, she noted: rather than head straight back at him, the bolt winged off at an angle toward his left shoulder. Still close enough to get a read on him, though. Was he the kind of man to tank the hit? Was he fast enough to lean aside? Did he have a personal shield, or some kind of special gear? More importantly, was he the kind of man who'd flinch or charge or just fire again?

She gauged the range: suitable for a blaster, a bit long for a wrist flamer. Probably. She took another step backward, both to evade a potential flamethrower strike and to give the impression of someone more comfortable at range. And she did have some unusual options when distance was a factor, but there was no harm in coming off as wary of close range. That ploy might tell her something about how willing he was to narrow the gap - and how he handled reengagement. Caution? A charge? A zigzag?

 

[Sal Katarn]

Life’s complicated, thought Kade, except when it isn’t. For instance, someone trying to kill you? You kill them first. Not all that much to it. Didn’t have to be for honor, or the clan, or money. Sometimes it was just a test sent by the gods to weed out the weak. Why? Because the gods wanted to. Didn’t do to question the gods. They’d smile or frown down on mortals as they saw fit.

Right now, they were frowning.

The lightsaber snapped to life. A red saber, which meant dar’jetti. Why? Didn’t matter. If Kade’s enemies wanted to color-coordinate he would not stop them. And everyone knew that a red blade meant a dar’jetti. Life was complicated, except when it wasn’t.

The noise sent a surge of emotions through Kade, fear and anger highest on the list. She smacked the blaster bolt and sent it shrieking back toward him. Kade thumbed the switch on the shield emitter in his left hand. The din’uul hummed to life, a small buckler of shimmering energy that covered his forearm and - by extension - his exposed bicep. He shouldn’t have bothered.

Dar’jetii had precognition and hyper reflexes. Kade had neither.

The bolt of energy missed the vulnerable upper arm and slammed into his beskar pauldron, jerked his shoulder back and left a black smoking pockmark on the armor. Kade grunted, squared himself and rolled the shoulder, testing it. Nothing permanent.

A gout of flames shot from the jetpack, blasting sand and propelling Kade high into the air with a short burst; trajectory a parabolic arc toward [member="Lady Shambleau"]. On the descent, Kade reached back with his right hand and unsheathed the beskad. The dark metal gleamed wickedly in the torchlight. He aimed to touch down a meter in front of the woman from the swamps.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Kade Kelborn"]

Either he was going to slam into her or he was going to stop at really short range, at which point he probably had any number of options. Her first instinct was to back up; instead, she moved in and to the right. In the torchlight, her lightsabre tended to draw the eye. In dim light, people saw what they expected to see. Maybe not Mandalorians, but since when were they people?

Her left arm, low, blurred and warped inside the sleeve of her flexible armour. It lost the semblance of a jointed limb as lengthened to become the genuine article: a Mikan multifunction tentacle. The ribbony indigo appendage snapped out in the dark, a whipcrack aimed at the side and back of his left knee. Turning to continue facing him, she kept her sabre before her body in a noncommittal diagonal guard. The idea was to keep his eyes high, and give the impression of a feint or strike crippled by indecision before it could be launched. In a perfect world, she could at least try and block that beskad. His weapon had mass and heft, and she only had the one hand to commit to a block, but Mikans were stronger than your average human.

 

[Sal Katarn]

She darted in and to his left as his boots met the sand and the roar of the jetpack cut off. The glow of her saber caught his eye. He raised his left arm, elbow bent, dinu'ul held high and ready to fend off a blow from the dar'jetii.

Suddenly, the woman's arm distorted into a long and undulating tendril. What. The appendage blurred low. Kade heard a crack like a bullwhip and the unguarded back of his left knee exploded with crippling pain.

The crowd roared. His rueful surprise, their sweet ambrosia.

Kelborn's mind raced, thoughts snapping through his head in milliseconds. No human is this creature. Least none that he knew. He could not put his full weight on the left leg. His footing was done. If he retreated, she would be all over him, like a wolf on a lamed boar. And who knew what other surprises she held in store? No.

Instinct and muscle memory kicked him into action. He counter-attacked savagely, swinging the beskad in an overhead cut at her left clavicle. Without proper footing, the blow carried less force than it might have otherwise. Even so, the heavy blade would treat that light armor of hers with bruising disregard.

A potentially deadly blow. One she'd have to raise her saber high to catch.

As the blade came down, Kade blurted "Left dart."

Click.

A single dart laced with a fast acting stun agent sprung from his left kneepad and straight for the woman's lower gut. If she tried to catch the beskad with her saber, she would be left vulnerable. Alternatively, her speed might allow her to simply move out of the way.

[member="Lady Shambleau"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Kade Kelborn"]

She couldn't let herself linger on the moment of triumph; instead, she kept her sabre high, moving to block that beskad. It torqued her wrist painfully, despite the nonhuman architecture thereof. She hadn't had the time to get her tentacle back up to join-

A sting, a nasty one. He'd done the exact same thing as her, and that armor, that fething Mando armor let him do things without telegraphing. Like fire stun darts. Her armor was thin, flexible; the dart just barely pierced it, but that was enough. A load of tranq rushed through her blood. It wasn't Mikan-optimized, and she'd spent enough time on Trevel'ka to know detox routines, but those factors could mitigate the hit. They couldn't cancel it.

She took a long, shaky step back, tentacle becoming an arm again, and deactivated her lightsabre. "I yield," she said, voice trembling as she did her best to neutralize the tranq. She could do it -- stay awake, stay on her feet -- but further combat was now out of the question.

 

[Reverance]

Duel goes to [member="Kade Kelborn"], as [member="Lady Shambleau"] has conceded. Fight would have been tough to duel otherwise as it didn't really take off (except for the blaster hit against armor and the whip of the arm). No real critiques, writing was on point and I'm sure this would have gotten interesting had that stun dart not been taken.