This is the first fic that I wrote in english. If there are (and I'm pretty sure there would be) grammar errors, incorrect expressions, etc., please tell me! =)

And please review... ;-)


Prelude

32 after the Battle of Endor

If taverns, casinos and nightclubs were commonplace in Coruscan's Underworld, the illegally organized fighting games were less so. Therefore, when set in motion, these games were run by all that Coruscant had of gangsters, smugglers, bounty hunters and criminals of any quality in addition to the ordinary citizens, who came there to seek their dose of strong emotions, and maybe make some money in (hopefully) well placed bets.

When Deryn Keloers enrolled herself in the Arena Games of the Lower levels, she knew that there was no turning back for her. It was fighting of the highest caliber, involving participants from all species, without fear and without mercy, extremely gifted in this item. Two fights on five ended with the death of one of the opponents. She feared neither death nor pain, but she was aware that one of these fighters could be more gifted, stronger and faster than her. In reality, she was convinced that there was more than one, but she couldn't allow doubting herself. She had to win these games. For this, she therefore had to rely on her know-how, her strength, her speed and her acute mind to achieve this. She could only rely on herself.

Looking back at the last six months, she thought that she had performed well enough : of the 22 opponents that she had faced 4 were now cold. Out of these 22 battles, she had lost only three. Conscious of the role she was to play, she had strategically lost these fights, picking opponents that she considered sufficiently credible for it to pass for a momentary weakness on her part, without damaging the reputation she had built. She had become a darling among the fans. Her physical appearance that had been so deserving to her at the beginning of the tournament, because she was a beautiful small fragile thing, those aspects were now the emblem of her strength and of her genius. Her supporters spoke of her beauty, proud that their favorite was not an ugly lice as some other fighters were.

Deryn didn't care what they thought of her. Her physical appearance was only a tool like her blaster, or her fists. She used it when it could be useful. She had only one goal in mind and she never lost sight of it. Once it is reached, the second part of the plan would deploy and she would have another role to play. Until this moment, she was focusing her energies on the combats, and offered herself no distraction.

Rakun – the one who had facilitated the path for her up to the Arena – had numerous opportunities to ask himself if the young woman was not a little bit crazy to fight in the Arena. She risked her skin each time. For him, Deryn Keloers was a courageous young woman, determined, clever and with an extraordinary ability to adapt to every circumstances life throws at her. He believed that her talents would be better used anywhere than in this slaughter!

Eight months earlier, when she came to see him and ask him to push her registration for the Arena Games of the Lower levels of Coruscant, he choked on his corellien rum of twenty years of age, thus losing a precious sip of this expensive alcohol. Sadly for him, it was only the beginning of his amazement, because for Deryn, the Games were just a way to get noticed and hired by Etuh Samwell, a crime lord. He had protested, saying that if this was her wish, there were others ways to get to Samwell: he could recommend her to a friend of a friend who spawned in the circles of this crime lord. She had flatly refused, claiming that she wanted to go there incognito, but he did not push the subject any further. It was well-known that Samwell recruited among the fighters of the Arena Games, and Deryn knew that, soon, he would be in dire need of bodyguards. She wanted to be the person responsible for his safety. Rakun asked her about her motivations, trying again to make her change idea, but in the end, Deryn struck him the coup de grace by citing his blood debt to her. A Cathar never forgets a debt, especially a blood debt. Resigned, he had accepted and Deryn had assured him that this would erase his debt in full, but if he blew a word of this to anyone, she would consider that he had betrayed their agreement, what was worst of all for a Cathar. It was the ultimate threat and Rakun suspected, with reason, that Deryn didn't say everything. He sealed his promise in his own blood. Deryn lectured him then the terms of the contract.

He found that the exchange was not fair, but he had promised. While she fought and won almost all her fights, Rakun wisely placed his pawns in order to put the plan of Deryn in place. Today, after all these months of shenanigans and manipulations, he had reached the goal.

He went to find Deryn, who was sitting alone in a corner of the stinky locker room, the eve of the final battle of the Arena Games. She only had one fight to win this evening and she will be in the championship.

She looked up at his arrival, her face expressionless, but Rakun knew her well enough now to know that this was only a facade. Over the months, they had developed what could be called a strange friendship.

"Samwell wants you," he said simply.

She stayed without saying anything for long seconds.

"Thank you Rakun."

Outside the locker room, Rakun stopped, feeling bad. What has he just done?

Under the acclaimed name of Miri Goya, Deryn won her fight that night and passed in the final championship in the Arena Games of the Undercity of Coruscant.

...

At the arena the next day, Deryn felt feverish, nervous, and slightly melancholic. She had not had her droid with her for several months now and she missed him dearly. Her BB unit had the gift of making her laugh and distracting her, but it was precisely which she did not need at this time. BB2 would have to wait.

The locker room was deserted, because there would only be one fight tonight, hers versus Par Qofa, a terrifying Weequay whose name alone makes his formers adversaries shudder in terror. "The ones alive, of course ", she added to herself. The echo of her laugh went crashing into the walls, making her feel how really alone she was. While sitting on the bench that ran along a gray wall, encrusted with dirt, she pulled out of her pocket her communicator which she held in her hand a long time. Nobody expected her anywhere. She already said goodbye to the only person who knew exactly in what kind of adventure she was getting into.

She put her comm back in her bag with a non-audible sigh. She wished that she could be afraid, worried, anything beside the loneliness that she felt.

A half-hour before the start of the fight, Rakun came into the locker room, wearing a golden jacket so bright that she had to cover her eyes to look at him.

"Are you challenging the sun now?" she asked him smiling weakly.

She was a little queasy, to tell the truth and had lost her usual bite.

Rakun, noticing it, took place beside her on the bench, a concerned expression on his face.

"Will you be ok?"

"Of course!" she lied with a big smile.

Rakun was not fooled by her apparent happiness, but dodged the topic entirely, feeling that it will go nowhere. It was not the first time that he didn't dare engaging in conversation with her.

"I just have to survive this battle!" she exclaimed, joyfully as if the perspective of getting killed was just like any other thing that she did every day. For all he knew, that may well be the case.

Rakun threw her a puzzled look. He never got her kind of humor. He had to admit, Deryn was the most beautiful singular woman that he had ever encountered.

Seeing that Rakun will not share her joke, she pouts: she felt so misunderstood! Rakun got up and she stood up with him. He clasped her in his arms and wished her good luck. Deryn found that it was really a farewell. Or a dead sentence. She didn't know which of the two was the more sinister.

"You are alone from now on," he said to her.

"I am. Thank you again Rakun. And... Rakun? May the Force be with you!"

Rakun shook his head and came out of the locker room without adding anything more. The door slammed shut on him in silence, and Deryn was left definitely and utterly alone.

When she arrived on the outskirts of the arena, the arena was plunged in total darkness. She heard the murmurs of the crowd, but it remained invisible to her eyes. She remembered the arena, the spotlights turned on the fighters, and the nameless faces, excited, thirsty for blood, crashing against the walls of wire mesh that were lost in the heights of the arena.

This was the point of no return. She will win or she will die.

In the stands, Rakun was there watching, praying to the Source of all life to let her win. Elsewhere, far away, on a base that she didn't expect to see again in her life, was the person at the head of the cause to which she had sworn allegiance to: the general of the Resistance, Léïa Organa. She asked the Force to guide her in all things, and stepped into the light.

In the dim light of the Arena, in the middle of the excited supporters, the scent of alcohol and the peculiar smell of the Lower levels – a mix of old oil and recycled air – the agent Kris Pivun of the Resistance, under the guise of a bounty hunter, was waiting for the fight to begin. The crowd thronged around him without ever touching him, as if something in his demeanor was sending the clear message to stay the hell away.

Around him, the thrilled whispering of the spectators were increasing, rising in crescendo with the imminent arrival of the fighters. The atmosphere was febrile, nervous. He let his gaze wander over the faces tense with anticipation next to him and was surprised to feel the same tension, the same contagious pleasure.

A light appeared suddenly in the center of the arena, making the crowd roar. Deryn stepped forward into the light and greeted the people sitting in the stands. Exalted cheers broke out from all sides. Kris felt more than he saw the lust, the adulation and the envy, directed toward Deryn.

She was not the favorite, but she had managed to gain the sympathy of several supporters. When Qofa came into the light a few moments after her, the shouts and screams of the spectators filled the square, in a deafening cacophony.

Qofa shot her an indifferent look, as if she did not really deserve to be his opponent in spite of her many victories. Everything in his attitude said how confident he was that he will take only a bite out of this human, but that was part of the character, and Kris wasn't too worried about it. He knew what Deryn was capable of and had total confidence in her.

As for Deryn, she was nervous, a little bit frightened and at the same time absurdly confident. It was ridiculous of course. She had to face and fight the Weequay, the champion of five titles in a row of the illegal games of the Lower levels of Coruscant. She could almost see what Par Qofa saw when he looked at her : a human woman at the beginning of her thirties, athletic, certainly, but fragile, so fragile with her beautiful face, in which glowed two topaz colored eyes, and from which seemed to emanate a certain vulnerability.

Vulnerable was not in her vocabulary, but if that's what he wanted, she will give him that. It was to her to play her part well.

The referee rang the bell, signaling the start of the fight and retired to a corner away from the main center. The referee was only there to ring the bell for each round. This was the full extent of his implication in the match till the end of it. Then, he will announce the winner. The defeated will not be spoken of.

The Weequay walked towards her, with a very confident pace, his dark eyes assessing her peacefully, without fear, because, what does he has to fear in this little girl?

They made the tour of the arena by looking at each other. Deryn took a good look at the Weequay: he had a thick skin, difficult to penetrate and which was able to put up with punches over a long period of time. He wore a leather jacket whom, rumor has it, had been cut into the skin of a very dead former opponent.

She swung and throws her right foot where the stomach of the Weequay should be. Qofa grabbed her foot and sent her flying through the fence. Collapsing to the ground, Deryn gnashed her teeth in shock, but stood up quickly. She decided it was time for a counter-attack type punches in chest-jaw. Despite the muffled growl he let escaped, he did not seem disturbed in the least by her blows. He stepped toward her, quiet, focused, and struck her in the jaw. A creaking thumping was heard despite the ruckus of the place. The blow made her step back and the taste-ferrous blood filled her mouth. She spat to the ground and tried to insert some terror into her look when she glanced back at him. The attentive eyes could see that she was looking at him with a cold calculation. In the following minutes, Deryn received a rain of blows, both to the stomach and the face. Her eyes were swollen, her mouth was bloodied. Her vision was becoming fuzzy quickly. The crowd was silent as it was seeing her face appears on the only screen in the place.

Deryn eluded the next few blows, watching her opponent moves between them. In her head, nor fear nor doubts. Her mind was quiet as she sensed the weaknesses of Par Qofa. It was useless to try to attack him on his vital organs; those were well protected by his thick skin. She decided to let him approach.

Qofa grabbed and pushed her to the ground where he struck her multiple times in the face. Deryn, feeling her face growing warm and wet from the loss of blood, put her arms flat on the floor, raised her pelvis and wrapped her legs around Qofa in a deathly grip. Then she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and lifted it up to his neck. Swiftly, she twisted the ends of the sweater that she brought to the front around his neck and tightened. Qofa tried to get free but he was caught in her legs and the air was beginning to fail him. He struck her again in the face, but she did not cede nor looked like he was doing anything to her. His bulging eyes stare at her, terrified. He tried to bring his hands to his neck, but he did not have enough space. Deryn was maintaining him to close to her. She accentuated her twist on the shirt and the face of Par Qofa turned blue after a few seconds. After what felt like an eternity, his tongue came out of his mouth and a gurgling sound escaped from him, then nothing. The referee approached them and checked on Qofa. He pulled him from her and helped her got up.

Pae Qofa was dead.

The referee then raised her arm, marking her as the winner of the Arena Games of Coruscant's Undercity.

Kris Pivun wore his comm to his mouth and said :

« She's in. »