It wasn't working. Although the gas pumped out of the grenade at a frenetic pace, rapidly filling the trench and even spilling over its edges, the Jedi didn't seem slowed in the slightest.
Kaleleon
advanced through the clammy haze, his bright blue blade throwing off strange, twisting shadows as its radiance shone amid the smoke. It took The Mongrel a moment to realize what was happening: the saber-wielder wasn't breathing... but he wasn't exactly holding his breath, either. He walked, wielded, even
spoke, but no gas entered his lungs. Somehow, though his chest never rose or fell, oxygen must still be circulating through his body.
The Mongrel could not have understood the specifics of the art of Breath Control, how the Force could stretch out trace oxygen in Kaleleon's system to sustain him so long as he maintained his concentration. The marauder did not even try. He merely accepted that this was another facet of the strange magic these mage-knights wielded, and abandoned gas attacks as a potential countermeasure. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, breaking through his mask of zealotry and bravado. He was running short on tactics that
did work on Jedi, and now he was up close and personal with a well-trained warrior monk and his plasma blade.
But no matter what, he would beg
no one's forgiveness.
And just like that, the
real duel began. No more trying to slow the Jedi down with tricks, traps, and allied fire. No more banter and bluster. Just the two of them and their chosen weapons. Kaleleon was fast, almost faster than The Mongrel could track. The opening salvo came in triplicate, and the marauder scrambled to keep up. A downward cut across the torso; he got his ryyyk blade into place just in time, though the force of the Jedi's blow pushed it down and barely gave him time to scramble back. An upward cut, also across his torso, to complete the "x"; his blade lashed out to intercept again, but slower this time. A little too slow, and it cost him.
The very tip of the lightsaber drew a molten line across The Mongrel's armored chest plate as he scrambled back, his parrying blade forced so high by the force of his opponent's blow that it nearly flew from his hands. The marauder hissed as a drop of liquid metal thrown from his own damaged defenses splattered against his leatheris leg armor, so hot as to be painful even through the thick padding. Painful... and distracting. He almost missed the third strike, a downward, overhead blow that could have split him in two. He raised the ryyyk blade in a desperate, last-minute block, dropping the ineffectual gas grenade to brace the dull side of the blade with his off-hand.
This time, though, he'd pushed his equipment too far.
The ryyyk blade he'd taken from the wookiee mercenary he'd slain on Batuu was a powerful weapon, handcrafted and perfectly balanced... at least for someone with a wookiee's strength. It was fifteen kilograms of finely-honed folded durasteel, its cutting edge nearly as sharp as the monofilament wire lining the top of the trench. The Mongrel had added to that by applying a spray coating of trace cortosis, slightly dulling that deadly edge but strengthening the sword to withstand the terrible heat of a plasma blade. But it had been only that: a spray coating. It was no substitute for one of the cortosis-alloy weapons of old, from the days of Revan's Jedi-hunters or the Empire's Inquisitorius.
It was, in the end, no equal to the legendary lightsaber.
In his parry, The Mongrel had tried to angle his blade so that the lightsaber would slide downward along its edge, away from his head and torso. It
almost did. But the sword, already heated by repeated saber blows, finally gave way beneath Kaleleon's third strike. The Mongrel's eyes widened in that instant, watching the azure blade push through his weapon. The moments of resistance it still provided, turning red, then orange, then white, gave him scant seconds to twist away. He remembered, in a flash of insight, that the Jedi had been favoring his right arm; it must have been injured when he fell into the trench. So The Mongrel twisted left, to the Jedi's right.
It was still barely enough. The searing blade came down at him as the marauder threw himself into an all-out dodge, and its heat skirted the side of his head. He hissed in agony as he felt his right ear melt, the flesh fusing to the skin of his head as the very edge of the plasma blade caught it. The Mongrel slammed into the wall of the trench and scrambled back, holding the remaining half of his ryyyk blade out in front of him in a desperate guard. The situation was bad. Even injured, the Jedi was a far more skilled combatant than he was. Unless he somehow recovered his momentum and retook the offense, the marauder was going to die.
What could he do? Projectiles and grenades would be thrown back at him. Blaster bolts would be blocked. Gas had no effect. Another round of melee dueling would be the end of him. The Mongrel's mind whirled... and settled upon a crazed idea. One handed, he reached into his satchel and pulled out the monofilament launcher he'd used to set up the wire trap. He knew the Jedi would be too wary to run into the wire again... but the magnetized tip and electronic spool might have another use. Taking careful aim, The Mongrel fired the launcher, but not at the trench or the Jedi himself. Instead, he fired the strong but tiny thread at Kaleleon's lightsaber.
If he could strike the saber, the magnetic tip would latch onto the weapon's metal hilt. Then he could retract the wire, hopefully yanking the lightsaber out of the Jedi's hands. If that failed, The Mongrel would just have to try to defend himself for one more exchange of blade strikes while he tried desperately to think of something else...
