The first Balance Keeper pushed the Sith lord back and ignited the other side of his lightsaber, turning into a double-bladed lightsaber. The Sith looked at the Balance Keepers blade and then looked at his.
He unfortunately didn't have a double-bladed lightsaber as he didn't like them. He enjoyed just the simple single bladed lightsaber.
But the way the Balance Keeper spun the lightsaber around made it clear that this was not going to be an easy fight. The fight began with the two circling around each other, each testing the other's defenses with small movements—a subtle lean forward, a slight adjustment of their feet.
The Balance Keeper spun his weapon slowly, forcing the Sith to pay attention.
The Sith was powerful. That much was clear from the way he embraced his anger rather than letting it completely control him.
His first lunge was textbook Sith attack patterns: a direct and forceful overhead strike. The Balance Keeper blocked it with one end of his blade. Before the Sith could make any other movements, the Balance Keeper used the opposite blade to graze the Sith's right arm, burning a small cut through his armor.
The Sith screamed, pivoting to bring his blade in from the side, but the Balance Keeper ducked under the swing and used the blade's leverage to sweep the Sith's feet out from under him.
The Sith fell but recovered with a Force-assisted leap, landing a few meters away and charging back in. The Balance Keeper counter charged, their blades clashing repeatedly, the strikes and parries escalating in speed until they were a little more than blurs of red and green.
Watching from his vantage point on the barricades, Lieutenant General Thalos grinned. There was an artistry to it, he thought—the way the Balance Keepers fought. Not just with violence, but a kind of cold, purposeful way of fighting bred from centuries of practice.
The Sith kept moving around, attacking from all sorts of angles, but he kept being blocked every time.
The Balance Keeper did not force the fight. He stayed a half-beat behind the Sith, letting him spend his energy, only pushing back to counter. Every time the Sith lord overextended, he punished him with small, precise cuts on every part of his body. None of them were fatal, but each new burn increased his anger.
He realized what the Balance Keeper was doing and tried to slow his movements and focus his anger.
After the next ten exchanges between the two, the Sith tried a feint, spinning his blade in a spiral, the tip arcing toward the Balance Keeper's head but angling for a low, sweeping attack at the last second.
The Balance Keeper read this move, as he had seen it a thousand times before, and used one end of his double-bladed saber to catch the feint, while the other end came around and knocked the Sith's weapon from his hand.
The Sith's lightsaber flew through the air and landed at the Balance Keeper's feet. From there, he pointed his blade at the Sith's throat, and said, "You can surrender peacefully or painfully, your choice."
The Sith stared at him. The droids had already fallen back, and his apprentice was locked in his own struggle. But it gnawed at him that he had to surrender to a Balance Keeper. They may not be enemies publicly, but the Sith have always been planning to eventually try to destroy them.
With this in mind, he tried to use the Force to recall the hilt of his lightsaber, but it was caught by the Balance Keeper, who then slammed his face into the ground. He grabbed one of his arms and twisted it behind his back.
"AHHHHH!" the Sith screamed as his arm was twisted in a way it was never meant to be twisted. The Balance Keeper then grabbed some cuffs off his belt and placed them the Sith.
He turned to his left and saw the other Balance Keeper carrying the Sith apprentice on his shoulders.
"All done over there," asked the second Balance Keeper.
"Yep, let's get them back to base and turn them over to Republic forces." said the first Balance Keeper.
The both of them walked back to the base carrying the two Sith. The Imperial defense line which was now also filled with Republic troopers erupted in cheers, Lieutenant General Thalos among the loudest.
After a moment, the Balance Keepers returned to the barricade and called up Thalos, "Battle's done here. Let the Jedi know the Sith has withdrawn. The rest will be mopped up by afternoon."
"You want a drink?" Thalos shouted, grinning from ear to ear.
The Balance Keeper smiled, "Maybe later. There are wounded to care for."
He thanked the men who had stood with him and then helped to triage the fallen, working shoulder to shoulder with medics and Republic soldiers. The line between Imperium and Republic no longer seemed to matter—not now, when everyone on the field was tired, shaking, and covered in blood and blaster residue. In war, distinctions always broke down the moment the chaos started.
Some Jedi had come later, a pair of Masters and a half-dozen Knights, arriving by speeder from their own forward command. They made their way to the medical station where Thalos was overseeing things.
"General Thalos," said one of the Masters, "our intelligence suggests several Sith infiltrators may be operating in the city behind our lines. We have reliable reports that at least two squads Commandos made planet fall during the chaos."
Thalos grunted at hearing this news. "We expected as much. My subordinates already have a team scouring the city centers. If your people want in, they're welcome."
The other Master, a Nautolan nodded. "Standard cooperation doctrine. Our Knights will link up with your teams. We'll share findings in real-time."
Thalos smiled. "Good. Maybe if we work fast enough, the city governor will owe us all a drink instead of another funeral." He dismissed the Jedi with a salute and turned to the next row of tables, where wounded volunteers from both sides lay groaning or unconscious.
The medics worked as fast as they could, but there were just so many wounded and not a lot of medics to take their time working on each one.
Above the battle-scarred fields, the pale blue sky of Chad was returning to its typical spring brightness. Thalos paused to watch it for a moment, savoring the quietness.
There were only two birds circling overhead, their ghostly calls echoing across the ruined ground—a reminder that even in war, some things persisted. He knelt by one of the beds, where a young human volunteer from Veldari was dying. The boy's armor was melted almost fused to his flesh, but he clung to life with that stubbornness that sometimes made Thalos wonder if the humans who lived in the Imperium weren't a little bit Gen'Dai after all.
"How am I?" the boy asked.
"You're the last thing standing between here and the Sith homeworld," Thalos said. "They'll write songs about you." The boy blinked, and a small smile appeared on his burnt lips.
"Never liked music," he said. "Always preferred a good fight."
"You gave them that," Thalos said. "Rest. We'll take it from here." The boy nodded and closed his eyes.
Thalos stood up and took a moment. He had seen too many wars to let this one break him, but he would carry the memory. He motioned to his XO, a Gen'Dai female named Senna Krell. "Get me the division commanders. We go again at dusk. Jedi are assisting our hunt in the city."
"Yes, General." she responded.
"And Senna," he said, lowering his voice, "Send a message back to High command. Tell them the next few months is going to be a hard nut. We need more droids, more medics, and if he's got any Balance Keepers to spare, the boys in blue are starting to believe they're invincible when they're around."
The XO laughed, then jogged off into the mess of wounded to relay his orders. Thalos watched her go, then looked up at the cloudless sky again. The next push would be harder, but he'd seen the Sith break before, and he'd see it again.
He sat down on a crate, wiped a smear of blood off his gauntlet, and allowed himself a rare moment of reflection. A century ago, he'd never imagined the Imperium and the Republic fighting together. Now he couldn't imagine the war without it.
What surprised him most, though, was how quickly they had started fighting as one force. Some of the Republic officers had tried to keep their distance at first, but that changed the moment the artillery started walking shells up the ridge. In the trenches and on the line, nobody cared what uniform you wore, only whether you could hold a blaster and keep your head down.
The war was changing not just the galaxy, but the people inside it. For better or worse, it was forcing old enemies to look at each other and find some small measure of respect.
He liked that. He liked that a lot.