Iisska had been space hitch-hiking with humans long enough to understand the basic gist of Christmas and all the bullshit that came with it, but it didn't change the fact that he tended to fail hard and often in the buying things for other people department. Therefore he stuck with Quin for most of their shopping spree to get a few nudges in the right direction. 

For Marquis and Trinity Iisska presented two mysterious looking drives. Small little things, easily installed anywhere a spare port could be found or hooked up, but easily accessed by multiple droid and T.I. platforms and programed with just over 500 of the galaxy's most common languages. From Quin came a broad selection of audio discs that could be uploaded into the ship or a memory core and played back almost anywhere. All of them music, the majority classical.

For Nyrette Iisska got a set of [url=http://i.imgur.com/SB5oQ7v.jpg]"kick-ass shades."[/url] Single lensed, very fashionable and 100% reflective. As a plus they were constructed from tempered glass and she would be hard pressed to get them to shatter. 

Cheshik received a rather heavy, bulky, cold and somewhat... squishy package that had to be kept on ice and was wrapped in brown paper from Iisska. Inside was roughly five pounds of steak. Not synthesized, never frozen, fresh, real steak. From Quin something to help poor space faring exotherms stay warm in the frigid vacuum when the ship's radiant heat couldn't cut it. A snazzy looking thermal jacket. Soft, comfortable and the thing held onto any shred of heat available like it was a life or death situation. 

Iisska would receive a similar coat from Quin as well. However she was quite taken aback when she received a small box from him. Something that obviously didn't take bullets or explode in anyway. It was a golden and black ornate hair clip that would match the one dress she owned. It was similar to the ones high class women wore on many of the city planets. And he bought it all by himself.

The other thing he bought all by himself (against all of Quin's protests and warnings and threats) was for the entire crew. Nerf guns. Nerf guns for everyone. He walked past them at a toy shop and nearly broke his own neck doing the universe's most excited double take to date.

After all the festivities were said and done and the rest of the crew was winding down, Quin pulled Nyrette aside. She sat down next to her on the sofa and swiftly hooked a necklace on a long chain around her neck. It happened so suddenly and Quin looked away after. Nyrette would be able to feel that it was warm to the touch. She had been wearing it under her clothes before. On the chain was a [url=http://i.imgur.com/lieqLMw.jpg]pendant[/url].

"It's a sun shield. They supposedly protect the wearer from shadows and unwanted eyes and harm or some such nonsense," Quin said, "I'm not sure about that, but I would wear it on missions with the Republic and a lot more running around with these idiots... Somehow it always made me feel a little better. Just the tiniest bit safer. I think you might need it more than I do though. Merry Christmas."

---

"Damnit!" Quin threw herself back down into her chair, "Trinity you're not seriously changing our course to-- Yes. Yes you are. Trin..."

"If you would like to chase him down and attempt to argue your point further, Pike, you are more than welcome to. But I think we all know how that will turn out," Trinity responded.

Quin let out a deep sigh, "What an idiot. This is so obviously a set up for... [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47y5bo8wtqM]something[/url]... I need to see if I can track that signature."

As she turned to the communications grid and started typing furiously Iisska seemed to stare off into space behind her. His brow furrowed.

"Hey, do you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what? My ears still feel like they're bleeding from that damned advert. Maybe it's still ringing around in your head," she said.

"No... It sounds like a guitar... and singing," he said.

"Wait," she stopped working, "I hear it. That's... Oh don't tell me."

"Yeah. Is that..."

"Yeah. It's an eighties montage."
 
"Wait, a what now?"

"I'm going to nail Zen to the floor and shove that speeder right up his--"

If they were going to make it out of the gladiatorial clusterfuck that Zen was so eager to wrap them up in they would have to prepare. They weren't ready for another fight, but they would be. Iisska found himself thrown head long into even more intense martial training. Not just punching things. At one point Zen bound his hands behind his back and made him focus on footwork and kicking alone. He had never seen much use for his legs other than running and jumping up until now. The soreness in his muscles and also his ass from falling down at every turn was too real. But every damn hour there was Zen with more stupid training. Running, squats, drinking coffee, lunges, weight lifting, welding the strut they broke learning to put the force behind a roundhouse kick, combo drills, dodging random objects being hurled across the room, taking a shower, meditating through some of the most skull splitting noises imaginable.

Things got a bit out of hand when it was decided that the best way to learn to sidestep and throw off an opponent fluidly and effectively was to let Cheshik test out his new Zwiehander on him. Zen had caught him diligently practicing away with it on a dummy and it had put ideas in his head. "Hey, you wont make the same mistake twice this way!" he encouraged, "Or live to see tomorrow for that matter. Mnf. Damn that sword looks sexy on you Lizardman." 

Quin busied herself with Marquis in taking over the work space in the cargo hold, taking apart  weapons and making sure the power output was at its maximum and that every part was in perfect condition. She practiced loading and unloading so that it was as in as few fluid motions as possible. Marquis even shared a few sharpshooting tips and tricks with her picked up from his assassination days. With the recent series of shitstorms and the couple of days worth of hyperspace jump montage training refresher course she felt almost more skilled than she was when she was at the top of her game with the Republic.

There was even time to get some sparing in with Nyrette after breakfast. A breakfast which they tried to have a decent conversation over but it mostly consisted of "WHAT?" as the ever present music was a bit too loud to ignore. Then Zen streaked through the kitchen screaming "BANG BANG, BITCHES!" and they gave up entirely... except for the exchange a smile and a wink.

Through blood, sweat, tears, hacking, some light reading and cup of tea the crew was becoming pumped to put on a show of blood for the masses. If it wasn't all a trap like Quin had been insisting non stop. Unfortunately the message did trace back to Geonosia and not some dead end in space which didn't help her case against Zen even if everybody else believed her.

Next the Harpoon was pulling into Geonosian space and landing in the space port of a large but uncivilized city. The sun was rising over the huge colosseum in the center of the city as Zen and Iisska stood above the empty stands looking down into the arena. The red stone walls and red cliffs in the distance beyond positively glowed. It would be a few hours before any fighting began. Zen inhaled deeply as the music finally began to fade.

"I am the warrior," he said, "victory is mine."

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?" Iisska screamed at him.

---

In the under-works of the arena, the crew had been signed in and were doing last minute warm-ups, gear-ups and check-ups. Quin came up to Iisska after cinching up her combat armor and securing her blaster, grenades, and a seriously sharp and serrated knife to her belt. She had decided to leave the launcher behind as it would only slow her down.  Iisska was binding his wrists and fitting his gauntlets. He was going sleeveless but wore the new lekku wraps and boots and had both blasters crossed on the back of his hips.

"No light saber?" she asked.

"No. Still can't cut the crystals right," he said, "Don't think I'll ever have the kind of pref... pre... focus."

"Precision?"

"Yeah. That."

"Maybe someday. Practice makes miracles. You ready?"

"Meh. I think I have the flu," he sighed.

"The flu? Can you even get that?"

"I don't know. I feel nauseous. Have been since we landed. Thought I was gonna lose last night's dinner in the port."

"So sit out," she shrugged.

"Nah, can't now. Signed the papers. And I don't want anybody to think I'm trying to pussy out. Everybody else is gonna fight so... And it's not like... I don't have a fever or anything... I can still fight."

"Nervous?" Quin asked.

"No... I can't think of words. Worse than nervous."

"I know. This is stupid and there is no word with quite the right magnitude to describe just how reckless. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything strange and I think we'll be okay. Zen's gonna be with us and as insane as he is I don't think he'd ever let us get killed... maybe... probably... I'm not helping am I?"

"You're not."

Quin sighed, "I'm sorry. I'll leave you be," she began to walk and spoke over her shoulder, "You should probably say something to Zen about that nausea."

She continued to make rounds through the under-works, mostly to check out the other fighters. Most of them looked like mercenaries here for the prize money. She doubted they would wind up facing any of them as enemies, but one could never be too sure in a game where the rules are always changing. There was a long row of caged animals, but none of them looked all that impressive. The dangerous stuff must be somewhere else if it even existed. For a moment she wondered if there even was anything more dangerous. No. There had to be. She could hear the crowds upstairs. Such a big audience wouldn't show up to small stuff. Her explorations were called short by one of the ugly bug creatures calling her group up to the gate. She went willingly but wore a scowl on her face. She liked nothing about this. The entire crew stood at the gate waiting. Beyond it's bars was the brightly sunlit sands of the arena. The air rippled close to the ground and she could feel the dry heat even standing in the shaded entrance.

She stood next to Nyrette. She couldn't be sure but the woman seemed more pale than usual. Quin kept her cool though she continued to feel pangs of worry.

"I have a theory," she said quietly, "Have you ever seen insects fly into a flame? Maybe every living being in the galaxy has that same suicidal drive toward some object or vice or practice. The same drive we look down upon insects for and we just don't know it. Because every time I turn around I found myself inexplicably sucked into a battle no matter how hard I try to run the other way. Do you think anybody ever rewrites that part of themselves? Do we ever get to move on to another, better life?"

The gate slowly started to grind and screech open.

"Ah, never mind," she said in frustrated tone, "I guess I wanted to, ah, well what I had intended to do before I started running my mouth on something that had nothing to do with my original intention when I walked up next to you..."

Quin stopped talking, frowned deeply and rolled her eyes. Her shoulders sank in defeat for a second and then she quickly turned and kissed Nyrette roughly on the lips. When she pulled away she was beet red.

"I've got your back out there."