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[Lord Zedd]

Coruscant

Imperial Stormtrooper Captain Desh looked up from his desk in unsurprised annoyance as the skinless horror that was Lord Zedd barged into his office. He’d just begun to get used to the quiet monotony of not having Zedd around. Desh had known the whole time, though, that when Zedd returned it would be suddenly and dramatically. The unhinged prime had enough issues already, but for some inexplicable reason this time he reeked to high heaven.

“You know there’s a sergeant and a lieutenant between you and me on the chain of command, right?” Desh asked as he leaned back in his seat.

“I will not be pawned off on your minions,” Zedd barked, matter of factly.

“Of course,” Desh shrugged. He was dealing with way more important things than this, so he wasn’t about to put his foot down just yet. “I guess that ruckus on Tier 6 was you?”

“If you will not clean the depths of this city, then I suppose I must,” Zedd answered.

“Well, thanks,” Desh’s tone couldn’t have sounded more fake.

Zedd allowed a frustrating silence to briefly permeate the room. The only sound was Desh typing away on his computer. The dark lord gripped his staff tightly in one hand, and balled a fist in his other as his limited patience diminished.

“Tell me what else you have been slacking on, so that I might fix it, too,” Zedd demanded out of nowhere. “And where are the Stormtroopers I am supposed to supervise?”

“I don’t know, Zedd,” Desh didn’t even look up. “We gave them some time off, with Knox’s injury and the whole deal you put them through. They’re probably at some bar watching the Dante’s Abyss Pre-show or something.”

“Dante’s...Abyss?” Zedd repeated that phrase curiously.

“You know, big televised deathmatch they do every year?” Desh still focused his eyes on his computer as he spoke. “I’m surprised they never mentioned it. Those four are junkies for it.”

“I recently worked with Dante in the underbelly of this verse. He mentioned nothing about owning an Abyss,” Zedd remarked.

Desh finally looked up, skeptically. “You worked with Karl Jak when you were down in Tier Six?”

“He was there as well,” Zedd confirmed. “I thought his last name was Mar, though.”

Desh frowned in confusion. “No… Karl Jak. The big celebrity?”

“Karl Jak Mar, then?” Zedd tilted his head. “Elf looking creature with guns and a split personality?”

“No, Zedd,” Desh shook his head. The prime was clearly thinking of someone else. “Except maybe that last par-” Desh caught himself falling to Zedd’s level. “No, Zedd.”

“Then what is his connection to Dante?” Zedd questioned. “The entire time we worked together, he never mentioned owning a gladiatorial death match and the means to support it. Is it a partnership between the two?”

“Who the fuck is Dante?” Desh threw up his hands in frustration. Seriously, what was Zedd even talking about?

“You just said he owns the Abyss!” Zedd spat out every word slowly, deliberately, and angrily.

Desh slammed his hands down on his desk, causing his keyboard to bounce a little from the impact. “I don’t have time for this, Zedd.”

“Well, I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” Zedd replied.

“Go, then. We don’t need you back for a little while, still,” Desh took a breath of relief at the thought that he wouldn’t need to worry about the unstable prime for a bit longer. “Big reward if you win.”

Zedd turned, then paused briefly as he processed that. He marched out of the office as dramatically as he had entered, with his new target in mind. Desh merely watched him go, finally realizing that ‘Dante’ and 'Jak' must have been the names of some random people Zedd had encountered on his own. Was he really that dense?

“Hey, and Who’s on first!” Desh called out into the hallway, after the prime. He listened in earnest anticipation for a response for just a minute.

Nope. Nothing.

************************

After a quick stop back at his apartment for a shower, and then a considerable deal of searching, Zedd marched up to the Syntech signup station on Tier One of Coruscant. Two men were there, and they appeared to be packing their things up. Zedd wouldn’t allow that just yet.

“Hold your bureaucratic red tape!” Zedd barked as he approached them. “I wish to participate.”

The two paused and looked him over. If that wasn’t someone designed to enter this competition, they didn’t know who the hell was.

“You’re running a little late, aren’t you?” one of them joked as he pulled out the appropriate paperwork.

“Would you prefer I sign these forms with your blood instead of an ink pen?” Zedd snapped back at the condescending man.

The other employee laughed as he set the forms in front of Lord Zedd. Jackpot. “Sign right here, please! Read if you like.”

Zedd grumbled under his breath as he jotted down the appropriate information with a provided ink pen. He scanned irrelevant nonsense like legal waivers as he put in the necessary information, and finished in record time.

“Done,” Zedd announced as he dropped the pen and stood back up. “Where is the arena?”

“Hold on, just need a little bit of information about you for the website,” the first man said, providing another sheet of paper.

Zedd groaned as he bent over and filled out the closest thing to a biography he could do, mostly answering the questions presented in short sentences. An online broadcast for a reality TV slaughterfest was not how he expected to announce his glory to the greater Omniverse, but some battles you didn’t get to choose.

“Great! It’s right through this teleporter,” one of the two said, gesturing behind them. “Step on in and we’ll beam you to the Danteverse.”

Zedd recoiled in shock at that statement, but quickly moved into the teleporter. Beams of energy wrapped around him, and he prepared for the all too familiar feeling of teleportation. That wasn’t what bothered him.

The Danteverse.

Oh, they were going to have words.