FicWad

Sheathed as it is almost entirely from pole to pole in duracrete, plasteel, and a thousand other such impervious materials, Coruscant often seems invulnerable to the vagaries of time or assaults by any would-be agents of entropy or change. Even in the aftermath of a vicious battle, the face that Coruscant turns towards the rest of the galaxy is almost entirely armored over in an unbroken facade of buildings and materials that appear largely impervious to change, all of the obvious physical damage wrought to the planet's vast cityscape already smoothed over either by the swift response of its peoples or the rain that has so recently fallen. It has often been said that a sentient being could live out his or her or its entire life on Coruscant without once ever leaving the building that individual happens to call home. And that since, even if such an individual were to devote his or her or its whole life to exploring as much of Coruscant as possible, because the piling of levels upon levels of artificial structures and the excessive heights of the uppermost buildings would guarantee that this being would scarcely even be able to take in all that is contained in just a few square kilometers, that same individual would be far better off trying to visit all of the far-flung worlds of the Republic, instead.

The planet's original surface has - with the exception of its one remaining and entirely artificial sea and a few scattered and just as artificially preserved "nature" reserves - been covered over and forgotten for so long and that surface has been so seldom visited since then that it has become an underworld of mythic dimension and proportions, whose denizens actually boast with pride of the fact that their subterranean realm hasn't seen the sun in over twenty-five thousand standard years. Closer to the sky, however, where the air is continually scrubbed and giant mirrors light the floor of shallower canyons, wealth and privilege rule. Here, kilometers above the murky depths, reside those who fashion their own rarified atmospheres: those who move about by private skylimo, watch the diffuse sun set in a blaze of red around the curve of the planet, and venture below the two-kilometer level only when they wish either to conduct transactions of a sinister sort or to visit the statuary-studded squares that front those landmark structures whose sublime architecture hasn't yet been razed, buried, or walled in by mediocrity.

One such landmark is the Jedi Temple.

In the overall shape of a kilometer-high truncated pyramid crowned by five tall, elegant towers, the Jedi Temple soars above its surroundings, purposefully isolated from the babble of Coruscant's overlapping electromagnetic fields and quietly but unflinchingly holding forth against the blight of modernization. Below it stretches a plain of rooftops, skybridges, and aerial thoroughfares that have conspired to create a mosaic of complex geometries - colossal spirals and concentricities, crosses and triangles, patchwork traceries of stars and diamonds, and other such elaborate geometric shapes and abstract arabesques - great mandalas aimed at the stars . . . or perhaps only at the temporal complements of the constellations to be found there, hidden away within the intricate and sumptuous architecture that helps make up that outer overall pyramidal shape of the central Temple complex. There is at once something both comforting and forbidding about the Temple. For while it is a constant reminder of an older, less complicated world, the Temple is also somewhat austere and unapproachable, essentially off-limits to casual tourists or any whose desire to visit is inspired solely by mere curiosity, though parts of it are open to those individuals who are honestly seeking the enlightenment of knowledge or the clarity of vision that meditation can bring. The overall design of the Temple is said to be symbolic of the Padawan's path to enlightenment - to unity with the Force, through fealty to the Jedi Code. But the design also artfully conceals a secondary and more practical purpose, in that the quincunx of towers - not so coincidentally oriented to the cardinal directions, with a taller one rising from the center - are whiskered with antennae and transmitters that keep the Jedi abreast of circumstances and crises all throughout the galaxy they serve. In just this manner contemplation and social responsibility have been given equal voice within the Jedi Temple.

Nowhere in the Temple is that wedding of purposes more evident than in the Temple Spire's Council of Reconciliation, within the elevated chamber of the Temple's central tower that houses the holocomm center of Jedi Command. Like the Council Chamber, at the summit of an adjacent tower, the room is circular, with an arched ceiling and tall windows all around, yielding a panoramic view of both the orderly outermost facade of the Temple's central structure below and the endlessly complicated labyrinthine sprawl of the Coruscant cityscape beyond the confines of the Temple complex. Being somewhat less formal, though, this room lacks the large central ring of seats surrounding the open round table that is meant to be occupied only by the twelve members of the High Council. There are, instead, several different groupings of tables and chairs and communication centers within the room, though one somewhat larger and similarly hollowed round table does rest close to the center of the room. It is to this more central table, in the holocomm center of Jedi Command, high atop the Temple Spire, that Bail Organa has been summoned by the Grand Masters. And it is from here, in a chair off to the side of Master Mace Windu, that Bail watches a life-sized holoscan of Clone Commander Cody report that Obi-Wan and Anakin have made contact with General Grievous.

"We are beginning our supporting attack as ordered. And - if I may say so, sirs - from my experience working with Generals Kenobi and Skywalker, I have a strong suspicion that Grievous does not have long to live."

If I were only there /with them,/ Bail cannot quite keep himself from reflecting, I could be certain that it would be more than a suspicion. Masters - Obi-Wan, Bendu, be /careful - Force, Anakin, keep him safe - /

"Thank you, Commander." Mace Windu's face does not betray the slightest hint of the mingled dread and anticipation that Bail is certain he must be feeling, from the odd feeling of nervous expectation hovering at the edges of his senses, pulsing in the Force like the beating heart of some enormous beast. While Bail himself feels ready to burst and is distressingly certain that his face and posture alike are betraying his worry, Master Windu somehow manages to look as calm as a stone - a trick that Bail dearly wishes he could dare ask to be taught, especially since he is certain that the emotions of the various members of the Senate will not be nearly as contained as those of Mace Windu, when Bail returns to report on what he has learned. "Keep us apprised of your progress. May the Force be with you, and with Masters Kenobi and Skywalker."

"I'm sure it will be, sir. Cody out."

The holoscan flickers to nothingness then, and Mace Windu turns brief but significant glances on the other two Masters in attendance, both holoscans themselves: Ki-Adi-Mundi, from the fortified command center on Mygeeto; and, from a guerrilla outpost on Kashyyyk, Yoda. After several silent moments in which Bail can only imagine that some message of significance has somehow been passed along through looks alone, he turns to Bail. "Take this report to the Senate, Padawan."

"Of course, Master Windu," Bail nods, still unsure of his place, of what he can and cannot say to his long-standing ally and (or so he has long thought) friend among the Jedi, now that he has been declared the first new Padawan of the New Jedi Bendu Order. "That is why I am here, so that I may carry word back with me."

"And take careful note of the reactions of the various members. We will need a full account."

Bail blinks, startled. "Master?"

"What is said, Bail," Mace patiently explains. "Who among the Senate is pleased and who is not. What the various members do - and, more importantly, what their body language betrays regarding their wishes to do. Everything. Even their facial expressions. It's very important."

"I'm afraid that I don't understand why - " Bail begins, voice slow and thoughtful.

"You don't have to understand, Padawan. Just do it."

"Master - "

"Bail, do I have to remind you that you are a Jedi now? You are subject to the orders of those who are above you in this Order."

"Yes, Master Windu. I understand that I am. However," Bail continues, eyes narrowing, "I am certain that if my Masters had wished for me to act a spy for the Order within the Senate, then they would have left orders to that effect, in the datapad left for my edification."

"The orders left with you change, depending on the flow of events, Padawan. If you check the reader, I am certain you will see a query regarding news of engagement on Utapau arriving on Coruscant previous to any decision on the Senate's behalf, regarding the issue of a possible peace accord between what was the Galactic Republic and the remnants of the Confederacy of Independent Systems," the voice of Dooku announces from the doorway, startling Bail badly with the realization that he has become so focused on his own anxiety that he has in essence blocked himself off from the secondary bonds binding him to the two Grand Masters through his own Masters and their bonds with them. "Your Masters are nothing if not thorough: they have left you orders regarding many different possible eventualities."

"You need not worry, Bail. This is more for your own benefit than for us - an exercise to help give you a focus beyond your own worries regarding your Masters' mission, if you will," Qui-Gon Jinn adds, his voice gentle and soothing and bringing a shamed flush to Bail's face in spite of its relative tact. "We were all Padawans, once. We can remember the difficulties inherent in being left behind. But you are needed here, Padawan, just as your Masters are needed on Utapau. You volunteered to help steer the Senate through these storms, and it will do you no good to fret endlessly over what your Masters may or may not be doing, what danger they may or may not be entering into, while you are at such a distance from them. You will only make yourself unnecessary dangers to fall into here, if you disregard the temper of the Senate and its members, some of whom are likely as corrupted and traitorous as those who have already been identified as willing allies of Palpatine, or even of Sidious, in his machinations to dismantle the Republic."

"I - I understand, Grand Master. Masters. Of course. I will do as you ask," Bail murmurs - more than simply taken aback by the Grand Masters' explanations: struck to the quick by his own foolishness and the level of care and concern that the other Jedi are taking, regarding both his mental and emotional upset and the potential detrimental effect that worried upset might have on his actual safety, while his own Masters are gone - face flaming with chagrin and distress at his own lack of control and simple good sense. "If you will excuse me, I will return to the Senate Rotunda, now. The recess called for the noon meal will likely be ending soon, and Mon Mothma will need to know about this before the Senate reconvenes."

"Of course, Padawan. Take care. Your Masters would be unhappy with us, were we to allow any harm to befall you, while they are gone," Mace Windu replies, the hint of gentle amusement in his voice only slightly countering the seriousness of the warning in his words.

"I understand, Master. Of course. Thank you, Masters, Grand Masters." Bowing to the three Jedi Masters and then again to the two Grand Masters, Bail gathers what little is left of his dignity and departs, determinedly not fleeing from the room and the careful concern of the Jedi.

As he pauses, just beyond the sight of the doorway, to take a deep, calming breath, he can hear, from behind the closing door, Mace Windu's voice, triumphantly declaring, "Now at last we shall finally see! The waters are beginning to clear."

"Filled with corruption for far too long, the Senate has been," Yoda's voice floats to his ears as a firm whisper from far Kashyyyk. "Controlled, they must be, until certain we are that replaced the corrupted Senators have all been, with Senators honest and just. A good beginning, Senator Mon Mothma and former Senator Organa have made. A strong-willed man, is Padawan Organa. High hopes I have for him, if only focused on the larger picture, the will of the Force, he can learn to remain."

"We must not forget," Ki-Adi-Mundi adds from faraway Mygeeto, his words obviously carefully phrased, "that the Supreme Chancellor's death and the revelation that Palpatine was Sidious alone will not be enough to heal the galaxy. Removing that tyrant will not be enough to save the Republic. Palpatine's virtual dictatorship was legitimized by the supermajority his faction has long controlled in the Senate, and if great care is not taken now to remove all elements from the Senate loyal to the Sith Lord's cause and his dreams of Empire, it will remain possible for that kind of absolute rule to be legalized, even enshrined in a revised Constitution."

"I seem to recall warning you, once, that in order to save the Republic, we would first have to destroy it . . . " Grand Master Dooku agrees, his voice quietly but thoroughly amused.

"Indeed, you did, Grand Master. Unfortunately, since you yourself were under the sway of the Sith Lord at the time, we did not heed your warning," Mace's acknowledging voice is, oddly enough, given his extreme devotion to the Republic, similarly amused.

"We must hold on to hope. Our true enemy is not the Senate, but the corruption that the Sith sowed within it and encouraged to flourish within far too many of its members. Once it has been made clear that the war will not long survive Sidious' death, those corrupt members will no longer have the fear engendered by the war to call upon, to aid them in manipulating others and hatching schemes detrimental to the peoples of the galaxy. Once Grievous is gone and the back of the CIS is well and truly broken, all of these other concerns will instantly become far less dire," the soft rumble of Qui-Gon's voice declares.

"Yes," Mace Windu replies, his voice vibrant with satisfied contentment. "Yes, that is true. And with Obi-Wan and Anakin both on Utapau, we are all but assured of that outcome. It is only a pity that we cannot be so sure of the outcome, in regards to the efforts to clean out the Senate . . . "

Recalled to his duty by those words, Bail allows himself one soft, resigned sigh, and then turns his steps back towards the shortest route between the holocomm center of Jedi Command and the small docking bay where he parked his personal skimmer. Despite the increasing pressure of the worry at the back of his mind, Bail knows that Qui-Gon and the others are right. In spite of the outrage over the revelation of Palpatine's identity as Sidious, with the loyalty of far too many Senators still suspect, at best, the Senate is and would remain a potential source of danger. And that danger would only be compounded if he entered into negotiations with the majority of his attention on his own fears, rather than on his form fellow Senators. His former position and his reputation among his peers places him in a unique position of power from which he can help to guide those among the Senate who are loyal to ideals of democracy and peace and prosperity of the Republic through these turbulent and dangerous times. And it is his responsibility to see to it that he does so. It is his duty, and not just because the Jedi expect it of him. His conscience demands nothing less of him.

It is far past time for him to return to his place, in the still only mostly cleared away wreckage of the Senate Rotunda.

***

The landing deck canopy parts, and one mostly blue-and-white and one mostly yellow Jedi starfighter (both prominently emblazoned with the blood-red wheel of the Jedi Bendu) blasts upward into the shrieking gale. From deep shadows at the rear of the deck, Obi-Wan and Anakin watch as their starfighters depart.

"I suppose that means we're committed, now," Obi-Wan murmurs quietly.

"I still wish we could have kept our starfighters. I feel almost naked, without a ship," Anakin only sighs in response.

"You know why we could not."

"I know. It doesn't keep me from wishing things could have turned out otherwise, though," Anakin only shrugs back.

Rolling his eyes silently in response, Obi-Wan reaches for the electrobinoculars on his equipment belt. Examining that suspiciously shiny spheroid high above on the tenth level through those powerful lenses, he is entirely unsurprised to see that the spray of spines are droid-control antennas. That's where Grievous would be: at the nerve center of his army. "And that's where we should be, too," he murmurs, only half-conscious that he is saying the words out loud.

"Alas! There's never an air taxi around when you really need one, is there?" Anakin remarks teasingly, his warm breath blowing distractingly over Obi-Wan's left ear as he loops an arm around his former Master's waist.

Obi-Wan reflexively squirms for a moment, lingering disquiet at being touched so openly prompting him to turn and frown up at Anakin's broad smile. But the sight of that smile, so genuinely amused and happy, stills both his body and the barbed retort already rising to his lips. Smiling back, he quietly agrees, "Too true, my former Padawan. I suppose that means we shall have to improvise, then, won't we?"

"Walk, you mean," Anakin rolls his eyes dramatically in response.

"The Force shall provide, as need arises," is Obi-Wan's almost prim reply. Then, after reaching up to brush a hand across the nearer tempting curve of Anakin's cheekbone, he turns out of the loose embrace. "Come along, Anakin. The sooner we find Grievous, the sooner we will be done with our task, and the quicker you will be back aboard a ship."

It is only then, as Anakin is turning to follow him, that the deck canopy finally closes above the landing deck again, quieting the howl of the wind outside enough that, from deeper within the sinkhole city, it becomes possible to hear a ragged choir of hoarsely bellowing cries that have the resonance of large animals, cries that somehow remind Anakin of something . . .

Suubatars, that's it! They sound vaguely like the calls of the suubatars he and Obi-Wan rode on one of their last missions before the war, back when the biggest worry they had both had was how to protect one another from the increasingly dark and suspicious attention of the High Council, so that Obi-Wan could keep his promise to Master Qui-Gon and Anakin could keep his promise to his mother and to himself, to become a great Jedi like Obi-Wan . . .

It had been on the mission to Ansion, when they had delayed the outbreak of the civil war that would come to be known as the Clone Wars by preventing Ansion and all of the many systems tied to it and its allies through various alliances and trade treaties from succeeding from the Galactic Republic, that they had rode upon suubatars. Their Alwari guides, Kyakhta and Bulgan, had conduced the negotiations for the six animals, six-legged beasts with long-splayed toes that seemed wholly out of place on creatures designed for running through open grassland, at least until one had experienced the breath-taking speed of a suubatar going at a flat-out run, and realized that the toes are, in fact, necessary aides for such speed, the thirty-six long, powerful, clawed toes all able to dig into the hard-packed dirt and fling it backwards, propelling their owner forward at shockingly great velocities. At the shoulder, the magnificent suubatars had all stood roughly thrice the height of a human male, and their bodies were long and narrow, all of them ending in a lean, leg-length tail. All six of the animals, typical of their kind when well-bred and well-treated, had been covered in a coat of short, soft, and dense bronze-colored fur striped with distinctive patterns of green that had provided excellent camouflage on the Ansonian plains as well as giving maximum insulation with minimum wind resistance. The suubatars had all had a single nostril, no mane, and their ears had lain flat along their head, though their eyes, lavender speckled with silver, had protruded slightly from their smooth, tapered skulls, giving them a wider range of sight. Although omnivores, with massive hinged jaws that allow the swallowing of large fruit and small prey whole, the suubatars also all had four canine teeth protruding above and below their jaws, lending them a fearsome aspect to an appearance that, otherwise, spoke of only one word: speed.

Remembering that, the shocking speeds that the suubatars had easily been able to achieve and the ease with which Obi-Wan had rode upon his own mount from the very beginning, though Anakin had required some extra assistance from Kyakhta, regarding his posture and seat upon his own mount, Anakin whips his head around to face a now beaming Obi-Wan Kenobi. "Hey! You knew there would be animals here for us to ride, didn't you?"

"The Force provides, as I believe I've already said," Obi-Wan merely smiles serenely back, only the brightness in his eyes giving away his good humor.

Rolling his eyes, Anakin mutters, "Animals. It would be animals. Why can't we ever just use speeders, like normal people would?"

"Normal people are not blessed by the Force, as we are," Obi-Wan merely blithely replies, leading him onwards through a tangle of shadowed and deserted hallways carved into the sandstone walls of the sinkhole, towards the source of those hoarsely bellowing cries.

Grumbling slightly but good-naturedly (and acknowledging with his acquiescence that Obi-Wan has won this particular round), knowing that his former Master has a peculiar weakness for large, majestic riding beasts, despite his general distaste and lack of patience for "pathetic life forms," and will doubtlessly enjoy the ensuing pursuit of General Grievous a great deal more than he otherwise would have, with such a mount to carry him. Mere moments of following those cries brings them in sight of an immense, circular, arena-like area, with a ring of balcony joined to a flat lower level by spokes of broad, sturdily corrugated ramps and a high-vaulting ceiling hung with yellowish lamp-rods casting a light the same color as the sunbeams striking through an arc of wide oval archways open to the interior of the sinkhole outside. The winds whistling through those wide archways also, to Anakin's relief, go a long way towards cutting the eye-watering reptile-den stench down from overpowering to merely nauseating. Squatting, lying, and otherwise milling aimlessly about the lower level are a dozen or so large lizard-like beasts that look, to Anakin, like nothing so much as the product of some mad geneticist's cross of Tatooine krayt dragons with Haruun Kal ankkoxen. Four meters tall at the shoulder, with long crooked legs that ended in five-clawed feet clearly designed for scaling rocky cliffs, ten meters of powerful tail ridged with spines and tipped with a horn-bladed mace, and a flexible neck leading up to an armor-plated head that sported an impressive cowl of spines of its own, the lizard-like beasts look fearsome enough that he might have been tempted to think they were some sort of dangerous wild predators or vicious watchbeasts.

If not for the fact that he could clearly see their docile tolerance of the team of Utai wranglers working among them - the enormous, fearsome creatures tamely allowing the Utai workers to hose them down and scrape muck from their scales, even easily accepting bundles of greens from their offering hands - Anakin would have been tempted to turn right back around and rely on his feet for transportation to Grievous, after all. Not far from the doorway they have just come through, though, are several large racks with an array of highbacked saddles in various styles and degrees of ornamentation, very much indeed like the leather viann supports the Alwari of Ansion had strapped to their suubatars. When he sees them, and feels the bright flare of eager anticipation along the bond, Anakin sighs, resigned to his fate. Obi-Wan's happiness along the bond all but triples, at that. He well knows that Anakin avoids living mounts whenever possible, disliking them almost as much as Obi-Wan himself hates to fly (and has long suspected that it is Anakin's gift with machines that works against him with suubatar or dew-back or bantha, as he could never quite seem to become entirely comfortable riding anything with both a mind and a will of its own), but it feels to Obi-Wan as if it has been an awfully long time since he got to tease Anakin a bit. Since these are the best mounts for their purpose, it can hardly be named an indulgence at all, to take advantage of Anakin's complaints as to their mode of transportation, now can it?

With an almost blindingly bright smile, Obi-Wan moves out of the shadows surrounding the doorway, walking briskly and fearlessly down one of the corrugated ramps to make a slight, almost imperceptible hand gesture in the direction of the nearest of the Utai dragonmount wranglers. "My companion and I need transportation," he declares, the tilt of his head taking in Anakin's slightly reluctant presence behind him, the Force flowing through his words like a stream of warm gold.

The Short's bulging eyes immediately go distant and a bit glassy, and his prompt response - a string of burbling glottal hoots - has a decidedly affirmative tone.

All but blazing in the Force now with eagerness (and if it had been anyone but Obi-Wan, he would have been bouncing on his toes with glee), Obi-Wan makes another slight gesture. "Get us both a saddle." After another string of affirmative burbles and hoots, the Short waddles hastily and purposefully off. While waiting for the saddles, Obi-Wan turns to examine the available dragonmounts. He automatically passes up the largest, and the one most heavily muscled, then, after a moment's consideration, skips over the leanest built-for-speed beast as well. Continuing on, he doesn't even bother to approach the one with the fiercest gleam in its eye, a fact for which Anakin, at least, is silently grateful, though he is interested in the leanly muscled and quick-looking mount that Obi-Wan has passed over. Obi-Wan, Anakin knows, is not actually paying attention to outward signs of strength or health or personality: he is using his hands and eyes and ears purely as focusing channels for the Force. Though he may not know precisely what it is that he is looking for, he trusts that he will recognize it when he finds it, and the Force, in answer to that unquestioning trust, blazes around him like a nimbus of light.

Qui-Gon, Anakin cannot quite keep himself from reflecting with a small inward smile (unconsciously echoing a thought that Obi-Wan has just finishing smiling at, himself), would doubtlessly approve wholeheartedly.

While Anakin is claiming that wonderfully swift-looking mount - a lean, blue-green beast all but radiating a fierce joy of the hunt and a brightly burning love of those willing to partner her by riding her forth in a race worthy of challenging her strong and eager heart - Obi-Wan finally comes to a dragonmount with a clear, steady gleam in its round yellow eyes, and small, close-set, brilliantly blue and green (mostly tending towards blue on her back, though the rest of her appears to be almost entirely only different shades of green) scales that feel warm and dry beneath his hands. This particular beast neither shies back from his hand nor bend submissively to his touch, instead returning Obi-Wan's searching gaze with calm, thoughtful intelligence. Through the Force, Obi-Wan feels in the dragonmount an unshakable commitment to obedience and care for its rider - an almost Jedi-like devotion to service as the ultimate duty - and cannot keep himself from breaking into a wide smile. This is precisely the reason why Obi-Wan does and always will prefer a living mount: a speeder is incapable of caring if it crashes.

"This one," he says, still smiling. "I believe I'll take this one, won't I, Boga?"

By this time, the Short has returned with two plain, sturdily functional saddles. As he and the other wranglers undertake the complicated task of tacking up the two dragonmounts, he nods at the beast Obi-Wan has chosen, confirming Obi-Wan's name for the beast, "Boga," before turning towards Anakin and the mount he has chosen and declaring, "Seera."

"Oh," Anakin nods acknowledgment. "Seera. Okay. Thank you." Gingerly following Obi-Wan's lead, he takes a sheaf of greens from a nearby bin and offers them to the dragonmount. The great beast bends its head, its wickedly hooked beak delicately withdrawing the greens from Anakin's hand without even so much as scraping at the skin of his palm, and then chews them with fastidious thoroughness. "Good girl, Seera. Uhm - " Anakin frowns towards the Short " - she is a she, isn't she?"

The wrangler frowns incomprehensibly back. "Warool noggaggllo?" he asks, shrugging, which Anakin takes to mean I have no idea what you're saying to me, stranger, okay?

"Seera is indeed a she, as is Boga," Obi-Wan finally takes pity on Anakin's confusion and informs him. "Female varactyls have green and blue skin and feathers, while the males are completely brown. You would know that, if you'd read more of the data about Utapau," he adds, weaving a gentle reprimand into his teasing tone.

"And deprive you of the chance to tell me all about them?" Anakin merely asks back, finally breaking into a smile.

Shaking his head in mock despair, Obi-Wan swings himself with sinuous ease up into the saddle and the dragonmount rose, arching her powerful back in a feline stretch that ends up lifting Obi-Wan more than four meters off the floor. After waiting for Anakin to scramble (with much less grace, though he manages to mount without any real mishaps) into his own saddle, Obi-Wan turns to look down at the Utai wranglers. "I am afraid that we cannot pay you. As compensation, I can only offer the coming freedom of your planet: I hope that will suffice," he gravely offers.

Since they are, after all, in a bit of a hurry, Obi-Wan does not bother to wait for a reply (which he would not have understood anyway) before touching Boga purposefully on the neck. In response, Boga rears straight up and rakes the air with her hooked foreclaws as though she were shredding an imaginary hailfire droid, then gathers herself and leaps up to the ring-balcony in a single powerful bound. Obi-Wan doesn't need to use the long, hook-tipped goad strapped in a holster alongside the saddle, nor is it necessary for him to do anything more than hold the reins lightly in one hand. Boga seems to understand exactly where he wants to go, just as he has known that she would, much as he knew the name she would answer to, courtesy of his far-sight visions. Obi-Wan is grinning shamelessly as his dragonmount slips sinuously through one of the wide oval apertures into the open air of the sinkhole, then turns and seizes the sandstone with those hooked claws to carry Obi-Wan straight up the sheer wall. A half-strangled and rather indignant-sounding yelp from behind him lets him know that Anakin's lean mount is living up to her appearance, following at a pace so swift that she has managed to catch Anakin entirely off guard. Turning his head, he sees Anakin sprawling half across his mount's neck, clutching after the reins he dropped in his shock at the speed with which Seera followed after Boga. Unable, to help himself, Obi-Wan laughs, and the clear, bell-like tones of his laughter unwinds behind him like a rope of gold as Boga and Seera rapidly ascend up level after level the sinkhole city.

The city looks and feels deserted. Nothing else moves during their swift flight up-levels, saving the shadows of clouds crossing the sinkhole's mouth far, far above: even the wind-power turbines have all been locked down. The first sign of life they see comes on the tenth level itself: a handful of other dragonmounts lie basking in the heat of the midday sun, not far from the still shiny durasteel barnacle of the droid-control center. Obi-Wan rides Boga right up to the control center's open archway before jumping down from the saddle, turning in time to help steady Anakin as he wobbles mid-dismount, keeping him from what might have otherwise been a nasty spill. "For no one else but you would I subject myself to this, I hope you know," Anakin declares breathlessly, still slightly dazed from the speed of their ascent, looping an arm around Obi-Wan's waist in an effort to steady himself further.

"I know, Anakin. Just as you know why I subject myself to so many unnecessary speeder rides and starfighter flights," Obi-Wan only laughs back quietly, turning to skim a hasty kiss over Anakin's cheekbone before turning his attention back to the control center.

The open archway leads into a towering vaulted hall, its durasteel decking entirely bare of furnishing. Deep within the shadows gathering in the hall is a cluster of twelve figures, slightly taller than the human norm. Their faces are the color of bleached bone. Or ivory armorplast.

They look very much as if they might just be waiting for them.

Nodding to himself, Obi-Wan pats Boga's scaled neck. "I would tell you both to find your way back home, girl," he tells her, his voice as grave as if he were speaking to another entirely sentient being, "but I have a feeling we're going to have further need of your assistance, one way or another. Please, take Seera and find a safe place nearby to wait for us."

In response, as if she understands exactly what he is asking of her, Boga gives voice to a soft, almost regretful honk of acknowledgment, then bends a sharper curve into her long flexible neck to place her beak gently against Obi-Wan's chest.

"It's all right, Boga. I thank you for your help, but to stay right here would be dangerous. This area is about to become a free-fire zone. Please. Go find a slightly more distant spot in which to wait. I won't forget that you're here, waiting for me, just because I cannot see you."

Resignedly, the dragonmount honks again before moving back, shouldering up against Seera and herding the slightly smaller beast back away from the immediate vicinity of the open archway. Observing the entire process with a slightly rueful smile, Anakin simply shakes his head. It would do no good to be surprised, he knows. It is, after all, Obi-Wan Kenobi whom the beasts are obeying.

With a small smile, Obi-Wan steps from the sun into the shadow. A wave-front of cool air passes over him with the shade's embrace, and a wave of warmth comes from behind and to his left, as Anakin steps up to his side. Together, the two walk on silently, without haste, without urgency. The Force layers connections upon connections, and brings them all to life within Obi-Wan and, through Obi-Wan, Anakin as well: the chill deck plates beneath the measured tread of their boots, and the stone beneath those, and far below that the smooth lightless currents of the world-ocean. Obi-Wan slips into the Force as easily and effortlessly as a strong swimmer might dive down into the depths of a familiar pool of water, and, since the bond they share guarantees that Anakin's awareness is woven all throughout Obi-Wan's mind, Anakin is effortlessly carried along with him. Together, they become the turbulent swirl of wind whistling through the towering vaulted hall, and they become the sunlight without and the shadow within that hall. Their human hearts, beating in time with one another in their cages of bone, echo the beat of an alien one in a casket of armorplast, and their joined minds whir with the electronic signal cascades that pass for thought in droids programmed to be and to revel at being Jedi-killers. And when the Force layers into their interwoven consciousness the awareness of the structure of the great hall itself, they become aware, without surprise and without distress, that the entire expanse of vaulted ceiling above their heads is actually a storage hive. One that is filled almost to the point of overflowing with combat droids. Which makes them also aware, again without surprise and without distress, that they would very likely die here, if they were not very careful and very lucky. Contemplation of death brings only a slight sting of regret, and more than a little bit of surprise. For they have neither one of them realized, until this very moment, that they have both always expected, for no truly discernible reason, that when death finally did come, it would be while they were with one another.

Just as they are, now.

How curious. The thought has just enough time to form, and then their united mind and being are once again turning back to the business at hand.

General Grievous. The Force throbs like an open, angry wound around the vile knot of his unreasoning anger and the wholly unnatural web that has been woven around the shreds of true life necessary to keep his cyborg body functioning. Obi-Wan and Anakin step forward as one, in answer to that poisonous throb of pain and hatred and rage, determined to wipe it from existence. In response, the four bodyguard droids spread out in a shallow arc between them and Grievous, raising their electrostaffs. As one, Obi-Wan and Anakin pause in their advance upon the General, stopping a respectful distance away. They can still remember the bruises they carried away from their last confrontation with just such an electrostaff - what seems like aeons ago, aboard the Invisible Hand - and neither one feels any particular urge to renew that collection of bruises.

"Hello there!" a tranquil but nonetheless bright and pleasant voice declares from between Obi-Wan's lips, the Force speaking through him.

"General Kenobi," the cyborg stares at him fixedly for a moment from behind the screen of charged and spitting electostaffs before turning his cold yellow gaze on Anakin. "And the Skywalker pup. I must admit, I was not expecting the pleasure of two Jedi to destroy. You and your Republic are bold, I will give you that, but I find your behavior bewildering . . . " There is, indeed, a touch of puzzlement in General Grievous' voice, one indicating that the bio-droid would be frowning, if only he still had any facial muscles to move and so could still make such expressions. "Surely you must realize that the lies of your Republic are ludicrous. Surely you must know that you're doomed."

"Oh, I rather doubt that," a surprisingly peaceful and pleasant voice murmurs through Anakin Skywalker's lips, as the tall young Jedi Master tilts his head slightly to the left and issues a small, somehow oddly cryptic smile.

"What I realize, General Grievous," a similarly calmly cheerful voice replies from Obi-Wan's serenely smiling mouth, "is that you are under arrest."

The bio-droid general stalks towards the two Jedi, passing through his protective screen of bodyguards without the slightest hint of reluctance. "Don't tell me, Kenobi; let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender."

"It can be," the Force allows equably in Obi-Wan's still serenely joyful voice. "Or, if you like, it can be the part where we dismantle your exoskeleton piece by piece and ship you back to Coruscant in a cargo hopper."

"I'll take option three." Grievous lifts his left hand, and the bodyguards move to box Obi-Wan and Anakin in between them. "That's the one where I watch you and Skywalker both die."

Another gesture, and the droids in the ceiling hive came to life. They uncoil from their sockets heads-downward, with a rising chorus of whirring and buzzing and clicking that thickens until it almost sounds as if Obi-Wan and Anakin have stumbled into a colony of Corellian raptor-wasps. They begin to drop free of the ceiling, first only a few and then many, like the opening drops of a summer cloudburst, until finally they are falling in a downpour that shakes the stone-mounted durasteel of the deck and leaves Obi-Wan and Anakin's human ears ringing. Hundreds of them land and roll to standing, and as many more stay attached to the overhead hive, hanging upside down by their magnapeds, weapons trained so that Obi-Wan and Anakin now stand at the focus of a dome of blasters. Through it all, though, the two Jedi never move, never even so much as blinking or shifting weight in preparation for the battle that is obviously coming.

"I'm sorry, was I not clear?" the Force merely asks through Obi-Wan, calm and bright as a river of light, tilting his head questioningly to one side. "There is no option three."

Grievous simply shakes his head. "Do you never tire of this pathetic banter?"

"He rarely tires at all," the mild response comes through Anakin this time, with an odd small smile that is somehow almost sly, "and since I have no better way to pass the time while we wait for you to either decide to surrender or choose to die, I don't see why we shouldn't have a bit of harmless fun, in the meantime."

"That choice was made long before I ever met you." Grievous turns away then, abruptly disgusted with the entire exchange. "Kill them." Instantly the box of bodyguards around Obi-Wan and Anakin fills with crackling electrostaffs whipping faster than the human eye can see - which turns out to be far less troublesome than it might have been, for that box is already empty of Jedi.

By the time the MagnaGuards attack, the Force has already helped Anakin leap up above the heads of the MagnaGuards, his leap turning into a gravity-defying hover, the soles of his boots just clear of the bodyguards' electostaffs, while Obi-Wan has been allowed to collapse as though he has suddenly fainted and his lightsaber has been brought out from his belt to his hand and ignited for him even as the Force suddenly turns that fall into a boneless, graceful roll that neatly carries the now ignited blade through a crisp arc that first severs the leg of one of the bodyguard and then, as the Force brings Obi-Wan back to his feet, follows through the torso of the droid, near the waist, as the Force nudges the now-crippled MagnaGuard into a sideways topple that throws the bodyguard directly into the path of the blade and sends it clanging to the floor in two smoking, sparking pieces. One down. The remaining ten press the attack, but more cautiously; their weapons are longer than his, so they limit themselves to striking from beyond the reach of his brilliant blue blade. Obi-Wan gives way before them, his defensive velocities barely keeping their crackling discharge blades at bay. Ten MagnaGuards, each with a double-ended weapon that generates an energy field impervious to lightsabers, each with reflexes that operate at near lightspeed, each with hypersophisticated heuristic combat algorithms that enable it to learn from experience and adapt its tactics instantly to any situation, are certainly beyond Obi-Wan's ability to defeat, but then, it is not Obi-Wan who is going to defeat them. Obi-Wan isn't even really fighting. He is only a vessel, emptied of self. The Force, given shape by his skill and guided by his clarity of mind, fights through him. In the Force, he feels their destruction: it is somewhere above and behind him, and only seconds away.

And so he goes to meet it. And the MagnaGuards obligingly follow, having forgotten the Jedi - another empty vessel, filled to the brim with the power of the Force - who flipped away above their heads moments previously, having assumed that, since the Jedi has not attempted to intervene in the battle since then, it means that the other droids must have already dealt with him.

Of course, they do not bother to look up.

They never bother to look up.

Three have been neatly cut down from above, two judicious slashes of a blazing blue lightsaber sufficient to behead the three bodyguards, even before Obi-Wan has finished gathering himself to meet their destruction. Two, three, four. Then, even as the three dismembered droids are collapsing into sparking heaps, Obi-Wan is launching into a backflipping leap that the Force uses to lift him up neatly to an empty droid socket in the ceiling hive. The remaining bodyguards automatically spring after Obi-Wan, thanks to their near lightspeed reflexes, before it can even register on the hypersophisticated heuristic combat algorithms of their combat brains that another threat from above has just literally carved three of them into smoking pieces of so much useless machinery. By the time that sinks in, another MagnaGuard has met a messy end, spitted upon the blade of a spitting lightsaber, dropped to the floor, and carved apart like mannequin meant to show how a proper and thorough dismemberment is supposed to proceed. Five. One MagnaGuard attempts to turn, mid-leap, to meet this second threat, but not even its droid reflexes can turn it around fast enough to meet the downstroke of a lightsaber, wielded by a Master filled to the brim with the Force and therefore accelerating towards its torso with more speed and inevitability than the strike of a downrushing lightning bolt. Anakin's blade carves it in half from its left shoulder down to its hip and catches its cut-off torso in a second swing that beheads it at well, just to be on the safe side, the memory of a legless MagnaGuard that had still attempted to fight, on Invisible Hand/, prompting the second, seemingly unnecessary blow. /Six. By the time the five remaining droid bodyguards have arrived in the ceiling hive, Obi-Wan is already gone, having leapt higher into the maze of girders and cables and room-sized cargo containers that makes up the control center's superstructure immediately upon his arrival, rather than lingering to try to gather his bearings - a task rendered entirely unnecessary by the guidance of the Force.

Here, the Force within him suddenly declares, and Obi-Wan stops, balancing effortlessly on a narrow girder, frowning back at the oncoming killer droids that are leaping from beam to beam below him like malevolent dura-steel primates. Although Obi-Wan can feel its close approach, he has no idea from where their destruction might be coming . . . until, that is, the Force shows him a support beam within reach of his blade and whispers, Now. His lightsaber flicks out and the durasteel beam parts, fresh-cut edges glowing white hot, and the enormous hulk of a ship-sized cargo container that the beam has been supporting tears free of its other supports with shrieks of anguished metal ripping apart like rotten cloth to crash down upon all five of the remaining MagnaGuards with the finality of a meteor strike. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

Oh, Obi-Wan notes with detached approval. That worked out rather well.

Only twenty-five thousand or so to go, now. Give or take a few hundred. Or thousand.

An instant later the Force has him hurtling through a storm of blasterfire as every combat droid in the control center opens up on him (and the now onrushing Anakin, hurrying up to meet him but still several beams below) all at once. Letting go of intention, letting go of desire, letting go of life, Obi-Wan falls back down into the Force's embrace, allowing it to direct him until his entire attention is focused on a thread of the Force that pulls him like a lead, guiding him towards Grievous. Only, it is not towards where Grievous is that this lead runs, but rather towards where Grievous will be when Obi-Wan has arrived there . . .

Leaping from girder to girder, slashing cables on which to swing through swarms of ricocheting particle beams, blade flickering so fast that it has effectively become a deflector shield that splatters blaster bolts in all directions, Obi-Wan's mere presence becomes a weapon: as he spins and whirls through the control center's superstructure, moved by the Force, his control entirely surrendered to its guidance, the blasts of particle cannons from heavily modified combat droids destroys equipment and shatters girders and unleashes a veritable torrent of red-hot debris that crashes down to the deck, crushing droids on all sides. With Anakin coming up rapidly from below him, mirroring him, shadowing his progress and shielding him, abandoning himself to the Force with a shout of fierce pleasure, his very presence a storm of joy wrecking havoc among the enemy, it is as though two tornadoes of destruction are tearing through the storage hive, easily felling ranks upon ranks of droids, sheering through them as easily as heated wire cuts through butter. By the time Obi-Wan has flipped back down through the air to land catfooted on the deck once more, nearly three-fourths of the droids between him and Grievous has already been either completely disabled or utterly destroyed by their own not-so-friendly fire. He slices his way into the mob of remaining troops as smoothly as if it were no more than a canebrake near some sunlit beach, his steady advance forward leaving a trail of rapidly mown down smoking slices of droid behind him, Anakin following less than half a minute behind him to deflect the shots of the few remaining active units still scattered in the further reaches of the structure.

"Keep firing/!" Grievous roars furiously to the spider droid that flanks him. "Blast him!" Obi-Wan feels the massive shoulder cannon of a spider droid track him, and he feels it fire a bolt as powerful as a proton grenade, and he also feels that Anakin is far enough behind him not to be in danger of reaching the further edges of the bolt's blast radius, so he lets the Force nudge him into a leap that carries him just far enough towards the outer fringes of that blast radius so that instead of the shockwave shattering his bones it merely gave him a very strong, very hot /push -

- that sends him whirling, alone but nevertheless softly smiling, over the rest of the droids to land exactly where he wants to be and the Force needs him to be, directly in front of Grievous and effectively blocking the cyborg General's way, cutting off his only possible line of retreat. Immediately, a single swift slash of Obi-Wan's lightsaber amputates first the left blaster of one of the battle droids that has been following behind the spider droid - a droideka that has not bothered to engage its shield, its computerized brain assuming that the enormous bulk of the spider droid renders its own shield obsolete - and then its head, effectively killing the droid. The momentum of that second sweeping stroke carries Obi-Wan forward into a rapid double-flip that culminates in a spinning Force-assisted kick that brings the heel of his right boot to the point of the duranium chin of another droid - some kind of modified super battle droid, apparently. It is larger and more heavily armed than the others of its kind that Obi-Wan has had cause to engage in battle before, but lacking in a personal defensive shield. Because of this lack, his kick is able to snap the modified super battle droid's head back hard enough to completely sever its cervical sensor cables. Blind and deaf, the super battle droid nonetheless continues to try to obey its last order. It staggers in a drunken circle, its left arm spraying bolts wildly from its blaster and its convulsively firing right should-mounted cannon blasting random holes in droids and walls alike, until finally Obi-Wan deactivates it with a precisely timed thrust that burns a thumb-sized hole through its thoracic braincase. A moment later, warned by the Force, he launches himself upward, his leap carrying him free of the edge of the blast radius as the second cannon bolt fired from the spider droid is carefully deflected by Anakin and blasts both the enormous droid and its immediate surroundings to rubble and scrap.

"General," the Force announces then through Obi-Wan with a blandly polite smile, as though he has been called upon to give an unexpectedly greeting, on the street, to someone he privately dislikes. "My offer is still open."

Droid guns throughout the control center abruptly fall silent, for Obi-Wan is now standing so close to Grievous that the General is in the line of fire.

Grievous merely throws back his cloak imperiously, contemptuously. "Do you honestly believe that I would surrender to you now?"

"I am still willing to take you alive." Obi-Wan's nod takes in both the smoking, sparking wreckage that fills the control center and the now rapidly advancing figure of Anakin Skywalker, striding across the field of battle like a god of destruction. "So far, no one has been hurt."

Grievous merely tilts his head quizzically to one side, so that he can squint down into Obi-Wan's face. "I have thousands of troops. You cannot defeat them all, not even with Skywalker to help you."

"I don't have to."

"This is your chance to surrender, General Kenobi," Grievous continues, ignoring that calm declaration and sweeping a duranium hand towards the sinkhole-city behind him. "Pau City is in my grip: lay down your blade and call off your pup, or I will /squeeze /until this entire sinkhole brims over with innocent blood."

"That's not what it's about to brim with," Obi-Wan merely mildly observes. "You should pay more attention to the weather, General."

Yellow eyes narrow behind a mask of armorplast. "What?"

"Have a look outside." The Force directs Obi-Wan to point his lightsaber towards the archway. "It's about to start raining clones."

Already turning to look, Grievous again demands, "What?" But a shadow has already passed over the sun, as though one of the towering thunderheads on the horizon has caught a stray current in the hyperwinds and settled itself above Pau City. Of course, it isn't a cloud at all. It is, instead, the Vigilance/. While an artificial twilight enfolds the sinkhole, across the bright desert above assault craft are skimming the dunes in a tightening ring centered upon the city. Even as Grievous watches, eyes wide and stunned, hailfire droids begin rolling out from caves in the wind-scoured mesas, unleashing firestorms of missiles towards the oncoming craft - but only for exactly two and a half seconds, which is how long it takes for the sensor operators of the /Vigilance to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries. Two and a half seconds later, thunderbolts roar down through the atmosphere, and hailfire droids disintegrate in blossoms of fire.

Soon, pinpoint counterfire from the bubble turrets of LAAT/i's is meeting missiles in blossoming fireballs that are ripped to shreds of smoke as the oncoming craft blasts through them. LAAT/i's streak over the rim of the sinkhole and spiral downward with all guns blazing, crabbing outward to keep their forward batteries raking over the sinkhole's wall, while at the rim above Jadthu-class armored landers hover with bay doors open wide, trailing sprays of polyplast cables like immense ice-white tassels that loop all the way down to the ocean mouths that gape at the lowest level of the city. Down those tassels, rappelling so fast that they seem to simply be falling, come endless streams of armored troopers, already firing on the combat droids that are marching out to meet them. Streamers of cables brush the outer balcony of the control center, and down them slide white-armored troopers, each with one hand on his mechanized line-brake and the other full of DC-15 blaster rifle on full auto, spraying continuous chains of packeted particle beams. Droids immediately begin to wheel and drop and leap into the air and burst apart into fragments. The few surviving droids open up on the clones as though grateful for something to shoot at, blasting holes in armor, cooking flesh with superheated steam from deep-tissue hits, and even blowing some troopers entirely off of their cables to tumble towards extremely messy final landings ten levels below. When the survivors of the first wave of clones hit the deck, though- and there are far more survivors than there are casualties - the next wave is right behind them.

Grievous turns furiously back to Obi-Wan, lowering his head like an angry bantha about to charge, yellow glare fixed on the Jedi Master. "To the death, then."

Obi-Wan merely sighs and shrugs, as though bored. "If you insist."

The bio-droid general casts back his cloak, revealing the four lightsabers pocketed there. He steps back, spreading his duranium arms wide, inviting attack. "You will not be the first Jedi I have killed, nor will you be the last."

Obi-Wan's only response is to subtly shift the angle of his lightsaber up and forward.

In answer, the General's wide-spread arms ripple and then split all along their lengths, dividing in half, even his hands splitting in half, dividing until he has not two arms but four. With four fully functional hands, as well. And then, unsurprisingly, each hand (with only three digits, because of the splitting) is reaching down to take up a lightsaber as his cloak drops down to the floor. Soon, the lightsabers are snarling angrily to life, as though unhappy with the identity of the creature wielding them - a proposition not as unlikely as it might at first seem on the surface, given that Jedi essentially place a part of themselves into the weapons of light that they craft and wield in service of the Force, making their lightsabers into extensions of their physical forms. The weapons may well retain enough of the impressions of their former owners to indeed take offense at the identity of the being now wielding them. In the hands of a nonForce-sensitive like the General, lightsabers are only dumb weapons, not extensions of their wielder's mind and soul, and so, instead of fountaining in the Force with a sense of near-sentiency, the lightsabers merely ignite into snarls of effulgent colored light. Unfortunately, this does not keep Grievous from immediately beginning to spin all four of the weapons in a flourishing velocity so fast and so seamlessly integrated that he soon seems to stand within a pulsing sphere formed from four overlapping discs of blue and green energy.

"Come on, then, Kenobi! Come for me!" Grievous calls out, raising his voice as near to a roar as he can (damaged as he still is, from the battle with Mace Windu on Coruscantand the brief fight with Obi-Wan on /Invisible Hand/), from within that mad whirl of green and blue energy. "I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Lord Tyranus himself! Come, if you dare!"

"Do you mean Count Dooku? What a curious coincidence," the Force merely replies through Obi-Wan with a deceptively pleasant smile. "I trained the man who defeated him."

At that, Grievous gives a convulsive snarl and lunges.

The sphere of blazing lightsaber energy around Grievous bulges towards Obi-Wan and opens like a mouth to bite him in half. Obi-Wan simply stands his ground, his blade still, waiting.

A few moments later, chain-lightning teeth close upon him, and the battle truly begins.

There is an understated elegance in Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber technique, one that is quite unlike the feel one might get from the other great 'saberists of the Jedi Order. He is wholly lacking in the flash, the pure bold élan, of Anakin Skywalker; there is nowhere in him the stylish grace of Shaak Ti or Dooku, nor the penumbral ferocity of Mace Windu or Depa Billaba; and he is nothing resembling the whirlwind of destruction that Yoda can become. He is simplicity itself.

And that, as Mace Windu so patiently sought to explain to him, back on Coruscant, is Obi-Wan's greatest power.

So now, facing the tornado of annihilating energy that is Grievous's attack, Obi-Wan simply is who he is.

The electrodrivers powering Grievous's mechanical arms let each of the four attack thrice in a single second; integrated by combat algorithms in the bio-droid's electronic network of peripheral processors, each of the twelve strikes per second comes from a different angle, with different speed and intensity, in an unpredictably broken rhythm of slashes, chops, and stabs, every single one of which might have easily taken Obi-Wan's life.

Not a one touches him.

At this point in the war, Obi-Wan has walked unscathed through thick hornet-swarms of dense blasterfire, defended only by the Force's direction of his blade, so many times that he has lost count of the many battles he has escaped from untouched by enemy fire: after all of that practice, countering a mere twelve blows per second is only mildly challenging, not anything anywhere near to approaching impossible. His brilliant blue blade weaves an intricate web of angles and curves, never truly swift but always just fast enough, each motion of his lightsaber subtly interfering with three or four or eight of the General's strikes while the rest all sizzle past him, his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them past by mere centimeters - making him glad, in a detached sort of fashion, that he thought to wind the braid Anakin made of his hair into a knot against the back of his neck, since otherwise he's not entirely sure if he could have managed to avoid having the either part or all of the plait sliced off. Grievous, all snarling fury, responds by ramping up the intensity and velocity of his attacks - sixteen per second, eighteen - until finally, at twenty strikes per second, he finally manages to overload Obi-Wan's defense. And in response, Obi-Wan simply uses his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brings Obi-Wan's blade in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the handgrip, just so -
- slice -

- and the blade winks out of existence a bare hairbreadth before it would have burned through Obi-Wan's forehead. Half the severed lightsaber skitters away, along with the duranium thumb and first finger of the hand that has held it. Grievous, shocked, pauses, eyes pulsing wide before drawing narrow. He lifts his maimed hand and stares at the white-hot stumps that are now only holding half of a useless lightsaber. In response, Obi-Wan smiles calmly, almost chillily, up at him, head tilted pointedly, almost mockingly, to one side. And Grievous, infuriated, lunges at him in reply. Shrugging, Obi-Wan simply parries so that, again, pieces of lightsabers go bouncing across the durasteel deck. Grievous looks down at the blade-sliced hunks of metal that are all he has left in his hands, for a moment so completely shocked that his brain refuses to acknowledge what has happened. Then, blinking, he looks back up at Obi-Wan's shining sky-colored blade, then down at his hands again, before he seems to suddenly remember that he has an urgent appointment somewhere else. Anywhere else. Obi-Wan immediately moves to step towards him, determined not to let the General flee from the battle and make good an escape again, but a shock from the Force makes him leap back just as a scarlet HE bolt strikes the floor right where he has been about to place his left foot. Obi-Wan rides the explosion, flipping in the air to land upright between a pair of super battle droids that are busily firing upon the flank of a squad of clone troopers, which they continue to do right up until the moment when they start falling in pieces to the deck. Finished with them, Obi-Wan spins rapidly back around.

In the chaos of exploding droids and dying men, Grievous is nowhere to be seen.

Of course not. When have any of our missions /ever been easy?/

Sighing determinedly, Obi-Wan steels himself for a hunt.

***