Chapter 26: The Fields of Pelennor
The LAAT came in and rounded over the Republic army. Blue bolts and cracking explosions erupting endlessly from its forward lines and further back still. Troopers ran about clad in their white armor with blue markings all along it in various spots. The screams of those hit by burning red bolts of death and by those cleaved and carved by the rockets and rounds of the CIS from afar. Massive AT-TE walkers moved slowly forward. Stomping like great war beasts, and firing their main cannon far off in an arch through the skies and slamming back down against the emotionless, and unrelenting mechanical army of the separatists.
Several gunships above whirred through the air forward against the droid lines as green beams of energy and smoking rockets exploded forth. Hitting down into the lines. One LAAT exploding in a fiery ball as it tumbled through and down from the skies as three Vulture droids swooped over its falling husk beyond.
This gunship, however, carried precious cargo. It came to a steady landing beside a mobile command platform where several commanding clones stood with binoculars overlooking the enemy lines. From within the belly of this LAAT came three men. Two humans and one Kel Dor to be exact.
"Cody!" Obi-Wan called. One clone with orange stripes down his armor swung around as the Jedi master bound his way forward. Cody lowered his blaster and saluted in a stiff manner. A posture Obi-Wan reciprocated as he neared and clanked his way up the platform Anakin and master Koon not far behind.
"It's good to finally see you once again general. After all these months we feared the worst." Obi-Wan chuckled.
"I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be among...shall we say more technologically sophisticated and armed people. But, the catching up, I'm sad to say, will have to wait Cody. I understand we have a bit of a droid problem, right?" The face of the man was shrouded by his trooper helmet but he nodded, and Obi-Wan could sense a small bit of mirth come from the man.
Cody swung back around and extended his left armor plated arm outward toward the enemy forces as artillery flared from behind and flew from the droid positions over them. Several looking precariously too close for comfort.
"The seps' have launched a wave of droidekas and Hailfire tanks on our position. They're circling as it is but I think they're about to hit us here and hit us hard." Cody motioned toward the center of his lines as two AT-TE's moved on either side of where he pointed, firing all the while.
"Grievous, or I would bet every credit in the Republic it's Grievous, seems to be testing your lines." The two men turned as Anakin walked up on them. He looked particularly disheveled from his fight from behind the walls of the white city burning not far from where they now stood.
"What do you mean sir?" Cody asked.
"He wants to see if you'll respond by sending out a large enough force away from your flanks and hit those units hard and eliminate them. So he can then appropriately attack your flanks and breach." Obi-Wan and Plo shared a look of momentary shock, but both shook it off. It was just odd for Obi-Wan to see his ex-apprentice suddenly fall into full military strategy mode so suddenly once again. Though, it did bring a smile to his bearded face.
"What would you recommend general?" Cody asked as Anakin folded his arms across his chest and sighed. His shoulders stiffened at the sudden explosion from behind them as a hailfire rocket flew overhead and connected with an AT-AP walker that collapsed with clones calling and crying to everyone to move away, as others were thrown about.
"Well, knowing Grievous he'll likely get pretty mad, but then again," Anakin grinned. "We're not looking to become best buddies now are we?"
"Anakin just tell us the game plan if you have one." Obi-Wan suppressed a roll of his eyes as his friend raised his hands to calm his master.
"Okay. What I think needs to be done is you get those LAAT's to make a few passes. You hit the hailfires hard but drone that whole sector of the field in composite-beam laser cannon fire. One of two things happen in my mind. They pull back for new orders, or do as droids do and sit there and die while they continue to carry out their orders. Either way it clears the fields for you to move those up." He pointed right and everyone jerked to see that Anakin pointed to a pair of stationary TX-130 Saber Class Fighter Tanks.
"What do ya' think?" Anakin looked to Obi-Wan who shrugged and in turn looked to Cody. The clone commander looked to the saber tanks and back toward the field. A single nod was his reply before he immediately began calling the gunships back.
"Alright! Back in action." Anakin grinned as he snatched his saber hilt back from his belt and made to bound back off the platform. The sudden tug of Obi-Wan's hand on his shoulder stopped him as he was yanked back some.
"Not this time my friend." Anakin furrowed his brow and made to object when Obi-Wan lifted a hand to silence him. Not that the constant shooting and explosions didn't already have that effect.
"You know as well as I do your greatest talents in battle shine through when you're piloting a fighter and bringing those two bit droid 'pilots,' to their knees."
"But mast-" Obi-Wan again raised his other hand in silence as he smiled.
"Don't worry about me and master Koon. We can handle a few droids. Throw in an Orc or two and we'll still be fine. Throw in Grievous, and it won't be for the first time today I make him sorry he even bothered." Obi-Wan chuckled in a way Anakin could only describe as being very...Kenobi-like in nature. It brought a smirk to his face.
"I bet. But master are you...sure. I don't want to-"
"Think no more of it. Get on that gunship and get back up into space. You can remind me how space looks like when we've won the battle and you come pick me up." Both Jedi shared a laugh. Both feeling and sensing the other was as well, a creeping sensation of trepidation. After months of endlessly being around one another, after Moria, Helms Deep, and Minas Tirith and everything else this strange world had to throw at them. Being suddenly separated felt odd.
Nevertheless, Anakin slapped his old masters arm and nodded once.
"You got it old man. Just don't break anything while I'm gone." Obi-Wan shook his head.
"I'll try my friend now go before they take off for a mission!" Anakin nodded and clasped his saber once again. Bounding down off the platform he waved the captain of the LAAT from afar and quickly boarded. He instructed the pilot to take the LAAT back up to the nearest Venator-class stardestroyer. He was quick to comply and closed the hatch doors to seal out the vacuum of space, before the ship then took off with a warble of the ship common to them, and bound upward into the skies. Obi-Wan watching from below.
"Master Kenobi." Plo called, as Obi-Wan turned toward him. "Care to join me?" In Plo's right hand was his saber, and the Jedi master had removed himself from his cumbersome robe at last. Obi-Wan tipped his head up as four new LAAT's zoomed overhead and a succession of earth shattering and teeth shaking explosions slammed down onto the field in front of them. Artillery fire from cannons around them adding to it. So the Jedi master laughed.
"Sure thing." Taking up his own saber, Obi-Wan moved toward Plo and near to where Cody stood, and awaited the moment to strike. As around them came forward the saber tanks.
'It's time to make Grievous's day even worse I believe.' Obi-Wan laughed in silence, as the dust settled and two brilliant sabers erupted.
The star began to rise further into the air as the morning dragged, and the rank smell of mingled death and smoke rising in the distance filled the air all around. The horsemen atop their steeds of war rampaged through the blackened ranks of Mordor. Cutting down vast swathes of these lesser and foul Orc. She could sense it. Their pride and sense of victory. It prevailed the Force. It rung out like a loud chorus of triumph in her head or beside her very ear drums! It made Vica...nauseous.
Clad in her black attire, her hair disheveled some, and her body radiating pain in several regions; muscles pulsating, and bones feeling bruised, she pushed herself forward. Her legs more or less moving on pure willpower and on autopilot at that. They moved one after the other farther away from Grievous and his droid armies, and deeper into and through the Orc lines. Toward the sound of the ground being beat by hooves and the loud calls, war cries from the peasant men. Upon their peasant, filthy steeds, attempting to route her, and her allies! Her body bristled with sudden coursing rage as her right hand gripped her saber hilt with a power and fury she had not even known herself to even still be capable of producing at this point.
She was time and again shoved by Orcs as the little cowardly lot broke into a full route and run back toward the husk of Osgiliath and the river. Their grunts and squeals of terror feeding through the Force and filling the air around her. Filling her up with their emotions as they ran high and charged the air around her and the whole field itself. Pure adrenaline it felt like, burst and coursed through her body in small explosions. Both exhilarating and infuriating at once.
Her eyes were once more the sickly glowing yellow of one deeply connected with the dark side. Its dark tendrils gripping and filling her with unnatural power, and raw energy as she paced her way through this sea of Orcs that flew passed her in terror of the horsemen. Her pace suddenly quickened as did her heart. A sudden spike of adrenaline added atop the raw power of the dark side, and the adrenaline already there, and she broke into a sudden run.
Pounding foot and hoof falls upon the soil shook the earth below, and suddenly Vica found herself and her path blocked by the hundreds of foul creatures. Her teeth were barred in a growling sneer, and with a sudden flash of her left arm outward dozens of Orcs flew forward. Slamming into one another and hurdling through the air backward as they slammed, cried out in terror, and died.
The crimson light of her saber exploded to life with a snap and hiss as her thumb slammed down onto its activation button. Her legs pounded with pain as her own footfalls became harder and more rapid as she flew forward. The Force leading and guiding her as she tossed more and more of these pathetic orcs from her sight. They were of no consequence. Not anymore!
She heard them near! The horsemen, those peasant riders of that mongrel people from the west! Her eyes burned in hatred as the dark side swirled and howled around her! A snarling howl and Vica jumped into the air. Over several dozen orcs, and in the starlight beating down on her, and the army of men and orc below she fell back down with saber held behind her head ready to swing. A company of the foul men on horses was beneath her and she sensed them catch sight of her. Shock, awe and then terror flew through them and she was upon them. She cleaved down through one man, and his body was bisected in half His steed carrying the lower half of his corpse away in confused fear.
She swung left and slashed a horses left leg off, and the beast fell. Toppling and crying as its rider fell and rolled with it, being crushed several times over by his very own mount.
Vica slashed and dashed back right and her saber cleaved into two further horses, before she threw her left arm back forward and a wave of raw dark power extended from her and a slew of more than ten horsemen upon their steeds slammed backward against one another and through other mingled orcs as they ran crushing and killing one another as they went.
She tossed her right arm back and flung with a flurry and the saber flew spinning and whirring through the air as it then flew back down into the hordes of men. It zipped and slashed through man after man their shocked dying screams being cut off as the beam of pure energy; like a blade through butter, went through neck after neck and took head after head from their shoulders.
She laughed with utter ecstasy as the death permeated the air and filled her every muscle, every cell with raw power of the dark side. Both hands, coiled at the fingers flew outward and from them a burst of light and energy as lightning exploded. Cracking the air and illuminating her whole being as it slammed into the beasts of burden the men rode upon. Their whines and cries mingled in the shrieks of their mounts did nothing but send a thrill through Vica. As her saber spun left and back right toward er. She ceased her attack, and snatched cleanly from the air the lightsaber hilt and with complete ease spun herself back around and cleaved into the flesh of another foul horse that neared her back as the man raced into the orc hordes. It fell with a whine and crushed its rider underneath. The man yet lived, and Vica grinned wickedly as the mass of horsemen raced passed her and around the small circle of carnage all her making. She strode forward, her ragged and ripped clothing flowing and swaying as she did until she stepped atop the dying animal and dug her booted heels into the creature as its whine filled the air, and she looked over its dying form to see its rider pinned beneath. The disheveled man, heaved and cried and sounded incapable of breathing right as blood erupted from his mouth.
His blue eyes looked up at the woman above him. Blonde as he but pale and wielding a sword of light, bright as the sun and red as blood, as her toothy grin met his face.
"I don't think I'll have much ability to say this to your people but frankly saying it to even one is good enough for me." The woman leaned down as she didn't seem to register the growing pained cries of his dying horse. The hum of her weapon growing nearer to her as she closed in down upon him.
"I rather enjoy killing your kind. You could say I'm kinda vindictive like that, but I don't like being made a fool of. Your victory at helms Deep was...trivial. Cause you see I'm gonna make sure I hang every one of these things," She suddenly flipped her weapon into a backwards grip and stabbed it down through the horse as it cried out and finally slumped on him, but a burning ripped through into his leg and he too cried out until he felt his throat constrict and air cease to flow. "I'm gonna hang every one of these horses from a big old tower for your mongrel people to see, and I'll have every woman of your people savagely beaten raped, and hung by the neck naked for all to see. Until at last your men beg for death. I shall not let that happen until they watch as their children are strapped and their limbs torn apart one by one, as they beg for mommy and daddy to help them. Th best part being," the demon leaned in with a giggle upon her voice. "They wont come. All your little one will die seeing mommy hung and daddy watching them get mutilated to death. Then, and only then will I let your people kill themselves. Because I would much rather let your men live and bare witness to the fruits of their victories over me, than kill and release them. You're lucky though." She giggled in full as the man gasped for air that wouldn't come, tears stung at his eyes and his lungs pained, as she grinned lopsidedly and her eyes glowed ever more before him in a sickening swirl of yellow.
"You're a luck, lucky boy, because you DO get to die before that happens. But don't worry you little mongrel, it will come, and hopefully you can bare witness from the great beyond." With a snap of her left hand to the right the neck of the man was slammed right and a sickening crack was hear as his eyes remained forever gazing in horror and disgust toward nothingness.
Vica sighed contentedly and breathed in the stench of fresh death all about her and allowed her head to hang back. A thrill lick an electric shock traveling through her body as it begged for some visceral and primal release as she soaked in her kills. At last, with her head still hung back, a mighty laugh escaped her. Pleasant and mirthful in its pure ecstasy. A triumphant woman stood atop a dead horse with a man beneath as around her lay many dead. Orcs, man and horse in stinking piles, as she reveled in her minor victory and her imagery of her eventual hell she would bring to these mongrel people. The mere imagination of what could and would be done to them, as she had whispered to this nothing of a man was no lie. She could see the horses hanging, mutilated and swinging from metal wire, machines pounding into and digging through their earth extracting raw material for war through the galaxy and ruining their fields and hills. Defiled and soulless woman crying where they lay upon the ground where their attackers had taken and left them, as others hung, fully exposed for all to see their shame! Then the children..
'Oh the children!' She erupted in more laughter. The thought of limbs being torn from their bodies sent another rush climbing through her. The dark side howled and curled around her. The ring upon her finger pulsed with intensity not known before and she felt more adrenaline course into her body with savage new vigor.
She steadied her breath and only shook herself from her thoughts as she heard a man from afar order his horsemen to drive the orcs into the river. Another to make the burning city beyond safe, and then? The pounding of the earth, greater than ever before. The calls of men in a new language to her ears, and snarls of beasts unknown to her all the same. A great and exotic horn blared through the air, and Vica turned toward Osgiliath as did the horsemen, watching the orcs flee near to the sound.
"Now...that's new. I love it!" She giggled and felt like jumping as she bared witness to the coming of the Mumakil. The reforming of these horsemen into a charge line around her on both sides and the resounding of the charge as they blitzed forward toward the great beasts from afar. Vica watched as these beasts flung the horses high into the air, and trampled THEM underfoot.
A thunderous laugh erupted from her that echoed in the air, as she leapt from atop her kill and joined the fray. There were far more men to slaughter, and she wasn't done having her fill at all.
Saber clanged hard against the enemy blade falling upon it. Kit held his green saber up over his head as the massive blade of the cloaked creature fell upon him with another savage blow. The lanky figure of this Nazgûl creature did not in one bit seem to mean it was in anyway weak. Every blow, be it an overhead strike, or a seemingly weak and lazy slash at his flanks didn't come weak or lightly.
Master Fisto grit his teeth and spun around and flung his opponents blade as he did and moved himself back as the creature picked its blade up and held it pointed at Fisto again, with its metal gloved hand pointed outward. A stance Fisto had come to realize was typical of this monster and its form of dueling. Its blackened maw stared at him like a void from the deepest black holes of the galaxy, or even perhaps darker. Kit could see nor feel anything and it didn't cease to send chills along his green skin. Never before, even in the presence of Sith, or Grievous had he felt such hate, pain, and darkness emanate from a one figure. Wherever this being drew its power from, it's 'lord,' as it called it, must have been and was some great evil creature that Kit didn't wish to know at the least for fear it would turn all he knew about the Force and evil on its head.
The Nazgûl screeched another ear piercing screech and flung its sword over head and ran at him slamming down again and again four times. Each time Kit blocked and threw it back. After the fourth it flung itself in a swing and its sword flew before Kit forcing him to jump back as the tip of the blade pierced his cloth and ripped it open at his abdomen. It held the massive blade in its right hand with its other held out to his side similar in stance. As it appeared very lordly in how it stood before Kit. Almost as if it were a lord, and master, or had been even a king at a time. Its grace while hindered by its lanky nature, seemed to still be a shadow, a glimmer of something long passed by.
"You creature," It spoke in its vicious scratched voice that had the Force whining with every syllable uttered. "You and your kind, do they all fight as you do?" Kit raised a hairless brow upon his features.
"No. I am a Jedi. There are tens of thousands of those like me. They are from across the galaxy. All shapes and sizes, all races and all creatures who can touch the Force and defend the galaxy and the Republic from...things like you."
"But your people, green one, they do not all fight as you?" Kit slowly shook his head as his eyes narrowed. "Good, then not only shall they, but these Jedi you speak of, be more than easily conquered by my lord. If what we have to expect are fighters like you." It goaded, no new emotion in its voice as it mocked, but no less vicious in tone. Kit half sneered but released all anger into the Force as he fell back into a comfortable ready stance in shii-cho.
"Funny you say that. Cause if my eyes aren't fooling me, I'm still here, and we've been at this for quite a bit creature. You still haven't beat this one Jedi, and I am one among many!" Kit then slammed his right foot down and flew into the air and slashed down. The Nazgûl blocked and carried Kit's momentum as he fell to the stone floor and rolled behind where the Nazgûl stood and slashed back left. The Nazgûl then jumped back. Kit ran back upon him and fell into a set of flurries to its left and right. The creature barely blocked the speed saber at Kit's speed. All the while the nautolan Jedi master grinned.
He suddenly stopped flung his saber over his right and slashed down over the Nazgûl's left down its right, but it blocked. Its sword was forced away and it hunched over. Kit cleaved at its exposed back. It screamed and sent a pulse of unknown and burning power through the air that flung Kit back some feet as his arms shook with unknown pain as light erupted from beneath the foul creatures cloak of void and shadow. It soon stopped as the being picked himself off the floor with clattering sword in its grip and stared Kit back down from underneath its cowl.
"You fool! I have already told you. You cannot kill me! Wound me as you wish, but it will, I will...we will never be stopped! So long as lord Sauron lives so shall we." It hoarsely uttered and Kit frowned as his lips pursed and he spun his saber back into ready position.
"We'll see creature. I may have a few tricks up my sleeves as it were." Kit grinned again, and he sensed what he thought was annoyance emanate from the creature. It howled again and ran at him with saber lazily had behind his form. It flung it in an arch and down on Kit's position. He dove right and rolled away and behind him again.
His back was no to a building on the first floor of this ringed city. They had carried their duel down from the upper wall and were mingled among burning buildings, dead bodies of men in armor and many dead blackened creatures that reeked of corruption and evil. While many hundreds were flooding around them and leaving them to their duel as Kit sensed death, fear and chaos prevail the city and upwards into its higher levels. As beyond the walls he sensed even more death and fear consume the whole land, as did sparks of light and good. Yet they were drowned in a sea of anger, and hatred that came from near and afar. Kit couldn't shake it either...a felling that he was being watched. Whatever it was made him very uneasy. As if it cold see right through him. For now though he ignored it and faced off against this creature of pure darkness before him.
The creature turned and screeched again as it swung its blade before itself and held it before its face and edged nearer toward Kit. He fell once more into an open shii-cho stance and paced away from the building. He didn't need to be cornered by this kriffing thing that was for sure.
It screamed again and ran at him. Slamming right, left, swinging at him. Kit blocked, parried and spun away as the tip once again nipped at his tunic and he cursed under his breath.
'That's four times now he's nearly nicked me!' Two earlier slashes across his tunic were upon him from before, and the Jedi master couldn't believe this thing of all his opponents had come the closest to stabbing and gashing open his flesh.
He turned his saber downward against the stone and locked another slash at his person as the Nazgûl carried it down his blade and swung back up to stab his chest. Kit dove aside and slashed back left at its legs. The creature sidestepped and slashed down pinning the saber. A savage kick of its metal and spike tipped boot hit Kit's arm and he forcefully pulled his arm and saber away. He seethed through grit teeth and glanced at his arm. A little blood trickled, but the wound seemed superficial to him.
Breathing to calm himself and his body, he released his anger into the Force, and set his massive dark eyes upon the Nazgûl again. It slashed down from its right against Kit. He blocked and swung it away to the creatures right. He then lifted and sent his own great kick against the figure. It felt like kicking stone aside, yet somehow shapeless. All the same, the creature shrieked and stumbled back. Its back hitting the wall of the building and its sword striking the white stone beneath them.
Kit called upon the Force and pulled it around him. Sending his free hand outward a great wave of energy flew forth and slammed against the Nazgûl and pinned him further against the stone of the building. Again and again Kit repeated until the stone began to crack and fracture against the savage bows of unseen power. Each time the creature made light shrieks of anger that were carried through the force back out of the thing.
Kit did it again and again and neared at his own steady pace. The Nazgûl attempted to bring its sword up but it was slammed back again and its sword would fall back against the wall with its arm. Kit unleashed a final bout of power from the Force against the creature. Slamming him against the cracking wall once again as he did. The nautolan Jedi leapt up and fell downward. With a might and fast stroke of his saber he slashed down against the right arm of the creature. An explosion of light and burning pain through Kit exploded as the arm of the creature, with sword still in hand collapsed against the stone floor in a clattering heap. The Nazgûl shrieked and forced itself off the wall and with its left arm backhanded away Kit who swung around. The creature looked down to its sword and back to Kit. The alien followed its gaze and back to staring it down as well.
"Don't..." Kit trailed toward the Nazgûl. Though deep down he knew it was pointless to try and 'reason,' with a creature such as this.
With another screech it dove its left hand down toward its sword, and Kit leapt forward again and shoved with all his might, his saber up and through the creatures chest. Another blinding light and shriek erupted as pain rattled through his body. Calling on the Force, the light of it and everything in him. Kit forced his saber up and through the creature as more shrieks that seemed to come from the air, more than the creature erupted from its void of a maw and the whole region shook around them. The Force whined but flooded Kit with its light and power as the Jedi master forced himself and everything he could give to press on forward! Until finally Kit called on the Force, every ounce he had taken into himself and with a spike of energy flushing out his body crawling up his arms and outward he unleashed a massive bout of its power down and through his lightsaber and a great boom of power exploded between the two. The light of the Force clashing and smashing against the unseen and unknown darkness of the creature. Until, at last a great shock erupted outward from the deepest core of the Nazgûl outward and sent Kit flying back from its form. He smashed against a cart of wood and it exploded apart from his body smashing against it as he rolled and his saber deactivated. A hissing whine filled the air until it slowly died. Leaving the immediate area in silence.
Shaking himself from what Kit thought to be a momentary blackout, he grunted and with a heave pushed himself up. Having fallen and rolled onto his stomach. He breathed a few great breaths as the weariness of the fight weighed upon him and he called once more on the one ally that was always there. The Force. Allowing it to enter and replenish him. Brushing from himself dirt and dust, he called his saber to his hand and turned back to the Nazgûl. Only, instead of the creature, or even the corpse of the blackened thing was merely its blade. Not even its tattered rags or cloak remained.
Hesitantly taking steps toward the fallen blade, Kit stared down toward it where it lay. It reeked just as the Nazgûl had of something unnatural and dark. He made to reach down and grab it, but the Force struck through his mind a warning, and he suddenly stopped, and recoiled his hand. Within a few seconds afterward it exploded into nothing but harsh dirty ash, more like soot, and it too was gone.
For the first time in what seemed like forever Kit breathed a sigh of relief. Hanging his head back, his head tentacles falling around him as he did, he smiled once more as he dove into the Force, and basked in its calming light around him. A silent than you sent by the Jedi, though he didn't know if the Force actually had say a mind, master Fisto once more opened his eyes and turned back toward the city square. The sounds of cracking fire and screams mingled with clashing metal steel reached his ears, and with a new determination, the green alien activated his equally green saber and made his way toward it.
He would get back to master Kenobi and Koon, but something told him he would 'by chance,' come across some more of these little evil creatures, and he would have to deal with them. He grinned as he called the light of the Force to him again.
"Purely by chance of course." And so master Fisto went forward.
Two rockets exploded from the forward of the saber tank and flew forward into the droid lines, and exploded as they did. A hail of fire and smoke flew upwards into the sky as droid bits followed. Obi-Wan jumped over a heap of broken droids and jerked away from the footfall of an AT-AP walker as it walked forward and fired its top cannon into the droid lines.
He dodged and weaved through a slew of haphazardly standing clone troopers as they paced forward slowly and fired their blaster rifles down range into the swarm of droids who fired back endlessly. The ripping sound of B2 battle droids firing rapidly beside their B1 counterparts could be heard cracking through the smoke and ash that was near constantly rising from the droid lines from Republic strikes as gunships constantly circled overhead and fired down into their forward positions.
His saber danced across his form as stray bolts neared him time and again, but each time he caught them and sent them flying random directions across his form. Until he finally reached it. The droid forward lines himself. Falling down from another jump ahead he slashed down across a droid. Throwing himself right and through another. Spinning his saber back left as a slew of bolts came his way from a B2 heading for him. They crashed back against the droid but it only staggered and returned to shooting. Obi-Wan sent a wave of energy its way and it flew backward against and crushing underneath its massive frame two B1 battle droids.
He smirked to himself and swung his saber in a clear circle over his left and around cleaving down two more droids near to him as they fired on the clones behind him. The crack of a massive explosion sent him into a semi-hunched position from the sheer violent crack. A stomping dwarf spider droid rounded near to him and slammed its legs down into the soil of this world. Its barrel recoiled with a heavy slam and a great bolts rung from it and slammed into the face of the AT-AP walker and sent a ball of fire erupting as it slung over and fell with a boom.
"Oh dear." Obi-Wan simply intoned as he swung back to face the droid walker. Dashing forward with the Force aiding his run, he leapt forward and beside its forward legs and swung down into the metal. His saber began to burn into its leg, but the droid made to turn on him and fire.
"Blast it!" He dove aside as it rounded and made to stomp on his form. It fired close to where he had been and sent a mass pile of dirt ejecting upwards into the air with heat radiating out following it. Obi-Wan shook himself as mounds of dirt fell onto his head and shoulders. Pulling the Force around him he sent a great blast into the side of the walker, and the machine dug its legs in as it felt some unknown force push against it. Its legs already burnt by Obi-Wan's saber cracking as it did and bending further out of place.
Reaching out with the Force and grasping the leg, Obi-Wan yanked his hand away and with it the droids leg pulled out and collapsed under the weight of the walker and cracked in half. Becoming fully limp as the walker attempted to force its three remaining legs to carry the weight. It wildly fired again near to Obi-Wan but couldn't turn on him fully. More dirt flew upwards and Obi-Wan used the force to send most away from his head as he ran toward the droid once more, and with another well placed jump up and forward, he slashed downward and cleaved through the barre of the droids cannon. Rolling as he fell back down, he immediately fell into a run as the spider droid fired and with its cannon gone, it exploded then and there into a husk of metal and debris all about the immediate area it inhabited and slouched forward.
Sighing as he rose Obi-Wan looked toward the fallen walker, when he suddenly furrowed his brow at a familiar sound. Turning back left he noticed at least twelve dwarf spider droids, and another ten crab droids running forward against his troopers.
"Blast!" He echoed and fell into another ran toward the droids as his troopers sprayed blue blaster fire into the enemy walkers, with their tanks and AT-AP walkers pelting them with cannon fire. Smokey rockets exploded from the back lines of the droids suddenly and their purple hue was familiar to obi-Wan as being from the hailfire droids. The rockets whirred through the air and crashed against three walkers that fell backward and collapsed in fiery heaps. Some troopers were unfortunately beneath them as well.
Heaving his saber he sliced left and cut slashed through a crab droid, and continued to run forward. Slashing right with speed unknown to the droid he cleaved into another dwarf spider droid as it paused from the sudden registration of damage being done to its body. Another leap and Obi-Wan fell atop another crab droid. It immediately began to shake and slam its body around in circles and all manner of jerking moves to get the intruder atop its body off.
Clinging to it with his left hand as it dug against metal. Obi-Wan grimaced from the pain of the action and huffed as he attempted to hold his footing as his boots slipped time and again along the walkers metal plating. Swinging his saber around into shien backwards grip he slammed it down and upwards into the photoreceptors of the droid. A slew of clicking and clattering mechanical noises roared outward from the walker as it flailed about some more. Obi-Wan grunted and forced the saber back up until he began to see the metal atop the walker begin to melt away from the saber puncturing on through.
Yanking the saber back up and immediately down into its body, Obi-Wan continued to grip onto the droid with all the power he had in him until at last it sparked and slugged and then a whir escaped it before it finally slammed down against the dirt.
Obi-Wan jumped off the fallen droid, and clasped his deactivated saber to his belt. Even as bolts flew around him from both sides into the other. He lifted his hands and with a grit teeth heave, lifted the fallen droid machine high into the air, even as his arm shook. Lifting his hands above his head, he drove them outward and the hunk flew through the air. Slamming into a slew of droids who could only look up before the larger of their kin slammed atop and crushed them all. AT least a dozen of them all at once.
"Master Kenobi!" Obi-Wan turned as Plo ran toward him. Blocking a random bolt as he did that flew back and struck the bold B1 in the head, destroying it.
"They keep sending these walker and tank waves with minor reinforcements from their droid troops. I think they are desperate."
"Perhaps, but it's likely because of our air cover." Obi-Wan looked upwards as a pair of gunships indeed flew overhead and fired their green lasers down into the further back droid lines. Two simultaneous explosions erupting as they did.
"I don't think good old Grievous has been able to land anything after the initial surge of troo-" Obi-Wan was cut off as a tremendous screech pierced the skies. Both Jedi turned upwards with some troopers to the back of the lines doing so as well.
Four fell beasts growled and screeched followed by their riders in turn as two broke off and chased after one LAAT and clasped their claws into the metal flying machine. The monsters began to gnaw at the gunships and scream into the cockpit viewports as they forced the ships downward with great forceful shakes of their bat like bodies.
"By the Force." Koon intoned and Obi-Wan felt a frown form across his face as the two other fell beasts did the same to the second gunship as four Vulture droids flew passed them and aimed low and pelted the clones lines before veering back up into the skies. Several men were basted aside and away from the targeted attacks as the gunships ceased to be an issue.
"Blast!" Obi-Wan repeated for the third time.
"Those beasts, or rather their riders are bold. I can only hope they are all we have to deal with from this wor-" Once again both masters were forced into silence as they whipped around. A terrible stomping sound sounded through the field as they became shadowed. A great war beast. Tremendous in size, perhaps that of a greatly aged Rancor, or perhaps greater still suddenly ran through the open field between the droid and clone armies. With a might swing of its massive tusks it slammed itself against the body of another AT-AP walker and sent the metal walker flying down and its metal snapped all across its figure.
The clones fired at the beast on instinct. Their bolts burning at its hide. But the creature only roared in reply and swung itself around sweeping its tusks along the dirt. Taking with it soil and clone troopers who were ripped and torn asunder as they were flung into the air.
"Generals Kenobi, Koon!" Plo brought his hand to his comlink placed firmly to his face to hear Cody's voice.
"This is Koon, I have Obi-Wan with me. What is it Cody?"
"You can tell him we see it master Koon." Obi-Wan interjected as a stray At-TE cannon blast narrowly missed the beast and slammed into a droid position and sent them flying upwards in a fire ball. Plo nodded.
"Cody we see the-"
"Not the big animal sirs, we have a...bigger problem! On your right troopers!" the sound of rapid blaster fire and clamoring men could be heard in the background, as well as strange noises mingled with them.
"What is it Cody?!" Koon, a bit flustered asked. Obi-Wan turned and raised a brow, but became concerned as he could sense a growing fear spread across the field and from master Koon.
"We got locals I think. Nasty little buggers! Their flinging swords and spears but they swarmed over a few of my men already and...have tore into them. They're all flooding from the river along with whatever the kriff those big animals are! Our men out there in the field between us and the droids are being cut off from the camp by these things!" Plo shook his head as Obi-Wan grimaced from the move.
"Your little friends. Orcs right? They're attacking the troops in the field...there." Plo pointed back toward the camp and Obi-Wan winced to make out a company of little creatures running against troopers in the far off of the open battlefield.
"BLAST!" Obi-Wan once more shouted. "I'll handle this take care of the droids Plo!"
"Will do Obi-Wan." Plo relayed general Kenobi's return to aid the troops to Cody who thanked the Jedi master as he fired on the little creatures himself with notable disgust in his voice as he did.
Turning against the battle droids once more Plo swung his saber as a bolt flew his way and easily tossed it aside. From behind him the running of troopers could be heard as tanks fire beyond his position.
"We're here to help general." A trooper informed as he ran alongside him. Three more wielding blaster cannons in their arms nodded his way, and Koon bowed his head,
"Very well. We destroy this position here and now." he pointed his saber toward a line of droidekas and repeater mounted B1 battle droids firing into the cone ranks advancing with the armor, and the troops nodded.
"With me troopers. For the Republic!" Plo dove forward with saber behind hi and the troopers ran eagerly behind him. Unleashing a torrent of blue bolts into the droids who turned on the sound and returned fire immediately. Plo blocked those aimed at the troops and used the Force to send dozens flying back. Two droidekas rolled toward them, but the clone commander fired his cannon and a spray of bolts ripped into one that swerved left and right before exploding in a rolling heap. The second stopped and made to uncurl. Plot grasped it with the Force and sent it flying far to the right where it slammed against an AAT emplacement.
A company of B1 and B2 support troops advanced and fired on them.
"There they are! Watch the Jedi." The yellow painted OOM commander droid ordered as he pointed their way. The B2's fired on Plo who bobbed and weaved with his saber sending stray and errant bolts back into the droid lines. Several of their own red bolts slammed against them and sent them whirling back into heaps, as the clones unleashed vast streams of their own bolts.
"Watch it!" Plo warned. Three troopers immediately dove, a third turning to look as a crab droid ran upon him. He made to turn on and shoot the ramming walker, but it slammed the cone into the air and back down to the ground with a grunt.
"Cover me." The commander nodded and he with his men fired into the droids who returned equal fire, two more troopers fired on the crab droid. It turned their way and roared its unnatural mechanical roar their way as Plo dashed with the Force underneath the monstrous droid and grasped the trooper. With a mighty heave he got the clone who grunted and growled in pain with seethes onto his back and wildly dashed from underneath the droid as it charge toward the new troopers shooting at it.
"Move!" They both dove aside, one left the other right. Plo ran with all his strength aided by the Force and came back to were he started and placed the trooper down as medics ran toward him covered by a saber tank moving toward the droid lines.
Plo swung around and held his saber at the ready as he dove back toward the crab droid as it turned on the clone and made to stab them with its clawed legs. They rolled aside, but it followed again and again repeating the action until it pinned one by slamming down where he made to roll.
It made to crush the trooper into a mess of exploded organs and crushed bone, but the whir of a spinning saber sounded through and slammed against its leg, and the droid turned its attention upwards as the blue beam swung back toward Plo who still ran toward it. Flinging his hand outward with a mighty shove the Force rippled and the droid was pushed back and shook itself as Plo dove under its larger frame. Slashing right left then back right and severing its joints the legs collapsed under its own weight and the droid fell forward. It roared in its mechanical manner again as Plo repeated the process on its back legs and dove from underneath the machine as it fell on all its legs and became an immovable husk of a central mass.
"Fire on it!" He called to a nearby trooper beside the saber tank. The armored man ordered the tank to take the shot and two cannon shots erupted from its main guns and Plo ran aside as they slammed into the crab droid and debris flying in all directions.
Plo ran back toward the droid lines where more troopers had arrived for their own assault on the droid forward lines.
"We missed you general." the commander intoned, and the Jedi master let loose a small chortle.
"I can only hope. Quickly now, we dig into this line and push both left and right and cut off their forward lines from the back."
"Copy that general." The commander nodded and ordered his troopers to advance as three AT-AP walkers finally reached the line with five saber tanks and they blitzed on through.
Obi-Wan ran back toward the Republic lines as explosions rippled about still with troopers running both in the same direction and the opposite as they attempted to carry out the likely confusing order coming their way from Cody and the rest of the commanders. He ran below the towering and hulking beast as it ran its way through the open field between the armies. The men atop it yelling to one another in disbelief and Obi-Wan sensed confusion at that. The beast above everyone else was raw in confusion and fear as lights zipped nearby its body and head time and again with searing heat and pain hitting all across its body from the blasters fired by the troopers or errant ones from droids.
Nonetheless Obi-Wan dove on forward. Another two massive cannon blasts by AT-TE's zoomed by the beasts body and it roared as it swung about in confusion. Its driver not himself knowing what he was doing exactly.
Obi-Wan ran with the Force, and pushed himself faster than ever as a succession of explosions rippled from behind him, as artillery pieces from the republic line unleashed. One errant round struck the topside wooden troop hold atop the beast and men screamed and flew off the beast in pieces and screams down to the earth below. As the beast roared in fear. Then finally one artillery struck the beast in the head followed by the neck and right ribs. The beast howled in pain and fell over in a heap, as a horrendous smell of burning hide and flesh filled the air. The ground shook tremendously as it fell, but Obi-Wan could not turn to look. Couldn't waste any time t see the sight of carnage unfold. He ran on forward until the front of the republic lines came back into view.
Troopers on the front line of the Republic camp fired vast spray against the little creatures, the orcs as they swarmed over them in droves. On the opposite side from the field troopers turned and fired back as they ran upon the clones and made to stab and claw at them. The men fired and ten then twenty would fall but thirty then came at them. Obi-Wan with a grunt drove himself forward with a furious pace and then came to a sudden stop and slashed right swinging left and cleaved through five of the disgusting creatures who fell limp in grunts and snorts like beasts themselves.
Sending a wave of Force energy through a dozen they all went flying and slammed against one another and clone hardware as walkers moved forward fired into large groups of them and sent dozens to their death in burnt smolders or flying into the air in free flying heaps.
Obi-Wan turned and drove one orc through as it ran upon him and swung left all the way back around taking several heads with him as he slammed the Force outward toward both his left and right sending dozens of flying and cluttering against one another, even stabbing each other fully on accident.
Swinging in an arch to his right her cleaved another and then stabbed backward to himself to the right and gutted one, before pulling and swinging left through two more. The troopers fired seemingly endlessly into the orc hordes and they fell and fell but didn't stop. As the shrieks of the Nazgûl above sent the troopers into bouts of fear that they couldn't account from where it came. An immediate and primal sensation to run and cower gripped them, but they pressed on as the little creatures stalked and swarmed. Te climbing toward a trooper who fired into them, but one good stab of a scimitar and the trooper fell to be stabbed again by another orc who would growl and move on its way.
These men garbed in white armor and wielding weapons of exploding light sent fear through the orc, but more so did their lord, and his lieutenant. The Witch-King, and what he ordered went. The troopers threw grenades into hordes and they exploded to brutal but efficient display as black blood flew across the soil and metal of clone armored units or the clones themselves. The crack of the metal beasts being the one thing that sent the orcs into runs and routes. Only for them to return as the Nazgûl flew overhead and screeched louder and angrier by the moment. The whole time the horsemen charged into the mumak lines, trampling dozens even hundreds of their kin, and meeting the great mumaks head on. Just for the beasts to rampage and toss aside dozens.
"Cody!" Obi-Wan called from afar as the Cody stood on the platform and fired a wide spray of blue bolts in an arch in front of the platform. Taking at least a dozen orcs there and then before he turned toward Obi-Wan's voice. The clamor of men and orcs in the field around him making it hard for Cody to hear as his Jedi general called toward him.
"Organize the men and push the armor forward! Anything and everything associated with these," Obi-Wan paused and slashed right as an orc jumped at him with its blade held high ready to strike down. "creatures are on the side of the separatists!"
"Copy that general." Cody yelled back and swung his arm commanding another clone who fired on three orcs charging their platform. Obi-Wan swung and stabbed his saber through the side of an orc and pushed it off with a harsh wave of the Force and slashed back left and into another orc's head, and cleaved it near in half. He heaved a sigh and took a moments rest as the battle wages around him and seven AT-AP walkers stomped forward into the field, firing on all orcs they came across followed by twenty AT-RT's that fired with their commanders stomping the walker onto and over living and dead orcs all the same as Obi-Wan figured they immediately had taken a disliking to the little nasty creatures. While back beyond the smoldering and disgusting heap of the dead war beast Obi-Wan watched successive explosions erupt and AAT's move to engage saber class tanks on the field, as a Nazgûl on its mount flew over the battle and further beyond toward what obi-Wan could only speculate on. Only seeing more of the massive beasts rampaging across the open field as the star hung higher into the air and beat down upon them all.
Three Vulture droids and two Tri-fighters blasted overhead and fired down onto the Republic troops near the droid lines. Obi-Wan watched with a bit of apprehension and wondered where their fighters had gone to. Until he heard the swoop of more ships diving down. He jerked upward and saw five ARC-170's spin through the air as they fired rapidly on the Vulture droids in sprays of their cannons. The droids broke as did the ARC's to make after them as starfighter dog-fighting took place in the skies of a world Obi-Wan was sure had seen nothing stranger, and yet at the same time stranger things.
He pulled his saber back up and readied to go after a company of orcs to his left as they ran at three troopers who fire on them and pelted them as well as the soil in searing hot blaster bolts. Then Obi-Wan paused. The Force sent a small shiver through his body of a warning, and he heard a familiar mechanical stomp approach him from behind. Turning back right he slowly glanced to see what he expected and he sighed.
"Hello there, general." He greeted in mock pleasantries. A cough erupted from the hunched figure. He held his arms close to his chest as he did at times when he was 'relaxed,' or as much relaxed as a homicidal cyborg Kaleesh could be.
"General Kenobi." His harsh voice garbled out and played along, seemingly so, in mock pleasantry with Obi-Wan. "I had been expecting you to arrive. Now we can finish what we started earlier." Obi-Wan held his saber close and watched the general closely. Noting his two remaining sabers, and missing fingers. Making him now only capable of fighting with two and not four saber.
'Well that's something.' Obi-Wan thought as he calmed himself through the Force.
"Well we could have finished it there general. However, I believe you had another appointment to keep?" Obi-Wan quipped as the general's eyes leveled and glared with him as he folded his arms behind his back and clasped his boney fingers together as his clawed feet began to pace around Obi-Wan.
"You're quite...funny Kenobi. I'll remember that when I watch you die. As your men die now. All around you in fact. I can also report" he coughed and was interrupted. "that in orbit your forces are on the defensive as we speak. No matter how capable you may think your pathetic clone army and how hard they fight or the natives of this world fight, none will stop the droid army I have at my disposal. In the end all of this struggle will amount to nothing." Grievous intoned with a hiss, but Obi-Wan didn't let it affect him even if he knew the enormity of the separatist military was baring down on them here, and galaxy wide.
"We'll put that to the test right here general. One general to another."
"An apt proposition if I may say so myself." Grievous replied with a wave of his hand as both then fell to and grasped his two saber hilts. He activated both and one blue, one green saber activated. The general fell into a defensive makashi stance, an odd one since he wielded two sabers, but Obi-Wan smirked to himself and fell into the opening soresu stance.
"Come Jedi. Let's end this."
"Gladly general." Grievous charged forward, and the negotiator once more dueled against general Grievous, and upon the fields of Pelennor.
"Rally to me! To me!" Théoden called as his riders indeed clamored around him upon their steeds as the mumakil continued to rampage through their numbers. The odd sounds of battle taking place toward the river bank startled his men, but as king he would rally his men. They had punctured a hole and broken the orcs assaulting Minas Tirith and now they would, by any means and all defeat these beasts from the south-east of middle-earth!
A terrible shriek filled the air, however, and the men turned as did Théoden upon hearing it. Fear and terror went through them all as a fell beast, riding upon it a servant of the dark lord wearing an iron crown. A sudden horror gripped him, and Théoden-king could not move, even as his men around him broke and retreated from their kings side. Then the maw of the beast was upon he and his steed.
The fell beast clutched Snowmane. Its teeth like spikes cleaved and bore into the poor steed and mangled it as it tore from the ground the horse and threw it aside. The horses dead body slamming against the hard earth, and finally atop Théoden-king. Pining and crushing his body, as he feebly held his hands before him with the beasts approach. The great evil atop it speaking as it did.
"Feast on his flesh." A one Rohhirm without a horse came before him and bared nothing but a simple sword. Facing down against the Nazgûl.
"I will kill you if you touch him!" The warrior warned. The deep breath that echoed the air from the creature escaped his terrible maw before he spoke.
"Do not come between the Nazgûl and his prey." He warned in a matter-of-fact manner.
The warrior said nothing as the fell beast lunged for him. The warrior sidestepped the beast and slammed his sword down upon its neck and cleaved a mighty wound into it, before repeating the move and taking the head clean off the beasts neck. Its body wiggled and writhed as its head was gone and the mount of the Nazgûl fell over in a heap dead.
The warrior quickly picked up a fallen and simple shield of the Mark.
Rising from the dead body of his pet, the Witch-King brought forth a morgul blade in his right hand and a more terrible and mighty mace within his left. Terrible spiked chain linked the massive mace at the end to his handle. All of it black and spiked in a terrible fashion fit for those in service to the dark lord. He turned his gaze upon her. The vacant void of his cowl covered face staring at her, with nothing but the eye ports of the iron crown showing the warrior where this things eyes were. As terrible rasps and breaths escaped from it.
The warrior stared with widened eyes at the terrible weapon of the lord of the Nazgûl. He screeched and swung it with mighty strength down upon the warrior. He dodged and ran to the left as it fell upon the earth and slammed soil about it. Screeches erupted still from its maw as it, once again showed strength that seemed impossible, and swung the terrible mace around to his right in a full circle in attempt to sash the warriors bone and flesh asunder, and when the warrior jumped back the Witch-King brought the mace back around to bare. Slamming it once again into the ground where the warrior had stood only for him to jump aside again.
Another swing catches the cloth of the warrior as the Witch-King swing left twice this time and around and slams the mace against the fools shield. Throwing them back in obvious pain as his left arm crumples against his chest and he falls against the fallen Snowmane in pain. The Witch-King brought both weapons outward from his form and looked down upon the fallen fool. As he readied to make a very personal kill.
From afar watched Vica. She watched as the Nazgûl lord beat down this one warrior and savaged them with his mighty mace. Something she found to be overkill, but impressive no less. She turned her way toward the battle between the droids and the republic troops. Explosions and ripping bolt firing was all she could hear. She smirked and took in a long nasally breath. The stench of death and war filling and invigorating her where she stood.
"Ohhhh, why not." She giggled as she idly kicked a dead horseman where she had bisected him and cleaved his horses head off before his eyes as he died. She spat upon his corpse and then made her way toward the Witch-King.
She wished to watch this killing...personally and up close.
Authors Note: I apologize once more for taking so long to update this story. Then again as I have said many times before I get a little sick and tired of people giving me a lot of crud over this story. Frankly it makes me not want to write this anymore but I feel obligated to and I don't like leaving stories unfinished since I don't like it when other authors do that. To those of you I am sure are gonna message me on how this and that can't work in this story I can assure you I do have a brain and I thought my actions through. The one thing that is your right to correct me on are any canon errors for either universe be it Star Wars or LOTR, and grammar issues. All grammar issues are my fault of course, because for one thing I write best at night and when the adrenaline is running, and also I use libreoffice and it doesn't seem to pick up on really dumb minor errors. So, with that said I hope...well if anyone enjoys the chapter I am happy for you guys I guess. Otherwise leave a review or flame as per the usual, and let me know if I messed up anywhere please, and enjoy. Hopefully I'll update and finish this sooner too.