Shadow's Odyssey 2: The Chaos Continues
Anakin woke up in the dungeon. Every wall in the cell was a deadly ray shield. There was nothing in the cell but Anakin himself. Across from him was another cell. Inside of it was an Ithorian. It was… Byph?
"Byph, where are we? What's going on here?"
So Byph told everything he knew. Most of it, Anakin already knew, but one thing immediately stood out to him.
"He wants you to be his apprentice?" There's no way Sidious would take more than one apprentice. That would violate the Rule of Two. If he wants Byph to be his apprentice, then what does he want with me?
Luke and Rex were in a cell together. Luke was looking for any for any weaknesses in their cell. He found none.
"Just forget it. This Umbaran tech is too advanced."
Rex didn't know how to feel about their current predicament. Sure, they were trapped, but that was surprisingly better than what had happened the last time he came here.
"Don't worry, I'll use the Force to hit the switch that opens the door." Luke closed his eyes and concentrated. He reached out with the Force and felt a button. He pushed, and a cell door opened.
Except it wasn't the one they were in.
"Um, wrong one."
Luke tried again and hit a different button.
This one triggered the alarms.
"You need to work on your aim, kid."
A couple of guards showed up and they looked for the cause of the alarm.
"Maybe instead of hitting buttons, you could use a Jedi mind trick on one of the guards." Rex suggested.
"I've never really gotten those to work before."
"Well, here's your chance to practice."
Luke called one of the guards over. When he approached, Luke stretched out his hand. "You will unlock the cell door and let us escape."
The guard narrowed his eyes and shouted something.
"You will unlock the cell door and let us escape."
The guard turned around and began walking away.
"You will unlock the cell door and let us escape!"
The guard stopped for a moment, turned around, and… a huge explosion sounded in the distance.
The two guards rushed out of the room.
"What did you do?" Rex demanded.
"I don't think that was me."
Leia and Padme sat down to breakfast in one of the smaller, more private dinning halls.
"So. What's this 'history' dad has with Palpatine?"
Padme did not choke on her meal. She was too professional and experienced for that. She slowly, deliberately, set down her fork and folded her hands. "Well, Palpatine used to be a… mentor of his. And he… tried to drag him down a dark path."
"Dad says none of us are going to be safe until he's dead."
"He's not wrong."
"Why does he refuse to talk about it?"
"There are certain things that your father wants to… forget."
Leia could not be satisfied with such an answer. "What kind of things?"
"Things that you don't need to know about."
Another unsatisfying answer. "If we are in danger because of those things then I think I do need to know."
Padme sighed. She was obviously right. But she didn't quite know how to tell her. Padme opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted when the captain of the guard burst into the room.
"My Queen! We are under attack!"
Leia stood up. "By who?"
"We don't know! We've never seen ships like these before!"
Leia reached for her emergency comm and attempted to call Anakin, but he did not answer. Tossing it aside, Leia gave her orders. "Assemble the guard and prepare for battle."
The guards put together a defensive line at the entrance to the palace. Starfighters scrambled in the sky above.
Assassin droids advanced on the palace. There were a dozen IG-RMs. The IG-RMs opened fire.
Padme and Leia fired down on them from one of the palace's high windows. One of the enemy ships landed behind the droids. Padme aimed her blaster at it and waited for someone to emerge. But she instantly froze when she saw who it was.
General Grievous had returned.
Padme fired her weapon and the blast struck Grievous's mask. He looked up toward the window where the blast had come from. Grievous withdrew a blaster and a red lightsaber and began marching towards the palace.
Padme quickly turned to Leia. "We have to go."
Luke finally found the button that opened their cell. The hallways were empty.
"Whatever that explosion was, it must really have their attention." Rex mused.
They found a storage room where their equipment was being kept. "The Emerald's this way, let's go!" Luke pointed and lead the way.
As they got closer to the Emerald's location, they came across increasing numbers of dead Umbarans.
"Whoever is attacking the Umbarans must be looking for the Emerald too." Luke reasoned.
Rex looked at the wounds of the dead Umbarans. "They weren't killed with blasters. Whoever did this was using a lightsaber." Rex started to wonder if it was a good idea to try to find whoever this was.
They reached an elevator. The scanner told them they needed to head up. They traveled up a few floors and kept going. They could hear Umbarans engaged in battle up ahead. They rounded the corner and there was Grievous butchering Umbaran soldiers with two red lightsabers.
Rex froze in shock. "He can't be here! He was dead! How is this possible? Even if he did somehow survive getting his internal organs squished into paste, his body would been blown up along with Kamino!"
Luke, who was significantly less fazed, saw that the cyborg was holding the Chaos Emerald they were looking for. He reached out with the Force and pulled the Emerald out of Grievous's mechanical grasp.
His head snapped in their direction. Rex and Luke fled in terror. They made it back to the elevator and furiously mashed the button. Grievous came around the corner, crawling on the floor like a giant spider. The door started to close but Grievous grabbed the sides of the door and tried to force it back open.
Luke summoned all the Force power he could muster and lashed out with a powerful Force Push. Grievous was sent flying back, taking pieces of the elevator doors with him. What was left of the door closed and the elevator began to descend.
Luke took this moment to sit down and take a few deep breaths. "What the heck was that thing?"
"A monster."
Rex had encountered Grievous only once before. Him and Ahsoka were tasked with destroying a Separatist listening post. They were about to plant explosives on the main reactor when he showed up. He looked as terrifying as the rumors said he did but Ahsoka didn't appear to be impressed as she charged right at him without hesitation.
But Grievous swatted her away like she was nothing. The rest of his memories of that were a blur. One second he was firing his blasters at Grievous, the next he was waking up on the floor. He wasn't sure how he survived that encounter, but he considered himself lucky. He considered himself even luckier that he never had to be face to face with him again.
Until now.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, the door opened, and they ran for it. They made to the outside of the base where there were dead Umbarans and broken droids scattered across the ground. They heard the sound of glass smashing. Grievous crawled out the window and spotted his prey fleeing down the main road.
He sprang off the building and landed with a thud, quickly regaining his balance and stampeding after his target.
Luke looked back and saw Grievous closing in. In his moment of distraction, he tripped and went sprawling. Rex stopped and started shooting. Grievous spun his two red blades in front of him and blocked every shot while still advancing. Luke furiously crawled backwards, trying to gain distance.
But then the ground beneath Grievous exploded.
Luke shielded his eyes from the cloud of dirt that was flung at him. Rex grabbed him and pulled him back to his feet.
"What do you know, you were right. There were still mines out here."
Rex and Luke ran back into the jungle. Grievous struggled to stand back up, now missing one of his feet. He was about to continue his pursuit when he was shot in the back by an Umbaran solider. Grievous lumbered towards the solider, who started backing away in fear. But then dozens of blaster bolts rained down from the sky on Grievous. The solider looked up and saw a team of Mandalorians descending from the sky. Grievous quickly crawled away into the darkness.
The Umbaran thanked the Mandalorians for saving him.
"You're welcome. We've been tracking him across the galaxy for days after he attacked our homeworld. Perhaps you Umbarans and your advanced technology could help us track him down?"
The Mandalorians met with the Umbaran leaders who quickly agreed to help the Mandalorians in their goal to bring down General Grievous.
One Mandalorian whispered to another, "Contact Shadow and tell him our mission was a success."