Disclaimer – all original Star Wars characters in this fanfic (excluding my OC's) are the property of Lucasfilm and Disney.
Chapter 47 "Battle For Bota – part 3"
Planet Drongar, The Jasserak Highlands.
ArchKnight Deiven stood right next to the Silent Shadow and observed the battle through a pair of binoculars from far away while HK and a Rakatan warrior waited inside the ship. Deiven even noticed the Jedi, who fought against General Grievous. The mere sight of the former Kaleesh warrior caused the young Firrerreo to frown. He was sure that the Kaleesh didn't ask the Separatist to turn him into a cyborg despite his amazing new skills. Something happened, and Deiven wanted to know the truth.
HK, who walked down the ramp of the ship, approached the ArchKnight. "Statement: In five minutes, the Vicious will launch All Terrain Sentinels Carriers and we'll join the battle."
"Sentinels alone won't be enough," Deiven replied as he watched the battlefield through the binoculars. "With the amount of heavy fire-power both sides have, even their shields won't hold long enough to allow them to get into close range. We need more firepower ourselves."
"Reassurance: Master Zai'shira predicted this and said that they will be deploying a few old droids. The Rakata had many old schematics stored in the Foundry's databanks so we can test them out on the battlefield. We don't expect them to dominate, but they'll keep the CIS and the Republic busy long enough for the Sentinels to get close."
"Good," Deiven nodded with a serious face.
HK noticed Deiven's expression. "Query: Is something troubling you, Master?"
"With the Force-sensitive clones, General Grievous, and Bota, I must say I'm somewhat annoyed," Deiven answered honestly and sighed. He finally turned around and look at the assassin droid. "No matter. Once we get there, I want you to focus on killing the two clones. With your high-midichlorian detector, you should be able to find them with ease."
"Impatient statement: I can't wait, Master!"
Countless battle droids unleashed at the clone troopers, who returned fire. The whole battlefield was chaos, and Grievous loved it. The destroyed Vultures, Y-Wings, AATs, and AT-TEs provided a perfect terrain for the cyborg, who used them as a temporary cover when the Jedi created some distance.
Anakin used the Force and hurled a large piece of metal towards Grievous, who avoided it by jumping on a destroyed AT-TE. Dooku and Asajj wanted to yank him down with the Force, but two droidekas reached them and began to fire at them, forcing the two Jedi to shift their focus to them and deflect the energy bolts.
Grievous immediately lunged towards Anakin and Obi-Wan, who dodged to the opposite sides and attack the moment Grievous landed between them. The cyborg blocked the two blue blades at the same time, and his wrists began to spin. The lightsabers in his metallic hands turned into buzzsaws. Anakin tried to power through, but Grievous suddenly stooped spinning the lightsaber, grabbed Anakin's head with his foot, and hurled him to the side.
Immediately focusing on Obi-Wan, Grievous began to pummel at the Jedi Knight, who immediately started to use the Soresu form and redirect the blows. Their strength was so immense that Obi-Wan knew that he wouldn't last long. However, Anakin quickly got up and dashed towards them.
He slid under Grievous's legs and wanted to slash him, but the cyborg jumped, avoiding the blue blade. Obi-Wan reacted immediately and hit Grievous with a Force push while he was in mid-air. The cyborg, however, quickly recovered and landed on his feet. Anakin got up, and with the use of the Force, he tossed a few metal pieces towards the General, who slashed them with his lightsabers.
"You'll never defeat me, Jedi," Grievous declared. "You'll die just your friends on Moraband."
Obi-Wan squinted his blue-colored eyes. After a few moments, his eyes widened with realization. When they pursued the scientist Jenna Zan Arbor and Granta Omega, the son of a Dark Jedi Xanatos, someone killed Master Lene Kostana, Master Soara Antana, and her Padawan Darra Thel-Tanis. Now since Obi-Wan had a moment to look more closely, he focused on the cyborg's lightsabers attached to his waist. There was no doubt. "You killed them," he accused, and Grievous only laughed in response, following with a cough.
Anakin and Obi-wan exchanged looks and nodded to each other. Both Jedi used the Force together and released a huge Force wave. Grievous jumped to the side, and the Force wave hit the destroyed AT-TE, knocking it to the side on a group of battle droids. The cyborg immediately moved behind a wreckage of a Vulture droid.
"How can he be so big and fast at the same time?!" Anakin growled.
"Benefits of advanced cybernetics," Obi-Wan replied, carefully looking around.
While they were preoccupied with Grievous, Dooku and Asajj were being attacked by the droids. Two B1 battle droids assisted the three droidekas, but it quickly turned out that the two were the advanced ones. Not only that but one of the three droidekas turned out to be an upgraded model as well. Its shield became much bigger and was able to cover a larger area than the other two. The two upgraded B1 models quickly entered the shield and only stuck out their blaster rifles. Safely covered by the droideka's shield, the B1s began to fire at the Jedi Master and his Padawan.
"Asajj! Get behind me! Juts like we practiced!" ordered Dooku. Even with five droids firing at him at once, he was able to deflect all energy bolts even with his Makashi form, which was normally not suited for blaster deflection. Asajj did as she was told and quickly looked around. Noticing a few chunks of Vulture droid, she grabbed a sharp metal piece with the Force and hurled at the droids.
The two B1s dropped to the ground, and the advanced droideka quickly turned off the shield. Reacting much faster than the two other droidekas, the upgraded one transformed into its wheel configuration and quickly backed away, avoiding the metal chunk. The normal droidekas weren't so lucky and were cut in half.
Dooku immediately used the Force to crush the two B1s before they could attack. The upgraded droideka didn't attack but retreated.
"It ran away?!" Asajj asked, confused.
"After what we just did to two droidekas, it must have realized that a frontal attack was pointless," Dooku guessed. "The upgraded models are not stupid. We should-"
Dooku suddenly turned his head just in time, hearing lightsabers being ignited, and spotted Grievous. The cyborg swung his two blades downwards and the Jedi Master with his blades. Dooku jumped away and immediately blocked a horizontal strike. He began to block the strikes from Grievous while Asajj jumped away. This time, she planned on dealing with the General with the Force from a distance. Her earlier encounter with him proved to her that she was no match for the cyborg in close combat. However, when she tried to use it, Grievous circled around Dooku so that the Jedi Master's back faced her.
"Ghhh!" the Dathomirian frowned. Throwing an object or using a Force push would do no good since her Master needed to focus on lightsaber combat. Help came in the form of Anakin and Obi-Wan, who searched for Grievous. The two Jedi immediately rushed to Dooku's aid.
When the three Jedi surrounded Grievous, he began to spin his torso like a buzzsaw, blocking the strikes from all three directions. He began to move towards Anakin, forcing the Padawan to back away. In one moment, he stooped spinning, and it seemed like he wanted to do a backflip, but he let go of his lightsabers and grabbed them with his feet. Standing on his now free hands, he began to slash at the surprised Anakin, who wasn't used to deal with such an unorthodox fighting style.
Obi-Wan and Dooku lunged forward, but an explosion nearby forced him to focus on a DSD1 dwarf spider droid, which got dangerously close. Luckily, Asajj quickly dashed towards it and jumped on its dome. She cut its long central blaster cannon with a quick slash and finished with a second slash, cutting the dome crosswise.
Clones and battle droids began to move closer to their location. The Jedi were forced to deflect blaster bolts, and even Grievous began to look around cautiously. As they fought, the voice of Admiral Yularen issued from Dooku's comlink. "General Dooku! The ship of the Kingdom began to move closer to the planet's surface!"
Dooku looked up and noticed that the massive warship really began to get closer as it got bigger and bigger. Shortly after, the underside of the Vicious began to slide open, and a few dozen medium-sized, ball-shaped objects were dropped from the ship towards the ground. Dooku knew those were ATSC drop pods, which contained the Sentinels. The pods reached the ground and landed far away from the battlefield. When the pods opened and lowered the ramps, the Sentinels marched out.
When other objects appeared in the sky, the Jedi Master noticed much larger, rectangular drop pods, which headed towards the ground. Unlike the ATSC pods, which activated the thrusters and landed safely, the larger pods hit the ground hard and loud. Immediately after, the pods were blown apart by self-destructive bolts.
Each pod contained a battle droid, but each one differed in color, shape, and size. It was a mix of many models from the much older times. Some were bipedal, the others were three-legged, and some were even quadruped. The Sentinels formed three lines behind the droids, and all began to walk towards the battlefield.
"Okay, what now?!" Anakin asked, looking at the large group of Sentinels and droids, which headed straight at them. The other Jedi and even Grievous, who hid behind Vulture wreckage, observed them as well. Before anyone could answer, the Silent Shadow revealed itself right above them. As the ramp of the hovering ship was lowered, Deiven and HK jumped down while the Force-sensitive Rakata, who took a pilot's role, flew away.
The droid immediately activated his rocket propulsion systems and flew away, heading towards the two Force signatures, which belonged to the two Force-sensitive clones.
Obi-Wan, who remembered how HK detected Komari Vosa and Bruck Chun on Coruscant, guessed that the assassin droid headed towards X1 and X2. "HK knows where are the two Force-sensitive clones!" he announced.
"Anakin, follow him and don't let him kill the clones!" Dooku ordered.
Anakin honestly didn't like the idea of fighting the droid who helped him save his mother, but he couldn't let him kill the clones. The Padawan complied and dashed after HK.
Deiven used the Force and slowed down his fall, landing on the ground not far from the Jedi. Looking around, he spotted the Kaleesh cyborg, who snuck around between the wreckages. The Firrerreo ignored the Jedi and dashed towards him.
Dooku wanted to warn Deiven about Grievous and tell him about the clones, but there was too much going on at the moment. "Focus on the fight!" he said to Obi-Wan and Asajj the moment the CIS battle droids resumed the attack.
"He wants to fight the cyborg?!" Asajj asked, noticing that the ArchKnight headed towards the General. "He's crazy! He's not going to survive!"
The Jedi Master knew that Deiven had no chance against the General, but there was a chance that Grievous would not fight seriously against him, not wanting to provoke the Kingdom. At least he hoped so.
Deiven ran towards the cyborg and noticed as he killed a clone and jumped on a destroyed AT-TE. "General Grievous!" Deiven shouted, gaining the attention of the cyborg. When Deiven jumped on the vehicle as well, the General faced the ArchKnight, staring at him with yellow-colored reptilian eyes.
"You must be, ArchKnight Deiven," the cyborg said with his raspy, metallic voice and coughed a few times.
"You don't remember me?" Deiven asked. "We helped you against the Yam'rii! You, your Izvoshra, and my Master fought side by side against the bugs, who vandalized burial grounds on planet Oben!
You promised to help us!"
For the first time since he landed on Drongar, Grievous was genuinely left speechless. He never expected such a conversation. The cyborg squinted his eyes and looked closely at the boy, thinking that maybe he was simply someone whom he didn't recognize. However, that wasn't the case. Yes, he knew about the sacred burial grounds on planet Oben, and he knew about the Izvoshra, but that was common knowledge. What's more, Grievous didn't recall ever fighting against the Yam'rii with someone other than his own people. All because his memory was tampered with.
"I think you're mistaking me for someone else," Grievous replied. "I never met you before."
Deiven growled with anger. "They did something to you!" he stated. "You were a proud warrior! You would never allow someone to turn you into a machine! You're like a lightsaber-wielding droid now!"
Those words made Grievous really angry since he hated being called a droid, and he was ready to lunge at the Firrerreo. Luckily for Deiven, Darth Enigma suddenly jumped on the AT-TE and landed right next to the cyborg. "General! Calm down!" he called, deciding to intervene before things would get ugly. Deiven played his part and snarled when the Anzat joined them.
Grievous looked at the Anzat, who got closer and began to whisper to him. "There's nothing that I want more than to kill this brat, but the Kingdom will unleash everything they have against us. We must win this war and that won't happen if the Kingdom and the Republic will join forces. Nothing forbids you from fighting him, but don't kill him. He's tough and he can take a lot of punishment. Make him regret that he ever dared to challenge General Grievous."
The cyborg looked back at the ArchKnight and coughed. Darth Enigma also looked at him and smiled wickedly. "Have fun, little friend, I'm going to have my own fun with the Jedi," the Sith said and jumped off the wreckage.
Grievous grabbed his two lightsabers and activated them. Deiven reached for his weapon, and using the Force, he activated it. A flat, curved, black-indigo blade emerged from the hilt with a hitch pitch sound, making the General look at it in awe.
"A fascinating lightsaber," said the cyborg. "I'll add it to my collection after I beat you."
"Hate to break it to you, but it is a Forcesaber and, hence the name, you need the Force to activate it," Deiven replied. "So in the hands of a non-Force-sensitive, it is useless."
"That makes it even more valuable," Grievous pointed out. In one moment, the General dashed towards the ArchKnight. His two lightsabers became blurs, and Deiven had trouble keeping up. Deciding to go all out, the Firrerreo uncoiled his tail, which was wrapped around his leg, and grabbed his second Forcesaber.
Four blades began to clash against each other with such speed that the clones and the battle droids could only see flashes. Grievous and Deiven fought with their strange, unorthodox styles, but it was clear that the General had the upper hand when it came to lightsaber combat.
He managed to slash Deiven's shoulder with his lightsaber. Luckily for the ArchKnight, he didn't cut deep despite the fact that he could. Still, Deiven hissed from the sudden pain and was grabbed by a metallic foot by the face. Grievous spun and tossed the Firrerreo off the AT-TE. Deiven landed on his back, losing his lightsabers. The cyborg jumped down, landing right next to him, and began to spin his wrists. Deiven began to roll away as his opponent pursued and tried to cut him with two lightsaber buzzsaws, slashing the ground and the grass as he left a burning trail behind him.
The ArchKnight managed to get back to his feet and used the Force to send a few destroyed battle droids towards Grievous. While the cyborg cut them without problems, Deiven called the two Forcesabers to his hands.
When Grievous stopped spinning his wrists, Deiven tried to cut his lightsaber hilt in two with a precise slash, but the cyborg let go of the lightsaber. Deiven missed, and Grievous caught the lightsaber before it hit the ground with his foot. With remarkable precision, the General pierced Deiven's left forearm with the same lightsaber and grabbed the ArchKnight's right wrist with his free hand, and broke it.
With his inhuman strength, Grievous began to slam Deiven against the ground like a ragdoll. After a couple of slams, he hurled the young Firrerreo towards a pile of rubble. The cyborg chuckled and was ready to leave the boy, resuming his fight with the Jedi, but the ArchKnight got up. His body was steaming as his healing factor repaired the damage.
Grievous heard the Firrerreos had an impressive healing factor, but this boy had a much better one. "Lord Enigma was right," he said. "You are tough. This is going to be fun."
"You have no idea how much," Deiven replied, spatting blood and a few teeth from his mouth. When the bones in his wrist healed, he called his weapons back to his hands. However, this time, he attached one Forcesaber to his belt and grabbed the second one with his tail. "Let's go!"
Anakin ran through the battlefield, cutting down the battle droids on his path. He could see HK in the air, heading towards the same direction. Just like HK, he knew where the two clones were since he ordered them to fire a barrage of blaster fire into the air. Thanks to that, he was able to pinpoint their location. Enhancing his speed with the Force, he reached X1 and X2 in the nick of time.
HK's blue-colored photoreceptors spotted the two clones, and he fired two times from his blaster rifle. Anakin jumped in front of them and deflected the two shots, which came from the air. "HK stop! Don't hurt them!"
X1, X2, and the other clones aimed at the assassin droid but didn't fire yet, waiting for the signal. Without lowering his weapon, HK kept his blaster rifle ready. "Statement: Don't get in my way, meatbag."
"I won't let you kill them!" Anakin said decisively. "We can solve this peacefully! There has to be another way!"
"Warning: If you make my mission difficult, you'll be killed along with them!"
"Don't make me fight you, HK!" Anakin pleaded. "I won't back down!"
"Clarification: This won't be a fight. It will be an extermination." HK unleashed at the Padawan, who began to deflect the blaster bolts. The clones began to fire at the flying black-plated droid, who didn't move from the spot. He was unfazed by the shoots since he was made from phrik. The shoots simply rebound of his black-plating, and as long as neither clone would hit his photoreceptor, he would be fine. The only threat for HK was Anakin and his Force powers.
The Padawan deflected a shoot and used the Force to yank down HK from the sky. One clone threw an EMP grenade towards the droid, but HK shoot at it, and the grenade exploded in the air. Anakin yanked the blaster rifle from the droid's hands and dashed towards him. He tried to slash HK's arms off to prevent him from attacking, but the blue blade rebounded of them. The young Jedi didn't expect his weapon to be useless.
"Explanation: I'm made from phrik, a lightsaber resistant material." HK immediately attacked Anakin with a blade that slid out from his wrist. The Padawan tried to block it, but the blade went through, and his lightsaber stooped working.
"A cortosis blade!" Anakin realized and quickly jumped away from the droid. HK fired a grappling hook from his forearm and pulled back his blaster rifle back to his hands. "Fighting him is going to be a pain," he muttered under his nose.
While Anakin had hands full with HK, and the Jedi were busy fighting the droid army and Darth Enigma, Grievous had the time of his life fighting against ArchKnight Deiven. The young Firrerreo was like an unbreakable toy for the cyborg, who even had stains of the ArchKnight's blood on his metallic body.
Any Padawan or Jedi Knight would be dead a dozen times already. Not to mention, the pain would cause them to give up or run away. However, the boy continued fighting him head-on without any signs of exhaustion. If anything, he was more vicious with every attempt. Grievous actually set himself a goal. True, he could kill him multiple times already, but he wanted to break the boy's willpower.
"You got guts, boy," admitted the cyborg. "Or maybe it's just stupidity or too big confidence in your healing factor. I wonder if you'd survive being cut in half."
Deiven's clothes were burned, ripped, and bloodstained. One of his horns was broken and regenerating. His pupils were dilated, and he snarled like a wild animal. "How about we continue this like real warriors," the young Firrerreo proposed. "No Force attacks, no weapons. Just our fists, legs, claws, and teeth."
Grievous burst out in laughter and coughed immediately after. "With pleasure," the General agreed and attached his lightsabers back to his waist while Deiven attached his Forcesabers to his belt.
The young Firrerreo lunged towards Grievous on all fours while the cyborg waited for him in battle stance. Before Deiven reached the General, an unguided missile hit the ground between them. The explosion sent the two of them in opposite directions. Grievous was covered by rubble, but his cybernetic body survived without major damage. He burst out from the rubble with an angry scream.
He looked around and shook his head. His yellow-colored reptilian eyes spotted the ArchKnight, who lay on the ground face-down, unmoving. Genuinely curious, Grievous approached Deiven to check his state. The ArchKnight's body was burned almost to a crisp. Smoke mixed with steam as the healing factor worked on overdrive, healing the wounds. The General was somewhat angry that it ended the way it did.
Grievous's holoprojector beeped, and the cyborg answered the call. The one who called him was Darth Enigma. "General, we're losing too many droids!" announced the holographic projection of the Sith apprentice. "Bota is not worth all this trouble! Gather our forces and retreat! Let the Republic and the Kingdom kill each other!"
"Understood," Grievous replied. He turned around and was about to walk away when Deiven grabbed his foot. The cyborg looked at his face, which was barely recognizable. "Heh, we're going to end this another time, ArchKnight," he said and yanked his leg free and walked away.
Deiven slowly closed his amber eyes and lost his consciousness.
Please R&R ;)