Chapter 8

Having stolen Count Dooku's ship, Anakin and Hiccup exit hyperspace and find themselves in front of Dagurmier, a red and orange planet with a desert surface.

Artoo followed right behind them in The Twilight and Anakin presses a few buttons before saying, "Ok, the plan is we're going to wait here for Rex's ship to come and transport us out of here."

Hiccup sighs. "As long as it means we don't cause any more trouble, I'll take it. So, this Rex, he any good?"

Anakin chuckles and nods. "Good? Captain Rex is one of the best clones in the galaxy. We've done about a dozen missions together and he always has mine, Ahsoka's and anyone else's back."

Hiccup nods as he looks out to the planet in front of him when he notices, coming around the orbit, was a large, blue cannon shaped ship to which Hiccup comments, "That's not one of ours, is it?"

Anakin looks up and spots it. "No, no it's not." Anakin gets a sense of the ship, squints and comments, "General Grievous."

Hiccup looks over and asks, "Who's General Grievous?"

Anakin replies, "Basically a heaping waste of droid parts. He steals the lightsabers from the Jedi he's killed and uses them as his own."

Hiccup looks back over to the ship and replies, "Wow. Sounds a bit terrifying."

On the ship, a yellow battle droid says to a large droid wearing a grey and red cape, "Uh, General, we just picked up Count Dooku's ship on our scanners."

The larger droid puts a hand to his chin. "That's *cough cough* odd. Put him through."

Anakin and Hiccup then hear a beeping from their ship's communication log. Anakin comments, "Oh, and that's probably Grievous now."

Hiccup asks, "W-what do we do?"

Anakin replies, "Relax, I've got this." he presses the pick-up button and replies in a very deep voice, imitating Dooku, "Yes, this is Count Dooku."

Hiccup throws his hands up and mouths, 'Da-da-da, we're dead.' before putting his hands on his face.

Grievous asks, "Dooku, what is the meaning of this visit?"

Anakin quickly thinks of an excuse before replying, "Yes, well…we have captured a, uh, prisoner and was going to bring him in for questioning." Hiccup drops his head down in shame.

On the Separatist ship, that same battle droid says, "Sir, we just picked up another ship behind Dooku's. I believe it's the ship that Skywalker uses."

Grievous's eyes widen. "Oh, that is a special prisoner, indeed. Very well, bring Skywalker here and I'll make sure to question him myself."

Anakin nods. "Alright, sounds good."

After ending the call, Hiccup yells, "A prisoner? A PRISONER? We're about to become actual prisoners!"

Anakin replies, "Would you relax? I have this under control."

Hiccup replies, "How is ANY of this under control?"

Anakin replies, "Just, let me handle this." He then brings up his wrist communicator, "Artoo, tell Rex to wait a bit, we need to make a little detour." Artoo beeps back.

Hiccup replies, "Alright, I've held my tongue long enough. If we're gonna do…whatever it is we're about to do, we're doing it my way."

Anakin looks back out to space before looking back over to Hiccup and asking, "What do you suggest?"

Hiccup then gets up and opens up a door on the ship, revealing a robe. "One of us is going to have to go in disguise."

Anakin replies, "You've seen Dooku, you know he has a very prominent white beard, how are we supposed to pull that off?"

Hiccup replies, "You're just gonna have to trust me."

Both ships glide their way inside the hanger of the larger ship and land.

Once inside, both ships open up their doors as a few droids rush inside the Twilight. From Dooku's ship, Anakin, who was dressed up in Dooku's robe with the hood covering his face entirely, held Hiccup, who held his hands behind his back like they were shackled, and they exit.

A quick glance told both Hiccup and Anakin that Grievous wasn't there, but one of the droids who was inside the Twilight runs over to Dooku and says, "Uh, no one is inside the ship besides this Astro droid." Artoo was right behind it.

Anakin replies in the same deep voice, "Ah, yes, well the thing about that is…" he suddenly whips out his lightsaber, turns on the blue blade and strikes down the droid.

The other droids begin shooting at them as Hiccup grabs his own saber and activates the purple blade, deflecting blaster bolts as he went along as he replies, "So much for my plan of going undetected."

Anakin replies, "At some point you gotta learn that any plan with me can be stretched." before deflecting a bolt right to another droid.

Once all the droids in the room were destroyed, Anakin and Hiccup rush off down a hall.

Minutes after they left, Grievous walks in and sees the destroyed droids on the floor before grunting, "Skywalker!"

Sabers off, Hiccup, Anakin and Artoo sneak their way down hallways, being as stealthy as possible.

Once a little bit of the way down one hall, Anakin says to Artoo, "Alright, seal off paths other than the ones leading to the command center." Artoo puts himself into a port in the wall and turns the knob a bit before beeping a response.

Hiccup replies, "I just hope all of this works."

Anakin replies, "Now you see how it goes with my plans."

True to the word, the lock doors to the hanger and any other hallway leading into the command base, including the hall that Grievous was walking through. Not having any of it, he snaps each arm into four, pulls out a lightsaber each, and activates them, two being blue and two green, as he cuts into the door at four points and circles around, cutting his way through.

Hearing the sabers nearby, Hiccup and Anakin rush over to an elevator and get inside.

Knowing that they'd likely be in an elevator, after cutting himself through, Grievous rushes over to the nearest elevator and presses a few buttons, shutting off the elevator that Hiccup and Anakin were in.

"Blast." Hiccup comments. "Looks like someone knows we're here."

"Luckily there's more than one way up." Anakin says as he pulls out his saber, activates the blue blade and cuts a circle big enough through the roof of the elevator. That piece of roof falls and they both jump through the hole and Artoo follows by pulling out his little leg rockets.

Anakin and Hiccup look up to see there was still quite a bit of ways to the top, so Anakin tells Hiccup, "Hope you're not afraid of heights."

Hiccup replies, "I ride flying reptiles, this is nothing to me."

Anakin replies, "I'll have to ask about that later." He and Hiccup pull out a grappling device, Artoo leans back and pulls one out of his central body, and they extend it to the roof before pulling on it and pulling themselves up.

Once they get to the top, they both use their sabers to cut a hole in the doors and force push them open. They both jump inside and immediately the droids in there began firing at them.

Anakin and Hiccup deflected the blaster bolts and slashed down the droids when two man size droids appear with a double sided electric staff in their hands.

Hiccup asks, "What are these things?"

Anakin replies as he holds up his saber, "MagnaGuards, they can get pretty nasty."

Hiccup nods and swings his saber blade up before slashing downward, making the purple blade collide with one end of the electric staff. Hiccup goes down and follows that same line.

Anakin collides with his own MagnaGuard with his blue saber held up and holds that position as he notices the back of the droid Hiccup was fighting was facing him.

Taking this opportunity, Anakin breaks away from his own droid and cuts of the head of the droid before stabbing through the chest. Once the droid falls, Anakin comments, "You can thank me later."

Just then, the droid Anakin was fighting runs up behind him, so Hiccup Force Grabs his saber and flings it over, making the blade do a U-turn as it stabs the droid in the chest from the side, making the droid fall over.

Anakin looks behind him to see what went down as Hiccup Force Pulls the saber back and deactivates it saying, "And YOU can thank ME later."

Anakin rolls his eyes to that. "No need cause we're even now." He then goes to the main steering device and starts turning a few knobs.

"You've done this before?" Hiccup asks.

Anakin chuckles to that. "I did this exact thing just a week ago. Keep guard will you?" Hiccup nods and looks to the elevator door to the back of the room. With a few more levers pulled and buttons pushed, the ship turns and the nose of the ship points towards the dead planet.

With one more push of a button, the ship begins to move forward. Anakin replies after slashing down the controls with his saber, "Alright, we don't have long so let's get out of here."

Hiccup nods, but suddenly Grievous drops down from the ceiling before saying, "Well, hello there. I see you are up to your old tricks, Skywalker." He then notices Hiccup there. "Ah, yes, *cough cough* I believe Dooku told me about you. You claim to be…*cough* Gobber, right?"

Hiccup blinks to that. "That would be about right."

Grievous replies, "Well then, Gobber, I think it's about time that my lightsaber collection got a few new additions. *cough cough*" before activating two sabers, one blue and one green.

Hiccup and Anakin raise their own respective purple and blue sabers before swinging the blades down, which Grievous blocks. Grievous fights back by crossing his blades and slashing to the sides which Hiccup and Anakin block as well.

Anakin steps forward and clashes blades for a bit before he and Hiccup Force Push Grievous to the back of the room as they run out with Artoo in tow.

With that elevator still out, Hiccup and Anakin grab to two the cables holding the elevator up and slide down them, going towards the elevator itself in no time as Artoo glides himself down with his arm rockets.

Quickly recovering, Grievous grabs onto the same poles and slides down.

Just before they reach the elevator itself, Hiccup and Anakin slow themselves down and go into the hole they made as they cut into the elevator door, which was halfway up a hallway, that they leap through and use The Force to pull the piece to seal the door.

Hiccup, Anakin and Artoo rush over to the hanger, deflecting blaster bolts and slashing down droids in the process as they board the Twilight and quickly turn it on. Anakin says to Artoo, "Find Rex's coordinates, we need to get out of here now."

Artoo beeps and turns his port a bit before beeping again and putting the coordinates into the ship. The ship turns on and they head out before jumping back into hyperspace.

Seeing that the ship was about to crash, Grievous boards his own small, grey ship and makes a quick escape as the large ship crashes down into Dagurmier and blows up within minutes, leaving the planet fully intact.

Once they were in the clear, Hiccup and Anakin exit hyperspace and make their way over to a Republic cruiser which seemed to have been waiting for them.

Anakin navigates the ship over to the hanger as he says, "See? Things did work out in the end." However, as he, Hiccup and Artoo leave the Twilight, a pair of angry blue eyes on an orange bearded man was standing in front of them.

They stare at him for a second before Anakin says, "Master! So good to see you. Say, did you get that robe cleaned? Looks stunning."

Obi-Wan replies, "You know that flattery doesn't work on me, now come on. You know what I want to know."

Anakin and Hiccup give each other a side glace as Artoo slips himself away from the situation. Anakin sighs and says, "Right, Dooku's ship, so we ended up getting caught up with General Grievous and, well, we sort of-"

Hiccup adds, "We crashed it."

Obi-Wan raises a brow. "What?"

Anakin adds, "On purpose! We crashed it along with the Separatist ship that we were on because if Grievous got his hands on the ship he'd likely contact Dooku and use the ship to trace back to our location." He gives Obi-Wan a giant smile.

Obi-Wan stares Anakin down before looking over to Hiccup and asking, "Is this true?"

Hiccup replies, "Every word of it, Master."

Obi-Wan sighs. "For once, you did the right thing, Anakin. I'm just glad that you both are now safe."

Just then, a blonde haired clone wearing blue armor comes up and asks, "Did I just hear that you blew something up without me?"

Anakin chuckles to that. "Trust me, Rex, the next time I plan on doing so, I'll call you."

Rex smiles and nods. "Good enough for me, sir."

Hiccup crosses his arms and shakes his head. "You people are weird, almost too weird for my own standards."

Obi-Wan chuckles to that. "Trust me, Hiccup, you'll get used to it. Oh, by the way, how was Shadow's Temple?"

Anakin's eyes widen as he figured Obi-Wan had to find out. "We actually found…this." he holds up the black cylindrical device with three hooks on one end.

Obi-Wan raises a brow. "Well, it's certainly decorative, but does it actually do anything?"

Anakin replies, "Well, that's what I've yet to find out. Maybe I can just…" he fiddles with it, turning a few of the knobs on it when suddenly a dart ejects from the front of the device and just barely hits a clone when it strikes a wall. "Uh, sorry!" Anakin replies, "Maybe, this?" He pushes a button and a green gas comes out of the other end, causing everyone nearby to cough.

Anakin presses the button again and the gas fades. Obi-Wan replies after a few more coughs, "Well, *cough* besides being rigged with traps *cough* I fail to see if this was worth the effort *cough cough*."

Anakin holds the device back up and replies, "I'm sure there's more that this thing does, I just…need to figure it out."

That night on Courscant, in Hiccup's apartment, Hiccup and Anakin sat around trying to figure out if the device does anything, to no avail.

Anakin lets out a big yawn before saying, "Well, I give up on this thing." before tossing it onto Hiccup's desk.

Hiccup shakes his head, "I just don't get it. Why put so much effort into guarding a device that doesn't even do anything?"

Anakin sighs as he stands up, "Beats me. Well, I guess I'll just call it a night."

Hiccup nods. "Ok, I can walk you out."

Anakin puts a hand on Hiccup's shoulder. "After you show me that floating lightsaber technique."

Hiccup shakes his head more. "Really?"

Anakin shrugs. "Hey, not every day a Padawan comes up with a whole new move."

Hiccup rolls his eyes. "Alright, alright." He pulls up his saber and activates the purple blade before holding up a fist and lifting the saber out of his hand and gently swings it a bit.

Anakin shakes his head to that. "That is almost freaky." However, as Hiccup was moving his blade, Anakin looks behind him and sees the top of the cylindrical device was glowing a bit. "What the?"

Hiccup asks, "What's up?"

Anakin walks over to the device and kneels in front of it, seeing a faint purple glow coming from the front end of the device. Putting the pieces together, he replies, "I-I think it's reacting to your blade."

Hiccup's eyes widen. "Really?" he moves forward and as the blade got closer to the device, the flash got a tiny bit brighter, looking a bit like a dim flashlight.

Anakin comments as he looks to what's being shown on the wall, "Still can't make out anything. Bring the blade closer." Hiccup nods and does so. "Closer…closer…closer…" the blade was now just below the end of the device, but the shine was still way too faint to see any sort of shape.

Hiccup comments, "I really can't get any closer without going into the device." Anakin then looks down to the three hooks around the bottom and back to Hiccup's saber hilt.

Anakin then gets an idea, "Give it to me." Hiccup hands the saber over to Anakin and he deactivates it before bringing the hilt over and slipping it onto the end, finding that the hooks fit around the hilt perfectly.

Widening his eyes, Anakin presses the activation button on the black lightsaber hilt, and the blade activates, but instead of the blade going right through the device, it actually turned into a flashlight shine against the wall, that shone a variety of pictures and images that blew both of their minds away.

"Whoa." Anakin comments. "This…"

"…Changes…" Hiccup adds.

"…Everything." They say simultaneously.