"Then your lot in life will be shortened quickly..." Grievous said as he slashed the air missing Anakin's Jedi cloak. Anakin side-stepped out of the way and leapt over Grievous's head trying to throw him off, but as Anakin came down ready to slice Grievous in half his twin lightsabers were already ahead of Anakin. They caught his and now Anakin was back on the defense.
"You Sith have a poor outlook on life." Anakin replied darting and jerrying back and forth, back and forth, keeping pace with Grievous's attacks and movements.
"We Sith are a far more superior race than you Jedi are. Look inside yourself. You know my words are true. The Jedi expend you from living your own destiny, they seem to know what it is, they seem to "claim" they know your true potential, but as much as they know, it is far too little to actually see what my master and I see in you Anakin." Grievous breathed heavily underneath his breathing apparatus.
"The Jedi Order is based on silly rules and regulations that are as old as time. They are meaningless and useless now in our day in age; in our modern times. You live by a guidance that no longer exists in this world or the outside world. You live by decrees and doctrines that mean nothing! Your Master Yoda believes in these commandments and passed down rituals, but yet he too believes that their time is deceasing and slowly departing. Tell me how long do you have before they'll actually trust you and let you have the life you want to live. Apparently, they expect and suspect you have a hidden love affair, that you wish to become more than you'd ever want them for you to be, and I know deep inside you is a wanting of freedom. It's surfaced deep inside you, but yet you know you wish to let it free. You have once before...when...your mother died." Grievous breathed again.
"Leave my mother out of this! She has nothing to do with this at all!" Anakin shouted as a stream of tears began to run down from his eyes to his cheeks. "Do not mention her in my presence!"
"Oh, but your mother has EVERYTHING to do with this. We know about your little incursions with the Tusken Raiders. We know about the vicious acts you pulled, what blood was spilled, and what you did afterwards with the bodies. You see remember that chip that was implanted into your body that you tried for years and years to dismantle, or try and deactivate which your mother told you was because of Gardulla the Hutt. Well, actually it was placed there as a homing beacon to keep track of you for us. You see your father was working for us as an agent of the Sith. He already knew from the day of your conception, the day of your birth that you were destined for greatness, that you held the prophecy to bring balance to the Force and peace to the galaxy. So, as a spy he put chips into your mother and into you to keep track of you, so we could watch you from your days as a toddler, to your days a young boy, to your teenage years, and into your manhood. We've watched you since day one. Studying your patterns and movements. We've watched your reactions, how you decide things, how you act, etc.
We've made note of everything and so has your father. He is still alive serving under the Sith as a great warlord. His skills are just as impressive as yours, equally matched. Lord Sidious favors him honorably as he does you and together you two could rule the galaxy and with my help and allegiance, we could get rid of Sidious together, and be an unstoppable force. Like a raging thunderstorm our dark clouds would spread across the galaxy bringing immense chaos and destruction. The galaxy would have no choice, but to give up their fight with us, and bow down and worship us as kings, or gods." Grievous said.
"You lie! I don't believe you! My mother said she carried me and raised me on her own. That my father never existed, that he wasn't even there to impregnate her anyways. She told me over and over again! And why would my father serve under you and your master! If my father is really alive, or if he is real he wouldn't serve for a villain like you, or your master!" Anakin shouted.
"Look inside you Anakin. All of your life you have been living a lie. Your mother lied to you, the Jedi Council has been lying to you, your best friends are liars, and even your wife is a liar. They give you stories and lies to make you think your life is perfect and stable, when actually it's instable, and nothing but a complete wreck. They've made you out as this Jedi who will defend the galaxy, but in due time. They've made you out as this person who will be a great Jedi, yet they still hold you down, confine you, and confound you to them as if your in a cage as their Guinea pig, or little rodent. Tell me do you really want to eat down more lies, or be spoon fed more and more stories that are simply not true, or do you really want to know the truth about your life, about your father, about why you're here, about what is to come? I know all those answers and I can help you if you'll just listen to me, take my hand, and come with me back to Mustafar." Grievous said with a smile underneath his mask.
In Anakin's mind he could sense Grievous's cold malignancy and malice. He could sense Grievous's perniciousness, toxicity, benignity, and balefulness, but yet deep down in his heart and soul Grievous's words sounded inviting like a siren's song. Anakin always wanted to know the true origins of his father, if he had one, if he was true, what he was like, etc. but he never pictured his father as someone who was evil. I mean how could someone so sour marry someone so sweet and sugary like his mom. It was a complete mismatched, but then Anakin came to terms and thought to himself that this was the Sith's plan all along. Get a person who would "pretend" to be all these things his mom was looking for and "pretend" to be the perfect guy, only to secretly stoop her and his son in the end. To Anakin hearing Grievous say those words about his father was the lowest of all blows a man could ever receive. He felt horrible inside. Like the rug from underneath him has slipped away and under it was a bed of spikes. Also, he felt like a broken mirror that could never be reassembled again. He felt like a cracked egg that could never be put together again. Life was now a paralleling step into darkness and inner-turmoil...
"I'd rather see you in a scrap yard, or on conveyor belt to be made into nuts and bolts, or some kind of trash compacting machine." Anakin sneered.
Grievous gave a wicked smile and laughed heartily at the boy's mockery, but then came back at Anakin with a one-liner of his own. "You're envious of your friend, mentor, and ex-teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi aren't you?" "Why else wouldn't you be? Everything you try and do is for his impression, for his well being, just to prove a point, but every time you try he still has that obviously uncaring look, or the thought of 'you need to try more harder to impress me this time.' You've spent years having his eyes watch you, his words instruct you, and himself being a second father to you, even though you know, and I know he's not your father and the teachings and instructions he give you are nothing...absolutely...NOTHING!"
"Call them whatever you want. Sure, Obi-Wan is a bit hard on me, but a Jedi must accept scrutiny, humility, and objective criticism. It is thing that shows us how to do better and imply ourselves more..." Anakin said.
"All that criticism is just a tool to keep you in their grasp and quarters! It is nothing but briber! They know you're better as you think you are, but they hold you down because they know it's the only way you won't go off and seek your "true" potential. You were born into this world as a Sith and you will either come and accept it, or die by it. Any other way your fate will still remain as one of us..." Grievous breathed, a short cackle arose from the breaths as well.
Anakin was growing tired of Grievous and his "lies" and "stories", but for some part maybe they were true after all. Maybe all this 'getting under his skin' was actually just the truth all along, or diversion to kill him. Whatever the case Anakin's peevishness, irritability, pettishness, biliousness, fretfulness, and petulance was getting the best of him, more so than ever before. He Force leapt over Grievous and kicked him straight in the chest, than lifted his left foot up in the air to give another kick into Grievous's breathing apparatus, causing him to go out of control, trying to remain and sustain his breaths.
"I'll never be one of you!" Anakin said smiling a little as he watched Grievous choking.
"T-t-t-the choice issssss yoursssss, but...but...but...but...if you.... passed...this down...you'll never know and eventually d-d-d-die as a Jedi, instead of living onward as a Sith."
"Then, my fate is with the Jedi. I don't care what scornful lies you have to share, or what tasteless stories you have to reveal to me. They are not the truth. You do not know me! You do not know my life! And you and your master will face the true power of what a Jedi like me can do!" Anakin screamed as he jumped into the air, his lightsaber coming down fast towards Grievous's throat, but Grievous smacked him across the face with his cold steel hand, and send Anakin down to the dirt; his lip and nose now bleeding.
"Look at the way you act. Look at the way you think. Look at yourself. Your true makings are for the Sith. You wield your lightsaber like a true Sith Lord, your abilities are much more of a Sith's than a Jedi's, but yet you spend your days flabbergasted and toiled with because the Jedi and their constant rules and their constant ridicules. COME ON! JOIN THE SITH! BECOME WHAT YOU WERE BORN TO BE! BECOME WHAT THE GALAXY KNOWS YOU'LL BECOME, WHAT MY MASTER KNOWS YOU'LL BECOME, BECOME WHAT I KNOW YOU'LL BECOME!"
Anakin listens to him and spits a glob of blood onto the dirt and gets up slowly, but realizes Grievous has his lightsaber in his third arm.
"If you want it back then come with me back to Mustafar. You have no choice. You have no way out of this. You must do as your told, or face the consequences..."
Anakin stands up and looks at Grievous still peering with his eyes at Grievous keeping a tight grip around his lightsaber's handle. "I have three lightsabers in my hands. You have none. Will you accept it and give yourself up? Or try and be a hero and lose a limb, or two?"
As much as Anakin thinks that it is a good idea to try and retrieve his lightsaber, he hesitates, and with that he extends his hand out to shake hands with Grievous, but before he can they both hear a "hrruming" and "varooming" sound coming from the east. They turn their heads and see over the dunes and cliff sides a cloud of dust and an engine sound coming fast. "I guess we'll save this till another time. If you want to meet again then come alone. I'll be on Mustafar with more answers to your questions and more revelations to your true path and your origins. If I were you I would not pass this lifetime opportunity up." Grievous says as he tosses Anakin back his lightsaber and gets aboard his speeder bike and rides off towards his ship. Anakin watches, wanting to go after him, but yet deeply compelled and determined to find out IF Grievous's words were true and IF they actually weren't a bunch of cut up and pieced fragments of someone's imagination. Whatever the case if that speeder coming towards him was, or wasn't Obi-Wan he knew the Jedi Council would be deeply displeased with him if he let Grievous go.
Obi-Wan steadied his speeder, turned of the ignition and released the gas, and parked his speeder alongside of Anakin. His face was what Anakin had expected and anticipated: very displeased. Behind his long Jedi robe and the cloak that veiled his face as soon as Obi-Wan lifted the cloak Anakin immediately stared into the eyes of his former Jedi Master and he stood there like the pupil he once was, about to be yelled at, and dealt with.
"What in the blazes were you thinking man? You had him right there! You could've turned on him as soon as he placed his feet upon the pedals of his speeder. You could've instantly taken him out? Why'd you let him get away?" Obi-Wan yelled huffing and puffing at the same time.
"I couldn't master. He had news to tell me of grave interest to me. He told me he knew my father and told me to meet him on Mustafar to learn more about my past, about my father, and about the real reason I am here. His words were powerful and true I could sense it by the way he talked and went into it as if he didn't need to..." Anakin said not wanting to tell Obi-Wan, but knowing it would be for the best, even though he was expecting an instant shot down.
"He was probably using some kind of mind trick, or diversion, or hell he could've been just bluffing too. Your mother told you that you had no father that she raised you on her own and that she gave birth to you herself. That tells me the Force was your true father, not some made up person." Obi-Wan suggested.
"No, no, no..." Anakin shook his head, "his words were no bluff, nor some kind of trickery. He meant every word he said. Trust me. Besides, he knows more about Darth Sidious than all of us, including the Jedi, and he knows how this whole mess started ten years ago. As far as I see we owe him on this lead."
"Maybe so, but he is still not to be trusted." Obi-Wan said. "Besides, he might've just used that as a tool to get to------- OH NO!"
"What?"
"PADME!"
Meanwhile...Up in space where the stars never look brighter Grievous was aboard his transport vessel back to Mustafar. A blue hologram appeared in front of him at the controls and there dressed in his normal black ensemble and attire was Lord Sidious standing next to Poggle the Lesser, a few Genosians, some battle droids, and a few destroyer droids.
"What news do you bring me?" Sidious asked in his normal imposing tone.
"He's bought the bait my Lord. Before long he will be here. My guess he and Master Kenobi went off back to his homestead to check on his wife. Until then that's all I have to report, but he is coming." Grievous responded.
"Good, soon he will be an agent of the Sith, a formidable at that, and once he's turned and has realized his true power he will kill that incredulous Kenobi and all of his other friends. He will be so consumed with the Darkside that no one will try and uphold our power..."
"Yes, my Lord. Prepare the hangar 1138. I'm coming in."
And with that final word Grievous cut off Sidious's transmission and flew back towards Mustafar to prepare their snare on young Anakin Skywalker.
Darth Sidious turned around from the holo-panel screen back to his conversation with Poggle and his Genosian underlings. Outside their walls and facility they heard the volcanoes all around them erupting in a series of hot ash, magma, and rocks. This was usually a normality on Mustafar and was often expected, but when Sidious and Grievous both finished their exchange of words, something on the planet shook itself to the point where the planet could feel the coming Passover of Darkness.
Outside the Mustafarians too felt the seismic quakes and shakes coming from the volcanoes. They knew that whenever the volcano showed the reddest, orangest, yellowiest of lava that the planet was perturbed about something, or deeply trouble. The planet was like a living being. When it was cold and wintry that meant the planet was calm, but when it got dark and the icy hilltops became volcanoes, it meant the planet was enraged about something and it had been that way ever since the Trade Federation moved in. Ever since the Sith made this its meeting ground. Dooku always use to say it would be suicide to set up a establishment, or meeting on this planet mainly because of the changing weather conditions and climates, but Sidious usually blew him off and his rhetoric. Still, even if Dooku was now apart of the afterlife, his ideas did sound promising about now....
Meanwhile on Kashykk...Dead silence felt the air. Everywhere you looked the once occupied areas of where the Wookies settled and called home was completely desolate and barren. Nowhere to be found were any of the noble men and women, or their people. Tarrful and his people had completely scarce. A skiff carrying a couple of battle droids began to survey the area. On the ground were burning bits and pieces of the tree houses and canopies the Wookies built. Along with the broken bridge that got shot down. Also, on the ground were the rotting corpses of some of the Wookies who fell under the heavy fire.
The sergeant of the battle droids looked through his binoculars and surveyed all around the trees, bushes, grass, and swamps, but did not see anything.
"You picking up anything?" Asked one of the grunts.
"No, negative. They seem to have scattered. Take a few battalions and find them. They shouldn't be too far---..."
Suddenly...up in the trees they hear some rustling and the four battle droids turn their heads and look up into the trees, but see nothing, than look again to make a sure check, but see nothing once again, then they check the sky.
"Must've been a false alarm..." Said one of the grunts.
PA-TOOM! PA-TOOM! PA-PA-PA-THOOM! The three grunts went down in a single shot and the sergeant was left alone scanning and surveying the area once again through his binoculars. His hands began to shake and his knees began totremble as he continued to search the area trying to make sure nothing was around to get him, or was going to get him, but as he viewed the treetops and the big redwood trees and oak trees, he was not fast enough to see three of Tarrful's bodyguards right behind him.
"Odd..." The thin droid said, but as he did he felt his body be lifted up the ground and within seconds before he could call for help the massive Wookie paw of Chewbacca tore his head off before he could make a sound with it's astronomical voice.
When Tarkin heard the little droid holler on his com link he immediately suspected one thing: the Wookies were still alive and they were smarter than he thought.
"Apparently, we need more droids." Tarkin detested.
"Good, they'll take care of those lazy hairy runts." Wat Tambor replied.