Author's note: Many thanks for the reviews. I'm very glad people are still reading this. Thanks for the feedback. And incidentally, I'm still not a fangirl and I'm still a guy. Hehe.
Chaos reigned on the rocky gun position. What was supposed to be a simple battlefield objective had turned into a dreadful fight for survival for the Jedi, with one comrade slain already.
But the three Jedi showed no fear, driving home their attacks and attempting to bring General Grievous to bay. All three were confident in their swordsmanship and in the judgement of the Force. However, none were confident they would leave the conflict alive.
Grievous' style had altered. Whereas before he had been whirling his blades in windmill-like attacks and utilizing his agility, now he was still, his hooked feet digging into the floor and anchoring him to the spot. His body was perfectly motionless like a great tree trunk, and he gazed ahead at seemingly nothing. However, his arms were moving at great speed, striking and parrying expertly, blocking the attacks with a minimum of effort. His robotic dexterity ensured that he was able to move his blades all 360 degrees around him in a complete circle with no weak spots. Whether the Jedi engaged him from behind or from the front, the result was the same: he intercepted their attacks and responded with another.
To an average onlooker, it would appear Grievous had encased himself in a flashing sphere of green and blue light. The Jedi wasted their energy attacking the vortex of throbbing lightsaber energy that Grievous had become. In the next second he leapt twenty feet into the air from a standstill and came down striking, forcing them back with another style of attack.
Now the cyborg twisted and turned with amazing speed. He flipped backwards and forwards, ducked under attacks, switched lightsabers from hands to feet for opportune strikes, hurled sabers into the air and caught them with ease to perform an attack from directly above the enemy and balanced on one hand or foot to pivot about at an astonishing speed. The frenzied moves had the Jedi leaping away from him, but he followed, splitting rocks in two and severing fragments of cannon into clouds of debris wherever he went.
The Bith Jular stumbled and fell back. Grievous pounced on him like a predator and pierced his chest with twin thrusts off his sabers. The shocked Bith had time enough to gasp before sagging to the floor in a heap.
Only Aayla and the human male Gwangi were left. They lifted their sabers as their grim fate occurred to each of them. The General took a few menacing steps forward and then charged.
The two Jedi were fine servants of the Force and were not short of battle experience. However, with only two of them left against the dreaded "Knight Bane", it was only a matter of time. With only two blades to catch his strikes rather than four now, the confrontation was brutal and brief.
Aayla had a clear view of what happened to Gwangi. One of Grievous' blades sheared through his right hand, his lightsaber dropping to the floor. The human yelled in pain. Grievous' clawed foot seized him by the chest and as the General back flipped away, he hurled the Jedi away. Gwangi crashed into the sheer rocky cliff behind Grievous. He went sickeningly limp as he fell, buffeting and bouncing off the cragged precipice, slipping away into the huge fall below.
As she stopped to look in horror at Gwangi's death, Aayla was unprepared for Grievous' attack. The next few seconds were blurry and unclear. One moment the General was standing several meters away, the next he was looming over her, crouching down to stare her in the face with his bleak eyes. White light seemed to flare in front of Aayla's field of vision as burning pain screamed through her weary body. The smell of burning flesh and smoke overcame her senses and she slumped headfirst to the floor.
She lay in the dust, breathing heavily and sweat stinging her eyes as excruciating pain wracked through her in waves of intensity. Gradually, she realized Grievous had stabbed her in the right arm, just above the elbow, and once in her right thigh judging from the source of the pain. She was unable to move her right arm or to stand up. She had dropped her lightsaber: when her vision returned and focused she could see the deactivated hilt in the dirt before her.
Six claws enclosed around the handle: the skeletal hand of Grievous. His harsh voice rasped near to her face.
"Well, this was a little disappointing, if I'm honest. I was expecting better from the Jedi who managed to elude me before. Still, a person can be only so lucky, I guess. Don't worry, I'll honour you and your friends. Your weapons shall find new life in my hands…"
He stopped mid-sentence and gave a hoarse, barking cry. Aayla peered up from the floor and saw the cyborg stagger away, his head turned away as if he had just been struck. Another figure crashed down in front of Aayla.
Grievous stumbled away from the attack and struggled to regain himself. However much of his body was invincible robotics, impacts still had some damaging effect on his tender innards. He coughed and wheezed intensely as he glared out from his dour mask at his new foe.
Mace Windu. The Jedi had aimed a kick at the cyborg's head, knowing the loud throbbing of a lightsaber strike would alert the General in term. The blow stung, and his pride stung the most. Mace landed in a crouch before the female twi'lek Jedi, staring back at Grievous, undaunted and daring him to retaliate.
Grievous was a little confused. Where had the Jedi come from? He heard no gunships overheard: nor were there any higher up, not with these gun positions only recently destroyed. The rocky precipice they stood on was too smooth and steep to scale from the direction the Jedi had approached. That left only one conclusion. The Jedi had leapt up here from the floor below. Over three hundred meters in one leap, during which he was able to pivot in mid-air and aim a kick at the alert cyborg.
Grievous' eyes narrowed. The rumours were true about this one: he was strong indeed. As strong as Dooku had told him, he seemed. Judging by the unfaltering confidence from the human, at least. It was not the resigned fate, the bravery in the face of certain death that the four Jedi he had just dispatched had showed. It was the utter confidence of a man who believed he could overcome any obstacle the enemy could throw at him.
That infamous amethyst blade sprang to life from his hand, lighting the precipice in purple light. He didn't act like other Jedi. Most Jedi ignited their blades only when they had already established there was no other alternative: all Mace Windu had done was leap from the sky, kick the General in the face and then draw his lightsaber. Here, Mace was the aggressor.
His stern face was as close to angry as Grievous had ever seen a Jedi. His dark eyes were locked onto the General's: not faltering, keeping an even stare with him. Eventually, it was Grievous who had to look away. His eyes darted over the rest of the Jedi.
A torn tunic and a somewhat charred left sleeve and forearm. The MagnaGuards had not gone done without a fight, then.
"So, you managed to destroy my elite, I assume?" Grievous asked almost politely.
The Jedi didn't answer. That was unusual. Most Jedi talked back, determined not to be cowed by threats or mockery. Those who didn't were usually inexperienced rookies who were too afraid to speak: all that was left for them to do was to grip their lightsabers tight and wait for the end.
With this one, Grievous suspected that wasn't the case. This was a Jedi who didn't think Grievous' mind games were worth acknowledging. That deep, penetrating stare and the atmosphere of supreme confidence: it was no mystery to Grievous why so many were easily manipulated by the Jedi with simple suggestion.
But Grievous was curious and wanted to know what had happened, "So, tell me, how did you escape then? ARC trooper assistance?"
This time, Windu nodded, "You put too much faith in your guards, Grievous. There were no match for us".
"Forgive me if I sound arrogant, but no-one knows the abilities and limits of those droids more than I. They have fulfilled their purpose. Your little escort of Knights is defeated, and you have been lured to me".
Mace didn't answer. Grievous could feel his confidence returning. It was good to belittle a Jedi in such a fashion. He truly relished putting them in their place. It was nearly as satisfying as simply killing them.
He continued, "I was in the act of giving that female an honourable death before you interrupted. Perhaps you might allow me to finish her off so she doesn't have to lie there while me and you…"
Mace Windu charged. The distance between Grievous and the Jedi disappeared. A web of purple light reached out for Grievous, aiming to slice him into one hundred pieces before he even hit the ground.
Grievous bellowed in surprise and leapt away. Two strikes singed his metal body: he wasn't quite quick enough. Angrily, Grievous snapped out two lightsabers and ignited them, but before he had even landed Mace was on him, swinging a blow at the cyborg's durasteel skull. Grievous' two blades managed to block it as the combatants landed again.
While Mace's blade was locked with his, Grievous detached his extra arms and whipped out two extra lightsabers. There was no point playing around with this enemy: he was serious. Grievous lunged forward and stabbed with his two newly activated blades, aiming to catch Mace in a pincer, but the Jedi leapt into the air and kicked again expertly. The blow caught Grievous on the chin while he was in mid-leap and sent him tumbling backwards, crashing into a rock pillar.
By the time he was up on his feet, Mace was all over him again. His blade weaved shafts of light about them, hemming the General into a corner with veteran sword-master strokes.
As Grievous hacked and coughed and parried desparatley, he realized it was not for no reason that Mace Windu was a revered Jedi Council Senior Master. Grievous had never fought such an opponent except for Dooku.
But even when him and Dooku had duelled and Dooku had calmly and smarmily declared, 'I'm not going to hold back any more', Grievous had been able to keep up with him. In fact, he was privately convinced on a few occasions he had been about to best Dooku before the Count suddenly announced the duel over and had given the General a rather curt congratulation.
Here however, Grievous felt like he was drowning in a rough sea. Every time he managed to get a little breathing space he was overwhelmed by another wave of assault, hammering him down and keeping him struggling powerlessly in the fearsome grip.
Grievous' back was to the wall, and his chronic coughing was picking up too as he was worn down. The duel couldn't carry on like this. At this rate, the General would be spare parts within thirty seconds.
There had to be some quirk to the way Windu was attacking that kept the General subdued like this. Grievous' computer brains and his organic brain went to work trying to decipher what exactly was going on. The computer chips analysed the attacks while his own sharp mind did the hard work of trying to see what style and method there was to it.
He had to hurry. One strike plunged dangerously close to his head: he was unable to parry in time and instead he shifted his head to the right to dodge it. Mace would have swept his blade through Grievous' neck in a horizontal arc if Grievous hadn't fired his pistons operating his arms at top speed to be able to parry the blow.
Grievous untangled himself from Mace and sped away, hotly pursued by the Jedi Master. At the last second however, Grievous whirled about and faced Windu: his strategy was complete.