Chapter 40: The Lair of Grievous

In the absolute best of terms, Count Dooku was furious. And that was putting it mildly. In reality, his wrath shook the foundations of his Serenno Palace, the droids patrolling the grounds crushed under the weight of the Dark Side, and nothing could calm the wrath of the Sith Lord.

All because he had to look at the smug, carefree face of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The younger Sith had answered Ventress' com, and he was leaning back in the pilot's chair of his ship, the holodisc set on the central console, his bare feet resting on the navigation system as he lounged, shirtless and looking like he hadn't a care in the world. Was Kenobi unaware that there was a war going on? There were several important battles that Dooku had needed him for, only to find the Sith absent from battle, the least of which being the devastating loss of the Malevolence.

"Where is Ventress," the Count growled, and Obi-Wan just winked at him.

"Well, hello to you too, sweetheart. I've missed you."

"I doubt that."

"No, really, it's true!"

"I do hope you are returning from the battlefield," Dooku said, ice in his voice that the hot-blooded Lumis seemed to not notice at all.

"Is Mandalore a battlefield?" Kenobi asked, and Dooku's face fell.

"Mandalore is a neutral system."

"Really? It's hard to tell, Satine spends so much time hurting me! Look!" he cried, turning around and pointing to thin, white scars on his back that stood out in stark contrast to the darker burns that came from their Master's lightsaber. "Look what she's doing to me!"

"I'm beginning to like this woman," Dooku drawled. "Perhaps she can replace you when our Master grows tired of watching you prance about. She would certainly be a pleasant sight."

"Mm, not for you, she hates you." Kenobi sighed and shut his eyes, feeling Dooku's tension through the Force and it delighted him. The Count didn't need anymore stress, but really, what was the fun in that? "If not for being the man that started the Clone Wars, for keeping me away from her for so long."

"You've barely been doing anything in the conflict," Tyranus snarled, but the other Sith just laughed.

"Not my decision, Dooku, our Master is keeping me out of the war." This seemed to surprise the Count, and Kenobi could feel his anger overshadowed by curiosity. "Didn't you know? He says I'm too effective."

"No, he didn't tell me..." Dooku said, his deep voice low and soft, and through the Force, Kenobi could feel the elder Sith regard him differently. "Really now, Lumis, where is Ventress. I need to speak with her."

"Still sleeping," was the slow, smooth reply, a sly smirk settling on his face again, and he could see Dooku's jaw clench tightly, the muscles in his neck knotting with frustration. "I did work her pretty hard..."

Dooku's eyes narrowed as he observed the smug, half dressed Sith Lord. He was disheveled, a rare thing for the meticulous and fastidious Kenobi, and the implication did not pass by Dooku. If Obi-Wan had managed to sink his claws back into his apprentice, he would find a way to make them both suffer. "If Asajj," he began slowly, menacingly, "showed such weakness to allow herself to be seduced by you-"

"Dooku, sweetie, Asajj came to me for help in the mission you assigned her," Kenobi said, swiftly dropping the act. Messing with the uptight Sith Lord was one thing, but he was in the position to really hurt Ventress, which he wouldn't do, if he could avoid it. Even still, the Count grew angry.

"That mission I assigned to her and her alone! She was to prove her worthiness to me, not pawn off her duty on someone else!"

"The way I see it, she was pooling her resources." The Count wasn't moved. "...that's good, Dooku, that's what you and I do all the time! She's learning, that's what you want, isn't it? Besides," he shrugged, groaning as his feet dropped off the control console so he could sit up and stretch out the sore muscles of his back, "she did the mission by herself. I just provided the transportation."

"I assume, then, that you handled the Jedi as well." The Count's voice was still tight with tension, but the anger had largely faded.

"I did."

"They are dead, then?"

"No, I didn't kill them."

Dooku groaned loudly, his had running down the length of his long face. They have had this conversation many times before. "This isn't a thing that's difficult to understand, Kenobi," he growled. "Kill the Jedi, that is our mission, we kill the Jedi. The entire Order needs to be wiped out, or the Sith cannot rule!"

"It was my understanding that the clones are made with a Jedi killing protocol, so the way I see it, they're dead already." Kenobi shrugged. "If some of the Jedi can be turned, we'd have a better start on building that empire. Even our Master says that fallen Jedi make for the best Sith Lords."

"He says that to appeal to your vanity, Lumis! He was never a Jedi, and he's stronger than you will ever be!"

"We shall see about that." Obi-Wan bit his lip when Dooku looked at him, eyes wide and his cunning face in a mix of confusion and intense interest. He hadn't meant to say that, it just...happened. When did he begin believing that he could ever be stronger than Darth Sidious?

"I think," the Count said slowly, measuring his every word, "that our Master may be trying to play us against each other. Again."

"Has he ever stopped?"

Dooku shook his head. "I suspect not. He is keeping me in the dark about your activities in matters that are imperative to properly conducting this war. He had no reason to not tell me he was withdrawing you for a time, other than to increase the tensions between us."

"That does seem like him, yes." Dooku inclined his head. He and Lumis seemed to be on the same page, which was welcome. "Has he said anything to you about Anakin Skywalker?" Dooku drew back, a frown on his lips and he shook his head. The thought had been eating at Obi-Wan since his meeting with Padmé. "His name came up while I talked to Senator Amidala on the Tranquility while Ventress was going after the Viceroy."

"She was successful, I take it?"

"If she weren't, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Finally, the Count seemed pleased, his posture relaxing into one of comfort and relaxed ease.

"And I take it your...indecent state is the result of a celebratory carnal indulgence?" He could accept that. It was, at its heart, very Sith, but Kenobi just laughed.

"No, no, my tunic was just soaked. I spent a good fifteen minutes in the engine vents of a Star Destroyer, and I came out of there smelling like hyperdrive components. I didn't bring a change, Ventress and I left Mustafar in a hurry." His nose wrinkled. "It was disgusting."

"I wonder what it's like to be as vain as you."

"Mm, yes, well, your memory is beginning to fade. You were young once. I think. Many decades ago."

"I wasn't young and Sith." Dooku smirked. "That seems to make all the difference."

"It does. Imagine, if you had fallen at the same age I did..." Kenobi shrugged. "Maybe you'd be the Sith Master." The breath caught in Obi-Wan's chest as he looked at the hologram of Dooku, the Count's intelligent eyes filled with a hunger he understood all too well. Maybe, when he reached Dooku's age, he'd be the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"Obi-Wan, our Master is toying with us," Dooku whispered, cautious as if Sidious could hear them if they spoke too loudly. "I cannot possibly begin to understand his reasons for trying to set us against each other, especially not now when we are so essential to the war effort, but I say that we don't play his game."

"Do we even have a choice in that?" Kenobi asked, shrugging, but Dooku was deadly serious.

"There is always a choice for us. We are Lords of the Sith. We make our own way." Kenobi's eyes narrowed, and Dooku put his hand up both to placate him and to keep him from talking. "I'm not suggesting that we defy our Master. I'm suggesting that we share information."

"I don't-"

"Not all information, of course, but information pertaining to this war effort. The things we must know to be successful. For example, if I knew our Master had called you out of the major conflicts, I could have changed our strategy and diverted you to lesser skirmishes, lest you get board." Dooku stopped to gauge Kenobi and found him attentive. He was listening, and better yet, he was interested. No doubt the younger Sith disliked being sidelined.

"I...can tell you our Master's directives when I get them," Kenobi said, his hands pressed together and bringing his fingers to his lips. "But what do I get out of this? Small things are fine, for a time, but they're hardly satisfying."

"What is it you want?"

"I want to go to Ryloth." Kenobi grinned, his pulse beginning to race. The Separatists had been laying siege to the Twi'lek home world for some time now, and the fighting was getting more aggressive by the day. Several Jedi were on the planet, along with the bulk of the Republic Fleet, and it didn't seem to be letting up any time soon.

"What could you possibly want with Ryloth?"

"The Jedi are there."

Dooku laughed. "What use do you have for Jedi, Lumis? You don't even kill Jedi."

Kenobi grinned at that. "Maybe I've just been meeting the wrong Jedi."

Stroking his beard, the Count observed the younger Sith, his relaxed posture, his easy smile, but underneath it all, he burned. There was power, ambition, a fire within him that hadn't been there before. Something had changed Obi-Wan, and it bothered Dooku that he didn't know what it was. Kenobi went around making friends everywhere he went, and before, Dooku had despised that, but now, it seemed like it may have been a good idea to foster an antagonistic friendship with Obi-Wan. After all, it seemed that Lumis was slowly beginning to have ambitions that superceded his place as Apprentice. Dooku could use that, if things with Ventress didn't work out. After all, it was always a possibility that Sidious would catch wind of Dooku's own ambitions, and he and Ventress may be seen as Sith pretenders that Sidious would almost certainly send Kenobi against, if he didn't come himself. And Obi-Wan had proven to greatly care about his connections...

"I had planned," he started, "to teach Grievous a lesson for all his recent failures. His loss of the Malevolence was embarrassing, and I will not stand for it."

"How do you plan to do that..." he asked, and Dooku saw that the man was...cautious. Curious, but clearly concerned. He knew Kenobi developed a fondness for Grievous, but even the young Sith seemed to agree that the cyborg had failed too many times.

"The Republic will be searching for the Viceroy, and they'll be sending the best Jedi they can to aid in his recapture. I'm going to tip them off to his location, and lead them right into Grievous' hideout on Vassek."

"...you want to force a fight between Grievous and the Jedi." Kenobi smirked. "Depending on who they send, Grievous could be in a fair bit of trouble."

"Then he doesn't deserve his station." Dooku's eyes narrowed. "I had planned this to assess Grievous' use to us, but if you are itching to kill some Jedi..."

"I'm still a bit sore about losing Mace Windu." Kenobi stroked his beard, nodding slowly as he considered the Count's proposal. "Didn't you arrange this to test Grievous?"

The Count shrugged. "I can find other ways to test him. Do you want to kill these Jedi."

"Yes." The answer was immediate, intense, the usual soft, accented drawl a deep, raw growl, and Dooku could feel the hunger and the yearning within Darth Lumis. The Dark Side occasionally demanded sacrifice, blood, and it gripped Kenobi now.

"Do we have a truce, than?" Dooku asked, voice easy and amused, smiling as Kenobi nodded. "We will communicate. In this war, we must be...partners."

"Get me to Ryloth and send me out on smaller things when you can, and I'll be happy to share. I'll stop by Serenno to drop off Ventress and the Viceroy, and you can fill me in on the rest. All this time off is fine, but my men and I need blood."

"You shall have it, Lumis," Dooku drawled. "All you needed to do was ask."

Several hapless battle droids had been needlessly decapitated in Grievous' rage. He had been chased all across the galaxy by Qui-Gon Jinn and Anakin Skywalker, the former of the duo providing the strategies while the later expertly carried them out, improvising when need be, and easily outmaneuvering everything that the General had thrown at him. Skywalker was, in Grievous' estimation, the best pilot he had ever seen, and the young Jedi Padawan had easily bested his defenses and led the charge to bring the Malevolence burning into oblivion. Had Skywalker not obeyed his Master and returned from the attack run, Grievous could have destroyed the tenacious Jedi in a final, desperate trap he had set. But the Padawan did obey, and while it allowed Grievous to escape, it also kept Skywalker safely out of range.

Without his ship, without his fleet, Grievous managed to escape the Republic, giving them no means of following him, as they had been doing incessantly after Haruun Kal. It was a bitter retreat, though a much needed one, and when Grievous had landed at his fortress on Vassek, he immediately set to his only convenient method of stress relief: destroying every droid in sight.

"You know," came a smooth, arrogant drawl from behind him, and Grievous spun around, his yellow eyes narrowed as he found Obi-Wan Kenobi sitting high upon one of the many stacked crates within the large room that the cyborg used as a warehouse. The crates contained the many pieces and parts that were needed for repairs and improvements to his metallic body, and as of late, he had been forced to use a great deal of them. It was one of the many advantages of sacrificing the mortal flesh he used to inhabit. One could not simply repair an organic body the way he could. "Those droids are expensive. You don't see the Jedi abusing their soldiers in such a way."

Grievous snarled deeply, the sound metallic and hollow, which frightened most, but it simply made the Sith Lord smile. "Their care for their troops is a weakness that I will exploit!"

"Really. You haven't done so yet." He laughed as he jumped off the crates, landing gracefully on the ground in front of the General, his feet barely making a sound. "Last I remember, you were fleeing Haruun Kal after losing a fight to Mace Windu."

"I hear you failed to kill him as well!" the cyborg snarled, and the Sith's yellow eyes glinted dangerously.

"Careful now, Grievous. I like you, but I won't hesitate to break you if you forget your place. And failing to kill him isn't the same as losing. I won that fight." The cyborg growled deeply for a minute before devolving into a fit of dry, hacking coughs, clutching his chest as he did so. "...what happened?"

He flicked his metallic hand in the air, brushing off the question completely, but renewed hacking made him reconsider the question. "The Jedi crushed me." His fingers tapped against his chest plate, and Kenobi frowned. He had a little time to spare, Grievous was early.

"Let me see." With a groan, Grievous left the room, the Sith Lord following him as he walked down the halls in silence to a room that served as a medical bay and repair center. The cyborg pulled himself up onto the sterile table in the middle and allowed Kenobi to approach him, swiping a roll of neatly placed tools from a nearby bench.

"I haven't heard from Dooku," the General said, keeping his voice low to avoid aggravating his lungs as Kenobi set to work removing the chest plate.

"He is a bit cross..." he grunted, undoing the fastenings of the plating with some difficulty. "Who's the idiot that put this on? It's far too tight."

"The droids on the Malevolence are useless!"

"No, they're dead, thanks to you..." Kenobi tore the chest plate off, revealing the pulsating organ sac underneath, and he hissed. "What have you done for this."

He snarled, coughing for a moment. "The medical droid looked at it. It said there is nothing to be done. You waste your time."

"Mm, it may not have been able to do anything, but droids can't use the Force." He reached out his hand and touched the fleshy mass, the General hissing as he did so, and Kenobi closed his eyes, feeling his life through the Force, so much like any other being Kenobi had felt. He could heal his own wounds, but healing others was a technique that Jedi practiced, and Obi-Wan had left the Order before he could learn it with any level of mastery. But still, he tried, and he could feel the damaged organs slowly beginning to heal. Connected with the Force, he could also feel others arrive. Many others, several identical presences he knew to be clones, and five others that were also connected to the Force. Jedi. Kenobi smiled as he heard the far-off sounds of metal being crushed as Grievous' ship was destroyed. There would be no escape.

Slowly, Grievous began taking deeper breaths, still rasping and injured, but it was improving, and he looked down in confusion as the Sith carefully began replacing the chest plate. "I should tell you something," he whispered, looking up into those reptilian eyes and smiling. "This is a trap. The Jedi are here, and there's no escape."

Looking at the cheerfully smiling Sith, Grievous felt anger overtake him, and he howled in rage. "Trap?!"

"As I said, Dooku is angry. He doesn't know if you're worthy of leading his army anymore, not after that string of humiliating defeats." The cyborg growled, stalking to a computer console and slamming his hands down upon it, monitors above flickering to life to show the many rooms of Grievous' lair, including a circular room with a single chair set like a throne where the Jedi and their clones now stood. Obi-Wan frowned as he looked at the four Jedi in view. He didn't recognize any of them.

"He would test me?!" the General snarled, reeling around and striking bits and pieces of scrap off tables, but Kenobi was unimpressed with his fury, made far less impressive by the subsequent coughing fit.

"Test you or dispose of you, yes..."

"So why are you here!" he snarled, stooping down to bring himself to the Sith's level, his iron mask mere inches from the unimpressed gold of Kenobi's eyes. "Are you here to make certain I complete this task? It they defeat me, they will come for you!"

"Do you think I'm afraid of a few Jedi?" Kenobi asked softly, his voice even and monotone, his face blank and expressionless, and Grievous drew back, observing the man carefully. This was different for the usually smiling, always amused Obi-Wan. Was he centering himself? Was he preparing to meet his former brothers? Was he, too, disappointed in the General? Grievous didn't know, and it made him feel uneasy. He always knew that Kenobi was a killer, but in that moment, he truly felt like one.

"Of course not..."

"No, of course not. Your guard has been deactivated. Your ship has been destroyed, and there are five Jedi here, looking for Nute Gunray, but they will find you. Understand?"

"...Dooku has trapped me."

The Sith nodded, a slow smile creeping across his face as he looked at the monitors. "And they brought a Jedi Master with them!" Obi-Wan chirped, the excitement creeping back into his voice as he watched Kit Fisto, Jedi of the Council, lay a green hand on the shoulder of a young Mon Calamari that must have only been recently knighted. Kenobi knew that Kit had taken a Padawan just before he left the Order, and he assumed this must have been him. Luminara had once mentioned that Fisto had an interest in a Mon Calamari.

Grievous snarled dangerously, but stopped when Obi-Wan's elegant fingers ran over his broad, metallic shoulders. "I actually came here to help you, Grievous..." the Sith purred, and the General had to shake his head when he felt the Sith's presence in his mind. It wasn't controlling, but it was overbearing, and the cyborg was forced to his knees, the Jedi on the screen all whipping their heads around, starring in the same direction. They had sensed the surge of power coming from the Sith.

"Help me how..."

"I came here to kill Jedi. You're good, Grievous. Truly, you are, but the halls out there are narrow, and the Jedi will have the advantage in these conditions. You are also badly injured, and the repairs to you are haphazard at best, you're not even close to your peak. But I can take care of this..."

Grievous snarled, taking his lightsabers in his hand and raising to his feet, arms disconnecting to form his four appendages. "I will prove myself to Dooku!" was the hollow, angry response, and the Sith sighed, activating the nearby medical droid and sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed in meditation.

"I wish you the best of luck," he whispered, sing-song, as the General left, howling furiously. The medical droid rolled to the monitors, chattering incessantly as he watched the fight upon the screen, droning on mournfully as he watched Grievous take damage to his expensive mechanical form. Kenobi breathed deeply, immersing himself in the Force, feeling its ebb and its flow, gauging the Jedi that fought. He didn't know most of them, but he was left unimpressed, for the most part. He knew Kit Fisto, of course, as one of the most accomplished duelists in the Order, and with a specialty in Form I, it left him uniquely suited to combating Grievous and his multiple blades. Kenobi recognized the skill of one of the other Jedi as one who had achieved mastery, but the others were just Knights, and barely Knights at that. They were not worth saving, not worth the effort to make them fall.

There was an awful amount of commotion coming from the halls outside, the enraged shouts of Grievous, the short, quick commands of the Jedi, the military barks of the clones, and it was enough to draw Kenobi out of the Force, his eyes drifting to the monitors in time to see Grievous scuttling across the ground, closer inspection showing that the cyborg had lost both of his legs mid-thigh. Gold eyes ran over the other monitors to see three Jedi in pursuit, while the other two remained on one screen, one of the Jedi missing a leg of his own, and the other carefully tending to him.

It was only a few moments later when the doors slid open and Grievous swung in, metallic hands gripping the ceiling, tow cables trailing from the remainders of his legs. Kenobi whistled. "You're a mess. Look at you, you're just scrap. How do you plan on beating the Jedi like that, this will take hours to properly fix!"

"I don't need it properly fixed, I just need a patch job."

Kenobi arched a brow. "A patch job on severed legs, Grievous? The whole thing needs to be repaired." He squinted, looking at the General closer. "And the left side of your face plate is damaged, your vision is impaired." Grievous devolved into a coughing fit, and Obi-Wan sighed. "And your lungs are damaged." He threw his hands into the air. "How do you plan to make it out of this!"

Grievous growled dangerously, the deep, low, feral sound reverberating through the mask. "...you said you would help..."

"Is that what you're asking for?"

"Yes."

Kenobi grinned. "Then ask."

The General howled in outrage, nearly striking the medical droid that came to begin repairing him, and the cyborg dropped to the table, the light steel crushing under the heavy force of his weight falling upon it. Calming his wrathful breathing, the General bowed his head and muttered a weak, "Please..."

Kenobi nodded, getting to his feet and stretching his arms toward the ceiling. "Remember this, Grievous. Next time you're in trouble, or you think you may lose a ship...swallow your pride and call for help."

Yellow eyes stared at him, unmoving, and then the General bowed his head. "I...will remember, my Lord."

Obi-Wan nodded, looking to the monitors to locate the Jedi's current location, and then he left the room, sealing it behind him. Using the Force, Kenobi moved silently through the narrow, dark halls, moving away from the Force presence of Fisto and the two Jedi he traveled with and circling around to the room the cyborg engaged the Jedi in. His presence concealed, Kenobi easily walked up behind the Jedi Knight as he healed his companion, and Lumis put the hilt of his lightsaber on the back of the Cerean's elongated skull, the red blade hissing to life and passing through the man's skull, the Jedi he had been tending to screaming, voice cracking as his comrade fell lifeless upon him. The fear of the injured man gave Lumis a way into his mind, his defenses already down to open himself to healing, and the human seemed to choke, his screaming dying in his throat when the Sith commanded silence from him.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply, Kenobi shivered as he felt the life leave the Jedi, reveled in the fear and despair of the other, and he felt the Dark Side roar to life in the presence of death. The surge of power was immense, a different feel from the rush of breaking a Jedi. It was far more intense, though he was certain the rush of power was also more fleeting. It was hardly a wonder that so many Sith of Old fell into the pattern of mindless slaughter, it felt good to feel the swell of power that could only come from death.

He opened his eyes and looked at the panic-stricken Jedi, gold glowing like flames in the dimly lit hallways, and he couldn't decide if he wanted to keep this Jedi to break later, or simply kill him now. His desperate struggle to get out from underneath his dead brother and the frantic whimpers answered the question for him, and the Sith Lord slowly approached the shaggy-haired human. "Don't worry..." Lumis whispered not unkindly, his lightsaber pointed to the Jedi's throat. "It'll be over soon..." He released his hold on the Jedi's mind, but remained within him, the fear of the boy seeming to fuel the Dark Side to greater heights. "I need you to call for help," he drawled, leaning closer and trailing the blade down his chest, so close it burned the Jedi's skin.

He did exactly as commanded, crying out for the aid of the Masters, his high-pitched, panicked voice echoing down the halls, and with a shudder of satisfaction, Lumis slid the blade under his sternum and into his lungs, the frantic voice growing muffled as he seemed to choke, blood slowly bubbling out of his mouth as he died. He could feel the other Jedi in the Force, felt their presence swiftly drawing near, and he deactivated his saber, focusing himself in the Dark Side, and he rose, turning just in time to see the three Jedi round the corner led by Kit Fisto. For only a second, he looks surprised, and then his large, black eyes narrow, a smirk on his face as he pointed his green saber at the Sith. If he sew the bodies, which Kenobi knew he must, than he made no showing of it. The other two are not so impassive, the other Master, a human, gasping in shock, and the Mon Calamari Knight narrowing his wide, bulging eyes in rage.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi..." Kit Fisto drawled, bowing slightly, the smirk present on his face. "I confess, we did not expect you here."

"I bet you didn't expect Grievous here either."

"We didn't. We were under the impression that we were baited here to become bait ourselves." The Nautolan grinned. "Now, why would Dooku want to capture Grievous, I wonder?"

"You would too, if you had a pesky General that lost the pride of your navy." Kenobi returned Fisto's grin. "Which, I suppose you did. Tell me, how is Quinlan Vos?"

"Very well. Confined to the Temple until he gets a new ship."

"Aw, how awful!" Kenobi drawled. "You may tell him from me that his ship is lovely. Honestly, a work of art."

The Mon Calamari pushed forward, his blue saber humming and he pointed it at the Sith Lord. "Master, stop talking to him! He's killed Tarr and Sha'a! We'll make him pay for it!"

"Revenge is not the way of the Jedi, Nahdar," Kit softly cautioned, but the Knight was having none of it, and Kenobi grinned when he saw excitement in the Mon Calamari's eyes. This may have been a Knight, but he was no true Jedi. He had one foot solidly planted in the Dark Side already.

"This is our chance! If we end this Sith Lord, we're one step closer to ending the war!" The orange skinned boy was so earnest, so eager, that Kenobi couldn't help but laugh loudly.

"This is what you've brought with you, Master Fisto?" he drawled, reaching out with the Dark Side and firmly grasping Nahdar's mind, the Mon Calamari gasping, his wide eyes bulging further and staggering toward the Sith for a few steps before dropping to his knees. "Was this your Padawan? Honestly, I'm disappointed, all you Council members are raising such...failures."

Fisto smirked, despite his former student's predicament, and Kenobi found himself respecting this Jedi. He was more of a Jedi Master than any he had met thus far. "Yes, it's really a shame. You have failed spectacularly, Master Jinn absolutely bemoans how disappointed he is in you."

Kenobi's temper flared, but just for a moment, smiling instead when he forced the Dark Side deeper into the Mon Calamari's mind, the boy shuddering as he rose to his feet. But it wasn't fast enough. The long tentacles flowing from the Nautolan's head were sensory organs that picked up even the slightest emotional change instantly, and Kenobi felt the Master center himself in the Force, green blade raised and ready. "He'll be changing his tune soon enough. As will you, Kit. Nahdar." The Mon Calamari's head snapped up, his large, wide eyes focusing on the Sith. "Kill your Master."

This time, Fisto's eyes widened in shock, unprepared for the sudden, vicious attack from Nahdar Vebb, the boy swinging his lightsaber at the Jedi from a place of reckless anger and rage and revenge that was pointed at the wrong person. He just barely blocked the first volley, then centered himself again and defended himself, calling to the young Knight to come to his senses, but to no avail. Laughing, Kenobi lit his lightsaber, the glowing weapon bathing his part of the hallway in a sinister red light. Sensing the immanent danger, the human Master rushed at the Sith, their blades locking as the Jedi resolved to keep Kenobi away from the other two.

Obi-Wan smirked, easily defending against the Jedi as he attacked, his strikes fast and aggressive, his movements fluid and athletic, but his focus was strained. The Master was trying to do too much, was distracted by the dead bodies, one of which was his former Padawan, the frantic, pleading cries of Kit Fisto, the mindless, vicious snarling of Nahdar. And through it all, the Sith was calm, focused, amused, hardly seeming as if he was fighting at all, as if the Force itself was guiding his movements. He pressed his attack. He didn't think he would survive this, but Kit and Nahdar may. He just needed to put enough distance between the Jedi and this Sith Lord, he just needed to give them enough time to-

The Jedi's weapon clattered to the ground, along with his severed hand. He hadn't seen the Sith Lord slip beneath his attack, the red blade sliding along his own and then twisting it around suddenly to sever the appendage. He reached out and called the saber to his other hand, but before he could grasp the weapon out of the air, the Sith's lightsaber descended upon his other arm, severing it at the elbow. In the next moment, the Jedi was pushed against the wall, held up by the throat with the Force, his legs kicking off the wall as he struggled to get free. The tip of the red weapon drove into the wall right by his head, the metal hissing as it melted.

"Your fate was predetermined," Lumis drawled, drawing the weapon closer to the Jedi's neck. "Don't be afraid. This is the will of the Force." His wrist flicked, and the lightsaber drew across the Master's neck, the body dropping to the ground as the Jedi's head was severed.

Now, Obi-Wan could feel Fisto's change through the Force as his sensitive tentacles picked up on the Sith's sudden elation when the Force trembled with the ripples of the Dark Side. As he drew closer to the Jedi Master, chuckling deeply as he felt the ever growing surge of the Dark Side, Fisto's attention diverted from his former student's relentless attack to the face of the Sith Lord, the smirk present on the Nautolan's face gone and replaced with a mask of cold indifference.

"The Council chose well in appointing you, Kit," Lumis drawled over the hissing of his lightsaber as it trailed a molten path through the floor beside his feet. "No fear, no anger for me to latch on to."

"Would they serve any use?" the Jedi quipped, easily blocking a volley from Nahdar, the young Mon Calamari's energy expending futilely against the superior swordsman. He was getting tired, sloppy, unfocused in his rage that the Sith Lord stoked in him. Still, Kit Fisto smiled. Soon, he'd be able to safely defang his enthralled Padawan, but it was, admittedly, more difficult to do so with Kenobi's attention trained directly on them. "After all, your anger doesn't seem to be serving you."

Obi-Wan laughed at that, holding out his hand to narrow his focus on the Mon Calamari, and Fisto grunted with effort as Nahdar's strength increased, buffered by the Sith that controlled him. "I'm not angry. Why should I be? I'm winning."

The Jedi Master's large black eyes fell back on Kenobi when he regained control of the fight, adjusting to the new fury stoked in his former student, the long tendrils flowing from his head twisting slightly in the air. "I don't need the Force to sense your feelings, Obi-Wan, it's the gift of my species." He smirked when the amusement dropped off the Sith Lord's face, replaced with a mask of blank indifference that Kit recognized all too well. The Jedi looked the same way when they strove to conceal and control feelings that would cloud their judgement. He may have looked as the calm, collected Jedi did, but the sensitive tendrils on the Nautolan's head picked up the subtle emotional change in Obi-Wan. Before, he had been amused, reckless in his joyful abandon by the death he had brought, an undercurrent of bitterness and anger running through him. But now, that undercurrent had torn the Sith's emotions asunder and left him consumed and wrathful. He couldn't sense it in the Force, couldn't see it on his face, but Kit knew that the Sith had just gone from sure-footed and playful to dangerously, furiously wrathful.

The hand at the Sith's side tightened, throwing Nahdar screaming into another furious attack against his former Master, and Fisto deftly blocked and parried and dodged, his movements graceful and precise, anticipating all of Nahdar's moves before he even made them. He had trained the boy after all. It was only a moment too late that Kit sensed the rage in the Sith turn to sinister glee, moving his green blade to deflect the next attack, but it never came. Instead, the Mon Calamari gasped, stumbling forward as his blade was dropped, Fisto's eyes wide as he watched the tip of his green lightsaber press easily into Nahdar's shoulder. The wide, bulging eyes of the Mon Calamari registered shock, pain, and guilt for only a moment before they quivered and quickly began to cloud, Kenobi's red blade sticking out of his chest as he was impaled.

Fisto's black eyes locked with golden ones for a moment, glowing with delight as the Dark Side engulfed him, and the Nautolan centered himself, drawing deeply of the Force to bolster his speed and his defenses, and the Sith Lord attacked. All Kit could do was retreat, putting as much distance between himself and his attacker as he could, relying on his graceful movements and his mastery of Shii-Cho combat to carry him through, but he was still forced into a frantic retreat as Kenobi pressed an aggressive offense.

Eventually, the closed, dark, claustrophobic hallways of Grievous' lair gave way to the bright, external courtyard where the Jedi had entered through, and given more space to move, Kit swiftly circled the Sith's blade to disarm him, failing in his intent, but succeeding in changing the tide of combat to his offensive, momentary shock registering in the Sith's golden eyes as he fell back into a defensive posture with ease. The Nautolan's movements were fluid, but random and unpredictable, and for a moment, all Kenobi could to was swiftly parry the arching, graceful strikes, retreating as his opponent had before to gain enough distance to observe the Jedi Master. Finally, he saw it, and Kenobi moved in, thrusting his blade forward along the Jedi's green, plasma sparking as the sabers connected, the red weapon making a swift and deadly line toward Fisto's unguarded head.

Kit sensed the Sith's emotional change, rage and wrath replaced with delight and anticipation, and he twisted out of the way of the deadly weapon, the crimson lightsaber narrowly avoiding his temple, and with a furious snarl, the Sith wrenched the blade up, the weapon leaving a bloody red trail through the air as it severed twelve of the fourteen sensitive, sensory tendrils that flowed from the Jedi's head. He staggered back, shaking in pain as he felt the writhing remains of the tentacles rising in the air and falling uselessly against his shoulders when moments ago, they flowed down to touch his lower back. The severed tendrils wriggled on the ground on their own accord as if they had life of their own, and Kit could immediately feel his connection with the Force weaken as his sensory organs were ripped away from him. He looked at the Sith through bleary, pain-clouded eyes, and found himself unable to sense him at all, and attempting to gauge his emotional state left him with crippling phantom pains.

The Sith pressed his attack, his golden eyes blazing with fury and triumph, and Fisto only just managed to block the savage blows, reaching back into the Force to guide him. He sensed something, for just a fleeting moment, and slowly, he began to grin, his smile made only wider when the Sith looked confused by the Jedi's glee. With a triumphant laugh, Kit Fisto drew of the Force to aid him in leaping high above Kenobi, only to disappear off the cliff below. Obi-Wan ran to the edge, the Force pulling at the edge of his mind just before he saw a Jedi starfighter rise out of the thick fog, the Nautolan clambering to climb into the cockpit as the droid installed in the front of the ship piloted them toward space.

The immediate rage was so intense that the large, steel doors that guarded Grievous' mountain fortress bent and crushed, screeching and groaning as the Dark Side warped and twisted the metal into indistinguishable scrap. Obi-Wan took a deep breath, clipped his saber to his belt and ran a hand through his tussled hair. His golden eyes looked over the scene, and he smirked slightly to see the still-wriggling tentacles of Kit Fisto's head. It wasn't a total loss, he supposed. Four Jedi dead, one of those a Master, and another Council Master humiliated wasn't bad for a spontaneous day trip. Breathing deeply, Obi-Wan quelled the Dark Side, setting his rage aside and reveling in the intense pleasure that flowed through him. The Dark Side was satisfied, gorged with blood, and it fueled the power of the Sith, strengthened his connection with the Force, and Kenobi closed his eyes, surrendering himself to the feelings of power as visions passed through his mind.

They were clearer than ever, more vivid and vibrant, and he almost felt as if he were standing in the Jedi Temple, the ancient building burning around him as his Master's Empire rose.