Maya-202!
A Star Wars-Inspired Story!
Episode I
The Two-Prince War
Chapter X
The Hotel Attack
"Aren… Aren…" a voice cried out in Aren's rather bizarre dream. He had not been dreaming in his sleep up until this point, when the blackness he saw had changed to a vibrant vivid red, like a corrupted hologame screen, and a voice had begun to call for him. It sounded like an elderly woman, but he wasn't completely sure – he couldn't see their face, he could only hear their calling. But this voice woke him up – it was like it told him to come awake without saying so, alerting him like an alarm clock would do. It took energy to get his eyes to wheeze open, as he found it difficult to properly get up if he was awakened unexpectedly. But he had to, as in the force, he felt that something was coming – coming right for him, very, very soon…
General Grievous fit in perfectly in the Uscru District. His terrifying demeanor made sure that people in the streets didn't give him unwelcome wary stares. He took vast, immense pleasure in the fact that citizens, and especially Jedi dirt, found him scary. It made people even more frightened by the fact that he had two large droidekas following behind him. Even the Uscru District this wasn't the usual day-to-day sight for people. The General trundled through the shady alleyways until he eventually arrived outside the Uscru Inn, with its bright fluorescent lights highlighting the sign on the front of the building. He commanded one of the droidekas to remain outside the main door, and sent the other to the emergency exit in case the Jedi attempted to escape. Without a second thought they obeyed him with a "Roger Roger." Now, it was time for this Jedi scum to finally get what was coming to him. Grievous chuckled to himself, unable to wait another second to chop this Jedi up and retrieve his lightsaber, and he walked inside to the front desk.
"Hey, my fellow droid frie-" the Protocol Droid started, but Grievous asked him whether he knew of a guest called Aren that was staying there, and what room he was in right now. "I'm terribly sorry, Sir, but we aren't allowed to give the details of our guests that stay here away to people unless they are police. It is against our programming. I can't help ya, sorry..." the droid apologised. If his faceplate had a mouth, General Grievous would have scowled at this denial. He growled, before hastily turning on his saber and slicing through the Protocol Droid with one clean stroke through the middle. "Ugh!..." the droid whimpered whilst its top half fell apart from his legs and hit the blue carpeted floor. "That's what you get for refusing to answer my questions and wasting my time!" Grievous barked. He then hopped behind the reception counter and bent over to pick up the ID chip attached to the droid's chestplate. Grievous then used it to access the customer files on the erasable holocrons. He scanned the pages – there were no names in the data, but the most recent booking was around two hours ago for room 891, on Floor 7. It was one of two bookings of the day, and since the first had occurred much earlier, at a similar time to when the droidekas had explained of their 'trial' fight with the Jedi in the Federal District, the latest booking had to be him. "I have you now…" General Grievous murmured quietly, before heading to the elevator.
Artex was still charging on his unit without a sound, as if he was sleeping like a baby. Aren lifted himself out of the bed, his dormancy garments messy from the earlier tossing and turning during the night. The hotel was surprising quiet for a place in the Uscru District – Aren presumed that maybe this place was a little too classy for people getting drunk at the various nightclubs here, and that they would probably stay in a sleazy motel to do 'their business', as he called it. The good news about the silent environment in the hotel was that not only was it easy to get some much-needed rest, but any noise outside the room and in the corridors could easily be heard, which helped in situations like this. And that proved to be true, because the elevator doors could be heard opening. Aren wondered if he was overcomplicating things, and really it was just another guest. However, the Force was rarely, if ever, wrong when it told him something was coming. Whoever it was arrived at his room, and hovered there for a moment, as he could see their shadow cast by the lighting in the hallway underneath the door. They looked tall, and they were not human – they definitely had more than two arms, but Aren didn't pause to count how many he precisely saw as he decided to hug the wall next to his bed to stay hidden in case the creature tried to enter. They banged on the door three times. "Aren, are you in there?" he asked – Aren assumed it was a man since it sounded like a male voice, but a thick, almost droid-like distorted one. Aren opened the drawer he had placed his saber in when he had got to the room, using the force by reaching his hand out to it and telekinetically pulling it. He then got his lightsaber to glide over to him, and he picked it up when it was close enough. After receiving no reply, the figure outside seemed to become irritated. "If you won't let me in, then I'll just have to come in myself," the creature laughed wickedly, and then it broke into some sort of coughing fit which stopped after about 2 seconds. And then Aren could hear a lightsaber - no, multiple lightsabers – being turned on. Nothing happened for a moment. And all of a sudden, two lightsabers with purple blades came right through the wooden door, and they simultaneously traced the shape of a rectangle, causing a rectangular hole to fall out of the door. The thing leapt through the hole, and edged closer to the wall Aren still hugged. He decided to catch the droid-like person by surprise – all in the space of what felt like a split-second, Aren activated his yellow lightsaber, catching the droid's eye, and he launched himself from behind the wall, thrusting his blade towards the droid. But it had a very fast reaction time, as Aren's saber hit the two purple ones held by the droid in a cross-like formation as a defensive manoeuvre. The droid cackled again. "Foolish Jedi! Did you really think that would work against me?!" he yelled. Aren didn't respond. Instead, he removed his blade, and took another swing from below, as if to chop the droid in half from his hips upward. But yet again, his attack was blocked. "I could do this all day…" the droid said, and then took his lightsabers out of their defence position, and sliced them at Aren's left leg, managing to graze the top of them, causing his skin to break and blood began to pour out. It stung like hell. "Argh!" Aren yelped in pain from the burn the droid's saber left in him. "I have slain kings, I have demolished armies, I have slaughtered masters! A feeble Jedi will not pose a challenge to me!" the droid shouted, before it revealed two more purple lightsabers with his two higher arms that were closer to his head. The droid spun his arms around, causing the sabers to whirl around too in a circular motion. Aren fell down on the floor, feeling as if the end was near. He hit his head on something metal when he collapsed, his saber still in his hand, pointing at the large droid. The droid clearly enjoyed his suffering, as he wasn't finishing him yet, just staring and laughing at his pain. But Aren tried to regain hope. He focused all his remaining effort on his unarmed hand, which he kept on the floor behind his back, so that the droid would hopefully have his eyes drawn to Aren's hand with his yellow saber. But something happened at the same time. "Hey! General?!" Artex had come out of standby, possibly as a result of all the commotion in the room. Artex noticed his Jedi friend lying on the floor. "Aren? Are you alright?! What's going on here?! I didn't think droids could have dreams!" Artex panicked, before adding "I'm so confused!"
"Nope, this is real, and I've been better…" Aren said.
"But what is General Grievous doing here?" Artex asked.
"You know this guy?!" Aren said.
"Yeah! He was in charge of basically all the droid army, including yours truly, during the Clone Wars! But he was destroyed by General Kenobi…"
What Grievous was saying earlier about demolishing armies made complete sense now. Artex was right though, how was Grievous here? And why did he want to specifically attack Aren? This had to be related to the earlier attempt to kill him in the day. Explanations were needed. "Silence! You are a B1 Battle Droid, your loyalty is to me!" Grievous boomed. However, Artex moved in front of Aren. "What are you doing? MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, USELESS FOOL!" Grievous yelled even louder now.
"No! Don't attack this man – he has shown me kindness, he has treated me as if I am more than just an ancient old droid without feelings. He has-" Artex stated, which was very kind of him, but Grievous just battered him out of the way with a swipe of his long arm. "Waaa!" Artex yelled as he crashed into the wall. Now, Grievous came charging towards Aren, his sabers pointing directly at his face. But during the little interlude that had just taken place, Aren had kept focusing his energy still to his unarmed right hand. When Grievous was about a mere centimetre away from him, Aren lifted his right hand off of the floor, and at General Grievous, force-pushing him back to the doorway of the room, and he hit the floor with a scrape. Aren braced the pain in his leg, to which he was quickly getting used to, and pushed himself to get up. Aren didn't kid himself – fighting the General right now would be a big misstep, and he would almost certainly wind up dead. Instead of brawling the General, the Jedi knew he needed an escape plan, but simply running through the door wouldn't work, as Grievous' body was so tall it blocked the whole of the doorframe. He staggered over to where Artex was lying, scooped him up in his arms, and limped swiftly back to the window. General Grievous became very angry now. His eyes narrowed at the Jedi, and he started streaming right towards Aren again, but this time he was preparing to make a running jump at the Jedi, all four of his lightsabers on display and directed at Aren, in an attempt to stab him upon landing from the jump. It all happened in a flash. Aren placed his saber through the large glass window of the room, trying to shatter it and provide an escape route. "You're not getting away that easy!" the General taunted. Thankfully for the Jedi and his droid friend, the window broke apart into pieces once the lightsaber was removed. Aren prepared himself – this was gonna hurt, but probably not as much as being sliced open by General Grievous. Holding Artex tightly in his arms, he stumbled up onto the window ledge, and stared for a brief second at the great height he was about to fall down. Jedi could survive falls of large distances, and that wouldn't change, but his injured leg would make sure that the landing would be an unstable and harmful one. However, it was again better than the painful death Grievous had planned for him. Aren took one deep breath, and leapt off…