Spectre: Whew! New chapter coming up! I gotta say, this took me some time, especially to Ahsoka vs Maul since I prefer to make their duel a bit realistic for the masses. And I would like to inform you all that it has been one year since the first chapter. And I was like, holy hell! That fast?
At that time, I did not exert much time and effort at that since I focused on my RWBY react fic at that point. But then I remembered, the reason why I went on board with it, is to make a new Star Wars react fic that doesn't use the fricking MOVIE SCRIPT as its source, and I was hellbent on creating something new cause of that and here we are!
And wow, 530k views on the fic? That's awesome! Thanks for the continuing support my friends!
Also, I retooled Chapter 1 to make it more connected to the story. And Interlude 2.0 will have their own names.
Chapter 32: Utapau and Mandalore Part 2
Evading Maul's initial swings, Ahsoka immediately went on to the defensive, blocking the crimson blades from above and below. Taking the initiative, Ahsoka moved in to deliver a few graceful strikes towards her opponent, Maul's own saberstaff was equally defensive as her own pair of lightsabers.
Finding an opening at Ahsoka's left, Maul attempted to strike at that direction, only for Ahsoka to reverse the grip of her lightsaber to parry the crimson blade from there in the last second.
Everyone was astounded at the graceful display of combat of the two combatants, the flow of their duel circulates from Maul and Ahsoka's respective abilities.
"Impressive. It's only a short while and the two has displayed delicate prowess in using their sabers in combat", Kit Fisto complimented the two, to the agreement of the Jedi present.
Regaining her focus, Ahsoka moved in to deliver a quick flow of strikes towards the Zabrak, her two sapphire blades meeting several times to their crimson counterparts. Finding an opening to her right, Maul sidestepped out of the way, where an elbow landed straight into Ahsoka's face, using this opportunity to swat away one of her lightsabers.
Renewing his offensive, Maul aggressively struck blow for blow towards her, but Ahsoka skillfully used her left in parrying Maul's attacks, before deciding to go on the offensive herself and began to push back the Zabrak, landing an acrobatic downkick onto his face, before outstretching her hand to use the Force to catch one of her lightsabers, activating its hilt that forced Maul to evade the incoming blade as it went back to Ahsoka.
"Maul's use of Form VII proved to suit him because of his aggressive stance", Mace observed the former Sith Lord's fighting style.
"But Ahsoka's usage of Jar'kai to compliment it with Form IV proved to be as equal, if not a good counter against him", Luminara interjected, having seen and compared Ahsoka when she first fought alongside with her as a young Padawan, to the one grown Jedi, despite not being one herself.
"But is it safe to assume that she could be able to defeat Maul?", Saesee Tiin asked, skeptical.
"Have faith in her, Master Tiin", Yoda said, looking at Ahsoka thoughtfully. "Succeed, she will"
Plo Koon remained silent at the discussion, only watching the duel with his hopes fully placed on to the young Torgruta. Masters Kenobi and Shaak Ti knew this as well, seeing that the Kel'Dor would want nothing more than her to be safe.
"You're lucky Anakin didn't show up", Ahsoka sarcastically mused as she circled the former Sith Lord. "The way you're fighting, you wouldn't have last long"
Obi-Wan held his chin as he thought of the Zabrak's current fighting style. Based on his previous encounters with Maul, the latter was not as aggressive as he is during his encounters. And by the looks of it, Maul isn't the type to hold back against anyone. However, his words to Ahsoka earlier had given the context as to why he appeared to be holding back.
"Oh, you have Kenobi's arrogance?", Maul asked back.
"That would be Skywalker's", Shaak Ti chimed in.
"You'll find that I have more qualities for you to dislike", Ahsoka responded as she moved in for another strike.
The electrodrivers powering Grievous's mechanical arms let each of the four attack thrice in a single second; integrated by combat algorithms in the bio-droid's electronic network of peripheral processors, each of the twelve strikes per second came from a different angle with different speed and intensity, an unpredictably broken rhythm of slashes, chops, and stabs of which every single one could take Obi-Wan's life. Not one touched him.
"This is why he was chosen to fight Grievous as opposed to other members of the Order", Shaak Ti observed, keeping up with her fellow Council Member's defensive stance against the droid General.
"Master Kenobi's preference in using Soresu as a counter to Grievous' more unorthodox skill in combat is the key for him to win this fight", Master Mundi added, inwardly admitting that Kenobi had an easier time against Grievous given to their past encounters, while his nearly ended with their doom
After all, he had often walked unscathed through hornet swarms of blasterfire, defended only by the Force's direction of his blade; countering twelve blows per second was only difficult, not impossible. His blade wove an intricate web of angles and curves, never truly fast but always just fast enough, each motion of his lightsaber subtly interfering with three or four or eight of the general's strikes, the rest sizzling past him, his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them by centimeters.
Grievous, snarling fury, ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attacks—sixteen per second, eighteen—until finally, at twenty strikes per second, he overloaded Obi-Wan's defense. So Obi-Wan used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brought Obi-Wan's blade in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the handgrip. —slice—
The blade winked out of existence a hairbreadth before it would have burned through Obi-Wan's forehead. Half the severed lightsaber skittered away, along with the duranium thumb and first finger of the hand that had held it.
"That fast? I recall having to play it safe when I had my own encounter with him", Master Fisto said, amazed.
"Exploiting his aggression, Master Kenobi has", Yoda observed.
Grievous paused, eyes pulsing wide, then drawing narrow. He lifted his maimed hand and stared at the white-hot stumps that held now only half a useless lightsaber.
Obi-Wan smiled at him.
Grievous lunged.
Obi-Wan parried.
Pieces of lightsabers bounced on the durasteel deck.
Grievous looked down at the blade-sliced hunks of metal that were all he had left in his hands, then up at Obi-Wan's shining sky- colored blade, then down at his hands again, and then he seemed to suddenly remember that he had an urgent appointment somewhere else.
Mundi sighed to himself. "Perhaps I should have invested my time in practicing Soresu"
"The best defence could the be the greatest offense if used properly", Plo Koon said, praising Obi-Wan's resounding skill against Grievous.
"With that in mind, we could expect him to run away now", Windu mused to the Droid General.
Obi-Wan stepped toward him, but a shock from the Force made him leap back just as a scarlet HE bolt struck the floor right where he'd been about to place his foot. Obi-Wan rode the explosion, flipping in the air to land upright between a pair of super battle droids that were busily firing upon the flank of a squad of clone troopers, which they continued to do until they found themselves falling in pieces to the deck.
Obi-Wan spun.
In the chaos of exploding droids and dying men, Grievous was nowhere to be seen.
"Of course he has, Master", Depa conceded.
Obi-Wan waved his lightsaber at the clones. "The general!" he shouted. "Which way?"
One trooper circled his arm as though throwing a proton grenade back toward the archway where Obi-Wan had first entered.
He followed the gesture and saw, for an instant in the sun-shadow of the Vigilance outside, the back curves of twin bladed rings— ganged together to make a wheel the size of a starfighter—rolling swiftly off along the sinkhole rim.
General Grievous was very good at running away.
"Not this time," Obi-Wan muttered, and cut a path through the tangled mob of droids all the way to the arch in a single sustained surge, reaching the open air just in time to see the blade-wheeler turn; it was an open ring with a pilot's chair inside, and in the pilot's chair sat Grievous, who lifted one of his bodyguards' electrostaffs in a sardonic wave as he took the scooter straight out over the edge.
Four claw-footed arms deployed, digging into the rock to carry him down the side of the sinkhole, angling away at a steep slant.
"Blast." Obi-Wan looked around. Still no air taxis. Not that he had any real interest in flying through the storm of battle that raged throughout the interior of the sinkhole, but there was certainly no way he could catch Grievous on foot...
From around the corner of an interior tunnel, he heard a resonant honnnnk! as though a nearby bantha had swallowed an air horn.
He said, "Boga?"
The beaked face of the dragonmount slowly extended around the interior angle of the tunnel.
"Boga! Come here, girl! We have a general to catch." Boga fixed him with a reproachful glare. "Honnnnnk.
"Oh, very well." Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "I was wrong; you were right. Can we please go now?"
"Made a friend, Master Kenobi?", Yoda mused with a chuckle.
The remaining fifteen meters of dragonmount hove into view and came trotting out to meet him. Obi-Wan sprang to the saddle, and Boga leapt to the sinkhole's rim in a single bound. Her huge head swung low, searching, until Obi-Wan spotted Grievous's blade-wheeler racing away toward the landing decks below.
"There, girl—that's him! Go!"
Boga gathered herself and sprang to the rim of the next level down, poised for an instant to get her bearings, then leapt again down into the firestorm that Pau City had become. Obi-Wan spun his blade in a continuous whirl to either side of the dragonmount's back, disintegrating shrapnel and slapping away stray blasterfire.
They plummeted through the sinkhole-city, gaining tens of meters on Grievous with every leap.
Within the streets of Sundari, Republic forces fought Shadow Collective Commandos, sustaining heavy losses to the Clone Troopers that were trying to fight their way out through the Overpass.
"I have seen Mandalorians being fierce warriors, but the fact that they managed to inflict heavy losses on Clone troopers showed thay they are a different class of warriors at this stage", Plo Koon said.
"If we are going to take note of it, their colors indicate their loyalty to Maul, as a parallel to Ahsoka's Clone troopers", Luminara added.
"The Death Watch is likely replaced by another organization who is loyal to Maul alone, after a portion led by Lady Kryze seceded from it", Obi-Wan observed.
At the Throne Room of Sundari, Maul and Ahsoka continued their resilient duel. At a seemingly slow, yet graceful maneuver, Ahsoka moved for a quick flurry of strikes, only for Maul to intercept and parry them with quick-paced movements before lunging in for an assault, with Ahsoka cartwheeling backwards to avoid being seared by it.
"Her smaller size and agility has made it easier for her to conduct her movements against him", Mundi said, impressed at the former Jedi.
"Judge anyone by their size and age, do not", Yoda interceded. "Unknown surprises, awaits"
If Anakin could see her now, Obi-Wan thought, praying to the Force that Padmé, Rex and the present Ahsoka had helped him go through all of this.
As she did, she took a moment from Maul's assault towards her, breathing incoherently as she tried to regain her composure and focus at her mission. Regaining it soon after, she followed Maul through the now-open window where he had collided.
"This is not good for her, now that she is becoming exhausted at their duel", Plo Koon pointed out, worried for her at every moment.
"I agree. The longer this duel goes on, the harder it will be for Padawan Tano.", Depa added.
"Move it! Move it!", one of the Clones rallied to their men as they charged in towards a company of Shadow Collective commandos, both sided taking in heavy losses until they engaged in fierce hand to hand combat.
"One side where soldiers bred for war against another where one encourages its people to become warriors", Saesee Tiin mused.
"Could not have said it better, Master Tiin", Kit Fisto agreed with him.
In the ensuing chaos, dozens of Nite Owl warriors, under the command of Bo Katan, descended down to reinforce the 332nd, using their rockets against squads of Shadow Collective warriors where the tide of the battle began to turn to the Republic's favor immediately.
"Come on!", Rex rallied to his men as they moved in to join the Nite Owl's pursuit of the now-retreating Shadow Collective.
"And the Cavalry has arrived soon enough", Mundi proclaimed.
On one of the landing decks, the canopy was lifting and parting to show a small, ultrafast armored shuttle of the type favored by the famously nervous Neimoidian executives of the Trade Federation.
"Running away again, Grievous?", Obi-Wan sarcastically asked.
"He knows that he is both outmatched and outnumbered. It is not too obvious for him", Master Fisto added.
Grievous's wheeler sprayed a fan of white-hot sparks as it tore across the landing deck; the bio-droid whipped the wheeler sideways, laying it down for a skidding halt that showered the shuttle with molten durasteel.
But before he could clamber out of the pilot's chair, several metric tons of Jedi-bearing dragonmount landed on the shuttle's roof, crouched and threatening and hissing venomously down at him.
"I hope you have another vehicle, General!" Obi-Wan waved his lightsaber toward the shuttle's twin rear thrusters. "I believe there's some damage to your sublights!"
"You're insane! There's no—"
Obi-Wan shrugged. "Show him, Boga."
The dragonmount dutifully pointed out the damage with two whistling strikes of her massive tail-mace—wham and wham again—which crumpled the shuttle's thruster tubes into crimped-shut knots of metal.
Obi-Wan beckoned. "Let's settle this, shall we?"
Grievous's answer was a shriek of tortured gyros that wrenched the wheeler upright, and a metal-on-metal scream of blades ripping into deck plates that sent it shooting straight toward the sinkhole wall—and, with the claw-arms to help, straight up it.
"It seems you'll have to chase down Grievous before he escapes again", Shaak Ti said to the Stewjon Jedi Master.
Obi-Wan sighed. "Didn't we just come from there?"
Boga coiled herself and sprang for the wall, and the chase was on once more. They raced through the battle, clawing up walls, shooting through tunnels, skidding and leaping, sprinting where the way was clear and screeching into high-powered serpentines where it was not, whipping around knots of droids and bounding over troopers. Boga ran straight up the side of a clone hovertank and sprang from its turret directly between the high-slanting ringwheels of a hailfire, and a swipe of Obi-Wan's blade left the droid crippled behind them. Native troops had taken the field: Utapaun dragonriders armed with sparking power lances charged along causeways, spearing droids on every side.
Grievous ran right over anything in his path, the blades of his wheeler shredding droid and trooper and dragon alike; behind him, Obi-Wan's lightsaber caught and returned blaster bolts in aspray that shattered any droid unwise enough to fire on him.
The Jedi frowned on the General's cowardly move, seeing how he doesn't care of anything that stood in his way.
"Commander Cody will have to take care of the droids while I have other business to attend to", Obi Wan mused to himself.
A few stray bolts he batted into the speeding wheeler ahead, but without visible effect.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's try this from a little closer.'' Boga gained steadily. Grievous's vehicle had the edge in raw speed, but Boga could out-turn it and could make instant leaps at astonishing angles; the dragonmount also had an uncanny instinct for where the general might be heading, as well as a seemingly infinite knowledge of useful shortcuts through side tunnels, along sheer walls, and over chasms studded with locked-down wind turbines. Grievous tried once to block Obi-Wan's pursuit by screeching out onto a huge pod that held a whole bank of wind turbines and knocking the blade-brakes off them with quick blows of the electrostaff, letting the razor-edged blades spin freely in the constant gale, but Obi-Wan merely brought Boga alongside the turbines and stuck his lightsaber into their whirl. Sliced-free chunks of carboceramic blade shrieked through the air and shattered on the stone on all sides, and with a curse Grievous kicked his vehicle into motion again.
The wheeler roared into a tunnel that seemed to lead straight into the rock of the plateau. The tunnel was jammed with groundcars and dragonmounts and wheelers and jetsters and all manner of other vehicles and every kind of beast that might bear or draw the vast numbers of Utapauns and Utai fleeing the battle. Grievous blasted right into them, blade-wheel chewing through groundcars and splashing the tunnel walls with chunks of shredded lizard; Boga raced along the walls above the traffic sometimes even galloping on the ceiling with claws gouging chunks from the rock.
With a burst of sustained effort that strangled her honnnking to thin gasps for air, Boga finally pulled alongside Grievous. Obi-Wan leaned forward, stretching out with his lightsaber, barely able to reach the wheeler's back curve, and carved away an arc of the wheeler's blade-tread, making the vehicle buck and skid; Grievous answered with a thrust of his electrostaff that crackled lightning against Boga's extended neck. The great beast jerked sideways, honking fearfully and whipping her head as though the burn was abiting creature she could shake off her flank.
"One more leap, Boga!" Obi-Wan shouted, pressing himself along the dragonmount's shoulder. "Bring me even with him!"
The dragonmount complied without hesitation, and when Grievous thrust again, Obi-Wan's free hand flashed out and seized the staff below its discharge blade, holding it clear of Boga's vulnerable flesh. Grievous yanked on the staff, nearly pulling Obi-Wan out of the saddle, then jabbed it back at him, discharge blade sparking in his face—
With a sigh, Obi-Wan realized he needed both hands.
He dropped his lightsaber.
The Jedi looked at him, where Obi-Wan raised his hands in defense. "I know that our weapons are our lives, but I have to that for the moment"
"You could have at least put it away in your belt rather than dropping it", Luminara retorted.
As his deactivated handgrip skittered and bounced along the tunnel behind him, he reflected that it was just as well Anakin wasn't there after all; he'd have never heard the end of it.
He got his other hand on the staff just as Grievous jerked the wheeler sideways, half laying it down to angle for a small side tunnel just ahead. Obi-Wan hung on grimly. Through the Force he could feel Boga's exhaustion, the buildup of anaerobic breakdown products turning the dragonmount's mighty legs to cloth. An open archway showed daylight ahead. Boga barely made the turn, and they raced side by side along the empty darkened way, joined by the spark-spitting rod of the electrostaff.
As they cleared the archway to a small, concealed landing deck deep in a private sinkhole, Obi-Wan leapt from the saddle, yanking on the staff to swing both his boots hard into the side of Grievous's duranium skull. The wheeler's internal gyros screamed at the sudden impact and shift of balance. Their shrieks cycled up to bursts of smoke and fragments of metal as their catastrophic failure sent the wheeler tumbling in a white-hot cascade of sparks.
Dropping the staff, Obi-Wan leapt again, the Force lifting him free of the crash
Grievous's electronic reflexes sent him out of the pilot's chair in the opposite direction.
The wheeler flipped over the edge of the landing deck and into the shadowy abyss of the sinkhole. It trailed smoke all the way down to a distant, delayed, and very final crash.
The electrostaff had rolled away, coming to rest against the landing jack of a small Techno Union starfighter that stood on the deck a few meters behind Obi-Wan. Behind Grievous, the archway back into the tunnel system was filled with a panting, exhausted, but still dangerously angry dragonmount. Obi-Wan looked at Grievous.
Grievous looked at Obi-Wan.
"It's now or never. Grievous had nowhere to run", Plo Koon said. "He had only a few options to choose from"
"And I doubt surrendering is one of them", Obi-Wan added. "
There was no longer any need for words between them. Obi-Wan simply stood, centered in the Force, waiting for Grievous to make his move. A concealed compartment in the general's right thigh sprang open, and a mechanical arm delivered a slim hold-out blaster to his hand. He brought it up and fired so fast that his arm blurred to invisiblity.
Obi-Wan... reached.
The electrostaff flipped into the air between them, one dis- charge blade catching the bolt. The impact sent the staff whirling—Right into Obi-Wan's hand.
Back at Sundari, Republic and Nite Owl forces overwhelmed the Shadow Collective, capturing Rook and a few others in the process. Taking cover, Saxon attempted to communicate with Maul with his coms. "Lord Maul! I need backup! My forces are falling! We need your support!"
The Jedi looked at Master Kenobi, who sighed. "I have seen what happen to people who work under Maul. None of it ended well"
"Betrayal and the use of expendables are the way of the Sith", Mace agreed with him.
Above Sundari, Maul looked below at the raging battlefield that was already clouded with smoke before replying to Saxon. "No. I think not", he answered back in a casual ton. "Any moment my ship will be arriving. Die well, Mandalorian"
"No! Wait-", Saxon cried out in terror before Maul abruptly cut off the connection, intending to make his escape.
"If Maul managed to deceive an entire planet, in addition to several syndicates that could consist of worlds into working with him, it is to no surprise that Sidious managed to deceive the entire Republic and the Jedi into working with him as well", Shaak Ti spoke in a low tone.
His trek stopped when he heard a pair of lightsabers being ignited behind him, turning back to find out that Lady Tano had managed to catch up with him.
"Obi-Wan was right", Ahsoka admitted. "You are difficult to kill"
"I wouldn't say difficult, but he was rather too angry to die that is", Obi-Wan retorted.
Maul frowned at the remark before Ahsoka rushed towards him, jumping forward for a strike that was quickly blocked by Maul before she delivered a flurry of blows that were parried. However, neither could not be aggressive as they have back at the Throne Room, as the beams itself could easily be severed if they are not careful.
"The end, I am sensing", Yoda observed, seeing how things are going between the two duels.
"We could have destroyed Sidious!", Maul roared.
"Only for you to take his place!", Ahsoka shot back, with the two exchanging blows even further until Ahsoka found an opening, and landed an elbow at Maul's face, followed by a kick, pushing him back and causing Maul to almost lose his balance over a support beam.
"Despite what Maul may be planning, his words were overall genuine", Mundi said, recalling what the Zabrak had said earlier.
"She couldn't have known", Plo Koon reasoned out. "None of us in the future have"
Ahsoka jumpe at him, bringing in an offensive that was parried by Maul before he kicked her away, pushing the forker Padawan off a beam. But fortunately, Ahsoka manages to hold on to prevent herself from falling.
Then, a Gauntlet fighter starship had descended over the two and lowered its light towards Maul. "Lord Maul, we must depart immediately", the pilot urged him, to which Maul wasted no time and ran up the beams to reach the ship but Ahsoka reached him in time as soon as he broke the glass ceiling and the two landed onto the support beam once more.
"Hmmm..."
"Is there something you would like to say, Master Mundi?", Saesee Tiin asked his colleague.
"Has anyone notice that Maul kept holding back from her? He had plenty of opportunities to finish her off, yet he restrained himself until now", Mundi professed.
"Wanted her alive, he had", Yoda said. "No choice in the matter, Maul has for her"
However, Ahsoka kept on going against him. But Maul too had disarmed her of her weapon.
"I know this pattern", Kenobi spoke out, having been too familiar with it too. "Let us hope Ahsoka could exploit it as well"
"You don't mean...", Shaak Ti began, slowly realizing what he meant.
Maul sliced the beam they are currently standing on and jumped over Ahsoka and reaches the opposite end of the support beam, causing it to sink beneath her weight. "I give you one last chance. Join me... or die.", Maul declared.
Ahsoka's gaze hardened. "Never"
With that, Maul rushed with his lightsaber to strike her down. However, Ahsoka grabbed his blade at the last second and trips him over the support beam, causing Maul to fall while his lightsaber is cast away. And before he can fall to his death, Ahsoka outstretched her hand to suspend him mid-air.
"Impressive", Yoda praised, as did the others. " Most impressive"
"Arrogance is Maul's downfall. He had failed to remember this lesson at Naboo with Obi-Wan. And he had failed again in Mandalore with Ahsoka", Plo Koon said out loud.
"Let me go", Maul cried out. "Let me die!"
As three Republic gunships approach, Ahsoka used the Force to move him close enough for two of Bo-Katan's warriors to secure him with grappling cables, forcing the Gauntlet to flee without him.
"You're all going to burn! We're all going to die!", Maul shouted like a deranged lunatic before turning to Ahsoka. "You don't know what you're doing!"
From his gunship, Rex silenced the Zabrak by stunning him, and his body left hanging in the air. "We'll take it from here Commander!", Rex assured her.
The Jedi became unsettled at Maul's current mood that was the total opposite from earlier. " He knows that the moment he arrives at Coruscant, Sidious would go and silence him. Personally.", Obi-Wan lowly said.
There came one instant's pause, while they looked into each other's eyes and shared an intimate understanding that their relationship had reached its end.
Obi-Wan charged.
Grievous backed away, unleashing a stream of blaster bolts as fast as his half a forefinger could pull the trigger. Obi-Wan spun the staff, catching every bolt, not even slowing down, and when he reached Grievous he slapped the blaster out of his hand with a crack of the staff that sent blue lightning scaling up the general's arm. His following strike was a stiff stab into Grievous's jointed stomach armor that sent the general staggering back. Obi-Wan hit him again in the same place, denting the armorplast plate, cracking the joint where it met the larger, thicker plates of his chest as Grievous flailed for balance, but when he spun the staff for his next strike the general's flailing arm flailed itself against the middle of the staff and his other hand found it as well and he seized it, yanking himself upright against Obi-Wan's grip, his metal skull-face coming within a centimeter of the Jedi Master's nose.
"With neither of them having their lightsabers, Master Kenobi will have to resort to tricks in order to go through with this", Master Fisto professed.
He snarled, "Do you think I am foolish enough to arm my bodyguards with weapons that can actually hurt me?"
Instead of waiting for an answer he spun, heaving Obi-Wan right off the deck with effortless strength, whipping up him over his head to slam him to the deck with killing power; Obi-Wan could only let go of the staff and allow the Force to angle his fall into astumbling roll. Grievous sprang after him, swinging the electrostaff and slamming it across Obi-Wan's flank before the Jedi Master could recover his balance. The impact sent Obi-Wan tumbling sideways and the electroburst discharge set his robe on fire.
Grievous stayed right with him, attacking before Obi-Wan could even realize exactly what was happening, attacking faster than thought—
But Obi-Wan didn't need to think. The Force was with him, and he knew. When Grievous spun the staff overhand, discharge blade sizzling down at Obi-Wan's head for the killing blow, Obi-Wan went to the inside. He met Grievous chest-to-chest, his upraised hand blocking the general's wrist; Grievous snarled something incoherent and bore down on the Jedi Master's block with all his weight, driving the blade closer and closer to Obi-Wan's face—
But Obi-Wan's arm had the Force to give it strength, and the general's arm only had the innate crystalline intermolecular structure of duranium alloy. Grievous's forearm bent like a cheap spoon.
While the general stared in disbelief at his mangled arm, Obi-Wan had been working the fingers of his free hand around the lower edge of Grievous's dented, joint-loose stomach plate.
Grievous looked down. "What?"
Obi-Wan slammed the elbow of his blocking arm into the general's clavicle while he yanked as hard as he could on the stomach plate, and it ripped free in his hand. Behind it hung atranslucent sac of synthskin containing a tangle of green and gray organs.
The audience became uneasy and some were downright disgusted, with Caleb barely trying to hold himself at the grotesque sight. "I know that the weapons present aren't effective, but shouldn't you have settled for a more...orthodox method, Master Kenobi?", Luminara questioned.
"I will not protest. If it works, then it works", Saesee chimed in, if this is for it to be a way to defeat Grievous.
"Why does it look like it was punctured?", Shaak Ti asked, observing the rather...damaged state of the organs.
Mace looked at his right hand for a moment before turning back to the screen.
The true body of the alien inside the droid. Grievous howled and dropped the staff to seize Obi-Wan with his three remaining arms. He lifted the Jedi Master over his head again and hurled him tumbling over the landing deck toward the precipice above the gloom-shrouded drop. Reaching into the Force, Obi-Wan was able to connect with the stone itself as if he were anchored to it with a cable tether; instead of hurtling over the edge he slammed down onto the rock hard enough to crush all breath from his lungs.
Grievous picked up the staff again and charged.
Obi-Wan still couldn't breathe. He had no hope of rising to meet the general's attack.
All he could do was extend a hand.
As the bio-droid loomed over him, electrostaff raised for the kill, the hold-out blaster flipped from the deck into Obi-Wan's palm, and with no hesitation, no second thoughts, not even the faintest pause to savor his victory, he pulled the trigger.
The bolt ripped into the synthskin sac.
"HE GOT HIM!", Mundi excitedly called out, looking forward to the General's demise.
Grievous's guts exploded in a foul-smelling shower the color of a dead swamp. Energy chained up his spine and a mist of vaporized brain burst out both sides of his skull and sent his face spinning off the precipice. The electrostaff hit the deck, followed shortly by the general's knees.
Then by what was left of his head.
The audience went silent, watching as the dreaded General Grievous' life faded before their eyes. The one who had been responsible for the death of countless Jedi during the course of the war, and Dooku's second in-command, has now been neutralized by Master Kenobi. As such, all had varying reactions regarding the General.
Masters Mundi and Shaak Ti felt solace and comfort knowing that those who had fought and died at the Battle of Hypori had now been avenged. Master Barrek and his Padawan, as well as his own, Tarr Seir, could finally rest in peace after seeing justice has been served. Master Fisto likewise felt the same for Nadhar Vebb as well.
To Windu and Saesee Tiin, this is a resounding victory for the Jedi and for the Republic, knowing that the war is very close to ending. But they have to take note that this is only a temporary respite.
As for Kenobi, he was only relieved that this has been over with, having dealt with Grievous more times than he could count.
"Well done, Master Kenobi", Yoda praised on behalf of the Council.
Obi-Wan lay on his back, staring at the circle of cloudless sky above the sinkhole while he gasped air back into into his spasming lungs. He barely managed to roll over far enough to smother the flames on his robe, then fell back. And simply enjoyed being alive.
Much too short a time later—long before he was actually ready to get up—a shadow fell across him, accompanied by the smell of overheated lizard and an admonitory honnnk.
"Yes, Boga, you're right," Obi-Wan agreed reluctantly. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet. He picked up the electrostaff, and paused for one last glance at the remains of the bio-droid general.
"So..." He summoned a condemnation among the most offensive in his vocabulary. "... uncivilized."
"That, we all agree in, Master Kenobi", Mace said to the Jedi Master.
He triggered his comlink, and directed Cody to report to Jedi Command on Coruscant that Grievous had been destroyed. "Will do, General," said the tiny holoscan of the clone commander.
"And congratulations. I knew you could do it."
Apparently everyone did, Obi-Wan thought, except Grievous, and me...
"General? We do still have a little problem out here. About ten thousand heavily armed little problems, actually."
"On my way. Kenobi out."
Obi-Wan sighed and clambered painfully onto the dragonmount's saddle.
"All right, girl," he said. "Let's go win that battle, too."
Spectre: And that ends both duels. Hope the reactions are a spot-on. Up next, is you love them, and you hate them: The Council vs The Senate!