"It is quite noticeable that Grievous knew that his situation was not to his advantage...", Depa observed.
"The Clones will come in to help, right?", Caleb asked, worried.
...
Obi-Wan felt the massive shoulder cannon of a spider droid track him, and he felt it fire a bolt as powerful as a proton grenade, and he let the Force nudge him into a leap that carried him just far enough toward the fringe of the bolt's blast radius so that instead of shattering his bones it merely gave him a very strong, very hot push that sent him whirling over the rest of the droids to land directly in front of Grievous.
A single slash of his lightsaber amputated the shoulder cannon of one power droid and continued into a spinning Force-assisted kick that brought his boot heel to the point of the other power droid's duranium chin, snapping the droid's head back hard enough to sever its cervical sensor cables.
Blind and deaf, the power droid could only continue to obey its last order; it staggered in a wild circle, its convulsively firing cannon blasting random holes in droids and walls alike, until Obi-Wan deactivated it with a precise thrust that burned a thumb-sized holt through its thoracic braincase.
"Wow...", Caleb remarked, marvelled at the sight of Master Kenobi's flawless performance against dozens of droids. "Would I be able to fight like that, Master?"
"If you want, I could give you pointers once we have sorted out what is going to happen to the future", Obi-Wan offered, to which Depa gladly gave her approval.
"General," Obi-Wan said with blandly polite smile as though unexpectedly greeting, on the street, someone he privately disliked.
"My offer is still open."
Droid guns throughout the control center fell silent; Obi-Wan stood so close to Grievous that the general was in the line of fire. Grievous threw back his cloak imperiously. "Do you believe that I would surrender to you now?"
"I am still willing to take you alive." Obi-Wan's nod took in the smoking, sparking wreckage that filled the control center. "So far, no one has been hurt."
Grievous tilted his head so that he could squint down into Obi-Wan's face. "I have thousands of troops. You cannot defeat them all."
"He would have to be far-sighted if he is convinced that Master Kenobi came alone", Plo Koon said.
"I don't have to."
"This is your chance to surrender, General Kenobi." Grievous swept a duranium hand toward the sinkhole-city behind him. "Pau City is in my grip; lay down your blade, or I will squeeze... until this entire sinkhole brims over with innocent blood."
"That's not what it's about to brim with," Obi-Wan said.
"You should pay more attention to the weather."
Yellow eyes narrowed behind a mask of armorplast. "What?"
"Have a look outside." He pointed his lightsaber toward the archway.
"It's about to start raining Clones."
Grievous said again, turning to look, "What?" A shadow had passed over the sun as though one of the towering thunderheads on the horizon had caught a stray current in the hyperwinds and settled above Pau City. But it wasn't a cloud. It was the Vigilance
"Just in the nick of time!", Kit Fisto said in relief.
"Now, the real battle has begun!", Saesee proclaimed.
While twilight enfolded the sinkhole, over the bright desert above assault craft skimmed the dunes in a tightening ring centered on the city. Hailfire droids rolled out from caves in the wind scoured mesas, unleashing firestorms of missiles toward the oncoming craft for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece, which was how long it took for the Vigilance's sensor operators to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries.
Thunderbolts roared down through the atmosphere, and hailfire droids disintegrated. Pinpoint counterfire from the bubble turrets of LAAT/i's met missiles in blossoming fireballs that were ripped to shreds of smoke as the oncoming craft blasted through them.
LAAT/i's streaked over the rim of the sinkhole and spiraled downward with all guns blazing, crabbing outward to keep their forward batteries raking on the sinkhole's wall, while at the rim above, Jadthu-class armored landers hovered with bay doors wide, trailing sprays of polyplast cables like immense ice-white tassels that looped all the way to the ocean mouths that gaped at the lowest level of the city.
Down those tassels, rappelling so fast they seemed to be simply falling, came endless streams of armored troopers, already firing on the combat droids that marched out to meet them.
Streamers of cables brushed the outer balcony of the control center, and down them slid white-armored troopers, each with one hand on his mechanized line-brake and the other full of DC-15 blaster rifle on full auto, spraying continuous chains of packeted particle beams.
Droids wheeled and dropped and leapt into the air and burst to fragments. Surviving droids opened up on the clones as though grateful for something to shoot at, blasting holes in armor, cooking flesh with superheated steam from deep-tissue hits, blowing some troopers entirely off their cables to tumble toward a messy final landing ten levels below.
When the survivors of the first wave of clones hit the deck, the next wave was right behind them. Grievous turned back to Obi-Wan. He lowered his head like an angry bantha, yellow glare fixed on the Jedi Master. "To the death, then."
Obi-Wan sighed. "If you insist."
The bio-droid general cast back his cloak, revealing the four lightsabers pocketed there. He stepped back, spreading wide his duranium arms. "You will not be the first Jedi I have killed, nor will you be the last."
"Here it is.. ", Shaak Ti uttered in complete anticipation.
"I could only hope that I wouldn't be too much of a mess after this...", Obi-Wan said to himself.
Obi-Wan's only reply was to subtly shift the angle of his lightsaber up and forward. "Your move!"
"Form III it is then", Yoda observed with a keen eye.
"He is not just a master of the form, but the Master of Soresu", Mace admitted.
The general's wide-spread arms now split along their lengths, dividing in half—even his hands split in half—Now he had four arms. And four hands.
And each hand took a lightsaber as his cloak dropped to the floor. They snarled to life and Grievous spun all four of them in a
flourishing velocity so fast and so seamlessly integrated that he seemed to stand within a pulsing sphere of blue and green energy.
Caleb widened his eyes. " F-four?", he paled, to which Depa began to calm him down
"You fool!" he said. "I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!"
"That's good! What a curious coincidence," Obi-Wan said with a deceptively pleasant smile. "I trained the man who killed Count Dooku!"
"Grievous would likely not need a bacta tank after this", Kit Fisto said, impressed on Obi-Wan's rebuttal.
"For the record, scrap metal would not need bacta tank", Saesee added.
Walking slowly, the hands of Grievous upper arms begun to spin like a powerful fan of death, causing Obi-Wan to slightly back away from him cautiously.
" I seriously doubt Dooku taught him to use his lightsabers like that...", Depa observed with a slight frown to the General's unorthodox method.
With a convulsive snarl, Grievous lunged.
...
At the meantine, Clone Troopers of the 332nd evacuate the civilian population of Sundari in safe shelters while Rex, Tano, and Bo-Katan watch from the royal palace's balcony. Several citizens grumble at the current situation while LAAT/is flew above Sundari.
"That's it. Let's go! Watch it, watch it!", one of the Clones said to the civillians, who were not so compliant of their word.
"We don't take orders from Clones."
"You can't hurt us"
"You need to leave"
"All citizens move to the shelter location", the Clone again announced to the Civilian populace.
"I suppose this takes place as the same time as Master Kenobi's hunt to Grievous...", Shaak Ti observed.
"Mandalore has always been the renegade state, never ceasing to stand up against the Jedi or the Republic", Plo Koon mused, recalling their history with the Jedi that spanned millennia.
Obi-Wan looked down. Satine had tried to lead Mandalore in a safer path, but this was thwarted by fanatics such as Pre Viszla and of the Death Watch. Something that Maul had most likely taken advantage off.
Bo-Katan had an uneasy expression as Republic forces guide the civilians to the shelters, seemingly concerned over the well-being of her people. She left the balcony, and theb towards the throne room with Ahsoka and Rex following after her.
"This occupation cannot last much longer", Bo-Katan said, agitated. "The people will not stand for it. I will not stand for it"
"You asked for our help", Rex firmly countered. "My men don't want to be acting as a police force"
"The Republic forces will depart once we capture Maul", Ahsoka assured her. "When you will have your opportunity to lead"
"All I see in her is a power-hungry hypocrite...", Obi-Wan said with a slight frown towards her.
"I'm sorry, Master Kenobi?", Shaak Ti could not help but wonder why was he a bit off. The other Masters noticed his change of demeanor, and were intrigued by this.
"Nothing, Masters..", Obi-Wan quickly assured them.
Entering the Throne Room, they are greeted by Maul, who sat on the throne with a bound Jesse, who knelt beside him.
"I agree", Maul said.
...
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...
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