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Let Chaos Reign Chapter 37: A Fair Fight
Four blades of varying color clashed against my singular blade. Each exchange, despite the massive metal frame of the nightmarish visage of Grievous, didn’t make me back up a single step. Proper footwork and stances alongside positioning gave me plenty of leverage to prevent him from trying to knock me down or back.
The cyborg general quickly changed tactics, seeing that overpowering me even when I held back wasn’t working. A blade dropped out of one of his four arms, and his leg came up grasping it before coming at me in a wide arc. His body pivoted, becoming a windmill with a rainbow of colors lighting up the edges.
Each blade was parried or dodged with such skill and finesse, it made it look so easy. For me, it was. Grievous to my relief was more like his legend's counterpart that came from the original Clone Wars cartoon. He was a capable fighter, intelligent, and skilled. He learned fast, opting to use other methods, doing his best to not use the same trick twice in a row when it didn’t work against me.
My arm barely moved, just using the most efficient movements and flexing of only a few muscles. One blade was tapped, sending it just slightly off course. Another completely missed when I juked him and stepped back an inch. Many more were forced to abort when he risked his hands getting sliced off.
The match was as much a game of chess as it was a physical contest of skill. Grievous had been slowly positioning me near a corner of the room while we remained close to the center of the room in the ship.
We had been going at it for around an hour. I hadn’t even begun to put up a sweat while Grievous poked and prodded me trying to find any gaps or flaws in my forms. What few there were existed to either bait him to overreach, which he had learned early on not to do, and others were the few flaws, however minor, that remained.
Any of those Grievous had found despite how small and insignificant they may seem, I made sure to not repeat them. Tiny openings, small inefficient movements that wasted just enough energy and wasted some time that he could take advantage of. He didn’t land a blow, but the fact he could make an attempt in the first place told me that they needed to be rectified.
But Grievous's biggest weakness that he always slammed into when facing me was his glaring lack of any kind of defense. His barrage continued even if his aggressive charge faltered slightly. He pushed me back simply because I allowed it.
“You know, if you learned some proper defense instead of relying entirely on your offense, you would have a better chance.” I idly commented.
The general's eyes narrowed. “I don’t need defense. I just need more power.” His statement was reinforced with his swings and attacks increasing in speed and power.
Gusts of wind were generated from his swings that sent my cloak fluttering. Had I still been stuck in that battle droid body, the wind would have easily knocked me over. No need to even think of what would happen if Grievous casually smacked my old body.
Grievous was smart about how he attacked. He never went all out from the beginning, and each attack or strike he made was slower or faster at random intervals. Trying to force me to deal with one attack while another would come in and throw off my tempo. They were still absurdly fast even when he was going slower. Most people wouldn’t even be capable of seeing the move before they were struck dead.
My form crept slowly to the corner like moss overtaking a rock. Grievous strikes now were all coming in at odd, nearly unpredictable angles since he had all but given up on regular lightsaber forms. It didn’t do him any favors when the majority of them I was already familiar with, and having trained in each of them made it worthless to use anything but the best he could think of.
Niman required the user to have an understanding of the previous six forms if they ever hoped to have any degree of mastery over them. It also had the added advantage of the user knowing the previous six forms on a high enough level that they in turn know their flaws and weaknesses.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and victory will be assured.
The Art of War may be an overrated book, some of my old edgelord friends would spout randomly, but even I cannot deny that simple truth from that one statement.
Grievous upped the speed even further. His blades were mirages, his limbs mechanical scythes that scarred the air itself. Whatever holding back and trickery he relied on was gone, and what took its place was a mechanical menace that had power and speed to overwhelm most living things.
Like a tsunami impacting a mountain, I withstood the flood of greens and blues, each strike doing its best to chip away at me only to find no purchase. His blades slid off like water from a duck's back. The killer cyborg general flowed forward, movements fluid and rapid, with raw power within each blow that could batter its way through heavily armored tanks.
Yet the force behind them was nothing to me. It may as well be no different than a toddler trying to punch me. The blows slid off of my blade with me positioning myself and making sure each step was properly supported where I stood, ensuring not even a single foot slid out of place. My breathing remained constant, the power of the sun flooding my veins and lungs with its warmth and power.
Muscles subtly expanded, and my blade heeded the call and whirled through the air, looking like a lawnmower blade batting aside the chaff that came its way. Despite how it would look to a random person, my lightsaber wasn’t just spinning uselessly. It was moving so fast most people couldn’t see anything besides the occasional glowing afterimage.
The blade became a turbulent ocean of intensity, where Grievous was merely a raging river. Each exchange of blows, mine, was not just as strong but more precise and held an otherworldly grace to them.
Using the skills in hand to hand to further supplement my blade work, which did bleed over, which showed greatly when Dooku decided to have his duel with me. The push Grievous had hoped would work stalled out, his current of strikes now diverted and pushed back.
Before he was pushing me because I let him, and now he realized how much I held back. A lightsaber was knocked from one hand, another was damaged at the end of the silver tube, and then a hand grabbed one of his two remaining arms.
My leg snaked around behind his own, and with a twist, he was sent tumbling through the air. He was about to land on his feet had I not just blitzed him and with a kick aimed at his metal ribs dented the metal, making the general gasp before slamming into the nearby wall like a cannonball.
A ringing reverberated across the room as I waltzed forward. The general was crouched on all fours, and despite his heavy breathing, he was still ready to continue the fight. That was until my hand was offered to him.
Staring at it for a second, he took the offer, and I helped him to his feet. “That was a good fight. You're not half bad, Dooku taught you well. But you have a lot to improve on.”
Grievous remained silent, listening to my words with an open-mindedness that almost caught even me off guard. The guy was more than willing to learn from his mistakes. Whatever trust issues he may have with me are put to the side when he realizes I was a capable fighter and tactician.
The last part I wouldn’t say I was any kind of genius when it came to tactics. Using a metaphorical sucker punch and flipping the table like a petulant child, I didn’t think were exactly tactical moves, so much as me just being as unpredictable and chaotic as possible.
Doesn’t matter how smart someone is if they can’t predict what I am going to do and how far I am willing to take things to win.
“For starters, your defense needs work. The instant you couldn’t break past my defense, you stalled out. The moment I went on the offense or capitalized when you overextended early on in the spar, you would have died had this been a fight to the death.”
Grievous nodded slowly, Haki picking up his dislike for the notion of leaning more on defense. “I get you were trained around the idea of using intimidation, fear, and being unpredictable to help you take down Jedi. Which has proven effective, but against more experienced members of their Order, you're going to quickly realize it’s not going to help you.”
“… What should I do then?” Grievous didn’t argue against what I just said, nor did he question how I would know. He just accepted it and wanted advice on what he was to do when that happened.
I could respect it.
“For starters, your potential with a lightsaber is incredible. I’d go so far as to say your potential despite not being capable of using the Force is the greatest I have ever seen.”
Grievous bristled at the same time he stood straighter at the praise.
“But potential will always remain just that -- potential. Unless you act upon it and hone yourself, you will never reach your full potential. That means covering up what few weaknesses you have and training yourself even further.”
We had exited the room, walking along the corridors of the ships with any B1 battledroids in our way quickly stepping aside, not wanting to get crushed or smashed to pieces even with their new upgrades. General Grievous and his dislike for them wasn’t a secret considering how lowly he thought of the simple droids.
“Form III will suffice then. While I despise that form, you are not wrong, and it could have its uses.”
I withheld the chuckle I had, knowing that lightsaber form would be the one that would have killed the general had I not been up and destroyed whatever timeline existed in the galaxy. So that future that would have taken one of the coolest characters in all of Star Wars from the fandom hopefully died in the nonexistent crib it was born from.
Grievous still had suspicions of me, but he also respected the fact I knew how to fight and got the better of an entire fleet of ships damn near putting the Republic in a bad position were it not for the droids being turned against us.
It’s why we were heading towards an important planet in the Republic's control that has helped heavily in their war effort. The droids that had been quickly retrofitted and deployed after my augmentations to their designs had been held back on deployment, as the other older models were sent out as a means to slow down the Republic's advance.
Less than a dozen planets had been overwhelmed in our territory by the Republic's forces, the clones staying behind giving orders to the droids that they had been fighting not that long ago. My forces had shown footage of the clones making it abundantly clear they absolutely hated the droids. Something I might be capable of taking advantage of and causing strife amongst the Republic's combined armies.
Many scientists and engineers flocked to Tatooine, getting absorbed into Turbo Slug incorporated with the groups they once had been a part of, damn near destroyed. Separatist space was in chaos still, organizing anything was proving incredibly difficult for them when the chain of command for their forces had been shattered.
While it was never my plan to cause that much damage to them, I had anticipated some damage considering what the droid general was doing wouldn’t go unnoticed. I never believed it would. Sidious would have to be the biggest idiot to leave such an opening to one of his aces hidden up his sleeve without any form of detecting someone trying to sabotage it.
That would fall just behind any form of evidence that could lead to him getting ousted as the Sith Lord everyone had been after.
So in a sense it worked out in my favor when the majority of the power was taken by me. Someone had to fill the vacuum, and while Dooku had various agents still under his control, with the rug pulled out from under him, he didn’t exactly have the time nor inclination at the moment of his embarrassment to fill that power vacuum.
“All that I ask is that you at least make the attempt. Another thing is while power and speed can help in a fight, you need more than just that. Grace and precision can be just as deadly as all the power in the galaxy.”
Grievous merely hummed. Despite his size and the lightsaber-resistant material his body was made out of, he was surprisingly quiet when he wanted to be. It was kind of scary. Someone that big made out of metal, and yet he moved as quickly and quietly as a cat.
The bulkhead doors to the bridge opened up, and various mercenaries employed by the Hutts with far more droids moving about the command deck of the ship. Our fleet had just exited hyperspace, with one of the more important planets to the Republic's war machine sitting before us all.
Count Dooku himself stood with his cape draped over his shoulders, hair now gray at the edges with the majority a dark brown that was borderline black. His body looked far younger than it had when I first met him face to face. His wrinkles had receded, not entirely with the time he had to bathe in the fountain of youth.
He stood imperiously, as if his very present should be enough for the world before him to kneel. He didn’t even bother looking back at us when he spoke.
“You took your time training with Grievous.”
I snorted. "Well, someone had to correct the flaws in his methods of fighting. Not the first time I had to clean up someone else’s mess considering you're the one who taught him.”
Dooku slowly turned to face me, his frown deep, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.
My hand slipped out of the cloak and patted the lightsaber at my hip. “So you want another friendly spar?” My tone evoked the type of warmth reserved for close friends that may as well be no different than family.
Dooku paused. It was brief and a small window that most wouldn’t even notice. But I did. Nothing escaped my gaze, and Dooku, despite getting some of his youth back, wasn’t confident he could take me in a fight. Even with his strength that had been lacking courtesy of the dark side eating away at his body for the small price of giving him a massive power boost, he knew when someone was skilled with a blade.
Even now, the subtle tightening of his jaw told me everything I would need to know. He was hesitant because for once in his long life, he was unsure if he could beat someone purely with a lightsaber. Using his favorite form no less, which must have stung even more.
“It’s alright. You’ll get a rematch in due time. For now we all have far bigger fish to fry. Pitou, how are things looking with the enemy fleet?”
My favorite cat girl perked up, her smile growing as she waved her hand lazily towards the fleet of ships meant to protect the planet. Malastare was chosen for the express purpose of it being one of the Republic's biggest fuel suppliers.
The name rang a few bells, but none of them were big enough to warrant a total recall for me. So it was likely a minor planet that had something happen with Anakin and Obi-Wan on it. There were a lot of planets that those two had plenty of adventures on, so it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
What did matter was that with the acquisition of the majority of the droid forces by the Republic, they had a much bigger fleet around the planet comprised of Republic and Separatist ships.
“Currently they are in formation waiting for us to move closer. I guess they want to use some more mines.” She deadpanned.
Grievous scoffed. “I use it one time, and they just copy me… They didn’t even do it right.”
"Well, I’ve heard the greatest form of flattery is imitation.” I said half assedly, not truly trying to make Grievous feel better.
“Send out the fighters, and have them along with our main ships open fire on the mines in the field.”
The crew on the bridge did as ordered while Dooku gave me some side eye. “Is there a reason why you're not just using the Force to get onboard the enemy ships and just take out the bridge crew?”
“Sure I could do that. But it defeats the purpose of us having a fleet. Plus, we need to see what flaws my designs have, and that means live-fire testing. It would also give you and the general a good idea of what you will be working with.”
Grievous and Dooku shared a look. I turned around and looked at a seemingly empty corner of the bridge above me.
“Your Zetsu needs more work. Spotted you there the instant we walked onto the bridge.”
A noise that was more of a mixture between a cat hissing and a pitbull growling before a cloaked figure dropped down. The hood was pulled back, and there stood Ventress glaring at me.
“You trained her well, but much like your former master, it didn’t do you any favors purposely withholding things from her.”
Ventress was fuming, her eyes never leaving my masked face. Dooku merely watched us, his frown still present, but he didn’t deny a thing.
“Ground combat, I leave the commanding to you three.”
The three former leaders of the Separatist movement, while they still held some power, were nowhere close to what they once had. Such was the state of the Separatists after a majority of their forces turned on them.
…
Anakin and Obi-Wan watched the battle on the ground. Both were anticipating this battle in their own ways, more so Anakin. He glanced over at Ahsoka, seeing the young girl growing into a fine Jedi.
She had gotten much better using that force power that… Tobi had taught her. The man’s name even left a bad taste in his mouth from just thinking about him. He idly watched the droids march forward.
“This… It is different. I’m not exactly used to this.” Obi-Wan said, not entirely against the droids being used by them, but he, like several Jedi, was suspicious of how they came about getting control of them.
“You won’t hear me complain. Better those droids than our boys as far as I am concerned.” Anakin flippantly said, not feeling any sympathy towards the droids currently making suicide marches against the enemy droids that had managed to land on the planet.
The fleet above was currently occupied against the few ships fighting them. More modified ones from the sounds of it. The two famous Jedi had heard of what happened to Master Windu, and the ships he had badly damaged and should have been scrapped yet continued to function.
But Anakin and the majority of their forces weren’t concerned. They had a massive number advantage both from the fleet and their forces. Besides getting new clones added to their forces after their catastrophic defeat by Tobi, the droids added into their ranks further bolstered their numbers.
As much as Anakin didn’t like having the droids under his command, having seen the devastation wrought by them and the Separatists, he wouldn’t deny how useful they are. Plus, he also thought it best to keep a close eye on them to make sure it’s not some trick by Dooku.
Blaster bolts flew across the battlefield on the rocky planet of Malastare. Missiles and artillery thundered across the rocky plains with a few jagged rocks that towered over the landscape.
The three Jedi deflected blaster bolts back at the droids that were getting mowed down. They took out a decent number of their own droids, but they were fine with that. They were not exactly hard to make, nor very intelligent.
Compared to their clones, they would rather the droids get scrapped than their men’s lives cut short. Ahsoka herself was deflecting more and more blaster bolts back, the familiar feeling of the Force showing her the truth through any deception.
She appreciated Tobi showing her this power. It could be applied to far more than what most people would assume it could. Not just finding a liar in a conversation, but even seeing through the feints and deception in a fight. Where they intended to aim instead of firing where you expected.
Not that the simple battle droids that once made up the bulk of the Separatists could think to do such a thing. But the more dangerous droids, now those ones would and could do such a thing.
The droid dropships had managed to get past the fleet when deployed to their collective surprise when the admiral had told them what was happening. Only a meager handful of the dropships had been taken down. The rest showed the fleet's attempts to stop them and keep them from getting to planet side only to fail.
Burn marks on the metal, holes melted through the few that had their shields go down. Obi-Wan, watching the enemy droids, rubbed his jaw when he found himself facing a puzzle. In this case, he felt that they were missing and was concerned about it.
"Relax, Obi-Wan, we got the Separatists this time. Not even Tobi could salvage this for them. As much as I may not like the droids, I am thankful for the Republic task force that managed to crack the command codes for their army.”
Obi-Wan didn’t like the feeling he was getting. It wasn’t from the Force, there were a few ebbs and flows from it, but nothing outright warning him of what was coming. It felt like the shadow that made the Force become blurred and hard to see through became a curtain that now made it much more difficult to parse through.
“While it is nice to have this war turn in our favor, Anakin, I am more concerned with how the Chancellor managed to achieve this at such convenient timing.”
Anakin just shook his head at his old master while blocking several blaster bolts and sent them right back to their sources. He even made a competition of who could get the most head shots with Snips.
The bulk of their own droids were mostly whittled down from the enemy forces, the various painted patterns helped distinguish which droid was on their side and who was a Separatist aligned one.
The large group of clones, alongside the two Jedi and Padawan, moved through the area after clearing out the last of the droids.
“The others need backup. We best get moving.” Anakin said after his communicator beeped and he and Obi-Wan got a rundown of the situation.
Before either of them or their men could leave when a figure hidden under a dark cloak with a hood made them stop. Lightsabers ready to fight, Anakin narrowed his eyes while Obi-Wan had a neutral expression. Ashoka, in comparison to the two older Jedi, looked almost excited.
“Don’t be so sure of yourself, Skywalker.” A familiar voice with the commanding tone of nobility greeted them all before with a flourish, a curved lightsaber ignited with a blood-red blade coming out of it.
“Dooku. Finally coming out of your cozy castle after we took your army from you. Guess you really have fallen to a new low this time.” Anakin sassed his enemy.
Obi-Wan, however, focused on why Dooku’s voice sounded… younger.
“Always blind to what is in front of you, and you don’t even realize it, boy.” Dooku remained their uncaring of the droids and clones aiming their blasters at him.
The hood continued to cover his head as he made no attempt to attack or move when they began to surround him. “Why don’t you make this easier on us all and just give up? We have you surrounded.”
Obi-Wan tried to be the voice of reason. He also hoped with Dooku captured they could get information as to who the Sith Lord is. He felt that there were too many contradictions and things that conflicted with Tobi being the one they were after. Even if the rest of the council genuinely believed Tobi was the one.
Anakin was about to say something he knew wasn’t something a Jedi should say, only to pause when Dooku’s free hand rose up and pulled his well-made hood down.
Everyone froze for a brief moment.
Dooku was… Young. He had gray at the edges of his well-groomed hair, but he looked much younger. By several decades at least. Dooku had been almost eighty by the time they had met him on Geonosis. Now… He looked like he was in his early fifties.
“You all act so surprised. Yet the real surprise hasn’t even happened yet.” Dooku said while looking down his nose at them all.
Anakin frowned before stepping forward with Obi-Wan following behind him, not wanting a repeat of Geonosis again.
“Ahsoka, stay with the boys. Any of you manage to line up a shot, take it.” Anakin gave his orders, moving to engage the Count and vent some frustration he has had.
“Preferably keep Dooku alive.” Obi-Wan tacked on.
Just before Anakin could get close enough to Dooku to slam his lightsaber at the now younger Separatist leader, the Force warned him almost too late. Leaning his head to the side, he narrowly avoided a blaster bolt that came from the ground.
Ahsoka, feeling the Force tell her what she needed to know, moved fast, and her blade sliced a droid right where its power source would be that was motionless on the ground.
Obi-Wan watched her in confusion before his lightsaber came up, deflecting four bolts too. Everyone looked down to see the droids, despite being blasted or cut apart by one of their lightsabers earlier, were still functioning.
Then all hell broke loose.
“Attack!” A droid yelled out, somehow leaping onto the back of a clone and holding onto him while the clone spun around trying to get the droid torso off of him.
Blasters fired from the ground, taking out lots of the Republic battle droids and clones alike. The clones and droids opened fire on the ground with a chaotic scramble to shoot their attackers while pandemonium erupted amongst their ranks as everywhere they stepped blasters came from their fallen enemies.
The droids they thought were destroyed and scrapped were still functional and were shooting everyone that wasn’t one of them. Ahsoka moved around the ground, spinning across the dirt like a Coruscant break dancer with her blade moving in tight arcs, not hitting any of their droids or the clones.
Limbs and blasters fell to the ground, yet not a single droid was completely taken out. Even the one she had hit where its power source was wasn’t scrapped. She only knew this when it tried to lunge for one of her legs.
A flash of light and the hand fell to the ground. The clones and even their own droids were stumbling and firing with wild abandon at the ground. Only a dozen droids had finally shut down for good after having what was left of their bodies riddled with far too many blaster bolts and ion shots to just destroy one of them.
“Intriguing… It would seem he wasn’t exaggerating when he spoke of the droid's resilience.” Dooku spoke aloud to himself.
His lightsaber easily caught the two-handed blow Anakin delivered to his side. Dooku would never admit it to anyone, but he would privately acknowledge he was thankful for that fountain and its miraculous waters. For as little as he thought of the supposed chosen one, he would acknowledge he was getting stronger.
Strong enough that, while Dooku was still dealing with the dark side, eating away at his once old body, he would eventually fall to the petulant child. Now… He was leagues beyond him once more.
Every strike he slammed at the Count was brushed aside like rain off of the hood of a speeder. Every blow with strength enough to carve through durasteel was redirected and countered. Every strike Dooku made was efficient, fast, and, above all, had a precision that forced Anakin on the defensive.
Something the chosen one struggled with compared to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan in comparison was forced on the offensive, his strikes sloppy considering his form was meant for defense and purely counterattacking. But if Obi-Wan didn’t, Anakin would have died.
Four strikes each were aimed for vital parts of Anakin’s body. A lightning quick slash went for his throat, another would have disarmed him literally at the elbow, followed by a thrust for his heart, and then a sweep that would have bisected him at the waist.
Anakin felt the pressure, making it hard for him to breathe when each attack was done with such speed, precision, and above all else, ferocity. Anakin tried to turn it around, but Dooku was having none of it.
“Is this truly all you are capable of? It would seem you have grown to be reliant on allowing time to help you instead of improving yourself… truly shameful on both your parts.”
Anakin gritted his teeth, and for a brief moment, that ever-present feeling he felt in the Force that promised him so much, yet he knew it for what it was. The dark side. But seeing Obi-Wan by his side made him hesitate more than he normally would.
He pushed as best as he could, but Dooku was unrelenting. “Last I checked, you were as old as dirt, Dooku. So how did you manage this?”
Anakin tried to get any form of information out of the Sith Lord. His arms were coated in sweat, the two limbs nothing but a blur in the air as he tried to overwhelm Dooku only for the man to casually match his speed.
Something the Count didn’t do nearly as often as he did when they first met on Geonosis and the few encounters they had at the beginning of this war.
It was an inherent flaw in Makashi. Anakin had diligently dug up when he did his research into how he was going to beat Dooku. Makashi, for all that it was good in a one-on-one duel, had its flaws as any lightsaber form did.
For starters, it wasn’t good at handling ranged enemies with things like blasters. But Dooku, being a perfectionist, somehow managed to overcome that weakness.
The second flaw was the form was supposed to be at a disadvantage when handling more than one opponent when fighting face-to-face. Again, the Count had overcome this flaw in the form when he handled not only Anakin but Obi-Wan as well.
The only flaw left in the form that Anakin knew the Count hadn’t managed to overcome before, no matter how hard he tried, was a simple yet great weakness -- Makashi was horrible at generating momentum in a fight.
The form's strength was using efficient moves with precise attacks to dismantle an opponent. It was rather similar to Soresu, save for the fact Makashi was meant to be used offensively.
Anakin had even contemplated after his defeat on Geonosis taking Makashi as his preferred form but quickly discarded it. He would have no chance using a form that Dooku himself had all but nearly perfected and would take him apart even easier than he had Obi-Wan back when he still used his modified Ataru.
It’s why he used Djem So. It was good for both defense and offense but especially devastating when it came to offense. It would be the form that gave him the edge on Dooku as he slowly improved on the form.
Dooku before would still push Anakin to the edge, always taunting him even if nonverbally, when Anakin knew the man could kill him at any given time they clashed. Only a few times he could count on one hand he actually got the better of Dooku.
Yet now here he was being pushed well past the point Dooku would normally pressure him. Obi-Wan tried desperately to take the pressure off of Anakin, but he may as well be nonexistent in Dooku's eyes.
He didn’t even bother looking back at Kenobi, whose strikes were easily parried, and any opening Anakin tried to take advantage of in tandem with Obi-Wan was met with that crimson saber that chipped away at Anakin’s defenses.
Ahsoka, still handling the horde of droids that just wouldn’t die or stay dead, watched in horror before her eyes narrowed. Just when she was about to try to help them, and before Anakin could tell her to stay back, a black blur sped towards Obi-Wan, followed by a snap and hiss with the red glow of a double-bladed lightsaber.
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth, the blue blade shaking but remaining firm under the pressure exerted by the new enemy. They seamlessly moved through a series of complex strikes, each flowing from one lightsaber form to the next seamlessly with no gaps or openings.
Obi-Wan took each strike and conserved as much energy as he could, waiting for any opening while looking past the black-cloaked figure to see Anakin struggle even more without him.
His focus being split almost cost him his arm when the blade spun far more aggressively, but he managed to pull it back just in time to block the strike and almost fell back from the force as the ground cracked and cratered under him.
His arms screamed in protest, but Obi-Wan held fast. Well over a hundred blows rained down upon him before the figure's blade locked with his. A black-clad fist came out of nowhere, sounding like the crack of a cannon that shattered the clone armor Obi-Wan wore on his forearm and sent him flying back.
“Obi-Wan!” Anakin cried out to his former master.
Just when he was about to try and back him up, Dooku’s saber barred his path.
“You should be more concerned about yourself, Skywalker.”
