Chapter Text
I aimed to kill
I am made to kill
Love the thrill
~*~
Ventress
Drinking more caf was a bad idea. Asajj knew that before she even brought the mug to her lips. The first whiff of it sent a ripple of anticipation prickling over her skin like smoke on the wind. She told herself that caf was her last hope of concentrating on the data pad she was supposed to be reading, but that was mere pretense. To be honest, she had no intention of spending another afternoon reading dossiers. Asajj was tired of studying Jedi; she was supposed to be killing them.
Kill Jedi. Take your revenge — and, in so doing, set the galaxy back on the path to justice and prosperity. This was what Count Dooku offered her when he found her in a gladiatorial arena on Rattatak, smeared with blood and sweat and the red Rattataki dirt. She fought him, at first. Asajj had spent four brutal years enslaved as a gladiator in that arena, with nothing to look forward to but the next fight and the hope that one day she might get a chance to kill her captor, Osika Kirske, the warlord who had robbed her of much more than her freedom. Then, Dooku, silk-lined cape billowing in the hot desert wind, had waltzed in and cut Kirske down with one graceful stroke of his lightsaber.
Asajj remembered the sequence of events numbly, as if this were the plot of a holo-drama she was only vaguely invested in watching. She remembered the stun collar falling from her neck and the sight of Dooku's hand on the remote control that released her. She knew, like a sentence from the pages of a cheap plasti-back novel, that she had flung herself at Dooku with her sabers lit, so crazed with grief and hatred that nobody could have reasoned with her. The only person who ever could reason with Asajj was long dead, and this interloper had dispatched his murderer with the casual indifference of a man shooing a fly from his shirtsleeve.
The fight was short. Dooku dueled her just long enough to get a sense of her skill level before easily disarming her. The rest was a haze of blinding light and searing pain. Asajj had no trouble believing Dooku when he said that she went right on fighting with her bare hands — that the only choice she gave him, in that moment, was whether to forcibly subdue her or to kill her on the spot. This was not some backwater pirate with delusions of grandeur; he needed neither stun collars nor blasters nor even the brute strength of his fists to exercise power. No doubt her memory was affected by the electric shock, but Asajj had the branching fractal scars to remind her that Dooku had used Force lightning on her that day and would do it again, if pressed. He was a Sith Lord, more powerful than even the Jedi in all their millenia-old arrogance, and he was prepared to teach her everything he knew. All she had to do was listen and obey.
The caf was really hitting its stride now, judging by the way both her hearts seemed to have leapt into a higher gear. Asajj placed her palms on the edge of her desk and pushed. There was no satisfying scrape, merely a polite swish from the hoverchair that Dooku insisted she use — to better preserve the precious marble floor, naturally — as it glided away from the desk, making room for her to stand. Her bare feet carried her to the door automatically, her body knowing what she needed before her mind had a chance to catch up. She reached for the door control panel, then paused to pat the concealed pocket on the right side of her floor-length skirt, reassured by the comforting lump she felt nestled within the dark fabric. On days like this, there was only one thing that soothed her chafing nerves. She needed to move her body, to vent the frustration building up inside before she lost control and let it tear free at a less opportune time.
Stepping out from the relative warmth of her private suite, she swore as her soles touched the hallway's cold stone tiles. Gods, she would never get used to the cold. Castle Serenno, Dooku's ancestral stronghold, was located in a boreal D-class climate zone that left Asajj feeling chilled in most seasons. Temperatures low enough for water to actually freeze solid — for months at a time? That had been a rude awakening. Most days, she coped by layering her clothing: long-sleeved, high-necked tops and heavy skirts, worn over leggings or jumpsuits, were her habitual dress while at the castle. She briefly considered going back to put on shoes, abominable foot prisons though they were, but the cold just made her more irritable and even more eager to slash at something with her lightsabers.
Whichever distant ancestor of Dooku's had originally built Castle Serenno, she had to hand it to them: in addition to its strategically advantageous location, the place really was a masterpiece of architecture-based torture. Built atop a sheer cliff in the foothills of the Yannuz Mountains, the structure was highly defensible, since — unless you fancied a bracing three-day hike or enjoyed scaling vertical rock faces while dodging laser cannons — the only convenient way to access it was by air. Approaching the castle grounds, a visitor's first impression would be of its 120-meter-high central tower. To say that this tower, oblong and rounded at both top and bottom, bore a peculiarly strong resemblance to the eggs of the Rattataki weaver ant really did not do it justice. With its stately leadlight windows of peridot-green glass and its sleek durasteel paneling, it was clearly a work of great expense and careful planning; but the comparison was so apt that, whenever Asajj looked at it, she could think of nothing else. It did not help that the tower's interior was equally — well, buggy. If you sliced the thing open from top to bottom, you'd reveal a labyrinth of chambers and corridors more appealing to the X'Ting of Ord Cestus than to the average humanoid. Today, Asajj roamed the castle with easy confidence. Yet she remembered the confusion and creeping dread of her early days there, before she memorized its many quirks, and how easy it was to get lost if you did not know where you were going. Considering the challenge that any unwelcome or over-curious guest would face in navigating, she could only assume this was intentional, and — in the way she appreciated any skilled adversary — Asajj had to admire that.
Her own living quarters, according to Dooku, had originally been intended for a nanny or governess or… some type of servant considered important enough to live amongst their betters. The intricacies of Serennian social hierarchy baffled Asajj, probably because she had yet to find a single fuck to give about them. Her previous life had instilled in her a deep-rooted pragmatism that tended to dominate her view of the galaxy and the way she interacted with it. And so, it was no accident that the suite she had chosen for herself was less than a minute's walk from the column of elevator shafts at the core of Castle Serenno's tower.
Parts of the tower where the Count and castle staff interacted with the public, including the entry hall, library, art gallery, guest bedrooms, ballroom, and banquet hall, were served by several elevators that moved along the ten stories between the ground floor and the Count's throne room, above which were the ruling family's private living space and below which were the kitchen, maintenance facilities, and staff housing. Guests were vetted in advance, and the security system stored voice and facial recognition data that allowed visitors to move between approved areas with a minimum of interference. The ruling family's private elevators were off limits to all but a very privileged few. Certain floors could only be accessed with a combination of biometric identification and keycode entry.
The security system scanned Asajj as she approached the elevator, and the door slid open for her automatically. To her surprise and irritation, she was met by the glowing yellow eyes of a butler droid. It swerved hastily out of her path, servos whirring with the effort, and pressed its back against the elevator's side wall. Scowling in annoyance, Asajj stepped into the elevator. She eyed the droid with distaste. As its lifeless gaze stared back at her, she was seized by the urge to knock it over, like a cat swatting a figurine from a shelf just to watch it fall.
“Going somewhere?” she snapped. The castle was crawling with droids, like so many ants. On some level, she knew that her hatred of them was a waste of energy. Dooku, like his father before him, was convinced that droids were more efficient and reliable than organic employees, and nothing she or anyone else had to say on the subject was going to change his mind. But that did not make it any easier to be surrounded by ‘beings’ whose intentions she could not sense in the Force.
To answer, the droid opened a panel in the front of its torso and revealed a steaming cup of black tea. By all accounts, Dooku was obscenely, almost inconceivably wealthy. Gods only knew how many droids he owned. Asajj could carve off pieces of this specimen with her lightsabers until it was nothing but a pile of half-molten garbage, sparking and smoldering on the ground, and it would be replaced within the hour. Still, the Count did not like it when she broke his things. He liked it even less when his tea arrived late.
“Go on, then,” Asajj said, pointing at the door.
The droid did not need to be told twice; it dashed out precisely as fast as its wheels could carry it without spilling the tea. Despite her foul mood, Asajj smirked at that. She did not know if droids could technically experience fear, but she enjoyed having… a certain reputation. It was good to be feared. Being feared gave you power.
The elevator door slid closed. Asajj pressed her palm against the biometric sensor panel embedded in the wall to the right side of the door, and the indicator light flashed green. Her security clearance, second only to Dooku's, gave her access to every square meter of the castle, including the parts that most of Serenno's citizens knew nothing of — and the rest hoped never to see.
“Take me to the detention level,” she said.
The security system replied in a pleasant humanoid voice. “Lady Ventress.” A number pad appeared on the sensor panel's touch screen. “Please provide access code.”
~*~
Carved deep into the cliffside, the bulk of Castle Serenno was hidden from public view. It was like its master in this way, elegant and refined on the surface, at times even charming, but nonetheless capable of chilling brutality. Perhaps it was a strange place to call home. Asajj wouldn't know. She'd never really had one before. What she did know was that this place was secure, defensible, and well-provisioned. Anything it did not have, she could get; she just had to convince Dooku that it was something worth having.
It became clear early in her apprenticeship that Asajj needed a dedicated training facility. During the warmer months, Dooku instructed her in his private courtyard, open to the air and to the pale rays of Serenno's small, white sun. With its ornately carved stone obelisks and rows of ornamental conifers, it was a beautiful and tranquil place. Asajj had learned a great deal there. But that place, more than any other part of Castle Serenno, was fundamentally Dooku's, imbued as it was with his Force presence, which had seeped into the ground and settled there like a lake of deep, cold water. The Count had many duties that prevented him from devoting his time fully to her training, and — though she did not like to admit it, even to herself — Asajj was not brave enough to venture into that courtyard alone. Besides, the harshness of Serenno's winters provided a convenient justification for building a facility indoors. Placing the facility so near the dungeon had been Dooku's idea. It would help her, he said, to overcome her fear of imprisonment. Asajj was not so sure about that, but she had agreed to the arrangement for two reasons. First, this was just about the only place they could build a facility of the scale she desired without her having to go outdoors to reach it. Second, it wasn't really up to her anyway.
When Asajj entered her training room on that particular afternoon, it appeared to be empty, as usual. A space of roughly fifteen by thirty by twelve meters, it was designed with versatility in mind. Hundreds of panels in the floor, walls, and ceiling concealed a wealth of training tools, from relatively simple strength training equipment to an array of turrets with both stun rounds and live ammunition, all controlled by a sophisticated computer system. One especially complex program ran a dynamic obstacle course, with barriers, hazards, and climbing surfaces emerging and disappearing at intervals throughout. Dooku had mentioned something about professional athletes using similar systems. As workouts go, nothing quite compares to being chased around an amphitheater by a pair of hungry nexu. But with the right combination of technology and determination, you can achieve just about anything.
The very first thing Asajj did — the first thing she always did, when she arrived there to train — was to reach for the computer panel mounted on the wall beside the door and dial the temperature setting up to 30 °C. Even with state-of-the-art environmental controls, it would take several minutes to heat the large room. Impatient, Asajj began swinging her arms to loosen up the muscles in her back and shoulders. Though the high-quality clothing now available to her was light and flexible enough to keep her tolerably warm without overly impeding her movements, at times she still found it stifling. She was eager to feel sweat beading on her bare skin.
Maybe (definitely) she had spent too much time on Rattatak, where the average daytime temperature could best be described as sweltering, or perhaps it was her Dathomiri heritage that made her crave the heat. Though she was taken from her birth world as an infant, before her brain had even begun to craft a concept of home, as a child she'd heard tales of Dathomir's witches and the dark, lush swamps they inhabited. On Rattatak, when she woke at night to the sounds of warfare, which were never far enough away, she used to imagine herself stalking through the undergrowth, her path lit by the gentle glow of bioluminescent fungi. She'd thought, once upon a time, that she could have been happy on Dathomir, sharing a hut with her sister witches, singing and brewing potions over the hearthfire. She did not think like that anymore; those were the fantasies of a foolish child. If the dim, red lighting she preferred during her workouts was reminiscent of Dathomir's red sun, it was only because brighter lights strained her naturally sensitive eyes. Lady Asajj Ventress, apprentice to a Sith Lord, had no time for sentimental nonsense.
The hilts of her twin lightsabers felt suddenly heavy where they hung upon her belt, clasped to the curves of her pelvis like a lover's hands, waiting. Her own hands ached to hold them, to use them for more than mere calisthenics. Asajj was good at waiting, a skill honed by necessity while she watched days, months, and years of her life slip by in Kirske's arena. But just because she was good at waiting did not mean that she liked it. She had been out of the arena now for longer than she'd spent in it, nearly five galactic standard years. She knew from personal experience that revolutions required a great deal of time and planning — and the scope of her master's plans, Force be with him, went far beyond anything she'd been involved in on Rattatak. But still… she wished Dooku would hurry the fuck up.
The fingers of her right hand slipped between the folds of her skirt, down into the pocket that rested there against her thigh, then curled around the discoid electronic device stowed within. It was a foolish little thing, an impulsive purchase made at a refueling station where she'd stopped on her way home from a mission several months past. It had cost her barely a handful of credits, probably less than what Dooku spent on hair oil in a single month. And yet, it felt like an extravagant luxury. Asajj withdrew the device and flipped open the lid, revealing two vibrantly purple earbuds, each with a flexible plastic hook to secure it to her ear and prevent it from falling off during vigorous activity. Once the earbuds were correctly placed, Asajj slipped the case back into her pocket and pressed the button that made it play music. According to the manufacturer's package insert, the thing could hold a thousand songs. Asajj didn't think she had ever even heard a thousand songs, and she wondered who would have the time or the attention span to compile such a lengthy playlist. She had programmed it with eighteen, enough for a full hour of exercise.
As her earbuds began to pulse with the kinetic strumming of a bass guitar, Asajj reached again for the computer control panel. The code she entered initiated a lightsaber combat program. Her opinion about this program, as much an experiment as a training exercise, was ambivalent. With the Count tied up in holo-meetings all afternoon, however, it was the only way to scratch the very particular itch she was feeling. The program was designed by none other than Grievous, the cyborg monstrosity who fancied himself Dooku's student, despite having no ability to use the Force. He — It? Asajj thought with more than a twinge of disgust — claimed that, with enough tinkering, he could develop droids capable of defeating a Jedi knight in single combat. Asajj had initially refused to participate, put off by her dislike for droids in general and for Grievous specifically. But then the cyborg insisted that she was afraid of losing to his droids, that she feared she could not beat them, and Asajj had let her pride and her long-simmering desire to put Grievous in his place get the better of her.
The program's current iteration used three of the Count's IG-100 MagnaGuard droid units, originally marketed as bodyguards, each armed with a phrik-plated electrostaff so Asajj could use her lightsabers against them without immediately destroying their weapons. Alone, any one of them would have been excruciatingly boring. But when the three MagnaGuards worked together, things could get interesting. The pod where the IG units charged their internal power sources when not in use slid up through an opening in the floor, carrying the droids with it. In unison, they stepped out of the pod and activated their weapons.
Asajj bared her teeth in a feral grin that would have been unnerving, if droids had nerves to rattle. That was a distinct downside of fighting with droids. Unlike living beings, she could not manipulate their emotions to goad them into doing something foolish. On the other hand, their invulnerability to mental attacks meant that she had to rely entirely on her skills as a warrior, which was good practice for battling stronger-willed opponents. This wasn't about them anyway; it was purely for her own gratification.
She reached for her lightsabers, and — Oh, yes — this was exactly what she needed. The curved hilts had taken some getting used to at first, since she had originally been trained to use straight ones, but now each felt like an extension of her body. As Dooku had promised when he gifted them to her, they gave her increased control and dexterity compared to the weapons they'd replaced. Igniting them now felt better than good, necessary even, as if some part of her lived within the blood red crystals at their cores and sang out in rapture at the reunion.
Gesturing with her right hand, she used the Force to grab hold of the nearest droid and toss it several meters to one side. Before the other two had a chance to react, she dashed for the toppled droid, pivoting at the last moment to send her sabers' crimson blades arcing over and down toward its head. Half-kneeling and half-splayed on the floor, the droid reacted to defend itself, raising its electrostaff just in time to deflect the blow. It had to roll out of the way to prevent her swinging around and taking off its head with her next stroke.
While her attention was focused on the first droid, the other two rushed to its aid. Though Asajj could not sense the droids' intentions in the Force, she very much could hear their footfalls as they ran up behind her, clashing with the drum beats in her ears. Anticipating the blows they had aimed at her back, she pushed off the floor with her lithe, powerful legs and flipped backwards. When her body reached the top of its arc over the attacking droids' heads, she angled her lightsabers to slice at their metal faces. This caused the droids to raise their weapons to block her counterattack, which gave her the chance to connect her blades with the closer of the two electrostaffs and use her momentum to push hard against the weapon's shaft, launching herself higher and farther on the way out of the flip and putting some distance between herself and the droids. When she landed, she had a good view of all three IG units and room to consider her next move.
She felt the skin-tight fabric of her black jumpsuit growing damp with perspiration at the small of her back. Using the Force to assist her movements, unbuckling her belt required just a flick of her fingers, and she was able to do it even with her hands otherwise occupied by holding her weapons. The belt took her skirt along with it as it fell, leaving a pool of dark cloth at her feet. The droids were already on the move again. Another flick of her fingers sent the pool of fabric sweeping off to rest where the floor met the nearest wall, where there was less risk of tripping on it. In this situation — in most situations, really — Asajj's speed and agility were her biggest advantages. The droids would attempt to either back her into a corner or encircle and close in around her, limiting her movements. They would fail, of course. But it was fun to watch them try.
Blending Dooku's makashi lightsaber technique with her own take on jar'kai, Asajj led the droids around the room in a violent dance. With practice, she had found that she could draw them into a rhythm that matched the music playing in her ear, which added a satisfying layer to the challenge. It did not take long for her to start sweating in earnest, salty drops rolling over the slick surface of her shaved head and soaking into the high collar of the shirt she wore over her sleeveless jumpsuit. The damp fabric had begun to cling unpleasantly to her skin, and she wanted to be rid of as much of it as possible.
“IG units,” she called out, “pause program.”
After deactivating her lightsabers and setting them on the floor at her feet, Asajj reached for the hem of her shirt and began to peel it off, up past her ribcage and over her head. The snug turtle-neck collar hugged her face. She was trying not to displace her earbuds while removing the shirt, and it took her a split-second too long to realize that she could still hear the droids moving. Startled, she yanked the fabric off her head. The crackling purple glow of an electrostaff flared before her eyes, blindingly bright. She ducked to avoid the blow and tried to reach for her lightsabers, but her hands were still lost in the long, fitted sleeves.
“End program!” she shouted. Clawing free of her shirt, she tossed it aside, then whirled to locate the other two droids and confirm that they had obeyed. She got her answer when a phrik metal bar collided with her face, causing her to stumble backwards. Then, something knocked her legs out from under her, and she went down.
Dazed, Asajj lay sprawled on the floor. Tears flooded her eyes, and she tasted blood. This had never happened before. The program was supposed to simulate real combat, but (until now) she had suffered only minor sprains and bruises while training with these droids. One of them jabbed the end of its electrostaff hard into her side, knocking the breath from her lungs, and she curled in on herself reflexively. She gasped in pain and immediately choked on the blood sliding down her throat. For a moment, the chill grip of panic seized her chest. Then, instinct and training took over. Asajj pushed past her fear and reached for her oldest and most trusted weapon, down into the deep well of rage that had kept her alive through countless fights in Kirske's arena and through the long, empty hours between.
Snarling like a cornered kath hound, she lashed out with the Force. She heard, rather than saw, as the surge of energy struck the droids' metal bodies, scattering them across the floor like trees uprooted in a flash flood. One of her earbuds had already fallen off, and she ripped the other off as well; she needed all her senses at her disposal. With the backs of her knuckles, she wiped her eyes, eliciting a twinge of pain as she inadvertently brushed her nose. It was definitely broken, but she had bigger problems right now. She could almost hear Dooku's voice in her mind: Prioritize.
First, her lightsabers. Asajj looked to the spot where she'd left them, but of course they weren't there. Fuck. Visually scanning the room was a waste of time, with her eyesight still blurry and her head spinning. To her left, she could make out the shape of one droid getting to its feet, and she knew she had only seconds to choose her next move.
What does the Force tell you? Concentrate.
The kyber crystals at the heart of her sabers channeled the Force, just as her body did, and it echoed faintly within them even when the blades were unlit. Forcing herself into a kneeling position, she let her eyes close and reached out with her mind, searching…
There. As the initial rush of tears subsided and adrenalin dulled the pain in her face, her eyes began to clear. Blinking rapidly, she spotted her lightsabers off to her right, near the door. This was good, because they were relatively close to a viable exit. Unfortunately, they were even closer to the two other MagnaGuards, which were currently blocking said exit. The sound of quickening metal footballs to her left told Asajj that it was time to stop thinking and start moving.
Just then, as if following her gaze, one of the droids looked at the lightsaber lying near its foot and reached down to grasp the hilt. Outrage bloomed in Asajj's chest, and she stretched out her right hand, calling her weapon to it. The sensation of its hilt hitting her palm was like a deep breath of air after being trapped under water, but she had no time to savor it. Quickly, she rolled to avoid the IG unit running in from her left. As her back touched the floor, she ignited her weapon and slashed up at the droid, aiming for the weak point where its torso met its legs. Unlike most of the droid's body, its wasp-like waist was unarmored. Her blade struck true, slicing clean through, and she had to dive out of the way of the droid's heavy torso as it fell. The central processing unit in its duranium-plated chest was, unfortunately, undamaged. But it would be much slower (and much less of a threat) without the use of its legs.
Asajj immediately pushed herself to her feet and began to put as much space as possible between herself and the droids, walking backwards in an effort to keep all three in her field of vision. She swallowed hard and had to gasp through her open mouth to catch her breath. Between the swelling and the clotted blood, breathing through her nose was impossible. Twinges of pain shot through her injured ribs with each panted breath. She still had two fully-functional IG units to deal with, and even the damaged unit was doggedly lurching toward her on its hands. As they pursued her, Asajj considered her options. Moving toward her meant moving away from the exit. It would not be difficult to out-maneuver the droids and escape into the bowels of the castle, but it was all too easy for her to imagine what would come of that. Allow herself to be beaten by a bunch of glorified canopeners? Asajj would rather swallow her own teeth. Dooku would find out sooner rather than later, and then Grievous would find out, and Asajj would never hear the end of it.
Organics are weak! Droids are the future, my lord…
Well, the future of these droids was a scrap heap.
Asajj stopped moving. She closed her eyes. She opened her mind.
She felt the cliffside, dense and heavy, surrounding her. There were other minds here, sealed up in row upon row of meticulously-carved cells. She knew their measure — had weighed many in her own exacting hands, then filed them neatly away to await her master's judgement. Above, she felt the courtyard and its icy echoes of Dooku's presence. Beyond that sat the man himself, high up in his tower, drawing her attention as he drew everything, always inward, like the black hole at the galaxy's center. Asajj felt the way the Force shifted around him, lean and hungry, as if he gorged himself on power and left the very fabric of the universe famished. There was no balance in this way of life, no mindful taking and giving back. It was not the Jedi way.
She, too, was hungry. And she was no Jedi.
The Force shall free me.
Asajj opened her eyes, but her vision only confirmed what the Force had told her already. She needed no time to get her bearings before turning on her heel and breaking into a hard sprint, running not at the droids but toward the wall behind her. The heat of her rage was a catalyst. Applied judiciously, it could speed her reaction time and strengthen her muscles. She approached the wall at an angle, as if lining up a billiards shot. As she ran, she drew the Force into herself, compressing the energy into a tight ball in her belly. The soles of her flexed feet contacted the wall, and she bent her knees. Before gravity could pull her down, she channeled the energy out through her feet and into the wall, launching herself at the nearest IG unit. The red blade of the single lightsaber she still held in her right hand was a crimson streak in the room's dim light. The droid raised its weapon to deflect the blow, but at the last moment Asajj deactivated her lightsaber and grabbed the electrostaff's long shaft with her free hand, using her momentum to pull the droid off balance. In the blink of an eye, her blade was lit again and slicing through the MagnaGuard's waist. Before the droid could process what had happened, Asajj hurled its upper half, both metal hands still gripping the electrostaff, in the direction of the one droid that was still fully functional.
If the third IG unit was in any way daunted by this display, it gave no indication. Nimbly dodging the eighty-kilogram projectile, it advanced without so much as a sideways glance. Somehow, that made Asajj even angrier. Metal groaned, then shrieked, as she wrapped her mind around a durasteel panel and ripped it loose from the ceiling. She brought it down and across the room diagonally, aiming for the droid's neck. The droid was struck on its right side, at the level where the cervical spine would be in a humanoid, and the panel's narrow edge cut into its unarmored neck joints almost as easily as it would have decapitated an organic being. The impact caused the droid to topple sideways, its neck bending back on itself at an acute angle as the panel sliced deep into delicate wiring. Asajj felt a surge of satisfaction at the disgruntled-sounding warble the IG unit made right before its body hit the floor with a metallic crunch. Letting go of its weapon, the droid reached for the ceiling panel lodged in its neck. Before it could do anything more, Asajj pounced on the fallen droid and shoved down hard with the Force, her fury crashing against the metal panel and pushing it clean through the MagnaGuard's neck in a spray of sparks. Its red eyes flickered briefly, then dimmed as its head rolled uselessly to one side. Confused by the loss of visual input, the droid began to swing its arms defensively, and Asajj sprang back, letting the panel clatter to the floor.
A prickle of warning crept up her neck, prompting her to spin on her heel. Reflexively, Asajj swept her lightsaber around in a half-circle and sliced through the neck of the droid that had tried to sneak up behind her. The loss of multiple body parts must have overwhelmed the droid's processors, because it reached up to touch the stump of its neck with both hands, seemingly forgetting that it was using its hands to walk. The sight of it toppling over was so comically pathetic that Asajj let out a harsh bark of laughter. Pain gripped her side, and she grimaced. It was time to end this.
Careful not to get caught in the MagnaGuard's crushing grip, Asajj swiftly lopped off its arms at the shoulders. Then, she pressed the tip of her lightsaber down against the duranium plating of its armored torso. The droid's armor held out for three long seconds before the blade finally plunged down into its CPU. Not bad, for a glorified canopener.
Asajj made quick work of the one droid who still had its legs, blind as it was, then glanced around to locate the last of them. Apparently, self-preservation had been low on the priorities list when Grievous programmed these droids, because it was hobbling toward her on its hands, one arm loose and sparking at the shoulder joint. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Asajj realized that this must have been the unit she had flung across the room. It still gripped its electrostaff with the hand of its good arm, either unable or unwilling to let go.
Seeing no need to waste her energy now, Asajj waited. Still mindful of the droid but far from concerned, she turned a portion of her attention to her breathing, willing it to slow. The MagnaGuard's red eyes shone back at her, indicating that its visual system remained functional. Asajj knew that Grievous was recording these sessions, uploading them from the droids' memory files, and storing them remotely ‘for research.’ Was he watching now? The thought made something in her chest writhe with indignation.
Reaching out with the Force, Asajj clamped down hard upon the IG unit's damaged arm and gave a vicious yank. The droid fell forward onto its face, lying just a few meters from where she stood. It tried in vain to push itself up from the floor, but whatever had been holding its shoulder joint together gave out under the strain, and the arm tore loose. With its one remaining arm, the droid managed to find enough leverage to flip itself onto its back. For a moment, it waved its weapon ineffectively. Then, with a brief, bright flash of red light, the droid's remaining arm was severed, and all it could do was stare up into the pale, grim face that loomed above it.
“Maybe you could kill a Jedi. I doubt it,” said Asajj Ventress, looking straight into the droid's eyes. “But you’ll never replace me.” She smiled as she drove her saber down into its chest.
~*~
Code of the Sith
Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion, I gain Strength.
Through Strength, I gain Power.
Through Power, I gain Victory.
Through Victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.