Battle of the Siths

Savage continues to flail his lightsaber, furiously raining blows down around her. Anakin doesn't have time to pay attention as he presses his attack against Dooku. With Ventress otherwise occupied, Dooku is beginning to gain the offensive again. With every blow for both of them that he blocks, he quickly returns it with one of his own. Savage suddenly lets out a furious scream, and hurls Ventress into the wall with the Force before he charges at all three of them. Dooku raises a hand, sending a barrage of electricity into the Zabrak, throwing him across the room into the wall again.

Then, he makes a dash for the trapdoor tunnel he uses for making a fast escape, the same method he used to escape back in the incident when he nearly got ransomed to the Republic. No, Anakin's not going to let him get away. He Force-jumps across the room, stabbing his lightsaber into the controls so the door won't open.

He feels a flare of danger in the Force and whirls around in time to see blue-white lightning crackling towards him, lightning which he'll never block in time. There's a blur of red, and Ventress suddenly lands in between the two of them, blocking the attack with her lightsabers. "You can thank me later," she informs him, charging at the Sith again the moment the lightning lets up.

Dooku raises a hand, tossing Ventress across the room before kicking Anakin. He lands on the ground a distance away and hastily pushes himself back to his feet as he sees the Sith Force-choking Obi-Wan and throwing him into the wall. Anger surging, Anakin lunges at Dooku again. No one hurts his brother and gets away with it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin sees Savage getting up again, preparing to lunge, but Obi-Wan and Ventress intercept him. He spins his lightsaber in between them, missing almost every attempted blow.

They seem to be handling the Nightbrother more than fine, so Anakin focuses his attention back on the Count. Their blades are clashing in a deadly dance of blue and red, neither side gaining any ground over the other right now. They have to defeat Dooku. They can't let him get away this time. It's the best chance they have, especially with the outside help of someone who's fought with Dooku for so long. It's strange to fight side by side with Ventress, who a few weeks ago, they were trying to kill. Ventress moves over to join Anakin, only to be flung across the room on the wrong end of a lightning bolt.

The former assassin leaps up from where she was thrown, running back towards the ongoing duel. Anakin continues to rain blows down on the Sith Lord, swinging lower in an attempt to get past his defenses. The Count brings his blade down to block it, but the blades clash together into a saberlock. Anakin pushes his blade back against Dooku, realizing instantly that the Count made the foolish mistake of blocking the blow too high, so Anakin immediately takes the opening, moving his lightsaber down and cutting through his wrists. The same moment, Ventress skids to a stop right behind the Count.

One of her red blades springs to life, stabbing the Sith through the back and deactivating it before the body slumps to the floor. "And now the student kills the master," smirks Ventress. She spins on her heel and bolts out of the room without another word.

For a moment, Anakin can hardly believe it. They just defeated Dooku. With the head of the Separatists now gone, maybe they'll actually have a chance at bringing an end to the war. Maybe. He looks across the room to see that Obi-Wan has managed to defeat Savage also. Both of them are dead. They won the battle, and even if Ventress is no longer anywhere to be seen, she's not really a threat anymore now that she's not working for Dooku.

But it's then that Anakin notices something else. The Force hardly feels any different than before. Even with Dooku dead along with his new apprentice, the darkness lingering in the Force has hardly seemed to shift at all. Yes, Ventress is alive, but that shouldn't affect the Force this much. And that means that maybe Dooku was never the Sith Master in the first place. Was Dooku seriously the apprentice? Unless there's other Sith out there, it seems like he may have a master who's far stronger than he is. It was already extremely difficult to kill Dooku. How will they be able to defeat this Sith Master? For that matter, they don't even know who he is, and with the death of his apprentice, who knows what he's going to do next?