Promise - Anakin Skywalker

.29

General Grievous let out a chilling laugh which made Ella's hair stand straight up. Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest. It was the same laugh that echoed her in her nightmares, the same laugh she heard right before her mother died.

"They sent a child to defeat me?" He cackled, locking his lifeless eyes on her.

"I'm not a child," Ella hissed. "Try a better insult if you want to get under my skin."

"What about this?" Grievous asked in his metallic voice. He sprung into the air and ignited a green lightsaber, leaping over Ella even before she could react. In one swipe he sent her squadron flying in all different directions.

Captain Rex landed flat on his back and made the mistake of letting out a groan. Grievous towered over his unmoving body and swung his lightsaber.

Ella slid between Grievous's metal legs, igniting her lightsabers, and blocked his strike before he killed Rex. "Try harder, metalhead," she spat.

Grievous stepped back, his eyes locked on her double sabers. "Two can play at this game," he said, reaching into his filthy brown cloak and ignited a blue lightsaber.

"Try me," she snapped, jumping up to take a strike.

He blocked even her best strikes, much better than Ventress had. Even before her weapons came moderately close to his metal body, Grievous blocked her with a heavy strike of his own.

To her disadvantage, he was larger than her. His arm span was double the length of her own. Ella kept her distance from his weapons at the cost of not being able to reach him on her own.

They moved across the hallway rapidly, lightsabers flashing. They collided and retracted faster than she could blink. Ella let the Force lead everything she did.

Knowing it was wrong, she let her anger control her. It fueled her to swing the lightsabers over and over again despite the pain she felt. Sweat dropped from her brow and her throat was so dry that she could barely breathe.

Ella had never been this angry before. Face to face with the one who killed her mother, her vision was red and she couldn't think rationally. All her Jedi lessons about being calm and serene were out the window and some darker force held Ella together.

She shoved him back one last time and almost took a hit. Ella spun on her heels and took off running, R3 close behind her. Not once did she look back. The cold was leaving her, so she was okay. She hated that she was from Grievous, but she knew to succeed in her mission, she had to live.

With the Force, she blew open two metal doors revealing a storage room. "C'mon R3, in here!"

Ella jumped as hard as she could, ending up on the top of one of the high shelves. She took a deep breath. She hadn't expected to feel like this at all. This side of her was different.

"Why don't you go running back to your Master, Ella?" Grievous hissed intimidatingly as he slid in through other doors.

She kept silent, resisting the urge so snap something back and fly off the shelf to fight him.

Grievous cackled and tapped his metal claws against one another as he crept through the aisles between the shelves. Ella hoped he couldn't hear her heart pounding.

"Are you ready to end up like your coward bitch of a mother?"

Ella was a ticking bomb, and that set her off. Grievous could mock her height, her age, anything about her. But no one said anything about her mother.

Ella launched herself off of the shelf she hid on top of, flying to where Grievous waited for her. Their fighting commenced once more.

Strike, parry, block. The patterns of fighting never seemed to change. This time though, Ella was weaker and slower. She was tired.