Four lightsabers moved in a whirlwind of death.
Grievous fought like a machine—because he was one. His neural processors calculated trajectories faster than most organic beings could perceive. Each of his four arms moved independently, creating a sphere of crimson blades that no Jedi had ever penetrated.
Until now.
Pietro became a silver-blue blur. He accelerated past the speed of thought, slipped through the gaps in Grievous's defense that existed for only microseconds, and drove both boots into the cyborg general's chest plate.
The impact sent Grievous flying. He crashed through a support column, hit the wall hard enough to crater it, and fell in a tangle of mechanical limbs. Three of his four lightsabers clattered to the deck, deactivating on impact.
Pietro landed in a crouch, Master Ima-Gun Di's lightsaber humming in his hand. His chest heaved—even for him, maintaining that kind of speed took effort. But the rage burning in his gut gave him all the fuel he needed.
Grievous struggled to his feet, servos whining. His vocabulator crackled with static. "Impressive." He retrieved his fallen lightsabers with telekinetic precision—a trick Dooku had taught him. "I have not been struck so cleanly in some time."
"Good," Pietro said. His accent thickened, Sokovian vowels bleeding through. "Then you'll remember this."
He moved.
Grievous's processors screamed warnings, calculated intercept vectors, predicted attack patterns based on ten thousand Jedi he'd studied and killed. He raised his lightsabers to block—
Pietro was already inside his guard.
The speedster's fist connected with Grievous's vocabulator. The cyborg's head snapped back, his vision glitching. Pietro followed with a spinning kick that would've decapitated anyone else. Grievous caught it—barely—grabbed Pietro's ankle with two hands, and hurled him at the opposite wall.
Pietro hit hard. His skull bounced off durasteel, and for a moment, the world went white and distant. He tasted copper. Felt gravity assert itself as he slid down the wall.
Grievous was on him instantly.
The cyborg's foot slammed into Pietro's back, driving the air from his lungs. Before Pietro could recover, Grievous flipped him over and drove a metal fist into his jaw. Pietro's head rocked back, stars exploding behind his eyes.
"I enjoyed killing your Jedi friend," Grievous said, his vocabulator giving each word a mechanical rasp. "Watching the light leave his eyes. You will die the same way. All you Jedi do."
Both of Grievous's upper hands clamped around Pietro's throat. He lifted the speedster off the ground, slammed him against the wall once, twice, three times. Pietro's vision tunneled. His lungs screamed for air.
"I must admit," Grievous continued, almost conversational, "you are stronger than most. I have not been challenged like this in months." He squeezed harder. Pietro's face turned purple. "Perhaps I should kill more of your Avenger friends. Maybe then I will feel truly tested."
Something in Pietro snapped.
Not his spine. Not his will. The last frayed thread of restraint.
His body vibrated—started slow, then accelerated to frequencies that made the air around him hum. Grievous's grip, designed to crush durasteel, couldn't hold something moving at that speed. Pietro's molecules phased through the cyborg's fingers, and suddenly he was free, falling, landing.
Grievous reached for him—
Pietro's boot caught him in the chest plate. Once. Twice. A dozen times in the span of a heartbeat. Each kick carried enough kinetic energy to dent reinforced armor. Grievous staggered backward, his processors struggling to track something moving that fast.
Pietro grabbed Grievous's upper right arm—the one still holding a lightsaber—and spun. Used the cyborg's own mass as an anchor point. Let physics and velocity do the rest.
Grievous flew down the corridor, crashed through a doorway, and skidded to a halt thirty meters away. He tried to stand, servos screaming in protest.
Pietro was already there.
He unleashed a combination that would've made any boxer proud—jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, all delivered at superhuman speed. Grievous tried to defend, tried to counter, but Pietro was untouchable. Every time a mechanical fist came close, Pietro wasn't there anymore.
Master Ima-Gun Di's lightsaber carved through Grievous's lower left arm. The limb hit the deck, still twitching, its lightsaber rolling away.
Grievous roared—fury and pain and something that might have been fear. He threw everything into one desperate assault, all three remaining arms attacking simultaneously.
Pietro ducked under the first strike, parried the second with the lightsaber, and drove his fist into Grievous's chest cavity with enough force to crack the armor protecting his organic heart and lungs.
The cyborg's eyes widened behind his mask. He could feel it—the seal breaking, atmosphere rushing in where it shouldn't. His biological components, exposed and vulnerable.
His remaining hands shot out, caught Pietro's throat, squeezed with desperate strength. Pietro's air cut off instantly. His face went from red to purple to blue. His vision darkened at the edges.
But his hands were still free.
Pietro grabbed Grievous's wrists, vibrated at resonant frequency, and felt the cyborg's grip weaken as metal fatigued and cracked. He broke free, gasped in precious air, and went back on the offensive.
The lightsaber became a blue streak. Pietro's speed, combined with the blade's lethality, created a weapon Grievous couldn't counter. The cyborg's upper right arm fell to the deck, severed at the shoulder joint.
Grievous dropped to one knee, coughing—actual biological coughing, his exposed lungs struggling with unfiltered air. He looked up at Pietro through failing optics and saw death approaching.
Pietro raised the lightsaber for the killing blow—
An invisible hand seized him and hurled him backward.
He hit the wall, slid down, looked up to see a new figure stepping between him and Grievous. Human. Young. Lightsaber blazing red in his hand.
"Apologies, Avenger," the man said, his accent refined, almost aristocratic. "But I can't allow you to kill the general. He's far too valuable to the Separatist cause."
Grievous struggled to his feet—to his remaining hands and knees, more accurately. "I had him, Vallen," he wheezed.
"Of course you did, General." Ky Vallen kept his eyes on Pietro, his blade raised defensively. "But discretion is often the better part of valor."
Pietro stood slowly. His entire body hurt—ribs cracked, probably, throat bruised, definitely. But the rage was still there, hot and vital and demanding satisfaction.
"Walk away," Pietro said quietly. "Give me the cyborg, and you get to live."
Vallen raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound very heroic. Or very Jedi-like."
"I'm not a Jedi." Pietro ignited Master Ima-Gun Di's lightsaber, the blue blade casting harsh shadows. "And right now, I don't feel much like a hero. So I'll say it one more time. Step aside, or I cut through you."
Vallen's pleasant expression didn't change. "Well then. Let's see what you've got."
He attacked.
The Acolyte was good—Form V, probably, with some Ataru flourishes. His opening combination was textbook: high strike to draw the guard up, low sweep to exploit the opening, Force push to create distance.
Pietro didn't give him the chance. He moved at combat speed—not his absolute maximum, but fast enough that Vallen's eyes couldn't quite track him. The lightsabers met in a shower of sparks, but Pietro was already moving, already attacking from a new angle.
Vallen's arms trembled with each parry. The kid was strong in the Force, but Pietro's kinetic energy was overwhelming. Every strike hit like a sledgehammer. The Acolyte tried to disengage, tried to use Force techniques to slow Pietro down, but it was like trying to cage lightning.
Pietro's boot caught Vallen in the ribs—a picture-perfect spinning kick delivered at a speed that turned it into a cannon shot. The Acolyte flew sideways, crashed into the opposite wall, and crumpled.
Pietro turned back to Grievous—
The corridor was empty.
Blood and oil marked a trail leading to an emergency bulkhead. The cyborg had fled while Pietro was occupied. Crawled away on his remaining limbs like the broken machine he was.