In a forward hold of Grievous’s flagship, Dooku watched the cyborg general duel with his elite MagnaGuards, three of his trophy lightsabers in constant motion, parrying thrusts of the guards’ pulse-weaponed staffs, slicing the recycled air a hairbreadth from the expressionless faces of his opponents, incapacitating arm and leg servos when he could.
Grievous was a force to be reckoned with, to be sure, but Dooku deplored his habit of collecting lightsabers. It had merely bothered him that Ventress and lesser combatants such as the bounty hunter Aurra Sing had adopted the foul practice. Grievous’s habit struck Dooku as the worst kind of profanation. Even so, he was not about to discourage the practice. The more Jedi that could be dispatched, the better.
The only aspect of Grievous’s technique that vexed him more was the general’s penchant for using four blades. Two was bad enough -- in the form they had been used by Darth Maul, or in Anakin Skywalker’s sad attempt to employ the technique on Geonosis. But three?What was to become of elegance and gallantry if a duelist couldn’t make do with one blade?
Well, what had become of elegance and gallantry, in any case?
Grievous was fast, and so were his IG 100-series sparring partners. They had the advantage of size and brute strength. They executed moves almost faster than the human eye could follow. Their thrusts and lunges demonstrated a singular lack of hesitancy. Once committed to a maneuver, they never faltered. They never stopped to recalculate their actions. Their weapons went exactly where they meant them to go. And they always aimed for points beyond their opponents in order to slice clear through.
Dooku had taught Grievous well, and Grievous had taught his elite well. Coupled with Dooku’s coaching, their programming in the seven classic forms of lightsaber dueling -- in the Jedi arts -- made them lethal opponents. But they were not invincible, not even Grievous, because they could be confused by unpredictability, and they had no understanding of finesse. A player of dejarik could memorize all the classic openings and countermoves, and still not be a master of the game. Defeat often came at the hands of less experienced players who knew nothing about the traditional strategies. A professional fighter, a combat artist, could be defeated by a cantina brawler who knew nothing about form but everything about ending a conflict quickly, without a thought to winning gracefully or elegantly. Enslavement to form opened one to defeat by the unforeseen.
This was often the failing of trained duelists, and it would be the failing of the Jedi Order. Given that elegance, gallantry, and enchantment were gone from the galaxy, it was only fitting that the Order’s days were numbered; that the fire that had been the Jedi was guttering and dying out. As with the corrupt Republic itself, the Order’s time had come. The noble Jedi, bound to the Force, sworn to uphold peace and justice, were seldom seen as heroes or saviors any longer, but more often as bullies or mobsters.
Still, it was sad that it had fallen to Dooku to help usher them out. The conversation he had had with Yoda on dreary Vjun was never far from his thoughts these days. For all his flair with words, all his Force-given personal power, Yoda was nothing more than an old one, unwilling to embrace anything new, indisposed to see any way but his own. Yet how terrible not simply to fade away but to expire in full knowledge that the galaxy had tipped inexorably and at long last to the dark side, to the Sith, and might remain so for as long as the Jedi themselves had ruled.
Grievous and his guards were dancing. Going through their programmed motions. An Ataro attack answered by Shii-Cho; Soresu answered by Lus-ma... Dooku couldn’t suffer another moment of it.
“No, no, stop, stop,” he yelled, coming to his feet and striding to the middle of the training circle, his arms extended to both sides. When he was certain that he had their attention, he swung to Grievous.
“Power moves served you well on Hypori against Jedi such as Daakman Barrek and Tarr Seir. But I pity you should you have to face off against any of the Council Masters.”
He called into hand his courtly, curve-handled lightsaber and drew a rapid X in the air -- a Makashi flourish. “Do I need to demonstrate what responses you can expect from Cin Drallig or Obi-Wan Kenobi? From Mace Windu or, stars help you, Yoda?”
He flicked his blade quickly, ridding two of the guards of their staffs, then placing the glowing tip a millimeter from Grievous’s death-helmeted visage. “Finesse. Artfulness. Economy. Otherwise, my friend, I fear that you will end up beyond the repair of even the Geonosians. Do you take my meaning?”
His vertically slit eyes unfathomable, Grievous nodded. "I take your meaning, my lord.”
Dooku withdrew his blade. “Again, then. With some measure of polish, if I’m not asking for too much.”
Dooku seated himself and watched them go at it. Hopeless, he thought.
But he knew that he was partly to blame. He had made the same mistake with Grievous that he had made with Ventress, by allowing her to fill herself with hate, as if hate could substitute for dispassion. Even the most hateful could be defeated. Even the most angry. There should be no emotion in killing, no self, only the act. When he should have been helping Ventress rid herself of self, he had instead permitted her to grow impassioned. Sidious had once confessed that he had erred similarly in his training of Darth Maul. Ventress and Maul had been driven by a desire to excel -- to be the best -- instead of merely allowing themselves to be pure instruments of the dark side. The Jedi knew this about the Force: that the best of them were nothing more than instruments.
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