[Third Person]
Victory at Refuge Station was just the beginning. The plan to collapse the Republic's economy was underway, but Kaelen knew they needed a final blow, one so bold and decisive that it would leave Dooku and Palpatine completely unbalanced. The target: the main Separatist command center and droid factory on the planet Hypori.
The Republic had tried to take Hypori for months, with disastrous results. A graveyard of shattered cruisers orbited the planet, and an army of droids, led by the feared General Grievous, waited below.
On the bridge of the Resolute, Master Yoda's hologram addressed them. "A fortress, Hypori is. Too well defended, your ships cannot approach."
"Who needs ships when you've got science and an absolute disregard for the laws of war?" Rick said, opening a bright pink portal in the middle of the bridge. "Ready, boys? Time to do something stupid and glorious."
The assault team was small: Kaelen, Rick, Anakin, Padmé, and a small squad of 501st Legion clone troopers, led by Captain Rex. All looked at the offensively cheerful portal with apprehension.
"We'll go straight into the command center," Kaelen explained. "We'll bypass their outer defenses. It's a decapitation strike."
They stepped through the portal and appeared in the heart of the droid factory. It was an industrial hell: rivers of molten metal, mechanical arms assembling battle droids at dizzying speed, and thousands of them, activated and ready, who instantly turned towards the intruders.
The battle began.
The clone troopers opened fire, forming a defensive perimeter around Padmé. Anakin became a whirlwind of blue light, his lightsaber cutting and deflecting with concentrated fury. But it was what happened beside him that left everyone, clones and droids alike, completely paralyzed.
Rick and Kaelen didn't fight like soldiers. They danced.
Rick slid through blaster fire, his lab coat billowing. From his belt, he launched small discs that, upon landing, didn't explode, but turned into miniature versions of himself that yelled insults and bit the droids' ankles, distracting them. He pulled out two laser pistols and began firing, but not at the droids. He fired at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The beams ricocheted at impossible angles, creating a laser death web that decimated enemy ranks from all directions.
"Geometry's for chumps, Morty!" he yelled to no one in particular. "I create my own geometry!"
Kaelen, on the other hand, was a ghost of lethal efficiency. His metal arm was a blur. He deployed a small energy shield to block a volley, then the arm transformed, revealing a plasma cannon that fired a single, powerful beam that sliced through five super battle droids as if they were paper.
A droideka rolled towards him, its shield shimmering. Kaelen didn't try to break the shield. He aimed his portal gun at the ground directly beneath the droideka. The droid fell through the portal and reappeared thirty meters in the air, directly above its own position, before crashing to the ground and shattering.
"Gravity always wins," Kaelen said calmly.
The scene was insane. Anakin, one of the greatest duelists in the Jedi Order, found himself fighting on the fringes of a battle whose center was occupied by two forces of nature. Captain Rex and his men stopped firing for a moment, simply watching in awe as the two men dismantled an army with impossible physics and pure madness.
"Sir..." a clone said to Rex. "What... what are they?"
"I have no idea, trooper," Rex replied, his voice filled with reverent dread. "But I'm glad they're on our side."
Then, they appeared. General Grievous, his four lightsabers spinning, and the Dark Side assassin, Asajj Ventress, with her two crimson blades.
"Jedi!" Ventress hissed.
"More scrap for my collection!" Grievous wheezed.
Rick looked at them and let out a bark of laughter. "Oh, my! The asthmatic with a collector complex and the bald goth chick! This is getting good!"
Anakin braced for an epic duel. But Kaelen simply sighed.
"We don't have time for this," he said.
He adjusted a dial on his metal arm. A high-frequency sonic pulse, inaudible to organic ears, expanded through the room. The effect on the cyborgs and Force-users was immediate.
General Grievous's cybernetic implants went haywire. His arms began flailing uncontrollably, hitting himself. His legs buckled at odd angles. He dropped his lightsabers as his mechanical body suffered a sensory overload.
Ventress screamed and clutched her head. The frequency was designed to interfere with the parts of the brain sensitive to the Force, creating a psychic migraine so intense it brought her to her knees, unable to concentrate.
Kaelen calmly walked towards the two incapacitated villains. Rick followed him, munching on popcorn he had materialized out of thin air.
"See?" Kaelen said to a stunned Anakin. "Sometimes, the best way to win a duel is to make sure your opponent can't even start."
He knocked both Sith unconscious with a quick strike. The battle was over. The Separatists' largest droid factory had been neutralized not by an army, but by two men, their science, and their absolute disregard for the rules of combat.
As they prepared to leave, Anakin looked at the wreckage, then at Kaelen and Rick. The fear he had felt had transformed into something more. An understanding. The Force was powerful, yes. It could move rocks, influence minds, sense the future.
But these two... these two could rewrite physics on a napkin.
"Well," Rick said, looking at his pink portal gun with disgust. "That was effective, but I still hate this stupid color. It made me feel ridiculously heroic and competent."
He turned to Kaelen, a rare moment of earnestness in his eyes. "You're getting good, kid. Scarily good. You might actually be... me. Only... less drunk and with a better moral compass. It's unsettling."
Kaelen smiled. "We have a war to end, Rick. And a galaxy to save. Then, maybe we can work on your personal issues."
Rick scoffed. "Don't push it. Let's go. I've had enough of this dull planet. Unless you want to visit the Gungan musicals?"
Kaelen chuckled. "Perhaps after the war. For now, let's just make sure Palpatine gets the message."
He gave Anakin a nod. "Refuge Station secured, General. Hypori neutralized. The economic collapse will follow. Tell the Jedi Council the Force is strong with us. And with a bit of... ingenuity."
Anakin merely stared, processing the casual dismantling of two of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. He looked at Kaelen and Rick, then back at the wreckage. He finally understood the true scale of the power they wielded. He realized that if he wanted to win the war, he didn't just need to be a better Jedi.
He needed to start thinking like a Rick.