Why Anakin is No Longer Allowed to Mentor

9. A Grievous Mistake

With how much trouble General Grievous was giving them, and his general predisposition to lose his lightsaber, Anakin felt his decision was perfectly justified. Obi-Wan, predictably, disagreed. Strongly.

"Why is it a bad thing that I told HK that if he found my lightsaber to feel free to use it to steal Grievous' own sabers and use them against the 'hybrid meatbag'?" said Anakin. "I thought you would be happy that HK managed to not only hold that cyborg back long enough for us to complete the mission, but left him almost mortally wounded!"

"One, it's bad enough you keep losing your saber in the first place. Two, since when have you started taking on that homicidal droid's speech patterns? And three, what on earth made you think it was a good idea to give him an order like that in the first place and start using a blaster instead?": said Obi-Wan irate.

Because he wasn't really planning on staying in the Order since Padme had told him she was pregnant? Not that Anakin was inclined to mention that fact to Obi-Wan quite yet.

Obi-Wan kept on grumbling under his breath, and Anakin went home.

He crashed on the couch, exhausted.

"Query: why are you so concerned about what the pathetic meatbags think?" asked HK.

"Because the Order has a strict 'no relationships' policy, and the Masters get pretty pissy if they find out that someone got married," said Anakin irritably. Which had made zero sense to him because why wouldn't the Order want more Jedi?

Wouldn't it have made more sense to let them act like actual teenagers and sleep around, if only to increase their numbers?

Actually, now that he thought about the whole 'have a Jedi act as a general' thing was really odd. There had to be other qualified people with combat experience who would be happy to lead missions against the Separatists without having to spread the Jedi so thin.

Anakin's exhaustion was partially abated as he thought that one over.

"HK, let me give you a perfectly hypothetical question regarding a Sith's methodology. If you were going to take over the galaxy and wanted to either wipe out or severely cripple the Jedi Order, how would you do it?" asked Anakin seriously.

"Statement: I would set a trap the Jedi would never expect, and shoot them in the back."

"And if you were given command of a large number of clones that you previously had no idea existed and were told to use them against people who were attempting to remove themselves from a corrupt Senate's oversight..."

HK's eyes didn't blink. Not that they would.

"Then it's possible a Sith has infiltrated the Senate and is using this war as an excuse to take over the known galaxy while simultaneously wiping out the Jedi, master. Using cloned meatbags would be an efficient way to do it, as no one would suspect them of having ulterior orders."

Anakin had a bad feeling about this. And the worst part was that the odds of the Order believing him were almost nil because of his reputation. His antics had really come to bite him in the ass now.

He had to warn Obi-Wan at least. And start making contingencies NOW to save as many of the padawans as he could in the temple. Those already apprenticed out were out of his hands, but the ones in the temple were helpless.

~

Anakin was put on 'administrative leave' after he deliberately crashed Windu's speeder into one of Palpatine's personal guard vehicles. While he wouldn't have to deal with jail time, the Jedi was less than amused. Windu had been particularly vindictive about putting him in 'time-out' from missions.

None of them suspected that maybe Anakin had done it on purpose...besides, he hated Windu anyway and Palpatine was getting on his last nerve.

Which was why Anakin spent the majority of that time going through the older records of the Order to see if he could find any blueprints that would enable him to get the padawans out of the temple unnoticed, if his suspicions were right.

It would be HK who provided an unwitting answer to his problem, though he knew the Masters definitely wouldn't like it.

The Sith Master was definitely going to be pissed by the time Anakin was done.

"Wait, there's a Sith shrine under the temple?!" said Anakin in disbelief. He was so glad Padme was late due to a rather boring Senate meeting.

"Statement: the temple's location roughly corresponds to the last known coordinates of a Sith shrine my master used to frequent before he became a Jedi instead. Designation: Shrine in the Depths. I was built on a Force vergence in an attempt to turn it Dark," stated HK.

Considering the difficulty the masters had seeing visions in the Force, Anakin was pretty sure that it had succeeded.

And, if he knew the Order's usual policies on such things, they had likely buried the truth and would refuse to acknowledge the issue until it had already bitten them in the ass several times over.

Case in point, the amount of bitching they gave him over relatively minor acts of rebellion and showing actual personality, over the mindless drones that kept repeating the same thing and expecting it to work.

On second thought, maybe he should come up with yet another reason for Windu to extend his 'leave'. The Force only knew he wouldn't lose any sleep over pissing the man off, and it would give him some entertainment while he attempted to find a back entrance into this shrine HK had mentioned.

"HK, if you help me find the entrance into the shrine I'll give you first dibs on any weapons we find, as well as anything that attempts to kill me for entering."

HK's eyes gleamed.

"Best. Master. Ever," said HK firmly.

"Oh, and if you have any ideas to make Windu's day worse, let me know. I'm always open to them."

Mace was going to be soooo pissed off at Anakin for this.