The wild animals had been pushed toward us. The Acklays had been set upon Obi Wan and Maven, who seemed as unamused as the green, screeching animals. The Rancor was headed for Anakin, the Nexu for Padme, and the Reek for me. Desire could be seen in my eyes. My lips parted and my eyes almost seemed to fall out.

"Just relax." Obi Wan shouted over the din of the wing-beating Geonosians  to calm us down. "Concentrate." "Oh, I feel so relaxed right now. You don't even know." Maven replied him sarcastically to which Obi Wan gave him an annoyed look.

 "What about Padme?" I then asked the other three slightly panicked as Obi Wan,Maven and Anakin glanced over towards the girl. "She seems to be on top of things." Maven then answered me with a proud smirk before he looked forward again. 

I furrowed my brows in confusion before  my gaze fell from the others to my girlfriend, who had managed to pull herself to the top of the pole. With one last blow and her leg she squatted down. That's my girl, I thought with an impressed smile. So I didn't notice that the Acklays started to strike and Obi-Wan and Maven just managed to dodge.

Skillfully they held out their handcuffs so that the animals aimed their legs at the connection with the chains and Obi Wan and Maven were free. What had not escaped my attention was that Anakin jumped onto the pillar with his Jedi leap.

 I threw myself around just in time to see the Reek attack. I tried to pull the chains, but it was absolutely useless. My only way to escape the Reek and get rid of the chains, or at least use them the way I want, was to use the Force.

Just as the Reek attacked me,  a reflex made me jump steeply into the air, and the beast crashed into the pillar below me. I immediately recognized my chance, dropped onto the back of the beast and wrapped the chain around the horn.

The Reek bucked and snapped the chain off the pillar, and then we went on a rampage through the arena. The crowd cried out, clapped, and some yelled indignantly. The Reek below me didn't like that at all.

He bucked and tried to get me off his back, but it didn't work. I pulled on the chains, turned in a direction away from Maven, Padme, Anakin and Obi Wan. It was hard to ride a Reek and try to tame it when it was trained to fight.

With full force he increased his speed and ran into a wall of the arena. The dust swirled up and I struggled to hold on, but it didn't work. I fell off the back of the Reek and rolled across the floor. After I stood up, I put my hand on the Reek's skin and closed my eyes.

I let the power glide through his body and concentrated only on him, blocking out everything else. But with such an animal, which lives here all its life, this did not bring very much. "It's okay." I whispered soothingly to the animal. "I'm not here to hurt you."

When I heard how the animal was calming down, I opened my eyes again and ended the connection with the Reek. Then I jumped on the back of the animal again, hit the head of the Reek with the free end of the chain, the angry animal snatched at it in its anger and involuntarily gave me something like a halter.

 I steered him toward Padme, who was hit by the Nexu. Bloody, deep scratches were on her back. The claws had torn away some of her clothing. I heard the Nexu howl, scream, and then growl under her as if it knew it was about to get its lunch.

The Nexu was still circling under her, but it was rammed to the ground by the Reek, and Padme's gaze fell on me, who had managed to subdue the beast with the chains. I looked up at my girlfriend as the Reek triumphantly nudged the dead Nexu with its horn.

 "Jump!"I shouted to her. Padme's brown eyes fell on my green ones. She breated in and out to brace herself before she stood up and jumped off the top of the post to land with a snort right behind me. She then wrapped her arms around my waist and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "I love you." She told me quietly, so only I could hear. "I know." I replied  to which she smiled.

"But I love you too." I then replied her with a suppressed grin, and then with a swing of the chains I got the Reek to start running again. We moved at a furious pace toward Anakin, who was grinning triumphantly, for he had somehow managed to kill the Rancor with the chains.

He sprinted toward Padme and me and jumped behind Padme on the back of the Reek. "Well done." I commented with a smile. "You too." Anakin nodded at me with a smile and gave the creature a slap on the side. Padme chuckled slightly and nodded.

We then rode up to Obi Wan and Maven, who had rammed a spear into the shoulders of the two Acklays. Just at the right time they swung up behind Anakin on the Reek before I steered him through the arena.

 Suddenly I heard the roll and rumble of metal and the others seemed to pick up on it as well. As we turned around, two droidekas formed up in front of us and I glanced around, only to see a whole bunch of us in a circle. "This is now problematic. "I heard Padme sigh behind me.

 I opened my mouth in shock. And I noticed Padme holding her breath for a few seconds and felt Obi Wan's and Maven's stumbling breath and Anakin's chest rising and falling. We were all strained, scared and without any plan, surrounded by a bunch of droidekas.

 "There-there! Look! " Obi Wan shouted less than a minute later, as Master Windu held his lightsaber with the purple blade against Jango Fett's neck. All around the arena, blue and green suddenly lit up - the Jedi had come to save us. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Geonosis had made it their business to escape, and I watched Count Dooku and Master Windu talk.

As Jedi, Anakin and I had learned early on to read lips. This art was at the top of our daily schedule with the Jedi Code, which I, however, unlike my brother, did not take too seriously.  At the time, we both found it very boring. We would have preferred to train more with our lightsabers, but now I was actually quite grateful that Obi Wan and Maven had forced us to participate.

Before I could realize what the two men had been talking about, however, the enemy was already arriving. Hundreds of battle droids rushed into the arena as Master Windu and Jango Fett engaged in combat.

I made a noise and made the animal run again, while the Jedi rallied and charged at a furious pace toward the incoming battle  droids, who returned it. It was too much chaos to describe.   

Four Jedi came to a stop next to the animal and while three of them threw lightsabers to Obi Wan, Anakin and me, one of them threw the lightsaber of Maven to its owner, which he had found in the sand. The four of us activated our lightsabers and I thought it was pretty cool that it glowed bright green and not bright blue like my usual lightsaber.

Anakin released Maven's restraints while I released Obi Wan's before they released Anakin's and mine. The Reek was suddenly hit by an explosion, which threw us all off. We flew through the air and I landed a few feet from Anakin.

A few dark curls hung in my face as I spun the borrowed lightsaber around my wrist and destroyed the first droid. In the midst of the battle of infinity, I felt a familiar presence behind me.  "Four!" I shouted through the loud sounds of battle to my brother,who laughingly shook his head while he destroyed droids or deflected shots.

"Are we really counting? " He asked me as he deflected one of the droids' attacks and hurled his shot back at him, causing him to be destroyed. "Five by the way. " He added with a mischievous grin.  I just laughed about Anakin and then destroyed more droids that I listed.

Not far from Anakin and me, Maven and Obi Wan fought back to back as well, with Obi Wan mainly on the defensive and deflected the laser beams, while Maven destroyed droid after droid."You seem to be having fun destroying droids." I heard Obi Wan say to Maven while  I cut off the heads of two droids at the same time.

A small smile settled on Maven's face as he expertly sliced a droid in half. "Well, one of us has to feel the fun in that." He grinned mischievously at Obi Wan, who continued to deflect the laser beams and shook his head with a small laugh. "You're incorrigible."

I took down a few more droids before I looked around and saw Padme running towards an animal that was pulling the carriage and managed to just swing herself up onto the animal.

 I ran toward her at a fast speed and jumped on the carriage. Then I fended off the shots of the droids, while Padme managed to shoot down some droids with a little effort.

For a long time I rushed around the arena in the carriage, fending off more shots from the droids, while Padme shot down more droids, but they didn't seem to decrease in number - on the contrary, they increased and our side decreased.

 Somehow the droids managed to shoot down the beast she was riding. With two yelps, not only was she thrown off, but so was I. Padme rolled for a second before she hurriedly stood up and took cover behind the overturned carriage. I fended off the incoming shots with my lightsaber as she desperately tried to hit some droids.

"So you call this a diplomatic solution?" I asked her with an amused grin. Padme turned her head toward me, my eyes seemed to shimmer.  "No, I  call it aggressive negotiations." She corrected me with an even bigger grin than I had in front of her. Almost inaudibly, I let out a small laugh and then turned my attention back to killing my opponent.

 Faster than I would have liked, the droids managed to surround all the Jedi. I found myself between my master and  my brother. Suddenly, the droids ceased fire and I lowered my lightsaber as well.

"Master Windu." I heard the mocking voice of Count Dooku say. "You have fought gallantly, worthy of recognition in the archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished." I tried hard to hide the hatred on my face and keep a neutral facade. The remaining Jedi were herded into the surrounded circle by a few Geonosians. "He's a coward." I heard Maven mutter through gritted teeth.

 "Surrender and your lives will be spared." "We will not be hostages to be bartered, Dooku!" Master Windu announced . "Then I am sorry, old friend." Count replied him. I quickly twisted the lightsaber in my hand and assumed my typical fighting stance as the droids moved back into attack position.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of thrusters in the distance."Look!" Padme called out to us, and I looked up to see gunships and a large Republic ship in the sky. A smile grew on my lips as I saw warriors in white armor. Somewhere among them stood Master Yoda. The droids began to fire wildly and reflexively, I deflected the first shots from the battle droids.

Padme followed Anakin and me onto the first landed gunship while the rest of the Jedi provided cover. Obi Wan climbed up just as quickly, and the warriors helped the remaining Jedi onto the other ships.

Before our gunship slowly ascended,  Maven ran toward it. From the ground he expertly jumped and let Obi Wan pull him in. "I thought you'd forgot about us and were on another ship." There was a hint of sarcasm in Obi Wan's voice that made Maven roll his eyes.

"How can I forget the four of you?" Maven replied to his best friend in a playfully offended tone, and Obi Wan let out a small laugh before they both turned back to the battle. However, this was not the end of this battle - every single one of us knew that.