Student and Teacher, Servant and Mistress, Citizen and Ruler, Friend and...Lover?
***
Direct sequel to Grievous by Honey Mead
"Pitiful..." It said. The dull, raw yellow stare was still present. Ash and cinders blew through the woods. There was a gap in reality where the creature had been not a moment ago, but now it stood above her lover's broken body, a many-toed talon claiming its prize. "Many things have been aimed at me, but none so poorly as your summoned sun. You are proclaimed ruler of this world. Fight."
Celestia managed to gain her bearings. Combat instincts took her once again. The creature's pod stood not far from her. If she...And then she was swinging it, bringing it to bear upon a foe with reflexes as fast as her own mind. The pod plowed into the ray of sunlight in the creature's hand, bisecting the craft into equal halves.
Celestia's eyes narrowed to match the unblinking stare of the half-dead animal in front of her. It was clear now that it was little more than a skeleton, yet the beast it had once been must have stood at least twice her regular height. A long, white and red cloak trailed behind it, and black warpaint in the shape of tears trailed up along its scalp. Celestia well and truly thought this time, and the creature was suspended in her magic. Pure heat cascaded into it, burning it to ashes and nothingness like so many enemies before it. And then the light vanished, and the creature was still there. Somehow, its cape was still there, too. The creature recognized it was caught, and stayed completely inactive in its casing.
"So we have reached an impasse. An unkillable evil and its undaunted judge. But no matter. My army will free me soon enough."
Celestia noted, to her surprise, intelligence in the creature. It was a hollow, chilling intelligence, but it was still there.
"You have tasted loss before." It said, not but a hate without bottom in its voice.
"More than you will ever know."
Surprisingly, this was what brought forth a new emotion from within it. This emotion was mirth. "I doubt that."
"A life of war?"
"A life not of my choosing. Nor is this yours, I can see. A tired ruler, yes?"
"A broken soldier."
"Thrust upon a throne she never wanted, still looking for someone to love her." The voice was taunting and spiteful.
"An empty shell spreading its hate and pain. A vessel for nought but agony." The voice was bitter and ragged.
The two stared long into each other's eyes. A conversation of heartbroken ancients passed between their focused pupils. They read each other completely, and yet the mutual hatred was still unfailingly there. At last the silent discourse was broken by a whirring noise, and a piece of metal sky arrived above Celestia, spotlights shining upon the pair in the grotto.
"General, do you--" The nasally voice was cut off by the ship exploding into stardust.
"You kill without a thought." The General seemed impressed.
"I kill to protect." The Princess seemed dispassionate. On whim, she tried to crush the monster's skeleton into dust with the strength of her magic at point blank. The metal did not so much as bend.
"I am the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. My body was forged in stars. Birthed by them. My skin is metal from an age you cannot comprehend. My heart burns with a Darkness to put your fire to shame."
"Am I at least to hear the name of the leader of the army of iron that has spread across my kingdom?"
"Grievous. In soul as in consequence, all that I am is Grief. And you?"
"Celestia, the everburning sun."
"Well met, Queen Celestia." The creature made a horrible sound, then, as if it were scraping its chest against corrugated steel. Celestia imagined it was a laugh. "You would do well on my planet. Your heart is dark enough."
"Your...planet?" Celestia's mind wandered. "I would like you to know, General Grievous, that I am not a queen. Nor am I despot, tyrant, major, admiral or general. I am a Princess. My rule is one of four."
Another laugh like a freight train with lung cancer came from within the confines of the force field. "I suppose that should be three, now." Fire. Pure, unending fire. Celestia poured it in, hoping and praying that somehow, someway she could make this creature suffer. Instead, the piercing yellow eyes danced with glee from within the flames, and the creature made to speak once more.
"That is my pain. That is my loss and anger. You claim you are an equal rule. You are a mate to me, a friend of hate and despair. I see it in your eyes. Your...friend, was it? Apprentice, perhaps? She was an iota of what you stand to lose, and already you jump to torture. How, then, do you think I was made? Could that be you killing loved ones without remorse, as I do. I am nothing. And you may take nothing from me. Whereas I, I spread my nothingness where I walk. I am not a "broken" soldier. Broken implies remains. Implies there is a still something behind my shell, something to fix. Hurt me as you may, but know that, like you were in that moment, I do not feel pain. I only share it. I have none left for myself. How will you drive despair to tears?"
"I won't. " Celestia's thinking mind returned. "I will deal with it as I have always done. I will bury it."
And with that, the sun goddess summoned crystal. Solid diamond wrapped around the creature, trapping the General in a cocoon of frozen, transparent rock. An animal scream met her ears, and then taunts and threats. Promises her world would die in a sea of fire. Threats her children would starve working in the hell the metal monster was raised in. Like a dying gasp, a final set of words, more troubling than any of the others, managed to squeeze though the casing just as she finished her work. "You would make Lord Sidious proud....." At last, she finished her work, and the diamond tomb disappeared in a flash of light, headed for her world's core.
At last, her task complete, Celestia turned with dread towards the body behind her. A tear ran down her cheek, and then another, and she approached the broken form with a soft, solemn step. A voice behind her rang out. A voice of a ghost.
"Tia? What are you doing here? And, uh, why am I blue?"
A broken mix of a laugh and a sob rose to Celestia's throat, and she wheeled around to find a glowing, transparent, and very confused Twilight Sparkle behind her. "Was that...thing...what was sending all those metal creatures at us?"
Celestia tried to embrace the slain scholar, but her hoof passed through the air. She did not care. There was something eternal about this love of hers. "That thing was hatred, Twilight. And a hatred we will rise above."
Firstly, Knight of Cerebus will have you know that this is the original, EU version of Grievous that was a total badass and not the chump version in the movies.
Secondly, I was supposed to release this with the last chapter, but sometimes, I'm just stupid.
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Yes. Yes you are.
Wow, as if Rebellion didn't already leave me broken enough...
Thank's a lot man, really needed this today
Huh. Badass Grievous is pretty OP, then. Ignoring physics is not a mean feat. His core is still organic (I assume? Pretty sure he's supposed to have an organic core like some organs, heart and brain), and metal transfers heat pretty well so Celestia's sunfire should have done some damage, or more realistically speaking, turned whatever meat he's got left into charcoal.
THAT SAID... This was good. Celestia encasing him in diamond and blowing him fuck knows how deep under the crust isn't something he'll ever get out of without help. And unless he's immortal, he'll die down there eventually. A fate well deserved.
4813268 Greivous' internal body is pressurized with a Sith alchemy technique that allows him to survive intense pressure, heat and without oxygen for limited periods of time. We've seen him tank plasma rocket launchers, exploding starships, fuel barrels and ion cannons to the face and guts, all of them moving around his guts and head. Obi Wan broke the seal when he used the force to tear his chest open.
He was designed to kill Jedi, after all, so it makes sense he would be able to shrug off the efforts of their ground troops to kill him. He's not OP in-universe because you can still ragdoll him around with The Force (which is how Tia beat him, after all) unless he's careful and lightsabres cut through anything, but that said, he was designed to be the Prequel equivalent of Darth Vader, meaning he had to be a credible threat to armies of jedi, so he would seem OP in that regard.
As for his fate, it's a symbolic gesture. Celestia cannot kill grief. Nobody can. They can supress it, or accept it, but they cannot kill it. When somebody pulls him, furious and hateful, from the molten core of the planet, he'll still be alive. But that said, if you knew anything about Grievous of the EU, you'd know that his name refers to his grief and not that of his enemies, and that he has suffered more than enough by now.
4813487
Not to be an ass, but I'd like to point out that these two statements contradict each other. Unless the Confederation or Sidious can teleport him out before that "limited period of time" is up, he is effectively dead. And I don't recall Sidious or the Confederation having access to teleportation tech, so yeah...
Are you saying that his grief should save him from suffering the consequences of his actions? That's not how it works.
4814573 It's the oxygen he needs that makes it limited, and I never make it clear what the diamond prison's chambers are like. This is more of a Disney Villain Death, at least in my head. Besides, who says what's inside Equestria's core? Canon? I don't think so.
Also, if a person has suffered unimaginable pain across the span of their existence, do they really deserve a horrible, slow and painful death for losing their mind and becoming a monster that only knows pain in response to an environment filled with nothing but hatred, bigotry and pain? That seems like a remarkably unmerciful view of things to me.
4814865 Hmmm... Well, nutrients as well. If he's got any biology left, he'll still need that.
Alright, put that way, you do have a point. I'll concede I may have been too harsh. But Celestia's response can't be called unjustified, can it? He's hardly innocent, no matter how much he has suffered.
4815400 Oh hell no. Tia was plenty justified. It's just that Grievous is justified in his behaviour, too. The reason why I asked for Grievous in prompt format was to throw the two heartbroken, ancient creatures up against each other as foils. Celestia's reactions to people hurting her loved ones tends to be to lock the perpetrators in a horrible And I Must Scream state for 1000+ years. She's not that far from what Grievous is, and she still has loved ones left. More on that parallel in Chapters 3 and 4 of The Year Of Bleeding Sun. As for how Grievous might survive, you may yet talk me into bringing him back, so if there's any interest in another prompt about him, I'd do it then.
4815693
I feel that this comparison is pretty extreme. So, okay, she's got some pretty damn unpleasant punishments lurking in that head of hers, but she's generally a loving, fair ruler that is practically worshipped by some of her subjects, whereas Grievous is a hellish sith-alchemy fueled cyborg on a galactic-wide murder spree whose personal body count probably numbers in the high thousands, and he's likely responsible for hundreds of millions if not billions of deaths. Hell, given how large the Star Wars universe is, that could just as well be trillions of people he's responsible for killing.
Saying that Celestia is close to what Grievous is doesn't sound quite right to me. They're not really similar at all.
...Though if she were ever to be driven as far into darkness as Grievous, she'd probably be more than a little horrifying to behold. Makes me wonder how epic a fight between her and Sidious would be, if she ever got that badly corrupted.
4818125 No, but see, the point there is that Grievous is killing off The Republic and the Jedi, both of whom were directly responsible for his and other races' untold suffering through their corruption, manipulation and bigotry, as opposed to some random people who had nothing to do with his suffering. It's not a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum he's on, but rather a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge with a desire for protecting the only thing he has left. His grief and hatred are what make him so desensitized, but in the end he is doing what he is doing to protect what is left of his people (i.e., his subjects) and doing so by shutting off most of his emotions besides the one (i.e., hatred) that he has found most effective. Celestia, by contrast, reacts exactly the same way, but still knows what the difference between a guilty and innocent party is and takes no pleasure out of stopping these people. But that said, the reason I say she's not that far off is because she still has loved ones and family members to bring her back from the edge after all this time. Grievous is completely and utterly alone. I don't think this reflects negatively on Celestia, by the by. That she has been able to stay sane, compassionate towards those who do not hurt her and omnibenevolent after a thousand years of loss and suffering is a sign of amazing strength. Rather, I see it as a sign of her humanity that these deaths have still weighed on her and she cannot help but be as extreme as she is in preventing more.
As for heartbroken!evil!Celestia, more on that in later prompts.
4818472 Hmmm... I don't fully agree, but I don't disagree enough to argue the point.