//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: The Beginning 
// Story: The Redemption Arc: Grievous Reborn 
// by Eternal Samson 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1



Grievous awoke with a groan. Well, what he viewed as a groan. To anyone else it was that same growl he often gave in all manner of situations. Wait, awoke? Grievous didn’t wake. That required sleeping. Grievous's sole focus was on the real world, leading armies and carrying out his crusade against the Jedi and the Republic. He didn’t have time for sleep. Besides, sleep was for replenishing the body, and he had none. Of course, he did still need to recharge himself and his brain often “slept” while he did so. But it wasn’t sleep. Not really. At least that’s what he thought. If he were to get into technicalities with some scientist they would say it is still sleep. That he was deluding himself in order to support his unhealthy obsession with his crusades. But Grievous could care less what others might have to say about it. He defined himself. Even if he bought the technicality that he did sleep, they way he slept would not be considered “normal” by scientist standards. His sleep patterns were different, as it wasn’t true, normal sleep, but more of a synthesized, controlled sleep. His dreams, if any, were insignificant and often forgotten as soon as he awoke, the real world being the only thing worth devoting thought to. He wasn’t some Jedi or Sith, seeking answers from within, mediating, or seeing the future. He was practical and focused solely on the things around him. He was always in the moment, never distracted, unlike the Jedi. It was actually an advantage that always kept him ahead of them, and allowed him to survive or escape their clutches time after time. So it was a new experience when he “awoke” and was suddenly flooded by images, clear and vivid and overlapping, accompanied by voices from whatever he had dreamt. It was a mess, he could barely understand it, or hold unto it. Whatever the specifics were of this dream had already faded away, but the emotions, the power of it, remained. Again, a new experience for Grievous. But there was even more. The things he felt was not merely his emotional response to whatever he had dreamt, something he had never had before, but also a separate, palpable force. The dark side. He felt it. This the most disturbing of all. Grievous did not feel the force. Ever. He was not born force sensitive, and even if he was, 99% of his organic body was gone. Any midichlorians he had in them were gone. Of course he did have some. Midichlorians were necessary for life. If he had none, he would be dead. His brain and other assorted organics he had left probably had a few hundred at most. Which for an average sentient organism was so low, only other barley organic things like him had so few. For the most part. Not that Grievous cared. He never knew the touch of the force, and while it may be useful, he obviously had proven he didn’t need it, if his lightsaber collection and long list of successful evasion of the Jedi was any indicator. But for the first time in his life, he felt the touch of the force. Or it’s lingering touch. Without a body he couldn’t feel the force flowing through him like the Jed or Sith. But his mind was organic. And it did have midichlorians. Theoretically a strong enough manifestation of the force, or concentration of the force itself, could touch his mind and leave a mark, a mark he could, and was, feeling. And it hurt. Grievous was confused and overwhelmed. On instinct he rose, as if to get away. And promptly hit his head on the roof of the escape pod. Hard. They weren’t quite built accommodate his height without him needing to stoop down. Hitting his head, while only discomforting thanks to the hard duranium alloy that made up his head, jarred him enough to clear the images, voices, and feelings racing through his mind. It unfortunately brought up another source of confusion, as he had no memory of getting in the pod. With his head cleared his memory flooded back as well. The memory of him on his flagship, with no memory of how he got there either, now coupled with his lack of memory concerning his current presence in the escape pod. Or memory of anything after exiting hyperspace and then “awakening” in the pod. This confusion and overwhelmingness was almost as bad as just before he had cleared his head. Grievous bellowed in frustration. Still not quite clear thinking and ignoring the button that would open the door hatch to the pod, he turned to the front of the pod, stooping down as he made his way to the transparisteel window. In anger he punched it again and again until it shattered. He climbed out and stood on the ground. His mind was now sufficiently clear enough to realize the fact he unnecessary climbed out the window. Still, he rather punch through the window and relieve his frustration then simply open the door. As his frustration melted away his analytical mind kicked in. He may not remember leaving his ship in the pod, but it was still probably what had happened. Which meant his ship was still probably in orbit. He reached for his com link, but discovered it was not there. Not surprising, he thought, who knows what had happened to him after coming out of hyperspace. This line of thinking made it quite surprising however when he found all four lightsabers on his waist. He sighed, which again to others would sound like his normal growl, and made his way back through the window of the pod in order to find something suitable to contact his ship. As he came back in he noticed the other occupants of the pod he had failed to notice before due to his overwhelmed state, despite them being right in front of him. Four B1 battle droids, 4 commando droids, and two B2 super battle droids. Despite the fact that the pod appeared to have crashed, the droids were all unscathed and still securely held in place. He turned to the console which was also surprisingly intact, and activated the transmitter. 

“What’s the situation?” came his raspy voice. There was no response. “Hello? Are any of you dim witted droids listening to me?” All that came back was static. Grievous knew he had seen other droids on the bridge then the ones that were in his pod, yet there was still no reply. Had the ship crashed? Did it get attacked? Either one would explain him in an escape pod, but not his memory loss. If it was one of the two it then begged the question of why did it crash, or who had attacked it. With his attempt at contact failed he then moved to his next task. He hit some buttons on the side and suddenly the droids powered up, restraints falling away. He strode to the door and opened it. “Follow me.” he commanded and continued out the pod. Outside, Grievous moved to another task, taking stock of his surroundings. He appeared to be in some forest. He could see some beasts that had been drawn by his crash, but upon seeing him, they wisely kept away and left to find actual prey. The droids had filed out of the pod and he turned to the nearest one. “Locate any nearby signs of life and any nearby structures.” He waited to see if the droid would say that they didn’t have the equipment, but it didn’t, and he assumed that by another miracle they did. The droid turned back to the pod and went inside, retrieving a dish like object, which began to spin as the droid turned it on. After a moment it responded. 

“Multiple lifeforms detected. Several dozen heading away from our position, and 9 heading towards us. One is less than a click away, moving fast. 4 structures detected within a few clicks of us, all but one are large. About 10 clicks away is a concentration of structures, most likely a primitive settlement.”

“What is the speed of the closet incoming lifeform?” Grievous asked.

“About the speed of a speeder sir.” the droid responded.

Grievous's analytical mind took this information. Despite the primitive settlement detected, there appeared to by higher technology, if the speed of the incoming lifeform was any judge. Possibly colonists or some group living with a backwater people, like bounty hunters or some exiled people. Most likely not prone to hostility unless provoked. “Send the commandos into the woods as a precaution, the rest of you stay here. We will meet this life form when it arrives.”

“Roger, roger” the droid responded, and they moved to form a loose guard behind and to the sides of Grievous. About a minute later a rainbow blur came into view and landed right in front of them. If Grievous had eyebrows they would be raised a mile high. Before him was a small cyan colored horse with a rainbow mane and wings. This was the thing that flew at the speed of a speeder? Grievous mind reeled to reassess the situation. So maybe there was no higher technology, but there was definitely some force mutated primitive. He could think of no explanation to explain its speed, and that made him wary, despite its appearance as nothing more than some unique native animals. That and the presence of structures further confused him. As he thought this within the space of 2 seconds, the horse-thing opened its mouth. Grievous was now about to get that confusion wrought headache again. Apparently it was sentient and it seemed to be speaking to him. He could make out several words in basic, but it's dialect was extremely convoluted and mixed with some accent that made it very difficult to understand. It didn’t appear hostile, and displayed a look of avid curiosity, as well as some fear, despite the creature's attempt to hide it. Obviously wary of Grievous’s fearsome stature, but trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. For what he could make out it seemed to have greeted him, and he picked out the word “alien” as well. An intelligent assumption. “Do we have any ability to translate this creature’s language?” He asked. The equine creature looked at him with a look of confusion after hearing him speak.


“Uhhh, we were only programmed for battle sir.” a droid responded. 

For his part he had nothing in the extra computer processors wired to his brain that knew or could translate a dialect of basic probably only spoken natively. He then thought of an idea to gain information about his current situation. “Bring the scanner here.” he commanded. The droid came over and he took it. He then bent down to the equines height and turned the screen to it. He pointed at the dot in the center of the screen, then to the equine. 

“Is that a map of some kind? It that supposed to be me?” she asked. How could it detect her? Maybe it worked like the cutie mark map. But that was with magic from the tree of harmony. How powerful was this beast thing? So far whatever it was, it seemed intelligent and not hostile. Her well hidden fear lessened, and her confidence grew. Maybe she could make friends with this thing! It certainly was cool enough, and if she could make friends with it fast it would give an example of how qualified she was at being a friendship teacher. Maybe enough to convince the students to pick her teacher of the year! She was even more glad she beat everypony here.

Grievous still not understanding then pointed to the 8 dots approaching and waited expectantly. 

“Oh, you want to know who they are. Those are my friends.” she said.

Grievous watched its expression as he showed her the dot and pointed at her. Confusion. And hope? Still he continued his attempt at communication and pointed at the 8 dots and waited, hoping it read body language well. A look of understanding passed and it spoke. Although Grevious couldn’t make out its speech, it seemed perfectly at ease. In fact it seemed to relax. It appeared familiar with the 8 dots, probably more creatures like it, and not the beats he had spied earlier, which were probably the lifeforms moving away or roaming around. His plan to gain information had succeeded and it looked like good news. Even in just this minor success, he felt things were looking better for him. He stood up and turned the tracker to face him. Based on their current location and speed they would be here in…..

“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted as the rest of the Main 6, plus the princesses, and Spike who had snuck along, burst into the clearing. The direction they had been running from obscured the clearing, and as soon as they came into the clearing, they skidded to a halt, suddenly a bit fearful. Expect Fluttershy and the princesses. Celestia and Luna were simply concerned at seeing the monster hulking in front of Rainbow and the strange scary looking tan and gray things around them. Fluttershy on the other hand was absolutely terrified. But she had worked hard over the years to overcome her fears, and she stayed firmly beside her friends, albeit while slightly shaking, staring right at the monster, fear still clearly present in her eyes. Grievous saw all this and smiled, albeit internally as he had no mouth. His body was built to be feared, as was he as a person, ruthless and brutal. To see the fear he instilled in their eyes and body, to see his purpose fulfilled, as an instrument of fear, felt just as good as a Sith who physically feed off fear. 

Applejack was next to speak “Rainbow, are you all right?”

“Pfft, of course I’m all right. My new friend here was just asking about you.” she replied.

“New friend. Really?” Applejack pressured.

“It talks?” Fluttershy questioned.

“Uhh ya, I think so.” Rainbow said.

Seeing her opportunity Celestia stepped up to Twilight. “I know you’re always taking care of these things without us, but do you think I could possibly address this one?” she gave a pleading look. 

“Of course, if you want.” she replied, almost surprised that Celestia asked her at all.

Grievous waited patiently while they talked, analyzing each one of them. The rainbow one seemed bold, almost arrogant. The yellow one was the most scared. The purple one awkward, the orange one wary, and seemingly direct, going off body language alone. The pink one began bouncing up and down and doing a lot of talking, making it glad he couldn’t understand most of what it said. The scaley one looked almost as scared as the yellow one. The white one looked uncomfortable in his presence, though not outright fear like the scaled or yellow one. The two with flowing manes were the ones he was most interested in. Their manes floated in an invisible wind just like with that witch Mother Talzin’s clothes . They also did not seem at all afraid of him. Judging by their stature and height over the others, their manes, and lack of fear, he concluded that they both held some considerably power. Possibly even the leaders of this world, or more likely the settlement, though having leadership come all this way just for him without knowing what to expect didn’t quite fit a leaders M.O. More like some Jedi. Regardless, he was already not fond of any of them. Grievous disliked primitives, wealkings, cowards, and mystical force witches or beings. And he especially hated Jedi. All of these equines possessed traits of at least one if not more of these groups. Finally it seemed their conversing was at an end as the largest of them stepped up and spoke. Grievous conveyed the obvious problem with this when he spoke. The large equine frowned. Suddenly her horn began to glow. Surprised he grabbed his lightsabers. But before he could activate them the glow faded. 

“There, is that better?” the large equine said.

“What sorcery have you done to me!!” Grievous roared. Plasma leapt from his lightsabers and he went to strike. Celestia recoiled and barley managed a shield in times as the blades came crashing down hitting the shield’s surface. Grievous was fairly certain based on the fact that he could understand them now and their apparent docility that whatever it had done was probably harmless, but after fighting Jedi and witches with their force powers, like this thing just displayed, along with his unsated bloodlust, allowed himself to be overcome with emotion, blocking out reason. Upon hitting the shield however, he growled and forced his emotions back down. Grievous stood there with his lightsabers for a moment gathering himself before he finally spoke. “It seems we are at an impasse.” he stated. He had barely said this before the blue mane flowing equine spoke at a volume that would have hurt his audio receptors if he hadn’t been able to turn them down. “YOU DARE ATTACK THE CO-RULER OF EQUESTRIA, MY SISTER!!!! YOU SHALL PAY DEARLY!!” She would have charged up her horn right there and then, if the shield  hadn’t been 2-way.

“Wait!” cried Twilight. “ It probably didn’t know any better. I have never seen anything like it, it probably thought you were attacking it. Shouldn’t we at least try to work this out first? After all lesson 237 in the friendship manual states, ‘when meeting strangers don’t jump to conclusions, try to learn more about them and always be nice, if you want to make them your friend.”

“I’m not so sure if that’s a good idea, just look at those light sword things.” replied Applejack.

“I’m with Twilight.” said Rainbow Dash.

“I-t-t-t-s probably scared.” stuttered Fluttershy, barely managing to ignore her thought-to-be conquered instinct to cower.

Grievous, now able to understand them, interrupted their conversation. “Friendship? Scared? Hahahhahhahha!” he bellowed.

“Can you at least put those things away and maybe tell us your name?” asked Rarity.

“I don’t trust magic force-wielding witches.” he replied.

“Witches?” cried Rarity. “How insulting! We aren’t some creepy witches!”

“Ya, we’re ponies silly.” Pinkie said.

“We will not hurt you if you do not hurt us.” Celestia said.

Reason was finally starting to control Grievous by now. Without contact from his ship, alienating locals probably wasn’t the smartest. Especially force wielding ones. He already picked up on the docile body language before, and even now it was merely defensive. The also seemed very genuine in their words, feelings, and actions. Typical of isolated primitives without outside influence to teach them the cruelties and selfishness of the galaxy. Another nail in the coffin of possible higher technically being present. Still, if they could use the force to go as fast of a speeder, affect minds, and make force fields, there was hope. Grievous made his decision. He signaled to his troops, and they dropped their weapons, which the ponies hadn’t even realized were about to fire at them. They barely had even taken note of the metal things aimed in their direction, the droids being pretty still after aiming, the deadly technology being unfamiliar, and there main focus being on the plasma green and blue blades. At Grievous’s signal the commandos also came out, as they had snuck around behind the ponies and had taken aim at them at the same time as the other droids. They moved to stand with the other droids, blasters now also lowered. The ponies saw the droids suddenly come out of nowhere behind them, startling all 9 of them.  Grievous deactivated then clipped his lightsabers back on his waist.

“Any more of your friends hiding?” Luna asked suspiciously. 

“No” Grievous replied.

“So, what’s your name?” asked Rainbow Dash as Celestia dropped the shield.

“Grievous” he said.

“That’s a strange name” said Twilight.

“I’m Pinkie Pie! And this is a Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Celestia, Luna, and Spike!” She said as she resumed her bouncing. The last of the ones she had mentioned had chosen not to speak this whole encounter out of fear.

He ignored her and turned to Luna and Celestia. “I assume you are the leaders?” He asked.

“We are the current co-rulers of Equestria, and this is Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends, The Elements of Harmony.” Celestia said, trying to convey the importance of not ignoring them to Grievous. 

“Do you have any technology capable of reaching space, or the ability to create enough propulsion to do so?” Grievous asked, getting straight to the point.

“Ha! You are an alien! I knew it!” yelled Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie was about to launch into another talking spree, when her pinkie sense acted up again. On the way here she had been getting shivers that made her fur stand on end, and now she was feeling it again, stronger. Why she hadn’t gotten it as until now was strange. Her pinkie sense never had a delayed reaction before. It was unlike anything she had felt, though it was similar to a feeling she got when they went against their more powerful opponents. Even those however hadn’t caused her fur to stand up, merely an uncomfortable tingling sensation. Something discomforting surrounded Grievous, yet it didn’t seem to be part of him, merely surrounding him.

Celestia frowned. “No we do not. But if seeking your home is what you desire, we can do all we can to help. Provided you behave well. In the meantime you can learn of our culture and friendship, our strongest magic. I assume Twilight would not be opposed to offering a room at her castle?”

“I mean we have the space, so sure, I guess.” As curious as she was about this visitor, and would love having him around to see what he was like, she also wasn’t super hyped about his ...fericesomness. 

Celestia continued. “In fact you and your friends could attend Twilight's friendship school and learn of our culture while your here. We hope to spread the magic of friendship to every creature, and would love to show our first otherworldly visitor it.” She was convinced that this thing, wherever he came from and whatever he was, could definitely use it. She could see he was about to strongly refuse so she added,”it would...encourage us to work even faster to figure out a way to get you home.”

Grievous growled. Were they trying to manipulate him? Use political maneuvering against him? Usually he would simply strike down anyone that tried to force their will on him, leader or not. But as he just found out that wouldn’t work. Besides, he was stranded. “Fine. Do you think you could move my pod to this castle?” He inquired.

Celestia smiled. “Of course.”

Grievous growled again. “Let’s get going then.”