//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Morning // Story: The Redemption Arc: Grievous Reborn // by Eternal Samson //------------------------------// Spike was currently enjoying a pleasant dream, involving him being very big and very strong, rescuing Rarity from an alien monster. Several actually. And they just so happened to look like the ones he had met yesterday. Spike was not a morning person, and never liked to get up before noon. Especially when he was having a good dream. The only exception he made to this was Twilight, and only because he looked up to her fondly as an older sister, or sibling period, that he never had. And even then he was pretty vocal about his displeasure of getting up. So it was not surprising that despite his small, usually docile self, he seriously considered giving whoever had just teleported very loudly into his room and was currently yelling at him to get up, a taste of morning dragon flame. “Spike, wake up! I need to find Twilight, she might be in danger!” Yelled the mysterious pony. Yep, that did it. Spike shot up out of bed, his displeasure morphing into concern and fear so fast it was as if he was never upset and trying to wake up in the first place. “What? Where? What happened!” As he fell out of bed and ran forward, he had to jump backwards to avoid meshing with the lilac coat of fur in front of him that was barley a hoof from his bed. “Starlight! What happened? Where’s Twilight?” “I don’t know, I heard the most terrifying, unnatural screech come from somewhere in the castle, and I don’t know where Twilight is!” Starlight Glimmer said with great stress and worry in her voice. Spike’s eyes widened. He had a guess where a strange scream could have come from in the castle. The alien's room. He dashed passed Starlight and opened his wings, flapping them as he sailed above the ground in the hope they could carry him faster than his still tiny legs. Starlight was calling after him, as she teleported every few hooves or so, without any noticeable effort, to keep up with him rather than running herself. Spike raced around another corner spotting the strange, creepy, dark colored, white glowing eyed, bipedal aliens. Despite the intense spike of fear he felt as they moved to intercept him, he dodged right passed them, quickly opening the door a crack and darting inside before they could grab him, his concern for Twilight being greater. Starlight on the other hand, simply teleported past them. The commandos threw open the door fully and pointed the weapons at the intruders, and fired. Twilight turned upon hearing the door slam open. She saw Spike swoop over to her, saw Starlight appear just behind her, saw the door open, the two aliens charging in, their weapons raised and aimed at the intruders, and watched as a ring of blue erupted from them. Twilight had been startled upon seeing the aliens throw open the door violently, and her fear heightened her reaction time and alertness to danger, so she was able to put up a shield covering them as the circles of blue energy hit it. She now realized that the whole time the aliens hadn’t merely been carrying around some alien weapon like a spear that a guard might carry. Nor was it some cultural object as she had naively hoped (preferring it to be the case, as she believed she could learn more from an alien artifact than a more distasteful, if yet still fascinating weapon, and convincing herself despite obvious appearances that it was so). No, instead the weapons themselves were magical. Rather than energy coming from a part of their body like a unicorn, it came from an object, one that was identical to all the other ones the aliens held. The first object that came to her mind and could channel magic were the elements. The second was the alicorn amulet. The next 10 raced through her head almost simultaneously, her scholar brain becoming very active despite the immediate danger she found herself in. Dragging her mind back to the present, she noticed these objects were not unique like all magical objects in Equestria, but uniform. She had never seen a magical object with many copies of itself before. Grievous growl brought her back to the present again, this time focused only on the danger. Grievous for his part was not happy. He had just woken up from what he assumed to be a psychic attack by the equine force witches, found the purple pony suddenly in his midst, and not 10 seconds later, the small spiked being and a lilac equine he had not seen before joined them. He spent a microsecond processing a thought that he should begin thinking of them by name, but quickly discarded, wondering where such a uncharacteristic thought had come from. These equines were nothing more than primitive force witches. That was the kind of status in which names were irrelevant to Grievous, expect when forced to use them in direct communication and “diplomacy”, the latter being a still mostly foreign concept to him. Sure he knew all the basic tenets of diplomacy and could even use it when it suited him. Being forced to use it for an extended period was a new experience still however. Grievous took the 2 lightsabers from his waist swinging from the bed into a fighting stance, lightsabers activated. “So, it seems you have decided to betray me? You thought your force magics would be a match for me?!” “I don’t know what you're talking about Mr.Grievous, I just woke up to your…” Twilight shivered. “...terrible screaming. I assumed something might have happened. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” This made Starlight and Spike’s initially worries fade about Twilight being attacked by the alien, though those worries were immediately replaced with worry of the stand off they were in. “Hahahah! Don’t make me laugh. Your lies are terrible, and you are the only force beings that know I am here. What kind of idiot do you think I am?! I did not become General of the most feared army by being manipulable by force users.” Grievous was completely unaware of the irony of his statement. It was in fact through 2 force user’s manipulation of him, namely the Sith, that found him general of the entire droid army. “Seriously, when can you see we’re not out to get you?” Twilight exclaimed exasperated. Despite the audacity of her claims, he didn’t notice any deception in her body language. “How can I be sure that you aren’t? What proof do you have?” Grievous inquired. “Hold up there, before we get to proof, I need to know why you thought we betrayed you.” Twilight said. “The psychic attack I just experienced.” He replied. “Are you saying that we gave you a nightmare?” Twilight asked. “Considering that I have not had such a manner of vision in my life, combined with what little my master tells me of the force and what I have seen it do, that is my assumption, yes, though nightmare is not a word I would use to accurately describe a force vision.” “I can talk to Princess Luna, see if she can convince you it wasn’t us, as dreams are her realm.” Grievous’s invisible eyebrow raised. “How can you be sure she did not instigate the attack?” “Because she can’t create nightmares! Her job is to get rid of them!” Twilight exclaimed, her voice rising, Grievous’s suspicion getting on Twilight’s nerves, especially considering it was directed at her mentors. “Now do you mind having your guards back off so we can talk like normal creatures!” Grievous did not want to call off the commandos, but decided he was more than capable of handling the force witches himself. He waved to the commandos and they backed off, standing at attention. He deactivated his lightsabers but kept them in his hands. “Thank you.” Twilight said, dropping the shield. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was this dream about?” “The future. War, death, and destruction. Even greater than I have ever seen.” That was as much as he was willing to say, hoping it was enough for purple pony to make some conclusion. Twilight paled. “That doesn't sound good. Where did you see it happening?” “Here.” The color of Twilight’s face drained further. “We need to tell the princesses of this. Trust me, war is the last thing they would ever want.” Grievous was not happy with this response, but he didn’t feel he had much choice, a reality that did not sit well with him at all. “Still, nothing we can do about it right now, right?” Starlight jumped in. “Yeah, you're probably right. I’ll send a letter to them. If they don’t respond right away, well know it’s not an immediate threat. Probably. Besides, were assuming its a vision, it could have just been a bad dream.” Twilight said. “I don’t have bad dreams.” Grievous said. “And what proof do we have of that, mister suspicious of friendly ponies?” Twilight retorted. “Besides, we agreed that you would go to my school today, and that’s what we’re going to do, unless the princesses decided otherwise. We can speculate about your strange dream later.” Grievous growled. “If you were not so insistent on forcing me to this school, you could be helping me and I could do something.” “Well if you weren’t some bad mannered, rude alien, whatever your culture, we wouldn’t have felt the need to send you in the first place! Do you even have friendship in your culture?!” Twilight ranted. This guy was really getting on her nerves, treating her and her friends and especially the princesses so...hostile. “Anyway, school starts soon, its good your up now anyway. Breakfast will be in the main dining room.” “Even if I knew where that is, none of us require food.” Grievous replied. “Your taking your guard friends with you?” Twilight questioned. Grievous looked at her as if she had just swallowed a horse. “Of course I am.” “If it makes you feel better fine, but I don’t want you hurting anycreature, okay?” Grievous emitted his signature growl that he gave whenever he had to listen to an inferior. “Fine.” “Are we just going to ignore that fact that he said he was a general?” Starlight asked. “He is already an ambassador for his species, and it seems as though he is stranded, which means there is no imminent invasion, and we can deal with this later, with the princesses.” Twilight rubbed her face with her hoof. “Meanwhile I need to eat, then head over to the school to open it and get it all ready. Starlight, do you mind making sure Grievous gets there okay?” Grievous interrupted. “I do not need some chaperone. I am General Grievous!” Twilight fired back fast. “She’s a guide. Do you know where the school is? Do you know if the ponies are attacking or merely saying hello? No! She can help with that!” She mumbled under her breath, “Jeesh. Who knew aliens were such a pain to talk to.” Grievous growled again in response. Usually when anyone talked that why to him they ended up dead. Twilight moved her eyes to Starlight’s. “So, you up for it Starlight?” “Sure, I guess. If you really need it Twilight.” She responded looking uncomfortable. Social interaction was still something she was learning to be good at, considering all she had learned for years was how to control pony villages, and this guy seemed pretty difficult. Not to mention alien. “Great. See you at school Grievous.” Were Twilight's last words before teleporting away. “Well, I need to eat too, but after that we can go. I’ll show you to the dining hall.” Starlight said, activating her magic which opened the door, and trotting past the commandos, Spike following less than a hoof length away, eager not to be far from Starlight and any closer to the aliens. Grievous made to follow, looking over to the deactivated droids...and spotted four Magna guards?!?! He definitely didn’t remember those being there yesterday. He stopped, and carefully sent an activation signal to all the droids, still unsure this wasn’t some trick. Yet all of them responded to the signal, eyes beginning to glow, and bodies standing up at attention. Grievous came to the conclusion that the psychic attack must have damaged his memory, just as the crash had. Commanding the b1s and b2s to stay and guard the pod, and the rest of the droids to follow, he walked quickly after the pony, who had paused when she noticed him not following. Seeing him catch up she turned and continued to the dining hall, Grievous and his entourage following. If he had been able to see the inside of his flagship making its orbit while he had been sleeping, he would have seen a glow surrounding his personal chambers, where the Magna guards would be, with none of them present. He would have seen that the wires that held the guards from the ceiling were not dangling, implying something was on it, and yet he would have seen nothing there. He would then see that four wires were dangling, implying that the guards they had held were gone. He would remember his dream, and have been very afraid for the first time in his cybernetic life.