Friendship is Grievous

by Snake Staff


A Grievous Foe

In Princess Luna’s chambers, in the space of a single heartbeat, three crucial acts occurred.

The first act was committed by General Grievous. Through years of long practice and battlefield experience, his subconscious mind had assimilated a pattern so thoroughly it had become completely instinctual for him. His arms split in two, the three not already holding a lightsaber flying to his waist to grab one for themselves. Three more blades, one green and two blue, joined the two already ignited.

The second act was Obi Wan Kenobi’s. The Jedi Master was very familiar with Grievous’ technique from their multiple engagements, and eager to protect his men from what he could easily sense was coming. He boldly took several steps towards the towering cyborg and assumed the defensive opening stance of Form III, Soresu. The light side of the Force flowed through him as he prepared to meet his nemesis in battle once more.

The third act was that of the clone troopers. They were genetically-engineered from their tubes to be superior soldiers, and their training was among the best in the galaxy. They saw what was happening almost as quickly as Master Kenobi, and were already prepared to respond. Their guns had been trained on Grievous and his droids from the moment the enshrouding darkness had vanished, and at that very moment they collectively pulled the trigger.

And then everything went to hell.

Several hundred pounds of reinforced durasteel and burning rage barreled down on Obi Wan Kenobi faster than any un-augmented organic could hope to match, all four blades spinning wildly. Simultaneously, both clone troopers and commando droids opened fire. Blaster bolts red and blue soared across the confined space in their dozens, exploding in showers of sparks or burning straight through depending on where they impacted. Both of the black-armored droids crumpled in the first seconds, even their sturdy armor unable to withstand the withering barrage of blaster fire with no cover. It was a testament to their superior reflexes and advanced targeting programs that a trio of clones went with them into the grave. The MagnaGuard alone of the machines endured the initial hits, its duranium armor and multiple redundant systems allowing it to survive as its legs propelled it forwards, after its master.

None of this mattered to General Grievous. Indeed, he could hardly have been said to have noticed when blaster bolts hit his armor and exploded ineffectually into showers of sparks, or even when one of his whirling blades nicked a particularly unfortunate clone, sheering off a considerable portion of his helmet and face. Nothing mattered right then, save for the fact that a Jedi was here. And not just any Jedi, but the one the Kaleesh hated more than any other of his wretched Order. The one who had thwarted him time and time again. The one who he could never seem to truly best, no matter how hard he strived.

Kenobi.

Grievous’ charge ended in a mighty double overhand power blow, two sabers descending from on high to carve into the human’s chest. Kenobi caught both blades on his single blue one, the Force granting his muscles the strength to withstand the superhumanly-powerful impact of the hit and even throw the cyborg’s arms back. Nimbly, the Jedi ducked a chop from the third arm at his neck and sidestepped a simultaneous thrust of the fourth lightsaber blade.

“Surrender, Grievous,” Obi Wan managed even as he took a step back and batted aside another lightsaber swing. “And perhaps the Senate will show you mercy.”

“Jedi fool!” snarled Grievous, advancing with a double stab at Kenobi’s chest. “It is you who shall get no mercy!”

“Have it your own way,” said Kenobi through gritted teeth, his lightsaber coming up from below to force both of Grievous’ stabs to go high. He made his own thrust at the cyborg’s face, but Grievous caught the attack in between two of his lightsabers.

Barely pausing his offensive for a nanosecond, General Grievous redoubled his attack on the Jedi Master. He cut, slashed, and stabbed with all his considerable fury. Into the attack he poured every last frustration, indignity, and outrage he had endured over the past weeks. Each blow carried his repressed anger at the aliens for their primitive world and their naïve philosophies, his indignant fury at his own helplessness, and his utter apocalyptic rage at the one pony he had had respect for betraying him. The blows fell without pause or reprieve, faster even than the unaided eye could properly follow. It was almost enough.

Almost.

It is said that a Jedi who truly masters Form III can create a defense that cannot be broken. And if there ever was a man who had mastered the art of Soresu, it was Obi Wan Kenobi. Wherever the cyborg’s blades fell, his own, guided by the Force, was there to meet them. Each attack the Jedi Master caught, batted aside, or simply avoided with easy steps backwards or to the side. Utterly in tune with the harmony of the light side, Grievous’ assault could not break him.

It is impossible to say who might have prevailed in that stalemate had things gone on in that manner. As it was, the MagnaGuard, having dispatched the clone who had sought to keep it back with a thrust of its lethal electrostaff, entered the duel quite suddenly. The droid came around its master’s flank, jabbing hard at Obi Wan’s side. The human took a quick step back, allowing the machine’s own momentum to carry it forward a few more steps. Deftly, Kenobi stepped right back in, the MagnaGuard now between himself and Grievous.

As Grievous growled his frustration and made to step around his droid, he felt a sudden and thoroughly unexpected weight added to his back. A particularly brave – or suicidally stupid – clone trooper had flung himself directly onto the cyborg upon realizing blaster bolts did no good. His arms wrapped around Grievous’ neck, his legs around the general’s waist. The sudden addition caused Grievous to stumble half a pace backwards.

Before more clones could join in an attempt to dogpile the cyborg, two of Grievous’ extremely flexible arms deactivated their sabers and bent over backwards to seize the trooper on his neck. His durasteel fingers enclosed the armored man’s neck and yanked in two different directions. With a sickeningly wet pop, the clone’s head was torn straight from his body. His headless corpse, spouting blood, toppled to the floor behind the cyborg. Grievous held the clone’s helmeted head in one hand, a piece of spinal cord grotesquely dangling from it while blood dripped out.

But the ill-fated clone trooper had given the Jedi Master the time he needed. With only the damaged MagnaGuard for an opponent, he had parried three of the droid’s blows in quick succession. A point blank Force push had unbalanced the machine, and even as the cyborg held up the torn body part, Obi Wan slashed for the staggered MagnaGuard’s midriff. His lightsaber did what blaster bolts had not, cleaving the machine in two. A second Force push sent the halves flying across the room. They smashed into a nightstand, the droid’s red photoreceptors dying out at last. Kenobi pointed his lightsaber’s tip at Grievous in a gesture that was a simultaneous ready position and signal of challenge.

It was at that moment the self-preservation instincts that had seen General Grievous survive more defeats than he cared to remember began to kick in. While his hatred had not diminished, the general’s brain could not help but note that his force had. He was alone by then, while the hated Jedi still had a number of clone troopers to back him up, despite the kills that had been inflicted. And reinforcements could already be on the way.

Grievous growled as his mind processed the odds. He tossed the clone’s head away and reignited his two lightsabers.

“This ends now!” he thought, starting forwards again.

A few blaster bolts impacted on his armor on the way to Obi Wan, but Grievous ignored them. Once more, he swung his lightsabers in a rapid and unpredictable assault on the Jedi’s defenses, and once more Kenobi’s sturdy Soresu wall proved up to the task. It was when all five blades locked together between the two that Grievous spotted a small opportunity. He kicked out with one powerful foot, managing to catch the Jedi Master in the chest. So strong was the blow that Kenobi went flying backwards, impacting heavily against a furnished oak cabinet. He landed on his feet, but doubled over clutching his chest.

Grievous pounced with all four blades extended, hoping to catch Kenobi before he could recover. Though he was fast as he had ever been, it was not fast enough. Obi Wan thrust both of his hands before himself in one move, and all of a sudden it was General Grievous flying backwards. The powerful Force push propelled the cyborg directly into the double wooden doors forming the entrance. He crashed through them easily, continuing back to smash into the solid marble wall opposite Luna’s chambers.

The cyborg landed heavily on both taloned feet, the force of his impact having been enough to leave substantial cracks in the stone behind him. Ignoring the sick feeling in what was left of his gut, Grievous’ eyes took stock of the situation. Kenobi had recovered his breath and was advancing quickly, the clones on his heels taking potshots as they followed. The blue blaster bolts mostly scarred the wall and the beautiful paintings hanging from it, but one of them hit Grievous’ face plate. The sparks raining down seemed uncomfortably close to his eyes.

Though General Grievous burned to stay, to finish the fight with Obi Wan Kenobi once and for all, he was still an able tactician. Much of his ability to survive where others had perished was due to his keenly-honed sense of just when things had become unacceptably bad. Right then, he decided on the spot, was one such situation. He was alone in a barely-explored building with Kenobi and an unknown number of addition hostiles, with more almost certainly well on the way. His priority had to be getting out of here alive.

So Grievous turned and ran.

“After him!” he heard Kenobi shout from behind him. “Do not let Grievous escape!”

The sound of blasterfire rang out through the corridor as the clone troopers emerged after their Jedi General and joined the pursuit. Blue bolts flew over and around the retreating cyborg, occasionally scoring glancing hits on his armor but failing to do any more than cosmetic damage to him. It was the sound of Obi Wan’s rapid footsteps that worried Grievous far more. But he was not so worried that he did not have time for spite.

“Open fire on the pathetic equines!” Grievous barked into the communicator built into one of his wrists as he rounded a corner. “Target their leaders!”

He listened for a moment as he ran. No response. That meant his communications were being jammed – or else the droids he had left behind in Ponyville had already been destroyed.

No matter, he decided. He would deal with that issue later. Right then what was most important was escaping Kenobi’s ambush, and then the city itself. Then he could worry about avenging himself on the treacherous alien filth.

As he rounded another corner, Grievous spied near the opposite end of the hallway a large stained glass window. It was ornate and beautifully crafted, but the cyborg cared nothing for the art of it an only saw it for the escape route it represented. He dashed towards the window at full speed. As his Jedi and clone pursuers were just rounding the corner after him, Grievous smashed through the stained glass at full speed.

His armor protecting him from the razor-sharp shards of glass, the cyborg general plummeted several stories to the ground below, but he landed nimbly on his feet. His durasteel frame easily withstood forces that would have shattered human bones several times over. The force of his landing had been enough to crack the tiles beneath his feet. Without pause, Grievous broke out once more into a run.

And then his world dissolved into fire and wild, incoherent noises.

General Grievous was hurled bodily by the sheer force of the explosion into the side of one of the castle towers, cracking the fine marble exterior. His form blackened and smoking slightly, the disoriented cyborg crumpled to the ground. His mind was as keen as ever, and moved to take stock of the situation. The first thing he noticed was that both of his right arms had been blown off almost entirely, leaving nothing but two small nubs of durasteel. He felt no pain, only outrage and humiliation to have been injured so. The next thing Grievous spotted was that he had lost his grip on the lightsabers that had been in his left hands at some point. The loss of such trophies further galled him.

Quickly, his yellow eyes darted about, seeking the source of the attack. He did not have to search for long. In the sky were a trio of Republic LAAT gunships, their side doors wide open to expose the clone troopers within. One of the troopers was hefting a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher with a slight trail of smoke trickling out.

Grievous growled in impotent fury, but pushed himself to his feet and made to continue his flight regardless of his injuries. But then he felt a pair of blunt impacts against his back, and then something pulling him backwards. Two clones in the gunships had fired magnetically-locked cable guns into his back and were attempting to hoist him backwards.

Grievous snarled furiously. This was the last straw!

The cyborg’s two remaining arms seized both cables and yanked with all his superhuman might. Both clones, unprepared for the sheer strength of his deceptively thin arms, tumbled from their ships with a scream. Before they could even begin to scramble to their feet, Grievous was on them. The first’s head he crushed beneath one of his feet, earning him a messy spray of blood and brain fluid.

The second clone was less lucky. Grievous grabbed him by his armored midriff, hoisting the flailing clone above his own head. Furiously, he plunged his clawed fingers through the clone’s armor and into his flesh. The trooper screamed his agony as the cyborg literally tore him in half before the horrified gaze of his brothers.

“You will never defeat Grievous!” the now blood-drenched cyborg howled his defiance up at the gunships, tossing the mangled corpse of the clone away. “Never!

“I beg to differ, general.”

Grievous’ eyes darted to the base of the tower where he had jumped from, where Obi Wan Kenobi now stood. Snarling incoherently, Grievous’ two left arms darted for the last lightsaber still attached to his waist. But he was too slow.

Obi Wan Kenobi’s hand was outstretched, and the final cylindrical device flew from Grievous’ waist before he could grab it. The Jedi caught the lightsaber of his fallen colleague in his left hand, igniting the green blade with a *snap-hiss*.

Kenobi’s face was hard as he pointed both of his blades at the damaged cyborg. “Surrender, Grievous.”

Behind him, the cyborg heard the sound of gunships touching down and armored boots hitting the ground. He could sense that he was surrounded. But he was Grievous, warrior of Kalee and the Separatist Alliance, and he would not humiliated!

Never!” he screamed.

Grievous turned away from the Jedi Master and hurled himself towards one of the grounded gunships. Blaster bolts nicked his badly-battered armor, but it sufficed to protect him long enough for him to reach the LAAT. Then he was in amongst the clones, and the killing began.

Grievous punched, kicked, and headbutted, lashing out with nothing more than his bare hands and feet. Armor and bones alike crumpled beneath his durasteel limbs, further soaking the cyborg in blood. Within seconds, every last clone trooper in the passenger compartment was dead or bleeding out on the ground. Grievous tore the door off the cockpit and punched the pilot’s helmet and skull in without ceremony, intending to try and use it for his getaway.

And then a blue blade came flying from behind to slice through both of his left arms.

Grievous was hurled forward into the gunship’s controls by a powerful Force shove while the blue lightsaber flew back into the hand of the man who had thrown it. The Jedi advanced while the now armless cyborg struggled to right himself. When Grievous finally managed to roll over onto his back, he found a blue lightsaber blade directly between his eyes.

“Now, general,” said Obi Wan Kenobi, looking grim. “I believe we were discussing your surrender.”