A New World
General Grievous endured the bumpy ride through the atmosphere in sullen silence, that wishing he had something else to kill. He seethed at the indignity of it all. He had not been able to halt the progress of the Fateful. Instead of earning a glorious warrior’s death on the field of battle, it had seemed he might instead meet some ignominious end in a hyperspace accident, or simply been cut adrift in the vacuum of space to rot, while the war went on around him.
He had been spared such a fate by the surprising appearance of a planet’s gravity well, which had forced the Star Destroyer back into realspace. But things had simply gone from bad to worse, and the crippled ship was caught in the gravity of a nearby moon. With catastrophic damage to every one of its systems, it had failed to pull out and Grievous had once again faced the humiliating prospect of abandoning ship.
The only possible bright spot was that what scans they were able to wrest from the Fateful’s computers suggested that the planet he was heading for not only was life-bearing, but supported some kind of civilization. Of course, it could easily be one aligned to the Republic. Considering how miserably the rest of the day had gone, Grievous would not have been surprised. Or it could be some civilization of worthless primitives, possibly even unable to achieve space flight. Why not? His life had been cursed a thousand times over already. He had had to endure the loss of his mate, his home, his pride, and even his very flesh and blood.
Bitter memories only serving to stir his rage, Grievous growled with impotent fury as the escape pod rattled and took on a fiery aura as the atmosphere strove to burn it to so many ashes on the wind. But the pod had been designed with just such circumstances in mind, and the cyborg held no fear that he and the droids packed in with him would fail to make it to planet’s surface.
No, his thoughts were focused on what to do next.
On the surface, Twilight Sparkle found herself immensely gratified to see that her calculations seemed to have been right on the money. As usual.
The objects detached from the weird triangle-thing had indeed flown straight for the atmosphere above her, created an impromptu meteor shower as they burned. As they came closer Twilight struggled to adjust her telescope’s magnification to just the right size to get a better look at whatever was coming down to Equestria, but they were simply moving too fast for her to get a close up look at them.
On and on they plummeted, the light over the countryside getting brighter and brighter by the second. Twilight looked nervously up at the sky to see if there were any pegasi about at this time of night, but thankfully she didn’t spot any along the trajectory she was calculating for these things. Then, finally, as they were nearing the earth, blue lights flashed along the bottom of each object, slowing their descent dramatically.
“Must be some kind of engine,” Twilight muttered to herself as she watched them descend the last little way. “Rocket perhaps?” She checked again. “No, the profile’s all wrong. Something else then.”
She wrote her observations into her notebook before adding it to the already-packed saddlebags that made up her field kit.
“Spike!” she called out into her home. “I’m going out! If I don’t come back in a few hours, tell my friends and the princesses where I went!”
“Um, ok,” came the reply from wherever Spike had chosen to bed down. There was a pause. “Where are you going?”
Twilight facehoofed at her own negligence. “The Everfree! That’s where the things came down!”
“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Of course it is! This is potentially our chance to study extraterrestrial phenomena for the first time! I’m not missing out on that!”
“Okay…” Spike sounded unsure, but Twilight was already caught up in the thrills of discovery.
With a flap of her wings, the alicorn princess took to air, soaring to where she had seen the first of the pods land. She rubbed her hooves together in giddy anticipation.
“This is going to be great!”
Grievous stormed out of his escape pod in an angry huff, almost tearing the door off with the sheer force he used to open it. He leaped nimbly down onto the grassy ground, his cape fluttering in the breeze behind him. As what droids he had been able to cram into the same pod as himself made their own way down, Grievous took stock of his surroundings.
He was in some sort of forest, which was plain enough to see. Not a particularly tall one, at least in comparison to the vast wroshyr trees on the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, but at least decently-sizable. His escape pod’s autopilot had chosen to land him in a clearing, which was rapidly becoming rather noisy with the sounds of creatures, startled by his appearance and landing, fleeing in all directions.
Grievous snorted with contempt. He’d rather one of them had attacked him, giving him something on which to vent his rage. At the moment, all he had were the lone MagnaGuard and small group of commando droids clambering down after him, as well as the other droid groups in nearby pods. To these, he sent wordless instructions through the antennae on the side of his head, ordering them to converge on his location immediately. With an unknown planet ahead and no source of imminent reinforcements, it behooved the general to maximize safety in numbers.
It was as Grievous was waiting for the remainder of his machines to arrive that his earlier wish was granted. Barging through the underbrush with the confidence of an apex predator, enraged at the disturbance of its territory, came an enormous brown-furred creature the likes of which Grievous had never seen before. It had a feline face and a red mane, but also a pair of odd wings resembling those of a mynock. In addition, its tail clearly resembled those found on insects rather than mammals. Between all this, the cyborg general could honestly say he had no idea what this thing was, in any real sense.
But as it roared its challenge at the intruders, Grievous knew exactly what it wanted.
“Back away!” he ordered his droids, who had aiming their weapons at the creature. “I shall deal with this beast myself!”
Obediently, the machines backed away from their commander. Grievous undid his clasp and shed his black and red cape with a shrug of his shoulders, and reached down to his midsection to select a weapon. He chose his latest trophy, deciding that now was as good a time as any to get a feel for its individual properties in battle. The bronze blade that had once been Master Ceidia’s flickered to life, bathing the clearing in its light. Grievous held it high in a gesture of challenge.
The manticore reacted as its instincts told it to, charging what it now perceived a would-be usurper of its territories and position. Teeth bared and claws fully extended, it took a flying leap at Grievous, meaning to bowl over the cyborg and tear him limb from limb.
Grievous, his reflexes honed by countless practice duels with Count Dooku and real ones with hundreds of Jedi across the galaxy, easily sidestepped the beast’s charge. He might have ended it there, with a swift cut along the manticore’s neck, but he was in no mood to make things so quick. Instead, his lightsaber flicked out and cut the creature’s scorpion-like tail from its body in a single stroke.
The manticore roared its pain and, distracted by the burning, lost its footing and tumbled face-first onto the forest floor. The creature’s sheer momentum forced it onwards, rolling several long meters before it finally to a stop. Driven to ignore the pain by rage and adrenaline, it scrambled back to its feet and looked at its enemy. Grievous simply stood there, waited, his arms wide open, as if daring the monster to come around for another try.
Its fury overcoming its survival instincts, the manticore did just that. Once again, primal challenge behavior dictated its attack, and it hurdled through the air once more at the cyborg general. Grievous deactivated the lightsaber, his two arms splitting once more into four, and met the creature’s charge head-on.
The manticore pounced, claws out and mouth opened wide. Two of Grievous’ arms shot out to grip the beast’s ankles, the other two latching onto its chest. Grievous’ talons dug deep into the earth below and somehow, impossibly, he stopped the multi-ton behemoth dead in its tracks. It roared and snapped with its vicious fangs, trying to break the cyborg’s grip with its flailing. But that did the monster no good, for Grievous was far stronger than his body’s thin metal limbs suggested.
Spitting out a primal cry of his own, Grievous hoisted a flailing manticore above his own head. It struggled, beating its wings hard in a desperate attempt to get free, but that helped not at all. Grievous flung the beast with all four arms at the nearest tree, head first. The impact cracked both tree and bone, and the manticore slumped to the ground. Before it had any chance to recover, Grievous reactivated the lightsaber and took a powerful leap through the air. As he came down on top of it, two hands thrust the blade through the manticore’s chest.
The beast flailed and thrashed wildly in its death throes, its claws scraping its killer many times through pure chance. They did little more than scratch the surface of duranium armor plating on the cyborg, who took it stoically. At last, the beast twitched its last, and lay still. Grievous pulled the lightsaber from its corpse with a satisfied grunt. He always felt better after he had killed something.
In a burst of audible binary, the language of machines, Grievous’ one remaining MagnaGuard alerted him to the presence of another creature in this clearing, one that had neither fled from him in terror nor attempted to attack him, as the larger beast had. Grievous’ head jerked in the indicated direction, and the creature he saw looked like nothing so much as a small, purple, winged horse.
Twilight Sparkle stood frozen in place, held there by awe and by terror. It was one thing to imagine contact with aliens for the first time, it was a whole ‘nother thing to gaze upon a group of metal terrors. The mechanical-looking aliens stood on two legs and had two arms, like her human friends in another dimension, but that was about where the similarities ended. They were tall and intimidating, with broad chests, thin limbs, and no fur or clothing or even skin that she could see. The eyes of the black ones were a sterile white, while the grey one had two red eyes on its head and what looked like a larger third eye in center of its chest. None had any pupils, and they were so still as to bring into question whether they were even alive or not.
And then there was their apparent leader. An enormous horror of what looked to be bone-white armor interspersed with darker gaps, it towered above the rest. Twilight had arrived just in time to watch it get charged by a full-grown manticore male. And then lift the beast over its head without even using magic. She had watched the alien toss it like a ragdoll, and then put what looked to be magical sword straight through its entire body without notable strain. She had seen many intimidating sights in her time, but she had never watched anything kill another creature quite so easily, or so unhesitatingly.
She swallowed. Maybe coming immediately and alone hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Maybe the alien was angry about its apparent crash landing? She hoped that was all it was. She really hoped that.
Then the grey alien with three red eyes blurted out something she couldn’t understand. But the finger pointing her way was clear enough.
The alien leader turned to look at her, and she caught a glimpse of its face for the first time. Most everything about it was the same feature bone-white metal, but its eyes weren’t like the others’. They looked organic, surrounded by red flesh in carved-out areas of the armor. The eyes themselves were a deep yellow, with black reptilian slits for pupils. They stared at her, and she got the feeling of being directly in the sights of some enormous monster evaluating whether or not to eat her whole.
Twilight shuddered visibly. She did not like those eyes.
Then the alien put its arms behind its back and started towards her.
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I love it! Though there are a few grammatical errors here and there, this was certainly a pleasant read.
Always. Have. Backup! My god how can she not know that?
The Star Wars fanboy in me absolutely loves this! I really like how you've brought in the characters and specific info like Form III, Soresu, and the classes of spaceship. Grievous is one of my favorite characters in the canon and I like the way you didn't just throw him into Equestria and say "Here he is guys!" . If there were any errors, I didn't notice them, because I was so engrossed.
I look forward to more!
5504281 Especially with Grievous, always have backup when encountering him
My reaction to the end
5504443 Like a damn space cannon or at least a EMP for his cybernetic parts
THIS.....IS....SO.......AWSOME!
No comedy tag?
Twilight Sparkle meet General Grievous, now get along you two.
I'm not going to over react like most of the kids reading this, saying it's AMAZING, witch it is.
I am, however, going to say that it was fun to read, and am looking foreword to more.
As a side note: I've been a fan of Star Wars since I was 3 (Im 19 now.) So you get props for writing my favorite character properly.
I look forward to more, and wish you the best of luck writing.
Another one on my reading list. And don't worry, I'm still going to read more "Together Forever"
5504452 He was built to be EMP resistant, for his parts are made mainly of Plasteel infused with Titanium
Congrats on the feature.
This can only end badly.
Also already got a soft spot for that MagnaGuard. (fave droids other than the droidekas)
5504443 If you see Grievous, run away as quickly and quietly as possible while praying that he doesn't find you. In the event you are spotted, pray for a quick end.
Um...I think you're missing something here.
Also if you end up having the elements used on him, have it destroy/restore the parts of his mind that the Geonosians tampered with.
5504672 yes
Twilight! Never mess with Grevious when he's angry. Or say you're Republic in front of him. He may just end your life. And your friends. An-
{ Okay. Okay. I get it. Sheesh.
I love this! Keep going, man! I can hardly wait for the next chapter!
Toot toot! Here comes the raep train!
5508408 The very formal rape train I might add
All righty then.
Grevious kills a Manticore and or stupid monster right in front of Twilight's eyes and starts his 'I'm gonna rape you" walk.
Nice.
Just. Nice XD.
5508720 The psychotic, deadly, bone white, lightsaber wielding, but very formal RAEP TRAIN.
vitamin-ha.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Come-at-me-Bro-meme-9.jpg
5504614 Let's just bring a nuke.
5504614
Wait, then how did the Gungan's boomers zap him in the Clone Wars Series?
5532205 Those are NOT EMP's, they were energized plasma, which I highly doubt Equestria has.
5536609 I still find them to do pretty much the same thing. But if you disagree, that's completely fine.
Well...Twilight is fucked.
Well let me just raep stare this purple horse...... aaaaaaaand its gone.
Ooh boy! Grievous is one badass motherf*****!
Daaaaaaaaaayum... Twi you best be runnin' gurl, you bout to git fucked up!
Nice job also.
Question: How does Twilight know what a starship engine would like, or a rocket for that matter considering the most advanced form of engine is a coal engine for trains? Also, multi-ton? An elephant weighs a ton and it's bigger than a manticore so I would say five hundred to eight hundred pounds at the most. Having wings would mean it's capable of flight (or at least somewhat capable) so weighing over two-thousand pounds would make wings completely unusable.
5835737
She's just guessing that its an engine, she doesn't know. And I don't consider the idea that Equus has developed primitive rocket engines to be beyond the bounds of possibility.
The same way pegasi fly with wings that are too small for their bodies: magic. I mean, you can when Tirek gobbles their magic they lose the power of flight, so in this story at least manticores have a similar ability.
Get her general!
SQUEE!!! General Grievous meets Twilight Sparkle! I don't care how it turns out, I'm excited for this!
5522088 He's radioactive-boom resistant...
seriously, his armor is THAT GOOD...
5536980 I have to partially agree with you, while the gungan weapons had enough of a charge to short out and disable a b-1 droid, AKA battle droid, all they would do to Grievous is make him angry. They would hurt him, but not much.
Oh. So, she's an Alicorn already? Grevious will at least get to have some fun killing her, then.
grevous needs to attend an anger management class, cause he has a really bad temper...
7298803
I know right, manticores are always getting slaughtered in these crossover fics ;(
RUN TWILIGHT, RUUUUUN!!!!
RUN BITCH RUN! YOU GOT WINGS AND 4 LEGS! RUN DAMN IT RUN!
Run bieeeeeetch run......
Why does EVERYTHING crashes in Everfree?!
10382562
who knows