Welcome to Ponyville
It was only mid-morning, but all of Ponyville was out and about, milling around the base of the great crystal palace that now graced their town. It was not, after all, every day when the resident princess stood in the public square and asked everypony to gather ‘round her home at precisely nine in the morning for an important announcement. Word had traveled fast, and so here they were.
Even more unusual was the fact that five of six members of the princess’ Council of Friendship were in the crowd, and they had no better idea of what was going on than anypony else did. Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were milling about with the rest of the commoners. The fact that they had no more information than anypony of course did not stop a certain pink earth pony from speculating most vociferously on the precise nature of what their trusted companion was to be announcing.
At extreme length.
At any rate, by the time the lavender alicorn princess emerged from the palace to stand on the balcony above the crowd, it was safe to say that they were quite eager for her to get on with it already.
Twilight cast a spell to simulate the effects of a more proper microphone system before clearing her throat to get everypony quieted down. Once they had, and had turned their collective attention to her, she began to speak.
“Welcome everypony,” she said, somewhat nervously. Public speaking was hardly her forte, especially for announcements of this magnitude. Still, the princesses had entrusted her with this assignment, and she was determined not to let them down. “First of all, I’d like to thank you all for coming out here today just on my say-so. It means a lot to me that so many of my friends are willing to take time out of their busy days to hear what I have to say.”
That got a polite round of hoof-stomping and a couple of grumbles from the more impatient members of the audience, including a certain rainbow-maned pegasus who shall remain nameless.
“Ahem,” she continued after the applause had died down. “On to the main event. Or should I say, mane event? Huh? Huh?” Twilight looked around.
Absolutely nopony laughed.
“Sheesh, everypony’s a critic,” she mumbled to herself. “Anyway, the reason I’ve gathered you all here today is to announce that Ponyville will, by order of no less than Princesses Celestia and Luna themselves, be hosting a number of very special guests for some time to come.”
That set off a wave of murmurs throughout the audience. Some ponies were excited, some were nervous, some were some were eager, and one particular grey-maned, brown-furred elected official was angry that nopony had bothered to tell her about this. But then again, nopony really cared what she thought anymore.
“In fact, you could say that these visitors are out of this world!”
There was dead silence in the crowd.
“Because they’re aliens,” Twilight continued, irritated.
There was a collective gasp throughout the citizens of Ponyville, who immediately began discussing among themselves the ramifications of this momentous event.
“Ahem,” Twilight said. “If I could have everypony’s attention…”
The chattering did not stop.
“… I could tell you more about them…”
Nopony paid a lick of attention.
“QUIET!!!” Twilight roared in the Royal Canterlot Voice.
That got everypony to stop, if only because they couldn’t hear over the ringing in their ears.
“Now then,” Twilight cleared her throat once more. “I would like to introduce you all to the leader of the first ever extraterrestrial group to come into contact with our world, General Grievous of the Confederacy of Independent Systems! I ask that you please welcome him to our fair town and treat him as if he were one of our own.”
The doors behind Twilight flew open, and out stepped the enormous bone-white cybernetic horror that was General Grievous. Closing the distance between himself and the alicorn princess easily with long, swift strides, Grievous stood on the balcony of Twilight’s castle and gazed down at the inhabitants of this pathetic town. As he had suspected, but refrained from bringing up in his conversation with land’s rulers, not a one of the non-royal ponies possessed both wings and a horn. His caped fluttered gently in the breeze as he and the ponies below stared at one another.
The reaction from the collective population of Ponyville to Grievous’ appearance was immediate. Some gasped in shock. Some shied away in fear. Some whispered hasty gossip into their neighbors’ ears. One or two even fainted on the spot. No matter their specific action, it was safe to say that the reaction of everypony to their new neighbor was generally negative.
Save one.
“Yeah, woo!” cheered an obnoxiously pink pony without wings or horn. “General Grievous, wahoo! Yeah, welcome to Ponyville! Grievous!”
General Grievous hated that one already.
Somewhat later in the morning, Twilight Sparkle had managed to rope all her friends on the Council of Friendship (except Pinkie, who came willingly) into a more private introduction in the council’s chamber within the palace. Rarity and Fluttershy were looking nervous, Applejack noncommittal, and Rainbow outright irritable at the prospects of being in a small room with an alien killing machine. Pinkie, of course, was Pinkie. Spike had found a reason to be out of the house that day.
“Now,” said Twilight to the gathered mares. “I know Grievous may look scary, but I know inside that we can all get along. Don’t forget how even Discord learned the importance of friendship… uh, eventually,” she rubbed her hoof behind her head. “If he can overcome his chaotic nature to make friends with us, then can’t we all overcome our first impressions to make friends with General Grievous?”
That earned a reluctant round of nods from three of the five, and a more eager nod from a fourth.
“Nope, not buyin’ it,” said the lone dissenter, Rainbow Dash. “He’s a bad guy.”
“Rainbow, you need to be more open-minded with regard to alien cultures and-”
The blue pegasus rolled her eyes. “Oh please! Gimme a break! He calls himself General Grievous, Twi,” she got close to the alicorn’s face, putting her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. “General. Grievous.” Rainbow repeated slowly. “Does that sound like the kind of name anypony but a villain would use?”
“Rainbow Dash, you can’t just judge the names of another culture by our own standards without first knowing the frame of reference from which they were given,” Twilight objected.
“I can and I am, egghead,” replied Rainbow. “I’m only here for you. If it were up to me we’d kick that creep’s flank seven ways to Sunday before we even thought about-”
“And what makes you think that you could, my little blue friend?” interrupted a much deeper, masculine voice.
Six heads turned to face the entryway into the council chambers as General Grievous stalked through the doorway. With his hands clasped behind his back and his black-red cape fluttering behind him, he resembled nothing so much as a prowling predator, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. All but Rainbow Dash and Twilight shied away from his approach, even Pinkie Pie not quite as eager to be near him at that moment.
“Pffft,” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “We’ve beaten bigger bad guys than you! Dragons, changelings, alicorns, that Tirek creep… next to them, you’re small potatoes!”
“Am I now?” Grievous said in a low voice.
“Uh, Dash?” Twilight tugged at her friend’s tail. “You might want to lay off the put-downs. We don’t know-”
“Ah, relax, Twi. I got it covered,” she flew directly up to Grievous’ face. “Besides, this guy doesn’t look so t- ghrrk!”
In the middle of her sentence, one of Grievous’ hands had shot out so quickly as to appear nothing but a blur, grabbing the annoying blue pegasus by the throat. She kicked and struggled and beat her wings as hard as they would go, but Rainbow could not break out of the cyborg’s vicelike grip. In fact, his mechanical arm wasn’t even moving.
“I don’t look so what now?” Grievous asked.
“Gccckk…” managed Rainbow Dash, struggling to breathe.
“Why, little one, it looks as though you’re having trouble speaking to me. Do you have throat problems?”
“Enough of this!” Twilight moved to intervene before this could get any worse. “Grievous, release her!”
“As you wish,” replied the cyborg, letting go of Rainbow Dash’s throat.
The pegasus impacted on the ground with an unpleasant-sounding thunk, gasping for air. Fluttershy quickly pulled her friend away from the general, who watched it happen with a neutral expression.
“Grievous,” Twilight scolded. “I don’t know how things are done on your world. But here in Equestria we do not attack each other over insults!”
“You don’t?” said the cyborg in an innocent tone. He looked to Rainbow Dash, still panting heavily and rubbing her throat. “I suppose you learn something new every day.”
“Apologize to her right now!” the princess demanded.
Grievous got to one knee to get his face closer to his antagonist’s. “I’m sorry that you failed to realize the significance my people place on insults to a warrior’s prowess. I hope that it will not happen again.”
Twilight sighed wearily.
“Uh, Twi?” Applejack leaned in close to whisper into her friend’s ear. “How long is this critter gonna be stayin’ here again?”
“Just until we find a way to send him home, Applejack,” Twilight gazed up at the cyborg general. “Just until we can send him home.”
Once the irritating formalities of the meeting (and strangling) the heads of the local power structure – and some figurehead mayor – were out of the way, Grievous was free to spend the remainder of his day getting to know the Ponyville as he saw fit. Naturally, he chose to storm straight through it, scattering all and sundry out of his path as he saw fit. With his retinue of droids in tow – his MagnaGuard and some commando droids – the cyborg made his way straight across town towards the Everfree forest by the shortest possible route.
Grievous was headed back to where his escape pods had come down. With any hope of getting aid from his “hosts” temporarily dashed, he had proceeded to his backup plan. The general was very skeptical that a being capable of moving a celestial body in the sky would be incapable of reaching it by some means. He was no expert on the field of magic, but the idea just sounded wrong to his gut instincts. From that suspicion, he surmised that the creatures of this land were most likely holding back on him. But he had no means of proving that and no real way of effectively fighting an entire nation, so for the time being he had decided to keep his suspicions to himself and see what came. In the meantime, he had decided to do something productive and see about retrofitting an escape pod instead of wasting time socializing with primitive equines. It was a longshot plan, but it was all he had for the moment.
Grievous marched right back into the Everfree, the terror of Ponyville, as easily as he had marched through the village itself. He had already dispatched one fearsome forest beast, and saw no reason he could not do the same to any other that tried to stand in his way. So it was that the general and his retinue crashed unsubtly through the undergrowth, following the escape pod’s homing beacon by the most direct means available.
It was several minutes into the forest when Grievous heard screaming.
Raising his hand to call the droids behind him to halt, General Grievous listened. There was definitely screaming in the air, high-pitched and coming from close by. Resolving to see what all the fuss was about, Grievous took several swift strides through the bush in the direction of the noise.
He very quickly found what he was looking for. In a clearing in the thick woods, three apparently juvenile equines – one yellow, one white, and one orange – were pinned up against an enormous rotten log by what appeared to be several bizarre assemblages of wood in the shape of canines. The bright green lights in the canines’ eyes instantly reminded Grievous of the similar light he’d seen in the eyes of the Nightsister zombies he had fought on Dathomir. He wondered idly if there was a witch nearby, controlling them.
The juveniles shrieked even louder as the canines advanced on them. For a moment, Grievous considered letting the equines be eaten – it sounded vaguely amusing. But he quickly realized the potential gains from being perceived as a rescuer of children far outweighed the momentary entertainment value of watching these creatures be torn limb from limb.
Shedding his cape in one swift, easy gesture, General Grievous leaped into the air.
Before Grievous’ feet touched the ground in front of the children, several things happened. First, his two arms had once again split into the full four, for maximum devastating impact. Second, these four arms had seized four of the five lightsaber trophies from his midsection, and ignited them into blazing blades of blue and green energy. Third, his mechanical wrists began to rotate at absurd speeds, giving each lightsaber the appearance of not so much blade, but a fully-circular fan.
And then Grievous hit the ground, and the killing began.
The first two timberwolves were in some ways the most fortunate. They had been in the beginning of their own leaps at the cornered prey, and found that they could not stop even as an enormous new shape appeared in front of them. Their momentum carried them forward into the whirling lightsabers, and there they perished.
Grievous lashed out as he always did: with random, unpredictable attacks from all angles meant to confuse and overwhelm an enemy. Many Jedi had failed to defeat that particular trick, and these lowly forest creatures stood absolutely no chance. The first was beheaded before it had time to realize what was going on. The second took a pair of lightsaber thrusts through the back and out of its midsection.
Grievous waded into the confused and considerably smaller pack without pause. Here a cut, there a slash, here a stab, there a kick. His entire body was his weapon, and a potent one it was. One, two, three, four, five more timberwolves he destroyed in as many seconds. One, which by luck had managed to get behind him, took a flying leap at his backside. Without even looking at it Grievous seized its head in his taloned foot, then flipped it over his own head to smash it to splinters on the forest floor.
What was left of the pack fled before this avatar of death, desperately seeking a way to escape with their lives. It was not to be. At a gesture from the cyborg general, his attending commando droids gunned down each and every remaining timberwolf in a flurry of blasterfire before they could even get beyond the clearing.
With a grunt of irritation that the fight had not proven to be more challenging – even Republic clone grunts put up a better show – Grievous switched off his lightsabers and turned to regard the three juveniles he had just rescued.
They were staring up at him with awe in their eyes.
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Can we get a count of the droids he has at the end of every chapter?
I chuckled at the ANH nod you had there.
I never liked the whole "meet and greet" part of crossovers, I know that the characters don't know these tings but it is really droll for those who are familiar.
At least we can get on to some good alien on pony action. And maybe
Christopher Leethe good count working his charm too.Rarity needs to fashion him a cape, or at least take an interest in his. It must be done.
I like that you had a nod to son of dathomir in here.
Nobody feels unlike themselves, but the battle droids could afford to provide a tad more comic relief.
A good chapter once again, It will be interesting to see more
This was the only error i could find.
I don't believe it! Grievous protecting a living being that he don't even owe or know! This is the end of reality!
5511325 5 chapters from now he will have none
This isn't as dark as I thought it would be. But then again, I have a lot of laughs.
That... once again... WAS AWESOME! This is the only story I look forward to reading every time I log onto this website!
Cutie Mark Crusader Anti-Jedi Hunter/Killer Cyborgs! Yay!
Pinkie's first reaction to Grievous was... Pinkie-ish.
Rainbow's reaction to Grievous was... Breathtaking! Get it? Get it? No? Aww...
5511771
5511799
Indeed.
Word
out
Don’t quit your day job, Twilight.
5511771
You neither.
I see what you did there, and it made me happy.
“Gccckk…” managed Rainbow Dash, struggling to breathe.
“Why, little one, it looks as though you’re having trouble speaking to me. Do you have throat problems?”
“Enough of this!” Twilight moved to intervene before this could get any worse. “Grievous, release her!”
“As you wish,” replied the cyborg, letting go of Rainbow Dash’s throat.
BEST! REFERENCE! EVER!
5511811
XD
wow, excellent quality and quick updates? how many children have you sacrificed to gain such dark powers? :P
5511840 Sorry, but it appears to be going over my head, what's the reference?
have you written it in advance?
This is a great fic! Keep up the good work. Double check for run on sentences or word misuse, those are some of the trickiest things in writing.
CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS KHALEESH WARRIOR! YAY!
Oh...my...gawd, Grievous gotta be wary of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
Great story so far, keep up the good work!
......So Grevious saved the Cutie mark Crusaders.
Oh boy are they gonna be fans of him XD.
This story gets a like and a follow for merely the title alone. I look forward to reading it.
5511872 isn't that a reference to "Star Wars: episode iv new hope"?
Quite.
Cut out the the.
If there was a witch nearby
It kinda figures that the CMC would find him awesome especially after that spectacle though some fear might be expected as well. The village's reaction to him was kind of obvious all around and Dash was the head first into danger mare many author's make her be. at least she didn't try to hit him.
Ooooooh! A well written and well updated story!
5511347 He brought Commando droids and MagnaGuards with him, they don't do funny. The B1 droids do, but why would he use them when he has Commando droids, the spec ops of the droid army?
5511872
It's a reference to the 'Vader, release him' scene from Episode IV
Is it me, or am I a horrible mule for thinking up the name 'Darth Snuggles' for when the Cutie Mark Crusaders fall to the Dark Side? On that note, wouldn't the lot of them just bounce right back up, then down, then up, then down, using Jabba as a trampoline?
5512035 so the elements caused her to have a split personality. way to fuck up
5511872
the first "and" doesn't need to be there.
could be changed to "a potent one at that"
Silly rainbow. Should have realised that hes general grievous for a reason.
So I just finished all the chapters that have been posted at the time of writing this comment. And I am very pleased with how the story is going. I see great potential in this story. I hope to see more soon.
really liking this one, General grievous deserves the attention.
I like that while you keep him sorta hostile, he thinks before acting, keeping him in character, instead of just saying "Imma grievous, my lazor sord is the biggest around, get wrekt"
I belive we need more of the battle droids. The blue ones.
5512666 Actually, I'm pretty sure that's the royal 'we'. Old habits die hard.
Faved.
Just....wow...I just am so amazed on how...well...AMAZING This is!
Normaly crossover fanfictions are littered with ether sillyness, or questionable actions....this is just golden...
I BEG for more chapters
I love this story so much so far, keep up the good work!
I do like this story so far, but I hope that it won't end up the like the Star Wars crossover RainbowBob wrote about Darth Vader. Needless to say, he pretty much stopped updating it because RB fails miserably at updating anything that isn't a one-shot. Anyway, your characterization is spot on for the good General as well as the reactions from all the ponies. Looking forward to more. roundstable.com/forums/images/smilies/excite.gif
Gee I wonder who that could be? Huh? Me wonders.
I like how you kept Grievous in character through this with his superiority complex. Well done. A few sentences before this one you misused caped it should be cape. Small error I know but I thought I'd let you know.
You also made a Darth Vader reference when Grevious met Rainbow Dash! Welll done!
5511374
Actually he just wants to kill the dogs for the fuck of it.
I do not feel bad for Rainbow here. That is what she gets for running her mouth about thing she's ignorant to. Insulting Grievous's warrior prowess is akin to insulting the princesses in Equestria. You don't do it unless you want an ass kicking. And now our dear thick headed Rainbow Dash has been schooled in the first and only rule of Genaral Grievous. YOU DON'T FUCK WITH GRENERAL GRIEVOUS!
5513650 I've read several of this Snake Staff's stories before, and though his updates aren't all that consistent in regularity, he does finish his stories, so I wouldn't worry about that
great story please keep up the work
I like this guy.
Especially with how he dealt with RD; it was exactly what I would've done. He's my new idol.
5512951 "I'm-a firing mah laser!!"