Grievous dies at the end of the clone wars. The force isn’t satisfied with this ending however. Read as Grievous discovers the will of the force concerning him and Equestria, as he is forced to deal with love and friendship.
At the end of the clone wars, Grievous is killed, not long after the battle of Coruscant. The force, however, isn’t satisfied with this ending.
Grievous once had a lover, before he lost his body and she was killed in war. He fought for his kind and people against unjust invaders. Grievous has had a hard life, being broken in mind, body, and spirit, twisted and manipulated by the Sith to become a tool, a monster. Becoming like the Sith, like Anakin and Dooku, to be consumed, a cold, heartless, unfeeling work of destruction. But just like Dooku, and other Jedi that fell like Anakin, there was good, honor, and a heart in him at one time, before the war, before the Sith found him, and used him in their own clone war. If anyone can help redeem such a villain, it's our little ponies.
After a mysterious set of events, Grievous and his ship, The Invisible Hand, go through the hyperspace anomaly at the edge of the galaxy and end up in Equestria. Follow Grievous as he discovers the will of the force concerning Equestria and figures out how and why he is in such a bizarre, strange world filled with color, love, hope, friendship, and magic. Will our little ponies be able to help him or will he seek to continue on his dark path of death and destruction?
A mlp/SW story. A story in which I try to be as unique and well written as possible, and with your help, hope to make this fic highly enjoyable to y’all. Takes place around season 9. Of course, their will be minor deviations.
Currently writing chapter 6. Will update which chapter it is as I work so all who come across the story will know for sure that it is not abandoned regardless of days since the previous chapter was published. Update:2022 I have been having some inspiration of late. May start back on this story. Cross your fingers. Mostly struggle with inspiration to write from having perfectionism and feeling like all the effort to make it perfect is a lot with everything else. I still have the general story plan in my head, which allows hope for this story to remain. Personally I’m seeing maybe a spark of hope, will see if the fire ignites again
Grievous was excited. In the heat of battle type of way. He marched across the small platform that jutted out from a large cliff like structure, his ship, The Soulless One, a customized Feethan Ottraw Scalable Assemblies Belbullab-22 starfighter resting on the edge of the platform. As he made his way across the platform with his large quick strides, he raised his electrostaff approaching the figure holding onto the edge of the platform. At last, the filthy Jedi Kenobi falls! He was about halfway across, electrostaff raised, when Kenobi used the force to draw the blaster that had been dropped during their fight to his hand. He raised his arm and aimed for the center of Grievous chest, and in that moment, as Grievous was halfway across, weapon raised, Kenobi fired. The blaster blot hit perfectly, a small explosion erupted around his heart, exposed when Kenobi pushed apart his chest plates just earlier, now on fire. Despite this, the shot was not fatal. Kenobi realized this as Grievous staggered back and groaned, but remained standing and intact. He fired again, and a second later, again. These extra shots finally did the trick, overloading Grievous systems, as the fire and explosions caused a backlash, a chain reaction. Grievous made a cry as he began to shake, his head raised. Suddenly his eyes themselves, connected to his cybernetic system, caught on fire. A pop was heard as his few real organs and cybernetics finally succumbed to the flames. He collapsed backward, dead. Kenobi pulled himself up from the ledge, and made his way leisurely across the platform, blaster still in hand. As he approached the corpse of Grievous he gave it a look over, making sure it was dead. Satisfied and slightly disgusted, he threw his blaster on the corpse as he walked past, “So uncivilized” he said. Truly barbaric weapons blasters were, compared to the elegant civilized blade of a Jedi. Obi wan made his way back to the battle, to help his clones finish mopping up the droids………
Separatist dreadnought: Invisible hand
In hyperspace: unknown location
Destination: unknown
“Engage the hyperdrive!” Came from a b1 commander’s vocabulator.
“Sir, we are already in hyperspace” came the response from the droid at the navigator station.
“What?! But then what are those green streaks out the viewport? If we were in hyperspace they would be blue” reasoned the commander.
“Sir, the hyperdrive is already running, and the streaks match the shape of hyperspace streaks” responded the navigator.
The dimwitted battle droid commander was not convinced. “Run diagnostics, something is not right”
The navigator he was speaking to however was no longer there. “OM-17229? Where did you go? OM-17229, respond!” The commander demanded.
“I am here commander” came the reply from OM-17229. “Commander?” He questioned, as the droid in question was no longer in his seat. Or anywhere that his sensors could perceive. In his place sat General Grievous, the feared leader of the droids of the Confederacy of Independent Star Systems. Grievous for his part was confused. He looked around, recognizing his capital ship. How he got there he had no idea. In fact the last thing he remembered was preparing to lead the attack on Coruscant.
“What’s the situation? What’s going on? Where are we?” He demanded.
The OM-17229 responded “Well sir we are...huh that’s funny. I don’t remember where we set the hyperdrive coordinates”.
Grievous was getting very concerned. Even these dim witted droids were capable of plotting a course and remembering it. Despite their numerous past failures, this was new. That combined with his own fuzzy memory and the green streaks out of the viewport made him very very concerned.
OM-17229 brought him out of his thoughts. “Sir, we are exiting hyperspace”. The green streaks out the view port became elongated as the ship made it’s exit. Suddenly the room got fuzzy, and doubles appeared for every droid on the ship, including Grievous. The droids processors and Grievous mind suddenly became overwhelmed. A shrill whine came from the droids and the ship, while a cry from Grievous. Half the droids on the ship, including their doubles then disappeared. Then they too disappeared while the ones that had disappeared first reappeared. Then they all disappeared. The ships finally shot out into real space above a strange lush planet, with a dwarf sun and moon orbiting it. Near the planet, behind the ship, could be seen the spirals of a galaxy, as well as some type of energy surrounding it. The ship continued on until it reached the gravitational pull of the planet. Engines still working, it began an orbit. The bridge however, was completely empty. Not a single droid resided on the entire dreadnaught either. The hanger was devoid expect for a few transports. All the escape pods remained, expect one. All the hallways were barren and the only sound that could be heard was groaning and creaking of the metal, with some minor beeps from various instruments and other onboard electronics.
“Man that was a great party Pinkie!” Rainbow dash said vigorously.
“Thanks Rainbow! Can’t have anything but the best for the anniversary of the opening of the friendship school” Pinkie said as she bounced along with her friends on there way from the school to a grassy knoll. Behind them trailed various students as the made their way outside.
Twilight looked about to explode from anticipation. “Oh I just can't wait to see what Luna is going to do with the stars tonight! Who knows what she had planned when she said she had a ‘astronomical surprise’ for the anniversary party!”
“Who said it has anything to do with the stars?”. A smirking Luna and Celestia descended from above.
“Princesses, my goodness don’t scare us like that dear” responded a startled Rarity.
“Well if it ain’t the stars then what?” asked the Element of Honesty.
“See for yourself” replied Luna.
Suddenly the sky light up. Luna’s horn glowed and the stars began rearranging themselves into constellations of the Main 6 standing in front of a school.
Twilight gaped “I...don’t know what to say.”
“It’s simply marvelous!” admired Rarity.
“So...awesome!” whispered Rainbow in an awe struck voice.
“Ain’t that just something.” Applejack turned to Luna barley containing the emotion in her voice, “I’m mighty honoured you'd do this for us.”
“Best…..party….ever!!!!!” exclaimed Pinkie.
“For us? Oh you didn’t need to do that. Not that I don’t appreciate it of course!” Flutter shy hastily added.
“No I didn’t need to, but in what world would anyone not want to show how much we appreciate you and your friends and all you have done for equestria, especially in spreading the knowledge of friendship to everycreature.” replied a now soft smiling Luna.
“Wow, you even added a shooting star!” came the sudden voice of Smolder, who was with the other students just behind the Mane 6.
Luna frowned “No, I didn’t.” she replied.
Some of them began to notice the star get closer. Luna and Celestia began to worry and were about to cast a shield spell when it suddenly went rocketing right over their heads with a screeching sound as is passed into the everfree forest.
Rainbow looked at the direction that the object had gone with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Race ya!” she yelled as she zoomed up leaving only a rainbow colored vapor trail in her wake.
“Wait, it might be dangerous!” Twilight called out but it was too late. She then turned to Luna and Celestia but Luna, anticipating her question, spoke before she had a chance. “Starlight can watch the students, no chance we are missing this, besides, it did technically come from my domain so it is my duty to investigate it myself.”
“Well, in that case, we better hurry.” Twilight said. They all dashed in the direction Rainbow had gone.
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.
Can you feel the raw heat? The beautiful, large flames Rising like the hands of a cheering crowd Waving across the scene Can you see inside the flames? The pieces of debris The stories The soul Hidden inside? Are your eyes able to pierce the wall of flames Like it isn’t even there? Can you feel the destructive power of the flames? Calling to you and me Like dark calls to the black hearted Expect brighter So much brighter Better And stronger Oh how I love the dark But the flames I relish I live with the dark But live for the fire That great fire Encompassing even the darkness itself
The darkness spreads like a cancer But like cancer, often unseen Until it consumes you Sometimes however, it is good to see the power The flames licking across battlefield and city. Oh I wait for the day When I become the darkness’s fire Seeping seen and unseen Through all things All people All life Maybe one day Sweeping even through all reality How I’d love to be marked The Definer The Master The Controller How much I wish I was it and it was I
How much? How much to see? How much to be? How much more of me must I give? How much more of them must I take? When is my hour nigh? How much more? Who am I now? Who am I to become? How can I be The Definer when there is nothing for me to define?
Time’s power is the manifestation of definement The enabler The catalyst The first step In my quest to define reality in my image On my whim How can I have power over time? How can I define time? How can I make it mine? It must be mine! If I cannot take And make it mine Then I shall devour! If there then be nothing I care not I CARE NOT! All must fall I am the flames I am the darkness They are me And they are mine! Yesterday today and forever more
You fall You are gone I am gone I am left What is left is what is me Crackle and spark my beautiful flames By darkness’s plagues Away we go!
Never look back Never look away Never stop Never lose Never win Never shall I ever end Till end is the end of the end Stop I called Now I call end No more No more No more No more You are no more I am no more It is no more
And yet it is still here And it is gone And yet it is there Is it reborn? Or is it truly no more? I am it And it is I
I see I feel I know Can you see? Can you feel? Can you know? Know the darkness Know the flames Know it’s touch Know it’s power Know it in front of you Climbing closer There is no escape. There never was There never is There never will be Any escape from the bright flames of The Darkness
The darkness’s inky essence of nothingness It’s essence of future present and past It’s time and it’s all The bright curling hordes of flames Bringing life and strength to the darkness Feeding it as it feeds The Flames Mine now There is no escape from me The Darkness The Flames The Future The Past The Present Nothingness And all Time itself And all within
Hunger never sated Mission never done Infinite and forever And yet the definement of the end Holding the end for itself Escape No more Don’t burn with The Flame Burn inside Relish the beauty In your short time
And then what difference is there? To join and serve The first to burn inside The Flames. Maybe you will become like me Or become you After your shell is burned How glorious is it! How can you not join The Flames Bring it to all Spreading How can you not love it as well? If you truly believe what you believe Of evil and good Their roles and rules Then you will believe the truth of The Flames The Darkness and Flames go together You need the darkness And it needs you Yet then you leave To go to the bright burning flames Burning light into the darkness Bringing its power It’s knowledge It’s beauty And appreciation for the speck of time of mortality To all mortals The Flames is what you seek Better than The Darkness
From your intelligence To an entity It and you And back To an entity’s intelligence But greater As great Like The Flames
We are not enemies We are friends Brothers Sisters In The Flames And now Onward We shall spread The Flames Burn all people All things All power In The Flames Leaving nothing but The Flames And they shall be born To us As us Inside The Flames To serve The Darkness’s bright flames To serve The Flame’s shell of darkness I sought for myself Now I seek for ourselves
The 2 large equines had flown off towards their so called “friendship school”. Apparently there was a large gathering and they wanted to quell any concerns that may have arisen. They wouldn’t tell them that an alien had arrived, or aliens as they thought, he hadn’t yet explained the droids were just machines. Honestly the less they knew the better. Instead they would tell them of an assembly tomorrow in which he would be introduced. He was currently marching with his droids alongside the 6 ponies and the spiked creature, apparently actually called Spike. Twilight was using her force-magic to float the pod with them. The six ponies had gotten over their trepidation and after about 10 minutes started bombarding him and his droids with questions as they walked, but none of them responded. After a minute the blue one finally flew over to one of the commandos in its face. “Hey, why are you ignoring me?!” she said. Although she wanted to make friends with these new creatures and win teacher of the month, she hated people ignoring her. It just kept walking and she had to fly around it to avoid crashing into it.
Grievous finally spoke up. “They don’t answer to anyone but me.” He said.
“Well can you answer our questions?” Rainbow asked.
“No.” He replied.
“Why not?” She asked a bit ruffled due to his rudeness.
“Protocol.” He lied. “I don’t know a thing about any of you. And after that stunt your leaders pulled what reason would I have to trust you? The only reason we are being cooperative at all is pure necessity, which does not extend to answering your questions.”
Twilight got an edge in the conversation. “Come on, our society is literally based off friendship, how bad can we be? Besides your going to be learning at our school anyway so might as well start now.”
“Going to your school and learning there are two very different things. There are only 2 beings I listen to, and none of them are on this world. I only agreed for your leaders aid.”
“You lied to em?” Applejack asked.
“They did not specify that I had to learn, only that I go. You will find that I am very resistant when people attempt to manipulate me.” Grievous responded confrontationally.
Twilight did not like Grievous saying the alicorns were manipulative. It was just so… not true! “They weren’t trying to manipulate you, they were encouraging you to get some friendships lessons because you obviously need it!” She shouted.
“Need? How do some primitive force horses have any knowledge or authority to know or administer what I need? I am not under their power nor do they know anything about me.” He countered.
“Well they know that your incredibly rude and careless of others' feelings.” Rarity said haughtily.
“I am only rude by your cultural standards, standards my species culture does not share.” Grievous shot back. While it was true, the standards were different, he was probably being rude by most cultural standards, even his. Not that he would voice that to them. Nor did he care for that matter either.
Twilight decided to push her advantage while she could. “And what species is that?” She asked.
Grievous paused. Although he was trying to give as little away as possible, It’s not like they would know what the Kaleesh were anyway. Plus it might get them to shut up. Making up his mind he spoke. “Kaleesh.”
Now it was Pinky’s turn to edge her way without being ignored this time . “Whats a Kaleesh? Do they like parties?” She asked.
“No.” He replied.
Pinkie immediately ceased bouncing and her mane deflated. First she had felt this weird darkness around him, and now he didn’t like parties?! Her enthusiasm at meeting an alien was quickly evaporating. Rainbow was also feeling similar. At first glance they looked really cool, but now, it was only the competing desire to win teacher of the month that kept her from giving up on making friends with them entirely.
“No parties?” Pinkie asked in a classic fluttershy voice. “Do kaleesh even have fun? Do you even smile?”
Grievous burst out with a bitter laugh. “Not anymore. You can thank the Jedi and their Republic for destroying our people, our economy, forcing us to live in poverty and squalor merely for attempting to defend ourselves from selfish, murdering invaders. We didn't have time for the luxury of parties, smiling, or fun. Even now, despite...others help, we have lost far to many of our people to be able to smile.” At this statement however Grievous become noticeably sad and hunched over with a sigh. The sigh of course sounding to the ponies like a sigh and a growl combined. Grevious of course merely labeled it as unhappy; he would never admit to being sad. He didn’t get sad. Not anymore. Only angry. Angry at the Jedi, angry at the droid army’s lack of competence, angry at failure, angry at the galaxy. It had been awhile since he even spared a thought about his people. Sure he had some monuments in his lair, but to actually give a real thought about his people? He knew that the depression had been alleviated by the banking clan’s assistance shortly after the attack on his ship that forced him to become a cyborg. After all the pain he had experienced in his homeworlds’s war he had left, not really looking back, using his emotions to fuel his survival. Which is what brought him to Dooku. After the attack and subsequent meeting of Dooku, he used his emotions to fuel his revenge-crusade against the Jedi and The Republic. He trusted the confederacy to take care of his people while he took care of their enemies. He thought that all the pain of his peoples death and suffering, and of losing her, had faded. But at the mention of what happened to his people for the first time in years, he found that it was not so. The ponies noticed his change in his demeanor, and put 1 and 2 together. The fact that he could seem sad dispelled the theory a few had that he was emotionless, and they came to the conclusion that his rudeness and aggression were rather side effects of his past. They continued on in silence; the mood somber, no one really wanting to speak now.
Fluttershy began to work up her courage as they walked along. After another 15 minutes or so, she flapped her wings rising a bit. She floated over to Grevious, careful not to get in his face. Fluttershy may have been terrified of Grievous, but she had worked a lot at building confidence and her concern for Grievous slowly eroding her fear. She wasn’t a Rainbow Dash by any means but she could do this. “Umm, Grievous,” she spoke up quietly. He didn’t respond “I am so sorry to hear what happened to your people.” She moved closer until she was above Grievous’s shoulder and laid a consoling hoof on it. “If you need a friend or want to talk about it, I'd be willing to listen… if you want of course.” She added.
Grievous gave a long deep growl. This… pony...was giving him pity. He didn’t get sad or hurt anymore, and he didn’t need their pity. He only got angry. He was about to grab that force horse and yeet it into a nearby tree to show her what he thought of her offer, but at his growl, she backed away quickly out of reach, and he allowed his anger to slowly taper off as they continued on. As much as he would love to bash and slice these ponies up, by now what he wanted even more was to reach their destination so he could be alone and not have to deal with them. Attacking them probably would only make it take longer to get there. After Fluttershy's bold action, quiet befell them again. Twilight was just slightly miffed she couldn’t ask what the Jedi or the Republic were now, it being rude to do so after what Grevious just shared. These feelings were soon overcome however with sympathy for the hulking cyborg.
At this point they had reached the edge of the Everfree forest and Twilight's castle was in sight. They all walked up along the path to the entrance and with a lavender glow encasing the door and opening it, they entered. They had only walked a few steps before Twilight spoke. “Spike can you show Grievous's friends their rooms?” She turned to Grevious, “what are your friends names?” She asked.
“They have none. And multiple rooms will not be necessary. They can stay with me.” He replied curtly. He. Knew this would raise questions and give clues that the droids were machines, but as incompetent as they were, he wanted them all at arms length to assist him should he need it. He was also confident he could avoid revealing that they were machines outright.
“But where will they sleep?” Twilight asked incredulously just as Grievous predicted.
“They do not need sleep.” Grievous responded.
“What kind of creature doesn’t need sleep?” She asked, hoping that he would let slip more knowledge about him and his company. She was especially curious, as were they all, why two of them had tiny heads melded to their chests. It was one of the many questions they had asked on the way here before Grievous had finally began talking.
Grievous was no fool however, and he responded guardedly. “Droids.” He guessed with what he observed as their probable lack of higher tech meant the wouldn’t know what a droid was. He also assumed that their force powers could detect lies, and without any power of his own to obscure it, he decided to tell the truth, but giving as little detail as possible. He didn’t know that the ponies couldn’t deduce lies from their magic, though Applejack probably would have noticed any lie anyway. He was right about them not knowing what a droid was, though Twilight was also very intelligent and knew he was keeping something from her about the strange, silent, bipedal companions. Usually she would have argued until he relented to giving the droids there own room or explained sufficiently why they didn't need it, but this wasn’t some pony, but a strange alien, so she decided to let it go. For now.
Twilight lead the way to one of the empty rooms. They all stopped in front of the door. “Well, here we are.” She said lamely.
Grievous spotted the door knobs, stooped down, and opened the door. He and his droids filed in. He took his surroundings in. A large bed, some useless furniture with surfaces he could put stuff on, and another set of doors. He turned back to face Twilight. “Put the pod there.” He said pointing to wall on one side of the room. He did appreciate the size of the room that allowed him, his droids, and the pod enough space.
Twilight moved the pod to where he had pointed, choosing to ignore his direct and rude demand. He stared at them standing outside the door, waiting.
“Well, goodnight I guess. You should probably wake up around 6 if you want to make it to school on time. Clocks right there.” She said pointing to one of the surfaces of a piece of furniture by the bed.
Grievous continued staring. He then spoke. “Fine.” The whole concept of school and him being there was still boggling his mind. He, General of The Confederacy of Independent Systems and largest droid army in the galaxy, slayer of Jedi, stepping foot for any reason inside a local education facility. To learn. The six ponies and spiked creature turned and walked away. Waiting a few minutes he turned and spoke to his droids. “You two,'' he said pointing to the commandos, “stand guard outside the door.” They moved to obey and took positions on either side of the doors. Grievous walked over and closed them behind them. He moved over to the bed staring. He hadn’t been in one since before becoming a cyborg. He climbed onto it, his back to the headboard, his legs bent in front of him. He sat there any finally began turning off his mind and cybernetics. Before he did so he ordered the droids to alert him if anyone came.
Applejack was the first to speak up as all 7 of them walked away from Grievous’s room. “Well it's gettin late. I better be headin back to the farm.”
“I should go back to my animals. They have been alone for a long time already.” Said Fluttershy.
“See ya tomorrow!” Said Rainbow Dash, zipping away.
“Goodbye Twilight dear.” Said Rarity.
“Bye!” Said Pinkie bouncing away.
Twilight looked on as her friends left. She couldn’t help but think of all that had occurred tonight. “Oh Spike, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“You and me both.” He responded walking to his room leaving Twilight standing alone in the hallway.
She made her way to her own room and jumped into her bed. She tossed and turned for an hour but couldn’t fall asleep. To much had happened today and she just couldn’t find the elusive sleep that she sought. Finally she made a decision. She simply couldn’t sleep without knowing something more about their strange visitor. She teleported away, appearing in one of her research rooms. She grabbed some items with her magic and poofed back to her room. She set down the bowl on top of her nightstand and poured a few ingredients into it. She then pulled a chip of crystal from the wall and added it. The mixture complete, her horn lit up and with another audible poof the ingredients became liquid and murky. She quickly recalled a customized scrying spell that Starlight had made and shown her the other day. The piece of the castle wall made the spell more specific, easier, and safer for viewing anything in the castle. Twilight thought hard about the visitor and his room as she charged up the second part of the spell. She aimed it at the bowl and fired. The murky liquid instantly became a clear image of inside Grievous's room. She could see the scary, dark, glowing eyed, “droids” standing around holding their black objects. They were standing close to the door facing it. The four spindly tan "droids" were by the bed, but compressed. She honestly had no idea how they managed to compress their bodies into such a small tight manner. She couldn’t see the faceless gray ones or the other two scary darker versions of the spindly droids however. Grievous was sitting on the bed, knees bent towards his chest, his back straight, his eyes closed. Even they way he slept was strange. She sighed. It seemed that was as much as she would learn. Some of them can apparently fold into the size of a rocks, don’t sleep, and Grievous doesn’t seem to know how to sleep on a bed, treating it more like a glorified chair with a leg rest. Her horn glowed as she ended the spell, the liquid turning murky again. Fully expecting a restless night she returned to bed to go and chase elusive sleep once again.
Grievous dreamed again. It was even worse than last time. Fire and burning, hundreds of ships on fire, many he did not recognize. Some round, like the pirate saucers, but with large balls on it, and much more powerful. Some were triangular, like the republic ships, but different. Some were separatist ships. Many were not. And out of all them came streaming hundreds of things. Probably fighters, though he couldn’t tell. Then it changed and there was screaming. Of men and machine. Voices he didn’t recognize continued to cry and scream, the sound of battle, death, despair, victory, and bloodlust. It changed again and he saw glowing eyes filled with hatred unlike he had seen or known. It flashed away replaced by yellow eyes and red eyes. It faded and was replaced by single blue eyes, murky, all staring cold and hate filled. More images flashed of silted eyes and big eyes. Starring with uncontainable malice. So many voices floated between the images, the flames, the screams and fire of weapons as scenes of war played across his mind, flashing quickly, only moments from image to image. War even worse than what he had seen in the clone wars. He saw many droids. He also saw many machines on both sides he didn’t recognize. He saw factories producing machines and supplies seemingly out of nowhere. Flashes of light and power and more appeared. He even saw some ponies in armor, there stares hardened like true soldiers. He saw countless beams of energy of all colors going in all directions, each hitting targets that exploded in flame. Whole capital ships vaporized instantly. One battle field was littered with the living charging across the sea of dead, shields big and small of many colors scattered throughout. He saw children and mothers burned in beams of destruction that rained down. He saw many humanoids of races he recognized and ones he didn’t on both sides holding lightsabers it seemed, though some looked far to different, the blades being of all colors against ones of red, black, dark silver, and sinister looking shades of other colors. Some even pulsed with a sinister shade of blue-white like the hue of the hottest of fire, not even seeming to be 100% real or stable. Others looked pitch black, not the shade but the black you get when there is an absolute absence of light. Some were legitimate lightsabers but others looked like nothing he had ever seen, even the sound as the swished and flew through the air being foreign. The swords were in many images that flashed in his head but not all. Some of the holders turned into other creatures, and more did things he had never seen. Flying, grabbing and simply appearing out of nowhere, wisps of smoke and inky essences darting across, landing and reforming. Some of the essences dove into others and they fell, convulsing, consumed. Some rose surrounded by it and turned on their fellow soldiers. He saw many beasts and monsters that didn't look natural. Energy and lighting and flames coming from different mouths. Some flew and others were bulky and charging. Some had spikes and scales, others armored shells and rigid iron looking skin. Soldiers were trampled, smashed, gored, or blown apart. He saw lighting like the Sith and also one like electricity come from many different hands and bodies in red, blue, black, and more. He heard cackling and laughter, one with the voice of Sidious, others of Dooku, and more from ones he did not recognize. He heard unearthly screeches and screams. Grievous was not one to get sacred, but at each voice, at each battle he came across, shivers and despair filled his heart. Grievous had never experienced such despair, coupled with complete powerlessness. During the time before he lost his body, he thought he knew complete despair and powerlessness. And yet whatever darkness in his mind showed him that he was wrong. The despair and powerlessness he had felt before had been self produced, a feeling of him against the galaxy, and he had lost. This feeling of despair did not feel like his, but a feeling thrust upon him. Instead of feeling like him against the galaxy if felt like him against reality. And reality was out for his head. The images and voices began fading, the darkness consolidating and only a few voices whispering. The black curtain of darkness began to come towards him slowly, the voices getting louder. As it surrounded him he heard them clearly. The voices were disembodied, holding the feeling of ancientness, and absolute power. He could not even think of what they said to him, it shook him to the core, and somewhere increased the feeling of despair. As darkness closed around him, it felt like his very soul was suffocating. It was so terrible he wished that had never been born. He wished reality never existed, for it had not, he would not have to feel the indescribable torment he felt. Emotions so powerful that they overwhelmed him, and he couldn’t even identify what emotions they were. It felt like an eternity had come and gone before he finally was free from the darkness grasp. He immediately awoke, sitting up so fast there was a loud whoosh. He then produced a sound he had never made before. A sound he was sure his vocal systems weren’t capable of producing. A sound that echoed and transcended the walls of the room and the castle. A sound like the screams he had heard. The sound of absolute terror, despair, and brokenness. It continued for a few minutes, but felt like hours.
When it finally stopped his body instantly began to relax. His memories of the dream, and the feelings he had felt quickly disappearing. He knew it had disturbed him but his grasp on the actual memories and feelings were mostly gone. Grievous growled. Again. He was no fool. He never had dreams like that, never felt that way before. Even he could recognize the dark side, hearing snippets of what is was like and what it could do from Dooku and Sidious. The question was how it had gotten to him. And why. He was literally the farthest from the force as could be, never being a force sensitive and now lacking most of his organic self, creating a severe midichlorian deficiency. He shouldn’t be able to feel the force. Ever. Or so he thought. And now on top of everything he couldn’t remember much of the dream. Another memory issue from him to deal with, and this time it had to do with something that had emotionally assaulted him.
All of this thinking took only a few seconds. Good thing to or he would have had to deal with his thoughts being interrupted as a large flash and bang occurred leaving a purple pony in its wake.
Luna had just finished having Celestia convince her that trying to enter Grievous dreams would not be the best idea right now. After all, he was not from Equestria. He was a de facto ambassador for where ever he had come from to Equestria. If there was anyone else where he came from. Which there probably was, but best not to assume. Anyway considering his culture appeared strange at just first glance, and how he reacted to Celestia’s magic being used on him, he probably wasn’t used to or very receptive to someone viewing his dream. It should only be used as a last resort(if even possible, which was another concern) should he pose a significant threat. Considering his lack of magic however he shouldn’t pose too big of a threat. Not unless he had an army. Which for all they knew he could. Hence treating the de facto ambassador with diplomatic courtesy until circumstances required otherwise. That's what Celestia said anyway. Luna still thought they should do it anyway but she understood and respected her sister’s logic. Thought she also felt it a little hypocritical considering Celestia had made a risky move herself, practically blackmailing him to attend the friendship school. Not that Celestia admitted it as blackmail. Her intentions being purely to share the magic of friendship with all seemed to make it not blackmail to her. Luna should have felt miffed and indignant at her sister’s double standard. And she did. Until she climbed in bed. Entering the dream world was not something Luna took lightly. She needed to be in the best frame of mind to be able to help other ponies in their nightmares. She always took a little time to mediate, pacifying her mind, allowing her to think only of other ponies and helping them with their nightmares. It was during this mediation that her indignation and overall unsavory attitude had faded. Celestia may have been creating a double standard, but it was far from intentional. Luna knew her sister’s heart, knew that her heart really did have the best of intentions and care towards her sister and her little ponies. Besides, Celestia may be an alicorn, but that did not mean she wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. In Luna’s mind, her mistake of listening to her jealousy and becoming nightmare moon was far greater than anything Celestia had done. With her mind at ease, her horn lit up, the world disappearing around her as she entered the dream world, ready to vanquish the nightmares of her little ponies.
The dream world materialized around her. She looked around, seeing dreams pass by her. All of them looked happy so far. She opened her wings and began to move further in. It didn’t take long to find trouble. It was odd however. Usually she looked at each dream as they passed, looking and sensing for one of great negativity. She hadn’t sensed one so easily from such a distance since the tantabus. She could feel the nightmare before she could see it. Whatever it was that the pony was dreaming was powerful. As she grew closer she saw a cloud of inky blackness swirling around something. By now she was very concerned. This was unprecedented. Even the tantabus had been inside the dream, not floating around outside of it. She could feel the power radiating from the darkness. She closed the distance until she was only a few hoof lengths away. By now she could hear voices. Whispers and also stronger voices, all equally indiscernible. Whatever it was, it was evil. That much she could tell. She charged up her horn, ready to do her duty and dispel it. She lowered her head as she finished preparing the spell, and fired it straight at the darkness. A solid beam of light shot towards the darkness. The second it made contact everything around her disappeared. It was like entering another world. Just like when the real world disappeared and she appeared in the dream world, now the dream world had faded and she found herself in darkness. Images began to flash around her. At first she could not make it out. As the images swirled around her she began to hear voices. The voices started as whispers but increased in volume. Eventually she was able to hear them clearly and she recognized them. They were the voices of her sister, calling for her to stop. She could hear herself as nightmare moon laugh in Celestia’s face. As the voices continued images solidified with the voices. Luna felt a cold, cold dagger of ice pierce her heart as it all came together. She was watching and listening to the day she was banished. She could hear Celestia ask her why she was doing this. She heard herself reply, speaking of the jealousy and anger she had at being in her sister's shadow. As she explained with venom in her voice her grievances against Celestia, images of the past corresponding to the words she said appeared. Images of sleepless nights, bitter nights, and nights full of tears and loneliness. More imaged appeared of times with her shooting jealous, bitter looks at her sister. They changed into fights between her and her sister. Yelling at each other with the royal canterlot voice. By this point, Luna was writhing as the emotions of her past washed over her. She could feel all the terrible feelings, the pain, and the darkness that she had felt then, but stronger. She cried out, “No! No!” The images began to blur and fade, and a large figure broke though. The torment leasend and she looked up. Dread immediately struck her as she saw who it was before her. It was nightmare moon. Her dark self looked at her smaller, weaker self and laughed. Then she spoke.
“It's hard to believe how weak I was before I embraced my true self.”
Luna forced her terror down and responded,”You were always an abomination, true to nothing except evil. Someone with such a base for existence can never be themselves, they will exist only as slaves to darkness.”
Her dark self chuckled, unperturbed by her response. “It seems Celestia has done a good job indoctrinating you into her narrow views. If you were to have the other side you would see you are nothing but a slave to her tyranny. Bringing our night to destroy her tyrant day would have been freedom for the little ponies. You would also know that the very nature of what you call evil is to control and bend darkness to ones will. To use it to benefit others. We are truly free.”
Luna paused for a moment, but her resolve quickly strengthened. “You forgot, I was once you. I know how you think. You only care for yourself and your power. You don’t care what happens to anyone else. Besides, lying is in your very nature.”
This seemed to ruffle the mare in the moon. She snapped back, “I will do whatever it takes to destroy Celestia’s tyranny. My means are separate from my method. You know what my true purpose is.”
Luna lowered her head.”I do. Your purpose is pain.”
The smile returned to her evil face, “How else do you learn? Once they all learn and grow into their potential, pain will be discarded. How is making someone better so bad?”
“It’s not wrong, the methods you use to get there are. The ends justify the means excuse is a rationalization. Rationalization is the path to be consumed by evil, like you.” She retorted.
“Thats sounds like a rationalization to deceive yourself about the truth.Your condoning of weakness is true evil.” The evil equine said. Her eyes had become further slited and her voice venomous, filled with hatred and loathing. Then she smiled, her most twisted one yet. “Like they say, good always wins. You will become me again, and the night will last forever.” She laughed again, her chuckle growing into a full, cold, heartless laugh. She stepped back as the darkness began to surge towards her. “Let me show you the truth, who you are, and what you will do.” The darkness reached her, and she could not see anything. Until the images returned. This time she did not recognize the event, though she did recognize the ponies. She saw herself again surrounded by the elements. They rose into the air, their eyes white, magic flowing between them. The magic then went through each one and hit Twilight in the center. The beam of energy raced towards her, and she discovered she was Nightmare moon again. The beam hit and agony unlike anything she had every felt coursed through her body. She screamed, overwhelmed with pain. It felt like forever before it faded and she looked up to see the elements lying on the ground, bruised and burned. She realized that they had been in canterlot castle when they had confronted her. And now there was only ruins surrounding them. Ruins fresh and burning with small flames and filled with debris. Her body ached and it took several minutes before she could stand. After managing a shaking stand, she slowly made her way over to the closest elements, Twilight. As she made it, she could see her chest rise in shallow breaths, barely breathing. She turned her head and her eyes fluttered open. They meet hers and she could see the shock and horror in them. She continued staring and after minutes of her staring without blinking, horror hit her.
“No, no.” in fear and horror she scrambled backwards trying to get away. A disembodied voice of Twilight echoed across the room.
“How? How could you survive the elements? What have you done to yourself? How could you be so cold and evil?” Suddenly the voice rose in pitch and began yelling. “Murderer! Destroyer of Equestria! Monster!!!!”
Luna backed against the wall, her mind numb with horror, silently repeating the same words.”No, no.”
The scene shifted. This time she was in front of Celestia. The look on her face stopped Luna’s heart.
“You killed them. My student, her friends, my little ponies. You are not my sister. I hate you.” She didn’t even raise her voice, that was the worst part. Her horn lighted, and she pointed it at Luna. “And now, you will pay.” Each word was carried with such venom it broke her heart again and again. Celestia fired and a dark power rose from Luna to meet it. Another explosion. This time when Luna could see again, it was Celestia on the floor, taking shaky shallow breaths. Her eyes were the worst part. Hate like she had never seen or known. She took one last breath, and became still. Even as nightmare moon she had never been exposed to such horror, such terror, such evil. Never in Equstria had she ever known so much evil. She broke inside and let loose a scream in a mix of royal canterlot voice and raw power. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!” Her scream tore through the night. The despair and sheer brokenness pierced the air like shards of high speed projectile glass. The darkness again moved to surround her. She curled up and let the darkness take her. She could only feel the overpowering blackness of despair as she began to meld with the darkness.
Celestia awoke to a scream. So powerful that she was covering her ears. When it stopped she lowered her hooves. She recognized the power in that scream, being around as long as she had. It’s why she was out the door of her chamber in less than a second. She ran right past her guards as they cowered both because of the loud noise and the insanity they heard in it. They had never heard anything like it and it shook them to the core. Celestia was pretty shaken to but focused solely on responding to it. She recognized the scream had been in the royal canterlot voice as well. She decided to first check her sisters chambers, teleporting there mid gallop. She found Luna writhing as if in extreme agony, a dark inky substance coming of her horn and out of her eyes, enveloping her.
“Oh no you don’t.” Celestia said, lighting her horn as she ran forward and touched it to Luna’s. Unfortunately because she had no idea what was going on with Luna, she was afraid trying to simply get rid of it may harm Luna. Instead she decided she trusted her sister to be able to fight it herself, with her additional strength and power of course. “Fight it sister, whatever it is. Fight it.”
Luna felt as if she didn't exist. She wasn’t even able to perceive anything, or form coherent thoughts. Many eternities would have seemed to pass if she had any awareness of the passage of time. After an indiscernible amount of time the darkness lessened around her and began to disperse and recede. It happened slowly but began to exponentially get faster in its retreat. As it retreated she began to began some form of thinking again. She felt magic surround her, processing the horrors she had felt and seen and locking them away, allowing her to begin to act. She stood up and combined her now restored magic with the new one, that she quickly recognized as her sisters’. She heard a faint cry in the darkness as it began to recede. The voices had stopped briefly but now started again, weaker, repeating the same lies that her evil self had said, along with others. With her sisters help she was able to find each lie, and refute it, giving proof of the power and truth of love and friendship. After a good while the darkness finally dispersed and she recognized the dream world around her. Exhausted, she lit her horn and it faded, reality seeping back in to view. She collapsed against her bed with Celestia there and began sobbing. Neither spoke for many moments. Celestia wanted to speak, ask her what had happened, but instead simply moved to embrace her. After what feels like hours, but was really ten minutes, Luna finally spoke, anticipating her questions. “It was a nightmare sister. I don’t wish to talk about it now. I simply want to rest. Don’t worry, when I wake up again I will tell you of it.” With those words and a reassuring smile (that she struggled to feel herself) aimed towards her sister, she closed her eyes and fell into her own dreams this time, unmarred by darkness.
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.
“Listen up everycreature!” Boomed Twilight’s canterlot voice. All the conversations in the hall stopped. Now that she had everycreates’s attention, Twilight spoke at a normal volume “You're probably wondering why I called an assembly this morning. You’re also probably wondering what happened after the thing fell from the sky yesterday at our school’s anniversary party. Well, I know it's shocking to say, but it was an alien.”
There was an audible gasp from the crowd.
“Hold up, everycreature! Let me finish. The alien is not coming to invade. He is in fact currently stranded. He and his friends are coming here to learn the magic of friendship, since his culture doesn’t seem to have an equivalent, while the princess's work to get him home. I want you all to treat him like any other creature, and please do not pester him. He doesn’t like questions, and regardless he is our guest here at the school. That being said, he and his friends may look scary, but don’t be afraid of them. He is just another creature come to learn of friendship. If you have any concerns, please see our councilor Starlight Glimmer. And now here is our guest and newest student, Grievous and his droid friends!” She turned, gesturing behind her, as Grievous and his guards came out on the stage.
There was another audible gasp from the assembled students. “Please! Calm down everycreature! Thank you. Now with that matter taken care of, I would like to welcome you all to the start of another year of learning! Schedules are at the tables to the right, and classes will start in an hour. Don’t be late!” Twilight said, finishing her speech. The main 6 moved off to monitor the throng of students now going every which way, clambering excitedly over the news as the went to get their schedules. Starlight stayed behind with Grievous and his guards.
Grievous for his part was very unhappy. The day had already started terribly, between the attack, and his increasing memory issues. And now he was faced with humiliation. He looked at all the students, feeling demeaned simply by being in their presence. He wanted to hold onto his anger at being humiliated and forced to be here. But he knew as much as he hated it, his options were few. Well, the reasonable options that didn’t involve sneaking away and killing a few civilians pointlessly. He turned the emotions over and over again, struggling with the logical side of his mind. It took most of the students to clear to their classes for him to finally decide to accept his situation. He decided he would take it as a challenge. He would show Dooku he was more than a coughing, powerful, lightsaber wielding, ruthless general. He could adapt, be diplomatic, cunning and resourceful. He would show that he had learned from his many humiliating failures throughout the clone wars. He would show that he was worthy of the name Grievous, in that he could cause the enemy to grieve in his conquest of their people. And not just a conquest consisting purely of overwhelming force, which he did not currently have, but a conquest using his words and mind as well. Something he knew Dooku would love to see in him. It didn’t matter that he was without an army, he would grow stronger every day. Strong enough to stand against the equines, even if by himself.
Now this was all a good pep talk, but he couldn’t forget that this self growth only need occur if he fails to contact support and leave this rock. Either way however, he wins.
Grievous smiled internally. As part of his newfound desire to be cunning, He decided to send an order to the droids telling them they could answer any of the equines from yesterday, as long as they stayed within the parameters he set regarding what they could reveal. This increased cooperativity should give the equines an increased false security about his intentions without hurting his efforts. With a greatly improved mood he looked over to the six adult equines head off to their classrooms. Expect one.
Applejack walked up to Grievous and his droids. “Hey there sugarcubes, y’all with me first period. Come on, I’ll lead y’all there.”
With Grievous improved mood, he felt no urge to growl as he followed after the orange equine, his guards following behind.
Grievous ignored the uncomfortable gazes of the assembled students as he and his entourage sauntered in.
“Hey there mister aliens, come over and sit with us!” Came a bubbly voice from an equally bubbly certain hippogriff.
Grievous hesitated. Although he preferred standing at the back, his new found desire to be less angry and more cunning told him not to make a scene and take the offer. After all, it was just sitting. Sure he did not prefer it, but someone as powerful as him was more than capable of doing it.
His mind made up he strode over and sat down, putting his hands together in front of him, mechanical elbows resting on the table, and two of his commandos standing behind him, the rest by the entrance to the barn/classroom cross they were in.
“Aren’t you guys gonna sit to?” Asked the non-equine yet equine shaped, clawed, bubbly creature, the only one not afraid enough to talk openly with the aliens out of all the students.
The guards behind Grievous did not respond, so he answered for them. “They are my guards. They can participate just fine where they are.”
The hippogriff looked uncertain, and asked “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He replied with a note of finality.
“Okay, if you say so…”
Grievous began to regret sitting down. Sure he sat across from other leaders, diplomats, or such before, if on very few occasions. But the students were seated around the table with him, creating a feel that he did not like. As if he was part of the table group, and not standing alone and above them at one end of the table.
The orange equine… he stopped himself. He better start thinking of them by name, as it would increase successful communication necessary to implant any cunning plans he came up with that didn’t involve hacking and slicing.
Applejack began her lesson. His feeling of humiliation returned as she began to teach. These weren't some complex philosophical discussion on friendship, which would have been already very humiliating and beneath Grievous to ever attend. No, these lessons were about things mothers told their 3 year old children about being kind to others in the galaxy or some other unrealistic, fairy tale crap those weaklings told their young to make them feel better about the merciless galaxy they lived in. Grievous became absolutely furious. This is what they subject him too?! Utter humiliation and idealistic child like views?! Is this really what these force mutated creatures society was based off of? Grievous was disgusted. He was about to storm out right there when he noticed Applejack talking in his direction. He quickly refocused to pick out the words she was saying.
“...what would you do?”
Surprisingly his commando answered. “Question does not compute with programming”
Grievous realized Applejack had asked the commando the question.
Applejack tried again. “When somecreature asks a question, and you know the honest answer will hurt their feelings, how can you avoid telling a lie without crushing their feelings?
The commando stayed still for a moment. He forgot he had told them to respond to any of the equines he had met yesterday as long as the question did not reveal details he did not want known by them. Before he could tell the thing to shut up, it responded again. “Question exceeds battle programming parameters. Cannot compute.”
Grievous had enough. He rose, speaking to his droids.”Shut up and follow me.” He then strode past them towards the exit.
The hippogriff called after him “Mr.alien… I mean Grievous, are you okay? Come back!!”
“Grievous where in tarnation are ya going?” Applejack said. When he didn’t respond and walked right out, she quickly spoke to the students. “All ya’ll stay put now, you hear?” Then she ran out after him.
Grievous kept his quick pace to the school. He would have to pass through it to get to the front entrance, where he could then make it back to Twilight’s castle. He refused to waste anymore time on this school. He was going to go to the escape pod and figure out a way to contact someone or achieve orbit, and he wasn’t going to stop until he succeeded. Applejack quickly caught up, coming alongside Grievous. She kept trying to convince him to come back, kept asking where he was going, and what was wrong. He ignored her completely, continuing on. Applejack tried asking his droids, but he had rescinded the order to answer her he had naively gave in his positive moment earlier at the end of the morning assembly.
Applejack was getting pretty annoyed at the aliens and their behavior. Finally she decided she had enough, and went in with her trump card.
“If you aren’t gonna talk to me, I’m gonna have to tell the princesses about this.”
Grievous stopped. Applejack moved pass him to stand face to face. Her stare was fierce, but he was sure his was more so. He took a few steps forward until he was 15 centimeters away from her and stooped down, his face a few centimeters from hers and spoke with an eerily calm voice.
“Are you threatening me?” He asked.
“I’m trying to get you to talk to me so we can work this out.”
The audacity of this mutated equine force witch astounded Grievous. It took insane levels of self control to not grab her by the throat and crush it right then and there.
“There is nothing to work out.”
“You know what, if you aren’t gonna talk to me, then you need to go see Starlight. Maybe a counselor will get your problem out of ya. And if you don’t, ma duty as a teacher calls that I report it to the headmare. And I have no doubt she’ll pass it up to the princesses.”
“I do not take kindly to blackmail, Applejack.” His use of her name surprised her. So much that she didn’t react as he gave out a cry of warrior rage in his native language and backhanded her with such force she flew into the wall with a loud smack. Applejack groaned in pain, conscious and bruised, unable to get to her feet, but otherwise fine.
She let out a shaky weak breath. “Wha-a-t-t the hay was that for!” It barely came out as more than a whisper.
“Your lucky I am being so cooperative with you all. If talking to this Starlight is what you want, fine. But don’t expect me back at your pitiful excuse for an educational facility.” If it wasn’t for the childlike views taught, he would have thought it was brain washing. Then again, he had yet to see any violence. Maybe their social system was so pacifist and backwards that child like views was a form of brainwashing for them.
With such thoughts, Grievous strode away, the droids following, leaving Applejack bruised and trying to recover the breath that had been knocked out of her. She had no idea how lucky see was, how so very close to killing her Grievous had been.
Grievous stalked through the hallways of the school until he found where he had started this morning. If he remembered correctly, after the assembly he saw Twilight head...this way. If he was lucky the councilor’s office was in this general direction as well.
After a bit of wandering around the hallways, he finally found a room marked councilor on it. He raised his fist and pounded on the door
Starlight Glimmer had found herself again without any students in need of counselling. She decided that telling someone about the crazy day she had had with the new aliens would be much more interesting than trying to keep her plants alive, or mess around with the things in her office. And so, she invited Trixie over for a little mare time.
While Trixie much preferred spending their time anywhere but a boring old school, it had been a week since they had spent some quality time. And while she would never admit it, she needed her best friend. Besides, Starlight had promised that she had some very interesting news to share. As such, she accepted Starlight’s invite and found herself sitting across from Starlight as she recounted the “intense standoff” with the alien this morning. Normally Trixie hated hearing anything about Twilight, but a standoff with a fearsome alien threatening her and not getting blasted by her power was quite satisfying to hear. It also stirred her ambition a bit. She had a chance to impress these aliens with her great and powerful magic tricks and hopefully gain a larger audience and fans that were somewhat cool. I mean everyone agreed that large, scary aliens were super cool, as long as they weren’t conquering ponies or kidnapping them. To have them in her audience would not doubt gain her great publicity in the eyes of Equestria. Maybe she would even gain the attention of Princess Celestia! Oh that would make Twilight soooo jealous. Well, maybe not jealous, as she was already super close to Celestia, but at least super annoyed that Celestia payed attention to Trixie at all.
These were the thoughts on her mind as Starlight finished with her story, when a very loud sound came from the door, causing her to jump several hoof lengths into the air with a very undignified, high pitched shriek of fear.
Starlight herself had jerked backwards at such speeds it was if she had teleported to the back of her chair. That was how loud and sudden the sound came from the door.
“Open up!!!” Called a raspy voice.
Starlight recognizing the voice quickly responded. “Oh hello Grievous! The...uhh door is already unlocked so umm you can just come in.”
Trixie paled a bit at hearing Grievous’s name. She did her best to hide it however. The Great and Powerful Trixie refused to show fear in front of her best friend.
Grievous growled at being forced to open the door himself. Whether it was because it showed the primitiveness of the society that they didn't have self opening doors, or the further slight the natives showed by making him do it himself, he wasn’t quite sure. Not that it mattered. Either way he was angry with them, and that’s all that mattered. Those who concern themselves with words might have had the desire to figure out the exact reason for their anger, so that they could shape their words in a way that addressed and resolved the issue at hand rather than addressing a nonexistent issue by accident. For Grievous, he found that lightsabers often eliminated the need to pinpoint his reason for anger, and was much more efficient as a result.
With such thinking and desire to cut off limbs and heads he grabbed the handle and threw the door open, stomping inside the rather large room. He made for the desk at which sat Starlight, his long strides closing the distance quickly. Too quickly for Starlights taste as she saw the obvious bad mood Grievous was in.
Still, ruling a village taught one the skill and necessity of keeping one's composure in all situations. With such barley kept composure, Starlight asked very camly “What can I do for you Grievous?”
Most might have felt more at ease at hearing such a kind, controlled response. Not Grievous. He saw her reaction as resistance to the intimidation tactics he was purposefully employing. In the clone wars, those who often resisted him were usually the enemy. So suffice it to say her composure added to his anger and desire to start slaughtering scores of enemies. And with a seemingly lack of enemies, his desire morphed into a desire to slaughter scores of primitives that were conveniently on hand.
With more effort than he had ever had to exert in his life, he excruciatingly forced his hand centimeter by centimeter away from his waist were his lightsabers rested.
Starlight, like Applejack, was completely oblivious to the murderous thoughts running through Grievous’s head. Murder just wasn’t something ponies ever considered or thought about. Ever. Why that was, only Celestia knew.
Taking a good long while to collect himself before responding, he paused for a few seconds.
Starlight began to feel an increased anxiety as she waited for him to say something, anything, rather than continuing hovering intimidatingly above her.
Finally, choosing his words carefully, Grievous spoke. “I have an issue attending this institution.”
“What do you mean? Did you have trouble finding a class? Were the students mean or something?” Starlight asked.
“It is the curriculum.” Grievous responded, ignoring her questions and acting almost as if he had not paused and she had not responded, becoming slightly aggressive.“It is not educative, meer forcing of ignorant, childish beliefs on ignorant minds.”
“Friendship isn’t childish.” Starlight retorted.
Trixie cut in before Starlight could finish. “Once upon a time Trixie may have agreed with your view. But my great and powerful friend is right. Friendship is a special power, one Trixie was lucky to discover. It may seem like it is nothing special, not important, or not worth it, but Trixie has learned otherwise.”
Starlight felt a surge of pride for her friend and the advancements she had made in the field of friendship. When they had met, neither one of them had really known anything about friendship. And now her she was a counselor at a friendship school, and Trixie was here telling a stranger the value of Friendship.
Trixie was proud of herself too. She was not this open very often. And when she was, it was only around her. Being around Starlight, her best friend, really helped her feel safe, and allow her drop her arrogant act. Even she had to admit how completely life changing it was to have her as a friend.
Grievous of course was oblivious to all of this, and simply laughed a cynical laugh, smashing both the good and magical feelings the mares had developed speaking on the topic of friendship.
“Your primitiveness shows in your lack of understanding of reality. The things I have seen would probably drive your weak minds insane. It is why I detest dealing with you. You are nothing to me.”
Starlight felt hurt at his words, and it was with a cold voice and expression that she responded. “And yet without us, you have no way home.”
Grievous growled at the reminder.
She continued in her assertive tone and words.“I’m sure the princesses sent you here to teach you that we, and everycreature else, is someone. Despite your view of us, it was us that saw through you, and your need to learn. I can understand that they way we teach my be different than your culture, and as such, I am willing to find alternate ways to teach. If you are open to us, we will be open with you, and you will see the strength we have and solutions to your problems. They only way we can help you is if you help us.” She felt uncomfortable using this tone with Grievous, as she hadn't used it since she had ruled over her village. She had created a dominating personality to cope with the loss of her friend, which led to how she treated her old village. It was still a part of her, but one she tried to move past. Realizing her mistakes, she had tried to make up and be the person she would have been had she not decided to harden her heart because of her pain.
Of course Grievous cared not for her words or reasons, and cared only that the primitive dared defy him. The amount of will he was able to exert to keep his blades from their necks honestly shocked him. He always believed he was strong willed, but this was far more. The very fact he could somehow contain the uncontainable rage and hate he felt worried him. Were his emotions being manipulated by these force witches? For a fraction of a second, he felt afraid, fear he thought had died with the rest of his body. Before he could even think about it, it was gone, and his mind was made up.
He stooped down and threw his hand out to Starlight, his finger pointing inches from her head. “You better hope I don’t regret this.” As soon as he had a way off planet, he would make sure these creatures paid. In blood, spilt by his armies.
It wasn’t all that much longer after Grievous tramped out that Applejack burst through the doors, panting and wild looking. Before Starlight could ask what was wrong or before Trixie could make some questionable comment, Applejack spoke. “Y’all seen Grievous?!” She asked with a wild look.
“Yeah, he was just here, why?”
“We got to find him! He just attacked me, who knows what he’ll do next!” She paused. “Wait, you said he was here?”
“Yeah, but wait, he attacked you?” Starlight asked incredulously.
“He was going on about how he didn’t like the school and I told him he could come here or talk to the princesses. Then he said I was blackmailing him and threw me across the hall!”
“Sounds to me he doesn't do well with authority, and he vented his frustration with at you, physically. Because he did still come here like you told him too.” Starlight reasoned.
“What if he vents on some other creature?!” Applejack exclaimed.
Starlight’s eyes widened. “That would be bad. I think we should give him his space, but we should also make sure that he doesn't get in others. Come on, let's go.” She jumped down from her chair and raced after Applejack, who had started running at go. Trixie whined as they left and reluctantly ran after them,”Why do we have to chase after him? Trixie doesn't like chases.” She was a bit to far behind for them to hear her, and they were busy trying to find Grievous anyway, so her complaining went ignored. She still felt a little better for saying it though.
