Chapter Text
General Grievous couldn’t believe his eyes.
Moments ago, he was commanding a tactical retreat from yet another Republic assault, one led by that insufferable Jedi scum, General Obi-Wan Kenobi. Within the cold steel corridors of his Lucrehulk-class battleship, encased in the familiar silence of hyperspace, he had begun planning his next strike. The Jedi may have forced him back, but he was no coward. A strategic withdrawal was a sign of intelligence, not fear.
He was Kalee’s greatest warrior. The Confederacy’s deadliest general. A Jedi slayer whose very name struck fear across the galaxy. Of course, he was no coward!
In a rare moment of stillness amid the ship, deep in hyperspace…he blinked.
Just once.
And everything changed.
The cold metal under his clawed feet felt the same, but the view through the battleship’s reinforced viewport did not. Grievous found himself standing in the command center of his ship, still intact and fully operational, yet suspended over an unfamiliar, verdant world. Rolling green plains stretched endlessly beneath him, and in the distance loomed a monolithic tree, ancient and incomprehensibly massive.
“What?!” Grievous snarled, his clawed metal feet clanking among the edges of the command platform. “Where are we?!”
The droids in the bridge scrambled in confusion.
“Uh…General?” one B1 unit chirped nervously. “I don’t think we’re in the Outer Rim…”
“Sir?! Are we under attack?!” Another B1 battle droid squawked, stumbling to his side.
“No systems match,” reported a super tactical droid, its voice as cold as its metal skin. “Stellar charts: unrecognizable. Hyperspace coordinates: null.”
Grievous’ golden predator-like eyes narrowed dangerously, scanning the horizon. This wasn’t a navigational error. There had been no hyperspace exit warning, no impact, and no gravitational distortion. It didn't even feel like they had dropped out of hyperspace.
It was as if the entire ship had been…plucked from reality itself.
Impossible, Grievous thought, in a rare state of bewilderment.
Suddenly, sharp pain lanced through his head-his mind, more precisely. Something foreign had entered it.
“Argh!” Suddenly, Grievous held his head and winced in unexplained pain.
“-baru.”
“What…?!” He rasped quietly.
"Witchcraft," Grievous growled. "Dathomirian scum...?! " The Nightsisters had toyed with his master’s mind before. Could this be their doing? Could they be trying to do the same thing to him, as well? Or was this some kind of new Jedi mind trick?
One of the foolish B1 droid who noticed their general’s state, naively asked. “Sir? Are you alright?”
“Silence!” Grievous bellowed. “Set a course! Any Separatist world! Raxus, Geonosis, Mustafar-I don’t care where, just get us out of here!”
The droids scrambled. A moment later, a red alert blared across the bridge.
“Hyperdrive systems offline,” reported the super tactical droid. “All navigational data corrupted. We cannot return. This...does not compute.”
A low growl rumbled in Grievous’ chest as he attempted to contact Count Dooku only to receive static. He tried Raxus, Geonosis, even Coruscant.
Nothing.
No signal. Not even a trace of the Confederacy's network. He ordered his droids to cycle through every known frequency and relay, and each returned the same: silence. Deafening silence.
It was as if the galaxy itself had vanished.
Grievous…was speechless.
Then, the voice returned with another jolt of pain that wracked his head.
“Help him. Protect him.”
It was clearer now that it was a female voice. Soft, yet haunting. As if echoing across time itself.
The cyborg Kaleesh staggered for a moment, then snarled, refusing to bend. Who are you?! What sorcery is this?!, he angrily asked in his head, receiving no response.
He recalled her words. Help?! Protect?! What?! And who?! And why should he?! He was General Grievous! Leader of the most powerful and dangerous droid army the galaxy had ever seen! Revered Jedi slayer and warlord of Kalee! He was not some guardian like those Jedi filth claim to be!
He stopped as he made the realization that this was no Jedi trap. Nor was it a Sith mind trick. Grievous realized that something far stranger was at play.
And the voice whispered again. But this time, it felt…different. Her tone felt ancient. Grieving. Desperate.
“You cannot leave, yet. Subaru Natsuki. Protect him.”
Grievous was disoriented as he was confused. Subaru Natsuki?
The name meant nothing. A primitive? A force-sensitive pawn?
For the first time in a long, long while, General Grievous, conqueror of worlds and butcher of Jedi, felt something he had long buried beneath metal and rage: uncertainty .
In the end, Grievous sighed. Seeing that he was not going to get any clear answers, he, against his own pride, relented his attempt of trying to communicate to whichever being that was intruding in his mind.
“Set the ship down,” he barked his order for his ship to descend. If there were no stars he recognized, then he would chart this new world the old-fashioned way, which is by conquest, if necessary. “Beside that tree. I want a perimeter and base established. Droids deployed. Full scan of the area and world. We are not leaving until I get answers!”
“Yes, sir!” a pilot droids replied unanimously, though even they sounded uncertain.
The Lucrehulk groaned as it began to descend, the immensely large tree casting its shadow over the massive battleship as it gently parked beside its roots.
Grievous watched on. His war was gone. His army trapped. His galaxy…unreachable.
And now, a disembodied voice spoke of a stranger he was apparently summoned and ordered to protect.
Speaking of, the voice whispered in his mind one final time.
“Subaru Natsuki. Your path begins with him.”
Grievous’ voice rasped in defiance and curiosity alike. “Subaru Natsuki…” he muttered aloud, the name tasting foreign in his synth-larynx.
A low growl escaped his metal throat.
“Who are you…? And why should I protect you?”