The Path of the Jedi

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

It is a time of war, blood, and clashing of two ideals in the midst of the Clone Wars’ heated climax. The Galactic Republic, lead by the Jedi, paladins of justice and courage, and the Clone Armies fight tooth and nail against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, controlled by the Sith, malicious and conquering warriors of the Force and its seemingly endless Droid military.

As many planets filled with life are brought into the conflict, new force-sensitive beings are discovered, adding to the ranks of the Jedi and Sith alike. Though many, many new worlds are discovered, a great number that could possibly be inhabited by civilizations of different measures remain undiscovered.

One such civilization is found on the far secluded Equus, a planet inhabited by a huge variety of creatures of all sorts of shapes and forms. However, among these many civilizations, the name of one rings of cruelty and oppression: the Crystal Empire, under the iron hoof of King Sombra.

Amidst this cruel and dark empire, comes a beacon of salvation and hope, in one of its most unlikely of forms…

“Alright kiddo. You really should get going. The guards begin to patrol at this hour. And recently, they’ve been doing this more aggressively,” The old merchant, one of the few that was actually let into the Crystal Empire spoke hastily to his young customer.

“I’ll be okay, Shining Idol. Thanks for the fruit!” the small white pony waved as he trotted away.

“Be safe!” the elderly vendor’s words began to muffle out as the noise from the young customer’s hooves on the cobblestone drowned out the call.

Marble Hoof’s mother did know that heading out at this hour could mean interception by guards, as it was past curfew for civilians. However, the small and determined colt still decided to head out anyways to buy a fair amount of food from Mr. Idol to do his part while his mother was injured, despite his mother’s protests.

At that point, he saw a large line of Earth Ponies, the same species that he was, shackled and moving along a group of armored guards, spears fixing their points directly at the slaves so none would even think of stepping out of line. Marble quickly dashed for a hiding spot as the slaves and the guards trotted past.

Marble eyed the slaves as they weakly trotted past, noticing again that their bellies were deathly stretched thin, and their eyes held the dullness of a broken soul inside. The guards stomped past Marble’s hiding spot, a junk pile, as they continued down to start the slaves on night-time work.

Marble huffed a sigh, and silently galloped away from the guards, looking back to make sure none of them turn around.

“Oof!”

While he had his head turned around, Marble collided with something thick and plated, getting him onto his rump as he recovered from running straight into it. At first, he suspected that he ran into a street post, and mentally scolded himself for being so careless.

He soon changed his mind when the pole scowled at him and scooped him up from the ground, and shook him furiously.

“Damnit! You little shrimp, doesn’t your little brain remember that your parents told you it’s past curfew?!” the now extremely agitated guard pony shouted right into Marble’s face, his hot breath steaming over the little Earth Pony.

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t realise!”, Marble panicked falsely, as he had done numerous other times with bad run-ins with guards.

“Didn’t realise? It’s bucking pitch-black dark at night!”, the guard snarled, extending his free hoof towards the sky.

“Please! I’m sorry! I won’t go out after curfew again! I promise!”, Marble tried to avoid the guard's blood red eyes as they pierced into his head. The armored pony narrowed his eyes at the small white colt, then dropped him straight down onto the hard cobblestone. Right as Marble had his uncomfortable landing, the guard smashed his hoof straight down onto the basket of food, flattening a good amount of its contents with a satisfying sound of fruit bursting.

“Get out of here.”

He didn’t have to be told twice, as Marble took the basket in his teeth, and hurried off from the guard. He rounded a building, and sighed as he patted himself for any other injuries than his bruised chest and possibly a swollen eye from running into the guard’s armor.

As he checked around, he became sure that his eye was in good condition, but his neck hurt a little when poked. This time, he was thankful that one of Emperor Sombra’s guards hadn’t dealt anything worse to him. Once Marble was finished, he headed towards the outskirts of the city, to where the poorer dwelled in their homes.

Marble walked around for a good fifteen minutes before he looked up at the complex that he and his mother called “home”. Instead of going up to the door, he looked around in all directions that he could rotate his body or head to look at, then trotted behind the building. Since not many guards bother to come in this district, it was still rather danger-free, but it didn’t hurt to be sure.

Walking around the complex, Marble looked for a small patch of discolored cobblestone on the building’s wall, pushed it with his hoof, and slid in the stone. He waited a little bit after doing so, and a tiny peephole, one so small that a pony would never notice if it had been opened up unless they were specifically looking for it, slid open to view who was outside.

“It’s me.”, Marble spoke silently, before the peephole closed, and a door painted very well to match the cobblestone wall slid open. He trotted inside, and as soon as he had entered, the door shut behind Marble. A grey stallion, just named “Whisker” trotted away from the door, a stallion that was accompanying Marble and his mother as they hid from the Emperor.

“I’m back, mom!”, Marble called out inside the underground complex.

Soon after Marble called out, tan coated and black maned Earth Pony trotted out from another room, looked at her son for one second, then limped on her broken hoof over towards Marble.

“Marble! What happened to your neck? I’ve been trying to look everywhere for you!”, the concern and worry in her voice clearly showed through her quick actions to check Marble and his possible injuries.

“I’m fine mom, it was just a grab.”, Marble smiled at his mother, whose emerald green eyes locked with his amethyst violet eyes.

“It isn’t fine, Marble. You could have gotten beaten by one of those guards. And I know that there are plenty who would do it to you if you were younger.”

Marble glanced down to the hidden scar beneath his coat resting on his shoulder.

“Yeah...I know-”

“And you still went out despite my specific order not to!”, his mother’s eyes began to water, “All of this for some food... Marble! Please don’t make me lose somepony else…”

At this point, guilt had burrowed into Marble’s heart like a sword. He bit his lip, shut his eyes, and put his head against his mother’s shoulder, embracing her as she began to hold back the tears that were welling in her eyes.

“I don’t want to lose you, like your father…”

Marble swallowed a sob, and met his mother’s eyes.

“I won’t go out again without your permission. I promise. And...I’m sorry, mom.”

His mom recovered a bit, and nodded.

“Okay sweetie. Just...please don’t do this anymore that this hour.”

In reality, Marble had gone around town many, many times on his own, but the closer it got to night, the more danger was presented for him. In addition, today was a day that held a troubling aura over the family…

On this day, it has been ten years since Marble’s father had died. His mother had promised to take up the duty to stir up change for the oppression of the Crystal Empire, and just maybe, get a revolution to occur. However, any thoughts of revolution are quickly snuffed out when they remembered who they were to rebel against.

His mother had taken up the alias as “The Rebellion’s Hope”, after her husband had died to push for the same goal. Even though she was the driving force of the secret propaganda to remove Sombra, in heart, she was a caring and loving mother that strived her hardest to raise Marble into a strong, healthy, and brave stallion.

Even when she still took up her husband’s duty…

Even the numerous rumors that she spread, or the letters she passed on to many ponies to stop Sombra’s cruelty couldn’t match the effort she made to raise Marble. Even though she risked her life and the entire plan to also care for her son, Marble knew that taking down Sombra was very important to all that lived within the Empire.

“Okay mom, I won’t any more. I promise.”, Marble smiled reassuringly at his mother, who smiled and squeezed her son again.

“Agh! Mom! I can’t-*wheeze*”

“Sorry!”

Marble stumbled back from the Ursa-hug, and patted his mane.

“Oh, and sweetie, remember what we were supposed to do today?”, Marble’s mother asked while she fixed the dimming light that hung above a table.

“Yeah...you wanted to give me something?”, Marble replied as he eyed the peephole, cautious in case a guard could have followed him back. Meanwhile, his mother trotted towards a table to pick up a small locked box. She eyed the small etching that the little wooden box had carved into it.

“To my dearest Emerald Shine. I shall always be yours.

-Diamond Hoof”, the engraving said.

“Marble Hoof, remember what I said about this box? How it means so much to me and how it’s one of the very few remnants I still have of your father?”

“Yes, I do remember…”, Marble turned around and slowly walked over.

“I think it’s time to pass down your father’s legacy onto you. Whether you can continue what your father fought for in the past like I have now, or if you want to be freed of this burden, I want you to keep this.”

The box opened with a tiny key that was taped underneath it, and sitting on top of a velvet cushion was a necklace, with the only piece of jewelry being a small purple crystal, cut and edged to perfection.

“Wasn’t that the necklace that dad made for when you two got married?”, Marble gazed over the necklace, as he hadn’t seen it a whole lot of times.

“Yes, it’s the very one. This gift given to me by your father was meant to be eventually passed down to our child. And remember, this tiny crystal here isn’t an amethyst, it’s one of the most rare in the Crystal Empire, possibly the most rare in Equestria…”, his mother kept her eyes on the small crystal, being able to see her reflection shining from the jewel.

The small white colt looked over the crystal with great, great interest. Not because of its value, but of the significance that it held in his family. With a sudden twinge of guilt, he stared at the jewel wondering if his irresponsible action that he performed before really still let him have the privilege of having been bestowed the heirloom.

“The purple luster of this crystal symbolised hope, the exact thing that your father had lost his life for, and the same force that still makes this war against Emperor Sombra live on. Hope that things can change…”

Marble’s mother took her son’s hoof, then slowly placed the necklace inside. For a second, possibly even a minute, Marble’s mouth couldn’t open. He couldn’t say a word about the necklace that was just passed down to him. However, he did manage to speak in the end.

“Thank you mom.”, Marble smiled and hugged his mother. Though considering the significance of the heirloom being passed on, Marble’s mother truly knew what he meant to say.

“Attention all crew! Abandon ship! Repeat, abandon ship!”, a cloaked human shouted into his comlink as the clattering of battledroids echoed throughout the corridors of the Venator-class Star Destroyer. Alarms wailed and sounds of blaster fire sliced through the occasional short-circuiting of electronic panels around the hallways.

“Sir! enemies have cut off the crew at the escape pod stations! We’re trapped!”, another human running alongside the other informed him, this one instead wearing a white plastisteel armor and wielding a blaster.

        “We’ll have to evacuate at whichever hangar bays haven’t been used to board this ship or destroyed.”, the cloaked human spoke after considering other alternate plans. As much as it pained the entire crew on the Temperance, the capital ship was lost having faced many Separatist destroyers in battle, something that even the well equipped Star Destroyer eventually would fail to fight.

        “Sir! The hangar bay on level eleven is still operational!”, the clone soldier spoke up through the various chattering of communications.

        “Very good, we’ll-”

        “Argh-!”

        The clone that was following fell to the ground with a blaster shot burned clean through his chest. Immediately, the other human turned around and came face to face with a squad of B-1 Battle Droids.

        “Hey! That’s a Jedi!”

        “Shouldn’t we wait for the general?”

        “Just blast em’-”

        The high-pitched, squeaky, and often very grating sound of the droid’s vocabulator was silenced when the hooded human thrust the palm of his hand towards them. Every single one was knocked down or bowled over as if they were all bowling pins by the invisible wave of energy generated from the energy field all Jedi could call upon: the Force.

“Should have shot me!”, the Jedi shouted back as he rounded the corner. Much to his dismay, he stumbled to a stop once he saw what lay in front of him. Far more droids, and this time, they immediately leveled their blasters at him. Cursing himself for being so arrogant before, his hand hovered above his lightsaber once the first droid fired at him.

Only they didn’t.

The sound of heavy machine talons stomped down the hallway behind the droids. One by one, the machines parted to let a massive cybernetic monstrosity plod towards the Jedi. Wearing a cape and sporting deathly yellow eyes, the war criminal, as well as one of the most dangerous assets of the Separatist forces was presented to the Jedi.

“Grievous.”, the Jedi kept his composure as the cyborg Kaleesh stopped his advance.

"Gideon Belarius..." Grievous chuckled. "At last we meet. Your reputation precedes you. I have heard much of how you have kept my forces from the Engolion Sector and your skillful command of this ship. Such wonderful stories. But now it is time for your story to end."

"Your reputation precedes you, general," Gideon retorted. "The reputation of a coward who hides behind machines and preys only on the weak and outnumbered. A true warrior can fight on his own." With his thumb, he pressed the activation switch on his lightsaber. A bright green blade of pure plasma held together in a force containment field sprouted out, ready to burn through anything it just so much as touched.

“Ahaha! You Jedi fool, I shall show you what a true warrior is, and prove so by slaying the filth that lays before me!”, Grievous let his cape drop to the ground, allowed his machine body to recalibrate and prepare for combat, and unlock the hinges that kept his arms together, now making four robotic arms split from the two.

        Each of his arms took a lightsaber attached to his waist, weapons that he had looted from the many slain Jedi that he had combated before, and ignited each of them at once. A mixture of green and blue plasma shot out of the various hilts with Grievous taking his fighting stance.

        “As if eleven to one odds in a space battle wasn’t enough, now it’s four against one in lightsaber odds.”, Gideon readied himself. Looking backwards, he saw a pair of MagnaGuard droids, each wielding a deadly electrostaff blocking his way of exit.

        Gideon noticed something about Grievous’s saber in his lower-most left arm.

        “That lightsaber…”, Gideon’s teeth began to bare, “...was my Padawan’s…”

        “I know. Was.”

        Immediately, Grievous’s arms craned in different directions, with two sabers being hoisted above his head, while the other two were positioned to the side of his body, hanging back and ready to stab and thrust. The two lightsabers that were positioned over his head began to rotate in a full circle, gaining speed and moving faster and faster until they became the image of two blurred propellers tearing apart the floor of the corridor as the warlord made his advance for the Jedi.

        Through the agonizing screeches of the two spinning sabers, and Grievous’s massive insult to his former student, Gideon kept his composure and judged his target for an opening. It didn’t take him too long to figure out that his four hands, each holding a lightsaber were the best targets to aim for.

        Gideon’s lightsaber was held at the ready, and Grievous struck. The two lightsabers were slammed down onto Gideon’s one, sparks and energy cracking out of the collision. The Jedi avoided the general’s thrusts of the other two lightsabers by letting his other two sabers fall by releasing his strength on his own. He sidestepped the downwards strike and brought his saber around to slice the warlord’s chest. Grievous had caught on rather fast by slamming his lower-left saber into Gideon’s, stopping the strike.

        “Argh!”, Gideon recoiled from the strength of Grievous’s slam. His lightsaber hummed with energy as he matched his opponent’s blades with as much accuracy as he could possibly gauge. The air began to heat up from the clashing of plasma, and the droids still had their blasters and electrostaves at the ready. Gideon once again attempted to make an advance on the general, but was stopped by one of his many lightsabers springing out and forcing him on the defensive.

        At this point since Grievous hadn’t slain his target in the first minute of the battle, he ordered his MagnaGuards with a signal implanted in his brain to approach the Jedi from behind. Activating the deadly current into their spearheads, the droids walked towards the Jedi’s exposed back and whirled their electrostaves, ready to make Grievous’s kill come to him a lot easier.

        At once, Gideon broke his engagement with Grievous to deal with the MagnaGuards that were approaching him. The droids’ advanced combat programing matched the Jedi’s attacks, countering Gideon’s thrusts and jabs with a whirling staff, making it extremely difficult to pierce their defense.

        “And you use your bodyguards to fight for you! Yet you call yourself a warrior!”, Gideon yelled as he continuously switched targets between the Kaleesh and the MagnaGuards.

        Furious at this insult, Grievous suddenly sprinted towards Gideon, every one of his lightsabers spinning and creating an extremely loud humming noise that pierced every other sound in the hallway, tearing up the walls and floors with melted out slash marks as he ran towards his adversary.

        Gideon turned around just in time to meet every one of Grievous’s sabers, slamming down onto his own throwing sparks and energy everywhere. The massive strength of the machine-enhanced cyborg began to clearly show as Gideon’s muscles strained and strained to keep the sabers from pushing him down into the ground. He tried his hardest to channel the Force into his aching and tight muscles the best he could, but he, as well as Grievous knew that this stalemate would not last forever.

        And Grievous’s MagnaGuards decided that they should break it first.

        “Grievous, you won’t- GAHHHH!”

Both of the MagnaGuards whirled their staves and jabbed them straight into Gideon’s back. Too occupied by trying his hardest to stop Grievous from overpowering him, he couldn’t do a thing as the droids stabbed their charges into him, thousands of volts of electricity were dumped into him, a number that would have killed other human beings outright, but Gideon’s power of the Force keeping his body from failing allowed him to survive.

        Gideon took a knee from the voltage that coursed through him, screaming in agony as his muscles protested from the abuse and his brain overloaded with electricity. Spots filled his eyes as he gritted his teeth and still managed to keep Grievous's sabers over his head.

        Then, the MagnaGuards jabbed again, sending another agonizingly painful course of electricity through the Jedi, now falling to both of his knees and his back smoking with every hair on his skin, save for his sweat-drenched head stood on its end. Grievous took his lightsabers away from Gideon’s and shot his foot out to clamp around Gideon’s neck, hoisting him off of his feet. The warlord then held a lightsaber’s point to Gideon’s throat in between two of his talons.

        “Ahahaha…! Any last words you Jedi scum?”, Grievous cackled as he brought his lightsaber up to decapitate Gideon.

        “Arrraaaagh!”, the Jedi shouted as he threw his hands in two directions, one at the ground, and one at Grievous’s foot, the same one that held his neck in a vice-grip. When Grievous thrusted forward, his foot that was keeping him balanced on the ground suddenly uprooted against its will due to the Force, and instead of beheading the Jedi, he stumbled forward and stabbed one of his own MagnaGuards right in its central processor, causing the machine to go limp and shut down.

        Grievous didn’t take too kindly to this move, of course, and once he regained his composure, he noticed the Jedi somersaulting over him and the other remaining MagnaGuard towards the other end of the hallway; the end where there were no droids.

        “Kill him!”, Grievous pointed a clawed finger at the Jedi. Every battledroid at the other end of the hallway marched in front of Grievous and opened fire with a full salvo of blasterfire, red laser bolts flying down the hallway and scorching the walls as they impacted. Gideon quickly levitated the fallen MagnaGuard’s body up in front of his as he channeled the force, creating a makeshift shield in front of him. Bolts impacted the dead droid left and right, and Gideon utilized his saber to deflect back any stray bots that would have missed the MagnaGuard shield.

“After him! Don’t let him escape!”

Grievous’s order was soon thrown to waste as numerous clone soldiers rounded the corner and opened fired on the droids, blue blaster bolts now being exchanged against red.

“What are you doing?! The ship should be evacuated!”, Gideon shouted through painfully grit teeth at one of the clones.

“It doesn’t matter to us! We’ll buy time for you! Go!”, one of the soldiers replied back as he continued to fire on the droids.

Gideon hesitated, then raced down the hallway. He would have to remember these men, but the situation happening at the moment made that a difficult task.

“The Republic shall remember you!”, Gideon shouted back as he caught a glimpse of the clone’s personal engraving on his armor: Crystal Squad.

“For the Republic!”, the clones shouted as they advanced towards the hallway. At the other end, Grievous instead stomped away from the scene. The droids shall deal with the clones. All he cared about was the Jedi.

“Get my ship to the hangar on the eleventh level! Do not let the Jedi escape!”, Grievous ordered through his implanted comlink.

“Roger, roger”, a droid commander responded in their signature fashion.