Author's Note

This chapter will contain some content from SWTCW, but I have changed a lot about the Battle of Devaron. Also thanks for the positive feedback! I honestly didn't know how this story was going to do but thanks for the support. Also Orion is a husky, just wanted to point that out.

Chapter 2: The Caravan and The Massacre

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POV: Impact

It had only been a few hours since I began making my way towards Dodge Junction, and things have been way too quiet for my liking. I thought that there would be more timberwolves following me and Orion. Also worth noting, I don't know how, but Orion fell asleep. He hadn't popped out of my backpack, and I didn't feel him move at all. Which was concerning at first because I thought he was suffocating but no, he just fell asleep.

I don't want to call myself paranoid or lucky, but the fact that we haven't been attacked yet is nothing short of a miracle. I keep looking behind me thinking that there was going to be something there, but there never was. I keep trying to make my mind focus on something else, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll be unprepared for a surprise attack. I sighed in frustration as I tried to focus on getting to Dodge Junction.

As I was walking, I ran into the river coming from two different directions. I looked both ways before remembering that I needed to keep going straight. I mentally calmed down as I now knew that we weren't that far from the main road. We were also coming out of the dense woods and into a field. Getting out of these damn woods made me feel even better.

(Rain Stops)

After walking for another hour or so, the rain was completely gone, and I stopped worrying so much. Being able to hear everything around me definitely helped in getting me calm. However, I was still on edge, I didn't want to let my guard down for a split second. As I was walking I could hear noises coming from up ahead.

It sounded like there was a struggle going on ahead of me. As I began to get closer to the noise, I could hear the sound of metal hitting each other. I turned my gun off safety and began looking for the source of the noise. When I made it up to the road I looked towards the bridge and saw a bunch of big dogs attacking a wagon. Also near the wagon, I could see a handful of ponies defending it.

But my attention was drawn to the beings attacking it. "Diamond dogs..." I watched as they were attacking the ponies. I assumed that they were civilians since the ponies protecting it didn't seem like they were part of the military. I set my pack down and went forward; I watched as one of the diamond dogs were going to kill one of the ponies. Reacting quickly, I fired my gun at the diamond dog.

The shot landed and the diamond dog toppled over with a loud thud. The pony I saved was still covering its face. I walked over to the pony who didn't realize I was there. I looked at the pony and asked, "You going to get up or what?" The stallion looked up at me and when he did, he seemed even more nervous. I only repeated myself, "I said, are you going to get up?"

Snapping out of it, he quickly said, "R-Right!" and grabbed his sword. I turned to the other guards fighting off the dogs.

I smiled under my helmet as I was finally getting some action. I charged forward and tackled a diamond dog to the ground before stomping on its head; it didn't kill it but the dog was out cold. Both the ponies and the diamond dogs were surprised by my appearance. Taking advantage of their surprise I gunned down another dog. The ponies, realizing they had the upper hand, began attacking more fiercely.

The fighting went on, during the fight I heard a diamond dog speak from behind me, "Idiot monkey! You ruin our raid! Now I make you pay!"

I turned around and looked at the diamond dog, this one was bigger than the others. I assumed he was their leader since he had more armor than the rest. While looking at his armor, I saw a weak spot on his neck. I chuckled and said, "Yeah, well, sucks to suck."

The leader charged at me and I tried to shoot him. He quickly knocked my gun away with his axe; as my gun was knocked away I punched him in the jaw. I jumped back as he swung his axe at me. While dodging his swings I pulled out my vibroknife. My smile was only getting bigger, this was the first time I was having fun since I got here.

He went for a couple swings but they were easily avoided. It was clear that he was swinging blindly at me. I moved in closer, and he made the fatal mistake of going for a downward strike. I quickly jammed my knife into his exposed throat. Blood started to gush out, and it only got worse as I yanked my knife back out. As he fell to the ground, I quickly got my pistol out and shot him in the head.

All of the adrenaline was starting to get to my head. It had been to long since I fought something that was actually sentient. I walked over and grabbed my DC-15 off the ground, and I looked back at the ponies. They were finishing off the remaining diamond dogs. I quickly remembered that Orion was still in my backpack. I quickly ran back to Orion's position, when I opened the top of the backpack, I saw that he was still there, and still asleep. I put the backpack back on and went back to the ponies. As I made it back, the ponies turned to me.

One of them walked up to me and said, "I don't know who you are, put your timing couldn't be better." He stuck his hoof out and I shook it as best I could. "I'm Sword Stance, I don't think I've seen your kind around here before."

I bluntly said, "I'm Impact, and as far as I know, I'm the only one of my kind around here." I looked over the ponies and then their wagon. "You guys merchants?"

"Yes, well...I was hired as a guard, we're guarding a merchant named Lucky Coin."

"And where is this Lucky Coin?"

The ponies looked around and then one of them yelled from behind the wagon, "He's over here in the back! He's wounded!" I quickly went over to the back of the wagon. Sure enough, a pony was lying there with an arrow in his back hoof.

The other ponies ran over to us as I began to look at the wound. As I was looking at his wound the mare next to me asked, "Can you help him?"

I looked at her and replied, "I'll do what I can, I need you to keep him calm." I gave the arrow a small pull, which caused Lucky Coin to hold back a scream. It seems that the arrow wasn't that deep in his leg. I looked at Lucky Coin and said, "I can pull the arrow out, but this is going to hurt." I looked at one of the ponies, "You! When I pull the arrow I need you to put pressure on the wound." The pony came forward and nodded to me.

Sword Stance came up from behind me, "Use this," he gave me a towel, and I handed it to the pony next to me. He asked me, "Is it safe to pull an arrow out?"

"From what I know, no, but this arrow didn't go in that far. I don't even think the diamond dog was aiming at him." Sword seemed to take my word for it. I was quite surprised with how trusting these ponies were.

I looked over the wound, "Alright, here we go, one, two, three!" I yanked the arrow out with ease, and a small amount of blood came out with it. Lucky yelled in pain as the pony next to me covered the wound with the towel. I got one of my last bandages out; the pony who was putting pressure on the wound held it there. Once the bleeding slowed down I began to put the bandage on.

The wound wasn't bleeding that bad; I tossed the arrow aside and kept wrapping the bandage on his leg. "We probably need to get him to a doctor, I know basic medical treatment, but he should probably get this checked." I asked Sword, "How far are we from Dodge Junction?"

"It's about an hour and a half from here."

"Good, we need to get moving as fast as we can." As I got up I heard rustling in my backpack. We all looked over to see Orion pop out of the backpack. The ponies let out a collective 'aww' and I smiled at him under my helmet. I rubbed his head and said, "Yes buddy, I know your there. I need you to stay in there a bit longer." Orion quickly disappeared into the backpack. Shaking my head I said, "Come on, we need to move."

They all stopped adoring Orion and began to clean up the mess. We picked up what the diamond dogs were trying to take and put it back in the wagon. Whatever they were trying to make off with was very heavy. Out of privacy, I didn't ask what were in these things. Once everything was back on the wagon we began to go on our way. They offered me a ride but I insisted that I walked beside the wagon.

I'm still very surprised that they aren't that scared of me. I remember going into Canterlot for the first time and all the nobles being scared of me. It was funny watching the nobles flee, I could do the simplest of scares and they'd run off like they were being chased by a Rancor.

As the wagon began moving, I checked to make sure my DC-15 was still in good shape after getting hit by that diamond dog. There was a small dent on the side of the gun; I was surprised that it didn't go right through the gun. Out of curiosity I shot at a nearby rock, the gun still fired correctly even with the damage.

While we were walking, I heard hooves coming up from behind me. I looked to my side as Sword and another pony came up to me. I heard Sword ask, "Hey Impact, mind if I ask a few questions?"

I shrugged and said, "Go ahead, I'll answer them as best I can. But first, I don't believe I know your name yet." I looked over to the new pony.

"I'm Soft Shield, I'm Sword Stance's sister, it's a pleasure to meet you." She looked like she was trying her hardest to remain calm. I could see that she didn't want to be next to me at all.

Ignoring Shields uncomfortableness, I said "Right, well Sword, ask away."

"What are you? What are those weapons you have, and where did you come from?"

Oh boy, here we go, "I'm a human, these weapons I have are called guns or blasters." I began listing off the weapons as I pointed to them. "DC-17, DC-15A, DC-15X, vibroknife, thermal detonators." I had their full attention as they looked over my weapons in curiosity. "How I got here however, quite the story..."

Both of them smiled a little and Sword said, "We got plenty of time to listen."

I took a deep breath and said, "Alright, but can we go to the wagon, I might need to sit down for this story." When we went back to the wagon, Lucky was more than happy to let us sit in the wagon. All the other ponies came closer to the wagon, all of them were interested in hearing my story.

I leaned my head back and said, "Well, I guess the story starts on Devaron..."

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Flashback

"When do you think we'll get off this rock Impact?" That was one of my buddies, Boost. We were both close to each other, the two of us were survivors, we had survived some of the harshest battles of the Clone Wars. I call it luck but Boost keeps saying its skill. We somehow survived both battles of Geonosis, the Battle of Christophsis and the Battle of Axion. Since we had shown great combat skills in those battles, the two of us were sent back to Kamino to become ARC troopers.

The two of us made it through the brutal training program and we soon graduated to become ARC troopers. After completing training, we joined the 327th on a mission to Honoghr. The two of us got to put our new skills to the test. Needless to say, the seps didn't stand a chance. After that mission, we were reassigned to Jedi Master Halsey and Commander Trauma's battalion. Nowadays, all we seem to be doing is guarding this temple.

Everything seemed like a normal day until I heard a clone yell, "Droids!" We all looked down the path, only to see squads of droids coming right at us. The droids began to fire at us as we were all standing out in the open. I watched as the two clones next to me were gunned down by a hail of laser bolts.

I pulled out my DC-15A and fired at the incoming droids. The droids seemingly came out of nowhere. We didn't see or hear any transports fly by. The other clones that were out here with me fired back at the wave of droids. The droids were attacking with super battle droids and regular B1 battle droids. I was focusing my fire on the supers that were hammering the troopers in the front.

I heard Commander Trauma yell out from behind me, "Hold your ground men, don't let the droids get through!" Following behind him were Jedi Master Halsey and Padawan Knox. They both ignited their lightsabers and they began to deflect the blaster fire back at the droids. There wasn't any cover where we were standing, so we all had to watch the enemy blaster fire.

As the fighting continued, I saw as a ship land behind the droids. I yelled over to Commander Trauma, "Commander! Look!" He looked at what I was pointing and saw the ship land. We stopped focusing on the ship as we had to dodge the blaster fire.

As I kept destroying droids, I felt my gun overheat, so I pulled out my sniper. I quickly aimed at a super battle droid that was ahead of all the other droids and shot it multiple times. As the droid fell over I saw something running towards us. It was a horned man with an axe, and he was gunning straight for our lines.

I watched in horror as the man killed a few clones that were unlucky enough to get in his way. I heard Commander Trauma yell, "Get him!" He ran forward only to be cut down by the axe-wielding maniac. The clones that went with him didn't stand a chance either.

I yelled to the others, "Fall back!" A few of the clones, including Boost, fell back behind the Jedi. I looked towards Halsey, "General, what do we do?"

Halsey turned around and said, "Fall back into the temple, we will deal with this separatist!"

All of the remaining clones went inside the temple. I turned just in time to see Halsey jump towards the separatist. We quickly closed the doors and locked them. After catching my breath, I looked around to get a head count. Boost was here, along with four other clone troopers.

I heard one of the clones ask frantically, "What was that thing?"

"I have no idea, but that thing cut through Commander Trauma and the rest of our unit!" We were all saddened by the sudden deaths of our comrades and our commander. We tried to stay strong but our morale was wavering after what just happened.

Another clone spoke, "How did the separatists get here? I thought we had full radar coverage?"

Boost replied, "Who knows? Maybe the seps made some stealth sort of vehicle."

I looked at the door and I tried to listen for the sounds of lightsabers. There was a deafening silence that filled the air around us. I looked to the other clones, "We need to get a distress call out to the Republic." I looked towards Boost and one of the clones, "You two, head up to the control room and warn the Republic. The rest of us will stay down here and defend."

Without saying any other words, the two ran to the stairs. I looked at the three clones that were with me. "This might be it boys, if that thing killed the general, there is a good chance that it will kill us as well." They looked at each other as I tried to give some words of confidence, "If that thing does come in here, do as much as you can to kill it. If we don't kill that thing, who knows how many more clones will end up getting killed."

One of the clones stepped up and said, "We were born for this, we just need to hold out." The clones raised their weapons, "We're ready to fight to the last!"

I had a sad smile under my helmet, however, I lost my smile as I heard something hit the door. The four of us immediately got into cover and aimed our guns at the door. "Here they come!!!"

The door blasted open and droids started to pour in. The four of fired at the incoming droids, not letting a single droid get through our line. The four of us were fighting to the very end. One by one, the three other clones were killed off as wave after wave came through the door. The fighting felt like it would go on for eternity. Eventually, the droids stopped coming inside, and I peeked out from my cover.

In the entrance stood the monster, I took a deep breath. Knowing that this was where I was going to meet my demise. I stepped out of my cover, and I yelled, "Come on you separatist scum!" The horned separatist charged at me as I fired as fast as I could. I knew it wouldn't do much, but all hope for survival was thrown out the window.

I rolled out of the way and kept firing at him. The separatists dodged my shots and went for my legs. His axe smashed into my knee, I felt my leg buckle. Not going down without a fight, I waited for him to strike again. As he lifted his weapon I shot him in the arm. He grunted and backed away while looking at his arm. He glared at me and let out a loud roar. I tried to get up and dodge, but the pain in my leg was too much.

At that moment, I could only hope that Boost and the other clone would get the distress call out. As he closed in on me, I shut my eyes, I fired as my vision was starting to go blurry. I felt a searing pain go throughout my stomach. Everything was going dark quickly as I fell to the ground. I had just enough time to look up and see the separatist's axe coming down towards my face. As the axe hit me, I felt a calming darkness take over. All of the pain went away and darkness was all I could see.