To make up for the long wait Iam posting the next chapter again. Thank you General Ok Kalee for your kind words. Enjoy.

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Chapter Seven: The Apprentice

"Come here River I want to show you something but it's a surprise so your going to have to be blind folded, okay?" "Okay." River let G. put the blind fold on being gentle with her hair and then he took her hand and led her into a room, then he closed the door and left. The room started to get dark and cold and when the blindfold fell away from her eyes were G. should have been was General Grievous!

"NO!" River woke up with a start and propped herself up on her arms breathing heavily. "What?" asked General Grievous spinning around to look at her. She hadn't known he was in her room and she fell face first into her pillow and moaned. She didn't want to be yelled at first thing waking up so she got up grabbed her dress and her boots and the jar and walked into the bathroom without saying a word.

After she got her dress and boots on she opened the jar and drew a curved line across her forehead and drew lines that connected to the corners of her eyebrows, then pulled the line around her cheeks connecting to the corners of her mouth then drew straight lines from the base of her nose to the center of the line on her cheeks, then from the corner of her mouth she drew lines to the base of her chin. Then she closed the jar and walked out of the bathroom and set it on the dresser and picked up her brush and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and tied it off with a brown scarf. She walked over to the peg by the door and put her cloak on and put her lightsaber into one of the sleeves inside it and picked up the one she had gotten from the Jedi and put in the sleeve next it.

During this General Grievous waited impatiently while she was in the bathroom and when she walked out and he saw her face something in his mind was jerked, as if he had seen that pattern before. He didn't pay attention to what else she was doing because he was trying to remember where he had seen the pattern. When she stood at attention he circled her trying to find something he didn't like but he found none, which was a first. He nodded in approval.

"Come on we're going to be leaving for the planet Yuzicor to fight." Then he exited the room. She jogged after him trying to keep up with his fast paced walking.

When they got to the hanger General Grievous walked off to start yelling at some droids, so she decided to go do some of the things to the shuttle that needed to be done before it could take off. Grievous turned around expecting to see her standing there like a useless droid but found her doing what the droids were supposed to be doing (which they weren't that's why he started yelling at them). As he walked over to her, a young male about the age of twenty-five started to help her.

River was putting fuel into the shuttle when a man about her age walked up to her.

"Hello, I'm Daniel, Count Dooku's new apprentice."

"Hi, I'm River-"

"General Grievous' new apprentice." Daniel cut in.

"Yes, how did you now that?"

"Count Dooku told me."

"Oh."

Daniel was about six feet tall with dark brown short hair and silver eyes with light skin. At that moment General Grievous walked up and River looked away taking the gasoline tube out of the shuttle.

"What are you doing?'' he asked River clearly upset.

"I'm doing what the droids aren't doing so we can get on our way faster." she said matter of factly.

Daniel smiled to himself he could tell that he liked her already. Daniel decided to break the silence, which turned out to be a stupid idea.

"Hi, I'm Daniel."

And he stuck out his hand, which was even more stupid.

"I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE OR WHY YOU'RE HERE BUT YOU BETTER LEAVE BEFORE YOU END UP DEAD!" Yelled Grievous straightening up to his full height.

River looked completely freaked out but the General wasn't paying any attention to her so he didn't see.

"Okay, I think I'll be going now. Bye, bye." And Daniel rushed off to find Count Dooku.

General Grievous growled in Daniels direction and watched him disappear.

When he turned around River looked like she was recovering from heart failure.

"What's wrong?" he growled

"Um nothing, I'm just recovering from a outburst that I wasn't expecting, replied River with a frightened tone. "But if I might warn you he was-"

The General gave her a deadly glare and cut her off by saying "As I said before I don't care, understand?"

"Yes master," was all she could say and she lowered her head in submission.

He hadn't been expecting her to call him master, but it did have a nice ring to it so he didn't say anything.

He stormed off to give some last minute orders, and River removed the stuff that had been lying around and put them in their proper place. When he came back he motioned for her to get on the shuttle and she obeyed immediately.

Once they had taken off River got up and walked over to the wall and stood there with her left arm wrapped around her waist and her right elbow propped upright on her arm with her chin resting on her hand and stood there like she was pondering something of great importance.

As River was in this state, she was thinking about what Count Dooku would do if he found out General Grievous had yelled and threatened his new apprentice. She was also trying to figure out why he had yelled at him, but he was from Kalee and Kaleesh males were extremely dominant with other males so that was pretty obvious because she had grown up playing with only male's.

Her thoughts went to G., she missed him so much she wished that she could be in his arms and him telling her how much he loved her, but that could never happen because he was dead and she was the apprentice of a grumpy controlling cyborg.

Then Daniel crossed her mind. She thought he was handsome actually really cute, and she thought that the way he had tried to be friendly to Grievous was extremely funny even though he could have ended up dead, and the way he got out of there after he had been yelled at was funny. She would have laughed so hard if she hadn't been scared out of her wits and that she wouldn't have gotten yelled at herself.

As she sat down she looked at Grievous' eyes, he wasn't looking at her so he didn't see her look at him, she had seen those eyes before and they were not his. All Kaleesh eyes were the same but the expressions that General Grievous' eyes had seemed strangely familiar, they kinda reminded her of G.'s but he had died on impact so General Grievous could not be him, even though he had the same initial as G., but if there was some connection she would find out even if she liked what she found or not.

She decided that when they got back to the Invisible Hand that she would look for any connection between the things she had of G.'s and what she could find about her master, even if it was risky business.

She stretched her arms with her fingers entwined together and popped them, she stretched them over her head and stopped.

"What are you doing?"

"Stretching."

"Why?''

"Because it feels good," she replied to a curious master.

She put her hands down. "Soo what is the purpose of this master/apprentice gig? Are we supposed to go into battle and fight side by side and make sure the other one doesn't end up dead?" River asked.

"I'm just as clueless as to being your master as you are to being my apprentice," said Grievous sounding more agitated at himself than at her.

"Well if that's the case then we'll be learning things alike and unalike together."

General Grievous had not expected himself to admit this to her let alone himself. He wanted to be the best master that he could and still be taken seriously, she appeared to be smart and experienced in battle but what she lacked most was the ability to use a lightsaber so he decided that when he had a spare moment he would teach her some techniques.

Believe it or not he was actually fond of River, she may have her faults but she tried to do her best to please him even if it wasn't perfect. But he would never under any circumstance tell her how he really felt.

The shuttle landed and General Grievous got up and River followed him off the shuttle. The commanding droid greeted the General and explained to him what was going on.

"Our troops are in position we are just waiting for further orders sir."

"Advance and attack" ordered Grievous, the droid hurried off to follow out the command.

"Come on we need to get to the front lines now."

River rushed after him, when they got to the front they faced at least nine hundred Yuzicorians and the droid army was out numbered, but River liked the situation she knew that with General Grievous here to help fight and his apprentice who was a former warrior coming out of personal exile that things would go in their favor.

Then from a long way back she heard a droid call out "ADVANCE AND ATTACK."

And Grievous started to advance while he split his two arms in half and pulled out four sabers and ignited them.

"Be careful these Yuzicorians can be tough if you aren't experienced."

She pulled out both her double bladed and single bladed saber's and ignited them and replied "I'll do it the way I used to fight back on Kalee so I'll be able to take care of myself and if these Yuzicorians are anything like I have faced before this will be a snap."

If he had a mouth he would have smiled but he didn't so he just grunted.

River said one last thing, "See you alive on the other side!" and they charged.

She covered the distance at the same pace as Grievous and when they made impact with the Yuzicorians she didn't notice anything else than what she was faced with, as she expected they were not that hard to defeat and she was piling up the kills fast, but General Grievous being he had four arms was piling faster, but she was keeping a good pace which surprised her because it had been a year since she had fought, the only other thing that kept her mind was that she was fighting side by side with General Grievous her master and it felt like she was fighting with G. instead.

The fighting went on into the night and she did not feel like quitting in fact she had just gotten started, instead of feeding off of energy she would fight on until she started to get tired and then she would take it up to greater speed and strength, she liked to feed off of her pain and weariness it made her fight better and it made her feel stronger and that was what she liked.

When the battle closed to an end and she was at her strongest she walked up to Grievous and smiled.

"Well it looks like your alive." he said sounding somewhat pleased but she doubted it was because of her.

They stood there for awhile and she saw a flash of pale blue from the opposite side of the General and slowly crept towards them, she waited until the Jedi was about to strike and she whipped out her single bladed lightsaber and ignited it in time to block the young humans blow.

"Surrender now or you shall die girl." He said as he gave her a deadly glare.

"Never, because I have taken a vow to kill any Jedi that cross' path's with mine so even if you surrendered you will die."

And she spun behind him and jabbed attacked at his back but he was experienced and blocked it and dished out attack after attack to only have them blocked and dished back with greater force.

"But you see I have also taken a vow, and that is to avenge the death of my master by killing the first enemy I come in contact with that would not surrender whether or not I find her attractive, and you are the first enemy I have come in contact with and you wouldn't surrender so that means your as good as dead." he said as he tried to trip her and make her fall.

"Then I guess that each of our lives depends on our skills with lightsabers."

And she reached into her cloak and pulled her double bladed saber out ignited it and put the other one inside her cloak. The battle between the two got intense and lasted another ten minutes when it finally took a turn for the worst for River. He cheated by Force pushing her and she lost her balance she swayed but didn't fall but she didn't recover in time and he cut her leg and her waist.

She cried out in pain but that boosted her energy and she struck him right through the stomach, he was standing upright and she was on her knees and as a farewell she told him.

"I told you so." and she pulled out the end of her saber, he collapsed and she stayed in that position for a while then she got up and retrieved her foes lightsaber and when she stood up she saw another saber in his belt and she grabbed that one too. It must have been his masters, she thought. As she limped back towards were the battle had started between her and the Jedi she gripped her waist.

When she walked up to General Grievous he turned around and asked,

"I suppose that by you being the one to return you obtained a new lightsaber?"

"Actually two." she replied feeling pleased with herself.

He noticed that she was standing more or less on one leg and that she was gripping her waist and trying hard not to show that she was in pain.

"But I see you didn't come out of it without injury."

"The only ones I have out of a day and I'm presuming most of the night of battle."

"Go over there and the medic droids will take care of those for you and then get on to that shuttle over there." He said first pointing to a group of droids then to the direction of the shuttle that they had arrived in earlier.

"Yes sir." And she left him to take care of his business.

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When they got off the shuttle it was early morning and River was trying hard not to collapse.

"You can go and rest now and when you wake up notify a droid and send it to tell me and wait for me in the observatory room."

"Yes sir."

River left him as she made her way to her room. When she got there she used her reserved strength to get a shower and crawl into her bed, and before she could close her eyes she was in a deep and dreamless sleep.

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Hmmm I wonder why he wants her in the observatory room...very peculair. So how did you like her first mission with her new master?