The mud of Gentes was not red by nature.
But today it was.
Clones screamed into the wind, their white armor streaked in plasma burns and ash. Turbo tanks burned in the gullies. Half a battalion had already fallen, and still the droid wave pressed forward—mechanized, emotionless, infinite.
Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber roared to life in a sharp violet dawn. He surged forward, deflecting blasterfire as he pulled a wounded soldier into cover.
"Cannon line's failing!" shouted Commander Appo over the comms. "We can't hold much longer!"
"I'll get to the ridge—keep the left flank!" Anakin barked. "Obi-Wan?"
"Coming up on your position," crackled his master's voice.
Across the battlefield, Obi-Wan Kenobi burst from the smoke, slicing clean through a B2 super battle droid before sliding beside Anakin.
"Grievous is here," he said grimly. "Scouts saw him two klicks east, heading straight for us."
As if summoned by name, a terrible sound rose across the field—a screeching metallic roar that echoed like a fusion of beast and machine.
Grievous.
But not as they remembered him.
The general now led a phalanx of prototype droids—sleek, faster than the standard ranks, with exo-weapons powered by a strange crimson energy. And he himself was changed: his armor bulkier, plated with a glimmering alloy unfamiliar to Republic scans, his limbs sheathed in a lattice of pulsing circuits. His four arms split wide—each wielding a stolen lightsaber.
With a burst of motion unnatural even for him, Grievous launched himself forward, cutting down clones with whirling death.
Anakin charged.
The two collided, blades clashing in a storm of sparks. Obi-Wan flanked from the side, but the new droids closed in, forcing him back.
"This tech—it's not Separatist standard!" Anakin grunted, narrowly avoiding a slash that scorched the earth beside him.
Grievous only laughed—distorted, guttural.
"Oblivion leaves gifts… to those who serve."
Anakin's blood ran cold.
Grievous struck with a force amplified by the strange enhancements. The young Jedi was thrown back, tumbling through the mud. He rolled to his feet—breath ragged, shoulder burned.
Clone lines were breaking.
The prototype droids marched through fire and steel, shrugging off hits that should have dropped them. One walker fell. Then another. Kenobi regrouped with Anakin, and together they pushed against the tide.
They fought like titans.
But it was not enough.
The command center exploded in a flash of red. Republic communications shattered. Grievous vanished into the smoke, his droids retreating as fast as they had struck—leaving only wreckage and silence.
The cost was staggering.
Later, amidst the ruins, Obi-Wan stared at the devastation.
"They were testing something," he muttered. "This wasn't conquest. It was proof of concept."
Anakin stood beside him, arms crossed, jaw tight.
"They're evolving," he said. "Someone's giving them new technology. Tech we've never seen before."
Obi-Wan nodded grimly. "Something not of this war."
High above, in orbit, the Venator-class cruiser Resolute drifted in the void, filled with the wounded and silent. From its bridge, Anakin watched the stars—unblinking.
"This war is changing," he said aloud to no one. "And we're not ready