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ravensilversea · 11 months ago

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Victory Comes Late

Summary: Victory came too late for Ponds and for so many other brothers. Three years of war plus some months of hashing out a peace treaty written in the blood, sweat, and tears of his brothers but makes no mention of them at all. It’s a Senate proclaimed accomplishment, like they hadn’t refused to even consider peace for three years.

Tags: Canon Divergence, Palpatine Dies AU, Post-War, Light Angst, Grief/Mourning, Reunions, Bittersweet Ending

The largest exhibition hall in the Jedi Temple is almost too small for the sheer number of clone troopers in it now. Really, it is actually too small, but none of them are too concerned with the concept of personal space when this is the first time they’ve all been together for three years.

And yet, Fox pulls his helmet off and tucks it beneath his arm. His guard brushes past him, calling out into the space that’s already echoing with brothers trying to find each other. And yet, they aren’t all here.

Rancor Battalion is still on Kamino and participating in negotiations alongside General Ti to hopefully place the cadets and tubies into the custody of their brothers. The thought alone is almost inconceivable: entire batches of clones who never have to serve on a battlefield, who can stay together and stay alive for years longer than their elder brothers could.

“You joining the party, Fox?” Stone asks, coming to stand beside him.

“You really think Salvo would let us miss it?” Fox walks into the exhibition hall instead of just hovering in the doorway. “Besides, someone has to tell them all how the chancellor really died.”

Ao3

Stone coughs into his hand. “Would that be the actual story or another one of your tales this time?”

Fox refuses to learn about any of the details of Chancellor Palpatine’s, unfortunate, accident. It would ruin the fun of coming up with stupider and stupider ways the late chancellor died and sharing them around the caf brewer. Call it his own personal revenge against the man who insisted on calling each and every one of his brothers by CC or CT number and number alone, the way the Guard all but tiptoed around him, how many of his brother assigned to the chancellor’s guard when traveling off planet simply disappeared without a trace, and every single shiny who the chancellor sent down into the lower levels who came back in a body bag, if at all.

“I have a list of stupid ways for asshole politicians to die, and this might be my only chance to share any of them,” Fox says primly. “Allow me my fun.”

Stone shakes his head. “If you say so.”

They weave through a particularly thick crowd of brothers, and someone flags them down. “Hey commanders, I think your squads are meeting over on the stands!”

“That’ll be Cody’s idea,” Fox mutters as Stone thanks the brother for the directions. “Always did need to be on top of things.”

“Not sure the stands top Tipoca City’s comm tower.”

Fox looks up at the ceiling that rises so high above their heads it can barely be seen and then gives Stone a look.

“Okay, so maybe they could.”

The commander squads are gathered in a clump in the middle of the stands, and sure enough, Cody’s yellow-orange paint is higher than anybody else, shining like a beacon. Fox and Stone pass Alpha Squad on their way up the stands where Wolffe and Thire look about two seconds from murdering a squadmate or two.

“I’m sorry,” Gregor says just as they pass by, “but do you think you could repeat that? Or maybe replay it? I’m not sure I heard you correct-ly!” His voice rises sharply as he falls back under the weight of two brothers, and Fox hops up a handful of rows. Stone jumps back with a curse.

Poet looks up from their padd with a distinct ‘can you believe I’m stuck with them?’ expression of their face. Fox bites his lip and shakes his head, mentally wishing them good luck.

Force, Alpha’s only missing Blitz whose stuck on Kamino. They all made it, the lucky bastards.

“Fox! Stone!” Salvo slams into Fox with a broad grin and pulls Stone up the remaining steps to wrap his arm around him too. For a moment, the three of them just breathe. “It’s good to see you again,” Salvo whispers.

“Yeah,” Fox pulls away and meets Gree’s eyes over Salvo’s head. “Wait until you hear what happened to the chancellor.”

“The old one, right? Cause the one we have now is an upgrade.” Gree throws a thumb back over his shoulder. “C’mon, we grabbed a spot by Chimaera.”

Fox starts laying out the first ‘So this is what I heard from somebody who heard it from somebody’ as they walk lengthwise along the stands until Gree and Salvo pull them down onto the benches. Just above them sits Chimaera Squad with it’s three near-silent members. As he tells his story, Fox watches Neyo try to get Keller and Faie to say more than a few words strung together, and it suddenly hits him that both Lock and Colt were dead.

The story ends, and his brothers make noises of disbelief. “Oh really?” Fox says. “Well, how about this one that I heard from a janitor who heard it from his sister’s husband’s brother’s friend.” Stone buries his head in his hands with a groan.

Ponds would have told Fox to stop by the second story, but he’s not around to hear them. The lack of protest from that quarter sits heavy in Fox’s chest. He barrels through the story anyway, almost even more spitefully.

Victory came too late for Ponds and for so many other brothers. Three years of war plus some months of hashing out a peace treaty written in the blood, sweat, and tears of his brothers but makes no mention of them at all. It’s a Senate proclaimed accomplishment, like they hadn’t refused to even consider peace for three years.

Almost four years of war because of one man who strung them all along like dew drops on a tent-line.

Fox’s eyes land on a small empty space in a sea of brothers, and his next words die in his throat. There’s a brother standing in the middle of the empty space. He’s thin with shaved hair and implant scars. What’s left of one arm is in a sling across his body, and Fox knows who he is even without the blue of the 501st edging his almost shiny-white, probably borrowed armor.

Come get your Dominoes, Rex had messaged three years ago.

Unless they’re commanders, I don’t claim them, and even that’s debatable, he had messaged back.

Within days, Rex had informed him that due to the sudden death of their commanding officers and the subsequent lack of collection by Fox (Fox had rolled his eyes at this), he was personally taking them under his wing. Rex then spent every other message to Fox bragging about ‘his Dominoes’ like there wasn’t hundreds of Domino training squads spread throughout the army.

For a moment, Fox selfishly wishes that Echo truly had died on the infamous Citadel mission. Seeing him standing alone in a sea of reuniting brothers when Fox is the one who killed his last squadmate…

Victory really did come too late for Rex's Domino squad.

The reunions and conversations continue on around Fox, blurring into the background. A sea of noise and color turning into a drone as a time seems to slow, but Echo never blurs. He continues to stand alone, seemingly in the middle of a swirling galaxy of brothers without a single person to welcome him home.

Fox finds his feet moving without any input from him. He's halfway down the stairs before Salvo asks him where he's going. “To get another Domino,” he says, almost under his breath, but his squad hears him just the same.

The floor of the exhibition hall seems to echo with his footsteps. Which is impossible. First of all, the sheer number of clones in the room alone would drown out any noise Fox could possibly make even if they weren't talking at loud volumes. Second of all, there was no way in hell that the Jedi didn't sound proof this room within an inch of its life given the number of lightsaber duels- duels between children at that!- this room must have been used for.

Maybe his footsteps are echoing through him, Fox muses. He takes another step and feels it in his chest.

Time and sound suddenly crash into Fox. Conversations burst into a roar, suddenly Fox can hear so many squadname jokes all at once. It no longer feels like he's stepping through taffy, and all he can do is stand there. Like an idiot. Just in front of Echo.

Force, all he has to do is lift his arm and he could touch this orphaned shell of a brother.

Well, maybe not a shell, he reconsiders as Echo straightens, jutting his chin out a bit and brown eyes flashing with a challenge. There's still quite a bit of fight left in his one, which is more than Fox can say for the Chimaera commanders back on the stairs.

“Echo,” Fox says, figuring that's as good a start as any.

“What do you want, commander?”

Fox falters. Opening and closing his mouth, he glances back at his squad who have ceased any and all conversations to stare at him trying and failing to talk to a CT.

“If you're here to apologize, don't. There's nothing you can say,” Echo continues, and Fox winces. If it was his squadmate shot and killed by another's hand, he doesn't think he would have said those words so mournfully acceptingly. No. Every trooper in this hall would likely have to hold him back from trying to beat the shit out of the one who killed his squadmate.

He flexes his hands, tries not to imagine how Aurra Singh's neck would feel wrapped in them as he squeezes the life out of her for what she did to Ponds.

“It's not something that can be forgiven, no matter how much I regret it,” Fox says. “But that isn't why I'm here, trooper... Echo.”

“Then why, sir?”

For a moment, Fox hesitates, unsure of whether his invitation, his touch would be welcome, but he decides to do it anyway. He reaches out and gently grabs Echo's remaining wrist and lightly tugs it in the direction of the stadium. “Come on. No Domino gets left behind.”

He waits for Echo to take the first step, watching his brother's eyes blink, widen, and then sharpen. Echo looks past Fox towards the Domino commanders, and whatever he sees there, convinces him.

Fox settles Echo down in the empty spot where Ponds should be, and the way Echo looks around with brighter eyes and a harsh swallow tells him everything about how Rex's little dominoes must have gathered too.

Setting that aside, Fox turns back to his brothers. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, so the Chancellor had ordered breakfast and for some reason, this involved fish. And you know how fish have these tiny little bones they don't always manage to get out when preparing them?”

Gree sighs loudly as he realizes where Fox is going with this latest story about Palpatine's death, and Salvo begins slapping Fox's knee like that's going to stop him. Behind him, Echo muffles a snort, and Fox grins.

Victory came late, but not too late. There are still brothers here who were saved after all.

#star wars #commander fox #arc trooper echo #commander stone #raven's pen #*shakes out scrivener and another years-old one-shot falls out* oops #anyway i made a phonetic alphabet for star wars and fox randomized into the commander domino squad and that was too perfect and tragic #also squadnames are like childhood nicknames and wolffe and thire are Very Tired about the jokes made about theirs lol

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emptymanuscript · 2 years ago

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You know, I just saw a post supporting the writer's strike and saying there are plenty of old shows to watch... and it occurred to me that it might be good to share some shows we love just in case people haven't seen them yet.

Places that make it easy to find where to watch things: Reelgood and JustWatch. Check both, they sometimes conflict, get it wrong, etc.

My Recs (in hopes others will add) (admittedly the low hanging fruit):

The X-Files, 1993, 11 Seasons, free on freevee, available on Hulu, can rent or buy other places. If you haven't seen X-Files, you're missing out. It was a smash hit in the 90's for a good reason. Two detectives, a believer and a skeptic, try to solve unsolvable mysteries in the midst of grand conspiracy. And find, somehow, that as much as they annoy each other, they need each other.

Babylon 5, 1993 / 1994, 5 Seasons, free on Roku and Tubi. An Epic Space Opera that never quite got the success it deserved. It is one of those things whose influence is written all over modern sci-fi and fantasy without much acknowledgement. This is the interplay of empires and mythology, double dealing and political cruelty.

SPACE: 1999, 1975, 2 seasons, free on Crackle, Peacock, Fubo, Pluto, Freevee, Plex, Shout, and Roku. I dare you to listen to the theme song and not feel the groove of this classic campy space opera. When Earth's moon is ejected from orbit to hurtle through the galaxy, the people of Moonbase Alpha have to confront new alien weirdness every week. Part of what makes it so good is that the show takes itself completely seriously, there's no wink and nod in here.

Kindred: The Embraced, 1996, 1 Season, available as a slime tutorial. It's Vampire: The Masquerade as a cheesy soap opera. There are constant reminders of what the clans are like in the most pointed, ridiculous dialogue you can imagine. Had the lead actor not died, this show might have found its place in a couple of more seasons, as it is, it is deliciously campy and dumb. Days of our LARP.

Profit, 1996, 1 Season, available as a slime tutorial. What if the Antagonist was the Main Character. Profit was ahead of its time. It would be right at home in the modern streaming era but it absolutely didn't fit in its own day and age. Profit is dark and twisted (For people who follow me, see if you can find an early inspirations for JJ) with mature and uncomfortable themes. One of its benefits is that it was network televison, so it couldn't show all the gratuitous violence and sex that it would be given if it was made today. It's psychological violence and murder off screen, which, if you let yourself get into it, can grow into worse things than can be shown. Profit is about power, greed, and ruthlessness and what happens when someone even more ruthless and immoral than you shows up.

Farscape, 1999, 4 seasons and a TV movie, available for free on crackle, peacock, popcornflix, shout, freevee, pluto, roku, and tubi. In spite of my picture, this is live action space opera, but it is looney tunes, literally in one episode. This is what happens when the Jim Henson company decides to make a space opera as far away from Star Trek as possible. It's zany, over the top, sometimes hilarious, often creepy, and there's only one human who is far out of his depth.

Blake's 7, 1978, 4 seasons, available on BritBox, and you should be able to find all of it with a little searching on youtube. Like Farscape, this show focuses on escaped prisoners but when they find an advanced spacecraft, they decide to become freedom fighters against their fascist regime instead of just trying to escape. Darker than most of what you could find on US tv until fairly recently. These are wounded people in hostile space.

The Outer Limits, 1995, 7 seasons. Free on Roku. This is a sci-fi anthology series. Some episodes are more interesting and thought provoking than others but overall a lot of good stories.

There are now 12 series with 44 seasons between them totaling up to 880 episodes of Star Trek. That's about 3 months straight of 24 hour programming if you ran it back to back with no pauses at all. That's a lot of show. Mostly on Paramount+ but it's probably not terribly difficult to find the material less officially. It may not all be your cup of earl grey but there's a lot to try out to see if you like it.

1899, 2022, 1 season (cancelled), available on Netflix or wherever else one finds shows. This is my only modern show because I know it didn't get a lot of viewership in spite of being brilliantly twisty. 1899 is one of those shows that it is very hard to talk about without spoilers. I think it is however immediately obvious that the cruise ship Kerebos, en route to New York, is not at all in the situation it appears to be in. It is magnificently multilingual with the ability to communicate when you can't speak each other's language front and center in the narrative. It's sadly cancelled and the creators are on record that they don't want to finish it in another medium so we'll never know exactly what happened but there is wonder to be had from this first season.

Magnum P.I., 1980, 8 seasons. Free on freevee and Roku. 1 season available with Amazon Prime, rest for rent or purchase. Mix a lovable goofball naval vet with PTSD and a very stiff necked British curmudgeon vet with PTSD and you get a fun mystery every week in paradise. Magnum shrugs off most of his work and pawns it on to his friends getting by on charm and some wit.

Murder, She Wrote, 1984, 12 seasons. All available for free on Roku. 6 seasons available for free on freevee. Note that one of the primary writers for Murder, She Wrote was J. Michael Straczynski, this is the job that got him the ability to make Babylon 5. Jessica Fletcher is a charming and clever lady who has retired to the placid sea side village of Cabot Cove to write mystery novels but somehow always ends up at murder scenes. It has been estimated that if Cabot Cove was real, it would be the murder capital of the US.

Tales from the Crypt, 1989, 7 seasons, available as a slime tutorial. To get it to lucky number 13, I present another great anthology show. Every episode a different tale of the macabre or horrific. The crypt keeper is a charmingly gruesome host and there are a few episodes that have stuck with me since I first saw them in the 90's.

Hopefully one among these number can fulfill your needs and if not, hopefully someone else will tack on a few more. I know I left out plenty of my own favorites. There's lots to see while your current faves are on hiatus. There might be a brand new fandom waiting for you.

#writer's strike #tv recommendations

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jgvfhl · 2 years ago

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The Number Lads Go Snooping

Here we are folks... Sevenset is tasked with keeping Fives entertained while Tup is examined after the tragic and mysterious execution of General Tiplar on Ringo Vinda. Unfortunately for them, and Echo's blood pressure, Sevenset and Fives have strange ideas of what constitutes entertainment. BEHOLD, THE ORDERS ARC BEGINS!!

Words: not quite 8K (longest chapter to date oop) Warnings: Canon typical suspense with canon atypical swearing :) Link to Master List of Chapters on Tumblr Link to the full story on Ao3 Happy reading!

CrispyDomino: hey sevenset, need a favor

RedBoiiiii: o7 reporting for orders

CrispyDomino: Fives is bringing one of our boys to Kamino for a med eval

RedBoiiiii: yikes that’s not fun

CrispyDomino: Yeah, you mind making sure he’s not worrying himself sick over the kid?

RedBoiiiii: I will do my best! When are they arriving?

CrispyDomino: Should get there in a few hours

RedBoiiiii: You got it, buddy! I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid

DEATH: That’s not particularly promising

RedBoiiiii: oh COME ON

d0nut man: lkdjafkd

Double Trouble: oh my gods XD

CrispyDomino: Don’t worry, Sevens, I have faith in you

RedBoiiiii: THANK you echo

Leafs: We really can’t go ten seconds without something huh?

RedBoiiiii: THE COMMANDER STARTED IT

CrispyDomino: Anyway, thanks Sevens, means a lot

CrispyDomino: I’m on campaign, but feel free to send updates if you want

-scene break-

Sevenset had gotten a message from Fives as soon as he’d touched down, it had appeared. He’d grumbled a little at his batchmate’s mothering, but he’d conceded it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get out of his own head while his friend was in medical. But, first Fives had to be assessed as well, so Sevenset had been left to his own devices for a bit, waiting for Fives to comm him after he was cleared.

He had chosen to use this time to be, as most people called it, a menace. He called it practicing his environmental awareness and stealth skills, although no one else seemed too keen to agree with him. After successfully pranking Colt on the Venator after their last mission, he’d doubled-down on finding some way to get at Alpha-17. A death sentence? Possibly.

But he would be legendary if he pulled it off.

It did leave him with the slight problem of finding where the grumpy captain spent most of his time. He was a very private man, and most of the time he wasn’t in his rooms anyway (which would be great news once Sevenset found them). His search had brought him almost back around to the main medical wing of Kamino. No, not the medical wing for the tubies, or the medical wing for the scientists, or the other medical wing for surgery and … whatever else they did over there. This was mainly for soldiers who came in with injuries too mysterious or serious to treat on the field, so it was undoubtedly where Fives and his friend were now.

His plan so far was based solely on lying, and hoping someone was fooled into giving him Alpha’s room number, or at least which wing he lived in. So far, however, he’d only encountered clone officers who knew better than to talk to him outside of necessity, Kaminoans who really didn’t know what to do with him half the time he approached them, and some of the nattie trainers. He didn’t feel like talking to many of them. They were fine, for the most part, but… eh. Not his thing.

An alarm went off, harsh against his ears without his bucket. He flinched, looking around and waiting for an announcement.

“Security breach. All nonessential personnel report to a safe room for lockdown.”

The round door at the end of the hallway slid open suddenly, making him pivot in that direction. The hall flooded with red emergency lighting. A pantoran woman strode out, followed by the sounds of hustle and bustle a bit too bustling for normal medical procedure.

“This place is about to be locked down,” she told him. “Better get a move on, ARC.”

He fell into step beside her as she walked, seeing no point in sticking around if that was indeed the case. He glanced over her person, trying to remember if he’d seen her around for long. He definitely recognized parts of her armor. She was one of the few Mandos left on Kamino, her armor mostly a deep blue, with pink and yellow clouds rolling along the bottom of her chestplate. Her pink hair was cropped close to her head on the sides and flopped over loosely on top. She was only about as tall as his shoulder, probably approaching forty years old, but this woman had two gold jaig eyes tattooed on her forehead.

There was no messing with her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Undisclosed. Someone’s up to no good in the medical wing.”

The alarm continued to blare.

Sevenset glanced behind him at the closed door. Fives hadn’t contacted him yet… did that mean he was in lockdown without his armor? They had to remove their kit for med evals, so maybe with the security, he hadn’t been able to get his comm back yet. That had to be it. Fives was ARC. He hadn’t survived this long by doing rash things like… whatever this trooper was doing.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked, choosing to collect whatever information he could about this Mando.

She glanced over at him. “Maral Tumun.”

He nodded. “I’m Sevenset. I’ve seen you around once or twice.”

“I would hope so. I’ve been training you lot for ages. I trained some of the command batches up from tykes.”

Oh, had she now? That was worth poking into a little bit. “Which batches?”

Before she had an opportunity to answer, his comm went off. He glanced at the frequency and frowned. He didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t anyone in his squadron, or any of the Numbers. Weird.

“Sorry, I gotta take this,” he mumbled, answering the voice transmission. “This is ARC seven seven seven seven.”

“Hey, Sevens, it’s Fives. Listen–I uh… I might’ve done something.”

Oh no.

He hastily muted the comm, but didn't disconnect it, staring at Trainer Tumun, whose gold eyes had locked on him as soon as she'd heard Fives' name. "Wrong number?" he tried.

Her brow rose. "You often get wrong numbers who know your name?"

"Uh, yeah, all the time. Pretty common name among the newer batches, actually," he rambled on.

"Let me hear him," she said.

"Why? No. Ma'am."

“If you don’t, I am still under obligation to report any incidents related to what that trooper has done in medical to my superiors,” she said. “And I believe you would prefer this knowledge remain out of the Kaminoans’ hands for as long as possible, yes?”

He blinked at her. She was… helping? Was she helping? Obviously, whatever Fives had done, he wanted to know as much as he could before making decisions on how to help. She did have reasonable authority to march him down to one of the commanders or one of the doctors and make him sing, and he did not want to do that.

“You won’t get him in trouble?”

She crossed her arms, her beskar clinking. “Any more trouble, you mean?”

“Yeah…”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I know well enough to hear him out.”

Okay. It was as good as he was gonna get. He unmuted the comm.

“Heyyy…. Fives, sorry about that–”

“What the hell was that?” his friend demanded. “What happened?”

“I ran into a trainer, okay?” he shot back, trying to keep his voice down. “I–she heard you, I had to explain some things–”

“Who? What? I thought you were gonna help, Sevens!”

That hurt. He put a hand on his hip even though Fives couldn’t see him. “I’m trying, okay? This is the first time someone’s commed me after putting a whole wing of medical into lockdown, Fives! That was you, right?”

Trainer Tumun stepped closer. “What happened, trooper?”

“It’s–-there’s—something’s wrong with Tup. Yeah, Nala se was gonna cover up all the data, she switched the cases and everything.”

Sevenset exchanged a quizzical glance with the trainer. “This is the guy you were escorting here?”

“Yeah, yeah, he—kark, I dunno, mate, he got all kinds of messed up on Ringo Vinda.” Fives didn’t sound like himself. Far too agitated to be the collected, quick-witted soldier Sevenset knew. “He… he killed a Jedi, Sevens. And the Kaminoans aren’t doing enough to figure out why. All they want to do is kill him and take him apart afterwards.”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively glancing up and around for witnesses. Without warning, Trainer Tumun grabbed his arm and pulled them both into a storage room toward the end of the corridor. It was dark, except for the white light from his comm, giving both their faces an eerie glow.

“Explain,” she ordered once they were both inside. At least the alarm was quieter here.

“He lost it! He was—he was—agitated, he was violent, he wasn’t responding to his name at all. He tried takin’ a swipe at General Skywalker too! Tied down to a gurney.”

“So what are you doing, Fives?” Sevenset wanted to know. “Why don’t you have your armor?”

“Armor? Armor—no, no, no, no, armor was too recognizable. Grabbed a plain set. He’ll be fine, barely a concussion—”

“You stole armor?”

“Well, no one’s giving it away, are they?” Fives replied sharply. “I may have… I kind of convinced a droid to perform a medical procedure on Tup, and when Nala Se found out, she freaked out. Said they had to do more extensive testing, still says it might be a virus, or a–a parasite—”

“Extensive testing?” Sevenset asked, his brows furrowing. Initial testing was usually pretty thorough. Why the need to go extensive? “Not the hyper testing, I hope. That will kill him.”

“But I found something!” Fives said. “I found something in his brain with the scan I did, right? But Nala Se said it was nothing, said the machine was calibrated wrong.”

Trainer Tumun tilted her head. “Those machines are never calibrated wrong.”

“Exactly! There was something in his head—maybe not just him, maybe there’s more—”

Sevenset held up a hand. “Okay, hold up, where are you?”

There was a heavy pause. Then, quietly, “Storage room, near the genetics wing.”

Another pause landed. “How? Why?” Sevenset demanded.

“I’m in disguise, aren’t I? They were gonna kriffin’ wipe me, Sevens! Now are you gonna help make sure Tup’s okay, or not?”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath almost without thinking. Reconditioning was more of a rumor than anything concrete on Kamino. Hearing his friend say it out loud like that…. Kark. This was worse than he’d thought.

“Yeah, and how am I supposed to keep Tup safe and you out of harm’s way at the same time, huh?”

“I’ll look after Tup,” Trainer Tumun said, cutting into their conversation suddenly.

“What?”

“I am Trainer Maral Tumun,” she said for Fives’ sake. “I don’t trust these Kaminoans when they’re this excited to dispose of a soldier. If they are so keen to find you, then they are keen to cover up what’s happening to Tup. I will find out, and I will make sure he gets to a doctor who knows the value of sentient life.”

There was another long pause as they both took in the information. Finally, Fives said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Sevenset asked. So he was a little skeptical. He had reason to be.

She smiled. “I am of Clan Ves. We do not disappoint.”

“Yeah, that’s great, I was talking more logistics?” he said. “Where are there doctors to treat him? How is he getting off Kamino? How are you even getting him off the medical table?”

Trainer Tumun sniffed, lifting her chin. “I know a guy.”

“It’s not Commander Nero, is it?” Fives asked with much sarcasm.

She looked down at the comm, shifting her stance slightly. “I do not have to answer that.”

“Nero?” Sevenset repeated. “Wait, he’s Commander Sixes’ batcher, right?” He recalled her remark about training command batches. “Holy kark, you trained those grumpy bastards, didn’t you?”

Once again, she lifted her chin and shuffled her feet slightly. “They were my best.”

“They’re kriffing sociopaths, ma’am,” Fives blurted.

“No, they are not, I had them tested.”

Comforting. But not important right now. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “You’ll find Tup and use Commander Nero’s infinite source of strings to pull to get him off-world. Fives, I’m gonna find you and make sure you don’t do anything stupid by yourself.”

Trainer Tumun gave him a look. “Not the usual phrasing of that expression.”

“Story of my life, ma’am,” he told her.

“Sounds good. My locator should still be on, Sevenset should be able to track me with that. I’m heading to the Genetic Records Hall.”

He sighed, rubbing his head. “Copy that, I’ll find you.”

“Stay outside until I come out. And thanks… again…”

The comm disconnected, leaving them in almost total darkness. Almost, because of the tiny dots of light on their vambrace controls.

“Okay.”

She nodded. Probably. “Let’s go.”

He followed her out into the hall, selecting the frequency Fives had used to comm him and tracking the corresponding locator signal. He turned this way and that a couple times, never the best at directionality.

“Okay, Genetic Records Hall,” he said. “No clue where that is.”

“I know it,” Tumun nodded. “I’ll need access to a different part of the medical wing, so I’ll send you the coordinates while we walk.” Without leaving room for debate, she turned and began walking, leaving him to catch up at a slight jog.

This was a bad situation, obviously. Sevenset wasn’t that tone-deaf not to realize that. But he also knew the value in taking the opportunities presented to him, and right now, he had direct access to a woman who had known Commander Sixes since he had been able to walk. There was no way in any of the nine hells he was letting this chance pass by without using it to find out something.

“So… Chaos Batch, huh?” he said by way of introduction. “You uh… you made ‘em like that?”

“I trained them,” she replied. “They were already like that.”

He gave a low whistle. “Okay, so Commander Nero has always been two degrees away from being a serial killer?”

“Well, he did try to kill a Kaminoan when he was five standard.”

He gaped at her. “He did what? And he’s alive?”

“That’s when he was transferred to the Chaos Batch,” she answered easily. “And also when he was tested for sociopathy. He just has a very rigid view of right and wrong, and a penchant for finding the simplest solution to his problems. But his emotional depth is perfectly normal.”

Sevenset could only nod. So the weird vibes he’d gotten from Commander Nero were well deserved. Granted, he’d never felt actively threatened by the man. He just had understood that if Nero had wanted it, Sevenset would have been dead faster than he could say his own name.

“Uh…huh,” he answered. “And Commander Sixes… has he always been that prickly? Grumpy, as some would say.”

She shook her head. “No, Bacara’s the one they call Grumpy. Sixes was… well. Geonosis One changed a lot of your older brothers. He’s a sweetheart to his core.”

A what? A sweetheart? The guy in all-black armor whose callsign was Death was a sweetheart? Sevenset’s mind reeled.

“Not that he’d ever admit it,” Tumun continued as they turned the corner to the neighboring corridor. “They’re all stubborn as hell, but they had determination and ingenuity like I’d never seen in a squad of cadets before. Bacara once stayed up all night putting together what he called a ‘flawless battle strategy’ for the four of them, and it was. He took into account each of their strengths and weaknesses, and they absolutely demolished the squad they were facing the next day.”

“No kidding,” he said. Small wonder the Marines were some of the most efficient soldiers in the GAR. With a commander like that… well.

“But they also invented Knife Monopoly while drunk for the first time,” she mused, a fond smile on her face. “And Sixes and Nero once shot each other during a concocted ‘duel,’ and they both have scars from it.” She shook her head. “Even genetic manipulation can’t stop teenagers from being teenagers.”

Sevenset was honestly approaching speechlessness. All that came out in reply to those world-shattering revelations was, “Oh.” His mind felt like a speeder without altitude stabilizers.

“We’re here,” Tumun said, stopping near an arched door back into the medical wing. She raised her vambrace, tapping a message. “These are the coordinates to the Genetics Hall. It’s near the incubation wings. I’ll go find Tup.”

“Got it,” he nodded, his brain struggling a little to recover from the previous conversation.

“What is Tup’s designation?” she asked.

“Uh…” He commed Fives.

“Are you here?”

“Starting there now. What’s Tup’s designation?”

“CT fifty-three eighty-five.”

Tumun nodded. “I’ll go find him. I promise,” she added, pressing a closed fist across her chest. A Mandalorian salute.

He nodded back, then took off at a jog toward where he knew the incubators were. He didn’t know what kind of time frame Fives was on, but he had to assume it wasn’t a long one. He offered passing excuses and thank yous as he dodged around doctors and troopers in the hallways, but honestly, Colt had made him run enough laps through the city that even if someone asked him what he was doing, he’d just say tell them that. No one would even blink.

Ten minutes. It took him almost ten minutes to get there. Something closer to seven, probably, but still. It felt too long. When the door was in sight, he opened his comm again.

“Fives, I’m near the main doors, what’s your status?”

“This shit just gets worse and worse, I’m telling you–” he replied angrily.

The door opened, making Sevenset look up hopefully. But no. Kaminoans were filing out of the room. Quietly, seemingly unbothered, but… no. Too quickly. Too orderly.

“Buddy, they know you’re in there,” he said, keeping his voice down.

“Yeah, I see it.”

Well. Sevenset was nothing if not recklessly impulsive at his core. “I’m coming with you,” he said, disconnecting the comm before Fives could argue, then darting towards the door.

The Kaminoans didn’t stop him. They moved out of his way, if anything. As he passed the threshold, he heard more hurried footsteps approaching from the opposite corridor from which he’d come.

“Time go, pal!” he called, now out-right sprinting to Fives. Force, he looked weird in shiny armor.

“You’re a kriffing moron, Sevens!” he shouted, following an AZ medical droid towards… oh, an emergency hatch in the ceiling. Smart.

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” he shot back.

“There!” someone shouted behind them. Then stun rings began blazing past them as they ran.

Maker’s sake, they really wanted this guy! Sevenset would have been impressed, if he weren’t running away from them too. He practically flung himself up the yellow rungs of the ladder behind Fives, pulling himself into the emergency hatch after him and stepping back so the AZ could weld it shut.

Then he turned to Fives.

“Okay, so you’re in a stupendous amount of shit.”

“You didn’t have to follow me!” he shot back.

“Too bad! You’re my friend, and I have reckless tendencies,” he replied, tossing his hands in the air.

“I do not meant to interrupt,” said the droid, holding up one of its metal fingers, “but we have research to finish.”

“Finish?” Fives repeated, looking at it. “You didn’t get everything you needed?”

“Hey, I’ve an idea,” Sevenset cut in. “How about we walk and talk, yeah? Where the hell are you going?”

“What information do you still need, AZ?” Fives asked the droid.

“Well,” the droid began, sounding, as many droids did, way too calm for the amount of pressure riding on the current situation, “we know it is an organic chip, created and implanted into clone Tup’s brain.”

Sevenset put his hands on his hips and looked at Fives.

“We found a thing in Tup’s brain, it’s not from the original genetic material from Prime, so someone had to put it there,” he supplied.

“What I am not sure of,” AZ went on, turning his body around and rummaging in his storage compartment, “is at what stage of development the chip is implanted, and its purpose.”

“And we don’t know if it’s in my brain too,” Fives added, which made Sevenset’s gaze snap back to him.

“Excuse me?” Fives had reason to believe that whatever made Tup execute a Jedi General was also in his head?

The droid spoke up, now holding a glass slide containing something suspiciously flesh-colored. “Your scans did not indicate—”

“Neither did Tup’s, until we looked deeper,” Fives insisted. “If they missed it in Tup, they can miss it in me. We have to check.”

A horrible thought came unbidden to Sevenset’s mind. If this thing was in Fives and Tup… then it could be in his head too, right?

“And if it is?” he heard himself ask.

His friend looked at him.

“If it is in your head too?”

“Then he takes it out,” Fives said firmly, tilting his bucket towards AZ.

The droid rose in the air slightly, his visual receptors shining a bit brighter in shock. “That is a dangerous surgery. When I removed clone Tup’s chip, his overall health greatly worsened.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Hey–wait, what?” Sevenset held up his hands. “‘Greatly worsened?’ What does that mean?”

“He’s still alive,” Fives said, then turned back to AZ. “Are you gonna help, or not?”

“We will need to return to a medical facility,” the droid said, drifting slightly towards Sevenset, intending to pass him.

“Fives, mate,” he said, stepping in front of the droid. “This is a lot. Are you sure you’re—”

Fives stepped over the round hole in the floor where the hatch was. “Tup is one of my best friends. He’s hurting because someone put this thing in his head. Maybe they put this thing into all of our heads. Now, the Kaminoans know something they’re not willing to let me find out.”

“And that might be a good thing,” Sevenset argued. “Listen, I’m not one to trust the long-necks, but we’re not scientists, Fives.”

“This thing made Tup kill a Jedi!” his friend exclaimed. “You want that? You wanna wake up one day a prisoner in your own head, watching your body hunt down General Ti and shoot her?”

“Don’t do that,” he told him, his voice dropping to a dark pitch.

“It’s the truth,” Fives told him. “I need to know how far this goes. You should too.”

Truthfully, Sevenset was curious. Inherently so, some would say. But he wasn’t an idiot, like the others would also say. What Fives was doing was dangerous. A medical procedure like brain surgery wasn’t without risk, even when performed by a droid designed like AZ. But something nagged at the back of his mind, like a child very softly tugging at a parent’s clothing for attention. He couldn’t ignore it forever.

The truth was, Fives wasn’t an idiot either. Hell, he was one of the most caring brothers he’d met, and that included himself.

He sighed, rubbing his face roughly. “Gods, Echo’s gonna kill me for helping you.”

“Yeah.” His friend’s voice sounded hollow at the mention of his batchmate. Probably not the kindest thing Sevenset could have brought up. “AZ, lead the way,” he said.

The droid whirred as he rose higher up the ladder, and Sevenset let Fives follow him before bringing up the rear. They climbed about three levels before the droid cut left. They followed doggedly, turning a few times before dropping back down two more levels. Finally, AZ paused, hovering over a hatch.

“Is this it?” Fives asked, squatting down.

The droid appeared to nod. “Yes. This is a hatch to the D-wing of the medical building. As of now, I can detect no noise on the other side of this hatch.”

Fives hesitated briefly, then took a breath, handing off his stolen blaster to Sevenset so he could hop down to open the hatch. He twisted the yellow wheel slowly, trying to minimize the noise. When it was finally open, he let it down as slowly as he could, and Sevenset reached out to grab the back of his utility belt to steady him as he leaned down.

“All clear,” he reported. He sat back up, then lowered himself down.

AZ followed him, and Sevenset tossed down the blaster so he could have his hands free to follow them. AZ let them into one of the medical examination rooms. It all went so smoothly, Sevenset found himself momentarily baffled. Wouldn’t the Kamino Guard have troopers posted at every emergency tunnel entrance in the whole medical wing? Weird.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Fives said, removing his helmet and setting both it and his blaster on a tray beside the bed. Bed was a generous term. Table was better. He lifted himself onto it.

“And you’re sure this is the thing to do?” he asked again. He already knew the answer, he just couldn’t help it.

“It’s just gonna be a scan and maybe some surgery.”

“Yeah, it’s the maybe I’m worried about, Fives,” he said, watching AZ pull up the scanning machine and begin to program it.

“Knowing what I know now about these chips,” the droid said, poking buttons on the touchscreen, “I do not need to scan at the atomic level. Due to the inorganic compounds present in these chips, a molecular examination should suffice.”

“Is that good?” Sevenset asked as Fives lay down.

“A molecular scan does not put as much strain on the subject.”

He nodded vaguely. So it was good.

AZ brought the ring-shaped scanner around to position it around Fives’ head. “Please remain still and do not speak during the examination,” he said, sounding routine. “Close your eyes and keep them closed until told to open them.”

Fives did as instructed, and Sevenset stood at the foot of the table to watch. AZ tapped a button to begin the examination, and the ring-shaped machine whirred into action, a slow green-ish blue light beginning to travel around the inner circumference.

The exam was probably pretty short, considering the number of actions AZ completed during the time, but the seconds felt like they were moving like drying mud to Sevenset. The droid hovered next to a screen on the side of the room, where a diagram or image of Fives’ brain was slowly developing. After what was probably a minute or so, a red dot appeared on the screen.

AZ hummed a short note of… what, surprise? Acknowledgement? Droids… so hard to parse. Then he flew back over to the scanning device and tapped a few buttons to power it down. When the interior light had fully faded out, he moved the device away.

“You may open your eyes,” he said cheerfully.

Fives blinked his eyes open slowly, looking groggy all of a sudden. Sevenset moved to his side.

“You alright, mate?” he asked, holding out a hand.

“Bit of a headache,” Fives admitted. “But it’s fading.” He took his hand and hauled himself up into a sitting position. Sevenset eyed him carefully. “What’s the word, AZ?”

“By ‘the word,’ I assume you mean the results of the scan?”

“Yes.”

“They are identical to clone Tup,” the droid chirped, moving to the side so Fives and Sevenset could see the screen. “The same tumor appears in the same location in your brain.”

“Sithspit,” Fives hissed, rubbing his head. “Can you take it out?”

“Of course.”

“Then do it,” he said, resuming his previous position on the table.

As AZ began preparing, Sevenset’s comm went off, so he stepped away to answer it. It was Trainer Tumun.

“I have Tup secure,” she reported. “Someone is in transit to collect him and get him to safety.”

He looked up to Fives, who had turned his head to listen. “Hear that?”

Fives nodded, a brief wave of relief washing over his features before he settled back to let AZ begin.

Sevenset turned away. He was fine with blood, but he had no desire to see the inside of Fives’ skull. “Thank you, ma’am. We know the one-eighteenth can be trusted with this.”

There was a pause, since Tumun hadn’t known of their affiliations with Nero’s battalion. But, time was waning, and she must have thought better than to waste any by starting down that winding path. “If I can, I’ll let you know when they have him secure.”

“Much appreciated, ma’am.”

“Hopefully, the ruckus I caused can help you and Fives get the information you need.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. We’re working on it.”

“I wish you the best. Good hunting, ARCs.”

The comm disconnected. He could still hear AZ working, so he kept his attention firmly on the set of window controls below the oval window separating this room from the next. Currently, it was opaque, but the buttons underneath could turn it transparent or translucent if so desired. He was impressed by his own ability to not mess with them.

Mainly because his mind was too busy reeling over the information he’d learned in such a short time.

Somehow, both Fives and Tup had little semi-organic chips in their brains that had been implanted by… someone, who knew whom that had been, and that was uncomfortable enough. But Tup’s had looked… sick. He’d lost his mind, almost as literally as a sentient being could, and that alone sent chills down his spine. If more clones had these chips… then way more of them than just Tup were capable of outright murdering Jedi.

Or anyone.

“The operation is complete.”

He jolted. How much time had passed? He hadn’t checked the time before. Shit. How long had they stayed in one place? That was dangerous. Fives was waking up. AZ held a second glass compartment, examining the contents.

“Well?” he asked, walking over to put hands on Fives to remind himself he was okay.

“This is new,” AZ said. “The chip removed from clone trooper Tup was severely degraded in function and structure, but this one is entirely healthy.”

Fives groaned quietly, his hand rising to his head, only to bump into the metal device still implanted there. His hair had been shorn around it, making for a rather unsightly haircut. Maybe he could pass it off as a fade if he shaved the other side to match?

“Okay, so… Tup was an accident?” he said. “He didn’t mean it. He was sick.”

“That is the most likely scenario,” AZ replied, his body rotating around so he could place Fives’ chip in his storage compartment with Tup’s.

“What are the chances this thing’s in my head too?” Sevenset dared to ask.

“Given you are from the same generation of clones,” the droid said, tapping his fingers together with something resembling nervousness, “the chances are not exactly… low.”

He’d already suspected as much. Judging by the look on Fives’ face, he felt the same. Nice of him to not share it until Sevenset was ready. Alright, well, if he was ever going to have brain surgery, having it on his own terms seemed like a great time for it.

Holding out a hand to Fives again, he helped him off the table, giving a look that asked if he was alright, and receiving a nod in return. “Might as well mark brain surgery off my bucket list,” he said, hoisting himself onto the table.

“You haven’t been scanned,” Fives said, gesturing to the machine. “You don’t know if you even have this thing.”

Sevenset rolled his eyes, desperate to cover up the anxiety rising in his system. “Yeah, I think we all kinda know it’s gonna be there. Better to just save myself the headache, right? We’ve been here too long as it is.”

Fives couldn’t argue with the last point. The longer they stayed in one place, the more likely it was someone would find them. They needed to move, and if this got it done faster, then so be it. His friend looked a little helpless for a split second before nodding and stepping back.

“Are you sure?” AZ asked. “Without a scan, I will have to estimate where the cells are located—”

“And you’re a smart droid,” Sevenset cut in, lying back on the table. “You’ll do fine. It’s probably exactly where Fives’ was. We are clones, after all, right?”

After a second or two of processing, the droid nodded. “Very well.” He flew over to a barely visible cabinet underneath the display screens at the back wall, and retrieved what supplies he would need. Normally, they would have been laid out, but he’d used them on Fives already. He held up a large syringe which Sevenset was not thrilled about. “This will not hurt—”

“Yes, it will,” Fives cut him off.

“It will only hurt a bit,” the droid corrected, and Sevenset braced himself.

It did hurt. Quite a bit, actually, like injecting fire under the skin of his neck. But, after only a few seconds, the pain had faded, and the rest of the world faded out as well.

-scene break-

He woke up to his comm blinking at him, telling him a new message had arrived. As he had suspected, AZ held a sample identical to the one that had come out of Fives' head. Holy Force. Once AZ gave him the all-clear, he opened his comm, scanning it quickly as he and Fives readied themselves for whatever came next. There wasn't time to process what had just happened.

“Where are we going next?” he asked,his eyes fixed on the thing AZ had taken out of his head. Gross. It made his skin crawl like an itchy sweater he couldn’t take off.

“The incubation rooms,” AZ answered, flying over to the door. “We must find out how many clones have these implanted chips, and when they are implanted into your cell structure.”

Sevenset nodded. “Alright. Let’s visit some tubies.” He paused to open his comm. “Uh… I take it we’re keeping our activities unknown to your batcher?” he asked.

“Please,” Fives said, looking terribly guilty.

He started typing a reply as they hurried out of the room.

CrispyDomino: Rex says he’s on his way back, how’s Fives?

RedBoiiiii: peachy!

CrispyDomino: oh good

CrispyDomino: do you know how Tup’s doing?

RedBoiiiii: uhh more tests?

d0nut man: aw that’s too bad :(

d0nut man: might it have anything to do with the 118th’s unplanned visit to Kamino right now?

CrispyDomino: What.

RedBoiiii: I’m sure it’s nothing Zero

Double Trouble: guys he just used capitalization correctly…

RedBoiiii: dosido i do no t need this right now

DEATH: And where is Fives in this conversation?

RedBoiiiii: he doesnt have his comm

RedBoiiiii: they had to clear him had to get his kit off

CrispyDomino: Do you know he’s okay?

RedBoiiiii: like i said, peachy

d0nut man: uh yeah, i wasn’t joking about an unplanned stop in the Kamino system.

d0nut man: what are we doing here

DEATH: I have a terrible feeling about this

DressedtotheNines: Please don’t say that, every time Kenobi says that, bad stuff happens

Leafs: Wait, Echo left Sevenset in charge of Fives?

CrispyDomino: Yes

Loopy: wait why

CrispyDomino: Bc I assume he got to ARC trooper SOMEHOW

RedBoiiiii: look hes’ fine!!! I’m still with him!!

DEATH: Nero’s hiding something. The 118th is definitely going to Kamino for crimes.

CrispyDomino: CRIMES???

d0nut man: oooohh yay I hope it’s kidnapping :)

d0nut man: that’s my favorite crime

d0nut man: been in a high crimes and misdemeanors kinda mood lately

Leafs: I have so many questions I do not want answers for.

CrispyDomino: Okay okay, since I’m about to go into another firefight

CrispyDomino: I am choosing to believe the crimes and my batcher are unrelated.

RedBoiiiii: good choice

Double Trouble: they are so related

Loopy: yeah, definitely

Submarine: Hey… probably a bad time to ask, but is anyone else going on leave soon?

d0nut man: well we were suPPOSED TO

Loopy: not official leave, just stopping by 000 for a restock n stuff, but yeah

Leafs: I do have leave soon, yes

DressedtotheNines: Yeah, we’re here already, set for a couple weeks

DEATH: Get some noodles. I’m sure Mira and Saleha will be overjoyed to see you.

RedBoiiiii: aw that’s actually sweet!

DEATH: They haven’t met you yet, don’t get your hopes up.

RedBoiiiii: :/

RedBoiiiii: Hey sir

RedBoiiiii: Is it true you and cmdr bacara invented Knife Monopoly when drunk the first time?

Double Trouble: THEY DID WHAT NOW???

Submarine: Oh is that why so many Novas play that game?

Leafs: Wait it’s an actual game?? With knives??

Loopy: it better have knives, i’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t

CrispyDomino: Sevenset you are supposed to be watching my brother

CrispyDomino: not tempting Death himself

DressedtotheNines: I … I’m not sure what to think

d0nut man: I think Seven’s about to vanish under mysterious circumstances

Submarine: Yes, it does involve knives. I’ve never played though.

DEATH: Echo, I have it on good authority that the kid you sent to Kamino is in good hands

CrispyDomino: WHOSE AUTHORITY

DEATH: My old trainer

RedBoiiiii: she didn’t mention anything else…?

DEATH: She told me everything.

DEATH: But for now, all these laser brains need to know is it is being handled.

CrispyDomino: There’s an EVERYTHING???

RedBoiiiii: an Everything that is fine, yes!

-scene break-

All of them.

Every single clone.

Sevenset looked from the glowing green lights on the display screen to the tower of growth tubes before them.

All of them had these things in their heads, waiting for activation. Activation for what? AZ hadn’t been able to figure out what these bioengineered things could be used for. The only data point they had was Tup, and he had been whisked off somewhere by Trainer Tumun. Hopefully.

“So that means…” Fives said, pulling off his helmet, “we’re all part of this. Whatever reason these things exist, it… it affects all of us.”

“It would appear so, yes.” Even AZ looked as surprised as he could.

The sudden sound of a door hissing as it slid open made them all spin around, Fives automatically raising his blaster.

Kark.

It was Nala Se, one of the head doctors on Kamino, and a distinctly unpleasant person. She approached with raised hands.

“Stay where you are,” Fives told her sharply. Sevenset wanted to edge closer to him, just in case he did something really stupid, but he didn’t move.

“Why are you doing this?” the doctor asked.

“Take a guess,” he shot back before Fives could. “You thought you could cover up putting bioengineered hardware into our brains, and no one would notice? No one would get curious?”

The doctor ignored or otherwise dismissed the blatant threat Fives posed, and continued to approach them with her hands visible. “Curious about what?” she asked peaceably.

Sevenset moved to the side, revealing the display screen and gesturing at it. “This?” he demanded. Fives flanked the doctor and corralled her towards the screen. “What is it?”

“That is a structural inhibitor chip,” she explained, her voice never changing. It always freaked him out that Kaminoans had little to no inflection. Like somehow, their scientific findings had placed them above emotions. “It is supposed to prevent you from being aggressive,” she went on, looking over her shoulder at Fives, who still had a blaster on her. “Like your source, Jango Fett.”

Sevenset laughed. Dry and cynical. “Less aggressive?” he said. “I’m sorry, have you met some of the Alphas? And who thinks of putting an inhibitor on aggression in soldiers, eh?”

“Jedi Master Sypho Dias instructed us to introduce these structures during the growth cycle,” Nala Se replied evenly.

Fives blinked, casting a glance at Sevenset. “The Jedi did this?”

“No way.” Sevenset shook his head. “If the Jedi wanted this done—if they were the ones to blueprint this thing—then why did General Ti have no idea about it? She’s been here for ages.”

Nala Se’s enormous eyes narrowed. “I do not pretend to know the workings of the Jedi.”

“The Jedi wouldn’t do this,” he repeated, pointing to the tower of tubies next to them.

“It is not uncommon to put inhibitors in clones.”

AZ had spun his body around and dug out Tup’s chip. “I have analyzed clone Tup’s inhibitor chip. Apparently, it has failed.”

“Until this point,” Nala Se said, glaring at Fives, “there has never been a problem.”

“Well, I specialize in making my own problems,” Sevenset told her, taking a step toward her.

“And you’ve got a big one right now,” Fives growled, nudging the nose of his blaster into the small of the doctor’s back for emphasis.

Sevenset saw the door open this time, allowing General Ti and a few Kamino Guards into the room. Fives darted around Nala Se, keeping her between them and the new threats.

“Don’t move!” one of the guards ordered as they ran.

They came to a stop upon realizing the doctor was between them and their targets. General Ti ignited her lightsaber. “Drop your weapon,” she demanded.

“Did you know about this?” Fives replied, jerking his head to indicate the display screen. “The inhibitor chips the Jedi ordered them to put in our brains?”

She surveyed them, calculating. “I have no recollection of any one of my Order informing me of such things. Do you have evidence?”

AZ whirred forward, still holding Tup’s chip. “Right here,” he said. “This is the chip taken from clone trooper Tup. As you can see, it appears blackened and rotten. This sickness caused the malfunction.”

“But what caused the sickness?” the Jedi wanted to know.

“We don’t know,” Sevenset admitted.

“It doesn’t matter!” Fives argued. “What matters is it happened. And it could happen again. More clones could turn against their Jedi, or their brothers. The entire Republic Army could be compromised if someone figured out a way to activate these chips on purpose!”

That was something Sevenset had not considered yet. It hadn’t occurred to him that these chips might have a purpose outside of… well, they didn’t know yet. What if there was a manual activation? Or a secret code?

“There is no proof of any of this!” Nala Se interjected, finally showing some of the frustration she must have been feeling for a while. “This is an isolated incident. Besides, when you removed Tup’s chip, his health deteriorated immensely.”

Rude.

“We’re fine, aren’t we?” Fives said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What does that matter?”

“We removed our chips as well,” Sevenset said, pointing to the bandage over the incision on his skull.

AZ held up the chips. “Here they are, very healthy.”

“Then you are both threats and should be considered dangerous,” Nala Se said sharply. “Master Jedi, they should be terminated immediately.”

“I am not a piece of kriffing hardware!” Fives exclaimed, and Sevenset had to agree with him on his anger.

“We’re ARC troopers,” he added. “We’ve laid our lives on the line for the Republic countless times, and you want to terminate us because we found out about your chips?”

“Because you have removed your chips,” Nala Se hissed at him. “And technically, you are both property of the Kaminoan government.”

Sevenset blinked, honestly shocked. He knew the Kaminoans weren’t to be trusted, nor did they place any real value in a trooper’s life, but to hear it like that? To actually be labeled property? He’d have gotten no better on Nal Hutta. Or Zyggeria! Were these chips… they couldn’t be slave chips, could they?

“Correction.” General Ti’s strong voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. She extinguished her blade and lowered the hilt to her side. “Technically, they are ‘property’ of the Republic.”

“They are a danger to themselves and to others,” Nala Se argued, her small head swaying on her long neck as she struggled to remain civilized. “They must be terminated.”

“Oh, for Maker’s sake,” Sevenset spat. “Just say killed. It’s what you mean, right? You wanna kill us? Don’t hide behind words as long as your neck.”

“I believe,” said General Ti, cutting off the doctor’s reply, “their fates are for me to decide.” She lifted her chin. “Fives, you are coming with me to Coruscant. Sevenset will accompany him. You will tell your story to the Chancellor.”

The Chancellor? He was going to see the Chancellor himself? Not an aide, not Mas Amedda, but the actual, real-live Chancellor, who got his robe unravelled by Commander Thire that one time?

Nala Se finally moved, harshly pushing away the blaster Fives had been holding half-heartedly at her chest. “Master Jedi—”

“Sounds great, when do we leave?” Sevenset interrupted, hurrying to get ahead of her.

He could feel Nala Se’s enormous grey eyes boring into the back of his head.

“The chancellor wanted all the data on Tup, correct?” General Ti continued, a confident light in her eyes as she typed something into her comm unit. “We’re sending the data, Tup’s tumor, and the two other samples, and Fives and Sevenset will go with them.”

The Kaminoan doctor drew herself up to her full, impressive height. “Then I am going with them.”

Oh, please no. Sevenset had exactly zero desire to spend several hours in hyperspace with her anywhere near him. He saw Fives felt similarly, and he turned his gaze to the general, hoping to communicate just how much he didn’t want this to happen.

But her hands must have been tied. She narrowed her eyes slightly, but agreed. “As you wish, Doctor.”

The door opened yet again, admitting a small team of Kamino Guards bearing two stretchers between them. Sevenset watched Fives sit down on one before doing the same on the other.

“Thank you, General,” Fives said as the Jedi began to turn away. “For believing us.”

“It’s not a matter of belief, Fives,” she told him, her face impassible. “It is simply the right thing to do.”

…Jedi.

In watching her leave, Sevenset was caught off guard by one of the guards approaching him with a syringe in his hand. He instantly shied away from it, holding a hand up. “Whoa, hold on. What is that?” He looked over to Fives, seeing him rub his neck as another guard walked away from him.

“A weak sedative.”

“I don’t want a sedative,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s weaker than a day-old porg.”

“It’s preventative.”

“Against?” he asked, a little flummoxed. “What, you think I’m gonna jump up and escape? Escape where?”

“It’s not my call,” the guard replied, sounding a little apologetic.

He glanced up at Nala Se, whose back was to him as she followed the general out of the room. Probably standard procedure. Probably. He still didn’t want it.

“Don’t give it to me, or I will jump up and do something about it,” he said, then lay back on the stretcher. “Now get going.”

The guard looked confused, standing there without purpose. But eventually, the guard manning the stretcher just shook his head and turned him toward the doors. Good. His method of wasting people’s time until they gave him what he wanted was still effective. Now… on to Coruscant.

What will happen on Coruscant?? What will the chancellor do?? Will Nala Se finally hit her head on a doorframe?? All that and MORE next month ;) Unless I can't help myself and I post it for the Number Lads 1 year anniversary this month In addition: Maral Tumun is another OC by my friend 23-bears and me. I drew her during OC-tober last year, here.

@23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @persimminwrites @beskarmermaid @darth-void @rndmpeep

#i write things sometimes #star wars fanfic #the clone wars #tcw fanfic #clone trooper ocs #star wars ocs #pantoran oc #mandalorian oc #arc trooper sevenset #arc trooper fives #clone trooper tup #nala se #shaak ti #kaminoans #number lads #numbers gang

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looseleafteeaves · 1 year ago

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T Squad; An Edited List

Important Things to Know:

All of Tea Squad, part is the 713th battalion, is assigned to the Coruscant Temple after the events with Ahsoka’s trial. They are technically part of the Corrie Guard, but focused on General/Tubie General defense rather than politicians and crime

The 713th is almost 80% made of Speedies. The speedies were trained by an Alpha- he was called Aiwha- and IDOLIZE most of the Halfsie Clones

All of T Squad is speedies, meaning they are like 2 years old.

CG VERY quickly began to work with the 713th to use the TCG(Temple Clone Guard) as a leave for the Corries, as the Corries have a similar ratio of Speedies to Halfsies because of decommissioning and reconditionings.

Both are at about 3/4 of the companies they should have. The two cycle through a battalion's worth of CG for TCG as a time. They run on a

The CC in charge of the 713th was part of Fox’s batch. CC-1011 was fast tracked to command after the Need for the 713th became known. Originally, Snake was a medic.

Fox and Snake have only had an swapped on/off shift once, too paranoid about the consequences. (Until the stuff with Ceremony goes down)

713th Companies are: Archives, Fountains, Towers, and Creche Companies.

Towers Company focused on defense of the 5 large towers.

Fountain Company is for defense of the bulk of the main temple, the majority just like the Room of a Thousand Fountains best

Archive Company is focused on defense of both the archives, and the Under levels.

Creche Company is the code name for the mixed company of Corrie Guards and 713th who are on break shift, thier version of leave, and is thus an ever cycling group. They also tend to hang around the Creche and are much beloved by them.

Corrie Guard is also known as 1st Battalion/Home Guard.

Later, Caff(a halfsie clone), Tisane(a speedie medic), Tincture(Tisane’s medic assistant) and Nightcap (a halfsie clone who is from Krell’s battalion) join.

The OG Members of Tea Squad/T Squad

CC 13-8-0526, AKA Sergeant Teapot, they/he, is a Speedie. Teapot is in-charge of a squad in Archive. Teapot’s idol is Commander Cody/CC-2224, after he said one (1) time on Kamino “Nice planning, Tubie.” And its gotten worse since.

CT-13-2639, AKA Oolong, pronouns they/them. Oolong is among the most curious of T-Squad. Oolong also can’t hit the broad side of a starship with a blaster…No one knows how they survived training on Kamino, and Oolong just smirks when people ask.

CT 11-2-2053, AKA Teacup, they/she is second in command. Teacup was in fact voted into the spot because its funny. Teacup is a “short model” (as in 2 inches shorted than most clones). Yes T Squad teases them for it. She makes them take laps through the temple for it.

CT-34-9-8873 AKA Leaf, he/him. basically a little Dogma, but mixed with rules lawyering. Commander Snake loves him dearly.

CT-77-8-8777, AKA Meditate he/she, calls the grouping of Ceremony, Reverie and her "triple 7"

CT-13-1-3777, AKA Ceremony, they/them, Ceremony is HIGHLY interested in Jedi beliefs, and the tenets of the Jedi Order. Ceremony secretly hopes to join the Jedi EduCorps after the war.

CT-77-7-7770, AKA Reverie, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pronouns, a silly goose who could care less about the war. Reverie is constantly reading and daydreaming. *Note that in the OG post "Brew" replaced the name Reverie, but Reverie refused to have that name.

CT-20-1-3419, AKA Chip, she/her, information specialists. Very good at sneaky, has a guilty pleasure of writing romanance novels.

CT-47-4567, AKA Matcha, she/her, Chip's editor of the romanance novel. Matcha and Yerba are twins, technically. They have the seeming "twin telepathy"

CT-47-4568, AKA Yerba, he/him, Yerba is a contraband enthusist... meaning he makes moonshine, because the normal troopers try and keep the speedies from drinking alcohol.

Other fun info: Aiwha still loves to freak the 713th out but randomly appearing on Coruscant. The Creche loves him.

T squad eventually becomes part of a oversized squad (14 instead of 9 troopers,) due to Senate bullcrap.

JT-F8, the tea droid, has become very fond of all of the Archives Battalion, but also has begun to record the Clone Troopers, and so have many of the JTs. Tea/T Squad is just the one that F8 claimed.

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years ago

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Rey Gives No F*cks About the Grandfather Paradox

Okay so since nobody’s suggested a fic under these terms, I ended up expanding on this post on discord and things snowballed. We kept to the basics of the entire plot revolving around Rey really hating her grandad and leveraging her blood relation to not be unalived about it.

With contributions by @atagotiak, @dracothulhu, @thepallaspalace, and several others. The title comes from @gelpenss.

The basic thing I absolutely need is this: Rey gets thrown back to the middle of the clone wars, and the subsequent plot leans in really heavily on her being, genetically-via-clone-dad, the daughter of the guy running the entire galaxy.

Nobody knows what to do with her.

The timing is mid-TCW for the past (because I want Ahsoka there) and vaguely between Episodes 8 and 9 because I... never watched E9 and don’t want to worry about the timeline. The only things that matter is that Luke is dead (he can die as he did in canon) and that Rey knows she’s Palp’s granddaughter (not the way she does in canon).

We'll say Luke found out from Anakin's panicked force-ghost and just went "well, fuck, okay, I should tell her this before she ends up in a situation like mine and finds out mid-battle or something."

Luke, prior to time-travel: Okay, so, now that I'm dead I know some things I didn't before. Like who your parents were. In the interest of full disclosure because I was in a very similar situation and I don't want you learning the way I did, I'm just going to come right out and say that your father was a clone was Sheev Palpatine. Rey: ... Luke: Are you okay? Rey: I don't know who that is.

(She grew up on Jakku, the history education was a little subpar.)

Setting The Scene

Imagine Rey showing up during or immediately before the clone wars. There’s this phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater who tells you that if you ran a paternity test, it would probably pop up the Chancellor. She may or may not bring up cloning. She accuses said Chancellor of being a Sith Lord.

Your other phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater, who may not be a teenager anymore but only barely, is very offended by this because Palpatine’s a Very Nice Old Grandfather Figure, but also he’s a little full of side-eye because if the blood test comes back as proof, then Palpatine had a kid and didn’t even know about them, or lied to Anakin, and that’s! Bad! Family’s important!!!

Palpatine hears about this daughter he apparently? Has? And is very confused because the timing doesn’t match up with ANYTHING he was doing, so the kid isn’t natural, and he says as much. (There is an explanation! It’s not a correct explanation, but he does come up with one.)

Finn and Poe and BB-8 all get dragged along because why not have the gang there? Nobody that’s already born, because [handwave] conservation of souls or something, IDK, point is the only person dragged along that’s even remotely close to already existing is Luke’s Force Ghost, who mostly hangs around begging Rey to be less impulsive. Finn is good because he is a nice polite boy, but for actual useful information they need Poe. The unfortunate situation is that the three do not land together. They land at the same time, in completely different corners of the galaxy. This means that nobody is there to curb Rey being her most impulsive self.

Time travel Rey knows two things. Luke’s dad ends up evil. Palpatine has always been evil.

She can solve one of these problems by killing the other, yes?

Rey: Ready to Rumble

See, the initial idea was this: Rey tried to break into the senate to kill Palpatine, got arrested, and then used the "he's biologically my father" card to get out of jail free. (Force Ghost Luke follows her like “please take five seconds to think this through.”)

But.

It would be very, very, very funny if The Force just dumps her in a flash of light in the senate building and she just attacks Gramps on sight. Just a shouted "YOU!" and no-hesitation attempted murder.

Palpatine has no idea what's going on.

Rey took maybe two seconds to get identity confirmation and then started swinging.

[Image Description: An individual in a green metal helmet with an eye slit, holding a pistol. In the upper left, upper right, and lower middle are the phrases “I do not know who I am...” “I don’t know why I’m here” and “All I know is that I must kill.” End description.]

Of course, she gets arrested. There are Master Jedi in the Senate. There are Clone Troopers. Palpatine isn’t the weak old man he pretends to be. Of course she’s stopped.

But she isn’t executed in time for Palpatine to stop her from ruining his entire reputation.

Immediately after Rey fails to kill her Shitty Granddad, Luke's ghost shows up and begs her to not talk about the Sith thing because it will completely undermine everything she's trying to do. Pass off the attempted murder as something else!

Rey, panicking: "that fucker left me on a desert planet for 10 years!" "You owe me 19 years of child support you son of a Hutt!"

The Jedi have to do the investigation, because the girl showed up with a laser sword, and the conversation is, uh... interesting. (“Where did you get that lightsaber?” “I got it from a mysterious old pirate lady I never met before. I don't know, I was being shown around by a smuggler and a Wookie.”)

Interviewer: Why did you try to assassinate the Chancellor? Luke: Say it wasn't assassination. Rey: It wasn't assassination. Int: You weren't trying to kill him? Luke: Assassination has to be politically motivated. Rey: This was, um... not political. Assassination is political, right? Int: You mean this was personally motivated? Rey: Yes. Int: I see. What personal motivation? Luke: Jakku! Rey: He's my grandfather. Int: ... Rey: Possibly father. Nobody was very clear on that. Int: ... Luke: Tell them to run a paternity test. Rey: Oh hey, a blood test would tell us which, right? Int: ............ Rey: I spent ten years as an orphaned scrapdealer on Jakku. He's my father. I'm kind of a little angry. Int: ........... Luke: Good job, kid. You bought yourself some time. Int: I'm going to get a medic to see about that parternity test.

Obviously, it comes back positive. Congratulations, Sheev, you’re the father.

Rey comes with a ready-made built-in excuse for hating Palpatine that nobody can question or fault her for!

Rey, pouring Truth into the Force: I didn't even know I was related to the Chancellor until a few months ago, but it's his fault I grew up the way I did, and he should take some responsibility!

The entire thing is mostly kept hush hush but someone leaks it to the press and Palpatine's ratings tank.

"Chancellor, I think we'll need to waive family visitation until she wants you a little less dead." "I would like to find out why she wants me dead, and indeed, where she came from." "...sir, for your own safety--"

Who would win? A master plan years in the making spanning decades of manipulating and work? or One (1) paternity test

"Okay, so, Rey Palpat--" "Ew, no, I don't want his name." "You--okay. Sure, we can understand that. Is there a name you would prefer to put on the paperwork?" Rey, who would have gone by Skywalker in honor of Luke but can't do that when Anakin is right there and all: "Can I think about it?"

Rey: I don't know what I want my last name to be but I know I don't want his, and most of the people I’d want a name from have famous families like you... Luke's ghost, pointing out the Literal Nobody that she cares about a lot: How about Solo? Rey: ...Solo, then.

(A few months later she runs into Poe again and he offers for Finn and Rey to both take his name because honestly they need SOMETHING but at that point she’s already decided on Smuggler Dad.)

Backtrack a bit. We’ve got a bigger cast.

They all arrive separately. Poe, for one, does better than Rey, who is aiming for a murder, but not quite as well as Finn, who is currently being adopted and hidden like a secret cat by a bunch of Alpha Clones on Kamino. He vibes with the names-or-numbers thing. He doesn’t necessarily tell them where and when he’s from, but he’s very sweet and a great liar and they adopt him wholesale anyway.

The Finn situation is just... "Buir Ti, we need you to hide this man, we've decided he's our little brother but if Nala Se finds out she'll make him leave."

Of course, this leads into Shaak Ti teaching Finn how to Jedi.

Maybe consider Finn needing to almost be tricked into learning Jedi things because he willfully forgets it could apply to him. Finn does not like to think of himself as special, which is super valid, but frustrating for Shaak Ti when it comes to, you know, getting him to acquire knowledge. Finn's training at some point is "here, levitate objects with the Force to entertain the tubies." It’s a lot easier to convince him to practice when it involves the babies.

(Everyone on Kamino looked at Finn and went “oh I love him I’m keeping him and teaching him things.”)

(He’s just very lovable.)

Poe, meanwhile, buys the trust of Anakin Skywalker via R2D2 declaring BB-8 the absolute most baby of droids. R2D2 met BB-8 three hours ago but.

"Hey Obi-Wan this is Poe I met him like five days ago but R2D2 says he checks out because his droid is a baby." "That's nice, Anakin, did you know the Chancellor has a daughter who tried to assassinate him in broad daylight yesterday? Because guess who had to stop the Chancellor from getting assassinated by his daughter in broad daylight yesterday."

A summary so far:

Finn, on Kamino: Hey, um, I don't know where this is, but it's not where I was a few minutes ago. Do you think you could get me a comm? What's your name? Poe, on [dice roll] Denon: Oh, hey, you're General Skywalker? Nice to meet you, I'm so sorry about my droid, she's a little excitable and thought your R2 unit looked like a friend of hers-- Rey, on Coruscant: DIE, GRANDFATHER

Finn: [Peacefully vibing on Kamino, unaware of the chaos and bonding with the clones] Poe: [Trying to explain how he knows someone who tried to kill the chancellor and defend Rey] Rey: [Arrested for trying to kill the chancellor]

Just... just...

Anakin: Some guy ended up lost on base yesterday with his droid, how’s your day going? Obi-Wan: I had to stop someone who claims to be the chancellors daughter from murdering the chancellor after she seemingly blinked into existence in the Senate building. Poe: 😐

(Poe: Oh, so that's where Chaos^2 went.)

Poe: In her defense, she is his... well we don't know if she's his daughter or granddaughter, but she's definitely related to him, and she definitely grew up in a shitty situation that was his fault, so...

(Poe is trying very hard to explain this and not get arrested on the military base.)

As you’ve probably guessed, what's especially funny about all of this for me is the fact that Palpatine is fully aware that this girl shouldn't exist, but can't find a single piece of evidence about where she came from. He didn't start any experiments that could result in a female child, and he didn't have sex in that period of time, so where the hell--

Rey spends so much time in jail... BUT they do eventually assign her a Jedi Master. Possibly before she actually proves her evil grandfather is in fact evil. Most votes went to either Plo Koon or Obi-Wan. Plo, because he’s dad-shaped, and Obi...

"Obi-Wan, you already raised one feral desert child with implausible amounts of power, you handle this." Rey in return is very "Sweet, you vaguely remind me of Master Luke," and nobody knows who the hell she's talking about. Obi-Wan is NOT on board with this plan, she'd really be better off with Plo or like........ Mace.

Reunion Tour

What I need out of this is the eventual Finn and Rey reunion scene that is just excited screaming while someone in the background explains to Shaak Ti that yes this is apparently Palpatine's terrifyingly force-sensitive daughter who hates him.

(Finn senses Rey’s approach and just. Gathers the everyone to wait. He’s just :D REY MY FRIEND REY GUYS MY FRIEND REY IS COMING.)

Anakin shows up with Poe--just a guy who signed on to the military, no big deal--and then Poe and Rey are EXCITED and everyone's just like "Cool, how do you know this literal terrorist child?" And Poe has to scramble and "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh she saved my droid from a scrapheap once and BB-8 is basically my child so I owe her one."

Rey knows that Anakin ends up evil so she’s maybe not actively hostile but definitely very “I’m watching you.” That said, she vibes with him on a lot of things that he maybe doesn’t actively notice.

Rey picks up a snake, snaps off the head for venom avoidance, and starts biting off chunks. Obi-Wan's reaction: [undisguised horror] Anakin and Ahsoka: Ooh, where'd you find that? (Obi-Wan: And now I’m up to three feral children.)

What Does Palpatine Even Do?

OBVIOUSLY at a certain point, Palpatine is just phoning up every ally he has to figure out who broke protocol to synthesize a daughter for him.

So of course, Palpatine blame Plagueis.

She'd have been born five or so years before Naboo, just a few years younger than Anakin. It's such an EASY theory to build a conspiracy around. It is ENTIRELY WRONG, but it’s plausible! And anyone who might have been involved to say otherwise is probably dead!

A random bio-kid shows up you can’t possibly have contributed genes to? Maybe it’s the evil bio spark that did it.

Palpatine tries to placate her with the ‘my genes were stolen for an experiment and I didn’t know’ thing. It doesn’t work because her actual main complaint is he’s evil in her future but he tries.

It'd be a struggle to even get access to her, because of the aforementioned “maybe don’t try to talk to the daughter(?) that hates you” thing, but you know who Palpatine does have access to? The Chosen One.

Rey kind of decides on her favorites early on (she gravitates to Dad Energy and Sad Old Men so Plo and Obi-Wan are on her list, and that means decent time around Anakin and Ahsoka). It's really easy to talk Anakin into helping to some degree because "he'd like to connect to a daughter he never knew" and "a child of her power on a planet like that, you'd know her struggle, my dear boy" and so on. Anakin tries to connect! He tries to play up Sheev’s kind political work and how it can’t have really been his fault! It doesn’t work. Rey does not believe a word of it. Mostly she doesn’t even seem to hear him.

Rey's just like "...oh right, you're the melted mask that Kylo Ren was always ranting about," which means absolutely NOTHING to Anakin, but he mentions it to Palps, who loses his goddamn mind trying to figure out what she's talking about, because it also means absolutely nothing to him.

Here’s the thing: Rey’s already decided that Obi-Wan is cool, because Luke said so, and Plo Koon is dad-shaped, and she also gravitates towards earnest kindness in general, like she made friends with Finn real quick, so Ahsoka? Already getting along great.

She doesn’t dislike Anakin, really, he isn’t evil yet, he’s just... meh. She’s a little suspicious and she likes him less than the others but... Anakin.

Rey, to Anakin: You are my least favorite. Anakin, to Palpatine: YOUR DAUGHTER HATES ME???

And he goes from “she’s a lil standoffish” to “she doesn’t like me” to “she hates me” as is normal for Anakin.

It’s just an escalation of this one time Palpatine wants Anakin to not have rifts and trust issues with a person, at least not until later, because he needs information.

Meanwhile, that very moment, Rey is just like "huh, nobody here is listening to me about how make a sixth-hand carburetor work, where's Luke's dad?"

Anakin is venting to Palpatine about how hard it is to talk to Rey, and she's over in the Temple just like "Hey, that guy was useful last time, I should ask him," but also she only ever thinks of him as Luke's Dad.

(At one point, Obi-Wan is having a bit of a break down, and then Anakin starts having a breakdown about that, meanwhile the clones are (badly) trying to hide Finn behind their backs, Rey is watching Ahsoka practice and being like "I want two lightsabers," and Poe is trying to keep R2 from stealing BB-8 and Force Ghost Luke is just face palming in the background.)

(Rey deserved a saber staff, maybe one that can detach and turn into a jar’kai set. Possibly a pike. Mostly I just wish she got more chances to whack things with a big stick.)

#Rey #Finn #Poe Dameron #Sheev Palpatine #Luke Skywalker #Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Darth Sidious #Plo Koon #Shaak Ti #Ahsoka Tano #r2d2 #bb 8 #star wars #time travel #Rey and the Grandfather Paradox #Phoenix Posts

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cabezadeperro · 2 years ago

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Hi! For the prompts, can I ask for either Alpha-17/Cody with hiraeth?

hi blitzy!!

post battle of kamino, established relationship. 650w, T.

---

Kamino’s like it has always been.

Cody steps over rubble, his boots squeaking loudly in the quiet of the empty corridor, and takes off his bucket. Half the wall’s missing, and he stops right at the edge, looks down: dark grey water, swelling and dipping, and a thousand white lights tugging away one of the Seppie ships that drilled through Tipoca’s main domes. Wet, cutting wind hits his face, tugs at his hair. He holds his left arm closer to his body with an improvised sling—his wrist isn’t actually broken, just cracked in a few places, but it’s been a while since his last dose of painkillers and it hurts like hell. Cody frowns and tries and fails to scratch at the scabbing cut on his forehead with his pauldron.

He can see the platform from where he stands, a few dozen metres under his feet. It’s cracked in places and full of rubble, and while he looks the right corner breaks away and disappears under the water. Cody frowns, annoyed.

Whoever’s using it now to sneak away while the trainers aren’t looking will have to find a new hideout, then. He sighs.

Everything hurts and he’s exhausted. They won, but a cost, and now—now Cody needs to deal with what’s left before leaving for the front.

At first he doesn’t recognise the noise of his own commlink shrieking at him. Cody blinks, shakes himself, and replaces his bucket. He switches the comm on with a flick of his tongue and starts making his way to the door at the end of the corridor. There’s blood by the door, bright red and still wet, what’s left of a B1 next to it. Cody steps over it, trying not to slip on the mix of blood and machine oil.

“2224 here,” he says, not bothering to check the caller ID first. “I’m on my way.”

A beat.

“Commander,” says Seventeen. He sounds tired but amused, voice hoarse and warm.

Cody pauses. He bites his lips and gives in: he smiles.

“Captain,” he greets Seventeen. So the bastard’s alive. Cody heard about that little stunt with the tubies; he’s not that surprised. He checks his chrono and grimaces.

“Cody,” Seventeen amends after a beat, and this—this, Cody didn’t quite see coming. He pauses and frowns at nothing, still alone in yet another empty corridor. More blood, more dead metal. A cracked cuirass painted in 501st blue leaning against the far wall, and a mess of bloody footsteps disappearing through the blast doors, blown open and resting on the floor just beyond. The blinding white Cody remembers from his childhood is gone, the white plastoid blackened with smoke and tibanna residue and drying blood, and he smiles grimly at it.

“Seventeen,” he replies. He licks his lips and checks his chrono again. “I—”

“The 212th ships out in ten hours,” Seventeen says.

He shouldn’t know yet: Cody got the news half an hour ago. He huffs and folds his arms, waits him out.

Seventeen’s always been very bad at waiting. He doesn’t disappoint.

He makes a little annoyed noise in the back of his throat and sighs. “Mir’sheb,” he says fondly, the Mando’a familiar after so long. Cody rolls his eyes. “I’m on Deck 45. Old Cuy’val Dar living quarters.”

Cody gets himself moving again. “Someone’s moving up in the world,” he drawls, and Seventeen scoffs.

“I’ll see you later. Commander,” he replies. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

He cuts the comm. Cody snorts and takes off his bucket once again, shaking his head.

He ducks under what’s left of a twisted pillar, wrist yelling at him when the sling gets caught in a corner, his steps echoing in the quiet of the corridor and the storm raging just outside. Dense white dust still hangs in the air, and the floor rattles and shudders under his feet, but Kamino’s exactly the same.

And so is Seventeen.

#cody17 #alpha 17 #commander cody #cloneshipping #maría writes #palabros prompt list

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meerlichts · 3 years ago

Text

📚 Fics and Wips 📚

📖 completed works 📖

no need to be brave (clone wars, 2.5k, gen) - Waxer and Boil desert after the battle of Ryloth to take care of Numa.

on the naming of bugs (clone wars, 2.3k, gen) - Waxer and Boil have a late night discussion about bugs, gender, and the war.

Ways in which Boil is a horrible person, with examples (clone wars, 10k, gen) - Boil tries to get used to living on Ryloth with Waxer and Numa while struggling with self image and identity.

there is a dream and it sleeps in me (clone wars, 1.7k, gen) - Fox wakes up after a nightmare and thinks about his personal failures.

I’d rather die before you die (clone wars, 2k, gen) - Following Umbara and the loss of Hardcase, Kix breaks. Jesse holds him through it.

some ancient call we’ve answered before (clone wars, 1.5k, gen) - Three years after order 66, Alpha finally manages to save Cody. During their escape a group of purrgils get in the way.

climbing up the walls (clone wars, 3k, gen) - Fox’s anger is eating him alive. He snaps.

A Stranger On Coruscant (clone wars, 28k, m/m with gen elements) - Quinlan Vos discovers that the Chancellor is affiliated with Seperatists. This makes nothing easier for Fox.

🗒 (Prompt based) Writing on tumblr under 1k 🗒

Fox’s sunny day out (clone wars, gen) - After the war is over, Fox spends his days lying in the soft Lothal grass with his brothers.

Engel and tubie (clone wars, gen) - Engel finds a tubie during his escape from Kamino.

Fives and the corries, snippet (clone wars, gen) - The corries hide a very alive Fives after the conspiracy ARC in tcw.

“Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong.” (clone wars, gen) - The Guard’s medics have been lured into a trap. Fox holds Nova during what might be their last moments.

“C’mhere, let me hold you.” (clone wars, gen) - Fox gets drunk. He visits Wolffe.

“I’m not leaving you here.” (clone wars, gen) - Thire finds Fox.

“I know you’re hurt.” (clone wars, gen) - Fox, self hatred, his brothers and a life without palpatine but with the senate.

📒 Works in progress (published) 📒

the last reason (clone wars, 89k, 13/? Chapters, gen focused with m/m elements) - Fox dealing with Senators, little brothers, the terrifying ordeal of asking for help and a charming menace called Quinlan Vos.

the last reason: missing scenes (clone wars, 2.1k, gen) - Missing scenes.

but at least the war is over (the Mandalorian, 23k, 5/? Chapters, gen) - After the events of season one, Din finds a clone trooper inside of an abanoned emperial cruiser’s stasis pod. Kix, with nothing else of worth to do, joins their little group.

I know the end (clone wars, 10k, 2/4 Chapters, gen) - Waxer’s ghost stays with Boil during republic and emperial times even after the former’s death on Umbara. Boil has mixed emotions about this.

A Lesson In Things That Are Unimaginable, Impossible And Utterly Useless (clone wars, 21k, 4/5 Chapters, gen focused with m/m elements) - Fox goes on a roadtrip to Alderaan with five of his closest brothers.

someone to watch me die (clone wars, 70k, 10/? Chapters, gen) - Waxer dies on Umbara and wakes up three days before his death.

unpublished wips that are going to be my magnum opus

the anatomy of a haunted house (clone wars, gen, eventually about 100k) - Cody buys an old house as a future forever home for him and his family. The house hates him.

Drali and the terrifying ordeal of purchasing cigars on Coruscant (clone wars, gen, eventually about 6k) - Drali and the moments leading up to his death.

No One Lives Under The Senate (clone wars, gen, eventually about 70k) - Leia Organa tries to figure out what happened to the Coruscant Guard, eighteen years ago.

#meer speaks #here we go #fic masterpost

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rhpotter · 3 years ago

Text

Luminous, Part 27

Fuck. Alpha-17 resisted the temptation to run, striding down the corridors as fast as he could without panicking the tubies. Fuck fuck fucking sith-spawned piece of osik! The comm clicked on, and to his relief, Tavo was on the other end.

“Got your message. What’s going on?”

Alpha-17 didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Dooku is leaving. And he’s told the longnecks he wants a squad to go with him. As escort.”

“Shit.” The profanity was low-voiced but heartfelt. One of the benefits in working with fellow alphas was that 17 didn’t need to spell out the obvious. Namely, why would a Sith chasing a Jedi need protection? At best, the unlucky squad assigned to Dooku would likely be used as bait to lure Ben out. At worst ….

“Who are they sending?” Tavo asked. It went without saying that there was no way they could prevent the squad from going. Not without tipping their hand and endangering every clone on Kamino.

“Sando squad,” Alpha-17 said.

“FUCK.” Tavo added a few more pungent words under his breath before cutting himself off. “With Ram in command?”

“Correct. You see the problem.” Alpha-17’s voice was hard as stone, and just as unforgiving. Sando squad had some good men, even if none of them had been blooded in a real fight yet. But their CC … Alpha-17 had long suspected that the Kaminoans’ genetic tinkering had taken a little too well in some brothers, and Ram was a prime example. Ram was a good CC, capable and smart. He tore through the flash-training and command-track drills like they were easy. But in Alpha-17’s opinion, he was also far too eager to please. Too obedient. If a superior officer told him to take his squad and go jump off a cliff, Ram wouldn’t even think to ask why on the way down.

It wasn’t inexperience. They all had learned too many hard lessons from trainers like Priest and Vau, and from the indifference and casual cruelty of the longnecks, to be that naive. No, it was almost as if something was missing when it came to Ram; some part of his brain that wouldn’t allow him to question an order, regardless of how stupid or suicidal that order might be.

Ram wasn’t to blame for what the longnecks had done to him, but that didn’t solve the current problem. Of all the squads to choose from, why did it have to be that one?

Read more here ....

#luminous #star wars fanfic #clone troopers #null troopers #alpha-17 #kom'rk skirata #mereel skirata #ordo skirata #jaing skirata #prudii skirata

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vodika-vibes · 1 year ago

Note

Could you write up a soft moment between Alpha and the reader? They’re both busy and have no time but they want to take a moment to bask and share some quiet with each other before they have to go back to what they were doing before?

Alright, I decided to roll these three asks into one. So this is a sequel to the Lawsuit oneshot with Alpha-17.

A Moment For Us

Summary: After returning from Coruscant after winning rights for the clones as well as backpay, you thought you'd be less busy. But You've never been busier.

Pairing: Alpha-17 x Lawyer!Reader

Word Count: 792

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni

The war ends and while, in theory, things should have been easier, and less busy, for you. The truth is that things only started getting more and more hectic.

Honestly, you kind of hoped that your work would stop once you managed to convince the Senate to give the clones rights, and back pay, and everything that they’re owed. You feel kind of silly about it now.

Of course you’ll only be busier now.

So busy, in fact, that you and Alpha haven’t been able to spend more than a few moments together since your return to Kamino. Sure, you still sleep next to each other, but he’s been getting up before you and leaving before you get out of bed.

He’s just as busy as you are, you know.

You push your hair out of your face and pull your datapad closer, mumbling under your breath as you read to yourself, effortlessly sidestepping cadets and trainers alike.

“How are things going?” Master Ti asks as she falls into step next to you, making her strides smaller so as to not overtake you, or make you run to keep up with her.

“Slowly, and quickly at the same time.” You reply, “The backpay is coming from the Palpatine estate, but the more-” You have to throw yourself against the wall to avoid getting run over by an ARC Captain, “-the more the Jedi Investigators dig, the more we’re learning about what Palpatine was up to. And the more we learn, the more compensation the Clones are entitled to.”

“Do you need me to reach out to the Jedi Solicitor-?” Master Ti asks.

“That’s kind of you to offer, but I’m already in contact with them and their army of little paralegal padawans.” You reply, “Have you been able to untangle the tubies from-”

She huffs out a heavy breath, “Not yet.” Something steely enters her gaze, “The Kaminoans won’t kill anymore babies, I swear it. Do try to take a break, my friend. You won’t do anyone good if you work yourself to a burn out.”

“The same goes for you, Shaak.” You remind her.

The older woman smiles, “No need to worry about me. Plo will be joining me in a couple of days.” Her gaze flickers to the side, and her smile grows, “I have to go, good luck.”

You tilt your head at her curious words, but soon put them out of your mind as you turn towards your office, only to yelp when you’re unceremoniously, tugged into an empty classroom.

The door slides shut behind you and your datapad is tugged from your hands and set on the table next to you. And then large hands cup your face, and you blink up at Alpha.

He smiles at you, something warm and soft in his gaze, as he leans in and bumps his forehead against yours. “Cyar’ika.” He murmurs.

“Alpha,” His name slips from you in a sigh, and you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck, “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” His eyes close and for a moment the pair of you just exist in each other's presence. “Missed you. Been too long since I’ve been able to just…be with you.”

“We’re busy people,” It’s an explanation, not an excuse, and he knows it based on the way his lips curl, “I missed you too.” You whisper, “Don’t like waking up alone.”

“It’s only until we get all of the kids de-chipped,” Alpha explains, “Unless you’ve found some other, horrifying, thing that we need to fix inside our bodies.”

“Not that I know of.” You murmur, “And…the chip in your head?” You ask, almost hesitantly.

Alpha releases a humorless laugh, “I’m an Alpha, cyare. I didn’t get a chip. Just sped up aging.”

“Oh…I didn’t know.”

“Yeah.” He tilts your head back and brushes his lips against yours, “I’ve started the gene therapy to stop that, it sucks.”

“That’s good?” You ask, standing on your toes to try and catch his lips with yours.

Alpha chuckles and kisses you properly. Once, twice, three times, and then he releases you and presses your datapad back into your hands. “We’re having dinner together tonight.” He says, there’s something heavy in his gaze, and you know it’s a promise, “Be back in the room by 6.”

You smile at him brightly, “It’s a date.”

Alpha brushes your cheek with his thumb, and then takes a step back, “Alright, cyare. Back to the grindstone.”

You take a deep breath, and nod. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yes.” Alpha’s gaze is heavy with promise, “You will.” And as you step back into the hallway, you know that Alpha will kill anyone who tries to prevent either of you from spending time together tonight.

#star wars #tcw #alpha-17 x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #answered asks

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siennahrobek · 3 years ago

Text

Rex

Rex was exhausted. He wished he didn’t have to think. He was nervous and jittery and there were much too many thoughts running through his head. Even though he didn’t show it, even though no one could possibly know. To everyone else, he was confident and steady as he could ever be.

To make matters worse, communications were on a strict bar and heavily monitored, so he couldn’t check up on the 332ndand Ahsoka. He hoped she was okay. Then again, he doubted Jesse and Echo would be quiet about anything that went wrong. Besides, they were with Master Feemor. Rex couldn’t say he knew much about the jedi who claimed to be General Kenobi’s brother – and he wasn’t entirely sure how that worked – but he seemed kind and good in a fight. He kept Ahsoka’s head level on her shoulders. He wouldn’t really rest until he could reunite with all of them. Rex had been burned by two jedi generals and even though Master Feemor was not a general, Rex was cautious to trust another, especially one that he just met.

The days went by slowly for him and he tried to keep with the survivors of what was left of his battalion. He tried not to think about how many were dead, or worse, how many they hadn’t yet been able to save.

Rex knew, on some level, consciously even, that the jedi weren’t actually abandoning them, his brothers, his troops. Even the 501st. When General Kenobi said they would be back for them, that they were regrouping to make a plan to get them back. Rex believed him.

If there was anyone, he had to be able to believe right now, it was him.

Rex wasn’t sure if he could take another blow like that.

If there was anyone Rex could trust not to betray them, it had to be General Kenobi.

You thought that about General Skywalker once, too a traitorous part of his brain whispered. He tried to shake it off. Surviving another treachery on the level of that of Skywalker; Rex wasn’t sure if he could. Even thinking about it made it hard to breathe. He would keep his faith; it was something to hold on to right now.

But looking at these boys, watching them cry and try to pull themselves together from the horror that they had lived through, some deep, dark part of him cried with them, cried for his brothers that were left behind. The ones he sometimes thought he would never see again.

Escape and evacuation had been the right choice. Rex knew that, on multiple levels and ways. They had warned so many, probably saved quite a few. And Kamino – oh! – all the youngsters and cadets and trainees and tubies, they were being saved as well. The Jedi were coming for them. Or rather, the cadets were coming withthem. Rex was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Alpha-17 had committed mutiny in such a short time frame, just on the mysterious warning of General Kenobi.

Rex was a bit curious how they knew each other.

General Kenobi seemed to know someone from everywhere.

It was the third and final day that Rex had done double takes when he saw one of the survivors. Because even though he knew several of them were from the 501st, they were not actually donning the colors. Rather, suddenly, they were painted in the familiar brother battalion of gold. He didn’t ask any of them. It felt intrusive. It was rather understandable too. Who would want to be a part of a legion under a traitor and the person that had betrayed them? That had brainwashed them into killing children?

The captain-commander (he wasn’t entirely sure if he still held the commander title anymore and he was a bit too tired to care) had stuck around Cody and, by proxy, General Kenobi, in those final moments before they reached Kamino. He stood by the two of them, with a couple other jedi generals milling around the bridge, when the water planet came into view. His anxiety had been wrapped in something warm and comforting, like one of those robes that Cody kept stashing away and giving to the troopers on cold nights. Something that soothed his worries.

He glanced over at his brother, whose shoulders had sagged just a little, in some kind of pleasant feeling, like he didn’t have to stand straight and at attention all times. His gaze drifted towards General Kenobi, who was breathing methodically. In for four. Out for seven. In for four, out for eight.

The jedi was doing this, Rex thought, blinking blankly. After everything, he was projecting something comforting for them. He wondered how far that feeling reached, how many troopers felt it.

Alpha-17 greeting them in his usual gruff manner was no surprise. The man had taught most of them, especially those that were designated as officers of some kind. He had a soft spot for the commander and their class, if Alpha-17 could have anything that remotely resembled a soft spot. He seemed rather friendly with General Kenobi, even getting the jedi to crack a small smile.

Finding out so many generals survived was such a relief.

There were so many.

Which meant so many brothers had survived with them.

Eventually, when he and Cody went back to General Kenobi’s ship, after the meeting, and had a moment of peace, Cody shoved a cup of caf in his hands. The two jedi stayed on the bridge and after their job was done, the two clones had slipped away for a stolen second to calm themselves.

Rex, like a fool, didn’t even ask. He just drank it.

And promptly spit it back out.

“What is that?!”

Cody smirked but his expression was rather warm as he walked down the hall next to him. Their shoulders bumped together as they walked, their pauldrons clanking and making noise as they went along. A few 212th boys passed and chuckled, good-naturedly. “Plague’s illegal whiskey,” he replied, with a shrug, shooting him a knowing glance. “He’s on his last bit and probably won’t be able to get any more. But I figured, if anyone needed something, it would be you.”

“This is… bracing,” Rex forced out, trying to sound nice about it.

“Come on, let’s find a quiet place to sit down,” Cody added with another laugh. “We have a moment before anything crazy happens again and it’s not like we are needed for now.” Rex just followed as his brother led him through the halls until they found a quiet room, just a little storage space, filled with supplies and buckets of paint. Cody pulled out a large, brown robe and gave one to Rex. “It’s one of General Kenobi’s. We collect them and use them as blankets,” he explained Rex’s silent question.

Okay then.

He took the robe and wrapped it around himself. He wasn’t wrong, he completely understood why the brothers would want them as blankets. They were nice. The two of them got settled on the floor near the wall and began nursing their small cups of disgusting alcohol. “I don’t think I want to drink this ever again,” Rex announced, but his voice was a bit quiet.

The commander laughed, lightly. “Well, you probably won’t.”

“This is a weird place to be,” Rex added.

“Most of the usual places are occupied, ya know, with kids and jedi,” Cody explained. “Some have moved over to the other venators and cruisers, to spread the population out a bit. Just in case.”

“Aren’t they chipped?”

“There is a pulse that stops it for a while. I think all the ships have been outfitted with one. Something pretty simple. If anything, suspicious comes near, we can just bring up the pulse,” he explained further. “And the medics are all starting surgeries. The jedi brought their medical droids which can pretty much do it quick and nonstop.”

Rex nodded, mutely.

“You think Ahsoka is, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Cody said, near immediately. “She’s got a pretty good head on her shoulders. Besides, you said a master was with her right? I’m sure he will keep her in line. I doubt he was so much like Skywalker to cause a bunch of trouble.”

“That’s true,” Rex confessed. “I’m just worried.”

“Do you know anything about this…Master Feemor?” Cody asked, suddenly.

Rex blinked, glanced over at him. “Not really. He seemed nice. He got Ahsoka away from…Skywalker during the battle. He helped save some boys. Seems to have a pretty level head.”

Cody nodded.

“Why?”

“You said he claimed to be General Kenobi’s brother,” Cody replied, slowly.

“I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not,” Rex shrugged. “But I’m sure you will be able to talk to him when he and Ahsoka get back.” The conversation died and the two of them sat comfortably in the storage room, sipping disgusting alcohol. He looked around the room, at the paint buckets, all covered in the 212thsignature gold color. It reminded him of something that happened not that long ago.

“I was walking around, the day before we got here. And I saw one of my boys. He was nervous and skittish. But he was better, less panicked than the day before.”

“Okay…” Cody said, slowly.

“There was something else.”

“What?”

“Instead of his 501st blue, his armor had been meticulously scrubbed and repainted in gold. 212th gold,” Rex admitted.

Cody paused. “Rex…”

“I’m not… mad or upset or anything,” he assured, quickly. And he wasn’t. There was no way he could be. “I’m not upset. How can I? I’ll never really understand what they went through. Enslaved and brainwashed by someone they trusted, someone that they thought they could trust, to murder innocents. The elderly and children and babies. And they did. People died. Children died. And the 501stkilled them.”

“He did it during the night,” Cody explained, his voice getting even quieter, as he wrapped closer to Rex. He knew exactly who Rex was referring to. Rex wasn’t entirely sure how, but it didn’t really matter either. “He was in the pile we had for the general and the survivors to help them sleep. I don’t think he did, though. I didn’t give him the paint.”

They both knew who did.

“It took Graffiti two hours to walk into one of the rooms that were set aside for some of the jedi kids,” Rex continued. Cody blinked in surprise; he wasn’t expecting the story to continue.

“Did you follow him?”

Rex nodded, mutely. It took him a long minute to keep going. “He finally went in after a while and I just… couldn’t quite make myself walk away. The jedi adults there didn’t seem alarmed when he came in. They didn’t say a word to him or ask him why he was there. He just sat in a corner. But then…something happened,” he continued, with his brows furrowing in some kind of confusion. “Something happened that called for the jedi’s attention. She had been holding a child so she just…gave him the child. She was just… a little thing. A baby. And Graffiti just stared.”

Rex paused.

“And then she put his hand on his face. And he just started bawling. He sat in a corner with this baby and was simply sobbing. He muttered apologies and this baby just sat on his lap, in his arms, babbling nonsensical things.”

Cody nodded, another silent urge for his brother to continue. Rex needed to get this out, to get to the end.

“Back at the Temple, when I went to the medical bay during the evacuation, I found Appo there,” Rex said. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was going with this but the not-interaction with the commander had struck him.

“We found him,” Cody said. “The General, another trooper and I. Shoved him in a closet.”

Rex snorted, amused. He quickly sobered up as he continued. “He had killed a five-year-old child and it was ripping him apart. Graffiti reminded me of him when I was there. I watched him and the adults.”

“The adults?”

“They barely blinked. All of them must have known what the troopers had done, probably knew it was the 501st specifically. They know who killed them, their people, their children but these jedi just…let Graffiti in. No questions, no reservations. Just invited him to sit.”

“He was de-chipped,” Cody replied, keeping his voice cautious and slow. No chipped trooper was allowed around the younglings and babies, especially until they had gotten out or surgery. It was a security and safety precaution.

“But, after the horror that happened. They just gave him a baby. Just like that. After what happened, even with the jedi that had no experience with us clones, they still trust us.”

Cody looked at him, uncertainly. Did he not understand what Rex was saying? Even if the troopers forced to do what they did, chipped, which, of course they were, would that not still give them fear? Caution? Paranoia? If it was done once, who was to say it couldn’t be done again? Could they just turn once more?

The thought was just as horrifying as the first time.

“You know what they said on Kamino?” Cody asked.

Rex stared at him as Cody looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see the stars and systems up in the sky they would be going to soon enough.

“How we were made for the jedi? For them to lead us?”

He swallowed harshly and nodded. They had always been told they were meant for the jedi. They had been told so much and the troopers had found some kind of awe and loyalty for them even before they had known any single jedi. “It was a lie,” he croaked. He blinked in surprise. He was surprised that had come out.

Cody just shook his head. “It really wasn’t. And I don’t think anyone really understood exactly what it meant, not the long necks, not anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our futures were always going to be intertwined,” Cody said, leaning further against the wall and letting the robe fall over his shoulders. “It was always going to be us and the jedi. It always will be. Their destruction was meant to be our destruction. Ours meant theirs. Think about it, we are brainwashed, destroyed and who pays that price? The Jedi. The Jedi are destroyed, by us or anyone and who is left for us? No one really understood what the Kaminoans meant, not even the Kaminoans themselves. They didn’t realize it was a two-way street.”

“A two-way street?” he echoed, questioningly. He wasn’t sure if he followed.

“We were meant for the jedi just as much as the jedi were meant for us.”

Shaak Ti

It wasn’t Master Kenobi’s ship that was hit but they had a front row seat to the event. Master Shaak Ti and Master Cin Drallig had been on the bridge for quite some time, trying to coordinate and plan when, in plain sight through the viewing port, another ship in space rocked, one of the edges lighting up in a small explosion.

Everyone on the bridge jumped, some even shouted.

“Stamina, come in!” one of the communications troopers yelled. “Stamina, respond, what is your status?”

There was brief moment of bare static. “We’re okay. We are alright,” a voice came through. “It was a glancing blow; systems are still operational.”

“Does anyone have eyes? What happened?” the trooper called out again, quickly. There was a pause.

“A ship came out of hyperspace,” yet another voice spoke up, a bit on edge. “It is on fire. It doesn’t look like it is going to fire again but we cannot establish communications.”

“We need someone to go in there to incapacitate those on board. They could be chipped. Any available to get in quickly? Who is closest?”

“Vigilance, this is Captain ARC Alpha-77,” the sound was a little off, like the owner was moving and the communications device he was talking through wasn’t quite made for the distance. “I’ve already got a squad ready to go and on the move. Will be there within minutes.”

“Set your blasters to stun, please,” the trooper on the ship replied and his fingers danced over the board of his station.

It would be quite some time before Shaak Ti and Master Drallig would get anymore news. There was an uncomfortable silence during then, as they waited uneasily for an update.

“Vigilance, this is Captain ARC Alpha-77,” the ARC’s voice came through, a little clearer this time. Everyone perked at least a little. “The ship Ascension has been neutralized, activated troopers are being shuttled to medical stations, along with two jedi.”

“Any others?”

“Several natborn officers. Orders?”

The trooper glanced at Shaak Ti and Cin. She cleared her throat. “Please, put them in the brig with the others from Kamino.”

“You hear that, Captain ARC Alpha-77?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Status of the ship?”

“Unsalvageable.”

“How did this happen?” Cin asked, as the bridge died down in sound and talk once again. They could see the offending ship, on fire and slowly breaking apart from their viewport.

“The Captain mentioned there were two jedi aboard,” Shaak Ti replied. “Perhaps they can give us some insight into that has occurred.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t mean the Empire is right on their tail.”

“How long until we can depart?”

Master Obi-Wan pressed into the bridge of his own flagship, the ARC trooper captain, Alpha-17, at his side. Many emotions were flowing from the master as he quickly tempered them behind thick shields. Shaak Ti and Cin Drallig were on the ship, discussing a great many things, including strategies to avoid the newly formed Empire as they gathered their family and friends, as well as the mess of the ship that had come in, fired a shot and was burning to pieces. It had been evacuated, with all those still alive, but no one was sure how it happened. Shaak Ti and Cin had went back and forth with some theories. They had stopped talking once Obi-Wan had entered, his face drawn and tired, with someone else that was weighing on his shoulders.

“Are you alright, Master Kenobi?” she asked. He glanced around and settled on her, his gaze slackening and softening at the sight of her. She was glad he could find some semblance of peace with his fellow jedi, her in particular. She was always happy to help in such a way.

“You have heard about the ship on fire that took a shot at one of ours?” he asked.

They both nodded, as Shaak Ti saw in the corner of her eye. “It didn’t harm the ship too badly. A group of soldiers, led by one of the ARC Alphas, Captain 77? I believe? He and a select few others went to subdue,” Master Drallig responded, his lips pursed at the notion of the unfortunate event but his tone reflected his gratitude for those who had gone in. “They worked quite quickly.”

“We don’t know how they discovered us so quickly,” Master Shaak Ti added, folding her hands over one another.

“They didn’t,” Master Obi-Wan replied. “Ahsoka decided to take over the bridge of an activated ship and took Master Feemor along with her,” he explained.

Cin stiffened.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Master Feemor is critical but on the medical ship Master Vos brought,” Obi-Wan continued. ��He is with Ahsoka and getting checked out, but she appears unharmed.”

“Casualties?” Cin asked.

“Uncertain,” Obi-Wan said stiffly.

“I’ll go find Fordo and get the numbers,” Captain Alpha-17 dipped his head and marched off. Shaak Ti paused and put the two identities together. Obi-Wan took a moment to watch him leave. She wondered if he preferred that he stayed, on some level. He seemed rather comfortable with that.

“I’m not sure if they got a distress call or anything back to Coruscant or another fleet,” he added, keeping himself steady as he spoke. “How soon can the evacuation and preparations be done?”

He looked around the bridge.

He’s asking the troopers, Shaak Ti realized. He’s so used to working with them.

She wasn’t entirely sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

How many jedi would be the same way?

She was to, in a way, but she wasn’t often on the battlefield like so many of the others were. She had been in charge of training and organizing squads, alongside Commander Colt and, sometimes, Captain Alpha-17.

“I’ve been keeping up with the numbers and reports, sir,” a trooper by a station over the side of the bridge called out and looked over at him. “Preparations are finished, all equipment, rations and available resources are buckled up. They are loading up the last of the troopers onto the last of the ships, the Comeback and the Believer,” he reported, easily.

“Thank you, Crys,” Obi-Wan smiled, faintly. “Do we have a timetable?”

“Within the hour sir, I’d reckon,” Crys replied. “Give or take thirty minutes, pending ship complications.”

“Excellent,” Obi-Wan nodded. “Do we know the closest fleet to rendezvous with?”

“Already calculated a comprehensive route, general,” another trooper chimed in. “Plugged in and ready to be shifted on command.”

“Good, Bloom. Thank you.”

Shaak Ti glanced over and caught Cin Drallig’s smirk.

“Is anyone communicating with other ships? I’d like to leave the moment we can, as closely together as we can,” he continued, eyes sweeping the area.

“I’ve been on it, sir!”

“Inkspot. I was wondering where you have been,” Obi-Wan chuckled, shooting the trooper a smile, who grinned back at him.

“Just trying to help out sir,” Ink responded, cheerily. “The 212th have been great. I’ve already told the fleet to button up and prepare to move on command.”

“They have the next coordinates,” Bloom added. “Menace is helping out on the Endurance, putting together coordinates and communications with any jedi we can get a hold of.”

“Just waiting on the Comeback and the Beleiver,” Crys added.

Obi-Wan nodded. “Good. Good,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Where is Immortal and his death caf when you need it,” he muttered under his breath.

Shaak Ti and Cin glanced at one another curiously just as a trooper sidled to Kenobi’s side, with a cup and pot in hand. The grin on the clone’s face was knowing and mischievous and just a bit smug. “Thought you might want this, sir.”

Obi-wan brightened as the cup was given to him, cupped in his hands with a flash of relief that went through his expression. “Are you sure you are not a telepathic deity, Immortal? Because I do believe you just read my mind.”

The trooper laughed. “Not a telepathic deity, sir. I just know you, and happened to be around. Figured you would need something. Pure coincidence.”

“The will of the Force, perhaps. I do thank you, my dear Immortal.”

“You’ll catch your death that way, general,” Crys called back, good naturedly.

“Please, the general is of the same type as Immortal. He doesn’t die,” Bloom scoffed but he was grinning wide.

“Yeah,” another sniggered. “Have you learned nothing of the Rako Hardeen incident?”

“General Kenobi does not cheat death,” someone jeered, happily, but even Shaak Ti could practically hear the grin and she was inwardly gaping.

What was happening?

“He wins fair and square!” another finished and several cheered with varying high fives near one another, like it was some sort of victory.

Shaak Ti glanced over at Obi-Wan and Cin was doing the same. The young master just rolled his eyes. “You are all rather ridiculous,” he snorted but he was vaguely amused and it showed.

“Who’s death jokes are they doing now, general?”

The three jedi turned around to see Obi-Wan’s commander walking up to his side, wrinkling his nose at the jedi’s cup of caf. Shaak Ti recognized the 501st captain Rex with him. The commander frowned a bit.

“Ah, yours apparently. Your drinking Immortal’s…special blend.”

“I think the situation calls for it,” Obi-Wan shrugged and took a sip.

Shaak Ti, standing nearby, caught a wiff of it and startled. It smelled terrible; she couldn’t imagine how it must taste.

“Would you like a cup, general,” Immortal offered to her.

She almost felt bad for declining, but she couldn’t even imagine trying to taste something that smelled rather vile. “Ah…no thank you trooper.”

Besides her, Master Drallig shrugged. “I’ll try it.”

The other troopers around stared in near rapt attention as Immortal offered him a cup. After a tentative sniff, Master Drallig swallowed a gulp successfully.

“That is…atrocious,” he said, shaking his head. “You like this, Master Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Sometimes helps keep me awake. You know, alert and focused.”

“Certainly,” Master Drallig added, nearly coughing as he took another swallow. “This… cannot be healthy.”

“Oh, it is not,” a trooper sniggered.

“Only beskar stomachs can keep it down.”

“It appears you do, General Drallig.”

“Hey! You gotta wait twenty minutes, at least. If he doesn’t throw up, then he’s good.”

Shaak Ti couldn’t help but be incredibly amused. “Is this what your ship is always like?” she mused out loud.

Obi-Wan shrugged, gulping down some caf. “I cannot complain. They are excellent men, in both capability, disposition and spirit.”

Both she and Cin laughed. “Agreed,” the conceded in unison.

“Sir!” Bloom shouted, apologies seeping through his tone quickly. “There are incoming ships, trying to contact Kamino.”

Obi-Wan stiffened. “How long do the Comeback and Believer need to move?”

“Not long, sir. Fifteen minutes, perhaps?”

“Tell Commander Colt and the others to jump. We will buy them some time.”

“Every face around the bridge hardened in determination and agreement. Loyal to the end, Shaak Ti thought. Inkspot and several others began sending the message to jump to hyperspace towards their first stop.

“Arm the cannons, make an announcement,” Obi-Wan ordered smoothly. “Prepare to fire upon command.”

“Prepare to launch fighters, sir?” Commander Cody asked.

“Prepare but wait for command. If we can make a quick getaway, we should.”

“Yes sir.”

A ship leapt forth out of hyperspace. Obi-Wan ordered their ship to block the enemy’s path, intending to give the other ships time and space to escape. Shaak Ti glanced at Cin and met his gaze. He nodded. This was okay. If they gave their lives here, as the others escaped with theirs, that would be an acceptable death.

Obi-Wan leaned forward. “Unknown vessel, identify yourself immediately.”

There was a pause.

“If you do not comply, I will be forced to open fire,” he added with a bitter lip curl and a snarl.

“Easy, Admiral,” the other voice crackled through the communications. “We picked up a call from a venator that disappeared from Courscant a few days ago.”

“Unfortunately, the vessel Ascension has been decommissioned,” Obi-Wan responded without pause, a bit flat. “There was a drive malfunction and she exploded.”

“Admiral?” Cin muttered under his breath, confused.

“I will repeat myself, identify yourself.”

“Oh. I am Captain Thvidm,” the voice replied, calmly. “I see you bear the mark of the Open Circle fleet, one of the 212th’s ships, the Vigilance, also left Coruscant space a few days ago.”

“That would be us,” he affirmed.

“Did you execute your traitor?”

“Pardon?”

“Your jedi general is a traitor. Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi usually leads the 212thpersonally. Have the clones dealt with him?”

Obi-Wan paused and bristled at the tone.

“Obi-Wan,” Cin warned, quietly.

“Sir?”

“Affirmative,” Obi-Wan ground out.

“Oh that is good,” the other man sighed in what could only be construed as relief. “He was one of the high-profile ones, one of the worse traitors. I’m glad he is gone, he is rather dangerous and a ruthless general. At least we have General Skywalker on our side. He defected from the traitors, stopped an attempt on the Emperor’s life if you can believe it.”

“Ruthless,” Commander Cody muttered under his breath, flatly.

Obi-Wan scowled. “Oh, I can.”

“He is loyal to the Empire,” Thvidm continued. “Where there any survivors?”

“Pardon?” Obi-Wan startled.

“On the ship, where the hyperdrive exploded. The Ascension? Were there any survivors?”

“Ah yes. They are currently being treated.”

“Is there a reason you are here, Admiral?” Captain Thivdm asked, almost cautiously. Master Kenobi narrowed his eyes, now quite suspicious at the change of subject and clear tone.

“As much as I doubt that is any of your business,” Master Kenobi responded, firmly. “Captain, you know what happened with my ship. You know what happened with the Ascension. What warrants this line of questioning?”

“The Jedi have escaped,” the captain responded, drawing out his tone and speech. “And from our scanners, ships are leaving the system by the dozens, there is little life on the planet left where there should be many soldiers. And like I said, the jedi escaped Coruscant. They had to use some ship to get off the planet.”

Obi-Wan glanced at one of the troopers, making a sign with his hands. “What are you suggesting, captain?”

“I’m thinking that the Vigilance did not take out the traitor and have been harboring criminals,” the captain accused, vitriol on his tongue in such spades, it could be heard over the comm.

Obi-Wan glanced around at them, sweeping over Shaak Ti and Cin before furthering towards the bridge. “Status of the Comeback and the Believer,” he muttered, away from the comm but loud enough for the rest of them to hear.

“Everything is buttoned up and ready to go sir,” one of the troopers said, carefully trying to keep his voice out of communications. “Jumping within the minute.”

The jedi nodded. “Captain Thidvm, we are leaving the planet. Any efforts to stop us will be met with firepower. I would suggest you leave it alone,” he announced, loud and bold through the comm to the other ship.

“You are Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan nodded.

The captain’s voice went quiet. “Fire upon will.”

“Now,” Obi-Wan replied, nearly at the same moment.

And in that moment, several cannons fired.

But the Vigilance was gone then, with nothing but dust left behind.

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turqrambles · 4 years ago

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I watched all 26 episodes of an obscure Australian cartoon in one week and I’m not okay - My journey with Wicked! (2001) PART 1

Here it is, the reason I started this blog in the first place. I need to talk about this cartoon I ran into completely by chance.

It all started, like you would, with Tubitv.

Good ol’ Tubi, the free streaming service that makes you either an expert at being able to find diamonds in piles of garbage or a connoisseur of said garbage. It’s thanks to Tubi that I put down that I watched Alpha and Omega: Family Vacation on Letterboxd for all to see and judge, but it’s also thanks to Tubi that I finally ended up watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Anyhoo, one day I was browsing their family film selection when I ran into this selection. And that was the day my life changed forever.

What you see before you, posted to a streaming service accessible in the United States, is the movie adaptation of an Australian TV show that never made it to the United States, which is based off a series of Australian children’s books from the 90′s that also never made it to the United States. It made it to other territories like Germany and the United Kingdom (and it apparently did super well in France but don’t quote me on this) but the TV show ran for one year and then disappeared without a trace after one 26 episode season.

How obscure is this franchise? Well, for starters, at the time I’m writing this in 2020, the books, the TV show, and the movie all don’t have a single Wikipedia page to call their own, and the easiest way to get info about this thing is to find the (rather tiny) TvTropes page.

Let’s just get right into this shall we.

What is Wicked!?

Before you try to be all cute and make any references to the hit musical, there’s a reason I’m putting that exclamation mark there.

Wicked! started out as a series of six children’s books written by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. I actually grabbed a kindle copy of all six books (because I’m in this thing too deep and I wanted to see how the cartoon compared with the source material) and I gotta say, they’re very charming.

The best way I can describe them is that they’re in the kid horror genre, but they’re less Goosebumps and more The Weenies book series by David Lubar in terms of gore and child endangerment. Wicked! has some artful depictions of blood and gore, but in a way that can be digested by the grade school crowd.

Being a former child, I can proudly proclaim that I would’ve adored this series when I was younger. Just look at these covers!

The plot of the books is that there’s a widower with a daughter and a divorced wife with a son who get married, and the two new step-siblings Rory and Dawn absolutely hate each other. They can’t stand the fact that their parents are getting married! Gross!

But then, on the day of their wedding, creepy things begin to happen after Rory receives an appleman doll in the mail, and then, over the course of six books, a deadly single-minded virus that feeds on hate and is targeting Rory’s bloodline begins to spread across wildlife, creating crazed mutant animals that try to kill everyone in the household. It’s up to Rory, Dawn, and Dawn’s grandfather Gramps to stop this virus before it kills Rory and his mother, and to do so, they have to seek out Rory’s father, who seems to be the mysterious cause and/or the solution to the virus.

I’m not sure how well these books did, on account of the whole “not Australian” affliction I seem to suffer from, but they seemed to do well enough to get a TV show adaptation.

And surprisingly, the TV show is a very close adaptation of the books, only they changed the plot in two big ways so that it fits an animated series with a “monster of the week” setup.

The first big change was that, of course, they toned down the blood and gore and removed the deadliness of the virus, choosing to go with a more cartoony mutagenic approach. Rory gets infected by the virus several times in the show, just like how he does in the books, but unlike the books, he never thinks that he’s going to die from it and it’s definitely treated as a more temporary thing. There’s no race against time either. Everyone is trying to live their lives except every so often, the virus shows up. A wacky cartoon virus with cartoony stakes.

That brings me to the other main change that they make in the show. Unlike the books, where the main villain is a mindless virus that feeds off of hate, an invisible foe that can only be defeated at the end of the last book with the help of Rory’s father, the TV show decides that that’s no fun and instead makes a main villain out of one of the main plot points in the books. Say hello to The Appleman. (Apple-Man? Apple Man? Fuck it, I’m going with the first one from now on)

Instead of having the virus mutate mysteriously and having the main characters constantly hypothesize what’s going to happen next, the TV show made a main villain who constantly reinvents new strains of virus in a laboratory that he set up in an abandoned refinery.

What then happens is a basic plot set-up that the show follows pretty consistently in every episode. The family is trying to do something, we get the theme for the episode, and The Appleman, who is a spiteful bastard who is trying to ruin this one family in particular (and I’ll get to that), decides to make a virus that will infect the theme of that episode.

Pretty standard cartoon stuff, right? Ah, but then you don’t realize the beauty of this show. But first, I gotta introduce the main stars of this show.

The Characters

(quick note: this bus is incredibly important to the plot, but only in the books)

First we have Rory (the boy holding up the tin) and Dawn (the mad red head).

Dawn is the step-sister who lost her mom, a bus driver, in a gruesome bus accident, Rory is the step-brother whose parents got a divorce and then his dad went missing, believed to have run away from his whole family. Both of them are meant to be the dual protagonists, but I feel that there’s just a tiny bit more focus on Rory. There’s a reason for this that I will mention later.

What is interesting to note is that they make Rory the smart, non-athletic little nerd that gets picked on a lot at school for being a dork while Dawn loves sports, is failing science, gets made fun of for not being as girly as the other girls in her class, and likes violent computer games. I wouldn’t exactly call them “fleshed out” but they did enough to make these kids feel like actual kids.

Also, they fight. Constantly. This is the main complaint of anyone who actually looks into this show judging by my brief skimming of Internet comments because these two constantly bicker and insult each other and that makes up like 40% of the dialogue in any given episode. While this is one of the main story conflicts and they’re like this in the books too, it just feels super exhausting to see these two constantly at each other’s throats in every single episode.

They get mean too. Which, surprisingly, makes them both more realistic (I babysat multiple times and kids can be pretty verbally awful to each other) while also making them just a tiny bit unbearable at times. Here’s some actual dialogue.

"My dad sent it to me!" "Gee, he must think a lot of you to send you a doll full of worms." "Your mum thought so much of you she drove this bus over a cliff and into the river to get away from you."

GEEZ, guys...

Eileen, Rory’s mom.

It feels out of the three adults in the family, she gets the least amount of character development, but she does get a fair amount of screentime, so you can’t really say they’re intentionally ignoring her. She divorced her previous husband and works as a mail courier. Instead of owning a car, she drives a motorcycle, and, in the first episode, even drives it to her own wedding while dressed in a bridal gown. Rory’s mom rules.

She tries to bond with Dawn because she always wanted to raise a daughter, but Dawn clearly doesn’t like her new stepmom very much. Dawn is also afraid of the motorcycle and it comes up a couple times in the show.

Eileen is the adult that gets targeted the least by The Appleman’s schemes. There’s a very pointed reason for this, and I swear, I’m getting to it soon.

(quick note: yes, the show uses real photos to put in picture frames in the backgrounds and it’s real weird and never addressed)

Jack, Dawn’s dad.

Jack is a sheep shearer, just like in the books, and he’s a big easy-going dope that is hard not to love. Look at him hammer in this carpet. A true champ.

Out of the three adults in the family, he seems to be the one that nearly dies the most, with The Appleman going out of his way to specifically target Jack in some episodes. If you know Appleman’s backstory, this reads as absolutely petty spite and I love every minute of it.

Gramps, Dawn’s grandfather and Jack’s dad.

He’s an aging WWII veteran (one that has killed people in combat no less) who radiates constant Boomer vibes and, unlike Eileen and Jack, he actually sees some of the crazy shit that happens and will sometimes sense when something is infected with virus when the other two adults can’t.

In the books, he’s suffering pretty badly from dementia, but thankfully the cartoons drop that completely. I’m glad too, because I don’t have the confidence that they would’ve written it with enough sophistication to make it not seem ableist. Instead, he’s just your typical kooky cartoon grandfather.

He’s probably the adult that gets the most screentime because he will actually help Dawn and Rory out. Again, this ties into the books, where he was the main adult ally for the kids.

He says a lot of army-themed catchphrases. It’s a tad overplayed but it never really gets to a point where I would call it “annoying”. Also, instead of living in the house, he lives in a tiny granny flat on the property. Sometimes Rory spends the night there.

Last but not least, we have the star of the show, and the reason why the easiest way to find information of this show is to google “Wicked The Appleman”.

The Appleman, as explained, is the main villain of the story. Dressed in a very fancy suit complete with dress shoes and a nice blue tie, he lives in an old refinery full of rats, bats, and giant worms (called Slobberers), and he’s rocking a voice that can be best described as “Australian Mark Hamil” with an absolutely heavenly evil laugh. He has gross clawed hands, a rotten apple for a head, and likes making people miserable, because he’s basically the living puppet for a virus that feeds off of negative emotions. The main goal of each episode is to either defeat him or to stop the mess he’s made. Usually both.

Since all of his minions are non-sentient animals, a lot of his dialogue is him lurking behind something while he monologues to himself, sometimes turning it into a creepy little rhyme. He’s a pretty lonely guy, so him hanging out with this family can be seen as a very non-subtle cry for help.

The best episodes are the ones where he tries to lurk about in public with a very poor attempt at disguising his hideous features. Somehow it always works, you know, despite the fact that he has yellow eyes, the skin like a moldy apple, and no ears.

What Makes Wicked! Unique

(no, The Appleman doesn’t actually use that axe)

The first thing this show does that most of the formulaic shows don’t do is that it does, in fact, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s why this show was packaged into a full-length movie - you can glue scenes together and actually make a pretty decent narrative, even if the resulting movie definitely had a “glued together TV show episodes” feel ala some of the bad Disney sequels like Cinderella II and Atlantis II.

This show even has some plot-heavy episodes that dive into just why this whole Appleman situation is going on and why he seems to have it out for this one family in order to flesh out the characters more.

Because that’s a thing that this show does. The Appleman is a cartoon-y villain who cackles in his lab and constantly invents new strains of viruses that can mutate things like animals and household appliances, but he doesn’t do it to take over the city or to “destroy the world”. He does it purely to inconvenience this one Australian family, who he stalks pretty regularly. This is a thing that comes from the books and honestly, it’s a thing that elevates Appleman from “ugly-looking cartoon villain” to “pretty damn creepy, if also still cartoony in execution”.

Sure, a lot of cartoon villains target the main protagonist in their evil schemes, but this one is definitely more personal.

He regularly follows Rory and Dawn to school and, when the family goes on a camping trip, he comes too. If Rory decides he’s going to hang out in the wrecker’s yard, The Appleman will be cackling and hiding behind totaled vehicles. If Gramps takes the kids out to the bay to go fishing, The Appleman will pull an ice cream truck out of his garage and follow them there. That’s how the main conflict is really set up.

I think if a scarier cartoon tried, they’d make him out to be this grotesque stalker, but instead, since this show is kinda goofy in execution, he’s like the shittiest cryptid in the world, constantly crouching behind trash cans and on top of rooftops while constantly cackling about how clever he is and how, miraculously, no one notices anything’s amiss.

This alone would make this villain interesting, but then they set up something about this show at the beginning if you watch the intro and the first episode and put two and two together.

Right from the start, the opening shows that The Appleman was once human by depicting his transformation by the virus. They don’t even try and pretend that he’s some demon or some sort of supernatural monster - he’s specifically a blue collar worker who had a nasty run-in with fate and mutated into this hideous apple-headed creature that now has to hide out in an abandoned refinery. You see why he’s dressed like that - he’s still wearing his work uniform.

Right after you watch that intro, the first episode of the show has Rory receiving a mysterious package from his father on the day of his mother’s wedding. It’s the first time that Rory and his mom Eileen have heard from their dad after he mysteriously vanished years ago.

What’s inside? An apple-headed doll, which contains the first virus-infected monsters, The Slobberers.

When The Appleman makes his first dramatic appearance, he never says Dawn’s name, but he does know Rory’s name.

And, in case you didn’t pick up the hints from the first episode, the fourth episode really drives it home without spelling it out. Then the last episode of the series decides to say it out loud.

That’s right. Rory’s father, the man who mysteriously vanished from Eileen and Rory’s lives, is still an important part of the cartoon’s storyline, but instead of being the man who appears in the last book that knows how to cure the virus while also being the first victim of the virus, he’s the main antagonist.

The Appleman is Rory’s father.

And honestly, because of this little plot point, this show becomes a much richer experience once you look at the unhinged appleman who keeps unleashing horror on these kids and realize that he’s a divorced dad who constantly keeps tabs on his ex-wife's unstable dysfunctional family in order to make them more pissed at each other because that feeds the virus that mutated him.

This is a very cool concept. This is where Wicked! shines when, for all intents and purposes, it is otherwise a pretty average turn-of-the-century Australian cartoon that can be best described as “it’s okay, I guess” in terms of quality.

Because that’s really the rating I can give this show. It’s Okay.

It’s a very solid Okay, but I think any adjective more powerful than “Okay” is really pushing it. It’s not Great, it’s not Amazing. It’s Okay. Alright. Kinda Good.

But man, is it a wild ride.

Next time, I’m going to start discussing the actual episodes as well as this show’s pros and cons. Dividing this up into multiple parts partly because I feel like these things are more easily digested in smaller chunks and partly because I’m pretty sure tumblr now has a size limit on posts soooo...yeah.

Follow this handy link for Part 2 - The Actual Review!

#Turq watches a cartoon #Wicked! (2001)#Wicked!#The Appleman #Turq Reviews

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