#Clone Trooper Vapor

[l0nesome-dreams]

Some more Voorpret lore art. (I may or may not have started tearing up drawing this) This scene takes place during V batches first assignment/mission when separatist forces attacked the base and caused a large explosion. Voorpret, Vance, Voss, Vapor, and Vaheed were all caught in the direct explosion, along with a few other brothers. Voorpret, Vance, and Voss were the only three to survive the incident. Lil snippet from the fic(WIP so excuse my grammar):

(flashback)

Voorpret climbed into his bunk, yawing heavily from the long days worth of lessons and training. It was lights out in his sector, all of the younger cadets were expected to have plenty of sleep in order to mature properly. Like anyone cared. Out of nowhere Vapor climbed up into Voorpret’s bunk settling down in front of him.

“Hey V! How are you going to stand out?” The young clone asked, grinning at his batchmate prodding him in the chest lightly.

Voorpret looked at him for a moment, blinking at his younger brother in confusion. Realizing he was inquiring about his appearance, he answered quietly.

“Tattoo’s maybe,” Voorpret shrugged, unsure of his response, “I haven’t really thought about it much. How about you vod’ika?”  Vapor’s eyes lit up, and his grin widened if possible.

“I was thinking of dyeing my hair and having some cool tattoos on my face!” Vapor said, running his small hands through his hair. 

Voorpret giggled. 

“That sounds like an awesome idea vod’ika.” 

“V!” Vapor whined, “you know I hate it when you call me that.” He huffed.

Voorpret chucked.

“You’ll always be vod’ika to me.”

Voorpret blinked.

His ears were still ringing, he faintly heard the alarms blaring. He sat up onto his elbows wincing, putting pressure onto his lacerated abdomen. Whipping blood from his eyes he looked around, coughing from all of the smoke and fire. A few yards away Voorpret was able to make out the body of one of his brothers. Tears began welling in his eyes. He tried to stand but his leg was of no use to him, he had broken it in the explosion and his blood was visible on his white plastoid armor. He drug himself over to his brother collapsing onto him coughing again. It was his beloved vod’ika. His kind hearted, gentle, caring vod’ika. Voorpret let out a broken sob, frantically grasping at the limp form of his brother.

“Vapor!” He sat up best he could, pulling his brother into his lap cradling him, “Vod’ika please wake up.” He removed Vapor’s helmet and shook him lightly.

Voorpret’s tears finally flowed down his face combining with his blood as he held Vapor’s bloodied body in his arms. His handsome face was bruised and bloodied, his purple hair caked with blood. Voorpret assessed his little brother wounds, putting pressure on his abdomen where the largest gash lay.

Even as Vapor died, he grinned at his brother, his caramel colored eyes crinkling at the corners. He studied his brother's face, chuckling a bit which turned into a coughing fit. Blood trickled from his mouth and down his chin.

“Looks like you’re finally going to stand out V.” He said, motioning towards Voorpret’s wounds.

Vapor choked up blood, his body slowly going still.

“Hey now-“ Voorpret sobbed, shaking his brother. “Please no. NO! Don’t leave me like this vod’ika. PLEASE!” He pleaded with his brother.

Even in death his grin remained on his face. Voorpret sat there hugging his brother’s motionless form tightly to him, cradling his head against his shoulder. His lavender colored hair contrasted with his tan and bloodied hands. This was his first brother he’d lost, his best friend. They were going to fight alongside each other and win the war together. Now that dream was lost. He knew this war would take sacrifice, but it was much too soon for this. Much too soon.

“Over here!” A voice called from within the smoke.

Voorpret hugged his brother tightly to him as they approached, not wanting to let him go. He was grabbed quite forcefully by the shoulder yanking him away from Vapor.

“NO DON’T TAKE HIM PLEASE NO!” Voorpret screamed at them. 

He looked wild as he tried to fight them off, but he was too overpowered. He was ripped away from his brother, tears still streaming down his face. It stung, but he paid no mind, they were taking his little brother. 

“Stun him now!” One of the officers said to one of the troopers accompanying him. 

(to be continued)

tag: @whiskygoldwings

(If you wanted to read ^^”)

[lightasthesun]

Comprehensive Lexicon Guide for First-Time SW Fic Readers:

Flimsi/Flimsiplast = Paper

Flimsiwork/Datawork = Paperwork

Stylus = Pen

Datapad = Tablet

Comlink/Comm = Communication Device/Phone

Binders = Handcuffs

Chronometer = Clock

Spectacles = Eyeglasses

Chrono = Watch

Conservator = Refrigerator

Caf = Coffee

Nerfburger = Hamburger

Blue milk = Milk (literally blue)

Hubba chips = French Fries

Sweet roll = Doughnut

Flatcakes = Pancakes

Tabac = Tobacco

HoloNet = World Wide Web

Holovision/HoloTV = Television

Holodrama/Holovids = Movie/Videos

Holocamera/Holocam = Camera

Holomap = three-dimensional map

Holojournal = Newspaper

Holocube = Picture frame

Holotable = Projector

Holoscanner = X-ray machine

Holojournalist = Reporter

Flatholo/Holograph = Photograph

Sonic Damper = Active Noise Cancellation

Refresher/Fresher= Bathroom

Sonic Bath = Bath

Sanisteam/Sonic shower = Waterless Shower

Hydrospanner = Wrench

Hydro Flask = Water Bottle

Power Cell/Energy Cell = Batteries

Authorization Chip = Decryption key

Datatape = Disk

Datastick = Flash drive

(Personal) Com Code = Phone number

Datachip = SD Card

Synthflesh = Synthetic skin

Glowrod = Flashlight

Sparkstick = Match

Slugthrower = Gun

Slug = Bullet

Vibroblade = a blade that can vibrate at high frequencies, increasing its cutting power and penetrating ability (tactical knife)

Rangefinder = Rifle scope

Turbolaser = Cannon

Ion pike/Vibropike = Spear

Electro Staff = Stun baton

Blaster = Pistol/Rifle

Stun Blaster = similar to a Taser

Landspeeder/Airspeeder/Speeder = Car

Turbolift = Elevator

Slideramp = Escalator

Starfighter = Fighter jet

Rotorcraft = Helicopter

Hoverpack/Jetpack= Jet pack

Speeder Bike = Motorcycle

Skylane = Traffic lane

Railspeeder/Hovertrain = Train

Power Chair/Hoverchair= Wheelchair

Windscreen = Windshield

Podracing = Car racing

Dejarik = Chess

Sabacc = Poker and Blackjack combined

Galactic Rebels = Combat simulator

B'shingh = Dungeons and dragons

Jizz = Jazz music

Wailer = Singer (ie. Jizz Wailer)

Cantina = Bar or Pup

Para Sailing = Paragliding

Aurebesh = Alphabet

Credits = Money

Sleeping Pallet = Bedroll

Naming Day = Birthday

Youngling = Child

Galactic Basic Standard/ Basic = English

Medkit/Medpac = First aid kit

Hypo = Syringe

Medic/Healer = Doctor

Medcenter = Hospital

Bactapatch = Bandaid

Nanoweave = Fabric

Transparisteel = Glass

Plastifoam = Packing material

Durasteel = Steel

Plasteel = Plastic

Duracrete = Concrete

Slicer = Hacker (slicing = hacking)

Identikit = Passport

Minder = Therapist

Synthleather = Vinyl

Viewport = Window

Cooling Unit = Air-conditioning

Honeydarter = Bee

Slythmonger = Drugdealer

Spice = Drugs

Stimpill = Caffeine pill

Power Socket = Plug

Cutters = Scissors

Cycle = Day

Standard Cycle = 24h

Standard Week = 5 days

Standard Month = 35 standard days

Standard Year = approx. ten months

Tenday = literally ten days

Cigarras/Smokes = Cigarettes

Click = Kilometer or 'a moment'

Parsec = a unit of distance

Tweezers/Clanker/tin head/tinnie = Droid

Separatist = Seppie

Promise Ring = Wedding Ring

Body Glove = Jumpsuit

Slicksuit = Wet suit

Civvies = Civilian clothing

Carbonite = a metal alloy used to freeze a person in a state of hibernation

Hyperdrive = device that allows a starship to travel faster than lightspeed

Moisture vaporator = device that can extract water from the air, commonly used on tatooine

Glareshades = Sunglasses

Gasser = Gas Oven

Repulsorlift = technology that can create an anti-gravity field and is used for levitating heavy objects

Heating unit = Heater

Utility Droid = Roomba

Sunbonnet = a Clone trooper helmet

Bad Batcher = a defective Clone Trooper

Banthabrain = birdbrain/ a stupid person

Bantha fodder = waste of space/nonsense

Blast! = word of exclamation

Blasted! = s.o in anger or annoyance

Blaster-brained = dimwitted

Blaster fodder = cannon fodder

Blast off = Piss off

Brainless = Stupid

Bug/Bugger = used to refer to Geonosians

Forceforsaken = godforsaken

Full of Poodoo = full of shit

Poodoo = Shit

Kriff = Fuck

Jedi scum = derogatory term for jedi

Kark = derogatory expletive

Larty = LAAT/i gunship

Laserbrain = insult

Meat droid = derogatory term for Clone Troopers

Redrobes = Palpatines guard

Rookie/Shinie = newly recruited Trooper

Scum = insult to refer to bounty hunters/rebels

Sharpie = Sharp-witted

Sithspawn/Sithspit/Hellspawn! = expletive

Sleemo = Slimeball

Son of a bantha = insult

Wizard! = Cool

Spaced = dead

Hutt-spawn = Bastard

Karabast = exclamation of dismay

Stang = Crap

Buckethead/Bucketbrain = derogatory term for Stormtroopers

Bucket = Helmet

Nat-born = Natural Born

Roger Roger = affirmative/copy that

Droid poppers = EMP grenade

Sitrep = short for situation report

Backwater Planet = any planet that isn't part of the core system

Holocron = device that can project a three-dimensional image of a person/object and is used for communication or entertainment.

Kessel Run = a risky Operation. Commonly used as a metaphor in impossible situations.

Thermal Detonator= device that can create a powerful explosion like a grenade or bomb

Ray Shield/Energy Shield = creates a (protective) barrier

Rebreather = device that allows a person to breathe underwater or in toxic environments

Phrases:

Wild goose chase = wild bantha chase

That's bantha shit = that's bullshit

As slippery as a greased Dug = untrustworthy

Credit for your thoughts = penny for your thoughts

Cut the poodoo = cut the crap

to get your gills in a twist = get upset about something

Holy mother of meteors = holy mother of god

Oh my skies/ Oh my stars = exclamation of surprise

Stars' end! = exclamation of disbelief

What in the blue blazes = exclamation

When Geonosis freezes over/When it snows on tatooine = extremely unlikely

Who pissed in your power supply = who pissed you off

Blast it = damn it

By the maker = exclamation of surprise

Great karking Dragon = expression of disbelief

Lothcat got your tongue = equivalent of 'cat got your tongue?'

Sod it = expression of frustration

[babygirlrex0504]

Bounty Pt 7

Kuiil is gone and the child’s whereabouts are unknown. As you, Mando, Greef, and Cara are surrounded by the man named Moeff Gideon you all try to find a way to escape and defeat this Gideon.

Taglist: @pascalshimbo @flowersgirl02 @yourunstablegf

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Bounty Series

The Clan of Three Series

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It fell silent in the cantina, no one moved. There wasn’t even movement outside. You could only hear the wind outside yet it was a small gust. “Is there another way out?” Cara asked looking around.

“No, that's it.” Greef answered looking at the door.

“What about the sewers? Sewers?” You asked looking outside yet again.

“The Mandalorians have a covert down in the sewers. If we can get down there, they can help us escape.” Din explained softly.

“Yeah, sewers are good.” Greef agreed looking at the crate.

“Trust in the force.” You snapped your head up looking around. Everything zoned out as you tuned in more. “Y/N trust in the force. Fight. Get the child.” You knew that voice.

“Master?” You whispered. But it was gone as fast as it appeared.

“They're setting up an E-Web.”

You popped up to see no shit a E-Web, you only heard stories when you hid from the Empire and the troopers talking about it. You leaning back down of the bar. “That’s not good.” You said looking at Din.

“It's over.” Cara noted leaning his head on the pillar.

“I found the sewer vent.” Greef said looking at the crate. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

We watched as she fiddled with gate. “It's assembled! How long until that thing's cleared?” You said watching as they mounted it.

“Blow it.”

“I’m out of charges.” Din said looking back.

“Get out of the way!” Cara yelled as she aimed at it and shot it.

“Your astute panic suggests that you understand your situation. I would prefer to avoid any further violence, and encourage a moment of consideration. Members of my escort have completed assembly of an E-Web heavy repeating blaster. If you are unfamiliar with this weapon, I am sure that Republican Shock Trooper Carasynthia Dune of Alderaan will advise you that she has witnessed many of her ranks vaporize mid-descent facing the predecessor of this particular model,” You looked at Cara and she looked actually terrified. You inhaled and looked back out. “ Or perhaps the decommissioned Mandalorian hunter, Din Djarin, has heard the songs of the Siege of Mandalore, when gunships outfitted with similar ordnance laid waste to fields of Mandalorian recruits in The Night of a Thousand Tears. Or the former padawan Y/N and L/N as she ran for her life during the rise of the Empire, after seeing her Master be gunned down by her own men.” You could feel eyes on you. You could remember it very well.

Captain Yull stood straight next to your Master as they overlooked the battle we just finished. The news was told that Maul was captured and Grevious was dead, soon the Separatists would fall as well. That’s when the force felt wrong, it was a shift in the air. You looked up at you Master for her look upset hurt, in pain. That’s when the nightmare began. You and your master tried to escape but before you could she got struck down by the clones. All you could do is watch as she yelled for you to run and not to stop. They were your friends. Now they are killers.

“I'm a Rebel Shock Trooper. They'll upload me to a Mind Flayer.” Cara said shaking her head. You looked down.

“Those aren't real. That was just wartime propaganda.” Greef reassuring her.

“I don't care to find out. I'm shooting my way out of here.”

“What about you, Mando?” Greef asked as you looked over.

“I know who he is.” He said. “It's Moff Gideon.”

“No. Moff Gideon was executed for war crimes.” Cara corrected.

“It's him. He knew my name.”

“So what does that prove?”

“I haven't heard that name spoken since I was a child.” He explained looking down at you.

“When you were born on Mandalore?” Greef asked.

“I was not born on Mandalore.” You looked at Din and looked at Greef.

“But you're a Mandalorian.” Greef asked confused.

“Mandalorian isn't a race. It's a Creed. I was a foundling. They raised me in the Fighting Corps. I was treated as one of their own. When I came of age, I was sworn to the Creed. The only record of my family name was in the registers of Mandalore. Moff Gideon was an ISB Officer during the purge. That's how I know it's him,” Din explained then looked down at me. “That's how he knows who we all are. He says he needs us, which means the child got away safely. I was worried when the Ugnaught didn't respond, but if they'd captured the kid, we'd already be dead.”

“He is.” You whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

“How do you know?” Cara asked looking down at you.

“I don’t know, I just know something isn’t right.” You explained looking up outside again.

“Hail him again.” Greef commented looking at Din.

“Come in, Kuiil. Kuiil?” Din said then looked at us. “Nothing. They might have jammed the link.”

“Kuiil has been terminated.” The IG unit said through the comms yoh snapped your head up.

“What did you do?” Din asked with venom behind his voice.

“I am fulfilling my base function.”

“Which is?” You asked waiting for the response.

“To nurse and protect.”

That’s when you heard blaster fire outside, you perked you head up to see them looking in another direction. When watching you saw a speeder heading straight towards the cantina. You watched as the speeder exploded and IG walked off with the child in hand. “What’s that!” Cara said.

“Look alive.” That’s when Din went to the door and opened it. You stood up ready to go when you felt the whole world slow down.

“Do not be afraid. Trust in the force.” You froze looking outside as Din and Greef were out and Cara standing up shooting outside.

You put your blaster away and grabbed behind you, holding your sabers. You ignited both of them and walked out, troopers looked over and started to blast their weapons at you. You deflected them as you let the bolts hit at least one of them. Din looked over to watch you throw your saber as it got caught into one of the troopers chest. You forced pulled it back and looked over at Din.

“We have to get the child out of here.” You yelled at him force pulling a weapon from a trooper. You looked over at IG as he fell with the child.

Din nodded at you and he went over to the EWeb and started to shoot out to the troopers. It was going well as you went around until you heard an explosion in the cantina. You snapped your head to see more troopers going inside. You started to head there then you saw Moeff shooting at Din before you could do anything an explosion pushed you back where he was.

“No!” You yelled getting up, your ears were ringing as you sprinted to him.

IG and Greef covered you while you ran to him. You slid to grab Din. “Din!” He was responding. You looked at IG. “Cover me!”

Cara was next to you as she helped you bring him back into the cantina. You placed him down against the table. You heard him groan. “Din,” You whispered.

“We need the gate open!” Cara yelled then you looked over at the hole.

“I will be right back.” You whispered igniting one of your sabers.

“I got him.” Cara said as she sat by him.

Before you reached over to the cover fire came flowing in. You ducked down and saw fire building up. “Come on.” Greef said looking at you. You tried to get the gate open as your save cut through.

When you looked back up you saw the trooper with a flamethrower come in. You watched in horror as the child stood between Din and Cara. You were about to stop until you watched the fire be stopped like an invisible wall was there. You smiled as he pushed the fire towards the trooper having him burn. You looked back down and popped it open. “Alright everyone through!” You said walking back to Din.

“He’s saying he isn’t coming.” Cara said when I was near them.

“What,” You snapped looking down. “No, you are coming with.” You knelt down.

“I'm not gonna make it. Go.” He said, his voice hoarse. You put your hand behind his neck before feeling blood.

You looked at your hand trying to gulp down the fear that came through your throat. “Shut up. You just got your bell rung. You'll be fine.” Cara said looking at me nodding.

“Leave me.”

“No.” You whispered. “ I'm gonna need to take this thing off and help…”

“No leave Cyare.” He whispered.

IG came over to hand the child to Cara talking with her. “You make sure the child is safe. Here,” He handed you a small beskar skull that had a fabric holding it. “When you get to the Mandalorian covert, you show them that,” You shook your head and whispered no over and over. “You tell them it's from Din Djarin. You tell them the foundling was in my protection, and they'll help you.”

“No I won’t leave you here. We can go together. We can make it.” You said tears in your eyes.

“Come on! Let's go!” Greef called out.

“I'm not gonna make it and you know it. Protect the child. I can hold them back long enough for you to escape,” You shook your head before you felt his hand on your cheek. He moved his thumb wiping the dirt, blood, and sweat off. “Let me have a warrior's death.”

“I am not leaving you here.” You whispered.

“This is the Way.” He whispered before letting his hand down his side.

You stood up looking over at where Greef went through as Cara handed the kid to him. IG was standing next to you. “Escape and protect the child. I will stay with the Mandalorian.”

You stared up at him tears welling. “Promise you will bring him” You said with a shaky breath.

“You have my word.” You looked back down at Din as his visor was staring at you. You put the neckless over your head.

You turned and went inside the hole. “Here.” Cara whispered handing you the kid.

You looked down at him, as he laid asleep. You held him close as you looked up walking forward. “He will be fine right?” Cara asked as the footsteps echoed.

“I told IG to bring him.” You said quickly trying not to think about it. Trying not to think about losing yet another person in this damn galaxy. You looked down at the child, still asleep.

As you kept walking you heard more footsteps than there was before. You snapped your head around and reached for your saber, igniting it. Cara and agreed turned as well. You all waited until you saw Din and IG. “Din.” You whispered as Cara helped when he almost fell. “I got you.”

He looked forward at you and you have him a reassuring smile. “Do you know which way to go?”

“No. I don't know these tunnels. I've only entered from the bazaar.” Din explained as he limped forward.

“Well, if we get the smell of sulfur and we follow it, it'll lead us up to the plains where the river flows.” Greef explained.

“And the Imps will catch us before we make it to the ship.” Cara added.

“We need the Mandalorians to escort us to safety.” Din replied.

Cara groaned and helped Din more. “this place is a maze.”

Din stopped making you turn around

“Stop. I can stand.” Din stood more straight.

“The bacta infusion is working.” IG commented.

We followed him as he lead us to where his covert would be. “I'll try to find tracks. We're close. Turn here.”

When you turned the corner Din stood still and was looking down. You followed his sight to see more Mandalorian armor laid out, stacked up. You looked back up as he still stood there. You walked up to him as you handed the sleeping child to Cara. “We have to go.” You whispered grabbing his arm.

“You go. Take the ship. I can't leave it this way,” He whispered before looking up at Greef. “Did you know about this? Is this the work of your bounty hunters?” He took a step forward to Greef. You watched as Greef took a step back.

“No. When you left the system and took the prize, the fighting ended and the hunters just melted away. You know how it is. They're mercenaries. They're not zealots.” He explained.

“Did you do this? Did you!” Din yelled his voice echoing.

“No!”

“It wasn’t his fault. We revealed ourselves. We knew what could happen if we left the covert,” When you turned to see another Mandalorian she wore gold and red with horns on her helmet. “ The Imperials arrived shortly thereafter. This is what resulted.”

“Did any survive?” Din asked as he walked to her sitting down.

You looked around to see the same animal skull hanging on the wall that was on the neckless. You looked down as you fiddled with it. You tried to remember what it was, you have seen it before in lesson. “The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore The Great, and an order of sorcerers called Jedi that fought with such powers.”

You looked up as Din side glanced at you before looking back at the armor.

“It is an enemy?”

“No. Its kind were enemies, but this individual is not.” She looked up at you. “Are you?”

“As individuals we are different. We share the same force but in different ways.” You shortly explained, you wondered how she knew but didn’t ask, since she most likely see the sabers.

“So what is it?” Din asked looking at the child that was near them.

“It is a foundling. By Creed, it is in your care.” She stated walking over to her station.

“You wish me to train this thing?” Din asked sounding a bit confused.

It is too weak. It would die. You have no choice. You must reunite it with its own kind or have her train it.” She said looking at you.

You shook your head. You had to disagree, you never finished your training hell you barely set foot on war soil. “I can not, I didn’t finish my own training.” You said looking at the child. “We would have to find a Master or a Padawan that has finished their training. But I can not.”

They both looked at each other before Din spoke. “Where do we find one.”

“This, you must determine.” She replied going back to what she was doing.

“You expect me to search the galaxy for the home of this creature and deliver it to a race of enemy sorcerers?” Din said you looked down by using the word enemy.

“This is the Way.”

“Hey. These tunnels will be lousy with Imps in a matter of minutes. We should at least discuss an escape plan.” Cara said to everyone.

“If you follow the descending tunnel, it will lead you to the underground river. It flows downstream toward the lava flats.” The lady Mandalorian explained.

Cara walked up to you. “I think we should go.” You nodded looking at Din

“I'm staying. I need to help her and I need to heal.” Din said without looking back.

“You must go. A foundling is in your care. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father. This is the Way,” She disagreed walking up to Din. “You have earned your Signet. You are a clan of three.”

“Thank you. I will wear this with honor.” Din said.

“Three?” You said looking at the Mandalorian.

“Clan of three.” She repeated looking at you and approached you with a small neckless with a mud horn on it. She moved placed it over your neck next to the other. She looked down closely. “This is the Way.” She said looking back up.

“We should go.” Cara said looking down the hall.

Before you all headed to the river you watched as the Mandalorian handed IG a jet pack, informing him it was for Din once he has healed. You smiled, knowing how much he had been wanting that since the first time you left here with the child. Everyone grabbed ammunition before heading out as well.

You saw the Mandalorian hand one more thing to Din before he put it in a small pouch, you looked back at the child as he made a small cooing sound. “Child is fine. Still asleep.” IG reassured you as you smiled and nodded at him.

After Din was finished we all ran to the boat that was on the molten river. You stared and noticed the droid was old, the others noticed as well as you all pushed the boat to get going and boarded, the droid beeped as IG helped us know what he was saying. We told it to go downstream then it head down. It was slow and all of you were anxious on getting out.

It wasn’t long when the tunnel was ending. “That's it. We're free!” Greef yelled but you saw a glimpse of a trooper.

You shook your head. “No. No, we're not. Stormtroopers. They're flanking the mouth of the tunnel.”

“It looks like an entire platoon. They must know we're coming.” Cara said looking at Din.

“Stop the boat Hey, Droid, I said stop the boat. Hey! I'm talking to you. I said stop!”

“We're still moving.”

“Looks like we fight.”

“There are too many. Then what do you suggest? 'Cause I can't surrender.”

“They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child.This is unacceptable I will eliminate the enemy and you will escape.”

“You don't have that kind of firepower, pal. You wouldn't even get to daylight.”

“That is not my objective.”

“We're getting close. Saddle up.”

“I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer. If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct.”

“What're you talking about?”

“I am not permitted to be captured. I must be destroyed.”

“Are we gonna keep talking, or we get out of here?”

“I can no longer carry this for you. Nor can I watch over the child.”

“Wait. You can't self-destruct. Your base command is to watch the child. That supersedes your manufacturer's protocol, right? Right?”

“That is correct.”

“Good. Now, grab a blaster and help us shoot our way out.”

“Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured. The child will be lost. Sadly, there is no scenario where the child is saved, in which I survive.”

“Listen, you're not going anywhere. We need you. Let's just come up with a...”

“Please tell me the child will be safe in your care. If you do so, I can default to my secondary command.”

“But you'll be destroyed.”

“And you will live, and I will have served my purpose.”

“No. We need you.”

“There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.”

“I'm not sad.”

“Yes, you are. I'm a nurse droid. I've analyzed your voice.”

“IG? What're you doing?” IG walked out of the boat as the lava started to melt his legs slowly.

You looked away once he got to the end of the tunnel. You heard the explosion, when you looked back you were basically out, smoke surrounded the boat as the troopers that once stood had steam coming off of their bodies.

That’s when you heard a ship above you. You snapped your head up. “Oh no.” You pulled your sabers and igniting them.

“Moff Gideon!” Greef yelled. Moff shot but you noticed it was around all of you. “He missed!”

“He won’t next time.” Din said looking up.

“Our blasters are useless against him.” Cara commented looking at you.

“Let's make the baby do the magic hand thing. Come on, baby! Do the magic hand thing,” Greef waved at the kid. Having the kid wave back. “I'm out of ideas.”

You shook your head. “That’s not how it works Greef.”

“I’m not.” Din said grabbing his jet pack.

“Here he comes!” Greef yelled.

You looked up as the tie fighter came right towards all of you. They shot as it got closer. Once it got to close you forced jumped and landed on the fighter. You felt your leg get nicked from how fast the fighter was going. You looked forward to have the wind pass your hair. You breathed heavily as you climbed closer to the cockpit.

You looked back to hear see Din was flying with you too. He came next to you. You smiled as you ignited one your sabers, he shot a couple of times over Moff. Before you could Moff turned the fighter making your and Din roll to slamming into him. The saber just inches from cutting him, You looked at the wing then at Din. “I am going to cut the wing!” You yelled over the fighter shifting through the air.

Din looked up at the large wing before nodding. When you stood up you Din grabbed your ankles as you swung. It cut a bit shifting slightly. You did it once twice then half of it was dangling. The fighter shifted down quickly making you get snatched from the sudden gust of air. You felt Din’s hand disappear, you squeezed your eyes shut as your whole body started to spin. When you opened them you were noticing how high you were. You watched as the fighter crashed and what looked like no one could have survived if.

When you looked back your heart raced as the ground started to get closer. You closed your eyes until you felt someone quickly snatch you. You jolted into the cool metal, leaning into the metal. “I gotcha.” He said holding you close as well.

You smiled at him as he flew you both to where Greef and Cara stood with the kid. When he landed he did it slow before putting you down, you both wobbled to stand. You found that now everything has fallen silent with no war noises growing around you.

As Din talked to the others you walked over to pick the child up. “How you feeling kiddo?” You held him close to you as he cooed and giggled.

“You ready?” Din asked making you turn around. You nodded smiling at him.

Cara came up to you and pet the child’s ear. “Take care of this little one,” She looked back at Din. “Or maybe it’ll take care of the both of you.”

You smiled and nodded back, you said your goodbyes and headed back to the Crest. Your stomach turned to think about the kid leaving the both of you, finding a master. You tried to think if there was even a master out there alive. You knew many and most of them are gone. However you knew the force would guide the both of you to where one can safely have him.

[mazamba]

Elsewhere, Pharma leaned back against his cell's wall. The Autobots had decided to leave him behind on Yavin IV, but not before building a cell to put him in. They'd left a number of Troopers, with a massive canon that could take down a small Decepticon, or completely vaporize an Autobot.

He was trapped... at least from within.

Outside, he could hear yelling, screaming, and the sound of blasters going off. An enemy, a big one at that, had landed and was making short work of the clones.

After only a minute, the door opened, revealing a tall and slender Decepticon with a screen for a face.

"Well, I must say I didn't see this coming," he admitted, "I assume you're part of Lord Megatron's...? You're not from around here, are you?"

Closed RP w/@mazamba

Ahsoka Tano is seen down in the lower levels, looking for work to continue paying for her place. She was no longer a Jedi, so she needed to find work. In order to pay for her place she was staying, while also getting food to fill her belly. Ahsoka sighed knowing she wasn't going to be able to find a proper job without getting her hands dirty.

"They want me to steal from a known crime lord or to steal from the Jedi Temple to retrieve a lightsaber from one of the fallen Jedi," Ahsoka knew both of these would either get her killed or arrested. She knew the Jedi Temple needed to be warned about this, but didn't understand why this person wanted the lightsaber.

"Well, I'll need to find work somewhere in order to pay for my next rent," said Ahsoka as she stops in her track when she sensed something. "What was that?"

@mazamba

[mwolf0epsilon]

Exhale the Paint Fumes

Summary: Olly's spiraling smells a little like paint...

Recommended Song: Slow Walk

Canon Characters: Commander Fox, Clone Trooper Dogma, Sargent Hound, Grizzer the Massiff

Original Characters: Riot Trooper Olly Olly Oxenfree, Clone Trooper Lichtenberg Clone Trooper Pretty Boy, K9 Trooper Redacted, Communications Corrie Rhythm(@british-hero) Riot Trooper Red Alert(@british-hero), K9 Trooper Bumblebee(@british-hero), Clone Medic Remedy(@kkrazy256), Drift(@calamity-aims), Clone Medic Croissant(@gaeasun), Clone Medic Nocte(@purgetrooperfox).

[This story is heavily inspired by @calamity-aims 's fic "To Unexplain the Unforgivable", and @gaeasun 's fic "The Two Hundred". I would suggest giving those a read beforehand.]

THIS STORY IS ALSO ON AO3

---

Fox's office smells like fresh paint. The unpleasant smelling vapors cling to the walls, furniture and nostrils, even if the coat itself is not present on them. Because whenever the marshal commander of the Guard breaks out the paint, usually it's to add another name to his vambrace.

If Olly were the kind of clone to wax needless poetics, he'd likely akin both the scent and effects of the fumes to be what loss physically smelled and felt like. Seeing as he's no bard, and Fox is certainly no philosophical major, he never words such absurdity. There's just no point in trying to make a tragedy into art.

It was 200 this time...

200 names delicately etched on a piece of armour that had seen far too much in far too little time. 200 names that make the eyes water and the nose itch. 200 men erased and replaced like glitched software. 200 brothers that Olly has lost. That were stolen from Fox's attentive and caring hands because of something well outside of his control.

Neither of them speak. There really isn't any need for that. Not much either of them could say that would ease the pain or guilt, nor do they particularly feel like breaking the somber silence.

It's a minute of remembrance, honoring the not quite dead.

If Olly focuses hard enough he could almost hear the voices of the past. Each carefully caligraphed letter of a name so full of the impression of memories, that both gave him the drive to go on, and a newfound crack his already quite broken heart. A crack that threatens to finally shatter it into a million pieces.

He wonders what is going through Fox's mind as he completes his 109th name. What tormenting horrors poke and prod at his brain as he tries not to quake and quiver with each one he catalogs into somewhere so private and close. Probably the same kind of monsters that are gnawing at Olly's own gray matter. Monsters that remind him that he's lost everything and everyone to the cruelty of the galaxy. The indifference of Kamino, Coruscant and the GAR.

His unnamed ori'vode and vod'ika, spirited away by the demagolka that haunted his nightmares. Lich, lost and very likely devoured by the all-consuming shadows of Umbara's unending darkness. Pretty Boy, a traitorous defector that turned-tail and saved himself instead of coming back to help him grieve their brother. Rhythm, wiped clean like he was nothing more than a stubborn stain that needed to be removed from a fancy carpet.

Hell hath no fury like a vod who's got nothing left to lose. And yet... Olly can't bring himself to be angry anymore.

At least not right now.

156 names on a singular vambrace. Some older than the ones Fox has just added to the ever growing list. The other will no longer be bare. Each addition kills another piece of both of their souls.

Everyone knew riot troopers never got decommissioned nor reconditioned. There's no need because they're "mindless brutes". Why "fix" something that exists only to push back a crowd and deliver a violent beating? It would defeat the purpose of such a henously glamour-less position.

It also meant that those who'd endured the horrors of their hard to survive job, were left to sit around idly and helplessly watch their brothers be taken away from them. Sometimes never to return. Other times being brought back wrong and never the same.

Red Alert always told the Shiny Turtles not to get too attached, even if he himself failed to follow his own rule. Olly simply told them to hold on to the memories they'd made, and to look after the broken shells that came back from Kamino.

Not all of them took it well. It was hard on the heart. He'd caught so many kih'vode hanging from the drafters that at this point the idea of suicide within the barracks was not a novelty.

Telling Fox of these incidents always meant more paint smell. More fumes. More headaches. More stinging eyes and noses. More guilt, retching and dry-heaving over a dirty toilet bowl in some dingy establishment's bathroom.

Never a good idea to throw up in the Coruscant Guard barracks, their plumbing was and forever would be quite shitty.

Olly doesn't really know why he bothers to stick around to watch Fox whenever that happens. There's no point to him watching his commanding officer, his Guard ori'vod, adding the names to his armour.

It's not like the commander would ever dare to skip over a name.

Once, before Remedy got wiped that is, the bespectacled medic had suggested the methodical way Fox wrote the names might simply help the riot trooper to relax. Each line and curve forcing him to focus and take deeper even breaths.

Maybe he'd been right.

Time always seemed to slow down and make more sense when he sat by the marshal commander in these moments of sorrow.

200 names spread between two vambraces. Fox isn't bothering to conceal the hitch of his breath or the tears running down his face. Olly squeezes his shoulder once before leaving him to grieve in peace. Force gods only knew he was hanging by the fraying thread of what little dignity he still had remaining.

The veteran riot trooper refused to be the one to take that from him.

Olly's unofficial patrols start the moment he leaves the marshal commander's office. They're self-imposed. A personal mission he'd given himself the first time something like this had transpired. A way to reassure his weakened mind and broken heart, despite it doing exactly the opposite on most cases.

The outliers gave him hope. The hopeless causes took it away.

He takes a deep breath, inhales the "clean air" and the exhales the paint fumes he'd been breathing in all morning. Exhales his nerves and tries not to cough up a lung in the process. The stinging in his nasal cavity and throat are still there from the light chemical burns. And then he makes his way towards his various destinations.

His first stop is down in Storage where '22 can always be found.

Even after a full mind-scrub, Dogma's quirks hadn't quite left him. They likely never would, no matter how many times he got reconditioned, considering he'd always just been wired differently from the great majority of the rest of them. He still liked order and organization. Thrived doing inventory work.

He just doesn't respond the his old name anymore.

That's fine. He seems to like it when Olly calls him D22. Never asks why Olly walks in with his right first bandaged, just accepts the treat he forcefully pilfered from a vending machine that was located on one of the various blind-spots of Coruscant. The larger trooper used to hate stealing, now it was a necessity if he wanted to offer something his siblings were more inclined to eat.

'22 loved cupcakes just as much as Dogma. Olly can't bring back his kih'vod, but he can bring '22 a cupcake.

His second stop is the medbay, even if he hates going in there.

Seeing what used to be Remedy walking around with cropped hair and no glasses is very jarring. Not only to him but to the medics that hadn't been wiped yet. He could see it in Croissant's and Nocte's eyes whenever they thought he wasn't watching. Knew they feared what might befall them if the chancellor got upset at Fox anytime soon.

The CMO had always been a frowner, which hadn't changed. None of the reconned clones ever really smiled much.

8847 always zeroes in on his injured hand before anyone else could register the riot trooper's presence in the medbay. Before any of this happened, Olly would have shied away from his touch. Refusing to show weakness even to the kindly medics. A couple of glass shards in his hand were nothing compared with his full body pains after all.

Now he lets '47 do as he pleases with the injuries.

He's taken up whittling. He's pretty crap at it. Laughably so. There's always some shitty wooden figurine in one of his pouches to offer to the medic as a "gesture of gratitude" for the medical care. 8847 doesn't seem to understand why he gives them to him but, according to Nocte, he hasn't thrown any away.

Olly can't tell if he's just trying to be polite or if he's trying to figure out why anyone would make and keep tiny wooden trash. Sith-hells, maybe '47 is just trying to figure out what the hell any of the figurines are meant to be. The little tooka he'd tried to carve was so bad it kind of looked like a malformed star fighter.

His third stop is the kennels.

Olly is absolutely terrified of the massiffs kept there, but he forces himself to swallows his fear like a hard pill. He'd never really seen eye to eye with Hound, but he was still a vod. And he'd been Rhythm's friend. Now he didn't even seem to acknowledge the massiff he'd bonded with prior to being reconned. Something which registered with the creature, if the way it now behaved so sadly was anything to go by.

He'd taken a hard hit. That much was obvious from the way he looked at people and animals so vacantly. Olly mostly came to make sure he ate something at least once or twice per day. With shaky hands he also made sure to refill the bowls in the kennels, even though the movements of the caged little beasts made him recoil like he'd been burned.

The riot trooper was ashamed to admit he often didn't stick around to even have an attempted conversation with the K9 trooper. He left that up to Redacted who had taken on the majority of the work in the kennels since Hound and Bumblebee got wiped.

His fourth stop takes him straight to Drift.

6147 greets him stiffly as usual. He'd been an arc trooper once, and also one of very few vode that ever dared to spar with a turtle that stood at 6 feet tall and was as built as Alpha karking 17.

Everyone knew Olly's strength was abnormal. Alarmingly so.

Another factor which adds to his chronic aches. Human muscle was never meant to be used at the same capacity as a woolamander would use it. Adrenaline was thus the key to unlock such power. Olly had learned early on to control the lack of restraints Sulu Ra's serum had cursed him with, but he couldn't mend what the strain did to him. No one could.

He'd likely end up permanently disabled one day.

Despite the danger of real injury being an accidental likelihood of facing him on the mat, Drift had never feared him as an opponent in the slightest. Seemed fond of the challenge.

Drift had fought him like he'd fought any other brother. The ARC had even beat him on several occasions by being perceptive, quick and witty. Only one of those things hadn't left him. The lack of fear.

6147 hadn't beat him yet.

He was slower, less coordinated, less aware of his surroundings. Olly barely did much in their spars. Just let the vod burn the energy. Eventually the former ARC would just fall on his shebs on his own and listlessly sit there, seeming almost at a loss for why all of this felt wrong. It wasn't right to see him life this.

His stops took him everywhere around the Coruscant Guard HQ. Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth... ...Two hundreth. His final stop was always Rhythm.

It was also the one that hurt him the most.

There was just nothing there. Nothing left of the clumsy but highly spirited vod'ika that reminded him so much of his own batchmates. Kamino had completely ruined him, from cutting the locks he'd so proudly styled, to removing the very light in those rich dark eyes of his. The only recognizable aspects were the freckles and scars. Fractured constellations.

Croissant had called him insane for putting himself through this. Nocte had just looked at him with such pity. He knows both of them mean well, but honestly kark them both for getting into his business. There was already so much that had been taken from him, he'd be damned if he lost this as well.

Torturous an ordeal or not, Olly would never abandon Rhythm. He can't let him go, even if the healthier option would be to do so. 2895 isn't Rhythm but that doesn't change the fact he used to be.

Maybe... Impossible as it may seem... He could be again...? If Olly tried hard enough...?

With a purpose he lets go of letting go. Just like a turtle Olly slow walks towards that one particularly unfeasable goal.

Even if it means indulging in things he honest to gods hated.

Like playing Rhythm's dumb little playlists full of songs that make his brain hurt. Or practicing twice as hard on his guitar playing skills even when he's too tired to lift it up properly. Sometimes he overturns the little box where he keeps the kids's little gifts, hoping '95 might recognize Agi's finger paints or Vite's handwriting. He has holopics of Lenta, from the few nights they'd all gone out together for some not quite cheap caf. He even holds the turtle plush Rhythm got him once as an apology gift for getting up to shenanigans...

The indifference behind '95's eyes never deters him. He tolerates Olly's company but doesn't seem curious at all about any of the memorabilia. Just seems interested in meticulously retouching his standard-painted shock trooper armour.

Olly's continuously dashed and renewed hopes smell like fresh paint.

[180smokevapestore-blog]

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@shivnibble

[nny11writes]

Could we have a fluffy/angsty one shot with Rex and ahsoka post Order 66?

Well my attempt to do a fluff and angst kinda failed hard, so have some angsty Rex and Ahsoka post Order 66!

Burying their fallen brothers takes both more and less time than Ahsoka could’ve ever imagined. The methodical sweep of the crashed cruiser feeling like an eternity before she was suddenly finishing another grave. And the worst part of it, is that it’s not nearly all of them. Some parts of the ship were still on fire, others crushed too tight to fit, others basically vaporized between the entry into atmo and grinding against the icy surface of the moon. 

No.

It’s not nearly all of them. It’s not even close to enough.

Force.

The only good thing in the whole situation is that Rex works at her side. She hadn’t been sure he’d even want to look at her let alone stay. She may not have directly killed them, but she let Maul out. Practically the same thing. Ahsoka knows that the burden of being in command is that you will always give an order or make a choice that will kill good people. People who never deserved the often horrific deaths the war had brought. This just...feels different.

“Hey,” Ahsoka gently rested a hand on Rex’s shoulder as she held out the thermos of hot water. She’d gathered the cleanest snow she could before boiling and filtering it, figuring they would both need something warm.

Rex is silent, a small amount of sweat rolling down the side of his face from the exertion of digging. But he turned to her with the smallest of smiles in his eyes and took the thermos. The white billowing clouds from his breath mingled with the small amount of steam when he cracked the thermos’s seal and sat on the hard ground to drink.

Ahsoka slowly squatted next to him as she looked at his work. It’s slow going with the frozen earth, even with her saber. They each have one, it’s useful to melt the ice and start the process of digging but also necessary for traversing the Resolute. It’s the first time Rex hadn’t even put up a token argument about using one.

“You eaten?” He asked, interrupting her cyclical thoughts. At her head shake he huffed. “You need to eat.”

“And you need to take water breaks.” She mumbled back.

He grunted noncommittedly but took another drink, so she let’s it rest and instead fumbled at his utility belt for a ration bar.

This has been the way of it, neither of them quite functional enough to properly care for themself. As always, they make a great team.

“How many more you reckon?” Rex asked so softly she almost didn’t hear him over the wind.

She let her eyes go unfocused as she considered. “Not many. There’s still some parts of the ship to go through but…”

He doesn’t need her to explain, they’ve stayed here longer than was safe. They should have just buried the men in the launch bay and left. It’s been at least two rotations since Order 66, but Ahsoka suspects that it’s been far more than that. Never ending sunlight has poured down the whole time and neither of them are really able to sleep. They have tried, curling together in their purloined ship with the few blankets they were able to find in the wreckage. But what pathetically short amount of time they spent pretending they’d sleep was almost wasted.

Clones could stay awake for days on end without sleep, food, or water. Jedi can too. Or...well, whatever she is.

He resealed the thermos and handed it back to her, one hand wearily rubbed over his face. “Yeah.”

She shivered as the wind whipped her makeshift cloak around her. Stars, she misses feeling warm. She misses feeling anything besides this strange numbness.

There was a creak from his armor as Rex shifted closer, pulling her into his side to help shield her from the worst of it.

“We’ll fill these then.” Rex nodded towards the fresh graves. He had already told her that what they’d done was more than most of them expected. The dead are often left behind on battlefields without hope of recovery, and the men were trained to leave brother’s bodies behind. Literal dead weight would get more of them killed, and no trooper wanted to be the reason their squad was killed.

She pursed her lips, tempted to ask him to go with her, desperate for the companionship and understanding. Rex is all she has left and likewise she’s all he has too. It’s too dangerous though, a former trooper and former jedi would be more easily recognizable together.

And they refuse to be the reason the other dies.

There’s been too much of that. 

Which means when they finish here, their time together will be basically over. The ship will get them to a decent sized midrim world, where they’ll ditch it and go their own ways.

“Hey,” Rex gently swayed them both back and forth, pulling her back to the present again, “remember the mission little un.”

She forced the tears back at the name, his name for her. She’s going to miss him terribly.

But he’s right. He’ll look into the troopers, look for survivors and help those he can who are chipped. And he thinks Ahsoka will be doing the same for the Order. Her lightsaber feels heavier on her belt than ever as she keeps her secrets. She needs to lay low for a while, but Ahsoka is tired. Too kriffing tired to follow through. Maybe someday. Maybe.

When she finally finished her food they worked together to bury the few remaining souls they can, and neither speak as they leave the moon behind and jump into hyperspace.

[azems-familiar]

Hi, hope you don't mind more prompts: nr 2 "none of this is your fault". Thanks!

this got, long, so have 1645 of kinda angsty post Order 66 fun and reunions!

It’s been a little over a year since the day his life shattered.

Since the day the war ended, the day he thought, for just a moment, that maybe- Maybe there could be a future outside the endless fighting and the loss and the pain, that maybe he could take the chance he’d always held himself somewhat back from. Grievous was dead, Dooku dead, and the look on- on Cody’s face as he handed Obi-Wan his lightsaber back was something warm and fond and tender, and he’d thought-

Well. He supposes it doesn’t matter what he’d thought, anymore, now does it?

Life on Tatooine is quiet, a far cry from the peace of the Temple before the war, or the frenetic pace of the Clone War, dashing back and forth across the galaxy. Too quiet, sometimes; all he has for company are his ghosts, most days, or Owen and Beru, on the rare times they let him see Luke or he needs help with his vaporators. From Anakin to Qui-Gon, the memories are all there, taunting him every time he closes his eyes.

Train him.

I hate you!

There is still good left in him…

And of course, the worst one, in some ways: starting up the cliffside of the Pau City sinkhole, feeling a shout of warning in the Force, and then the cannons firing - feeling the way his men’s Force signatures suddenly warped, twisted into something unfamiliar and heavy and wrong, wrong, wrong, and then falling, and then-

In any case, he almost wishes for something to keep him occupied, to keep his mind off the still-aching emptiness of the Force and the way he still sometimes glances over his shoulder to say something to Anakin, or Cody - that’s the primary reason he’d started investigating Jabba’s movements and going after his supply shipments. Part of it, of course, had been he could never let himself sit idly by and let the slavery and the stealing and the corruption go on, but if he’s honest with himself - which he’s never been too good at, he supposes - he’d needed the distraction from everything and everyone he’d failed.

Ahsoka contacts him, occasionally - he knows she’s working with Bail to form a rebellion. She’s been trying to get him to join, but he can’t leave Luke alone. Besides, Ahsoka is a strong young woman; he has faith in her abilities.

The comms can be frustrating, though, especially on a day like today, when the endless sands and the burning suns seem to have sucked the life out of him - he doesn’t have the energy to argue with her again.

“Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka says, when he answers the comm.

He sighs, rubs at his forehead. “Ahsoka, I’m not in the mood,” he says, before she can get anything else out.

“This isn’t about rebelling,” she says. “I’ve… found something of yours, I’m bringing it to Tatooine.”

He chuckles, though it feels not-quite-forced. “What, did you land on one of the multiple planets I left a cloak behind on? That’s hardly important enough to warrant the trip.”

“Something like that,” Ahsoka says, evasive.

He knows her well enough to know she’s hiding something; today, he’s too tired to probe. “Alright, then,” he says. “I’ll be here. Please don’t let the Empire know.”

“Trust me, Obi-Wan, I’m better than that,” she says.

He doesn’t tell her that’s what Anakin always said, right before getting them into some terrible mess. The wound is still too fresh, and in any case, she’d know that.

The comm cuts off and he sighs, rubs at his temples. What in the galaxy could she have found that’d warrant a visit all the way to this wretched hellhole?

If it really is one of his cloaks, he’ll-

Oh, what’s the point anymore?

He almost doesn’t bother to clean up the hut, although he manages to sweep out some of the sand (it’s impossible to keep it out, he’s tried everything) and organize the small stack of holonovels and the two precious holocrons he’d managed to save from the Archives. It helps keep him busy, anyway, and after a while he goes out to check on the vaporators, and he waits.

He’s been doing nothing but waiting, it seems like, these days.

Ahsoka’s ship lands on a dune nearby his hut, late evening, as the twin suns are slowly sinking into the western sky, turning everything blood red and warm gold and streaked with violet; Obi-Wan steps through his door and paces a couple meters from the hut, squints a bit against the setting suns.

There’s three figures walking towards him, silhouetted against the sky. Ahsoka is one of them, her montrals are distinctive, and he thinks the two others are clones - one’s likely Rex, the other another vod they must’ve gotten out. Good, that’s good, although it means he should’ve put more effort into seeming… normal.

As though there’s anything normal about this, a Jedi Master living in hiding on one of the least-liked planets in the galaxy, an absolute hive of scum and villainy, trying to evade his own men and his own padawan.

One of the two clone-figures freezes in place on top of the nearest dune, and Obi-Wan frowns, narrows his eyes, notes the other (who must be Rex - it’s not like Rex would be surprised by Obi-Wan’s appearance) taking the first clone’s arm. He watches them a moment, then shakes himself, turns back to Ahsoka, who’s nearly to him, crosses the last of the distance himself and sighs. “Ahsoka, what’s this about me losing something?”

Ahsoka just smiles (damn it, but he’s fairly certain she picked that trick up from him) and nods a bit back at the two figures making their slow way down the face of the dune, and in that moment, the light shifts and he’s finally able to make out their faces.

Thick dark hair, longer than he remembers, falling into amber eyes colored with apprehension and shame, a scar curling around his left eye.

Cody.

Obi-Wan doesn’t entirely realize he’s moving until he stops in front of his Commander, who hasn’t moved a muscle since their eyes met, is not-quite-shaking, the last golden-red rays of sunlight melting over his face and setting him ablaze. “Cody,” he says, soft, too soft, lifts one hand to ever-so-lightly skim across Cody’s scar.

“Sir-” Cody’s voice is strangled, and he tilts his head into Obi-Wan’s hand, seemingly unable to hold still. “Sir, I didn’t mean- I’m sorry,” and his voice cracks and shatters, tears welling up brightly-crystalline in his eyes.

“Oh, Cody,” Obi-Wan says, and pulls his Commander into a hug. Cody buries his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and Obi tilts his head so he can tuck his nose into Cody’s hair, letting out a breath it seems like he’s been holding since his world came crashing down. “None of this is your fault, my dear.”

Even when he feels Cody’s shoulders shake beneath his arms, it still takes Obi-Wan a moment to realize his Commander is crying.

He’s only ever seen Cody cry once.

(It’s a long, somber hyperspace trip back to Coruscant from the mess that was Umbara; Scratch and half his medical team are on board the Resolute, tending to saber wounds and exhausted troopers, leaving only a skeleton team in the medbay. At first, Obi-Wan thinks that’s where he’ll find Cody, checking in on their injured, but to his surprise the medbay is quiet, the lights dimmed to night-cycle brightness. Cody’s not in the barracks, either, which is where he should be, sleeping off their latest battle - nor is he in the mess, where they meet late at night when nightmares get to be too much and neither of them can stand to be alone with their thoughts.

He finds his Commander standing at one of the massive bay windows facing out into space, staring at the blue glow of hyperspace, casting his features in an otherworldly light. He’s whispering, under his breath, lips barely moving, and although he can’t hear the words Obi-Wan thinks he knows what’s being said.

“Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc,” Obi-Wan says, soft, stepping up beside Cody’s shoulder. “Ni partayli, gar darasuum.”

Cody twitches slightly at the Mando’a, turns his head to look at Obi-Wan, and only then does Obi-Wan see the tears on his cheeks.

“Waxer,” Obi-Wan says, and Cody nods.

He tugs his Commander into his arms and lets Cody cry on his shoulder, and after a while shifts him so they’re sitting, back against the wall, the blue of hyperspace turning everything blue, like his lightsaber, like grief, like the paint on all those broken bodies. Eventually Cody’s tears peter off and his Commander dozes off, head on Obi-Wan’s shoulder; he sits in the silence and watches Cody breathe and tries not to feel helpless.)

“It’s going to be alright, Cody,” Obi-Wan says, pulling himself to the present with an effort, and kisses the top of Cody’s head. “I’ve got you.”

Obi-Wan tilts his head to one side, just a bit, and Rex catches his eye, hands quickly sketching out a message in the old GAR sign language: we’ll wait on the ship. He nods once in acknowledgement, tugs on Cody’s shoulder just a bit, says, quietly, “Why don’t we go inside? Rex and Ahsoka will join us in a bit.”

“Okay,” Cody says, raspy and hoarse, pulling back completely and shifting as though he intends to fall into parade rest.

That won’t do at all.

Obi-Wan tucks an arm around Cody’s shoulder, pulls his Commander against his side, and turns and starts for his hut. “Come on, cyar’ika,” he says, lightly, the endearment slipping out almost without his notice. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Cody nods, hesitantly slips his own arm around Obi-Wan’s waist, and Obi-Wan smiles and hopes that for once, he won’t have to let go.

[majingojira]

Crossover Universe Musings -- Aliens

One of the things about working in a mixed Crossover Universe, linking to other series not because “it's cool” but from in story crossovers, meetings, and homages and the occasional pseudo-scholarly article, is that a lot of “Blending” happens.  And it really is rather fun. Or, rather, it’s a time-saving measure because having X number of species all being basically the same is just annoying as hell.  But remember, working in the “Crossover Universe” is like trying to piece together what happened at Pearl Harbor using only the movies made about it.  Here are some results, let’s see what you recognize. 

The Elder Things - One of the oldest sapient species in the universe, and also the ugliest. The Barel bodied, flam-footed, branching-tentacle armed, winged, starfish-headed horrors of Lovecraft.  They made many ancient technologies later species would claim as their own.  Also known as The Quintessons. 

The Ascended - A collective of various species that have shed biological form to exist as energy, thought, and smug. Many species achieve this, and each group holds itself to different standards.  They are all obscenely powerful, and when they act, it is rarely small. Also known as Any Number of God-Like Beings in Star Trek, The Ancients, Ultraman and other Ultras, The Mu (RahXephon and others), and Preservers. The later of which is partly responsible for why there are so many transported human cultures out in the galaxy.  The Time Lords - Ya know these goons.  That one meddling Doctor pops his head up everywhere.  The Celestials - GIANT SPACE GODS! They silently judge for their own reasons.  And tinker.  Because they are bored.  The Xothians - Better known as The Star Spawn of Cthulhu, or just the Star Spawn.  Powerful beings in mind, soul, and body. They have squid-heads, dragon bodies, and roughly humanoid shape. Usually standing between 3 and 23 meters tall.  The “Great Race” of Yith - They mentally transfer themselves into different species to learn, but generally have a habit of stranding their ‘preferred’ host body’s original mind in their last body.  So, yeah, they’re dicks. But they LOVE learning.  The Mi-Go - Aliens from Outside our reality, true Outsiders.  Horrific to view in their true form and masters of biomechanics, they sometimes like to show up on earth as Yeti rather than their true insect/fungal forms. Their aims in our universe are not nice.  The Neural Parasites - These are beings that either dominate a host humanoid or ‘blend’ with them to share knowledge and experience. The former is best represented by the “Let me play god!” Goa’uld.  The latter is best represented by the Trill. They have only recently diverged into separate species.  They have also been presented as the “Bluegill.”  Though for the record, it was the constructions at Egypt and other locations that brought the Goa’uld to earth, they had no hand in it at all.  The Colonists - The most commonly known “Grey” type.  They made first contact with Earth in 1947 and started setting up for colonization of the planet. They weren’t the only aliens to visit that year, but they were the only intentional ones.  The species infects through a “Black Oil” virus that infects a sapient species and converts it into one of them. Immature forms are more savage than the adult ones.  They use technology to take human form, but the technology didn’t always work well at first.  In the 50s and 60s, their human forms were basically shells of flesh with no blood, and no heartbeat -- and they could never quite get the pinky right. Plus, their bodies vaporized on death.  Today, they just are better at changing shape but after 60 some years of preparation, they lost interest in the earth due to climate destabilization. Examples are seen in The X-Files and The Invaders.   The Asgard - The other type of Grey, smaller, smarter, and less dickish. Examples include Stargate SG-1 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

Xenomorphs - a.k.a. The Brood. A Genetically engineered bioweapon of a species that got out of hand.  Who made them?  Some jerks.  The Predators  - a.k.a. The Yau’tja, The Hirogen. They have a hunter-based culture.   Expatriated Humans - They are people who were transported elsewhere by other species and have since become their own cultures.  Some become different species, such as the Thoans, Jaffa, etc. 

The Kree/Kherubim/Capellans/Eridaneans/Sontarans - Between the Ancient and Expatriated Humans lie this species and its offshoot cultures.  They look human, but thanks to differences, they tend to be more physically fit, more durable, heal faster, and extremely long-lived.  This is in part due to nanotechnology, and in part due to genetic engineering on their part.  Some of them crash-landed on earth (or rather, several different ships of theirs crash-landed on earth at several different times) and they tweaked history every now and again.  Some are more ‘enhanced’ than others, and their society did assimilate a few other sapient species into their midst, but they are few in number.  The way to tell the cultures apart is to see if they have an elected “King”, or a ruling council.  Or if they obey a biocomputer. The societies have been at war with themselves and others for a long time and have a long history of using clone troopers as needed. Most look human, but some are not.  Some are blue, and some have true ‘dome heads’.   Kryptonians and Viltrumites/Daxamaites - They started as a mining colony for the above species.  They altered themselves to face the harsh environment: Both had high gravity, but one was a cold world with low light, so they used nanites to store extra energy, enhanced their senses genetically and nanotechnologically, and also could use their nanites to make a heat-based energy weapon in case of emergencies.  The latter had to fend off savage beasts so regularly, tweaking themselves to better survive combat was more useful than just having bigger guns to fend them off.  When the Kree/Capellan civilization was in one of its downturns, the two were left to themselves and decided to act on their own initiative.  They had their experiences of trying to be a galactic power in their own right, but the Kryptonians mostly turned in on themselves, while the Dazamites/Viltrumites cut such a swath through space, biological warfare and decimated the species.  Then Krypton blew up, leaving few survivors of that planet too.  Though, thanks to humanity’s special ability to crossbreed with damn near any non-Terran sapient species, members of each group view Earth with special importance.   The Rutan Host/Changelings/Founders/Skrulls/Daemonites/Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua - Shapeshifters whose natural state is liquid.  They are intelligent, but their young, sent out to explore the universe then find their way back home, can be very dangerous as they can be ... infectious.  Not as bad as another species from their home planet that got out in the universe -- no. Not as bad as that... Thing.  Or the horrifying Blob that originates on their homeworld but also barrels through space.  But, a juvenile member can dive onto another being, “Blend” with it, and then take its form.  However, this process is always a battle of wills, and people of strong minds and hearts can overcome the being and gain elastic abilities from the encounter.  Often referring to themselves as “Plastic” or “Elongated” men.  It’s pretty Fantastic.  BTW: Skrull is a slur against them.   

The Borg/Cybermen - Humanoids who, in order to survive, replace their weaker organic parts with mechanical ones.  They share their ‘gift’ with as many species as they can.  Also, they are dicks.  The Klingons/Draconians - Honorable Warriors with forehead-ridges and a dark complexion.   The Sarmaks/Kaldanes - a species from an other-dimensional version of Mars (I call it “Nevernever Mars” because crossovers) who tried to invade earth in 1898.  The War of the Worlds and the Barsoom series demonstrates this species. 

The Dholes/Space Monsters/Uchuu Kaiju - Massive, planet boring worms that fly through space and crawl through dreamlands.  They are the most terrifying species known that isn’t an out-and-out god.  The Myceneans - Gigantic beings, 3 to 30m in height (depending on how you allow things in your crossover universe), they alter themselves genetically and mechanically to become living weapons.  They are really only distinguishable by one feature: Having a secondary head usually in the enter of their chest.   The Cybertronians - Lastly, I’ll mention the most infamous Elder Thing creation (other than Shoggoths). They’ve been locked in a war that drags other species down with them for hundreds of thousands of years.  They are also insidious invaders, disguising themselves as different native machines to get one over on their foes.  While some do try to help, most of them view organic life with revulsion.  There are biomechanical Cybertronians that can disguise themselves as other living beings.  These are ostracized in their society but still employed as spies on other worlds.  One possible timeline has this species locked in combat with another creation of the Elder The Zentradi and Meltrandi.  4m tall giants who live for war.  This would lead to a 1999 crash landing of a Cybertronian city-ship, and it’s recovery/refit by humans who made jets based on the corpses of dead Cybertronians.  This technology was sometimes called “Robotech.” Other species of note that don’t have crossover representation, but are important to other degrees and are better known include Vulcans, Romulans, Daleks, Ogrons, Unas, Replicators, Klyntar, Color Out of Space, Majesdenians, Flying Polyps, Star Vampires, Xiclotlian, and Zarr.

[ifanfictiondreamerworld]

Powerful Harmony-Part 60

Later on, everyone met up at the empty building that Master Windu had told them about. Anakin and Obi-wan already mentioned to the Jedi Council everything that the Benders needed for their training facility. There, the clone troopers came in and brought in all of the supplies and equipment needed. Anakin: “OK, so that’s 10000 units of dirt, more than 500 gallons of water, 6 incredibly large heat lamps, and 1 very large space to hold it all in.” Katara: “Sounds as though we’ll have everything we’ll ever need to get this training ground up and running. Thank you again for setting this up, Masters.” Mace: “You’re welcome, Katara. Now then, a lot of our construction droids have spent many hours building this training facility to your liking. We have several different pipes all over the facility to dispense as much water as you want. We also installed a mist emitter as you have requested to disperse water vapors to your liking.” Katara: “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Mace: “Toph, we have set up a special machine deep below the surface of the gravel to automatically secrete and fill in any spaces below those rocky terrains, that way it should be able to simulate being on an all terrain field.” Toph: “Sweet.” Mace: “Zuko, we’ve installed large heat lamps to emit as much heat as you need without overcooking anyone of you.” Zuko: “Thank you.” Mace: “And Aang, the room should be large enough so it should contain plenty of air.” Aang: “Yes, that’s all I need.” Obi-wan: “OK, then, this here is the control room. In here, we can change the setting of the training facility to whatever setting you or we would like to have it. We can change it to the environment that would suit each of you Benders best, or we can make it so that environment would not be beneficial to some or most of you. We can make it to suit one Bender, we can make it to suit two Benders, we can make it to suit all of you, we can even make it to suit none of you. Depending on what kind of training you kids need, we will adjust the settings to suit that training exercise.” Toph: “Alright, enough talk. Let’s get this training program started.” Kit: “Yes, let’s; I have been looking forward to seeing these bending abilities that we heard so much about.” Obi-wan: “Sure thing.”

Obi-wan walked up to the console and typed on it a few times. Obi-wan: “Now then, if each of you will divert your attention towards that door, it will be able to take you down towards the chamber.”

Katara nodded then headed towards the door with Toph, Zuko and Aang.

As they stepped inside and stood in it, the door closed, the Benders were brought down towards the chamber level. Obi-wan: “OK, let’s change this to the default setting; the one that will equally benefit each of the Benders.”

Obi-wan punched a few keys. The doors below opened, they stepped out and stood ready. As they stood, water began pouring out of the pipes on the far side of each corner of the room, surrounding the entire room. The heat lamps lit up. Mace: “Commence training…now.”

With a push of a button, the training battle droids came out from everywhere and started shooting at them. Katara had a determined smile on her face. Katara: “Let’s do this!”

Katara waved her arms around and pulled all the water towards her. All of the Jedi Councilmen became shocked by what they saw. Then she unleashed a large whip that slashed through all of the droids near her. Toph ran across several droids, she then raised some of the rocks in front of her and pushed it towards them. Several droids appeared behind her, but she managed to catapult them with the use of her Earthbending. Zuko, surrounded by several more droids unleashed a fire wheel around him then pushed it out and took out all of the droids. Aang stood in front an entire army. As they approached him, he spun around, forming a tornado and then blew all of the droids away.

The Jedi councilmen stood in awe as they watched the Benders unleash their full bending potential. Plo Koon: “This is…incredible. I have never seen anything like it.” Kit: “I know, these kids…and their…powers, no Jedi could ever pull off what they can.” Yoda: “Incredible powers these younglings have. Known what a Bender was or what skills they were capable of I could not have.” Obi-wan: “I know what you mean, gentlemen, I was shocked the first time I witnessed it.” Anakin: “So was I, but we got use to it. You will, too.” Mace: “So this is what bending looks like. How is it they are able to carry out these special powers?” Obi-wan: “They mentioned to us something about chi; how they can manipulate their own chi to interact with the environment and control them to their will.” Mace: “Hm…I’ll need to look into this…chi, let’s focus on the matter of their…Keyblades. You described to me that these key-like weapons are the only weapons powerful enough to destroy these Heartless, as you called them.” Obi-wan: “Yes, much like Ansem and the Heartless, the Keyblades were also created out of pure fiction. From what they have told me, there have been many weapons that can destroy the Heartless but Ansem modified the Heartless so that they are immune to all other weapons, all but the one that could utterly destroy them.” Anakin: “And that would be the Keyblades.” Mace: “Hm…” Yoda: “Adapting to different environments these kids are capable of. Mention this you did, yes?” Obi-wan: “Yes, when involved in a new environment, they learn to adapt their own skills to what works best for them in that particular setting. For example, Toph taught herself how to bend metal as though it is part of the earth. She managed to bend the metal haul around her and used it as a weapon. She was even bending General Grievous considering that he does have a metallic body.” Mace: “Those kids went face to face with General Grievous!?!” Obi-wan: “And Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress. They surprised each and every one of them with their bending abilities. I was especially impressed with the way Zuko redirected Count Dooku’s own Force Lightning.” Mace: “Firebenders can bend lightning!?!” Obi-wan: “Apparently, so. I was startled the first time I saw it.” Anakin: “Wait, what? You never told me Zuko can bend lightning!” Mace: “We’ll discuss this later. I want to see how well these Benders’ adjustment capabilities are.”

Master Windu walked up to a microphone and spoke in it. Mace: “Ahem! Attention, Benders! I need to test how well you can adapt to certain situations. In order to do that, I need you to do exactly what I tell you to do. Let’s see how well you can fight without your bending. Fight only with your Keyblades.” Katara: “Right! Everyone, you heard Master Windu, no Bending, fight only with your Keyblades.” Aang: “Right!” Zuko: “Got it!” Toph: “OK!”

They then summoned their Keyblades and took on the droids. Mace: “Incredible! These kids are impressive even without the use of their bending!” Obi-wan: “Indeed, they are.” Mace: “OK, let’s try something else.”

With a push of a button, stronger droids appeared. Mace: “Attention, Benders! Put away your Keyblades and fight only with the use of your bending.”

They put away their Keyblades and went back to fighting with only their bending. As they fought, they initiated different bending upon realizing that their basic forms had no effect on the droids.  Mace: “Hm…very interesting. They readjust themselves to use more advanced skills after realizing that their basic skills are ineffective.” Kit: “It’s obvious these kids understand what they are up against.” Yoda: “Indeed. Learn new tricks they do in the middle of a battle.” Mace: “Yes, but let’s see how well they combine their bending skills with their Keyblades. Benders! Change tactics, this time fight with both your bending and your Keyblades.”

They summoned out their Keyblades, as they watched, the Benders combined their Keyblade skills with their bending. Mace: “Most incredible! Using both their bending and their Keyblades together increases their strength.” Obi-wan: “Yes, indeed they do.” Mace: “OK, I’ve seen enough. Let’s bring them back now. Alright, kids, that will be enough training for today. Return here now.”

They stopped fighting, put away their Keyblades and headed back to the elevators.

[powerfulharmony]

Powerful Harmony-Part 60

Later on, everyone met up at the empty building that Master Windu had told them about. Anakin and Obi-wan already mentioned to the Jedi Council everything that the Benders needed for their training facility. There, the clone troopers came in and brought in all of the supplies and equipment needed. Anakin: “OK, so that’s 10000 units of dirt, more than 500 gallons of water, 6 incredibly large heat lamps, and 1 very large space to hold it all in.” Katara: “Sounds as though we’ll have everything we’ll ever need to get this training ground up and running. Thank you again for setting this up, Masters.” Mace: “You’re welcome, Katara. Now then, a lot of our construction droids have spent many hours building this training facility to your liking. We have several different pipes all over the facility to dispense as much water as you want. We also installed a mist emitter as you have requested to disperse water vapors to your liking.” Katara: “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Mace: “Toph, we have set up a special machine deep below the surface of the gravel to automatically secrete and fill in any spaces below those rocky terrains, that way it should be able to simulate being on an all terrain field.” Toph: “Sweet.” Mace: “Zuko, we’ve installed large heat lamps to emit as much heat as you need without overcooking anyone of you.” Zuko: “Thank you.” Mace: “And Aang, the room should be large enough so it should contain plenty of air.” Aang: “Yes, that’s all I need.” Obi-wan: “OK, then, this here is the control room. In here, we can change the setting of the training facility to whatever setting you or we would like to have it. We can change it to the environment that would suit each of you Benders best, or we can make it so that environment would not be beneficial to some or most of you. We can make it to suit one Bender, we can make it to suit two Benders, we can make it to suit all of you, we can even make it to suit none of you. Depending on what kind of training you kids need, we will adjust the settings to suit that training exercise.” Toph: “Alright, enough talk. Let’s get this training program started.” Kit: “Yes, let’s; I have been looking forward to seeing these bending abilities that we heard so much about.” Obi-wan: “Sure thing.”

Obi-wan walked up to the console and typed on it a few times. Obi-wan: “Now then, if each of you will divert your attention towards that door, it will be able to take you down towards the chamber.”

Katara nodded then headed towards the door with Toph, Zuko and Aang.

As they stepped inside and stood in it, the door closed, the Benders were brought down towards the chamber level. Obi-wan: “OK, let’s change this to the default setting; the one that will equally benefit each of the Benders.”

Obi-wan punched a few keys. The doors below opened, they stepped out and stood ready. As they stood, water began pouring out of the pipes on the far side of each corner of the room, surrounding the entire room. The heat lamps lit up. Mace: “Commence training…now.”

With a push of a button, the training battle droids came out from everywhere and started shooting at them. Katara had a determined smile on her face. Katara: “Let’s do this!”

Katara waved her arms around and pulled all the water towards her. All of the Jedi Councilmen became shocked by what they saw. Then she unleashed a large whip that slashed through all of the droids near her. Toph ran across several droids, she then raised some of the rocks in front of her and pushed it towards them. Several droids appeared behind her, but she managed to catapult them with the use of her Earthbending. Zuko, surrounded by several more droids unleashed a fire wheel around him then pushed it out and took out all of the droids. Aang stood in front an entire army. As they approached him, he spun around, forming a tornado and then blew all of the droids away.

The Jedi councilmen stood in awe as they watched the Benders unleash their full bending potential. Plo Koon: “This is…incredible. I have never seen anything like it.” Kit: “I know, these kids…and their…powers, no Jedi could ever pull off what they can.” Yoda: “Incredible powers these younglings have. Known what a Bender was or what skills they were capable of I could not have.” Obi-wan: “I know what you mean, gentlemen, I was shocked the first time I witnessed it.” Anakin: “So was I, but we got use to it. You will, too.” Mace: “So this is what bending looks like. How is it they are able to carry out these special powers?” Obi-wan: “They mentioned to us something about chi; how they can manipulate their own chi to interact with the environment and control them to their will.” Mace: “Hm…I’ll need to look into this…chi, let’s focus on the matter of their…Keyblades. You described to me that these key-like weapons are the only weapons powerful enough to destroy these Heartless, as you called them.” Obi-wan: “Yes, much like Ansem and the Heartless, the Keyblades were also created out of pure fiction. From what they have told me, there have been many weapons that can destroy the Heartless but Ansem modified the Heartless so that they are immune to all other weapons, all but the one that could utterly destroy them.” Anakin: “And that would be the Keyblades.” Mace: “Hm…” Yoda: “Adapting to different environments these kids are capable of. Mention this you did, yes?” Obi-wan: “Yes, when involved in a new environment, they learn to adapt their own skills to what works best for them in that particular setting. For example, Toph taught herself how to bend metal as though it is part of the earth. She managed to bend the metal haul around her and used it as a weapon. She was even bending General Grievous considering that he does have a metallic body.” Mace: “Those kids went face to face with General Grievous!?!” Obi-wan: “And Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress. They surprised each and every one of them with their bending abilities. I was especially impressed with the way Zuko redirected Count Dooku’s own Force Lightning.” Mace: “Firebenders can bend lightning!?!” Obi-wan: “Apparently, so. I was startled the first time I saw it.” Anakin: “Wait, what? You never told me Zuko can bend lightning!” Mace: “We’ll discuss this later. I want to see how well these Benders’ adjustment capabilities are.”

Master Windu walked up to a microphone and spoke in it. Mace: “Ahem! Attention, Benders! I need to test how well you can adapt to certain situations. In order to do that, I need you to do exactly what I tell you to do. Let’s see how well you can fight without your bending. Fight only with your Keyblades.” Katara: “Right! Everyone, you heard Master Windu, no Bending, fight only with your Keyblades.” Aang: “Right!” Zuko: “Got it!” Toph: “OK!”

They then summoned their Keyblades and took on the droids. Mace: “Incredible! These kids are impressive even without the use of their bending!” Obi-wan: “Indeed, they are.” Mace: “OK, let’s try something else.”

With a push of a button, stronger droids appeared. Mace: “Attention, Benders! Put away your Keyblades and fight only with the use of your bending.”

They put away their Keyblades and went back to fighting with only their bending. As they fought, they initiated different bending upon realizing that their basic forms had no effect on the droids.  Mace: “Hm…very interesting. They readjust themselves to use more advanced skills after realizing that their basic skills are ineffective.” Kit: “It’s obvious these kids understand what they are up against.” Yoda: “Indeed. Learn new tricks they do in the middle of a battle.” Mace: “Yes, but let’s see how well they combine their bending skills with their Keyblades. Benders! Change tactics, this time fight with both your bending and your Keyblades.”

They summoned out their Keyblades, as they watched, the Benders combined their Keyblade skills with their bending. Mace: “Most incredible! Using both their bending and their Keyblades together increases their strength.” Obi-wan: “Yes, indeed they do.” Mace: “OK, I’ve seen enough. Let’s bring them back now. Alright, kids, that will be enough training for today. Return here now.”

They stopped fighting, put away their Keyblades and headed back to the elevators.

[cravitus426]

armchair science rambles - plasmaguns and pigs

tl;dr plasma is not laser beams and it needs ammo to function

also star wars plasma is (obviously) a bad representation

something i’ve put some thought into recently (read: a few weeks ago in a discord argument) was plasma weaponry, and specifically i was picking at some lore for a weapon from the extended Aliens universe, the M78 PIG

now the PIG is a phased plasma infantry gun and what this means is it’s basically a rocket launcher shaped plasma gun that makes the target stop existing fairly quickly

now my specific conundrum with the PIG to start with was ‘what does it look like when firing’ - and so i figured i’d go to the next best source for phased plasma guns in a james cameron film, the terminator franchise

now as we can see that’s not your typical halo lightball of pain, and it’s more like a laserbeam - closer to star wars, in fact, but regardless i was met with skepticism from my peers as to the kind of plasma the PIG would be blasting at tanks from a kilometer out and figured a halo style bolt made more sense

i agreed to disagree and then we escalated from applying the visuals from two different movies of the same tech from the same director to justifying why the PIG would probably fire a long beamlike bolt of plasma, which then took me into the pseudoscience behind how the PIG probably works

now the PIG itself is in two components as the AvP wiki (or if you want to get to the root, the colonial marine tech manual) says, covering the launcher and the powerpack; within these two components, we know that there is a laser, a magnetic coil, and a feed of cadmium telluride pellets plus a power source - that black shiny material in solar panels, i believe

now at first glance you may make the mistake of thinking that vaporized pellets are fed into the plasmagun, which is simply incorrect and, upon further consideration, impractical, unfeasible, and is in fact the main reason i’m making this post to begin with - but more on that in a moment

now the rough idea i have with the PIG is that during it’s firing cycle it charges or uses the laser to then vaporize the cadmium telluride pellets fed into the weapon, causing them to vaporize, becoming a gas, and subsequently become ionized - becoming plasma, in other words

after the laser rapidly heats the pellet, the ionized gas which has shed it’s electtrons is then rapidly discharged by the magnetic coil in a focused beam or bolt towards the target, and the projectile has such power or focus that even up to a kilometer away the single pellet of material is enough to punch through the rear armor of a heavy tank - that’s how i’d imagine the PIG works, at least

now when in flight certain things would happen to this bolt of plasma, especially once it leaves the magnetic field generated by the magnetic coils of the PIG - the least of which is a dispersion and cooling over long distances

plasma is still hot gas, after all, and gas wants to expand outward rather than be compressed into a space, which is then all the more reason for a rapid beamlike discharge because the faster that gas goes to the target the less time it has to expand and weaken

a contemporary example of what this could look like in action, as far as videogames go, would be XCOM 2 - that aside, however, the important part of this post is the material used to make plasma in the first place, and with the PIG that’s pellets of cadmium telluride

games always tote plasma as this super high end energy weapon, uses energy cells, batteries - power to fire, but that’s simply not the case

plasma is a state of matter, and like any other solid, liquid, or gas, there’s different kinds of matter that can become plasma, and not all plasma will perform the same nor be equally fit for the task

take lighting, for example - we use neon to generate plasma, which is what neon signs are all about; it’s already a gas, just needs electricity to hit that glow, and it doesn’t have to be super dense to make all that light

if you tried to use, say, argon for example, you’d have twice as much density, twice as much mass, and twice as much weight as the same amount of neon which then makes it more impractical to use as a light source - and that’s not considering the difference in energy required to make argon hit plasma versus neon

this said, it’s not too important at that level whereas things get a bit more complex when you want to use plasma as a weapon

take star wars and it’s tibanna fueled blasters, for example

here we have the typical stormtrooper blaster - the classic e11, courtesy of google and wookieepedia

in the event that you were unaware, star wars blasters take one of two things to function, those being power and tibanna gas which i’d guess is converted into plasma by adding energy from the powerpack

now as far as star wars goes there seems to be enough tibanna in there for all the shots you’d ever need in the field, never seem to need reloading - come to think of it have you ever seen a clone trooper load his weapon outside of republic commando’s blaster rifle, or the animated clone wars?

regardless what i’m getting at is star wars somehow packs enough tibanna in there and enough energy to create large, relatively slow, and lethal bolts of plasma in combat and without the need to ever really reload

star wars is basically science fantasy, but realistically speaking that gas would have to be of exceptionally low density to be packed in there at large quantities with little weight impact, and the more you pack the higher the pressure rises - and the higher that pressure is, the more you risk by dropping or damaging the weapon

imagine that every storm trooper carried a propane tank in their weapon, and imagine what would happen if one of them tripped and sprung a leak in that tiny super pressurized tank

not pretty for mister stormie

as far as the theoretical density of this material goes it’s definitely heavier than air otherwise it’d be swirling around cloud city, a population center whose primary export seems to be tibanna gas mined from the gas giant of bespin

for reference, oxygen’s density is around 1.4 grams, nitrogen is a little lighter, and CO2 i believe is around 2.25 (around the neighborhood of propane); therefore, tibanna if below the human-breathable atmosphere layer on bespin would have a higher density and as a result be heavier per unit than propane, which then makes it more unwieldy; that said, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the projectile

aside from the weight and safety issues that would arise with packing so much material into such a tiny space there’s also the matter of weapon effectiveness to consider; for example, neon gas would be inferior to theoretical tibanna because it’s ligher or less dense than the atmosphere it’d usually travel through; a somewhat fitting example would be like trying to throw an air-filled ball through the water - the projectile, less dense than the volume it’s traveling through, will bleed off more energy trying to get through and will actually be pulled up in this case due to basic buoyancy

replace ball with neon plasma and water with air and you get the effect of a brief flash of light sort of just slowing down and dispersing like a cloud of smoke being pulled upwards

tibanna at least has the precedent of being heavier than air, allowing it to at least not get screwed by buoyancy - but then there’s it’s low speed to consider, how sluggishly it travels through the air compared to the ‘primitive’ slugthrowers

considering then the low speed and presumably low or at least workable-and-light-even-with-pistols density/weight of the blasters you would think that they wouldn’t hit hard, and would get the bulk of their power out of the heat transferred to the target

and then you get this

there have been others to apply hard calculations to this but you can’t even get that kind of flinging force from bullets short of the big stuff

force equals mass times acceleration and tibanna seemed like it had neither of those on it’s side but apparently it has one of those in stupid high quantity

it’s definitely not speed, which then implies it’s got to be the mass - and that then retroactively implies the blasters are all stupid heavy now

however this then ignores the inherent thermal energy of the blaster bolt - i guess in theory you could impart enough energy so rapidly that it does fling tr8r to the ground like anakin’s arms and legs, but if you’ve got that kind of energy at your disposal why not just use straight up lasers

and none of that fake laser stuff turbolasers perpetuate

continuing on, the low mass and speed of a blaster would logically limit it’s range stupidly, as the plasma would slow and disperse as it would not have the inertia necessary to continue to carve through the air to the target, regardless of super high heat per shot

however if the bolt gets even a bit of it’s power from the density, the mass of the projectile, then despite the implications it has for the weight and handling of the weapons, the density would make the actual bolts far more feasible

so in review now with delusions of realism applied to star wars blasters tibanna would have to be of high density and contained at hazardous pressures within the weapon to have the power and capacity demonstrated in the films - or otherwise be contained at high pressure and gain the bulk of it’s killing power by being superheated to a point where it can fling stormtroopers around like windu beats droids

i mean it’s plasma so the latter is kind of the point, but only to an extent

there are other things to consider when using a gas such as tibanna as your plasma reaction mass

for example, what kind of material and how much of that material are you using to store it, what is the state of that material in extreme conditions, how do you refill that in the field - and that last one makes me picture world war two flamethrower incidents, except with more laserbeams to accompany the big backpack gas tanks

oh tibanna’s volatile too isn’t it that just makes it even better

now, going back to aliens and the PIG, instead of tibanna we have cadmium telluride pellets - solid at room temperature, used already in solar panels, density of somewhere above five grams per centimeter i believe

comparing the solid to a gas, in a few points:

you don’t have to worry about pressure containment because it won’t explode if you trip; transportation is then a non issue, and while you would need to use magazines you don’t have to use a pressurized tank to refill the gun, nor would you have to worry about containing a mini superdense propane tank in your weapon

you have a more solid grasp on ammo expenditure and reloading is a risk free operation compared to connecting tubes and watching meters

you don’t need to mine gas giants to feed the gun

the solid is inherently usable in cold environments because the weapon was meant to take a solid in the first place, whereas gas may condense into liquid or even freeze into a solid, both of which would be relatively unusable for a gun meant for gas

both the solid and the gas would require energy, and while in theory the solid would need more to jump to plasma it’d be much safer and practical i’d say to use it over natural state gas which introduces inherent risks and design constraints to begin with

i do want to go back to density and force but those are subject to specific materials involved - that said, solids i think would be more effective as plasma because they would inherently be hotter as plasma

in simpler terms

which one of these is solid at room temperature

the block of iron, or the block of neon

the winner will inherently require more energy to become a gas and then even more to become a plasma, which would then increase the potential lethality through proximity alone, not even considering the mass, speed, or force of the projectile

so basically plasma is not a pure energy weapon type and it requires ammo - plasma is a state of matter, and you need mass of some kind for it

out of the masses you could use for plasma, gas in my opinion would be the inferior choice due to inferior power offered and complicated storage

solids in comparison seem to be inherently better suited as the ammunition

oh and i did forget to mention that storing vaporized solids is a stupid thing because you’d have to constantly heat them which then turns them into a gas but even worse as far as resources and safety goes

imagine if your star wars blaster had a constant superheater on with your volatile super pressurized mini propane tank that you’re already trying to heat to shoot plasma at people

that’s the kind of thing you’d be carrying around

i think that’s about it for this ramble, at least for now

now the real surprise will be if someone actually reads this

tl;dr plasma is not laser beams and it needs ammo to function

also star wars plasma is (obviously) a bad representation

[esamastation]

Buncha Crap I tried to write today and failed

Firstly, second chapter of Sky Walkers which got, like... 300 words in before i got bored

Sky Walkers Ch. 2

The first time CC-2224 saw Kenobi was in space, and he was on the deck of one of the new Venator-class star destroyers. Over a kilometre in length, the Venator-class ships aren't exactly small, having good hundred meters over the Separatists' Dreadnoughts in length and even more in width. It's experience to be on board one of the things, never mind being on deck and seeing the full, arrow shaped length ahead of them.

Kenobi, when he appeared right next to them without as much as hyperspace blur, dwarfed the capital ship entirely. There is no way to put the sheer size of him into words – other than incomprehensibly vast maybe. No one has the precise measurements of a fully grown Jedi, of course – no one has any idea where the Jedi stop growing, if they ever do – but Kenobi is on the larger side of the Jedi; what the Jedi themselves refer to as Councillor.

Whether it's a size classification or an actual title, no one is entirely sure, but all the Councillor Jedi are beyond impressive – and Kenobi, even then, seemed to CC-2224 like the most awestriking thing he'd ever seen. He wasn't the only one on the deck struck speechless that day – wasn't the only one whose heart skipped a beat.

And that was before Kenobi spread out his wings and lit his dark shape in glow of that strange bioluminescence, with a bright blue horn at what CC-2224 eventually came to know as the front of the Jedi. The Lightsaber of a Jedi.

And then, they heard him.

Hello, there, the Jedi spoke with a warm male voice right into their heads. I am Kenobi, member of the Jedi High Council. I am here to assist you with the liberation of Ryloh.

It was the mind-blowing start of what would be a very short recapture of a Separatist occupied planet.

-

So that was a meh. Then I tried to write a thing with Obi-Wan and Cody where Cody too gets his chip removed and stuff changes and decided to start it with Rex telling Obi-Wan about the chips, but BECAUSE NETFLIX IS A POOP HEAD I havent actually seen season 6 if Clone Wars because it’s not available in finland and yes i’m salty, it didn’t turn out so good so anyway.

-

Chip thing

"Sir, do you have a moment?"

Obi-Wan's eyebrows arch and he looks up from the holoscreen, taking in the clone trooper at the doorway. It's Rex. That's a little odd, he hadn't even been aware that Rex was on board the Negotiator, which is rather curious. Usually he is promptly informed about such things. And not only is Rex aboard his ship un-announced, but he looks deathly serious.

"Of course, Rex, come right in," Obi-Wan says slowly and motions the clone trooper to enter. He closes the holoscreen, turning away from the table. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm – aware this is a little unusual, General," Rex says. "But this is important – and General Skywalker…" he trails off with a frown and shakes his head. "I'm not sure if you're aware about incident with one of the clones of 501st company?"

"Incident?" Obi-Wan asks and narrows his eyes a little. "You mean with General Tiplar?" he asks. "That was nearly a month ago."

Rex bows his head a little. "Relating to that incident," he admits quietly and takes something from his hip pouch, holding it out. "There was an investigation, and one of the clones of the 501st Batallion was involved. ARC trooper Fives, I don't know if you're aware of him, sir."

"The name rings a bell, yes," Obi-Wan admits and accepts what he's being handed to. A plastoid film, containing a small… organic looking little thing. "What am I looking at, Rex?"

"The clone trooper who shot General Tiplar – malfunctioned," Rex says taking as deep breath. "Because this thing in his head shorted out. It's a biochip, sir. All the clones have it."

Obi-Wan frowns, looking between the plastoid film and the clone captain. "I see," he says slowly, noncommittally.

"Fives learned about it during the investigation. There was another incident, during which it was said he tried to kill the High Chancellor," Rex says and doesn't quite look at him. "Fives was taken down eventually, it was branded as mutiny, but before he was shot and killed… he shared with some particulars with myself and General Skywalker. Including the existence of this chip inside all clones."

Obi-Wan says nothing for a moment, turning his attention to the chip. He'd never heard anything about it. "And what does the chip do?" he asks slowly.

"It overrides our brains, sir," Rex says and his eyelids flicker with some barely restrained emotion. "And makes us do whatever people of certain high rank order us. There are hundred and fifty specialised orders programmed into it. Tup – CT-5385 – was executing one of them when he shot General Tipler. Order 66 – all Jedi are branded as Traitors, and are to be… executed immediately."

Obi-Wan stops in the act of flipping the chip over. "That's…" he narrows his eyes. "Quite the thing, Rex."

Rex doesn't answer – staring at mid distance with carefully blank expression. He's made no accusations, Obi-Wan thinks, he's pointed no fingers. "Anakin knows about this too?"

Now Rex's eyes flicker shut just for a moment, and his expression hints at pain. "ARC-5555… implicated the High Chancellor in his tale, sir. Which, considering the previous incident where ARC-5555 was said to have held the High Chancellor hostage… General Skywalker dismissed ARC-5555's words, stating that he like CT-5385 was unwell and not talking sense."

Obi-Wan narrows his eyes, looking away. "Hmm," he answers. "Where did you get this?" he asks, looking at the chip.

"From my own head, sir," Rex says and finally meets his eyes. He turns his head a little and shows a small incision mark behind his ear, already mostly healed. "I – reprogrammed a medical droid to do it – and erased it's memory afterwards."

-

So that was also a bit meh, so after that I just got a word generator thing and had it spew out buncha words at me to use as prompts for snippet thing because I was getting bored and wrote this

-

1. stuff

Obi-Wan doesn't have much in way of possessions when he settles down on Tatooine.

A ship, which he quickly sells. The most of the money he got from selling it goes to purchasing a small plot of worthless land, it's only value being the little sandstone hut on it – and it's proximity to the Lars farmstead. Too rocky and too uneven for any sort of moisture farming and far too removed to be of interest to even the worst of local lowlifes, it's perfect for dissappearing. The rest of the money go to buying an eopie which, he suspects, he will end up selling soon as well.

Set of clothing, which thankfully fit Tatooine's local fashion well enough. Jedi aren't so commonly seen here that people would immediately recognize Jedi tunics – but the rough, simple material it's made of, now that is common. It's what the slaves wear. And like his, theirs is un-dyed as well. He fits right in, so as long as no one takes a closer look at the expect craftmanship of his utility belt and the high quality of his boots.

And then there are two lightsaber. One of which goes into a roughly hewn drawer in is new hut, and will stay there for the next several years if he has anything to say about it.

 2. satisfying

There is strange sort of gratification in getting his little, insignificant life in order. His little sandstone hut has a single moisture vaporator in bad need of maintenance, and air conditioning unit which lets out a puff of smoke when he turns it on for the first time. The cooling unit for food stuff, that has a abandoned nest of something long dead inside it.

It takes him weeks to get the place into liveable state and even after that, it will be constant struggle against the elements, to keep them from claiming what little comfort he's managed to pull together in the place. Tatooine's atmosphere and the specific quality of the twin sun's radiation makes the daytime exhausting to people and corrosive to machinery – to live here is to strike a delicate balance of constant maintenance.

It's a welcome distraction from the constant hurt of absence and betrayal. At this point he's not sure which one is the worse, they vie for top place in his nightmares daily. One day he will learn to live with them. For now, he will avoid them as much as he can and any time he can push them aside in order to grab a wrench instead…

He almost learns to enjoy the work, even if it will never, ever compare to the life and duties of a Jedi. The first glassful of water he gets from the moisture vaporator is one of the sweetest he'd ever had.

 3. tiny

His universe slowly coalescence into that small space. Into Tatooine's twin suns, into Tatooine's deserts and dynes and eventually, into the cramped interior of his hut. The Republic and it's grand spaces, it's open halls and it's vast hyperlanes fades into the distant past and Obi-Wan's existence becomes a small, inconsequential thing.

Maybe somewhere someone is looking for him… but he doubts it.

There's not much of him left to be found, these days.

 4. daughter

Bail sends him one communication, a year into his isolation. It has an actual message on it, which Obi-Wan listens to once before deleting it. The less he knows about the rebellion Bail is building… the better.

The holographic photograph of Leia Organa he keeps.

- - -

Except this turned out to be just “obi-wan just like being in tatooine?” and not the interesting timetravelly AU i was thinking and I got bored with that too

So yeah this is what a bad writing day for me looks like :|

[doopcafe]

The Clone Wars: Water War (4x01)

Summary: I have no idea? Squid things fight against Ackbar’s people underwater and nothing makes sense. 

Comments: Let me start off by saying that a shirtless Kitt Fisto was something I really didn’t need to see. 

Let me next say that twenty seconds of spoken exposition is insufficient to get me to care about what’s happening. 

Since the last series of episodes introduced a Cardboard Tarkin, this episode felt the unnecessary need to introduce a Cardboard Ackbar. 

The fish people don’t fare very well against the combined droid and squid army, but survive the first few minutes of confused battle. The squid people then bring in their secret weapon, an electric jellyfish that just sorta slowly floats around? 

Being secret and non-indigenous to the planet, only characters who have read the script know what it is, so we get this confused bit of dialogue:

Fish Prince: We have no defense against those. Anakin: This isn’t going to be easy.

But... what? What are those things? What do they do? Are they dangerous? What is their method of attack? 

Without knowing any of these things, the Fish Prince claims they can’t defend against them. Okay? This later proves to be true, as their blasters are ineffective against the jellies and they’re forced to swim away. If he already read the script, why didn’t he immediately swim away? Why did he wait to give the order to attack until the jellies were right on top of them? 

Our favorite ham sandwich, Anakin Skywalker, loses his helmet to a random soldier who’s smart enough to pull it off of him. Anakin flails around but gets distracted by other soldiers attempting to finish the kill as his helmet drops into the abyss and he starts to drown. There’s no point here, I just wanted to mention that with some bare minimum of writing ability, it is possible to set-up scenes where the main characters are in jeopardy. Of course, this is The Clone Wars so any chance at tension is dissolved by frequent cutaways of Ahsoka driving around her stupid speeder bike thing towards Anakin. 

Also, why do the blaster bolts not create steam? You know, vaporized water? Same question regarding the lightsabers. Did the animators just not want to bother? Coming from a show that doesn’t know how DNA works, it’s more likely they don’t understand phase changes of water? 

There’s a scene where the fish people are floating through a tube that gets cut in half and there’s a cutaway scene looking back at the section that’s falling towards the ocean floor. But like, the fish people that were on that side of the tube are like flailing around screaming like they’re falling out of a building... but like, they’re fish? They’re fish. In water. Everything’s water? The people are fish?

The worst part of this episode is when it ended, because the “story” hadn’t completed, which means I’ve gotta sit through probably two more episodes of this decrepit omelette of a television show. In a way, I almost miss the standalone episodes; this serialized shit sucks. 

In conclusion, the fish prince is alive with Cardboard Ackbar and a handful of troopers. 

[propheticfire]

6 and 13 for the ask meme?

6. Who has the best hair?

You gotta admire Kix’s dedication, you really do. But Keeli’s takes dedication too, and is asymmetrical. And Edge has this gorgeous white-blond hair, wow.

13. One clone culture headcanon

(Partial credit goes to @thebisexualmandalorian on this one, for some late-night clone feels conversations.)

Clone pilots tell ridiculous stories about their brothers who’ve died. Like, massively untrue heroic tales, like the laws of physics don’t even work that way untrue. Other clones already think they’re crazy, but they hear these stories and they think that pilots have reeeaaally gone off the deep end.

They do this because they have nothing left of their brothers but stories. You go out in a dogfight in space, your fighter gets hit, it explodes, you’re gone. Vaporized. Nothing left. Not a dog tag or a scrap of armor or anything. You have nothing to leave your brothers to hold on to, nothing to even prove you existed except an empty bunk and a story. Turning their brothers into legends is the way clone pilots honor and remember them.

Clone trooper ask meme!

[krinsbez]

GI Joe: Remixed, Super-Soldiers

So, let’s talk super-soldiers GI Joe has two of 'em, the first being Sgt. Savage (as discussed previously), and the other being Super Trooper:

WRT the latter, all we have established A: he exists, B: he is a super-soldier, and C: Since his toy's filecard lists his real name as Paul Latimer, he is related to Gen. Hawk's disgraced naval buddy Adm. George Latimer who briefly defected to Cobra when he was forced to retire, as seen in the Sunbow cartoon episode "Sink the Montana!". Leaving the Joe's behind, let's talk baddies, starting with SKAR's resident super-soldier Wreckage, the character who, IMO, justifies the existence of GI Joe Extreme, and is not to be confused with the Joe of the same name. So, basic story; US Soldier on a mission that goes south, wakes up in a hospital where a General informs him he's going to be a guinea pig for super-soldier experiments, for the benefit of the US military. Several months of agonizing torture later, he's busted out by Iron Klaw, who offers him a chance at revenge. Betrayed by his country and transformed into a hideous freak, the super-soldier agrees; since the man he used to be is gone and all that's left is wreckage, he takes Wreckage as his new name. Of course, it was actually SKAR that did this to him, after shooting down the medevac chopper carrying him; something Count Von Rani has gone to a great deal of trouble from preventing him from ever finding out. He's an eight-foot tall angry wall of meat who makes Roadblock and Heavy Duty look like twigs, and is stronger than he looks with bulletproof (in the body armor sense, not the Superman sense) skin. At some point during the experiments he lost an eye and an arm, the latter being replaced by a bionic prosthetic that is not only stronger than his already ridiculously strong flesh-and-blood arm, but is laserproof, AND shoots lasers (which, side note, makes it probably the most advanced laser weapon on the planet.). He is not a happy man. To begin with, he's an ugly freak, he's a cripple (the arm is great for wrecking stuff, not so much for opening doorknobs or holding hands or, y'know, feeling things; and he still has only one eye), he has phantom limb syndrome, his bionic arm chafes where it rubs up against his flesh, and the simple fact that the human body is NOT supposed to be that big. Because, yes, while the scientists who made him into this...thing put in workarounds to prevent his combat effectiveness from being limited by weak bones, heart trouble, etc. they didn't do shit about the constant aches and pains. He's also really conflicted about what he does; I mean, he has a burning hatred of the US and the American world-system in general, the US military in particular, and the US Army in specific, and he will be forever grateful to Iron Klaw for (he thinks) rescuing him, but that doesn't mean he likes being a terrorist, he just doesn't see that he has any choice. He's in this weird position where he's the second-most reliable of Iron Klaw's generals (after Steel Raven), as he is neither a giggling psychopathic loon like Inferno or a backstabbing mercenary weasel like Rampage, and thus can generally be relied upon to carry-out his orders and not to go offscript and follow some insane/stupid plan to obtain some equally stupid/insane objective of his own devising, but at the same time he does have a conscience and will periodically flat-out refuse to do certain things. There's also that time when Iron Klaw offered to upgrade his bionic arm and Wreckage responded "I hate the one I already have, why would I want a 'better' one?", and then hung up the phone. Of course, there's also Serpentor, who in addition to being created by mixing-and-matching the DNA of some of history's greatest conquerors and military leaders, is slightly tweaked for superior physical performance and intelligence. Only slightly though; he's meant as a field commander, not a line soldier, after all, and stabilizing all those different sets of DNA was tricky enough as it is. And speaking of Serpy, there's his right-hand man, Venomous Maximus. In addition to having all the benefits of each type of animal-hybrid V-trooper, is also a clone of quite possibly the greatest military leader of the modern age, Gen. Hawk. Note that the original plan was to clone the late Gen. Flagg, but Hawk happened to be visiting his old friend Larry's grave when Serpy rolled up to steal the body, and decided this would be even better. Speaking of the V-Troops (who, to be clear are mostly people altered by animal Genes, not the other way 'round, nor are they generally made in tanks), I have long wanted to have a discussion one the pros and cons of the various mass-produced super-soldiers, including, but not limited to, BATs, Bio-Vipers (note that, despite the name, are not actually Vipers, IE trained soldiers, but fully-artificial constructs), Nano-Vipers*, Cyber-Vipers*, IRON Stormtroopers, Blue Ninjas, Zaps, Skyrenes, your basic Cobra-La guys (unsurprisingly, the masters of bioengineering have tweaked their soldiers for superior performance) and I'm probably missing some. That said, we've only discussed the former two. To wit: Bio-Vipers are protoplasmic goo made of modified plant material that's been made to assume a humanoid shape. They're hella strong, can take lots of punishment cuz they don't have any internal organs to damage, and can reconstitute themselves if bits of 'em are separated off, by say, getting shot at. And they can get bigger and stronger by absorbing biomass, Blob-style. And they have "stretching powers". The original prototype version was only slightly more intelligent than the plants they're made out of; all they know to do is to absorb organic material (also, they can feel pain, because Mindbender is a creep). That said, they become more intelligent as they get older, able to learn and adapt, albeit slowly:

The mass-produced variety has an implanted control module that interfaces with what passes for their nervous system, giving them a boost in the intelligence department, and enabling them to be useful soldiers. The control module also keeps them from getting too smart, keeping them at around an ape-level of intelligence, or absorbing too much biomass.

Theoretically, their lack of native intelligence can be bypassed by having a person control them mentally, but Mindbendber is still working the kinks out of that. 

Bio-Vipers are cheaper than the BATs; once you've got a certain amount of Bio-Viper goo, all you need to do is keeping adding biomass and it'll keep replicating. You just scoop some out, stick in a control module (which I imagine isn't that much more expensive to make than, say, a smartphone), zap 'em with the animating machine, and you're good to go. The main cost is maintenance of the animating machine and the assembly line robots. Meanwhile, the BATs require a a constant flow of specialized materiel, which then has to be made into electronics and mechanical parts, and then those parts assembled into a BAT. On the plus side, you can use expendable slave laborers in place of expensive industrial robots for certain portions of the work. The big advantage of BATs compared to human soldiers is that they don't get tired and they're nigh-indestructible; it takes a colossal amount of firepower to take them down. Like, if you aren't equipped to fight a tank, don't even bother trying. They're also massively inhumanly strong, have somewhat superior speed and reflexes than humans, and they require less maintenance than human troops, but these are less important. (also they don't disobey orders or have bad morale and such) The big advantage of Bio-Vipers compared to human soldiers is that they're self-repairing; it's only somewhat harder to take them down that it would a human soldier in body armor, but getting them to stay down requires either a lucky shot that takes out the control module, specialized chemical weapons, or a big enough boom to vaporize them entirely (IE you've taken out the whole area) The big problem with the BATs is that they're dumb and need a constant stream of instructions. The big problem with the Bio-Vipers is that without a control module, they either turn into the Blob, get smart enough to think for themselves, or both. Unfortunately, the way the control module interfaces with what passes for a Bio-Vipers nervous system means that, once one is installed, if the control module is heavily damaged, the Bio-Viper is de-animated, making it marginally easier to put them down. Although some would argue this is a good thing, since see what happens to a Bio-Viper without one. Note that is theoretically possible, if a control module is damaged or removed in certain particular ways, for the Bio-Viper to NOT de-animate. This is unlikely, but the possibility has led to some sleepless nights.

There are probably other types of super-soldiers (Revanche’s Blue Ninjas, for example) but we have yet to discuss ‘em.

*Quite a few types of Viper have been augmented for superior performance of one kind or another, but these are the only ones where it's sufficient to be counted as super-soldiers, I think.