#and the apparent lack of thumbs threw me off a bit with the lightsaber? how does he hold things?

[redbean-nom]

Beast Squadron - Phoenix Cell, 2BBY

featuring adult Omega, the cadets from the sarlacc planet, and adult Bayrn as their resident jedi!

Thoughts, details, and individual shots below the cut:

Their squad name is from the fact that both of their big inaugural missions were related to some sort of giant monster - the cadets killed the jungle sarlacc and Omega (with bayrn's not-help) released the zillo. All the cadets have a sarlacc motif on their armor (though Stak's isn't as visible since it's mostly on his helmet), and Omega and Bayrn both have a zillo design.

Omega was promoted from pilot to fulcrum-adjacent strategic officer. The cadets are probably commando cadets (or at least CCs of some sort), so Mox (beardy) is commando-adjacent, Deke (white streak) is ARC-adjacent, and Stak (buzzcut) is a lead pilot. Bayrn is just there to fill the token jedi position lol.

Younger-adult designs:

Omega

Mox, Deke, & Stak

Some fun facts and details:

All the clones are the same height; Mox and Stak are just standing on boxes of varying heights to make the shot work

Mox and Stak got their scars in the same incident

Deke is also their squad's Tech Guy

Stak's tattoo is a thermal detonator over his inhibitor chip scar

Deke's jaig eyes are from the jungle sarlacc mission - the tattoos are a little blurrier/more faded in this one than in his younger-adult design

Adult Bayrn is here because Baby Bayrn was the only kid entirely unphased by extreme violence

Everyone except Omega has a Rebellion insignia somewhere on their armor

Omega has a Bad Batch skull (not super visible in this pic but it's poking out a bit) instead of the rebellion logo

The gauntlet/vambrace with the green stripe is Omega's only standard white clone armor

Stak is wearing a clone pilot chest box over a rebel pilot flightsuit

My original adult-Deke design had blond dyed hair but it made him look a bit too much like Rex

Omega's crossbow-bow is a combination of the nightsister energy bows, her original zygerrian energy bow, and Echo's green bolt crossbow

They're part of Phoenix Cell because Hera wanted Omega to do strategy stuff

Everyone's lost at least one armor piece compared to their younger-adult designs

Alternate cuts:

Just the clones

Individual shots

[carterashofficial]

the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you touch them.

it got long but I have no regrets (feat Arcann and Fiika)

He hadn’t said anything as she was dragged away, screaming about wanting to live, screaming his name. Desperation. It’d happened too fast. Vaylin was there. Father was dead.

And this outlander spy had been kind to him for no reason. She had nothing to gain; there was simply nothing manipulative about her kindness.

The chrono on the wall said it was into the early hours of the morning.

Arcann rolled over onto his side and the cortosis covering of his arm socket dug into his flesh. He couldn’t her out of his head, that little bit of kindness, that hand she’d offered to help him up. Father had been shot down, there were tears of grief and fury staining her cheeks.

Her glove was warm against his hand.

The.... the....

Why was she kind?

He turned onto his back, staring at the canopy over his bed.

Fool. You let her be frozen, you didn’t keep you promise to give her whatever she wanted.

She’s alive, in carbonite. Alive.

Is living as a prisoner, unaware of time or yourself, really living? Fool.

Arguing with himself was getting him nowhere. Just conflicted emotions and guilt that, despite everything he’d tried, he couldn’t stamp out. Arcann rose and dressed. If he owed that Imperial spy anything, it would be making sure she was alive. Just... to satisfy himself.

He kneaded his forehead, trying to will the headache away. Izak take the socialites, all of them. Indo Zal was tolerable, at best, but the others... He lacked the patience to suffer through their selfish ploys.

“They think they hold power,” Arcann continued. “Vanity is not power. You understand what power truly is, to change the galaxy with a choice. Your files. They detailed your work to stop Father... He was referred to as Vitiate. He consumed your homeworld.”

Fiika Allos’ carbonite figure didn’t talk back. She never talked back; not for the three years he’d been secretly visiting the trophy room just to speak and vent and think things out aloud to her. Vaylin wouldn’t understand his annoyances; nor would her solutions be... peaceful. But Fiika, the girl who’d been kind once, who he still felt guilt over.

Arcann sighed. It’d been too long. Melting her out now would just... she would hate him. three years, she’d been frozen and the galaxy had changed. He didn’t wish to consider what she would think of him. How she had made a mistake with her kindness; he deserved nothing; he couldn’t even keep a simple promise.

It would be best to not dwell on it.

He headed towards the door to the lifts, and paused. The Force was singing, telling him to stay back, warning him... ever so faintly. Arcann couldn’t pinpoint the source.

So he left.

Arcann supposed he ought to get up off his couch and get ready for bed, but the feeling in the Force, that something was coming, the foreboding in his gut, wouldn’t leave. If something wasn’t wrong yet, it was about to become very very wrong.

And his mind kept drifting back to Fiika.

He’d only thought about her this much during the first few weeks he’d been Emperor; when his conscience get to the best of him and he had to check on her.

The hand she’d offered to pull him to his feet, the casual kindness about it. How she’d thanked him on his flagship. “I don’t think I would’ve wanted to spend the last bits of my life alone,” she’s admitted thickly.

She was.... sincere. No hidden emotions. Honest. The pure fury and grief when she couldn’t be quelled when Father attempted speaking to her.

What am I thinking?

He shook his head. There were too many things to do tomorrow, and the GEMINI-

The Force surged.

Fiika.

Something was wrong, very very wrong, in the carbonate trophy room.

She ran giggling through the streets, her cousins chasing her. Flimsi lanterns, every color imaginable, swung overhead like acrobats. Fiika ducked under one of the stall tables, around a vat of something that smelled deliciously caramel, and burst out into an alley.

Her cousins’ calls of her name died down, the market fading.

A breeze slipped through her school uniform.

No, that wasn’t right. Fiika frowned down at the red skirt and worn shoes. She was too old for school, and besides, she could afford a new pair of shoes. Mum and Luuko-

Fiika tried to run back into the Ziost market. 

No, no, let that be a nightmare-

Logic told her that this was the nightmare. She was too old for the school uniform, her cousins; Mum, Luuko, Uncle Garo- they had been on Ziost when-

No, no no no no-

The market was empty. The lanterns torn, colorless. No delicious scents; only... nothing.

A fat flake of snow drifted down, leading the charge. More and more slowly tumbled from the heavy clouds. They didn’t stop, not until the whole street was just fields of white, blinding white-

She was too cold. The uniform coat wasn’t meant to keep her warm in a snowstorm, the stockings under her skirt weren’t thermal-

The light was burning through her eyelids-

There was a flash of warmth before the sensation of falling gave way to blackness.

He could feel how cold she was through his sleeve.

Fiika was blue-lipped, eyes rolling around deliriously, clinging to him. Ice was still clumped in her hair, crusted in her eyebrows. The scientists could figure out how the carbonate freezing had failed later.

She was too cold, dangerously cold. 

‘Arcann! I want to live! I WANT TO LIVE!’

Memories of her yells echoed in his mind. He owed her that much. Fiika had to live, she had to survive- Guilt flared up in his chest. Guilt that he could have killed the one person who’d been kind to him, when he wanted more of the kindness he never deserved-

The lift opened and he ran down the corridors. The med-bay would be prepared for her, the doctors would save her, they had to-

This one source of kindness could not die-

A doctor was waiting, cot surrounded by medical droids. Behind them, a kolto tank bubbled away without it’s lid.

Arcann handed her over.

His bare thumb brushed her temple, her skin, and something shifted, something turned whole- Something that Mother used to sing about before she left.

Something he pretended he hadn’t felt, but would analyze later.

That moment was seared into his brain, the- the- He didn’t even know what to call it, but it’d made Fiika his weakness. An obvious weakness, one that even Vaylin could see and tease. She made a point of it, before she left, to remind him that his little crush on Fiika Allos was silly and foolish.

She hadn’t sensed the horrid battle he was raging against himself on the inside.

His flagship would be down within the hour. SCORPIO and the GEMINIs had betrayed him. The Fleet was firing on his flagship, the Gravestone alternating between targets.

Arcann had lost.

Mother and Vaylin and that Jedi Pattik were somewhere dueling, the Sith was fighting his knights-

He could sense her, right outside the bridge door. Arcann flicked the switch to open it.

Fiika, but not Fiika, thundered in. Father’s eyes glowed orange over the rim of the Knight shield, she carried herself as the galaxy would revolve around her. Arrogance was not one of Fiika’s traits, either.

Arcann watched her.

The embers in her eyes flickered as she fought for control.

Do not let him win.

She was screaming for it all to end; the nightmares, reliving Ziost’s fall, his force-damned bloody awful voice in her head.

Fiika was nearing the door to the bridge; eyeing the Knights guarding it-

She was stepping over the Knights, purple lightning arcing off her hands, Valkorian chuckling in her ears-

Get out!

‘I have saved you the effort of fighting these Knights.’

Out of my bloody head you foul louse!

Fiika watched her hands adjust how they held the Knight shield and pike. It felt awkward, but Valkorian was apparently in control-

Bastard!

The bridge door opened and she put full effort into at least holding the shield properly to block a force-thrown anything.

Valkorian’s chuckling halted when Arcann didn’t attack instantly. With that, she had full control of her body back.

Fiika dropped the pike and shield as she broke into a run towards Arcann. “Kill me!”

She’d been expecting him to either not listen, or gladly do as she said. They were enemies, he’d already near-fatally wounded her on Asylum, hunted her across the galaxy, put a bounty the size of a Hutt’s pleasure barge on her head.

Obviously he would want to kill her.

He didn’t even draw his lightsaber.

“No!” Fiika whirled out a dagger and spun at him, trying to goad him into fighting back. Then she could miss a parry, and-

Arcann wasn’t even using his lightsaber. He was dodging her strikes or blocking them.

“KILL ME! KILL VALKORIAN!” She needed the nightmares to end, the pain to end. Valkorian had to die, he had to. And he was in her, so she had to die. He would die, and she would stop seeing Ziost in her dreams. 

Fiika threw her dagger aside and wailed at Arcann. “FIGHT BACK!”

“No.”

“KILL ME, I-” The words were caught in her throat. “I can’t fight him anymore. And if he wins, if he- he- there’ll be another Ziost, and I’ll have to witness the nightmares again and again and again-”

Arcann had gone still, and she took her chance, vision blurry through tears. Fiika lashed out, boot aimed towards his center of gravity-

And he dodged her.

She crumpled to the ground.

Valkorian would win, he would take her body, destroy her soul. More Ziosts, more death, more pain and- and- She couldn’t witness it anymore. Sobs wracked her body. If she didn’t die, if she and Valkorian didn’t die- Fiika couldn’t face another night of seeing Ziost fall.

“Please,” she whispered, voice rough. “Please, I can’t- If you kill me, you kill him. End this, Arcann, please.” 

Arcann was standing over her. His lightsaber had been dislodged from his belt whilst avoiding her clumsy attacked.

Fiika picked it up, thoughts racing too fast through her mind for them to seem coherent. Perhaps it was the sleepless nights. She could always use the lightsaber herself.

He seemed to read her expression, and knelt beside her. “Fiika.”

She swiped at the tears. “Please. To end Valkorian.” And she pressed the lightsaber into his palm, her bare fingers pressed against his.

It was like something smacked her in the chest, something clicked, something became whole and warm, like one of her old childhood scratchy sweaters had been forced onto her soul.

Something that changed everything and nothing.