#think i picked up the alpha!99 hc from yukipri

[wantonlywindswept]

CC Batch Aurek: Geonosis

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more slightly-weird batch shenanigans!

so cody said he wasn’t on geonosis which i have Opinions about, and apparently we are continuing the outsider POV on this so all aboard the alpha-99 headcanon train, choo choo motherfuckers

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When the Jedi finally showed up to take his brothers to war, 99 didn't go to the comm station, where most of them were loitering. He didn't wait for official news from Geonosis, or even go to the cadet barracks to help soothe the young ones, who were panicking now that their futures loomed all too near.

Instead, he went to find Cody.

Cody wasn't all that hard to find, admittedly: he was laid up in the infirmary and furious about it, and locating him mostly involved searching for the bed with the fewest number of people nearby.

99 could almost feel the rage emanating from the back of the medbay, but he was used to dealing with brothers at their most volatile.

He made his way over, and Cody's head snapped up, a snarl on his lips until he realized who it was.

"99," he rasped. The entire left side of his face was bruised, bacta patches and bandages laid liberally over and around his broken orbital bone, and his eyes were dangerously, unevenly dilated. 

"Kote," 99 greeted, keeping his voice low and gentle. He eased himself into one of the five empty chairs arrayed around the bed. "How are you?"

Cody's hands curled into fists, crumpling the bedsheets beneath them. He hissed out a low, tightly-controlled breath.

"I'm here."

And, truly, 99 knew that was the worst place he could be.

All of the Alpha class knew about Aurek: partially because they had eyes and could see the oddity in the batch and their adopted CT, and partially because Alpha-17 had--entirely unnecessarily--threatened them with bodily harm should they say anything. Those six brothers were connected to each other in ways even they couldn't explain, and usually didn't try to. 

99 knew that he himself would be useless on the warfront, that he could only be a hindrance to his brothers--and it was still tearing him apart inside that he couldn't go to Geonosis with them.

It had to be a thousand times worse for Cody.

"We haven't been this far apart since we decanted," Cody said, something manic in his voice, something bright and feverish in his eyes. "We're not supposed to be this far apart. I can't protect them if I'm not there, and if I lose them-- 99, if this war takes them from me, I don't know what I'll do."

Alpha-17 had mused, once, that the only reason Aurek hadn't been decommissioned for their strangeness was because the Kaminoans were more afraid of what would happen if they tried. 

99 had thought he was joking, at the time.

"Do you feel them now?" he asked, laying his hand over Cody's white knuckles. "Are they safe?"

Cody blinked at him.

Perhaps he had expected a bit too much out of someone with a grade three concussion, Aurek batch or no.

"You've always been able to tell where your batchers are," 99 reminded him gently. "You all could find each other, deaf and blind, from clear across Tipoca City."

He reached up, touching Cody's cheek just below the bandages.

"The only way we found that battle circle was because they knew you were hurt and could lead us there. Have you tried reaching out for them at all?"

Cody frowned, his nose scrunched up just like it did when he was a cadet. He rubbed his chest in small little circles, just over his heart.

"They're so far away," he said quietly. "But..."

There was a kind of hum, a tingle of something in the air, and 99 watched as Cody closed his eyes and exhaled a slow breath.

"Rex feels...tired," he said eventually. "They all feel tired. Gree might actually be asleep. Bly is--excited? I think he just met a Jedi for the first time. Fox feels stressed, and Wolffe is--"

Cody let out an exasperated sigh, opening his eyes.

"Wolffe," he said flatly, "Is having a great time."

99 chuckled. The entirety of Aurek--which had grown to include Rex, these past four years--were all a little bit feral, but Wolffe always had been more unhinged than the rest.

"But they're well?" he confirmed. 

Cody nodded. Some of the buzzing intensity around him faded, the tight set of his shoulders easing now that he was no longer hyperfocused on worrying about his absent batchmates. 

It settled 99's worst fears, as well: if the rest of Aurek was okay, that meant at the very least some of his brothers had survived. And it was extremely likely that significantly more had, too: all five were Command-trained--Rex was a CC in all but designation--and they would have been assigned battalions of their own to lead. 

They would have fought tooth and nail to keep their troops alive.

"They'll be okay," Cody murmured, eyelids drooping. "They'll come back to me."

"They will," 99 agreed softly. He wondered if Cody's injuries were finally asserting themselves over his tired body--or if whatever strange connection he had to his batchmates was harder to bridge, with such distance between them. 

He stayed until Cody fell asleep, able to take care of at least one more brother before the rest were sent off to war.