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writer1 · 3 years

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A regretful Wolf and his Beauty

Chapter Six

Beast!Rex x Fem!reader.

Summary: As punishment for his actions, young prince Rex was cursed to become a monster by a witch. The only thing that saved him from his fate was an enchantress, who gave him a condition. He has to find true love in order to redeem himself and he only has until the last petal of the enchanted rose falls. Rex's family helps you by guiding your way into his heart. Rex's fate now lies in your hands.

A/N: Hey, this is a collaborative fic between myself and @ahsokatano-thetogruta.

Warnings: Hurt, hatred of self.

Rex sees everyone around him shuffle as best they can towards him a bit more, but not too close as to make him feel uncomfortable. A small dessert fork hop over towards him. "Rex! I'm glad you're okay." The little fork smiles with relief that his Vod'ika is okay. It takes Rex a second to know who this is, but then he sees patterns along the handle. "Bly?" The small fork nods.

"Yeah, I'm glad you're okay Rex. We were all so worried as soon as you ran away from us." Rex feels guilty that he had run away from everyone, but he was also so scared and hated that everyone transformed because of him.

"I'm sorry this happened. To all of you. I should've just controlled my actions more, then…" Rex's ears press back against his head harshly, trying to avoid eye contact from everyone as much as he possibly can. "Then this wouldn't have happened to you all."

Everyone disagrees, shaking their heads as much as they can, seeming as they are now objects. "It's okay, Rex. This was never your fault." Bly hops over to Rex and leans against him, giving him as much of a hug as he can. Rex feels slightly better with a hug and his ears perk up slightly. His tail starts to wag from the happy feeling. Rex grabs his tail, feeling embarrassed that it's wagging in front of everyone.

“It’s okay Rex, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” Rex nods, hugging his fifteen year old brother with one hand carefully. He acts so much older than he is sometimes. “Everyone's right young one, this isn’t your fault.” Rex looks up to see another suit of armor, this one has a helmet that looks like a Kel Dor’s, Rex realizes that it’s Knight Plo. He’s followed by four little tea cups, one with a scratch through its eye. “Uncle Plo.” Rex whispers, the thirty-five year old Knight walks up to him.

He pets his head, not like he’s a dog but like he’s trying to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay, we’ll all figure this out. Together.” the little teacup with the scratch through his eye hops up. “Yeah Rex, we’ll all figure it out together, like Buir said.” Rex nods, recognizing the little teacup to be Wolffe.

“Thanks Wolffe, what happened to your eye?” Rex asks, and Wolffe flinches a little at the memory. “The witch threw a glass at me, it cut my eye, I can’t see out of it now.” Rex carefully picks Wolffe up, taking a closer look at his eye.

“WHAT!!!” Kix comes flying over to them, getting in between the two, he takes a close look at Wolffe's eye while Rex, Plo, and Wolffe’s brothers watch. Kix sighs. “I can’t fix it, even if we were human. You’re blind in that eye now, Vod’ika.” Rex whines, feeling bad for his Vod’ika. He pulls the teacup up to his face, nuzzling him.

“Thanks Rex, it’s okay. It’s just one eye.” Rex pulls him away, resisting the urge to lick him to comfort the kid, he has no idea why the urge came up and he’d rather not. “I hate that she hurt you, she already transformed us but she had to take your eye too.” A deep growl emanates from Rex’s chest, startling everyone, including himself. "Sorry…"

"It's alright, we have all changed so we are all bound to be different in some way." 99 shuffles over, the bad batch follows close behind him. 99 wishes that the young prince could see his smile, but being an old-looking broom means that he doesn't have a face. Rex nods, he understands that everyone has changed, but he feels bad because some of them don't have faces anymore and most of them don't even have anything that resembles that they were once people.

Ahsoka strokes the fur on Rex's finger, still hugging it. "Yeah, you're just a giant puppy now!" Her little face is too adorable and Rex just chuckles at her. "I guess I am, little Soka." Her smile beams brightly as she nuzzles Rex.

"I love how soft it is." She adds, making some of the others make little aw sounds at the young Togruta, because of how adorable she is.

Rex smiles shyly "It is?" Ahsoka giggles a little, nodding her head. "Yup!" A moment later, Rex's stomach growls loudly, making the little music box jump. He feels embarrassed and his cheeks heat up. 99 chuckles at Rex. “Looks like you're going to have to get the boy some food, Cody. We’ll all talk more tomorrow, it's starting to get late anyway.” Cody nods at the broom as best he can, shuffling over to Rex.

“Yeah, we’re going to bed once we get him something to eat, does anyone want to come to the kitchen with us?” Obi Wan, Kix, Jesse, Anakin, Bly, Fives, Ahsoka and Echo walk up to them. “Kiara and Padme offered to put Stutter to bed for us. He's tired, but Ahsoka isn’t yet, or so she says.” Fives explains, but Cody shakes his head.

“You four should be going to bed too, it's late. You too Anakin.” Obi Wan nods, agreeing with Cody. Fives and Echo have pleading looks on their faces, so does Bly, Anakin would too if he could, but Cody stands firm. “Can they… can they please come Cody. I need you guys around me, even if it isn’t everyone.” Rex pleads, making Cody sigh. He can’t say no with how much his Rex’ika is hurting right now.

Cody turns to Obi Wan, who nods in permission for Anakin to come. “Fine, you can all come, but as soon as Rex is done, everyone is going to bed. Understood!?” they all nod, including Rex, and start heading to the kitchen while everyone who can move head to their rooms, the ones who can’t are camping out in the ballroom for the night.

Rex and the little group make it to the kitchen, Rex is once again walking behind the others. “Rex! Cody! Somebody!” they both turn to see a talking Oven mitt with eyes and a mouth. Rex knows only one cousin that would be turned into an oven mitt. “Gregor?” Rex asks, but the Oven mitt looks at them, more precisely at Rex, with wide eyes.

“What the kriff is that monster!” Rex whimpers, dashing through the kitchen and out of the door, Cody feels absolute anger at his cousin. They just got Rex to feel better about himself, and Gregor might have completely destroyed it.

Obi Wan strokes Cody’s desktop, trying to calm him down, even though Obi Wan is just as angry. “Why the kriff did you say that to Rex, Gregor?!” Gregor raises an eyebrow at them. “What are you talking about? That's not Rex, Rex isn’t a beast! Wait, Cody?!”

Cody feels confusion fill him, then the realization occurs to him. He couldn't see who, but someone leaves the kitchen and the door shuts behind them, but his attention turns back to the situation at hand “Gregor? Where were you when everything happened?” The oven mitt floats over to the desk, not believing what his cousin has become.

“I came to the kitchen shortly after you invited Miss Ventress in because we got a shipment of supplies for waffles and strawberries. I wanted to surprise Rex. Not long after we brought the supplies in, I felt pain as I started to change. Then this happened.” Cody sighs, Gregor wasn’t in the room when the curse happened so he had no way to know that Rex was a werewolf, and no one checked the kitchen, they forgot about it at the time.

“Ventress was a witch, Gregor. She spilled a drink on Rex on purpose, Rex had a stressful and just plain bad day, so he snapped at her. She cursed us to be objects but Rex… His curse was much worse.” Gregor can’t believe it, they invited Ventress in out of the goodness of their hearts, how could she do this! Then Gregor’s heart sinks when he realizes what Cody means.

“You mean… That was Rex!!!” Everyone nods sadly, Gregor can’t believe that he said that. “I… I didn’t… I’m so sorry.” Gregor tears up, thinking about how what he said must have affected Rex.

“It's okay, Gregor. You didn’t know that it was Rex.” Gregor nods, he has to fix this.

xxx

Rex bursts through the kitchen door running away from everyone as fast as he could, but he doesn’t run all the way away this time, he runs down the hall a little ways. Tears run down his face as he still thinks about what Gregor said, this was the first time someone in his family actually called him a monster, and it made his heart ache. Rex sits against the wall, tail wrapped around his legs with tears streaming down his face and into his fur.

He sits like this for a few moments before he hears the kitchen door swing open. He flinches with fear, but then he sees Ahsoka. Seeing her big brother cry makes her feel sad. She hops over to him and presses herself against his leg. Rex puts his face in his knees as the memory of Gregor calling him a monster clouds his thoughts. "Don't cry, Ori'Vod. It's okay, he probably didn't know that it was you." She hears Rex sobbing into his knees.

Ahsoka doesn't know what to do, but then she walks in front of Rex and turns round the little key in the back of the box. Once it stops turning, it goes the other way and starts to play a relaxing song. Rex's sobs soon turn into sniffles and hiccups as he looks up a little bit to see Ahsoka twirling around on the spot and dancing to the tune. Ahsoka's older appearance makes the dance much more elegant and beautiful, allowing Rex's mind to relax and take his mind off of what happened earlier, so he sits contently watching his little sister dance.

Rex wipes the tears away as they start to dry and he smiles. His tail wrapped around his legs wags gently, letting Ahsoka know that she is cheering up her Ori'Vod. She smiles and giggles a little, but the song and dance soon comes to the end as the key has stopped moving. Rex smiles at her. "Thank you, Soka. I feel better now." Rex pats her head gently with one finger.

Ahsoka giggles again and then hugs his finger. "I'm glad, Ori'Vod." A moment later, the kitchen door swings open again, but this time it's Gregor who steps out and floats over to the two of them.

Rex whimpers, looking down at the ground. His ears press tightly against his head and his tail stops wagging, tears filling his eyes again. Gregor's heart breaks, he can't believe that he called his cousin a monster.

"Can you go back into the kitchen, Ahsoka. I need to talk to Rex alone." Ahsoka looks at Gregor nervously, she doesn't want to leave Rex with him after what he said last time.

"Come along Ahsoka, leave these two to talk." Obi Wan walks out of the kitchen, gently picking up the little music box. He carries her into the kitchen, allowing Cody to explain to her what had happened.

Rex stays sitting, looking down at his feet. He doesn't want to see the look of disgust that Gregor must have.

Gregor feels his heart break when he sees the tears in Rex's eyes, The oven mitt floats over to his cousin, landing beside him. "I… Rex, I am so sorry." Rex doesn't look up, and Gregor feels his heart break even more.

"Rex? Can you please look at me?" Rex obliges reluctantly, looking up at his cousin. He has tears in his eyes, and Gregor can see the damp fur under Rex's eyes. He knew that he had messed up. Badly.

"Rex, I'm so sorry. You aren't a monster." Rex just shakes his head. "No. You're right, I am a monster now." Gregor's heart shatters, he absolutely hates hearing Rex talk about himself like that. And knowing he caused this hurts even more.

"Rex, no! I was wrong! You aren't a monster. I shouldn't have said what I said earlier, I regret it so much." Rex doesn't say anything, but his eyes just fall to the ground again. "I…I understand if you hate me now and don't forgive me for what I called you." Gregor floats a little bit down to the ground and the guilt really sinks in for making his cousin, the Prince, feel this way.

Rex looks up a little to see Gregor turning around and slowly floating back towards the kitchen. Seeing the sad oven mitt made Rex's heart feel so somber, that Gregor thinks that he hates him now. Before he could float away any further, Rex gently cups his hands in front of Gregor and carefully pulls him into his fluffy chest. "I don't hate you, Gregor. You didn't know that it was me, but it just hurt me to be called a monster." A wave of regret washes over Gregor again.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know what I was thinking." Rex holds his cousin closer into him, being careful not to hurt him.

"It's alright, I know now that you didn't mean it towards me so we can put this behind us, yeah?" Gregor pulls away and looks up to see Rex smiling kindly at him. "Yeah." Gregor nods, he's happy that Rex could forgive him. Rex's stomach growls loudly, making the heat rise to his face. Gregor chuckles.

"That reminds me, the reason I came into the kitchen before was because I had a surprise for you, Rex." Rex's ears perk up, he smiles and his tail starts wagging. Rex groans, grabbing his tail. "That's really starting to get annoying." Gregor chuckles. Rex turns back to him, his look of annoyance turning to a smile.

"What's the surprise, Vod?" Gregor smiles at Rex. "Well I left the ballroom because we got a shipment in for Waffles and strawberries." Rex's whole body perks up, and his tail starts wagging faster. But Rex doesn't notice this time.

"Can you maybe make me some, Gregor? Please…?" Gregor smiles, outright laughing. "Of course, I can't let my baby cousin go hungry, now can I?"

"I'm not a baby." Rex grumbles, ears pressing back in anger. Gregor laughs at him happily, this is a normal conversation for them. "You will always be a baby to me!"

"You're only two years older than me!" Rex tells him angrily, but he secretly likes the normalcy of this conversation. "Well come on, let's get you some food." Rex nods, following the floating oven mitt back into the kitchen. Everyone turns to see Rex, they are all happy to see a smile on his face.

"Is everything good now?" Cody asks, shuffling over and pressing himself into Rex. "Yes, it's all good." He says, smiling towards Gregor who collects the ingredients for the waffles and strawberries, including some flour, eggs, butter, milk, baking powder and some sugar because he knows that Rex has a big sweet tooth.

He sets all of the ingredients down on the counter and then turns around to Rex. "Would you like to watch me make the waffles, Rex?"

"Yes please, that would be great to see how they are made." Being a prince meant that Rex didn't go in the kitchen a lot when the chefs were cooking because he would be sat down and ready for the food to be served.

"Great, would you mind grabbing a bowl for me please? It's a bit heavy for me to carry." Rex obliges and gets a large mixing bowl off of the shelf while Gregor grabs a spoon from the utensil pot. Rex places the bowl on the counter, stepping back to watch as Gregor puts all of the ingredients into the bowl and picks up the spoon, mixing everything together into a smooth batter. Rex is very intrigued, it all looks complicated but also very fun.

Gregor grabs a waffle mould placing it next to the bowl and then collects a ladle to make it easier to transfer the batter into the mould. He puts a ladle of mixture into each mould to make sure that they are equal in size. After the mould is full, Gregor heads over to an oven and places the waffles on a shelf. He grabs a sand timer for 15 minutes that'll let him know when they will be ready.

xxx

After the 15 minutes are up, Gregor grabs the waffles out of the oven. He takes them out, pulling the finished products out of the mould. "Can you grab a plate for me, Rex?" The boy nods, walking over and grabbing a plate out, he carries it over to Gregor. Rex is using the counter for support, practicing on two legs. He struggles a bit, but he manages.

Cody stays close by to catch him, just in case. So does Anakin and Obi Wan, Fives, Ahsoka and Echo are all watching along the side. Rex sets the plate beside Gregor, sitting down tiredly. "Great job, Rex'ika!" Cody tells him, making Rex smile. "Yeah, great job, Rex." Anakin walks over, patting Rex's shoulder. Rex smiles at his friend, thankful that both him and his big brother are proud of him.

Everyone who can give Rex a little applause, embarrassing him. Everyone who can't, which is Cody, Bly and Gregor, give him lots of encouragement. They tell him how good he did.

"Okay, enough embarrassing Rex. Are the waffles ready, Gregor?" The oven mitt looks up. "Oh, yeah, I just have to put the syrup on top of the strawberries and waffle." Gregor grabs the syrup, putting a good amount on the large stack. He made more since he figured that Rex is bigger, it makes sense that he'd eat more.

Rex sits down as he licks his lips, seeing one of his favorite meals. Gregor pushes it towards him, letting him eat it. Rex grabs a fork and a knife, fumbling to use them with his larger hands.

"It's fine, Rex. You can just eat off the plate." Rex looks down at Cody, ears drooping in embarrassment. He does not want to eat like an animal, at all. "It's fine little one, no one will judge you. We promise." Obi Wan tells him. "Yeah, Rex, it's okay, Ori'Vod." Fives tells him, trying to comfort his older brother.

Everyone nods in agreement. "Fives is right, we're your family. We aren't going to judge." Rex sighs, nodding at Anakin, he puts the knife and fork down. He leans in and starts taking bites out of the pile of waffles, using nothing but his mouth.

The others say nothing about it, they just talk amongst themselves. Bly, Gregor and Anakin strike up a conversation about what happened. While Echo and Fives have a nice conversation with Rex as he eats, keeping his mind off of how he's eating. They talk about everything from some prank the twins had pulled last week to a new book Rex had read. It was nice, it felt almost normal.

"How's the waffles, Rex?" Rex turns to Gregor, swallowing the bite that was in his mouth. "They are delicious Gregor, I absolutely love them." Gregor laughs. "I'm glad that you like them, I'll be sure to make you more in the morning." Rex nods quickly. "Yes please!" No one notices the way Kix is keeping an eye on Rex as he eats.

Rex finishes eating, but he realizes that he isn't full. He blinks in confusion, wondering why he wouldn't be full after so many waffles and strawberries. "I'm... I'm not full." He feels so nervous, he doesn't want to seem like he is being greedy after eating a lot already. His stomach growls ever so slightly and everyone just feels bad for him.

Kix thinks that he might know why Rex isn't full yet. "You might still be hungry because you are now physically like a wolf, so you can still eat some foods that you used to eat, but it won't be as nutritional as eating lots of meat. Which is the base of a wolf's diet."

Rex understands, but he feels bad that Gregor made all of those waffles but they didn't fill him up. "Sorry, Gregor. I loved them, but I feel like you've wasted your time making them for me and I'm not full." Gregor looks at Rex and shakes his head the best he can "No, it's alright Rex. I enjoyed making them for you and I'm glad you enjoyed eating them too. Would you like some meat now?" Rex feels weird about his mouth watering more than it was. It's almost as if his wolf-like instincts have kicked in. He feels shy but Gregor smiles and heads into the kitchen.

Sometime later, the sweet aroma of meat trails over to Rex as Gregor exits the kitchen carrying a plate of beef. "Here you go. I cooked it for you as well, the way you usually like it." Rex nods as he dives straight into it, feeling his hunger slowly go away as he finishes the plate of meat.

Rex smiles "Thank you, I'm glad you aren't mad at me that the waffles weren't enough." Gregor's expression turns into confusion. "I'm not mad at you in the slightest, Rex. You didn't know that you wouldn't be filled up with only these waffles, so it's not your fault." He smiles promisingly at Rex. "In the morning, I'll make you some more waffles and strawberries, along with some meat?"

"Yes please, that would be great thank you." Gregor nods. Smiling at Rex, who smiles back, Rex feels so lucky to have such a kind family. A moment later, Rex lets out a big yawn.

Cody chuckles "C'mon, Rex'ika. You must be exhausted. And I think we all are too." He looks around and sees everyone nod in agreement. "Let's get you to bed, Little one." Obi Wan places a hand on Rex's back. Rex stands up when Cody shuffles closer to him, so he steadies himself with Cody's help.

He tries to walk but he’s still wobbly, Rex does notice that he’s not as wobbly as before. Rex gets on all fours, he’s too tired to try to walk on two legs anyway. Cody carries Fives, Echo, Ahsoka and Bly.

Ahsoka has fallen asleep already, the three year old being exhausted. Fives and Echo are almost falling asleep to, leaning against each other, Bly is the only one out of them still fully awake. They walk up the stairs, Anakin and Rex are walking slow and sluggish. Rex stops when they get to his room, whimpering, he really doesn’t want to go in and see his destroyed clothes, another reminder of what happened. “It’s fine Rex’ika, we aren’t going to force you. You can sleep in my room.” Cody offers, and Rex sighs in relief.

“Thanks, Bubby.” Cody would have smiled if he could, They arrive at his room. Anakin followed because he wanted to tell Rex goodnight. “Would you all like to sleep together, tonight?” Cody asks, he's pretty sure that none of them want to sleep alone after what happened today. They all nod, especially Rex, everyone shuffles in to see Padmé, Kiara and Stutter already there sleeping, they wake up as soon as everyone walks in.

“Prince Cody, we’re so sorry. We must have fallen asleep with Stutter.” Both girls go to leave but Cody stops them. “It's okay, everyone’s having a sleepover here, would the two of you like to join?” They both nod.” I’m going to go and ask my parents.” Padmé tells them, flying off.

“Would you like to go and ask your parents Kiara?” The little feather duster tears up. “ I… I can’t find them. They went to grab something from town, but never came back.” “Well, don’t worry. We’ll find them, like I said you can stay here tonight.” She nods, wiping some tears out of her eyes, she flies over and presses against the desk. “Thank you, Prince Cody.” Cody does his best to nod.”you're welcome, but just call me Cody, okay?”

Kiara nods before flying over to Fives, who hugs her comfortingly. Rex grabs some extra pillows out of the cupboard, carrying them over and throwing them onto the floor. He lays down. “You guys can have the bed.” Rex suggests, but Kix shakes his head. “No, you are sleeping in the bed, you'll hurt your back otherwise.” Rex sighs, nodding. He lays down in the bed before Stutter, Bly, Fives, Kiara, Echo, and Jesse jump in, cuddling into Rex’s fur. Fives makes sure that he extinguishes his candles this time.

It brings Rex a lot of comfort, they all get comfortable, Obi Wan carries Ahsoka over while Anakin gathers up the blankets that Rex had, he bunches them up. Sitting against the bed near Rex’s face. Rex lays on his side while Stutter and Bly lay against his arm, Fives, Echo and Kiara lay against his stomach while Jesse lays on his shoulder.

Ahsoka sits on the desk beside him while Padme sleeps on Anakin’s shoulder once she returns. Kix sighs, but joins in next to his twin. They all fall asleep, while Obi Wan and Cody leave them be, it warms Cody’s heart that everyone would cuddle with Rex. He’s also thankful that Rex isn’t one to move in his sleep.

Obi Wan and Cody walk down the corridor to a different room to spend some alone time together. They've all had a busy and tiring day, so they are ready for some well needed rest. They find an empty spare room and share a look at each other before they go in. There's a bed, a wardrobe and a desk with a chair, so Obi Wan grabs the chair and sets it by the wall. He sits down in it and Cody shuffles closer in front of him. "How are you feeling, Cyare?" Obi Wan places his hand on Cody's table top.

"I'm alright, just tired is all Sweetheart. Today has been rough." Cody feels sad, playing the events from today over and over in his head. Obi Wan senses Cody's struggling emotionally, so he runs his finger over his scar that's in the form of a scratch on the table top.

Cody sighs, falling into a more relaxed state as Obi Wan continues to stroke his scar. "Would you like to talk about what's bothering you?" Cody wants to cry, feeling stupid about what is upsetting him, but maybe telling someone, especially his lover Obi Wan, will help him get it off of his mind. "I just...I find it so difficult now to get around to places. Now I can't walk anymore. I feel vulnerable and..." Cody begins to sob, unable to cry any tears.

"Oh Cody, it's going to be alright. We'll get through this together." Obi Wan continues to rub Cody's scar. "It's really difficult to feel anything physically, but I still feel things inside, like sensations. It's just strange. I don't feel like myself anymore." Obi Wan’s heart breaks, hearing what Cody is saying. He understands exactly what he means, Obi Wan feels the same way. He leans down, pressing his face against the top of Cody.

“Umm, what are you doing Sweetheart?” Cody asks, confused. Obi Wan pulls away, feeling embarrassed. “I… I was trying to kiss you, Cyare'' Obi Wan whispers, Cody can hear the embarrassment in his voice, but there's also sadness. Cody presses against Obi Wan’s leg. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I don’t mind, can you maybe kiss me again, please?” Obi Wan looks down at Cody, nodding. He leans down, pressing his face against Cody again. It’s the only way he can kiss Cody, he has no mouth. Cody finds the gesture comforting, even if it's not like the kisses they had shared before, it’s still better than nothing. Any kiss from his Obi Wan is amazing.

“I’m sorry, I can’t kiss you back Sweetheart.” Obi Wan strokes Cody’s scar, trying to comfort his boyfriend. “It’s fine, Cody.” The desk feels so bad, he can’t do anything for Obi Wan. He can’t even kriffing hug him!

“Do you still want to be with me, because you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I’d understand.” Obi Wan’s heart breaks. “No!! Why would I ever leave you?” Cody starts to shake a little. “Because I can’t do anything for you, I’m unable to do anything couples do. I can’t even hug you let alone kiss you.” Cody would be crying if he could, but all that comes out are sniffles and a few sobs, he’s trying to hold them back. Obi Wan stands up out of his chair, kneeling down and wrapping his arms around Cody the best we can.

“You aren’t the only one who’s changed in this relationship, Cody. I can’t kiss you either, I know it’s hard. I… I’m scared too, darling. I am so scared, I don’t even know what’s underneath my armor, is it just emptiness. Would I disappear if it was taken apart, would it even come apart or is this all me. Is there some disgusting mix of organs and metal in there?” Obi Wan shudders slightly at the thought, but Cody is there with him so he feels safe.

Cody presses into Obi Wan the best he can, trying to deepen the hug. "I still love you, Sweetheart. Nothing will ever change that, not even this. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, Obi Wan. I...I really and truly do, Sweetheart. I'm just glad you don't mind me looking like this." Cody can't gesture at his new form, but Obi Wan presses his helmet onto the edge of Cody's table top.

"Of course I don't mind you looking like this now. I've changed too, so you aren't alone in this, I'll be right here with you. Always." Obi Wan traces Cody's scar again, making Cody sigh with contemptment. "Mm, that still feels nice."

Obi Wan chuckles. "I'm glad that you still love it." Cody nods as much as he can, but he just enjoys the moment. "Very much."

Briefly, Obi Wan's yawn travels around the room as his vision goes a little bit bleary. He tries to hide it, but he doesn't want to stop giving Cody love and affection. "You can get some sleep if you'd like, Sweetheart." Hearing Cody's voice makes Obi Wan jump a little as he fights to stay awake. "Yeah, that might be best."

He leans on Cody for support as he stands up and sits back down into the chair. Cody shuffles himself closed to Obi Wan again. Obi Wan yawns again as he tries to figure out what position would be best to sleep now he's sat up. He usually lies in bed with Cody when he sleeps, so it's different not laying down like he's used to. But then he has an idea. "Cody?" He places his hand on Cody's table top. "Yes, Sweetheart?"

"Could… could I rest on you while I sleep, please?" Obi Wan asks shyly, making Cody confused as to why he has to ask. "Of course you can, Sweetheart. There's no need to ask."

"Thank you, Cyare." Obi Wan smiles as he leans down gently as to not make a loud clattering noise of his armour, he folds his arms and rests his head on them. He looks to see Cody's scar, so he traces it with a single finger again. "You're welcome, Sweetheart. I love you."

"I love you too, Cyare. I'll always love you, now and forever." And with that, Obi Wan struggles to stay awake much longer, drifting off into a peaceful sleep.

xxx

Rex wakes up with a startled gasp, tears threatening to fall, he almost sits up before remembering that his cousin’s, brother’s and friends are on him. He looks around, sighing in relief when he finds everyone still asleep. They are all in the same positions as before, Stutter and Bly by his arm, Fives, Echo and Kiara near his stomach, Ahsoka on the desk and both Jesse and Kix on his shoulder.

Rex feels something on his shoulder move before Jesse and Kix hop down in front of his face, Kix is sporting a worried expression. “Are you okay, Rex?” Kix asks, and Rex can’t hold back the tears. “No.” He whimpers, his nightmare had been about the curse, except nobody else transformed. They were all disgusted by him, his whole family hated him. Even his Bubby. Jesse jumps into action, moving up to Rex’s forehead and wrapping his arms around him the best he could. Kix presses himself against where Rex’s cheek is.

“Hey, it’s okay Rex. we’re here, do you want to talk about it?” Rex shakes his head no, and the twins look at eachother. “Do you want us to get Cody?” Kix asks this time, but Rex shakes his head again. “No, I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I already am.” The twins look at eachother again. “You aren’t a burden Rex, we love you.”

“I love you too, but that doesn’t make me any less of a burden, I’m going back to sleep now.” Rex closes his eyes, but Jesse and Kix already know that they need to tell Cody about this tomorrow.

taglist: @captainrexisboo @ellie1366 @pinkiemme @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @lightning-wolffe

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siennahrobek · 3 years

Text

Future Past

4/5 BBY

Ben stared at Cody, his face scrunched up in something of pain and the ever-aching sting of betrayal. This…was something he had never understood, why the clones had betrayed them, the jedi, him. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he did understand something, to some extent. He had led those boys to war, to their deaths. It may have not been the Jedi way, but he knew others could want their pound of flesh. He just didn’t think the younglings and babies deserved that same fate. He shuddered just thinking about it.

“Cody…” he murmured, aggrieved.

The former commander did not even twitch at the sound of his name, if he even recognized it all. There was practically nothing in his eyes, just dark circles underlying them like he hadn’t slept in weeks. Ben didn’t really know what possessed him to do anything, but he reached out with the Force towards his mind…

Only to find nothing there.

It had been near fourteen years since Ben had last seen Cody, of course, but he still knew what he felt like. But where his determined and steadfast orange-yellow-gold shine used to be, was replaced with oily and slimy darkness; an abyss of nothing.

That was impossible. Unless….

Ben’s thoughts were interrupted by a fist to his face.

He fell back to the floor, surprised as Cody struck at him again in near the same spot. “Use of the Force is prohibited and punishable,” his monotonous voice announced. Ben tried to scramble away, but Cody pinned him down with another blow, there was a brief crack to his ribs.

There was another blow.

And another.

Ben lashed out, desperately, both physically and with the Force which threw Cody back into the door. It wasn’t hard, it was easy to stand back up and stand the former commander did, but Ben rushed towards him, flipping over his shoulder and holding him to the ground. “Strop struggling,” Ben hissed as he tightened his grip.

“Good soldiers follow orders,” was the reply.

Ben just sighed. “I’m sorry,” he stretched out his hand, nearly getting thrown off in the process and whispered “sleep.”

Cody flopped over, unconscious.

Ben sighed and sat down on the floor, his back hitting the wall behind him. He let out a large breath and closed his eyes, running a hand through his thinning hair. This…what was this? What possessed him to do this, to reach for Cody’s previously familiar presence. Sure, there was nothing there at first glance but surely, he had to be mistaken. After he recollected himself, Ben leaned forward and reached out with his hand and the Force.

He reached.

And reached.

He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or horrified that he couldn’t find anything in Cody’s presence, or his mind. Perhaps it was both.

How could there be nothing there? Droids and machines were really the only things that could move and speak without having anything in their minds, being completely immune to any force suggestions or anything of the sort. And he knew that his old commander was certainly not a droid.

He had seen and felt his commander bleed too many times for that.

It had to be something else.

***

Luke and Boil had deviated from Ahsoka – she insisted to called Fulcrum no matter what – as she left to go distract Darth Vader. Neither one knew exactly what she did, but by the time they had gotten to the prison area, the dark cyborg was storming away, a dark cloud following him.

They took down the guards through a lot of the prison ward, pushing them in cells and locking them inside, whether they ended up dead or unconscious. It was quick work and although Boil rarely hesitated to shoot his fellow stormtroopers, Luke worked more with hand-to-hand combat, knocking them unconscious instead. It was something Ben could teach him on the ship, as they barely had enough room, but it was something useful. Luke had only wished they did more lightsaber sparring, but that was impossible in the space provided. The two of them eventually found the cell that held Ben – it was fairly evident due to the number of guards at the door.

It didn’t slow them down.

Boil certainly knew how to fight alongside a jedi.

It took a few moments to figure out how to open the cell door but when they did, they found Ben kneeling on the side of a purge trooper. He looked up at the movement of the door, his eyes widening as he saw who was there.

“Luke!”

“BEN!” Luke cried and threw himself forward.

“Behind you!”

Boil quickly tore off his helmet. “Sir, General! It’s me. It’s Boil! I’m okay-.”

General Kenobi – Ben relaxed immediately, and Luke threw himself into the older man’s arms, already crying rather loudly. He took to him and wrapped his arms around the boy. Ben tucked Luke under him as much as he could, holding him close.

“I’m so sorry, Ben, I’m so sorry,” Luke was all tears and snot by this point, apologizing every second as if that would undo everything that had been done at this point.

“It is alright, dear one,” Ben whispered, running a hand through Luke’s blonde locks.

“I never should have doubted you, you told me not to trust anyone and I….I broke all of your rules, I’m so sorry!”

“Luke, what you did was against my rules, yes, but we are alive, and you have even found some friends. We are currently uninjured. What happened has happened and we cannot change it so let us move on and do what we can, alright?” Ben explained, his voice kind and soft, full of such understanding and patience that made Boil miss back when he and his brothers were at General Kenobi’s side. Luke was different than General Skywalker in a lot of ways but their impulsivity tended to shine in both boys.

Boil stepped forward, just enough that he wasn’t in the hall. “Sir, General. There is something you should know,” he tried, uncharacteristically uneasy and stuttering. He looked around, ashamed and his hands gripping the helmet so hard he thought it would break. “We never would have shot you down. We-.”

“Were forced,” Ben finished with a nod, sympathetic and sorrowful. “I realized that when I reached for Cody’s presence here and found nothing in his mind.”

“Luke slammed me into a wall.” Boil suggested with a small but amused smile. It was partially amused. His head hurt, sure, but it got him out from that control and therefore, Boil would carry that pain with honor and without complaint. There wasn’t a complaint to be had; he had his mind again.

Ben smirked faintly at the attempt of humor; it was appreciated. “So, it is probably something in the brain, a chip of some kind. That seems to be the most likely scenario,” he turned to the boy and ran a hand through his hair once more. “Luke, I need you to reach for Cody, his presence. Focus on him with all your might and concentration. We may be able to find the offending device and disable it.”

“A-Are you sure, Ben?”

“Yes, I’m not powerful enough to do this by myself and you lack the precision. Together.”

The two of them kneeled next to the former commander, their hands outstretched. Boil had no idea what they were doing but he could feel some kind of pressure in the air. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Ben mumbled, concentrating hard.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Ben repeated, Luke speaking in unison with him. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

They repeated the mantra several more times. Boil stepped out of the cell and looked around, standing guard while they worked so they couldn’t be surprised with anyone who came around and too curious. Hopefully they would be successful, Boil knew they would need to move, and he would much rather not leave a brother behind. Especially not one of those closest to him.

He glanced inside, his brows scrunching. He had been on this ship for quite some time. Of course, he didn’t really have a train of thought to follow, as his will was not his own, but he hadn’t realized that Cody had been here. A purge trooper no doubt. Why Cody as a purge trooper? Boil couldn’t imagine what the higher ups were thinking; rarely were clones applied to such a position. Cody was good, of course, but…

The realization hit him harder than he had expected.

What a purge trooper was.

A purge trooper hunted jedi.

His heart sank. Boil swallowed heavily and glanced back, briefly. Even if they freed Cody from his prison… how would he react? Boil hadn’t personally killed any of the jedi, he hadn’t even known about General Kenobi being shot down until long after the deed had been done. How would Cody feel, knowing he was trained and sent out to murder the jedi?

Boil felt sick.

Luke was suddenly right next to him. “We think we did it,” he confessed rather quietly. “But we won’t know if it worked until he woke up.”

“Will that take much time?” Boil croaked.

“A few minutes, max,” he answered, just as quiet.

Cody came to just a moment later, muttered to himself, tears already running down silently as he awoke. He knew what was happening and the years of suffering and heartache were coming back to a place where he could act and react, to where he could express. He couldn’t stop the tears. Boil knew how that felt. Upon opening his eyes and seeing Ben, his tears turned into quite sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry sir. I’m so sorry.”

“You are forgiven, for what it is worth, old friend,” Ben assured, quietly, kneeling next to him. “I didn’t blame you.”

“Please don’t haunt me sir. I don’t think I could take it.”

Ben frowned. “Cody. I am no hallucination nor a ghost. I am alive. I survived.”

Cody’s face scrunched up, disbelieving, as he shook his head.

“I swear, my dear,” Ben swore, taking his hand. Cody just stared at it, wide eyed and shocked. His own hands were shaking.

“Impossible.”

“I mean, its General Kenobi, commander. It shouldn’t be that surprisingly,” Boil snickered as he walked in, leaning against the doorway. He glanced back into the hallway, but his attention was on his former commander.

“Boil?” Cody blinked blankly.

“In the flesh, sir,” Boil saluted, a bit messily.

“This is real,” Cody noted, blinking rapidly, as if it would change in an instant.

“That it is,” Ben nodded and got to his feet, helping Cody and pulling him up to his feet and keeping him balanced. “But we must be moving if we are to escape the ship.”

“The ship…” Cody muttered, his gaze flitting around the floor before his eyes flew up to Ben’s in a realization the other soldier and boy didn’t understand. “Vader! Sir-!”

“I know,” Ben interrupted, flat but quiet. “I know, Cody.”

“Well, I don’t,” Boil pointed out with a small snort. “What about Vader?”

“…stay as far as you can from him,” Cody confirmed, staring straight at Ben. Whatever passed between them, Boil didn’t know, and they weren’t telling. Surely what Cody was saying was obvious and not what he had meant initially. It was something between him and the general and Boil didn’t mind, not as long as it didn’t hurt their chances of getting off the force-forsaken destroyer. “Chances are if we get into a confrontation with him, we die.”

The four of them got out of the prison ward as quickly as they could. Cody and Boil were certainly an asset, knowing the layout of the ship. They dodged soldiers the best they could but fought as soundlessly as they could when they had to. Luke was in between staying close to Ben and trying to get close to Cody, with his eyes shining. He couldn’t help but try to ask questions in the quiet and slow moments of their escape.

“How do you know me anyways?” Cody asked, hefting the weapon at one point. He had a lightsaber, something they all noticed looked vaguely familiar in design, but he took a blaster from a fallen soldier and didn’t touch the thing.

“Oh! Ben has told me loads of stories,” Luke replied with a bright smile as they hid temporarily in a closet. Ben and Boil were across the hall, waiting for the guards to pass through. “Of all of your adventures! You’re amazing!”

They got out of the room by that point, as Boil gave them a signal. Although his feet kept moving at their pace, everything else kind of paused, stunned until he met Ben’s gaze briefly. Whatever passed between them, it couldn’t be translated but it was nothing but kind and proud. Boil couldn’t be completely annoyed with this silent communication they seemed to still have, after all, Cody had been General Kenobi’s second in command at one time. They knew each other well.

They had eventually got close to the hanger bay where the ship was parked. Although it wasn’t actually in the dock, it was very close. Luke hadn’t exactly told them about the person that brought him here except that Bail Organa had sent them and they went by the name Fulcrum. He would glance at Ben once in a while when her name came up, but he didn’t give her up.

They were so close.

They thought they would make it.

Luke was first, moving towards the entrance to the ship, with Ben right behind him, Boil bringing up the flank. Vader approached and the entrance to the ship closed tightly as he held out his hand, using the Force to prevent their escape.

Ben put his hand on his saber, ready to use it. Luke had found it near the guard station, where Vader had temporarily put it due to his immediate attention bringing drawn elsewhere. The master hadn’t used it during their escape. Cody couldn’t imagine why.

“Of course,” Vader hissed through his vocoder.

Cody glanced at the ship and then at Vader. Again. Again. He…he knew what he had to do.

In a dead sprint, he bolted in the opposite direction, away from the ship and away from his general and brother.

“Cody!” Luke shouted.

“Cody?” Ben’s voice rose. A second later, “Cody! No!”

Instead, the former commander shot a few rounds at Vader before throwing the gun away. He needed to distract Vader as long as he could. The beast battled the bolts away easily but his grip on the entrance had wavered. Close. Not quite enough.

Cody wanted to say he hated the feel of this saber; the one he had been using as a Purge Trooper, one that had trained amongst Inquisitors. There were few purge troopers that trained with the darksiders, as they generally used double ended electrostaffs but for some reason, Cody had been singled out by Vader. He kept the former commander close, got him trained with a saber. It was easy, he supposed, since he had already had some of the basics down from his time working with General Kenobi, going through katas and even sparring with him on occasion. Cody had never been entirely sure why Vader had chosen him. He knew who the Sith was, to him it was apparent. Vader always came across as obsessive and he wanted people to hurt. Cody just wasn’t sure who he was trying to hurt. Cody, General Kenobi, or Vader himself.

But he couldn’t completely hate the hilt of the saber, because the design was reminiscent of General Kenobi’s and that was a saber he was used to holding. It was so natural in his hand; nearly a comfort.

He held it in his hand and ignited the red blade, moving into an opening stance that he had been using during his training. Then he threw himself at Vader, swinging the saber as hard as he could.

Vader was much too strong. Cody’s own strength would never hold, as well built and solid as he was, and he knew it. He had blocked a few blows, but the monster of a man was pushing him hard. It took everything the older commander had not to be tossed away like a ragdoll, but he was being pushed back.

“Commander!” Boil yelled. “Get out of there now!”

“Go, Boil, get them out of here!” Cody shouted, gritting his teeth as he slashed against Vader, only to be blocked too easily.

“Not without you, sir!” Boil hollered back.

“That’s an order!” Cody replied, in something of a growl and a yell.

Boil’s heart was breaking, and everyone knew it. But he turned into the ship, shoving the boys inside.

The last thing Cody saw was Ben and Luke’s horrified expressions…

Before Vader slashed down with his saber through Cody’s shoulder, taking his head.

***

Boil flew the ship. It felt like he had lost the last of his brothers. He was numb. They all were.

Ben and Luke had crumpled to the floor from where Boil had pushed them inside and hadn’t moved since. It took hours to get back to the planet that they had come from, to retrieve their own ship. They had left ‘Fulcrum’s’ where Luke had first entered, not too far from the pirate base. Ben hadn’t even asked Luke what had happened between passing out and awaking in front of Vader.

There was nothing really to bury aside from a black helmet, but Luke insisted on creating a grave anyways. They found a little, mostly uninhabited planet where Ben, Boil and Luke had created a little marker near a tree in the middle of nowhere. They had set the helmet on the site, but Boil through Cody would have preferred to burn the damn thing. It was a terrible reminder. He voiced this but no one moved. Not even him.

Only a few hours were spent there before they all returned to Ben’s ship and took off. There was no real destination in mind, just to keep away from the Empire, to keep away from Vader. They had somehow lost him, between Fulcrum’s dismantling of their hyperdrive and the other chaos she had caused afterwards. The distraction and work had been appreciated.

There was little talk at first before Luke started carving into a little wooden block. There was a few around the ship, used as props generally, or just stacked in his room. The carves were slow and precise and he would watch Luke’s tongue slip out of his mouth a little when he was concentrating. It was almost an amusing sight. Boil didn’t know what the boy was making, and Luke wasn’t telling.

So, he didn’t ask.

Ben’s ship was tiny to the point that having three people inhabit it was a bit of a stretch and more than just a little squished. More of than not, Boil had to cuddle up with Luke during the night hours, as there wasn’t much room in the way of sleeping areas. Boil himself was used to it, as his brothers used to love large piles when sleeping, so it didn’t bother him. Luke didn’t seem to mind much either, rather taking to the new arrangement with some zeal.

True to his nature, Kenobi spent most designated sleeping hours awake instead.

It turned out Boil could not say no to Luke. When the boy had asked about his stories, whether it be about Ben or Cody or any of his brothers, Boil had barely hesitated. They were all gone now but at least he could pass on memories. That was really all a clone could do. He told him about all the good stories, snippets of friendship and loyalty, victory and glory. He told Luke about his best friend and batchmate, Waxer, and how they seemed to be the top General Kenobi retrieval specialist while Cody had been a lightsaber retrieval specialist. Where Cody always seemed to end up finding Ben’s lightsaber when he dropped it, he and Waxer had a tendency to find General Kenobi himself when it was needed.

Luke loved that. Even Ben had cracked a smile.

He told the boy about Ryloth and the little twi’lek girl they had befriended. About how she had mistrusted them at first because she was scared and starving but then she led them around and helped them in the battle that would free her village, used as human shields. He told him about how General Kenobi would carry her and how she ran to him when he had nearly died. How, when everything was said and done, when the village was free and they had to move on to the next village to help, she had waved and shouted back at them. How she called both of them brother.

The stories went through most of the vaguely better times of the war. Pranks that people used to play on one another, dares and bets and time travelled between planets. He told Luke about the one time he had been able to walk in the Jedi Temple and tried to capture how amazing it was and how Waxer had hugged a little jedi child because they loved them, and the child practically threw himself at the clone.

Luke eventually asked what happened to Waxer, once the stories ceased to include him. Boil had just kept on talking. There hadn’t been nearly as many good times when Waxer stopped being involved in them.

They used to always include him.

Ben, piloting at the time, had stiffened, but didn’t say anything.

Boil nearly started crying when he told a short tale of Umbara, the terrible dark planet, a traitor and the act of friendly fire. He didn’t give many details, he couldn’t. His voice had wavered and his hands, although set under his legs, wouldn’t stop shaking. It was one of the deaths that had hurt him the most, losing Waxer. All the clones had been Boil’s brothers, but he and Waxer were somewhat of inseparable. At least, he had thought that once.

Luke had plastered himself to Boil’s side by the time he was done, half hugging him and cuddling up to his side as if that would take all of the horrible feelings and grief away. It didn’t, of course, but a Jedi had a way of making one feel like everything was going to be alright, that in the end, you would be with loved ones again.

There had been a long time of silence for the next set of sleeping hours. Ben would try to catch Boil’s gaze to say something, but it often came out in silence. Rather, he often ended up putting his hand on the clone’s shoulder. Boil had appreciated the silence, actually, as there was little to say on the matter. He didn’t need apologies; it was a fact of war. It had been a long time ago and he had heard enough words from Luke.

Boil, for all that had happened, had not expected General Kenobi to send him away.

He had not seen another clone aside from Cody in years, nearly ten. He knew most of them were probably gone, dead on backwater planets, used as cannon fodder for the Empire. Boil didn’t know what was going to happen moving forward but staying with Luke and Ben seemed like a pretty good and solid bet.

Until it wasn’t.

***

Boil had fought General Kenobi until nothing was left. He didn’t want to go. There was not a thing or person out there he knew for him except General Kenobi and his kid. Boil loved Luke. Waxer would have practically adored him; he knew for a fact. It wasn’t just that Luke was a youngster, and Waxer had a soft spot for those. It was more of the idea of how Luke was. With his curiosity and kindness, his determination and loyalty. Waxer always wanted to have more the mind of a child, where one could be open to all sorts of thoughts and ideas and magic.

He finally understood what Waxer had meant. They had talked about it a few times and before, he never really got it. Not until now. Luke had matured plenty, probably more than most, due to his status of being on the run, of being hunted. But he still had that kindness and curiosity, and he gave everything. All of his things, his heart and his soul to those he loved.

Boil had been so honored when Luke had told him that he loved him. They had been travelling for near weeks together, squished together in the ship, travelling through hyperspace and Boil never really could recall how the conversation came up.

“I love you,” Luke had said with a lopsided grin.

Boil had stared. Ben’s eyes softened into something sympathetic and sad. That should have been Boil’s first clue, looking back on it.

He didn’t think Luke had expected anything back, which made his expression all the more enjoyable when Boil had said it back. “Love ya too, kid,” he added, and near violently toiled with the boy’s blonde hair. Luke had laughed so freely and so loud, it gave them all grins and it all ended up in a little tumble around the kitchenette area.

They had ended up breaking a cup, but Ben wasn’t even mad.

It was less than a week later when Ben pulled Boil aside on a stopover planet and tried to explain what had to happen next; give Boil suggestions on where to go next. What he could do. He never seemed to give Boil the option of staying. Boil had never really entertained the idea. The ship was grey, Boil loved Ben and Luke, and he would stay. He thought that was how things were now.

“I won’t slow you down.” Boil tried as the two of them were being chased through the city by stormtroopers. Boil’s aim had never been in question and his mark hit more often than not. The stormtroopers on the other hand, it was amazing they could hit the broad side of a barn. Ben rarely pulled out his saber unless it was against another saber or training Luke and his aim wasn’t awful either.

Boil supposed he had gone undercover as a sniper once.

He matched Ben’s stride and even kept up fairly well even when the clone knew the former jedi was using the force to go faster. It was a little exhausting, but he would keep up, if only to convince the general that he could. That he wouldn’t slow them down if he just allowed Boil to stay.

“I’m used to – even comfortable with – close quarters. It doesn’t bother me.”

The ship they were travelling in was tiny. Ben often slept on the pullout couch near the kitchenette while Luke had his own little room. It wasn’t much, there was actually barely any space but Boil never, never complained. A slept in a few places a couple of times, including the pilot or co-pilot seat in the cockpit, on a chair in the kitchenette or even, just as easily, the floor wherever there was room.

It hadn’t been long until Luke dragged him into his room to share his makeshift bed. Luke had even talked about getting a hammock for him and spent plenty of time trying to figure out how it would fit. Boil didn’t sleep a whole lot anyway.

“I can be of use.”

Boil didn’t know how to do a lot of things except war. He was a soldier, through and through. But in this new galaxy, this new reality, he knew he would have to learn something else, anything else, to help and keep up. He did whatever research he could, read all of Luke’s books and Luke himself had even taught him a few skills.

The former trooper had even gotten them out of a pretty sticky situation with a whole star destroyer, getting them all away with little fanfare and no shots fired. The Empire had been none the wiser.

“I won’t slow you down, I swear. I may look old, but I’m fit, I can move.”

He was in shape, even with his rapidly greying hairs and prominent wrinkles. And Boil kept himself that way, always finding time and space to better himself physically, to work out, just to keep up and make sure he did. Luke helped him a little too, teaching Boil some of the things the Jedi used to help their own condition.

Silently he would whisper when no one else was around to hear him plead, “please, please don’t make me go.”

Boil could have sworn he had worn General Kenobi down to tears, or, at least, near there. Every time the subject was brought up, his expression had been something of remorse and sympathy, as if this was something he did regret.

“It is too dangerous,” the general had repeated for the countless time. It was often his go to when it came to rebukes of Boil’s reasons to stay. He rarely disagreed with Boil on why, he never told the clone that he didn’t think he could keep up, he never told him he wasn’t of use. It was just variations of the same answer, over and over again. “We have Vader’s attention, especially now.”

“You can use my help,” Boil insisted.

“Boil, please,” General Kenobi implored, setting job jaw with the expression of his brows and eyes near pleading. Saying no to General Kenobi was near impossible, he had realized, but he had done a pretty good job as of late.

Please don’t make me go.

I’d rather die for you or Luke than alone for nothing.

The eventual goodbye felt overwhelmingly bitter with too little of the sweet. He wanted to stay. Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do?

General Kenobi would never let him.

“I value you too much to condemn you to this life I have, needlessly.”

I’m condemning myself, Boil had thought and wanted to scream. This wasn’t right, he was supposed to stay. There wasn’t anyone else out there for him. His brothers were long gone, his lifespan wouldn’t last that much longer. I want to stay with the person I have left. You could use me around. I’m useful, I swear.

“If you really want to fight the Empire,” Kenobi had tried as they waited. “Bail Organa’s rebels could use your expertise,” he offered in a desperate attempt for the former trooper to agree. “I heard Ryloth is fighting back as well. Perhaps we could contact General Syndulla to see if we can find Numa.”

It was a low blow.

Ben wouldn’t let Luke come to them for the final departure. They didn’t know the people they were meeting and so Luke would stay with the ship. The boy, obviously, did not care for this idea. But they ended up saying their goodbyes there.

Luke tried to give Boil a box of band aids, each, although dusty and old, had once been painted with a tiny twi’lek child on the front. He recognized it and nearly started to cry. He pushed the box back towards Luke.

“You’re gonna need those a lot more than I will,” he tried to joke. “Especially with your training.”

In the end, Luke had kept them but unwrapped one and curled it around Boil’s finger. Then he set a small wooden figurine in his hand. It was a tiny starfighter, one that used to be used back in the Clone Wars. There were few words that had been said but there were enough tears that had been shed in turn.

Organa ended up having them rendezvous with a small crew – The Ghost.

They were an odd sort. A twi’lek female (the pilot and brains of the crew, Boil was sure), a large cat-like beast, the most colorful Mandalorian anyone had ever even heard of, a murderous droid and a pair of….jedi?

Boil had not expected to see a jedi, much less two. Apparently, neither did anyone else.

The older one, upon seeing General Kenobi had looked shocked, his eyes wide and nearly in tears. He wasn’t dressed like a jedi, but Boil could see the parts of a lightsaber hanging from his belt. It was a little odd thing, separated from one another but it was a good cover, he supposed. His hair was fairly dark, pulled back into a little ponytail and his dark blue eyes were piercing in a way that Boil wasn’t sure he could understand.

“M-Master Obi-Wan?” the elder choked out.

“Hello, Caleb,” General Kenobi greeted warmly, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “It is very good to see you alive, well and amongst friends.”

The padawan beside the older – Caleb – looked nearly as surprised. He was rather short with a mess of blue black hair and…was that lightsaber a saber or a blaster? Boil couldn’t tell. The padawan looked up at Ben, a bit taken back. “Wait he’s…whoa.”

“I have so many questions,” Caleb confessed, his voice full of confusion.

“Unfortunately, I cannot stay long.”

“Why not?” Caleb asked, clearly disappointed and probably a bit hurt.

“We have much of Vader’s attention. It is not safe for us to be in one place long.”

It was the reasoning he had continued to give Boil over and over again; the reasoning the old clone couldn’t stay with his general and the kid. He had started to hate hearing it.

“Oh,” Caleb sighed, shoulder’s slumping as he glanced away.

“I see you have a padawan.”

“Uh…oh yeah,” the man shrugged, a bit sheepishly. He had been so caught up in seeing the older master, someone he knew, he had forgotten of other things. “This is Ezra Bridger. Ezra, this is…”

“Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the boy replied in a bit of awe.

“I go by Ben these days,” he chuckled but Boil had found little humor in it. “It is good to meet you, young Ezra. I have no doubt that Caleb is an excellent teacher.”

“He goes by Kanan these days,” Ezra replied with a grin. “And yes, he is an excellent teacher.” Caleb – or Kanan, Boil supposed – looked down and away, apparently unsure of the statement.

“Caleb, you should know,” Ben started, catching Caleb/Kanan’s eye and setting a hand on his shoulder. “Depa would be so proud of you. For surviving, coming back and helping those who need it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Trust me,” Ben insisted. “She was my friend, and I knew her quite well. Do not doubt her pride and love for you.”

Boil had no idea where he had come from, the newest presence. He had barely recognized him specifically. After not seeing another clone brother for so long, they were all too familiar and completely strange to him all at the same time.

“Goodness – Rex is that you?”

Past Present

Commander Cody’s expression turned professional and calm in an instant as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. He clipped his helmet to his belt, keeping it off and moved towards Luke, who standing in front of Ben as straight as he could. Shoulders back, feet width apart, Luke reminded himself. He couldn’t help it; Cody had that type of presence.

As the Commander got closer, he stopped and looked at Luke up and down. “I know who you are.”

Luke blinked blankly. That could have meant any number of things. It partially made Luke a bit uneasy but then he reminded himself that this was commander Cody. It would be fine. “I…I’m sorry? Did you…did you travel here too?”

Cody shook his head, and it was followed by a shallow shrug. “You look just like Skywalker when he was young.”

Luke had not expected that. Had the first time Luke met Cody; had he known right off the bat? If anyone had guessed who his father was, no one had ever made it known to him. No one had told him that they knew. He didn’t realize it was so apparent. “H-How?”

“General Kenobi showed some holos a few years ago,” he added, calmly. “Can’t say I’m entirely surprised. He and Senator Amidala aren’t exactly the subtle type. What I am surprised at is that you don’t want to talk with your father more. Rex has told me how you and General Skywalker have interacted. It’s more suspicion with some curiosity. One would think it would be the other way around.”

“Don’t…” Luke grimaced. “Let’s not call him that, okay? No one besides you and me know and I think it would bring a whole lot more problems than it would solve at the moment. Definitely bring a lot more questions and accusations.”

“Alright. I can understand that,” Commander Cody nodded.

“The future…isn’t great,” Luke started uneasily.

“I gathered that as well.”

“But…I have an idea of a plan.”

“The Skywalker I know tends not to think or plan and although many times success is stumbled into, many tend to get killed,” Cody replied, calmly, raising an eyebrow.

“I was raised by a Kenobi,” Luke started but nearly took it back. His father had also been raised by Ben. “I know you don’t trust me,” he admitted begrudgingly. “And I get that. But…this… this is so much bigger than you, than me, than anything. And if I am going to succeed on saving the jedi, the troopers, the galaxy, Ben,” he emphasized. “I need help. I can’t do it alone. And Ben trusts you so much. Please help me, Commander Cody, you might just be my only hope.”

Cody straightened and his gaze softened. He had definitely been won over. “And I suppose you have it, kid. What do you need from me?”

Luke’s smile was practically blinding, it was so bright. It was a great distraction that Luke had learned to use many years ago.

The needle slid in carefully into his arm and Commander Cody clearly hadn’t seen it coming, especially considering the stiffening of his body and the turn to stare at the teenager, surprised and betrayed.

He would have to understand. Later.

“Sorry, Cody,” Luke apologized as the commander quickly turned drowsy. “I don’t have a perfect handle on sleep suggestions yet. This should take but a moment.”

As the commander collapsed, Luke did his best to catch him, although Cody’s bulk weight really just brought Luke down with him. It took plenty of struggle, but Luke finally managed to drag the body over to the medical scanner. “Alright,” he huffed, leaning against the equipment. “Can you do a continuous deep scan? Something is going to pop up and I need you to remove it,” he told the nearby stationed medical droid.

“Of course sir,” came the monotonous reply.

Luke leaned forward, stretching a hand forth towards the commander and reached.

Please, help me.

He reached and reached and reached.

He knew he couldn’t disable it by himself, only with Ben’s precision and Luke’s power had the two been able to disable the chip the first time without actual surgery. And Ben wasn’t exactly in a position to help this time around.

Trust in the Force, Luke.

It will guide your hand.

Luke took a deep breath and placed a hand on Cody’s head, cautiously and delicately, barely touching skin. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” he whispered as he reached out into the clone’s presence and form. He reached and reached.

He repeated the mantra and this time, Cody muttered alongside and in unison with him as Luke continued to reach within the Force. He could do this. Just reach. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

It was a few, rather long moments until anything happened. Luke repeated himself, with Cody’s voice with him in time. “Anomaly detected,” the medical droid announced.

Luke could only sigh in relief as his grip pulled away. It worked.

“Permission to remove?”

“Yes, yes please remove it,” he murmured, giving into a small yawn.

The surgery had taken a lot less time than Luke had anticipated. Of course, most surgeries he had seen or knew about were very old fashioned without good and modern tools. He nearly collapsed in the chair when the droid announced the success of the surgery. He had an ally now. Arfour was mostly a backup, although he enjoyed her candor and investigative prowess that would aid him, but it was nice to know he had a flesh and bone being with him as well. One who could now no longer be brainwashed into trying to kill the jedi, including Ben, given the order.

The recovery time was short too, although to Luke it had felt a bit like forever. Some of it was because of the sedative, although he didn’t use much. Soon enough, Commander Cody began to awaken, groaning with no doubt a bit of a pounding headache. He tried to sit up and Luke got to his side to assist. “What did you do to me, kid?”

“I’m sorry,” Luke apologized, genuine as he met commander Cody’s eyes. “I didn’t know if the Sith could tell if I told you about them. I had to remove it first.”

“Remove what?” The confusion was authentic.

“A chip in your brain that brainwashes you and overrides any sense of self, loyalty or choice,” he replied bluntly, his gaze rather sympathetic.

Cody’s expression was priceless. If it hadn’t been for the situation, Luke probably would have laughed. After meeting him the first time and all of Ben’s stories, it didn’t seem like it could have been possible, this coming from him. “What?” Cody muttered.

“I have a lot to tell you,” Luke admitted as he stood back. Cody sat up further and brought his legs back over to the side of the cot. “Well, sort of. Ben was a bit tight lipped about the downfall of the Republic, the Jedi and the clone troopers but I will tell you what I do know.”

“The downfall…of the jedi?”

Luke nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure how much Cody would believe him, but Ben had always said he trusted Cody, that he was good, honest and reliable. Luke would trust him too. He just hoped that Cody would believe what he had to say. That would make things a lot easier. “But we need allies. Do you have a short list of troopers you can absolutely trust?”

“Of course,” Cody nearly snorted, as if that were obvious. There is Rex-.”

“No.”

The sudden and short reply had both surprised him and Cody. They stared at each other for a moment, a little unsure on how to proceed.

“What?”

“Not Rex.”

“Why not?” Cody looked rather offended on his brother’s behalf. Luke could understand, there were plenty of times he had gotten offended on Ben’s. But this…this was a delicate and highly secretive situation. They couldn’t take that kind of risk. “Rex is an extremely loyal, trustworthy and intelligent trooper.”

“I agree,” Luke replied with a nod. “But he spends too much time with Skywalker.”

“Your father?” Cody questioned, his brows furrowing. “Why would that matter?”

Luke grimaced.

“Luke,” Cody warned, slowly. It reminded Luke of the times Ben had said his name when something was wrong, and he knew Luke had been in the middle of it. “Is Skywalker a danger to my brothers?”

“Not anymore than he is currently, leading troops into battle,” Luke assured. It wasn’t exactly the best answer, he would admit, but he didn’t want Cody to know anything that would hinder their plans too much. “Look Commander. Trusting Rex is not the issue but if he knows, Skywalker may notice,” he tried to reason. “And there are others we cannot trust that Skywalker might.”

Cody’s expression was highly suspicious, and Luke started to sweat a little. If Cody didn’t accept his reasoning, if he asked too many questions on identity…well, Luke wasn’t sure if he could give the commander the responses and answers he wanted. “Alright,” Cody conceded. Luke let out a silent breath of air. “I don’t like this but alright. For now. How many troopers are you thinking?”

“Just a handful. Close knit, whoever you can trust the most. I’d prefer the 212th I think,” he admitted although he doubted Cody was going to choose any of the men that weren’t his battalion. Luke knew he was a marshal commander and had a lot of say with many groups of troopers but the 212th were his battalion, his go to men, his closest brothers. Aside from Rex of course. “I…this is going to be hard without Ben. And I’m not the leader type, he is.”

“Alright, I’ll gather some troopers and you figure out how to explain…whatever it is,” Cody said, uneasily as he stood up. He grabbed his helmet but paused before putting it on.

“The downfall of the galaxy?” Luke suggested.

Cody just sighed, shooting him a tired look as he put his helmet back on. “Yeah. That.”

After Cody left, Luke found a pad of paper and a pen to write with, trying to figure out how to explain what he knew. Once he had a bullet point list of all that he did know….he felt as if it was a little lacking. He sat next to Ben’s cot while thinking. Glancing over at his guardian, he shook his head. “I really don’t know what I’m doing Ben. I wish you would wake up so you could help me. I really don’t know what I’m doing. And I don’t have all the answers that you do, that the troops are going to want.”

Any movement Ben’s body made was miniscule and only apparent to those who were studying closely. Luke sighed and hoisted himself up on the side of the cot.

“If you could, I’d really appreciate if you woke up,” he pointed out. “Or at least give me some ideas on how to keep going with this.”

As predicted, there was silence. Not even a movement.

“Yeah, I know,” Luke crossed his arms. “I gotta figure this out for myself.”

***

Luke nearly started crying when he saw the troopers Cody had brought back with him. They all had their helmets off, with an assortment of tattoos and haircuts. He looked around them. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting or what he wanted to see because of course he didn’t recognize any of them except….

“BOIL!” Luke couldn’t help his cheer as he realized he did recognize one of them. Sure, he was a lot younger now, with no grey or white hair or the number of wrinkles when Luke knew him before, but Luke definitely could recognize that stupid mustache. Before anyone could stop him or even he realized what he was doing, Luke barreled across the room, hopping over an empty cot and leapt…

And the soldier in question barely had time to drop his bucket to catch him, completely shocked. Massive confusion permeated the Force, swirling all around him and nearly making the boy’s head hurt, but one voice burst out into uncontrollable laughter. “

I knew we would see each other again,” Luke announced proudly, giddy.

The trooper was too shocked to do anything but barely keep a hold on the boy, so he didn’t fall. “Do we know you, kiddo?”

It wasn’t Boil speaking, but Luke looked over before jumping down from Boil’s arms. His eyes were sparkling, he couldn’t help it. There weren’t many soldiers here, less than a dozen, including Helix who had come in late, but it was still so many. He was going to meet several of the 212th, of the people Ben led and loved. His mind was bursting with questions, especially on who was who.

Boil glanced over at the clone, concerned and confused. Could it…

“Are you Waxer?”

Everyone blinked, the surprise continuing.

Waxer just smiled though. “Yeah! That’s me!”

Luke thought his heart would just burst right then and there. Boil had spent quite some time with him and Ben in the past…future…. whatever, and a lot of the stories he told had Waxer in them. Just another person Luke always wanted to meet and thought he would never get the chance.

The boy nearly curled on himself. “Yes,” he whispered.

Before they could ask any more questions, Commander Cody took command of the group and directed them to sit down, although it mostly, as it happened, to be on the floor with a lack of chairs. Luke kind of preferred it that way; it was something he was used to more. This was going to be a bit of a long conversation. Cody started with introductions.

“Alright. Everyone, this is…Luke,” Cody said carefully, gesturing to the blonde. Luke waved, cheerily. He appreciated Cody’s discretion with his heritage. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust these boys to keep it to themselves, but Luke thought the less they knew, the safer everyone would be.

Although from the glances they were giving him, it seemed they had some kind of suspicion.

“Luke,” Cody continued. “These are some of my best. You obviously know Boil and next to him, Waxer. And Helix, of course, our commanding Medic. You got Trapper, Crys, Wooley, Longshot, Gearshift, Barlex and Threepwood.”

Luke waved again, “Hi. It is…it is really amazing to meet you all. Ben has told me…loads.”

They all looked at one another, curiously. “Good things I hope?”

He laughed. “Of course!”

With a wave of his hand, the group that had started chatting died down and carefully, Cody briefed the group on what he knew so far, what was happening.

That Luke was a time traveler and more than likely, Ben – General Kenobi – had as well. It was an odd explanation for Ben’s weird coma, and it made all of them uneasy, but Luke found it rather hilarious that they seemed to accept the concept of time travel with relative ease, with few questions on how it happened itself.

Luke had made a brief conversation about the events that had happened prior to moving through time. Although he could tell they were anxious with questions, especially where they were while Ben was in danger and who this new, dangerous sith enemy was, they did an admirable job refraining from asking too many queries.

Cody continued his brief about how General Kenobi and Luke were found and how his coma was probably force-related. They all groaned at that notion. It had made Luke grin; it appeared they were fairly familiar with all sorts of shenanigans when it came to the force and Ben as well.

As they continued, things got serious as Cody said they would require surgery to continue with the briefing. They were given little explanation, but Cody had said he went through it, and it was for both General Kenobi and Luke’s safety, as well as being essential to the better future they wanted to try and create. There was a bit more knowledge gone out as Luke helped Cody explained what would happen during it.

“This is…” Luke struggled to explain. “I’m asking you to trust me”

To his infinite relief, they did.

The surgeries moved fairly quickly, as Luke poured as much as he could into them, but it was exhausting. By the time they had gotten through everyone, Luke felt nearly dead on his feet, even swaying into Trapper’s side. He had been the first and had already been up and on his own feet, so he easily caught him.

“Oh wow,” he murmured as Trapper held him up. The last one to have gone through the surgery, Threepwood, was already waking up from his. “That…that was a lot.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Cody frowned, moving around towards him. “You can sleep after we talk, okay?”

“Yes sir, commander sir,” Luke giggled, a bit drowsily. His head was full, his thoughts, although straight forward, were sluggish.

Everyone’s eyes softened with amusement and sympathy.

“Can I…can I sit down though?”

“Of course,” Barlex said before Cody could even respond. Luke didn’t bother to crawl up onto a cot, as there were plenty in the medical bay. Instead, he just dropped to the floor, taking Trapper down with him. There was a light laugh throughout the ranks and they all circled around on the floor near Ben’s cot.

It took a moment before Luke and the others got settled but once they did, he threw himself into what he knew. “What was taken out of your heads were chips,” Luke explained with a yawn. “Or at least, I’m pretty sure they are. The first time Ben and I had experience with them, we weren’t able to take them out, just disable them. With Boil, I threw him into a wall – long story – and with Cody, Ben and I disabled it with the Force. I’m not precise enough to do it by myself. I don’t know how they work, but they are the reason the clones massacred all the jedi.” It felt like it took him forever to get through that speech, as Luke did his best to focus himself so he wouldn’t drop off and lose his place.

There was absolute silence.

For the longest moment, no one would say a word. Luke didn’t look at any of them.

“A-All the Jedi?” Crys nearly squeaked. It sounded weird coming from a clone. Luke nodded.

“Even…. even the babies?” Waxer’s face paled drastically.

Luke nodded again. “Led brainwashed to march on the Temple,” he answered. “Ben wasn’t there when it happened, but I’m pretty sure he saw the immediate aftermath. He… he doesn’t really like to talk about it.”

Waxer bolted upright and to his feet to throw up in one of the sinks. Boil got up and followed, patting his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Everyone looked rather green and sick. Luke couldn’t blame them. To be violated and used in such a way, to attack and massacre the people you cared about and cared about you, he couldn’t imagine.

It was a few minutes before Waxer and Boil came back to the group and sat down. They all just waited patiently.

“The Republic was made into the Galactic Empire,” Luke continued, although a bit vaguely “…by the Sith. My mother died giving birth to me a couple days after.”

“Your father?”

Luke shifted uncomfortably. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned it but somehow, he just seemed led to. “That… is complicated. I don’t know exactly what happened and it’s really Ben’s story to tell.”

The others looked a bit confused and exchanged glances. A few of them studied Luke closely, even glancing at Cody for confirmation on their thoughts. To his credit, the commander’s face gave nothing away.

“But General Kenobi survived,” Wooley suggested, near eagerly. They all leaned forward, so full of hope that their general was alive, had survived. That they hadn’t killed him.

“Yes,” Luke answered. “He brought me to my aunt and uncle who raised me until I was about 8-ish,” he waved his hand flat and horizontal to give the time a little leeway. He didn’t remember a whole ton from that time, even now. “And then Ben took me away.”

“Jedi don’t take children from their families,” Waxer defended. It certainly wasn’t something he was intending to say, as Luke could see he appeared a bit rather taken back and regretful of his words.

“They were murdered,” Luke countered with a heavy swallow. “And I am force sensitive. The Empire kills or tortures those who are. No matter your age or anything. Even if you have nothing to do with the Jedi. Even if you have never heard of the jedi, the empire will kill you. Or torture you until you join them. Besides, Ben is the closest family I have, even before he took me with him.”

Thankfully, the troopers seemed to leave it alone.

“Do you know what happened to us?”

“The troopers in general?”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, shaking his head. “Ben didn’t talk about you guys…after the Empire rose to power. I’m not sure if he even knew what happened to you afterwards. Perhaps you became part of the Empire’s storm troopers. Your armor looked kind of like theirs. It is where we found Cody and Boil.”

None of the clones seemed to like that notion.

“You recognized Boil and was friendly,” Waxer pointed out, curiously. “Anyone else you came across in the future?”

Luke hummed as he thought about it for a moment. “We found Kix in a statis pod on a Separatist ship. I was pretty young then and Ben quickly sent him off to Senator Organa to start a new life. I met you, commander, but it was…brief.”

The implication was rather clear, and no one wanted to speak of it.

“And then Boil if course. I found him by accident around the same time we found Cody. Accidently broke his chip by throwing him into the wall with the force,” he glanced at the trooper, apologetically. Waxer just grinned and punched Boil lightly in the shoulder while a few others chuckled. “He was with us for a bit, but he couldn’t stay because we attracted too much attention from Vader. It was dangerous.”

“Where did you send me?” Boil asked.

“Bail Organa again, I think,” Luke shrugged. It seemed that was the one person Ben seemed to really trust, even though he was involved with the government of the Empire. Luke later figured it was because not only of their previous friendship while Ben was in the Jedi Order but also the fact that Organa had created a rebellion to fight against the Empire near immediately after its construction. “Either to start a new life or join his rebellion. I don’t know what you chose.”

Boil growled, a scowl clear, on his face. “I do.”

Luke yawned again, leaning against a reclining Trapper. “I’m sorry I don’t know a lot. But I needed some help. Ben…Ben will need some allies to prevent all…all the horrible things from happening. And if he doesn’t wake up…I’m gonna need a lot of help if I want to do…to do what I can,” Luke murmured.

“How about you take a nap?” Commander Cody suggested.

Luke hummed again but his body seemed not to care what he wanted. “I shouldn’t really. Need…need to protect Ben…like he does…”

“We will protect him,” Cody promised.

“Promise?” Luke hated how he sounded like a child. Cody’s eyes just softened.

“We promise.”

“He…all I got.”

***

No one fell asleep as fast as Luke. As he snuggled into Trapper’s side with his other side flanked by Gearshift, they all glanced at one another, unsure of what to say next. How to proceed.

“I know he didn’t give us a lot but that…”

“It was enough for now,” Cody confirmed, glancing down at his hands, trying to think. “We keep this quiet for now until we either get to the Temple and can speak with Jedi council or General Kenobi wakes up with new orders.”

They all agreed silently.

“What about…Cody, the entire GAR is chipped,” Barlex said with the shake of his head, near disbelievingly. “What do we do with that?”

Cody glanced at Luke, the boy already snoring against the troopers, near completely at ease with the company. “I’ll contact some other commanders,” he decided. “To warn them. If anything, they can discreetly get their own chips removed. It may be easier to keel the generals alive if their commanders aren’t forced to try to kill them. But I will tell them it stays quiet until we come up with a real plan.”

“At least the surgery isn’t too bad,” Threepwood shrugged.

“The scanners didn’t pick it up, we need a jedi for that,” Longshot frowned.

“Our scanners only go up to atomic level four. A level five is more likely to pick something like this up,” Helix explained. “We have several specimens of this chip; I will work on examining them and figuring out how they work. Threepwood, would you mind giving me an assist?”

“Of course.”

“No one tells the Jedi unless General Kenobi gives permission or we get in front of the Council,” Cody commanded, his eyes sweeping over the lot of them, his gaze hard and determined. “And that means, Skywalker. Especially Skywalker.”

“Why?” He wasn’t entirely sure where the question came from. Cody answered easily.

“One, he’s terrible with secrets. The boy still thinks he is subtle, which he is very much not,” Cody pointed out, pulling up his hands to number on his fingers. “Two, he’s buddy-buddy with the Chancellor and it’s pretty apparent that the Jedi don’t particularly completely trust him.”

“If I remember correctly, he is constantly overriding their suggestions,” Wooley added. “General Kenobi doesn’t complain about it out loud but any one of us could see how difficult it is to go through briefings with him.”

“Also, there was no war in the Republic that made it into an Empire,” Cody added.

Crys’s eyes narrowed and frowned. “That means the Chancellor cannot be trusted at all.”

“Luke said the Sith took over, could he… be it?” Longshot suggested quietly. It seemed like treason, even suggesting such a notion. It was, Cody knew. Their duty was to the Republic. If even the Chancellor, the leader of said Republic, was a threat to its existence, Cody and his boys would do their duty to protect it. Protection of the Jedi was unsaid.

“Wouldn’t the Jedi know?” Waxer asked, uncertain. His faith and appreciation for the jedi and their abilities was well known throughout the ranks, as he was often found in conversation with General Kenobi or visiting Jedi, asking questions about anything and everything. Boil was often there as well, as he tended to stick to Waxer’s side, and although he acted as if he was bored and annoyed, everyone knew that he was listening closely and attentively.

“I don’t know,” Cody confessed, shaking his head. It seemed likely that the Jedi would know such things but then again, he was sure there would be plenty of ways for Sith to hide themselves. There was for the Jedi, as General Kenobi had once explained. Besides, there were plenty of darksiders running around too. Cody didn’t know if that changed anything. “Stay here with Luke. No one gets too close to General Kenobi. We don’t break promises. I… I have a few calls to make,” he ordered. The entire group nodded.

***

Cody was uneasy when he was summoned back to the bridge, not after his group call with several of his batchmates, nearly all of which were commanders. Some of them had not taken the information well and he had to spend plenty of time trying to calm them down and convince all of them not to tell their jedi. Or anyone for that matter.

They decided to wait and attempt to plan. He coordinated with Commander Colt and Alpha-17 on Kamino, asking them to investigate these chips and any other way to take them out without anyone knowing the wiser. He could still feel Commander Colt’s blank stare through the blue holocall and he could still see Alpha-17’s shoulders and muscles coil into something so tense, Cody thought they would snap.

His messages with Commander Fox was shrouded in encryption and code. They didn’t often use it, with the fear of anyone they didn’t want to know, finding their messages and it would take some time for them get complete missives across. He would have to call him later.

He ended his calls, calm and collected, a bit relieved. They were starting to plan. People knew some things; it was a start. Whatever happened in Luke’s past, with the downfall of the Republic, the Jedi and their brothers, that would not happen this time. Not if Cody and his brothers could help it.

Cody had been quickly summoned back to the bridge, as contact with General Windu had been reestablished. He stalked down the halls, calming himself and wrapping himself in as much shields as he could muster, just like General Kenobi had taught him and some of the other curious troopers.

Upon coming to the bridge, a trooper announced his presence. The holocall from the middle table flared to life. Around him was General Skywalker, Commander Tano and Captain Rex from the Resolute at one side and General Windu with Commander Ponds and another officer on the other.

Cody’s gaze just passed over Commander Ponds and their eyes met, briefly. They had spoken only minutes before. His dark eyes went back to General Windu. “Is everything alright, sir?” Cody asked.

“No,” General Windu suppressed a sigh. He kept himself the picture of professionalism the best he could. He just seemed tired to Cody. The Commander feared what would happen this time around. Last time, they were all murdered. Would the outcome be better this time? General Windu took a breath. “Please note I am highly against this.”

“Uh-oh,” Ahsoka muttered under her breath, but it was caught through the call.

“What’s going on Master?” Skywalker asked, trying to cover for his padawan. He straightened himself and glanced at Cody, but the commander avoided his eyes and kept them on the higher ranking General.

“General Tiin is finishing his campaign on Umbara alongside General Krell,” General Windu explained, gravely, pressing his hands against his vambraces across one another. “They are doing quite well, but the population has resurged, and the fleet needs some reinforcements to achieve victory.”

“Oh no,” someone groaned.

“Kenobi’s fleet is the only one close enough,” General Windu added, with a near bitter snarl. It was the most feeling he had seen from the general in quite some time. He must be really tired and really irritated from him to let it show through a holocall, especially one with General Skywalker. “We are hoping that your reinforcements will help…persuade them to retreat.”

“I don’t like this,” Skywalker muttered, looking down at the table map.

“I don’t either,” General Windu emphasized. Cody’s mind buzzed; he had rarely seen General Windu agree so much with General Skywalker. Either he was just too tired to argue, or General Skywalker was actually being willing enough to be agreed with. “To make matters worse, the Chancellor has requested your accompaniment to a festival for protection detail,” he added, pointedly staring at them.

“I…I can’t leave Obi-Wan,” Skywalker curled his fist and looked away.

“I agree.”

General Skywalker’s head whipped back up to meet General Windu’s stony stare, certainly surprised. Cody, of course, agreed, but was surprised that it was a general consensus, only because the two of them rarely seemed to agree on anything. General Skywalker often argued with all of his superiors, although it didn’t always seem as apparent with General Kenobi as it was with others.

“Not only do we need you on the front at this time, especially with Kenobi indisposed,” General Windu explained, prudently. “But nearly all Force-related coma cases have significant better recovery when surrounded by familiar presences. None are more familiar to him than yours. Which is why I had to deny the request. He…was not pleased.” General Windu’s gaze, if possible, had darkened further at the mention.

“Perhaps I should talk to him,” General Skywalker started, almost in a rush to get the words out of his mouth. “Surely if I explained...”

“What Skywalker?” One could certainly hear General Windu trying to hold back a snap. It wasn’t his patience breaking but it was certainly being tested. Cody wondered what was happening over on Coruscant that was making him so on edge. “Explain to him that one of our top Generals is not available and we don’t know why? In an unexplainable coma?”

“Perhaps he could help,” General Skywalker tried. “Obviously not with the coma stuff but with the GAR-.”

“The one person currently available and qualified to lead such a force is standing next to you,” General Windu pressed flatly. Cody looked away, trying not to let the heat on his face show through the call. “Anyone else would be non-jedi and non-clone. You barely listen to Kenobi; would you really listen to someone else? Not to mention most of military generals don’t particular work well with Jedi and their tactics…. we don’t agree with.” He stopped and sighed, shaking his head. “Look… Anakin,” he stressed, surprising everyone by using his first name. That’s when you knew he was trying, and he was serious. “This is very temporary until we can get a look at Kenobi. Who knows, maybe this is just exhaustion, and he will wake up tomorrow. We just do not have the time right now to explain everything and no time to do anything else or change plans.”

There was a long silence through the bridge, with the only sounds being the officers working at their own stations, away from the table as everyone in the call finally let that sink in. General Windu took a deep breath to continue.

“Now,” General Windu said. “General Krell will take the 501st…”

“Shouldn’t I be with my men?”

Cody just wished General Skywalker would stop questioning everything his superior said. Questioning superiors when it was warranted was one thing, but nothing General Windu had said was abnormal or unreasonable.

“You are one of the best pilots we have,” General Windu started off with a compliment, probably hoping to lessen the blow of taking General Skywalker from his direct troops. “General Tiin needs your piloting skills. And if something does happen, would it not be better to be closer to Kenobi?”

General Windu is completely manipulating him, any of the troopers can see it. Cody was pretty sure Skywalker didn’t, but it works anyways.

He accepts.

The rest of the briefing goes a lot more smoothly now that positions were out of the way. General Skywalker would help General Tiin with the piloting. Cody, alongside the upcoming Jedi that was near coming was to direct the space battle. It was nice to understand and know that the high Generals had faith in his ability to lead, even outside of General Kenobi. General Krell would lead the 501st fairly directly on the ground, with the 212th under Sergeant Waxer to box the opposing forces in.

As the planning came to an end, General Windu ended it with a near plea, surely hoping to keep General Skywalker out of as much trouble as he could. “General Skywalker, let Commander Cody do the tactical plans. He is trained with this and knows how to move large amounts of people. He can work at a bigger scale.”

General Skywalker doesn’t particularly care for this but nods and then stalks away. Cody meets General Windu’s eyes and stares, holding it fiercely. He cannot interpret this any other way than to wait. The others finally depart until it is mostly just him and the General. There are others still around, but they are not paying attention.

“Sir,” Cody greeted, slowly.

General Windu hesitated and looked at him, expectantly. “Yes, commander?”

Cody looked around, a bit paranoid. He couldn’t do this now, not with so many around and able to hear anything. He needed some privacy, but he wasn’t entirely sure how he could ask for it. Or, either, if he could. Was that disrespectful? Wrong? General Windu came with high regard from General Kenobi, Cody’s general certainly had a lot of good things to say about him. Ponds certainly seemed to like and respect him. And although Cody never saw anything but respect from the High General, that didn’t mean he was easy to talk with alone.

“I…uh…how long does…this type of exhaustion typically last?”

The general narrowed his eyes, searching him for answers. His reply was slow and deliberate. “Twenty-four hours to three days, usually.” He barely paused. “I must depart, commander.”

Cody’s chest sunk. “Of course, general. Thank you.”

The call ended and he just stood there frozen. He tried not scream. His comm beeped with a message. Office.

Oh, so he did notice.

Thank the Force.

Although he tried not make it apparent that he was running away, Cody moved with quick certainty that made everyone around him know not to ask questions about it. He got into his office and closed everything. There was a situational jammer and the door locked thrice. Her certainly had to put multiple locks on his door because yikes, some of his troopers were trouble.

General Windu’s visage popped up on the desk, much smaller and not life sized as he was on the bridge. He looked as if he didn’t move at all. “Do you have something else, commander?”

“I’ve learned some things from Luke, the time traveler,” Cody started, straightening himself. “I believe I can trust you with.”

This certainly got his attention. An eyebrow rose as General Windu leaned a little forward, certainly interested in what Cody had to say. “Yes?”

“The Sith Lord…” he started, cautiously.

General Windu’s eyes narrowed, and his entire body stiffened. “Do you know who it is?” he near demanded. He bit back anything else he was about to say, allowing Cody time to speak.

“Not for certain, sir,” Cody shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure if Luke knows either. He said the Republic was made into a Galactic Empire at the end of the war and it wasn’t the Separatists who did it.”

“We did believe the Sith was manipulating both sides,” General Windu pondered with a frown. He was probably contemplating with himself but apparently was comfortable enough with doing it in front of Cody to hear. “Our investigation has been a bit slow; the war and other duties have taken a lot of our time.”

Cody knew this. What was to come next would put more on their plate, he understood but if it was to help the jedi and his brothers survive, Cody would do all he could. “It’s not just that sir,” he continued. “He made it sound like it had been easy. I think the Sith you are looking for is powerful and a leader in the Republic, one that could easily take over the government completely.”

He seemed to understand Cody’s meaning. His eyes had widened a fraction as the realization came about and he stared at him. “You don’t think…”

“I think it is a distinct possibility,” Cody confessed. It seemed like a logical leap. It may have been treasonous but whatever helped the Republic, jedi and troopers survive. “Either that or someone is pulling his strings directly.”

The general’s face hardened into that of stone. “Thank you for this information, commander. You have done the Jedi and the Republic a great service.”

Cody hesitated but plowed through. “And sir?”

“Yes?”

He had to know. They had to know. Just in case something went wrong; Cody had to make sure that the jedi, at least to some extent, knew. “Just so you know… whatever happens, believe the troopers are on your side; on the side of the jedi.”

General Windu stared at him intently, trying to decipher his meaning.

“I…will keep that in mind, commander.”

***

When Cody finally returned to the medical bay, his group of 212th boys were snoozing, piled up around Luke in something of a cuddled up heap. His eyes softened as he picked through them. Luke was practically hugging Boil, leaned up against Trapper on one side and Longshot on the other.

As he got to the other side, he found Helix being the only one awake, next to General Kenobi’s bed side. “They’ve been asleep for about a forty-five minutes,” Helix reported, easily. “I couldn’t. Threepwood helped me a little with the chips but…”

Cody smirked and shook his head. “Commander Colt and Alpha-17 are looking into it, discreetly. It’s alright. This whole thing with General Kenobi had put everyone on edge. And Luke could use the sleep. I don’t think he has slept in a while.”

“I would believe you,” Helix nodded. “And for what I’m sure is to come, he’ll need the sleep.”

“How is General Kenobi doing?” Cody asked instead.

“Not much change. A few twitches once in a while. More so than before. Whatever is happening, at this pace, I don’t think whatever is happening will last long,” Helix explained, although it was rather vague for both their tastes.

“Let’s hope he awakens soon,” Cody mused. “We are being redirected.”

“What?” Helix hissed. “How could we possibly do that? With our general like this?! Who ordered this?”

Cody shot him a glare. “We don’t have a lot of time or choices. We are the closest and the only one who can assist General Tiin and General Krell on Umbara. It wasn’t as if we have much of a choice. I just wish General Kenobi would awaken beforehand. He’s lived this before; he could give some insight on the battle.”

Helix shook his head. “This is not a good idea. We can’t possibly rely on General Skywalker to lead such a group of men. He’s…fine with the 501st but with all of us?”

“General Windu is sending us another jedi to help out, he’s close. But I…. I am in charge as of currently,” he said quietly. Helix glanced at him, a little surprised.

“That’s good, you would be better at it than most. Between you and General Kenobi, you two had good campaigns,” Helix replied. “Who is this other Jedi?”

“Just someone to help out, apparently not so much to lead overall,” Cody shrugged. “He was coming before we were redirected to Umbara. He’s one of General Kenobi’s friends. He’s mentioned him before; Quinlan Vos.”

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roninkairi · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on "Masters of The Universe: Revelation, Part 1" (SPOILER ALERT)

There is a point in the 3rd episode of the series where Teela and Evil-Lyn hold a conversation concerning their respective male counterparts, He-Man and Skeletor. Eventually Evil-Lyn tells Teela that He-Man was too much of a "glorified goody-goody" and the real threat of all of the Masters was not him but Man-At Arms, something she reminded all of the Snake Mountain soldiers. It was an admission like this that made me more interested in her to be frank, and it led me to wonder what else she thought about others. And that's precisely one of the things I enjoyed about Revelations so far, the focus on everyone else.

Billed as a sequel to the original series that aired in the 80s, the show starts off simple enough; Teela is promoted to the rank of "Man At Arms" by King Randor while at the same time, Skeletor once again leads an attack on Castle Grayskull. And as expected He-Man, along with the orginal Man-At Arms and the other Masters, go to thwart him and his army. But this time though, things do not turn out how you would think they normally would.

Before the show premiered on Netflix, when watching the trailers, I had a bad feeling, that same feeling of dread I had when the original commercials for the Transformers movie came out; I knew someone important was going to die. I watched this trailer and said to myself "They're going to kill off the Sorceress, aren't they?"

OH DEAR GOD WAS I SO WRONG.

It was one thing to kill off Moss Man in the 'final' battle between He-Man and Skeletor. But then to have He-Man stab Skeletor with his sword...and then KILL BOTH THE MAN HERO AND VILLAIN OFF?

WTF indeed. Which brings me to my alternate title for episode 1: Suppose Teela and King Randor Find Out He-Man's Secret At The WORST POSSIBLE TIME.

The fallout from this event is the main drive of Revelations: Teela and the others are left with the urgent task of reforging the Sword of Power and restoring magic to Eternia or the whole universe dies alongside the planet. And for many folks, this is the cardinal sin that the show commits; daring to have an adventure where neither He-Man or his arch nemesis is the focus. To be honest with you though, He-Man is there, just not in the way you expected him to be. The sacrifice he made and the repercussions from said sacrifice are felt by everyone in one fashion or another and we see just how much he meant to Teela via flashbacks or conversations with others, and it's important as its these memories that spur her on. Unlike the original cartoon, we get to see what the adventures are like for the other members of the cast (I mean seriously, the show is called "Masters of The Universe" so at some point you should really expect to learn more about everyone else) and some of them have more surprising depth than their original portrayals.

That's another thing I wanted to pointed out; there are certain things from the original show that has been somehow changed for more dramatic results. While Evil-Lyn was a scheming magic wielder who was loyal to Skeletor in order to eventually usurp him, here she reveals it was more like a one sided romance with him. And, oddly enough, out of all the characters to bond wth, it's Orko the comic relief of the show. Only he has some serious confidence issues. It can't be helped though, as he is slowly dying from the lack of magic. He does his best to cope as he tells Andra to keep a diary of all of her adventures, something he wishes he did as his memories are now just a blur. His somewhat out of nowhere bonding with Evil Lyn is jarring as she relates to him concerning his struggles to be of some use to his friends despite his magic going haywire since she too had to fight for respect herself even after she joined with Skeletor and the loss of her powers ever since that incident. It makes what happens at the end of episode 4 bittersweet; even she mourns his apparent death as she lays her helmet at his tombstone (and makes her defection back to Skeletor when he and Adam return even more painful)

The show does a good job of addressing many of the things about the original show that made it stand out in my mind, like the questionable choices that these people made and while it's slightly darker in tone (I mean they are dealing with the Apocalypse essentially) it does not lose its humor. There are quite a few nods to the lore of the MOTU canon, both animated and comic plus the action is WAY better than the original show. But the main draw are the characters that are enduring this crazy point in time and for right now, these first 5 episodes set a very interesting tone. I suspect that now that Adam is back (albeit incredibly wounded) he's going to have to deal with the ramifications of his dual life and figure out how to not only get his power back, but face his own father eventually (and I can only imagine just how PISSED he will be when he finds out what King Randor did to Duncan and Orko when he died)

Part 2 can't come soon enough.

...what? You were expecting a "Prince Adam is Hard Gay" joke?

Come on. I'm not that predictable.

#masters of the universe spoilers #masters of the universe revelations

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galahadwilder · 5 years

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A Thief, Redux

Chapter 1: A Cellular Mix-Up

A sequel to A Thief, a Thief, inspired by @sweetmeatdale

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KleptoMariac Archive

AO3

Lila Rossi has not been having a good week. She’d been planning to frame Marinette for a month now, and the whole plan went down the tubes in seconds. She got chewed out by both Gabriel and Hawkmoth (who she’s pretty sure are the same person, but she hasn’t quite gotten enough evidence to prove it); apparently he’d been all set for a repeat of Scarlet Moth and nothing had happened. And isn’t that galling—even Hawkmoth has ridiculous amounts of faith in Dupain-Cheng, if he thinks destroying her image is enough to pull a repeat of what required turning Ladybug and killing Chat Noir the first time.

Everybody loves Marinette, even Paris’ worst terrorist, and it is infuriating.

Framing people for things isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Theft is easier; people leave stuff like their lockers and their backpacks unguarded all the time, thinking that if you can’t steal from them you can’t hurt them. Nobody ever thinks about sneaking things in. Except that that won’t work on Marinette now, because everyone in the class somehow finds it endearing when she steals from them? It’s ridiculous!

She needs another plan. Something foolproof, something that won’t backfire on her, something that won’t be traced back. Unfortunately, she has nothing.

A week passes by of people assuming that her and Marinette are finally becoming friends, and Marinette is so cloying, so sweet, and Lila just wants to strangle her with her own intestines but she has to keep up the image so she pretends to be just as sweet back. But in private... in private she’s scheming.

Adrien has a fencing meet on Friday, and Lila knows that Marinette is going to be distracted. She’s distracted by anything involving Adrien. So during the meet, when everyone is distracted watching Adrien and Kagami tear up the competition, Lila sneaks into the locker room.

She learned to pick locks ages ago—it’s astounding what you can learn from internet tutorials. In seconds, Marinette’s locker swings open, presenting its secrets like a chest of pirate treasure.

The inside of the door is wallpapered with photos of Adrien—expected, if gross—and also one or two of Chat Noir, which is downright offensive. The inside of the locker doesn’t have much in it—a few books, a bag, things Lila could steal to give Mari a fright but nothing in particular she could use to ruin her. A missed or redone assignment or two is nothing.

Lila sighs, flips open Marinette’s custom pink briefcase/backpack thing. There has to be something...

That’s—that’s a phone. She just... left her phone in her locker?

Lila lifts the smartphone gingerly out of the bag, cups it between her hands. It has a Ladybug appliqué on the back, which is surprising, she never took Dupain-Cheng for the type. Still, she can’t believe her luck—she can wreak so much havoc with this.

“Say goodbye to your friends, Cheng,” she says, leaning forward to breathe on the screen. The fingerprints for the passcode show up, swirling gaps in the clouds of condensation, and Lila grins. “Who should I message first?”

Adrien lunges, and the tip of his blade slams into his opponent’s torso, the scoring machine lighting up red behind him with a honking buzz. Alya leaps to her feet. “GO SUNSHINE!”

Adrien twists to look at her, and at Mari (who is currently attempting to hide behind her), and he salutes with two fingers.

“TAKE HIM OUT!” Alya screams, holding up a fist, and Adrien jerks backward in surprise. Alya smirks. What kind of friend would she be if she didn’t mock him a little bit?

“That’s... not how this works, Alya!” Marinette squeaks, tugging on her arm, yanking her back into her seat.

“I know,” Alya replies. “But did you see the look on his face?”

Marinette tilts her head and raises an eyebrow.

Alya laughs. “Okay, poor choice of words,” she says, turning back to look at the fencers—all of whom are wearing helmets that completely obscure their faces. Still, she imagines that Adrien’s expression was hilarious, and damn, she wishes she could’ve gotten a picture.

As if reading her mind, her phone buzzes a text notification.

She looks down, confused. Who’s texting her right now? She’s busy—everyone she knows knows not to text her unless it’s about an Akuma, and if it’s a family emergency she’d be getting a call, not a text.

She reaches into the pocket she’d had Marinette add to her jeans and yanks the phone out, turning it as she pulls so the case won’t catch on the denim, then taps the side button to pull up the text. Two more arrive as she does:

Adrien: hey Alya

Adrien: uh

Adrien: I’m not sure I can be friends with you anymore

...What.

Alya looks up. Adrien is... definitely currently on the gym floor, determinedly brushing aside his opponent’s sword. There is no way he even has his phone on him, much less is texting her right now.

Alya: what do you mean?

Adrien: it’s just

Adrien: it’s impossible to get you to listen to me anymore

Alya blinks, glances back up—buzzer honk, Adrien just won the point. Or, apparently not, there’s a technicality, something about right of way. Any other time she’d have asked Mari to explain, but right now she looks back at her phone. What the fuck?

Alya: what are you talking about?

Adrien: with Lila! You refuse to listen that she’s lying to you

Adrien: and you keep dumping stuff on me when you KNOW I have no free time

Alya: Wait what

Adrien: and pushing me into talking to Adrien when I’m clearly not ready!

Alya: back up please

Adrien: I mean seriously when’s the last time you did anything for me without forcing me into it

Alya: Mari???

Adrien: ALYA PLEASE JUST LISTEN

Alya glances to her right, and there’s Marinette, 100% not holding or even looking at a phone—she’s too busy watching... ah, her eyes are locked on Adrien’s patoot.

She jostles Marinette with her shoulder. “Hey, Mari?”

“Hmm?” Marinette says. She seems to be fugueing a little—her eyes haven’t left Adrien’s rippling glutes.

“Do you know where Adrien’s phone is?” Alya whispers.

Marinette’s gaze immediately snaps away from Adrien, and she shrinks, clasps her hands between her legs. “Um.”

Alya raises an eyebrow.

“It’s... it’s in my locker,” Marinette mumbles, staring at her hands with reddened cheeks. She blinks upwards. “I swear I was—I was gonna give it back!” She squeezes her elbows together and sigh, looking back at her feet. “...Well, after it finished defragging.”

Another buzzer honk from down below, but Alya isn’t even paying attention to that now. Instead, she smirks, clutching Marinette’s forearm. “It’s okay,” Alya says. “He’s gonna be flattered, remember?”

Marinette closes her eyes and nods. She’s clearly still feeling guilty about it, but her body loosens a little.

“But,” Alya continues, holding out her phone, “you need to see this.”

Adrien: I’ve tried to be your friend, Alya, I’ve really tried

Adrien: but what’s even the point anymore?

Adrien: the pics for my website are terrible, I had to hire a professional to fix them

Adrien: like

Adrien: do the readers of the tabloid you call a blog even CARE about quality?

“Adrien is sending this?” Marinette shrieks, launching to her feet.

The entire stands turn to look at her, and Adrien stumbles, his opponent’s sword striking him in the chest. Buzzer honk.

Marinette flushes to “not-breathing-purple,” her eyes nearly popping out of her skull, and she drops back to her seat, cradling Alya’s phone with her hands. Then she looks down, sees Adrien on the gym floor. “That...” Her eyes narrow. “What.”

“I think whoever’s sending this,” Alya says, taking the phone back as everyone returns to watching the match, “is pretending to be you.”

Adrien: I think it’s best if we don’t talk anymore

Adrien: block my number and don’t come back to the bakery again

Adrien: please don’t approach me at school either

Adrien: I’m sorry

Adrien: but I think this is for the best

Alya: ...okay. If you’re sure.

Adrien: I am

Marinette’s face steels and she pops open her purse, pulling out her phone. In a single second, she’s transformed from nervous wreck into Everyday Ladybug, and she has a plan.

“What are you doing?” Alya says.

“Texting everyone in the class,” Marinette says, not looking up.

Alya’s phone dings.

Marinette to Group Chat: someone stole Adrien’s phone and is pretending to be me. They’re gonna say a whole bunch of mean things. Don’t believe them.

Alya grins, locking her phone and forcing it back into her pocket. “Attagirl,” she says, then tilts her head. “Um...”

Marinette’s eyes flick up. “Yeah?”

Alya swallows. Most of what the thief had sent was clearly precisely targeted lies, but... “Have I been... pushing you too much? With Adrien?”

Marinette’s face falls, and Alya knows the answer.

Lila giggles as she sends the last message to Alya. Marinette’s relationship with her is wrecked, unrecoverable, and she can’t wait to see the fallout.

She scrolls through the phone contacts, looking for Adrien, but there’s no number there. “God, is she that much of a coward that she never even got his number?” she hisses. Inconvenient—infuriating.

Okay, next. Randomize maybe? She slides her thumb across the contacts list, letting it roll past, then stops randomly.

Hmm. Father? Oddly formal for Marinette, but still an opportunity. Lila grins wickedly beginning to plan a message for Marinette’s dad.

KleptoMariac Archive

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#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #marinette dupain cheng #lila rossi #alya cesaire #adrien agreste #kleptomaniac marinette dupain cheng #kleptomania #kleptomariac #original content #my fic #fic #fanfic #ml fic #ml fanfic #ladybug episode

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banditchika · 4 years

Text

lost and found

fandom: star wars: the clone wars (loosely assorted canon)

words: 17,421

ship: ahsoka/barriss

author’s note: what if we used to be best friends until you betrayed me, and ten years down the line you save my life and give us the chance to start over... aha... just kidding... unless?

anyway @mirrormystic and i are proud to present our barrisoka post-clone wars collab! barriss has a gun. ahsoka, being ahsoka, is perfect. what more could you want from a piece of transformative fiction??

They had chased her across two planets now. A combination of luck, skill, and an insistent go run flee pulsing through the Force has kept Ahsoka’s head firmly attached to her shoulders so far, but the Inquisitorius is relentless. Having a hot meal in a cantina? Bam, Inquisitor kicking down the doors-- Inquisitor sprawled on the floor, Purge Troopers tripping over him, fumbling for their blasters, and Ahsoka, forced to eat and run for the third time in a month. And if it’s not them, it’s bounty hunters, or pirates, or worst of all, slavers. She’d been careful not to let them catch her going anywhere important, but there was nowhere she could go where they wouldn’t eventually sniff her out, so she’d thought, kriff it, and flew straight to Coruscant. If she was going to be dogged no matter where she went, she might as well send a message: “I’m better than the very best you can throw at me.” It had been a plan Anakin would have been proud of. It almost worked, too. Then the Force-- the very same Force that saved her from droids, bounty hunters, pirates, old friends and enemies and the order that killed everyone Ahsoka ever cared about-- saw fit to send her careening into a dead end alley, with no way out besides the way she came... …Right into the arms of the hooded figures flooding the alley, neon lights glinting off their eyeless masks. Thanks, Ahsoka thinks venomously at the Force, sacred lifeblood of the universe. Thanks a lot, really. Ahsoka stops counting bodies after five. The Inquisitors don't deign to speak as they ignite their sabers--or whatever that dual-bladed spinny thing is supposed to be. If they're not bothering with banter, Ahsoka won't either. It’s almost gratifying to know that she’s annoyed them as much as they’ve annoyed her. For a moment, no one moves. Ahsoka catches her reflection on the blank, gleaming plate of the lead Inquisitor's helm and bares her fangs. The alley erupts into chaos. Motion. Heat. Ahsoka becomes the pure white eye of a blazing red hurricane. Ahsoka ducks and weaves around flashes of red lightning, some figurative, some literal. The air fills with the whirring chop of lightsabers spinning like buzzsaws, but Ahsoka isn’t intimidated. She darts through the chaotic melee with grace and poise, a far cry from the clumsy brutes arrayed against her, shoving past one another to land the prestigious killing blow, unable to press their advantage of numbers. And what numbers! There must have been a dozen Inquisitors packed into the gritty side street. Ahsoka wonders-- in the midst of darting aside sloppy slashes and swatting overly-telegraphed blows aside-- if they had simply joined forces as more and more of them picked up her trail, or if the Empire had sent so many after her from the very beginning. This many Inquisitors on the same planet, much less the same city, is astounding overkill. Ahsoka’s almost flattered. Filthy red light flashes through the air and cracks against Ahsoka’s blades. She shoves them back with a thought, feeling the Inquisitors’ frustration rippling through the air. The Inquisitorius seemed to think a red lightsaber and a nice hat were all it took to scare any fledgling Force-sensitives into submission. They must not be used to fighting a Jedi worthy of the name. But even if they were amateurs by comparison, there were a lot of them. And all it took was one slip, one break in Ahsoka’s guard… She sees the feint. Two low, one high-- two to sweep her legs, the third to catch her when she jumps. She curls her legs beneath her, lets the Force flow down from her core into the soles of her boots, and leaps over all three… ...only to see the waiting line of a half dozen hands, stretched, palm-out, towards her. The coordinated Push hits her like a freighter lighting its drives. It snatches her out of mid-air and hurls her down the length of the alley. Ahsoka wheezes as she’s smashed against the far wall, the breath forced from her lungs, her lightsabers clattering to the pavement. She crumples to her knees, hugging herself, a spiderweb of cracks spreading across the duraplast wall above. Ahsoka gasps, teary-eyed, willing some air back into her lungs. Her insides feel like jelly. Her vision blurs and shifts. She sees the shadows of the Inquisitors looming above her, closing in like wolves. One of them barks an order into his helmet mic, and the others stand aside. He strides forward to the head of the pack. He’s been hunting her the longest. This is his kill. Ahsoka swears she hears him lick his lips behind the mask. He ignites his lightsaber. It begins to spin-- A blaster clicks. The Inquisitor whirls and brings his saber up too late to deflect the shot that cracks against his arm. His lightsaber falls from numb fingers, still spinning, cutting glowing gouges in the pavement. Ahsoka twists the Force in her fist and dashes him against the wall. A hail of acid yellow bolts cascades down the alley, forcing the Inquisitors on the defensive. Their opponent stands at the entrance of the alleyway, casting a shadow that stretches narrow from their feet to titanic against the filthy alley wall. Ahsoka sees the shape of a hood and cloak, and when their blaster barks in their hands she catches the briefest glimpse of pale skin and a narrow, snarling mouth. A shiver runs through her. She feels it from the tips of her montrals all the way down to the pit of her gut. Ahsoka knows this stranger, but who-- She almost pays with her nose for her distraction. The Inquisitor whose helm she shattered against the alley wall leaps to his feet and lashes out with his spinning sabers, blood drooling from the cracks in his helm. Ahsoka catches a blade with her main saber and lets the motion of it drag the Inquisitor within thrusting range of her shoto. Another Inquisitor lunges, but a shot cracks against their helmet. A glancing blow, but it still distracts them long enough for Ahsoka to whirl and turn her thrust into a slash, searing through their saber arm. The Inquisitor falls. The other, with his spinning blades, lets out a ragged cry and pounces. Blaster fire harmonizes with the hum and crash of colliding sabers, a frantic, dissonant symphony. Something strange is at work here-- even if it weren’t for the horrible, lurching knot of familiarity sitting in her gut, the stranger’s shooting would have tipped Ahsoka off eventually. Blasters are great for crowd control. Blasters are great against people who couldn’t deflect them as easily as one might shoo an annoying insect. Blasters should not be anywhere near effective in a fight consisting entirely of Force-users. But this stranger’s shots are landing. Not lethally and not often, but the stranger is proving to be capable of more than just cover fire, and that-- that alone would be worth noticing. Unfortunately, it seems the Inquisitors have finally picked up on it. In frustration at being distracted from their quarry, the rear ranks of Inquisitors adjust their grip on their lightsabers and tighten their deflections. When the hooded gunner looses their next volley, the bright yellow bolts are angled right back where they came from. The stranger shifts their weight, darting away from their deflected fire with a speed and efficiency of movement that gives Ahsoka pause. If Ahsoka had had any doubt this was no ordinary concerned bystander, it’s long gone. An Inquisitor barks a garbled order over their helmet radio. Down the street, a squad of Purge Troopers rounds the corner, bringing their rifles up to aim. A second blaster appears in the stranger’s off-hand, as if conjured out of nothing. They gun down the troopers barreling down the street with clinical efficiency and absurd precision, single shots, quick, clean. They don’t even bother turning to look. And when the last trooper falls, the stranger turns their attention back on the alley, toggling from single-shot to full-auto with a click. A storm of searing yellow bolts stitches its way up the side of the neighboring complex. A creaking old fire escape is sheared from the wall. The Inquisitors cry out in alarm as the aging structure crashes down on their heads in a heap of sparking metal. Ahsoka channels the Force down into her feet and propels herself over the wreckage and the rising dust cloud, joining the stranger on the street. Already, she can hear the buzzing of spinning lightsabers scything through metal, the first Inquisitors emerging from the debris. In an instant, the stranger has their twin blasters up and firing. The stranger’s pushed their luck too far. The Inquisitor spins their ring blade, and this time, the storm of deflected bolts makes contact. An arm. A hand. The stranger cries out as a bolt clips their hood and the impact throws them to the ground. That voice. Ahsoka knows that voice-- A flash of red streaks past her face and stops just shy of carving into her chest. Ahsoka catches the blade on her own, grits her teeth, and slices her opponent open with a tight, scissoring slash. As the Inquisitor crumples, she sees two of his compatriots already rushing forward to take his place, the others already picking themselves off the ground. Ahsoka snarls, hunkering down against the renewed assault. The Inquisitors are finally getting serious-- or maybe she’s the one getting sloppy. Distracted. She’s distracted-- but she can’t get that voice out of her head. She senses the Inquisitor trying to sneak up on her from behind. She senses him, but she can’t stop him-- her lightsabers are locked against the two in front of her. Ahsoka grits her teeth. She cries out, takes a pair of glancing cuts along her bracers as she punches her blades across two throats. She feels something. A tug at her waist. Behind her. She whirls around, bringing her lightsabers up to defend. Too slow, too slow-- And she sees the Inquisitor go stiff as a board, a blade of acid yellow plasma punching through his spine and coming out through his chest. The stranger swipes the blade aside, and the man crumples. The woman-- and with her cloak pulled aside and her tunic hugging her curves, her womanhood is impossible for Ahsoka to ignore-- raises the yellow shoto in her uninjured hand, pulling her hood back up onto her head. Ahsoka blinks, her thoughts spinning. The shoto Anakin had given her years ago. Her empty belt pouch. The sensation of the Force pulling something from her belt. And those eyes. Though the woman tries to hide them under her hood, the yellow glow of her borrowed shoto catches her ocean-blue eyes, illuminating the faded arch of diamond tattoos across her nose. Ahsoka gasps. “Barriss?” Ahsoka’s senses flare in warning and she whirls around, catching an Inquisitor’s blade on her twin lightsabers. The Inquisitors descend upon them, snapping and snarling like wolves. Ahsoka stands her ground like a cliff against the sea, blocking strikes from every angle, swatting aside incoming attacks, letting her foes overreach, pull themselves off balance. And in her shadow, Barriss prowls, Ahsoka’s yellow shoto like a dagger of light in her hands. Barriss circles around like a jungle cat, hunting for weaknesses, plunging her shoto into every broken guard. The next few minutes feel like hours. Finally, the last member of the hunting party lies broken on the pavement, his helmet radio crackling. Barriss stabs him in the throat without batting an eye. Barriss deactivates the shoto and shifts it into her injured hand with a wince. One of her blasters, she scoops up from the sidewalk where she’d dropped it. The other, sparking from a ruptured power cell, she leaves where it fell. She turns to find Ahsoka staring, so intently she squirms and looks away. It takes Ahsoka a long moment to deactivate her lightsabers and put them away. Ahsoka exhales. It’s been years. What is she supposed to say? That’s when Ahsoka hears it-- the crackling of radio chatter. Armored boots hustling their way. “Where’s your ship?” Barriss asks-- the first words she’s said to Ahsoka in over a decade. “Why, you don’t think we can take ‘em?” Ahsoka asks dryly, with a daredevil grin. Barriss’ lips curl into something almost like a smile. Ahsoka feels a flicker of… something in her chest. Something old, and bittersweet. It doesn’t last. The blurts of helmet comms and tromping boots get ever closer. “Your ship,” Barriss echoes, rather more urgently. “...Right,” Ahsoka mutters. “Follow me.”

continue on ao3

#barrissoka #barriss offee #ahsoka tano #star wars #star wars: the clone wars #peents writes #product of two beautiful weeks of collaboration!!

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pilyarquitect · 4 years

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Getafix’s mistake - Chapter 3. A worrying discovery

Hello everyone! Here I bring you a new chapter of this Asterix fic, I truly hope you’ll all like it. Now when I first started this story, at this point I could go through three different directions with what happened to Asterix. First, he has a child’s body but keep his adult memories; second, he has both the size and the mind of a child; and the third, he has a child’s body but his mind has no memories or losing them. What of those choices do you thing I went with? You can leave your opinions on your reviews, I’d love to hear your thoughts. 😊

Well, I’d like to give a special thanks to @drummergirl231-2 for helping me editing this story. I’m really, really, really grateful to her, she’s awesome!

Okay after say all this, here you have the first chapter of this story, I hope you all will like it!

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Getafix entered his cabin. Right now, concern for Asterix had reached unsuspected highs in the old druid's soul. Where could he be? What if something had certainly happened to him? Getafix knew well Asterix didn’t make others suffer on purpose… not his family, his friends… or especially Obelix, at least not of his own free will.

During his conversation with Obelix, Getafix had tried to reassure the red-haired Gaul, assuring him Asterix would return. But being honest, at this point, the druid himself doubted that was true. If Asterix hadn’t returned, it was because something must have happened to him. Surely something had happened to him.

But for the moment Getafix didn’t know what to do either. Obelix had suggested to him to go to the forest himself to look for his friend, but the druid had rejected his offer. He didn’t want to risk leaving the town without the protection of the great Gaul. It wasn't that he didn't trust the rest of the inhabitants. It was just that if the Romans were involved in the recent disappearance of the blond Gaul, they’d most likely expect Obelix to come looking for him. Everyone knew they were inseparable, and if that happened, then the town would be left without one of its greatest pillars of protection.

To calm, at least temporarily, the menhir rock-cutter’s mind, Getafix had suggested that if Asterix had not yet returned by the afternoon, then they would speak to Vitalstatistix about what should they do next.

For his part, and to calm his own growing nervousness state, Getafix decided to continue with the potion he had been working on. That would at least help release some of the tension he was undergoing, he thought. Getafix took down the canteen and opened it to pour its contents into a basin, but when the liquid began to fall into the container, Getafix's eyes opened in shock. This color… this color was like the magic potion! How could this be? The druid was certain that his potion was very different in color from the concoction that granted superhuman strength, so what was going on? Stunned, he looked at the green canteen that was still in his hands…

At that precise moment, Getafix could almost feel his heart stop. In addition, the old druid felt as if a lightning bolt had cut him in two, because suddenly, a memory came to his mind. He had put the magic potion for Asterix in that canteen, the green one. And his new potion in the other one. That meant… when Asterix showed up just hours before in search of the brew, he mistakenly gave him the wrong canteen! What a fool! How could he have done such a thing? Getafix reached a new level of concern that he would never have believed possible when he realized that Asterix's disappearance could be due to his negligence.

Realizing his terrible confusion, Getafix emerged as fast as he could from his cabin, his red cloak and long beard swaying in the rushing wind. With the maximum speed his legs allowed him, he made his way to the chief's cabin. He had to report what he had just discovered immediately, for in many ways Asterix's life could depend on it.

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"THIS CHILD IS ASTERIX!"

The moment these words came from Cleverus's mouth, a sepulchral silence took over the entire camp. The Centurion was petrified and his eyes traveled from the boy to each of the patrol members, trying to find in one of them a hint of lies, but he couldn’t. They all had the same expression that indicated they agreed with what their squad leader had just said. One of them even showed him the Gaul’s belongings they had collected from the forest, among which was the characteristic helmet of the warrior Gaul.

Caius Marsupialus was stunned. It was very difficult for him to believe what he was seeing; it was too much to comprehend. Then, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them, the man of higher rank asked:

“Are you telling me that this child is Asterix, Asterix? The warrior of the irreducible village?”

"That same Asterix, Centurion. Do we know someone else with that name?" Cleverus replied annoyed.

"And why didn't you say so before?" Caius Marsupialus asked again.

"It's what I was trying to do!" the lowest ranked one complained.

"Okay, okay, by Juno! Could you explain to me how this happened?” he asked again this time pointing to the unconscious warrior.

“Before I do that Centurion, don't you think we'll have to hide him? You know, in case some Gaul shows up?”

"You’re right. Put him in my tent. Then I’ll take care of him personally." replied the Centurion.

"Understood Centurion."

The soldier who carried Asterix and the one who carried all his belongings prepared to enter and leave everything in the centurion's tent, but Caius Marsupialus stopped the one who carried the warrior's objects, and took the canteen from the belt. After that he studied it and a malicious smile appeared on his face. This canteen must contain the famous magic potion, he thought. He then proceeded to remove the cap and brought the container to his lips, but when he was going to drink, a voice stopped him.

"No Centurion, don't do it!"

"And why shouldn't I do it, legionary?" Caius Marsupialus asked, irritated that someone had dared to give him an order.

"If you do, the same thing that happened to that Gaul will happen to you too." replied the legionary.

Caius Marsupialus turned pale on hearing this. He looked again at the container from which he had been about to drink, and without wasting time, returned the stopper to its place and kept it as far away from him as possible.

When the two legionaries who had entered Caius Marsupialus's tent left again, the Centurion demanded from his men the explanation he so longed for to understand what had happened.

"Okay Centurion… what has happened is that we were in the forest, patrolling as always. Suddenly, we ran into that villager from the irreducible hamlet." began Cleverus.

"Yes, then he smiled and started to run towards us while taking the canteen from his belt." another continued.

"That’s true, by Jupiter! I felt terror when I saw him take a drink from the canteen,” said a third patroller.

"But after drinking from that canteen, he’s started to slow down until he stopped, and then he fell to his knees and his body shrank to the size it is now." concluded the latter.

“After the transformation he lost consciousness and since we didn’t know what to do, we brought him here. That's all that has happened, Centurion,” Cleverus said again.

"Okay… by Mars, do you know if the effects of this potion are temporary or permanent?" asked Caius Marsupialus.

"How do you expect us to know? This has never happened to us!” Cleverus protested.

“That’s right, but we have to find a solution. That Gaul cannot stay here. It would only bring us problems. Especially if the other Gauls discover what has happened,” said the Centurion, pointing to the tent where Asterix was.

"Right Centurion. Then what do we do?" asked one of the many legionaries.

The Centurion assumed a thoughtful posture. One arm resting on the other and his chin resting on his hand. Then he looked at all his men and said:

"Act normally, as if nothing has happened. If you meet the Gauls in the forest, don’t even think to tell them anything about the prisoner." then the Centurion seemed to remember something and added:

"There’s another thing: I want you to clean the camp, because soon we’ll receive the visit from a senator from Rome. I don't want anything to be out of place, understood?"

"Yes Centurion!" everyone in the camp replied.

"Very well, that's all, AVE!" the Centurion stood firm and said goodbye to his men.

"AVE!" answered the others. Then, each returned to his tasks. Some immediately began cleaning the camp for the imminent arrival of the Roman senator.

Caius Marsupialus, meanwhile, entered his tent again, only to find the small Asterix still unconscious on the ground. Just thinking that one of the Gauls who had given them the most headaches now had such a fragile and helpless form made the Centurion think of the irony of the situation. They, as conquerors, should show conquered peoples they were superior, and not the reverse, which was what happened with that small village to which he had been assigned.

Caius Marsupialus sat in his chair, waiting patiently for his prisoner to wake up. Only after talking to him would he decide what to do next.

******************************************************

Vitalstatistix sat in his cabin with a bucket full of water soaking his feet. He had removed his typical green robe and at this moment he wore a tank top and his blue vertical striped pants. The Gaul was calmly reading the latest news that his brother had brought to him from Lutetia. Vitalstatistix’s brother had the habit of sending him his letters written on marble of the best quality, undoubtedly a way to brag about his many triumphs throughout his life as a warrior – and as an arms companion of the great Vergincetorix. Impedimenta, Vitalstatistix’s wife, was next to him sewing, both were talking quietly when suddenly the door of the cabin opened and a very agitated Getafix appeared behind it. Everyone could tell he had come running since he was panting heavily in an attempt to catch his lost breath.

Seeing him in such a state, the village chief and his wife immediately stood up with obvious concern on their faces.

"Getafix! What’s going on, oh druid?"

"Vitalstatistix… I-I’m sorry to interrupt… like this in your… cabin… but we must immediately go… looking for Asterix, before… it’s too late."

Seeing the level of agitation of the druid, Vitalstatistix grabbed a towel and wiped his feet. After this, he offered a Getafix a chair for him to sit down and tell him everything more calmly.

"Come on Getafix, explain to me what this is all about." said the village chief delicately, trying to calm the man in front of him.

"Vitalstatistix… it is my fault… that Asterix has… disappeared."

"What?! What are you talking about, Getafix?” Vitalstatistix asked now slightly altered. The fact the druid accused himself of something like that wasn’t normal.

"I've… I've been working on a new potion… it's not finished yet…" he continued to gasp. "This morning when Asterix… came to see me at my cabin… I mistakenly gave him this potion instead of the magic potion… we have to go looking for him! I’m afraid something serious has happened to him."

"That potion… do you know what it could do to whoever takes it?"

"No, unfortunately I don’t know. That's why I say that we have to leave as soon as possible. I fear, and I hope isn��t Tutatis’ will, it may even kill whoever takes it."

Vitalstatistix paled when hearing this. Just thinking that Asterix or any other of his subordinates, but above all, friends could die was something that frightened him. As a chief he would feel he had failed. As a friend, he would hate himself for not having been able to avoid it.

Then the chief thought of Obelix and Getafix. The druid as maker of that potion, would undoubtedly blame himself if something happened to the blond Gaul, and as for Obelix, knowing the close friendship that united them both, losing Asterix would mean losing Obelix as well, since it would be very difficult for the menhir dealer to recover from such a thing.

Impedimenta had gone to get some water so that Getafix could recover sooner, but she entered just when Getafix said his last sentence, and obviously, she heard it, which left her stunned. Unintentionally, the glass she was carrying slipped from her hands and fell to the ground breaking into thousands of pieces. The two men saw this and immediately Vitalstatistix went to his wife's side and hugged her tightly, that was all it took for Impedimenta to recover, she separated from her husband and asked:

"Getafix, in addition to those here, does anyone else know this?"

"No, no one else knows. But I think we need to tell the rest, the sooner we find Asterix the better… but let me speak to Obelix while you speak to the rest of the people, Vitalstatistix. I’m afraid Obelix is not going to deal very well with this news. Let me tell him." suggested the druid.

"Of course, Getafix. I don't think there is anyone more appropriate than you to tell him news of such magnitude," replied the village chief.

Then Vitalstatistix called one of his carriers who was waiting at the entrance and sent him to call the rest of the village's inhabitants. While this Gaul was doing what his leader had ordered, Getafix headed towards Obelix's cabin, passing again in front of Asterix's cabin. He looked towards the blond Gaul's residence and a great pang of guilt invaded his heart. Why had he been so careless? Now the village warrior was probably paying the consequences of his actions.

He continued on his way to the neighboring cabin. His steps were heavy but fast, since he learned that possibly the blond warrior was running out of time. But on the other hand, he didn’t know exactly how to broach the subject with Obelix, since the great Gaul was very sensitive… especially with regard to the people closest to him. When Getafix finally reached the cabin door, he took a deep breath and entered.

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He felt tired… very tired. His whole body hurt, especially his chest and head. He couldn't remember what he had done to get so tired or why everything hurt so much, nor could he understand it. What had he done to make him feel as if a cart had run him over? It was something that was beyond his understanding.

He also realized that he was sleeping on the floor. It was strange. He usually slept in his bed. Had he fallen? But he wasn't one to move around much at night, so that was unlikely, but then… why was he on the ground? He decided to get up, and to do so he used his hands… or at least he tried, because he realized his hands were tied!

This was already too strange. Even though he still felt his eyelids were very heavy, he made feeble efforts to lift them, until he finally managed to open his eyes slightly. His vision was blurred, but he managed to see a silhouette that seemed to be watching him and heard him say the following words:

"Welcome to Totorum Camp, Gaul."

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Welp, chapter three finished. As you could see, Getafix realized about his mistake, and now Vitalstatistix knows about this too. In addition, the Romans will soon have a visit. What will this mean for Asterix? And about Asterix, as you could see, he has woken up how will he react, if you want to share your ideas about it, don’t doubt to leave a review, reviews help me to get motivation to continue writing 😊

Okay, after say that, I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I also would like to thank to all the people who’d read this story and: @elianemariane17 @theholypencil @alyxox02 @lilacivories for their likes

See you in the next chapter 😉

#asterix and obelix #Getafix's mistake #Getafix #centurion Caius Marsupialus #Romans #Asterix #Vitalstatistix #Impedimenta

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autobuttonsanddeceptistitches · 4 years

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Viper’s Vengeance Chapter 2: Beware the Wild Weasel

Chapter 1

Hey guys, so I’m finally returning to this story. There’s been a lot going on right now, so hopefully updates won’t be too far between. This chapter also contains graphic depiction of gore for one short part near the end as a trigger warning.

Grand doors opened up to the sight of three thrones. The three Megatrons resting upon their high horses. All different bodies, yet the same name of an atomic weapon as powerful as one million tons of dynamite. Soundwave took attention of the sudden appearance, a new bulky body with Cobra armor. Viper clenched his servos, detesting the sight of another bearing the same curse as him. The true blue mech bowed down, wings remaining high. The gray leader smirked, getting off his chair.

“Viper, how good to see you again, I didn't expect you to come back. It seems Cobra was much weaker than I expected.” He said in such a twisted glee. Armada Megatron scoffed, as Beast Wars Megatron paid attention to the T-Rex head for an arm. Viper rose, his true blue sight unseen before.

“Its over now, we don't have to worry about them or the traitor anymore.”

“So you got rid of Luca as well?” The Cobra prototype nodded, remembering the flesh melting from his bones. How the calcium fell apart.

“I told you it wasn't a good idea to team up with those humans!” Came a shrill shriek. Everyone turned to face Starscream and his two Seeker buddies. Among them being Skywarp, wearing far uglier armor than before. Viper glared at the jet, feeling pity oozing out of his seams. The dark armored bot ran up to the snake, gripping his wounded shoulder.

“Hey, could you tell me that you salvaged my body?!” Came such a loud noise that echoed across the room.

“Sorry Skywarp, I didn't want any humans to use those parts, so they're all melted down. You should go to Cybertron and get a new one.” He teased, right as a fist crashed into him.

“Enough! Viper's done his work and we're moving on from that.” Armada Megatron interrupted, his powerful frame standing up and glaring at the fliers.

“Indeed Armada, I am happy to see your attack was successful.” The gray mech replied, he seemed to be happy to see another one of himself, let alone two of them bearing his name. Sure, on the surface it seemed they all detested each other. Yet, Viper could tell something lied beneath that. Soundwave detected it as well, but chose not to speak. The dark blue mech got up, wiping his face of the purple fist that whammed into his.

“Thanks, I needed a warm welcome from the likes of you. Lord Megatrons, may I request a few days off from the raids? Hook mentioned that I needed more repairs on my armor before I can fight.” Blue optics reflected the three Emperors of Destruction as they whispered among themselves. Starscream and Thundercracker dragged Skywarp off as he screamed out various Cybertronian swears.

“Fine, it seems you've done far much more compared to the rest of the army. Go on then, before we change our minds... Yessssss.” The Predacon leader hissed. The former Cobra soldier exited, making sure to avoid the bitter Nightraven. Who knew he loved his old self that much.

Back here again, staring at nothing as Hook tinkered. This time, a lot more precise with the sensitive wings. Good thing the irate Seeker's fists weren't strong enough to make a dent. The vibrant red mouthplate came off, showing the forever hidden white armored face. In the green mech's reflection is markings of a scar. New one gained from the chaotic battle from last night. Nothing to worry over, not if it doesn't hurt.

Dirty work, that song they listened to earlier, quite symbolic of such a situation. Done working for Decepticons, done working with everyone. A few days off is what he needs. It was nice that the dinosaur gave him an agreement. A lot of time to think, to question life's choices. One grew in his head as the Summer Breeze made him feel fine.

How did Cobra get the idea to make him? It couldn't be an idiotic idea that some crazy scientist could come up with. Come up to the boss and proclaiming they could make a jet that'd transform into a large fighting warrior. That urge to dig deeper, to discover why he came to be in these dark times. Who is he?

“I repaired your visor the best I could with what little I had. Sure its not the right color, but at least it'll shield your optics like it did before, so be happy with that.” Hook moved back to pick up a thick orange visor. Must've ran out of black and ditched the primary color for one not found on dark blue armor. The left part of it still broken that'd expose the optic. Its not the prettiest job, but it'll do for now. Servos soon placed the visor back on, fragments of glass included, but tight enough not to go loose and stab him. Hook smirked, knowing how much of a patch job this is. It'd contrast well with his vibrant blue vision. Then came back on the mouthplate, hiding the most human aspect of him.

After Hook finished, Viper sat up, looking towards the medic. “Thank you, I needed that a lot.” He exhaled, wings moving to show that they looked a lot better.

“You know, I could use a paint stripper and get rid of those ugly symbols.” Hook suggested, yet the former Cobra soldier got off the medical berth and adjusted his visor.

“Your repairs are all I needed. Our Megatrons agreed that I needed a break from the fighting. Its my time off now.” Blue armor left the room, closing the door behind him. Hook scoffed as the door opened again. A damaged Build Bot and Shrapnel getting dragged in by Kickback, with a cheeky grin on his face. How wonderful.

The human made machine got out of the shade and into the sunlight. The bright light displaying the restored paint on the weary body. What a strange part of the world to be at, a desert with hidden patches of life. Its often nice to listen to the soft sounds of distant animals and birds. I'd be best to go to the best spot to observe the vast wilderness of this planet. Time to concentrate and think, think over what to do with his past and how life became the way it is.

Viper saw two figures standing on the edge of the ravine. One that guarded the place from any ground vehicles from reaching the base. Breakdown and Drag Strip, two of the Stunticons enjoying their time off from the battles as well it seems. The Rattler came closer, noticing little rodents popping out of the ground. Some traveling across the large holes they dug up.

“Hey, look at those weasels, they're all over the place. Isn't that wild!? Hey, wild weasels!” Breakdown laughed, right as his brother smacked his helm.

“No you dummy, those are gophers! Or groundhogs? I remembered hearing a crazy old man tried bombing his farm to get rid of them. Left a giant hole that's used for tourism in Japan! Best place to dump you off!” His brother chided, before noticing Viper staring at them. “Hey, what's bothering you?”

“Wild....Weasel....” Came a whisper, optics going blank before his processor bloomed into a familiar pain. This damage came from when Cobra tore through his head. The last sight before shutting down was Drag Strip running up to him while Breakdown kept screaming apologies...

A sight returned of blue skies over a forgotten base. An old place with worn out red paint hidden in a faraway jungle. A figure sat inside of the cockpit of a Cobra Rattler. One bearing the iconic symbols, yet having the Decepticon ones embedded as well. Before a consciousness, all that existed was a lifeless husk, a prototype.

“Wild Weasel, how is the Viper performing?” A harsh voice came out, Cobra Commander's own, escaping from the radio into the cockpit. A pilot wearing red, hiding his face behind that intimidating helmet of black and red. He picked up the message, glancing back at the other prototype Rattlers.

“Wild Weasel here, this change to my plane is performing well. I haven't heard anything from the others yet. But I can tell they're performing the same as always.” A blank voice chimed, his pronunciation of s emphasized. An older one, still bearing a cocky attitude matched by his flying skills.

Wheels landing onto the ground, a sweet sensation to anyone bearing a fear of flight. Such bliss for anyone as the other tires began to land onto the soft surface. Overgrown plants, the typical sign of forgotten memories. A row of Cobra Rattlers, seven in total, yet one had the unique marking of purple. Upon command, six had changed their shape, walking on two legs rather than the three wheels. All remained static as their faces showed silver and black. Regular Cobra soldiers hiding at the back of the armored heads, adjusting to the new shape. All eyes left onto the main one, piloted by the great Wild Weasel. His fingers rested onto the controls. Muscles tensing, to soon hear the transformation as everyone watched.

Then, everything came to life. The flickering of an ember, growing into an inferno at the pouring of gasoline. A harsh scream filling his cockpit, crushing of bones as machinery filled the small spot. Never giving the weasel a chance to weasel away from the rising metal. Life, upon the begging of death. The firstborn stood, staring upon the crimson red dripping in his optics. Blood, what flows in the veins of humans. So much of it, the first memory, to hear a horrid screech, then watch the fear on the small creatures faces. A gun slipped out as armor malfunctioned, acid fired and melting the other prototypes. How could they be under full control, yet he could not?

Vision flooded, death, screaming, orders refused to follow. Then, a horrid shot hit his face, breaking the glass. More shots filled the sky as his vocalizer began to function. A scream of his own, startling everyone before they kept firing. Like a feared animal, fighting back against what he couldn't understand. Angry creatures, others identical to him melting down into puddles consumed in green. Such horrid sights, before one powerful blast took him down. Broken glass, staring at the strange color up above. Blue, its so beautiful, glistening the blood before going to sleep.

The prototype couldn't move, arms and legs tied down to slabs of steel. He struggled, making random noises towards the creatures, startled upon his awakening. Right in front of him, a man in the same color of the up above. Face hidden by a shield of silver, black gloves clenching the worn railings. Two other figures stood there, a woman with black, and a man of white. They whispered among each other, before a scientist ran up to the three. This person gave mention for something to be ready. Ready?

Upon the orders, a tremendous pain broke the functioning processor. New thoughts silenced, a forgotten voice. A vegetable, a robotic cabbage, never to be seen again...

“Viper?” Came a whisper, oh that sweet voice. Nightbird's, but, why is she here? Viper turned his numb helm, vision clearing up to find her staring down at him. He perched up, seeing Breakdown and the other Stunticons close by.

“How long was I out?” Came the first words, armor burning at his frame remembering the forgotten memories. The ninja rose a hand to his shoulder.

“A few hours, we thought of taking you to Hook, but he was busy. But, it seems we don't. Alright you five, the show's over.” Leading to the groans of the five mechs. They transformed and drove off into the desert. Ready to do their usual dangerous stunts for the others and their self amusement. Nightbird helped the former cobra mech up.

“What, were they going to ditch me in the middle of nowhere during that?” Came irritation in blue optics upon Nightbird's nod.

“You know them, I would've expected them to use you for their ramps. I've seen what they do with overcharged Decepticons. Need to go somewhere?”

“Yes, I was going to head somewhere, until I heard Breakdown and Drag Strip talk about the darn weasels.” An emphasized hiss on the rodents.

“Well, we'd better get going to wherever you're going. The sun's starting to set, what happened in your vision?”

“Its the reason I'm going there. I wouldn't suggest you coming along, its all for me to take care of. Although, you did make sure I wasn't Stunticon roadkill, so I should repay you in that way.” Viper transformed as Nightbird performed a cartwheel before entering into her alt mode. She drove off alongside him towards the one path able to let anyone in and out of the base.

Gotta pass the long roads that are famous for their tourist attractions in this side of Nevada. Few cars tonight, which is good for any Cybertronians during this time of the dying day. Viper seemed to be feeling a lot calmer since his episode, which should be a good thing. Nightbird remembered the first time she saw him on the floor during a large meeting. Stuck unconscious due to remembering another one of his 'memories'. She remembered hearing Soundwave and Hook discuss the cause of these episodes. The fracturing of his neural systems, vital parts to a Cybertronian to function. It may be repairable, given the time and resources from Cybertron come together. Viper did come into the Earth Wars a few months after her, so they were new back then. Now, a lot's changed since those days. More soldiers, more adjustments to the base's inner structure. What strange days, still having their sense of joy. Although the questions rose in her helm during the drive. Pondering of Viper's intentions.

What seemed to be forever lead them to California in the dead of night. Nightbird's engine hummed, used to long drives after frequent testing by her creators. Oh those days in the labs, born and built for one purpose, yet her own Spark lead her to this. She noticed Viper swooping towards a tunnel in the side of a mountain. A bridge abandoned for so many years. He waited on the old bricks, finding his tag along nearby landing onto the said bridge. Both their optics and armor lighting helped illuminate the tunnel.

“So, what was your memory about?” Nightbird chimed, seeing how Viper remembered his way down these long unforgiving paths.

“My birth, how I had my first kill. Tell me, have you seen blood?”

“In the horror movies Swindle and others watch.” Nightbird chuckled to herself. She'd often sneak into their little parties, such a shame it'd be American and British horrors. They needed some Japanese stuff to watch too.

“I saw it drip down my face and pool out, my optics, stained in so much of it. I'm amazed that Cobra left me alive, but, that's why I'm here.” Said with no emotion. Both reached an aged door with the infamous symbol of red worn away by time. Upon pressing a few buttons, it opened to the sight of forgotten technology. Old machinery whirled to life for the first time in years.

#Viper's Vengeance #Viper #Nightbird #Soundwave #Transformers Earth Wars #Transformers #TF #Maccadams #fanfiction #fanfic #Transformers fanfic #G1 #TW: Gore

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dustedmagazine · 6 years

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Punk’d History: A Series

Photo by Leni Sinclair

This is the first installment in a series of reflections on punk’s emergence and formation, with emphases on American culture and the fraught relations between history and art. Don’t look for chronology or conventional essayistic coherence. History isn’t chronological, and it’s never coherent. It’s by turns tedious and violent. It accumulates in a residue that we can find in ashcans and in the dark corners of wrecked, abandoned buildings.

In those ways, history is sort of punk.

Three Punk’d Moments, 1966-1969

When does punk begin? The canonical account of its origin starts with the Sex Pistols, and there’s good reason for that, if we consider punk to be a pop cultural phenomenon. We might point to the band’s 1 December 1976 appearance on the Bill Grundy Show, which produced two crucial effects: it launched the Pistols and punk into mass cultural awareness, and it presaged Glenn Matlock’s banishment from the band, opening the way for Sid Vicious and his swastika t-shirts, his fashion-victim sneer and his blank caricature of outrage.

I’d like to supply a different beginning: the beginning of a counternarrative, to supplement and to question the canonical outline. I won’t write about any punks, if by “punk” we mean Dee Dee Ramone or Cheetah Chrome or Penelope Houston. I write about three moments that set something in motion, that began to assemble a disposition—even better, three moments that began to prepare a space into which Dee Dee and Cheetah and Penelope could eventually step. We might think of that space as a stage. Not at CBGB or Mabuhay Gardens. It’s a historical stage, a punk’d space of transformation. We might start here:

Bob Dylan in Manchester, 17 May 1966

Blonde on Blonde had been released the day before. The album featured Dylan’s most unambiguously American music to date, an idiosyncratic amalgam of country and blues and rock, mostly recorded in Nashville with experienced session men like Charlie McCoy and Kenny Buttrey. But that day in May, Dylan found himself in Northern England, in a city whose biggest rock acts to date were the poppy Herman’s Hermits and the polished, melodic Hollies. Sound, sensibility, and landscape were at odds. If the location didn’t fit, the dissonance surely did. Dylan’s 1966 UK tour is infamous for its intense confrontations between artist and audience. The shows featured an electric second set, with Dylan backed by the Hawks, soon to become more recognizable as the Band. Many ardent listeners of Dylan’s early-1960s records considered his turn to electrical music a sort of apostasy: a rejection of the political austerity and aesthetic purity of folk music, a cynical turn to rock’s populist and unabashedly commercial interests. And many of those listeners waited for him in Manchester.

In the electric set, whistles, boos and shouting erupted between songs. Dylan baited them. Before playing “I Don’t Believe You,” familiar (if not sacred) to the crowd in its acoustic presentation on Another Side of Bob Dylan, he drawled pranksomely, “It used to go like that, and now it goes like this.” Aggressive energy filled the room. “Ballad of a Thin Man” seemed to address the detractors directly: “Yeah, something’s happening / But you don’t know what it is / Do you, Mr. Jones?” Perhaps sensing the put-down, the audience turned nasty.

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Ironies proliferate here—who’s betraying what? Who’s speaking truth? The key moment is in Dylan’s snarl: “Play fucking loud!” Sheer volume negates the critical voices—even stomping and clapping and whistling can’t be heard over the band’s cacophony. Noise gets weaponized, and Dylan’s obscenity inflects it with malign intent. The cancellation of folky decorum establishes a profane space for, of all things, play. Which is to say: there are no stabilities there. What values can dominate in that space? Does it matter that “Like a Rolling Stone” charted for twelve weeks? That it was and is Dylan’s most commercially successful single? Is it his best song? By what measure? Is it the soundtrack to the mid-1960s, culturally and politically adrift? Whose 1960s? And who fucking cares, when the music is pummeling and slashing at you with such abandon? Who cares what the audience wants or expects? Plug in. Give a nasty smile. Play fucking loud.

MC5 in Chicago, 25 August 1968

The Yippies booked a bunch of bands to play the Festival of Life, one of many events planned to coincide with (and to parody and disrupt) the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The MC5 were the only act that ignored the months of accumulating warnings from politicians and the threats of police violence and actually showed up for the festival in Lincoln Park. It wasn’t just cops surrounding and circulating that day through the crowd of SDS kids and Black Panthers and beatnik anarchists and MOBE organizers and others just looking to party or gawk. The FBI was there, too, and so was a unit of the Army’s Special Photographic Office (DASPO CONUS, to be precise: Department of the Army Special Photographic Office, Continental United States). The DASPO team shot some footage that day:

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It’s uncanny. The silence of the footage deafens, especially given the MC5’s reputation as an overwhelmingly loud live act. The visual markers are all there: Rob Tyner’s blow-out fro waving in the wind, Wayne Kramer’s shimmy and shake, Fred Smith’s red leather pants. You can just about conjure the chords of “Rambling Rose” or “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” maybe even “American Ruse” or “The Human Being Lawnmower.” In the footage’s silence, you can imagine what you want. Do you want to rock out, or do you want politics? The Five wanted to play.

All we have are the images. Cops in riot helmets sit on picnic benches, watching the crowd gather. Most of the crowd sits. They have short hair, they wear button-down shirts. The political kids of 1968 weren’t hippies—hippies were never political. A couple near the front dances, enjoying the groove, the mild afternoon. It’s not a Chicago August scorcher. There are lots of jackets and light sweaters. All the heat and darkness and violence come later, around 11 pm that night, when the cops would form a skirmish line and clear the park. Clark Street and the surrounding area got bloodied, building toward the Battle of Michigan Avenue a few nights later. The whole world would watch.

But on the afternoon of the 25th, the MC5 grinned at the cops and cut through the bad vibes and plugged in their guitars. John Sinclair was still managing the band, but only for a few more months. They were already chafing under his White Panther jive and his 10-point plan for “rock’n’roll, dope, and fucking in the streets.” The Five were down with all that, but not as a politics. They covered Sun Ra in their live sets, but after the 1967 Detroit race riots, they’d split to Ann Arbor. The riots were scary. Ann Arbor was crawling with college girls. What would you do? What about it, punk? Do you feel lucky?

Faces in the crowd, Altamont Speedway, 6 December 1969

Five minutes into the Stones’ rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil,” we see her:

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She’s a soft-bodied white woman, naked. She’s obviously, floridly, desperately high. She’s crawling and clawing through the crowd, trying to get somewhere. To Jagger? Onto the stage? Can she schematize the concept of “stage”? In her drugged state, it’s unclear if she understands where she is, let alone what she is. Her sharp features morph, from blank emptiness, to a sort of hilarity, to flashes of determination. She’s nearly there. She slaps a hand on the blonde head of some guy at the very front, getting some leverage. Then two Angels move in, and she disappears under the broad expanses of their black and red leather colors. We don’t see her again.

The Stones are nearly halfway through the song. They’ve already stopped once, Mick imploring and scolding the crowd, “Brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters… Everybody just cool out!” Too much acid, too much beer, too many Hell’s Angels and freaks and sweaty kids just wanting to see Mick. There he is, in that black and red jester’s suit. He dances and he insists. They will finish the song—though who knows what they’re hoping to conjure with its sinister shuffle.

Another face: A young man, stage right. He’s lightly bearded, shaggy headed, wearing an Irish driver cap with its beak turned to the back. Mick Taylor’s solo is struggling to find itself. The whole band is in a sort of holding pattern. Jagger boogies stage right and suddenly stops. He sees something. More violence? The kid in the driver cap sees it, too, and then turns back to Jagger. It’s a remarkable moment. The kid shakes his head, but the most striking thing is the look in his eyes. He sees Jagger. He fixes Jagger with the look, razoring out at the biggest rock star in the world. He might be five feet away, at most. He sees Jagger, and there’s contempt. The look’s meaning is clear: What the fuck are you doing? Jagger can’t take it. He breaks into a moronic funky chicken and whirls away, stage left.

A last face: A young woman, dirty blonde hair and pretty, enormous eyes. The band is cooling its way into Jagger’s vocal patter (“Ah, get on down…Ev’rybody’s got to cool out”) that intersperses Taylor’s usual two solos. “Everybody just cool out.” The young woman is weeping. Her head nods to Watts’s irresistible work on the snare. But the nod’s affirmation is ambiguous, and her tears glimmer in the stage lights. Her lips are rouged. They tremble. Her enormous eyes are empty of anything save sadness. The song runs out, stopping, failing.

What do we see? What do we hear?

Altamont is often figured as a sort of counterweight to Woodstock. If Woodstock was the counterculture’s dream of itself, Altamont was its nightmare, and it signaled the symbolic beginning of the end of the 1960s. The historical end point came a few years down the line, in 1974 and the failure of Vietnamization, and six-hour-long gas lines and Nixon’s resignation. Cheetah Chrome was still Gene O’Connor in 1974, gigging in Cleveland with Rocket from the Tombs. Dee Dee had become Dee Dee, but just barely, and Penelope Houston was still in college in Washington state. If something ended at Altamont, something had yet to cohere in New York and San Francisco. A change was afoot.

I contend that we can already hear the strains of that change in Dylan’s snarled imprecation to the Hawks. The Manchester audience’s shouted protestations may have been sanctimonious—a hyperbolic consequence of a silly political over-investment in a performer. But they had been schooled in a particular way of interpreting song, that lyrics should mean something, that the relation between word and world should be transparent, and that if the right spell were spoken, the world could be changed. Dylan gave them a curse, and if anything was authentically present in that room, it was the raw shriek and hum of volume.

These three moments clearly demonstrate increasingly anxious relations between rock music and historical forces, and they suggest an emergent set of transformations. The countercultures of the 1960s were largely driven by utopian ambitions: total peace, total transcendence, total social overthrow. The music partook of those energies, expressed them, grooved with them. Their crushing failure left a lot of wreckage, burned cityscapes, shattered minds, broken bodies. If you look closely, you can see some figures picking through the ruins. They’re crusty and dirty. They’re pissed, and they know the moment for utopian social engineering is gone. They aren’t heroes or crusaders or champions of causes. They’re just a bunch of punks.

Jonathan Shaw

#punkd history #jonathan shaw #feature #dusted #punk #bob dylan #mc5 #altamont #rolling stones

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scriveyner · 7 years

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shining like the stars p88

(sorry.)

More guards rushed into the launch bay than left, their weapons sweeping the wide open space with organized precision. Pidge flattened herself atop one of the scaffolds that ran along the far wall, but while they were looking around and scanning with weapons they didn’t appear to be using any type of life-form scanners, otherwise she would have been discovered by now.

With the alarms blaring the ‘crazy anomaly’ in the launch bay became less a curiosity and more a concern; and after five or so more guards came and went two came in carrying a large box between them and followed by a Galra who stood at least half a head taller. That had to be their commander. Pidge swore under her breath again, and squinted at the display that hovered above her forearm as her Paladin armor scanned the equipment. Of course; it was some sort of barrier disruptor.

If they had a barrier disruptor that could interrupt the particle barrier on the Voltron Lions there would have been a Galra in the cockpit of the Red Lion ages ago. Pidge wasn’t particularly worried about that; she figured with the alarm going off constantly that at least half the guards would disperse. That was not happening.

Very carefully, with the volume turned down, she switched her comm back on. “Okay, quick update,” she said, wincing as she caught the tail end of Hunk screaming. “This is gonna be a little more complicated than originally planned. Holding pattern, guys.”

“Pidge, if it’s too dangerous get out of there,” Shiro said. “We can’t afford for you to get captured.”

“I’m not leaving Green,” she said. Pidge pushed herself up on her elbows and scanned along the ceiling, noting how the scaffolding ran up the walls toward the top of the launch bay. “And they won’t catch me.”

She switched off her comm unit before anyone could respond to that, then flipped her computer from processing mode to contacting the Green Lion. She had been working on this particular patchwork system for a while; and hadn’t really had a chance to test out most of its functions. No time like the present for beta testing. “All right,” she said softly and mostly to herself, as she typed a command and ran her finger down a virtual toggle, emulating a switch. “Work with me here, Green.”

The vibration of the Green Lion’s amused pur echoed throughout the launch bay. Pidge grinned at its response. The noise threw the Galra into an uproar, because while it was absolutely obvious that the foreign noise had come from behind the shielded particle barrier they still hadn’t figured out what the heck they were dealing with, and now it was making noises. Several of the guards retreated, in as orderly a fashion as they could muster, while the two who stood with the Galra commander held their position with the disruptor now situated on the floor and one of them working its controls frantically.

Pidge shifted. No one was scanning the launch bay now, everyone was focused on the anomaly. She sat completely upright and kept typing quickly. “All right girl,” she said. “Let’s give them a show that they won’t forget!”

With one decisive swipe of her fingers across the input pad, the particle barrier and cloaking shield all dropped at once. The commander raised his fist in victory, only to drop it when he realized he was looking down the maw of the Green Lion, crouched on the deck of the flight bay. The Lion’s tail blaster was raised up and the blast shielding built into Pidge’s helmet darkened automatically, saving her eyes from the brilliant plasma burst in an enclosed environment. Her ears still ringing, she touched the side of her helmet and the shielding resumed its usual transparency.

Green had shifted out of her crouch and resumed a seated, alert posture … waiting for pilot input. It was good to know that her computer linkup with the main system of the Green Lion was functional; but the heavy, thick smell of ozone and carbonized matter was a little sickening. Pidge got to her feet and put both her hands on the rail of the scaffolding; the guards who had wisely retreated before the Voltron Lion was revealed were returning now; and they brought backup -- in the form of the autonomous drone soldiers. Pidge was over the side of the scaffolding in an instant, her bayard in hand as it transformed into its grapple form. She could hear the shouts of the soldiers who had noticed the movement, as well as the retort of their weapons, so she threw herself into the air, aiming the grapple at the ceiling.

A plasma bolt struck her, hard enough that she twisted in mid-air. The bayard automatically reverted the moment her fingers slipped off it, and it digitized right back into her suit.

Pidge didn’t hit the ground.

The Green Lion moved on its own, without any direct input from her or her suit. Pidge slammed against the side of its head and scrabbled, her left arm gone completely numb and hanging limp against her side. Pidge dug her fingers against the slick green outer coating on the Lion and struggled to pull herself up. Distantly, she realized that the particle barrier was up again and plasma bolts from the Galra weapons were pinging off it, but she was more concerned with not falling to death from the head of her ride.

After far too much a struggle she finally pulled herself up onto the Green Lion’s snout, and rolled onto her back; her left arm flopping against her chest. “Fuck,” Pidge said, panting raggedly; and then pushed herself upright.

Allura kept her back to the wall as Matt crouched low. There were guards rushing past the hallway, down the main artery of the prison ship; their angry yelling echoing down the corridor. Not one split off down the short alcove that they had taken refuge in; it dead-ended in a console with no means of escape or concealment, other than the ridged dividers. The escaped prisoners had stampeded the main exit of the brig, causing bedlam, and that was where the current conflict was taking place. Neither Allura nor Matt could see that far down the corridor to witness what, precisely, was going on -- but there was a constant ping of blaster fire being exchanged, so clearly some of the prisoners had already laid hands on weapons.

“Nothing we can do at this point but wait,” Matt said. “Can’t get to the prisoners, can’t get out without revealing our presence.” He glanced back at Allura. “I don’t suppose you can morph that suit into Galra gear like you can your skin?”

She shook her head. “The only transmutory properties my flight suit carries is that it changes to match my size. It can’t transform into another suit entirely.” She touched one hand to her helmet to reactive her comm. “Pidge, have you gotten to the Green Lion yet?”

“Something like that,” Pidge’s voice was curt. Matt glanced up at Allura, and while the shielding on his full-face helmet was mostly transparent the flare of the overhead light masked most of his expression. “Are you guys to the-” there was a sharp inhale, and Pidge grunted before completing her thought. “To the shuttle?”

Matt touched the comm on his own suit, located on the wrist. “Katie, are you hurt?” he asked, the anger winning out over the worry in his tone.

“Just a flesh wound,” Pidge said, clearly trying for flippant. Allura closed her eyes and tilted her head, trying to focus her energies on the Green Lion and Pidge, within its cockpit. She was unsuccessful. “I’ll be inside in a few ticks,” Pidge continued. “You guys ready to get out of here?”

“We’re-” Matt started to say, when Allura put her free hand on his shoulder and he stopped.

“We’ll see you back at the castle, Pidge,” Allura said, her voice absolutely casual. She cut the comm feed and looked down at Matt, who stared at her a moment before doing the same.

“The moment that she makes contact with the others your majordomo will tell her where we really are,” Matt said. “What is the point-”

“Believe or not, I have some idea what I am doing,” Allura said. She leaned past the divider; while the flurry of soldiers and drones hadn’t really diminished, they were no longer moving with the same frantic pace. “Sooner or later someone will trace the prison break to this console.”

“Are you suggesting we move out now?” Matt said. “‘Cause we’ll never make it through that many. They’ll have stunners and taze wands.”

“You’ve been on prison ships before,” Allura said. “And presumably escaped from one. I trust you have an idea on how to bypass the main arteries of the ship.”

He glared at her, and then glanced back at the main corridor. He frowned, looked down at the tile and then looked up, at the thick bundle of cords encased in hard coating that ran along the ceiling of all the hallways. Then he looked back at Allura, and tapped the wrist on his black flight suit twice. “I might have some ideas,” he said.

The Galra frigate was large, probably larger than any of the ships they’d fought yet. As Shiro snaprolled the Black Lion away from the flight of drone starfighters on his six he saw the quick bursts of blue light that was Hunk’s plasma cannon impact on the ship’s shields. The particle barrier that the Galra had on this particular frigate was strong enough to withstand pretty much anything they could throw at it from a distance -- they would have to get close, inside the shields to do any real damage.

He rolled the Black Lion into a dive, and then came up and around to starboard in a horizontal loop that brought him back head to head with the pilotless starfighters that had been on his exhaust. He spitted one on his crosshairs and hit the trigger, then swept the target straight through the flight. One after another the starfighters erupted into explosions, a fiery light that was extinguished immediately by the cold vacuum of space.

“There’s too many of them,” Hunk said, and the pitch in his voice had gone up. “The shields on this thing are too strong, Shiro, we need Voltron to take it down!”

“That’s not an option right now,” Shiro said, eyes fixed on the next flight of starfighters as the Black Lion wove through clusters of starfighters with a grace of its own. The Galra didn’t need to know that they were two pilots down at the moment, but with Hunk on the open comm frequency it was only a matter of time. “Jawblades out, Hunk!”

The Yellow Lion swooped over the Black Lion. Hunk’s Lion didn’t have the speed nor grace of the Black Lion, but its firepower and armor were definitely superior. “I’ve got lead,” Hunk said, his attention now focused on the mammoth ship ahead of them. Shiro relinquished the lead and pulled back on the throttle, keeping to Hunk’s seven as he paced him, the plasma blaster on the tip of the Black Lion’s tail keeping their pursuit back.

“I’ve got your back,” Shiro said, as they approached on the port side of the ship.

Before they could get close enough to the frigate to do any damage, a series of magenta-hued explosions began along the underside of the ship. Without a word the Yellow Lion changed course toward the trail of explosions and Shiro kept on his wing, the jawblades of the Lions making impact with the already damaged hull of the ship and tearing it open along the seam. It wouldn’t be enough to bring down the frigate, but it was certainly enough to keep the Galra inside busy; and thebusier they were, the fewer drone fighters they could launch.

The small black starfighter curved back around in a graceful arc, passing in front of the Black Lion’s viewscreens. Illianya’s fighter was just a tiny blip in a HUD full of enemies, and hard to keep an eye on because of it. “Great shot Kestrel Lead,” Shiro said, as Hunk whooped in the background, the Yellow Lion shooting after the starfighter. Shiro brought his targets to bear on the next wave of drone ships, and in the split second of breathing room he had, glanced up at the comm screen.

Relief crashed over him seeing Pidge there, seated in the Green Lion’s cockpit. She wasn’t looking at the comm screen though, and Shiro’s relief calcified in his stomach when he saw the way she was hitting switches, one-handed with the other arm laying limp at her side. “Pidge!” Shiro said, alarmed, and without even thinking about it the Black Lion reacted to the drone starfighters, going into a corkscrew maneuver and eliminating a whole squadron in a single pass.

She looked up at the comm screen finally, her face slightly ashen. “I’m okay,” she said, her one hand on the controls. “Don’t know how much use I’m going to be, though-”

Shiro’s eyes darted to the HUD; there was a cascading wave of red dots disappearing behind the IF/F marker of the Yellow Lion; but there was an even larger mass of them heading their way. How many of these things could a frigate carry? They really need more firepower -- and Shiro wasn’t going to kid himself, what they really needed was Voltron. “Kestrel Lead,” he barked into the comm. “Get to the prison ship, escort the Green Lion back-”

“No,” Pidge had to yell to be heard over Shiro’s order. “I have cloaking shields and a particle barrier, Shiro; I can still help form Voltron-”

“- to the castle,” Shiro continued as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “Do you copy that?”

“I copy, Black,” Ilianya’s voice came through the comm. Shiro glanced back up at the screen, where Pidge had leaned forward in her seat, teeth gritted. “Don’t launch until Kestrel Lead hails you,” he said.

“Shiro, look out!”

Hunk’s voice had barely even registered, the Black Lion reacted again almost subconsciously; moving so quickly that SHiro was slammed back against the seat, magnetic restraints be damned. He yanked back on both of the flight controls and brought the Black Lion up into a sharp climb, as the massive plasma beam lit up all of the Lion’s sensors and dazzled him.

If the Black Lion had actual fur it would be singed from how close a call it was. Shiro broke off and to starboard, spinning around and seeing the remains of several dozen explosions; drone fighters sacrificed by the gunners on the frigate. “You all right?” the Yellow Lion pulled into his periphery, but Shiro didn’t glance at the comm.

“Should take a few minutes for a weapon that size to recharge,” Shiro said, heart in his throat. He broke off in one direction, and after a moment Hunk did likewise, arcing the Yellow Lion in the opposite direction.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Coran said, his face popping up on a comm screen as well, “but the Castle sensors are indicating the presence of several warps holes opened at the edge of the system. I think we’re about to have company.”

The instructor was female, a rarity on board the Galra ships. Keith knew that she was different from the way she smelled, although from the outside she didn’t look very different from the other ranked Galra who patrolled the prison ship. Large and broad-shouldered, there was a huge scar that disfigured her face, running across her snout and taking the entirety of one eye. It reached back into the short gray fur at the crown of her head, and culminated in a chunk taken from one of her purple-furred ears.

Their first instructor was gone. He was never mentioned again, and just like him a half-dozen of the other halflings were gone as well. They were weak, it was whispered among the whelps. They were broken. Discarded. Destroyed. The new instructor was here to cull more of them, those that couldn’t keep up, those that couldn’t survive the training. Victory to the strong.

At what cost?

Keith spat blood in the sand as he swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. The last of the gladiator bots was down, its circuitry sparking, his bayard sword driven straight through its chest cavity. He could hear the rumble of the crowd through the opaque dome, and he couldn’t gauge them, didn’t want to. If they were disappointed that the half-breed was still standing that was on them, the savages.

“Keith,” Lance called from across the ring. His nose was bloody, it had dripped red onto the chestplate of his armor. “You all right?”

His ears were ringing, it wasn’t the Alteans he was hearing. The jeers and shouting were more guttural, fists pounding on the dome, the demands for blood strong. Keith braced his heel on the chest of the gladiator bot and yanked his weapon from it. There was no satisfying spray of fluids, although some oil and water seeped from the broken robot; still his pulse was pounding in his ears. Keith turned rapidly when he heard the crunch of boots on sand, sword at the ready -- Lance existed, too far away, this scent was Galra, this scent was opponent, this scent was enemy-

Rian held one hand up, stopping well out of reach. He was more battered than Lance, owing to his close-combat weapons. The twin blades were cracked from their impacts on the armor of the gladiator bots. Rian’s gold, glowing eyes were narrow, and Keith couldn’t read him. Keith’s breath quickened, was he ready to attack, was he surrendering? Keith shifted his feet, made ready to force the Galra to a defensive posture. “Keith!” Lance yelled from across the arena, and his ears flicked. Rian raised his weapons, eyes on Keith, and Keith bared his fangs.

“Bring it,” the Galra said, dark hair in his eyes, his mouth curled back into a snarl. “I’ll prove I’m worthy of the Red Lion.”

Five strides and he would be across the sand, sword swinging toward his opponent’s throat. Mercy for your opponent means death for you. Four strides and he was changing his grip on the weapon, laser-focused on Rian as Rian swung around, bringing his blades in, to block the fatal blow. Hesitation is death. Three strides and he dug his feet into the sand, felt it shift, changed the arc of his blade-

-and then there was a blur of blue and white, between him and his target, bayard held up to deflect his blow but misjudging the angle of his swing- “Keith, what the fuck are you-”

The bayard sword impacted the bottom part of the chest armor hard enough to crack it. The keen edge of the blade sliced through the vacuum suit like it was butter. The impact of the weapon on bone is was jolted his arms, and Keith released his bayard on reflex. Lance let out a strangled sound and stayed upright for a second, staring at Keith with the most baffled expression, his bayard-rifle still extended to block a blow higher than Keith struck.

They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, as the silence rippled over everything. Then Lance went down.

Rian stood behind him still, mouth open, arms gone slack, blades still in hand. Then he dropped both his weapons and rushed to Lance, falling on his knees in the churned sand turning crimson, clumped with blood.

Chest heaving, Keith stood there, the words echoing in his ears. He’s not strong enough, the druid said, standing beside the instructor, her cloak casting her features into shadow. Send him away.

#voltron #slts #i'm not actually sorry #shklance #shance #sheith #klance #omegaverse #at some point we'll get back to the smut #someday #eventually

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kitreadsbirdmen · 7 years

Text

Body Language

Eishi and Rei have a conversation about the little things.

Link: AO3

Umino is a sight to behold.

Eishi let’s his eyes linger a little too long, knowing just how the female birdman’s flying style spikes his blood pressure. In his current transformed state, he is definitely primed to leak his thoughts. Phrases at risk include: “Damn her wing mass leaves little to the imagination” and “Does she need to move her hips in that aerial spin?” She stands a criminal to his propriety and it doesn’t help that the gentle flutter of her eyes in his memory places that physical infatuation on firmer ground, especially when she is literally far from landing herself.

As if to answer him, she performs a backwards loop, twisting her body at the arcing crest after an almost poetic extension of her arm. Her wings clasp tightly to her form as she dives.

“Nice!” Kamoda swoops out of her fly space below her. He waits for the girl to halt her descent with a smooth unfurling before falling to meet her momentum driven rise.

“You make that look so easy!” The green birdman’s flying gait is most distinct when he’s hovering. Labored downbeat strokes with a hungry grab for air. Then, in an exchange Eishi could only label as ‘casual’-- Kamoda inches into her fly space and brushes the tips of his wings against Umino’s with a simply placed downward stroke. The girl returns the gesture all while chatting about her flying technique.

Eishi allows himself to fixate on the wing brushing. He clicks his ballpoint pen, grateful for his perch on the cliffside, permitting a steady hand for notes. Observation is his game, but it’s only recently that a stray comment from Sagisawa inspired a different, social angle to his approach. That and the string of Awakenings in the group brings the topic of instincts to the forefront. How are they different? What does it mean? Touching wings… sharing thoughts… was that intimate?...Kamoda does possess affections for her… and she really looks good flying…really really good.

“Relax. It’s innocent.” The voice beside him is bemused. Eishi whips his head to face the knowing look of Sagisawa, arms crossed and half a mind on the scene before them.

“I didn’t say anything!” He defends in a muted shrill. The others have the crashing waves and howling winds to drown him out. The quick motion shuffles the radiating heat from his cheeks into focus.

“No but you were thinking it.” Eishi swallows, cold and thick with the paranoia.

“M-my thoughts...leak?” He stumbles through a gripping anxiety that spins his processors. He has been ogling Umino for the past ten minutes.

Sagisawa only laughs at his sudden fear. He takes the opportunity to sit himself next to the smaller bird. Half perched, half attempting to sit cross-legged, Sagisawa curls his talons into his foundation before continuing.

“Don’t worry. I’m good at noticing these things…” He gives a sly tap of his temple, the red of his eyes practically glowing. Eishi relaxes in response, only having to cover up the wounds of his pride than heal them completely.

“But yeah,” Sagisawa continues. “that wing tap was just affectionate. I don't even think Kamoda knows he was doing it.”

“Seems familiar to me.” Eishi grumbles on his defeat. Above their perch he notices that Takayama has joined the duo and is demonstrating some kind of trajectory shifting technique. He throws himself skyward with an impossibly strong wingbeat before letting his momentum stop his flight on a dime. The sire birdman then does an incredible 90 degree pivot. Sagisawa hums in amusement.

“I feel, there’s going to be a tendency to place our interactions against normal human standards.”

“What do you mean?” He understands the claim, he just wants Sagisawa’s insight. The fair-haired birdman rocks back onto the heels of his palms, contemplative.

“I guess it’s like going to a different culture and trying to figure out the differences in values and customs... I have a family acquaintance in France who greets people with a kiss, but there are couples here who haven’t so much as pecked each other on the lips. Different cultures, different customs. We--” he makes an unnecessary gesture to the five bird kids hanging by a deserted cliffside-- “are an entirely new species, so we’re bound to bring with us our own set of customs.” Spoken like a true cultural migrant. Sensitive to the values of subcultures.

Kamoda’s attempted 90 degree turn morphs into upside down flying in the background. The wires got crossed somewhere in the learning process.

“We all still have a human upbringing, that does inform our judgement.” Eishi narrows his eyes. Umino joins Kamoda’s flying style several meters above them. She’s the image of relaxed. “Nature versus nurture, right?” The professor dropped that term a lot. He had a feeling Sagisawa was more attuned to its definition.

“True...” Sagisawa says this softly, as though unsure his words have any substance. The subtext is there. Sure they were raised human, but how much of that will matter with a pair of wings that bordered on sentient? Eishi never picks the brain of anyone other than Takayama so he never knows how strong they feel it. The phantom yearn and the prickling ache. Takayama also once mentioned the wing’s ‘memory’. Personified and active. It’s a daunting prospect,--for how do you fight something within you that possesses an agenda? Anything was possible.

Eishi takes a moment to swallow back a sudden onset of stomach dropping anxiety. He revisits Professor Tatsume’s words.

‘You can beat down even fate.’

Eishi huffs a laugh out of the blue. Sagisawa cocks his head.

“And I thought puberty was the worst of it...” His companion cracks a smile at that, a little surprised, but ever encouraging.

“Making a new culture sounds like a tall order White.” Eishi emphasizes the codename like a joke, pivoting the conversation with a musing lean onto his hands. He mindlessly shifts his wings out of the way. “What does that entail?”

Sagisawa hums. “Well, I say we just sit back and watch… a little compare and contrast here and there… but it should just... happen.” He makes an explosion gesture with a flash of his claws to emphasize the final word.

“And what are we looking for with our great powers of perception?” Eishi feels the facetious approach entice a more natural rhythm from the Trickster. He in turn catches the tone with a knowing smirk.

“An easy feature to distinguish in culture is communication. Language, lingo, delivery.” He rattles. Kamoda and Takayama meanwhile are climbing in altitude for some reason.

“We got that down. Tweeting’s pretty bird-kid exclusive… though I wouldn’t call it a language by definition. We’re still thinking in Japanese...”

“Who knows? There’s no telling if it surpasses the language barrier.”

Eishi raises a brow at that. “Sounds like a future experiment.”

“I’ll be happy to oblige.” The resident bilingual mocks a subservient honor. “But spoken-- er... telepathic - communication isn’t the only thing to look out for. Body language is key.”

Ah, full circle.

“I’m ‘guessing’ these wings aren’t just for fancy flying.” The conversation is indulgent, the process of pointing out the unspoken is now an exercise in verbalization. Talking about it makes it more real, if they are conscious of the differences they might be able to notice when it slips away. Eishi is assuming the role of an engaged student. Just above them the green and red birdmen appear from the line of clouds plummeting at insane speeds, helmets up-- a race it seems.

“I don't know about you, but they seem to move in conjunction with everyone’s emotions.”

“Well, not all of us are hypersensitive empaths…”

Takayama wins the race, reaching Umino’s mark with a wingspans length of lead. There’s a sneering joke about aerodynamics and baldness running through Eishi’s mind as he finishes his quip to Sagisawa. There’s an exasperated sigh in response.

“That’s not-- Listen, Umino’s an open book. You’ve noticed the little fluttering thing she does.”

“Fluttering thing?” She always seems to bat her eyelashes in a manner he’d describe that way, but he just assumes it’s his… enamored perspective. He finds himself watching the female birdman climb the sky, presumably to have her race with Takayama. She has a distinct wing gait, opting for less work and more ease with a slow rising corkscrew ascension, catching updrafts with cupped wings and stabilizing with a precise circling slice. Takayama meanwhile is flying up at Umino’s pace. They’re circling in a sort of dance. He always seems to coddle her...

“Yeah, when she’s really excited about something she kind of…” Sagisawa leans forward to uncurl his wings from the ground. Then for a second Eishi believes the Trickster’s been shocked by electricity because he spasms a jump, moving his folded wings in shallow flaps. “-- over and over again... It’s like a tail-wag on a dog. She does it without fail anytime Takayama so much as breathes.”

That snaps Eishi’s attention far too quickly.

“And then there’s you…” Sagisawa is suppressing an arrogant and knowing smile. He crosses his arms while he tilts his head in a judgmental once-over. “You like looking big.”

“...Big?”

“Oh yeah. Wings never completely folded, hovering slightly over your shoulders.” He demonstrates his description expanding his silhouette into a positively looming image.

Eishi self consciously snaps his wings tight to his body.

There’s a laugh. “It’s all about the body language. Silent, but sure.” Now he just sounds like some elaborate proverb. In the distance Umino and Takayama are racing, a mere second from the flapping Kamoda finish line.

“So it doesn’t even matter if I’m leaking my thoughts through a tweet… my wings are going to tell the world.”

“Essentially.”

“Nothing’s personal anymore…”

“Hey hey, there you go judging the birdman by the human standard. Who’s to say we’re built for secrets?” Sensing a lull in the conversation, Sagisawa rolls forward to his knees.

Kamoda is rushing Umino in excitement. Takayama lets her win. He does a sweeping dance with a strong air current. Behind their conversation lies the phantom trails of a commercial airliner.

Eishi hums. Short and low. “I do.”

Sagisawa doesn’t respond as he rises to his feet. He simply extends a hand to Eishi. The Bellwether’s mouth is a small line as he considers taking it. The memory of Takayama’s touchy ability hovers in his mind and he wonders from where his caution should lie. The standing birdman meanwhile assumes his own expressive posture; wings dropped low and submissive like a dragging cape. It’s sympathetic and exhibits no challenge to Eishi’s wounded identity. Eishi briefly superimposes the more default wing-folded posture on Sagisawa and feels a subtle twist of discomfort in the wake of his imagination, as though offended. While subconscious in nature, the instinctual pull toward silent expressions are irresistible.

He takes his hand and finds his hard expression soften in a weak musing as he pulls himself to his feet. It manifests as sigh, a smile hidden on the outskirts. Sagisawa perks. “Hm?”

“We’re like a pack of test-y wolves.” Eishi replies. There’s humor on his lips. “It’s so animal… and kind of surreal to notice.”

“The perks of a mid-life species change.” Sagisawa shrugs as though explaining off the weather. “Though you speak for yourself with the wolf comment. You’re so far the only one I’ve noticed to get test-y over some body language.” It’s a tease and a wry grin lights the dialogue.

Eishi’s brow furrows in defense and he makes an effort to protest before the Trickster continues. “But we can’t really blame you I guess. Additional symptoms of being an Alpha?” The way his voice curls is infuriating, but the moniker flushes his face with a red embarrassment.

He had gathered a while back that Takayama was dubbing him the leader, but putting it in pack terms like that weakens his knees. “We’re not beasts.” He grumbles with little conviction. With the amount of meta-analysis and scientific method being thrown around as of late, Eishi had his personal misgivings.

“Without a doubt. But we certainly aren’t human now are we?” Sagisawa smirks with a knowing glance. Always on the contrary-- Eishi was finding his presence to be intellectually stimulating despite any apprehensions around his greater theatrics. He might admit a fondness for the way it inspired his own wit.

“You’re insufferable.” Spoken like a true friend.

“Gotta keep you on your toes.”

Eishi narrows his eyes, suddenly feeling indignant.

Hmm. ‘Alpha’.

He flicked the switch, channeling his companion’s need for flare.

“You know, if I had to make a guess, I’d say you were undermining my authority with that attitude.” Eishi takes a step into Sagisawa’s space, blinking his eyes back into a brilliant red as he cocked a challenging smirk. His wings extend through his intrusion. The motion is slow. So subtle it’s undetectable had they not left their tell in the forefront of the conversation. By the time he’s halted his space encroaching he’s gained a much larger percentage of surface area to his presence.

Sagisawa lights up instantly, far too giddy at the threat. His lips purse as his eyes blaze the same color. While still holding his wings in composure behind him, his wing mass feathers seem to flare with a static electricity. Reservation was not the term to describe the dramatic Sagisawa Rei, but ‘in-control’ fit a good majority of the time.

“I am the president of our fine ensemble.” A proud lilt. Eishi scoffs.

“A figurehead.”

“I didn’t realize it bothered you.”

“It doesn’t. Just have to keep the pecking order straight.” His voice reverberates in a lower pitch, attempting a more impressive status. It probably would’ve work if not for the stretch of his neck as he craned his gaze to meet the second tallest club member.

“Oh that was bad.” Sagisawa gives an arrogant huff of self importance. There were many instances where such behavior would elicit Eishi’s staple irritation at the finer society’s audacity to act in any way other than humble. It was so easy to forget Sagisawa’s pedigree in the drumming rhythm of a conversation. The constant, but erratic beat inspired the spontaneity of Eishi’s smiles and wit. Like a knee-jerk reaction, the shorter boy’s wings jolted into a pointless flap, hitting the space around him like a thug would mark his turf.

“Race?” The electric desire rolls through Eishi only after he’s made the challenge, his tone far too eager for his liking, but irresistible. It seems like the most perfect solution to protect his pride and it smears his face with a competitive grin. His body feels the thrum of anticipation courses through the tips of his wings, putting him in a coiled up crouch. He slows his breath trying to predict his opponent’s inhale. There is a staunch extension of the taller boy’s wings, prepped and ready.

“Down the cliff-side. Tag Umino to win.” Poor girl.

“Takayama.”

“Deal.”

They didn’t even need to rev behind a countdown, the proverbial gunshot went off as they fling themselves of the cliff-side, letting gravity take them. Immediately at the rush of the wind, their firing nerves meet validation with the climbing horizon. A helmet only forms on an afterthought in the blur of dark hair, and at its completion, it swallows the roar with a mind spinning silence.

The memory of a screaming downpour flits past his eyes. The vertigo of cutting loose, like the free fall of a liberated marionette. At the time, Eishi felt more like the cruel puppet master, merely untangling the already woven strings of control and trauma. He took the kindred mind that flanked his right and lead him through a dream of illuminated beacons and air that sparkled with falling diamonds. Where a sense of heedless freedom engulfed them like the rain that consumed their speeding forms. Mindless conversation lulled by an adrenaline spiked high. Sagisawa glowed with a joy gasping for air and each breath wove his heart with unparalleled warmth.

Just like that memory, Sagisawa followed his lead, whether he wanted to or not.

“Ei-chan! Sagisawa! Finally decided to…”

Kamoda trails as the barreling form of the two birdmen grows at an alarming speed, directly toward their existing pod of hovering bodies.

“Get a head start Takayama, you’re the moving finish-line!”

Eishi’s tweet is positively booming and it sends Umino and Kamoda careening to the side out of the way as they slice through the air toward the red birdman. Takayama’s face is reaction-less but he absorbs the sight with a widening focus.

“Why the hell are you warning him?” Sagisawa tweets in an exasperated tone while Takayama sends himself into a dead weight plummet to the earth without preamble. Eishi takes an arching dive after him, a bullet of black. The white birdman is on Eishi’s tail in their mid air pivot, their forms now shrinking in the distance. In a surprise twist, left behind are the hovering flaps of the flock’s two most rambunctious members.

Umino looks at Kamoda with cocked eyebrow. Well wasn’t that a sight to behold

#birdmen #birdmen fic #my writing #not dissimulation

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

October 22, 2019 at 08:00AM

In 1978, at the age of 18, Celine Sabag took a trip to Israel. There, she met a 25-year-old bus driver and spent three weeks touring Jerusalem with him. “He was nice and polite,” she recalls. When the man invited her to his parents’ empty apartment, she accepted the invitation. The pair had been sitting together and laughing for about an hour when the door opened. “I turned to look,” says Sabag, “and my gut told me: ‘Something awful is about to happen.’” Four young men were standing in the doorway. They entered the living room, the fourth locking the door behind him. “I believe they had done it before,” she says.

Sabag returned that night to her hotel, and then fled back to her home in France. She felt guilt and shame, and did not tell anyone that five men had raped her that night in the apartment. Shortly after her homecoming, she tried to commit suicide, the first of many attempts. Desperate for help, Sabag entered therapy. She saw psychiatrists and psychologists and started taking psychiatric medication. She also tried alternative approaches like movement therapy. Though some of the treatments helped, they didn’t eliminate the relentless flashbacks of the rape, her overwhelming fear of unknown men in corridors and on elevators and stairways, and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In 1996, Sabag, who is Jewish, immigrated to Israel in the hopes of finding some kind of closure. She volunteered at a hotline for sexual assault survivors. “I wanted to let victims have someone who would listen,” she says. “Because I didn’t ask for help, so I wasn’t listened to.” Yet the suicide attempts did not cease until 2006, when a friend suggested that Sabag enroll in a specialized self-defense course offered by El HaLev, an Israeli organization founded in 2003 to offer self-defense training to women who have been traumatized by sexual assault, as well as other vulnerable groups. At first, Sabag was dubious. “I said: ‘Fighting? No way. What do I have to do with fighting?’”

But in fact, a growing body of research indicates that self-defense training can enable women to cope with the threat of sexual violence by providing a sense of mastery and personal control over their own safety. Within this field, some studies have examined a unique and pressing question: Can therapeutic self-defense training be an effective tool for sexual assault survivors who experience PTSD and other symptoms of trauma? Though the research is preliminary, some therapists and researchers believe the answer is yes.

“While ‘talk-based’ therapies are undoubtedly helpful, there is a need for additional modalities,” says Gianine Rosenblum, a clinical psychologist based in New Jersey who has collaborated with self-defense instructors to develop a curriculum tailored to female trauma survivors.

Researchers who study self-defense for sexual assault note its similarities to exposure therapy, in which individuals in a safe environment are exposed to the things they fear and avoid. In the case of self-defense training, however, participants are not only exposed to simulated assaults, they also learn and practice proactive responses, including — but not limited to — self-defense maneuvers. Over time, these repeated simulations can massively transform old memories of assault into new memories of empowerment, explains Jim Hopper, a psychologist and teaching associate at Harvard Medical School.

Sabag was not familiar with these theories back in 2006; however, she eventually decided to enroll in the self-defense training. Perhaps, she thought, it would help her be less fearful of others.

In a 2006 video she shared with Undark, Sabag can be seen lying on the floor of a gym at El HaLev. She’s surrounded by roughly a dozen women showering her with encouragement. A large man dressed in a padded suit and a helmet — referred to as “the mugger” — approaches with heavy footsteps and lies on top of her. The women continue to cheer, encouraging Sabag to kick her assailant. A female trainer leans in, providing instruction. Sabag sends up a few weak kicks, connecting with the mugger. Then she gets up, swaying, and returns to the line of trainees.

In that moment of confrontation, Sabag says she felt disoriented, not sure of where she was. She had been nauseous while waiting her turn, and then when the mugger was finally standing in front of her, she froze. “My body refused to cooperate, and there was a split. My mind left my body and I was looking at my body from the outside, like in a nightmare,” she says. “Without this split, I wouldn’t have found the power to react.”

This dissociation is a coping response that can allow some people to function under stress, says Rosenblum. But, she adds, “it is preferable for any therapeutic or learning environment to facilitate non-dissociative coping.” In a 2014 paper describing the curriculum they developed, Rosenblum and her co-author, clinical psychologist Lynn Taska, emphasize that care must be taken to ensure students remain within their so-called window of tolerance: the range of emotional arousal that an individual can effectively process. “If external stimuli are too arousing or too much internal material is elicited at once,” they write, “the window of tolerance is exceeded.” In these cases, they suggest, therapeutic benefit is lost and individuals may be re-traumatized.

Sabag often struggled to fall asleep on nights after training sessions, but she stuck with the course and even enrolled a second time. Knowing what to expect made a difference, she says. Though she still experienced flashbacks and disassociation, the nausea and shivers subsided in the second course, and she felt increasingly present in her body. Sabag explains that these changes allowed her to concentrate and hone her actions: “The kicks were precise, the punches were correct,” she says. “In the sharing circles, I wouldn’t stop talking.”

Sabag went on to become an instructor for IMPACT, an organization with independent chapters around the world, including El HaLev in Israel. IMPACT offers classes in what is sometimes referred to as women’s empowerment self-defense, which was initially developed in the 1960s and ’70s, although its roots go back even further. Traditional forms of self-defense, such as martial arts, were developed by and for men. Though they can be effective for women, they require years of training and don’t address the dynamics of sexual violence. Most sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows, for example, but traditional self-defense classes don’t offer the special knowledge and skills needed to fend off an assailant who is known, possibly even loved, by the victim.

In 1971, the empowerment self-defense course called Model Mugging was the first to use simulated muggings, with the goal of helping women overcome the fear of being raped. With roots in Model Mugging, IMPACT courses were developed with input from psychologists, martial artists, and law enforcement personnel.

Today, empowerment self-defense courses are offered by a variety of organizations. Though the trainings vary depending on who is offering them, they share some commonalities, including the use of a female instructor who teaches the self-defense techniques, and a male instructor who dons a padded suit and simulates attack scenarios. In some of the scenarios, the male instructor plays a stranger. In others, he plays a person known to the victim. A therapist also provides guidance in helping participants set appropriate interpersonal boundaries.

Over time, specialized empowerment self-defense courses were developed for sexual assault survivors, as well as for men, transgender people, persons with disabilities, and others. Crucially, the therapeutic classes for survivors of sexual assault require collaboration with mental health professionals. In some cases, psychotherapists provide support during the trainings. In other cases, they may recommend that their clients take a course and then provide support during psychotherapy appointments.

“Participants in this kind of course have to be in treatment,” says Jill Shames, a clinical social worker in Israel who has spent more than 30 years teaching self-defense courses to sexual assault survivors. In Shames’ courses, participants sign an agreement allowing her to communicate with their therapists. “The therapist has to agree to be involved in the process,” she says.

In the early 1990s, researchers began to study the psychological effects of empowerment self-defense classes, with multiple studies finding that women who participate experience increased confidence in their ability to defend themselves if assaulted. This sense of self-efficacy, in turn, has been linked to a range of positive outcomes.

In a paper published in 1990 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Stanford researchers Elizabeth M. Ozer and Albert Bandura described the results of a study in which 43 women participated in a program based on Model Mugging. The trainings occurred over a period of five weeks. Among the participants, 27 percent had been raped. Before the program, the women who had been raped reported a lower sense of self-efficacy regarding their ability to cope with interpersonal threats, such as coercive encounters at work. These women also felt more vulnerable to assault and exhibited more avoidant behavior. They experienced greater difficulty distinguishing between safe and risky situations, and reported being less able to turn off intrusive thinking about sexual assault.

During the self-defense program, participants learned how to convey confidence, how to deal assertively with unwanted personal encroachments, and how to yell to frighten off an attacker. “Should the efforts fail,” the authors wrote, the participants were “equipped to protect themselves physically.” In the trainings, the women learned how to disable an unarmed assailant “when ambushed frontally, from the back, when pinned down, and in the dark.” Because women are thrown to the ground in most sexual assaults, the authors wrote, “considerable attention was devoted to mastering safe ways of falling and striking assailants while pinned on the ground.”

Each woman was surveyed before, during, and six months after the program’s completion. To identify non-treatment effects, roughly half the subjects participated in a “control phase” in which they took the survey, waited five weeks without the intervention, and then took the survey again just before the program commenced. (Researchers found no significant changes in the survey results during the control phase.)

For program participants, sense of self-efficacy increased in several realms, including their ability to defend themselves and control interpersonal threats. Perhaps most notably, in the months after the training, the women who had been raped no longer differed on any measures from the women who had not been raped.

More than a decade and a half later, in 2006, researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle and the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, which provides medical services to veterans and their families throughout the Pacific Northwest, conducted a study that looked specifically at female veterans with PTSD from military sexual trauma. Because all of the participants had been trained in physical and military fighting techniques, the study could test the idea that specialized self-defense courses foster a better sense of safety and security than military or martial arts training.

The study participants attended a 12-week pilot program that consisted of education about the psychological impacts of sexual assault, self-defense training, and regular debriefings. By the end of the study, participants reported improvements on a number of measures, including the ability to identify risky situations and to set interpersonal boundaries. They also experienced decreased depression and PTSD symptoms.

Because the VA study was small, self-selected, and lacked a control group, its authors noted that further study is necessary to determine whether wide-scale adoption within the VA is warranted. This echoes the views of self-defense proponents who say the field is promising, but in need of more research. For now, Hopper explains that the healing reported by participants of these classes may be due, in part, to a process known as extinction learning. In therapeutic self-defense classes, extinction learning occurs when the mugger provides a reminder of the assault memory. But this time, the scenario occurs in a new context, so that one’s typical responses “are over-ridden by new, nontraumatic responses.”

Whatever its potential merits, the use of self-defense training as therapy is far from universally accepted, and not all mental health providers are on board. “My therapist colleagues are wary of self-defense,” says Rosenblum. “They often are anxious about the class re-traumatizing clients.” Several years ago, she attempted to run a therapist-only self-defense class, but had trouble filling it. For this reason, Rosenblum believes it is important to emphasize that specialized classes do not push students outside their window of tolerance, and that students are, in fact, encouraged to set boundaries.

But a lack of standardization can be problematic. “Self-defense started as a grassroots movement, but it’s becoming an industry,” says Melissa Soalt, a former therapist and pioneer in the women’s self-defense movement. “Today I hear about instructor-training courses that take as little as a week, with instructors who have no clinical experience or knowledge,” she says. “Also, self-defense is not easy and it doesn’t always work. If someone is telling you otherwise, they’re not telling the truth.”

Soalt herself served as an expert witness in a trial where a young woman sued a self-defense instructor and won. According to her, the instructor was not properly trained, and he caused the woman to become re-traumatizated. “Safety is number one here,” says Soalt, who stresses that this was an extreme case. Nonetheless, she adds: “When choosing a self-defense course, it’s essential to check out the instructors.”

Indeed, when self-defense is taught with or by professionals with a background in trauma treatment, “the few studies that exist consistently demonstrate its potential,” said Shames, the clinical social worker in Israel, though she acknowledges that self-defense as a therapeutic modality remains a tough sell.

To encourage further standardization, Rosenblum and Taska’s paper describes the features of an IMPACT self-defense class. “The next step for research would be to obtain a grant [to] create a formal therapeutic class protocol and have that same protocol used in a number of locations by staff who had all underwent the same training,” says Rosenblum.

The now-defunct National Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCASA) developed guidelines for choosing a self-defense course. While originally written for women, they were later updated by a member of the original NCASA committee to include men as well. These guidelines stress that “people do not ask for, cause, invite, or deserve to be assaulted.” Therefore, self-defense classes should not cast judgement on survivors. Further, during an assault, victims deploy a range of responses. Many even experience a state of involuntary paralysis. According to the guidelines, none of these responses should be used to cast blame on the victim. Instead, “a person’s decision to survive the best way they can must be respected.”

Ideally, a course will cover assertiveness, communication, and critical thinking, in addition to physical technique, the guidelines state. And while some women may benefit from a female instructor, “the most important aspect is that the instructor, male or female, conducts the training for the students geared to their individual strengths and abilities.”

Self-defense courses and instructors that say they aim to meet these or similar criteria are currently available through IMPACT, and through the U.S.-based National Women’s Martial Arts Federation and the U.K.-based empowerment self-defense nonprofit Action Breaks Silence.

Sabag recently turned 60. She currently works as a fitness coach for older persons, and she assists students who immigrate to Israel. She is a devout yoga practitioner and has developed an interest in Eastern philosophy. Over time, she says, she has gradually managed to reconnect with her body.

Sabag estimates that she trained considerably more than 100 women and teenage girls in empowerment self-defense. “In the future, or in my dreams, I would like to go back to teaching girls how to set boundaries and show self-confidence,” she says. “I believe that this is where everything starts.”

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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