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Fives goes to Coruscant and meets with the Chancellor. It’s his last chance to present his evidence about the chips to someone who can actually help. The Jedi don’t believe him. The Kaminoans are in on the whole thing and can’t be trusted. The Chancellor listens carefully, smiles at him once Fives has said his piece (he’s drugged out of his mind, but that isn’t enough to stop him), and says, very gently, “I believe you, trooper.”
And then Palpatine makes Fives disappear.
Fives wakes up in a cell, completely alone. There are no windows, and the meals that get pushed into his room are erratic and barely nourishing. Time loses all meaning very quickly. He moves around the room in the beginning, paces and prowls around as he waits for something, anything to happen, but as days stretch on (he thinks) Fives finds himself curled up into the far corner of his cell more often than not.
When Palpatine comes to see him it’s almost a relief, if only because he’s finally getting some form of human interaction. Clones are social, tactile, well-adjusted to a lack of privacy. Without the constant presence of his brothers, Fives feels like he’s drowning in his own thoughts.
Palpatine is not what he seems. Fives can feel that much. It’s a sensation of wrongness so thick that it roils and clings to his insides like black sludge. Fives hadn’t noticed it before. He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know how to explain it or say why he can feel it with such clarity. He pulls himself to his feet with a weak snarl and braces himself for whatever Palpatine is planning on throwing at him.
Palpatine smiles at him in faint amusement. He reaches out a hand and hooks his fingers into claws. A wave of that horrible wrongness expands to fill the room. Fives shudders. He takes a nervous step back. He feels power hanging in the air, nearly tangible and undoubtedly destructive. It clogs up his throat. Palpatine flexes his fingers—the smallest of movements, but suddenly there’s an awful pressure closing in on Fives’ body that rips away his will and forces him to his knees.
He pants helplessly but doesn’t struggle once he’s down. He knows how to pick his battles, especially now that he finally understands what he’s dealing with.
“Sith,” he forces out from between gritted teeth. He tries to ignore the cold terror in his gut at the word. Palpatine smiles, slow and knowing.
“Very perceptive,” he says. “Do you know why you are here, clone?”
Fives sneers at him.
“The inhibitor chips are your doing,” he growls. Force save them all. The leader of the Republic is a Sith. Fives can barely breathe. So many lies. So many pointless deaths. The man that he’s sworn his loyalty to is a traitor. When he manages a weak inhale, it feels like he’s sucking ashes into his lungs.
Palpatine doesn’t confirm or deny the accusation. He scrutinizes Fives for a long moment. Fives tries not to squirm under his gaze, but he can’t help but feel like the Sith’s eyes are piercing him to the very core.
“Curious,” Palpatine finally says. “And utterly foolish, that the Jedi did not notice sooner. Do you know what you are?”
Fives works his jaw and hesitates.
He’s a clone. He’s a soldier. He’s an ARC trooper. But he doesn’t think any of those answers is what Palpatine is looking for. When he doesn’t answer, Palpatine’s eyes narrow a bit.
Something in Fives’ mind snaps into place.
Suddenly there’s a roaring in his ears and fire in his veins. He cries out. Something rippling and tense and alive sweeps over him. It’s unrefined and rushing and rising and it hurts. His mind buzzes and vibrates with sensations that are completely foreign. It’s too much, a persistent and all-consuming agony. He wants to curl up into a little ball and clutch at his skull, but the best he can do with Palpatine holding him down is close his eyes and wait for it to end.
The pain settles after a while. Fives pants through gritted teeth and blinks tears from his eyes as the sensations subside—but they don’t leave him completely. He can feel odd little waves thrumming through him still, filling him with warmth instead of fire. He doesn’t understand what that means.
“You are an anomaly, clone. The Kaminoans did not intend for their projects to be Force-sensitive. Yet here we are.”
No. That’s... impossible.
Fives feels like the floor has dropped out from underneath him. Suddenly so many things make sense. The strange little tugs in his gut that warn him away from danger. The way can move faster than normal when he needs to, the way how the occasional blaster bolt skims right by him when it should score a hit. The awful cloying dark that left him dizzy on Umbara, that he hadn’t known how to explain to Kix when the medic had asked him what was wrong.
The realization is accompanied by a fresh wave of fear that claws at his chest. If a Sith is taking such interest in the fact that a simple clone is Force-sensitive, Palpatine must want something from him.
“I won’t help you,” Fives growls. “I’d rather die!”
Palpatine’s eyes gleam a sickly yellow.
“Your brother said the same thing,” he croons. “But he did not last long. And you will not, either.”
Fives feels his heart clench.
“My brother—?”
Except Palpatine doesn’t answer him. The Sith leaves Fives there, pinned on his knees by the awful pressure of the dark side, and Fives has to focus on his breathing to keep himself from panicking.
Palpatine brings him brothers and tells Fives to kill them. Fives could. He knows how. He hasn’t always had the good fortune to only be fighting against droids.
Of course he refuses. He won’t kill his brothers. The ones that Palpatine brings in are all Coruscant Guards, nothing but terror and horrified confusion in their eyes from the moment they step into the room.
Palpatine makes them beg for Fives to kill them.
Their deaths are slow, and their screams seem to echo around the room long after they’ve gone silent. Palpatine doesn’t force Fives to do anything. He allows Fives to turn away and grit his teeth and struggle to keep his resolve and do his best to block everything out. Fives doesn’t know what kind of game this is, but he won’t stoop so low as to kill a brother.
Except.
Palpatine brings in a shiny. He’s small and afraid and probably just came to Coruscant directly from Kamino. He shakes like a leaf when Palpatine orders Fives to kill him, eyes wide as saucers. Fives just turns away as always, shoving down the urge to vomit, because he knows what’s coming.
The shiny screams and begs and writhes and sobs and Force he’s so young. He’s so young and he doesn’t deserve this and Fives knows that Palpatine is going to drag it out for as long as the kid’s body will last. The Sith is only just getting started, and Fives—Fives can’t watch this. Not this time. It’s too much.
Fives takes a hesitant step forward. Palpatine arches one eyebrow at him, unfazed as always. He gestures patiently towards the shiny on the ground and smiles in sick satisfaction when Fives slowly makes his way to the kid’s side.
Nothing feels real. He knows what he’s about to do but he feels detached from it somehow, like he isn’t even in his own body. When he reaches out to place his hands on either side of the other clone’s head, he realizes that his hands are shaking.
He’s an ARC. His hands shouldn’t shake. But they do now.
The shiny jerks at the contact. There are tears still streaming down his face. His expression is twisted in agony. His chest heaves from the force of his sobs, and he’s still begging under his breath for the pain to stop even though Palpatine isn’t doing anything anymore.
Fives doesn’t want to kill him. He doesn’t want to, he won’t, he won’t—
“Please,” the shiny breathes out desperately. Their gazes lock.
Fives breaks.
He makes it fast. It’s the least he can do.
The body slumps lifelessly to the floor. Fives stares at it numbly and blinks back hot tears of his own.
“Good,” Palpatine tells him, smug and pleased.
Suddenly, Fives wants to kill him.
Something surges beneath his skin, red-hot and boiling and angry. He rises to his feet and clenches his fists as the sensation builds and builds and builds.
He’s afraid and he’s furious and he hates. He hates Palpatine with every fiber of his being. He grabs at the Force and it comes to him easily, like it belongs in his grasp. It whispers to him, feeds off of his fury, grows and ignites into something that Fives can use.
He spins and throws the power at Palpatine with all the force he can muster. To his own inexperienced mind it feels like a tsunami of anger, an impenetrable wall of energy.
To Palpatine, it’s child’s play. The Sith bats Fives’ attack aside with ease and flings out a hand. Fives goes hurtling across the room. He smashes into the side of his cell with a shout of pain and feels the Force immobilize his limbs once more. He gets dragged to his knees again, right in front of the dead clone.
The anger in him heaves at the sight, struggling to escape. Palpatine laughs. He clamps down on the energy in Fives’ body and rips it from Fives’ grasp. Fives has only just adjusted to the sensation of the Force flowing through him, and to have it torn away from him so abruptly feels like losing a limb. He slumps. His vision flickers.
“Very good,” the Sith praises. “Your anger will become your greatest strength.”
And he leaves again, keeps Fives pinned even though he’s long gone. Fives stares at the body in front of him and drowns in guilt and fear and regret.
The power that had surged through him had been dark. Fives doesn’t want that. He’s learned enough about Jedi to know that the Dark Side is evil, that it twists and contorts and confuses. He closes his eyes and vows that he won’t do it again.
Except.
Palpatine brings him another shiny. There are intricate tattoos curling around the kid’s jaw that seem brand new. Fives tries not to wonder what his name is, if his batchmates will miss him, what he likes to do during leave. He knows what the Sith is going to asks. He braces himself, steps forwards, and gets dragged to his knees again with little more than a twitch of Palpatine’s finger. He snarls with frustration—he’s doing what Palpatine wants, if only to spare his brothers from suffering, so why is he being restricted?
“Kill him,” Palpatine orders, and Fives fights, strains against the Force that holds him in place, but he can’t move.
The shiny starts to scream. The tattoos across his face jump as he does.
And Fives can’t do anything, can’t help, can’t end it, can’t even turn his head away.
The anger builds up again until he can’t contain it. It bursts out of him like a geyser, hot and sharp. He’d vowed not to use it again, but he has to. Suddenly he can grab the Force again. He gathers it around himself until he has just enough strength to fling out a hand and reach.
It’s instinctual and desperate. There is no finesse, no control. Fives knows that it wouldn’t do any good to attack Palpatine again, but he can use the Force to put the poor shiny out of his misery. The Force swells around him, dark and angry and skittering around his skin as a life is snuffed out. Fives shudders. He drops to the floor. Palpatine allows the motion
“This is progress,” the Sith says in a low voice as he withdraws from the cell.
He leaves Fives with the body again. He always does, until the cleaning droids come to take them away. Fives is too tired to lift his head and breathe his apology to the corpse like he usually does.
Progress to a Sith is not a good thing. Fives can feel himself fraying, can feel the warmth of the Force inside him beginning to curdle into something dark and cold. He tries to push it away and succeeds for the moment, but he already knows that he’s fighting a losing battle.
He curls himself into a ball and resigns himself to wait for Palpatine’s next visit.
There comes a point where Fives can’t keep track of anything anymore—of how many brothers he’s killed, of how many times he’s forced to his knees in front of the Sith, of how many times he willingly kneels just so that the pain will stop.
He begs sometimes, but Palpatine doesn’t listen. If Fives strikes out at him, he’s easily subdued and punished. It never works, no matter how fast Fives is, no matter if he reaches for his anger. He can’t compete with a true Sith.
Palpatine never explains the Force, never gives him a long lecture about how it functions like Fives had heard General Skywalker and General Kenobi give to Commander Tano during various points of the war. Instead, he throws Fives into problems headfirst and waits for Fives to figure it out himself.
Palpatine lets a Gamorrean into his cell. The Gamorrean is starving and half-mad. It takes great pleasure in throwing Fives across the room until Fives has at least three broken ribs and a large gash in his side that drips blood on the floor.
He’s going to die if he doesn’t do something. The dark nags at him, reminds him that it could help. Fives hesitates, but… he’s going to die.
He reaches for the darkness. He doesn’t see any other options. The Force coils around him, fierce and ready, filling him with the strength to get to his feet.
After a long, steady stream of torture and humiliation and frustration, Fives takes vindictive glee in slamming the Gamorrean into the wall with the Force. Suddenly he has the power to end his own pain for the first time in… he doesn’t even know how long. Somehow, it’s intoxicating. Fives kills the Gamorrean ruthlessly, and mercy doesn’t even cross his mind once.
When the power drains itself from his body and his mind is finally cleared of the foggy darkness, he realizes what he’s done and vomits up every last bit of the meager meal he’d been given earlier.
He knows that it isn't right. He knows that, he knows that, but he doesn’t know how else to survive. He rejects the dark and shoves it away the instant his stomach stops trying to kill him.
Palpatine comes back. This time he takes great pleasure in tearing Fives’ mind to pieces, shredding into him with sharp edges of Force that send fire rippling through Fives’ skull. Fives tries to call on the Force to defend himself, to put some sort of barrier or buffer against the mental barrage. It doesn’t work. He’s weak and inexperienced and slow.
Palpatine pulls him apart and puts him back together over and over again until Fives finally figures out how to construct trembling shields around himself, desperate for the agony to end. Palpatine shatters them to pieces anyway before he allows Fives respite. When he leaves Fives’ mind, Fives’ entire body trembles. It feels like there are holes drilled through his brain. He can’t even wrap his hands around the tray that holds his next meal because he’s still shaking too badly.
He’s long since abandoned any hope of rescue. He’s also submitted himself to the fact that he will never be strong enough to overcome Palpatine. Sooner or later he thinks he won’t have enough of a mind left to do anything at all.
But Fives has always been stubborn.
Even through the terrible pain, he clings to a shred of defiance and a sliver of loyalty. Those things have been ingrained in his heart since he could walk, and it’s just enough to keep him from succumbing for now.
Fives can use the dark, can pull it to him and access that power, but he never lets it stay. He always forces it back down again, and that’s not what Palpatine wants. Every time it’s more and more difficult to get rid of it. The Dark Side clings to him. It doesn’t want to be subdued, and Fives is struggling against it.
Palpatine knows this. He knows every inch of Fives’ mind by now. Fives has no secrets, no tricks, no ideas that the Sith does not know.
So naturally Palpatine knows exactly what it takes to get Fives to break.
At first, Fives thinks that he’s dreaming. The door to his cell opens. Fives rolls and drops to his knees instinctively, because whatever Palpatine has planned for today will only be ten times worse if he doesn’t.
Someone laughs at him, quiet and fond.
“You don’t need to do that for me,” they say, and Fives’ head snaps up.
Echo meets his gaze, a small smile playing across his lips. He’s wearing a black tunic, and he looks completely unconcerned by the conditions of Fives’ cell. Fives nearly chokes.
“E-Echo…?”
Echo approaches him. Fives shrinks back, eyes darting around the room. It’s a trick. It has to be some sort of test. Echo halts, raising his hands non-threateningly.
“Whoa, hey. I’m not going to attack you.”
“I’m dreaming,” Fives says through chapped and bloody lips. “You’re dead.”
Echo raises an eyebrow and lifts a hand, wiggling his fingers at Fives pointedly. A glove covers almost the entire limb.
“I’m not dead, Fives,” he says. “But I do have a few fake limbs now.”
Fives shakes his head. He isn't convinced. Echo sighs.
“Feel me, then. You can do that by now, right? Use the Force.”
Fives closes his eyes and turns away from him. He won’t believe this. Echo has been dead for a long time.
“Alright then,” he hears Echo mutter, and suddenly something taps at his mind, gentle yet insistent. Fives throws his shields up so fast that he sees Echo wince out of the corner of his eyes… and then Fives has to take a moment to process. He turns back to Echo, eyes wide.
Palpatine is never gentle.
“Gonna let me in?” Echo asks him, arching an eyebrow. Fives can barely breathe, but when the tapping comes again, Fives lets his shields drop and suddenly he feels. He knows Echo’s thoughts, recognizes the patterns and quirks that he’s understood since Kamino. That can’t be replicated by anyone else. Their minds twine together. A connection spins into existence.
Fives feels everything. He feels a curl of light amusement from his brother, a flash of pity, a wave of relief. It feels right, it feels good. Echo slides into Fives’ mind like he belongs there. It’s the first time someone has entered Fives’ mind without bringing pain as well. Fives relaxes into the sensation.
Echo is not dead.
He’s real. He’s here. This isn’t a dream.
Suddenly Fives feels cold terror. He yanks his mind away from Echo’s with a cry of alarm.
“No, no, you can’t be here,” Fives moans. “You can’t be real, please, he’ll make me kill you, you have to leave—!”
Echo laughs again.
“Oh, that’s right,” he says casually. “I’d nearly forgotten about that part. Don’t worry about it too much, Fives. It’s not a big deal. Besides, he won’t make you kill me. He sent me here.”
Fives narrows his eyes. Suspicion sends awful prickles down his spine, because that… that isn’t right. Echo is real, but something else isn’t.
He reaches for Echo’s mind this time. Echo raises an eyebrow at him but lets Fives dive into his thoughts.
On the surface, Echo’s mind is bright and intelligent, just as Fives had known it would be. Behind Echo’s normal thoughts and familiar attributes, the dark side swells and ebbs like the tide of the sea. Fives recoils.
“You’re not Echo,” he says sharply. Echo frowns.
“I can reassure you that I am,” he says, coming closer. Fives draws himself up, calling the Force into his grasp and shoving outward. Echo staggers back. Then he grins.
“That’s pretty good,” he says. “You’re learning faster than I did, I think.”
Fives stiffens. Echo starts to come closer again, and Fives can feel himself crumbling, falling, struggling to remain defiant because it’s Echo. It’s his twin, his brother, his last batchmate, and he’s right in front of him when Fives thought that he was dead.
When Echo reaches out and pulls Fives close, all of Fives’ defenses topple. He melts into the touch, breath hitching over a sob. Echo makes a soft noise and guides them to the floor. Fives clings to his brother. He knows that something is still horribly wrong but he hasn’t gotten this type of comfort in so long. It’s selfish, but even if this is a trick Fives is still going to take what he can get.
“Force, Echo.” His voice trembles. He’s shaking. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, curls his fingers into the fabric of Echo’s tunic and reminds himself to breathe. “How are you alive?”
“The Separatists picked me up at the Citadel,” Echo says quietly. “I was missing three limbs and bleeding out, but I fought anyway. They were surprised to learn that I could use the Force. So was I. Then they brought me here.”
Fives presses his face into Echo’s shoulder. His voice comes out muffled by the fabric. “You’re like me, then.”
“Course I am,” Echo replies. “We came out of the same vat, didn’t we? Why would you have something that I don’t?”
Fives doesn’t have an answer to that. He lets himself drift for a while, burrowing himself in the warmth and comfort and contact that he’s been craving. He can’t remember the last time he was able to hug someone. Part of him is worried that if he lets go, Echo will disappear, and Palpatine will take his place.
The illusion can’t last forever, because Fives can’t forget what he’s already seen. Echo is real, but he is not the same.
“What did he do to you?” Fives asks in little more than a whisper. He’s afraid of the answer he’ll receive. Echo shrugs.
“The same thing that he’s doing to you,” he says lightly. “So I understand, Fives. I know that it hurts. I know exactly how you feel right now.”
“If you understand that, then get me out of here,” Fives says weakly. Echo sighs.
“I know, I know,” he soothes. “I wanted to leave, too. But Fives, you need to understand. It makes everything so much better. It hurts now, but when he’s finished you’ll be better. Stronger. You’ll be free, I promise.”
Echo strokes a gentle hand down Fives’ back. Fives’ stomach heaves. His skin crawls, but he can’t bring himself to pull away.
“He broke you,” he whispers in horror. Echo finally shifts, separating them just enough that Echo can look Fives in the eyes without letting go of him completely.
“No. He fixed me, Fives. Just be patient. You’ll understand soon.” His eyes gleam yellow in the dark.
Fives needs to let go. He needs to let go, it isn’t right, if he listens to Echo he’ll break and it’ll be the end. He needs to let go. He needs to pull away from this twisted shadow of his brother and continue to fight.
But he can’t.
It’s Echo.
He curls himself further into Echo’s embrace and sobs. Echo holds him tight, offers him comfort, worms his way into Fives’ mind and sends him waves of warmth and reassurance.
If Fives closes his eyes and ignores everything around him, he can almost forget that Echo isn’t himself.
“I missed you,” Echo whispers into Fives’ ear. Fives swallows and doesn’t say anything in return.
Echo is almost always present, after that. He accompanies Palpatine every time Fives gets a visit. He watches, speaks sometimes, and then stays behind when Palpatine is finished to pull Fives into his arms and hold him as Fives tries to remember who he is.
He’d hoped that Echo’s presence would make things easier, but it only makes things worse. He tells Fives to give in, promises him that things will be better, whispers that he can’t wait until they can be together again. Palpatine lets him speak. All of them know Fives’ weakness. All of them know that he’s breaking, that it’s just a matter of time before Fives loses the battle and lets the dark take him as it has his brother.
Fives, please,” Echo pleads with him, while Fives struggles to cling to his sanity and ignores the dark inside him that’s begging to be used. “Please, the longer you fight, the longer it will hurt. I want you with me, I don’t want you to get hurt anymore.”
Fives can’t look at him. Sweat drips down his brow like a river. His mind is combusting. He convulses on the floor, gritting his teeth so hard that part of him thinks that they might shatter. The dark swirls to life. Fives grabs it, pulls it close and feels a bit of the pain fade minutely.
“You’re so close,” Echo tells him. “Just let it stay, Fives. It’s not just a tool. You have to make it a part of you.”
Fives snarls.
“No,” he hisses. He lets go of the dark and allows the pain to return.
Dimly, in the back of his mind, he knows that this is the last time he’ll have the strength to rebel. Echo makes a sound of frustration and hurt.
Palpatine doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ever now, really. Fives is sure that the Sith thinks it’s beneath him. He hadn’t spoken much when it had just been the two of them either, and now Echo does the talking. Palpatine’s presence leaves Fives without warning. The sudden freedom so unexpected that Fives gapes in bewilderment.
He’d been expecting lightning and agony as a result of his disobedience. It doesn’t come. Palpatine’s eyes flicker over to Echo. Echo doesn’t say anything, but he nods once, and Palpatine leaves with a sweep of his robes.
Fives hauls himself shakily to his feet, confused.
“W-what—?” he croaks out.
“You’re not going to like this at all,” Echo says, and for the first time, Fives hears regret in his brother’s voice.
“What are you talking about—?”
Echo reaches out and grabs him with the Force. Echo’s never done that before. He’ll enter Fives’ mind, press some of the pain away when he’s allowed to, but he’s never used it to paralyze, or to harm like the Sith does. Fives panics, because for a brief moment he’s afraid that Echo is going to pick up right where Palpatine left off.
Instead, Echo lifts him, brow furrowed, and pulls Fives with him out of the cell.
Fives doesn’t know what’s going on. He tries to fight. He batters his will against Echo’s. Echo’s strength can’t compare with Palpatine’s and Fives can actually make him flinch. But Echo still has more experience than Fives does, and he keeps Fives mostly motionless as he walks them through a dim hallway and into another chamber.
There’s a chair in the center of the new room. Echo eases Fives into it and fastens cuffs around Fives’ arms and legs. Fives pants in apprehension. This doesn’t look good. He doesn’t think it could possibly hurt more than Palpatine can make it, but Echo is grim, and that makes him worry.
“You just… need a little push. That’s all,” Echo says quietly. “It’s okay. I needed it too.”
“The kriff is this?” Fives demands, jerking against the metal restraints. “Let me go!”
“You know I can’t,” Echo reminds him curtly. “This is to help you, Fives. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?”
“If you really wanted to help me, you would have stopped this a long time ago,” Fives gasps out. Echo huffs and ignores that.
“This device is experimental. Our Master hopes to use it in the future, to show others like us the true ways of the Force. It will let you see things as I do, I hope.”
Echo pauses for a moment. Fives feels him reaching out towards their Force bond, sending him apologies and peace and reassurance that Fives does not want. He recoils from it, pushes Echo away, and he sees Echo’s eyes go wide with shock.
“You aren’t my brother,” Fives snarls at him. “My brother is dead.”
For a moment, Fives can see past the dark that swirls in Echo’s eyes. Something shatters. Echo tries to reach for him again, tugging at the bond forcefully. Fives flinches and cuts him off. Echo’s side of the bond lights up with confusion and panic, but Fives won’t let him in.
A moment later, Echo’s expression hardens, and anger replaces the vulnerability.
Echo slams his hand down onto the control panel at his side. The machine begins to whir to life. Fives glances down and sees needles drawing closer to his skin on either side of him. He swallows.
“Echo...”
“You could have avoided this, you know. You could have stopped it already. You have the power to end it. All you have to do is stop rejecting it, stop rejecting me,” Echo snarls. His eyes flash yellow again. Fives hates it when they do that. It’s a harsh reminder that his brother is gone, that Echo has been replaced by something that has his face but not his heart.
“You don’t have to be afraid. Not of the chair, not of the Dark Side, not of anything. You have me now,” Echo whispers in his ear. “Aren’t you grateful? I didn’t have anyone to get me through these things. I was all alone.” He bares his teeth in a pale imitation of a smile. “It nearly killed me. You’re lucky, Fives. Lucky that I’m here to help.”
Electroprods blaze to life. Fives hadn’t even noticed them until now, but they’re inching close alongside the needles. Fives trembles. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t. He’s so tired of pain.
“Echo, don’t. Please. Get me out of here, this isn’t really you—!”
Echo’s expression twists into a distorted parody of sympathy. He strokes a hand over Fives’ hair in a motion that’s supposed to be soothing before taking a step back so that he’s out of range of the chair’s influence. “I’m right here. You just have to endure it, and hate. Everything will be alright after that. Trust me. I’ll be right here, don’t worry.”
Fives twists, shakes, closes his eyes and tries to shut out Echo’s words because it’s wrong, it’s twisted and horrible and he’s so, so afraid.
“Echo, let me go. Echo, please! No! Please please don’t don’t—!”
When he wakes up, his world is on fire. He moans before he can stop himself and that just makes it worse. It feels like there are shards of glass stuffed down his throat. He’s curled in a little ball next to someone, and he doesn’t need to see in order to know who it is.
“Sleep, Fives,” Echo tells him. Fives is too tired, too hurt, too beaten down to even think about disobeying. He drifts off again, but when he comes to once more the pain hasn’t faded even a bit.
Echo is speaking in the dark of the cell, breathing something out in quiet rolling syllables that Fives doesn’t understand. The words grate against Fives’ mind. They’re… familiar, somehow, but not to Fives himself. The dark in him leaps in recognition.
“Nwûl tash. Dzwol shâsotkun. Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk. Tyûkjontû châtsatul nu midwan. Midwanjontû châtsatul nu asha. Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak. Wonoksh qyâsik nun.”
Echo repeats it once, twice, three times. Fives doesn’t try to speak just yet. Even lifting his head sends lightning pain skittering through his body. Echo must sense that he’s awake. He prods at Fives’ mind through the bond, and Fives is too tired to resist this time. Echo hums in satisfaction as their minds curl together. Fives pushes at him weakly, but Echo bats his protests aside.
“You want to know what it means?” he asks quietly. “It’s what you could have, if you’d let us show you. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.” He pauses. “Don't you want to be free, Fives?”
Fives rumbles out a bitter laugh that vibrates through his bones and makes him ache.
“I am free. You’re the one who isn’t.”
Echo doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment.
“Maybe I’m not,” he finally admits. “But you’ll join us anyway. If it’s true that I’m not free, you won’t leave me to face that alone.”
“I’m loyal to the Republic,” Fives croaks out, but he hasn’t actually thought of the Republic in a long time. Echo laughs at him.
“Maybe you were,” he whispers. “But you’ve always been more loyal to me.”
He’s right. Fives loves his brother far more than he could ever love the Republic.
Fives is done resisting. He’d known that he was going to give in the moment he’d seen Echo. He’s just been putting it off. He closes his eyes and lets every muscle in his body go slack. The barriers that he’s put up to keep the dark away fade. The dark swells, throbs, billows to life. Fives lets it swallow him whole.
Fives understands everything now.
The dark is his friend. The dark belongs with him. It sings contentedly as it thrums between him and his brother, binding them together as they kneel at Palpatine’s feet. When the Sith gestures for them to rise, they do so as one, more in sync than they’ve ever been. Fives shares a victorious glance with Echo as Palpatine’s satisfaction rolls over them.
“You are my prototypes,” he tells them with a slow smile. “The predecessors to my future Inquisitors. Your conversions were successful, and theirs will be, too.”
The Sith presents them with lightsabers. Fives accepts the weapon and licks his lips. The dark curls around him like a blanket. It isn’t cold, not anymore.
He’s not sure why it had taken him so long to accept it.
His bond with Echo is alight with energy and power. Fives can practically taste it. He knows that Echo can, too.
It is better, just like Echo had promised. And Fives doesn’t really care what happens to him anymore, not as long he can stay side by side with his brother.