Work Text:
Path to Restoring Earth Bet (3 steps):
1. Steal gun from Toybox.
2. Shoot Taylor Hebert.
3. Profit.
Taylor doesn't remember much of how she got to wherever she is. She remembers defeating Scion. She remembers losing the ability to understand speech and even human behavior altogether. She also remembers Contessa and the conversation about putting Taylor out of her misery.
There was nothing about rolling her back to, as far as she could tell, her pre-Leviathan state both physically and mentally.
Or transporting her to this hot hell, in the middle of a large open space surrounded by stadium seating and filled with a crowd, mostly made of sentient (!) insectoids that Queen Administrator assures her it can control. And given the people chained to posts who shared the middle of the arena with her, this isn't a friendly situation.
As if that isn't enough, Contessa also had mentioned absolutely nothing about her range being comparable to her *Khepri level*, not her Leviathan level. She can sense the insect life burrowed under the surface of the *entire planet* and Taylor can now say with absolute certainly that not only is this not Earth Bet, it also isn't even *an* Earth.
Last, but not least, there'd been nothing about an army of machine intelligences who think in binary and simple commands. All of whom now answer to her.
Being able to control insects seemed like such a useless power when she'd first triggered. But now? With a planet of sapient insects and a robot army at her disposal?
It's good to be the Queen.
Now. Where is she and who does she have to kill to get back home?
OR:
The Force: ::giggles::
Dooku: That's odd. I haven't felt something like that from the Force since Qui-Gon brought that ysalamiri from the lower levels into our shared quarters.
Dooku: If I weren't a Sith lord and thus the biggest and baddest thing around, I would be fleeing for my life right now.
Dooku: ::fixates on Taylor:: Her. The girl. She's the source of the disturbance. Fett, kill her and I'll pay you double.
Fett: ::already pre-flighting the Slave I::
Dooku: Fine, we can do this the slow way. ::to Poggle:: Have her tied up next to the padawan and the senator. She'll make fine entertainment.
Dooku: She doesn't even have the Force. How much trouble can she make?
::twenty minutes later, an entire Geonosian hive having erupted all over the arena floor and the girl perched atop an enormous queen, with a mastered Poggle bearing down on him with a brain worm in his hands::
Dooku: Oh. *That* much trouble.
Elsewhere:
Palpatine: So Dooku got his brain eaten and I had to use the apprentice bond to destroy his mind in order to protect my secrets. I've lost a valuable minion and Skywalker is nowhere near ready to replace him. I'm on the brink of starting an intergalactic war, with all the pieces in place and suddenly I no longer have a scapegoat to control the other side of the board in order to ensure my victory and cover up any other little details. And, if that weren't bad enough, Geonosis can't be used as an excuse to declare war anymore.
Palpatine: On the other hand, the Separatists still exist and apparently have a new leader who's already taken over the droid army.
Palpatine: Start a war I can potentially lose against an opponent I know nothing about? Or abandon a plan twenty years in the making and all the maneuvering I went through and influence I spent to get to be appointed chancellor and acquire emergency powers, potentially losing the chance to become Emperor? Decisions, decisions.
Palpatine: Eh, what's the worst that can happen? I still have Byss and my backup plan to send my spirit to my clone in the event of my death. It'll be fine.
Taylor is not actually the leader of the Separatists as she has no interest in such a thing and, in any case, once the death of Dooku became public, the Separatist planets fell into infighting. Up until the Republic declares war. At which point, every single planet nominates the obvious candidate, i.e., the person with a ready-made army under her command.
Taylor: So they want me to fight another war. For people I don't even know.
Taylor: Even in a whole different universe, I can't get a break.
Taylor: Eh. It's not like I have anything better to do.
And so the Clone Wars are on.
The Jedi are still drafted to serve as generals in the Grand Army of the Republic. Nothing's new there. Palpatine's working from the same playbook -- he's meticulously set things up so that he wins regardless of the outcome, why would he make changes for one little bobble? His plans are perfection itself.
Things do not go as planned.
The first sign of the great plan going awry occurs on the mission led by Wilhuff Tarkin to Murkhana. All that most of the galaxy (including Palpatine) is aware of is that Tarkin and the 12th Sector Army accompanying him disappeared without a trace after they reported their arrival in the system.
Nothing else is ever heard of them again. Not. One. Word.
It begins a disturbing pattern.
Relief, diplomatic and search and rescue missions are left unmolested, much to Palpatine's ire. While combat missions led by Jedi tend to go unopposed, those led by the Republic military simply disappear at a disproportionate rate. However neither he nor GAR Intelligence are able to determine which will be successful and which will fail, something that is causing an unacceptably high rate of failure in his previously flawless plans.
When Pong Krell fails to arrive at Umbara, Palpatine finally makes the connection. The Jedi Master turned prospective Sith candidate has won every engagement he led until Umbara, but at the cost of 75% of his clone forces. Looking at the numbers, the pattern is clear. The missing battalions are disappearing in order of the number of casualties suffered, military, clone and civilian alike. The latter two are what took him so long to see the pattern. Who cared about clones? They were disposable! And civilians! Civilians were the best kind of casualty! The more civilian deaths, the more fear. The more fear stirred up in their constituents, the more control the Senate gave him in the belief that he would fix things. Except that if Palpatine had still been in charge of both sides of the war, the civilian casualties would already be in the high billions, rather than the paltry millions it's at now.
Why?? What kind of person thinks like this?
Taylor: Hmm. Enemy soldiers. Jailing them would be the moral response.
Taylor: And killing them the expedient one.
Taylor: And I'm all about expedience.
Taylor: On the other hand, they're cute. And there's three million of them.
Taylor: What the hell. I'm going to free all of them.
Because once Taylor learns they're products bought and paid for and that they all have computer chips in their heads, there's nothing for it but to head for Kamino. It doesn't happen immediately -- she acquires them one fleet at a time and it takes a while for the first group to even be willing to talk to an enemy general who also happened to be in command of multiple swarms of deadly insects -- but there's zero hesitation once she finds out.
No Ziz bombs on her watch, no siree!
Especially not when she's got an honor guard of attractive men watching her every move. She has every intention of keeping them and not giving them back.
Taylor: ::five minutes after stepping into Tipoca City:: Bees. All the bees.
Alpha-17: Dibs.
With both the Separatist forces and the better part of the GAR to support, finances would normally be a problem for someone in Taylor's position.
Alas.
Many problems cease to be problems once the carpet bombing begins. Skako Minor and Scipio survive. The Techno Union and Banking Clans do not.
Once the banking details have been obtained, Taylor doesn't see much point in leaving an enemy alive behind her. From what she's determined so far, the major actors in this war are the Republic Senate and the two corporations she'd just eradicated. And with the money gone? That leaves only one target.
Alpha-17: You committed a war crime back there. Three if you count Kamino.
Taylor: …and? Your point?
Alpha-17: I love you. Marry me.
At about this point, Palpatine realizes that he's losing the war. He's running out of clones and he's running out of money.
And on top of that, it's Taungsday, which means he has to address the Senate and somehow explain why they're losing the war he started. How can this get any worse?
The Force: ::giggles::
Palpatine: I have a bad feeling about this.
Aide: Sir? The Separatist Navy just dropped out of hyperspace.
Palpatine: Which ships? How far out? Never mind. Just signal our forces to defend the planet although that should be obvious even to clones.
Aide: Um, sir? About that? It won't be possible.
Palpatine: And why not?
Aide: Because it's not just one ship. It's the entire fleet. And they're right on top of us. They've already taken out our defenses.
Palpatine: Well, poop.
On the bright side, he no longer has to explain why they're losing the war.
Palpatine's there in the Senate Rotunda, presiding over the chancellor's box in a dignified manner when the winner of the war arrives. Presentation is everything, after all. Plotting furiously and discarding idea after idea, but he's there. For once, he's the one afraid. He doesn't like it.
He watches with a fixed smile as the enemy commander arrives before the Senate to make her demands. The death knell of all of his machinations.
And then he sees it.
A golden opportunity.
The Separatist general has foolishly allowed herself to be limited to a single repulsor pod. And while she's surrounded by guards, every single one of them is a clone. And unlike her guards, she isn't wearing armor, just a skin tight silk garment. Not even durasilk! By the sheen, it's shimmersilk. A beautiful fabric, yes. But not one that will stop blasters.
Yes! He can still win this and demonstrate the supremacy of the Sith!
Palpatine: Neener neener.
Taylor: Excuse you?
Palpatine: Execute order 36.
And that? That was a big mistake.
Not only is she wearing a combat suit woven by some exceptionally deadly spiders she found on a planet with the most ginormous trees she's ever seen, Taylor has a droid army and the capacity to control each one individually over the entirety of her range. A range that's expanded exponentially with the addition of mass produced relay stations positioned at key spots across the galaxy.
And the minds of so many identical men all wiped to a blank obedient state by the inhibitor chip still in the heads of every soldier she hasn't yet liberated? All so very very open to orders?
Palpatine: Execute order 36.
Palpatine: That's a lot of blasters.
Palpatine: Fortunately I've got a lightsaber.
Palpatine: …wait, why are there bug guts all over the emitter?
Palpatine: I don't gots a lightsaber.
Palpatine: That's fine. I've got Force lightning-- wait, are those *Pelko* bugs? Those eat the Force! And inject a paralytic toxin--
Palpatine: Poop.
It's really hard to send one's soul elsewhere when one no longer has access to the Force. Too bad, so sad. Scratch one resurrection plan.
It's over in minutes.
Minutes, not seconds, because while the takedown of Palpatine *did* only take seconds, the Senate is a much larger body.
But not *that* large.
Large enough though to give Fox, aka CC-1010, Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard and Palpatine's chief whipping boy, time to get to Taylor's repulsor pod.
Fox: Marry me.
Taylor: …
Alpha-17: Get in line.
Taylor: I don't get what's going on here.
Taylor: But I think I like it.
The galaxy settles down to peace under their (mostly) benevolent warlord's rule. It better. To paraphrase the old rhyme: She knows when you're sleeping, she knows when you're awake. She knows if you've been bad or good, so be good or bees. So many bees.
Not everyone is happy about their new supreme overlord though.
The former movers and shakers come to a conclusion, namely that Taylor is bad for business and should be gotten rid of. They also come to the conclusion that they'd like to live. Schemes are discussed and discarded. In the end, no one is happy with the plan that they came up with, which signifies that it was both an excellent compromise and really really stupid.
Namely get the holonews to do their dirty work for them.
Reporter: So what are the Jedi going to do about our new warlord?
Mace: Do? What do we look like? The government?
Anakin: Besides. She has bugs. All the bugs.
Obi-Wan: Ignore him. He was at Geonosis. However, Master Windu does have a point. The Jedi do not interfere with duly established governments.
Reporter: Excuse me? Duly established?? She killed the chancellor and proclaimed herself warlord of the Republic *and* the Separatists!
Obi-Wan: I think you'll find that each of the Senators voted unanimously for exactly that outcome.
Reporter: Their pods were empty at the time!
Obi-Wan: ::blithely:: As I said, duly authorized.
Reporter: …
Reporter: It's said that she's from a different dimension. Have the Jedi made progress on sending her home?
Anakin: We can do that?? We are totally doing that. Like now. Immediately if possible.
Obi-Wan: …
Obi-Wan: Anakin, is there anything you'd like to tell me?
Anakin: …
Obi-Wan: …
Anakin: Fine! There's sand. In my bed. Every night. No matter how much I brush it out or change the sheets or even sleep in different beds, there's sand. Every. Night. I know it's her. She's waiting. She wants me to snap, but I'm too smart for her! I'll never crack! Never!
Obi-Wan: ::to the reporter:: As I was saying, we'll get right on that.
The Jedi find a way to send Taylor packing and surprisingly quickly too.
Success! The former Senate and its hangers on rejoice. Their cunning plan worked. The wealthy and corrupt can soon get back to actually being wealthy and corrupt (and with the added benefit that there are even far fewer of them to share the rarified space at the top! Score!).
There's only one problem.
The traveler has to go of their own free will. And, well, who bells the rancor?
Mace: Not it.
Anakin: Double not it.
Yoda: It I am not.
Obi-Wan: I have a bad feeling about this.
Surprisingly, events do not end in bees.
Taylor: So you have a way for me to get back home?
Obi-Wan: Yes.
Taylor: Does it have any limitations?
Obi-Wan: You have to use it of your own free will. There's no way to force you into it or to activate it accidentally.
Taylor: No mass limitations? Limitations on the number of entities traveling?
Obi-Wan: …
Obi-Wan: None that I'm aware of.
Taylor: Good, I'll do it.
Obi-Wan: You will?? I mean. Yes. That's good. When?
Taylor goes willingly, albeit with more than usual amount of carry-ons, and the galaxy sighs with relief. The war is over, the undisputed victor of it is gone and everyone can get on with business as usual.
With a lot fewer bees.
And sand.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, it comes entirely too late for Anakin's sanity and he is forced into sessions with a mind healer where little details like his marriage to Padme and, well, his entire history with Palpatine and the Dark Side are revealed.
At least he got help?
However, on Earth Bet, things take on a rather different complexion:
Taylor: I'm back!
Taylor: I don't control as many spiders anymore and I'm all out of bees.
Taylor: On the other hand, I now have two armies and a battle fleet under my command, so there's that.
Taylor: Oh. And I may have started a harem. But that's not important--
Danny: Yes. Yes, I think it is.
Taylor: *Busted*.