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Chapter Text

A GALAXY AT WAR.

The REPUBLIC faces an existential threat in attacks from the SEPARATIST ALLIANCE.

Led by their Chancellor, SHEEV PALPATINE, the Republic resists the encroachment of the SEPARATIST BATTLEDROIDS.

Their CLONE ARMY and JEDI GENERALS protect the people of the Republic from the machinations of COUNT DOOKU and his cyborg terror GENERAL GRIEVOUS.

Rewind nearly a decade. A mission to the ALTERNIAN PROTECTORATE, a set of planetary systems which was and remains nearly at the fringes of Republic control, yields a dozen young FORCE USERS of incredible power. They are brought to the Temple as younglings to be trained.

Now, three years into a war which shows no signs of stopping, the front lines have been stagnant. The Galaxy continues to turn, and the JEDI ORDER still has to train its padawans to Knighthood.

This new era will be marked by the YOUNG PADAWANS that will be forged in war.

But in the shadows, the Darkness gathers. And it is growing...

Chapter Text

The command station is still bustling, even at this late hour, and Obi-Wan gives a nod to each of the troopers he passes. They return it, breaking their conversations just momentarily for a polite ‘general’. Perhaps he can make it out of here without anybody needing anything more from him than that.

“General Kenobi,” Cody calls.

Ah. No such luck.

“Captain.” Obi-Wan gives a respectful bow. “How goes cleanup for the battle?”

The captain of the 212^th shifts uncomfortably. “It’s going well, General.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi has been awake for twenty-two hours. He has been trudging through sanitation waste (to put it nicely), as well as leading no less than three separate battles. He has just finished his reports. Down this corridor and to the left, his quarters hold his spare robes and he can have a quick meditation session before retiring for a shower and some well-deserved rest.

And yet he waits.

Cody cracks. “…The Jedi council have been trying to contact you. You were unavailable.”

“Sewer systems are not known for their good signal,” he replies mildly. “Did they leave a message?”

“Er,” Cody says. “You could say that, sir.”

“Would you?” He prompts.

“No.”

Obi-Wan waits. When it’s clear Cody is reluctant to speak, he gives the man a nod. “Well, whenever you figure out how you would say it, please let me know.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” comes a voice to the side, lightly accented Basic. “He means me.”

Obi-Wan turns. He is presented with the image of a small being of a species he immediately places as either Alternian or Beforiad. He isn’t well-versed in their physiology, but the young one cannot be older than perhaps thirteen standard galactic years old. He notes the padawan braid. “Hello there,” he says, by way of greeting.

Cody speaks quietly. “As far as I know, General, the council are trying their best to find masters for padawans. The war…”

The war. Yes, the war. He knows the problems they’ve had- he’s been at the meetings where they discussed solutions. He just hadn’t realised that emergency assignment would mean this.

Obi-Wan nods and mentally shuffles his itinerary. Five hours of sleep, not six and a half, eat breakfast while doing reports, get the brief on the day’s battle summarised by Cody, rather than reading it himself.

Satisfied he can make the time, he gives Cody a glance. Cody nods.

He turns to the padawan before him and waits for him to step forward. Reluctantly, he does. He clutches a datapad in his hand like most padawans clutch their lightsabres.

“So, youngling.” The child scowls, he notes. Not a fan of mentioning his youth, then. “You are to be my padawan.”

The young- ahem, young one- pinches his brow, eyes screwed tightly shut. “Figures. You don’t even know my name, do you?”

“No,” Obi-Wan admits. “You know mine, I imagine.”

“Yeth, mathter Kenobi.” He lisps out the Basic, the sarcasm dripping enough to get in the way.

“Would you mind enlightening me as to yours?”

“Sollux,” he all but spits. “Is this going to take long? I want to not be here.”

Either he’s too lazy to think of a proper excuse, or he really just doesn’t care, Kenobi muses to himself. “Sollux. Captor,” he guesses.

Sollux shifts his slouching weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah.” He doesn’t ask, how do you know? He puts that down to not wanting to show that he cares.

It comes back to him. The group of Alternian younglings they found almost a decade ago. A planetary system barely under Republic jurisdiction, a species that produces maybe one force sensitive every seventy standard years, and yet they had found a dozen of them within a year of each other, discovered when they were each almost four years old, each more gifted in the Force than average. Perhaps naturally, they had stuck together somewhat. He learned their names as part of a council briefing. He’d have difficulty remembering the others at this point, but the first half of the name sparked a bit of recognition for him. Regardless, it’s clear what his next course of action must be.

He has some reading to do on his new student.

“Apologies,” Obi-Wan says, deciding to give the child what he clearly wants. “We may have to begin proper introductions tomorrow.” He notes the way Sollux scoffs but doesn’t comment. What is it about me which says, 'give him the emotional ones'? He wonders to himself. He conveniently leaves out the fact he asked for the first one from his musings. “Have the clones shown you your quarters yet?”

Cody steps in, the wince obvious in his voice. “We haven’t got a room prepared for him yet.”

“Ah.” He thinks. “Sollux, why don’t you take my quarters for tonight, until we sort out a room for you? I have some reports to get on with,” he says. He’s sure he can find productive ways to fill the time and then take a few hours’ sleep on a trooper’s bunk.

“Yeah, no thanks,” Sollux says, and Obi-Wan blinks. “I’m not tired.”

“You will need a night’s rest after travelling.”

“You’ve been fighting,” Sollux counters. “Plus, you need a fucking shower.”

The child gives him a defiant look. He’s pushing boundaries. Like Anakin, in those early days.

And those medium days.

And pretty much today, too. Different boundaries, though, and usually with a little more tact and good humour.

“If you aren’t tired, then I suppose there’s no reason why we should delay introductions until tomorrow,” Obi-Wan muses.

Sollux groans. “Fine,” he sighs. “Where is it?”

“Trooper,” Cody calls. Drumbeat, badly pretending he wasn’t listening, salutes to attention. “Take the General’s padawan to his quarters and bring back his robes.”

“Yes, Captain.” Another salute, and Drumbeat jerks his head. “C’mon, kid. I’ll show you to the General’s room.”

As Sollux walks behind the trooper, Obi-Wan faintly hears him say, “is your firewall really this shit? I could hack this when I was two sweeps old.”

For a moment, neither Cody nor Obi-Wan talks. And then:

“…What time is it on Coruscant?”

“20:32, General.”

Hm. “You don’t suppose anybody from the Council is awake right now?” Obi-Wan asks.

“If they are, they probably wouldn’t admit it,” Cody replies.

He sighs. “They’ve sent the documentation?”

Cody hands him a datapad. He scans the information for keywords. He’ll take a more thorough look later.

“Ah. He’s a tinkerer.”

Cody swears.

Chapter Text

Mace Windu stares at his new apprentice. She returns his gaze impassively.

“Do you know why I was selected as your master, padawan?” He asks. She shows no outward reaction, but he feels her bristle at that.

“I’m sure every decision the council makes is made in the mature consideration of the force and all its mysteries,” she replies, primly. In the mundane world, this is what she says. In the luminous world of the force, her words say, because they think I will be a problem, and they want somebody to scare me straight.

“There is a darkness inside you,” he says, simply. She hides her flinch reasonably well. “It was thought that a padawan who already feels such dark emotions would benefit from learning to control them, rather than let them control her.”

“Seems antithetical to the Jedi’s purpose. The darkness should be removed, not controlled.” She says it like a challenge; she invests the answer with points to be scored. But Mace isn’t interested in scoring points, nor playing her game.

“The darkness is a temptation. It promises power. I know you know this. I know it too. What it promises.”

He’s read the file. Officially, the Rancor was killed by a randomly falling boulder. Heavier than Mace thinks he himself could lift without effort. Officially, the story is a falling boulder.

Unofficially…

“And you’re the man who deals with the problem children,” she says, folding her arms.

“I’m the man you will call Master,” he says, calmly.

She quirks a smile. “Lucky me,” she says, deadpan. Her expression says: I don’t think you do know. What it’s like. “Do I get any say in this?” She adds.

“Yes,” he says.

She blinks. “Good to know.”

“If I am not a good fit for you, you can request a change of Master. At any time.”

“Any time?”

“Yes.”

“For any reason?”

“No.”

Her expression twists in victory. “And I suppose you decide if my reason is good enough?”

“The council would decide.”

She makes a show of tapping her chin with a finger. “Remind me, master. Who is the current Master of the Order?”

 “I am.” He stares impassively at her. “Shall we begin our meditation?”

He feels her tally the points of the encounter. She gives him a tight smile, and gestures with one hand. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Mace searches her expression, but for once she seems to be genuine. She wants to know what she’s working with, perhaps.

He closes his eyes and starts to sink into his deeper awareness.

The room, the wider temple, and Coruscant itself are all bright in his mind as his luminous attention flows outwards. And he feels the girl on front of him close her eyes, slowing her breathing, calming herself and slowing her thoughts.

She is so shot through with Shatterpoints that she looks less like a girl and more like a piece of hot glass dropped directly into cool water. The form holds barely together. There is something inky and dark seeping from the breaklines.

And yet she swims above the abyss of darkness that pools in her mind, trying for detachment, folding inward. Wrong strategy, but decent technique.

He feels it. Her cynicism and her posturing, hiding her fear and her terror. Hers is not an attachment to another, but instead an attachment to herself- her sanity. She fears to lose that which most beings do not even think to question having.

Yes, he is the correct Master for her. It will be his job to convince her of this.

Chapter Text

The hiss of lightsabres deflecting blaster bolts. The sound of exertion, the feeling of effort, of concentration, of instinct mediated poorly by training. The sight of maybe thirty younglings, their Form I stances uncertain and untrained, deflections unruly, but determination evident on the faces of many as they swing their sabres.

Was he ever that small? He arrived later than most, but he still feels that these children look smaller than he remembers being.

“There’s so many of them in the class,” the Jedi Knight says, arms resting on his knees as he leans forward to watch. “This is more than when I first came here, right? When my padawan was this young, even.”

“More, there are,” agrees the Master. “More here, but more there are in our temple than in many years.”

“Is it the war? Or something else?”

Yoda closes his eyes. “Mmm. Mysterious, the currents of the Force are. Coincidence, the timing is not. But whether be it the war or not, trained, they still must be.”

Anakin nods and then frowns when the Grand Master’s meaning sinks in. “What?”

“Younglings needing a master, they are,” Yoda tells him, as he watches the padawans-to-be take their stances in the training hall. “Train one, you could.”

“I’m still training Ahsoka,” Anakin argues.

“Ready, she is. For something more.” Yoda glances out again. “For her own padawan, perhaps.”

Anakin turns in surprise. “She would be made a knight?” He asks, a mix of emotions whirling with the words.

“A padawan training a padawan, she would not be,” Yoda replies, impish smile on his face. “Ha!” His expression softens. “Move on, you must let her. Ready, she is.”

“I… agree,” he says, reluctantly. She is ready. Ready for more, ready to stand on her own. And Anakin is proud of her.

But if she leaves, he can’t protect her.

Yoda prods him with his gimer stick. “Protect her, you have,” Yoda says, sensing his conflict. “Trained her, you did. A good job, did you?”

“I did the best I could,” Anakin says, uncertainly. His hands clench.

“Then let go,” Yoda insists. “No longer your padawan. Now, your equal. Learn from teaching her, you have. By letting go, thank her.”

Anakin forces his fingers to uncurl, and lets out a slow, quiet breath. “She is ready. But maybe I’m not,” he admits.

“Never, are we ready, yes?” Yoda asks, with a conspiratorial smile. “Yes. Let go anyway, we must. Let them fly. Let them join us in the air, we do. See her grow, you still will.”

He forces the dragon away, closes his ears to its whispered poison. He tries to. “I will still see her,” he says.

“Of course. A good team, you make. A master’s wisdom, the Knight may still need. For raising her own padawan. To know how to handle a troublemaker, she will need you.” He smiles. “You and Obi-Wan,” he amends.

Anakin lets out a quiet, surprised laugh.

Yoda turns back to the crowd of younglings training. “A suitable choice, do you see?”

Anakin stares out at the children brandishing weapons that seem too large for their hands, against robots which are merely shadows of a real threat.

The gimer jabs into his ribs. “Not only with your eyes can you see, young Skywalker.”

It’s probably easier to do as he says, he thinks with a sigh. He closes his eyes and reaches out with the Force.

At the edge of the group of sparring younglings, a young boy stands alone, having defeated his opponent. It just so happens that today is his birthday, but the relevance of this is secondary. While many years ago he was brought to the Temple, it is today that he will be given a Master. He glances around him, feeling something in the Force around him.

A few metres away, at the foot of the stands, another young boy sits, already eliminated, despondent but unable to prevent himself from feeling relief that the whole situation is over. But as he sits, he frowns, turns around, and stares towards a spectator. A man, perhaps ten sweeps old, sitting beside Master Yoda. Something is…

Anakin opens his eyes and sees both boys staring at him.

Yoda chuckles. “Ambitious, you are.”

He frowns. “I—”

“But a good fit, I believe they will be. Yes. Take your students, Skywalker.”

“Hold on a minute,” he says, as Yoda stands. “Two padawans? No, I can’t—”

“The Force moves with you, Skywalker. Move with it, you should.” He grins. “Handle it, you cannot? Hm?”

“I didn’t…” Anakin says and then stops himself. “This isn’t procedure,” he argues.

“So concerned you have become with procedure!” Yoda counters. Anakin winces; that is, unfortunately, an excellent point.

“Has anybody even done this before?”

“Willing to try, Qui-Gon was.”

The mention of Anakin’s first Master—and the first being who had shown him kindness aside from his mother—pulls him up short.

He sees an Alternian girl with large ram horns talk to one of the boys he identified. She gives him an encouraging smile and then looks up at Anakin and waves. He stares at her, unsure what she expects back, before looking at his- his padawan? One of his padawans?

“You are putting a lot of faith in me, Master Yoda.”

“Prove me right, will you?”

He sighs. “I’ll try.”

Yoda shakes his head. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Anakin takes a deep breath and then stands.

Below, his new padawans move, as if they understand already what he intends.

Chapter Text

The moment Obi-Wan and Sollux enter the hangar, his padawan pipes up. “Holy shit, KK?”

“Oh, fuck me,” gripes an Alternian youngling beside Master Plo. “And I thought I finally got free of you assholes.”

Obi-Wan blinks.

The two Alternians immediately peel away from their Masters and begin to swap insults back and forth as Sollux complains about how boring things have been, while the other Alternian batters him with requests to play… some game or other, from what Obi-Wan is getting.

He and Plo stare at each other.

“I see introductions are out of the way,” he says, by way of greeting.

“He bit me,” Plo replies.

Obi-Wan blinks again. “…These children certainly are a handful,” he says. “Sollux has already disassembled some of the highest-security firewalls the fleet has.”

Plo’s amusement pulses through the force between them. “I have a feeling that the future rests with them.”

Obi-Wan nods at this and politely declines to note that this is technically true of every padawan that the Order trains. “…Why did he bite you?” He asks.

“I asked him to meditate with me.”

“He bit you for that?”

“It was an escalation of events.”

Obi-Wan revises his opinion. He was not given the problem child.

“I sense… anger. From them both.”

Plo inclines his head. “Alternia seems to have treated them poorly, and their feelings on the matter linger. Karkat has an anger that runs deep. I believe he retains much of his life before the Order. And yet…”

Obi-Wan feels it, too. The anger isn’t directed at any person. It is directed, seemingly, at the Galaxy, the Force in general. It is directed at the flow that does not go his way. Does not go the way he feels it should go.

“You will need to temper him,” Obi-Wan comments. “His desire to impose his will on the Force…”

“It unbalances him,” he agrees.

“He struggles with darkness?” Obi-Wan asks.

Plo shakes his head. One hand tugs on his antiox breather, gently, thoughtfully. “He questions our place. He says that the Jedi could rule the Republic. But he seems disgusted with the process by which politics places some above others, even as he calls it strength. He pushes, but never where one is weak.” His chelicerae twitch with what Obi-Wan has always taken to be amusement. “He has already formed solid friendships with the clones. He asks questions, constantly.”

Sollux pushes Karkat, and Karkat returns a rude hand gesture, but the two Alternians are grinning as much or more than they are scowling.

“Sollux seems like the opposite.” Obi-Wan folds his arms. “Withdrawn.” He considers this. “…Except with your padawan,” he admits.

“I believe they formed a friendship during their time as younglings.”

“Nonetheless, he seems troubled. Have you read his reports?”

“I have. Hearing the voices of what he believes to be the soon to die.”

“Perhaps bringing him to the battlefield was a mistake.”

“The Coruscant temple was worse,” Plo comments. “There are a million deaths every minute on that planet.”

“The temple didn’t calm him?”

“Apparently not. My padawan also reacted negatively to the temple. Apparently, the presence of the force is stifling, there. ‘Too quiet’.”

Obi-Wan considers this. “Are we sure that he can be trained?” He asks, in a low voice. “Anger, attachment, the desire to impose his will on the Force…”

Plo considers this. “It remains to be seen if the boy can be trained. But I am confident of one thing.” The Kel Dor Jedi stares at the two padawans as Karkat talks endlessly into the air and Sollux buries his face in the screen of a datapad. “It is up to the boy himself. I can merely advise him and guide him.”

Obi-Wan stares at his new padawan and considers the future. “As always, you speak with wisdom, Master Plo.”

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan is well into his second meditation of the day, after a breakfast spent without his apprentice and with a great deal of reports, when Sollux’s door finally slides open and reveals a figure who, quite apart from a mundane visage painted in exhaustion, feels deeply unbalanced in the Force.

“Padawan,” Obi-Wan says, with his eyes closed. Sollux rolls his, but Obi-Wan makes no comment of it. “You missed breakfast.”

“Not hungry,” he says. His stomach takes this opportunity to switch sides, and growls, loudly.

“And meditation.”

“Not unbalanced.” The grimace on his face makes that even less believable than his first comment.

“There is a bowl of tak ready for you. After you finish, join me.”

Sollux stands still in the centre of the room for a long moment and then scoffs. But he moves to do as Obi-Wan instructed.

After a few snatched spoonfuls, the boy calms slightly. “…You flavoured this,” he says, like it’s an accusation.

“I did.”

“With grubsauce.”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan feels for the meadow, deep in the Force, that space where action and thought are closest, where thought and the will of the Force are nigh-indistinguishable.

“Am I meant to say thanks?”

“It is good to be mindful of where you came from.”

A snort. “The place I came from was an absolute nightmare, Master. Why would I want to remember it?”

“Perhaps you can consider the good that comes from there.”

“What, like the Condesce? You know she’s just waiting for the Republic and Separatists to weaken each other enough to start conquering more planets, right?”

He is aware of the political status of Alternia and Beforus, thanks to his reading. “Like yourself.” Sollux lets out a groan. “And like your friend Karkat,” he adds.

Sollux pauses, spoon halfway to his lips. “Fuck, whatever. Season my shitty MREs for me, I couldn’t give a shit. They still taste awful.”

Obi-Wan just nods; he doesn’t have Anakin’s refined palette for the realities of wartime food requisition (bugs. He means bugs.), but he understands that other Jedi find the rations equally as unsatisfying as he finds Anakin’s attempts to supplement protein bars. He feels the pulse of irritation from his padawan at his lack of reaction, but after he finishes the meal, with a longing look towards the door to leave, Sollux groans and settles a meditation pose.

Obi-Wan concentrates, feeling his padawan through the Force. He feels the boy shift, settle in, and then flinch, gritting his teeth. And then flinching again. Every time he finds a modicum of peace, it slips from under him, sharply, and the boy’s irritation rises, a wave of signal-noise static flooding his senses. Eventually, Obi-Wan feels him open his mouth to angrily declare the session useless.

“What do you do on that datapad?” Obi-Wan asks him.

“Huh?”

“You spend every spare moment on it.” Obi-Wan motions for him to close his eyes again. Sollux does. “I’m curious about your work.”

“Would you even understand it?”

He smiles. He was master to Anakin Skywalker for a decade; he has had to develop the skill to follow a prodigy’s jargon-heavy excited babble. “I would like to hear it.”

“I mean, I could just show you.”

“You could. But explain it to me, first.”

Sollux gives him a weird look and then shrugs. “It’s a slicer. Meant to get past firewalls.”

“Is it good? Keep your eyes shut.”

He snickers and then closes his eyes. “I think it could crash the Coruscant Exchange if I wanted it to.”

“If I asked you not to try, would you take that as a challenge?” He replies, amused. Sollux snorts. “What weakness are you exploiting? To break into the Coruscant Exchange. Hypothetically.”

“I mean, what aren’t I?” He begins to list off structural problems like they’re flowers in an arrangement. It’s… comprehensive.

As they sit there, eyes closed, Sollux’s words filling the meditative air, Obi-Wan begins to sense, mistily, the shape of what Sollux tries to tell him. Something like a building. Holes in the roof, cameras on the front entrance but windows propped open across the face, leaks and information.

“A kid could kick it over like a beach-silicate castle,” he concludes.

Obi-Wan nods. “And the Venator’s systems?”

“They’re a little better,” he says, though reluctantly. “It’s still easy.”

“You enjoy it, don’t you?” Sollux tilts his head. “The slicing.”

“It sucks less than everything else.”

Hm.

“Have you asked if you would be able to rebuild their security without the flaws?”

“Like they’d let me.”

“I am a High General in the Grand Army; I have joint command of the entire Open Circle Fleet,” Obi-Wan points out. “If I were to get the impression that our security was due for an upgrade, I would have the authorisation to hire an independent contractor.”

Sollux raises an eyebrow. “Hire? As in, for money?”

“As your Master, I would remind you that a Jedi is prohibited from seeking personal enrichment.” He smiles. “But if you had a salaried position, it may be possible to buy more agreeable meals for yourself. And for the two-twelfth,” he adds.

“And you,” Sollux says, with a crooked grin. As if he’s spotted his Master’s true intention.

Obi-Wan just shrugs. “If you feel so inclined. It would be up to you.”

He snickers and then lapses into silence for a few seconds. Obi-Wan feels around him in the Force. Sollux’s presence feels calmer, more settled, as if the opportunity to bicker allowed him to recalibrate. A grey static still intrudes, but he does a better job at managing it.

“If you do take the job, please do try not to insert your own back doors into the systems of the Grand Army of the Republic,” he adds, when Sollux slips once again.

Sollux opens his eyes and grins. “Wow. Sounds like you’ve met me before.”

Chapter Text

“Master Plo,” Mayanka says, bowing respectfully to the hologram representation of the Council Master.

“Master Catrine,” he returns, with an equal bow. “I am joined by the Senate representatives for the Chancellor. I believe you know each of them already.”

“Greetings, Senators.” A Muun, a Human, and a Dornean, and as Plo Koon says, each known to her (though each not necessarily equally liked). They nod at her.

“How goes the campaign?” Plo asks.

She grimaces. “They’re dug in. So are we. The battle could last years, at this rate. We’re dying over every step of ground.”

“That is unwelcome news, Jedi,” the Human senator Jorial Axanto says, disapprovingly. The Dornean eyes the Human with obvious judgement.

“What resources would it take for you to complete your campaign, General?” The Muun asks, smoothly.

She lifts her shoulders. “I cannot say. Mygeeto is a key Separatist holding in a strategic position.” She sighs. “Victory here will be neither cheap nor quick, no matter what route we take.”

The Muun nods in sympathy. “It is unfortunate the war could not be avoided.”

Hygasa makes a noise of agreement. “Indeed, Representative,” the Dornean says. “A pity other beings are not as clear-sighted as you.” The Human scowls.

“I would only have wished that other Muuns could have seen the pointlessness of this conflict,” he says, with a shrug. “Tell me, Master Jedi- can you hold? And for how long can you hold?”

She considers this, slightly surprised. “Our position is defensible,” she says. “Our difficulty is not holding, it’s proceeding.”

“If the battle will take years for a victory, then perhaps a political settlement can be reached,” Plo muses.

“Making a costly and deadly reconquest potentially unnecessary.” The Muun lifts his hands. “Why purchase victory at a steep price today, when the future may find it on offer?”

The Human makes a scornful noise. “Again, your fixation on price. The Separatist movement is not an economic event, it is a political act! Allowing Mygeeto to remain unconquered will embolden them.”

“If their investment in Mygeeto outweighs the Republic’s, and the returns are minimal, then why change this state of affairs? Perhaps it will rally more planets to their cause, but as it does, it drains them of resources to defend these new fronts.” The Muun looks towards Mayanka. “How many Jedi Knights and Masters serve on your front at current?”

“Four, Magister. And two padawans.”

“And how many would be required if you were instructed only to hold, not to push?”

She considers this. “Perhaps as few as two, as well as a padawan.”

He nods. “Would casualties be lower?”

“Defending is always going to be easier and less costly than attacking.”

He smiles. “I see.” The Human looks furious beside the tall Muun.

“You are wagering on a more robust position in the future, Magister Damask,” Master Plo notes.

“I am merely raising our awareness to the potential bets we could make,” the Magister protests mildly. “I am not versed in military matters. But from what the General says, I would view this as an investment that will mature in time and as such it is not worth prioritising immediately over more profitable ventures while it does so.”

Mayanka wants for Master Plo to agree, to allow her to stop the slow, grinding advance that is killing her men, but she holds her tongue. “There is wisdom in what you say, Magister,” he says, at last. “I will discuss this with the Council. Perhaps a change in strategy is needed.”

“I have a feeling the Chancellor will agree,” the Muun says, a twist of a smile flashing across his face. Hygasa sounds his approval, and Jorial looks away in disgust. “But please, do not let us keep you.” He nods his head, and the hologram drops out. Plo looks back to her.

“Do you think the Council will vote to approve a change of strategy?” She asks.

Plo considers this. “If the analysis shows that the stalemate on Mygeeto will continue, then I would think the odds are good. If your understanding is that overwhelming Mygeeto with numbers is not practicable at this time, then it seems the sensible option.”

She sighs in relief. “I can’t pretend this decision is not motivated by my concern for the troops under my command, and for my padawan.”

Plo nods. “And where is little Aradia?” He asks. Master Plo is the one who found her, on that mission to Alternia almost a decade ago, and he always remains fond of the ones he identifies himself, it seems.

“She’s with Hexbolt,” she says, turning to look at the clone and her padawan.

Hexbolt, with no Aradia beside him and realising now that this was not meant to be the case, looks at her in alarm.

“…She is not with Hexbolt,” Plo guesses from her expression.

“I’ll ask around, General,” Hexbolt says, ducking out of the command tent quickly.

She sighs and pinches her brow. “That child will be the death of me,” she mutters.

Plo smiles beneath his mask.

Aradia hums to herself as she tends to the dying trooper, making him as comfortable as she can. The medic wouldn’t arrive in time, and couldn’t do anything about the kind of injury Inkblot has, anyway. He looks up at her with failing eyes, his mouth forming words, maybe. “Shhh,” she says, quietly, reassuringly. She pats his cheek gently. “You’ll be with your brothers in the Force.”

The tension drains from the clone as he fumbles for his helmet.

Some of them like to die with their helmets on. She hasn’t quite worked out why, yet. She takes it carefully and helps him place it over her head. The seal whines, clicks, and he sighs beneath it, breath leaving him in a slow, gentle transition.

Beside her, she feels her Master observe her as she observes him die. She feels his midichlorians wink out, one by one in a fascinating pattern, as the body ceases and the essence is subsumed into the Cosmic Force. She does not interfere; that would not be right.

“There is still a battle to be fought,” he reminds her, as she stands. A blaster bolt speeds past her, maybe a foot away from a direct hit. “You should have care.”

“I don’t hear my own voice here,” she says, smiling.

“The lives of these troopers are not yours to play with,” he reminds her. “And the battle here will scar the land for generations to come.”

Her smile fades, and she nods. “Of course,” she says, chastened. “I was arrogant.”

He smiles at her. “And yet your humility does you credit, young one.” He glances around. “…Which battle is this?”

“Mygeeto, Master,” she says.

Her Master closes his eyes in sorrow. “Much death will occur here.”

She sobers quickly. “No good can come of the fight here, can it?”

“So little good is done by fighting,” he reminds her. She nods.

The spirit of Inkblot forms in wavering fits and starts. “Commander Megido?” He glances to her Master. “Who…?”

“You’re free now,” she says, turning her head just slightly as another bolt snaps by her face. “From the war and the fighting. From the orders.”

He looks relieved, a tension he never knew, never could know, drawn out and resolved. His spirit breathes out. But one concern remains, an attachment, although one that motivates him towards care. “My brothers,” he says. “What about them?”

She sighs. “Much pain lies ahead for them yet. For the whole Galaxy. But in the end, they will join you, too. You’ll be together again.” She grins. “One day, so will I!”

The hope in Inkblot’s eyes shines brightly. “I… I hope you’re right, Commander. Thank you.”

“Go,” she says, smiling, and makes a shooing motion with her hands. “Rest.”

His spirit fades, fades into the deep well of the Cosmic Force.

“Your abilities grow stronger, young one,” he tells her. “But for now, you should return.”

She bows lightly and begins walking away from Inkblot and towards Republic lines. She draws her sabre, deflecting bolts as she gets closer to the bulk of the fighting. Mostly for the look of the thing. The droids can’t resist shooting at a Jedi, which means that they aren’t shooting at the clones.

“Padawan!” Cries Master Catrine, as she arrives. A lovely woman, but unfortunately not one who can teach Aradia what is truly important.

“Hello, Master!” She replies, cheerfully, still walking.

“Get behind the barricade, quickly!” She yells.

Aradia nods respectfully and picks up her pace only a little.

Beside her, Qui-Gon frowns. “Do not torment her, Aradia. You know she worries for you.”

“Yes, Master Jinn,” she says, obediently, and begins to run.

When she makes it back behind the barricade, Master Catrine checks her frantically, before sighing in relief. “Where did you go? I told you to stay back!”

“Apologies, Master,” she says, picture of a chastened youngling. “I felt a clone was in need of help. But I was too late to save his life.”

She stares at Aradia, incredulous. Aradia stares back expectantly. “…Who were you talking to?” She asks, at last. “When you came back. It looked like you were talking to someone.”

“Nobody, Master,” she says, with a smile.

Chapter Text

“Have either of you worked with a system like this before?” The Archivist asks her padawan learners. Equius shakes his head, while Jane gives only a small shrug. “It is not complicated, when you get to understand it. I will show you.”

Two padawans. She hopes the Council knows what it’s doing.

The Temple is eerily calm, after so long between battlefields, command tents, and Venators. She has to force herself to stop scanning for danger.

As she makes her way to the council chambers, she sees Anakin in the hallway outside, and he nods to show he sees her back, that he intends to circle around, before finishing up his conversation with some other Knights.

When he comes towards her, she bows respectfully, and he snorts.

“What’s so funny?” She asks.

“They haven’t told you?” He asks. She blinks, mystified. He laughs for real. “C’mon. You’re gonna miss it.”

“Miss what? What’s this about?”

He just shakes his head with a smile, and they get in the turbolift.

The doors open with a brief shthht, and Ahsoka can see the Council. Or, most of the Council. But most importantly: Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Plo.

“I asked them to be here,” he murmurs, as they walk in, and then bow respectfully.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “Right on time,” he comments, with a smile.

Anakin smiles back. “Apologies, Masters. Snips took a bit longer than I expected to arrive.” She frowns. It was his conversation which delayed them the extra minute and a half!

“Let us begin,” Plo Koon says, before she can comment.

“Padawan Tano,” Master Windu says. “The Council admits your improvement. Your growth as a Jedi has been made on the backdrop of war, but you have answered all that has been asked of you.”

The Council stands as one as the view out the window goes dark, the glass tinting black and blocking Coruscant from view. The only thing that exists here, floating in a dark, silent corner of Space, is the chamber, and the Masters. Slowly, the lamps dim until the Council chamber is in total darkness.

She feels Anakin lean towards her. “Step forward,” he murmurs.

She does.

A blaze ignites in the darkness, like a beacon. And another. Around her, parallel bars of green, blue, yellow, ignite, and on front of her, one of purple.

Finally, a few steps behind her, she feels a blue blade activate, sealing the circle closed.

“Kneel, padawan. For the last time.”

Heart pounding, she does so.

“By the right of the Council, and by the will of the Force, we do this.” Windu’s face is visible, just barely, as he steps towards her.

The blade falls, coming to rest an inch above her right shoulder. She feels it thump with decapitating force. The beam is at full power. She tries to keep her breath steady.

It rises, around her head, and comes to rest at her left shoulder.

“Padawan Tano.”

The blade flickers back, and then strikes, close enough that she feels it disturb the ciliated surface of her lek. Every instinct is screaming at her. And then, with a decisive flick—away from her head—her padawan braid severs, dropping to the floor. The impact it makes is quiet. Almost silent. It barely seems to matter in the mundane, compared with the significance of its fall.

“Padawan no longer. Rise, Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano.”

The universe returns, slowly. The lightsabres deactivate, and the windows undarken.

Ahsoka staggers to her feet.

The braid remains on the floor.

Anakin watches as the knowledge sinks in. Her posture changes. Her bearing goes from that of a padawan to a Knight.

His heart swells with pride. He doesn’t bother controlling it.

Chapter Text

They barely board the ship when Gamzee growls beside Koth.

“Padawan,” he says, steadingly.

“’Sfucking dark,” he mutters. “In here,” he clarifies, smacking the side of his head. Eeth puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he relaxes slightly, dimly feeling the Light and the steadfast Jedi Master’s calm.

“Your lightsabre, padawan,” he instructs. Gamzee looks up at him, eyes suddenly guilty, and he hands it over, reluctantly.

“Sorry, Master Koth,” he says.

“It is alright, Gamzee. You are still young. But centre yourself. Feel the Light inside yourself, and let it calm you, even in the presence of the Dark. And remember: this time, you spoke. You are still coherent.”

Gamzee grins crookedly. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Never underestimate the progress you make, day to day.”

Gamzee nods, and then gives him a swift, almost nervous hug, and Eeth smiles.

“Now: can you describe what it is you are sensing?”

Gamzee frowns, and as Eeth takes his hand off the boy’s shoulder, he stiffens. His arm raises, hand pointing into a deep shadow at the other end of the corridor. “In there,” he says. “Something’s bad.”

“Bad, how? Like we felt last time?”

“Yeah.”

“How much like it?” Ventress or Dooku’s new assassin.

“Exactly like it.”

Ventress, then. Her ship, certainly, but is she still here? He nods. “Do you want to go back to our ship?”

“I wanna stay.”

“There is no shame in understanding your limits,” he reminds his padawan.

A hesitation. But still: “I wanna stay.”

He nods and begins walking slowly towards the room Gamzee identified. “Then stick close to me. If she attacks, I want you to contact Captain Jouster and ask for reinforcements and then run back to the ship if I am between her and you.” Gamzee nods in the corner of Eeth’s vision.

“Why didn’t we take them with us?” Gamzee asks, and Eeth feels the child’s nervousness grow with every step.

“She likes to ambush. Our instincts will warn us, but they will not warn our troops.”

And the other reason: practitioners of the Dark use pain and fear to unbalance their opponents. Gamzee is easily unbalanced, and cares deeply about the clones under Eeth’s command. Perhaps too deeply. The boy should not be on the front lines of the Battlefield, as he has argued repeatedly to individual Councilmembers, but his missions remain important.

We are too spread thin, he thinks, before banishing external concerns and feeling out through the Force. Sure enough, there is a haze of darkness lazily emanating from behind the doors of the cockpit.

Gamzee’s senses seem incredibly, and almost cruelly refined. His ability to sense the Dark seems second to none in the Order from what Eeth has observed, but there is no commensurate ability to recognise and sense the Light. What most Jedi perceive as a mild shiver of a Darksider acting with malice, Gamzee feels as tidal wave, blocking out the stars, leaving the universe cold and harsh, and leaving him alone.

There has been progress, but there have also been setbacks. Eeth has no wish to shatter the boy’s little confidence by pushing him, and yet the war demands an unforgiving pace of them all, especially from the youngest.

By the time they reach the door, Eeth can feel the darkness, repelled only by the Light in his mind and the light of his blade, and Gamzee is making an audible keening, breath coming shallowly and rapidly.

He puts a hand out behind him, and feels Gamzee grab it, tightly, so tightly that Eeth would wince, if he were not deep in concentration. He sense malice behind the door, a desire to hurt, but danger…?

No, something whispers to him. That danger has passed.

He waves a hand, and the door opens.

Immediately, Eeth knows there is no living being in the cockpit. What has been left is a message, and it is no longer living.

Gamzee’s keening becomes a wail, and then a ragged shriek, and he shoots forward, letting go of Eeth, and towards the body of the fallen Jedi. By the braid laying separated from the head separated from the shoulders, he knows it is a padawan.

He deactivates his lightsabre, pulls Gamzee back, away from the room, as the child thrashes in his arms, and holds him tight to his chest. The boy shakes, head snapping side to side, trying to cut his captor with his horns, lunging forward, intent on something as the Dark overwhelms him.

Eeth holds him, activating his commlink and calling the Captain, staring at the shattered remains of the dead padawan’s lightsabre, and the single, now blood-red crystal, that lays in the wreckage.

It shrieks in the Force, and he can tell the noise is overwhelming Gamzee, driving him to want to destroy it, perhaps to just destroy until the feeling goes away.

He holds him until the clones arrive, and then he holds him as the boy slows, quiets, shaking and crying, for maybe another thirty minutes. He sets the boy down, kneels down to his level and hugs him, wipes the tears off his cheek, holding him as the troopers clear the ship and search for flight data, logs, anything. It’s all deleted.

Not a trap, then, but a taunt.

Tears exhausted and pain exhausting, Gamzee sniffs with arms wrapped around Koth, collapsed into his master’s arms. “Sorry,” he whispers, voice breaking.

“It’s alright, my padawan.” Eeth squeezes him reassuringly. He makes to stand, but Gamzee’s grip tightens, involuntarily, terrified, and Eeth hesitates.

Eventually, he picks the boy up, wrapping his legs around Eeth’s body and putting his head on his master’s shoulder.

In normal times, the boy would likely never have been suitable for a Jedi. But his name was well-known on his homeworld due to the incident and his people’s superstitions about ancestry, so when his M-count was confirmed, it was known that if the Jedi did not raise him, the Separatists under Dooku would likely be more than happy to take the boy for the Dark side.

As Eeth sets him down in the situation room, Captain Jouster arrives back in and gives Eeth a nod. “Hey, Commander Makara,” he says, addressing Gamzee. “How’s it going?”

“…I’m okay, now.” Eeth hands the boy back his lightsabre and he grins shakily. “Thanks.”

“Glad to hear it.” The clone takes off his helmet and sets it on the table. “Dusty said he could use some help in the kitchen, if you feel up to it. Those meals aren’t gonna make themselves taste better.”

Gamzee brightens up just a little at this and looks to Eeth for approval. Eeth nods, and Gamzee gives them both quick hugs before bounding down the corridor to help Private Dusty, their self-appointed cook and the only one who can make the canteen meals more interesting.

“The kid’s bouncing back quicker,” Jouster comments.

“He’s resilient,” Eeth says. “Given his abilities, perhaps more than any of us can imagine.”

“Yeah.” Jouster lowers his voice a little. “Hey. Any word about getting transferred?”

Eeth hesitates. He’s torn; Gamzee can’t stay here, but Eeth is loath to abandon his men. More, he knows his men would never accept a guard duty station simply to satisfy his desire to return to before the war, and the other councilmembers have largely encouraged him to stick with things in the war because he’s making progress—both on his military deployments and with his apprentice. If it were a matter only of his personal feelings, he could set them aside. But with so many complicating factors, he feels that any decision he makes would be one he would make on the basis of those feelings.

“Nothing yet,” he says.

Jouster grimaces. “…I love the kid, but. A war’s not the place for him.”

Eeth agrees.

The captain sighs. “It’s weird. We were made for war. It’s what we do, and we’re good at it.” He glances away. “It even feels good, sometimes,” he admits. Eeth’s eyebrows furrow in sympathy. “But it’s like he was made to sense all the dark stuff, except it almost destroys him, every time.”

Eeth nods. “And nonetheless, without even the ability that most Jedi display to feel it around them, he finds the Light in others, too. He seeks it out, even without the ability to tell if it’s there.”

“Yeah. He’s braver than all of us, that kid. See the dark and keep looking for the light.” Jouster picks up his helmet and makes a show of examining the antenna. “Are you alright?” He asks.

“I am.”

Jouster gives him a look. “Sir, we saw the braid. We know it’s a padawan.”

Eeth closes his eyes. “Very perceptive, Captain.” Internally, he sorts through his feelings. He is sad, sad for the harm Ventress has done, continues to do, and did here today, to both the padawan that died and the padawan she traumatised. He feels the loss of the padawan, the hate and terror and tyranny that was poured into the crystal to make it go red. He feels the pain of this war.

And he lets the feelings go.

“…I will be, Captain,” he says. “Ventress is a pained, harmed being. She has been brought into hate. Her actions are her own, but they are an extension of the Dark side, and we are fighting it. I will be fine, Captain, because we are fighting and we will win.”

Jouster gives him a crooked smile. “And why will we win?” He prompts.

“Because we will bring the Light with us,” he says, completing the motto of his men. He smiles back at Jouster. “When Gamzee finishes with the food and after we eat, he should sleep.” He doesn’t fill in the rest, but the request is obvious.

Gamzee never likes sleeping in a room alone, and Eeth finds he has responded best to either the trooper’s quarters or his own. Otherwise, he often finds him curled up in a situation room chair or passed out sitting with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest, lulled asleep by the sound of chattering or even the quiet breathing of Eeth Koth himself, and woken most often with a jolt, fearing that he’s been left alone again. He finds it difficult to not attach to anyone and everyone around him and cannot control his feelings in the face of isolation.

Jouster nods. “I’ll keep a bunk open with us for him, sir.”

Eeth considers this. It has been a bad day for the boy. “Keep two,” he says. “He may need me.”

Captain Jouster salutes. “And I’ll handle the reports, sir. We’ll need your report, but we can get it later.”

Eeth nods. “Very good, soldier. I am going to meditate. Call me when it is time to eat.”

With that, he returns to his room and lets out a breath. Today has been a long, long day.

Chapter Text

The static is worse than it’s been in months. Sollux practically snaps at the smallest thing, and quickly the troopers decide to just give him space.

Obi-Wan watches his apprentice carefully, hand to his beard.

After the third time Sollux jabs the data pad screen so harshly that Obi-Wan almost expects it to break, he decides to speak up.

“How have you been sleeping, my padawan?”

“Peachy,” Sollux spits out. The bags under his eyes tell a different story. The reports he’s been hearing about Sollux’s caf consumption (bought now with his own money, yes, very good plan, Obi-Wan, give the boy an income and the chance to order crates of freeze-dried caf) tell a very different story.

“Sollux.”

“It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t seem fine.”

“It’s just this stupid Separatist code.”

Obi-Wan blinks. “Is it a new one?”

“No. Maybe. I have no idea. I can’t even tell, anymore, I’ve been staring at it for ages.”

Obi-Wan glances over. Immediately, he frowns. He can spot one or two repeating sections. It was Sollux who taught him what he knows, and a lot of it he recognises right away. That one is a time signature and that’s a general-and-up designation code. “How much progress have you made?”

“None.”

Obi-Wan puts his hand out for the pad. Sollux looks up, and then back down, drawing the pad towards himself.

“I can work it out,” he says, defensively.

“You have more important tasks for today.”

“I can get it.”

“Sollux. Please hand me the data pad. Or I may be forced to tell Punchcard to stop passing his work off to you.”

He scowls. “Dick.” When Obi-Wan gestures for the tablet again, Sollux all but snarls at him, batting the hand away and drawing his datapad closer.

This is more aggression than Sollux has shown him in months, too. That settles it. “We should return to your training.” He considers for a second. “I think today we’ll do some sabre training today.”

“That’s so pointless,” Sollux complains, the static humming louder with the fatalist whinging. “I’m never on the front lines.” Behind him, even Cody casts an irritated look Sollux's way.

But while Obi-Wan is not a being of infinite patience, this is not his first time dealing with an unruly protégé. “One day, you may need to be. And the point of lightsabre training is to instil you with the skills to control yourself in the Force.” He puts a gentle hand on Sollux’s shoulder and then removes it when the static crackles louder. “I know you are powerful, my padawan. When it comes to your telekinetic ability, you are a prodigy. But that business on Cato Nemoidia last time proves that you need refinement. You need to learn how to use your abilities. Your skill with the lightsabre will aid you.”

Sollux stares at him, trying to think of some excuse to get out of it, and then gives up. “Whatever.”

When Obi-Wan arrives at the training room, the static is almost as bad as it was before, and he can sense Sollux’s frustration through the haze. He’s sitting to the side, on a bench, staring up at the ceiling with his back pair of horns touching the metallic wall. “Hey,” he says.

“Sollux,” Obi-Wan greets him. “Are you ready?”

“I guess.” He stands up, and moves to his mark, pulling out his lightsabre.

It’s clear the lightsabre was made as a labour of love, but the boy on front of him seems almost careless, nearly disgusted by the device he holds, as if offended by the effort poured into it by a previous iteration of himself.

“Then let’s start with a kata. Which Form do you want to run?”

“I don’t care.”

Apathy. He’s been struggling uphill against this apathy since Sollux became his padawan. Why the reset?

Then again, he reminds himself. Sollux seems to be struggling, too.

“Form II, then.” Makashi. The duelling form, for one on one, blade on blade combat. He chooses it on a whim. As gifted a telekinetic as Sollux is, both his desire and ability to use the Force for Ataru acrobatics or for power generation in Djem So seem severely limited. But more importantly: the training kata Sollux completed first, and the easiest one given his proclivities. He holds his blade in the beginning stance. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Sollux moves to his stance a second after he says it.

Obi-Wan starts his movements. A clean overhead whirling cut, which Sollux copies, slightly clumsily. The step he takes, mirrored by his learner. The step up, out of the way of an imagined strike at the duellist's feet. The glancing deflection, turning away an imagined overhead blade strike with the minimal of force, and Sollux moves in time with him.

The static quiets, just slightly.

They run fluidly through the rest of the poses and movements, and by the end, Sollux is breathing hard. Obi-Wan isn’t even winded.

I need to get him out into the field more, Obi-Wan tells himself. Maybe not on combat missions, but… but out. The boy spends too much time indoors.

“Shall we try some sparring?”

Sollux shrugs but takes a ready stance without being asked.

Soresu won’t be the right move, here. If he waits for Sollux to make the first move, he’ll be here all day. Form I?

Well, they did just do a Makashi warmup. He has to give the boy a chance, and choosing Shii-Cho against Makashi should give Sollux the advantage. He turns his blade’s emitter down to the lowest setting and is happy to see Sollux take the initiative to do so without being asked. They bow to one another and take their ready forms.

He opens with the wide, diagonal strike that comes easiest from the Shii-Cho ready position. It’s telegraphed, slower than he could make it, but Sollux still startles, deflecting it with a hasty and slightly sloppy movement. He takes a step back as Obi-Wan presses another attack, before dropping back into the defensive guard of Form I.

He continues to do this for a few more minutes, testing Sollux’s guard, firming up where it’s weak, reminding him of Makashi’s advantages, inviting strikes and providing silent guidance with his actions. It’s quite effortful to telegraph his intentions and moves quite this openly, actually.

Eventually Sollux retaliates one of Obi-Wan’s overreaches, rather amateurishly, a forward stab whose tip wavers enough to turn it into more like a slash, with the effectiveness of neither, and Obi-Wan wheels his blade around awkwardly from Shii-Cho’s guard to parry the strike, knocking the blade harmlessly to one side with ease given the lack of power put behind the strike, and drawing his blade down in a simple line to theoretically cleave his padawan in half—or, in this case, to lightly admonish him with a bump on the head.

Sollux, unexpectedly, and with no leverage, is dragged two feet to the side, and takes another strike at Obi-Wan from his new position past Obi-Wan’s overextension.

Instinctively, Obi-Wan feels the movements of his Soresu defensive work rise up as he blocks what is a genuinely reasonably executed strike. Sollux pushes his advantage, but doesn’t have the kinetic momentum to maintain Obi-Wan’s disadvantage, and when the next strike comes, Obi-Wan is able to block it with the less effective Shii-Cho with relative ease. “That was good,” he comments, as Sollux scowls at the failure to make progress. “You took me off-guard for a moment.”

“Not like it mattered,” Sollux mutters, sweeping his blade at Obi-Wan’s foot. He steps back.

Obi-Wan lowers his weapon and steps around Sollux’s next strike. “You moved yourself. You haven’t done that before.” He ducks under the next slash, and steps out of range of the next. “I thought you weren’t interested in Ataru or Niman.”

“I’m not.”

“The ability to supplement one’s attacks with the Force could be an advantage for you. Your capacity for telekinetics is far about even most Knights.” If Obi-Wan is honest, Sollux often displays more raw talent with the capacity than Obi-Wan has even now. Properly motivated and trained, it would be a case of months to years before Sollux could be identified not only as above most Knights at the skill, but above most of the Council.

Sollux just shrugs. “It’s not that useful.”

Obi-Wan turns off his blade, and Sollux does the same a second later. “I know you find the concept of front-line work to be boring,” he says, gently, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. This time, the static—quieter than it has been all day—barely changes. “Please see what I’m trying to teach you. It’s not just a tool of war. There will come a day, after the war, when you need to defend innocents.” And he smiles. “And for today, has it not helped you to work past the frustration you felt this morning?”

Sollux hesitates, and then reluctantly smiles. “Alright, yeah, fine.”

“Give it some thought, my padawan. I am no Niman master, but I will help in whatever way I can. Develop a style that appeals to your own strengths. If you dedicate half as much effort to it as you do to your love of slicing, you would be more than the match of most in the Order. And if you put the same effort into your meditations and studies of the Force, you would be as wise as Master Yoda.” Sollux snickers, rolling his eyes.

When Sollux gets out of the shower, still dripping wet all over his quarters with two fluffy red and blue towels wrapped around himself, shivering in the cold of the Venator, he glances over at his bed. At the data pad he threw there in disgust before training.

He picks it up and stares at the encrypted Separatist message. His eyes flick over the letters.

Within moments, the coded transmission opens for him, like a flower uncurling for the pollinators to visit. He can almost read it blind, holding whole sections in his head, and it takes literally about two minutes to scribble down the beginning.

0600 CST. Admiral Trench requesting reinforcements to Ringo Vinda. Lucrehulks ‘the Rejcol’, ‘the Scimitar’, ‘the Katabasis’, ‘the Deliverance, ‘the Hyrhodes’ dispatched.

He grins.

Chapter Text

The girl is sloppy. Her emotions get in the way, her pride makes her count every mistake she makes as a personal failing, not a learning experience. She holds her darkness with a tight fist, and it leaves her rigid, inflexible.

He slips a strike past her defences, lightly tapping the blade to her sternum, returning it to bring another strike to bear before she can do more than scowl at her own mistake.

“Concentration is easy in meditation,” he reminds her, as she berates herself. “In the heart of battle, you have to have clarity. Understanding. You are powerful.” He frowns. “You may well have the power to destroy whatever stands in your way,” he admits, and she shifts uncomfortably, before blocking the next blow. “But this is not a power the Jedi can make use of. You must temper your aggression, your power, and find a way to channel it. You must find a balance.”

“I know,” his padawan says, trying for a sweeping strike. He takes the barest step back, out of range. She brings her blade back to defend against whatever he uses to punish her overreach, but he puts out a hand and sends her skidding backwards on her feet with a push of the Force. “It’s not coming to me,” she says, as he’s on her again, sweeping his blade towards her and forcing her to block with both hands his one-handed attack.

He feels Vapaad rear its head, tasting the anger in her steps, her voice, in the Force, the darkness she is holding back. It feels eager to exploit her mistakes, but he reins it in. Feeding on her anger is not his goal, here. His goal is to help her fight without her anger. Using it against her would not be helpful.

She takes a deep breath, trying to find a balance. He nods in approval and opens his guard. “When you are ready, padawan.”

She takes another, and nods.

When she attacks now, the movements are cleaner, more purposeful. She fights without the darkness holding her back or egging her on. She leaves the darkness to one side. It spectates, yes, but it is a silent spectator to their sparring.

And it is good, for a padawan. She fights well. He deflects, parries, sidesteps her, with the occasional test, a strike sent at her, then two, then a sequence. She meets them, her concentration slipping and dropping, but not quite ending. Her determination, he recognises. It is good, and she makes a good showing of herself.

By the time they finish, both of them are sweating, and she is breathing hard, exhausted. But she looks satisfied.

“You made progress today. Well done,” he tells her, and he feels her glow a little at the words. Too tired to disregard his comments under the guise of logic, then. It’ll have to do. “Head to the showers and get cleaned up for meditation. We can review the histories later.”

She smiles. Rose enjoys reading the histories, he has found. Enjoys studying the words of times gone by, as if she can extract from them an understanding of what not to do.

“Yes, Master Windu,” she says, and gives him a bow. It’s still not a genuine one, but the sarcasm has over the past months at least morphed into something like a playful mockery.

“Sloppy,” his Master tells him, imperiously, as Dirk makes a few rapid strikes. His blade flashes quickly enough that even the hilt blurs, and the light trails weave a complex velocity.

Suddenly, his Master goes off the defensive, gaining ground as he leverages his reach advantage and the smooth, practiced movements put the blade exactly where it needs to be to meet Dirk and stop him in his tracks. And then, slowly, give ground.

Dirk disappears in a blur, appearing forty degrees clockwise around his Master, striking at an area that was previously undefended. The blade bends, the old body bends with it, bringing his centreline right back to face Dirk’s attacks and stop them dead once again.

“Better,” his Master says, with a crooked grin. “But not good enough.”

He forceflashes his way around again, getting precisely nowhere, and again, and again, pushing himself faster, more unpredictable, more powerful. His emotions remain in check, fuelling his movements into smooth and precise strikes, where each block will cost the maximum of movement and contortion.

And yet the Makashi meets every step of his Niman and dismantles it, denudes it, proves it useless.

“You contain yourself. You work without giving yourself to the work. Detachment.” Darth Tyrannus frowns at him. “That is a Jedi weakness.”

“I have no weaknesses,” Dirk says, simply.

Dooku laughs, blocking the strikes Dirk rains down on him as he blasts off the ground and into the air above Dooku. “It appears I must correct your prideful delusions.”

As always, he doesn’t sense it, not until it’s already halfway towards him, and the energy rips through him.

He hits the ground bonelessly, his sabre tumbling to the side and deactivating as the stream of lightning causes steam to erupt off his body, boiling the sweat of his exertions. The pain is excruciating. He tries his best to keep from crying out.

Tyrannus stares down at his spare apprentice for a second longer, letting the lightning course through his protégé as the hatred courses through himself. Such talents the boy displays, and yet both the boy and Lord Sidious insist on wasting them. A true Sith, he could make. And yet he is nothing.

A pity. But not, his own master has been clear, one worthy of correcting.

On the ground, Dirk grits his teeth, muscles trembling as he holds himself up from his face hitting the floor.

“Again,” his Master says, simply.

So Dirk pulls himself onto his feet, and ignites his crimson blade once more, taking his beginning stance.

“Hey, Dusty?” Gamzee asks, crushing up a protein bar into little bits to mix into a sort of cereal to bring his Master for breakfast.

“Yes, Commander?”

“How’d you get your name?” He frowns at his hands where the residue of the bar makes them sticky and then heads to the tap to clean them off. “’Cause I know they didn’t give you names on Kamino.” He always thought that was mean.

“You don’t ask how a trooper got his name, Commander,” Dusty says, in a mock-stern tone.

This draws a snort from Loop, who’s lounging against the sink and peeling potatoes. “That’s a lie,” he tells Gamzee as he washes. “Old Dusty here was in charge of the mess for his detachment on Kamino one week. But he hated it, did his best to avoid doing the job. So he’s a bit lazy with the meals he prepares, and he doesn’t clean as he goes. And then the Senior Captain comes in after one meal to find the place is a mess.”

Dusty sighs.

“We’re all outside, enjoying our meals as normal, but Dusty here’s still in the kitchen. So, the Captain starts chewing him out, and he’s yelling, but they’re in the kitchen, so all we can hear is the voices, right?”

Gamzee nods, enraptured.

“Until we hear him yell at him, what’s wrong with the grill, Trooper? And he said?” Loop gestures expectantly at Dusty.

Gamzee turns towards him with an expression of genuine delight.

Dusty sighs, and plays along. “Dunno, Sir.”

“So the Captain yells, it’s fucking dusty! And we all started pissing ourselv-”

“Loop!” Dusty cuts in, as Gamzee begins laughing. “Jeez, keep the language clean on front of the kid.”

“Sorry.” Loop grins. “You’ve gotta tell the story the right way. And old Dusty here was on kitchen duty for the next three months.”

Dusty can’t stop the reluctant smile from appearing on his face. “Probably why I got so good at cooking,” he admits.

Gamzee grins. “So what about your name? Loop?”

Loop frowns. “Don’t you know you never ask a trooper how he got his name?”

Then he drops the potato in Gamzee’s hands, stands up, and walks out.

Chapter Text

The battleship rocks suddenly, and Eeth’s steadying hand is the only thing that stops Gamzee from tumbling over.

“Captain,” his Master calls. “What’s going on?”

“Separatist warship, General!” Jouster cries. “They’re hitting us with everything they have!”

“Jump to hyperspace—” Eeth begins.

“Negative, sir. They targeted the hyperdrive as soon as they arrived!”

“Sir! Boarding party inbound on our port side!”

Eeth grits his teeth and thinks. “How did they know we’d be here?” He asks, aloud. And then he shakes himself. “Battle stations. We’ll grind them down.”

A ragged cheer goes around the control room, until Jouster checks the screens. “Sir. Visual on boarding party. It’s General Grievous.”

The room goes silent. Eeth looks at his men.

“We’ll fight,” he says, quietly.

“We will, sir,” Jouster says, loading his blaster.

“Gamzee,” his Master says.

“I’m gonna fight too,” he says, immediately.

Eeth hesitates and looks at him. “My padawan—”

“He’s not using the Dark Side. He’s just a Separatist. I can fight. Let me.”

“He is beyond you.”

“But I… I should help!” Gamzee grits his teeth. “What’s the fuckin’ point, if I’m never gonna be strong enough to defend our men! Defend the Republic! I can fight the droids! Help them repel the attack!”

Eeth exchanges a glance with Jouster and then kneels to put himself looking up at Gamzee. “Nobody is doubting your resolve, or your courage.” He puts a hand on Gamzee’s shoulder. “What restrains me here is not fear of what you will do. It is fear of what the Droid General will do to you.”

Gamzee shivers. “I’ve got you,” he says, numbly.

Eeth smiles. “I won’t always be enough.”

He stares at his Master for a long moment and then flings himself around Eeth’s shoulders.

Eeth returns the hug and pats the boy on the back. “I have a job for you, Gamzee,” he says.

Gamzee tries to bury his whole head into Eeth’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Gunboat is going to show you how to run a transmission to Republic HQ. I will need you to contact them, explain the situation, and keep the line open. They must know we are in danger.”

Gamzee nods, and Eeth releases him, glancing to Gunboat, who salutes.

“C’mon, kid. It’s in the ravine.” He leads the padawan to the front of the bridge, where the two of them drop down the sunken data wells for calculating hyperdrive jumps and monitoring system equipment. If they’d been prepped for battle, this station would be teeming with soldiers. But as it is, it’s eerily empty. They drop down out of Eeth’s view, and Eeth turns back to his men.

“Open communication channel with the response team.”

“Sir!”

The link opens a second later, displaying on the holotable. “General.”

“Status report,” he replies, immediately.

The Captain—Sunflash? Lock? It could be either, but he can’t quite tell through the blue holoscreen—fires from behind cover as he takes the call. “There’s too many of them.”

“Get yourselves to the escape pods.” He steels himself. “I will deal with Grievous here.”

The trooper hesitates, conflicted between his orders and his loyalties. “But sir, they’re commando droids.”

“That does not matter, Captain. Now go.”

And then there’s a loud metallic bang on the locked door out of the bridge, and Eeth redirects his attention. The tip of a lightsabre pierces the bulkheaded door. He readies his own, holding it in his Soresu grip.

The burning hole in the door becomes a point in a line, a circle being traced across the surface, cutting an entryway.

The troopers raise their blasters, Jouster behind Eeth with the barrel protruding just slightly past his head, pointing them at the opening. The circle completes.

Everyone holds their breath.

For a moment, nothing happens. Puzzled, Eeth reaches through the Force to—

DANGER.

He ducks before he even properly registers the sound of metallic footfalls, and when the metal disc whirls through the bridge, kicked with incredible force, it impacts Jouster, throwing him like a ragdoll. Maybe the anti-impact armour saved him. Maybe.

A cackle sounds from beyond the door, and in the split-second of distraction caused by the impact, a half-dozen commando droids flood into the room, firing in all directions immediately. Behind them, the Droid General stalks into the room, eyes glinting with enjoyment as the clones and droids fire on one another.

He stands there, in the corner, as one, two, five, all of the clones have fallen in mere moments, and the only one left is Eeth. He strikes, removing the head of one of the droids, and engages the other two that have closed to attack him. He evades them, forces them back, and readies himself to strike them both down. He gets one, cleaving it down the middle, and is about to turn to destroy the other.

The third, watching and waiting, catches him on the arm with a blaster bolt before he can make good on it, and the pain floods his mind, looking to steal his attention and get him killed.

As he centres himself, he is jerked back as a commando droid sneaks up behind him and grabs him by the neck.

He scowls as the second holds him still, and the third jumps onto the holotable, levelling its blaster to go for the kill, this time.

Eeth sees one of his men rise, struggling, to his feet, and fire a single shot through the commando’s head, cracking the egg-like head of the droid and dropping it to the ground.

Grievous, in the corner, does not intervene.

Eeth gets his foot onto the lip of the holotable and flips over the commando droid, calling his lightsabre to his hand as he does so, and cutting the thing in half in an instant.

Before he can so much as take another breath, he sees the trooper, barely standing, stiffen and cry in pain, electrical currents pulsing visibly over his body. As he drops, it reveals a Magna guard. And then another, and another. Four enter the room, and begin to circle around the holotable.

This isn’t looking good, he thinks, holding his wounded arm with the other hand. But help will be on its way as the transmission goes out. Gunboat will keep Gamzee safe.

The Magna guards close in, cutting off his escape, but they don’t strike… yet.

And then he looks behind him, as Grievous leaps onto the holotable and looms over him, sadistic glint in his only barely organic eyes.

Gamzee clutches his head and tries to keep quiet, his eyes fixed on the signal as Gunboat holds his blaster in one hand, ready and waiting in case he needs to fight.

“Eeth Koth, isn’t it?” Comes a shredded, metallic voice. It’s filled with glee. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

His Master speaks calmly. “Your reputation precedes you, General.” A hint of durasteel enters his words. “The reputation of a coward, and a murderer.”

“Murderer?” Grievous muses. “Is it murder to rid the Galaxy of you Jedi—” the telltale ignition of a lightsabre “—filth?” And then another.

And from above, the sounds of combat, dirty and quick, come filtering down. Gunboat keeps them tucked as far into a cranny beside the hyperdrive co-ordinate calculators as possible and keeps the boy as far behind him as he can physically go.

Eeth deflects, keeping his blade a stalwart wall between him and Grievous’ attacks. Every block causes a surge of pain in his arm, but he does not let the pain control him. He continues, attempting to lead the General back, away from the bridge where he might spot Gamzee.

As he blocks another attack and the General repositions, however, he grits his teeth against the pounding pain in his arm. Behind him, the Magna guards keep him pinned down, twirling their staffs to cut off his escape. I won’t be able to lead him away, Eeth realises.

Which means he has one option. Disassembly.

As the General takes a step forward, Eeth throws out his hand, and lets loose a telekinetic shove that sends Grievous flying back hard enough that he cracks the transparasteel window.

He lunges forward to finish off the coward but out shoots the staff of a Magna guard. He dodges the first, sidesteps the second, but the third catches him in the small of the back, and electric agony bursts through his body.

He perseveres, and when he meets Grievous’ two blades in a block, he is still standing.

A Magna guard behind him shocks him again, and he groans in pain as it courses through his body. But he keeps up his blade. He is determined to meet Grievous’ attacks and—

Again, they shock him, and this time, a momentary lapse causes his grip on his lightsabre to weaken. Grievous surges forward as the sapphire blade falls, grabbing Eeth by the neck as he slumps.

There is a look of triumph in the General’s eyes as his grip tightens and Eeth’s fingers scrabble to loosen the mechanical grip. “Pathetic,” Grievous gloats. And then he glances down. “A padawan.” He laughs, loud and harsh and cruel.

Eeth grunts, and his lightsabre flies back into his hand. He swings for the General’s arm, and Grievous is forced to drop the Jedi to keep it from being sheared off.

He attacks, stabbing forward, pressing against Grievous, and he senses the Magna guard at his back, whirling to deflect the electrostaff and then again to cut the thing through its centre, before turning back to Grievous.

Who has a gun levelled at Gamzee.

Eeth hesitates for just a second, and that is long enough for the Magna guard’s staff to find its way into his back once again.

And finally, agonisingly, he drops to the floor, unconscious.

--

“It’s gonna be alright,” Gunboat tells him.

“Mhm,” Gamzee replies, quietly.

They’re trapped in a small cell, rayshielding at the front to stop them getting out. Gamzee can feel something, nagging at him, but he doesn’t know what. Whatever it is, it’s subtle, not like anything he’s felt before.

“The Jedi will come for us,” Gunboat says.

“I know,” Gamzee says. He knows it because Gunboat’s said it already.

An alarm klaxon blares, the lights in the hall flickering out and some coming back on in emergency red. Gamzee flinches, then flinches again when Gunboat’s hand lands on his shoulder, but relaxes after a second. “What did I tell you, kid?” He asks, grinning. “The cavalry has arrived.”

Gamzee grins back reluctantly.

And then the Darkness swallows Gunboat whole.

His neck goes crack, and his body is flung against the side of the cell so violently that Gamzee hears several things tear.

He takes a terrified step back and then realises that’s the direction that the Darkness is coming from. He whirls around, his breathing coming short and shallow.

“Hello?” He calls, into the suddenly-dark corridor outside the cell.

There’s the sound of an amused noise. “Hello,” replies a deep, sonorous voice.

“Who are you? What are you—”

“Shh,” the voice says. “Don’t speak.”

A figure detaches itself from the dark, a tall humanoid, hood drawn over its face so Gamzee can’t make out any details, but he can tell it’s evil. Just a fraction of the infinite malice it holds inside is leaking out, and already Gamzee feels his vision dancing, snapping shadows into mind-bending shapes.

Blood seeps from the corpse that was Gunboat. A second later, the rayshield generators spark and break as they are constricted out of purpose. The shield flickers and then disappears.

“You are fascinating,” the voice says, patiently, smoothly. “I think there is a place for you in what is to follow.”

It raises a hand, and Gamzee is dragged forward as if he weighs nothing, as if he is nothing to this Dark creature on front of him. Its hand grips his head, and Gamzee feels as it breaks in to his mind.

He screams as it rifles through.

“Fascinating.” The figure draws a sharp breath. “Fascinating. Yes. I wish to see what you can become, when the Galaxy’s Light is snuffed out.”

Gamzee keens, panicking, and he tries to move but he can’t. And still, all he can sense is the barest trickle of this being’s power.

“But… no. I won’t take you yet.” From underneath the hood, he sees a thin smile. “I believe it will be more impactful if it all happens at once.” It tilts its head. “Your Master, your friends, your Order.” A low chuckle.

Gamzee feels the being find the memory of what’s happening right now. He feels the figure disrupt it, and realises with a jolt, with a sickening fear, that he won’t remember any of this. This is a Sith Lord, he tells himself. Tries to remember it, but the fear slips the words from him.

“I look forward to seeing what Knightfall does to you.” The figure releases him. “Your only escape is the lower hangar. I suggest you run.”

For a moment, Gamzee is frozen in fear.

The figure snarls at him. “Run!”

And then, staggering, stumbling, Gamzee runs. Away from the nightmare, as it fades into a dream, and then fades from memory.

Until he collides with his Master at the hangar, crying with no idea why.

Chapter Text

“Master Tano,” the youngling, now her padawan, says, bowing respectfully. And then she looks up with a sly grin. “Master Yoda said he would let you know I was coming?”

About five minutes after he told me I was getting a padawan, she thinks.

“He did.” Ahsoka smiles at her new padawan (her padawan) (she doesn’t feel ready to be a master). “You’re ready to leave?”

The young Alternian girl grins wider, patting a bag slung over her shoulder. “Just show me where my room is,” she says easily.

“Good.” She starts walking, and the youngl- her padawan falls in beside her. She gestures towards the transport, where the dozen or so clones who joined her on her return to the Temple are seeing to the upcoming departure. “I’ll introduce you to the men from the Five-oh-first once we get underway.”

Her padawan tilts her head. “The Five Hundred and First? Skywalker’s division?”

“I work with him,” Ahsoka explains.

“…Under him,” she presses. “You were his padawan.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I suppose. We’ve worked together for a long time. It’s not like they can create a whole new company just for me.” She doesn’t mention that if another Jedi General dies, it’s entirely possible that Ahsoka is asked to step up and lead their unit.

“Hm. I suppose.”

She checks her datapad. The trip from Coruscant to the Venator should take three days. That’s enough time for a proper introduction. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, Terezi?”

She grins. “Well, first off, I’m blind!”

Ahsoka blinks in reply. She recalls the earliest days of her time as a padawan, and how she treated her own master. And then she has an overwhelming, bone-weary bad feeling about all of this.

When Terezi sets her bag down, she sniffs deeply, and frowns. “Two beds?” She grins. “I thought this was my room.”

“This is my quarters on the Venator. I asked them to put an extra bed in for the time being, but one should be available in a couple of days. We can try to work something out sooner, if you like.”

She cackles. “I don’t care. But do you think you can handle my snoring?”

Ahsoka gives her a slight smile. “I should be able to.”

“Your funeral.”

“This is Rex.”

“Pleased to meet you, Commander,” he says, giving her a salute.

“Commander?” Terezi asks, curiously. “Does that mean I outrank you?”

A smile flickers over Rex’s face. “In my book, experience outranks everything.”

She turns to Ahsoka. “I like him!”

“Attention on deck!”

The call rings across the bridge, and Terezi peers at the door as it opens with a hiss. “Fill me in,” she says quietly to Ahsoka.

Ahsoka glances at her. “Can’t you…?” Do the smell thing, she doesn’t say, because that sounds silly.

Terezi grins. “See? Nope.” And then she sticks out her tongue. “But it’s too grey in here. Not enough colour! I can’t be expected to smell the difference between Durasteel Braising, Aluminium Spackle, and Titanium Whiplash!”

Hm. “Anakin’s just entered the bridge,” Ahsoka says, amused.

She glances back. “Smells like there’s more than just one person.”

“His padawans are with him.” Ahsoka glances between them. “You might know one of them, actually.”

Terezi turns to Ahsoka. “Do you assume all trolls know each other?” She asks, stonily.

She’s spared answering when one of Anakin’s padawans pats the other on the arm and audibly says, “hey, Tavros, it’s that troll girl you told me about. Hi, Terezi!” He waves.

Terezi’s expression splits to a grin in a second. “Okay fine, I guess we do.” She turns and starts walking towards the pair of them. “Hello human! I’m going to lick you.”

Ahsoka manages to sidle over to beside Anakin as the padawans continue on. Rex notices their stances and starts rerouting the conversation away from them. He knows the Jedi gossip pose.

“I can’t have been that difficult,” she says, incredulously.

“Has she given you a nickname yet?” Anakin asks, satisfied little grin on his face. Ahsoka winces. “You’ll get used to it quickly. I think you’ll make a good teacher.”

She sighs but accepts his words with a grateful smile. “What about you? Two padawans?”

“It’s great,” he says, though she severely doubts it. “Any time I have to do something else, I can just get them to train each other.”

She frowns. “…That works?”

“Not usually,” he admits.

She opens her mouth to say something else, but just as she does, an alarm blares.

“General Skywalker! We have three lucrehulker-class ships incoming from hyperspace!”

Anakin sighs. “Load up the starfighters.” He glances at Ahsoka with a crooked grin. “Feel like one last flight?”

“Only if we don’t keep score,” she retorts.

The grin broadens. Weirdly, it reminds her a little of Terezi. “I bet my kids can beat your kid,” he says, and she snorts, looking back at the padawans as John laughs and Terezi babbles on, pausing for a moment for Tavros to make some small, shy addition.

“I doubt it.”

The five of them stride into the hangar, followed by a squad of Clone pilots and a few officers. Two Eta-2s are primed and ready for her and Anakin halfway down, but she notices three Aethersprites lined up closer to the hangar entrance. She glances at Rex and smiles. “You saw this coming?”

“We thought anybody trained by Generals Skywalker and Tano would be eager to pilot a ship,” he replies, and the men behind him chuckle.

Weirdly, as she watches, Tavros seems the most excited to get behind the cockpit of the starfighter. As she watches, he scrambles in, and John leaps easily from the ground to the cockpit of his fighter, and Terezi clambers over hers.

“John seems powerful,” she offers to Anakin.

“He is,” Anakin replies. “But that’s nothing. He can even levitate.”

Levitation is rare among council Masters, let alone padawans as young as John is. “Who taught him to do that?”

“Nobody.” Anakin gives her an amused look. “I’m tempted to ask him to teach me.”

And then they reach their fighters, and she gets in hers and he gets in his and the comms connect. Immediately, there’s chatter between the padawans.

And she settles herself with a breath and gets ready for battle.

Chapter Text

The session in the meditation room is surprisingly fruitful. She sees a lot of Anakin in her new padawan, and honestly, she was expecting Terezi to have the same easy ambivalence towards meditation as her Master did, but she’s pleasantly surprised to find Terezi’s presence in the Force steady and cultivated. Maintained, disciplined. Not peaceful like Obi-Wan, or encompassing and familiar like Master Plo, and not undisciplined like Ahsoka’s felt from other younglings, but… it’s steady. Considered.

“You’re good at this,” Ahsoka comments, keeping her eyes closed and letting herself connect to her surroundings.

“Thanks. I learned it when I went blind. Not much else to do in a BACTA tank for hours!” There’s no bitterness or regret in her voice, nor in her presence, as she reflects on the memory.

Ahsoka read the file. An accident on Illum (‘accident’). She’d almost died. But here she was, accepting. She even feels a tinge of amusement and fondness. For memories like that? That’s a fortitude that almost goes beyond maturity and back towards worrying.

“I wish I had your focus when I was your age,” she says, mildly. “Anakin was always restless. I picked that up from him.”

“I can tell,” Terezi says, snarkily. “Since you’re still talking.”

Ahsoka frowns but doesn’t speak again. Terezi snickers.

A memory flits over her mind.

Anakin, you can’t just barge into my meditation session to get me to train your padawan.

I’m not. I’m just acknowledging my weaknesses. I don’t meditate as well as you do, my old Master. You wouldn’t want my padawan’s development to be stunted because her master can’t teach her all she needs, would you?

…Very well. But you must participate, too.

As an example of what not to do?

Anakin.

Fine, fine.

She smiles.

“…Wow, you’re really good at that,” Terezi says.

“Good at what?” Ahsoka asks, coming out of the memory.

“Telepathy. The showing-me-things thing.”

Ahsoka opens her eyes. “…I didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t send you any mental communications.”

“Oh. But the one with Masters Kenobi and Skywalker?”

“I was thinking that. But I wasn’t sending it to you.” She frowns, and concentrates. Can you hear this?

“Yeah, a little. It’s kind of staticky, though!”

She stares at her apprentice. Just how powerful are these new padawans? She wonders.

She adds it to the ever-growing list of topics she has to get a grip on.

When Terezi steps out after the session, Ahsoka smiles as the child actually gasps. “The corridor!”

Heavy salutes, a few small flicks of colour against his armour. “Me and the boys had a couple of hours,” he says, modestly.

“I wanna lick it,” Terezi says, already moving forward as Ahsoka catches her arm in alarm.

“Do not lick the wet paint,” Ahsoka says, automatically.

“But it looks sooo cooool,” she whines. “You even did it in my favourite shade of red!”

The abstract, blocky colours covering the corridor are actually very loud to Ahsoka, and she can feel the change the paint makes to the montral-acoustics of the corridor. She turns her head back and forth for a second, getting used to the vague deadening of the sharp-and-bright twing that durasteel usually makes to her senses.

“We couldn’t paint everywhere, but we painted the corridor outside your room, the bridge, Mess Hall Four, and the way to the hangar,” Heavy tells her. “Some other places, too.”

Anywhere Ahsoka had thought Terezi was likely to spend a lot of time, really.

Terezi gives Heavy a huge grin. “You’re my favourite,” she says. “Don’t tell the others.”

--

Eridan tries to centre himself as he enters the meditation chamber. As the door shuts behind him, the dull howl of the winds outside is abruptly cut out, leaving him disoriented, hearing his too-loud breaths in the quiet chamber. In the middle sits the Jedi Knight who trains him.

His Master tilts his head, listening to something beyond sound. “Padawan,” he acknowledges, with a slight smile, like he already knows what Eridan’s going to tell him.

He probably does.

“Master.” He bows. “The Clones are in place.”

The slight smile broadens, and his Master does not move from his meditative pose. “Excellent,” he says. “Get ready.”

Eridan hesitates. “I can lead them?” He asks eagerly. Finally.

His Master’s smile abates a little. “You can direct them,” he corrects. “You are far too valuable to risk losing on the front lines.”

“I’m ready,” he says, quickly. “I won’t fall.”

“Nonetheless,” says his Master smoothly, “I want you to direct this battle.”

Eridan swallows his eagerness, and bows. “As you wish, Master.”

He sweeps in to the HQ , hands folded behind his back, his cape fluttering behind him as the doors open. The Clones on shift look up, and CT-4910 salutes. “Commander on deck!”

He waits until they’ve all saluted, and then nods, trying to channel his Master’s poise and control. “At ease,” he adds, when he remembers to. “I have command, today.”

He can’t read 4910’s expression beneath his helmet (his Master is right, it’s just unnerving to have those identical visors staring at you like that), but the hesitation is still palpable through the Force. “Of course, Commander Ampora.”

(But his Master never orders them to take their helmets off indoors. Possibly just a precaution, given the temperatures outside.)

“Speak freely, clone.”

“Is the General joining us?”

“He is not,” Eridan says, stiffly. “And I will not be joining you on the front lines.”

Disappointment mixes with relief in Copperlite’s nod.

Not standard military etiquette. He should have saluted again.

“Do you have something to say, uh, Trooper?” He almost slips up and calls him by the unofficial nickname, but that wouldn’t be appropriate. This could be in the official records, he needs to use their official name. Their number. “CT-4910,” he adds belatedly, cutting off the beginning of Copperlite’s reply, cringing internally.

“No, sir. Just… wondering after the General’s health.”

“He is well. I am also well.”

“Very good.”

Eridan should probably leave it there. After all, they’re just clones. They’re only there to follow orders. They don’t need to know why. If they start feeling like they do, it only slows things down, breeds insubordination. People can die if clones start getting insubordinate.

He knows this; his Master has explained it many times.

And yet he continues.

“I don’t think he wants to risk losing me.”

Another dual emotion from the clone. Something like anger mixed with begrudging respect. “Of course, Commander. You know any of the men would agree. They’d lay down their lives for you.”

“Of course,” he says simply.

There’s a brief silence.

“Okay. Commander.” He feels the slight smile on Copperlite’s face as he says it, and Eridan reminds himself of his duties as a Jedi as the instinct to return the expression flares up. “What’s the plan?”

Chapter Text

“Master?” John asks, as the three of them are about to part after the night-time meditation. “Can I speak to you about something?”

Anakin hesitates and looks at Tavros. I knew having two of them would cause problems, he thinks.

Tavros takes the cue and bows to Anakin, before giving John a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and leaving the room.

“What’s the problem, my padawan?”

John sits on the edge of the wide back of the meditation chair, one leg tucked under himself and the other dangling off.

“I—” he begins and then stops. “Have you ever felt something you shouldn’t?”

It’s a bit like asking a different being, have you ever breathed? No specific example even comes to mind. They are simply too numerous. The feeling that he is somehow doing this wrong is a tattoo drumbeat against his skull some days.

“Yes,” Anakin answers. “…Have you?”

“Yeah.” John doesn’t look at him.

“Are you?”

“Yeah.” He starts fiddling with his hands.

“Is it a dark emotion?”

John shakes his head. “…No.”

Anakin thinks he should probably be asking open-ended questions.

But just as he goes to open his mouth, John speaks again, saying, “Master, have you ever felt… an attachment? To someone?”

He closes his mouth, and decides to tread carefully. “Why do you ask, John?”

He shifts and chuckles awkwardly. “…I think Terezi is flirting with me,” he admits, blushing.

“Oh.”

…Well, what can he even say to that?

“And how do you feel about it?” He says, at last.

“I don’t know if she’s serious or not, since she jokes a lot. But I think I… want her to be.”

Anakin considers his options. On front of him, the Jedi path stretches, clear and obvious, tried and tested.

“What you’re feeling is perfectly natural, my padawan,” he says, at last. “Nobody at the Order believes you should not feel your emotions. They just… don’t wish you to be ruled by them.”

John nods thoughtfully.

“But,” Anakin says, finally, as a vault in him cracks ever so subtly, letting something leak out. “But there is a difference between exploring you feelings, engaging with them and understanding them, and being ruled by your feelings.” He takes a deep breath. “How we feel isn’t wrong. And acting on how we—how you feel—is…”

What? Nerve-wracking? Good for you? The only constant thing in his life, an anchor, a weight he carries, a love that carries him?

He thinks about all his attachments. He thinks about how many times he’s saved, and been saved by, the people he cares about. Padmé and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Rex and Palpatine. Can that be wrong? Can’t he be a Jedi who loves, who forms attachments? When Rex and the boys mourn the dead soldiers, Anakin mourns with them, feeling the hole where they used to be. Should he ignore the hole, hope it fades on its own? He knows they are meant to let go of those who die, and not miss them, but he misses them even in the way they can’t draw the same responses out of Rex, out of Obi-Wan or Ahsoka. He misses the hole that death cuts out of others.

“You shouldn’t cut yourself off from love,” he says, at last, quietly. “It is one of the most important things in this galaxy.”

He realises suddenly that John is staring at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Anakin coughs and tries to smooth out his expression. But just meditating on all the people he cares about has brought a warm, almost tearful glow into him, and he feels raw, unable to hide. He has opened something, and closing it is not the work of a moment.

By the time he manages it, John asks his question.

“Master, do you have someone…?” John doesn’t finish the question, as if he realises halfway through asking it that the answer could get Anakin in trouble.

What Anakin should say is, “no.” Perhaps, “in the past,” if he wants John to feel less alone in this. What he certainly shouldn’t do is stay silent, almost guiltily.

And what he absolutely should not do, is give John a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

Nevertheless, that’s what he does.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, a thermonuclear bomb sitting in between them, ready to destroy their status quo, if only either of them acknowledges it.

And then Anakin sighs. “There is strength in connection, my padawan. In… in love. I love my men. I love Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan, and you and Tavros.” The omission feels almost glaringly obvious, an admission in some strange way. John and Tavros have met her. He wanted them to meet her, even if he couldn’t say why. “It’s my job to make sure all of you are safe.”

John takes this in solemn silence, the way Anakin was always bad at. He wishes he’d listened to Obi-Wan more. Not to his words, even, but just his tone, his presence, tried to retain some understanding of what it was which made Obi-Wan feel like a safe harbour in his life, even when Anakin missed his mother so strongly it felt like illness, and anyone else was just a dark shadow cast on the wall to taunt him. “Thank you for protecting us, Master.”

Anakin nods, numbly, as John stands, bows, and leaves.

He pulls out the commlink and holds it between his hands. Flips it over, taps it with his thumb, and stares at it. If he sends the signal, she’ll answer it. But should he bother her over something so trivial?

My love for her is not trivial, he reminds himself. And he opens the commlink.

Chapter Text

When John makes it back to his and Tavros’ room, he feels…

More conflicted, honestly. He’s not meant to cling to attachments. But his Master is telling him that connections are strength.

He is meant to care impartially, act for the good of all. So, feeling like this, that’s bad.

On the other hand, Terezi is also a Jedi. She would know and expect him not to treat her safety as any more important than any other being. She would know, wouldn’t she?

“Um,” Tavros says, after a minute. John blinks and realises he’s been staring at the wall opposite his bunk for most of the time since he arrived back. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“…I think I should explain some things to you,” Tavros says, at last.

“Oh,” John says. “Okay?”

“Trolls, um. Structure, I guess is the best word? Their feelings differently than most species.”

He blinks uncomprehendingly, and then relief washes over him. She’s not flirting. She’s just doing some weird troll thing. Sure, he still has all the same feelings as before, but he doesn’t have to work out what to do with them; his only option is to accept them and let them pass.

Thank the Force it was a false alarm.

It was not a false alarm.

John stares at the wall again. “So, she was doing… kismesisism?”

“Spades,” Tavros corrects. “But, um. Yes.”

“Isn’t it kind of… dark?”

“Well, um. If romantic love can lead to darkness because it gets twisted, then surely romantic hate only leads to darkness if it’s twisted, right?” Tavros gives him a shrug. “If she sees something in you that she wants to make even better, it’s not like that’s more likely to go wrong than seeing something in you that she thinks is great and wants to protect.”

“I guess. Wow. Troll romance sure is complicated.”

He chuckles awkwardly. “Um. It gets a little bit more complicated?”

John raises his eyebrows. “Huh?”

“I think… she was also sending out moiraillegiance signals? From what I got and from what you told me.”

“Diamonds one?”

“Yep.”

“All about keeping each other balanced and helping solve any emotional problems?”

“Mhm.”

He thinks. “Well, that one sounds pretty in line with the code. But she wants both of them at once?”

“It’s more likely she wants them both, but not at once. Maybe alternating days?”

“That’s a thing for trolls?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is it ever a thing that people want two things at once?”

“Maybe? But it’s sort of considered a less proper way to do it.”

“We’re talking about having a secret relationship with another Jedi, Tav,” John points out. He pulls his datapad towards him.  “That ship already sailed.”

“I guess.”

He starts tapping away. “But I’m pretty sure there’s an easy way to work this out.”

“Um. What are you doing?”

“Asking her.”

“What?”

Hey.

Hey Egbert. How’s it going?

Good. Tavros just explained to me how troll romance works!

Wait, what.

Yeah. It sounds really interesting.
Sorry if this is a personal thing to ask, but were you flirting with me before?
In the spadey way or the diamond way?

…Can you hand your pad to Tavros for a second?

Sure!
Hi.

Who else has he told about this?

I think Master Skywalker.
If it helps, I don’t think Master Skywalker would tell anyone.

…
Okay, hand me back to John.

Hi again!

Hey.
What makes you think I was flirting with you?

Well, whenever our Masters weren’t in the room, you asked me a lot of questions, but not a lot to Tavros.
I assumed it’s just because you know him better, but then I realised you kept calling me a dork and things.

I do that to everyone!

Do you?

…Okay, no. But I would if people reacted to it as amusingly as you did!

Haha okay, fair.
So, were you flirting with me?

Yes.
Do you want me to stop?

Um.
I sort of want to ask you more questions before I answer that one.
Like, which one was it? Or was it both?

I
I guess a little of both?

At the same time?

I could vacillate.

But do you want to have both at once?

…Yeahhh.
Sorry, I know it’s weird.

Terezi.
I was raised in the Temple. I barely got taught about human flirting.
Plus, you’re already weird.

Are you flirting back?

Um.
Right now I’m still doing the question thing, but… maybe?

Oh

Which way do you want me to flirt back, pitch or pale?

You learnt the terms?

Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I?

Honestly, I don’t know.
You just seemed kinda… dumb.

Rude.

Tavros is feeding the words to you, isn’t he?

Definitely not. I promise.

Heh.
Do you want to go on a date, John?

A pitch date or a pale date? Tavros is telling me nothing, because he isn’t reading this.
But if he was, he would be telling me that there’s an important difference, and the main bit is whether I should bring my lightsabre.
He is joking, right?

He is. But I don’t mind if you want to spar.

Will there also be talking?

If you want to.
Meet me in the hall?

Sure!

“…You’re going to go?” Tavros asks.

“I think so,” he says, tone upbeat.

Tavros stares at him. There’s something…

Scary? Scary.

There’s something scary about how open John is. He’s just… telling Tavros this. He’s letting him know that he intends to act on this. He either trusts him a lot, or he just doesn’t really care who knows what he’s doing. Honestly, Tavros isn’t sure how much of this is even against the code, but he’s pretty sure some of it is!

“Do you think I shouldn’t?” John asks, curiously.

There’s something about the way that he says that that clarifies the situation to Tavros. John is just open. Open to whatever’s happening right now. He just cut to the chase when Tavros was pretty sure what was going to happen was long and drawn out and could cause everyone problems!

Maybe John’s just more in tune with the philosophy of the Jedi than he is. He just… lets himself explore this without agonising or looking to hide it.

“You’re, uh. Weird.” Tavros flushes. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.”

“…Don’t you worry what will happen if you get attached to her?”

He considers this. “Not really!” He says.

Chapter Text

He lays it out. “Caves, here?” Eridan drags a finger across the holomap. “Then, rappel the ravine and walk for a klick and a half, climb back up. You can follow cover all the way to the ridge, and then you’re within half a klick of the base.”

“They’ll have droids watching the ridge.”

“Camouflage. And we’ll make a big show with the gunships. A few ‘stray shots’ from the snipers to lay them out and send them running, and you’ll have a distraction to get to the base undetected.” He grins. “Then you lay the mines, and we draw them out for a big setpiece, and then—boom.”

Copperlite and the others grin. They’ve taken their helmets off, and Eridan’s almost surprised to realise how different their faces are. Hairs growing in the same way, but different patterns. Everything’s a repetition on a theme, but it never just copies exactly anything that’s been done before.

“I think you’re a natural, Commander,” one of them—Zil, he thinks, maybe—says.

Wrenchmonkey grins. “It’s daring, but if it works…”

“I mean, if it works, yeah,” Eridan says, excitedly. “But we need to know a few things, first. How quickly can you lay the mines and then shovel the snow back over? Can we get the snipers to fire from the gunships, or will we have to have them hide and fire from the ground as well?”

“And can the comms hold up if we’re caught in a blizzard,” one trooper adds, and Eridan nods and gestures at him.

“Right, exactly. At the moment, it’s not even really a plan, it’s more like a wishlist. There’s too many variables.”

“Well put, my padawan,” says a voice from behind him.

(Why does he feel dread, knowing his Master has been watching?)

The others fall into their salutes, and Eridan glances uneasily at the helmets strewn across the situation table holomap, before he turns and bows to Master Krell.

He didn’t hear him enter. Master Krell’s abilities in the Force are impressive. A sign of his skill as a Jedi, he thinks.

Krell smiles thinly at him, and examines his battle map, as well as the datapad containing the details of the plan. “This is an interesting approach,” he comments.

Eridan swallows. “Yes, Master. I thought given the terrain of the valley, this would—”

“I understand, padawan.”

“Of course.”

The General glances around at the still at-attention clones. “Why have you removed your helmets? Combat readiness protocol at this base is—”

“I asked them to,” Eridan blurts out. “We were… using them as markers.”

Krell glances at him, then lazily back at the holomap. They’re strewn more or less randomly. “Indeed?” He prompts.

“Potential gunship approach directions.” Since it could more or less be true no matter where they’d been placed. He points at Tekeem’s. “Further back from the Separatist base means higher in the sky, more warning. We—”

“Yes, I believe I can see it,” Krell says, giving Eridan a knowing and critical smirk. “At ease,” he says, at last. “But put those helmets on. We cannot be complacent.”

“Yes, General,” Copperlite replies, picking up his helmet. It’s marked. A set of three little evenly-spaced scratches, like it was clawed by a small creature, with a matted coat to prevent reflectiveness in the snow drifts.

It seals against Copperlite’s face, and Eridan feels something about the situation close, somewhat. An opportunity that isn’t there anymore. He isn’t sure why he misses it.

“Run me through the variables in this plan, padawan,” Krell says, already striding away.

Copperlite watches the kid go, his cape swirling behind him as the General leads them out, and sighs.

“Think the General likes the plan?” Tekeem asks, morosely.

Zil snorts. “Not a chance. He doesn’t like a plan that doesn’t have a success rate above eighty percent.”

Wrenchmonkey unseals his helmet with a hiss. Copperlite almost tells him not to, but it’s almost a sure thing that General Krell won’t come back that soon after his dramatic exit. “He doesn’t like a plan that doesn’t have a casualty rate above twenty percent.” The disgust on his face is evident. “The kid’s got more brains at fifteen than—”

“Alright, stop with the loose talk,” Copperlite says, sharply. “Maybe the plan changes. But right now, we do the recon as if it hasn’t. It’s all stuff we still need to know. And even if we’re not using that ravine, that doesn’t mean the Separatists won’t.”

The company goes through the trooper-issue grumbling, but eventually they begin.

But even as they go through the usually-comforting motions of recon and intel, Copperlite can’t quite shake a bad feeling about all of this.

Chapter Text

Coruscant’s always a nice place to have to kill someone.

For one thing, it’s always a challenge. Senators, wealthy businesspeople, they’re the sort of people who have security and blaster-proof windows.

For another, it’s always nice to visit family. Even if she can’t say hi.

Roxy watches from the scope of her sniper rifle, as Rose floats a rock in meditation. Her teacher says something to her, and she responds, a sarcastic smile on her face, as another rock joins the first, stacking carefully.

She zooms, tries to find an angle on the teacher. And then he turns, and she can see his lips move.

She really wishes she tried harder to learn to lipread.

Feel the… the somethingpoint(?). You can sense how they would fall apart. The human stops, closing his eyes and making his own stack of rocks to one side with barely a gesture.

Man, she wishes she learnt how to do that. Cool as shit. Makes assassinations easier, too. Probably. If she ever needs to stack rocks on a dude’s head to kill them, anyway.

But if you know how they fall, you can find the spot where they don’t. She’s preeetty sure that’s what he says, but she’s filling in the gaps a little.

Rose sets another rock on top of the previous one, and it settles, miraculously, making a pile three high now. And then she levitates another one.

Damn. Roxy grins through the scope. Her little sis is growing the fuck up.

Rose looks… happy, there. Or at least as happy as Rose has looked since she was four and crawling through rockpools. At some point her smiles stopped being grins and started being arch little twitches of mouth and eyebrow. But still, she looks happier than she would’ve been on the run with Roxy. It’s not like she could’ve kept the two of them safe in the bounty hunting business. She’d have had to train her up in the trade. Not the sort of thing she wants her kid sister dealing with.

Then again, now she’s embroiled in a war the likes of which the Galaxy hasn’t seen in thousands of years, so. Womp womp for her, she did her best but apparently no dice for Roxy’s life plans.

Still. She feels pretty good about her choices. Roxy’s the one who gets to shoot people for a living, and Rose is the one who gets to meditate and read tomes n shit. It’s a fair trade.

“If planning on killing Master Windu’s padawan you are, an open casket funeral, you will not want.”

“Shitstick fuck,” she shrieks, as she rolls away from her rifle and comes up with a pistol in her hand, pointed at the—okay, now it’s pointed at the source of the voice, damn. Some people are short and green, she reminds herself as she flicks the safety off.

The pistol tugs itself easily out of her grip, safety reengaging as it does, and she watches as it lands easily in the hands of the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. She groans.

“God damnit,” she says. Yoda chuckles to himself. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Isn’t that against your stupid code?”

“Apologies. Scare you, I did not mean to.” But the mischievous little twinkle in the Jedi’s eye says, scare you a little, maybe I did mean to.

“I’m not breaking our deal,” she points out.

“A deal, we do not have,” Yoda counters. “Advice, you were given. Attachments, she should not form. That is all we said.”

“Yeah, I just.” She sighs. “I wanted to see her. Even if it’s only seeing her.”

Yoda peers at the basket she’s brought.

“Yeah, I was gonna have a picnic on a rooftop while spying on my sister like a big loser, don’t judge me.”

He chuckles. “Judge you, I do not. Difficult, letting go is. Letting those we raise outgrow us? More difficult than anything, that is.” He opens the basket and pulls out a foil-wrapped sandwich. “Mind you, if I eat this?”

She blinks. “Go for it,” she says, after she processes the question.

He gives her a grateful smile, and unwraps it, taking a small bite.

“Here on work, you are,” Yoda says.

There really isn’t a point in lying. She’s a known bounty hunter with a custom rifle beside her. “Mhm. Coruscant, not your temple. But I guess that means you have to arrest me?”

He shakes his head, ears flapping a little. “Later.”

With that stay of probably reasonably literal execution, she shrugs and pulls out another sandwich and a drink, and sits beside him, legs dangling over the precipice of her sniper’s nest.

“Wish to know her progress, don’t you?” Yoda prompts, between mouthfuls.

“Nah, I already know. She’ll be acing all the history shit and be like… third from the top of the class for the practical stuff? And mad about it.”

Yoda laughs, an old and scratchy noise.

“She’s safe, though, yeah?” She asks. “’Cause after I heard about that shit on Ilum…”

He raises an eyebrow at her and hums in thought. “Hear about that, you did.” Like he’s making a mysterious grandmaster mental note about loose lips.

She shrugs, still staring at the garden of tranquility, or whatever it’s called. “Most people didn’t. And nobody else knows who the story was about, but I kinda figured.”

He gives her a sad look. “Join us, you could,” he says, quietly. “Still much to learn, there is.”

She hesitates and then shakes her head. “Not if it makes her less balanced or whatever. If she forms an attachment. She’s… she’s good where she is. Got people who care about her.” She grins. “Plus, I’m pretty good at what I do. I don’t really think getting up close and personal with a sabre’s my style.”

He smiles at her and continues to eat her sandwich like the little magic gremlin thief he is. “Mmm. See things differently, you may. One day.”

“Maybe. I think I’ll save it til after the war, though.”

He sighs. “‘After the war,’ do so many plans seem to be delayed,” he says heavily.

Roxy shrugs. “War’s pretty disruptive.”

“Yes.”

They sit in silence for another few minutes. Coruscant’s air could never be called crisp, but this high up it’s at least not actively toxic. So, she just tries to focus on how it’s ruffling her hair.

And then she sighs. “She seems to be enjoying herself.”

“Her studies, she enjoys. Her Master’s teaching, she enjoys.” He smiles. “Agree with her, the quiet of the temple may not. Share that with you, she may.”

“Eh, she’ll grow into it,” Roxy says carelessly. “I was pretty restless too, thought I wasn’t big on routines, but turns out that a fun routine is, yknow. Fun.”

“And bounty hunting? Fun, this is?”

She shrugs. “I mean, killing people always sucks, right? Dead people, that’s bad. But it doesn’t cut me up inside, I guess. It’s kinda like the war.”

“Yes. Difficult, the war is. Enjoy it, none of us do.”

“But you’ve gotta do it because of your convictions or whatever.” She shrugs. “I have to do some job, and I’m good at this one. A couple more big jobs and I could probably just retire. Which is nuts, because I’m seventeen.”

“And then?” He asks. “What then? If arrested, you were not going to be.”

“Then I guess I’d probably just get bored and go back to shooting things. Things that deserved it, though. Maybe.” She shrugs. “Gotta say, you’re pretty chill about me saying I’m cool with killing people for money. I could be working at a bakery or whatever.” She pauses. “…Nah, early hours. I don’t like getting up early.”

“Other talents, have you? Force sensitive, I know you to be. Manifest in many ways this does.”

She thinks. “I’m bananas good at hacking?”

“Republic security, you could work for.”

She rolls this idea around her head. “I’ve always wanted to take career advice from a mystic little goblin dude,” she says, apologetically, “but I think I’d still have to wake up early, and I don’t wanna dooo thaaaat.” She shakes her head. “Anything that still lets me do freelance work shooting things?”

“Come to mind, not many options do,” Yoda admits.

“…Bodyguarding?” She muses. And then shakes her head. “Nah, not really my thing. And again, early to wake up. If I was like the boss of a bunch of bodyguards, that’d be something. I could advise people on how to not get assassinated?”

“Never hear from a disappointed customer, you would.”

She cackles. “I didn’t know you guys could joke!”

He finishes her sandwich and sighs contentedly, before he levitates over her sniper rifle, and lays it over his lap. (Aw, she should’ve just lied and spent a couple months in the Temple until she got the hang of that shit. So cool.) “Make this, did you?”

She twists to face him, bring one of her legs up onto the roof again and leaning a hand on the rooftop. “Euyup. Custom job. Down to the paint job.” It’s a glaring pink.

“Hmm. Why?”

“Every weapon has its downsides. The person I was allegedly here to maybe or maybe not kill is Nautilan, and she spends most of her time submerged. Some kind of huge Aquatosupremacist or something, but the important bit is she’s got enemies back home who’re willing to pay. I need something that can both pierce the tank and travel through a dozen metres of water without it slowing down enough to only barely tap her. Plasma bolt was out because there’s not really the stuff that travels through air for a kilometre that can still travel through water for even like a metre. Or nothing that’s not just a full ship cannon, anyway.” She spreads her hands. “Ta-da! Two firing mechanisms, two different bullet profiles. Lower one fires first, it’s a little hydrodynamic slug that’ll hold momentum through the water, it’ll cut through crosscurrents like they’re not even there. That one travels at a couple of times the speed of sound.”

He picks up the device and trails his nails gently over the surface of the lower barrel.

“The upper one fires a bit after, it’s a shatter-round. It goes faster, breaks the glass to create a small opening, hitting a couple hundredths of a second before the first one arrives. The water pressure is gonna be worse the smaller the hole is, though, so it’s gonna frag a few milliseconds before impact, create a pretty big hole. We’re talking about twenty centimetres. Then the first bullet slips in and hits her in the vitals.”

So much fucking math went into that rifle.

“You can’t just buy this stuff off the shelf. And even if you could, you’d have to mod it so much that it’d be better to start from scratch anyway.”

“This,” Yoda says, slowly, “is easier than baking, hm?”

She shrugs. “I get paid really well.”

“And your credits, you spend them how?”

She hesitates. “Okay, fine, I mostly don’t do anything with them. Sure, I’m killing people for money instead of principles, but the people who hire me are doing it out of principle. The fact that I’ve got skills they don’t isn’t really that important. I could build them the weapon, teach them how to use it, but would that really be that different from pulling the trigger myself?”

Yoda closes his eyes for a moment. “A question we have yet to find one simple answer to, you ask.”

“Hah, yeah. I guess the philosophical stuff is more your speed than mine.” She thinks about arguing that her target is a piece of shit but decides not to. It’s not like she wouldn’t take a hit out on someone who wasn’t as fishy as her target. And it seems kinda cheap. I only kill bad people, and conveniently I’m the one who decides what that means! Yeah, she can see the problem.

“A meal, you have given me,” Yoda says, at last.

“Huh?” She blinks. “Oh, the sandwiches?”

“Return the favour, I should. Before your arrest.”

She shrugs. “If you want,” she says, carelessly. She doesn’t really go in for fancy food. The lower levels have some pretty good places to eat and definitely have better places to get wasted than the Jedi do. But it’d be rude, and also importantly it keeps her out of prison for a couple more hours.

“A meal in the temple banquet, have you ever had?”

She goes still.

“The one you have in the big hall? Where everyone goes, and everyone can just mingle and shit?” Where Rose would be.

“Yes,” he says, amused.

“No,” she says, at last, “I haven’t.”

He smiles.

“But what about attachments?”

Yoda laughs. “Attached you are! A Jedi, she is. Deal with her attachments, she must. Let go, she should, but stop loving you, this does not mean she must. Know this, she does. Feel this, she must.”

She snorts. “Next you’re gonna tell me you hired me on this hit in the first place just to lure me in.”

“Neat, that would be. But a bad idea for the leader of the Jedi to hire an assassin, no? Hm?”

She grins.

“But the Force’s will, this is, regardless. Yes.”

“Bummer. Was kinda hoping there’d be a legal loophole there.”

He stands, and with a wave of his hand, the gun disassembles in an instant into its parts. Every screw, every bolt, every pane, they lay themselves neatly on the floor of the roof, like a droid just threw up its internal workings. (She takes a second to stare in absolute miserable dismay at her beautiful baby.) And then he stands. “Come. A meal, I have to repay.”

“Don’t you need to arrest me?” She asks, just to check.

He waves behind him as he hobbles to the door. “Arrest you tomorrow, I will.”

She grins. “Not gonna argue with that. Especially after you just destroyed like the only piece of evidence that I was planning to commit that crime.”

Yoda pauses. “Hm. Think of that, I did not.”

She snickers and follows the little green Jedi back to her Speeder.

--

Below, Rose finishes her meditation session with a glow of satisfaction. She looks at the rocks, stacked six high, and feels… in control. Balanced. Grounded.

Her Master’s hand gives her a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Good work, my padawan.”

She bows, and it’s almost entirely devoid of sarcasm. “My thanks for your teaching, my Master.” She breathes in deeply, breathes out, and lets herself internalise what she has felt today, lets herself take the lesson and leave the stones. These symbols, this monument to her accomplishment becomes… just rocks.

She picks up a piece of grit from the swept zen garden and pings it at her tower. It bounces off and, slowly, the rocks tumble off one another.

When she looks back, Mace is watching her with something she reads as amusement. But also, approval. “Shall we head to the hall for something to eat?”

“Let’s,” she says.

Chapter Text

The swamp on Haruun Kal is pretty unlike anything she’s used to.

She spent the first few years of her life in Alternia’s forests, hunting with her lusus, and she’s been on enough jungle and wasteland battlefields to know her way around a lot of different trees, but this is sort of entirely different.

Nepeta prowls through the gigantic boughs, ears twitching at every sound, the Force a lively symphony around her alerting her to the flutter of the kaikabirds, the sonorous reak-reak-reeeakk of the tektaloa, a six-legged sort of bullfrog-looking creature, with a tail that it holds up into the sky as a mating display. And even in that patch of moss beside her, which is—

“Gotcha,” the moss says, and she springs away from the sound, twisting in the air to bring her feet beneath her and her lightsabres up in a snap-hiss.

Why couldn’t they just let me make the clawbladesabres I wanted? She thinks, as she lands and her Master smirks at her.

She scowls.

“Didn’t see me, padawan?” Master Vos asks, amused.

“No. I didn’t.” She huffs and deactivates her sabres.

“But you spotted the moss,” he points out. “That’s progress.”

“I guess.” She scowls, annoyed at herself.

He extracts himself from the moss, and gestures for her to take a seat beside him in the swampy environment. She does. “You can hear it,” he reminds her. “Everything around you. How it connects to everything else.”

She doesn’t close her eyes. Her Master never does. The concept of detachment apparently ‘isn’t his bag’.

“Stretch out with your psychometry,” he tells her. “Feel the echo of the Force, the memories inside. Connect to it.”

She glances around. She has no idea what he wants her to sense. “To what?”

“To the planet,” he replies simply. “What do you feel?”

The stridil-crickets chorus aggravatingly around them as they sit quietly. Nepeta’s coat is getting muddy. But…

But she can feel the flow of the planet around her.

She touches the dirt, and feels—

“Stretch out with your psychometry,” he tells her. “Feel the echo of the Force, the memories inside.”

Okay, not exactly what she’s looking for. A little further back would be good.

She focusses, concentrating into the past.

A clone trooper’s boot leaves a stamped imprint in the ground as a trio are patrolling through the marshy lands. “The General’s crazy,” he says, glumly. “Why’re we even here after the Grievous fiasco? What are we gonna find out here?”

“Separatists…?” Another says vaguely, scanning the terrain keenly. “You know. Those guys we’re at war with.”

“Come on. They cleared out a while ago. Why what's so special about Haruun Kal?”

“Strategic location,” the third muses in. “Mid-Rim, near Malastare.”

“Probably why they’d want to be out here, then,” the second says again, shutting the argument down neatly.

They trudge along for another few seconds, until the first clone speaks up again.

“At least it beats being tackled out of nowhere on base.”

“She’s just learning hunting skills,” says the third clone, the one Nepeta’s starting to think of as Mister Reasonable.

“And why do we have to be the prey?” Grumpy replies, true to form.

“You think she limits it to the base, or do you think General Vos send us out to see if she could sneak up on us?” Thoughtful replies.

There’s a moment of silence where Reasonable keeps scanning the trees, and Grumpy stares morosely out of his helmet into the far distance. “I really wish you hadn’t said that,” he says, flicking his blaster to ‘stun’. “I really, really wish you hadn’t.”

Alright, admittedly, that’s pretty funny, and she is planning to ambush a patrol now. She grins, and she’s pretty sure her Master’s seen it to, because he’s wearing that shit-eating grin he always does when he’s overheard someone being catty.

Further again, and now it’s a Koran hunter, stalking over the spongy ground, a small bow in one hand with an arrow already half-nocked and held in place by a thumb pressing it down against the limb of the bow and the palm of the hand, the other holding the tiny hand of a little girl, maybe five or six standard years old, instructing her in quiet and susurrant words that almost blend in with the background thrum of the wildlife unless you know which sibilants and hums and clicks don’t quite belong. She’s pretty sure if she wasn’t watching the hunter’s mouth move, she’d have no idea someone was talking, even if they were less than two metres away from her. The child nods, replying in a tumble of the same language, albeit a little less obscure, a little more obviously outside the background.

The hunter hands the child the bow and points with her eyes and a gesture of the head. The child follows the look to a tree that rises from , just as a small furry creature darts out from behind the trunk and skitters up a branch, nibbling at something.

The child pulls the bow back, and the hunter corrects her form, guiding her, a steady stream of commentary as the girl adjusts her aim.

And then the arrow flies and thuds into the creature’s small body. It drops without so much as a sound, tumbling from the branch and to the jungle floor.

The girl laughs in delight, and the hunter gives her a proud squeeze and an affectionate kiss on the crown of her head, before stepping over and retrieving the child’s quarry.

“Is—?” She asks, but Master Vos shakes his head, and she nods. Right. Further back.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” is all he says.

She frowns and concentrates even more, feeling the echoes of the Force rise up, and sifting through them. The sharpest ones, those are… those are the newest ones. The brighter ones are filled with meaning, moments far from mundane.

And then she finds it. A huge one, almost so large that it feels more like an omnipresent background than a clean thing. It’s fuzzy, really fuzzy, she almost can’t even tell it’s the same thing as the rest of them. But it’s bright, too.

Clawtips pressing to the ground, digging into the soil, she taps into it, and feels—

Everything. Every branch, every insect, all the lichens, every part of the planet is inside her awareness, for just one brief moment.

And then, like that, she’s back in her own body, four limbs, two horns, twin lightsabres in her lap, and her master across from her.

The echo remains, though. Open like a book. She closes one eye, and then the other. One shows her Master Vos, sitting patiently, and the other shows her a flux of history in fast-forward. It begins with fire from the sky, a screaming light, and every piece of fauna hesitating, before bursting into a staccato panic as in the distance, there’s a loud boom.

“Tell me about this place,” he says.

She sees…

“I see a crashed ship,” she tells him. He nods. “…A Jedi ship.” Somehow, she knows. But a large one, one she doesn’t recognise the design of. Thousands of passengers, though only hundreds of survivors.

They’re stumbling out of the wreckage, staring around at the hostile, verdant paradise all around them.

“Is that why we’re here?” She asks, as the scene continues to play out. “Us and the Separatists. To rescue them before the Separatists can get them as prisoners?” The echo was fuzzy, maybe they’d been there for a few years. Was that what happened with Master Billaba?

“Keep following the memory,” he tells her.

She does. The crashed ship becomes the epicentre of something. A small settlement, a survivor’s shelter against the wild world.

And then it grows. The moss creeps over the skeletal remains of the ship. Years pass. Then, decades.

The survivors spread out. They meet plagues, they create inoculations. They live in the mountains so high you can almost walk into low orbit and prophets sometimes do, and in the valleys and trenches so low that thick gasses of the cloudsea choke their lungs and obscure everything around them. They learn to thrive in the deserts and the veldts and the jungles, its raised mesas and its sloping, forested glens. They become one with the planet.

It takes hundreds- thousands- of years. It’s all of Haruun Kal’s history, and when she comes out of the memory, her head is almost spinning with it as she’s shunted back into two eyes staring at the present.

“What—” she begins.

“What you just saw,” her Master says, “is the story of the origin of sentient beings on Haruun Kal. Only very few through history have witnessed it.”

“They were Jedi?” She asks.

“Some of them,” he corrects. “Civilians, and the precursor to what became the Agricultural Corps. But yes. What you see are Jedi.”

“Oh.” She feels the weight of the history in this soil on her fingertips as she extracts them from the muddy ground. “So, is that why we’re here?” She wipes them on her cloak. It’s a mottled green, to blend in with the vegetation.

He smiles and then looks away. His smile fades. “We’re here for the war, padawan. It’s as simple as that. But you shouldn’t forget that this world, that all the worlds we visit, have their own stories. That for the people who call it home, it is where they are from and what they are made of.”

She nods.

Then he stands. “Come on,” he tells her. “I think that’s enough training for today.”

A thought occurs to her as they begin walking back. “Master. Does anyone else know that the planet was settled by Jedi?”

He shrugs. “Who’s to say it was?” He replies.

She frowns. “But- the memory?”

“This is the memory that the planet has,” he tells her. “Memories can be mistaken. They get passed down, they change, details are added or taken away.”

She digests this for a few seconds. “You’re saying the planet might be misremembering?” She asks, sceptically.

He laughs. “The beings of Haruun Kal believe in that story as a mythical origin for the planet’s population. It might be true. More likely, there were already beings living on Haruun Kal when any Jedi ship arrived. Or perhaps there was no ship. Or maybe the story is true.”

She thinks about the details of the story. She’d seen… a few hundred survivors, containing at least five different species, with a fever wasp plague wiping out nearly half of those who’d left the ship intact less than a century after they’d crashed. And the ship… Did Jedi ever travel with thousands of civilians like that? What for?

The inconsistencies and the improbabilities stand out to her now she’s been told to look for them. For a moment it nags at her.

And then she shrugs. “It’s a good story.”

“It is,” Master Vos agrees.

Maybe that’s all it has to be.