🚀HE HASN’T SHARED HIS THOUGHTS OUT LOUD with the people around him, especially not Finn - and Rey wouldn’t need to know this, but after the battle of Crait, he had lost hope. They didn’t got any call back or help during that fight, no one from the Republic answered back, not even those they assumed friends, and Poe had thought the worst, that the Resistance was on its own now, that after the destruction of Hosnian they didn’t have anything anymore.
But the words of an old friend - an old lover - had changed everything, if it hasn’t been for Zorii he wouldn’t have seen the truth in front of his eyes, they were not alone, the First Order made them believe they were, it was the way they could win, divide and conquer. So he sent Lando to find the people who had ever shown some care for the Galaxy, and they came back, they came back strong.
Truth be told, his eyes filled with unshed tears the moment he saw each and every one of the ships when the Falcon returned. Now, as the celebrations were happening, he has been mostly with Finn, Rey and Zorii, until he spot someone he had dragged into all this mess, someone he had seen that something special, whatever that was that he had seen. He made it over to Kaz, and tapped at his shoulder, the younger man as usually distracted by his own friends. It didn’t surprise him the hug, and he hugged back with his good arm. “We did it, kid, we did it.” He said smiling. “I wasn’t expecting to see you guys, where is Yeager?” He asked immediatly, not seeing his old friend around with them. “Neeku?”
When the people of the Colossus had heard about what the First Order-- Final Order?? whatever-- was pulling, everyone had been ready to rally up. The Aces were eager to take the fight to them, to end this... or at least bring them that much closer to doing just that. There’s no saying that with this battle they’d seen the absolute last of the First Order, but Kaz had a feeling it was getting there. Getting better.
Initially, the Ace’s were going to go alone-- along with Kaz and Tam, of course. But when the message had broadcast over the entire Colossus it seemed another moment much like what Torra had told him happened back when the First Order had managed to capture him and Yeager. They wanted to fight, even if there was no guarantee they’d make it out alright. The Colossus wasn’t particularly built for space combat, and yet-- they insisted. Even Kragon and his pirates wanted to help take down the Order.
It was a powerful experience, filled with inspiration and hope. Only made better by the success of the mission.
“Yeager?” Kaz echoed, before pulling back and looking towards where he’d thought he’d seen the man-- with his younger brother, even-- and a grin spread over Kaz’s features when he spotted the familiar sight of his mentor’s hair and pointed towards where he was chatting, “Over there! Seems he’s a bit busy. Neeku’s probably around, too.” It was likely only a matter of time before the Nikto found the group of Aces amidst the chaos of the crowd. It was easier for him to find them than the other way around, it seemed.
“Once we got that message we had to come,” Kaz insisted, turning his attention back to his immediate group of friends-- the Aces’ focus had been drawn over towards Poe after his approach, “Especially after everything we’d been through.”
Kaz then perked up, reaching out to pull forward Tam with a grin-- though the woman almost seemed hesitant to have any sort of attention drawn towards her, “Tam was the one flying Yeager’s ship out there. She’s pretty good, huh?”
“Kaz,” Tam offered, almost through gritted teeth-- but anything else she may have said was forgotten as the pair was suddenly enveloped in a tight hug.
“You guys are not dead!” It was Neeku, excitement and happiness pracially radiating off the Nikto and Kaz offered a laugh of relief, esepcially now that the reality of everything was slowly starting to settle in.
