Pt 3. Alpha!Echo x Assassin!Omega!OC
When they got to the Southeast wing, they weren't sure what to think.
Both of the two remaining Shadows were there.
The fight was at a standstill.
"Get out of my way, Solana," the Shadow demanded. Her voice was rough, deep, like something inside her had cracked. Blood soaked through her side, dark and spreading, but she didn’t so much as glance at it.
Solana didn’t move.
Her vibroblade hummed low in her grip, its edge slick with fresh blood. She stood between the Shadow and the troopers behind her, posture grounded, unyielding.
“Ghani and Reina are gone,” Solana said evenly. “You have no backup, Nyssa.” A beat. Then, colder: “And I won’t be taking orders from a dead woman.”
For a fraction of a second, the 501st Legion held its breath.
Then Nyssa moved.
She launched forward with explosive speed, blade flashing in a brutal downward arc meant to split Solana in two. Solana met it head-on—steel shrieked against energy as the vibroblade caught the strike and deflected it just enough to keep it from landing clean.
The impact rattled through her arms.
Nyssa didn’t slow.
She pivoted, driving a knee toward Solana’s ribs. Solana twisted, taking the hit along her side instead of center mass, and retaliated with a slash aimed at Nyssa’s already wounded flank.
Nyssa jerked back just in time—but not fast enough.
The blade kissed flesh.
A thin line of red opened across her side, deepening the injury she refused to acknowledge.
Echo watched from the edge of the corridor, pulse hammering. The fight wasn’t clean. It wasn’t elegant.
It was vicious.
Relentless.
Two assassins who knew every trick the other might try... and had learned how to counter them.
Nyssa pressed the advantage, chaining strikes together in a blur--high, low, feint, spin. Solana gave ground step by step, parrying, redirecting, absorbing the force rather than matching it. Sparks snapped in the air with every clash.
Nyssa fought like a storm.
Solana fought like a wall.
And slowly… almost imperceptibly… the storm began to break.
Nyssa’s breathing grew heavier. Her movements, still fast, lost their razor precision. Blood loss. Fatigue. Tiny fractures in her rhythm that hadn’t been there seconds ago.
Solana saw it.
She stopped retreating.
Nyssa lunged again, aiming for Solana’s throat-
-and this time, Solana stepped in instead of back.
She caught Nyssa’s wrist mid-strike, twisting hard. Bone creaked. Nyssa snarled, trying to wrench free, but Solana drove her forward, slamming her into the wall with enough force to crack the panel behind her. "You should've killed me instead of taking me back to Parbat," Solana hissed.
The blade clattered from Nyssa’s hand.
For a moment, they were chest to chest, locked in a brutal grapple. Nyssa lashed out with her free hand, striking Solana across the face. Solana took it, barely flinching, and drove her elbow straight into Nyssa’s wounded side.
Nyssa gasped.
That was the opening.
Solana ripped her vibroblade free and drove it forward.
Nyssa twisted at the last second, but not enough.
The blade punched through her torso, just below the ribs.
Silence slammed into the corridor.
Nyssa froze, eyes wide, breath catching on something that would never come again.
Solana held her there for a second longer, steady, unshaking.
Then she pulled the blade free.
Nyssa staggered back, hitting the wall again, leaving a smear of red as she slid down. Her gaze flicked up once, something unreadable passing through it—anger, disbelief… maybe even recognition.
Then it was gone.
Her body went still.
The hum of Solana’s blade filled the space she left behind.
Echo exhaled slowly, only now realizing he'd been holding his breath.
---
When Solana's gaze finally broke away from watching Nyssa's lifeforce leave her body, she looked around.
She was free from the Shadows--finally.
But this was only the beginning of a new, much more complicated fight.
She finally turned toward the Jedi that her squad had been sent to kill.
She unclipped her baster's holster from her thigh, slow and careful. She placed the holstered weapon and her vibroblade on the ground in front of her and stepped away with her hands raised.
"I won't be fighting you or your men," she told him. "Whatever punishment you decide for me for my past actions and those of..."
She glanced at Nyssa. She wouldn't call them sisters anymore, but the word was caught in her throat. She shook her head. "I won't resist... I don't want to be their slave anymore."
---
Echo and his Vod could see the General's mind working now. Skywalker regarded her with a hard look.
He could see the slight tremor in her hands and how uneven her breathing became once the adrenaline from the fight began to wear off.
It was a long moment before General Skywalker finally spoke.
"It's not for me to decide your fate... but given that you killed three of your own to save my men and I," he paused. "I'll put in a good word for you, assuming you cooperate until we get back to Coruscant."
She nodded in understanding.
"In the meantime, you'll be confined to the brig," he explained. Fives and Echo approached. She held her wrists out when Fives pulled out the cuffs.
---
Solana wouldn't lie and say she didn't enjoy the solitude. Republic prisoner or not.
There was no taunting, beatings, extreme temperatures, or starvation. She didn't have to wear cuffs once she was placed in a cell. The only requirement they had of her was to wear scent blockers, which she easily complied with.
General Skywalker had his clone medic dress her wounds from the fight and from the beating she received before they were sent out on that mission.
"You have fractured ribs, and this bruising is much older than your other wounds," Kix had noted.
"My punishment for escaping the first time," she explained quietly. "...We were raised to beat each other into submission."
He nodded and said nothing more, but his expression was hardened for the rest of the time he tended to her. Once her wounds were dressed, he instructed her to change out of her tactical gear and into a set of plain clothes.
She didn't see the clone trooper from the factory after that.
Captain Rex and General Skywalker stopped by a few times to ask her questions about the Shadow program, missions she completed in the past, and other Separatist holds that had Shadow units based on it.
Once they seemed to have enough information, she didn't see anyone for a while after that, save for the troopers guarding her cell rotating and the trooper Fives bringing her a food tray three times a day.
That was the only way she knew it was three days later that she was visited by Skywalker again, this time accompanied by another Jedi, as well as his Captain.
"Well, hello there," the new Jedi greeted her. She approached the ray shield door. "You must be Solana, then."
"I am," she confirmed, intrigued by his accent. "And you are?"
"I am Obi-Wan Kenobi," he answered. "Anakin has explained to me that you have defected from the Shadow program. I just have some additional questions before we present the information to the council."
"Ask me anything," she agreed. "I have nothing to hide."
"Very well. You've mentioned that you escaped once before," he prompted. "We'd like to know what you were doing during that time of freedom."
Solana began to explain that once she got the news that her Shadow leader had been killed by Skywalker, she knew it was her chance to escape. The clone trooper that she'd been half-heartedly fighting at the droid factory had offered to help her, but she knew that would put anyone she became associated with in more danger.
She abandoned her comm and stole a ship while her squad retreated, knowing they'd leave her behind if she didn't make it back in time.
She had hoped they thought she was dead, but the first time she set down on a planet, she realized she was being followed.
She had evaded capture for two months, hiding in rural areas with few people so that they wouldn't hurt anyone, but they caught up to her. Her Shadow training made her moves too predictable for them to find her.
"They dragged me back to my squad in the Outer Rim, where they beat me for days until the order came through to eliminate Skywalker," she finished.
"Is it common practice for the Shadows to take those who were recent deserters on missions?" Kenobi inquired.
"No," she answered. "I knew they were being sent after the same legion that we encountered at the droid factory, so I lied about realizing I was wrong for running away."
"And why would you do that?"
"To save the trooper who was willing to help me."
---
The third time that Echo crossed paths with Solana, he and Fives were ordered to escort her off the Resolute.
"It's time to go," Fives told her. She held her hands out as they deactivated the ray shield to her cell. Once again, she didn't fight as he cuffed her.
"We're on Coruscant?" she asked as they escorted her out of the brig.
"Yes," Echo answered, his voice strained. He felt her gaze on him. It burned.
"Where are we going?"
"We have orders to deliver you to General Skywalker and General Kenobi at the Jedi Temple," Fives answered. "We don't know what will happen after that."
She nodded, continuing to glance over at Echo as they walked. He was thankful that his helmet hid the heat creeping up his face.
Somehow, he thinks she knew what she was doing to him. A small smirk on her pink lips and a twinkle in her eye.
She sighed as she looked ahead. They couldn't give her details about what she'd be walking into, but he wished he could tell her that Skywalker and Kenobi were going to try to keep her from a severe sentence.
He wished he could do anything but escort her to what might be her doom.
.
.
.
A/N: I had a migraine this morning, so I took a sick day from work, slept until almost 2pm, and my mom has my kiddo so OBVIOUSLY I'm doing the most productive thing everrr to start my weekend off, right?!