Hello and welcome back to Owlie finishing a drawing for Halloween and then forgetting to post it until several days later. ANYWAY. This is the Chaos Batch, a group of clone commanders that are half OCs and half canon characters, and all belonging to myself and @23-bears. This year, Star Wars has access to One Piece, and the lads picked out characters to be for Halloween.
Nero chose Law bc vibes. Sixes chose Mihawk bc of Big Stupid Weapon. Bacara was press-ganged into being Zoro bc they are So Similar as people. And Thire (whose idea this was) wanted to be Franky so they could run around without pants. Good for him.
And FINALLY from Owlie's trip down memory lane, I have this Stunning work of art I made of another Number, Commander Sixes. Basically, my friend and I made some of our OCs in Sims 4, and Sixes' astromech droid became a chihuahua with Small Dog Syndrome and sharp teeth. Behold.
Love his vibe. Love his accessories. And ESPECIALLY love his tiny dog that WILL write checks its body can't cash (as most small dogs do hahahaha). Also, I am now inspired to maybe possibly fire up the Sims in order to make some OCs...
Thanks for the rec!
Participate in Fandom Friday to show your favorite creators from this week some love! :)
It's OCtober!!!!! Again!!!! I'm using @soclonely's list this year. Day 1 was "Pumpkin spice and everything nice" with Loops and Trees. Day 2 was "Witch's Brew" with Tala and Hardcase. And today, Day 3 is "Crunching Leaves" with Sixes and Elevensies. Happy October!
I'm back!!! Thank you all for your patience while I took a small break and got my groove back. Now, the Jedi know Palpatine is evil... but now what?? Sixes knows that most people would leave it to the Force-wielding professionals, but since when has Sixes ever been most people?
Words: ~7400
Warnings: Some blood, not too much tho
Link to Master List of Chapters on tumblr
Link to the full story on Ao3
Reminder of the Chaos Batch screen names:
Nero = mayhem_man
Bacara = beefcara
Sixes = Grim Reaper
mayhem_man: okay so what’s the word, boys
mayhem_man: i say boys since thire is probably still unconscious
beefcara: Chancellor is evil
Grim Reaper: Yeah, Palpatine is worse than evil actually
mayhem_man: huh
beefcara: I want him to die
mayhem_man: right but you want several people dead so
Grim Reaper: Nero, you run a hit man contracting service
Grim Reaper: ON TOP OF BEING A COMMANDER IN THE ARMY
mayhem_man: okay?? so cara wants people dead but i actually do it and it’s a problem??
beefcara: Unfortunately, murder is frowned upon, even if you get paid for it
mayhem_man: ugh… society…
Grim Reaper: As for the chancellor, the Jedi won’t let us… assist in dealing with him
beefcara: Annoying, but logical. He can mind-control us.
mayhem_man: yeah… got that idea. but the jedi are gonna kill him or smth, right?
Grim Reaper: Or something.
-scene break-
In Sixes’ personal opinion, it took far too long for the Jedi to reach their decision. He and Echo were left to their own devices outside the Jedi Council meeting room for almost forty minutes while the debate raged on. Granted, it probably wasn’t raging—these were Jedi, after all. If it had been clones or Mandalorians, it would have been a faster and more violent matter. He wished it was a faster and more violent matter. Sixes could handle that. These long stretches of uncertainty and inaction had always been somewhat foreign to clones.
Echo had sat down on a bench a little ways down the hallway to rest his leg. Sixes would have ordered him there eventually. There hadn’t been any more word from Sevenset or Fives over their comms, but Bacara had assured him that everything was quiet at the Clubhouse. So, they just had to wait.
Finally—again, after far too long—the Council room doors slid open. All those present filed out, clustering in the corridor with Windu, Yoda, Kenobi, and Ti in the front.
“Commander. Echo.”
Echo picked himself up off the bench to stand beside Sixes when Windu addressed them.
“Thank you for waiting,” Windu said. The Jedi looked harsher than usual. All of them did. “We have no further questions for you, and we would advise you to return to whatever location will keep you safest.”
“No pilots?” Sixes could still hope….
“No pilots,” Yoda said with a small smile and a shake of his head.
“And no Mandalorians,” Windu added before Sixes or Echo could ask. “The Jedi will handle this ourselves.”
Sixes had suspected they would. He wouldn’t dispute them on their own turf, so he bowed his head in acceptance. He respected the decision, even if he didn’t like it. The chancellor, by all accounts, could be ridiculously powerful, and the Jedi were offering to confront him with the little knowledge that he and Echo had provided to them.
He laid his right fist over his heart, bowing ever so slightly. “Oya, jetiise.”
Most of the Jedi appeared to understand. Not entirely surprising when he considered how long they’d been serving with his brothers, and that most of the Alphas were fluent in Mando’a.
“Someone will show you out,” Windu said. “Thank you again. Please, look after each other.”
“We always do,” Sixes answered without hesitating. Echo nodded his agreement.
“I know,” Windu smiled.
The vast majority of the Council followed Windu and Yoda back down into the sprawling sanctuary in the Temple below. They left General Koon with them, presumably to lead them back up to the landing pad to the shyyyo speeder.
The Jedi gestured up the hallway towards the staircase. “I’ll see you off,” he said.
They followed him silently until they reached the landing pad. Sixes appreciated the silence. His thoughts were moving faster than he preferred, and he needed the space to sort through them all. When they reached the speeder, they bid the Jedi farewell and climbed in without another word.
Sixes didn’t start it right away. He sat in the driver’s seat, hands on the steering columns, as his thoughts continued to swirl around his brain.
Echo shifted in his seat, no doubt debating how long was too long sitting silently without moving.
Fortunately, Sixes didn’t let him stew for that long. “How’s your leg?” he asked.
After a second to process the question, the ARC shrugged. “Not terrible. The rest helped. Why?”
“I can’t just check in?”
“You never just check in, sir.”
So the ARC had learned. He gave a vague grunt in reply.
“What are you thinking, sir?” Echo asked, his tone cautious but not without genuine curiosity.
He was thinking a lot of things. “I’m thinking I’d like to see a headline about the chancellor dying from a shotgun blast to the chest.” That was one of the things, anyway.
Echo snorted, slipping his helmet off and setting it in his lap. “Yeah? Is that better than the headline about the Jedi Council cutting him into little pieces?”
“Sounds better to me.” He raised his comm, preparing to call Bacara. “And I still know where to get a lot of slugthrowers. Hey, Bacara?”
“Yes.”
“The Jedi are going to confront the chancellor,” he told him. “They were pretty adamant against including any troopers or Mandalorians, so they’re on their own for now.”
“Understood.”
“They believed us, though,” Sixes said, glancing over at Echo. “They’re on our side. You can share that around with the others.”
“I will. Are you coming back?”
Sixes again looked over at the ARC next to him, hesitating slightly. “Yeah, eventually. Don’t worry about us.”
“I will elect not to share that with the others.”
He smiled. “Sure thing, Cara. I’m out.” He ended the call and started the speeder’s engine.
Echo was quiet, clearly thinking over something as they lifted off the landing pad and zoomed over a couple lanes of traffic before settling into one. Sixes let him think. Eventually, Echo flipped his helmet around so it faced him, staring at his reflection in the visor as the lights of Coruscant whizzed by outside.
“You know… Domino Squad wasn’t exactly known for following orders very well,” he said at last. He looked up, finding Sixes’ gaze for a brief moment before he had to look back at the flight lane. “With Fives out of the fight, I feel like I’d be letting our batchmates down in spirit if I kept my nose exactly where it was supposed to be.”
Under his helmet, Sixes allowed himself a smirk. He’d never admit it, but the Numbers group had always felt a lot like his batch had when they were younger. Echo was demonstrating why that was. “So you’re not going to mind if we happen to fly by the chancellor’s office on the way to the Clubhouse, then,” he said, fully aware the chancellor’s office was nowhere near to being “on the way” to the Clubhouse.
Echo shook his head, looking ahead at the traffic. “No, of course not.”
They got a couple kliks closer to the chancellor’s office before something went… well, it didn’t quite go wrong, but it wasn’t exactly what Sixes had been expecting, either. There were a lot of Coruscant Guards around. More red and white lined the streets and skylanes than Sixes had ever seen. Mainly, they seemed to be redirecting traffic around the block containing the chancellor’s office. He could see the building from where they sat, slowed down to a maddening crawl by confused civilians.
“What the hell is all this?” Echo said, mostly to himself. He leaned forward, moving side to side to get a view ahead of them. “Did the chancellor do this?” he asked, now looking over to Sixes.
Sixes shook his head. “Dunno.” He glanced at Echo, his eye landing on the signature blue handprint on his chestplate. “Cover your handprint,” he told him as they approached the blinking red and white lights of the Guard’s speeder. “No need to have more identifying marks visible than necessary.”
Echo shifted his helmet, holding it to face his chest and up high enough to block the handprint. It didn’t look natural, by any stretch, but it would do.
When they were alongside the Guard, Sixes stopped and lowered his window. “What is this, trooper?” he demanded, putting as much authority into his voice as he could without being overtly rude.
“It’s a temporary detour, sir,” the Guard answered.
“Why? On whose orders?”
“Chancellor Palpatine, sir. He’s ordered a lockdown perimeter around this block.”
Oh, had he now?
The Guard went on, gesturing with a lit red baton. “If you could just go around this way, sir.”
Sixes narrowed his eyes, aware the expression was lost behind his visor. When he turned his head back to the flight lane, he just caught the tail-end of Echo slipping his helmet over his head. Sixes reluctantly turned right, following the Guard’s instructions.
“Wait, Commander–!” Echo hissed, reaching a hand out, but not touching him. “The office, look.” He pointed to their left.
Sixes kept the speeder steady with one hand and careful practice while he trained his HUD to magnify on the chancellor’s office. Against the backdrop of Coruscant’s brightly lit skyline at night, the change was hard to notice. But where once the office had cast a pale yellow light from its large window, other colors were breaking through. Green, blue, and some other colors not as easy to separate at this distance.
“The Jedi,” Sixes said, resetting his HUD and looking back to the flight lane.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the commotion around the chancellor’s office increased. Even through the speeder’s body, there was an audible rumble in the air they both recognized.
“Uh—” Echo said as three transport shuttles appeared in the sky around the office, their floodlights trained on the room at the top of the building.
Sixes pressed a couple buttons on the speeder’s control panel. Nero had (of course) outfitted the thing with communications interceptors for just about any signal found on Coruscant. Thire mainly used them to listen to weird music broadcasts, but, with the right tuning, Sixes might be able to listen in on the Guards.
“—General Yoda, sir.”
“Negative, trooper. Just keep him away from the office.”
“He’s too fast!”
The chatter increased, starting to overlap. From what Sixes could make out, the transport ships had been deployed to keep more Jedi from getting to the chancellor’s office. It seemed Yoda was giving them more of a challenge than his size might have suggested. But, from the sound of it, the Guards were more interested in deterring the other Jedi than harming them. That was good. That gave them time.
Sixes followed the detour for a short while, listening intently to the overlapping voices the transmitter was picking up. It was hard to know what was important or not, but he would rather have very little warning than no warning at all if something bad was happening.
Just when Sixes was preparing to jump the flight lane entirely and gun it for the chancellor’s office just to be sure they couldn’t do something, the broadcasting communications went eerily quiet. The overlapping voices thinned out into one or two at a time, delivering curt orders, the voices sounding a mite too calm for such a situation.
“What just happened?” Echo asked, looking at the control panel. Luckily, he knew better than to go poking at it.
“He wants them put down. This is an act of treason.”
“Blast them!”
“Nothing good,” Sixes replied, switching off the transmitter. “Hold on.”
Echo immediately latched onto the door handle and the armrest, and Sixes kicked the speeder into higher gear. They lurched up and over the speeders and other vehicles in front of them, then veered sharply to the left across relatively open air. It took long, sluggish seconds for the Guards in the area to react. By the time their red and white lights were blinking in the rearview mirrors, the shyyyo speeder was tearing ahead of them.
“I’m guessing you and your batch built this thing, yeah?” Echo asked, his voice raised slightly in apprehension.
“We built her up from a scrap heap, yeah,” Sixes told him, diving down to avoid a landing platform in their path. “Helped us wind down during leave.”
The ARC nodded, his fingers tightening on the armrest as Sixes took a right turn “aggressively,” as some would say. If it got them there faster, it was worth trying, in his opinion. He had the skills to get them there in one piece.
“Echo, push the Nova Corps-colored button,” Sixes told him as they neared the office building. The Guards were still tailing them, but they weren’t shooting, so that was a win.
Echo found it and pushed it, making it light up fuschia. After a second, Bacara’s voice filtered into the speeder’s cab.
“What.”
“Something’s gone wrong with the confrontation,” Sixes said, doing his best to stick to the facts as much as his anger and frustration wanted to add some emotionally fueled phrases as well. “The Guard’s gone weirdly quiet over comms, and I don’t like the tone I’m hearing from the ones still talking.”
A massive flare of orange and yellow light bloomed ahead of them, engulfing one of the transport ships and part of the building next to the chancellor’s office. Sixes cursed, turning a sharp left to avoid the worst of the smoke drifting through the air.
“Sixes?”
“Something just blew up, it’s fine,” he replied, easily righting the speeder in the air. He so wished he had his Z-95 right now.
“Should we do something?”
“If you can keep the Guard occupied and away from the chancellor’s office building, the Jedi could do their kriffing job a lot easier, yes!” he said, biting back another string of curses as more CG speeders appeared on their left. “Use a different comms channel, though. No telling what the chancellor’s been spewing to the Guards.”
“Understood.”
“Comm Maral, she’s on-world. She can get transport,” Sixes told him starting to circle the chancellor’s office. From this distance, the lightsabers were clearly visible. Green, blue, purple, and red.
“Copy that. Don’t die.”
Sixes scoffed. “Not planning on it. Out.”
Taking the cue, Echo pressed the fuschia button again, ending the transmission. “So what is the plan here, exactly?” he asked, keeping careful track of the CG speeders and transport ships in the area.
Sixes would never admit that he made up plans. He had been a commander for quite a while now. He had the benefit of experience and precedent to guide his thinking processes. So, he could… quickly fabricate a plan where one had not previously existed. “Land the speeder, hide the speeder, get to the chancellor’s office, help him on his way out of existence.”
Echo was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright. I’ve gone into worse with less.”
“Freak.”
“I prefer hazard to society, sir.”
Sixes swung the speeder out of its wide circle around the chancellor’s office. There were still too many transport ships and speeders surrounding it for them to risk getting too close. He flew back the way they’d come, rounding the top of the building across the flight lanes from the chancellor’s office. The ships were all still focused on the Jedi to notice them passing quietly overhead. Just another reason to fly black ships at night, as far as Sixes was concerned. He set down on a small landing platform on the other side of the building. They got out after he activated Nero’s absolutely overkill anti-theft systems, which was just as well, because a pair of what were probably security guards came running over to them as soon as they stepped out.
“This is private property!” one of them, a pantoran man, called out. They both had what appeared to be blasters, but Sixes recognized them, and knew they could only fire stun rings.
“Remove the speeder, or we will have it removed,” the other, a human woman added.
Sixes stared at them. “If you touch that speeder, you’ll both be dead,” he informed them plainly.
The guards raised their weapons. Right… that had sounded like a direct threat. Remy dropped out of the speeder, making a few disgruntled beeps.
“Remy,” he said. “Make sure these two don’t get in our way. Don’t kill them.”
He tapped Echo’s pauldron to get him to follow him behind the speeder to the trunk. He heard Remy’s jets activate, and several surprised noises from both security guards before he tuned them out. He entered the code on the back of the speeder and a panel popped open, revealing a portion of the weaponry they often stored inside. He grabbed two ascender cable attachments, thrusting one into Echo’s hands and clipping the other to the back of his belt. After that, he shed his right vambrace, letting it fall into the compartment while he slipped on a steel replacement that Nero had found “somewhere.” That usually meant he’d looted it off a corpse or he’d traded someone’s head for it on the black market. It didn’t matter much when it had a small shield generator inside of it.
He clicked it into place, then grabbed a second vambrace of similar origin. “Echo, put this on,” he ordered without looking at the ARC. “Flamethrower.” When he felt the bracer leave his hand, he grabbed a final supply of blaster charge packs for them both.
Echo tossed his standard vambrace into the compartment and took two of the offered ammunition packs. “I stopped hearing complaints about your parking spot a few seconds ago, so I figure your droid has done their job.”
“Good, let’s go.” Sixes closed the speeder’s trunk, making sure it clicked properly back into place.
When they rounded the speeder, sure enough, Remy stood between the two crumpled forms of the unconscious security guards. Sixes beckoned them to follow, then led the way to the other side of the rooftop where they would have a clear view of the chancellor’s office. They stopped at the rim of the rooftop, observing the scene.
At first, it didn’t seem like much had changed. They could still see a fierce lightsaber battle raging inside the chancellor’s office, and the whole building was completely surrounded by the Coruscant Guard in various vehicles.
Sixes called Bacara again.
“We’re on the way,” his brother said immediately.
“Good, you’ve got some work cut out for you,” Sixes told him. “The chancellor’s tower is completely surrounded. More Jedi won’t be able to get through without cutting through the Guards.”
“We’ll keep them busy.”
“Keep the window—” Sixes’ next sentence died on his tongue as he saw two of the transport ships and several smaller speeders suddenly turn around and start flying in their direction. Had they spotted them? How?
His concerns were only partially dissuaded by the sight of one of the Guard’s speeder bikes appearing in the night ahead of the other vehicles and aircraft. But the speeder bike had no Guardsman on it. As it whizzed past their building to their left, Sixes’ HUD caught the distinct image of General Yoda at the controls, his green lightsaber deflecting the smattering of bolts that came close enough to bat away. In a heartbeat, the Jedi and his pursuers were behind them, leaving a gap in the tower’s defenses.
“Sixes?”
He cleared his throat, drawing his attention back to his brother’s voice. “Heads up: General Yoda has the same plan as us, and he’s got two gunships and a few speeders after him.”
There was a brief pause before, “Oh, we just passed them.”
“See you soon,” Sixes told him.
“Affirmative.” The comm disconnected.
About fifteen or twenty seconds later, the rumble of a proper ship of some kind made them turn around to their right. He’d only seen Maral’s gauntlet starfighter back on Kamino, and always grounded. After all, being part of the cuy’val dar had its drawback of being largely confined to the ocean planet. Seeing it in motion was beautiful. Like Maral’s armor, the Moon Saber was carefully painted in bright colors against the gunmetal grey and dark blue paneling making up the body of the ship. The flowing designs of starry butterflies, huge birds, and solar eclipses lit up in the mottled lights coming from the buildings as it flew by. The starfighter easily took the remaining transport ship by surprise, pulling up over it and lowering the boarding ramp about halfway down.
Unsurprisingly, Sixes recognized Bacara hurling himself from the boarding ramp onto the transport ship below. The trooper following him must have been Fours, given the way they seemed to work together. Fours immediately swung into the open side of the ship while Bacara landed squarely on the main cockpit’s windscreen.
While the two Marines dealt with the biggest threat, the Moon Saber drifted over to the office building next to the chancellor’s tower. By now, the Guards on speeder bikes and other smaller transports had zeroed in on the new threat and were quickly moving to surround it. As they did, however, three more troopers emerged from inside the starfighter, all brandishing weapons.
“Gang’s all here, I guess,” Echo said quietly as they watched Do-si-do, Trees, and Loops engage the Guards around them.
“Looks like it,” Sixes added, silently grateful neither Mira or Saleha were visible. He turned his attention back to the chancellor’s office. The colors had changed, worryingly. The green and blue sabers visible earlier were gone, leaving just General Windu’s purple saber against Chancellor Palpatine’s red one. “We still need to get into that office.”
Echo raised his comm, still watching the other Numbers. Do-si-do had just successfully booted a Guard off of his speeder and onto a rooftop below. “Do-si-do, any chance you can fly over our direction? We could use a lift.”
“Hells yeah, Echo!” the pilot replied immediately.
They watched them look around until they saw Echo’s arm in the air, then sped over to them. They stopped just beyond the edge of the roof.
“This is a shit show, sir!” they said, a huge grin audible behind their helmet.
“Yeah, it’s a mess,” Echo agreed.
Sixes took charge before they could wait for him to do so. “Do-si-do, I’m with you. Echo, hitch a ride on Remy.” When Remy added their own opinion on the matter, he turned to them. “I don’t want to hear it, Remy. You only have to get him close enough to use the ascender cable. Now give me Reaper.”
If they could have rolled their eyes, Remy would have. Small mercies. Instead, the storage compartment opened on their dome, and the top of Reaper’s compacted form poked out. He grabbed it, hooked it on his belt, and stepped onto the edge of the roof. He cast a glance around the scene as he climbed onto the speeder behind Do-si-do, noticing that without the influx of Coruscant Guards, a few other lightsabers were visible approaching the chancellor’s office. They were still a ways away, though, and he wasn’t sure how long Windu could hold off the chancellor.
Regardless, Sixes wanted a shot at this piece of shit himself.
Maybe he had too much Mandalorian in him after all.
They took off, Echo and Remy not far behind them. As they did, the noise of more transport ships sounded to their left, bringing more reinforcements. He grabbed the ascension cable from his belt and locked it onto one of his pistols, holding it at the ready as Do-si-do dodged and weaved through the slowly increasing number of Guard speeders and larger hovercraft.
“When I fire the cable, dive down and get out of the area,” he told them, raising his voice above the air rushing by them.
“Yes sir!”
He raised his arm over the pilot’s shoulder, aiming for the outer wall above the chancellor’s window. He took a breath, silently appreciating Do-si-do’s skill at keeping the speeder bike level, and fired.
The cable caught and pulled tight at the same time that Do-si-do started their dive. Sixes leapt off the bike as much as one can leap off of an object traveling downwards. He let the cable ascender do its work, only having to catch himself from smashing into the side of the building once. It was not going to be a graceful entrance, that he could tell. But it would get him where he needed to be. He looked around until he found Echo mirroring him on his left, Remy long gone.
With his free hand, the ARC signed, “Cut audio,” and tapped the side of his helmet.
Right. Make sure the creep couldn’t control them so easily. It was a little tricky doing it one-handed, but eventually, as they were approaching the window, his HUD gave a little alert, telling him outside communications had been disconnected and deafened.
The window above them exploded outwards in a shower of glass shards. They glittered and sparkled in the light pouring from the office as Sixes and Echo rose up through the deluge. They instinctively ducked their heads, even if their helmets would easily protect their faces from the shimmering downfall.
Sixes grabbed the ledge of the window and clicked the disengage button on the base of the ascension cable. As it disconnected, he pulled himself into the room, rolling sideways over his shoulder to end in a crouch on one knee. Echo was in roughly the same position, both pistols raised, as they each took in the scene inside the office.
It was a mess.
All the chairs had been ripped from their bases and tossed around the lower part of the office. There were deep slashes in the control panels surrounding what remained of the chairs. Stone artworks that might have flanked the doorway lay in pieces, one of them clear on the other side of the room. Sixes allowed himself a brief moment of alarm when he took stock of the fallen Jedi around the room. General Ti lay against the far wall from the window, her face hidden by the sprawled hood of her robe. One of the broken artworks had evidently broken on Saesee Tiin, and there was no way to tell how badly injured he was. Finally, Ki-Adi Mundi’s head was visible in the far corner of the room, where the computer control panels blocked his view. Sixes hoped the rest of him was attached, but from where he knelt, he couldn’t tell.
Mace Windu was still up, however. He stood between the the door and the lack of chairs, his focus now torn between the two troopers who had just appeared through the window, and the man he was currently fighting. Palpatine, unfortunately, was about three feet in front of Echo, red saber humming at his side. It was likely what had shattered the window.
Sixes couldn’t hear what Windu said, but it didn’t matter when his back was facing an open window several hundred feet above the nearest flat surface, and there was a probable Force-user mere steps away from him. He moved. He dove to his right, aiming for the far side of the control panels as he tucked and rolled out of his dive.
Muffled shouting that sounded like Palpatine wasn’t enough to stop his motion until he was rounding the other side of the desk. What did make him pause was a huge burst of flame from Echo’s gauntlet, aimed directly at Palpatine’s face as the ARC stood and sprinted to the other side of the room near the door. While not particularly graceful, the distraction was enough for Windu to step up and make himself the center of attention again.
Sixes kept moving deeper into the small office, holding both pistols at the ready. Reaper was too long for these close quarters. His boot nudged something on the floor. Looking down, his breath stuttered for a moment as he took in General Mundi’s arm, and just his arm, not connected to the rest of him. Fortunately, his head was in fact still attached to the rest of him.
Even so, Bacara would not be happy to see his general in more than one piece…
When he looked back to the chancellor and to Windu, the chancellor was saying something, but Sixes’ helmet only caught muffled noise instead of words. Whatever the reaction was supposed to be, the nothing that happened didn’t make Palpatine very happy. He lunged at Windu, the purple and red lightsabers clashing and whirling through the air. Palpatine was good—very good, if Sixes’ experience was the judge of anything.
He switched his pistols over to stun. Better unconscious than dead. The first few stun rings he fired disintegrated upon contact with Palpatine’s red blade. This guy was fast too. Alright. So they had to slow him down.
Sixes threw himself to the ground behind the control panels as a chair came flying towards him. It went a bit wide and smashed into the wall just behind him. Palpatine was powerful too. Fun. Where he crouched, he looked over to Echo, currently in partial cover behind an overturned chair near General Ti.
“Need slow,” Sixes signed, not bothering with sentence structure much. He indicated Palpatine. “Fast fast target.”
Echo nodded. He raised his hand to sign a reply, but they were interrupted by the lightsaber duel suddenly changing tack. The two combatants were coming towards the door that led into the main reception rooms in the chancellor’s chambers. If the deafened helmets weren’t a safety precaution, Sixes would have torn his off just to be able to hear the fight again. It was maddening to just wait to see what was happening.
Echo had a better view. Sixes watched him shuffled around on his knees until he could reach over to a chunk of broken rock near General Tiin. Just as the duel came into Sixes’ view, Echo chucked it at Palpatine. Granted, there was only so much accuracy that came with hurling an irregularly shaped projectile at a moving target with control of the Force. Still, the target was occupied. The chunk of statue struck Palpatine’s shoulder, hard. Echo was an ARC, after all. He had the muscle to back it up.
Sixes raised his pistol to get a few shots off while he was distracted. He cursed when Windu stepped in, too close for him to feel comfortable firing. Suddenly, Palpatine launched himself upwards, flipping up and over Windu to land between the Jedi and the door. While Windu had to change his trajectory to follow him, Palpatine’s unarmed hand shot out towards Echo. In one fast motion, the ARC trooper was swept off the floor and hurled through the doorway and out of sight.
Windu and Palpatine, however, did hear him. Windu charged towards the Sith, his mouth moving like he was shouting something, but Sixes had no way to know at whom. He raised himself to his knees again, drawing his other pistol and switching it to stun. Maybe while Palpatine was occupied by the Jedi, Sixes might land a stun ring on his open back.
As soon as he had lined up his shot, Palpatine jumped again, twirling in the air like some messed up bird. Sixes didn’t see him land, mainly because something solid and solidly heavy slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling onto the smooth black floor. His pistol flew from his cybernetic hand as all his air was pushed out of him. What the hell?
He pushed himself up quickly, his head snapping up to lock onto the duelists again. A chair. A karking chair. Palpatine had pulled a chair from behind him and smeared him across the floor just to throw it at Windu. The air crackled with each collision of the lightsaber blades, and the wind rushing through the open window—
Oh kark. Sixes spotted his helmet a foot or so from him. The chair must have knocked it off.
Hopefully the creep hadn't realized it yet. It was his only hope as Sixes unhooked Reaper from his belt instead of going for his dropped pistol. Blue stun rings appeared from beyond the doorway. It was a good sign. Echo was conscious and still armed, wherever he had landed. Palpatine was still too fast, blocking or dodging the rings as they came, even with Windu putting up a skilled offensive. With the Jedi’s aggressive advances, the duel quickly left the room, vanishing from sight. Sixes swore and got to his feet, running to crouch beside the doorway. He leaned to peek out from cover, just in time to watch the pair spin as their sabers clashed brightly. Now it was Palpatine forcing Windu backwards down the wide corridor lined with what someone somewhere probably called art.
Not that Sixes was one to judge art.
Echo was at the far end of the corridor, just visible by the flashes of white on his armor as he aimed his pistol around the doorframe of the next room. He seemed unharmed, but Sixes noted he was using his uninjured arm. At least his helmet was still on his head. The fight moved quickly to the next room. Echo disappeared at the same time Sixes was up and running to follow. The next room, he was pleased to find, was much bigger. There was more than enough room to use Reaper here, if he so chose.
When the duel entered the room, Palpatine went off the walls—quite literally. With more room, he was leaping over and around Windu at any opportunity, like a particularly evil toad. Still, Windu was holding his own well enough. Sixes ran to the end of the corridor into the chancellor’s main visitation or reception room. Again, a huge kriffing window at the back of the room. In front of that, a large desk sat on a dais with four chairs around it. The lower part of the room had a couple computer towers of some kind, providing surfaces off of which Palpatine could bounce and spin. More stupid art.
Echo had found partial cover behind a large armchair to the left of the door. Sixes found a match to it on the other side and went for it. The problem was, the creepy piece of shit was spinning around so much, landing a stun ring on him would be next to impossible with the lightsabers flying around as they were.
The combatants paused more now, taking in the new space, reading the other for signs of fatigue or weakness.
During one such brief moment between crackling lightsabers, the chancellor said, “Foolish, Master Jedi, to bring clones.”
Windu couldn’t respond as the chancellor hurled himself forward, red blade humming through the air in a thrust. The Jedi caught the blade, bringing it up and around, locking the two sabers against each other in a momentary battle of strength. Both Sixes and Echo raised their pistols. There would never be a better shot at the chancellor then this.
Too late, Sixes noticed one of the chairs at the big desk start to move. It rose off the ground, slowly at first, tilting in the air. Remembering what had happened in the other room, Sixes had to abandon lining up his perfect stun shot.
“General, behind!” he called as the chair suddenly whipped through the air across the room.
General Windu shoved the chancellor’s blade and ducked, evading the flying furniture. The chancellor sheared the chair in two as it flew too near his head. Before it had even landed on the red carpet (Red? That wasn’t too on-the-nose, Chancellor Sith Lord?), Palpatine leapt up, flipping backwards—back towards Echo.
“Echo—!” Sixes shot up from his partial cover. He let Reaper fall open, the razor-sharp blade unfolding and the shaft clicking into its mid-length size.
For the second time that night, Echo was lifted off the ground by the Force. In a split second, he was dangling in the air between Palpatine and Windu. A human shield. The very idea made Sixes’ gut roil with righteous anger. Seeing it done to someone he knew very nearly shredded the self-restraint Kamino had so nicely trained into him.
“Let him go,” General Windu told him, demonstrating more control than Sixes would have. But, that was Jedi. He approached as close as he dared, but with Echo only a thought away from having his neck snapped by an invisible hand, there was only so close he could get.
“Execute Order Six—”
A bright orange burst of flame erupted from ARC-1409’s wrist-mounted flamethrower.
Lord Sidious yelled in rage, his concentration broken enough to allow the trooper to drop from the air.
Good soldiers follow orders.
CC-6666 unclipped his left vambrace, the one with his communications unit inside of it. He dropped it onto the red carpet and stomped on it. The plastoid shattered into odd chunks. He switched his pistol off stun (why was it off of stun?) and shot the communications unit.
Good soldiers follow orders.
Sixes blinked, watching Palpatine and Windu duel. The Jedi was doing everything he could to move the fight away from Echo, who lay on the ground practically under their feet. Sixes reached for Reaper, and found it on the carpet next to the blackened shards of his left vambrace.
What… the kark?
He looked again at Echo, unreachable through the blaze of purple and red as the duel raged. Palpatine may not have him dangling in the air, but Echo was still being used as collateral. Windu’s strikes were precise, careful never to sweep too low. Palpatine had a small but recognizably punchable smile on his face as the Jedi was forced to contain his attacks. He couldn’t see Echo’s face behind his helmet’s visor. The only way Sixes could tell he was still conscious was the tiny movements he made to avoid the feet stepping close around him.
The fight needed to get away from Echo, that much was clear. Sixes unfolded Reaper to its full length. The black blade reflected the purple and red flashes as the lightsabers whirled and clashed over and over. He had to hope ARC training was worth it.
“Hey, demagolka!” He moved quickly to a point behind and a little to the side of the general.
“Execute—”
Oh, hells no. Not that shit. Sixes couldn’t shut him up from this distance, but he knew he had to stop the noise somehow. Maybe it was the novelty of the threat. Maybe it was the tools he had at his disposal. Maybe it was Maral’s training coming back in an odd way. Regardless, Sixes did the first thing he could think of: he yelled back.
Maral had mentioned this slightly niche method of intimidation found among Mandalorian warriors a few times. Sixes and his batch—especially Bacara—had always enjoyed using it on the other command batches.
“Adenn a’den! Adenn a’den!” he roared, pouring as much burning hatred into the words as he could. To add to the noise, he planted Reaper on the carpet and struck his right vambrace against it. The metal-on-metal clanging set a clear rhythm, a heartbeat, for the words to follow. “Adenn a’den! Adenn a’den!”
Merciless rage.
His captain—his friend—had died from this man’s plans. His brother had been strung up like a puppet in their own mind twice. Sevenset and Fives had nearly died tonight. The Jedi could have been slaughtered at a moment’s notice. Thousands of his brothers died each day in a war this man had been profiting from for his own sick game.
Merciless rage almost seemed too good for him.
The chancellor snarled silently, whatever order he had intended to give never leaving his mouth. The split-second distraction gave Windu an opening. The purple blade flashed in an arc towards the chancellor’s side. He blocked the strike, his hand angling the blade down, its point only inches from Echo’s head.
The room held its breath.
Chancellor Palpatine smiled the coldest smile Sixes had seen since Umbara. “Ah, compassion,” he said. “A truly double-edged sword.”
Windu took his lightsaber away from where it sparked on his opponent’s blade. He lashed out with his left foot, kicking Palpatine’s shoulder. He swung around, moving away from the whole situation by spinning around until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Sixes.
“Your corruption will hurt you more than my compassion ever will,” Windu replied, his features still and calm as ever.
Palpatine didn’t like that. He lunged, the red blade slicing forward. Windu braced, already moving to parry the lunge in a circular fashion. Sixes angled Reaper’s shaft so the butt end of it was ready to jab into the fray while Palpatine was dealing with a counterattack.
But… neither strike landed.
With a strangled yelp, Palpatine fell, face-first, onto his own red carpeting. Sixes followed his form back to his feet, searching for what had tripped him.
Sixes saw and smiled.
Echo’s hand was clenched around the fabric at the hem of Palpatine’s long robe.
Windu’s blade leveled at Palpatine’s head. “Chancellor Palpatine, you are under arrest,” he said.
Kark that. “No he’s not,” Sixes said.
In the same instant that Palpatine attempted to push himself up off the carpet, Sixes switched his grip and whirled Reaper’s blade around in a flash of black beskar. The well-kept blade sliced cleanly into the chancellor’s neck at his throat. Another strong wrench of the weapon’s shaft yielded a wet rip and a dark spurt of blood until his head rolled away, detached.
There was a moment of silence. Sixes grimaced a little, noticing how much blood had gotten onto Windu’s robe. At least the carpet was red…
“That was gross,” Echo said, finally breaking the silence.
Sixes looked over at Windu. “Jedi don’t tend to kill people. Mandalorians do.”
The general sighed, but he didn’t look terribly upset. He deactivated his saber and clipped it back to his belt. “You are correct. He was Sith, however. Had it come down to it, I would have done what needed to be done to protect you both and the Galaxy at large.”
Echo pushed up to sitting. Sixes noted him carefully avoid putting weight on his right knee, and tucked that away to ask about later. “Well. At least we know which order your batchmate was intending to send us back at the Clubhouse.”
Sixes tilted his head, going back over the whirlwind of the past several minutes. He had no idea why he’d destroyed his other vambrace.
Then it hit him. He didn’t remember. Nero had said Order Six was nothing harmful. Thire and Fox had said they’d had no memory of the orders they’d been given by Palpatine. Sixes glanced at his destroyed comm unit. “Right,” he said, still struggling to acknowledge that Palpatine had successfully taken control, and he had no memory of it.
Whatever had happened, it hadn’t worked. Echo was alive. Windu was alive. Palpatine was dead.
He stepped over Palpatine’s body to offer Echo a hand up. The ARC eyed him like he knew exactly what would happen if he didn’t take the offer. When he got to his feet, Sixes’ suspicions were confirmed as he gingerly balanced most of his weight on his left leg.
“Are you injured?” Windu asked, his brow creasing.
Echo shook his head. “No, sir, it’s… it’s an old injury. I just need some rest and some pain meds and I’ll be fine. The other generals need more attention than me.”
Sixes looked at Reaper. It would do in a pinch. He passed it over and planted its base next to Echo’s bad leg. “Here. It’s not a crutch, but it’ll help.”
Echo took it, evening out his weight slightly with its assistance. Then he looked back up at the blade, still smeared with red along the edge. “Remind me never to get you that pissed off, sir,” he said with a small smile. “And did you actually shout at him to shut him up?”
Sixes rolled his eyes. “No. Technically, that was a very impromptu redalur be akaan,” he told him. “My trainer taught it to my batch. Mando thing.”
The ARC raised an eyebrow at him. Windu spoke up. “Dance of war?”
“I bet the Five-Oh-First would love to learn that,” Echo said with a wider smile.
Gods help them. “Not happening, freak.”
insert a .gif of the opening song from Wicked here, please :)
He's dead, folks!!! I truly enjoyed writing Sixes and Echo together, what a fun little team-up this has been. Next chapter probably coming at the end of October? Anyhoo
@23-bears @theultimatesandwich @rndmpeep @thechaoticfanartist @soclonely @501st-verified as always lemme know if you don't wanna be tagged, or if you DO wanna be tagged!
As long as "you" means the Jedi Council. Sixes and Echo find open minds and ears in the Jedi Council, explaining what really happened to Fives and Sevenset that evening. But after that? The matter might be out of their hands...
Words: ~5100
Warnings: None!
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Grim Reaper: Nero what the kark
N__o: what???
Grim Reaper: You said Order 66 wasn’t dangerous!
N__o: no???
N__o: oh shit wait
Grim Reaper: IT IS VERY DANGEROUS
N__o: YEAH NO SHIT, ASSHOLE, IT’S IN THE 60s
Grim Reaper: YOU TOLD ME IT WAS SAFE
N__o: it was a typo!!! I meant Order 6!!!!
Grim Reaper: YOUR “TYPO” NEARLY GOT KENOBI STRANGLED BY HIS OWN TROOPER
N__o: I WAS FOCUSING ON MAKING SURE THIS KID GETS THROUGH SURGERY
Grim Reaper: Pay some karking attention next time!
N__o: “NEXT TIME”???? YOU PLANNING A REDO???
Grim Reaper: No, I’m going to punch your face into the mats when I see you. Next time.
N__o: oh lol
N__o: i was worried for a sec
N__o: not that this whole thing is not worrying!
Grim Reaper: Just make sure the kid’s okay and work on getting Tal Mu’s data to the Jedi
N__o: well duh
Grim Reaper: You did not just ‘well duh’ me after what you caused
N__o: YOU’RE NOT MY MOM
It was nighttime still, and Coruscant’s jagged cityscape was aglow with windows of different shapes and sizes and colors. Streaks of red and white flew by outside the speeder’s windows as the commander followed the two Jedi in their speeder through the crisscrossing flight lanes above the planet’s surface. Echo sat in the passenger seat, feeling quite a ways out of his depth beside the silent commander. Everyone else had been left at the Clubhouse, on the off-chance something went to shit and they needed to get the injured troopers to safety. The Jedi had insisted Echo and Commander Sixes accompany them to the Council to give their testimony, and he wouldn’t deny being apprehensive about speaking to Jedi he’d never met before.
Grim Reaper: I KRIFFING COULD BE WITH THE SHIT I DEAL WITH
-scene break-
Skywalker was still AWOL, according to Kenobi. The general wouldn’t give any other information, but Echo already had his suspicions that it had something to do with Senator Amidala. She was usually one of the reasons Skywalker mysteriously found other things to do while on Coruscant. He’d helped matters by comming Rex to assure him everything was under control without giving away too much. That way, the captain wouldn’t be dragging Skywalker back out to investigate any time soon. Ahsoka had suddenly appeared just as they were preparing to leave. She’d stumbled over some explanation of being at a friend’s house for a study session/sleepover, and she’d just seen the news, so she figured Saleha and Mira would know something.
Getting her to stay at the Noodle Bar had been like pulling teeth until Echo had gently told her that he would feel better with her there to watch Fives’ back while he recovered. She was still their little sister. The fight had gone out of her at that, and she’d hugged him and then Kenobi tightly before letting them leave.
Echo hadn’t been lying, either. He did feel miles better knowing Ahsoka was there in case the Corries found them.
The Jedi Temple came into view between skyscrapers and towers. The building seemed bigger in the dark, somehow. It had fewer lights on than the rest of the planet, but Echo could just make out the pinpricks of light at the top of the building that marked the Council Room. He swallowed, feeling his mouth go drier than was truly comfortable. The Jedi would listen. The Jedi didn’t dismiss the clones like others did.
“What if this doesn’t work?” He heard himself ask the question, breaking the overwhelming silence that had reigned since they’d left the restaurant.
The commander didn’t move, didn’t react outwardly at all. Then again, with his helmet back on, it was hard to tell. His fingers shifted a bit on the steering columns in his hands. “I’ve had a good run, I guess.”
Oh.
Right.
Echo sunk a bit lower into the comfortable seat.
If this didn’t work, the Jedi didn’t have jurisdiction over disciplinary retaliation. Mostly, that fell to the nattie admiralty. People like Tarkin. People who usually had a grudge against scientifically mass-produced soldiers “taking” positions usually earned by natties over a storied career. More than a few of them shared the opinion that a clone who didn’t behave exactly as directed and expected ought to be retrained or removed entirely.
“Guess this better work, then,” he replied. It sounded a hell of a lot more confident than he felt.
The commander made a noise acknowledging the statement, but nothing else. The rest of the flight went in silence, just as the beginning had.
They landed beside the two Jedi on a small landing pad at the top of the Temple. The commander pressed a round purple button on the speeder’s dashboard, and several mechanical clunks sounded from deep inside the vehicle. That, combined with the quiet electronic whir of machinery moving into a different position, made Echo resolve not to approach this particular speeder by himself. It probably had more weapons capabilities than the average AT-RT walker.
He followed at the rear of the group as the Jedi led them down into the building. The place was darker than he’d anticipated. Maybe he was just too used to the RMBs and cruisers, where the only true dark you got was the engine rooms and the barracks when his squad went to bed. Then again, he mused, watching General Ti navigate the semi-darkness with no more difficulty than she would in full light, perhaps there were more nocturnal or crepuscular people here than he was used to living around.
They followed down a gently spiraling staircase with wide steps and soft pink-orange lights in sconces along the walls. Eventually, they came to a corridor that widened out as it approached a large arched opening. Two Temple Guards stood on either side, faceless and impassive. A bit like the Corries when they were on-duty, from what Echo had observed. Their heads tilted down almost imperceptibly as Kenobi and Ti came before them. One of them pressed the button on the control panel, and the huge doors slid open at the center.
The commander turned to look at him. His helmet’s green visor glowed dimly, casting an eerie sheen onto his black armor. His hand moved, just in front of his chest, meant to be partially concealed. Echo’s brain immediately latched onto ARC sign, eager for a shred of familiarity in such a strange situation.
“Status?” Just as Echo imagined it would sound, the commander’s interrogatory sign was almost nonexistent. If not for Echo’s HUD tracking his gloved hand’s movement against the black armor, he probably would have missed the question mark entirely.
Echo nodded back once, firmly. “On you, Commander,” he replied, likewise keeping his hand close to his body. What was the commander’s name sign, he wondered. Fives had laughed himself silly after creating Echo’s. Echo had no trouble believing that the Chaos Batch hadn’t been the kindest when creating name signs for each other—if indeed they’d done such a thing. Plenty of clones chose their own, just like their spoken names.
He pushed the musings out of his mind. The commander rapped his knuckles against Echo’s chestplate gently, then turned to follow the Jedi inside.
Echo swallowed back the rising unease brought about by a sudden display of vague affection from one of the least affectionate people he knew. He was an ARC. He could do this. Fives needed him to do this. Domino Squad’s stubborn heart-before-head mentality had gotten them both this far. Echo wasn’t about to disappoint his batch by backing out now because of a dozen space wizards he didn’t know.
The Council Room was better lit than the rest of the building he’d seen so far. More than likely, this was because of the diurnal members present. Echo wouldn’t complain. Generals Kenobi and Ti nodded to acknowledge Windu and Yoda sitting on their right when they entered, then walked to their respective seats in the circle of chairs. They both sat down with a bit less grace than usual, and Echo could sympathize. He hadn’t had a chance to unwind from Ringo Vinda yet, and his knee and elbow were screaming for a chance to lie down.
He and the commander stopped at the center of the room. As politely as possible, Echo let his gaze sweep the room behind his visor, taking in attendance. Most of the Council were here in-person, leaving Generals Koth and Fisto as the only holograms in their seats. An empty chair stood roughly opposite the door. Echo didn’t know enough to guess why it was so.
Windu started, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepling his fingers before he spoke. He addressed the two of them in the center. “This is an unusual situation for us all, and we appreciate you both for trusting the Jedi with the evidence you’ve collected,” he said. “The Council has already been briefed on Master Ti’s story of events, as well as what Nala Se and the chancellor have reported.”
Echo couldn’t help the grip of tension that slowly overtook his body at that. He would need to go through everything all over again. Force, why couldn’t Fives be doing this? Oh, right, because Nala Se had drugged him and he was currently (hopefully) passed out asleep back in the Clubhouse.
Windu probably sensed their apprehension. “I understand you may have conflicting evidence to those reports,” he said evenly. “That is why you are here.”
Yoda, seated to his right, stepped in. “Impartial we will be, as we are able. Value your judgment, and your intellect, we do.” The small general gave a warm smile that matched his stature.
“If you would please introduce yourselves to the Council,” Windu went on, gesturing to his colleagues around the room. “We will hear your testimony, and then Master Kenobi or Master Ti can present the evidence they said they would bring.”
Echo and the commander both nodded. The commander took a breath, then reached up to remove his helmet. It was still jarring, to an extent. Most clones (most clones outside of the 501st, Echo had noticed) were particular about which natties got to see their faces.
“My name is Commander Sixes,” he said, choosing to address the empty chair, from what Echo could tell. “Seventh Sky Corps, Star Fighter Pilot Legion.”
Echo followed his lead, removing his helmet and tucking it under his left arm. He held back a wince when his elbow twinged. “I’m Echo, sir,” he said, choosing to address General Windu. “I’m ARC Trooper Fives’ batchmate.”
A small smile graced the Jedi Master’s face. “Anakin speaks highly of you and your brother,” he said gently.
Echo allowed himself a quiet smirk. “We’re good at our jobs, sir.” Out of his periphery, he swore he caught the most miniscule eye-roll from the commander.
Yoda spoke next. “Involved in this matter, how became you?”
Well that was an easy answer for him. “He’s… my batchmate, sir. My twin. I’d honestly be shocked if I hadn’t gotten involved somehow.” Realizing that probably wasn’t very useful information, he quickly added on, “As for specifically how, there’s a…” He blinked, figuring out the best way to explain the Numbers to the Jedi Kriffing Council. “There’s a group of them, sir, with repeating designations like Fives. And we have a group chain of communications. We were all made aware that Sevenset and Fives were on Coruscant and in trouble through that.”
There was a short pause as the Jedi processed this. “For you the same is it, Commander?” Yoda asked.
“Yessir.”
General Ti raised a hand. “Actually, Masters, the commander here was involved on Kamino as well. He assisted in locating clone trooper Tup when he had disappeared from the medical facilities there.”
The Jedi’s attention refocused on the commander. He gave a brief glance to General Ti, but he nodded. “I have connections there. I knew if Tup stayed in Nala Se’s care, he wouldn’t get the treatment he needed. I pulled some strings.”
“Some strings?” General Windu repeated, his eyebrows rising a bit. He then closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “My apologies, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” he said, holding up his other hand. “Firstly, I would like to understand how ARC Troopers Fives and Sevenset went from escorting Tup for a medical evaluation to being transported to Coruscant for an audience with Chancellor Palpatine.”
Echo glanced to the commander beside him. Slowly, the two of them worked together to piece together Fives’ journey from Ringo Vinda to Kamino. Echo was sure to mention the Separatist’s attempted kidnapping along the way, as it still stood out as strange to him why the enemy would want a wounded soldier. Periodically, General Ti would jump in to corroborate their story, adding confirmations of Fives’ clean bill of health, of Sevenset’s loyal service in Rancor Battalion, and of Tup’s strange behavior while he had been examined. The Jedi listened in silence, occasionally nodding along or leaning forward until they reached the part of the account that left Sevenset and Fives in the room with the chancellor alone.
General Windu held up an open palm, gently signaling them to stop. “Thank you,” he said first. “While we would like to hear from the two ARC troopers in question, we understand why this was impossible. Thank you for being their voices.”
Were normal Jedi always this flowery? This… borderline sappy? Maybe Echo had just spent too long with Skywalker, who was sometimes blunter than a boulder with his so-called wisdom. Regardless, he dipped his chin, shifting his weight to his stronger leg from the straight and square stance he’d subconsciously adopted to tell his brother’s story.
“Master Ti,” Yoda said, looking to her not quite directly across the room. “Evidence you have of what happened in that room, yes?”
“Yes, Master,” she answered, producing the datastick from her robes. She plugged it into the arm of her chair and tapped a button.
Echo and the commander took rapid steps back as a blue hologram emerged from the floor only inches ahead of their boots. Text sprang up in the usual layout from portable datasticks. There were four files: the first was a folder. Echo presumed it contained Mira’s pictures of Sevenset, and possibly whatever documentation was required to demonstrate they had both been high out of their minds. The other three were in odd file formats, but they were all downloaded from HUDs, so they were most likely the communication histories from the Guard commanders, and the video from Nines’ HUD.
Echo felt a shiver run up his spine at the memory. He was not looking forward to seeing it again.
General Ti selected the picture folder. She pulled up images of the blaster wound and the slash across Sevenset’s back. He felt the room inhale as one when the second image became clear. The hologram slowly rotated for what felt like ages before anyone spoke.
When someone did, it was General Kenobi. “Gentlemen, would you please explain what Fives and Sevenset told you about these injuries?”
So, they did. Echo explained Elevensies’ presence in the room, noting how much the kid had looked up to Sevenset, and that he had helped Sevenset earlier in the meeting. The commander revealed the chancellor identifying the two ARCs as traitors to the Republic, and then explained the fateful order given to the Coruscant Guards that changed everything. Echo stepped in afterwards to recount what Fives had said about the lightsaber the chancellor had used, and he once again felt the air in the round room grow heavy and oppressive as the Council practically held their breath until he finished where General Ti had arrived into the room.
He forced himself to take a slow, steady breath. He forced his fingers to uncurl a little where he’d clenched them into a fist under his helmet. This had to work. They had to be able to do something.
They had to understand they were risking everything just by telling them this.
“Serious accusations these are,” Yoda said at length, his rough voice sounding so much louder than it probably was in the absolute silence.
“Unfortunately,” General Mundi said beside him, “there’s not much argument with those images. We all know nothing else could have caused that wound.”
There were murmurs of agreement around the room.
“Still,” said another Jedi. Echo was glad of his efforts to learn the Council members during ARC training. Jedi Master Saesee Tiin, if his memory served. “Still, the evidence of the inhibitor chips remains in chancellor’s hands. Any evidence of his direct involvement, including in activating them—if indeed he did—is anecdotal at best.”
“Not quite.” General Kenobi looked to Ti. “We did some… experimentation.”
She pulled up the communications histories from the two Coruscant commanders. “These belong to Commanders Fox and Thire of the Coruscant Guard. Commander Sixes has confirmed that the oldest two frequencies used by them both are to other clone commanders, including to himself. But the most recent frequency—”
“I recognize it,” General Windu said. Beside him, Yoda nodded gravely. “That belongs to the chancellor. He was the last one to contact them.”
“What relevance has this?” Yoda wanted to know.
The commander answered. “I called them to help take care of Elevensies and the other Guards from the meeting room. After that, they arrived where we were meeting to sort through all of this. They tried to kill Fives and Sevenset without warning.”
“And they repeated the ‘good soldiers follow orders’ thing that Tup had said on Ringo Vinda,” Echo added on quickly.
The commander nodded. “They weren’t themselves, generals. I’ve… I’ve known Thire my whole life. That wasn’t him. That was the chip talking.”
And on it went. Echo couldn’t remember the last time he had talked this long to this many Jedi—and it probably had never happened. They answered the questions asked as best as they could, and Kenobi and Ti offered as many insights as they had. They repeated what Commander Fox had admitted about the Guard’s mysterious disappearances. The commander told the abbreviated story of his friend and former captain’s fate, to the quiet shock of everyone hearing it for the first time. Eventually, though, they had to show the video.
There was a long pause when Master Yoda asked to watch it. Echo glanced at the commander, who gave no reaction. But after a few seconds, the commander took a breath, then started by explaining the data Ti had received from Tal Mu and the 118th Special Forces Division about the chips. He showed his comm unit to both Windu and Yoda, explaining the mistake Commander Nero had made with the orders deemed “safe”. Kenobi explained his role, explained the theory behind the chancellor’s voice specifically being the one to trigger these preprogrammed orders.
And then there was nothing else to do but watch.
It was… odd, watching the events from someone else’s perspective. Of course, he’d been recording from his HUD too, as had the commander beside him. But watching it from Nines’ eyes… knowing that as soon as the order was out in the air, they were watching events Nines had no chance at remembering…. It made his skin prickle. They watched Nines lunge for his general without hesitation, hands outstretched to do whatever damage was necessary. None of them had been prepared, not really. It had taken precious seconds for Echo and the commanders to even realize what was happening, and that it shouldn’t be happening.
Underlying the later half of the short video was the familiar muttered mantra: good soldiers follow orders; kill the Jedi. By the time their stun rings found their mark (and somehow missed Kenobi), the Council Room had gone deathly still and quiet. The muffled voices and flurry of motion at the end cut off when Echo had pulled off Nines’ helmet to stop it.
The room was now silent.
Echo concentrated on keeping his breathing even and deep. There was nothing else he could do while the Jedi mulled over all the evidence they had shared. Echo understood it was a lot. It had taken them an hour and a half to go through it all. The “attempted assassination” had occurred almost five hours ago now. He just needed to keep his cool, keep his frazzled wits as collected as he could, and he would get through this.
After an enormously sluggish few moments had passed, someone finally spoke. It was Plo Koon, his expression largely impassible behind his mask and eye protection. His clawed hands were interlaced in front of his chin, and one leg was propped up at the ankle on the other’s knee. “The entire Grand Army of the Republic,” he said, “all of the clones currently in service and in training on Kamino… they all have this inhibitor chip?”
Echo and the commander nodded. General Ti did as well.
“And there is…” He trailed off. Echo imagined that, if he were Force-sensitive, the room would feel like a pile of noodles, emotionally speaking. “Somehow, Chancellor Palpatine’s voice can be used to trigger commands in them.”
There were more nods, this time from around the room as well.
“And at least two of those commands are lethal,” General Windu added, his face stony.
“Including one that has unintentionally killed one Jedi already,” General Mundi said, “and has attempted to cause the death of one more.” He looked beside him at Kenobi, whose eyes were fixed on the hologram still floating in the middle of the room. “Not to mention the number of troopers they have put at risk if what the commander reports of the Coruscant Guard is true.”
“Investigate further we must,” Yoda agreed with a decisive nod. His clawed fingers tightened briefly around the head of his walking stick.
There were more murmurings of agreement around the room. Echo licked his lips, his mouth once again feeling dry. He had to ask. “Where do you start?”
Windu and Yoda looked at each other, then glances were exchanged in rapid succession, sweeping around the circle. Echo would never understand Jedi.
“Regrettably,” Windu said, “the evidence you’ve presented all contains a common thread. One point of connection that binds them all together.”
He had been afraid of that answer. Well… not really afraid. He’d been suspecting it for a while now. But he knew hearing it out loud would make it all feel real.
“Chancellor Palpatine,” Yoda said. “Much to answer for he has. At the least, complicit in treacherous plans he is. At the most…” He shook his head. “Capable of great destruction and death.”
“He’s working with the Separatists, is what he is,” a voice from the other side of the circle said. Echo turned. Eeth Koth, in hologram, shook his head, leaning forward in his seat. “Master Yoda, we cannot approach him without an overabundance of caution, given the evidence. At the very least, he has a lightsaber in his possession. Now, whether it is his own—” he opened his hands— “I’ll admit, that’s up in the air. But this is a treason plot at its heart.”
The other hologram, Kit Fisto beside him, nodded. “I’m afraid I have to agree. I’m sure we all do, to an extent. The chancellor is dangerous.”
“Oh, for—” A disgruntled noise accompanied the quiet sound of Kenobi’s palm striking his forehead. “I cannot believe this,” he said, his hand sliding down over his eyes. There was a pause as they all waited for him to continue. Eventually, he uncovered his eyes and explained. “Before the First Battle of Geonosis, when I had been captured, Dooku came to speak with me,” he said. “He said something. I hadn’t given it much thought until tonight’s events.”
“Helpful is it?” Yoda asked.
Kenobi’s mouth pressed into a line, his expression drawn. “He mentioned Qui-Gon, in a way that implied Qui-Gon might have helped him then. I denied it, I had to. But he went on about Qui-Gon’s old displeasure with the bureaucracy and corruption of the Senate, which was true, and said that if Qui-Gon had learned the truth as he had, he would have joined him.”
“The truth?” Windu repeated, his brows furrowing.
He nodded. “He said something like, ‘What if I told you the Republic is already controlled by the Lord of the Sith?’ He named him Darth Sidious.”
Echo looked over at the commander, making quite an effort to keep his mouth clamped shut around the venom he wanted to spit. The Sith had done this? Chancellor Palpatine was Sith? Was he The Sith? The commander gave no reaction, as per kriffing usual, so Echo had to look around the room and wait for someone to keep talking.
“Do we go to the Senate?” Master Tiin asked as other Jedi glanced around the room as well.
“Certainly not if we want something done in a timely manner,” Kenobi mused, a tired smile coming to his face. “But no, the Senate is too…” He sighed. “I fear Palpatine holds too much sway there. While we understand that all of you,” he said, gesturing to the two of them in the middle of the room, “are fully sentient and capable of exercising free will that these commands appear to take away, I’m not sure enough of the Senate will see through Palpatine’s counterargument and join our thinking.”
The commander did a valiant job in containing an eye-roll. “Unless you explain to the senators that every Coruscant Guardsman present could be ordered to kill them without warning. I’m sure that would go over spectacularly well, sir.”
That got a pained, weak laugh out of Kenobi, who then sat forward to rub his eyes while he settled. “Oh, yes, spectacularly.”
“I would also add that while we know the chancellor’s voice triggers these chips,” General Ti spoke up, “that does not eliminate the prospect that other conspirators may exist, and may be capable of the same control.”
Well, that was terrifying.
“Handle this ourselves we must,” Yoda said with some finality.
Windu sighed and shook his head. “But, surely, there’s a better way than marching into the chancellor's office, sabers drawn, and hoping he’s as helpless as he prefers to be seen.”
The commander shifted where he stood. “I have a legion of star fighters at my command. I’m sure lining a few of them up outside his window wouldn’t be any trouble.”
Kenobi shook his head now. “Clone pilots,” he said. “It’s too dangerous, Commander.”
Echo spoke up. “We made it work earlier, didn’t we?” he said. “When we deafened our helmets, no one else was affected but Nines. We want to help, General.”
“We know you do,” Windu replied, his voice gentle but unyielding. “But Obi-Wan is right. The chancellor’s control over these chips is still too much of an unknown for us to safely bring more troopers with us.”
“And since he has a lightsaber,” General Koon added, “there is no telling the magnitude of his powers in the Force, not to mention whatever allies he may have on call.”
In a moment rivaling some of Fives’ more stupid suggestions around the briefing table, Echo replied, “We could wear earplugs and use slugthrowers instead, sir.”
It made Kenobi laugh again, this time with more genuine mirth. “And there’s the Five-oh-first for you.”
The commander shrugged. “I know somewhere we could get a lot of slugthrowers.”
While Echo’s remark had caused some chuckles and quiet smiles, that appeared to garner more looks of concern than anything else. Had Echo not already met the rest of his batch and witnessed Saleha pulling adhesive breach charges out of a cookie tin, he might have joined them. The average clone trooper—even the average clone commander—was not supposed to have a mystery source of non-Republic weapons at his beck and call.
Now, however, Echo couldn’t help but say, “If you say it’s Commander Nero, I will lose it.”
“Of course it’s not Nero,” came the immediate reply. “He’s halfway across the galaxy right now.”
Echo arched an eyebrow at him. “Forgive my assumptions based on several instances of past experiences, sir,” he said, too tired to fully disguise his sarcasm.
“Watch your tone, ARC.”
“Gentlemen.” They immediately stopped their exchange to return their attention to General Windu. “We are not bringing clone troopers to confront a man who is capable of mind-controlling clone troopers.”
Unfortunately, Echo found he couldn’t soundly argue against that point.
Commander Sixes apparently could. “What about Mandalorians?”
General Windu stared at him, then brought his hands up to rub his eyes. He sighed. “What about Mandalorians, Commander?”
The commander explained. “If, hypothetically, I could contact several members of a non-hostile Mandalorian clan who have no qualms with using slugthrowers against people who wield lightsabers, then… what about Mandalorians?”
“Hypothetically,” Windu repeated.
“Of course, General.”
Windu leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands and raised them to pinch the bridge of his nose between both index fingers. For a few seconds, he simply breathed, and the other Council members seemed to breathe in concert. Even without the Force, it was calming. Eventually, Windu sat back up and addressed them both.
“The Council needs some time to discuss our options,” he said, receiving several bobbing heads in agreement around the circle. “Commander, Echo, if you would be kind enough to wait outside, we will try to make this brief. And we will keep the commander's… resources in mind.”
Echo had expected that. The Jedi always did things as a group, and regardless of the enormous gravity of the situation, they would need to mull this over before acting on it. The commander seemed to accept this easily as well. They both saluted and were dismissed back out the double doors into the dimly lit hallway. He slipped his helmet back on to make it easier to see.
“That went smoothly,” the commander remarked flatly from behind his own helmet.
“I guess,” Echo said. After a beat, he asked, “You really know how to contact a clan of Mandalorians?”
The commander looked at him. “Yeah. One of them trained my batch.”
He blinked. “Wait, she’s the one who grabbed Tup, right?”
“Yep.”
“And… how many are in her clan?”
The commander shrugged, folding his arms. “Dunno. Twenty, maybe? There’s always a few hanging around Coruscant. Easy money.”
“Right….” He stared a few seconds longer before looking away. “And since your trainer is part of the clan, I’m guessing anyone who messes with your batch could rile up the whole lot of ‘em, yeah?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
I'm sure Sixes isn't plotting anything at all ever ._. @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @rndmpeep @xylionet @thechaoticfanartist @501st-verified
anywaaayyyy I think the next update will happen sometime during September (not on the 1st tho). Owlie is using August as a break month. I've been writing this story for like... 2 years straight??? Wild. But the next chapter is almost done, and the story itself is almost done! I shall see you all in September (and perhaps when Owlie is a year older!)
Happy June everyone! I am back from a lovely vacation and I am RARING to go!!!! Sixes has years of training and experience to handle almost any situation he'd encountered so far. This situation does not fit into any of those boxes. What the fuck.
Words: ~7K
Warnings: Some canon-typical violence, also a sensory overload meltdown but it's short and not terrible and at the very end.
Link to Master List of Chapters on Tumblr
Link to full story on Ao3
Sixes hadn’t let himself think about… everything yet. He’d pretty much had tunnel vision since Sevenset had messaged everyone in a panic, mere seconds after Maral had told him two the ARCs had been taken to Coruscant by Nala Se. He had no idea what had happened on the 501st’s most recent campaign. He had no idea what Fives had managed to do to get himself and Sevenset in so much utter shit. Apparently it had something to do with Palpatine and a lightsaber and Elevensies—none of which explained why Sevenset had a blaster shot in his gut, Sixes would point out!
That was for later. Right now, he let his mind and training take over, guiding the Shyyyo Speeder into the garage in the Noodle Bar as smoothly as he always did. He’d thank Maral later for keeping the security forces off their jets. She’d understand. For right now, he messaged her the word safe as he got out of the vehicle to help Sevenset.
Kriffing hells, Sevenset. When he opened the side door, the ARC nearly toppled out of the seat onto the durocrete floor of the garage. Sixes caught him instead by the strap of his chestplate. He hissed when the jostling tugged at his injuries, but Sixes didn’t have time to sympathize right now.
“Let’s go,” he said, putting his arm around his back and practically hauling him out of the speeder. Fives had gotten out already, hovering nervously nearby, although Sixes didn’t miss the way he leaned his hand a little heavily against the speeder’s black body for support.
They were ARCs, for Maker’s sake, and they were this unsteady? Sevenset had survived the Zillo, and Fives had come out the other side of Krell’s command, and they somehow looked worse than he’d ever seen them.
He didn’t say anything about it. He helped (dragged) Sevenset to the door inside, then took them both downstairs to the Clubhouse. How many medical supplies did they have in stock? Bacara hadn’t used any recently. Thire usually had his own supply in his office or barracks, and frankly, Sixes didn’t use such things as often as he probably should. Whatever, it meant more for everyone else. He already had a few scars, he could handle a few more.
But Sevenset… The man was panting by the time they’d reached the bottom of the stairs, his gloved fingers gripped like a vice around the far strap of Sixes’ own chestplate. Sixes didn’t know if he had what he needed to get Sevenset the help he clearly required.
“Bit farther, Sevens,” he said, entering the access code to the Clubhouse door.
When it slid open, he involuntarily tensed at the uncommon noise level coming from the normally near-silent apartment. But that was to be expected with almost all the Numbers in one place. It wasn’t even very much noise, just the odd quiet conversation, but it was still more than usual.
After Maral’s warning that whatever Sevenset and Fives were up to was bigger than they both knew, he’d not-so-gently ordered them all here. He figured more minds were better than a few, and he knew Sevenset and Fives would be grateful to see everyone. That, and he wasn’t too keen on one of them letting something slip to the wrong audience. Better to keep an eye on them.
Proving at least one of his ideas a good one, as soon as he rounded the corner from the hallway into the common space, Do-si-do shot to his feet where he’d been lounging on the slyyyg plushie in the corner.
“Sevenset–holy Force!”
At once, the Numbers were on their feet (if they hadn’t been already), instinctively moving closer to the three of them. Fours and Trees hung back slightly, the most wary of the group. Loops, Nines, Do-si-do, and Echo, however, pressed in to see the extent of what had happened.
Sevenset looked too stunned to really compute what was happening as Sixes manhandled him over to the couch and made him sit. The others parted easily to let him move around the room, quickly reforming their concerned huddle when they could.
As soon as Fives was visible, Echo broke off and grabbed him, hugging him like he’d disappear if he let go.
“What the kark did you do, Fives?” he demanded, but anyone would hear the underlying, bone-deep worry behind the angry front.
His brother sagged against him, digging his fingers into the gaps in his armor, mumbling something inaudible before burying his face against his batcher’s neck.
Sixes tuned their conversation out, finally removing his helmet and setting it on the floor near one end of the couch. “Kit off, Sevens,” he said.
“Why’re you all here?” Sevenset asked, looking more genuinely confused than Sixes had ever known him to look.
“I told them to,” he answered. “Kit off, now.”
“We were kriffing worried!” Do-si-do exclaimed as Sixes lost patience waiting for Sevenset to get his armor off, and sat down next to him to take it off himself. “You sent all that in the chat and then went silent. What were we supposed to think?”
Loops nodded, his arms folded tensely over his chest. “Yeah, something about Elevensies being down and—”
“And an Evil Palpatine?” Do-si-do cut in, his curls bouncing with the force of his concern. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“How much trouble are you both actually in?” Nines wanted to know, looking between Sevenset on the couch and Fives still wrapped up in Echo’s arms.
“So much,” Fives answered, lifting his face to be heard. “So much kriffing trouble, holy shit—” A shaky breath cut him off, and he let Echo push his head back down to his shoulder. The true weight night’s activities were finally hitting home, if Sixes had to guess. Echo walked him over to the big bean bag chair next to the slyyyg, sitting them both down and starting to get his brother’s armor off to make him more comfortable.
Trees spoke up, holding a datapad he’d brought with him. Sixes hadn’t liked the idea of another GAR-registered device in the place, so he’d made Remy clear it before Trees had been let in. “Uh, you’re both wanted for attempting to assassinate the chancellor, as well as—”
“Because he’s evil!” Sevenset interrupted him sharply, managing to undo the clips on the sides of his chestplate. Sixes grabbed the armor piece and started lifting it up off his torso, but a cry of pain made him freeze.
Do-si-do was at Seveset’s other side on the couch in a flash. “What? What happened?”
“Stuck,” the ARC wheezed, blinking back threatening tears.
“The plastoid melted on his back,” Sixes told them both, seeing how the undersuit clung to the marred and blackened armor. “Lightsabers’ll do that.”
“How do we get it off?” Do-si-do wanted to know, looking to him frantically, his hands clasped around his friend’s unarmored arm.
“Lightsabers?” Loops repeated, his brows furrowing.
Sixes sighed sharply, feeling the beginnings of a headache form as his brain tried to process (and not process) everything he had and had not learned tonight. Before he could speak to this point, a new voice from the doorway to the hall had them all turning sharply to see who had arrived.
“Sixes,” Mira said again, taking in the scene with remarkable calm. “Do you want help?”
“You shouldn’t get involved in this, Mira,” he told her bluntly, leaning around Sevenset to try to figure out how to get his armor off without tearing his skin open further.
“I’m afraid I already am,” the old weequay said, stepping forward a bit. “This property is under my name, dear.”
“That’s not–I mean—” He sighed through his nose, closing his eyes to formulate his thoughts. There were so many thoughts.
When Mira spoke again, she sounded closer. “You do recall I was a field medic in the Republic Army for almost a decade before the Noodle Dream reorganized my priorities?”
He looked over at her, at her soft blue dress with embroidered grape vines and flowers, at the quiet open expression she always wore to put them at ease. Oddly, it wasn’t hard to imagine those wrinkled hands in sanitary gloves, smeared with blood, and never shaking once as they applied bandages and sewed stitches. Something about her consistency, her efficiency, and her never ending supply of grace and goodness told him she would have made a formidable field medic.
“This isn’t a simple thing,” he said.
She smiled. “I know. I’ve been watching the holonews.”
Of course she had.
But he didn’t want her getting hurt. If this whole situation was half as messy as he suspected it might be, there was every chance anyone helping Sevenset and Fives—clone or civilian alike—could be labeled a traitor and sent before a military tribunal for trial. Well. The civvies would get a trial, anyway. He couldn’t do that to her. To her, or to Saleha. They had been nothing but kind and generous to him and his batch, even if they were one of the rougher command batches.
Sixes didn’t know if he’d be able to live with himself if something happened to them just because he’d let them help.
Ultimately, Sevenset forced his hand. The ARC made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, screwing his eyes shut. “Can someone please just get the armor off and make it stop hurting?” he implored, and Sixes could practically feel his resolve crumble.
The faster Sevenset was seen to, the faster he’d be back to his quick smiles and stupid jokes. A steady stream of curses played silently in Sixes’ mind as he realized just how important it suddenly was that Sevenset got back to smiling as soon as possible. This ARC wasn’t even under his command! What the hell had he done to be that important? Clingy little bastard.
“You have the supplies to treat a blaster shot and a lightsaber wound?” Sixes asked Mira. “His armor and undersuit melted together.”
“More than likely, yes,” she nodded. “I’ve been restocking with you and your brothers around. I’ll just be a moment.” She swept out of the room and disappeared.
When she was gone, Trees spoke again. “Not to be pushy, but do we ever get to find out what the hell happened to you two?”
“That’s a long story,” Fives admitted. Echo had gotten him out of his amor entirely, and he was now curled up in the bean bag chair with his brother. “Where do we start?”
“Ringo Vinda?” Echo prompted. “What happened with Tup and General Tiplar?”
Before Fives or Sevenset could speak, the main door to the Clubhouse slid open, making them all jolt again. Maker, they were on edge like the Separatists were next door. But it was just Bacara. Sixes had contacted his batch too. Thire was still tracking down Elevensies, and Nero was gleefully kidnapping another 501st trooper.
“Sixes—” He saw the second his brother recognized the number of unknown people in the room. His whole posture went rigid. “What the hell.”
“Have a seat, we were just about to hear about it,” Sixes said. “Right?” he added, fixing a stare on Fives.
Bacara grumbled something inaudible, but walked over to stand near where Sixes sat on the couch. They all centered their attention on Fives, whose eyes were half-lidded as he struggled against falling asleep. He sat up a little taller, shaking his head a little to clear it.
“Okay. Ringo Vinda. Tup–he’s in our platoon,” he said, rapping his knuckles against Echo’s chestplate. “He uh… he stopped firing in the middle of a skirmish, took his helmet off, walked right up to General Tiplar, and shot her in the head, execution-style.”
“What the kark,” Bacara said.
“Why?” Do-si-do asked, horrified.
They were all horrified. Outside of Umbara, there hadn’t been an incident of a clone breaking ranks to execute a Jedi–and certainly not without obvious cause like this.
“Good soldiers follow orders,” Echo said, and Fives nodded. “It’s all he would say.”
Sixes’ heart thudded to a stop before jolting back to normal. He glanced up at Bacara, largely unreadable behind his helmet still, but he looked down to make brief eye contact. Good soldiers follow orders. He’d heard that before. Years ago, only a few months after Geonosis. Good soldiers follow orders.
“What did it mean?” Do-si-do asked. “What orders?”
“Execution orders,” Sixes guessed, although there wasn’t much uncertainty.
Fives nodded. “Something like that. When we were on Kamino, I… did some scans behind Nala Se’s back. Sevenset and I figured out that we’re all born with an implant in our brains.”
“An inhibitor chip” Sevenset said, spitting the words out like they were bad food.
“A mind-control device,” Fives added with his own stormy glare. “Tup’s malfunctioned. Made him kill.”
“Malfunctioned?” Sixes heard the word come out of his mouth sounding far less sure or steady than he preferred while in command.
The next obvious questions came from Loops. “Why? How?”
Both ARCs shrugged helplessly.
“Where’s the evidence?” Trees asked. Pretty typical of him, even in crisis, wanting the facts. It reminded Sixes of Bacara, actually.
There was silence for a moment, Fives and Sevenset staring at each other. A creeping dread filled both their expressions. It was making Sixes uneasy. What had happened to the evidence? He assumed they had evidence. They weren’t that stupid to have found all this information out and then failed to safeguard it. Then again…. He remembered the explanation Sevenset had given when he’d asked what had happened. Drugs. If someone on Kamino had drugged one or both of them—and there was quite a list of people who might try it—they might not have been in the best state to collect it.
“The chancellor,” Fives breathed. “General Ti gave him the chips, all of ‘em.”
“He still has them,” Sevenset concluded, slumping further on the couch.
Fives’ head fell back against the bean bag. “Kriff me.”
“Why is that bad?” Bacara asked flatly, having missed the earlier discussion of lightsabers and evil chancellors.
But that wasn’t the reason Fives gave. He sat up again, a pronounced snarl curling his lips. “Because he’s the one who can kriffing control them!” he snapped. “Sir!”
“That’s what happened to Elevensies,” Sevenset said, nodding. “He… he was in the room with us, on duty, and he shot me.”
“He shot you?” Do-si-do, Nines, and Loops all exclaimed, turning to him.
“Only after the chancellor told him to,” he hurried to add. “He knew me, he helped me when I got off the gurney they had us on, but as soon as the order was given…”
Silence descended upon the room while they all at least attempted to start processing what had been revealed.
Malfunction. That had stuck in Sixes’ head. Tup—whatever had made him kill, whatever had made him turn against the Jedi… had been a malfunction. An accident, medically speaking.
Good soldiers follow orders.
You are a traitor and must be dealt with as such.
Good soldiers follow orders.
If Tup’s… inhibitor chip could malfunction on a whim, then… it could happen in others, right? It could have just been… an accident….
But the chancellor? The chancellor was another matter. That was dangerous. There was no reason Elevensies would do anything to hurt Sevenset—at least not this badly. The kid practically worshiped him. By that logic, the story the two ARCs told made a degree of sense. But they still had no evidence. Given the chancellor had the entire Guard out looking for Fives and Sevenset, he had no designs to let this incident see the light of day.
A quiet tap on the doorframe from the hall pulled Sixes out of his own head. Mira was back. She had an old-style leather field bag in her hands, the red medical symbol a little faded on the front. Saleha loomed behind her, the old togruta’s face lacking the usual warmth he’d come to expect. A grim sort of expectation replaced it. Oddly, the expression looked at home.
“May I get to work?” Mira asked, looking to the three of them on the couch.
“Please,” Sevenset breathed.
Immediately, Mira slipped into the same quiet authority she radiated when she was playing manager for the Noodle Bar. With a gentle firmness to her voice, the told Bacara and Sixes to move the small oval table to one side, and told Sevenset to kneel on the floor in front of the couch. They did as they were told. She pulled a pillow off the couch to kneel next to Sevenset on the floor. Fives was still royally pissed off, having a whispered argument with his batcher in the corner, but he kept throwing worried glanced over each time Sevenset made the smallest noise of discomfort.
Poor kid.
“I haven’t met you yet,” Mira said lightly. “Look at me, dear,” she said, taking a small light out of her bag. Sevenset set did, wincing when his stomach twinged no doubt. “My name is Mira.”
She flicked the light over his eyes a couple times each, checking to see how hard he’d been hit in the head. Not too hard, Sixes had thought, judging by the color of the bruises. But his pupils still didn’t contract as fast as he thought they should.
When she was done, Sevenset said, “I’m Sevenset. Heard about you, ma’am.”
Mira and Saleha both shot knowing smirks over to Sixes. He rolled his eyes minutely. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to give you for the pain,” Mira explained, pulling on gloves, then beginning to lay out her tools from her bag. “My numbing spray expired while I wasn’t using it, and you’re clearly still under the influence of something, so I won’t risk injections or pills.”
Sevenset’s eyes closed, and he mouthed something to himself. But he said, “Understood, ma’am.”
“I will try to be quick about it.” She got to work. Sevenset laid his front on the couch cushions so Mira had access to the horrific slash across his back. Do-si-do had slid to the floor next to him, almost mimicking his position, to keep him company. Sixes moved down to the end of the couch near Bacara, sitting at the very edge of the cushions. There was still a lot to learn.
“What do you know about these inhibitor chips, Fives?” he asked, knowing Sevenset would be too occupied to answer. Already, Mira’s skill with her scalpel was making him mutter under his breath and flinch occasionally.
Fives rubbed his face, clawing at consciousness. “They’re… partially inorganic. They’re implanted early in our development. Basically at the first sign of a brain, they pop it in so it grows around the thing. They… alter behavior. It’s their nature. We just don’t know how or what kind of behavior it causes.”
“Other than…” Echo added, leaving the obvious unsaid. Other than killing.
Sixes nodded. “And the ‘good soldiers follow orders?’” he asked. “What’s that?”
Fives shrugged. “No clue. It’s all Tup would say. That and… repeating something about killing Jedi.”
You are traitors and must be dealt with as such!
“But they can be removed, right?” Nines wanted to know. He pointed on his own head where Fives and Sevenset both had surgical bandages. “I assumed.”
Removed? Now that was some good news.
Fives nodded. “Yeah, it’s… honestly a pretty straightforward procedure for most medical droids.”
Sixes nodded again, standing up when the buzz of anxious uncertainty under his skin finally got too much for him. He folded his arms, incidentally mirroring his brother beside him. They did that a lot. “And the chancellor, he controls them how?”
“His voice, I guess? Specific verbal commands?” Fives said, unsure. “It’s what it looked like.”
“And he has a lightsaber.”
“A red one,” Sevenset added through gritted teeth. “Hope to hells it’s actually his so the Jedi can take ‘im out–” A hissed curse cut him off, but they understood the implication.
The door to the outside slid open again, and again, they all tensed like a bomb had gone off nearby. Bacara actually growled quietly to himself under his helmet. The other Numbers clustered a bit closer together where they stood near the kitchenette. Two Coruscant Guardsmen entered. Thire came in first, followed by Fox, who, even with his helmet on, was radiating displeasure.
“Okay, anyone wanna tell me what the hell is happening?” Thire asked, their voice doing that thing it did when they were pissed off but still had to be reasonably socially polite. Sickly sweet, Nero called it.
“Now,” Fox added sharply.
“Is Elevens there?” Sevenset wanted to know, trying to sit up and twist around to look.
“No. Stay still, dear,” Mira told him, her voice firm despite the endearment.
The room had gone suddenly tenser at their appearance. It was understandable. If Fives and Sevenset were that badly wanted by the chancellor, these two were toward the bottom of the list of welcome visitors, even if Thire was his brother.
“Why’d you bring him?” Bacara asked, pointing to Fox and voicing Sixes’ thoughts exactly. “Isn’t he half the problem here?”
Fox’s helmet tilted slightly. “Yeah, I know, Fox is always the kriffin’ buzzkill on Coruscant,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm that would, unfortunately, go right over Bacara’s head. “Get some new material, Nova.”
“What material?” Bacara shot back, bristling.
Thire put his hands up between the two commanders. “Okay, both of you, stop it. Fox is here because he helped me make sure the three Guards from that incident in the medical tower were transported to a secure location. We just want to know what the hell is happening, okay?”
“So, Elevensies is safe?” Fives asked in a small voice. He and his batcher had scooched a bit farther from the door when the two new commanders had shown up. Sixes didn’t blame them, considering the night Fives had had.
Thire nodded, waving his hand to move on in the conversation. “Yeah, yeah, he’s fine. They’re all in a secure wing for observation. It’s standard procedure.”
“I overheard Thire talking on his comm like he might know something,” Fox added, looking at Sixes. “So, do you?”
Sixes sighed to himself. He didn’t like the sound of standard procedure for an unprecedented incident, as far as he knew. Then again, Thire had swept a few things under the rug before, so it wouldn’t surprise him if that were the case.
“What’s happening is these two ARCs found out we all have inhibitor chips in our brains that can control our actions without our knowledge, and can apparently malfunction and cause troopers to turn on their Jedi and murder them on the field.” When Thire turned to him with a posture that said they were about to interrupt, he held up a hand to stop them. “Oh, no, it gets better. When they were taken to the chancellor to explain themselves, they’re saying he gave a specific command to the Corries in the room, and they started shooting to kill, and somehow the chancellor has a red lightsaber too.”
“What?” the two Guard commanders both said.
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean it’s ‘standard procedure?’” Sevenset asked, biting back a hiss as Mira kept working. “I don’t remember any karking procedure for sudden mind-control.”
“What do you mean he gave a specific command?” Fox asked in return, some of the defensiveness leaving his voice to make way for wary curiosity.
“No, I wanna hear about standard procedure first,” Bacara answered, folding his arms again. Sixes was inclined to agree. “This happened before? Is that what that means?” he added, leaning forward ever so slightly toward Thire.
Thire shifted their weight from foot to foot for a couple seconds before giving a reply. “No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Are you lying?” Sixes demanded, taking a small step forward. Thire wasn’t nearly as good as Nero when it came to deception, but few were. Unfortunately, he and Bacara were so woefully unskilled in catching lies in the first place, it barely mattered.
“Of course not.”
“Thire…” Saleha’s low voice rumbled from where she stood between the couch and the high counter on the outer wall of the kitchenette. “You are not being entirely truthful.”
“Nothing like this,” Thire said, gesturing to Sevenset and Fives, “has ever happened before!”
“But?” the old togruta prompted, her deep blue eyes fixed on them, pinning them like a bug to a board.
After a couple seconds of staring back and forth, Thire’s posture finally deflated. They looked beside them at Fox, who shrugged minutely. They sighed. “The officers of the Guard have had… episodic memory loss before. They disappear sometimes on ‘missions’ and come back with headaches and no memory of what happened or where they’d been.”
Fox added, “We used to go find them before they come back by themselves—”
“—but when we found them, they weren’t themselves. They would only address us by our designations, and they’d always go on and on about some orders to fulfill. Until they did whatever they were supposed to do, they were stuck like that,” Fox finished, the fight having left his voice as well.
“So we stopped looking for them,” Thire said finally.
Sixes stared at them. Everyone stared at them. Even Mira had allowed Sevenset to sit up to look around at them momentarily before she resumed her work. Do-si-do shuffled a bit closer to him. The other Numbers all wore expressions somewhere between horror and disgust, and Fives looked ready to throw up. Or pass out. Hopefully not both.
How long had this been happening? How long hadn’t Sixes known about this? Thire hadn’t been a commander in the Guard for as long as Fox had, not by a long shot, but they spoke about this like they had intimate knowledge of it.
“What the hell, Thire?” Bacara said through gritted teeth.
“Has it happened to you?” Sixes needed to know. He almost wished he’d kept his helmet on now. A cocktail of fear, guilt, anger, and betrayal was roiling in his gut, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his expression as neutral as he preferred.
Fox spoke up. “It’s mostly me,” he said quietly. “About half the time.”
Sixes rubbed his face with one hand. Bacara muttered something inaudible, and likely indecent, under his breath. “And Thire?” he said, looking back to them.
His whole batch knew Thire kept secrets about how the Guard ran, about the sacrifices he made to keep his brothers safer or more comfortable. Nero would sometimes transfer them funds to make sure they were eating better, or to make sure they could get better clothes or jewelry they liked to wear off-duty. And time and time again, Thire would divide the funds out amongst his troopers instead. Or he would buy food in bulk, like boxes of chips or cookies or fruit, and hand them out, usually keeping little for himself. Because it was Thire. It was no coincidence Sixes took him out to meals any chance he got, just to make sure his brother was actually eating. But this? This went beyond. This was dangerous.
And Thire hadn’t told them. Any of them.
Even now, they squirmed a little under the direct attention. Fox stood still as a statue beside them, totally impassive. Finally, Thire said, “Only once. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Are you karking serious?” Bacara exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Not a big deal?”
“All of this is a big deal!” Sixes added, raising his voice. “Unexplained disappearances are a big deal in a security force! You’re both commanders, Thire!”
“Yeah, well, we can’t remember shit, so what are we supposed to do?” his brother shot back, stepping up to him. “If we have no idea how it’s happening or where we go when it does, how do we fix it? Who’s gonna believe us?”
“Us!” Sixes and Bacara both said at the same time.
“After what happened to Vesper, you think I’m not gonna believe you?” Sixes added, and Thire flinched slightly. “After I had to shoot one of my own captains because he claimed to have orders to kill me, and ‘good soldiers follow orders’—” he added air quotes— “you thought I wouldn’t believe you?”
The room was quiet, save for Sevenset’s labored breathing, and Bella meowing from a high shelf. Sixes, in the overwhelming concern for his brother, had momentarily forgotten how many people were in the room, and that most of them were not in his batch. Saleha’s face was stony, her expression harsher than he’d ever seen it. Nines and Trees looked similar, as did Domino in the corner. Loops and Do-si-do were gaping at him, eyes wide and jaws slack. Fours had his hands pressed firmly over his mouth to avoid the same look.
Sixes sighed, willing the anger out of his system. So much for keeping that tooka in the bag, as it were.
After a long spell of silence, Fives voice sounded from the corner, barely above a whisper. “Commander… you’ve seen this before?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, “I have.” He took a step back from Thire and Fox, turning slightly to face more of the people in the room. Gods, he did not want to tell this story, but he knew he should. He took a steadying breath, for all it wouldn't do for him. “Vesper was one of my captains when I got promoted and formed the Death Wings. We fought in Geonosis One together. He got out with a head injury: pretty bad one, but they patched him up and cleared him for duty. Few months later, he was complaining about a headache, but that was nothing new for him. We were in hyperspace, on the bridge,” he went on, keeping his gaze on the carpet in the middle of the room so he could focus beyond the constricting grief that would wash over him as soon as he let it, “and he just…”
He shook his head. He didn’t know what words to use.
“Like a switch flipped,” Fives offered quietly.
Sixes glanced over at him, still curled up against Echo. “Something like that. Said something about receiving orders to relieve me of duty. Something about acts of treason against the state. Kept saying that ‘good soldiers follow orders’ shit. Pulled his pistol on me, so I disarmed him, started calling for backup or medical. When he drew the other pistol…” He cleared his throat and waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. Long story short, he was one of my most trusted officers, and he ended up dead because of ‘good soldiers’ following orders. And now it’s happening again.”
A long stretch of quiet followed the end of his abbreviated story, which he’d expected, but still didn’t appreciate. It was a hard enough story to remember, let alone share with others.
Finally, Trees coughed quietly. “So, now what do we do?” he asked, sounding less shaken than the others. “I mean. We can’t go after the chancellor ourselves if what Fives and Sevenset saw is the case.”
Nines agreed. “Yeah, we need Jedi, ideally.”
“Lightsabers,” Loops added, still lost in thought a bit. Fours nodded silently.
Mira gave a triumphant little noise and set aside her scalpel. Finally, some good news. The other Numbers murmured amongst themselves about Jedi while Sixes turned to watch Do-si-do and Mira help Sevenset out of his chestplate. He winced when the full extent of his back injury came into view through the hole in his undersuit. The skin and muscle were red and angry where Mira had cut away the melted material, but the rest of the wound was still brown and charred, even a sliver of white showing near his spine. All those tattoos, cut through as well. Sevenset wouldn’t be happy about those when he had the wherewithal to think about it.
Without warning, a shout from Domino’s corner had them all back on edge. Sixes spun on his heel, his hands reaching to the holsters at his sides before he’d even seen what was happening. When he did see, the only thing saving him from Thire’s pistol raised toward him was the training ingrained into his body.
He dove, realizing as he moved that Thire hadn’t been aiming at him. “Cara!” he yelled, hearing his brother moving to neutralize the threat before he’d said anything. He scrambled to the couch on his knees. His hand caught Do-si-do roughly by the shoulder and hauled him close. Mira and Sevenset huddled on the floor without armor or weapons. He put a hand on the pilot’s head, shoving it down as he ducked with him, creating a human shield around the more vulnerable targets.
Behind him, he heard the unmistakable sounds of close-quarters combat. Fortunately, that was Bacara’s specialty.
He chanced a look over his shoulder, keeping his head bent down at an odd angle. Saleha had crouched down under the little counter, behind the bar stools there. Nines crouched in front of her. A brief wave of gratitude flooded his mind at the sight of someone outside of his batch protecting her. Loops and Trees must have gone into the kitchenette or the hallway, because he couldn’t see them.
Bacara had Thire momentarily pinned to the rug in the middle of the room, both putting up one hell of a fight as usual. Unlike usual, however, he was yelling about an Order Sixty-Two, about following orders.
About eliminating the traitors.
Behind that, between his batchers and Domino in the corner, Fours was locked in a struggle with Fox—and holding his own impressively. Sixes knew Bacara trained his Marines relentlessly, most of them sharing the same physical capabilities as an ARC trooper after spending enough time under his command. Fours demonstrated that clearly. He had one hand wrapped firmly around Fox’s wrist still holding a pistol, but his other arm was grappling with Fox for control.
Finally, Fours snarled, bringing Fox’s arm down to pin it under his arm against his torso, twisting the wrist until the pistol dropped. In the same motion, he stepped, placing his foot behind Fox’s leg. With a surge of strength, he pushed, following the commander down when he lost his balance.
“Stun them!” Sixes yelled, more than a little desperation seeping into his voice when Thire wriggled free of Bacara’s grasp. Their hand went to the back of their belt. Sixes’ stomach dropped. He’d never thought he’d be so ungrateful for Maral’s fascinating expertise on knife-work.
“Do I kriffin’ have to?” Bacara demanded, managing to knock Thire’s vibroblade away from his own throat just in time. “Can’t just knock ‘em out?” He wrapped his arm around Thire’s knife arm, now mimicking Fours’ struggle with Fox.
“No!” Sixes told him. “They’re still your brother!”
A stun ring flew out of the corner near the bar stools and hit Thire in the head. Instantly, his body collapsed to the rug beneath Bacara’s weight. Another ring shot out and managed to get Fox in the back as he fought his way upright from the floor where Fours clearly hadn’t quite managed to pin him. He thudded to the ground as well.
It was quiet.
Sixes picked his head up to look at Saleha, the gold-plated mini-blaster in her hand aimed over Nines’ shoulder. “Where the hell were you keeping that?”
Saleha gave a tight smile, patting Nines on the shoulder as her stance relaxed. “Never ask a lady where she keeps her weapons, my dear.”
A very small whimper from Sevenset made him relinquish his hold on Do-si-do and sit back on his heels, now more confident Mira and her patient wouldn’t be shot any time soon. Sevenset turned from where he’d been pinned to the couch, his wide eyes taking in the aftermath of the short scuffle. Bacara had yet to move from where he knelt over Thire, but he had taken their helmet off, presumably to check vitals. Sixes felt his own heart stutter slightly seeing his brother laid out like that, knowing it hadn’t been their choice. Fox was the same, although Fours had moved off to kneel beside him.
A soft hand on his hand made Sixes turn to find Mira’s hand on top of it. “Thank you, Sixes,” she said in a voice as soft as her touch.
He just nodded, unable to find words to reply.
“Everyone alright?” Nines asked, still kneeling with Saleha.
Trees and Loops poked their heads up over the counter top. “Just great,” Loops said shakily, giving a thumbs up. Trees nodded, the motion a bit jerky and his focus looking farther away than Sixes would have liked.
“Domino?” Nines added.
Echo had apparently done the same as Sixes, shielding his brother from whatever might have happened. He nodded, wincing when he unbent his bad leg from his kneeling position to sit down next to Fives. “We’re okay.”
Fives gave a silent nod and a shaky thumbs up.
Sixes allowed himself a small breath of relief. There were still so many questions to answer. How had the chancellor gotten to Thire and Fox all the way out here? Did that mean the whole Coruscant Guard had been compromised? Who could they contact for help?
The unwinding trail of questions came to a halt when he heard Do-si-do quietly hushing someone. Looking down, he saw Sevenset had finally been pushed beyond the threshold keeping his composure in place. Shining tear tracks streaked his face even as his friend gently brushed them away with his fingers. His breathing was erratic and shallow. Do-si-do was doing what he could get his attention to calm him down, but it wasn’t easy in his current state.
“You gotta breathe, Sevens,” Do-si-do told him quietly. “C’mon, please.”
But Sevenset shook his head, weakly batting away Do-si-do’s hands. “Hurts,” he managed, leaning forward so his back was no longer in contact with the couch.
Sixes let out a breath silently. He stood up, offering a hand to Mira as he did. She stepped over to stand beside Bacara and Thire on the floor. He took her place, kneeling back down on the carpet next to Sevenset. Do-si-do looked up at him, the look in his eyes making it very clear he was way out of his depth.
“It hurts,” Sevenset repeated more forcefully, his efforts to get Do-si-do’s hands away gaining more strength.
Sixes reached over and put a hand on the pilot’s arm, stopping his attempts. Do-si-do withdrew his hands, now looking utterly helpless. “I know it hurts, Sevens,” Sixes said, keeping his voice low and even. “Let’s get you up and we’ll find somewhere you can get some rest.”
“No.” Sevenset wrapped his arms around his knees. He started rocking, very slightly, forward and back, but he couldn’t seem to figure out where to look or where to keep his hands. “Don’t wanna move. It hurts,” he said shakily.
“Sevens, you need to sleep,” Do-si-do said ever so gently.
“I know!” he shot back with uncharacteristic ire. Immediately, he put his hands over his ears and ducked his head to rest on his knees, still swaying.
“The lights might be too loud,” Bacara said. Sixes turned to look at him, as did pretty much everyone else. He pointed to the main overhead lights. “They get too loud for me sometimes.”
Mira walked over to the control panel by the door and lowered the dimmer switch, easing the room into a warm twilight. The string lights Thire and Nero had put up over the couch were now the main illumination, casting a soft pink and orange glow over the room.
“Sevenset,” Sixes tried again. “Breathe. In for four, hold for four, out for four. You know the drill.” Despite the blunt phrasing, he did his best to keep his voice as gentle as he could manage. He hoped that perhaps the familiar exercise would cut through the overwhelming emotions that currently had a hold over him.
There was no clear indication his words had been received. It took several seconds of waiting for anything to change. Sevenset still gently rocked back and forth where he sat, his face hidden by his arms and knees. But eventually, Sixes heard his breathing start to settle. It was no longer as erratic or as shallow, and even his motion forward and back slowed down a little. Maybe the lights had been too loud.
Everyone in the room held silent as they waited for Sevenset to calm down. It took a few minutes. Slowly, his posture relaxed. The tension in his shoulders and arms loosened minutely, and he lifted his head enough to see over his knees. He was still swaying slightly, but Sixes hadn’t ever seen Sevenset sitting still for longer than a few seconds. This was probably as close to baseline as they would get.
“Better?” he asked quietly.
Sevenset nodded, wiping his eyes on his sleeves.
“You’re safe,” Do-si-do said, leaning in a little, obviously restraining himself from reaching out to hug his friend. “You need to lie down, though.”
“You up for walking, or no?” Sixes wanted to know. It wasn’t far to the bedrooms, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Sevenset was too rattled to be much use moving himself.
But he nodded back, firmly enough that Sixes actually believed him. He reached out, hooking and arm around Do-si-do’s neck. The pilot shuffled closer on his knees without hesitation, wrapping his own arm around his friend’s shoulders carefully. Together, they got Sevenset to his feet. Sixes followed suit, watching Sevenset with sharp eyes in case he buckled.
“He can go in my room,” Sixes offered, moving ahead of them. “Echo, bring Fives too,” he added, turning to Domino in the corner. “Best to get these two out of sight until it’s safer.”
Echo nodded, helping his brother stand up out of the bean bag chair. They all followed him out of the room.
As they left, Sixes heard Mira say, “I’m going to make some tea.”
So this is fun, right? :D Everyone is having a fabulous time learning Lore, aren't they? yeah... fun fact, when I created these characters over two years ago (wow), I just gave Sevenset all of my undiagnosed ADHD. Anyway! What are they gonna do now?? How do they deal with an Evil Raisin man!!! Idk I haven't gotten quite that far yet!!!! @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @rndmpeep @gaeasun @beskarmermaid @darth-void (again lmk if you want/don't want tag)
