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Chapter Text

Backstroke of the West

This is a story that happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. It had already happened. Nothing can be done to change it.

This is a story about brotherhood, of love, but also of downfall and betrayal.

This is how twenty five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery has crushed a millennia of peace. This is not just the end of the Gram Republic of Space. Night is falling of civilization itself.

This is the twilight of the Hopeless Situation Warriors

The end starts now.

***

The skies of Coruscant blaze with war.

Across the Gram Republic of Space, billions of beings watch the holonet reports in horror. Everybody knows that the war is going badly. Each day, new systems are lost to the Abruption Doctrine, more Hopeless Situation Warriors are lost or captured in action. But this-

And attack on the heart of the Gram Republic itself?

How can this happen?

It is a nightmare and nobody can wake up from it.

First came the reports of an attack on the senate chambers, the images of clone troopers being cut down by Abruption droids. Then comes the news that D the Superior is missing.

D the Superior is the speaker of the Senate, the prime minister of the Gram Republic itself. He is the image of determination, of leadership, of a calm head in troubled times. And now he is held hostage by the Abruption Doctrine.

The news only gets worse. D the Superior is not just in the hands of the Abruption Doctrine, he is in the hands of Space General. Of all the Abruption commanders, Space General by far is the worst. While President Nuts Ray Gun may be treacherous, that is expected from the leader of the Trade Federation. The political leader of the Abruption Doctrine, The, is crafty and sly, but many respect him for his stance against the corruption of the Gram Republic.

But Space General? He is a monster. At one point, he was a Kaleesh alien, but now he is a cyborg, more machine than organic being, and his droid parts have more compassion than what is left of his organic body. And now D the Speaker is in his grasp, chained to a chair on his flagship high in orbit.

Many of the beings watching this horrible news cannot help but cry. Others try to comfort each other. But here is the interesting thing: few of the younglings need comfort. Instead it is the younglings who offer comfort to their elders, that everything will be alright.

Allah Gold and Ratio Tile will be here any moment.

They say this as though these names can conjure miracles.

Everybody in the Galaxy knows these two names. Younglings follow their exploits with unbroken interests. Even the adults are not immune. It is not unusual for a parent, after witnessing a child perform a poorly thought out stunt as children are wont to do, to ask them “So which are you supposed to be, Tile or Gold?”

Ratio Tile would rather negotiate than fight, but when there is no other choice, he is a skilled swordsman and leader of soldiers. Alongside him is his former student, Allah Gold, an unstoppable force of nature, who fights with intense power and determination. Both are Hopeless Situation Warriors, the greatest defenders of the Gram Republic and the commanders of the Clone Army which has staved off the inevitable defeat thus far.

But in these dark times, the parents know better. They know that Ratio Tile and Allah Gold, no matter how skilled, are still only human. And even the greatest of the Hopeless Situation Warriors cannot do the impossible.

But today, the adults are wrong. For they cannot see the light bursts from two hopeless Situation Fighters exiting hyperspace, jettison their hyperdrive rings, and jet straight into the swarm of Abruption fighters all guns blazing.

Two Hopeless Situation Warriors.

Two is enough, because today the parents are wrong and their children are right.

The age of heroes is coming to an end, but it has saved its best for last.

Chapter Text

“Target, teacher” shouted Allah Gold, over the explosions of artillery and flak and the din of the intense battle. “Take aim at directly the machine head of that airship. Is an airship that slowness crawl along!”

In the cockpit of the next airship over, Ratio Tile pondered the words of his former student. Both of them tried to pretend that the war had not changed them. But Ratio Tile could not remember hearing Allah Gold’s cocky, lighthearted banter ever since the fateful battle of Geonosis. While Allah Gold’s newfound concentration and burning determination made him a brilliant fighter, Ratio Tile still thought back to the good natured nine year old boy he had first met so many years ago.

Deciding to lighten the mood slightly, Ratio Tile decided to try some sarcasm. “Very good,” he muttered, “I have seen this is very easy.” It was obvious that this would be anything but easy. They were flying directly towards the airship of Space General, where D the Superior was being held captive. The mission was only a few steps short of a suicide mission.

The two hopeless situation warriors did not have to face the enemy alone, though. A squadron of Clone Pilots was covering their backs. And Ratio tile began giving them last minute orders just before they made contact with the enemy.

“My important step six,” Ratio broadcast to all his pilots.

“Receive,” was the affirmative response.

“I are above you four machine am after death at me,” Ratio explained to his squadron.

The clones, who were bred from birth on the planet of Camino to obey orders, did not hesitate. “General, I now am to fights the appearance.”

As a large squadron of Abruption Doctrine droid airships approached, the battle line began to take shape. And it was in that moment that Ratio Tile heard Allah Gold be his carefree, cocky self again. For as Ratio and the clone pilots faced the enemy with grim determination, Allah Gold couldn’t help but chuckle. “Game time started.”

Allah Gold had every reason to be cocky. He was the finest pilot in the Hopeless Situation Warriors, maybe in the entire Gram Republic military. At age nine, he had won a ford race on his home planet of Tattoine, the first human to every win such a dangerous contest of skill.

Ratio Tile was no poor pilot either. But he was not the brash flyboy that his former student was, instead option to win battles more through quick thinking. And he saw a way to take advantage of the situation.

“Our dichotomy opens the combat,” he radioed, telling Allah Gold and the clones to allow the enemy fighters to fly in between their formation and bypass them.

However, the sky was filled with airships, and soon engaging the enemy was inevitable. The clone pilots flew in heavily armored, heavily armed airships, but the Abruption droids were quicker and more maneuverable. Soon, airships on both sides were going down in hails of laser fire, their pilots burning to death or being vented out into the vacuum of space.

“He is in my behind!” one clone pilot screamed as three Abruption airships attacked from his six o’clock.

“My distance half his kilometer,” Allah Gold quickly radioed, attempting to maneuver his Hopeless Situation airship to join in the combat. He was quickly cut off by Ratio Tile telling him, “Not, let I to solve him.” The two Hopeless Situation warriors had one mission and one mission only: saving D the Superior. They could not let the loss of even their fellow pilots distract them from this mission.

One Abruption fighter’s targeting system finally locked on to the two nimble, maneuverable Hopeless Situation fighters. Without losing any time, the droid fired four missiles at the newly acquired targets.

Allah Gold noticed the incoming threat. “Notice the guided missile pull out high!” he shouted.

The missile’s targeting system was designed to lock onto an enemy airship and pursue it until it was destroyed. But, Allah Gold had an idea. “You remain on standby,” he shouted to his astromech droid Reach the Man (also known as R2), “I use the backset equips.”

The two missiles trailing Allah Gold had each locked on to one of Allah Gold’s two engines. That meant they were flying parallel to each other. With a series of twists, turns, and some help from the Wish Power, the two missiles were completely disoriented and crashed into each other, causing no damage at all to Allah Gold’s airship. “Two fix together,” Allah Gold chuckled.

Meanwhile, Ratio Tile was having far less luck. Unfortunately, both missiles after him had locked on to the same engine, meaning that the trick Allah Gold had just performed would not work in this scenario.

“Like reach the man, good good good, let us counterattacking,” Ratio Tile desperately muttered as he struggled to get the missiles off his tail. “The disgusting thing came,” he sighed, as all his efforts proved useless against the targeting systems of the missiles.

The missiles exploded and released a cloud of airship robots. Thes nasty devices resembled insects, and were far scarier. They crawled onto enemy airships and tore them piece to piece slowly until they punctured the life support systems. This was bad news. “True vexed,” Ratio Tile cursed.

And these airship robots were indeed vexing. Just as Ratio Tile tried to give an order to his R2 droid, the airship robots had already completely obliterated the poor astromech. “God, have to think that the way stops them!” Ratio Tile shouted in panic.

Allah Gold immediately moved forward to try and save his former teacher. There was no way that he was leaving the man who had trained him alone to die. Ratio Tile’s eyes widened when he saw what Gold was doing. “I can then the close quarters beats them,” reassured Allah Gold, just before he opened fire at the airship robots vexing his former teacher.

Half of the airship robots were destroyed, along with half of Ratio Tile’s port side wing.

“Good kind of,” Ratio Tile said, thanking and criticizing Allah Gold in the same three words. But regardless of what Allah Gold did, it would be a futile endeavor. There were still half a dozen airship robots on his remaining wing, and the important thing was not getting them off. No, the important this was finding and saving D the superior. “Do not beat, you cannot help me like this,” Ratio commanded his former student.

“I agree, my method is not so good” was the response from Gold. But instead of abandoning his former master, Gold flew his airship directly next to that of his former teacher, wingtip to wingtip.

“Do you fuck on I?” Ratio asked, bewildered at what Gold was trying to accomplish here. And then the two airships collided, but not in a disastrous collision. No, this was a controlled collision. Allah Gold had rammed his wing into the airship robots on Ratio Tile’s airship, destroying all but one. That surviving airship robot was now on Allah Gold’s airship.

“Beat it, R2,” Allah Gold ordered his astromech.

Two bursts of electricity from R2’s built in defense system bounced off the airship robot harmlessly. “Reach the man,” Ratio Tile suggested, “beat it in the in between eye.”

That did the trick, and soon the eviscerated hulk of the airship robot dropped harmlessly off Allah Gold’s wing into space.

Back to the mission now.

“The airship of the general in place ahead,” Allah Gold radioed. But he had neglected another important detail.

“You have and did not notice he wanted to blockade?” Ratio Tile screamed. The blockade of the airship’s hangar was strong, and there was no way the two Hopeless Situation warriors could fly in without taking drastic action.

But drastic action was Allah Gold’s specialty. After a quick apology of “Sorry teacher, I walk first one step,” Allah Gold brought both his airship’s cannons to bear on the blockade. The laser blockade faltered as its generator was destroyed in a hail of laser bolts. The emergency doors on Space General’s airship began to close, and the two Hopeless Situation warriors pushed their airships at full speed to enter the hangar before the door closed completely.

“I feel far from good,” muttered Ratio Tile as the two airships just barely squeezed into the belly of the beast.

Chapter Text

The two Hopeless Situation airships crash landed in the hangar with the dull thuds of impact and the screeching noises of emergency brakes engaging. But these noises were not what the Abruption droids in the hangar were focused on. No, they were entirely focused on the sounds of two cockpits opening up, and the hum of lightsabers being ignited by the two hopeless situation warriors who had jumped out.

The battle, if you could call it that, was over in seconds. Not even fifteen abruption droids were a match for a single hopeless situation warrior’s skill with the lightsaber, a weapon which not only burned through Abruption metal as if it were hot butter, but also deflected any blaster shots that hit the blade.

In the mist of the melee, Ratio Tile had time to give an order to Reach the Man. “Find the speaker!” he shouted, over the robotic screams of droids being ripped apart by the combined prowess of the two Hopeless Situation warriors. Saving D, the speaker of the Gram Republic parliament, was still their number one priority.

Reach the Man was nothing but effective at his job. Just as the last Abruption droid had their memory banks permanently wiped by Allah Gold’s lightsaber, Reach the Man found the room where the speaker was being held captive and marked it on a holographic diagram of the airship.

Studying the map, Ratio Tile quickly understood what needed to be done. “Speaker come out from here of,” he explained to Allah Gold. But something didn’t feel right. There was a disturbance in the wish power. “I feel this is a trap,” he added.

It turns out that Allah Gold was having the same premonitions. From the moment that they entered this airship, he had been feeling a strange pain in his right arm. He reached down to the affected limb- only to remember that he shouldn’t be feeling any pain at all. Allah Gold’s right hand was nothing more than a prosthetic limb, a finely crafted one to be sure, but a prosthetic nonetheless. He had lost his right arm in a fateful duel with The, all those years ago…

The.

Suddenly, Allah Gold understood.

“Resemble the last time?” he whispered to Ratio Tile.

And then it connected with Ratio Tile as well. The duel with The one Geonosis had been brutal, and a humbling experience for both Hopeless Situation warriors. But both of them had learned much in the three years since, and were now ready to face the Republic’s most respected and dreaded enemy once again.

“But we can account, and then account,” Ratio Tile told Allah Gold, his words backed by an iron firm determination.

Ratio Tile’s determination was matched in strength of Allah Gold’s. They set off towards the room that Reach the Man indicated. The astromech started to follow, but Allah Gold quickly commanded for him to stay in the hangar, because the two warriors needed him “foolish in ship.” Ratio Tile tossed Reach the Man a communicator device, so that they could communicate any time one of the two Hopeless Situation warriors needed some help with the electronic or technical side of things.

And then the two brothers in arms set forth on their mission with steely resolve and ready hearts.

***

On the bridge of his airship, Space General paced, staring menacingly at the junior officers on deck to make sure that all of them were doing their jobs. Space General’s four arms were balled in menacing fists, and his deep, menacing voice still bore traces of the operations which had made him more machine than living being.

“After all out what matter?” he growled at a Neomoidian officer.

The Neomoidian replied, with a tinge of nervousness in his voice that “Two persons entered the airship. We want to hinder them.”

So these were the two Hopeless Situation Warriors that the dark lords of the Big had led into the trap planned for them. All was going as The and his master, the robed lord of the West, had predicted. Now it was time to spring these trap.

“Kill these two republics bodyguard,” Space General ordered.

Chapter Text

As they made their way down one of the hallways of the Airship, Ratio Tile and Allah Gold were suddenly ambushed by two Abruption destroyer droids. These droids were far more powerful than the average droid, being equipped with their own energy shields and extremely fast firing cannons built into their bodies.

But the Hopeless Situation warriors were up for a fight. “Exterminate them!” shouted Allah gold.

The destroyer droids’ cannon shots were all blocked by expert swordsmanship on the part of the two Hopeless Situation Warriors. At the same time, none of the deflected shots were able to penetrate the destroyers’ shields. It was a stalemate, but there was no time for stalemates, Saving D the Superior was the number one priority. Seeking to extract themselves from the situation, both Allah Gold and Ratio Tile backed into one of the elevators.

As the doors closed, the pair breathed a small sigh of relief, only to feel the cold steel of several droid rifles pointed against their necks.

“Let go of the weapon, I said let go of,” ordered one of the droids in his robotic voice. “Behind of the person, do not push,” another droid demanded.

It would take far more than that to intimidate a Hopeless Situation warrior.

A few flashes of light later, every single droid in the elevator was nothing more than a melted hunk of scrap metal. And Allah Gold and Ratio Tile began their ascent to rescue their captured speaker.

Meanwhile, in the hangar, Reach the Man found himself hiding in a corner, trying to avoid being spotted by the two super battle droids which had just appeared. Both of them had been sent to investigate the two Hopeless Situation fighters that had been left behind by Gold and Tile.

Back in the elevator, the lift suddenly ground to a halt.

“Did you let it stopped?” asked Ratio Tile.

Allah Gold responded in the negative. “Have no, is you?”

“I have no.”

“We’re perhaps stuck to.” And with that said, Allah Gold reignited his lightsaber and began cutting into the roof of the elevator.

Ratio Tile wasn’t up for anything so dramatic though. If he could contact Reach the Man, then the little droid could help get the elevator moving again. “We must go out everywhere in search of,” he told Allah Gold (who was continuing to cut away at the elevator roof.) Then in a radio message to R2 he told the astromech “R2, telephone the steps is here.”

But Reach the Man had other things to worry about. The Super Battle Droids were investgating the Hopeless Situation airships just meters way with a thorough interest, and Reach the Man could not afford to be discovered by these programmed killers. When Ratio Tile radioed again with “R2, telephone quickly, the steps is here,” Reach the Man had no choice to stuff the radio transponder deep within his body in order to muffle the sound.

Too late. One of the super battle droids heard the commotion. “Is that what things?” asked the killer robot. His comrade, on the other hand, had not heard anything. “Come back,” he told the first battle droid just as he was about to go seek out the source of the sound, “there what too have no.”

Back on the elevator, Ratio Tile was growing impatient. Why was Reach the Man not responding? Allah Gold continued cutting the roof of the elevator, not waiting for his astromech to respond. Ratio Tile’s nerves finally got to him. “R2, do you is fucking?” he snapped into his transponder.

 Hearing the usually calm and collected Ratio Tile snap like this lit a flame in Reach the Man. The situation on the elevator had to be serious if Ratio Tile could lose his patience like this. Bravely risking his personal safety, Reach the Man shuffled over to the elevator controls. As this was happening, Allah Gold finally managed to open up an exit in the roof of the elevator. Not waiting for Reach the Man to do his work, Allah Gold used the wish power to leap through the hole he had cut, onto the roof in order to seek a way out of this predicament.

Ratio Tile sighed at the impulsive, brash Hopeless Situation warrior he had trained. “I was old,” he muttered under his breath.

 And then his whole world collapsed from under him. Reach the Man had managed to reach the controls, but had accidentally sent the elevator into an uncontrolled descent. “STOP! STOP THE BOTTOM R2!” screamed Ratio Tile as he began freefalling.

 Allah Gold, who had been standing on top of the elevator as it began falling, quickly jumped and grabbed a ledge. There he hung, unable to pull himself up since the ledge was currently occupied by two Abruption droids. “Raise the hand to, boy!” ordered one of the droids. Allah Gold was a bit scared, but mostly confused as to how the droids wanted him to raise his hands when he was literally hanging from a ledge. Maybe that was their point?

As the elevator continued falling, Ratio Tile continued panicking. “DID YOU HEAR ME R2!” Ratio Tile shouted into his transponder. “LET ELEVATOR RISEN, IS NOT A DESCENT!”

Just in the nick of time, Reach the Man was able to stop the elevator’s descent and let it go upwards again. After making sure that he was still alive, Ratio Tile breathed a sigh of relief. “Very good,” he told Reach the Man.

But, the situation for the little astromech wasn’t very good at the moment. The two super battle droids had found him, and just after he had sent the elevator upwards, one of them grabbed him. “Stupid robot,” the super battle droid mocked, perhaps a bit hypocritically.

Reach the Man knew that it was now time for desperate measures. He squirted some of the oil used to lubricate his gears onto the face of the Super Battle Droids. As both of them struggled to see, then ended up slipping on some of the oil which had landed on the ground. Reach the Man activated his rocket boosters, thankful for all the upgrades his owner Allah Gold had given him. The fire quickly lit the oil on fire and started an inferno which quickly consumed the two super battle droids.

As the elevator continued rising, it came back within view of Allah Gold and the two droids trying to capture him. Allah Gold quickly dropped down onto the elevator as it got closer to him. The two droids, thinking he had fallen to his death, mocked him by taunting “Very good.” However, their taunts were cut short by the elevator crushing their robotic bodies against the elevator shaft.

As Allah Gold dropped back into the elevator using the hole he had cut a few minutes before, Ratio Tile ignited his lightsaber, only to deactivate it when he saw who it was.

“Is you.” Ratio Tile stated.

 “What is the row?” asked Allah Gold.

“Always is a R2 to come to,” sighed Ratio Tile. After all, Reach the Man had almost gotten them both killed.

Allah Gold did not accept this criticism of his robotic friend. “Do not take the elevator to do the game,” he warned his former teacher.

“Is all a disaster that R2 ask for!” Ratio Tile continued giving his honest opinion about the astromech.

“Did you make the ghost?” Allah Gold asked in frustration.

“I what did not do!” Ratio Tile exclaimed.

And then the time for banter and whining was over. The elevator stopped. They were now about to enter the room where D the Superior was held captive. Criticism of other teammates would have to wait until later. There was a job to do.

Chapter Text

This is The, also known by some as Drop.

Once a great Hopeless Situation Warrior, he is now an even greater lord of the Big. Nemesis of the corrupt Gram Republic, oriflamme of the Abruption Doctrine, he is the epitome of shock and awe.

He had been one of the noblest defenders of the Gram Republic in years gone by. And yet, as the Gram Republic grew more and more corrupt, he found that he could not in good conscience serve a government whose will was always on sale to the highest bidder. He instead resigned from the Hopeless Situation Warriors and retired to his family estate, where his wealth made him one of the richest beings in the galaxy.

Such wealth could have bought him a senate seat, maybe even the chancellorship itself. But The was a man of virtue, and instead of being mired in the corruption which he hated, he instead helped found the Abruption Doctrine to combat the Gram Republic’s descent into nepotism.

This is the public story.

It is the story that even The himself believes in his weaker moments.

But it is not the truth.

For The, there are two groups of beings. The first group is made up of people he can use, people he can take advantage of. Masters Vanquish Is and Text How Big had been deceived into being his friends, deceived so deeply that they were not aware of his true self. The sam can be said about the Abruption Doctrine.

The second group is made up of The’s enemies. And The will stop at nothing to destroy them. He will face them in open combat, yes, but he will also scheme, conspire, and plot their downfall.

Treachery is the way of the Big.

***

The’s contemplating was interrupted by an elevator door opening and Allah Gold and Ratio Tile steeping out. They could not see him yet, hidden as he was on a balcony overlooking the room. The two Hopeless Situation Warriors had other priorities anyways. They immediately rushed toward an elderly human male chained to a chair in the center of the room. The hostage they sought to rescue. D the Superior.

Allah Gold was not just a soldier sworn to serve Speaker D. No, he also considered the kindly old man his friend. More than a friend, the father that he never had. He needed to make sure that nothing had happened to the Gram Republic’s beloved prime minister.

“Is you all good?” Allah Gold asked, with genuine concern in his voice.

“We are very good,” D replied.

And then the situation became anything but good. For in that moment, The revealed himself before the three Republic officials. Leaping with the unnatural agility granted by the Wish Power, he jumped from the balcony and landed directly in front of Tile and Gold and the hostage they were trying to save.

 “You two, careful,” Speaker D warned his two rescuers. “He is a big.”

Both Ratio Tile and Allah Gold knew this already. They had faced him before, and were now ready to end this threat to the Gram Republic once and for all.

“Mr. Speaker,” Ratio Tile spoke with a combination of faux nonchalance and real determination, “We are for the Big.”

The looked at the three men standing before him, and felt their presences using the Wish Power.

Ratio Tile’s Wish Power aura spoke to his character, a beam of radiant, incorruptible light.

Allah Gold on the other hand, was a hurricane, a whirlwind of emotion and conflict. With the right prodding, he could be manipulated to being a servant to the Big.

And then there was D the Superior himself, pitch black, darker than midnight, a moral event horizon. The two Hopeless Situation warriors did not know. Only The did. Only he knew that D was not the gentle father figure nor the devoted leader he presented himself to be. No, D the Superior was a Big lord himself, the mastermind behind this whole crisis. The man who had planned the war. The man who planned this kidnapping, and lured two mighty Hopeless Situation Warriors into certain death. The man who would planned to destroy the Gram Republic and build an empire of the Big, with The ruling by his side.

It was time for The to fulfill his part of the plan.

“Pull out you sword,” he challenged the two Hopeless Situation Warriors as he prepared his lightsaber. “Dedicate your body for the speaker,” he taunted them.

“You this time ran to do not, Drop,” Ratio Tile spat as he and Allah gold ignited their lightsabers. And then the battle was on.

The two Hopeless Situation Warriors were not as manipulative or treacherous as The or D, but they had a few tricks up their sleeves too. As the melee started, both of them stuck to using simple fighting techniques, basic techniques taught to the Hopeless Situation younglings. The plan was to lull The into complacency, and only then to hit him with all they had.

Sure enough, The was fooled by his opponents’ sloppy swordsmanship. “I always wait for this day,” he chuckled.

Allah Gold could not help but retort. “Even since the last time fights with you hereafter, my force has promoted two times!” he warned The.

The did not believe this one bit. Allah Gold and his former teacher were fighting like teenagers who had never picked up a lightsaber before. “Very good, give me surprised and pleased,” he sarcastically mocked.

And then the two Hopeless Situation Warriors unleased everything they had. The was caught off balance by this sudden change in fortunes. Between his shock, and the sudden aggressive swordplay of his two opponents, he found himself desperately parrying blows left and right. Ratio Tile was fighting expertly, but it was Allah Gold who truly scared The. Allah Gold was now a storm of unleashed fury, an enraged tornado of skill and strength. Slowly, The found himself being pushed up a staircase back onto the balcony he had originally leaped from.

And then, after Allah Gold had made an expert move that entered his guard and came inches away from decapitating him, The received his second shock of the day. Speaker D, the man who had set up this whole incident in the first place, the man who had promised that this trap would be the death of the Gram Republic’s two greatest warriors, was now cheering Allah Gold on.

With a chill in his spine, The remembered.

Treachery is the way of the Big.

Maybe his master truly did betray him. Or maybe he was simply playing his role as the Gram Republic’s leader in front of two of his warriors. The wasn’t going to wait to find out. Choosing to knock Ratio Tile out of the fight, he called upon a massive burst of the Wish Power, Not only did he manage to raise Ratio Tile in the air telekinetically using every single MIDI chlorian in his body, he also managed to push Allah Gold out of lightsaber range. Before Gold could pick himself up, Ratio Tile was already slammed into the floor with a piece of the balcony now collapsed upon him.

Seeing his former teacher being hurt sparked something in Allah Gold. Roaring in defiance and anger, he immediately charged The and with a kick to the chest, knocked him off the balcony and back in front of the still chained D. Not wasting a single second, he immediately jumped down and continued to bring his sword to bear upon The, who was now flagging and short of breath.

As their two light blades connected, The summoned all his anger and hate to motivate him. “Even since you I separate, I has been hating you!” he screamed at Allah Gold. “You are a sacrifice article that I cut up rough now.”

But such anger could not match the emotions that were running through Allah Gold’s head. Evey time The swings at him, the rage from remembering being flashed by Sebulba’s hole parries the blow. Every time The tries to close in, the anger of his mother telling him “you have brought shame to the family” after he won the Ford race manages to beat The back.

The simply cannot break through Allah Gold’s fighting spirit. Allah Gold, on the other hand, can absolutely break through D’s. As The quickly contemplated his next avenue of attack, he did not think quick enough. Allah Gold was already charging. Allah Gold was already lifting the blade of The’s lightsaber with the blade of his own. As panic began to set in, Allah Gold was already cutting of both of The’s hands.

The fell to the floor in pain, hurt almost as much by his defeat as he was by the physical wounds. But what hurt even more was hearing D the Superior, the man he had considered a partner in crime, was praising Allah Gold’s victory.

“Very good!” D complimented the young Hopeless Situation Warrior. “The Ratio is Prosperous! Very Good!”

But what he said next sent chills down The’s spine.

“Killed him,” was the command D gave to Gold, who now had both his own lightsaber as well as The’s lightsaber to The’s throat.

Allah Gold’s mind, which had been a whirlwind of conflicting emotion during the fight, was now a full blown cataclysm. Yes, The was the leader of the evil Abruption Doctrine. Yes, The had started a war which had killed trillions of beings. And yes, The had even cut off his hand three short years ago.

And yet, it was the teaching of the Hopeless Situation Warriors to show mercy to a defeated enemy, no matter what actions said enemy had carried out beforehand. It was not the Hopeless Situation way to kill a disarmed prisoner.

“I can’t,” Allah Gold finally admitted.

D the superior’s friendly expression, the mask which he had worn these long centuries of politics, evaporated in a second. “Hurry!” he ordered with a forcefulness that surprised Allah Gold.

On the ground, the kneeling The simply stared at his master, his co-conspirator for the downfall of the Gram Republic. Was this really how this would end?

It was. The saw the conflict in Allah Gold’s eyes. He saw Allah Gold take a deep breath. He saw Allah Gold swing both lightsabers at the same time. And then he saw nothing at all.

His final thought was: “treachery is the way of the Big.”

Chapter Text

The deed was done. The’s head flew from his body, separated by the intense power of two lightsaber blades connecting at his throat.

Allah Gold rushed over to D the Superior. With a wave of his hand, he used the wish power to undo the cuffs binding D to his chair.

“You make out quite good,” D complemented. But Allah Gold barely heard him. His mind was a whirlwind of emotions, even of guilt. He looked down at The’s decapitated body. It was not the way of the Hopeless Situation Warriors to kill an unarmed prisoner. With sickening clarity, Allah Gold could see what this was.

A crime.

He had become a war criminal.

As if he could real Allah Gold’s thoughts, D the Superior immediately chimed in to convince Gold that he had made the right choice. “Make him on the hoof, very dangerous,” he declared regarding the now deceased The.

“To, but he is not just a prisoner!” Allah Gold sighed, overwhelmed by the whole situation. “I should not kill him, this not agree with!”

D, in all his manipulative talent, knew the exact words to convince Allah Gold otherwise. “This very nature,” he declared. “He hewed away your hand,” he continued, referring to the last time The and Gold had met, a battle which had ended disastrously for Gold. “You also kill certainly he revenge. The business of revenge is very familiar. Remember you to have ever tolded me your mother’s. Still, there are those Pathetic People.”

D truly knew how to strike at Allah Gold’s weak spots. He knew that Allah Gold was still angry over the loss of his right hand, cut off by The’s lightsaber years ago on Geonosis. But more importantly, he knew that Allah Gold had been hurt deeply by the death of his mother at the hands of the Pathetic People, a savage, backwards tribe of violent sandpeople on the planet of Tattoine.  And beyond Allah Gold being deeply distraught, D also knew about how Allah Gold had succumbed to the dark side of the Wish Power the night he came across his mother’s bound, lifeless body, about how he had murdered the entire village of Pathetic People.

To put to rest any remaining doubts Allah Gold had over The’s death, D told him that “we must leave now. Otherwise, they all at worry.”

Allah Gold immediately snapped out of the trance like state he was on, so deep in his thoughts, and began moving towards the elevator. But he would not ever leave his friend and mentor, Ratio Tile, behind. He quickly walked over to where Tile was lying unconscious, the piece of balcony that The had pushed upon him trapping him against the floor. Fortunately, Allah Gold felt a pulse. His mentor and teacher was still there.

D, on the other hand, had no time for such sentimentality. “Do not take care of him,” he ordered Allah Gold, “Otherwise and too late.”

But to Allah Gold, it was never too late to save a friend. He quickly used the wish power to extract Tile from the debris, and lifted him upon his shoulders. “We can’t throw down him,” he told D firmly.

***

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Airship, Space General was not yet aware of the death of The. “Beat, we are great and black influences!” he crowed, about to give the order to jump into hyperspace. Suddenly, the Neomodian captain of the ship shouted “Give your runway!” as a Gram Republic Venator-class Destroyer appeared out of nowhere, cutting off their escape route.

This Venator was commanded by none other than the Good Elephant himself, one of the greatest Naval Officers of the Gram Republic. While men like Admiral Wullf Yulareen might be more tactically intelligent, and men like Admiral Darkin might instill more discipline in their crews, none could match the boldness and sheer determination of the Good Elephant.

Indeed, while most of the other Gram Republic ships were forming a defensive corridor around Coruscant, the Good Elephant’s Venator had broken through the Abruption Doctrine lines, and was now firing a broadside at close range against Space General’s own flagship.

As the two airships locked into a deadly duel of artillery fire, D and Allah Gold (carrying Ratio Tile on his back) struggled to remain on their feet. The deck rocked and pitched back and forth as laser shells made their explosive impact.

Space General’s ship was taking heavy damage. So much, in fact, that the ship began plunging headfirst towards the atmosphere of Coruscant. This was a bad situation for all aboard, but it provided a certain advantage to Gold and D. The massive elevator shaft which had been such a pain to ascend was now turned into a horizontal hallway. Taking advantage of this development, Gold and D began running forwards as fast as they could, hoping to reach the hangar in time to escape the airship before it became a burning deathtrap.

Back in the bridge of the airship, “chaos” was not a strong enough word to describe the mess that was happening. “Stabilize the airship!” the Neomoidian captain was screaming to his droid pilots. “Stabilize the airship,” one of the droids repeated, trying their best to obey an order which appeared impossible to them.

It took Space General’s forcefulness to overcome the incompetence of his captain. “Start all engines,” he ordered, fuming that the Neomodian had not thought of this first. Soon enough, the sudden increase in power to all the airship’s engines began to do the trick, and the airship managed to level itself out again.

This was bad news for Allah Gold, however. He could sense through the wish power this new shift in the gravitational sensors of the ship in the direction he didn’t want it to go.

The “hallway” that he and D we running down almost instantly became a vertical elevator shaft once more.

Reaching for something, anything, to stop the sudden freefall, Gold managed to latch on to a piece of wiring. He felt a weight on his leg. Looking down, he saw that D had just managed to grab on to him with one arm, and was now hanging on for dear life.

And to make matters even more complicated, Ratio Tile began waking up.

***

Ratio Tile opened his eyes to find himself staring at what he strongly suspected was Allah Gold's butt. It looked like Gold’s butt—well, his pants, anyway—though it was thoroughly impossible for Ratio Tile to be certain, since he had never before had occasion to examine Allah Gold’s butt upside down, which it currently appeared to be, nor from this rather uncomfortably close range. And how he might have arrived at this angle and this range was entirely baffling.

Looking around to try and understand the situation better, he made the very wrong choice to look down, towards the abyss and horrifying (if quick) death that awaited if Allah Gold’s grip on the wire weakened.

“Relax,” joked Gold, trying to find humor in even this terrible situation, “this situation we saw many.”

But Ratio Tile was not in the mood for jokes. Especially when he was looking at an elevator rapidly freefalling down the shaft, ready to crush all three of them within seconds.

“R2, let elevator stopped!” ordered Allah Gold through his transponder. But Reach the Man would never be able to stop the elevator fast enough.

“A day after the fair, jump quickly!” advised Tile. As they jumped, Gold managed to shoot a grappling hook towards a ledge. Using that anchor point as leverage, he pulled himself, Rile, and D into a hallway just as the elevator passed rocketing past them.

“See can also must not find out the exit,” urged Tile. “The airship returns at fly.”

***

One of the droids in the command bridge of the Airship was watching the security cameras. He saw the three Gram Republic officials running down one of the hallways of the shit. Immediately, he understood that not only was The not able to kill them, that they had also somehow survived yet another elevator shaft misadventure.

“Superior,” he timidly told Space General, “they have escaped a day after the fair!”

“I SHOULD REALLY FEEDS YOU ALL DOG!” growled Space General, as he slammed his robotic hand against a console in rage.

It was not over for these Gram Republic officers, however. Space General was disappointed in his soldiers’ incompetence, but he had planned for it as well. The Hopeless situation Warriors would not escape his airship alive.

Back in the hallway, as Gold, Tile, and D continued running towards the hangar, they were suddenly trapped by a laser shield which activated around them, preventing them from moving any further.

“What is the row!” cursed Ratio Tile.

“I said, toing have the patience” said Allah Gold, trying to calm everybody down.

“Good, of patience,” mocked Ratio Tile sarcastically.

“To, the R2 came right away, then can make we out,” explained Gold.

Reach the Man did seconds after Allah Gold made his prediction. But he was nto alone. Chasing after him was a whole squad of super battle droids. As Reach the Man looked frantically around for an escape route, two more droid squads quickly came at him from all sides.

“Raise the hand!” one of them ordered. Reach the Man tried to use his built in zapping device, to negligible effect. The droid officer responded by knocking the astromech to the floor with one kick.

“Do you have what to want to say?” Ratio Tile asked Allah Gold dryly.