Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s something on the Resolute.

Nobody, not even General Skywalker and Commander Tano, know what it is.

But that’s ridiculous, Echo can’t help but think. The last time he & Fives were on the ship, back when they were shinies fresh off of the Rishi Moon outpost, there’d been no rumor. But the day they returned to the 501st after ARC training, Rex had cornered them both with a way-too-tired look on his face to explain the rumor.

“Probably just a couple’a sleep-deprived shinies saw a flashing light on a monitor or something,” he’d told them, rolling his eyes, “if it really was a seppie droid or a Sith, we’d know by now. Just ignore the rumor and focus on your orders, okay?”

They’d both agreed…and then the moment Rex had left, Fives dragged him halfway around the ship, interrogating every last shiny they could find about the rumor. Most of them didn’t know anything, but did report that a few ration bars and water packs had disappeared. A few claimed to have seen the thing, but when pressed, clammed up.

And then there had been Dogma.

“Are you gonna do your job and get rid of it?” He’d asked before telling them.

“Maybe, if it’s harmful to the GAR. For all we know, it could just be a tooka that got lost.” Fives had responded.

“It’s not a tooka, and even if it were, it shouldn’t be on the resolute in the first place!”

“Well how about you tell Echo & I more about it so we know what to look for?”

“Well, are you gonna get rid of it?!”

And then a long and tedious argument that Echo would rather not think about again that made his brain hurt. but after assuring the little stickler that yes, they’d do their best to get rid of it, he finally told them what he saw:

“It was…it was a cadet.”

“A cadet?”

“Yeah, but not like a clone cadet; a natborn cadet…a…kriff, what’s commander Tano considered? She’s like a cadet, right?”

“You saw commander Tano?”

“No! No, this cadet was different: he looked like a human, ‘s far as I could tell. He wore this kind of…costume, I guess, that was green with yellow bits, something metal around his neck, a red belt, and these big, chunky boots. his hair was green too.”

“Green hair?” Echo had interjected, because he’d never heard of a nat-born human with green hair before.

“Yeah, green. It was kinda dim, but I could definitely tell it was green. Green eyes too.”

“How’d ya see his eyes?” Fives has asked.

“Well, I found him roaming the halls while I was heading back to my bunk for lights out. Of course, being an unknown on the ship, I went to apprehend him, but before I could even take a step, he turned and looked back at me, like he could sense me or something.”

Force sensitive. A force-sensitive teenager (because that’s what commander Tano is, not a cadet) on the ship.

“Yeah?” Fives had asked, his usual playful tone completely absent as he listened, enraptured at the shiny’s story.

“Yep. Then he got all surrounded by lightning and disappeared.”

“Surrounded by lightning.” Echo has deadpanned, and he watched the shiny’s face screw up in indignation.

“Well, how else am I supposed to describe it?! His body started spitting lightning and then he disappeared in a flash of red! That’s what happened!”

Lightning.

And the color red.

Now, Echo wasn’t exactly an expert on Jedi, but as he’d learned from experience, “Red” and “Force-Sensitivity” was a bad combo.

Even worse was when “lightning” was added to the mix. As he’d learned from Captain Rex, who’d learned from Commander Tano, who’d been told the story by General Kenobi about General Skywalker confronting Count Dooku, Lightning in the context of the force was something only Sith would do.

So there is a teenaged, green-haired, green-eyed, green-wearing kid who’s probably force-sensitive, maybe even a Sith, and used green lightning to disappear in a flash of red in front of the biggest rules stickler this side of the GAR other than Echo himself.

And looking at Fives, he could see that his twin had come to that same conclusion too.

“We’ll find the kid.” Fives had said, and they let dogma return to his squad.

That had been about a week ago, and there were zero sightings of the green-clad teen (that most of the legion had taken to calling “the vent dweller”) since then. But, however, that didn’t mean his presence wasn’t felt.

Ration bars and water packs still went missing, certain troopers had found that their shower-time had been used up, there were even reports of green flashes in the vents. It got to the point where the commander and the general started meditating to see if they could find the kid.

“I can’t feel him,” General Skywalker told the ARCs and Rex, clutching his head after using the force to scour the resolute another time. “Whoever he is, he must be extremely well-trained in the force to hide his presence this well.”

“Maybe,” Commander Tano had butted in, “But I can sense a weird feeling on ship, Master. Can’t you?”

“Like what?” Rex, who (as far as Echo knows) is still strung out from all the complaints coming in, had asked.

The two Jedi looked at each other, deliberating, before turning back to the three of them.

“We don’t know,” Skywalker said, “It’s like the force is…bending around something.”

“Bending?”

“Bending.” He confirmed, blue eyes hard set as he thought. “The force flows through all living things in the galaxy, connecting us together. At least, that’s what Obi-wan says. If I wanted to, I could tell you what admiral Yularen is doing right now, even though he’s on the other side of the ship-"

“He’s putting together a house of cards in his personal quarters, in case you're wondering.” Ahsoka butted in with a smirk, but sobered up at the general’s unamused expression.

“But, there’s something on this ship that the force is bending around. Not in the same way that droids do, but…different. I can’t get a good read on it, it’s like it’s…”

Skywalker had stopped, concentrating deeply.

“It’s like it’s not even connected to the force at all.”

So, that’s where Echo finds himself now.

It’s been maybe a few days since that meeting, but today, Rex had called both ARCS into a strategy meeting that had gone way, way too far into the night cycle.

(If Echo weren’t currently dead on his feet, he’d have thought that Rex was trying to avoid the rest of the 501st so he didn’t have to hear about the vent-dweller.)

(But good ARC trooper Echo knew that their dear Captain would never do such a thing. Not at all.)

Fives had decided to just crash and take a shower early in the morning cycle, but Echo, who knows that sleeping in nasty, sweaty blacks was worse than any torture, was walking to the sonics.

Walking in, he could hear that one of the stalls was running, just a little further back. Peeking inside the dark room, he could see that all the way towards the back, a light was on, and he could hear the sonic running. It must be just a vod that couldn’t sleep or something.

Maker knows Echo’s taken his fair share of night-cycle showers.

So, he strips down to his blacks, making sure that all of his armor is piled up neatly near the entrance, and makes his way to claim a stall. But then, something gives him pause.

Specifically, a glint of metal.

Looking over, the singular light of the running stall down the way had illuminated a set of clothes folded right near the opening. Echo could see that the glinting metal came from a small something on the top of the pile.

Raising an eyebrow, and being careful to keep his footsteps light, echo slowly makes his way over to the stall. His heart pounds in his chest as he grows closer and closer. Usually, troopers do what echo does: take their armor off just outside of the sonics, and put it in a little pile. Sure, a small percentage of vode were paranoid of having stolen armor (a percentage which, thanks to the vent-dweller’s reign of terror, was steadily increasing), but that was normal.

But plastoid, especially the scratched up, dinged, and dented plastoid that all of them wore, didn’t shine like how this was shining.

He stops just outside of the sonic, and looks down at the pile of clothing.

and his heart stops.

Bright red boots with weird-looking leg armor.

A green costume with bright yellow and white accents.

A bright red belt.

And finally, the thing that caught Echo’s attention: a metal mouth guard, glinting innocently in the light as it sits atop the pile.

It’s the vent-dweller.

Immediately, echo is wide awake, and a million thoughts are running through his head:

What’s he doing here?

Why is he in the stall?

Is he really a Sith?

I need to subdue him!

At that, he can hear the vent-dweller let out a sound, and the sonic turns off. For just a moment, everything is still.

Then, a head pops its way out of the stall.

A head with short hair, which is beginning to look a little shaggy, is a dark green, almost black in certain areas. The vent-dweller’s face is turned away, but he quickly turns around, letting Echo get a full view of it, and wow Dogma wasn’t kidding when he said cadet.

The boy’s face is pale, with some baby fat still stubbornly clinging on in his cheeks, which are dotted by freckles. His mouth is set, looking almost neutral, but echo can see nervousness in the creases around his mouth. And his eyes are wide, green irises like pinpricks against his sclera.

The boy stares at Echo, and Echo stares at the boy.

Then Echo’s brain catches up with him, and he reaches out to quickly grab the boy by the shoulders. However, the boy’s eyes widen and his jaw fully sets, and he leans out of Echo’s reach. He drops out of sight, and the next thing Echo knows, his legs are swept out from under him and he’s crashing to the ground.

How’d he do that?! Echo thinks as he pulls himself up into a crouch.

The boy’s got his back turned and seems to be gathering his belongings, so Echo prepares to lunge, ready to take the boy into questioning.

But, the boy stiffens, throwing a look over his shoulder. Seeing echo ready to strike, he takes off, right as Echo lunges at him, managing to grab his ankles and send the kid careening to the floor. The kid’s legs thrash and kick, but Echo holds on even tighter, thanking his training for the strength to keep a hold on the kid.

”Atchiike!” the boy shouts as he looks down, looking both terrified and furious as echo begins to pull himself up off the ground. The boy’s arms flail around as his legs are pulled upward, the kid screaming the whole time-

Thwack!

“AUGH!” Echo shouts, bringing both hands to his forehead.  

Something had hit him!

Looking back down at the kid, he’s in the process of scrambling to his feet again, having grabbed his belongings. Echo lets his hands dart back out to grab the kid again, but the kid’s prepared this time. He ducks down underneath echo’s arms, and disappears in a flash of red-

Oh no wait. He’s just all the way at the end of the row of sonics.

Which is…quite a ways down.

But unfortunately for the kid, Echo’s stubborn, so he readies himself, then pushes off of the floor into a sprint. The kid shouts when he notices, and throws his hand out again, a green and black… something flying out of his hand, smacking echo on the forehead again.

From the sheer force of the something hitting it, Echo’s head gets knocked back, causing the rest of him to stumble back. He lets out another shout, this one more angry than surprised, as he claps his left hand to his forehead again. The stinging stays the same, but the force of the hit means that he feels extremely disoriented afterwards, the world spinning and blue spots forming in his vision.

 By the time he's got his head back on straight, the vent-dweller’s long since retreated back to his hidey-hole. The only thing even signaling that another person was in the ‘freshers is the smell of ozone, from the lightning the boy had been giving off.  

Which, what was that about?

The disappearing-then-reappearing-far-away was a Jedi thing, if Alpha’s rants about Obi-Wan are true, but in a flash of red? Then that black thing that had shot out of his hand, some kind of…whip?  

Plus that thing the kid said…Acchiike? That didn't sound like Basic at all.

Echo sighed, the kid’s whipping of his forehead seemingly awakening the headache his tired mind had been putting off for as long as it could. So, with a tired sigh, he turns back to get started on his nice, long-

K-DINK! DGGND-DGGND D-GINK!

Echo jolts, head whipping around as his eyes scans his surroundings in a panic at the noise, before they look ahead, and see a familiar glinting of metal.

That damn mouth guard.

Walking over to where he kicked it and picking it up, he can see that it’s in fairly good condition, slight water damage non-withstanding. It appears to be some kind of steel…maybe not durasteel (which, why not make it of durasteel, but okay) but a steel.

The vent-dweller must have been picked up from a rainy planet, but…

Wait a second.

This is the vent-dweller’s mouth guard.

As in, the vent dweller, who up until now (shiny encounters notwithstanding) has been a rumor.

And Echo has proof that he exists.

Echo’s feet move before his brain catches up with him, running at a dead sprint back to the ARC’s quarters. Punching the code to get in like his life depends on it, then stepping through the door as it’s still hissing open, he makes his way to his and Fives’ bunk.  

His brother always looks so peaceful when sleeping, any sign of the serial shit-stirrer completely gone in moments like these.

But echo doesn’t need peaceful fives, he needs awake fives, so he begins to shake his brother awake.

“Fives. Fives. Fives. Fives. Fives.” Echo fires off as he rolls his brother around like a lump of dough. Then, with a loud groan and a blocked punch from his brother, Echo knows that he’s up.

“…’ko…” he grouses, glaring at Echo as he turns his head to face him, still laying down. “Is lik…3 ‘n th-”

“I saw the vent-dweller.” Echo says quickly, hand still on his brother’s side in case Fives falls asleep again. However (thankfully), Fives’ eyes widen like a shot, and he jolts up to lean his elbows.

“What?!” He hiss-whispers, and Echo brings the mouth-guard up to Fives’  eye-level.

“I saw the vent-dweller,” he repeats, “and we’ve got proof he exists now.”

“…WHAT?!!”

Chapter Text

Ahsoka stares at the mouth guard in front of her as it floats innocently in front of her.

Ever since Echo and Fives brought the thing to her and Skyguy a few days ago (in the dead of kriffin’ night), the both of them have been examining it pretty much nonstop.

And the thing is, Ahsoka’s realized something: She really hates this whole “vent-dweller” business, solely because of this thing.

Sure, it looks like a regular mouth-guard: specifically it reminds her of the one Master Plo Koon uses, with the diamond shape and holes and all that. But the thing is, once you look past it physically, and use the force to look at it, that’s where problems arise.

Because the mouth-guard has no force signature.

Every metal Ahsoka’s ever used, or seen been used, has had at least some kind of signature in the force:

Plastoid has one.

Durasteel has one.

Chromium has one.

Hells, beskar has one.

But the more she tries to reach out and feel this hunk of metal in the force, the more that it seems like it won’t budge at all. Even trying to pick the thing up with the force is useless, because again, it has no signature in the force. However, she can feel the way the force bends around the thing, and even found that she could pick it up that way.

It took a few tries to get it right, but soon, she was bouncing the thing up and down like there was a string attached to it. Or spinning it like it was a gyroscope.

Like she was doing right now.

…sue her, Skyguy’s in a meeting with Master Kenobi and she has to watch over the mouth guard like it’s a youngling. She’s allowed to treat this hunk of metal however she wants.

Speaking of, and not to put them down or anything, but the men under the 501st’s banner are a bunch of gossips. And not just that, so is the rest of the GAR, apparently, because General Kenobi had scheduled an urgent meeting with Anakin about “safety checks on The Resolute.”

And they both knew that Obi-Wan could be way more subtle if he wanted to.

… Ok, maybe she needs to meditate.

Yeah, meditation sounds good: just sit down and relax, release all that anger and stress into the force.

So, she sits down criss-cross, making sure to hold the mouth guard tight in her hands, and relaxes.The mouth guard registers in the force as a small hole held right at her abdomen, but Ahsoka decides to pay it no mind.

I am one with the force, and the force is one with me…

She takes a deep breath, doing her best to steady her heart rate as she sinks further and further.

I am one with the force, and the force is one with me…

She lets the force extend her senses, allowing her to feel not just everyone on the resolute, but everyone from here to Mandalore.

There’s a hole in the force floating it’s way down the vents

I am one with the force, and the force is one with me…

Her senses twist, and she can see…a tree? No, it’s a jungle around her, the tree canopies shading her from a fairly angry sun.

I am one with the force, and the force is one with me…

The hole is floating closer

Her vision melts and shifts, images coming in a slideshow instead of anything Closer Clear.

I am one with the force, The hole is in her room now and the force is one with me…

A jungle, a rocky outcropping The hole’s stopped in front of her , and a blackened forest. Where is this? It’s extending towards her

I am

Open

one with the

Your

force, and

Eyes

the force is

AHSOKA!

Ahsoka’s eyes snap open, and it takes a moment to register the fact that there’s a person in front of her.

Green hair, Green eyes, Green uniform, THE VENT DWELLER.

Immediately, Ahsoka grips the mouth guard tighter in her left hand and grabs her lightsaber with her right, pointing the hilt at him.

However, he seems to have anticipated that, as before she can activate it, he sends out a black tendril, which latches on to it and yanks it out of her hand, throwing it all the way over to the other side of the room.

He lunges at her, but she’s quicker, dodging to her left as he crashes into the wall. As she stands up, she clips the guard to her hip, then pulls her ‘saber back over to her with the force. She catches and reignites it as she glares down the vent dweller, his (fairly young actually) face twisted into a snarl.

She watches his eyes flicker down towards her legs, then hunch over as if about to lunge again, so Ahsoka gets into a defensive stance. Instead of lunging, though, the vent dweller sends two tendrils whipping at her, but she easily blocks them, stepping back as he steps forward.

The pattern repeats, with him sending out tendrils and her blocking them, until her back is against the wall and her foot-

Clang.

Ahsoka chances a glance behind her, and sees a small opening that she’s stepped in, but also a grate-

THWACK!

Her non-lightsabered hand instantly goes to her cheek, feeling the stinging as if she’d been…

Slapped.

She looks over to the vent dweller, big eyes fixed into a hard glare as those SITH DAMNED whips flail around him.

He’s trying to get to the vent, she thinks, tapping her heel against the metal of the vent. He sends out another tendril, but instead of parrying it, she lets him wrap it around the saber. She waits until he yanks it up, but right as it goes taught, she uses a combination of both the force and anger-born strength to keep the saber in place. With a yank of her own, she pulls him over, punching him in the gut once he gets close enough. The boy’s body goes flying, but before she can see if he hits the wall, she crouches down and uses the force to reassemble the vent’s cover. It only takes 5 seconds to do, and when she looks up again, she sees the boy groaning on the ground, clutching his stomach.

“Your escape route’s been cut off,” she says, walking toward him. He seems to notice her talking, but isn’t paying attention to it.

That’s not gonna do.

When she reaches the boy’s body, she points her saber at him, with him taking notice of the glow, then moving his eyes up to meet hers.

“Who are you,” she bites out, “who sent you, and why were you living in the vents?”

The vent dweller says nothing, but there’s a…something in his eyes.

But Ahsoka’s too pissed at the moment to try and guess what the something is, so she grips his hair and pulls him up to fully meet her gaze.

“Answer me.” She hisses, getting directly into his face. For just a moment, they both glare at each other, the vent dweller breathing deeply. But then, he does something that catches Ahsoka completely off guard.

First, he blows in her face, but instead of a small, irritating gust, a plume of deep purple smoke hits her face, obscuring her vision entirely. Surprised, Ahsoka moves to wave it away, but the boy must have the lungs of a nautolan in him, as he blows the smoke for an impressive amount of time. As he blows, he thrashes in her grasp, and despite her best attempt to hold on, he’s able to escape, dropping down almost flat to the ground and knocking Ahsoka’s feet out from under her. She goes down with a shout, and right after she hits the floor, he reaches over, quickly unclips his mouth guard, and walks back to the vent while attaching it back to his costume.

Kark no.

Ahsoka stretches her hand out, using the force to keep the screws tight as she focuses on regaining her footing. She hears the vent dweller grunt as he tries to unscrew the cover, then growl in anger. Ahsoka smiles smugly at that.

And then the door opens, the shifting of armor alerting her to it being a clone.

“Commander,” Rex (because even if the clones all look and sound the same, Ahsoka will ALWAYS be able to pick Rex out) says, looking down at a datapad, “we’ve been reviewing the footage of that night, a…”

She chances a glance up at his face. Rex looks, and she means this as nicely as possible, kriffin awful. His bucket is off, exposing his tired visage to the galaxy, with eyebags as deep as the lower levels of Coruscant. He’s slightly slumped, which, for a guy as professional as him, Ahsoka knows is a sign of bone-deep exhaustion, and his voice sounds slightly frayed.

But she can see that his eyes are laser-focused on her, then flickering over to the vent dweller, then back again.

It’s completely silent in the room, all three of them not talking in shock.

Then Ahsoka shouts “SHUT THE DOOR!” And everything from then on happens in under a minute.

Ahsoka dives for the vent-dweller’s legs as Rex slams his hand on the control pad, causing the door to start shutting, but not fast enough. The vent dweller starts rhythmically crouching, crushing Ahsoka’s arms between his thighs and calves as his legs start to glow red, while Rex flattens himself against the doorframe to plug any humanoid-sized holes. Rex plucks his gun out from its holder, adjusting the settings as Ahsoka moves an arm up to the vent dweller’s abdomen. Then, Rex aims his gun, Ahsoka shouts “SHOOT NOW, REX!” and he does, the blue ellipse zipping toward its target and hitting him straight in the chest.

And with that, the vent dweller, the pain in the 501st’s shebs, crumples to the ground, unconscious.

////

He was supposed to be organizing a party with Padme.

He was supposed to be on Coruscant, a whole month on that planet really, helping her organize some formal party.

He didn’t care for things like that all that much, but it would’ve given him a window in his heinously packed schedule to spend with his beautiful wife. His shining light in this hellscape of a war.

But no.

No, because Anakin is the face of this Sith-damned war, and not just that, but according to two of the ARCs, he’s got a stowaway on his ship.

So, while other Jedi knights get to just go on leave to the temple and live it up, Anakin has to spend his time chasing this stowaway down, stalling The Resolute until they get this situation under control.

And to make matters worse, Obi-Wan scheduled this meeting about safety checks, purely to lecture him about how bad of a general he is!

“Anakin, are you even listening?” His former master asks shortly.

No. Anakin thinks.

“Of course, Obi-Wan.” Anakin says.

“No you aren’t.” Obi-Wan responds flatly, because if there’s anyone in the universe who can read The Hero With No Fear, it’s the man that practically raised him for the past 11 years.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin sighs, “for your information, I have the men quadruple-check everything before we leave any of the planets we go to.”

“Then how did this ‘vent dweller’ get onto your ship?”

“…We’re not sure.”

“Well, if your men really do quadruple-check -“

And then Anakin’s personal comlink pings.

Looking down, he can see that there’s a call on the other end, an urgent one, he feels in the force.

Well, Padme’s not gonna call him for…stuff until this whole situation is resolved, Obi-Wan’s right next to him, and The Jedi Council don’t like him, so it’s either Rex or Ahsoka.

And hey, free out from this nightmare!

“Obi-Wan I’m so sorry, but Ahsoka promised she’d contact me if anything relating to the vent dweller situation changed.” Anakin says somewhat smugly, moving to get up from the table. “I’m sure we can reschedule this meeting?”

“Oh, my dear,” Obi-wan, not even missing a beat, says, a (fake, Anakin knows it’s fake) smile plastered on his face. “If it relates to your investigation, then why not answer it here? I’m quite curious to see what your padawan has found.”

Huffing, but conceding, Anakin answers his comm.

“Talk to me.”

“Master!” Ahsoka’s voice, slightly tired, filters through his comm.

Anakin wonders why she sounds so tired… …only for her next few words to explain everything.

“We got the vent-dweller.” His eyes shoot up at that, and a visceral satisfaction floods his body. “That’s great, Ahsoka!”

Making full eye contact with Obi-Wan, Anakin continues: “It’s so nice to know that my Padawan and Captain are so good at their jobs!”

“…huh?” Ahsoka says, befuddled but also sounding slightly proud.

“Not important. Anyways…what to do with-you know what, bring him here, and make sure to slap some force-nullifying cuffs on him, alright?”

“Copy that, Master!”

Anakin grins smugly as he puts his comm back on his belt.

“See, Obi-Wan? We’ve got it all under control.”

His old master hums lightly, his face betraying that he doesn’t believe Anakin for a second. “Yes, it appears that you did.”

Chapter Text

Ok uhhhhh

hi.

its been abt 5 months…sorry abt that y’all.

life’s been kinda crazy for me as of late, like in summer I took a lot of vacations with my family, to the point of not being able to write very much at all. August was…bad. Not gonna get into it, just. Bad, like “I conked myself in the back of my head at work hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to pass out/have a full-on concussion” Bad. September was gonna be good, but then my computer decided to be very cute & crap out on me, so that put my entire plans of drawing & writing on hold, and then mid-September I got really bad vertigo that decimated my motivation, so now I’m here in late October, with not a complete chapter to show for it. Sorry.

I think I might need a beta to help me out w this fic, cuz I tend to second-guess myself into oblivion while writing and that just does…nothing.

if u wanna help me out, hmu on my tumblr: @josephsaturn cus that’s where I’m the most active (I don’t use twitter & haven’t made a bsky yet).
Ok remember when I said I didn’t have a complete chapter? That’s bcuz I’VE GOT A SNIPPET BAYBEE:

////

“Anakin, that’s enough,” Obi-Wan says, tightening his grip on his former padawan’s shoulder when Anakin bristles.

“But Obi-Wan-“

“Take a breather, Anakin.” His former master says forcefully, then releases him when he nods. Anakin huffs, straightens his robes, and then walks over to the other side of the room.

This is what the past few hours have been like: try to get a single answer out of the kid, tear his hair out at the stubbornness he gets in return, repeat until they’re all running on fumes.

Anakin just doesn’t get it: why the weird language? Why not just answer in basic? It’s called basic for a reason, right?

Looking back over at where obi-wan’s trying to wheedle an answer out of the kid, he can see the kid doing that weird gesture again.

The one where he’s got a hand facing palm-up, with his other hand pinching his forefinger, middle finger, and thumb together, all while tracing that hand over the flat hand.

At least it’s better than the creepy muttering.

But whatever, he decides to move where Ahsoka and Rex are examining the kid’s pack.

“Find anything?” He asks, and both of them let out derisive huffs.

“If by ‘anything’ you mean ‘a whole lotta bantha shit,’” Rex grouses.

“The canteen and half-eaten ration bar make sense,” Ahsoka says, “considering that those were stolen from the galley. The change of clothes too, even if the clothes look kinda weird.” As she says this, Ahsoka takes a somewhat large lump of cloth and shakes it out, revealing what looks to be a plain white undershirt with…some kind of text on the front.

“…What kind of language is that?” Anakin asks, and both his padawan learner and his captain make a face.

“That’s the problem, General,” Rex says as he pushes a small, bound flimsibook towards Anakin.

Curious, Anakin takes it and opens it…to find what looks like gibberish scrawled all over every page, interrupted by sketches of humans and…new sentient species?

What?

“We’ve only made it halfway through,” Ahsoka explains, “but every language we tried to translate to has been a bust: it looks kind of similar to Mando’a, but when we tried that, it came out like gibberish, so we moved to huttese, but none of that looked like words, so we…”

As Ahsoka continues, listing the languages they’ve tried in the past 2 hours, Anakin glances back at the kid.

Obi-wan had moved away from the table, meditating over by the door where Cody was.

 Said kid, however, currently looked deep in thought with a hand over his mouth, the movement of his jaw making it clear that he was talking.

That was another thing the kid kept doing: after his third escape attempt, he’d spend a stretch of time completely unresponsive to anybody, just…muttering into his hand. It was freaky.

“Master, are you even listening?!” Ahsoka squawks, and Anakin jolts back into awareness.

“Yea, yea, completely indecipherable language, I get it.” Anakin says dismissively, but then something clicks in his head.

“Actually…I think I know a guy.”

////
In terms of progress, I’ve technically finished chapter 3, I just gotta edit it now, & I’ve started working on chapter 4, so yeah.

I’m not gonna post 3 ‘till I’ve written all of 4, so yall don’t have to wait for too long between chapters. I’m also gonna take the time to actually…plot the fic out a bit? At least get goalposts of events laid out to hit so I can check how long/far I’ve written.

Byeeeee,

Sat (Joseph Saturn)

Chapter Text

So, this is the kid that’s been causing their strife for the past 3 months.

Rex can’t help but be…underwhelmed.

A natborn cadet , not even a shiny , has been causing all of their problems. Hell, the kid’s not even fully armored, how did he manage to stay hidden this long?

But whatever, they have him now, so they can finally figure out what his deal is. Rex can at least be grateful for that.

Ahsoka, on the other hand, sighs as she walks over to the vent that the nat-born had been facing, and undoes the screws with the force.

“He was trying to get in here,” she says, crouching down to look inside the dusty vent, “maybe he left some kind of…A-HA!”

Quickly extracting herself from the vent, the commander turns around to face Rex, proudly showing off a…

Dirty yellow backpack?

The thing looks like it’s seen better days, the grime from the vents mixing with what looked like rips and tears to the fabric, water damage, even singes from burns of some kind.

As his commander sets the backpack down to start rummaging through it, Rex lets his eyes flicker down to the state of the adolescent nat-born, and finds that the boy himself seems to be in a similar state: his clothes grimy from his time in the vents, but also marred with what looked to be stains, burn holes, and just an obscene amount of rips, tears and frays in the fabric.

Figuring that the commander would be done searching through the backpack in a moment, Rex decides to reach down to pick the adolescent nat-born up, and wow.

Are…Are nat-borns supposed to be this light? The only nat-born he’s held from under the armpits like this is the commander, but she mentioned that Togrutas are light compared to humans. The adolescent, despite his hair and pale (ashen, almost) skin, weighs as much as Ahsoka does, and he’s got those gigantic metal shin guards (or whatever they’re supposed to be).

Rex adjusts the adolescent in his grip, going from holding him from under the armpits to simply having him slung over his shoulder…but even like this, Rex can still tell something is wrong. For one: as he holds the kid’s arms, he can feel the bones underneath, and it’s a stark difference compared to the muscle. In fact, the muscle even feels like it’s stretched over the bone. Patting the adolescent on the legs and torso finds similar stories: his ribs feel very prominent in his torso, and Rex can actually feel the femur in his legs.

Taking the adolescent off of his shoulder to slap the force-nullifying cuffs on, he turns back to Ahsoka, who’s almost fully emptied the boy’s backpack.

“Ah…commander?” Rex asks, ready to just take the adolescent to General Skywalker and get the questioning over with, “How close are you to finishing with…whatever it is you’re doing?”

She looks up from her rummaging, looks inbetween Rex and the adolescent, before clarity seems to hit her like a bolt.

“Oh…right, we gotta…” She says, before quickly packing everything she took out of the backpack (including the missing ration bars, cool) back into it. Standing up and slinging the thing over her shoulder, she lets out a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go get this guy to Skyguy.”

Rex nods, slinging the adolescent over his shoulder again, and moving out of the way so Ahsoka can unlock the door.

The both of them adjusting the different weights on their shoulders, they march their way to the conference room.

It’s just a shame that, when he was examining the adolescent, Rex failed to notice the boy’s lips.

Specifically, that they were moving as if he were talking to somebody: just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be able to make out words.

But who could he be talking to?

////

“GREAT job, you two!” The general says, laying the praise on just a bit too thick as they walk into the conference room. “I just LOVE having competent and diligent second-in-commands working under me!”

Ahsoka looks around with a slightly confused expression, while Rex simply surveys the small room in front of him:

Rex and the commander stand by the door, while a table, enough to seat 10 people, takes up the middle of the room. All but 3 chairs have been pushed to the edges of the room, with the generals sitting in the two chairs right in front of them, while the third chair sits empty across the table from them. Cody stands slightly off to the side of General Kenobi, un-bucketed and looking bored of the generals’ banter, while Echo stands helmeted off to the right of the room, a slight tension in his military rest.

That's right, Anakin had brought the ARC here to give his testimony to General Kenobi

All 4 men are looking at him and the commander, but Anakin catches the adolescent nat-born slung over Rex’s shoulder like a sack of tubers.

“Is…” He starts confusedly, “Is that him?”

Rex nods, taking that as a cue to walk over to the empty chair, depositing the pale, underweight, and dirty boy into it.

Anakin makes a sound somewhere inbetween disgusted and curious.

General Kenobi simply says “Oh, dear.”

Cody doesn’t say anything, but his eyes narrow and the creases near his mouth deepen into a scowl.

Echo, in some kind of way to disseminate some tension, says “well, at least now we know Dogma wasn’t…kidding…”, before also going silent.

Ahsoka walks over to the left side of the room, taking off the backpack and unzipping it again, no doubt resuming her search that Rex had interrupted back in her quarters.

And Rex simply sighs, too tired to put on a veneer of politeness, saying “A cadet. The 501st brought to its knees by a cadet. ”

Rex watches as General Kenobi lets his eyes flick over to Anakin, his eyebrow raising and a hand immediately going to stroke his beard.

“Hey, you weren’t the one fighting him, Rex,” Ahsoka quickly says from her spot on the left side of the table, setting a roll of white-colored cloth from the backpack and turning to face General Kenobi. “He’s stronger than he looks, Master Obi-wan, not to mention the weird tendrils he had.”

“Tendrils?” Echo says from the opposite side of the room, before snapping his fingers. “So that’s what he hit me with!”

“Tendrils?” Anakin asks.

“Yup, these dark tendrils that shot out of him,” Ahsoka said, pausing her rifiling through the backpack to use her hands to demonstrate. “They just shot out of his arm to grab my lightsaber, like-” She lifts both of her hands up to the ceiling- “FWOOSH! I couldn’t even react at first, but the second time he tried to do it, I managed to use it against him to get him close enough!”

“Did he smack ya in the face, too, commander?” Echo asks, walking over to her side of the table, “Cuz he got me real good in the forehead twice.”

“Yeah, but it was on my cheek,” She says, moving her left hand to the cheek on the same side of her body. “Got me pretty good there, too.”

Rex looks back at General Kenobi, the man digesting and ruminating on every detail the commander and ARC are giving.

“‘Think he could be a Jedi of some kind?” Cody asks General Kenobi as Ahsoka moves back to the backpack, pulling out the ration bars and chatting with Echo.

General Kenobi simply stares at the unconscious boy with a cautious look, and Rex doesn’t need the force to feel the motor in the General’s head revving up.

It’s at this point that Ahsoka lets out a triumphant cry, causing the conscious members of the room to look over at her as she holds up a…?

“Is that…” Anakin hesitantly asks, “A..flimsibook?”

“People actually use these things?” Echo asks, motioning to grab the thing from Ahsoka’s grasp, but the commander moves to block his hand with one arm.

“Some of the older Jedi at the temple do,” Obi-wan says, watching the spectacle of the ARC trooper trying to get a better look at the thing and the commander blocking his every attempt. “They claim that the holonet and other electronic systems are unreliable, so they write everything down in these to make sure that their words aren’t lost.”

General Kenobi gets up from his seat and walks over to Ahsoka, simply holding his hand out to her. She looks at the hand, before sighing and placing the burnt ‘book ( does everything this kid have with him come with burns and singes? Rex thinks) into his hands for him to examine, which he does by holding the thing up to his eyes and rotating it.

“Though i must say, I don’t think I've ever seen flimsibooks of this design before,” He says, examining the design of the book’s covers.

Curious, Rex decides to walk over to see what design the great high general obi-wan kenobi is talking about, and…both gets it and doesn’t.

On the one hand, it’s a relatively simple design: Just a muted green with some scrawl written on the front.

But that’s the problem: the scrawl.

“Uh…” Anakin, who must have come up behind Rex and General Kenobi at some point, says, “What… does that say?”

“I…” Cody’s general says, confusion bleeding into his tone, “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look like any language i’ve ever seen…”

He finally opens the book, and they all come face-to-face with a sketch of what looks to be some near-human on the left, with more of that unreadable language on the right. The language is organized into a header on top, with what look to be small sentences and bullet points underneath. The sketch, on the other hand, details a figure wearing a set of blacks with bracers on their biceps leading into long gloves of some kind of texture (at least, thats what the scribbling seems to suggest), a long, poofy belt with a strange chain, knee guards, boots with poofy bits near the ankles, and a helmet with a flared top that seemed to only expose the sentient’s eyes.

And now that Rex is focusing on the image, more of that undeadable language is scrawled on the page with the sketch, pointing to specific pieces of the armor.

“Uhhh…” Anakin says, staring at the sketch.

General Kenobi begins to flip through the pages, similar stories with every 2 pages: A sketch of some near-human with annotations in that language on one side, and notes on the other. Page after page of the exact same thing,in the exact same order. Occasionally, there’d be a sketch of some kind of mechanisms, like gigantic, ovular gauntlets or what looked to be a butt flap on a piece of the sketch’s clothing housing a gigantic flimsibook, but the main formula stayed the same.

“It seems to be that he’s…analysing these sentients,” General Kenobi muses, stopping at a sketch of a helmeted figure in a skintight suit with puffy accessories on their limbs.

“Yeah, looks like it,” Anakin adds, before muttering “Wish I could read it, though…where’s 3PO when ya need him…”

General Kenobi keeps flipping through the pages, but about halfway through the book, the contents…change.

What should’ve been another sketch of a sentient and some notes, is instead a sketch of a bulbous plant on one side, and a sketch of a landscape of the other side, filled to the brim with those bulbous plants.

Wait a moment. That’s…

“Oh hey, that’s Saleucami.” Anakin states, watching as General Kenobi examines the sketches with a critical eye.

"How can you be so sure, though?" Ahsoka says, before pointing at the sketches of grains and plants on the page. "I mean, those could be any old plants on any old planet! How do you know it's Saleucami?"

"No, that's definitely Saleucami," Rex lets out, causing Ahsoka's eyes to flick over to him. Pointing at the landscape sketch and doing his best to be mindful of the things he's saying, Rex begins, "When I was shot down, it was near a...a farmstead that had these crops planted out in front of it. Looked just like this, actually." His finger moves to the enormous, feathered-looking trees. "And those trees in the background are 100% from Saleucami."

"Yeah, I spent way too long starin' at them when we were fighting Grievous," Anakin jokes, but Rex isn't listening, still looking at the sketch.

Actually, now that he was properly looking at the sketch, Rex felt...He felt positive that this was a sketch of the Lawquane farmstead...

Rex feels his stomach drop into his boots.

“Oh, what’s-” Anakin begins, but Rex quickly snatches the book from Kenobi’s hands (to the protests of the rest of the people in the room) and turns away from the group.

“Rex, what’s gotten into you?” Anakin shouts, trying to reach for the flimsibook, but Rex blocks his hand.

They haven’t been to Saleucami since Grievous was there, so there’s no other way the kid would be able to know what the plant life looks like there.

If this kid met the lawquanes…If he sketched Cut…

It was then that a sound managed to pierce the cloud of panic that settled around Rex.

It sounded like somebody groaning.

Rex snapped up from the book, focusing in on the chair where the boy had been unconscious.

Except now, his green eyes were lolling open, looking around lazily.

Rex looked back at the others, who were also staring at the boy.

Both parties stared at each other, until Anakin cleared his throat. 

“Snips, continue searching that backpack. Rex, Echo, go guard the door.” Anakin said as he went to pull up a chair to the opposite side of the table from the boy, steeling his gaze.

“It’s time.”