Chapter Text
“What did you do?!” Omega breathes, eyes wide as she tries shielding her face from the destruction. They came this far. All this time, she wanted to go to Tantiss to free the other clones there, but the whole place is gone.
Tech falls, dropping motionless.
Hunter and Echo are at his sides, crouching.
Omega’s heart is pounding. She can’t breathe. Everyone there died. All the clones. Their brothers and – and –
Tech is unconscious. He doesn’t even twitch when Hunter shakes him.
“Overexertion, most likely,” Echo sighs.
“What do we do?” Wrecker asks worriedly.
Hunter looks back down, sighing.
Omega doesn’t understand. They were so close. Everything was fine, then she started dreaming, and now, Emerie… her sister was hurt, and now, they have no idea where she is. They don’t even know what’s happening to her, and now Tech? He wouldn’t have done that intentionally, but the hurt frustration is still burning inside her.
They were so close, and he leveled the entire place before they could get anyone out.
She can’t believe he did that.
“That looked like what happened to Emerie,” Crosshair supplies finally.
“The… thing got Tech, too?” Omega’s hands twist together absently. She thought she broke that habit, but some things don’t quite die. She already lost Tech once. She can’t do it again. There was nothing like seeing him fall, like the months on Tantiss of thinking he was gone.
And Omega cannot let her brothers endure that again.
“I don’t know, kid,” Hunter sighs. He seems so tired now, wrapped in a constant, crushing depression.
He’s hurt. He’s always hurt. Omega can’t forget the spiraling she felt when they talked about going to Tantiss for Emerie in the first place. There wasn’t a choice, but Hunter was hurt, and Omega wishes she could understand why. She never focused on anything but the mission – her brothers were the same way – but now that she feels them, constant voices whispering in her mind, she wants to make the pain stop.
Omega didn’t even know they felt it so deeply, that they felt anything so deeply, or even any of what she is feeling. It’s confusion.
“Where’s Emerie?” Echo asks, looking up.
Omega tries to nudge outward, to feel across the planet’s surface, but the only lives here are herself and her brothers. “Emerie’s gone.”
Not dead-gone, please, though her heart is aching and burning for reasons she can’t even understand. It feels like something’s missing, like… there’s someone… gone. She wants to cry, for something she can’t quite place or remember, but really – Tech just leveled that place. Hemlock’s dead, but so are all the other clones inside they were trying to help.
They were her brothers, too. She saw them hurt. Watched for weeks and months as they were torn down to nothing.
She can’t believe they’re all gone.
A voice whispers in her head, something icy cold, dark and malevolent. Wrong.
“Whatever it is, it’s still here,” Omega warns, looking around. “I’ve been dreaming about it since Mortis. I think it’s off world now, but it’s still here.”
“That doesn’t help us unless we know where it’s going,” Echo points out.
“Until then, we should go back to Pabu,” Hunter decides.
“Wait,” Omega objects, “I think I know where it’s going. Maybe. I saw this girl. She said her name was Ahsoka. She was on some farming planet. I think the cloud said it was after her.”
Echo goes completely still. “That thing is after the Commander?”
“Your commander?” Omega asks.
“The Jedi padawan he fought with in the Clone Wars,” Hunter answers, “Her name was Ahsoka Tano.”
“How’d we find her?” Omega queries.
“Would you know the planet if you saw it?” Crosshair inquires.
“Yes, I think so.” All planets have their own… feel. Omega thought it was just her imagination when she first was on Pantora and noticed how different everything was, but now, it’s something burned deep in her veins. She saw the place well, and it seemed peaceful.
“I’ll try to get a list together,” Hunter sighs, “Right now, we gotta get out of here.”
***
Hunter’s sitting in the back beside Tech, typing on the datapad their now-unconscious brother used to carry everywhere.
This feels familiar. Too familiar – Omega never saw how they dealt with Tech’s loss, but that he’s so quiet and still, no matter what any of them do, has her scared. She doesn’t understand what happened.
“Do we know what’s wrong with him?” Omega asks.
“He still hasn’t woken up,” Hunter sighs.
Lula’s little handless arms grip her leg. “Maybe you need to check him out?” she asks. “You woke me up.”
That’s fair. She did. She brought Lula and Havoc Marauder to life somehow. She felt Wrecker’s mind fade away and back on Mortis, alighting when she touched him. Omega steps up to the rack Tech’s lying on motionless, taking his hand in hers. It’s warm, and he’s right here, but he feels far, far away.
“I think he’s fine, but something’s…” There’s a flicker, quiet ice-coldness over his mind. “I think whatever it is might’ve attached itself to his mind. He’s there, but… something else is there, too.”
Hunter sighs. Omega squeezes Tech’s hand tighter. She shuffles her feet, looking up at Hunter. She feels so lost. He’s hurt, and Omega doesn’t know how to ask what’s wrong, now to help – she hasn’t talked to Hunter about his feelings since Crosshair left, really.
It’s almost embarrassing when she actually thinks about it. They lived together, and she has no idea how he thinks or feels about almost anything.
“I… um.” She rubs at her wrist again, looking at him, and it feels so stupid to ask what’s wrong. She ought to know this.
He looks up. The blue glow of the datapad makes his features look sharper, far too distinct, and she tries not to be unnerved by how his eyes are tinted aqua now. Sometimes, they’re still brown, but they’re usually aqua. It’s weird. “What is it, kid?”
“Is something wrong?” Omega blurts.
“No,” Hunter answers, though it’s too automatic, and Omega bites her lip.
“You don’t have to lie,” she argues, “I know I’m a kid, but I know something’s wrong, and I – I want to help.”
“You shouldn’t have to worry about us.”
Shouldn’t, maybe, but she does, because the world is not a fraction as perfect as Omega once wanted to believe it was, as she still wishes she could believe it is, but Tech… she saw Tech die, even if he somehow made it back, they still lost him. He was still gone, and they thought he… and Crosshair left.
Nothing is like Omega though it would be.
Nothing.
She thought she would never have to be alone again, that she would never have to hurt, and she longs – craves for a nonexistent reality where she will never, ever have to fear the dark, loneliness of Tantiss again, and her heart aches enough she wants to cry.
“I’ll always worry about you,” Omega objects with a shake of her head. “You’re my little brother, too.”
Hunter twitches a little, lips parting in a way she’s long come to read as surprise.
He looks back at Tech again, expression tight with worry. “We’ve never dealt with anything like this before,” Hunter confesses, “It’s… new to all of us. I don’t know what the best course of action is.”
“Well, we have to get Emerie back,” Omega replies, sitting next to him, “She needs our help. That’s more important than anything else.”
“Tech already got hurt again. We don’t know what these powers are, Omega. We don’t know if he’ll even wake up.”
“What?” she breathes, jerking back. “Don’t say that! Of course, he will!” They lost him once. They can’t do that again.
“We don’t even know what’s wrong.”
It’s so hard to understand sometimes, but this is the first time her brothers haven’t known. They always have some kind of answer, but when this started, everyone just seemed… lost. For Omega, it’s no different than it ever has been, because she’s never known, but for her brothers, this is different.
They hadn’t known Tech was alive, that he was trapped on Tantiss with Crosshair, getting his mind ripped apart. They hadn’t known that, and it was her little brother. She left him behind.
That’s why he’s so lost. “We’ll figure it out, Hunter. We always have.” For a moment, it feels so awkward, flipped and wrong – Hunter always used to be the one to comfort her, to tell her everything would be fine, but she used to hold him when he was little. She remembers him. Flickers and whisps, but something amidst the blank spots faded from mind.
“I know,” Hunter agrees, though he still sounds tired. “Wrecker and I wanted to settle down, but with his… thing on the loose, we’re the only ones with the powers to stop it. We thought, after you came back, we’d finally get to settle down, but…”
“We’re not done yet,” Omega supplies. She had thought the same, but she can’t let go of what happened on Tantiss, either. There are so many who need help. She’s not even gonna get that chance anymore. “There’s still something missing.” Her heart aches, but it never stops. There’s a hole in her heart, one of years and years of loneliness and the dull, bare walls of Nala Se’s lab, but something – is gone.
“Yeah,” Hunter agrees quieter, “There is. I can’t figure it out.” He looks down at Tech again.
“He’ll be okay,” Omega whispers, and she hopes – desperately – she’s right. His mind feels tumultuous, turbulent in a way that feels like nightmares. Omega hardly knew Tech had those.
“We have no idea what we’re up against, kid. This… being, these powers are things we’ve never seen.”
“Emerie helped us when we needed her to. We owe her, and she’s our sister.”
“I know, but…” He sighs. “We just got back together. I don’t want something to take us apart again.”
“It won’t,” Omega promises, “We’ll be fine.”
Lula waddles over to hug Hunter, and he pats her head.
Omega’s heading back up front, and stumbles to a stop when she sees the energy bow propped against the wall of the gunner’s mount, and the vibroblade laying innocently beside it. Her throat closes over, and tears blur her eyes unexpectedly. She can’t look away.
Wrecker spots her, instantly coming over the way he always used to, crouching and pulling her into a hug. Omega throws her arms around his neck. “’ts okay,” he promises, holding her close, “I miss her, too.”
And that, somehow, makes perfect sense.
***
It’s not through maps they find it. It’s through dreams. Omega keeps seeing it, flashes of fire and death, and she pieces it together, maps it out in her mind and pinpoints the coordinates herself long before Rex can come back with anything. People are dying, and there’s no time to wait.
She has to get her sister back. And wake up Tech. Something tells her they’re linked, and it’s with those in mind that Omega steps off the Marauder’s ramp – their ship alternates between being chattery and quiet.
They’d left Batcher on Pabu, just in case this goes downhill.
“Good luck!” Havoc calls after as they leave the ship.
“Echo, stay here with Tech,” Hunter requests.
“Not a chance,” he objects instantly, “We’re going to see my kid.”
Echo had another kid before her. Omega still finds that hard to imagine.
“I’ll do it,” Wrecker offers immediately. Of everyone, Omega thinks he’s been clingiest to Tech – he’s the one who stood there to his last, reaching for him, and Omega still remembers his scream enough to have it looping through her head forever.
“I can stay, too,” Lula offers cheerfully, like anyone was even going to suggest her coming.
“Don’t be babies,” Havoc gripes, “He’ll be plenty safe with me, Lula, and Wrecker.”
Hunter nods to Wrecker, and they set off.
The grass is tall as they move through it, a good way past her knees, somewhere close to her waist. The planet looks normal, beautiful though plain, but something’s sinister here. Wrong.
A figure comes out to greet them, a gray cloak wrapped over her shoulders and hood over her head, but Omega recognizes the blue attire anywhere.
“Ahsoka?” she asks, moving past her brothers.
“I saw you,” the girl says slowly, pulling her hood back. Her face is troubled as she scans them.
“I saw you, too,” Omega agrees, “In a dream or something. I don’t know what it was.”
“A vision,” Ahsoka answers, “I saw you, too, but who are you?”
“We’re clones,” Hunter interrupts, “I don’t know what’s happening, but Omega keeps… seeing things.”
“She’s Force-sensitive.”
“I’m not sure. We’re all something…”
“Other,” Ahsoka supplies, studying them, “I’ve never seen clones like you before.”
“That’s no surprise,” Crosshair supplies, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed.
Hunter shifts aside so Echo can come past. Ahsoka twitches back, eyes widening and lips parting slightly. “Commander,” Echo says, awkwardly – Omega feels it in his mind.
“Echo,” she whispers. “You survived.”
“The general got me out.”
“We – we left you there. I thought you were dead.” There’s a wetness in her eyes, and Omega has the sudden feeling of being horribly out of place. She backs away a little, trying to give them a wide enough space for it to not be too awkward. This is a private conversation, not one she understands.
Does it make Ahsoka her sister if she’s Echo’s kid?
“It’s – it’s okay, kid,” Echo replies, “I survived.”
She makes a quiet, choked sound, and runs to him, and Echo stumbles a step back when they collide, his hand and scomp resting on her back. Omega feels tears in her own eyes. Echo had another family, one she never knew, one torn away from him before he ever met her and she ever knew him. Because of how overwhelmingly unfair the entire galaxy has been to all of her brothers.
“I’m sorry,” Ahsoka whispers, her arms wrapped around his back and clinging to his armor, even if his body is sparking and sparkling, and Omega feels the static in the air. It smells like ozone, thunder clouds slowly gathering in the distance and the feeling of wrongness approaching, but nothing right now matters but the reunion of a family long ripped apart by war and chaos and death.
They deserve each other.
This is what Omega wants to help, to do, to heal. She wants everyone to have this chance.
“I was so close, and there was all – it was –”
“I’m fine,” Echo promises her gently, “I’m alright, kid.”
She pulls back, wiping her eyes with a strained smile. “I know, just – I got so many of you lost.”
“It’s not your fault, Commander.”
“Maybe not,” she says, “But I was still supposed to be the one who – who protected you all.” She sighs heavily, wiping a little at the tears still lingering in her bright eyes. “So, what are you here for?”
The coldness is gathering in the air, linked with the trickling wrongness. There’s a hole, entirely different than the strange, morphed duplicate Crosshair and Tech are. Their presence is – a depression. There’s an end.
This thing doesn’t.
It’s spinning inwards and outwards in something like a hurricane, something cold and wrong, eyes watching, eyes everywhere, eternally unseen but always seeing.
This thing isn’t dark. It’s not made of hurt and pain. It’s not made by layers of wrongs and the desperate need to survive. This is Chaos.
“That,” Omega answers, pointing at the rapidly gathering cloud, spinning and spiraling downwards like a tornado.
Ahsoka freezes, stepping back. “This isn’t good.”
“What is it?” Hunter queries.
“The Mother. A being of chaos. The legends call her Abeloth.
“Do not call me Abeloth,” the being gripes, forming as a cloud figure and jabbing a tentacle at Ahsoka. “That sounds like sloth.”
Huh? How?
“Echo, Omega, stay back,” Ahsoka warns, hands raised as she moves forwards.
The cloud’s head turns to Omega, its eyes shimmering. “Thank you, Daughter. I asked, and you delivered.”
“Delivered what?”
It moves closer to Ahsoka. Not stalking, but still dangerous. It feels wrong, and it makes Omega’s skin crawl. This thing shouldn’t exist, whatever it is. “Ahsoka,” it breathes, voice silky smooth. “Darling, did you miss me?”
Ahsoka’s eyes narrow. The air is tense around her, and she flicks her hand outward, flinging the cloud’s body back into itself.
It yowls, but now forged back into a massive cloudy blob from the semi humanoid shape it was a second ago. Omega feels its hurt, rippling and tearing and the entire world explodes.
Fire flares skywards, the ground tearing and the ground leveled, the grass melting into rushing lava, the ground cracking and trembling.
Omega gasps, stumbling, and Hunter grabs her arm to keep her upright. Or tries to, but his hand turns to mist and it fades right through her.
Echo’s blaster is in his hand, his body crackling with electricity and something sparking near his feet. Crosshair’s rifle’s out, and Omega goes for her crossbow, firing it up and shooting at the cloud.
They’re all flung backwards, a wave of energy catching her square in the chest.
Omega grunts when she hits the ground a good distance off, scrambling to her feet and diving for her bow again.
The ground is burning. When she stands, Echo’s stalking forwards, grass singeing with every step, blackening away, fire sparks in his wake.
“What did you do to my sister?” Omega demands, pulling the bow lever back to fire at the thing’s eye.
“Oh,” it says, “Emerie’s safe. She’s one of us now.”
“What do you want?” Ahsoka demands.
Its head tilts. “You.” And then it charges.
Ahsoka grunts, gasping, throwing up some kind of invisible shield to cover them, but it caves right in. Hunter joins, aqua and blue sparking fire joining the energy shield.
Crosshair’s glaring, but his expression is tensed, pale. Omega feels his exhaustion, the strain.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers.
“It’s hurt,” he answers, and Omega feels it loud and clear. This… being, this thing, whatever it is, it’s angry because it’s hurt, and she doesn’t understand why.
“What do you want with us?” Hunter demands.
“You’re my family.”
“You’re not a clone.” He’s skidding backwards a bit, feet bracing on the ground, but always too stubborn to give in.
“I can be anything I want to be.”
Crosshair fires again, and it flicks its hand. The blaster bolt freezes mid-air, transforming into a fluttering little insect.
Omega stares, open-mouthed.
“And everything is as I want it, or it will be. We can do anything. Together.”
“And what do you want with us?” Echo demands.
"We’ll make the galaxy burn for what it’s done to us.”
Echo’s purple lightning energy joins with Hunter and Ahsoka’s shield. “We’re not helping you.”
“What has the galaxy ever given to you?”
“We’re not burning everything because someone wronged us,” Hunter throws back.
“Your powers are mine. We’re linked. We always have been.”
The area ripples and everyone is gone. Everyone but Omega, and the cloud that won’t leave her alone. The area is overwritten with storm clouds, and smoke is rising out of something.
Omega gasps quietly, turn whips back to the cloud to glower at it. “Where did you take me? What did you do to them?” Are they hurt? Stars, she doesn’t want to be here alone again. She’s been alone for so long. Being without them even for a short time has her jittery now. She just wants to be safe.
“You don’t want to be alone,” the cloud says gently. It makes her skin crawl, anyway. “You think they can help you, but they aren’t strong enough. They never have been.”
“You don’t know them,” Omega snarls.
“I watched them even when you couldn’t,” it answers, “All the time they were away. All that time you were alone.”
“Let me out of here.” There’s nothing here. Omega still feels her brothers, but they’re somewhere far, far away – glowing through a haze of some sort of filtering mist. Something obscuring her mind. Just like Tantiss, like Kamino, she’s trapped and her brothers are so far away. She wants to be safe. Fighting is fun, but this isn’t fighting. It’s something oppressive and foreign, something entirely wrong that shouldn’t… be here.
“I’ll give you whatever it is you want.”
Her heart aches, an empty burning that nothing can ever fill. She wants all her brothers, but there’s something more, something not quite right. She wants that hole to stop aching, to stop longing for something that no one can fill. For as hard as it was to be on Tantiss, something there had eased it. “Then give me my sister back.”
“That’s what I’m offering,” it replies, “You want someone who was always beside you. Someone who you shared with when your brothers were gone.”
“Let me go!” Omega yells back fiercely. She can’t even say why she’s so angry suddenly. They never talk about the emptiness or all those times that she sees them staring at the gunner’s mount or at – things, places she knows there should be life but it’s empty. “Just give Emerie back!”
A voice ripples in her mind, a distant echo of her name. Crosshair’s voice. Something shudders, but it reforms, and all that’s here is Omega and the cloud.
“She’s not the one you really want.”
“No one can give me who I want.” It’s something unreachable, something Omega knows she’ll never see, because it’s not real, something she can’t even name herself. It feels like she’s the only one who misses it, or it did until Wrecker pulled her aside to tell her that he misses them, too. “It’s not real.”
“But it can be.”
“No,” Omega snarls back, tears burning her eyes. She doesn’t want to hope. It’s been such a long time that she knew it would never close over, could never get better. She’s accepted it.
“You want someone to take it with you. Someone who will never go away.”
Something flickers and for a millisecond she thinks she feels something else, something soft and warm and familiar before it’s gone in a flash. Someone. Familiar. All it leaves is the familiar aching hole in her heart and tears in her eyes.
She hears Crosshair calling her name, and Omega’s yanked back into reality, gasping and panting and tipping sideways into Crosshair, who grabs her arms to keep her upright, their former argument entirely forgotten. His eyes are black and red again, shimmering with fury, but his face is pale and strained again. He’s sweating, breathing heavily.
Stars.
“You okay?” Omega asks, though her head is hammering. Something feels raw inside, and it’s unpleasant. Her chest is heavy like something sat on it. It’s an awful feeling.
He grunts. “Yeah. You?”
“I’m in one piece,” she offers.
Something explodes across the clearing, and Crosshair tackles her down, bodily shielding her the way Hunter and Tech and Echo and Wrecker have so many times. Like he was born for it.
Her hand slams onto the ground, slicing too neatly across a rock. She yanks it up at the sting, blinking in genuine confusion when a blood droplet slips off it onto the dead grass. Something shifts and it uncoils, shifting from brown to green. Her hand stops stinging, the cut closing over like it hadn’t even been there.
Her blood is what brings things to life. That’s what brought Lula and Havoc. She’ll tell the others later.
When she lifts her head, Echo’s down in the grass, his hand and scomp twitching in the only inclination he’s conscious, purple sparking energy rippling across him. Fear is twisting in the back of her mind, on the other side of some sort of doorway binding their minds together, along with a crashing, rolling fury.
Ahsoka’s on the ground behind them a good distance away.
Hunter’s down on his hands and knees, panting, an aqua mist swirling around him, but at least he’s up, so she runs to Echo.
He’s glaring furiously, but doesn’t respond when she shakes his shoulder or calls his name.
“What did you do to him?” Omega yells, looking up.
Crosshair’s standing again, though swaying unsteadily on his way upright. He’s the one who brought her back here from whatever mind-prison she was in, wasn’t he?
“There’s not even a point fighting, Hunter,” the cloud says – it’s moving past the others towards him. “Or should I call you Father? Oh – that would be weird. We are supposed to be married.” It sounds disgusted. “But I guess we do have… relationship issues.”
“What do you want with us?” Hunter demands, standing again. He’s seconds short of going for his knife.
“You to accept your roles. As my family.”
“You’re not one of us,” Crosshair hisses. He dropped his rifle, or Omega’s certain he’d be shooting at her already.
The ground cracks, shifting apart and a flowing river of lava appears. The dying grass nearby catches fire.
Omega’s heart skips a beat, and she moves closer to Crosshair.
Wrecker and Tech are back at the ship. They’re in danger. She doesn’t know if they’re going to be alright.
She wishes Wrecker was here. Both of them – they’re always strongest together.
“Respect your elders, little one,” she scolds. She sounds amused, even if Omega feels a strange layer of rolling hurt in the mess of thousands of lives looped into one. “I’m your mother.”
“Not unless you’re the Great Mother Jar,” Echo hisses.
“You were made to spread chaos. My chaos.” The cloud has a humanoid form again, vaguely, but it’s moving closer, crouching in front of Hunter and reaching to touch him. Her brother flinches back from her, and the tentacles lower. “The Sith served me well, but they’re purpose is… outdone. You are my family. My children, and I take care of what’s mine.”
“That explains Tech,” Crosshair snarls.
“Somebody had to burn that place. His powers called to me. It was his choice. He just exhausted himself.”
Omega doesn’t know what to do. Her instincts say this thing needs to be stamped from existence, but she doesn’t know if that’s possible.
“Will we forever be a family torn apart in war?” Its eyes sweep across them. “Hunter. You want to be accepted. To be a family. A father.” It laughs. “You’re adorable. You’re only ten – maybe you need to know you already have children.”
Hunter’s flushing a little, so maybe there’s more truth to it than she realized.
“Echo. You want peace, but could you live a life of that? Omega, you want the pain to stop, but could there really be life without it? Crosshair, you want your family, but you’re always the one to reject it.”
“You’re not my mother,” he snarls, “And Hunter is not our father. I don’t care what you’ve done to us. We aren’t these powers.”
Omega doesn’t know if Hunter looks more disgruntled or hurt.
“Of course, I am,” she argues, “And of course, he is.”
The term Daughter dawns on her for the first time, and Omega scrunches her face in disgust. “I am not calling him that,” she informs flatly, “Who do you think changed his diapers as a baby?”
“Ewwww.” The cloud shudders. “That was a form of chaos I did not need to know.”
Something shudders again. The fire is spreading. Wrecker and Tech are still out there. Something’s wrong.
The cracks in the planet’s surface are widening, and all she can think about is Tech’s unconscious, still form.
“Crosshair, Omega,” Hunter calls, his voice echoing in a strangely unfamiliar way as he unsheathes his knife. “Get the Marauder out of here.” He lunges at the cloud.
Omega’s heart is racing as she watches him move, but his orders stand, and they need to get out of here. Omega whirls around and runs for the ship. She doesn’t stop until a scream sounds behind her.