Alternate Start (ARCHIVE)

Chapter Forty Nine: In the Background

0900
Gym, The Triumphant

Wolffe wasn't usually one to work while he was in the gym, but he was more here to watch his Jetiise train.

"I— I really am di'kutla nibral..."

Wolffe's head snapped up at the words that Cryptid just said about himself.

Buir's brow was furrowed and he kneeled down next to Cryptid, who had crumbled to his knees clutching his lightsaber. The vod'ika had tripped up on a kata he was struggling with. He called himself a di'kutla nibral.

"Padawan, it's okay to mess up." General Koon encouraged gently, carefully rubbing tears away from his eyes.

"...May I go back to my quarters for a while, Master?" He choked out, a black strand of hair falling in front of his face.

"Of course Padawan. Let me know when you feel ready to pick up training again."

Cryptid picked himself up and left the room, wrapping his cloak around himself. Plo approached Wolffe, standing next to him.

"Wolffe? What did he call himself?"

""Di'kutla nibral", Buir. It means idiotic failure."

His buir looked horrified.

"Where did he learn to start calling himself that? These behaviors don't come from nowhere."

"I'm not sure, but I think his batchers might know the answer."

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"He called himself what?!" Cryptid's batchmates near shouted. Jones glanced at Master Kenobi in a bit of an apologetic manner, and Jinn did the same towards Commander Shade.

"Yes, but my question is, where did that idea come from?" Plo pressed, deeply concerned for his padawan.

57 whispered something in 88's ear, and he nodded. "Okay okay, Commander Colt might know." 88 offered, leaning against 57. "A while back when we were uh... five I think? We were waiting for Cryptid to get back from hand to hand since the trainer pulled him aside. Commander Blitz came and brought us to medbay and Cryptid was uh... pretty kriffed up for lack of better terms, but he kept saying he deserved it and wouldn't tell us who it was."

Jinn snapped his fingers suddenly. "Back then we only had one mandalorian trainer on Kamino! It wasn't like we could do anything back then, but Cryptid had broken bones that night in the medbay! If he's still doing that then he could get dropped for damaging the—..." he furrowed his eyebrows then sighed, "The product. He could get dropped for damaging the product."

"Thank you for your help boys."

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1100
Rec Room, The Negotiator

Jones flopped on the couch next to Cody, startling the caffeinated Commander. He quickly righted himself and started cleaning his blaster.

"Uh... hi Jon'ika..." Cody said, raising an eyebrow.

"Hi ori'vod." Jones replied with the ire of a man about to commit murder.