Cyare (A Rexsoka SWTCW Fanfic)

23

Ahsoka and Jesse moved to Skywalker's last location. They came around the corner and found exactly what they expected. Nothing. Jesse blew out a long breath that crackled over his external comms.

"Now what. Gonna do some force/magicy thingamawhatsit?" He asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall of the alley. Ahsoka huffed and glared at him. Even though he was part of the old guard, he was one of the ones she had the least interaction with.

"Well, worth a shot isn't it?" She spat, a little harder than intended. His actions on the ship still had her on edge. She didn't need to see his face to know he was pulling one. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her bond with Anakin. It took a minute, but just before Jesse broke her concentration, she felt a sharp tug in her gut. "This way."

Jesse just shrugged and followed her down the next alleyway corridor. She knew she must look like a crazed wamprat, running through seemingly random pathways in the nabooian city. Finally they came to a dead end, and Ahsoka felt the pull stop. She was breathing hard, and although she couldn't hear Jesse panting she knew that he was slightly winded as well.

She frowned and looked around. She knew he was close by, practically under her feet. She stamped her foot in frustration. Jesse tipped his head at her.

"Well?"

"He's close, almost as if he's right under our AAARRRGGGGG-" a terrible pain arced through her skull. She stumbled.

"-mander? Commander!" She heard dimly. Jesse caught her as she gasped and arched her back. Another familiar presence was nearing them too. She called on the force, trying to block out the pain as a dark silhouette of a figure dropped behind them.

"L...look out." She croaked, forcing the pain down. A red blade swung down and would've cut Jesse in half if Ahsoka hadn't gotten her shoto blade in position to block it. She managed a weak force push that knocked her cloaked opponent off balance.

Jesse pulled her to her feet and started firing at the figure. All shots were redirected back at them with an ease and accuracy that she knew only one person to have. As she was forced to diverge her attention to keeping the redirected shots away from her and Jesse she let her shielding from the pain and it roared back. She gritted her teeth, and tried to focus but her control was slipping fast. The figure behind the hood bared yellow teeth at her.

"It hurts, doesn't it." He gave a grimace of a smile, red rimmed and sickly yellow eyes shining fiercely from the dark cloth's deep shadows. Another wave if agony crashed over her, and Ahsoka fell to her knees. Jesse fires a shot that the figure dodged smoothly. Jesse fired again and again with his DC 16, but the figure just casually knocked them aside with the force. The blaster was ripped from his hands and flew over the head of the fallen jedi. Ahsoka's lightsabers got the same treatment.

Kenobi threw back his hood, revealing a shadow of what had been his hair and beard. He looked worse in person than he did on the holo, if possible.

"I know the feeling well. It gave me such strength to draw on... a shame you cannot use the same power." Ahsoka hung her head, unable to look at the monstrosity that had been like a second master to her. The red blade was ignited once more, and swung down in a crimson arc. It brushed Ahsoka's neck and held there. Burning her but not decapitating. More pain. Black spots danced in her vision.

"I am under orders not to kill you, apprentice of Skywalker. But the clone..." He trailed off. His grin widened to that of a twisted glee. He removed the lightsaber from her neck and spun on his heel to drive it through Jesse's chest.

Jesse.

For the briefest moment, she saw a life that was not her own flash past her as Jesse died. She saw a clone playing tag with his brothers at a young age. An older clone sitting at a computer terminal and undergoing flash learning. She saw him lifting a marker out of the top of a training simulation, and his wild joy.

She saw him getting his medal, Rex picking him up and assigning him to Torrent company, him looking at a mirror and admiring the Republic cog that now circled his left temple. Him painting the same symbol on his helmet. Meeting Fives. Echo's death. The swish of a red blade, and the burning pain in his chest.

It all ended with a sight she assumed was from Kamino. A storm with the waves rising hundreds of feet high and crashing down to batter the durasteel and plastoid of the cloning facility. Then blackness.

Jesse, one of the last members of the old guard, and the one who she barely knew his name, was dead. And she couldn't even muster up the strength to raise her head to see his last breath. More pain. More agony. She couldn't take it all. She fluttered on the edge of consciousness. Her last coherent action was to grab at the bond she shared with Rex.

She didn't know if it was strong enough to with stand the power of telepathic communication, but she sent one word out to him, and a slew of grief and shock.

Rex.

Everything went black.

Rex's head snapped up and he stood suddenly, breaking off mid sentence from interrogating the bar tender at a club that was known for housing the bounty-hunter's guild.

The twi-lek sent him a strange look, but shrugged and moved on. Rex was having a hard time thinking straight. His head hurt, badly. In the midst if the turmoil, he heard a distant and familiar voice.

Rex.

"Ahsoka." The word came out as barely a whisper. Icy dread filling him, he spun around to find
Fives in a corner with a twi-lek draped over him, hands splayed as she told an animated and probably way over exaggerated. Rex all but ran over to his brother and dragged him to the door. "We need to go. Now."

Fives gave a start, both at being hauled out of the bar with the pretty ladies and at the severity in Rex's thoughts. "Woah whoa whoa, slow down Ori'vod. What's the rush? Who died? You know, that pretty little girl Kirra was telling me how she had spotted the bounty-"

"If anything from Ahsoka's message was to go off of, somethings happened. We need to go after them, now." Rex cut his brother off, throwing the door to the bar open and taking off at a run, following his where his instincts told him that his girl was.

"Wait, what message? Commander Tano commed you?" Fives sprinted next to him to keep up. Rex hesitated.

"Yeah. Yeah she commed me. We need to hurry." He bit out sharply. Fives ran a little faster and got in front of his brother, pulling both of them to a stop.

"Rex, we can't. Cavalry was clear on the plan. We need to find the two bounty hunters." Fives said sternly, unclipping his helmet from his belt and jamming it on.

"There's no time!" Rex all but yelled, pushing past his Euk vod. He ran ahead around another corner, and both of them came to a stop.

Jesse lay unmoving at the end of the passage, a smoking wound in his chest. As Rex forced his feet to carry him closer, he could see that there was no way that this was a survivable wound. Their brother was already dead. Fives came stumbling up behind him and fell to his knees. He yanked his bucket off once more to scrub at his eyes. Finally, he looked up at Rex, who was also struggling not to cry.

"Kark the plan. Who ever did this will pay." He growled. Rex couldn't get a sound past the lump in his throat. He settled for a nod.

Fives pulled Jesse's helmet off and closed his eyes. "Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum. Nuhoy bal draar kar'taylir akaan tug'yc, vod."

A/N - Well... at least I'm not stalling with a filler chapter. The mando'a is an altered form of the funeral chant. Translation: I am alive, you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal. Sleep and never know war, brother. No riddle of the day, sorry.