1. I had another work from home day. I'm about halfway caught up with my email and fully caught up with teams. Tomorrow I've got a couple meetings, so I've got to go in to the office, but I might work from home again on Thursday to finally catch up on everything.
2. When Carla was out today she stopped at Uncle Tetsu's, a Japanese cheesecake chain. They have a sakura cheesecake right now and we had some after dinner tonight and it was sooooooo good. I normally prefer New York style cheesecake to the Japanese fluffier style, but this was really good consistency and the sakura flavor was amazing.
3. I finished playing The Plucky Squire. Overall it's a pretty fun game, but it is not just a straight action adventure game. There are a bunch of (frankly not that fun) mini games for the boss fights and stuff where you have to play other styles of games and that is not what I signed up for. Like for one character's boss battles you play a Mike Tyson style boxing game, for another it's a rhythm game, and for the third it's a Puzzle Bobble type. Then there are some stealth sequences where you have to sneak past enemies who can kill you instantly if they sense you, and if they sense you there is no way to run to escape, even if you're close to a place you could get away. You're just instantly dead. And the final battle is a space shooter type. The good thing is that if you die in a boss battle you can sometimes restart partway through, not all the way at the beginning, and the stealth sequences have multiple checkpoints and you'll respawn there rather than back at the beginning. But I would still have preferred not to have that "variety" in my action adventure game. Still is a fun game, though. But if you suck at those types of games it might ruin it for you.
4. I finished editing all my Disney Japan pics, so hopefully I can get the last day's posts written up later this week.
5. Jasper is just so handsome.
2. When Carla was out today she stopped at Uncle Tetsu's, a Japanese cheesecake chain. They have a sakura cheesecake right now and we had some after dinner tonight and it was sooooooo good. I normally prefer New York style cheesecake to the Japanese fluffier style, but this was really good consistency and the sakura flavor was amazing.
3. I finished playing The Plucky Squire. Overall it's a pretty fun game, but it is not just a straight action adventure game. There are a bunch of (frankly not that fun) mini games for the boss fights and stuff where you have to play other styles of games and that is not what I signed up for. Like for one character's boss battles you play a Mike Tyson style boxing game, for another it's a rhythm game, and for the third it's a Puzzle Bobble type. Then there are some stealth sequences where you have to sneak past enemies who can kill you instantly if they sense you, and if they sense you there is no way to run to escape, even if you're close to a place you could get away. You're just instantly dead. And the final battle is a space shooter type. The good thing is that if you die in a boss battle you can sometimes restart partway through, not all the way at the beginning, and the stealth sequences have multiple checkpoints and you'll respawn there rather than back at the beginning. But I would still have preferred not to have that "variety" in my action adventure game. Still is a fun game, though. But if you suck at those types of games it might ruin it for you.
4. I finished editing all my Disney Japan pics, so hopefully I can get the last day's posts written up later this week.
5. Jasper is just so handsome.
Tags:
When I last left off, we had just checked out the big gift shop at the Fantasy Springs hotel and were exploring the land while waiting for our return time for the Peter Pan ride.
( More DisneySea adventures! )
( More DisneySea adventures! )
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| *\o/* | Word Count | Step Count | Headache? |
| Daily | 254 | 8,303 | no |
| Monthly | 9,554 | 217,636 | 5 days |
Tags:
So...been a minute since I've done much of anything with this, huh? But I feel I need to externalize some feelings, or I'm just gonna go mad:
( CW for a bit of suicidal discussion, and a fair amount of wangst )
So here I sit, watching people soar into success and being both incredibly happy for and envious of them at the same time. I don't know what I can do to actually improve my situation, but just getting it out there hopefully will at least keep me from being a dick to people I care about.
( CW for a bit of suicidal discussion, and a fair amount of wangst )
So here I sit, watching people soar into success and being both incredibly happy for and envious of them at the same time. I don't know what I can do to actually improve my situation, but just getting it out there hopefully will at least keep me from being a dick to people I care about.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/protests-erupt-across-the-uk-after-supreme-court-ruled-against-trans-rights/
Many many pictures.
Also, more protests yet to come, apparently, with ones scheduled for Oxford and Cambridge.
Many many pictures.
Also, more protests yet to come, apparently, with ones scheduled for Oxford and Cambridge.
1. I worked from home today, getting a fair amount of catching up done. Unfortunately I forgot that I also had to double check all my stores' budgets for next month today so that did take some time away from the email and teams catch-up, but I should be able to focus more on that tomorrow. (Probably will mostly work from home tomorrow, too.)
2. We bought a sweater for Alexander for his birthday and even though his birthday is not until next week, gave it to him yesterday so he could try it on and see if it fit, and it was a little big so we said we'd be happy to go exchange it. I was just thinking to exchange it whenever we next go, but there was availability today and Carla felt like going to Disneyland, so while I had to stay home and focus on my email backlog, she went and exchanged the sweater and had a nice morning at DCA. She managed to find all the rest of the hidden easter eggs there (eventually with some help from an online guide) and took pictures, but I'm just going to include those with our next trip post rather than make a separate one. They had Lightning McQueen and Mater ones which are super cute, though.
3. We bought a stereo for the garage and it arrived today. As all modern stereos do these days, it also has bluetooth capability to connect to your phone, but she mainly wanted it for playing actual CDs. Her current CD rack is overflowing, so we need to get another and then move the CDs out to the garage so she can have them out there with the stereo. Nice thing is, unless you're standing right by the door or window, even with it turned up pretty loud you really can't hear much from outside. Amazing what insulation can do!
4. I love the look on Ollie's face here, but he was even cuter before I turned on the light and came in. It wasn't dark but was dim enough that he was really well camouflaged in the box!
2. We bought a sweater for Alexander for his birthday and even though his birthday is not until next week, gave it to him yesterday so he could try it on and see if it fit, and it was a little big so we said we'd be happy to go exchange it. I was just thinking to exchange it whenever we next go, but there was availability today and Carla felt like going to Disneyland, so while I had to stay home and focus on my email backlog, she went and exchanged the sweater and had a nice morning at DCA. She managed to find all the rest of the hidden easter eggs there (eventually with some help from an online guide) and took pictures, but I'm just going to include those with our next trip post rather than make a separate one. They had Lightning McQueen and Mater ones which are super cute, though.
3. We bought a stereo for the garage and it arrived today. As all modern stereos do these days, it also has bluetooth capability to connect to your phone, but she mainly wanted it for playing actual CDs. Her current CD rack is overflowing, so we need to get another and then move the CDs out to the garage so she can have them out there with the stereo. Nice thing is, unless you're standing right by the door or window, even with it turned up pretty loud you really can't hear much from outside. Amazing what insulation can do!
4. I love the look on Ollie's face here, but he was even cuter before I turned on the light and came in. It wasn't dark but was dim enough that he was really well camouflaged in the box!
Tags:
I find myself a bit rusty when it comes to writing fic (well, at least I haven't really managed anything for the past few months) so I decided to try to do bits and pieces of the (very threadbare) plot of the freemium game "Starbrew Cafe" over the next 10 days.
Hopefully my muse will come out of hiding so I can finish an actual fic request.
Hopefully my muse will come out of hiding so I can finish an actual fic request.
| *\o/* | Word Count | Step Count | Headache? |
| Daily | 383 | 8,148 | no |
| Monthly | 9,191 | 209,157 | 5 days |
Tags:
I have recently written limericks in: due South, Interview with the Vampire (TV), Murderbot, Star Wars Original & Prequel Trilogies, and Venom (Movies). Go here for the links and summaries, in alphabetical order by fandom.
I would be happy to write more, so if reading my limericks makes you want more of them, prompt at will.
I would be happy to write more, so if reading my limericks makes you want more of them, prompt at will.
Tags:
Rebellion is growing among Labour MPs, so if you have a Labour MP, now is a VERY good and important time to write to them to protest the proposed PIP and other cuts:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/20/the-whole-policy-is-wrong-rebellion-among-labour-mps-grows-over-5bn-benefits-cut
(If you have a non-Labour MP, hassle them too and see if they can be persuaded to do something vaguely useful.)
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/20/the-whole-policy-is-wrong-rebellion-among-labour-mps-grows-over-5bn-benefits-cut
(If you have a non-Labour MP, hassle them too and see if they can be persuaded to do something vaguely useful.)
1. Back to work tomorrow. I am not enthused about that, but I did really enjoy my time off and I felt like being off for three weeks allowed me to actually disconnect more from work than I usually do if I'm just off a couple days or even a week. I did glance at my email and messages every day, but only responded less than ten times and even when I looked at the phone screen to see the messages, I only did so once or twice a day, rather than multiple times throughout the day. Tomorrow will be the start of a huge catch-up (thousands of messages to get through) and I think I will just work from home tomorrow unless something else comes up, so at least it will be a slow easing back into things. And since it's the last week of the month, there are less meetings, which means for time for catching up.
2. We had a lovely time at DCA this morning. I've heard that easter can be a pretty busy day but while it was getting a little busier by the time we left, it was super light in the first few hours and the weather was great.
3. I love getting shots of the cats looking out the window.
2. We had a lovely time at DCA this morning. I've heard that easter can be a pretty busy day but while it was getting a little busier by the time we left, it was super light in the first few hours and the weather was great.
3. I love getting shots of the cats looking out the window.
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| *\o/* | Word Count | Step Count | Headache? |
| Daily | 298 | 10,874 | no |
| Monthly | 8,808 | 200,788 | 5 days |
Tags:
Last day of the Food and Wine Festival so last chance to ride Soarin' Over California before it goes back to Soarin' Over the World.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Tags:
Currently Reading
The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill
26%. The MC is a cleaner who goes in and deep-cleans the houses where people have lain dead and undiscovered for a long time. She stumbles upon a mystery when two of her recent jobs have had the same dried flower at the scene. Pretty interesting so far.
Architectural Follies in America
16%. This is a short, picture-filled book about various odd buildings in the US. Randomly found it in a neighborhood Little Library. It's interesting.
A Drop of Corruption
23%. This has definitely picked up now and I'm a lot more interested in what's going on. Just haven't been making much progress because I've been off work and the majority of my audiobook time is in the car. Also a note on the audiobook, and I had this problem with the otherwise excellent audiobook versions of The Locked Tomb series, but there are pronunciation changes from the first book! I'm guessing that after the first book's audiobook came out, the narrator got feedback from the author and then made changes for the following books, but it's really jarring and I wish that if the author really wanted names/words said a certain way (or in the case of The Locked Tomb, certain accents used) then they would make note of that first, rather than changing mid-series. (And if it's just the narrator making changes rather than author feedback, I wish they wouldn't make those changes, either. Pick a pronunciation and stick to it!)
Hidden Figures
44%.
Recently Finished
Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery
Sequel to Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Virtue. This felt like maybe there was supposed to be more books in the series and it all got wrapped up quickly in the end? It was all right, but I wasn't super into either book.
The Boney Hand
Sequel to Charlie & Frog. Another mystery in the town. This was cute. Seems like the author maybe wanted it to be a series but there haven't been any more books after this.
The Amelia Six
Middle grade book about a group of girls who win an overnight stay at Amelia Earhart's childhood home, but while they're there, her goggles go missing and they have to solve the mystery. It was just all right.
Murderburg
Apparently originally a web comic, this graphic novel is about a small island town inhabited mostly by criminals. The actual name is Muderburg, but everyone calls it Murderburg. The main characters are not even thinly veiled Morticia and Gomez, though the children are not Wednesday and Pugsly. It was fine. Somewhat funny in places but mostly just there.
Break Out
Heavy-handed graphic novel about a world where mysterious and possibly alien cubes appear in the sky and start randomly kidnapping people. But it only happens to teens, so when the governments of the world have done all they can and can't find a way to stop it, they just say well, it's just a few people here and there, we'll just have to live with it. Then the kids save the day. Obviously paralelling school shootings, but it felt like the message was more important than the story itself, because the plot is just one of those types where so many coincidences happen just right that it feels unbelievable.
Do Da Dancin'!: Venice Competition vol. 1-2
I'm not enjoying this quite as much as the original series, but it's good enough that I'll finish it.
Umimachi Diary vol. 8-9
Overall this series was just okay. I originally read the first three volumes on a limited time free promotion and liked them a lot, but when I finally got around to reading the rest of the series now I just found it kind of dragged. Not bad, but just okay.
The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill
26%. The MC is a cleaner who goes in and deep-cleans the houses where people have lain dead and undiscovered for a long time. She stumbles upon a mystery when two of her recent jobs have had the same dried flower at the scene. Pretty interesting so far.
Architectural Follies in America
16%. This is a short, picture-filled book about various odd buildings in the US. Randomly found it in a neighborhood Little Library. It's interesting.
A Drop of Corruption
23%. This has definitely picked up now and I'm a lot more interested in what's going on. Just haven't been making much progress because I've been off work and the majority of my audiobook time is in the car. Also a note on the audiobook, and I had this problem with the otherwise excellent audiobook versions of The Locked Tomb series, but there are pronunciation changes from the first book! I'm guessing that after the first book's audiobook came out, the narrator got feedback from the author and then made changes for the following books, but it's really jarring and I wish that if the author really wanted names/words said a certain way (or in the case of The Locked Tomb, certain accents used) then they would make note of that first, rather than changing mid-series. (And if it's just the narrator making changes rather than author feedback, I wish they wouldn't make those changes, either. Pick a pronunciation and stick to it!)
Hidden Figures
44%.
Recently Finished
Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery
Sequel to Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Virtue. This felt like maybe there was supposed to be more books in the series and it all got wrapped up quickly in the end? It was all right, but I wasn't super into either book.
The Boney Hand
Sequel to Charlie & Frog. Another mystery in the town. This was cute. Seems like the author maybe wanted it to be a series but there haven't been any more books after this.
The Amelia Six
Middle grade book about a group of girls who win an overnight stay at Amelia Earhart's childhood home, but while they're there, her goggles go missing and they have to solve the mystery. It was just all right.
Murderburg
Apparently originally a web comic, this graphic novel is about a small island town inhabited mostly by criminals. The actual name is Muderburg, but everyone calls it Murderburg. The main characters are not even thinly veiled Morticia and Gomez, though the children are not Wednesday and Pugsly. It was fine. Somewhat funny in places but mostly just there.
Break Out
Heavy-handed graphic novel about a world where mysterious and possibly alien cubes appear in the sky and start randomly kidnapping people. But it only happens to teens, so when the governments of the world have done all they can and can't find a way to stop it, they just say well, it's just a few people here and there, we'll just have to live with it. Then the kids save the day. Obviously paralelling school shootings, but it felt like the message was more important than the story itself, because the plot is just one of those types where so many coincidences happen just right that it feels unbelievable.
Do Da Dancin'!: Venice Competition vol. 1-2
I'm not enjoying this quite as much as the original series, but it's good enough that I'll finish it.
Umimachi Diary vol. 8-9
Overall this series was just okay. I originally read the first three volumes on a limited time free promotion and liked them a lot, but when I finally got around to reading the rest of the series now I just found it kind of dragged. Not bad, but just okay.
Tags:
Sorry, this one lacks all the flavor ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ilyena_sylph brings to the table, but I just had to get it down on electrons.
Fives Saves the Galaxy (Redux) (2568 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, CT-7567 | Rex, Ahsoka Tano
Additional Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Mando'a Language (Star Wars)
Summary:
This place was enough to spook Fives right back into feeling like a cadet, once the world stopping spinning counter to his balance, and he could think past the taste of colors from the world going awry.
How in all the galaxies had he gone from covering Echo's six to this place — oh wait. He shook his head to stop the ringing, which worked exactly opposite of the intent, and glanced at the hand not currently holding a blaster.
Damn. This was some kind of hallucination, Force Thing, or he'd cracked his skull when he tried to catch the weird glowing tube. It was in his hand, but it was not glowing, and he was alone.
Completely alone in a hell-scape littered by dust and ash and debris.
A noise like a hunting raptor brought his head up to see a white bird, one he thought he'd seen on other worlds. He tracked its motion and it swooped toward… a person? His helmet let him zoom, and he saw a Togruta, making them the second living thing he'd found in this place, struggling down a path.
Might be dangerous, but Fives needed answers, and this was his only lead so far.
His fast jog in that direction alerted the person, making them stop and turn, though they did not attempt to make it to him or draw weapons. Just as Fives had almost gotten close enough to make out details beyond 'tall' and 'probably a woman', a ship of a configuration he did not recognize at all, adding to the weirdness of the day.
She — definitely feminine curves — tracked the ship, and he thought she looked very resigned at its leaving. Was it someone leaving her behind on purpose? Had that been her ship?
Who was she? Those were lightsaber hilts next to something like a kama, and armor over her chest as well as on her arms and legs. Something about her looked very familiar, and yet alien to him all at once.
"Well. This is not the kind of ghost I am used to seeing from the Force," the woman said once he was in view. "Nice touch, making the armor look right," and he could tell she wasn't talking to him, so much as about him, and… those marks on her cheeks really brought home why she looked familiar.
He didn't much care for the rest of her coloring — washed out, faded, a sure sign of injury — and she was so tall, so mature, but she had to be his Commander!
"Commander Tano?"
"Not in a very long time, but then… you marched far away even before the end."
Fives should not have let those words spill from his mouth, a rejection of the very idea and adding in all the things he felt about this creepy dead world, even as the bird thing came to alight upon her — his commander's! — shoulder. When he stopped blistering the air, he reached up and swiped the helmet off, so she could see him with her eyes, the real him, not just the bucket.
He wasn't sure that was the best idea as her eyes went all white, and he could almost feel the energy in the air around her. Even as he took a step back, the white faded, and she moved to reach for him, only to stumble.
Instinct had him there, steadying her, and he realized she was injured, probably severely from the marks he could see, and how pale she was. He cast about, hunting for shelter, saw a small portal leading into darkness and not much else.
"Help me get there, Fives, and then we can talk," she said softly.
"Sir, yes sir," he breathed, getting his helmet back on as he felt that she had accepted him for who he was, even if all of this was a karking holo-drama with a bad sense of humor.
Fives won the argument of 'first aid then talking', without actually having to insist all that much. He was noticing how much quieter his Commander was and really not liking it at all. Finally, satisfied all of his kit had been exhausted on her injuries, he settled beside her at her insistence.
"Got a droid popper? I need to show you a trick with it," Ahsoka said, making his curiosity light up. He found one, handing it over, then leaned in as she opened a side to recalibrate it. "This frequency, for this duration," she said, making certain he could see the settings.
"Doesn't look like that would penetrate much more than plastoid, let alone work on any droid I know of," Fives told her dubiously. "But yes sir, I won't forget the settings," he added at her very searching look.
"Good. And Fives? I'm sorry." She thumbed the switch then, and Fives felt a piercing pain in his temple, one that felt like fire inside his skull, making him grab for it. What in all of space had she done — no. What had the longnecks done that a droid popper worked like that on him?!
"Back with me, Fives?" the woman that his Commander was in this bad place was asking, every few seconds, it seemed like, or maybe time was just looping in his head.
"Yes, Commander." He brought his face up and met her eyes. "All of us?"
The sadness in her eyes said far too much, and he had to get up, walk away, just walk and move, though he didn't leave the small chamber they had found. He just kept moving.
Ahsoka Tano was an adult with montrals and lekku to rival General Ti's. There were no vod'e on her six, no one with her. She carried herself with precision, contained in the same way that older clones who had been through harrowing losses were.
There was a chip in their heads, and she had not only known about it, but short-circuited it before giving him a sit-rep.
The math was adding up to an ugly story, one he didn't want to hear, but one he knew he had to. Only… was there any good in hearing it, if he was here-now?
"How many died?"
"Too many. Vod'e and Jedi alike," she told him, voice soft and hurting. "I've rescued the ones I could, Fives. But… it doesn't help me deal with the pain anymore than it helps Rex to know he saved me."
At that, Fives came back to her, squatting in front of her, eyes lighting. "The Captain made it?"
"Yes. Him, Wolffe, Gregor — you wouldn't know him. They escaped the initial order that turned the chips on and took all of you from us." She reached out, a slender finger tracing his tat on his forehead. "You made it possible for Rex, but we lost you in that terrible mess. He told me the story, when we were hiding together.
"But now, with you here? Maybe — Maybe the Force can undo it all."
"How?" he asked her. "I mean, I want to. I'll do anything to save my brothers and the Jedi. But… how?"
She smiled. "I tell you a long story, with all of the details I know. Then you go back. I should be able to figure that much out, or the Force wouldn't have brought you to me."
Fives really took stock of her again, seeing a woman whose early confidence was now backed by fire-annealed skills. If she could make the Force do what she wanted it to —
— he wasn't going to argue. Any chance to save his brothers and the Jedi was to be taken.
"Fives?"
Echo's voice was overriding the taste of color and the sound of odors. All that Fives had learned burned in his head, written in a script he couldn't read on scavenged flimsi inside his blacks. He could feel it there, pressing against his skin like the mission he now had.
One way or another, he was going to save them all. He couldn't bear the thought of failure.
"I'm fine," he told his batch-brother, making certain that he hadn't missed any time — the commander had said he should flit right back into the moment the thing had taken him from. "Thought I saw something, but it's gone now." Not quite a lie, which made him feel better. Echo deserved truth, always, but at the same time, he couldn't bog his brother down with the weight of what was coming.
Tarkin was definitely a dead man if they wound up going on that mission, though.
He just kept his eyes focused ahead, working on clearing this sweep mission, as the need to save everyone burned in the back of his mind. He was going to need to win the Captain over, to get him to Wolffe, but Ahsoka had given him enough pieces to know how to do that.
It almost amused him, to know she had never let go of that deep bond with Captain Rex, and he wondered if it had grown to something personal, just to keep himself from going crazy.
While Fives hated bothering the Captain in his off-time, it was also the only way he was going to talk to the man alone. He saw Jesse and Kix were occupied, ruling out the rare comfort the Captain would take with their medic, and headed through the ship until he got to the cabin Rex had conceded was closer to the bridge and offered privacy for counseling soldiers in need.
He was let in to see the Commander — looking short and baby-plump cheeks with short montrals like she ought to — in with the Captain and debated how to go about this. He knew he could not involve their General, but he hadn't been warned about Ahsoka herself.
"Fives," Rex said, sitting on the edge of the berth while Ahsoka sat on the small desk, swinging her feet a little. She was searching Fives' face which felt a little unnerving after being with the older version for several days.
"I wanted to show you something I found out about the droid poppers, sir," Fives began, deciding that the first move in this was an exact copy of the Commander's with him. He settled on the Captain's side, trying not to fumble under those intent looks from Ahsoka Tano, or just the sheer physicality of invading The Captain's space. Rex leaned over when Fives opened the droid popper, and just frowned a little at the reset of the parameters.
"Doesn't look effective for much, from what little I can remember about them," Rex said.
"Only, it will help us, sir, with a persistent problem," Fives told him, before thumbing the switch for immediate use. Just as he'd done, Rex raised a hand to his temple, eyes wincing shut, face in a grimace… and Ahsoka all but teleported herself to Rex's other side, eyes not on the Captain but on Fives, even as she used instinctive Force-healing on the spot paining their captain.
"The nightmare."
Ahsoka's flat voice on those two words made Fives' eyes go wide. He knew she was Commander Vod'ika, considered more one of them than Jedi sometimes, but she knew?! Who had —
She trilled something, a familiar sound that had been used as whistle code among the cadets, a sound that meant comfort and safety and protection.
"I… you… yes, sir. The Nightmare." He set the expended popper down, and got an arm around the Captain's shoulders as Rex was bringing himself under control.
"What. The. Kriff."
"I told you I dreamed about those years again, of seeing all of you, of feeling your worries," Ahsoka said patiently. "Apparently Fives is now a part of whatever it is tying me to all of you in this."
"You don't know the half of it, sir," Fives said fervently.
"Knock off the rank stuff in here, Fives," Ahsoka told him. "I came to talk to Rex about it, he said it started for him on last sleep and he decided to go do target practice, so I wasn't channeling it off of him… which means some of the other first years probably are having it again.
"If you can help us understand, starting with what you just did to Rexter, we can start fixing it."
"The longnecks put a chip in us, to make us perfectly obedient… to the correct orders, when the time came," Fives said quietly, hoping these quarters were shielded enough to keep the General from appearing. The color Ahsoka turned, and the absolute wretched look on Rex's face said they had followed the right thought-paths… and Fives breathed out. "We can stop it.
"Because the Force decided to show me a future. One we're going to send to haran now," Fives said with all confidence.
"Trying to become a jetii now?" Rex said, dark humor flavoring the words, before he looked at Ahsoka, who had not left his side. "General?"
"No," she and Fives answered in one breath, before she tipped her head to Fives.
"He's got the Force-equivalent of the damned chip in his head, because the order can only come from one man," Fives whispered, ready to defend the truth he knew if he had to. "I don't like it, but… I can't disbelieve, not after having the chip fried in my head when I had no idea about it."
Several long minutes passed, and this time it was Rex putting an arm around Ahsoka, letting her turn into his shoulder for comfort, before Fives got to outline what he knew, and the plan that the adult Ahsoka had helped him work out.
The 104th got assigned to a long joint mission with the 501st on the 'front line' furthest from Coruscant. Every emergency designed to pull Anakin Skywalker back to the center of things was diverted by another Jedi or unit. Naboo's Senator was rumored to have two Jedi Sentinels in her bodyguards.
A mysterious headache swept through the Grand Army of the Republic but had no discernible cause. A handful of high-ranking Fleet officers had malfunctions during evac drills. And several Senators suddenly had all of their funds frozen, pending investigation from the Security Council, based on anonymous tips.
Fives never got close to the cause of it all, but the holos of CorSec attempting to arrest the Chancellor on charges of bribery, mismanagement of funds, and inciting riots let he and his brothers see their own people take down a Sith. Too many died… and yet. It was a tiny fraction of the deaths that would be, that had already happened, because two Sith chose to play a dejarik game with the prize being the destruction of the Jedi and the Republic.
Sometimes, after, Fives would swear that he heard that strange bird of the Force, or saw a white light centered on his Commander when there was no explanation for it. He tried to push it away, tried to just be grateful she wouldn't have to be that stately woman carrying the pain of the galaxy on her shoulders.
And no one but she, Rex, and Master Plo Koon had to know he'd had anything to do with unraveling it all, something he was glad of, as Fox and Thire became the Faces of their people for their part in it all. Fives was content to face a new future with Echo at his side.
ilyena_sylph brings to the table, but I just had to get it down on electrons.Fives Saves the Galaxy (Redux) (2568 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, CT-7567 | Rex, Ahsoka Tano
Additional Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Mando'a Language (Star Wars)
Summary:
A Force Thing shoves Fives to his Commander... right after she faces Vader.
Fives Saves the Galaxy (Redux)
This place was enough to spook Fives right back into feeling like a cadet, once the world stopping spinning counter to his balance, and he could think past the taste of colors from the world going awry.
How in all the galaxies had he gone from covering Echo's six to this place — oh wait. He shook his head to stop the ringing, which worked exactly opposite of the intent, and glanced at the hand not currently holding a blaster.
Damn. This was some kind of hallucination, Force Thing, or he'd cracked his skull when he tried to catch the weird glowing tube. It was in his hand, but it was not glowing, and he was alone.
Completely alone in a hell-scape littered by dust and ash and debris.
A noise like a hunting raptor brought his head up to see a white bird, one he thought he'd seen on other worlds. He tracked its motion and it swooped toward… a person? His helmet let him zoom, and he saw a Togruta, making them the second living thing he'd found in this place, struggling down a path.
Might be dangerous, but Fives needed answers, and this was his only lead so far.
His fast jog in that direction alerted the person, making them stop and turn, though they did not attempt to make it to him or draw weapons. Just as Fives had almost gotten close enough to make out details beyond 'tall' and 'probably a woman', a ship of a configuration he did not recognize at all, adding to the weirdness of the day.
She — definitely feminine curves — tracked the ship, and he thought she looked very resigned at its leaving. Was it someone leaving her behind on purpose? Had that been her ship?
Who was she? Those were lightsaber hilts next to something like a kama, and armor over her chest as well as on her arms and legs. Something about her looked very familiar, and yet alien to him all at once.
"Well. This is not the kind of ghost I am used to seeing from the Force," the woman said once he was in view. "Nice touch, making the armor look right," and he could tell she wasn't talking to him, so much as about him, and… those marks on her cheeks really brought home why she looked familiar.
He didn't much care for the rest of her coloring — washed out, faded, a sure sign of injury — and she was so tall, so mature, but she had to be his Commander!
"Commander Tano?"
"Not in a very long time, but then… you marched far away even before the end."
Fives should not have let those words spill from his mouth, a rejection of the very idea and adding in all the things he felt about this creepy dead world, even as the bird thing came to alight upon her — his commander's! — shoulder. When he stopped blistering the air, he reached up and swiped the helmet off, so she could see him with her eyes, the real him, not just the bucket.
He wasn't sure that was the best idea as her eyes went all white, and he could almost feel the energy in the air around her. Even as he took a step back, the white faded, and she moved to reach for him, only to stumble.
Instinct had him there, steadying her, and he realized she was injured, probably severely from the marks he could see, and how pale she was. He cast about, hunting for shelter, saw a small portal leading into darkness and not much else.
"Help me get there, Fives, and then we can talk," she said softly.
"Sir, yes sir," he breathed, getting his helmet back on as he felt that she had accepted him for who he was, even if all of this was a karking holo-drama with a bad sense of humor.
Fives won the argument of 'first aid then talking', without actually having to insist all that much. He was noticing how much quieter his Commander was and really not liking it at all. Finally, satisfied all of his kit had been exhausted on her injuries, he settled beside her at her insistence.
"Got a droid popper? I need to show you a trick with it," Ahsoka said, making his curiosity light up. He found one, handing it over, then leaned in as she opened a side to recalibrate it. "This frequency, for this duration," she said, making certain he could see the settings.
"Doesn't look like that would penetrate much more than plastoid, let alone work on any droid I know of," Fives told her dubiously. "But yes sir, I won't forget the settings," he added at her very searching look.
"Good. And Fives? I'm sorry." She thumbed the switch then, and Fives felt a piercing pain in his temple, one that felt like fire inside his skull, making him grab for it. What in all of space had she done — no. What had the longnecks done that a droid popper worked like that on him?!
"Back with me, Fives?" the woman that his Commander was in this bad place was asking, every few seconds, it seemed like, or maybe time was just looping in his head.
"Yes, Commander." He brought his face up and met her eyes. "All of us?"
The sadness in her eyes said far too much, and he had to get up, walk away, just walk and move, though he didn't leave the small chamber they had found. He just kept moving.
Ahsoka Tano was an adult with montrals and lekku to rival General Ti's. There were no vod'e on her six, no one with her. She carried herself with precision, contained in the same way that older clones who had been through harrowing losses were.
There was a chip in their heads, and she had not only known about it, but short-circuited it before giving him a sit-rep.
The math was adding up to an ugly story, one he didn't want to hear, but one he knew he had to. Only… was there any good in hearing it, if he was here-now?
"How many died?"
"Too many. Vod'e and Jedi alike," she told him, voice soft and hurting. "I've rescued the ones I could, Fives. But… it doesn't help me deal with the pain anymore than it helps Rex to know he saved me."
At that, Fives came back to her, squatting in front of her, eyes lighting. "The Captain made it?"
"Yes. Him, Wolffe, Gregor — you wouldn't know him. They escaped the initial order that turned the chips on and took all of you from us." She reached out, a slender finger tracing his tat on his forehead. "You made it possible for Rex, but we lost you in that terrible mess. He told me the story, when we were hiding together.
"But now, with you here? Maybe — Maybe the Force can undo it all."
"How?" he asked her. "I mean, I want to. I'll do anything to save my brothers and the Jedi. But… how?"
She smiled. "I tell you a long story, with all of the details I know. Then you go back. I should be able to figure that much out, or the Force wouldn't have brought you to me."
Fives really took stock of her again, seeing a woman whose early confidence was now backed by fire-annealed skills. If she could make the Force do what she wanted it to —
— he wasn't going to argue. Any chance to save his brothers and the Jedi was to be taken.
"Fives?"
Echo's voice was overriding the taste of color and the sound of odors. All that Fives had learned burned in his head, written in a script he couldn't read on scavenged flimsi inside his blacks. He could feel it there, pressing against his skin like the mission he now had.
One way or another, he was going to save them all. He couldn't bear the thought of failure.
"I'm fine," he told his batch-brother, making certain that he hadn't missed any time — the commander had said he should flit right back into the moment the thing had taken him from. "Thought I saw something, but it's gone now." Not quite a lie, which made him feel better. Echo deserved truth, always, but at the same time, he couldn't bog his brother down with the weight of what was coming.
Tarkin was definitely a dead man if they wound up going on that mission, though.
He just kept his eyes focused ahead, working on clearing this sweep mission, as the need to save everyone burned in the back of his mind. He was going to need to win the Captain over, to get him to Wolffe, but Ahsoka had given him enough pieces to know how to do that.
It almost amused him, to know she had never let go of that deep bond with Captain Rex, and he wondered if it had grown to something personal, just to keep himself from going crazy.
While Fives hated bothering the Captain in his off-time, it was also the only way he was going to talk to the man alone. He saw Jesse and Kix were occupied, ruling out the rare comfort the Captain would take with their medic, and headed through the ship until he got to the cabin Rex had conceded was closer to the bridge and offered privacy for counseling soldiers in need.
He was let in to see the Commander — looking short and baby-plump cheeks with short montrals like she ought to — in with the Captain and debated how to go about this. He knew he could not involve their General, but he hadn't been warned about Ahsoka herself.
"Fives," Rex said, sitting on the edge of the berth while Ahsoka sat on the small desk, swinging her feet a little. She was searching Fives' face which felt a little unnerving after being with the older version for several days.
"I wanted to show you something I found out about the droid poppers, sir," Fives began, deciding that the first move in this was an exact copy of the Commander's with him. He settled on the Captain's side, trying not to fumble under those intent looks from Ahsoka Tano, or just the sheer physicality of invading The Captain's space. Rex leaned over when Fives opened the droid popper, and just frowned a little at the reset of the parameters.
"Doesn't look effective for much, from what little I can remember about them," Rex said.
"Only, it will help us, sir, with a persistent problem," Fives told him, before thumbing the switch for immediate use. Just as he'd done, Rex raised a hand to his temple, eyes wincing shut, face in a grimace… and Ahsoka all but teleported herself to Rex's other side, eyes not on the Captain but on Fives, even as she used instinctive Force-healing on the spot paining their captain.
"The nightmare."
Ahsoka's flat voice on those two words made Fives' eyes go wide. He knew she was Commander Vod'ika, considered more one of them than Jedi sometimes, but she knew?! Who had —
She trilled something, a familiar sound that had been used as whistle code among the cadets, a sound that meant comfort and safety and protection.
"I… you… yes, sir. The Nightmare." He set the expended popper down, and got an arm around the Captain's shoulders as Rex was bringing himself under control.
"What. The. Kriff."
"I told you I dreamed about those years again, of seeing all of you, of feeling your worries," Ahsoka said patiently. "Apparently Fives is now a part of whatever it is tying me to all of you in this."
"You don't know the half of it, sir," Fives said fervently.
"Knock off the rank stuff in here, Fives," Ahsoka told him. "I came to talk to Rex about it, he said it started for him on last sleep and he decided to go do target practice, so I wasn't channeling it off of him… which means some of the other first years probably are having it again.
"If you can help us understand, starting with what you just did to Rexter, we can start fixing it."
"The longnecks put a chip in us, to make us perfectly obedient… to the correct orders, when the time came," Fives said quietly, hoping these quarters were shielded enough to keep the General from appearing. The color Ahsoka turned, and the absolute wretched look on Rex's face said they had followed the right thought-paths… and Fives breathed out. "We can stop it.
"Because the Force decided to show me a future. One we're going to send to haran now," Fives said with all confidence.
"Trying to become a jetii now?" Rex said, dark humor flavoring the words, before he looked at Ahsoka, who had not left his side. "General?"
"No," she and Fives answered in one breath, before she tipped her head to Fives.
"He's got the Force-equivalent of the damned chip in his head, because the order can only come from one man," Fives whispered, ready to defend the truth he knew if he had to. "I don't like it, but… I can't disbelieve, not after having the chip fried in my head when I had no idea about it."
Several long minutes passed, and this time it was Rex putting an arm around Ahsoka, letting her turn into his shoulder for comfort, before Fives got to outline what he knew, and the plan that the adult Ahsoka had helped him work out.
The 104th got assigned to a long joint mission with the 501st on the 'front line' furthest from Coruscant. Every emergency designed to pull Anakin Skywalker back to the center of things was diverted by another Jedi or unit. Naboo's Senator was rumored to have two Jedi Sentinels in her bodyguards.
A mysterious headache swept through the Grand Army of the Republic but had no discernible cause. A handful of high-ranking Fleet officers had malfunctions during evac drills. And several Senators suddenly had all of their funds frozen, pending investigation from the Security Council, based on anonymous tips.
Fives never got close to the cause of it all, but the holos of CorSec attempting to arrest the Chancellor on charges of bribery, mismanagement of funds, and inciting riots let he and his brothers see their own people take down a Sith. Too many died… and yet. It was a tiny fraction of the deaths that would be, that had already happened, because two Sith chose to play a dejarik game with the prize being the destruction of the Jedi and the Republic.
Sometimes, after, Fives would swear that he heard that strange bird of the Force, or saw a white light centered on his Commander when there was no explanation for it. He tried to push it away, tried to just be grateful she wouldn't have to be that stately woman carrying the pain of the galaxy on her shoulders.
And no one but she, Rex, and Master Plo Koon had to know he'd had anything to do with unraveling it all, something he was glad of, as Fox and Thire became the Faces of their people for their part in it all. Fives was content to face a new future with Echo at his side.
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