A.N. ~ at least I'm not leaving you on that cliffhanger for too long. Enjoy!
Icy water flooded around Twitch, entering the rest of her suit. She started swimming after Tail, pulling off the now useless equipment, but someone grabbed her. The salt water stung her eyes as she turned to see Hazard. Streak swam past, going after his squad mate.
A tentacle nearly hit him, too, causing a current that flipped the mechanic around. Hazard started swimming upward, dragging along Twitch, who was getting a head ache from the pressure and cold, and was also thrashing, trying to descend after her brother.
Tail! She cried. Tail!
What scared her was that he wasn't replying.
"Twitch, haar'chak, stop struggling! He's gone!" The sniper growled. The girl was getting quite light headed, and her chest was pumping slightly, trying to suck in air through her sealed mouth and nostrils.
She eventually went limp, allowing her brother to take her the last twenty feet. Tears ran down her face as she gasped, breathing deeply. A wave tossed her under, swam off. Twitch couldn't quite keep track of what happened next.
A ship came down, and people pulled her into it, then a bunch of troopers were around her, also on the ride up. Then they were in the northern hangar again.
A griever suddenly landed in the middle of the room, falling from the ceiling and roaring.
Twitch flipped out one of her guns and fired a single shot at the beast, hitting its eye and therefore ending its life. Most people looked from the creature to the girl, who jammed her gun back into its holster before stalking towards the exit, fully intending to go back to the barracks.
It was hard to tell she was crying, as ocean water was still dripping off her and she was freezing, thus hiding her uneven breathing.
Tail? Tail, please be alright. Tail? She mentally whimpered.
Silence.
Kat, Claws, Darys, and the rookies were in a medical bay, getting their scrapes and breaks tended to. Dally was in second worst condition, having an offensive-oriented personality. The actually most-injured one was Claws, who was being worked on by several medics, all of whom were aided by Kat.
The teenager was sporting a broken arm and a myriad of scratches. Taking on a Queen-Class witch did that to people.
"Claws, you di'kut, why did you have to take on a King-Class wraith?" Kat muttered, smearing bacta over a large gash on the nexu's ribs. He only made a guttural noise in reply.
Twitch showered first, slowly raising the water's temperature to relieve the cold clinging to her, then toweled off and changed into a clean body suit, and finally curled up in the blankets of her bunk, still crying.
Darys, having been only minorly injured, had returned to the barrack, but stopped in the doorway. He had never seen Twitch cry, and certainly never seen anyone with such a beaten down, hopeless expression plastered to their face.
"Twitch, what's wrong?" He murmured, walking in.
"Tail…isn't coming back." She rasped, then looked at him slowly. "I can't do this anymore, Darys." The Umbaran walked over and sat down next to the girl, taking her into his arms.
"I know. It's all wrong. By rights, we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories I heard as a child. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, and sometimes, you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if I was too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. People in those stories had lots of chances of turning back or quitting, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something." He said.
"What are we holding on to?" Twitch's voice trembled as she spoke.
"The clear sun that will shine when all this is over, when the shadow does pass, and the good will outweigh any bad that's left." Darys whispered.
Kat, once Claws was no longer in danger of dying and everything that could, had been done for him, lay down beside the nexu, pressing against his belly before falling asleep.
Streak and Hazard entered their quarters to see Twitch asleep in Darys' arms, who was also asleep. The two clones quietly got ready for bed, careful not to wake their squad mates.
In the morning, Darys woke before Twitch and carefully set her down before waking the sniper and mechanic. The three left without waking Twitch. Kat met them in the Mess Hall, having left Claws in the medical bay.
"Where's Tail?" She asked with a smirk. "Not sleeping in with Twitch, is he? I can't push them both out of bed."
"Tail didn't make it." Streak sighed. That caught the teenager completely off guard. She would have dropped her tray, had it not been for Hazard's intuition and quick reflexes.
Losing a squad mate was something you often saw happen to other people, but never really expect to happen to yourself.
Twitch woke up, but didn't try leaving bed. She only tried contacting Tail via their link before curling up to cry again.
"Where're Twitch and Tail?" Veil asked as Zeta Squad walked into the gym.
"Twitch is grieving." Hazard implied. Kat practically threw her gauntlets to the floor before stalking to her usual place.
The cadets were uncharacteristically quiet after that, and extremely hesitant to go near Kat after seeing what she was capable of, along with her obvious need to blow off steam.
Twitch? Twitch, are you blocking me? Where are you? He had seen her helmet break, but maybe Hazard reached her in time. Vod'ika, you can't be dead. TWITCH!
Twitch froze. She could almost feel Tail's presence. Then the crushing realization that she was probably just wishing to hear him set in and her silent weeping redoubled its efforts to make her wail and release the pain in her heart.
After seeing the affect Tail's loss had on Zeta Squad, the cadets were starting to think more, tossing around 'what ifs', and 'whys', and imagining what it would be like to lose the other members of their squad.
Dusty knew he wouldn't manage without Root. The feeling was mutual. Veil just didn't want to think about how horrible it would feel. Dally had to admit, he didn't want to lose anyone, Loop wouldn't mind being rid of Dally, though he didn't like the thought of losing Spot, who just plain wanted to never lose anybody he cared for.
Nightmares always were a plague for Kat, but she could rarely make sense of the bloody scenes. The dreams always entailed her killing someone, or people she didn't recognize. That night, she watched in a way that was both in third and first person.
"It's going to be alright, sweety." A woman with tears running down her face promised, hugging a little girl no older than nine.
"Mom, what's happening? Why are you doing this?" The child, Kat, asked with wide eyes.
"Just hold still." The woman shoved a needle into Kat's arm, injecting a cold liquid, before shoving Claws, who was only the size of a young dog, into the child's arms. "Remember, Claws is your friend. Take care of him, and he will care for you."
That was when Kat woke up, unnerved and breathing quickly.
Who was she? That was the most vivid dream I've ever had. Was that my mother? Wait, no, impossible! I'm a clone of Lantana Fett, like Twitch! But then…why did I call her 'mom'?
A.N. ~ of course, I never said I wouldn't leave off on another cliffhanger. If you are a LOTR fan, you probably recognized Darys' speech, though I did make a few alterations to make it sound more in place.
Vod'ika means little sister. Not officially, but that's what it's supposed to mean. 'Ika' means 'small', or 'little', and 'vod' means 'brother', 'sister', or 'friend'. And, 'ika' traditionally goes on the back of a word. Thus my logic. Also, I borrowed the idea from 'Scars', by Reulte.
MANDO'A DEFINITIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS:
Haar'chak: [HAR-chak] damn it
Di'kut: [DEE-koot] idiot, fool, useless individual (affectionate or insulting, depending on tone and context)