Hello everyone!
Here is the second part to the Sister arc. Beware, the feels get worse. I feel like at this point you guys should just keep a box of tissues on hand.
Disclaimer: Still the same. Nothing has changed in the last two days.
Sister
Tiplee
It happens so fast. Too fast.
Tiplee has no time to comprehend what's happening.
It started so simply. An easy mission, short and simple, to get her used to field work again. But then the sharp pain in her back came and she turned, ready to face the enemy. Only to face her Commander, blaster raised. By the time she's reacted, Doom is already moving.
Their bodies are tangled together as they go tumbling to the ground. Rock and armor slam into her and she knows that she will be a bruised mess when she gets out of this.
If she gets out of this.
Doom has turned on her.
It's like something out of her nightmares.
The doubts that she's had since Ringo Vinda surface and questions that were never answered circle in her mind over and over again.
There's a sharp pain in her head and aches up and down her body. Her back slams into the hard ground and the air flees her lungs.
And then Doom's hands are around her throat.
It's instinct to fight back. She claws at his arms, bucks her hips underneath him to try and throw him off. But he's bigger than her; a warrior that's all heavy armor and hard muscle. He doesn't even budge.
She pushes and pulls and struggles but she can't breathe and her world is closing in around her. And Doom. Doom is towering over her, choking her. Tiplee can't see his face. All she sees is the cold, indifferent mask of the helmet he wears. She can't tell what he's thinking. All she feels is…quiet. There is nothing. Where Doom is there is nothing but a void. And it terrifies her.
Suddenly, the pressure on her throat lessens and she can almost breathe again.
It's enough.
She shoves a hand against her commander's chest and pushes him back as hard as she can. She's dimly aware of him colliding with the rock face, of the sickening crack that echoes when he does. But she's too busy sucking as much air into her lungs as she can to really register anything else.
Her throat feels swollen and scarped raw. Her body shudders with the force of her hacking. Moving hurts and she feels the phantom pain of a lightsaber ripping through her body as her body heaves. This is her first mission since the disaster that was the Mandalorian supply outpost. She had expected quiet recon.
Instead, it's Ringo Vinda all over again.
She grabs her lightsaber and forces herself to her feet. Her head is pounding and the world spins as stands but she manages it. Her vision is hazy but she can see enough to tell that Doom has not moved from where he's landed.
The sight of him sends a rage through her that she hasn't felt in months.
Not since she held her sister's cooling body in her arms.
Since she faced her sister's killer.
How dare he.
How dare he.
She trusted him.
Trusted him even though part of her kept screaming at her to stay as far away from the clones as possible. She'd put it up to paranoia. They were all feeling the effects of the war, of the constant fighting. It was draining, exhausting. Tiplee feels worn down.
She had thought that she was over thinking things, was letting her fear get the better of her.
Her lightsaber, snaps to life in her hand as she holds it out against his cheek. The movement pulls at her back, but she ignores it because everything hurts and she can't let that stop her. Not right now.
Doom doesn't move away even though Tiplee knows that he can feel the heat of her blade through his helmet.
"Commander," she says, ignoring the rawness of her throat, not bothering to hide her fury, "What the hell was that?"
Doom's head shifts ever so slightly and she can feel his eyes on her. "Good soldiers follow orders, sir."
The words are said softly, quietly. But Tiplee reels back as if she's just been struck by Force lightning. Those words echo in the sudden silence around them.
Those words.
Those awful, horrible words.
Words she's heard repeated over and over again in her dreams as her sister breathes her last.
Words she's heard as she looks into cold eyes that lack recognition of any kind, as familiar men lunge for her demanding her death.
Her saber flicks of and she sinks to her knees by her Commander. "Doom," she says, unable to completely smother the terror in her voice, "What's going on?"
"Order 66," he answers her, voice just as soft, "Apparently, us clones come preprogrammed with contingency plans."
His voice is bitter and snide and angry and Tiplee can feel the self-deprecation radiating off the man in waves.
Preprogrammed, he'd said.
Order 66, he'd said.
Tiplee feels numb.
This was a plan. A long standing plan. One that has been in place since the creation of the clone army.
This is what happened on Ringo Vinda. This why they never got an explanation for what happened. The Jedi could never know if this plan was to work.
Tiplar, her mind screams.
Sister, her heart wails.
"The death of the Jedi," she says through nerveless lips.
It hits her like a tidal wave – sudden and all at once.
Death.
Death everywhere, all at once, in a single moment. It echoes across the galaxy, stealing the breath from her lungs all over again.
Her heart is in her throat.
Jedi.
The Force is screaming around her, thousands upon thousands of lights gone leaving nothing but an empty void in their place.
"General."
She blinks, uncomprehending.
"General," Doom calls again.
She stares at him in horrified silence.
"Sir," he says and she can feel the pain in his voice, "You need to leave. This thing – it's inside all of us. We won't hesitate to cut you down. You have to cut us down first. You have to kill us before we kill you."
Tiplee has no words to explain the sudden anger singing in her blood.
She shoots up to her feet, knees locking when the world tips dangerously.
"Absolutely not," she hisses.
"Sir –"
Doom sounds startled and maybe a little bit panicked. Tiplee doesn't care.
"We're getting answers, Commander," she announces, cutting off whatever protest he might make.
Doom sighs. He sounds tired and exhausted and so, so much older than his twelve years should allow. "Sir, you can't take me with you. For one thing, I can't move. At all. For another, this voice in my head still really wants to kill you."
Tiplee frowns, remembering the distant crack she'd heard, taking in her Commander's sprawled form against the rocks. The way he hasn't moved in the slightest. She hooks her lightsaber to her belt and then carefully, oh so carefully, reaches out with the Force.
She wraps it around Doom, uses it to keep him immobile as she lifts him off the ground. He makes a startled sound.
"I don't care," she says shortly.
"But General –"
"Tiplar wouldn't want me to leave you behind."
Doom falls silent at that and Tiplee knows she's won.
Tiplar would never forgive her if she left Doom here alone and unable to move. Left him here in this strange, convoluted hell that seems to be growing around them.
If her sister were here, she would call them both idiots, throw each of them over her shoulders, carry them out of here, and then figure out what the hell is going on.
Tiplar is gone.
She can't solve this mystery.
So Tiplee will just have to do it for her.
It feels right.
And Doom is going to stay with her. He has always been more Tiplar's than hers. Always looking to her first, always diving head first into trouble with her, always standing at her back. She sees so much of her twin in him that it aches.
And she'll be damned if she lets him die.
He's all she has left.
And she's going to keep him safe or die trying, Order 66 or no.
She drags him back to their shuttle – a small freighter made for at most seven people. It isn't much, but it's enough for now. Doom is silent as she lays him out on a table, flicking on the medical droid with a wave of her hand. She carefully takes off his helmet and he stares at her. She meets his eyes unflinchingly.
She will not bend.
Not on this.
Never on this.
Doom seems to see this on her face because his lips twitch up ever so slightly into a smile. His eyes are sad and angry and there is so, so much pain in his face that Tiplee half expects him to break down right there.
"Alright," he says softly.
She backs off, letting the droid do its work, and heads toward the cockpit. Then sooner they get out of here, the better. She has to take the long way, circling the planet to avoid the fleet. She's moving on autopilot.
When her mind catches up with her body, she falls.
She can't hold herself up anymore.
Her body is trembling uncontrollably, her head is spinning and she can't see straight at all. She feels like she's floating.
Dimly, she realizes that she's sticky.
Shaking fingers touch her cheek and come away blue.
Oh.
She bleeding.
A lot.
She's also pretty sure that she's crying.
She hurts.
Doom is broken.
Jedi are dying.
The Force is screaming at her.
Tiplar is gone.
Safe.
They need to be kept safe.
Doom is still alive. Broken but alive. She has to protect him, has to keep him safe. For her sister. For herself.
She has to keep him alive.
She pulls herself up to the controls. A safe place. They need a safe place. Away from the war and the fighting and the deathdeathdying that follows them everywhere they go these days. She enters the coordinates, forces her fingers steady as she activates the hyperdrive.
Then she falls back as the world goes gray around her.
A safe place.
The Jedi are dying.
The Force is screaming.
Her sister is gone.
Her Commander is broken.
But alive.
Please. Please let me save him.
She hurts. She doesn't have the energy to move anymore. She can't see. She reaches for the Force. It cradles her, soothing, mourning. She feels a hand on her brow.
Rest, sister.
She sleeps.
End of arc. Urgh. These two. They are going to be such angst muffins. But that's for later.
Until next time,
~Elri