A MESSED UP DESTINY

A STAR WARS STORY

Chapter 21

Disclaimer: Disney owns everything and I make no profit from this.

Hello there everyone and welcome to chapter 21 of A Messed up Destiny! This is the first chapter of Book 2 and I'm so excited to finally start this! It's going to be awesome! *Clears throat* Ramblings aside, today's chapter is more of a recap, but it does also expand upon the stories seen in the series of Side Stories/ Companion Fics for this book.

Also, just know that Anakin's meddling with the outcomes of certain battles and events has been messing up the timeline a little bit, so this chapter takes place directly after the Clone Wars episode "Rookies", which is placed in the opening weeks of 21 BBY, meaning a little less than a year has passed since chapter 20 if the Wiki is to be believed.

Post-Edit Note: Due to Anakin messing up the timeline and Dooku being less willing to cause heavy casualties for the Republic by unleashing a new weapon upon them so early in the War out of fear of not being able to control the outcome, the Malevolence has not yet been tested in the field, meaning that the related missions have not taken place. This will become important later.

Now…without further ado…let's get right into it!

With another successful mission under their belt, as well as a whole new squad of Clone Troopers integrated into the 501st Legion, Captain Rex and Commander Cody muddle over the latest near-debacle they had found themselves in and as Rex praises his General for –seemingly- saving their lives once more, Cody is suspicious of how much General Skywalker seems to know about the future and how he seems to act like a different person at times…

Resolute, Captain's Quarters, Rex's point of view:

The latest mission had nearly been an absolute catastrophe, but this was nothing out of the ordinary for someone who has been working with Anakin Skywalker for as long as I have. It was a routine inspection and everything would have gone smoothly, had it not been for the Separatist attack of our listening station on the Rishi Moon, one of our only lines of defense when it came to protecting Kamino from Separatist attacks. Cody and I had gone to inspect the outpost and see if anything was out of order, only to find that a squad of Commando Droids had taken over the base.

The Rookies stationed there were a batch that had come straight from Kamino and with their Sergeant dead, they had fled –or as I would call it while writing the mission report, 'tactically retreated in order to gain a strategic advantage'-. Every single GAR commander would call me out for it later, but I didn't really care at the time. Cody and I had only found out about the droids due to their emergency flair, which had confirmed my suspicions about the Clones there acting weirdly and caused me to shoot the one that had come to divert us away from their operation.

After dealing with two Commando droids each we went ahead to find Domino Squad, consisting of five Clones names Droidbait, Fives, Echo, Heavy and Cutup, the latter of which I had 'saved' from being eaten whole due to a lucky shot. What none of them –including Cody- didn't know is that in that moment, it seemed like I had heard the General's voice inside my head, telling me where to aim and almost guiding the blaster bolt to hit a giant, worm-like creature in the eye, leaving all the Rookies unscathed from its snapping jaws.

Cutup had thanked me for saving him as his batch mates sang praises to me and I had decided to take a page out of the General's book and answer with one of those infuriating platitudes he and General Kenobi used solely to frustrate us when we asked them a question. Cody's muffled snort could be heard as the Rookies looked at me in confusion, but they didn't notice it, allowing us to move forwards and take the base without any problems, or so we had thought.

It turned out that the Commandos had called for reinforcements and we were quickly overrun, so Heavy took it upon himself to blow the base sky high in order to alert the Republic of something being wrong. The rest of Domino Squad escaped with us and the base was blown to bits, with Heavy still inside and presumably right next to the explosives.

When General Skywalker arrived with Appo and Coric to collect us, he seemed to stiffen as we reported our brother's death, before claiming that he sensed something through the Force. We all immediately brought our guards up, ready to face any threat and protect the General, but he simply moved over to the ruins of the outpost, casually crossing the mountain ridge to get there with ease. When we caught up to him, I saw that he was moving some debris with the Force, as if searching for something, or someone.

He noticed us barely a moment later and asked for our help in lifting a particularly large piece of the ceiling. Appo, Droidbait and Cody went ahead to help him, only to discover Heavy underneath, still alive. At first glance, it seemed like his armor had taken most of the hit as Coric told us he had only suffered minor injuries, and Domino Squad were ecstatic to not have lost their batch mate, but I could see Cody's eyes narrow in suspicion.

We all returned to the Resolute shortly after and I welcomed Domino Squad to the 501st Legion, leaving them in Commander Tano's care as they got settled in. General Skywalker then left abruptly, claiming he needed to meditate on this incident –something I knew to be an excuse to take a nap- and I only sighed when Cody tried to follow him, before he received a call from General Kenobi. The elder Jedi had simply wanted to ensure that his Commander was alright, but General Skywalker was long gone by the time their interaction ended.

It wasn't long until Cody and I found ourselves where we were now, in my quarters, and sharing a good bottle of Corellian wine. The General had gifted to me after the Battle of Ryloth, when I got out of medical, that is. I had taken a hard hit to the head after being ambushed by Rocket Droids and barely got away without getting a missile to the face, but Commander Fett had intervened, saving my life.

Cody suddenly cleared his throat and distracted me from my thoughts as I turned to face my brother. Something about Rishi had been bothering him and I was going to figure out what that was, so initiating conversation was probably the way to go here, at least if what Commander Tano had said about talking through problems was to be believed.

My brother sighed loudly as I turned to face him. "Don't shoot me for this…", he said hesitantly, "but I think something is up with your General." Whatever Cody was about to say, I hadn't expected this. General Skywalker had saved us countless times and led the 501st in and out of a battle unscathed just as many! Why would Cody think something was wrong with him? Had he noticed something I hadn't? Or was the General injured somehow? Had he gotten hurt trying to lift the debris?

Thoughts flew around in my head, ranging from curiosity to concern and worry, so I immediately asked Cody about it as my hand hovered above my communicator, with Coric's number on speed-dial. "What do you mean that something is wrong with him? Was he hurt?", I asked my brother, whose expression molded into one of momentary confusion before settling on an emotion I couldn't identify as he assured me that General Skywalker was fine and that he had misspoke.

"Rex, that's not what I meant! I was trying to ask if you ever noticed that sometimes he…can be cold if he spaces out. I can't be the only one who was seen it.", Cody said and a memory jumped forwards involuntarily.

It was from the earliest days of our partnership, if one can call it that, where he had been staring out of the Bridge and into Hyperspace as I had approached him, to tell him that the Jedi Council requested his presence in the meeting room for a briefing of some sort. The General had twitched when I dared to touch his shoulder after calling on him several times, before sparring me a glance and asking "Yes, commander?" in the coldest tone known to mankind. I remembered stuttering my way through an explanation and feeling relieved as he left the Bridge, though the incident has never been repeated. At the time I had simply thought him to be in a bad mood and that he had mistaken me for Fett, but could there have been another reason for his coldness, which was in stark contrast to his usual demeanor.

I took a sip of wine to hide my surprise as I realized that if Cody had noticed it, that couldn't have been the only incident. "Cody, it's happened…once.", I admitted hesitantly.

"So you've noticed.", my vod concluded. "Okay, now think back to like an hour ago where I tried to follow him and General Kenobi suddenly decided to call me. That can't be a coincidence.", Cody exclaimed, but he was just putting pieces together when the puzzle wasn't even there to begin with. Cody and his General were friends, it would make sense for him to check up on his own Commander after a dangerous mission.

I sighed again, before sipping another bit of wine. "Cody, you're being ridiculous! Would you not check on your General if he'd been through the same thing on Rishi?", I asked, unwilling to admit that he had a point, since we'd both seen those two talk to each other with their minds or whatever they were doing.

Cody twitched at the sudden change in my tone of voice, but he kept on pressing his argument. "Rex I'm not saying that! I only think that your General isn't entirely honest with you and the vode about something! I mean, think back to some of the earlier battles! First it was Jabiim where he just incinerated an army in seconds but he couldn't bother to do it on Christophsis where the Seps only had a tenth of the droids they did back on Jabiim? And then he just disappears for two days after and comes back looking like Hell? I don't buy it!", he yelled.

"I…I…" I couldn't find an answer to his questions. I had no argument to make, but I still tried to defend him. General Skywalker was the best Jedi we could have asked for, and I wasn't to let Cody insult him like this! "You saw what happened to him after that stunt on Jabiim and the kriffing Jedi Council called him back to their Temple afterwards! I'd bet my good blaster that he was on probation or something!", I yelled back, not understanding why Cody was antagonizing the General. They were getting along just fine after all.

Cody raised his hands in mock-surrender and switched to trying to defend himself. "Rex I'm only saying that he can be weird sometimes and that there are some things about him that don't make sense. Sith Hells, you're the one who told that he couldn't capture Dooku on Tatooine, even after beating him and you brought up that it was strange how Fett claimed that Dooku was incapacitated when he received a call from General Skywalker asking for a status update. He even dragged you all out to Mustafar that one time for virtually no reason at all! Skywalker just went to the surface and came back after a few hours, with nothing to show for it!"

"Cody!", I howled at him. I hadn't meant to, but I couldn't stand hearing people badmouth the General like that! "Enough about that! He said and droids showed up and recovered Dooku because he retreated, thinking that Commander Tano was in danger! And for all we know, Mustafar could have been some Top-Secret mission! Some Jedi thing or another that the Seps had found or whatever!"

Cody's pose visibly stiffened at my shouting. He looked remorseful for upsetting me and promised not to bring it up again with a silent nod. I took a deep breath, calming myself down like Commander Tano said should be done during arguments and hugged my brother, unwilling to let this stupid thing ruin our friendship. He patted me on the back in return and grabbed the wine bottle from me, gulping the remaining drink down faster than I could shoot a blaster. I shook my head quietly and stifled a laugh at his antics. He really was no better than when we were still in training…

And…scene! There you have it everyone, chapter 21 of a Messed up Destiny! This turned out to be more argumentative than I intended but it also did a good job of hinting at some of the adventures that took place between Episodes without spoiling too much if I do say so myself. Also, please note that isn't meant to be the "beginning" of a "new" book and I've simply split the story in three because it was way too big to fit into a work that wasn't like…300.000 words long –and probably more if we count the side stories-, not to mention that I wanted to expand on some side stuff in between chapters that will be relevant later.

Anyways, moving on with the epilogue!

Firstly, the Battle of the Rishi moon. The reason I'm moving this event here is because I want to include Domino Squad in the story and more specifically, Fives. He is the one that discovered the inhibitor chips and nearly exposed Palpatine's scheme, so I want him introduced early to give myself plenty of time when it comes to expanding his character. I also decided to save Heavy since his death is really sad when I watch the episode and the fact that 99 asks where he is when Fives and Echo return to Kamino is the absolute worse. As far as saving the others goes, I wanted them to have their full squad when going into the 501st, but the reasons behind this go into major spoiler territory so I shall say no more.

Secondly, Rex hearing Anakin's voice as he saves Cutup. The reason behind this is that there is a Force Bond between the duo, much like Anakin has with other characters. It's my headcanon that this is also true in the TV show though it isn't addressed, but I'm pretty sure that it was there because one can't have that good co-ordination with a Jedi and not have a Bond, not to mention that they were friends and that Anakin holds Rex in the highest of esteem. Anyhow, Anakin talks to Rex and tells him to shoot in the direction of the giant worm-thing that eats Cutup in the original timeline, and Rex's comment on the shot seemingly being directed is just him noticing Revan –who is a much more active figure than Qui Gon- use the Force to ensure the shot lands where it's supposed to. He isn't exactly joining the fray and destroying Commando Droids, but he is very capable of slightly adjusting shots to miss allied troops or hit faraway targets if the need arises.

Thirdly, Heavy surviving the explosion. If you have watched Rookies then you remember that the entire outpost was destroyed at the end, which also happened in this timeline. Unlike the show however, Heavy had a helpful Force Ghost raise a Force Barrier around him and redirect the energy to go elsewhere, leaving the Clone mostly unscathed with the exception of some heavy damage to his armor and a few slight burns that would need Bacta Patches to heal. If you're wondering why Revan didn't just protect Heavy completely, it's because a trooper miraculously surviving an incident like this is suspicious enough and there would be no possible way to explain him not having damage on his armor at the very least.

Fourthly, the argument between Rex and Cody. This scene was…intense, for the lack of a better word. A lot of things are said in very little time and Rex doesn't take kindly to someone 'badmouthing' his Commanding Officer and friend. It's clearly stated that Rex simply refuses to see that Cody has a point in the argument (where he is actually right since there are a whole lot of thing Anakin isn't telling the 501st), and this is not good for several reasons.

Rex being ready to defend his friend isn't inherently bad on its own, but here we see him develop a kind of blind loyalty to Anakin in the same way some Clones like Dogma have for their superiors (and we all know how that ended). It's obviously not the same thing, but this is treading dangerously close to 'hero worship' territory, which the opposite of character development in Rex's (or any Clone's) case.

By refusing to accept that Cody might actually have a point in what he says, he's putting an unnecessary conflict between him and his brother, but that won't last long because I love their duo's dynamic to keep them mad at each other. Unfortunately, Rex isn't about to accept any of the things Cody said unless they come from a person he values as much as Anakin, and there is only one person in the entire Galaxy that fulfils that role, but you'll have to wait in order to find out who that is.

Lastly, the cut scene that was supposed to go at the end of this chapter. This is a bit out of the blue to mention here, but there was a scene where Anakin talks to someone who is widely considered to be a foe and forges an alliance with that person to take Sidious down, but it ventured heavily into spoiler territory for multiple side stories and I didn't want to suddenly spoil them for someone who hasn't had the chance to read them yet.

Note: If any of you guys haven't checked them out, I recommend reading them as quickly as possible because contrary to their title of "side stories" they are actually very important. You can still understand the plot of this book if you don't read them, but I think you should because I put some pretty cool stuff in there that you don't want to miss.

Next time: As Rex ponders over his fight with Cody, he meets up with someone who can help him solve this mental dilemma. Meanwhile, Anakin receives a call from an old foe wishing to turn friend and assist in the fight against the Emperor, but will be able to trust this new ally, or will it spell disaster for everyone involved?

That's all for now everyone! Reviews are always welcome, whether it be to ask a question or to chat, and I'll see you all next chapter, but until then, May the Force be with you!