Shadow's Odyssey 2: The Chaos Continues
A squad of Mandalorians burst into the training room. They found Padme laying dead in the center of the room, a destroyed Grievous android in the corner, and standing in the back of the room was their emperor. His eyes burned with rage as he stared at Padme's corpse.
"My lord, are you o-" The guard started to choke as invisible hands closed around his throat.
Sidious's eyes slowly shifted to look at them. "Contact the remaining Grievous androids. Have them send all of their ships to Lothal." Sidious released the one he was choking, and they left as fast as possible.
Anakin was not ready for this. What was he supposed to say to them? They obviously wouldn't forgive him. They would probably arrest him the moment he set foot in the door. And he would deserve it so he might as well get it over with.
Anakin entered the room and met with the stares of Petro, Katooni, and Gungi. Anakin's whole body tensed. He waited for the three of them to draw their lightsabers. But they just kept staring at him.
"Did anything happen while we were gone?" Luke asked.
"Nothing too special." Petro replied. "Shadow came back after not destroying Mandalore and we used the Riska Root to make the cure, so we have it in case Sidious attacks us with the virus. But aside from that, there's been nothing noteworthy. I have a feeling your journey was a bit more eventful?"
"You could say that." Luke said.
Anakin remained silent.
Petro nodded and looked back at Anakin. "Well, it's good to have you back Anakin. Get yourselves settled in; we'll have our next meeting in a couple hours."
Anakin didn't understand what was happening. Did they somehow forget everything he did? He followed Luke deeper into the temple.
"You can take… this room."
Anakin entered the room and sat down on the bed, not really registering anything around him.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" Luke asked.
"I just don't get it. They don't arrest me, they don't question me? Just 'welcome back here's your room?' It's like they don't realize that a day ago I was willing to kill all of them without a second thought!"
Luke shrugged. "They forgive you."
"Why? What have I done that warrants their forgiveness?"
"You came back."
"So what? That doesn't mean anything! For all you know, this could be a trick so I can stab you all in your sleep!"
"You could have done that the first time you came." Luke pointed out.
Anakin went silent and looked away.
"You're not a monster, dad."
"How can you say that? You've seen what I've done!"
"But you didn't want to do those things, did you? You were scared, angry. A real monster feels nothing at all."
"I still don't feel right. After all the pain I caused, I feel like I should do something."
"Well…" Luke pulled a Kyber crystal out of his pocket. "You could show me how to build a lightsaber."
Omega came back online. He was on his back, staring upwards at a stone ceiling.
"It worked!" came Tails's voice.
Omega could see Rouge and Shadow along with him. He ran a check of all his systems. He immediately noticed something was wrong. None of his weapons showed up anywhere in his system. No machine guns, no missiles, no flamethrowers, no laser cannons, no nothing! And not only were all his weapons gone, his body seemed to be completely different. He was smaller, thinner, weaker.
"What have you done to me?" Even his voice was wrong. High-pitched and almost nasally, he almost sounded like…
Shadow snorted. "I told you he would hate it."
"I didn't exactly have a wide variety of options! It was either the battle droid body or the cleaning droid body."
Omega got off the table a sought the nearest reflective surface to check his appearance. He was horrified by what he saw.
"Now hun, it's not that bad-"
"I've been turned into a worthless consumer model!"
"You needed a replacement body, and this was the best one we could find!" Tails explained.
"How am I supposed to destroy things like this?"
"Well, we do have a blaster here for you." Shadow held out the weapon.
Omega let himself collapse to the floor in a fit of depression.
"So." Tails began awkwardly. "We should probably get to that meeting."
They all started to leave. "You coming, Omega?" Rouge asked.
"No."
Rouge shrugged and left.
"So we have Riska Root to cure ourselves if Sidious ever attacks us with the virus, but not enough to protect the rest of the galaxy." Petro said. "We need to find a way to get more of the root or find a way to stop the Grievous androids from unleashing the virus on other planets."
"We definitely can't go back to Iego." Boba said, remembering how disastrous their first trip was.
"And there aren't enough of us to fight off an invasion force." Katooni added.
"We need help." Leia concluded.
"Yeah, but help from who?" Bo-Katan asked.
"From everyone!" Leia exclaimed as she stood up. "The entire galaxy is threatened by this virus, and they're letting the Mandalorians extort them for all they've got. If everyone in the galaxy united forces, they'd outnumber Sidious's army a billion to one! But because of this 'every planet for themselves' policy, no one is willing to help each other."
Bo-Katan crossed her arms. "Trust me, the days of the Republic weren't much better. Fighting threats like these was always the Jedi's problem."
"I say we send out a message and ask if anyone is willing to fight." Leia proposed.
"I suppose it couldn't hurt to try." Petro agreed.
And so, the message was sent: "People of the galaxy. We are all in serious danger. You have no doubt heard the rumors about the return of Grievous and how he's using the deadly Blue Shadow virus to threaten worlds. The Mandalorians claim that they're here to help fight off this threat but they only seek to extort planets for their resources. The planets that don't choose to join suffer and die while they hoard the cure for themselves. The time has come for you to take matters into your own hands. I know that you're afraid. None of you have had to face anything like this before. The galaxy has always had someone else to protect it. Whether it was the Jedi, the clones, or even droids, but we cannot relay on someone else to fight our battles any longer. If we don't come together to fight for our own freedom, then the galaxy is doomed. I ask that anyone who is able and willing to fight come to the Lothal system. The fate of the galaxy is in your own hands now."
They waited for a few hours, but no response came to their message.
Han broke the tense silence. "I don't think anyone's coming."
"Patience. Someone will come." Katooni insisted.
It was wishful thinking, but wishful thinking was the only thing keeping them going at this point.
"Even if someone dose show up, what makes you think they'll be of any use to us?" Boba asked. "Civilians only get in the way."
"Civilians make up almost the entire population of the galaxy." Leia pointed out. "They have more strength than you realize."
A great many ships showed up of the scanners. Excitement buzzed through the room, as they thought that reinforcements had arrived.
"Guys, I wouldn't celebrate if I were you." Tails said grimly.
"Why not?" Knuckles asked warily.
"Because that's Sidious's fleet."
