The doors of his office swung open as two armed guards wearing the new crest of the United States above their hearts, the powerful image of an eagle made of separate, solid black fragments with wide, spread wings, walked into the room. Simple and yet imposing. A symbol of strength and power of the new regime to come and purge the world and make it clean once more. Leaning back in his chair, his fingers slowly drummed against the solid wood of the expansive desk before him.
"Yes?" He barked, raising an eyebrow expectantly. Would this be news of yet another failure this morning? More incompetence? How much more was he supposed to stand? He had shown more mercy to these fools than had ever been displayed upon him, but after all this time, his patience had begun to run thin. "What have you got for me?" Eager eyes locked upon the long, rectangular envelope one man clasped in his slightly trembling hand. This was new. Definitely promising. The others had never brought props to express their deficiencies and plead for forgiveness and further extensions of time.
"Sir!" Both guards held their fists over their hearts and dipped their heads respectfully, as would soon be expected of all the people beneath him and the President in their presence. "We have had eyes on the territories discussed and the reports have come back in." The first stepped forward, carefully placing the envelope onto the desk and sliding it forward and into his waiting hands. "As you'll see, the findings are exactly what we've been looking for."
As the guard stepped back into position, he carefully tore open the thin flap sealing the envelope shut and pulled out the small pile of images inside. Glossy, high-quality photographs spilled out and onto the desk, depicting several days' worth of activities captured by his agents. He looked at them all, one by one, analysing every detail as a slow flicker of victory within him rose and exploded into a wildfire nothing could conquer.
Finally… finally… After all this time, all of the wasted resources… he would have what belonged to him at long last. They said revenge was best served cold but what of triumph? He could hardly wait to claim what should have always been his from the very beginning and begin the life he should have always had. Slowly, a wide, bright grin tore apart his lips as his breath began to shallow from the excitement.
"Where?" Rush looked to the guards before him expectantly. "Where did you find her?" For eleven long years, he had been hunting down Padme Naberrie without success to his white-hot fury. She evaded him at every turn, seemingly escaping the purging of New York with the others and then vanishing into thin air while the others haunted his every move. It had occurred to him that perhaps she had been killed, but Skywalker's movements were too calm, too measured and controlled against them – he remembered enough about the prideful bastard to know the hysteric fury which would come upon him if anything had happened to her.
"Caleum," the second guard spoke up, "it used to be known as Niagara, sir, but survivors renamed it after putting up walls to keep the experiments out."
Clovis nodded along as he listened, though his eyes did not leave the images laid out before him. Padme had hardly changed since he had last seen her, age had touched her though gracefully and hardly noticeable. She was still the beauty of his memories. However, something twisted inside his stomach unpleasantly as he looked through the pictures once more. "Who are the brats?" He asked.
"Hers, from what we observed, sir." The first answered calmly, "Seems they belong to the terrorist, Skywalker too."
Of course... Rush could have laughed, although he wished to throw every object off his desk and then throw the damned thing out of the floor to ceiling windows behind him. All this time, he should have known Skywalker would have had her hidden away to keep for himself. He had been foolish to think Padme's absence in the band of insurgents meant an actual separation between them. A mistake on his part, he grimaced. It would not be repeated.
"Pack up two dozen experiments and be ready to leave by morning," he began to smirk despite his anger, "it seems we'll be paying Caleum a visit."
A/N: I almost can't believe this story is finally finished! It's very surreal that it's actually done... Thank you for coming along this crazy journey with me! Thank you for every single review or theory in my DMs! I have absolutely loved reading them all and knowing how much people have enjoyed this story has really warmed my heart.
For now, I'll be taking a break from this universe to focus on some other things, but keep an eye out for, "Our Mutated Peace" which is the direct sequel to this story and explores what comes next for our favourite family of survivors.