A/N:
~ side note ~ I guess I should clarify that V'hiina Prime is a random planet I totally made up XD
It would take five and a half hours to get to V'hiina Prime, and since most the regs plus Wrecker occupied all available seats in the common area, Talla retrieved a hammock from storage to set up in her room for Ahsoka, so the young Jedi could relax while they flew through hyperspace.
Ahsoka understood why the hammock was needed upon entering her friend's den, more than a bit surprised to find Talla's room devoid of any personalization. Besides a cute loth-wolf stuffie sitting on one of her pillows, two piles of storage crates were the only decor she saw. "Wow, I expected you to be moved in by now." She chuckled, not knowing this emptiness was for the saddest of reasons.
Each pile was a pyramid of three large crates, but with a little bit of rearranging they were turned into two perfect 'trees' to hook the hammock cables onto. And while Talla did this she explained what happened between her and Crosshair. "Actually I was, but I've decided to ask for a transfer out of this squadron."
Ahsoka whipped her head back in Talla's direction, "Wait, why?"
Biting her lip apprehensively, Talla hooked the first end of the cable onto one crate tree, then hopped down from her perch and moved to the other end.
With much concern over her silence Ahsoka approached her friend climbing the second crate tree and pressed for details. "I thought things got better during your recovery - I thought you guys were friends now!"
Talla sighed while hooking second the cable. "Not with Crosshair." She gave it a tug to make sure it was secure before hopping down and addressing Ahsoka properly, giving a flustered shrug. "He hates me and I don't know why, and our constant fighting made life awful for everyone else including ourselves - and when I say fighting, I don't mean bickering because someone forgot to wash the dishes, I mean we fight."
She was faced with a Jedi Peacekeeper now. "Have you tried sitting down and actually talking things out?" Ahsoka knew Talla had a tendency to evade a situation if it made her or anyone else uncomfortable. Unless it was life or death, then she didn't care what came out of her mouth as long as she got through to someone.
Talla's huff of irritation didn't bode well for a good answer, neither did her slumped shoulders as she meandered towards her bed. "I've learned that's ideally the best solution, but I've also learned it takes both parties making effort for that solution to actually work." She flopped down backwards onto her mattress with a dramatic sigh. "And yeah, everyone else has made the effort to make this transition as smooth as possible, but Crosshair has made it abundantly clear he doesn't want to put forth any effort." Her loth-wolf was grabbed so she could hold it against her chest for comfort, and aching with sympathy Ahsoka next found herself perched next to the woman fiddling with the fuzzy ears of the toy, to stop herself from picking at her hair.
After a few moments Talla said quietly with blank eyes with lingering sadness trained on the ceiling, "I'd consider staying if we at least worked well together in battle but even then, we can't set aside our differences and it makes things a hundred times more dangerous than it needs to be." Ahsoka received a look wrought with guilt over a potential disaster that hadn't happened yet, "I couldn't live with myself if someone got hurt because of me, so since he refuses to stop and I refuse to be spineless, I've decided that if we survive this mission I'm leaving."
"Isn't that still a bit extreme?" Ahsoka carefully asked, "You can't just run away from your problems, that never solves anything."
Despite her cautious tone, Talla still flipped the lid. "I don't really have any other choice because it is that bad!" Talla shoved herself upwards to emphasize her point with her face having her anguish plainly written all over it. "I hit him, Ahsoka." Said teen's eyes widened. "He told me that I was worthless and a mistake and deserved to die, so I lost it and I hit him, and do you know what happens when a person is hit by someone with freakish strength, and said freak of nature didn't hold anything back?" It was a rhetorical question, and she turned away slightly and went back to clutching her stuffie before answering it herself, stroking the wolf's furry head now as the deserved guilt gnawed away at her insides. "It was bad, and he didn't want to go get his bruise looked at by Tech or anyone so we can only assume it was definitely not just bruised because he still can't really chew food on the right side of his mouth - it's still tender even though it's been a month."
Ahsoka had never been on the receiving end of such a blow to the face... though telling someone those terrible things warranted some type of reaction because it was not okay. What could have Talla possibly done though?!
This was the woman risked her life and her life alone to save an entire planet after (accidentally) screwing up the mission, and also argued with a trained doctor who definitely knew his trade about how long she thought it would take for her to recover from her near fatal accident, just so she could attend a funeral for a general she barely knew to support her new friend... Could a woman who did all that selfless stuff do something so awful to warrant such treatment from her comrade in arms? Ahsoka couldn't believe it, but then again one thing she'd learned being a peacekeeper was that people were full of surprises. "Has Crosshair said why he's upset with you?" She needed to ask before offering help if it was wanted.
"I - I think I've done everything to figure out what I did so I could make it up to him if I can," Talla said with obvious doubt for her own words, "But he still won't tell me."
The situation completely laid out before her, Jedi Peacekeeper was replaced with Jedi Commander. "Should I be worried then?" Ahsoka asked gravely, "I recommended you guys for this operation, but if you and Crosshair are going to be a liability then I can't risk the safety of the others."
Remembering her and the sniper's conversation a few minutes back, Talla mirrored the padawan's seriousness. "You don't have to worry." She swore. "I cut a deal with him: we stop the fighting, he watches my back and I watch his, and if we survive this mission then I'll leave and he won't ever have to see me again - he agreed, and we even shook hands on it, so I think we'll be okay." These words coming out of her mouth, she sounded sure of.
But Ahsoka had to make sure there were absolutely no chances. "What about the others, how did they react to the news? Is there a chance they'll be out of it?" She interrogated. "We can't risk even the slightest of mistakes down there in the mine."
"Tech and Wrecker don't but Hunter does, but don't worry I'd say he's gotten a handle on the emotional outburst thing - his not losing it when he stumbled across my packing is proof of that."
"Are you sure?" Ahsoka pressed.
Talla looked her right in the eye, "Positive." She promised, then made a dismissive gesture with her hand, "And anyways even if Wrecker and Tech do find out, they'll be fine."
Ahsoka doubted that very much, considering she saw Wrecker literally cry during their attack on Silva because of a beautiful explosion of all things. "Guess I'll have to take your word for it." She said instead though, choosing to trust her friend.
Talla muttered to herself, "You and me both." And Ahsoka's frown deepened, so the former threw her hands up with a sheepish smile. "Kidding!" Not really though.
At that, Ashoka her friend returned, albeit uneasily, and with a compassionate hand laid on her shoulder Talla was asked how she was handling things suddenly changing again.
Blankly looking ahead, Talla pursed her lips as she pondered this inquiry and the best way to explain her feelings. "I feel... uncertain." She confided with a shrug after a few beats of thoughtful silence. "I don't know how I'm going to like it, living all alone after getting used to being surrounded by people. I don't know how I'm going to like doing missions on my own - in fact, the only thing I do know is that I'll miss them all." Frustratingly, she choked up a little with emotion as several flashes of good memories with her friends came to the forefront of her mind, and she listed the specific ones she was talking about just so there was no confusion. "Wrecker and Tech and Hunter -"
Hunter's face, usually fixed with a no-nonsense look, that time she got him to sort of smile popped up in her mind. It was after telling him a cringy joke to try cheering him up when he had a rough day, and he might not have laughed but his hilarity and appreciation for the two second distraction was shown by the slight twinkle that was present in his eyes from that moment onwards. And it gave her more thrills than the dangerous missions they received.
And this memory prompted her to absentmindedly say, "Especially Hunter." And it was out of her mouth before she even had a chance to actually think about it. In fact, it was said without even having to think about it. Which meant she subconsciously felt it already, and now she was infinitely sadder about leaving.
It was Ahsoka who hit the nail on the head about why it was 'Especially Hunter.' "You like him?" Cause if so sorry Rex ol' boy - this woman's heart is already taken.
"Yeah, he's a good friend." Talla said without thinking again.
Ahsoka perked back up instantly. "Oh, okay!" :D
At this odd mood flip, Talla gave Ahsoka a sideways look and after seeing the padawan turning her head away slightly to fight an excited grin became suspicious, "What?"
Ahsoka startled, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. "What?"
Talla squinted at her. "Why are you being weird?"
"Oh well -" Don't give Rex away, otherwise he'll kill you. So Ahsoka only told half the truth, knowing the rest would come out once Rex was good and ready. "- it doesn't matter now but when I said you like Hunter I meant as in, like him like him."
It didn't exactly register at first what underlined 'like him, like him' meant and it went straight over Talla's head. "...Oh." She cluelessly chuckled, then about half a second later snapped her head back to the Togruta in alarm. "OH!"
It was Ahsoka's turn to be suspicious. "... But I was wrong, right?" She secretly hoped behind a concerned facade. "So it's all good?"
Talla looked like a mynock caught in the headlights and there was several seconds of gaping before she could form a reply. "Yeah - YES!" Her eyebrows snapped together as her emotions whipped in a completely different direction - OH MY FORCE HOW DID I NOT SEE IT BEFORE?! "... well actually no -" There came back that sinking heart feeling for Ahsoka, and while Talla didn't know why this made her mood shift so dramatically she quickly spouted a lie to ease her friend. "Uh, 'No' as in: I don't like him like that!"
Some doubt was still written on Ahsoka's features. "You sure?"
"Yes, yeah!" Talla repeated frantically. "You just..." A nervous laugh broke up her sentence and she tucked an imaginary piece of hair behind her ear as per usual, "You just startled me that's all, be-because it's an unspoken rule for clones to not have relationships - at least serious ones!" There was another nervous laugh. "Can't let anything get in the way of our job to protect the Republic, after all!"
Her high-pitched tone could have been taken for lying straight through her teeth, but Ahsoka decided to take her word for it again - Talla said she was just taken aback, that's all. "Yeah, for sure -"
"And that aside - can you imagine it?!" Talla should have quit while she was ahead but no, she had to make sure no one would suggest this ever again... OR EVEN SUSPECT! "Me and Hunter? That's crazy - that would be a disaster waiting to happen!"
Inside though, she was saying completely different things: Oh my kriffing karking Force - I LIKE HUNTER!
All those weird sensations she experienced when they touched - the butterflies, the electricity, even the occasional nausea, that and the nervousness yet near complete comfortableness she felt around him, it all made sense now! She'd seen these exact symptoms portrayed into holovids - And I'm just connecting the dots now?!
And it was just not fair - the first man she'd felt a connection like that with, and it had to be someone she could never pursue.
Unbeknownst to the frightened woman, Hunter felt the same exact way about her.
Feeling like her brain was going to explode, Talla opted for an abrupt change of subject so she wouldn't have the chance to further incriminate herself. "Where's General Skywalker?" She queried after an awkward clearing of her throat.
"Oh, he's on a meditative retreat." Ahsoka fibbed smoothly, just like Talla not wanting to incriminate her own friend. Ahsoka actually had no idea what planet he even went too, just knew he was with a certain Nabooan Senator and it was certainly not a meditative retreat.
She knew about the Jedi Knight and the Senator. From way early on into her padawanship she knew about them. And he knew she knew about them. They just didn't talk about it, and Ahsoka wasn't about to betray the closest thing she had to a brother, nor was Talla going to either - if her crush was revealed Wrecker's would be also soon after, and she wasn't going to risk his happiness just as Ahsoka wasn't going to risk Anakin's.
Didn't mean they liked the lies.
Wrecker and regs don't mix, and Talla learned that the hard way en route to V'hiina Prime. I mean she'd obviously heard the stories, just never experienced it firsthand.
Sleep never came for her. It almost did, about half an hour before they came out of hyperspace. After being curled on top of her comforter for five hours having yet another existential crisis, Talla's mind finally slowed down enough that her crazed eyes became weary, the blessed tiredness finally here. Her eyelids finally fluttered shut and Ahsoka let out a quiet breath in relief as her friend finally stopped radiating anxiety -
Only for them to jump upwards when they heard a crash outside akin in sound to a speeder bike collision.
At first the women thought it was the holovids, Talla having put some random action/adventure stuff on to keep all the boys occupied. So, her and Ahsoka tried to quell the frantic beats of their hearts and relax back onto their respective beds to catch a few more winks -
Then something definitely collided with the bedroom wall, and whatever it was it was large enough and thrown hard enough for a slight dent to appear in the durasteel, causing a violent shockwave powerful enough to shatter the mirror hanging in Talla's refresher. Now crashes and other various ruckus could be distinctly separated from the holovids already concussive soundtrack. The pair shot each other alarmed glances before scrambling out of their beds and sprinting out of the room.
Chaos - Mayhem - Havoc - choose your favorite word to describe this disaster! What Talla and Ahsoka staggered into was a deadly battle zone, and there wasn't even any blaster fire!
Funny thing was, there actually were a few blasters involved...
Regs were fighting with Wrecker and with each other. There was punching and kicking and sharp blows delivered from their knees and elbows, and if that wasn't violent enough for their taste then they used the butt of their lightning rifles in lieu of fist-to-face combat. And those who didn't want to scramble for a rifle got creative and threw/jabbed/smacked with whatever was handy, like for instance a discarded mug from one of the Bad Batch's morning caf. Or in two regs cases they battled with two tall thin metal lamps as makeshift electrostaffs only without the electro. Or in another regs case he used a chair from the workbench as a shield from Wrecker's erratic movements while he defended himself from two pesky regs.
And speaking of Wrecker, once he flung off the two regs trying to strangle him - HE THREW A WHOLE KRIFFING COUCH! IN THEIR DIRECTION!
Frozen in shock, the Jedi and Agent had never seen such pure, unbridled fear instilled in someone's eyes and no doubt the men saw their short lives flash before their eyes.
Naturally, they needed to stop the fighting, though Talla just wanted to take one of those lightning rifles, blast them into oblivion and call it a day due to the wrecked state of her beloved organized ship, but she settled on cursing out the leaders of this mission - How could they not hear this?! They could have stopped it!To be heard over the chaos the women raised their voices and shrieked orders to STOP as loud as they could, but that had no effect. In fact, their yelling only seemed to make things worse as a spectating reg thought they were cheering and started yelling his support too and it just had a destructive domino effect.
So next the women had to go so far as to attempt physically intervening within some scuffles. Yeah, that didn't work either.
Ahsoka suffered an accidental uppercut to the jaw that flung her backwards several feet and slammed her against a wall. Shortly after Talla had to jerk to the side from the aforementioned chair now thrown shattered the top of the expensive holotable behind her, causing a flurry of sparks, transperisteel, and sharp metal projectiles. Then again evasive action was needed when someone's safety on their rifle was unintentionally clicked off and a stray bolt whizzed past where her head had been like a microsecond before. Now her beloved Chart trickled onto the ground into nothing more than a pile of ash.
Okay, THAT'S IT! The time came for Talla to fight fire with explosions once again.
Ahsoka was unconscious, so Talla's quick solution wouldn't affect her. Dodging and shoving regs aside the furious Agent snatched a pair of noise canceling headphones from the work desk, and now experiencing blissful muffles it took mere seconds to hack into this room's speaker systems through Tech's datapad he surprisingly forgot about.
Without warning, a recorded shriek of an attacking rathtar sounded at the highest level. Talla was shocked the ships viewports didn't shatter from the percussions, same with the pitifully screaming men's eardrums. She was too peeved to think about that beforehand, and happily accepted this lucky outcome.
A second first was experienced- never seeing a group of soldiers be taken out within microseconds flat, this deafening roar having them screaming, falling, then writhing on the floor, wondering whether or not tearing their ears off would end their agony. For good measure Talla allowed the roars to continue even after the last reg crumpled to the ground, counting to three which also helped her not unravel from the violent vibrations caused by her solution.
As the rest of the strike team burst into the room from the cockpit Talla finished counting to three again, ripped off her headphone's and then roared with equal ferocity as the rathtar: "FALL. IN. LINE!"
Forget the rathtar, these men were more shook up at the scary woman's tone, and it was three for three on firsts for Talla - she'd never seen a group of soldier's scramble to their feet and stand at attention so fast. Now aware of their surroundings, Wrecker and the regs bugged out eyes finally took in the state of the common area - broken furniture, broken electronics, broken everything... and then the scary woman standing by the workdesk, visibly shaking in rage from their destructive antics -
They all gulped. Several were also shaking in their boots. And one man would never admit that he almost peed in his blacks a little.
Said man was Wrecker.
They started sweating when she took an intimidating step towards their line, but instead of incinerating them on the spot she yelled an equally intimidating threat instead. "If this ship isn't cleaned up and your sorry asses aren't strapped into the jumpseats by the time we exit hyperspace,I'll make you sorry you were ever created - UNDERSTOOD?!"
It wasn't even the most colorful threat she'd ever said, but it was the way she said it - they all rigidly saluted and yelped, "SIR YES SIR!"
"Then why are you still standing here?!" She rhetorically bellowed, "GET TO IT!"
In Commanders Wolffe's eyes, it wasn't even his fault that this chaos happened... yet he found himself wanting to scurry alongside his men, to find a broom and start sweeping or something. He comically jumped out of the way when she stalked in his general direction, to make sure he didn't obscure her path to her fallen friend and flinched when she sarcastically snapped at all the wide-eyed leaders, "Thank you so much for all the help!"
Thankfully, Ahsoka would be alright, as would the reg slumped over by Talla's door who, courtesy of Wrecker, turned out to be the object denting her wall not five minutes ago, so Talla decided to go put her armor back on in record time and await their exit from hyperspace in the cockpit with everyone else, knowing sleep would never come to her now.
When passing a reg with short blonde hair straightening up the couch not hurled across the room, still very much irritated mind you, Talla murmured down another veiled threat for efficiency purposes, "If I find even half a crumb on that couch, soldier -"
No further words were necessary and panic-stricken the reg now aggressively brushed off the couch cushions, and one of his brothers, who had two stripes of red hair on his otherwise bald head, swept up the discarded crumbs behind him with the equal anxiety.
It took a moment for everyone else to process what the hell just happened, and then after when they unsurely went to prepare for battle. Crosshair though continued to remain stupefied for a moment longer while watching his burly teammate, who was never intimidated by anyone, him and eight other grown men anxiously cleaning because of this woman, and she wasn't even a Jedi General or Commander or anyone of significance in the Republic. Her title didn't even specify yet if she was above them in rank. She was just a lowly clone like them.
He had to admit it now - Sergeant Mode... Angry Talla... They were without a doubt evenly matched... Yikes.
He'd physically been on the receiving end of Angry Talla, but he only now saw the extent of its power, and actually considered himself a bit lucky he didn't get his throat slashed earlier. She really held back. And with a clear-ish mind right now, he also clearly saw why, catching the twinge of guilt that plagued her features before stalking into her room, and that brief sensation of fear he felt was replaced with that same emotion constantly plaguing him day in and day out because of how he instinctively treated her and everyone else.
Turns out, she really did hate doing it too, just like him. No one was watching her when the flash of guilt appeared, so it was proven to not be for show.
His personal guiltiness increased exponentially when Talla later remarked to him across the way as she took the pilot's seat: "You know, I'm finally seeing how incredibly awful it is when unwanted people just waltz into your life and ruin everything you've ever known." Pressing a few buttons on the hyperdrive panel to see the ETA for their arrival she was unaware of Crosshair having to keep his jaw from dropping. "And even though they're cleaning up their mess, a lot of what I worked hard to keep clean and organized has been destroyed, so I still want to incinerate them." Looking towards his position behind the co-pilot's seat Crosshair was given her full attention to show her sincerity and regret, and no one else was around which cemented the fact ot was not for show. "My joining this team took away the only secure home you'd ever known and turned your entire life upside down and you - you didn't even get a say in it!" She huffed in understanding, "So I applaud the fact you haven't gone through with actually killing me, and I'm sorry. For doing that to you."
Bewildered didn't even begin to describe how Crosshair felt about this apology.
And if his thinking that she was simply an evil witch out to get them wasn't starting to evaporate before, it certainly was now. He'd said and done terrible stuff to her, tried to get her to admit to his conspiracy theories, and instead of taking the bait she thought she found out the reason he'd been throwing dirt at her since the moment they met. It wasn't entirely the reason, but instead of trying to force friendship between them, Talla said she understood, took the blame on herself, literally praised his so-called patience, and reiterated her promise.
And in response to such mushy, underserved kindness... he merely huffed disinterestedly and looked away as per usual.
On the inside though, he was wondering why he just couldn't be right about her. For Crosshair, it was far easier to hate someone than to like them.
As Tech and the HoloNet put it, V'hiina Prime used to be 'a snowy utopia.' But half of it had literally been blown away and it now looked like something out of one of Wrecker's horror flicks. Talla couldn't stop the cold hand of fear gripping her heart after laying eyes on the real thing after coming out of hyperspace - the tactical data did nothing to prepare her or anyone for what they saw. If someone needed a visual representation on what Hell looked like, the fiery inferno of lava seas and molten rock plains which created its own tumultuous weather patterns blowing away anything in its path would be a perfect example of Hell. Said destructive weather patterns consisted of spine-chilling black clouds flickering to life with waves of explosive lightning torrents, and there were toxic chemical rains of the likes she had obviously never seen before literally melting away anything that didn't ricochet into space fast enough from the lightning strikes.
... yup, just take them here if someone asks for a visual. They hadn't even cleared the asteroid field yet the destruction was evident to Talla from their distant position.
Tech having bestowed the piloting duties upon her for this assignment, the Special Agent clicked her tongue and said while starting to plug the sequence back to Christophosis into the hyperdrive. "Welp, who wants to call Mr. King and tell him the bad news?"
Different variations of 'Not me' were murmured throughout the Bad Batch members sitting in their respective chairs.
This prompted the reg Commander standing behind Plo Koon's seat in the back row to ask confusedly, "What do you mean?"
She threw him an 'Are you seeing this?!' look over her shoulder. "Commander, there's no way this moon can be saved!"
"Concord Dawn experienced a similar fate during one of the infinite Mandalorian Wars, and there are rumors of sentients inhabiting it today." Plo Koon declared and sitting in the seat across from him Ahsoka made a noise of agreement.
So Talla calmly turned her seat to face them head-on and was respectful but blunt about the gravity of the situation. "This is nothing like Concord Dawn, sir, because in that instance only a third of the planets mass was blown to bits and there was no fiery cyclone eating away at the planet's mass." She drew his and everyone's else attention back to the deteriorating moon. "I know it's hard for the rest of you to see from this distance, but my enhanced sight clearly lets me see that what's left of V'hiina is destroying itself." She paused and tapped her curled finger against her chin thoughtfully, taking in the fiery cyclone eating away the moon. "I can't give an exact estimate on the rate of destruction right now, but I can make an educated guess that it'll be a day at least before this moon turns into an asteroid field..." She returned her attention back to them and finished soberly. "Though in all honesty that's me being generous, and I'd rather not play chicken with that generosity."
Wolffe was expecting this new infamous 'Special Agent' to be a lot more courageous than this on account of Rex's in-depth profile about her he had relayed, and he started to wonder if that story about her liberating an entire planet by herself was just like Fives's 'I Fought Off Five Super Battle Droids With My Bare Hands' bantha crap. "So, you want to give up? Without even trying?" He shot a pointed look to Ahsoka and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his commanding officer. He respected her, but perhaps this time around she let her friendship with this Agent Talla cloud her judgement.
Across the room, Talla figured a Clone Commander who was infamous for being strategic would see she was being that instead of cowardly, so she gave him a tight-lipped smile and bit back a snarky remark to spare the Sergeant standing nearby any embarrassment. "It's called being strategic."
Ahsoka tried to be casual about leaving her seat and becoming a barrier between the two soldiers, because she recently found out Talla could get punchy if things escalated and that comment may have looked innocent to a less experienced individual, but for sharp-tongued people like her and Wolffe it had obvious mockery behind it. "If nothing else, we should at least retrieve any information left behind within the second half of the mine, maybe see if they're possibly in communication with other mining operations, that way we can shut them down too, before another planet or moon is destroyed like this."
"That's IF there's any information left to retrieve." Talla pointed out.
Wolffe was getting real tired of what he perceived as attitude real fast.
"Even with all the interferences by the storms and asteroids, by now we should have seen some sort of reaction to our arrival, at least by ships doing patrols." Talla whirled her seat back towards the console and clicked a few buttons underneath the scanner screen, making a noise of confirmation when nothing appeared. "Yeah, there's no signs of enemy ships nearby -" A doubtful eye scanned the dangerous floating obstacles surrounding the moon. "Though I doubt even these enhanced dummy droids could successfully navigate through that anyways." The leaders we properly addressed again. "Under different circumstances us being undetectable until we cleared the atmosphere would be a great tactical advantage but let's face it - maybe this whole 'two separate labyrinths' theory is too out there, and this was all just a freak accident and there's no data to retrieve or even droids to take down anymore."
Including Hunter, her team didn't reprimand her because frankly they were on her side in this, Tech even going so far as to think he couldn't have explained it better himself. Alas, to someone who didn't know her it may seem like she was throwing attitude, and the Bad Batch boys were constantly guilty of doing that when working with regs, but they knew the Special Agent hadn't been that badly corrupted yet. She was trained to be observant and shrewd, and utilized this skill in making sure everyone got out alive and no unnecessary risks were taken, which is what she was trying to do now, albeit the execution for showing her concern was a bit subpar in this instance. Maybe these were signs of corruption starting to show.
Rolling his eyes at the reg Commander, Crosshair stopped Wolffe from contradicting Talla again by backing her up in the only way supportive way he knew, by cutting their opponents down with his words. When he piped up and said Talla was right Wolffe raised a challenging brow at him, while from his position leaning against the console up front Hunter swore they had come out of hyperspace into a parallel universe, and he wasn't the only one.
Crosshair's crude smirk did bode well for a peaceful resolution. "The problem is going to fix itself, so why don't you save my squad the trouble of having to drag your bodies out?"
Wolffe would have wiped that pretentious look off Crosshair's face if the Marauder hadn't violently lurched and forced him to latch onto the back of Plo's seat to stop from face-planting. Hunter almost fell onto Tech's lap but caught himself, Talla and Tech narrowly stopped themselves from whacking their heads against the steering, and Crosshair was actually flung from his seat and did end up face-planting against the seat in front of him, grunting as this aggravated his already sore face. Back in the common area, most of the cleaning men's work was undone as they were flung every which way and smacked/snapped/knocked over anything in their line of fire.
Everything went pitch black as all systems went down, but almost immediately switched back on, except now the ship's power was not as strong as before, the lighting dimmer and the hum of mechanics noticeably quieter. Various alarms were sounding, the airlocks hissing with steam and Talla and Tech had to do a quick scan of all the systems.
"An asteroid collision damaged our main generator, but no other systems were compromised and the backup generator has started powering life support - we're fine." Tech reported calmly.
He spoke too soon - the ship lurched again from of another strike which took out the next major system.
Tapping the blank surveillance screens then a few random sequences with no response, Talla reported grimly, "Scanners and sensors are down!"
"... Now might be a good time to strap on the external respirators." Tech stated with that same surprising calmness.
"Having zero surveillance in an asteroid field, I doubt we're gonna need them." Talla quipped shortly, taking a firm hold of the steering to be ready for incoming obstacles, not going down without a fight at the very least. Call her overdramatic, but she briefly went over the last month of her life and only had two real regrets: Not befriending Crosshair, and now also not even getting a chance to decide whether or not to tell Hunter about her crush on him even if it wouldn't amount to anything.
Next to her, he was a bit more rational about things.
Much like Tech had given Talla the role of pilot, Master Plo had dubbed Ahsoka the leader of this mission, so she had less than two seconds to mentally go over everyone's skill sets and make a calculated decision on what to do, more asteroids and debris visibly heading their way and others no doubt out of their line of sight. "Tech, you and the Sarge go stabilize the current damage!" Ashoka commanded, finding her place behind Talla's seat as the female clone kept the Marauder steady and her sharp eyes were focused on perceiving any incoming threats.
"I need to be the co-pilot!" Tech negated without looking up from preparing the ship for evasive action, his body then jerked to the left as Talla avoided another destructive obstacle.
Once stabilized, Ahsoka whipped around to the sniper, whose knuckles were white from gripping the edges of his seat to stop flying across the room. "You a good co-pilot?" The padawan didn't give him a chance to answer yes. "Well, you are now! All you have to do is to activate the repulsors and deploy the landing gear the second I say to, got it?" Again, she didn't give him a chance to respond, knowing all clone commando's got basic pilot training, "Wolffe, man the guns! Master, make sure everyone else is prepared for a rough landing!" When the two men in the back ran out of the cockpit Ahsoka next placed a reassuring hand on her friends' tense shoulder and said more calmly. "Talla, I want you ready to act at a moment's notice - I'm going to guide you through the asteroid field."
In life-or-death situations like this Sergeant Hunter preferred to be the one giving orders, or reluctantly obeyed a general over a young padawan, as did the others which was why they weren't exactly eager to obey these orders from young Padawan Tano. But Hunter ended up receiving a firm reassurance from someone he did trust - Talla - who said that Ashoka knows what she's doing and to trust her.
That was all he needed, so he yanked reluctant Tech away from his current post and dragged him to the new one, which made Crosshair have no choice but to take his place as Talla's impromptu helper, trusting Hunter in his trust in Talla.
As far as they could see there were no more incoming asteroids, but they were quickly approaching the deadly maze of rock and debris ranging in sizes between a small womp rat to a colossal Jedi Cruiser. Talla unwittingly found doubt creeping up within her for her own promise to the Sarge.
So before having to focus all her attention on reaching out with the Force, Ahsoka gave the Agent's shoulder another reassuring squeeze. "Just act on my directions and we'll land safely on that moon, Talla, I promise."
Just a fraction of the tension left Talla's frame, but only because she was ordered to be ready for anything. "Okay!" She took a moment to crack her neck, the adjustment releasing more of the unnecessary pent-up tension. "But how, exactly?" She truly wondered.
A look of intense concentration and yet complete sereneness washed over Ahsoka's features and reaching out her hand it effectively helped in reaching out with her Force-enhanced senses. "Just be ready." The young Jedi calmly advised.
If Talla knew her guide that meant the difference between living or dying had KRIFFING SHUT HER EYES, she would've never have gone along with this scheme in the first place and relied on her own training instead because it actually required using her trusty enhanced eyes that had never let her down so far. But the fact is she didn't know, so immediately reacting to Ahsoka's random directions was what was done.
The journey was honestly all a blur, and she didn't know how in the galaxy Ashoka got them through, the entire aerial battle blocked from Talla's memory almost as soon as it was over. But when they did end up clearing the asteroid field without so much as another scratch afflicting the ship, Talla didn't think need to think twice about obeying Ashoka again when the relieved padawan said to maintain their current speed and she'd get them onto the moon's surface in one piece. She'd ask about it later.
Crosshair wasn't so trusting yet, getting a glimpse into Talla's first flying lesson and wondering how Tech ever recovered from such a traumatic experience. His entire was rigid from head to toe and he couldn't let of his vice-like grip onto the slippery edges of the console as they had yes dodged and blasted away both seen and unseen targets, but the acts themselves had crippled him. He had never been in such a rough crash landing before that hadn't involved the actual crashing part yet. And the exact opposite for him happened - he remembered each and every stomach-churning, neck-snapping, tornado-like maneuver performed, and he had zero doubt that they'd be the stuff of his nightmares for the foreseeable future.
"Maybe we should wait until Tech and Hunter fix the sensor array." He suggested with a touch of panic-induced breathlessness, noting the planet-wide snowstorm tormenting said moon's intact surface, which was another sign that this place was going downhill fast. The sensors would most likely not have worked with all the stormy interference, but he'd rather take his chances with that then with a purposely blinded young Padawan and the amateur pilot she guided.
No one in the general vicinity listened to him, but those obediently strapped into the jumpseats in the cargo hold would have whole-heartedly joined in on the begging for a different solution.
So Crosshair had no choice but to ready himself for the most important assignment of his life - simultaneously activating the repulsors and deploying the landing gear as soon as Ashoka ordered him to, lest they'd end up being scattered all over the V'hiina system. If this wasn't the trust exercise of all trust exercises for him and Talla, he didn't want to know what would be. And knowing Talla needed to maintain her confidence to maintain her control over her panic, which would help her maintain control over the ship so she'd be able to pull up at the very last second before crashing to their doom, he held back any and all snarkyness.
That was a first for him.
You know how his squadron liked those suicide missions? How they lived for the adrenaline rush from their shamefully flirting with death? On all those missions he had never experienced true terror, which he found out was a whole different kind of rush and frankly he was not in a hurry to feel it again. Hopefully, he'd NEVER have to feel it again! Nothing was compared to the true terror felt by trusting a teenage girl legit closing her eyes while she used her weird voodoo powers to guide an amateur pilot through two death traps, one with thousands of obstacles hurled their way and the other a gigantic one they intentionally sped towards.
And as they sped towards the moon's surface with no visibility whatsoever, he dared to glance at Talla so as to confirm whether or not he should prepare himself for the Great Beyond if it did in fact exist, expecting her to be on the brink of a panic attack like him as she was more prone.
Imagine his shock that she was calm. Her jaw was clenched and her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated, and her entire frame was rigid but trembling as the Marauder shuttered from the strain on the sublight engines, which roared in protest to the taxing efforts from Talla pushing them to the limits, the nose of the ship having streaks of fire lick its surface from the speedily cutting through the atmosphere. She used enough strength to keep the ship from being swept in any which direction from the cyclone-force winds, and probably had to arduously restrict her hold on the steering despite the fear no doubt plaguing her so the wheel wouldn't snap off... but she appeared calm and in complete control of her emotions and the ship and he was, again, shocked. This was a woman who freaked out because she didn't know what to paint on her armor, whose screams shattered the eardrums for everyone within a two-mile radius when she was faced with needles, and the same woman who lost her cool over and over again when he pushed her over the edge with his bitchy behavior. Hell, this was a woman who screamed bloody murder when coming across a spider for the first time!
Upon a brief mental recollection, he realized even their stoic Sergeant had lost his cool on missions in recent times, yet she'd never gone over the deep end once. Okay, maybe not calm, she did get a bit riled up when Crosshair personally did everything in his power to make her do so, but after Silva she never went over the deep end. Talla was always reliable during a mission.
And just like that his fear melted away and he found himself trusting her judgement. And he acknowledged that if he trusted her judgement, her judgement was good which meant she was good and if she was good that meant she was not out to get them.
'course, that didn't help make this experience any less uncomfortable. Back to the adrenaline rush from the true terror, Crosshair figured that if he had to endure two more seconds of this dramatic change in altitude as they nose-dived towards the moon's nonvisible surface at breakneck speed, all because this young intentionally blinded padawan ordered them too, he'd either suffer a heart attack or the intense pressure building in his head would cause it to explode, or both. That'd be messy.
Ahsoka seemed to save him from that fate at the last possible microsecond. "Now!"
THANK THE MAKER!
But the seemingly simple task proved to be almost impossible, and he retracted that statement of relief faster than the ships abrupt change of direction.
Simultaneously yanking two switches backwards forced him to only have leg/torso strength to keep his body upright while Talla yanked back the accelerator and the ship jerked upwards accordingly, rerouting all her spare strength to contain the sensory overload/panic attack threatening to cripple her from the never before experienced whiplash.
Anything that wasn't magnetically clamped to the floor ricocheted and dented walls, furniture, even the roof, and Crosshair swore for two seconds he felt all of his internal organs shoot up into his skull and mush with his brain and felt his head was going to explode while also feeling his last meal threaten to make a reappearance. Next came slamming backwards against his chair once the initial whiplash disappeared from the sudden change in course, only for him to shoot his arms out just in time and save himself from colliding with the console once they not-so-gently touch-downed onto the moon's surface.
Oh Force, his head, his stomach, his arms, his everything felt so UGH! He couldn't keep track of all the symptoms and what parts of his body they were manifesting in. There was ringing and tinglings and dizziness and nausea and stiffness -
As the seconds wore on and his internal organs figuratively dropped back to their proper places, he had to do a breathing exercise to calm his breathing, his blood pressure sending uncomfortable vibrations throughout his entire trembling body, his mind racing faster than hyperspace and yet completely devoid of all thoughts at the same time as the shock wore off. During all this, he was the first to admit that he would've preferred dying out there over dealing with the aftereffects of this truly terrifying crash landing that didn't involve crashing. Even Tech's crash landings never made him feel the ungodly levels of uncomfortableness he experienced right now.
Next to him, Talla looked like she'd agree with this sentiment, not faring much better than him, hand shaped indents unconsciously being molded into the tiller from her vice-like grip while she fought off that state of zero control over her entire being.
Alarms for various systems no doubt overheated and angry sounded again, the awful smell of something mechanical burning permeated the area, and steam hissed all around them from the protesting airlock system or something, they really didn't know or feel like caring in the moment to be honest.
"... Another happy landing?"
Once this light-hearted comment processed through their jumbled minds, Crosshair and Talla slowly turned in their seats and pinned the sheepishly grinning Ahsoka with glares more ferocious, more heated, more deadly than the fiery cyclone of death they'd have to race against the clock to escape from.
Just Crosshair's luck, the storm cleared within five minutes of landing. So all that suffering could have been prevented if they just stayed put a little while longer. Thanks a lot, Padawan!
Naturally no one in the cargo hold really knew what happened in the cockpit, so the moon landing feedback Talla received from the rest of the crew was a diversification of various negative emotions as everyone remained strapped into their seats, faces as whites as sheets and knuckles just as white as they literally had to grip onto what shreds of sanity they had left.
It didn't really work, especially when her presence was realized.
Wolfpup: "DID YOU FLY WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED?!"
He wasn't that far off. Crosshair thought, already stress biting his sixth toothpick.
Boost: "DID YOU ENTER THE ATMOSPHERE AT KRIFFING LIGHTSPEED?!"
Depends on how you look at it.
Comet: "YOU'RE CRAZIER THAN SKYWALKER!"
Now that's just plain mean, but I suppose could also be taken as a compliment. He'd heard the stories over the years.
Sinker: "Wanna go at it again, I think this time you'll complete the mission - OF SNAPPING MY HEAD OFF!"
Dramatic much? He mentally rolled his eyes.
Three regs he hadn't bothered to remember the names of: Reg 1)"EVER HEARD OF A SENSOR ARRAY?!" Reg 2)"Yeah, you know those nifty sensors are good for SEEING OBSTACLES WELL IN ADVANCE!" Reg 3) "Yeah, that way your passengers don't have to follow up a mission with TWELVE TO SIXTEEN SESSIONS OF ANTI-TRAUMA DE-PROGRAMMING!"
Obvious apprentices of sarcastic Sinker. If he hadn't seen Talla start to shrink under the harsh criticism, he would've found those comments amusing.
Wrecker: "WAS THIS PAYBACK FOR THE MESS WE MADE?!"
He gave a chuckle in amusement. Obviously he'd be the one to ask that.
Wolffe didn't have to use words to express his unnerved state of being. His unsteady entrance into the cargo hold and glare effectively transmitted his feelings for her performance.
Wobbly emerging like a drunken man from his post behind a wall of crates, even Tech did not find this crash landing a success even though there was actually no crash involved and the ship was still in one piece. His eyes crazed and unfocused from the trauma he experienced while trying to fix the damage while she decided to practice stomach-churning, neck-breaking, tornado-like aerial stunts, the usually calm man had become unglued, especially after that seventh hit to the head, which gave him temporary amnesia and made him forget it was actually Ahsoka guiding Talla and she did the best she could.
No matter, he jabbed a shaky finger in the innocent pilot's general direction, "You are hereby demoted!" He furiously proclaimed while behind him poor Hunter also tried to maintain his balance leaving the damaged power generator, grasping onto anything in his path for support. "You are demoted from pilot, from co-pilot, from ship mechanic -" Tech suddenly thought of all the damage he'd yet to see and made a loud noise of rage and threw his hands and stomped a foot and shrieked, "Kark it! - you're altogether banned from the cockpit and if any part of your body crosses the threshold I swear to every God in the known universe I will take your sword and -!"
"But did you die?" Crosshair drawled unexpectedly upon noticing Talla's face twitch in sadness from the undue harsh criticism coming from her teacher.
You could have heard a pin drop from the silence after he came to her defense, and when the dizziness won the battle with Hunter his face-plant onto the durasteel floor was unfortunately heard and plainly seen by all.
Only Plo Koon and Ahsoka scurried to the unmoving form of the fallen Sergeant, Tech swiftly getting back to the more important situation in his mind - the near death of him and his baby by Talla's fancy flying. "What?" He snapped at Crosshair.
Eyes widened at the sniper coming to her defense, Talla watched Crosshair fold his arms and with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes leered at Tech, then proceeded to enunciate his words as if he was talking to a less intelligent being - like Wrecker! The sniper mentally quipped. "Did. You. Die?"
This completely degrading way of speaking of course never failed to peeve the intelligent man off. "I would've preferred death over being so humiliated!" He snapped towards Talla, shrinking back as she relived her first public reprimanding. "I taught you better than that!"
Crosshair was going to have none of that and rolled his eyes as if Tech was the biggest drama queen in the universe, and sighed tiredly: "Don't we live for the adrenaline rush? Is that not our one reason for showing up to work every time we're called?" He smirked at his heaving brother, "Heh, I doubt you'll feel a rush like that ever again."
Talla never did end up asking if that was meant as a compliment... or an insult.
In Crosshair's eyes, it was kind of both, but Talla decided to think it was the former and it succeeded in making her regrow the backbone she'd acquired over the course of the last month.
When Tech raged on, "Your damn right I won't because if she so much as looks into the cockpit -"
She snapped, "Hey, I'd like to see you do better without any sensors!"
"I doubt you could do better." Crosshair agreed, "We'd have to weld Sergeant Blondie over here to the front of the ship and through the comms he'd transmit any potential threats he 'scans.'"
Tech's eyes narrowed into slits at this blatant pass about his exceptional piloting abilities... and also everything that happened before the landing came rushing back made him feel humiliated all over again.
And Sergeant Sinker would have used a welder for more violent purposes on 'Croissants' face if he wasn't still paralyzed in his seat.
Now upright again and mostly recovered, Hunter half-heartedly pushed the Jedi's concerns away and approached the bickering trio with as much dignity as he could muster after that embarrassing fall, spacy head held high and rigid shoulders squared. And he was in time to see Talla give a short laugh and nudge Crosshair's side good-naturedly. "Heh, good one Cross!"
Hunter did a double take. Um - Did they just - Yes - they made physical contact... and it wasn't to inflict pain on one another.
Maybe he wasn't so okay after all? Maybe he needed to lie down?
Crosshair's smirk turned playful instead of snarky as he kindly - KINDLY?! - acknowledged the woman of his nightmares. "Why thank you, Tal." Snarkiness returned and mixed with that playfulness it was thrown back at the wide-eyed brothers in front of him. "My humor is grossly underappreciated within this squadron."
Cross?! TAL?!
Now both Hunter AND Tech were rendered speechless, shared baffled looks, then gawked at the two new best friends.
To be fair, Talla had no idea what was going on either, just went along with it because it was much more enjoyable to playfully banter with Crosshair than abusively banter with Crosshair.
And it only got weirder from there.
Feeling very much uncomfortable, Plo interjected and reminded Ahsoka that time was of the essence and asked the padawan what the next phase of her plan was.
With no map of the mine or an exact location for the entrance either, the answer to Plo's question was that since the storm cleared one person with enhanced senses should find and then scout the entrance to the mine, with Crosshair as their eyes in the sky. There they could find a droid socket, download a map of the labyrinth, then use this information to see what they were up against and plan the best offense.
"Talla and I can do it." Crosshair casually volunteered, as if it was a no brainer.
O_o
Next to him with her curled finger on her chin again, Talla mindlessly hummed in agreement, choosing to build on these positive interactions, and gave a firm nod and smile for good measure. "Sounds good and easy."
To Hunter it didn't. "Oh yeah, that's exactly what we need: you, him and no witnesses." While belaying that comment, the Sergeant sharply gestured between him and the adjacent sniper. "You and I will go, and Talla stays here to help Tech with repairs."
Crosshair infuriatingly continued his slow and degrading speech from earlier. "Oh, but Techie has made it quite clear that he does not value Talla's exceptional skills."
'Techie' eyes briefly shot up from his datapad to pin his younger brother with another irked glare.
Not intimidated in the slightest the youngest continued with his flippancy. "But I for one trust that she'll be in and out with that map, which is more than I can say for you or anyone else on this ship who isn't Techie, who as you just stated will be too busy with the repairs to get the map himself."
The short chuckle he got from Hunter was not because he was amused. Well, maybe he was, but it was not the normal type of amusement. He had a raging headache and various other side effects from that crash landing and this was because this just all felt like the punchline of a bad joke so no he was not amused. He cynically asked while putting his hands on his hips, "Right, okay, so we're going to pretend that you two haven't been trying to kill each other since the first day you met? That you're suddenly now best friends who can travel through the unoccupied, God-forsaken land between here and the mine without committing homicide and having the means to cover your tracks? You think I'm going to give you perfect opportunity to do so? How stupid do you think I am?"
Just when everyone thought the weirdness had piqued after that random, open admittance of trust, a word he exclusively kept for his brothers only, Crosshair returned the chuckle, shifted his helmet to be held against his left hip and unexpectedly placed his forearm on Talla's left shoulder, their drastic height difference making her the perfect human crutch he could playfully lean against to further unhinge his victims. "Tch, and I thought Tech was the drama queen." He jokingly remarked down to her.
Hunter's left eye twitched.
The trust comment didn't escape Talla's notice, nor did the closest thing to a hug that she would ever get from Crosshair.
HE TRUSTED ME! :D
Most of the anger she felt towards him dissipated from existence just like that, only because the final thing needed for its loss entirely was an actual apology. How or why this trust happened eluded her, but she didn't care right now and figured it was best not to ask questions at least for right now. This trust made her soar with happiness and riddled with confusion. "For real though!" She still teased back in reference to the progressing joke, her returned smirk genuinely playful as she started to ease into this new phase in their relationship. Faux hurt feelings next morphed her features which sent off alarm bells in Hunter's head. "You know what, I actually feel kind of insulted." Was admitted to the tall man she supported, placing a hand over her supposed wounded heart.
He responded with just as much fakeness. "Why's that?"
By now someone should have intervened because hey, THE PLANET WAS BEING EATEN ALIVE AS THEY SPOKE!
But like... They couldn't. They didn't know what in the galaxy they were watching.
Talla managed to sound hurt and condescending towards Hunter at the same time and he absolutely did not foresee this being the result of her and Crosshair finally becoming buds. "Well, would it make sense to kill you in a way that everyone would instantaneously know it was me who did it?" She made a steeple with her hands, as if she was pondering one of life's deep questions, and continued her analogy with mock seriousness. "I mean, if I were to kill you, would it not make more sense that I'd do it in a way where it could never be traced back to me, nor would the theory even cross their minds? Is this not a direct insult to the exceptional skills you, another exceptional being, said I have?"
The threat/not threat dilemma he now faced was obviously payback for the insult/not insult he made earlier, and instead of being taken aback it fueled his insolence. "I see your point." He shot a dirty look to his jaw-slacken brothers. "We're both underappreciated."
REALLY liking these new positive interactions, Talla crossed her own arms and copied his attitude, even throwing in an insulted 'Hmph!'
Next thing the duo knew, Wrecker had cautiously cut through the circle of soldiers and each of his massive hands were placed against their two respective foreheads.
Crosshair's eyes darkened at the physical contact he didn't initiate, and Wrecker knew he hated face touching above all else. "Are you fond of that hand?" He growled in warning.
The threat was blatantly ignored. "You guys don't have fevers..." Wrecker muttered confusedly.
"Why would you think that Wreck?" Talla wondered with an innocent, awkward attempt of tilting her head because the slight restriction.
Just like Crosshair her questions was ignored, and Wrecker next briefly touched his own forehead to check his personal temperature then pressed her and Crosshair's foreheads again, more forcibly because of they weren't sick - "Then why else would you guys' be all nice with each other?!" Wrecker fretted, "This morning you guys were fighting over water and now your, like, friends!" He recoiled his hands and himself and shivered in fear, "It's givin' me the heebie jeebies!"
Talla didn't get her hopes up. "We're not friends." She immediately assumed, and Hunter raised a questioning brow while the man leaning against her mentally spaced out for a second, thinking about this unsure correction on her part. "We're allies, which is why I can confidently say - we'll get that map without any problems whatsoever."
Crosshair decided to use different wording for their newfound relationship, seeing the good side to her crude sense of humor on top of everything else that happened today. Finally, I've met someone of equal repartee. "Actually, I'd say we've crossed into the waters of being... mutually respectful comrades."
These heart fluttering's from pure elation could go head-to-head with the one's Talla experienced with Hunter. It was true, she had always respected his skills as a soldier, and he now suddenly respected hers.
HURRAY!
She kept her cool though, and haughtily retorted. "Duh, of course!" The still jaw-slackened men were tsked at. "Keep up, guys, we get tired of having to explain everything."
Crosshair feigned a sigh of sadness, "Well, when you get older -" He shrugged his free shoulder in pity.
Now he was only, technically, nine hours, fifty-six minutes, twenty-one seconds younger than Tech, and the others were roughly between two-three hours apart, but being aged five times the rate of normal humans that counted for a lot of time in Crosshair's mind. He used said slight age differences in his favor at every given chance in payback for all the Baby Brother jokes and the tyranny that came from the gross misuse of power by his quote unquote Big Brothers.
Talla played right along. "Then I suppose there are benefits to being the youngest -"
"The storm is over!" Hunter harshly cleared his throat to get rid of the undignified pitch.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Crosshair jested.
"He's only a Sergeant, don't get his hopes up." Crosshair smirked admiringly down at Talla and even gave another short, breathy chuckle for that swift comeback which didn't insult him, rather the belittled man whose jaw clenched while he began counting to ten.
Hunter was hovering somewhere in the high thirties by the time Ahsoka found her voice. "So, you should uhh... maybe get going?"
In hindsight with the crude joking, Talla may have laid it on a little thick, and felt bad for being so mean to the guy she was crushing on, but to be fair this was uncharted territory with Crosshair and based on previous experience was bound to make a few mistakes. And now that the euphoria was wearing off it occurred to her that she shouldn't be so trusting so fast. He hadn't earned her trust yet. So to show the sniper they were still on shaky grounds, she called him that stupid nickname when agreeing with Ahsoka's suggestion. "Let's get this show on the road, Crossy!" She declared, tapping her knuckles against his chest plate to beckon him to follow her before turning away.
Her helmet now covered her smirk as his disdain for her noticeably made a brief comeback, and he growled a warning into her auditory sensor when he caught up. "Try and keep up, cyar'ika."
"What have you done?" Tech asked Hunter in despair as soon as they were out of earshot.
Hunter blinked at his despairing brother a few times, hoping he had not heard right, for Tech was not actually suggesting this was his fault. "What have I done?" He repeated slowly, incredulously.
Oh Tech was not suggesting, he was outright accusing. "You were the one who kept pressuring them to become friends, and now look what's become of it. You should have given up hope like the rest of us because now, there are two of them."
All healthy coloring faded from Wrecker's face, as did his already dwindling hope for the future. "Oh my kriff, I think I preferred the fighting."
While the brothers started bickering over whose fault it was, the probability for the universe exploding, possible schemes to get the two at each other's throats again, Wolffe started mentally going over the speech he'd be giving once he got a chance to speak with smitten Captain Rex again.
Rex may have given a profile to Wolffe about this Agent Talla, well now Wolffe had one too and it could be summed up with two words he had already stated before this depth of her crazy was revealed and as such the depth of crazy for the mental institution for a family she came with:
RUN REX!
I used several meme references for this last scene XD
- Ella
