Good day all,

I apologize for the delay with this chapter. To say that life is a tad stressful and filled with unmitigated chaos is an understatement, but this too shall pass. Contained here is the beginning of the end, and the beginning of something new. I hope to give justice to what I have planned, as grandiose as it is in my mind I worry over being able to put it into words.

Please enjoy.

Happy Writing,

Eliana

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The trick had folded out like clockwork, the padawan told himself as he drew in a steadying breath amid the thundering crash of energy that sealed the Palisade barrier. All roads led to here, and the men who bowed their heads in silence with his own all understood the implication of what was about to happen here. All four marks, all sixteen thousand clones of the Republic's secret army, stood gathered here hidden by the trembling trees and suddenly still air.

Even with their poor hearing his friends could hear the movement of thousands of bodies on the other side of the valley, and more than one wore the expression that illustrated the emotion he knew all of them were feeling. There were no more preparations to be had, no more bargaining, no more planning, no second chances at approach. Every single heartbeat among them understood:

This was the beginning of the end.

What awaited them was death – and they understood that it wasn't meant in a metaphorical sense.

Death had come for them all. But like their commander, they stood by their code: if they were going to meet death this day, one or two of these damned things were going to be coming with them on the trip. This was a fight far beyond them.

Maybe that's why when the animals, eight more to add to the glowing two that flew above their heads, slowly manifested from the softly glowing trees none of them blinked. The giant figure of one that slowly formed itself into a Togruta male, the eight others that altered after him, the single fox that remained… It didn't phase them any more than the electric current of trepidation that settled among them. It could be argued that a node of calm befell them all instead.

Djibourdi seemed to know all these Togruta, one soft humming trill from him being answered by warm coos and rumbles in return. The scarlet fox was the one who approached and called him to a crouch, their foreheads meeting with a unison sound of understanding. That was all that was needed for the two, turned from Togruta back to winged guardians, flying above the clones to call out their war cries. They set themselves off toward where their enemies stood on the other side of the valley.

Djibourdi reached a hand down to clench a handful of loamy soil in his right hand as he drowned out the sounds of the shadows hissing a distance away, bringing it to his other palm to rub the earth through his skin. Honey colored eyes slid shut as he brought those now coated hands, lightly pressed together, to his face so he could draw in the scent of what he held.

Life.

The Living Force.

Shili called to him to bring balance.

She was being ravaged by these invasives, and she was ready to unleash a fever to fight the infection.

The burning was far from over. It had just begun. Whether he was ready or not, it was he who had to bear the full vented fury of a vengeful guardian whose rules had been disrespected.

A soft whine from the fox pulled his eyes open again. Four honey-colored irises met, and they shared a long look. They reached whatever agreement they had been working toward when Djibourdi whispered out the short Togruti blessing to it, smudging the slightest bit of the soil on his and the fox's foreheads before he drew himself to his feet. He turned around to face his men.

They regarded him warmly, without fear. With him to lead them, they would walk right into Hell itself.

"Form the line!" Sam called to them, and obediently the call rippled down the thousands of bodies as they formed up into the living wall.

The emotion that stirred Djibourdi's soul was palpable – the emotion that rattled free from him when he drew in a steadying breath.

They were here for him, under no order or threat to obey. They had chosen this, and he hadn't hidden the truth of what lay ahead from them. Still, full of knowledge and understanding of the price their loyalty would pay, here they all stood, braver than himself.

Oh Force, he wasn't ready for this.

He understood what was coming. Reality spoke a bold truth: in this war, any Jedi could find themselves in a life-or-death bout. Djibourdi and his men were about to run a valley filled to the gullets with hunters and slayers and stalkers and mercenaries. They could all very well never make it past the places they stood in at this exact moment. He knew what awaited him and really… it was a gift to know.

That didn't make it any softer of a sentence. He couldn't turn back now, nor could they… but he wasn't ready.

Ready or not the choice was made for him, and these men honored him by their willingness to stand by his side. Who was he to spit on such honor by stepping back?

He wouldn't dare.

Instead, he offered them all one final bow, one that brought his body to bend in half and his gratitude to pour over them… one that, like a fall of dominoes, he glanced up to watch ripple down the wall of life. The smile they all shared when they stood brought such peace to his soul. Karaci and Nuet called to them from the other side of the hill, a beckoning tandem song to signal that they should all begin their march.

Djibourdi looked across the sea of faces, then to his Reapers, then to his four commanding clones, then to his ancestors who stood by him. They stood now as Togruta, Togruta who would run alongside him and his brothers. Only the fox remained, its eyes only for him.

There was no more waiting.

No more second chances.

No turning back.

This was the beginning of the end.

With nothing left to be said Djibourdi turned himself around and began the march, steady and calm up the side of the hill. His men followed.

When he came to a halt forty paces into the valley the rumbling of feet behind him did as well, all the eyes and attention and energy of the army to his back focused on the absolute mass of black that swarmed a mile away. It roared to them in rage when their presence was detected, and collectively the clones all released stiff breaths. Some of them moved restlessly in their lightly clinking armor. Sam and Bones anxiously growled to Djibourdi's right in readiness, their feet unintentionally dancing in readiness to bolt them straight into the snapping jaws ahead.

Djibourdi had to steel himself against the frigid wave of mortal fear the creeped up his spine at the growling roar, the slightest flash of teeth marking his acknowledgement of the Algol that flapped slowly above the cancerous sea of black. He and his clones were outnumbered two to one… but numbers didn't win wars.

'Be brave for me now, Red,' he could hear Tombur whisper to him, almost as though his master were standing there with him now, 'Be wise and run them. They will follow you.'

He acknowledged that with a breath and a roll of his shoulders. No more waiting. He would not meet his fate on his knees.

The scent of white tea and chai, accented by the distant tickle of cedar and cinnamon, calmed his churning stomach and eased the pain of his arm and chest. Tombur and Warren stood with him. He turned himself to his right with an exhale and made his way down the line of his commanding clones. His ancestors stood calmly with them, his Reapers behind them.

"Cedric, run your mark along the western flank," he ordered the clone, and the order was acknowledged with a call of understanding and a raise of a commanding arm as the man moved himself to the far corner of the group.

Djibourdi turned to head back toward the others. He addressed his next commanders.

"Sam, Bones bear your marks with me down the middle. Campion," he called as he rounded the last of his men, "round your mark right and drive them to the center. Stay together until we get the signal."

Campion acknowledged the order and headed to the other far end of the group. The ripple of sound momentarily drew his attention to the horde that awaited them down the valley, the one that growled and hissed curses of damnation to all of those that dared to stand with him. The Algol's trilling, screeching call had them moving. They were forming a semblance of ranks, the spears and pikes wielded by the heaviest among them driven into the ground in a silent dare to approach. Their archers notched their arrows behind.

"Will you run with me, Sam?" Djibourdi's voice was calm when he turned back to his old friend.

The clone held out his right hand and forearm, and it was tightly grasped by the Togruta with a shadow of a smile.

"Straight to hell, Red," his closest friend promised.

Nothing more needed to be said between them. They understood what they needed to do, and they did so willingly, Djibourdi heading off to canter down the wall of clones to the due east and Sam due west.

"We run free today, brothers!" Sam's voice echoed down the line of armored men, "Our shields will be scarred, and our swords will be bloodied. Today, we will balance the scales in the name of freedom that has been given to us, and we will fight to honor Red!"

Both he and Djibourdi stopped themselves and turned back to face one another, the signal for the echoing ripple of left arms to ready themselves at chest height in front of the men. Djibourdi drew one lightsaber to his right hand. Sam drew his sword to his left. The clones simultaneously drew their swords and held them calmly at their sides.

Ahsoka, still crouched that distance away, struggled to swallow, her eyes pressed hard into the binocs held in front of her face.

"Snips," Anakin's voice came calmly with a hint of an order, and obediently she gave him her gaze, "Whatever happens out there, you have to focus here. Don't lose a thousand lives just to save one."

She opened her lips to respond. There would never be an answer to his order as she was quickly drawn back into staring through the binoculars to find the source of the sound that came sharply clanking through the unnatural silence. Her eyes would tell her that it was the sound of a lightsaber and a vibrosteel sword both singing harmlessly against the blue shields of the Chargers. The wall of men that was once a sea of white, red, and purple was slowly bathed in light blue as the shields activated when the commanders ran by. Sam's voice rolled over them all.

"We run free!"

The clattering and singing of blades against shields grew faster.

"So run now! Run now!"

He and Djibourdi grew closer to each other, the wall of shields nearly complete.

"Run – run into hell, run for ruin, run to the end that waits for us!"

Finally, the Togruta and the clone passed one another, paths crossing and blades expertly missing one another. When they came to a stop to look down the valley, Sam called out:

"We run to meet our fate!"

Behind him, thousands of voices responded to him marked by shining vibrosteel swords flashing in the air.

"Death!"

Sam waved his sword to them.

"Say its name!"

"Death!" the response was louder.

Ahsoka closed her eyes as the tears bit them.

"DEATH!"

"DEATH!" was the haunting tandem scream that flooded the valley, enlightened and amplified by nine voices that joined the clones.

"Run for Shili!"

That was the last time that Sam's voice sounded. Ahsoka's eyes watched the thousands of men change their stances to be ready… and then her eyes were only for her friend. Only for him who stood between spirits and men, only for him who moved an encased hand to draw a second lightsaber – Tombur's second lightsaber – to his left hand. They were waiting for him.

He glanced back at them for the last time. His body moved to take its first leap, the second lightsaber igniting at same moment that Ahsoka would remember hearing him clearly… somehow despite the distance between them, for the last time. His words stopped her heart.

"To the death!"

Sixteen thousand voices sounded in a war call, all of them stepping together after their commander and his ancestors. Together they moved and hit their stride, a stampede of freed men charging with every ounce of determination in their bodies full force to their fate. From atop the mountain it was akin to watching a flowing, living, rampaging arrowhead made of bodies fly over the trampled grassland as one giant living thing.

Together they ran, ranks melding together to form their arrow behind their shields, all behind the form of Djibourdi and the shadows of the Chosen. Ahsoka would never, until the day she joined the Force, forget that image.

The Outsiders that watched their enemies fly down on them drew their weapons and aimed them into the air. A call from among them released a volley of jagged arrows through the air and sailing with deadly intent down on the clones.

Anakin was ready to watch clones die.

Instead, he watched the arrows bounce harmlessly from some shield that rippled above their heads, their paths stopped with a whistling richochet. The next volley met the same fate. The desperate free fire after fell harmlessly to the ground.

The spirits that charged with the clones all called to one another with tosses of their heads and short snaps of teeth – they would ensure that the clashing of these forces was met with fate. Their haunting songs rippled the resolve of the Outsiders who were now shooting without restraint, whatever moxy they had held fading away as the clones stormed closer to them.

The red-skinned padawan called to his ancestors and they answered, earning a snap of white teeth and an eager hum from him. Between that and the clones that stared unblinkingly, unafraid, determined straight at them as they stampeded, the Outsiders hesitated.

Their ranks wavered.

At full force and full speed, with the sound of crunching bones and ravaged flesh, the armies collided. The revengeful roars of the Togruta Chosen reinforced the shield that protected the Chargers, giving them the ultimate power to simply run down and run over the Outsiders that turned to flee into one another.

Screams and roars and the thundering of steel-bottomed boots forged the path of the clones straight into the darkened ranks before the arrow of bodies broke into three.

Ahsoka had felt her body go numb the moment the two sides met one another… and that numbness was now replaced with a fluttering of her heart as her eyes scanned, desperate and driven, through the binocs for any sign of those two lightsabers.

She found nothing.

'When the fighting starts, I want you to pay very close attention and see what it is that the Council has destined for us. Then you will have to tell me, dear sister, whether you still believe that the Jedi are peacekeepers.'

Djibourdi had said it so calmly then. His words were haunting now, gentle yet searing in her resolve.

The absolute carnage unfolding a mile and a half away, well within her sight even without the binocs on her eyes, was a stark reminder to her that her doubts…. The nagging doubts that had started within her when she had heard her friend speak of the Council's denial to let himself and his master rest, could very well be justified.

That was impossible. The Jedi were peacekeepers. The Jedi were protectors. The Jedi were compassionate. The Jedi were –

Rex's alarming shout from her right had her whipping her body around in alarm. Well below them, just appearing on the opposite side of the mountain ridge than the raging war, came the droids. Anakin was on the move quickly, and so was she, running and calling to their allies to ready their weapons behind the improvised rock wall that they had built to line the ridge and gully.

The ideal version of events was that the oncoming mass of droids and bounty hunters would wait for a chance to pick up the pieces of what they believed was a slaughter on the other side of the giant stone face. The more realistic was that they would decipher what was happening and improvise.

There was a collectively held breath among them all: Togruta, Jedi, and clones, as they held their spaces hidden behind their improvised wall. Out of sight, out of mind… or so they hoped.

Ahsoka's eyes glanced back to the battle behind her, then to the small satchel on her belt. She unzipped it and pulled out the three flashing discs. They were warm in her palm, their lights blinking in synchrony with the white one that hummed on her wrist. Djibourdi had told her what he needed her to do, but not why.

What would happen when she finally got them planted?

She released the anxiety into the Force.

This would work. They could outwit them all. They just had to survive that long.

Stuck between the slaughter below and the hunters above, the Togruta were no longer predators. They were prey.

IOIOIOIOI

There we have it folks, the first installment of the end. It all has begun to fall into place.

Happy Writing,

Eliana