Chapter 8 - Even If You're Breaking Down

Warning: non-consensual touching (yeah, this needs a warning)
PS: Vader might be a little OOC. Whatever. I have no regrets. :3

~ Rivana Rita

A tentacle grabs his wrist, jerking him around and twisting, wrapping around him sharp and nearly tight enough to crush. Hunter grunts, stumbling, trying to twist his blade to cut himself free.

"Try that again, and you'll be taking your own hand off," it hisses angrily. "Not kidding."

Noted.

This thing reads their minds. Hunter's never felt so violated or exposed before. He feels dirty. Raw and just – his mind isn't something someone should be digging through, and the thing was able to put some sort of... hold over Omega. Crosshair had to rip her free, so yes, he is scared. Omega doesn't seem shaken by it, at least, though she's certainly not appreciative of it.

It rips his knife away, turning it over way too close to his face.

Hunter leans away from the blade, teeth clenched.

"Can't say I've ever held a vibroblade before," the voice says, somewhere behind him and over his head. It twists him around, and he's being held against something – it feels like he's being held against someone, though he's facing the glowing eyes. It's holding him down, immovable, its tentacles wrapping around his ankles and one across his chest, more working over his wrists – there's too many and he can't get away. "I've been in... exile along time. Haven't seen much of the world."

"What made you come out?"

"Family be like that." It looks at him again. "I had a family once. So long ago. But family is forever, and you're my blood." He could swear its tentacles are phasing through his armor, because he feels the pressure and uncomfortable cold warmth across his chest where it's holding him.

It would probably feel nice if he weren't fully certain the thing snuggling with him weren't a millisecond short of cutting his throat.

"You're right with that," it crows, "I could, but a blade like this won't kill you."

The cloud grips his head, tugging him closer. Hunter struggles against it, but she doesn't have – she's not physical. He squirms, trying to find leverage to pry one of its tentacled arms off. This isn't something he knows how to fight, and he's – he's scared. She's –

"A monster?" she asks, "For being chaos? Where has your order gotten you, Hunter?"

He wants to cry. He wants – someone to be there. Someone to look out for him. To protect him. The touch is warm, and it's not uncomfortable, except he doesn't want it. He just wants to get out of here. To be left alone.

She presses his forehead to what would be hers if she actually had a body – her purplish red eyes are staring into his, and he glares back, stubbornly refusing to show her any farther sign of weakness. "Or would you rather I call you Father?" she asks, voice echoing with amusement, "That would make our relationship inconceivably awkward."

"I'm not – anything," Hunter argues.

"You are to me," she promises, "You are everything to me." Another mini tentacle brushes his cheek, it's touch slippery and soft at once, foreign and certainly unwanted. A crackle of lightning flashes in it – it doesn't hurt, but Hunter feels the zapping electrons sparking across his skin.

Her eyes – whatever parts he thinks might be her real body – draws back a little.

Hunter twitches when it flicks the electricity on his blade on, eyeing it warily.

For the record, he doesn't appreciate her holding his knife, either.

"You feel it?" she asks, turning to him. He could almost swear he sees outlines of a figure for the first time, feels something other than a swirling nightmare of chaos and destruction. "The currents? That's who you are, isn't it?"

Hunter gasps when the blade presses flat against his cheek, its current sparking against him, burning in his mind like a glaring light in a way he's never been able to describe to anyone. It stings and burns and he needs to get out of here to stop this stop her stop everything to –

"They're all going to die here because of your failed leadership."

"Don't," she orders, but he already feels his hands dematerializing. Already feels the world fading.

Her grip tightens, firm and clawing but all he can think of is the blade pressed against him and Crosshair's furious snarl as he tried to slit his throat and how desperately badly he needs to get out of here just go somewhere anywhere somewhere safe to someone who knows what is happening, what to do, can handle this –

"Don't!" she yells, and he doesn't know if she sounds more panicked or furious, but he doesn't care.

The blade's too close and he didn't come this far only to die now – they need to just get Emerie back and go somewhere far, far from everywhere, to just – stars, he's so tired of fighting, he wants to live to get Wrecker and all of his siblings somewhere safe.

He doesn't want to deal with his or her, whatever she is.

He wants... someone.

Something calls to Hunter's mind, far away and distant, but he reaches for it and grasps it, a promise of what he needs so dearly – and the blade stabs into his chest.

He feels it, the pain registering a second later – raw and blinding and burning. He can't breathe. Air won't come in and out of his lungs right, and he remembers Wrecker's hands on his neck, crushing until he couldn't breathe at all, remembers squirming and thrashing but there was nothing he could do.

Helpless.

Echo screams, voice far and furious, but a promise that someone's about to end up dead. Or wish they were.

And the world explodes into flames.

Hunter's knees give out and he falls, hitting what should've been the scorched grass, but he sinks into snow. The air feels different. It tastes of death, but natural and soothing, and something – something – familiar. A scent he knows. A mind he's felt.

He hits the ground, landing face-first in the snow. The blade must be digging deeper into him. Doesn't know.

It hurts. He can't breathe.

The pressure in his chest is crushing. Lungs filling with blood. Needs – Omega –

Wrecker.

Voices. One's – deep. Familiar.

And a reg. Could be anyone.

Then another, softer and closer.

Hunter thinks he knows them.

A black shadow falls over him, hands rolling him over. His vision is hazy.

Safe. Cold. Dark. Fire. Familiar. Safe.

Arms lift him, too strong to be human, holding him gently, until everything fades away again.

**w**

When Hunter opens his eyes, his mind still hazy and chest still throbbing, he's in a medbay. He hasn't seen those since Bracca. Don't bring good memories. AZI could...

Someone else is here. The same people he felt earlier are nearby, anyway, and so are... other regs. Maybe? The gravity field answer right off he's in a star destroyer. In space.

"Where – where am I?" he rasps, trying to look around. He's lucky they didn't restrain him, considering how they're almost certain Imperial, and mostly Hunter needs to know what happened to his squad.

He's out of the top half of his armor, and he feels the softness of bandages against his skin, though his bodyglove – thankfully – is still fully on. His wings press against the soft mattress beneath him, and it's odd to lie on them.

"Didn't think I'd see you again," a reg says, and Hunter blinks as Jesse's face comes into view. "But here you are. Again."

"Leave it, Jesse," Kix scolds, elbowing him. "He's still injured."

Hunter tries to breathe in and out deeply, but a sharp stab of pain lights his chest again. Ah, so much for breathing. He closes his eyes again, trying to just – be. Ow. Never get stabbed. "Didn't it hit my heart?"

"We don't know, either," Kix replies, "You're recuperating at an unusually rapid rate. You've been here a couple of hours."

Only?

After getting his lung stabbed out?

Jesse and Kix don't look so good themselves, though Hunter doesn't know why. Doesn't ask. He needs to get back home, but there was someone... else. He needs to – assess threats. "You're – with the Empire?"

"Of course, we are," Jesse answers without missing a beat, "I'm betting you're not?"

Hunter's eyes narrow a little. He can't well lie, but admitting it might make this worse.

"Ease it up," Kix scolds, "The general wanted to be notified when he wakes. Go get him." Jesse leaves with some grumbles, and the reg turns back to Hunter with a half eye roll. "Don't mind him," he requests, patting Hunter's shoulder. It's strangely gentle. "Our captain and commander went rogue. Abandoned us on that moon for about two months. Then we got off and heard it's been twelve. Still working it through."

Hunter blinks. That would shake anyone up. "Your general?" he repeats. "I thought Anakin was..."

A rhythmic mechanical breathing fills the room, with something like fire. Black fire. It's burning, but in a fully different way than the Mother did. It's dark and cold, but Hunter knows who it is instantly. "General Skywalker?"

"I am called Vader."

Kix shrugs at Hunter's confusion.

Well, he's heard stranger things than people suffering spontaneous name-changes. Species changes are stranger. "We thought you were dead." He's thought far too much about death lately, and he can't stop remembering Tech's terrifyingly still form in the Marauder. Can't stop wondering if – if something will happen to him.

Again.

"I am no Jedi."

"He's in denial," Kix whispers, leaning over Hunter.

"I am not," Anakin – Vader? – argues.

"Probably from sleep deprivation or high on pain meds," Kix adds.

"I am not," Vader insists, jabbing a finger at him, "And I will speak with Hunter alone."

Kix checks something over on some equipment piece again before leaving with a practically snippy solute. Hunter watches him leave until the door shuts, leaving him alone with Vader.

For a very, very long moment, there's nothing but rhythmic breathing and the million questions in Hunter's mind. He doesn't know if Rex knew they were alive. It doesn't seem like he could. How is he regenerating so fast? And what happened to Anakin? Why is he here? Why would he?

Are they going to hurt him? He doesn't think so, but...

Something's wrong in him. It's whispering in his mind, some sort of... echo. Like for a moment, he's looking at himself. There's another spirit there, something Hunter feels and is too strong for him to hold, even if it touched him, and across from him is an empty vessel asking to be filled. It's like a mirror. It feels like home.

Hunter doesn't even know what that means.

"How did you arrive here?" he inquires finally.

"I teleported." Hunter shifts a little, moving to sit up, but pain flares through his chest all the way to his back when he tries. Better stay down a bit longer. His wings flutter, like they could keep his weight, but he doesn't know how to use them. He summoned them to existence on Tantiss, and they've been here most of the time since then. They flicker in and out of existence, and they clearly chose to stay existing now.

"How is this possible?"

"I don't know what's happening." He's being honest about that, at least.

"You are aware of more than you are saying." His respirator cycles a few times. "The Force has felt different for a short time. There is a disturbance. A threat to the galaxy."

"The Mother. Do you... know about her?"

"Yes," Vader replies. He's standing there like a statue. Does moving hurt? What happened to him? "But that does not explain you."

"I don't know what happened. I just got these powers." Hunter locks down when his hands tingle again, shaking his arm and willing himself to reform. It's getting really, really annoying. He'll be teleporting the medtable back to Pabu at this rate. Or the entire star destroyer. "I don't know what they are or what they mean."

"Your abilities are the essence of the Force," Vader answers, "Though it has been split between you and Echo. The Dark feels of Crosshair."

"And Tech," Hunter adds.

"Is... your squad well?" Force, he sounds so uncomfortable.

Hunter swallows. "Yeah. We're fine, except – one who was taken by the Mother. We're still searching for her."

"Her?" he queries.

"Yeah. Our sister. Emerie."

"I was not aware you had a sister."

"We have two." Something feels wrong, but Hunter keeps talking. "Emerie and Omega. Nala Se kept them away from us, but when the Empire formed, we finally found them both." He pauses. Thinks he said something else, but doesn't remember what. He shakes that from mind.

"The Mother. What are her intentions?"

Hunter sighs. His chest burns. "Chaos. She wants to burn the galaxy. Some kind of vengeance."

"That is a rightful concern."

Hunter hates how much he agrees. The galaxy has only ever taken from him. He understands that need, and he hates it, but he has his family now, and that's all that matters. Keeping them safe. Not losing himself to insanity. "I can't let her hurt my family."

"You have conviction." His helmet looks ridiculous. The visor and shape reminds him of both of Tech's. Doesn't know why, but that comes with a flare of pain in his heart. Everything about Tech still hurts.

"I have a duty."

"And a loyalty. It is... rare to see that any longer."

Hunter sighs. "It's not the clone's fault. They're being controlled. Rex had to get Ahsoka to safety."

Vader's quiet for a long time. "My men would never attempt to harm Ahsoka," he agrees finally, "But the Mother's attempts at destroying the galaxy is far more pressing than that of the Emperor. He will not destroy all the people who live in it. That is what is at stake."

He wants to rest. To stop fighting. Definitely not to have to worry about some other maniac who wants to destroy the galaxy. His brothers won't be safe unless they can stop this, and Hunter has no idea how to use these powers. He never wanted to be changed like this. "We fought her. There's nothing we can..."

"You are the ones with the power."

"You don't understand. She gets in our heads and... we can't stop her."

"You're clones, but you are more now," Vader replies, "You absorbed the powers of the beings that forged the pillars of this world. There is nothing you cannot do."

Really? Then how did he get stabbed so easily?

Something of what he's thinking must've showed on his face, or the cyborg must've sensed it through whatever Jedi nonsense they do, because he moves a little closer. "You were not raised with these abilities. It will be difficult to remember to use them."

"How would you know?"

"I did not always know I had the Force. I was not raised with the Jedi either."

Hunter looks away briefly, thinking of Echo and Rex. They would want to know of this, but he needs to stay focused.

"Considering we received a recent report the planet Raada was all but obliterated, I presume that was her last location. She could not have gone far." He turns, cape swinging behind him – seriously? He still has a flare for dramatics? Some things never change. Echo did always say his general was a show-off – moving for the door.

"Wait," Hunter objects, flicking his hand out, blinking in genuine surprise when Vader's actually jerked to a stop. "You can't defeat her alone. She's – too strong. Even for you. I think." The cyborg turns back to him. "We need each other. But I don't know what to do with these powers."

"I can train you," Vader offers at last, sinking back onto the chair, "I will teach you the Force."

Hunter nods, turning this over in his mind. He still doesn't know if he can trust him, but they have to work together, just like they were forced into it with Crosshair that moment in the training room. "I don't know how to control it."

"It requires control that you will not have time to learn."

Not helpful.

Hunter sighs, closing his eyes again. "What do I do?"

"You must remain focused. Your intentions are what determines the use of your powers, and your focus is what determines your reality."

Hunter nods to him, closing his eyes again. He's tired. His chest is still stinging. He doesn't have time to wait, though.

"You will require rest," Vader instructs, "We will train when you are well." He moves to sit in the chair next to his bed, and the legs screech loudly.

"I don't have time to wait. Emerie is gone. I don't know what happened to the others."

"They are fine," Vader replies without hesitation. "I can sense them as well. The Force feels of you now."

The chair screeches again.

"I don't think it likes you," Hunter feels the need to say.

He feels something snapping and the chair gives out beneath his weight, and Vader crashes onto the floor.

He doesn't mean to laugh. He swears he doesn't mean to laugh, and it makes his chest ache, but he can't help it, because it's funny. Wrecker did that once, and it's like having a flashback to their childhood. Like nothing happened at all.

"You okay?" Kix asks, popping his head into the room.

"I am fine," he grumbles, picking himself up. Hunter tries to smother another laugh. "This is not."

"Nice," Jesse says, "You just ruined Kix's nap seat."

"Are you sure?" Kix asks, ignoring his brother entirely. Hunter should probably feel a bit bad for laughing, but it is funny. If he's heavy enough to break a chair, it definitely would have been a painful landing, but it was still amusing.

"The chair's not," Jesse announces.

Kix throws a piece of splintered wood at him. Jesse dodges and runs for his life. Kix runs after.

The cyborgs vocator makes a noise conveying very familiar paternal exhaustion. Hunter Gets That with Wrecker and Crosshair so badly sometimes. "I will attempt to end this madness before there is an escalation of dead bodies."

It's not funny, really, but Hunter can't help laughing again. He rolls onto his side and one of his wings, smothering a laugh on his pillow and closing his eyes.

It's nice to left up worrying for even a few minutes.

When he dozes off again, he feels flickers, presences of his brothers and sisters from far, far away, their light and life burning safely in his mind.

His family is safe, at least right now.

**w**

He should've gotten up earlier. His chest isn't hurting anymore when he gets up the second time, and the skin is healed over somehow, though there's a relatively nasty scar there – not as bad as the one from Bane, though. Counts that as a plus. He redresses, dons his armor and heads out to find the others.

They don't have time.

Whatever she is, she's – destroying everything. Hunter can feel that – it's like a fire, burning and all-consuming. It's getting worse. Coming closer, like she doesn't even need a ship to travel.

Crosshair said she teleported Emerie out.

Hunter can teleport himself.

He meets up with the others outside, atop the Star Destroyer where it's landed back on Coruscant – he recognizes the planet instantly. Both the teeming electric field and rippling of the million presences in his mind. He hates feeling so much. It's too much, too overwhelming and it's distracting.

Exhausting.

There are a million voices and minds whispering in his own, and not enough life. Not enough to ground – just... sentients, in all their genuine exhausting-ness. So many lives. So many...

Hunter's head is throbbing dully when he finally makes it to finding his way outside to where the regs tell him Vader is. It's... strange to be near a Jedi again. Or, former Jedi, in this case.

"What were you offering to show me?" Hunter asks – they're in a relatively uninhabited part of Coruscant. It's not somewhere he's been before, not that he was on Coruscant enough to be much of anywhere.

He needs to get back home. Stars, he needs to go home, soon – his brothers need him, but they need him to know this even more. He's a little too hesitant to comm them, but if he can feel them, they probably know he's fine.

They won't be worried.

"You want to be accepted. To be a family. A father."

"Who knew clones were so paternal?"

"The use of the Force."

"I know how to use it. I just don't know how to control it."

"There are more than one way to use the Force. The Jedi use the Light. The Sith use the Dark."

"What's the difference?"

"The Jedi's power are weak. The Light is stagnant. It prevents change or growth."

"You really don't like the Jedi." It's strange to realize. Anakin had always been respected as the greatest of the Jedi. Not that Hunter knew him from more than a few days and stories from Echo.

"I see how their powers failed them, and they betrayed all which they claimed to stand for."

"You think the Jedi... did commit treason?"

"I witnessed it with my own eyes."

That's a disturbing thought, but it doesn't get Hunter any closer to finding his squad. "What about the Sith?"

"We embrace our emotions."

"You fight on impulse?"

"That is not what we do."

"That's what it sounds like to me."

Vader's a little annoyed, but Hunter thinks it's mostly because he knows Hunter's right and exactly how stupid that is – or sounds, at least. Anakin wouldn't do something that was actually stupid. "Show me what you know of the Force."

"Show you?"

"Yes."

"You mean... we spar?" He's a little uneasy at that. They've never sparred with Jedi before, and this isn't something he's ever... "I don't have a weapon."

Vader draws his lightsaber. "Exactly."

Hunter takes a step back, ducking into a roll when the Sith slashes at him.

"You have the Force. Use it."

"Try not to level the ship," Jesse calls from the distance.

"Shut up, Jesse!" Kix yells back.

When the blade swings at him again, he reaches out, trying to feel the energy everywhere and images a shield over his hands, something invisible but there, and the blade jerks to a stop an inch from his hands and head.

"Feel my intentions."

He can do that now, and it's strange. Vader is more shielded and distant than his own brothers, but he feels the flaming black fire, the shifting and turning, blazing for more. He feels fire, burning in his mind, in the Force, in his veins, feels the same way he feels every electron running from his chestplate and the batteries running his limbs.

He's more machine than man, the same as Echo.

And when Vader moves again, he feels it – the danger whispering in his mind, the fiery intent as the blade comes at him again. He's fiercely intent, but with no desire to hurt. Hunter can feel the lives he's taken, the hurt he's caused – he knows it, somehow, the way it burns everyone's hearts out dark, coating them with something smokey. But Vader doesn't want to hurt them.

He has a loyalty, the only thing that's keeping him intact.

Hunter catches the blade again, spinning it away and flipping himself over, wings spreading to steady himself. His feathers cut the air, steadying him. Vader skids a few steps back.

It hardly felt like he was trying.

Hunter's feared these powers from the start, and now he does even more. He saw how powerful Anakin was. Echo said he was the most powerful of all the Jedi.

Something flickers between them, a shimmering aqua mist that dissipates before anything comes of it, but it's gone and leaves something feeling off inside him.

Like something trying to break itself free of Hunter's mind and reattach itself to a vessel shaped just for it.

"You can do anything," Vader tells him, straightening, the last aqua shimmers disappearing beneath his chestplate. The energy buzzing in his own veins drops from uncomfortable to semi-tolerable. "Always remember that, and you will not be held back."

"I already know how to make shields," Hunter says, "It's the rest of it I don't get. The moving and, uh – anything mind related. That's Crosshair's gift, I guess."

"Perhaps your abilities were split," the Sith suggests, "But you will need to know how to attack as well as defend."

"How do you attack with the Force?"

"Perhaps you should start smaller. With moving objects."

"I don't think you mean teleporting."

"No, I do not."

He is more powerful than he realizes. Hunter's starting to think they all are. He doesn't really know what it means.

Hunter didn't realize how close he was to the edge of the star destroyer until a Force wave throws him off the edge. Hunter yelps, his wings spreading to catch him. "And always expect an attack," Vader says from somewhere above.

Falling. The air slitting against his helmet, his armor, falling and falling and tree branches hitting his body and Hunter fumbles for his knife to slow his fall because they're all the way down down down far below and he –

His wings are cutting the airflow, but Hunter's gasping, flailing and panting, air crushing his chest. He's falling and there's a very, very long drop below him even if his wings steady him. He flaps, trying to climb and fly. It's not so hard, but his heart is pounding and he's freezing.

He mists back to the surface faster than flies, and instantly sends a violent explosion of energy outwards.

Vader's thrown a good hundred feet back.

"I may have gone too far in a few places," the cyborg supplies, standing.

"May have?" Hunter snarls. "You threw me off a ship!"

"Nice," Jesse says, at Vader's side, "You made a god angry at you."

"I believe," Vader replies seriously, "That I have made all the gods angry at me."

No kidding.

Hunter glares at him, his heart still pounding. He hates falling. It's worse when they're unexpected. Daro, then Eriadu... yeah, he never wants to be up high again.

Not after Tech.

Something's shifting. Hunter doesn't know what it is, but it scares him. Something dark and sinister.

He sees the darkening and gathering of storm clouds. It's the same as what he saw on Raada.

Uh oh.

"She's found us," Hunter breathes, looking skywards.

"It appears so," Vader agrees darkly, "Though before we confront her, there is one more thing I must ask you."

BLOOPER:
Hunter: Show you?
Vader: Yes! :D:D Attack me with all of your strength! =D=D
*Force explosion*
Vader, now a piece of dust: OWOWOW I DIDN'T MEAN THAT
Hunter: OOPS

I. Was writing this when the Acolyte was coming out. xDXD

~ Rivana Rita

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