Chapter 2 - Show Me All The Scars You Have

Warning: Graphic depictions of violence. Genuinely. ;~; (Or, specifics, a continuation of the hangar scene in the Calvary Has Arrived) Also, brief mention of child abuse.

~ Rivana Rita

Omega groans quietly as she and Wrecker trudge along the narrow crevasse in the mountainside. Dead grass crunches under Wrecker's feet. Omega's a bit ahead, crossbow in hand, it's green light standing out even against the flashing lightning. "I don't understand any of this," she grumbles, "We were just on Teth! How did we get here? Where's everybody else?"

Wrecker pokes his comm again, but nothing happens. "I dunno." He tries not to worry about Hunter. He can't think his older brother won't make it back again. They already lost Tech. He can't let that happen to Hunter, too. Tech's figure falling from sight is burned into his mind. He sees it every time he closes his eyes, and with Hunter's wild recklessness, he – he wonders. He's scared, and Hunter's gone now. Wrecker has to keep the kid safe. He can't let her be hurt again, either. He can't lose her. Not again. "Just – uh, keep walkin'."

Omega sighs. "I am."

Lightning zigzags over the sky again. The rain won't stop. The ground is muddy as they trek toward the cave Omega pointed out right when they got here.

"I just don't get it," Omega pipes up again, "Where's Batcher? I was right beside Emerie – where's everyone? Why aren't our comms working, and how did we get here?"

Wrecker has no idea. Tech was the one who knew everything. Him and Hunter, and they're just gone. He doesn't know what happened to Crosshair, either, and he doesn't wanna lose his little brother again. It was so hard to get him back.

Seeing everybody disappear was creepy though.

They stumble into the cave together, exhausted and wet.

Wrecker groans, shaking himself but the water clings stubbornly.

Omega trots ahead, up to the edge of –

The cave is glowing. There's a creepy aqua glow radiating from down below, and Wrecker lowers his blaster-end toward the ground, and with all the monsters they've been running into, there's probably another waiting for them.

Omega tiptoes to the edge of the cliff, then gasps softly. "Wrecker, take a look at this!"

"W – what is it?" he asks warily but follows her anyway. The drop is looooooong. They're too close to the edge, and he's almost certain the rock curves in a bit under them, and it could give out and they'd fall hundreds of feet just like Tech and get smashed to bits.

An aqua light shines from below, the flames licking skyward. Wrecker doesn't see anything down there but rock. How is it burning?

"I've never seen that before," Omega breathes, lowering and deactivating her crossbow. The flickering light reflects on her face, and her eyes are glinting pale green.

"Uh," Wrecker worries, slowly backing away, "M – maybe we should just stay back."

"I think it's safe," Omega whispers, "It's calling me."

He laughs, but she's not joking. At least he doesn't think she is – she's not the same as the kid they lost. "W – what?"

"I need to go closer," she repeats, running toward where a stairway leads down closer to the fire, "C'mon!"

Wrecker groans loudly, but he has to keep her safe, so he follows, anyway. The stairs are long, and there's no rail. Who thought it was a good idea to carve stairs into a giant cliffside? Somethin's wrong with this place.

Omega pauses at the end of the long, twisting staircase. "What's that?" She's pointing to a strange rock structure in the middle of the fire, with eight separate mini fires on the edge of the rock. It's just rock. That can't burn.

"Maybe we should go back," Wrecker worries, stalled a distance behind her. The height is creepy, and he just wants to get Omega out of danger. He doesn't want her to get hurt again. She's already been gone so long and she's so different now. He lost Crosshair, and then her. He can't let either of them be hurt again.

Omega's starting to say something, looking back at him, when the ground shudders. Wrecker yelps, scrambling away from the edge of the cliff. Something cracks, breaking, shattering, and Omega screams.

"Omega!" Wrecker yells, scrambling to his feet. Part of the wall broke off, and the stairs, and Omega's clinging to the edge of the now-broken stairway. She gasps, trying to hold on, and the ground shudders again.

His little sister shrieks when she falls down down down toward the fire below, and Wrecker stops thinking altogether. She's gonna die his little sister is gonna die and she'll be hurt and he can't let her. She'll be gone, and won't be coming back this time. He just needs her safe. She's falling like Tech and she'll be shredded before reaching the bottom. Wrecker can't let her get hurt.

He wasn't strong enough to help her when that's all he is.

He won't let her reach the end of the fall alone.

Wrecker jumps after.

(Like he wishes he could have with Tech.)

**w**

He tries to move, but the red-black mist is holding him down, burning and refitting, remaking like he was back in the training room, ripping him apart and re-piecing him together. He struggles but he can't move and the raw pain of it is burning through him. Breathing is hard. That could as well be from the rushing lava, but forcing the natural cycling of his lungs is nigh impossible.

His vision blurs over, graying and then rewritten entirely.

" – what I have to do – "

" – end the Clone Wars – "

" – why – "

" – mine now – "

His mind spirals years into past and future.

Vividly, he sees his brothers, flashes and fragments of the life he lived. He sees Crosshair. Hears his laugh. Remembers pulling him to his feet after countless training sessions, mildly, because he was there too. Remembers sitting on the edge of his bed at night. Stares into the gutted face of his little brother. Remembers the shaky broken-ness in his voice when he called him.

Remembers the "who's Tech?" he'd said in answer.

"He's you. You're my brother."

He hadn't understood it, but it hadn't felt wrong, though he'd pulled his helmet on for the first time with a "if you want to survive, forget everything outside these walls."

He sees it now, an entire lifetime flashed through his mind. Colors rolling and twisting, his life lived gone in a minute, as fast his mind itself – his mind that's his mind it's what makes him special that's who he is – was ripped apart.

He had a life that was taken from him. A family.

"We're a family, aren't we?"

'Then why don't you act like it?"

He keeps seeing. A fast-forwarded swirl of his life, but it doesn't stop. He watches the fight with Crosshair replaying, only in a water river instead of a lavafall. It's the future, or what should have been, and it doesn't stop.

He sees Crosshair struggling to stand and he shoves him underwater.

He struggles, unable to leverage himself up, reaching for him like he would've a year ago. Like any time before now. Tech feels the hand on his arm. Crosshair's expression shifts from frantic and scared to exhaustedly accepting.

The Marauder – his home, the only home they've ever had, the only one that's left – explodes in front of him, throwing Wrecker and Gonky into Pabu's ocean. Wrecker's hurt. Tech sees the blood streaked on his face, mostly washed off from the water.

He shoots Hunter down from a flying gunship. Takes out the pilot, and the ship veers off into the water.

"The people here are innocent."

"Then you never should have come here in the first place."

"Bring them in alive. Keep the damage minimal. And, CX-2. You may relieve CT-9904 of his hand. This operation does not have room for such defects."

The hangar is lit gold by fire. Hunter's downed, buried under a piece of rubble. CX-3 goes for Wrecker. He screams when the electricity engulfs him.

Crosshair, half conscious but still as fiercely stubborn as ever, dives for his blaster.

"You should be more careful with your shooting hand."

Crosshair screams. His voice is raw and strangled.

The blade is drenched with blood.

Tech kneels on him, keeping his arm pinned. Crosshair's still fighting.

The explosions in the hangar have started a good half of it on fire. He takes a twisted piece of metal, shaking the sparks off and presses it to Crosshair's arm.

He wails, squirming and trying to wrench away. He doesn't have the leverage to move, or the strength to pull away.

Crosshair's crying.

The blood's still coming. Pooling on the floor and on their armor and soaking into their clothes.

Whatever sound Crosshair's making is something of a strangled whimper. It's breathless and broken. That's not a sound a human should be able to make.

Tech pulls back when the bleeding's stopped – the metal is burning through his glove and he'd be worried about sparks if it wasn't soaked.

Crosshair rolls away from him the second he's free, curling in on himself, still crying. Tech watches him in silence, unable to look away. He cries himself out before finally fading into unconsciousness before Tech moves to transfer them inside.

"He is still our brother."

"Then why don't you act like it?"

He rips his helmet off, rolling over to the island's edge as his insides empty their non-existent contents into the river. The air is cold, which is more likely his own emotional turmoil than reality. His body is shaking when he pushes himself up. Tech expects to see blood on his hands. There's not. His hands are clean, and he cannot say why he expected something else – everything he saw was of the past, and is it what could have happened?

It was real. He can envision it as if it was.

Crosshair. That was Crosshair – his little brother, who he held and cared for. The screams echo in his ears and he wants to rip it out.

That was Crosshair.

He remembers the electricity burning through his head. Remembers Crosshair crying. Remembers Echo's voice and Hunter's strength, and he wishes they could make this better, but there is nothing they can do any more than Tech could. The last he remembers before the fall is Wrecker's scream.

All of that was for nothing.

He died for nothing.

The twin's screams are ringing through his head. Wrecker's terrified gutted "no" and Crosshair's wordless cry of pain.

He's crying. His body's shaking, and all he can remember is the tremors in Crosshair's hand.

Defective.

Tech doesn't know what caused them. It could have been anything. The damage could have stemmed from something in their time apart as well – he doesn't know. And if not for their transport here, he would never know.

"Then why don't you act like it?"

It does not matter how capable Crosshair is of fighting. Maybe he is defective, but that doesn't justify – Tech hurt him.

Hemlock took his mind from him. He took everything. His mind, his memories, everything that made him – him. A raw, unfiltered fury builds up inside him. He will find a way to take out Hemlock and the operatives. Everything.

That does not change how he has already hurt Crosshair.

Tech picks his helmet up and throws it. It hits a jagged rock structure amidst the lava and bounces off, splashing into molten rock. The edges shift, melting and glowing and disintegrating entirely, carrying away with the rest of the forming planet.

The planet will either form or fall with that inside it. Nothing good could come from it.

Not if it was his.

(People are more than their actions.)

Crosshair's scream is still ringing in his mind.

"Why don't you act like it?"

He looks up to where his little brother is lying, now on the edge of the island, red sparks running across his body, twitching. Tech has to double check to make sure he's whole – he's fine, despite being down and having been thrown into a lava river.

That was Tech.

It was not his fault, and he is well aware of that, but that doesn't change the pain Crosshair experienced at his hands, either.

He is hurt.

Tech stands unsteadily – his body aches all over, and he feels something burning inside him. His head is throbbing. Possibly from trying to reprocess his newfound memories. He'll have to jump the distance, though it's close.

He spots the knife he stole from one of Rex's men – he killed them all – and after seeing what he did, he wants to leave it.

It is important. There's something Tech can't remember, a feeling that's now very familiar, but he can't leave it. Tech picks it up, hooking it back to his belt and collects Crosshair's helmet and rifle. He sets them by the riverbank and approaches his little brother.

Crosshair shifts, rolling over when he sees him coming, trying to push himself up. He's trying to move away. Crosshair's scared of him. His little brother is scared of him, as well as he should be, but it hurts no less.

"Crosshair." The name feels strange on his tongue after so long, but he finds he startlingly misses it. He lowers himself to one knee. He doesn't want to be threatening. He doesn't want Crosshair to be scared.

He scoots a little farther back, though his eyes meet Tech's and holds them. "Tech?" he whispers.

"I remember."

Crosshair shifts farther away, shaking his head a little. "Tech." He's panting a little, eyes wide and wild. "I – I don't – why are we here? Where are we?"

"I am not certain," he replies quietly.

Crosshair shakes his head, shifting a little. He looks like he wants to move. Tech feels something in his head, foreign but somehow right. It's foggy but sharp and tinged over with soot and darkness. It's Crosshair, and he doesn't know how he knows it, but it's some sort of in-depth certainty and knowing.

His face is pale, but his eyes are wrong. They're black. It's hard to tell in the darkness (the golden-orange light glinting off his face on his armor, the scream – ), but his eyes are red. They're glowing, and he looks too – too dark.

Crosshair blinks again. "Your eyes are green," he says.

That does not seem possible, but he means it, and he is scared. "Not all of what we are seeing is real."

"Then how do I know you are?" Crosshair scoots back from him. His mind is hit by a sudden onslaught of fear and uncertainty. Not his. He's feeling – what Crosshair is? Somehow. He sees a thousand flashes of Crosshair, younger and scared, and remembers the sound of his crying.

For once in his life, words fail him altogether. He's supposed to be the smart one, the one who always knows, but he doesn't know, and he has no idea how to help Crosshair after he already hurt him so much.

"You threw me into the river," Crosshair accuses. His eyes are black and red instead of white and brown, but Tech still sees his eyes well with tears. Words will never be enough to express his regret. Physical contact is always what they used to ground Crosshair in the past, and there is a high chance that will still work.

Tech touches his shoulder, awkward and lightly uncertain. He doesn't mind contact, but he doesn't understand how to initiate it. It's always his brothers or Omega who do.

(Crosshair's hand on his arm, clinging and desperate and trying to pull away.)

Crosshair looks at Tech's hand like it's a foreign object, and Tech is about to withdraw when Crosshair rocks forward and throws himself at him. He grunts disgruntledly, but Crosshair's arms press to his back, and he buries his face on Tech's neck.

Tech holds his weight a little awkwardly, holding him and strokes his back. Crosshair's shaking against him, crying. The sound is guttingly familiar. "I – wanna go home," Crosshair whispers, and his heart breaks a little farther.

"I am aware," he replies, holding him close.

Crosshair pulls back from him finally, his face streaked with tears but too tired to cry any longer.

Tech stands, offering his hand to pull him to his feet. He tries not to think about how the hand that takes his is the one he severed. Crosshair pulls his hand back to his chest, rubbing at it self-consciously. The tremor.

Tech turns away to recollect Crosshair's helmet and rifle, handing them to him when his eyes catch something else. Crosshair's shoulder pauldron is – changed. It's fully black now, a design in red written over it. It is the same design as the one in the center of the island, nearby where they are standing.

"That was not here when we arrived," Tech points out.

Crosshair sighs, pulling his helmet back on. "You have it, too."

Tech looks down at his arm. Over his armor, it has the same red, nearly shimmering design.

Somewhere far beyond the rushing of lava, he hears laughter. Something distant and sinister.

"I suggest we leave."

Crosshair sighs. "Yeah."

**w**

Omega screams her way to the bottom of the fall – actually, she doesn't remember the landing. All she can think about is Tech and wonder if this is how he felt when he shot himself into freefall over thousands of meters of fog. Was he scared? Did it hurt? Will this hurt?

"When have we ever followed orders?"

In her mind, she sees a flash of lightning, Echo's body falling. Hunter, a knife run through his heart. Wrecker's falling right beside her. Crosshair falling into a flowing lava river. Shadow glass shatters and the ground closes over Emerie.

Omega struggles, flailing, trying to find something to brace herself with and the images burning and looping through her mind, the never-ending series of her family dying. All of them. She sees the regs fall. A crashing star destroyer. Fire.

So much death.

That end's gonna be hers. The same as Tech's.

Except she doesn't hit the ground.

Not really.

Omega's opening her eyes, laying on something coarse and rough but still flexible enough to catch her weight. The wind is howling, and grains of sand assault her face, burrowing themselves in her hair.

Sandstorm. Those are bad. Omega raises her arm to shield her eyes. She hears crying. There's someone else out here. Another child. She stumbles to her feet, trying to make out the figure. It's young. The sound is familiar.

She's alone, and so is the child. Omega knows what that's like better than anyone. She spent years desperate to get home.

Omega moves through the storm, finally spotting the small shadow curled on the ground. "Hey," she whispers over the roar of the wind. She runs to the child, crouching. It's not a species she recognizes, but she's young and small. She's bleeding. Her light colored clothes are covered in it. How old is she? Five? How could someone hurt her? "It's okay," Omega promises, leaning over her to shield her from the blowing sand. "I'll get you somewhere safe."

She looks up at her, eyes bright.

She's standing somewhere else, in a lab so hauntingly familiar, now drowned in the bottom of the sea. The same eyes, dark backed with dark curls, stare up at her. Omega blinks, and the image is gone, but the aching longing in her heart doesn't fade.

"You should be more careful," a voice hisses, echoing over the storm. Omega gasps, freezing and jolting upright, holding the child close against her and while avoiding touching the wounds on her back. "Who you save."

"Who are you?" Omega snaps. The sand is blowing in her face, and she can't see anything. "Where are you?"

"You should have left her there to die." Glowing purple eyes materialize through the storm, towering over her. The creature is huge.

Omega glares at it. "She needed help!"

"You don't know what she'll be come."

Omega steps back, glowering harder. "It doesn't matter. She's just a kid."

"She will destroy your family. Among many others."

"She hasn't done anything yet!"

"But she will."

"She deserves a chance," Omega yells. "Everyone does."

"Not her. Actions always have consequences."

"You sound like Hemlock," Omega spits out, "And you're as bad as him. You don't know what she's going to do."

"I'm much worse, Omega."

Ugh. "She needs help, and I am going to help her." She turns and stalks away. The thing doesn't move, though its purple eyes follow her out of sight.

She settles them down in the edge of an alleyway, at least somewhat protected from the storm. Omega tucks her knees up to her chest, turning away from the storm and trying to shield her face again. Ugh.

"Thank you," the child whispers.

"What's your name?" Omega asks. She looks up, about to answer, but then the world fades away and Omega's sitting on a rocky mini-island floating midair. Literally. Aqua flames are burning around her. The kid's gone.

Her hands are glowing.

Omega squeaks faintly, scrambling to her feet, but actually, her entire body is glowing. What in the stars is happening?

She's glowing. She's glowing – people aren't supposed to glow.

Omega shakes her hand, panting, but nothing changes. It's the same, radiating an entirely unnatural light.

Her crossbow is sitting innocently near her foot. Omega picks it up, half expecting something to explode, but everything's fine.

She feels something. She feels pain. It's prickling across her body, stinging in a dozen places.

Wrecker's lying motionless on another mini island farther down, and Omega's heart stops. "Wrecker?" she calls. "Wrecker!" He doesn't move. He's hurt. He needs her, just like that child did – if she was even real. Omega backs up, jumping down and landing in a roll, dropping her crossbow and running to her brother's side. She shakes his shoulder, but he doesn't even twitch – as motionless as Crosshair when she finally found him on Tantiss.

Omega calls him again, but there's nothing, and in a surge of raw panic, she fumbles to find his pulse. She can't. It always stands out on Wrecker, but she can't find it.

No. No – Omega is not going to accept another of her brothers dying. She won't. She can't – not Wrecker.

Something hot and warm builds up in her hands, and she grips his shoulder tightly, tears spilling down her face. She's not letting him go. It's some unknown instinct, and the light and warmth seeps through his armor and into his body. Omega chokes back a strangled sob as Wrecker's eyes finally, finally open.

"Hey, kid," he says, blinking up at her with a tired smile. "Your eyes are green."

"I'm glowing, too," Omega mutters, wiping her eyes and throwing herself into Wrecker's arms.

He hugs her tightly, cradling her against his chest. "You okay?" he asks worriedly, as though he's not the one who almost died.

"Yeah," Omega promises, shuddering a little. "Let's get outta here."

"You got it," Wrecker promises, picking himself up, freezing when he sees something behind her.

Omega freezes, turning around.

Her energy bow lays innocently, propped up against the rocks as though it hasn't been gone from her life as long as Tech.

**w**

One minute, she was on Teth, and the next... here.

Emerie doesn't know what's happening, either. Something is wrong with this place, and she doesn't know how to find her way back. It's one of the reasons she was wary about leaving Tantiss, but...

"You're not like me."

"That's where you belong."

"Just get them home."

"You have the strength to fight, too. You're one of us."

"Come with us."

Emerie doesn't know how to fight. She can use a blaster, barely, but that never prepared her for this. She was never prepared to be alone out here.

It's too dark to see. The air is dead, devoid of life and empty. Smoke mists over all the valley she can see.

"Emerie," a voice whispers, familiar but foreign. It's calling her.

"Who are you?" she demands.

"Emerieeee," it calls again, somewhere up ahead.

It is not as though she has anywhere else to go, and she steps forward. The ground is of smoky glass, icy but not cold. There's a chill in the air far from physical. The ground shifts when she moves, or maybe it's just the thickness of the smoke. Her boots are definitively in the ground, and she moves forward. There's a sound from ahead, and with a start, the glass shatters.

She falls, smacking onto the ground below. The glass closes back over her, and she can see the star-filled sky up above, though the smoke closes it over, encasing her in darkness.

"Emerie," it calls again, the voice echoing throughout the cavern. She's overcome with the sudden urge to run, but there's nowhere she can go. She knows she needs to escape, but there is no way out.

"What are you?" She doesn't have a blaster. Must've dropped it somewhere, though she doesn't remember letting it go.

"Come and find me."

She moves closer – there is nowhere else to go – and makes out a pair of glowing eyes in the depths of the darkness up ahead.

"I've been trapped here for so long. I just want to get out." The voice sounds young, and her protective instincts swell up instantly, demanding she help. That's what Omega would do. It's what –

"What do I need to do?" Emerie inquires, looking up.

"Take my hand." It extends an arm toward her, thin and black and smoky covered. Emerie hesitates, then reaches back and grabs its hand. The creature might be big, but it's young, and it's hurt. She needs to get it out. It must have a family somewhere – everyone does.

Something laughs. It sounds deep and sinister.

A cold feeling crawls up Emerie's arm and her vision blacks out before her knees even hit the ground.

BLOOPER
"Bring them in alive. Keep the damage minimal. AND PLEASE CUT OFF YOUR BABY BROTHER'S HAND!"
"EXCUSE MOI?"
"I T ' S!"
"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?"
"COME MY MINIONSSSSS RISE FOR YOUR MAAAAAAAAASTER LET YOUR EVIL SHIIIIIIIIIINE –"
"and just so you know YOU HAVE A TERRIBEL SINGING VOICE –"
"LALALALALALALALA"

IDK I JUST WENT COMPLETELY NUTS WHEN I WAS WRITING THIS XD

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