Chapter Text
Wrecker felt the explosion before he saw it. Black smoke and fire burst from the base of the command tower, and immediately, Wrecker was moving. He dodged blaster fire as Umbarans emerged from the brig level with stolen blasters. Clever kriffers.
"Move, move, move! Flank them!" Captain Rex hollered to his men as the clones from all around converged on the escapees.
There was a roar like that of an animal, and then The 501st forces went flying, thrown by an invisible force. Ice cold, slimy claws flared to life in Wrecker's mind, and he had to grit his teeth and shrug them off as they said like ice water down his neck. Like the Temple had felt like. Sith .
Out of the darkness and smoke, Krell rose like some horrible creature from the depths of Kamino's oceans. His eyes were bleeding yellow, and with a flick of his fingers, the window far above smashed apart with a crash, raining glass on everyone and summoning his Sabers to him.
But before they could make it to his possession, a new invisible blow knocked them out of his reach and sent him stumbling back. Krell spun to face the new threat, dodging blaster bolts with unconscious ease, and growled, " You! "
Sajaun skidded to a stop at the edge of the 501st defensive line, Hunter and a 501st ARC Trooper in her wake, "This isn't the right way!"
"How dare you tell me what to do, you pathetic excuse for a warrior! You trickster!" Krell snarled, staking forward, leaving his Umbaran pawns to the mercy of the 501st expert firepower. "Fight me yourself, guard! Prove your worth! "
"When did wars make us great?" Sajaun asked, stepping forward into the ring that now existed, the Umbaran forces soundly defeated, "When did fighting prove our worth? What does it show?"
Krell held out his hands; his sabers came flying to his aid in the blink of an eye as he swung hard and fast at Sajaun's head. Wrecker felt his heart jump to his throat as she didn't move to grab her own Sabers but raised her arms to block. Blinggggg .
The pure note of a lightsaber meeting Beskar sounded as his blades glanced off her vambraces. Krell was undeterred and changed tactics instantly, throwing his full weight on her arms, causing her to stagger under him, blocking his blades with her armor.
"Power." He snarled down at her, using his sheer weight to overpower. Wrecker inched forward, the fighter in him telling him to do something as he saw Sajaun's limbs begin to waver.
Lightning fast, Sajuan's helmet suddenly materialized, and her jetpack flared to life as she dropped the illusion of the meek temple guard and lunged forward, jetpack adding to her power to crack her helmet into Krell's face full force. He tumbled back, reeling from the blow, allowing Sajaun to shoot clear off the ground and nail him in the nose with her armored knee plate.
He staggered, disoriented, as she dropped down behind him, summoned her Saber to her hands, swung it cleanly off her back in a practiced move, and slammed the blunt end into his knees, sending him to the ground. She carefully kicked away both Sabers before whirling on Krell and igniting her pike, the Saber tip hovering over his throat, freezing him where he lay.
"This isn't power," Sajaun said, helmet retracting once more as she stared down her opponent, "It's aggression."
Krell stared up at her for a long moment before slowly smiling in a way that made every hair on Wrecker's neck stand up. "You're Sajaun Ka." He breathed in some sort of twisted awe and delight.
"What gave it away?" Sajaun snapped, not moving an inch from where she held him, "You're under arrest."
"Someone get Force suppressors and cuffs!" Hunter hollered from behind Wrecker, but Wrecker didn't dare take his eyes off the scene before him. Something uneasy and cold rolled in his chest at the gleam in Krell's eyes.
"You're no Jedi." Krell stated, venom lacing his voice, "Who gives you the right to arrest me?"
"What gives you the right to throw away the clones in your command like broken toys?" Sajaun bit back, eyes glowing, or maybe it was a trick of the light.
"The clones are GAR property, and we Jedi run the GAR." Krell reasoned like he was completely sane.
"The clones are living sentient beings! " Sajaun snarled, voice harsh but stance still unmoving, "They cannot own them! You don't get to decide who lives and dies!"
"They're lab-grown!" Krell roared, breaking his composer, "They're made to be used! Don't tell me the great Sajaun Ka is so blind to have not recognized that ."
Sajaun stared down at him in silence. Wrecker could not see her face, and she had master control over her body, but in the Force, he could feel waves of simmering unease like static in the back of his head rolling off her. Looking at her was like looking at a mirage, like his eyes couldn't focus. Like something was, off.
"That doesn't mean KARK." Sajaun growled, voice deadly quiet, "You were a Jedi. You respect life no matter how it comes. It doesn't matter how it is made; it matters that it is alive , you sick son of a gundark."
"Am I the sick one for seeing what is coming and responding accordingly," Krell asked slowly, "Or are you by seeing it and doing nothing?"
The images of the dead Jedi flashed through Wrecker's head at the words, and a cold chill ran through his veins. They were doing something about it. They were . ( What happened if they were too late?)
The ARC Trooper Wrecker had seen earlier made his way forward, cuffs and Force Suppressors in hand, coming over to finally put an end to it all. What happened next might as well have been in slow motion.
The ARC Trooper's body suddenly went stiff, and then it was flying at Sajaun like a rag doll through the air faster than it could be stopped. Sajaun barely turned her Saber off in time before they collided, sending them both sailing across the clearing the circle made.
Her saber sailed out of her hands, and Wrecker was horrified to find he could get himself to move. What was wrong with him?
Krell summoned his Sabers back to him as he rose, charging forward where they were both downed. Sajaun shoved the Trooper away with the Force just in time and rolled out of the way of the swing.
"Pathetic! You can't even take proactive action to save yourself!" Krell roared as Sajaun scrambled away from him, still on the ground.
"You cannot punish someone for a crime they haven't committed yet!" Sajaun argued, dodging the next swing of the Saber and then getting nailed by Krell's foot as he kicked her hard.
It was like Wrecker was standing in deep mud pits watching Sajaun sail through the air and smack into the base of the tower with a sickening crunch. He had no explosives, blaster bolts were useless and borderline dangerous, and none of them could combat Krell. He was too powerful. What were they supposed to do?
Krell stalked forward, grinning maniacally, his green and blue Sabers leaving a chill of danger compared to Sajaun's magenta. "You're right. But you can for organizing a coup against a general." Krell growled out with a terrifying grin.
He was going to kill her, Wrecker realized with cold dread. This monster was going to kill his friend in front of him, and the cold claws in his brain refused to let him move.
"You can't kill her." The ARC Trooper blurted, standing up behind Krell, "She's not part of the GAR; therefore, you can't justify a military execution. To stand trial for a coup as a civilian, she must be tried by a military tribunal. You can't kill her by your laws."
Krell turned slowly to face the foolhardy Trooper, "Are you telling me what I can or can't do?"
The Trooper straightened up, staring Krell down through his bucket, " Yes ."
Krell stared down at the Trooper for a long moment before nodding shortly, "Very well." And then plunged one of his blades through the man's abdomen.
"No! FIVES!" One of the 501st broke the circle, bolting forward to catch the ARC Trooper as he let out a choking noise and crumpled.
Krell sneered down at the body, "Anybody else?"
"That was a mistake." Sajaun's quiet voice pulled Krell's attention back to her as she staggered to her feet.
Krell let out a grating laugh, completely uncaring of the life fading away at his feet, "And why is th-" He never finished the sentence.
Sajaun was on him before he could, screaming at a pitch that made Wrecker's head spin and vision dance. She wrapped herself around Krell's back, her arms around his neck, her legs fighting with his arms as she took him to the ground.
A tiny thing like her under a hulking being like Krell should have crushed her, but it didn't. In shock, Wrecker watched as she seemed to grow under his gaze. His eyes refused to compute what he saw completely, but it was as if Sajaun melded with the planet.
Her arms and legs became vines; her skin became as blue and black as the dirt; her hair glowed the eerie fluorescent colors of the forest. The planet wrapped around Krell, growing and moving and swallowing him whole as he fought.
Like the vixus but bigger. Meaner. Hungrier .
And when Sajaun screamed, the planet answered. The ground shook as it grew and churned, and lightning from a storm that had simply appeared lashed down upon the pulsing growing mass on the ground. And the wind howled as did the creature the vines became.
It lifted its head and screamed, mouth and eyes glowing like the vixus mouths glowed. Like the flying creatures glowed. Like the darkness of the planet glowed.
And its hair was the vines, and its limbs were the trees, and for a moment, as it towered over the command tower, head tilted towards the lightning and thunder rainstorm it had summoned, it looked like a woman. Like Sajaun.
And when it screamed, Wrecker could hear the calls of every dead brother the planet had claimed and welcomed. Every dying scream and pained cry. The calls of those who didn't have to die in this blue-black dirt were what poured out like a siren song from the being.
And then it stopped. And it was all quiet. Silent where there was noise. Peace where there had been strife. Destruction and creation. Balance.
And then the being rapidly began to shrink. Vines folding in on itself, dirt churning together, trees finding their way back to the forest until all that remained was Krell's body laying in an unrecognizable heap on the ground and Sajaun lying next to it on her back staring up at the sky, eyes glowing skin slick with sweat and an ashen color.
"Sajaun!" Hunter finally broke free of the cold claw and stunned awe first, racing forward to her side.
Wrecker threw off the ice-cold claw and dashed to his friend's side. She didn't seem to register they were even there, her glowing eyes like crystals as she looked up unseeingly at them as the rain came down in sheets.
She reached her shaking hand up above her head to latch on to the ankle of the ARC Trooper Krell had stabbed, who was still lying in his brother's arm.
"What- what was that?" The trooper holding the ARC asked his helmet cast off to the side, revealing the Republic cog tattooed to his face as he held his brother tightly and stared wide-eyed at them all.
"I do not know," Tech admitted quietly, kneeling next to Sajaun, datapad out to take a med scan.
"Ahh!" The ARC Trooper gasped suddenly, making them all jump as he jerked.
"Fives, wait, you're hurt!" The face tattoo clone warned as the ARC sat up.
"No," Fives said shakily as he ripped his abdomen armor with the gaping hole in it off to reveal smooth skin where there had been a fatal injury, "I'm not."
"Saj." Crosshair said firmly, detaching her hand from Fives' ankle and pulling her head into his lap, "You need to stop; he's okay."
"I'm going to remove your armor, Saj," Hunter warned, leaning over with his knife to begin cutting her armor away carefully.
"What- what happened?" Captain Rex asked shakily as he came over, staring at the scene with wide eyes.
"We don't know. Where is your medbay?" Tech demanded standing.
"She needs a stretcher!" Hunter hollered carefully, running a hand down her shirt, feeling for injuries, "Get the medics over here!'
"Not- not time-" Sajaun murmured, hand reaching out towards Fives again, searching eyes still unseeing or perhaps Wrecker reasoned, kneeling over her next to Cross, seeing beyond them.
"Shhhh." Cross soothed, petting her hair and pulling her hand back, "You saved him. He's okay."
"Not yet. Not time." Sajaun whispered, eyes slowly growing heavier; it seemed to Wrecker as she stopped searching with her hand.
"Time to rest, Saj." Wrecker tried gently placing a hand on her shoulder as his brothers did with him, "We'll be here after. Rest."
"Rest," Sajaun murmured as her crystal-glowing eyes slid closed, and she passed out.
Cross kept petting her hair, and Wrecker didn't dare move his hand as Hunter and Tech hurried around getting her the best help. They silently looked at each other wide-eyed and mentally asked the same question.
What the KARK was THAT?!