Chapter Text
Date: 2 AFE (16 BBY)
Location: Coruscant
Objective: Capture the Jedi.
……
Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome.
We are one when together, we are one when apart.
The words taken from the Mandalorian marriage vow, bastardized by the Vod’e, a vow of fraternity to them, of unity. Brothers who only knew each other, who were one and the same, yet each whole and separate. They knew that, in spite of what the senate said, what the Jedi could not achieve, and what the Sith tried to squash out of them.
They fought for their humanity with every inch, and every second. They were not given names, so they took them for themselves. Carving out individuality for sanity, for necessity, for spite.
Wooley, Waxer, Boil, Rex, Kote, Longshot, Echo, Jesse, Fives……
What individuality they could not have on Kamino they stole for themselves, in armor paint, in carvings on the bunks of their ships, the inside of their armor, in the repair stitches on their kute’s, the way they cut their hair, and pierced their ears, and tattooed their bodies.
What respect and love they were not given they found in companionship with each other, regardless of them all being genetically identical, they found love and care regardless of it being platonic or romantic. They carved it inch by inch for themselves, a space for emotion, for love.
And then, it was for naught.
“Execute Order 66.”
Good soldiers follow orders.
Fox remembers, remembers when he should not be physically able to anymore, the isolation, the abuse, the change. Losing time and memories, waking up with injuries he didn’t remember receiving, the strange fractal scars across his skin, the bloodloss he could not explain to Thire and Stone. The endless hours of gruelling work. No one cared in the end, not even their own brothers out of reach in the black.
And then-Fives.
And Fox knew then, they were all doomed. Regardless of his batch finally turning away from him fully and the guard becoming fully isolated, despite their attempts to investigate internally how this had happened.
And what they had found too late to act.
The chips made them what they feared most-
meat droids.
Trapped in their own heads, as their bodies acted without permission, committed atrocities that made him beg whatever higher being existed to put him out of his misery. To finally die and reunite with his brothers in death.
And he thought he had finally got that, in the end. Slow death as he lay paralyzed on the ground from cervical dislocation, agonized as his respiratory system failed, as he developed a stroke that destroyed his mind in the last moments, in so much pain that he could barely feel it anymore, until it all, finally, faded to black.
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Oh who was Fox kidding.
He is not the type to get endings, a stop to his suffering.
What was it Kote’s Jedi used to say he was meant for?
Infinite Sadness.
Fox understood that, more than anyone possibly should. Exactly how much he resembled that statement, and how much he was resigned to it.
Because unlike his other brothers, Fox didn’t get to stay dead.
“No”, the Force whispered.
“You are not done, not yet.” And Fox knew no more, but blinding light.