Chapter Text
After the whole karking disaster that happened on Coruscant with the Zillo beast, the 501st was to remain stationed on Coruscant until they were given their next assignment.
Rex sighed as he passed a hand through his face, after a long day of organizing troops, assigning posts, visiting his wounded men and seeing that everything was in order, he only had a few more reports to finish and he would finally be able to rest (much to Kix's relief, who was ready to sedate him if he didn't rest)!
While doing that he was on a call with his older brothers. Both Cody and Wolffe were on Ryloth, Bly was on Felucia, and Ponds, even though he was still on Coruscant, would be out soon.
It was rare that they were able to make a call with each other once off duty, and it was even rarer when they could all get together on Coruscant or in a call, so they made the most of moments like those to make sure they were all okay in their little reunion, and just chat at ease until the battlefield made the call of hostility for them again.
"Didn't the 212th help free Ryloth long ago?" Bly asked.
"Something like that, but the Separatists are really stubborn when they want to be." Cody replied, rolling his eyes. "So, we'll probably be here for a while." He finished, pointing at him and Wolffe, who was lying next to him.
''Damn, that sucks.''
Wolfe sighed, annoyed "Tell me about it. But anyways, what about Felucia, Bly? Did some plant tried to eat you again ?" Wolffe asked, smiling when Bly glared at him.
"Ha. Ha. Ha." Bly laughed sarcastically "really funny, Wolffe."
"Come on ori'vod , cheer up." Wolffe told him, still smiling.
"No, nothing has tried to eat me, thank you very much. Aayla is always attentive so that nothing takes us by surprise." Bly said with a little smile.
"Aayla?" Rex asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Aayla!" Wolffe exclaimed with an excited look on his face. Bly groaned at that, Wolffe wouldn't let that go anytime soon.
"Aayla" Ponds said, amusement in his eyes.
"Ha, Aayla" Cody snorted as he looked at Bly with a smirk.
"Kriff all of you." Bly blurted out, a little embarrassed when his General's name was highlighted on him.
"What? You haven't asked her if she wants to be your girlfriend yet?" Wolffe asked as he raised an eyebrow.
"WOLFFE!" Bly exclaimed as he blushed.
"What?"
"Here we go again" Cody muttered rolling his eyes "What about you Ponds?"
"Nothing interesting really, we'll be leaving Coruscant shortly, I think I heard Mace talking about a group of cadets or something, he still hasn't told me anything." Ponds shrugged.
"Mace?" Bly asked with a grin.
"Mace!" Wolffe exclaimed with a smirk. The same look he had with Bly still in his eye.
"Mace" Rex repeated with a small smile, just to annoy Ponds a little.
"Mace. You too Ponds?" Cody chuckled.
Ponds narrowed his eyes at Cody "Are we going to do that every time we say our general's names?" He asked them, rolling his eyes.
"You did the same thing when I mentioned Aayla, don't complain now!" Bly exclaimed.
"Sure, Bly."
"Rex? Something to tell?" Cody asked again as he ignored his older brothers.
"Fives and Echo haven't made a mess if that's what you're asking," Rex responded as he signed one of the final reports.
"Fives and Echo..." Wolffe mentioned "aren't those the shinies you adopted when Rishi happened?"
"That's right, Fives is a bit impulsive, and Echo is still a bit stick to the manual but, yes, they have potential" Rex said with a small smile as he put his signature on his latest report "So, when do you think you're going to be back on Coruscant?" He said as he stretched out.
"No idea, Felucia's doing fine for now, but we're talking about Felucia so..." Bly groaned.
"Cody and I already said we might be gone for a while, Ryloth is really a mess right now." Wolffe said as he looked at his datapad for a moment.
"I'm going out soon, so I don't know what to tell you," Ponds said as he shrugged "sorry vod'ika ."
"And I have no idea, great," Rex groaned.
"Why the complaint, Rex?" Ponds asked, when Rex raised an eyebrow he continued, "I mean, you can still do fun things while you're on Coruscant," he finished.
"Oh really? Like what exactly?" Rex asked, looking at him.
"Well..."
"You can go bother Fox!" Wolffe exclaimed with a mischievous grin.
Ponds rolled his eyes "Wolffe..."
"What? Is a good idea!"
Cody rolled his eyes at his brother "You could go to 79's with your men."
"The boys are banned from there for a while," Rex snorted.
"Again?" Ponds asked, not impressed.
"Now what did they do?" Bly smiled a little, amusement in his eyes.
"In addition to starting fights 3 times in a row, and Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase being Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase, me and Fox thought it was appropriate that if it happened again, they would stay in the drunk tank until the next morning."
"That didn't stop them, did it?" Bly asked, chuckling.
"They're in the tank now, because they thought it would be a good idea to sneak out like cadets from training."
Cody sighed fondly "Jesse and Hardcase and surely going to make Fives a great troublemaker, poor you." He grinned.
Rex rolled his eyes at that "If they're doing this to see if I'm going to give up with their shenanigans, I'm sure that they are going to be happy to run laps in full kit in the morning" Rex rolled his eyes before yawning.
"You should go to sleep," Ponds recommended.
"I'm not a cadet anymore, Ponds, I can stay up late" Rex said as he got up to get his helmet.
“You used to stay up late to train even when you were a cadet, Rex’ika” Cody said as he rubbed one of his eyes.
"It doesn't mean that…" Ponds yawned, ignoring Cody "you should…do it…"
"Ha, now who's the tired one?" Rex laughed a bit as he checked his helmet "well, do you think... Guys?" Rex asked, seeing everyone suddenly asleep.
"What the..." He didn't finish saying when another yawn came out of him. Smoke began to enter the room, he tried to go towards the door, but before he had a chance to get out, he fell unconscious to the floor.
The first thing Rex heard when he woke up was the voices of his brothers confused about something and trying to find an... Exit? An exit from where exactly?
Just at that moment, Rex remembered that he passed out and began to open his eyes to see what was happening.
"Rex?" Just when he heard Cody say his name he could feel the others looking at him.
"What the hell happened?" He growled as he got up to see where he was.
"Nobody knows, we're still trying to find out," Cody replied as he approached him and looked at him, checking him to make sure he was okay.
"Well, another excellent new, the comms are not working," Fox huffed as he approached them.
"Does anyone on the outside even know that something happened to us?" Rex asked Fox.
"I don't think so" Fox denied, he shook his head and then sighed "and even if they knew, I doubt they know where to start looking, like I said, there are no communications and I haven't seen any exits... None of us have.”
"So we're stuck wherever we are, great," Bacara said sarcastically.
"Commanders?" A voice interrupted their conversation.
"Keeli? Howzer?" Rex asked.
"Rex, it's good to see you again," Keeli said, smiling a little.
Rex nodded at them, a small smile that quickly disappeared as he looked around. "I say the same, I wish it was under different circumstances though, do any of you have any idea what we are doing here?"
"Nope" Howzer shook his head "Keeli and I were in my office when a strange smoke appeared, before we could do anything we both passed out" he explained.
"Did we all pass out and woke up here?" Gree, which Rex hadn't realized was there until he spoke, asked.
"Yes"
"So far that's what everyone has said"
"Everybody?" Rex asked, noticing that there was indeed, more Commanders, along with 17 and Fordo, who he haven't seen since the war started "Who else is here?"
"Besides us, Bly, Ponds, Wolffe, Grey, Neyo, Doom, Thorn, Thire, Monnk, Colt, Havoc, Blitz, Fordo and Alpha-17" Cody replied.
Before anyone could say anything else, a mysterious, female voice interrupted them.
"Welcome"
At that, everyone went to alert, their hands going to their blasters.
"Who the hell are you? Why did you bring us here?" 17 demanded, frowning.
"My name is not relevant at the moment, but I mean no harm" tried to calm the voice "to why I brought you here, well…" she...? Stopped talking not knowing how to explain.
"Well? I don't know if you know, but aside from us having troops to command and campaigns to finish, I don't know if you've missed the fact that we're fighting a kriffing war?!" Doom exclaimed, annoyed.
"I know you are fighting a war, just as I know how it ends" she said with a firm tone surprising some of them a little "and for that same reason I have brought you here, to show you the future" she finished.
At that, some snorted.
"Future?" Colt asked, incredulously "As far as I know it is impossible to see the future"
"We're kidnapped by a lunatic, great" Wolffe muttered
"I don't care what you think of me, but I need you to see the future, or the fate of the galaxy will be more terrible, if it is possible."
"Even if what you're saying is true" Rex interrupted "Wouldn't it be better if the Jedi took care of this?" He finished.
"Right now I don't think the Jedi are the best option" she said "although we haven't fallen far yet..." started to mutter.
" We haven't? "
"What?"
"You said “although we haven't fallen that far yet” " Rex said "you're a Jedi, aren't you?"
"Not exactly," she replied.
"So a sith" Cody accused as his hand was on his blaster, ready to take it out.
"I'm not a Jedi or a Sith, I'm just someone who can use the Force, and has decided to try to use it to help people" she finished.
"Fallen?" Fox asked after a moment of silence "You said that the Jedis had fallen"
"Are the Jedi going to become Sith?" Howzer asked uncomfortably.
"Not... fall to the dark side, it's more... It's really complicated to explain, that is why I need you to see the future, and prevent not only the Jedi or the Republic from falling, but also to save the galaxy from years of suffering"
"Are the Separatists going to win the war?" Doom asked incredulously.
"Doom, in the future there is no longer a Republic or Separatists, only an Empire that takes advantage of the people, and does not care to make them suffer in order to achieve their objective."
A silence took over the entire room. An empire? The truth is that it didn't sound good at all, and if what the voice said was true, the Jedi weren't going to be there to stop it.
"What if we decide to stay?" Grey asked.
The voice... She responded quickly "We will immediately begin to see crucial moments of the Clone Wars along with glimpses of the future, so that you can know and understand the situation more, and hopefully, avoid a few things."
"What kind of things?" Fordo asked.
"Battles that went wrong, alliances that should not have happened, even maybe stopping a few ones from dying.."
"What about our Generals and our battalions? They'll be looking for us, right?" Bly asked.
"I've stopped time there, once we're done here and I send you back it'll only be a few seconds, so no one will know that you all disappeared"
Keeli's eyes widened "she stopped the time in the entire galaxy?" He whispered, tense.
“Just how powerful is she?” Howzer asked in a low voice.
Rex was thinking the same thing “if you’re so powerful to stop the time in the entire galaxy, why don’t you use your power to stop this… Empire?”
“My power can only do so much, if I could stop the Empire, I would have done it long ago. This is the only I can see of stopping the Empire.” She responded.
"What if we refuse to see the “future”?" Neyo asked as he crossed his arms.
The voice fell silent.
Rex huffed "There is no option to deny this, am I wrong?" He asked, starting to feel mad.
"I would prefer the fact that you would stay... But if you decide to not see the future then I won't force you to" she said.
Another silence returned to the room. After a few minutes in which no one spoke, someone decided to speak.
"I'll stay," Howzer said, sitting.
"Howzer?" Rex said looking at him "are you- you can't be serious?" he asked, incredulously.
"We're talking about the future, Rex, and I don't know about you, but the only thing this voice has told us are tragedies that will happen sooner or later, so if there is a way to prevent these things from happening, to save my Jetti, and my men, I'm not going to waste this chance" he concluded.
After a few minutes in which everyone stared at him, another voice spoke.
"Puff.. okay"
"Keeli?" Howzer asked surprised, "Are you going to stay too?"
"Well someone has to make sure you don't cause trouble right?" That only made Howzer give him a dirty look.
Rex stared at his fellow Captains. Both of them went to sit as they bickered at each other.
It has to be a trap, but... Howzer wasn't wrong. All the things the voice had said are tragedies...
And the fact that there's a chance they can stop people from dying?
It's an incredible chance, a chance that he would be fool to pass... Besides, what if he could stop some of his men from dying? And Force forbid, his ori'vode ? His Buir ? And Force forbid again, Ahsoka? His little sister, his vod'ika ?
...
He can't believe he's going to do this.
"Fuck it all, alll right then..." Rex said, sitting down.
"Rex?" Cody asked, surprised and maybe a little upset "Are you going to stay too, really?"
“No, absolutely not,” 17 growled. “You will not do such a thing, get up.”
Well, if this mysterious woman said she needed them to save the future, that means she won’t let 17 kill him for what he’s about to say. "Yes I will," Rex nodded as he stared at 17, who was staring at him with fury on his face. "Someone has to make sure these two" pointing to Howzer and Keeli "don't do stupid things "HEY!" so... Besides, it's the future, buir , I don't know about you, but neither do I really like what that voice said, what if it's true? We have a chance to fix the future, to save it, to save our men, our aliit " he concluded.
The others fell silent until Wolffe and Cody nodded at each other and sat down on either side of Rex.
“Oh for fuck’s sa- not you two!” 17 groaned as he looked at Wolffe and Cody.
"This has to be a stupid joke" Bacara said "this has to be a trap" he continued as he watched as Ponds and Bly joined them.
"It's not," the voice said.
"Shut up, I will still have certain words with you later!" Bacara exclaimed, annoyed.
The voice only let out what seemed to be a small laugh.
"I swear I taught them better than this" 17 said, shaking his head as he went to sit next to his boys. "If we end up dying thanks to you, I will blame you, and the one who survives will be haunted by me until you die."
"I guess we're going to do this then" Thorn said as he sat down "What?" He asked when he saw the looks Thire and Fox gave him.
"Are you seriously going to join them?
"Well, it’s not like we have anything to lose, do we? Right guys?" Thorn asked the rest of the room.
Some agreed to his point, while others didn't give a proper response, being thoughtful and concerned about the situation they were in, thinking how crazy it is, how it might be a trap, a dream, or some sort of trial, or how it might just be a once in a lifetime opportunity to hopefully avert the terrible distant but close future.
Shaking his head not believing what he was going to do, Fox went and sat next to Thorn.
After a few minutes everyone (some looking for a way out in case something went wrong) was seated.
"I'm glad you all decided to stay" the voice said, relieved "Now, let's get started.”