letitrainathousandflames:

Rex grunted
and rolled to his side, feeling the rocky surface under his armor. The fall had
been painful; he had landed right on his right arm. He got up to his feet,
turning on the flashlights on his helmet. He seemed to be in some kind of cave.
He couldn’t remember how he’d got there. Odd. He pressed the comlink on his
wrist.

“Fives?
Fives, come over.” He paused, unable to remember who else was with him in this
mission “General Skywalker? Cody? Wolffe? Does anybody read me?”

Silence.
Not even the sound of static.

Rex walked,
watchful eyes gazing ahead and cocked blaster on his hand. He was so tense
looking to the dark patch ahead where his flashlights couldn’t reach that he
nearly tripped on something. Rex cursed to himself, looking down to what he
expected to be another of the many rocks he’d seen ahead. He was wrong.

It was a
clone. ARC Trooper Echo. He immediately recognized the blue shape of his hand
printed on his chest piece despite the burnt, blackened armor and he knelt down
by his body, shaking him.

“Echo!
Echo! C’mon, trooper, talk to me!”

Echo was
unresponsive. Rex pulled the helmet out of his head, seeing his pale face and
his slack jaw. Rex had seen a dead brother enough times to know that Echo was
gone. Rex closed his eyes in grieving, then a thought struck him like blaster
fire. Wherever Echo was, there would be Fives. Rex got back on his feet,
looking around.

“Fives?
Fives?!”

And as he
turned around he could see now. The many rocks that surrounded him weren’t
rocks, they were bodies. Fallen brothers, everywhere, all around him. Rex
started walking, looking down at them, countless shinies, until he recognized
that paintjob on a clone’s helmet.  He
also saw the red blood that slathered his chest armor, which seemed like it had
been cracked in by a heavy blow.

“No… No…”
he ran to the clone, kneeling by him “Jesse? Jesse, talk to me.”

Jesse was
panting as he looked up to Rex, blood dripping down his chin, trailing out of
his mouth.

“Dead…” he
whispered “All of them… I tried to save them… But…” Jesse’s eyes were filled
with pain and sorrow before they rolled back and fell shut

“No… No, Jesse,
talk to me! Who did this?!”

And then, a
voice behind him said:

“You did.”

Rex’s eyes
went wide. He looked over his shoulder, letting go of Jesse. Behind him, a
clone trooper stood, wearing an ARC’s kama and blue pauldrons, and his helmet
had the painting of a Rishi Eel. Rex got to his feet, turning around to look at
the trooper.

“Fives? Is
that you?”

The trooper
didn’t say a word, taking his helmet off instead to reveal Fives’ face, the
number on his forehead proving his identity. Rex let out a sight of relief. At
least Fives was still alive.

“What
happened here?” Rex asked “What do you mean, ‘I did’?”

From the
shadows behind Fives came Cody and Fox, each from one side of Fives’, both
wearing their armors, but no helmets. There was something odd to their arm
guards; both had tally marks like the ones Rex would do, but they weren’t
scratched over the painting – they were drawn in red – and Rex had a horrible
feeling that wasn’t paint.

“He means you
are to blame for that.” Fox said, reaching for his blaster as he walked to
Fives’ side and Fives turned to face him, their moves timed as if they had
rehearsed it “And for this too.”

Rex looked
from Cody to Fox, furrowing his brows. There was something unspeakably dark in
the Coruscant Guard’s commander’s voice.

“What do
you—“

Fox grabbed
his blaster and shot Fives in the chest before Rex could finish his sentence,
and Fives dropped to the ground like a deactivated droid, the sound of his
armor clanking against the ground echoing louder than the shot that had killed
him.

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