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senmut) wrote2026-02-07 09:29 am
senmut) wrote2026-02-07 09:29 am
Entry tags:
GenPrompt Bingo: A Moment of Clarity/Understanding
AO3 Link | Hunting Gone Wrong (1144 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Suicide/Suicidal Ideation
Characters: CC-1119 | Appo, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Murder
Summary:
They were being hunted, picked off one by one on this death world. Appo wasn't certain what he'd done to anger his Lord, but being sent to hunt a Force User had seemed easy enough on the data pad.
The reality was proving brutally different, and he was down to just two members of the original six that had followed him here to capture the rogue Force User for Lord Vader. Nor could he just comm for back up; the Exactor was pursuing the rag tag Rebels that had been in the system when they dropped.
Appo pulled up a map of the world, narrowing in on the fissure-laden landscape of this island. The Force User had taken out the other drop ship while they were in atmo before ditching from the ship and letting it crash. A small part of him decided it was rather fitting that they were all marooned, and Appo's chances of a pick up were a lot better than the Force User's.
TK-1138 let the world kill him, spooking at a noise and falling into one of the hissing fissures. Appo looked at the last surviving man of his squadron and ground his teeth inside his helmet. They might only be fleshborn, but he'd spent time fine-tuning the training that CC-2224 sent them out with.
They had to be the best to be 501st, after all. That had never stopped being true, from the before-times to now.
"Stay here, get the communication unit pieced together. Fleet should be back any time now."
"Yes sir."
Was the trooper relieved? Hoping Appo was the next victim? It didn't matter. Appo had to catch this karking —
The pain in his head came back, as that slip into his first language usually sparked it.
It was bad enough he held tight to his name.
He'd forgotten what it was like to hunt by himself. Even in his plastoid, it was easier to move and hide and track than when he was half-focused on keeping a squad alive.
He thought he was closing in on the Force User. He was fairly certain they were even injured. All he had to do was clear this climb, and he'd be close enough to be sure. Just a little more to climb —
— and a noise drew his eyes up, to see a face with white marks on bronze skin, blue and white marks on the horns and headtails alike, but eyes like his own staring holes into his soul.
The Jedi were traitors, manipulating the whole war, killing his brothers to cling to their power. The Chancellor said so, and he was their Supreme Commander. The General believed it. Appo followed orders, led the men up the stairs, and they started quartering the Temple, clearing out the traitors of all shapes and sizes.
It didn't matter that this one looked like the Commander. She'd been a traitor too. He brought his blaster up for a clean shot, waiting until she deflected two others to take his own.
He ignored the voice screaming in the back of his head that she had been just a kid.
Appo blinked at the bright light all around him, his concealing helmet (bucket, a piece of him remembered) gone, and him trussed him up as firmly as he'd meant to do to her once he caught the Force User.
She was tossing an EMP grenade in a hand, pacing in front of him.
Just as suddenly as she'd overcome him on the climb, she was there, kneeling in front of him.
"It would be more merciful to kill you," she said. "To you and to my father."
Clone dark eyes staring out of a face like hers.
"I don't feel like being merciful today." She clicked the detonator, and Appo's world disappeared for the second time in less than an hour, this time consumed by searing pain in his skull, the kind that came when he remembered the before times.
Vader's Fist.
Torrent Company.
Memories, like those of two different men, warred within him.
Torrent won.
He found himself retching up the nutripaste he'd been rationing himself since landfall. She at least tilted him with the Force so he didn't get it on himself.
Appo looked at her again, recognizing the hard jawline and set of the eyes as The Captain's trademark resolve. The lines of her marks might scream of the Commander, but he didn't think this one was going to try and make it all better like Commander Vod'ika had tried time and again, after the bad campaigns.
"So, when I take your binders off, I'm not going to stop you if you choose the easy way out," she said in a hard voice. "Didn't even know that kriffing monster still had any of you. Was supposed to be him I was facing down here."
"You… tried… to bait VADER?!" he asked, but of course a child of those two would be that brazen.
She didn't answer, just staring at him with unblinking anger at him for not being the right prey.
The easy way — he knew just what she meant, and as her features blurred with the earlier, rounder face of that child in the Temple, he thought he just might.
"You said your father," he managed to get out instead. "The Captain lives?"
"Somewhere out there. It's not like he and I could work together once I was old enough to go out on my own."
The binders fell away from him, and his gear was right there. A tiny piece of him suggested he go for his blaster, not to take the easy road, but to try and take her down, like he'd been told to.
Just like he'd been told to murder children. And atrocities that made that pale in comparison, ever since the day he followed his General into haran.
"What's the hard way?" he asked, and that got a blink, then a flex of the too-small lekku.
"I take you to a rehab specialist, away from the fighting, and you figure out if you can make peace with the man that chip made of you."
"Will he come there? Or her — kriff." The face and lekku had gone hard all over again on the pronoun. "She's gone?"
"It's why I joined up. He lived, when she didn't come back to us. And I'm not going to stop until he goes down."
"Small part of getting off this rock?"
"Got that covered." She turned to start walking down the easy side of the rise.
A few minutes later, he was following, with just the weapons and rations, hard as it was to leave the armor's protection behind.
She didn't say a word, and he kept following. Maybe, in her, in what she offered as the hard way, he'd find a way to his honor again.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Suicide/Suicidal Ideation
Characters: CC-1119 | Appo, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Murder
Summary:
Appo is on a death world, hunting, but maybe he was the prey... and the wrong one at that.
Hunting Gone Wrong
They were being hunted, picked off one by one on this death world. Appo wasn't certain what he'd done to anger his Lord, but being sent to hunt a Force User had seemed easy enough on the data pad.
The reality was proving brutally different, and he was down to just two members of the original six that had followed him here to capture the rogue Force User for Lord Vader. Nor could he just comm for back up; the Exactor was pursuing the rag tag Rebels that had been in the system when they dropped.
Appo pulled up a map of the world, narrowing in on the fissure-laden landscape of this island. The Force User had taken out the other drop ship while they were in atmo before ditching from the ship and letting it crash. A small part of him decided it was rather fitting that they were all marooned, and Appo's chances of a pick up were a lot better than the Force User's.
TK-1138 let the world kill him, spooking at a noise and falling into one of the hissing fissures. Appo looked at the last surviving man of his squadron and ground his teeth inside his helmet. They might only be fleshborn, but he'd spent time fine-tuning the training that CC-2224 sent them out with.
They had to be the best to be 501st, after all. That had never stopped being true, from the before-times to now.
"Stay here, get the communication unit pieced together. Fleet should be back any time now."
"Yes sir."
Was the trooper relieved? Hoping Appo was the next victim? It didn't matter. Appo had to catch this karking —
The pain in his head came back, as that slip into his first language usually sparked it.
It was bad enough he held tight to his name.
He'd forgotten what it was like to hunt by himself. Even in his plastoid, it was easier to move and hide and track than when he was half-focused on keeping a squad alive.
He thought he was closing in on the Force User. He was fairly certain they were even injured. All he had to do was clear this climb, and he'd be close enough to be sure. Just a little more to climb —
— and a noise drew his eyes up, to see a face with white marks on bronze skin, blue and white marks on the horns and headtails alike, but eyes like his own staring holes into his soul.
The Jedi were traitors, manipulating the whole war, killing his brothers to cling to their power. The Chancellor said so, and he was their Supreme Commander. The General believed it. Appo followed orders, led the men up the stairs, and they started quartering the Temple, clearing out the traitors of all shapes and sizes.
It didn't matter that this one looked like the Commander. She'd been a traitor too. He brought his blaster up for a clean shot, waiting until she deflected two others to take his own.
He ignored the voice screaming in the back of his head that she had been just a kid.
Appo blinked at the bright light all around him, his concealing helmet (bucket, a piece of him remembered) gone, and him trussed him up as firmly as he'd meant to do to her once he caught the Force User.
She was tossing an EMP grenade in a hand, pacing in front of him.
Just as suddenly as she'd overcome him on the climb, she was there, kneeling in front of him.
"It would be more merciful to kill you," she said. "To you and to my father."
Clone dark eyes staring out of a face like hers.
"I don't feel like being merciful today." She clicked the detonator, and Appo's world disappeared for the second time in less than an hour, this time consumed by searing pain in his skull, the kind that came when he remembered the before times.
Vader's Fist.
Torrent Company.
Memories, like those of two different men, warred within him.
Torrent won.
He found himself retching up the nutripaste he'd been rationing himself since landfall. She at least tilted him with the Force so he didn't get it on himself.
Appo looked at her again, recognizing the hard jawline and set of the eyes as The Captain's trademark resolve. The lines of her marks might scream of the Commander, but he didn't think this one was going to try and make it all better like Commander Vod'ika had tried time and again, after the bad campaigns.
"So, when I take your binders off, I'm not going to stop you if you choose the easy way out," she said in a hard voice. "Didn't even know that kriffing monster still had any of you. Was supposed to be him I was facing down here."
"You… tried… to bait VADER?!" he asked, but of course a child of those two would be that brazen.
She didn't answer, just staring at him with unblinking anger at him for not being the right prey.
The easy way — he knew just what she meant, and as her features blurred with the earlier, rounder face of that child in the Temple, he thought he just might.
"You said your father," he managed to get out instead. "The Captain lives?"
"Somewhere out there. It's not like he and I could work together once I was old enough to go out on my own."
The binders fell away from him, and his gear was right there. A tiny piece of him suggested he go for his blaster, not to take the easy road, but to try and take her down, like he'd been told to.
Just like he'd been told to murder children. And atrocities that made that pale in comparison, ever since the day he followed his General into haran.
"What's the hard way?" he asked, and that got a blink, then a flex of the too-small lekku.
"I take you to a rehab specialist, away from the fighting, and you figure out if you can make peace with the man that chip made of you."
"Will he come there? Or her — kriff." The face and lekku had gone hard all over again on the pronoun. "She's gone?"
"It's why I joined up. He lived, when she didn't come back to us. And I'm not going to stop until he goes down."
"Small part of getting off this rock?"
"Got that covered." She turned to start walking down the easy side of the rise.
A few minutes later, he was following, with just the weapons and rations, hard as it was to leave the armor's protection behind.
She didn't say a word, and he kept following. Maybe, in her, in what she offered as the hard way, he'd find a way to his honor again.
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Free for All Saturday, Week 6 [DW Edition]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
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Hi there! ^_^ Welcome to this week's Free for All. There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If, perhaps, you missed a prompt theme that you liked, or you've had any ideas that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, then today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
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Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
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