THE WAY HE SAYS HER NAME HES SO WORRIED FOR HER

hiiii ive recently been writing more original stories but i (hopefully) remember my sw and tbb ocs

oldest: Aris (yes they mostly have the same name 😭)

-anakin skywalker’s twin sister

-uses 2 lightsabers

-obi wan’s padawan alongside anakin

-when she’s 15 she’s sent on a mission on her own as a padawan cause she proved herself to be capable

-she gets transported to ninjago cause force shenanigans 💀💀💀

-in season 5 of ninjago they find this thing called the realm crystal so she goes back to her universe and fights in the clone wars

-she eventually leaves the order for the ninja and anakin feels like she abandoned him and thats around the same time ahsoka leaves the order

-she rejoins the ninja and goes through ninjago seasons 8–16

-she senses order 66 happening in the force and anakin turning so she uses traveller’s tea to go help

-in short she almost dies to anakin so she goes on the run and gets mando armor cos yes :D

-also in short she and anakin defeat palpatine and yay :D

-istp/istj, arrogant, cocky, “violence is always the answer, fuck morals”

newest: Mayday (not the clone mayday)

-13 years old in the part of the book i am at so far

-protective of his best friend aris (not the one above)

-good with a knife

-istp, cold and detached to random people but a sweet puppy to aris :)

(mayday x aris art when theyre like 23)

-becomes a soldier in the future

-survivor of the 1-7th Population Games

Welcome back to another OC Sunday Spotlight!

Aka the time in which every Sunday I'll come up with a prompt and anyone and everyone has the opportunity to answer with as many OCs as they wish!

You can reblog this post, answer in the comments, or come up with your own post to answer the prompts! And feel free to submit prompts as well!

It's an excuse to yap about your OCs so feel free to do so! Add pictures, links, or anything else regarding the OC in the spotlight if you'd like! And in addition, feel free to tag any mutuals to hop on the stage :D

Let's get this show started!

SPOTLIGHT ON: Oldest and/or most recent OC(s)!

Here are mine :D

OLDEST: KHEA NULTEZ

🌟 aaaa those doodles are when I first came up with the concept of her at the beginning of last year 🌟 she was the first like,, fully-fledged Star Wars oc I've ever had actually - i'd doodled ocs for star wars before but they were all only headshots and nameless :/ 🌟 she's been through a handful of changes and I keep giving her more and more trauma (whoops-) 🌟 find out more about her here!

NEWEST: HUIHANA 'HANA' YUN

🪷 recently came up with a BUNCH of new ocs but Hana is the most recent one of them all 🪷 she's the adopted mirialan/human daughter of Hunter and Jung (another OC)! 🪷 she's part of the group of fan kids I have for the bad batch and I initially had it so that Hunter and Jung were only raising Omega but then I was like - "nah, they'd adopt so many kids" - and came up with her :D 🪷 her name means "lily/lotus" in Maori while 'hana' means "one" in Korean 🪷 find out more about her here!

💫 Check out last week's prompt! 💫 Join the tag list here!

Short story: 13

Good soldiers follow orders.

I see war. Death. Flames everywhere as explosions go off around me, but I'm surprisingly unscathed. Flying jets whizz past me through the air to attack enemy bombers. I'm standing there hesitantly, the hands holding my semi-automatic blaster shaking from the adrenaline rush. I've been here many times before. The outcome is the same every time.

Good soldiers follow orders.

Order 13. Fight to the death. No surrender.

It's like my body is on autopilot and I'm watching from behind a screen. I charge into the raging battle, shooting at enemies, my aim surprisingly good compared to during basic training. Grenades rain down upon the battlefield, dying screams of humans and aliens alike filling my ears. My body shows no signs of discomfort but in my mind, I'm trying to cover my ears to block out the sound.

An enemy bomber travels over my head, dropping its bombs in the process. I've been here too many times. I know what's going to happen. I close my eyes.

The sounds of explosions are almost deafening. The bombs drop down right next to me, exploding upon contact. The force pushes me backwards as the heat of flames engulf me. The sounds fade, my eyes still closed.

It's ending.

My eyes flutter open as I find myself in the comfort of my bed. I let out a soft groan as I get up. Apps appear in front of my eyes as I scroll through them, looking for the app that tracks my sleep. I open it and the screen projects in front of me, showing my sleep quality, restlessness and periods of REM and deep sleep. The statistics displayed are the usual. Restless throughout the whole night and sleep quality was absolutely terrible. I've been having these nightmares lately. It's not something I can control. The control chips in our heads are supposed to prevent that. We get to select our dreams before we sleep. Yet mine are different. I select dreams of Star Wars. All I get are nightmares of a battle which I've never seen before. It's not Star Wars. The technology is similar, but there's no Earth in that universe. My nightmares are of war on Earth.

My chip must be malfunctioning. That's not good. It's implanted into every human's brain so if it malfunctions, it would probably interfere with our primary brain functions, hence killing us. But I'm not dead yet.

I head into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast. The image of my parents peacefully sleeping in their bedroom projects in front of me. I managed to gain access to the security camera in their bedroom, so I can see when they wake up.

I prepare my breakfast and eat it in silence, monitoring my parents in their bedroom through the projection. After finishing my breakfast and making sure my parents are still asleep, I head out of the door and run next door to find my neighbour, Mayday. Just when I reach his house, Mayday's already outside, waiting for me. I give him a nod and he nods back.

We head out into the forest near our house. I switch off the projecting function on my chip so that I won't be distracted by any notifications I receive on the walk.

As we walk into the forest, light shines through the canopy of leaves, creating patches of light here and there. I jump from one patch to another, laughing as Mayday follows behind me.

Suddenly, I hear a whistling sound cutting through the air and then a loud boom. My head jerks in the direction of the sound. I turn the projecting function on my chip back on and in my head, I order the chip to show me where the sound came from.

Similar sounds follow the first one as the image of an unfamiliar aircraft dropping bombs down on another nearby housing area projects in front of me. Mayday catches up with me. "What is it?"

"Bombs," I reply simply.

Another boom echoes through the forest, but much louder this time. The bombs must be getting closer. There's a sickening feeling in my stomach as the volume of the sounds just keeps increasing.

I take off running into the forest, away from the direction of the bombing sounds. Mayday quickly follows. My legs feel like they're flying under me as my adrenaline pushes me to keep running. My heart feels like it's going to explode as I dash back to me and Mayday's housing area.

When we reach back, I'm panting heavily as I sprint to my house, where my parents are already waiting for me to come back, looking very worried. The moment they see me they quickly force me inside the house without a word.

The bombing sounds continue for a few more minutes until silence. That's when the order comes in.

Execute order 13.

Every human is to immediately head to the weapons point in each of their housing estates and gather at a military base. An unidentified species has attacked multiple housing areas and are currently sending ground soldiers to kill any survivors. Fight to the death. No surrender.

My parents seem to have gotten the order too as their heads perk up, just like mine.

Good soldiers follow orders.

I feel like I'm going to vomit. I can almost imagine the battlefield. I've seen it many times before in my nightmares.

I feel like I'm watching through a screen now as my body picks itself up from the floor and walks out of the door, my parents following alongside me, and every other human in my housing area, except Mayday and his parents. I try to force myself to stop walking, stop walking towards certain death.

As my body walks itself to the weapons point at our housing estates, I can see Mayday running up to me and asking me what's going on. I try to shout, "Help me!" but nothing comes out of my mouth as my body stares blankly ahead, still walking.

Mayday shakes my shoulders. I can feel it. As much as I want to respond to him, to run away with him, my body simply won't allow it.

Mayday's parents come up to me as well, and drag me away. My body struggles desperately with considerable strength that I didn't even know I had, but was probably activated by the chip. My limbs thrash around wildly as I try to escape Mayday's parents' grip. They drag me to their house, and lead me into a basement, where a few people are already there, I assume they're friends of Mayday and his parents.

Then, I feel Mayday's parents strapping me to a table connected to a machine. My body is still struggling against the restraints as I feel the prick of a needle against my neck, and everything goes black.

When I wake up, I'm not watching myself through a screen anymore. My vision is blurry as I move my hand to see if I'm in control of my own body now. My hand moves ever so slightly as my vision starts to clear up.

I let out a soft groan as I sit up on the table, my restraints were taken off at some point, apparently. I try to project the screen of what's going on outside in front of me, but I can't. They've taken my chip out.

Mayday runs over and throws his arms around me, and I hug back ever so slightly. "You're back!" he laughs as he lets go of me. "We thought you weren't going to make it, you weren't waking up..."

I silently nod, scanning the room. It's dimly lit by a singular lamp, and there are around seven people in there. My parents included. Mayday and his parents must've saved them too.

Suddenly, I hear the sounds of bombings above me. The lamp in the room flickers and shakes.

"Let's go. We can't save any more. They're all at the military base, they'll be armed," Mayday's mother says. All of us quickly run up from the basement. Mayday's house is in ruins. But that's the least of our worries right now. Bombs are being dropped a few kilometers from us, I can feel the force of the explosion hitting me.

We quickly run into the forest to take shelter. They won't attack the forest. There's no humans here to kill, at least up till now. We keep running, deep into the forest until the sounds of bombings are faint and barely audible.

When we stop, I slump against a tree, breathing heavily.

"What now?" I manage to ask in between gasps for air.

Everyone looks at each other, as if they want to ask the same question.

Mayday's father speaks up.

"We hide, I guess. At least until the war is over. We won't be attacked here. We're safe."

I hear the faint sound of bombings again.

Safe? I hope so.

Our Own Choices

Chapter 12

Anyways, the droids arrive soon enough, and Crosshair is camping with Echo and General Skywalker on a cliff, using the high ground, something which I never thought General Skywalker would use. (if you know you know)

I blend in with the shadows of the rocks, waiting for the droids to arrive. My sword is in my left hand, because my right hand is basically useless, and my other pistol is in the holster on my belt, I'm ready to drop my sword and use my pistol anytime I need to. Just gotta wait for the droids to come and for Wrecker to take them out.

I can feel the tension in the air. No one likes the calm before a battle. Especially not me. I prefer to watch the carnage as I slice up clankers.

I hear the droids flying in, and I don't move. I hear the rock rolling down the hill, crushing a few droids as it passes me, and the locals move in. 

They're definitely cannon fodder. 

I watch some of them get shot in the head, and some of the others being the MVPs by taking out a bunch of droids. So I start to get some kills, slicing some of the droids and Crosshair's stealing some of my kills. I'm just about to slice up a clanker when it gets shot in the head, and I look up for a moment, still holding my sword, and hold up a middle finger at him, and I receive a warning shot that whizzes past my head and shoots a droid that's behind me.

I stay close to Hunter, Tech and Wrecker and they're getting more kills than me, and Hunter's taking out droids with style. Tech rolls a stun grenade at the droids and it stuns them, and the Poletec leader runs up to us. I sling my sword back onto my back. 

I see a droid standing up and is aiming for the Poletec leader, and I quickly draw my knife and throw it at the droid's head, just as it gets headshotted by Crosshair. I see him pointing his middle finger at me and I do the same in response.

I look up at where Echo and Crosshair are at, and Echo's shooting some flying droids. I draw my pistol and start shooting at some of them, managing to hit one and Echo hitting another.

I see a walker droid landing near us, and I immediately run to take cover, splitting from the others and blending into the shadows, and I consider running up to where Echo and Crosshair are, but that would draw attention to them and also leave me exposed. Actually, maybe I should do that. Could kill Crosshair in the process. Something I would very much like to do.

The walker droid shoots a beam of explosive light at Rex, Hunter and the others and at the other Poletecs, and they all run to try and take cover, out of my line of sight. I can hear other spider droids coming, and a bunch more of those flying ones.

I run in the shadows silently, taking out a few droids here and there as I make my way to where the others are. I see Rex, Hunter and Wrecker shooting at a walker droid, so I follow them and start covering them, taking out some of the droids that are shooting at them and dodging the walker's legs that are currently trying to crush us.

I hide behind a rock and watch as General Skywalker slices up the walker. 

"That seemed to work, but how do we get up there?" Rex asks, and in response, Wrecker grabs him and throws him up to the walker's guns.

"NO NO NO NOT AGAIN-"

I'm laughing as I watch Rex get yeeted up to the gun of the walker and just hanging there.

As Wrecker goes over to Hunter and gets ready to throw him, I step forward. 

"Ladies first," I say, before Wrecker yeets me up to the top of the walker. I land on my shattered hand, which sends a wave of pain through my head and my right arm, and I hold back a scream. As I roll off the round top of the walker I stab my knife into its head and land in front of the eye of the walker, right above the gun.

Ow. My fucking pelvis. Ow.

Hunter gets thrown up as well, and the walker's head spins, and I'm clinging on for dear life with one hand. I stab my knife into the walker's eye, Hunter does the same on his side, and Rex shoots the one on his.

I see General Skywalker force-pushing the walker to crash into ours, and we go crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. 

REALLY GENERAL? YOU SERIOUSLY HAD TO FLEX LIKE THAT AND LITERALLY ALMOST CRUSH ME?

Everything's blurry for a moment and my head hurts as I regain my sense of surroundings. The droids are retreating. Wrecker helps me up, followed by Hunter and Rex. As we all stand up, I hear the Poletecs cheering. Hunter, Wrecker and Rex take off their helmets and I try to do the same with one hand, doing so with some difficulty.

"It's hard to compete with a Jedi," Hunter says.

Soon, we head back to the ship, followed by the Poletecs, who I assume want to send us off. As we walk, Echo notices my hand swelling, a side effect of basically shattering it.

"You okay, ad'ika?" he asks.

"Just shattered my hand a bit, some surgeries will get it fixed up before the next mission," I reply.

The Poletec leader walks up to us as we stand in front of the ship.

"Thank you for helping us in our fight," General Skywalker says, and Tech translates it. The Poletec leader says some stuff in response.

"He said the Jedi will always have an ally here on Skako Minor," Tech says as the Poletecs walk away.

We start walking up the steps and enter the ship.

"You stole my kill," Crosshair says as he elbows me in the back, causing me to trip slightly and almost fall down the stairs.

I chuckle. "Too slow."

Then Crosshair goes over to Hunter and says some stuff as Rex and Echo walk into the ship. Rex sits next to me.

"Hey ad'ika, how's your hand?" he asks, and I ignore him.

"Aris..." he puts a hand on my shoulder, and I stand up and walk away from him.

Not like you give a shit anyways.

I head over to where the batch are chilling and spin my knife with my good hand. Wrecker looks impressed, and Hunter takes out his own knife and does the same. I glance at Rex for a quick moment. He's looking down, and that's when I know something's wrong. I look away.

Doesn't matter. Wrecker's impressed, and Hunter's trying to one-up me. That's the only thing that matters.

Aris: A Skywalker Story hit 1k reads yesterday :)

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 2

Warnings: Slight mention of blood, profanity, weapons

One thing I notice about Antarctica: There's not much of a day. It's night all the time.

Me and Mayday's families choose to stay in the same block of houses, our apartments right next to each other. We choose the top floor to get a good view.

We're within walking distance of the ray shield. When we look out from the windows of our apartments, we can see it, the light from the moon shining on it, otherwise unnoticeable to the naked eye. Soldiers guard it. That'll make it hard to explore the terrain outside.

I notice that the apartments that we stay in are less well-furnished than the ones in the central area. And a lot less well taken care of. But, considering that I lived in a bunch of tents stitched together in one tangled mess, I can't really complain. Better to have a stable roof over my head than one that threatens to fall with every movement I make.

At least it's convenient to hangout with Mayday. His family's apartment is just a few steps away from my family's. 

After my family and I finish setting down our things, I immediately head over to Mayday's apartment. I only see his brothers and his parents there. I don't get to see Mayday's brothers very often, but I know there's five of them and they're all older than him. It must be hard to have 6 mouths to feed at home. It's already hard enough to feed one kid in my family. That one kid's me.

When Mayday's parents see me walking in, they tell me that Mayday's out, and I immediately go to look for him without saying anything, leaving the door open behind me.

The city is bright. Corners of buildings are illuminated by lights. The markings on the road are lighted up. A stark contrast to outside the ray shield. Outside's dark. 

Downstairs is crowded. Adults push past each other as they try to make their way towards the central area. Probably to get jobs. I catch sight of my parents amidst the crowd, but I make no move to alert them of my presence. 

One adult runs into me and the force knocks me to the ground. I can feel the rough black dirt-like substance that covers the ground scraping my knees.

"Watch it!" the adult shouts before running off, and I glare at him.  I get up and dust myself off, blood oozing out of the scrapes, and I wipe it away with my saliva because that's what I always do.

Why would they make the ground out of this substance? It's so easy for someone to injure themselves like this.

I keep a lookout for Mayday. And if I know him, he's probably in a place where no one would bother him. He likes the quiet. Back in the Dome, we used to hangout at the places close to the ray shield. No one goes there unless they want to experience the full-blown heat of outside.

I head into alleyways that are close to the ray shield, hoping to find Mayday there. I gave him my knife after our last scavenging trip, he usually cleans it for me. Maybe I'll hear the sounds of him scraping the blood off my knife. I don't know. My hearing's fairly decent.

Maybe Mayday's gone home. That's unlikely though. He doesn't usually do that until it's really late out.

And as expected, I soon hear the sound of rock scraping against metal. I follow the direction of the sound, and soon enough, I find Mayday leaning against a wall in a dark alleyway scraping blood off my knife and sharpening it. He doesn't need to look up before he knows I'm here. He can tell by the sound of my footsteps.

I lean against the wall next to him as I watch him scrape the blood off my knife.

"How long?" I ask. He knows I'm referring to how long he's been cleaning my knife.

"An hour," he replies, not looking up at me. 

"You know you don't have to do it for that long, 10 minutes is enough to get the blood off," I say, looking up at him. 

"And 1 hour's enough to get it completely off and sharpened," he says, handing me back the knife. It's even sharper than the day I found it. I turn it around in my hands, and then spin it, throwing it up in the air and catching it by the hilt. Then I sheath it into one of those metal sheaths for knives that I found on a scavenging trip not too long ago. 

Mayday smiles slightly when he sees me throwing my knife up in the air and catching it. He's seen me improve over the years. How I've accidentally cut myself a bunch of times trying to do that. Now I can do it almost flawlessly. 

I kind of want to hug Mayday for spending a whole hour sharpening my knife, but I know he doesn't really like physical contact, so instead I just give him a downwards nod of respect.

"You wanna go to the ray shield and scout ways to get out?" I ask. Mayday nods in response, and we run silently through the alley and emerge on the other side. 

We're still some distance from the ray shield, but the rest is open ground. We back up against the walls of the alleyway, taking care not to make a sound so that the soldiers guarding the ray shield won't notice us.

3 soldiers stationed from where I can see. One's sleeping. The other two look tired. Probably from being on duty the whole day. Mayday and I stand there for a while, looking for any disturbances or glitches in the ray shield. 

Nothing. It's stable. Not like the one back in North America. There were holes in the shield. So much easier to sneak out. 

After an hour or so of observing, waiting, for any possible way of getting out, we head back to our apartments for the night. I'm depending on Mayday to know the way back, because I forgot the way when I was looking for him.

Luckily for both of us, he knows the way back. He's got a good memory. 

Pure, unclouded moonlight fills the empty streets as Mayday and I walk through them. I look up. It's a full moon tonight. And somehow, tonight's moon isn't red, it's white instead. It looks so much cleaner. I stop for a moment to look at the moon, and Mayday keeps walking, knowing that I'll definitely catch up.

He's right of course, and after a few moments of analyzing the darker patches on the moon, I run to catch up with him.

"Took you longer than usual," he says, eyes fixated on the road ahead of us.

"Oh y'know, just distracting myself from that thing in the morning," I reply, not wanting to specify what "that thing" in case anyone's watching us, no matter how unlikely it may be.

Mayday nods, taking the hint. We'll discuss it tomorrow when we're amongst the crowd. We could try to look for some jobs tomorrow, just to earn some extra income, although we probably won't be able to get any, considering we're home-schooled, our parents passing them whatever limited information they managed to learn from our grandparents. 

When we reach back to our apartments, I give him a downwards nod before heading through the door. I don't get questioned by my parents where I was, they already know I was at the ray shield looking for ways to get through. That's what I did back in North America. That's how I met Mayday, actually. He mistook my footsteps for a guard's, and literally threw a knife at my head. Good thing my reflexes were fast and I managed to dodge though. The knife only sliced my shoulder.

When he found out he threw a knife at a 13 year old girl, he wordlessly went out to the flooded ruins and tried find something to wrap up my bleeding shoulder. Obviously, I came along with him, and we managed to find a mostly intact Hunger Games hoodie, he cut off the hood to wrap my shoulder. 

"Do you come out here very often?" I asked him, and he was a bit hesitant to reply. "Yeah. Every day."

Then we didn't speak for the rest of the day, just scavenging for things that we could use or sell for money. 

From then, we went out every day to the flooded ruins, and he slowly warmed up to me, speaking a bit more and cracking a few jokes here and there. We're a good team. Mayday's good with directions, and he taught me how to throw knives and use one in close combat. I'm the one who could had slightly heightened senses, slightly better than his. My hearing, eyesight, and sometimes smell. I could smell explosives in some of the flooded houses. That's when I knew not to go in them. 

Then when I found a blaster pistol and trained myself with it, I taught Mayday how to shoot it. The one piece of information that my parents passed down onto me was how to shoot a rifle and pistol. Line up the front sight with the back sight, and then aim at the target and shoot. I've gotten quite decent at it, although Mayday's still better at knives. He beat a fish to death with the blaster once.

I lay on the floor, the bed reserved for my sleeping parents. I stare up at the ceiling for a bit, before opening the window to get some fresh air and staring up at the moon again. It's gotten a bit red, like things are getting back to normal. 

I look across at the ray shield and down at the soldiers guarding it. A few of them are sleeping, but still standing up. I don't notice much, until the moonlight hits just the right spot, I see a small hole in the ray shield. Not big enough for adults to fit through, but definitely big enough for me. I don't know about Mayday. Maybe he can get through with a few burns.

I'll tell him that in the morning.

For now, I close the window and lay back down on the floor, closing my eyes and trying to get some sleep.

The uneasy feeling in my gut still hasn't gone away.

i need more crosshair drowning scenes im just addicted to crosshair suffering atp

happy bad batch eve

(im too lazy to type it out again)

Our Own Choices

Chapter 2

Clone forces rally. As the war escalates in the Outer Rim, the Jedi Knights are spread thinly across the galaxy.  Many new clones are rushed into service to support their Jedi generals. Unfortunately, because of the relentless demands of battle, many young clones must join the struggle before their intensive training has been completed. These clones, manning a vital network of tracking stations, are all that stand between the Republic and invasion.

I gotta admit, training isn't fun. Rex says it's hard at first, but I'll get used to it. Rex and some other troopers from the 501st train me, and physical training is a literal nightmare. When I wake up the next day my limbs feel like they're gonna fall off. To be honest, it would be better if they did.

I haven't seen Kix after that first time we met, and I haven't interacted with any of the other clones either.

"We want as few clones as possible to know that you were a deserter," Rex says.

"What's a deserter?" I ask him.

"Someone who left the army without permission. People like you."

"But I'm back now, right?"

"Still, we should be cautious."

Most of the time Rex isn't around for my training, he's planning battle strategies with the Jedi Generals and out in the field. 

There's one time Rex comes back from the Battle of Christophsis and he tells me General Skywalker has a new padawan.

"She really thought since she was a commander she outranked me." Rex and I sit on a bench at the side while I'm taking a break from my training. 

"I'm guessing she doesn't, because-"

"In my book, experience outranks everything."

"In your book, experience outranks everything."

Rex and I say it at the same time. Rex chuckles and pats my head. "I see you've at least learned something from me."

"How could I forget that one line you say at least once a week?"

"You got a point kid."

"If experience outranks everything, then why won't you let me get out in the field to get experience?" I ask, probably for the 4th time that week.

Rex's expression hardens. "We had this conversation before, kid. It's too dangerous out there for you for now, you gotta focus on your training first, and when I say you're ready to get out there, you can join me and the boys in the 501st. Got it?"

I roll my eyes, sighing. "Fine."

Rex hands me a few credits. "Go get yourself some new clothes when we land on Coruscant tonight, okay? Your old ones are getting a bit tight." And then he pats me on the back and walks off.

I put the credits in my pocket and get back to training.

I'm still better using a knife than a blaster, but I'm pretty decent with a sniper as well, my long-distance aim with a pistol is shitty, but in close range I can get a good headshot in. 

Rex let me keep my knife, and he even got me a larger one which looks a lot more like a sword, the orange highlights on it match the ones on my old knife. 

Recently, Rex and Cody have been checking the Republic outposts for inspection, and I haven't seen Rex in weeks. 

When Rex finally arrives back on Coruscant, I'm already standing at the hangar waiting for him, crossing my arms.

"What took you so long?" I ask.

"I told you that it was gonna be a few weeks," Rex sighs. "Nice hoodie you got there, by the way."

"Thanks. And what did you say about teaching me how to use those deflector pucks for trick shots before you left?"

"I said that was after you mastered shooting a pistol." 

"But I already have! I can get a headshot from like 3 meters away." I protest.

"3 meters isn't far. You'll be shot down by clankers before you could even get that close."

"Aw cmon, captain, at least give me a demonstration," I smirk. I know he hates it when I call him "captain".

"No time for that. Commander Cody and I are going to the Rishi outpost in a few minutes, I was just checking in on you."

"Oh, how kind of you," I reply, before walking away.

Once I see Rex turn his gaze away from me, I run behind a box near the ship, and wait for Rex and Cody to get into their ship. As the door of the ship starts to close behind them, I slip in at the last second quietly and hide in the darkness, hoping that no one heard me.

As the ship lands on Rishi, the lights at the back of the ship, where I am, turn on. I draw a quick breath, there's nowhere to hide, and Rex and Cody are coming. So I stand up and smile awkwardly.

"Hi guys."

"Kid, what are you doing here, I told you to stay on Coruscant and train," Rex sounds annoyed.

"Who's the kid?" Cody asks.

"Hey commander, name's Aris, I'm basically like the captain's secret trainee," I say, casting a quick glance at Rex, who puts a hand to his forehead and groans.

"I never thought Rex would personally train a kid like you," Cody says. "Where'd he find you?"

"We-we can explain that later, let's just get this inspection over with first," Rex says hastily.

"Just don't get in the way, alright kid?" Rex asks, not waiting for a reply and walking out of the ship with Cody. I follow behind them.

They're busy complaining about having no deck officers on duty here at the outpost, and that the clones here are sloppy. I don't think they are. Something feels off. I can see faint lights coming from behind the boxes, and I don't really think that's normal. I quicken my pace and move closer to Rex.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Cody says as the door to the outpost opens and a clone walks out.

"Welcome to Rishi, commander. As you can see, the outpost is operating at peak efficiency. Thank you for visiting, and have a safe trip back," the clone says, with some weird-ass hand movements. Something's definitely off, and both Rex and Cody glance at each other.

"We need to inspect the base just the same," Cody says.

"Uh, there is no need," the clone says. "Everything is fine and fully operational."

I pull at Rex's arm. Rex nods back at me.

"Take us to the sergeant in command," Rex says.

"Roger roger."

Rex and Cody look at each other, and I'm slightly confused. Suddenly, I see a flare rising up behind us.

It's a droid attack flare, I was just taught that a few days ago.

"A droid attack flare," Cody and I say at the same time. Rex shoots that clone in the head, and he falls to the ground.

"Woah, Rex, what the heck are you doing?" Cody sounds alarmed.

I don't say anything as Rex goes to inspect the body.

"Relax," Rex says as he takes the helmet of the clone, revealing a lifeless commando droid under the helmet. "Looks like one of those new commando droids."

"That flare must have come from the survivors," Cody says.

Suddenly, blaster shots come from all directions and Rex and Cody start firing.

"Get behind me kid," Rex says as he dodges a blaster bolt. I don't protest, staying as close to Rex as I can. Just the sound of blaster bolts whizzing over my head is enough to make my blood run cold. It's not the same as in training. If I get shot here, I will most likely die.

Some of the commando droids are using the boxes to shoot from the high ground. Cody manages to get a few shots on one of them, but they just get back up again.

"Those clankers have tough armor," Cody exclaims. 

I run as fast as I can behind a box to take cover, covering my ears and closing my eyes tightly, curling up into a ball. I can almost feel the shot on my shoulder again. My breathing quickens.  Rex and Cody go to take cover where I am.

"We're cut off," Cody says, he and Rex keep firing at the droids. His voice sounds muffled in my head.

"Get me outta here...get me outta here..." I whisper to myself, pressing my knees to my forehead.

And then I hear the sound of grenades landing near our area and Rex grabs my arm, shoots a grappling hook to the platform and lowers us down to the ground. Cody's next to us as I hear an explosion.

When my feet touch the ground, I lean against a rock to stabilize myself, my legs are shaking, my shoulders are tensed, I just stare straight ahead, breathing heavily.

"Kid, are you okay?" Rex puts a hand on my shoulder. "Are you hurt or anything?"

I look down at the ground, avoiding eye contact. 

"Aris? Look at me. Are you okay?"

I look up at Rex. "I shouldn't have come."

"Yea, you shouldn't have. But you're here now, and you're still alive, so I'd count that as a win," Rex smirks.

I nod, trying to slow my breathing down, my shoulders relaxing slightly. 

"This is just like training, okay? Don't worry about it."

Rex turns to Cody. "Well this sure complicates things, Commander. No worse than that time on Tibrin."

"We had jedi with us on Tibrin," Cody says as we stare at the flaming wreckage of the ship. "They helped."

"What...happened on Tibrin?" I speak up in a small voice.

"Not now kid," Cody snaps, and I go quiet again.

3 clones walk towards us through the smoke of the wreckage, and Rex and Cody raise their blasters at them. "Hands above you heads. Take your sun bonnets off."

I think he means helmets. But seriously? Sun bonnets? You couldn't come up with something better?

My hand reaches for the pistol at my belt as I stand behind Rex and Cody, wondering if I should follow them and point my gun at the clones.

"Uh, sir?" One of the clones sounds confused.

"Take them off. Now!"

The clones raise their hands in surrender, take their helmets off, and they're not droids.

Suddenly, an really big eel-like thing crashes through the rocks at our side and roars at us. I stand there frozen while Rex shoots the thing and kills it in one shot.

Rex takes off his helmet and goes to check whether the eel is dead. 

"Nice shot," one of the clones says.

I back away from the eel's body but behind me is darkness and I don't wanna get ambushed by any more droids, so I just stay close.

"The name's Rex," Rex says as he checks the eel's body. "But you'll call me "Captain" or "sir"."

"Sir, yes sir!"

I really don't wanna talk to Rex when he's like this. I have a slight fear or superior authoritative figures.

"I'm commander Cody, your new boss," Cody says as he takes off his helmet.

I smile awkwardly and wave at the 3 clones. "Hi..." 

They ignore me. 

"My designation is trooper 27-5555, sir," one of the clones says. 

"We call him Fives. I'm Hevy. This is Echo." Hevy points to the last dude.

"Where's your sergeant?" Cody asks.

"Dead, sir. We're all that's left," Echo says.

"Looks like we got a batch of shinies, commander," Rex says as he walks up to the clones.

"Shinies, sir?"

"That's right. Your armour, it's shiny and new, just like you," Rex says.

At least they have armour.

"Sir, me and my batchers are trained and ready. We'll take back our post, shiny or not."

"There's hope for you yet, rookie," Rex says.

"Hey kid. You're not supposed to be here. It's dangerous."

I look up, Hevy's talking to me.

"I know, I was following the captain along without his permission, cause I thought I could get some experience here, but..." I look down, my voice is soft.

"It's scarier than you thought it would be?" Echo asks.

I nod. "I wanna go back."

"Well, you can't get everything you want, kid. And if you're looking for some experience, you're sure gonna get a lot of it here," Hevy says. "What's your name?"

"Aris."

"Like the leader of the 504th Legion?" Fives asks.

"Rex named me after her."

"You look like a clone. Are you?" Echo asks.

"Mhm. Female clone. Wasn't meant to exist, but here I am. Made to be physically weaker than the others." I chuckle, looking down. "But I'm definitely not weaker. I'm equal to them."

"Alright boys, keep quiet and follow me," Rex says, before starting to climb up a ledge. 

The others all follow, and I'm at the back. 

Okay. You can do this. Just like training.

I take a deep breath and start climbing.

Don't look down, don't look down, there's no harness, just don't look down and don't fall or you're gonna become a piece of roti prata and die-

I cling onto the rock that I'm climbing on tightly, and I make the mistake of looking down. My whole body tenses up, and I draw a few quick breaths before looking back up again. I can feel the sweat running down my face. My arms are shaking. All I can hear is my heartbeat now.

After what seems like forever, we make it up to the top of the ledge, and Hevy helps me up. My breaths are shaky as I wipe the sweat off my face.

"Look sharp, rookies," Rex says. "As long as those tweezers occupy this post, our home planet of Kamino is at risk."

I look up. Kamino? 99's still there, isn't he?

"But there's so many of them," Hevy says.

"Doesn't matter, kid. We have to retake this base, so we will retake this base."

"How do you propose we get through those blast doors, Rex, old boy?" Cody asks.

"I have a few ideas."

I gently tug at Rex's arm.

"What is it, kid?" Rex asks, turning to face me.

"Can I...sit this one out, sir?"

"Look kid. We need all troopers for this. Including you."

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna die. I'm scared."

Rex puts both hands on my shoulders. "You're not gonna die kid. You'll be fine. What happened to getting experience, hm?" He playfully punches my shoulder. "You'll be okay. I promise. Just remember your training, okay?"

I take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. It's not working, but I don't show it, and I nod. 

We reach the front blast doors of the outpost and Cody and the others hide at the sides, so I follow them, pistol in one hand and my vibrosword in the other.

Rex walks up to the front door.

"Unit 2-6, is that you?" the commando droids in the outpost ask. 

"Roger roger," Rex says.

"You sound strange. Is something wrong with your vocabulator?"

"Roger roger."

"Take off your helmet. Let me see your faceplate."

"Roger roger."

Rex ducks and uses the commando droid's head from just now and shows it to the camera.

"This is never gonna work," Cody puts a hand to his helmet.

The blast doors open and Rex holds up his pistol.

"Clones!"

"Roger, Roger."

Rex takes out the droid in the middle and the others take out the remaining 2.

"Right, let's move."

The others run into the main room and take cover at the sides, shooting at the droids. I stay behind and take cover from the main hallway, not looking behind me. I can see blaster bolts whizzing past me, but they're not going to hit me.

I hear Fives getting shot and Cody telling them to focus. I look back and see Rex in the main room, where a commando droid is trying to melee him.

I draw my vibrosword and run into the main room as Rex dodges the swings of the droid, and I slice the droid in half from behind. The others take out the last 2 remaining droids and the room is clear.

"Thanks kid," Rex gives me a downwards nod of respect.

I sling my sword back onto my back and lean against a wall at the side while the others roast the droids that they just shot down.

"Get to the window. It looks like we have more visitors," Cody says.

We all run to the window and look outside.

"It looks like a separatist fleet."

"That's why the commandeered the outpost," Cody says. "They're mounting a full-scale invasion."

"We have to warn command," Rex says.

"Shouldn't we hide? If they're gonna mount a full-scale invasion we don't stand a chance," I speak up, and everyone stares at me. "What? I'm telling the truth."

One of the clones goes to try and transmit a signal. 

"Those clankers sabotaged our transmitter, and they hard-wired the all-clear signal. It'll take time to-"

"We don't have time. Look."

A ship is descending in front of the outpost.

"Guys we really should go," I'm making my way towards the vent, ready to run.

"Well kid, you're gonna get a lot of experience from here," Echo says.

"We can't protect the outpost long against that army of clankers," Cody says.

"Then we'll destroy the outpost instead," Rex says.

"But sir, our mission is to defend this facility at all costs."

"We have to warn the Republic about the invasion. They'll take notice when the all-clear signal stops."

"That's right. When they stop receiving our beacon, they'll get the message something's wrong," Fives says.

"We'll need every thermal detonator in the inventory," Rex says.

I slowly open up the vent cover, ready to slip inside.

"It'll take more than a few detonators to destroy the outpost."

Then someone suggests an idea to blow up the outpost using liquid tibanna.

"Good. Bring the tanks here and prime the detonators," Rex orders.

Just as I'm about to slip into the vent and run away, Rex notices me.

"Hey kid, don't think about going anywhere."

I freeze, looking up at him.

"I have no interest in dying today," I reply. 

"I thought you weren't weak?"

So I help the boys carry the explosives to the main room as I hear the battle droids marching towards the front gate.

When we manage to get it all to the main room, Rex and the others gather around, and I stand behind Fives, Echo and Hevy.

"Alright listen up. There's only one target of interest in this sector: Kamino. It's the closest thing we clones have to a home. Today we fight for more than the Republic. Today we fight for all our brothers back home. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

Rex looks at me.

I take a deep breath and steel myself for the high possibility of dying. "Sir, yes, sir." 

We head into the weapons room where the others take their weapons. My hand rests on my pistol, and the other on my vibrosword. I turn to Rex, who's making his way to the main room. He nods at me.

I can feel my heart in my throat now, and it must have been pretty obvious to Cody, because he puts a hand on my shoulder and says,"We're gonna survive this kid. Trust me.

Hevy goes to the front and takes out a bunch of battle droids with that gatling gun of his, and then Cody, me and the others come in. 

I shoot at the droids with my pistol and blaster bolts narrowly miss me, and everything's going so fast, I can't comprehend what's going on.

One of the clones throws a grenade at the battle droids, knocking most of them off the platform while the rest of us fall back, closing the blast doors.

They get blown up from outside and the battle droids enter, still shooting at us, and I run into the main room, with the others following behind after a few moments.

I hear Rex say that the handset wasn't linking up with the detonator, and Hevy says he'll handle it, telling us to get out of here.

We run to the vents and crawl through them, with Rex leading the way. We reach the outside in a few minutes, hiding behind a ridge.

"Hevy, hit the-" Rex looks behind, and Hevy isn't there.

"Where's Hevy?"

Echo and Fives shake their heads.

Rex talks into his comlink. "Hevy, get out of there."

"The remote isn't working," Hevy reports. "I have to detonate it manually."

I move to run back into the vents and try to make it back to the outpost, the others follow me. I'm running as fast as I can, and crawl into the vents, trying to make it back.

I hear the others trying to contact Hevy, but they're not in the vents yet. I gotta get there.

And then I hear the sound of explosions and debris falling, the vents shake, and I curl up into a ball, covering my head.

When the shaking stops, I open my eyes, and I see Rex pulling me out of the vents.

"You okay kid?" Rex asks.

I nod, staying close to him as we head back to the others.

Hevy's gone.

"We've got those tinnies on the run," either Fives or Echo says, I can't really tell. 

"Thanks to Hevy."

I hear the sound of gunships descending.

"We're getting of this crater boys," Rex says.

We all get on the gunships, and I remain silent for the whole trip back to the cruiser.

Fives and Echo are getting some random award thing from General Skywalker, and Rex says he's considering adding them to the 501st. I head back to the barracks and just chill there for awhile, thinking about everything that's just happened. It all feels so fast.

About an hour later, Rex comes in.

"Hey kid, how're you doing?"

I remain silent.

Rex sits down next to me.

"Yknow if it wasn't for Hevy, we wouldn't be here right now," he says.

I nod, staring up at the ceiling. "I shouldn't have come."

"Yea, it's a lot more different than training, isn't it?"

"It's so...scary, my mind just goes blank, and I forget everything I learned during training. Being a soldier's hard."

"The first few battles are always like that, but...you'll get used to it."

"I'm not gonna be in another battle. I'll just stay on Coruscant and continue training. That's what you want, right?"

"Hm. I could let you come on some of the less dangerous battles, how about that?"

I hesitate. I can almost imagine the sickening feeling in my stomach when the outpost blew up, when I realised that Hevy was gone. I can almost feel my heart pounding in my head every time I see live fire whizzing past my head, when I narrowly miss death by an inch.

I sit up and look at Rex.

"I don't wanna go."

Rex looks at me, confused. "What?"

"I'm done with being in battles. I'm not going to fight out there in the field anymore. I'm done. I'm leaving."

Rex sighs. "Look, ad'ika-"

Fives and Echo come into the barracks. 

"Hey kid, how're you doing?" Echo asks. "You were pretty good out there with your knife and your pistol."

I look up at him.

"I know what you're thinking, kid. You wanna leave after your first skirmish, and to be honest, I can't argue with that. It's a hard life, being a soldier."

I nod.

"But we're fighting for the Republic, for a cause that we believe in. Out there, we gotta be strong, we can't show weakness, and we show those clankers what we're made of, got it?"

I nod again, and Echo and Fives walk away.

Can't show weakness. They always said I was made to be weaker than the others. Gotta prove them wrong.

I turn to Rex.

"Maybe I'll take a few weeks on Coruscant to train and prepare myself, and then maybe I'll consider coming along on those less dangerous battles."

Rex smiles, and nods. "Okay then ad'ika, we've got a ship leaving for Coruscant in a few hours, and I'll see you in a few weeks."

"What does ad'ika mean?" I ask.

"You already know, kid. All clones do."

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Cya, captain."

Rex groans.

"And for the last time, DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

Our Own Choices

Chapter 1

When I first opened my eyes, everyone around me looked the same. We were all clones of Jango Fett. But for some reason, everyone avoided me. I didn't know why until I looked into the mirror for the first time.

I never looked like the others. I was a girl. The rest were all guys. I always ate alone in the cafeteria, and sometimes I talked to this clone called 99, who was defective, just like me. 

I've seen these clones who don't look like the others before, but I never really got the chance to talk to them, I was mostly put with the regular clones. 

The regs said that I was a mistake, that I shouldn't have been created, but I didn't really care much. I was gonna be a soldier and serve the Republic, just like them, right?

A few days ago, I saw 99 on cleaning duty, so I went to help him out a bit.

"Y'know what they do to defective clones like us?" 99 asked. I shook my head, I probably didn't wanna know the answer either way.

"They make us do jobs like this, transporting weapons and stuff, cleaning up after the others."

"Mhm. And soon enough they're gonna make me do that as well, aren't they?" I asked. 

"Yep."

I could understand why, though. I was also physically weaker than the other clones, which would be a disadvantage on the battlefield. 

If the Kaminoans were gonna make me do that kind of shit for the rest of my life, I was gonna have to make my own path.

Jango and Boba Fett were living on Kamino, and I knew for a fact they had a ship. So when a Jedi ship landed on Kamino, I snuck onto Jango's ship and hid there. Wasn't really hard, cause no one seemed to care about (biologically) 14 year-old me anyways.

Soon enough, the ship took off and we landed on Geonosis after a totally calm ride through an asteroid field.

I mostly stayed in the ship during that time, not wanting to get noticed. It was only when the blaster fire died down that I ran to a hangar, stole a random ship and flew off to a place in the outer rim, where hopefully no one could find me.

I mainly survived on cantina leftovers, and found a knife on the floor which I always kept with me in case I needed to defend myself.

That definitely came in handy when the Separatists took over the planet where I was. I hid in the alleys when battle droids patrolled the streets, and whenever they came into my territory, let's just say they didn't come back out.

I remembered when the clones came to clear this planet of the Separatists, I remembered the blaster fire, and I was covering my ears hiding in an alley, curled up into a ball when battle droids came in.

Instinctively, I reached for my knife and sliced the head off of one battle droid, and the others pointed their blasters at me, about to fire.

I managed to stab another in the head before one of them shot me in the shoulder. It felt like that area where I got shot was being burned, and I winced, holding my shoulder and backing up against a wall, the battle droids still pointing their blasters at me.

Suddenly, the battle droids were shot from behind, and I saw a clone in white and blue armour standing there, pistols raised.

"You alright kid?" he asked.

I nodded, still holding my shoulder. 

The clone examined me for a moment. I could feel my heart pounding in my head.

Please don't recognize me as a clone, please don't recognize me as a clone-

"Are you a clone?"

Ah shit.

There was something different about this clone though. I felt like I could trust him, I didn't think he would turn me in to the Kaminoans.

I nodded silently.

"You're a...female clone?" he asked.

I nodded again.

"Cmon. We should get you patched up. That wound on your shoulder looks nasty."

The clone held out his hand, and I hesitantly took it, following him to a republic ship.

"Now just stay here, the medic will come in a while, I'll come back in a while."

I watched as the clone ran off to the battlefield, rubbing my shoulder.

When the medic came, I asked him,"Who's that clone in the white and blue armour?"

"That's Captain Rex," the medic said as he bandaged up my shoulder. "He's a good soldier. Why'd he bring you here?" 

"Just lucky, I guess," I replied.

The medic chuckled a bit under his helmet. "Name's Kix, what's yours?"

My voice was quiet. "I...don't have one. Back on Kamino, I was just assigned a number."

"You're a clone?" Kix asked.

"Mhm, female clone, I was never meant to exist but, here I am. And I swear if you bring me back to Kamino I'm gonna make sure you're gonna have an injury that you can't fix." I said, motioning to the knife on my belt.

Kix laughed. "I won't turn you in, we're not snitches."

"Good for you."

A few hours later, Rex and the others returned. The other clones all gave me this "who tf is this dude" look, and Rex motioned for me to follow him, which I did. He led me to a room and sat me down on a bed, and took off his helmet.

"How're you feeling kid?" he asked.

I just nodded as a response.

"Clones your age should be on Kamino, not out here."

"Don't bring me back, I don't wanna be on cleaning duty for the rest of my life," I said quietly.

"Why would they make you do that? You're a clone, just like all of us are. We were bred to be soldiers."

"I'm physically weaker than the others, you could say I'm a defective clone." 

"That doesn't make you any less valuable than us." Rex put a hand on my good shoulder.

I shrugged my shoulders. "The Kaminoans gave me basic military training but not much else, I'm quite alright with a knife but I don't mind using a sniper either."

"I could train you myself..."

I immediately jumped up from the bed. "HELL YEA LES GOOOOOO"

"But it's not gonna be easy, and you can't just back out halfway through."

I sat back down on the bed, nodding.

Rex smiled. "Do you have a name?"

I shook my head. "I was only assigned a number on Kamino."

"Well, there was this jedi general who was really good at her melee skills, used swords and everything when she was transported to another realm and found her way back here. Her name's Aris, leader of the 504th Legion and general Skywalker's sister. So let's just call you Aris for now, how does that sound?"

"That sounds like a cool name," I replied, nodding.

"Okay then, Aris. Welcome to the Grand Army of The Republic."