Violence Is An Option

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WHO: Echo and youuuu
WHERE: Apoca-Temba
WHAT: Good Soldier follows Slaughter.
WHEN: During the Event
WARNINGS: N/A for now unless Violence Happens (To Be Fair I am trucking along and we'll just have to see where things go)

The side of his head throbbed.

Vertigo struck when Echo tried to shake off the shock, each breath loud and ragged within the confines of his helmet, steadying himself in the first few minutes of thick, muted silence.

He blinked, and he found himself amid a war-torn landscape. Foreign. Familiar. Active.

He blinked again, still in Temba, still in the city he and the others had been stationed.

(But was it Temba? Where was he?)

That didn't matter. The mechanical Eye bore down onto him, staring through him. He turned away, trying to concentrate through the noise that filled his ears, trying to ignore the pain that tightened within his chest, spreading like fire in his veins.

He had to find someone. Anyone. He couldn't be the only one in this situation.

That was what he had in mind: the best of intentions, doing whatever he could to figure out what was going on.

His entire being, however, said otherwise.

Comments

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They were winning. Or rather, it looked that way.

Droids were blasted apart by plasma bolts, their remains scattering across the battlefield as the others fell back. Eliminating all remaining enemies was a priority, had always been a priority, and Echo couldn't let them go.

A small part of his conscience tried to slow him down. Tried to stop him.

Tried to tell him to look back and see where the other troopers went. Look back and see if any were still alive.

Conflict. He still needed to crush the droids. Wanted to. Yet he turned, one hand tightening around the blaster's grip to be as prepared as he already was.

[tyrants_son]

He had never seen a battlefield so large, so swarming and active. He had never seen frames such as these, so thin, almost flimsy looking that he was surprised at all how they could even walk. But they put up a fight against these armored men.

He moved like a ghost through the field, every now and then raising his blaster to fire at one of the rigid robots, just another soldier out there, trying to stay alive.

It was strangely easy to find the sole person who did not quite belong. Hesitation had no place in a war. Or was it something else that drew Felwinter to him? Closer he moved, lifting his blaster to squeeze off several shots at a larger lumbering frame of metal, more sturdily built than the others, but limited in movement, he could tell. Still deadly, he observed, catching glimpses of bodies in white littering the ground.

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Blazing a trail ahead of the others gave Echo a sense of fulfillment. Pulling the trigger on his blaster filled him with temporary satisfaction, always vaporizing the second it registered.

Why?

He wondered, quietly agonizing over it as red colored the edges of his vision.

But he saw Felwinter -- another trooper, another clone, one of many brothers -- was pulling his weight, staying as close as possible despite the fact they needed to cover as much ground as they needed to, taking down the larger targets with expert precision. He didn't question that, didn't think too deeply about it, didn't find any reason to tell him to stop. He needed to keep him alive. Keep him from joining the others who weren't as lucky.

A gloved hand pulled out a detonator from his belt pouch, setting it off before pitching it into the droids now grouped together. Surprise and confusion were deafened by the explosion that followed, trails of smoke thick and trailing off of whatever remained.

[tyrants_son]

They were still standing, a number that would at times seem promising, at others suddenly dwindle. It was the rise and fall of an ocean, a crest and flattening of a wave. To what purpose? Did it matter?

Felwinter watched the ARC Trooper's back as dutifully as any clone would a brother. The sense of doubt welled the longer he lingered in his company. The questions would be the same as the warlord's at first, the why's, the what's...but quite possibly there might even be the who. Who was he any more? Why was he even fighting?

Behind Echo, the clone trooper Felwinter stretched out his hand...

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This was what they did. This was what they were meant to do.

Wasn't it?

A silent whisper questioned it. Said it wasn't right. Nothing felt right.

Echo didn't have time to think if it was him or if it was a fleeting memory of someone else's opinion. Something else came up instead -- strange. Surreal. Wrong.

And it came from behind.

The ARC Trooper spun around, seizing the clone trooper's arm with the intent of disarming a threat -- one precise motion, if hesitation hadn't set in.

[tyrants_son]

The arm though grasped easily was not so easily moved. Felwinter's hand remained outstretched but held in place when the ARC Trooper turned, the familiar visor of a brother looking back in eerie silence at Echo.

"What is this all for?" It was not the voice that sounded like Echo's own, but it could be for any number of things, faulty helmet speakers, the loudness of the battle still surging around them.

You are one in a faceless crowd, another faceless soul....

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A blank stare with someone behind it. With nothing behind it. And the longer he stared into Felwinter's concealed gaze, the more he felt on edge.

The voice -- his voice? -- was off-putting. But he heard him speak.

What is this all for?

A simple question. One he should know the answer for.

But he couldn't answer.

Why couldn't he answer?

The hand still gripping the trooper's wrist trembled. Each breath taken sounded thin, each exhalation filtered and woven into the raging cacophony they were supposed to be participating in, his mind reeling, struggling to tie up the loosened ends that were suddenly severed amid his thoughts.

And he didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.

[tyrants_son]

All around them, bodies continued to fall. Sometimes they were dressed in white, charred armor. Sometimes they clanked heavily, the shells of lifeless battle droids. And then they would stir, wearily pushing themselves back onto their feet, dragging their weapons from the ground as they hauled them up, shouldering them as they once again plodded back into battle, picking up as though they hadn't fallen.

Felwinter remained statue-still. He didn't even flinch as explosions tossed bodies and debris into the air somewhere in the near distance. He waited, his burning gaze watching behind that smoky visor. He could feel the ARC Trooper's hand as it shook, waiting for the slightest waver.

"You are merely fodder. A drop in a sea of millions. You are no one..."

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The faint twitch of his fingers was barely a warning.

What was spoken added fuel to glowing embers, reigniting the white hot fury the ARC Trooper let loose, shoving Felwinter away to lift his blaster, firing rapidly at renewed enemy lines.

Battle droids and the troopers alike fell and rose like tumultuous waves, stuck in a vicious cycle they couldn't break free of. And they were all a few degrees off from what they should be.

Just like the clone trooper that stood before him.

Echo rushed the stranger, elbow locked to knock him down. This wasn't a clone. This wasn't a brother. This shouldn't exist.

[tyrants_son]

He was losing him. Allowing himself to be shoved away, Felwinter kept well out of Echo's way as the ARC Trooper took his frustration out on those around them. He watched as more fell, pointlessly. And when Echo finally came at him again, the warlord was ready.

It felt like charging into a boulder once Echo came into contact with Felwinter. He had braced himself, caught hold of the clone's arm. The white armor was gone, replaced by a wind-whipped if worn greatcoat, and a dark, faceless helmet with twining horns. With a twist of his own arm Felwinter made to send the ARC Trooper sprawling.

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Who is this Who is he How dare he impersonate a clone how dare he say those things How DARE HE

Echo's mind raced, the weak attempt to make sense of anything outweighed by the need to destroy the figure who made a mockery of him, outpacing his physical body just as the violent shift in his momentum threw him off course. He landed roughly, hitting first with his knee and then his side, pain jolting past plastoid plates and feeding the fire that still churned within him.

Wasting no time in getting back onto his feet, the ARC Trooper trained the barrel of the blaster at Felwinter's head, squeezing the trigger as soon as it came up.

[tyrants_son]

The warlord twitched his head out of the way to just narrowly avoid the sizzling blaster fire. Under normal circumstances he could finish this in a heartbeat, bearing down either a blade of solar fire or the power of the all-consuming void. Here he had neither of these things, and not even a sidearm to lay down cover fire as a retreat seemed more and more efficient a choice.

Turning, he darted between more white-armored soldiers, tearing off one of their helmets and leaving a black void where a face should have been. Vanishing into the turmoil.

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Several blaster bolts were rapidly shot off after the first, none of them hitting their intended target as he practically flew past the troopers. Echo started his pursuit, only to skid to a halt when he saw Felwinter rip off a clone's helmet with one deft motion.

There should have been a face

The wrongness registered, snapping him out of his madness. For a short time, but enough to pause, to think about what just happened.

It left him stranded in the middle of the active battlefield, blaster now at his side, limp in his grasp. And the fight continued without him, like clockwork, like an endless waltz, each strained breath flooding his ears...