![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ihateflyingThat first mission, when he'd chosen Alec almost on impulse, based on bare glimmers of ... an independence and kind of intelligence that set him apart, turned into more. Every time he was given an assignment that didn't involve an entire blasted army, he chose Alec - and chose him with increasing deliberateness.
The mission to Upatu to bring in Grievous did involve an entire battalion, but it also called for exactly one Jedi to go in alone, to find the separatist leader before ships landed or troops deployed.
So, he went in alone, he found and engaged Grievous. When the absolute swarms of droids were deployed and Grievous realized that - again - running away was the best option, ships descended and boots his the ground.
He felt them all as individual lives, but he was most aware of Cody... and Alec.
He stayed on Grievous, trusting the Clones to handle the droid army, and keep them off his back so he could do his job. It wasn't anything all that unusual up to that point. A lot of dodging, some near misses, a chase, and a brutal hand to ...cyborg fight that ended with him using a blaster of all things to finish Grievous off.
He made it back to the battle arena, gave Cody instructions to move the troops to the higher levels and had his fallen light-saber returned to him by Cody. It was all... perfectly normal.
Until it wasn't.
Until part way up the steep rock wall he became the target.
Of his own men.
There was no malice or ill intention to warn him. Just suddenly at the center of a hornet swarm of fire. He had just about enough time to register that his men were shooting at him before the rock ledge he was on was hit.
He fell, slamming hard into the edge of the cliff face on his way down.
That alone would have knocked him unconscious, but the feeling of other Jedi deaths across the galaxy tearing through his mind pushed him even deeper into unconsciousness.
He hit water, a small opening of an underground river by luck -
Which, really, ultimately, only meant that he was going to drown, since he was deeply unconscious.
The mission to Upatu to bring in Grievous did involve an entire battalion, but it also called for exactly one Jedi to go in alone, to find the separatist leader before ships landed or troops deployed.
So, he went in alone, he found and engaged Grievous. When the absolute swarms of droids were deployed and Grievous realized that - again - running away was the best option, ships descended and boots his the ground.
He felt them all as individual lives, but he was most aware of Cody... and Alec.
He stayed on Grievous, trusting the Clones to handle the droid army, and keep them off his back so he could do his job. It wasn't anything all that unusual up to that point. A lot of dodging, some near misses, a chase, and a brutal hand to ...cyborg fight that ended with him using a blaster of all things to finish Grievous off.
He made it back to the battle arena, gave Cody instructions to move the troops to the higher levels and had his fallen light-saber returned to him by Cody. It was all... perfectly normal.
Until it wasn't.
Until part way up the steep rock wall he became the target.
Of his own men.
There was no malice or ill intention to warn him. Just suddenly at the center of a hornet swarm of fire. He had just about enough time to register that his men were shooting at him before the rock ledge he was on was hit.
He fell, slamming hard into the edge of the cliff face on his way down.
That alone would have knocked him unconscious, but the feeling of other Jedi deaths across the galaxy tearing through his mind pushed him even deeper into unconsciousness.
He hit water, a small opening of an underground river by luck -
Which, really, ultimately, only meant that he was going to drown, since he was deeply unconscious.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-29 06:22 am (UTC)That gets set aside in favor of a sharp intake of breath at that word, at that suggestion, and he looks up just as quickly. People.
"That's - simple for you to say."
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-02 02:16 am (UTC)"Most things are simple to say and much harder to do. This one just more so on both fronts."
It really is not going to be easy for him, either. At all. The idea terrifies him. It terrifies him more because it isn't something he wants, it's something he simply sees no alternative to.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 07:57 pm (UTC)It does mean he's used to watching, though, even if he doesn't have Obi-Wan's extra Force sense to work with: "What do you see as being the biggest challenge facing us?"
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-06 08:23 pm (UTC)Really, really, patient.
"The biggest challenge in staying alive at all, or the biggest challenge in my plan of being people?" Those are two different answers, though of course they can't become anything if they are dead.