guys just because someone is an ARC Trooper does not mean they have ARC designations.

There are ARC clones, and then there are clones trained to be ARC troopers.

For example: Jaing is an ARC clone. Fives is a CT clone trained to be and ARC.

This is not the same.

Voices Long Gone

As always, AO3 link below. Sorry to my want to write for Kix and the next chapter of Beginn, apparently Domino took over the writing brain cells today

Summary: 

It shocks him the first time Echo does it after Rishi. Not because it’s new – far from it, actually. In fact, Fives is certain Echo doesn’t even realize he has a habit of mimicking his brothers when he quotes them. 

With the others, it’s noticeable, but mainly only if you look for it. But with this particular one… as long as someone understands Basic, they pick up on it. Because Cutup had kriffing decided to speak like that when they were six.

--

Or, Fives' journey through hearing Echo mimic Cutup's accent following Rishi, and then some.

----

It shocks him the first time Echo does it after Rishi. Not because it’s new — far from it, actually. In fact, Fives is certain Echo doesn’t even realize he has a habit of mimicking his brothers when he quotes them. It’s another reason they call him Echo, though his brother doesn’t know that. They hadn't said so on Kamino and he's only picked up on the fact that they started to call him that for his repeating phrases and commands.

With the others, it’s noticeable, but mainly only if you look for it and know the various inflections the same voice could have. It’s more noticeable to those who knew the full squad, like 99. 

But with this particular one… as long as someone understands Basic, they pick up on it. Because Cutup had kriffing decided to speak like that one Military History/Sparring Instructor they had had when they were six he had thought was cooler than the rest. He’d purposely made the accent thicker and himself more and more difficult to understand when they'd protested against it until they gave in. 

It always is obvious when Echo mimics something Cutup had said, matching Cutup's ridiculous (but unique) accent almost uncannily for someone who doesn’t speak that way as often as their batchmate. Echo had started doing it when quoting Cutup within weeks of the accent's appearance. Nothing new now, but for some reason…

For some reason, following the disaster on the moon, Fives had assumed Echo wouldn't do it anymore. But of-kriffing-course his twin would, he didn't even know he was doing it. And Fives knew that, yet he had still thought differently.

It shouldn't even be as big of a deal as his mind was making it out to be. They were eating with their new squad in the 501st (the 501st!), talking more. Both of them had been quieter than normal after everything, but their squad didn't know that. Within a few weeks, when everything didn't ache and it was only when he focused on it or was reminded by random things, they would. But not quite yet, even if they were speaking what some squads might call an average amount. (Domino had never been average, in the worst and best ways.)

“After all,” Echo says, “it’s like I’ve been told many times: never wear three sets of blacks at the same time.”

The squad laughs lightly, slightly confused on the accent change, but Fives freezes, fork halfway to his mouth, as the pain that hasn’t gone away yet intensifies. He misses Cutup so much and he didn’t think he’d ever hear his voice again. And while he technically isn’t, Echo does a karking good job of making it sound the exact same way Cutup said those words. 

He struggles through the rest of the meal, trying to not drown under the grief that washes over him. Still, he dismisses himself early and leaves to find a quieter, less public place to try to not break down. Echo gives him a worried look as he stands and leaves, oblivious to what was racing through Fives’ mind. The squad lets him go, understanding and knowing to leave him alone, that Echo will find him soon enough. The way it has been with both of them the past few weeks. It’s not like they have anything immediately scheduled for after the meal, anyway.

Later, he doesn’t tell Echo the full story. He’s not sure how telling Echo he sounded just like Cutup would affect his brother’s ability to do it the way he did. So he skips over that and focuses on how hearing that phrase again made him miss Cutup more than he would’ve expected a year ago.

Echo apologizes for causing him grief, but Fives tells him an apology isn’t necessary. It’s not his twin’s fault they both have more trauma than most of their brothers have at their age. It’s certainly not Echo’s fault for trying to keep his memory of Cutup intact by repeating what he’s said. (Especially when it fell under why-Echo-is-named-Echo in both categories.)

The second time it happens, Fives isn’t as shocked. He knows it’s a possibility this time, sees the way the conversation is heading and the variety of answers Echo could give. The grief still twists sharp, but the time that’s passed means it’s slightly easier to bear. 

He surprises himself by not frowning or freezing when he hears the mimic. He’s missed hearing his three batchmates speak, and it’s oddly comforting to hear their words the way they said it once more. Though he doesn’t always pick up on Echo mimicking Droidbait and Hevy, especially as they meet more brothers who must’ve had the same trainer or something and say things just similar enough to how those two said them. But Cutup’s isn’t one he’s encountered elsewhere, isn’t one he thinks he’ll ever encounter again, so hearing it from Echo is the closest thing he’ll get to hearing him speak again until he’s marching on, too.

Echo continues to unknowingly mimic Cutup after the first and second time and Fives can’t bring himself to stop him, can’t bring himself to want Echo to stop doing it anymore. Even if he has to explain to a puzzled brother every now and then after the conversation is over.

Through Saleucami, Kamino (99 smiles widely when he notices Echo doing it after they explain what happened), ARC training, and beyond, Echo continues to do it. One day, having just returned from an ARC mission with the 104th and trying to get some rest in the general barracks instead of alone in the ARC ones, Fives overhears some of Torrent talking about it. Eyes closed and across the room, after clearly being exhausted when he’d greeted them, they think he’s asleep.

“Has anyone told Echo he switches accents sometimes? It’s odd, isn’t it?”

Hmm, that sounds like one of the shinier troopers. One who has been around long enough to get more used to calling Fives and Echo by their names and not just “sir” or “ARC Troopers Echo and Fives” but not long enough for anyone to tell him why Echo did that yet.

“He says stuff like his batchmates when he quotes them. The other brothers he’s known for a long time, too,” someone — Jesse, maybe — tells the kid. “If you listen closely enough, you’ll catch when he mimics Fives, Kix, Rex, and so on. Fives said it’s subconscious.”

“So why not tell him? Wouldn’t he want to know he’s saying things like his batchmate? I think I would.”

A silence follows long enough for a shrug. “Well, Fives said he’s sure if telling Echo he did it would affect his ability to do it the way he did. Ya know, if he becomes aware of it he might become overly aware of it and either not mimic it properly or stop doing it.”

“Yeah,” that sounded like Kix. “Plus, it makes Fives smile. I think he even nudges conversations in certain ways because he wants Echo to do it when one of them is missing their batchmates particularly hard. We don’t want to take that away from them.”

Oh. That wasn’t something he’d consciously been doing, either. But now that he knows, he isn't going to stop. In fact, it might actually make him do it more frequently. No, he will do it more frequently. He always misses Domino so much.

Too soon after this revelation, however, it never happens again. 

Too soon after Rishi, too soon in his life, too soon too soon too soon. Now he’ll never hear something Cutup used to say the way he used to say. (He never had the same mimic abilities as his twin, after all.) Now he’ll never hear any of his batchmates speak again, whether themselves or through Echo’s insanely accurate subconscious impressions. Now they’re really voices long gone.

Too soon, Echo’s voice becomes another of the long gone.

Fives keeps the memories of Domino and Echo mimicking Domino the best he can. He can’t bring himself to reference things they said as often as he used to. It’s like the Force or fate or whatever decided to play some cruel, ironic trick on him, only and specifically him. Throw in the name of their squad and, well…

When brothers start to take notice of what he’s doing, of the lack of the mimicking, too, they ask questions. Questions Fives avoids, deflects, only really talks about with the members of Torrent he’s known the longest (that number shrinks with every battle). 

But Fives will take what he can. Even if he’s the last of Domino Squad, he can still talk to Kix and Jesse about them and reminisce on reminiscing about his batchmates with them and Echo. He can tell Tup about Cutup, Droidbait, Hevy. He can tell Tup about Echo’s mimicking habit and other things he didn’t get to experience himself and what Fives misses. 

He takes what he can get, what his conscious and subconscious mind will let him take. Some, in this aspect and part of war, are better than none. The brothers that do learn and listen to him, the ones he can talk to about most (but never all) of it are better than none. They’ll keep memories of Domino going on longer than he could by himself, as long as everything plays out right.

Nothing plays out right. Some of the brothers he talks to die, he doesn’t open up to more. Fives hears Cutup’s voice once again; it’s actually coming from Cutup himself. Rex’s voice fades out and his batchmate’s fades in. It reminds him of just how accurate Echo’s impression was and then it reminds him what exactly hearing Cutup himself implies.

The more time passes, the more 501st members there are that don’t know about Echo’s habit or Fives’ reaction or how they honored their batchmates or anything past the rumors about them. There’s only so much that can be shared when it’s learned second-hand, after all. Those that know try their best, though. Fives and Echo would appreciate it if they knew, they think.

(Things change when Echo returns. Suddenly, Rex is the one reeling when Echo says something the exact same way Fives had said it years and years ago and less than a year ago. A recall of something Cutup said quickly follows it. Torrent remembers conversations both long ago and recently passed.)

(Later than that, Fives isn’t around to explain to the Bad Batch the first time Echo mimics his brothers around them. They don’t know how to ask Echo about it, either.)

Fives was right, in more ways than one.

A World on Fire

     The world burned.      Then, all at once, it went dark and quiet.

     There was nothing, I couldn’t remember how I had gotten here, or why the world had been on fire in the first place. I felt nothing, there was emptiness around me. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, and I wondered if that’s what was happening. One moment, the one of my death, stretched infinitely. I drifted, feeling the emptiness around me, the only thing I could center myself on was the pain in my own body. As I drifted, I saw a row of five jars on a cloning facility far away. Five children. One would be shot by a droid, another eaten by an eel and the third would die to protect the remaining two, as well as the facility. Could the Kaminoans have known that, before they pulled us from our jars? Would they have treated us any differently if our fates were written in their records before we were even born?      What had become of the fourth?      Would would become of the fifth?      I drifted and saw those five children. When they had nightmares, they just had each other for comfort, when the Kaminoans punished one, the hurt was felt by all five. An older clone watched them, their older brother whom the Kaminoans would have killed if the Jedi weren’t there. Five brothers who only began to be torn apart when the stress of failure hung over their heads. Fives and I never discussed it after the Rishi moon, but there had been one fight before Hevy, Droidbait and Cutup died, back when the five of us sat on the lonely outpost together. How angry Cutup was at us for trying to switch squads and jump ship. How much we had hurt them by trying to leave them.  Hevy had not weighed in; he had almost done the same, but he wasn’t about to disagree with Cutup either.      Is this what they felt when they died?      This weightlessness? This sense of emptiness and never ending pain?      I hoped not. I hoped it had been quicker for them.      I felt the edges of myself start to erode away; as my life unfolded before me, so was it stripped away. I was ARC trooper, I was a trooper, I was a shiny, I was a cadet, I was a jar. Unseen hostile hands grabbed at me, pulling parts of me away, tearing them away with blood and fear. They probed and ripped away at me, not caring what went with it, as long as they could find the information they wanted.  I did not cower, I did not beg them to stop, I knew they would not. Take my number, I begged. Here it is, CT-1409. It is the part of me that I don’t want, I have never wanted it. Take it instead. There is nothing else I know, nothing else I can offer. I am just a clone, but I won’t tell you how to undo me, how to undo my brothers or how to undo the Republic. This is just torture, drawing out my death which is coming for me whether or not I tell you what you want, so I will be patient and let it come. I will tell you nothing, except my number, the one thing that I don’t want anymore. Take it, it is yours. I will sing it until I die, and you can have it, and that is all you will get from me.      I must be dead; nothing hurts anymore. I don’t feel anything.      CT-1409.      CT-1409.      CT-1409.      CT-1409.      CT-1409.      The world burned again.      Light floods in, I gasp with the sudden pain of it. I should be dead but death shouldn’t hurt this much. My eyes open, bracing against the harsh world that has intruded on my death. I look up, expecting to see my brothers that are dead, but I see my captain instead. Tears shine in his eyes as he anxiously looks down at me. He offers no explanation, just a word that is so full of questioning sadness and hope. I don’t recognize it; its meaning has been stripped away from me. I must have known it once, a long time ago because I feel my heart break when I hear it (can a dead heart break?). But I don’t anymore.      “Echo?”

Past Lives, Chapter 9/?

On AO3 Chapter 1 on Dreamwidth

Chapter Nine

The armor … took some doing.

"I'm sorry, we don't have the equipment to fabricate or modify armor here, Sergeant," said the armorer, a Specialist named Tripwire. "And even if we did, I wouldn't know how to use it. Clone armor comes standard, and it fits like a glove because our bodies are all the same." The armory was a tent with one of its sides rolled up, situated next to the mess tent at the center of camp, just where it would have been in a First Order camp. Easy to get to, no matter where you were, if there was an unexpected need to rearm or change weapons load.

"But what about your Jedi?" Finn asked. "They don't have full armor, but they've at least got something. Or Kenobi and Skywalker do, at any rate."

"The Jedi get their armor from the Temple, not from me," Tripwire said. "Not that they wear much of it."

"And what happens if you gain weight? Or lose it, on a long campaign with fewer supplies?" Finn asked. "What happens if you get switched to a different job and your muscle configuration changes because your activity profile does?" Basic Stormtrooper conditioning was always the same, of course, but many specialties had additional special training or duties, and that always affected things.

Tripwire and Kano exchanged glances. "We're all fed the same thing, so any changes tend to be battalion-wide," Tripwire said.

"But if you can't modify the armor, all that means is that everyone's armor fits wrong," Finn pointed out.

"And while you can get food on the black market special, or sometimes when we're on a planet with markets and people are willing to trade with us, they strongly discourage anyone from eating enough to alter your functioning to any degree."

"Fair enough," Finn said; one of the happinesses he hadn't anticipated about leaving the First Order was getting to choose what he ate and when he ate it. "But you can't tell me that ARC troopers and regular troopers have the same musculature, much less pilots and ARC troopers."

"So?" Kano said.

"You're telling me that you still wear the same armor?" Finn demanded. "Doesn't it chafe?"

"Yeah, but armor isn't supposed to be comfortable," Tripwire said. "And that's part of the point of mass-produced soldiers. You can mass-produce the gear, too, and do you think the bean-counters on Coruscant care if it chafes a bit?"

Finn shook his head. "But it impedes efficiency. Oh, well, it’s not like I’m going to be trying to fight in it anyway.”

“If you have to, we’re all screwed,” Kano said.

“The bodysuit is going to be the real problem,” Tripwire said. “It doesn’t have a lot of give in it … and you’re a full two centimeters taller than a brother. It’d be easier if you were two centimeters shorter, instead.”

“The bodysuit is crawling up my ass,” Finn said, shifting uncomfortably. And it was chafing his dick. Two centimeters didn’t sound like much, but it was the difference between fitting perfectly and … not.

“Could we just cut it in half so it’s pants and a shirt?” Jesse asked. “It’d kill the temperature controls and some of the blaster protection, but it’s pretty temperate here and if he’s not going to be fighting …”

"If we need temperature controls, or are going to be in combat, I can change bodysuits," Finn said.

“Here’s the armor,” Tripwire said, handing over a standard armor crate, just like the ones Finn had used all his life before defecting. He felt a lump in his throat, and he couldn’t tell whether it was positive or negative.

“And here’s the paint and brushes,” Tripwire continued, bringing out a container and a package.

“What?” Finn asked.

“Say, what’s your design, anyway?” Jesse asked.

“My what?”

“Your design,” Tripwire said. “Your paint? Armor-tat? Second face?”

“You know, the stuff you paint on your armor to show who’s in it?” Jesse said.

“Any sign of individuality got punished,” Finn said. “If they knew you had any designator other than a serial number, they would punish you for using it. We were only allowed to take off the buckets to eat, sleep, bathe, and for medical purposes.”

Jesse looked more horrified than he had when Finn had told them about the fall of the Republic. Tripwire sat down slowly on the armor crate behind him. It was, Finn realized, the heart of the difference between the Old Republic's clones and the First Order's troopers. Both were mass-produced and conditioned for battle, both were disposable in the service of their nations, both were designed to be interchangeable.

But for the Clone Troopers, that uniformity had limits. As long as they could fight interchangeably, their thoughts could be as individual as they wanted … and so could their armor. That was … he needed to think about that.

“Well,” Tripwire said, with a determined voice, “here you can put whatever you want on your armor.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Finn said. “Can’t you just … do something apropriate? Ordinary? The whole point is to blend in, so, you guys know more about what type of paint would blend in than I do.”

“Of course not!” Jesse said, voice rising in horror. “It’s your armor. Your paint! Your second face! Kriff, Finn, you just—you just don’t mess with another man’s paint!”

“So, I’ll think about it, figure something out,” Finn said. “Once I get a design, can one of you paint it? I don’t know how to paint.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” Tripwire said. “It’s just regular paint. I know curved surfaces and plastoid take a little bit of getting used to, but it’s not that bad.”

“I’ve never painted anything before.”

“Well, it’s not that different than drawing, then. Just draw the outlines and fill them in.”

“I’ve never drawn anything before, either.”

There was a silence, for a bit, as the two clones digested that, faces drawn. Finn stood there awkwardly, not sure why they were so profoundly shocked by this. He got why never being allowed to take your armor off was horrifying; even he had known it was bad, back when he’d never had any experiences outside of the First Order. And the Resistance members, the few he’d talked about it with, they’d all agreed with him. But none of them had ever even mentioned anything about art. None of them really made art, that he knew of. But to Tripwire and Jesse, no artistic experience was unthinkable.

“Tempera used to be part of the training cadre, he’d know how to teach art,” Jesse said at last.

“All I’ve got is paint and markers for the armor,” Tripwire replied, “but I think the quartermaster has more. I KNOW he’s got tablets and styluses that are fitted with a basic drawing program.”

“Okay,” Finn said slowly. Looks like he was getting art lessons. It wasn’t very practical, but on the other hand, what else was he going to do while they waited? It’s not like they could send him out on missions, the clones had the regular garrison duties taken care of, and there were only so many hours per day that he could debrief.

The first thing they had done, once reaching Coruscant, was to give Bail every file they had about the contract that had produced the clone army.

"That is all that you know?" Bail asked incredulously, looking over the reports. "I've always known there was more to the story than the bare-bones account that the Senate was told, but I assumed you knew it and just didn't want to share for some reason. Classified for the war effort, possibly. But you never investigated it at all, did you, once you'd discovered it. A mysterious army was dropped in your lap just as war breaks out, and you never asked any questions."

"The Force moves in mysterious ways," Master Windu said stiffly, "and we had rather more immediate problems at the time. You yourself voted for the bill that gave the Jedi authority over the clone army, and turned us into officers. Since then, we have had very little to spare for investigative work."

"Yes, but I assumed I could trust your competence," Bail said, matching his tone. "From this, that doesn't seem to have been the case."

"Oversight is the Senate's responsibility," Master Windu replied. "Even if it had been classified, you had a right to ask—either in person or on the Senate floor—to see that the investigation had been done, even if you were not cleared to see the results. And what do you think would have happened, if we had refused to take command of the troops until the investigation was complete? Or if we had admitted publicly that one of our members had gone rogue and ordered this without our knowledge or wish? Or diverted significant attention from the war to continuing the investigation? You're the Senator, you tell me."

Bail sat back, stroking his beard. He hated to admit it, but Windu had a point. After Geonosis, the whole Republic had been caught up in war fever, so focused on the need to punish the Separatists that any delay or foot-dragging was seen as treason. And that was just public opinion; if Finn was correct, and Palpatine was a traitor bent on destroying the Jedi, he would certainly have been able to use any reluctance to his advantage. "So you chose expediency and political considerations over doing your job fully."

"Yes," Windu said. "And how many times, Senator, have you and your colleagues done the same?"

Bail nodded unwillingly.

"In any case, what's done is done," Windu said. "Recriminations at this stage will get us nowhere. We need proof of Palpatine's treason—or loyalty—and we need to make contingency plans."

"What did you have in mind?" Bail asked.

Ahsoka stepped off her ship and locked it, clasping her cloak firmly against the wind. The problem with going incognito on her own was that anyone who knew anything about Togruta could see that she wasn't fully mature yet. As a Jedi, she had become a legal adult when she was apprenticed. Young, and still needing supervision as far as the Jedi were concerned, but an adult as far as anybody else was concerned.

Undercover, without Jedi status, nobody who knew what an adult Togruta looked like would believe she was one. Her montrals were too small and stubby.

She hoped that as long as she kept her cloak up, nobody would notice. Or maybe mistake her for an adult of another species.

Ship locked and docking fees paid, she got herself a room for the night and began looking up medical supply companies. There should be a fair number—this planet was known in the region for its medical supply companies—and hopefully she'd find one she could order from over the holonet and have it delivered to her ship, with no need to talk to a sentient being who might remark on her age.

She couldn't wait for her montrals to get their full growth. Missions like this would be so much easier.

"The first step," Tempera said, "is just to get you used to creating." They were sitting side-by-side at a table, thankfully with no one else in the tent with them.

Finn was getting really tired of being stared at. He'd been stared at when he first joined the Resistance; it wasn't like they got defectors from the First Empire every day. But they'd all been busy, and nothing he could tell them about the First Order and how it treated Stormptroopers was a surprise to them, not really, and if First Order defectors were rare it wasn't as if they'd never happened.

Time travel made him absolutely unique, and most of what he'd told people about his life experiences was a horrifying shock, and they didn't have much to do until Commander Tano returned with the specialized equipment and droids needed for neurosurgery. They had a lot of time to stare at him. Tempera hadn't, so far; Jesse had talked to him about art lessons out of Finn's presence, and Tempera had been nothing but matter-of-fact since he'd shown up. It was a nice change.

Finn sighed and turned his attention to the functions of the tablet Tempera was showing him, how he could produce lines of different thicknesses and colors, how he could erase what he didn't like, and so on.

"Good," Tempera said, after quizzing Finn to make sure he remembered what he'd been shown. "Now draw whatever you want to draw. Scribbles and doodles and random stuff is fine, don't worry about whether it's good or not. You don't have to show it to me if you don't want to." He turned to his own tablet and began … doing something on it.

Finn pondered the instructions for a bit. "Tempera?" he said. He had an awful feeling this was going to start another round of horrified stares.

"Yes, Finn?" Tempera said, looking up from his tablet.

"What's 'scribbles and doodles'?"