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The Good Guys Shot First
The sound of energy weapons firing across a landscape that looked like something out of Terminator was not how I wanted to spend my day off.
I don’t think anyone wanted to spend a day off waking up to a random warzone. Men in white and black armor with guns that shot blue bolts that scattered the pockmarked dirt and rocky ground with cliffs on either side of me while surrounded by countless robotic forms that looked more like metal skeletons.
All of them marched forward as I stood there in shock before getting shoved forward with the sound of metal banging against metal. I stumbled, almost falling, but managed to stop myself by grabbing the back of the robot and seeing robotic arms and hands instead of my human ones…
“Hey, let go!” The robot says in a nasally yet robotic-sounding voice as it waves its arms, trying to stay upright.
“Sorry… What’s wrong with my voice?!” I yelled out in shock, bringing my hands up to my throat before freezing when it was revealed to be a thin metal rod. My hands come up to my face, the thought finally catching up with me. They were not my hands.
My five-fingered human hands were gone. Instead, I bring them up to my face, noticing the sound of metal scraping against metal.
“Your voice sounds fine. Now, march, the clones and their Jedi commander are ahead of us!” One of the robots beside me said, forcing me to march along.
The sound of an explosion had me flinching in horror when, several yards away, several robots went flying. One of them lands on a robot, and it falls next to me.
I froze upon the sight of the robot that had just been hit as it struggled to get the remains of the robot off of it. Looking deeply at what was left of the robot, which was just a torso, I started backing away. No.
No no no no.
Fear coursing through me, I turned and looked around for a way out only to find myself surrounded by these machines that just marched onwards with no fear despite hearing the sound of constant laser fire ahead of me with more explosions hitting groups of the machines.
Seeing two large machines with six legs with massive cannons on their backs taking out numerous robots as they went flying with each shot.
Several salvos get far closer to me, making me stumble around before backing away, looking at the impending death waiting for me if I get any closer. So I did the only rational thing at what lay ahead of me. I start backing away.
The robots complained at my retreating form pushing through them. It was painfully slow going back, not helped by there being no end in sight of the sea of metal and machines marching onwards endlessly with no regard for their safety.
Hearing the sound of something above me, my eyes snapped up and saw a large blue orb crashing into the crowd of robots. They fall like puppets with their strings cut. Scorch marks marred their bodies before my head looked at the canyon walls, seeing no hope of escaping that way before the tide of robots got too thick to move through. Instead, the impending dread of what could be my death grew closer.
Try as I liked, I couldn’t get past them, as they had grouped more tightly, and when the chance did come to get past them, more just kept coming, forcing me closer to the ones slaughtering them.
Turning around to see the white armored figures, an idea formed when some clarity took hold of me. Realizing they are what the robot had said -- clone troopers from Star Wars. Looking around at the massive robot army and finally registering why they all looked so familiar -- B1 battle droids, like the ones I saw for the first time in The Phantom Menace.
The realization hits like a freight train. The Clone Wars. Looking down at the hands that were mine yet not, I saw the same robotic limbs as the rest of these droids. I am a droid. In the Clone Wars. A battle droid for the Separatists.
“Oh no.” The horror at that realization hit me like a freight train. Seeing the clone troopers just firing into the horde of droids with the bodies piling up on the ground. The other droids stepped over the fallen, just marching on as they all opened fire back at the clones, uncaring of the other droid’s destruction.
None of the shots even got close to hitting them where they hid behind cover with a human guy in robes with a blue glowing lightsaber blocking and deflecting going in between cover. The only things getting hit were the six-legged walkers, who simply shrugged off the blaster fire.
I even see another Jedi, an older-looking woman with blond hair that is graying at the edges, with a green lightsaber held at the ready, but unlike the teenager moving around so much, she was more conservative in her movements.
More shots are fired from the AT-TEs. The two of them mow down entire groups of battle droids as they try to shoot at the clones in the vehicles, which does nothing.
Getting desperate while drawing closer to the front of the line, and despite how many droids had died without gaining any ground beyond the small hill that had formed from their bodies we were walking over, I started jumping up and down and waving my hands in the air.
“Hey! Heeeeey! I surrender, please don’t shoot! I am not a droid, I was a human!” I yelled as loud as my derpy droid voice could, and some of the clones shooting from cover paused for a moment, one tilting his head and then gesturing at me with a few of the others who just nodded, and all aimed their blasters at me.
“Wait! I am human, I surrender!” I waved my hands at them, begging them to stop, as the older woman, who was serene before, looked at me curiously with a frown, followed by a narrowing of her eyes.
The clones don’t even say a thing and just shoot at me. I narrowly ducked under the blaster bolts hitting the droids behind me and toppling them as the droids in the front kept shooting.
Despite what the movies might show you about how slow blaster shots are, they are anything but that in real life. Not as fast as a bullet since I couldn’t see that with my old eyes or these mechanical ones, but those blaster bolts are fast enough that I only avoided them out of panic and luck. Lots of luck.
Stumbling back and forth in what amounted to a deadly game of dodgeball, and just like in middle school, the bullies all have the balls, and I have nothing.
Another droid gets shot behind me as the clones gestured to the others and one clone manning the gun on the top of their walkers waved at him before the gun swiveled in my direction.
“Why?! I said I surrender!”
The gun fired, completely ignoring my pleas. A dive to the side had me falling into a jumbled mess of droid limbs and bodies as everything shook from the blast impacting where I had been standing before. Fighting to untangle myself from the droid limbs and see the sky on a cloudless day with a yellow star high in the sky.
Glancing around while prone on my back, I see a rock off to the side and crawl over to it, bracing my back against it as my entire body shakes. So much for having a droid body. I can hear the rattling of my body as I let my head fall against the rock with a metal ding before placing my head into my hands, cradling it.
They tried to kill me. Even after I said I surrendered and everything I had said.
I can’t even let out a huff of air after making several attempts. A reminder of my new body. Then something happened that gave me pause, staring into the air, or so it would appear to any outside observer watching me.
You won a silver ticket for surviving several clone troopers that should have killed you. Do you wish to roll?
“Yes?” I was dumbfounded, feeling like this was some kind of nightmare or fever dream.
Novice Programming (1.4 Rarity, 0.68% odds)
-Common Skill-
You know how to code on the level of a novice, you can create simple programs, and know how to read, understand, and spot mistakes in codes. And you can do so in every single coding language you have encountered.
The instant I say the words, my mind is filled with coding information. Coding simple programs, but coding that I had never known about prior to this. Never knew a thing about it beyond what movies showed, and everyone knew how that was just a bunch of make-believe and not the real thing, courtesy of Hollywood.
Slumping down in depression, thinking I may have finally been given a means to get out of this situation only to be given something completely useless. Balling my metal fist before slamming it against the ground. Anger filled me at almost dying to a group of people I was trying to surrender to and get help from.
They are supposed to be the good guys… yet they tried to kill me. More blaster bolts impacted the rock as more and more droids died. I see the last wave of them coming up. The vast majority of the time I had spent getting behind the rock and subsequently getting depressed has been killing off any chance I had of surviving this.
Realizing what I am going to have to do, knowing the clones don’t see me as anything other than a droid, and I highly doubt they are going to let me get closer to them before they just shoot me.
Reaching over and grabbing one of the blaster rifles from the fallen droids and peering out to see one of the clone troopers who had tried to kill me just mowing down other droids. A cold fury crept into me.
“Alright, Tobi, just like with Dad when he took me out to shoot the BB gun. Just a bigger, more futuristic BB gun. Like a car is to a bike.” I said to myself in reassurance. The weapon steadied just enough despite swaying slightly.
“And this time I am just shooting a human man… who is trying to kill me and won’t listen.” I added the part about trying to kill me because I don’t think I would have it in me otherwise to do what I am about to do.
I just stayed there on one leg with the other kneeling in the dirt. If I had my mouth, I would find it dry, yet I couldn’t even lick my lips simply because I lacked them now. It’s an odd feeling, like phantom pain but not quite.
More like you try to do something, then notice nothing happening, and the realization sets in that you don’t have that anymore. What makes it worse are the things I took for granted. Like breathing. Or my heart beating as a constant companion all my life.
Now it’s just silence. The only thing I have to fill that silence and distract myself is the shooting all around with the occasional explosion.
Like the lack of any bodily functions, I didn’t realize how much I would miss it all as the weapon is ready to try and get a shot at one of the troopers.
Now confident enough to time the sway with the clone coming out of cover to take another shot, the trigger is pulled. The blaster bucked in my arms, but I stayed firm and didn't back up a step with the red bolt hitting him right in the helmet before he toppled over unmoving.
Several clones look at their fallen brother before looking back at me and shooting back. Ducking behind cover, the blaster bolts hit the rock with it, and the numerous bodies of the droids acted as a shield from any stray shots. The last dregs of the droids march onwards regardless of how futile it is for them.
Another silver ticket, and this time I got it for killing a clone trooper. Putting the thought of killing a living, thinking person to the side, I couldn’t afford to break down now.
“Later, I need to live now so I can break down later and figure things out.” My voice was alien and unfamiliar to me. It didn’t sound right.
Testing something out, instead of saying it out loud, I just think "yes," and it gives me something I didn’t expect, but I will take it if it can help me stop these guys from killing me.
Shadow Ball (2.6 Rarity, 0.36% odds)
-Uncommon Ability-
Allows you to conjure and launch a fast-moving orb made of shadows that carries destructive power and deals additional damage to spirits.
Oh hell yes! I can work with this, as the Jedi running around is standing at the front, blue blade glowing, as he deflects several of the blaster bolts from the last line of droids.
A few clone troopers are still shooting at my rock before I get brave or stupid enough to poke my head out and almost get it taken off, but not before seeing one of the clones gesturing at the closest walker and gesturing to my position.
“That can’t be good.”
And I am proven right when the walkers who are in a line act as cover for the clones behind them. The massive gun on one of them turned in my direction.
“Crap crap crap.” The clones haven’t stopped shooting at me. I hoped and prayed to God to please let the shadow ball have enough power to take that thing out.
Taking my blaster and placing it around the corner of the rock, I blind-fired several shots, waiting a second or two, hearing no more shots, before I hopped out of cover, dropped the blaster, and then cupped my metal hands together.
At first, a simple black spark would chirp out before, in the blink of an eye, shadows and darkness coalesced into my cupped hands, taking the form of a pure black ball the size of a basketball.
Strings of black electricity swirled around sporadically, forming a ring around it, kind of like Saturn. Except it’s all over it. Ignoring my inability to describe things and sounding like an idiot even to myself, I savored the sight of the cool orb of doom.
It looked like something Frieza or Cooler would use in Dragon Ball Z, I idly think to myself.
“Coooool!” I can’t help but say it out loud, realizing now is not the time, with the Jedi near the back now standing ramrod straight and looking right at me with a look of horror. The gun on the right walker is almost in position.
With a little hesitation before it is drowned out by the fear of dying, knowing that the soldier was going to kill me with no hesitation. Whatever hesitation fades away with the Shadow Ball shooting out of my cupped hands like a cannonball. Instead of hitting the pilot's seat at the front of it, the shot went for the side of the walker, realizing too late that my aim was off when I fired in a panic.
The idea was to shoot the gunner on top of it, but any fear of not taking it out and dying was resolved when the orb zoomed off, hitting the side of the walker.
Baboooom!
A massive explosion of shadows, smoke, and fire goes off as it hits the side of the war machine before it slides back from the force of the explosion and topples over on its side, and to my horror and shock, it rammed and crushed several of those soldiers.
The sound of blasters being fired at me from the remaining troopers and the young Jedi with the blue blade leaving their makeshift fort had all of my attention centered on them. The teenager was beelining right for me with what I assumed was his master yelling something at him.
The other walker's gunner, after witnessing what I had done, is no longer shooting at the last few dozen droids remaining and swivels in my direction.
Despite the fear of the kid coming at me with that blue glowstick that would carve me up like a metal turkey for Thanksgiving, I know the walker will get a shot lined up before he can get to me despite how fast he is, but there is still a good bit of distance between us.
That, and I’d rather not have to kill a kid, especially when he is a Jedi. They are supposed to be the good guys after all, and I have enough to deal with later on, having killed several men.
Cupping my hands again while stepping further back to my rock of safety and pile of droid corpses who couldn’t save themselves but will save me with the small hill made from their bodies.
Feeling the hum of energy form between my hands as I go off of instinct with another basketball-sized orb formed far quicker than you would think something of its size and destructive capability could be.
Firing another shot, except this time it whiffed; instead of going for center mass like the other one did, it goes for the leg of the walker near the back of it. It detonated just like the other one with the boom-like crack of thunder, followed by the leg and back of the walker engulfed in twisted metal, fading shadows, and fire.
Just as it slid back several meters, it fell to the ground with the gunner still in his seat. The war beast-like machine hit the ground, jolting the gun, with the gunner hitting the controls with his body, making the gun fire its payload right at the young Jedi running for him.
“Duck!” I yelled at the kid, placing my hands on top of my head in shock at what I accidentally just did.
The kid seeing what I was doing slowed down with his face scrunched up in confusion before turning around just in time to get a face full of plasma. Where he had been standing became a smoking crater.
“Oh come on-- Agh!” To my growing bad luck and ever-increasing belief that someone up in the heavens didn’t like me, I got beaned with a dented and smoking silver canister right in the head.
Knocked down to the bed of droid bodies, I saw what I now realized was the kid's lightsaber, with it spinning end over end, hanging in the air for a moment before it came down on my head again.
A sad groan escaped me. Sitting there for a moment, noting that oddly enough I can feel things, like the metal bodies of the droids or the rough texture of the rock, yet I can’t feel any pain. I guess that’s a good thing. Even if the feeling of everything was dulled.
Fighting to get out of the pile of droids to see the droid survivors had finally made it past the boxes and other supplies used as cover, gunning down the clone troopers that were left alive with them, managing to gun several of them down despite how few droids were left and them being horrible shots, they still have enough leftover to make up for that.
Just as the last of them were gunned down, several droids were picked up and held in the air by an unseen force before being sent flying into a nearby canyon wall, falling to the ground like lifeless dolls.
The remaining droids turned and opened fire, but several crimson-red bolts were batted right back to them by the emerald green blade of the remaining Jedi. The droids fall with her, rushing forward like a hurricane. The other droids’ shots were sidestepped and flipped over in elegant yet aggressive acrobatic maneuvers.
A twirl in midair and a flick of her wrist had three droid heads severed from their bodies, and I didn't even notice whatever reward I got.
Mesmerized by the sight of her cutting through the scraps of the droid army before I snapped out of it when she sent two flying with a raise of her hand. They landed in a heap before she turned her narrowed eyes and frowning face my way.
Stepping back instinctively -- despite being a machine now, I guess it isn’t too far-fetched to still have a fear response since I did display my fight or flight was still active when this fever dream all started.
My foot brushed against something. Glancing down to see the scraped and dented metal cylinder that any science fiction or fantasy fan would know by sight alone.
Scrambling to pick it up while the hum of her blade grew closer far faster than I liked the sound of. Holding the weapon in both hands held vertically, noting how it weighed more than it looked. Probably around ten pounds. While trying to hold the unwieldy thing, I got to witness her crossing several dozen meters in a matter of seconds.
She was a blur; if you could call it that, when you see an afterimage moving fast enough, you would have viewed it as a figment of your imagination.
She stopped a couple of meters from me with her lightsaber held at the ready.
“Please don’t do this. I said I surrendered before all of that happened. I am still willing to do so if you don’t harm me.” I tried to get her to see reason as I nodded my head at the flaming wreckage of what was at one point a fortified position to hold back all of these droids.
She looked at me with a stern look on her face while staying in the same position, her blade pointed right at me.
“A droid surrendering is a first for me, but you have long since crossed the line for me to accept a surrender. Not that I would, simply for what you are and what you have done. You killed my men under my command and my padawan.” Her tone was firm and resolute. She wouldn’t hear me out.
“They attacked me after I said I was willing to surrender and tried to kill me. I wasn’t a droid, I just woke up when I had just gotten into my apartment and taken a nap, and the next thing I know, I am here.” I went on a rant as my frustration showed when my voice cut in and out, sounding scratchy from the intensity of my emotions.
Forcing myself to stop and try to remain calm. “Look, I didn't mean to kill your padawan. That was an accident, and you know it.”
“An accident?” She chuckled, shaking her head at me. “Is that what we are calling it now? You're harnessing that darkness I could feel through the Force? That attack that destroyed two AT-TEs and killed all of my clones placed under my command, and you expect me to believe anything you say?”
Her tone is in disbelief, looking at me like she just heard the most ridiculous claim in her life.
“What was I supposed to do? Walk up and talk to you without your clones shooting me like I was a dummy on a shooting range?!” My hands were thrown off to the side in frustration before I realized my mistake and put both hands back on the lightsaber after I almost lost my balance.
Despite what the shows made me think of these things, it is surprisingly heavy. Sure, it weighed like those old barbells I used to help keep in shape, but try holding a ten-pound object for even fifteen minutes without it becoming difficult. It is not light, but it’s the only thing I have right now that can give me a chance to defend myself.
And that’s a depressing thought, knowing I don’t know how to properly swing a sword, let alone the super martial arts the Jedi, like the one before me, could use. My experience was just swinging a stick around pretending it was a sword when playing with the other kids when I was little.
So it’s not like it’s going to help me much, but it’s better than a blaster.
Remembering the thing isn’t even turned on and pushing the button only for nothing to happen. Oh boy.
If she noticed, she didn’t show it when she continued speaking while I rapidly pressed the button, hoping for it to turn on.
“I expected you to die, you abomination. I don’t know what the Separatists are doing or how they even made you, but you will die here, and I will warn the Republic and Jedi of you. If you are here, how many others have they made like you?” She said it with such resolve yet looked at me like I was a great and terrible evil.
Like a nun encountering the devil near some children. A monster that you look at with such hate for the evil it had committed. I… I may have messed up, but what choice did I have? Was I supposed to just let them kill me?
“Yes. Yes yes yes.” My words were panicked, knowing death was staring right at me, and she was pissed. The words weren’t meant for her, but the reward might save me.
She blurred forward while my hands fumbled with the lightsaber before it finally ignited. Her blade was angled to bisect me with a smooth horizontal strike. To both of our collective surprise, the blue blade snapped into position as if on instinct and intercepted her strike, deflecting and redirecting the blow.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, and despite having blocked that strike that by all accounts should have killed me when I couldn’t even keep up with it myself a moment ago.
But I see the cause staring right back at me.
Master Blade Weapon Mastery (5.9 Rarity, 0.58% odds)
-Epic Skill-
You are a true master of the blades, the kind only spoken of in legend. You are spoken of in the same vein as people like King Arthur and Lancelot, you are on the cusp of the sword saint realm, but you aren't quite there yet.
Now we are talking. If I had a mouth, you would see the biggest shit-eating grin imaginable.
Looking up at the look of surprise she gave me before she forcibly calmed herself. Her face set into a look of concentration before she took the parry as a fluke and went for another strike when she leapt overhead.
Her green blade snapped out, going for the top of my head, only for me to stop the strike, diverting the blow just a few inches to the right of my head.
She landed her movements that were at one point fluid and graceful, but now look flawed and inefficient to me. She leapt around me. Each strike would have killed me, yet each one didn't. Each was blocked with me grunting out of instinct and forced back a step each time.
It was made abundantly clear that my new body was not strong enough to fully block such strength without getting pushed back.
Instead, my body acted on its own, with my mind catching up on why it did what it did. As if muscle memory was doing all the work, or as close to muscle memory as this body can have with my new nature.
Each strike she slashed or slammed into me with the force redirected, diverting the strikes off course with me not having given up trying to reason with her.
“Just stop. I don’t want to kill anyone else. Let’s talk this out like reasonable people.”
My voice was calm, a stark contrast to the life and death battle that this had become. My body may not be as strong or as fast as hers was, but with the newly gained knowledge, my mind was unwrapping and beginning to comprehend that I didn’t need to move as fast as her.
I just needed to be able to react to her and keep up just enough to divert her strikes.
“You lie. You killed several clones and my padawan. You are a threat far greater than I had originally believed. The Republic must be warned of your existence.” She said this with a grave tone that made me pause, registering what she had just said.
It sank in, making me come to a cold realization myself. “I can’t let you do that. Very dangerous people cannot be allowed to know of my existence or what I can do. What little good it does do, know that I am sorry for what happened here and what I have to do to you.”
She scoffed before a soft chuckle escaped her, as if she just heard me proclaim myself god of the Force. That laugh was quickly wiped away when my blade snapped out, going on the offensive, angling the blade at awkward angles, forcing her to start blocking them.
But instead of a blade lock like she expected when the blades crackled and sparked against one another, I used the momentum from the rebound to continue the assault, with each clash of our blades getting faster and faster, not because my body was good enough to do such a thing.
Oh no. This body sucks… My growing knowledge, like an update file still getting downloaded into my head, told me plenty about how weak this body is. The only reason I can even battle her is simply my superior skill and taking advantage of her flaws in her form.
Even with the Force aiding her, she is getting desperate. The strikes came in at odd angles, and each of them forced her blade further and further away from vital areas before I saw an opening for her heart and took it.
Her blade came up just in time, faster than I had anticipated. She locked blades with me, stopping what would have been a killing blow. She sported a manic look in her eyes, licking her lips nervously, and steadily pushed me back. My feet desperately tried to find purchase on the droids we had been standing on.
“I don’t know what Count Dooku did to create an abomination like you, but your reign of terror ends here before it ever has a chance to begin!” Her voice is laced with venom.
I did a double-take at what she just said and shook my head at her.
“You're crazy. And about to die.” It was spoken far too calmly for such a dark thing to be uttered. The thing is I am about to do something crazy myself, but with her having me at a disadvantage, I don’t have much of a choice.
Taking a hand off the blade, she stared perplexed at what I was up to. My only arm on the blade groaned in protest literally when the metal was straining to keep her blade away from me.
The look of victory on her face was wiped away with what came next. In the empty hand, a black orb of darkness took form, smaller than the others, but I doubt it’s any less deadly. Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks, and a cold sweat formed on her face.
The wind picked up around us, and her graying blonde hair swept behind her. The orb was pressed closer towards her, forcing her to release the blade lock and swipe at it in the hope she could knock it away or destroy it before it could detonate.
Just as her green blade was about to connect, it dispersed, making her strike go wide, and before she could dodge or do anything mid-swing, the azure blade snapped out like a viper.
The woman was stunned into silence when she glanced down at her scorched stump. Her blade was extinguished and fell somewhere off in the distance amidst the hundreds, if not thousands, of battle droids.
She snapped out of it faster than one would expect after having their limb severed. Her other hand came up, but it too was severed, making her cry out and fall back, and before she had a chance to do anything else, I stood before her, blade held at the ready for her execution.
“You leave me with no choice.”
It’s the only thing I could say to her having already apologized for what happened. Like a guillotine, the blade came down with a chop. Her head was sent sailing off into the distance with her body slumping to the ground lifelessly like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Or about as much as anything is ‘cut’ by a blade that melts and burns through just about anything.
Taking a step back, holding the blade aloft, seeing how there was no one else around me. No other droids. None of the clones. And the two Jedi are dead as well…
The only sounds around me are the sound of the fires burning in the wreckage of the walkers and the wind howling with some muffled explosions in the distance. The blade sputtered before dying. Holding it near my face before chucking it into the distance in frustration. Didn’t even turn it off; it just died on me.
Falling to my knees, I look up at the sky.
“What now?”
No response.
I could only shake my head before trying to figure out what to do now.
Chaos Gacha:
Novice Programming (1.4 Rarity, 0.68% odds)
-Common Skill-
You know how to code on the level of a novice, you can create simple programs, and you know how to read, understand, and spot mistakes in codes. And you can do so in every single coding language you have encountered.
Shadow Ball (2.6 Rarity, 0.36% odds)
-Uncommon Ability-
Allows you to conjure and launch a fast-moving orb made of shadows that carries destructive power and deals additional damage to spirits.
Master Blade Weapon Mastery (5.9 Rarity, 0.58% odds)
-Epic Skill-
You are a true master of the blades, the kind only spoken of in legends. You are spoken of in the same vein as people like King Arthur and Lancelot. You are on the cusp of the sword saint realm, but you aren't quite there yet.
