Fixing Our Broken Pieces || The Bad Batch

Epilogue: The beginning of another

The ship stayed quiet after their encounter with Crossair and the destruction of Kamino. Tech had independently decided to return to Ord Mantel so everyone had stayed in their own space. Echo and Hunter helped Orla with her injury and they found that when she had been using the force to ease the pain she was also helping the healing process. She didn't even need stitches as Hunter once originally thought.

Once that was done they left her in the room, noticing that she was more quiet than usual, and like everyone else she needed time to reflect. Orla was conflicted on her next steps, she told herself she would leave the clones once they had dealt with Crosshair and they could stand on their own two feet without the Empire knocking them back down. They could do that now but Orla still didn't want to leave. Though she did form a bond between these clones she still couldn't call it an attachment.

Whenever Orla couldn't face what was on her mind she always turned to her Holocron for guidance, it was like Master Yoda in a box.

For a minute she panicked, realizing she had taken off her long Jedi robe when leading the squad out of the waters because it would get in her way. It was now at the bottom of the ocean.

"Looking for this?" Hunter entered holding her Holocron in one hand out in front of her.

"How did you know?" she carefully withdrew the Holocron from Hunter's palm.

"It was glowing, thought maybe you were calling it?" Hunter shrugged, he was used to strange Jedi magic happening that he knew better than to question it.

"Oh,"

Hunter refrained from the room and left her to meditate.

"I didn't?" she said to herself, she didn't think the Holocron had the ability to glow. She'd only ever seen the crystal glow but when she took the necklace from her neck, it was also glowing. She swiftly took it off to place it in the Holocron and she couldn't sit down and instead stood with her hands behind her back anxiously waiting for an explanation. But nothing appeared.

Disappointed there was no clear answer, she sat down to search through meditation. When her eyes opened she believed she must have been dreaming. She was presented with the world between worlds she had encountered last time when she had witnessed her brother's death alongside facing Count Dooku's force ghost. This time it was different, she did not feel sadness or worry nor anxiety or fear. How could she when her master Yoda was sitting right in front of her?

"Greetings my young apprentice, long time it feels since I last saw you," he spoke to her as if he had only seen her yesterday. When Orla left the temple she didn't expect how much she would miss her master until he was smiling back at her?

"How... are you... when?" questions kept coming to her and she couldn't seem to finish them.

"Dead? No. Not easy to kill Yoda it is," he giggled a mischievous laugh that Orla hadn't heard since she was a child. Yoda had been so political and focused on a war for so many years that his heart had been replaced by tactics and fear. But now the war was over, where he was and whatever he was doing the burdened must have started to lift and he was his old self again.

"The Holocron served you well I see?" he noticed. Yoda had always been watching her, feeling her presence through the force and feeling her strength of the force growing. Orla could only nod, still stunned out of joy to be reunited with her master.

"Realised I have that your own path you must take. Grew up so fast you did that I could barely keep up with your progression. Held you back I did, out of fear it was and I am the only one to blame. For that I am sorry. I have made the mistake too often of not letting my students down their own path and forcing them down the one I created. First Dooku, then Skywalker, yet it didn't seem to affect you. Rebellious and independent you always have been, Skywalker was the same yet you turned out different because you turned away from the Jedi and followed your heart. You became a better Jedi than Dooku could ever be, darkness could never fully consume you. That's because you loved people, your brother especially. Mace was wrong, the Jedi, wrong about you they were. You are meant for more than war, you protect people without always thinking with your lightsaber. I will miss you my apprentice, a wonderful student you have been and a better master you will be. Caleb is in good hands."

Orla wanted to collapse in tears, being told by the greatest, most wise and experienced Jedi in the order that she too was a great Jedi. Not only that but denying what she had feared for years, that she was just like Dooku. If only he had told her that when she was in the order, but then again she may have been a different Jedi if she had stayed or she might not have survived order 66 either. With the way everything turned out, Yoda did not fail her.

"You did not fail me master quite the opposite actually. I hope you'll see that failure is life's greatest teacher. And I treasure your "failure" as my greatest lesson. I was able to put your teachings into the real world and I got to see how much you had taught me. I would not be the person and Jedi I am if it weren't for you."

Yoda could only smile proudly, there was nothing more he could do, nothing more he could say, nothing more to teach. "May the force be with you master Dume."

"And may the force always be with you master Yoda."

Yoda disappeared and Orla took a few moments to compose herself, it could have been the last time she would see her master. Had she said enough, did she thank him? The sad truth was that she had to move on with her training, there was nothing more Yoda could do to prepare her. She had thought maybe she had already experienced the worst but that was far from true.

When she stood up she felt a cold chill deep in her bones and a noise that lingered in the back of her mind,

Mechanical, heavy breathing.