By My Side

Chapter 2 - Discoveries

Anakin finally finds his way there, grateful that bits and pieces of the conversation earlier starts coming back and partly following the Force out to where Rex and the other clones are waiting. His heart clenches painfully as he sees several of the clones waiting nearby. He remembers seeing many of them dying during the war, and the more he looks around, the more certain he is that he actually is here, though that doesn't make any sense. He couldn't have remembered the details so well that his unconscious mind could conjure such a perfect replica, but then again, he didn't have a reason to think about it.

"What's the status?" he asks, pacing over to the window.

"No signs of anything yet," Rex reports.

"Well, just keep watching. They'll be back," Anakin states, opting to wait nearby. He feels restless but does his best to focus on the present. If the droids are about to arrive, he needs a forewarning.

***

"They're back," Anakin calls as Obi-Wan runs up. Anakin had been the first to reach the droids as soon as they were spotted, Rex arriving not long later.

"I told you this victory was too easy," Obi-Wan insists. "We should never have sent the ship back for supplies."

"I think it was your idea," Anakin points out, or at least he can't imagine it would've been his own. He always seems to know those things.

"All right, men." Obi-Wan turns to the clones gathered nearby. "Second wave incoming."

Anakin and Rex were going to... attack from the side. Right. "Rex, you and your men follow me," Anakin orders, trying his best to ignore the strange sense of wrongness that suddenly hits him. Rex only fought with him a few months, but Anakin remembers years of them fighting side by side. He really doesn't have enough time to think about exactly what all this means, though. After a brief summarizing of the plan, they hastily ascend to the roof of a building that overlooks the droid army steadily approaching Obi-Wan. Anakin knows he's being unusually quiet the entire way, but as they go, he does his best to block out all other thoughts.

He feels mostly collected by the time they reach the top. Anakin slips forwards to the very edge, looking down. The octuptarra droids – spider droids, as the clones call them sometimes – are the hardest to take out, and they're the ones he's going after. It's not like it'll even be hard for him. He's fought them so many times in the past. The Republic's cannons are firing down on the droids, and explosions rip across the ground, but the clones are already falling. He can already feel it, the pain of their lives fading. Focus.

"What's our plan of attack, sir?" one of the clones inquires.

As if he would even need – no. There's no time. "Follow me," Anakin replies, jumping over the edge. He lands atop one of the droids, igniting his lightsaber. The clones fire up their jetpacks and fly down. They start shooting up at the other droids while he stabs his lightsaber down into the top of the droid. Another of the spider droids spins to fire at him. Experience has given him all he needs to know about their weak spots, and it only takes moment for him to deflect a shot into the right place back at the droid firing, making it fall sideways and crush many of the nearby droids and slowing their advance.

He throws his all into the battle, just like always. It's too easy. In the future he's seen, battles are far more severe than this. It had seemed so hard at the time, but now it feels like both sides were still learning how to fight. He jumps down onto the leg of the one he's on and cuts it off before leaping clear, landing back on the ground. And he moves on, working through the droids one by one. He can feel everything, like he always can during battles. People are dying, and he throws himself onwards faster, knowing that every moment he slows, more of their men will die.