Blustery Days

[Mickey Mouse]

Everything… going up in flames.

Was that the last thing he could remember?

Deep, ragged breaths heaved his chest up and down. Something foul and pestilent peppered his lungs, breaking him at the waist with an onslaught of hacking coughs. His fingers dug into the soft, cottony fabric of his yellow polo shirt, tugging it so hard and clinging to it so desperately that one might have mistaken it for his last thread of life.

He dangled on that thread for what seemed like eons. Air explored his body but couldn’t seem to settle on which destination needed it the most. Neurons misfired one after the other in his brain. His sight clouded with fades reminiscent of the cheesy transitions in old movies. His ears rung, like church bells.

Where were they taking him?

And why were they taking him? ‘Take no prisoners’—they always styled themselves that way. Shoot first, ask questions later. ‘Who talks first?’ wasn’t a question anyone had to worry about, because when it came right down to it… no one talked. Not a whisper. Not a breath. No air at all.

He was suffocating. First, on himself—or whatever sharp, pointy objects swirled in his lungs, mixed with the oxygen that now had to jockey for its place—and then on a plastic tube, shoved down his throat, ostensibly to save his life. Well, if that was the goal, it was determined to make him deeply uncomfortable first. He wrapped his pale, weak fingers around it and tugged, but before he could muster enough strength to yank it out of his esophagus, the coldest hand he’d ever encountered tightly grasped his wrist. Even through his blurred senses he could hear the squeaking of the doctor’s slick, shiny black rubber gloves as she wrestled his hand away from the device.

“Calm the fuck down,” she barked at him through her surgical mask—also black, like pretty much her entire grim outfit—and slammed his hand onto the operating table. “Your breathing’s almost stable if you’d fucking settle.”

He heaved, his chest becoming a mountain as his legs stiffened from the severe pain that jolted downward from his hips. Was this what it felt like to be almost stable? He suddenly found himself thanking the gods he’d been unconscious through the worst of it.

As he seized on the table, the doctor’s eyes rolled as dramatically as they could roll and she turned to someone else, unseen.

“Children,” she shook her head, “They’re the fucking worst.”

Perhaps it was the seizure. Perhaps it was the fact he couldn’t breathe. Perhaps it was the severe drop in self-confidence he experienced because of how much this woman already didn’t like him. Whatever it was, those words were the last he heard before he fell soundly unconscious again.

* * *

“You have no parents,” the doctor mused as she looked inside his ears. “Or they were noticeably absent from your—should I call it your home?”

“I’m eighteen,” the boy responded curtly, blustering through the inquiry, “I don’t really need parents anymore.” The doctor stifled a chortle and rolled away from him in her chair, eyebrows raised. Sarcasm laced her expression.

“Allow me to rephrase that.”

She puckered her lips in a way that simply infuriated the boy. Everything about her seemed cookie-cutter the way he had always imagined the Empire’s most stereotypical denizens: dressed head to toe in the most depressing color scheme any uniform designer could have dreamed up, hair swooping in that sort of “evil doctor” way, and dazzlingly beautiful in a way that suggested a femme fatale you should stay away from rather than anything worth actually being attracted to.

It took more moments than expected for the doctor to find the exact rephrasing she wanted to use. Perhaps the information meant more than his vital signs, and thus required the true surgical precision in this moment.

“How long have you been wandering around the lower tiers without your parents, young man?” she asked, and he flushed red in the face. Had it been so obvious that his life had come to such squalor? He wouldn’t answer. He would hold out.

She saw this coming. She pressed.

“Years?” she asked.

He avoided her gaze.

“Years,” she nodded, “Oh, don’t pretend you’re not easy to read, boy. I can read you just as simply as I read my children’s storybooks. You aren’t difficult. Being eighteen doesn’t make you a big, strong man when you’re still walking around with the heart of a twelve-year-old. And the brain of one.” As she said this, she placed her stethoscope on his bare chest and must’ve heard his heart beating a million miles a minute.

He may have had the heart of a twelve year old, but he could fear like only a grown man could.

“It does, however, make the big boys consider alternative rehabilitation options for you than just throwing you in another orphanage in another back alley of another lower tier,” she continued. “As it happens, you—and the other survivors of the attack—have been entered into… a new program that the Empire hopes will enrich your lives. I’m tasked with examining all of your fractured bodies to see if you’re still up to the task even after the—well, the sheer trauma of having your whole street blown up by terrorists, and lucky you: you’re in tip top shape, aside from your lungs looking like you’ve smoked on and off for a year or two.”

“What… new program?” the boy asked. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, frozen with apprehensions. What could the Empire possibly want, keeping him up here on the higher tiers and not letting him go back down to the lower ones where he belonged? Where he’d lived since he appeared in the Omniverse years ago?

“A disciplined one,” she smirked, choosing her words carefully. “Put your clothes on and head outside. A representative is waiting for you in the lobby.”

Slowly, he slid off the bed and approached the table, where his tattered, burnt yellow polo lay in a crumpled pile next to his shorts.

“Not those clothes,” the doctor said, and pointed without looking up from her notes. He followed her finger to a gray t-shirt and joggers hung on the back of the door, with a pair of black boots to match.

How drab.

He glanced back at his old outfit as he began to pull the joggers on over his underwear, scanning for something else.

“Looking for your little friend?” the doctor asked, looking up at him and pushing a strand of blood-red hair out of her eyes. “Burnt to a crisp in the blast, and if you ask me, good riddance. You’re much too old to have stuffed animals, boy.”

I didn’t ask you, he almost said, but thought better of it. Better to not incur the Empire’s wrath while he was in the heart of their lair.

Nothing scared him more than the Empire. He’d seen monsters—terrifying sights—and more before he’d arrived in the Omniverse, but these people, whoever they were, somehow stirred more fear in his heart than any Heffalumps and Woozles ever could.

“Oh, kid,” the doctor called out as he finished lacing up his boots, “what did you say your name was, again?”

“I didn’t say,” he spoke, low and nervous.

The doctor waited a moment, and then looked up at him expectantly. He took a deep, long breath—perhaps the most full since his home had unexpectedly gone up in flames—and bit his lip.

“Christopher.”

“Last name?”

“Uh—uhm, Robin. Christopher Robin.”

The doctor looked up, her eyebrows raised once again in that infuriatingly sarcastic position. Then, after a beat, she began to chuckle.

“Simple name for a simple boy,” she laughed, shaking her head. “You can go now.”

Christopher Robin couldn’t get out of her presence quick enough. He bolted through the door and down the hallway. He passed by room after room of burn victims—presumably, he supposed, from the same explosion that had almost done him in—and eventually made his way out into the lobby, where a tall, intimidating man in a uniform leaned against a wall smoking a cigarette.

A cigarette? In a hospital? The man’s uniform was adorned with all sorts of shiny badges and medals, so Christopher supposed you just earned permission to be a douchebag sometimes.

As the young boy entered the lobby, the uniformed douchebag looked up and met his eyes. A sinister smile snaked onto his face.

“Ah, there you are,” the man grinned, sauntering over Christopher’s way. “My, my, my, you are a strapping young man, aren’t you? And after all you’ve been through… yes, I think you’ll make a fine trooper. Just fine. Welcome to our merry band, Mister”—he checked his tablet—“Robin? Mr. Robin.”

Welcome?

Trooper?!

Fuck.

[Mickey Mouse]

“Christopher Robin,” the sergeant said, looking him over as they walked down the neon-streaked streets of Coruscant’s Tier One.

For all the traveling he had done in the Omniverse since appearing in it all those years ago, Christopher had never seen most of this place. He’d passed through it on his way down to the lower tiers—where he’d made his home for the past few years—but hadn’t spent much time looking at the spit-shine on the surface of the Omniverse’s dirtiest verse.

If this man expected him to comply with the Empire’s proposed new… direction for his life, he had another thing coming. The denizens of Coruscant, especially the certifiable evil overlords that ruled them from the shadows, had given him no reason to even consider ‘protecting and serving.’ Put simply, he’d rather die than sign up to be a Stormtrooper. Unfortunately, given the Empire’s track record, Christopher feared that might be the option eventually given him, when he eventually resisted their grasp.

He wished Pooh were here. That little bear always knew what to do; he always had little nuggets of wisdom tucked away in his mushy teddy skull.

“You look sad, Christopher,” the sergeant stopped, turning and tracking the boy’s drooping expression. “What’s wrong, my boy? Still sad about your little teddy bear?” The sergeant tried his best to stifle his chuckles, but Christopher still heard.

It didn’t bother him. People had always made fun of his affection for Pooh Bear since he’d arrived in the Omniverse. “You aren’t a kid anymore, Christopher Robin,” they would chide him, “You don’t need that stupid little bear.”

The truth, he supposed, was that for the longest time, he’d been on a quest to figure out what, exactly, went wrong with his little friend. For all the years he could remember when he lived in the Hundred Acre Wood with his parents, Pooh—and their various other anthropomorphic animal friends—could walk and talk as well as he himself could, interacting with the world in ways that were very real despite their distinct non-human status.

When he’d arrived in the Omniverse all those years ago, Pooh Bear had come with him. But something had changed. Now, the once lively bear had transformed into something sadder: just a regular old teddy.

Christopher hadn’t heard the words “oh, bother” in… well, longer than he cared to admit.

And now he might not ever hear them again, if the doctor’s words proved to be true. Whoever had blown up the small network of alleyways he and other forgotten children had turned into their home had also murdered his beloved Winnie the Pooh. That made his blood boil more than any threat of forced conscription into the Empire’s ranks.

“Do you… do you know who did it?” Christopher asked in a little voice, the first words he’d spoken to the sergeant since they’d met. It seemed to take the Imperial officer just a tad off-guard. He hadn’t expected him to open up quite so easily, but the boy’s desire to know who’d murdered his friend overtook any apprehensions.

“We have… some leads,” the man replied, “though it’s nothing for you to concern yourself about. We’ll get them, son.”

Christopher couldn’t hide the scowl that being called ‘son’ prompted.

“My name’s Thorrun, by the way,” he continued, “Sergeant James Thorrun. I’ll be in charge of your unit—the one you’ve been assigned to. It’s a pleasure to meet you, son, it really is. And oh, here’s your ride.”

As if on cue, a large, grey vehicle flew down to meet them, gently hovering above the tier floor. A door slid open and a ramp rolled out, landing right at Christopher’s feet. He looked up inside and saw a bunch of other young boys and girls around his age huddled up together. None of them looked like they had just walked into one of the Empire’s recruitment centers and signed up of their own free will. A few steps up onto the ramp, Christopher turned and looked back at Thorrun.

“Sergeant,” he called after the man, who’d already started off in the opposite direction, “Do I have a choice in this matter?”

The sergeant’s eyes grew just a little bit sad.

“No, son,” he shook his head, “Not really.”

He nodded at the pilot, and the ramp began to move underneath Christopher’s feet, lifting him up and slowly pulling him into the hover-van’s back chamber. As the ramp disappeared beneath him, the boy leapt through the doorway and watched as the door slid shut with a bang. No going back.

He pressed a hand to the cold metal. Outside, the whirrings of the hover-craft springing to life covered the sounds of the city. Behind him, seven dozen eyes stared at the newest arrival in their rag-tag gang.

“They’ve got us,” one voice—a girl’s—said, “There’s no way out.”

Christopher turned around. “Yeah, I see.”

“What are we gonna do?” the same girl asked. Christopher felt called out, like he should have an answer, as the newest one, as the one standing up, but he knew that she meant to ask no one in particular.

“I, uh,” he stammered, “I don’t know.”

“We can’t just let them have us,” a boy’s voice piped up.

“Why not? We’re a bunch of kids, they’ll kill us in an instant,” another boy said.

“They’re not trying to kill us,” a third boy interjected, “They’re trying to help us.”

“Help us?” the second boy shot back, “Cut the shit, Lloyd. You’re being fucking ridiculous with all your pro-Empire propaganda over here, okay?” Christopher turned his eyes toward the boy known as Lloyd. Slight in frame—much like himself—but with dark skin and the brownest eyes you’d ever seen, he huddled away from everyone else, presumably because of the… unpopular opinions he’d been expressing.

“We might as well give them the chance to prove us wrong, Jamie,” he said, defiantly.

“If we give the chance to prove us wrong, all they’re gonna do is prove us dead,” the first girl scowled, crossed her arms, and stood up, taking a few steps toward Lloyd as if to imply that he really needed to shut up.

“Gonna prove us dead?” Lloyd chuckled, “That didn’t make any sense, Ariana.”

“Yes, it fucking did, you dickhole,” Ariana spat.

“No, it didn’t, Ariana,” Jamie reached up and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back and stepping toward Lloyd himself, “but the little Empire-loving motherfucker knew what you meant.”

“I don’t love the Empire,” Lloyd argued. “Does anyone love the Empire?”

“I certainly don’t,” Christopher finally contributed. In the span of the argument, he’d found a seat on the side of the van Lloyd had to himself. The other boy looked at him, with something that resembled hope in his brown eyes.

“Sure,” he nodded, “No one does. But they’re trying to give us some semblance of a better life, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t give it a try—”

“A better life as their bitches,” Ariana growled.

“New kid, what’s your name?” Jamie turned his attention away from Lloyd.

“Uh, Christopher.”

“Christopher,” Jamie said, “Nice. You’ve already been introduced to that dickhole, Lloyd. I’m Jamie, this hotheaded girl is Ariana. The quiet ones over here are Sampson, Katrina, Petey, and Helena.”

“Nice to meet you,” Christopher looked over at all of them.

Everyone in this whole van looked worse for wear. Despite all his musings about the Empire’s supposed benevolence for its youngest, poorest, weakest subjects, Lloyd seemed the worst off—tattered, burnt clothes and scars up and down his body, made all the more visible by just how little fabric his outfit actually had left. Had the two of them been caught in the same blast, or were there more random explosions happening in the lower tiers? Of all of them, only Sampson looked remotely well-fed; the rest were slim at best and dangerously skinny at worst. Katrina, in particular, seemed almost cat-like, but Christopher suspected that maybe that stemmed from some non-human DNA that she also carried.

Jamie, the de facto leader of the group (or at least that was how he presented himself), didn’t let Lloyd posture on his positive thoughts about the Empire for too long. They’d all been through too much shit, he argued, to give the Empire the benefit of the doubt. They would do what they had to do to survive, go through training, what have you, but the minute a hole opened up for any of them to escape, they damn well better take it.

Ariana seethed with fury for the rest of the trip, most of it aimed at Lloyd. Christopher understood her position, but he’d never seen anger like that worn so clearly on someone’s face. Hatred bubbled under the surface, and a little bit of bloodlust, too, perhaps.

And this ragtag group, full of emotional children—well, young adults, as Christopher guessed that like him, they were all at least eighteen—had seemed primed and ready to be new recruits to the Empire. Maybe they were desperate; or maybe they truly did want to try to help them. Maybe somewhere, in the Empire’s upper echelons, some rich military leader had started to feel bad for the poor, downtrodden orphans wandering aimlessly through the lower levels. Maybe they truly did want to turn over a new leaf.

None of that really mattered to Christopher. The more he dwelled on Pooh Bear’s destruction, the more he desired one thing: to find out whoever had done it, and get his revenge. If he was lucky, it’d be a secondary, and maybe he could convince a prime somewhere to take their omnilium and turn them into a replacement teddy. Or maybe he’d just find something they loved and show them what it felt like to lose their most prized possession.

Either way, for the moment, this seemed to be the way to find the answers he needed. So he’d play along.

The hover-van sped through Coruscant until, at last, it reached a section of the upper-most tier that had been cordoned off for new recruit barracks. The eight youngsters spilled off of it and shuffled into a check-in area, where yet another doctor gave each of them another uncomfortable physical and assigned them to their rooms.

“You’ll have to share,” the man informed all of them, “So you’ve been randomly assigned to one of the recruits you rode here with. First up: Christopher Robin? You’re with Lloyd Bachmann. Room 305. Get going.”

“New kid,” Lloyd smirked, running over and giving him a friendly jab in the side, “I mean—Christopher. Do you mind if I call you Chris, man?”

“I’d actually prefer—”

“Great, Chris it is,” Lloyd barreled through, ignoring Christopher’s protests. “Let’s get going, roomie. Let’s see what amenities the benevolent Empire has provided for us disadvantaged orphans, eh?”

[Mickey Mouse]

Boot camp was rough. The lanky British boy and his several put-upon comrades had been woken up bright and early the next morning not just by Coruscant’s artificial sunlight, but also by the high-pitched yell of Sergeant Thorrun’s whistle. And for their first trick, the Empire has their cabal of orphans engage in a run through a treacherous obstacle course. A pre-test, they called it—to determine their physical aptitude.

Christopher surmounted the first muddy hill with relative ease, a teasing precursor to the unfortunate fall that followed. His combat boot hooked underneath an exposed root and he went tumbling, tumbling down the other side, somersaulting repeatedly until the wooden frame of the next obstacle brought him to a sudden stop. His back smacked against the structure, and for a few moments, he thought he might have time to groan about it.

“Up off your ass, Robin!” Thorrun boomed over the makeshift battlefield, his displeasure evident in his low growl. Christopher pulled himself up, his gray fatigues now shit-brown with mud, and dragged his already-exhausted body up the rope wall. His scrawny arms strained with the climb, reaching and missing two times too many with each step up.

“Nice tactic, Chris,” Lloyd panted as he sped past, “Roll down the hill. Gets you ahead. Not fast enough to beat me, though!” The boy chuckled as he passed, and Christopher could’ve sworn he saw him wink as he vaulted over the top and began to climb down the other side.

Christopher scowled. Lloyd’s incessant chatter had kept him up all night—he was probably part of the reason the British boy got off to such an epic failure of a start, come to think of it. And he had the nerve to taunt him?

Veins popped out of his pale arms as he upped the effort. Christopher could feel the tattered ropes digging into his skin as he climbed up, burning the palms of his hands red. His low, guttural grunts slowly fell into a rhythm, transforming into a soundtrack for this display of physical incompetence.

Incompetence? No -- determination.

“You can do this, Christopher Robin.”

Beady eyes pushed him forward.

At last, blistered fingers wrapped around the top rung of the rope wall, and Christopher Robin lifted himself up, up, over the wall, and then quickly found himself bouncing down the other side.

He landed with a plop in the mud below, tasting the sweet nectar of the original Coruscant’s earth before bounding up and onto his feet. Adrenaline pumping through his pulsing veins, he broke into a sprint and began to dodge the bars hanging in their way, ducking and weaving beneath them like a pro Sweat cut a path through the layer of mud that covered his scrunched up countenance, and he cut a path back into the race.

At the head of the pack, the cat-like Katrina pranced on all fours ahead of everyone else, her speed and agility unmatched by the septet of relatively humanoid orphans. The muscley Sampson, blue-skinned titan that he was, almost kept pace with her, and the picture of humanity perfected Jamie was just a few steps behind him; somehow, the most attractive of them had already found a way to rip through his shirt, and the remaining fabric clung to him as he glistened in the aritifical sun. Ariana, the ginger hothead, and Helena, the quiet, intense raven-haired girl that roomed with her, were neck and neck behind him; Helena stared straight forward, headphones stuck deep in her ears, while Ariana shot furious glances at her stalwart competitor. Lloyd lagged behind them, his confidence not compensating for the fact that he just wasn’t built for something like this.

Christopher encroached on Lloyd’s lead, edging so close to his roommate that the could see the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. Up ahead, Katrina leapt over a small chasm, followed close behind by the rest of their companions. When it was Lloyd’s turn to jump, Christopher was on his heels.

“Your friends are here to help, Christopher Robin! Let them help you!”

They careened over the gap, reaching desperately for the other side; the ledge was within Lloyd’s grasp, while the young Brit found himself falling short. Hoping to latch on to some of his partner’s momentum, Christopher reached out and grasped Lloyd’s ankle. The dark-skinned boy’s fingers, caught off guard by the new weight, slipped against the ledge and Lloyd found himself falling, along with his straggler, fifteen feet to the bottom of the chasm.

Christopher’s eyes popped open to find Lloyd lying on top of him, groaning.

“Ugh -- shit,” the kid muttered, looking up to gaze at their surroundings. He looked around, for a moment seeming frustrated, and then glanced back down at Christopher, noticing the way their bodies were entangled. Immediately, his glare softened. “If you wanted me on top of you, you didn’t have to drag me all the way down here,” he laughed.

Christopher Robin didn’t see the humor, and shoved his bunkmate off of him, sitting up. “Damn,” the Brit muttered, looking up. “How the fuck do we finish now?”

“We don’t,” Lloyd smirked, “You fucked that up for both of us.”

The former schoolboy’s cheeks grew bright red and he blustered frustratedly. “Sorry about that,” he frowned.

“Hey, don’t apologize to me,” Lloyd shrugged, “It’s your ass that’s gonna get fuckin’ beat.”

The more easygoing of the pair let out a hearty laugh as, back on the course, Katrina approached the finish line, having swept through most of the challenges as if they were nothing. Behind her, Sampson the brute brushed aside the final obstacle, clearing his way to second place.

Just before the cat-like girl crossed the finish line, though, the small-framed, blonde-haired Petey slid in on a hoverboard. He hopped off and onto solid ground, and stood before the two alien orphans with a sly smile on his face.

“Um, is that not absolutely breaking the rules?” Ariana roared, brushing past Jamie and snagging third place by a nose.

Sergeant Thorrun’s own hoverboard touched down just a few feet away. “Absolutely not breaking the rules,” the officer chortled, “I told you all to use any means necessary to get past the obstacles, and it seems we’ve got a clear idea of who the smartest of you is.”

He glanced around as the rest of the orphans filed in, counting six of eight. Nervous eyes flitted around the group as they all became aware who was missing.

Sergeant Thorrun let out a deep sigh. “...where’s Bachmann and Robin?”