05-06-2018, 05:51 PM
“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?”
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?”
![[Image: 2agonyw.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/2agonyw.png)