Chapter Text
Echo ducked behind the fallen pillar as more blaster shots flew over his head. The only thing worse than a droid’s aim was Wrecker’s stealth ability. Which, although he had been trying his best, was the very reason they were currently being shot at.
Next thing he knew, a cry caught his ear. He turned to see Hunter crumple to the ground. He lay still.
Heart leaping to his throat, Echo shot four quick blasts over the pillar, ensuring they hit their marks before dropping his blaster in its holster. Then, he moved. He sprang forward out from his cover, tucked into a roll, and slid the rest of the way until he reached the other side. He gave himself a breath to settle himself. The joints and limbs of his prosthetics made sharp movements and rough tumbles harder to spring back from. This body was far from what it used to be. Regardless, he crawled forward- This cover was much shorter than Echo’s had been.
Hunter had yet to move from where he’d gotten shot down. Echo feared the worst. This was war, after all. He pressed his hand on the other’s cuirass, where he could finally feel the shallow breaths beneath. Next, he tried looking for the wound. Dark armor made imperfections harder to find, and with the addition of his battle-worn visor, Echo could hardly see any impact sites.
The most obvious wound was in the center of his chestpiece, superficial, from what he could tell.
“Sarge?” He tried. No response.
His hand ran over the edges of his armor, still searching. Perhaps another by his side- A muffled cry of pain was the response as Hunter jerked.
Okay, good. “You with me, Sarge?” He tried again. Harsh gasps of breath are what answered him.
He found the third hit by his shoulder, not as fresh.
Echo needed to pack the wound with dressings, but he knew for a fact that none of their current party had any first aid on them. They had been running low on supplies, barely enough for a full medpack, which had been passed off to Crosshair. Who was currently on the top of the canyon with Tech after their squad had been split up.
Somehow, they had to get back up there.
Blaster bolts were still firing all around them. Their pitiful cover was doing its job for now, but he knew they were surrounded. They needed to do something big.
“Wrecker!” He called over the comms. While doing so, he rummaged through Hunter’s pack, looking for… “We need to get Hunter out of here-!”
Echo didn’t even get an ‘affirmative.’ He got action.
Wrecker roared, climbing on top of his chunk of rubble with his rotary canon. He shot at any and all of the droids who had been unfortunate enough to be on the front lines. None of their blasts even got close enough to hit Wrecker as he stood on the equivalent of a pedestal.
He then stepped off his ‘stage’ and ran toward Hunter and himself, tossing his canon aside.
There was no time wasted on Wrecker’s part.
He scooped Hunter off the ground and placed him over his shoulder as lovingly as possible in the middle of a battlefield. Echo ran with the other right on his heels. If they had been able to finish the mission by now, perhaps Tech and Crosshair would have tried to meet them where they had been separated. Surely, they could safely scale a cliffside? Crosshair would be the one to suggest regrouping in their last known location, while Tech would try to find where they had most likely gone after parting. Hopefully Crosshair had won, since Echo had no clue where it was they’d ended up- Their only goal had been not getting shot, which had not quite worked out for them.
The droids, perhaps wary of the giant who was fearless enough to take out their entire frontline, took longer than they should’ve to start after them, providing Echo and Wrecker with a great headstart.
Only a minute later, did they turn a narrow corner and meet a wall of stone.
There was nowhere left to go.
Wrecker, even with Hunter already draped over his shoulder, threw an arm around Echo’s waist and lifted him off the ground.
“Wrecker! What-”
The giant leaped, shooting them up and into the sky; the ground cracked beneath them. Echo screamed. He had no idea that Wrecker had this much strength. Not enough to literally propel them a dozen feet up the side of a canyon.
Yet, here they were. Wrecker landed on the next outcrop of rock, pausing only long enough to gain firm grounding before he leaped again. They canyonside started to crumble under them, no doubt from the force of Wrecker’s powerful movements. Going higher and higher, until the edge was just in sight. Though, as the three landed on the second-to-last slope, the rock underfoot broke. They tumbled back.
Echo thought they should’ve been done for- No matter how strong you were, that strength couldn’t save you from an avalanche of rocks. There would be nothing left to jump from. Nothing to grab onto that wasn’t itself in the process of falling. They would plummet and fall to the back of the canyon from what was now over a hundred feet above.
Echo was never one to despair the possibility of losing his own life. He was literally made for fighting a war -casualties were a given. And then he was rebuilt to keep fighting in one. No, he didn’t care for the time he would not have to grieve the idea of losing his life; He only grieved for the help Hunter would not receive, and the inability he had in his own demise. He could only recognize the strength and noble attempt Wrecker had made to try and get them out.
Turns out that Echo didn’t need to grieve today.
Somehow -some way- Wrecker found his footing. Whether by pure skill or by the power of some wayward miracle, Echo didn’t know. What he did know, however, is that the giant pushed off something and they shot up even higher than any of the previous jumps, clearing the canyonside.
The arc of the jump left no good way of landing softly. Wrecker spun to face the sky, pulling his brothers out of the way of the touchdown. They landed hard. The arm around Echo released him as they bounced back into the air from the force. Momentum carried them further until they slid to a stop. Wrecker rolled further than Echo did, his hold still tight on Hunter.
Echo fought to get onto his feet. He would be bruised, surely. However, nothing was broken, though his new joints and old bones ached from their impromptu landing. A quick stumble later and he was at the pair’s side.
From inside of Wrecker’s embrace, Hunter groaned softly, but didn’t move beyond that.
Wrecker himself simply breathed. Then he groaned as well, sitting up carefully. His armor -perpetually scratched and scraped- was bent haphazardly, the plastoid plate on the side he’d impacted the earth sat broken in two. The area of his blacks directly underneath was scraped to the skin, which now sat blistered and bloody. Other than that, their biggest member seemed no worse for wear. This was confirmed when Wrecker noticed Echo’s worried gaze and smiled cheekily in response.
“Now wasn’t that fun!?” He cheered, pulling their Sarge into a more comfortable position in his arms.
Unfortunately, Echo was used to this. “Might do without the avalanche and potential falling to our deaths next time.” He allowed himself a moment to breathe before he stepped closer to the edge.
The droids they left behind, though they were simply machines, had also seemed surprised, as they ceased their shooting and slowly lowered their blasters in mock-disbelief when they’d risen. Rocks that had been sliding down the cliff face rolled and tumbled into them. Where once stood a whole company of droids, quickly became nothing more than just a scrapyard.
If they had not gotten out when they did, they would have been buried along with them.
Wrecker, suddenly standing behind him, clapped him hard on the back, which wouldn’t have been as terrifying if he wasn’t standing a hair’s breath away from the canyon they had just nearly fallen to their deaths.
“Careful, there.” The giant teased. “We should go see if Tech and Cross are finished, yeah?”
Though none of their missions so far had been quite that…harrowing, it should have been no surprise that Clone Force 99 was labelled the ‘Suicide Squad.’ Echo had falsely hoped that their missions couldn’t always be this insane.
Later on, when the Batch looked uneasy as he recounted Wrecker’s otherworldly skill in leaping a twenty feet off the ground, he didn’t comment on it. He simply praised his strength.
Just as he never brought up the strange feat from their last mission.
If Echo was catching on to something… No, no he wasn’t. They say ignorance is bliss, after all.