We showed up on Ryloth under the impression that we'd be briefly meeting up with the Mandos and then going on our way. As it turns out, they had a very different idea of how that mission was going to go down. Most of the time we found cooperation limited to the occasional friendly comment or a mark on the map, but Ros, Kothe, and Wylan's definition of it was literal boots on the ground action.

They had mentioned that they had people already in place on the planet waiting for us to get there and already working on another contract allegedly put out by one of the twi'lek clans if the bits of conversation they let slip told us anything. Which one, they wouldn't say, but whoever it was seemed to have been paying well.

Talen seemed uneasy from the second we stepped foot on the planet. His brows were knitted over his eyes, and Red fell in step beside him and gave him a small elbow to the shoulder. It had become their sort of silent communication for asking what was wrong because the small Jedi did the same to him when Red would get pensive which even I noted was happening more and more often. Talen seemed like he had been snapped from a daze and looked back up at Red with a small smile. "It's nothing. This planet is... It's a lot."

"Is the kid okay?" Ros had glanced over his shoulder as he led us through the canyon with Kothe and Wylan beside him.

"Who cares?" I heard Wylan snarl. He wasn't even attempting to be pleasant, not that I figured he really wanted to even try to be. He never struck me as the kind of man who would go out of his way to be nice for the benefit of other people. It suited me just fine. "He either gets fine or he gets left behind. I'm not wasting time on a Jetii."

I heard Ros sigh and saw him shake his head in front of us as we wove our way down the narrow canyon paths in relative silence. From time to time I would see Wylan glance over at Ros and mutter something to him in Mando'a, but it was low and kept between the two of them. If Kothe had heard, she didn't make any response.

Talen had also stayed quiet for the most part as the rest of the squad chatted quietly behind the two of us. They kept their voices low as if they didn't want the Mandos to catch a single word of what they were saying. Why, I don't quite know even now. All I knew was that I was thinking that Wylan, no matter how good he may be in a fight, was still a huge shab. When the thought finally filtered through my mind, I caught the corner of Talen's mouth twitch in a smile and I rolled my eyes behind the visor of my helmet. "Kid..."

"Sorry, sorry," he chuckled and held his hands up. "Guilty as charged. I can't help it."

Grek moved up beside me shortly thereafter, "Alor'ad, listen... Do we even trust these guys?"

"Do we have a choice?" We really didn't. Big people were getting antsy. They wanted answers and we weren't getting them fast enough. That wasn't good for Talen and it wasn't good for us. Especially us.

It was the gunfire that made the three Mandos pause at the end of the winding path and shoot each other quick glances. Wylan moved first without so much as waiting for a cue, and Kothe and Ros followed him. Ros gave a quick glance back at us and gestured for the five of us to follow with his chin.

We walked into a firefight in some abandoned house. The town was like many others on Ryloth. Slavers had come in and picked it free of its people and fighting between the Republic and the Seppies had taken care of the rest. Wylan and Ros seemed to know where he needed to go, because they made for one house in particular. The door opened and almost immediately a hole got blown in the adjacent wall. Wylan and Ros exchanged a look before Ros looked to Kothe, "That's one hell of a welcome." One slaver burst forth from the smoke only to be dropped by a stun blast two seconds later when he paused to stare at Ros and Wylan's frames blocking the doorway.

There were four other Mandalorians that had emerged from the newly blown hole, and one of them had another one of those salvers by the scruff of his neck, also stunned by the looks of him, hurling him down at Ros' feet with a triumphant laugh, "Got 'im, Ros'buir!"

It was his voice that made me stop and stare. It sounded familiar. Much too familiar. All four of their heads snapped to us at the same time before they finally trailed back to Ros, who was watching with a knowing smirk on his face. "Buir," another one asked, the voice again almost identical aside from the pitch, slightly deeper than the last one who spoke. "Why are they here?"

"We're working together!" Ros announced with a clap of his hands. "Introduce yourselves, ade."

They all glanced at him before they reluctantly reached up and pulled off their helmets to reveal four identical faces, some dotted with tattoos or painted with scars, but all, at their core, the same.

They were our faces.

They were Jango's face.

They met our eyes with a look of defiance painted across them. Several of them stood just taller than us, were built bigger than us, and it didn't take long for me to understand why. These were Commandos. It registered that there were bits of their armor that weren't traditional beskar'gam. It was Commando and, to my surprise, ARC armor.

"These," Ros began as he put a hand on one of the taller one's shoulders, "are my sons... Say, where's your ori'vod?" The question and the response that came with it made some of their shoulders fall and their faces relax ever so slightly, but they still watched us warily, eyes never leaving us.

One of the ARCs turned to him with a shrug, "Kote's been gone since we left. Said he had a special mission he had to do. I'm guessing it's about the twi'leks."

Kothe scoffed, "Damn slavers. No honor in the trade. Figured Kote wouldn't let it go quietly."

"Heh, wouldn't expect him to." We were all more stunned that Wylan's mouth had uttered praise. Wasn't aware he had nice words in his vocabulary.

"You're Clones?" Talen asked in surprise.

"No-o," one of the two big commandos replied sarcastically, "we're identical pentuplets!" Okay, I love my Jedi, but even I had to admit that was a great response.

"Be nice to the kid," one of the two ARCs gave his chestplate a firm smack.

Ros rolled his eyes and jerked his chin to the commando whose shoulder he still had a hand on, "This is Bev, former Commando. The Republic was ready to throw him out because he refused to obey orders and leave squadmates behind." Bev was an absolute unit of a clone. I had only seen the Commandos one or two times, but he matched the idea perfectly. He was tall for a Clone, built bigger than even Grek by a long shot, kept his head shaved, and with the sharp tattoos he had across his bottom jaw he looked beyond opposing. He hadn't been the snarky Commando, though. Rather he had just stood there glaring at us quietly the whole time.

He turned to the first of the ARCs who had spoken, "This is Kade, formerly Sabers. Also a castoff who was going to be killed. He disobeyed a Jedi's direct orders, too, when he did his own strategy and saved the lives of hundreds of his brothers." Kade was built more like us, kept his hair within regulations, and had apparently taken the option to get his eye color changed because he had these bright blue eyes that were so different from mine that I was almost a bit perplexed by it. He had his arms crossed across his chest and was rest most of his weight on one leg. War wound, I figured. He had redesigned his kama, but if the colors rang true he was part of the 187th once.

He turned to the second ARC with a grin, "This is Orar. He came to us as a little kid. He wasn't meeting the requirements for training like the Kaminoans thought he would, and they were about to dispose of him." Orar was standing firmly beside Kade and wasn't watching us with the same level of malice. His hair was grown out, he had a nasty scar across his chin, and just the general way he carried himself bespoke a clone that hadn't made it through the entirety of his training regiment. He was also the only one of the four who was in a full set of beskar'gam. The kid hadn't even gotten a full set of armor before the Kaminoans went to get rid of him.

Finally, he turned to the last of the Commandos, "And this is Tracyn. His whole batch was supposed to be eliminated for a fault found in one of them." Tracyn had been the snarky Clone from earlier. He had half of his mouth twisted into a wry grin that accompanied one long scar going diagonally across his entire face that just added to the intimidation factor. He had repainted his entire set of armor to match Kothe's, and I'll be the first to admit that it looked amazing.

"All of them: last name, Beroya. My ade." Ros gave Bev's shoulder a fond smack and the Commando glanced at him with a lazy smile before he looked back at us.

My children.

Ros hadn't just taken these Clones in. He had adopted them. The snappish remarks he amde to Wylan suddenly made a lot more sense. Much to my shock, Tracyn turned away and went back to Wylan with an excited noise as he flung his arms out, "Ah! Ba'vodu! Bring it in!"

Wylan pulled off his helmet and actually smiled as he let Tracyn wrap him up in a hug, "Get off me, shab." The words didn't match his voice, though. he was kriffing laughing and had one hand slap Tracyn's back affectionately.

Kothe had moved to Orar and was running one hand back through his hair with a tut, "I leave you for a month and you can't even cut your hair..."

Orar's eyes went immediately to Red and he gestured to him, "Ko'buir, if the Pubbies can do it, so can I!" She raised an eyebrow and all fight that Clone had faded away in a second as he nervously looked away.

I glanced at Red.

It was the first time I ever saw what Talen was talking about.

There was a look there as he watched the interact that I hadn't ever really seen before. I couldn't place it, but it was there. He tried to keep it out of his eyes, but it was something almost akin to longing. Families were something we didn't have past one another, but those Mandos had picked those Clones to be a part of theirs. Red wanted to be a part of that. I could see it even then. Talen reached out and touched his arm. It made Red jump, but he quickly shrugged off Talen's concerned expression,

"Sir," Tor turned to me after the moment had passed, "regulations say that we must report these Clones back to the Republic-!"

Each one of them snapped their blaster up as he said the words. "I'm not going back," Bev shook his head. "I will die before I go back." I was always able to read my brothers like a book and there was a look in his eyes. He was dead serious.

Ros had also grabbed a hold of his blaster and was glaring daggers at Tor, "If you touch my sons, I will not hesitate to blow you full of holes, shabuir." I glanced behind him and saw Wylan, hand on his blaster pistol, and Kothe, who was cocking her rifle and moving forward with all the fury I would have expected out of a biological mother as she placed herself beside Ros and between us and their adopted sons. "The Republic made their decision about the Clone soldiers a long time ago. They're not allowed to make decisions about my sons."

They were one solid line of beskar'gam and pure battle prowess, and I wasn't stupid enough to believe we could win a fight. Part of me wanted to throttle Tor for opening his dumb mouth as Grek and Red hesitantly went for their blasters. They were about as eager to fight as I was, and Tor was shooting quick glances between us and them constantly as he waited on my response. Red had almost instinctively shoved Talen behind him, and something about the little movement made Kade give a wry grin, "You're not as programmed as they like to make you think you are if your first instinct is to protect a Jedi."

"He's a kid," were the first words out of Grek's mouth. Those three words made me realize that he was in the exact same spot as Red.

It wasn't a good spot to be in if you were a Clone.

There was the telltale whir of a blaster getting fired up, and we turned to it in time to see one arm wrap itself around Tale's shoulders as a blaster muzzle was forced against his temple. I had never in my life seen him scared. In all of the time I had known that kid, for everything I thought of him, he never seemed to be afraid, but when he reached up and clung feebly to that arm, eyes wide, he looked no different from any other terrified kid I had seen. We were greeted by another one of our faces again, amber eyes narrowed, "Might wanna rethink that statement."

"Kando," Talen's voice was so impossibly small as he locked eyes with me. He was so small that anything he would have tried would have been some pitiful, futile attempt at breaking free, and the look on his face seemed to know it.

It made something in me snap.

"Put the kid down," I had dropped my voice and reached for my DC-17. "I'm not asking twice." I didn't even need to look behind me to know Grek, Red, and Tor were already getting ready to draw their own weapons.

Except I had underestimated how fast they would because Red had his rifle up on his shoulder. "I don't want to have to kill a brother, but I will if you don't drop him."

"I just feel bad that you got such a useless Jedi," came his response before he turned his blaster on us.

Won't lie, that made me madder than I wanted it to.

Talen actually looked offended, and then came the best part.

I was trying to figure out how we were going to untangle my Jedi from this Clone. That was priority one. Nothing that I was thinking could have prepared me for what he did next. The kid scowled at me for a second and then wiggled his neck free just enough to angle his mouth and bite down on the Mando's hand. I think it surprised him more than anything, and sure enough he did drop him. The best part was that Talen didn't let go. He had committed to this course and he was going to see it through.

He swung his pistol and smacked Talen across the face with it, but it gave me a clear shot to disarm him as Talen hit the ground and fell back on his haunches, blinking away the shock of getting smacked upside the head. It was a smart move on the kid's part, and even in his daze he sat there glaring at this tall Clone before he whipped the blaster straight through the window. There was a beat before we heard it hit the wall of the adjacent building with a loud smack. If it survived that, I think every person in that room would have been surprised.

The kid hauled himself to his feet and held out one hand as this Clone got lifted into the air, "Don't. Threaten. My. Clones." Each word was said so deliberately that I saw Red and Grek swap a look that was borderline scared, and even I had to admit that I was impressed. He only held the Clone there for another heartbeat before he dropped him to the ground. Now, Talen, dazed and insulted spun back to the other Mandos. I actually saw Orar take a step back towards Kothe when he marched up to stand in front of us, "Do we have a problem?"

Ros was actually gaping at him and Wylan looked something akin to impressed. There was a beat before Ros barked out a laugh, "No, Jeti'ika, I don't think we do. Kote, get over here. You know better than to threaten kids!"

"Tor," I turned to him with a shake of my head, "they were gonna get rid of them anyway. Let it go." I would do a lot for the Republic, but I was a Clone first. Killing them or getting them killed was pretty low on my list.

"But sir-!"

"Let it go, vod."

Tor reluctantly nodded and stepped away to his initial place behind me, making Kote pass me by and return to the side of his father and brothers, all of whom had since lowered their weapons. Kothe gave him an affectionate smile as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple, "Su cuy'gar, Ko'buir. Ros'buir," he grinned and the two of them knocked foreheads together before he did the same with Wylan, who smiled at him and muttered something to him in Mando'a, "Good to see you, too, ba'vodu. Now, ah... Mind telling me what they're doing here?"

"We're working together on catching that assassin we were hired to kill," Kothe smiled at us. "Right there's some very loyal Kaminii and a fierce Jeti'ika. They've been a great help so far."

Kote seemed surprised, and he looked us up and down before his eyes went to Talen, who had, whether by instinct or otherwise, taken up my hand in his own and stood tentatively behind me.

Won't lie, I was still ready to fight.

"Gotta admit," Kote nodded to Talen, "wasn't expecting the bite."

"You should see him with his lightsaber handy," Red announced and crossed his arms. I hadn't realized it, but he had stationed himself beside Talen and had puffed himself up a smidge, setting his shoulder back and lifting his chin just so. Even Grek had done the same. "Think his teeth hurt, wait till you get a deflected blaster bolt to the chest."

"Vod, I honestly thought they were going to kill you there until the kid bit you," Kade nodded to us as Talen stepped closer to me again. He was obviously uncomfortable being the center of attention, but there he was. I looked down at him quickly and saw the red mark where Kote had hit him beginning to blossom across his cheek.

"Let me make one thing perfectly kriffing clear," I even surprised myself with how much I snarled out the words. "If you ever touch the kid again, you and I are going to have a problem that I'm going to solve with a shot to your face."

Kote didn't seem offended at all and nodded, "Keep your walking regulation manual away from my brothers and we won't have any more problems, vod." He paused before he turned his attention back to Talen, "Sorry about the smack, kid. You've got sharp teeth."

Talen, much to my amusement, just narrowed his eyes at the Clone instead.

-

Well, despite the rough start, we quickly found out that so long as we kept Tor on the opposite side of the group from where the Beroyas were there would be zero problems. Red got along with them well. It was natural for him, and out of any of us he was the personable one. Turns out that Grek and Tracyn got along just fine as soon as they established that Tracyn could snap him in half. The minor wrestling match that had been the result of that had taken out one of the doors on the nearby houses. The slavers, meanwhile, had been stunned a few more times for good measure and tied up to be shoved in the basement of the house. What the Mandos had planned for them, I had no idea, but I didn't have any sympathy for them.

Kote had fallen in next to me on the side opposite of Talen, who was pointedly not looking at him the entire time. He turned to me, "How'd you all get stuck with a Jedi? Thought the Coruscant Guard didn't work with the Jedi."

"Desperate times..." I glanced at his armor. Commando. "How'd Kamino lose so many of you?"

Kote chuckled and held up his fingers, "Credits, vod. We're good fighters. The Mandos respect that when they finally get that you're not just a bunch of mindless flesh droids. We were almost too independent for the Kaminoans and our instructors saw that. They literally bought me and sent me to Ros. Told me he could set me up with a clan. Didn't expect it to be his clan."