Rex quondam, Rex futurus (The Once and Future Rex)

by Zarz

Summary:

Once upon a time, on a faraway planetoid (or maybe moon, or possibly asteroid – the tales disagreed), there was a man. Some versions of the story said “soldier,” others “leader,” and one or two went as far as “king.” Regardless, this leader, and some of (a few of, many of, hundreds of) his followers were there, asleep. Waiting. In the galaxy’s darkest hour, when all hope was lost, they would wake from their slumber and return, defeating all evil that threatened the galaxy.

 

Rex never intended to become part of a fairy tale. But with Order 66 happening around them and all the troopers of the 332nd about to kill them, Rex and Ahsoka are willing to do whatever it takes to keep everyone alive. A slightly different trajectory through space leads to a very different landing for the 332nd, and a very different trajectory for Ahsoka, Rex, and the galaxy.

Notes:

Many thanks to HiddenEye/Chocomars for the absolutely gorgeous art in this fic. I also greatly appreciate the betaing from Shadowsong26. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Thanks as well to the mods of this event for running it! It's been great fun to participate in my second Star Wars Big Bang, and it's definitely a great push to actually finish stories that have been lurking in my drafts for ages.

A note on continuity: This story goes AU from the end of Season 7 of TCW, though a fair bit of what happens between then and the start of the sequel trilogy stays approximately the same, and there are brief cameos from The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Rebels. This does go AU for The Bad Batch sometime after the first episode, and since I’ve never read the book Ahsoka, any overlap there is purely accidental. I don’t think anything here too explicitly contradicts the first season of Ahsoka, but I’m sure any further seasons will get contradictory very fast.

A handful of lines were borrowed from their respective show or movie.

Chapter 1: Cover Art

Awesome cover art by Chocomars

[Image ID: This shows the cover to the fic of a Star Wars Big Bang. Ahsoka in her Rebels outfit is suspended mid-air in the middle of the cover, tinted with a red filter. Rex’s helmet, a white clone trooper helmet with blue Jaig eyes above its visor, is behind her, covered in frost and ice, and it is lightly tinted in blue filter. Jagged ice align the top and bottom of the cover, representing icicles. ‘Rex Quondam, Rex Futurus’ is written in a Star Wars font at the bottom of the cover. The top right of the cover shows the credited names of the Big Bang team, which are ‘Written by: Zarz’, ‘Beta by: Shadowsong16’, and ‘Art by: chocomars’.]