The cloning facility's genetic archive was exactly what Cad Bane expected—sterile, white, and humming with too many cameras for comfort. He slipped through it like a ghost in a hat and a coat, boots silent on the polished floor. The Duros bounty hunter worked the control console with quick, confident hands.
He wasn't here to start a firefight. Not tonight. Count Dooku's instructions had been clear: retrieve Jango Fett's genetic template. If they couldn't destroy Kamino's prized facility, they'd steal the next best thing—its future.
Bane thought the Count was overthinking it. Easier just to blow the whole place to atoms and get paid. But Dooku always had schemes layered like sabacc cards, and Cad Bane didn't care as long as the credits cleared.
A hiss of pneumatics broke the quiet. A durasteel cylinder rose from the storage vault—Jango Fett's original DNA, the foundation of the Grand Army of the Republic. Bane snatched it, clipped it to his belt with a magnetized lock, and turned to leave.
Then he heard it. The telltale snap-hiss of a lightsaber. Blue light cut across the sterile white walls.
"Leaving so soon?" drawled Anakin Skywalker, blocking the exit, saber in hand, eyes blazing. "I thought we could settle this properly."
Bane's grin widened under his wide-brimmed hat. "Heh. Jedi always gotta make things personal." He drew his twin LL-30 blasters in one smooth motion. "But I ain't in the mood for chitchat."
Anakin lunged. Bane fired. Blue bolts met blue blade, sparks scattering through the lab. Anakin closed the distance fast—too fast—and swung for Bane's head. The Duros kicked a cryo-canister into the Jedi's legs, then rocketed backward on his boot thrusters, landing atop a control platform.
"Still think you can walk out with that DNA?" Anakin snarled.
"Watch me." Bane flipped a detonator onto the console. "You Republic boys sure love your toys."
He triggered his gauntlet, sending an ion pulse that shorted half the room. Consoles sparked. Alarms screamed. The lights flickered.
Bane fired a grappling line into the ceiling and reeled himself up as the Jedi leapt for him. The bounty hunter slipped through the hatchway, sealed it with a plasma charge, and was gone before the blast doors finished melting.
The last thing Anakin heard was the echo of boot thrusters and a mocking voice drifting down the corridor:
"Tell your boss the Count says hello."
"Come on, you little pest," Ventress purred, her lightsaber carving red arcs through the air. "Is sharing your man really so difficult? I promise I'll give him back. Eventually."
Hope van Dyne's eyes blazed behind her mask. "Touch Scott and I'll kill you."
She shrunk to wasp-size, dodged Ventress's strike, and hit the Acolyte with a full-power sting. Ventress spasmed but stayed on her feet, caught Hope with a Force push that sent her tumbling through the air.
"I've been dreaming about him," Ventress said, advancing. "That sweet, awkward genius. I wonder how he'd react if I—"
Hope grew to full size mid-flight, arrested her momentum, and drove her fist into Ventress's sternum hard enough to crack ribs. "Don't. You. Dare."
"I got her!" A new voice cut through the fight.
Hope blinked. A tiny disc—barely larger than a coin—arced through the air and stuck to Ventress's shoulder. The Acolyte looked down at it, confused.
The disc discharged.
Electricity coursed through Ventress's body. She dropped, convulsing, her lightsaber rolling away across the deck. Within seconds, she was unconscious.
Hope stared at the fallen Acolyte, then looked up to see Natasha Romanoff approaching with Rex, Cody, and a clone she didn't recognize—his armor was different, modified.
"Natasha? What are you doing here?"
"Helping." Natasha raised her wrist, fired a set of electrified bolas that wrapped around Ventress and tightened. The Acolyte twitched once, then went still. "We've got bigger problems. Separatists are pushing toward the barracks. They're after something—or someone—in there."
"Then we move," Hope said. She glanced back at Ventress's bound form. "She'll be there when we get back. Probably."
"Probably," Natasha agreed. "Let's go."
They ran.
The battle raged across Tipoca City like a living thing—shifting, adapting, consuming.
Sam Wilson dove through a fireball, came out the other side with Crossbones in his sights. They'd been dancing around each other for twenty minutes, neither able to land a decisive blow. Rumlow was good. Too good.
"Getting tired, Wilson?" Crossbones called out.
"Not even close." Sam's wings folded, dropped him into a dive that ended with his boot in Rumlow's face. The Hydra agent staggered, spat blood, and laughed.
Rhodey engaged a squad of Umbarans led by a Sith Acolyte. The man moved with Force-enhanced speed, but Rhodey's targeting systems tracked him just fine. Micro-missiles, repulsor blasts, bullets—he cycled through his arsenal methodically, pushing the Umbarans back meter by meter.
Kit Fisto's lightsaber was a green blur as he fought one of the nameless Acolytes on a platform overlooking the ocean. The Mon Calamari's amphibious nature gave him an edge—he was perfectly comfortable with the spray and the wind, while his opponent struggled with footing.
Scott Lang—currently sixty feet tall—dragged a massive spider droid out of a dome structure, held it over his head, and hurled it into the ocean below. The droid's limbs flailed uselessly before it hit the water with a geyser of steam and spray.
General Shaak Ti directed her forces from a hangar on the southern edge of the city. Her clones moved with precision, their discipline holding against wave after wave of droids. They were winning. Slowly, incrementally, but winning.
Pietro stood over Ky Vallen's unconscious body, Master Ima-Gun Di's lightsaber still ignited in his hand. His chest heaved. Every breath hurt—cracked ribs, probably. But Grievous was still out there. Still alive.
Not for long, Pietro thought, and turned to hunt.
Obi-Wan Kenobi fought on an exposed landing pad, their duel punctuated by nearby explosions and the scream of starfighters overhead. The massive Acolyte was strong, but strength without finesse was just violence. Obi-Wan deflected, redirected, waited for the opening that would come.
Matt Murdock and Prosset Dibs circled each other in a ruined corridor. Both men bled from a dozen cuts. Both were exhausted. But neither would yield. Their lightsabers—Matt's borrowed from a fallen Jedi, Dibs' taken from a victim—clashed again and again, the sound echoing off shattered walls.
Mace Windu pressed Sora Bulq hard.his strikes slower, his defense sloppier. Dark side power could sustain a fighter for a time, but eventually, the body had its limits.
"Yield," Mace said quietly.
"Never," Sora spat, and attacked again.
Across the city, clone commanders led their forces with brutal efficiency. Gree's 41st Elite held the northern sector. Bly's marines controlled the eastern domes. Wolffe's 104th cleared the western approaches. Fordo and his ARCs were everywhere, appearing where the fighting was thickest, turning the tide of desperate battles.
The Separatist advance was breaking. Collapsing. Without orbital support, the ground forces were cut off. Reinforcements had stopped coming.
In orbit, Plo Koon's calm voice directed the Republic fleet with surgical precision. "Target the command ship's engines. All batteries, fire on my mark."
The Separatist fleet died piece by piece.
On the ground, Steve Rogers led a combined force of Avengers, Jedi, and clones through the main concourse. They'd regrouped, reorganized, and now they were pushing the Separatists back toward their landing zones.
"Umbarans first," Steve ordered. "Their weapons are the biggest threat. Droids are secondary."
T'Challa moved through the enemy like a scalpel—precise, lethal, efficient. Peter swung overhead, webbing droids and yanking them into each other. Ahsoka and Barriss fought side-by-side, their earlier partnership with Aayla and Luminara having fractured into smaller, more mobile units.
The Republic was winning. Finally.
Anakin Skywalker hunted Ventress through Tipoca's corridors, his rage a palpable thing. She had the DNA. She couldn't be allowed to escape.
At the barracks, Black Widow stood at the center of a defensive perimeter. Rex and Cody flanked her, their DC-17s barking in steady rhythm. Battle droids fell in pieces.
"Commander Cody, this is Shaak Ti." The general's voice crackled through his comm.
"Go ahead, General."
"The droids are falling back to the main hangar. We have them contained."
"Copy that. We're holding at the barracks—"
Something silver-blue streaked past, so fast it left afterimages. Droids fell in pieces. A lightsaber carved through their ranks like they were made of paper.
Pietro skidded to a stop in the middle of the barracks, a severed droid arm still in one hand, Master Ima-Gun Di's lightsaber in the other.
"Hey, guys," he said, breathing hard. He waved the droid arm like a trophy.
The young clones stared at him with open mouths.
"Uh... what?" Pietro looked down at himself. "Do I have something on my face?"
"You just—" Wrecker gestured helplessly. "That was amazing!"
"Great timing, Quicksilver," Hunter said, grinning.
Echo was staring at the lightsaber. "Where'd you get that?"
Pietro's expression changed. The adrenaline-fueled energy drained from his face, replaced by something quieter. Sadder. "A friend gave it to me. Before he..." He trailed off, pressed the lightsaber to his chest. "He was a good man."