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There were many things wrong with the Coruscant Guard. This was not an opinion. This was an undeniable fact. In fact, it was so undeniable, that the Jedi had an entire unofficial list.
It included excessive violence, alarming disregard for property damage, “creative” legal interpretations, Commander Thorn driving speeders through buildings, Commander Fox existing, and something Obi-Wan had simply labeled: “The physics issue.”
No one knew when it started. No one knew why it only affected the Coruscant Guard. But somewhere along the line, after years of surviving Coruscant’s insanity, the Guard had simply stopped obeying several natural laws. The universe, apparently exhausted, had given up trying to correct them.
Rex discovered this by accident while on shore leave with Anakin and Ahsoka. Which was unfair, because Rex already dealt with enough nonsense with one Anakin Skywalker. He did not need whatever fresh hell the Coruscant Guard had developed.
“Rex,” Commander Thorn said carefully over comms, “I need you to stay calm.”
Rex narrowed his eyes immediately. “That sentence has literally never led to anything good.”
“Probably fair.”
The headquarters alarm blared overhead. Troopers sprinted through hallways. Someone yelled something about an escaped tooka in Detention Block Three. Another voice screamed: “WHO GAVE THE TOOKA A BLASTER?” In other words, a normal Coruscant afternoon.
Rex rounded the corner after Thorn and stopped dead. “…What.”
Commander Fox hung halfway out a fifth-story window. No, Rex didn’t mean falling. Fox wasn’t falling. He was just… hanging there. As if gravity had become optional.
One boot rested against the windowsill. The rest of him extended into open air over a five-story drop while he calmly reviewed a datapad.
Anakin blinked slowly. “…Fox.”
Fox looked over. “Oh. Hello General Skywalker.”
“You are FALLING.”
Fox glanced downward. “…No?”
“You are OUTSIDE THE BUILDING.”
“Yes.”
“And unsupported.”
Fox frowned slightly. “I’m leaning.”
There was absolutely nothing beneath him. Not even a pipe.
Stone walked past carrying caf like this happened every day. “Oh yeah, don’t worry about that.”
Rex whipped toward him. “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT?!”
Stone shrugged. “He does it all the time.”
Then Fox finished reading the datapad, nodded thoughtfully, and stepped backward into the office. Gravity seemed to remember him halfway through and corrected abruptly.
Rex pointed violently. “THAT.”
Fox blinked. “What about it?”
Commander Thire entered carrying several reports. “Oh! The physics thing.”
Rex stared at him desperately. “THE PHYSICS THING?!”
Thire shrugged helplessly. “We stopped questioning it after Thorn survived being hit by a speeder.”
Ahsoka paused. “…Hit by?”
Stone nodded seriously. “Directly.”
Anakin looked deeply tired already. “We’ve been here six minutes.”
Unfortunately, things only escalated from there.
Two hours later, Rex witnessed Commander Thorn fall off a building. Not trip. Not stumble. Fall.
One moment Thorn was yelling at a senator over comms. The next he missed the edge of the landing platform entirely and disappeared with a distant: “OH KRIFF—”
Rex lunged toward the edge instantly. Thirty stories below, Thorn crashed through two traffic lanes, one parked speeder, and a fruit vendor’s wooden awning. Then he bounced. Actually bounced.
Thorn stood up shakily in the middle of traffic. “OW.”
Fox leaned over the railing above them. “YOU GOOD?”
“YEAH!”
“COOL!”
Ahsoka stared downward in horror. “…Master.”
Anakin rubbed both hands over his face. “Yes, Snips?”
“I don’t think the Guard experiences fear of death correctly.”
Things somehow got worse.
Later that same day, Fox painted a tunnel onto a wall. Rex did not initially question this because he had become emotionally exhausted. Then Commander Stone ran directly into the painted tunnel and vanished. Rex watched him disappear into two-dimensional paint.
Fox nodded thoughtfully at the wall. “Hm. Good paint quality.”
Rex turned toward him slowly. “…Fox.”
“Yes?”
“ONE OF YOUR COMMANDERS IS GONE.”
“He’ll come back.”
Three seconds later Stone burst out of a completely different wall halfway down the corridor carrying caf and classified documents.
Rex grabbed the sides of his bucket. “How are you people alive.”
Fox considered this thoughtfully. “Spite?”
The Jedi attempted to investigate scientifically. This was their second mistake. (The first was assuming science applied here.)
Master Mace Windu arrived personally after hearing twelve separate reports involving impossible falls, disappearing hallways, and Commander Thorn leaving body-shaped holes in walls after explosions.
“Commander Fox,” Mace said patiently, “please walk normally across this hallway.”
Fox nodded. “Understood.”
Fox walked normally. Nothing happened.
Mace hummed thoughtfully. “Interesting. Now perhaps run.”
Fox immediately slipped on absolutely nothing. Time slowed. Fox pinwheeled sideways through the air, ricocheted off two walls, accidentally kicked an assassin attempting to enter through a vent, stole the assassin’s blaster somehow, flipped over a desk, and landed upright holding a traffic cone in about three seconds.
Silence filled the hallway.
Fox looked around. “…Huh.”
Mace Windu stared at him. Anakin stared at him. The unconscious assassin stared at nothing because he was unconscious.
Fox slowly held up the traffic cone. “I don’t actually know where this came from.”
Even worse? It only worked for the Guard. Rex discovered this after watching Thire run across open air over a stairwell. Literally. Thire sprinted down the hallway carrying reports, overshot the staircase entirely, and continued running fifteen feet over empty space before looking down. Then gravity activated. Thire screamed the whole way down.
Rex stared, then immediately tried it himself. He stepped off the staircase confidently. He dropped like a rock, hit every railing on the way down, and landed in a trash receptacle.
Fox looked over the edge. “…Skill issue.”
Rex emerged from the bin furious. “WHY DOES IT ONLY WORK FOR YOU PEOPLE?!”
The entire Guard paused thoughtfully. Stone frowned slightly. “…You have to commit.”
“What does that MEAN?!”
“You can’t doubt the physics.”
“PHYSICS SHOULD NOT BE OPTIONAL!”
The true horror of the Coruscant Guard, however, revealed itself the day Palpatine finally snapped. It started during one of his Sith monologues. Which, unfortunately, happened more often than people realized.
Fox stood in the Chancellor’s office half-listening while Palpatine paced dramatically near the windows. Behind him, Thorn ate someone’s lunch out of a paper bag. Stone was upside down in a chair for reasons unknown. Thire organized reports quietly. Normal meeting.
“The galaxy is mine to shape,” Palpatine hissed.
Fox checked a datapad. “Mhm.”
“The Jedi are blind.”
“Probably.”
“The dark side grants power beyond imagination.”
Thorn raised a hand. “Can it grant brakes to my speeder.”
Palpatine ignored him. “I have orchestrated every conflict in this Republic.”
Fox nodded absentmindedly. “That explains the paperwork.”
Palpatine’s eye twitched. “You stand before the most powerful Sith Lord in history.”
Stone looked up. “Cool.”
Palpatine slowly turned toward them. “…Do you not understand the gravity of this moment?!”
Fox frowned slightly. “We’re on the thirty-third floor. Gravity feels normal.”
Thire snorted.
The Chancellor finally exploded. “ENOUGH.” Force lightning erupted across the room.
Any normal beings would have died instantly. The Coruscant Guard, unfortunately, was not functioning on normal being rules anymore. Fox ducked, the lightning somehow missing him, ricocheting off a metal tray somehow, curving around the room, and blasting Thorn’s caf cup instead.
Thorn looked devastated. “My caf,” he mourned.
Stone somehow flattened himself like a piece of flimsi as lightning passed over him.
Palpatine stared. “…What.”
Stone reinflated. “What?”
Fox drew his blaster. Palpatine ignited his lightsaber with a furious snarl. Then immediately slipped on a banana peel.
There was a moment of silence as the four commanders looked down at the peel. Then Fox, Thire, and Stone all looked at Thorn.
Thorn shrugged defensively. “I was hungry.”
Palpatine recovered with a roar and lunged forward. Fox sidestepped casually. The Sith Lord continued running directly through a freshly painted tunnel Stone had made on the wall during the moments he was on the floor.
Palpatine vanished. A distant crash echoed from somewhere several floors below. Three seconds later Palpatine burst back through a different wall riding a runaway Senate podium.
“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE DARK SIDE.”
Fox grabbed a comically large hammer from nowhere.
Thire pouted. “Where did you get that?” he whined. “I want one!”
Fox blinked. “…Storage?”
The hammer hit Palpatine directly in the face with an enormous metallic BONK. The Sith Lord flew backward through six walls. There were not supposed to be that many walls to fly through.
Palpatine staggered back upright smoking slightly. “I AM ETERNAL.”
Fox looked mildly annoyed. Then reached down. Pulled an absurdly oversized red button out of nowhere.
“What’s that one do?” Thorn asked curiously.
Fox looked down. “…Self-defense.” Then he pressed it.
An anvil dropped from the ceiling directly onto Palpatine. Complete silence filled the office and dust drifted slowly through the air.
Stone leaned sideways to look at the flattened Sith Lord beneath the anvil. “…Think he’s dead?”
The anvil lifted slightly, Palpatine groaning weakly, “I… hate… all of you…”
Fox pulled out a second, smaller red button. “Just to be safe.” The other three commanders nodded. Made sense to them.
A second, smaller anvil fell from nowhere again. BONK.
There was a moment of silence as all four commanders craned their heads to make sure Palpatine was dead. He was.
“…so, what’re we gonna say when they ask where the Chancellor went?” Thire asked curiously.
Fox put away both buttons calmly. “Bad headache.”
And, somehow, that was the official explanation entered into the Republic records.