Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

BANE OF MY EXISTENCE

A Cad Bane adventure

A JEDI GONE MISSING!

YOUNG JEDI MASTER IONA DYSE HAS MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED. CLUELESS AS TO HER WHEREABOUTS, THE JEDI COUNCIL HAS COME TO A DECISION: THEY NEED A BOUNTY HUNTER TO FIND HER BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

HERE WE FIND CAD BANE, THE MOST DANGEROUS BOUNTY HUNTER IN THE GALAXY AND CURRENT PRISONER OF THE REPUBLIC, SITTING ALONE IN HIS CELL, UNAWARE OF THE EVENTS ABOUT TO UNFOLD...

1

CAD BANE sat in his bunk, leaning back and staring blankly at the wall. The bounty hunter was lost in thought, considering his previous escapes from the Republic prison. It was all he could really do, seeing as he was in an exceedingly small jail cell.

In actuality, Cad Bane actually had only half of a jail cell. Even the whole ones were pretty small, but half of one was exceedingly puny. The cell was divided down the middle by a ray shield, exactly like the one that kept him trapped in that miserable place. If Bane had stepped out of his bed, then he would have been able to see his former cellmate – a grotesque creature like an enormous orange slug, oozing a revolting amount of slime all over the place. But Cad Bane preferred to stare at the blank white of his bunk's wall instead, for obvious reasons.

In a way, he had gotten what he'd wanted when the clone troopers had divided the room in half. The slug creature had a mouth, and he never shut it. Cad Bane couldn't stand even the sound of his voice. Even worse, the disgusting being was a complete imbecile. He really had tried to tolerate the creature, for the sake of keeping out of trouble with the guards outside his cell. But the slug just could not take a hint and after five hours of him blathering on to Cad Bane about absolute nonsense with that infuriating, ridiculous voice, well... that was all Cad Bane had been able to take.

And now he had half a cell, all to himself, filled with just sweet, sweet silence, where he could plot his eventual breakout in peace.

"Bane!"

Cad Bane slowly lifted his head to stare with his large, crimson eyes and found that the ray shield at the entrance to the cell had been deactivated. In its place stood three clone troopers, completely unarmed. Cad Bane's gaze drifted to see that there were five more soldiers that were armed waiting outside.

He sighed in bitter disappointment. They were learning.

"Get up. You're coming with us."

Cad Bane slowly sat up, eyeing them warily. "Coming where?" he drawled, stretching his arms over his head briefly. To his satisfaction, every single clone trooper flinched.

One of the clones stepped forward, not answering his question but reinforcing the troopers' command. "Now."

Cad Bane sighed faintly and stood up. Immediately, two clones leapt forward and seized his arms while a third clamed handcuffs over his wrists. Cad Bane merely arched a would-be brow, used to their silly roughhousing.

One of the clones shoved him forward. "Come on," he barked. "Let's move."

"All right, all right," muttered Cad Bane, walking slowly out of the cell with the clones surrounding him closely. The Duros glanced back to see his former cellmate hurriedly swinging his arms back and forth as he struggled to leave the cell before the ray shield was reactivated. Bane smirked faintly, because in the two minutes that the shield had been down, the slug had scarcely moved a centimeter.

Cad Bane's cold amusement was short-lived. Suddenly, a cloth bag was forced down over his head.

"Hey!" he yelled, lashing out, but the clone troopers seized his arms. "Wha's the big idea?!! Let me outta here!!!"

"We can't have you seeing where you're going," a clone trooper hissed by the side of his head. "So just cooperate, and I won't have to stun you."

"Gah," Cad Bane snarled, but he stopped fighting them. One of them kept a tight grip on his arm as they dragged him down the hall. Cad Bane stumbled over a rise in the floor and scowled all the while – but under all his anger he couldn't help but feel an unnerved flash of concern. Where, exactly, am I being taken?

He suspected it might have been to his own execution.

---

Hey, guys, Artemis the Rebel here with a brand new fanfiction! Just a warning, this story takes place after the conclusion of the Star Wars: the Clone Wars TV series (what aired -- by which I mean up to season 5, not the special, bonus season 6 on Netflix), and contains MAJOR spoilers from many of the series' episodes, especially those containing Cad Bane and particularly the story arc starting at the episode "Deception" and ending at the episode "Crisis on Naboo". The events of that story arc (perhaps the best Cad Bane story arc, by the way) can be considered a prologue to this story.

I hope you enjoy!!