#and crosshair coming to believe he deserves to be left behind and that’s the way the world works and

[basket-of-epiphanies]

Since we’re all throwing our ideas for crosshair bad batch reunion moment may I offer some sort of scene that mirrors Crosshair and Mayday’s survival situation where Omega is injured maybe and they’re wasting away in their broken ship clinging together for warmth and then Hunter and wrecker find them and crosshair half delirious just holds onto omega tighter refusing to let anybody get closer and wrecker starts to square his shoulders crack knuckles ready to interfere but then omega cries out for Hunter weakly and crosshair just slumps and lets omega go and the last thing he sees before passing out is omega safe in hunter’s arms, safe because she left his side

[norraexploradora]

The Tragedy of the CX Troopers and the Missed Opportunity to Teach Us All an Important Lesson

A deeper look into how the CX-Troopers were handled in the Bad Batch and the narrative surrounding them that unfortunately got dropped in season 3

I want to start off by applauding the Bad Batch for the brave attempt to tackle dark topics throughout the series and presenting them in a way that is appropriate for families to watch and discuss with their children. Most of series is successful in being just dark enough to raise tension but to also keep things suitable for a child’s first glimpse into the harsh realities of life. However there still a few places that missed the mark.

The one I wish to cover today is the inconsistent narrative surrounding the CX-Troopers. I’m not here to say it was bad writing per se, but if a dark topic is discussed in a family oriented tv series, it is best to commit adequate time to truly flesh it out so the messaging is clear. Subjective is great in a mature series like Andor, but kids lack the life experience required to read between the lines.

And yes, exposition does make dialogue sound clunky at times, but there is a reason why most cartoons in the 80s had the kind of “The more you know” lesson after each episode. The Bad Batch was no different. Tech’s speech in the Crossing and his encouragement to Omega at the end of Retrieval are perfect examples of this.

In my opinion, there was an opportunity for an important lesson to be learned from the CX Troopers that was brought up but left unfinished. These shadow operatives could have been a way to show the viewer how anyone can be “brainwashed” either by force or by clever manipulation.

One operative in season 2 called himself a “Believer” which seems to evoke he was forcibly submerged into a cult-like indoctrination. It’s also why I prefer to use the phrase “coercive persuasion” or “forced persuasion” instead of brainwashing as they are a more accurate description of the process that has been historically implemented by governments, cults, and captors in order to make good people believe in or do horrible things.

Dr. Hemlock’s use of forced persuasion on select clones to turn them into CX-Troopers is a interesting look into the real world and well-documented cases of brainwashing within fascist regimes; especially in wartime settings. It is common and disturbing tactic implemented in moments of great despair and something that deserves more focus within the narrative if it is to be brought up as a major plot point.

Most of the brainwashing aspects in the Bad Batch were rapidly glossed over probably due to time and budget constraints, and not so much by the dark and disturbing imagery. One can easily get the “idea across” without showing it explicitly. (Like Crosshair having his hand chopped off. We didn’t see it but yeah, we get the gist).

I will say however, that despite the mystery surrounding brainwashing in the CX-Program, one of the more poignant moments was Captain Rex telling a caught CX Trooper that he was still their brother and that they would help him. It was a beautiful show of compassion and introduced new plot element; that the soldiers who undergo forced persuasion could possibly be reached or even saved.

It’s not a stretch to believe that the Bad Batch would take this route given the series had built up “we don’t leave our own behind” as one of the main themes. It would also be safe to say that saving fictional heroes from brainwashing gives us hope that real life survivors can recover from such trauma.

It was one of the many reasons fans were led to believe that the mysterious CX-2 operative could have been Tech or Cody. The focus on this particular shadow operative gave rise to speculation that he was different, that there was something coming to shed light or hope that a lost soldier could be found and rescued; something that would make sense of it were a character we already cared greatly about.

Alas, CX-2 was kept a mystery box that gave no insight to the tragic nature of his existence nor gave us a reason to mourn his death. That is why the battle between the Bad Batch and Hemlock’s Batch of secret operatives felt rushed and incomplete to some viewers. There wasn’t proper time for the story to breathe beyond “One Batch is good, the other Batch is bad.”

There were simply too many dropped narratives throughout the final season that reduced the whole CX Trooper plot to a video game-esque final boss battle. Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing fight, beautifully animated, terrifying, and intense; but nevertheless, it felt hollow because the build-up went nowhere.

At that’s exactly where the narrative around the tragic nature of brainwashing got lost.

It’s important for you to know that I’m not saying the Bad Batch killing these operatives in the final fight was wrong. I’m also not saying that they should have tried to reach out to save these Shadow Operatives in the middle of of a life and death situation. It’s just unfortunate that we were never given a reason to feel anything other than relief that the CX-Troopers were killed.

And yes, this is a show about the Bad Batch and not brainwashed mystery troopers, but I stress, the writing set up these characters and introduced a very dark and disturbing concept to young viewers. With more time and effort spent on the narrative, it could have been an important lesson that applies to real life.

Coercive Persuasion is not a fantasy concept. It is very very real. Sleep deprivation, isolation, abuse, constant interrogation, drugging, shame, and humiliation, are all various means to break down a person’s will and forcibly persuade them into believing anything.

One can simply look to how many people get forced into false confessions by unethical police practices, or those who end up committing atrocities due to cult leader manipulation. A more common and less obvious example is social media outlets designed to spin conspiracy theories; coercing people into believing anything they want, like like the Earth is flat and microchips were put in Covid vaccines. By preying upon people’s anger and fear, these sites cultivate distrust and can lead one to extremist thinking.

This is real world, dark and scary stuff that needs to be handled with serious care and consideration of bringing it into an animated Star Wars series.

So given more time and budget, how could this lesson be shown through the story of the Bad Batch? How could these brainwashed operatives been presented in a way to that is scary but still gives younger audiences a way to sympathize with them?

Shedding more light on a terrifying process would remind us the CX-Troopers are victims and despite their terrifying nature, they still deserve our compassion and empathy. So giving the operatives more of a backstory is a good start.

For Example:

Showing the transformation of at least one of these operatives before the final battle would provide more emotional impact after their demise. Having kids clearly, and not subjectively, understand that under those cool costumes there used to be good men is such an important lesson. It reinforces the narrative that the real villains aren’t these soldiers but the regime that warped their minds and forced them into mindless monsters.

To be clear, this a a family series and I am in no way implying that a clear visual of lengthy torture would be acceptable. There are already hints through Crosshair’s PTSD and that is enough to get the idea across.

My suggestion would have been to place the sniper clone who eventually became CX-2 in the cell next to Crosshair while on Tantis. The viewer gradually sees these two men go back and forth to their cells after these conditioning sessions and the witness bond that forms between them. Crosshair is forced to see CX-2’s identity slip more and more away after each session until he is no longer the person he once was. The sadness and loss of seeing this man lose his identity not only leaves a mark on Crosshair, but by the viewer as well.

The scene of the shadow operative watching Crosshair on Tantiss and the one shadow operative calling him “brother” would have made more sense in retrospect. In addition, having an emotional and clear connection between Crosshair and the man who became CX-2, would have given their epic fight on top of the waterfall more emotional weight. CX-2’s line “You could have been one of us. You made the wrong choice” would be more resonant to the viewer. CX-2 would literally be a sniper shadow operative that Crosshair could have become verses a subjective mystery box.

To further this narrative and Crosshair’s character arc, making the above change to the story could have also opened the door to Crosshair eventually saving this lost brother. Omega’s determination to never give up on Crosshair could have resulted in Crosshair reaching out to CX-2 and eventually getting through to him before the final battle. It would have been so emotional and fulfilling.

And yet…as lovely as that would have been, I realize the above scenario would require at least one additional episode; which the animation team probably didn’t have the luxury or the budget to do. So I’ll offer another solution:

Adding a few minutes here and there during season 2 and the beginning of season 3 dedicated to Hemlock’s treatment to the CX-Troopers and other Clone prisoners would give the viewer a clearer picture into the nature of the CX Program. The result would be that the feeling of triumph wouldn’t be seeing the shadow operatives lying dead on the floor but knowing that the experimentation on the clones at Tantiss by Dr. Hemlock was finally over.

So in conclusion:

It’s a shame that the shadow operatives were left a mystery and simply became foils and metaphors. The fight at the end was nothing more than the Batch having to kill or be killed and it failed to showcase a serious topic with less black and white thinking.

With more time, the writers could have explored the tragedy of forced coercion. Discussing a difficult subject in a manner fit for young audiences could leave them with awareness when they are faced with a similar real world scenario.

The CX-Trooper plot could have also been a good way for a parent to discuss what coercive persuasion does to people; especially in today’s world where social media is rife with bad people luring in youth and manipulating their anger and fear into extremist thinking.

Think about it.

How does someone get so isolated that they fall prey to extremism and they end up committing acts of terrorism? How does one get indoctrinated into a cult and become so brainwashed that they take their own lives or the lives of others at the behest of a cult leader? How would an innocent person sign a confession of a crime they didn’t commit?

These are all good questions that people often ask after horrendous real life events and can regularly be seen on the daily news and social media. Having a fictional metaphor for scary real world issues that children could easily understand would be exactly the kind of thing Star Wars was created for. It was also created to give children and all of us hope.

So in the end, the lesson should have been that people who fall victim to brainwashing aren’t weak or gullible. They have been put through extreme duress and put through unethical means of isolation and manipulation.

And if there is hope for even one of the CX-Troopers to be saved, we as a society should have empathy and try to reach out to those in our own lives who have been a victim of coercive persuasion before writing them off.

Disclaimer:

One thing I’ve learned in life is that platforms like Twitter are not places for deep discussions and good faith arguments. You have a set number of letters to get your ideas across and interpreting the meaning or tone always leads to misunderstandings.

That is why I’m coming to to Tumblr to discuss my deep dives into season 3 of the Bad Batch. I am the type of person who doesn’t like angry, confrontational sparring over ideas.

My goal is to shed light on a different perspective; not to make anyone agree with me, but just to understand that we can all watch the same show and interpret things differently due to our own life experiences. By explaining my viewpoints, I’m showing you into my thought process. You are certainly free to disagree but I’m not trying to change your feelings on the matter, nor do I wish for anyone to forcibly change mine.

We can all exist in the same space and I encourage anyone who has a different view to write an analysis of their own instead of arguing in anyone’s comment section. Be kind and respectful and most of all, remember this is fiction and subjective interpretation. There are so many things to be really angry about in the world and Star Wars is the least of our worries.

Cheers and as always, May the Force be with you!

[heyclickadee]

A couple things:

1. The thing is, I actually don’t really think we’re done with the bad batch, for a variety of reasons. There’s too much unresolved, for one thing, and “end of this chapter with these characters” is not how anyone says, “We’re never touching this again.” I really do think we’re getting an immediate follow up with more of a focus on Rex and Echo, but that the rest of the bad batch will still pop in from time to time, giving all of them a chance to round out the last little bit of their stories and character arcs—because they are all just a little bit undercooked. (For example: Crosshair doesn’t even get lines after Tantiss, and the last thing he says about himself takes him from implicitly to explicitly suicidal. The hug is beautiful and cements his place as part of the family, but we never get a moment where he forgives himself or no longer believes that he deserves to die. His redemption arc is magnificent, but it needs that last little push to feel fully resolved).

And, for another variety of reasons, I actually do still think we’ll be getting Tech back in one way or another. So much of what is left unresolved in TBB forms a chalk outline around a Tech-shaped void, for one. The writers aren’t committed enough to have come up with a decent reason for why he had to go in the first place—stakes does not cut it and is actively undermined by never treating it like a character death—for another. They were, at the very least, not committed enough to actually kill him. Tech is the only character in a show that loves making us watch who doesn’t die on screen, and the only one who’s “death” moves nothing forward and is never treated like an actual death. And we have no definitive proof he actually died, for another. (Even if he was CX-2—CX-2 got “killed” two other times on screen and popped up five minutes later each time like a daisy. If you do that you’re going to have to burn the body and scatter the ashes for me to think he’s dead, impalement or no. Besides, you can’t definitively kill a main character via subtext. You still have to be clear and direct.) And Tech has too many callback lines and potential survival foreshadowing for someone to never tug on them at some point, for another. You’d have to kill me to keep me from doing something with, “Better late than dead.” Basically, tl:dr, I think Tech will come back someday, whether they have plans or not.

Because I can’t really get on board with the idea that The Bad Batch was just always badly written. I can’t agree with that. It was never perfect, of course, but it was always remarkably well written and thematically consistent for 46 straight episodes and then tripped on the chalk of the finish line. Besides, I’ve never seen bad writing that was perfectly set up amazing writing if all they did was one simple thing—ie, follow through with what they set up. It’s not that the ending is bad, it’s that it’s bad in this particularly insane way. If it was just normal bad, I’d have dropped The Bad Batch like a rock by now and done my best to forget I’d ever watched it. But because it’s bad like this—basically, a non-ending that resolves nothing but Hunter’s Cut Lawquane arc, Rampart (which was good, actually), and the problem of Hemlock continuing to draw breath (which was just the last major obstacle in Hunter’s Cut Lawquane arc, so it’s not even a separate thing) and answers NO questions—I’m obsessed.

And I can’t get behind the idea that The Bad Batch ending is like this and that we got shorted a Tech return because they got shorted a season. I’ve seen many serialized animated shows that got shorted a season or more, and what every one of them did was cut out everything they could in the middle so that they could get to the resolution they wanted, squash the originally planned last season’s arcs into the actual last season—not leave those arcs undone and the resolution out. The only way them being shorter a season works as an explanation for all of this is if the creative team found out season three was the last at the same time we did. And even then, the solution there would have been to take out five minutes of fight scene and replace it with five minutes of resolving everything in the short and stupid but still THERE way.

For example: Give Wrecker and Crosshair one line each after Tantiss that tells us what they’re going to do. Unmask CX-2 as Tech after spearing him (or don’t spear him) and add one line where Hunter says he’s recovering and that it’ll be a long road, but they won’t give up on him. Or! If you don’t want to bring Tech back in the short and stupid but there way, add a line to the epilogue where Hunter tells Omega, “I see Tech when I look at you sometimes. I don’t want to lose you the way we lost him,” which seems like a no brainer, or, “Tech would have been so proud of you,” which is absolutely a no-brainer if you actually want to close things out for Tech. Tech would still be gone, but at least it’d be resolved, and that’s all short, simple stuff you could add to the very last episode to make it feel finished. If you’re shorted a season or even a few episodes, you cut everything that doesn’t matter, you do whatever you can to get your story resolved—unless you have somewhere else to put it. Which, given how open Star Wars canon is and how heavily it relies on recontextualization, is a very real possibility here.

What I think may have happened here is that The Bad Batch ended up being the first part of a longer story that had to be artificially cut in half. Whether it was always planned that way, whether it was something that unexpectedly happened partway through the production of season three, or a secret third option (the creative team set things up to to be resolved in three seasons but always wanted to do a longer version, but the longer version (in the form of another show) didn’t get greenlit until they’d already written most of season three, so all the payoff got schlorped over to that follow up show while the payoff stayed in this one, leaving us, the audience, with this incredibly unsatisfying mess of a finale in the meantime while whoever is in charge of announcing shit at Lucasfilm doesn’t see the problem). Put a pin in CX-2, slap something that looks like a happy ending on the rest, resolve nothing, do it all in the next thing.

(Slight sidebar: If it turns out that the reason we didn’t get Tech back is because something went horrifically wrong during the writer’s strike—basically, the finale got hit with extreme budget cuts and the script patched by AI—I think we’d still get Tech back. Tech in the first two seasons was something of a writer blorbo, and no one is leaving their blorbo dead over that. That’s a good way for them to bring back their blorbo and have that blorbo murder the hell out of a thinly disguised CEO insert.)

And if that’s what we’re looking at—well, okay. I can see wanting to give certain things (especially a Tech return) more time. If this is what’s happening I actually think it will be more satisfying in the long run, from a story perspective, anyway. I’ll be able to live with that.

That said….

2. If that’s the case—if what we’re looking at is a story artificially split in half one way or another and we are getting a Tech return and the rest of the resolution eventually in an immediate follow up, something that will ultimately work really well in the long run—that doesn’t mean I think it works now. Right now, it’s awful, from every angle. We don’t know for sure that anything else is coming, it makes for a deeply unsatisfying story right now because the “ending” we have is all we have to go on, and it’s unnecessarily stressful for most everyone but especially the autistic fans who relate to Tech.

And the thing is, if Tech were neurotypical? I don’t think we’d really be question the idea that he could still come back eventually. He’s a clear writer favorite to the point that they basically gave him the entirety of season two, except the two Crosshair episodes, great lines and moments in other character’s episodes, and they apparently liked using him so much that either CX-2 was Tech or they physically couldn’t stop themselves from writing and animating Tech in a season he wasn’t in. Killing off one of the writer faves and the fan favorite in order to bring them back later is something that happens. But it’s something that hits differently when that writer and fan favorite is also the only canonically autistic character in the franchise.

Which. Is I think where we run into a problem. You see, I never really got the impression that the creative team ever thought of Tech as The Autistic One. Does that mean I think the didn’t write him as autistic? Of course not—they absolutely did, and did so intentionally. What I mean is that that wasn’t the sum total or even the primary way in which they thought of him, otherwise I think we would have ended up with a terrible Sheldon-Cooper-esque. Instead, the Tech they wrote, and the Tech we got, is just a guy. A really amazing guy who’s noticeably different and autistic AF, but treated like any other character. And on the one hand, great! I know people have a lot of different ideas about this, but I personally want writers to deal with autistic characters that way—to just write us like we’re people. And if what they’re doing is bringing Tech back later and on a longer timeframe than what we expected—also great. It means that all the ambiguity, hinting, and complete and total lack of processing or closure makes sense, because that’s how you write a fakeout death. That’s textbook how you write a fakeout death. But—but—

The flip-side of just treating Tech like any other character and, perhaps, playing a long game with “killing” him off and bringing him back later like someone would do with a fan favorite, if that’s what they’re doing, is that you end up in the situation that we’re in right now. The interim situation where it feels like Tech’s sacrifice was never given the weight it needed to feel final or meaningful, where we’re given no closure and no opportunity to let go, where we DON’T know if anything is coming next even if we do get hints, where Tech got dropped, where nothing makes sense, and where the autistic fans in the audience who relate to Tech feel like Star Wars kicked them in the face and told them that they don’t belong here.

So.

I want this to be a long game, and I do think this could, one, be a situation where they team is having to work around some kind of corporate shenanigans to play that long game, and; two, could end up being a fantastic story that I love even more than the version I wanted.

But even if I’m right and that is the case, I also hate that this is where we’re at in the here and now, that it’s hurt people as badly as it has, and think that they should never do anything like this again, because the game stopped being fun a long time ago.

tl;dr: I don’t think we’re done yet, I think this is part of a longer story, I think we’ll get Tech back at some point whether it was planned or not, but I also hhhaaaaaatte the current situation and think it’s been mishandled.

[antianakin]

Oh cool, so Omega suddenly remembers there were other captives on that fucking mountain only after she and her personal favorite escape. It's way too fucking late for that, babe, sorry.

Like it's VERY hard to believe she cares when she never once spoke to any of them even though she walked by all of them EVERY DAY to go speak to fucking Crosshair instead and when her first reaction to Rex was "I thought we didn't like regs." They showed her bonding to the DOGS instead of the actual CLONES. That shows where those clones rated on Omega's list to me.

Even if the idea was supposed to be "They couldn't have all escaped, so it was better to leave and bring back a bigger force to help get the others out" then you could make a solid argument that she should've and could've just left Crosshair behind and gotten out herself. She wastes precious time and resources going to get Crosshair out, it's far more suspicious for her to get Crosshair out because he's literally in a prison while she has the ability to walk around freely and won't have people asking questions when she shows up somewhere the way Crosshair would. And going by this episode, she clearly doesn't really need Crosshair's help to escape and find Hunter and Wrecker at all.

The other reason that that argument wouldn't work for me is that we never see Omega ever express that to anybody. She never expresses any care about the other clones until she's already escaped, she only expresses care for Crosshair, the dogs, and Emerie. She never speaks to the other clones, she never goes up to them to try to bond with them, she doesn't say anything to the prisoners she's leaving behind to explain she won't be able to bring anyone else with her but that she promises she'll come back to get them all out with more help.

It almost would've made more sense for that kind of sentiment to come from CROSSHAIR, at least it would've demonstrated more growth for him. He had an entire episode last season where he grew to care for one of the regs, despite all of his prejudice against them, and that's what got him sent to Tantiss in the first place. It would've been SO NICE to have Crosshair refuse to leave without the rest of them because NONE OF THEM deserve to be left behind, and if Omega wants to escape, then fine, she can go, but he won't leave with her if it means the others have to stay on Tantiss.

This could've been a way to sort-of showcase the way Crosshair has developed while away from the rest of the Batch. Hunter and Wrecker and Tech don't spend time with other real clones and have expressed a distinct lack of understanding about why Echo even CARES about trying to save the clones. They left and have been on their own since Order 66, relying on friendships with other people to get them through. But Crosshair stayed behind, Crosshair has been spending a lot more time around the chipped clones, Crosshair has been getting a front row seat to what's happening to the clones under the Jedi, Crosshair is the one who bonded with Cody and then Mayday and saw what was done to both of them. Crosshair betrayed the Batch when he stayed behind, he was disloyal, but it allowed him to see the real clones in a way he never had before, to find a way to connect to them a way he never could before, and so now he refuses to just abandon the other captives on Tantiss the way he abandoned the Batch. The Batch made friends among regular civilians and war refugees, but Crosshair learned what it meant to be part of the actual clone community, what it's always meant to be considered one of many. Crosshair could've taught Omega about that bond, he could've been the one to be the bridge between her and the clones she's been so distant from.

Instead, they just have Crosshair abandon them with Omega and it's OMEGA trying to insist they go back later to save them and Crosshair doesn't care about them any more than he has before and is happy to just leave them all behind to die.

[eriexplosion]

Okay I've put off the finale enough. Time for Return to Kamino.

You can tell it's awkward between Crosshair and Hunter right now because after his dramatic entrance Crosshair just. Slipped back out to wait up front rather than risk having to actually talk to Hunter about anything.

This first interaction though god there's so much there. "And so will your squad." "They'll still come for you." Just godddd the pain is so deep here and it's no one's FAULT it's the Empire's but you can't have interpersonal family dynamics with the Empire. It's only this painful because of how much everyone cares about each other.

POOR PANICKY OMEGA she's so scared and wants to go get Hunter RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY.

When do we get the Gregor in Cid's bar chaos cut?

Rampart has acknowledged Hunter's name but never Crosshair's, which is wild to me.

The fact that his subordinates still call him 'the clone' okay. The thing with Crosshair is he might have gotten the title but he never got an OUNCE of respect and god does it show. The fact that he willingly went back to this is a sign of how little self respect he has left frankly. He doesn't care that they treat him like shit because whatever he probably deserves to be treated like shit.

Echo getting down to ask Omega if she's alright is such a good moment for them, just a lovely example of how good they are at relating to her. (Her saying it doesn't matter they just need to save Hunter though sdoifjsf, I cannot wait to see her stubborn streak in season 3)

"Not the ones that matter" baby boy, my beloved delusional bitch, NONE of you matter and you NEVER WILL to the Empire.

"They don't leave their own behind. Most of the time."

Listen I love that his hurt is treated like it matters but I love that Hunter doesn't instantly give in when he hears it too. They did what they could with the information they had - which wasn't much - and it meant that they couldn't take Crosshair with them. Either they would have died or Crosshair would have been killed. There's no solution where they just grab Crosshair and take him with them and it all works out perfectly, and both of their sides are absolutely valid in the emotions they have and it's DELICIOUSLY COMPLICATED BETWEEN THEM.

"We didn't have a choice." "Hm. And I did?" - Okay though I love this exchange because it is. The singular time I think where we hear Crosshair admit that he didn't have a choice. He usually tries to pretend he's picked this path, that he's made his own decisions. And after a point he did, but those decisions will never not be influenced by something that was completely out of his control, and when he lets himself be a little raw he admits that, before he piles on all his stubbornness again.

GODDD HUNTER IS TRYING SO HARD STILL TO GET THROUGH TO HIM AND HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT CROSSHAIR ISN'T CHIPPED ANYMORE AND AGHHHHHHH. I know I'm focusing on this over the others in the lab but god there's just so much here I can't stop chewing on it. Hunter's sad sigh, the gentleness he uses to try to get through to him, Crosshair's face when Hunter mentions the chip because he knows it's not there and he isn't sure he fully believes that it was That Big A Deal anyway. I'm so. Emotional. About this.

Empty Kamino is still one of the creepier settings tbh

So funny how they fall for the 'oh we'll go where they're not expecting!' trick twice in a row because Crosshair is just that familiar with how they think.

"And here we all are, together again!" Brat.

HUNTER'S LITTLE NOD TELLING THEM TO DROP THEIR WEAPONS

"You think we'd bring her here? We're smarter than that." NO YOU ABSOLUTELY ARE NOT GO FIND THE KID RIGHT NOW

"You betrayed everything we stood for" babe you are the one being weird about what you stood for not the rest of the batch.

"You weren't loyal to me." LINES THAT STRIKE AT THE HEART EVERY TIME. THE MUSIC IS SO FUCKING GOOD ON THIS BIT. AND "I'm going to give you what youo never gave me. A chance." WHY THE DIALOGUE GOTTA GO SO DAMNED HARD.

The way that he tries to get Omega off world is another good signal that the chip is out, it's so different from aim for the kid it might as well be coming from a different person. Because it is. The chipped version was not Crosshair, not really, this is. Just. A very very damaged Crosshair.

Glad he drops the 'we're superior' bullshit in season two pretty much, guess 32 rotations starving on a platform will put some things back in perspective.

Tech spotting the mirrors and bringing Wrecker's attention to them right before Crosshair shoots everyone and pulls his helmet off it's just so much happening all at once and I adore the Emotion in this whole sequence.

YOU ARE ALL MEANT FOR MORE THAN JUST RUNNING. LIKE BEING THE LACKEY OF A GUY THAT FUNDAMENTALLY DISRESPECTS YOU.

"Don't become my enemy" "Crosshair, we never were" BABIES

And then the droid incident happens right when it seems like MAYBE they could get through and it's back to wrestling around on the ground like idiots.

This is not a fight this is Hunter managing a fucking tantrum while trying not to let Crosshair get shot in the meantime. Like it is clear they are not on equal footing in this lol. Crosshair manages to get the upper hand for exactly .5 seconds.

THE THEME KICKING IN WHEN HE JOINS UP AGAINST THE DROIDS MY GOD.

We need Tech alive it's the only way to get the theme back properly in season 3 if they play it without him it will feel EMPTY.

The DESPERATION ON HUNTER'S FACE AS HE TRIES ONE LAST TIME TO INSIST IT'S THE INHIBITOR CHIP. And I am still not over how.... the thing that Crosshair says 'Wrong' about isn't 'it's your inhibitor chip' but rather 'we can help you.'

This is just the face of a man that fundamentally thinks he can't be saved.

Like he doesn't look happy about this at ALL he looks exhausted and hurt, he's not proud when he says This is who I am.

Anyway he snapped his rifle up to try and commit suicide by Hunter I think, probably didn't occur to him that Hunter would have it on the stun setting.

Hunter's HEARTBREAKING EXPRESSION is a lot to take in but you also can see Tech's eyes widen and then narrow as he tries to process the new information and just. UGH. MY HEART AND SOUL IS WOUNDED.

And through it all, Hunter still checks for a scar trying to figure out what is going on. He still wants so bad for it not to be true that this is Crosshair in his right mind.

Which, well, he's not, just not because he's actively chipped.

U G H THE SHOTS OF EMPTY KAMINO JUST BEFORE THE BOMBING STARTS.

[lightwise]

2 and 12 for the ask game please

Since you had to share one question I’ll answer an extra one here as well for you 😉 also wow these got really long and a little more intense than I expected. Hoping to not incite any violence with these answers but I did get pretty heartfelt here.

12. Name a common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing.

Since @heyclickadee covered some of the opinions I have about pro-Jedi vs Jedi-critical perspectives, I’m going to go with a Bad Batch peeve I have. Honestly, it extends to more of a general media critique and concern as well.

I get really sad when I see people choosing one of these three stances:

1. Hating Crosshair for what he’s done/claim he needs to spend the rest of his life making amends and that he deserves everything that’s happened to him,

2. Hating the rest of the Batch (and Hunter specifically) claiming that they didn’t do enough, that they abandoned Crosshair, that they are horrible people who left their brother behind with no remorse and that they deserve everything that’s happened to them,

3. Hating Omega and considering her a dumb little kid who took Crosshair’s place with his brothers, ruined the show, and is otherwise just a stupid girl character that they don’t want to take seriously.

Now, of course it’s everyone’s right to like or dislike any character(s) or parts of a story that they want to. But one thing that is always really beautiful about TCW and TBB especially is the amount of nuance they strive to convey through their characterizations and plot lines. Very few people in these shows are all good or all bad, and even if they fall squarely on the side of evil vs good, we’re often given reasonings as to why they’ve chosen the paths and beliefs they have.

In addition—family is complicated. The close relationships that are portrayed between the Batch members, the addition of the chip’s influence and circumstances outside of their control, and the twisted difficulties that can come when the people closest to us hurt us, is something that is not one sided and requires a lot of nuance to navigate. Everyone and no one can be to blame in a situation, everything can have gone horribly wrong and yet people can still be sorry over it and seek reconciliation, and people can seek to repair the mistakes they’ve made and it will never erase or make up for the harm that has been done.

All of those contradictions exist in real people, in real life, and I believe that these shows want to portray that as best they can. Broken people who care and who are doing the best they can with the information they have and the motivations that they carry, in a world that they did not create and don’t fully have control over. I think this makes good storytelling (even if the story itself doesn’t always go the way I expected or wanted), and I think it’s good to have compassion for fictional characters just as much as real people. That’s how I hope to approach stories that I love, at least.

Also, sorry, but I have to throw in this classic. Stop blaming Kathleen Kennedy for everything. Like seriously people. I am neither for nor against her, I really don’t have strong opinions one way or the other. But I do know how corporate structures work, and I do know that she may be atop the structure and therefore the most visible for disgruntled fans to throw their ire at, but in all seriousness, she does not know the details of every single tiny aspect of what gets put out there, and she is not the only person making decisions on everything. She either directly or indirectly brought us Rogue One as well as the Kenobi show as well as Andor as well as Mando and TBoBF. In other words, there have been critically acclaimed and fan loved content under her leadership, as well as fan hated and critically meh projects. She’s not (always) the problem that fan bros like to claim she is. Lots and lots of people work on these projects. She’s just doing her job as well as anyone in that position likely would.

3. What is the worst part of canon?

I’m going to go with something that I figured out today as I’ve been rewatching both the Sequels and the OT—I started with The Force Awakens and was trying to decide why some parts of this movie are so freaking great and others fall just completely flat, especially compared to the original it’s styling itself after, A New Hope. There are lots of points I could make here especially related to Kylo Ren and Finn, but I had this revelation today for something that bothers me.

In TFA, and other modern Star Wars projects, there’s so much exposition where a character is essentially explaining themselves to the audience via a monologue to another character, but the topic isn’t necessary to their interaction or the scene. Whether it’s bringing in “fan service” moments or trying to explain 20 years of backstory that we’re never going to be shown on screen, too many things are just spouted off and/or overexplained for the audience’s benefit.

Whereas in ANH, everything we learn about the Force, Anakin, Luke, Han, Han’s debts, who Jabba is….it all comes from natural conversations between two characters. It doesn’t just feel like it’s for our benefit, it feels natural for both characters to be adding in these details or talking about certain things. And if it’s not something that these characters would need to say to each other in a particular scene, we don’t find out more details until we need to know.

I wish that modern script writing took into account that audiences are intelligent, we can have patience, and we can watch a story unfold without knowing everything up front. (I know, I know, Star Wars Twitter would beg to disagree with me). I just want to watch a story unfold, not be lectured at or be patted on the head through a screen. The good old adage “show, don’t tell.”

[dottiechan]

ICEBREAKER Pt. 1

Read on AO3 (link in bio)

Part 1 | Part 2&3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Pairing: Crosshair x Reader x Hunter; Tech x Reader (platonic)

Wordcount: 2389

Summary: Tech watches on helplessly as his brothers' affection for you threaten to ruin the squad.

Warnings: cursing, yearning

You’re just as cold on the inside as the ice is under your boots. It crunches with every step you take, and your heart seems to beat along with the fall of your boots, aching. You feel unsteady, almost enough to miss the tracks running in the snow right in front of you. You pause and crutch down, gloved fingers dipping into the indentations as you grumble to yourself. It’s not even your turn to scope out the area where you’re setting up camp, and besides, there is a literal tracking genius in your squad - it really shouldn’t be you who’s out here in the snow and ice, eyes straining against the blinding white of the planet, fingers freezing off as you set up perimeter alarms. And yet you just volunteered for the less than ideal task without explanation, not understanding your own decision either.

At least Tech offered to tag along, but you suspect he’s simply had enough of his brothers for a while. Not that you can blame him.

“Fascinating.”

You sigh, internally begging him to stop talking as you stand, abandoning the tracks after deciding they most likely belong to a lone whitefang. You have enough on your plate right now, with Hunter still being pissy and Crosshair avoiding you like the plague, and silence would be much more preferable right now to listening to one of Tech’s rambles.

“Did you know that this moon’s surface is almost entirely composed of water?”

“No.”

“Despite the subzero surface temperature, there are subsurface oceans underneath the ice that are warmed by the moon’s internal heat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wish we could stay long enough for me to study the subsurface flora and fauna. There might be plants underneath the ice that-”

“Tech.”

“-that use chemosynthesis-”

“Tech!”

“What?”

He has the decency to look flustered, one hand gripping the datapad tightly, the other flying up to adjust his goggles as he peers up at you. You didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but sometimes you just can’t help it. Sometimes, the confinement of the Marauder is enough to turn you into a ticking time bomb, irritated by the slightest seemingly innocent things. And you’ve had more than just mere sparks to flare your temper as of late.

...

His rifle is spotless, and yet he’s still scrubbing it as if his life depended on it.

Maybe it does, because if he jumps up and lowers his guard for a second, he’s out the ship and off to find you and Tech. Maybe you’re a fool sometimes, a god damn nuisance, a person he still couldn’t grow used to, but you belong with them now, you’re theirs, you’re his, and that means something to him. You frustrate him beyond reason, and he often grows callous and agitated because he refuses to allow himself to feel the emotions you elicit from him whenever you’re near him.

Even now, on an ice planet, the mere thought of you infects him with a sweet, sweet jungle fever that knocks him off his feet.

And he’s supposed to be angry now, Crosshair reminds himself. After all, you almost gotten yourself killed on Bracca, and almost broke him in the process.

“They’ve been gone for too long,” Hunter grumbles as he paces up and down like a caged nexu craving to run free. But lately Crosshair began to suspect that he craves something else, someone else, and the thought has his throat tightening in jealousy. He’s been watching, and he convinced himself that he’d misread the signs until he saw the same agitation reflect in his brother’s eyes that he himself has to wrestle with every day.

If it ever came down to your choice, he knows he wouldn’t be it, and he hates living with this knowledge.

Hunter has all the things you seem to like - unlimited kindness, longing looks, smirks that turn a little too soft when directed at you, broad shoulders he caught you staring at more times than he can count. Deep down, he’s still hoping it will never come to you having to choose, but it’s impossible not to wish to be in the centre of your attention. You drive him insane, but you also make him want to commit and stop fighting and lay down his weapons for once in his god damn life.

“Relax. They’re probably fine.”

The screen to their left lights up, and Hunter rushes across the ship in long strides before exhaling in relief. “The proximity alarms are online. They should be heading back soon.”

Crosshair sucks in a breath, worried about seeing his own emotions sitting behind Hunter’s eyes as well.

...

You were assigned to assist the Bad Batch for an unspecified period of time some months ago. You’re a versatile field agent, specialising in both stealth and combat casualty care, one of the few volunteers who were qualified enough to join the GAR. Oh, and you’re also clearly mistrusted by your new squad as they flip out the very moment you risk yourself in the line of duty. You’re not stupid, you weighed the risks carefully, and you trusted your abilities to see you through the job unharmed.

But ever since the incident on Bracca, you’re given the cold shoulder by most on the squad, and for once, the scenery matches your mood.

And yet Tech deserves better than to be cut off like that. He deserves to be listened to, and appreciated as the good man he is. You’re friends, but in moments like these, you think you don’t deserve his friendship.

“Look, I’m... I’m sorry, okay? But right now, I have too much on my mind to think about, umm, chemo...”

“Chemosynthesis?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I think I understand,” he nods, satisfied with your half-assed apology for the time being as he goes back to scanning the vast icy desert stretching as far as the eye can see. The Marauder’s lights blink in the background, orange against the dark blue of the growing darkness that surrounds you. It’s like a beacon, a sign that promises warmth, and you gaze at it longingly until you remember that you’ll have to go back to Crosshair’s scowl and Hunter’s disapproving frown and Wrecker’s awkward little smiles. Somehow, the ice is preferable once more, and the snow that just began to fall in soft flakes is little more than a mild annoyance.

“Well, aside from a few distant life forms-”

“Whitefangs.”

“Yes, most likely whitefangs - aside from those, we should be quite safe inside the ship for tonight.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “You might be. I’m not the most popular with the squad right now, remember?”

“You are a valued addition,” Tech declares, and the certainty in his voice releases inside you the emotional equivalent of a sucker punch. All you can do is stand, and fight the sting of tears in your eyes. You’re confident, but you never in your wildest dreams imagined how difficult it would be to live up to the expectations of a special unit. You also know your worth, but it’s hard to keep on believing in yourself steadfastly when the rest of your squad doubts your every move. “Which is why the prospect of losing you elicits a rather severe emotional reaction in us. It is rare for regs to warm up to us as well as you have, let alone volunteers. Aside from the obvious tactical disadvantage losing you would mean, I believe it is a little more personal than that.”

...

Hunter knows something is off even before one of the alarms is triggered - whatever it is, it is within five clicks of the ship, making you and Tech plenty exposed before he could do anything. He was straining his ear simply to keep you all safe - so what if he accidentally heard your muffled voice, or the soft crunch of snow underneath your boots?

But now is not the time to be idle, and he knows it. He would never forgive himself if something happened to his squad. And to you, he corrects himself almost softly as he grabs his helmet and checks his weapons quickly. Despite the fact that he’s still angry about your previous carelessness, he cannot deny the forbidden yearning coiling in his stomach whenever you’re on his mind, making him just as nervous as hopeful. And to be fair, it happens more and more often as of late, which is both alarming and exciting as he never thought he’d ever have the luxury to feel this way about someone else. Sure, he knows love, he loves his brothers with all his heart even if he isn’t very vocal about it, but this is different. New, scary, exciting different, an effervescent and persevering tingling blinding all his senses.

Crosshair is beside him in less than a second, rifle in hand, silent, and they share a nod before lowering the ramp and rushing out into the freezing dusk.

When he picks up on your muffled voice, he seems to ignore everything as he breaks into a sprint towards you, hoping to reach you in time before you’re in danger. He almost misses the way Crosshair’s heartbeat picks up, the usually stoic man reeking with genuine worry as he looks through the scope of his rifle.

He can deal with this later, Hunter promises himself as he pushes down this uncomfortable feeling. But then he sees you and Tech, and he seems to forget about anything and everything - you have that unfortunate and awfully distracting effect on him.

...

“But Hunter yelled at me for being reckless for a solid hour. And Crosshair said he didn’t care if I wanted to get myself killed, but I should do it in a way that didn’t interfere with the mission. Seriously, what an asshole.”

“Nevermind what they actually say,” Tech waves his hand in mild annoyance. “Hunter was worried sick. Crosshair almost went after you. And they’re both too pigheaded to admit the real reason why they’re so worked up.”

“Which is?”

“Obviously they both view you as a potential romantic partner.”

There’s a moment of pause as you two stare back at one another before you snort and chuckle, shaking your head and crossing your arms over your chest as a futile attempt at staying warm. “Tech, you need to work on your sense of humour.”

“And you need to work on your observational skills and situational awareness.”

“My observational skills are exceptional,” you defend yourself, a finger held up in the air defiantly. “And my situational awareness is-”

“Lacking, as you didn’t seem to notice the whitefang return. I suggest we head back to the safety of the Marauder.”

Sure enough, the wild cat is there lurking amongst the ice dunes, its eyes glowing in the dark as they reflect the light of the ship. It shouldn’t pose a threat to you as it is alone, and relatively small, but you still consider wrestling with it instead of returning to the ship and facing the rest of the squad - somehow, even that feels like a fight more fair than the ones that await you upon your return. So you hold its gaze as it curiously inspects you, wishing to swap bodies and run away and avoid any more conflict. Before you can even think of returning to the ship, you hear quiet footsteps catching up to you.

“I thought I heard something.”

“It’s probably more curious than anything.”

Hunter unsheaths his vibroblade and twirls it in his hand so theatrically it makes you roll your eyes. He glances at you, shoulders all tense, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of danger, and even though his face is obscured by his helmet, you can almost see the disappointed frown sitting on his features. “You want to test that theory?”

“My money would be on the whitefang winning.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tech.”

“Any time.”

“Relax.” The distorted rasp of your commlink is not enough to drown out the smugness of the sniper. The stand-off ends when a single well-placed shot right before the big cat sends it sprinting away into the darkness. You all turn to find Crosshair standing by the ship, his rifle still aimed at the retreating form of the whitefang.

“Well, there goes my opportunity to finally have an interesting patrol,” you mutter to yourself as you all make it back to the Marauder.

“Do all of your patrols end in you staring down carnivores?” Crosshair snorts, clearly unamused.

“Only the good ones,” you fire back, deciding not to wait for any of them as you head inside. Crosshair is hot on your heels, another string of mockery sitting on the tip of his tongue, because fuck, you’re stubborn, but he’s not going to cave in and tell you how it makes him feel to see you in danger. He can’t, however, put up with being away from you either.

Hunter lingers a little outside. He has to set himself straight, to contain all the things he wants to say you that have nothing to do with scolding you about Bracca, to kill all the feelings that suddenly demand to be felt so desperately. He clenches and unclenches his fists by his side, pretending to survey the surroundings of the Marauder. Tech moves in the periphery of his vision, but instead of following you and Crosshair, he steps closer to Hunter.

“I believe the threat’s been averted.”

“Yeah. Good job on setting up those alarms, Tech.”

“No problem. Is there anything else you need?”

“No. You should head back inside. The last thing I want is for you to keel over with hypothermia.”

“That’s not how hypothermia works,” Tech mutters, his voice trailing off, eyes uncertain behind his goggles. He suddenly places a gentle hand on Hunter’s shoulder, making the sergeant glance at him.

“Hunter, I’m only asking this because I care about you all, but... how long do you think this can go on before one of you gets hurt?”

Tech’s words echo in his mind long after he’s rejoined the squad on the ship. And Hunter just stands outside in the snowfall, watching the last rays of light disappear on the horizon, wondering which one of you he’ll have to hurt when the push comes to shove.

[photogirl894]

"Sun and Rain"

Chapter 36

"A Partner's Loyalty"

A "Bad Batch" fanfic!

Pairing: Hunter x fem OC, Echo (more best friend pairing)

A/N: Wow, I'm shocked I got this chapter done so quickly! Especially since the idea behind this one, I didn't come up with until the last second when writing my last chapter.

This one may be a little dialogue heavy, but that's what I'm best at. I've written soft Crosshair before...well now prepare yourselves for some angsty Crosshair this time, loves 😅😁

Taglist: @the-sad-batch , @nimata-beroya , @intrepidmare , @mrskenobi677 , @tech-aficionado , @ladykatakuri , @d1n0-dan , @sammi9498 , @darthzero22 , @scarlettroseog , @tech-deck

《 Chapter 35

》 Chapter 37

All chapters

Explanation: Crosshair has a stern talk with Kimber about trust and loyalty.

Crosshair had too many thoughts rampaging through his mind as he laid in his bunk. That and he couldn’t help but still feel anxious even though Kimber had returned to them. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe it was real; that he wasn’t dreaming about Kimber coming back. He knew it had been real, but why did he still feel this way? Why did it feel like something wasn’t right? She had seemed far too calm, given how long she had been gone. Not that he expected her to be in full hysterics or anything, but given her demeanor upon retelling her story, it just seemed…different. He couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Though, despite his senses not being enhanced like Hunter’s, his instincts usually weren’t far behind his brother’s and he more often than not wasn’t ever wrong. If he knew someone well enough, then it wasn’t hard for him to pick up when something was off or to predict their behaviors.

He was probably just imagining everything, having been silently worried for Kimber the whole time, and he just needed to clear his head. So he got up and left his bunk to go sit in the cockpit for a while. However, as he passed by Hunter’s bunk, he could hear voices inside…slightly raised voices. That seemed odd to him, so he came up to the door and put his ear to it, listening in to make sure everything was okay. 

"Hunter, really, I’m okay. You have nothing to worry about," he heard Kimber say on the other side of the door.

Then came Hunter’s voice: “I’m not convinced, sweetheart. You’re nervous even now.” There was a brief pause of silence before he spoke again, “What aren’t you telling me, Kimber? You know you can trust me.”

Crosshair was taken aback. What was going on? Why was Hunter questioning her? Was she not doing well after all? Had Crosshair been right in assuming that something had been off about her?

Kimber’s voice finally replied, “The truth is…I did omit certain things from my story.”

That wasn’t the explanation Crosshair had been expecting. He stood there dumbfounded as he heard Kimber go on to explain what had really happened to her; about the pirates, the auction and the Zygerrian slaver who had nearly gotten away with her. His blood boiled, both at the thought of the pirates and the slavers doing any harm to Kimber…but also at the fact that she had kept something so serious from the rest of the squad.

“We have to tell the boys,” Hunter stated once her story was through.

“Absolutely not,” she told him.

That only made Crosshair even more irritated. His fists clenched at his sides.

Hunter refuted, “They deserve to know.”

“I can’t. Promise me you won’t tell them, Hunter,” he heard her plead.

“Why not? Why didn’t you just tell us that before? We’re your squad; you should’ve trusted us with the truth.”

“Hunter, I do trust all of you and what I said was the truth…just not all of it.”

Finally, Crosshair couldn’t listen to it anymore and he walked away from the door and sat in the cockpit, feeling angry, hurt and even betrayed. Kimber, his friend, his partner, his sister, had essentially lied to him. She had been willing to hide the truth from him and his brothers…but not Hunter. Hunter was her sweetheart, but to Crosshair, that didn’t mean that he should have a higher level of trust, not when it came to this. Not when Kimber’s disappearance had affected all of them, not just Hunter. Why did Hunter get to know the truth, but not him or any of the others? Crosshair felt slighted because of that. The next time he had a moment alone with Kimber, he was going to have a word with her about this. She should trust him as much as she trusted Hunter.

As fate would have it, some time later, he heard one of the bunk doors open and, judging by the sound of the footsteps, he could tell it was Kimber who was up. It seemed he would have that moment alone with her a lot sooner than he thought. He could hear her come into the cockpit and then stop. Without even looking behind him, he figured she had seen him and was going to head back to her room, so he spoke up to get her attention while keeping his eyes on the ground.

“We need to talk, sunshine.”

“Crosshair…I thought you were asleep,” Kimber stated upon hearing his voice.

“No,” he simply responded, still facing away from her.

Wondering what was going on, Kimber hesitantly walked into the cockpit and sat in the chair across from him. His jaw was clenched and his lips were pursed. He looked grumpier than usual, which made no sense to her considering not that long ago, he had been fine.

Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, he said as if knowing the question was coming, “You didn’t tell us everything.”

Her heart fell hearing this from him. How had he found out?

Then Crosshair turned to look at her, an angry and also hurt look in his eyes that made Kimber’s chest tighten. “I overheard you talking to Hunter,” he stated. 

She hung her head guiltily. “How much did you hear?” she asked him. 

“Enough to know what really happened and that you don’t want the rest of us to know the truth,” he answered. 

Her head came back up to look at him. “If you had stuck around longer, then you would know that I gave my reasons for not telling you the whole story,” she said to him. 

With a stern look, he slowly stood up and declared, his voice bordering on mad, “We are your squad. I am your partner. We are supposed to trust each other and share each other’s burdens so we don’t feel overwhelmed and alone.”

“I do trust you; I trust you with my life,” she said back.

“Then why did you tell Hunter what really happened when you disappeared?”

“Crosshair, you of all people should know why.”

“That’s no excuse. Yes, you care for each other, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us should be exempt from the truth.”

Frustrated with Crosshair over this, she got up from her chair and then told him, “I would have told you all the truth eventually.”

Though Crosshair inquired in return, “How do you expect me to believe that when you explicitly told Hunter not to say anything to us?” When she struggled to find the words to respond, he then told her, “He wanted to give up, you know.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, irritated.

He explained, “Hunter thought you were dead and he was going to accept that without a second thought. I, however, refused to believe it until we had proof of anything and I was the one who figured out you had been smuggled off planet in one of those spice crates and urged him to follow that lead.”

“Think about it: if he couldn’t sense me and I was suddenly gone, what else was he supposed to think in the moment?”

“Do you not think hearing you might be dead affected me, too? Do you not think I was wracked with worry at your sudden disappearance? If I hadn’t stepped in, we would not be having this conversation right now.”

“Just what are you saying?” she asked him, puzzled.

“I’m saying your precious Sergeant was going to leave you for dead when the rest of us weren’t willing to; he was going to give up looking for you had I not intervened. If he really cared about you like he says, then he would have fought to find you without hesitation, but he didn’t. He is less deserving of your trust and you should have trusted me with the real truth of what happened to you.”

Flabbergasted at what she was hearing from him and wondering what he was trying to get at, Kimber then questioned him, “What do you want me to do, Crosshair? Give up my relationship with Hunter and be angry with him? Sing my praises for you instead and call you my hero? What do you want from me?”

He leaned in closer to her and hissed back, “I want you to show me the same level of loyalty that you show Hunter!”

“My bond with Hunter is different than yours and mine and you know this,” she said back, her voice hard but still quiet to not rouse the others. “And I’ll have you know: I didn’t plan to tell Hunter in the first place. I only told him because he wouldn’t let up about it and you and I both know that he’s the one person who would know something was wrong. I couldn’t hide it from him if I tried.”

Crosshair just shook his head, turning away from her and walking out of the cockpit.

“Don’t you turn your back on me!” she cried out, grabbing his arm and making him face her again. 

“Why not? You turned your back on me by not trusting me,” he fired back before resuming walking back to his bunk.

Kimber couldn’t believe that he was being so unwilling to understand and determined to win this argument. What was he trying to prove? She wasn't going to let it end there, so she followed him into his bunk, waiting for the door to close before speaking.

"Listen to me, Crosshair!" she cried. "You have to understand: I just barely returned to all of you. I didn’t want to tell the full story right away because I didn’t feel ready. It has nothing to do with not trusting you or anyone with the truth."

“I didn’t hear you tell Hunter you weren’t ready,” he snapped. 

She groaned aloud in frustration and exclaimed as quietly as she could, “Will you forget about Hunter for one second?!”

“No, I won’t, Kimber.”

There it was again: Crosshair using her name, which told Kimber that he was incredibly serious about this.

He went on, his tone growing cold, “Hunter may be your sweetheart, but you still should give me the same loyalty and trust you give him; you should give that to all of us…but you didn’t. You tell me you weren’t ready to tell the truth, yet you didn’t hesitate to tell Hunter. That’s a double standard that I won’t accept.”

“Crosshair, please….” she begged.

Ignoring her, he kept going, “Just because I do not show fear doesn’t mean I don’t experience it. I was horrified when we thought you were dead, but I refused to accept that until I knew for sure.”

“What I went through would have only added to your fear,” Kimber put in, “and fear is the reason that I didn’t want to tell any of you yet. I’ve been afraid to go to sleep for who knows how long tonight in fear of having nightmares about what happened. I was almost sold into slavery again and we would have been separated forever! I couldn’t even begin to imagine how devastating it would have been for any of you to go days, weeks, even months without finding me and having no way of knowing where in the galaxy I was. Do you think I wanted any of you to imagine such a scenario that almost came to be: one where I never returned home?”

For the first time throughout that whole argument, Crosshair looked at a loss for words. He gaped at her for a brief moment and then averted his gaze. Kimber could see in his expression that he was indeed now thinking about that hypothetical situation and could detect the vague hint of sadness in his eyes, despite his stern look.

“Crosshair, I trust you with all that I am,” she said, beginning to calm down, “and I wouldn’t want anyone else to be my partner. What I did was not out of spite towards you. I swear to you on my life, I would have told you and everyone else the truth when I was ready. I was scared of what I went through even though I put on a brave face. I’m barely hanging on right now…I can’t bear to think that you now hate me over this.”

She herself then turned away, fighting back the urge to cry again. She hadn’t realized the mistake she had made in keeping the truth from her boys and she was angry at herself for creating a divide between her and Crosshair. All she wanted was for things to get back to normal with her squad and not even a few hours later, everything was already different and potentially ruined. What was she going to do?

Then she heard Crosshair say softly behind her, “I don’t hate you...I could never.”

The slight quiver in his voice tugged at Kimber’s heart. She couldn’t bring herself to turn around and face him.

He then said, “I just…don’t want to always come in second to Hunter.”

With a light sigh, she told him, still not looking back, “Crosshair, I love him.” She paused, waiting to see if he would react, but there was nothing.

Behind her, he closed his eyes and sighed quietly. He’d had a feeling that the depths of her feelings for Hunter had gotten that far. 

She continued, “And I love you, too. In a different way, but I care about you greatly nonetheless. I need you to know that.”

Crosshair’s teeth clenched and he hung his head, trying to keep himself together at hearing her say that to him. Even though he knew she cared, actually hearing her say she loved him--albeit not in the same way she loved Hunter, naturally--meant so much to him. It still astounded him that anyone outside of his Clone brothers could love him in any way...yet somehow, Kimber did.

Then she said, "My bond with Hunter is different than the bond I share with you and there will be times where Hunter might come first...but overall, you both are equal in my eyes; all of you are. It's not a matter of trusting one of you over the other. I just didn't feel I was ready to relive my experience and you guys weren't ready for the shock of it all. Please, understand that."

Crosshair remained silent.

"I'm sorry for not telling you, Crosshair. I really am," Kimber apologized to him. "It was never my intention to hurt you or betray your trust. I would never do that willingly, never."

Still, he stayed quiet.

A slew of words came pouring out of her mouth before she could stop herself, "I had no way of knowing what you all went through when you were searching for me. I didn't know Hunter nearly succumbed to grief and gave up. I didn't know you were the one who figured out what happened in the alley and urged him to press forward. How could I have known? I know you're angry at Hunter for many reasons, but none of that should matter, though. It was all a terrible, unfortunate situation we found ourselves in and no one should be angry with anyone for anything." She took a shaky breath, keeping her calm as best she could. "I'm sorry for causing you lads so much worry and stress. I feel that's all I've done since I joined this squad in the first place. I count myself incredibly lucky to have a squad that would continue to put up with me and would scour the galaxy to find me."

For a quick moment, Kimber looked back over her shoulder at Crosshair. His back was now to her and his gaze was directed to the floor. She wasn't sure if he still even cared to listen to her and she felt discouraged. Perhaps the damage had already been done.

"You were right...I should have told you," she admitted. "Either that or I should have stood up for myself better against Hunter and told him I wasn't ready to tell you all the truth yet. I just...I just wanted to be home." Her throat was tightening up as she spoke. "I wanted to be back with my boys...with my family...and have things be back to normal...but it would seem I've ruined all hope for that. I've tarnished our partnership with my mistake." Then she turned back to the door and whispered, "I really am sorry, Crosshair." With that, she opened the door and left the room.

A silent tear fell down Crosshair's cheek. He hated this. He hated it immensely. Part of him was still angry with Kimber...while the other part of him wanted to pull her back into the room, embrace her and tell her everything would be okay, but his pride wouldn't let him. He'd been hurt by what she'd done and all he could do was stand in his bunk, inwardly cursing himself and everything else.

Back out in the cabin of the ship, Kimber curled up into one of the seats, hugging her knees against her chest, and was fighting a losing battle with her emotions as she gazed out into space through the viewport. She had really messed up this time. What she thought was protecting her friends had only ended up hurting one of the ones she valued most more than she anticipated. Now, even back home aboard the Marauder with her squad; her family...she felt more lost than ever.

In that moment, not even the vast sea of stars could offer Kimber the comfort she needed.

[deaconusdelirium]

Have you ever felt so lonely?

Requested: “do it. Break my heart, Crosshair🥲”

Oof, actually this should be better OOF. What you’re asking for is... has to have two parts... maybe three. And I have to change it up a little so it’ll match the story and all, so don’t mind it

———

You ran behind the Batch, keeping your eyes on the back in case any clones were following. You wished Rex would have stayed on Bracca just a bit longer to help with the Empire and Crosshair. Everyone had their chips removed, Wrecker first since he was the one who lost all control of himself. But you didn’t get a chance to do yours since Tech and Omega commed back, saying the Empire was landing. Everyone gathered their things, one thing after another happened, Crosshair was targeting Omega the most. He knew how important she was to Hunter, maybe it was because he was trying to protect her, or maybe to bring Hunter to his lowest point and take him. It didn’t matter, he was still trying to hunt you all down.

The Marauder came into view, you stopped before ramp, turning around, they weren’t going to stop coming. And even then, if you did leave, Crosshair would know and tell the Clones to follow. “Y/n, come on” Echo called out from inside the Marauder. “Let’s go” Hunter joined, seeing you weren’t on board. “Hunter, you have to go. They’re after Omega, maybe even you. You’re the head of the Batch and without you, we’re goners” you exclaimed, “what are you talking about. Get on the ship, that’s an order” Hunter said, slightly yelling since Tech fired up the ship. “Hunter, listen to me. Crosshair is after you and Omega the most. He’s not going to stop until he gets either one of you, I’ll be fine, I’m going to stall him until I’ve got a clearing. Then I’ll come back to the ship” Hunter walked down to where you stood, “you could get caught, we need you” “you may, but you guys are more important. Make sure Omega stays safe, she can’t go back to Kamino. Stay close to the ground and off the Empires radar until you can’t be seen anymore. Once I get a clearing, I’ll come back”

Hunter seemed to think about it since he stood there, “Hunter, we have to go. We don’t have much time” You both turned to look at Tech. “I’ll be fine... if I’m not back within twenty minutes, leave. If even more clones show up, leave. You can’t risk it” “the odds of escaping are not in your favor” Tech calculated, “still, if it’s worth keeping you all safe, so be it. I’m with you till the end Hunter, but it seems we’re going to have to part for now. So I suggest you leave before Crosshair finds us” He moved his hand, maybe to put it on your shoulder, or to make a point, but you gave him a nod, running off down the Star Destroyers hallway until they couldn’t see you anymore. “Hunter, I don’t think it was the best idea to let her leave” Echo called out while Omega ran towards Hunter, pulling on his belt. “Tell Y/n to come back, we can’t leave her” “get on the ship Omega” “Hunter” Omega said, still trying to yank him towards where you ran off, “come on” he picked her up and walked aboard.

“Where’s Y/n?” Wrecker asked, trying to see where you were on the ship, Tech looked at him and looked back down. Wrecker understood, not wanting to ask any further. “Be careful Y/n” Hunter commed you, “I will”

—

You ran down the hallway, your helmets HUD adjusting to the darkness inside. You put your blaster away, crawling through the fallen metal panels that use to be the roof. Once on the other side, you seem clones scanning the halls, you stopped, not wanting to attract them with your footsteps, “hey! Freeze!” You turned and seen other troopers down the hall, one of them called somebody. “They’re still here, we have one pinned down” it must have Crosshair they commed, you shot both clones. The other two you were looking at down the other corridor, ran towards the shooting, you took cover behind an old crate. Firing when possible. You could either stay here where the Batch was close, and attract more, or you could take off in another direction and go as far away as possible. The problem with that was, if the Batch did find somewhere safe and you were free, then you’d have to run back. Too far.

You thought harder, you’d lay your life down for your sergeant and your colleagues. For they were all you ever known. “Do it for Omega” you whispered to yourself, she hasn’t even gotten the chance to start her life, and right when she has, she’s already being tracked and trying to be taken away. You kneeled up again, not shooting at the clones but dodging their shots and running off down the hall you stunned the first couple of clones. You ran down the hall, hearing the repeating of their boots bounce off the walls. You kept telling yourself ‘get as far away from the ship as possible’ while taking different turns and running into other patrols. You now had no other choice than to shoot. You stayed your ground, being outnumbered in a room while a group of troopers were out in the hall waiting for you. You listened to the troopers radio others, saying that the Batch was still here and they haven’t left. So that either meant all patrols would follow you while still thinking the others were here with you.

“Surrender. Now!” Ok, here it goes again. “Hunter” you commed him, “Y/n, are you coming back?” He asked, sounding worried, “Hunter you need to leave now” you peaked and seen the clones still aiming their weapons while trying to tell you to surrender. Of course Crosshair would want you alive, “Y/n, I told you this was a bad idea!” He yelled from the other side, hearing the clones in the background. “I don’t care, leave Hunter. If they find me, their going to know that you’re still here. Get off the planet as fast as possible” “were coming back” “Hunter. No. The place is swarming with Troopers, if you come back and get captured, then I failed at protecting you. I’m no soldier if you do, go” you waited for Hunters objections again, but Omega spoke next, “Y/n, please don’t do this. Come back, we need you. I need you ” you heard her plea, “no can do, I’ll see you later ‘mega” you closed off the line, standing up while raising your hands. Putting your blaster down and doing as they told you.

The cuffs were bind tightly against your wrist as you tried to get at least a bit more comfortable with them. One of the clones pushed you into a room, the engine room? Crosshair stood there, a datapad in his hand while other Elite troops tried telling him that if you were here, than the other must be. “Sir, we found one” you stood in front of Crosshair, looking at him through your helmet, he was quiet, seeming like he was examining you. “Leave.” He told the others, “but commander-” “I said, leave.” He turned his head a little, sounding threatening as he grew impatient with them. They nodded; walking out the both doors and you were left alone with him. “Y/n. What am I going to do with you?” He asked, looking you up and down, you didn’t respond, not knowing what to say.

“Forgotten already?” He asked, “no” you replied, he scoffed, “you don’t see the bigger picture do you? They left you, why do you think they sent you on your own?” he emphasized the ‘left you” part, circling you while trying to look for any sort of communication device to the Batch on you. “I may have been sent on my own, but they haven’t forgotten about me” you followed his movements as he stood back in front of you, he suddenly took his helmet off. Oh that same face you fell in love with, it was just his chip that made him this way. This wasn’t real. “Tell me, where are they? Maybe I’ll even consider letting you go” he spoke. He wasn’t going to, you knew him better than that to believe that he never went through with breaking an order. He watched as you stood there, not moving. You wanted to just disappear under his gaze, for this to be all over.

“Y/n” he called out, his hands came up to your helmet as you pulled away, not wanting for him to take it off. He grew annoyed as you turned your head again, he pushed you on the ground, finally taking it off. You glared at him, “come on Y/n, you deserve better than them. Better than what you’re being treated as now, you’re even lower than that Reg Echo” you never took comments from other people that tried to bring you down, but something about words like that, coming from him started to shatter the glass. You blocked his words, looking away, “join the Empire... join me. Together, we’ll be unstoppable Cyar’ika” he bent down to your height, pushing your head to meet his gaze. The one name he use to call you, sounding so sweet and loving, now sounded cold and broken.

“I hope you know that I’m not doing this for our relationship” you snapped, he only hummed. He knew you were stubborn, one of the many reasons why he fell for you. “I know. That’s why we’re weren’t working out with the Batch. We couldn’t be together, but now. If you tell me, join me, then we’ll be with each other forever” if it was the real Crosshair talking, then maybe you would have said yes, but this wasn’t him. “We still wouldn’t be able to work out, I fell in love with the other Crosshair, not. What you are now” he heard the pain in your voice alright, and took that as an advantage. “Why are you even protecting what you could be so higher, for? Or is it a who? Have you been sneaking around with Hunter, should I have to worry about him?” Something struck a string with that sentence. Was he questioning your love for him?

“I’m keeping them safe. From you” “from me? Or from yourself? The only reason why you’re on this planet is for those chips to be taken out, these Star destroyers have the technology to do that” he pointed out, pushing your hair back and seeing no sign that you had your chip removed. “I could have your chip activated any time I wanted” “then why didn’t you do it?” You asked, he was always known to be one step ahead but this went in the wrong direction from what you planned, “because I wanted you to come back to me. To where you belong” you shut your eyes from that sentence.

~

You and Crosshair had just gotten the chance to get away from the Batch and Marauder. Taking the time to be together without someone always around the corner, “Crosshair?” You called him, as he looked down at you, “Y/n” “we belong together, right?” “Now why would you ask something so absurd? We don’t belong together, we’re meant for each other. You watch me, I watch you”

~

Of course he’d use that against you, he knew how to break you. “No” you whispered as he grabbed the hem of your blacks, “you have the chance, you join me, save the Batch while they run with the time they have for now. Or you could be thrown in with the other traitors while he continue this hunt for them. You’re choice” he threatened, pulling you up so you could be closer. “Cross... what’s wrong with you?” You questioned, looking at him in his brown eyes, trying to look for the old Crosshair in them. Your cuffed hands came up to his wrist that held your shirt. “Don’t stall, I can give you the answer when you’ve made up your mind. Now hurry. We wouldn’t want your friends to get any further” did the Batch even leave? Or were they still here?

“I see whats happening, you’re weighing your options aren’t you?” You looked at him, he found innocence in them for a second. “Wh-what are talking..” “why else would they have agreed for you to stay behind and be used as a distraction? You’re useless to them now, if you meant more to them, then you would be far away in the galaxy somewhere with them while you tended to your own wounds. Right? Remember I’m the one that used to help you while no one else did? They wouldn’t leave their own behind, and it shows they you aren’t one of them. They’ve probably already forgotten about you like they have to me, they’re taking care of that.. child. While you’re here taking the blame for them. Think about it” his grip tighten on your shirt, you felt it through his wrist as it tensed.

“But I’m the one who told them I’d do it” “and they believed you. If they actually loved you, they would have stayed and fought for you. Or maybe they’re scared of you, that your chip might activate and you’re going to hurt them so they took the opening chance they had to go and leave you” the more he talked, the more it made sense. “You trust me right?” He asked, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear as he caressed your cheek with his gloved hand. You weakly shook your head no, his words already taking effect on you, on your heart, on your love for him. “Perhaps you’d like to know more? Cause I can take you back to Kamino and interrogate you all day and tell you everything that Hunter hasn’t. You’re what we have, and you’re what we need. I’ll take you over the others any day” a tear slid down your cheek as he watched, now that you were vulnerable, he took it upon himself to actually try and get you to cooperate.

“Now Mesh’la,” he kissed the tear away, “you’re going to be the good lover you always were and follow me. You have no other choice, they’re not coming back for you, even I would have turned back around, even stay behind with you” he stood up, grabbing the middle of your cuffs and pulling you along with him. “This is another one of your tricks, isn’t it? You’re going to use me. Under that chip of yours, you’re only a toy for the Empire” you called out, “it’s better than disobeying all orders from the republic and making us look bad” his silver hair fell into his face as he bent down to pick up both helmets. “I don’t even know who you are anymore” you whispered to him, he was taken back at your words. Your sentence hit something in him and he almost felt sorry, “then.. maybe think of me as the old Crosshair, just.. stronger and superior than the last” he pulled you along while he commed the other troopers and Elites to get on the ships and that he was coming back.

You staggered after him down the hallways as you followed, “Cross..” you gently called out, he heard the pain in your voice, he stopped, turning to look at you. “Do want the weak, unwanted old me to love you? Or do you actually want the me who can protect you, protect us from people trying to tear us apart. Hunters been telling you things about me, hasn’t he?” Now he sounded like he was hurt, “no, no no. He always spoke good about you, even Omega. We missed you Cross... I missed you. And, and I’m not going to help you unless you give me the freedom I want. No cuffs, no guards, no spying on me while I’m on your side” something switched inside you, making you see the outcome Crosshair tried to tell you about, he sarcastically laughed at your attempt, “I’m not that dumb Cyar, try again” he looked at you, and you had that serious look on your face that mean you weren’t going to go unless you got what you wanted.

“How can you trust me when I can barely even trust you with all these things on and around me? I mean it Cross. I’m already outnumbered, there’s no point in trying something” ok, you had a point, there was troops outside waiting for the both of you as well. “I’m not going to follow you unless I know you’re following me” you spoke, he slowly nodded, understanding what you meant. He hand came to undo the cuffs that binded your hands together. “Tell me, why? Why all of a sudden change your mind, just a few minutes ago you declined my offer” he asked, curious on your answer since he thought you had nothing to say. “Because I’ve thought about it, you’re making more sense than Hunter has these past few days. I never realized how much they used me until you pointed it out... I want them to feel what they made me feel. What I’m feeling”

He nodded, finally seeing what you were explaining. “I didn’t know how powerful we could be together, if only you can take me again?” you asked, “who said I left you?” “Hunter did, he said once you changed, you weren’t the same. That meant we wouldn’t be what we used to, he seen us together and he warned us” “only because he knows how we can both get things done, and he’s scared of that” he walked up to you, handing you you’re helmet, “good soldiers follow orders” he spoke against your ear as he moved over to your lips. He passionately took them in his. You could tell it was him, it was the real Crosshairs love but it was the new him that held him back. You returned the gesture, wanting to feel him against you one last time as you were leaving the old you here to die with the Batch.

He smirked, pulling away, “I suggest we get a move on if we want to catch Hunter and the others” you nodded, the thought of Hunter now made you feel betrayed, was this how Crosshair felt? Why risk your life for Omega, she’s a clone, she can always be recreated again. Crosshair motioned for you to follow him, along the way, he told you about how better the Empire was than the Republic. And how planets were brought more freedom than under the republics watch, and if you wanted to keep your homeworld safe, then the Empire would be right behind you to keep it that way.

The sky was dark, and the ships were already running, the troopers aimed their weapons while Crosshair told them that you were on their side. Everyone reluctantly agreed to have you around, you both jumped on a ship, sitting there and thinking about all that’s happened and how Hunter along with the Batch, treated you “here, put this on” Cross threw a helmet your way while he took your old one and put it in his locker. He did like the new sight of you in the new armor, maybe you were meant to work for the Empire. But he’d only know for sure when you got out in the field

———

Ok, so I’m not sure if the heart break starts here, and judging by how it doesn’t seem here yet. I’m thinking there’s gonna be a part three, definitely a part two. But I hope you enjoyed

[simplysummers]

Breaking down Hunter and Omega’s relationship. Pt 2.

We’re back at it, here with the second post in this father-daughter-space-duo series! You guys responded to the first post better then I expected in all honesty! I didn’t think my insights were viewed as so important lmao. I don’t really think much introduction is needed here, the post itself is very self explanatory.

(Pasted paragraph: I would just like to add a disclaimer here. I am, in no way whatsoever, slating the other batchers for having differing relationships with Omega. I absolutely adore everything single one of the boys, and I think they all have wonderful and unique interrelations with her. Although I may point out these different approaches in comparison to Hunter’s, I am not stating these engages are wrong, just different is all!

I’m going to separate this into a little series- covering each episode in a separate post, which I’ll have tagged as the series progresses. Once I’ve tackled these two, as they’re my favourites, I’m going to move on to each individual Batcher and perhaps a few other dynamics such and Hunter and Crosshair, or Wrecker and Omega! Let me know what you guys would like to see!)

(Thank you to this weeks proof-reader: @treasureofmy-heart 💛)

Cut and Run: S1/E2

We kick off this episode with Hunter walking in on Echo inspecting Omega and Wrecker fast asleep on the floor. His face is very relaxed and he clearly finds it very sweet that her childlike curiosity has tired her out. His line, “ha, well this is a first,” while holding a strong gaze in Omega’s direction, suggests that she’s been exploring for quite some time, unleashing her endearing juvenile inquisition in the batchers presence. Hunter continues to claim she’s curious, using the same lighthearted tone he has always used in her regard, sparing the conversation in the medical wing on Kamino. This continues to confirm his gentle approach and concern towards the young clone.

When Echo confronts him over the situation at hand, it’s evident that Hunter hasn’t actually thought about what he’s going to do with Omega, yet by the look of quizzicality on his face. I personally took this as a sign that his initial thoughts were always “we’re going to lay low with her, look after her, while keeping everybody else safe.” It’s clear here that Echo has differing ideas that Hunter hadn’t even began to consider, and I think that’s what perplexes him in this moment. He needs to consider everybody.

The kid is up and awake! (Let the havoc commence aha.) Omega’s reaction to sunlight and dirt is definitely one of my favourite developmental moments of hers, it really sets in place that this little girl may have been an intelligent medical assistant, but she lacks experience, and still needs a guiding hand to help her through this new world she’s never endured before. I’d like to point out that it is, in fact, Hunter who stops to watch Omega’s reactions, and his FACE when she’s playing in the dirt! I’ve never seen such a parental smile on a man so stoic! I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, but he is so endeared by her! She’s a breath of fresh air in Hunter’s very toxically routined life, and I love that for both of them. When they finally reach Cut’s land, Hunter is the one to pull her back, despite the fact she had to run between Echo and Tech to get to him. And upon Suu and Cut’s arrival, I actually didn’t realise that Omega creeps behind Hunter, most likely because these are strangers she doesn’t know and she feels she needs the protection. This confirms a clear bond between them has already began to flesh out.

There isn’t too much to say about the introduction and inhibitor chip discussion, as Omega spends a decent amount of that time exploring Cut and Suu’s house, but I will just say that it’s a nice touch that she ends up back at Hunter’s side when her part of the conversation is needed, she always seems physically drawn to him. Which brings me to my next point. Upon Shaeeah and Jek’s arrival, Omega once again creeps behind Hunter out of fear, only deciding to approach when formally addressed to do so. *Sigh*, and when Shaeeah pulls Omega out to play, and she halts to ask for Hunter’s permission, which is clearly given through a series of comforting smiles, is a plain indication of a trusted child-parental relationship. I must admit, Hunter’s face is pretty hilarious when everybody practically calls him out on his parental role- it’s just “why are you all staring at me..?” Because you’re acting like a dad, my dude.

Okay! Down to Cut and Hunter’s discussion. It’s a nice touch that Hunter is the first one outside to watch Omega play, swiftly followed by Cut, who, rightfully so, questions her existence. Although instead of explaining Omega’s origin (and by that I just mean that she’s a medical assistant clone from Kamino), he states that it doesn’t matter what the Kaminoans created her for, because she’s with them now, and to be with them she doesn’t need a purpose, she’s just a kid and should be allowed to act like one. Cut goes ahead to tease him over the ins and outs of raising a child, but to Hunter it was a no-brainer, Kamino wasn’t safe, so she was coming with them, as I’ve said previously, he saw NO negotiations. And as Cut says, “I (you) have to do what’s best for them.” This adds sentiment to the narrative of Hunter’s commanding role within the squad and Omega specifically.

So I’m shifting ahead slightly to the ball incident, and I have a LOT to say about this scene. First of all, it’s clearly evident that Hunter is the first to leave the house, along with Cut and Suu following closely behind. Associating this trio together is purposeful on the animators part in my opinion, they intentionally exclusively had Hunter leave with the other parents in the situation, isolating him specifically with that role in Omega’s life. When he finally reaches her, we see the protective hand come straight out to guard her against the Nexu, a typical trait they’ve established between them.

Now we move on to the confrontation. This is the first time Hunter raises his voice at Omega, and immediately she turns herself away from him, curling into her shoulder and making herself small. Omega is going through a lot of emotions right here, she’s afraid, anxious, and she’s being forced to deal with the fact that for the first time, Hunter is mad at her, for something she didn’t even intend to do wrong. Whereas from Hunter’s perspective, he hasn’t acknowledged she’s already in a bit of a state, and instead feels the need to immediately lecture her for her mistakes….although this lasts all but thirty seconds. Upon Cut’s attempts to diffuse the situation by having him pull Hunter away and reiterating that “she’s (Omegas) not a soldier”, his face immediately softens, he forgot for a moment, but now he realises and instantly the features are set in a regretful frown, he clearly feels awful and misrepresented. Hunter continues to observe Cut’s behaviour as he comforts Omega, who seems to take to the attention like a kicked puppy, lip trembling, eyes shaky, shoulders hunched, and I honestly think as Cut carries her away- is the exact moment Hunter realises he isn’t good enough for Omega. (I’ll further out on this in a moment)

I only want to briefly touch upon Omega’s gunners nest scene because I don’t think it has too much impact on her relationship with Hunter, however I would like to address the symbolism. I personally see the removal of her headpiece and the addition of her bangs as a new beginning, attaining the contrasting yellow light of Salucemi in comparison to Kamino, where she would’ve been given her jewel. Considering the episode’s outcome, Omega is no longer the tightly held, quivering little girl from Kamino, and instead she brings a slight unruliness to her aura, a little cheeky, definitely her brother’s sister. Still a sweetheart of course, but with a matter of confidence and boisterous behaviour to her. She seems to bounce out of her sadness quite easily here, as she seems suddenly awkward- yet curious- over Tech’s plan later on.

Furthering out into my previous point about Hunter believing Omega deserved much better in comparison to what he could provide: his conversation with Suu. “Protecting them is what we do.” The realisation on his face when she says this, it’s so…raw, something he’s taking time to comprehend. He heeds her words because he knows she and Cut are experienced in this field, they are better suited for Omega than he and the boys are, he believes he isn’t good enough for her, and this is projected when he insists ‘Mega leave with the family of four. Although Suu questions his sincerity, and he does indeed dodge the straightforward answer, this is what Hunter anticipates is best for Omega. He’s putting her needs above his happiness, no matter the heartache.

Moving along slightly, as Omega and Hunter spend a short period of time away from each other during the ship impoundment, I briefly wanted to touch upon the tone of Hunter’s voice when he learns Omega is on route to their position…by herself in a heavily armed spaceport. His eyes widen in a moment of fear, his voice is suddenly strained, he is struck with another raw emotion, something he frankly can’t obtain right now, and it’s let out in a minor threat towards his brothers- “if something happens to her-“ a clearly indication of worry.

This next point absolutely breaks my heart, the poor dears, both of them. Upon Omega’s arrival, Hunter is left to explain his forced proposal that she should leave Salucemi with Cut and Suu. As usual he completes his little ritual of taking her shoulders and crouching to her level, although this time he can’t quite look her in the eyes, a clear sign of regret and guilt, because he doesn’t want to give her away, he knows deep down she belongs with them, but he doesn’t believe he has what it takes to raise and protect her. The way Omega’s eyes crumple really catches me here, she’s being left, again… All this kid has ever known her entire life has either been abandonment, abuse or isolation, and she’s being passed on to strangers by the only people she’s ever been able to trust, and not only is it clearly breaking her heart, but she’s taking it personally, she thinks she’s at fault, much like Hunter does. Her line: “but, I want to stay with you.” compressed with the quivering tone and her precious accent really aides her desperation here, it conveys her in an adequate and very precise way.

Starting a brief new point to split these up slightly: I bring us to the continuous glances shared between them. Omega consistently looks over her shoulder to Hunter, she doesn’t want her eyes to leave him for one moment, she’s savouring his face, his details, for the very last time. And equally, Hunter is letting go of something he doesn’t want to leave behind, he likes the kid, to the point where his own self depreciation and doubt have been forced ahead in order to protect her, he can’t risk anything at this point. I’d also like to quickly mention how beautifully Omega’s eyes are animated, they intel so much, those precious little doe irises hold such story to them.

Moving on to a little jump cut enduring the batch’s escape and Omega’s return: Hunter’s tone of voice when addressing Wrecker is so pained, and his facials match it perfectly “she’s not com-“ it’s almost as though he’s biting back the urge to sprint headfirst into the gunfire if only to catch up to the little clone before it’s too late.

However, seeing as she’s managed to find her own way back that wouldn’t be exactly necessary. I think it’s a nice point that Hunter is the one to rush to Omega’s aide after she is grabbed by the trooper (flowing a brief flash of concern crossing his face), although Wrecker might’ve been closer, it’s a nice hint to their subtle closer bond. He, once again, crouches to her level although an unnecessary step in the situation, and I see this as another nod to their familiarised dependancy.

Finally, my last point for this episode, is their final conversation within the last few minutes. It’s faint, but the fact that the other batchers are all busying themselves in the cockpit, leaving Omega and Hunter to chat privately, is a very distinct use of separation. It also should be noted that Omega is the one to approach Hunter, this shows a decent level of not only maturity on her part, but trust between them as family, she trusts both him and herself enough to advance on a delicate situation, we even see her hesitate slightly, before pushing forward with a slip of confidence, and that takes a lot of gut from a little kid. She stands her ground, but with compliment. She very much reminds me of Hunter himself in the brig, assertive yet respectful. And speaking of Hunter, his face is just absolutely guilt-ridden when talking to her, because he too made the mistake of attempting to give her away, no matter how much good he thought it would do them both. While Omega is admitting she has a lot to learn in regards to safety and tactility, Hunter is suggesting he has a lot to learn about raising a child and providing the necessary care for her. It’s a brave moment for both of them, to be honest and open, and yet its received extremely well on both ends.

“If this is where you want to be…then this is where you’ll stay.” The admiration in his voice, the admiration in her eyes! They absolutely adore one another, and it melts my heart every time it’s displayed!

I hope you liked my analysis of Hunter and Omega’s relationship in episode two of The Bad Batch! Of course, I’d love to discuss these two with anybody who might be interested, so please feel free to drop me an ask or a DM, and if you’re captivated enough I’d totally recommend looking out for my future posts on the topic!

As always, much love to our ‘Megs and Hunter, thank you for reading! 💛

Part One: Aftermath

[refurbishedgray]

Point of Contact

Reader x Tech. Maybe we get feisty and it’s reader x Crosshair, too. In this house, we like both.

Multi-part fic; probably NSFW; f!reader (she/her pronouns)

**Updates: I’ll tag you if you holler

Summary:

“No good ever comes to the Republic from Banking Clan business,” Hunter tells them, “Let’s get this done and get home, boys.”

Arriving on Scipio with the unhelpful directive of, “be discreet, but do whatever it takes,” the Bad Batch find themselves at the mercy of a stony representative whose allegiances lie with the best deal.

Or, the one where Tech and Crosshair think the reader is as intense as she is pretty.

**************************************

Part One

The office is too empty, too bright. The merciless glare of Scipio’s sun cuts across the room, gleaming unpleasantly from the gilded corners of all the fine furniture and glass. A corner office, inherited from an out-maneuvered relic of the past. 

All light and no warmth, you think, not for the first time. Never any warmth. In your early years with the Banking Clan, being stationed here had felt suspiciously like a punishment you hadn’t deserved, a proving ground when you had already proven so much. These days, however, you’ve come to understand that the frigid peaks standing vigil beyond your window are a reminder of how far you have climbed.

Now, as you shift in your chair, the expensive Corellian leather barely squeaking beneath you, you squint past the harsh light filtering in from the floor to ceiling window at your back. It’s all pristine snow on those peaks. Icy. Easy to slip if the cold didn’t kill you first.

Yes, you had climbed and clawed your way up these proverbial mountains. And like the man who last haunted this office, it has left you with so very far to fall.

The early days had been simpler. Smile. Look pretty. Never forget what can be saved for later. You hadn’t forgotten. Beyond the pale blue sky, twinkling out of sight, are worlds fraught with battles, littered with unsuccessful or unlucky tacticians from two sides of a conflict that won’t ever be ended, not truly. You have always preferred to keep your strategizing corporate. Clean. 

A frown drags at the corners of your mouth at the uncharacteristic foray into reminiscence of the…

The…

A phrase comes to mind and you allow yourself a small, private smile against the sunlight. The bad old days. 

Since then, things have always been kept tidy.

Until now. 

An unwanted spur of concern digs in behind your chest as your gaze turns from the window to sweep over the room. To your dismay, you realize why, and realize too clearly that the concern is not solely for yourself. 

He should be here.

Things were less empty when he was around, a relic in his own right and your pride and joy and confidant. How proud you had been when you had been informed that you would require a bodyguard. “A mark of success if there ever was one,” you had told the few family members you kept in contact with, of which there were very few, upon being informed of the recommendation after your previous promotion. “Aren’t you proud?” you had wanted to ask. But you had not asked. Better not to make the query when the answer was always so heavy and obvious. 

He had become your one and only friend. But he, too, is absent now, and upon permitting the observation, your office seems at once less empty and instead, guttingly, horribly hollow. Two rotations it’s been. Two rotations to give into the inconvenience of noticing.  

No, no, you think. You had noticed. Admitting it, that is the phrase that would be more accurate, but if it makes you feel less or more weak, you find you cannot decipher the bitterness creeping up your tongue.

Rising from your seat, you at once miss the meager warmth provided by the leather as the cool office air licks at you. Once upon a time, you had comforted yourself with the promise that one day, you would get used to the cold here. It was one of the few lies you allotted yourself over the years. Crossing the office, the marble floors as white and frosted as the mountain peaks outside resounding crisply beneath your heels, you make your way to the small bar trolley tucked away in one corner. Your last guest, a senator with strong -- unsubtly strong -- ties to the Clan, had complimented your selection of fine whiskeys and other alcohols. You had not admitted then that you did not keep the bar stocked for the guests who were few and far between, but rather for yourself, to chase away the damnable chill in this place. 

Your hand stills between decanters, your mind hesitating at the threatening burn that awaits your selection.

A bad habit.

You can imagine that peculiar modulated voice now. “Madam, the faces you make.”

Instead, you shun the alcohol and the ice that never thaws, yet still gets replaced each morning, now resting in a round chest, as gilded as everything else in this room, and reach for the Felucian pear juice. Duller, perhaps, but you don’t need anymore guilt on your conscience. 

A sip, then two, settles a gnawing in your stomach you only notice once it passes. 

Intolerable, you muse, downing what remains in the glass. The beverage is sweet, almost as sweet as the air outside is cold. Too quiet. Where are -

A rush of air and sliding metal breaks the silence. Glass in hand, your eyes narrow over the rim at the assistant who scuttles in. This one has been particularly insipid since her arrival. The daughter of someone marginally important, she is small and hunched shouldered -- she hasn’t learned, not like you did, and a part of you suspects she never will. 

She stops just short of where the tile begins and as she does, your eyes track down her uniform to a pair of shoes that have never been polished. Stars help her. 

In a quavering voice, she asks, “Madam?”

You raise a brow. 

“We’ve received word. The transport with the troopers has requested permission to land. They’re on their way.”

You set the glass aside, gingerly, its bottom barely clacking against the tray atop the cart. Republic troopers. A battering ram when a scalpel is needed. 

“Ah, the Senate’s grand favor,” you murmur. 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

So many years spent with watchful eyes on you has made you good at hiding your frustrations. You swallow a sigh before it ever rises and allow yourself a brief moment to thumb the crystalline edge of the glass. The senator had warned you. 

Your voice is quiet as you instruct the girl, “Get out.”

She scurries gracelessly back through the door. It is an improvement; the last time she had squeaked pitifully before leaving. Perhaps you should have enjoyed the alcohol while you could. If this goes badly, all these nice things, all this luxury will be reassigned, a new name on the door. Such is the way of things -- you know the warnings well.  

Until forty-eight hours ago, they had been going so smoothly. An unfamiliar voice at the back of your mind whispers at you. Had you gotten complacent? You never get complacent. You had been warned for star’s sake. Senator Clovis had been all too clear that vaults here on Scipio were being targeted. You had taken that to mean the transports would be targeted as well. Credits were valuable, gold was valuable, as were artifacts and treasures. The Clan stored it all.  

But most valuable of all were and would always be secrets.

And secrets...you were very good at secrets. Finding them. Keeping them. Exposing them. 

The hand on the glass tightens and through touch or through sound, you sense that just a little more pressure will splinter it. Gently, you lift your fingers. 

You’ve got enough messes to clean up already.

.

…………….

.

Two of his brothers look unhappy. Hunter suspects he, too, looks unhappy. Only Crosshair remains unaffected, toothpick lolling from one corner of the man’s thin mouth to the other as he watches the sky shift from icy atmo to the very tips of craggy mountains. 

“Looks cold,” rumbles Wrecker from his seat, thick legs kicking out miserably. “Nobody said it was gonna be cold.”

From the pilot’s chair, Tech glances at Hunter, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. Now that Hunter can see him full-on, rather than that goggle-obscured side-profile of his, he realizes that he’d been right. Even Tech is unhappy with the assigned locale. Still, the man sniffs and turns back to navigating the gunship.

“It is Scipio,” says Tech. 

“What’s that got to do with anything? Just sayin’, a little warning might’ve been nice.”

Crosshair shifts, the movement almost imperceptible, just enough that Hunter knows the sniper is asking for his attention. “I believe Hunter was preoccupied with warning us about the...what was it you called them, Hunter? Denizens?” 

“The word does have an apt connotation for the Banking Clan,” Tech mutters. He gives Hunter another look, this one says that he’s no more excited about the prospect than Hunter has been. 

Their mission brief had been a strange one. It wasn’t their usual brand of run-and-gun from the sound of things, but it was important to all the right people, and they needed guaranteed success. “Go to Scipio, meet the point of contact, establish the responsible party, recover the stolen data.” It was more or less all they had been told. 

Hunter knows his frown is getting deeper, sinking into the lines on his face -- he can feel it pulling at his bandana, and he raises a hand to scrub it away.

“Who is this contact anyway?” asks Crosshair. “You never said.”

“Because I wasn’t told a name. We’re to meet with the, and I quote, ‘Principal Trades Specialist for the InterGalactic Banking Clan.’”

“Trades specialist?” Crosshair plucks his toothpick from between his teeth and for a moment, it takes Hunter longer than he would like to decipher the look on the man’s face. He doesn’t look unhappy...he looks intrigued. Crosshair replaces the toothpick, then says, “Sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘corporate spy.’”

“Head corporate spy,” Tech says, “If he’s - “

“She, from what I’m told,” corrects Hunter. His frown has yet to go anywhere, so he lets it stay, his hand falling to his lap.

Tech nods. “If she is based here on Scipio, we’re dealing with someone who needs to be watched closely. Some important players are based on this planet.”

Crosshair folds his arms. “Did the spy part give it away, Tech?”

“The Banking Clan part, actually,” Tech replies dryly, “We’ve dealt with spies before. The IGBC is something different. It is...new territory.”

“We’ve also dealt with new territory before.” At this, Hunter hears them all shift, their quick heartbeats settling into a familiar, all’s-well rhythm. His, too, follows. Just in time, it would seem, for the comms to squawk at them as the Marauder banks left and begins its final descent to the landing pad. He stands from the co-pilots seat, the faint tilt of the floor beneath him a familiar calm before the inevitable storm. He looks to Wrecker, who shakes his head, and then offers a grin. 

“Might be fun. Never clobbered bad guys with snowballs before.”

There’s a snort from Tech and despite himself, Hunter smiles. 

.

**************************************

.

Ten minutes later, they are suited up and disembarking into a cloud of snow flurries and ice crystals. The Banking Clan’s guards are as heavily armored as some of the Separatist patrols Hunter’s encountered. He scowls beneath his helmet. This should be a job for Jedi -- if the Jedi weren’t all dispatched to the war front.   

Soldiers...they don’t deal with these sorts of people. Not well and not effectively. Too much bad blood between the Republic and profiteers like these.

He motions at his brothers to close ranks, their familiar presences a comforting reminder that this isn’t anything new, not really. It’s a mission like any other. 

As the frosted cloud clears ahead of them, the guards, in their gilt armor and insulated cloaks, make way, too much way, Hunter thinks, for the clearance to be for a group of Republic troopers.

Then he sees her.

Half camouflaged by the swirling winds and clad in half a dozen shades of gray and silver, her shoulders draped in white fur, she stands waiting for them, her hands clasped serenely in front of her. She could be a diplomat, a Jedi even, if not for the gleam in her eye. It’s a cold thing, sharper and as frostbitten as this frozen world itself. 

He’s not the only one to have noticed. Beside him, Hunter hears Crosshair draw in an appreciative breath so quiet no one without incredible senses would notice it. In his periphery, he catches an almost imperceptible twitch of Tech’s helmet as his brother spares him a questioning glance. 

When the woman speaks, her voice is crisp, professional. “Clone Force 99, welcome.” She does not smile, but her eyes track to each of them, lingering too long, as though somehow looking past the armor to the men beneath. She introduces herself with a name that sounds too soft for the title she wears. Then, she gives them a crystalline smile. “But you may call me Trader, if you please.”

“Trader?” It is Wrecker who asks the question, finally distracted from the snow and ice. “Sounds like…”

Another smile, this one not quite as cool as the first. Amused, Hunter thinks, though how benign that amusement is, he can’t tell, and it makes his skin itch beneath his blacks. “Like traitor?” she hums. “I suppose it does, doesn’t it?” 

She steps aside and gestures at them to follow. “With me, gentlemen. First, we’ve a meeting. Afterwards, we will take a tram to the vaults, then from there, speeders to the site of the incident.”

“‘Incident’ is an awful clean way to say ‘bloody heist,’” says Hunter as he moves to follow. Her gaze slides to him, her stride never slowing. Shoulder to shoulder with the woman, he has the uncomfortable instinct to slow his steps, to lag behind, as though if he isn’t careful, a blade might slide between his ribs on a blink. He pushes aside the urge, then asks, “How many people were lost?”

“Enough,” she replies. “One could even say too many.”

“But not you?”

“Must someone say something for you to believe they think it?”

Behind him, Crosshair snorts, but does not comment. Hunter lets the statement slide, though the itch he’d felt earlier is heating to a burn now. Together, she leads them through a set of gleaming durasteel doors into a foyer as stark as it is grand. 

“Proceed through those doors.” She crooks a finger to their left. “Senator Amidala has requested a meeting in...eighteen minutes. I will join you shortly.”

Wrecker whistles, the sound too sharp to come from beneath his helmet, and Hunter glances back to see that the man has removed it, his one good eye roving the pristine interior. With a sigh, Hunter follows suit. It’s not exactly warm here, but out from the planet’s whipping winds, it’s close enough that even he can fool his sensitive skin into enjoying it. Soon, they are all unmasked. The woman - Trader - lingers long enough to observe them.

Her expression is...unreadable. There is no twinkle of bemusement in her eyes, not the first twitch of surprise. Normally, when the helmets come off, it gets at least some sort of reaction, gives him some kind of measure. 

Now, the only read Hunter gets is the fact that he can’t get a read on her -- and that, he doesn’t like. There’s no trusting people who have become so numb. 

Her gaze slips between Crosshair and Tech, where it lingers on the latter for seconds longer than it had the rest of them. Something in her frigid eyes warms, the ice of her expression cracking just enough that she might be pleased by what she sees. And Tech...for all his usual detachment, has no datapad to bury his nose in now, and he notices. 

Hunter thinks the woman lets him notice. 

His brother stands a little straighter, eyes flicking nervously to Hunter behind his goggles. Stumped, for lack of a better word. For once, flat out puzzled. 

Then, without a word, Trader looks back to Hunter and inclines her head. “Stay warm, gentlemen. I will see you soon.”

She is gone behind a pair of adjacent doors without another word. 

No sooner do they watch the durasteel whisper shut, than does Wrecker drive his arm into Tech’s side with a chuckle. Tech winces with a hiss and waves the man away. 

“Heh, she likes you.”

“I hoped it was my imagination.” Crosshair’s lip curls, his eyes narrowing until he looks away, and Hunter wonders if they’ve been reflected back at him through the shine of Tech’s goggles.

Tech runs a hand over the back of his head. “What do you think, Hunter?”

“I think she’s Banking Clan, through and through. We’re not among friends here.”

“If we let her alone with Tech, things might get friendlier -”

“Wrecker.” 

Hunter scowls. Another voice has echoed his own and he looks to see Crosshair, arms folded, rocking back on a foot to glare at the wampa-sized man. 

Tech clears his throat. “Perhaps we should wait in the briefing room?”

His heart rate, harder to hear away from the tight confines of the Marauder, sounds schoolboy quick and Hunter wishes, not for the first time, that his brother was more inclined to find company in their off-duty hours than he was. Pretty faces were fine - Hunter himself was inclined to enjoy them - but something about the mask this one wore was dangerous.

Wrecker’s voice pulls him from his thoughts. “Did she say Senator Amidala was waiting?”

“She did. The commander warned us the Senate was at play here.”

“That’s not our usual playground though, is it?” Crosshair is still scowling, his arms folded more tightly now than they had been. All that characteristic suspicion exacerbated by annoyance that has set in and won’t leave him. It makes his eyes hard, his narrow features sharpened and cold beneath the glare of sunlight on durasteel. 

Hunter shakes his head. “It’s not, but I feel better knowing Amidala’s behind us on this.”

“That makes one of us,” says Crosshair.

“Two,” Tech interrupts, his voice crisp; back to himself, Hunter realizes, his relief warm down to his fingertips, until he isn’t sure why he’d been worried in the first place.

“Three! I like Amidala.” 

“We know, Wrecker.” Tech’s smile is gentle, even as he rolls his eyes. “The poster by your bed speaks for itself.” 

Hunter’s gaze slides to his remaining brother, the smile that had spread turning crooked, then fading. “Crosshair?” 

It’s always been an unsettling characteristic of Crosshair’s that his eyes, as brown as all of theirs, manage to be so very cold when the mood hits him. The look in them is not unlike what he had witnessed in the woman. 

The observation tightens Hunter’s throat and he swallows it, turning away, and hopes not to notice it again.

[teletraan-meets-jarvis]

Darkest Part

AO3 Link

Pairing: Crosshair x fem!Jedi Reader

Summary: The war was drawing to a close as you and The Bad Batch provided reinforcements on Kaller. However, the end of the war came in a way none of you could've predicted, as Order 66 is executed. Set during the episode Aftermath.

Warnings: 12+, Character death, slight violence, it's an angsty one peeps

Word Count: 1.5k

Author’s Notes: As always, feedback is really appreciated, along with reblogs! Thanks so much for taking the time to read, have a lovely day!

Depa’s screams echoed across the open plane, causing the group to stop in their tracks. You couldn’t believe your eyes, sure that this must be some kind of Force trick as you all witnessed Commander Grey and his troops firing on Master Billaba, her Lightsaber protecting her with everything she had. You hadn’t realised you were already running until you overtook Caleb, desperate to try and help. Both you and the Padawan had your Lightsabers drawn as you raced to the General’s aid.

With her last bit of strength, Depa Force pushed you both back and screamed for you to run, for you to get Caleb away from the Clones before one final shot sang through her chest. In her last moments, Depa’s beautiful face was tainted with the agony of betrayal from her closest allies.

An overwhelming pain suddenly smacked you in the chest. You didn’t realise pain could be blinding, but it took over every sense in your body until there was only a bright light. Screams could be heard, Lightsabers swinging for one final time, ships being shot down. It was the Jedi. They were dying. The Council. The Knights. The younglings. All of them. And just like that it was over. You were back, Caleb pulling on your sleeve as the Bad Batch caught up with you both. You’d fallen to your knees from the impact of the deaths of your kind.

You looked at the Bad Batch and your already emotionally battered chest tightened like a vice. Would they turn on you as well? After everything. Would Crosshair turn on you? You’d seen it, you’d felt it. You’d felt Master Plo’s despair as the Wolfpack shot him from the sky, you felt Obi-Wan’s disbelief as Cody ordered his execution, Aayla’s heartbreak as the man she loved gunned her down.

Your eyes stung with unshed tears as you met Crosshair’s visor. Could he hurt you? Love hadn’t saved Aayla, it hadn’t prevented Commander Bly from executing her with no remorse. What would stop Crosshair?

“Stay back” Caleb shouted at them, holding his weapon in a defensive position in front of you. Finally coming back to yourself, you grabbed his wrist and took off running. Hunter’s voice following after you, trying to reason with you.

Tears finally fell down your face as you focused everything you had on running. Focused on keeping the Padawan safe from certain death. There was nothing else that mattered now, this kid had to live. You couldn’t lose anyone else. You just couldn’t.

You struggled to keep up with what had just transpired, your conscious mind not processing the events as your body went into survival mode. Keeping Caleb safe was all that mattered, and you clutched to the one sane thought with everything you could muster otherwise you’d crumble.

With an initiative beyond his years, the young Padawan started climbing the trees to remain off the path where Hunter could track them. The child’s tactical mind caused the sobering realisation in your mind that, of his short life so far, most of Caleb’s years of innocence and learning had been tainted by war, forcing him to grow up beyond his years.

You followed his lead and supported yourself in an adjacent tree, out of sight from the ground. Your eyes were locked onto Caleb as he steadied himself on his snow dusted tree, you pushed a wave of support over the Force to wash over him, hoping it would calm his nerves.

In the distance, two sets of footfalls crunched against the white blanket of the forest floor. As quickly as it came into range, the sound suddenly stopped below your trees and Caleb’s wild eyes found yours. His fear was evident and bone deep. It was breaking your heart. He was just a kid; he didn’t deserve this.

Hunter and Crosshair’s modulated voices broke the silence in the air as they debated the way you’d both went. Hunter sounded distressed while Crosshair sounded determined, the same way he sounded when hunting a target. Your body shivered at the thought that you had suddenly become the enemy in his eyes.

The sound of a blaster bolt snapped your attention to Caleb. The branch he’d been perched on shattered beneath him and he fell very ungracefully at the base of the tree, with Hunter and Crosshair staring straight at him.

Without thought, you leaped down in front of the young Padawan, your brown cloak trailing behind you as you descended. You landed on one knee, a hand out to your side with you Lightsaber lit and at the ready.

Bringing yourself to your feet, you peered at your men from beneath the darkness of your hood. Hunter was stood in a defensive stance, hands out and unarmed. Crosshair however was aiming his deadly sniper directly at Caleb behind you. He was ready to take the shot, every inch of his body screamed his intent to kill.

“Caleb run” Your words were strong. Stronger than you felt.

“But-”

“GO!” You demanded the young child, if you could just buy him some time, there’s a chance he could get out of this.

Crosshair’s rifle was still pointed in the direction of the young Padawan. You stepped forward into the firing line and disabled your weapon, meeting the soldier’s gaze through his visor. You listened out as Caleb’s running feet sounded further and further away. Good.

“Crosshair, this isn’t you. Don’t hurt the kid.” you spoke with a calm you didn’t feel, like you were trying to soothe a feral creature.

“Good soldiers, follow orders” his hands were shaking as he bit out the words. That strange certainty he had while aiming at the young Jedi, now wavering while his weapon was trained on you.

“Well, if that’s the case.” You walked forward until the barrel of his rifle was aligned with the centre of your chest. “Take the shot, Crosshair.” your voice was void of emotion. You’re sure you heard Hunter screaming at you two in the background. Not even commanding as Sergeant, but as a brother, begging Crosshair to stop this.

A shot rang out.

You’d visibly flinched at the sound, such a contrast to the eery silence that fell over you all in the forests of Kaller. You opened your eyes, unsure as to when you’d closed them. You were met with the sight of the Sniper’s barrel smoking. Hunter’s arm beneath the weapon, having pushed the shot up over your shoulder. You met Crosshair’s visor again and your heart finally shattered.

Crosshair’s shaking hands threw his weapon onto the ground, almost in disbelief, moving to clutch the side of his helmet in pain. Despite the bucket covering his face, you could read every emotion he went through like a book.

More tears made their way down your face as you used the Force to launch the man you loved into a tree, effectively knocking him out for a short period. Hunter tore off his helmet and grabbed you by the shoulders as you sank to your knees. You were sure your face mirrored Depa’s as she died. After all these years, how could the Clones do this to the Jedi? How could Crosshair do this to you?

“General, I’m here. Whatever’s going on, I don’t understand it, but I won’t hurt you. I swear.” You studied his features, the equal amount of confusion and despair in his gaze. You believed him.

“Hunter, you’ve got regs incoming” Wrecker’s voice sounded from the Sergeant’s helmet. The Clone wasted no time pulling a spare comm from the back of his armour, one Tech had tampered with it seemed. He pressed it into your hands and looked you dead in the eye.

“Go, get the kid to safety. We’ll contact you when we figure out what this order sixty-six is, and what’s happened to Crosshair. We’ll rendezvous somewhere safe.”

“Hunter I-”

“You have to do this, and we can’t lose you, General. Go, I’ll look after the boys. I promise to keep them safe” I promise to keep Crosshair safe.

With a nod, you scrounged up one final bout of resolve before getting to your feet, ready to take off in search of Caleb.

Before you left, you spared another look at the man you loved, still sitting unconscious below a tree. His body was limp as the chin of his helmet sat against his chest. You hated that it had come to this. That you had actually hurt him in some way.

Putting all your trust in Hunter, you mentally said goodbye to Crosshair and the rest of the Batch before you finally departed among the trees. Unsure as to when you’d next hear Wrecker’s boisterous laugh, Echo’s kind words, Tech’s rambling, or Hunter’s terrible jokes. Not knowing when you’d next feel Crosshair’s soft breathes against your neck as you slept surrounded by everything that he was. Uncertain for your future and with a shattered heart, you kept running.

Back to Masterlist

[that-one-weeb-but-starwars]

My Love| Echo pt 3

Note: i'll edit this later, my mouth hurts from wisdom teeth removal but wanted to get it out for you.

Warnings: No real warnings, but there is a semi spicey scene and mentions of nudity towards the end, but doesnt go into too far of detail. And Echo's legs are cannoned a bit lower than tcw meaning yes Echos got an ass, but his legs and thighs stuff like that are still metal so

Reader: Male

Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 5 | 6

Master list

Y/n watched the boys try there food. They're faces lighting up as the room became silent, people busy digging into there food.

Y/n ate his own, his hand on Echo's thigh under the table, Echo's leg touching Y/n's.

"Ma'm this is way way! Better than rations!" Wrecker cheered.

"Im glad you like it so much, so tell me boys. What brought you over here?" Margie asked.

Hunter swallowed his food, "well we wanted to meet Echo's boyfriend Ma'm, we had no idea they had been dating for so long."

It was lucky for the group that talked they stayed together, near the head of the table where Margie sat, a small kid or two down from her.

"Echo's been nothing but a delight. To both my son and my family." Margie praised, "he's a good kid, Im assuming he gets it from his older brothers?"

"Oh...uh." Hunter spoke.

"He's older than us." Crosshair responded for the group.

"Oh?" She smiled, "you learn something new every day."

She looked at Y/n who nodded and smiled, "Yep."

"So where are you boys staying?" She asked.

Oh shit. Was the only thing Echo could think of. His brothers? Staying here?

"Oh we have our own place." Tech responded, "We live in a building complex called the Marauder."

Well that was a lie.

"Wait. Isn't that the name-" Y/n was cut off when Hunter kicked him.

"Ow.."

"Sorry. Foot must've slipped." Hunter responded his head slightly jolting towards the side, Echo was lost in his food, eating small spoon fulls, he was listening inteny even though he tried to cover his easedropping up.

"Oh! Yeah!" Y/n chuckled, Echo's frame slightly picking up.

"Oh. Nice place then?" Margie spoke.

"Oh..uh yeah. Decent..just a bit cramped but we don't mine." Hunter told, "we do alot of delivering off world too, so we work a decent amount...Echo! Echo here works the hardest. He may not be the strongest but he sure knows how to uh-"

"Pack a crate! And log the ports data. He's also a skilled mechanic!" Wrecker joined in.

What were they doing? Fake Prasing him? Why?

She smiled, "You boys seem like you like your jobs."

The boy's nodded, Y/n watched as Tech, Hunter and Wrecker hyped up Echo. The boy's trying to support Echo, "and you? Crosshair was it?"

Crosshair stopped from putting a spoonful in his mouth, "Oh. I.-" he looked at Echo infront of him, "I have a long way to go, a lot to learn."

"The youngest then?" She questioned.

"Yeah..." Crosshair responded bringing the food to his mouth.

"That's a sweet little bussniess you all have then," she congratulated, "We'd have to work with you one day, we have a business of our own."

"What's the bussniess if I may ask?" Tech questioned.

"Well our main bussniess is a food bussniess, you know selling buying, producing, but recently we've started a non-profit organization for battle droids."

"For battle droids? Clankers?" Wrecker asked.

"Thats what them clone boys call them," She smiled, "we basically rehab them, and send them back into the world, most as servants, translators. Small things."

"That's uh well..."

"I know I know. But here we believe that everything stands a chance." She contuined, "Echo has helped us alot on efficent repairs."

Echo nodded as he put a spoonful in his mouth.

"We have one that takes care of the animals in the small barn." Margie told, "Y/n! Have you showed them the animals dear?"

"No ma. This is only the second room they been in." Y/n informed.

"How dare you not give them a tour!" His mother spoke fake harshly, Y/n chuckling his mom soon following after.

"Oh mommy dearest I ask your humble apologies even though I don't deserve it. I suppose I'll sleep outside in the barn."

The two laughed as they smiled at one another.

"I'll show them around afterwords. Prepaired for your world to be rocked." He told the boys infront of him.

"Well I welcome you to the family boys. Its always a pleasure to have another few join the bunch!" She cheered.

"Thank you." Hunter spoke.

She smiled for a final time return to her food as did the others, small talk. Kids started asking to be excused, when excused they took there dishes and walked into the kitchen to clean there dishes and put them on the drying racks.

Echo finished before Y/n asking to be excused he got up with his dishes and went to clean them. Wrecker asked next, he being excused as he grabbed his own things and left.

Echo was along cleaning his dishes, his plate flat in the sink as he scrubbed the plate with one hand.

"Wanna hand?"

Echo turned his head, "oh. No. Im good."

Echo turned back towards his plates.

"Echo. Im. Im sorry." Wrecker apologized, "he's better than any lady you could date."

"Oh. Uh." Echo spoke, "thanks..."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Wrecker told him.

Echo frowned, "I. I know Wrecker. I shouldn't of yelled at you."

"We've should of waited for you to explain."

Putting his dishes on the drying rack he turned to Wrecker who stood next to him, Wrecker's dishes sat on the counter patiently waiting for his turn.

"It's. Okay." Echo responded, "I, I forgive you, at the end of the day. I'm the only one dating him. Right?"

Wrecker smiled, "So. We're okay?"

Echo nodded, quickly being picked up in a hug as he chuckled, patting Wrecker's shoulder.

"Now do your dishes before Y/n's mom cuts your head off." Echo joked waving smally to him.

Echo walked back out, going down the hall and too the living room, the room filled with silence as he collected the cups from eariler.

Bent over setting all the cups down accordingly there was a whistle, a soft one, not loud enough for anyone to hear if they weren't in the room.

"Would you look at that ass." Y/n spoke, Echo standing straight as he turned around, "aren't you a gifted fellow?"

Echo chuckled, "You should be careful what you say in here."

It was Y/n's turn to chuckle.

"Why's that?"

"Why do you think?" Echo questioned as he watched Y/n walk forward, grabbing his hips and pulling Echo closer.

"All I do is tell the truth," Y/n smiled.

Echo's arms drapped on Y/n's shoulder's, Y/n holding his hips.

"Now this is something we shouldn't be doing in here." Y/n teased.

Echo smiled, "One kiss never hurt anyone?"

"Oh?"

Y/n smiled, leaning down kissing Echo. His hand running through Y/n's hair, Y/n pulled away from Echo, foreheads resting on one another.

"I love you." Y/n told him.

"I love you too." Echo smiled.

Y/n pulled him into a short kiss, "You wanna sit on my lap again baby?"

"Gladly-" Echo was cut off again with a kiss, a chuckle filling his mouth from Y/n.

"Get a damn room!"

Y/n pulled away, glaring at the teen.

"Well Enzo. I am in a room! So get out of it!" Y/n argued, Echo's head in Y/n's shoulder.

"Well mom wants you to give those guys a tour." Enzo responded.

"Alright." Y/n spoke, turning back to Echo, "Later baby."

Echo was give a kiss on the lips, Y/n grabbed the tray.

"I can do that," Echo spoke stopping Y/n.

"How about you can do this one day, when we have our own home." Y/n spoke, "you know when we're married and have a little farm."

Echo flushed deeply, a farm? With him and Y/n all by themselves? Sounded...sounded. amazing.

Y/n pulled away from him tray in hand, "come on let's give that tour."

Echo followed Y/n dropping off the tray and then taking the boys around, introducing them to all the kids, big, medium small to twilek, zabrack, human to torguata. All of diffrent personalities. Some reading on there bed, some working out, some listening to music, others playing with dolls and action figures.

And then there was his room, nothing special, Echo and his favorite record in sitting still as the song had finished, a box of records tucked under the small table the record player sat on. The sheets a dark purple his pillow cases a matching dark blue a window at the far end.

"Please come in." Y/n responded offering them to come in and look around.

They filed in, the room fitting all them comfortably.

"It's quiet simple," Tech explained, "Your personality is a bit more bubbly so I was expecting something wild."

"Like that?" Crosshair questioned.

"Like what?" Tech responded turning around to face the wall behind them.

The wall was filled with photos, drawings and dried flowers, a vintage theme, branching off into its sub groups.

"There it is." Tech repsonded adjusting his glasses.

"Please feel free to look around." Y/n responded.

Crosshair stood next to Wrecker as they looked at the photos.

"Hey! It's Echo! Look!" Wrecker cheered as Crosshair peered over, the photo of Echo asleep on the couch, kids knocked out with him, "and Kamino!"

"How's you get a picture of Kamino?" Hunter questioned now also looking at the photos.

"Echo here got it for me." Y/n smiled as Echo rubbed the back of his head, "Its not just my memories up there- Hey! Lets get our own photo up there!"

Y/n got up going over to his desk as he lifted the top up pulling the old porloroid out.

"Echo." Crosshair spoke as the clone came over, "wanna explain this one?"

Echo looked at the photo, he clearly knocked out in Y/n's bed, his back bare hinting towards what had happened before hand, the blanket covering to his mid back and down, his arms tucked under a pillow permentatly fluffing it up as his cheek was baired into it.

"Not bad." Crosshair spoke nudging his brother, he was trying.

"Here is is new film and all." Y/n smiled going towards the group, "Come on! Gather around."

Y/n smiled as the group akwardly grouped together infront of the window. Looking at the group he rushed over, pushing them closer together.

"It'll be on a timer so I only have a few seconds." Y/n told them walking back over, "ready?"

"Uh sure?"

Y/n quickly pushed the button rushing over to the group, he quickly stood next to Echo. There was a click as Y/n rushed back over. The photo coming out the bottom as Tech rushed over intrested.

"Oh nice its comin through already." Y/n smiled, soon waving the square around as he walked over to his desk picking out a red and black thumb tack.

"Hmm..." y/n spoke rushing over to the wall looking around, "hah! Echo come here! Help me put this up."

Echo walked over as the boys watched him hand Echo the image and tack.

"See right there." Y/n pointed a spot above the door, dead center towards the ceiling.

"We'll move this one." Y/n said pulling up an old photo besides the light switch "up there."

Handing Echo the old photo they swapped Y/n pinning the new one with the group with a smile.

"Ready?"

"Yeah-"

Echo was grabbed by the legs, Y/n picking him up as Y/n grabbed the back off his thighs.

"A bit higher." Echo spoke as Y/n pulled his arms back, tight on Echo's thighs he pushed the clone upward, his thighs now trapping Y/n's face as Y/n's hands vanished behind Echo's kama skirt.

"Got it?" Y/n asked his chin resting at Echo's belt.

"Yeah." Echo spoke, his face red as he cleared his throat.

"Ready?'

"No- Y/n-" He spoke as Y/n laughed walking towards his bed, "Y/n! Y/n! I'll kill you don't- Ah!-"

Y/n tossed the trooper on the bed he bouncing as he let out a grunt, Y/n only chuckled turning back towards the boys, "come on i'll show you that barn they were talking about."

Y/n lead the boys along to the backyard, showing them the small barn his father worked on fixing a small animals leg, waving a B-1 droid showed up in a happy matter the others ready to fight.

"Master Y/n!"

"Please Y/n is fine B." Y/n smiled, "Boys this is B. He helps with the animals."

With an akward introduction the batchers kept there distance, but with the end of the small barn came the end of the tour. It now late in the hours of the day as the boys made there way our. Excusing themselves for the night.

"You'll have to come back." Y/n smiled.

"If its okay with Echo and your mother. " Hunter spoke, "and you of course."

"We'd be delighted to have you again." Y/n smiled, "Please. Come anytime with Echo. Or by yourselves. We're open doors."

Hunter nodded, the batch saying there goodbyes and thanks once more. They started there way away from the home, Tech staying back, "I suppose not all regs are regular after all. And that's good."

With his last comment Tech rushed to join the others.

Echo stayed behind with Y/n who smiled as the boys vanished.

"Now. That we're. Alone." Y/n teased.

"Alone? Really in this house?" Echo teased back.

Y/n chuckled, "as alone as we can be."

Echo smiled as Y/n closed the door.

"I'll go make some more milk and honey, you. Go get ready to cuddle." Y/n ordered playfully.

"Thats something I can do."

Him and Y/n unfortunately went separate ways, Y/n cleaning the cups and pot setting them to dry as one of the old B-1 droids would put the mass of dishes away during the night.

He pulled out another pot, putting it on the stove filled with the sweet liquid he wipped the tray clean, putting a fresh set of cookies on a small plate and two cups. Just in time as the pot started to whistle, pulling it off the stove he turned the gas off and went to his room.

Holding the tray in one hand he opened his door, "hey hope you didn't miss me too..."

Y/n's frame filling the door way, but froze seeing Echo's bare back facing him, a blanket sat high waisted on him as Y/n quickly stepped in, quiet with his steps he locked the door behind him, Echo now standing up and facing Y/n the blanket still around his waist.

"I uh..." Echo responded with a flush, "thought...you might like this first..."

Y/n flushed as Echo dropped the blanket, setting the tray on the nearest surface big enough, the floor flush against the wall besides the door, he walked over, kicking his shoes off in the process.

"Baby you have no idea how much I like this." Y/n told him, Echo's gaze away.

Maker. Y/n took his thumb to Echo's chin, Y/n's soft skin lightly tapping up Echo's chin to look up at him. Holding Echo's chin in place with his thumb and index finger Y/n smiled smally, his eyes filled with love for the pale male infront of him.

"Y/n. I..." Echo trailed off.

"Shh..." Y/n hushed softly, his thumb running down Echo's lip and back to his chin, "You don't have to say anything..."

Echo raised on his toes, leaning up to kiss Y/n, Y/n leaned down, the first kiss was almost shy, there lips only pressing together in sweet presence of one another. The small kiss leaving Echo breathless. They pulled away shortly. Another one soon be initiated, Y/n nudging Echo to sit down softly, he following Echo's movements, Y/n sitting besides him, the kissing barely any more intense, Echo swinging a leg over Y/n's straddling the taller male.

Y/n held the small of Echo's back, the two's makeout session growing in heat as Y/n's hands running down Echo's back and to his ass, where he gladly let his hands rest of Echo's warm skin while they kissed.

It was soon for breathe they pulled away, Y/n attaching himself to Echo's neck. Echo's hand through Y/n's hair as he hummed against Echo's pale skin, earing a soft mewel.

"Y/n...take me...take me away..." Echo whispered, Y/n laying Echo down on his back, his lips never movinv from Echo's shoulder.

"Take me away...Y/n..." Echo meweled softly, the words spilling from Echo's vocal cords once again.

Y/n stopped momentarily to lean up into Echo's ear, "only if I can come along baby..."

The night was filled with passion, hair being pulled in pleasure, moans dripping off each others lips, ripped from there vocal cords in call for the other one. Pleads drawn from the bottom as Echo left a few new scratch marks on Y/n's back, along with a line of hickeys following Y/n's collar blade to sholder. Y/n did the same, leaving hickies along Echo's body, where skin met metal.

Echo laid flat on his stomach now, his head turned towards Y/n. Y/n held a stupid large smile on his face, his finger's interlaced with Echo's.

"That was somethin else babe." Y/n told him softly, "Parched after the time of your life?"

Echo chuckled as Y/n pulled himself up, and out of bed. Echo receiving a pleasent veiw of Y/n's behind with one side having present marks, they currently defined and fresh, marks both darker and lighter spotted Y/n's back, mostly towards his shoulder and nape of his neck.

Echo watched Y/n pick up the tray and make his way back to the bed setting it on the nightstand, climbing back in the covers as Echo nuzzle up to Y/n.

"Clingy now are we? Let me pour you a cup atleast." Y/n chuckled.

Pouring them both cups Echo was handed one cold cup, "Thanks."

"Mhmm," Y/n acknowledged the two cuddled up, "shame its cold. Must sat for too long, needy thing arent you?"

Echo flustered, but took a risk himself, "Could still be longer."

"Oh? And what are you gonna do that I haven't done to you?" Y/n teased, Echo took a heavy drink, hoping it would bring him energy later taking Y/n's he sat it on the nightstand next to his own side of the bed.

Echo pushed Y/n onto the bed flat, the covers still hiding Y/n's lower half.

"I haven't rode you." Echo told boldly.

Y/n smirked up at him, "You're right you haven't,"

Echo's leg's swinging over Y/n, "Think you can handle me?" Echo questioned.

Y/n chuckled, "Baby you have no idea what I'd endure for you." Y/n sat up, holding Echo's face with a hand.

"Lets see then." Echo responded Y/n biting his lip as he pushed the covers down with a foot.

Y/n was pulled into a kiss, his hands running up and down Echo's back as Echo pushed him to the bed, the kiss never breaking.

Read the Next Part here if you like smut or stay generally sfw here

[knightprincess]

Cadet Training (The Bad Batch)

Words: 3166

Warning: None but a lot of hurt/comfort (I think)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cadet training for the clones was never easy. Although it was just about bearable for the regular clones. It was constant torment for Clone Force 99. They never got a day off from training like others did. From the moment they had been able to begin training, it had been non stop, a constant pressure to succeed, to obey the orders given or face punishment. 

TECH Tech's training consisted of testing his knowledge. He'd be hooked up to an array of machines, some to monitor his brain waves, other his heart rate and blood pressure. Another that would give him a nasty shock. Once he was hooked up the testing began, he was normally given questions on the screens before him, he had a certain amount of time to answer them. If he succeeded, another question would appear. If he was to fail, he would receive a electric shock. If he ever asked for it to stop, the instructor would only up the power. Being sure to stop before he lost consciousness. As soon as the shocks stopped he was told to get back to his feet and continue. Maker help him should he ask for a bathroom break or any break in general. On the days he wasn't facing the quizzes, then he was normally dragged to the medical bay, to undergo horrendous scans. The worst part always being he could feel everything they did. The pain being unbearable, the few times he was able to get strangled words out, he was always calling for his brothers, begging them to make it stop and rescue him from the constant pain. He'd be poked and prodded with needles and other things as if he was a pin cushion. Normally thirsty and hungry as he would be denied food and drink for hours before these scans and tests. If he was to say he was hungry or needed a drink, he would be harshly told to be silent and wait. 

When it was over it was a struggle to even walk, most of the time he used the walls to prop himself up on his way to where ever wanted to go. His words would be slurred, the best he could do with the splitting headache to be blurring his vision. He'd struggle to hold eating utensils when in the mess hall, only just being able to grip the cup to drink something. After a while he'd give up completely and settle for returning to the barracks, another night of going hungry. Crosshair would never allow it and always followed behind his younger brother, helping Tech along to ensure he got there safely. Upon making sure Tech got to his bunk, he retrieve a few ration bars, ensuring Tech didn't go hungry. WRECKER Wrecker's training wasn't as bad as his brothers to look at. He'd be constantly pushed to his limit with blasters, bombs and other explosives. Often being sent to the training rooms to test his skills against droids. If he was ever hit by one, the course would be reset until he got it right. Often times had he missed meal times because of this. He'd be forced to repeat the disarming over and over again, until he got it right first time. Yet he hated destroying things that had meaning to him. Like one time an instructor noticed his original tooka doll and picture of his brothers. Both had been stuffed into a metal box with little care, a detonator thrown in with them. 

That day he'd been tasked with disarming an bomb within a time limit. If he succeeded, he'd get the things taken from him back. If he failed then the blast would destroy the small metal box and the things stuffed so carelessly inside. That day had broke Wrecker, losing the photo was like losing his brothers, he cried himself to sleep that night, believing he had failed them. Although a new Tooka doll had appeared on his bunk, a small tag in messy writing saying its name was Lula. 

Wreckers worst training session by far was the one where he was training with blasters. He'd only spoken of his exhaustion and strains before then. But that day his trainer had dragged Hunter, Tech and Crosshair to the firing range. He been informed their lives were on the line this time, they would be on the firing range, between each target. If he missed any target his brothers would ended up being hit. Wrecker had protested as did his brothers, their lives were in his hands, he knew his brothers trusted him, but he didn't want that responsibility just yet. He didn't want to hurt them in any way. 

He knew it would be difficult, with the trainer tying each of his brothers to a make shift stake between each target, blind folding them so they couldn't see what was happening. To Wrecker it was like they were set to be executed by firing squad, like they were the criminals and he was the executor, like he was the hand that would bring swift death. He tried so hard to protest against it, refusing, even when his train held a gun to his head, even when he was smacked in the face with the butt of the gun he still refused. 

He eventually fired upon hearing the encouraging words of his brothers. Hearing they trusted him and believed him even when he didn't believe in himself. Although he had hit every target, he'd come dangerously close to each of them. A bolt had hit just to the right of Crosshair, mere inches from his shoulder, another had been close to hitting Hunter, the bolt hitting the wall above him, where as Tech's had missed by inches, instead hitting the floor in front of him. A comment or two had escaped the train's lips, yet nothing of support but instead patronizing him further, stamping out the confidence he had gained. Something to do with a gag for his brothers next time. 

Tech, Crosshair and Hunter had all bared witness to Wrecker's beating that day. Tied helpless to the make shift stakes as he was beaten for his words in response to the sadistic trainer, beaten for standing up for himself and them. Despite their efforts to free themselves, they had been force to listen as Wrecker shouted for it to stop and screamed in agonizing pain when the side of his face was held to one of the metal containers, mere seconds before it exploded. The Trainer didn't seem to care, instead pulling the crying Wrecker to his feet afterwards, ignoring the pleas to be left alone. Nala Se had been the rescuer that day, investigating upon hearing Wrecker scream. She took him with her, ordering Tech, Crosshair and Hunter to be freed and sent back to their barracks. 

Despite her best efforts Nala Se couldn't save Wrecker from permanent scaring. She kept him in her lab for days, doing her best to take away his pain as she removed shrapnel and his left eye. Replacing the eye with a cybernetic one. Her examinations showing he'd be partially death in the left ear.  Yet she had also showed kindness, even more so when she had taken the punishment of the Bounty Hunter into her own hands, ensuring he wouldn't be heartless to one of her special five again.

CROSSHAIR Crosshair's training normally consisted of being isolated for days on end. His accuracy was beyond that of any other, so his path of a sniper had been chosen for him. Forced on him even. At first it would be overnight stays in the training facilities, perched in a snipers nest, flat on his stomach, he'd be allowed breaks to move around and join the others in the mess hall. But as time went by, the conditions got worse. He'd be denied simple breaks to stretch his limbs, bathroom trips or even sleep. Food and water became a method to reward him for his good work in training. 

After a while the trips to the training facility wasn't enough. His instructor insisting he needed something more real. So would take him out to a landing pad in the constant rain, there he'd be tasked with eliminating all distractions and fire on his fellow cadets, each time they'd be unaware. If Crosshair was to refuse then he'd be beaten, stamped on and other things, at times his own instructor had used a electric torture device to deliver a shock, all in an attempt to get him to comply. If he still refused a loaded gun would be held to the side of his head, or he'd be put in some sort of strangle hold. Crosshair had bones broken one more than one occasion. Normally ribs, wrist, ankle and fingers. 

Many a times Crosshair had been taken outside in the pouring rain, without cover, food or water, he'd be left their for days, only being sent a location of his target, normally another cadet but occasionally a fully trained trooper would would fire back. He was tasked to stun them all. To make it easier, his instructor told him to make up stories about them, to make himself think they deserved it, he was told to ignore his guilt over firing at them and ignore they were clones just like him. Instead he was told to think of it like a game, with everyone he stunned he'd be earning the right of bathroom use, of food and water, of being able to return to his barracks and see his brothers again. 

But it only got worse. Eventually stunning his fellow cadets and fully trained troopers wasn't enough anymore. His instructor wanted him to use live rounds, to potentially kill them. He was branded as teaching them a lesson, of setting an example to other cadets who misbehaved. Every time Crosshair refused he was met with a brutal beating, already weak from days without food and lying flat on his stomach. Already weak from his countless other beating from answering back with snarky comments. He'd been denied medical attention until he completed his training session. 

When he was sent to the med bay, he found no comfort. It was made perfectly clear to him by the elegant Kaminoans he wasn't welcome there, they tolerated him a best, doing the bare minimum to ease his pain and ensuring his injuries and wounds would heal. Pain killers weren't a luxury extended to him, instead he felt the pain, eventually growing to accept it as a companion, refusing to show it to another unless he couldn't bare it any longer. 

By far his worst training session was when he was up on the landing platform, the rain pelting down on him, hardly bothered him anymore. He was told via a comm link four targets were heading into his directory, he was to shoot them. At first Crosshair was certain he wouldn't have a problem with it, he grown used to using cadets and troopers as a target practice. Yet this time was different, the targets in question was a fully grown trooper and three cadets. Tech, Hunter and Wrecker along with ninety-nine. Almost instantly Crosshair yelled he couldn't, no wouldn't fire on them. They were his brothers and one of the few who actually showed care to him. Ninety-Nine had named each of them, treated them like he did with all the other cadets, with care and loved. Always helping them with something. 

His instructor had come on to his landing pad after that, demanding he shoot all four to kill. Stamping on Crosshair's back when he refused, the beating when on for quite some time. Only stopping when Crosshair had managed to grab his rifle and point it had the vicious man tasked with training him. Even then no emotion escaped his blush pink features. Instead his instructor called him names, often accompanied by the words useless and defect. Through it all Crosshair would yell even scream he didn't want to kill his brothers, loud enough they could hear him and pin point his location, loud enough they would know what they're being used for this time. 

The nightmares were always the worst part of his torture. They were the mental scars of his training. When he was actually allowed to sleep, he'd been tormented by the nightmares, a scenario being played out where he'd have to hunt his brothers, torture them for information and eventually kill them in a public way. Every time he'd wake up screaming he didn't want to kill them. Each time Wrecker would offer him Lula, as comfort. Tech would reassure him it was just a dream and they were all there, alive and well. Where as Hunter would stay by his side until he fell back to sleep. The cycle would repeat itself several times over, each time the stun setting on the gun becoming more appealing, until Crosshair would eventually give up on the idea of sleep. Instead he would be content watching over his brothers and reading something on Tech's data-pad, all while playing with Hunter's knife and protecting Lula for Wrecker. 

HUNTER Hunter's training mainly centered around his senses and tracking. Much like Crosshair it was far more physical than most. Although he'd also find himself locked in a lab for what was supposed to be testing but felt more like his own personal brand of torture. His favorite training was when he got to spend time with his brothers. Normally when they were in training facilities together, going through different scenarios. They worked well as a team and was sure to let his tired brothers know it. 

His training as an individual however he hated, with a vengeance. Often times was Crosshair the one he had to track, with the order to subdue my any means necessary. Every time his sharp eyed brother would be under the impression the person coming would be trying to kill him, as if he'd been brain washed. Each time he would be in for a fight even when Crosshair had been starved for days. He'd always say I'm sorry before stunning him, he'd hold his brother close, maker knows what would happen to him for being caught. 

The days in the lab he hated most. Mostly due to be stuck in some kind of tub, helpless to do anything as Tech yelled for help and for someone to save him. In his tub he'd be subjected to a manor of different things, noises only he could hear, with a pitch high enough to frazzle his hearing for days. Smells powerful enough to burn his air ways and leave a metal tinged after taste in his mouth. multi-color lights so bright, he would be blinded and couldn't see the Kaminoan outside the tube. He's be left with lights flashing behind his eyes long after the bright lights had been turned off. 

When not in the tube, he would be strapped to a table like Tech, poked and prodded, different tests administered. He'd always know when they were due, being forbidden from drinking or eating anything for hours before hand. His struggles only resulted in pain, multiple times he'd been struck with something across his midsection. The blow hard enough he could feel his ribs crunch beneath the object, and the air leave his lungs from the pure shock of it. He'd always think of his brothers in those times. Think about needing to be strong for them, so he could help them when they all returned to the barracks.

Although even those thoughts had been used against him. Manipulated to serve a purpose. Countless times had the Kaminoans in the lab put goggles on him while strapped to the lab table. They'd play videos of his brother's training, specifically when they would be punished for failing, answering back to the instructors or just doing something considered out of line. Each time it was when he wasn't there to save them or when he was unable to get to them. The clips of Tech when he was being electrocuted in his tests or yelling out from pain during his lab stints. Wrecker's being his scarring injury or when he'd been called every name under the sun, being hit with objects and humiliated by his awful instructor. Where as Crosshair's was pretty much every training session, when he was starved for days, beaten and berated, shocked and had guns held to his head or a knife to his throat. Where the people he loved most were used against him. 

One such occasion where the videos were shown to him. Hunter had yelled out for it to stop, as always being ignored, so he had constantly belted the side of his head off the equipment so close to him, shattering the goggles. The Kaminoans had removed the remnants afterwards scolding him, as the injuries sustained were patched up. Although it would leave a scar as a reminder, a scar he'd eventually hide beneath his trademark bandanna. Yet he always felt as he deserved the scar as it reminded him of the times he failed to protect his brothers. 

Returning to the barracks after those tube tests was never easy. The lights in the halls were always bright enough to blind him, to the point he would hold his hands out and feel his way around to find his way back. Countless times had the bleach smell to radiate through the Military facilities burn his air ways, making it hard for him to breath. Tech would always help by turning the lights down to the lowest setting possible, although that was to help Crosshair too. He'd also find a sweet smelling fragrance of some kind, normally vanilla and cover the bleach smell in their room with it. Although their private barracks always had the smell of home. A cross between engine oil and gun powder. 

Yet still he felt the need to protect his brothers. Guiding Tech to his bunk and putting the data-pad at a safe distance on the table in the center of the room. He'd make sure Wrecker had a picture of them together near him and his favorite blanket and Lola if Crosshair didn't have it. As for Crosshair, he'd always be there when he woke up screaming from nightmares, just as he knew when Crosshair had gotten his knife as something to hold on to. Yet he didn't say anything as it gave both comfort. Getting to sleep on the other hand was a far more difficult task. Often times he'd wait until his brothers were asleep, or at least Tech and Wrecker. More often than not he'd end up crying himself to sleep, knowing the only one to hear would be Crosshair, who often helped by placing a hand on his shoulder while pulling his blankets up to keep him warm. Crosshair being their somehow eased the pain and sent him into a somewhat peaceful sleep. 

[nimata-beroya]

My thoughts on TBB 1x16 "Kamino Lost" ~ Season finale part 2

I can believe that the season is over. It's been an amazing ride the last 4 months, full of laughs, excitement, and heartbreak. And the finale didn't disappoint in that regard. Some might not agree with me, but I think it was a great way to wrap things up. It tied some knots quite nicely while left other loose, opening endless paths to continue the story in future seasons.

Apart from thinking that it might've worked better if they hadn't split it in 2 parts, I have no many complaints about this finale. It was very satisfying for me and it left me very happy, as I haven't been with a season/series finale in a long time.

I've watched the episode a gazillion times already and after digesting everything that happened, here are my thoughts about it. Putting them below the cut because it's a long post, and full of spoilers, obviously.

I should start saying that I wish to Vice Admiral Rampart nothing but the slowest and more excruciating death you can imagine. I want to bathe in his blood!! Watching him destroying Tipoca City was so painful, and terrifying knowing that the Batch was going down with the city. And my heart broke for all clones that lost their home, especially for that one who reported to Rampart. The hesitation in his voice gutted me. I have to give a standing ovation to Dee Bradley Baker for his voice acting there. Extraordinary!

The scene where Omega and Crosshair were trapped had my heart pounding. I'd been saying for weeks that I didn't believe that someone was going to die in the finale, but I must confess that while watching, I had my doubts, especially after this scene.

Honestly, it was painful to watch Crosshair during the whole episode while he simultaneously pushed away and yearned so fiercely for his siblings. Stubborn fool! I know that the hostile attitude of the Batch toward him in this episode didn't help but what else could've he expected? I mean, he just told them that he has no chip (which I don't believe in a million years, although I do think it's not working at full strength, so Crosshair has regained some autonomy), so basically, he told them that every time he went after them, tried to kill them was really by choice. I wouldn't have been nice to him either.

I love that the entire season revolved around choices or the lack of. How the chip took the choices out of the clones; how the batch had no choice but to escape Kamino and leaving a brother behind in order to survive; the choice of not coming back for Crosshair when the batch realized what the chip did; the choice that Cross made when he regained (partial/total) control of himself of staying with the Empire and keeping following orders; this choice of hunting down his brothers instead of contacting them (If on episode 15 Crosshair was right on roasting Hunter for leaving him behind, then Wrecker was right on calling on Crosshair on this. It was well deserved); the batch's choice of going their way instead of going with Rex; and of course, Crosshair's choice to stay behind at the end.

Rafa Martez told Hunter in Episode 4 that everyone chooses a side in the end, and everything that has happened leads to that. All choices have consequences and people have to live with them. That'll be season 2.

The MVP of the episode was Azi. Without a doubt! When he said that his batteries were running out, I was like... No, no, no, no, that can't be happening! Aaaaaaahhh! Azi has to make it out!! He needs to remove Cross' chip from his head!! (I was still hoping for it at that point). And then when he was pushing Omega's pod to the surface and started to die out, I teared up ok 😢 Thankfully, Omega (And Crosshair) saved him. Yay! Quite the surprise he's going to get when he wakes up after recharging. I'm just happy that we'll see more of him in season 2, hopefully.

There's one thing that makes me want to smack the back of Crosshair's head. I love him, but sometimes... Ugh! He said to Hunter that he takes things too personally, that the Empire did what needed to be done (referring to destroying Kamino and leaving him for dead), which is so ironic and hypocritical. Crosshair is angry and hurt because Hunter left him behind at the beginning (alive and well). Like if Hunter didn't do what he needed to do to protect his squad back then, from Crosshair, I might add. Of course, we know Cross was under the influence of the chip ramped up at like 1000000% of its potency, but Hunter didn't know that at the moment. But he isn't angry at the Imperials who bombarded the city, knowing that he would die?!! It's like... Make up your mind, my man. You get angry at being left behind or not? Just sayin'.

Don't make me start on Crosshair trying to rub his headache away, because if I spent all week 95% sure that he lied when he said he had his chip removed a long time ago, now I'm 100% certain of that. After Bracca, it started malfunctioning, that's for sure, and therefore it gives back Crosshair a degree of autonomy. However, with that agency comes the weight of the responsibility for his actions. I won't stand here and say that he's a benevolent angel, because he's not, never have been. He's not completely blameless. (That doesn't make me love him any less tho)

And I think that's what the conversation between Cross and Omega was about. It broke my heart 💔😭 when Omega said that she was wrong thinking that it was the chip that made Crosshair like that. Gawd, it hurt so bad. But I think she knows that he has the chip still inside but it's compromised, and realized that whether consciously or not, he's using the chip existence as an excuse to let out his anger and jerk attitude free of guilt, not making an effort to fight the chip. It was a wake-up call more as much as it was to let him know her disappointment.

I might be reading too much into it, but Omega has proven to be quite clever when it comes to get what she wants, and she wants all her brothers together. She also knows that she can't force him to do anything. The decision has to come from Crosshair and Crosshair alone. And it kind of worked. That's why Crosshair gave the idea of using Azi to direct them to the surface.

The plan was solid but I wonder why they crammed themselves in the capsules in pairs and left Omega alone?! I know it's because of the plot. But like, couldn't they use a smaller one for her? It's ridiculous, tbh 😆

I must confess that for a tiny moment, I thought Crosshair was turning against Hunter. Not exactly to kill him, but I don't know. I was like "Cross, what the kriff are you doing?! Of course, he proved me and everyone else wrong and saved Omega and Azi. I'm not sure which was his true motivation for it whether or not was to repay her when she saved him earlier, or because he knew how his brothers especially Hunter would suffer if Omega died, or simply because it was the right thing to do. Don't care. All it matters is that it proves that he has goodness in him, that he hadn't lost it.

I'm not mad at the batch for pointing their guns at Crosshair afterward. It's not nice that they did that but I get it. Crosshair with his rifle is lethal and the trust among them is broken. Not irreparably, but it'll take some time to heal IF someday everyone work for it. But what I'm appalled at is Hunter's ungratefulness. I mean, hello!! The guy just saved your little big sister/daughter and you don't even say thank you?!! That's 2 words!! Not even that!! One word, thanks. Heck! Just a nod with the head would've sufficed!! All Hunter did was give Crosshair the stinky eye 😠 Sorry, but Hunter lost serious points with me there.

Wow! When everyone looking at the burning city is such a gut-punching shot. The contrast between the devastation at the naked eye and the clear, sunny day, which I dare say is an oddity for Kamino, is jarring. It made me sad.

But sadder I got with Crosshair's refusal to go with the Batch; it's not what I wanted. I wanted him to go back to his family. However, it's something with what I can live with. Cross is not ready to come back to his brothers and sister yet. I think this experience with them hopefully showed him that they do want him back, it's not like they forgot about him. There are wounds to heal in both sizes, though, and that takes time. What I see it's a story of redemption, and you know who knows how to do a good, satisfying redemption story that doesn't end in a sacrificial death? Dave Filoni.

I've never watched the last Airbender, and I've seen people comparing Cross with Zuko, is it? who was the "bad" guy and redeemed himself at the end, I can't comment on that. But I did watch Rebels, and there's a guy named Alexsander Kallus, and omg! I've never seen a more compelling, logical, and so well-crafted story of redemption than his. It's beautiful!! And the similarities between him and Crosshair are so many, down to the way he was offered a chance to come to the right side of things and said no.

In the last scene when Wrecker asked Crosshair was going with them and Crosshair said no, gosh, it's exactly the same as the one when Zeb suggested Kallus defect the Empire and Kallus said no. And guess what? What happened on that moon was what prompted Kallus to question the Empire. It was the beginning of his journey. I believe that it'll be the same for Cross. It'll take some time though.

One last thing for those who are raging against the Batch for leaving Crosshair on the platform alone. First, it was HIS choice to stay and I quote: "I've made my decision". They couldn't have taken him by force. A) That wouldn't have helped so Cross to realize the wrong of his ways. B) Kidnapping him would've been taking his choice again, which the Batch won't do. Crosshair would've resented them for it. C) If you don't remember, Tech said they needed to go before the Empire's scout came, so they knew Crosshair would be picked up eventually.

You could argue that the batch couldn't be sure that the scout would come. True, but then again, it was Crosshair's decision to stay behind. Why didn't he said to them I'll go with you just to leave the planet but you drop me somewhere and we part ways. He could have said that and the batch would've done it. But Crosshair wanted to go back to the Empire. Well, then he has to assume the responsibility for whatever happens to him if the empire never came. It was what happened with Kallus. The Empire never came for him and if it wasn't for some smugglers he would've died frozen in a moon, alone.

Like I said before, people need to take responsibility for their choices.

Remarkable quotes

"Most of the facility must be…" —the ceiling gives out— "compromised." (This one made me laugh 😄 Oh, Tech)

"Blind allegiance makes you a pawn." (Yikes, the truth hurts 😫)

"A real leader protects his squad." (Yes, they do, Hunter, and you did your best effort)

"Understanding you does not mean that I agree with you." (You tell him, Tech! ~ I think I'll be using this phrase a lot dealing with the fandom)

"It's all gone." (Yep, the end of an era 😭😭😭😭)

"You offered us a chance, Crosshair. This is yours."

"I made my choice."

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

[winterskywrites]

how about combining bad batch and reinvent love? what happens to the bad batch in your au?

The regs all go weird on Kaller. Hunter isn’t quite sure what’s the matter with them, but Tech says it’s some sort of programming, and he trusts Tech to know what he’s talking about. Tech also says he thinks the five of them are immune.

In that respect, Tech is wrong.

They flee Kamino with Omega and without Crosshair. It’s not right for them to leave one of their own behind, and Hunter can feel the tension in the air, but there was nothing else they could have done. They’ll go back for Crosshair eventually, but now, it would be suicide. They’ll have to wait for the right moment.

And then, the day after they leave, a message goes out to all clone troopers on the same official channel that the first strange order came through on. “Order 66 is revoked,” Anakin Skywalker tell the galaxy. “All clone troopers, stand down, and report to your commanding officer immediately.”

“Do we believe him?” Tech asks Hunter warily.

“No,” Hunter says, shaking his head. He liked General Skywalker when they worked with him before, but he doesn’t trust him with this. It could be a trap to lure in any defectors, like themselves, and now they have a child to protect. “We’re not going back.”

They go to visit Cut and Suu instead, since Cut is the only deserter they’ve ever met who’s been able to actually avoid getting caught. Saleucami isn’t very different under the new Empire than it was under the Republic, and the Lawquane family is much the same as ever. Apparently, they’ve missed Rex by a day, and Hunter can see the mingled relief and disappointment on Echo’s face. At least he’s alive and apparently unaffected by whatever’s happening to most of the regs. Hunter keeps a close eye on Cut, but he doesn’t seem to be affected either.

While Omega plays with Jek and Shaeeah, Cut and Suu fill Hunter and the others in on some things that have happened since they fled Kamino. Apparently, the Chancellor-turned-Emperor has been overthrown and revealed to be a traitor who spent the whole Clone Wars playing both sides against each other, and rumor has it that Senator Amidala will be taking his throne as the new Galactic Empress. Hunter has always liked Senator Amidala, and she’s always been a proponent of clone rights, but this whole Empire feels wrong to him, and he’s not sure he can trust anyone who plays a part in it.

He does gather the rest of his squad to discuss it in private, though, because this is a decision he thinks they should all make together.

“I don’t know,” Echo says, shaking his head. “I trust General Skywalker, and the Senator always seemed like a good person, but with everything that’s happening...”

“I don’t like it,” Wrecker declares. “I don’t like the Empire either. I don’t like any of this.”

“Neither do I,” Hunter agrees. He looks over at Tech, who’s been strangely silent. “What do you think?”

“I have been attempting to run calculations on the matter, but there are too many unknown variables,” Tech replies. “I cannot properly calculate our odds either way.”

“What about worst case scenarios?” Echo asks. “Which ones are better?”

“The worst case scenario either way results in our deaths,” Tech replies bluntly. “But I believe it is more likely that we will face danger from going back than from staying away, with the data I currently have. If this changes, I will inform you.”

“Then we’re staying away,” Hunter decides.

Tech adjusts his goggles. “What about Crosshair?”

Hunter doesn’t want to think about how they left Crosshair behind, but he forces himself to. He may have given them no choice but to leave him, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be forgotten. “If he’s on Kamino, there’s no way we can get him back ourselves. If he’s not on Kamino, we don’t know where to find him. I want him back just as much as the rest of you, but I don’t think we can go after him yet, especially not with the kid.”

“Is she staying with us?” Echo asks.

Honestly, Hunter has been thinking about that as well. He doesn’t know how to raise a child, none of them do, and their lifestyle is too dangerous for a little girl, even one who’s an enhanced clone. She has no knowledge of the galaxy outside Kamino, and that could get her killed.

“I’ll talk to Cut,” Hunter says. “For now, let’s lay low and decide what to do next.”

They stay on Saleucami overnight, making plans. Hunter has a conversation with Cut about leaving Omega behind with him, which Omega overhears and vehemently disagrees with. Hunter tells the others to factor Omega into their plans.

In the end, they leave with some supplies, some news, and some tips on raising a child. They don’t have a real plan yet, but Hunter figures they’ll come up with something as they go along. Their main objective is just to keep their heads down and stay hidden.

And then, on their second day of aimless flying, they get a call.

“It’s from Kamino,” Echo says. “What do you say, Hunter?”

“Tech, can you make sure they can’t trace us or see us?” Hunter asks.

Tech nods. “Easily.”

“Then do that,” Hunter says. “Then we can see what they want with us on Kamino.”

After a few moments of fiddling, Tech accepts the call. The hologram fizzes into focus, and it shows...

“Commander Cody?” Wrecker demands.

“He can’t hear us,” Tech says helpfully. Wrecker gives him a dirty look, but before he can say anything else, Cody starts talking.

“I assume my message is getting through, even though I can’t hear you or see you. I’m here with someone who wants to speak to you.”

Cody steps aside, and Hunter's chest clenches as Crosshair steps into view. “I don’t blame you for leaving me behind when I was trying to kill you,” he says dryly, “but you could at least answer the comm properly now.”

Tech looks over at Hunter, but Hunter shakes his head. He’d like to believe this is really Crosshair, their Crosshair, but they still don’t fully know why he turned on them on Kamino, and Hunter can’t trust him until they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s really back.

“I don’t know how much you know about this,” Cody says, “but all clone troopers have behavior modification chips that can be used to control us. The Emperor” - Cody says the title with more derision than Hunter’s ever heard in his voice before - “used them to turn us against the Jedi. But the order has been revoked, and the control chips are being removed.”

Crosshair turns his head to show a small red incision near his temple. “Recreational brain surgery,” he drawls. “The longnecks put up a fuss, and that sleemo Tarkin had to be taken care of, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Cody gives Crosshair the sort of fondly exasperated look that he’s given every member of the Bad Batch so many times, and Hunter wants so badly to believe this is real. He wishes he could.

“I understand that you aren’t likely to take us at our word,” Cody begins.

“Because you’re paranoid bastards,” Crosshair cuts in.

“But we’re willing to meet you at a location of your choice, just the two of us. You’ll outnumber us, two to one.” Cody’s lips twitch up the slightest bit. “Or two and a half to one, if you include the child you recused. And you all said I was a mother hen.”

“You know people called you that?” Crosshair asks.

Cody rolls his eyes, a surprisingly undignified move for the usually dignified commander. “No one was particularly subtle about it.” He turns his focus back to Hunter and the others. “If you want to meet with us, send coordinates and a time to my comm and we’ll be there.”

“And Wrecker,” Crosshair adds, “since the war is over, you’ll never have a chance to beat my total. I win.”

“Hey!” Wrecker protests, clearly forgetting that Crosshair can’t hear him.

The comm fizzles out on Crosshair’s smug expression. Hunter turns to the others, seeing his own uncertainty reflected on their faces.

“What do you think?”

“The cut on Crosshair’s head is in the right spot for it to be from removing the chip,” Omega offers helpfully. Hunter carefully doesn’t jump. Omega wasn’t in the cockpit when the call came in, and somehow, Hunter missed her entering. He must have been more distracted than he realized.

“It could be a trap, but the offer for us to choose the location makes that less likely,” Tech says. “Although they could prepare to mobilize troopers the moment we give them the coordinates.”

“I’m not sure if I believe them or not,” Echo says slowly, “but I think it’s worth looking into.”

Hunter looks to Wrecker. “What do you think?”

“Cross didn’t make any jokes like that after he started acting weird on Kaller,” Wrecker says. “All the regs acted like droids or something. Cross and Commander Cody weren’t acting like droids.”

“If it were just up to me, I’d meet up with them,” Hunter says. “But I think we should all be in agreement on this. What do you think?”

Echo, Tech, and Wrecker all look at each other. “I think we should meet with them,” Omega pipes up. “If we get to pick the spot, then we have the advantage, don’t we?”

They may or may not have an advantage, depending on whether or not Cody keeps his word about not bringing anyone else along. Hunter wants to do it anyway.

“I believe we should take this chance,” Tech says. “We may not get a better one. We can find out more of what’s happening, and if he still needs it, we may be able to rescue Crosshair.”

“I’m with Tech,” Wrecker agrees. “Let’s do it.”

“Echo?” Hunter asks, turning to the last member of the squad.

Echo looks at all of them, then nods once. “Let’s do it.”

“Alright,” Hunter says, immediately starting to make a plan. “Tech, figure out the best spot for us to meet them. Wrecker, Echo, check our weapons and start planning the best ways for us to get out of this alive.”

“What about me?” Omega asks as the other three go to do as they were told. “What can I do to help?”

“You’re going to stay on the ship when we meet with them,” Hunter says. Omega begins to complain, but he continues over her, “So that means I need to show you how it works.”

Omega’s complaining stops. “You’re going to show me how to fly the ship?”

“Just the basics,” Hunter says. “Come here.”

He manages to teach Omega the basics of takeoff, landing, flying, and using the guns by the time they reach Tech’s chosen location. It’s an ocean planet with small islands and rough atmospheric conditions, chosen so neither an aerial nor ground fleet can reach them easily. It reminds Hunter of Kamino. He wonders if that was purposeful.

“Assuming they come directly here and take the most direct route, Commander Cody and Crosshair should arrive within the hour,” Tech announces. “We can set up defenses while we wait.”

“Wrecker and I have some ideas for that,” Echo says, pulling out a box of land mines.

“This island is uninhabited, right, Tech?” Hunter asks.

Tech nods. “Entirely.”

Hunter turns to Echo and Wrecker. “Then go ahead.”

The two of them get busy preparing while Tech monitors for any incoming ships or transmissions and Hunter waits with Omega. It won’t be long, Hunter doesn’t think. Cody and Crosshair will arrive soon.

He really hopes this doesn’t end in a fight.

“Ship incoming,” Tech says, and Hunter jerks to attention. “It’s small. It wouldn’t fit more than a single squad.”

“Are you scanning any other ships?” Hunter asks.

Tech shakes his head. “Nothing else.”

So they’ll be fighting a squad at most, unless there’s another ship that’s evading Tech’s scanners. Of course, it’s possible that Cody and Crosshair were actually telling the truth when they said they’d come alone, but Hunter’s not going to take their word for it, not with the way everything’s been going lately. If they come with a squad, then he thinks his own squad, incomplete as it is, will have a fighting chance.

“They’re landing,” Echo reports from outside. “Are you coming out?”

“We are,” Hunter says. He turns to Omega and sits her down in the pilot’s seat. “You know what to do, right?”

“I know,” Omega says, nodding. “You can trust me.”

Hunter tousles her hair. “Alright, kid. Be careful.”

“Good luck!”

Hunter and Tech leave the ship and join Echo and Wrecker, who seem to have gone through the entire box of land mines. “Those aren’t going to blow us up, right?” Hunter asks dryly.

“They’re all wired to this detonator,” Echo says, taking the detonator off his belt to show the others. “They won’t go off unless I press the button.”

“Hopefully, we won’t have to,” Tech says. “It could cause serious damage to the ecosystem.”

“I thought you said nothing lives on the island,” Wrecker counters.

“It is uninhabited, yes, but the sea around us is not,” Tech replies. “And if we destroy this island, it will have consequences for the sea around.”

“We can talk about the consequences combat has on the ecosystem later,” Hunter interrupts. “Focus. The door is opening.”

The door to Cody and Crosshair’s ship lowers, and Hunter’s hand hovers just above his blaster. The others are in similar positions around him. None of them want this to come to a fight, Hunter knows that, but they’re all ready if it does.

And then two figures step off the ship, neither in armor nor, as far as Hunter can tell, armed. Cody looks mostly the same as ever, except for a shaved patch on the side of his head and a new scar under it. Next to him, Crosshair has a matching scar and expectation glittering in his eyes. For a moment, everything is silent.

“I told you they’d be ready for a fight,” Crosshair finally drawls. “You owe me five credits, Commander.”

“I didn’t take that bet, Crosshair,” Cody replies. “I’m just surprised their blasters aren’t drawn.”

“How can we know this isn’t a trap?” Hunter asks.

Crosshair reaches to pull something out of a pocket. Hunter tenses, but Crosshair just pulls out a small sample of something and tosses it at Tech, who catches it neatly.

“That’s the chip,” Crosshair says. “The four of you have them as well, but we’ll talk about removing those later.”

“What is it, Tech?” Hunter asks Tech quietly.

“It does look like a bio-organic chip of some sort,” Tech says. “I would have to study it in more depth to be certain that it was the one implanted in Crosshair, however.”

“I understand the hesitation to trust us,” Cody says, stepping forward. Hunter’s hand twitches closer to his blaster, and Cody puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I understand,” he repeats, “but we’re telling the truth. What do we have to do to convince you?”

Hunter swallows, then he looks at Crosshair. “The Jedi kid, on Kaller.”

“You’re an awful liar,” Crosshair replies immediately. “But you were right not to kill him.”

It could still be a trap. Hunter knows it could be trap, but he wants to believe them so badly. He can see the same desire on the others’ faces. If they had to run, he has no doubt that they could do it, but if they don’t have to...

“Hunter,” Cody says - Cody, the one reg Hunter has always respected, the only commanding officer whose orders he’ll follow gladly. “You can trust us. This is real.”

Slowly, Hunter relaxes, moving his hand away from his blaster. The other do the same around him, readily enough that he knows they agree with his assessment. Cody and Crosshair aren’t a threat. They’re telling the truth.

“It’s good to have you back,” Hunter says to Crosshair, taking a step forward and not tensing at all when Crosshair and Cody do the same.

Crosshair doesn’t really smile in response, because Crosshair rarely smiles, but Hunter can read him well enough to know he’s pleased. “It’s good to be back.”