#crosshair the unfriendly sniper

[a-lil-perspective]

“Oh so now I’m ‘bad’ just because I’ve done bad things in the past, continue doing so in the present, and will likely do so in the future?”

—Crosshair.

[rendomski]

The Slow Batch

“To give you a glimpse of our glamorous life, reg. On my second mission with this squad, we were deployed to some backward Separatist planet, Shitholia Minor or something like this, with a mission to map the sewers under the local capital city. Because there's a vanishingly small probability GAR will need to send a proper special task force there someday, and this data may come in handy.”

Echo glowered at the sniper. “Sounds like the right place for both of us.”

Guess who woke up brainstorming about sort of a crossover between The Bad Batch and Slow Horses?

Aka AU, where the Bad Batch are not genetic defects but clone commandos who screwed up badly but weren't decommissioned—because bad commandos are commandos nonetheless. They are assigned boring, almost worthless, but still dangerous jobs, sparing more ‘valuable’ units.

There was no daring mission to Skako Minor and no victory on Anaxes. Echo was accidentally found on a downed Techno Union transport ship, and Rex sends him off with the Bad Batch to keep Echo away and more or less safe from Kaminoans and unfriendly superior officers.

The Bad Batch is a bunch of, essentially, losers. Crosshair is a sniper who shot the wrong target. Wrecker failed to disarm a bomb, and civilians died. Nobody knows what Tech did wrong, and Tech keeps telling smugly that he was just too good to be tolerated by his fellow splicers (so, Tech is essentially Roddy Ho, just still Tech). And Hunter drinks himself to stupor between the missions, so his permanent hangover gives him ‘heightened senses’.

They are depressed, angry, pursued by their past failures, they're labelled as losers and hated by the regs. But they're still commandos; they're losers who have nothing more to lose. And their boring, useless, and often despised missions sometimes bring unexpected results.

Also, their past failures may not be so mundane and accidental…

Not sure if and when I'm writing this, just sharing a pilot bunny 🙂✌🏼

[jedi-lothwolf]

Febuwhump Day 4: Knife to the throat

Fandom: Star wars

Timeline: The Bad Batch

Warning violence

Crosshair perched in the tree. He waited and waited for one of his brothers to arrive, maybe even for his little sister. Today he righted the wrong of letting the rogue clones live in the first place, today he picked them off one by one.

    Hunter walked carefully through the woods. He listened for his family and for any unfriendlies. The clone kept he's eyes peeled, every hair was on its end. Something wasn't right but no matter what he did, he simply couldn't put his finger on it. No matter what he could have done nothing prepared Hunter for what was next.

    Crosshair eyed his target. After fighting alongside Hunter his whole life he knew exactly how his brother would act. The soldier grabbed a puck and threw it to a nearby tree.

    Hunter spotted the shine of the puck. He swiftly moved from his spot out in the open, well as open as the woods could be to a spot behind a tree. Hunter was exactly where Crosshair wanted him. He pulled his gun and tried to find Cross. He wasn't sure how the sniper had managed to get past him. Unless... Crosshair had planned this.

    Crosshair shot the puck . He watched the surprise on the others face as the bullet hit his gun. Slightly angling his rifle differently he proceeded to almost immediately shoot his beloved brother in the left kneecap.

     Hunter cried out as the bullet hit his knee. He leaned against the tree then slid down to sit. Hunter reached for one of his vibro-knifes but quickly remembered they had been left of the ship. He had been cleaning them previously and simply forgot to put them back. Echo had even reminded him. Hunter knew Crosshair hadn't missed, he never misses so what did he want?

    Crosshair climbed down from his hide out and walked towards Hunter.

    Pulling his arm up, Hunter touched his comm.

    "I wouldn't" Crosshair spat.

    Hunter moved his arm to his knee "so, what do you want?"

    "Smart." As soon as Crosshair got close enough Hunter attempted to kick him with his uninjured leg. Crosshair took one step closer and kicked in Hunter's other knee. He screeched with pain, tears welling in his eyes. Hunter  wondering what in the hell Crosshair wanted from him. Could he?  No. Hunter hoped Crosshair wouldn't do that to him. If Crosshair was going to kill him he'd at least let it be quick right?

    Crosshair kneeled down to Hunter's level, pushing his vibro-knife to the others throat. Hunter flinched thinking Crosshair was going in for the kill. "Listen here Hunter" Crossing hissed "I'm here to fix my mistakes. He pushed the knife into Hunter's skin. "I'll start with you."

    "Crosshair please." Hunter's voice was shaky and faint. Crosshair looked his brother in the eyes. He hadn't seen Hunter so scared in quite some time.

    Hunter was shaking. The agony in his legs made him wish he were Echo. If the knife went any further he would die. He grabbed Crosshair's arm and pulled the knife away from his throat. Curling his hand into a fist he hit Crosshair.

    Crosshair pulled his arm out of the others grip and slowly stood. Hunter attempted to stand only to be met with stabbing pain. Unable to do much else to protect himself Hunter defensively set his arms in front of him.

    "Good soldiers follow orders." Snarled Crosshair.

    "Then I'm not a good soldier."

    Crosshair moved his arm back ready to throw the knife to take his brother's life. Hunter drew into himself, preparing himself to meet the Domino squad.

    Suddenly Crosshair fell to the ground. Hunter lifted his head to see Echo. "Are you okay?" Echo walked over to his brother.

    Hunter shook his head yes before once more making the decision to try to stand. He yelped as he put the slightest amount of pressure on his legs

    "Stop Hunter, sit down." Echo spoke calmly. "Let me look."

    Before Echo got the chance Hunter explained what had happened.

    "Let's get you back to the ship okay?"

    "Alright. What are we going to do about Crosshair?" Despite everything Hunter still cared for his brother. He grew up beside him, how could he not.

    "He'll be fine." Echo gently picked Hunter up. Together the two headed to the Marauder where the rest of the batch would meet soon.

[the-silentium]

Murphy day

Masterlist - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Pairing: Bad Batch x Reader

Words: 3726 words

Warnings: Nothing really.

A/N: This is pure madness! @shadow-hyder this is your fault! Also, this will be a 3 part story so stay tuned for what'll happen next!

Fors is an Original planet. I do not give permission to people to use it for their own fics, the planet, the animals, the Nightmares, the lore or anything related to Fors. Thank you.

Right now, you didn’t know why you ever thought that getting out today was a bad idea. Sure, it was kinda against the rules and there was a long list of reasons as to why it was against the rules, but seeing the two armored clones dangling upside down meters above the ground, their limbs entangled in the thick lianas, their whines reaching your ears, you quickly forgot all the consequences that were waiting for you if you got caught. This was worth any forced work and fine thrown at you.

You stood there, a hand over your mouth to keep yourself from exploding into a fit of laughter, hidden on a large tree branch above the two soldiers. You listened to them insulting the foliage and thrashing around like it would change something. Clearly, they’ve never come to your planet before, or else they would know that the more they moved the lianas would squeeze them tighter into their grips. 

Despite your amusement at their expense, you kept an eye out for any predator lurking around. It would definitely darken your day if they were to be attacked. But then again, Murphy day spared no one. Your hand wrapped around your hunting knife, its carved wooden handle reassuring you that you weren’t defenseless and that luck was on your side. 

You ducked under an enormous leaf when you registered a movement in the corner of your eye, but not before making sure that it wasn’t a loth wolf or something more unfriendly. It definitely wasn’t a loth wolf, but you weren’t sure if they were friendly. One of the two new clones was way too big for your liking and the custom paint of his helmet didn’t put you in confidence, as opposed to the one with the glasses.

“Sorry for the wait Sarge!” A booming voice almost made you jump and lose your balance on the branch. “We got lost for a bit there!” 

“At least you made it. Now get us out of here. Being upside down is giving me a headache and I can't concentrate.” The trooper with the half black, half white helmet answered, wriggling around to try and see the newcomers. “Those things can’t be cut.” 

You smiled to yourself, the voice of your dad echoing in your mind. A sharp knife will not always help you. But a sharp mind will. And so, you chuckled silently to yourself, before sitting on the branch, your back to the trunk and head tilting to the side so you could keep sight on the bunch of soldiers. 

One of them walked forward while typing on something on his wrist rapidly, the bigger one following suit. 

“Tech, how do we get them down?” 

“Genlisea filiformis is a carnivorous plant-”

“A what?!” The second one that dropped the sniper rifle earlier yelled. You rolled your eyes at his panic. 

“A carnivorous plant, Crosshair. Now stop moving. The lianas will continue tightening every time you move.” His head moved slightly from side to side, seemingly reading. “Oh, this is interesting. They eat their prey by dissolving the flesh with an acid oozing from the lianas. Now, you guys should be okay with your composite armor. Don’t worry.” 

You snorted, a bit too loudly. Your hands flew to your mouth, whilst the rest of your body froze in fear that someone heard. Against all odds, you were still off the radar, your sound escaping them completely under Sarge's grunts of pain and the insults of the slim guy who you assumed was Crosshair. 

“All we have to do is to find the head of the plant. The weak point of the lianas is at the base of the head, where the lianas start.” 

As he finished his sentence, you pushed the leaf covering you aside so you could be at the front row of their realization. This was going to be gold.

“Hear that Sarge? We just need t-” His voice stopped as soon as he tried to take a step forward, his feet stuck under 15 cm of the stickiest artificial resin found on this planet. 

Just to make it better, his companion spotted the head of the plant and with all his determination behind his step, he tried to lift his foot, only to lose balance when it didn't move an inch and fell on his hands in the resin. 

That's when your laughter erupted, loud enough to cover the whines of the smallest soldier, bouncing between the trees and stopping each Bad Batcher's heart in surprise. Tears quickly gathered in your eyes, almost making you fall off your safe spot when you lifted your hand to wipe away the droplets. 

"You! Get down here!" Sarge barked, causing you to chuckle as your laughter died down. 

"Are your panties in a twist, Sarge? Did one of the lianas get in there?" You sassed, putting your knife back in the side pocket of your boot and carefully jumping down your branch to another one below. 

You made your way towards them, moving from tree to tree, avoiding any liana that was courageous enough to grow that far away from its roots and stopped just where the branches ended and the mess of lianas started. 

"Hey there!" You smirked, waving innocently at the upside down trooper two meters away from you. 

"Get us down." Growled Crosshair. 

"Oh sure. I love helping people who are as abrasive as sandpaper." You tilted your head to the side, putting on your best innocent expression. 

Once again, he trashed around, surely trying to get a hand free so he could grab… something? You were too far off his reach so he couldn't possibly want to grab you. Maybe a blaster? Unfortunately for him, you saw them fall on the ground earlier. 

"Listen. I-" His grunt of pain made you frown in concern. Your father always told you that you were way too empathetic for this big bad world. "We need help. Please." He sounded out of breath and it was more than you needed to get working. 

With a nod, you walked the length of your perch, jumped in another tree, climbed down to the jungle floor and avoided every puddle of resin the kids of the village had dropped around to prank passers by. 

"She's good." The booming voice surprised you again. 

"She's native and knows what she's doing." You said, putting on your gloves and reaching for your knife. "Ready?"

The two suspended clones grunted in approval. 

You made sure they wouldn't fall head first in the resin and with a few quick motions, you slashed the head off the rest of its body, sticky pale green juices oozed from the cuts and created a small film of smoke where it touched the blade. 

Two yelps reached your ears, but you couldn't care much, instead you jumped to the nearest patch of grass where you removed most of the acid from the smoking blade. 

"Are you alright?" At the question, you turned to assess if one of them broke their neck in the fall. For once, luck seemed to be on their side as they were both seating on their ass, helmets off massaging their heads where you were sure they could feel their heartbeat. 

"'m fine Tech." Sarge answered. He looked worse than his sniper friend, who glared at you when he felt your eyes on him. 

"You trapped us." He accused, getting on his feet to make his way towards you. 

 "What? No!" Jumping backward to avoid his hand, you tumbled to the ground but quickly rolled over to get back on your two feet. "Don't touch me!" You yelled, still avoiding his attempts at grabbing you. You didn't want to threaten him with a knife because you were sure to lose and he would touch you, but your mind did think about it. 

"Crosshair." Sarge barked, calling back his sandpaper soldier. 

If possible, the grey haired clone's glare intensified, burning a hole into your head, freezing you in place. Damn was he scary. You almost regretted cutting the lianas. 

"Won't hurt you." He muttered, still glaring. 

"Says you." You circled around him so you could go back to the rest of the clones, more importantly closer to Sarge who seemed more reasonable. You positionned yourself behind him, you know, just to be sure. 

"Can you get them out too?" Sarge asked you over his shoulder, giving you a perfect view of his tattoo. You were impressed. Never did you think that a facial tattoo could look so good on someone. Seemed like you were wrong. So so very wrong. 

You nodded. "On one condition." 

Frowning, he turned around to face you completely. 

"What?" 

I wanna touch your tattoo.

"No one touches me." His eyebrow shot up in an inquisitive manner and oh damn you wanted to touch the dark ink. 

"We won't hurt you." He reiterated Crosshair's words. You shook your head. 

"Not like that. I don't want your bad luck on me. Because clearly, you guys" You gestured around them with your both hands. "emanate bad luck." Your hands fall to your side. "The baddest bad luck I've seen in my life." 

"We don't have bad luck! We are lucky! We have a 100% success rate!" Bigger guy in the resin barked before laughing. 

"100% success rate eh? That's bad luck." You took a step back for your sake. Too much success always bite you in the arse one day. Looked like their elastic broke today. Lucky them. 

"You know that superstitions are not true, right? It's irrational." Smaller dude who removed his gloves to stand told you. Tech, if you heard right.

Wait. What? 

"Do you guys know what planet you're on?" You were baffled by the lack of knowledge they had on your planet. For sure, you would have thought that they would get as much information on a planet before getting there and running around? 

"Fors. A jungle planet of the Outer Rim. Rich in resources but not exploited because of the thick and dangerous flora." 

You nodded. "So you should know that here, what you all call superstitions are the real deal, right?" Your eyes found Sarge's brown one and you sigh at the lack of recognition. "Ok. If I were you, I'd get away from Fors real' quickly. You're all wearing black which represents death and your perfect success rate very probably attracted the curse of evil eye on y'all. Plus, we are today." 

You walked to a nearby tree, crouched to search the ground around its roots for a particular cavity. 

"What's wrong with today?" Sarge finally got on his feet, fetching his fallen blaster in a bush. 

"Today's Murphy day. The 13th day of the month. Usually there's a good balance between luck and bad luck. But today, it's only bad luck. Laws forbid anyone on the planet to get out of their home for the whole day to prevent accidents and other stuff." 

After your third tree, you found the hole you were looking for. Without a thought, you stuck your hand in the hole, searching around for the container the kids always leave near the traps. 

"So you're breaking the law." Crosshair pointed out, to your exasperation. 

"Exactly. But I don't intend to get caught so I should be fine." You huffed. "Thank you."

"You don't seem affected by bad luck." Tech quirked. 

"Knock on wood!" You said while knocking the trunk of the tree you were searching. 

Your hand found the bottle and pulled it out with a victory cry, the dark blue liquid shining in the sun like the night sky illuminated by its stars. You grinned, shaking the bottle. 

"Now, do we have a deal? Keep your hands to yourselves and I free the two remaining dudes from the kids' trap." 

With his hands slightly in the hair, Sarge nodded. "We won't touch you. Go ahead."

"Okay! Let's do this." Taking a deep breath, you opened the lid and dropped half the bottle at the big one's feet, the other half on Tech’s. 

The resin started dissolving on itself at the liquid's contact, freeing the troopers in under a minute. You backed off so they had room to join the rest of their squad. At a good distance, you allowed yourself to breathe again. 

"Thanks miss! I'm Wrecker." The biggest guy lifted his helmet a bit so he could wear it as a hat, a smile almost splitting his face in half. You immediately noted the scar on the side of his face as well as the cybernetic eye, but something inside your mind told you he wasn't as bad as you initially thought. He seemed too childish to be bad. 

"Nice to meet you Wrecker. The name's Y/N." You waved with a smile of your own. 

"I'm Tech." He removed his helmet, a smile of his own curving his lips. The name definitely suited him to a T. You waved back.

 "Sarge and Crosshair, right?" You asked, pointing to the remaining ones. 

"Sergent Hunter." He corrected as the other merely grunted in response. "Thank you for helping us." It wasn't a complete smile, but the corners of his lips perked up so you'll take it. 

"You're all very much welcome. I hope you all get back safely to your ship!" You put back your knife in its pocket and turned around to climb back into the tree next to you. You jumped to the closest thick branch, used your strong arms to pull you up on it and stand without much of a problem. You climbed a bit more until you found a branch big enough to walk its length. 

"Have a nice Murphy day and good lu-" The words died in your throat, instead morphing into a surprised yelp when your foot didn’t quite go where you wanted it to and caught in a tiny branch that totally refused to break, interfering with your balance. Your hands flew to your face to protect yourself from the smaller branches and leaves scratching at your skin, a quick peek informed you that the ground was coming way too quickly for your liking, your eyes closed in anticipation of the inevitable face plant impact. 

The pain wasn’t quite as you imagined, instead of hurting your front, hands, face and very possibly your spine, strong arms caught you in the air, the abrupt stop causing you to hit your chin onto a hard piece of armor, clattering your teeth together in the process. Thank the Maker, you didn’t bite your tongue off.

Confused, hurt and out of breath, you tried to comprehend what happened by looking around at the best of your capacity, being trapped between two arms as large as trunks. Concerned mismatched eyes met yours, seconds before the ground finally touched your feet delicately. Your eyes went wide as soon as your brain finally registered what happened and who cushioned your fall, panic making you push the large chest away from you so suddenly that you fell on your behind in a patch of tall grass. Wrecker tried to catch you in your fall again, missing your arm from an inch. 

“You okay?” He retracted his arms and stood tall again, Tech and Hunter approaching behind him, concern written all over their faces. 

“Yeah”. You sighed, letting your head roll backwards. Shooking your head, you watched the treetops, all the leaves and mazes of branches, the rare brave birds still watching you from above. Maybe they had the answer as to how you could survive this day. “Thanks for catching me Wrecker.” One of your hands massaged your aching chin.

“No problem Y/N!” His smile came back as soon as he was certain that you were fine, although it was short lived because you soon let yourself fall onto your back in defeat.

“This day starts so badly.” You muttered. You remember leaving your home at 6, early enough that a very few people were awake, but late enough so you could use the first rays of the sun to guide yourself. “I should’ve stayed home.” You snorted. “I’ll probably die from something very stupid.” 

“Well, if you hadn’t come out today, we would still be trapped, so the least we could do is help you  survive the day. How does that sound?” Hunter’s gravelly voice almost made you shiver. 

You shot back up, immediately extending a hand toward the Sergeant from your seated position. “Very fair. Deal.” 

With a nod, he grabbed your hand and pulled you up to your feet. Maybe he was used to pulling up his brothers or he simply miscalculated, but the amount of force behind his pull was unnecessary, propelling you right into his armored chest where you hit your face. 

You yelped in pain, hands reaching for your nose in a hurry. No blood. No broken bone. You sighed in relief.

“Sorry for that.” He seemed so confused it was almost hilarious. You definitely would have laughed if only your nose wasn’t ready to explode.

“It’s fine. ‘s not your fault. It’s today! You lose control of yourself a little and end up creating accidents all around you.” With a last check up that your nose wasn’t bleeding, you took a step aside to create a bit of space between you and the rest of them. “So, where’s your ship?” 

“Latitude 45.400972. Longitude -75.79851.” Tech answered while typing on the screen on his wrist. 

You were deeply confused despite having completed all mandatory classes in your village school. He was speaking a whole different language, you were sure of it. Did clones have a language? They were the first ones you ever encountered, not a lot of people liked to venture out into the Outer Rim where the planets weren’t very significant to anyone. Now that you thought about it, you’d love to see a battle on Murphy day. You were sure it would be catastrophingly funny to watch. Minus the fact that people would really die. Okay. Not so fun after all. 

“About an hour of walk this way.” Tech clarified, his eyes scanning your too deeply thinking face. 

“Okay!” You turned in the direction he pointed and started walking, jumping over the resin puddles. "You made it this far, I'm sure we can all make it back there without dying on the way!" You said, crossing your fingers. 

"Stop talking." Crosshair growled beneath his helmet. 

Duly noted. At the rhythm the day was going, you knew he'd regret his comment at some point. All you had to do was wait. So with the fakest smile you've ever had to use on your face, you turned around quickly and mimed to zip your lips before turning back around to watch your steps. 

Maybe it was a bad idea to follow them. You didn't know them until 10 minutes ago, they were four trained soldiers with blasters and military training, three seemed friendly enough and the last one was as cuddly as a porcupine. On your end, all you had to rely on was your excellent knowledge of the environment, your hunting knife and your precious tap. 

You tapped your pants pocket to ensure that it was still in your possession when quick steps alerted you of a clone keeping you company. 

"Don't listen to him. I'd love to know why luck has that much importance on this planet." Tech joined you at the front, helmet back on his head. "If you don't mind." He added when he met your questioning gaze. 

"People really don't know much about us, do they?"

You didn't blame them though. Who would want to venture on a planet where you didn't have the power over yourself, but something as volatile as luck did? 

"I'm afraid there aren't much more information on Fors other than datas about the minerals that can be found in underground caves."

"I'm not surprised." You scoffed. Your planet was extremely rich in precious minerals that the republic and the separatists would love to have to help found their war expenses, if it wasn't of the dangers passing as defenceless flora, adorable killing creatures and bewitching deadly smells. 

"Okay. Where to start…" You taped your chin, disentangling the different events and remembering your history classes. "You see, Fors is alive, like any other planet, but the difference is that it feeds on beliefs. It eh… apparently it's a field cast a very long time ago that enveloppe the planet and would cause all the luck, bad luck stuff."

Your hand shot up to push back against Tech's chest just as he was about to step in a prank trap,  falling in with him anyway when he tripped on his own feet. With a yelp, your other hand flew out, wrapping tightly around the first thing available, meaning nothing. 

Fortunately for you, Tech fell first into the phosphorescent mixture, saving your front from a disastrous quantity of disgusting liquids to come in contact with your body. You got away with only your pants in the mixture, so all in all, this was a good outcome. Although, with a silent gag, you hurriedly pushed yourself off the completely covered clone, away from the nasty smell and the oily prank. 

"What is in that? And why is there so many traps here!?" Tech yelped indignantly once he was on his feet, removing the most of the pale yellow thing out of his glasses. 

"Believe me, you really don't want to know what's in there. And for your second question, the kids love to trap strangers!" You pulled on a big leaf behind Hunter who dodged out of your way so you could remove a layer of the substance from your pants. 

"What's in that?" Whispered Hunter once he moved to your side, slightly bending to be closer to your ear. Wrecker's roaring laugh drowning his smaller brother's curses. 

"Phosphorescent bird poo mixed with loth wolf puke." You snickered. Poor Tech. It would have been much more hilarious would it have been the glaring tooth prick who fell in the trap. On the bright side, predators should stay away from your little group now. 

"R.I.P." You finally exploded in laughter. 

This was going to be the best yet the worst day of your life!