Star Wars The Bad Batch: The Runaway

Chapter 24 - Settling In

A/N: Hello everyone! Just a quick note, this chapter is basically just a few short scenes that sort of show how Callista adjusts to living with the Bad Batch. The first two are mostly humor (thank you antisocial-mariposa for giving me the idea for the second scene and I hope you guys like it) and it gets more serious in the last scene.
TRIGGER WARNING: There is mention of drinking and underage drinking(nothing to explicit, Callista just has a sip of an alcoholic beverage).
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
~B.C.

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○

The next day after the other three learned that Callista would be joining the team, it was suggested by Wrecker that they go out to celebrate. So the group went to a place called 79's, which was a bar. At first Hunter turned down the idea since Callista wasn't even of age to drink, but Tech said that they should serve non-alcoholic beverages, though Callista was willing to fake her age if it meant she could get a drink. She's had a few alcoholic beverages(on other planets - some of which didn't have laws on the age at which you were allowed to drink). She didn't drink to get drunk, but mainly out of curiosity. Callista made the mistake of telling Hunter about her misspent early teenage years but by then they'd already arrived at the bar and he didn't want to waste more credits on a taxi to take them somewhere else. He did make sure that Callista only got a soda, though and for ten minutes lectured her on the dangers of drinking at a young age. Tech even piped in with different charts and graphs he looked up on his datapad (Callista wondered if he ever went somewhere without it) of the statistics of accidents that happened when teenagers drank.

"You're lecturing me based on my age when you guys are probably half my age - year-wise at least." Callista retorted and she smirked when the boys couldn't come up with a good argument to that. Nonetheless, Hunter still wouldn't budge and Callista sulked in her seat for a little while, wishing she could join in on the fun the guys were having. They'd initiated a shot contest and so far Tech and Crosshair were winning while Hunter bowed out after his third shot, not wanting to get wasted so that Callista wouldn't have to deal with four drunk clones on her own. Even when having fun he still thought of everyone, and despite Callista being peeved about his no drinking rule she had to admire him for his selflessness and a small smile grew on her lips at that. It only got bigger when Hunter left to get Calli another soda at her request and Crosshair sneakily let her have a sip of his drink that he had on top of the shots. He threatened to shoot the other two in the leg if they tattled to Hunter about it and they swore to never speak of it out of fear - Crosshair was not one to joke around. While he most likely wouldn't resort to such violence, there were other things he would do to pay them back. Like once he used Tech's datapad as a target for practice and another time he loosened the screws on Wrecker's bunk so that when he flopped down on it like he normally would, it didn't hold his weight and you can guess what happened after that.

Yeah, don't mess with Crosshair.

The next day Cody paid the batch a visit and informed them of the Jedi Counsel's decision that they would initiate an investigation on the Kaminoans and put an end to the experiments on clones.

Callista felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders upon hearing this. She'd no longer have to fear being experimented on by those awful long necks. Callista thanked Cody from the bottom of her heart for helping her - a girl he'd never met before. The fact that there are still people in the galaxy willing to help people touched her and later that night she made a decision that she wouldn't just be joining the squad on missions to shoot clankers - she'd also fight to help people. She wouldn't fight for the Republic, but resolved to help anyone she could to the best of her abilities because she wanted to, not because she was 'designed' to fight for a government that was obviously corrupt.