The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Doomsnapped

Author's Note: This is an AU where Hunter's chip is activated instead of Crosshair's. It's... not exactly part of the Dooms universe. It's more of a what-if. Prepare yourselves and get out the tissues! This is a gutting, all out, hurt no comfort type fic! :')

PS. This is for the square "sacrifice" on the Bad Batch Bingo. And it's also for Day 7 of Haunted Clone Week. :)

~ Amina Gila

They left him behind. Hunter. Their leader. Their eldest. They left him even though they made a promise never to leave their own behind, and that is something Crosshair cannot stand for. They have to go back for him. No matter the cost. Maybe Hunter has a chip in his head, but he's still their leader, their brother. And they have to get him back.

He was blinded by emotion, perhaps, but then, that's been true of all of them. They've never been paradigms of rationality, even at their best.

Well, none of them except Hunter.

And perhaps that's why it all went wrong from the start.

***

They lost him on Kamino, or at least that's what it feels like. He'd been acting... strange on Kaller, when they got the order to kill the Jedi, but for as uneasy as Crosshair had been, he'd tried to brush it off. Surely, if Hunter thought it was the right thing to do, it must be, right?

Right???

They hadn't found the padawan, and then, everything seemed normal – well, not really, given that the Republic became an Empire, and that they met a kid, Omega, who seemed to want to follow them around everywhere – until they were sent to Onderon. They had orders to kill the insurgents, civilians. Hunter wanted to go through with it, but Echo refused. Adamantly.

They... didn't. And it was because of that that they were arrested on their return, Hunter separated from them.

When they saw him again, he was on the other side of the hangar, ordering them to stand down, and refusing that order was one of the hardest things Crosshair has ever done. But they couldn't, because the Hunter they knew would have wanted them to protect themselves, to fight back instead of submitting. They've never been ones to follow orders, so why is Hunter acting as if they should?

Following orders has never been in their nature.

They'd managed to escape, but barely, and then, they fled. Ran. Went into hiding. Living on the run, hand-to-mouth, working for a Trandoshan black-market dealer, named Cid, as mercenaries. They ran into Hunter on Bracca. It had not ended well, but they'd still managed to escape, albeit barely.

It felt less like surviving and more like existing though, half the time, as they were left in the galaxy, adrift, no leader to guide them.

None of them are Hunter, and Hunter is the only one they've ever willingly followed. Echo is the best choice for leader, given that he's an ARC trooper, but he's... he's not Hunter, and he's a reg. It's not a bad thing, but it's the one thing that will forever keep him apart from them, for as close as they are. He chose them when no one else ever has – except Omega, but she's just a kid, even if she is their sister – and they will all be forever grateful to him for that. But that he's a reg also means that he's... different. He's fiery, passionate, and he wants to fight. It's not that the rest of them don't, but they have Omega to worry about, and... fighting the Empire means fighting Hunter.

They can't fight him; he's their brother, their leader, the one who knows how to handle them, how to guide and protect them. They can't survive without him, and that is only evidenced by the ridiculous number of close calls and injuries which they've gotten in their month on the run.