The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Whumpay Day Eighteen: Stockholm Syndrome/Fighting Against Caretaker

Author's Note: This is for the square "Daemon AU" on the Bad Batch bingo. :D

~ Tirana Sorki

When Hemlock broke Emerie's bond with her daemon, she never imagined she would see it again. At least not until she ends up on Pabu with her newfound family to discover that Batcher may be more familiar to her than she ever expected.

Emerie has felt a twinge of something since coming to Pabu, though she doesn't really know what it is. She doesn't take the time to think about it, either – it's not that important. She gets the children somewhat settled down, and it's not long later the ship finally arrives with her brothers and Omega.

This is the first time she's been away from Hemlock and the Kaminoans. It's the first time she's been able to make a choice entirely on her own and it's... overwhelming. But it's also freeing in a way she's never felt anything before.

Maybe she can have the chance to let those other children go back home. And the chance to be around Omega without being afraid of what will happen to her in the experiments, and the chance to finally get to know the brothers she was constantly talking about.

The ramp lowers, and her brothers come off. Hunter's limping, leaning a bit on his wolf, Kyr'a.

Wrecker is close behind, moving a little unsteadily - probably due to whatever injuries he sustained from getting the chestplate of his armor smashed. His rancor Doom is right at his side. Crosshair's down a hand – Emerie does not want to know how that happened, no matter how complicated her feelings for her little brother are –with his nexu, Vision, bounding along beside him. She looks happy, at any rate. Her paws, at least, are still fully intact.

Omega right behind them all and she looks contented, as does her convorr – Alpha. The bird is perched on her shoulder, fluffing its feathers. Echo is here too and at least he looks more or less alright,

All her siblings are hurt, but they're alive and whole – minus a couple of hands, anyway.

Her gaze catches the last one – his armor is... different, and he doesn't look like the other clones.

"Emerie," Omega pipes up, running forward when she sees her, "These are Tech and Kian."

"Kowakian," he corrects without blinking.

Wrecker laughs, cutting off with a gasping groan. "You always say that!"

Vision flings herself at Wrecker and Doom, taking them both down, with a cackle, tail swinging. Emerie's only known them for two minutes, but her guess is already that Vision is basically Wrecker and Doom is a much, much gentler version of Crosshair.

"I thought you said he was dead," she says, looking up at him – he looks... different. There's something dead and slightly feral about him that puts her on edge, but he's alive, and that's a good thing.

"I thought he was," Omega answers, "But he's alive. Hemlock had him made into one of his operatives. He doesn't remember us." She looks sad about it, but if he's alive, Emerie thinks that has to mean something.

"Helllloooo!" Vision chirps, bounding up to Emerie from the Doom and Wrecker pile and plopping herself down at her feet. "So nice to see you again! I heard you decided to stop being evil?"

"Vision," Echo sighs, mildly irked, though visibly amused.

"What?" she sasses, whipping around, flicking her tail, "She was pretty mean." Sometimes, Emerie almost can't believe that's Crosshair's daemon. She's so chattery and chaotic, though to be fair, Emerie doesn't really know Crosshair. She doesn't know any of them.