The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Febuwhump Day Ten: Killing in Self-Defense

Author's Note: Idk whyyyy we never got to see anything about this in canon, but whatever. xP

~ Amina Gila

Omega has been on missions before, but she's never hurt anyone. She has never killed anyone, until Bracca, when it was her brothers. It might not have been the ones who mattered most, but all the clones are still her brothers. Even the regs. Even the ones she shot.

"Are you okay?" Hunter asks, hovering nearby.

Omega nearly jumps at the sound of his voice. She didn't realize he was so close. She'd been too busy... brooding. Thinking.

So many things have happened over the past few days, starting with Wrecker's chip activating, and them nearly losing him, all the way through to being kidnapped, which is still something Omega doesn't want to think about.

She has no idea why her mind is choosing this to bother her the most right now.

"It's nothing," she assures, sliding a little down the wall and looking back at the datapad she's holding half-heartedly. She's not seeing anything on the screen, though – her mind is trapped a million lightyears away on Kamino.

Omega was Nala Se's lab assistant for years. She might not have helped put the inhibitor chips in the clones – that was something droids always did because of the intricacy of the process – but she did help make them. She knew about them. She helped monitor the growing cycles of all the clones before they were born.

She took care of them. They might not have been anything like the ones she raised, but they still... were. They were still people, even if they were so nasty to her and her brothers whenever she knew them.

She doesn't like them.

She really never has. They've never been nice to her. Don't seem nice, period, and she saw how they treated her brothers.

That – that doesn't mean she feels nothing at killing them.

"You sure?" he presses – Hunter is so good at reading people. He always knows whenever she's upset.

"I'm just thinking about Bracca," she confesses finally. She feels silly to tell him. She doesn't want Hunter to worry, to think maybe she can't do this, because she can. Her brothers are. She can, too. "I've never shot anyone before."

Do you think it killed them? She wants to ask. I know they were trying to hurt us. They were going to kill us because Crosshair told them to, but it wasn't his fault, either, was it? They couldn't help it any more than he could.

Hunter kneels next to her. Omega throws him a sneaking glance out of the corner of her eye and looks away again. She can't read his expression. She thinks he's worried.

"It wasn't their fault, either," Omega mutters, looking back at the datapad, her grip on it tightening.

"Does it ever bother you?" she can't help asking.

"We're soldiers," Hunter replies, "We're used to it."

Used to it? How could they just get used to that? The regs don't really get attached to each other the same way her brothers are, but... she still killed them.

It wasn't their fault.

She made sure they'd never have a chance to be free.

Omega had shot back at them because Hunter was, and she remembers how Wrecker threw someone out the window of the auxiliary deck into freefall. Height is Wrecker's worst fear, and he threw someone into that without a second thought.