The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

On Your Love I Stand (Part 4)

Author's Note: This is the final part of this story, yes. If you want more of the BB ending up in the CW, maybe check out Out of Time where the Batch post S2 end up during the CW not in their own bodies. Or you'll have to wait until I write Checkmate, which is another post S2 BB time travel to the CW (the Battle of Kamino). :D

~ Amina Gila

Echo knows where he is the moment conscious awareness settles into his mind, and he realizes that he can't feel his body. It's as though it's disconnected from him, distant, and dread coils within him. He – he's there again, in the hands of the Techno Union. He's in the past. He shouldn't be here. He was – he was just with Hunter and Wrecker on the Marauder –

He taps into the network, checking the date and time. Stars. This is four months before the battle of Anaxes, before the Bad Batch came to rescue him. He doesn't know that he'll be able to survive being trapped here for four more months without losing his mind. He's never recovered from what he suffered at the hands of the Techno Union and being trapped here – knowing that any moment they could figure out his mind isn't silent and compliant like they programmed it to be and start all over again – is its own kind of torture. And then, they'll find out about the things no one can know, least of all them. They'll know about the Batch, know how to fight them, and no – no – that can't happen.

He's been used as a weapon against too many of his brothers already. He can't let it happen again. Not again.

Time is meaningless here, and Echo doesn't know how long it's been when he registers something searching for him. Tech. He would recognize Tech's work anyone, and Echo shifts through the programming in his mind, building up protections to keep his memories safe and hidden before reaching back to link with Tech's datapad.

He codes a program so they can communicate without being intercepted and without the Techno Union realizing that he's sending out transmissions on his own. If Tech is looking for him, then he must not be the only one who remembers. Does everyone? Does – well, he'll find out soon enough.

Tech, he sends out.

The response is almost instantaneous. Echo. We're coming for you.

***

Omega opens her eyes to the dark. She is used to the dark, though, and the darkness here is familiar. Too familiar. With a soft gasp, she jolts upright. She's in Nala Se's lab, the same lab that she was last in with her brothers so long ago when the Empire destroyed Tipoca City. She shouldn't be here. It shouldn't be possible, but here she is. She can't deny what her eyes are telling her. The last thing she remembers, she was – she'd been captured by Hemlock. And – Crosshair! She saw him there, but he was unconscious.

She stands, shakily, looking down at herself. She's... dressed like Nala Se's medical assistant again, and she can feel the cool weight of the pendant on her forehead. She... is in the past? She goes to the nearby terminal to check the date, and yeah, she's in the past. Somehow. Doesn't really matter how, though, only that she is. At least she's not a prisoner of Hemlock – not that it's a whole lot better here but –

Tech. Tech's alive.

Omega doesn't know if her brothers remember her, but she desperately hopes they do. She has no idea how she'd feel if she discovered that they don't remember any of what she went through with them. They went through so much, and it was everything she dreamed of. Well, not quite, but close enough, and most importantly, they were together.

What if – what if they don't remember her?

She'll deal with it if it comes down to it. It's more important for her to find them.