The Tale of the Twins: Star Wars The Clone Wars/The Bad Batch Fanfic

Can you tell me that one story?

It was nighttime in Tipoca City. The Bad Batch, who had just returned from several successful missions, were getting ready to sleep. Tech was tapping away at his datapad while seated on Crosshair's bed. Crosshair, who sat next to Tech, was cleaning his rifle. Hunter was struggling to get a comb through his hair and regretted not brushing it the day before. Weaker was already asleep, and Echo was grabbing an extra blanket for their guest.

On the floor near Hunter's bed, there was a thin mattress that was actually about the same thickness as all the other mattresses, and Omega was seated on top of it. She had managed to persuade the kaminoans to let her spend more time with Clone Force 99, with the promise that she wouldn't wander off without their permission anymore. 99 also put in a good word for them, saying that Omega would be safe to spend nights with the Bad Batch. So whenever they returned from missions, Omega would sleep, eat, and spend as much time as she could with them.

"Comfortable?" Echo asked, handing her a blanket.

"Yep," Omega responded, grabbing the blanket from Echo and draping it over her legs. "Can you tell me that one story?"

Echo didn't need to ask which story she was talking about, even though the batch had told her hundreds of stories over the time that they'd known her. Omega always asked Echo for a certain story each night she was with them. He wondered how she didn't get sick of hearing it.

Echo asked anyway as he sat on the ground next to her. "The one about the twins, right?" Omega nodded. "You know, you could probably tell that one on your own now; you've heard it so many times."

"It's more fun when you tell it, though," Omega protested, laying down and pulling the blanket up to her chin.

"Alright. So at one point in time, there were these brothers."

"And they were clones, like us."

"Yes, they were clones, and they were batch mates."

When Echo first told Omega this story, he hadn't stated that the people in the story were clones, but Omega had asked if the brothers could be clones, specifically batch mates. Now she always made sure that Echo included that the brothers were clones.

Echo continued: "The thing about this batch was that there was a set of twins in the batch."

"And that's really rare for clones," Omega commented.

"Twins are rare for many species, but you're right there, especially rare for clones because we're created in tubes. Most clone twins don't make it past being tubies. They usually end up dying in the tubes or a few hours after they're taken out. This set of twins, though, survived. The kaminoans kept their eyes on them when they were really young; they weren't expecting them to make it that far."

"But they did."

"They did."

By now, Hunter had managed to get through the tangles in his hair and set the comb aside. He landed down and watched fondly as Echo told Omega the same story for the fiftieth time. Crosshair had put his rifle away, and Tech was now leaning against him a bit. His eyelids were drooping, but he still tapped on his datapad, showing no signs of wanting to put it down and sleep. Crosshair watched him for a bit before turning his attention to Omega and Echo.

"The twins grew up right alongside the rest of their brothers." Echo went on with the story. "However, eventually the twins started to notice that they had abilities that no one else had."

"Their powers!" Omega said, with eyes full of wonder, just like they were when she first heard the story.

"Yes, their abilities—their powers—were like nothing the twins had ever heard of before. The brothers knew about the Jedi, people who would sense others' emotions and levitate objects with their minds, but their powers were different from those of the Jedi, so they knew that they were like them. They were like anyone except each other. When their batch mates learned about their powers, they were nervous because they didn't know how the kaminoans or anyone else would react. The twins were scared, too. They didn't want to become experiments or anything like that. So everyone decided that it was best to keep the twin's abilities a secret to keep them safe."