The Bad Batch - Mini Stories

I Only Wanted To Be Part of Something

To think if he had taken the kid’s offer, all the torture would have ended by now but instead he had ignored the kid which soon led to him listening to her escape via the alarms and breeches of the nat-born’s radios. A smirk fell on his face as he sat in his cell staring at the wall, he had been put in a very isolated cell, one of which was being watched by only the scientists who released toxins and certain viruses into the cell via smoke and small cell breaches. Ones of which he was tortured through, he saw the worst of his mind, memories and forced images were placed in his thoughts, he was tortured in his sleep as well as when he was awake and in the end, he agreed with the Empire, he deserved this especially after everything he had done. One thing he knew though, he didn’t belong anywhere. Apart from the table where the scientists cut him open to the point he thought it was the end, only for it not to be as he would wake back up on the table or in his cell, in so much pain and he couldn’t even hurt himself as he was binded to prevent any ‘suicides’ as they tested their favourite subject.

For so long, he lost track of the hours, days, weeks and months of how long it had been since he had helped the kid escape mainly through his knowledge. But he was reminded each day by the scientists how long he had been here, especially as one scientist said, “CC-9904, welcome back to the lab on Day 1024. Today we are going to induce you into a coma so we can predict your…”. Of course he switched off as he felt the sedative, normally he shut down but this time he found his mind transported elsewhere, to a place that actually haunted him. The labs of Kamino. 

“Kid?” 

A voice unknown to him had him turning only to gasp seeing none other than 99 in front of his eyes.

“Oh, Cross’ika, what happened? Why are you so hurt?” 

99 rushed over, Crosshair could only glance towards a reflected surface to see blood running down the side of his head, that wasn’t what had him confused, what did was the factor of him being around the natborn age of seven. 

“Shh, I’ve got you” 

99’s voice felt so familiar as he allowed his body to slump into the older clone who rubbed his back while he treated him. At first, he thought it was only them two but instead another voice had Crosshair struggling to take in the sight. 

“CT-99, CT-9904, what happened?!” 

None other than Nala Se appeared, her demand had both clones glancing at her as the kaminoan kneeled down and placed a hand on Crosshairs shoulder. 

“CT-9904? Are you having nightmares again? Did you harm yourself because of…” 

Crosshair barely blinked wondering what was going on when another voice had his attention.

“DR HEMLOCK! We are losing him!” 

“Push the…” 

Confusion spread over Crosshairs face as a glowing figure appeared beside 99 and Nala Se revealing his navy armour and hooded figure. 

“Kid, you are slipping through time” the figure said as Nala and 99 shared a look. “Let it go and I will help you” they added, which had Crosshair freezing, “I promise, we will change it. You will not suffer any longer, just let it go” 

Although he had no idea what the figure meant, he clenched his fist only to see something bloody in his little hand, it looked like a heart which he dropped out of fright and an echoed thump thump spread around the room until it stopped and a bright light escaped the room as Crosshair collapsed into 99’s arms while Nala spoke to the figure. 

When he next came around, he was surrounded by his worried batchmates. Still in 99’s lap, he found Hunter reaching for him, Wrecker and Tech held one another, they were all much younger. It was then his mind flashed again and he found himself talking to Nala Se, he glanced down only to see the navy armour and the hood which he knew belonged to the hooded figure. It was him!