A/N Second bad batch fanfic! Hope you like!
Enhanced senses. That was what the Kaminoans told Hunter his mutation was. And they weren't wrong.
Hunter could hear sharper and smell better than the rest of his brothers. He could see clearly for a longer distance than even Crosshair. He could detect poison and taste each individual spice when the Kaminoans tried to test him with his food. Even his sense touch was stronger. Sometimes it felt like he could feel the particles in the air surrounding him.
But sometimes, his abilities went beyond that. There were moments when he could see the army of battle droids approaching before they had even crossed the horizon. Hear the cries of distress from a village before they had even reached it. And sometimes when he threw his knife, instead of throwing it, he felt as though he was guiding it through the air.
He kept moments like those to himself though. To the Kaminoans, there was a fine line between enhanced and defective. And they all knew what happened to defective clones.
Not that any of it mattered now that they were on the run. There were no long necks watching his every move. No GAR to fight for. Nothing but the need to protect his family. And if his abilities helped him protect Omega and his brothers, then he was in no position to complain.
Hunter needed to set a good example for Omega. Even before they had left Kamino, he'd noticed that the girl had a habit of copying him. She would scratch her chin, mimic his hand movements and if he fought with a knife then she wanted to fight with one too. It wasn't until recently that he'd noticed that some of her mimicking had become subconscious. How like him, she would duck out of the impact of blow before it hit, or know their enemy had a hidden weapon before they had the time to strike. Most of the time he thought it was sweet, flattering even, except for when she started following him into the middle of a war zone.
Like she had just done a couple of hours ago.
"I told you to stay put!" Hunter shouted once they were back on the safety of the ship. As usual the mission had gone south due to unforeseen circumstances surrounding this new Empire. And as what was also starting to become usual, Omega had disobeyed his orders. They had barely made it out with themselves and their intel intact.
"I just want to be more like you!" She shouted back. The rest of the batch had taken this as their que to leave the cockpit, not wanting to be around as the pair began another of their screaming matches. Cut had warned him of the fights that came with teenage rebellion, but Hunter had hoped he would have had a couple of more years before those begun. He guessed with Omega's accelerated aging it was only to be expected. Just another thing the Kaminoans had taken from them.
"You don't want to be me like me kid." Hunter told her. He wouldn't wish the weight of his emotional baggage on anyone.
"But I am like you!"
Hunter sighed, collapsing into the captain's chair, not wanting to get into another fight.
"Look, you probably haven't been around enough brothers growing up to tell you this but just because we are clones does not mean that we are all alike."
"I know that." Omega replied in a huff. "I mean that we have the same mutation."
Whatever Hunter had ben about to stay, got caught in his mouth. He looked up at her in confusion.
"I'm… not a girl." He said slowly, panicked for a moment that he would have to explain the more nuanced differences between a boy and a girl. They had already agreed that Tech would be the one to give her the birds and the bees talk when the time comes.
Now Omega was the one giving him a confused look.
"I'm trans." She said in the same slow tone that he had just used. "My gender isn't my mutation."
"So, what is your mutation then?"
"I'm force sensitive, same as you." She stated like it was obvious.
For the second time that day, Omega rendered him speechless. She was a force sensitive clone? He was a force sensitive clone? No, that was impossible. He had never heard of a clone being force sensitive. Then again, he had never heard of a clone being a girl before either. And yet here Omega was, standing right in front of him.
"The Kaminoans wanted to see how you performed in combat so they sent you out into the field. But they kept me back at the base to run experiments." Omega told him. Her anger had now dissipated and was replaced with a wide eyes look of surprise. "Did they never tell you?"
Having recently learnt about the inhibitor chips, it didn't surprise him there was a lot the Kaminoans hadn't told them. It would also explain why Omega had been so interested in him, if she though they both had the same enhancement. Not that he quite believed it.
No doubt seeing the disbelief, written all over his face, Omega took one of his hands in her own.
"Can't you feel it? That energy within us both. That surrounds us all. Open your sense to it."
Hunter stated still, allowing her touch to ground him whilst his senses took over. He could hear the muffled voice of Tech of Echo amongst the whisper of Wrecker's dreams. The smell of the old ship, tinged with blood of battles long over. And beyond them all, the never ending expanse of space teeming with distant life.
"That's the force?" He asked cautiously. That was something he did on missions all the time. He thought that it was just another part of his enhancement. Had he really been using the force all this time?
Omega glanced around the cockpit, her eyes brightening when he spotted Tech's empty cup of caf. Letting go of his hand, she went to pick it up.
"The Kaminoans used to get me to do this all the time." She said as she placed it on top of the control panel. "Now try to push it over."
Hunter considered knocking it over with a throw of his knife, but he knew that would only lead to more arguments. Sighing he reached out his hand like he had seen the Jedi do, waiting for some mystical force to magically knock the cup over. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.
"Don't try," Omega's gentle voice said from where she had crouched besides him. "Just do."
Just like he had once done with his knife, Hunter reached out through the air, feeling what he had though was particles but now he realised were something deeper. Somehow, there was a life between the molecules. And he could feel it tangling with his fingers. He pushed the air with his outstretched palm and over a metre away, the cup toppled over.
"You did it!" Omega cried.
Hunter smiled at her infectious joy because holy kriff he had just used the karking force! He watched as she jumped up and down, half tempted to join her. It had been a while since a shiny like her had taught him anything. As much as he enjoyed teaching the girl about the galaxy, apparently there was just as much as she could teach him.
