DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star wars franchise, it belongs to Gorge Lucas/LucasArts/Dave Filoni/Disney. I'm just dissapointed with how archery is treated in media.
A/N: hunter's stew is the most used translation for "bigos" - a very... Polish dish made out of sauerkraut mixed with fresh white cabbage, mushrooms, various meats and spices. It's more flavorful the more you reheat it, so it's one of those dishes you can basically eat for a week and then some.
A/N2:The soup made of water, stale bread, some lard and garlic is called Wodzionka. and it's integral part of Silesian culture
A/N3: There is a funny YT video about what you can do with potato peels made by Life of Boris - frying them is one of the recipes.
A/N4: as I fix few spelling errors, I'll also add few notes. I've been writing this fic for quite a while, so Imagine my suprise when ep.6 did the simmilar "training montage". As a person who has basic knowledge of archery I actually cringed at Omega training scene: she is trained by Echo who obviously is not an archer (maybe he tries to translate his experience with guns to bows?). The ARC trooper teaches her as if she had compound bow (which with right scopes and other addition you can aim directly at the target), while obviously she has something akin of bare bow/"traditional" bow when you have no aiming aids and you shoot based on your experience i.e.: aim everywhere BUT the bulls eye but close enough to, after few shots, triangulate the right way to hit it - because you have to take a lot of factors into consideration - from body and arms positioning towards target, trajectory of the arrow, how far away the target is located to strengh of the wind. The better the archer gets at taking those factors into consideration on a spot, the easier, quicker and more precise they'll get - that's Echo's "consistency".
Furthermore, which is also very dangerous to any beginner, her bow is obviously too powerful for her. She struggles to just draw it. it's very dangerous because Omega could even demage/snap/tear her own muscles doing so (especially if she's drawing the bow using just her arms) and if she continues to use it, she can even damage her spine! Furthermore, archers do not draw their bows with their arms only but rather with the whole upper torso, otherwise they'll be extremely tired after few shots.
Lastly when learning archery you start with the weakest bow limbs possible to just learn how to aim and operate the weapon properly, then get the stronger one and re-learn that, then another, so on and so on. So Echo might give few valid pointers to Omega, but their training sessions are more dangerous for her than beneficial. Even Cid's "just get stronger" comment is beyond ridicolous - strenght has nothing to do with being a good archer!
... and last but not least! TF they are allowing her to shoot the bow in a crowded place?! Like WTF?! I doubt they would train with blasters in the middle of the canteen!
Practise makes perfect
The archer is the true weapon; the bow is just a long piece of wood. | Sebastan de Castell
"shitty aim" Omega turned around to the source of the insult.
Crosshair was leaning against a wall. His mouth curved to his trademark, dismissive half-smile. The toothpick traveled from one corner of his mouth to the other.
"do you even aim?" he added, sarcasm dripping from his every word "or are you just fooling around?"
Omega gritted her teeth. Echo'd warned her about the sharpshooter's vicious demeanor and that he meant every single insult he spew. Knowing that was half the battle, Echo claimed, the other half was not letting him get under your skin.
The female clone closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I'm aiming for the bulls eye, every time" she admitted, turning around "I have no idea why I'm not hitting the target!"
She activated the bow once again, took a shot. Missed.
She didn't even hear when Crosshair approached her.
"you don't even know the basics" he stated, dragging her closer to the target. "start from five meters." He yanked her elbow, kicked her legs apart so she was sideways towards the target then twisted her upper body. "Aim for the bottom right corner"
The blaster charge hit right below the blue zone - the closest she had ever been to hitting a target since beginning of her journey with blaster-archery.
"I did it!" she turned toward Crosshair with a wide, triumphal grin. It quickly dissipated from her face as she saw the sniper's disapproving scowl.
"follow me" he drawled out.
They stopped by his cot. The man took out an elongated wooden box from underneath it and passed it to her.
"Careful" Crosshair barked as the girl casually threw the box over her shoulder "it's not a stack of food rations"
That sort of reaction was unusual for him.
The next thing he took was a big square mat that was wedged between his and Tech's beds. It was made of some sort of a foam-like material, it had a flimsy target pinned to the wider side. The whole middle of it was shredded in a perfect circle where the bulls eye was supposed to be.
"what are we going to do?" Omega asked, as they traveled back to the shooting range.
"practice" he finally replied. When they got back to the training ground, which was nothing more than a cleared, empty post of a cargo bay.
"for real this time" the sniper set the foam target in place of the blaster practice one.
He opened the wooden box with great care.
"I'll lend you one I was practicing with as a cadet. I doubt your skinny arms could handle anything more than that" The clone said "and don't dry shoot, or I'll end you"
"here are the gloves" Crosshair handed her a pair of gloves. They were no ordinary ones, though – one had three fingers, while the other just two. "three fingered goes for your right hand, the other one left. Bracer"
"what?"
Crosshair shook his head.
"arm guar- the other arm"
Only now she saw what the sniper was doing. He took a piece of curved, symmetrical semi-long piece of wood, wedged it between his legs, then bent it, to the point, he could hook a loop of a string on the groove at the upper part of it.
It looked similar to how her blaster-bow looked- oh.
"it's a bow?"
"traditional one" Crosshair admitted as he checked if the weapon was in the right condition "the one our DNA donor's ancestors were using for warfare and hunting"
"It's cute"
"it's deadly weapon" Crosshair scoffed
"but it's so small! Much smaller than my bow!"
"it's a recurve Orbak bow – it's suppose to be small"
Crosshair took a deep breath as he rolled his eyes.
Clones were masters of the eye rolls.
"Nock" Crosshair said, the tooth pick traveled across his smirk.
Omega twirled the arrow she was holding, pointing at the forked, rear-end of the object.
"riser" the girl, quickly pulled out her bow, pointing at the middle part.
"belly"
"Which arm?"
"upper"
She delicately stroked the inside of the bow's limb.
"what is considered dry shooting?"
"Also known as dry firing is shooting a bow without an arrow nocked on a bowstring. It can damage a bow as well as hurt the archer"
The archery lessons, or rather that weird if you're already here and geared up, you can stay, girl thing they shared at the range became their thing.
The sharpshooter brought a whistle to his lips and blew, emitting one, sharp sound.
Omega got to her position - a yellow line painted on the floor - Her target was pinned to the same mat as Crosshair's, but was much bigger in diameter, depicting a crude drawing of a shaak, with few circles showcasing wound and kill zones of the creature. Her aiming was rather slow, or more likely the sniper's efficiency was extraordinary.
She was proud anyway, after their last practice, when she was able to hit the right zone a few times, thrice in the row once, the sniper decided it's time to move it further. Of course he claimed that he grew bored of the distance, but Omega knew better.
She released an arrow. It hit the wound zone. She hissed in pain, clutching her left forearm as the bowstring hit the bracer - despite having the arm guard it still hurt.
"told you"
"I know. I know." the girl massaged her forearm. "I just... I don't get it"
"Of course you don't," the man replied mechanically. "if you did, you wouldn't make the same mistake repeatedly"
They were mostly practicing in silence. Omega hated it, but Crosshair just wasn't as talkative as Wrecker or Tech. He wasn't detached like Echo though. The ARC trooper sometimes made things on autopilot or just stopped doing stuff mid-gesture as his mind wandered. He burned their food, and himself, a few times because of it. That's why Hunter gave Omega a special mission, to watch over the cyborg, when it was Echo's kitchen duty.
Two sharp whistles brought her out of her thoughs. She trotted to the target and started to pull out the arrows. The girl was able to take out just few, however most of them, especially Crosshair's, were wedged so deep in the mat that she had to wait for her training buddy to take them - something he often teased her for.
"what do you think will be for dinner today?" The girl couldn't help herself.
The silence was too much to handle.
"hunter's stew" the sniper replied flatly "we had it yesterday and will have it tomorrow... probably for another couple of days judging by the size of the pot Echo used"
"I thought Hunter cooked it?"
The sniper rolled his eyes.
"not, Hunter's, as in belonging to our gracious leader" the sniper mocked his brother's honorary status quo, and how Omega looked up to him "but hunter's as a profession – a person who hunts"
It still baffled Omega, how well the ARC trooper could cook, so efficiently too, with just one arm. He was a master of no-waste as well. One time, when they were extremely low on rations, he made soup out of water, stale bread, a few cloves of garlic and the last spoon of lard there was in a jar. On the other, he prepared potatoes for dinner but also fried the peels as a crunchy snack for her and Wrecker. When asked if it was part of his ARC training, he shook his head, but he never elaborated further. Tech believed he either learned it from the medics or, most likely, from his Jedi general. General Skywalker's files stated that he was a very resourceful man, he used to eat bugs way before it became a popular trend among the Coruscant human population.
Her mouth watered at the sheer thought of the hunter's stew. Her favorite part was fishing out the meaty bits, but stuffing a hollowed out bread roll with it was a tasty alternative.
Now it dawned on her... up to this point they weren't eating meat as regularly as of late... When did the meat extravaganza start?
"Why didn't we have so much meat before?" she asked.
"because you can't hunt with a blaster." Crosshair responded dryly
"I don't get it"
"Of course you don't," Sniper sneered. "The blaster charge creates steam as it passes through the flesh. Sometimes that steam makes the game explode if it's too small. Furthermore, hunting traditionally is the most respectful way to kill the pray - it suffers less"
"Does Hunter know archery?"
"Hunter's not omnipotent, girl," the sniper scoffed. He knows basics of hunting, I'm sure of that, but archery is not something you learn during training"
"What about Echo? Does he know it?"
"he is an ARC, I don't know exactly what they learn, but I doubt it and even if he does, he lacks an arm." Crosshair replied bluntly.
Uff... Omega often forgot how disabled Echo truly was.
"How did you learn archery then? and all that hunting stuff?"
"it was a part of the sniper training"
"I don't get it"
"of course you don't" Crosshair nocked the arrow, quickly and efficiently, never losing sight of his target. "archery teaches you how to calculate the trajectory of the projectile and how it behaves in various conditions. not to mention focus, patience and discipline - things you obviously lack''
The arrow hit exactly where the sniper wanted it to hit – the tiny little eye of Nuna depicted on his minuscule target.
"so... you're the only archer in the team, then?" the girl asked.
She went back to the yellow line, checking all of her gear. she nocked the arrow and awaited the signal.
Crosshair looked at her, long and hard. She already got used to his stares.
"I'm the best archer we've got," he finally replied.
Omega couldn't contain her excitement.
Criosshair blew the whistle.
"Outch!"
"I told you-"
"I know, I know."
Omega was getting ready for bed. Changed her clothes to cute, short sleeved pajamas Wrecker bought her for the extra credits they had left from their latest bounty.
Hunter exited the cockpit. Yawning, he stretched his arms. Omega waved at him, as she always did late at night, to every trooper passing her by - it was her way to say a good night.
Then he noticed...
"what happened to you?" Hunter asked, concerned
If he was sleepy just a second ago, he was fully aware now as he approached her and grabbed Omage'a arm, twisted it slightly to see it better. The skin on her forearm was swollen and angrily red, slowly turning yellow and purple.
"I- Crosshair" she fumbled.
Omega didn't know how much the sniper would have liked her to talk about their training sessions.
"did Crosshair do that to you?" the Bad Batch leader barked, voice low, icy.
"no!" The girl hissed in pain, trying to pry her arm from Hunter's vice grip. "it was my fault! Even with Bracer the bowstring was hitting my forearm! Crosshair told me it was because I have hyperextended elbow, like most girls do, and I should twist my arm outwards, but I didn't-"
"wait, wait, wait..." Hunter's eyes widened in disbelief "Crosshair... trains you?"
"no... yes? I don't know." Omega asked meekly.
"in what?"
"archery"
"willingly?" his voice went comically high pitched at the end of the question.
"I think it's more out of pity?"
"Crosshair knows no pity. " Hunter snorted " heh... and here I was wondering how did you suddenly became better with your weapon"
"please, don't tell him you know"
"even if the Empire tortures me, I'll take this intel with me to the grave"