The Baby Batch
Author's Note: We wrote this as a treat fic for Irusu for the May the Fourth Be With You Fanwork Exchange 2023. The Bad Batch as babies are adorable. ^-^
~ Amina Gila
"How long?" Omega asks impatiently, bouncing on her tiptoes as she watches Nala Se, working next to the four tubes in the room.
She's been waiting for this moment for so long. It's been months, and she's been counting down every single day until they're going to be born. She's never seen anyone born before, even though Nala Se says there's already thousands of clones out there, but they're boys, so they aren't like her.
But these are the first ones she's seen and watched, and now, they're finally going to be born.
Experimental Unit 99, they've been called.
"They're ready now," Nala Se replies, setting down whatever equipment she's been using to check on their mutations. Whatever that is. Something that makes them special and different.
A squeal of excitement escapes Omega, and she watches, practically holding her breath, as the first of them is taken out. The Kaminoan looks him over, before handing him to Omega, with a brief instruction on how she's supposed to hold him.
She takes him carefully, and he's heavy,but she's already three, so she's perfectly capable of holding a baby. She's seen what they all look like through the walls of their jars, but it's different to see him in person when she's holding him – he has a tiny amount of dark brown hair, and he opens his brown eyes, blinking up at her.
Except then, he squeezes his eyes shut, and starts crying.
"Why's he crying?" she asks, eyes wide, looking up at Nala Se.
Wouldn't he be as excited as she is? He's her brother, and she's been waiting so long for this moment. She might have a million other brothers, but this is the first one she's ever known.
"It's normal when babies are first born," Nala Se replies, unconcerned, "But given his mutation, the stimulation from his environment may take time for him to grow used to. Hurry, the next one is ready."
"It'll be okay," Omega promises him, as she darts across the room to the small cribs prepared for each of them, setting him inside the first. "Don't be sad."
He calms down surprisingly quickly, though, waving his arms in protest when she sets him down.
"I coming back," she promises, kissing his forehead, before running back to Nala Se's side, who's taking out the second one.
His hair is a slightly lighter brown, but what instantly catches her attention as she takes him is his eyes. They're just... uncanny. He's staring at her with a strange fascination that should not be possible on a newborn baby. It's almost like he already knows who she is.
"What are their names?" Omega asks, trotting across the room to lay him next to his brother.
"They don't have names."
She frowns. "Why?"
"They have identifying numbers. They don't need names, when there are so many of them," Nala Se explains, which doesn't make sense.
"But I have one!"
"You are different from the others," she replies, moving to take out the third baby.
"So are they, right?" she objects.
"Not in the same way."
Maybe she can name them, then. Or maybe they'll tell her what they want to be named. She'll have to ask them later.
The third is the big one, and she lets out a quiet squeak of surprise when his weight lands in her arms. He's a lot heavier and bigger than the first two.
He giggles, waving his arms up at her face. He grabs at her finger when she sets him down, and she lets him have it, giggling herself when it takes a small amount of effort to pry her finger out of his grip when Nala Se calls her again.
The last one has the tiniest bit of gray hair, and his eyes are strangely piercing, though not in the same way as the second one. He stares up at her for a few moments, and then starts screaming.
Before she can think to ask why – maybe it's the same reason the first was crying? – the third one starts screaming even louder.
"It's okay," Omega tries to assure the youngest, but he only screams louder, and then, so does the third one, even when she sets the fourth one down next to him.
And then the first one starts crying again.
Oh no.
The second one twists his head a little, looking between them, as though trying to understand what's happening, before he starts crying too. Maybe because he thinks it's what they're supposed to be doing.
First, she better make the youngest two quiet down, so she offers her finger to the third one. He snatches it, eagerly, squeezing it tightly. And thankfully,quiets down.
She wiggles a finger on her other hand over the fourth one's face, and he shushes instantly, staring at it with strange fascination. And then he grabs at it too, stuffing it in his mouth and biting it. He doesn't have any teeth, though, so his gums just barely squish it.
The first one finally stops crying a few minutes later, which somehow instantly calms the second one. He blinks up at Omega again, studying her with interest.
She doesn't move from their sides until they all fall asleep again – not that she could, until she can extract her hands, and... wipe off the drool.
Maybe they don't have names, but for now, she can name them herself.
One.
Two.
Twee.
Four.
They're her brothers, and they're – she can't believe this day finally came.
**w**
There's a loud clatter, the same moment something bonks Omega's arm hard, and she blinks, opening her eyes to see Three clamoring up onto her bed, beside her. He can only manage it because he's so big, even though her bed is low to the floor, in the same corner of Nala Se's lab that she's always lived in.
It's been about half a year since they first came here, and they've grown so big – so much faster than she does. Though she has no idea how he managed to get out of his crib on his own.
Or maybe AZI helped with that.
The droid is currently fussing on the far side of the room, next to one of Nala Se's tables, looking for something he mistakenly knocked onto the floor.
Three giggles, reaching up and grabbing at her head pendant.
"Twee!" she yelps, as he yanks it off, stuffing the shiny end of it into his mouth.
He only giggles harder.
"Nala Se would be mad," Omega tells him seriously, "But she's not here." She used to chew on it too, until the Kaminoan told her to stop it, because it's not a toy. Omega doesn't see what the fuss is all about.
AZI turns a spotlight on, shining it around the room in search of something,
Four lets out a loud shriek and starts crying as the light falls on him, and Omega hastily disentangles herself from Three.
"AZI! Be careful!" she hisses, leaning down to lift Four into her arms – it's a lot harder now that they're bigger, but she can still do it.
"I am sorry," the droid calls, flying down to near the floor level, continuing to look around, "It was an accident."
"Can you help?" she asks, waving a hand at One and Two, as she carries Four back to her bed. "You can find that later."
"I do not want it to be broken," he objects, but grudgingly concedes, agreeing to come over and change One and Two's diapers. Because Omega can't help do that right now, when she has her hands full of the two.
Four shifts next to her, rolling closer and burying his face into her shoulder. His gray hair is a lot longer now, and it's apparently a strange hair color for clones. It makes him unique like her, though.
Three takes the medallion out of his mouth, crawling over to Four and dangling it in his face, babbling excitedly.
Four doesn't respond, and Three scoots even closer, adamantly waving it at him.
Four jerks back suddenly, leaning over and biting him.
No, not again.
Three yelps, startled, scrambling away from him.
"Four, don't bite your bruthuh," Omega scolds, but at least Three doesn't start crying. He pretty much never does, though.
Four only looks more miserable, and she holds him tighter, letting him press his face against her shoulder.
"Do your eyes hurt?" she asks, lightly patting his back. That happens sometimes. Something to do with his enhancement.
Four only sniffles, which she takes to be a yes.
Well.
All she can do is let him keep them closed, until it feels better. He almost always wants to hold onto her, when he can. He's the only one who's like that.
Three always wants attention too, but he never wants to sit still long enough to be held.
"Are you done?" Omega calls, to AZI.
"I am finished," the droid replies, "It is time for you to eat."
"Ready to eat?" Omega asks, looking between them.
Three squeals – he can't talk, but he's never not excited to eat. He eats more than all three of the others, somehow.
Four doesn't respond; he probably doesn't want to, right now.
"I come right back," she promises him, gently extracting him from her arms, letting him lay face down on her bed. She runs over to the cribs, lifting One and Two out, and setting them on the floor.
One crawls across the floor after her, as she goes to collect the food that AZI brings in for them every day – she's not allowed to leave the lab, and why would she need to? Even if it would be cool to know what the rest of this place looks like.
She sits down in the middle of the floor with One's bottle first, and he happily sits down to start drinking it. Usually, he's the most cooperative when it comes to feeding.
AZI takes one of the other bottles over to Three to start feeding him now – it always takes him a lot longer to eat, after all.
Once she's finished with One, she moves on to Two, who's inspecting, with great interest, a piece of equipment laying on the floor.
He drops it, inspecting his bottle with great fascination when she gives it to him – he's always looking at everything like that, though.
"AZI? Is this what you lost?" asks Omega.
"Yes," it agrees, flying over and snatching it up, returning it to the table.
One is crawling around by the wall right now, maybe following the flow of electricity – sometimes, he finds it too overwhelming, and sometimes, he seems to find it enthralling. She doesn't know what the difference is.
Two is... cooperative with her trying to feed him, until he isn't. He pulls away, crawling towards something else lying on the floor.
"Two! You need to eat," she protests.
He babbles importantly, holding up the object.
...Fine.
He'll come back when he gets hungry.
Omega returns to her bed then, sitting between AZI, struggling to feed the still overly eager Three, and Four, who immediately climbs halfway into her lap again, pressing his face against her legs.
Her own attempt at a meal only lasts for a couple minutes, before Three leans over, snatching a handful of the food off her plate, squishing it between his fingers, and then licking them off.
If he really wants to, she'll just let him.
Except then, he finishes his last bottle, crawling over and clambering into her lap on the other side, shoving Four in an effort to make more room. Or maybe to get attention.
"Don't push," Omega scolds, handing her tray back to AZI before she spills any more of it all over the bed.
Three only giggles, reaching over and poking Four.
"No, stop!"
Except, he keeps doing it anyway, and she really has no idea how to act when he starts doing that.
And then Four screams.
It's so earsplitting it makes her jump, and she would've covered her ears if she could have.
One starts crying, and – Oh no. He often cries, and she can never figure out why. Something to do with overstimulation, Nala Se said, but she doesn't know how to handle it. Omega shifts around, moving Three and a very unhappy Four onto her bed, going over to crouch in front of One.
"What's wrong?"
He only keeps crying.
Two crawls over to them, babbling importantly, waving his hands like he's trying to explain something. Is he?
Omega has no idea what. "What?" she asks.
Two babbles again – something she doesn't follow – before leaning closer, pressing his hands over One's ears.
"Too much noise?" Omega asks.
Two nods vigorously.
She jumps up, scrambling back to her bed and collecting her blanket, before laying it over One's head. He flops out in the middle of the floor, pulling it tighter.
Omega lays a hand on his head. He doesn't seem uncomfortable with the stimulation from being touched right now, at least, so she waits until he starts to calm down. Usually, he does quickly enough.
Then, she goes to collect Four, carrying him to the same spot on the floor, and laying him next to One so he can keep his eyes shielded by the blanket too.
They need to be taken care of all the time, but she'll always be happy to do it. Though pretty soon, she thinks Three is gonna be bigger than her.
"Two! Be careful!" Omega calls.
He's somehow managed to stand, hands pressed against the side of Nala Se's table – the part of the room that is very much off-limits to all of them.
"'Mega!" he replies, eagerly.
He's...
Oh.
"You want to go up there?" She knows she shouldn't do that, but if he wants to –
"'Mega!" he asks again, eagerly. And he's saying her name. It's the first time any of them have done that – it seems like it's taking them forever to learn to talk, but Nala Se says it's perfectly normal. She bends down, lifting Two to set him on the table so he can look over the equipment.
"Egaaa!" Three shrieks, scrambling across the room on all fours, trying to stand, staring hopefully up at the counter.
"You want to be up there too?"
He nods, eagerly, and she tries to pick him up, but he's gotten so big now. He's almost as big as she is.
The movement throws her off-balance, and she tips over backwards, landing on her back on the floor, with Three on top of her.
They dissolve into giggles, until he finally rolls off her, grabbing her hand. She tries to extract her fingers as she sits up, except he's too strong.
"You big," Omega observes. And now, he's getting stronger than her.
Three grins up at her.
There's a clatter from the table, as Two pushes some things around.
"Be careful," Omega cautions, extracting herself from Three, and going over to the table. "We need to have this neat before she comes back."
Because otherwise, the Kaminoan will not be happy.
Hastily, she tries to shuffle everything back in place, finishing barely in time and pulling Two off the table before Nala Se walks in the door.
Except, she's here for something about tests and studying their mutations, and that's always bad.
Whatever she does to them always seems to upset One and Four. Especially One. But Omega will always be there to take care of them.
**w**
"No!" Omega screams, stomping her foot on the floor, tears coursing down her cheeks, "You can't take them!"
It doesn't even make any sense! Why is she taking them away? They were staying here so they could be observed, and –
"Omega," Nala Se says, exasperatedly, "They are no longer needed here. It's time that they move on to the next stage in their training."
"They can train here!" she sobs. Why are they being taken away?! Why?
Three and Four are clinging onto her already, and One crawls closer, grabbing for her free hand. Even Two is upset, and he rarely shows emotions.
She thinks it's one of first times she's ever seen Three cry – One and Four do often enough, but never like this.
"They can't. This lab is not for training, Omega," she replies.
"But you had to watch them!"
"I will if I need to, but this stage of their development is over. You need to let them go."
Omega only cries harder, holding on to them together. They can't be taken away. She won't let them. They can't – "I can go with them."
"Your place is here, Omega. There is still much work to do. I understand that you are... attached to them, but you all have a duty, and it is not the same."
Their duty.
Yes, she's always known she's had that. There's a purpose she was made for, after all. Nala Se created her specifically to work here, so that's what she's supposed to do, but she doesn't care right now. She just wants to be with her brothers, and they're being taken away.
"No!" Four shrieks, when the people in the doorway move closer to take them. Or at least, she thinks it was a word – it's the first word she's actually heard him say.
One clutches her hand tighter, trying to tug her after them, when someone moves to pick him up.
Three flails his arms wildly, hitting and kicking the person holding him.
"I find you later," Omega promises finally, through her tears, because they're just as upset, and it's the most she can say to try and calm them.
But all she can do is watch as they're carried out the door, and it closes behind them.
The lab feels unbearably quiet and empty.
They're gone.
And she has no idea when she'll be able to see them again.
Omega doesn't know how many nights she spends crying herself to sleep, or waking up in the middle of the night, expecting to see Three or Four curled up next to her, or occasionally One. Or even expecting to see Two staring at something in the corner, or – or – anything.
She'll never be there to see them get older, and they're probably missing her constantly, and they can't come to see her either. They don't even understand what happened.
She just wants them back, and... there's nothing she can do but muffle her sobs in the far too empty corner of the room. Even her brothers' cribs are gone now, and she has nothing left of them but memories.
**w**
Omega can't go to see them, because Nala Se says she would distract them from their training. And they're supposed to be the best unit. It would be selfish of her. Maybe that's true, but she – she still wants to. That never stops, no matter how many years it's been since she last saw them.
She keeps watch on them constantly, though, from a distance. She has access to Nala Se's medical files because the password is the same as her name – so she can watch their development from there, because sometimes, the Kaminoan will go to check up on them.
And in time, she learns their names.
She has no idea when she'll see them again, but it's a constant ache inside her, even if it's dulled after all these years. Even if sometimes, she still dreams about the baby versions of them, waking up next to her.
It's not until everything starts changing that the chance finally comes.
Something doesn't feel right. There's a sense of wrongness literally hanging in the air that she can practically feel and doesn't know what to make of. But she doesn't even care about that right now, as she called to the central room on Kamino to listen to the new Emperor's speech.
Everyone is supposed to be here, and she scans the crowds, searching, looking, and then finally,she spots them. It's the first time she's laid eyes on all of them in person since... since they were little.
The moment the speech is over, she sneaks out before Nala Se can find her, taking off to find them in the hallway. It's been... so many years. They're all fully grown, so much taller than her now. She remembers so well, when the opposite was true.
"We've got company," Hunter tells the others, as she approaches them.
They all pause, turning around.
Omega looks up at him first – he must've sensed her, the way he did when he was little. Does it still overstimulate him sometimes?
"Hello," Omega offers, almost shyly, waving at them.
"What's that?" Wrecker asks – Three – leaning closer to stare down at her. She always knew he'd tower over her one day, but it's different to see it.
Tech adjusts his goggles, and she can see words scrolling on them. "Adolescent human female. Origins... uncertain." That same fascination with researching and looking at things, then.
It's so familiar, it almost hurts.
And as always, Crosshair is quiet, though that piercing look in his eyes is the same as it was, even when he was a baby. Do his eyes still hurt him? Who did he curl up with at night when he got older, when she wasn't there?
And... there's Echo too, a newest member. She doesn't know him personally yet, but he's still her brother.
Maybe they don't remember her, but she's finally found them again,
Maybe they don't remember her, but... her own memories of them are faint, too. At least she's found them again, and she won't let anything take them apart again. Not if she has any say it. Not if there's any way she can keep them together.
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