Chapter 1 - Capture
Plot: The Batch are born as non-human shapeshifters, something the Empire is much too interested in studying. When Crosshair captures Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech on Bracca, they're taken to Kamino and left under his watch. Escape is impossible, but Hunter has to find a way before it's too late.
Author's Note: This is for the Clone Twin Week Day 1. :)
~ Amina Gila
He felt Crosshair in his mind the minute he came out of hyperspace. Tried to tell himself he was just in a nearby system, that his longing for their youngest brother is what was relit their bond, but the minute Tech and Omega commed him to say the Empire turned up, Hunter knew the truth.
He knew it was Crosshair, could feel the flickering former softness in his mind, though now wild with a wholly uncharacteristic rage.
A rage he is terrified to face again.
Just when he's starting to think they might make it off the cruiser unnoticed and without incident, they run into Crosshair right on the auxiliary deck, cutting off their only route of escape.
"Tapping our comms to track our movements?" he scoffs, "So predictable."
Hunter coils, but that's just the wolf in him. This isn't Crosshair's fault, and he knows that. He understands his little brother doesn't really want to hurt them. It hasn't been him this entire time. They were all wrong for acting like it was. Hunter should have known. He wishes Tech had told them earlier, but regrets won't change it.
"Nice to see you too, Crosshair," Wrecker growls, hands tight on his blaster. Hunter smells his fiery warm scent dim with hurt and anger. He never quite realized how angry Wrecker was at their little brother, but now isn't the right time, either.
"Look at you all, scavenging like rats. How pathetic," Crosshair sneers.
"Why come after us?" Hunter demands, tense and coiled.
"You're traitors."
The squad is spreading out now, circling them in. They need a diversion. Any time now.
Tech's eyes narrow, sharpening, the ocean swimming in his irises. "Stand down," he orders.
Crosshair gasps, stepping back. The regs and other dark-armored people lower their blasters on command. Mercreatures and their mind-control.
Hunter's so glad he doesn't have that. He also thinks it might be cool.
Tech can hear thoughts. It's exhausting for him.
Crosshair's hand closes over something on his belt, and Hunter has an instant bad feeling.
The blade that sails through the air is silver, light sparking off it, and it sinks into the shoulder joint of Tech's armor. He gasps, stumbling.
Silver.
That's the one weakness for all of them. Silver impedes their ability, cutting their elemental connection. They can't shift, can't use their paranormal abilities. And, they can't heal.
And everything explodes into chaos.
Wrecker roars, the dragon in him shifting, bones snapping and refitting into the massive orange dragon he is. Hunter fires at two of the regs behind them and goes for the ones in front. Echo and Omega are shooting, too, and Tech's reaching one-handed for his blaster.
Hunter's mind explodes with raw fury, but without Tech, there's nothing they can do. They have to go. "Wrecker, get Echo and the kid out," he orders, dodging Crosshair's return fire. Echo and Omega are more vulnerable with their lack of resistance to injury, and their susceptibility to compulsions. Echo hesitates, but he and Omega climb on. Wrecker jumps off the deck.
Crosshair jerks his rifle up, firing, and Hunter inhales sharply when he sees the shot strike his little brother's wing.
Wrecker yelps, and he spirals downwards. Out of sight.
Hunter freezes up in a split second of panicked horror, and a shot glances off his armor.
Tech is trying to rip the blade out, panting – Hunter feels his pain in his mind. They have some sort of bond, and they can always feel each other over it. Physical or emotional.
And Hunter snaps.
Pain flares across his body as bones snap and reshift, forming into his wolf.
His senses heighten, sharpening.
He can smell the blood and burning, the charcoal even from here. The smoke is overwhelming, and so is the desperate need to protect, to lash out.
Hunter rolls over, pawing and ripping his armor and clothes shreds off, standing and lunging at them. He's dodging blaster shots, and takes down two before Crosshair raises his hand blaster. He tries to dodge, but the stun-shot strikes him head-on, short-circuiting his mind and body with a very unpleasant spasm of electricity.
**w**
Consciousness fades back in painfully slowly. The floor is cold beneath him, and Hunter shifts a little, tail twitching and prying his eyes open. He's still exhausted, and his head throbs.
They're in a ship. He feels the vibration of the engines before looking around the dark room – it's the back of a shuttle.
He's mostly just impressed he's still alive.
Wrecker's beside him, sitting with one wing folded and the other stretched awkwardly. He looks up, the scorch mark in his brother's wing catching his eye instantly.
Tech is in the far corner, leaning against the wall, wrists bound together.
Hunter starts moving, freezing and dropping back down when Crosshair's hand touches his head. He snarls at him, rolling to his feet and hissing, even if his head spins at the sharp movements.
"Stop," Crosshair hisses, glaring at him, and Hunter stills a little, because he doesn't want to get shot again. They're prisoners. He knows he needs to be careful.
Being so close to him again is unnerving. He doesn't want to be here. He wants Crosshair, but after seeing him fight them, after he shot Wrecker and stabbed Tech, he knows Crosshair doesn't mean safe anymore.
He's their brother, their pack, but he's dangerous.
Hunter snarls at him anyways when Crosshair touches him again, stroking the fur on his head and down his neck. He doesn't fight it, because he knows that would be a very stupid decision when he needs to be decreasing tension, not instigating what's guaranteed to be a failed breakout. Tech can't fight, and Crosshair can still control Hunter and Wrecker.
Where are Echo and Omega? Are they okay?
Hunter can't feel them the same way he can the others, and he loathes that sometimes. They're just as much his squad and family and siblings. Even if, unlike he and the others, they weren't once one. He, Tech, Wrecker, and Crosshair were from the same tube. They're four quarters of a whole.
Somehow.
They shouldn't have survived, but somehow, they did.
Crosshair used to pet him all the time in these forms, but it's different now. Different when Crosshair's Imperial, when he's holding them prisoner and hurt them all already. Hunter hates this.
Crosshair has got to feel his discomfort. He's not himself. He's not – it's not his fault.
"I think I prefer to keep you as animals," Crosshair says, "At least they're loyal."
Hunter snaps at him, and Wrecker twitches. Crosshair yanks his hand back before Hunter bites it off. Wrecker looks a couple seconds to tears, and Hunter's fury flares to life, burning and nipping. He wants to get them out, but there's nothing he can do, and he's so, so angry.
"Where are you taking us?" Tech asks shortly. He's angry, too.
"You'll see when we get there." Crosshair moves away from him, looking up at Wrecker assessingly. Hunter doesn't like that look. He doesn't like this, period, actually – he feels far, far too exposed in his wolf form. At least in his armor, he had some measure of protection.
He steps closer to Wrecker, reaching to touch him. Wrecker jerks back, hissing. He's scared. Hunter can smell it. Feels it, too.
Crosshair sighs. Loudly. "I won't hurt you."
"Why should we trust you?" Hunter snarls at him. He's tense, ready to pounce, even if he knows actually moving would be a really bad idea.
"You shouldn't," Crosshair answers, "But I'm not leaving you like you did me."
"We didn't have a choice," Hunter protests quietly.
Crosshair can't understand his words, exactly, but he can understand his intentions and feelings. "And I did?" He scoffs. "Wrecker, don't make this difficult. I don't have a way of starting a fire right now, and I'm not taking a flamethrower to your face."
It wouldn't hurt him, but Hunter agrees – it's still unkind.
Wrecker sits down, and Crosshair reaches for him, touching his head and gently stroking his snout, fingers brushing over the orange scales. Wrecker's breathing is shakily uncomfortable.
Hunter sits up against the wall, watching warily. Crosshair seems sincere about treating them, anyway, seeing as he wraps the wound as best he can.
It hurts, but Wrecker's quiet, doing impressively well at hiding his pain and discomfort. He's afraid. Hunter is, too. He doesn't know what Crosshair wants with them.
Crosshair hugs him. He actually hugs him – Hunter didn't expect that, but Crosshair wraps his arms around Wrecker's neck, squeezing him tightly. Wrecker stays stiff, not reacting, and Hunter tries not to let it hurt. Wrecker's heartbeat is going way too fast. He's panicking. Because of Crosshair. Their little brother.
Crosshair steps back from him, looking at Tech.
Hunter shifts forwards, standing again. He can't see Tech from here, and he's instantly on edge.
"You're still bleeding," he states.
"How is that a surprise?" Tech snaps back, "You stabbed me."
"Could water heal it?" Crosshair asks.
"Considering it was silver, I am uncertain."
Tech was bleeding, and Crosshair didn't bother treating it? He could bleed to death.
Hunter shifts closer to Wrecker, who instantly moves to him, curling up against his side. His injured wing rests on Hunter's back, and he rests his scaly head on Hunter's furry one.
"You'll have to let me touch you."
"I do not require your assistance."
"You're bleeding."
"If you want to feed on me, I will not stop you."
Crosshair sighs, irritated. "Fine. But I'll have to take your armor off, and don't try anything."
Hunter wants to talk to him. Knows they need to, just like he tried with Wrecker, but Tech's injury comes first. He doesn't know how to start, and he's scared.
Crosshair is holding them prisoner, and he doesn't know what happened to Echo and Omega. He doesn't think they're here, but he could be wrong. He doesn't feel anything like either of them aboard the shuttle – Echo's electric field is too strong not to feel, and Omega's is too small.
"Fine," Tech snaps. He doesn't want to, but Crosshair's not giving him a choice.
Hunter tries really, really hard not to feel sick.
He leans against Wrecker, staying on guard but trying to relax and let the throbbing in his head fade away. He aches from being stunned. Unreasonably so – he's sensitive to electric fields. Apparently, that means being stunned gives him migraines.
Basically, ow.
Tech hates being touched most of the time. It's only alright if he initiates it, or if Wrecker does it – something about scales on scales. He hates Hunter and Crosshair's fur. Usually. Even if they're human.
Crosshair piles Tech's armor pieces on the floor, at least the few he needs to take off. Hunter watches them warily, as Crosshair cleans the wound off – he basically licks it off, and to most people that would be weird, but Crosshair's a vampire – and bandages it.
The wound looks unpleasant. It's deep, probably down to the bone. He won't be able to move his arm well for a while.
Tech yanks his shirt back down the minute Crosshair's done.
Hunter shuffles forwards towards their youngest brother, and he pauses, looking down at him. "Crosshair," he goes for warily, "You're being controlled by an inhibitor chip. It's not your fault. Snap out of it."
Crosshair refastens Tech's chestplate on, then turns to glare at Hunter. He's angry again. "I'm not being controlled. This is who I am, Hunter."
No. That's not true. It can't be. "That's not – you wouldn't. This isn't you, Crosshair."
"You're traitors, Hunter."
"You've seen what the Empire is doing, Crosshair," Hunter replies. And it's not just about that. "The clones don't mean anything to them. It wasn't safe for us to stay there anymore." It was already changing so much from the Republic, and he couldn't stay there and put his squad in danger. He just wishes that hadn't led to them leaving Crosshair behind.
"We're not like the regs," he snaps back, "We never have been. This is what we were made for."
Hunter very, very much disagrees they were made to be imprisoned and treated like animals, but he's not going that route. It'll only blow up in his face.
"Technically, we were created to fight for the Republic, which now no longer exists," Tech interjects.
"The Empire is no different," Crosshair snaps.
"The termination of the Jedi – "
"- They were traitors – "
Okay, Hunter really doesn't want to listen to this argument. They're already going in circles and it's not going to get them anywhere. They need to find a way out of here, but he doesn't know what to do, not when Wrecker and Tech are both injured, and Crosshair clearly has no intention of leaving the room.
And he doesn't want to have to leave without Crosshair again. Not when they have the chance to get him back even if Hunter has no idea what to do.
"We'll never be anything but numbers to them, Crosshair," Hunter points out tiredly.
"Not if we're loyal," he snaps, "Which you were not."
"We don't just follow any orders. We never have," Wrecker protests. "The only orders we gotta follow are Hunter's."
"So that's why you left me," Crosshair hisses, whirling toward him.
Hunter flinches at the sheer viciousness in his voice. And it's not as if it wasn't true even if he doesn't know what other call he could have made then. Not without getting the rest of them killed and Crosshair in his right mind would never want that.
Wrecker presses a little closer into Hunter's side. "I didn't wanna," he objects miserably, "But you were shooting at us, and we didn't have time."
He shot Wrecker, actually, and Hunter will never forget his little brother's strangled gasp as he hit the hangar floor. And he hadn't even realized Crosshair wasn't in his right mind at that point even if nothing he was doing made any sense – Tech hadn't explained it until a little after they had already left.
Crosshair glares at them. "Because you were traitors to the Empire."
"Why'd that matter more than us?" Wrecker asks, sounding wounded.
It's his chip because Crosshair would never be like this willingly and Hunter knows that, but it's still hard to face.
"At least the Empire shows loyalty to those who are loyal to them," Crosshair bites back.
Wrecker sort of jerks and Hunter can see how close to tears he looks.
"Crosshair," Hunter tries, even if he feels at a loss of what to say. He doesn't know how to make this right. Crosshair has been alone for so long all by himself. He can't even imagine that. They've been with each other every day for as long as he remembers until now. "We didn't want to leave you. But this is your chance, Crosshair. You can – leave with us."
Crosshair scoffs. "I'm not a traitor. The Empire is where we will have purpose. This is what we were made for."
They're definitely just going in circles now.
Hunter doesn't know if there's truly a way to reason with Crosshair until his chip is out. There certainly wasn't with Wrecker when it briefly activated. Hunter can still vividly remember the feel of Wrecker's hands around his neck, crushing. He could have fought back, could have tried to stop him, but how could he hurt Wrecker?
That was only yesterday. He doesn't want to think about it or the terror of – any of that. He was so scared that one of them was going to die by Wrecker's hand and his little brother would never be able to live with it.
But Hunter will have to find a way to get through to Crosshair somehow. It's hard when he's so afraid of what he's going to do to them. And it's wrong – he shouldn't have to be afraid of his little brother but... he can't deny that there's a part of him that is, and he doesn't know what's going to happen from here.
**w**
They're being taken to Kamino. On hindsight, Hunter should've guessed that, though he already doesn't like where this is going. Echo and Omega somehow escaped safely, though he has no idea if they're still alright, or where they're gonna go.
As for himself and the others, Crosshair and his new squad – Hunter's not thinking about that right now – takes them to a holding area on Kamino.
Something specifically designed for them, clearly.
It's a large room, and there's a cage for both him and Wrecker.
And a giant tank for Tech in his fish-form.
Hunter would jump Crosshair's squad members out of sheer fury just on that if not for how their blasters are all aimed at them.
Crosshair nudges him forwards, and he very, very slowly moves into the cage made for him. It's a lot smaller than Wrecker's. They've been locked up before, but they've never been outright imprisoned, and certainly haven't been caged. How long did the Empire spend working on this? Or was it something the Kmainoans made before for some reason?
"How long have you been working on this?" Hunter asks, turning his head around to look up at him.
"Long enough," Crosshair answers.
He doesn't want to go, but with half a dozen blasters aimed at him, he's not going to be able to dodge them all without someone being hurt.
Which, unfortunately, also means having to hold still when his little brother chains him to the pole in the center of the cage.
He's not an animal. He's a person. He's not – ugh.
And Crosshair just leaves him in there, before doing the same to Wrecker, who already looks on the verge of tears.
There's some sort of energy field running through the chains. Hunter doesn't know what it is or what it's for, but it makes him instantly wary.
"What's the energy field for?" Hunter queries.
Crosshair pauses, looking back at him. "You might not want to shift into your human form right now."
"Why not?"
"It'll electrocute you."
Ah. Great – his human hands could probably pry the lock off, or picklock it, and he could reach through the cage bars to undo the lock. The bars are only narrow enough to keep his wolf-form in, but he's still chained. The electric field stings, grating inside his skull.
Hunter whines quietly, his body tense.
Seeing Wrecker be chained is even worse than it happening to himself. He's Hunter's little brother, and he's so childish. So – innocent. At least Wrecker's scales can somewhat protect him.
The cage bars are a bright gray. Silver. Not even Wrecker will be able to break them.
Crosshair chains Wrecker, too. He doesn't touch him, though Hunter thinks he's about to.
Crosshair turns back to Tech instead. He takes the stuncuffs off, hooking them to his belt. "You'll have to take off your armor," Crosshair tells him.
Tech is tense. "What, precisely, is the point of caging us?"
"You're prisoners. And you are animals. So, be a good one, and get in there."
Tech is visibly hurt, but he complies, anyway, climbing over the edge of the tank and dropping into the water. They have sand at the bottom, which Hunter hates, but Tech disappears to the bottom and flails up a ridiculous mud swirl.
A bundle of sopping black cloth surfaces before Tech's now-scaly form, sailing nicely over the glass edge and smacking into Crosshair's face.
Hunter is fairly certain he's not the only one who laughs. Wrecker does, and so is at least one of Crosshair's squad members.
You just don't ask Tech to remove any article of clothing if he doesn't want to.
Crosshair's fuming, and any other circumstances, Hunter would've found it plainly adorable. Not so much when he's chained and caged and fully defenseless.
He doesn't even have armor.
His wolf form protects itself by speed, which is fully cut out by these chains. He has very little room to move.
He feels raw and empty and helpless.
Tech shoves the rest of his armor pieces out, and Crosshair locks the tanks lid.
There better be air in there. They must've prepared this, but Hunter's still worried.
Crosshair leaves without a word, his squad trialing after.
Wrecker sits down, curling his tail around his legs.
This is going to drive all of them crazy. Wrecker can't fly. He can hardly move, either. They don't have food, and Wrecker's always so restless. And Tech – he has nothing to do, either.
Hunter slowly lowers himself to sit down and scans the room.
The cages have locks on the outside. They have to get their collars off, first. He paws at it, but can't hit anything.
"Are Echo and Omega alright?" he asks finally.
Wrecker sighs. "They were gonna get to the Marauder and come back for us."
"Crosshair attempted to pursue them, but Echo made the hyperspace jump first," Tech replies surfacing from the water. Hunter can see him clearly again, the silvery and blues of his scales. His scale designs are beautiful. Hunter has every inch of them memorized for all they've stared at them. He's grumble about flattery if anyone tried to tell him so. Wrecker's the only one who dared.
It was – different to be species shifters. None of them could figure it out. They sniffed and nosed each other all over, just because it was cool. Fascinating is what Tech had always called it.
He misses Crosshair's cat form. He was so adorable.
"What are our odds out of this?" Hunter queries.
"I am uncertain," Tech answers, "All the factors are against us. However, I may be able to... draw some attention."
"You're gonna hafta wait until Wrecker's done healing," Hunter points out, "He can't be human right now." The other concern is their lack of armor, but... they'll figure that out later.
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