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hesthermay · 2 months

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝐏𝐓 𝟐)

PAIRING: sergeant hunter x fem!oc reader

SUMMARY: the aftermath of order 66 for the bad batch, and the reunion of a jedi and her squad.

WORD COUNT: 3.8k

WARNINGS + RATINGS: general audiences, mature themes, angst, fluff. happy ending to this chapter! female oc, use of she/her, mentions of death and order 66. series. follows the bad batch timeline.

NOTES: part tew. peep the masterlist!

STAR WARS MASTERLIST THE GREAT FIGHT MASTERLIST

Things were tense in the Marauder, the air thick and suffocating as they finally departed from Kaller. They had remained there for longer than the other clones on the planet, for they had suffered a loss of great devastation.

Miri Rocksled had been an exception to their isolation from the rest of the GAR, she was one of them and perhaps she had been all along; thus was why approximately eighty percent of the Bad Batch was more than certain she was not guilty of the things the Jedi had been accused of. All, except their own sniper—Crosshair had never been one to express the warmest of emotions to the world around him, but he was unusually callous on the status of his former General.

It had started with the kid, how he reacted to the orders to kill the padawan that struck something in Hunter. Orders or not, this was not something Clone Force 99 stood by; to claim they had been avid followers of the rules to begin with would be a shameful lie, but to choose such a time to start raised concerns in the man. And it was his reaction to Hunter’s reaction to realizing Miri was in danger that triggered such tension.

“Hunter, we cannot go look for her,” Tech stated, voice stern as he spoke from the front of their ship. “Do you realize how that would look to the other troopers? To whoever gave us this order?”

“When have we ever cared?” Hunter shot back. “You know her, there’s no way this is true.”

From the back of the ship, like a creature lurking in the dark, Crosshair's voice filled the space. “The Jedi are traitors.” All eyes turned to him, sitting alone with his helmet still on, and he leaned in closer from his hunched position to put emphasis on the next blow. “We were given orders to execute those guilty of treason, and your Miri was no exception,” he sneered.

An unexpected eruption came from where Wrecker stood, and everyone soon realized it was the large man launching himself at his brother.

Wrecker, with his heart on his sleeve and his fists bared, would not stand for such talk of his General. It took all three men to pull him off of Crosshair, but eventually they were able to separate the two. “Wrecker, enough!” Hunter grunted, shoving him into a seat.

“Listen,” he panted slightly, holding his hands up to diffuse the situation. “This is getting us nowhere. Tech’s right,” he finally agreed, the prior exchange having knocked some sense into him. “It won’t be a good idea to go looking for her, we don’t wanna catch the wrong attention. But—” he gave a pointed look at Crosshair, “we all know Miri isn’t a traitor. She’s almost loyal to a fault, something the other Jedi never seemed to stop giving her a hard time about. Whatever it is that they’re saying the Jedi are guilty of, we need some more information before we start blindly following orders. Got it?”

One by one, they all nodded their heads, Crosshairs albeit reluctant. But in his true nature, he couldn’t help but have the last laugh. Quietly, almost as if he didn’t want the others to hear, he questioned Hunter. “Besides, what would you even do if you found her body?”

As they entered hyperspace, Hunter held himself together with the hope that she had gotten away. That her death was also falsely reported; the padawan had gotten away but nobody really needed to know that. Perhaps Miri, that clever one, was able to escape. This hope resided in them as they walked into the facility on Kamino, it was what kept their heads high and facing forward as everyone around them acted even more strange than usual.

The sight of red and white armor once again raised alarm in Hunter. “Shock troopers?” He questioned as his head turned to watch them walk by. “What’s the Coruscant Guard doing here?” His attention was broken by the words over the intercom, the modulated voice repeatedly announcing ‘level five lockdown remains in effect. Security teams, report to the command center.’

He looked to Tech, and without fail he had the answers. “This isn’t a drill,” he stated, sounding surprised to hear such information.

“Oh man,” Wrecker whined. “What did we miss now?”

“The end of the war,” a Shock trooper answered as he walked by.

Hunter stepped forward, as per usual. “Say again, Trooper?”

“General Grievous was defeated on Utapau. The Separatist leadership has collapsed,” he answered. “The war is over.” A statement spoken so casually, yet possessed the weight of thousands of tons.

Behind him, Tech looked over at Wrecker. “Just like I said,” he quipped seriously.

Wrecker gasped dramatically. “It is just like you said,” he marveled, earning a side eye from his brother in response. Hunter was hardly paying any attention to this, however, as two troopers carrying a gurney walked by, a body with a sheet covering it laying motionless. Just as they passed him by, a lightsaber fell from under the sheet, and the shock trooper he was speaking with crouched down to pick it up.

When he rose to his full height, his eyes were trained on Hunter and the look he was wearing as he watched this scene unfold. He had tried to mask his emotions, but evidently he wasn’t doing that good of a job at the moment as the clone questioned him with slight hostility. “Is there a problem?”

Though he made no effort to put some trust in his gaze, Hunter answered immediately. “No problem,” he replied, glancing over at Wrecker and then at Echo as casually as possible. “We’ll just head to our barracks then.”

“Best hurry,” the trooper responded as he turned to walk away. “There’s a mandatory general assembly at 1500.”

And this assembly, one of the first the Batch had committed to attending, shed light to the situation while, somehow, leaving a dark shadow behind.

“And the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated.”

Chills ran down Hunters back at the words coming from the cloaked figure of what was said to be Chancellor Palpatine. Claims of an attempt on his life leaving him scarred and deformed echoed in his ears as his eyes drifted to the gallery, when the higher ups of Kamino watched from above. But what had caught his attention was a little girl, already watching him.

She smiled when they made eye contact, but his focus shifted as Tech spoke up from behind him. “What is it?”

When he looked back, she was gone. “Nothing.” His eyes remained there as Palpatine's voice grew louder and louder.

“...the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire!”

Briefly, a memory came forward of Miri meditating on the ship while they were stuck in hyperspace for who knows how long. She had been uneasy as of late, yet she tried to hide it. Meditating was something she did often, but what was peculiar to them was the scrunch of her face as she sat still as stone. They tried not to bother her when she did this, understanding it was…just something Jedi did, when she looked so distressed they felt inclined to keep watch.

It was when she began to breathe heavily, almost gasping, that Hunter stepped forward. “General?” He questioned lowly, not trying to startle her, but she jolted at the sound of his voice anyways. “General, are you alright?”

She had not responded, only looked at him with wide eyes as her chest rose and fell quickly. “Miri,” he tried again, formalities slipping away in his worry, “are you okay?”

“Something is…going to happen,” she began, voice slightly frantic as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I—I don’t know what it is, or when, but it’s heavy. It’s…” She sighed, rising from her seat and running her hands through her hair. “It’s dark, and I don’t think anyone is going to see it coming, and if they do it’s just going to be too late.”

That feeling had persisted throughout the end of the war, nagging Miri any chance it got. It was ever present, when she rested, when she relaxed, when she was dispatched for missions and campaigns as well. Constant, the shadow was for Miri Rocksled, and now the curtains had been drawn and it was displayed right before their very eyes.

Around them, troopers cheered at the revelation, unaware of the looming darkness that weighed heavy on Clone Force 99. “Still don’t think the clones are programmed?” Tech questioned, side eyeing the men around him.

They would soon find that they were, in fact, programmed. Everything that transpired on Kamino before their forced departure was an echo of Miri’s prediction. She had been so unfortunately correct; it was heavy, it was dark, and it had been too late for anyone to stop it. The plans, orchestrated by someone they could not yet pinpoint, were already in motion, and all the Bad Batch could do was play the game as they always had; and it would seem the game had always been rigged against them. The food fight in the cafe with Omega, the live rounds during their battle simulation for Tarkin, Omega’s warning to not return, the supposed insurgent retrieval mission they were sent on. The undeniable and jarring change in Crosshair, the revelation that Omega was one of them, the weight of the fact that Miri would never leave a child in harm’s way, the devastating betrayal of one of their own.

It had been made clear that the Empire had no room for Clone Force 99. It was time for them to leave, and Omega would be coming with them. They had a Jedi to look for.

Many rotations had passed before the need for a pitstop was brought to their attention. Rations, medical supplies, and fuel were running low; and the severe lack of resources for a child was something Hunter had not thought of when he asked Omega to join them.

They had learned from their visit with Cut and Suu that the Empire was spreading quickly, and travel between planets was growing much more difficult. They had to go out of their way to look for places seemingly untouched, or as much as they could be, by the heavy presence of stormtroopers. Options were running out as their journey was only just beginning, but they had no choice but to make do with the cards they had been dealt. The village they found themselves in was seemingly alright, people milling about but minding their own business; excitement was minimal and danger was mostly undetectable, a rarity these days.

However, Hunter could feel something. A nagging feeling, that someone was out there. Watching, waiting, plotting, he did not know; but they were there. It was hard to ignore, impossible to shake off as Omega rambled about whatever had caught her interest in the market, and his eyes scanned their surroundings over and over again. He could not put his finger on it, though, for no matter how many times he looked, he came up short. He tried not to let frustration fester where caution resided.

Until his eyes, squinted and serious as they flit over the horizon, caught a flash of a cloaked figure in his peripheral. A smaller frame shrouded by the loose fabric, identity shielded by the wide brim of their hat, he lets himself hope that it is Miri. A foolish and desperate hope, made as the figure turned away from him in the distance, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

The hunch he had was far too big to just let this go. The feeling, still lingering on his skin as he quickened his pace to catch up with his brothers, was familiar because it was her, alive and breathing. It had to have been.

To test this theory, he told everyone to finish gathering whatever they needed, as they were headed out, but instead of making their way towards their ship, however, he led them into the forest with arms full of supplies and faces full of confusion. Their feet carried them past the treeline and deep into the greenery, and still Hunter offered no explanation. Wrecker whined, Tech and Echo fired off logical explanation after logical explanation, and Omega was left looking around in wonder. So caught up in what was potentially ahead of them, he didn’t even notice the body tailing them from behind. In fact, it was Omega who pointed it out, feeling the eyes on her from afar.

“It feels like we’re being watched,” she whispered, looking up at Hunter with furrowed brows. Worry was etched onto her face, but he didn’t really know how to soothe that worry at the moment. Miri was always better at this than he was.

“That’s because we are,” he answered gruffly, as if it was no big deal. Nonchalance was something Hunter wore well, but they had so much to lose now that Omega ran with their crowd that so little care in a situation such as this was out of character for him.

“We are?” Echo shot back through gritted teeth, alarm evident in his tone. “Hunter—”

“I think it could be Miri,” he interrupted, not looking back at Echo. The sergeant found himself almost hesitant to reveal the information he had been hoarding for the last little bit for how it would make him sound. Yes, she was special in a different way, but she was still their general and he knew her. He knew her, and what she felt like, and he was almost certain this was her. The fact that he didn’t hear a branch one snapping coming from their watcher, the fact that she remained out of their sights while keeping them in hers, the fact that nobody ever followed them with intentions of just watching; it all made too much sense to not make any at all.

“The likelihood of that is quite low,” Tech started, holding a finger up but he never got the chance to continue for Hunter held up a closed fist, a signal for them to stop in their tracks. His eyes were trained not on ground level, but up in the trees, and he spun around as he searched for the lost Jedi.

Unbeknownst to him, his brothers share skeptical glances. They did not like it, but they had stepped closer to accepting that Miri Rocksled may never show her face again for one reason or another than Hunter had. His desperation, while understood, was painfully obvious.

But, always one to prove someone wrong, the missing woman made her presence known from a thick branch above them. Hunter had ventured too close for her liking, it would seem, and she stepped into view with her saber drawn and pointed at him. Perched there perfectly, draped in the same neutral colored poncho he had seen back in the village, Miri Rocksled was alive.

The orange blade hummed lowly as the glow illuminated the expression she wore. Brows furrowed and eyes wide in a horror Hunter didn’t recognize from under the brim of her hat, her knuckles gripped the weapon so tightly the skin had gone ghostly white. Once again, the brothers exchanged glances, this time one of shock. Wrecker’s gasp cut through the ambient noise of nature. And Hunter, who could only stare up at her in awe, could not think of what to do or say. Instead, his limbs remained frozen as his eyes took her in for what she was, his greatest love.

He had missed her so terribly, more than he thought a close was capable of, and yet he had carried through every rotation she was missing. The weight of it was suffocating, and just seeing her lifted it from his tired body tenfold; he was light with his eyes on her once again, for she was the answer to every problem he could ever have.

“Miri…” The words left him of their own accord, coming out as a breathy whisper pointed towards the heavens.

His voice, the sound of it in her ears, made her face screw up even tighter, eyes drawn to slits and lip quivering ever so slightly. “Stay back,” she demanded lowly through gritted teeth as tears brimmed her eyes. They stung, and she blinked rapidly to keep her sights clear on them. She tried to keep the fear at bay, tried her damndest, but to finally be face to face with her clones after Order 66 had dread settling itself in the pit of her stomach. Against her order, Wrecker took a few steps forward, eyes wide as he looked up at her. “I said stay back!” She shouted, voice harsh as it echoed throughout the forest. “I don’t want to hurt you guys; please, please, don’t make me,” she begged, words shaky as emotion threatened to take over.

Hunter repeated her name, snapping out of his daze at the genuine fear that they would try to kill her. Fear, it was not something he was used to seeing on her, and he didn’t like it one bit. His hands went up in a show of peace, demeanor that of a man approaching a cornered animal. “It’s okay. The chips didn’t work in us, we didn’t follow the order,” he explained, desperation hiding behind his words. When she remained still he gave her the smallest of shrugs and the smallest of smirks. “Defective, remember?”

Tech took that as his signal to step forward, for he knew that Miri needed all the details then and there in order to clear the air. “What he means by that is the inhibitor chips the Kaminoans implanted in all clones did not show signs of controlling us. We have since discovered that is how Order 66 was administered, and that is why we did not participate in it; well, all except one,” he rambled, eyes never leaving the General in a show of true honesty, though Tech was never one to lie. “That is why Crosshair is missing, he…he now works for the Empire.”

“Crosshair…” she whispered, voice low and hesitant. “It worked on him? He—” she looked away, sadness taking over for but a moment. “He would have tried to kill me?”

“Yes,” Tech affirmed. “He believed that the Jedi were guilty of the accused treason, because that is what we were told by the Emperor himself.”

Oddly enough, Miri appreciated the bluntness of Tech’s delivery in that moment. One would feel the need to soften the blows, but they had since been dealt. Dealt the moment she had to fight for her life on Kaller against her own allies turned enemies. The facts of the matter almost helped ease the sting of betrayal she had harbored since, knowing that it had not been personal. They could not help but turn their weapons on their generals and commanders, and Crosshair could not help the change in his ideology.

With this information, she had deduced that the Bad Batch were not a threat to her any longer. They did not display the behaviors other clones did in the presence of a Jedi, and that was the largest indicator that what Tech had said was indeed true. But it was also the look on Hunter’s face that swayed her heart when she tried to keep it stoney.

A man in love, a man lost in his love, looked up at her as if she was the angel he had been hoping for. The grief of her presumed death, and the denial of acceptance, had worn him down along with everything else, and she could see how he had been changed. He would not harm her, could not harm her; that much she believed.

There was one question to be asked, however. “What happened to the padawan on Kaller?”

When Hunter stepped forward to answer, her weapon moved to point at him once again. It startled him, pausing in his tracks as he held his hands up once again. “I let him get away,” he answered, the words spilling out of him. “Lied to Crosshair about it, lied to the Empire about it.”

She eyed them all one by one, gaze lingering on the little girl tucked away in the back with Echo by her side, before she retracted the blade of her saber, orange light disappearing into the intricate hilt. Her arm fell to her side, but her feet were still planted firmly on the branch. Miri had been in survival mode for so many rotations that she was finding it difficult to let it slip away, even if slightly. Her heart beat rapidly and almost painfully in her chest as she took a deep breath in an effort to steele the resolve to relax.

With that, she clipped her weapon to her waistband and effortlessly leapt to the ground below. Her feet hardly thudded as her boots made contact with the dirt floor, and she looked to Hunter. She felt herself being pulled to him by something greater than the both of them, and she couldn’t even try to fight it. He watched her as if watching a ghost glide toward him, helmet at his feet as he had dropped it upon seeing her once again, and his hands had begun reaching out for her without even knowing. She almost tripped over the piece of armor as he yanked her into him when she was within reach.

He held her close, arms wrapped tightly around her as if she would disappear again if he let go, and he breathed. He breathed clearly for the first time in what felt like centuries, lungs able to expand to their full ability instead of being constricted by constant worry. He breathed her in, the scent of her still lingering after all this time of chaos and turmoil. She was her, alive and persisting, and he felt as if he could weep as her body weight felt so solid in his hold.

“I knew you were still out there,” he whispered into her hair, voice cracking.

“You found me,” she whispered back, throat tightening as she fought off the same feelings. Hunter, her Hunter, had found his way back to her. She had been so worried that what they had was forever lost, that what she had with them all had been forever tainted, and to let go of that felt incredible.

He shook his head the best he could while having her so close. “No, you found me, Miri,” he insisted, not caring about anything else besides this moment. “You found me.”

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