Chapter Text
(-o-) Chap 1
Crosshair hated the regs. He sneered when they passed him. They made him sick the way they jumped to complete orders, how they pretended to be unique, but when it came down to the wire they folded back to faceless pawns, not having a single thought for themselves that wasn’t approved by leadership. He would purposely turn a blind eye to them in training as he took down droid after droid from his roosts. He refused to work with them. He would not allow himself to become a piece in that sick game they played so willingly.
The regs, of course, didn’t like that much.
He'd heard the same reprimands hundreds of times.
"Follow orders, or you'll never leave Kamino."
"Arrogant."
"Listen to your commanding officer."
"Every death will be on your shoulders."
"Unfit for duty."
Crosshair heard them all, but every time he shrugged the words aside. They didn't matter. He would never be part of their little brotherhood. He didn't want to be.
While others lounged and played games in their spare time, he spent his time on the ranges, running simulations, learning every piece of their weaponry till he could take them apart, clean them, and put them back together faster than any other clone on Kamino.
They eventually took him out of the training rotation. Some part of him was surprised that they had finally made good on the threat he had heard so often.
No use until he could be integrated into a squad. Too much of a wild card.
He purposely failed every simulation they placed him in with the reg squads. Their leaders were all the same, arrogant, overusing their power to keep their men in line, demanding respect before they had earned it.
Crosshair refused to respect a title.
He wasn't ignorant of the circumstances surrounding his existence. He knew that he was the result of an experiment. Whether it was a failed one or not seemed to depend on who you asked, though more were leaning towards that opinion these days regarding him. He knew he was different and they tried to use it against him, set him up for failure, but he tore that power back at every chance he could. He spit on their regulations and bested them at every turn, just because he could. He may never leave this pit, but he would maintain his dignity.
He knew they would reach their breaking point. Then he would see their true colors.
(-o-)
He'd been passed around for three months standard the first time he met another defective clone. He'd heard rumors, of course, that there were other failed experiments that the Kaminoans liked to pretend didn't exist. He'd never crossed paths with them and had certainly never sought them out. Why would he? They would become even more of a target. The regs had learned to keep their distance from him the first time he nearly beat one of them unconscious after the fool had tried to take a swing at him, adding a physical element to their usual verbal torments.
He'd been punished, but it had served its purpose. The insults still came whenever he encountered them, but they didn't dare to confront him alone. Didn't dare to lay a finger on him. Why add another factor to that carefully maintained balance?
The defective clone didn't appear any different from the other ones at a distance. He was the same compact build and height as the regs. They had both been assigned to a trial squad for a short battle sim.
As they lined up, Crosshair noticed one of the other clones watching him more than the others.
Not too unusual, but still, their gawking annoyed him. Crosshair was tall for a clone and lacked the muscle mass and darker pigment of the regs. His armor gaped, and his blacks bunched up in his joints, making the entire thing nearly useless at actually protecting him and he was well aware this made him easy to identify. At least his helmet fit for the most part, but it was a close thing.
Crosshair didn't notice something was off until nearly halfway through the exercise. He’d scaled a turret and, after disabling it, had begun using it as a sniper's roost to pick off droids at random, spending more time trying to find the trickiest shots he could manage than helping his "squadmates" in any way. The commander was still yelling in his ear, trying to give him orders, but luckily the audio receptors in the helmet didn't quite line up either.
It only registered that the commander was yelling at someone else when one of the clones below broke from his cover and instead sprinted straight up the middle.
Curiosity peaked Crosshair used his scope to track the clone as he rushed the nearest training droid and, to Crosshair's utter bemusement, pulled out a combat knife and stabbed the thing in the chest.
How very odd for a reg.
Crosshair kept an eye on the trooper for the rest of the simulation, watching him consistently choose to not only ignore commands but engage in close-quarter combat. If Crosshair didn't know any better, he would think the clone preferred the savagery of tearing the drones apart up close, hacking and slashing his way to the objective.
Interesting indeed.
In the end the simulation was a success, despite Crosshair's lack of assistance. The strange clone had actually cleared enough drones with his overly dramatic knife work for the others to capture the point.
As they lined up before their commander and the trainer Crosshair found it oddly surreal to watch the other clone be torn apart for disobeying orders. The trainer was so engrossed in dressing down the other man that Crosshair actually left unreprimanded. As he slipped away, he admitted to himself that the other clone's behavior intrigued him, but he had no interest in pursuing it further than that. Regardless of any reckless streaks and some uncanny knife work, the man was still a reg, and Crosshair knew that eventually, he would fall into line, and that would be the end of it. No one in the field would ever know he was any different—another faceless drone in the masses.
Crosshair would never admit it to anyone, even himself, but sometimes he envied them that.
(-o-)
It was three cycles later, and Crosshair sat alone in the crowded mess, studiously ignoring the other clones in the room as they tried even harder to ignore him. Which is why his mouth was already opening to make a harsh remark to whoever had just placed their tray down across from him when he looked up to find a strange man looking down at him.
"I saw your work during that sim the other day. Those were some pretty impressive shots."
Crosshair stared at the man blankly as he finished taking his seat on the bench. He was a clone, a sergeant, Crosshair could tell from his armor and build, but that was where the proof of that statement ended. The strange clone's hair was just longer than regulation, his features sharper than the squared jaws and brows of the other clones, though not as gaunt-looking as Crosshair's own. He wore a strip of cloth to keep the hair out of his face, and in the harsh overhead lighting, Crosshair thought the man's eyes were a darker brown than the others.
The man was studying him as well, though not nearly as intently, but Crosshair found himself unnerved by the other man regardless. There was something dangerous about him in the way that reminded the sniper of the many bounty hunters that passed through Tapico city.
"You'll have to be more specific." Crosshair bit out. He wanted this man gone.
"The combat sim three cycles back. You were sniping from the left tower. Like I said, it was impressive."
Crosshair's first instinct was to reject the compliment, but something about the other clone was familiar enough that he decided to take a chance.
"I'm surprised you had time to see my shots. Usually, if someone was in a knife fight, they would be a little too preoccupied to worry about anything else."
He said it mildly, fishing for more information, but the feral-looking grin the other clone gave him was all the confirmation he needed to know his guess had been correct. This man was the one who'd taken off with the knife. The one he'd mistaken for a reg.
"So you saw that, huh?"
"It was hard not to. You ended up in the way of most of my shots."
The man barked a laugh and held his arm out in a traditional mando'a greeting.
"Name's Hunter."
Still wary of the other but curious enough to allow this to continue, Crosshair slowly raised his own to return the grip.
"Crosshair."
Hunter gave a nod before breaking the hold and beginning to eat the bland rations that filled his tray.
"I can't help but notice we seem to have some things in common, Crosshair."
"So it would seem."
Crosshair slowly began eating his own food, feeling the burn of eyes on his back. Nosey little regs never could mind their own business.
"You know, you aren't the first one I've met? Experimental, I mean."
Hunter stated plainly, not looking up from his meal, and Crosshair knew what he was doing, but the chance of learning more about other defective clones in the rotation was too good to pass.
"Is that so? Curious that I've never run into you or any others before that sim."
Hunter gave him a smirk as he saw his own tactics being thrown back at him but seemed to pretend to not notice.
"Yeah, I only found the other guy by accident. It's almost like the longnecks don't want us knowing about each other, let alone meeting."
Something darker entered his tone as he said that, and Crosshair eyed him warily. He had wondered that himself after only hearing rumors of other experiments but never seeming to be able to find proof of them. It had been a running theory that the Kaminoans had purposely kept them separated as a precaution. After all, an enhanced clone such as himself already had heightened abilities that could make him dangerous to not just the enemy, but the Kaminoans too if he chose. And, one of the rumors he'd heard had been about a giant of a clone with enough brute strength to tear down the training barriers. Allowing a group of volatile and enhanced fighters like that to interact was surely a safety hazard.
So why had they been allowed in the same sim? A scheduling error? That seemed unlikely given the care in which the Kaminoans would have taken up to now to keep them apart. Maybe the longnecks had finally decided to allow it? Or perhaps they were both just paranoid, and it really had been a coincidence that they had never crossed paths before. There was really no way for them to find out, so for now, Crosshair let the idea slide.
"As interesting as this conversation is, you approached me for a reason."
Crosshair said firmly, and Hunter gave him a smirk.
"Who's to say I wasn't just curious and wanted to meet you?"
"Because people like us don't do anything for no reason."
Hunter gave a snort and dropped the teasing tone, his face settling into something more thoughtful.
"I wasn't just talking to hear my voice earlier about us having a lot in common. I saw you doing that sim. A marksman like you should be off this facility by now and in the field. But, you didn't follow a single order that the commander gave. I highly doubt it's lack of training since I checked the logs for the range and weapons sims, and I'm pretty sure you've set a record for hours logged. Which means you're choosing to ignore commands and as a result, you've gotten grounded till they can find you a squad. Sound about right?"
"And why is this any business of yours?" Crosshair sniped back, uncomfortable with the fact that this man had been looking at his logs and knew more about him than vice versa.
"Because I'm in the same situation. The reg captains? Something about the way they give commands just rubs me the wrong way. I followed orders long enough to get me through the ranks, but I don't think they're the best fit for me. Who knows, maybe something went wrong when I got decanted, but following orders like that? Makes my skin crawl."
"And this other defective clone you mentioned?"
"Oh, Wrecker? He can take an order just fine, but once the fighting starts? Suddenly he's deaf. Never seen anything like it when he's in the thick of it, though. I've seen him take four stuns to the chest and just shrug them off like it was nothing. Seems his talent lies in brute strength and size. Destruction embodied I like to call him. Fact of the matter is, though, he's as dangerous to his allies as he is the enemy, and no commander wants that liability on their squad. Me, however, I think he's the greatest asset a team could have."
Crosshair raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, so Hunter continued.
"I've started running battle sims with him. Just basic combat to get a feel for how it would be to fight with him. We finished in the shortest time recorded. Turns out a pair of enhanced clones such as ourselves can do a lot when on the same team." He raised his eyes to stare directly at Crosshair.
"And I think we could do twice that if we had more than two people. Both of us prefer brawling and I can't think of a single downside to having a sharpshooter watching our backs."
And there it was, the real reason that the man had sought him out.
"You're trying to form a squad."
"What makes you think that?"
Crosshair snorted. "You mentioned earlier you had moved up the ranks. You already said that you hated following the command of regs and pointed out my own distaste for them. You've begun training battle scenarios with another enhanced clone. And now you found out that I'm enhanced and have approached me to join your little outings. Tell me, where else could you be going with this little plan of yours? Certainly not just a fun hobby."
Hunter stared at him for a moment before shrugging.
"I just think it's a shame, don't you? Keeping us locked down here when we could be out there. The longnecks made us to be the best of the best, but then they found out they couldn't control us, so we got stuck here. We wouldn't want to put all their hard work to waste, now would we?"
Crosshair was silent, but internally he couldn't help the jolt of anticipation that ran through him. This could be his opportunity to get out of this pit. He hated the regs, but these clones were like him. Maybe, just this once he would try to follow commands, and maybe they wouldn't just be in his way.
Hunter must have noticed something because he gave a sharp smirk before standing up.
"We use the older training area that got decommissioned. Be there at 0900." He told the other and then walked away, leaving Crosshair to simply stare after him with an odd sense of conflict.