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"How are you so good at this?!"
99 did not look smug. He looked extremely smug. His four cadets were lined up behind him, occasionally peeking out from behind his legs to stare at the confused and exhausted three in front of their caretaker. Despite the claims from the Kaminoans that 99's boys were "deviant," "uncontrollable," and "unstable," they appeared docile. Admittedly, the longnecks weren't exactly reliable when it came to emotions, but literally everything they'd heard about the so-called defective batch implied a Null-esque mental state.
Seventeen rubbed the bite mark on his arm, cursing deranged cadets with sharp teeth and brothers who could control them but wouldn't tell how they did it. "Mine keep trying to kill me!"
That was only a slight exaggeration. Rex and Cody enjoyed trying to drive him to a nervous breakdown, and there were only so many times he could threaten to kick their asses Walon Vau-style and not follow through.
"I doubt that's actually true."
Before Seventeen could protest that it was, in fact, true, and he needed to know 99's secret, Fordo interjected. "Howzer chased me with a machete for ten minutes straight! I don't even know where he got the machete!"
"Mine won't stop hiding in the vents!"
There was a moment of silence as everyone turned to look at Maze with expressions that communicated utter disdain.
Their twenty-sixth brother bristled. "Blackout jumped out in Priest and Reau's quarters. You don't get to judge until you've crawled on all fours into those two's rooms to retrieve a cadet who has no idea he'll end up dead if they come back early."
A collective wince rippled around the room. Everyone had a nightmare story about those particular trainers, especially 99, and the idea of one of the cadets being anywhere near them was as disturbing as biting until blood came or machete-chasing. There were already enough irreparably traumatized troopers as a result of their "methods."
Picking up on the tension, one of 99's boys decided to interrupt by breaking the wall. Breaking in this case meant pressing his hand to the sterile white surface until it crumpled in on itself like flimsi. The noise was impressive.
"Oh, Wrecker," 99 said semi-reproachfully. "Mistress Se told you it wasn't okay to do that."
The cadet, already taller than his caretaker, gave a gap-toothed grin. "'S funny!" His chubby face was beaming with uncomplicated joy.
It sort of was, but no one wanted to point that out in front of 99.
Their younger brother sighed and patted Wrecker's arm. "I know it is, but the maintenance droids will have to do a lot of work to repair it. Ask permission next time, okay?"
"Okay!"
"Is that how you do it?" Seventeen was all but taking notes.
99 began to shepherd his cadets away. It wasn't anything personal; Nala Se hated having her little project out of the lab for too long. "Try bribing them with candy."
"Where are we going to get candy?" The only word that applied to Maze's expression was befuddled. "That's not on the appropriate requisitions form."
"Skirata has a stash hidden in Training Room '08." One of the other three grabbed 99's arms and shoved his head against his stomach. "It's okay, Hunter. We'll get you to bed."