22 BBY, Month 5
Hunter
Hunter knew letting Crosshair fight Ry was a bad idea, but he hadn't expected this.
Crosshair stood there, waiting to make the headshot as Ry was on her knees, determination set on her brow.
"Do you surrender?" Crosshair said, lifting the gun to aim. Ry just sat there, shaking her head slowly. A pained look crossed her eyes before they snapped up to meet Crosshair's gaze.
Hunter felt it coming before it happened.
Ry raised her hand up to reach out towards Crosshair. "Let me in," came Rylann's stern voice right as the blaster came from the gun.
Hunter's hairs stood up on his arms.
Before he could react, a loud crack echoed throughout the room as an invisible force blew him and his brothers back from the training circle.
Hunter's ears rung, his vision hazy as he looked up at the scene before him. Ry was in still kneeling on the ground at the mercy of the bolt, but her eyes were closed.
But the bolt did not hit her. It was frozen in air, held back by an invisible force. Chills ran down Hunter's spine. He hadn't realized that Jedi could hold back blaster bolts.
Hunter's eyes drifted to his Crosshair who was crumpled on the floor, eyes closed. The same pained look on his face donned Ry's, and Hunter had the eerie feeling that whatever was happening was all connected.
Tech stood up beside Hunter, adjusted his goggles, mouth agape. And that was something for Tech. He never showed his amazement on his face. "Impossible."
"Are they okay?" Wrecker asked, worry etching itself across his round face.
Hunter frowned, unsure of what to do. "I don't know. I think we should wait it out."
"Should we move them from the line of fire?" Tech asked, turning to Hunter. Hunter didn't know what to do. He hated not knowing what to do. He was supposed to have a plan for everything, but dealing with a Jedi and their magic powers was never something he could have dreamed up in cadet training.
"Yeah," Hunter finally said, slowly approaching Ry's figure. The air closer to them was static with electricity and felt heavy. Stiff. He didn't like it at all. He put his arms under Ry's shoulders, dragging her to the side only for her to snap awake and flail in his arms, screaming.
"Leave him alone! Leave him alone!" She cried out, tears forming in her eyes as she thrashed in his arms.
"Shh, it's okay," Hunter whispered, holding her close to keep her limbs from hitting him.
She finally calmed down, breaths slowing. Ry seemed to come to reality as her eyes drifting from Crosshair on the floor up to the floating blaster bolt. Her face paled. "I did this."
"Yeah, you did," Hunter said, trying to make light of the situation.
Rylann was visibly shaking. "I saw," Ry paused, biting her lip as her face contorted. "I saw pain. His pain. His memories."
Hunter looked between her and Crosshair. "You mean you saw in his mind?"
Ry's lip trembled. "Yes." She licked her lips. "They were going to hurt him."
"Who?" Hunter asked, watching as Tech and Wrecker were trying to wake up their fallen brother. He was starting to feel worry flicker within him.
"The Kaminoans," Rylann muttered, staring at Crosshair's crumpled figure. "They said he was too defective and needed to fix him."
Hunter furrowed his brows at her statement. "The Conformation Exercises?" He vaguely recalled Crosshair having to go to the meetings a few times over the course of their cadet training, but his brother never talked about it to him.
"It was a torture droid, Hunter." Ry's voice was barely above a whisper but it sounded like an explosive in his ear.
Hunter's heart dropped to his stomach. Crosshair had never told him this. They used torture devices to make him more compliant? Anger billowed through Hunter's veins like a fire. How dare they touch his vod like that. His brother.
Before he could say anything, Crosshair groaned behind him, bringing his attention to the present. Hunter stood up, helping Rylann to her feet as she wiped tears from her eyes. He glanced at the padawan at his side, eyeing her to make sure she was alright. "Does he know you know?"
"No clue," was her blunt reply as she watched Tech and Wrecker help the fallen brother up. Hunter could feel her heart racing and knew this was affecting her a lot more than she let on. For a jedi, she had a lot of emotions, or rather, she actually wore them on her sleeve. Hunter liked that though. He didn't feel like she was self-righteous compared to the other jedi he had met. Not that he met more than a couple.
Hunter diverted his attention to Crosshair, who's hand rested on his greying head of hair. The tall brother looked at Rylann and Hunter could feel Crosshair's heart quicken. With a shriek of sound and light, the floating blaster bolt finally unfroze, smacking some old panel behind Hunter and Ry.
"What happened?"
"We need to get you to the medbay," Tech said, tilting Crosshair's head to the side. "There is a chance you got a concussion."
Crosshair and Rylann spoke simultaneously.
"I'm fine."
"I'll take him."
"You are not doing well, either," Tech stated, gesturing to the red spots she had gotten from the training bolts.
"Good thing we are going to the medbay," Rylann said, shooting Hunter a look for help. She must want to talk to him about what she saw, he thought. Even though he wanted to ask Crosshair himself, he needed to give Cross time. Cross was not an open person and Hunter was all about not crossing boundaries.
"Alright, let us know when you are finished," Hunter said with a nod, gesturing to the door. "Don't have too much fun."
【 ⌖ 】
Rylann
The walk down the corridor was silent besides the steps of their feet. Rylann glanced at Crosshair from the corner of her eye, not able to tell how he was feeling. The only time she got anything from him, she ended up knocking the both of them out and freezing a blaster bolt in the air.
Rylann was terrified. She didn't even know the force could hold things in the air like that. She didn't even know she could do that.
"If you have something to say, just say it," Crosshair said, a sour look donning his lips.
Rylann's shoulders fell. "What do you remember?"
Crosshair frowned, pushing his bottom lip out in thought. "We were fighting, per usual, and I was winning, per usual,"
Rylann scoffed, looking up at him, her braid whipping around her shoulder. "Can you just be serious for one second?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "As much as I like to banter and get totally roasted, I kind of want to talk about something I saw."
"The blaster?" Crosshair asked, looking at her from the side of his eye as they turned down another hallway. "That was crazy you did that." He paused, smirking. "Didn't know you had it in you."
Me either, she thought. "It's not that," Rylann admitted, feeling sheepish energy racing through her veins like a current. "I—I learned from my master how to anticipate moves from opponents, but when I tried to do it on you, it didn't work."
Crosshair frowned, eyes narrowing. "Of course it didn't. I've put those walls up on purpose."
Now Ry knew why. "It's because they tried to fix you, right?"
Crosshair halted in his steps, grabbing her arm to make her face him. "You saw that?"
Rylann wanted to cry. So many emotions washed over her. This time she didn't even have to try to feel how he was feeling. Uncovered, privacy violated—she hadn't meant for this to happen. "I didn't mean to—"
Crosshair let go, a pained look crossing over his deep brown eyes. "I'd appreciate it if you never did that again."
"I swear," she whispered softly, watching his stoic face from the side.
For a moment, they just stood there, until Crosshair once again took long strides toward the elevator. Once Rylann caught up, they boarded together, standing in silence.
"A month ago... that's when the last one happened, right?" Rylann asked out of the blue.
Crosshair didn't even look her way. "That was the first time in a year."
Ry wanted so bad to reach out and comfort him, but she knew he wouldn't appreciate it. "How do you get through it? They obviously aren't changing you at all."
"I focus on my brothers when they do the...tests," Cross said after a moment's pause. He glanced at Rylann, jaw clenching. "And then I fake it. They think I'm the best rule-follower there is, but in all honesty, their experimenting has led to nothing but the scars that remain."
Rylann spotted a scar beneath his eye, wondering if that came from the experiments. "Do your brothers know?"
"No."
"That's a heavy weight to carry by yourself."
Crosshair glared at her. "You're in a talkative mood."
"Better than letting it all fester inside," Rylann retorted. Why can't he just open up to her?
"Why are you here?" Cross asked suddenly, turning to her as the elevator shook from the torrent winds outside. "Why did you come with me? To gloat? To 'figure me out' like everyone else?"
Rylann felt as if she got slapped in the face. "I just want to be your friend, Cross," she whispered, looking him in the eye. "But you're making it hard—" She paused, chuckling dryly. "Well, I am not helping either. I'm not too good at relationships, if you can't tell—" Rylann gestured down to her padawan robes. "Jedi."
Crosshair just looked at her. "I don't want you to befriend me out of pity."
"I want to be your friend regardless of what you have been through," Rylann said. "And maybe I am trying to figure you out, but it's because I want to know how you work because I want to spend time with you when you're not a grumpy butt."
Crosshair chuckled, looking down. "You're such a toddler."
"You're the one who pouts all the time and crosses your arms in a corner," Rylann said with a laugh.
"Now which is it?" Crosshair asked, a small smirk growing on his lips. "Am I Gramps or a toddler?"
Before Ry could answer, the elevator screeched to a halt. "Uh oh," she whispered, clicking the buttons. "This isn't the right floor."
"Not the storms again," Crosshair sighed, sitting down as if making himself comfortable.
Rylann spun to face him. "This is a recurring event?"
Crosshair shrugged, pulling out a toothpick from his belt to chew on. "Only on these older lifts during bad storms."
"So, all the time then," Rylann replied, groaning. "How long does it last?"
"Usually someone notices within thirty minutes and helps," Crosshair said, rolling the toothpick with his tongue. He looked up at her, a mischievous glint in his brown eyes. "Or we can click the alarm button and wake everyone in this tower up."
"Uh, let's not," Rylann shuddered at the idea of explaining to everyone why they were heading to the medbay. She was already dreading the explanation there and didn't want to tell the clone vine the latest rebellious Jedi gossip.
She looked up, spotting the hatch up top of the lift. She grinned, using the force to open it. Crosshair took out his toothpick, tossing it at her head as he stood up.
"Didn't know you were the adventurous type," he said, grinning. She could feel excitement swelling within him.
"Didn't know you were the littering type," Rylann said, brushing the toothpick off of her shoulder.
Crosshair shrugged. "You're the one who wanted to get to know me."
"Alright, hotshot," Rylann said, eyeing the hatch. "Can you take care of yourself, or do you want to be carried?"
Crosshair scoffed, leaping up to grab the ledge of the hatch, pulling himself up in one swift movement. Rylann flushed. She forgot that he and his brothers trained, too. She'd have to learn what they were doing because she could not do a full pull-up. She could barely hold onto the ceiling beams earlier during the first fight.
Using the force, Ry jumped up, floating down beside Cross as gracefully as she could. She spotted the numbers of the floors in faded paint on the walls. They needed to go up a couple more floors.
"I'll ask once more," Rylann started, a smirk growing on her face. "Do you need help?"
Cross looked up, jaw clenching. "Maybe," he finally said. "I don't have my gear on me."
Rylann in a swift movement, scooped Cross off of the ground and dropped him simultaneously. "Dude, why are you so heavy?"
Crosshair shot Rylann a look. "I only eat soup, I'm not that heavy." Crosshair jumped to his feet, rubbing his back. "And besides, that's not the help I was thinking of. Now my back hurts as well as my head."
"Boohoo," Rylann stated, force jumping up to the next floor and the next one. "This is the one. Do you know how to open it?"
"I do, but I'm unfortunately still down here," Cross's voice echoed up to Ry as she steadied herself on the small platform. The metal beam in front of the elevator door was only big enough for her to fit her feet on. Trying not to think about it, Ry looked down at the clone whose arms were crossed, per usual.
"Get ready for a lift," Rylann called down, using the force to throw him up to her. He let out a scream, arms flailing as he slammed into a wall beside her, luckily grabbing onto the beam at her feet.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Cross asked, pulling himself up beside her.
"We'll work on it later," Rylann said, trying to scoot over to give him more room. Instead, she lost her balance, about to fall off the beam, but Crosshair firmly grabbed hold of her, pulling her close to him to steady her.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Rylann looked up to thank him, but stopped short at how close they were. His face was towering over her, his brown eyes searching hers. "Are you alright?" he asked, voice softer than usual.
"Oh, you know," Rylann said, voice cracking as she carefully slid from his arms. "Almost dying and stuff." She paused, hoping she wasn't red. "Thanks, by the way."
"Course," was all he said as he turned to the panel on the side of the doors, starting his work on this.
Rylann was amazed at his proficiency working with the wiring. "How often do you do this?"
Crosshair kept his eyes on his work, but his voice was welcoming. "My brothers and I would use unused or broken lift tunnels to practice grappling and panel mechanics."
"What battlefields are you guys planning on taking?" Rylann asked with a laugh.
"We are training to be a special unit for covert missions and not-so-covert," Crosshair stated, almost sounding like Tech with his matter-of-fact tone.
"Oh," Rylann stated, surprised. She had just thought that they would be sent to the frontlines like the rest of the clones. Then their special enhancements made sense. Were the enhancements on purpose?
The door opened with a hiss and Rylann tumbled into the corridor. Crosshair was right behind her, steadying her before she could fall on her face. "Come on, there's a medbay this way."
Rylann highly doubted they needed to go, since they achieved such a great feat. Then as she thought about it, she realized that she force slammed Cross into a metal wall and she almost fell down two stories. Yeah, a check-up would be nice.
................................
A/N:
I know that Hunter is supposed to have a tattoo, but since this is before the missions start, he's yet to get the tattoo.
Also, this is what Wrecker looks like in my mind pre-accident.
Except, curlier hair.