Four commandos were left helplessly waiting in the comforting confines of the Marauder's cockpit. The youngest of them all currently sat in her room and literally had to push her brothers out whenever they tried to take a peek. 

Hunter sighed for the tenth time. "What could she be doing in there?" He said in an impatient tone. The Sargent began to pace back and forth within the cockpit, much to the dismay of the others. Tech rolled his eyes, having enough of the sound of Hunter's consistent patter of feet on the metal floor, reached out and pulled Hunter down to the vacant seat beside him. 

"What was that for?" Hunter pulled his hands back in protest. "Well, Omega certainly does not want to be bothered, so all we can do is wait." The slicer began to say, "Also, it is quite common for an adolescent female to want her own space. It is actually quite obvious." Immediately three grumbles echoed in the cockpit. "Why can't you just say "teenager" or "kid"? Like a normal person?" Echo whined. 

"Because he needs to show us how much of a genius he is." Hunter teased before Tech could reply. Wrecker cheered and Echo chuckled, knowing it to be true. "That's not true. I don't need to let people know that I'm a genius!" Tech retorted. Echo smirked and gave Tech a questioning look "You sure about that, Techie?" 

Now it was clear within the five that resided in the Havoc Marauder that 'Techie' was not a nickname to be used lightly, or at least in front of Tech. If you did, Tech wouldn't hesitate to turn the whole ship upside down with his mental fury. Hunter and Wrecker's face contorted and several ' oooh's ' trailed behind. From behind the lenses of Tech's goggles, Echo could see Tech's eyes narrow into slits. "You did not just call me that." Tech challenged.

This frustration only fueled Echo, "Didn't hear me? Maybe I should be a little clearer, Tec..hie." Scarlet washed over Tech's cheeks. He reached his hands up and removed his helmet, things were about to get serious. 

Meanwhile, Omega was making some final touches to the little gifts she had been working on. Problem was, she could not find a moment of silence to finish it in secret. It was either Hunter coming to her room to check on her because she had been hiding in there the whole day, or Tech coming to quiz about scrambling a ship signature. 

Though she loved them, she needed some peace and quiet to finish up the final touches to her latest project. It was almost close to completion when a loud shrieking could be heard from the cockpit. "GIVE ME BACK MY HAND, TECH!" ... "I AM NOT A TECHIE!". The young girl squeezed her eyes shut and cringed at the commotion. "WRECKER STOP PLAYING MONKEY WITH ECHO'S ARM!" Hunter ordered. 

"Here Echo Echo Echo!" Tech cooed as he sat perched on Wrecker's shoulders, waving Echo's robotic hand like bait. Echo was fuming like an angry Loth cat. "Well, if this is how you want to play it..." Echo sneered and backed up to Tech's latest tinkering. "I guess I'll have to figure out how to play with this...uhm, thing." He waved the object around in the air. Tech scoffed, "You wouldn't." 

"Bold of you to assume I wound not." Echo challenged. Tech began to calculate his plan. "Hunter says you cant." He nodded towards the tired Sargent slumped on the chair, watching the entire scene unfold. "I am NOT going to be dragged into this." 

Tech was not giving up so easily. "Maybe I should show everyone the picture I caught of you without your bandana!" Hunter's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he begged Tech to reconsider. "Not unless you get Echo to put my tinkering down." 

Hunter turned to Echo desperately, "Please don't do this." Echo shook his head, "Not unless you get Tech to put down my arm." Hunter exasperated a sigh. "Gee, wouldn't want to be in your shoes, Sarge." Wrecker laughed. "Then again, I would like to see Hunter without his bandana. "I will personally see to your demise." Hunter threatened. "I'll be your demise! If Echo doesn't put my tinkering down!" Tech sneered from his shoulder throne. Echo chuckled darkly, "Hunter if he gives me back my hand, I'll put his precious down." 

"How about a truce?" Hunter suggested, gaining the attention of his brothers. "Wrecker you put Tech down, then Echo and Tech exchange their items peacefully, and no one sees my picture. Deal?" The three clones exchanged cautions of looks before nodding in tense silence. Wrecker carried Tech off his shoulders and set him down. Echo stepped forwards with Tech's project. "We swap on three." Tech peered at Echo through his goggles. "Agreed." 

Tense silence passed as Wrecker and Hunter watched the exchange from a safe distance. Hunter rooting for the exchange to go peacefully, assuring the safety of his dignity while Wrecker munched nervously on some mantell mix. Tech's project was safely passed into his hands as Echo's arm was returned but the two clones were now having a staredown. "I see you have your precious back." Tech nodded slowly, "Yes, and you have your arm." Both commandos began to back away from each other and after a few moments, things seemed to have calmed. Hunter finally let go of the breath he was holding, "I'm glad that's over." Wrecker cheered, slapping Hunter on his back. "Yeah. Thanks, TECHIE!" 

Tech let out an inhuman screech and he launched himself onto Echo, pulling him down in a headlock. Echo flailed around and dropped to the floor. Hunter was in utter shock at the turn about that he didn't notice Echo's hand reaching for his leg. With one yank Hunter was pulled to the floor and into the fray. "GET OF ME!" Hunter fought his way out of the clone pile. The fight ceased, three clones starred eyes wide at the Sargent. "Woah.... Hunter has a huge forehead." Wrecker roared. 

"That's is it!" The Sargent launched himself at Wrecker and tackled him onto the floor, unfortunately squishing Echo and Tech beneath. The four brothers were now having a battle royale within the Marauder, which resulted in Echo's mechanical hand flying off him and into Omega's room. The boys gasped as they heard the angry marching of an adolescent female's footsteps nearing them. Tangled up in a pile, they managed to see Omega's disgruntled face looking down upon them. "Care to tell me what's going on?" She asked emotionlessly as she waved Echo's mechanical arm around. "Uhm, we were having a..." Hunter stared hopelessly at his sister. "A debate. We were having a debate." Tech tried to make a save. Omega hummed uncontently. "A debate that made Echo's hand miraculously fly into my room?" 

"It was a debate on whether Echo's hand could be used as a boomerang." Wrecker gave her a nervous smile. "And I assume to also find out how Hunter looks without his bandana?" Hunter's face reddened as Omega took notice, "That was not supposed to happen." 

"Right. So, I'm going to go back into my room and I hope this debate is over." The four clones nodded hurriedly, embarrassed from having their sister catch them in a mini-battle. "You're done with your secret project?" Tech asked from the floor. "I would've if someone's hand didn't smack me in the face." She replied and Echo grinned cheekily. "Anyways, can I have my arm back?" "Nope." Omega deadpanned. "What? Why not?" Echo grumbled. "Because I need some insurance that you guys won't fight." Hunter sighed, "Isn't it kind of unfair to take his arm?" Omega thought for a moment then nodded and proceeded to pick up Hunter's bandana from the floor. "Good idea. More insurance the better." The Omega proceeded to collect Tech's precious tinkering and Wrecker's mantell mix. She smiled sweetly at her brother's before hopping up to her room with her insurance. "Well, that was helpful." Echo kicked Hunter's leg. Wrecker hummed, "At least we got to see Hunter without his bandana." Hunter glared daggers at his vod. "I'm going to haunt your nightmares." 

Once again, four commandos -severely defeated by the sister, commandos- were left helplessly waiting in the comforting confines of the Marauder's cockpit. The youngest of them all currently sat in her room and literally had to collect a form of insurance from her brothers so that their endless bickering would not distract her from her secret project. Biting her tongue, Omega finally glued the last googly eye to her creation. With a happy cheer, she hopped down the ladder of her room and greeted the four commandos. 

"Close your eyes..." She hopped excitedly. Hunter, Tech, Echo and Wrecker complied. Giggling, she bounced on her heels as she arranged her secret surprise she was working on, as well as retrieving her insurance from earlier. "Alright, you can open your eyes." In the middle of the cockpit, sat four plush tooka dolls, coloured red and black. Each having a particular feature of the four batchers. "Echo, your doll has a handprint on it like your armour. Wrecker, your tooka has your helmet design on its head. Tech's tooka has goggles, and Hunter's has a red bandana painted on." Omega gathered the four tooka's and waved them around, their googly eyes shaking at the momentum. Four clones sat speechlessly. "What do you think?" 

"Yeah HA HA! That looks like my Lula!" Wrecker beamed as he approached Omega and reached for his tooka, carrying Omega into a hug before releasing her. She walked up to the other three and passed them their tooka, which they carried ever so gently. "This is what you were up to?" Echo grinned, running his good hand on the handprint on his tooka. "It's wonderful." He reached up and fist-bumped Omega. "It is indeed a marvellous creation, but we are not exactly tooka," Tech said as Omega passed him his doll. Peering down at the doll, he could not help but smile and his sister's creation. "Might just become an inventor like me." Finally, she approached Hunter, who was already looking at her with a prideful grin. "Didn't know we had an artist in the house. How did you even manage this?" Omega shrugged her shoulders, "I just did it." She sent him the same smirk. Hunter chuckled, "Come here, kid." He opened his arms and pulled Omega into a much-needed hug, holding her like the precious gem she is. 

"Oh, and your stuff are there on the table." She shimmied out of Hunter's hug and pointed at the table. "Ah, my arm!" Echo smiled. "Thanks, ad'ika." The boys marvelled at their new gifts, Wrecker already infatuated with his new tooka. Omega returned to her room to clear things up. Taking some coloured wrapping paper, she carefully wrapped one last tooka that she had made. This tooka was like the others, except it was slightly skinnier than the others. This tooka had the same colour scheme as the bad batch, and, it also had a crosshair tattoo over its eye. Omega smiled proudly at the last tooka. Wrapping it up ever so gently and placing it near her pillow. She grabbed her tooka, Lula, and laid down to rest. "When you come back, you'll have a tooka too." She smiled at the crosshairs tattooed tooka before heading off into dreamland.

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AND I'M BACK!!!!!! I am finally back to writing and it's been TOO long. Honestly, I think I've lost touch with writing. I haven't been able to update any of my books because of a very short and stressful semester. These past two months were absolutely stressful because I was not expecting a short semester and each subject I took had about two assignments, I had five subjects and I just finished the submissions/presentations of the second assignment and I'm just relieved that is all over. I just have my finals left so I'm taking today off and going to be back at studying again for my finals. I'm just really worried this semester because I'm still quite stressed out. I'm rolling out the slightly unimportant subjects that are mostly simple theory and slimmed it down to two of the most important subjects. I just really really pray I can get through it. The beginning of the semester didn't go too well cause I had to retake two quizzes. The retakes were much better but because of the initial quiz, I was quite bummed out cause I was expecting better and my whole morale and behaviour just crashed. Thank God though I'm much better now and back to my old self. 

Updates are going to come back, feel free to leave me some prompts or ideas. I need some stress relief and writing is a golden therapy for me. Otherwise, thank you guys for being sooo patient with me. I swear all my books are dead and I need to revive them. Thanks soo much for hanging on with me and I hope you enjoyed this Bad Batch Short.