The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

The Domino Batch

"Well, it means I get to hit them back," Crosshair offers, a bit too cheerily, though Cutup can't imagine he feels quite that flippant about it. "But... with your training, maybe you need a weapon change. Have you ever tried fighting with a rifle?"

"Why would I do that?"

"They're much cooler than blasters."

"Hmm," Cutup supplies, "I don't think that's quite the weapon for me but maybe I'll try it out." If only to humor Crosshair because he's kind of adorable. "Now, you'd better be getting back to your barracks before you get in trouble."

Crosshair nods and takes off.

It's probably time Cutup gets back, too.

***

Droidbait's sitting outside the training area, working on trying to patch up his minor injury from the last failed training session, when Wrecker suddenly pops up at his side.

"Hey," the younger cadet says cheerily, then frowns, "What happened to you?"

"We failed our training test," Droidbait replies. He's worried about it, if he's being honest. He doesn't want to get stuck here on maintenance duty or having to go through a whole entire round of training again. But it's not his fault that the rest of his squad doesn't work with each other properly.

"Oh," Wrecker supplies, "Is that gonna be bad?"

"I don't know. I heard we might be allowed to retake it."

Wrecker sits down next to him, looking at the wound. "You want some help?"

"...Sure," he concedes, "Unless you have somewhere else you need to be."

"Not really," the cadet assures, leaning over to help him with it.

It goes faster, at least.

"How'd you get named Droidbait?" Wrecker asks as he works.

"Because I'm always used as droidbait."

"Is that how you got shot?"

"Yeah."

"I'm droid bait all the time for my squad too," Wrecker says, "But that's just cuz I'm bigger so I do it better. I just smash 'em." He looks so proud of himself it's almost cute.

"You smash the training droids?" Droidbait asks, amused. He gets the temptation, but that sounds really painful, actually. How would he not break his fingers? Or arms?

"Yeah." He nods eagerly. "Some of the ones that are kinda like real battle droids. I just smash 'em and use 'em for cover! Like a wrecking ball." He laughs.

"Is that how you got your name?"

He nods. "I was gonna call myself Boom first but my brothers thought it was a bad name."

"Boom?" Droidbait repeats, trying to smother his smile.

"I thought it was nice," Wrecker whines, "Even if I like Wrecker more."

"It's not too bad a name," Droidbait decides, "But Wrecker definitely sounds better."

"How's this?" the cadet asks, finally sitting back as he's finished patching up the rest of the injury.

"Good. Thank you." Droidbait pats his shoulder.

Wrecker grins up at him.

"I hope you have better luck at your test than we do with ours," Droidbait has to add.