This is based off an amazing piece of art by mr. oddmod on Instagram!
You can find his piece here
it's basically just a cute way of TBB and Omega being siblings and doing what they want, being people instead of bred warriors <3
the artist's permission was asked for before writing this! go check it out!
"Well kid," Wrecker said to the girl perched on his shoulders, "we need to find a way to celebrate. Our mission's is over, we got everyone back safe, and we need to celebrate, but we don't have any Mantell Mix, and I wanna do something more than just eat."
Omega agreed with this. Back at Ord Mantell, you had to earn your food and no guarantees if it was tasty or not. Here, the people were desperate to fatten their beloved guests up and every few hours something delicious to eat would find their doorstep.
"But that's just it, what can we do?" The little girl wondered aloud, as she and Wrecker walked the way back to their home on Pabu. From her perch Omega waved to Hunter and Crosshair standing on the balcony, to which they both raised a hand in reply. Sliding off Wrecker's shoulders, she barrelled into Tech who was busy yapping about a new planet to Phee, not taking his eyes off his datapad. While she picked his datapad up, he pulled her gently to her feet.
Running to her little room, she found her little datapad and began searching for fun ideas to celebrate.
'Snacking, crafting, sightseeing, playing, going for a trip,' Omega rattled off the search results, all the while mentally rejecting them until she found one, and it was so simple she couldn't believe it took her this long to find it.
"Wrecker!" she called for him from the balcony while searching for her big friend among all her brothers and Shep's guests.
"I'm here kid!" he waved a large hand at her.
Sliding down the railing, a habit which always earned her a lecture from Hunter about safety, she dashed to Wrecker. "I found an idea to celebrate!"
"What is it, kid?" Wrecker asked her, excitedly.
Wrecker's mouth flopped open. At first, she feared she had done something wrong, but evidently Wrecker also hadn't thought of it, because the next moment he was grinning and picking her up, striding with speed outta the house, saying, "Good idea, Omega! I knew you'd have something up ya sleeve."
Omega and Wrecker reached the small garden that characterized Shep's house and began thinking of their way to dance.
"Well, I saw Lyana do this way with her friends," and Omega held Wrecker's hands and tried to do it, but she didn't remember the methods correctly and Wrecker was too tall for her to have a dance with.
"Aw, come on kid, let's make our own way," Wrecker bent down, pulled her in a hug and then stood up, twirling her around like an umbrella, then occasionally bringing her close and then just doing random dance moves.
“Kid, ever heard the saying about loth-cats?” Wrecker told her during a spin, and when the wind-ruffled head of blond hair shook in negative, he told her, “they always land on their feet! Remember that!”
Wondering why on Pabu had Wrecker suddenly taken Tech’s duty when he held her straight, counted to three and threw her in the air. She screamed, and somehow managed to flip a whole 360 degrees and landed neatly into Wrecker’s outstretched hands.
“Atta girl!” he roared with glee, and when the shock settled in, Omega wanted one more go, but this time she had an idea.
“This time, when you throw me, give me a short spin,” she told him. Wrecker obeyed and tossed her. At first she simply just jumped and landed neatly on one foot, and as if Wrecker read her mind, he bounced her one more time. Recalling one of her stealth rolling tricks and karate with Hunter, she twirled mid-air, and then rolled such that her hands landed on Wrecker’s, her legs dangling in the air and an upside-down Omega grinning at a beaming Wrecker.
(if anybody wants to see how this is done, you can go search the episode, ‘One Step Forwards, Two Steps Back’ of LEGO Ninjago season 12. Nya and Jay execute this step as their final performance.)
Even though it cannot be called anything else than amateur, Omega didn't care. This was their way of doing things, and this was their little fun time together.
"What were you two doing that day?" Crosshair asked Omega while she was eating a slice of cake for breakfast, Crosshair content with just a cup of tea.
"Who?" Omega couldn't make sense of his immediate question.
Crosshair barely managed not to roll his eyes. "You and Wrecker, that evening in the garden. Been meaning to ask you but-" he shrugged, as if that was explanation enough.
Omega went beetroot red. She could have told anyone else, even Hunter, but telling Crosshair, whose dictionary did not have the word fun, was a bit embarrassing.
"We were dancing. As a way to celebrate all our missions getting completed." She said in a rush, too speedy to feel embarrassed but slow enough for him to understand.
Crosshair raised an eyebrow while sipping his tea, but Omega could have sworn he was smiling against his cup.
"He didn't seem like a good dance partner. Even that reg-" he jerked his head in the direction of Echo's form standing in the kitchen, earning a scowl from him, "can dance better than him."
Omega got a sudden idea. "Can you?"
"What?" Crosshair suddenly snapped to attention while Echo emerged with a cup of coffee, who was now grinning.
"Can you dance?" Omega asked, grinning devilishly.
Crosshair raised both eyebrows. "Do I strike you as a man with the time or interest to dance?"
"Omega, he's lying." Echo chipped in, "Before you came, he was the best dancer in our whole group." He grinned. "You should have seen him dance, Force knows who taught him those moves."
"Crosshair can dance?" Omega, who was only intending to tease him, actually was surprised.
"No I can't - shut up, reg – I never-" Crosshair spluttered.
"Oh, now you are going to dance with me!" Omega squealed, clapping her hands.
"I am not! I got a rifle to clean!"
"Do you want me to show her the time you and Wrecker danced in the Armory, while Tech recorded it?" Echo questioned, thoughtfully rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Or wait," he turned from a reddening Crosshair and giggling Omega in the tracker's direction and yelling with full force, "Hunter! Crosshair is making Omega cry!"
Crosshair facepalmed. Omega was now full on laughing.
"I'll meet you later, run off now," Crosshair whispered to her, while Echo retreated into the kitchen to get more coffee. Before Omega ran outside, she saw Hunter enter, an interrogating look on his face.
Crosshair glared at them while Echo explained the whole scenario and Hunter smiled. "I can now see why you're so civil under Rex, because if you showed your true colours he'd have thrown you out the Venator." He growled at Echo, pointing a bony finger. "What was the point of telling her all that?"
"Fun." Echo said simply. Hunter leaned against the wall, and told Crosshair, "if he wouldn't have told it, I would have told her myself. With the video," he added.
When he heard Echo giggle from the kitchen, he leaned his chair back and before Hunter could comprehend what he was about to do next, he flung four toothpicks in quick succession, all hitting true with Echo shouting, "THAT'S IT! HUNTER, YOU BETTER HIDE HIS TOOTHPICKS BEFORE I TAKE THEM WITH ME!"
"Hello again!" Crosshair, who was sitting alone, cleaning his rifle, jumped at Omega's voice.
"Oh it's you," he said as if to calm himself, and began rubbing vigorously.
"You know, I'm good with secrets. You can trust me!" she plopped herself beside him, getting no reply.
"Aw come on, let's enjoy for once", she begged him, pulling at his sleeve.
"You do realize I'm taller than you are, right?" He said, smirking. "And if you couldn't do a proper dance with Wrecker, I doubt you'll succeed with me."
"Hey, I'm your older sister, so you better listen to me." she scolded him, and Crosshair started at the striking similarity between her way and Hunter's way of admonishing.
"Also, you are like, how shall I put this, malnourished or something, so it would be easier to dance with you," Omega stated, (Wrecker's fat and you're not, Crosshair translated in his head) "and you don't know if we'll succeed if we don't try!" Seeing no fruit, she said, "Stop being so cross, Cross!"
He looked at her. "Did you actually just call me Cross?"
"No, it's just...nobody has called me that in a long time," he admitted, rubbing his hand on his neck. "Alright, you win," he said. "Don't tell anyone, though."
"Echo wasn't kidding," she laughed, while Crosshair began a dance that seemed too complicated but he was making it look easy, while keeping a bored and amused expression on his face. "You really are good at this."
"Not a word of this to anyone, remember?" He said as he pulled Omega's one hand with one arm while pushing the other hand back, guiding her steps with his.
"Yeah, yeah, now let's concentrate on the dancing." She held his hand tighter and began swinging in sync with him.
"This doesn't look one you'd do with the boys," she smirked. "Which girl did you do this with? What's her name? What planet she's from?" she teased him.
"How touching of you to think I'd get interested in girls. If Tech did it doesn't mean I do too."
"But you're here with me."
"You're my sister. You're different."
"So, you don't deny the allegations of having-" she leaned in and whispered dramatically, "a girlfriend? Oh I'll tell Hunter about this!!"
"No, you won't!" and all of a sudden, the slow, steady pace quickened as Crosshair took on a new style, spinning her around and setting her in fits of giggles.
It was dusk by the time they set back home, and she could feel happiness radiate off Crosshair as he held her hand, surprisingly soft and warm.
"It was pretty fun," she laughed, "don't you think?"
"It was," he agreed. "It did me much good...dancing with you. You're pretty good for a kid."
"Who is older than you. Same time tomorrow?"
"Don't push it." But his soft smile told her he wanted to go ahead.
"Where's Echo?" Omega asked as she brought in the tray of tea, setting it on the table and sitting between Hunter and Crosshair.
"Maybe outside. Maybe inside. Don't know, don't care." Wrecker laughed as he stuffed a cupcake in his mouth.
"How touching." Crosshair said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Tech, looking up from his datapad, responded, "the last I saw him, he was near the coast. Said he wanted some time alone."
"I think he meant that for us. He won't mind if you go there," Hunter kindly suggested. "We can clear up after ourselves, you know. Go on, he'll be going back tomorrow night."
Omega skipped, tightened her ponytail and ran outside.
She dashed down at full speed, breaths coming fast, down the hilly Pabu terrain to a lone figure standing at the beach.
"I was wondering when you'd come," Echo said, slowly turning around to face her. "You never do stay still without all of us, don't you?"
"Do you mind me coming here?" she said, shuffling her feet, contemplating if coming down here was a bad decision.
"Not at all. Come, let's sit together." He chose a stone to sit and patted it to gesture her to sit next to him, which she happily obeyed.
"What was life like, with your previous squad?"
"The Domino Squad? Living with them, you don't know the definition of boredom. We were more the dynamo squad, always causing a racket and forcing our sergeants to intervene. And, then having Captain Rex intervene in our rackets when we joined the 501st Legion."
"What are your favourite memories with Fives?"
"Hmm. Going down to 79s, the local bar, after a mission, competing to see who can get drunk the hardest. Me covering up for him while he committed pranks. Us cuddling up at nights when we had nightmares from our stationing at the Rishi moon. Our fist fights, and Fives teaching me newest swear words, him telling tales about all the girls he ever met." Echo grinned.
"Did you two ever dance?"
Echo smiled. "How was your dance that day with Crosshair?"
"Don't change the subject. Did you ever dance?"
"Well, yes. We didn't do it often, but if sometimes we were in a really good mood, or if we saw a unique dance, or if Captain Rex wasn't around, we'd dance, sometimes with Jesse or Hardcase or Kix joining too."
Echo gave her a side-eye. "You know, when I used to dance, I wasn't half metal for a start, and I had both arms."
"I can catch myself when I fall." Omega stood up, holding her tiny left hand out for him to stand up. "Let's do it. Dunno when you're coming next time to visit, so we'll do it now."
"OK, OK, you're the boss. Force knows Fives would've loved you." He stood up. "This one is the first ever dance I did with Fives."
He held out a hand, and using his scomp link, pulled Omega closer. "Now look here, you put both your feet on mine. Like this," and he guided her to put her little feet over Echo's boots. To avoid him discomfort, she took her shoes off.
"Now, hook both your hands over my neck and just move with me." he made a necklace of her hands over his neck and with his scomp link held out to keep her from falling, began slow dancing, smiling softly at her while she giggled and copied his movements.
"It must be real fun doing this with Fives," she sighed.
"It was," Echo agreed. "You make a good dance partner too. Maybe I'll do more with you."
"Can we do it now?" Omega asked, eager to make most of their time left.
"Of course. Let's see now, which style can we do next?"
"All right, truth or dare?" Hunter asked Omega as the bottle turned in her direction, all the boys grinning at her.
It was just another simple, peaceful afternoon on Pabu, where Wrecker and Crosshair first started a dare challenge at breakfast over who can fling the fork and turn all the switches on in one fling (which Crosshair won, of course).
Then Omega decided to join in with her addition of 'truths', and finally Hunter decided to let his Sergeant title loose for a day and while he first sat down with them to 'make sure nobody literally loses their heads, not gonna play," he eventually joined in when he succumbed to peals of laughter on seeing Crosshair do the dare of calling Echo to tell him Tech's proposed to Phee, which earned a rather angry and indignant shout from Tech that "I'M NOT MARRYING YET!"
Even though they requested Tech to join for once, he, in an air of dignity, said no. "If the sensible one lost his mind," he said, pointedly glaring at a snickering Hunter, "then I think it's rather obvious I should remain sane."
Tech was immediately punished for his refusal because now everyone was choosing dares and most of the dares revolved around Tech. For example, Hunter had to sneak up and take off his goggles, or Wrecker had to throw Tech and Crosshair had to catch him, which he failed spectacularly at.
It was a marvel to Omega why he didn't swear or show his anger except just giving them his annoyed stare and going to work. AGAIN.
"What will it be?" Wrecker boomed at her.
"Dare." Even though she had no secrets to hide from her brothers which made the truth choice easier and safer, she still loved doing dares with them and seeing their funny side come out.
Hunter and Crosshair whispered to each other, Wrecker using hand gestures to give his ideas, and finally Hunter gave his verdict.
"Go and ask Tech how to do a waltz."
"A what?" Omega asked, confused, while Wrecker clapped his saucepans of hands with glee.
"Go ask him what's a waltz. W-A-L-T-Z." Crosshair spelled out for her, and when he saw her confused face, he smiled. "Go ask him, we'll tell you why we gave you this."
Omega trotted up, feeling three heads crane behind her to see the technical brother's reaction as she walked to him. "Tech, can you tell me how to do a waltz?"
Tech froze from his work, glanced up at her, looked over his shoulder and said, "Of course, Omega. Get me a partner for that first."
"Ain't coming." All three yelled at the same time.
"Alright then." Tech stood up and threw his wrench, which hit Wrecker in the chest as the other two ducked. "As for you, Omega," he bent to her height and whispered, "if you really want to know what is it, meet me at sundown at the coast."
"Now tell me what's the reason?" she crossed her arms at her taller brothers.
"When we were cadets," Hunter began, "Tech suddenly developed an interest in cultures, and used to search everything, even their dances. One day I and Crosshair had to stay out for extra practice-"
"You mean detention for another fist fight with regs because they picked on me," Wrecker snorted.
Hunter gave a face that said 'really, Wrecker?', and while Wrecker shrugged at him and punched his shoulder with brute force, Crosshair leaned forward and spoke in her ear, "he wanted to have a perfect impression on you, but alas, we're Clone Force 99. You can't expect us to be role models in manners. That's not our enhancement."
While Crosshair high-fived the large clone, the sergeant carried on, with the nastiest side-eye, followed by the eye-roll of the century at them two boys, "and when we both entered the barracks, we saw Tech, while sleeping, dancing. We'd heard enough of his info dumps to know it's a waltz, and when we shook him awake, poor man didn't even know why he was standing with his arms in front of him.
"Crosshair had recorded him, and despite his protests, he did not delete the video, but did him the favour of not showing to anyone else. Except Echo. We always ask him who was he dancing with."
"Now I think it was his pirate girlfriend," Crosshair mock-whispered.
Omega didn't understand what a waltz was, but by the way they talked, it evidently meant it was some sort of dance. Now she must go to the coast with him!
Omega wanted to reprimand them, but couldn't stop the smile spreading on her face as she spun the bottle, this time again stopping on her.
"I see you really want to know what a waltz is," Tech said, pulling his goggles on his nose.
"Well, as you might have noticed, it's a sort of dance. I believe they might have told you of the backstory of this lame joke." He raised an eyebrow as a punctuation mark, to which she nodded.
"Well, I'll do this just with you."
"Has Phee done it yet?" Omega blurted out, feeling herself go dark red.
"I have no clue if she's found anyone to do it yet with her," he answered, swerving smoothly from the actual answer she wanted. Darn it.
"Alright, so you put your left hand on my right forearm," he placed her hand, and gently guided her right hand, "and I hold your other hand in mine. See? Now I play this soft music in my datapad, and then I pull or push you and you move with me. Clear enough?"
He turned the music on and then off they were.
Dancing with Wrecker was wild fun, Crosshair was at first caution than a moment of happiness, a dance with Echo was more like a moment of learning, but Tech was more serene. Calm, collected. Absorbing the nature.
They didn't speak as they kept on waltzing, the sun setting behind them and lighting them with a pink glow, setting the water on gold fire.
She did not have the heart to interrupt this precious moment, where the most reserved brother was opening up in a unique way to her, just for her. The little smile that adorned Tech's face was something she'd give anything to see every day.
They kept on like this, hand in hand, relishing the company of each other.
Omega stood on Shep's house's balcony, looking over the jubilant people in vibrantly coloured dresses dancing and having the time of their lives in the party arranged by Shep for the whole of Pabu island.
Tonight was the Blossom Festival, which was celebrated fifteen nights after the first white flower bloomed in the weeping maya tree in front of the Archium. The whole city was decorated with flowers and glittering lights, while every person from the youngest baby to the oldest man was wearing new, brightly coloured clothes.
Omega stood there, smiling softly. She had managed to avoid her brothers' eyes, or in Ventress's words, "the overprotective shadows" who were focused on letting her have the fun instead of them. It had taken a lot of convincing that she'll be with Lyana and they can go off their own, which thankfully they listened to.
She had a lot of fun that night, and she loved seeing her brothers actually enjoy something. They deserved it, all right.
She was tired now because of the fever that she'd managed to hide long enough for them to go, but the boys were down there and she did not want to disturb them, not when she was laughing seeing Crosshair and Wrecker dance.
"I thought you said you'd be with Lyana?"
She whipped around to see Hunter leaning against the wall, scrutinizing her, and arms crossed in his signature style.
"It looks fun from up here." She tried to distract him, while turning back to the view below. "Why aren't you down there?"
"The question is, why aren't you down there having fun?" he leaned on the balcony next to her.
She needed to formulate an answer quickly. If she said she was ill, he'll have her go to bed immediately and call the rest up for her sake, or if not, he'll leave the fun and stay with her, which was the last thing she wanted to do.
So she sighed and made up a lie. "Lyana is busy with her father making sure everything's all right, and she's not letting me do anything," she said slowly, "so I'm bored. I wanna dance with someone, but everyone's got a partner, and I don't wanna disturb anybody because of me."
"Everybody in our squad has had their dance. When do I get mine?"
Omega's neck cricked with the force she turned back. "What?" she said, hoping her voice didn't betray the surprise and glee she felt over Hunter, the strict sergeant, asking her for a dance.
"I'm surprised Crosshair hasn't told you I can be a good partner." He extended his hand out to her. "Just this one time, because you're looking extra beautiful tonight."
Omega raised an eyebrow, to which he said, "Well, I guess that's a no then," faking disappointment.
Omega snatched his hand at the last moment. "On the contrary, Sergeant, you're on."
In the beginning, Hunter formed a belt and looped his hands behind her, since she was nearly reaching to his chin level, slowly twirling her around as she giggled, enjoying this moment, and letting him lead her movements.
All of a sudden, the music below sped up. Hunter seemed to notice the change and then he freed his hands from behind her, and held them out for her to hold on to.
“I heard that on some planets, on a wedding, the bride has a dance with her father,” Omega told him with a naughty smile, and by the way he grinned slowly she could see her meaning sink in.
“I assure you, we have enough time to practice for that. Anyways, you won’t be getting married until I declare you’re old enough, so count another five years.”
“You don’t even let me talk to a boy.”
“Every time we’ve met a boy he’s been pretty nasty to me, so I’ll be the judge of who you meet, and relax, with Crosshair now, you’ll get plenty of chances, he’s always ready to break my rules” he winked and gestured towards his outstretched hands.
Following the beat that boomed from below, Omega held Hunter's hands as they both first moved in accordance back and forth, one step forward then one step back, all the while keeping their eyes anywhere but on each other's faces out of shyness, but then Hunter broke apart one hand, and raised it above her head.
Getting the indication, she let her hand high and spun under it, a laugh escaping her, the tiredness and fever all forgotten.
"You really are a natural at this," Hunter grinned at her, as he suddenly extended the hand holding her hand outwards and with the other free one, spun her with all force and before she could fall, not with dizziness but from nearly losing her balance with shock and laughs, he put one hand behind her and held her steady, again looping one arm around her and holding the other one out, slowly moving again to dance.
"Was there ever any doubt?" she laughed, happiness and thrill etched on her face. "Ready for round two?"
