Lights, immediately, and with absolutely no warning, were flipped on accompanied by the booming voice of Captain Rex, "GOOOOOOOD MORNING BROTHERS!"

It scared Dagger so bad that she flipped over suddenly to try and sit up to see what the noise was. In doing so she quickly ran out of room on her bunk, she fell right off the side and right on to the person getting up from the bunk below her.

"Oh my god Commander, I'm so sorry! I don't know what happened," She quickly explained jumping up off the floor and pulling him up from where he landed when she fell on him.

He rubbed his head, "damn kid you even sleep with the helmet on? Stay on the bunk next time."

"I'm so sorry, it won't happen again sir," she hurriedly explained.

He nodded, "it's ok kid. As you said, don't do it again."

She nodded and started putting on her armor as everyone else was doing. At least she wouldn't look as out of place if everyone was not wearing their armor. Her luck didn't last for long as they all immediately headed to the dining hall. Great, she had no excuse to not eat this time. Her stomach was growling, but she couldn't eat with her brothers, they would find out what she was.

She walked quietly at the back of the group, mind working at warp speed to try and come up with a plan. Just as the endings of one was starting to come up, Echo walked up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders playfully.

"Whats cookin' Dagger? You seem to be thinking awful hard for being this early in the morning," he said.

She felt her stomach drop, she wouldn't be able to enact her plan if she had Echo talking to her. She had two options, either be really invested in the conversation so that way no one would notice she wasn't eating, or she could ignore him and he would go away. With the latter she would have to ignore someone who was just trying to be nice to her. Sure, Echo wasn't doing it in the best way, he was just a bit too much for her demeanor, but he was nice all the same. She just took longer to get used to new people than most clones did.

She just didn't know who to trust if she couldn't even trust herself. From what she had seen of Echo the day before it would be pretty hard to get away from talking to him. So it looked like she wasn't going to be eating much breakfast today.

However as she went through the line, picking up a pear on the way through, she realized that he wasn't so bad afterall. He was actually pretty amusing to talk to and Echo listened intently when she decided to talk. While sitting at the table she kept the pear in front of her and kept the conversation going.

No one said anything about her helmet, even though they had all taken off theirs and had them sitting on the table next to them. None of the other clones even suggested that they noticed, they were too busy asking the new clone all of the questions they could think of. Did you have the same instructor I did when going through training? What section did you do best at? Why are you the only one assigned to us, usually there are at least three at a time? How do you like the ship? All things like that.

She answered all of their questions to the best of her ability. Somethings she just didn't know how to answer and she stayed quiet. When there was only a few minutes left of breakfast she excused herself to go to the bathroom, bringing her pear with her.

Dagger didn't think that anyone noticed her sneaking the food into her pocket as she walked away. She was wrong, as dark brown eyes watched her closely, wondering what Dagger was doing and why she wasn't eating.

When she got to the bathroom she made sure it was empty and locked the door. She ripped off her helmet and felt the cool recycled air on her face. It felt nice to be able to breathe the outside air for once and not have to breathe it through a filter.

After setting the helmet she reached into her pocket and pulled out the pair. Turned away from the small mirror that decorated the bathroom wall she started eating. Her stomach growled loudly as she started to eat. The pear was gone all too soon, she didn't have time to worry about that, she had to get back out to her brothers before they got suspicious.

She adjusted her helmet and walked out of the bathroom, sliding back into her seat silently. Dagger talked with her brothers for a few more minutes until it was time to leave. They had an hour of free time to spare until training started.

After walking out of the dining hall she tried to slink away from the group to go explore the ship, then she felt a hand clap down on her shoulder. Her stomach dropped as she turned around to see Echo standing behind her. Today didn't seem to be a day where she would be getting a break.

"C'mon, let's go exploring," He said smiling before putting on his helmet.

Dagger followed him closely, listening intently as he explained what every part of the ship was. She was trying to commit it all to memory, which was proving to be difficult due to the size of the ship.

Echo kept talking as she listened, not bothering to respond. He would ask her a question every once in a while but she just stayed silent. He didn't seem to mind that she wasn't responding.

Did she want to make friends or did she want to isolate herself so they wouldn't care if they found out? She hadn't figured that out yet, never really had friends during training. The instructors had kept her separate when they could so she hadn't been able to have free time with her brothers. Being allowed to be with Echo was new, she was curious about it. What did her brothers do when they thought no one else was watching? What was it like to be one of them? Would they accept her?

"Yeah, I'd like that," she answered to his latest question, she had made up her mind.

Echo's head nodded, looking at the clone to his side for just a moment longer after he finally got a response. If he wanted to respond, he chose not to, instead just kept on with the conversation that he was having.

The time passed a lot quicker when Dagger had started to talk to him. She found out the best spots to hang out, the best ones for getting away for a moment, even different places to not be at certain times. The latter being anywhere near the Jedi when they were meditating or sleeping. They didn't particularly mind, but it was best to just leave them alone until they called upon you for something, which rarely happened.

"If you ask me, they are magic. Don't get on their bad side, we don't have the kind of power they do and we can't fight them. I've seen them throw boulders the size of twenty brothers like it was nothing with their magic force stuff," he said.

She nodded along with him, thinking about the crazy stories she heard about the Jedi. Could they all be true?

Sooner than the pair had expected their hour of free time was over. Now it was time for training. They slid into the training hangar as Captain Rex started to brief everyone. Everyone was strapping on their armor as they listened to him. They were doing combat practice, hand to hand. After being told to partner up, Dagger turned to Echo to see if they could be partners, but the clone was pulled away by Fives who had already decided that he and Echo would be partners.

Shoulders slumping slightly at the defeat, Dagger looked around for anyone else without a partner. She was starting to realize why clones were assigned to units in groups. Groups of an even number. That's because everything was done in even numbers. And she was, once again, the odd one out.

Before she had to go ask the Captain what she should do he came up to her and said, "You seem to be in need of a partner."

"Yes sir," she responded.

"Well let's get started," he said.

Her eyes darted around from under her helmet. Unsure about what she was supposed to do. There wasn't much of an option anyway. So she fell into a defensive stance and followed along as they went through warm up exercises. Lightly jabbing at each other, never making contact.

Once they were warmed up, they started sparring practice. They would go over a move first, making sure Dagger understood it, then they would execute with the appropriate block from the other person. They had been doing so for only a few minutes when Rex suddenly stopped and took off his helmet. His gaze analyzing Dagger. She stood up straight, knowing better to question what an officer was doing.

"Why are you so short?"

Taken aback she couldn't help the response that came out of her mouth, "excuse me?!"

"I mean like not in a bad way, but why are you so short compared to everyone. How old are you," he asked, amending his first question.

"I'm eight," she answered, scuffing her boot on the floor.

"Training usually ends when we are ten. Got some growing to do don't ya?" he said with a smile.

She nodded, her face covered by the helmet she wasn't good at lying. She was ten like the others, but the Kaminoans put in her record that she was eight to hide the fact that she was so short. Or at least explain away her smaller stature.

The captain put his helmet back on and they started to spar again, as they went along he would give her tips on how to fight a taller opponent. Different stances that weren't necessarily standard procedure, but would be helpful when in battle. If it ever came to hand to hand combat, which usually it didn't. As they usually just shot down everything in their path with blasters. It never hurt to be prepared. That's why they did drills and training.

"I might have you go train with Ahsoka when she comes back, she might be able to give you better tips than I can for fighting bigger opponents," Rex said offhandedly.

Dagger tensed up, "sir, I might be smaller than you but I can fight just as well as you can. I can prove it."

Oh. Rex realized how that must have sounded. Just got to the unit and being told that he needs to get more training, Dagger must have thought that he was being insulted. Rex held up his hands slightly, "I was just thinking out loud. I don't think it's necessary, you are doing fine kid."

Dagger stayed quiet, she didn't like it. She didn't want to need separate training anymore, especially with someone who wasn't a brother. She just wanted to be able to be with her brothers. To be good enough. She didn't notice that she had started to hit harder and move faster than she had been before the short conversation.

Rex was amused at the new kid's anger. That's how all the newbies were, so quick to anger. Dagger didn't even seem to realize that he was getting angry, but it was hard to tell from behind the helmet. The captain just went along with it, responding with strength. If it helped him let out steam then he would fight Dagger, but then he would put him on his ass. It was just how it worked, wasn't to be mean but he always had to end up doing it to all of them at least once. Dagger would have to learn to control his anger somehow and not be quick to upset. Goodness, youngsters were the worst. Why was this brother special? Why was he released to the field a full two years early?

One jab came just a little too close to Rex's face for his liking and he had had enough of the sparr. He hooked his arm under Dagger's extended one, pinning it momentarily. Then he swept his feet from under him and shoved him back to the floor. At least that was the idea.

It would have worked too, had Dagger been normal sized. Instead Dagger went flying back much further than expected and landed on the hard hangar floor instead of on the mat with a thud.