They'd reached yet again another dead end if dead ends mean a massive hundred-foot drop of a cliff.

"We can't find any other dead ends, Snips; there are no cliffs this way, Snips," Ahsoka snapped, "well this looks like a dead end and a cliff!"

Anakin pretended not to hear the sniggers that went through the men. "Well, the map states this should be a path, not a cliff!"

Rex approached Anakin, looking at where the man was pointing to on his map. "Sir, try here on the map," he stated, pointing off to the right—locating the cliff, they were stood on.

"So we've been to the right this whole time?!" Anakin screeched.

"Seems so, Skyguy," Ahsoka smiled, "Rex, you seem to know where we are, take the map and lead us out of this maze, we were meant to be on the gunship yesterday."

Anakin huffed as he handed over the map, stepping back to allow the Captain to take charge.

"Alright, we march due west until sunset to make camp, if all goes well, we'll be back in the barracks in no time," Rex ordered as the men all got back to their feet.

-----

"My legs feel like they're going to fall off," Ahsoka grumbled as she ate her rations. "And rations suck."

"You could have hunted one of those beasts we saw not too long ago, sir," Rex pointed out.

"Then we'd have to carry it here," Ahsoka stated, stretching slightly.

"I didn't think you were one to complain to a chance to hunt, sir," Rex commented.

Ahsoka huffed before puffing up at the challenge. She grabbed a small blade from Rex's hand before running off into the forest.

"What's Snips doing?" Anakin asked Rex as he watched Ahsoka disappear into the forest.

"Hunting, sir," Rex answered, "the Commander complained about the rations, and I asked why hasn't she hunted those beasts we ran into a little back."

"You've just set it up so that the others can have meat on top of their rations," Anakin pointed out through slitted eyes.

"The Commander gets what she wants, and it just so happens to be enough meat on those animals for the boys as well. It's a win-win situation, sir," Rex shrugged.

It wasn't long before Ahsoka came back dragging one of the colossal beast, covered in its blood. She sat in front of the fire, skinning the animal before letting Rex deal with the rest.

Rex approached Ahsoka, pulling out a cleaning cloth from a pouch in his belt and giving it to Ahsoka before cutting the beast apart and setting it to cook in the stew he'd started.

"That seemed organised," Anakin stated the statement going through everyone heads.

"You think I carry that much meat each time we have a meat stew?" Rex asked everyone.

"We thought it was pre-made meat stew with how nice it tasted," Fives stated.

"No, Alpha trained us all to cook," Rec stated as he continued to work on the stew, "give Cody fruits and vegetables, and he'll cook you something amazing, Wolffe given meat will leave it almost bloody but amazing, and I seemed to have been the middle ground and worked with both."

Ahsoka came over and sniffed at the meal, her nose wrinkling at the overpowering smell.

"Your's is still over there, sir," Rex stated, pointing to a large chunk of meat away from the fire. "Can you crush up one of the larger bones, sir?"

Ahsoka hummed as she almost disintegrated the bone, before handing it over to Rex on a rock. She turned away, grabbing her meat, and went back to her seat to eat the bloody meat.

Some of the clones felt their stomachs heave as Rex added the bone marrow to the stew.

Rex rolled his eyes at their looks, "bone marrow is healthy for you, goes well in a stew and enhances the flavour. Without the bone marrow, the stew would not taste as good. And the powdered bone is added calcium."

"It's a delicacy in some places," Ahsoka pointed out between bites of her meat.

Rex let it simmer for a while before pointing for the clones to come up with their plates slowly. "The stew is done," Rex stated before dishing out the plates for all the clones.

"This is good, Rex," Anakin stated, demolishing the bowl within seconds.

"Thank you, sir," Rex nodded as he finished filling his bowl.

The clearing was quiet as they all tucked into their food, occasionally broken by a happy noise by one of the clones. The camp started to slow further as more and more men climbed in their shared sleeping tent.

They had about four in total; General, Commander and Captain, ARC, Men. The first three tents were designed for one person, two at most if you didn't like personal space, but the last one could hold fifteen bunks and took six clones to carry.

Soon, it was just Ahsoka and Rex left. The two worked in silence as they cleaned up what the clones had missed.

"Do you think you could run the skin somewhere far, so we don't have an unwanted visitor?" Rex asked with a whisper.

Ahsoka nodded as she picked up the skin before charging into the forest. When she got back, she saw Rex come marching out of their tent looking ready to murder someone. "You alright?" She asked, stopping him from his march.

"Just going to murder some troopers in their sleep," Rex hissed.

Ahsoka made a signal for Rex to stay where he was - igniting a huff from the annoyed Captain - before going to the tent to see why he'd reacted in that way.

Inside the tent, everything was covered in different furs.

Walking out, she approached him, "so what do you want to do about it?" She asked.

"Apart from stunning them and make them carry all the equipment? Nothing else that is allowed by the GAR," Rex growled.

"Well, I saw a pond a little back," Ahsoka offered with a smirk.

"Guess it's good that I never told you Fives hates slimy stuff and Hardcase anything with more than four legs?" Rex smirked back.

"Yeah, shame," Ahsoka sighed, before smirking, "that would have been a perfect piece of revenge."

"I thought revenge wasn't the Jedi way?"

Ahsoka laughed, "guess that's why I'm the Padawan!"

-----

Ahsoka focused as she made the animals float to the desired people. She got the frog-like creature over the top of Fives while getting a giant spider into place with Hardcase. After counting to three, she let them drop.

Two tents burst into action and screams. There were shouts from the tent with the rest of the men as they all worked on trying to get away from the spider while there was almost cries coming from the ARC tent.

All the commotion woke Anakin up, causing the man to come flying out of his tent, lightsaber blazing, ready for an attack. He didn't expect to find men pouring out of their tents in a panic. "What is going on here?" Anakin asked Ahsoka.

Ahsoka focused on hiding her glee before answering, "well, Fives is complaining that something slimy touched him while the boys are yelling spider, so I am presuming that animals got into their tents."

"Fives hates slimy things," Rex clarified, "and some of the men dislike anything with more than four legs - as well as most of them are afraid of spiders, sir."

"Can you calm them down, Rex?" Anakin sighed.

Rex hid his grin as he placed his mask on before storming up to both tents and commanding at his loudest tone, "everybody, out, now!"

The result was a quick scramble of men out of doors, almost leading to a clone pile being formed in their haste. They lined up in front of Rex, some only in their blacks, some partly in uniform.

"Can anyone explain to me why we were screaming like shinies?" Rex asked, "it seemed like the shinies were the only ones not screaming."

"Something slimy landed on me, sir!" Fives defended.

"There was a spider, sir," the rest of the men defended.

"That does not explain why you had to try and wake the whole forest," Rex stated, crossing his arms to give a serious, disappointed and strict look across while he was almost in tears at how much he needed to laugh.

Ahsoka kept having to build her wall as laughter kept trying to break it down. All it took was for her to look at the men's faces for her concentration to lapse and the laughter to come through. It started as a quiet giggle but kept increasing until it was a loud laugh.

That was what was needed for Rex's resolve to break as he soon joined her in laughing.

"What the kriff is going on here?" Anakin shouted along with half the clones.

Rex sobered up quickly and turned to give his deadliest glare he could with his helmet, "Fives and Hardcase need to learn to stop trying to prank us. You live together; you fight together; you die together; you get punished together."

All the clones turned and glared at Fives and Hardcase. They thought they would have learned their lesson from last time, but it seemed that they had not.

During this time, Ahsoka had been using the force drag the spider and frog-thing back.

Fives and Hardcase screamed as they felt something slip down the back of their blacks. They brought everyone to laughs as they danced around batting at their backs, trying to get whatever it was out.

"The slimy thing has gone down the back of my blacks!" Fives screeched, panicking as he could not get them out.

"I can feel all its legs! There's eight of them!" Hardcase cried as he danced around, eventually backing into a tree.

"Did you just kill the spider against your back?" Ahsoka asked through her laughs.

It took a moment for it to sink in before Hardcase was back to panicking, eventually being shoved into the tent to get into a different set of blacks.

Echo sighed as he pinned Fives down and reached and picked up the slimy animal from Fives back. "It's gone," he stated as he stopped pinning the ARC trooper down.

Fives sighed as he stayed on the floor, looking up at the night sky in relief. Hardcase collapsed to the floor next to him in his change of blacks.

"Are you going to stop trying to prank us?" Ahsoka asked.

"Or do we need to walk through the bog tomorrow to make sure?" Rex added.

"No, no, no!" Both Fives and Hardcase exclaimed, "we'll stop pranking you!"

"I'll hold you to that," Ahsoka smirked.

Fives and Hardcase groaned.

-----

"I thought you said we would go through the bog if we continued to prank you, sirs?" Fives asked.

"This isn't the bog, at least not the whole of it," Rex stated, "we have to go through a small bit of the side to get where we are meant to be because of General Skywalker's scenic route."

Anakin could feel the glares from under each helmet.

"So this is not the nasty part of the bog?"

"We could be going through the centre of it, be quicker if we could guarantee no predatorial animals and a shallow path," Ahsoka stated.

Suddenly all the clones were looking around at their feet a whole lot more.

"If there were any predators," Ahsoka started.

"You would not see them," Rex finished, "they'd like to sneak up on unsuspecting prey."

"Are you trying to give them nightmares?" Anakin hissed

"Just making sure they're vigilant," Ahsoka shrugged, "like for the snake about to bite you."

Anakin flung around with his lightsaber just in time to cut the head of the snake off the mid-strike. "How the kriff did you know about that?"

"We had to get the 'slimy thing' from a pond, we met a much larger version of that snake, sir," Rex shrugged.

"This is the size of its fang!" Ahsoka stated, pulling out a giant fang about the length of a blaster.

"You kept the fang, sir?" Rex asked.

Ahsoka shrugged before putting it away again, "it looked nice, might make something out of it. I even got some of the scales; after all, they seemed quite resistant to blaster shots."

"And lightsabers when large enough," Rex pointed out.

"How the kriff did you kill it if it could resist both your weapons?"

"It struck at Rex, and its fang got lodged in the dirt," Ahsoka stated.

"I drove the fang through the back of its head when it struck at the Commander, sir," Rex finished.

"How didn't we hear this all happen?" Echo asked.

"The pond wasn't very close, and we were quiet," Ahsoka shrugged, "and we knew that we were going out there to get something to prank some of you, so we were not going to drag attention.

"Also, none of you is particularly innocent in the head," Rex pointed out, getting some grumbling from the clones.

"You sneaked out of the camp, and no one knew?" Anakin asked.

"It was stupidly easy," Ahsoka hugged, "the clones snore like beasts, and you were dead to the world."

"That's why you are the one that usually wakes to a threat first," Anakin mumbled.

"I'm the danger alarm?" Ahsoka asked, before stating sarcastically, "geez, thanks."

"Of course, Snips," Anakin grinned. 

"You're going to need a new danger alarm because this ones about to become the danger, Skyguy," Ahsoka growled with a hiss.

Rex took that moment to step between the two arguing lightsaber-wielding force-users with the map. "We have about three hours left in this bog side and five hours of daylight left, we need to get going so that we are away from the bog before making camp for the night," Rex stated, knowing both could quickly get through him if they wanted.

It was a tense moment before both force-users nodded and Rex ordered the continuation of the march. The walk itself wasn't much better, but they were able to keep General Skywalker at the back to 'help keep those at the back safe' while having Ahsoka leading the group up front with Rex.

-----

Ahsoka was the one that heard the hiss first, but Rex was the one that acted first.

He sent one blast towards the snake so that it would not go towards the men, but instead himself and Ahsoka. He then grabbed the fang from Ahsoka before letting the Commander distract it with her lightsaber and the blasts of the men before circling the snake.

No one saw what Rex was doing until he was on the neck of the snake and driving the fang through its head. The snake fought before going limp.

Rex slid off after wrenching the fang from its head. He kicked the head to the side before sticking his hand in to get the other teeth. "It's not as large as the one at the pond, more hungry though to go after a group," Rex commented as he turned his head to look at the others. "What?"

"You just drove a fang through a snake large enough to eat you whole fives times, and you ask 'what?'" Anakin asked, only just picking up his jaw.

"Well, that is how we said we killed the larger one, sir," Rex stated.

"None of us thought we'd ever see you jump onto something to stab it," Fives pointed out, "we always thought that would be left to the Jedis."

"Just because I don't have the Force?" Rex asked, crossing his bloody hands.

Most clones - and Anakin - shuffled their feet slightly at being caught.

"Shall we move on to avoid another snap fest?" Ahsoka offered before walking off and forcing the others to follow her.

-----

"We were going to send a rescue team out to get you," Obi-Wan stated, crossing his arms as he watched Anakin and the 501st arrive.

"Why hadn't you sent one out yet?" Anakin asked.

"We figured you took a 'scenic route' that meant someone else took the map from you," Obi-Wan shrugged with a grin.

"I don't know who you peg me for," Anakin huffed.

"An Anakin Skywalker," Ahsoka commented from behind as she helped get some of the men into the gunships.

Anakin heard the sniggers that ran through the men. "You too?!" He exclaimed when a snort came from his Captain's helmet.

Rex turned his helmeted head towards Anakin, "I don't know what you're talking about, sir," before turning and leaving the two General's alone.

"What did they end up having to walk through?" Obi-Wan asked.

"The edge of a bog," Anakin huffed, "and attacked by snakes with scales resistant to blasters and lightsabers when large enough."

"I doubt you could outrun them," Obi-Wan stated.

"Snips and Rex found that they are not resistant to their fangs," Anakin stated.

"How'd they find that out?"

"They got attacked by a pond during one of the nights and Rex drove the fang through the head of the snake in the end," Anakin stated.

"The 501st are all boarded, sir," Cody stated as he approached the two.

"Tell the pilots we can leave," Obi-Wan nodded.

-----

"We have a mission to assist the prince of an underwater world," Ahsoka huffed to Rex.

"You'll have breathing equipment," Rex pointed out.

"My montrals and lekku will get slimy and muffled," Ahsoka whined.

"You don't have a helmet that has a sort of protection for them?" Rex asked.

"They say they'll act like fish barbel, so I should keep them out," Ahsoka huffed, "I think they don't want to spend out to design and make a new type of helmet."

"You dislike going into water that much?" Rex questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it is the chance of how long it might take, so how long we will be in the water," Ahsoka shrugged.

"At least you will be helping the people," Rex noted.

"You are just trying to calm me down so that I don't jump on the next person that annoys me," Ahsoka pointed out.

"Is it working?"

Ahsoka sighed, "yes."

-----

"Commander?"

"What?!" Ahsoka snapped before rubbing her head, "sorry Fives I got a bit of a headache from trying to talk to Skyguy."

Fives gulped slight, taking a step back before stating, "the boys and I were just wondering whether you and Rex wanted to watch a holomovie with us?"

"Yeah, might help get my mind off things for a while, count Rex and me in," Ahsoka shrugged, pointing for Fives to lead the way.

"Don't I get a call in this, sir?" Rex asked.

"No, you know how to get the snacks from the others," Ahsoka grinned.

"Captain turned servent," Fives grinned with a laugh.

"I could get you to do it, Fives," Ahsoka stated, grinning over at Fives.

"You know what, I think the Captain would be perfect to be able to get the snacks, they'll listen to him," Fives back-peddled.

"Thanks for the backup, Fives," Rex growled.

"Rex, Snips has fangs," Fives stated with a shiver.

"Who else are you going to scare using your fangs?" Rex huffed out.

"I keep telling you; I'm only smiling," Ahsoka defended through a grin.

"A smile that you make sure leaves your fangs right in view."

"I'm sorry that everyone seems to dislike non-teeth showing smiles but the moment that I do teeth showing they do whatever I say because suddenly it's scary fangs showing."

Fives was watching the two talk like it was a sports match, suddenly happy he hit record on his comm unit. When the tao seemed to have stopped, he waved to grab their attention before walking away to lead them to the others.

"What took you so long?" Echo asked Fives when they entered the room.

"It took me a while to locate the two," Fives shrugged, making sure to signal to his comm unit.

Echo hid his grin as he nodded, "everything is set up already."

Fives sat down next to his brothers, taking the bowl of popcorn from Jessie with a grin. The next free seats were two central towards the back, making it very clear why the clones had asked for them.

Rex huffed as they walked over to the free seats, making sure to take the popcorn from Fives on his way there. He sat down next to Ahsoka, making sure to leave space between them the best that he could. He wasn't supposed when the bowl floated from his hands and into Ahsoka's as she happily munched away watching the start of the holomovie.

-----

There was a tight squeak from the back, and turning around they could see it had come from Tup. The Commander must have fallen asleep at one point because she was half leaning against him.

Eyes danced between the shaken clone, sleeping Commander and tense Captain. It was evident that Rex was not pleased about the situation, but was hesitant to act, which they were all happy from as they weren't sure whether this action would be to attack Tup or move the Commander.

"I-er?" Tup gulped, looking up at Rex.

Rex shook his head before he slowly shook the Commander, only just dodging the fist that came around to hit him. "Sir, as much as you might find Tup comfortable, he's not very comfortable in the situation."

Ahsoka grunted as she looked around before pushing herself off of Tup, "didn't realise I'd fell asleep."

"We didn't until Tup squealed," Fives laughed.

Rex got himself to his feet before helping Ahsoka to hers, "let's get you back, the holomovie is over anyway," he stated before turning and guiding Ahsoka away.

Fives waited a while after the door had closed before calling all the clones in around him, "this was the reason we were late," he hushed before playing the recording over his comms.

Silent laughs went around the room as they listened on.

"I'd say they sounded like a couple there," Hardcase pointed out.

"Rex was rather informal."

"Cute, though."

"How long until the real fake mating becomes real real fake mating?" A clone asked.

"Five rotations, it will begin then!"

"No, both have the codes. Ten rotations!"

"Three missions, one together, one separated, one together," another clone stated firmly. "I think it's a lovely pattern that could pull them together," he defended at the looks he got

"Hah! Rex might have been informal, but it won't go like that!"

"At least a year!"

"You're on!"