ask her how it happened because she doesn't know. The supervisors at Kamino said it was a glitch in the system that made her the way she is. Clone Trooper 19580, more commonly known as Dagger, is a female clone. Clones were expensive so they trained her and sent her out to the 501st. This is Dagger's story of trying to keep her secret 

While they had been warming up Rex had been watching Dagger closely. He scrutinized his form and his aim. Overall he was impressed with how consistently accurate he was. It didn't look like he would need additional training to catch up to the standards he set for his unit. For that he was glad, they didn't have much time left before the next mission.

He scanned over Dagger's body, eyes sharp. He took in the way he stood, the quick movements and small adjustments each time he fired. With a small smile in the corner of his mouth he looked over the shiny's armor. He liked the way he had decorated his armor, the blue of the 501st stood out proudly on the white armor.

Then something caught his attention, peaking out of his undershirt at the nape of his neck. A bloom of purple and red, barely visible from his under shirt. Rex frowned. The mark could only be a bruise and there was only one way that he could have gotten it. He didn't think that he had hurt him that badly, but he would need to talk to Dagger again after training. While Rex had never explicitly told Dagger to go to the medics he had assumed the man would anyway. For now there were things to do, he could not worry about it now.

They all waited for Rex to call out the target they were to aim for. Rex barked out a spot everyone would start firing a fraction of a second later, fast and efficient. Everyone hit the target, but how well they did was different for all of them. They only had one shot this time.

The closer to the center and the faster they shot was put into the score that the computer made, it was a cumulative point system where you could move up or down the ranks with every shot. After the first shot everyone turned back around and looked to see where on the scoreboard. Fives was the top shooter then there were a few more people in at number five was Dagger.

Damn, she cursed in her head. She had to be quicker and get a better shot, she knew she could. All she wanted was to show them that she could be a good soldier, just like them. They all were in their ready position, eager to go again.

Rex blurted out another number quickly and without warning. She fired, better this time. This went on for a few more rounds and every once in a while the rankings were changed up Echo would take Fives' place, Dagger moved up one or Cricket moved down one.

He wasn't too happy about that, Dagger felt the smirk on her face growing with her confidence she was in third place now the only ones above her was Hardcase and Fives. She could feel eyes watching her, she squared her shoulders, determined to make a good impression.

Echo, who is on the other side of the room, called out her name, "Dagger I can't believe you're catching up."

She just smiled from underneath her helmet, he didn't seem to be mad about it, he was just playing around. It was the final round and everyone who had been eliminated was watching the top three about to compete. Every two rounds someone had been taken out of the competition. The last person on the scoreboard was eliminated and it went from 30 to 20 to 10 to 5 to 3.

Echo, Dagger, Fives, one round left they were all within decimals of points behind each other their scores were near perfect. Hardcase had not been happy about being beaten in the last round. Honestly that shot had just been luck.

Now, one move could win or lose it all.

Dagger took a deep breath to calm herself down. She was nervous and her spirit wanted to win. They were bred to win after all, she had to calm down and focus.

It was just a training exercise, not the end of the world. She shook her hands up and looked to her right to see her opponents. Fives smirked cooly, he had been the company's best shot for a while now. Echo was smiling like a maniac, always one for a good competition.

The trio was neck and neck. Fives was in first place, Dagger was in third with Echo in between. They were the last ones left, this was the final shot. She set her jaw in concentration.

Rex announced their target. Her vision seemed to narrow as time slowed. Everything was focused, turning and grabbing her blaster from where it sat on the counter. In just a blink, it was leveled at the target and the trigger was pulled.

Her tension diffused as the beam of energy was released, everything was over now. She closed her eyes, not really wanting to see how she placed, after she had taken her shot her heart sank. It wasn't fast enough, she had pulled the trigger after the other two. She had to look though.

The scoreboard. It read first place Fives, second place Echo, and third place Dagger. She had lost. Inside a small part of her felt sad and disheartened. It should have been expected, after all, they were more experienced.

Nonetheless she congratulated her teammates, they both congratulated her in return. However, Echo was jumping up and down at that point. He was so excited that he got second place. Fives was laughing at him.

Then, Echo turned his excitement to Dagger, "oh my gosh! I can't believe my buddy got third place! You're amazing! I can't believe that Cricket lost. HA! Where are your awesome skills you always brag about now?"

Dagger tried to calm him down holding out her hands as if to wrangle him in. She wasn't able to keep the laughter from her voice "shut up Echo."

Dagger cracked a small smile, it wasn't so bad after all, no one was making fun of her for not winning. She was waiting for the ball to drop, for the lecture to begin. Every time she had not performed well enough in training they would yell at her. The madam always scowled so deep when she hadn't done as well as asked. She had told Dagger that if she couldn't be as good as her brothers that she would be decommissioned. A clone who can't keep up is of no use to the Republic.

Rex interrupted their festivities and her thoughts by calling everyone's attention "All right everybody, to the weapons room."

They all moved to the weapons room and started cleaning their guns while he gave the debrief of the training. He talked about how they could improve their skills and what went wrong and what went right. She stiffened at the former, but no yelling ever came.

Then other things they could do such as they needed to tighten up the grouping of their shots and get faster reloading your magazines. They had to be mission ready. Everything needed to be perfect and if it wasn't there was a good chance someone wasn't going to make it back from the mission, whatever it may be.

Dagger methodically cleaned every little spot of grime on her blaster. She was in a trance, between cleaning her weapon and listening to Rex's brief she was basically on autopilot. Why was he not yelling at her? Or everyone who had placed below her? He didn't even seem a little upset. Captain Rex seemed... Proud?

He even congratulated everyone on doing a good job on their blaster practice, they were doing well. Because they still had some time on patrol he said they had free time for a while, training would resume that afternoon. For now they were on their own.

Oh. Yay. More time for her to not know what to do. Dagger slipped out of the weapons room with the would probably go to the common room for a little bit so that way she wouldn't just disappear, then after a while she could slip away and get some training in.

Maybe she could get her workout in before night, but it might be risky if she wanted to workout without her helmet. Or she would just endure the sweaty helmet head she would get from it and wash her helmet and armor later.

Echo would be an issue, he was always popping up on her. Always curious about what she was doing, she wondered why he was always around. He did always call her battle buddy. But he was never mean to her or made fun of her helmet. He also was really good at his job from what she has seen so far. Maybe she would even ask him to help give her some extra training. If she can't get rid of him maybe he could help her get better.

She knew she wasn't terrible or anything right now but she didn't want to be the weak link of the unit. Maybe she could find a friend in Echo, maybe she actually wanted a friend.

The thought stopped her as she was walking with the group towards the common room. She hadn't ever felt the need to have a friend before. Not as if she had ever had the option. She didn't know how to feel about it, if Echo ever found out that she had lied to him... She didn't want to think about it, she would lose someone close to her if she allowed him to get too close.

As the group was about to go into the common room, Echo turned to say something to Dagger and realized she wasn't with them. He frowned, that brother seemed to always be disappearing or slipping away.

Not today Dagger he thought, he started to walk back along the path that they had taken. He was determined to find Dagger and get him to at least come hang out with the unit.

He found Dagger standing in the middle of the hall, not doing much of anything. Echo called out to him but didn't get a response. He only realized he was even there once he waved his hand in front of Dagger's face. Then he snapped out of whatever mind trap he was in and looked up at Echo.

"Hey kiddo, just came to find you. I know you don't like us all that much but I think if you give us the chance we will grow on ya," he said herding Dagger forward.

"I like you guys just fine," she argued, confused why he had said such a thing.

Echo let out a short laugh, "you don't act that way. Always avoiding us and not talking much."

She frowned under her helmet, "I don't want anyone to think I'm ignoring them, I'm just not good at talking with you guys, with anyone."

Echo thought for a moment, "How did you get by on Kamino? Listen, you don't have to talk to hang out with us. You can be our honorary DJ, we have a radio that we listen to music on and usually we just have someone go and control it for the day. You can choose the songs if you want."

She nodded her agreement, that sounded nice. When they entered the common room it was filled with brothers, almost all from her own unit. Everyone was milling about, laughing and talking. Dagger didn't know what to do with herself.

They weren't training, or doing anything specific so there were no rules or guidelines to help her navigate the situation. Echo moved past her to a mostly empty table along the edge of the room where there was a radio with a deep space antenna sitting on the table.

He took a seat and Dagger followed suit across the table. She tapped the touchpad on the radio and it lit up, she scrolled through the songs for a few seconds before choosing a song that she recognized.

The radio crackled to life and the upbeat cantina music started playing, filling the room. There were a few shouts of excitement and someone clapped at the arrival of the music.

Dagger looked over at Echo. He nodded, "good choice, Dagger."

She nodded happily, glad that she had selected a song that they seemed to like. She listened to the music, quietly watching everyone in the room. There was a Holo-film playing in one corner, while there was some sort of simulation game being played.

She let the worry seep away and she enjoyed the company of her brothers. Dagger had a lot to get used to here. Nothing was the same as how it had been on Kamino.

While she sat in the common room, what she didn't realize is that someone had wanted to talk to her. Rex was sitting back in the weapons room, alone. He looked down at his comm for one second and Dagger had disappeared. Dammit.

He needed to ask about the bruising that he saw around Dagger's neck. He needed to confirm that he caused that. Rex needed to make sure he was ok and that it wasn't anything more than bruises.

Dagger seemed to be the stubborn type, he didn't trust the newest member of the unit to not hide injuries. The way he had taken a beating yesterday just proved how much he could take physically. While that was good for the field, if he let the problem get out of control Dagger was going to get himself seriously hurt.

As much as Rex wanted to track Dagger down and confront him right now, he had other things to do. He had looked down at his comm earlier because of a transmission from the General. He had already promised the 501st a few hours to relax. Hopefully Dagger would be able to keep himself out of trouble until he could talk to him about hiding injuries.

Thank you for the reviews! I love every single one of them! I have decided I am going to TRY to update every three days. No promises on keeping this schedule, but it seems reasonable for now. I hope you have been enjoying the story so far!