Bang!

Kix's shot shot strayed from where it was supposed to go, joining the many marks in the wall behind the target.

"Really Kix, that was your fourth miss in a row! We're really off tonight," Jesse groaned, shaking his head.

"Doesn't look like you're doing much better, Jesse." Kix retorted, turning sharply on his heel and walking to the back of the line.

"Stop complaining, and let me take my turn," Dogma grumbled. He shot, and his laser grazed the edge of the target.

After Hardcase emptied a few of his own lasers and missed, he put down his gun and looked at the men standing by him. His face slowly lit up and Jesse and Kix shared a look. That look usually accompanied some sorts of shenanigans.

"I've got an idea," he said.

"That's never a good thing," Dogma replied, sensing the change in atmosphere.

"Hear me out. We need some motivation to shoot well, right?"

The other clones nodded, trading looks and wondering how this would pan out.

"Well, I propose we have strip target practice."

"That's not a licensed training exercise."

"Of course it isn't, Dogma; Hardcase came up with it." Jesse said, rolling his eyes, "Anyway, strip? As in 'take off our armor' strip?"

"One and the same."

"I hate to break it to you, Hardcase, but we see each other naked in the shower all the time. Are we really going to be embarrassed by this?" Kix asked.

Hardcase shrugged. "You all know I'm not ashamed of my body, but I figured it'd give us some competition."

"Yeah, and it gives us a marker for how many times we've missed, which is more fun than relying on Dogma's scorekeeping," Jesse continued, beginning to smile at Hardcase.

Dogma opened his mouth to refute Jesse's insult, but Hardcase cut him off.

"Rules are simple. You miss the target; one piece of your clothing or armor comes off. Winner is the one with the most on at the end of the game," Hardcase grinned, "I'll start."

He aimed his gun at the target, fired and missed narrowly, much to the amusement of his companions. He made a show of taking his belt off and throwing it to the floor.

"Like that," he said, as if he meant to do it. The others clearly weren't buying it.

"I don't know about you, but I'm keeping my clothes on," Dogma said, determination written all over his face.

"Only one way to find that out," Jesse smiled, deciding to go along with Hardcase's hairbrained game due to Dogma's reaction.

"Fine, but only to prove that I have the best aim out of us."

Dogma fired, and sure enough, he hit close to the center.

Jesse, seeing Dogma's success and not wanting to lose on the first round (he was aiming for ARC trooper in his future, he couldn't), stepped up, fired, and barely made it onto the target.

"Come on Kix, let's see if you'll give Hardcase some company." Jesse joked, nudging Kix in the arm. Kix rolled his eyes, aimed, fired, and missed by a mile.

"You jinxed it," Kix said indignantly, to laughter from Jesse and Hardcase, and even a repressed snicker from Dogma. He removed his belt, setting it on the floor more gently than his pride.

Hardcase went again, fired, and hit the target that time.

After that, the mood picked up, as the took turns firing, and laughing as more and more armor lay discarded on the floor.

Eventually, Dogma missed, standing in place, looking disappointed in himself.

"It's about time," Jesse said, with only his chest, calves, and crotch covered by his armor, "Take something off."

Dogma stared indignantly at Jesse as the other two watched in glee.

"It is a rule of the game," Kix said, nudging Dogma's arm.

Dogma put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Fine. It's just my belt anyway."

The others whooped in laughter, but let Dogma to the back of the line with minimal teasing.

Hardcase positioned his gun toward the target again, a grin still on his face though he was the worst off of all the clones, only having one boot on in addition to his underlayers. He missed, and looked at his friends.

"Hope you're ready for a show."

"Yeah, when you lose," Jesse said, firing and hitting the target dead on.

"Don't count your blessings yet, Jesse." Hardcase punched him playfully.

"As if seeing you the way you came out of the growth jar is considered a blessing."

Approximately half an hour later, Hardcase was down to only his lower underlayer, Jesse only had one calf plate and his underlayers, Kix only had his underlayers on, and Dogma still had his chest and shoulder plates, along with everything that went underneath.

"Can we call a break? I want to see if I'm still able to see anything other than that target." Kix said, stretching his arms.

Dogma agreed, sinking to the floor. His companions joined him, grinning.

"So, do we finally call Dogma as the winner and the best shot of the four of us?" Jesse asked.

"I'm not stopping until Hardcase is as naked as the girls in Jesse's magazines." Kix teased.

"Oooh, Jesse reads pornos," Hardcase said in a sing-song.

"Like the rest of you don't?" Jesse's face flushed red.

"I don't; it's against protocol." Dogma said.

"Dogma, did you eat the training manual, or was that against protocol too?" Jesse practically yelled, exasperated.

Rex and Fives patrolled the halls as they debated. While the two of them didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, both liked walking while talking in order to both metaphorically and physically keep things moving.

Rex stopped Fives in the middle of what he was sure was about to become a speech on the state of the Republic and listened hard.

"That's a lot of noise to be coming from the practice room, and it's not guns," he said.

"Probably just some troopers messing around. Weren't you young once, Captain?" Fives needled, flashing a shit-eating grin at Rex.

"I still want to check it out; you know how the five o' first is."

Rex walked over to the window overlooking the firing range and saw a heap of armor on the ground.

"You're going to want to look at this, Fives."

Fives walked over and whistled, chuckling quietly.

"Captain, I say that we go embarrass them."

"I say that we leave them to their own devices."

"Look at the armor, that's three chest plates and it looks like more sets of gauntlets," Fives said, gesturing broadly, "I'm going down."

With that, Fives resolutely made his way to the door, and Rex followed him with a sigh.

Fives saw Rex behind him, slyly grinned, and opened the door. He saw four troopers laughing hard, barely wearing any armor.

"Captain, would you do the honors?" Fives asked, struggling to keep his voice low.

"I'd love to." Rex replied, just as quietly.

He coughed loudly to get the attention of the others. "Boys, what's this?"

The four clones snapped their heads around, and they all looked at each other as they scrambled up to attention.

He recognized them as Jesse, Kix, Hardcase, and Dogma. Figures that those three would drag him into trouble.

"Strip target practice, sir." Hardcase said, "We shoot, and if we miss, we take a piece of clothing off."

"It's supposed to motivate us to shoot better, but for me, it's been a mission in embarrassing Dogma and making Hardcase lose," Jesse filled in.

Rex stifled a laugh. "I see. How's the target practice going?"

"We're actually getting more accurate, sir," Dogma said, "We've taken twenty shots each, and we've missed less and less as time progresses."

"I kind of want to see the loser, sir." Fives said, sitting down. Rex joined him on the floor.

The clones took a longer time aiming for the mark now that their Captain was watching, and Fives suppressed a yawn. After everybody had gone for a round and none had missed yet, Hardcase's brow furrowed and then relaxed.

"Want to play, Captain?"

"Why would I want to do that?" Rex asked, glaring at Hardcase. Hardcase flinched, but stood his ground.

"Try your skills?"

"Nice try. I'll shoot twenty a row in the end, and this armor is staying on."

"Is that a bet, Captain?" Hardcase ventured.

"No. It's showing that I've earned my rank."

Fives rolled his eyes, hoping Rex didn't see him. "Now, let's see what the rest of you are made of."

Painstakingly slowly, all of the clones playing the game shot and hit the target. The game was intense, especially for Kix and Hardcase. However, despite his care, Jesse's laser missed the wall after three slow rounds. The men all snickered as he begrudgingly removed his calf plate and threw it into the pile.

"At this rate, the war will be over before this game is. You only have five seconds to take your shots now. Continue, men," Rex said, sitting back. Apart from a few groans, the protest was minimal. Kix slung his gun over his shoulder, fired sloppily, and lost his undershirt.

As the rest of the game went on, Fives nudged Rex:

"Who do you think will lose?" Fives whispered.

"My money's on Hardcase. The heavy gunners tend to not have the best aim," Rex replied.

Hardcase's bullet hit dead center, seemingly taunting Rex's stereotypes.

Dogma then aimed his gun, looked up, and prepared to fire, but then, a clap came from the other end of the room, causing his laser to fly astray. Dogma glared at the source, and found Jesse quietly snickering to himself. He removed his left shoulder plate, and tossed it to the ground.

"We're playing dirty now?" he asked, his face flushing.

"Well, Hardcase never gave any rules beyond 'you miss, you strip,' so it's not dirty, exactly," Jesse said with a wry smile on his face.

As Jesse aimed, Kix tapped him on the shoulder, and he nearly missed.

"You were just asking for that one." he said pointedly.

After that, it was a full-out distraction war, much to the entertainment of Rex and Fives. Jesse got good at ignoring the distractions after Kix had gotten him. Hardcase had many near misses, but they all seemed to miraculously graze the edges of the target. Dogma even got his revenge by tapping Hardcase on the back of his head, almost getting an elbow to the gut for his trouble.

Eventually, it was a question of which of the four clones, all without armor at this point, would lose. Kix aimed, fired, and made it. Hardcase wasn't so lucky. With the mirthful laughter of the clones around him, he sighed and stripped off his last underlayer.

"Like what you see?"

"Hardcase, I'm a medic, I see this all day," Kix said, barely fazed.

"Now, Captain. I think that you should have a go at this. Twenty seven consecutive shots. I'll do it too," Fives proposed, taking his deecees out of his holsters.

"Twenty. It's what I agreed to before. Besides, nothing's coming off anyway," Rex said, and stepped up.

Bang. Bang. Bang, and so forth it continued. Each pistol fired off ten shots, and only one missed, which no one dared point out. Rex winced, and then shrugged.

"Still better than any of you," he said, removing his shoulder pauldron.

Fives then stepped up, got into a solid stance, and fired away, missing three times. He took off his pauldrons, and his shoes.

"Good game," Jesse said, starting to rummage through the armor and mesh to find his.

"Can I put my clothes back on now?" Hardcase asked.

"I'd prefer it," Rex replied, looking away and readjusting his shoulder pauldron.

"This is just great. I'm just glad I engraved my name on the inside of my armor," Kix said, feeling around.

"In case you're in an entanglement and you need to identify yours quickly?" Jesse joked.

"No; in case shit like this happens." Kix replied, putting his chest plate on.

"I still can't believe I did this with all of you, with the Captain watching," Dogma mumbled as he adjusted his armor, face flushed.

"You guys were really funny to watch, if that's any consolation," Fives said giggling to himself.

After everyone put their armor on, the clones looked at each other, not knowing a good way to bid each other adieu after this strange encounter.

"We never speak of this again?" Dogma posed this as a question, but it was more of a command.

The rest of the men looked at each other and nodded.

"Agreed."