AHHH FINALLY AFTER LIKE A MONTH I FINISHED THIS FIC!!
“Shh! Here he comes, here he comes!” Boots snickers to Thumbs, who is nervously fidgeting with his fingers. “Relax, Thumbs. It’s just a small one, he won’t be that mad.”
“Hmm, okay,” Thumbs replies. He waits as the Jedi gets closer, and Boots slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. Thumbs lets out a snort-like sound and averts his eyes, body shaking as he holds in laughs. Other clones sitting around the mess hall began to take notice of the Jedi as well, some doing better than others to hide their amusement.
“Mind if I sit here?” Mace asks, motioning to the seat across from Boots and Thumbs. Kriff, they were going to lose it.
“Sure thing, General Windu,” Boots manages, briefly looking at the Jedi before quickly looking away again.
“How has Clone Force 37 been lately?”
“We’ve been great, sir. Ballast hasn’t blown up nearly as many things as he usually does,” Boots replies. Thumbs just sits quietly, panic flowing through his veins mixed with amusement.
“Are you okay, Thumbs? I sense some struggle within you,” Mace asks. Thumbs has to use all his strength to drag his eyes forwards to look at the Jedi. When he goes to open his mouth to speak, all that comes out are laughs.
“Is there something funny?” Mace questions, looking behind him and expecting to find a scene.
“W-well, General,” Thumbs says, biting his lip to try and calm his laughter, “you have a little something right…here…” he says, motioning in circles around his eyes. Mace’s brows furrow before he looks in the closest mirror like object. His mouth drops slightly and he quickly turns back to face the clones before him. The two clones had put ink on the Jedi’s macrobinoculars earlier, and now there were turquoise circles around his eyes.
“I’m going to assume it was someone from your Lucky Batch that did this?” Mace says dryly as he looks back at the clones, his expression much less amused than the rest of the room.
“We wouldn’t know anything about it,” Boots lies. Mace’s eyes narrow before he leaves the room, heading to a refresher to wash off his face. Little does he know, that’s the paint they use for their armor, which has a tendency to remain stuck on skin for weeks.
“Careful! Don’t step on it, Ballast!” Jackal says as he places down the bubble wrap.
“Well why did you start on that side? How are we supposed to get out without stepping on it?” Ballast retorts. Jackal purses his lips for a second, realizing his mistake.
“Okay, we’ll just pick it up and then put it back down when we leave,” he responds before going back to covering the rest of the floor. The clones had been in the Jedi’s room almost all day, and the amount of area they’d managed to cover with bubble wrap was amazing. No spot was safe from them, not even the refresher.
“Okay, I think we can start our exit now,” Jackal says as he looks over the room. The two clones worked to finish their “project”, laying down bubble wrap until they reached the door. Once outside, they high five with smug looks on their faces. Then they hear him coming, and dive around the corner that happens to be right next to Mace’s room. They listen intently before they hear his door open, and the sudden shriek from the poor man when “pop”s erupt under his step.
The clones break out in laughter as they listen, Ballast losing his balance and falling from behind their cover. He looks up and makes eye contact with Mace, who is standing in his doorway.
“Run!” Ballast yells at his brother before he pushes himself up and sprints away down the hall, away from the angry Jedi.
“I feel like this is a bit mean,” Ryder says as he stands with his brother.
“It was a bit mean to make us all clean the entire Jedi temple for Ballast and Jackal’s prank,” Skip responds.
“Yeah, but, I’m still new. I don’t want to be transferred because of this. I don’t want to lose another family,” Ryder argues.
“Hey,” Skip said, placing a gentle hand on Ryder’s shoulder, “you won’t lose us, and you won’t be transferred. I promise, okay?”
Ryder nods, but he’s still hesitant with their idea.
“Just be glad I’m going for one of my more laid back pranks,” Skip adds. “Okay, here he comes. Act natural.”
Ryder picks up his mug and takes a sip of his drink.
“General Windu, good morning!” Skip says as the Jedi walks in. He nods to the clone, a brief acknowledgment as he wanders over to the pot of caf.
“Is this stuff fresh today?” He questions, looking at it suspiciously. “I had some the other day that was at least a standard week old.”
“Fresh as a cucumber,” Skip says.
“Fresh as a cucumber?” Ryder questions, the saying not making any sense.
“It’s the first thing that came to mind,” his brother shrugs, eyes flicking back to Mace as he poured a cup of caf. They both watch as the Jedi takes a big swig, his face pleased for a few seconds before it slowly changes. They can see the moment the hot sauce kicks in, and Mace’s gaze quickly finds theirs.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Skip chuckles as the Jedi’s expression grows angry, “it’s a special blend of ours. We like to add a bit of hot sauce to our caf.”
“Hot sauce?” He breaths out, the heat in his mouth burning furiously.
“Yeah, it adds a nice kick,” Skip responds. “Right, Ryder?”
“Uh, yeah. It really gets things nice and hot,” he adds.
“W-water,” Mace chokes out. He looks around frantically for a sink. When he does, he pours out the coffee and turns it on to fill his mug with water. But nothing comes out.
“Oh, the water isn’t working in here for some reason,” Skips says. Mace’s eyes went even wider before he ran to the fridge.
“I drank the last of the milk, sorry,” Ryder adds. “But I think this might help.” Ryder hands Mace a bottle of vinegar, and the Jedi looks grateful for him at first. When he takes a swig, however, his eyes dart to Ryder’s, and the clone feels his soul leave his body.
“Run!” Skips yells before grabbing his brother and sprinting from the room.
“Okay, just loop that string through there and…done!” Sparks straightens up and turns to high-five his brother. Cypher has a mischievous and happy grin from setting up the trap with Sparks.
“Ballast may be the mechanic, but I’m the engineer,” Sparks says while admiring their work. “And my stuff doesn’t explode.”
“Well, hopefully it’ll work,” Cypher replies.
“Oh, it’ll work, don’t worry about that. You just have to worry about Mace finding out it was us,” Sparks snickers. He gives the discrete system one last look over before ushering his brother out of the room. They slip around the corner and peek around, waiting for the Jedi to appear.
Sparks can’t help but giggle excitedly as he waits, anticipation for the scene.
“Shh, shh, here he comes!” Sparks whispers before slinking out from their hiding spot and into the hall. As Mace reaches his door, the two clones walk slowly and casually down the hall, careful to not miss anything.
“Hey, it’s about to happen,” Cypher says while nudging Sparks.
As Mace enters his password, the boys hold their breath and watch. The second he steps into the room, he triggers the wire.
Air horns blast as confetti and glitter flies into the air, a bucket of slime tipping over and pouring onto Mace.
Laughter erupts from the brothers as they stand just past Mace’s door. They were keeling over, bodys trembling from their amusement.
“Find something funny?” An angry voice asks from behind them. They immediately stop laughing and look at the Jedi before each other. They make a silent agreement before bolting in different directions. If they split up, Mace wouldn’t be able to catch both.
He didn’t even end up chasing either of them, just angrily sighing before stomping back into his room.
Rane worked by himself, that much was common knowledge. So it was no surprise that he was going to prank by himself.
It was the middle of the night, and after casually watching the Jedi over the course of the week, he had been able to find out the code to his quarters. And now he was enacting his master plan.
“Alright, little buddy. I know this isn’t exactly a good place to be releasing you, but I need you to trust me, okay?” Rane looks down at the spider in his hands, and it stares back silently.
Rane quickly types in the code to the Jedi’s room and slips inside, shutting the door behind himself. He creeps his way over to the bedroom door before pausing. He looks down at the spider again before slowly opening the door. He peers inside to see Mace snoring into his pillow. He stifles a laugh before slowly bending down.
“I need you to go over and crawl onto him. Try to wake him up, if possible.”
The spider merely stares back silently again before Rane sets him down. He closes the bedroom door before rushing out the main door and into the hall. He silently waits outside of it, hoping that it wouldn’t be too long before he gets a reaction.
Just as he is about to open the door and check on the spider, he hears a scream come from inside. He claps a hand over his mouth as he doubles over in laughter. Never, in his existence, would he have thought Mace’s voice could go so high.
“AHHHH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OUT!” Mace screams from inside his room. Footsteps approach the other side of the door, and Rane barely has time to jump out of the way as the Jedi runs out into the hall.
“General Windu! Is everything alright?” Rane asks as seriously as he could muster. Mace looks at him with sheer terror in his eyes before it changes.
“You. You did this,” he says, pointing a finger at Rane as an angry expression settles on his face.
“Did what, sir?” Rane asks, still trying to act oblivious.
“The spider. This was your doing. How did you get inside my room?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“I’ll give you one more chance to come clean. Just admit that this was you, and I’ll let you go.”
Rane stares at him blankly before his eyes dart to the ground. The spider was crawling out and towards Mace again.
“Like I said, sir. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mace’s eyes narrow before they shoot wide again. He looks down to see the spider crawling up his robes, and he screams as he runs away, shaking his robes violently to try and shake it off. When it does fall to the ground, Rane picks it up and carries him back to the barracks.
“Gotta return you to Foxy,” he says as he makes his way back.
“Okay, do you think this is enough?” Jack asks as he motions to the tray of cookies.
“That’s perfect!” Foxy says, Pepper nodding beside him.
“Okay, so just tell me one more time how-“
“Maker, Jack. Okay, so, we are going to put your cookies out as bait,” Foxy says, Jack nodding along as he listens, “General Windu is going to see the cookies, and he’s going to go over and eat one,”
“And then, we’re going to release the ants,”
“Okay this is where I get confused.”
“What are you confused about?” Pepper asks.
“The ants are just going to know where to go?”
“And just in case, we’ll leave a trail of crumbs to lead them over to where they need to go,” Foxy added.
“Alright, let’s just hope this works,” Jack says while turning to the door of the Jedi’s quarters. He quickly types in the password Rane had given them, and they sneak inside. Jack took his cookies over to the table where they would bait Mace, Foxy laid a trail of crumbs over, and Pepper checked on the ants.
“Alright, everything is set up,” Foxy says as they all meet back up at the door.
“Ants are ready,” Pepper confirms.
“I can smell the cookies from here,” Jack says proudly. “There’s no way General Windu will be able to resist.”
“And now we wait,” Foxy says, leading them out the door and down the hall. It was just their luck that Mace happened to be returning to his room as they walked.
“General Windu,” Pepper nods, earning a brief nod from the Jedi.
Mace pauses for a second to turn and look at the retreating clones, suspicion running wild. He dismisses it though, as he didn’t expect Jack or Pepper to ever attempt to prank him.
As he enters his room, he’s immediately overcome with the smell of fresh cookies.
“Maybe this is an apology,” he thinks out loud. He smiles and walks over to the kitchen where he finds the cookies waiting. He eagerly grabs one and sniffs it, making sure nothing smells out of the ordinary. When he’s satisfied that they’re harmless, he takes a bite. His eyes shoot open and he swallows before hurriedly taking another bite.
“Maker, I know Kenhla said Jack’s baking was good, but this…this is-“ his sentence was cut off by him shoving another cookie into his mouth. As he goes to grab a third, he lets out a shriek as he feels something run across his hand. He looks down and sees ants crawling over to the cookies.
“What the-where are all these ants coming from?” Mace says, suddenly becoming frantic. “No no no! Not the cookies!” He watches as the ants scramble over the treats, taking chunks off them and carrying them away.
“I wanted to eat those,” Mace whines as he falls on his knees, facing down sadly.
“Should I make him another batch? I kind of feel bad,” Jack asks. The clones had snuck back over and we’re standing outside the door, listening to Mace inside.
“No! The whole idea of the prank was that he didn’t get the cookies!” Foxy says.
“You can give him a cookie sticker,” Pepper says, pulling one from his pocket.
“Good idea!” Jack says, taking it over and slipping it under the door. He suddenly hears footsteps approaching, and before he can stand up, the door whooshes open.
“…cookie sticker?” Jack asks hesitantly, watching as Mace’s gaze turns deadly.
“Come on, Jack!” Pepper says, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him away from the seething Mace.
“What about my ants?” Foxy yells.
“Get new ones!” Both Jack and Pepper respond as they flee the scene.
Kenhla walks into the room to find all her clones sitting in a circle while Raffle walks around them, fly swatter in hand and smacking each on top of the head as he passes.
“You,” *smack, “are,” *smack*, “NOT,” *smack*, “allowed,” *smack*, “to,” *smack*, “prank,” *smack*, “Jedi,” *smack*, “that,” *smack*, “aren’t,” *smack*, “in,” *smack*, “your,” *smack*, “battalion!” *smack*. “ESPECIALLY,” *smack*, “NOT,” *smack*, “MACE,” *smack*, “WINDU!” *smack*.
“What’s going on?” She asks her Padawans.
“Raffle found out about the prank wars the others had on Master Windu,” Brisk explains.
“I thought they were pretty funny,” Luna giggles.
“STOP SMACKING ME!” Skip says as Raffle rains down a bunch of swats.
“I KNOW THIS WAS YOUR IDEA!”
“BUT THE OTHERS HELPED! AT LEAST SWAT THEM MORE AS WELL!”
“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” Raffle says before moving into the next person, which happens to be Jack.
“Hey! I didn’t want to do this!” Jack defends.
“BUT YOU STILL DID!” He says before moving on again.
“Sorry, Ryder. I gotta do this,” Raffle says, almost apologetically.
“S’alright. I understand.”
“Maker, don’t make me feel bad about it,” Raffle says as he quickly swats the newest member.
“How long has he been swatting them?” Kenhla asks.
“About 20 minutes,” Brisk responds.
“And you’ve just been sitting here?”
“I made popcorn!” Luna says while holding the bowl out towards her master. Kenhla smiles and takes a piece, popping it in her mouth and settling down with her padawans to watch the clone Captain reprimand his batch.
@lavenderstaars @lynnpaper @foxlock @maygalodon @oo-hazel-oo @mango-peachjuice @radbatch @letsunity @burnthashbrown27 @generaltano @catboy-tech @cosmicghostie @namesmox @monako-jinn-stories @longearedowlfromouterspace @lusiawonder @just-another-dreamerr
annaxmalina
origamiaround
prguitarman
kaledo-art
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
