Fishing for a Beating

"Tell me you didn't actually drive my car." Ariake stared at the full plate of breakfast in front of him, his face a muddy green.

Lachlan downed a cup of coffee, already finished with his. "Nope, you were dreaming."

"It had better not have a bullethole."

"Now what've you been doing to think something like that?"

"If I sang one of your gaijin songs I'll commit seppuku."

"Careful with the knife, I think you're still drunk." He stood, collecting his dishes and heading for the little sink. "Might want to burn that off before we head out."

Ariake sighed.

"Just do it near the bathrooms, otherwise you might—"

The sound of a mad scramble out the door told him Ariake had already found out what happened. Or else his weak stomach was just playing up again. Couldn't say it'd happened except on a couple particularly bad hangovers for him, after all.

"—make a mess," he finished, looking at the empty doorway. Oh well. He'd tried.

"What assignment is this, again?" Eden finally spoke up from where he'd sat dead-silent with his head in his hands the entire time.

"Complaint about glimmer lanterns."

"We're back to this again?"

Couldn't help but agree, for once. "Got to keep up the stack of bad jobs to win better ones."

"This... points system is abysmal."

He hummed. "It's fair. Otherwise we'd be at the bottom instead of having a chance at the top."

Eden scoffed.

"We're not even to summer yet, anything could happen." He shook the water off the plate at him. "Hirano made it up there. If we get our act together, we can too."

"The gaijin lives by blind faith alone," Eden said sourly, pushing away from the table and heading out of the little common room, leaving Lachlan to gather up the dishes and return them to the kitchen.

He'd get them on his side one of these days.

...He had to.

_________________

Walking into the training room a few days later, he eyed the four simulators, wondering what exactly the occasion was this time. From the way she'd worded it, Kyubi had something new in store for them.

She grinned. "Today, we'll be testing you up to notch-five."

...As it turned out, torture.

"The gaijin should go first," Seven's leader said with a cocky grin. "Then they can both be wheeled away to the medic ward and let us do the real testing."

"I'll take a stretcher right now," Lachlan volunteered flippantly. "I like the sound of a comfy bed with a pretty nurse for company while everyone else is in pain."

Drake coughed suspiciously into his fist, a ruffle of equal parts almost-amusement and offence stirring through the rest of them. But Kyubi just smiled like the fox-lady she was. "Don't worry, Kai-chan. Notch-three is the only one you're all expected to pass. Roku-chan and Ryu-chan have been there many times now."

Unfortunately.

"Now, we'll go in order. Team One, you may enter."

Hirano stepped forward with all his usual confidence, and Lachlan cupped his hands around his mouth. "Careful, O Noble One. If she's being let off her leash she might play dirty."

Beloved star pupil turned around with a smirk. "We'll know if you come out with shaking knees."

...He'd walked into that one. Half his own team snickering didn't lessen the burn, either. Closing his eyes and puffing a lock of hair out of his face, he sighed, "It's true. I enjoy myself a little too much sometimes."

That may have earned him the disgust of every girl in the room. Apart from a little lass who must've struggled to reach five-foot, peeking over to grin at him. "Maybe you could fit two in your cockpit?"

"Ahh," he said, shaking his head to the giggling of the girls at his expense, and gave her a little lopsided smile, "I'm afraid I only like older women. Besides, Ki is a jealous mistress."

Though she seemed to prefer Hirano. One or two of his team were a bit shaky, but the blond came out with the fire of a man who'd looked death in the face and won the staring contest.

When it came time for him, it could've gone better. He sat there panting afterwards, blinking stinging sweat out of his eyes, and had to fight back a shudder. If his knees didn't shake on the way out, it'd be a miracle.

Closing his eyes, he heard Kyubi-sama's voice crackle in his ear, to him and the rest of his team.

"From now on, you'll have access to notches four and five. Use them wisely."

_________________

Here's hoping I never have to. Lurking like a spider in the shadows of a glimmer-constructed modern artist's idea of a pavilion, he didn't have much hope of that. Competitive exercises tended to go sideways.

"Twelve and Seven haven't noticed you." Ariake hovered above him, visible through a gap in the twisting branch-flame roof he'd squeezed into. Had his Samurai grown ghostly wings when Lachlan wasn't looking? Or was that his spirit-vision playing tricks? It felt a little like double-vision—blink and it'd disappear.

"Fantastic." Could hear them fighting outside, a beam or a weapon hitting a support shuddering through the structure as he focused on keeping his Samurai hovering and eyed the flag sitting quietly in the middle. "Where's Hirano's team?"

"Hiding on the edges," Drake reported.

"Waiting to snatch it from whoever comes out on top. Sounds like him." He summoned a rope, flicking it down. Time for some fishing. "Keep an eye out from your positions. I'm stealing it out from under their noses."

Coiling a loop around the pole, he yanked it back up in one movement, real metal clicking against his hand just as two Samurai crashed in through the wall. "Got it!"

He didn't waste time seeing if they noticed. Hauling himself back out, he heard something thump the structure behind him just as he trapped the flag in a makeshift pocket on his hip and leapt, a megaphone shout ringing out. "Sixteen has it!"

Well, talk about painting a target. A beam sizzled past him, just missing as he rolled onto the street—hopefully in one of the gaps of Hirano's net—and launched into a sprint—

"Gaijin!"

His vision went white, a searing tingle burning across his skin, and he choked, his Samurai tumbling straight into the side of a building. "Dammit— Was that a beam?"

Stumbling, leaking threads of sparkles from what seemed to be every part of him, he pushed up and rolled out of the way of another flash of light. A shadow flickered above him, and he barely kicked back in time to avoid an axe, throwing up a bigger shield to catch the back-swing and wincing as it cracked. Hell, that was Twelve's leader. She had to be on four.

And probably angry that they'd managed to draw level with her yesterday, Seven not far behind.

"What the hell are you doing stuck at three?!"

"Three-two, actually," he grunted, throwing his leaky Samurai back as Eden's clipped "Beam." came almost at the same time as his nuke.

"Gaijin, push your notch up or we lose," his Highness continued.

As if he hadn't already thrown it forward. Except the left throttle refused to move. Twelve launched at him, her upturned shield barely cracked and her axe aiming to slice his head off.

Dammit dammit dammit.

He clenched it tighter, settling the stubborn throttle squarely on four, his shield spitting sparks as it slammed straight into the axeblade. The feedback from putting the right to notch-three slammed into him with it, throwing him into the artificial light of the cockpit with a choking gasp, his hands involuntarily clenching in a rictus around the handles.

He ground his teeth against the pins and needles digging straight up his spine, blinking hard back into the Samurai and kicking his assailant off. Damn bloody hell.

Another came at him from the side, and he dodged, leaping above another beam, Drake tearing into the crowd clamouring for his blood below with runes spiralling across his armour and ghostly horns flickering on his helmet for a second. Had those been there before? Didn't have time to think about it as he pulled up onto a slanting roof and dashed off. "Ariake! On me, I'll hand it off and keep a decoy!"

"Is that even allowed?"

"Didn't say we couldn't." He leapt up onto a monorail bridge between skyscrapers, hand reaching to his hip just as he threw a glance back and up—

And took a sword to the face.