Atlas, Atlas. Bilskirnir Housing Complex. Team HJNS dormitory.Fifteen hours ago.No one on the team had taken Jericho's loss well. Nicole, as the team's operator and wellness professional, had been in charge of every last tactic in the HJNS playbook for years; of course, things like individual skill sets and the input of her boys would always need to be taken into account, but for the most part many of the most successful strategies had been Nicole's brainchildren.
Many of them had also utilized Jericho in a central role. His Semblance made him the perfect infiltrator; he was skilled with a knife, his pistols, or even his bare hands; he could drive anything on at least one wheel, even if he couldn't do so particularly safely. Jer had become her crutch, an ace in the hole that she could rely on to partner with any of the others. Now he was gone - and the team was refusing to replace him.
It was out of loyalty to their teammate, for a certainty, but more than anything Nicole believed that the issues at the root of their insistence were denial and desperation. All three of them - four, if you counted Nicole, who had indeed been quietly hoping that this whole Vale thing was just a fad - were suffering from them. The normally gregarious Speer was withdrawn, constantly texting memes back and forth with chatbots in the hopes that the blank, stoic responses of artificial intelligence would capture the vibe of having a conversation with Jer. Bright was worse. He had always been sullen and withdrawn from his team, but Jericho had been the Stripe he'd liked best. Losing his lone tether to sane conversation in the dorm had caused Bright to lapse back into the primal state that his friends had originally found him in. He now controlled the space behind the kitchen counter, the barony that Rich had deemed
Wench's Walk, searching for where Jericho had stored the pans, knives, measuring materials, or secret Rich-killing weapons.
Speaking of Rich, he had taken his knight's departure the worst. But you would never know it by looking at him.
"Ah, Nicole!" he exclaimed magnanimously when she walked inside the dorm her boys lived in. The team leader was sprawled out along every one of the bar stools in front of the kitchen counter, radiant and unruffled by the tribulations that had sprung up within his keep.
"Come, take a seat."His feet lifted up, inches above the stool on the far right of the counter. Nicole, gauging it, might have had enough space to wiggle in before she was repurposed into Heinrich's footrest. Her eyebrow raised.
"What, are you serious?""But of course!" he exclaimed again.
"You always have my permission."Nicole rolled her eyes again and sat up on the counter. Rich's eyes widened; imperceptibly, his head shook.
"Nicole, I would take heed. Bright has regressed further today, and still gets touchy when people touch the coun--"An empty box of rice made a brilliant arc over the counter, rising from Nicole's east and setting into her west - west right onto the crown of the king's head, where it bounced again and clattered onto the floor.
"Shut up, fag."Speer looked up in a hurry. He must have been surprised Bright had spoken. When his eyes caught Nicole on the counter, he stood and waved at her, walking over from the team's dual-monitor setup in the foyer. He was carrying his Scroll in his hands; he must have been chatbotting or something. Nicole waved back at him with a smile and then scanned the faces of all three of them.
"So how were your days?" she asked playfully.
"I guess you guys must be hungry, huh? Anyone else remember how to cook? Want me to make some pasta?""Nonsense. You are a credit to your position, Nicole, but we have a cook," Rich said proudly, puffing out his chest.
"Jericho knew his place better than to leave us unprepared for his vacation. He cooked family portions of our favorite meals, and prepared grocery lists as well. He must have been preparing to shop for us upon his return. Truly, I wish either of you were even one tenth of Jericho. Maybe this place wouldn't be such a sty. Think of all the vacuuming he'll have to do to get this rice out of the carpets. I mean, my God.""Hey fuckwit," came the yell from under the counter.
"Has that mono started to ravage your brain lining? Jer's not coming back. He left us.""I've had mono," Speer offered cheerfully.
"I don't think it's a gay thing. Jer never had it. I think it's just from kissing anybody, and I don't remember it affecting my brain lining.""It doesn't," Nicole said firmly.
"Let's all get some pasta in us, okay? And then we'll clean this place up and talk about the teammate sel--""I don't know, Bright, how long before it ravaged your mother's?"A garbled scream erupted from Wench's Walk.
"As I was saying, Nicole, thank you but no. The meals Jericho made us were meant to last the week, and now by my decree we shall await his return with patience and prudence."...
"You finished 'em this morning, huh?" Nicole asked sympathetically.
"Why isn't he back yet, Nicole?"There were several notes of pleading in Heinrich Gault's voice. It was apparent that the bonds of loyalty - close to matrimony - that he and Jericho had sworn one another had caused many things to atrophy, chiefly among them his cooking skills and his sense of order between the two. With no Jericho to serve as grounded enforcer and royal headsman, Speer and Bright would never respect her authority. She didn't even know if they would respect hers. She had to think like Jericho would in order to rein in the remainder of her team.
"I'm cooking."
"N-No!"
From underneath her vest, her ceremonial pocket pistol left its holster and fired a single round into the apartment's ceiling. It joined several of the larger holes left by one of Jericho's Manticores over the past year.
"my SNEAKER"
"Alright, boys, listen up. Jericho is coming back.""I know that, foolish operator," Rich said smugly, though he had still winced at the sound of the gunshot in close proximity.
"He seems like he's doing alright to me," Speer said, looking down at his Scroll.
"Yyyyyyes!" Bright roared in approval, punctuated by the
bonk of his head against the counter as he tried to rise.
"Keep listening.""NOOOOOOOOO! IT WENT RIGHT THROUGH THE TOE!"
"it weNT riGHt thROUGH thE TOOooooOOoooOOE"
"But if we want him to come back and
stay back," Nicole continued, "we're going to have to prove to him that we're responsible enough to do things
without him. Otherwise he's just going to push us all out of the nest for good. We have to
cook our own meals,
do our own grocery shopping,
work on our own homework, and above all,
keep ourselves together. We're still a team, right?"
She had segued into a more encouraging tone as her speech went on, but she was met with only silence at the end. She fired into the ceiling again.
"G-Gotcha, babe!""I concur!""Yeah, yeah...""STOP IT! YOU ANIMALS!"
"Besides, if you all missed him so much, you could talk to him. He does have a Scroll.""Yeah, he says hi, guys. And he says that he bought Rich some more toothpaste because he was almost out," Speer said casually, looking back down as though Nicole had reminded him again that it was in his hands. With his head buried in a screen, he didn't notice that the others had turned to him - even Bright, who must have been reawakened by Nicole's speech enough that he could relearn a bipedal stance.
"Vanilla mint..." Rich murmured.
"My soul of chivalry...""I know I say this a lot, but fuck you guys are gross.""You've been texting him?" Nicole asked, snapping her fingers to get the rest of the team's attention - although yeah, that toothpaste stuff was really weird. She tried not to think about that.
Maybe he did need a vacation from Rich after all...Then again, Jer probably knew her favorite toothpaste too. He'd crashed on her couch enough. He was so perfect in the hours before he woke up hungover. Vulnerable, curled up, hair matting his face. He was like a Jagerbombed unicorn.
...
"You've, uh, been texting him," she repeated, in a calmer voice.
Speer nodded.
"Uh, yeah." He held up his Scroll.
"Right now, actually. He sent me the admin codes for Beacon's network so we could work on a training regimen for the drones there. Lookie. Lookie lookie."He laid out the Scroll on the countertop, so that they could all lean over it. Nicole caught a faint whiff and realized that one of them hadn't showered after coming back from the gym. Either that, or Bright had been in the kitchen much longer than anyone wanted to tell her since Friday night.
"Jericho Piper...Team Flapjack." Heinrich's eyes had narrowed into slits.
"Those corn-fed, inbred whores. To think, they would lure a young man like that with the promise of food. Nothing else could have coaxed him from us, but for the idea of cooking for new and unexciting people. We stopped our advance there too soon. And look at him. He's not even team leader. It was bad enough when he refused such a commission here, but in Vale? He is a god."Everyone was looking at the blonde-haired king. Nicole's eyes had gone wide, head cocking slightly in his direction.
"Uh, yes, sir, Your Grace.""...to them. An agent of his caliber would be a god to them.""I can't believe you always have to ask where your sister gets this from.""Better than never asking where your mother got it from!""COCKSUCKE--"Nicole raised the gun again.
"...okay." Bright looked reluctantly at the holes in the ceiling. In the brief silence that followed, Nicole swore she heard someone's faint, mournful wailing. It could've just been the sky-vans outside the open window. It was the late-night rush; even on a Monday, there were always people headed out for a taste of the Atlesian nightlife. Usually Jer and Rich were among them. Without him, Rich would probably be home more often. It would at least help him take his responsibilities as captain more seriously.
...
Fuck...fuuuuuuck!
"I mean...you said he's got admin access, Sully?""Huh? Oh, yeah. He's got a TA position at their firing range or some shit. We've just been tinkering with stuff in the school's protocols.""I mean..."Nicole looked around at the others, normally guileless blue eyes turning conspiratorial.
"...we could make him take responsibility, right? After all. He did leave us hanging."The boys all looked at her, then at the Scroll. Heinrich began to chuckle.
"Ah, Nicole," he sighed wistfully.
"Truly, you are one of us."...
"Uh...thanks, buddy."
The movers had been shuttling in their new team captain's things during the last forty minutes of the final class period. A few of the movers had taken note of the things they'd brought in. There were several guitars, one electric and two acoustic, arranged on displays; the movers had to take care not to scuff any of them. There was also a Dance Til Sunrise dance pad peripheral that was meant to go to a TV, as well as a plasma TV and console to join the dance pad. Boxes of clothes and bedding were left inside, for the new arrival to make his bed. Stacked on top of the mattress were a series of posters from around the world, detailing Vytal Festivals past -
ATLAS WILL INDOCTRINATE YOUR YOUTH! - concert tours, and other stadium events from around Atlas.
Only a few pictures had made the trip along with the new arrival. There was one of a handsome man, tanned by long periods outdoors, who had strung a bow out over an apartment balcony, as though he could land a shot past the horizon. A young Vacuan woman in a tank top and a leather jacket sat atop him, long, bare legs wrapped around his neck and hands playfully forcing his head and chin down into his chest, as if to mess with his shot.
Another picture was at the Vytal Festival depicted in the poster, with an Atlesian team and a Mistralian team detailed on the scoreboards behind them. The two children in the photo were identical, but for their hair and attire; one was dressed up in a white-and-blue outfit with a V-finned headband. The other kid was in a child-sized
INDOCTRINATE t-shirt and a tan, unzipped hoodie, but where the V-finned girl's hair was long and dark, tipped in red, the other child had dyed his hair a fierce shock of bubblegum pink.
The last photograph was clearly the most recent. It had clearly been taken from the sidelines of some event. A single boy, muddied and soaked by cold water, was on his knees past a finish line, gripping a stopwatch in his hands. The girl from the Vytal photo, aged almost a decade, was hurtling over the other sidelines to join him, the beaming smile on her face expressing her pure joy and pride at the kneeling student. Someone else had already beaten her onto the pitch, though. Blonde and handsome, he had wrapped one arm around the neck of the boy on the ground, apparently paying no heed to the fact that a large gash had sliced one of the boy's cheeks. He also didn't seem to care how much of that blood trickled down onto his jacket, cinched tight against the Atlesian winter cold.
The boy didn't care either. He had wrapped an arm tightly around the other boy in turn, and had one outstretched for the girl. Even in the photograph, his eyes were bright and excited; there was a wide grin on his lips, mouth open wider than it would have been had he merely been panting in exhaustion. He was laughing.
Jericho Piper was laughing.
Whoever, and whatever, the photos all depicted, they must have meant a lot to him.
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