Fic Summary: General Mike says the other Rogues don't really care about Whiskey, they just fear him. Well, to be fair, the Rogues all fear each other to some degree, because to survive to this point you've got to be lucky and/or dangerous. But they like and care about him more than they fear him. Let's go over the reasons why, along with some encounters.

Chapter Summary: First up is everyone's favorite Chaos Witch Varimorph, Orendi!

The reason Orendi is up first has to do with the fact my original idea was to only do the Rogues, and I had decided to do them in alphabetical order. Then I decided to do this story for Camp NaNoWriMo, and set my word count for 10,000, and that idea was gone because I soon was adding in chapters in-between them.

This was one of the first parts I started writing, anyways.


Chapter 1: Orendi

There's a lot of reasons why Orendi likes Whiskey.

Reason the first: He's a really pretty color. A pretty purply-blue that the Phoebe later called indigo and now wished she hadn't because Orendi kept purposefully irking her by pronouncing it in-DIE-go. He snickered if he was around when she did, because of the look Phoebe got on her face.

Reason the second: His reactions are fun. If you say something he finds genuinely funny on the battlefield, he'll laugh. A deep laugh that come from deep down in his squishy guts. If an enemy says something to piss him off while being really stupid, he'll get a look on his that says "I'm going to enjoy hurting you far more than I probably should." If you were getting on his nerves, he didn't try to hide it.

Reason the third: He's nice. One time, before they joined the Battleborn, Reyna wouldn't let her go on a mission because they needed to do something without drawing too much attention for once. It hadn't ended that way, so that just made her madder. She was thinking about giving Reyna a reason to need her eyepatch (though that would make her more of a pirate, so all that would do was piss her off and make her cooler), when Whiskey showed her a video he made to cheer her up. He'd piled up a bunch of bodies, and set them on fire. It was one of the nicest things someone had ever done for her.

Reason the fourth: His cooking made her feel happy in a way that usually only brutal, bloody and gorey violence and chaos could. Bosslady said it was because even if he was a defective clone, he still had an urge to be the best at whatever he put him mind to, to put his all into it like a soldier did at winning a battle, even if he'd been shoved into the role of a cook like a stake through the heart because the morons in the UPR who had put him there because they hadn't known what to do with someone who actually had "not dying if avoidable" as a life goal. Once she told her that, Orendi found she could taste the "all" he put in it.

She'd even told him so, once. He'd grinned his sharky grin and thanked her for the compliment, but asked that she not word it like that in the future, because it actually sounded a little gross and the others might misunderstand her.

She didn't really understand what he was talking about, but telling him had him wondering just how old she was, and anyways she didn't want to ruin their friendship of blood and fire any more than she wanted her friendship with her bestie Shayne to be ruined so she agreed.

"Is that what our friendship is, blood and fire?" He'd asked the first time she mentioned it to him. "Not that I mind, you know."

"Blood, fire, sharp teeth, and multiple eyeballs!" she'd cackled. Her creepy giggle fit was cut short by a gasp as a very important question popped into her skull, "Should I put another eye on my forehead!?"

He'd stared at her, long and hard, before he reached over to grab her shoulder. "Hey. I know you Varimorphs' whole thing is about being able to adapt and change like that," he snapped the fingers of his free hand. "But don't feel like you need change your body or your crazy personality in order to make other people like you or anything." He paused before adding, "Unless, you know, it's a life or death thing, but you should feel free to get rid of it as soon as you can."

Orendi had, of course, responded to his touching reassurance that she was fine the way she was as well as insight into how he felt about himself in an appropriate manner. Asking him if he meant that she didn't need another eye in her head in order to be killing buddies who wrote "Insert-Subject" Died: Part II You Died Again stories together.

He'd smiled as he reassured her that they could do it anytime they were on a mission team.

She spent the next week inviting him to play board games with her, the pieces they came with all replaced with ones made of the bones of people she'd killed she really didn't like or pretty sparkly shiny rocks.

All of this connects to reason the fifth of why she likes him. Because she likes that he likes her the way she is, even if she probably bugs him sometimes. He probably wouldn't allow her in the kitchen at all after the "Incident" if he didn't, after all.


Notes:

Whiskey kinda misunderstood that Orendi wasn't asking if she should put a third eye on her head because she wanted him to like her. She was honestly asking if he thought it would look good.

I've no idea how old Orendi is, but I think her not understanding the innuendo in what she said is more a lack of interest in such matters than not knowing at all.

For those wondering, yes, some of the game pieces Orendi has are made with gems. She cut them all with her laser eyes. The whole bone thing does unsettle the Rogues, but she tends to behave when playing board games (she says weird shit, still, but she doesn't do much beyond yell when losing or accusing dice or spinners of cheating), so it balances out.

Just what was the Incident that made it so Orendi can't be in the kitchen alone? Well, you'll get another hint later.

Comments are appreciated.

Next up is the only clone in the UPR anymore.