Timeline note: Set in between the "Don't Scare the Teen" and "Hide and Sneak" events.
They were getting better, Mike noted. It actually took him a few moments now to find them, ranging from mere minutes to that one memorable time in the Biology Department's greenhouses, when he had been running around the place for almost half an hour before realising that the twins had used their tentacles to disguise as a tropical plant.
By the time he had found them, the rest of the team had been laughing merrily. It was not every day that one of them (or two of them) managed to stump him so thoroughly, and they had been enjoying every minute of it.
Of course, they had wasted a lot of time on that particular game, but as it had been their last training spot for the day, he had let it slide. As long as it did not derail their schedule, he saw no harm in a little team building.
He uncovered his eye and pointed in different directions in rapid succession. "Bushes! Large tree trunk! Library building wall! Riverbed rocks! Bridge balustrade!" Yeah, they were getting better, but so was he. And there were only so many places his friends could have disappeared to, after all.
Disgruntled, they came out of their various hiding places one after the other and trotted over to him. Sullivan – Sulley, he reminded himself – was picking a few bits of foliage from his fur, while Art shook himself to get a little mud out of his. "How do you do that?" Squishy complained, obviously exhausted and even a little whiny by now. They had been at it all afternoon.
Mike did have an explanation. His team mostly kept going for the Basic Disappearance type of spots, and as those were relying solely on the concept of using something as cover, they were rather obvious to make out. But he did not want to discourage Squishy, especially as he had been expecting their choices and had integrated them into his strategy. "Well, it's easy," he replied instead. "I've been training stuff like this even before I came to this school, so with that kind of a head start, of course I'd have more ideas for where to hide or where to look."
Squishy seemed satisfied with that explanation, but that was not the case for everyone.
"Still doesn't explain how you know which places we'll pick," Terry grumbled. He was having a bad day. His negativity was so contagious that Mike would have sworn there was a dark cloud hanging over his head, and not even his twin's nervously forced cheer could dissipate it. As no one could be completely certain that this would work out, they were all still attending their current majors, and Terri's dance lessons were taking their toll on the older brother. While they were equally exhausting for both twins, at least Terri was having fun with them.
Mike smirked at them, determined to keep up the good humour if he could. He was not going to worsen Terry's mood and provoke a fight. "Do you want an in-depth analysis of Pathfinding in Neural Networks or do you just want to go for the second turn?"
"Second turn!" they all chorused.
"Before you go," he fixed Don, "walls and ceilings are a really great idea in your case, but you need to make it less obvious. There's still plenty of Stick Spots that do have Environmental Camouflage or Shadow Screens. Keep watching out for those."
"I'll do my very best," Don assured him. He was breathing rather heavily from all the exercise, but he had implored Mike to not give him any leeway compared to the others just because he was older than they were, and Mike certainly wanted to do him this favour.
"All right, ten seconds. Go!"
The second turn always went one of two ways. Either his friends looked for more Basic Disappearance possibilities and panicked when they found they had already used them up, or they actually started thinking. The session in the clock tower, for instance, had been really productive. They had managed to come up with a lot more hiding spots than any of them, including Mike, had anticipated. Usually, a training site was more or less depleted after the third turn, but that time, his team had been so fired up that they had managed to get twice as much out of it, and a couple of times, he had actually been challenged to find them all. The highlight, however, had been when somebody had suddenly shown up to check on the noise – they had not exactly been supposed to be in there – and had had to leave empty-handed because there seemed to be no one there.
He opened his eye again and surveyed the area. This time, it did take him a moment until he had a full head count. Productive second turn, then. Good.
"Below the bridge! Top of the archway! In the water! Entrance stairs! Art, c'mon, you gotta focus!" Seriously, one slipup like that in the actual challenge and they were finished!
Art flashed him a grin without the faintest hint of embarrassment. A rabbit was sitting in front of him and staring at him, and he continued scratching it behind its horns with a blissful expression on his face. Then he seemed to realise that this was not the time and started making little shooing gestures at it, as if reprimanding it for distracting him.
"How cute!" Terri exclaimed and tried to go over and play with it, too, but Terry grabbed the stairs' balustrade with both hands and just glared at him until his brother stopped struggling and admitted defeat.
Mike frowned at the creature that had managed to effortlessly incapacitate half his team, but before he could do anything about it, the rabbit had spread its wings and flown off.
Well, on to more important matters. "Good thinking!" he complimented his friends before they had even finished shuffling back to him. "Those were definitely better than before." Even though they were still rather obvious, but, after all, that was exactly why they were taking three turns on each site.
The second turn was not important. Neither was the first. The third one was the only one he was really interested in because it forced his team to become creative. The good hiding spots were those that were hard to classify and not among those that people would choose to check out first. That was what they were doing all this for, even though he had not told them that. He was a little afraid that it would demotivate them to learn that two thirds of their work were just build-up.
"I'm tired!" Squishy complained randomly.
Mike raised half his brow at him. "No whining, guys, the referees won't choose to overlook you just because they feel for you."
Terry pouted and crossed his arms with his brother's. "Well, you're not a referee; you could take it a little easier."
"He could, but then it wouldn't be effective, right?" Sulley observed.
Mike blinked at him, a little unnerved by this sudden show of support amidst the general groaning. "Exactly," he finally agreed. "And if it's not effective, there's really no point to all this."
He paused when a high-pitched scream ripped through the air, and they watched in silence as a furry yellow monster with light blue spots came flying out of the library's roof and landed in the stream with a loud splash. A few seniors passing by on the bridge cheered loudly. When the poor guy re-emerged, he hastily looked all around himself in embarrassment and wasted no time in hurrying off.
"Anyway," Mike continued, focusing on his friends again, "as I said, the second turn was an improvement."
He turned to Don who was panting and looked like he could use a little cheering up. "Don, good thinking with the Shadow Screen below the bridge, I almost didn't spot you. Art..."
"I know," his friend cut in, raising his hands in surrender. "I'll try and concentrate. Promise."
Mike nodded and continued the feedback. "Sulley, Elemental Cover is very risky. If an area contains bodies of water, you should really stay away from them. ...well, not that there's any water in most kids' bedrooms, but generally speaking. Imagine that it could have taken me some time to find the others – eventually, you'd have needed to breathe, so you'd have had no choice but to expose yourself."
"I was kind of out of ideas," Sulley admitted a little sheepishly.
Mike cracked a smile at the concession. "Anyway, you just keep going for Environmental Camouflage, it's the best bet with your size. Open Obfuscation might work if you're bold enough to go for..."
"Would you stop using those words?" Terry suddenly snapped at him.
Everyone froze at the rude outburst. They threw each other looks full of uncertainty, anxious to see whether the situation would escalate.
They were his friends, Mike had to remind himself. Probably the best he had ever had. So he tried his very hardest not to snap back, despite the fact that Terry was basically angry with him for helping them. "The terms are designed to give us a common language," he carefully repeated an explanation he had given before. "If I say 'really obvious hiding spots' instead of 'Basic Disappearance', chances are that you won't get what I'm talking about, or think they're bad because my paraphrase might sound as if I thought..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know that stuff!" Terry spat. "But a common language only makes sense if everyone knows all the words!"
He could not argue that fact, but it was not his fault that they did not know.
"C'mon, Terry," Sulley quickly intervened. "It's not as if Mike's not teaching us the technicalities. And if he repeats them again and again, they're just gonna stick better."
"Which is a good thing," Don added and winked. "If we really do get back into the program, we're gonna have a neat little arsenal of technical terms to impress the professors with."
That thought did seem to cheer Terry up considerably. He heaved a huge sigh and turned to Mike. "I'm…"
"Don't apologise!" Mike cut in, smiling. "There's no need."
Terry looked at him for a second, then nodded and cracked a small smile of his own.
Mike decided to skip the rest of the feedback – what was left was all stuff he had said before, anyway – and clapped his hands. "Okay, guys, third turn and we're outta here!"
He closed his eye again and heard them scramble off. After this little incident, he was not expecting to get much out of the third turn. The stress was getting to them too much. Not that they could afford to waste the opportunity, though – they had used up most of the training sites the campus had to offer.
What was left? It was imperative to change locations for each session so that the team needed to react to unknown surroundings quickly, and so that Mike did not get a chance to unconsciously complicate their task by memorising their hiding places. They could go to the sewers again and simply choose a different area than before – Art would make sure they did not get lost – but as the pillars all looked the same and their first session there had been more hide-and-seek than actual training, he felt it would not be very productive. He still thought the Aviation School would be a good idea, but as there were no entrances on ground level, they really had no way of getting in there. At least not legally.
Apart from that, their options were more or less non-existent. He did not dare suggest the inside of the library, the Stinkbats café had already kicked them out for disturbing their customers, and they had never tried this in Mrs. Squibbles' house, either – not for training, anyway – but they all knew the secret spots of that particular building, so there was no point.
Reaching ten, he blinked his eye open yet again and took a first look around.
He did not see them.
A smile snuck its way onto his face. It was with no small amount of pride that he noted this fact. He had taught them how to do this, and they were getting incredible at it. And did he dare hope that they were braving today's difficulties because his determination had rubbed off on them? Well, but maybe that was a bit much to believe.
A rustle in the tree above drew his attention, but he was given no time to investigate.
"Geronimooooo!"
No points for guessing who that had been.
"What the..." He looked up just in time to see the approaching danger, before being flattened by what felt like several thousand tons of airborne team mate. They had all launched themselves at him at once and ended up in an entangled mess – with him at the bottom, naturally.
"Gotcha!" the twins cheered in unison. Terry's renewed good mood would have probably lifted Mike's own spirits, if he had had enough oxygen left in his brain to properly process it.
"Guess you couldn't find us in time!" Art sing-songed.
Squishy's face had ended up right in front of Mike's, which was why he got a good look at how the little guy utterly failed to look menacing. "You admitting defeat?" he challenged.
Well, let's see. Speaking was kind of hard to pull off while suffocating, nodding was out of the question... did they actually expect him to answer that?
It was not until there were stars in his vision that Sulley got off the pile and ushered the others out of the way with a huge grin on his face. "All right, everyone, let the guy breathe!" Wow, so someone had noticed the importance of that.
"Never!" Art insisted, clutching Mike possessively. "We got him good, this time!"
"I give, I give, I give, I give," Mike gasped.
"C'mon, Arthur, you're going too far!" Don insisted, shoving Art off and kneeling down in front of Mike with a worried expression. "Are you okay?"
Now that he had been given the chance, he wasted no time in getting up and drawing a deep breath. "Nah, I'm good," he then assured them.
Frowning, he allowed himself a moment to get his breathing back under control and found himself annoyed at the way they had burst his small, happy bubble. So the only reason he had not found them was because they had picked a stupid spot and he had assumed they were already over those, huh? Well, at least they had been in hiding, even if they had not taken it very seriously.
Mike shook his head at them. "So where were you?" he managed to get out. He hoped they would get the gist of the question and not just give him the facts.
But no such luck. "In the tree above you," Terri chirped in high spirits, as if it was not obvious.
Terry rolled his eye at his brother. "We were on the other side of the trunk," he elaborated, smirking.
Ah, Situative Concealment. Continually adapting your movements to your pursuer's in order to always have the scenery block their view. Good choice in such an open, yet diverse area. Tricky thing to pull off, though. If you needed to stay in motion to stay out of sight, chances were high you would give yourself away by sound or simply by not anticipating where your pursuer was going to go next.
He hoped they really had chosen the method for its advantages and not because they had run out of ideas. "You didn't expect me to just stay rooted to that spot, did you? I would have moved around eventually," he reminded them with a smirk, feeling his sense of humour slowly returning.
"Not with all of us on top of you, you wouldn't!" Art crowed cheerfully.
Mike's brow twitched in irritation, and he wondered why. Yes, he was no James P. Sullivan who still managed to outrun the fastest of monsters while carrying his entire fraternity on his back. But he knew no one expected him to be, knew they were all counting on the strengths he did have. So why was he still getting irritated by comments like these?
Before he could reply, though, Sulley was already adding his two cents. "If that's the only way you're getting past him, I wouldn't be too proud of that," he teased, as if he had not done the exact same thing, then paused for a moment, thinking. "And it's not gonna impress the referees, either."
The response to that statement was a large splash of water that hit Sulley square in the face. Everyone turned their heads in surprise to discover that Squishy had silently snuck off again and was currently standing waist-deep in the small stream.
Sulley stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, but Squishy's face had split into a silly smile, and he continued splashing around, hitting the twins this time.
Mike was a little alarmed about Terry's imminent snappy reaction and was about to break up the foolishness, but the older twin surprised him by chortling and dragging his brother along towards the stream, presumably to make the water fight a little less one-sided.
Art cheered and snatched Don's arm before running off to join them, and even Sulliv-... Sulley was grinning from ear to ear and hurrying after them.
Mike just kept watching the proceedings in bewilderment. They really were not paying attention today. Art was currently trying to dunk Squishy's head in the water while the twins were pushing Don, trying to make him slip to get him even wetter than they all already were.
And they were all giggling like idiots. Even Sulley. Truth be told, with his friend's recent and very much unanticipated bouts of defending him to the others, Mike had almost expected him to break up the madness before it could properly start, but of course, his hopes were in vain. Sulley was currently too busy sputtering because the others had spotted his momentary disinvolvement, which had resulted in them ganging up on him.
"Guys..." Mike tried to get their attention, but he might as well have been talking to a glow urchin for all the responsiveness they were radiating. A delighted squeak from Squishy mixed with Art's hysterical laughter was the only reply he could distinguish from the general loudness.
"Guys, now listen here..." he tried again, getting frustrated with them. They still had so much more to do today! They could not afford to waste their precious time on games!
His helplessness eventually got the better of him, and he was a little surprised to find himself raising his voice at them. "All right, guys, it's enough now!"
All movement in front of him froze, and he was met with six faces full of wide-eyed, crushing disappointment. Sulley tried to hide it, but even he was being rather obvious about it despite everything.
And he felt his heart melting at the sight of them. Sure, they had a schedule to follow, but to dig in his heels in the face of so many shimmering eyes shamelessly pleading with him would have seemed cruel even to himself.
He sighed and lowered his gaze, massaging his temple. "But I suppose... we can regard this as some... kind of... workout. Or something."
"Hooray!" his friends cheered and went back to splashing each other with water as if they had never been interrupted.
Mike watched them with a lopsided smile. What was the point in doing this? But he really could not hope to get anything more out of them today. The sun was already setting, too, so he quietly resigned himself to discarding all plans he had had left for the evening. Forcing them to repeat the third turn was as good as guaranteed to yield the same results, and he was pretty sure any other exercises would be met with fierce resistance.
"Hey, Wazowski!" Sulliv-... Sulley had left the stream to jog over to him. "What are you standing around for? Aren't you gonna join us?"
Mike pondered that for a moment. "There's no point to this," he then voiced his thoughts. "They're acting like a bunch of children." It still felt odd how he could say things like these to Sulley, of all people, but hesitated to share them with the others.
Even odder was how Sulley seemed to expect in-depth analyses from him. "Sure they are, but I think they need a break," he confessed with a smile.
"We have no time for this silliness," Mike complained. "So far, neither of you is at a level I'd deem safe, and if we're not getting this down until next week..."
"Mike," Sulley cut across him, raising a hand. "Calm down. It won't do us any good if they're so worn out they can't even participate. Seriously, haven't you ever learned to have a little fun?"
Mike blinked at him. The heck was that supposed to mean? "Sure I have. But every time I want to do fun things, everyone acts as if I was an annoyance!"
Sulley sighed. "Mike, I was talking about... I don't know, relaxation or something. You seem to be getting a kick out of studying twenty-four hours a day, but they just can't."
"Well, it's not like they're trying," Mike pouted, trying to ignore the little voice telling him that maybe this was it, that maybe Terry's irritation and Don's heavy breathing and Squishy's utter exhaustion might just be a consequence of him pushing them too much.
Had he thought he had seen "odd" before? Now he knew better. "Odd" was the way Sulley was looking at him right now, the way he seemed to have read his thoughts as if someone had painted them onto his face. "We all know you mean well," he assured with a sympathetic smile. "We know you're doing all this for us. And we want to learn. But sometimes, you're just gonna have to, you know... wait around for us."
Mike eyed him sceptically. He was pretty sure he was doing this for himself, thank you very much – he just could not win this with a dysfunctional team. Where had they gotten that idea, anyway? It was not as if their progress was anything more to him than the means to an end, or as if their good moods were somehow important, or as if their sheer joy during some of their sessions was tugging at his heartstrings...
All right, who was he kidding? Of course he was doing this for them as much as for himself. Not in the beginning, of course, but definitely now. And of course they meant the world to him, even the big, damn jerk currently standing next to him. He just was not quite comfortable with acknowledging that fact. Acknowledging it meant caring. Caring meant getting attached. Getting attached meant letting them come close enough to hurt him. And that would inevitably lead to...
But there was always hoping.
His thoughts had drastically strayed off course, and it took him a second to get back into the flow of the conversation. "Wait around?" he then tried to confirm. "Even if it means watching you stay subpar to what you all could be? You're limiting yourselves!"
"Ha!" Sulley suddenly laughed. "And that from the guy who doesn't know how to spell playtime!"
With those words, his friend grabbed him and effortlessly lifted him off the ground, and it was a very curious sensation indeed. His feet were dangling in the air and his arms were flapping around like a rag-doll's and his crown was hurting from Sulley's tight grip. If this was what he called playtime, Mike wanted no part of it.
The short trip ended when he felt himself unceremoniously thrown into the stream. He did his best to re-emerge quickly, sputtering and coughing, before glaring at Sullivan for dragging him into this. But before he could verbalise his displeasure, Squishy had thrown himself at him and proceeded to squeeze the life out of him. "Yay! It's so much more fun if everyone's doing it!"
Mike blinked at the announcement. The sudden show of affection rendered him speechless long enough for Art to engage in his new-found favourite pastime and dunk him under water.
For the second time that day, Mike found himself without a feasible means of getting air into his lungs, so the light-headedness and the spots in front of his inner eye were nothing new to him. The only thing he found himself wondering about was the stupid grin on his face while it happened.
Drowning was oddly fun.
But of course, they were not actually going to let him drown. It was a multitude of hands, actually, that grabbed him and dragged him back to the surface. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sulley lightly rap Art's forehead for the attack, and took the opportunity to grab the idiot's tail and pull at it hard enough to make him trip. Looked like revenge was fun, too.
And then, he just kind of let it happen and explored what it would feel like to let himself be washed away – quite literally, in fact – by the wave of positive emotion that the others had been longing for all day.
It was not until half an hour later that they tired of their game. By then, they had drawn a lot of confused looks from passers-by and were all soaked and freezing to the bone in the chilly night air. They had exhausted themselves so much that this could indeed have counted as workout, but Mike was surprised to find that he did not exactly care about that right now. At least the various negative moods had evaporated, and that had to count for something.
"All right, guys, let's head home," he suggested, still a little exhilarated.
"First one home gets the most cushions for the fortress!" Art announced loudly.
"Can't we just walk?" Squishy piped up hopefully, and there were general murmurs of agreement.
Mike sighed. Of course they would not want to continue training after all this. He had not really expected anything more to get done today, but that did not mean he was not disappointed about it.
As it turned out, he was not the only one.
"C'mon guys," Sulley reprimanded them. "We've had our fun now, but we still haven't met our quota for today."
The statement was met with a lot of sighing, but, amazingly enough, no arguments. Mike watched in astonishment as, one after the other, they broke into a run.
Well, what do you know.
"Wazowski! You said we should not expect you to stay rooted to the spot!"
His face split into a grin. "I'm just giving you a head start!" he called back and took off as well.
But not too fast. It would not hurt them to wait for him for a change.