A/N: Doug gets in trouble. Oooooooooo! Whatever will Alexa say?
Warning: all game spoilers, swears, violence, and suggestions of some nasty creeps in NLA. Really nasty (I was going to make them worse, then backed slowly away). It gets sunnier in in in the next few chapters, okay? All things wonderful belong to the geniuses of MONOLITHSOFT (LoZ: Breath of the Wild, squeeeeee!), although the creeps are mine (ewwww, ick).
Doug was inspecting the toes of his boots. They could use a polish. Something to do, he'd put it on the list. About the only thing on the list.
Saturday morning, beautiful weather, but I mean beautiful as only the weird weather gods of Mira could make, and he was on his couch, inspecting his boots. Not out on a mission, not even trolling the corridor for a pickup team. On his couch.
He wasn't even sick. He felt great, except for his hands, still smarting a little. And his mood, smarting a lot. You think he'd be immune, but no.
His comm device pinged again. He was going to ignore it, but he knew he couldn't keep doing that. So he picked it up to check who today's lucky caller would be.
"Doug, what the heck?! I'm the one that gets busted, not you! Remember? Stupid stunts? That's me! You didn't even have Tatsu as an excuse!"
"Meh meh meh!"
Amazing. Lin had coaxed a smile out of him. Bless that kid, he loved her. "Hey, Lin. Call to rub my face in it?"
He could tell that Lin was smiling back, even with the piss poor resolution on these things. "I am more than glad to hand over my crown of Queen of Bad Ideas, but not to you. What gives?"
"Look, Irina already raked me over the coals, so you don't need to."
The tiny image gave a tiny wince. "Ooooh, ouch. And that on top of Vandham chewing you out."
"And then spitting Doug very far, ptuie!" came a voice off screen.
"Hi ya, Tatertot, and thanks for that image. Yeah, stupid. I don't have an excuse. I'm dead embarrassed about the whole thing, and I plan to hide here for a while, okay?"
"But then you'll miss the picnic! I invited Cross and Alexa and now you."
Doug dropped his head, and almost cut off the conversation then and there. But he was an idiot, not a coward. "I haven't talked to Alexa about it yet."
"You don't need to. Irina filled her in."
"Yeah, scary BLADE dish aaaaaaallll the gossip."
"How did she have time? It's only been," he checked the time, "88 minutes."
"Must have made a beeline for her. Lucky I was there too, so I got to hear about it. So we planned a picnic."
"We?"
"Me and Alexa. I was going to ask Cross later this week, but today is perfect. It's not like you've got anything better going, right?"
"And Tatsu! Tatsu invite good friends on picnic. This Tatsu's idea in first place."
"I'll explain it when you get here. Wait, no, I'll meet you at the Outfitters' hangar. I think Alexa's got something for you. It's great. You'll like it." And she hung up.
Doug left for the hangar immediately. One thing he'd learned, the longer you put off an ugly chore, well, chances were it never got better. Except when someone else did it for you, but this was not the case. Outfitters gave him startled looks, some grinning, some scowling, some quickly looking away. Dammit, this city was huge and still about as small as a fishbowl sometimes. Maybe he was imagining it.
Then there was a cross between a barking woof and a "go get'em" sound behind him. Not imagining it.
He swung left, into the hangar, because if she wasn't outside (she hadn't been. Tika had glared at him), she'd be found, pummeling some weapon into revealing all its flaws. She had a knack for breaking stuff, in the most efficient and direct ways, stuff that should never break but inevitably did when she tried one of her endless weird combinations. Exactly what the clients needed to know, because eventually, on a bad day, fighting against some indigen just a bit above their paygrade, a regular BLADE would pull exactly that combination and not come back to NLA as a result. But not if Alexa got to it first.
Pity that this left her being assigned jobs where the weapons or armor were expendable. They kept her off of skells all too often, not because they didn't want to know the flaws, but because they didn't want them proven so spectacularly. He knew it was getting her down.
"Dougie!" came a shout from the far left corner. Two smallish skells, Alexa's beloved SR005 model, were standing side by side. He spotted NLA's #1 Skellhead perched on the shoulder of one of them, crowbar in one hand. She waved furiously, then returned to smacking the skell with the tool. She looked like she was sculpting the thing.
He walked over and peered up at her. She kept whanging away at the back of the skell's head, exactly where it connected to the neck. He waited below, not trying to shout over the enthusiastic clanging. Suddenly, there was a pop, and a small silvery bolt flew up and out. He took a few steps back and fielded it easily.
The crowbar clanged to the ground, followed by Alexa. "Nice catch. Gimme." He passed her the object, not a bolt but a sort of hexagonal box, smoothly dimpled at the top and showing numerous scratchier divots from Alexa's attentions. "I've told them and told them, do not use Orphean recorders on the trials, but do they listen? Cannot get them off without persuasion, I tell ya."
"Alexa, I gotta apologize…"Doug started.
"Doug, you lunk, do you think I care? You went ape and punched your teammate a little."
The guy had been sent straight to the Mimeosome Maintenance Center, likely to stay there at least a day. Doug had pounded him flat, and probably would have started on the other two men if a pair of oversized fists hadn't plucked him up like a kitten and tossed him over a table. Vandham, once again arriving at an opportune moment, and fixing stuff himself. Actually, Doug had punched all three of them, but only Davis had gotten special treatment before the Commander shut them down.
The Commander had publicly reamed out Doug for brawling, with his own team, in his own camp. And pointing out that team leaders do not do this kind of thing, at least he was not supposed to do this kind of thing. Which implied that if anyone needed some sense beaten into them, that job should be left to the professionals, to which Doug did not belong. So go home, cool off, and enjoy a week of unpaid leave.
Which was why he was on restriction for a week, no missions or jobs or anything. The one bright point? Vandham had promptly redirected the two standing team members to help on a Zaruboggan support mission. Nice. With H.B. as team leader. Doug reminded himself never to get on Vandham's worse side.
All because of something they'd said about Alexa. Crude, violent, ugly something. With details that made his flesh crawl, and a suggestion that this might be more than talk. He'd ignored a lot of crap from this team, god knew they were losers although pretty good with the cannons, but the trio had gone too far. He wasn't going to repeat it (enough people in the camp had heard, these guys were not subtle), but it was foul enough that his punishment was actually quite mild, and his victims, well, they were on their way to Noctilum, where'd they'd spend at least a week scooping fermented dung out of a cave with a small creepy Xeno hissing ecstatically on one side of them and H.B. pointing out spots they'd missed on the other. Davis should linger in the Repair Center for as long as he could get away with.
"It was more than a little," Doug admitted. "I know I really shouldn't have started it, I get that, and I shouldn't have done something that would get you involved…"
"Doug," Alexa held up a hand to interrupt him again. "I already heard all about it. It's cool."
"Yeah, don't worry, Irina chewed me out about it already."
"Not from her. Well, from her too. I meant, I heard about it from Lara Mara. He's been keeping an eye on them. I asked him to, the first time they tried something. It is not my job to have to shoot dogs, you get me? So I left it to the Mediators."
Doug gaped at her.
"So, really, you've got nothing to apologize for. You probably did them a favor. Mara tends not to leave bodies. I hear he uses every part of the mim." She grinned.
"When was this?!" he shouted.
Alexa shrugged. "Weeks ago. At the Repenta, oh I don't know, it was after a dance off, probably the time we had that epic fail during the spin. They got all grabby in the parking lot. Frye and L helped too, I mean, to beat them off. Kinda fun, actually. How did L put it?" She paused to think. "We put the smack on them? Something like that. Frye definitely enjoyed it. Mara wandered over to help with the clean-up, and he's been on it ever since."
Doug was staring at her in horror. "I'm going to kill them."
"No, you aren't. Don't be stupid. You are going on a picnic with us. I asked special and got us all rides. Ta dah! Speedy and Buddy!"
But Doug was not to be distracted. "You never told me about any of this."
"I figured you knew enough. Didn't you warn me that they were jerks?"
"If you had told me…"
"Not your problem," she said sharply. "You don't have to defend me. Look at me." She stood there, hands on her hips, head up. "Think I can't take care of business? Think I don't know a thing or two about big and deadly weapons?"
He looked at her. Goofy, cheerful, skell-obsessed Alexa. Also, he had to admit, more than a pretty good shot from any distance. And smart enough to rope in the never-to-be-underestimated Lara Mara. Okay, so her style wasn't his style, but she had it covered.
"Anyway, they've publically demonstrated that they are creeps, Mara's going to be their best buddy, and we have a picnic to enjoy. With skells." She didn't squee, but it was implied.
Doug tried to relax, walking around the two models while Alexa pointed out this and that improvement. You didn't really need to respond when Alexa got going, although you couldn't tune her out 100%. There would be a quiz later, and if you failed, you'd get the whole waterfall of skell information repeated at you, only using smaller words and more hand gestures. Learn or else.
But it kept coming back to one thing. She'd had this problem for weeks, and he'd never known. He wasn't sure if he should feel insignificant or grateful.
Finally, he interrupted her. "Hey, Alexa,…"
"Let me finish," she said sharply.
"No, Alexa, next time, tell me, okay? About something this big. I feel stupid, being left out."
Alexa turned away from the skell and the improved control surfaces along the arms that had her in raptures. She looked at Doug quizzically.
"It wasn't a big deal, just kind of dumb guy stuff."
"If even you noticed it, it was big."
She smiled again. "Yeah, I suppose."
"Anything that's big, work stuff, any stuff, I want to hear about it. I don't want to be left out," he repeated. Now why was his voice sounding so pathetic? He needed to get a grip.
Her face was suddenly serious and what grip he had started to slip again. She looked straight at him, and spoke in a voice that was as certain as her love for Skells. "Douglas Barrett. I'm not Lao. I'm not keeping stuff from you. I didn't think it was that big a deal, and yeah, well, I didn't want to get you in trouble with your team, sure. But, I promise, I'll give you all the dreary details of my life, all of it."
Doug stared down at her, stunned. He almost couldn't breathe.
Then she smiled again. "And also as much about skells as I can get you to stand. You listen better than Lin, not so distractible." She changed the subject. "Now, I know you want stupid armor and stupid weapons, and I can get you something nice, but if you don't want the good stuff, you can run home and get your own gear."
"Outfitter potluck?" He shuddered, remembering the revealing Meredith outfits Alexa had a way of persuading him to put on. "No, thank you. I'll stick with my own, thanks."
"Fine. Think you can be back here in 15 minutes? Skell gear only, if you must suit up. You will not scuff these interiors, you hear me?"
"Better get going then." Doug trotted out of the hangar, passing Lin and Tatsu as he went.
"Hey!" they shouted.
"Back in 10, gonna go get my gear," he shouted back, not slowing.
It was a gorgeous Saturday, and he was going on a picnic. Life was pretty good, all around.
A/N: 7 chapters done, one to go. I'll post it about weekly, hopefully that give me enough time to finish. Next up: the dreadful chore of packing all the stuff you need for a good picnic. With skells! So that makes it it it better, don't you think?