Revenge in Physical Form
The sports field was at the front of the school, albeit somewhat to the right. Facing onto it was the indoor centre, and the office of the school's sport director. That office had large windows, allowing Mr McKinley to watch students running around the field, or playing basketball in the indoor centre, or working out in the weights room.
Right now, he was staring unabashedly at the SAS soldiers standing inside his office. Sure, there were students on the way-too-fast treadmill in the weights room; sure there were students on the basketball court who should probably be washing up and heading to class because they didn't have PE after lunch and, besides, weren't supposed to be staring at the SAS soldiers; and sure, there was Alex's class heading out onto the field, without a teacher, and didn't their unit mean they were supposed to be start learning about safe sex today?
Mr McKinley blinked and focused on the desk, trying to ignore the SAS soldiers like he was supposed to.
"Mr McKinley?" asked one of them. The teacher jumped and faced the soldier.
"Yes, er-"
"Eagle."
"Sorry. Yes. Eagle. Erm?"
"I'm supposed to guard Rider's class."
"Oh. Yes. Erm, could you just, er, perhaps, herd them back in. They're meant to have a theory class today – they start their unit on safe sex."
All the soldiers blanched. Mr McKinley smiled weakly. He was always amused by other people's reactions to classes on safe sex. For about ten years now, Mr McKinley, along with the other PE teachers, had been teaching hormonal teenagers about safe sex, and were rather blasé about the entire thing. They had to be. They'd endured university lectures, professional training seminars, and the crazy questions students came up with whenever they did that classic 'write a question on a piece of paper and hand it for an anonymous question!' (each time they did the unit, at least one student asked about having sex during menstruation, and last time, someone had asked about BDSM. With things like that, they couldn't really afford to be embarrassed).
The soldiers all glanced at each other – none of them wanting to sit through a sex education class with hormonal teens. Feeling more comfortable, Mr McKinley smiled lightly and stood up. He looked around the room, and found what he was looking for. In the bookcase was the box of demonstrative contraceptives given to every school by the Department of Education.
"Ah, Mr McKinley?" asked Eagle. The teacher looked at him. "Perhaps, seeing as this is a, well, once in a lifetime opportunity, maybe a training session would be interesting. I note, the students all have their sports gear (having forgotten about having a, what did you call it, a theory lesson) so, I could take advantage of it, and perhaps I could show them a training session – you know, what they'd have to do to get into the army or the SAS, or perhaps, a schedule they'd have to keep to if they were in the SAS or the army… you know?"
Ah. He should've foreseen this, thought Mr McKinley. Of course the soldiers wouldn't want to sit through sex education. Likely, again.
"Well," said Mr McKinley, "wouldn't you be unable to properly guard them from the, ah, terrorist organisation?"
"Wolf would be standing guard. All of us, actually, because we've just about sussed out everything in the school." Eagle smiled weakly.
"Well," said Mr McKinley, thinking about it. Then, Ms Smith, Rider's class's teacher, entered.
"Matt, do you – ah."
She stared at the SAS soldiers.
"Well, Jane, here's the box, but the soldiers have kindly volunteered to lead the class through a training regime – you know, show them what it takes to get into the army."
"Really? Have they? Surely it's not a way to get out of sitting through sex ed?"
"It probably is, but, hey, perhaps we'll humour them this."
Mr McKinley and Ms Smith grinned at each other, feeling strangely triumphant. Behind them, the soldiers blushed.
"Right then." Ms Smith, thankfully, as far as Eagle was concerned, returned the damned box to the shelf, and gestured to the soldiers. "Shall we?"
Out they trooped, and approached the class.
"Seriously, Alex, I mean, how'd you get away with it?" asked Sam, wide-eyed and admiring.
"Get away with what?"
"With annoying the hell out of the SAS soldiers!"
"Oh. Well, um, you know, they can't actually kill me or anything."
"Yeah, but, like, I mean, they could probably do serious bodily harm."
"A. It's grievous bodily harm. And b. If they did, you go straight to some current affairs program, and level all sorts of accusations at the government and the army and the SAS. They know that. They can't do anything without it making it to the six o'clock news and some court martial."
"But… but…"
"Dude, you could probably annoy them as well and get away with it. Everyone could. But everyone gets freaked out by the big scary soldiers and they don't." He glanced at Tom who snorted.
There was silence. All the students, at least, those paying attention to Alex, were nodding thoughtfully. Then, they shared an evil smirk, just as the soldiers approached.
Oh. Dear. Lord. That was the only phrase running through Eagle's mind. Alex was up to something, he knew, and … well, he told himself, at least we're not going to do safe sex. God only knew what Alex could come up with during that.
"Students! Right. Well, see, we were supposed to start the sex ed unit today," cue the horrified gasps, "but the soldiers have saved you from that, for a day at least, and they'll be leading you through some training." Her bright smile nearly blinded the soldiers as she turned to face them.
"You mean," muttered Alex, "that the soldiers didn't really want to sit through sex ed with us."
There were snickers.
"Rider. Shut the hell up. Can you do that for, say, an hour?"
"Yes sir yes!" Alex saluted.
There was laughter. Eagle rolled his eyes skyward and then, with a slightly evil grin, faced the students.
"Well, then. I say you all run a couple of laps around the field for the warm-up." That was approximately 800 metres. "I want you all back in three minutes, or face the consequences."
"Wow. Soldier knows four syllable word!" said some random student.
"Rider—"
"It wasn't me!"
"What are you lot waiting for!" roared Wolf. Everyone jumped. Startled, the students began jogging.
Most of them made it back in the time limit. Some didn't. Eagle glared at them, before taking them aside and verbally tearing into the unfortunately unfit students.
Snake, Wolf and Fox faced the remaining students, many of whom were panting.
"Pathetic," snarled Wolf. "Right then. That was your warm-up. Now. Push ups. Twenty push ups, followed by twenty sit ups and loop it!"
There were blank stares.
"That means repeat until I say to stop!"
Groaning, the students dropped to the ground and grudgingly began them.
The three remaining SAS soldiers looked at each other.
"Stop."
The students' relief was palpable.
"Oh, you will do it again. You will do it again properly and with a reasonable pace, not that snail's pace some of you," he glared at the offending students, "were using."
Several of the students looked towards their teacher to save them. As the soldiers were voicing her private opinion of the students' fitness, she merely raising an eyebrow.
"Damnit, always knew PE teachers were evil," grumbled some student.
"You know, I think it's more the SAS soldiers who are evil."
"Death eaters. The lot of them."
"Nah. I reckon they're worse than the Death Eaters. Heck, they're worse than the Inner Circle."
"Ooh. Worse than Bellatrix and Malfoy?"
"Dude, Malfoy would not make someone run around a field and then do push ups and sit ups. He'd just Crucio the lot."
"True. So, hey, if they're worse than the Inner Circle, does that make them as bad as Voldemort?"
This question, apparently, stumped the two students.
"You know," muttered another student, "Right now, I'd say worse."
"Not as bad as Dumbledore, right?"
"Dumbledore?"
"He's a manipulative old coot."
"Right."
"Still, they're not manipulative. They're not exactly subtle."
Wolf narrowed his eyes. Three odd students talking quietly even as Snake demonstrated a proper push up and its variations for females (which had some of the girls narrowing their eyes).
"You three!" Wolf yelled. "What the hell are you lot talking about?"
"Just whether or not you lot are worse than Voldemort."
There were snorts and muttered 'hell yeah, they're worse than Voldie'.
"I mean, we've decided that you're worse than the usual run of the mill Death Eaters, and mostly likely worse than the Inner Circle, but, you know, are you worse than Voldemort himself?"
Wolf, Snake, Fox and Eagle (who'd ended up with two girls sobbing after his verbal assault) looked at each other.
"What is it with this school and Harry Potter?"
"I dunno."
"You mean," called some girl at the back, "what is it with those three and Harry Potter?"
"Don't think," snarled Snake, "that I've forgotten how the entire class participated in that 'decide which character Snake is' activity."
Cue the snickers.
"Don't worry," said Ms Smith comfortingly. "The students do that to everyone."
The volume of the snickers increased.
"That makes me feel so much better."
There was so much laughter.
"Right. Get back to work!" Wolf yelled.
The students dropped to the ground and, yep, there were the groans.
"Right. He's worse than Voldie."
The class continued in much the same fashion – lots of exercise, lots of yelling and lots of categorisation of the SAS soldiers as 'worse than Snake Face'.
Finally, it ended, and the class left with many a disgruntled glare at the soldiers (and silent vows of revenge). All left except Alex, who'd been called to stay behind.
The soldiers were painfully aware that if Alex was harmed, the soldiers would be flayed by the other students.
"Well, then." The soldiers glared at him.
"Hey, hey, not my fault that you lot tortured the students."
"Oh? We wouldn't have been quite so evil if you hadn't put us in such a bad mood."
"Oh, I put you in a bad mood? Who used up all the milk this morning?" He glared at Fox. (For extra protection, MI6 had made the 'smart' decision to put K Unit in the same house as Jack and Alex.)
"Hey!" snapped Fox. "It wasn't me who was supposed to go to the shops and buy more stuff! That was Wolf!"
"Hey, who forgot to put milk on the shopping list?" Wolf glared at Eagle.
"Hey, I did! Snake had his own list, and he mixed the two up and gave Wolf the milk-less list!"
"But I didn't think that we'd get through a three-litre bottle of milk that fast!" Snake snapped, glaring at Alex.
"Dude, growing teenager here! I need my milk!"
"Wait, wait…" said Eagle, rubbing his face. "Today's endless torture has been over milk."
There was silence as this was absorbed.
"Yeah. All the name-calling, all the annoying, all the students ganging up on you, it's been all because milk."
"I will never look at the stuff in the same way again."
There were several 'hmns' of agreement.
"Truce?" asked Alex.
The soldiers agreed. All of them started walking back to the school.
"Just don't blame me if the others do something," Alex added, as an afterthought.
The SAS soldiers growled, and started chasing him.
For the next few days, the soldiers were ruthlessly tortured by the students when news of Alex having to visit the nurse for several injuries (e.g. broken bones, sprained joints) raced through the school.
Truth be told, he'd visited her for information on allergies, for Jack's sake (it was her new boyfriend). But he didn't say that to anyone.
A/N: So that ending kinda just stole upon me (my English teachers would be horrified!). Sorry.
This is also the last of the Revenge series. It's been a while coming, but hey. Kinda happy with my first foray into a series like this. Review, please... And I dunno when I'll return to the AR fandom. But it'll happen. Eventually.
Bye.
QoB