A/N: Ah, it's starting already! Expect to see Team Dark in these mishmashes. Frequently. How the scariest team in Sonic-dom wound up being one of the funniest, I don't know . . . but the really scary part is that all the crazy stuff in this chapter has actually happened in real life. o.O

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and Co.!

It was another long, drawn-out, frankly rather pointless G.U.N. meeting. Almost all the agents were required to be there, and they'd really catch if they weren't, so everyone was therefore there. Very dutifully. They were supposed to be taking notes too, but only a few teacher's pets were bothering. Shadow and Rouge were also present, looking like a "What's Wrong With This Picture?" game as they sat amidst a crowd of humans. Omega was at the back of the room, evidently paying attention like a good little robot. Or very large ton-and-a-half robot, whatever you prefer.

"Pssst," whispered Rouge, nudging Shadow. "Wake up. The lecturer's bound to see you if you keep on like that."

"I'm awake," retorted Shadow under his breath, opening one eye.

"Well then, to avoid having an eraser thrown at your head, you should try looking that way too!" Rouge hissed. Shadow muttered something and began drawing small tesselating triangles on his notebook page, which was otherwise blank except for the day's date.

Rouge began drawing too. Presently she elbowed him again; when he gave her an annoyed look, she showed him a flightily-drawn pen sketch of Maria the hedgehog. He tilted his head and shrugged, mouthing "not bad," then went back to doodling triangles. Presently he realized that Rouge was constantly glancing at him. Before he could ask what her issue was, she nudged him again and showed him another sketch, this one of himself just as he was now—bored and doodling. She stifled a grin as Shadow studied the sketch without much enthusiasm.

"I'm not even angry now," he pointed out under his breath.

"I know, but you always look like that," Rouge whispered back.

Shadow rolled his eyes and declined to comment. And sure enough, a few minutes later he felt Rouge's elbow against his arm again, and she showed him yet another sketch—this one of the lecturer himself, comically stiff and upright, pointing smugly at some aimless figures on a blackboard. Shadow shook his head at Rouge in a "get serious, would you?" manner. Chuckling under her breath, she settled down and began randomly doodling emeralds and other gems. The clouds of sparkles on them were ridiculous.

The meeting dragged on. Everyone was getting bored out of his or her respective skull. The minutes ticked by . . . Shadow played aimlessly with his pen, twirling it in his fingers, clicking and un-clicking the retractable tip, bending back the plastic clip, twisting the little writing utensil this way and that.

It all happened very suddenly; one minute he was fiddling away, the next minute the pen seemed to vanish from his hand. He only registered where it was when he heard it bounce off the chalkboard in the front of the room. How the heck?

The lecturer glanced up startledly at the clattering of the pen on the floor, then looked grimly out at the room full of agents, of varying ages.

"What's going on?" he asked sternly.

He doesn't know it was me, thought Shadow, trying to look innocent and praying that nobody else was giving him away by staring at him.

"Is somebody throwing pens at the front of the room?" asked the lecturer. No answer. Shadow mentally thanked any witnesses for keeping their mouths shut.

"I expect no more such incidents," growled the lecturer, turning back to the board and resuming the lecture. As soon as his back was turned, Shadow breathed a mental sigh of relief. He glanced at Rouge, only to find that she had slid way down in her seat with both hands pinned over her mouth, and was shaking all over with suppressed laughter. A lot of the other agents around them were also silently stifling their amusement. Shadow looked around bewilderedly, then realized he was pretty much the subject of the joke and reddened, sliding down in his seat as well.

"The look on your face!" whispered Rouge, once she'd gotten hold of herself. "Priceless!"

Shadow ignored her, scowling at the back of the head of the agent in front of him. Rouge elbowed him teasingly. Unamused, he elbowed her back, then she elbowed him back, then he simmered a few seconds only to catch her off-guard by elbowing her again . . .

This might have gone on for a while, if they hadn't been interrupted by a crash nearby. One of the young agents two spaces to their left had somehow managed to collapse the little fold-out tabletop from her seat, while she still had her notebooks and a novel and a plastic coffee mug on it. She and most of the agents in the vicinity froze as the lecturer again turned and gave the assembled crowd a warning look. As soon as he resumed speaking, however, a large proportion of the audience started stifling laughter again; it was all too silly.

"This section of the room seems to be good at embarrassing itself today," Rouge murmured to Shadow. He scowled at her irately and rolled his eyes.

Then, for good measure, there suddenly came a commotion of thumping and singing from the next room. The meeting was optional for non-spy "heavyweight" agents, since they had a regular training meet that overlapped with the lecture time. Evidently, the training meet had just started, and evidently, singing military songs while training was the norm. Just when it seemed like things couldn't get crazier.

The lecturer continued lecturing, but his sentences were continually punctuated by strains of warlike ballads in a very badly out-of-tune male chorus. Eventually he broke off and glared at the wall separating the two rooms. Then he strode annoyedly out through the door. The minute he was gone the majority of the audience collapsed into laughter.

"Good grief," muttered Shadow. Meanwhile, dead silence suddenly fell in the next room. The agents got themselves sobered up quickly before the lecturer strode back in irately and resumed. Every now and then, however, a subdued but rebellious strain of song could be heard coming from the next room, and the thumping never abated at all. Throughout the rest of the meeting, Shadow and Rouge, and really all the agents, took care not to meet each other's glance.

After the lecture finally dragged to a close, Shadow attempted to melt off into the dispersing throngs of agents. No use; Rouge popped up right next to him as soon as he was out in the hall.

"Where do you think you're going?" she chirped. "We have to wait for Omega!"

"What's keeping him?" asked Shadow impatiently. Rouge rolled her eyes.

"He's still in the assembly hall, asking the lecturer for clarification on some of his topics," she said. "He hasn't had enough yet!"

"Unbelievable," muttered Shadow. He leaned resignedly against the wall and glanced off down the hallway, wondering if maybe Rouge was going to leave him alone.

Nooooo. Definitely not.

"Seriously?" grinned Rouge, taking up a place next to him. "What the heck were you doing?"

"When?" stalled Shadow.

"What possessed you to start throwing the writing materials around?"

"I threw nothing," retorted Shadow. "I bent back the clip on the pen, and somehow it rebounded . . . strangely."

"No kidding," said Rouge. "You really need to work on your aim, though. You missed him by a mile."

Shadow snorted, but felt the corners of his mouth twitching as he realized the incident could have ended much more badly than it did.

"I have no idea how it works," he admitted. "I've been practicing; usually I can whack the Faker between the eyes any day, dead center. But I can never hit even close to the lecturer. I'm beginning to think he has some kind of mystical aura that deflects projectiles."

"Waaait a minute. Wait. Are you a double agent? Are you secretly out to assassinate that poor lecturer?"

"Of course. In front of nearly every agent in G.U.N. By catapulting pens at him," said Shadow sarcastically. Rouge gave up the charade and laughed. Shadow rolled his eyes, but allowed himself a rueful half-smile.

"Can I help, then?" asked Rouge, recovering. "I've never really used a pen as a weapon before, but I've heard they're mightier than swords. It would be good if I could learn . . . "

"All right. I have to keep practicing anyway, and I can teach you on the side."

"And we use Sonic for target practice, yes?"

"Of course."

"Poor Sonic," chuckled Rouge. Shadow snorted and looked away, smirking slightly.

A familiar clank-thump sound down the hall announced that Omega had finally finished probing the lecturer's mind.

"Took you long enough," said Rouge drily.

"My apologies. I wanted to be sure I correctly understood the material," replied Omega in his robotic twang.

"Honestly Omega," sighed Rouge, as Team Dark set off down the hall. "What the heck do you find interesting in those lectures?"

"There is much to be learned from them," replied Omega. "Although I do not understand why you organics were all being so disruptive today."

"Shadow's trying to assassinate the lecturer!" said Rouge brightly.

"You know he'll believe you," hissed Shadow.

"Assassinate?" asked Omega, suspicion creeping into his robotic voice.

"By throwing pens at him!" continued Rouge, with a straight face.

A bit of silence.

"Does not compute," said Omega at last.

Rouge's laughter was still echoing down the hall long after Team Dark was out of sight.