Belle tapped her pencil on the end of the table impatiently, listening to Rosa make marks on the list for the third time that afternoon.
"Yep, that's what I thought."
Belle threw her head back with a groan. "Team member short?"
"Two team members short." The Botany teacher put her chin in her hand. "I don't understand why kids don't want to brawl anymore."
Belle shot Rosa a deadpan look. "Yeah, not like it's a death-defying sport surrounded by hatred because society sucks."
"Don't be so negative. We'll figure something out."
The women sat in silence for a minute before Belle chuckled.
"Dammit. We should've held Brock and Shelly back a year."
Rosa laughed loudly. "Just hold them back until we get some middle school kids who want to try out?" Belle snorted, which morphed into a full laugh.
Suddenly, silence settled over them as they both came to the same conclusion.
"Pam Junker's kid is in eighth grade-"
"We have the student population to pull kids from the eighth grade-"
They looked at each other and donned matching grins.
"Rosa, my friend, I think we need to reopen tryouts."
"Penny! Penny Penny Penny Penny Penny!" Jessie shouted, skidding to a halt next to the cafeteria table Penny was seated at. The pink-haired girl glared up at her.
"The fuck you want?"
"Don't swear! You wanna try out for the Brawl team?" Jessie asked, a slightly maniacal glint in her eye.
"Duh. Next year though."
"What about this year?"
Penny set down her sandwich. "I'm listening."
"To what? Jessie going crazy again?" A voice asked. Meg slid into the seat next to Penny, pulling out her lunchbox as she did so.
"We can join the brawl team this year!"
"You're kidding."
"Nope!" Jessie pulled a small square of paper out of her backpack, then unfolded it into a large square of paper.
"Did you deadass steal that off the-"
"Language, Penny! Anyways, look! They're letting eighth graders into the second day of tryouts!" Jessie exclaimed, slamming the poster down on the table and sending Meg's spoon flying.
"Wait, seriously? Bloody barnacles, that's so cool!" Penny said, ignoring Meg's soft "My spoon."
"After school today! You guys free?" Jessie asked.
"Fuck yeah!"
Both girls looked to Meg, who was wiping off her spoon with the end of her sleeve. She looked up and glanced between her friends.
"What are we doing?"
A group of girls sat in the stands at the local brawl arena, seemingly waiting for something to happen. A redhead was pouring over a book with a Japanese girl leaning on her back. A different redhead was pointing things out in a book to a darker-skinned girl wearing a hoodie with a bear design on the front. A blond girl was helping an antsy classmate with her homework while still managing to keep up a conversation with a purple-haired girl and one wearing a baby blue turtleneck. After a while, the Japanese girl groaned.
"Coach, can we stop dicking around waiting for someone to show up? I want to either practice or go home."
Belle rolled her eyes at Bibi's complaints. "Calm yourself, girly. Someone'll come."
"But what if no one does? I don't want my season to be over before it even begins!" The ansty girl, Amber, cried.
At that moment, a trio of girls tumbled into the stadium. The leader looked like Pam Junker's daughter, if her signature tomato-red locks were anything to go by. Standing behind her was a girl with pink hair and freckles covering the majority of her face, as well as a girl with ebony skin and a mess of black curls shoved under a red and yellow baseball cap.
"See? Three people right there. Come on up girls, we'll take your forms!" Belle shouted. The three ran up to the folding table that the coaches were seated at and each slapped a few pieces of paper on the table. "Alright, do y'all need to change or-"
"Nope!" The girls chirped in unison. Rosa laughed once, and Belle pulled her head back a bit in surprise.
"Alright then. Go hang out in the middle, we'll start your try-out in a second." The girls scampered off.
"WTF, Coach? They look like they're, like, five!" The purple-haired girl, Emz, called from the stands. Belle sighed and started shuffling through the papers.
"You handle that, Rosa. I got shit to do."
Rosa mentally bemoaned Belle's existence as she turned to face the stands."Well, they are in the eighth grade."
A tense silence swept over the stadium, so thick that Rosa heard Piper's pencil clatter to the floor from where she sat.
"Holy snickerdoodles," Colette whispered. That phrase seemed to be a catalyst, as Bibi silently stood up and walked out as the blue-clad girl finished speaking. Rosa made eye contact with Max, Bibi's girlfriend, and cut her eyes towards the retreating girl. Max nodded and ran after her girlfriend, and the two began a quiet conversation. Belle shot the botanist a glance from the corner of her eye.
"What'd I miss?"
Rosa sighed and turned back around. "Bibi being a bloody drama queen. Ready?"
"Yep." Belle tapped the stack of papers on the table and looked at the three girls in the center, who were currently in a huddle. "That's cute."
"Either this sport is gonna eat them alive or they're gonna be the best damn brawlers that this country's seen in a long time." Rosa muttered.
"Excited to see it either way," Belle replied before clearing her throat. "Ladies? You good?"
"Yes ma'am!" The redhead replied, stepping away from the huddle and gesturing for the other two to follow suit. The two coaches gave nearly matching amused looks.
"Alright, you see those three taped up spots on the ground?" Belle asked. All three girls immediately started scanning the ground. They gave confirmation one at a time as they spotted the tape circles.
Belle pointed at the one the farthest left, or right for the girls. "At this one I want Jessica Junker!" The redhead jogged over and planted her feet in the circle.
"This one-" Belle continued, moving her finger to the next circle- "I want Meg Aldon!" The girl with the cap dashed up to the middle circle as she adjusted her hat so a clump of curls stuck out of the hole near the adjuster.
"And finally, Penelope Sailor! Last circle there."
The pink haired girl sauntered up to the circle. "Penny."
"Hm?"
"Call me Penny. No one calls me Penelope 'less I fucked up," Penny said with a grin.
"Language!" Jessie called from her circle.
"I like these girls already," Rosa muttered.
Belle smiled and picked up a remote control that she had set down earlier. At the tap of a button, the stadium sprang to life around the three girls. Walls sprouted from the floor at the edges of the stadium. A wave of machinery pushed walls from the floor and created holes that filled with water seconds after being created. The girls whipped around just in time to see an enormous robot emerge from the floor.
"Hey, my mom designed that!" Jessie chirped, oblivious to her friends' fear and completely unperturbed by the monstrosity that loomed before her. Rosa made an incredulous face at Belle, who's smile just grew.
"That she did, kid. And it's your try-out! Take it down. You start in ten!"
"Minutes?" Meg asked.
"Nine!"
"Nevermind," she mumbled.
"Meg, charge up! Penny, you and I gotta cover her!"
"Who died and made you captain?"
"Three!" Belle called.
"Get ready guys!" Jessie shouted, summoning her taser gun to her hands.
"This is better than swashbucklin' with Pops," Penny muttered as her mortar gun fizzled into existence.
"Hell yeah!" Meg whispered, letting her laser gun drop into the palm of her hand.
The sound of Belle shouting "One!" Was drowned out by the robot coming to life and taking a lurching step towards the girls. All three sprung into action. Jessie and Penny sprinted towards the behemoth, already beginning a barrage of shots. Meg ran so that she was just in range and started taking pot shots at the robot's heels and skipping away from any attacks it slung in her direction.
"Meg, how close to super?" Jessie shouted as she rolled away from a laser beam.
"One shot, if I hit both blasts!" Meg replied.
"Follow me! I'll get ya close, then you do your thing!" Penny barked before beginning her charge towards the robot. Meg scrambled to follow her but was soon on the pinkette's heels.
"Here's the plan. I take a laser for ya, then you get your last shot in and take that fucker out!"
Meg nodded, pointedly ignoring Jessie's cry of "Language!" Penny turned back to the robot and resumed her charge. In the next second, she was tumbling to the side. Meg raised her gun, almost without thinking, and fired a shot.
She heard her teammates cheer as both blasts connected with metal.
"Engaging Mech mode!" she shouted, slamming the yellow button on her hip and pulling a small, metallic box away. It snapped open, and a swirl of parts formed around. The ground seemed to open up beneath her feet before she was deposited in the chair of her mech.
"Holy shit," Rosa whispered. "Can you get stats on that thing?"
Belle scrambled to grab her Stat Screen out of the small backpack she had brought to practice. She found the device and held it up to Meg's robot, then almost dropped it when she saw the numbers displayed there.
"6,750 health, and she's only at power eight," the coach breathed. Rosa whistled and turned her eyes back to the fight.
"Meg, try and-"
"Keep my health up, yadda yadda! I got this, Jess!" Meg shouted, firing another few shots at the robot. The girls dashed back and forth across the field, dodging shots and hitting a few of their own. Both Jessie and Penny were able to activate their supers, and two more robots joined the field: Jessie's turret and Penny's self-firing cannon.
"We got 56,000 left on it! Keep it up, mateys!" Penny called, reattaching her skull-shaped Stat Screen to her hat and firing another shot in tandem with her cannon.
"Rob's down soon!" Meg cried just before falling from her robot as it caught a laser to the chest. "Amending statement: Rob's down! " Gold fizzled at the corners of her vision as a bright yellow shield formed a bubble around her. She mentally thanked her Star Power as she stumbled to her feet and danced away from the bullet of a Sniper bot that had appeared from the floor seconds earlier. "Well there's an idea," she muttered to herself, firing a shot at the robot.
Jessie suddenly appeared at Penny's side, firing a killing shot at a Melee bot as she did. "Do we need to go help her?"
"Nah, she's got it." The girls dove in opposite directions as a line of lasers soared towards them. They ran around to the other side of the Boss bot, firing as they did so. Smaller robots emerged from the ground on both sides of them, effectively cutting off any escape route as the Boss Bot clunked towards them.
Jessie laughed nervously. "Well, better luck next year!"
"Tech for the win! " A brightly glowing sword sliced through the robot like butter, causing it to first break into pieces, then dissolve into purple goo. Behind the decaying mass stood Meg in her mech wearing a slightly crazed, entirely exhausted grin. "Hi!"
Rosa chuckled in disbelief. "Ohhhh dear God I need a drink. "
Belle turned in her seat so she was facing her team. "Well?"
"Okay, I'm still mad," Bibi grumbled, always one to hold grudges, "But if we need babies on our team I want it to be those babies." Various noises of agreement echoed from around the stadium.
"I've gotta agree with you, kid." Belle turned back to the eighth grade girls, who were celebrating their victory surrounded by stationary robots. "Jessie, Penny, Meg! Why don't you come pop a squat up with the team? You've earned it!" The trio exchanged excited glances before running up to the stands, cheering all the way. They were met with everything from hugs to high-fives to handshakes, and Bibi even gave them a nod before burrowing back into her (apologetic) girlfriend's side to sulk. Belle stood up very dramatically, hauling a still-shocked Rosa up with her.
"Ladies and-" she paused to take a quick head count- "Huh. Just ladies. Whatdya know. Ladies! Welcome to this year's Competitive brawl team! We have a lot of faith in you girls. We know you can go far if you put some work in. So let's make this a great year!"
A resounding cry of "Cheeeeee-zeeeeeee!" echoed from the veterans of the team.
"Ah, hush up and get ready for practice," Belle scolded. "I want y'all on the field in ten, let's move it ladies!"
Heyo! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! super psyched to be starting a new story. I know this is late, but it turned out a ton chunkier than expected. It's gonna be a while until i update this story, because i want to have it entirely written before i start posting again. I just wanted to get the first chapter out into the world! I will try to post my last NaNoWriMo thing this week, but I'm pretty busy so it may be delayed. Thank you, Please keep reading, and goodnight!