Tangerine Tanora Shots

"You have ter listen ter me!" Fanny shrieked angrily. "I am your superior officah!"

"This isn't a sign measuring contest!" Patton snarled at her. "This is a battle of attrition! We need precision and skill if we want to win this!" He reeled back and showed Fanny his teeth when she poked him hard on the chest.

"AND I SAY WE HIT THEM AS HARD AS WE CAN AND SHOW THEM WHO'S BOSS!"

He smacked her hand away and lifted his stick for his next move. "We don't have time to argue!"

Rachel sighed and rested her cheek on the end of her tang stick. "This is the last time we play shuffleboard with you two on the same team."

"My thoughts exactly," Nigel grumbled.

After a measured complaint about the lack of games in The Mocktail Spritz, Rachel allowed the installation of a very impressive shuffleboard area near the back of bar, replacing the giant ugly watercolor painting of a Rainbow Monkey that used to hang there.

It was a worthy trade-off with the KND Museum. They kept the 'art' and the old wooden shuffleboard they had was refurbished for their amusement. In fact, it looked new.

"It was really nice of Numbuh 5 to restore the shuffleboard. She really outdone herself this time!" Rachel smiled pleasantly at Nigel and gazed at the polished wood and clear white markings. She could even see her reflection on it!

Nigel nodded proudly, disregarding Patton and Fanny's heated argument to admire the board himself. "Numbuh 5's a closet artist. Don't tell anyone, but she's been working on a top secret art piece made of macaroni for the museum. If it's anything like the others she's made, it'll be another piece of history deserving of the KND legacy!"

"Cool!" she beamed. They had been exaggerating this kind of stilted conversation for awhile now, hoping it would be infectious enough to stop the other two from ruining what was supposed to be a relaxing game after a long day of work. In fact, in exchange for restoring the shuffleboard, Abby begged Rachel to drag Nigel to a game at least once a week lest he killed himself working so much.

And of course, this was Fanny's first time in The Mocktail Spritz now that she was promoted high enough for clearance.

Rachel shot Nigel a warning look when he pulled out his communicator to check on his mission specs. She confiscated the item and handed him a shot of Tanora instead. "Stop that. Drink, enjoy the game."

"What game?" he drawled, but nevertheless topped the dark fizz in one gulp and slammed the glass back down. "We haven't even finished the first round!"

With another sigh, she gave the other two her Supreme Leader voice. "Will you guys hurry up and make your move before we turn thirteen?!"

Despite Fanny 'encouraging' Patton to hit the other team's discs, he opted for his own strategy and managed to knock out Rachel's place on the score 7 at the cost of his disk landing on the OFF area, losing his team points in the process. Rachel hissed through her teeth and covered her ears when Fanny jeered, expecting this.

"What I told ya, stoopid boy?! That's why GIRLS are always better at games! Ye dunna listen ter good advi-!"

"SHUT UP!" Patton snarled, at his last nerve. He nearly broke his stick in half. "SHUT! UP!"

Nigel nervously cleared his throat and started tugging at his collar. "How about another round of shots, guys? Maybe take a break from the game...?"

Fanny was momentarily stunned, but she recovered and started to bite back. "Ye dunna get ter talk ter me that way! I am the Global Tactical Officah!"

"No, you're a basket case with a title you don't deserve!" Patton growled. "I'm sick of your boy-hating mis... misand...!"

"Misandry?" Rachel said weakly despite Nigel making slash motions across his throat to stop her.

Patton glanced at her before glaring down at Fanny. The way he gripped the stick was worrisome. It looked like he was ready to attack her with it. "This isn't the Girls Next Door, Fulbright! It's the KIDS Next Door! You got a problem with boys, do us a favor and get your butt decommissioned! Spare us your cruddy attitude!"

Nigel whistled lowly after Fanny turned bright red and just as they expected her to attack Patton, she instead stormed into the girls bathroom, angry and hurt. Rachel shot Patton a pitied look. "Patton..."

"Please don't tell me you're taking her side!" Patton demanded. "You wouldn't stand and let a girl get insulted by a boy but it's okay for a Global Tactical Officer to do it?"

"You know that's not true, Numbuh 60! Are you telling me you're questioning my ability to command?"

He hesitated for a moment, knowing he was going to shoot himself in the foot with this, but unable to stop himself. "When you promoted Numbuh 86? Yeah."

She said nothing in return, leaving Nigel looking and feeling awkward about the current breakdown of gigantic proportions while his commanders had some sort of weird staring contest. Eventually Rachel seemed to have found what she was looking for and wordlessly walked away.

"Where are you going?" Nigel asked aloud, but he got his answer when she pushed open the door to the girls bathroom.

"It's not obvious?" she said coldly over her shoulder before disappearing into the small room. "I'm doing what a Supreme Leader does: taking care of business. For Zero's sake... we can't even have one relaxing night, can we? Oh, no siree! Everyone has to be bullheaded for the sake of being bullheaded! You're all putting me into an early decommissioning, I can feel it!" She continued that bitter tirade long after the door shut, but her words still reverberated, if not muffled.

Numbuh Jarvis politely slid a bowl of food in the boys' direction. "Peanuts?"

Nigel ordered another round of Tanora anyways while the girls were indisposed the last half hour and kept Patton company. From the way Rachel glared down at them, it was obvious she was ordering them not to leave the area.

"So..." Nigel cleared his throat. "What finally got Brick Wall Numbuh 60 to cave? Numbuh 86 is annoying, but you really didn't pull your punches this time."

Brick Wall. He hadn't heard that nickname in two years. Tipping back the black shot, he revealed something he never told anyone aside from Rachel. "It's my fault she's acting like a total nutball. I tried to fix it."

"Really?"

Patton nodded gravely. "Girls get picked on a lot in the Academy. You know that first hand. Both sides think the other's gross and icky. Comes with the territory when you train them young."

He picked up another shot and examined it thoughtfully now that the soda was dulling his senses. "Numbuh 86 was one of the more delicate recruits. Girly, sensitive, easy to insult and she just poof! Instant tears. But she had potential like the rest of you so I wasn't gonna let her quit the Academy over a couple of morons. I told her that no one should stop her from becoming great. If she fought back, they'd step down and leave her alone.

"Eventually," he continued after another shot, "we usually weed out the brats before graduation and life as an operative is more equal between boys and girls. Somewhere along the way, she really skewed what I said. And that really cheeses me off."

Nigel hummed with understanding and, like a true gent, slid Patton another shot. "Wow."

"Yup. Wow," he murmured bitterly before tossing the glass back.

Rachel returned a few minutes later with Fanny shuffling behind. "I see you boys helped yourself to my tab. Good. Everyone needed to blow off steam."

"I see we're getting everything sorted out now?" Nigel raised an eyebrow. "I don't think it'll be good having a fractured command structure over shuffleboard."

"It's a little more than just shuffleboard, Nigel, but I understand your viewpoint. I'm getting all three of them from you guys actually," She turned. "Numbuh 86, you know what we talked about. It's time you accept your promotion gracefully and tell them what you're going to do to better yourself with the extra responsibility."

Fanny scuffed the floor a bit with her shoe. "Aye..." she started, her voice strained. "I still think boys are stoopid."

"Fanny..." Rachel warned.

"Alright, alright. They're stoopid, but they are fellow operatives. And, as their Global Tactical Officah, they're depending on me. So, as long as I'm second-in-command, I won't let my feelings interfere with my job. On and off duty."

Rachel sighed and shrugged helplessly. "That's as good as we're gonna get then. Now apologize to Patton."

"It's fine," Patton said dismissively. "So long as she's doing her job, I don't care about apologies."

Fanny let out a sigh of relief.

"Let's just promise to never play shuffleboard together again," Nigel quipped. "Or at least do it when we don't have a giant soda bar to ourselves."

True to his word they didn't return to play shuffleboard. Instead they played a couple rounds of root beer pong until Fanny ended up passed out on the shuffleboard deck and Nigel had to be escorted by security to sleep off his sugar rush in the bunks lest he ended up driving and land on Mars or something.

The last two ended up where they've always been: in their usual booth sipping away at ginger ale to take the edge off of the shots.

"Tharry," Patton slurred out and spread his arms drunkenly over the back of the squishy booth. He had his boots kicked up on the table, but Numbuh Jarvis didn't seem to mind. "I fudged up yer... yer party."

Nursing her glass of sparkling white fizz, Rachel accepted his apology by scooting against his side and patted him on the knee. "S'fine cuz you're right. If I... If I had been a good Supreme Person, I would haf told F-fa-Penny to chill out. I didn't. My fault."

"Hey! HEY!" he moved his arm and relaxed his palm on the top of her head. "Yer a GREAT Soopreme Person! I'ma the meathead. Jarhead. Somethin'. Don' take me seriously..."

Rachel took a deep breath and sipped her drink. "Shup. I'll do better tomorrow... and tomorrow... and tomorrow..."

"You shup..." he murmured and lightly messed her hair. "You can't be better. Cuz... you're already the best."