Title: The Best Homework Excuse Ever
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own the Matrix trilogy, the canon characters, story or anything related. I can only wish that I did. I make no profit from this – I am merely exercising my writing skills for the reading pleasure of readers. However, I own this story. I own the character Chase, and Lady Delerith owns Ari.
Authors' Notes:
Solia: Thanks reviewers! It's always good to read people's opinions, like those of our lovely reviewers. So thanks to Ninja Neo, Danigrebel, Cerrita and Lady Smith for your opinions of our characters. I also love to know what you all think of our characters, and not just Chase and Ari. Seriously, guys, if you don't like one of our support characters, (Teardrop, Cinnamon, Ninox, etc) speak now or forever hold your peace.
Thanks also Psalm 136, Platinum Azure, Bloodmoon and everyone else who has reviewed.
Lady Delerith: I would like to mention one thing. Ari kicks everyones arse (except Chase's cause that would be mean) in this chapter. Love Lady Delerith 3
THE BEST HOMEWORK EXCUSE EVER: Chapter Eleven
"I can't believe what I just did in there."
That was about the eighteenth time Chase had said that since being sent to an antechamber with Ari, Glorious, Sina, Roux and Ninox.
"You might still be alright – Glyph seems to like du – uh, you – und Ari did a lot more bad," Sina said consolingly, accidentally switching to German more than once in her sentence.
"And Morpheus stuck up for you," Ari said dejectedly. Poor Ari. She was facing definite punishment for her appalling behaviour and wasn't going to get a job. No one had actually said that, but it was evident.
"Would you believe that Dasne said all that nice stuff about you?" Chase said, trying to lift her spirits.
"Cut out the bullshit; face it," Glorious said nastily. She smirked. "You two seriously screwed yourselves over."
"Shut up, Glorious," Chase said tiredly, and because she couldn't be bothered to think up a more insulting thing to say, she added, "nobody likes you."
It was perhaps lame and hardly insulting to a twenty-year-old, but the others laughed.
"Yeah, well, no one likes you either, especially not after your display of personality in the chamber," Glorious snapped. Chase rolled her eyes. If her sentence had been lame, then to respond was just sad.
"Jesus, Glorious, how childish are you?" she asked, annoyed. "I wouldn't expect a sad little retaliation like that from anyone older than, like, eight."
Sina giggled – Chase sensed Glorious thinking of an insult for the girl. She didn't care if this ended with fists. She didn't care about anything like that right now. Glorious was right – she had screwed herself over.
"Don't laugh at me, you stupid-"
"Don't even finish that sentence, Glorious," Chase muttered, loud enough to hide the end of the comment from Sina.
"Yeah, weren't you listening? No one likes you. Hence, no one's interested in your opinion of Sina," Ari said. While Glorious went red, Ari turned to Chase. "By the way, this is way off topic, but why did you call me Kye in there?"
"I guess the girl that the agent went for was Kye Saunders to me then," Chase answered. "To me, you weren't Ari until we got picked up. I met Kye that morning before school, I waited for Kye in the hall before our detention-"
"Yeah, well, at least I'm not a little tramp like you."
Chase and Ari went silent. They glanced at each other, raising their eyebrows.
"It took you that long to think of a comeback?" Ari asked incredulously. "How sad."
"Like me?" Chase repeated.
"That's right."
Roux and Ninox grinned and made the traditional 'oooohhhh' sound that follows a bitchy comment.
"I'm not a tramp," Chase said. She was calming down now.
"You dress like one." When Chase looked over her conservative outfit, Glorious added, "In simulated realities."
"She doesn't dress like a tramp, she just has style," Ari snapped. "Besides, it's not her fault she has the physique for short skirts and you don't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Glorious said furiously.
"Exactly what it sounds like," Ari answered. "We're hot and thin and you're not. Now shut up and go away – we aren't talking to you."
Glorious stood, fists raised, and stormed up to Ari. As her friend rose to the challenge, Chase grabbed her and stood herself between them. Roux and Ninox also jumped up to help. They managed to stop Glorious just before she reached the girls. There was a moment of silence.
"You two are not hot," Glorious spat finally, backing out of the guys' holds. "You're too skinny, and too much of a bitch," she said, eyeing Ari hatefully, before turning to Chase with only a slight reduction of hatred, "and you're too short, too goody-good and your personal style is just slutty."
"That's the best you can come up with?" Chase asked. She disliked Glorious too much to be offended by whatever she said.
"Yeah, Gore-r-us, you see? You're lame and dumb and untalented – no one cares about your opinions, so just piss off, will you?" Ari said angrily. She was even more prone to impulsive anger than usual when feeling as desperately hopeless as she (and Chase) felt now after their behaviour display.
Glorious growled and launched herself again at the girls. Beside her, Chase felt Ari about to respond with some kind of attack, but there was a small, niggly feeling at the back of her mind…
She grabbed Ari's wrist and pulled her down onto the bench they had been seated on before. Roux and Ninox fought against the evil, struggling Glorious, trying to keep her from attacking the girls. Just as Chase and Ari sat down, the door to the antechamber opened, and Councillor Hamman, Captain Glyph and a scribe person entered the room. They saw Glorious fighting the boys (which, of course, she stopped doing when she realised they were there) and had no idea how much of her aggression was Ari's fault.
"Thank you," Hamman said, eyeing with displeasure a flushed Glorious as she sat down alone. The boys sat down either side of Sina. There was an uncomfortable silence. Chase wondered if what they had seen of Glorious's violent behaviour would affect the judgement at all. "While Captain Roland left after the summit, saying that he was completely unimpressed by the students offered to him, Captain Glyph has agreed to take on not one, but two of you."
Chase's heart leapt – could it be true? – and she shared an apprehensive, hopeful glance with Ari. Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please.
Glyph cleared his throat uncomfortably as he surveyed the room of hopeful gazes.
"Uh, yeah," he said, and Chase liked him all the more for his casual language. She hoped so badly that he'd chosen her and Ari for some strange, incomprehensible reason. "I asked a lot of unusual questions, I know, but I think some of them brought out the sides of some people that I really needed to see."
Chase knew he was thinking of Ari. Her heart started falling.
"I judged you all by your scores, by what others said about your personality, by the answers you gave to me and by the character traits you may have displayed."
Oh, well. There had to be other, maybe even nicer captains in the fleet that would take Chase and/or Ari on.
"Cease this," Sina said, smiling despite her evident anxiety. "Tell what you have decided. You are teasing with this 'beating about the bush'. This 'hedging'. Did you or did you not choose me?"
Glyph smiled back at her. Chase sighed inwardly. So he'd chosen Sina, then.
"Sina, you're a very nice and talented girl, and I respect your mother very much, but I'm afraid that I don't feel that you would fit in onboard my ship. I have some real characters – I think you'd be uncomfortable and I don't want you getting hurt because you can't trust them."
Sina smiled through her rejection. She hated stress and suspension. She was just glad for it to be over.
"Thank you for your consideration," she said.
"You look sick with worry, Roux," Glyph said to the eldest applicant, "but sorry, I didn't pick you, either. Sorry, mate."
Roux looked dejected but didn't say anything or object.
"Hurry and say," Ari begged.
"Don't you like the suspense? Chase and Ari."
Chase and Ari? No. Chase was hearing wrong. Incorrectly. Glyph could not have chosen her. He could not have chosen Ari. He could not have chosen them both.
"What?" Glorious demanded.
"Yeah. What?" Ari agreed. This was a first – Ari agreeing with Glorious.
"Our behaviour was horrendous!" Chase said, shocked.
"Yeah," Ninox said with a good-natured grin. He didn't seem upset or remotely offended by the fact that Captain Glyph had chosen two badly behaved girls over him. In fact, he seemed to find it amusing.
What a weirdo. He was cute, but weird.
"Sorry, everyone else," Glyph said, clapping his hands once. Sina, Ninox and Roux stood to leave. Chase was just about to raise her hand (old classroom habit) when she realised how dumb that would look and stood. She approached the captain. Ari followed her.
"Um, excuse me, sir," she said uncomfortably. The captain turned to them with a pleasant smile. "Why on earth did you choose me? Us?"
"We're not exactly ideal," Ari said dryly.
Glyph smiled wider.
"You remind me of how I would have conducted myself in such an situation at your age," he said. "I said before – I have some real strong characters on my ship. I need people with a bit of spunk – you two seem to have it. Besides, Morpheus put in a few really good words for you both while you were waiting out here."
"I don't believe this!" Glorious said explosively, finally standing. Roux and Sina had already stepped outside, but Ninox heard the outburst and waited, probably expecting some kind of catfight he could watch. "They behaved… They were appalling!"
"I need people with strong personalities and opinions. I'm sorry, Glorious."
Taking it as a personal insult to hear that Chase and Ari had stronger personalities than she did, Glorious went furiously red and glared at Ari as if it were completely her fault, which, Chase reflected briefly, it probably was.
"You won't hold position for long," Glorious hissed to Ari. "I give you a month before they kick you out."
"Hey," Glyph said, trying to defuse the instant tension, but Ari, naturally, snapped back.
"Get over it, Gore-r-us – you lost. The position is mine," she added, a little crowingly. Glorious stormed up. Glyph and Ninox stood back to see how the situation was settled; Chase took her place at Ari's side, her hand warningly on Ari's arm, indicating that they should not fight, but if Glorious went to hit Ari, Chase would fight back. Ari clenched her fists in preparation. But to everyone's surprise, Glorious stopped directly before Ari, glaring into her eyes.
"I'll fight you for it," she said in a threatening tone.
"For what?" Chase asked before Ari could jump in and agree.
"The position." Glorious was still watching Ari, waiting for the reaction she could predict. "I'll fight you for it. I want a retrial."
"I don't think there's any need for that," Glyph said, trying to be placating.
"I do," Glorious said, her voice quite soft.
"Yeah, alright," Ari said with a careless shrug. "It's not like I could possibly lose to you." She turned to Glyph. "Sir, may I?"
"I don't see why not – I'd get to see you in action."
"You're giving Glorious a retrial? That isn't fair," Ninox remarked from the doorway. He sounded just as Australian as either Chase or Ari. "I'm way better than her – and way cooler."
"Shut your face," Glorious snarled.
"Hey," Glyph and Chase said simultaneously in warning voices.
"So can I have a retrial, too? A fight?"
"You'll have to take on Chase," Glorious said with a smirk. "Ari will be too tired to fight you after I've finished with her."
"Probably," Ari agreed, starting for the door. She stopped and smiled at Ninox. "She's right. After my fight with her, there's no way I'll have the energy to fight anyone else. My victory dance is very energy-consuming."
Before Glorious could lose her temper again, Ari left the room, heading for the computer chambers where they had undergone their training for years.
"You want a position on a ship so badly you'd risk losing to a girl?" Glyph asked Ninox teasingly as they followed. Ninox grinned back.
"I don't really want a retrial. I just heard that Glorious was getting one so I thought, why not?"
"You know I'm not planning on changing my mind on my decisions, don't you?" Captain Glyph said.
"I figured that. But yeah – who cares? It's still a chance to show off, isn't it?"
Chase smiled. Ninox was nice, relaxed, and just as cool as he acted. She didn't mind the thought that she would have to spar with him. Their fight would be a game in comparison with what was about to erupt between Ari and Glorious. She was pretty sure that, if left to their own devices, Ari or Glorious would eventually kill the other.
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were settled into the chairs they would lie in during their virtual fights. A small crowd had come to watch. Glyph had sent Sina to tell the summit what was happening, so a few of them had, instead of forbidding the spars, actually come along to take advantage of the fights and watch them. Dasne, Linden and Chiron were there, with Glyph, Morpheus, Sina and Roux. Tear and Cinnamon had seen the group trooping to the examination rooms and followed. Even Trinity had appeared mystically (apparently she had been waiting for Morpheus near the summit chamber and had come along to watch the fight) and now she was whispering techniques to Ari.
"Ready?" Dasne asked, sliding the narrow insert into Chase's half-forgotten head plug. Usually she was very conscious of the fact that she had a huge metal hole in the back of her head, but during the stress and tension of the summit trial, she had forgotten all about that kind of stuff.
"I am," Ninox said cheerfully. Chase turned her head as far as the plug in her head would allow her to, so that she could see him. "So you're sure that there'll be weapons in this place? I don't want to play stupid hand-to-hand games all day."
"I will load some weapons into the program," Dasne said reluctantly, tapping a few buttons on the keyboard, "but nothing serious. No guns."
"Nothing serious?" Ari asked, sounding disappointed.
Oh, yes, Ari, Chase thought to herself, I know how much you want to hurt Glorious. Lucky Dasne isn't playing ball.
"Knives. Swords. Ancient weapons. Whips. Sticks. But nothing worse. Nothing whose damage we cannot fix."
"Whips," Ninox murmured in the same way Homer Simpson says 'doughnuts'. Chase giggled.
"Kinky," Ari agreed.
"You all know the rules. No serious injuries that we here cannot heal. Definitely no killing. Play to win, not to kill. Understood by all?"
All four of them nodded, and, with a tap of a button, Dasne sent them into their own minds, into a virtual world, and made the real world of Zion blacken out.