Two more exams out of the way, only Physics left, I may update between now and then though.
Most of the first part of this chapter is taken directly from an episode so I don't take credit for the awesomeness of it just Max's part.
Also look out for the tv show/cartoon reference.
Max sat at a table zoning out of the lecture, she wasn't even a proper employee so didn't actually have to attend, but she did get to screw with the woman's head.
"…And yellow light behaviour is border line, such as hugging." The woman was interrupted by Abby standing, hand raise in the air.
"What's wrong with hugging, I hug people all the time." Abby asked, hurt obvious in her voice.
"You may see it as friendly but your co-workers may find it offensive."
"You guys get offended when I hug you?" Abby asked looking around the room with her black rimmed eyes, everyone reverently denied offense. "Then I'm hugging you all in my mind right now."
"DOD policy is very clear about this point miss."
"This sucks," Max commented tilting her chair onto its back two legs. "You'd think they'd object if someone tried to hug them I mean these people are trained in at least self defense."
"The DOD is ve-"
"I know, you said," Max grumbled, she lent forward in her chair bringing it to all four feet on the ground. she then got up and moved a few inches over to hug the person in the seat next to her, Tony.
Tony gave her a weird look but didn't protest. Max then turned to the lecturer. "So, what, am I fired now?" she asked. "The lecturer woman gave her an evil glare but moved on.
"You've made your point. Finally there is red light behaviour which is deliberate, unwelcome touching," the woman continued, stressing the last three words, Ziva leaned forward in her chair and licked Tony's ear causing him to cry out in surprise and stand up, gaining the lady's attention. "Another question?"
"What about if you slap someone in the back of the head like this?" he asked, slapping the back of McGee's head like Gibbs had done so many times to the team. This caused McGee to slap back at groin level, which naturally lead to a stifled groan of pain. "Would that be considered inappropriate?"
Max couldn't help but snigger.
"Do you find something funny about that question miss?" the woman asked.
"Not really, I was just imagining what everyone would prefer to be doing other than sitting here."
"Care to share?"
"No I would not, and I find that comment highly offensive. Trying to delve into my personal thoughts should be considered sexual harassment. Maybe you need a mascot, something to make a catchy name. How about a panda, the Sexual Harassment Panda has a nice ring to it. I mean panda's are cute and fluffy which makes them eye catching so people will remember it-"
"Is there a point?"
"What do you think?" Max asked catching the woman's eye and glaring her down.
"I have a question," Palmer, Ducky's assistant, said with his hand raised.
"Yeees." The woman really hoped this wouldn't go off topic.
"What about if your job includes touching naked people and -"
"That is inappropriate at any time!"
"Even if their dead?"
"Why are you touching dead, naked people!"
"Uh, excuse me, Bitch lady," Max called out. "What exactly do you think we do with dead bodies? Just leave them lying around hoping to gain knowledge just by looking at them? No, we autopsy them, where they are both dead and naked. Some people have to do that job. We're just lucky they can actually do their job unlike some certain person-"
"Rho!" Director Sheppard called in a warning tone, it wasn't that she minded the distraction but the lecturer was turning red, even with her dark skin.
"Hey, I shouldn't even be here, I'm working here for a week. Hell I have diplomatic immunity, you couldn't to squat to me no matter how much you may want to."
"You have diplomatic immunity? Like in Lethal Weapon 2?" DiNozzo asked.
"Side effect of my job," Max shrugged. She heard Gibb's cell ring and knew her time was up, it was probably a case that naturally required their immediate attention.
"Let's go kids"
I can't mark you as attending unless you stay for the whole session."
"Uh, Ms Taylor, I'll make excellent notes for them," Director Sheppard offered.
"I can't believe you'd want to prevent us from investigating a murder of your countries finest," Max tutted as they left the room. Only Ziva picked up on the fact she had said 'your' not 'our' but she didn't point it out.
Max glanced over the bull pen, everything was a bit too quiet especially after the sexual harassment lecture and subsequent case about an AI car. She figured that any second Gibbs would tell them about a new case. If he didn't, then she would go insane.
Her week was half up at NCIS, she would miss all the excitement that came with the job. As she leant back in the tiny cubicle space next to McGee's desk she pulled out Deep Six and picked up where she had left off, not noticeably acknowledging McGee's panicked look at her choice in book.
Max registered the lift arriving on that floor, something felt weird but she ignored it.
"And this is where the teams work on their cases when not out in the field. This is the Major Case Response Team, they take the high priority cases." Max heard the director explain, it was only when it was translated into Japanese Max looked up and groaned at seeing who was with the director.
"Hey Gaara," she called across the bull pen, drawing all eyes onto her.
"It's not a school," Gaara said answering Max's unasked question to why he was there.
"You two know each other?" Director Sheppard asked.
"Do you want the sarcastic answer or are you going to use some common sense? I called him, by name, so I may just about know him."
"We need to go, some kid's holding a class hostage with a bomb strapped to his chest," Gibbs said grabbing his stuff.
"Sorry Gaara, I need to go, see you later," Max gave him a quick one armed hug as she passed before joining the rest of the team in the lift.
The red haired girl nudged an unconscious body with a booted foot. The blue skinned lump didn't move, the shark skin sword was out of its reach. Also not far away was a dark haired man, also unconscious. The girl crouched by the blue skinned man and pulled a ring off his finger, holding it up to the light to see it glimmer. Smirking she put it in her pocket, using chakra to seal it would make obvious she was a ninja, currently she was just a small time thief/mercenary. Three left to track down.
As the NCIS agents set up camp in a room in the school, Max decided to take a walk around the building, specifically outside the classroom with the kids in. From her unnoticed vantage point she could see most of the classroom, she instinctively noted any details, how many people there were, rough where about of them. Then she focused on the kid with the bomb, something caught her eye.
"This kid's wired for sound," she said into her radio head set. "There's a mic wire under his shirt."
"How do you know it's a mic wire, it could just be part of the bomb."
"Position is wrong for it, single wire going to just below the collar of his t-shirt. Could be an antenna for the bomb I suppose but then why does he have the switch wired up too?"
"Can you get closer to confirm your suspicions?"
"Negative." Not without showing she could become invisibleish any way.
"Return to base camp"
Max was sourly disappointed that Gibbs got to go into the classroom. She had managed to slip in an invisible clone with him just in case. The team tried to trace the signal from the earwig the boy also had, common sense suggested he would have both. Max had suggested hacking into the webcams on the computers located at the back of the classroom.
Having watched the episode, she knew exactly how it would go down. She'd only remembered it because it was quite a bit different from most episodes. It was not cheating, not in her eyes.
Max did kind of regret giving hints, the case became so short they were back to NCIS base before sundown.
Now she was sitting at her temporary desk back to reading her book, her feet resting on the desk as usual. She had decided to ask McGee to autograph it just before she left on her last day. It would cause the most entertainment factor without hanging around to get moaned at.
A shadow fell over her, she glanced up to see DiNozzo standing over her.
"Who are you? And don't bother saying Rho or whatever cover ID you can come up with, what kind of eighteen year old has diplomatic immunity? And what was with that guy who was getting a tour of this place?"
"All that information is sadly classified"
"You aren't one of those genius kids are you?"
"Genius isn't the first word most people use to describe me," Max said dryly. DiNozzo was interrupted from saying much more when Director Sheppard arrived with Gaara and the translator. "'Sup?"
"Gaara-dono has finished his tour and wishes to wait until you are ready to leave before returning to your hotel suite," Jenny explained. Max nodded and Jenny and the translator left leaving Gaara standing by her raised feet.
"I didn't realise you two were, uh... together."
"We're not. How's your English Gaara?" Max really didn't want Gaara to try to embarrass her by pretending they were involved. On the other hand she also didn't want Gaara to kill DiNozzo for even insinuating it. She wasn't sure which Gaara would pick, and to be honest she could live without knowing.
"Still learning it, why?"
"No reason. Don't you have a report to be doing DiNozzo?"
"It's not going anywhere." Max smirked at DiNozzo, Gibbs having walked up behind him. "Gibbs is behind me, isn't he?" Max nodded, still smirking. "I'm on it boss." DiNozzo said heading back to his desk to at least look like he was working.
"If you don't have anything to do…" Gibbs started, looking at her relaxed position.
"I think I'll visit Abby, she wanted to talk to me about something. Gaara, I'm going to see someone, you want to come with?" Gaara shrugged which Max took as agreement and they went to the lift.
Abby wasn't that busy in her lab, she certainly didn't mind the intrusion, if only to question Max on the death note. She'd also briefly met Gaara on his tour and was delighted to get to learn more about him.
The red haired girl was on the run, she had obtained two more rings but had been noticed. Now she was fleeing for her life from the rain village, two enraged ninjas on her tail. She dodged a few long range attacks, zigzagging her paths in the most random pattern she could manage. It wasn't too long before she hit a water line in the land of rivers perfect place to disappear. A slight turn on her heel and she disappeared with a small pop, barely registering as a sound over the moving current.
That was four down, one left, the girl thought to herself as she walked out of a bar's restroom in Iwa.
Max just knew once her week at NCIS was up she was going to be bored. She liked the high octane life of the agents. It was why she had become a ninja, but that wasn't an option at the moment.
It was her second last day of employment there and they were running after a suspect through and apartment block, ninja speed was hard to use in buildings, especially ones with loads of doors. They had only gone to ask the suspect some questions, none of them had been expecting him to pull a gun and run.
A shot was heard sending the agents diving for cover. Max moved forward, she had been able to tell where the shot went and knew it wouldn't hit her. She reached the door where the suspect had ducked into. DiNozzo quickly joined her, on his Gibb's nod DiNozzo kicked open the door, none of them questioning where Max had gotten her gun as she and DiNozzo swept the room.
A gust of wind alerted them to the open window, wind blowing the curtain around obscuring their vision. Another gunshot rang out. Time seemed to slow down for Max, adrenaline pumping through her system, pivoting on the balls of her foot she spun into the path of the bullet that was headed for DiNozzo.
She felt the metal impact her shoulder, getting trapped between the dense chakra enhanced muscles and probably cracking the shoulder bone, the pain dulled by the adrenaline. She had a good few minutes until she crashed from the pain. She was going to make those count. No one shot at her friends.
Turning to face the window she took a running dive. As she sailed through the threshold she took hold of the railing of the fire escape and swung herself down to where the shooter had managed to climb down to.
Both shooter and ninja hit the window smashing through it to a thankfully empty apartment. Max pinned the man while he was still dazed from the impact then checked to make sure he was still alive. No life threatening injuries, yet.
Max felt up to where the bullet had pierced, feeling the blood dripping from it. Numerous other cut littered her arms and face from shattered glass.
"NCIS!" There was a loud bang as the door was kicked down, the team had arrived.
"Rho? You ok?" the voice sounded fuzzy, like a badly tuned radio.
"I'm good," she said feeling slightly dopey, the pain would kick in within a minute so she crawled off the man and slumped up against a cabinet. Her vision was going dark and she just wanted to sleep now. Her last thoughts before losing consciousness were about how Gaara was not going to let her leave his sight.
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