Some Experience Necessary

1.18

It was late, late afternoon when the dispatch finally finished the round trip back to Orion base with trailers full of zoids, zoid parts, and raving prisoners. The Gustavs had their work cut out for them, and the little medical team had done the best they could to patch up limbs and faces of the prisoners and pilots alike under the watchful eye of a healthy platoon of rather annoyed, supposedly on leave soldiers. It was the weekend. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Raven had spent most of his time in the cockpit of one of the Gustavs, staring out the window and trying not to blush at the noise in the backseat from four girls who were all frightened, excited, full of praise and full of hate. Writing their report was going to be awful. Also, how was he going to explain how a bunch of sleepers just went mad and tried to kill them? That was a lot of zoids, sure most of them were slated for eventual destruction and re-smelting of parts, but whoever that mystery pilot was, they'd done more damage than Raven could have dreamed of.

Whoever you are, I'm going to find you and find out your secret. Nobody does more damage than me. Ever!

The Gustav continued to bump along the tarmac. There were technicians everywhere, driving little trucks around or piloting the Iguans equipped for taking things apart – they had their work cut out for them thanks to the fireball back at the ruins. Haha. They were totalled now. Raven snorted and slid down into the passenger seat, lips set in a firm pout.

The Gustavs finally began to peel off, the Iguans moving between them to steady the trailers and begin unloading. It was boring to wait in the one that would take the longest, wheedling it's way down to the hanger where this mess started except missing quite a few zoids and gaining a few scars. He let his head rest against the plexiglass and tried to think of ways to put off the report. Maybe he could fake an injury to his hand or something. Or whatever. He was actually hurt after all.

His thought brought the hot itch back. Raven knew he'd be fine in the long run, but the heat damage and imperial uniform did not a clean wound make.

And suddenly they were in shade, silencing his grumpy thoughts as they drove down the long row of stationary zoids and were stopping, the cockpit glass opening with a hiss and letting in the hot air, making him feel worse. Even a little ill. The awful sandwiches the dispatch crew had bought for him and his 'cadets' still sat in his stomach, rebelling now and then with an awful promise of seeing daylight again before their due time.

Achingly slow he climbed out, scowling at everything.

"Raven?"

He turned, blinked. Grace. "Yeah?"

"Uh…" The others were piling out behind her. She saluted him, her face tightening, still pale. He stopped scowling quite so hard. "Are we dismissed?"

"Best check in with the medics here on base for a full do-over." Raven's skin felt tight. "I'll meet you outside once they've seen to you and given you a change of clothes."

"Yes, sir!"

"Creep." Raven turned away as Rosalita elbowed Grace out of the way. "Raven, do you need any help with-"

"I'm fine."

Bloody Harmony. He felt his eye start to twitch, as she gazed at him with an expression of wistfulness. "I could hold you hand in the medical bay."

"I'll be fine. Just…just wait for me, okay? At the shuttle to the school?"

Their faces fell. Well, three of them did. Lumina-La just smiled at him and waved. "See you soon!"

"Right."

The medical bay was frighteningly quick. It was situated at the back of the main hanger, a sprawling offshoot that dealt with a lot of field injuries and anything that happened within the machinery bays themselves. It wasn't even that big, but somehow Raven still felt lost in it all as he was guided to a gurney and told to wait for a doctor. It was a quick diagnosis and also involved a pen poking at pieces of him as his uniform was peeled away. Not the worst of injuries that he'd suffered, but probably one of the more uncomfortable, Raven felt.

He was stripped, showered, gelled down with aloe and given a lighter version of the usual uniform so that the fabric wouldn't irritate his singed skin along with the customary scolding from a nurse who had seen this a million times before. He wasn't to scratch, Raven was told, he was to let the skin heal. It was a first degree burn, his uniform had absorbed most of it and he'd had the good sense to run for cover, but still – he needed to let it heal and heaven help him if he came back with scabby blisters and she had to help him again. Raven agreed with this completely, but when he was told that Prozen was waiting for him in the offices, his shoulders itched horribly. The dismissal was quick, complete with medical note in his pocket, and a cut-and-paste letter to 'the parent' that would be hopelessly chiding and embarrassing. Head down and shoulders hunched, Raven slouched away.

The little office wasn't anything to talk about – a few doors down from the medical bay. It was a depressing, file-cabinet filled affair with a ratty desk and a lingering odour of stale coffee and even staler cheese and onion bagels. For the second time his stomach protested at the smell and the heat that lingered despite the night's fast approach.

Prozen was leaning against the desk – no, sitting on it, actually – in jeans and a long shirt, wrongly casual outside the home. He had a file in his hand and was reading it thoughtfully, moving a little when the pages threatened to slip out in a practised sort of way. Raven waited by the doorway, watching his adopted father scan a page before handing it to the man leaning on the other side of the desk, the chair against the back wall. The albino's fingers flicked over the paper, highlighting something, Raven guessed, and the little man with the bold moustache nodded and peered closer as Prozen spoke.

"…It's not my place to tell you what to order since you're the one doing the work and I don't know a hammerspring from a frundulant coil, but I'm dubious as to the quality of those parts."

"Price was the concern; construction zoids don't get as big a budget as the ones for war."

"I see there's been a communication error again – on Monday I'll do a ringaround and see who's been fiddling with the accounts again – did you do a background check on the seller?" The tone was tired. Moustache-man bristled that magnificent nest of hair beneath his nose as he thought about it.

"Clean history, but young. I'll try to pick up a sample and dig a little deeper to see if the business is as recent as it says it is."

"Thank you. I'm sure the last thing you need is an overhaul interrupted by the arms popping off of the repair zoids." He closed his eyes tiredly, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose as he seemed to come back into focus again. "Hi Raven."

The youth jumped, not realizing that either of them knew he was there. Now looking at Prozen, Raven was slightly disturbed, because his foster parent was sporting quite the black eye and grazing down the left side of his face. Come to think of it the shirt was hiding bruising as well. A lot of it. And suddenly, Raven was very suspicious. Suspicious enough to ignore the voices behind him as the girls finally found him.

"What happened to you?" He growled.

Prozen smiled at the other man. "Juan, may I have your office for just a few minutes? I'll try to see to the rest of the concerns, it's just I fear I might be in for a lashing."

Juan nodded with a faint smile of his own and was out the door quicker than Raven thought for a man his size. How he got through the girls Raven didn't know or didn't care – they took one look at who was in the room and pretty much bolted.

"Did you want to ask me that again?" Prozen said, dryly.

Ugh. Stupid protocol. He was too tired for this. Raven saluted him. "You look unwell, sir."

"While you were gone I had intended to take on some of the peace and quiet and do some redecorating." Prozen wrinkled his nose with displeasure. "A bookcase fell on me." Raven narrowed his eyes, expecting him to look away and be decent about his big fat lie, but the pale man held the youth in his gaze. Raven backed down. "Who was behind you?"

"The cadets. They don't like you." It was an understatement, but squashing people for personal opinions was not in his job description. He slid further into the office and quietly shut the door, the smell a smaller concern than the noiselessness provided by a soundproofed walls. Against the window Grace was staring, with Rosalita occasionally pulling a face and Harmony scowling furiously. Prozen leaned to the side to look at them over Raven's shoulder, and they all pulled back. Again, only Lumina-La remained, but she was too busy reading the paperwork on the door.

"My job is not there for winning popularity contests." Prozen grumbled, genuinely perplexed. "How did they go?"

"Terrible! I don't want to do that ever again!"

"Is that your official report?"

Damn him! "No, sir. All of them were pretty helpless but one attempted to do the right thing and…" His voice trailed off, noticing that Prozen's attention was now taken up by something behind him. He turned and went white as Harmony pulled away the piece of paper with something very derogatory written on it. "Oh god." He moaned.

Prozen blinked. "Did that say what I think it said?"

"She's from out of town. She has…views."

"I don't do that to children. What do I look like, the head of the science department?" Prozen dropped the file onto the desk, angry. "This is going to be the Imperial Daily all over again. Just because I yell at one technician for not filling in safety reports on the new Redlers, I'm apparently a murderous, innocent-beating tyrant."

"They have the tyrant part right."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I beat people!" Prozen snapped then stopped, ashamed. "I…I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you; it's just been a trying couple of hours."

Raven shrugged. "I know you're not angry with me. If you were you'd be more restrained and quiet and do that funny eye twitch thing you do when someone really drives you up the wall. The girls, uh, I don't know how to say this, they're out there and not in here 'cos they kinda thought you'd beat me and rape them or something."

Prozen's face was comical. "What?" A pause. "At the same time? How the hell does that work?"

"People outside the military have some strange ideas about you, actually. There's this one story I heard where you like bloodplay, but I have no idea what that means…" Raven trailed off, mesmerised by the horror he'd caused.

Prozen's face had gone a brilliant red, and a hand was to his mouth. "And I hope you never do! Ye gods, does being a public figure mean anything to people these days? I can't even get a take out pizza without the tabloids reporting it the next day about how I'm 'letting myself and the country go'."

"Did a bookcase really fall on you?"

Crimson eyes narrowed, almost caught out. "Yes."

"Oh. Because-"

The door came open suddenly, almost knocking Raven into the wall and saving Prozen from yet more questioning, but this was because he'd ducked back just in time before he got a mop-end to the face. Rosalita gave him the evil eye, jabbing the mop this way and that. "Don't lay a hand on him you freak!"

"C'mon Raven, I know somewhere safe-" Harmony had a grip like iron.

"Ow! Leggo!"

There was a thump as one particularly nasty jab from Rosalita and her mop needed to be avoided to the point of going over the desk, which was obviously misjudged and the last thing Raven saw was his foster father tipping over backwards and his legs flailing in the air.

"Yay! The tyrant's dead! What's a tyrant?"

"Shut up Lumina-La."

Kicking and yelling, Raven was dragged out backwards and there was a lot of confusion and people staring as people continued to tussle and Lumina-La had the foresight to jam a chair under the handle of the office. Raven squirmed in their collective grip before finally managing to get free of his shirt, the gel having not sunken in properly yet. His shirt came free quickly enough for him to fall onto his bottom rather heavily, and for a moment he sat there stunned as Harmony, Lumina-La and Rosalita fought over the shirt. Grace just sort of stood there, horrified, before she half-heartedly pushed the chair away and Prozen was released, scowling and holding a bloody nose.

It was not, however, Prozen who stopped the fight. There was another high ranking official on base that day, and Major Karl Licten Shubaltz was not pleased when three squabbling youngsters crossed his path and fell almost onto his boots. He stepped aside and glared at them as his second in command, Marcus, raised an eyebrow in dismay.

"Ladies. May I remind you were you are and the appropriate behaviour that is required?"

Silence settled as three pairs of big eyes stared up at him. Hero worship was transferred almost instantly with Raven written off as 'too much of a boy' and 'so rude' as well as 'immature, he needs a mother'.

"H-hi." Harmony stammered.

Rosalita managed to pull off a sloppy salute while Lumina-La blushed furiously before hiding her face. Mistaking this motion for shame, Karl extended a hand – but his face stopped being kind when Harmony grasped it with a sickly, predatory grin. A thousand words were on her tongue, they all seemed very poetic and cool, but the cold green fire that met her gaze sunk them all before they got anywhere near her lips. Especially when the hand was…not snatched away, but firmly taken away.

The far less cool Marcus had Lumina-La on her feet and was then a little annoyed when Rosalita firmly ignored his hand and kept trying to get Karl's attention.

Glancing up at Prozen with a frown, Karl saluted. It was a grand, important salute, and Marcus followed his example. Both were waved down. "At ease, gentlemen."

"Are these your charges, sir?" Marcus asked.

"Only the shirtless one." Prozen pulled the shirt from relaxed fingers, and dropped it on Raven's head. He pulled it on, quickly. "Thank you for coming."

"I apologise for the incident…we hadn't expected the Republicans to come so far over the border. Intelligence got to us too late." Karl bowed his head, hand touching the brim of his cap in respect. Raven could tell it was reserved respect, Karl's old school values didn't mesh well with Prozen's new-age working equal military. That or he wasn't blue-blooded enough. Raven couldn't help but frown. "If I may inquire, how many zoids were destroyed?"

"Too many." Prozen sighed. "But what was captured will replace them once we build some new AIs. Ones that preferably don't deviate from the mission at hand. Cadets too." A pause. A sly pause. "You did well with training many of the recovery recruits, Major Shubaltz."

Shubaltz was taken aback for a moment, surprised at the praise. "Well…" He coughed politely. "Only some of them." His gaze took in the girls, who were trying to side with him and giving Prozen filthy looks again. "Are you sure they're not yours, sir?"

"The emperor's request, I'm afraid." Prozen gave him a frail smile. "I'll have a look at the reports once they're done and I'll see if anyone makes it to your garrison…but I promise I will give you plenty of warning."

"You're too…kind, sir." Ooh. That must have hurt to say.

Prozen's smile brightened and he nodded at Karl, then Marcus. "Thank you again, gentlemen."

The two walked away, flanked quickly by a few soldiers who were preparing to take the Republican soldiers away for questioning. Raven only just caught Marcus exclaiming "Cor! Look at the damage to that Fang, it's missing a leg-"

"Please keep up, Marcus…"

Raven stared up at Prozen, eyes narrowed. The albino didn't notice him however, he was staring exasperatedly at the girls in front of him before giving in to the inevitable. "Ladies, the customary action after coming in from a mission is to report to your sending officer, who I believe was a Mr…Flick, I believe?"

"Uh yeah?"

"Yes, sir." Dirty looks went from Prozen to Grace. She looked unkempt and grubby with the dirt smeared on her cheeks and the distant odour of charcoal. Her makeup was long gone from rubbing and dust and sweat, except for some bits of mascara that had tracked down her cheeks a far cry from the girl only twenty four hours before.

"Why?" Came the annoyed splutter behind her.

"Because it's protocol." Grace turned her head a fraction to gaze at Harmony. The sneer she got was dismal. "We have to follow the rules and report what we saw and what we did so they can mark us on it and see if it's okay."

"But we did great, right?" Rosalita snapped. "Then we don't need to do it. When do we get our replacement zoids and our organoids?"

Prozen sighed. Fucking organoids. Damn things should never have existed. "Your old zoids will be on their way to you in about six months when we find all the pieces and have time to put them back together. As for your other question, no, you do not get an organoid. There are no organoids to give out. The mission was to locate an item hidden in the ruins while trying to escape the sleepers. To work as a team, instead of a singleton." He cast a meaningful glare at Raven, but it was lost on the youth. "It was a pretend organoid, which everyone unfortunately thought was real."

Harmony balled her fists, quivering with rage. "You tricked us, you filthy pervert!"

Prozen bit his lip to stop the equally nasty retort. "If by trick you mean 'give you a story to play along with to help you with your mission' then yes. But you're going to have to do a lot to get a real one, the line's a mile long and most of the bloody things we find are dead. Anyone else with a question or an observation? That isn't about me?"

Two sets of hands went down. A pale hand went up. "Um, sir?"

"Yes…" Prozen looked to Raven as the youth mouthed the name to him. "Lumina-La, was it?"

She nodded, curls bobbing, her tone pleasant and very matter of fact. "Pay no attention to Harmony. We were crap, sir. Please don't punish us."

"You'll be fine, it was only your first mission." It was very hard to keep a straight face, Prozen felt, looking at all of this. "You're dismissed, ladies. Have a lovely evening."

And that was that. Except as they left for the shuttle, Raven could still hear their whining voices carrying back on the wind.

"That couldn't have been Minister Prozen, where was his spiked codpiece?"

"Bollocks to that, has to be his stand in."

Raven sank down with his face in his hands. He stayed that way even when a hand was at his head, giving his hair a well-deserved ruffle. Nobody noticed this little moment of caring in the chaos of the base, technicians didn't care about the man and the boy who stood amongst it all and out of the way. "It was awful. Really awful. I never want to do that again."

"And you wonder why I'm grumpy all the time."

Lilac eyes peered up, brow furrowed and annoyed. "Next time a bookcase drops on you, let it stay there."

"You are ungrateful and I have no idea why I adopted you. I must have been drunk." Came the good natured reply.

"Ffff." Stupid adults got all the fun.

- And it has ended.

I write too many weak endings.

The girls will be fine and will probably show up on dA soon. Some of them might even return in something else I have planned, a little older, a little wiser. Thanks for reading!