How Can Skells Be Boring?

A/n: Alexa is frustrated about the most boring of missions. Luckily, Doug talks her down a bit. With fries. What is it with food and these characters? Built off of the previous chapter.

Spoilers to at least Ch. 5, probably all game, I'm starting to lose track. Minor swears. And extreme skell geekery, because Alexa.

All the good stuff belongs to the brilliant folks of MONOLITH SOFT (Xenoblade N(e)X(t), please). Lila and her sketchy station and crew are mine, and man are they a cranky bunch.

"This is crap! You're wasting time and resources!"

"What do you care? I'm the client."

"My time! The team's time! This is a waste! We've done enough, so let's drop it already!"

"I disagree." Lila was looking remarkably stoic in the face of Alexa's fury. The more Alexa waved her arms around, the stiffer the fuel station manager stood.

And Alexa was waving her hands plenty, and just this short of stomping. Actually, just this short of giving Lila a hard push, except that then Lila'd probably deck her, if the other techs didn't do it first. The skinny edgy guy at the nearest bay was tapping a wrench unnecessarily and perhaps pointedly against his palm. Alexa ignored him, but nonetheless tried to calm herself.

Screw calm. This was ridiculous. For three weeks, she'd been going out on pointless, boring crap missions, all paid for by Lila, or rather, by the Auxiliary Skell Refueling Station #1.02. Which meant, in plain language, by Lila. A waste. Boring. Embarrassing. They'd go out, same location, same weather conditions and time of day, Alexa in the same skell, and they'd hunt indigen until her fuel ran out. The same indigen. And Alexa was the only one doing the hunting. The rest of the team would stand around, watching, or maybe wandering off and fighting something interesting, while Alexa blasted away at the same puny critters over and over. The number of forfexes she'd cleared in Sylvalum, now that was something she didn't even want to remember ever again. Then her skell would run dry, and the team would haul her useless carcass home to Lila's loving care.

Next day, same thing. Exact same thing. After four or five runs, they'd switch to a new location, new set up and target, same load of boring.

"I disagree. You're making a lot of progress. Most of the list is done, and I'm pleased with the results."

"Ducky for you, Lila. What I see is a pointless exercise and you being obtuse about it."

"Nice vocab, Alexa. Very Hector of you."

"I'm not stupid. This job is stupid. You don't need this many trials, and they don't need to be this specific. I'm telling you, drop it and let's all get on with our lives."

"This is exactly what I need. Keep going."

"No. I'm done. I will not be coming back. Hire some other idiot, because this Outfitter is out."

Because it got more embarrassing. The skells she was sent out in, nothing wrong with them. Far from it. They all came with top-of-the-line weaponry. Something to really use against a tyrant or two. But no, the mission stated that they had to be used against specific, boring enemies. Come on, she thought, using a G-Piledriver on random grexes? Really? Really? It was so not cool, standing there, blasting away at puny indigen while the rest of the team watched. Not even the rush of the weapon itself could distract her from her misery.

It wasn't even paying that well. Doug had agreed to help out, but he must be getting twitchy about the depressing pay rate. She'd asked, kind of, about a week into it, when she'd realized what a drag this whole thing was turning into. He'd shrugged it off, saying that steady work paid the mortgage just as well as a good job. Nice of him, but clearly this did not qualify as a good job.

She just couldn't keep doing this. Time to cut the cord, let everyone off the hook. Good lord, how had she got so stupid as to accept this mission? Nope, not thinking about that either, not anymore. The less she thought about Speedy and that project, and how much she missed him, the better.

She hadn't reached the Outfitters' Hangar when heavy footsteps caught up with her. Not Lila, she was barely the height of a Ma-non, and definitely not one to be chasing after her. Somebody bigger. She turned around and forced a smile.

"Hey ya, Alexa," Doug stuttered to a halt and tried to stand there, casual like. Fail. He really should learn not to pretend to be cool.

"What do you want, because I need to get busy on something else."

"What are you up to now?" he asked with real interest.

Alexa gritted her teeth and then gave up. "Nothing. I am busy on nothing."

"Then let me buy you a cup of coffee or something. Okay?"

"I do not need a comforting drink."

"You chewed out Lila in her own station. You're lucky to be standing. Last guy did that, she floored with a portable fuel tank. Those go at 10 kilo easy."

"She'd never do that to me. We go way back."

"Come on. You're on a break, so am I. Let's grab a bite or a coffee or something."

They retreated to the Sunshine Café, partly because Alexa only wanted a coffee and partly because Doug seemed to need to get his flirt on with yet another waitress. He didn't have a type that Alexa could spot, but if a chick had a platter food, he was always all smiles and flattery.

"So, explain it to me, using small words," he asked around some fries.

"This mission is a bummer, and I can't stand it anymore."

"Well, at least you're being honest. I heard you accused her of wasting resources. Them's fighting words."

"Aw, she knows I don't mean it."

"I'm not sure. She sounded plenty pissed when she called me."

"Oh great. You got sicced on me like some dog."

"You are oozing charm today, you know that?"

"Since when do I have to be nice to anyone?"

"All I'm saying, cranky bitch looks better on Irina than on you. Well, it looks more natural." He shoved his fries towards her.

"I'm telling and you are so dead." She grabbed not one but three fries and pushed the basket back to him.

"Yeah, probably deservedly so. Anyway, what bug got up your, er, nose?"

She had to laugh at his blush. "Nothing much, just tired and embarrassed and bored. I need a break, and this mission is going on too long."

"You don't think it is worth it?"

"Probably is, but in such tiny steps I can't stand it. Lila'll pull all this data together, come up with a magic fuel formula, and save BLADE half a litre a week. Yeah."

"Per skell, per mission, that adds up."

"But it's so embarrassing. You all just stand around, looking annoyed."

"We're in skells. How can a skell look annoyed?"

"I can feel it."

"Skell psychic, that's new. Or is it skellepathic?"

"Skellepathetic, more. Next you're going to tell me I should apologize to Lila and be a good BLADE and get the job done." Alexa rested her forehead precariously on the top of her coffee mug.

"Now that you mention it…"

"Okay, but give me a little time. I'll do it by dinner." She lifted up her face, ignorant of the temporary ring the mug had pressed into her face. (Doug wisely did not point it out.)

He dug into the fries. "I thought you guys were buddies or something."

"Not exactly. We go way back, though. She used to work for me, on Earth."

"She's like twice your age, and sort of smart. How'd that happen?"

"You saying I'm sort of dumb?"

"No, easy, I'm saying, um, how did that happen?"

"I was a local back then. Living not too far from the Project Exodus base. I got a night shift when I was still in high school."

Doug frowned. He stopped eating, even though a fry hung in mid-air, ready to be sacrificed. "Hold on. They were only pulling the most trained people for the project. You're telling me you were some kind of Lin-like genius?"

"Thanks for the look of surprise. Naw, I was only a so-so student, didn't make much sense to me, because I knew I'd have to grab the first job I could get to help my family. My brothers, man, back then, they could clean out a refrigerator between dinner and bedtime, and they'd barely started middle school.

"So, maybe the project started with only the best, but trust me, there came a point, just as they started to ramp up, they were hiring just about anyone with a pulse. Everyone knew about it, at least around there. I was always on the hunt for jobs I could do after school, and the rest is history."

"Doing what, or do I even need to ask?"

No, he really didn't. She told him anyway. "Skellllllllllls! It was love at first sight." She sighed and smiled. "Something about those big old gorgeous things just got to me." She sighed again.

"You're not telling me that they put you on the dev team."

"Naw. Cleaning crew. But I was good. I was INSPIRED!" She sat up straight, radiating joy.

"And you worked your way up to…"

"Chief of the cleaning crew! Then I got promoted to minor maintenance. I was in heaven, because that meant I got to move those babies. Oh, Doug, that first time, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

Luckily, he didn't tell her to calm down, because she would have thrown his fries at him if he had. He just smiled and pushed the almost empty basket back towards her. "So you were Our Lady of Oil Changes. Then what?"

"Well, it was getting towards crunch time. I'd been there maybe 3 years, and even I couldn't keep up with everything that needed doing, especially once Nagi swung that scholarship at UC Bakersfield for me. Bless that man. Anyway, I started putting in a polite request for help every Monday, right before I'd leave to blitz through sophomore year." Her eyes grew thoughtful with memories. "It's amazing how many class hours you can jam between 9am Monday and 6 pm Tuesday. Go Roadrunners!"

Doug had a different view. "Basically, you're saying you yelled your head off to Eleonora."

"And Nagi and the Chief. And every person that wandered into the hangar. And Lin and…"

"I get it. So they gave you Lila."

"You do get it. I thought they were being nice to me. I didn't realize that they needed to stash her somewhere. I only found out later. Light and space were wrecking her mim, and the desert has a lot of that. Not much else. Let me tell you, it was one boring place to grow up." Alexa shrugged. "It worked out okay. She took over the night shift, staying in the hangar, left all the cool jobs, like skell pickup or delivery, for me."

"And you protected her when she could have been bounced from the project."

Alexa gave a rueful smile and shrugged. "I didn't realize she had a problem for like a month. She ended up telling me, wanted to make sure I was okay with it. She's weird and super stiff, but she's honest."

Doug snorted. "You keep telling yourself that."

"In her own creepy way, she is. I guess I owe her an apology. But, dammit, Doug, this job is killing me with dull."

"She got you back in a skell," he pointed out. He spoke the truth. She hadn't been allowed near anything resembling skell tests after she'd been removed from the Sakuraba SP005 prototype trials. Her darling Speedy. They'd cut her from the team after she had returned Speedy more than a little scuffed from an unscheduled encounter with a tyrant (one apparently made from an angry old growth forest).

It had left her bereft. Until Lila had come up with this ridiculous series of fuel usage missions, and made sure that Eleonora didn't let anyone but Alexa sign up for them.

"Yes, and let that be a lesson to everyone. Be careful what you wish for, because it may be BORING."

As they headed back to the administration area, Doug had one more suggestion. "Does it have to be you, battering targets over and over?"

"She wants pure data. That means only the my skell can fight, not yours."

"But does it have to be you in that skell? I mean, could we switch out sometimes, sort of to spare your puny mind? It's so small, I'm not sure we can find it if you truly lose it."

"Gee, thanks," she shot back. She stopped, just on the edge of the refueling station. "You mean it?"

"Sure. You can catch a nap while I'm doing it. Half the time that's what we're doing while we're waiting for the trials to end. The rest of the team can take turns too."

"Doug, you're the best," Alexa said, giving him a smile usually reserved only for the better skells. "I'll ask Lila, get her to agree." And she trotted off, not to apologize, but to renegotiate the terms of the most boring mission involving skells known to man.

[Narrator's note: Lila asked me to state that there will be fuel savings well above half a litre if she ever manages to reformulate the weight ratios, and that "idiot Interceptors" (her words, not mine) had run out of fuel under exactly the conditions that Alexa had been testing, using exactly the same over-powered weapons against the same under-powered enemies, and without anyone to haul them home to safety. No casualties yet, but never underestimate "the stupidity of some BLADEs" (again, her words, NOT mine). If nothing else, Alexa's public theatre of embarrassment might make them sit on their hands before using a flail against a gnat.]

A/N: 1) I love these babies, and I will not stop writing boring stuff about them. I swear, someday! Someday! And … no, not very likely. [Ha ha, wait two more chapters!]

2) I keep sprinkling in Lila and her station and Gino (the edgy tech, yes he has a name and a back story) because that way I'll get enough courage to put up the 13 bits and counting that I've written about them.

3) I have a very strong head canon that the Whale Project occurred on the Southern California/Nevada border, and all of the lower Central Valley is now in play. I hereby declare that Alexa grew up near Barstow, probably more like Harrison Hot Springs or someplace like that.

Next up: SPOILER-A-GO-GO, when somebody shows Doug the footage of what happens after the credits. He doesn't take it well.