Exception

By: Aviantei

47. Recruitment Across the Board

I know I shouldn't care this much, but who the hell is this kid?

Tyki had an infinite number of things he could be doing (schoolwork at the forefront of the list), but no, he was hunched over his desk on his laptop, shuffling his way through the MPHS files available on the newest Noah compatriot. Should accessing the school files be so simple? Probably not, but Tyki was nothing if not well connected, so simple information gathering it was!

While Wisely hadn't been on Tyki's radar before, that didn't mean he wasn't a suitable candidate. Though he was quiet, he'd been a student at MPHS since his freshman year, and beforehand he'd attended similar private institutions overseas before he'd been recruited to the school. His former education was a matter of entering on scholarships, but that wasn't that much cause for concern; if you were qualified enough to attend Millennium Private, you'd earned it.

Still, you'd think I'd have at least heard of a potential Noah candidate before.

Being the oldest of the current Noah, Tyki had been well aware of the other members' recruitment: Road had been a shoe-in from the start, and she'd basically joined her first day in the high school; Jasdevi had made a distinct names from themselves rather early on and would have been well known even if they didn't end up joining the Noah. But this Wisely kid was overall quiet, aside from having top scores in his grade from the start.

Rolling his chair away from his desk, Tyki sighed. What the hell am I even worrying about? A new Noah is a new Noah, and the new guy doesn't seem all that bad. It's not going to matter, anyways. He could find out more about Wisely later if he needed to. It was the weekend, and he was running out of time to enjoy himself. Time to head out and blow off some steam, maybe check in with that waitress for Lavi, or just go run around with his other friends—anything other than worry about all this.

So of course once he pulled his jacket on and opened up the door, Road was waiting for him, back to all smiles.

Tyki tried to close the door; Road wormed her way in before he could succeed. They struggled for several moments before Road reached for her scissors, and Tyki relented; he liked this jacket, dammit, and Road's expression was getting dangerous. "Sheesh!" she said with a pout. "What's with you? Devitt was right—you've been super boring lately."

"Have you considered that, just maybe, I've been tired of not having any time to myself?" Road pranced over to Tyki's bed and flopped onto it, and Tyki was forced to pull over his desk chair and sit down again, at the mercy of her whims as ever. "What's up with you, anyways? You were sulking all week and now you're up and running again?"

"Yeah, well, I decided to pick back up." She could still feel upset but still keep pushing forward. After all, if the Chairman was certain that Allen was suited to become a Noah, it was just a matter of time before if happened. Road had nothing to worry about. "Besides, I saw that lost look on your face whenever Wisely showed up, and I figured I would give my dear cousin some help. You should be grateful."

And there it was again: that grin of hers that spelled nothing but trouble. And the worst part was that, despite what Tyki wanted, there wasn't going to be any sort of way out of this, either.

"I'll tell you allll about our new recruit, so you can owe me one, okay?"

"Sorry to ask you so soon after everything, but would you mind helping me out a bit?"

The scene: the next school week in the Chess Club meeting. Ari and Johnny were hanging out over a game (that was, as usual, rapidly shifting in Ari's favor), while Allen observed from the side as he waited for someone to win so he could play a game himself. Chess Club was a pretty loose organization, so people came and went, but there was always someone around when you needed a game.

"You know I'm always down to help," Ari said. "What do you need?"

With February starting to come to an end, everyone's moods had run their full course, and the general sense of normalcy was coming back into everyone's lives as best it could. But, of course, this was Black Order High and an ongoing story that hadn't reached a fully complete conclusion, so things couldn't stay quiet for long, so here we fucking go, I hope you're ready.

"You know how we have Robot Fight Club coming up, right?" Johnny asked, causing Ari to nod. Allen also nodded, but his was a bit more stilted, considering that he'd had a not-so-great run-in with one of Komui's inventions the previous year. The moral of the story was to never underestimate anything Komui made, and that warning extra applied if it had even a hint of sentience. "Well, Reever said we should run some club fundraising just in case we end up with another big disaster. But everyone's so fired up to make and run their bots, so we don't have a lot of people to run the backend…"

Hence, asking the favor. In any other case, they could have set up a general call for volunteers, but most people were wary of putting their name on anything associated with the Science Club—which was a super fair reason, all things considered. So everyone had been tasked with recruiting whoever they could, making Allen and Ari Johnny's best bets, though for different reasons.

"Ooh, sounds fun! Count me in!" Ari, who had no functioning ability to feel fear, and thus thought the Science Club's general adventures were entertaining as all get out.

"If you need help, I can do it, so long as I can stay away from the action…" And Allen, who was super nice and would help out his friends whenever he could.

"Ah, you guys are the best! Thank you so much!" Johnny wasn't quite in tears over the situation, but he was pretty overwhelmed with emotion. It was no easy task to get people willing to be in the immediate radius of the Science Club's general nonsense. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do, to be honest. It's so hard to get people involved whenever Komui's working on something to enter, too…"

Allen face went so pale that the color was on par with his hair. "I thought he wasn't allowed to make anything anymore!" After the last—ahem—incident, Hevlaska had severely restricted his ability to cause mayhem, so Allen thought he could at least avoid that much trouble. But it seemed that fate (or maybe just the author) wasn't going to be all that kind. "Ah, when's the Robot Fight Club again? I think I just happened to remember that I already have something happening on that day…"

"Oh, don't be like that, Allen. I'm sure that everything will work out okay without any problems!" Ari said, patting him on the shoulder. If it were anyone but Allen trying to escape the situation, Ari might have turned on her hellion settings a bit more intensely, but there were other ways to get the resident Brit to stick around. "You said you'd help, right? Besides, if I'm there, I'll be sure to take care of you. Like you said, fundraising shouldn't put you around anything too chaotic. Oh, and I bet Lenalee's helping, too, so that should stop Komui from causing you any trouble, don't you think?"

Or maybe, Allen thought, it'll just make him worse since I did turn Lenalee down before. I wouldn't put it past him to be holding onto that rage until the exact moment is there…

"Ari's right, Allen!" Johnny said, leaning forward with enough force that he almost toppled the chessboard. Sure, Ari's eidetic memory meant she could easily reset it, but it was better to avoid such issues in the first place if at all possible. "Komui's just trying to show up the Noah. I bet he'll be so focused on that that he won't even notice you're there! And if we raise enough money beforehand, you might not even need to go to the event in the first place."

That might have been a good motivational out, but Allen had caught onto the very important (to him) piece of information that Johnny had let slip. "Hold up. You mean the Noah are coming to this, too?"

"Uh, yeah? I mean, we usually compete against them so—oh." It had taken a moment, but Johnny remembered what Ari had told them about. "Um, what was that girl's name again? I don't think she was part of the MPHS Science Club, but…."

"Road. Her name is Road." Allen's voice was a bit subdued. The good news was that he hadn't noticed any repeated stalking incidents or whatnot, but he also hadn't heard from her whatsoever. And while that might have been for the best, not knowing whether she was going to try and take the opportunity for reconciliation or not was stressful—especially if she ended up doing something just as extreme as she had before.

Another cross-school event would doubtless be a good time to do so, if that were what she was planning.

"You don't need to worry," Ari said, and the two boys looked to her. "Road Kamelot's part of Millennium's student council and stuff, but she's never been a member of their science club. Besides, after that friendship offer you made her, do you really think she'd bother waiting until the last minute to come find you? She already knows where you go to school. She could just wait for you here." Ari had worked with Lenalee to figure out possible actions to prepare defenses (only if things got messy again; they were both willing to accept Allen's decisions, so long as he didn't end up in danger again).

Naturally, the same brainstorming sessions were what had gotten her the intel on Road's extracurricular activities, but there wasn't much point in bringing that up now.

Allen and Johnny exhaled in relief in unison. Sure, there wasn't any exact guarantee that they wouldn't have any sort of incident, but it was nice to know there was one less reason to worry overall. "See?" Johnny said, patting Allen's shoulder. "Things are gonna be okay. So please help us out. We're kinda desperate here…"

Johnny's pleading face was pretty high up there, and it landed a critical hit, leaving Allen with only one response. "Yeah, I'll help, don't worry. You're a good friend, Johnny, so I wanna repay that." The Science Club had done the work to cause and repair the dance blackout, after all. He would have helped without owing them, anyways, but it was another reason to, nonetheless. "Is there going to be some sort of fundraising meeting, then? Ah, hopefully away from the actual robot building please…"

"Right! We're going to meet up tomorrow after classes, so if you could show up in Reever's classroom…" There was a general moment as Ari committed the details to memory and Allen went to scribble a note to himself in his diary (to be as British as possible) so he'd remember. "Hopefully Lenalee will be able to get a few more people, but I think we're looking in pretty good shape!"

"Oh, good, I managed to catch you!"

Ivy turned at the sound of the voice and footsteps, finding Lenalee racing towards her. It was impressive how she could run in heels without any problem whatsoever, not even losing out on any speed at all. She even came to a stop without stumbling in the slightest, managing to flash Ivy one of her super-pleasant smiles to top it all off.

Yeah, Ivy thought, more amused than annoyed, Lenalee wants something. Well, it was normal for friends to request things out of each other, so it wasn't like Ivy minded. Giving Lenalee her attention, Ivy shrugged her packed up messenger bag onto her shoulder. "What do you need, Lenalee?"

"Whoops. Am I that obvious?" Lenalee asked, though her tone was still joking. With a tilt of her head and a clap of her hands, Lenalee decided to get straight to the point. Ivy was a bus ride kid, so it wouldn't be polite to end up making her late. "I was just wondering if you'd be willing to help volunteer with the Science Club? We need some extra hands for fundraising, and you're super organized, so I figured you'd be good at this kinda stuff."

While it was a blatant attempt at flattery, Lenalee had no regrets. That sort of thing existed for a reason, and it was a pretty intentional move to ask Ivy first. If she said yes, then that just increased the chances of bringing Kanda along for the ride, which was two people for the effort of recruiting one. Otherwise known as an absolute score.

Ivy processed the request without much issue, but she had a hard time saying yes. No matter how much recovery time there was, she still felt tired. Was it too much to ask to just have an ordinary school life, just for this last one year before she had to head into the rest of the world?

"If I say 'no,'" Ivy said, phrasing things as carefully as possible, "will you promise not to set Komui on me?"

There was a beat of silence as Lenalee blinked in surprise—and then Lenalee laughed. "Don't be silly, Ivy. I don't set Komui on my friends." Implying that she would set him on people who weren't her friends, but details. Ivy made a mental note to not get on Lenalee's bad side if she could help it. Komui wasn't a lethal threat, but he was still annoying enough that you wouldn't want to deal with him whatsoever. "If you don't wanna help, that's okay, but is there anything I could say to convince you otherwise? I do think you'd do this job better than anyone else."

Ivy smiled, pleased by the praise—but she couldn't let that change her mind. "I'll be real, Lenalee; I'm way too tired for this. I just…" Wanted to relax; hadn't moved so she wouldn't have to put up with as much of a mess at her previous school. "It's my senior year, you know? I'm sure college will kick my ass, so I don't want to wear myself out now. Because Ivy could and would work herself into the ground, and she didn't feel like repeating that all over again.

Lenalee observed Ivy a bit longer than she intended to, trying to see if she could figure out what was going on in Ivy's head. Eventually, she decided to let it go; Ivy did look tired, and pushing your friends was just rude to do, period. "Right, right, I gotcha. Well, thanks for hearing me out in the first place. If you have a minute, we'll still take your help." Flashing a smile, Lenalee winked. "I'll be sure to not ask Kanda, either, so you two can have fun dates instead, kay? Oh, Nī-san's messaging me; gotta run!" And before Ivy could form a retort, Lenalee was gone, having dashed off down the hall again.

"She didn't have to tease me like that," Ivy muttered, doublechecking that her locker was secure before heading towards the exit. Though, all things considered, the potential to go on a date with Kanda without having to worry about extra nonsense…

Ivy made an executive decision to not take the bus home and spend some time with Kanda instead.

"Are we there yet?"

"I told you to stop asking, you brats!"

"Aw, come on, we've been traveling for ages! You can't blame me for being impatient."

"I very much can! We've only been on the road for a few days. That's nothing at all! Sheesh, maybe we'll cancel the reservation just on your room…"

"Hey, hey, that's super unfair! Abuse of power, abuse of power!"

"Fo, stop picking on the kids."

The bickering fell off as a new voice entered the fray—though those observing were a bit disappointed by the usual show that tended to erupt. But it was important to remember that they were on a special trip to represent their school, so behaving was probably for the best. Then again, since they were still a few hours out, any sense of professionalism was going to be tossed to the side until further notice.

"What are you even bothering fighting for? There's no point in it."

"Just because you let people sass you with no consequences doesn't mean I have to be as spineless as you are, Bak!"

"Oooh, look, Bak took a critical hit."

"Man, Fo's getting more ruthless than usual."

"That's because you're all driving me up the wall!"

The small group in the bus laughed, all of them enjoying the usual atmosphere, even as their head teacher and chaperone was out for the count, sprawled over his seat from the verbal lashing he'd gotten. But despite all that, they'd manage. Even with just a couple more hours on the road, they were almost to their destination, which meant they were almost ready to participate in the robot battle of a lifetime.

That was just how the Eastern Black Order High's Science Club rolled.

[Author's Notes]

Me, aggressively trying to tweak this chapter to make it better fit the final version of this arc. I had some plans that I changed, so I'm hoping things still flow in the long run. Since this story is (supposed to be) a comedy, maybe it's best not to think too hard.

But, yes! Robot Fight Club! The Eastern Branch! I love these guys, so I wanted to include them at least a little bit.

Now to watch me reread the dgm manga and scream as I come up with ten-thousand more ideas for this fic, making my outline ever expand...

This one makes the first post of the new year, which is always pretty fun! It's also weird to think that I have such an extensive backlog of this story ready to go once I clean it up...I don't think that's ever happened with Exception, tbh.

Self promo to go check out my [Shibuya Operation - Story Storm] project, you could have my heart (and i would break it for you), a Moriarty the Patriot fic, if you're so inclined. That's gonna be taking up slots for a bit, but we'll drop chapter 48 over here in February. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[01.07.2023]