(Aisa POV)
Uncle Urouge was funny but not the bad funny. He was the fun funny. He smiled a lot and smiles were nice. Except when Wyper did it. Uncle Wyper didn’t know how to smile right. And unlike Wyper, uncle Urouge also hadn't gotten angry when she stuffed food into his mouth for the first time ever. Though apparently, that had been rude and Laki scolded her a lot after the party, but uncle Urouge said it was fine and even thanked her for the meat. She was being nice, sharing her food with others.
He didn’t give good head pats though. They were too light, almost as if he thought she would break into pieces. Aisa wasn’t fragile. No siree, Aisa was a big girl and a brave warrior. Aisa was elect…eclec…electo…elec something so she would have been fine. She could handle tough head pats.
But Aisa would forgive uncle Urouge because Aisa was a nice person and Laki said nice people forgave others. And if she wanted head pats she could go to Bellamy. Bellamy gave good head pats. His voice sounded nice and cuddly and warm. Not as fuzzy, almost not at all anymore so that was good too. It didn’t itch as much.
Anyway, uncle Urouge was nice and even gave her a little doll to play with. He carved it himself just for her!
…not that she would ever play with it of course. Aisa was a proud shandian warrior. Warriors didn’t play with dolls, no matter how beautifully made. She was just keeping it safe because she…appreciated her uncle – whom she had never met before – but he was family and family was important.
If she occasionally took it in hand and spent some time with it? She was just making sure it was in good shape. Laki had said that one should take care of the gifts one received to show proper gratitude. And if she spent a lot of time with her new doll? That just meant she was taking very, very good care of the doll. Uncle Urouge might even cry because he'd be so happy.
Like how he cried before they all left to go on more adventures, at least before Bellamy told him to shut up and join them.
“Where are we going now?”
“Back to Sabaody, I suppose.” Bellamy answered her as he flexed his springs. “We’re supposed to meet up with Rayleigh in two weeks, but we’re kind of free until then.”
“Do you think there’ll be more robots?” Aisa idly zapped him again. It tickled.
“I don’t know, but I hope we don’t see another pacifista for a long, long time.” She didn't quite understand what he was trying to do, but Bellamy had explained that he was experimenting with batteries or capaci…capators to store the eletricity. “Let’s try that again.”
“The robot was scary. I couldn’t hear it at all.” Just an empty, silent void where her eyes told her it should be. It had been her first time coming across something that moved and had no voice.
“That just means you need more training.” He calmly told her and Aisa decided to stick her tongue out at him. Training wasn’t fun. “Come on, you know you need to.”
“But haki training is boring.” Not like flying. Chasing seagulls with Rivers and Sarquiss was always fun.
“So, you’re not going to train?” Bellamy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nope.” Aisa decidedly shook her head. “And you can’t make me.”
What was he going to do? Stop giving her head pats? She would miss them, but Laki gave good ones too.
“I heard we were running low on cookie dough.” What did cookie dough have to do with head pats? “Possibly because someone keeps getting Hewitt to bake her midnight snacks.”
Umu… “It was Laki?” Aisa tried, starting to get a bad feeling. He wouldn’t, right?
“In that case, Laki will be very sad to find out that we won’t be buying any more cookie dough for the foreseeable future.” Bellamy said, shaking his head in fake sadness. FAKE!!! You monster!
“B-but what about cookies before bed? The double chocolate mint ones?”
“Laki will have do without them for now.”
“No more peanut butter blossoms?”
“Nope.”
“The oatmeal raisin flavor?”
“Nadda.”
“No more WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES?”
“Out of stock, I’m afraid.” Aisa’s hands shot up to her head in horror. It was worse than she could have ever imagined! How could he? Unbidden and unstoppable, something bubbled up from within her to escape into the wider world. And as her soul left her mortal coil behind, it was accompanied by the clear sound of utter dismay.
“NOOOOOOOO!!!!”
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(Hewitt POV)
That sounded like the captain finally told Aisa she would need to train harder. Odd that she was screaming though, considering what the captain had told him before commandeering his whole supply of cookie ingredients. According to his memory, it had been something along the lines of motivating the little munchkin with cookies.
You’d think she’d be happy to have the captain bake cookies for her.
Which reminded him, he would have to adjust her meal plans to account for the excess sugar by reducing it in her regular meals, while including more vegetables and more protein so that she could grow properly. Children required greater nutritional care than the rest of the lunatics on this ship and with the amount of cookies the captain could make...well, the choice was obvious. Not that Hewitt didn’t take good care of his crew and their stomachs, but he was going to put in the extra mile for Aisa and make everything extra healthy.
Maybe not tasty, but sacrifices needed to be made. If you ate more cookies, you ate more brussels sprouts. Simple as that.
…though, since when did the captain have an oven in his room?
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(Eddy POV)
Pearls of sweat inexorably followed the silent call of gravity, beginning their slow migration down his forehead and only briefly halting at the edge of the precipice above his eyes. Then, little by little the bead edged its way over the ledge, pushing the boundaries of stability and safety until it pushed too far and lost its grasp, plummeting into space.
Past the faint mist being expelled from his mouth in slow gasps, past his soaked and steaming shirt all the way to join the thousands of its compatriots who were ambitiously attempting to create a small lake.
Eddy ignored it, his entire focus on keeping his sword from trembling as well as the body attached to it. His solitary lung burned, crying out for air, echoed by his heart. It felt like his entire body was rising up in protest. When he closes his eyes, he could feel his temporal arteries pulsing and hammering like there was no tomorrow.
And it had only been half an hour.
Slowly, but all the more deliberate for it, Eddy lowered his blade and returned it to its sheath. Not a moment too soon because his vision went black as a bout of dizziness hit him. Before he could fall however, support arrived in the shape of a firm embrace slowing his descent. Thus, instead of collapsing like a sack of potatoes, Eddy was instead slowly lowered to the floor of the gym.
That was how he opened his eyes to find himself staring into the Funkfreed's concerned face.
“Here, drink this.” Blinking, Eddy allowed the unknown liquid to be poured into his mouth, down his gullet and into his systems. Once the last drop disappeared, Muret began massaging his limbs until he could feel the blood being driven back into his heart. Nothing much changed, at least not immediately, but as the minutes passed the dizziness faded and his breathing calmed until he could once more draw breath without feeling as if his lung was on fire.
“How’d I do?”
“Better than yesterday at least.” Muret answered, pulling out her stethoscope to auscultate his interior organs. “Everything sounds ok considering the circumstances, despite pushing yourself just now.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“It felt better.” Eddy agreed. When he had first gotten out of his hospital bed, he couldn’t handle anything more strenuous than a slow walk. Now, he could go full throttle, if only for a brief amount of time. “The hole is gone too. You did good work.”
“You should thank the shandians. After years of dealing with bazooka holes and lightning burns, they got those treatments down to a T.” Muret replied, even as she busied herself with the rest of her examination. “Furthermore, you are recovering at a frankly ridiculous rate. You didn’t heal this fast last year. I should know, god knows how often I had to patch you up after you guys did something stupid to gain my attention.”
“Hey, those were legitimate medical emergencies.” He protested. And it had even been true.
“You and Hewitt cut yourselves while practicing how to look cool swinging your oversized equipment around.”
Eddy dared not ask if they had been successful. He could already guess what she would say in response so he settled on a more safe answer. “There was a lot of blood.”
“It had stopped bleeding by the time you came to see me.” Muret deadpanned, fixing him with a flat stare. “And then there was that time you stubbed your toe on the anchor.”
“How was I supposed to know it’d be there?” It had been a small sacrifice to make to have Muret fussing over him for a moment. Of course, once that moment had passed she had berated him for wasting her time, but it had been worth it.
“By using your bloody eyes, idiot.” She scolded. “The same way you were supposed to use them instead of walking face first into an open door.”
“My eyes were busy at the time.”
“Busy staring at my ass.” Muret let out a very unladylike snort. “Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“Can you blame me? You looked beautiful sunbathing on the deck.”
“…!” A faint blush appeared on her face before fading back into obscurity almost instantly.
“Not that you don’t look beautiful now. In fact, I think you look even better when you’re doing your doctor things.” Eddy hurriedly tacked on. Then he proceeded to internally kick himself for opening his mouth.
“Doctor things…huh?”
“Well whenever you’re really focused your eyes start shining. I could gaze into them forever.” The admission brought back her blush and this time it stuck around a bit longer.
“Giving me compliments isn’t going to make me decide faster, you know?” she pointed out, but Eddy just shrugs.
“I know, but I wanted to.” Was it corny and cringy as hell? Yes. Yes, it was. “Though, now that you mention it... Is it helping?”
“Maybe.” She said, giving him an enigmatic smile. That was a yes, right?
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(Lily POV)
Jab jab hook
Urouge’s crew were chumps, only fit to be nameless, faceless fodder. If it weren’t for their powerful captain, they wouldn’t have made it to Sabaody in the first place, never mind surviving an encounter with the fucking robot.
For goodness’ sake, all they managed to do was sit on the thing long enough for it to shake them off. Unlike Lily and her crew who dropped a bloody building on it.
Jab jab hook
Was Lily proud of that achievement? Fuck no! The thing was barely inconvenienced by being buried under literal tons of rubble and had taken out Eddy like an afterthought. All because they couldn’t defeat it fast enough.
Jab jab hook
STRAIGHT!!!
“Whoah! You trying to take my head off?”
“Stop bloody whining, you shithead. I couldn’t hit you so you’re fine.” Lily would have spat on the floor, but then Ross would complain about the lack of hygiene and increased infection risk.
“That’s not nice, you know. Especially after I took time out of my busy schedule help you.” Nero waved a finger in a scolding manner. “What if you hurt my feelings?”
“Shut up and get back into position before I hurt more than just your feelings.”
“Promises, promises. When I was in training, we learned not to make any we couldn’t keep.” But despite his exaggerated lackadaisical attitude, weasel face did take up his combat stance again.
Then he was off once more with a burst of speed, Lily hot on his heels as they crisscrossed their way across the width and span of the training room, just two blurs to the untrained eye.
Jab jab hoo…dodge dodge dodge
Be a reed in the wind, just another reed swaying in the wind.
“Stop going easy on me!” Dodge. “Bloody hit me, you dickhead!”
Dodge sidestep duck roll dodge dodge dodge
“Seriously, what’s up with you calling everyone either a shithead or…shit!” Missed. Leg sweep. “…or a dickhead? That related to some sordid fascination of yours?”
“Got you! Fuck!”
“No, you didn’t~” Taking to the air was just patently unfair…or it would have been two weeks ago. Impact! “Wait a minute, that’s not geppou!”
“Laki’s special order boots, you dickhead!” Lily howled, letting out a fierce battle cry as she delivered her best roundhouse kick to Nero’s gut midair. “Impact!”
Flipping a few times to regain her balance, Lily gracefully touched down on the floor before kicking off in the direction where Nero had crash landed. Like her captain always said, it wasn't over until it was over.
“Alright, alright, I give!” Her fist stopped a hairsbreadth from breaking his nose, the induced wind causing his stupid whiskers to sway. “Let me up?”
“Sure.”
“Oof, those boots hurt. Whose idea was it to install impact dials to footwear anyway?” Nero grumbled, massaging his abdomen. “That’s how you did the knock-off geppou, right?”
Lily nodded. “It had been Laki’s idea.”
“Well, it’s a good one as ideas go. Not quite as polished as the authentic variant, but useable I guess. After all, you got me.” Nero evaluated as he knelt down to get a better look.
“Only because you were going easy on me.” Lily muttered, causing Nero to look up with an odd expression on his face.
“What makes you think I was going easy on you?”
“I hit you.” Something she had never managed before. Whenever she thought she’d gotten close to touching him, he kept speeding up that little bit to stay just beyond her reach. It had been the same routine ever since they had begun training together. And it was infuriating.
“…you have no idea, do you?” Nero sighed, dragging one hand down his face. “Let me put it this way and hope it gets through your thick skull. I haven’t gone easy on you for quite a while now.”
“…?”
“What happened earlier? That was me going at my max velocity.” Nero admitted.
"What?"
“Sure, I let down my guard a little because I know you haven’t learned geppou yet. But why do you think I had to use it myself in the first place? You’d have caught me otherwise. Though you did regardless, so that ended up being useless.” Nero finished ruefully.
“But you…then why did you keep speeding up just enough to stay ahead of me?”
“Because you doofus, I trained my butt off to stay ahead of you.” Poke. Lily’s hands went flying to her forehead to ward off a second assault which never came. “I trained for years to reach this speed and you caught me after only a few months. Damn, I’m a good teacher.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
“…thanks.” The word felt foreign to her tongue, but Lily managed to tickle it out.
“What was that?” Being the obnoxious git he was, of course Nero proceeded to lean in while cupping his left ear. “I couldn’t hear you.”
Blood vessels popped up on her temples and Lily could feel an angry blush spreading over face. Faced with the choice of repeating herself or resorting to violence, Lily chose the more familiar option.
“Raagh!”
“Violent much! How does Sarquiss put up with you?”
“Stand still and let me hit you!”
“Kami-e~~~”