“I helped Rei back from the hospital,” Aria answered her promptly, as though there were nothing more typical in the world. “We’re training partners, so it’s pretty normal.”
“You’re-Wait… Training…?.” Cashe tripped over her own words, gaping between Rei and Aria. “Hold on… What?”
“You heard her,” Rei said with a shrug, not interested in arguing the facts again in front of everyone, especially after Aria had so vehemently fought him on the subject once that night already. “As for the rest… In case my face wasn’t clue enough, I got jumped today. By some of Logan Grant’s regular entourage, plus a few… uh… unexpected additions.”
“Oh,” Cashe said simply. She looked to be processing his words, and a few seconds later her eyes went wide in understanding. “Oooh! I’d heard you and Grant had gone at it a couple time…”
“Glad to hear my misfortunes are making the rounds,” Rei muttered under his breath, though a subtle smile from Aria told him he’d been overheard.
“So now what?” Catcher asked of the group. “We just swallow that Grant had nothing to do with this? Even if that’s true, he’s still been sticking it to Rei all year so far!”
“And he can keep sticking it to me, if all he’s interested in doing is mouthing off and humiliating me on the field,” Rei said, putting a hip on the back of the couch with a groan to take his weight off his aching legs. “I can handle that bullshit.”
“And if that’s not all?” Catcher demanded, clearly still hot-headed. “Even if he didn’t tell them to do it, his minions wouldn’t have had the guts to ambush you like that if he wasn’t always tearing you down, man. If we don’t do something about it—”
“We don’t need to,” Viv said firmly. “Grant took care of it.”
“How could he take care of it when he’s the source of the problem?!” Catcher was clearly having trouble controlling his fury. “That doesn’t make sense!”
“It will in the morning,” Viv promised him, but her eyes fell on Rei. “He wants to talk to you.”
Rei felt a knot form in his gut. “Me? Why?”
“I don’t know. But he said you wouldn’t have to worry about this sort of shit again. At least not from anyone he’s close to.”
Rei, for once, wasn’t remotely sure what to make of that. Logan Grant was by the minute turning out to be a more confusing character than he’d anticipated, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. While he wouldn’t be complaining about hearing that Selleck and the others had gotten as good as they’d given, it was truly bizarre for that repayment to have been doled out at the hands of the cadet who’d been going for Rei’s throat all term, sometimes literally.
“Ugh!” Catcher groaned in annoyance, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks and seeming less than satisfied with the evening’s developments. “I can’t handle this. I’m going to bed.” He didn’t turn away just yet, however, looking Viv up and down carefully. “You sure you’re okay…?”
Viv gave him the first—if strained—smile Rei had seen from her all evening.
“Yeah,” she promised. “Just a little shaken up. Grant was…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but Rei caught the subtle changes in her expression. He stared at her, bewildered.
“Must have been scary, yeah,” Catcher finished for her quietly.
Rei didn’t bother correcting him, watching Viv carefully, abruptly wondering what else she and the Mauler might have talked about after he’d put down Selleck and the others.
He decided this was neither the time nor place to ask.
“Well, since we’re all in one piece, I’m calling it,” Catcher reiterated after a moment of quiet. “Goodnight, all.”
“Night,” came the mumbled responses from everyone as he made for his room and disappeared inside. The door was about to shut behind him when Catcher’s head reappeared around the edge, looking a little embarrassed.
“Uh… Rei… I’m really hoping you don’t need help getting undressed or anything like—”
“Goodnight, Catcher!” Rei cut across him loudly.
Catcher grinned, vanishing again as the door shut with a click behind him, with Viv and Aria managing matching snickers.
“It was a fair question,” Viv said after she’d regained control of her face. “Not like you’ll get either of us to help you shower in the morning or anything like that.”
Rei didn’t know if he had ever rolled his eyes so hard, given the act actually hurt—though that might just have been residual soreness in his face. Looking around at the three girls remaining in the room, however, he almost choked to find that Aria’s face had gone bright red at Viv’s suggestion, and she was staring at him with nothing short of trepidation.
“Get your mind out of the gutter! Both of you!” he half-yelled, half-squawked. “I can handle putting on pajamas, thank you very much!”
“Forget pajamas, how the hell did you get across campus?” Cashe breathed, taking him in again more critically this time. “You seriously look like you let an S-Rank Brawler use you as a training dummy.” She turned to Aria. “Like actually. Did you carry him?”
“Not from the hospital,” Aria answered with a quick shake of her head, obviously eager to change the subject. “When I found him, though, he was unconscious, so I kinda—”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Rei cut in, nothing short of desperately by now. “Between the lot of you I might just leave school voluntarily and save myself the injury to my reputation.”
More grinning—from each of them this time—and Rei sighed with a shake of his head.
“You’re all gonna be the death of me,” he grumbled.
“So long as you don’t get yourself killed by our classmates first, apparently.” It was nice to see some of Viv’s usual pep had returned.
“Too true,” he admitted, wincing as he recalled the sight of Selleck’s boot coming down on his face. Deciding he’d had enough reminders for one day, he looked over the three of them. “I think Catcher had the right idea. I’m gonna call it a night, especially if I want a prayer of making it to class in the morning.”
“Oh, is it that late?” Chancery Cashe asked absently, checking the time. Seeing the lateness of the hour, she started, then leapt up off the couch like it had bitten her. “I’ll be heading to bed as well!” she said in a rush, and for the first time all night, Rei was reminded a little of the rigid facade she’d shown off when they’d first met, the afternoon of the Commencement ceremony.
It made him feel like laughing, for some reason, and he stopped himself only to spare his cheeks the discomfort.
Cashe was around the couch and passing Rei in a heartbeat, headed straight for her room. She reached it, and had settled a hand on the handle when Viv called out to her.
“Cashe.”
The Lancer paused, looking around tentatively. Viv was watching her, and looked to be struggling with something.
“Thanks,” she finally mumbled. “For sitting with me. For worrying.”
A look of surprise passed over Cashe’s features, and it was a moment before she seemed able to answer.
When she spoke, however, she did so with a faint smile.
“Anytime. I’m pretty sure I owe you guys at least that much, after the idiot I’ve been.”
And then, with a wave to Rei and Aria as well, she opened the door and stepped inside, leaving everyone feeling like maybe the day hadn’t been such a complete mess after all.
CHAPTER 32
Shido proved itself even more indispensable than Rei had previously imagined when he woke up the next morning feeling—while far from whole and healthy—significantly better than he had the evening before. He made it out of bed and between the bathroom and the kitchen without too much trouble other than some further protests from his liver, but he decided not to push his luck when Viv and Catcher checked on him as they were about to head to breakfast. Telling the former he’d see her in class and the latter they’d meet
up at lunch, he let them go in favor of giving himself some much needed extra time to shower and get dressed.
As he moved around Rei steadily loosened up even more, and so it turned out not to be too much of a task to pull on his pants, shirt, and jacket. His boots proved themselves only slightly less tricky than the night before, unfortunately, with his fingers fighting the dexterous movements of tying them up, but he managed it in the end. Donning his cap, however, demonstrated itself to be completely out of the question, because every time he tried his shoulders absolutely refused to cooperate, locking out and burning in protest with each attempt. Eventually he gave up, tucking the cap under one arm and taking up his pad in his other hand before heading for the Tactical Studies building, hoping anyone who questioned him on his inappropriate dress would take his explanation in stride given his face was still black-and-blue.
He was, in the end, grateful he’d skipped breakfast, because the walk to the day’s first class took three times as long as it should have. His legs—while able to tolerate his weight now—still ached after a minute or so, and he had to take frequent breaks to catch his breath and give himself a rest to recuperate. Once he’d reached the Tactical Studies Department, he allowed himself to circle the long way around the first floor to the elevators at the back of the building, which carried him to the third in a gracious sparing of the torment him imagined the stairs would have been.
Reaching the classroom at last, Rei found that he’d arrived a little earlier than most of the other students, but by some fortune of the day had still been beaten by Viv and Aria. They were talking across his empty seat in their usual place, and only noticed him once he’d started the arduous climb up the six whole steps that led up to their aisle.
“Oh, Rei, I’m so sorry.” Aria jumped to her feet and hurried over to help him. “We should have sat on the first row.”
“Nah, it’s good for him,” Viv said nonchalantly, though she eyed him sidelong when he reached the chairs and he eased himself down—with a hand from Aria—between the pair of them. “What’s with the cap?”
“Couldn’t get it on,” Rei admitted dejectedly, breathing a little easier once he was seated and giving Aria an appreciative smile as she took to his other side. “Apparently even a CAD and the best medicine in the system can only do so much.”
Viv grunted in understanding. Then, before he could say a word in protest, she plucked his hat from under his arm and pulled it over his head, straightening it with a twist.
“Thanks,” Rei snorted.
Viv shrugged like it was no big deal, reaching down to her bag for her pad. “Don’t thank me. I’m not the one that brought you breakfast.”
Rei blinked, then turned. Aria was indeed in the process of retrieving a parcel wrapped in paper towels from her own bag, pulling it open a little nervously.
“You didn’t have dinner yesterday,” she mumbled, “so when Viv and Catcher said you were skipping breakfast too…” She didn’t finish, presenting him with several pieces of buttered toast and roasted ham, which Rei could only stare at for a few seconds.
Partially because it was only in that moment that he realized he was indeed, absolutely starving, and partially because that pressing on his chest returned as Aria averted her eyes from his, holding out the food to him silently.
“This is the part where you say ‘thanks’, idiot.”
Viv’s stage whisper made Rei jump, and he reached up to accept the parcel at once.
“Th-thanks!” he stuttered, though not unenthusiastically. “You’re a lifesaver. Literally.”
Aria nodded shyly, but continued to refuse to look at him. He wanted to say more, but Viv’s hiss in his ear again cut him short.
“Eat. Before Takeshi gets here and yells at you. You two can flop around each other like fish out of water later.”
Next to each other Rei and Aria both sat up straight as boards, mortified, snapping around at once to face the front of the class and mutually avoiding each other’s eyes, now. Rei’s cheeks were on fire, he knew, and he could only imagine what Aria’s looked like. He didn’t know whether he wanted to punch Viv or hug her, but decided he could debate the topic with himself after he’d settled the rumbling of his stomach that had started up the moment he had seen the toast.
He’d wolfed down the majority of it, fortunately, by the time Logan Grant arrived, tailed by the usual suspects.
The Mauler’s entrance was announced by a sort of stilling of the class all about them. The sudden drop in the chatter and noise claimed Rei’s attention from his breakfast, and he looked up and around curiously. The first thing he noticed were several people staring at him, which he supposed was fair given the rearranged state of his face, but others appeared, instead, to be gaping between him and the room door.
That was when he saw Grant.
Handsome as he was with his strong jaw and dark hair, the bright bruise that covered the Mauler’s left eye and cheek somehow only seemed to make the massive cadet more striking. He stood rigidly, glaring at Rei from the base of the stairs, but then turned to start climbing upwards, snarling under his breath at the group behind him to “Come on.” Dutifully, six other students followed him, not a one meeting Rei’s gaze, nor any other cadet’s in the class.
“Whoa…” Aria muttered, which pretty well summarized Rei’s own feelings at the sight.
To a one Warren, Emble, Gathers, Perez, and Truant looked not much better off than he himself did. Only a couple of them appeared to be limping, but all of them sported some combination of a black eye, a bruised nose, or a nastily cut lip. Trailing at their end, Mateus Selleck appeared to have gotten the absolute worst of it, most of his face battered like he’d had his head slammed into a wall several times, and when he didn’t look in their direction Rei considered it was possible the Saber was having trouble seeing much of anything through blackened, swollen lids. Mouth agape, he and Aria watched the group climb in silence along with the rest of the class, and only when the seven of them had settled down in a back corner at the very top of the lecture hall did anyone have the sense to look forward again.
“You weren’t kidding,” Rei hissed quietly to Viv, who—of every person in the class—hadn’t once looked in Grant’s direction. Indeed, she appeared to be deliberately focusing on the opposite wall of the room, like the white plasteel paneling had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world. She jumped a little when he addressed her, and again Rei had to wonder what it was she and the Mauler had talked about the night before.
“What?” Viv asked, apparently having been doing her best to ignore the whole proceeding. “Oh… Yeah. No, I wasn’t.”
“He did all that with his bare fists?!” Aria demanded, leaning to speak around Rei in an alarmed whisper. “Through their reactive shielding?!”
Viv nodded, and the fact that she didn’t want to talk about it was apparent even as she spoke. “Yeah… His Strength spec must be through the roof. Catcher had it right. It was scary…”
“I’ll bet…” Aria mumbled, stealing a glance back towards Grant and his group, but looking straight again with a snap. “Damn. He’s staring at us. Why do I feel like a snack for some monster?”
Viv managed to crack a smile at that, a little of her usual life returning. “Don’t tell us that! If you’re a snack, what the hell would that make us? And besides, he’s probably not staring at ‘us’.”
“He’s staring at me,” Rei grumbled, resuming the wolfing down of his toast in order to give his hands something to do other than twitch nervously on the desk in front of him.
He had just finished his breakfast—shoving the napkins into his pocket—when Sarah Takeshi entered the classroom. He was a little slower than Viv and Aria in standing, and his pitiful salute could only reach his chin, but the captain had either already been briefed on the situation, or took pity on him after glancing over his bruised face. She gave them leave to sit, then her gaze lifted to the rest of the 1-A slowly, linger
ing in the top corner where Grant and the others were sitting.
She made a face like a disapproving mother, glaring up at the row in question long enough for every student to know she was not pleased about something, then turned and swiped at the smart-glass wall to bring up the starting slides of a lecture on “Multi-Level Field Management.”
Class passed at a crawl, with Rei having difficulty keeping enough of a focus on the lesson to do more than take passable notes. He didn’t volunteer for any questions—thinking it best not to draw any more attention to himself than necessary, for the time being—and didn’t meet Takeshi’s gaze despite him feeling like the captain had spent much of the hour and a half with one eye on him. When the tone for the end of the period chimed, he gathered up his pad quickly to limp with all speed from the class alongside Viv and Aria, not wanting to be called back and berated with any questions or lectures that day.
They’d made it to the hall, and Rei had just started to breathe easy when a hand caught him by the arm.
Groaning internally Rei turned, expecting to find Takeshi looming over him, ready to lay into him. He was surprised, therefore—and a little relieved—to discover Sense taking him in sharply, having pushed through Viv and Aria alongside Kay Sandree, who stood at his elbow taking in Rei just as critically.
“Spill,” the Brawler said simply, not letting go of Rei’s arm, as though to imply he wasn’t going anywhere until the pair of them had heard the story. At Sense’s back, Rei caught a glimpse of grey-orange hair, and realized even Leron Joy was lingering near enough to hear the exchange.
“Nothing much to say, man,” Rei answered with the best shrug he could manage, wincing as his shoulders complained in response. “Got into a bit of a disagreement after training yesterday.”
“That’s some disagreement,” Kay said with a frown as the other students moved around the group, stealing glances at Rei as they passed. “Your face looks like one of those ancient Picasso paintings.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 51