Flame's commander graduates. The next guy, promoted in from Salamander, doesn't get along with Brighteyes and trades him away for a girl, making Flame the only army with more than one girl in it. Everyone seems to expect Aegis to have some particular interest in befriending this girl, but she's not even in the same toon or particularly interesting. Aegis's new toon leader (a promoted second from another toon, not her) doesn't know what to do with her, but he's bright enough to know that he doesn't know what to do with her. She retains her nominal toon second position, which means that she takes over if he gets frozen - not often; he prefers defensive maneuvers - and otherwise she dances around alone, achieving higher level Flame goals as a one-girl formation-wrecker. She's good enough at this to sometimes lead opposing armies to decline to use formations at all when they're battling Flame, and then she's a sharpshooter, hiding herself behind human shields and holding her beam on everyone who gets in her sights.

Eventually command changes again. The new guy makes a lot of trades, but keeps Aegis, and makes her a toon leader at last when she's nine and a half. It takes this long for Brighteyes to make good on his promise to try to trade for Aegis, but the new commander knows what she's worth and won't part with her for any price he offers.

Aegis watches Sue in the rosters. He gets an army when he's just barely eleven: Phoenix. He makes a lot of trades too, but not for her. That's okay. She's got a toon, and she teaches them to throw her where she needs to go, to make formations that will stand up to all kinds of busting moves like the ones she knows, to freeze their elbows if they can't hold their arms steady like she can to shoot straight.

Everyone's rapidly terrified at Phoenix's hivemindy mutie kuso.

Author: autokinetic	Flame's commander graduates. The next guy, promoted in from Salamander, doesn't get along with Brighteyes and trades him away for a girl, making Flame the only army with more than one girl in it. Everyone seems to expect Aegis to have some particular interest in befriending this girl, but she's not even in the same toon or particularly interesting. Aegis's new toon leader (a promoted second from another toon, not her) doesn't know what to do with her, but he's bright enough to know that he doesn't know what to do with her. She retains her nominal toon second position, which means that she takes over if he gets frozen - not often; he prefers defensive maneuvers - and otherwise she dances around alone, achieving higher level Flame goals as a one-girl formation-wrecker. She's good enough at this to sometimes lead opposing armies to decline to use formations at all when they're battling Flame, and then she's a sharpshooter, hiding herself behind human shields and holding her beam on everyone who gets in her sights. Eventually command changes again. The new guy makes a lot of trades, but keeps Aegis, and makes her a toon leader at last when she's nine and a half. It takes this long for Brighteyes to make good on his promise to try to trade for Aegis, but the new commander knows what she's worth and won't part with her for any price he offers. Aegis watches Sue in the rosters. He gets an army when he's just barely eleven: Phoenix. He makes a lot of trades too, but not for her. That's okay. She's got a toon, and she teaches them to throw her where she needs to go, to make formations that will stand up to all kinds of busting moves like the ones she knows, to freeze their elbows if they can't hold their arms steady like she can to shoot straight. Everyone's rapidly terrified at Phoenix's hivemindy mutie kuso.
Author: pythbox	With good reason. When he starts out, he only links his toon leaders and seconds, and a few key soldiers from the rest of the army. (Anyone who refuses to link, he trades.) He wins one and loses the other. But that's his first two battles. For the next, he puts half his army under the command of his best toon leader and links the other half, and his half-army of perfectly synchronized soldiers takes the enemy formation apart while he hides among the unlinked command. In the battle after that, he divides his army into ten groups of four, with two linked and two unlinked soldiers each, and with him as their communications hub they conduct a vicious guerrilla campain through the densely packed field of stars. In his fifth battle as commander, someone gets in a lucky shot that freezes him five minutes in. Rabbit fights his unlinked army to a draw, with both commanders frozen and four damaged-but-not-disabled soldiers remaining to each side. The hivemindy mutie kuso isn't the only thing they've got going for them.
Author: autokinetic	Regardless, when Flame's commander gets notice of a battle with Phoenix, putting a stop to the hivemindy mutie kuso is his first priority. He fuses Aegis's toon with another one and has them practice strategies to penetrate all sorts of protections Phoenix's commander might set up around himself; mostly this involves the other toon playing a defensive formation with Nickel pretending to be Sue, and Aegis's toon covering her while she busts it. Sue does have to be physically in the room during a battle, somewhere, and she's the best at recognizing him, even from far away - they all know his face now, but she knows him and how he moves in the battleroom. Flame's commander knows about Sue being in Aegis's fantasy game environment. "Pull some psychological shit if you can," he tells her. "Sue barely have psychology," she snorts. "He crazy. Fun crazy but not psychological-shit-works kinda crazy." "Well, then figure out what his plan is, Aegis, I'm not going to have you friends with an enemy commander playing birds together every day and not try to use it." Heh. Sue might just tell her if she asked. "If I can, sir." She signs on to see if he's there.
Author: pythbox	He's still working on her castle, far downriver on a small island in the ocean. It's taking him a while, because he insists on doing detail work despite the fact that his avatar isn't really built for it. Rejected stones are forming a pile underwater that will probably be a land bridge to the island by the time he's done.
Author: autokinetic	She lands there and waves.
Author: pythbox	He waves back and breathes a streamer of fire into the air.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis directs her avatar into a reasonable facsimile of the Phoenix army crest; she's not an outright bird, but she can tuck her hands into the feathers of her wings. Then she giggles.
Author: pythbox	Sue caws a laugh and nods.
Author: autokinetic	There are a lot of rocks around. Aegis starts collecting pebbles: forty small ones and one big one. She scatters them on a clear spot on the ground and then picks up her magic-rock crown and waves it around and points at the pebbles: you make your army like this, attached but not contiguous.
Author: pythbox	He studies the configuration, then nods again.
Author: autokinetic	She puts her crown back on and starts moving pebbles around idly. Not asking. But if he feels like telling, he can.
Author: pythbox	He watches her for a little while. Then he shoos her away with a wave of his wing and sweeps sixteen of the forty-one pebbles into his best approximation of a neat little square.
Author: autokinetic	She tilts her head at it invitingly.
Author: pythbox	With quick movements of his talons, he gets the other pebbles moving in patterns that more or less track with what he does in the battlefield: coherent shapes made of synchronized individuals, splitting and coaelscing as necessary. His own pebble occupies no special place in all this. The sixteen formed-up soldiers remain where they are.
Author: autokinetic	She forms her hand into the universal this is a pretend gun gesture and shoots at one of the not-squared pebbles, then retrieves one from the square and adds it to the swarm, tilting her head again.
Author: pythbox	He nods, then flicks several more pebbles out of the swarm and replaces them from the formation until it's down to three. Those ones he covers with his talon and presses into the dirt.
Author: autokinetic	She picks up one of those three when he moves his foot off of them, and taps it against her temple questioningly.
Author: pythbox	He nods, then touches another of the three and touches his own head and shakes it. No, these soldiers cannot or will not link up.
Author: autokinetic	Interesting. She grabs another handful of pebbles and puts them set aside and starts trading them in for those three: why are they still in his army if they won't or can't?
Author: pythbox	He shrugs.
Author: autokinetic	She stands over by the set aside pebble pile, picks up one of the recalcitrant soldiers, and emotes a disgusted face at it and throws it at him, then tilts her head again: nobody else wants 'em?
Author: pythbox	He tilts his head from side to side: kind of, more or less.
Author: autokinetic	She nods. That's all she can think of how to invite him to tell her. I AM A SPY :P she writes in the dirt. (Better to tell him now than to fess up later.)
Author: pythbox	He giggle-caws and nods. Then he hugs her.
Author: autokinetic	She hugs him back. Fake hugs are still pretty nice.
Author: pythbox	Mm, fake hugs. He lets go, waves a wing, and logs out.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis reports her findings. Her commander wants to know who those three soldiers are, but she doesn't know. "I might be able to pick them out by watching the army move around, but not until we flashed at least a few of the linked ones and he rotated in more to narrow it down." "Well, what would you do, Aegis?" "Sue's army's not a slouch even with him out of commission, but the main threat is still the coordinated core of it. We can flash up to thirteen linked guys and he'll just rotate more in before we can actually hurt that core; if we even damage them, he can swap them out for efficiency and leave his less maneuverable ones on their own. Freezing Sue should still be our top priority as an army, but -" "But?" "Sir, I don't know if this'd work, but if we don't get Sue right away, I kind of want to try engaging them hand-to-hand, man-to-man, and taking their guns before trying to flash anybody besides Sue. The guns are all the same; they register who's holding them when they fire, not who palmed it out when we suited up. I think they'll try to get the guns back instead of rotating out of the link the way they will if they're flashed, or at least they will for a few minutes. My formbusters can take anybody in Phoenix one-on-one and I can do some emergency training for everybody else on it too except whatever toon you want to assign to take out Sue. We can also work on shooting with both hands, although I don't expect anyone to match me on that in the prep time we have." "Interesting," says her commander. "I'll give B toon the mutie hunt. You borrow everybody else in practice, you and your toon catch them up on hand-to-hand, anyone slightly ambidextrous you give them a quick primer on shooting two-handed." "Yes, sir." "Flame to battleroom! We're practicing!" shouts the commander.
Author: pythbox	The hour of battle arrives. Phoenix blasts out of their gate like water from a hose, or fire from a flamethrower. Groups of soldiers form and scatter without discernible pattern, in twos and fours and the occasional eight, scrambling along the walls or cannoning between stars after the initial explosion. Anyone who has a shot at a Flame soldier takes it.
Author: autokinetic	There are casualties, but the other Flames use their casualties as shields, and as weapons, knocking guns into the air or into their own hands. Aegis herself is a photon. No one can train a beam on her long enough to shoot unless they are her, and she's not trying to shoot anyone yet, although she does seize a lost gun on one of her bounces from wall to star to star and have it ready in her hand while she kicks other weapons away from their owners. She looks for Sue, so she can shout to B toon's leader...
Author: pythbox	He's not visible—but there's some shouting coming from that star across the room. A Flame soldier drifts out from behind it, in clearly uncontrolled flight, yelling and clutching his arm; another drifts out in the opposite direction, frozen.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis frowns and bounces that way. Is Phoenix still coalescing like a hive mind...?
Author: pythbox	Yes they are. And several of them try to intercept her flight.
Author: autokinetic	Well, they can't catch her. She has her guns in her hands; she bounces, she aims for the back of that star, she's faster than B toon, the air is full of lost guns now - she shoots. Is that Sue?
Author: pythbox	Yes it is, wrestling with a third Flame soldier for control of both their guns, and winning.
Author: autokinetic	They're entangled enough that if she flashes the Flame soldier's arms, Sue won't be able to move and she'll be able to freeze him at her leisure. She does. Sue's stuck; the guns float off into the air. She lands on the star, clings, flashes both of her pursuers who she's failed to lose her at the same time, one with each gun, and then gets Sue neatly in the back. With that handled, she flips over the edge of the star to help with the cleanup. She doesn't even stop to say you idiot, that was Sue, him we were supposed to shoot not engage. She just gets up speed again, although little enough that she can shoot stationary or slow-moving soldiers from her flight.
Author: pythbox	With Sue out, what's left of his army arranges itself into groups of four and proceeds to be an almighty annoyance to everyone. They're not going to deprive Flame of victory, with their major advantage out of commission and half their guns floating in space, but by damn are they going to make them work for it.
Author: autokinetic	It's ultimately close. A stray shot that wasn't even aimed at her gets Aegis in the foot, and she's one of six left not completely frozen at the end of the battle; the commander is frozen, so she goes through the enemy's gate as the only mobile toon leader. When they're forming up to bow and whatnot, she winks at Sue.
Author: pythbox	He grins back.
Author: autokinetic	The armies hit the showers, and Flame's ordered to reconvene in an hour for post-battle analysis. Since Flame has two girls in it now and Phoenix has one, and since there are only two girls' bathrooms on the entire station, Aegis is not completely alone when she has to peel off the spiderwebbed copper, first from her legs and then from her torso and then her right arm and then, finally, her left. She does all this as far away from the other girls as she can. Being naked except for her exo is nothing; being naked including her exo makes her feel terribly vulnerable to anyone else even if they're harmless, like she's peeled off all her skin and they could hurt her just by breathing. She heavily, awkwardly soaps herself and rinses away the electronics-eating substance as fast as she can without overbalancing her chair and collapsing on the floor. The Phoenix girl - did Aegis shoot her? Aegis might have shot her - doesn't seem to want to allow this personal space. She showers faster - she's not a cripple - and then she's in Aegis's face. "So that's how you do it. They let you cheat, is that it?" "I - it's a -" "Water wrecks it?" It's only soap that will damage the electronics, Aegis could go swimming if there were a pool, but she instantly pretends terror: "Don't put it in the -!" The Phoenix girl seizes a piece of the exo - left calf section - and holds it under the spray. "Naoko!" Aegis screams for the other Flame girl. "Get a teacher - run -" Naoko bolts, and the Phoenix girl slaps Aegis across the face and she lands with a wet smack on the tile. In theory she is not paralyzed - in theory she can move - but she can't quite remember how to do anything but soap herself, without her exo. She can't remember how to roll away from a kick. Naoko's not going to be fast enough, Naoko will have to explain to a teacher, Naoko will have to get a teacher to come - Bird bird bird bird bird Sue Sue Sue Sue Aegis thinks as hard as she can, choking on a scream when the Phoenix girl stands on her stomach and leans.
Author: pythbox	Something bumps gently against the edge of her mind. There's almost nothing to it: just a feeling of contact, of Sueness, and the automatic, self-evident knowledge of how to push back.
Author: autokinetic	your soldier's hurting me she pushes, half tentative, half frantic. help
Author: pythbox	It's instantly obvious who, but he flashes her face queryingly at Aegis just to be sure, at the same time that he gives the soldier in question a tap-on-the-shoulder what-are-you-up-to mind-nudge. And starts running for the girls' showers.
Author: autokinetic	yes her help The pressure's been moved from her stomach to her chest now, and she can feel her ribs creaking and she can - not - move -
Author: pythbox	The soldier he tapped doesn't answer him. He pushes BACK OFF/STAND DOWN, not angrily or with force to hurt, but intensely and with force to command attention. To Aegis, he pushes on my way and a summary/reflection of what he sent the soldier.
Author: autokinetic	Little piece of kuso think she hot shit! She not so hot without her cheat! snaps back the Phoenix girl. She a year older than me but in a fair fight she nothing! Aegis no longer has the wherewithal to keep up the effortful shield-relaxing mantra of bird bird bird. She can scarcely breathe for the knee on her chest. She can't breathe, she can't move, she might not be alive at all - something's the matter with her eyes now -
Author: pythbox	You get off her right now or you out my army, he retorts.
Author: autokinetic	You defending her? Transfer me, I don't give a rat's ass, I got a perfect record except for her, everyone want me! (This is an exaggeration.) (Aegis is losing consciousness.)
Author: pythbox	No shit, I defending her, he says, and pushes location/trajectory: it's going to be about fifteen seconds before he's in the room. You still on her when I get there, I keep you in my army, I freeze you coming out the gate and carry you as a shield.
Author: autokinetic	Aegis has passed out anyway. The Phoenix girl stands up and away from her, spits, scatters all the exo pieces in the still-running water, grabs a towel, and takes the side exit that won't take her past Sue on his way in. Do what you want.
Author: pythbox	He pushes the same message to everyone in his army he can link, in two batches of twenty-four and twelve respectively, mostly wordless: Nina caught an enemy soldier in the shower and beat on them because she's a sore loser. Phoenix don't do that shit. Nina is not Phoenix. He gets back thirty-six affirmations, twenty of which come with a 'where?' or other wordless offer of help. Those soldiers he links, and exchanges locations. One of them can see a teacher down the hall. Sue pushes him a concise summary of the whole shitshow. A few want to know if they should be hunting Nina down, but Sue is very clear with them that any retribution here is going to come straight from him. They can act towards her as their feelings dictate, but if their feelings dictate violence, they are going to be in as much shit with their commander as she is. All that before he arrives. He turns off the water and kneels by his friend's side, careful not to disturb the pieces of the exo because he has no idea how it works and he doesn't want to be the one to break it. He pings his twenty helpful soldiers to find out if any of them knows first aid. No such luck, although another one finds a teacher, and Sue summarizes for him too. One more thing. Who's the other Flame girl? He's seen her before, he's sure. He finds her mind and nudges it.
Author: autokinetic	Ack! replies Naoko. Oh yikes is this Phoenix's commander your shit of a soldier was getting in Aegis's face I'm trying to find a teacher I can't find one I've knocked on four doors now
Author: pythbox	Well, now you found me, he sends, with a reassuring undertone of his feelings on the situation: disagrees with his soldier's actions, will shut her down and reprimand her. My not-shit soldiers can find some teachers. Show me what you know, I'll take it from here.
Author: autokinetic	Naoko sends an equally rushed-and-slurred summary of what she saw before Aegis ordered her to get help.
Author: pythbox	Got it. Thanks. My soldiers are on it; we'll have a teacher there in no time.
Author: autokinetic	Is she okay?
Author: pythbox	She's gonna be, he says confidently.
Author: autokinetic	Okay! Good! Thanks!
Author: pythbox	No problem.
Author: autokinetic	The first teacher to get there might be recognizable from geometry if Sue had ever shown up to geometry. "What happened here?" he asks. "Specifically, how did she fall unconscious? If it was head trauma she can't be moved until the medics get here." He's paging them, meanwhile.
Author: pythbox	"Didn't see," he says. "It was one of my soldiers, but she ran for it before I got here."
Author: autokinetic	"What's the attacker's name?" asks the teacher, still punching instructions into his pager-device. "And yours and - this is Bella Swan, isn't it? That's her exoskeleton over there..."
Author: pythbox	"Yeah, she's Swan. The one who did it is Nina, I don't know the rest."
Author: autokinetic	"First name will do to find Nina, but who are you?"
Author: pythbox	"I command Phoenix," he says. "There's not two of me."
Author: autokinetic	"All right, Phoenix, and what were you doing in the girls' bathroom?"
Author: pythbox	"Somebody told me one of my soldiers was in here beating on a cripple," he says impatiently, "and she didn't stand down when I yelled. What else am I gonna do, wait for you to show up? Swan'd be dead."
Author: autokinetic	"No, no, of course you couldn't wait," says the geometry teacher, still tapping his pager. Medics open the door with a stretcher, check Aegis over quickly for breaks, and get her onto it after determining that her neck is fine. They ferry her away. "- As long as I have you here, is there a Thomas Sanderson in your army? There's a page out about him."
Author: pythbox	Sue rolls his eyes. "What?"
Author: autokinetic	"Is that you? Whoever finds you first is supposed to escort you to Colonel Gupta's office."
Author: pythbox	"Okay, let's go," he shrugs.
Author: autokinetic	The geometry teacher escorts Sue to Colonel Gupta's office. Colonel Gupta says, "Several of Flame's soldiers were physically injured in your battle today."
Author: pythbox	"Yep," says Sue.
Author: autokinetic	"We're going to analyze the vids of the battle and determine if there was wrongdoing. Until we've made our decision, you sleep in the brig. Shouldn't be more than one night. The flash suits are supposed to be protective against ordinary hand-to-hand sorts of injuries; you don't put eighty-two kids in a room and tell them to fight and not get anyone hitting each other. But a few people aren't so sure and want to check for evidence that you were using your telepathic abilities on the enemy soldiers to prevent them from defending themselves," he shrugs, "which as you know is against the rules even if you aren't frozen."
Author: pythbox	"Nope," he says. "I just didn't know the flash suits were so bad at their job. Next time I won't hit so hard."
Author: autokinetic	"Then that's what the reviews will turn up, but," Gupta shrugs, "until they're over, brig. It's not lead-lined, so I imagine you'll still be able to do a post analysis with your army."
Author: pythbox	Sue just grins.
Author: autokinetic	"Is something funny?" inquires Gupta.
Author: pythbox	"You said the reviews'll find that, just 'cause it's true?" He affects an innocent look. "You mean you weren't joking?"
Author: autokinetic	"At any rate, walk with me." Gupta gets up and leads Sue to the brig.
Author: pythbox	He goes along, still laughing.
Author: autokinetic	Gupta locks him up and leaves him be. It's about twenty minutes later when Sue feels Aegis's mind groping in his direction again, all birdbirdbird.
Author: pythbox	It's like she brightens, going from dim and faded to the shiniest light he can see. He nudges her again.
Author: autokinetic	hi. they won't give me my exo back it's not broken but they say they don't want me to move too much and I move around in my sleep when I have it. do they know?!
Author: pythbox	I didn't tell them, he says. I didn't tell anybody. He shows her what he did tell them, in the same kind of rapid-fire but readable summaries he uses to talk to his soldiers. Conclusion: as far as he can tell, they don't know.
Author: autokinetic	maybe naoko's wise to you, maybe she told - they won't let me have it - my chest hurts and I can't move she sends back. but thank you
Author: pythbox	He pushes an image of his bird hugging her bird-person, and the feeling behind it: he likes her, he cares about her, he wants her to get better and fly again.
Author: autokinetic	I wanna fly again too. why was she so mad? I didn't have anything against her personally, you're supposed to shoot at the other army. oh and the disarming thing was my idea but they weren't supposed to close with you, they were just supposed to shoot you, they must not know what you look like or something.
Author: pythbox	I dunno, he says. She talked like you were cheating, but you don't cheat half as bad as we do.
Author: autokinetic	I guess she's a hypocrite? suggests Aegis with a weak laugh. what's going to happen to her?
Author: pythbox	Didn't ask.
Author: autokinetic	I mean, if the teachers don't do anything. sometimes they don't. she's your soldier.
Author: pythbox	I told her I'd freeze her every battle and use her as a shield, he says cheerfully. Probably won't, though. I'll trade her unless she convinces me she won't pull that shit again.
Author: autokinetic	I used to try to go without washing for weeks when I first got the exo. now I want to try going without again 'cause I'm scared. maybe I can get Naoko to take a personal combat class but that would only help while I'm in Flame and she is too. maybe I should ask if I can just use the guys' showers. it'd be weird but at least then there'd be more witnesses.
Author: pythbox	If you want somebody with personal combat training to guard you while you shower, I can do it, he says loyally.
Author: autokinetic	only if you're free then. besides, then I'd still need permission to use the boys' showers or you'd need permission to be in the girls' ones.
Author: pythbox	He pushes a shorthand shrug.
Author: autokinetic	I'll ask somebody about shower permissions either way, I guess. and ask Naoko. unfortunately, I tried years ago to figure out a way to have only bits of it off at one time and I ruined a little piece of it in the attempt and now I have to hope I don't grow to be six and a half feet tall and need the extra insert. I probably won't be six and a half feet tall though.
Author: pythbox	What, there's not more than one of it?
Author: autokinetic	it was only in prototype stages when the project got canned because of that one guy. mine is actually put together out of pieces of a few different ones because they tried not to leave any usable complete sets of pieces in case someone tried them on and got possessed, but they were able to collect enough stuff to make mine. they might be able to get me a handful more inserts if they had to, but my family can't afford to commission more to be made and I'm not sure if the IF would pay for it or not.
Author: pythbox	I'll get Mom to pay, he offers. If you need it. She's a sap, she will.
Author: autokinetic	oh - that's nice of you - and of her, but I still shouldn't get soap on it. or any of the other things that will mess it up, but I'm less likely to put peroxide or alcohol on myself and I'm listed as 'allergic' to those for the infirmary.
Author: pythbox	Okay.
Author: autokinetic	they're letting me put it back on now!!! And the bird bird bird dies away in the excitement and she's a wall again.
Author: pythbox	Sue grins to himself.