| abstract | - The prank on Buster has gotten to epic proportions: all his clothes are either Hello Kitty or Barbie girl's clothes. He considers calling in dead. Phase wakes up to it being her 15th birthday, and muses on the fact that the Bit Slicer failure isn't causing him a howling panic. He also thinks about a dozen other things that might have some future relevance. At breakfast, Molly talks to the Monkey King, and decides to see if she can join the Parkour Hooligans. She goes to talk to Eldritch at the Outcast Corner table, who says that they'll see how she does and then ask Zenith and Breaker. They notice that she didn't seem to feel the Fury twin's fear aura. Also at breakfast, Belle comes to ask Phase if the invitation is still open. It is, and she accepts it. Then she discovers the cute little schoolgirl she doesn't know is the Monkey King. She beats a very hasty retreat. In Team Tactics class, they discuss the previous day's assignments. Then Admiral Everhart discusses supervillain pursuit when the villains have a revenge motive and time to set something up. She uses the Twelve Jurors as an example. STAR League Jr is up first, and they get shot down first because they use the same tactics they've always used and walk right into the trap. Elite League is up against The Carnival, a theme supervillain team, and manages to pull out a win. Team Kimba gets creamed in their Red Team sim, losing four team members and not accomplishing the objective. After class, the team discusses the Elite League sim (they missed most of the Star's sim because Gunny was yelling at them about maintaining com discipline the whole time). Then they go on their separate ways. Phase works on some stuff. Then there's a knock on the door, from someone who surprises the heck out of her. It turns out to be Vox. The two of them have a very enjoyable time with Ayla's birthday present; Ayla is almost late to Martial Arts and has trouble keeping that silly grin off his face. In Summoning class, Molly is puzzled about what to do next. In Bladedancer's combat class, Dyffud gives her a bit of a lecture on the good things going on in her life. At lunch, Chou and Molly join the Underdogs and ask Aquerna to start teaching Molly parkour. In Martial Arts, Phase is paired against Força, Shadowolf and then Sledge. He works on countering one of Sledge's favorite attacks. Then he's put against Aquerna, and finally Chaka. After class, he discusses the mess with Bladedancer and the New Olympians with Judicator, and then estimates how long it's going to be before there's payback against whoever wound Counterpoint up and pointed him at Chou. Then he talks with Reach and Spark, makes some moves toward another development contract and passes the word to keep the yap shut about what they know about Poe Cottage. Phase spends some time at Hawthorn Cottage. He tries out a new anti-telepath tactic on Fubar and visits Antenna, where they discuss the Brass Monkey poster. She coaches Static Girl on some math and then has to dodge Olympia. Then she does a bit of math coaching for Frostbite and tells her about AJG Consolidated. She drops in on Puppet and finishes up with a speed Scrabble match against Diz Aster. Don Sebastiano gets some really bad intel from one of his stooges and recognizes it for what it is, but draws the wrong conclusion. Then he gets a call from Icer and weaves him into his plots to take over the Alphas again. Finally, he decides to use Reach as a cats-paw for some deep plot that will eventually lead him to Hekate's Master. At dinner, Ayla gets a birthday present from the chefs, and then they do their attack on the Peeper. He runs from the cafeteria, horrified. They have a bit of a discussion with most of the Cape Squad, and then Ayla calls the incident in to Security himself. After dinner, Team Kimba runs into the Bad Seeds, and collects a couple of congrats on the Peeper episode. Then Phase discusses contracts for fixing her BIT with Jobe Wilkins. They appoint Nephandus, She-Beast, Silver Serpent, Zenith and Diamondback as the negotiating team. Back at Phase's room, Lancer and the rest of the team discuss the morning's sim run. Turns out Mule had really rubbed Lancer's nose in how badly he'd screwed up. Then they discuss a private vocabulary of signals based on the various battles they'd been in. Then they go over Damballah's prophecy. No Joy. They discuss marketing the sim technology. No joy there either, although Amelia Hartford had done a really major job on a couple of devisors who had broken in before it was fully operational. Then they give Ayla a prank birthday present. Ayla lets them see that she's set up a bit of retaliation. Vox has a bad case of remorse over her birthday present, and Ayla has to hold her for a while.
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