Énouement

Chapter Twenty Four

I soon understood what Dink meant when he said we'd be apart of the battles if we were apart of his toon.

Dink trained his toon independently from the rest of the army, with discipline and vigor; he never consulates with Rose, and very rarely did the army maneuver together. It was as if Rose commanded one army, and Dink commanded a much smaller one, and they both happened to practice in the battle room at the same time.

Dink started our first practice by asking Ender to demonstrate his feet first attack position. The other boys didn't like it. "How can we attack laying on our backs?" They said.

I rolled me eyes and raised an eye brow at Dink who shrugged and gestured me to go ahead. I sighed annoyed and whipped out my pistol. I shot at the boys complaining, they were frozen in a few seconds. I lazily aimed at Ender, or his feet really because that was all I could see, and fired. Only his legs froze, making him damaged and able to still shoot at me to freeze me. Dink unfroze us all and the boys started complaining again.

"You give them a smaller target to hit rather than your full body idiots." I huffed and crossed my arms as they continued to complain and glare at me. Dink sighed.

"You aren't attacking on your back, you're dropping downward toward them." I looked at Ender confused and mildly shocked as he shared my look. Dink had watched us and seen what we were doing, but he hadn't understood the orientation that it implied. It was clear that though Dink was very, very good, his persistence in holding the corridor gravity orientation instead of thinking of the enemy gate as downward was limiting his thinking.

We practiced attacking an enemy star and I could see that these boys could follow orders well, they were doing Ender's feet first method, but they couldn't adapt to change. They still attacked from one way.

"Over the top!" Dink called out. And over we went. To his credit, he then repeated the exercise, calling, "Again, upside down." Because of their insistence of gravity that didn't exist in this room, the boys became awkward when the maneuver was under, as if vertigo seized them. Idiots.

The boys of course hated the feet first attack, but Dink insisted, so in turn they hated Ender for it, and me for showing its effectiveness. "Do we have to learn to fight from some Launchies?" One muttered, making sure we could hear. I smirked and batted my eyes at him.

"Since this Launchy froze your ass in 1.3 seconds, I'm guessing yes." I smiled sweetly at him as he scowled at me. I was still snickering when Dink affirmed what I had said and Ender elbowed me. We kept working.

Eventually even the slowest of the boys had gotten it. In practice skirmishes, they began to realize how difficult it was to shoot an enemy attacking feet first. As soon as they were convinced of that, they practiced more willingly.

I rolled my eyes. "What is with the fragile male ego you boys have? Like they couldn't get that when I froze them all an hour ago? They have to discover it from themselves or it's not real?" I muttered and Ender smiled. "It's not real to them because a girl did it." I snorted rather unladylike. He was right. Boys here didn't believe anything a girl had done really ever happened. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

I could tell Ender was tired as we went to our practice session. He had never done one after a full day of work because Bonzo never let him train with the army. I had gotten used to it, but this was Ender's first time.
"Now you're in a real army," Alai said. "You don't have to keep practicing with us."

"And just what have I been doing these last few months? Cuticle care?" I pinched Alai's check as Shen leaned over to whisper in his ear. Not well I might add.
"Cuticle care?"
"Ancient girl ritual. Helps with self defense." Alai staged whispered back. I rolled my eyes and Ender laughed lightly.

"From you I can learn things that nobody knows."
"Dink Meekers the best. I hear he's your toon leader."

"Gee, you know for not having a lot of girls here, gossip sure does travel fast." I smiled sweetly as the boys blushed.
"Enough teasing Tori. Let's show them what we've learned from him today."

We taught them the same excersise a we had learned that afternoon, only we put our own touches on the patterns, made the boys try different things.

Halfway through practice I could feel eyes on me, but it was Alai who nudged me and pointed out the door. Petra and Dink stood watching the practice, watching Ender.

"Your two favorite people Tori." I grimaced. I had told Alai about my misgivings of Petra, and Dink's distrust of me. It was slightly better with Dink now, but we weren't friends, and I still didn't like Petra. When I looked again, they were gone.

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"I thought I told you two not to use your desks." Rose the Nose stood in front of Ender's bunk, where Ender and I sat back to back working. We didn't look up.

"We're completing the trigonometry assignment for tomorrow." We answered simultaneously, before glancing at each other and smiling softly. We were so close on our own wave length it was scary sometimes. I could feel Ender shift against my back as Rose bumped his knee into his desk.

"I said not to use it." Ender and I sat our desks down, and I turned my body so we both faced Rose and Ender stood up.

"I need trigonometry more than I need you." Ender said simply.
"I just don't take orders when it interferes with my hacking." I was teasing, but mostly serious.

Rose was taller than Ender by at least 40 centimeters. But I wasn't worried. it wouldn't come to physical violence. And even if it did Ender could hold his own now at least against Rose, who was lazy and didn't know personal combat.

"You're going down in the standings, boy." He was only speaking to Ender now. I had been mostly consistent in my rankings.

"I expected to. I was only leading the standings because of the stupid way Salamander was using me."
"Stupid? Bonzo's strategy won a couple of key games."
"Bonzo's strategy wouldn't win a salad fight. I violated orders every time I fired my gun." Rose hadn't known that and I could see it made him angry.

"So everything Bonzo said about you was a lie? Not only are you short and incompetent, but you're also insubordinate? What's next, is Sophronia not a girl?" I snorted. He had been half serious and it was the stupidest thing I had heard all month. Like I could keep that hidden here.

"I turned defeat into a stalemate, all by myself."
"We'll see how you do all by yourself next time." Rose went away and Ender sat back down. One of our toonmates shook his head.

"You dumb as a thumb." I shrugged and turned to Ender, rolling my eyes.

"Rose is dumb and needs to get his eyes checked if he thinks I'm not a girl. I mean, do you think I'd have this rats nest of curls if I could have a buzz cut like you boys and not look ridiculous?" Ender patted my head as I pouted.

"Rose is just jealous because he doesn't have awesome long curly hair like you Tori." Ender kept reassuring me, but I knew that he hadn't missed the fact that Dink remained passive to our exchange with Rose. Just kept doodling on his damn desk. That was okay though, we could take care of ourselves.

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Been awhile but I was hoping to get some feedback before posting again. didn't happen but there were a lot of readers so I thought I'd update for you guys :) I'm also thinking of doing an AHS Coven fic, what do you guys think?

Comment and vote please :)