by Haruka

Chihaya wandered into the recruits' dorm room, his eyes downcast and sad. Yuri and Yui were already there, muttering in conversation.
"And look at my hand!" Yuri concluded, holding it out for the other girl to inspect. "See the bruise?"
"I do," Yui said grimly. "Pretty nasty, taking a swipe at you when you were unprepared."
"I think Himura-sensei is afraid to take me on for real, so he decided to disarm me with a surprise attack," Yuri stated, then noticed Chihaya as he flopped onto his bed. "What's wrong with you?"
"I hate this place," he replied flatly.
"Join the crowd," Yui's tone was dry. "I don't appreciate being used as target practice for a pair of smug Sailor Senshi myself."
Kurama stalked into the room and stopped. "Okay," he said, "I'm calm now, I'm calm. No youko, I'm calm."
"Is he all right?" Chihaya wondered aloud.
"He seems angry," Yuri replied.
"What happened, Kurama?" Yui asked him.
The beautiful redhead looked at her. "I spent all day in the library searching for information on a plant that doesn't exist!"
"Let me guess," Yuri said, "one of the teachers lied to you."
Kurama nodded. "Kaiou-sensei. Can you believe it?"
"I do," Yui replied. "After that incident at breakfast and some of the other stunts they've pulled, I believe it all right."
"We've _all_ suffered because of them," Yuri stated. "I even felt sorry for _Kei_, the way Maxwell-sensei treated her."
"Where _is_ Kei?" asked Chihaya.
"She wouldn't tell me where she was going." Yuri shrugged. "Typical Kei."
"If she's smart, she's half-way to China by now," Kurama said frankly.
"I'm a little surprised to hear _you_ talking this way," Yui remarked. "You more than any of us seemed willing to accept this whole deal."
"I see the logic and necessity of it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it," Kurama answered. "My youko side reacts very badly to being hurt or fooled."
"At least _you_ didn't eat the waffles," Yuri grumbled, rubbing her stomach.
"Signal did, and it didn't bother him at all," Chihaya muttered.
"The calisthenics were a cinch for him, too," Yui pointed out. "It really isn't fair. He's a robot."
"Why don't they just send him out all by himself on their dumb assignments and leave us out of it?" Yuri said. "To hear Signal tell it, he can do it all alone anyway."
"He's too prideful," Kurama remarked. "But that's what they said about him at the orientation meeting."
"They should be able to re-program that out of him," Yui said thoughtfully.
Kurama looked over at her. "True. It wouldn't be too hard, once you find the control panels."
Kei sauntered into the room carrying a large grocery bag. "Hello, everybody. My, what cheerful expressions."
"Exactly what is cheerful about this place?" Yuri asked. "And where did you go, anyway?"
Kei grinned. "Shopping!" She put the bag down on her bed and pulled out a bottle of wine.
The others' eyes widened and they gathered around. "How did you get that?" Kurama asked. "You're underage!"
"I have my ways," Kei said mysteriously, bringing out several more bottles. "I would have settled for beer, myself, but I figure some of you have more sophisticated tastes."
"This is for us?" Chihaya said uncertainly.
Kei eyed him directly. "Haven't we all had the kind of crappy day that deserves a treat like this?"
"I have," Yuri said promptly and grabbed a bottle.
"Me too," Kurama took his.
Yui plucked hers from the collection. "And me."
"What if we're caught?" Chihaya asked, watching the others open their bottles. Kei took a big swig of hers and wiped her mouth.
"Ask me if I care, Chihaya," she replied. "I didn't ask to be here, none of us did."
"Besides, what can they do to us?" Kurama asked sensibly. "They brought us here because we can take care of ourselves. They're not going to try and hurt us."
"You don't have to join in, Chihaya," Yuri told him. "We can share your bottle."
Chihaya studied the two bottles left one for him and one for Signal. Slowly, he reached out and lifted one.
"What am I worrying about, anyway?" he said more to himself than anyone else. "Kagetsuya's opinion? Hah! Not hardly."
The others exchanged puzzled looks. Kei shrugged and clapped Chihaya on the back. "Go for it, kid."
"Don't call me kid," Chihaya grumbled as he tried to open the bottle. "I'm seventeen."
Kei looked surprised. "Me too! I thought you were younger than that."
"I just look young." Chihaya finally relieved the bottle of its top and swallowed a mouthful. He began to cough uncontrollably.
"You okay?" Yui asked worriedly, pounding him on the back.
"Yeah," Chihaya replied, his ruby eyes watering. "Just not used to it." He took another, smaller sip, and nodded. "It's pretty good."
Kurama sat on Kei's bed, taking another drink. "What about Signal?" he asked, looking at the extra bottle. "Can he even drink alcohol?"
"Dunno," Kei replied. "I just brought him the bottle to be nice. If he can't have it, we'll split it."
Yuri giggled, her eyes glowing happily from her half-bottle of consumed wine. "We could always get him drunk on chocolate! Didn't he say it makes him go sort of nuts?"
"His chibi side, yeah," Kurama replied. "But I'm not giving stimulants to children."
"Enough talk!" Kei waved her wine bottle. "Let's party!"

Signal did backflips all the way down the hall toward the dorm room. Even after a long day of it, he still had energy to burn. He supposed it was all part of being a MIRA-made robot with unequaled battle skills. He was looking forward to talking to the other kids and comparing notes. They had to be loving this place as much as he was. Even if Pulse _was_ as obnoxious and bossy as ever, maybe even more so, this was still a golden opportunity for him to use his skills in the field. It sure beat breaking rocks back at Tokkari Town.
He reached the dorm room door and leaped inside. "Never fear, for it is I! The Signal to call when danger threatens! A never- ending Signal to evildoers! I am Signal!"
When no one said anything in response, even to tell him to shut up, Signal looked around. Apparently, no one had noticed his arrival. Kurama and Yui were poring over a thick book, gesturing at it with bottles held in their hands and giggling, Yuri and Kei were struggling for possession of another bottle, and Chihaya was doing some kind of slow-motion dance to no music while holding a bottle of his own. There was an odd smell in the air.
"Uh, hello?" he ventured.
Chihaya finally noticed him and his eyes lit up. "Shignal! Danz wif me!"
"Dance? But whoa!" Signal found himself swept into the centre of the room, Chihaya holding tightly to his wrist with one hand while his other kept a firm grip on the bottle. Now that he was closer, Signal could tell that the bottles were the source of the smell.
"What's going on here?" Signal asked as Chihaya spun him in a wide circle.
"Iz MINE!" Kei declared, having pulled her gun and pointed it in Yuri's face.
Yuri pouted. "Fine, iz yers. But onnie cuz I don' wanna get pain' on ma cloze." She relinquished her hold on the bottle, and Kei fell over backwards off the bed with it. The sound of glass shattering was heard.
"Aw, hell!" Kei whined.
"You okay, Kei?" Yuri peered over the edge of the bed. "Hee! Tha' rhymes!"
"Don' rhyme," Kurama said over his shoulder. "Jes repeads." He noticed Signal suddenly and a slow smile spread over his face. "Hey, Yui! Lookie whoz here!"
Yui raised her eyes from the textbook and she smiled as well. "Shignal! Niz ta zee ya!"
"Uh, nice to see you, too," Signal said uncertainly. It wasn't nice, though. It wasn't nice at all. Kurama and Yui were looking at him like a pair of hungry wolves. Or a fox and a dragon. Either way, there was a distinct light in their glazed eyes that made Signal nervous.
"Come 'ere, Shignal," Kurama got up off the bed. "We wanna talk ta ya."
"Talk about what?" Signal asked, noticing that Yui was getting up as well.
"Where's yer control panel?" she asked.
Signal blinked in surprise. "My what?"
"Get him!" Kurama exclaimed and leaped on Signal. Yui jumped on him as well, and the two of them brought him to the floor.
"Hey, stop it!" Signal cried. "Don't make me hurt you!" Even as he said it, though, he knew he'd never do it. Yui was female, and defenseless, at that. And he couldn't risk doing anything to Kurama lest he hit her instead. So he tried to struggle, an attempt quickly thwarted by strong vines that seemed to come out of nowhere and wrap around his wrists. As powerful as he was, Signal couldn't break the bonds.
"Iz gotta be here somewhere ...." Kurama remarked as he and Yui began putting their hands inside Signal's clothes.
"Hey! Stop tha hahahahahaha! That tickles!" Signal protested. "Kei! Yuri! Chihaya! Help me!"
"Poo, I lost my danzin parnner." Chihaya pouted.
"I stink lig wine," Kei complained as she crawled back onto her bed.
"You jes stink," Yuri quipped, then giggled.
"Foun' it!" Yui declared and slid open a panel on Signal's left hip.
"What are you doing?!" Signal cried, suddenly panic-stricken. No one ever touched that panel except the man who created him and Pulse, who helped with his maintenance in the absence of Professor Otoi. Before he could protest further, he felt a tap on one of his circuits and everything went black.

Pulse strode down the corridor on his way to the staff meeting, feeling uneasy. There was no danger present, and yet something wasn't quite right.
Maybe, he thought, it was because there were six recruits in the building and no sign of any of them. He had just about decided that a pass by their dorm room might be a good idea when Signal leapt into his path.
"Signal!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, I am Signal!" proclaimed the teenager. "I'm loud, boastful, and arrogant! I'm all talk and no do! I'm "
Pulse covered Signal's mouth to shut him up. "What in computer chips is wrong with you?!" he demanded. "You'd never say those things voluntarily, even if they _are_ true!"
"MmMmMm ...," said Signal from behind Pulse's hand.
The older robot's eyes narrowed. "Something's very wrong here, and I'm going to find out what it is." He flipped Signal over his shoulder and headed determinedly for the dorm room.

Nuriko lowered himself into his seat in the conference room, careful not to sit on his long hair. "So, we're just waiting for Duo, Pulse, and Setsuna now?" he said.
"That's right," Haruka replied, playing with a strand of Michiru's sea-green hair.
"I can't wait for this meeting to start," Nuriko said. "I have a lot to report about the new recruits."
"So do we all, I think," Kenshin agreed.
Kagetsuya returned to his seat with a cup of coffee. "I haven't spent much time with them yet myself."
"Any time is too much time," Hiei remarked.
"Well, we can't have expected them to do _everything_ in one day," Michiru replied.
Duo suddenly bounded into the room. "I'm here!"
"Oro!" Kenshin exclaimed.
"Duo, can't you just walk in like a normal person?" Nuriko scolded.
"Normal?" Duo grinned as he sat down. "In this place? To be normal would be abnormal, if you know what I mean."
"Do _you_ know what you mean?" Nuriko grumbled.
Setsuna bustled into the room, folders slipping from her grasp. "Sorry I'm late. I got hung up on the phone."
"Hung up on the phone? That's funny!" Duo laughed.
"Everything's funny to you." Michiru smiled.
"Hn," replied Hiei.
Kagetsuya helped Setsuna with her folders and she took her seat. "Thank you, Kagetsuya." She looked around the table. "Pulse isn't here yet?"
"Maybe someone should put a punctuality chip in his system," Duo suggested.
"Something must have held him up," Setsuna replied. "We'll give him a couple more minutes."
Pulse strode into the room, his expression dark.
"Yeah, I'd say something held him up," Haruka remarked.
"What's wrong, Pulse?" Setsuna asked in concern.
Pulse sat at the table and looked at her. "The new recruits, with the exception of Signal, are all drunk."
"Oro?!" Kenshin gasped.
"How can that be?" Michiru asked. "There's no alcohol on campus, and they can't leave campus without permission."
"Well, somebody did," Pulse said frankly. "I ran into Signal in the hallway and someone had messed up his programming. I brought him back to the room to demand some answers and the other five had all passed out. Wine bottles were everywhere, one was even broken on the floor and the entire place reeked. It was pathetic."
"What did you do?" Nuriko asked.
"Left them to sleep in their own filth, of course," Pulse retorted. "My first priority was to fix what they'd done to Signal."
"And did you?" Kagetsuya inquired.
"Yes," Pulse answered, then shook his head. "I still don't know how they managed it. Signal's control panel is difficult to locate if you don't know where to look, and as for resetting his programming, only a verified genius could manage it."
"Kurama is a genius," Hiei said.
"And so is Yui," Setsuna added. "It could have been either or both of them."
"Signal will be all right now, but I don't want them messing with him again," Pulse said, his red eyes burning with anger. "He's not a toy anymore than I am."
"You're right, of course, Pulse," Setsuna told him. "It will be dealt with, I promise."
"I hate to say it, but I think this is a prime example of the recruits' overall uselessness," Nuriko said. "They aren't taking this seriously at all."
"Give them a break, Nuriko, they just got here," Haruka said. "They don't even really know what they're expected to do yet."
"Following the rules and respecting their teachers would be a good start," Nuriko shot back.
"Not to mention each other," Pulse stated. "I seriously doubt Signal did anything to them that would merit their cruel treatment of him."
"I don't think it's fair to lump all of them together," Kagetsuya said. "Chihaya wouldn't hurt anyone, and I believe he's trying his best here."
"Signal, too, is working hard," Kenshin added. "Even if he hasn't yet begun work on correcting the problems addressed at orientation."
"He'll do it if I have to knock his head against the ground," Pulse assured him. "Better that way than reprogramming him to do it."
"All right, let's go over this one step at a time," Setsuna looked at Hiei. "You were there this morning at breakfast. Do you think they learned anything from that?"
"Kurama knew right away that something was weird. He didn't eat. The robot kept eating even _after_ he knew. I believe the others got the message, but the truth of that remains to be seen."
"Nuriko, what about their physical capabilities?" Setsuna asked.
"Chihaya is hopeless, Yuri not far off that," Nuriko said wryly. "Kei is stubborn enough to keep trying. Yui and Kurama are in good shape. Signal is off the scale."
"His battle skills have been kept up, as well," Pulse remarked.
"What of Yuri's skill, Kenshin?" Setsuna asked.
"She's easily taken by sneak attacks. She needs to be more alert," Kenshin replied. "Other than that, her form and reflexes are very good."
"Yui's got her defenses covered," Haruka said. "Seiryuu definitely protects her. Her only offensive power is her brain, though."
"Kurama believed a lie I told him without a second thought and wasted valuable time because of it," Michiru said. "He'll likely think twice about taking someone at their word again."
"His fighting skill?" Setsuna looked at Hiei.
"Haven't had time today, but I've no reason to believe he's lost anything over five hundred years."
Setsuna chuckled. "Yes, he probably has more experience than most of us."
"I _will_ test him, though," Hiei said. "Just to make sure the human body isn't holding him back."
"What about Kei, Duo?" Setsuna asked.
"She's as trigger happy as everyone said," the American pilot answered. "Bad-tempered, too. She'll be real aggressive in the field, which isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as she watches her back. Like Yuri, she needs work on that."
Setsuna looked at the blonde angel. "You spent some time with Chihaya?"
"Yes, and he hasn't changed a bit," Kagetsuya said, his tone reflecting a touch of fondness. "I'd advise letting him do what he does best drawing people to him. He'll never be a fighter and forget any idea of him learning seduction, it's just not his style."
Haruka raised an eyebrow. "It wouldn't be that you just don't want him practicing with someone else, would it?"
Kagetsuya turned to her. "No, as a matter of fact, it isn't. I broke up with Chihaya today."
"How will _that_ affect his work?" Michiru asked.
"I'm hoping it will make it easier for him to concentrate," Kagetsuya admitted. "It used to be that around me, he'd get stars in his eyes and see nothing else. If he doesn't focus on the job at hand, he'll not only be of no use to Seigi, but he could end up getting himself killed."
Duo studied him closely. "Aren't you worried about losing him forever?"
"Some things are more important than personal happiness," Kagetsuya replied. "Aren't we all here to try and help others?"
"And we'd better get to it," Nuriko said. "Every minute counts. Kagetsuya mentioned the seduction training, have any of the recruits asked about that yet?"
"None have come to me at this time," Setsuna answered. "But when and if it happens, we should be prepared."
"No problem," Duo quipped. "Just send them to Kenshin and he'll teach them oro sex."
There was a pause, then Hiei drew his sword.
"Hey hey!" Duo held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"No, Hiei," Setsuna said.
"But he _deserves_ to die ...."
"Orooooo ...." Kenshin said from behind hands which hid his red face.
"It's going to be a long meeting." Nuriko shook his head.

Chihaya awoke with a groan. It was dark in the room, everything was still, and with the exception of Kei's snoring, quiet. He sat up, his head throbbing.
"I must be hung over," he murmured. As if to confirm the fact, his stomach gave a lurch and he made a dash for the bathroom.
Tears stung Chihaya's eyes as he threw up. He'd never felt so wretched in his life. How could he have thought that drinking all that wine would make him forget Kagetsuya's decision and how it hurt him? All he'd accomplished was to make himself sick in body as well as at heart. Another wave of nausea enveloped him and he struggled to hold back his long hair. He must have grown it out sometime during the evening and hadn't the will or energy to shorten it.
A pair of cool hands appeared suddenly to draw the hair away from his face. Chihaya didn't have time to thank or even glance at their owner before he was sick again. When it was over, a glass of water was pressed into his hand and he was able to look up into Signal's concerned blue eyes.
"You all right now?" the robot asked.
"I think so," Chihaya replied, not mentioning the agonizing pain in his head. "Thank you."
"Was it the stuff in the bottles that did that to you?"
"Yes, I'm sorry now that I drank it." Chihaya tried to stand up and found his legs wouldn't support him as yet. Signal gave him a hand and had him lean against him as they went back to the bedroom.
"Do you want me to get somebody?" Signal asked, watching Chihaya crawl into bed.
"No, there's nothing anyone could do and we'd only get into trouble."
"I think you're in trouble, anyway," Signal admitted. "Pulse was here earlier he brought me back and fixed my programming."
Chihaya frowned. "What was wrong with your programming?"
Signal looked away. "Kurama and Yui did something to it. I don't think they like me."
"I'm sure it's nothing personal, Signal," Chihaya told him. "It's just that today was so hard for all of us. Except you."
"Really?" Signal faced him. "No one else likes it here?"
"Well, not right now," Chihaya confessed.
"I've lived for this chance," Signal said. "To be able to use my skills to help and protect people it's what I was made for."
Chihaya smiled ruefully. "It should be what _all_ of us were made for."
"You're right."
The two boys looked over to where Kurama was sitting up on his bed. He brushed some thick red hair off his face and gazed at them through the moonlight.
"I apologize, Signal. I'm sorry I messed with your programming."
"So am I," murmured Yui from where she'd fallen asleep on the floor. She sat up and groaned. "Oh, my head. Anyway, Signal, neither Kurama nor I meant to hurt you. We weren't thinking straight."
"That's okay," Signal said. "I can forgive you. I don't know about Pulse, though. He was pretty mad."
"We'll apologize to him, too," Kurama promised.
"In the morning, after I've spent the rest of the night ridding myself of that wine." Yui dragged herself to her feet and staggered toward the bathroom.
"Hurry up, I need it next," Kurama told her, rubbing his stomach and grimacing.
Yuri moaned and pulled her blankets over her head. "Will you all shut up and go back to sleep?" she muttered.
A loud snore from Kei was her only answer. Chihaya and Signal looked at each other and grinned.

End of Chapter 4

Story contents (C) 1997 Tenou Haruka

Character copyrights are too numerous to mention. Just know that none of them are mine.