Chương 168: Book 3 Chapter 17.2: Unfriendly Competition

"Ibrahim!" The way Samson slammed the door open already let Ibrahim know he was in trouble. Doors only got slammed like that when snacks had been stolen, or worse. He put his controller down to face off with his twin.

"Have you been telling that fucking centaur what we're up to?"

"No." The intense stare of brotherly skepticism failed to crack Ibrahim's poker face. Ibrahim was telling the truth. Technically.

"Have you been telling that weird business guy Shareef what we're up to?"

"No." This time, the intense stare of brotherly skepticism found its mark. Ibrahim's ears twitched, a clear tell that he was not being truthful.

"Ibrahim!"

"Okay, okay, I've been talking to the guy," Ibrahim admitted.

"What about it?"

"Those idiots have nearly gotten me killed like three times!"

"I think if you're doing things where it's that easy to almost die, that whole job is the problem," Ibrahim said.

"Maybe you should just let Shareef and his buddies take over. It'd save you a lot of trouble."

"Those idiots can barely take care of themselves, much less unstable nuclear cores," Samson snapped.

"You're going to get them—and me—killed!"

"Sounds like a great time to retire, then," Ibrahim said.

"Just sit back and let Shareef and his buddies put those idiots out of business."

"That's not even how it works!" Ibrahim shrugged and returned his attention to the video game he'd been playing. Samson fumed at his twin's all-too-familiar stubbornness and left the room. There was no talking to Ibrahim when he was in this kind of mood. Better to head back to the lair and regroup with the other loopers. Absolutely none of them were surprised when they heard Ibrahim was the root of their problems.

"At least it's an easy fix," Hawke said.

"You just have to stop texting your brother about what we're doing."

"That may absorb the brunt of Orn and his friends efforts, but I don't think it will bring them to a complete stop," Lee said.

"It would stop them from showing up every time, but it'd almost be worse having them appear randomly rather than consistently."

"Agreed. The last thing I need is an Orn jumpscare," Vell said. He was already edging very close to his breaking point when it came to that centaur.

"Any ideas for a more permanent solution?"

"We could shoot Orn," Harley said. Vell's hands actually moved towards the rune that summoned his pistols, but he stopped himself.

"I could just punch them," Kim said.

"Dean likes me. I can get away with it."

"If shooting is Plan Z, I think we can safely put punching somewhere around…let's say Plan S," Lee said. Not quite last resort, but definitely towards the end.

"Something of a more pacifistic persuasion might be better."

"I don't know, can we move punching to Plan D?" Vell asked. He really didn't like Orn.

"Plan H at most," Lee insisted.

"I actually might have something else in mind," Samson said.

"Ibrahim mentioned a few things that got me thinking…"

"This feels stupider than punching," Harley said. She didn't mind being tied up if there were other activities going on, but being tied up just for the sake of being tied up felt silly.

"Just roll with it," Vell said.

"At least you don't have to play the victim." The role of the hostage had been a matter of much debate. After roughly thirty minutes of back and forth on the subject of whether having one of their female teammates play the damsel in distress would be misogynistic, and another thirty minutes of whether intentionally playing into misogyny might be helpful for their cause, the loopers had settled on having Vell play the victim. Mostly due to the fact that he sucked at improvising in conversation.

Having nothing to do but scream and groan with pain would help him act under pressure. Vell agreed with the logic, but not necessarily the execution. The dragon's teeth were fake, but still somewhat sharp. Following up on Samson's theory, the loopers had staged an entire fake daily disaster for Orn and his terribly-acronymed teammates to stop. A combination of robotics and illusion magic made for a very convincing dragon, and a very convincing dragon battlefield.

Lee had conjured up scorch marks, fake blood, and shed scales to create a believable facsimile of a fight with a dragon. Not that she felt like Orn and his fellows in EOTIART would notice the attention to detail, but Lee took pride in her own work.

"Everyone ready and in position? Harley?"

"I've already faked lethal danger once this year, Lee, I know what I'm doing," Harley said. She'd even recycled some parts from Crushbot to make the dragon. Every confirmed they were ready. Kim was pinned beneath one of the "dragon's" hands, Hawke and Harley were covered in illusory burns, and Lee herself was ready to go on a fake spell to fight the dragon with. Samson stuck a hand out from below the desk he was pretending to cower behind and gave a quick thumbs up.

"Ready to text my brother whenever," he said.

"Fire when ready," Lee said. Samson started texting right away.

"The rest of you, stay in place and stay ready." The loopers stayed in place and stayed ready. For a few minutes. Vell tried to get a little more comfortable, a difficult task when caught in a robotic dragon's mouth.

"Of course the one time we want them to show up they're dragging their feet," Vell said.

"Probably takes a while to fetch the matching jackets," Kim noted.

"You'd think they'd just wear them," Hawke added.

"They look pretty comfortable." Hawke tapped his fingers against the floor as they waited.

"Should we get matching jackets?"

"I'm all for coordinating outfits, but I feel as though uniforms are a bridge too far," Lee said.

"People already think of us as strange. Color-coded uniforms would tip us over the edge into cult territory, I think."

"Maybe for special occasions," Harley said.

"That'd almost be worse," Lee said.

"Ibrahim already definitely thinks you guys are a cult, I don't think you need to get any weirder."

"Pin this talk for later, I think they're coming," Kim said. She could hear hoofbeats, and there were only a few dozen hooved students on campus. The loopers took their places and got their game faces on. Orn entered the room with his usual aplomb, only to immediately jump backwards through the door with a loud, frightened yelp. A few seconds later, he re-entered the room and took a closer look at the dragon. The loopers played up terrified screaming or pained groaning as appropriate.

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"Orn, thank god you and EOTIART are here," Lee said. She was pretending to keep the dragon at bay with a shielding spell, giving Orn and his teammates time to examine the scene. It was only Orn, Anishka, and Shareef now. Presumably they'd been unable to recruit new hangers-on after the last ones had gotten frozen solid and nearly irradiated.

"Actually, we've rebranded," Shareef clarified. He pointed to his red jacket, which had a brand new emblem silkscreened on.

"It's the Disaster Operational Relief Coalition now."

"DORC?" Harley was supposed to be acting hurt, but she couldn't help but break character hearing their new, terrible name. She had no idea how they'd done a full rebrand and come up with a worse name.

"That's right," Orn insisted, oblivious to the mockery in Harley's voice.

"And, as usual, we are here to fix the problems you cannot."

'Thank goodness," Lee said. She laid on the drama a little thick.

"The dragon's about to eat Vell!"

"Right. Carry on then." Orn set all four of his hooves firmly on the ground and went nowhere. Shareef did a quick double take and pointed at Vell.

"Are we going to…?"

"Oh, no, it's fine," Orn said.

"It's just Vell." Vell's next scream of pain sounded a lot more genuine. The newly dubbed DORC's continued to do nothing and let Vell be slowly devoured while Lee scanned the room for an improv prompt.

"Please, help," Lee said, a little less convincingly than before.

"Vell has the... dragon slayer rune, that we need, to kill the dragon. By placing the rune on its forehead." Seizing on Lee's inititative, Vell grabbed his phone with his spare hand and summoned a rune to play the role of the dragon-killer. It was a very basic "move" rune, but he knew that Orn and his friends were not rune students, so they wouldn't know that. He let the rune slip out of the dragons mouth for a moment and then pulled it back in as the fake dragon gnawed on him.

The acting on displaying would never win an Oscar, but it was convincing enough for the DORC's.

"Ugh, fine," Orn said.

"Anishka, handle the dragon."

"I'm not fighting a dragon," Aniska protested.

"Shareef, you fight the dragon."

"I'm not fighting a dragon, I'm just the hype man!" In retrospect, a slightly lower stakes disaster might've been a better fit for the DORC's, but the loopers had already gone to all the trouble of building a dragon. Kim worked with what they had: one giant dragon and one giant ego.

"I guess we were right," Kim said. She injected her voice with a few crackles of static to really make it seem like she was damaged.

"If even Vell can't beat the dragon, no one can." The mocking comparison to Vell struck the exact nerves Kim had been hoping for. Orn's tail started to swish from side to side, and he trotted in place as he worked himself up.

"Oh, absolutely not," Orn said.

"There is absolutely no circumstance in which I will be upstaged by Vell Harlan!" Spurred into action by the most powerful motivation (spite), Orn took off in a full gallop towards the dragon. Towards its wings, to be specific. He landed several kicks that would've been commendable had they not been aimed at a completely meaningless portion of the dragon's anatomy.

"Orn!" Vell shouted as loud as he could and freed the hand that held the "dragon-killer rune" to wave it in Orn's direction. Despite presenting the solution so obviously, Orn ignored it in favor of randomly kicking parts of the dragon's wing. It took all of Vell's willpower not to start swearing at Orn. He had to play the victim a little while longer.

"Hold on, Vell," Harley shouted.

"I am holding on," Vell said.

"Yeah, 'hold on'," Harley repeated. Vell took a look at her and saw that she had subtly pulled her phone out to access the robot dragon's controls. Harley winked in his direction.

"Oh shit." By mashing a few buttons on her phone, Harley made the dragons head thrash. Vell took the hint and let go. The thrashing motions tossed him free from the dragons jaws, and he slid across the floor, coming to a halt in front of Shareef.

"Uh. Can't go on," he mumbled.

"Too weak." Vell clutched at his abdomen and then remembered the fake dragon hadn't actually made any puncture wounds.

"Too weak. From dizziness," Vell said. To avoid having to improvise any more, he pretended to pass out and let the rune slip free from his hands, subtly sliding it across the floor in the direction of Shareef and Anishka. The two looked down at the supposed dragon-slaying rune and then locked eyes with each other.

"You do it!"

"You do it!"

"No, you do it!"

"Oh, just fucking play rock paper scissors for it or something," Harley snapped. Shareef and Anishka reluctantly held up their hands and went for the classic one-two-three shoot. Shareef came out on top, with scissors beating paper.

"Fine," Anishka sighed.

"Fuck me, I guess." She snatched the rune off the ground and clutched it tight in her hand. It took a few seconds of psyching herself up, but Anishka finally broke into a dead sprint towards the dragon. Harley manipulated the controls again, to give her a clear shot at the head, and made sure to move anything pointy and threatening a little further away. She didn't want Anishka getting cold feet. With only the slightest hesitation, Anishka managed to dash up to the dragon and open palm slap the rune on to its head.

Lee had been planning on making them do more work to officially kill the dragon, but figured this was the best they were going to get. She dropped her fake shielding spell and started manipulating the illusions surrounding the fake dragon, while Harley worked the controls to make it appear to writhe in pain. Orn and Anishka retreated from the flailing dragon and started cowering behind the same desk as Samson. With a final mournful roar, Lee and Harley worked together to make the dragon collapse and lie still.

It was a very convincing death for a creature that had never actually been alive. It took roughly thirty seconds of the dragon being dead for the DORC's to stop cowering. Luckily, that was also enough time for Dean Lichman to respond to Lee's text and show up on the scene. He thundered through the doors just moments before Orn could start monologuing.

"What is going on in here?"

"Only the usual," Orn said.

"Me displaying my complete and utter superiority to Vell Harlan."

"Us displaying our complete superiority," Anishka corrected. The Dean scanned the room and took in the damage to Vell and the other loopers. Given what he knew of the loopers skills in handling odd situations, he had a hard time believing anything he saw. Lee winked in his direction, confirming a few suspicions he already had.

"I see. I suppose I have you and the-" Dean Lichman turned his head sideways to read the logo on the red jackets they wore.

"DORCs? To thank for preventing this…'disaster'?"

"Indeed you do," Orn said.

"I understand that the outstanding services we have provided go above and beyond what you've come to expect from these layabouts, but fear not! We ask only the usual rate." Dean Lichman raised an eyebrow so high that some of his mummified skin cracked.

"Rate?"

"Absolutely," Shareef said. He moved in on business talk like a shark swimming to blood.

"The Disaster Operational Relief Coalition is all about providing heroic service at every day prices. We'll outperform our competitors at every turn for the same low price you get with those other guys." Shareef pointed a finger, and a look of disdain, towards Vell and the loopers. Dean Lichman aimed a look of disdain as well, but in Shareef's direction.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Dean Lichman said.

"I have never paid any of those students for anything they've done. Well, except for that time the landscapers were indisposed and I had Hawke trim the hedges outside my window." Hawke waved, and Dean Lichman waved back. He enjoyed the view of the ocean from his window too much to let the hedges get overgrown. The DORC's had no appreciation for ocean views or properly trimmed hedges, and focused on a much earlier subject.

"You don't pay them?"

"Nope. While I appreciate their consistent safeguarding of the campus and its students, they are entirely pro bono."

"I've always considered myself a pro bono," Harley said. Lee elbowed her in the side. The DORC's ignored the innuendo and immediately turned on each other.

"You said this was a business opportunity," Shareef snapped at Orn.

"What kind of psychopaths would do these things for free?"

"These kinds of psychopaths, baby!" All three of the DORC's glared in Harley's direction for a moment before turning their disdain back on each other.

"I spent sixty dollars on a matching team jacket," Anishka said. She pointed to the new logo on her red jacket.

"Twice! How am I making that money back, Shareef?"

"How is that my fault, this was Orn's idea!"

"You're the one who said we needed strong branding," Orn said.

"The jackets were your idea!"

"Because I thought we'd recoup our costs, but you led us into all this without even checking what the return on investment was!" The argument continued to escalate, with fingers pointed in every direction. Lee cleared her throat loudly and looked towards the door. Everyone except the DORC's caught on and quietly shuffled out of the room while the three "teammates" argued.

"I believe that will be the end of that," Lee said, satisfied.

"Excellent idea, Samson." Shareef's skeevy salesman attitude, and the number of times Ibrahim had mentioned thing like "job" and "retire" had made Samson suspect the DORC's were only in it for the entirely hypothetical profit, and his hunch had proven correct. It was a commendable plan -and one that had required Samson lying to his brother. Samson gave Lee a weak thumbs up. It was hard to feel proud, in spite of the fact that his idea had worked.

"Well, whatever was going on with those three, I hope whatever problems have plagued you are now over," Dean Lichman said.

"Really though. Profit?"

"Not everyone's as charitable as us, Dean," Harley said.

"Though, entirely hypothetical, could we be getting paid for this?"

"If I offered you a single cent it would be a tacit endorsement of your activities, and that would be the most illegal thing I've ever done," Dean Lichman said.

"As always, you may continue to handle mutant students and nuclear incidents, and I will continue to not ask questions about how and why you are handling mutant students and nuclear incidents."

"Sounds like a deal. Have a nice day, Dean."

"Good day to you as well, students." The Dean nodded at them all and walked away.

"I kind of would like to get paid for this," Hawke said.

"I'll buy us all a nice dinner," Lee suggested. That was good enough for Hawke.