AN: Crack, full stop.

So a while ago, fellow author Eraotschild came up with a prompt that was something along the lines of 'Class VII plays Calvinball'. Now, for those of you that aren't familiar with Calvin and Hobbes (the greatest comic strip ever IMO), Calvinball is a game played by the titular character and his tiger where the rules are completely made up and the same game is never played twice, and just as Calvinball rarely if ever has just a ball... same with the game below. I started writing and thought this would be like a 500 word shortfic, but... well, y'know how these things go. Couple of hints for my standard ships in there, but just a line or two so if that's not your thing it's easy enough to ignore!

(Also, I don't have a damn clue how the Fencing Club got as involved as they did. Muses, man.)

As You Go

The spiky haired boy held up a hand, clearly lost. "Okay, run that by me again. You two are hiding in here… why?"

"Milliumball," a visibly exhausted Jusis panted, bending over to catch his breath. Beside him, Gaius raised his head and greeted Loggins, Patrick and Alan with a weary nod.

"The hell's that?"

"Milliumball," Gaius answered, sparing a sympathetic glance at his beleaguered friend, "is a game that one of the newest additions to Class VII invented and decided to have us play."

Patrick snorted, rolling his eyes. "Oh, wonderful. I'm sure Schwarzer must have been ecstatic at the thought of a team bonding exercise. So, enlighten us. What, precisely, is the object of this game?"

"Yeah," Alan added in, looking interested. "How do you play?"

"There a ton of rules?" Loggins grunted, not looking enthused at the thought. "Always hated memorizing that crap."

"Hmph. Those are all excellent questions, and I would feel much better about our current predicament if we had the answer to any of them," Jusis grumbled, pointedly ignoring their looks of confusion.

"Let me see if I have this correct," Patrick began, setting down his rapier. "You're in here not because you've concocted some plan to win this ridiculous little game, but because…?"

"We have no idea what's going on," Gaius finished. "We all met up, Millium said 'let's play Milliumball!' and before we knew it Airgetlam had been summoned and claimed Machias as the first casualty of war. She said right after it was legal because of the initiative bonus that she gets for starting the game."

"C-Casualty?" Alan repeated, looking a little concerned.

"Casualty indeed," Jusis replied, his lips turning upward in a smirk. "He was sent flying across the field. It appeared as though he might have bounced when he hit the ground, as a matter of fact. If nothing else goes right today, at least I'll have that."

Gaius turned his head discreetly to cough, and if it happened to sound like a strangled laugh… well, maybe the other person was hearing things. "He's all right. Elliot and Emma are looking after him, so he's in the best of hands."

"Both of them?" Loggins chimed in, looking far more interested now that the element of violence had been introduced.

"Both of them. Elliot's the best healer Class VII has by far, and Emma's second in line… though I personally believe she might have had an ulterior motive or two."

Jusis snorted. "You don't say."

"So, that's the situation. Crow had something to do this afternoon so he's safe; meanwhile, the rest of Class VII is currently split up trying to figure out how to win – or at least survive – while Millium is trying to knock us out of the game so she can win. I think."

"And if Regnitz's current condition is any indicator, 'knock out' is unfortunately quite literal," the noble added, shaking his head. "Goddess, did she even say anything about the objective while we were all scattering, or…?"

Gaius was silent. Too silent.

"… I'm hoping you're being quiet because the wind is delivering us good omens."

"You're half right. It's delivering us the news that we're about to get a visitor."

Right on cue, the door flew open and Airgetlam barreled into the Fencing Club room with Millium perched on its arm, much to the surprise/shock/bemusement of the actual Fencing Club.

"Aha! Found ya," Millium said with a wide grin, hopping off as her combat shell beeped away. "Okay guys, brace yourselves, and remember; if you're still conscious after Lammy nails you, then you're it!"

"There's an 'it' to this?" Jusis demanded, eyes flying wildly between Millium and the still open door.

"Uh huh! Y'gotta be it before you can be King of the Hill, remember?"

Gaius frowned. "Hmm. This sounds like quite the precarious position for us, then."

Patrick's eyebrow twitched. "What in blazes is this game."

Alan shrugged helplessly. "No idea. I've got zero clue what's going on right now."

"Join the damn club. Hey, Friedel."

"Loggins. Everyone," a new voice intoned gracefully, and everyone else turned to see the Fencing Club captain surveying the current situation with an air of cool detachment from the doorway. "I remember calling for an optional practice, but I don't believe it was opened to outside students."

Millium waved madly. "Hi Friedel! We're playing Milliumball! Wanna join? If you can get the flag and take it back to your Secret Base, you win!"

"Since when?!"

"So there's a flag," Gaius noted, appearing to be deep in thought. "Interesting. Is it a physical flag, or is it just an object that represents one?"

"I dunno! You'll know it when you see it, though."

"Oh, is that how this game works?" the blonde asked pleasantly, kindly overlooking the fact that House Albarea's heir was now sounding very much like a balloon that was having the air sloooowwllly let out of it, much to Gaius' poorly hidden amusement.

"Yup! If you're in though, I can take two people out at once! That's the Double Down rule."

"Hmm," she said, crossing her arms. "You're aware, of course, that the entrance of new parties into the fray invokes the activation of a Neutrality Zone? There has to be a distance of at least fifty arges between the game-master and the new players before the game resumes, especially when the game-master is as mobile as you are. That ruling takes priority above all else to ensure competitive balance."

Needless to say, this little development took everyone by surprise.

"What?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What?!"

"I see," Gaius murmured, stroking his chin and nodding sagely even as Jusis turned to fix him with a wordless plea of 'stop adding to this insanity for the love of everything that is good and holy', and Millium could only stare at Friedel, goggle-eyed, before she snapped herself out of her reverie and flashed the fencer a giant grin.

"Haha! You're good at this!" she chirped, hopping back on Airgetlam and zooming back out the door. "Okay, fifty arges it is! Lammy's countdown timer is starting, so you'd better be ready when it goes off!"

Friedel nodded. "Of course. Non-aggression begins… now."

And with that, Millium departed in a flash, leaving behind two members of Class VII and an extremely confused Fencing Club.

For a moment or two, silence had free reign.

"Loggins?" Alan finally spoke up.

"Yeah?"

"What just happened?"

"Good question. Friedel?"

"Yes?"

"What just happened?"

"To put it simply? My home province is home to some very imaginative children," she answered, her eyes going soft with fond remembrance. "Very imaginative. They'd want me to play with them quite often, and the only way I could keep up with their changing games was to be as creative as they were, you see."

Gaius smiled. "If you can't beat them, join them. It was like that with my siblings sometimes too, though they weren't quite as… energetic."

"Nor were the neighborhood kids, but the experience I picked up should serve us well enough. Come on, you lot."

Patrick stopped mid-way to picking his sword back up, looking visibly unnerved. "Come on? W-What are we – "

"Isn't it obvious?" Friedel asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing to where Millium had just departed. "We're joining the fray. Consider this a replacement for today's practice, and remember that I expect all of you to perform to the best of your ability, Fencing Club or no. After all, you're on my team now, and my team always wins."

Jusis dropped his head, resisting every urge to start banging it against the wall even as Patrick swallowed and Alan paled. "Goddess. There's no way out of this, is there."

"Nope," Loggins said, looking resigned. "Sorry boys, but I know that look. The only way to win was not to play, and… well, that train's long gone by now."

"Think of it this way," Gaius told him, watching as Loggins joined the rest of his club in formulating a strategy (for lack of a better term). "What would Rean say in this situation? Probably something along the lines of 'it's not whether you win or lose, right? It's how you play the game'."

In spite of everything, Jusis felt the corners of his mouth turning upwards. "And what do we do, pray tell, if we don't know how to play the game?"

The lancer grinned. "What Class VII always does. Our best."

And that, as the unconscious Machias would say, was checkmate.

"… Ugh. Damn you."

OMAKE

"Hey everyone!" Sara cheerfully greeted as she entered the dormitory. "Sorry I'm late, had to talk shop with Neithardt and Thomas, so - what the hell happened?!"

Apparently seeing your exhausted class spread across the foyer had that effect on people. Who knew?

Rean looked up from where he was slumped against the wall, with Alisa evidently too worn down to care about pride or gossip as she snoozed away on Rean's shoulder. "Milliumball, Instructor. Milliumball happened."

Millium. Of course. Well, that probably went a long way toward explaining why Rean sounded so haunted.

"Uh... huh," Sara said with a nod, reverting to what had been the backbone of her strategy whenever she was faced with a teaching conundrum she wasn't familiar with; fake it till you make it. "I see. I'm guessing that's a game?"

"In a manner of speaking," Laura tiredly called from the kitchen, Fie making a noise of affirmation seconds later.

"W-Well, everyone looks wiped, but hey! You were playing, so it couldn't have been that bad. Who won?"

"Not me," and Sara did a double take when she saw Class VII's vice president stretched out on one of the couches with an ice pack on his head, his counterpart sitting next to him looking wan and bleary-eyed.

"So this is gonna come off like a really dumb question, but are you -

"It does and I'm not," Machias groaned, turning away to bury his head in the cushions as Emma sent a weak smile at her, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Hmph. Something good did indeed come out of today's insanity then," Jusis muttered sullenly from his seat on the other couch. "Though truth be told, Gaius and I managed to come closest to winning before the game was called on account of time."

"We certainly had some help," the lancer added, sitting beside Jusis. "Friedel wound up recruiting us and the rest of the Fencing Club so the odds actually ended up in our favor."

"Wait a sec, don't you mean you recruited Friedel and the rest of the Fencing Club?"

"No."

Sara blinked.

"She's very insistent," Gaius added, as if that explained everything.

"But she was also very good at the game!" Laura chimed in, her admiration for the second year apparent. "Declaring those areas at the archery range as Vortex Spots was a stroke of genius."

"Please don't say Vortex Spots!" Elliot wailed from somewhere upstairs, sounding more than a little distressed. "I-I'm still dizzy!"

Fie snickered. "'Round and round and round he goes..."

Of course, she reflected, there were also times when she had to call on another piece of advice that had served her well over the years; know when to hold, and know when to fold.

"Okay, we're all in agreement that if I stop asking questions then no one can get in trouble, right?"

Everyone present nodded.

"Cool! Then we're doing that. Nothing happened, everyone's okay, and I'm grabbing a drink. Where're Millium and Crow at, anyway?"

Rean chuckled in spite of himself. "Crow's not back yet and Millium's still at the Fencing Club. Apparently she's Friedel's apprentice now. May Aidios help us all."

"... On second thought, make that a couple of drinks."