1.  God Save Us From The Queen

Beatrix was more alarmed than she had been for a few years.

Life in Alexandria had gone quite well recently. The Queen had married her Prince Consort, a title that was equal in stature to "King" outside Alexandria, but one which also made clear that within the nation, the Monarch was the Queen and that the Queen was not automatically sharing all her powers as ruler of Alexandria with her spouse.

It had been Zidane's rather inspired offering to calm the nobility of Alexandria, who were alarmed at the idea of a former Thief and Knight of Lindblum becoming their co-monarch. After all, he didn't want the power of a King, he merely wanted to marry his true love.

And so he had, and their fourth official act as Queen and Prince Consort three months later had been a state visit to Lindblum. Where it seemed that at the behest of Regent Cid, The Queen had been given an idea. An idea that greatly concerned Beatrix

"It's quite simple, Beatrix, I don't see why it's so difficult to picture it. After all, doesn't the Army have already have a Hockey team? A Cricket team?"

"The Cricket team is the Navy, Your Majest... Garnet." Beatrix replied, forgetting as usual the royal decree demanding that certain people only ever call her "Your Majesty" when in polite company.

And twenty-one confused members of the Royal Guard and Knights of Pluto did not qualify as polite company, as Garnet had overheard more than one conversation between the soldiers in question and in fact those conversations, and not Zidane, had been and remained her primary source of education about offensive language.

"Really? Odd. Isn't it difficult to practice at sea?" The Queen said.

"I believe they try to practice on dry land, Y... Garnet."

"Ah I see. Anyway... I don't see the harm in having another Army sporting team. Besides, this sport isn't boring. Not like Cricket."

Beatrix had to agree, but did not voice it. She was dreading some of the ideas her Queen had.

Garnet's goal, for want of a better word, was to establish a new Alexandrian Army sports club. A Football Club. Having watched a game played in Lindblum between two teams (Rovers and United, whatever that meant...) the young Queen had become hooked.

However, the Queen had disliked some of the Lindblum rules, thinking the game could be made "fairer and more sportsmanlike" and had drawn up her own altered rules. For example, she had objected to picking up the ball for her version. She had also decided that someone could perhaps be permanently on station to be goalkeeper instead of having to have whoever was closest scrabble to stop the opposition scoring. She had additionally mused adding weapons, but she and Steiner had quickly managed to advise their Queen against that idea quite quickly.

The Queen had liked one thing that Lindblum did. Each team had a small group of young women shouting their support more loudly than the other fans, encouraging the mostly male players on to victory.  The Queen had thought perhaps that this action could be refined.

And this was the main objection General Beatrix had, and the current source of her alarm.

The Queen had elected to put these "cheer leaders" into uniform, in this case, borrowed hockey kits, a green shirt with 'Army' across the chest and a pleated black skirt. She had also decided that the final thing would have the "cheer leaders" wave pom poms around as they danced, an idea apparently the fault of a passing Moogle. This would have been fine, for Beatrix. The whole venture would be without trouble.

Except that Garnet had decided that her General and herself would be the two "cheer leaders" for the practice match.

And what Garnet had not done, was to give Beatrix a pair of shorts to wear under the skirt. It appeared she had only obtained twenty-three pairs, and had taken the spare for under her own skirt. It made sense of course, that a Queen should be more protected from embarrassment than an Officer, but... Couldn't Garnet have waited for a less windy day?

The wind blew, and Beatrix held her hemline down. Garnet ignored her own.

"Garnet, really, I must protest. If we must have these cheer-leaders as an integral part of your new sport's atmosphere, can't trousers be a part of the uniform?!"

"Ah, but this is part of the plan. Didn't you see how distracted the blue team was during the game?" Garnet grinned. The blue team had been the Knights of Pluto.

"They were trying not to look!"

"Exactly! Eventually our own players would get used to it and ignore it if they were men, and the women don't really care."

Beatrix sighed. "Fairer and more sportsmanlike" indeed. The General almost yelped as another gust of wind nearly embarrassed her.

Also quite alarming, she had to admit as she fought to keep the damned pleated menace from flying all over the place, was that Zidane had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The Genome Prince Consort preferred Basketball.

2.  Tall Tail

"...Seriously?" Takato asked. Ruki should have responded with anger at her claims being questioned, but she did not.

In fact, Takato could hardly believe what he saw before him, let alone what she was saying. Ruki Makino, probably the most fearless and least likely to freak out person he knew, was afraid and freaking out. She was leaning up against the doorway into her house, as if trying to hold it shut.

"Yes!" She half-hissed, half-squeaked, even as something else shattered in the house behind her.

"So... Renamon is running around in there, smashing things to bits... Chasing her own tail?"

Any other time, this would have been hilarious. It was going to be hilarious later, for him, at least. But sadly he knew by the time it was funny Ruki would probably hit him for laughing.

"Yes! I told you that!"

Takato sighed.

"How exactly did she get drunk in the first place?"  He asked. Something else made a loud and distressingly destructive crash in the house behind Ruki.

"I don't know, all right? She had asked to take some water out of the refrigerator, and then five minutes later she was chasing it and smashing everything..."

"Okay, so... What's your plan?"

"I need your help to hold her down and calm her down. She's not attacking or anything, but if you brought Guilimon, well... I bet she'd either start a fight or give him some of whatever she drunk."

Takato considered this for a moment, and shuddered. Guilmon could be enough trouble sober. He did not want to see his partner do what Renamon was doing.

"Yeah, that wouldn't be good."

Ruki nodded her agreement.

"Okay, on three I'm opening the door, and we go in. We try to calm her down, and if she starts getting violent just run." She commanded

"You think she will?"

"Goggles, I don't know what she might do."

Takato wasn't feeling very enthusiastic as she started the count.

"Okay, three, two..." She began.

"Whoa, wait, you said go on three!" He protested.

"Go on one then!"

She started again.

"One, two..."

Takato decided not to bother correcting her.

"Three!"

She pulled the door open quickly, but ducking as if she expected it to explode. She and her goggle-wearing friend dashed inside and slammed it shut behind them.

The scene that met them was of carnage. Potted plants spilled, DVD boxes and sheets of newspaper somehow hurled out of the lounge into the entrance hall, pictures knocked from the walls... Was that dirty laundry? Takato tried to ignore the various garments strewn around while picking his way across the mess silently.

The loud sound of falling pots and the distressing crash of crockery helped Ruki locate her crazed partner. They neared the kitchen, and Takato could hear a strange sound.

"...Tailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtailtail..."

Peering around the edge of the doorframe, they saw the table that had sat in the middle of the kitchen now sat on a work surface, having only just missed the window. The remains of chairs lay everywhere, the fallen pots and pans being bashed around by the circling fox-Digimon. Somehow, she had trailed yet more DVDs and clothing into the room with her. The crazed fox was chasing her own tail, oblivious to the pair of jeans stuck on her head

Somehow, Renamon had managed to smash the crockery without getting any on the floor, so that was fortunate at least. She hadn't injured herself...

...Was that the leg of one of the chairs sticking through the fridge door?

"Okay, quietly..." Ruki instructed, sneaking around the door. He followed.

Suddenly, Renamon stopped, sitting on all fours but at attention. Staring right at the two humans.

"...Crap..." Ruki said, not moving a muscle.

Renamon stared with vacant, unfocused eyes. She seemed to be blushing slightly.

Renamon stared at Takato.

Takato froze.

Renamon smiled a dopey grin.

Takato's mind urged escape, but the rest of his body was unwilling to move.

She pounced, yelling a cry that would haunt Takato's dreams for weeks to come. And Ruki's also, but unlike him, she would not wake up screaming.

"Kyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!"

Oh no. The redhead would wake up laughing.

Takato just stood as stiff as a statue as the full weight of a glomping drunken Digi-vixen landed on him, tackling him to the ground and quickly hugging him very tightly. He squirmed reflexively, but she just tightened her grip and added her legs to the equation, immobilising him. Her tail wagged happily, slapping the floor.

Ruki stared.

Takato looked up at her, his face still frozen in fear.

Ruki smiled a sinister grin.

"Kyuuuute..." Renamon sighed, and then promptly fell asleep, without releasing the terrified human boy.

Ruki snorted, trying to fight the laughter. Once she had calmed down, a still-petrified Takato stared at her with pleading eyes.

"...Help."

"Sorry, Goggles, but I think this might be for the best. It's calmed her down, and I can clear up as best I can. You just stop her from waking up and causing any more damage..."

Takato squirmed a little, to no avail.

"Wait, how long do I have to stay here?!"

"Until she wakes up. And hopefully sober..." Ruki said, as she tugged on the chair leg in the fridge door.

Takato groaned. As if the fact Renamon was distressingly warm with all her fur wasn't bad enough, he was lying down on the other table leg. It was jamming right into his shoulder...

"You owe me big time for this, Makino..."  He hissed. The redhead merely grinned as she kept cleaning up...

3.  Too Easy
The worst part, in Daisuke Motomiya's eyes, was that Takeru always managed to better than him without lifting a finger.

Of course, the real worst part, which he did not yet know, would have likely driven him beyond frustration, well past anger, left at insanity and stopping somewhere close to either murderous.

Sure, he regarded the blond as a friend now. But he was still rivals with him, in more than just aspirations of love.

And that was the first area. Without even being obvious and saying it out loud, Davis knew the girls in the class all whispered about how much Takeru was in love with Hikari. And some of the guys had mentioned something similar the other way, in far more cruder terms of course. But Takeru hadn't once even asked Hikari out! Yet without effort he was apparently closer to the goal of becoming her boyfriend!

The next area was when they had all visited an arcade during summer, the Digidestined as a whole. Daisuke was confident he would wipe the floor with Takeru on light gun games, but after clocking a new record high score on the machine, Takeru stepped up and beat it.

The worst part of that incident, the idiot hadn't even realised whose score he had beaten. He'd overheard Takeru later that day, talking to Yamato. He hadn't heard their conversation cleary, but he was sure Takeru had noted the score had only been set that day, yet it had been beaten.

Then there was the test yesterday. Daisuke had given it his all, scoring eighty seven out of a hundred and twenty for a B+ grade, his best result in a test yet.

And despite being a Blond Idiot, Takeru had went ahead and got ninety two. Just enough for an A-.

But now was the real deathblow. Losing at the other two, fine, but to be losing Hikari and now this... This was sacred land that Takeru was traipsing all over. The damage to the ego of Daisuke Motomiya was critical, and the reason was nothing more harmless than a soccer ball bouncing around, kept aloft and off the ground by the blond. It was a Soccer skill that Daisuke hadn't mastered, to juggle the ball for a long length of time. He reassured himself that normally his actual useful skills more than made up for being no good at this trick skill, but seeing it done without apparent effort by Takeru had lit a fuse.

"Damn it, Takeru! Quit showing off!" Daisuke snapped.

Takeru looked at him, still juggling the damn ball.

Argh!

A few other people in their gym class had turned to look, but ignored them when the realised it had been Daisuke making the remark. Except, Daisuke noted, a few of the girls, who apparently had only just noticed Takeru's juggling skills and now watched intently. Luckily, Hikari didn't seem to be among them

"Huh? What do you mean?" He said, with honest confusion.

"Don't play dumb! You kicked my butt at the light gun game last week, you aced the test yesterday, and now you're showing everyone how well you can juggle the ball!"

Daisuke wasn't quite ready to announce out loud the first area where Takeru had him beaten. He was still in denial over that, and sure his information was wrong. Girls were gossips, boys were liars. He knew this for a fact. He had a sister, he was a boy. Gossip evidence from the girls, liar evidence from the boys. And the best part was about knowing boys were liars were the times he'd pulled it off. For instance, his mother still had no idea where that bottle of Sake had gone...

But back on the topic, Takeru just grinned, and chuckled. And kept juggling the damn ball argharghargh he was going to break his smug legs...

"Is that it? Well, somebody else has us both beat at all those things... "

"Who?" The goggle-boy demanded.

Still grinning, Takeru shouted a name, and kicked the ball towards that person. Daisuke was horrified.

Was the Blond moron insane?! Daisuke knew that a soccer ball could seriously hurt if it hit you unprepared, and with only one shouted warning, his blond idiot of a friend/rival had just sent one on a collision course with...

...With a girl who almost effortlessly turned, headered it into the air slightly, brought it under control with her chest, rolling it down to her feet where she began flawlessly keeping it in the air just as Takeru had been before.

"See, in that light gun game, she beat my score right after me. I had no idea I'd beaten your score until now, to be honest. And in the test? She got a hundred and nineteen out of a hundred and twenty. And I know her record for keeping the ball in the air is well over an hour. It'd be longer but she usually has to give up because Tai wants his ball back..."

Daisuke just kept staring at Hikari as she happily juggled the black and white sphere.


4.  Problems of the Future

The Alexandrian soldier entered the room, glanced up, and let out a short scream of surprise.

When Refia had joined the Army, she had known she signed up to face dangers. Virtually every experienced worker in the castle could tell memories of those they had lost. Colour Sergeant Branford had told stories of her lost comrades during the invasion of Burmecia and Cleyra, for instance. Captain Weimar of the Knights of Pluto saluted the cenotaph every morning. Even Jolen, the Master Blacksmith, annually got blind drunk in memory of a lost love.

She knew death was not the only risk she faced. There had been the time when she had been assigned to the Veteran's hospital to help former soldiers invalided. Some had been broken in body, losing limbs or being paralyzed. Others, in mind, driven mad by their experiences.

She knew that as a soldier, she risked torture if captured, and as part of her training there had been torture resistance classes, which had been a form of torture themselves in just describing some of the things evil men and women out there would do.

She had signed up knowing that was a risk, and though it frightened her to think it could happen, she moved past it and did her duty

She had most definitely not signed up for this.

"S...Sergeant! Captain! Major! Someone!" She panicked, fearful as it leapt towards another chandelier.

Colour Sergeant Branford raced into the room, followed by another soldier. The other soldier gasped.

The veteran Colour Sergeant groaned.

"One of these days, I'm going to enter this hall and not see this..."

He was blond, four years old, had a tail, and was hyperactive, much like his father. He also had a habit of selectively listening to his mother, quite unlike his father who was quite frankly too terrified of his wife to ever dare ignore her.  

He also had a habit of selectively obeying gravity.

He was the Crown Prince of Alexandria, Alexander Vivi Til Alexandros-Tribal the Fifth, and he was possibly the most hyperactive member of the Royal Family in centuries. This would not pose a problem normally, but the Crown Prince had inherited some Genome aspects from his father. A prehensile tail. Strong jumping ability. A head for heights.

And tradition demanded that the heir to the throne received a particular bedroom in the east wing of the castle, entered via a hallway known as the Chandelier Room, named as such for the six Chandeliers that were arranged along its length.

Colour Sergeant Branford turned around to see her soldiers still staring in fear.

"Well, fetch the stepladder!" She ordered, as the Crown Prince leapt onto another of the damned hanging light fixtures.


5.  Genre Savvy

Butz stared at the blonde teenage girl as she lugged another bag out of her room.

"Krile... What is all this? Lenna and Faris told you to travel light..."

That, to him, had meant that she would only bring essentials. Some spare clothing (even if the crystals did have the ability to transmutate whatever they wore into garments more fitting for their job class, the fact remained that they were still the same clothes, and just a different shape) and camping gear.

So far, she had lugged out a small rucksack, and four cloth bags.

The Princess of Bal Castle ignored him, consulting a small checklist.

Bartz looked to Faris, who simply shrugged. The Pirate Captain was even less at home to whatever was going through Krile's mind than Bartz. The only Princess in the area with actual Princess experience who wasn't carting out sacks of goodness knows what had elected to go and take a bath while Krile prepared for the journey.

Krile vanished into her room, and Faris approached.

"What's inside these things anyway?" She asked.

"I have no idea." The male muttered, before having a horrible realisation.

He was the only male in the Warriors of Light now.

If Galuf, rest his soul, wasn't already dead, Bartz would have killed him for putting him in this position.

And all three of them were technically princesses, too. Even if Faris was attempting to keep herself as far away from thrones and regal dresses as humanly possible.

"You could take a look." Faris suggested, not quite derailing his train of throught, but putting a new station on the timetable.

What if they were girly things?

That would have been nightmarish enough from Lenna, and Faris fortunately still had more masculine habits from having hidden amongst her pirate crew for so long (Not that any of them had truly cared) and luckily the Princess of Tycoon was not a pampered or spoiled girl.

He had no idea about Krile.

And even worse, she was still only about fourteen or fifteen.

He remembered how much of a nightmare people of that age could be regardless of gender. He knew, because he had been that age once.

He also remembered that girls of that age had been far worse. He was, to be fair, aware he was biased.

He had decided to make his reply to Faris. He would explain that it would be a severe breach of privacy, and very much an un-gentlemanly on his part to peek into those bags.

Plus he was terrified that they would be full of very flowery cosmetics. Some of them had clinked.

However, his actual reply was ahead of his brain planning as his mouth decided that this was an emergency

"No way!"

Faris grinned.

"Then I'll do it." She said.

Before Bartz could stop her, she opened one bag, and reached in. Something clinked.

'Oh no... It's perfume.'

Faris pulled out a small glass bottle. She frowned.

It wasn't perfume. It was...

"Maiden's Kiss?"

Bartz looked at the potion in bewilderment. Faris opened the bag a little more, and sure enough, it was filled to the brim with the same bottles.

They looked in the next one. Holy Water. Another, was filled with Antidotes.

The pair barely noticed Krile lug out another sack.

"Ah, are those the right potions by the way?" She said. The pair turned, alarmed.

"It was his idea!" Faris accused. Krile merely frowned.

"His idea to what?"

Bartz stood there, mouth flapping open like a fish on dry land.

"Ah, never mind. Anyway, are they the right ones? And is there enough?"

"...Right ones for what?" Lenna asked, as she arrived, looking fresh from her bath.

"Well, that sack there is Maiden's Kiss... I think. I don't like frogs much and, well, I don't want to be one for long if we get attacked like that..." The younger girl blushed.

"Wait... These are all curative items?" Faris said. Krile nodded.

"Why?"  

The Princess of Bal shrugged.

"I don't know. It just seemed like a good idea to get all of them, and get as many as I could."

"How much do you have?" Faris asked.

"Well... There's about ninety Maiden's Kisses, ninety nine Antidotes, ninety Eye Drops in this sack I have here, eighty three Holy Water, ninety four Mallets... Oh, and I'm not sure how many Softs I have back in my room but I'll need a hand to bring out the four sacks."

The three older Warriors of Light stared at her.

"...Four? Why so many Softs?" Lenna said.

"I don't know, I just... I just had a feeling we might need a lot of them..." The young princess said sheepishly.

6.  Cute Butt

Taichi Kamiya thought many things of himself. Soccer ace, most handsome guy in Odaiba, coolest hairstyle in Asia... And Kindly Big Brother.

Despite her now being in High School, his little sister would forever be the baby of the family unless they got another cat or something. So when she had noted their mother was worried that her precious daughter would be at risk from something or other if she went alone to the fairgrounds in the park....

Even with Daisuke, Takeru, and Yolei  present, that meant Kari was still "alone". And so, their mother went into full-blown paranoia and within an hour of learning who was going with her, had forgotten that Takeru, for example, was the kindly blond boy who sometimes came round to do homework with Kari, and not a member of a murder-ritual cult that sacrificed virgins to the elder gods.  And so, being a Kindly Big Brother, Tai had "volunteered" to go with her.

However, all that kindness he felt (or rather, half-pretended to have) had went out the window when surprising words were uttered.

"Tai, your sister has a cute butt."

Kindly Big Brother almost immediately morphed into Overprotective Big Brother. Being nice to his sister, fine. Trying to get her to go out with a boy, acceptable to Tai so long as it was clear that hands in the wrong place would be hands in plaster the next day. Outright making a comment like that, addressing it to him... Suicide.

That it had come from him of all people made the horror all the greater.

The College student wheeled round, and suddenly halted. He had learned to read quite a lot into the situations his mischievous sister could be involved in, and looking into the blue eyes of the boy that nanoseconds ago had marked himself for swift and painful death, he realised that the blond had not been saying it of his own will.

She told me to say it, those eyes said, even filled with alarm.

Beside the boy, even as he began to turn pale, Kari stood grinning, holding a small plush toy, ramming its head gently into Takeru's arms that carried another small bundle of similar toys.

It was a goat.

A small, stuffed goat.

A cute one.

And it was "butting" Takeru.

Tai sighed. Just a terrible joke that had almost ended with Takeru's body parts being spread across Tokyo Bay. Come to think of it that phrase had applied to things involving Kari more than once. The time she somehow got her hands on all those firecrackers for instance...

"She's got a nice ass too." Daisuke added.

Tai swiftly studied the prizes his sister had won and forced Takeru to carry. There was no donkey.

'Oh good....' The inner overprotective Big Brother said as it cracked its knuckles and dreamt of blood...