Well, now you found me, he sends, with a reassuring undertone of his feelings on the situation: disagrees with his soldier's actions, will shut her down and reprimand her. My not-shit soldiers can find some teachers. Show me what you know, I'll take it from here.

Naoko sends an equally rushed-and-slurred summary of what she saw before Aegis ordered her to get help.

Got it. Thanks. My soldiers are on it; we'll have a teacher there in no time.

Is she okay?

She's gonna be, he says confidently.

Okay! Good! Thanks!

No problem.

The first teacher to get there might be recognizable from geometry if Sue had ever shown up to geometry. "What happened here?" he asks. "Specifically, how did she fall unconscious? If it was head trauma she can't be moved until the medics get here." He's paging them, meanwhile.

"Didn't see," he says. "It was one of my soldiers, but she ran for it before I got here."

"What's the attacker's name?" asks the teacher, still punching instructions into his pager-device. "And yours and - this is Bella Swan, isn't it? That's her exoskeleton over there..."

"Yeah, she's Swan. The one who did it is Nina, I don't know the rest."

"First name will do to find Nina, but who are you?"

"I command Phoenix," he says. "There's not two of me."

"All right, Phoenix, and what were you doing in the girls' bathroom?"

"Somebody told me one of my soldiers was in here beating on a cripple," he says impatiently, "and she didn't stand down when I yelled. What else am I gonna do, wait for you to show up? Swan'd be dead."

"No, no, of course you couldn't wait," says the geometry teacher, still tapping his pager. Medics open the door with a stretcher, check Aegis over quickly for breaks, and get her onto it after determining that her neck is fine. They ferry her away. "- As long as I have you here, is there a Thomas Sanderson in your army? There's a page out about him."

"Is that you? Whoever finds you first is supposed to escort you to Colonel Gupta's office."

"Okay, let's go," he shrugs.

"Yep," says Sue.

"We're going to analyze the vids of the battle and determine if there was wrongdoing. Until we've made our decision, you sleep in the brig. Shouldn't be more than one night. The flash suits are supposed to be protective against ordinary hand-to-hand sorts of injuries; you don't put eighty-two kids in a room and tell them to fight and not get anyone hitting each other. But a few people aren't so sure and want to check for evidence that you were using your telepathic abilities on the enemy soldiers to prevent them from defending themselves," he shrugs, "which as you know is against the rules even if you aren't frozen."

"Nope," he says. "I just didn't know the flash suits were so bad at their job. Next time I won't hit so hard."

"Then that's what the reviews will turn up, but," Gupta shrugs, "until they're over, brig. It's not lead-lined, so I imagine you'll still be able to do a post analysis with your army."

Sue just grins.