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Anders wasn't sure if he should be relieved or worried that everything in the cafeteria seemed to look so damn good all the time this semester. But, deciding it wasn't really worth thinking about all that much, he once again piled his plate alarmingly high with some of everything, helped himself to enough milk to deplete half a small dairy farm, and headed over to sit with Edward.

"Hey, man. You look like someone who hadn't worked out in a while."

Edward nodded at Anders, rubbing his flesh shoulder and grinning. "I'm a bit stiff, but it feels great. Al got a few solid hits in." He's picking at his food, and eyes Ander's tray, making an interesting expression at the milk. "...gih. Why do you drink that stuff?"

"Oh, you guys are in that Fight Club that Bridge is running? That'd do it." Anders eyes his glasses of milk defensively. "Stuff's good for you. Calcium and stuff for your bones. You people might've corrupted me into eating junk food, but I'm not gonna completely give up eating healthy, or they're gonna be scraping me off the Pyramid court with a shovel."

"Cow piss," Edward muttered, not quite under his breath. He poked at the salad with his fork. "And yeah. Al talked me into it, and now I'm glad I joined. It'll be nice being able to wale on people and not have to worry if they're seasoned fighters or not. I'm off my game, and Mustang would have a field day with me if he found out."

Suddenly, Anders was looking at the milk with a little less enthusiasm. "Yeah, I thought about joining myself for a little bit," he said, still staring at the milk, "but I'm no fighter. I'd just get myself hurt in that bunch. And well, I'm a big believer in starting with the basics and working your way up from there. Who's Mustang again?"

"My commanding officer, the bastard," Edward said, with a lot less venom than one might think. "He's the one who sent me here. Called it a 'mission', but I'm pretty sure he did it to keep me out of his hair for a while."

Considering how much he hated greens, Edward was inhaling his salad. "Bridge seemed all about the teamwork aspect of the thing, so we'll see how it turns out. Isn't there just a self-defense club or something?"

"Yeah," Victor said, following Anders' wave and sitting at the table. "There's Self-Defense on Wednesdays. That one's for fighting techniques. Fight Club is more for teamwork and strategy."

Walter joined him and sat down. "So Mondays we beat on others and Wednesdays we learn, or teach, how not to get beaten on?"

And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there was Alfred. Never a dull moment.

Victor scowled playfully at Walter. "Kinda. If Fight Club ends up being anything like my training at Xavier's, we'll all get a lot of stuff out of it that can apply to times when you're not fighting."

"Hey, guys," said Anders, waving with his fork. "How's it going today?"

"It's going alright. I just emailed my interview with Professor Dream in to Chloe for the newspaper. I couldn't really think of a good intro, though, but she's gonna help me with that. You?"

"Didn't know you were on newspaper. Makes sense, though, I guess. That's cool." Anders grinned and gulped down an entire glass of milk. "Anything interesting going on for the first issue? 'cause my week? Totally uninteresting so far. Well, not totally, but I have no classes on Mondays so I pretty much spent all day doing homework. Which was relaxing at least."

Victor shrugged and had some Curn Breed. "I dunno, really...I think there's supposed to be an interview with Dean Zordon in it. I wasn't really paying attention to the other assignments."

"Oh yeah, first issue of the semester and all. They did that last semester, too, with the 'get to know your teachers' stuff. It'll probably go on for a couple more issues." Anders crammed a chunk of cornbread into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and chased it with milk. Giving Victor a slightly awkward smile, he added, "Newspaper was a highlight of the week for me last semester. Except for the gossip column, 'cause I was always in it. Better hope for your sake they're not reviving that this semester, or you're gonna end up suffering the same fate."

Victor grinned. "Like I care. I know who I am, and people are gonna think whatever they want about me. As long as I stay true to myself, I'll be okay."

"Good man." Anders reached over and clapped Victor on the shoulder. "You're way ahead of where I was, then. Took me weeks to stop wanting to hide every time I saw my name in the paper."

"Nothing new to report here. Which might be a Fandom record." He picked at his salmon and made a face, switching to the chocolate mousse. "You?"

"About the same. I'm thinking of it as a good thing." Anders stabbed at a forkful of salmon and, not being as discriminating of taste as Walter, ate it with what one might consider gusto. "Around here, a dull day every now and then is a really frakking good thing."

"It will probably get less dull for me later. I do not know what Alfred has in store for me when I get to Cafe Fina."

"Y'know, I keep meaning to take Cally down there. But the last two weekends were sort of . . . distracting." Anders ate another bite of salmon then added, "Now, when you say less dull . . ."

Walter shrugged and looked down at his food. "He is... " He shook his head. "I have not quite figured out what he is yet. I did not think I would ever think he was anything other than a complete pain in the-"

Looking around as though expecting a ruler, he continued, "He is not so bad most of the time, but he keeps me on my toes."

Anders nodded, putting down his fork and leaning forward with his arms crossed on the table. "That can be a pain in the ass, yeah. Still, keeping you on your toes, not necessarily a bad thing, right? Me and Kara used to do that to each other all the time when we were training for Pyramid, before she hurt her knee. Ended up improving a lot more than we figured we would."

"I was angry for a while, but I decided that it did me more good to learn what he has to teach me. And one of these days," he grinned at his mousse, "I will get that ruler away from him."

Anders winced at that. "Ruler? Ow. And yeah, I sort of know what you mean. Me and Kara have a tendency to get on each others' nerves in a bad way if we're not careful, but I think we still learned a lot from each other." He tilted his head slightly to the left. "What's he teaching you, again?"

Walter waved a hand, dismissing the ruler and the fading stripes on his face. "How to be a special kind of butler. Part of my training is on the job at Cafe Fina. It involves sizing people up, watching their cues, and anticipating their needs before they realize they have them."

"Wow. So you end up looking like you're practically reading their minds, then?" Anders looked genuinely interested by this. "That's seriously cool. Must be tough, too. Definitely going to have to take Cally down there some night soon, help you get some extra practice in."

"It can also be a bit of a memory game, but it is interesting." He smiled at Anders' comment. "I would be happy to see you and Cally at the restaurant. I still owe her for Saturday, so tell her that dessert is my treat."

"Wow, that definitely sounds a lot tougher than you'd think at first." Anders's face lit up with a broad smile. "Hey, that'd be cool. What happened on Saturday?"

"Ahhh... do not make me relive it. I was an ass and Alfred heard about it on the radio. Cally calmed me down. She is a good listener."

"Related to that whole study group thing?" guessed Anders. "Yeah, I wasn't too happy about it myself, but that was mostly 'cause all my friends pretty much shut me out of what they were doing."

He nodded, an unconscious smile crossing his face. "Yeah, she's good at that. Lords know she gets enough practice with me, poor girl."

"Yeah, that thing." Walter picked at his food a bit more before pushing it away. "I miss the guest chef. He was a brilliant cook. I will just have better at the restaurant, I suppose. Which is where I should be going now. I would rather kiss a grindylow than show up late there ever again."

He rose from the table and gave everyone a slight wave. "I will see you all later, and I will be happy to see you and Cally at the restaurant when you have an opportunity to come by."

Not having been in that particular detention, Anders had no idea what a grindylow was but it sounded unpleasant. He grimaced sympathetically and gave Walter a wave in response. "Yeah. Don't let us make you late, man. Catch you around."

"Ahh," Edward said, nodding. "I'm... not too good on teamwork, that's probably why Al dragged me into this. He's always complaining I don't listen." Edward doesn't seem much to care, starting in on his rice and avoiding any beans on his plate.

Victor shrugged. "There's always time to learn, Ed. That's what Fight Club's for, after all. Maybe you'll get something out of it that'll impress your commanding officer," he suggested with a helpful smile.

Edward choked on his mouthful and laughed. "Impress that stupid bastard?" He coughed a couple of times and cleared his throat, then snorted. "As if anything could impress him. Stupid lazy morally bankrupted colonel with a God-complex."

"I'll introduce him to my alcoholic, whoring, irresponsible lech of an employer."

Edward snorted again. "Sounds like they could form a club."

"I do not even want to think of the sort of trouble Arthur would cause with help from someone like your boss."

"Innit great how Fandom brings everyone together?" drawled Anders, leaning back and balancing his chair on its two back legs.