(this is totally canon just ask monolith

spoilers only up to chapter 5!)

"L, I've got a question."

L stopped in his leisurely stroll and turned to Lin. She had her arms crossed, looking between him and his Skell with raised eyebrows.

"A question for ourself, good person?" He grinned. "Ask away! We are open to any and all questions! As open as a closed book!"

Lin cracked a little smile. "That totally did not make sense," she said. "Anyway!" She clapped her hands together. "Serious question!"

"Do go ahead."

Cross, Elma, and Tatsu had stopped ahead of the two of them, hidden in the lush greenery of Noctilum. A cantor gave them a sideways glance and carried on scratching its bottom.

"How did you learn to pilot a Skell?" Lin tilted her head. "I mean, most of us had experience using a Skell back on Earth. Cross and I learnt from Elma and Irina, but I, uh, don't remember ever seeing them with you?"

"Ah, of course not!" L clasped his hands together. "We did not wish to bother you, not when you are always so busy, buzzing about like angry rhinos!"

"Rhinos..? Do you even know what a rhino is?"

"But that is how the saying goes, is it not?"

"Of course not!" Tatsu snapped, waving his funny little hands above his head. "Even Tatsu know that!"

Lin gave his side a soft kick. "Anyway," she said with a small whistle. "Would you mind explaining to me how you did? It's something I've been wondering about for a while."

"We would be more than delighted to!" L clapped his hands together. "We went and asked several of our good friends about Skells. Firstly, we went to Doug!"

Lin blinked. "Firstly?"

"What the hell?"

L grinned at Doug. He was leaning against the leg of his Skell, looking genuinely chuffed with himself. Jeffrey was peeking out from within the tent, and most of the other BLADEs were openly gawking at him. "Are you not pleased to see us, good sir?"

"Not when you're-" Doug spread his hands out and tried jabbing them in the direction of the crushed table. "-You're parked right on top of my spot!"

"Your voice is going rather high, Doug."

"My voice is not going high!" he squeaked. He coughed and thumped his chest, but since he was wearing the thickest Grenada armour in existence, it did nothing at all. "You can't just – how the hell am I meant to join Elma's team if they don't find me exactly at my usual hangout?"

L blinked. And blinked again.

Doug's eye caught on a poor, innocent water bottle crushed underneath the toe of L's Skell. "That's my hot chocolate bottle!" he yelled. "What am I meant to chug from now!?"

"Hot chocolate?"

"That's the part you're worried about!?"

L pushed up his sports glasses – why he was wearing them, Doug did not know. "Most people do not drink hot chocolate, good sir."

"It's good hot chocolate." His arms sagged at his side. "…Just tell me what the hell's going on, okay? Before I report this to the commander or something, I don't know."

"Oh, please don't do that, Doug! We only wish to learn how to pilot a Skell!"

Doug frowned, and felt himself making what Lao had fondly dubbed his 'constipated face'. "You, uh, need some serious help there, pal." He took in the Skell's appearance again. It was crooked sideways, and the entrance pit was definitely not perpendicular to the ground; how the hell did L get outof it in the first place? "How did you even get in?"

"With the help of a few kind Nopon, of course!"

"Okay, yeah, you need lessons." Doug put his hands on his hips, tilted his head back, inhaled a mighty breath, and wondered why all of the world's troubles got dumped onto his hefty shoulders. "Firstly we need to, uh, get you back in there." Doug looked over the pit again. "Somehow."

L's face had lit up before Doug was finished speaking. "That shall be no bother, good sir!" He clapped his hands. "You can give us what people refer to as a 'donkeyback'!"

"…Did ya mean a piggyback? Also, no."

His entire face just – dropped. God, Doug thought, rubbing at his forehead. An alien did not have any right to look so much like a puppy. He thought that Gwin was the only kid who could pull off the dog eyes, but here was a seven foot giant who was doing a look ten times worse.

While wearing sports glasses.

Life goals right there.

"Why not?" L whispered.

"You're seven foot at least," Doug said. He raised his hand up high and did a little wiggle with it. "Like, man, if you were, I dunno, Lao's height, I'd do it – but not when you're a head taller than me!"

L sniffled, and didn't that send a bullet right into Doug's heart. "Very well then…" he mumbled. "It seems that we shall have to invent a shrinking machine…" He gave another dramatic sniffle. "And never learn how to pilot a Skell…"

Doug threw his hands up. "Enough with the eyes! I'll give you a piggyback!"

L's head snapped up, then down again to meet Doug's eyes. "A-are you certain, good sir?"

"Yes! No! I don't know!"

Before his heart could tell him the ten thousand different ways this could all go horribly wrong, Doug marched over to the cockpit of L's Skell. God, it was a gorgeous Skell, one that he knew Alexa would drool all over. It looked to be a light model, but those were the best kind – why guard against attacks when you could just dodge them all?

His eyes caught the name plate drilled underneath the cockpit.

"…Deez Nuts?" he rasped out.

"Ah, yes! Secretary Nagi suggested the name!"

Doug shook his head and crouched down before his mind could digest the full horror of that statement. "Get on." He paused, and then turned around. "You, uh, do know how a piggyback works, right?"

"Indeed we do!"

The sheer enthusiasm in his voice should have worried Doug. God knew he had enough worrying to do in his life, though, so he just grinned. "Awesome!" He plodded himself onto the ground, knelt down as far as he could go. His thighs ached. "Get on. I'll give you a push up."

"Of course! Allow us!" He heard L take a deep breath and then-

Doug face-planted the ground. His shoulders burned.

"Augh!"

"We are in!" L hollered from above. Doug pushed himself up, checked that all of his teeth was in working order, and glanced up-

Right into L's flailing foot.

His nose exploded-

"Ow – what the hell, man!?" Doug fell onto his butt again and clenched his nose. God, that was sore.

"Are you all right-"

"Don't get out of that Skell!" he cried out. "Get your ass in there!"

L's legs did another little wiggle. He heard the xenoform grunt, then his body slowly started going into the cockpit.

It took a long time, but L eventually got in. "We have entered Deez Nuts!"

Doug never wanted to hear that again.

He stood well, well back as L activated the Skell. The headlights came to life with a flash of green and – God, it was a gorgeous machine.

"All right!" he yelled, ignoring the looks that the other BLADEs were giving him. He was going to get so much stick for this at the diner tonight. "What have you learnt today, L!?"

"That donkeybacks are actually piggybacks!"

"Apart from that!"

There was a pregnant pause.

"That we should park our Skell's cockpit vertical to the ground?"

"Yes!" Doug threw his arms up and felt sweet victory course through his veins. Robot veins. Whatever. "Go, man! Be free!" Doug thought he would cry if L insisted on staying.

L managed a clumsy salute with his Skell. Without another word, Deez Nuts was off, lunging its way through the crowds of terrified people within the hangar.

"Doug," he heard Jeffrey call from within the tent, "what kind of friends do you have?"

"The best ones," Doug muttered. He picked up his broken water bottle with a heavy sigh, clenching it tight in his fist. "And expensive ones…"

"Unfortunately," L said with a small sniffle, "Doug did not seem to appreciate our efforts to learn Skell piloting."

Lin was giving him a wide-eyed look, hands clasped over her mouth. She must have been in awe of his amazing achievements!

They were all gathered close together. Cross sat down onto the ground and stretched out their legs. They gave a small nod to L, smiling as Tatsu flopped in their lap with a content sigh.

"So, we went to someone else who had great experience with Skells!"

"Do I want to know who?" Lin whispered.

"Lao!"

"Oh God," Elma muttered.

"Hey," Lao said at the massive Skell knee bent half a metre away from his face. Saiden and Mondo were too busy having heart attacks at their table to say anything.

L popped out of the cockpit and landed with a little flourish. "Hello, good sir!" He plunked his elbow next to the Skell knee and leant against it, grinning. "We heard that you are an excellent Skell pilot?"

"I'm all right, I guess." Lao raised his eyebrows. "That what you come here for?"

"Indeed!" L clapped his hands together. "We now know how to enter and exit a Skell!"

"That's, uh, a really good first step."

"And now we would like to know how to use the weaponry!" L spread out his arms and posed next to his Skell. "Look at Deez Nuts!"

Lao choked.

L was by his side in a flash, a hand raised high and aimed for his back. "Are you well, sir?"

He continued coughing.

"Do you require a kiss of-"

"No," Lao wheezed out, "I don't." He coughed into his fist. "Put your hand down."

L did just that.

"Never say that name again."

L tilted his head. "Why? Does it bring up bad memories?"

Lao raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Most things seem to, good sir."

Lao's other eyebrow went up.

"Why, just the other day, when we mentioned the whale's nostril in Noctilum, you immediately-"

"That's enough," he said quickly, trying to ignore the mischievous grins his teammates were giving him. "Really. Too much information, L."

"But you were the one who named-"

"L."

L clamped his mouth shut.

Lao rubbed at his forehead. God, he was too tired for this crap. "So you wanna use the Skell's weaponry, right?"

"Indeed!" L paused. "If it is too much hassle, we can ask someone else-"

"Nah, you're already here. Let's do it."

There was one problem, though. It was a minor one, maybe, but it was staring Lao right in the face.

"Hey, where areyour weapons?"

"Whatever do you mean, good sir?"

Lao sighed through gritted teeth. "Do you – don't you have weapons already equipped when you buy the frame?"

"Oh, but this was one that Cross gave to us! They didn't give us weapons."

"Why-" Lao ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, okay, I get that. Last thing we need is you blasting off a Phoenix in the middle of the residential district or something."

"What weapons would you recommend, Lao?"

"Literally anything. G-Buster or something, I don't know. Elma has a Skell that uses it. You can ask her."

"Ohh, does she?"

"Yeah. Phoenix is good as well." Lao shrugged. "Whatever you want. It's your Skell. I don't care."

Why Cross had given him a Skell, Lao did not want to know. Knowing them, they had probably done it solely to watch L fumble and bumble his way through learning it.

He had to admit, though, that it was pretty funny.

"Look at that!" L cooed. He jabbed a finger into each of Lao's cheeks; he stumbled back with a yelp, smashing his head off the construction pillars behind him.

"Dammit!" he hissed.

L leant closer. "Are you all right-"

"Don't touch me!" Lao snarled. He shoved L away; Mondo was snorting under his breath, and Saiden's cheeks was going bright from trying to hold in his laughter. Lao felt his ears redden as he turned back to L, still rubbing the ache at the back of his head. "You don't just – poke people's cheeks!"

"But you were smiling!" L cried. "Twas a very rare sight indeed!"

Lao stared.

L continued smiling.

"Do you," he eventually said, "want help with this or not?"

"But of course!"

"Great." Lao put his hands on his hips and braced himself. "…Okay. So, you've seen the grey buttons next to your two control sticks, right? Four on each side?"

"Yes!"

"Well, if you've got weapons attached, they get coloured in, based on what type of weapon you've got equipped. Otherwise, they're plain."

"So that's why all of them are dark! We tried painting them, but it flanked off very quickly."

Amazing, Lao thought, and it was a testimony to L that he wasn't even surprised by what L had done. "You just press 'em when you have weapons attached. It uses the weapon, and then you have to wait for it to colour back in fully before you can use it again. All weapons need to cool off, otherwise your Skell'll just explode."

"Pozzow!"

"Yeah, not something you want when you're inside it." Lao forced himself to look at L's eyes, although it meant tilting his head back so far that his neck started to ache. "That all right for you?"

"Yes!" L clapped his hands. "That is a most excellent explanation, Lao! Why, we feel ready to take on all of Mira! Every enemy! Every tyrant! We shall mince them like pork!"

Lao chuckled, unable to stop his grin. "Just make sure you have weapons equipped beforehand, yeah?"

"Of course!" L gave him a salute and clambered back into his Skell. "We shall see you around, Lao?"

"Yeah, yeah. Hit me up the next time you get a mission, all right?"

"Indeed!" L's Skell did a bizarre bow. "See you soon, old man!" Then, it straightened itself, and Deez Nuts went rocketing down Division Drive.

Mondo put down his playing cards and leant back on his chair, eyebrows raised. "Old man, eh?"

"Wow, Lao," Saiden said with a grin. "Didn't know the alien had a thing for small, old men."

"I'm leaving."

"Boss, no!"

"I. Uh." Elma had her arms crossed, eyebrows drawn together low enough that L could only catch a slit of blue peeking through each eye. "I'm impressed he didn't just say no."

Lin scratched her cheek. "You could have just asked one of us, y'know. I could have told you about weapons in, like, a minute. My job's to help develop them!"

"We know, we know." L gave her a kind smile. "However, we must confess that it, ah, slipped our minds."

Cross grinned, their hand stroking Tatsu's ear as he made quiet little purring noises in his sleep.

Elma shook her head, a sly smile stretching her lips. "You didn't ask anyone else, did you?" she said, in a tone that implied that she very much hoped he had asked someone else.

Well, she would not be disappointed! L nodded. "Just one more, we're afraid."

Lin giggled. The Noctilum night was coming in fast behind her, the sun streaking a bloody red across the horizon. "Ohhh, lemme guess! Alexa?"

"Sadly not!"

"My turn," Elma said. "Frye?"

L made a buzzing noise like he had often heard in the 'quiz shows' within the archives. "Incorrect!"

"Why would you guess Frye?" Lin asked, eyebrows raised.

Elma shrugged. "Tell us, L."

"Gwin, of course!"

"Gwin!?"

Elma buried her forehead in her hand. "Oh my God."

"You are asking literally the worst Skell pilot in BLADE," Gwin said with a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. "The lieutenant is miles better in a Skell than I am. You, uh, really should go and ask her."

Gwin had been chilling in Deliverance Park on a rare day off when L came blazing around the corner in a Skell, swamped in enough guns to make even Irina wince. He'd stopped a metre away from Gwin, made him almost have a heart attack on the spot, and squashed a poor innocent hedge that had done nothing wrong. Hope had been talking to people on the hedge opposite of Gwin, but as soon as the Skell had landed, she had given him a 'you're handling this' look, in her own kindly way, and scuttled away with alarming speed. A swarm of citizens had drifted after her like a hungry mob, leaving Gwin alone with a Skell that could not be piloted.

He gulped.

L flopped down on the bench right next to Gwin. He had to crane his neck back an insane amount just to see L's face properly. Even if he had sat down on the ground, Gwin was pretty sure that they'd be the same height.

Like, yeah, he was short, and he knew that (although the secretary and Lao weren't much taller than him at all), but L? L was insanely tall.

He'd thought that Doug was as tall as anyone could get, but when they had met L? Hoo boy, how wrong could one guy get?

"If you are so bad," L said, bumping his leg against Gwin's – another thing about L was that he had zero knowledge of personal space. If he did, then he just didn't care. "Then how did you obtain a Skell license?"

"How did you obtain a Skell license?" Gwin snapped. "Uh, sorry."

"No need to apologise, good sir!" L linked his hands. "Why, it is a very long and curious tale!"

Gwin raised his eyebrows. "Great?"

"Cross obtained the licence and it covers everyone within their team." L grinned. "Including ourself!"

Silence.

"…Wait, that's it?"

L nodded.

"You said that it was, and I quote, 'a very long and curious tale'?"

"Well, you looked rather, as the youngsters say, 'dug', so we chose not to bore you."

…Had he meant 'done'? Gwin smiled to himself, flopping back against the bench. The sun was high in the sky, and the lack of clouds meant that its rays bounced off every inch of the glorious Skell kneeling down in front of them.

Man, it looked great. For crying out loud, Cross had saddled Gwin with a level twenty Skell that was called 'John Cena'. Whoever the hell that was.

Like, he was chuffed that he had a Skell in the first place, but one as lame as that? Seriously? Irina's Skell looked like something that Hades himself would have designed, all sharp blades and polished guns, and Gwin had – a neon green one with bright yellow lights.

"I became a Skell pilot about three months before the Earth, well, blew up." Gwin chuckled as the memories came back. "They were really desperate for pilots. Skell work was, well, suicidal – they always blew up and stuff because the technology was so new. The army pretty much took on anyone that was even vaguely interested. I only went on the programme because I wanted to get stronger. Y'know, to protect everyone."

"How fascinating!" L chirped, a genuine smile spreading on his cheeks.

Gwin grinned. He gave L a friendly pat on his shoulder, but struggled greatly with reaching high enough to do so while looking casual. "You're a great guy, L."

"We know!"

"I'm glad you know." With a grunt, Gwin leant forward and slung his arms over his knees. "So," he said, glancing back to L. "You wanted me to explain something?"

L frowned. "The issue is, we are unsure of what to ask you for. We now know how to enter and exit a Skell, and also how weaponry functions."

"Oh, uh, that's good?" he said weakly. He had learnt that stuff in his first day on the course.

L stroked his chin. "But we fear that we are still missing something!"

"Experience, just?" When L turned to him with curious eyes, Gwin shrugged. "Just go out there and smack up some enemies. I'm still not fully used to a Skell, and I've been using it ever since we got here. Nothing beats experience."

"But, the insurance…"

"Nah, man, don't worry. It never runs out." Gwin paused. "It does for Cross, though. Don't know why."

"How mysterious."

They fell into a settled silence. Gwin watched a leaf peel off a tree and flutter in the late autumn breeze.

Gwin startled when L spoke. "Would you have any other advice to aid us, Gwin?"

"Spam Overdrive. Like, no joke. As soon as you get enough tension? Spam it."

"Of course."

"Oh, uh, unless someone else is really close to getting it as well. Then you can team up and get even stronger."

"Ah, of course!"

Gwin glanced up. Shadowed by the sun, the Skell looked like a giant black spider that had guns instead of legs. Or something. He shivered. "And, umm… I'd get rid of some of those guns."

L cocked his head. "But we were told to equip the best weapons. This is the best we could find."

"Yeah, but what happens if you come across an enemy who's right in your face?"

"Ahh, we understand!"

Gwin yelped as L clasped his hand in both of his own. The guy had massive hands, and they felt like reptile skin, kind of. It was too hard to be human, that was for sure. "Thank you, good sir." L let go with a smile. "We shall go forth and kick ass!"

He chuckled. "You do that, man."

L saluted him. "We shall see you soon, punk!"

Gwin bit his lip to stop his laughter from ringing out. "Oh – my God. L."

L grinned before he entered his Skell. It hummed to life, and a few seconds later, he was off, sprinting past Gwin-

And flattening another poor hedge. He narrowly skirted around a house, and then it disappeared down the long road to the administrative district.

Gwin watched it go with a smile. He pulled out his comm device and hit the first number on his speed dial. "Hey, Lieutenant, you'll never guess what just happened…"

"…Wow," Lin muttered. "I wasn't expecting him to actually be – y'know, helpful."

"Is there anyone else who helped you?" Elma asked, smiling.

"That is all, unfortunately!" L stood up on his feet and swiped his hands. "We hope that satisfied your curiosity, Lin?"

"You kiddin'?" She grinned. "That was amazing! Man, I can't wait to get Doug to give me a piggyback…"

"Lin," Elma said, but she was smiling, in that 'I'm trying not to smile because I really shouldn't' way. "C'mon, let's go. We've been resting for a bit now."

Cross stood up as well, cradling a snoring Tatsu in their arms.

Elma nodded at each of them in turn. "There's a base camp about an hour from here in our Skells. Let's rest there for the night."

"Um, why did we stop here, then?"

"You were the one who wanted to listen to L."

Lin rubbed her cheek. "Heh, good point. Let's go!"

L patted the leg of his Skell. "With Deez Nuts, we shall get there in no time flat!"

Elma's eyes budged. Lin made a funny little chortling noise behind her hand. Cross just grinned.

"Is something the matter?"

"Nothing at all," Elma wheezed. "Let's just – go."

"Of course!"