The Higher Education Training Exercise Experience

Wendy was just drifting off to sleep when her Middlewatch started beeping.

"Boss, it's the middle of the night."

"I'm sorry, Dubbie." He did not sound sorry, he sounded chipper. Well, maybe an apologetic kind of chipper. "But evil neither sleeps nor observes any of the major holidays of any of the major religions, or even the minor ones, so I'm afraid you need to come immediately."

"Right," Wendy said as she started getting dressed. "I don't suppose you can tell me what's going on, or is it meant to be a surprise?"

Pants, she needed pants. "We don't know much, just that the H.E.Y.D.A.R. intercepted a message from an as yet unknown source stating that if their demands weren't met by tomorrow morning 'people are going to be hopping mad'." Right, clean pants were downstairs with the rest of the fresh laundry.

"Great, the ones who start making puns are always the worst." Wendy stopped halfway down the staircase. "Boss, you don't think people becoming hopping mad might refer to doctoring vegan Easter chocolates with mutagenic agents designed to turn humans into rabbits."

A pause on the other end of the line. "Possibly, though if that's the case, that's quite an impressive leap of intuition there, Dubbie."

"Not as much as you might think," Wendy said, eyeing the tiny blonde bunny sitting on top of a pile of Lacey's clothes, and nibbling at foil wrapped chocolate.

Some days were slow days.

Some days had no supervillians, no plans elegant in their simplicity, no countdowns to the world going boom.


Occasionally these day also had no paperwork to be filed, no alien or mystical artefacts to catalogue, not even any cleaning to be done.

Sadly, that didn't mean they could take a break and leave early. Because after all, it could all go wrong in and instant.

Luckily for Wendy, the Middleman had a wonderfully comfortable shoulder, which he didn't mind sharing with her while they waited for something, anything to happen.

"Dub-dub." There was an insistent prodding in Wendy's side. "Dub-Dub, wake up, or you'll miss the countdown."

Wendy cracked open an eyelid and yawned. "Lacey? I was having the weirdest dream."

Lacey wasted no time sprawling across Wendy's bed. "Strange as the one with the bunnies and the spaceship?"

"Not that strange."

"How strange then?"

"We were angsty half-dressed lesbians, possibly in an emotionally unhealthy relationship, and I think David Lynch was singing."

Lacey stared at Wendy, wide-eyed. "Wow, that is strange," she agreed. "You know we'd be cheerful lesbians."

"Perky even. Full of pep."

"And we wouldn't let David Lynch watch us either. Creeper."

[Link kinda NWS.]

"Well, there goes the Middle-Jet. I doubt she wanted to be buried at sea, but better her than us."

"Are we going to do the minute of silence thing?"

"I feel it would be appropriate."

"...Boss?"

"Yes, Dubbie?"

"Is it just me or does that shark have arms? And legs?"

"It's not just you."

"Oh, [bleep]."

It had taken Wendy much longer than she'd expected to make it into work on foot. Somehow or the other she'd managed to get completely turned around not once, but several times.

This meant that when she got to Jolly Fats, she ran past Ida at the front desk with barely a nodded hello, and shoved open the door. "I know, I'm late, some weirdo stole the Bug-" she stopped in mid-sentence, slack-jawed, staring at the Middleman in disbelief. "Boss? But you...you're..."

Then Ida let off the stun-grenade.

"Freaking pot-head spies can't even copy the uniform right."

Silence reigned in the Middle-jet as The Middleman, whose expression could best be described as chagrined, laid a course into the auto-pilot and Wendy, whose expression could best be described as incredibly pissed off, focused on changing the band-aids on her blistered hands.

It wasn't until they were in sight of Greenland that The Middleman tried breaking the awkward silence. "Wendy, I-"

Wendy cut him off by holding up a hand. "Don't say anything."

"But I-" He tried again with a grimace.

"Two words. Four sets," Wendy bit off. "Evil Santa. Toy Mines. Elf Costumes. Perky singing."

Someone had not had a good Christmas.

Wendy's side of the room was packed up, she'd made sure certain photos would be delivered to Edmund when he got back, and sent anything that wouldn't fit in the car on ahead. She wasn't sure how exactly she'd explain acquiring as much stuff as she did while on a "short retreat in Nepal", but she'd manage.

[Wendy's going awaaaaaaaaaay. Open.]

Yawning, still in her pajamas, Wendy closed the door behind her, intent on cartoons and cereal in the common room.

She wasn't ready for teeth sinking into her leg as a gremlin quickly climbed her in an attempt to escape the dog that very shortly bowled her over.

Shaking her head and picking up the spotted dog's lead, Sabrina Duncan jogged down the hall. Slowly. Without a bra.

[Follows this. Establishly.]

Wendy frowned as she woke up in a room that more closely resembled a broom-closet than her penthouse suite at Fatboy Industries HQ. Her mood barely improved as she took in the frankly garish art covering half the closet's walls and then took a deep nosedive as a quick rifle through of the night-stand revealed a student ID in her name and a familiar looking watch.

Well, wasn't that just perfect?

Not only had she somehow managed to swap places with her goody-two-shoes parallel universe self, but she was back in [bleep]ing high school.

[OOC: Wendy is now Wendy from an evil parallel universe! Establishly.]