There are many kinds of battles in the world.
Some are fought with weapons.
Some are fought with words.
And some… are fought with washing machines.
For Squad 13, this was the last type.
---
Morning began peacefully — a suspicious rarity in Base 13. The sun spilled through the windows, birds chirped outside, and for once, nothing was burning, exploding, or mysteriously glowing.
Rina sipped her coffee and sighed contently.
> "Finally," she said, "a quiet day."
That was her first mistake.
Because in the next room, Celia was already rallying the troops.
> "Girls!" Celia shouted from the hallway. "We have a crisis of fabric integrity!"
Rina's coffee nearly slipped from her hands.
> "...Fabric what?"
> "Laundry day!" Celia declared dramatically, bursting into the common room with a basket taller than her.
Liri peeked over the top, buried in uniforms. "We ran out of clean clothes three days ago."
Eira didn't look up from her book. "You mean you ran out of clean clothes. I have a system."
> "Yeah," Celia said, "and your system smells like caffeine and apocalypse."
Eira blinked slowly. "Correct."
---
Phase One: The Gathering of the Laundry
Before long, every member of Squad 13 had gathered their… contributions.
Celia's pile was massive — a chaotic mess of wrinkled shirts, torn sleeves, and one suspiciously singed cape.
Rina's clothes were folded and neatly separated by color and type.
Mira's uniforms looked like they'd come straight from a military manual on fabric discipline.
Liri's basket contained socks. Only socks. None matching.
And Eira?
She placed a single black hoodie in the pile.
> "Minimalism," she said.
> "You only own that hoodie!" Celia protested.
> "And it has never failed me," Eira replied calmly.
> "It's probably sentient by now," Mira muttered.
---
The laundry room was at the far end of the base — small, sterile, and supposedly simple.
Four washing machines. Four dryers.
A peace treaty waiting to be broken.
> "Okay," Rina said, taking charge. "We'll organize this efficiently. Whites first, then colors. No mixing. No improvising."
> "But improvising is how we innovate!" Celia said.
> "Improvising is how we nearly blew up the kitchen," Rina shot back.
> "That's an exaggeration," Celia said.
> "The toaster is still missing," Eira added.
> "It's gathering strength," Liri whispered dramatically.
---
Phase Two: The First Wash
The operation began smoothly — suspiciously smoothly.
Mira loaded the first batch with mechanical precision.
Rina measured detergent with exact mathematical care.
Eira supervised from the corner with her coffee like an uninterested deity.
Celia stood by the machines, arms crossed like a commander surveying her troops.
> "Excellent. Cleanliness will be ours."
Then Liri opened a bottle of mystery detergent labeled "MAX-ULTRA POWER — EXPERIMENTAL."
> "Hey, what's this one do?" she asked.
> "Don't—" Rina started.
Too late.
Liri poured the entire thing into the washer.
The hum of the machine deepened. Lights flickered.
Something inside began to bubble.
> "Liri…" Mira said slowly. "What did you just put in there?"
> "Just soap!"
> "That's not soap," Eira said, eyes narrowing. "That's industrial solvent."
A single pop echoed. Then another.
And suddenly, thick purple foam began oozing from the machine.
> "Containment breach!" Celia shouted.
> "How do you contain laundry soap?!" Rina yelled.
> "With bravery!" Celia said, jumping onto the rising foam like it was a battlefield.
---
Within minutes, the entire floor was covered.
Bubbles spread through the hall like a creeping fog of pastel doom.
Liri was laughing uncontrollably, skating across the slick floor in socks.
> "This is amazing!" she yelled.
> "This is a biohazard!" Mira shouted.
> "Correction," Eira said calmly, standing on a chair, "it's now a foam hazard."
Celia stood proudly on top of a washing machine, hair dripping with bubbles.
> "We've entered Phase Two! Adapt and overcome!"
> "Phase Two of what?" Rina yelled.
> "Laundry domination!"
---
Phase Three: The Rebellion
It was at that exact moment that the washing machines began to fight back.
The foam thickened, pulsing with unnatural rhythm. The machines beeped in unison, as if… communicating.
> "Uh," Liri said, blinking. "Are they… mad?"
> "Impossible," Mira said, frowning. "They're just machines."
The nearest washer kicked open its door and launched a soaked shirt like a missile.
> "Tactical retreat!" Rina screamed, dodging.
> "We're under attack!" Celia shouted, pointing dramatically. "Hold your ground!"
The second machine began spinning at full speed, flinging bubbles across the ceiling like artillery fire.
> "I told you it was learning!" Eira shouted over the chaos.
> "That was the toaster, not the—" Rina started, before being hit square in the face by a flying sock.
> "—machines," she finished weakly.
---
Mira leaped into action, grabbing the power switch.
> "I'll shut it down manually!"
> "Wait!" Celia said. "That could destabilize the detergent levels!"
> "Good," Mira snapped. "Let it destabilize!"
She yanked the switch.
The lights flickered out.
For one blissful second, silence.
Then—
WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR—
Every washer and dryer in the room powered on simultaneously.
Foam erupted from the vents.
Socks flew through the air like projectiles.
A lone shirt spun wildly in the air before landing on Liri's head.
> "I surrender!" she laughed.
> "No surrender!" Celia yelled, grabbing a mop like a sword. "Squad 13, form up!"
> "We're forming up against washing machines?!" Rina cried.
> "Everything's an enemy if it gets in the way of progress!" Celia shouted back.
---
Phase Four: The Foam Frontline
The battle raged on for an hour.
Foam poured into the corridors, spreading like an unstoppable tide.
Rina was desperately trying to unplug wires.
Mira was reorganizing the machines mid-combat.
Liri was using a laundry basket as armor.
Eira was calmly documenting everything with her coffee untouched.
> "What are you doing?!" Rina yelled at her.
> "Writing the after-action report," Eira replied. "Title: The Day Cleanliness Fought Back."
> "Very funny!"
> "No, seriously," she said. "Command will want to know why the base is now 70% soap."
> "Focus!" Celia shouted, jumping onto a rolling dryer. "We can't let them win!"
> "They're appliances!" Mira yelled.
> "And we are extraordinary!" Celia cried, pointing her mop forward. "Charge!"
---
Eventually, Mira managed to pull the correct breaker.
The machines sputtered, beeped weakly, and fell silent.
Foam still lingered everywhere — knee-deep in the hall, dripping from the ceiling, clinging to their hair like victory confetti.
Celia raised her mop like a flag.
> "We did it."
> "We destroyed the laundry room," Rina said.
> "Semantics."
> "The dryers are gone," Mira muttered.
> "Sacrifices must be made."
Eira stepped off her chair, coffee finally finished.
> "Well," she said, "at least everything's clean now."
There was a pause. Then Liri's voice:
> "Even us!"
Celia grinned. "See? Mission success."
> "You're banned from touching anything electrical again," Rina said.
> "Define banned," Celia asked.
> "As in never again."
> "Got it. I'll use manual methods next time."
> "Manual—wait, what does that mean?"
> "You'll see," Celia said ominously.
---
Phase Five: The Aftermath
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up… the cleaning disaster.
Mira reassembled what remained of the machines, Rina documented the damage, and Eira calmly filed a "laundry casualty report" just to annoy Rina.
Liri kept finding random socks stuck to the ceiling.
> "How do socks get there?" she asked.
> "Physics gave up hours ago," Eira said.
By sunset, the foam had mostly disappeared, leaving a faint lavender scent across the entire base.
Celia stretched her arms, satisfied.
> "See? Smells fresh. Mission complete."
Rina stared at her.
> "We caused an electrical failure, a detergent overflow, and minor flooding."
> "And now the base smells like flowers," Celia replied proudly.
> "I'm genuinely impressed by how your brain works," Eira said. "In a horrifying way."
---
That night, as everyone collapsed into bed, the silence returned — broken only by Liri's sleepy mumbling:
> "I think the washing machine winked at me."
Rina groaned. "Go to sleep, Liri."
> "I'm serious!"
Celia chuckled from across the room. "If it did, tell it we'll be ready for round two."
> "Don't encourage it," Mira muttered.
Eira sipped from her thermos, eyes half-closed. "If the machines rise again, I'm defecting."
> "To where?" Rina asked.
> "Anywhere with dry socks."
To be continued on Chapter 7: Mission Impossible (Cleaning Celia's Room)