Testing the Water

"While I'm always pleased to greet a woman like," the pink-haired woman's smile shifted from friendly to I-think-your-genitals-will-taste-delicious-once-properly-cooked, so Tiida Lanster switched gears to address the blonde, "you, what brings you here"

Chrono shook his head in amusement and took a seat across from the Air Force officer. "Wrong person, Captain."

Tiida made a face. "I figured that, Commander Harlaown, but some days I just want things to be simple." He recognized Chrono, they'd met before once or twice when Chrono was active as an Enforcer before going back to the Navy for his provisional team command. And then Hayate had died.

"About your new assignment, it's actually what I can do for you. It's an informal exam for Enforcer." Chrono said.

"Pretty sure you're not supposed to tell me that." Tiida Lanster replied.

"And you're probably not supposed to pass it, because they didn't give you these." Chrono slid the paper files, stamped "ComFirstFleet EYES ONLY" across the desk.

"Even more sure you're not supposed to show me those." Tiida added.

"Actually," Chrono said, "I'm under orders to get you to read them." He smirked faintly. "I could get Zafira," he gestured to the wolf-man, "to hold you down and make you, if you like."

Tiida eyed the wolf-man and sighed, picking them up. "I would have taken that offer if you'd said the blonde, you know." He started reading quickly. "Shit, is this for real? They tell me I'm looking for a couple SIS types who went UA and they're probably dead or captured?"

"Admiral Lowran told me, I tell you." Chrono replied.

"And what's in this gift for you anyways?" Tiida asked, flipping through the report.

"Me? I dislike seeing loyal, capable people get screwed, so I find this personally fulfilling." Chrono shrugged. "The Admiral on the other hand would appreciate a call from you if something goes wrong. She has a case on her plate that might be connected and doesn't really want a lead to disappear, so she's willing to offer support."

Tiida leaned back in his seat. "What kind of support?"

Chrono nodded at the question. "Anything from a good word to dropping Mage Team Rapier in direct combat support, as required."

Tiida's eyes widened slightly. The Navy tended not to get involved in problems on Bureau worlds so as not to cause friction with the Air Force or Ground Forces. It usually only stepped in when requested to provide assistance, or when the situation had escalated so far that only the vast and varied abilities available to a Bureau warship could hope to resolve matters. Normal investigation and law enforcement work was left to other services save for when the Navy investigated itself.

Unless the Navy perceived a threat so serious as to pose a danger to the Bureau as a whole, or it thought someone wasn't being straight with it, or both. "What the hell have I been given as an assignment?" Tiida demanded. He finally put two and two together regarding Chrono's escorts. "And what the hell about it is so bad I'd need the Wolkenritter as backup?"

Chrono grimaced. No, Tiida wasn't dumb at all. "At this point I really don't know. I'm not sure the Admiral knows either. But you're being asked to poke something that took down three of the Special Investigative Service's best combat mages, two of them apparently alive, is probably holding them captive, and didn't leave any evidence. Didn't bleed, for example. I don't know of anything else in Bureau space quite so worthy of attention from the Wolkenritter. Do you?"

"Like hell." Tiida Lanster was a capable, competent officer. He simply played at being otherwise. "Permanent teleport homing beacon in my Device. It goes dark or I call, you come running?"

Chrono considered a moment. Leti Lowran had told him that anything that would get him into action was good, because she trusted Chrono and the Wolkenritter to make sure that even if their enemies got away, they would leave a mess behind them. Messes, physical evidence of the group's existence, was the death of a conspiracy. And if they could take someone alive...the damage that would do to a conspiracy was hard to overstate. "Can do."

Tiida Lanster offered a hand. "Pleasure to work with you, Lieutenant Commander."

Chrono shook hands. "Likewise, Captain."

Tiida grinned. "So, Signum-"

"Tempt not a Wolkenritter to kill you where you stand." Signum said evenly. "To you casual murder is a weighty and nearly incomprehensible act. To them it is something often done between breaths."

Tiida sighed. "You're less fun than a Church Knight."

Chrono frowned at Signum. "Careful." The statement was directed at no one in particular on purpose, as a warning to both parties.

It's Gaiz again. Vita warned him from outside the door as Chrono turned to go.

Chrono's expression might have been carved in stone for all the emotion it showed when he stepped out of Tiida's office. "Lieutenant."

"Commander, I've been asked to again look-"

"In the words of a team leader I had as a lieutenant, don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining." Signum gave Chrono a surprised look from behind him. She'd always seen the side of him that was formal, and polite. He could be cold, even hostile, but never as vulgar as she was accustomed to soldiers or Knights being. It was actually reassuring to her to hear him do so. "You want something from Hayate Yagami's personal effects. That you lied about what suggests you have no right to it. Continue, and I will make it my mission in life to find out what it is that you're so interested in. So consider carefully whether you want me to know what that is before you speak."

As for Chrono, he watched Auris Gaiz's reaction carefully. She was a puppet on someone else's string, forced to dance, now forced to stab herself repeatedly because she'd known approaching him again would make him curious. She resented it, too.

But all she could do was turn away.

Training, Chrono had thought at first, would be pointless to the Wolkenritter. He hadn't realized that he was about as wrong as possible. They had nothing to learn when it came to the basics, and Chrono understood now why Fate said she dreamed of defeating Signum one on one, not planned to.

But they were pathetically unused to having so much support structure behind them, and really didn't know what to do with it. The four combat controllers, whose job was to be the angel on the shoulder providing helpful reminders, directions, information that they couldn't see for themselves. Amy and her assistant who were handy whenever someone needed a computer broken, dissected, or made to dance a jig. In theory you might even end up with one of the sensor techs or medics on the line sometimes.

The Wolkenritter were not used to being legitimate either. They still tended to think more like fugitives than anything else; keep it quiet, don't make a mess. It wasn't a bad attitude, necessarily. It just didn't match reality, and like most things that didn't match reality would inevitably cause trouble.

Zafira and Vita were both off talking with the controller crew. Shamal was discussing the cartridge situation with the supply officer, with cartridges still being a rare commodity. But the Wolkenritter would not let him entirely out of their sight, not in an area with semi-public access.

Which meant Chrono couldn't hit the showers alone. Signum was there too, somewhere, behind him. He can hear her shower running. The usual prescription for this situation is to run his shower cold, as cold as possible, but Chrono knows from experience that doesn't work aboard Bureau Headquarters. The station's water supply doubles as a heat sink, so most days it was never colder than lukewarm. And the showers don't have special chillers to cool it.

Mostly, he tries not to think about the fact that Signum is nude somewhere behind him. He actually does quite well at it, better most would manage. But for those times when he fails, he took the opposite tack from the cold water. Instead, he's got it all the way up, to the point where it's hot enough to be almost painful. If he leans a little too close to the showerhead, it actually is.

Focus on getting washed up. Fortunately there's an entrance on either side. He won't have to turn around to leave. Aside from the hiss of the other shower, it's very easy to pretend he's alone.

And then Signum had to go and ruin it all by talking to him. "Chrono," and her voice was surprisingly gentle, much gentler then he'd thought the swordswoman capable of, "I am not trying to seduce you. I'm not even trying to flirt with you right now. I am trying to show that your fear of forcing me into doing something I do not wish to do is a fear with no basis in reality."

Chrono sighed. "It does strike you that stress-testing my self-control is a bad way to go about it, yes?" He started to wash his hair.

"It would," soft and...almost lazy now, "were that what I was doing." Chrono deliberately leans too close to the showerhead, rinsing his hair out, risking scalding himself by how long he does it. Signum's relaxed, casual tone, considering they're in a room together naked, isn't helping.

But she's mercifully silent after that. And Chrono doesn't ask what she's actually trying to do. Eventually, just before he's done, he hears her shower shut off. "Chrono?"

"Yes?"

"A woman who showers in the same locker room as a man has either considered he will see her naked, or is not very bright. And if she has considered and does so anyways, she has decided she is not concerned if he does see her naked." And he catches movement in the corner of his eye quick enough to look away before he really sees anything as she heads out to dress again.

But still worth another stint too close to the shower head. And Chrono didn't grasp why Signum would say something quite so obvious. Not that the pain on his scalp and shoulders helped him think, nor that he's actually trying to think. The possible tangents attendant to figuring out what Signum meant by telling him that are completely unhelpful and so Chrono didn't go there.

She'd fully dressed by the time he got out. In her new black uniform like his own, with its concealing longcoat and baggy pants. For that, for the designer who'd made them as unisex as Bureau uniform usually gets, Chrono was grateful.