It was October, now.

The wind was cooler than it had been last week, rolling over the airport and through the farmland to whip against his face. The trees in the distance were lightening as their leaves started to die. Passing cars zipped by him, easily outpacing his bike as their wakes leapt over the concrete barrier separating him from the road. Beyond that, the roar of sparse traffic from I-5 could be heard, barely audible over the wind playing the grass.

The ride had lost it's serene nature to him, though. Besides the occasional aircraft taking off from the airport, Alex Martin-Campos wasn't witnessing anything new. If it wasn't for the earbud safely hidden in his right ear, he'd be bored out of his mind.

"...Confusing stuff, I know, but because I like to make things simple, the most obvious example is the White-Gold Tower, and the gem located inside the Amulet of Kings…"

The eager narrator was, perhaps, the most important part of his travel routine. Without the in-depth videos that explored lore of worlds outside of his own, captivating audio books that told fantastical tales of adventure, and occasional podcasts, he might not be able to retain his sanity during his commute.

Behind him was a hell of dry lectures, daily assignments, and logarithmic equations. In front of him lay several hours of soul-grinding monotony, interrupted only when a particularly miserable customer decided to share their terrible attitude with him. After that, he could find refuge at home, if that time wasn't eaten up by homework.

Alex had no idea how some people pulled off both a full time college degree and a job. This handful of morning classes he'd started were doing a good job at grinding him down already!

Anyways, that meant he only really had time to himself on weekends, when he found his daily math assignments miraculously easy, and this serine half-hour ride down Airport Road. It wasn't much time, but unless he quit this job or got much faster with algebra, it was the best he was going to get.

"Then can also focus on deactivating all the towers. This will stop the cycle of death from existing entirely. Mundus would go back to it's primeval state, and the laws of physics would no longer apply…"

As he passed the airport and the bike path from Centralia gave way to an overpass and Chehalis proper, he was forced to divert attention from the Thalmor's sinister plans for Tamriel, and instead focus on his surroundings. Constantly stopping and rushing to stay out of the way of cars was less relaxing, but even then it wasn't particularly stressful.

At least, not when compared to what was ahead of him.

It wasn't long before he reached the point he was dreading. Another overpass of I-5 loomed in front of him, Alex's bike suddenly resisting him as it started climbing the artificial hill it sat on, and his destination came into view.

Jack in the Box. Sitting conveniently next to the interstate's offramp, the ugly gray-and-red building attracted plenty of attention from those too lazy or rushed to go further into Chehalis.

The lore video having come to its end earlier, Alex brought his bike to a stop in silence, sighing as he dismounted and started to walk.

…he was being too harsh. Alex had loved this place for years before working here. It was within easy walking distance of both his old high school and home, and cheap enough that he could afford frequent visits with his stingy allowance money. The food had been nice, too, but now that he'd been having it almost every day for almost a year now, he was thoroughly tired of both it and many of the people who visited.

Locking his bike up behind a hedge and stepping between two cars waiting at the drive way, he pushed a glass door open and entered the restaurant.

It was as busy as ever. Harvey was working the register, wading through the line of customers eager to get back on the road. His coworker didn't afford Alex anything more than a nod as he slipped behind the counter, sliding his backpack off his shoulders and into his hands.

While she was also busy at the frier, Laura was able to greet him as he entered.

"Morning, Alex." She recited, her voice flat.

"Morning, Laura." He replied equally unenthusiastically, looking around the kitchen. "Where's Cliff?"

His colleague huffed, and Alex immediately knew the answer.

"His work allergy is acting up again?" He asked, and his dark-haired coworker nodded as she returned to work. Frustration built in his gut. Why did Shannon hold onto that freeloader?

"We've got fresh blood to cover for him." Laura continued, fishing the tray of fries from a pool of overused grease. "Boss is walking her through the basics, then she's our problem."

"Wonderful." Alex snarked, heading further back towards their breakroom. Clifton was a burden to everyone around him, sure, but he'd been in this kitchen for eight years already. He probably knew the business better than The Boss did. A new girl would be an entirely different type of problem!

They must have been in Shannon's small office, because the closet-sized break room was empty. That was good, because it let him lock the door and get changed into his uniform without having to stop by the restroom. He'd have to visit there anyway to wash his hands, but considering his memories cleaning the damn place, he wasn't going to be spending any more time there then he needed.

Finished with buttoning up the collar of his black polo shirt, he unlocked the breakroom, leaving his backpack in the corner and opening the door.

"Ah, Alex." The young man found his back straightening at his boss's words, looking towards the source of the voice. "There you are!"

A pair of black-clad women were approaching from the office, both of their gazes focused squarely on him.

The familiar first figure initially grabbed his attention, the short woman's commanding gait oozing authority even if she hadn't been wearing the only button-up shirt in the building. Shannon Chiba, the branch's manager, was in a hurry to dump the newcomer on him, her cropped black hair bouncing around her ears as she rapidly closed the gap between the two.

Speaking of the newcomer…

Pretty much everyone beat his manager in height, but the woman behind her towered over her. Hell, as his eyes flicked away from the familiar Shannon and towards the woman behind her, he found that his boss only went up to the giant's waist. His eyes moved upward, lingering on her chest, despite his best intentions.

…She was big. Tall, too, as Alex found himself looking up at her to meet her eyes. Her rough black hair hung a little around her anxious visage, tied up in a loose bun just under her Jack in the Box hat. She was clearly… mature, judging by her build and height, but her smooth face had a youth to it that made Alex wonder if she was only a year or so older than him, barely in her twenties.

Lower, her dark company polo hugged her better than he'd seen on his other coworkers, although that might have been because they hadn't had her unusual size. Underneath the polo, she was wearing what looked like under armor, the slick black fabric poking out from the shirt around her neck and arms. It was impossible to tell exactly what they looked like, but the form beneath the under armor gave him the impression of a slender power he'd rarely seen before.

In short, she was simultaneously beautiful and intimidating, despite the way she unsteadily shifted on her feet, eyes darting across the array of cooking equipment in the kitchen like it was about to come to life and attack her.

"Alex, this is Sarah." His boss started, returning Alex's thoughts to the present as his manager motioned to the newcomer. "I need you to show her the ropes after you wash your hands."

"Uh…" He started, gulping to regain his breath. "Hi."

…Damnit, this was going to be a bigger problem than he thought!

It took her a while to get over the incident at the construction site. There, not even a day after she'd exposed herself to one random human, she'd not only been found out by another, but confirmed it by saving him without thinking! By the time she'd realized what she'd done, and what Alton knew, she hadn't had any choice but to get away from there as soon as possible. At least then, there was a chance he'd decide not to pass that intel onto the Navy. Killing him in front of everyone would only prove it to everyone else in the worksite, and she couldn't exactly take care of all them quietly.

…yeah. Just like the man at Mill Creek, who she definitely could have taken care of without anyone noticing.

Now that she'd calmed down, realizing that she'd outran The Navy's search pattern, that had been how she'd justified her actions to herself. The alternative, that she might not have the strength to do what she needed to to get to her mother, was much worse.

Besides, she hadn't had any trouble threatening the Pacific Lilly and Elizabeth.

…Yet why had those situations felt so different? Why had she found no issue using violence to get what she needed when she was obviously her true self, yet the thought of killing Alton or the man in the woods hadn't come naturally? Was it because she never really considered Elizabeth's situation, but knew the betrayal that Alton, Tirto, and Sern were no doubt feeling now that her true identity was known? What of the man in the woods? Why hadn't she been able to do the right thing and take him out?

She hadn't wanted to think about those questions, and it soon became apparent that the money she'd gotten from Dan's fleet wouldn't last too long, so diving into a job hunt in Centralia and Chehalis seemed like a good distraction for herself.

Another basic job, like construction, was out. They were expecting her to be working there now, after all, and in hindsight working somewhere the Wo-class could show off the power of her boilers hadn't been her brightest idea. She needed something new, a job that allowed her to stay away from her advantages as an abyssal while acting as any normal human would. That meant doing it like every other human, with a resume and an online appli-thingy and a convincing identity.

Luckily, finding a library hadn't been so difficult, now that she was confident enough to ask about it. From there, she looked up a few training manuals on some of the makeup she had, and made herself look like a new human, black-dyed hair and what she hoped passed as an islander's realistically tan skin, like Alton had.

"Sarah Yarnell," a name she creatively threw together by ripping words from her mother's Wikipedia page, was ready to become an official refugee.

It took days for the nice humans at the library to walk her through the full process, and by then her reserves of money had almost completely dried up. Therefore, while she hadn't been as desperate as the first time she'd attempted to join a human fleet, she'd felt more than a little apprehensive as she'd started searching.

Thankfully, the librarians were nice enough to help her through that, as well. By The Deep, how did the library make enough money to survive, if they were willing to do so many things for free? At this point, they'd been such a boon that she needed to find a way to repay them.

Even in this town, there were plenty of places to work. Trinitite hadn't even known where to start until she picked up a stray comment from one of the librarians.

"Just find a burger joint. They've got low requirements, and free food's a pretty good bonus, right?"

Free… food?

If it had been that simple, she would have been suspicious, but asking about it revealed that thankfully, it wasn't. A 'fast food' place wasn't willing to open the stores of its most vital resource to its underlings. As a potential 'employee,' Trinitite would merely be charged less for prepared foodstuffs, not simply given it.

Knowing the deal wasn't too good to be true was comforting, in a way. Now, she just needed to piece a convincing resume together, as well as figure out that online process that had flummoxed her so much last time.

Easier said than done. It was as confusing and exhausting as she'd remembered, but eventually she'd succeeded. She'd visited several different places to give an interview, and this fleet's Princess had apparently been desperate enough to take her.

That was great! Trinitite had remembered how amazing that burger from a while back had been, as well as her mixed success in replicating it outside of Mill Creek. Not only would she be getting Jack in the Box's money and pay less than normal for their food, but she'd soon get valuable training in a vital skill: Making the most of the slowly-shrinking spoils from her raid on the Fred Meyers fleet! To top it off, the library wasn't as far from here as the Mill Creek one had been, meaning she'd have more time to search for her mother while she wasn't working here.

Excitement had pulsed through her boilers as she'd come into work, eager to learn and excited to see what she'd be able to do with her first pay. The fact she wasn't going to see any money until Friday of next week was somewhat concerning, but if everyone else could deal with it, it couldn't be that bad, right?

"You, sit down." Shannon Chiba clipped, skipping any sort of greeting. "Watch these."

Her first impression of Shannon was that she reminded her much more of Abyssal Princesses then Dan had. The woman lacked all of the routine easiness Dan had shown as she ordered Trinitite to sit down and watch the series of videos she'd expected. Then, instead of going off and doing something else while Trinitite went through a surprisingly cheery introduction to her new fleet and an oddly similar video on sexual harassment, she'd sat there, looking up from her phone with a suspicious glare before returning to… whatever humans did on those black tablets.

It was also kind of comforting, in a weird way. Suspicion and frustration were pretty regular emotions from many of the abyssal princesses she'd worked with. This one wasn't any actual real threat to her, so the act wasn't nearly as disconcerting as it had been then. It was kind of like watching a spread of torpedoes approaching her, but knowing all their warheads had been removed for training purposes.

After that, it was a simple matter of slipping on the uniform Shannon had procured for her. This part had been the one she'd been the most anxious about, as she'd decided to keep wearing a dark, long-sleeved undershirt she'd procured underneath the issued clothing. It poked out from the short-sleeved top, shining slightly in the light as it covered up her pearl-colored arms and neck.

"Take that off, and get back in here."

Shannon wasn't impressed, but Trinitite had a plan for that. She wouldn't try this with an abyssal princess, but the worst the human could do was send her back out on a job search. Not a pleasant outcome, but not a deadly one.

"Do I, uh, have to?" She questioned, flinching at her own words. "You see, I've got a condition…"

It was time to take the biggest risk she would today. Remembering the escape route she'd planned out before coming here, the abyssal braced, pulling her sleeves up to reveal her undisguised arm. She wasn't wearing her gloves, hoping that her experiments with nail polish would be convincing enough, so she'd been a little surprised this hadn't come up earlier. A second passed.

"Ah." She finally replied. "Go ahead and leave that on, then. Follow me."

Huh. Abyssal Princesses would never concede a point so bluntly. It was good to know her hunch had been accurate.

Falling behind her new leader as she left the office, Trinitite took in the building she'd be working from in the near future. Unlike the construction site or the Fred Meyers, it was tiny, meaning she'd probably have a good chance to know everyone who worked here. She understood this building was only one outpost of the greater Jack in the Box Fleet, but they couldn't send too many new people she'd have to deal with, could they?

That could be a bad thing, she realized. With so few people, perhaps everyone was expected to get to know each other a lot more. She'd reinforced and refined her story while she'd been preparing at the library, but would it be enough?

She straightened, forcing confidence into her walk as she entered the main area. It would have to be. Yes, she'd failed last time, but Trinitite had also learned from that failure, just like she had thousands of times at Bikini and at sea. Maybe it was overconfidence after finally getting what she wanted from the tangled mess of applications, interviews, and emails she'd endured, but she was feeling pretty good about her prospects here.

That is, until she looked behind the counter.

The machinery filled almost half of the building. Walls were filled with equipment and supplies, with more filling the deck in bulky rows of polished steel.

All to make hamburgers, something she'd been able to do with nothing but a propane stove. What was all of this extra stuff for? The Hamburger truck had been filled with food preparation equipment, too, and they'd been leagues ahead of her attempts. Maybe, since they'd dedicated even more deck space to the production of food, the Jack in the Box Fleet produced even better products?

She suddenly regretted not trying this place's food before she'd attempted to join.

Entering the kitchen and becoming surrounded by it's unfamiliar mix of smells didn't make Trinitite feel any less intimidated. Now that she was surrounded by the equipment, she tried to pinpoint where, exactly, the grill was, but either she didn't recognize it or it was obscured by something else.

"Ah, Alex!" Shannon suddenly shouted, drawing Trinitite's attention away from the alien machinery around her. "There you are!"

Trinitite had been so engrossed in the machinery, that she hadn't noticed the new human. He was about the height of a cruiser, his abyssal-black hair hugging his head. It continued from his regular hairline down his jawline and over his face, but only as small and spread out specs of hair gave Trinitite the impression it wasn't an intentional feature. His rangefinders widened as they switched from his boss and towards her, and a part of Trinitite panicked as it assumed he guessed her true nature, but the Wo-class's discipline stamped those suspicions out. If she hadn't been so focused on Sern, she might have realized Alton had caught onto her, after all. There was probably a different reason behind his action.

"Alex, this is Sarah." Shannon spoke up, motioning to Trinitite. "I need you to show her the ropes after you wash your hands."

"Uh…" He started, his voice lacking any trace of confidence. "Hi."

…Deep, he didn't know how to operate this stuff either, did he?

And thus, the reason why I haven't allowed myself to watch The Devil is a Part Timer is revealed!

Anyways, I skipped over a lot of Trinitite's experiences to land her here, but I figured that it was justified to ensure I don't wear out the 'Trinitite reacts to X' loop that I've used a lot and so I can dive directly into this next arc with her. I'm looking forewords to it a lot, since unlike the construction arc, there's a lot more room for her to have a more personal connection with her coworkers, here. She's taken the lessons she's learned back then, and allows us to get into some different dynamics that I wasn't really able to explore yet.

While I don't have this entire arc planned out (my attempt to do so while locked up in boot camp started well, but eventually devolved into eldritch madness), I have both the broad strokes figured out, as well as the specifics for several chapters after this one. It'll be a learning experience for me, as this arc will involve me writing a lot of things that I haven't written before. The first example is the infamous Male Gaze(TM) which I attempted to write this chapter. Hopefully it felt appropriate, considering the narrator.

I also want to get a short and very tangential sidestory going, but we'll see how practical it'll be for me.