A/N: This one takes place a bit earlier on in the relationship of Adel and Whip; I thought it would be cute to revisit. This would be pre-XI, soon after the stories Etudé of Revolution and Encore(which are right over there if you hadn't seen them before! Mind the ratings, particularly for Encore, heh.) It's KOFtober day 14-Sci-Fi!
Arriving back at the Sky Noah-Ralf and Clark having dropped her off this time-Whip made her way up the stairs, only to be greeted by Henrik, Adel Bernstein's long-time and trusted head butler.
"Hello, Seirah," he said politely. He offered to take the light jacket she had started to slide off.
"Hi, Henrik," she replied, still getting to know the staff somewhat. The pair had been dating for a few weeks now, navigating a new relationship. Both of them had been quite happy; having been fairly lonely in their lives, they had found some solace in another person for the first time. It was fairly new and exciting for them.
"Adel is in the engine room," he said. "Take the elevator to the bottom."
"Oh! Okay. I remember where that is."
"May I take your luggage to his room?"
"Please do, thanks."
Whip was still getting to know the Sky Noah. It was a marvel of technology, almost futuristic in its design. It was massive-four hundred meters long, wider than an ocean liner and multiple stories in height-though the living areas were designated to only a handful of floors, the rest of the airship's bulk devoted to either maintenance or the piloting area. He had taken her on a tour of the place, which took quite a long time. His own giant room was mid-deck, and she had limited time down in these lower quarters.
The elevator reaching the bottom quickly, it came to a stop as the doors opened quietly; looking around, and it was like one ended up being transported to some sort of science-fiction movie. The Ikari unit had all sorts of high-tech stuff; Heidern owned his own fleet, after all, and they had all sorts of cutting-edge technology available to them. The Sky Noah was almost something so high-tech that NESTS would have it, and they were known for their space stations. Heidern and Adel had discussed the tech of the place before when Heidern had first started to examine things when the Bernstein children had come up on their radar for the first time, and it was apparently something right on par with something NESTS could have developed.
But unlike that place, the Sky Noah was very warm and inviting these days, especially to Seirah.
She made her way down one hallway, noticing the various doors leading to other sorts of computer rooms and the like. Nodding to one of the crew who recognized her, she eventually got to the engine room, where she overheard Adel speaking to one of his staff in German.
Standing by the edge, she let him finish talking, as they seemed to be going over something fairly technical. Adel knew how to fly the ship, though he had admitted the actual assembly of the thing was beyond him. He preferred letting more skilled pilots handle it, though to be completely fair, the thing had such a high-tech autopilot it could fly itself, even through adverse conditions.
Sliding her overshirt off and slinging it over her arm-wearing a dark brown tank top underneath, she waited patiently, smiling softly as he turned to see her. His face lit up and he waved, quickly finishing up his discussion and patting the engineer on the shoulder as he walked past.
"Seirah," he grinned, pushing back a fall of his shaggy hair.
"Hey, you," she replied, walking up to him as he slid his arms over her. Her own went around, enjoying the feel of his large body again near her. The two had lived relatively touch-starved lives, so took advantage of their newfound relationship. They were not an overly touchy couple-they didn't do a lot of public displays of affection beyond simple handholding or a brief hug and kiss, but right now, it was just the two of them and they hadn't seen for a week.
Kissing deeply for a moment, they broke as he pushed a bit of hair behind her ears. "How have you been?"
"Great! A little bored, if anything. Just mostly recon duties this week. I'm off for a few days though."
"Going to stay?"
"I hope so."
Grinning, they separated slowly as he checked a few more of the high-tech computer screens, using the touch aspect to them.
"Just taking care of a few more things here. Got a few upgrades."
"I still can't get over this place. I thought Heidern's fleet was high tech."
"I'm still learning how to use it all," he said, puzzling over a couple of things before just deciding to leave it to the engineers. "But I remember I used to come down here as a kid and pretend I was somewhere in the future."
Whip smiled at that, imagining the scene in her head. "What's the power source?"
"Some sort of high-tech fusion engine. I can take you to see it sometime. It's behind a lot of security, but I can get you in, of course."
Looking at a weird gadget on the wall that seemed to be spinning, she thought for a moment. "Are there any rooms that even your staff can't get to?"
"Some staff. Henrik and the high-level staff are all authorized. Some of the other everyday staff aren't. Henrik vets the staff well, but it's for security reasons. Most floors are fine, but certain rooms require special clearance. The very bottom floor is the family and certain staff only. I have taken a certain Commander there once, however." She had seen it as well-but not even the other Ikaris had been privy to see that, as it held the advanced weapons defense system.
She grinned at that. "Oh, I get you. It's the same with the fleet, of course. I doubt the cook is allowed in the weapons bay."
"Check this out," he said, flipping on a sort of machine that projected a 3-D hologram in the middle of a large circle. "This gives us a real-time scan of everything." He hit another button, and the ship lit up mostly green, with a few spots of blue. "Everything is fine. The blue parts are going through maintenance."
"This is crazy," she grinned, checking it out. "I'm guessing yellow, red, and orange are all present."
"Yep. The usual." He showed her a few more of the things; closer views of certain parts of the ship.
"Say," she said after a few more moments of checking over the holograms, "People usually don't get authorized so fast here, do they?"
He smirked slyly and raised an eyebrow. "Nope." A slightly rough hand reached over and brushed down her back as she went to lean into him a few more moments, her own hands starting to wander. A flutter appeared in her stomach, which had happened just a little more often lately.
As she broke off to go check out something else in the room before her hands started taking a guided tour of something else, she suddenly felt a nudging by her leg.
"Are you allowed down here?" she asked the small cub who had started to bat her boot with his soft paw.
"Speaking of unauthorized visitors," Adel chuckled, walking over after closing what he was doing on a computer. "Gwan, who let you down here?" he said, scooping the small panther cub up in his hand as he yelled defiantly, seemingly attempting to growl, flailing his paws around. Adel nuzzled him, showing the little fellow who, indeed, was boss.
"He's not supposed to be here, I take it?"
"Usually not. I'm guessing he snuck down behind one of the engineers."
"Seems like something you'd do, eh?" Whip reached over to scratch the cub, who seemed to let go of his more indignant nature and leaned into her hand. Adel handed him to her as she held the fellow, resting her head on his.
Adel went over to finish up the final bits of whatever he was he was doing-some strange lights glowing in the process-before nodded, satisfied. "Alright. It's done. Leaving the rest to them. Just had to recalibrate something. Hope I did it right. They'll check it over, but I gotta learn how to use all of this stuff at least almost on par with them."
The two walked out-Gwan still in Whip's arms-as he spoke to two engineers for a moment, before they nodded and disappeared back into the futuristic-looking room, the doors behind them hissing shut.
"You'll need to take me down here again to show me more."
"Anytime." He slid his hand up massaging her firm shoulder blades with one hand as they made their way back to the elevator. Getting on, he hit the button for the floor with his room.
"Up to your room?"
"Definitely. I'll get some snacks sent up." He reached over to scratch Gwan, who licked his hand with a rough tongue.
She leaned in against him for a moment as they rode up silently and quickly, a free hand sliding down his hard abdomen. A few moments later, the elevator dinged, and the door opened as they got off.
"We bringing this guy with us?" she asked.
"He can come in for now. We'll chase him out when we want the place to ourselves later."
The soldier smirked at that as the two disappeared into his room as he made a call down to the kitchens.
A/N: The Sky Noah's weird, high-tech sci-fi systems, coupled with Gwan, who was still a cub at this time. Just something nice.