I, b-but, no! I told you I don't like people looking at me. I just... don't. I can't wear that!
-Vert
A familiar brooch lay on the table, with three stares basically glued to it. The fourth was directed at this brooch's owner, whose gaze wandered over her friends.
IF considered the surprised faces again and had to suppress a sigh; she called them over after getting back from Planeptower, now her old team and Compa were seated in her living room. The only one not staring at the brooch was Alexis, who had already gotten the news earlier.
The young woman fidgeted a little in the awkward silence, knowing well what kind of revelation this was for her friends.
"So..." Compa started cautiously, eyes slowly leaving the brooch, "this means you're a Maker now?" IF nodded, noting by herself how Gabriel started shaking his head; André had a hand on his forehead as well.
That was when Alexis began to chuckle and tapped the fine metal a few times. "Well, looks like no one won." The men sighed, which prompted confused looks from IF and Compa; Alexis explained cheerfully: "We were betting on when they'd appoint you. Gabriel said twenty two, me and André said twenty one."
It had not even been in question to them.
IF sighed and Compa joined the good mood; the peach-haired woman soon gave her a cheerful slap on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Iffy."
The other three quickly echoed the statement in similar forms. IF blushed a little and looked around. "I, uh, should get some more water." With which she quickly darted into the kitchen, followed by the laughter of unfooled friends.
IF rubbed her warm cheeks, attempting to will the embarassment away and failing miserably; she sighed and pulled two bottles of soda out of her fridge. Those IF pressed to her cheeks for a few moments, the soothing cold chasing some of her blush away.
She quickly lowered her hands again and wandered back into the living room; Gabriel was busy examining the brooch while Compa texted someone, with Alexis looking over her shoulder. The darker-skinned woman was smiling mischievously, so IF could guess who Compa was messaging.
She quietly refilled all the cups and sat down again, leaning back in her chair. "Anyway, how is everyone? I haven't really stayed in contact with you three." Which she felt a little sorry about; it just never felt like a good moment.
The older agents exchanged glances and shrugged. Gabriel took over the talking: "Could be better, really. André and I got two new kids with special licenses, and let me tell you they aren't like you at all." The taller man nodded in agreement while IF raised an eyebrow. Gabriel chuckled. "They're arrogant, the both of them. Think they have it all figured out, but are maybe half as competent as you."
Compa was listening curiously until this point, but now she interjected: "Half as competent as Iffy doesn't sound too bad."
"Fair enough," Gabriel muttered before shaking his head. "They aren't making idiots of themselves all the time, but it happens more often than I like."
"What about Alexis?" The younger brunette asked with a glance at the oldest woman in the room, who shrugged and leaned back.
"I'm getting a little old for field duty. All of us are," she offered as an explanation.
Gabriel nodded and André added to that: "She is right. Gab and I are already taking classes for operating duty, but we decided to finish with this group first. Alexis just went ahead last month after the girl decided to pick a fight with her."
A glance to Alexis only brought both IF and Compa a shrug; she did not elaborate, and neither of them asked. Gabriel sighed quietly. "Well, we were lucky enough to get two budding Makers during our time, and a CPU on top of it."
"What he's saying," André supplied with a sly grin, "is that he misses you." For which Gabriel showed him the finger. The taller man only grinned while IF snorted at the sight. Compa, who had some friends who acted that way toward each other as well, only smiled.
Alexis took it up from there: "But yes, we've got to work with a CPU and two girls that made Maker; that's pretty good. Not like many can do better... not counting the Makers," she added after a glance to IF.
This, however, brought a mischievous giggle out of Compa. "You're right," she told Alexis brightly, "but I still win. I know two Makers and two CPUs." Her statement quieted the table; IF raised an eyebrow in surprise while everyone else appeared more baffled.
"I mean... the Ladies I get," Gabriel started. "IF I get, but who is the other one? Lou- RED doesn't really hang with girls that much younger than herself." He appeared genuinely curious, as did everyone else. Even IF had had no idea.
"Well, the thing is..." Compa picked up her phone and began to swipe around. "I've known him all my life." Before holding out the device to them, showing a picture of baby Compa in a sleek android's arms, with a kind older man standing next to them. "He is basically my uncle. Well, technically, grandpa made him my mother's godfather."
When no response was forthcoming, she pulled the phone back to open another image to show them, this one with Steamax holding a young, peach-haired girl by the hand. "I guess I might as well say it here; I usually don't because it's just bragging, but we all know Makers here so it's fine."
After another few moments of baffled silence, Gabriel and Alexis broke into laughter. IF just shook her head with a fond smile and André's expression hardly changed. The large man gave Compa a nod and spoke over his colleagues: "That's fair. You win." Both laughing agents offered thumbs ups of agreement, though their mirth yet continued; Compa smiled as well.
A bit of time passed until all of them were back to normal; be it a coincidence or actually her plan, Compa's interjection had lightened the mood some more.
"Anyway," Gabriel began once he got a hold of himself, "how did your mom and the kids take the news? Oh, don't look at me like that," he continued over the frown he received, "she is basically your mom." He meant Mari, and he was right.
IF was in a weird situation, she found; Mari basically acted like a surrogate mother to her, but so did Neptune. She had known Mari so much longer, yet Neptune knew much more about her at this point. However, she became sheepish about the topic this time. "I, uh, haven't told her yet."
The others gave her surprised faces, with Alexis asking the question they all thought: "You told us before them?"
"Kind of?" IF had not planned for it to go like this, but this was what happened. "I thought you guys wouldn't have time that soon, and I'm not sure how to break the news to her yet." The others nodded understandingly and she took a sip from her cup. "This is still overwhelming two days later."
"Heh, I can imagine." Gabriel shared a wry smile with her and the conversation turned to other topics from there.
Now there was only one other group to tell the news to.
. .
. .
The following day, she was on her way. IF walked down a familiar path, unchanged even more than half a year after she left. Like it always had been.
Shaking off that thought, she conciously stopped herself from wandering down the side path as she used to, taking the door instead. The man on the counter only glanced up from his work and waved her through; she had known him for many years, and he knew her well enough to know what she was there for.
IF nodded at him in passing and went through familiar corridors until she reached the main hallway. She knew where everything was from memory, yet it felt different; the brunette stopped to look around, noting how the sight felt almost melancholic to her.
Which was when she was spotted.
"It's IF!" someone shouted and soon the tapping of many feet could be heard. She just sighed and prepared for the rush as children of all ages came running to see her. Boys and girls alike came up for hugs, to which she obliged with a fond smile.
Aside from the older ones, some stood back; new faces, IF noted with a weak throbbing in her chest. It was always unfortunate to see someone new in this place. However, she shook off the thought and listened to the younger children babble at her; there were too many to hear any questions, but she did not mind listening.
"Oh my, what do we have here?" A playful voice cut the chatter like a knife; its owner softly walked down the corridor, pink hair falling loosely and lips curled into an easy smile. "A stray child that found her way back home again?"
IF merely shrugged at Mari and put down the boy she was holding. Then she began to smirk and put a hand on her hip. "Quite. This child comes bearing good news." Some of the children giggled and some others rolled their eyes, but neither woman cared for that. They shared a quick hug, then IF was ushered into the main hall to sit with everyone for lunch; even if she had wanted to refuse, the tide of children pushed her along.
In the end, she sat at the centermost table, with Mari opposite to her and many others arrayed around IF in some way. Even many of the older children and teenagers were there out of curiousity, interested in what this woman they all knew had to say.
In fact, even some other members of the staff were listening.
Before IF got to that however, a little girl with purple hair pulled at her sleeve. "Tell us a story? Please?" The idea was immediately echoed all around the room, making Mari sigh lightly; her smile was good-natured, though. IF smiled as well, understanding that they had time.
So she leaned back and thought for a moment, then shrugged at the room in general. "There... hasn't really been a lot happening the last few months, to be honest. Guildwork is boring once the novelty wears off." She pondered for a moment. "We are just patrolling and fight monsters once in a while, mostly Dogoos that almost everyone in this room could kill." Which said a lot, considering that this included the ten-year-olds. "Some Wolves and Boxbirds, too."
Her musing was interrupted by a cough from Mari. "Dear, 'some Wolves and Boxbirds' are not nothing for most people." A surge of embarassment went through IF over the reminder; she completely forgot that. She nodded slowly, but kept thinking because none of these encounters had really stayed in her memory.
"Hm, we did have to fight a group of Bit drones recently." As she spoke, she already saw the children's eyes light up and knew they wanted this story. Not that there was much of one, and IF refused to make something up.
Closing her eyes for a moment, the young woman thought back to that day while folding her hands in her lap; it had been little more than a short encounter. "Okay, so this was a bit more than two weeks ago. Our shift was almost over, sunset near. Nepgear and I had little else to do that day, but then our operator picked up weird signals." She cast a glance around, but nobody appeared lost so far, so she continued. "He said those are normal for corrupted Bits, so we prepared for subduing them."
IF frowned as she recalled the specifics. "Does anyone know why Bits are hard to fight?" she asked the group, finding many little arms shooting into the air as if they were in a classroom.
Smiling, she pointed at a red-haired boy sitting near Mari; he beamed at her. "It's 'cause they are armoured!"
"Correct," IF praised. "Bits are supposed to fight monsters and therefore heavily armoured. Most people can't just break them with brute force, and no amount of speed is going to give you a good angle on them. Well, technically."
There was a short pause as she cast a look around. "You have to know, they actually build a weakpoint into these drones, so that they can be taken down if they run out of control. It takes only a buttonpress to unlock the hatch on their backs; almost impossible to do for monsters, but easy for us."
She smiled softly when thinking back. "They came from where the railways to Lowee are and there were six of them, so we split up to take down three each. Bits are difficult opponents, but not too bad; they can't turn anymore if you keep a hold of them, and they can only shoot forward."
Naturally, handholds had also been installed in these drones to ease fighting them for humans. "So the problem is to get behind them without getting shot. I can't really say much about how Nepgear did it, but I just slid through below the first one." Anti-gravity really was nice in that regard; Bits were nothing but floating orbs, so one could get around them on all sides.
"Then I went around the second one just to be safe; they had a triangle-formation going, so being where I was, the third Bit had trouble aiming at me." She thought back about how fast things had gone in these moments. "It really is little more than pressing a button; then I cut the cables below the hatch, and the Bit dropped to the ground."
She was not a good storyteller, but the curious faces around her told IF that it did not matter much. The children wanted a story from her, after all.
"After that, I did my sliding trick again and took out another, and then again for the last one. It worked every time. Nepgear was already done before me." Which was not all that difficult for a CPU, naturally.
She remained in a slightly awkward silence while the children began to whisper with each other; Mari just smiled, so IF left it at that.
However, the pinkette gave her a curious look after a few seconds. "So, what were you actually here for? The holidays aren't that far away." And they already made plans for then. Plans that IF could no longer keep up with. Perhaps it was the look on her face, but Mari apparently guessed part of the matter; the pinkette smiled mischievously. "Could it be that you have been promoted already?"
IF returned the smile weakly as she began to feel for her brooch. "Yeah, something like that. I will be pretty busy soon enough, and I already know I can't be here over the holidays."
She put the brooch on the table on the last word with an audible click; hearing surprised gasps and seeing Mari's composure fall away widened her smile until she basically beamed. "Got promoted a lot, and the twenty-second was already set aside for me."
The silence that followed was almost deafening; it held for but a moment and was replaced by cheer as any child old enough to understand the significance of that brooch surged forward to congratulate her. Those too young got the matter explained to them while the staff's surprise was overshadowed by knowing smiles. Mari just... beamed.
With all the children around her however, IF frowned a little and let her Awakening push outward for a moment; everyone was pushed away and awed silence returned to the room as she went through her pockets. "On that note... ah, there." She pulled out an envelope and pushed it over to Mari, who took it curiously. "The first row is almost all yours."
As the one who this ceremony was about, IF was allowed to invite friends or family. Outside of Compa and her old team, that meant all the tickets Neptune gave her went to Mari. The next few rows were already sold out as usual.
Mari, surprised and happy, chuckled to play over it while pocketing the envelope. "I see; don't worry, I will make sure to fill up every seat." They both knew there were more people interested than tickets; she would probably hold a tournament or something like that to decide who got to come along.
Food was served at around this time, and IF found a generous helping placed in front of herself as well; the man handing it out gave her a pat on the head and congratulated her as well before carrying on; Mari chuckled again and got to eating.
Before IF could dig in however, someone pulled at her sleeve for attention; a young boy with shining eyes. "So, so have you met the Lady?" It was an honest question, one that made the brunette smile.
Noticing that many others were badly hiding that they listened in on them, she put on a conspiratory expression. "Yeah, I did. Don't tell anyone, but I know Lady Purple Sister, too." She could see some more children start to get excited, but Mari pointedly cleared her throat to get everyone back to their food.
IF had half a mind to wait until the pinkette was eating or drinking again, but figured that would be too mean. So she put on a defiant smile. "Also Ladies Black Heart and Black Sister."
Mari's fork paused in mid-air and she gave IF a baffled look, which was soon replaced by amusement.
Those around them began to whisper with each other; IF could tell that she would be stuck answering questions for a while. Not that she minded it much.
So she smiled and dug in, the taste of the food strangely nostalgic.