Noel scrubbed herself down with soap as she let her thoughts drift along with the steam in the shower. Sure, it was a small little bathroom in a split-level house on the upper-level side of Kagutsuchi, but it worked for what she needed to do. She was rather surprised that Hazama or the NOL could afford to keep a house like this, even though Hazama had told her that the Intelligence Division had safe-houses like this one in all of the Hierarchical Cities for business reasons. Noel didn't quite care though, as long as she got a chance to scrub herself clean of the fight.
Her thoughts were interrupted a moment later when the door to the bathroom opened and Hazama came in with a towel and a change of fresh clothes, neatly folded, and placed them on the sink without saying a word. He smiled at Noel briefly before walking away and closing the door behind him. Noel was a bit shocked that he saw her completely naked but for the steam on the glass, but also bewildered because she had no idea what his reaction had meant. Was he interested in her? Did he harbor feelings towards her? Or was he just there to bring her new clothes when she finished her shower and nothing more?
These thoughts spun around in her head for a few minutes until the hot water started to run out. Noel decided to file it away for later, and she turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, dried herself off and put on the new clothes. She was surprised that they fit her perfectly. When she asked Hazama about it a moment later, his only answer was, "It's in the file." It didn't make her feel any less weird about the situation. She didn't know much about Hazama other than what he told her: He was the Chief of the NOL's Intelligence Branch. He technically held the rank of Captain, but didn't quite follow the same command structure of the Military Branch, and insisted she simply refer to him as "Hazama." He rarely seemed to walk anywhere without that black fedora covering his head and he usually seemed to carry an upbeat attitude around him. Noel couldn't figure out why.
"Ah yes, your assignment." Hazama handed her a folder. "As you can see, finding Major Jin Kisaragi should be your top priority, but there is another matter we would like you to attend to while you are here."
"What would that be?" Noel asked, flipping through the folder. The name on the files and the photos contained within looked familiar to her.
"You might recognize him," Hazama replied, "he is currently working as one of our operatives feeding us information on the dealings of Sector Seven."
Colton Black. The name popped up in Noel's brain. One of the few people she knew who took gunfighting to an art form, and the one who briefly tried to train her in the art of what he called gun-kata. But why would he be inside Sector Seven?
"Believe it or not, he specifically asked for your presence to give us some more intelligence on their actions. You can meet him at this address." Hazama tapped his finger on the inside of the folder.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Take note of what he says, and then tell me everything. While you are working on that, I will be keeping an ear to the ground for any more info about Major Kisaragi. We'll meet back at this house tomorrow, but if you feel you are in danger before then, push this little panic button here," Hazama handed her a tiny, square cracker-shaped device, "and I'll try to rectify the situation as best as I can."
In a brightly-lit lab somewhere, a half-human, half-cat woman instinctively reached for another lollipop sitting in the mug on her desk while she kept her eyes peeled to the monitor in front of her. Her hand dangled in midair for a moment, but she finally grasped one of them. She made a mental note to order one of the underlings to grab another giant bag of tiny lollipops for her later, but now it was time for science.
Something had gone wrong when they were testing out the warp nodes her friends in Sector Seven had placed earlier around Kagutsuchi, the ones that would supposedly bring back the legendary Hero known as Hakumen so that he could be studied further. She thought that it would work when they were able to successfully contact Hakumen as he was trapped in the Edge, and he responded. Okay, he didn't quite like the idea, but he seemed to accept that she would bring him back. And the teleportation device seemed to work as well.
The problem was what appeared in the confinement cell was not Hakumen. Unless Hakumen somehow turned into a strange young angel girl with a tail and heterochromatic wings, then someone was seriously going to have to revise the story of the Six Heroes who defeated the Black Beast all those years ago. But this new girl who showed up presented another mystery, one that did not appear entirely human. Possibly some sort of genetic experiment? Maybe the NOL's awful attempt at aping the Anti-Sankishin Unit? Or an entirely new subspecies of human that had appeared on the planet? The scientist was a bit ticked that Hakumen seemed to disappear from view, but at the same time this new angel girl lying asleep in the containment cell gave her new mysteries to solve, and that got the juices in her brain flowing.
"Kokonoe, are you there?" A voice crackled through the speaker with a bit of static. "Kokonoe? I've found one of the nodes…it appears to have been slightly damaged."
"How damaged, Tager?" Kokonoe replied as she continued to roll the lollipop around in her mouth. "The code here seems fine."
"I think it might have to do with the proximity of the components. When we siphoned power from the area in order to fuel the Substantiation Driver Effect, some of the components in the node itself seem to have overheated and melted under the strain. It's a mess right now"
Kokonoe bit down hard on the lollipop, cracking it in half. "Dammit, figures that those idiots in the field can't get the right parts we ask them to get."
"Should I repair the device?"
"No, just bring it back here. We don't want them to be discovered by the Library."
"Are you sure?"
"Despite what you might think, Tager, the Substantiation Driver Effect worked, just not the way we intended." Kokonoe gestured over to the sleeping angelic girl in the containment cell, as if Tager could see her body, "Apparently, we pulled something else from the Edge, just not Hakumen."
"Then who? Or what?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out. For now, just grab the node and bring it back here."
"Yes ma'am."
Having switched off her link to Tager, Kokonoe dialed another number on her office phone and immediately interrupted the poor intern who answered the phone. "Hey, it's Kokonoe, I need you to run down to the market and pick me up another bag of lollipops…don't ask questions, just do it!"
Tager grabbed the node hidden in the alleyway of a rather shoddy, lower-class pub, ignoring the squishing sounds under his feet as he placed the device in a black canvas bag. He did wonder what Kokonoe meant before she disconnected. What did they manage to capture if not the legendary Hero known as Hakumen?
As he planned to walk away with the bag, the side door of the pub opened and a pair of drunk men stumbled out. One blonde-haired man with a Union Jack shirt on was engaged in a drunken rendition of "God Save the Queen," while his white-haired comrade in a suit was trying to interrupt with "God Bless America." It looked rather surreal, especially since it was a bit too early in the day for the pub to be open or for anyone to be this drunk, unless you counted the self-pitying unemployed or the squatters who sometimes festered in vacant houses around the lower-class neighborhoods of Kagutsuchi.
"Heeeeeey!" One of the drunk men called out to him. The white-haired guy. "Heeeeeeey Potemkin! You heard the news man? We're gonna win this election!"
"Look at him!" The blonde man spoke up this time, "Looks like 'e fell into a vat 'o tomato juice, dunnit?"
"Holy shit! You're right!" The two burst out into laughter as Tager shook his head and tried to ignore them as he continued walking out of the alley. He had no idea what that man meant by calling him Potemkin.
"C'mon man," The white haired man zipped in front of him with surprisingly-fast speed. "You say you're gonna support my campaign for President, you can't just bail man. There's cameras, there's publicity, there's…" The man stopped and looked out at the poorly-kept street. "Hey Axl, what the hell happened here?"
"Aw bloody hell," the English-accented man replied as he zipped underneath Tager to join his friend, "Don't tell me it happened again."
"What happened?"
"Time travel, Chipp. Fuckin' time travel again! I swear, the Lord's fuckin wit me these days." Axl banged his fist on the wall even as the booze he had consumed began to start aching his brain, "I swear I'm never entering another shitty pub again. Isss like everytime I do ah…I keep getting thrown into the bloody future!"
"This is still Earth, though, right? I mean, someone's gotta know." The white-haired man called Chipp turned back to face Tager, "This is Earth, right Potemkin? I don't know what the hell turned you all red, but you can help us out?"
"I don't know who or what this Potemkin is, but you're in my way." Tager replied. "Get out of my sight."
"C'mon Potemkin…isss us, yer ol' mates Axl 'n Chipp!" Axl's speech was starting to slur. "You were with us at the campaign rally, remember?"
"I don't have time to play your stupid drunk game." Tager clenched his fists. "One last warning, get out of my way or there will be serious consequences."
"Oh…" Chipp looked downcast, "I didn't realize you thought that way."
"Guess Zepp's still got their dick up yer ass?" Axl and Chipp both laughed longer than they should have. Tager was tired of these drunk people, and decided that no one was going to miss these two. He gently put the canvas bag with the node down, and switched his systems into battle mode.
"Okay okay, joke's over. C'mon Potemkin." Chipp said.
"You should have run when you had the chance." Tager charged up the magnetic coils built into his arms, "I just had one simple task to accomplish here, and you just had to make it more complicated. Now I'm going to have to make you suffer for it."
"Wassup, mate?" Axl asked, "C'mon, I didn't mean to say that you liked taking it up the ass!"
Tager brought a glowing fist down to the ground. Hard. The corners of the nearby buildings were blown inward in as the seismic pressure on the ground combined with the charged magnetic coils repelling any metal in close proximity nearby. This included the weapons that Axl and Chipp had each stashed on their person beforehand, thus sending them flying into the street.
Without another word, Tager retrieved the bag and went on his way, while Chipp and Axl were fading in and out of consciousness with the mixture of alcohol and lack of sleep fighting against the adrenaline and survival instincts kicking in.
"I know Potemkin's gotten 'imself modded, but I don't remember that much." Axl spoke, "Was he always that knackered in the head?"
"We should follow him. He might at least know where the hell we are."
"Fuck him. He doesn't want to party, we should just let the bastard Potemkin go."
"He's not Potemkin. He looks and sounds different."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Because I can think a little better now that the alcohol left my body after that last hit."
Axl sniffed the air for a second, then winced. "Gross, mate. You should probably get some new clothes while yer at it."
"Yeah…I wonder if they have a dry-cleaning store in the future."