I don't own Chrome Shelled Regios, this is a fanfiction only

I had to admit that the squad was doing better than I expected. Indeed Sharnid was actually shaping up to be a rather deadly sniper, and Felli had better control of her abilities. As I remember from what I knew of her abilities, control and energy management was they keys for a successful Neni-operator.

The idea was that with better control she could multitask a lot longer and better. Nina was finally coming out of her self sacrificing tendencies, and slowly started to rely on the other members of her squad.

We had won every challenge so far, and at the pace we were going it was not difficult to see that we might actually end up on the team for the municipal challenge.

I decided since things were going so well that I might as well ask Nina out. "Nina how do you feel about us going to eat something after today's training, just the two of us?"

I know my question would catch her off guard, but till even I have to admit I didn't expect her to blush like this. I mean I been intimate with her on several nights by now, but she still blushes like this?

"Layfon you do realize that Felli can listen to us right? Don't we have work in the machinery maintenance department tonight? Also why are you being so bold and asking me out on a date in public?"

Well I sure didn't expect that many questions for something like this. "Felli knows you have a lover, thanks to what you said. We can go to work after we eat if you want to get the work over with sooner, and I love you. What is wrong with wanting to eat a meal, in a nice place, with the woman I love?"

She kept trying to say something, but as soon as her mouth opened to say it she said nothing and closed it. She did this a few times. I guess she was examining her potential choices for an answer.

"As long as we cut the bill in half, and we each pay our half I have no problem with it. Aren't you tired Layfon? We been training since dawn and it's noon already."

I just sat down next to her and pulled her close to me. "Not really, this sort of stuff is no more than a warm up for me. You think this is bad, the training will only get gradually tougher. This training is not to beat some challenge, it's to be able to fight contaminoids. And make no mistake this city will eventually run over a nest. All cities do no matter how careful they are."

I saw the look on the faces of several of my squad members. Sharnid was the first to complain and I guess I really was not that surprised that he did. "Layfon you keep this up and the contamoinds will not even get to fight us. You will train us into an early grave if you keep this up."

I was smiling as Nina walked over to him and gave him an open handed slap to the back of his head. "At least someone in the squad knows why I am doing this. Look Sharnid this is next to nothing compared to the daily training of a Heaven Blade. You want to be considered the toughest military artist don't you? Want to be a chick magnet don't you? Then quit complaining and pay the price so you can get your jollies later."

This made Sharnid blush and surprisingly enough so did Felli. The training ended by the evening cause me and Nina still had go to our job in the machinery department. As we both walked towards home, I felt her arm link itself with mine, and she began to walk while holding my hand.

"Don't you worry lover, they are getting better and the training is barely started. We will keep Zuellni safe, so you don't need to sneak off for your extra training sessions. Don't even try to deny it, I know you. You worry me sometimes you know, how do you think you got home after you collapsed on the sand? I carried you."

Nina could not deny that she had been training a lot harder than the rest of the squad put together, well except for me, but having to carry your lover and climb up the wall, go through a window just because she didn't have her keys with her was a pain but she was worth it.

"So that explains why I woke up naked that time, did you have to take off all my clothes?" I looked at her and told her I needed to give her a bath to regulate her body heat or else she was going to catch a flu.

"We had a competition the next day if you remember, and I know you would hate to miss it just because you got sick. Speaking of which you better give me a copy of your front door key."

She laughed and looked at me, "There is a spare key in the under the flower pot by my dorm room door. Since these guys are doing so good, why don't you come later tonight so I can make feel really good."

Felli was glaring daggers at her and blushing at me, I never understood what the hell was going in her mind. It's like she was my jealous girlfriend and she was glaring at another girl making an attempt to flirt with me. I know for a fact that her brother would never allow me or anyone to date his baby sister.

Make me feel good was of course an understatement, as I felt Nina touch my body I felt great. "See don't you feel a lot better, a hot bath, and a massage from me. I can finally do something about all this stress you been putting up with. Something the matter? Or is it something you can't tell me?"

I looked at the wall as she rubbed my back, "It's not that it's a big secret or anything, but I been meeting a lot with the student president lately, it seems Zuellni is slowly changing her path towards areas that are more known to have a high degree of contaminods. I guess he wants to use me if the worst come to happen."

"My guess is that she just wants to make a certain battle hungry guy happy. You seen how she hangs around when we are doing the cleaning in the machine department. I swear if I didn't see you act like a father figure, I would be pretty jealous."

I couldn't help but to smile as I turned around causing her to fall on top of me and held her tight against me. "You act like a mother figure to her too, so don't you worry. We will do our best to keep our little girl safe, but now let's talk about the other subject we need to talk about."

She laughed as I finished saying that, "The only subject I want to know is the future change of address, and by that I mean do you live in my place or do I move into yours?"

I honestly am happy that she said that, considering the looks our fans have been giving during training, I am sure happy that she wants it to be known that she is mine, and I am hers.

"Well actually my place is rather small, I don't think my closet has enough space for all your clothes, and I don't have a cabinet for all your makeup." She punched me lightly on my shoulder and smiled.

"Well buster first I don't have that many clothes, second of I don't wear makeup. All this that you see is one hundred percent natural. Now come on let's go to sleep, we got to get up bright and early tomorrow."

Training continued as I planned but there was something that I didn't plan on. Apparently from what President Loss told me our city was on course to meet with another city. It could be a municipal challenge if everything was going well, but since the other city was not moving I knew better than to hope for the best situation.

Once a city like our stop moving, it basically becomes one giant buffet dish for contaminoids, and make no mistake about it, they will attack and devour everything edible inside it.

Our squad was one of the two squads that were going to be sent to investigate if there were any survivors. As I walked towards our ride I couldn't help but to notice how some of the people were staring at me. "I guess not everyone is happy about our relationship, or it is something I don't know about?"

She laughed as soon as she got in the side car of our motorcycle. "I guess there are a few that wished they would get a chance to go on a date with me. Can you blame them? There is also a rather nasty rumor going around that you are a complete womanizer and have tried to seduce no less than five women at the same time."

I tried to remain calm as I heard her say that, "You know full well that I am spoken for, and I would never in your wildest nigthmares would even think about doing something that would endanger our relationship. Now come on the sooner we check that city out, the sooner we can get back to whipping our squad into shape."

As we took off and I directed the vehicle towards the city we were sent to inspect, she said something that caught me by surprise. "You don't think there is any survivors do you? You can try to hide it my love but it is quite easy to read from the expression on your face."

I knew very well what we would find, and my old enemies sure didn't do much to disappoint me. The city was as empty as a graveyard. The city was littered with the discarded shells of many small size contaminoids.

I looked up and so the ones from the larger ones hanging up on the support structure of the city, makes sense as they get to that size walking is no longer they preferred means of getting around it's flying.

"Like I said during one of our training sessions, the municipal challenge might as well be considered a sporting event. This is what military arts are for, to prevent this from ever happening. To fail would mean death and destruction on this scale, and as you can see contaminoids aren't what you would call picky eaters."

She looked at the place I was pointing and was almost sad to see the half chewed up remains of a dog collar. Just as we began walking through the empty section that had been probably once the premier dating site in this particular city, one of the large discarded shells came crashing down.

I got us both out of harms way but had I been distracted the shell would have hit us. I knew this was no accident, and there is no way that shell fell on it's own. I immediately started to look for the culprit.

I found him smugly looking at us, should have known Gorneo was still carrying that grudge against me for what I did to his mentor. He jumped down thinking that I was still a little dazed from the way the shell must have hit me.

I knew his fighting style better than he did, and blocked his attack with little effort. "Damn it! What will it take for you to die! When will I be able to avenge the murder of my mentor!"

Sometimes I really wish I had the foresight to seal his mouth shut with my iron wire techniques. Nina looked at me a little surprised as she heard what Gorneo just said. "What does he mean by murder Layfon?"

"He is the former student of one of the people who got me exiled from my home city. I lived in an orphanage most of my life, and Glendan does not provide money to charitable organizations, even orphanages. They have a mentality of surviving through difficult times with your own efforts."

"I fought in underground arena competitions to earn enough money to keep the kids in my orphanage healthy, well fed, and clothed. His mentor tried to use that as a means to blackmail me. He doctored pictures making it look like I was using my Heaven Blade to win my arena fights."

Gorneo was looking at me with pure disdain as I said that, "When do you plan to tell her that these fights were fought to the death? My mentor had no need to doctor any video, he was more skilled than you ever were, he deserved to be a Heaven Blade more than you."

I had enough of this and decided to tell him something to put this whole thing to a rest. "All fights on Glendan are to the death, the people and especially the Queen would have no less. You win, you live. You lose, you die."

"Her majesty simply didn't want other people to know a secret, a secret that would kill millions. You look at the shell you just dropped on me, and tell me how does something grow to be that size? Why is it that contaminoids live for not a few decades but some live for hundreds of years."

I decided to leave him with that little mental exercise. It was no secret that if the truth had been known, if people knew where Kei power really came from, then all of us military artists would be considered no better than a contaminoids.

"Layfon did you really kill people in those arena fights?" Nina just had to ask. I was hoping that with all the things Gorneo was told she would forget about it.

"Yes, Nina and they knew the risk as well as I did. They also tried to kill me too." I decided to walk over to her and place my arms around her waist and pull her into a hug, she leaned and pressed her head against my chest.

"I would also kill to keep you safe too, I love you Nina. Don't let that mentor worshiping fool make you think otherwise. Come on, we got a lot of city left to look and I wouldn't put it past them for other contaminoids to be lying in wait."