As agreed, Koko are her crew arrived the next morning, all with a good night's rest in them, and were greeted at the door by a barely awake Sheva without her glasses on.
Koko knew already that Sheva couldn't see very well - and internally wondered why she didn't have her glasses on if that was the case - but with a few blinks and a slight 'Aaah' sound as she nodded, Sheva stood aside to let them walk in.
"Morning, Koko."
"Good morning to you too, Sheva. Are we too early?" Koko asked once they'd all come in and noticed that it was a lot more quiet without the full roster of people present.
"No, I was sleeping in." Sheva rubbed her eye for a moment. "Tobias is upstairs, and Rize's in her office, I think."
"Alright, I'll go have a look. Jonah, you coming?" Koko checked with the youngest of her crew and - stoic as always - he just simply nodded once, his boots already removed and neatly placed together.
"Um... Lehm?" Sheva knew from Tobias that the one in Koko's crew with the name smoked, so when the older man hummed in reply she continued. "You can smoke inside, since Alice isn't here today. Tobias said it was her rule."
Lehm nodded, but politely refused. "Thanks for the head's up, but I'm good for now."
With that, Sheva went back downstairs while Koko and Jonah went upstairs, passing Yuuki and Rachael's room just as the pair pulled the door open and took a step back to avoid a collision.
"Hey there. Dad's in our parent's room." Yuuki pointed down the hall, while Rachael smiled at Jonah, even though she knew the young man wouldn't give more than a glance, like a total Kuudere.
"Thank you, ladies." Koko gave a smiling wave as she and Jonah knocked on the slightly opened door, only for it to swing open by itself.
"Morning Koko." Tobias was just finishing up getting his all black suit in order, adjusting his small black skull cufflinks as she came through the door to see the familiar process.
"So, the crew's all here, as I'm sure you could hear." Koko smiled as Tobias collected his custom H&K USP.45 Match from the surface of his dresser and slid it into his belt holster. She knew - like most of his personal guns - that one had a name, but didn't know it directly.
"When's your flight back out?" Tobias was asking to confirm any details that may need to be changed.
"Tuesday at noon." Koko replied, noticing that Tobias was smirking. "I take it something's amusing by that?"
"No, but it gives me an idea for how we'll be enjoying our day." Tobias' smile was genuine, but his tone was oozing with humour as he asked. "Are you and the crew impartial to a day at the beach?"
Koko's face was pleasantly surprised by the idea, so she shared a questioning glance with Jonah, who nodded once. That of course, was all she needed. "We'll be happy to join you. Will I be correct in presuming the rest of your family will be joining us?" She of course meant Tabitha, Kaneki, Alice and Serenity.
"Absolutely. I'll call them while you brief the crew." Tobias nodded once and slid his phone out of his pocket as they returned to the foyer and stood at the top of the stairs, drawing her whole crew's gazes.
"Just like I told you at the hotel, we're spending today with the Darkwood's. Seeing as the studio's van is parked at the curb, that also means we'll likely be on tomorrow's episode of their show. If you hae a problem with that, you're more than welcome to head back to the hotel while the rest of us join the family for a day at the beach... More than likely of Yuuki and Rachael's choosing."
"Say what?" Yuuki pulled her nearby door back open at those words, having only been half listening to Koko's speech.
"I heard~!" Rachael's singsong voice carried out from inside the bedroom, followed by the sound of a keyboard clacking. "Give us ten minutes, we'll find the best one."
"Did you four catch that?" Tobias had been holding his phone with the conference call on speaker the entire time.
"On our way." Alice's very amused voice came through the line as three phones were promptly hung up through the device's speaker.
In under half an hour, the total of twenty one people and one giant talking wolf were situated at the semi-private stretch of beach that the twins had designated they go to. Though nestled in a small curved bay, there was the full public beach barely ten minutes away by foot, just around the short cliff that separated the two stretches of sand.
Odin, to everyone's amusement, had valiantly tried to argue - and then wrestle - his way out of wearing a collar, due to the city by-law. Legally, despite possessing the T-Virus and human-level intelligence, he was still considered a canine, so when he and Tobias fought over control of the heavy leather collar, everyone was roaring with laughter, since, as he'd proven, Tobias quickly won their grapple and man-handled the collar in place.
"Undignified..." Odin muttered through the entrapping ring of ice around his jaw as they all got into their respective vehicles - with Odin in the back of Tobias' truck bed - and drove to the beach, following the twins' bikes ahead of them.
"Man, the girls sure know the best beaches." Lutz had one arm up behind his head, seated on a reclining beach chair beside Mao and Tojo, each with a soda - since the Darkwoods, except for the twins, couldn't drink booze - in hand as they all relaxed, opting to hold off from jumping in the water just yet.
"Beautiful indeed, but not secluded." Mao nodded in agreement.
"Hey now, you should be in the water, not sittin' on your asses up here." Lehm commented from nearby as he walked past them on his way towards where Ugo and Wiley were preparing the barbecue they'd brought for cooking lunch for those present that were human food compatible. "You better run before the wrong person catches you so far away from the water."
"And who would that wrong person be?" Lutz, with his omnipotently big mouth, asked in amusement.
"Me."
With a sudden splash of water, Yuuki lowered the bucket she'd just carried all the way from the waterline, laughing with the guys that hadn't been drenched. Of course, her Scale Mail was active, but she was wearing her bright yellow bikini, which strongly stood out against the shimmering silvery scales and her glittering hair.
"Lehm was watching me walk up to you the whole time." Yuuki put her free hand on her hip with a smirk. "For a sniper, you sure aren't very observant."
"Oh c'mon!" Lutz, the brunt of even the crew's jokes, knew better than to get mad at her. She could easily end him. "I was just having a drink first!"
"Watch your words. I just might provide that very thing." Yuuki waved a finger warningly. "See all that beautiful blue behind me? That's my version of a nuclear reactor... You'd best be careful, since I also have a twin with the exact same powers as me." Yuuki winked as she jauntily spun around and skipped quite merrily back to the water.
"Me and my big mouth..." Lutz swore under his breath in German before getting out of the now dampened chair and tossed his sunglasses in the seat before he begrudgingly followed her.
Lehm just let out his usual sardonic, yet sarcastic chuckle before moving on his way.
Elsewhere, Jonah and Koko were just relaxing on their backs, floating about thirty feet out - the beach here had a shallow sloping shelf for about a hundred feet, then curved down until it reached a severe drop off at about the 175 foot distance.
"I remember the first time, all those years ago, when I did this with you in the Mediterranean Ocean." Koko smiled warmly at the memory of little Jonah back then. "Has it really been twenty years since I hired you?"
"Twenty one, actually. Anniversary of my first day was yesterday." Jonah replied, utterly relaxed. It was the moments like these, so calm and peaceful, that reminded him of much things had changed for him in all that time... And how fleeting they were.
Almost as that thought passed through his mind, Rachael's head broke the surface about ten feet away with her usual gasp for air as her gills sealed and she switched back to breathing with her lungs.
"Hey there." Koko, who was now treading water, greeted the silvery scaled teen, while Jonah slightly averted his gaze from mild annoyance at the interruption.
"Found something you might want." Rachael was smirking as she held up one hand above water, which was Jonah's folding knife that had been sheathed on his leg when they'd initially entered the water. "Almost hit me in the head when it sank to the bottom."
Rachael handed over the steel knife by the blade, unconcerned with getting hurt due to her immunity to the material. "Might want to get that sheath checked out, just in case."
"Just swimming under the water, Rachael?" Koko asked, and the teen nodded.
"Yuuki's messing with Lutz, I was just waiting for her to stop goofing around with Sere's dumb little pastic bucket so we can check out a sunken boat a couple hundred of yards out. Looks like it's recent, so there might be something interesting still aboard."
"How deep is it?" Jonah suddenly asked, earning an amused smile from Koko behind him.
"Two hundred feet. Maybe two fifty." Rachael replied, already spotting Yuuki diving into the water near the rest of the various groups. "Yuuki's coming, I'm out."
With that, she just sank below the water, and with a glance downward, both Jonah and Koko saw the two scaly teens shoot away like a pair of torpedoes, obviously headed for that discovered sunken boat.
"Damn, they're fast." Koko was impressed at the twins incredible agility in the water, as evident by their unresisted movements, like when Rachael held up Jonah's knife, or how quickly she dropped beneath the surface to join her older sister.
"Could they outrun a torpedo?" Jonah asked curiously as Koko slowly backstroked towards the shore without using her legs.
"Ask Yuuki about her swimming to the Der Reichstag, when they come back." Koko replied with a smile, remembering the GPS co-ordinates of Wesker's aircraft carrier from the Carrier Incident two years earlier. Yuuki had swam from Santa Monica Pier to the ship AND back in 57 minutes...
It had been over 700 nautical miles away at the time.
A few hours later, while everyone was still having a good time, the sound of vehicles approaching reached Tobias' ears, so he turned to where their own vehicles were parked and saw several LAPD officers with men in suits, almost all of them armed.
"Shut off the music, we've got a problem." Tobias reported R and Serenity, who quickly passed the message along as Tobias approached the lead officer to speak to him. "Good afternoon, officer. How may I help you?"
"I'm going to have to ask your group to step out of the water, please." The officer spoke loudly, bringing everyone's gaze to him as they dutifully stepped out of the water - even Yuuki and Rachael, still covered in Scale Mail - and stopped what they were doing.
"Is there a problem, officer?" Tobias asked, glancing around at the mutually confused expressions on everyone's faces. This beach wasn't privately owned, none of them were misbehaving, and for this number of officers and agents, it wasn't a good sign.
"Which of you is Miss Koko Heckmatyar?" The officer ignored Tobias and scanned the group through his sunglasses until Koko herself, still dripping wet, stepped forward and held up her hand.
"That would be me. May I ask what's going on?"
Suddenly two agents grabbed her by the wrists and tried to force her away from the group, much to Tobias' realization that this wasn't what the police actually did for any sort of arrest, let alone a federal operation. Better question; how did they find her here at the beach?
"Hey, what's going on here?!" Koko, who knew better than to resist, demanded loudly as she was lead away, until Tobias boldly stepped in front of them and spoke in a spine-chilling voice.
"State your agency."
"Stand aside, civilian, this doesn't concern you!" One of them ordered at the much larger, tattooed man in black swim trunks.
"Does it really?" Tobias smirked as he gripped the man by the wrist and forced him to release Koko's arm. "Considering that in your approach, your group didn't declare your agency, give any orders to stop what we were doing, nor have you shown any paperwork or warrants for her arrest. I suggest cutting the act while you still have a chance."
"Wait, Tobias... What's..." Koko was still behind restrained by her other arm as the remaining agents readied their weapons and aimed them at Tobias' back, shouting at him to stand down.
"Syndicate." Tobias' Kakugan formed as he spoke, right before his Kagune burst out of his back and he blocked the sudden hail of bullets aimed at Koko.
Just as quickly, his family were already in action, making quick work of the agents while leaving the LAPD officers unharmed. Koko's crew were all covered by Alice's Telekinetic wall until the last man gurgled out his last breath and dropped his pistol to the sand.
"Now then... Officer, seeing as I know you weren't originally involved, I'm going to have to ask that you explain what transpired into this facade even occuring." Tobias released Koko from his protective embrace as his Kagune disintegrated to dust behind him.
"They claimed to be CIA, said a terrorist named Koko Heckmatyar was in the city, said she had biological weapons. It all seemed legitimate, so we all went along with the arrest."
"Well, sadly, they're not CIA, and that would've been under BSAA jurisdiction had it even been remotely true. They're a secret organization called the Syndicate, they're working with an unknown leader that has some sort of vendetta against our family." Rize explained with her Rinkaku tentacles still swaying behind her back. "The reason we know this is because my husband was the Syndicate's original leader, and he disbanded them after Raccoon City."
"So what now?" The officer was rightfully confused. "I mean, if they're this secret organization, what do I tell the chief?!"
"I'll handle that." Tobias declared. "Everyone else, start checking the bodies, if they're still following my rules, they'll have a few particular things on them for this sort of stunt. Take, but otherwise ignore, any digital devices for now, I have an expert for that."
"Koko... Are you alright?" Jonah was already at her side as she rubbed her wrists with an annoyed scowl flashing over her face.
"This is definitely going to be a royal pain in the ass." Koko nodded at Jonah before approaching her crew and giving the order. "Help them out, if I'm on their hitlist, then we're not just going to lay down at take their crap!" She clapped her hands together once before adding. "Hop to!"