June 16th, 4:50 pm, in Himeko's reformed apartment,

"I don't see the reason for doing this."

It had been a month since the group repelled the weirdo Herrscher sent by Cocolia. Himeko was more than a little shellshocked by the sudden loss of her apartment that night, almost going unconscious from the scene. Luckily, thanks to Gabriel, the apartment repair took only a second, so everybody could go to their rooms to sleep.

Since then, Himeko and Theresa would find some reason to celebrate once a week, with Theresa bringing a bottle of bitter melon juice and Himeko diving into her alcohol stash. The first time was for Himeko's release, the second for Kiana's improvements, the third for Mei's safety, and this one was just because they could. Mei took to this quickly, cooking up a storm to thank those that protected her during that time. Yuna and Hua would try to decline, one from embarrassment and the other from humbleness. Kiana lapped up both the praise and Mei's food, specifically from both Hua's and Yuna's plates whenever they took the food, primarily because of the irk she felt from Mei's attention being on the others.

She received more than enough bumps on her head from the last three times, so she stayed down for the fourth.

Phillip, however, felt no interest in joining the group in the festivities. While he would return to correct Kiana in her acts, Phillip felt more inclined to stick to his standard schedule during these parties. This time, Kiana and Mei had cornered him after the third one and convinced him to join this time, both using the puppy eyes to full effect.

Thus, he was seated beside Himeko, who quickly downed a fourth beery when he spoke these words, and Theresa at the kitchen table.

"What do you mean?" Theresa asked, holding a glass of green bitter melon juice to drink. "You guys did great against the Herrscher, so we're celebrating."

"For exactly four weeks," Phillip spoke flatly, accepting the plate of Shenzhou snacks he couldn't identify. After several sniffs to be confident they were okay, Phillip tossed one in his mouth and chewed through it. "At some point, y'all need to drop it and let us get on with our lives."

"Well, if you had joined us the first time, maybe we would have." Theresa blushed slightly when Phillip turned to her, not expecting him to hear her muttering. With a slight cough, she addressed the elephant in the room she had been hiding. "The last three parties were more like... apologies for not hearing you out the first time."

"About the defense breach?" Theresa nodded at this, prompting Phillip to eat another snack. "First off, just apologize to my face rather than throw parties to make up for it. Second, the breach wasn't as bad as I thought. Not only did we have multiple S-ranked Valks over here at the time, but the dipshit was also so on top of his ego horse, he got snuck up on by Kiana, of all people."

"Why's that surprising?" Phillip raised a brow at the principal, who had the decency to blush at the dumb question. "Yeah, I get it."

"Anyway," Phillip said, placing his plate on the table and watching Kiana pout at Hua and Yuna, who were again receiving Mei's full attention. "Regardless of what happened, Gabriel saved the day, which has been better than what I did that day, so there's nothing to thank me for."

"Ah, shove it," Himeko slurred, wrapping an arm around Phillip's shoulder and shoving him into her chest. "You got ballsh to fight that Herrshey pershon without armor. Gotta credit that."

Phillip pushed the clearly drunk and red-faced Himeko off him, forcing her back into her chair and almost tilted over had he not grabbed the leg at the last second. "I could have ended the fight then and there if I kept rationale and got my suit first instead."

"Don't want to be the Debbie downer on your depression parade, but at your level, you couldn't. Most cases had you pinned down and Kiana taking longer than that, so I would have needed to break the second seal for your next boost."

'Thanks for the positive re-enforcement,' Phillip replied sarcastically, leaning back into his chair and pressing a hand against his eyes to hide his shame. 'Good to know I would have been useless either way.'

"Don't worry about it. If we keep this streak up, we'll keep the powers down and out until the end."

'As if every Honkai Beast is going to learn how to talk and spout how they're a god.' Phillip sighed deeply to rid himself of his emotions and straightened himself just in time to watch Hua sit across from him. A flash of red crossed her glasses, something that caught Phillip off guard, which caused Hua to blink three times. After a moment, Hua stood reluctantly and pushed the chair in.

"What is it, Fu Hua?"

"Nothing, madam principal," Hua stated plainly, traversing the table and stopping behind Kiana, who unassumingly munched on her plate of snacks. "Overseer Otto has a spy mission for me to take care of."

Hearing these words as she ate, Kiana paused briefly between her bites and looked over to Hua's. "... I call it."

"I'm afraid not, Kiana," Hua stated, a vengeful smile appearing on her face. "They deemed it a rather basic mission, so they told me to bring along a rookie."

"...Bratnya and Yuni?"

"You, Kiana," Hua said triumphantly before looking at Phillip. "They requested Phillip on demand, but I asked them to allow Kiana on the mission to save her falling grades."

"I'll come," Phillip said as he stood from his chair. "But leave Kiana here. She's already had her mission, so let's allow her to rest."

"Um, hello?!" Kiana rose from her seat instantly, pouting so hard at Phillip that her cheeks puffed out. "Do you not remember what we agreed on?!"

"We agreed on dangerous missions. This is just a spy mission, so Hua and I should be fine."

"That's how all spy missions go until they go bottom up!" Kiana moved around the table and stopped before Phillip, poking him in the chest with the same pout on her face. "I'm going with you, so get used to it."

Phillip turned his head away from Kiana and scanned the others, hoping to find someone willing to convince the girl to stay behind and deal with classes instead. Himeko and Theresa both had infuriatingly smug smiles, while Mei sent him an apologetic look, knowing her weakness to Kiana. Neither Bronya nor Yuna spoke up, each keeping to their own snacks, and only Bronya had eyes on the conversation because Yuna kept hers on Kiana to protect her plate instead. This left Phillip on his lonesome to handle the overprotective Kaslana.

Phillip let out a sigh in submittance. "Fine, but you have to follow whatever Hua and I decide, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kiana said happily, grabbing his hand and dragging him toward the entrance. "Come on, let's get going!" Phillip groaned as he watched Hua fall into step beside Kiana, the former having an amused smirk on her face.

"Can I, at least, be allowed to walk?"

Hotel Royal Queens, Singapore, 9:30 pm,

"Should I?"

The surprise mission ended up not being far from St. Freya, placed in the neutral territory known as Singapore. Before departure, Kiana and Hua swapped into more appropriate attire for the mission. Kiana now wore a white short-end qipao with a green bamboo design at the bottom, black shorts beneath it, and black shoes. Hua swapped into a blue dress with her hips fully revealed and a feathered broach with a purple gem to connect them, a red star ornament with a tail at her side, black thigh-high stockings, and red high-heels. Much to Kiana's annoyance, Phillip deemed it better to stick to his original attire.

When their designated airplane landed, they immediately called down a cab and headed towards a hotel called Hotel Royal. Not two seconds into the hotel, after being greeted by the female staff members in red qipao dresses, Kiana headed straight to the buffet table and began taking bites of everything available for consumption. Thankfully, the Overseer agreed to take the hit to his money for the mission, so Kiana was allowed to down as much as she wished.

"To do what?" Hua asked Phillip, carrying a glass of wine between her ring and middle fingers. "If you want food, you may join Kiana in her... consumption of the table."

Phillip shook his head at this. "No, I mean if I should stop her before she chokes on the lobster shell."

Hua chuckled at this. "From what I've learned about Kaslanas, they can eat just about anything." Placing down her glass, Hua turned to him with a severe expression. "I have something to ask you, however."

"What's that?"

Hua looked at Kiana to ensure she wasn't looking their way, stood on her toes to lean close to Phillip's ear, and asked, "Did Theresa tell you?"

Phillip didn't need to ask what she meant by this. A few days after the 1st Herrscher attacked, Theresa pulled him to the side during lunch with Mei and Kiana and told him that what Otto sent led her to both Cocolia and Einstein, one of which was thought to be dead. After Theresa dispatched Cocolia's robots, Einstein revealed something to her: that the Kiana they knew were simply clones of the original, and she was the only one that awoke. All of this culminated in Phillip staring at Theresa blankly and saying the exact same thing that he repeated to Hua.

"I don't care."

Hua jolted back, seemingly affronted by the idea that someone could not care about the situation. Shooting Kiana one more look, she whispered in his ear once more. "How can you brush off the fact that she's a Herrscher?"

'Oh, that,' Phillip thought as he rolled his eyes before responding in kind. "Reminder: you've been in the dorm with two Herrschers already. Why does a third one suddenly get you nervous?"

Hua narrowed her eyes at this. "You've read the history: you couldn't have made top of the class without it. Surely you know how devastating the Herrscher of the Void was."

"Yeah, and if she exhibits any of those tendencies, I'll deal with it," Phillip said plainly as he took a drink of water. "Until then, I'm not going to jump down her throat for being something she had no control over."

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Phillip was yanked away from Hua into the arms of a peeved Kiana, whose narrowed eyes were locked on Hua. The opposition settled back onto her feet and adopted a stoic expression as Kiana's degraded into more anger.

"Was this the real reason we came here?! So you can steal him from me and Mei!?"

"Don't assume my intentions so quickly," Hua refuted, grabbing a sliced cake on a plate beside her. "The spy mission is simple, so I can do this by myself. My reasoning for bringing you specifically was so I could properly thank you two for saving us."

"It wasn't us completely," Phillip replied, shutting down Kiana's hopes of recognition. "Both you and Yuna did well in stalling off the Herrscher for the time, Mei weakened him significantly beforehand, and even Rita and Durandal kept him at bay."

"Take the compliment," Hua said with a smile, handing the cake to Kiana to wolf down. "However, if you two are done with the dining table, you may retreat to the hotel room. I doubt I'll be able to use it before the mission ends."

Phillip opened his mouth to both give a negative answer and stated how badly worded that could be taken. However, Kiana made the choice for him, shoveling the rest of her food into her mouth and began dragging him towards the elevators. Kiana gave Hua a broad smile and her departing words.

"See ya tomorrow, maybe. We're going to be busy tonight!"

Third floor from the top, on the right wing, 9:45 pm,

Upon arrival to their room, Kiana tried to kick open the wooden, burgundy door but failed to make it budge an inch. Phillip watched for a few minutes, the thought of returning to the ground floor flooding his mind, before he pulled out the keycard Hua gave him. Pushing it into the slot on the door handle and tapping in the correct code, the door unlocked with a heavy clunk, and Phillip pushed it open easily.

A king-sized canopy bed with crimson drapes stood off to the right side of the massive room given to them. Velvet furniture was placed at the far end, right in front of a window that peered down into Singapore's nightlife. There were two doors on the opposite side of the bed, one being a walk-in closet and the other being the bathroom. Weirdly, the bathroom's white door was parallel to the bed.

"This... definitely feels too much like a love hotel," Phillip said with a sweatdrop rolling down the back of his neck. Kiana didn't seem to mind much, making her way to the bathroom and closing the white door behind her, though not before sending Phillip a flirtatious wink as she did. Phillip simply let out a sigh and walked over to the window to contemplate the mission they had.

'It couldn't simply be a spy mission, right? Feels like a waste to bring three people on such a simple premise.'

"You're not wrong," Gabriel replied, though Phillip thought he heard some clamoring beneath his voice. "It's more 'retrieval' than 'spying'. Something Otto had was stolen by a Schicksal scientist and given to Anti-Entropy, so he sent you guys on this goose chase."

'Great,' Phillip groaned. 'If Hua felt the need to cover this up, then she's working closer to the prick than I was hoping for.'

Before the two could continue analyzing the situation, a knock came from the door. Phillip tore his eyes from the darkened city, walked back to the door, and looked through the peephole. On the opposite side was an old, white man in an open lab coat, brown t-shirt, and rolled-up gray pants.

"What do you want?" Phillip asked through the door, holding onto the door handle to prevent any breaches. Kiana may not have been able to kick the door down with her strength, but there are plenty of other ways of getting into a place.

The old man raised a bottle of wine up and showed it to the peephole. "I was told to bring this up from the staff, to help out the couple occupying this room."

"Wrong assumption, there. Both of us are too young to drink, and we're not legal for the other insinuation as well. Also, you're lying out of your ass."

"W-What?!"

"Your lies stink worse than the wine," Phillip stated plainly. "So just take your leave and don't come back here."

The old man dropped his hands and quietly shuffled away. With the nuisance gone, Phillip turned back to the window, just in time for Kiana to pop out of the bathroom covered only in a form-fitting towel, wet and hair let down from her usual brands.

"Who was at the door?" She received no answer, so she looked over to Phillip in confusion. Phillip was looking at her but seemed stunned by the sight before him, so Kiana decided to pose. She leaned forward, placed one hand on a knee and another on her back, and stared back at Phillip with half-lidded eyes and a smirk. "Like what you see?"

Phillip jolted out of his stutter and turned his head away from the girl, a blush on his face, and coughed into his hand to disperse the feeling. "L-let's go back to the first topic. It was some guy trying to get in here. I called his bluff and-"

It was then he heard a click, like the hammer of a gun being pulled back. Phillip raised his arm quickly, just before a shot was fired from the door. The bullet pierced through the woof easily but bounced off Phillip's jacket, sending the bullet into the air before clattering on the floor uselessly. Both he and Kiana looked back to the door, Kiana pulling one of her guns from out of nowhere and pointing it towards the entrance.

A few seconds passed with nothing happening until Phillip smelled something off. He pulled his jacket off and used the hood to cover Kiana's mouth and nose. She widened her eyes and almost pulled Phillip's hand away from her until Phillip raised a finger to his lips, trying to quiet her.

"They're pouring gas into here," Phillip explained, slowly pulling his hand away when Kiana took the coat willingly. "I need you to get dressed and get back here. I'll deal with the gas." Kiana nodded and slipped back into the bathroom for her clothes.

Phillip turned back to the door and released a strong gale of wind from his palm, blowing the door away and whoever was positioned behind it. With the door no longer attached to the entrance, several people armed with guns and black S.W.A.T armor rushed into the room and pointed their weapons at him. After a few minutes of a stare-off between the rival factions, the group split down the middle and revealed the same old man from before.

"So, you just wanted to kill us," Phillip said in a flat tone, not at all intimidated by the guns pointed at him. "Why come up with such an elaborate scheme to get at us, then?"

"You Schicksal dogs are all the same," the old man sneered. "I didn't want to hurt the girl. You'll be the only one to die here, but the Valkyrie, however, will be treated for her Honkai poisoning so she can have the life she deserves."

Phillip crossed his arms and leaned back onto one leg, the other tapping fervently. "I can see that you hold no love for Schicksal, but you do realize 90% of Valkyries are volunteers, right?"

"Is that what makes you sleep well at night?! That they 'chose' to do this?!" The older man spat the word "chose" venomously as if the word itself was poisonous. "Why should they be the ones that sacrifice themselves for our sake!?"

"Look, I'm not going to change your mind on your version of morality," Phillip said offhandedly. "However, considering females are more commonly to have strong Honkai resistance, there's not much you can do about the composition of your army without risking unnecessary casualties."

"You have no idea!" the old man growled at Phillip, a vein popping on his forehead. "For the 40 years, I worked for that damned Overseer, I turned so many little girls into Valkyries! They get then deployed into this war and died by either Honkai beasts or cascades! MY OWN GRANDDAUGHTER WAS KILLED BEFORE ME!"

Phillip simply sat there, letting the man screech out how he committed "evil" and needed to redeem himself by "saving" as many as he could. As the spiel winded down, Kiana finally burst through the bathroom door, fully clothed and both guns pointed towards the intruders. The guardsmen leveled their guns at her instead, but the old man waved them down, coming off his superiority complex high.

"Let the girl go," the old man said, speaking directly to Phillip, "and we'll let you live."

Kiana tilted her head in confusion and looked back at Phillip for a response. "The hell does he mean by that?"

"I don't know," Phillip admitted before he spoke back to the man. "Under what pretense did you think that was up to me from the beginning? Granted, she's very unlikely to join you."

"She doesn't know any better," the old man snarled at Phillip and looked to Kiana instead. "Miss, I have an anti-Honkai serum that you take to make a normal girl again. If you just come with us, you can have that life again."

Kiana snorted hard at this. "What, and become a normie? Sorry, but a Kaslana fights Honkai head-on."

"That's-"

An explosion suddenly shook the entire hotel, coming from only one floor above them. While the group towards the center only stumbled slightly, Kiana and Phillip staggered much more heavily. Phillip recovered quickly but had to move to avoid some debris from the ceiling. As he did, a gasp of pain came from Kiana's direction, causing Phillip to immediately look her way.

Kiana stumbled back; a syringe full of some pink fluid sprouting from her shoulder as she did. Going back to the older man, Phillip saw him with a pistol aimed directly at Kiana. What had happened was obvious.

Jumping forward, Phillip caught Kiana before she slammed into the edge of the restroom frame. After laying her down, he pulled the syringe from her shoulder before the rest of the liquid entered her body. Then, he pulled off his jacket and laid it over Kiana, making sure any vital areas were covered before standing up.

"Open fire!"

The armored men complied with the order, aiming their weapons at Phillip as he turned to meet them, only to see death staring back at them.

10:15, after a massacre,

Phillip stood above the mess of bodies and destroyed guns left in the wake of his rampage. Most of them were breathing, while the rest, he couldn't be sure. The only one that needed to be alive was the one curled into a ball in the corner of the room, cowering from the blood-soaked Phillip.

Phillip reached down, grabbed the old man by his lab coat, and dragged him up to a standing position. "You're going to fix what you did to Kiana."

"I-It was only a small dose of my anti-Honkai serum, I swear!" the man yelped in terror, only to let out a very girly scream when Phillip forced him higher into the air. "S-She'll wake up in the morning, b-but her organs will be cured of Honkai corruption by then!"

"... Should I mention that his serum could have killed Kiana due to her genetic structure?" Gabriel's revelation caused Phillip to switch his hold from being on the old man's coat and directly on his throat, crushing his windpipe. "Hey now. I get you don't like him right now, but I'm sure Hua's mission was to bring Dr. Magi here back unharmed."

A deep, menacing growl escaped Phillip's throat as his grip conflicted in either constricting harder or loosening. After a couple of seconds, Phillip tossed Dr. Magi over to Kiana, causing him to land right next to his mistake. "Fix her."

Dr. Magi scrambled onto his hands and knees and looked over at the fainted Kiana. For some reason, this gave the elderly man more confidence as he looked at Phillip with determination in his eyes.

"Why don't you go-"

Phillip blinked over to Dr. Magi and slammed a kick across his face, sending the man tumbling the man back a little. Pulling a kunai from his pocket, Phillip brought the knife down into the doctor's knee, earning a scream of pain.

"That's not the answer I'm asking for," Phillip snarled, twisting the knife deeper into Magi. "Fix. Her."

That's when the door opened. Phillip slammed a punch in Magi's stomach to vent a surge of frustration, yanked his kunai from Magi's knee, and stood tall to face the new person. There, in the doorway, was a familiar face.

The same blue-haired man from a month prior stood there, pointing at Phillip and making loud incoherent noises toward him. A close look showed Phillip that the man's tongue was ripped from his mouth, leaving a little stump.

"Seems our little birdie left quite the impression."

'Don't care,' Phillip responded as he tossed his kunai at the man. The result was obvious, as the man channeled the exact same powers as the one before him, stopping the knife in mid-air and causing it to drop uselessly onto the ground.

"Casual reminder about what I said before."

'Yeah, I know,' Phillip growled as he pulled a large black pellet from his weapon seal. He slammed it into the ground, summoning a plume of smoke that filled the room. Knowing he wouldn't have much time, Phillip quickly grabbed Kiana's body and, with so few options, slammed into the window with his back, shattering it as he now fell several stories down.

Phillip righted himself to face the street below and adjusted Kiana to be on his back. Without dropping his hold of the unconscious girl, he managed to summon a clone, which grabbed him by the elbow and threw him out into the city. Upon reaching the first rooftop he could land on, Phillip skidded to a stop at the far end of the building.

"I'm guessing you've met Dr. Magi, then."

Phillip spun around in an instant, another kunai drawn and ready to attack. Fu Hua stood there, hands in the air to show no intent to attack with the point of the knife at her throat. A deadly silence leveled between the two.

"... You can lower your weapon now."

"Not likely," Phillip said, glaring at the class monitor. "Your little 'spy' mission didn't just level the entire upper levels of a hotel, it caught me and Kiana in the mix and put her under."

"I see," Hua muttered, tilting her head to see how Kiana was. "Was this caused by Dr. Magi?"

Phillip flipped dropped his kunai and grabbed Hua by the white-collar shirt she was currently wearing. He then pulled her close to glare into her surprised eyes.

"He couldn't, so you're going to. Fix her."

"I'm certain Dr. Magi would not cause permanent harm to any Valkyrie, even now," Hua stated, pressing her palms against Phillip's wrists. "I assure you; she'll likely just need rest for the night." Phillip narrowed his eyes at her, scanning for any lie or misinformation. Finding none, he relinquished his hold on Hua.

"Fine, but we're not going back to the hotel. Do you have a place to lodge for a bit?"

"I do, but I'll warn you ahead of time: she's a pain in the ass." Phillip's glare returned at this, causing Hua to sigh in surrender. "Well then, follow me." Hua walked to the edge of the building and dropped down to the alley below, looking around quickly before waving Phillip down. He did, and the two walked down the moonlit alley in silence.

A few minutes passed, allowing Phillip to calm his anger down to a manageable level, and Phillip finally took notice of Hua's state of dress. She wore only two things: a white button-up and a dark-blue coat that reached past her knees. No pants and shoes were on her.

"What happened to you?"

"A little slow on the uptake, I see," Hua murmured, earning another glare before she spoke up. "I was accomplishing my mission, taking a guard's clothing to blend in more, to gather Dr. Magi. It was a trap, however, and I needed to beat down a creep to escape. The explosion from before was a result of that."

Phillip then remembered a detail of the man that came storming into their room. "... You didn't happen to take off someone's tongue along the way, right?"

Hua involuntarily shuddered at this. "That creep had me pinned and began licking me across the neck and cheek. He got everything he deserved."

"Well, I'm glad you handled a Herrscher well for an A-rank," Phillip said sternly, emphasizing the A-ranking. "Or was that something you wanted to make sure wasn't brought up anytime soon?"

Hua stopped walking mid-step and turned to him with a stern look. "As much as I would appreciate it if we didn't have this conversation, let me inform you of something. Your group consisted of two Herrschers, an assassin from under Cocolia's command, and you: a male that managed to survive a Honkai eruption. Would any sane person leave the four of you to be supervised by an A-rank?"

"Ah, yes: Mei and Kiana have definitely caused mass destruction the last few months," Phillip snarled back.

"It was a simple cautionary action," Hua stated as she continued walking. "Besides that, I haven't had a reason to keep an eye on them outside of small requests from the Overseer."

"What did he need to know?" Phillip would be damned if that Overseer was trying to get anything less than normal on the girls.

Hua sighed deeply at this as she stopped at a worn wooden door. "You're way too protective for them. Relax, he only wanted to make sure the two are stable enough to continue missions."

Phillip breathed out his sigh and looked at the location they came to. They were in a relatively tight part of the ally, with the only indication of where they stopped being a sign above them with a HOMU covered with the prohibition sign over it. Seeing as he had nothing else to go on, he slipped into the building after Hua.

The interior, however, was vastly different from the dingy exterior. A low-lit pub, with several shelves of spirits, liquors, and beers, was inside. Hua quickly moved past the velvet booths and sat on the matching stools at the oak-made bar. The server there, a brown, messy-haired young man in a tuxedo suit and red tie, paused in his cleaning of one of the wine bottles to address the visitors.

"Sorry, sirs, or..." The young man glanced at Hua, prompting her to drop the hood to reveal herself. "Ma'am, sorry. Sorry sir and ma'am, but the bar isn't open yet. Our business hours are on the door." Phillip snorted, knowing damn well the hours weren't at the entrance they took. Along with that, the man had a scent that didn't belong to any self-respecting male in the world.

Hua, however, was more active in her attempts. "I'd like a glass of water and the latest intel."

The man sweat-dropped at the request, seeing as his previous statement was ignored. "Sorry, we don't sell water here. This pub is an establishment for the harder drinks, and we definitely don't deal in intel."

That set off Phillip, causing him to summon a kunai and toss it at the imposter. At the same time, Hua managed to fish out a coin from someplace and finger-flicked at the same person. This left a cross-shaped cut on the man's cheek, the coin buried into the wood of the upper level of the closest shelf while the kunai shattered one of the bottles.

"Have fun yet, Wraith?" Hua asked, lowering her hand. "Stop wasting time and give me the intel."

The man gave a low chuckle. "This is why people think you're stuck-up and cold, Hua." The man reached up to his face and began to pull it off while his chest puffed out just enough to give a pair of A-cup breasts. The hair unfurled to give the messy hair a ponytail, revealing the sharp-faced woman beneath the costume. "What I want to know is how your boyfriend found me out?"

"Smell."

"Bullshit," Wraith said, not believing Phillip's statement. "I masked my scent with cologne."

"Buy better fucking cologne," Phillip said before bumping Kiana on his back, showing her to Wraith. "You got a bed I can place her?"

Wraith pointed over to her right, towards a door. "Bed's upstairs. Make sure it's tidy before you come back."

Phillip nodded and entered the door, leading to a staircase that he scaled up to the bedroom. Reaching it, he was met with a plain-looking bedroom with three windows, two wooden dressers, and a tidy little bed with brown sheets. He walked directly to the bed, sat down at the far end, and leaned back enough to allow Kiana to slide off him.

After tucking her in, Phillip set up a few clones for Kiana's protection and then left the room. When he reached the bar again, he found another Kiana draped over a blushing Hua.

"So, does that little bimbo get-"

It took Phillip less than a second to get over to the two, pry Wraith off Hua, and lift Wraith off the ground by the neck. Huasighedh, pushing up her glasses as Wraith struggled against Phillip's grip.

"As an HQ A-ranked intelligence operative, you should have known not to say much about Kiana when he's here," Hua told Wraith.

"I... see...that." Wraith choked out. Seeing the woman had learned her lesson, Phillip let her down, causing her to gulp down air like a beached whale. When she regained her breath, Wraith dropped her disguise and looked at Hua. "Why don't you go upstairs and get changed? I don't have a battlesuit lying around, but anything is better than that cheap ass jacket. Also, you're not wearing any pants."

Hua looked down at her clothing and seemed to agree with the statement as she approached the staircase and walked up it. Phillip moved to the closest booth to sit down and pressed his hands against his face.

"So, your girlfriend got hit with something nasty," Wraith asked, her entire body and voice changing to match Himiko's. "Do you need some sugar from Mama Himeko?"

Phillip glared at the woman for a hard minute before shifting his eyes to the table under him. "She got hit by an anti-Honkai serum because I stumbled. I need a means of getting her back to full health."

Wraith, swapping from Himeko to Otto so fast he assumed she was using transformation, gave a hum in response. "Well, so long as she remains in the city, she'll recover quickly. You know, with the Honkai generators powering everything from your television to the lights."

"Right." Phillip knew well that almost every city was powered by Honkai energy due to being even less pollutive than electricity. He simply thought the generators weren't producing too much to invoke re-establishing Honkai sickness. "Well, with that out of the way, what did Hua want to know?"

Wraith hopped onto the table, now Theresa, and lay down everything. "Well, Singapore cut tied with Schicksal since the explosion, something Hua thinks is from stinky Cocolia. From there, Grandpa Otto said to continue the mission and said it might be more fun if you fail."

"Fantastic," Phillip said sarcastically while glaring up at Wraith. "Could you get off my table?"

Wraith pouted at his request and did so, swapping into Mei when she touched the ground. "Oh, Phillip-kun. You wound me so."

"I'm going to make a list of people you shouldn't disguise into if you don't want me to remove your head."

Wraith blew him a raspberry and changed back to her normal form. "Spoilsport. You're as stuck up as Hua is." She glanced over to the staircase door, which had just opened then. "Speaking of which, how's the suit?"

Hua was now wearing a white, form-fitting suit that only covered her front, paired with a blue-magenta jacket, gloves, shorts, and boots. She pulled the gloves to be firmer, showing the blue highlights along the sides, and walked over to the other two.

"It's comfy, but what's its defensive capabilities."

"Nothing close to a battlesuit, but study enough," Wraith admitted as she pulled up a pink holographic screen. "Anyway, I got some info on Dr. Magi's movements." She would have continued had Hua not raised her hand to stop her, eyes on the door to the bedroom.

"Don't. We have some company."

"What?!" Wraith quickly closed the screen and dove behind the bar stand. "The alarms should have gone off?!"

A heavy step sounded from the steps, and the door swung open. Who stood there was someone Phillip knew was close but didn't think would appear so quickly.

"Well, well, look who it is!"

Welcome back to the story.

Quick warning, if I go missing from the story for a little while, don't worry too much. I need to deal with something, but I promise to get back to this as soon as possible.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story, and I'll see you later.