When season 2 came around, I was kind of annoyed with the introduction of new characters. Like, there was already a big cast, and some of them got even less limelight once Tatenashi and Kanzashi were added. I don't dislike them, but their addition felt unnecessary.

The next few days following Church's reunion with the Exeter suit were some of the most relaxing he had ever experienced. Well, outside of accidentally staying up until five in the morning with Charlotte talking about guns, but all that did was get him to sleep in later. Some of the girls had given him grief for sleeping so long, but as none of them seemed any the wiser about why, he didn't share. He didn't know if Charlotte wanted them to know that they had been up so late together.

Sure, it wasn't like they had done anything scandalous, but people easily jumped to conclusions. At any rate, after that late-night adventure, Charlotte was quite friendly with Church: not that she had ever been unfriendly, but unlike before, there were some times over the past few days where she came to him in particular just to hang out alone. Maybe she felt closer to him after sharing some aspects of her personal relationships, or maybe she just enjoyed having another person she could talk shop with. Either way, Church found himself closer to the blonde than he had been before, and he wasn't complaining.

The days were mostly spent relaxing and trying out fun new things around Cecilia's huge mansion, which was filled to the brim with stuff that commoners like the rest of them weren't really used to. After some bragging on her behalf, Church convinced Cecilia to show off her prized Spitfire, and there had been at least two movie nights, though those tended to get a little heated. After all, with such a culturally diverse group of friends, everyone had movies they were nostalgic about or thought everyone should see.

As promised, Church had taken to short night walks on the beach with Laura, which he found extremely enjoyable. The silver-haired girl was an excellent conversationalist, willing to talk about anything from the most frivolous topics to the most philosophical. Church found himself looking forward to every night, and none of the other girls had yet to find out about it, or if they had, they didn't say or do anything to intervene. These walks usually came after dinner, and after Rin found some new cuisine to make for him. She currently seemed enthralled with the idea of having an inexperienced foreigner try all sorts of novelties. Surprisingly, it hadn't all been Chinese cuisine either. Rin's cooking repertoire was more varied and impressive than he had ever imagined: there was no doubt in Church's mind that she'd have a great career as a chef if I.S. piloting didn't work out.

Aside from that, the brunette hadn't displayed any of the uneasiness or discomfort that she had that day in Bath. Whether she had moved past it or just forgotten about her concerns from that day was a mystery, but Church saw no reason to pry regarding her good mood. As for him and Cecilia, she had apparently been quite serious about procuring a new aircraft for her collection, as she honed Church's focus onto actual Supermarine legacy aircraft that she could actually acquire with relative ease. Currently, she appeared to be eyeing a Scimitar airframe that just needed restoration work. Church had tried to talk her down, worried that he may have unwittingly persuaded her to spend absurd amounts of money on this just because he thought it was cool, but the blonde assured him that, as owner of the company, she wasn't actually incurring a huge loss. Not to mention, the aircraft could be donated to a museum or sold to a collector at some point if she felt the need to do so. After assuring him, Cecilia claimed that they might be able to see the refurbished craft, sans some unnecessary internal components, by the end of the month. Church wasn't sure about that, but nevertheless shared her optimistic excitement.

All of this was to say that Church's relationships were advancing quite swimmingly... with the exception of Houki. Naturally, the one that mattered the most from a practical point of view. It wasn't that the two of them didn't get along, nor that they had nothing to talk about. It was that Houki had absolutely no motivation to engage with him of her own accord, for its own merits. All of the other girls would seek him out for personal interaction for some reason or another. Each of the other girls found some reason to engage with him alone from time to time and foster the relationship between just the two of them. But Houki never did. She was perfectly content to talk to him and be friendly around him, but only in group settings where he just happened to be present. She never pursued any type of relationship, even the mere platonic kind, outside of a group setting.

It was a lot like having a friend of a friend. Like you decided to hang out with a friend, and they brought along someone you didn't know. That someone was likely to be friendly with you, but once you went your separate ways, there was no communication or drive to maintain a relationship.

Church viewed the situation like this because he definitely didn't get the feeling that Houki actually disliked him or anything. She was perfectly amiable when they did interact, and he knew already that Houki wasn't a good actor and sucked at hiding her feelings, so if she had an issue with him it probably would have been obvious. So it really felt like she didn't mind that he was around, she just didn't care about him outside of that. Any time that she could choose to spend with, say, Ichika, she did. Church was not a competitor for her time for any reason.

Which made it difficult to get her in any situation where Church could reliably scan Akatsubaki. She was never alone with him of her own accord, and even if Church tried to ambush her to force a one-on-one scenario, Houki often extricated herself from it swiftly because she saw no reason to prolong such interactions. Needless to say, Church was running out of covert options to try and scan Akatsubaki while Houki was actually awake. Which was why he was considering more drastic measures at this point. Measures that would probably require him to sneak into her room while she slept.

He had been putting off this option for as long as possible because it bore much greater risk. It was easy to blow off something if it wasn't inherently suspicious. If he was caught sneaking around Houki's room while she slept, it would raise a lot of questions. Even if no one assumed he was some sort of covert agent, it would, at best, turn everyone against him as he was labeled a creep and a pervert. Losing everyone's positive opinion on him meant it would be significantly more difficult to approach Houki a second time. So even though it didn't sound like that big of a deal, the whole thing was not as simple as it seemed.

Although, that wasn't the only reason Church was putting off this sort of definitive action. He was still not entirely confident in supporting Umbra Stratum at this juncture. He was still extremely suspicious of that business with Crucible and the aircraft he believed to be a drone. Ideally, Church wanted to wait for some sort of message from Marcus to see if the man had found out anything regarding these suspicions, but that hadn't happened yet. Church had not heard from his friend since their last conversation. Church didn't want to initiate contact himself, because he didn't know who may have been keeping an eye on things at Umbra Stratum, and if there was something nasty afoot, doing so could unnecessarily endanger Marcus. And of course, Cerberus couldn't do anything remotely to get answers.

Cerberus had actually proposed a certain plan to the young operative in the past few days: one that Church was seriously considering at this point. But if he was going to do it, he had to find the right time first. It would require several hours of absence from him, and he would need to be able to adequately explain that absence to everyone else... if they ever learned of it. He could only act with a perfect opportunity.

All in all, Church had a lot of heavy shit on his mind these days, but he was capable of putting them on the back burner when there was nothing in particular he could do about it. Now was such a time, as he was walking alone through one of the halls in Cecilia's home towards the recreation room, which had become a sort of de facto hangout for the group since their arrival. He couldn't advance either of his goals at this exact moment, so there was no reason to let their shadows darken his interactions with everyone else. Besides, it was hard to keep thinking about them once he was close enough to the recreation room to overhear an ongoing conversation of a dubious nature.

"I'm telling you, your opinion is wrong. Dead wrong."

That was Rin's voice. No surprise there, she was usually pretty straightforward.

"Nonsense! Everything I said was true. In fact, I would say they were outright incontestable!"

That was Charlotte's voice, and that was a surprise. When did she ever argue with anyone, unless it was serious? That said, was whatever they were arguing about a serious matter?

"Absolutely not. Xiaolin Showdown was a way better cartoon than Code Lyoko ever was! And that's a fact!"

Apparently not. Church could not possibly fathom what had brought on an argument of this nature between the girls, but at this point he would never really put anything past them. Walking into the room itself, Church saw that everyone was there, though there was no way of knowing how many of them were actually involved in the disagreement.

Charlotte looked more upset (not in a serious way) than angered, as if she couldn't believe someone could disagree with her on this. "How can you say that?! Code Lyoko was very original and it had a great theme song. The animation was top notch for its time, too!"

"If by top notch you mean 'look at me, my forehead takes up half of my entire face.'"

"A distaste for a particular artistic choice doesn't mean that the art is objectively bad!"

"You're only defending that subpar show because it was made in France. You're biased."

The blonde folded her arms as she appraised her verbal opponent. "And your opinion is not biased?"

Church was incredibly curious how anyone had started talking about this, but he didn't have time to ask since Rin carried the debate forward.

"How could I be? Xiaolin Showdown wasn't produced in China."

"But it was directed by a Chinese man and it was entirely based in Chinese mythology and culture!"

"Hey, you're supposed to be trying to make your show sound better, not mine."

Charlotte turned towards her other friends, all sitting around the room in various available seating. "Would someone please support me here?"

Cecilia was the first to shrug at her. "I didn't watch a lot of television as a child, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"What about you, Laura? You agree right?"

Laura also shrugged, but the moment Charlotte turned her gaze away from her, she coughed into her fist, with a muffled utterance that sounded suspiciously like 'Donald Duck' in there somewhere. Ichika said something about how he had rarely watched cartoons because Chifuyu had always been watching TV whenever she was home, leaving only Houki. Charlotte was sure she shouldn't even bother asking someone as rigid as Houki, who surely had not spent her childhood so frivolously, but out of politeness she did anyway.

"What about you, Houki?"

"Mobile Suit Gundam."

"I thought s- wait, really?"

Church was also surprised to hear that, but pleasantly so. "Whoa, based."

Even Ichika looked confused. "Houki, you watched anime as a kid?"

The questioned girl looked at everyone around her with an incredulous expression, since they all seemed flabbergasted by the notion of her doing anything for fun. "What kind of childhood do you all think I had...?"

Since no one had noticed his presence quite yet, Church spoke from his corner of the room. "I mean, when you think about it, Gundam is big robots and a lot of swords, and Houki ended up becoming an I.S. pilot... it kind of adds up that she liked it, right?"

Everyone in the room turned towards him since he was a new arrival, but instead of any sort of welcome, Rin roped him into the conversation right away. "I guess that makes sense. What about you? What was your favorite as a kid?"

"Are you implying it can't still be my favorite now?"

"Well no, but the question is still the same..."

Surprisingly, Church had to actually think about this pretty hard. Truth was, he hadn't gotten a whole lot of time to watch cartoons and anime in the back half of his childhood.

"Well, I guess I was kind of partial to Naruto when it was airing..."

For a moment it looked like Rin was going to call him a plebe or something, but she settled for a cocked eyebrow. "Really? That's kind of basic."

Church smirked back at her, knowing full well what he was going to do as soon as the opportunity presented itself. "Believe it."

The brunette rolled her eyes, and anyone who got the reference inwardly groaned. But now that everyone had shared their favorite cartoon growing up, Church figured it was a good opportunity to move things to a different topic. "So, now that all of that is out of the way... we have any particularly special plans today? Or just the usual lollygagging?"

Being the owner of the house and therefore the one who planned the majority of outings, Cecilia spoke up. "We were talking about it before a certain someone derailed things into a conversation about cartoons... I was thinking it would be nice to visit the spas in Bath today. After all, they are one of the biggest attractions in the city. Though I understand that men don't typically look forward to spa days..."

Ichika didn't actually seem all that bothered by the notion. "I don't have a problem with it. I always kind of wondered what kind of pampering goes on there. Might be nice to be the one getting a massage for a change..."

Frankly, Church wasn't quite as excited about the plan. Not that he had some sort of weird manly issue with spas, but he imagined that such a thing would be gendered, and if people were going to be getting naked, he would have preferred to have the girls at his side and not Ichika. Plus, he didn't know if he wanted to be in a situation where he was just relaxing quietly, relatively alone. It would be all too easy to get stuck in his own head under those circumstances. It was only easy to ignore the fine details of his mission when he had other people to interact with.

Still, he wasn't going to shoot down an idea that everyone else seemed fine with. "Sounds alright to me. It would be a shame to visit a city and not even check out its most popular attraction."

Cecilia seemed pleased by the unanimous agreement her idea had received. "Well, if we are all in agreement, when should we leave? It is still a bit early... in fact, have we all even eaten breakfast yet?"

As a matter of fact, Church had not. And considering his terrible food experience in Bath itself, he would much rather eat here at Cecilia's place. At least whoever cooked the food here knew how to do it, though they barely held a candle to Rin. Well, they were probably more experienced than Rin, honestly. But whatever, it was hard to pick some faceless chef's kicking over the sexy brunette chef you knew.

"I haven't yet. But I could just grab something quick if we're in a hurry."

Before Cecilia or anyone else could say anything, Rin was by his side. "Why settle for something like that? I'll cook something for you. C'mon, let's go to the kitchen."

If anyone had an objection to this, they didn't get a chance to make it, as Rin was pretty quick to usher Church out of the room. Over the past few days, it was exceedingly clear that she really enjoyed cooking for him and often looked for any opportunity to do so. Why exactly that had become true was up to Church's imagination. On one hand, he was certain that Rin just enjoyed people actually appreciating her food. Didn't everyone enjoy it when their efforts for others were appreciated?

But on the other hand, it wasn't like she jumped at the chance to cook for anyone else. There was obviously special consideration for Church in particular. One would think that this had something to do with the girl liking him, but in that case, Church would have expected her to be a little more forthcoming on that front. She had not actually said anything about their relationship or its potential future since that time in Bath, which was odd. Church had definitely expected her to say something after that, as they had really seemed to hit a milestone in how they felt about each other.

But maybe Church was just projecting. If it had really been as meaningful as all that, she would have followed up on it, right? She had been very friendly with him lately, but still, Church didn't want to make assumptions on that alone. He would need her to be a bit more blatant with things just for the sake of certainty. Sure, she was walking real close to him at his side right now, but two people walking side by side when going somewhere together wasn't that strange.

Maybe this was all for the best anyway. A romantic relationship would likely add a lot of complications to the mission. Not that Church could say he didn't want one. Going out with a babe like Rin was dream come true territory. On top of her being a badass pilot and a great cook, what more could a man ask for? And dammit, she was super cute...

Church spent his part of the walk torn between what he really wanted to happen, but it was a short walk anyway, so the duo found themselves in the kitchen again before Rin was able to pick up on his odd behavior. Once there, she wasted no time in donning an apron, at which point she turned to him with a smile.

"So, what would you like?"

Now that he had something else to think about, Church was able to direct his thoughts away from his conundrum. "Er... pancakes?"

The brunette cocked an eyebrow at him. "That's it? So basic."

"Hey, don't underestimate the appeal of some good pancakes."

"Still. How about hotteok?"

Church's expression must have been telling, because Rin followed up with some more detail. "You have no idea what that is, do you? Korean sweet pancakes: Just think of it like a pancake that has filling like brown sugar or honey. Wanna try it?"

"If you recommend it, I'm definitely willing to try. You sure do know how to make stuff from a lot of different cultures."

As Rin began grabbing ingredients and pans she would need to do her thing, she gave a very insightful answer. "Look, my country's food is great. But there's great food everywhere. It would be totally stupid to not learn how to make things from around the world. I'm not arrogant enough to think that out of all of humanity, only my country knows how to make anything phenomenal. In fact... look, don't ever tell anyone I said this, but my favorite dish of all time actually isn't Chinese."

Church feigned a gasp, with his hand moving to his mouth to signal incredulity. Rin didn't miss his sarcasm in the slightest. "Yeah, yeah, lynch me or whatever. I still like tons of cuisine from my own country. But when you think about how global food is these days, chances are whatever you like was influenced by some other country somewhere. Honestly, being an American, you should know that better than most."

Well, Church couldn't exactly argue there. While American cuisine had certainly become its own unique thing by now, there was no denying that many of their dishes were born out of influence from some other nation. Varied immigration from around the world tended to do stuff like that.

The conversation stayed focused on the topic of food for as long as Rin was busy with what she was making, but since it was just a form of pancakes, it didn't take her a terribly long time. The things she made looked a little fatter than your usual pancakes, but it kind of made sense, considering they had filling. Once she had made a few of these, Rin took a fork and knife and started cutting them up. Church mistakenly assumed why she was doing this.

"Rin, you don't have to cut it up for me too, that's a little much..."

The Chinese girl cocked an eyebrow at him. "I have to taste my own food, you know? Any chef worth their salt does that."

"Oh, right. I guess that makes sense. Was kind of worried you were just going to eat it yourself, for a moment there."

For some reason, a bashful look came over Rin's face. "Although..."

Unsure of what she was thinking, Church was surprised to see the brunette take another slice of his breakfast on the edge of her fork. "If you really want some so badly, then you shouldn't mind if you have to do something to get it, right...?"

Saying that, Rin took the chunk of pancake on her fork and wrapped her lips around the edge, leaving plenty of it free and available as she leaned forward in Church's direction with an embarrassed look on her face, blush and averted gaze included. Needless to say, a dominant blush took over Church's face as soon as he realized what he was being asked here.

Just where on Earth had this come from? She had been nothing like this for the past few days, and suddenly she was flirting this straightforwardly? Hell, could something this blatant even be considered flirting...?

Why had she decided to do this now of all times? Had she been mustering up the courage to do something like this? Had she been expecting him to make the first move these past few days, and grown fed up with the fact that he wasn't? Church had been suspicious of the fact that she might have wanted a romantic relationship at this point, but until right this moment, that hadn't been made so blatantly clear. This really felt like it was coming without any warning at all, and it left Church reeling.

On one hand, Church really wanted to do it. Damn he wanted to do it. She was right there, her face inches away, inviting him to either kiss her or at least get hella close to it. This was something he had fantasized about at least a few times, but mostly as a purely theoretical thing. That was because, ultimately, Church knew this was a bad idea. For one, locking in a romantic relationship with one girl meant he would have extra complications when interacting with all of them, which was important for at least getting near Houki as much as possible. If he had romantic obligations to one person, to spend time with them away from everyone else, that would create a new, consistent obstacle.

Even from a purely personal point of view, it seemed like a bad idea. Where could such a relationship really go? Once the mission was over, Church would have no reason to stick around the I.S. Academy. And considering what type of assignments he could have in the future, it was very likely that he would never see any of these people again after leaving. In that case, committing to a romantic relationship just seemed like setting himself, and the girl in question, up for failure. At best, he'd be able to stay in contact with them. But between his future obligations and whatever these girls may end up doing with their lives in the long run, it wouldn't make for much of a relationship, even by long-distance standards.

Really, it was better for both of them if this didn't go anywhere, even if Church really would have liked it to on a purely hedonistic level. But if he really felt that it was best to do that, then how was he going to diffuse this situation? Rin was obviously making a move on him, as sudden as it was, and he didn't know how to get out of it. He could act as dense as Ichika generally did, but there was no way Rin would fall for that. She knew him too well at this point. He could just outright reject her, but he sure as hell didn't want to do that. He didn't want to give her the idea that she wasn't of interest or value to him. Besides, he had just gotten done praising her pretty heavily just a few days ago. Surely it would strike her as odd to suddenly be rejected just like that. It might just raise more questions than answers. He really didn't need anyone to ask too many questions.

Surprisingly, Cerberus had nothing to say on the matter. The AI was completely silent as Church mulled over his options, when he had expected it to weigh in on his decision since it was mission relevant. Maybe Cerberus didn't feel the need to weigh in because it already knew that Church was considering the best option. He didn't want to hurt Rin's feelings, but he didn't want to advance their relationship past what it already was. He couldn't afford to. He couldn't outright reject her because it would be suspicious to be against the idea so suddenly. He couldn't play dumb because she wouldn't fall for it. So all he could do... was play along. Play along, while playing hard to get and not really doing anything conclusive at all. He knew how much most girls hated indecision, but it was the only realistic choice he had.

So, Church leaned forward in Rin's direction. The girl clearly thought he was moving in for a kiss, as evidenced by the way she bashfully squeezed her eyes shut in preparation. Church felt really bad about misleading her like this, but he pushed it down so he could do what needed to be done. Which, honestly, wasn't much. With Rin unable to see what he was up to, Church reached past her and grabbed the plate of hotteok she had made. Rin heard the plate moving and heard him leaning back against the counter, which prompted her to peek at him in confusion. This revealed him simply enjoying his food with a bemused look on his face.

The brunette looked both confused and disappointed initially, but her expression recovered swiftly enough for some reason. Maybe she thought he was being coy. Which was good, since that was Church's intent. The only problem was how she would react to it. Was she the type of girl to acknowledge coyness then blow past it as soon as possible, or the type of girl that would go through the song and dance? Church really needed it to be the latter, because that was the only way this delaying tactic was going to work.

Thankfully, Rin appeared to be the latter. She proceeded to gulp down her bite of the pancake in her mouth and immediately turn the situation to something casual. It was actually kind of remarkable how well she had taken a soft rebuttal, though Church supposed it all depended on how she had actually interpreted this little exchange. He had no way of knowing at this moment.

"So, how's the hotteok? That one has brown sugar filling."

Church tried to read between the lines and see if Rin was upset or something, but it seemed like she really was just interested in hearing his opinion on the food. He really hadn't expected things to go this smoothly. At the very least he was expecting some form of embarrassment at having her advance end in failure. After all, it probably took some degree of courage for her to do that...

"It's really good. I'm surprised to say this, but I am interested in trying the one with peanuts. I'm not huge on nuts but it's probably pretty tasty."

"Well duh, I made it. Here's one that's..."

Rin continued talking about the food as Church pondered the situation and what it meant. He hated to say it, but he was actually having a hard time tasting his food because he was so focused on it. Having a girlfriend... of course the idea appealed to him, but was that really what Rin was going for? He hadn't expected her to consider the idea so soon. Heck, until a short while ago, he hadn't really expected her to consider it at all. Not more than a week ago, Church truly believed that Rin only had eyes for Ichika in that regard.

Man, it fucking sucked to not be able to accept a good thing for a practical reason.

It is good to see that you have a realistic grasp on this scenario, Operator.

Finally finding himself victim to Cerberus' comments, Church couldn't help but inwardly scowl.

Reality sucks.

That seems to be a popular sentiment among humans. Even so, reality is the only thing you truly have, which is why you should have outright rejected the girl. You are only delaying the inevitable.

Though he knew that Cerberus had a point, Church didn't want to accept it so easily.

As long as I delay it long enough, that's acceptable, isn't it?

That is your own prerogative Operator, but I must still advise against it...

Duly noted.

With that, Cerberus quieted himself once again, and Church was free to continue with breakfast. It went by in a deceptively casual manner, with nothing akin to romance coming up again. Once that was over and done with, the duo cleaned up and made to return to everyone else so they could carry out their day plans. Since Church's breakfast had afforded everyone some time, all preparations had already been made and everyone was ready to go once the group was reunited. Because of this, everyone was subject to a car ride soon enough, though Church was mentally checked out for most of it.

A spa trip was both good and bad. It meant that the boys and girls would be separated for the duration of it. On one hand, this meant Church would have next to no opportunities to be near Houki, which was mission critical. On the other hand, it would give him a perfectly valid excuse to steer clear of Rin, which would probably be a good idea. He couldn't act outright standoffish so suddenly, because that would just arouse suspicions. This was a good way to let any romantic heat simmer down, at least for a moment.

But Cerberus was right about it all being inevitable. He knew Rin wasn't the type of girl to passively wait for something she wanted. So if she was really serious about a relationship it wouldn't be long before he was unable to evade a pointed proposition about it. And if it came to that... well, maybe letting her down gently was the best he would be able to do. Surely Rin could understand that there was little point in getting serious with someone on a completely different life trajectory than her. She would be in Japan for at least another year minimum, and a pilot of her skill would almost certainly be taken on by some nation as their representative. Meanwhile, Church would only be around for as long as it took to achieve his goals, which would feasibly not be more than a few months at the most generous. Even after that, he would likely be at Umbra Stratum's beck and call around the world. The two of them would barely even be able to see each other.

Though he thought as much, Church quietly acknowledged that there were solutions to this problem. But he chose to ignore them so he could better convince himself.

Lost in thought as he was, Church didn't engage too heavily with anyone even after they arrived in Bath and began walking. Frankly, he was surprised no one asked him about how quiet he was. He couldn't imagine that no one noticed, as most of the girls were sharp and observant. But if anyone did notice his odd behavior, they didn't confront him about it. Perhaps they were all content to observe and try to deduce the reason themselves.

It wasn't long before the group arrived at the spas the town was known for: fantastically large Roman structures that would have looked right at home in Italy itself. It was kind of odd to see something like this in the UK, but Church supposed the Romans had made their mark here a long time ago, just like a lot of other cultures had. Church had to admit, the idea of a spa day hadn't appealed to him much on principle, but this was actually kind of cool. He would have been content just touring this place and appreciating the architecture.

There were lots of tourists around, which didn't surprise anyone: Bath was supposedly one of the top ten most visited cities in England when it came to overseas visitors. Unfortunately, this meant there was a pretty beefy line between the new arrivals and their goal. And though Cecilia was quite wealthy, she wasn't at some celebrity level where she could get some sort of special VIP treatment. At this juncture, there was nothing anyone would be able to do other than wait.

Said waiting included plenty of small talk, since that was the only way for the group of friends to pass the time. Church found himself subject to conversation from all sides, with more than one girl trying to vie for his attention at different points. That felt nice, though Church couldn't help but feel like he was somehow getting into the same type of situation Ichika used to be in. Granted, he didn't feel that the girls were as vehement when their interest in him at a given moment overlapped with one another.

After about twenty minutes of that, Church discovered that they were only halfway through the line and to their goal, and he definitely needed to relieve himself sooner than that. Knowing full well he had plenty of people to hold his place in line, the young man made his exit so he could find a public restroom somewhere. Apparently, Europe was much bigger on things like that compared to America. Usually a lot cleaner too.

Still, it took more than a few minutes to find one, and a few extra minutes still to go about his business. It was a busy tourist town after all, so even public restrooms tended to have a bit of a line in place. By the time that was done, about fifteen minutes had passed, and he still had to actually get back to his friends and the line that they may have been done with by now.

Cerberus, you can guide me back, right? I mean, there's no way you don't have GPS.

That seems a little mundane to ask of me, Operator. But I suppose I can oblige your request. I will calculate the shortest possible route, taking foot traffic into consideration.

With the aid of Cerberus, Church soon found himself on track to get back to his friends, though not while taking the route he had used to get here in the first place. In order to avoid the worst of the traffic in the area, Cerberus had Church take a few odd turns, with him ultimately going down a long alley between two stores that would spit him back out near the baths once he was through it.

Frankly, Church was a little surprised by how empty it was. Sure, it was an alley, but as he began making his way down it, it was obvious that it was completely empty, with no one else around. With how busy the city was, he would have expected at least a few other people trying to skip the crowds.

Maybe it was a bit paranoid, but the sudden eerie silence put Church on alert. Maybe it was just that there was nothing much else to hear, so it stood out to him. Either way, the young man heard the light footsteps approaching him from behind when he was about halfway through the alley. Light enough that it was probably someone intentionally trying to hide the noise.

He had half a mind to deploy Exeter, even if only partially, but Church admitted quickly enough that such an action would be jumping the gun. It wasn't like he was in a thriller movie, likely to be jumped by an assassin or something. Maybe the person behind him just had light footsteps. Regardless of the reason, the most sensible thing to do would just be to look over his shoulder, right?

Upon doing that, the young man spotted a certain brunette freezing in place as his sudden turn startled her. Rin, a few feet behind him, had clearly not expected him to turn around.

"Aw, damn. So close."

Relieved to see someone he knew, Church nevertheless cocked an eyebrow at her. "What exactly were you trying to do?"

Rin didn't seem ashamed at all to admit to some shenanigans. "Scare you, duh. Why else would I sneak up on you?"

"And what are you doing here in the first place?"

The brunette drew her phone from her pocket and waved it at him. "Have you checked your phone? We're practically done with the line at the baths and you weren't back yet. You didn't answer either, so I came to look for you. As for seeing you down this alley, well I guess I just got lucky. I saw you walk off over here, figured you would probably come back this way somehow."

Figuring that he had actually been gone for some time, Church accepted Rin's explanation at face value. "Sorry I took so long. Guess we should head back, huh?"

Taking a step forward, Church was surprised when Rin grabbed a hold of his arm from behind. Glancing back at her, he noted the somewhat bashful look on her face.

"You know, we don't have to head back. I-I mean, by now the rest of the group is probably already inside, and I doubt we could convince the staff we have people waiting inside for us... plus, this is a good chance to...y-y'know... be alone."

At this point, the young girl averted her gaze, though it's not like it actually hid how damn cute she was. Damn it, she was so adorable, and he loved her eyes. They were sleek and sexy and beautiful and he could have just stared at that lovely green forever.

But as much as he would have liked to appreciate all of that, Church knew this was a dangerous situation. He knew that he wouldn't be able to divert Rin's attention from him for long, but he hadn't expected her to be back on him this quickly. It had barely been a couple of hours. Maybe he had underestimated how intent she was on pursuing this relationship.

"...I'm not sure this public space counts as being alone, Rin."

"W-well, yeah... but come on, it's not like the kitchen at the manor. You don't have to be embarrassed this time, no one will see. And anyone who does will be a total stranger, so none of the others will find out."

Church mentally cursed to himself: at this point, the situation was clear. Rin had not interpreted his evasion this morning as he had intended. She obviously thought his evasion of her advances was due to embarrassment. That he was worried about someone else in the kitchen seeing them. That was why she was approaching him a second time here, where they were, as she said, effectively alone and only in danger of being discovered by strangers. Which, ultimately, meant Church had his back to a wall, and he would need to come up with another, more blatant excuse to avoid this situation. He just had no idea what that excuse would be.

Shit, what am I supposed to do? What the hell do I do here?!

Cerberus weighed in immediately.

Reject her. Tell her to get lost, that you have no interest.

Absolutely not.

Church was smarter than this. He was clever. Surely he could come up with something to both avoid this mess and preserve his relationship with Rin. He could deceive his way out of this one, somehow. But until he could figure out what he needed to do, he needed to stall. He couldn't just stay quiet forever, that would just be awkward and suspicious.

"R-Rin, I don't know about this..."

The brunette at his side was clearly surprised that he was still holding out on her. She looked completely caught off guard by his lack of eagerness. Maybe she was worried that she had misread the situation.

"About what? Is there... something else?"

This doubt from Rin gave Church the opening he needed. He could definitely work with this. While it kind of irked him to act as the shy, bashful kid who couldn't move forward with a girl, it was his only option to keep this whole situation from turning to shit. It was the best way to keep things the way they were without jeopardizing their relationship. The best way to maintain a status quo. All he had to do was act the part.

"W-w-well, it's just..."

Confused by this rather unusual behavior from Church, Rin pulled back from him a little, so she could look at his expression more fully. "What's wrong then? It's...it's not me, is it?"

Church could see that Rin was now questioning how he felt about her and her own boldness thus far, which meant Church had to seal the deal while the going was still good. He didn't want to crush her dreams or blow her off, just pump the brakes on how quickly she was moving with all of this.

"N-no, it's not you, Rin, I just... I don't think I'm ready to... y'know..."

At first, Rin didn't look entirely convinced of this shy attitude from him. Church wasn't exactly someone who had presented himself as the shy and nervous type. But then again, she had never actually seen him in this particular situation, so it wasn't like she had an ironclad point of reference. She generally wasn't a super shy person either, but when it came to certain things, she certainly could be. There was no reason Church couldn't be like that too.

Despite acknowledging this, Rin admittedly felt a bit crestfallen as she removed her grip from Church's arm. It had taken her a great deal of effort to pluck up the courage for this, so it was really a gut punch to have it fall through. But at least he wasn't rejecting her, right? He hadn't said that he didn't like her, at least not yet.

"Y-yeah, I get it... but, I mean... is it me? Am I doing something to make you uncomfortable...?"

Church inwardly congratulated himself. Rin was disappointed, but she didn't feel rejected. She thought he was just too embarrassed and inexperienced to push their relationship forward. Hopefully he'd be able to stretch that assumption out to keep her advances at bay. At least until he could come up with a better solution.

"It's not you Rin, really. I just... you know, need some time to prepare. I've never actually been together with a girl before, so..."

Despite her earlier sentiment, the girl before Church smiled a little at this, perhaps finding this unexpected bashfulness from him kind of cute. As for Church, he had to suffer through Cerberus' ridicule in regards to his false behavior.

Good job, Operator, you successfully made yourself look like a beta male.

There's no such thing as alpha and beta males, idiot. That whole concept was a misunderstanding that the original proponent himself admitted was stupid and wrong. And furthermore, is this not what you wanted to happen?

Point taken, Operator. I concede.

Church returned his attention to Rin just as the girl began to speak to him again. She herself was feeling a little shy again, especially since her mustered courage earlier had been mostly doused by disappointment.

"W-well, I... whenever you're ready, I-"

Operator, get down!

Admittedly, Church had no idea why Cerberus was yelling at him so suddenly. But even though some small part of him would have hated to admit it, he trusted his partner enough to obey the command without question. That was why he immediately tackled Rin and dragged both of them to the ground. His back was coated with a searing heat a mere moment afterwards, accompanied by the crackling noise generally made by a laser when it passed through the air. Heeding Cerberus' advice had clearly been the right call.

Having been slammed into the ground pretty roughly and without warning, Rin was shaking off whatever dizziness Church's sudden impact had granted her, and it would be a a little while before she could actually defend herself. With that in mind, Church prepared to defend her as best he could as Exeter manifested around him. Turning to face the direction of the enemy fire, he laid eyes on a very unusual I.S. as it lowered itself into the alley from the rooftops above. It was peculiarly spider-like, a design the American had never imagined for an aerial unit.

Cerberus, what the hell am I looking at?

There was a very brief computational analysis before Cerberus replied.

Identifying... second generation I.S., Arachne. An American machine that was stolen from a classified location years ago.

Stolen? How the hell do you steal an I.S.?

Apparently it was taken by some sort of rogue organization with I.S. of their own. Said organization also seems to have heavily modified the unit. The current profile before us does not match the records.

While he certainly would have liked to discover more about this, Church knew he didn't have time to ignore the enemy before him. He had enough information as it was. It was a threat, and more importantly, it was a danger to Rin. He'd make sure the enemy was destroyed or captured before the day was out.

Knowing a battle was inevitable, Church readied various weapons, namely the plasma blade Chrysaor in one hand and an XM556 in the other. A shoulder mounted anti-material rifle was also materializing as Church spoke to his mysterious opponent.

"I know it's stupid to ask, but are you going to identify yourself?"

As expected, whoever was piloting Arachne gave no response, instead choosing to use four of its eight legs to fire lasers at Exeter, its other four occupied by holding the I.S. in-between the walls of the alley. With Rin right behind him, Church chose to absorb the hits rather than avoid them, since the Chinese girl was just now activating Shen Long. Unfortunately, he was spreading his arms to block as much fire as possible, and the shoulder weapon wasn't ready yet, so Church was unable to return fire.

That only remained true for another second, though. As soon as Church was able, he fired a SLAP .50 BMG from the shoulder rifle at this opponent's face. But as expected of a spider-based I.S., Arachne had great reflexes and dexterity, dodging the round easily while still returning accurate fire. Still, it wasn't long before Rin's shock cannons were added to his firepower, though she kept the power low to avoid real damage to the surrounding buildings.

Low power or not, those Dragon Cannons still posed a significant threat, so the Arachne I.S. quickly crawled up the alleyway and flipped onto the rooftop to evade the attacks. Rin wasted no time in trying to pursue, but Church stopped her before she left the ground. Outside of the alley, he could already hear the panicked cries and screams of people who had heard the exchanging of gunfire. High caliber rifles weren't exactly quiet.

"Rin, I don't think this is a good idea for you."

The brunette looked at him incredulously. "What the hell are you talking about?! Someone just shot at us, I gotta fight back!"

"But should you really be flying Shen Long in public and in a foreign country? Won't that bring a lot of heat down on you?"

"If you're worried about my sponsor getting mad because I took part in a firefight, they won't care if it's under these circumstances. They'd rather me defend myself and Shen Long than worry about a public image issue. Especially since we aren't the aggressors. Don't worry about it, any issue is going be a political one between some old farts somewhere."

While Church was still mildly concerned about the whole situation, he figured there was no need to question Rin twice. If she said it would be fine, he had no reason to argue otherwise. "Fair enough. Let's go."

When they both took off into the sky to escape the alley they had been in, neither Church nor Rin could spot their enemy. Apparently their short conversation had been enough for Arachne to get away or conceal itself. What Church could see was a lot of curious civilians on the ground below. Not everyone had fled for safety at the first sound of gunfire, and many of those who remained were already brandishing phones, cameras, and anything else they could get a recording with. People had an incredibly stupid tendency to observe dangerous activities rather than run from them.

But there was nothing Church could do about it, and it really didn't matter to him anyway. Japan already knew about the suit, so getting publicity like this didn't make much of a difference. As far as he knew, Exeter was not a heavily classified machine that could not be seen under any circumstances at this point.

Cerberus, on the other hand, knew the truth. The world at large didn't know anything: Umbra Stratum had been fabricating, forging, and replicating whatever they needed in order to keep awareness of the suit limited to the I.S. Academy. Even now, the Japanese government didn't know about it: every single report and communication had been intercepted and falsified. The details Chifuyu had received from her government about Exeter's arrival had come from Umbra Stratum. All of the communications she had sent back to them had gone to Cerberus. She had no idea that no one in the government knew what was going on.

The AI network of information manipulation was what was keeping Umbra Stratum ready and able to act covertly, even in broad daylight. Cerberus had to maintain that efficiency as best it could. That being the case, Cerberus wasted no time in jamming all of the communications of the civilian devices below him, going so far as to hack them as needed to delete incriminating evidence that may have already been taken, and bricking their devices to avoid anything else from being recorded. If anything did somehow slip through to the internet, the AI information screen back at headquarters would catch it. Naturally, Cerberus did not inform Church of any of this.

Besides, the pilot had his full attention on scanning for Arachne. He didn't have much luck, but then again, the enemy spoke for itself when more lasers came his way. Focused on dodging as he was, Church couldn't accurately pinpoint the enemy's location, but he did notice that none of the incoming attacks were going towards Rin. They were literally all focused on him.

Is there a reason the enemy is concentrating only on me?

Perhaps they are hoping to swiftly eliminate one foe to improve their chances?

Church found that unlikely, but at least there was an upside to the enemy's focus on him. With Rin completely unmolested by enemy fire, she was able to pinpoint the location of the attacker easily, though she couldn't actually shoot back. Whoever was piloting Arachne wasn't a complete idiot: by using the surrounding city as cover, neither Church nor Rin could just blast away with abandon. Missed shots would destroy property and potentially hurt or kill innocent bystanders, and that really would be a PR nightmare for Rin. As for Church, he wasn't sure if Umbra Stratum would care, so long as he came out on top. But he cared, so he still wasn't going to do it.

All in all, neither of them possessed crack shot aim like Cecilia, so shooting down into the city was out of the question. This left melee as their only fallback plan, at least until they could force their opponent into the air somehow. Rin was the first to descend on the foe with her blades, while Church had to finish up with his evasion before he could follow her down. The Arachne I.S. tried to retreat into the shadow of another building again, but Rin was on top of her before she could get away, taking controlled swings at the enemy in the middle of the street. Needless to say, the pedestrians a little closer to this combat were quick to get away from it.

Unable to fully utilize her melee potential in this situation, Rin wasn't having much luck in landing blows on the agile Arachne, but Church was soon on the opposite side of the enemy, Chrysaor posing a much greater danger than Rin's own blades. Exeter's human size made it much more mobile in tight quarters, so he could attack with much more precision than Shen Long. Arachne's pilot realized this rather quickly as Church attacked her, almost completely ignoring Rin to evade him instead. Unfortunately, while Exeter's size made it more agile in close combat, it also severely limited his melee attack range. After all, a mobile suit this size couldn't wield a melee weapon the size of Rin's weapons, or most any I.S. for that matter. As far as blade length went, Chrysaor was only five feet long: a large size for a sword in human terms, but not in relation to I.S. combat. That said, the blade itself was effectively weightless, so it could have been ten or fifteen feet on a technicality, but such a length from a human sized platform would have been unwieldy and dangerous.

Still, Church was definitely going to look into extending Chrysaor's length at some point, because he was having trouble hitting Arachne at all. Not that it was ridiculously faster than him, but since they were moving at the same speed, Arachne was always just out of range of his blade.

But he was keeping the pilot completely occupied, and Rin was quick to smash the enemy away with her blades when they weren't looking. Arachne was sent flying, unfortunately right through the wall of a building, but this was a combat between large (plus Exeter) mechanized units. Some damage to the surrounding area was inevitable. Church could only hope that no one had gotten hurt. Any sane person should have fled the area or been in the process of doing so by now.

Ideally, now would have been a good time to chase Arachne with explosives. But they were in a civilian area, so there was no way Church could be so reckless. Besides, if at all possible, he imagined that Umbra Stratum would have liked him to recover Arachne. It probably wouldn't be as easy as all that, but either way, he couldn't really go all out in an attempt to destroy his foe. Rin also restrained herself, though it was obvious why she would do that. While she supposedly had free reign to defend herself, it would probably reflect poorly on her if she was too reckless and unnecessarily endangered the innocent.

So for now, both of them aimed their weapons in the hole created by Arachne's impact. Even if they couldn't flatten the building, they could at least prepare for the enemy to reemerge. It never hurt to already have guns pointed in the right direction.

Church half expected the enemy to burst from one of the other walls, but instead, it simply attacked by shooting some sort of webbing out of the hole and towards he and Rin. The idea of getting coated in webbing seemed a little silly when it came to giant mechs, but presumably it wouldn't be part of Arachne's arsenal if it had no value. Church was thankfully able to slice the incoming webbing apart with ease, thanks to the nature of his sword. But Rin wasn't quite as lucky. While her blade was sharp, it wasn't something that would cut through equally tough material like butter. She managed to cut through a good bit of the webbing, but a lot of it still got through, binding one arm or her I.S. to its torso.

"Dammit, what the hell is this?!"

Church would have turned to help Rin free herself, but he knew that he didn't have the time to do that. Instead, he fired a controlled burst of gunfire into the hole the webbing had originated from. At the height he was firing, there was almost no chance of some bystander being in the way, and that was if there was a bystander to be concerned about in there in the first place. He may have considered using infrared to get a better look, but this entire exchange of projectiles had only taken a few seconds. He'd barely had time to consider it.

Whether it was due to his gunfire or just a desire to have more breathing room, Arachne leaped clear through the ceiling of the building it was in and climbed into the sky, raining down lasers on Church and Rin as it did so. All the better for him: an enemy in the sky was much easier to target, and there was far less danger of hitting some civilian, so long as he was careful. Quickly manifesting a missile launcher on his free shoulder, Church fired it at the enemy to put a little pressure on her.

He turned to face Rin for a brief moment to see if she would be alright. The brunette quickly motioned for him to go after the enemy as she continued disentangling herself from the webbing. That was all the invitation Church needed to chase after his foe, who was already turning back towards the city to evade the missile on its tail. Church made sure to rectify this with well-placed SLAP rounds that continuously forced Arachne to retreat further away from the city and into the sky.

The tactic worked well, and it was obvious that Arachne would not have time to outrun the missile at this point after wasting time on other evasive maneuvers, but rather than try to dodge again, the I.S. spat more of its webbing at the oncoming explosive, causing it to detonate far enough away to be harmless. Still, Church knew how to take advantage of a situation gone sour, and he wasted no time in firing through the smoke cloud with more SLAP rounds. His initiative was rewarded with the ever unique sound of metal crunching and sizzling: the textbook sound of a physical projectile bouncing off of an energy shield.

To Church's surprise though, the enemy unit started falling out of the sky after the impact, which seemed like a lot of damage for what was, relatively speaking, a low-power weapon. Maybe he had domed the bitch. Even if the shield absorbed the hit, the impact could have stunned her or thrown off her flight path. Church chased after the falling Arachne, but the enemy I.S. managed to recover not too long into its fall. It had probably not suffered any real damage to force that kind of situation. The pilot must have just lost control for a moment.

Church did not reengage immediately, though he did close the distance so he would have an advantage if the fighting continued. He imagined that Arachne's many extremities were not as well shielded as the torso. It was possible that Chrysaor could cut right through them in a strike or two. For now though, he wanted to try and shed some more light on this situation, speaking into an open comm channel his opponent definitely should have been able to hear.

"This obviously isn't a coincidence. So tell me: are you after me, or am I just collateral damage?"

Frankly, Church still didn't expect to get an answer, no different than last time. That was why he was so surprised to receive one.

"Shooting at some fool just for being in the way would be very unprofessional. Are you trying to talk shit?!"

Church was a bit taken aback by the unexpected vitriol. Still, he focused on the important part of the answer. "So you're here specifically for me. Which means you know exactly who I am and who I work for."

The masked woman across form him was silent, perhaps realizing that she had said something she shouldn't have. Even specifying him as the target revealed a lot of information.

That information was also incredibly concerning, prompting Church to ask further questions. "Who do you work for? And why are you targeting me?"

The opponent shrugged. "What can I say? You rub people the wrong way."

"People who know me are few and far between. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that nasty incident with Crucible, would you?"

"Never heard of it."

Readying up more powerful weapons, Church prepared to fight again. "You see, for some reason I don't quite believe you. And I get the feeling you know things I want to know. It would be a lot easier to take you alive if you didn't resist. Bear in mind I only care if you live for selfish reasons."

The woman across from him snickered. "I like you, boy. You're not nearly as boring as the other one. I'm not sure if he'd kill someone even if his life depended on it. So grating, goody two-shoes like that."

"Well, I've gotten plenty of reasons I would kill someone. You're not on the list yet, but the process is gonna get expedited if you keep causing me problems."

The two pilots prepared to fight once again, with Church contemplating how he could possibly disable his opponent and keep the pilot alive, but the matter was soon taken from his hands. Before either he or Arachne could engage a second time, a streak of blinding white light intersected Arachne's position from the ground below. This flash was immediately followed by a terrible screech of metal and a burst of flame, knocking Arachne out of the sky, this time with no hope of recovery. Church followed the trajectory of the unexpected projectile that had intervened, only to see that Rin had apparently fetched the others: Laura and her Schwarzer Regen had clearly taken the shot, though the German I.S. was toting an even larger shoulder cannon than usual. It was certainly not the normal rail gun Laura wielded.

Though there was no time to explain the situation to the others, they all knew that such things could wait. The crew converged on Arachne's crash site immediately, with everyone ready to fight at a moment's notice. But when they arrived at the scene, the aggressor pilot they were looking for was already gone. All that remained was a smoldering wreckage that was the enemy I.S., or at least part of it. Church was dismayed that his foe had escaped his clutches, and by extension further questioning, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. If the pilot had ditched the I.S. and was wearing civilian clothing, she could have vanished into the crowd, and there was no way for him to identify her.

Seeing that there was nothing to be done about the absent aggressor, Church turned towards Laura. "What on earth is that thing? That cannon is huge."

Laura looked all too happy to share. She was clearly very excited about using this weapon. "This is Panzerfaust, a weapons package Germany has been working on for Schwarz Regen for the past few years. It's a mass accelerator cannon, though I'm not at liberty to share more information than that."

Even though that was a scarce amount of information, Church couldn't help but be impressed, as well as a little concerned. He doubted that he would ever have to serious fight Laura in a real battle, but if that ever was in the cards for some reason...

Instead of dwelling on it further, Church turned to face the remains of Arachne, a little miffed that the I.S. hadn't been recovered in its entirety. Hell, with a quick scan proving that even the core was absent, nothing of real value was being recovered at all.

"The core is gone."

No one seemed really surprised by this. After all, I.S. cores were extremely limited: who would lose one if they could salvage it instead? What did surprise them was when the remains of Arachne started beeping, and they'd all seen enough movies to know what that usually meant. Cerberus was apparently feeling a little cheeky, as it cracked an obscure movie reference right away.

Eehtz a bahmb!

Thankfully, Laura was on top of things, and since everyone was standing rather close together, she simply stepped ahead of everyone else and put her AIC between them and the impending blast.

As the detonation occurred, Church was fairly certain they all could have survived it with their machines regardless, but it was better to take no damage at all, which, thanks to Laura, they didn't.

On the other hand, as the dust and smoke cleared, Church noted that dozens of civilians were congregating on the area, fascinated by the site of so many I.S. and bewildered by the explosion that had just occurred. Seeing all of this, Cecilia merely sighed.

"This is going to be a bloody PR nightmare..."

The next few hours were a chaotic whirlwind of activity for the vacationers from the I.S. Academy. Naturally, some giant mechs going ham in the middle of a busy city was not something that could just be swept under the rug. Emergency services were on the scene pretty quickly, though not before most of the group made themselves scarce. Technically, there was a lot of legal red tape to go over with situations like this, but at the same time, it wasn't like everyone had actually been involved. Ultimately, only Rin, Church, and Laura had actually engaged in combat. Everyone else could just deactivate their I.S. and pretend they had not been involved. Technically they were supposed to report unauthorized I.S. activation and their justifications for doing so, but no one really wanted to deal with that much red tape, even the people who claimed you had to report it in the first place.

Laura had a lot of free reign due to her unique position in the German military, so she didn't have much to worry about on her end. All she would need to do was justify her direct actions during the fiasco to the British authorities. Rin and Church had to do this as well.

Cecilia offered to do all the talking, after getting into contact with relevant authorities. Church had politely requested for her to avoid mentioning his involvement if possible, on the trumped up grounds that he might get flak from his superiors for engaging in combat in public. Church knew that Umbra Stratum didn't really care at all, but he figured it was best to avoid getting too much publicity. Of course, the girls had been quite eager to ask him when he had gotten Exeter back, since that was relevant to what had just happened, but he honestly hadn't needed to lie that much: it was enough to tell everyone that Tabane had finished fixing it and sent it his way.

Either way, Cecilia probably shouldn't have agreed to his request, as it was a major breach of protocol. But after getting Rin's agreement to it, the blonde left out Church's presence in the scuffle, acting as though it had only gone down between Rin and the mysterious assailant when reporting the entire situation to the authorities and her superiors. Of course, the police interrogation took some time, but Cecilia was ultimately able to pass the burden of the matter onto her sponsors. The good news about being a representative candidate was that you had a lot of backing, which included corporate legal teams and a bunch of people that would handle incidents like these in your stead. So long as the representative candidates were cleared of any wrongdoing, which they were in this case since they had been attacked first and without provocation, said candidates didn't have to spend days or weeks as part of some legal mess or police investigation.

Not that they could escape all blame, but in this case, all the authorities knew was that someone had assaulted I.S. representative candidates while they were abroad: which was actually something expected to happen in general. After all, Infinite Stratos was one of the most valuable technologies in the world, and many of these amazing pieces were in possession of mere teenage girls. The sponsors who spoke for representative candidates expected some unscrupulous types to make moves against them from time to time, though it was generally not expected for the aggressor to be another I.S.

At any rate, Cecilia and her friends were in the legal clear for their actions, and the investigation into the incident and aggressors was being left up to people besides them. This meant that, despite having to spend a few hours in town dealing with the ramifications of the fight, they were all eventually free to return to Cecilia's mansion and carry on with their vacation, albeit with a significantly different mood than before.

Naturally, the incident had been all over the news channels, but Church had been surprised to find that there was surprisingly little footage of it. There were almost no complete videos, and the news claimed that the few blurry and unintelligible pictures they did have had come from older analog devices. Thanks to this, there was not a single clear image of Exeter to be seen, though there was some speculation going around about a 'silver space man'.

Frankly, Church was stunned that there was no real footage of the fight going around. In today's day and age, when everyone had access to high-fidelity cameras right in their pocket... the only way there could be no footage at all was if someone or something ensured that none was taken. It seemed a little crazy that anyone could pull something like that off, but it wasn't like Church knew everything. Maybe that spider bitch had set up some sort of jamming area before attacking him?

At any rate, the group had settled into the lounge area after their day had gone awry, having mostly discussed who had attacked Rin and Church, how the fight had gone down, and who they may have been or been working for.

Naturally, Church did not inform anyone of the exchange he and the assailant had shared right before Laura had intervened. The last thing he needed to do was give any of his friends reason to suspect him of anything unscrupulous. Letting them know that the assailant was specifically there for him, and probably had some ties to his superiors, would not be good for their trust of him.

This meant that the girls and Ichika had no idea that their attacker had said anything at all during the fight, because she had only spoken to Church, and he wasn't sharing that. It also meant that no one really had anything to go on in determining the identity of their attacker. Not that it stopped them from trying, as evidenced by Charlotte's pondering in one of the corner lounge chairs near a magnificent fireplace.

"Maybe it was another corporation? Although, would anyone really be stupid enough to risk international retribution for acting so aggressively? Not to mention all of the accords they'd be breaking..."

Laura, reclining on a couch that faced the same fireplace, was glancing over at Rin and Church, who had ended up taking a loveseat. It was a little silly to be thinking of it right now when such important things had happened recently, but part of her mind was on whether or not they had sat so close on purpose. While Laura had told Rin before that she didn't mind if the brunette pursued Church romantically, now that Rin had actually gotten closer to him in the past few days, she was starting to get a little bothered. Sitting close to each other like this, disappearing for private breakfast... had Rin gotten far ahead of her without Laura even noticing?

Even though she dwelt on this, the German girl was capable of keeping up with the actual topic at hand. "Theoretically, a corporation could make such a move as long as their operative went uncaptured. I suppose we could have gleaned some information from the I.S. they abandoned, but the self-destruct they used remedied that. Still, I don't believe that a corporation would go this far. There are far less risky ways to achieve their usual ends. The blowback from this action being connected to them would far overshadow anything they could have possibly gained."

Knowing that complete silence may have come off as suspicious, Church weighed in, feigning an equal level of ignorance as everyone else. "I mean, do we know for certain that every I.S. in the world belongs to a trustworthy organization?"

From right beside him, Rin answered. "I.S. cores and armaments are one of the most heavily regulated products in the world. Though I guess that doesn't mean that some cores aren't off the official records..."

Laura nodded. "Exactly. Plenty of I.S. are parts of black ops squadrons, with their existence being top secret. While there is a general understanding of how many cores have been allotted to each nation, what those cores actually get up to can be obscured from international view. It would help if we knew anything about the I.S. you encountered, but I've never heard of a spider-like I.S. such as that one."

Charlotte, who often had her ear to the ground when it came to international I.S. development news, shook her head. "Me neither. But regardless of who that machine belonged to and who they answered to, I think it's more important to ask why they would even do this. Like Laura said, the potential risk versus reward likely rules out corporate schemes."

Eager to keep the speculation off of himself as much as he could, Church raised an idea that he actually would have believed, if only he hadn't spoken to the mysterious aggressor.

"Maybe they just wanted to nab an I.S. Even the strongest machine can be taken easily if you kill the user before they can manifest it. The enemy could have been some sort of extremist group or something."

Rin didn't seem pleased with this idea. "Well that's terrifying. I mean, how did anyone even know we were here?"

Cecilia, who was pacing closer to the fire, responded to this. "In all humility, we are people of significant interest, Rin. We are set up to be the next generation of ace I.S. pilots. Dozens of organizations around the world likely have their eyes on us."

Laura pitched in as well. "We also used public transportation to get here, and used our real names along the way. Any intelligence agency worth their salt could have tracked us down."

Church wished he could dispel everyone's fears. At the very least, he could have told them that the mysterious attacker had been after him, and not them. That way they wouldn't have to look over their shoulders or worry about some crazy radical trying to kill them in broad daylight. But doing that would just arouse suspicions as to how he knew that, and why it would be the case. He couldn't afford to do so, as much as he would have liked to. It was in his best interests to let everyone think they were targets, and that he was just collateral. On that note, he recalled something he had read about prior to ever coming to the I.S. Academy.

"It's not the first time something like this has happened, right? Haven't you been attacked by rogue I.S. before?"

Ichika glanced at the ceiling as he tried to recall the incident in question. "Oh yeah, something like that did happen before didn't it...?"

Rin frowned at the boy as she acknowledged his consternated look. "You doofus, are you really struggling to remember that? It was during our first inter-class tournament! Also it was literally our first match against each other, how can you not remember?!"

"Give me a break, Rin. It was a long time ago at this point..."

Houki, who had been quiet for most of the conversation while she leaned against the same chair Ichika was sitting in, finally spoke up. "Either way, it's true that the two might be connected. Although it's a bit odd that there would be this much of a gap between two attempts..."

Charlotte weighed in as well. "Plus, that Golem unit was an unmanned I.S. Not to say that the same organization couldn't utilize both manned and unmanned I.S., but still. Why switch? I suppose they could have just been unhappy with the performance of the drone... say, didn't that incident also involve Rin?"

The Chinese brunette looked stunned to recall this exact information. "Hey, you're right! Why the hell do they like me so much? I mean, I get that Shen Long is the best I.S. in our group, but come on..."

Whether she intended it or not, Rin's words eased the tension of the group as a few of the girls got up in arms about her statement. Cecilia was the loudest of course, but even Houki had the presence of mind to be offended. As the topic of conversation turned away from actual worry and more towards a squabble, Church quietly excused himself from it all. Not that he minded being around for the argument, but right now, he probably needed some time to think to himself. Well, as much as he could get to himself since Cerberus still existed...

However, he didn't make it far out of the room everyone was in. He was barely out the door at all before someone was calling out to him from behind. The voice sounded like Laura, but glancing over his shoulder outright confirmed that. Once she knew she had his attention, the unusually demure girl stated her business.

"Sorry to bother you, Church. Are you... still willing to walk on the beach with me? I know its sudden, it's just that we never really got the chance to..."

This one manages to have impeccably bad timing on a consistent basis, Operator.

Church couldn't deny that, but at the same time, Laura was arguably the best person to interrupt him in this manner. She was the least talkative, at least in the sense that she was generally comfortable just existing in silence if need be. At the same time though, she was one of the sharpest of the group, meaning she was likely to sniff things out. But at this time, Church didn't think she really had too much to be suspicious of in regards to him. The most suspicious thing he had done was ask Cecilia to leave him out of her incident report to the authorities, but there were plenty of reasons to ask for such a thing.

So really, he couldn't see that much of a reason to turn her down. At best, she would just think he didn't like her, which wasn't really a notion he wanted to imply. At worst, turning her down for seemingly no reason would just arouse her suspicions, which was exactly what he was trying to avoid.

"Sure. Though do you really want to do that right now? We haven't even eaten dinner yet."

Pleased to gain his approval, Laura smiled and walked a bit closer. "On the contrary, isn't that the best time? It's generally not a good idea to exercise right after eating, but exercising before will work up your appetite. Plus, we don't know how long it will take before dinner is actually ready. They could be bickering in there for quite some time."

"Well, I suppose that's true... alright then. Shall we?"

Since it was a already dark, not to mention England, it was a bit too chilly at night to be walking around in a bathing suit at this time of day. That was unfortunate, because it meant Laura didn't get to show off her body in any capacity. Unbeknownst to Church, this was a fact that both of them lamented. Church's reason was obvious. Laura, on the other hand, was a bit concerned that she had lost significant ground to Rin lately, and would have liked any opportunity to score some points.

But freezing her extremities off wouldn't help do that, so it was going to be a clothed beach walk, sans their shoes. Which was still nice of course, but it could have been better. At any rate, the two of them soon found themselves walking along a sandy beach that had lost the light of the sun hours ago. The water was a bit too chill to walk in, but the sand further from the lapping waves still retained enough heat to walk comfortably in, made evident by the several minutes and meters the two of them had covered since setting foot on the beach.

The waves were tame and the Moon was full, shining down a bright light by which to see even though there was nothing in the way of artificial light out here. Admittedly, this was an environment Church greatly enjoyed: he had visited a beach once in the distant past as a child, but couldn't remember much of it. The soothing sound of the waves, the gentle breeze, and of course, having a beautiful girl along for the ride... he might have liked to live near a beach one day.

Unfortunately, serious thoughts marred the experience some what. He wasn't the type that was unable to follow a conversation even while mentally occupied, so he was listening to Laura's talk of some sort of noodles called spatzle that she would have liked to eat again, but at the same time, he dwelt on what had transpired recently, what it all meant, and what he needed to do about it.

Today's attacker knew who he was. That meant they also knew who he worked for. The question was, how? Umbra Stratum was a top secret black ops organization. Sure, it undoubtedly had ties to other organizations, and it wasn't like nobody outside of it knew it existed at all. But the types of people who would possibly know anything about it were worrisome.

Was it a black ops organization from another country, trying to intervene in an Umbra Stratum operation? If there was a likely chance of something like that happening, surely someone from Command would have mentioned it, right? Or, was it someone from within Umbra Stratum itself? A defector maybe? But if so, he'd be able to report this incident and immediately expose them, so that would be foolish. After all, it wasn't like just anyone could hop into an I.S. and pilot it. If Arachne had somehow come from Umbra Stratum, then Command would probably know who the pilot was and know who to hunt down. That just didn't seem likely.

And yet, it seemed even less likely that any outside entity could know about Church's mission. To the best of his knowledge, this operation was need-to-know only, and even within Umbra Stratum, only a handful of certain people should have been aware of it. How could it even leak at all? Unless, of course, the leak was intentional... but who would do that? What possible benefit would they have to doing so? At most, he could imagine Strelka having some sort of reason, but even though his opinion of her wasn't the greatest, Church didn't honestly think she would do something like this just to throw a wrench into projects that weren't hers.

It didn't help that he hadn't actually gleaned all that much from his attacker. Other than the basic awareness that someone hostile knew about his mission, he didn't really know much at all. He desperately needed a way to gain more information, to rule out some possibilities if nothing else...

"Church?"

Broken out of his line of thought by Laura's prodding voice, Church glanced over at the girl, briefly stunned by the way the moonlight shined off of her silver hair. For a moment, she almost seemed like some sort of beautiful siren from the depths. Well, it was no surprise that someone with silver hair was flattered by the light of the moon...

Sometimes Church wondered if he was deplorable. Was it wrong of him to look at one girl and think she was beautiful, then look at another and think the same thing but in a different light? Society would likely claim so, since everyone was so hell bent on thinking that each man should only pay attention to one woman. Not that Church thought cheating was alright by any means, but was it so wrong to acknowledge the beauty of others whether or not you were in a relationship? He didn't think so. Besides, he wasn't actually in a relationship.

Realizing that he still hadn't answered her, Church quickly made to do so. "Sorry. Just got distracted for a moment. You know, you look really great in the moonlight like this."

Caught off guard by such a sudden compliment, Laura couldn't help but blush. "O-oh, uh... t-thank you. That's kind of you...although..."

Church was a bit surprised to hear an 'although', but he didn't get much of a chance to ask about it. Laura moved onto the next part of her thought soon enough. "May I ask you something?"

Unsure where this was going, Church could do nothing but agree to Laura's request. "Of course. Ask away."

Though she was granted permission, Laura still looked quite anxious to speak her mind. "You've... said many kind things about me, Church. The type of compliments that most girls would assume are... er, well..."

Laura stopped herself short, glancing away from Church as she mustered the courage to say what was really on her mind.

"Are you... in love with Rin?"

Needless to say, this question caught Church off guard, and doubly so since Laura uttered it so bluntly after being a little skittish. Where had this come from so suddenly?

More importantly though, Church found himself unable to come up with a yes or no answer right away, which was a little alarming. Of course he liked Rin. He liked her personality, he thought she was cute, and if circumstances weren't what they were, he probably would have been dating her right this very second. But was he in love with her? Probably not. It depended on what one's definition of love was. To Church, love meant the willingness to put that person before anything and everything, no matter what. And right now, Church wasn't even willing to betray the mission for her, despite questioning the nature of that mission itself. So he couldn't say he loved her at all. It would be insulting to her to even say so.

"I wouldn't say that. I'm not saying I hate her or anything, but love is a pretty strong word. If you don't mind me asking, why do you ask?"

Laura immediately took on an air of nonchalance. Honestly, the shift was a little too sudden to be believable. She was obviously trying to put up a front that hid her motivations for asking. "Charlotte was quite excited about the two of you a few days ago. Seems to think you'd make the perfect couple."

Church couldn't help but note the tone of Laura's voice. Despite her efforts to sound impartial, he could tell that she wasn't happy with this potential prospect. "Oh yeah? And what do you think?"

"Well, I certainly think Rin likes the idea. At the very least, she has been very eager to be around you lately... but perhaps I'm just jumping to conclusions. Maybe she's just glad to have a friend who takes an explicit interest in her hobbies?"

Common sense made it clear to Church that this was all one big probing exercise on Laura's part. She wanted to know what he thought of Rin because she wanted to know if she still had a shot. Which meant she was interested in him too, probably. Honestly, Church had toyed with the idea that maybe the German girl had feelings for him, but he hadn't wanted to make assumptions just based on the fact that she was friendly with him these days. But in his eyes, this conversation left little room for doubt.

He wanted to be happy about this revelation: heck, he was actually pretty happy, because who wouldn't be pleased to know that a badass, adorable, sexy, super soldier thought you were boyfriend material? Best thing ever... or it would have been, if only fate wasn't a cruel mistress. For the same reason initiating a relationship with Rin was a bad idea, so was doing that with Laura. He just wasn't in a position where it was a good idea. It was an actively bad one, no matter how much Church wanted to cave in.

That being the case, Church wondered if he should act on this new knowledge. He could find a way to curb Laura right now like he had Rin earlier, but that might have been jumping the gun. Laura hadn't actually confessed to him or anything. He could always find a way to gently turn Laura away if it came to that later. Besides, Church knew fooling Laura would not be as easy as it had been with Rin. Not to say that Rin was gullible, but Laura analyzed everything so deeply. If his whole attitude just changed on a whim she would be suspicious. He would need a bit of a better plan to derail her advances if she chose to make them.

Right now, the best thing to do may have been nothing. Laura wasn't as brash or blunt as Rin, at least not in Church's experience with her so far. She probably wouldn't rush things along if she herself wasn't certain of success. She was more methodical than that. So Church could probably buy time just by not discussing the topic further right now.

Although, he wasn't sure what to say in response to Laura's last comment, in that case...

Thankfully, he didn't need to. Apparently, Laura was satisfied enough with his answer to turn the topic to more frivolous matters once more.

"The ocean sure is lovely under the moonlight, don't you think?"

Grateful to have an easy out handed to him, not to mention having a subject to take his mind off of all the bullshit he had to worry about right now, Church followed Laura's gaze out to the ocean and simply spoke the truth. Though it was fleeting, the gorgeous ocean under a full moon was something he should probably appreciate while he had the chance. After all, his problems weren't going anywhere, and he could think about them tomorrow all the same as tonight.

"Yeah... I guess it is."

Late at night, long after all of his colleagues had retired, Marcus found himself sitting in front of the computer he had rigged for data mining earlier. He had spent many hours worrying about what he had learned in the Commander's secret meeting with that Squall woman. Primarily because he was legitimately worried that something bad would happen to him if he continued to look into all of this. After all, the Commander had made such an implication the last time they had parted ways.

Admittedly, Marcus was a bit of a coward. But only in the rational sense: he didn't want to die, just like anybody. He didn't like the idea of sticking his neck out and putting himself in danger for no reason. Ordinarily, he'd have kept his head down and left all of this cloak and dagger shit to someone else. But, well... there were two reasons why the young man couldn't do that this time.

For one, he had joined up with Umbra Stratum because it offered an unrestricted avenue to the development of smart A.I., something Marcus was passionate about and committed to. He just wanted to pursue the science, not help in some immoral scheme. Granted, Marcus wasn't naive enough to believe that his work on A.I. wouldn't be used for anything ill at all. Umbra Stratum was a militant entity after all, and Marcus had never doubted that his work would find its way into weapons eventually.

But there was a big difference between contributing to weapons development, which could be used for good or ill, and actively contributing to some shady business that may have included literal murder or worse. So Marcus at least wanted to figure out what was what so he could know what he was helping Umbra Stratum do.

The second reason was simple: Church was his friend, and the young man may have been in danger due to all of this. If Umbra Stratum was putting his friend at risk for ill motivations, Marcus felt that he was obligated to do something about it, even if it was just apprising Church of the situation.

That was why the bespectacled engineer was back in his lab now, looking over the files his program had managed to secure from the highest level of classified servers. Ideally, he would have liked to pull them all and bring them to a private location to inspect, but he just didn't have the time. There were far too many files, and downloading them would have taken hours, to say nothing of the inherent risk of doing so. Sure, he could leave the computer again and just pray that nobody noticed he was doing anything underhanded on it, but Marcus thought that was too risky.

Not that what he was doing now was much safer... it wasn't like Umbra Stratum security disappeared as night fell. Armed guards were still afoot, security cameras were still up and running, and Marcus was still suspiciously present in the lab at an hour when no one should have been. If anyone found him here, they would ask questions. Depending on who found him, those questions might be a bit more pointed than he could handle.

Even worse, there were hundreds of files here. Granted, some of them were obviously not relevant to what Marcus was looking for. Some mention of an operation with the 33rd in Dubai, a mission report from an operative named Fisher, field testing of some new firearm called the MA5D, material delivery estimates from Sangvis Ferri... shit, for all Marcus knew, some of this stuff may have actually been relevant to what he wanted to know. But he didn't have time to look through them all and make sure. Instead, it would be a lot easier to search for documents that included a certain phrase from the meeting.

With that in mind, Marcus typed in 'Aggregate Paragon' and anxiously awaited the results. With so much shit to filter, it took a minute to get where he wanted, but ultimately, Marcus did get one single hit: an operation file named exactly what he was searching for.

He ran a decryption program that took what felt like an eternity, anxiously glancing over his shoulder the entire time. But when it was finally done, Marcus had everything he needed: what appeared to be page after page of details about an operation plan. Now he just had to read all of it...

But before he could even begin the process of analyzing what he had before him, Marcus heard a distinguished click sound from behind him. Immediately concerned, the young engineer glanced over his shoulder once again, only to find one of the uniformed and masked guards of the base staring at him from the lab doorway. The guard's thumb was on the safety of his MP5, which had presumably been switched to 'fire'.

Marcus tried to come up with some fitting excuse to cover his ass, but he didn't even get the chance to try. Before he said anything at all, the masked soldier wordlessly raised his weapon and pointed it right at him. And in that moment, Marcus saw his whole life flash before his eyes.

Phantom Task manhunt anybody? This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but also has the first bit of action in awhile, even though it wasn't all that exciting.