The bicycle's soft, rhythmic ticking seemed to rise and fall as they walked, the sounds of wind and passing vehicles masking it as they grew, then amplify it as they faded. The machine trailed alongside the pair, filling the silence between the two enough to make it comfortable.

Much like yesterday, today hadn't been a particularly good work day, but nothing of note occurred so both had been leagues above Sunday. The hard-earned wisdom that crises traveled in tight formations was true here as well, she guessed.

"So…" Alex cautiously breached the silence. "Did you report Clifton today?"

The abyssal bit her cheek. He had recommended she do that, hadn't he?

"No…"

"Why not?"

Alex's tone was firmer than it ever had been with the abyssal, which wasn't much, but he was clearly serious about the topic. He'd asked her to do so after work yesterday as well, but Trinitite had merely feigned disinterest that time. This time, however, it was looking like Trinitite would have to address it.

"It's my word against his…" She reminded her coworker. "...and Clifton has been in the fleet longer."

"Sarah, this is really serious." Alex continued. It was odd he seemed so passionate. He never really brought work up on his own initiative when they were normally off duty. "If he's tried it with you, the creep's definitely attempted to pull this stuff before."

Was that why he was so invested? Was he concerned by the danger to fleet cohesion, and thus performance, if Clifton was trying the same tactics against less prepared coworkers? Or…

"You sure you don't just want to get Clifton fired?" The abyssal asked. After she heard what she was saying the Wo-class realized how bad it sounded, but if that truly was Alex's intention Trinitite wouldn't blame him. Utilizing his same tactic of attempting to blow a small issue out of proportion had some appeal, she guessed, and while seeing Clifton gone would make her job more difficult she wouldn't be particularly bothered by it.

"If he's pulling this shit?" Alex hissed. "Yes!"

Fair enough. Still, Trinitite had to remind him of the reason he probably hadn't been removed already.

"We're short enough on manpower as it is."

"Let Shannon decide that, man!" Alex almost shouted, seeming to glare at Trinitite. His harsh stare softened with a sigh a moment later, Alex gathering his thoughts before turning back to the Wo-class "Tell you what. I'll report him to the boss tomorrow, and you can back me up. It's Tuesday now. The longer we wait, the harder it'll be to convince Miss Chiba that it happened."

That seemed like a pretty decent compromise. Alex had been in the fleet for much longer, and thus may have more influence with Shannon, but…

"I don't know…" The Wo-class trailed off, unsure how to word her reply. Alex remained quiet, cocking his head in exaggerated confusion as he waited for the abyssal to elaborate. Silence fell between the two as Trinitite struggled with her words, trying to arrange her feelings into something the human would understand.

"You know," Alex finally supplied, "if it makes you that uncomfortable, I can make the report and leave it anonymous."

"It's not that, it's just-" she stopped herself from making a too blatant comparison to her past. Carefully tailoring her statement, she continued. "I just think it's already handled, you know? Clifton knows he isn't getting anything from me, and trying to take things up another level could only bring bad attention."

Members of The Crossroads Fleet had plenty of disagreements, some of which had grown pretty heated, but unofficial policy among the ships had been to resolve these grievances a far from Jellyfish as possible. The one time a pair of destroyers had brought their personal dispute to Mother, it hadn't been pleasant. The Princess had declared that, in order to repair the Crossroads fleet's cohesion, the two ships would have to work together… in every exercise the fleet had planned. After over a month of towing targets, hunting the fleet's submarines, and escorting every ship stationed at Bikini during their own exercises, the poor girls had required a complete overhaul before they could be considered combat worthy again.

It had been an important lesson on the importance of resolving disputes quickly and amongst each other, but had taken Trinitite some time to realize the full value of it. Jellyfish wouldn't be around to solve everyone's problems out in convoy duty, just like Shannon couldn't be there to watch every shift. From interacting with other fleets, she knew that same lesson had been thought before, although there the methods through which the lesson was taught were often more… kinetic.

Sure, human fleets talked a lot about reporting sexual harassment and assault, but even there they'd emphasized a preference to handle things as low in the hierarchy as possible. If Shannon agreed with Trinitite that it seemed like a… hasty escalation, then consequences could come swiftly for Clifton, Alex, and herself!

"It's not handled, though!" The human protested. "What if he starts lying about your performance?"

"That's a good point, actually…" the Wo-class admitted. Maybe, since businesses weren't nearly as cohesive as fleets were, Trinitite was thinking about this wrong. Perhaps this incident was the last one Alex was willing to tolerate, and he was looking to start a fight. "So you're saying I need to perform a pre-emptive escalation? That would be risky…"

"Pre-emptive escalation?" Alex echoed, before shaking his head. "Jesus, Clifton really brings out The Commissar, doesn't he?"

The abyssal suddenly felt her cheeks flush. Had she gotten careless with her words, or… Alex was giving Trinitite a small smile, despite the topic. Perhaps accepting the human's invitation to tabletop wargames was yielding more… tactical benefits then she could have expected.

"I guess so…" The Wo-class lied. She needed to get better at watching her words around the human!

"Anyways, don't you think Shannon would want to know this is happening in her workplace?" He shifted, his face firming up. "That kind of behavior's really corrosive."

"I guess that makes sense." The Wo-class acknowledged. She knew that, sure, but it wasn't all that important to her. The fleet's cohesion was already pretty 'corroded,' even when Clifton wasn't there. Getting rid of him would improve her work, but the abyssal wasn't sure that would offset the hit to their already lacking manning.

"Okay, I'll tell Shannon." Alex pronounced, an uncharacteristically grim determination underlining his voice. "You want to be there?"

"Not really." The Wo-class admitted. This felt like a mistake to her, but the human clearly wasn't going to be persuaded.

"Fair enough." He allowed. The human relaxed, sighing. "I know you've got your worries, Sarah, but this needs to be dealt with. We can't let him do that to you without consequences."

'To you…' maybe Trinitute was looking at this wrong. Alex had put up with Clifton for over a year, now. The assistant manager had shirked his duties and done plenty of wrongs in those months, but only now was Alex actually committed to holding him accountable. The only difference between those other scenarios and this one… was herself.

Was he feeling protective of her? The idea should be preposterous, but for some reason it didn't feel so. Had Trinitite gone so long without an escort that loneliness was clouding her judgment, or was this because he really was seeing her as a part of his fleet, now?

"Okay." She replied, hiding the surge of guilt that came with the revelation. "Just be careful."

Once again, her lie had Alex putting himself at a disadvantage, potentially endangering his own job for someone he'd be terrified of if he'd known the truth. If he learned who the person he'd made all those sacrifices for really was…

All the more reason to keep that hidden, she guessed.

"Hey, Sarah. Can we talk for a second?"

The Wo-class looked up from the table, the unopened cases of miniature cruisers temporarily forgotten. Only Paloma's head and hand were visible, the human leaning out of the doorway.

"Uh- yes." The abyssal replied, worry spreading down her keel as she stood.

The human disappeared before Trinitite finished standing, which only fueled her anxiousness. The Wo-class had tried to read her expression, but it had been uncharacteristically blank. Had Trinitite done something wrong? The Princess's businesslike visage as she waited in the kitchen only cemented her worries.

"I don't feel like cooking tonight." She started. "Have you ever had pizza before?"

"No." Trinitite allowed, still suspicious.

"Okay." She acknowledged, unsurprised. A hand plucked a set of keys from where they'd been hanging on the wall. "Want to help me pick one out?"

Trinitite hesitated. The human clearly had an ulterior motive, but was it a negative one? After a moment of fruitless speculation, the carrier agreed. Her cruisers could wait for a bit, and tonight it was too cold to be spraying primer anyways. Whatever plans Paloma had, she'd just have to weather them.

Thankfully, Trinitite didn't have to wait long for those ulterior motives to reveal themselves. As soon as the pair entered the car, Paloma spoke up.

"So…" she started, her neutral expression breaking into a smile. "...I hear you have a date."

"I do, yes." She confirmed, suddenly confused. This was definitely related to the human's hidden motive, but the carrier couldn't predict where Paloma would go from this change in topic. Was this a redefining of the deal Alex had proposed? The beginning of another offer? It didn't seem threatening…

"Do you have anything to wear for it?"

"Uh…" there were special clothes you were supposed to wear for dates? She already had to buy new underwear, how far would one of these set her back? "...I think so?"

"That didn't sound very confident," Paloma noted, "but I guess that makes sense. Nobody ever taught you about how to prepare for a date, right?"

Prepare? Obviously, that was something she'd needed help on. Alex's focus on the incident with Clifton diverted some of her attention away from her upcoming date, and his attempts to downplay its importance did somewhat mollify the abyssal, but the concern that she wasn't ready continued to follow her.

"They haven't." The Wo-class confirmed. "It won't cost much, will it?"

"Not if you know where to look." She supplied, a knowing smile creeping across her face. "What do you know about thrift stores?"

How had she not known about this sooner? Trinitite recognized the iconography of The Goodwill fleet, she'd seen it decorating several warehouses- stores- she'd passed in her travels, but hadn't realized the fleet offered this kind of utility.

Thrift stores… even the basic idea behind them amazed the Abyssal. That human fleets would offload old equipment- still useful equipment- to another fleet just to get rid of it… were humans really that wasteful, or were human logistics so saturated, even at wartime, that they could afford to ditch equipment after it still had some use?

Considering how they'd spent her mother to settle a political dispute, perhaps it was a decent amount of both.

Still, the Wo-Class couldn't complain about this example, given its fairly-priced consequences. Yes, these clothes weren't going to last her as long as those she'd stolen new, but it wasn't like human clothes weren't weak and unreliable already. She'd have to be just as careful wearing these, meaning the only real difference to the abyssal was the steep discount. It was too bad they didn't sell underwear, however. Those bras were going to have to be procured at full price.

"Oohh." The human princess cooed, detaching a multi-colored dress from its rack. "This looks cute, right?"

"Er- yes?" She asked, unsure. She thought she understood Paloma's motivation, here: helping the Wo-class look 'cute' would only aid Alex's operation. It was sort of strange that a princess would put this much effort into helping an underling, she guessed, but also surprising.

However, the fact that she understood why they were doing this didn't change that, despite her research, Trinitite still didn't really understand 'cute.' The abyssal struggled to remember the images she researched earlier, trying to picture how she'd look in the dress compared to them, but…

"I don't… know, sorry."

Paloma's face fell.

"You poor thing!" She had proclaimed, draping the dress over the shopping cart. "How about we try a bunch on and I'll help you pick, okay?"

That was why she was in here, now, shirtless and surrounded by unfamiliar clothing. The human had picked out a veritable arsenal of dresses for the Wo-class to try on, then ushered her into one of the provided dressing rooms with six of them.

The dresses had many differences from those of an abyssal princess (although oddly enough the thought of wearing a princess' style of clothes didn't seem that objectionable anymore). As the Wo-class slid into one, she noted it covered a lot more skin than those of most princesses, which was fine by her. It meant less of her dwindling foundation was needed to preserve her disguise.

The first dress donned, Trinitite opened the door, allowing the human outside to get a good look at her.

"Wonderful!" She exclaimed, eyes widening as the human stood. "Normally, you don't wear jeans with a dress, but you look bonita, as my parents would say!"

"Do I?" The Wo-class asked, twisting her hull to get a better look at herself in the mirror. She couldn't say she hated the dress, but…

"Of course you do!" Paloma reassured her, circling Trinitite as the Wo-class stepped away from the changing room. "You don't like it?"

"I don't hate it, but…" she trailed off, struggling to collect her opinion on the clothing article. On one hand, the simple garment definitely changed her appearance. On the other, there was so much color! They weren't only bright, but the way they mixed with each other in sloppy patches seemed to draw far too much attention! It still broke up her form like some sort of half-camouflage, making the Wo-class look like… something colorful, she wasn't sure what. However, if the princess really did like it, then outright dismissing it probably wasn't wise…

"...I don't know." She weakly finished.

"That's fine." Paloma reassured her. "You've got plenty of other options. We'll get that one if nothing else pans out, alright?"

"Alright." The Wo-class agreed, backing back into the changing room.

"Hang that over the door once you've changed, please!"

"Aye aye."

She'd had even more reservations about the next dress, but thankfully hadn't needed to worry about it. The black, shiny fabric absolutely would make the abyssal look like… an abyssal, but as she tried to zip the dress closed it's zipper caught. After some troubleshooting and a few gentle tugs, the abyssal determined the zipper wasn't the problem: the dress itself wasn't large enough to fit around her chest.

Two more dresses had the same issue, disappearing over the top of the door as Paloma moved them to a rack outside. When the fifth of six slipped onto Trinitite without any issue, she thought she finally had something, until her rangefinders flicked back to the mirror.

The same, human-like face looked back at her. As her rangefinders drifted down, however, she noted the familiar blotchy transition to abyssal white skin as the Abyssal's foundation ended and her real skin started… over half a foot above the dress's neckline. The dress's collar was significantly larger than those on her shirt, hanging loosely around her shoulders and dropping down to show the top of her breasts. It would just mean a deeper draw on her makeup reserves, if not for her rigging.

More specifically, the issue was the hardpoint that anchored her rigging's toothy neck guard to herself and kept her suit tight. The black, coarse stripes drifted from her collarbone towards her centerline, and looked nothing like anything on a human. Given the difference in texture, Trinitite couldn't even pretend the pattern was a tattoo! If she could wear some kind of shirt underneath the dress, perhaps she could still hide the markings, but Trinitite didn't know if that was common, and she certainly didn't have one now. The Wo-class removed the dress, tossing it over the window for Paloma's collection.

"This one's too small, too?" The human asked, seemingly surprised. The Wo-class briefly contemplated agreeing, but suddenly remembered the dress had had measurements printed on the inside. Better to not lie on that, in case she was checking those.

"No, it's-" she started, but a good excuse failed her. Before she could think of something, the human spoke up again.

"Maybe dresses are going too far, then…" Paloma wondered, her voice low enough that Trinitite guessed the statement hadn't been for her. "Once you get changed back, could you step out for a moment?"

"Step out, aye." The abyssal echoed. She donned her shirt quickly, opening the door to meet Paloma's interrogative gaze. Trinitite froze, recognizing the inspection for what it was.

"Black hair…" Paloma muttered, her rangefinders focused on Trinitite as she started to pace around the abyssal. "pale skin…" Apparently finished with her inspection, Paloma straightened. "Do you have any leggings, Sarah?"

"I don't…"

"Hmm, I'll have to take you to a proper store tomorrow." The human mused. "Let's put these dresses back. I think I can get you most of a good outfit here…"

"I'm home."

Katie Harmon's muttering fell only on her own ears, the lifeless flat dimly illuminated by streetlamps filtering through the windows and the open door. The hours-long drive from LA had taken its toll on the detective, Katie's knees wobbling as she stumbled into her apartment. A cloud of disturbed dust swirled around her as she fell into a couch, the leather sighing as it accepted her weight.

Today had not been productive.

She'd had several objectives in Los Angeles: her first had been meeting with a potential client, a pair of helicopter parents with more money than sense. They'd wanted her to find every detail about their estranged daughter's life, which had gone how she'd expected. Simply dealing with them had been exhausting enough that she'd failed to make any headway with the other cases she'd had in the area. To top it off, other drivers had tried to kill her twice on the drive back, and when she'd stopped by an In-and-Out for dinner the car in front of her took half an hour to order and be served.

Her stomach grumbled, and her attention was drawn to the grease-stained bag in her hands. She needed to eat, and she wasn't going to do it on the couch here. The investigator stood with a grunt, scooping up the bag and wandering into her office.

There, in the center of the corkboard, the abyssal's horrified gaze met her own.

The image Katie used for her query had been taken from the police officer's body cam footage. Compression and poor lighting easily made the photo the lowest quality one on the corkboard, and the shoddy photoshop job The Navy had put it through before allowing her to have it didn't help much either, but to Katie the fear in those pixelated eyes was crystal clear. It was why she'd chosen that frame of the recording: after all the suffering, death, and fear they'd inflicted, seeing one forced to confront the same feelings they'd inflicted upon others was more than a little cathartic.

It would feel better if, instead of some ignorant beat cop, she was causing that fear. No matter how far-fetched the prospect of hunting her down was, the idea of recreating the scene on the corkboard, and becoming known as the woman who'd done so, kept Katie's hopes up.

She'd have to check with her contacts in Washington, tomorrow. Trinitite could wait until she'd had some food and a rest.

The computer hummed to life, its fans joining with those of The Contact in white noise. Katie quietly logged in, mentally reviewing the list of streaming services she was still subscribed to. Binging on a show while she ate should serve as a good mental reset before bed. That new Star Wars show was apparently pretty good, but relaxing with a classic like Columbo sounded equally appealing right now.

She opened Carmen automatically, but ignored it as she shifted to her web browser. The program probably hadn't found anything during her day trip south, but checking on it was an ingrained habit at this point…

The contact had found something. This wasn't a big deal, as was only one match and Katie had dealt with plenty of false positives, but she couldn't help herself from investigating the provided link. While facebook loaded, she opened Peacock… only for the streaming service to be forgotten when the flagged post finally loaded in.

She dominated the image, her commanding presence and deadly smirk seizing Katie's attention. The photographer's attention had clearly been seized by something else, the abyssal's prominent breasts aligned perfectly with the image's two-thirds line. The bottom third of the table was scattered with some kind of miniatures, clustered together to serve a purpose beyond Katie.

One of those war games, she guessed. In a way, it was a pretty clever place to hide. The types of people who spent money on those overpriced army men would probably be too distracted by the fact a gurl was playing with them to ask any dangerous questions.

Unfortunately, the PI couldn't really trust the image's metadata. The particular image The Contact had found was a meme, an internet dweller running the image through some editing program to add a 'witty' caption to the top. It was a lead, however, and with her show and meal forgotten, Katie Harmon started digging.

A bit of a tougher topic at the start of the chapter, here. Normally, I try to let characters' dialogue speak for themselves and try not to commentate on it too much, but in this instance I want to state that if you, personally, are a victim of harassment like this, absolutely report it.

With that out of the way, the rest of the chapter was pretty fun to write. I reminded myself today that I've had an unopened box containing a drawing tablet on my desk ever since I've moved here, and I really need to get around to drawing Trin some time. Just like I need to get around to refactoring the Valkyries of Ran code I made into C#, and it's about time I wrote an omake for someone else's fic...

Anyways, writing the Katie scene was a good deal of fun, too, despite how short it is. She and the rest of the regular interlude cast were always a good amount of fun to write, so getting them back into the story is something I've been looking forewords to.