[Prologue] From the Ashes

Shizu accepted the tea refill with a short bow and a thank you. Then she held it with both hands, kind of alternating. This tea was hot. Not lukewarm, but hot. It burned her fingers through the plastic cup. She blew on it, but that didn't help very much at all.

Frowning, she stood up. The chair made a sort of plastic-metal scritching sound. Tugging her shorts down a bit, since they'd been riding up, she mumbled, "I'm going to go grab a desk and take a shower. I'm a detective, so... just... call me when you get something difficult, or if someone dies."

"Nonsense!" Sashi bellowed back to Shizu, stepping around her, "We're a Special Investigations unit! Every job is difficult for us! I mean..."

Sashi crossed his hand under his chin and tilted his head to one side, ruffling his uniform. He continued more slowly this time, purposefully, "That is to say, we are only given the assignments that are too difficult for the regular police. Why don't you just sit here? I'll make more tea! And coffee!"

Sashi twirled around to the coffee machine.

"Does everyone have enough coffee?"

Shizu picked out the ear that Sashi had inadvertently bellowed into, and tried to mentally un-brace it. All the yelling had caught her extremely off guard and her ears were flat. It took a few seconds for her to coax them back up, so she could actually hear, again. Then she moved her hair away from them.

The pitch of his voice was grating on her. All Shizu wanted, right now, was to shower, change out of her clubbing clothes, and go to sleep on her desk, where-ever it happened to be, or on her cot, where-ever that happened to be. It wasn't like she cared enough to bother armwrestling some guy for it though. She slumped back down in her chair.

"I," she started, quietly, before punctuating it with a "YEOUCH!"

She'd spilled the tea on her shirt, when she'd dropped back into the seat. Now she was torn between the sudden urge to remove it, and get the hot tea off of her, and the shame of. . . well, being shirtless in the middle of her new co-workers. She settled for holding it off away from her skin, and blowing down her neckline. It hurt like hell, but soon she was alright. Yea. Fine.

Then she looked back up at the other people, and at the overturned cup, and the stares, and realized that she'd fucked up pretty bad just then. Clutching her still-warm shirt close to herself, she looked down at the mess she'd made. She realized that she wasn't alright after all.

And then she started crying.

"Ooooh, noooo!" The words came out stretchily from Sashi, like he was watching a couple on a soap opera break up. "I must've over-filled your cup!"

Almost immediately, he was upon her with a pair of tea towels, blotting at her stomach and collar-- avoiding her chest in the most gentlemanly way possible. Or perhaps it was an air of professionalism.

"I'm soo sorry, Miss Shizu!"

Andrea listened to what others had to say. The young man wanted to hit the streets so to speak. So did the young woman and that tiny neko seemed just tired of everything. That or she was really bored. Either way she was only one who seemed to have seen her worth of the world and how much it sucked sometimes.

Then the tea happened. In just a few seconds Andrea could see Shizu overload. It was finally too much and poor neko broke down into tears. That young idiot ran to help, but well it was too late and he was only making things worse. Probably. In Andrea's opinion what Shizu needed was getting out of here for few minutes.

Andrea got up and pushed Sashi away without giving it much thought. She then carefully took Shizu around shoulder and helped her get on her feet. "If you would not mind LT, I am going to take her to showers and get her something new to wear." She said. It was still Araiah's show and Andrea could not just leave like that.

Trudy watched as Andrea took Shizu to the showers, her mind racing to see if there was any standard protocol in dealing with situation. After coming up with nothing she let out a sigh,

"... And then there was four."

Getting up from her seat she went over to the, now nearly empty coffee pot and poured herself half a mug, filling the rest up with milk, before taking a sip.

"So, Lieutenant, whats the plan?" Trudy said calmly leaning up against a nearby wall, "Should we wait for those two to get back to continue or do you have something else for us to do?"

Sera Aphoris just watched the drama play out, studying the whole scene. She felt bad for the neko, but watching the whole room explode into chaos with people getting up and leaving with out being dismissed. 'What did I get assigned into," she pondered, 'To think I asked to be moved here.' She waited to hear what the LT wanted to do based off of Trudy's question.

As the drama unfolded before her, Araiah brought the tip of one of the markers up to her lip. She was tempted to nibble at the edge of it, to chew that little nub of plastic as a way to ease some of the embarrassment she felt for Shizu.

She resorted to tapping instead. The team building exercise had turned into a disaster with one cup of tea. She sensed the mix of emotions among the members as well. There was a sense of anticipation in the air and the weight of expectations.

Abort.

"Ok," she said simply, tossing the marker to the side where it clattered on the floor. "We'll get to the point."

There was a folder that rested on a small podium that had been pushed against the wall. There was a thin, cream-colored folder on it, bearing the YNP logo. The Lieutenant walked over and took it into her right hand, holding it up for them to see.

"This is your first assignment," she said. "Everyone take a shower, clean up your appearance and suit up."

She gave those in the room a long look. They were on business now.

"You are permitted the use of either Tanken or Junsa armor for this assignment. Familiarize yourselves with the differences between the two, not only with their capabilities, but also the potential image they set for your unit. You are also permitted the use of either the 33 civilian or the type 30 NSP. Take care with the selection of your equipment, as you will be dealing with large groups of civilians."

She let out a long breath, and crossed her arms. She seemed lost in thought for a moment before she blinked and nodded.

"You have 30 minutes. I expect you all here within that timeframe for the full briefing."

~~~~~

To get to the showers from the break room, one had to walk through the main office. Several desks were lined up, each with an old, but functional computer and three draws. There was enough space for a few personal affects on each of them. The metal surfaces of the desks gave off a cold an uninviting air otherwise.

Perhaps because of this, two of the desks already had a bit of character added to them. The first had a small picture frame and a tray of freshly baked chocolate cupcakes on it. The smell wafted from the desk and was quickly filling the room.

A figure was kneeling at the desk, obscured by it, but obviously not hiding by the way a large straw hat bobbed up and down. Sewn into the hat was a miniature sunflower, its beautiful yellow leaves indicating that it had not been picked too long ago.

The figure made a huffing noise and the desk tilted an inch to the side.

"Now how'in the heck ahm I gonna fix 'dis little thing?" It muttered in common.

Female.

~~~~

The other desk had a huge mug on it, fresh coffee dripping from the side of it and onto the table where it formed a ring. There was also a small potted plant on it.

A cactus by the look of it. Its spines extended a good inch from it and it gave off a healthy green glow.

A white shirt had been slung over the back of the chair, but its owner was nowhere to be seen.

The police station had a small attached locker room and shower - built with the idea of a bi-gender force in mind. They steered into the ladies area, a fairly sanitary place, if one could judge at a glance.

Once Shizu got herself sat down on a bench, she gradually started to calm down, punctuating her sniffles and sobs with some sort of sorry or thank you, mumbled half-hearted. When she finished wiping her eyes, finally, and stooped forward with her hands gripping the edge of the wooden bench, she looked extremely pathetic. And felt like it, too.

"...Sorry."

Andrea went to the mirrors and got few paper tissues from dispenser. Turning back and returning to Shizu quickly, she handed them over to green-haired neko. Or Minkan. Andrea could not know, now with minkans, saying who is neko and who is minkan was damn hard.

"Sorry for what?" Andrea asked and smirked slightly. "You got nothing to be sorry for. You okay now lass? Or... more okay then before?" Andrea was really interested in how this woman was feeling. If she turns out to be melancholic whacko, better to know it sooner than later. Hopefully it won't be like this in this case. It was probably just one of those moments.

Shizu accepted the towels, drying her eyes more throughly. Then, she crumpled them together in her lap, and stared at them.

"This is a horrible way to start a new career," she admitted miserably, as if to herself. "You must think I'm crazy or stupid."

Andrea put her index finger on her chin and looked up in attemp to look like she was thinking. "Geez I don't know," she joked. "You just got assigned to SI unit with worst repuation in the whole Kyoto. What coud possibly get you down. I would probably cry too, but my tears dried out years ago." She then laughed a little for herself.

The meloncholy woman managed a weak smile. "My luck."

Andrea walked to the wall where spare-towels hanged. She picked up one and tossed it over Shizu's head as a joke. "Come let's get that shower before LT comes shouting that we are slowpokes." She said and started taking off her jacket.

Shizu sat there with the towel on her head, over her hair, for a few more seconds before reaching up and pulling it off. Ruefully, she stared at it, then deposited it on the seat beside her and went to undo her shirt, which had been nearly ruined by the tea.

As if it weren't blatently obvious already, the sudden flash of almost paper-pale skin reminded Andrea that the meloncholy woman had nothing on beneath that shirt whatsoever.

Andrea did not really care about naked skin. To her everyone was the same. The shell was just there to hide the filth inside each yamtaian/neko/nepleslian being. And there is always some filth. She herself took off her jacked and turtle-neck. Underneath was a simple black bra, which she proceeded to unhook and take off.

"So you going commando eh?" Andrea ask just to keep the conversation going ang get Neko's mind off things.

"Went," Shizu corrected, flipping her hair off her shoulders, long bangs framing her face as a few dark green strands simply refused. Standing then, she took off the rest of her clothing, which wasn't much. "Last night I was out pretty much all night," Shizu explained, stooping to get her shorts off, and then bending over and curling her leg up to snatch them before they hit the ground. "It's just easier this way. There's supposed to be spare uniforms around here, right?"

"There should be some," Andrea said and unbuttoned her jeans. "If not, I can get you some from the storage. I also keep spare uniform in trunk of my car. You never know. Or you can just that Junsa armour LT talked about it. I wonder why we are supposed to take that." She mentioned as she pulled her jeans to the ground and then stepped out, picking them up and hanging them next to her jacket.

"Riots," Shizu explained, padding to the showers. Now that she wasn't the center of attention, she seemed a lot more normal. A lot less melodramatically insane.

Well, at least a different type of insane. Clubbing without underwear insane.

"Riots...." Andrea repated after the neko. She shook her head in disbelief and pulled her black panties down, taking another towel and heading into nearest stall. "Seriously we are investigation unit. There is not much to investigate in riots. They must really be short-handed." She said.

"Something easy enough for us to handle, though," Shizu continued. She turned the shower on and then danced away from the too-hot water, holding herself by the arms and edging around until she could reach the dial again. "We're really the dredges. I haven't had a job in years. I might as well have got dismissed from the Army, and I expect everyone else has similar stories. So it only makes sense."

Having reached the temperature controls, Shizu could step under the water. She did; she stood under the showerhead with her head slightly forward, and the water running over her hair, turning it so dark it was near almost black.

Andrea turned on the hot water, tested it with her hand before stepping in. She let it tun over her shoulders and breasts before replying. "Well I work as cop for over ten years now." Andrea said and put her head under the water, letting her hair get wet. "What I want is to actually pull mys shit together and get out of this unit again. Especially if it is investigative unit that is so useless that they send it to help calm riots. If is is going to be a riot."

Having already showered with great fury before leaving home, Sashi made tracks to the armory to don his gear. He browsed the selection for a moment, as if he cared in the least about weapons, before slipping his own Junsa armor out of his locker and carrying it into the men's section of the dressing room.

Although he much preferred something that didn't rely too heavily on technology (His pile of broken datapads at home standing testament to the back of his mind.); Sashi was at least fond of the Junsa for his ability to wear the uniform over it-- and as such, he slipped out of his uniform and started the confusing process of putting the article on.

"Was it shoulders first? Or was it bottoms first?" He muttered to himself, pushing a shoulder plate onto his arm in a lopsided fashion, "Oh why can't this be like puzzle-solving? If I get it wrong, I won't know..."

Sera Aphoris left the briefing room and followed Sashi in to the armory. she grabbed her Junsa armor and moved into the ladies changing room. noticing that Shizu and Andrea were both in there, she quickly changed into her armor and went over to where they were.

"Everything OK with you two?" Sera was concerned that these two people where going to be part of her unit and that they seemed flaky and easily excitable.

Trudy decided against trying to interfere with Shizu and Andrea, Their big girls and can figure it out for themselves, I'm horrible at being mom anyway. she thought to herself as she entered the armory. Quickly putting on a set of Junsa armor, a skill she learned in her last unit, and decided to browse the Armory for a bit before heading back out.

Andrea put her head under the stream of hot water and let it wet her hair. Her fingers ranks through it, uncoiling some of her unruly hair. The was ran down across her skin and it felt nice. No answer came from Shizu so far so she just showered and did not continue in the conversation. She put some shampoo on her hands and started rubbing it into her hair.

Hearing a voice made her turn around seeing another girl in the group talking to them, asking if they are all right. "We are fine," Andrea said loudly so it will be easy to hear over the running water. "Now she added looking to the side at the Shizu to see her reaction.

"Well that is good. The boss wants us suited up as soon as possible, we have a case." Smiling Sera turned and went back over to the locker she picked out for her self. She made sure that her jacket was hung right and that she didn't leave anything behind that she needed. Hanging her bike keys up on a hook, she closed the locker door and took a seat to wait for the other ladys.

After a little while of showering in silence, Shizu shut off her shower and picked up her towel from one of the benches in the locker room. Andrea on the other hand seemed to enjoy the shower. The hot water going down her skin was always nice. Though when she noticed Shizu being done, she turned the water off and stepped out herself. The ex-nepleslian wringed water out of her hair and then proceeded to pick up towel of her own.

"Do you feel better now?" Andrea asked with the towed over her head.

"Yes," Shizu answered from where she'd sat, to dry her hair. She had collected the long, green hank in her lap, and was toweling it off carefully, after having dried the rest of herself. "I am not normally like this. I left my girlfriend this morning. I guess, it has hit me harder than I had thought it would."

"Ouch," said Andrea as she started toweling the rest of herself, chest, belly, arms and everything. "I was left enough times to know how that feels. In the end I found the only relationship I am in is the one I have with my work. But don't worry you are young. Girls and boys come and go. It will hurt now, but it will get better." Andrea was never too god at consoling others.

"I had work, and I had her also, for years - and I do not think it did me much good overall. It always seems to be one, or the other, doesn't it?" And after having said that, Shizu, having reached only halfway down her long hair with her towel, stopped drying it. She twined her fingers in the damp tangles, and said, "I ought to cut this off, too."

Andrea looked Shizu's way. "Nope," she said and smiled a little. "Keep the hair. It makes you stand out. You don't want to look like me," Andrea chuckled as she pointed to messy nest of hair on her head.

Smiling just a bit, eyes the pale color of fog turning up to the taller nekovalkyrja, Shizu held her hair away from her body with her towel, as if presenting it for inspection. "That would not be the reason. I can not wear my hair like this inside of a Junsa, not without some difficulty."

"That's easy," come the reply from the other woman. "Just tie it in a bun or wear a net. We might also get you a balaclava or something. We won't be wearing Junsa very often hopefully."

Shizu got back to drying her hair. "Yes, hopefully."

"And yes," Andrea then said chaning the topics, as she was drying her backside. "You need to either choose the work or the love-life. I picked the work."

"Less sex that way," Shizu observed, crossing her legs at the knees.

Andrea stopped and looked at Shizu, eyeing her from head to toes and then looking away. She tossed her towl away. "Are making a move on me?" She asked then, and looked back her eye half closed, studying the neko with curiosity.

Still toweling, Shizu canted her head to the side and asked, mischiviously, "Do you want me to?"

Andrea once again looked at Shizu's naked body, wondering if she does want her to or not. She then shrugged. "I might, feel free to try." She said and took her panties putting them on. "Just warning you. I am not exactly sensitive person."

"Mind if I am?" Shizu looked back down at her hair, smiling a bit more than was usual, as if musing to herself instead of speaking to someone else. "I did not used to be, exactly. There was a time where I would not even consider having sex with a co-worker. Then, after I lost everything over that, I reconsidered. That came to me a little too late, of course."

"I..." Andrea said and paused for a while. "Have never been with coworker really and much to say..... I have never been with a woman. But any attempts at love-life till now was disaster. Might be different. But. Work takes precedence."

"Work takes precedence," Shizu agreed. "Now, while I am drying my hair, and if you are finished, could you go and get us the appropriate attire? I think I will take a bulletproof vest, at least."

Andrea hooked har Bra and started to squeeze herself in her jeans. "No, let's both take Junsa. If we are to meet riots, it will be needed with its non-lethal weapons and waht not. Even though I don't really like it." Andrea then went where lockser were. None of it was hers yet as she was in different station in past.

Andrea looked around to see if someone was around. When sure that that it was safe kicked the lock on one of the lockers. The light went from red to green and she opened it. Without rumaging through stuff she took out an exercise unifrom in it, being made of t-shirt and short and tossing it to Shizu. "Here take this," she said and closed the locker again. "Little trick I learned, when I lost my card. I was opening locker like this for half a year. Keep it a secret."

Shizu whistled a bit, just idly. "If it is going to be riots, I would not want to be in uniform. I guess that is not very professional, though.

"Not much can be done," Andrea said and finished dressing. She put her jacket in one of the locker, taking its opening card and just put her pistol in under-arm holster. It was nepleslian SiZi pistol and not normally issued NSP. "You don't have your own uniform yet. Put this and let's get ourselves a Junsa and get to others."

"Right."

-------------------------------

Fifteen, or twenty minutes later, Andrea and Shizu were dressed and in uniform, fully clad in Junsa armor, though Shizu had foreborn on donning her helmet. Her hair was still wet. She hadn't braided it, but had only bound it with a pair of white hair-ties. They stood out like little lights in a dark, green evening.

"We need to hurry," Andrea said. "Don't want to be late for first assignment." She said, she herself too did not put her helmet on yet. There was time for it later. She waved at Shizu and moved towards the waiting room where others were.

After appeasing her curiosity about the armory Trudy made her way back to the briefing room. As she waited for the others to return she made little adjustments to her Junsa armor, tightening or loosening sections so it would properly fit. "Seems i've put on a bit of weight" She grumbled to herself as she loosened the armor section around her waist. After everything was in place Trudy took out her NSP and did a functions check while she waited for everyone else.

Sera stretched and made sure that her armor was sitting, once she was happy she move back out of the changing room. She followed Trudy to the briefing room. "Whatcha think the case is?" she hoped Trudy was just as curious as she was.

"This equipment is for two things; crowd control, and raids." Sashi's voice called into the room ahead of him.

After what could have been perceived as an epic struggle for dominance between man and armor, Sashi finally emerged back in the briefing room with his NSP holstered at his hip and the Junsa armor peeking out from underneath his uniform. For whatever trouble he'd had putting the suit on, Sashi seemed elegant and comfortable now that he'd actually finished the process of donning the armor. He checked his NSP for the third time before taking a seat and fiddling with the pleats on his uniform.

"I imagine a crowd control situation since we just started working today. No case to lead to a raid."

"Probably, if it's riot control, and I expect that they will be throwing things..." After another moment's pause, she added, smiling faintly to Sashi, "I've never seen anyone wear a uniform over a full body armor, though. You might not be able to fire the crowd control launcher on your right forearm, if you wear the jacket. I don't think you'll be able to use the forcefield projection either."

"Maybe." Sashi frowned a bit at this. After a moment of pondering the image of being trampled and torn to pieces by rioters, he steeled himself and took on an expression of determination.

"But I don't want to look like a hardened riot cop who's just there to crack skulls." Sashi put one hand on his holster and the other on his chest, hovering just underneath his YNP pin. "I want to look like a public servant-- firm, yet understanding. This is the uniform that removes cats from trees and returns stolen handbags. I want them to see this uniform, a symbol of peace and justice."

He was getting a little over-dramatic, but Sashi didn't seem to notice, instead focusing on his speech while his eyes drilled into the wall just below the ceiling.

"Even though I'm an investigator and an Agent of the YNP, I make it my priority to never forget that I'm still an officer at the core, and still bound to serve the people of the Empire first and foremost. I want them to see that while they're throwing things and rioting. I want them to see me trying to help them, going where those brave men and women of the force have gone a million times before--"

Sashi stopped suddenly and twisted his head a little as if he just heard someone else make the same speech and was finding it very invigorating. It seemed as though he was giving himself his own pep-talk until this point when he paused-- which caused him to turn back to Shizu with an earnest smile.

"...And I just think that's kind of important, is all."