All in all, it didn't seem like she'd had anything to be nervous about, Irene thought.
Ever since the close call that'd nearly dethroned the Countess, the pressure on her department to produce working Scimitars had been lessened a good deal
as most black operations had had their operational tempo stepped down to avoid drawing excess attention as the PR departments concentrated on damage control.
Plus, with Paul gone and the flurry of personnel replacements that'd happened as those deemed "expendable" had been "discovered" and
terminated to feed the metaphorical sacrifice requirement for appearing to make a clean sweep of "rogue elements", Irene effectively had had her
cover re-inforced by the fact that only a handful of the current staff knew her except by reputation, which she'd carefully kept low-key on Reika's
advice.
Which left her with a lot of free time and, unfortunately, not much of a social life to use it in. Reika was home less often these days, and Irene had to admit
that as much as she loved her sister, she had an...intensity...about her that made Irene somewhat uncomfortable at times. She'd been better lately, as if
she'd found some kind of outlet for it, but still, they weren't exactly to the point of randomly socializing together. Part of her wondered if they
ever would be, given how quickly Reika'd had to grow into her role as the head of the Chang Group...
Putting such thoughts out of her mind for the moment, however, she considered the hospitality she was enjoying. Edge and Rose Sabres(Utena and Anthy, she
reminded herself) had invited her over to help with making cookies when Utena'd heard that she was looking for something to do with her abundance of free
time. Apparently Anthy was a decent enough gardener, housekeeper, accountant, and a variety of other mundane specialties that left Irene feeling a little
inferior, but the one thing she could absolutely not do was cook. As such, Utena needed another pair of hands that could follow simple instructions and Irene
had agreed, albeit a little tenatively.
The reason for her hesitation had been based in what she'd known of the two prior to their escape. Utena, now Edge Sabre, formerly Edge Scimitar, had been
an absolutely lethal combatant in her short stint under Crey's covert security division. Enough that she'd been fast-tracked into combat against more
dangerous criminal groups that required more force than Crey really needed to spend on mere business competitors. She'd similarly disarmed and utterly
dominated a Scimitar designed to be her potential replacement in case she ever went rogue and proceeded to drag that one out with her during her escape.
Yet....she seemed perfectly comfortable wearing an apron and baking cookies, tossing stories about various non-events that kept Irene thoroughly entertained
with the sheer mundanity of it all. If she wasn't aware of how active Utena was on the arena circuit among Riot Force and the Legendary, Irene could almost
have suspected she preferred staying home with Anthy to suiting up and leaping into combat.
Anthy, by contrast, was practically the opposite of her significant other in every way. Soft-spoken, insightful, and prone to startling bursts of clarity(and,
so the rumors went, bordering on precognition at times), she seemed like a traditional Japanese wife stereotype in almost every way, until you realized that,
in quite a few places, the rather self-confident Utena deferred to her without so much as a second word, showing a much more two-way partnership than it seemed
to be on the surface. Compared to the bizarre shift from perfect imitation of humanity to single-minded killing machine that most Nemesis automatons had, Irene
was left with dozens of questions she couldn't really ask politely about what made Anthy so different. Crey had
made some small on-record changes to her basic processor(mostly the removal of the combat programming switch that would make her much easier to keep prisoner,
given her normal personality), but altogether she couldn't exactly pin down what about her seemed unusual...though she didn't think it mattered too
terribly much. The woman was about as close as one could get to a saint by personality and inclination, in addition to her healing abilities.
But really, knowing their histories hadn't prepared her much at all for these two people, and Irene felt more than
a little comforted by the decision she'd made to help people like these against Crey. Because they were people,
and these two proved that as much as any of them.
With such suitably warm and fuzzy thoughts in mind, Irene stepped into the pantry to get another bag of sugar, when she came face to face with the last thing
that she'd expected: a fully grown Rikti monkey a small necktie which was sneaking a couple oranges out of the fruit basket. Faced with this, Irene had
possibly the most logical reaction anyone vaguely familiar with the creatures would.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
"What?! What is it?!" Utena yelled as she slid around the corner, before looking suitably perplexed at the image of Irene, who'd fallen back
against the door at some point and the Rikti monkey, who'd dropped its oranges and was hiding behind the basket, both of them panting slightly to make up
for their simultaneous expressions of startlement at each other.
Utena shook her head and smiled slightly. "Chu-Chu! What've we told you about sneaking up on visitors that don't know you?"
The Rikti monkey made some chittering noises that could possibly be interpreted as speech, along with a few gestures, most notably pointing at its necktie.
"Yes, I know you have the tie. But that's not going to be the first thing people look at when they see you."
The Rikti monkey made the most perfect example of a pouting put-out expression of body language as Utena rolled her eyes, much to Irene's bafflement.
"Yes, it is important. Most monkeys aren't smart like you and like to, y'know, attack people?"
"Chitter-chitter-hoot-ook!"
"Yes, I know you're not like them, but poor Irene here didn't, and you were trying to sneak food like
wild ones do," she noted sternly.
The Rikti monkey (Chu-Chu? Irene parsed mentally) looked suitably abashed, then perked up as Anthy came around the corner, hopping to its feet and scampering
up and around to Anthy's shoulder. Utena glanced over to Irene, helping her up as she smiled somewhat embarassedly. "Sorry about that. I really
should've thought to introduce you two. Irene, this is Chu-Chu."
Irene nodded, still off-balance, at the Rikti monkey, who chittered what sounded like a greeting in return(she oddly noted it had a partial telepathic
component that helped her understand the sounds that didn't resemble speech in the slightest) as well as waving. Waving back, she looked at Utena with the
obvious question on her face.
"Well, Anthy and I got a job shortly after that mess with the Countess," Utena explained. "Apparently the investigation'd knocked loose a
lead to a lab where they were experimenting with Rikti monkeys. Trying to increase their intelligence to use them as deniable bio-weapons," she said
absently. "We rescued the four that they had at the lab, and Chu-Chu here just sorta...adopted Anthy. He's smart enough, but we're slowly getting
the neighbors used to the fact that he's not a typical bloodthirsty ruin monkey."
"And...um...the necktie?" she asked, slowly regaining her mental balance.
Anthy chuckled slightly. "That's because he's too dignified to wear a collar and his hands aren't exactly well suited for tying bow
ties."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Ever since the close call that'd nearly dethroned the Countess, the pressure on her department to produce working Scimitars had been lessened a good deal
as most black operations had had their operational tempo stepped down to avoid drawing excess attention as the PR departments concentrated on damage control.
Plus, with Paul gone and the flurry of personnel replacements that'd happened as those deemed "expendable" had been "discovered" and
terminated to feed the metaphorical sacrifice requirement for appearing to make a clean sweep of "rogue elements", Irene effectively had had her
cover re-inforced by the fact that only a handful of the current staff knew her except by reputation, which she'd carefully kept low-key on Reika's
advice.
Which left her with a lot of free time and, unfortunately, not much of a social life to use it in. Reika was home less often these days, and Irene had to admit
that as much as she loved her sister, she had an...intensity...about her that made Irene somewhat uncomfortable at times. She'd been better lately, as if
she'd found some kind of outlet for it, but still, they weren't exactly to the point of randomly socializing together. Part of her wondered if they
ever would be, given how quickly Reika'd had to grow into her role as the head of the Chang Group...
Putting such thoughts out of her mind for the moment, however, she considered the hospitality she was enjoying. Edge and Rose Sabres(Utena and Anthy, she
reminded herself) had invited her over to help with making cookies when Utena'd heard that she was looking for something to do with her abundance of free
time. Apparently Anthy was a decent enough gardener, housekeeper, accountant, and a variety of other mundane specialties that left Irene feeling a little
inferior, but the one thing she could absolutely not do was cook. As such, Utena needed another pair of hands that could follow simple instructions and Irene
had agreed, albeit a little tenatively.
The reason for her hesitation had been based in what she'd known of the two prior to their escape. Utena, now Edge Sabre, formerly Edge Scimitar, had been
an absolutely lethal combatant in her short stint under Crey's covert security division. Enough that she'd been fast-tracked into combat against more
dangerous criminal groups that required more force than Crey really needed to spend on mere business competitors. She'd similarly disarmed and utterly
dominated a Scimitar designed to be her potential replacement in case she ever went rogue and proceeded to drag that one out with her during her escape.
Yet....she seemed perfectly comfortable wearing an apron and baking cookies, tossing stories about various non-events that kept Irene thoroughly entertained
with the sheer mundanity of it all. If she wasn't aware of how active Utena was on the arena circuit among Riot Force and the Legendary, Irene could almost
have suspected she preferred staying home with Anthy to suiting up and leaping into combat.
Anthy, by contrast, was practically the opposite of her significant other in every way. Soft-spoken, insightful, and prone to startling bursts of clarity(and,
so the rumors went, bordering on precognition at times), she seemed like a traditional Japanese wife stereotype in almost every way, until you realized that,
in quite a few places, the rather self-confident Utena deferred to her without so much as a second word, showing a much more two-way partnership than it seemed
to be on the surface. Compared to the bizarre shift from perfect imitation of humanity to single-minded killing machine that most Nemesis automatons had, Irene
was left with dozens of questions she couldn't really ask politely about what made Anthy so different. Crey had
made some small on-record changes to her basic processor(mostly the removal of the combat programming switch that would make her much easier to keep prisoner,
given her normal personality), but altogether she couldn't exactly pin down what about her seemed unusual...though she didn't think it mattered too
terribly much. The woman was about as close as one could get to a saint by personality and inclination, in addition to her healing abilities.
But really, knowing their histories hadn't prepared her much at all for these two people, and Irene felt more than
a little comforted by the decision she'd made to help people like these against Crey. Because they were people,
and these two proved that as much as any of them.
With such suitably warm and fuzzy thoughts in mind, Irene stepped into the pantry to get another bag of sugar, when she came face to face with the last thing
that she'd expected: a fully grown Rikti monkey a small necktie which was sneaking a couple oranges out of the fruit basket. Faced with this, Irene had
possibly the most logical reaction anyone vaguely familiar with the creatures would.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
"What?! What is it?!" Utena yelled as she slid around the corner, before looking suitably perplexed at the image of Irene, who'd fallen back
against the door at some point and the Rikti monkey, who'd dropped its oranges and was hiding behind the basket, both of them panting slightly to make up
for their simultaneous expressions of startlement at each other.
Utena shook her head and smiled slightly. "Chu-Chu! What've we told you about sneaking up on visitors that don't know you?"
The Rikti monkey made some chittering noises that could possibly be interpreted as speech, along with a few gestures, most notably pointing at its necktie.
"Yes, I know you have the tie. But that's not going to be the first thing people look at when they see you."
The Rikti monkey made the most perfect example of a pouting put-out expression of body language as Utena rolled her eyes, much to Irene's bafflement.
"Yes, it is important. Most monkeys aren't smart like you and like to, y'know, attack people?"
"Chitter-chitter-hoot-ook!"
"Yes, I know you're not like them, but poor Irene here didn't, and you were trying to sneak food like
wild ones do," she noted sternly.
The Rikti monkey (Chu-Chu? Irene parsed mentally) looked suitably abashed, then perked up as Anthy came around the corner, hopping to its feet and scampering
up and around to Anthy's shoulder. Utena glanced over to Irene, helping her up as she smiled somewhat embarassedly. "Sorry about that. I really
should've thought to introduce you two. Irene, this is Chu-Chu."
Irene nodded, still off-balance, at the Rikti monkey, who chittered what sounded like a greeting in return(she oddly noted it had a partial telepathic
component that helped her understand the sounds that didn't resemble speech in the slightest) as well as waving. Waving back, she looked at Utena with the
obvious question on her face.
"Well, Anthy and I got a job shortly after that mess with the Countess," Utena explained. "Apparently the investigation'd knocked loose a
lead to a lab where they were experimenting with Rikti monkeys. Trying to increase their intelligence to use them as deniable bio-weapons," she said
absently. "We rescued the four that they had at the lab, and Chu-Chu here just sorta...adopted Anthy. He's smart enough, but we're slowly getting
the neighbors used to the fact that he's not a typical bloodthirsty ruin monkey."
"And...um...the necktie?" she asked, slowly regaining her mental balance.
Anthy chuckled slightly. "That's because he's too dignified to wear a collar and his hands aren't exactly well suited for tying bow
ties."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."