Chapter Nine

The real armor

March 20, Tuesday 10.40AM. 125 S.A.

Nevermore Base No. 2 in French Territory

Pic de Grèzes, Languedoc-Roussillon. France.

Shin hadn't taken notice of the girls' conversation with Camila, for his part he was interested in something else at the moment.

"Hmm…"

"What's wrong?" Zi asked.

Shin bent down and tried to grab the pug, but the small dog dodged him, by hiding behind the fey girl with big appetite. The animal had become quite attached to Zi over the past few days, but the team was hoping to leave it on the island, so that he could be cared for and its strange fur could be studied. Philip didn't want to admit it but, he also liked that dark glass ball.

"It's really weird," Shin affirmed studying the animal, and then stood up looking at Zi. "And you? Are you all right? Nothing happened to you inside the mirror box?"

"No, fortunately."

He had read the report in a spare moment. The case had interested him because there had been a sighting of a creature he knew a lot about. But, beyond that, several strange things had happened in the case. Like the explosion where some bodies had appeared that had no recognizable ID, apart from one of them, that was like the duplicate of the detective that had assisted Philip and Zi during the case.

"And where is Thor?" Shin asked, looking for the dwarf. He knew he had also been involved, but hadn't seen him around the base.

"He has stayed in Edinburgh, to resolve some issues, and in case anything else comes up," Philip replied, grabbing the dog, who struggled a bit trying to free himself from his grip. Zi quickly snatched him away, in fear that the animal would get too scared and end up pulling sharp crystals out of his fur and end up hurting Philip.

"And Claris?" Shin asked again, watching as the dog looked very pleased in Zi's arms.

"She's already in Paris, with the issue to form the team. Looks like Jeremiah let her take care of it," Oxy informed him, though she was more interested in watching whatever it was that Mai and Lizbeth were talking about with Camila on the platform.

"Van found a clue about the criminals in the Vatican, right?"

"Yeah. But the Vatican is still on alert regarding the robber, and because last night someone released them and attacked one of Mari's stations."

Mari, also known as The Lady of the Pyrenees, was the name of the fey girl who had the entire Pyrene staff under her command. Shin knew her very well, for if many referred to him as the fourth, Mari was number three. They were the first feys to constitute the new generation, after the old generation disappeared in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Shin and Mari, along with six others, were known as the Group of Eight.

Despite that, he had not seen Mari since he reappeared the previous year. That didn't stop him from feeling worried about an old friend, though.

Philip told him what had happened and what little information had leaked out.

"What were they looking for?"

"Well… in Vatican, they're not sure yet. Although, if what they think is right, it's something really weird, related to an old urban legend, and something they lost track of a long time ago. It is a case of a strange machine that was manufactured in the twentieth century." Philip informed him.

"I see," Shin nodded.

"So, what do you think?" Philip began.

"Of what?"

"Mothman? Our case." Zi inquired.

"Oh! Right. I don't know what you want me to say, honestly. Everything I know about Mothman is already in the files. In fact I'm surprised that after two centuries there is no more data on these creatures."

"So, you think the same thing," Philip pointed out.

"Of what?"

"Many think they are several creatures and not just one," Zi said.

Shin nodded. "Yeah. I think it has to be a group at least, there are reports of sightings in different locations that were occurring at the same time so, it must be more than one."

"What the bloody hell are they looking for?" Philip asked.

"Who knows. But, what's certain, is that they really show up when something big is about to happen."

"But, not always," Zi commented.

"If that were so, we'd be seeing Mothman every time an DE occurs," Oxy pointed out, with a slightly cynical smile.

"You were present at one of the first reported incidents, right?" Philip inquired of Shin.

"Close. The Silver Bridge wasn't an DE. It was a structural accident, nothing supernatural. But months before, and days before the incident, that thing was flying around Point Pleasant, in West Virginia. And there were all kinds of anomalous events, including the sighting of Shadow People. After that, reports started coming in from other parts of the world. Brazil, China, Ukraine, Mozambique, Spain."

"But, they've always been there anyway."

"Yes. Just because it started being reported back then, doesn't mean anything. As far as I could research, these things were being reported as far back as Babylonian times, and there are similar descriptions in many cultures, although with different names. Owl Men, Demons of the Ruins, Neckless, Giant Butterfly. It is curious, because in many cases they have been called giant owls rather than moths. They have always been there."

"Like the Shadow People..." muttered Oxy.

"Whatever they want, if they want anything, we don't know what they mean."

The group continued their heated discussion of the case, but came to no conclusion. Shin was used to it. He himself had racked his brains once upon a time as well, trying to find explanations for those creatures, and no matter how many theories he had sketched out. He was no closer to reaching a conclusion now than he had been in the past.

There was the matter of the mysterious shadow girl, that Zi had seen inside the mirror, which would give them material to discuss for hours, without coming to any conclusion either. The strange message that the girl had left behind still echoed in Zi's ears.

While Oxy explained a related theory of her own, as to how it was possible that these creatures could move between dimensions, Shin received a handbag from a small fey goblin. He had almost forgotten his handbag where he carried the essentials. By essentials he meant that inside was the turtle backpack, which could actually carry several times its weight in the compressed compartments. He actually thanked the goblin for the gesture, considering he had been distracted. It was a really bad thing that he forgot his bag, since in there was his trench coat.

The goblin said something like "no problem" in a language Shin had never heard before, but which the automatic translator in his ear recognized.

The number of voices, and different languages, at the base puzzled him a bit. While many of them were in French, there were others speaking in Spanish, English, Chinese, Turkish and even a language he didn't think he had ever heard before. While the translator translated everything correctly into his right ear, he could hear the other languages in his left ear.

The Babel translation system translated all languages instantly in the minds of people with Neurowire, which meant that no matter what language each person spoke, they would all understand each other. As far as learning languages the traditional way was still used, but it was what could be called quite unusual, as everyone left the matter of translation to the Neurowire system.

Basically being bilingual, or polyglot, could be considered a hobby, rather than a skill for communicating between people.

Shin, on the other hand, spoke quite a few languages, which was not a problem but, since his arrival, he had noticed that even tones and dialects had changed. More than two hundred years had not passed in vain, even the languages had undergone changes in their structure.

There were even new languages, and others that had disappeared were now spoken elsewhere. For example, he heard that, in certain colonies on the Moon, a language was used that seemed to be a combination of Polynesian and Hawaiian. The same on some of the moons of Jupiter, where Navajo and Quechua had resurfaced due to the settlement of personnel coming from the respective countries where those languages were dying. Mars was another matter. The Aeon could speak any language but, for formal matters among themselves, they used a kind of mathematical language using Greek and a new form of neo-Latin.

The Type One Civilization of Humans, Aeons and Feys had not only abandoned the old ways of obtaining energy but also, through technology, had brought down the tower of Babel.

As far as Shin knew, the name Babel was nothing more than something commonly used, but the original translation system had another less flashy name in its early days. The Mezzofanti System, named after one of the greatest polyglots in history. However, over the years Babel had curiously become the most common name for the instantaneous translation system. The name was an irony of what would happen if all the Neurowires were deactivated, and everyone was left without understanding each other.

Be that as it may, it was a relief for Shin to see that at least the spoken and written language still existed. As for example, in the news he could still read the headlines, the same with books like the one he owned, and also, though somewhat more annoyingly, advertising.

If civilization had relegated all information transmission to Neurowire alone, he would know nothing, because all forms of communication would be mental. In such a world even vocal cords would most likely be unnecessary, and would atrophy over a few hundred years.

Each of those with him spoke different languages, but he could understand everything they said, even though the tones and pronunciations had changed. Oxy spoke his classic Hawaiian Island English as he had known her in the Old Era, Philip had a strong British accent, while Zi spoke in Mandarin Chinese. Further away, he could hear the voices of Mai and Lizbeth speaking in Japanese and British English respectively.

"That thing again," Philip sighed, and pulled Shin out of his reverie.

On one of the huge screens, hanging from a platform near where Mai and Camila were still arguing, news was projected and on one of them could be read the headline: Selenite multimillionaire woman swindled by a fake "astronaut", who claimed to need money to return to Earth. And on the screen could be seen an angry woman talking to a journalist. On one side of the screen was a smiling man on a horse, who was apparently the fake astronaut.

Shin could not laugh, since he suffered from a slight facial paralysis, the most he could do was to draw a slight smile. But at that moment, he couldn't help scratching the side of his lip and smiling a little.

"What the fuck is that?" Shin asked, and tried a chuckle.

"Oh yeah, I guess you don't know..." Oxy said, smiling.

"It's not funny," Philip said, crossing his arms. "I fell for one of those a long time ago when I was young."

"In my day it would have been very funny, believe me," Shin said. "Is that true?"

"Yes. It's called the astronaut scam. It always comes back, from time to time," Zi explained to him.

"How can people fall for that?"

"It's more common than you think," Oxy mused.

Shin remembered that there had been similar scams in his time. It was very common at that time for people to meet each other through chat rooms on the Internet, in order to establish a long-distance relationship. And sometimes, there were cases of scams, where one of the parties would ask for money to travel, so they could meet each other. He would never have imagined that in the future these tricks would evolve on an interplanetary scale.

The interview was cut short to give way to new movie commercials. Apparently superhero movies were still a regular occurrence, but Shin wondered what was going on with those superhero names.

Tail-Pluger VS. Ass-Breaker: The rematch.

They seem to be superheroes who only focused on the rear of their enemies, Shin thought. Although Oxy looked excited looking at the screen, it must be because Ass-Breaker had an albino frog on his shoulder that reminded her of her squirrel.

He couldn't probe much further, though, when he felt a hand pat him on the back.

"Come on!"

It was Camilla, with a big smile, that Shin felt didn't bode well.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm going to give you a checkup!"

"What? Why?"

"Because the last one you had was a month ago, and your head was destroyed just a few days ago. So let's go!!! let's go!!!" Camila said, as she pushed him.

Both, Mai and Lizbeth were joining Oxy's team, but Shin could see how Mai and Lizbeth were blushing for some reason.

Mai took Shin's bag from his hand and whispered softly, "I told you that you needed to get checked."

"Yes, mommy," Shin snorted, with a face of circumstance giving up, knowing that he could not escape Camilla's clutches.

The news of the scam had disappeared and Shin could see how another news item about a mysterious pirate radio station had appeared, before the door of the medical bay closed.

Camila dragged him into a room, with an overly white light that made him blink as he entered. She activated a function on the glass to make it dim on the outside, since one of the walls was simply glass. The place was equipped to attend emergencies, with several beds separated by white acrylic walls and medical instruments. In the farthest part, there was an intensive care unit.

Shin looked at the glass window worriedly. "You're sure they can't see us right?"

"Always so shy. Just take off your clothes."

"Hey, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't seen naked by everyone outside.."

"It's not lack of modesty, it's just that you come from a different era. Even Mai has no problem entering the mixed showers on the island."

Shin sighed and took off his clothes, remaining in his underwear, while Camila put different sensors on his body, and then through her Neurowire she read the results of the readings. Even though Shin was someone else on the team, she couldn't deny that deep inside she was impressed by the anatomy.

Slightly muscular, but she didn't envy him at all. Someone who had those scars on the skin couldn't have had anything good happen before becoming an immortal.

He was different from the feys, despite being categorized as one. His regeneration was on a completely different level from other feys.

Depending on the fey, a wound could take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days to heal if it wasn't too serious. Beyond that, feys could actually die if they suffered an injury to several vital organs. Many died, but others simply suffered a wound that could not be healed, and could simply turn to smoke or ash and disappear.

But Shin, regardless of the type of wound, could always reintegrate even if he had suffered injuries to vital organs or was reduced to particles. That and a couple of other characteristics made him a fey unlike any other.

An immortal. And among them, due to his strange frequency and armor, he had been classified as a Kellian. One of the rare species and one that, to the knowledge of magical academies, could be called a cosmic aberration. A being probably from other universe.

From the studies carried out on the island, other peculiarities had been determined. Such as the incredibly high amount of pheromones that Shin could release. This had led to the formulation of some theories about his species, such as communication and reproduction. Some tests had been done and it had been determined that, although involuntarily, Shin could actually stimulate the vomeronasal organ of feys and humans.

Some others had proposed that this might be due to a struggle of his kind to ensure reproduction and territoriality but, since Shin was the only one of his kind, there was no way of knowing. If violent territorial conditioning was theirs, Shin did not exhibit it. While there were many stories about his fights, the truth was that he had almost always avoided fighting when he could, so the aggressiveness of his species was nothing more than speculation.

Others claimed that pheromones might be the reason why Mai, Lizbeth and Kotori were attracted to him. However, since Shin had not had many relationships in the past, this idea lacked a solid foundation. Moreover, it was understood that the emission of pheromones was not limited to sexual attraction alone, but also for other functions. Although, it was true that in Mai's case some analyses suggested that she reacted more strongly to Shin's pheromones because she had more sensitive moth-like receptors.

Camila knew that, but that didn't stop her from treating Shin as one of the team. The categories and their strange definitions could be left out of the subject. She was solely focused at the time on diagnosing that he was in full condition and that there were no disparities with previous results.

There was nothing abnormal about the results that had been taken a month ago by another of the doctors.

"Is there anything wrong?" Shin asked.

"No, not at all. Maybe you're just tired from too much activity. Have you had sex very often lately?"

"... Excuse me?"

"I mean besides the sessions in the car."

Shin pursed his lips, not knowing whether to answer or not, but there was no need as Camila saw with her own eyes how Shin's crotch underwent a change and how the pupil of his left eye dilated.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said smiling. Those were good memories for him. Well done girls!

Shin doubted that Mai would have told her about an intimate situation, and he didn't think it was likely that Lizbeth would either. While she was less embarrassed, she treated relationship issues seriously and wouldn't do anything to make Mai angry.

"Why did you say about the car?"

"Cleaning system..." she said smiling.

There was no need for her to explain further, Shin was able to put the missing pieces in order. "Can I put on my clothes now?"

"No. And take off your underwear too big boy."

"Is that necessary?"

"Yes. So I'll have a complete diagnosis, and I need to check the armor too. Now lie down on the table and relax."

Shin reluctantly obeyed.

"I feel really bad about this."

Camila looked at his crotch and nodded.

"An erection? Pff... It's a normal reaction, honest if I must say. Relax."

She decided not to tell him that she had compared him to a monster from a movie just a few minutes ago, but certainly Shin had a very substantial member. It was shaped almost like a human penis. That made Camila wonder what the female members of the species would be like, a pity that Shin was the only specimen.

"Is there something wrong with me?"

Yeah… but better to concentrate on my work, thought Camila looking away. "I'm going to ask you some questions to test your neurological activity."

"Ok."

"Name?"

"Shin."

Standing a little further away from the room Mai and Lizbeth looked around worriedly. The room had been mirrored, as Camila told Shin, but Mai had pulled out her moth antennae and through the ventilation system she could hear the sounds inside and, in her mind projected an outline, of what was going on in the room.

"I think he's in the mood," Lizbeth said smiling. She, in turn, had simply slipped through the security system and looked through the cameras.

"I don't know..." Mai said nervously. She really hoped that Camila wouldn't dig any further into the details of the car. She didn't like spying like that, but she was a little worried about him, even though he had told her he was fine.

Camila checked the results of the answers to the questions and marked them all with a thumbs-up sign.

"I want to test your ability to think on the fly. You see an enemy coming toward you with a gun. What do you do?"

Those stupid questions again, he thought." Knock him down?"

"Try to respond without thinking about physical contact. A scenario where you can only use firearms and you can't reach him to take the gun away and reduce him."

"...Shoot him first?"

"Okay. Now if he shoots back, what do you do?"

"Run away."

"And if he comes after you?"

"Shoot him again?" Shin didn't quite understand the questions, but from the nonsense of them he was already imagining where it was all coming from.

"That's good. Next question. If you were walking down the street and saw someone fall off a building, would you stop to help or keep moving?"

"I would take a measured leap to…"

"No skills... quick response."

"Keep moving?"

"Why?"

"Because it might be dangerous for me."

"Right. How many questions have I asked you so far?"

"47"

"Ok. When did you start working with Mai?"

"Last year."

"Hmm. Let me ask you something then. Would you rather be able to fly or breathe underwater?"

"Fly."

It was a coherent answer, since after all his armor allowed him to be underwater, so he would prefer to fly, even though with the presence of jetpacks on the island he had already experienced solo flight.

"Answer me with the first thing that comes to mind."

" Okay."

"Lake."

"Wet."

"Snow."

"Cold."

"Liz."

The image of Lizbeth smiling in a long-ago sunset flashed in his head. "A wheat field."

"Tunguska."

The image of the people he had lived with at that time flashed in his thoughts. "Family."

"Table."

"Sand."

"Skyscraper."

"…"

"Skyscraper," repeated Camila.

" Tall," he replied, swallowing hard.

"Mai."

"...Rain."

"Number of questions?"

"57"

"Okay. That's all."

"Finally...Why all those questions anyway? I'm pretty sure Justin gave them to you, didn't he?"

"Well, yeah. But, come on. You can't blame him. Your head was literally crushed. We'd be remiss not to corroborate that your neurological functions are working properly. Since we can't put you on a NW, we have to test you in other ways to be sure."

"I'm just feeling a little tired that's all."

"Which is odd, since you've never felt this way anyway."

"Just give me an aspirin and I'll be fine."

"Yeah, well we have better meds than that now."

"I don't suppose you're not going to give me some experimental pill, are you?"

"No need. And on the other hand, I don't know if you know this but, a good portion of the drugs that are used today, come thanks to studies that have been done on feys. I myself was a test subject."

Shin had read something about that. After the war, and with the feys living in coexistence with humans and aeons, studies had been done on the first medicines to delay aging and other serious illnesses thanks to the feys. Since the fey were long-lived, even though they could die because other reasons, they were a perfect laboratory to carry out controlled studies over time.

Still, since Camila was quite eccentric, Shin couldn't rule out the possibility that she would end up giving him a pill that would not only take away his fatigue, but also make him grow a tail like Nikolai's.

Still it was a good thing that, thanks to the series of questions, he had lost his erection.

"You can put on your underwear," Camila ordered him, as she pulled the sensors off his body, minus the two on his temples.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Show me the armor, and get on the weighing scales. I want to see if there's any discrepancy with the weight from last time."

"Do you want me to destroy my drawers, with the armor on?" he asked, not happy at all, and Camila chuckled. “Not funny.”

"Would it be too much to ask to ever let me see…"

"See what?"

"How some of the girls and you... have sex?"

That's never going to happen. Shin's gesture looked like a moai at that suggestion. "Excuse me?"

"It's just that the armor inside your body makes me curious. In the case of when you have relations, it seems that the particles move to other parts of your body abandoning the lower, abdominal part to allow mating. I guess that's to allow for greater fluidity in movement."

Shin was feeling a bit annoyed. He preferred not to talk about intimate topics, although there was something he was interested in. "That wouldn't make much sense considering that the armor is like a ferrofluid."

"Yes but you're obviating the issue of receptors. For some reason I think your species considered mating important."

"Great. We're a bunch of hornies then, is that what you mean?"

"No. In the biology here, sex is an evolutionary tool. But there are several things in your biology that make me think that in the case of your species maybe it's something different. Maybe it's more pleasure enhanced as well."

"Why do you think that?" He wasn't liking that at all.

"It's just that I guess you know about oxytocin, INP, and the other hormones going out of control in adult female feys having sex. Even with normal levels of dopamine, other hormones are activated that shouldn't be. I mean you know we have access to real time studies of what's going on in agents' bodies, right?" Camila, as if to suggest something raised her hands as if to bring them to her breasts. "Mai and Liz are…"

"Oh! that. Yes, I understand." Shin finally nodded.

"Well, you understand right? "

"Yes. But don't worry, we take care of each other."

"Well, I'm glad. On one hand it's good to know that Mai and Liz are okay. But you three have some serious thinking to do. In the future if you have children. You're going to be the parents of new species." Then Camila lowered her voice. "And the same goes for Kotori…"

Shin looked at her seriously, though he only sighed and said nothing. He stood up and walked to the scale without putting on his underwear and stepped on. After all, when the armor formed on his body, the cloud of metal particles used to break through the clothes.

Camila stepped back a little and watched as the black cloud of particles came out of every pore of his body and agglomerated around his frame in a pattern similar to that of a ferrofluid. After a few seconds, there was Shin, but covered from head to toe, in what looked more like a metal-organic suit that fit his body.

It was different from how it had looked in the lake. The shape was much more streamlined, without the amount of scales and had no edges like the one he had worn before. The armor was composed of several plates with an angular design in some parts, most precisely on those that separated the muscles, but as a whole it was all smoothly adjusted to his body. In some parts, and if viewed in great detail, there were low relief marks drawn, following strange patterns that reminded Camila a bit of Celtic knots, but the design was rather different. Attempts had been made to decipher the symbols, but no matches had been found with other known or ancient languages.

Camilla circled him and examined his back. The armor was always formed starting from his back, where Shin had a black mark on the skin like a Litchberg pattern, almost like a burn. Although at that time it was covered by the thin plates of the armor. On the back, at the level of the shoulder blades, it was a little different, the design was, to say the least, as if it looked incomplete. Almost as if something was missing. She had the impression that there must have been something on the shoulder blade plates because it had sockets for something.

"Let me know if you're going to touch my head or you'll hurt yourself if you try to touch my hair," Shin warned, looking at her through the mask.

The mask hadn't changed much, although some patterns had also appeared. The ears were now covered by plates that matched the pointed shape of the ears. And the hair, though it looked normal, Camila knew it had been coated with the same film of particles, and the strands were like the blade of a freshly sharpened razor.

On his feet and hands the armor ended in small claws.

The armor despite being made of metal was rather metal-organic, as it fit Shin's body with precision in each of its parts, and allowed him a very natural organic movement. Even his crotch whose penis and even testicles had also acquired a metal structure. That was the main reason why the Council had ordered him not to take off his pants, if he had to wear the armor. Because, even if society was more permissive about showing the body, they could not allow an other-dimensional alien to go around wobbling a metal penis while fighting. Shin could modify parts of the armor by creating a metal plate, but still the ban was not lifted. Shin didn't mind though, he had almost always kept his pants on when he had fought in ancient times because of the same issue.

Although at the time he had modified the front part to hide his member, he had formed a layer of the same armor to conceal it.

But there was no doubt that the design was different from the one he had worn at the lake.

That was not strange, he had already found that the armor often behaved according to his state of mind. During his awakening at the lake, he had awakened in haste and fear, when Mai had disappeared on the other side, which was why it had appeared in a much more rustic form.

"Are you feeling all right?" asked Camila with a frown.

 

"Yeah, why?" Shin asked, making the part covering his face disappear.

"Look at your feet."

Shin looked down and on the precision scale he noticed for the first time something that surprised him.

"Did you check me before the armor?"

"Yes. 74 kilos, same weight as last time."

The scale read 78 kilos.

"This is weird," he said.

Shin knew that with the armor on he weighed 85 kilos, and without it 74. That had never changed since the first time in 1925, when he had checked his weight with and without it. But now he was missing some kilos.

"Has it never happened to you before?"

Shin wondered too. While it was true that he had always checked the weight and it came out the same, he couldn't be sure that at some point the weight of the armor had changed for some reason. Although it didn't feel any different at all.

"The electric arc doesn't work on you, right?"

"No…"

"Even if the armor weighs less?"

Shin turned around and looked into her eyes. The wolf girl's eyes seemed to glow for some reason. "I'm not sure," he said and made the armor disappear.

Outside, Mai and Lizbeth hadn't heard the last part, because they were a little embarrassed to see the test that way, so they just waited with the others for Shin to finish. After all the main examination had gone normally, the weighing was nothing more than a formality for the medical report. Yet, they missed the part where Shin discovered that he didn't weigh the same.

And also Mai and Lizbeth had plans. They were going to spend the rest of the day showing Shin around and rest a bit, waiting for the next day to go to Paris, on their way to the Council.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Here's Azusa," Lizbeth said, and handed her a small metal box that she took out of her pants.

Mai's eyes sparkled and she smiled. "Hold her for a second."

She brought her hands to her right ear and pulled out an emerald rhomboidal earring and exchanged it for the one inside the metal box that looked identical. As soon as she touched it the new earring glowed with an aquamarine hue and went out.

"I think Azusa is happy too."

"I hope so, it's been months since I've used her."

"I hope you don't have to wear her anytime soon, I miss your dark hair."

"Does it look better on me?"

Lizbeth took one of the platinum locks that slipped like silk between her fingers. "I like both."

The truth was that every time Mai had to use her custom weapon on some mission, which she had obtained in the Great War, her hair turned completely silver and it could take weeks to months for it to regain her dark color. When she had come to earth she had platinum hair for several years until it started to turn dark.

She then kept her hair dark for several decades, although she noticed that, whenever she was in situations where she was fighting, sometimes a few platinum strands would appear. It was in the Great War when her hair turned completely silver again, after using Azusa, and she kept it that way for several months.

Medical studies had determined anyway that it was possible that the more she used her bow the longer it took for her hair to return to the dark color. However, it was most likely that her original hair in her fey form was silver in color, because the moth's antennae were silver with iridescent hues. This was consistent with the fact that, when she had her hair in dark form, it almost always took longer for wounds to heal than when she had silver hair.

Whatever the case, as far as Lizbeth was concerned she didn't really care. Mai was Mai, regardless of whether her hair was dark or silver.

Mai placed the earring in her right ear and put the replica in the box.

"Better?"

"Perfect," Lizbeth said and then leaned close to her ear. "Tonight we're going to do something?"

Mai smiled at her and said softly. "We're not on days off yet. We're not going to have sex now."

Lizbeth stared at her seriously and waited a few seconds and then asked, "Can we have sex now?"

"No! Remember, there are cameras everywhere."

"There are lots of nice, soundproof rooms....What about making love?" Lizbeth asked getting close to her ear again.

Mai looked to the side and simply replied blushing, "Let's ask Shin later." She wanted the meeting after a month apart to be special. "Let's hope we don't have to work on an emergency basis after tomorrow."

Lizbeth gave her a kiss and looked in the direction of the medical wing. "Come on, what could go wrong?"

At that moment Shin shot out of the medical wing, with his armor on running away from Camila, who was running towards him with a metal object that seemed reminiscent of an electric arc weapon.

"Wait!!! I have to test your stamina! It's not painful!

"Bullshit! You just set that thing to full power and shot me before I formed the armor again!" Shin replied.

"Come here! I'm not going to do anything weird!"

"I don't want to hear that from someone who turned a piece of history like the Mars Pathfinder into a segway for personal use!"

"What happened in there?" wondered Lizbeth and Mai in unison, watching the pair as they were lost among the base structures.