Jeanne and Theresa didn't have the luxury of a long, leisurely chat before the door hissed open. A visibly stressed, somewhat short Sarkaz operator poked her head in, looking frantically for the Sovereign. As the primary leader of the entire organization, Theresa's daily plate was constantly overflowing with high-stakes administrative crises; the woman was perpetually, exhausting-level busy.
With a deeply apologetic look, Theresa offered Jeanne a hasty goodbye, her movements filled with a rare, frantic urgency as she swept out of the room alongside the diminutive messenger.
She was in such a desperate rush that she completely forgot to settle little Amiya or hand her off to a caretaker. Watching her sovereign disappear down the hall, Jeanne felt a prickle of unease. For a leader as notoriously composed and attentive as Theresa to completely bypass saying a proper goodbye to her beloved ward, whatever operational emergency had just landed on her desk had to be absolutely catastrophic.
Left behind in the heavy silence, Jeanne lowered her gaze to look at the little brown-eared rabbit sitting beside her. Amiya was already craning her head up, her bright, blue eyes blinking with intense curiosity as her long ears swayed in perfect rhythm with her head.
The kid really isn't shy around strangers, Jeanne noted inwardly, charmed by her quiet poise. Meeting a complete, rather intimidating outsider for the very first time, and she doesn't even flinch. She just sits there like a polite little doll, analyzing me.
Just as Jeanne opened her mouth to break the ice, the frantic, heavy slapping of boots sprinting down the corridor shattered the quiet. A split second later, a dark, robed blur practically threw itself through the threshold, slammed the heavy metallic door shut with a violent thud, and threw the security deadbolts into place. The figure immediately collapsed against the steel, drawing in massive, ragged lungfuls of air.
Both Jeanne and Amiya blinked in synchronized bewilderment at the sudden intruder. The runner, evidently operating under the absolute certainty that this vacant guest suite was a flawless, unoccupied sanctuary, froze mid-gasp the exact moment she realized four eyes were staring directly at her.
"Ah! Good morning, Jeanne! Oh, and Amiya! What a delightful surprise to find you here too!"
The figure—wrapped so tightly from head to toe in thick, layered tactical robes and a heavy visor that not a single patch of biological tissue was visible—instantly recovered her composure, waving her arms with an incredibly loud, overenthusiastic burst of energy.
"Doctor..." Amiya sighed, her shoulders slumping into an expression of pure, unadulterated clinical exhaustion. Faced with this spectacular display of antics, the little Cautus found herself entirely at a loss for words. She desperately wanted to explain to Jeanne that their supreme strategist was merely possessing an abundance of 'vibrant spirit' and hadn't actually suffered a permanent neurological failure.
The entire domestic tableau was beautifully absurd. To Jeanne, it looked as though the legendary, terrifying mastermind of Babel possessed the emotional maturity of a toddler trying to outrun a scolding, while Kal'tsit was the long-suffering mother tasked with cleaning up the path of destruction.
Jeanne stared at the heavy, opaque visor, thoroughly unsure of what diplomatic protocol applied to a commander who looked like they were actively being hunted by a vengeful spirit. Given the distinct lack of a script for this level of chaotic reality, she decided her absolute best tactical option was to simply flash a polite, entirely neutral smile.
"I must admit, I didn't envision our monumental first meeting unfolding under these exact...," the Doctor offered, clearing her throat as she scrambled to salvage whatever shreds of intellectual dignity she had left after the cold reception. "The ambient atmosphere for an international dialogue is admittedly a bit unconventional, but a few highly volatile, entirely unscripted operational variables manifested in the administrative wing..."
When the Doctor spoke, her voice didn't carry any human warmth. Instead, a harsh, flat electronic synthesizer droned from the chest plate, rendering her words in a rigid, entirely robotic monotone that completely masked her biological age and gender.
"I am Jeanne. It is a genuine pleasure to finally meet you in person," Jeanne replied, offering a warm, reassuring smile. Even though her current Alter-inspired black armor and stark coloration gave her a distinct, slightly menacing edge, the genuine tenderness radiating from her expression was impossible to miss.
The Doctor instinctively raised a hand to scratch the back of her head in a gesture of casual humility, but her fingers simply collided with the unyielding, reinforced plating of her heavy visor. A sharp, hollow clack echoed through the suite—a peculiar, synthetic chime that sounded incredibly strange to Jeanne's ears.
Judging by the resonant pitch of the impact, the protective gear wasn't constructed from standard industrial steel; it felt more like a highly advanced, proprietary molecular fusion of lightweight polymer and dense metal. Jeanne couldn't begin to guess what kind of advanced Terran engineering had gone into its fabrication. To a girl whose historical baseline rooted firmly in the age of medieval ironwork, practically every piece of consumer technology in this world looked like dark magic.
Tapping her own visor seemed to jar the Doctor back to reality. Realizing she was standing in front of an international guest while wearing an awkward, restrictive combat helmet, she fell into a sudden, uncharacteristic silence.
"The truth is... ever since the initial intelligence reports regarding your manifestation reached my desk, I have desired nothing more than to see you with my own eyes," the Doctor murmured.
She tapped a concealed sequence on her collar, and the harsh electronic synthesizer instantly cut out. When she spoke again, a soft, remarkably gentle voice drifted from the speaker grid. Her words carried a distinct, fragile tremor, vibrating with a level of profound, raw emotion that she was clearly struggling to keep under lock and key.
So this is her authentic voice, Jeanne realized, her eyes softening. Behind that intimidating, faceless vanguard armor sat a girl whose natural tone was incredibly soft—almost fragile. It was the kind of gentle, delicate cadence that made it easy to see why she relied on a harsh electronic modulator during active deployments. If you tried to issue a stern battlefield command or reprimand a rogue squad with a voice that naturally sounded like a shy caress, the frontline soldiers would probably assume you were a bard rather than a tactical genius.
Jeanne could tell the strategist was fiercely suppressing a wave of intense personal sentiment—a psychological defense mechanism likely forged through years of commanding bloody campaigns where emotional volatility meant casualties.
Seeing the Doctor tremble under the weight of her own locked-down feelings, Jeanne felt a sudden, maternal urge to step forward and wrap the lonely tactician in a massive, comforting hug.
"I am deeply apologetic for interrupting this monumental historical convergence," a stone-cold, thoroughly clinical voice sliced through the heavy emotional atmosphere.
From the shadows of the doorframe, Kal'tsit stood with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, her emerald eyes staring into the room with an unreadable, perfectly flat expression. From her professional posture, she was clearly sincere about the apology regarding her terrible timing, but the flashing red alerts on her tactical terminal meant the Doctor's playtime was officially canceled.
The exact millisecond that chilly voice registered, the Doctor vaulted into the air like a thoroughly traumatized rabbit (Amiya: Excuse me?). She spun around to face the Feline, her visor reflecting pure, unadulterated shock.
"Kal'tsit?! How on earth did you bypass the mechanical deadbolts?!" the Doctor shrieked, her soft voice cracking in betrayal. "I explicitly routed the security matrix of this unit through a localized Tier-1 command override! Your administrative clearance profile shouldn't possess the clearance parameters to override a hard lock this easily!"
"You should spend less time celebrating your local coding skills and more time remembering exactly who engineered and maintains the overarching mainframe of the Babel landship," Kal'tsit replied, her tone dripping with the exhausted patience of a lead developer dealing with a troublesome user. "Even the most sophisticated encryption protocols will inevitably face depreciation when the user routinely leaves their terminal keys scattered across public desks during their manic episodes."
The Feline stepped into the room, her analytical gaze locking onto the trembling strategist. She was genuinely beginning to question whether the Doctor's remaining cognitive reserves had completely fractured under the stress of the midnight siege.
But there wasn't a spare second to run a psychological diagnostic. The situation unfolding in the primary war room was highly anomalous, and Theresa had explicitly requested the supreme tactician's unique analytical brain to decipher the enemy's next move.
Seeing the ancient physician advance, the Doctor immediately assumed Kal'tsit had tracked her down to extract a bloody vengeance for the funeral parlor she had constructed in the main office. She began to thrash and struggle with a level of frantic, wild desperation that would have put a caught catfish to shame, desperately trying to slip past the Feline's reach.
Yet, despite Kal'tsit's slender, elegant frame suggesting a complete lack of physical might, her actual physical strength utterly eclipsed the Doctor's frail baseline. In a matter of seconds, she smoothly neutralized the strategist's flailing limbs, pinning her arms with clinical precision as she began to march her toward the exit.
"Cease your dramatic resistance," Kal'tsit hissed in a low whisper, leaning close to the Doctor's helmet. "I have no intention of auditing your unauthorized interior design projects at this current juncture. A critical strategic anomaly has shifted on the eastern front, and the high command requires your specific intellect. Sit tight."
The operational update worked like a charm. The Doctor's frantic struggles ceased instantly, her posture going as perfectly docile and cooperative as a scolded kitten as she allowed herself to be steered out into the corridor.
"My sincerest apologies, Jeanne," the Doctor called out over her shoulder, her voice tinged with genuine regret as Kal'tsit escorted her away. "A highly volatile operational variable requires my immediate presence. Please allow little Amiya to serve as your local guide today, and the very moment this council concludes, I shall return to properly host you!"
Jeanne simply offered a casual, understanding wave of her hand. Once the duo's footsteps had entirely faded into the ambient hum of the landship's engines, she turned her head to look down at the little rabbit.
"Are they... always like that on a regular day?"
Hearing the question, little Amiya's ears perked up as she desperately scrambled to piece together a defense that would salvage her family's shattered reputation. After a long, agonizing pause of intense mental gymnastics, she offered a small, thoroughly unconvincing smile.
"Actually... under standard parameters, the Doctor and Dr. Kal'tsit manage a highly commendable, remarkably harmonious working relationship..."
Right, highly harmonious, Jeanne thought, her inner narrator nodding sagely. The kind of harmony defined by a daily, non-stop Olympic-level exchange of weaponized sarcasm and physical reprimands.