Back on Mid-Childa...
"Hey! Subaru!" A male voice called out, causing Subaru to look up from her paper work. "Staying after to do some extra paper work?"
"Hey, Voltz," Subaru smiled at the older man. Sure, he was her commander, but he acted more like a big brother than a commanding officer to her. "Just finishing up my report from that case from two days ago."
"You mean the out-of-control Twinkie Truck?" Both Subaru and Voltz laughed as they remembered what the papers were calling it. "What took you so long to fill the report out anyway?"
"Mary's been demanding my attention about some sort of Lost Logia that she's been playing with." Subaru sighed heavily and shook her head. "Dunno why she wants me to play with it, it's some sort of amplification thing." She waved her hands, not really caring about it. "So," she looked at the scarred man, "anything you wanted?"
"What? I can't flirt with my cute little subordinate?" Voltz winked at her, causing them both to chuckle at the joke. "Actually, I was wondering how things were going for you."
Subaru rubbed the back of her head and smiled at him. "Well, Tea's finally going to be back, so I was hoping to spend the day with her after I was done here."
Voltz smiled at her. "Hey, that's fine. I'll keep you up to date if anything crazy happens."
Subaru rolled her eyes at him as she turned back to her report. "Oh, come on, Voltz, ever since the Cradle incident, there hasn't been anything too crazy. What makes you think something crazy's going to happen in the next few days?"
(---)
"Not here." A feminine voice said as a door suddenly exploded inwards, causing the origin of said voice to turn and watch as several armed people rushed into the room.
"FREEZE!" One of the armed people said as they pointed their weapons at the people in the room.
"Captain, what are they?"
"Wish I knew." The captain whispered as he looked at the five in the room, all of which were in nearly identical body suits that covered their bodies but left their heads and arms completely exposed. On their faces were visors which covered their eyes completely, leaving only a thin stripe in the middle, which, from what the captain could tell, allowed them to see. On their hands down to their elbows were weird gloves, and instead of fingers, it looked like the women all had short metal knives instead of fingers.
"Protectors of this world perhaps?" One of the women said.
"Perhaps." A second one said as she took a step forward, her left arm morphing into a long blade. "Not that it will matter now."
"Hey, STOP!" The captain said, only to gasp as the woman seemed to blur and vanish for a moment.
The next moment revealed a horrifying sight to everyone behind the captain as the woman seemingly reappeared in front of him, her blade shoved through his throat. His body became numb both from the shock and from the blood loss as the woman pulled the blade out of his throat and disappeared, repeating the process on all of the officers.
In under ten seconds, the woman was standing around eight dead bodies.
"I wonder why such a small force confronted us." The woman said as she looked at the others as her arm turned back to normal. "It does not matter, we must find our master."
The others nodded. One stepped forward as the bodies on the floor began to glow with black energy. "The process seems slow."
The first one nodded. "For now, I doubt that it will remain that way for much longer. We Mariage must find our master. We must find Ix."
The others nodded as the dead bodies stood up, their clothes and appearances changing to match the appearance of the Mariage that murdered all of them.
"Let us go." The first Mariage said as the newly created Mariages and the ones that were in the room already disappeared completely.
(---)
Elsewhere...
Quint rubbed her forehead as she and Nove sparred in the yard. "Gotta be faster, Nove." She giggled as she got behind her daughter and tapped her on the shoulder. It wasn't full-contact sparring, since this was just meant to help Nove work out some problems with her style.
Nove spun, growling, but stopped and blinked as Quint suddenly dropped to a knee and grabbed at her forehead. "Mom, you okay?"
"Yeah, I don't..." She gasped as her body suddenly glowed, her green hair turned purple and a small ball of light erupted from her chest. "What the?"
"Looks like the Unison Device got better." Nove idly commented as the ball of light materialized into a small female form.
"Huh?" The device, which had long green hair and green eyes blinked and looked around. On her back were two nearly transparent wings, making her look like a fairy. "Wh...Where am I?!"
Nove found it interesting how the device's long hair was providing her a decent amount of covering for her body. "Tell me, what was the last thing you remember?"
The device blinked and looked confused. "...Something, music maybe? Voices? I can't remember. But there was this metal body... Then tubes... Then... Nothing."
Nove looked at Quint as she got back to her feet. "You okay, mom?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little light headed..." Quint looked at the small device and smiled. "Well, what's your name?"
The device blinked, several times, before tearing up. "I don't remember!" She wailed, sobbing in mid air as she threw her head back.
"Don't worry about it," Nove commented to her, "even Agito can't remember her past." Nove sighed as the device continued to cry. "Hey," she reached out and cupped the back of the device, "calm down, okay? We'll help you, we're not bad people."
"But..." She sniffled and looked at Nove, who was smiling at her. "Who are you?"
"My name is Nove Nakajima... And this," she gestured to Quint, who walked up behind her, "is my mother, Quint Nakajima."
"Hello." Quint smiled at her. "If you want, you can be a part of our family for now." Quint's smile increased as the device nodded to her. "Well then, welcome to the family, little Slyph." Both Nove and the device looked at her. "I can't just say 'hey you' or leave her nameless. And the wings, green hair and eyes? First thing that popped to my mind was that she's a Slyph, you know? A fairy."
Nove blinked and gave her mother a wry smirk. "I'm shocked. Most of the time, no one's that clever in this family." The next thing that she knew, Quint had her in a headlock and was rubbing her knuckles against Nove's scalp, causing the redhead to wave her arms up and down in the air frantically.
Sylph just blinked and smiled. For some reason, watching that caused a rather warm feeling to envelope her.