Both men followed an overenthusiastic Lozen out of her office and into the workspace Yata had guided Shindo through earlier. Now that he took a second look at it, the place felt crampier than Unwin's offices. Maybe it was meant to feel like this? Well, he will get used to it in a few weeks.

Musings over his future workspace aside, he couldn’t help but think that both of his seniors were a bit more... eccentric than he first expected. Yata still had a defeated look as he followed Lozen around. Shindo still hadn't forgiven him for the vendetta stunt he pulled during his exam, but he could see that Yata had at least a good working condition with Lozen. Enough so that they both showed a certain level of comradery Shindo had only seen during his former job.found both odd and familiar.

On other hand, Shindo was feeling a tad bit overwhelmed by Lozen’s pace. Gone was the calculating hero he had met last Friday. In her place was a carefree woman carelessly waltzing through the whole office room with a grin plastered on her face. In a way, this made her look like an airhead, yet once she stopped to address Shindo, her serious tone had somewhat returned.”

"First of all, this is the workspace of the office, where we do most of our paperwork," With a thumb, she pointed back at her office, "My office is the only private one due to me being the team leader, but I also like it this way so that I can have easy access to any team member working in this room."

She then motioned to the two empty tables Shindo saw earlier. "Those two tables are for you and the other newbie. She has already selected the one near the wall, so yours will be the one in between Yata's and her desk."

As she spoke, Shindo started darting to his table, intent on checking something. However, noticing his rude gesture, he stopped in his tracks.

"Mind if I check for something first? It won’t take long." Shindo asked, scratching the back of his head as a wry smile decorated his face.

"Of course, feel free to take your time." She replied with a curious smile. Yata rolled his eyes at this.

Gaining his boss’s approval, he immediately went for his desk space, and started feeling under the table. After a few seconds of searching, a satisfied huff escaped him. There was no dried gum under the table, which raised his spirits a little bit more.

"No issues then?" Lozen asked curiously as Shindo made his way back to the two heroes.

"Yep, not one issue, " Shindo responded innocently. This gained a curious glint from Lozen and a dubious glare from Yata, who crossed his arms.

The woman in question huffed in amusement. "Well, if you're done here, we should hurry up with this tour. We don't have all day after all."

With that, the three of them went out of the office spaces and into the hallway with the huge glass window that gave view to the room with the scratches. Lozen guided them to the window and gestured to the room.

"This room is sort of a private sparring or training room that we have for our team members." Lozen spoke happily, “The two glass windows, the walls, the entrance and the floor and ceiling are reinforced, so it’s a very good place to train your powers or gadgetry. Yet the coolest feature of the room is the amazing view of Vermillion Blue city.”

Indeed, the view of the city was amazing, but not as great as some of the perchpoints Shindo had found during his days as Herttz. Those showed the skyline at a whole nother level. Still, the scratch marks on both the wall and the floor still irked Shindo's curiosity. Who could be powerful enough to scratch a reinforced wall and floor?

"That room is mostly used by Ace and me, but it seems like someone else used it today," Yata commented. Shindo stared at him, and saw that the cat hero was still watching him intently. He was suspicious as to why he brought that little fact up, but in the end, Shindo could not hold himself back and voiced his doubts.

"Oh, so those scratch marks didn't come from either of you?" He inquired.

"It wasn’t neither me nor Lozen. Both of us were stuck filling some reports from last Friday’s exam," Yata answered nonchalantly, a glint of disdain escaping his eyes, “Still, if I were to say who used it, I think it was the newbie and Janus."

Shindo stared at Yata, who simply shrugged. His body language showed he wasn’t that sure, but it was best not to push him now. Instead, he turned to Lozen for confirmation, who only closed her eyes and nodded.

"Hmmm, the more I hear about her, the more I want to know who was the other person who joined," Shindo commented, a faint grin betraying his intrigue.

"You'll have time to meet the rest of the members, yet there’s no time. Let’s move," Lozen said with a small smile. She then motioned with her head, indicating to Shindo to move. Yata was already opening the door for the both of them and once again Shindo was welcomed into the comfy entrance room.

Lozen introduced this room as the Common room. It mostly served as a reception room for when other heroes or low ranking officials came to visit the team office. The room's ambiance still felt comforting and welcoming, but they didn't linger there for long. Although Shindo could swear that he saw Lozen puff her chest with pride, when Shindo commented on how welcoming this room felt. Yata sighed at her attitude.

The party of three then went through the door with the "Team Faculties" plaque, which led to another hallway filled with doors. There were three sets of doors to his right and four sets of doors to his left. The right door nearest to him was slightly opened, as if someone had just left in a hurry. At the other end of the hallway there was a window that had a similar view of the city to the training room.

"Well, these are our team faculties." Lozen started saying. "Most of these rooms are used for specific purposes like archiving mission reports, taking a break, storage, and going to the bathroom."

The first pair of doors to Shindo's left had small plaques that indicated which bathroom corresponded to which gender.

"Speaking of the archives, they are on your right," Yata said, while pointing at the room with the open door, "This is where we store paperwork, general info on our missions, and where we keep track of the logistics and analyses of the team's performances during sanctioned missions."

As Shindo peered inside, the room looked tidy and dusty, similar to a library. Yet it looked very organized. Shindo wasn't appalled at staying there so he tried to change the topic by walking ahead of Lozen and Yata and started speaking of the room next to the archives.

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"This one looks interesting. What's the function of this room?" Shindo asked, motioning towards a more metallic door with a small silver plaque with the letters TCN engraved on it.

"Oh, that's the meetings and mission room,” Lozen replied, “Usually, when I'm going to address an individual member on matters like assigning cases or on statuses reports, I do it in my office. Yet, when I’m too lazy to go back to my office or when I have to debrief the entire team, I usually debrief here."

Shindo gave her a sidelong glance. That was the most casual thing Lozen had said in the short time he has known her. Yata chuckled at Shindo's disillusionment.

"Hmph, even someone like you gets shocked huh?” He prodded, “Don’t worry, give it a week and you'll see that Lozen's not exactly the serious woman you thought her to be." This gained him a glare from Lozen.

"I'll shut up now." He said, deflating.

"Good to know I have such a caring subordinate," She said, adopting a cold smile. An angry silence remained between Boss and subordinate, a silence Shindo could only awkwardly smile at.

This remained for a few minutes, until a beeping sound came from Lozen’s mask. She immediately pressed a button on her mask and her face paled.

"I think we're going to cut the tour short since we're out of time.” She said in a hurried manner, “All you need to know Wattz is that the rooms in the back are the Gadget and storage room" she pointed to the last door on Shindo's left, which had a more metallic design ", and the Breakroom.” She pointed to the door on the glass door in the far right.

"And what about the door in front of the mission room? What’s behind it?" Shindo inquired. His question momentarily stopped Lozen on her tracks as she gave him a complicated look. She didn’t answer his question, only motioning for him to go into the meeting room. To that Yata shook his head and sighed.

"That room is off-limits," He answered as he followed Lozen, "Only she's allowed inside. Not even Ace can enter."

Shindo gave that door one last look, noting it’s slightly worn down look, but he then heard the cat hero clear his throat, giving Shindo an impatient look.

"Come on in, the boss seems to have a mission for you." With that, Yata entered the room. Shindo followed him inside.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The meeting room was exactly as Shindo expected. It was a room with a huge circular wooden table with ten seats. In the middle of the table, there was a display pod, maybe to showcase the details in 3D. Effective and practical, just like Shindo liked it.

Lozen was already seated on the table, and she was back to that calculating leader persona of hers. She sat regally in an intricate leather chair that boosted her elegance and coldness. Yata took a seat on her left. He had his arms crossed as his eyes betrayed his inner debate on if he should keep intently glaring at Shindo or appease Lozen.

Sighing at this attitude, Shindo sat on Lozen's right and in front of Yata.

"Well, now that everyone's here, let's go onto the meat of things." Lozen took out a remote controller and turned on the display pod. The light projector displayed several images of men and women stashing boxes inside a truck. The truck had a logo with a green truck on the right side that had the words "Streetsenders" on it.

"During the last few weeks, a few informants contracted to HOC have been picking up unusual activity from a gadget delivery company called StreetSenders." Lozen debriefed the two heroes present.

"Streetsenders? Weren't they the ones who got an exclusive shipping contract with Third Seat’s workshops, Manny Judge?" Yata asked. Shindo almost clicked his tongue in disgust at the mention of the third seat.

"Correct,” Lozen answered with a nod, “this spares me the hassle of explaining most of it. They have found discrepancies within the delivery routes of several trucks starting from Sector 10 and ending on Sectors 8, 3, and 12."

A picture of the truck routes was showcased on the display pod for Yata and Shindo to see. Interested in the data, Shindo captured the routes on his visor to give to Diva later.

"This is where the weird part comes in. The records they sent to the DSG about their deliveries, specifically to our dear board member Theodore Flambarge, seem to have a few discrepancies in relation to the inventory of the trucks.” Lozen pointed out as she changed the display pod to a document with a few red circles, “This has happened before with them because of an management error three years ago, which caused the DSG to think it was a fluke, yet these discrepancies aren’t so coincidental. Neither HOC nor the DSG have any plausible and immediate way to prove something sketchy is happening, unless they have months to spare to research the company."

"Which they don't," Shindo noted, catching onto what Lozen meant, "They are busy with other more important jobs."

"Exactly so. This is where we come in," Lozen took out a folder with a huge "MISSION REPORT" stamp on it. She also changed the display pod to show a picture of a smiling man with bright grey eyes and styled grey hair wearing business casual clothing, and the floor plans of a five story building with a room circled on the fourth floor. Shindo assumed the man in the picture was Mardav Hellent, yet his smile sort of reminded him of Manny.

"Wattz, Yata, your mission is the following: HOC wants us to gather information to confirm if the StreetSender discrepancies are truly a fluke or a deeper thing that must be prioritized by HOC. You will do so by gaining access to the server room and downloading the list of destinations and clients from the last three months.” She explained, gauging each of the men’s reactions “You will both go to the main delivery center in Sector 8 and you will not engage Hellent, only do recon on him and the company. Am I clear?"

This is when Yata shot up from his seat pointing at Shindo, who was similarly annoyed. "I’m working with him? Why would you pair me with him, even when you know full well that I only work alone?

"I have to agree with the Cat here," Shindo spoke up with crossed arms, surprising Yata. "You told me that me being a part of the team would cause chaos in here. How can we possibly work as a team after las--!"

"Enough!" She raised her voice, interrupting Shindo. Both Shindo and Yata shut their mouths, as Lozen calmly eyed each of the two. Seeing as they were silent, she cocked her eyebrow towards Yata.

"I wish I could take Wattz on this mission myself, but do you think I have the time? I still have to deal with the paperwork for last Friday's exam!" She rebuked Yata, setting both hands on the table, "Ideally, I would've wanted to pair Ace with Wattz, but Ace is occupied supervising the other newbie. Janus is also unavailable, since she's gathering the data of the Dregs from the police centers in the sector. Because of that and because you have directly experienced how Wattz fights, you are my best option at the moment Yata."

Lozen then set her sights on Shindo. The way her stern onyx eyes pierced through his visor and into his eyes made Shindo feel meek but incapable of ignoring her, " As to why I'm pairing you with him, Wattz, it's simple: Yata’s punishment for almost screwing you over is a two month ban on working on solo missions, but he can still help you in a duo mission environment. Added to that, I'm not foolish enough to let you, a newbie, complete a mission solo on his first day. Yes, you may have the abilities and the potential to do so, but it's your first mission. This is a completely different thing from the exam. It can lead to death, hence Yata will be there to supervise, support, and make sure you come back alive and well."

She glared at the two until all the fight went out of their bodies, before opening her mouth. "Now I will repeat myself one last time. Both of you are going on this mission as a duo. You both will gather the Streetsender info, and you both will get out of there with the intel and report back to me. Am I clear?"

""Yes, Lozen."" The two replied, as Lozen gave them both a stern look.

"Good." She stood and made her way towards the door, but not before giving one last command. "Yata, as the senior member, you are in charge of this mission. Give Wattz our comm channel and network for his visor. The mission report is on the table, and if you need any additional info, come to my office before you depart. Also, please do not cause another ruckus. You two have given me enough headaches already."

With that, the heroine left the room leaving both men in silence.