Interlude C.

(03/2010, post-Mission 5, in which a year's worth of activity or lack thereof is summed up for entertainment and continuity's sakes.)

Mostly a product of my obsessiveness on the subject of continuity. Sums up the past year and catches Kat and Samuel up to March 2010. Things will proceed as usual from here on out.


The year had been, as a whole, unremarkable.

The gender-switching issue was short, if annoying. Kat managed to get her gender reassigned very quickly. This was cause for celebration; as much as she denied her feminity at every opportunity, and was horrified at the thought that she might turn into a ‘girl’, Kat was somewhat fond of her body’s usual configuration.

Unfortunately, Samuel’s female body had apparently decided that menstruation was something that must be experienced, and had gone to great lengths to make that happen.

The end result was that Samuel was female for the better part of a week. This displeased both of the Agents assigned to Response Center Phi. Kat went so far as to threaten their Console with repeated application of pointe shoe, jo, and possibly a sledgehammer if she could beg, borrow, or steal one, should it even think about relaying a mission.

This did, however, mean that both Agents were boredom-stricken. Kat spent four days brushing up on her Gilbert and Sullivan, much to Samuel’s dismay.

On the bright side, the girl had become much better at distracting herself in HQ, even if she did have a bit of a propensity for taunting the Ironic Overpower.

Kat eventually remembered where she’d put the materia that Doctor Fitzgerald had so kindly removed from her arm, located a bangle to set it in (Samuel really didn’t want to ask where she’d found it, given the suspicious bloodstains it was sporting when she first slipped it on), and proceeded to try to figure it out. Unfortunately, two solid months of trying had gotten her nowhere, and the teenager eventually resigned herself to having it as a lovely and stylish accessory.

Samuel finally caved and played through a series of Kat’s favorite video games. In return, he took to throwing books at her whenever he felt she was in need of a new canon. Kat understood this to mean ‘Yes, dearest partner, I will gladly learn more about your favorite continuums,’ and retaliated with several seasons of different anime.

This process took several months, given that it was interspersed with missions and HQ’s particular brand of chaos – nothing too horrendous, luckily for them.

Since the mini-ligers had departed into the depths of HQ earlier in the year, Kat was feeling a bit lonesome – Samuel had Micah, after all, but she had no mini to torment her. This problem was solved quickly by Kornos, a mini-Harpy from the Percy Jackson continuum, who attached herself to Kat and developed a habit of screaming death threats right in the Assassin’s ear. Incidentally, around the same time, Kat developed a new fondness for music, and her oversized red headphones were rarely ever removed.

So, life continued. Kornos ate mission reports, and Samuel took offense. Kat learned enough about the sword she’d made off with from that Tales of the Abyss mission that she could sometimes cut what she intended to, though generally she was about as good with a sword as Samuel was with other weapons. Samuel discovered a fondness for the Discworld, accidentally incited an incident with Nanny Ogg, and resolved never to go near that portion of the world ever again.

It could only have qualified as normal by PPC standards.

Still, this naturally meant that the status was about to become not quo.

“Life’s been pretty excellent,” Kat said one day in early March, perched on the Console as had become usual for her. Kindly, the Console didn't object. She leaned back against the wall, yawning. “Hey, Samuel?”

Her partner looked up from his position in the corner, leaning on Micah. His long legs were tucked carefully beneath him, and he held open a copy of Les Miserables. “Katrina?”

“You could call me ‘Kat’ sometimes, we’ve known each other over a year,” she groused. “But. Don’t you think this is pretty excellent? I mean, I’d heard horror stories about the sorts of partners and missions one could get, but... this has been pretty tolerable.”

And Samuel watched the Console beneath her with an expression of growing horror.

It was only a matter of time, now.