Chapter 5: Tours and Tools

Chapter 5: Tours and Tools

6/16/25

Back in Ark Light, a nervous Dicer follows A.C.E. up the stairs and down the hall on their way to C.O.C.A. H.E.A.R.T.’s Office in the Citadel. He asks A.C.E. if it was really OK for him to meet her being that she just seemed so important and that he wasn't all that special. A.C.E. says C.O.C.A. was the one who requested the meeting and attempted to reassure him by saying if anything C.O.C.A. will probably like him and that she's just a person like anyone else so he shouldn't be too nervous. This doesn't seem to settle Dicer much but he follows A.C.E. into what turns out to be a nicely furnished room in black and white with heart accents worked into every detail.

Sadly, he did not get to fully appreciate the layout before the room exploded in a burst of confetti and a booming welcome that nearly knocked him off his feet. C.O.C.A. Introduced herself loudly, with all the flair and excitement in the world while A.C.E. blew bits of paper out of his bangs while telling her she was probably scaring him. She argued that such an occasion of him finally taking on a department member after years and years of waiting deserved nothing less, but relented. The Hearts leader then looked at Dicer to get confirmation that he was fine but stopped as she got a proper look at his face for the first time. 

She gets up close to him and confirms for herself that she wasn’t seeing things as she recognizes him as the civilian A.C.E. had brought home in a panic just earlier that week. She takes a look between the two and smiles to herself. She then goes on to tease A.C.E. saying that if she knew that making him responsible for cleaning up his incidents would make him more social then she should have started handing things over to him years ago. A.C.E. tries to argue that that was not true, but C.O.C.A. has already turned her attention back to Dicer. 

C.O.C.A. welcomes Dicer again to the Citadel while slipping a little bit of her ability into her voice to amplify his feelings in an attempt to see if anything amiss, but he just seemed more nervous then normal. A.C.E. gives her a sharp look and she lets her sound return to normal. She watched Dicer continue to fumble a bit even without her manipulation and though she might have wondered briefly if he had somehow manipulated A.C.E. into giving him a position, she decides that that was not the case. 

With her general curiosity satiated, she asks him about himself and seems to find his lucky ability interesting. She muses that he would probably be well suited to run the Clubs division specializing in resource acquisitions with such a power and wonders about how that would work. A.C.E. moves to say something about that but she dispels any anxiety around it by saying that it’s a matter for later and that he’ll probably enjoy being part of A.C.E.’s team as it comes with less responsibility. 

She changes the topic to ask about how his trial went as all A.C.E. had said about it was: Dicers’ contract was lost in self defense (whatever THAT meant) and that she shouldn't meet with Lady Kouen for a while (concerning). Dicer only gets as far as his fortunate lava dodging before C.O.C.A. looks shocked and says that even the Rainbow-Armor uniform he wore would have trouble standing up to such heat exposure but at least it must have kept him cool in the climate. She reaches for Dicer‘s coat to check how the material held up, but what she feels is not the normal texture of the uniform fabric. She asks him if he was just not wearing his uniform now and if he could get it to her for testing later.

A.C.E. makes a sound at that and Dicer says that during his trial he was just wearing whatever he put on that morning - causing C.O.C.A. to become horrified. She turns to A.C.E. and asks him if Dicer was really out there, dodging lava in an active volcano zone without any protective gear, and A.C.E. had the decency to look guilty as he tells her that he had forgotten about the uniform. C.O.C.A. is speechless as A.C.E. says that he at least got Dicer to sign the liability waiver like he was advised, which did not improve the situation. C.O.C.A. aggressively whispers that it would have been meaningless due to the blatant gross negligence on his part and that he is SO lucky Dicer had his ability to deliver him back in one piece. She asks if he had just missed picking up a uniform while showing the other around and Dicer and A.C.E. just look at each other, confirming to C.O.C.A. that they, indeed, had not even gone on a tour of the Citadel. 

Dicer tries to help by saying he had seen the Junk Pit and training rooms but C.O.C.A. decides that she has heard enough. She claps her hands together and says that she is giving him a non-optional tour starting right that moment. A.C.E. asks if he can skip the tour and if C.O.C.A. could let him know when she's done. C.O.C.A. finds this a little strange but allows it in order to spend some time getting to know Dicer one-on-one. A.C.E. then wishes Dicer luck and slips through a void out of sight before C.O.C.A. could change her mind. 

Left in the Hearts Faction Leader’s capable hands, Dicer seems ready to see what he had been missing out on. C.O.C.A. starts with a flourish and guides Dicer though the maze-like halls back to the central elevator. 

They get in, and from the elevator, the doors open up to numerous, grand floors that C.O.C.A. gives an overview too. She shows him the indoor gardens, a broadcasting room, the mess hall, and more.

They then come to a stop at a floor that looks a lot like a dressing room, and C.O.C.A. ushers them off the elevator. He asks her what this one is for, and C.O.C.A. says she uses the room for prototype production and storage. She explains one of her hobbies is material production, and she was able to use this space for fabrication. In the middle of the room is a large circular dressing stand, and she motions for Dicer to stand on it while she lulls him into polite conversation. 

As they talk, she grabs a tablet off the table, and with the push of a few buttons, the platform turns on and it scans him for his dimensions. C.O.C.A. looks at the screen and makes some adjustments and starts to draw some ideas down as Dicer tries to learn more about A.C.E. since C.O.C.A. opened herself up to questions. She tells him a bit about his leader's history but encourages him to try and get more details directly from the boy himself.

Seemingly satisfied with her work, Dicer watches as she put the handheld tablet into the docking station attached to the platform he is standing on. She shoos him off it as the machine gets to work, and before his very eyes, an outfit is woven from gray shifting threads in a record time; the shirt and pants finished first, and then the jacket materializes over top even though they look wildly different from the design C.O.C.A. had worked to make. The outfit collapses into the Heart Leader’s hands as soon as she touched it, appraising the fabric.

She holds it out to Dicer to try on and even if he thinks it’s a little plain, he’s not one to argue over such things. He goes into a dressing room and finds the all-gray material is comfortable and fits well. He goes back out with the outfit he came in and puts them on the table as C.O.C.A, appraises him. She deems the fit acceptable and asks Dicer to get back on the stand. He complies, and once he gets situated, the machine boots up again. This time, it morphs to become more like a cylindrical tank and a series of nozzles appear from the sides; spraying the clothes with a solution.

Everywhere the mist hits transforms the clothes into the original design that C.O.C.A. had sketched. Dicer watches in awe as the details like functional pockets and hardware seem to form out of thin air and solidify in reality. Once the gray material had been completely altered into the primarily green attire of the uniform, the tank splits open, and C.O.C.A. is able to see the full effect of her handiwork. She seems exceptionally pleased with it and tells Dicer that it suits him better than she had imagined. She goes on to say that it should withstand any environment he could find himself in as it works fine for A.C.E. and all he gets up to.

She says the material will keep this form but if it ever got damaged or he ever wanted to change it, he could come back here with a different design and the machine would be able to restitch itself as long as the new idea was similar enough to its structure. She does mention that the fabricator can’t make accessories like gloves and footwear so he will have to get those separately.

Dicer thanks her, and C.O.C.A. says that it’s no problem and that everyone in the Citadel wears these kinds of clothes too, but without all the protective properties. He asks her a bit about it, and she says she designed it first for the convenience for quick changes for her shows, but then found more applications for it and had it modified as A.C.E. needed his to act more like armor. She says that this modified fabric is what she used to make Dicer clothes since he will probably be following A.C.E. around for the foreseeable future. 

C.O.C.A. motions for Dicer to follow her as they are done here and that there is just one more stop on the tour before she’ll let him go. Dicer walks with her back to the elevator, and they are brought to a floor that looks more like an apartment. Dicer asks about it and C.O.C.A. explains that each faction has their own dorm floors to provide a place to stay for their members if they don’t already have one. She apologies that the place is plain, but that A.C.E. never thought it necessary to decorate despite living here full time.  

She brings him through the space and shows him all the amenities, and Dicer thinks it’s all really nice. Lastly, she points out A.C.E.’s door in the back and opens the door directly to the left to reveal a decent sized bedroom with basic furnishings. She says it might be a little dusty, but if he decides he would like to stay here, that this would be his room. Dicer is excited by the prospect and says that he would like that even if he might not stay full time because he still wants to stay with his family sometimes so he won’t miss them so much. 

A flash of sadness crosses C.O.C.A. face on hearing about his family before it is quickly concealed as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small device. She says even if he only stays part-time, he should still have a nice place to stay and that he should have fun customizing it so it feels like home.She hand him the device and explains it’s a holographic imager and demonstrates what it can do by pointing it at the table, where a holograph of a vase of flowers appears. She clicks the up button, and the flowers in the vase change. C.O.C.A. says he’s free to bring whatever he wants from home,bbut he can use this to get a sense of where everything could go. With this being the end of the tour, she says she'll leave him here to experiment with the room design. She hopes he will be happy working at the Citadel and if he ever needs anything or even just someone to talk to that her door is always open.

After saying their goodbyes and leaving Dicer to play with his room setup, C.O.C.A. looks at her watch and finds she has some extra time before her next obligation and she decides to go and try to find A.C.E., and after a bit of poking around, she finds him on the roof looking out at the moon deep in thought.

He sees her climb over to him, and even though there is plenty of space, he makes room for her. She looks him over and sees that he seems to be thinking and settles on asking what's troubling him. She waits in comfortable silence and eventually A.C.E. says that he wonders if he made the right choice taking Dicer on. 

He says that C.O.C.A. is right and that he is not very social at all like she said and worries a bit that he's out of his element trying to manage someone full time. 

C.O.C.A. understands him but says that it’s not the first time he's led people, pointing out the contracts he has and the relationships he's built through them, even if they weren’t particularly close relationships like what she expects he will form with Dicer. 

C.O.C.A. softens up, and says that she's glad he's taking the chance on Dicer and that when they had started up Ark Light, she broke it up into factions so they could be surrounded by like minded people and grow closer to them, but the fact that A.C.E. never took on anyone beyond general contracting worried her. She hopes that now that he has someone who would be around all the time, he would find himself making those deeper bonds.

She then jokes that if it doesn’t work out, it will be ok and she might just promote Dicer herself because his power seems like it could be very useful. A.C.E. huffs and says she’ll have to fight him for the opportunity. C.O.C.A. laughs and assures him that everything will turn out as it should and that if he’s ever having doubts he could always talk to Dicer about them as he seems to be amenable to anything A.C.E. has to say. 

A.C.E. says that beyond Dicers persistence he is, at least, positive and agreeable. C.O.C.A. says she’s glad he found such a nice person to spend time with.  A.C.E. starts to get up from his seating place and says he will give it his best shot to make it work and that fate will ultimately decide. C.O.C.A. agrees to let fate decide as she stands up too and they head back inside.

Chapter End 

After the chapter ends we see Dicer talking to A.C.E. Once he’s gotten all settled in On the Diamond dorm room floor. He says that even if he will still stay at his house on the weekends sometimes it will be fun living together. A thought then comes to him and he asks if this made them roommates. A.C.E. wants to argue that they are more like neighbors but Dicer hopeful expression has him saying Dicer can call it what he wants.