First Person: The Gilded Cage
My new life began with the sound of a door closing. It wasn't the metallic clang of a prison cell, but the soft, almost silent click of a solid wood door with brass fittings. The result, however, was the same. I was locked in.
Cecilia had led me from the command center through a section of the academy that screamed "old money." The hallways were carpeted, the walls adorned with artwork that probably cost more than my entire FBI salary, and the air smelled of beeswax and silent superiority. We arrived at a set of double doors that, I presumed, led to her personal quarters. A sanctuary of British aristocracy in the middle of a Japanese sci-fi military academy.
The room she confined me in wasn't a cell. It was a guest suite that would make a five-star hotel blush. King-sized bed with sheets of a thread count I didn't even know existed, a marble bathroom, and a view from a glass balcony onto a private garden. It was the most luxurious prison I had ever been in. And I had been in quite a few, though usually on the other side of the bars.
"These will be your quarters," Cecilia informed me, her tone that of a queen assigning rooms to a problematic vassal. "There are guards stationed outside. Do not try anything foolish. Your... 'arrangement' depends on your good behavior."
I nodded, too tired to argue.
"Now," she said, clapping once, a crisp, authoritative sound. "Let us move to our first and most urgent matter." She looked me up and down, her nose wrinkling with barely concealed disgust at my tattered hospital gown. "Your appearance. It is an affront to the senses and an insult to decency."
I sighed. Of course. It didn't matter that I could activate an IS, that I had dismantled an elite international team, or that I was a being from another dimension. The urgent problem was my lack of style.
"I cannot have my... responsibility," she continued, choosing the word carefully, "looking like a vagrant pulled from a ditch. My reputation, and by extension, yours, demands a certain standard. And you, Mr. Kennedy, are falling far short of that standard."
Before I could formulate a sarcastic reply about whether the interdimensional anomaly containment manual had a dress code, she was already speaking into an intercom, her voice shifting to fluid, clipped Japanese. "Bring them. Immediately."
A few minutes later, the door slid open. And the assault began.
Third Person: The Aesthetic Reconstruction Team
It wasn't an assault team. It was something far more terrifying. A team of stylists.
The first was a thin, lanky man with an asymmetrical haircut and a suit so tight it looked painted on. He introduced himself with a nod as "Jean-Pierre," a tailor whose family had apparently dressed European royalty for generations. Behind him came two assistants who moved with silent efficiency, laden with measuring tapes, fabric swatches, and pins.
The second was a flamboyant man with pink-dyed hair and a silk scarf, a hair stylist named "Kenji" (a coincidence Leo found to be a cruel cosmic irony), who looked at Leo's hair as if it were a personal offense.
They descended on Leo like a forensic team on a crime scene.
"Oh, mon Dieu!" exclaimed Jean-Pierre, circling Leo, his expert eyes evaluating every inch. "The posture... it is terrible. Too functional. Too... American. And these shoulders, they are too wide for current fashion. We will have to work to create an illusion of slenderness."
Leo, standing in the middle of the room in his gown, felt like a piece of meat at an auction. "My shoulders are for carrying the weight of my bad decisions, not for looking good in a blazer," he muttered.
Jean-Pierre ignored him. "Measurements!" he barked at his assistants.
What followed was a deeply uncomfortable experience for a man accustomed to maintaining his personal space. Strange, expert hands measured him all over, calling out numbers in French and Japanese. Jean-Pierre made notes on a holographic tablet, frowning.
"He has scars," the tailor observed, touching a pale line on Leo's forearm, a memento of a knife encounter in a Baltimore warehouse. "We will have to use thicker fabrics to ensure they do not show."
As this transpired, the suite door opened again. Lingyin and Houki entered, apparently looking for Cecilia. They stopped dead, their eyes wide at the sight of the scene. Leo, a man they had seen fight twenty guards, was now being measured like a debutante for her first ball gown.
"Cecilia...-san?" Houki stammered. "What... what is this?"
"I am rectifying an aesthetic disaster, Houki," Cecilia replied calmly from a plush armchair where she observed the entire process, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea. "I am civilizing the barbarian."
Lingyin approached, fascinated. "Interesting. The analysis of his body proportions could yield data on the gravity and nutrition of his world of origin. May I take tissue samples?"
"No, you may not," Leo said flatly.
Just as the measuring process concluded, Kenji the stylist approached his head. "And this hair... a disaster! No shape, no life! And the two-day stubble... it is so... proletarian! We need a clean cut, something to accent his bone structure and give him an air of dignity!"
Leo was about to protest that his two-day stubble was a pillar of his identity when Cecilia raised a hand.
"Enough. We have the measurements," she said, addressing Jean-Pierre. "Show him the options."
First Person: The Battle for Functional Clothing
The tailor gestured, and one of his assistants activated a holographic projector. In front of me appeared 3D images of incredibly handsome men wearing clothes that cost more than my car.
"For daily wear," Jean-Pierre began, "we have envisioned a set of tailored wool trousers, Italian silk shirts, and handmade leather loafers. For formal occasions, a bespoke Savile Row tuxedo, of course."
I looked at the holograms. The models looked like princes. Princes who probably couldn't run more than ten meters or scale a fence.
"No," I said.
Jean-Pierre blinked. "Pardon?"
"No," I repeated, crossing my arms. "I appreciate the effort, truly. But I'm not wearing any of that."
Cecilia set down her teacup with a clink. "And why not, pray tell?"
"Because that's the clothing of a man going to an art auction, not a man who might need to disappear down a ventilation shaft at any moment," I explained. "I need something functional. Something I can move in. Something that won't tear if I have to climb a wall. Jeans. A durable jacket. Boots with good grip."
Jean-Pierre's face contorted in horror, as if I had suggested dressing myself in potato sacks.
"Jeans! Mon Dieu, the horror!" he wailed.
"Mr. Kennedy is correct on one point," Laura Bodewig interjected, having silently entered and observed from the back. "His attire must allow for maximum mobility in case of a combat contingency."
"Thank you," I said, grateful for the unexpected support. "At least someone here understands the word 'practical.'"
Cecilia, however, was unmoved. "I will not sacrifice aesthetics for your paranoid need for 'contingencies.' You are my responsibility. Your appearance is a reflection of me. And I do not reflect in cheap work clothes."
The battle of wills had begun anew, this time over fabric instead of freedom.
"I'm not asking for cheap clothes," I argued. "I'm asking for smart clothes. There are modern materials. Composite fabrics. Designs that are elegant and durable. I'm not going to be your Ken doll."
Ichika, who had been silent the entire time, finally spoke. "Who's Ken?"
We all ignored him.
The argument lasted for nearly half an hour. It was a negotiation as intense as any I'd had with kidnappers. Cecilia championed elegance. I championed function. Laura occasionally offered tactical input on the movement restriction of certain fabric cuts. Lingyin was busy scanning fabric samples with some handheld device. Houki looked like she wished the earth would swallow her whole.
Finally, we reached a compromise. One that, to my surprise, leaned more in my favor than I expected, though with Cecilia's unmistakable aesthetic stamp.
The result was a fusion of our two worlds.
Dark, almost black, trousers with the impeccably tailored cut of designer wear, but made of a flexible ballistic weave that was slash-resistant and abrasion-proof.
A high-collared shirt, charcoal gray, made of a silk microfiber that was incredibly soft yet breathable and allowed for full range of motion.
Boots. Not loafers. Black leather boots, sleek and polished, but with a tactical rubber sole and ankle support.
And the pièce de résistance: a leather jacket. It wasn't a biker jacket, but a modern, minimalist-cut jacket, tailored to my athletic build. It was elegant, but it was also armor.
The System offered its approval.
[OUTFIT SELECTED: "Covert Agent at a Luxury Gala".]
Bonuses: +25 Charisma, +15 Stealth (in urban environments), +10 Damage Resistance (Minor). Penalties: Still costs a fortune. [Assessment: Acceptable. You can now fight organized crime and attend a cocktail party without having to change.]
"Good," Cecilia said, finally satisfied. "It's a compromise. Now, finish the job."
Kenji the stylist approached my head with scissors and a straight razor, his face lit with an almost religious fervor. "Now, to reveal the masterpiece beneath that... undergrowth!"
Third Person: The Prince and the Wolf
The haircut was quick and professional. The snipping of scissors was the only sound in the room. Kenji trimmed the sides, leaving the top slightly longer, giving it a shape that was both modern and masculine. Then, with warm foam and a sharp razor, he removed the week-old stubble, revealing the sharp line of Leo's jaw.
When he finished, he stepped back with a flourish. "Voila."
Leo looked at himself in the full-length mirror they had brought. And for the first time in a long time, he was speechless.
The man who stared back was not the tired FBI agent. He was not the drunken party animal from the recordings. He was not the ragged, desperate fugitive.
The man in the mirror was... elegant.
The haircut accented the seriousness of his eyes. The tailored clothes fit his body in a way that suggested contained power rather than bulk. He looked leaner, sharper, more dangerous. He looked like a prince from a forgotten nation, one with a dark past and the ability to snap your neck with a smile. He was a wolf in cashmere sheep's clothing.
"Wow..." was all Ichika could manage.
The other girls were silent. Houki blushed and looked at the floor. Charlotte smiled with genuine appreciation. Lingyin was analyzing him from a new angle, likely calculating the increase in his symmetrical appeal. Laura simply nodded once, as if approving the tactical upgrade to his appearance.
Cecilia Alcott rose from her armchair and walked slowly towards him, circling him once more. This time, however, there was no disgust in her gaze. There was a gleam of approval. Of triumph.
She stopped in front of him and adjusted the collar of his jacket. Her touch was light, almost imperceptible, but it sent a strange current through Leo.
"Much better," she said, her voice a satisfied murmur. "Now, at least, you look like someone worth talking to."
She had stripped him of his old identity, his fugitive appearance. She had rebuilt him in her image, or at least, a version she found acceptable. She had transformed him from a problem to a project. From a barbarian to something that looked, unsettlingly, like a prince.
Leo looked at himself in the mirror again. He wore new clothes. He had a new haircut. He had a new role in this world.
But beneath the silk, the leather, and the expert tailoring, his eyes were the same. They were the wolf's eyes. And he wondered how long it would be before everyone in that room remembered that, no matter how fancy the collar, a wolf never truly becomes a pet.