Ask Unit Three for advice

Speak of the devil! As you were considering asking Unit Three about how they found a way to work so effortlessly together, the duo in question strolled into the storeroom, chattering with one another as they started to remove their armor. Angel Three had curly dark brown hair and she was almost always giggling at anything Rider Three said when she wasn't peppering in the occasional Spanish in her own chatter, that's about as much as you knew about her. Most of the Angel/Rider pairings stuck to themselves, or would split into groups of only Angels or only Riders when doing something off-hours. Only during times in the storeroom did you really get a chance to talk with them.

The two waved at you and Angel Five as they entered. Rider Three, with his square jaw and military-style cut, looked pretty stoic, but every time he looked at Angel Three, his entire demeanor changed to become warm and friendly. Even though he did wave at you, his warmth had vanished once he looked you in the eyes.

Angel Five crossed her arms as she walked up to Unit Three, looking at the two. "So, what's your secret? How do you work so well together?"

Rider Three paused, glancing back and forth between Angels Three and Five. To you, he almost looked like alarm bells were going off in his head. "Uhh, what do you mean? We just do what you two do, you two work fine together, right? Yabusa paired you up, just like us, based on their data for how well you'd work together."

"I mean, yeah, we work well together," Angel Five said, looking at you for a moment. "But you two are like... you're on the exact same wavelength all the time! Even in the silly stuff, like you two turned making morning coffee into like a ballet or something, it's choreographed the way you share the workload in even something like that."

"I don't know what you're talking about, it's just all about hard work and thinking about the other and giving a hundred and ten percent," Rider Three said, clearing his throat. He seemed particularly uncomfortable by the line of questioning, not having a good poker face at all. There was something more to it.

Angel Three immediately picked up on her Rider's discomfort and turned to him. "Hey, I think I left my phone at my desk, could you get it for me?" A very relieved Rider left the storeroom as fast as he could manage, before Angel Three turned toward Angel Five with a sudden grin. "You wanna know the secret, huh? How bad do you want to know?"

"We need to figure it out fast," you said, stepping over to stand beside Angel Five. "We're getting a big case and Sarge expects us to improve our teamwork before we close it. Is it just practice with the neural link, do you do a lot of work with it?"

Angel Three only seemed to smile wider, strutting over to her civilian Angel sportbike gear. "You don't really need to worry about the neural link with our technique, no. But before I say anything, I want the name of your guy that did your Angel's custom moto suit. I want my riding gear to say Mariposa all over it, with little butterfly motifs everywhere. I think the panels look more like butterfly wings than angel wings in the style I got, so I want to keep up that theme. ...And I want to pay half what you paid."

That ultimately meant you'd be paying for half of Angel Three's riding suit, since the guy you knew wouldn't do a custom job for any less than what you paid for Angel Five's and your own designs. But Angel Five looked at you with puppydog eyes, so you also knew you didn't have much choice.

"I'll make some calls," you said. "So what's the trick already?"

Angel Three glanced around, and then waved you and Angel Five closer, so she could talk in hushed tones. "There's a secret that isn't in the user manual for all this Yabusa gear. You know those Endo units in all the Angels? Well, the motorcycle one is about as big as the Meteor armor, don't you think?"

You and Angel Five scrunched your noses, puzzled by what Three was implying. A thought occurred, but it seemed impossible. "Wait, you can't mean that Rider Three... took out the Endo in you, and..."

"And the Rider-modified Meteor armor fits like a freaking glove, that's right," Angel Three said through her grin. "And I don't just mean that it is a decent fit, I mean that everything lines up perfectly, all the sensory ports and signal connections and everything. It might be a better fit than any of the actual Endo mods, like it was practically designed for the Rider to go inside the Angel."

Angel Five's face burned bright red at the thought. "Wait, wait. So, Rider Three got inside you and then... what, he became you?"

"Well, not fully," Angel Three said through a chuckle. "Below the neck, he had total control. I think the Rider units can connect to the head and face as well, but we don't know how to enable that, so I did all the talking and everything. But do you remember last Tuesday when I was in the office and said that Rider Three was at home with a cold?"

"...nooooo, you can't be serious!" Angel Five said, her eyes wider than you'd ever seen. "That was him bringing you into the office?"

Angel Three giggled again. "Mi amiga, it was the weirdest sort of exciting! It was scary, we were certain that someone would think something was off and we'd be caught and then who knows what at that point. He didn't know how to act like me, but that night, he figured things out his own way... know what I mean? The thing is, we both ended up liking it, we had to work together in public but we both found something fun when working together. R-Three has his tough-guy persona he doesn't want to tarnish though, so don't tell anyone that he liked behaving like me, he even learned my hair routine, he's almost as good as me at my makeup too! But now that he's been inside me, we know how the other one works, and I can trust him with the neural link."

The three of you turned to look at the far door as Rider Three returned, holding a phone. "Found it! Hey, uh, did I miss anything?"

"Oh, I was just telling them about how we jog in the morning and that helps us work better together."

Rider Three took a deep breath as relief washed over his face. "Ah, yeah, all the jogging we do. You learn a lot about someone by, y'know, jogging with them. Anyway, we have to get moving, we've got... some evening jogging to do, too." A short time later, Angel Three had shifted into a candy red sportbike mode, and Rider Three could hardly wait to get on the road.

You and Angel Five looked at each other. "Do you think she was making that up?" you asked.

"I don't know, maybe." Angel Five sat on the bench, tapping her fingernails against the leg armor still encasing her lower body. "That could be some huge prank, but Rider Three seemed pretty sincere in his desire to keep things quiet. Maybe it really is possible."

"But for working better together? There's no way, right?"

"Right." Angel Five rubbed the back of her neck, staring off into middle-space. "...Right, maybe."

Angel Five silently changed into her civilian sportbike gear, keeping to herself as you rode your Angel all the way home. It was the first time she'd been so quiet; something was clearly weighing heavily on her mind. Was she really considering what Angel Three told her?