In Twoearle's expert opinion as its creator, the blue tailsuit was completely trashed. If asked for further details, she would explain that it was more ash than suit at this point. There were parts of it that could be salvaged, like the inertial dampeners, but most of it was going to need to be replaced entirely. Sighing as she went down the list of components, Twoearle couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at the loss of her old suit.
"It's a miracle she's alive at all." Twoearle murmured to herself. The only thing that had allowed Aika to survive the bomb was the combination of the crystallizing gel the suit had deployed over her twintails, thus freezing them safely in place, and the lucky survival of the inertial dampeners that somehow weren't destroyed by the heat of the nuclear explosion. If Aika's hair had burned away, and her twintails been destroyed, then the suit would have untransformed right there, and she would have died instantly. If the inertial dampeners had failed, then her crystalised twintails would have broken off when she hit the ground, she would have untransformed and died.
All the more mundane electronic components had been fried by the EMP, which explained why her communicator went down. Without even a spark of power there would have been no way to undo the transformation if someone else hadn't kindly inserted a pair of double AA's into the battery port.
Almost every other part of the suit was completely ruined, though. Even the excellion shorts. Twoearle wrinkled her nose as she thought over just how hard it would be to repair all this. At least she could do it with materials that she could source here on Earth, but first she'd have to get the money to buy them.
"Oh, well." She sighed to herself, standing up from her desk and making her way to a locked cabinet in the garage that was marked 'samples'. "Time to dig into my reserves, I guess." Once again, she reached into her cleavage and dug out her set of fuzzy keys.
When she unlocked the cabinet, she found inside a collection of items that would shock and horrify her friends. There were four shelves in the cabinet, each marked by one name: Souji, Sora, Erina, and Aika. The contents of each shelf looked much the same to an untrained eye, but there were differences if you paid attention. On each row was small containers of fingernails, used tissues, hair samples, swabs of saliva, and other even more unmentionable things retrieved from the garbage. The paper bin in Souji's room had been a particular goldmine of useful samples.
"Running low on used underwear and old bathwater." Twoearle grunted, before closing the cabinet. After sitting back down in her computer chair, she brought up an incognito tab on her browser and loaded up a page on U-bay. Soon there was a series of new items on that website, auctions selling things like 'Authentic Tail Red Hair!' and, '100% Genuine Tail Blue Used Gym Shorts!' Though Tail Yellow and Blue were much less popular than Tailred, who had a lot more universal appeal, there were still people who excited by and interested in them. Strange and deviant people, but people with credit cards and access to the internet nonetheless. Currently there seemed to be a bidding war over one of Tail Blue's used gym towels between two users named 'IWANTGIRLSTOSTEPONME1232' and 'number1NKdictator' that was getting pretty extravagant. Twoearle was just setting up a page for Tail Yellow's old handkerchief when there was a knock on her door.
She jumped in surprise, immediately closed the browser and turned off the computer, before dusting herself off and walking over to the door. Standing on the other side, she found Aika and Souji. "Yes?"
Souji smiled at her cheerily. "Just came to check on the suit, and see how the repairs are going."
"Ah, hmmm…" Twoearle tapped her lip. "Not well?"
Aika looked worried. "Is it that bad?"
"Oh, yeah." Twoearle assured her, before walking over to where the tailsuit bracer was currently suspended in the prongs of a device that was scanning it with blue lasers. "It's unbelievable that you survived at all, and that's not going into your stand off with Korean army."
"Nekorean." Aika corrected, frowning sadly. "Will you able to fix it?"
"..." Twoearle bit her lip. "No. At this point the best I can do might be to extract the twintail elemera and just build a new suit."
The disappointment was obvious on Aika's face, as she looked down at the suit. "Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"
"...I want to say yes, but it's just impossible." Twoearle looked up and saw the expression on Aika's face, and found that she felt the same way. She didn't want this suit to be lost either. "Maybe I can break it down to its base components, smelt down the metal and reforge it. Some parts of it will just have to be thrown out, but at least the new suit will mostly be made of the same material as the old one. I can make it pretty much the exact same." It would be a lot more effort to go through than just sourcing new materials, but maybe it was worth it to see the old blue suit back in action.
"I would like that." Aika smiled at her. "Thank you, Twoearle."
"Um, I have a question." Souji turned to the mad scientist. "What exactly are you even a scientist of? I'm not an expert, you seem to do a lot of engineering, but I remember you saying you weren't an engineer?"
"Oh… Well, most of this is self taught." Twoearle looked around the room at what she had built, and she imagined it looked pretty professional to the untrained eye. "I was actually a qualified biochemist, believe it or not."
"Really?" Aika sounded quite cynical.
Twoearle shrugged. "I don't want to brag, but I am a genius, okay? Possibly the smartest to ever live on Locale."
Aika crossed her arms. "I don't believe that."
Twoearle looked at her, disbelievingly. "Is it really so hard to believe? Has anyone else ever invented half the stuff I have?"
"No, I meant I don't believe the part about you not wanting to brag."
Twoearle chuckled and scratched the back of her head. "Okay, you got me."
"Where did learn you all this stuff, then?" Aika pulled up a chair, and sat across from her.
Souji did the same, hopping up onto an empty desk and swinging his feet above the ground.
"Mostly from the Elemerians." Twoearle admitted, turning around in her chair. "I was just about to turn sixteen when the Elemerians launched their first attack on Locale, and everyone was helpless to stop it. There was footage on the news of them flipping tanks and knocking over aircraft, while joking and riffing off one liners all the time. Somehow in the fight, one of their attribute extraction rings got sent flying and 'just happened' to land in my backyard. It even had a convenient little USB port on the side, so when I hacked into it, and found the plans for how to build a tailsuit, and all that stuff, of course I jumped on it." Her eyes turned to the blue suit where it sat in the scanner. "It even had two Twintail Elemera inside it, ready to be built into the suit."
"I had wondered where you got them from." Aika admitted.
"Where were you living at the time?" Souji asked.
Oh… Twoearle glanced at him, then at Aika. That's what this was. The two of them hadn't really come down here to check on the repairs, they were here to try and get her to open up a bit more about her past. She grimaced and turned back to the computer. "I was living basically by myself. I never knew my mother, and dad was busy as a researcher too, and I almost never saw him."
In her monitors reflection she saw Souji and Aika exchange looks. They had one of their silent conversations with just a few facial expressions, and reached some kind of resolve. Both of them turned to Twoearle at the same time.
Souji opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
"Listen, guys." She exaggerated a yawn. "I'm just on the back end of an all nighter, and not to mention all that time I spent searching for Aika. If you don't mind, I'm gonna head to bed and catch up on some sleep."
"Oh." Souji looked crestfallen.
"It's okay." Aika quickly spoke up for him. "We can talk later."
"That's fine." Twoearle stood up and headed for the door, but paused as she left. "Oh, and Souji. Don't forget to trade places with Erina." She reminded him. "We still need someone on the other side until the pink suit's updates are installed."
"Right."
With that said, Twoearle hurried away.
Despite a two year age difference, Sora was a few inches shorter than Isabella, she couldn't help but note. The younger girl watched her step through the portal with a cold look on her face, and Sora felt particularly unwelcome. As the long staring match went on, Sora couldn't help but notice the incredible twin drill tails the younger Catian was sporting. After spending so much time as a girl, she understood just how expensive and labor intensive those would be to maintain. As far as twintails went, it was a far cry from the simple beauty of Aika's, or the elegant refinement of Erina's, but a bold and challenging statement. These were twintails that loudly shouted to the world, 'I'm here!'
Or something like that.
"Hi, Isabella. I came as a girl." Sora fidgeted uncomfortably under the long stare. "Like you asked."
"Come on then." Isabella muttered, turning around and walking deeper into the secret base.
Behind her, Sora hurried to catch up, lugging her overnight bag over one shoulder and seeming to struggle a little with the weight.
"How long have you and Senpai known each other?" Isabella asked over her shoulder, as they headed up the ramp to the spaceship.
"Um, our parents were neighbors and friends before we were born. So forever I guess." Sora answered, looking around at the interior of the ship curiously, before her eyes settled on Isabella. "Um, why do you only call Aika that?"
"Call her what?"
"'Senpai.'"
Isabella turned on her heel and glared down at her. "Do you want me to call you that?"
"No!" Sora shrank in on herself. Wasn't Isabella supposed to be the shy, quiet type? But then again, those were definitely not the twintails of a withdrawn and silent person.
Isabella maintained her challenging stare for a few moments longer, while Sora tried to avoid her gaze, before with a dismissive, "Hmph," she turned and made her way deeper into the ship. The two of them lapsed into silence as they laid out their futons together. As she was preparing her things, Isabella couldn't help but notice the confused and uncertain looks Sora kept shooting at her whenever she thought Isabella wasn't looking.
"What?" She snapped after the half a dozenth time she caught Sora.
"N-nothing." Sora quickly defended herself.
"Then why are you looking at me?"
"Er… You're really different then from how I thought you were." Sora murmured.
"What do you mean?" Isabella stared directly at her again, and once again Sora hunched her shoulders nervously, and shrank in on herself.
"Aika told me you were, uh, different then how you're acting." She scratched the back of her neck nervously, an action which caused her chest to strain her shirt even more.
Despite her best effort to maintain her scowl, the tips of Isabella's lips began to turn upwards in the beginnings of a goofy smile, before she got it back under control. "Senpai and I are friends." She answered by way of an explanation.
"Oh." Sora nodded once in understanding. "And I guess you just don't know the rest of us that well, yet, huh?"
"Hmf." Isabella dismissed. "I get along fine with Erina."
"Oh." A disappointed note entered Sora's voice.
After that, the two of them sat down in silence, and it wasn't long before Isabella took out her phone to start playing Armoured Galz. Sora hadn't brought much to entertain herself, expecting Isabella to be a good host based on Erina's glowing recommendation. "I guess it's just me that she doesn't like." Sora murmured to herself, lowly.
"Hm?" Isabella looked up. "Did you say something?"
"No." Sora cringed and stared at the floor.
The room was quiet for a long time after that, expect for the beeps and catchphrases of Isabella's game.
After thirty minutes, Sora still didn't know what to do. The atmosphere in the room was so painfully awkward and she still wasn't sure what she'd done wrong. Anytime she wriggled or moved, Isabella would skewer her with a glare and demand to know what was wrong, making Sora feel like she had to insist everything was fine even though she was bored and somewhat stressed.
A painful hour of this passed before Isabella got tired of her game.
"You look bored."
"Uh, no I'm fine." Sora instinctively tried to reassure her.
"Don't lie to me." Isabella scowled.
"I-I'm not lying."
"So then you want to keep sitting here like this?"
Please no. "I need to use the bathroom." Sora excused herself and stood up. "I'll be right back."
"Don't fall in." Isabella turned her head back down to her phone.
Obviously it was just an excuse to escape. Sora didn't really need to go to the bathroom, although she took the chance to wash her face and hands, and wait around in their for another few minutes because anything was better than that atmosphere. After taking as long as she could justify to herself, Sora returned to the main room to find Isabella setting up a chair and bringing over what looked like a heavy toolbox.
"Uh… What's this?" Sora asked.
"You were bored right?" Isabella replied. "And this is a sleepover, isn't it?"
"I didn't say I was bored."
Isabella ignored her. "Do you know what happens at sleepovers?"
"Um…" In Souji's experiences as a guy, he had only ever had a handful of male friends, and he'd never once stayed over at one of their houses. He had some dim recollections of staying at the Tsube house once or twice when he was much younger, and similar to his other memories from then, they involved a lot of being chased around and wrestling with Aika, and always losing. "I don't think so, not a normal girl's sleep over at least."
Isabella eyed him suspiciously for a moment. "Well, there's a few different things we can do on a sleepover, but I think we should do something I bet a boy like you has never done before."
"Like what?" Sora eyed the toolbox suspiciously.
Isabella smirked and unclipped the top of it, revealing rows and rows of blush, liners, mascara, lipsticks and other tools of beautification. "A makeover."
"O-oh." Sora hesitated, suddenly feeling nervous.
"Sit down." Isabella patted the chair in front of her, giving Sora a smile that never quite reached her eyes.
"But I'm a guy?" Sora protested, weakly.
"You don't look like much of a man to me." Isabella grunted. "Come on, what's the point of being a girl half the time if you don't get to enjoy the fun parts of being one?"
"...Alright." Souji conceded nervously, allowing himself to be gently but insistently tugged into the chair.
"Now hold still." Isabella smirked, reaching into the toolkit, and selecting a brush and powder. "First we lay the foundation..."
It was a peaceful night in downtown Pyongyang, partly due to the lovely summer weather, but mostly due to the violently enforced curfew. Anyone found on the streets without good reason would be immediately detained, and as a direct result, the city was quiet. Peaceful. Safe. There weren't even rats, cats, or birds in view. After all, for those creatures to eat there needed to be food for them to scavenge, and their certainly wasn't any of that around.
To conserve electricity, no street lights were active, except for the spotlights of the watchtowers scattered about the place. The only movement that could be seen where the patrols of armed soldiers, prowling from street to street in search of any spies or dissidents who would dare to trespass the wonderful night in Pyongyang.
They didn't find any spies, though thanks to the darkened skyline, one of them was able to spot something quite strange; a light in the heavens. There, visible among the stars was a glowing ball that seemed to be growing larger, and larger. One of them soon sent out the alert, and all across the city crowds of loyal soldiers watched as what they feared to be a nuke from the foul capitalist pigs of America rushed towards them. Word soon came down from command, though, and it became clear the glow wasn't caused by a weapon, the trajectory was wrong. Soon its landing site was calculated, and rapid response units were set up to immediately secure wherever it landed.
The meteor crashed into the suburbs of Pyongyang, where the streets weren't paved with asphalt, but were rather long stretches of compacted dirt, made by countless feet and vehicles passing over. The explosive sound of its landing brought curious onlookers out of their homes, only for them to immediately rush inside and hide as they heard the approaching roar of army vehicles. Curfew was still in effect after all.
Soldiers jumped out of their various trucks, circling around the smoking crater, and many couldn't help but notice its strange surface. This was definitely not a meteor. It looked to be made from some kind of golden tinted metal, but with a mysterious white enameling covering it. In addition, there were obvious joints across its surface. As the soldiers watched, there was a hiss and one edge of it folded up, causing them to raise their guns with fear. White fog clouded their vision, as from out of the wrecked space pod stumbled a silhouette.
Coughing, and apparently limping, a beautiful woman emerged into the spotlight, blinded by the lights from above so shielded her eyes. The soldiers saw her, though. She was tall, perhaps six foot, with a slim, delicate figure and a long pair of thin, beautiful twintails stretching from her head to almost her ankles. She was wearing a white loincloth and chest wrapping, adorned with various gold and silver weavings that did nothing to disguise the shape of her hips or chest.
"Please!" She cried, tears in her eyes and running down her cheeks. "Please, someone help! I need to speak to the Twintail warriors!"
Around her gracefully thin neck was a flowery pink cravat.