Anetta lifts the pot from the hob and puts it on the counter.
"So you were given a couple of days off?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder at Mimic.
Mimic swings her leg idly, watching Anetta from where she sits on the surface of the kitchen table. Ragdoll's crouching beside her with Plush the parrot settled next to him, both content and relaxed in each other's presence. It's amazing how well they get on despite being completely different species.
"S-sort of," Mimic replies to Anetta. "Tech- technically on standby. Just not . . . expected to- t-to do anything."
"We'll be heading to SciLab later, though," ProtoMan speaks up from Anetta's laptop, which is on the counter beside the pot, and shows both ProtoMan and Arcadia on the screen, along with a recipe for the meal that Anetta's currently trying to make. "Dr. Hikari and Famous have asked us to assist with the dimensional converter research today."
"That sounds cool," Anetta says, grinning. "Hey, maybe one day you can sneak me into SciLab! Then you guys could show me your Cross Fusion thing."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," ProtoMan says reluctantly, before Mimic can respond. "Considering how many times SciLab has been attacked in recent weeks, you may end up getting caught in another crisis or something."
"Aw, stop being such a party pooper," Anetta complains, pouting at him.
ProtoMan sighs. "Excuse me for trying to look out for your well-being."
"My well-being is fine," Anetta argues.
"You almost burn down your house every time you try to cook," ProtoMan deadpans.
"I'm getting better!"
"You are not! Ten minutes ago I had to yell at you because the soup was burning!"
"I was trying to make it crispy."
The comically incredulous look on ProtoMan's face sends Mimic into a fit of discordant giggles. Arcadia makes a strangled noise and ducks out of sight, the tips of his feathers trembling as he vanishes.
"You can't make soup crispy!" ProtoMan exclaims in an oddly high-pitched tone. "It's soup!"
"I can make the stuff inside it crispy," Anetta points out.
"I'm deleting every single one of your recipes," ProtoMan threatens.
"Won't work, I've already memorised them."
"Then try following them," ProtoMan retorts sharply.
Oh my god, this is fucking gold, Mimic thinks, wheezing through her laughter.
Chaud's laughing too hard to reply.
Later that day, Famous comes to pick Mimic up on his motorbike, and he takes her straight to SciLab. The noise of his motorbike is almost painful, but luckily Famous thought ahead and brought some earmuffs for her to help muffle the noise. It's still far too loud, but at least it doesn't hurt her ears as much. Ragdoll doesn't seem to mind the noise, but that might just be because he gets to be squished between her and Famous, and has the option of hiding his face in her stomach.
She's taken directly to the lab where the dimensional converter is being studied. It's bigger than Mimic had thought it would be - she's never actually been this close to the converter before, and the anime rarely ever showed them next to humans for a size comparison.
"Chaud!" Dr. Hikari waves her over from where he stands, near a tangle of wires and computers near the converter. "Thanks for coming."
"You asked," Mimic points out, shooting a quick glance at the dimensional converter as she makes her way over to Dr. Hikari.
"Well, yes, but it wasn't an order or anything," Dr. Hikari replies. "Anyway, let's get right down to it." He types away at the keyboard of one of the computers for a moment, and then looks up again. "Would you mind jacking Arcadia into the converter's network?"
Just Arcadia? Chaud wonders.
"We've already had MegaMan investigate the network yesterday," Dr. Hikari tells her. "But we'd like to get more concrete results, so we thought it'd be a good idea to send in Arcadia."
"What about me?" ProtoMan speaks up. Mimic doesn't think she imagines the slight hurt in his tone.
Dr. Hikari looks a little awkward. "We don't want to take any risks," he says, gesturing to the dimensional converter. "Your Poltergeist Program could do anything to it - break it, activate it by accident, even delete some important data before we even realise it."
" . . . Oh," ProtoMan says faintly. Now he just sounds ashamed, and Mimic feels a pang of sympathy for him. "Okay then."
As Mimic is about to take out her PET, she spots something out of the corner of her eye and pauses, looking over. There's a second dimensional converter in the process of being built near the corner of the lab. She already has an idea of what that one might be, but she glances at Dr. Hikari anyway, just in case she's wrong.
"We're building a fake," Dr. Hikari explains, seeing her glance. "We don't want to risk another attack on SciLab, so we'll be moving the dimensional converter to a secret location as soon as we've finished building that fake converter. Famous came up with the idea - we can loosen the firewall protecting SciLab to make the fake one a more tempting target, so we can study the real one in relative peace."
And have Mimic and Lan defend the fake, to help sell the image. That's what had happened in the anime - Lan and Chaud had been fighting off hordes of viruses for so long that Lan had started to get annoyed with it, and he'd been absolutely shocked when the fake converter had been revealed.
"Actually," Dr. Hikari says, looking even more awkward now, "if you could keep this a secret from Lan, we'd really appreciate it. He's enthusiastic, but he has a bad habit of telling his friends almost everything."
That's . . . not entirely true. Lan's kept more than one secret from his friends - before ProtoMan had used his Poltergeist armour on the Gospel beast, Lan had managed to keep the Poltergeist Program within ProtoMan a secret from his friends. And as far as Mimic knows, he hasn't said anything about what little he knows about how Shuseki used to treat her.
But Dr. Hikari still has a good point. Lan hadn't kept his 'secret' of being a Net Saver from Maylu, Tory, or Chisao for very long. She's still not sure why he decided it had to be a secret, anyway.
Mimic gives Dr. Hikari a grin. "S'easy to lie when y-you don't- when you don't talk much," she tells him.
Famous looks up from a nearby monitor, catches sight of her grin, and stiffens a little. "Wow," he says, "Lan was right. That smile is creepy."
Dr. Hikari shoots him a warning glance, and Famous shrugs.
"What? It's true," he says.
Dr. Hikari just shakes his head and turns back to Mimic. "Shall we get on with exploring the network, then?"
Mimic nods and brings out her PET. Arcadia gives her a quick thumbs-up before vanishing, leaving ProtoMan to- holy shit, is he pouting?
He's sulking, Chaud says, sounding absolutely delighted. Oh my god, he's sulking.
Well, he is seven, Mimic points out, though she's highly amused by ProtoMan's reaction as well.
She comes around to Dr. Hikari's side, and looks at one of the screens. It's showing Arcadia standing outside of a firewall.
"Downloading the password now," Famous reports, typing away at his keyboard for a moment.
Arcadia twitches, and then jumps at the firewall. A hole opens up and scans him, then lets him through, and now he's in the network of the dimensional converter. It looks just as bare-bones as it had in the anime, and in the distance, Mimic can see a set of odd-looking stairs leading up to a massive hole in the sky.
"This is another reason why we can't send ProtoMan in," Dr. Hikari says. "We weren't sure if we could download the password into his systems."
"C-colour-change program," Mimic points out.
"Downloading a program onto your PET is different to downloading a password directly into ProtoMan's systems," Dr. Hikari explains. "For the program, it's easier, since we can find a route through his systems and download it that way. But the password would need to stay in his systems, and we don't know if it might get deleted by accident, or get corrupted in some way."
"This is not fair," ProtoMan grumbles. His shadows curl around him apologetically, and he brushes his hand through them, looking slighty mollified.
On the screen of the computer, Arcadia starts moving. He seems to be going in a random direction, but he keeps glancing at the hole in the sky, and Mimic catches him wincing whenever he looks at it.
"That hole leads to the energy system of the converter," Dr. Hikari says. "When MegaMan went in there, he saw . . ." Dr. Hikari hesitates. "He saw ghosts, he said."
"Before that, he told us he could feel something," Famous speaks up. "He described it as endless sorrow and pain, like something was suffering inside the energy system, but he didn't see anything aside from those ghosts."
"Do you want me to go up there?" Arcadia asks. Despite his confident words, Mimic can see his feathers trembling faintly, and there's a nervous light in his eyes.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Dr. Hikari tells him. He obviously sees how nervous Arcadia is as well. "MegaMan didn't fully explore the rest of the network - Lan had to pull him out after he went into the energy system."
Because MegaMan's greatest fear is ghosts and monsters. It's mostly good for a laugh, but there are times when it's actually played straight, and sending MegaMan in to investigate a network full of suffering ghosts is just asking for trouble.
But ProtoMan's got the Poltergeist Program, Chaud says.
What's that got to do with MegaMan's phobia? Mimic asks him.
It's called the Poltergeist Program for a reason, Chaud replies. A few memories flash through their connection, reminders of the times ProtoMan had made lights flicker or when he'd accidentally caused some of SciLab's machines to shut down. I'm just wondering why MegaMan isn't terrified of ProtoMan, because he's basically an actual poltergeist.
Maybe it's because he knew ProtoMan before he got the Poltergeist Program, Mimic suggests.
Chaud responds with a vague hum.
"I'll be fine," Arcadia says to Dr. Hikari, glancing over his shoulder at the screen. He still looks nervous, but he's visibly steeling himself. "I might be able to detect something that MegaMan couldn't, because of my Empath Program."
Dr. Hikari doesn't say anything, but the look on his face makes Mimic wonder if that's why he said Arcadia doesn't need to go to the energy system. His Empath Program might let him detect something MegaMan couldn't, that's true, but it would also amplify whatever MegaMan felt when he went in there. Clearly it's already affecting Arcadia, judging by how nervous he is, and he's not even near it.
Arcadia makes his way over to the energy system. When he gets close enough to the stairs, his steps falter. But before anyone can suggest that he leave, he keeps going and puts a taloned foot onto the first stair.
He flinches immediately, wings half-spreading. After a moment, Arcadia forces himself up the stairs, though each step takes a tremendous amount of effort. His feathers are ruffled, fluffed up like ProtoMan's hair when it bristles and bushes out. When he's almost to the top, Arcadia freezes and curls in on himself, making a half-panicked choking sound.
"Arcadia, that's enough," Dr. Hikari says, leaning forward.
"I'm f-fine," Arcadia replies. His voice is so faint that even Mimic can barely hear him.
Arcadia straightens up and steps through the hole. He's not even trying to hide his shaking now, and every step is accompanied by a little gasp, like he's trying not to cry.
In the dark energy system, odd balls of light materialise. They shift and warp, slowly becoming the vague shapes of NetNavis, but they look wrong. Black pits for eyes and gaping mouths, expressions twisted in pain and anguish. Mimic hears a creepy moaning coming from them and she backs away a pace or two, and Arcadia looks like he wants to do the same even as his entire body freezes in place.
The NetNavis start to move, drifting through the air, and head straight for Arcadia. He makes a little squeak as they rush at him, and then one of the Navis goes through his body.
Arcadia screams. Holy Fire sparks along his arms, blasting out and burning the Navis around him. He stumbles back, still screaming, then spreads his wings and takes to the air, darting back through the hole. He head straight for the firewall and luckily it's fast enough to let him out, otherwise he might have broken right through it. He leaves trails of Holy Fire in his wake, but it's all gone by the time he streams out of the converter's network, and finally he reappears back in Mimic's PET, shaking and crying.
ProtoMan immediately wraps him into a hug, and starts purring. His purr is quieter and softer than Ragdoll's jet plane-sound of a purr, but it's just as effective. Arcadia buries his face in ProtoMan's chest and lets him comfort him.
Dr. Hikari gives Mimic a worried, questioning glance. She tightens her grip on her PET and looks away, unable to get that horrible moaning out of her head.
They don't need to go any further into the dimensional converter's network, thank god. Mimic had already known about the ghosts of the Navis in there, but she hadn't expected it to be so . . . unsettling. And she's worried about Arcadia, who still hasn't completely calmed down, but at the very least he's not crying anymore. ProtoMan's gentle purring is helping him a lot, it seems.
Dr. Hikari's sitting at his desk in his private office, typing up a report on what happened in the converter. He told Mimic that it's more or less the same thing that happened to MegaMan, though Arcadia felt it more because of his Empath Program.
Mimic is sitting on the sofa with her legs drawn up to her chest, holding her PET in both hands. Ragdoll is curled up next to her, and Famous is sitting on her other side, going through some documents while occasionally glancing up to check on Mimic and her Navis.
Mimic yawns a little, tensing her body in place of actually stretching, and reaches down to stroke Ragdoll's back. He lets out a loud purr, but doesn't move beyond stretching and then curling back up again.
When Mimic opens her eyes from her yawn, she catches the familiar swirl of pixels that shows another Navi streaming into her PET. Turns out it's actually three Navis - MegaMan, Roll, and NumberMan.
"Hey, ProtoMan, do you mind if we-" MegaMan pauses when he sees that ProtoMan curled around Arcadia. "Um . . . is everything okay?"
"He went into the dimensional converter," ProtoMan explains quietly, his purring pausing for a few moments while he speaks. Arcadia shivers against him and he quickly starts purring again.
"Oh." MegaMan blinks, and then his eyes widen. "Oh." Now he winces, giving Arcadia a sympathetic glance. "Is he alright?"
Instead of replying verbally, ProtoMan lifts a hand and signs his response. [he will be]
"Okay then," MegaMan murmurs.
"Does that mean he can't help us?" Roll whispers to MegaMan, shooting a concerned glance at ProtoMan and Arcadia.
"Probably not," MegaMan mutters back. He raises his voice a little to speak to ProtoMan again. "Um, have you seen AquaMan? Or IceMan?"
[no sorry why] ProtoMan asks.
"AquaMan went missing," MegaMan replies. Mimic can see Roll and NumberMan exchanging uncomfortable looks, and wonders if they feel left out of the conversation since neither of them have downloaded sign language. "IceMan was helping us search, but then he went missing too."
[wanted to use tracking ability to find them] ProtoMan guesses.
"Yeah." MegaMan winces again, now sounding apologetic. "But you're busy, so we'll keep searching on our own. I hope Arcadia feels better soon."
With that said, he vanishes from Mimic's PET, taking Roll and NumberMan with him. ProtoMan keeps looking at the place where they'd been for a moment, and then turns back to Arcadia, apparently dismissing their sudden appearance for now.
They'll find AquaMan and IceMan eventually, Mimic knows. This is that episode where BubbleMan tries to work out Double Soul - even though it's an ability unique to MegaMan, the same as ProtoMan's shadows, or Arcadia's Empath Program and darkness immunity. MegaMan, Roll, and NumberMan don't really need to use ProtoMan's tracking ability.
Since that'll be sorted out without her interference, Mimic settles back down.
Arcadia calms down considerably within the next hour, and he's better enough that he doesn't immediately start trembling the moment ProtoMan stops purring. Mimic sees Dr. Hikari glancing up from his computer with a small smile when he hears Arcadia talking quietly, still nervous from his experience but starting to recover.
It's at that moment that the lights go out, and the room is plunged into darkness.
Mimic flinches when the light of her PET suddenly becomes the only light in the room, and quickly covers it, only letting a little bit of the light out. Her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness quickly, and she looks around, spotting Dr. Hikari and Famous in the black-and-grey tones of her night vision.
Dr. Hikari's eyes narrow as he looks around, squinting. Mimic just barely remembers that he can't see in this darkness, so she takes her hand off her PET and shines the light toward him. He shoots her a grateful look and quickly rummages through his desk, bringing out a couple of torches.
"Here," Dr. Hikari says, handing one torch to Famous. They both turn them on, so Mimic puts away her PET and stands up, tugging Ragdoll off the sofa.
"I wonder what happened," Famous murmurs, moving his torch around. He shines it on Mimic for a moment, and she narrows her eyes against the sudden brightness. Famous quickly takes it away from her eyes, though she can see his fascinated expression. "Your eyes are pretty cool."
Mimic shrugs and looks around. Dr. Hikari comes out from behind his desk, shining his light around as well, though he doesn't accidentally shine it on Mimic like Famous had done.
"We should check the systems," Dr. Hikari suggests, brushing past her. "Come on, there's a computer panel down the hallway we can use - we should be able to find out what happened and maybe fix it from there."
Mimic lets Famous follow Dr. Hikari out the room first, mainly because she doesn't want him to accidentally shine his light in her eyes again. Dr. Hikari leads them down the dark hallway - to Mimic's eyes, the hallway is just painted in black-and-grey tones, but to Dr. Hikari and Famous, she guesses it just looks like total darkness beyond the light of their torches.
The computer panel is halfway down the hallway, and Dr. Hikari pauses in front of it. Mimic comes forward, ducking under Famous's arm, and peers around Dr. Hikari curiously. The computer panel looks like any other part of the wall, but it's jutting out of it, and Dr. Hikari removes the panel to reveal a complicated-looking mess of wires and a small screen that's completely blank.
"That's odd," Dr. Hikari murmurs, peering at the mess of wires and the blank screen. "It seems everything's been shut down . . . Maybe is a some sort of power outage."
He puts his torch between his teeth and starts fiddling with the mess of wires. For a few moments, nothing happens, and Mimic can't tell what he's even trying to do. But then the screen flickers and comes on, though the image makes absolutely no sense to her - it's a jumbled mess of what she can recognise as coding, what looks like random numbers and letters and bits of punctuation scattered here and there.
It means something to Dr. Hikari, though. "The network's still online," he reports, looking puzzled.
"How?" Famous wonders, coming up to stand beside Mimic. He's careful to keep the light away from her eyes as he points it at the mess of wires and coding on the screen. "If this is a power outage, everything should be shut down, even the network."
Mimic glances up at him, and then spots movement just beyond them, at the end of the hallway. There's a man sneaking past, footsteps just barely making a sound on the floor, and Mimic can see what looks like a pair of odd goggles on his head. It takes her a moment to realise they're night vision goggles, and as the man pauses and glances over at them, she looks away, pretending she hasn't seen him.
But she keeps an eye on him out of the corner of her eye, and as soon as he moves on, she shuffles toward Dr. Hikari and taps his arm.
"What is it?" Dr. Hikari asks, glancing down at her. Mimic shakes her head and tugs on his hand.
Dr. Hikari looks mystified, but he holds out his hand anyway.
[saw person sneaking] Mimic signs onto his palm.
She watches Dr. Hikari's expression turn from confused to serious in a heartbeat. Famous looks completely blank, but he must realise that something's going on, because he doesn't say a word and just watches them, waiting patiently for an explanation.
Dr. Hikari reaches out with his free hand, and Mimic offers up her own palm.
[how many] he asks her, signing onto her palm like she's doing with his.
[one with night vision goggles] Mimic tells him. [dressed like scientist]
Dr. Hikari looks at her for a moment, and then nods. [go but be careful] he signs.
Mimic nods back, hands him Ragdoll's lead, and then slips past Famous and turns the corner where she'd seen the man going, keeping her footsteps completely silent. She can hear Dr. Hikari murmuring to Famous, only audible to her because her hearing is more sensitive now - that's probably why she could hear the man's footsteps even though Dr. Hikari and Famous didn't seem to react to them.
Whoever that man is, he'd only planned for the human ability of sight and hearing. He hadn't counted on Mimic's abilities, transferred over from Cross Fusing with ProtoMan.
She catches up with the man quickly, watching him sneak past an open door. He pauses beside it for a moment, looking inside, and then he moves on. Mimic follows him, crouching low to the ground to help her follow him silently. She moves on all fours at times, given that she can make her footsteps quieter if she makes her weight more even across all four of her limbs, and she ducks under tables and into doorways or other hallways when the man glances over his shoulder.
What's he after? Chaud asks.
Maybe he thinks she's seen this in the anime. But she hasn't - this episode had focused on MegaMan, Roll, and NumberMan trying to find AquaMan and IceMan, and then having a three-on-three battle against them and BubbleMan when they find them. If anything had happened at SciLab, the anime hadn't shown it.
Dunno, Mimic replies, watching the man peer into yet another open door before moving on. Clearly he knows what he's looking for, but he doesn't know where it is.
Dr. Hikari said the network's still online, right? Chaud checks. He continues when she agrees. Get Arcadia to go into it. He might be able to help Dr. Hikari fix the systems faster.
Why not ProtoMan?
That guy might notice if you jack in ProtoMan, Chaud says. If he doesn't see the infrared beam, he might notice there's a personal Navi running around in the network. I'm betting he's the one who shut everything off, so he could sneak around like this. Arcadia can hide better because he's independent. But ProtoMan needs to be battle-ready, just in case.
Mimic sees no flaw in that plan, so she checks where the man is, then pauses so she can take out her PET. She makes sure to keep the light shielded from sight, and narrows her eyes against the glare.
ProtoMan and Arcadia look out at her, silently waiting for orders.
[ARC go into network help fix it] Mimic quickly signs. [PROTO be ready for battle]
They both nod. Arcadia vanishes from ProtoMan's side without a sound, and Mimic quickly puts her PET away and hurries after the man. She can't see him anymore, but she can pick up the slight sound of his footsteps, and follows the sound until she comes across one of the rooms near the experimental dimensional area lab.
She slips inside, seeing the man rifling through some of the drawers at the other end of the room. He's opening them as quietly as possible, searching through the documents inside.
This is where the notes on Cross Fusion are stored, Chaud realises. That must be what he's after.
Why? Mimic wonders, as she sneaks around a wide filing cabinet.
He could be working for Nebula, Chaud suggests. The Darkloids have mentioned it a few times - and you said that's where they get their Dark Chips, right?
And ShadeMan stole the synchro chips from SciLab a while ago, Mimic says. She's close enough to see the details on the man's lab coat. It looks like something you'd buy out of a costume store, for a mad scientist costume, but if you only glance at it quickly, it's easy to mistake for an actual lab coat.
Now this guy's here to steal the notes that Dr. Hikari and the other scientists have made on ours and Lan's Cross Fusion, Chaud completes the thought. We need to stop him somehow.
How do we do that? Mimic asks, ducking into a small alcove between a couple of cabinets as the man steps back and looks around. She follows him when he starts toward another group of cabinets and begins going through those drawers next.
Kick the back of one of his knees, Chaud tells her. That'll unbalance him and make him fall down. While he's falling, hit his solar plexus as hard as you can.
His what?
His stomach, Chaud clarifies. It'll wind him. If he tries to fight back after that, I'll tell you what to do. Now! While he's occupied!
She creeps up on the man, staying on all fours until she's right behind him. Then she stands up carefully, and kicks out, driving the flat of her foot into the back of his knee.
The man goes down with a startled yelp, and Mimic is on him before he's even hit the ground. His head bangs against the floor but she doesn't pause, punching him in the stomach where Chaud had indicated. The man makes an odd gasping noise, but Mimic can't really see his expression because of the goggles covering most of his face - not that it matters anyway, because she doesn't need to see his expression to stop him from stealing whatever it is he came here to steal.
Choking out another loud gasp, the man raises his fist to punch her back.
Move your head! Chaud quickly tells her.
She jerks her head to the side, avoiding the man's punch and feeling his arm brush her hair. She bares her teeth instinctively, and the man pauses, tensing up.
Rip his goggles off! Chaud snaps.
Mimic grips the night vision goggles with both hands and yanks them off the man's head. While he's reeling from that, she leans close enough for him to see her even in the darkness, opens her mouth, bares her teeth, and screams.
It's the same kind of scream that ProtoMan lets out when he's angry, when he's flying into an uncontrollable rage and sending his opponents fleeing in terror. She can't quite match the pitch, and she's not a NetNavi with the power of a ghostly, terrifying program that makes things glitch randomly, but her scream is loud and her mimicry lets her copy ProtoMan's scream almost exactly.
She sees the man's eyes widening, terror making his face blank, and then he lets out a little squeak of a gasp and his eyes rolls back, the back of his head thumping on the floor.
Mimic leans back, settling down on the man's stomach. She keeps her eyes fixed on him, even when the lights start coming back on and almost blind her. She squints through the light until her eyes adjust, and then she's back to staring at him, alert for any sign that he's about to wake up and start freaking out or attacking her.
She hears rapid footsteps in the hallway outside, but doesn't look up even when Dr. Hikari and Famous burst into the room.
"Chaud!" Dr. Hikari exclaims. "We heard a scream, what happ-" He cuts himself off abruptly as he catches sight of the man that Mimic's sitting on. "Is . . . is that the person you saw?"
Mimic nods.
"Did he hit his head or something?" Famous asks her.
"No," Mimic replies. She's surprised at how steady her voice is. She doesn't stammer or stumble over her words even once. "I screamed at him. He fainted."
"That scream was you?" Dr. Hikari looks shocked.
Mimic takes her eyes off the man so she can look at Dr. Hikari properly. She doesn't know what he sees when he looks at her, but he straightens up, expression turning from shocked to some sort of awed look.
Less than half an hour later, Kifune and Manabe arrive, along with a sizeable force of Net Police officers. The officers swarm SciLab, checking for anyone who might have been working with the man, while Kifune and Manabe follow Dr. Hikari and Mimic to the main room where Famous and a couple of other scientists are keeping the man.
"We've determined that he was after our research on Cross Fusion," Dr. Hikari explains, as he steps into the main room. "Chaud thinks he's working for Nebula, that organisation the Darkloids seem to be partners with."
"Why would Nebula need research on Cross Fusion?" Manabe asks.
"The Darkloid ShadeMan stole the other synchro chips," Dr. Hikari reminds her. "We think they might be trying to figure out how to copy our research, or something like that."
"I suppose there's no way for us to be entirely sure," Kifune comments, glancing at the man. He's tied to a chair and glaring at Famous, but as he catches sight of Mimic, he stiffens and stares at her like he's watching a caged animal that's about to escape and murder him.
Mimic grins at the man, and he whimpers and tries to make himself smaller. Kifune watches the exchange with a raised eyebrow, then glances at Dr. Hikari for an explanation.
"Chaud stopped him," Dr. Hikari says, in response to the silent question. "He spotted this man sneaking past us while we were trying to figure out what happened to the lights, and went after him."
He nods to one of the other scientists, who brings up a holographic screen. It's showing a green-tinted image of Mimic in the room near the dimensional area lab, sneaking up on the man. It's a night vision video recording of the security footage - Arcadia had managed to get the security cameras up and running before anything else, working with Dr. Hikari to delete the viruses that the man had let loose in the network, then fixing the systems they'd broken.
The video recording plays, allowing Kifune and Manabe to see Mimic crawl up to the man. Then she stands, and the video shows her eyes shining in the darkness, just before she lashes out a kick to the back of the man's knees. Mimic watches the ensuing scuffle, curious to see how it looks from an outsider's perspective - she'd had Chaud giving her instructions, telling her how to take down the man, but watching it now, it must look like she's doing it entirely on her own.
Sorry I can't give you any actual credit for helping me, Mimic says to him.
We worked together, Chaud replies. Besides, technically I am getting credit, because we're sharing the same body.
That's a good point, though Mimic still feels like Chaud needs more credit than he's getting. But, of course, the only people who know about Chaud are ProtoMan and Arcadia, so she can't very well tell Dr. Hikari or anyone else that the voice in her head gave her an impromptu self-defence lesson so she could take down a would-be thief.
Kifune and Manabe look impressed, at least, even though they seem a little startled at how violent the brief scuffle had been, and her terrifying scream at the end which had caused the man to faint out of sheer terror.
"That's my boy," Dr. Hikari says proudly, ruffling Mimic's hair gently. "My scary, sneaky boy."
A warm glow of pride floods through Mimic, and she leans into his touch happily.