The gentle rocking of the bus does absolutely nothing to calm her roiling emotions. The others are at the back, and she hears Lan complaining about the amount of time they're spending in transit, but Mimic's just lying across some of the seats nearer the middle, staying separate from her friends - and teacher, who . . . is admittedly pretty much a friend as well.

She doesn't want to be too close to them at the moment. Her anger is a faint haze that makes her thoughts dark and moody, and she might snap at them by accident. On the outside, she probably seems perfectly calm, if a little cold. It's a different story inside.

When Lan had invited her along on this trip to the hot springs, Mimic's first reaction had been to refuse. But before she could say no, Lan had told her that he thought it'd be good for her to relax in a hot spring - and this time, apparently, he's not going to let Tory and Ms. Mari's weird hot springs club thing get in the way. He'd spoken in a gentle, careful tone, like he'd been afraid of offending her, and maybe she's not hiding her anger as well as she thinks she is.

She couldn't really refuse after realising that. She's scaring Lan to the point where he's afraid to talk to her for fear of upsetting her. And the others can tell something's up as well, because none of them have suggested that she hangs around with them at the back of the bus, and are more than happy to let her stay in the middle, away from them.

We didn't really handle the Dr. Regal thing very well, Chaud says, in the most ashamed tone she's ever heard from him.

It was mostly me, Mimic admits, settling down a little more so she's more comfortable on the seats. Couldn't stop growling or hissing . . .

Technically not your fault, Chaud says. You can't really help it. It's involuntary, the same way it is for ProtoMan.

It took him ages to get used to the cat stuff, Mimic mutters. How long will it take me?

Well, Chaud says lightly, you're more used to physical changes than most people.

What?

You're a girl, Chaud reminds her. My body is male.

. . . Fair point, Mimic says. But still. Being used to changes in my body isn't going to help me if I have to look at Dr. Regal again. Though I seriously doubt Dr. Hikari or Kifune will let me anywhere near him after what happened with the dimensional converter.

They don't blame you for it, Chaud says.

No, they do. They just don't want to upset me by saying it directly, in case I ever have to Cross Fuse in front of them, Mimic says sourly. I have no control over what Dark Shadow does. I should've just kept my hatred of Dr. Regal quiet . . . pretended to be friendly, even if I wanted to rip his throat out . . .

That might've actually made things worse.

Mimic narrows her eyes a little. Oh yeah? Worse than almost letting Dark Shadow kill Dr. Hikari? Worse than letting Dark Shadow savage Lan?

It doesn't react to what you do, it reacts to what you feel, Chaud tells her. Even if you'd somehow been able to hide your hatred, Dark Shadow still would've attacked Dr. Regal. And it would've been so much worse, because no one would've seen it coming.

They didn't anyway, she points out, though she has to admit he's making a lot of sense.

MegaMan realised and warned Lan, Chaud says. And Dr. Hikari was trying to talk Dark Shadow down, remember? They knew how much you hate Dr. Regal, but if they'd been taken completely by surprise, things might've been so much worse.

. . . Fine, Mimic eventually sighs. You make a good point. Still doesn't stop me from feeling like an idiot.

I know, Chaud murmurs. And I'm just as angry at Dr. Regal as you are, so it's not like you're the only person who knows what he really is.

Lan might've known, Mimic says quietly. If only I could've made him believe me.

Chaud has nothing to say to that - he feels the same way, because the words she'd spoken when trying to convince Lan of Dr. Regal's guilt had been his. She couldn't think of what to say on her own, so Chaud had offered to feed her lines like he used to when she was vice president of IPC. If she didn't already have a reputation as a trickster - and if she hadn't made her hatred of Dr. Regal so obvious - maybe she might've been able to use Chaud's words to convince Lan.

She couldn't tell Dr. Hikari anything, either. He'd asked if she'd had a dream about Dr. Regal, but she couldn't figure out what to say, and neither could Chaud. There was nothing she could say to convince Dr. Hikari; even telling him that she'd seen Dr. Regal commanding the Darkloids in a dream might be dismissed, because Dr. Hikari, at that point, was fully aware of how much she hates Dr. Regal. He might've assumed she was making up a prophetic dream about Dr. Regal purely because of that hatred.

Mimic is an idiot. What's the point in having knowledge of the future if she can't figure out how to use it? And now she's pretty much guaranteed that no one will believe a damn word she says against Dr. Regal, and his betrayal will come as a total shock to everyone but her.

Well, everyone but her, Chaud, ProtoMan, and Arcadia. Chaud believes her because he can feel the truth in her words - and Arcadia for the same reason. ProtoMan believes her because he trusts her the same way she trusts him.

They know she's telling the truth. The anime has given her knowledge of the future, and they believe her whenever she tells them that something's going to happen.

But she doesn't have that luxury with anyone else. Not even Dr. Hikari, who thinks she's some sort of psychic.

Mimic sighs inaudibly and buries her head in her arms.

Four buses later, they're nearing the end of their journey in transit. The last stop they need to make is at the very end of where this bus goes, and from there, they'll be picked up by the hot spring's minibus. Lan, Maylu, and Chisao are getting more excited the closer they get, for all that they've spent several hours on multiple different buses, doing absolutely nothing.

Mimic is just fine with not moving around much. On each bus, she'd found a row of seats where she could lie down and ignore the others. She'd actually managed to fall asleep at one point, but her sleep had been disturbed by nightmarish images of Dr. Regal and darkness blacker than Dark Shadow, and the cruel, mocking laughter of Dark ProtoMan echoing all around her.

She's glad Chaud can't access her memories of the future. That means he can't see anything related to Dark ProtoMan - and she's terrified of how he'll react if he learns that she's kept something like that from him, even after she's told him and her Navis about Dr. Regal being the leader of Nebula and eventually the Darkloids.

So her nightmares are her own. Which is both good and bad.

She feels the seat at the end of the row she's lying across dip, and raises her head a little to look at Lan, sitting near her feet. Mimic briefly wonders why he's come over to her, when the others are so much livelier and definitely friendlier.

"You looked kinda lonely," Lan says to her, still in that same gentle tone that everyone's been using when they talk to her lately. Everyone's stepping on eggshells around her, afraid to set her off.

Mimic stares at Lan despondently for a moment, and then grunts quietly and lays her head back down on her arms. She goes back to staring out the window.

"Listen, um . . ." Lan pauses for a moment, and she can tell he's trying to figure out what to say even though her face is turned away from him. "I know you're not . . . okay, right now."

I'm never okay, Mimic mutters. She doesn't dare utter that out loud. She might chase Lan away with her bad temper, and honestly, he's kind of right - she is a bit lonely. Having conversations with the voice in her head will only go so far, even if Chaud's a completely different person.

"But the hot springs are apparently really good for relieving tension and stuff like that," Lan says. "And . . . and I think you could do with something like that. You, um, you've been wound up pretty tight ever since . . ."

Ever since Dark Shadow tried to kill Dr. Regal and you broke the dimensional converter, is what he doesn't add.

You don't know he wants to say that, Chaud says.

He may as well, Mimic replies. Everyone who was there is thinking it.

You don't know that, either.

Mimic ignores him and focuses on whatever Lan's saying.

"I just hope this trip'll help you," Lan sighs. "Even if it's just a little bit. I mean, a little bit's better than nothing, right? S-so . . ."

He trails off, like he doesn't know what else to say. Mimic keeps her stare fixed on the window and doesn't respond.

" . . . It wasn't your fault," Lan mumbles. To normal ears, that would've been inaudible, but Mimic's sensitive hearing picks it up as easily as she hears the faint creaking of the bus's mechanical systems.

Before she can even think of a response to that - not that she'd bother saying it out loud anyway - Lan's PET rings. It clacks a little as he takes it out.

"Mr. Famous!" Lan exclaims, though his voice is hushed as he speaks, in an effort to keep anyone else from noticing.

Mimic already wants to cover her ears. In the anime, Famous had called Chaud to deal with the thing at the power plant - but here, he's calling Lan instead. She and Lan are still partners, so technically Famous should've been calling both of them, but the fact that he's only called Lan speaks volumes about how little he trusts her now.

"It's just Famous," Famous predictably says. "But enough of that. Lan, there's an emergency at the terrestrial heat power plant. A Darkloid has broken into the level one firewall and is currently attempting to breach the others. I'm sending the location to your PET now."

A moment passes, and Mimic feels Lan stiffen beside her.

"That's near the hot springs we're heading to right now!" Lan says.

Mimic can hear the surprise in Famous's tone. "It is? Wow, your luck is something else," he jokes. "How long will it take you to get there?"

"We're almost at the end of this bus ride, and then we're getting onto a minibus to the hot springs," Lan explains. "It'll take half an hour on the minibus."

"So you're fairly close," Famous guesses. "That'll be good enough - the staff at the power plant are raising the security level as we speak, and they should be able to hold off the Darkloid long enough for you to get there and stop it. Good luck."

"Um," Lan says.

"What's up?"

"Chaud's with me," Lan tells him.

Mimic can almost hear Famous's hesitation.

"Can he come too?" Lan asks, before Famous can say anything. "He's still my partner, so . . ."

" . . . Alright," Famous eventually says, though he sounds reluctant. "Just don't let him Cross Fuse."

"But-" Lan tries to protest.

"You'll have Arcadia to help, since Chaud's there," Famous points out. "But we can't risk Dark Shadow - or Chaud himself - losing control again. He can help you in the cyberworld, but if it turns into a Cross Fusion battle, that's where his support ends. Look, I don't like this anymore than you do, but those are the Commissioner's orders. If it were up to me, I'd say go ahead, but . . ."

So Mimic is going to be punished after all. She'd wondered if Kifune was just trying to figure out the best way to punish her, and apparently this is how - by not allowing her to use Cross Fusion.

It makes sense, she supposes. No one wants to risk having Dark Shadow go on another rampage, and her anger is still burning inside her. She might cause Dark Shadow to go nuts again, and that would be even worse than BurnerMan trying to make a volcano explode.

She understands, but she still feels a surge of anger at the thought of being forced to sit on the sidelines as Lan and Arcadia fight. She wants to help - she wants to fight - and she can't.

Just her luck. She's finally starting to be willing to fight the Darkloids, finally starting to not be so afraid of them (ShadeMan doesn't count, everyone's scared of him), and now she's not allowed to fight because she can't stop Dark Shadow from trying to kill anyone who so much as annoys her.

As soon as they arrive at the hot springs via the minibus, Lan takes off running. Mimic hesitates for a moment before following, not sure if she even wants to help after being told that she and ProtoMan are only allowed to be cyberworld support, and nothing else.

But Lan's expecting her to go with him, so she runs after him. The others understand there's a Net Saver emergency - well, Ms. Mari doesn't know that Mimic and Lan are Net Savers, so she just thinks there's some kind of emergency they can't talk about. Mimic thinks it'd be so much easier to tell Ms. Mari what they're doing, but Lan wants to keep it secret, even though there's basically no point.

They're just running past the building that houses the hot spring's system when a massive geyser of water comes bursting out of the ground in front of them. Mimic feels a rush of panic and leaps back, scrambling as far away from the surprise geyser as she can, while Lan just yelps and falls flat on his ass.

"What the heck?" Lan gasps, staring up at the geyser in shock. "Is- is this what Mr. Famous was talking about?"

No, Mimic thinks, but she's too busy trying to stay dry to say that out loud. Besides, Lan wouldn't believe her anyway. Aside from the fact that the water gushing out of the ground seems like a huge emergency, he probably isn't going to believe a word she says after dismissing what she'd said about Dr. Regal.

"It's not just here! The water's gushing up all across the hot springs!" MegaMan reports.

"We've gotta find somewhere to jack in," Lan decides, already looking around. He quickly spots a nearby jack-in port, and skirts the gushing water before heading over to it.

He pauses when he notices that Mimic isn't following him.

"Chaud?" Lan calls, turning around to look at her.

Mimic stares back at him, and then flicks her eyes toward the geyser. There is absolutely no way she's going near that water. It makes her skin crawl just looking at it.

"C'mon, we need to go!" Lan shouts, trying to wave her over. "Just walk around the geyser, you won't get hurt!"

No, but I'll get wet, Mimic thinks, backing away even more. She's baring her teeth - not at Lan, but at the thought of getting anywhere near the geyser.

Just under the sound of the rushing water, she can hear MegaMan talking to Lan.

"He's not gonna be fond of the water, 'cus he's kinda like a cat, remember?" MegaMan says. "So he probably doesn't wanna get wet."

"Oh." Lan winces. "I didn't think of that."

Mimic feels a rush of anger similar to the one she'd felt when Famous had told Lan she wasn't allowed to Cross Fuse.

She does not want them to patronise her over something as stupid as water. Mimic is not weak, and she's going to fucking prove it. See if they patronise her after this.

She gets to her feet and edges toward the geyser. Every step makes her feel like she's walking toward her doom, but she pushes herself forward, ignoring the instinctive urge to turn tail and run. She skirts it like Lan did, hissing at the spray of water getting all over her, and then scrambles over to Lan as soon as she's past it.

Now she's wet and angry. Great. Just add that to list of things that're pissing her off lately.

"Nice job!" Lan praises her cheerfully, and then jerks back in surprise when she hisses at him.

"He's not gonna be happy if he's wet, Lan," MegaMan calls out, sounding amused. "Just avoid annoying him for now."

Too fucking late, Mimic thinks caustically.

She jacks in ProtoMan in sullen silence, and watches Arcadia stream after him like always. Lan quickly jacks in MegaMan as well, and then the screen of Mimic's PET changes to show her the network of the building, and BubbleMan dancing around a foam of bubbles coating the systems.

"BubbleMan!" MegaMan shouts, startling the Darkloid. "Stop this right now!"

"Whoa, you're fast!" BubbleMan exclaims, whirling around with a look of shock on his face. "Guess the Darkloids will never be able to take over the world now!"

MegaMan raises his Mega Buster and fires a shot at him. BubbleMan dodges with a comical yelp, then raises his gun and shoots a blast of explosive bubbles at the trio of Navis, forcing them to scatter.

"Kidding!" BubbleMan cries out, in a mocking sing-song tone. "Darkloids will never be beaten!"

Jesus christ, Mimic is sick of him already.

She glances at ProtoMan, expecting to see him with his shadow-claws ready to fight. Instead, ProtoMan is nervously watching one of his shadows, a thin tendril that drifts around his head aimlessly.

"We can beat you easily!" MegaMan shouts back to BubbleMan. "ProtoMan, let's- ProtoMan?"

ProtoMan spares him a brief glance, but then goes back to watching the tendril of shadow drifting around his head. MegaMan looks absolutely bewildered, but Arcadia is looking at ProtoMan with an odd mixture of pity and dread.

"What's the matter?" BubbleMan taunts. "Scared of your own shadow?" He laughs at his joke, but pauses when ProtoMan doesn't reply.

"ProtoMan . . . ?" MegaMan asks carefully.

ProtoMan hesitates.

BubbleMan starts laughing, loud and obnoxious. "Oh, wow!" he shouts gleefully. "You actually are afraid your own shadow! This is great, I didn't think you'd be so dumb that you-"

Arcadia blasts him with a massive stream of Flashfire, and BubbleMan vanishes with a pained yelp. With the Darkloid taken care of, Arcadia turns back to ProtoMan, now looking worried.

"I . . ." ProtoMan begins shakily. He slumps. "I can't do this."

He vanishes and re-appears back in Mimic's PET, looking ashamed of himself. Arcadia appears beside him a moment later, but ProtoMan backs away, settling down at the edge of the screen and curling up.

Even through the anger still burning away inside her, Mimic still has enough room to feel ashamed.

This is her fault. ProtoMan's too afraid to fight, even in a Net Saver mission, because she let Dark Shadow go wild.

I did this to him, Mimic thinks, tightening her grip on her PET.

Lan's giving her a wide-eyed look, clearly wondering what the hell just happened. But before he can say anything, the ground shakes beneath their feet, and explosions blast out from below them in the valley.

"Crap," Lan says.

He whirls around and heads straight for the edge of the cliff. Mimic follows him, and together they look down into the valley, at the complex of buildings down below.

"That must be the power plant," Lan guesses. "So that means BubbleMan was just a distraction, and the real threat was down there all along! C'mon, we've gotta get down there!"

Mimic follows him, even as doubt seeps into her mind. How useful will she be if ProtoMan's too afraid to fight? Arcadia's still good to go, and perfectly willing; he'd shown that much by blasting BubbleMan out of the hot spring's system's network. But ProtoMan either can't or won't fight.

Maybe it's a good thing that she's no longer allowed to Cross Fuse. She can't fight unless ProtoMan wants to as well, and if he's too afraid to fight, then she can't do a damn thing.

My fault, she thinks. ProtoMan loves fighting. And now he's too scared to fight. What have I done?

She feels Chaud's horror reflecting her own, and for once, he doesn't have a response.

They get into the power plant easily, after showing their holographic badges. One of the half-panicked workers shows them to the main room and leaves them there, off to assist with evacuation of the complex.

Lan rushes in first, interrupting a conversation between the head of the power plant and one of his workers. Mimic follows more slowly, still fighting with shame and anger.

"Who're you two?" the head of the power plants asks incredulously. Mimic doesn't blame him - there's a crisis going on, and two random kids have just shown up out of nowhere.

"We're Net Savers," Lan quickly says, flashing his badge. "We're here to help! What's going on?"

After learning that they're Net Savers, the head of the power plant is much friendlier - or as friendly as he can get in a crisis like this. He gestures toward one of the consoles as he replies to Lan's question.

"The main system has been hacked," he says. "A Darkloid broke into the firewall, and it's just gotten past the last barrier keeping it from the main system."

"The lock-down mechanism is going haywire!" one of the workers in the room exclaims. "We can't stop it!"

"We can," Lan says confidently, brandishing his PET. He glances at Mimic. "Um . . ."

Mimic sighs, already knowing why he's hesitating. She motions for him to go ahead, stepping back without jacking in ProtoMan. There's no point, if he's too afraid to fight. He couldn't even launch an attack on BubbleMan, the weakest Darkloid there is - there's no way he'll be able to attack BurnerMan.

But Arcadia is still fine, so Mimic brings out her PET and nods to him. With a quick, worried glance at ProtoMan, Arcadia vanishes from her PET. If ProtoMan were going with him, the screen would change and show her the network, but since he's staying in her PET, she doesn't have that visual. So Mimic moves over to Lan, watching the screen of his PET as he jacks in MegaMan.

MegaMan and Arcadia appear inside the main system's network. BurnerMan's there, typing away at a digital console, and as they both appear, he turns to face them. His eyes widen and then narrow as he recognises the two Navis.

"BurnerMan!" MegaMan shouts, stepping forward and brandishing his Mega Buster at the Darkloid. "Stop this right now!"

"Too late, you pathetic Net Savers!" BurnerMan snaps. He lowers his head and his arms change into cannons. "Burning Jet!"

BurnerMan rushes at them with frightening speed, blue fire blasting out of his cannons and exhaust pipes. MegaMan and Arcadia split up to let him blast between them, and he whirls around, going wide because of his speed, heading for Arcadia.

Arcadia snaps his wings open and takes to the air, easily dodging the attempted rush-attack. BurnerMan stops in mid-air, hovering using his exhaust pipe fires, and aims his cannons at Arcadia.

Blue fire blasts out, and Arcadia quickly brings up his hands and throws out a stream of Flashfire to counter the attack. The white and blue streams of fire clash for a moment, and then the white fire begins to overpower the blue - mainly, Mimic suspects, because Arcadia's immunity is giving him a much-needed boost in power.

MegaMan shoots BurnerMan with his Mega Buster while he's occupied. BurnerMan yells and drops down to the ground, abandoning the literal firefight.

"Bubble Side, download!" Lan announces.

MegaMan aims as soon as the chip is downloaded, and shoots a burst of water at BurnerMan. It scores a direct hit and sends BurnerMan flying back.

Arcadia forms his Avenger's Arrow and fires off a rapid two-arrow volley, blowing BurnerMan back even further. BurnerMan is one of the few Darkloids who can resist Arcadia's Holy Fire attacks, but getting blown back like that has to have hurt, even if the fire itself doesn't do much damage.

"Give up, BurnerMan!" MegaMan shouts, aiming his Bubble Side at the Darkloid again.

"We won't let you destroy the power plant," Arcadia adds.

BurnerMan scowls, and he pushes himself to his knees. Then he starts laughing.

MegaMan and Arcadia exchange a puzzled glance. Mimic wishes she could warn Arcadia, but with Lan and MegaMan here, she can't say anything.

"Didn't think I'd get to use a Dark Chip this soon," BurnerMan sneers.

His cannons and exhaust pipes burn with blue fire, lifting him high into the air. Before MegaMan and Arcadia can do anything, he twists in mid-air, and starts blasting fire at the main system.

"BURN!" BurnerMan screams. "BURN!"

"The main system has been overheated!" one of the worker reports, half-panicked with fear. "The final lock has shut down!"

The ground shakes. Mimic fights down the instinctive urge to take out her synchro chip as the multi-coloured sheen begins to cover every surface, and then BurnerMan materialises a few metres away, blue fire still burning brightly.

"In order to bring fear and terror to mankind!" BurnerMan cries. "The Darkloids will reign supreme!"

He lifts his cannons and aims at the floor, burning through it as easily as shredding paper. He's gone within moments, jumping down the hole, far below the ground.

Lan rushes over and looks down into the hole. Then he turns to Mimic, looking bewildered.

Before he can ask what just happened, Arcadia materialises beside him. The head of the power plant and the other workers in the room jump and gasp when he appears, looking terrified - even though they've just seen him helping MegaMan to fight BurnerMan. That's just ridiculous, do they think Arcadia's going to turn around and attack them just because he's materialised himself?

"What's down there?" Arcadia asks one of the workers.

"Huh?" Lan turns his puzzled look to Arcadia.

"There has to be something down there, if he's more interested in going there than attacking us!" Arcadia explains.

"There's . . . there's an underground magma source," the head of the power plant stammers. "A few kilometres below."

Lan looks shocked, but still puzzled. "What would BurnerMan want with a magma source?"

"Volcano," Mimic says, because this is taking far too long and she's already sick of not being able to do anything, so she may as well try and speed things along.

Lan's eyes widen. "He's gonna try and make the volcano explode?"

"We need to stop him," Arcadia says, nodding toward the hole. "Let's go!"

Lan nods and quickly downloads his synchro chip. Within moments, he's standing in MegaMan's armour, and the workers in the room gasp again. This time it's more understandable, because Lan was human not five seconds ago, and now he's a NetNavi.

Lan immediately jumps down into the hole that BurnerMan had made. Arcadia spares a moment to glance at Mimic, giving her a look of pained sympathy, before jumping down after him.

Mimic settles down to wait. There's nothing else she can do now.

"I'm sorry."

She blinks, startled at the sudden interruption, and brings out her PET. ProtoMan's back on his feet and is staring out at her, a miserable expression on his face. He honestly looks like he's about to start crying.

"If . . . if I wasn't such a coward . . ." ProtoMan trails off as if finishing the sentence is too painful.

"Not your f-fault," Mimic mumbles, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping an arm around them. "S'mine. I did this."

"You didn't . . ."

Mimic shakes her head. It doesn't matter what ProtoMan says, this is definitely her fault.

They don't talk again for the next few minutes, simply just waiting in silence for Lan and Arcadia to come back. The workers in the room seem to think that she's staying behind in case something shows up to attack them here, and Mimic doesn't bother correcting them - it's easier to let these people believe what they want instead of telling them the shameful truth, that she's not allowed to fight because she might end up killing one of them instead of protecting them like she's supposed to.

Eventually, the dimensional area starts to fade. Arcadia comes back into her PET, looking breathless with excitement.

"Lan just swam through magma!" he announces brightly, bouncing on his talons.

Mimic's mood gets even lower at that.

That had been one of the coolest moments in the anime - Lan had downloaded a Salamander chip, and had followed BurnerMan into the magma. His logic had been that, if he was hotter than the magma, it wouldn't hurt him. And it had worked, amazingly enough.

Mimic had been looking forward to seeing that for herself. She loves watching awesome moments like that in real life.

But she couldn't. Because she's not allowed to use Cross Fusion, and even if she could get down to where the magma is, she'd probably get killed immediately - either by BurnerMan, or by the intense heat from the magma itself.

The workers at the power plant thank them profoundly, and equally, despite the fact that Mimic did absolutely nothing. If she was feeling bad-tempered before, that's nothing compared to now - but she doesn't blame ProtoMan. She'd never blame ProtoMan for something like this.

Lan seems like he wants to say something to her, maybe some sort of encouragement judging by the look on his face, but he takes one look at her expression and promptly shuts up. He instead leads her back to the hot spring, to where the others are waiting for them.

Tory warns them that the water is still ridiculously hot, but Lan and Chisao don't listen and try to jump into the water immediately. As they had in the anime, they scream and rush out of the water, shouting about how hot it is.

Meanwhile, Mimic is . . . confused.

She's still angry, still in a bad mood, but now she's got a mild existential crisis to deal with.

She's in a male body. But Mimic herself is not male. Everyone knows her as Chaud, who is male, but Mimic is female.

What does that mean for her? She had to go into the boy's side of the hot spring because everyone thinks she's a boy, but Mimic is half-tempted to head over to the girl's side instead, because she's supposed to be a girl.

She's a girl in a boy's body, wondering if she should go to the girl's side even though, physically, she's male.

And she's still angry.

Angry and extremely confused, and also she doesn't even want to get into the water anyway, even if Lan wants her to go in because it'll help her relax or some bullshit. But she looks at the water, feeling her skin crawling - the same as when that geyser had erupted out of nowhere - and all she wants to do is turn and walk in the other direction, as far away from the water as she can get without just abandoning her friends.

What is wrong with her?