Shuseki calls her into his study to inform her that her four weeks of confinement are over.
She stands in front of his desk as he stares at her, knowing she looks pathetic and knowing that he hates what he sees when looks at her, but hopefully being meek and quiet will keep him sitting behind that desk with a cold expression, rather than in front of her and shouting.
Mimic hadn't been punished for being out of her room again. She's lucky, she thinks, because she'd been expecting something - but Shuseki hadn't done a damn thing. Not yet, anyway, unless he's about to tell her what her punishment is after keeping her on edge for an entire week.
"I trust you won't be stupid enough to make me confine you again," Shuseki says, like he's talking to one of the lowest employees he has instead of his own son (who isn't really his son, but he'd half-blinded her when she'd said that to him, so she keeps her mouth shut).
Mimic lowers her head, hoping she looks the perfect picture of submissive.
"The next time you do something stupid, it won't be you taking the punishment," Shuseki goes on. She doesn't know what he means by that, but she goes cold when she hears what he says next. "Give me your PET."
Mimic looks up, meets his eyes, and wishes she hadn't.
She's lucky ProtoMan convinced Arcadia to stay in her computer, rather than in the PET like usual. He hadn't wanted Arcadia to see what he had expected to be another horrible encounter with Shuseki.
So it's only ProtoMan that's on the screen, looking just as worried as she feels as she places her PET on the desk, too terrified of the look in Shuseki's eyes to disobey him.
Shuseki opens a drawer and pulls out a PET of his own. She hadn't known he even had one, but it probably makes sense that a man who owns a company that makes PETs and NetNavis would have one of his own.
"Up until now, I've only bothered with a standard NetNavi, like most of the population," Shuseki tells her, as he places his PET - black in colour - next to hers. "But, your recent actions have told me that simply punishing you is not effective enough. So, from now on, your NetNavi will take the punishment instead of you."
Mimic forces herself to look at the black PET's screen.
There's a tall NetNavi on the screen. He looks like a butler, the kind you'd only see in an anime where the butler is a badass bodyguard or something, but there's a cold glint in his eyes that reminds her far too much of Shuseki for him to be a badass bodyguard. He looks like a bully.
"His name is Proxy," Shuseki tells her. "He has my authority to punish your NetNavi if you ever make any stupid mistakes again. Be aware that you will not be exempt from punishment just because your Navi is taking it for you - you will still be punished if I deem it necessary. In case this hasn't yet sunken in, Proxy will demonstrate what will happen if you don't behave."
He connects the two PETs, and the butler-Navi - Proxy - appears next to ProtoMan, who starts to back away. Proxy is taller than ProtoMan, and though ProtoMan is almost certainly stronger, the cold glint in Proxy's eyes is extremely unsettling.
Proxy grabs ProtoMan before he even gets a foot away from him, and without the slightest change in his expression, rips off ProtoMan's left arm.
ProtoMan screams.
Proxy vanishes back into Shuseki's PET, dropping ProtoMan's arm carelessly. He doesn't even look bothered, even though ProtoMan's howling in pain and terror, curled into the corner of the screen like he's trying to get as far away from the other PET as he physically can.
Mimic reaches forward and snatches her PET off the desk. Shuseki doesn't stop her as she backs towards the door.
She doesn't take her eyes off him, clutching her PET to her chest with one hand while the other scrabbles for the door handle behind her. She finds it, eventually, and opens the door, then closes it as soon as she's out.
Then she runs for her room.
It takes an hour to calm ProtoMan down. Arcadia tries his best, but it's hard to help someone who's just had his entire arm ripped off for no reason, and Mimic can't download any Recovery chips while ProtoMan's like this because his systems are too worked up for the chips to register. He needs to calm down before she can heal him.
She remembers MegaMan telling her, a week ago, that ProtoMan had ripped apart AirMan for attacking her. He'd ripped off both of AirMan's arms before that.
Mimic remembers hoping that neither he nor Arcadia would have to go through something like that.
Now, when ProtoMan finally stops screaming and just curls in a sobbing mess on the floor of her computer's network, she curses her stupidity in hoping. She'd probably jinxed it, thinking like that.
"Shh," Arcadia whispers, leaning over him on his knees while he wraps his wings around ProtoMan. "Shh, it's okay, you'll be okay . . ."
He probably won't be okay, after this, but it's the only thing Arcadia can do.
Mimic is choked by guilt, and her voice won't work, so she doesn't bother trying. Chaud signs at her from where she can see her reflection, in a black window that ProtoMan had created for the express purpose of letting Chaud talk more freely instead of having to wait for her to glance at the sliding glass doors.
He's telling her what to do to help ProtoMan. Just giving him Recovery chips won't be enough to replace an entire arm, but Mimic is useless at coding and stuff like this, so she needs all the help she can get.
When ProtoMan's still enough, she opens his systems. Under Chaud's careful instruction, she works through it all, and Arcadia helps when he isn't trying to soothe ProtoMan's crying. It takes her nearly three hours to reconstruct ProtoMan's arm, including failed attempts and hoarse apologies when she fucks up by accident and makes him hurt even more.
With his arm intact again, she can download the Recovery chips. But even though his arm is back and his hit points are full again, he's still curled on the floor, shaking and crying.
Mimic has never seen him cry. Neither has Chaud, judging by the look on his face, and Arcadia certainly hasn't either.
She wonders if this is what Shuseki wanted, when he decided to start punishing ProtoMan instead of her. If it is, then he's achieved what he wanted, because Mimic watches ProtoMan cry and she's even more scared for him than she ever was for herself.
The fear that chokes her and makes her silent is terrible. The fear that grips her heart and freezes it colder than ice when she sees ProtoMan crying is far worse.
She can't resolve to never let this happen again, because she's not a complete idiot no matter what she thinks of herself. She's going to fuck up again, and it'll be on ProtoMan the next time that happens. Her only hope is that, the next time Shuseki wants to punish someone, ProtoMan won't be anywhere near him - and that means Shuseki will have to go after her, instead.
They get an email from Lan a few minutes after ProtoMan stops crying. He's still curled up on the floor, but even though the tears have stopped, it doesn't make Mimic feel any better.
"I-I'll open it," Arcadia offers, taking hold of the email. "It's not- it's a normal email, th-this time. Do- should I r-read-"
Mimic shakes her head. She nods to ProtoMan, and Arcadia needs no further prompting. He goes straight back to him while Mimic opens the email.
'Hey Chaud,' the email reads. 'I hope you guys are all okay. I think you said you should be un-grounded today, so that means tomorrow you can come and hang out, right? If you can't, it's fine, I'm not gonna make you come out if you don't want to. I don't mind.'
And even though she knows he really doesn't mind, she still feels a little guilty. He's gotten a tiny taste of what Shuseki is like, though he hasn't mentioned anything about that little incident since then.
Moments after Lan had asked her those questions that she hated so much, Internet City had been shut down because of a mass virus attack, which had certainly helped put it out of his mind, or so she'd thought. He and Maylu had run off to Yai's place after making sure that Mimic had gotten back to her room safely, and within hours the situation in Internet City had been resolved because of Lan's mildly over-the-top virus-busting, and Mimic had hoped that would be the last she'd hear of those hated questions.
But he'd sent an email, later, telling her that the situation had been resolved - and had asked those same questions again. ProtoMan had written a response telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to speak of the incident ever again. And he told Lan to tell Maylu the same thing. There had been no further mention of any of it, but in the emails Lan has sent her since then, he always makes little comments, like he's subtly asking her if she's okay.
If she's safe.
It had made her happy, before, knowing that he and the others cared. But now all that knowledge does is make her sick, scared witless because Shuseki knows about them, he's seen them, and that if they start asking questions they shouldn't, Shuseki could do anything.
She doesn't want them to ask her questions. She didn't even want them to know, and even though they don't, even though they only know a tiny bit, it's still too much.
Mimic forces the thoughts out of her mind, and continues reading the email.
'Internet City goes back up tomorrow, apparently they finally finished repairing the damage all those viruses did. MegaMan says he hopes ProtoMan and Arcadia can log on. The other Navis are all meeting up in one of the parks, I'll send you the location if you want me to. I gotta go back to school in a week, and that reminded me, I wanted to ask if you go to school as well. ProtoMan said you're the vice president of IPC, so maybe not, but if you do, I hope you like going there. Maybe you can tell me about it?'
Maybe you can tell me if you feel safer there than you do at home, is what he's really asking.
But she's only been there twice, and neither time was pleasant. It'll probably be even less pleasant, after everything that's happened so far. Is there anywhere that she feels safe?
The answer comes to her quickly - Lan's house. Dr. Hikari freaks her out a little bit, but only because of Shuseki, and she thinks she might be okay with him if she isn't fresh out of an encounter with the man who told his Navi to rip ProtoMan's arm off as a demonstration. But she might be okay there, if she can ever find an excuse to go again.
'So, anyway, I'll see you when I next see you!' Lan's trying too hard to be cheerful. It's easy to tell, even through an email.
Mimic doesn't reply right away. She needs to check ProtoMan, but he's not moved since she started reading the email, unless you count trembling as movement. Arcadia's threading his claws through ProtoMan's hair in an attempt to soothe him, and it looks like it's working a little, because ProtoMan's curled a bit closer to Arcadia than he was before. But he was like that before, so he still hasn't moved, and Mimic is-
She's really worried about him. The last time he was anything like this, MegaMan had been deleted right in front of him, and he'd been so angry when they'd finally managed to snap him out his silence.
Now, he's scared, just like she is, just like Arcadia used to be with Amano, and she doesn't know what to do.
In the end, she tells Lan that ProtoMan and Arcadia can't meet up with the other Navis. She lies, says it's work, because she hasn't worked for four weeks - more, actually, counting the time off for her to recover enough from being half-blinded for her surgery to take place, and the N1 as well. It'll probably end up being the truth anyway, because she doesn't know what to do in Chaud's place as vice president, but it still cuts her when she types it out, and her hands shake when she sends the email.
Lying about being Chaud is easy. Lying about why she can't send her Navis to meet their friends is a lot harder.
Arcadia manages to get ProtoMan to snap out of his scared silence the next morning, before Mimic has to go to IPC and figure out what the hell she's supposed to do as vice president of an entire company she knows nothing about (aside from the fact that they make PETs and apparently NetNavis). Mimic has no idea how Arcadia manages it, because she'd been in the bathroom at the time, and when she comes back, ProtoMan is looking at her from the PET.
"Mimic." If he were human, his voice would be as hoarse as hers had been after she'd inhaled all that gas. Instead, it's just quieter than normal. "I'm . . . sorry."
[for what] Mimic signs, though she knows what his answer is even before he says it.
ProtoMan bows his head. "For allowing Master Blaze to . . . punish you. In such a manner. I-I should have . . . I . . ."
[not your fault mine] Mimic tells him. [punishing you for me]
"I think-" Arcadia blurts out, but he cuts himself off quickly. Mimic motions for him to continue. "I think . . . it's not either of you. If- if I've learnt anything, being here, it's that the only person to blame is the person who thinks these kind of punishments are okay." He looks up at them, taking a deep breath. "You're both amazing people. And, so is Chaud, from what I know about him. The only problem is that you're stuck in shadow of a monster, and there's no way out for you like there was for me. So- so I'm gonna help you. However I can, even- even if there's not much I can do."
There's a lot he can do. It's different to Lan, somehow, having Arcadia offering his help, maybe because he knows what it's like. Lan doesn't, and he wouldn't be able to even comprehend the fear that drives Mimic or ProtoMan, but Arcadia? He can.
She remembers telling ProtoMan, soon after the knife incident, that there was no excuse for child abuse. It's gotten harder and harder to remember that, the more time she spends living under the same roof as Shuseki Blaze. When did she start blaming herself, instead of him? She doesn't know the answer to that question, and that kind of scares her.
While she's thinking, ProtoMan has apparently decided to act. He steps forward and-
He wraps his arms around Arcadia, and buries his face in his shoulder. Mimic blinks, startled.
She knows ProtoMan lets Arcadia hang off him and clutch at him and other stuff, but she doesn't remember ProtoMan ever instigating physical contact like this before, unless it was to drag someone out of the way of an attack or something.
Her surprise melts to a kind of warm feeling. It's not exactly happiness, but it brings a smile to her face - and she sees Chaud with something similar, so maybe they're both feeling it.
ProtoMan is . . . odd. So is Arcadia. She is, too. And Chuad, well, his entire existence is just odd.
But maybe they can make this work.
This is not working.
Mimic sits at Chaud's desk just scant hours later, hands buried in her hair, and stares at the computer screen blankly. ProtoMan and Arcadia stand to one side, next to the document she's trying to figure out, and the black window that lets Chaud speak to her on the computer is up as well, but none of this is making any sense even with all three of them trying to help.
"What the fuck," she whispers.
[it's a simple transaction] Chaud tells her. [just read it]
[it makes no sense at all] she signs back, frantic. [I don't know what half of these words mean]
"I'm going to assume you have no experience in business," ProtoMan says wryly.
Mimic shakes her head.
"I know what these words mean," Arcadia says, peering at the document, "but not in this context. Is . . . is this what Chaud does, every day? Or, what he's supposed to do?"
"Yes. Fortunately, Chaud is still here to help," ProtoMan says, gesturing to the black window. "Mimic, my advice in this situation is to just do exactly what he tells you. If there are words or phrases you do not understand, you may ask me."
Chaud looks a little bit hurt, and he signs a question.
[wants to know why not him] Mimic asks for him.
"Well . . . sign language is not the best thing to use when trying to explain complicated matters such as this," ProtoMan points out, rather awkwardly. "I mean no offence, Chaud. But in the interest of keeping on top of work, Mimic needs all the help we can both offer her."
"I could try, too," Arcadia offers, holding up his hand.
"You would need to do so discreetly, I think," ProtoMan says. He looks around, like he's checking no one's watching them - and it hits Mimic with a jolt that he's checking that Proxy, Shuseki's new NetNavi, isn't around. Unlike Shuseki, Proxy could probably show up whenever he wants, so they won't have as much warning to hide Arcadia.
"Because I'm not meant to be here," Arcadia guesses, tilting his head.
"That, and IPC typically does not allow Navis who are unaffiliated with the company to assist with its business," ProtoMan says.
Mimic can understand that. It makes sense, of course, because for all IPC knows, Arcadia could be a spy from a rival company - or something like that. She doesn't know anything about businesses, but she knows a little bit about paranoid people. And, besides, if anyone catches sight of Arcadia, then Shuseki would probably know about him pretty fast. That's something she'd rather avoid.
It had been a big risk, taking him with them. But they can't leave Arcadia alone in the mansion, and she's not sure how Lan and MegaMan would react if they asked them to look after him for a while. She's also sort of trying to avoid them and the rest of the main cast, after what happened last week. Exchanging emails is an easy way to keep in contact, and it makes it a lot easier to lie to them, as well.
It'll be harder to lie if they're face-to-face.
[explain this to me please] Mimic signs, getting ProtoMan's attention.
"Which part?" he asks.
Mimic looks at the document, trying to pick out the bit that makes the least bit of sense to her, but eventually gives up.
[all of it] she signs, defeated.
Being a business person is not going to be fun.
Going back the NetBattler's Institute isn't fun either, when that eventually comes up in early September.
She gets a lot of stares. It's mostly because of the scar, and the odd-coloured eyes, but she knows it's not just that - she's a bit more gaunt than she was last time any of these stuck-up rich kids saw her. That's not really her own fault, she hasn't been eating much because her confinement had kind of fucked up her appetite. But it's still mostly the scar and the eyes, because that's going to be the first thing anyone notices about her from now, she supposes.
Mimic tries keeping her head down in class, but obviously she doesn't know what she's doing now any more than she had the last time she was here. She doesn't dare get out her PET this time, because the last time she'd done that had led to Shuseki giving her the scar that everyone's staring at. Glancing at her reflection in the windows to ask Chaud will only make the teachers think she's spacing out.
She also doesn't speak. Signing would be useless, since ProtoMan can't translate for her if she can't get her PET out, and she doesn't know if any of the teachers know sign language - or if they would bother paying attention to her even if they did know.
School is, in a word, a disaster.
Apparently there was some sort of homework they were meant to do over the summer, something to do with a NetBattling project - well, it makes sense, given the name of the school - but she'd been sent home for 'bad behaviour' (why did she talk back to the teacher, why? Why was she so stupid?) and she'd never gotten the homework. The other kids in the class don't have her email so no one could tell her about it, but their gleeful expressions while they watch the teacher chew her out for not doing the homework tells her that they wouldn't have said anything even if they did have her email.
Luckily, the project is something she'd sort of already done anyway - come up with a new NetBattling style, influenced by something that has nothing to do with NetBattling. All she has to do is write out a hasty report on the Skyrim Styles and Wild Style, and the teacher leaves her alone.
During the breaks, she hears her classmates whispering about her. Most of the whispers are about her appearance - the scar, the eyes, the fact that she's so skinny - but some of them are talking about the N1. Mimic had almost forgotten that had been on TV, which also means the entire country was probably watching, including these asshole rich kids.
They're laughing, and not even bothering to hide it. Words like 'wuss' and 'coward' get thrown around a lot, and comments about her needing a babysitter for most of her battles, along with snickering about how she'd taken second place rather than first, after apparently declaring that she would take the Championship and nothing else. Well, it had been Chaud who had said that, not her, and he gives her apologetic looks whenever she sees her reflection in the windows of classroom or the mirrors in the school bathrooms.
Well. If she didn't hate this place before, she certainly does now.