Akane considered ways to compensate for her new height before trying on the plush suit. She then raided the set of spare clothes dad kept in the apartment for the coat. (Captain Howard's ludicrously broad shoulders were not a trait Akane expected to share with him, ever.) That settled, Akane wondered how to handle things once she left this place. The pen and paper felt like a silent demand. She had to try something, even if Akira might not be back here for a while.
If she was visible, she really didn't want to freak out civilians. The distinct lack of electronic communication equipment in this apartment would be the first thing she fixed after everything calmed down. Contacting Neuron to come and pick her up was the safest option, especially if she was visible like Aberrations.
As for the 'Am I visible to normal people' issue, she had a solution. Picture, if you will, a Power Rangers doll and a teddy bear of about three quarters of the height of said Ranger doll. Cut off the teddy bear head and hands. Shove the Ranger in to the teddy such that she is wearing the fur of her slain enemy as trousers, then wrap the empty arms around Ranger to keep them from falling down. After making these strangely morbid improvised overalls, put a parka on Ranger to hide the arms. The Ranger would wear the head and mittens of the slain teddy bear.
Now imagine that Ranger being eight feet tall, glowing blue, and possessing more sharp angles.
Akane walked carefully, ducking out of the doorway. The scarf and belt managed to hold up the suit being worn over her legs. The dog head covered up her own with some careful positioning to make sure that Akane would be able to see where she was going. Maxmillian Howard's giant winter coat covered her torso as best as she could make it while she prayed the Lappy gloves did not slide off. Those had been a right pain to unbutton from the sleeves.
Akane hoped no one looked too closely at excessively tall parka Lappy before she got out, passed off a message, then went back into hiding. The pose she had to hold while walking to try and look not like an excessively tall idiot wearing the mascot suit strained her back a little.
If she was lucky and the plan worked as intended, she wouldn't have to fool any humans. Akane stepped out of the alley while thinking Lappy thoughts, then approached the vending machine.
"What can I get for you today?," chirped the vending machine. Akane removed a glove and pointed at the screen. She waited. The confused machine said, "Oh, sorry! I can't tell where you are pointing with your sleeve over your hand. Just say what you want or pull back your sleeve a bit and I'll be better able to serve you." The machine was further confused when the mascot shoved back on the glove and turned tail without further comment. "Oh, okay then."
That answered one of her major questions; She was invisible to normal people like the Legions. While Akane was congratulating herself on approximate human contact and a successful plan, she did not see the real threat. Children. A soccer ball thwacked a solid hit on Lappy's left ear. Akane flailed trying to reach up and stabilize the head. If she had not, she would have avoided slipping and losing the head. Akane then completely lost her balance and, instead of tearing, the reinforced fabric of the suit somehow resisted. (What even was this carbon fiber weave doing in Marie's suit!?)
Akane went down in a perfect faceplant.
While lying on the ground in a frozen panic, she heard a boy say, " Dude! You killed Lappy!" The next thing she heard was two pairs of running footsteps fleeing the scene of the murder. So much for not freaking out civilians.
Akane fled as quickly as she could waddle in the modified Lappy costume, whacked her head on the apartment doorframe, then shed the costume. Then she curled up in the bathroom to calm down away from the really quite fragile cats. (Vanilla kept rattling the handle of the door. )
"Hey, uh, boss? We got something you might want to see."
Kyle could not muster much enthusiasm. It was kind of his remaining Hermits to keep trying to cheer him up. "I'll bite, what is it?"
The hermit sent Kyle the video footage of a kid reappearing from a gate then floating gently to safety before the gate simply vanished. "You can't see if on this camera since it isn't designed for Chimera tracking but you know that one cop? Went berserk at the overpass? Pretty sure this was her."
"Whoa whoa wait, her? I gotta call Hal. You in Maison Forest?"
"Yeah, I'll see if I can find her."
"Don't approach her if you feel unsafe, she did nearly kill her own twin before the Ravens lost her in a gate." As Kyle tried calling Hal, he had the Hermit deploy a drone.
Eventually Hal picked up. "Kylethere'sRavensafterOlivecanIcallyoubacksorry."
"Uh, sure but this is important too!" Kyle heard Olive's muffled swearing and the sound of hasty footsteps before the line hung up. Kyle messaged Hal what he knew and decided to investigate in the meantime.
Akane re-emerged from the bathroom with wet towel in hand to clean the suit while she thought. If Akira came to feed the cats, she could just communicate with him. That was the idea scenario in her mind. If Marie came back, sure she could try to communicate with her but Marie was not someone who could keep things on the down low. Plus, after that fiasco, Akane felt like a terrible friend. Borrowing Lappy was just a bad idea and she should not have done that. Dad was right, crime was a slippery slope into bigger issues.
As she wiped off the dirt from the nose, Akane heard a voice from the window.
"Psst. Hey. You understand me? Over here." There was a drone hovering outside the window. An orange one. Akane narrowed her eyes because she wasn't in the mood for Hermit gunner drones at the moment. "Okay, look, I'm not going to try and take your Legatus this time. I'm trying to keep you out of the hands of Union. I tried calling Hal after one of my guys saw you, but he's rescuing Olive at the moment. You, uh, remember them?"
Akane nodded, not sure she liked where this was going. Kyle's voice sounded genuinely uncertain about Akane remembering her own friends. What was Olive needing rescue from?
"Okay, good. Can you talk?"
Akane shook her head.
"I'm going to come around to your door, if you let me in I'll project a holo-keyboard for you. I have a lot of questions and I think you will too. This isn't a free favor, you did kind of help me back in sector five..."
Akane considered this while Kyle piloted the Hermit drone around to the door. She could just ignore the guy but what about her friends? She caved and let the drone into the cat safehouse. Kyle, true to his word, projected a keyboard. After he cranked up the size of the keyboard, Kyle started talking as she started typing out a list of questions.
Kyle said, "We can't stay long. Like I said, I need to keep you out of Union's hands. Do you remember what happened after that fight with Jena?"
"Is Akira ok? I remember the fight blowing up, then I woke up like this?"
"Oh s_. You really don't remember... Um... you kind of died. Then you fused or something with your Legions? Aaaand then nearly killed your brother before Jena sacrificed herself to distract you."
Akane typed, "erahea;ior," then deleted the keysmash before typing more frantically, "what" at Kyle.
"...I probably should have let your friends tell you... but if you don't believe me I've got some of Hal's video footage. After you impaled Jena with your hand, you were gunned down by the Ravens. Then fled into a gate. They lost you on the Astral Plane."
Typed Akane, "Ravens?"
"Yoseph's new task force. They're all armed with Legions like your brother, and fight like him too. It was unreal, they came out of nowhere. Your twin's their captain! Yoseph's little personal army. They're who are after Olive and Hal at the moment..."
Akane stopped typing while wondering where she would even start. Kyle's phone rang with perfect timing. "Hold on, they're calling back! Hal, I'm putting you on speakerphone. you tell her what happened when she turned into this, I'm going to chart a path to the nearest hiding spot."
Kyle's drone screen changed from the iconic Hermit hacker face to a video screen. Hal gaped.
"Whoa! Akane! Sorry I'm not there, let me get Olive on too."
Akane typed as quickly as she could without missing the buttons. Kyle charted the best route to Zone Nine. As much as he wanted to chat, radio chatter from the Hermits mentioned an increased number of gates in the area, which meant Ravens. It was time to go.
Alicia carefully concealed her seething rage during patrol. So many things lately were just wrong. Akira looked so shattered in Neuron's command room when they came back to the HQ. She didn't have a chance to talk to him before Yoseph cut in. Everything was just chaos, especially with the announcements. They said Akane transformed into an aberrant monster after fighting Jena. Akane tried to kill Akira, then committed murder. These Ravens happened to show up to save the day. The video clips of the chase were not easy to watch and they'd somehow lost Akane in a gate.
Cops turning into aberrations happened as a cruel fact of life on the Ark. There was a code for it and a procedure to deal with the losses. Posthumously, officers were declared to have died in the line of duty before being given full honors.
Right as Alicia was about to bring up giving Akira a break because losing his dad and his twin right after another was just too much, there was More. The oh-so-convenient discovery of incriminating documents on Akane's computer. Instead of just having been killed in action due to aberration activity, now Akane was a fugitive accused of treason?! It was like spitting on Max's grave.
Akira couldn't seriously believe this of Akane. Jin and Alicia did not either, but Yoseph had Akira running missions all the time. Akira didn't have time to stop and think and grieve. Yoseph splitting up Neuron all over the city was just another problem Alicia needed to find a way around.
Alicia saw a notification, and answered Marie's call. She listened. "All right, I'll come take a look, see if I can turn up any evidence. Have you started asking around to see if anyone saw? Lappy's pretty popular."
My wrong predictions while I played the game kind of inspired this one. Like, Alicia and Jin would help raid the ARI. I'm bitter this didn't happen, then went "Oh no did something happen to them?" so it was a relief to see them alive post game. I feel like a lot more was written but they spent a lot of time on the soundtrack, visual spectacle, and stuff then left out so much dialogue. Yoseph splitting up Neuron so they wouldn't be there for Akira as emotional support, voices of reason, witnesses to creepiness, etc made sense. Yoseph assigning everyone to different precincts was a good touch on the notes. I hoped Kyle was going to join the ARI raid because yes please. (Why did Marie get more screentime than him?)
