Ichi felt great. The whole Section 9 was on a prowl at one of popular entertainment centers during some sort of a festival, celebrating joining of the newest member of Section 9 and enjoying fancy street food, challenge-games. Rebecca bought everyone surprisingly great beer and they all were slightly abuzz now, slowly sipping it. Well, all except Motoko and Rebecca herself, to immense annoyance of later. Rebecca was pouting, clearly embarrassed, suffering consequences of losing a bet to Hiromi. The oldest and at the same time smallest member of Section 9 was wearing an extremely cute puffy white and blue dress, her temporarily blonde hair was styled in childish twintails with ringlets, and she had to behave properly till he rest of the day. Ichi was a bit concerned about Becca trying to get back on Hiromi some time afterwards, but for now it was too hilarious to take seriously. Motoko walked last and, being the usual gonk she is, played with her new fancy knife, loudly gushing about some obscure ancient movie or cartoon it was based on. She was proudly wearing challenge-won weird oversized raggy pirate themed t-shirt with styled print JACK on front and SPARROW on back. The gonk told the team that this shirt was "plus ten to the escape skill", whatever that meant, weirdo.
There was a dense crowd ahead, so the group decided to go around and turned into a side alley, stumbling upon a lewdly handholding cosplayer couple there.
"Who s the good girl? You are, yes you are." Hiromi squeeled in delight, enjoying Rebecca's suffering, and patted the small one on the head. Malcolm loudly toasted "To the newest member of S-Nine!", startling the cosplayers. Ichi was a bit confused though, as he couldn't tell the fandom of the cosplay or a theme. Both cosplayer girls wore extremely well made costumes. The tall slim brunette was wearing grey insectile themed costume with bug-eyed mask and the curvy blonde wore a form fitting lavender bodysuit and a simple black domino mask.
"N-W…", there was a sound of the knife clattering on the ground.
Ichi saw Motoko standing still with arms raised high in universal surrender pose and round eyed glancing nervously at the rest of the group, who haven't noticed her distraught yet. Suddenly there was a loud buzzing, causing a full body flinch from Motoko. Ichi saw that it was just an old malfunctioning air conditioner nearby, which apparently broke down, probably not the first time, judging by its condition.
"Not it! Wrong S Nine! Tell them Hiromi!"
Ichi felt cold, hearing uncharacteristic panic notes in Motoko's voice. Confused Hiromi tried to clarify: "We are not a gang, we are mercenaries, bounty hunters. Err, how was it in gonk larp speak of yours… Oh, right, adventurers. We are Murderhobos!"
The cosplayer pair stared at Motoko's shirt, at the knife on the ground in front of Motoko, and then at Rebecca fighting with her puffy dress. There was a strangled keeling sound from Motoko with a barely audible "Stop halping."
Ichi feverishly tried to think of what he should do now and who are that strange couple. Were they crazy strong solos, or maybe infamous netrunners? They certainly didn't look dangerous, but Ichi knew how deceiving appearances can be. He was on edge at the tense standoff, but he also didn t want to provoke anything, which could be very bad, going by Motoko s reaction.
The strange duo looked at each other, turned and walked away, groaning something about "Fucking crazy cosplayers".
"Rude?" Hiromi confusingly scoffed at the weird hypocritical dismissal, but then saw pale Motoko hyperventilating, and everyone crowded Motoko, asking if she is ok. Ichi glanced in the direction where the strange duo went but saw only a brief flash of a distorted hexagonal neon sign in a window reflection. Ichi sighed heavily, Motoko "Mixed signals" Kusunagi probably had a brain fart and made him panic for no reason at all. At least the faulty air conditioner completely broke down and stopped torturing the gang with its hellish dying sounds. It was still a great day.