Chapter VIII: Second contact same as the first

It was easy to tell that Highwire was feeling a little upset.

Issei struggled to keep the sympathetic frown off his face for most of the ride home.

They had been really quiet since the…well…the attempt of an introduction with Aika and how that had turned out.

Which was both better and worse than he had hoped it would have been.

Though Highwire was definitely taking it a lot worse than he was and it really sucked to see, especially with how upbeat they had been about introducing themselves in the first place.

As soon as they got home, Issei hopped off his bike and started walking around to the back garden and the shed, all while eyeing the Minicons and the enduring silence which greeted them.

It was easy to imagine the black cloud hanging over the head of the robot from the encounter.

Worse was the fact that if he were to look at them, he could see the handlebars droop like the ears of a sad puppy. The comparison felt more apt than anything else and he struggled to let go of it.

Now before the shed, he dropped his shoulders and opened the door up to lead the Minicons into the shed, following in behind them and sitting them up in the middle of the room, he leaned back and shut the door, glancing down at the bot and pulling his lips thin.

By now, he would have expected them to transform.

Instead they were just quiet.

"Highwire…"

The Minicons shifted ever so slightly, letting out a slower series of beeps and tones than before, all of which were tinged with an element of sadness and regret.

Cringing, he placed his hands on his hips.

"I'm sorry that it didn't turn out the way you hoped…but at least she didn't scream?"

Highwire gave further tones, indicating that it wasn't the reason they were upset.

Issei was a bit surprised at that.

"What? But I thought-"

Highwire chirped several more times.

"So then what is then-"

More chirping.

Ah.

"Oh." Issei rubbed the back of his neck and pursed his lips.

They were upset that they had forced the issue and made him do it, despite the fact he thought it could have gone a couple more days before an introduction between the two of them. Well, Issei was hardly bothered about that.

"I…look man, I was okay with it so long as you were."

With that, Highwire went upright and changed back into their robot form and turned about to face him, chirping several more times and shaking their head from side to side. Raising a hand and pointing between the two of them and then making another wave of the hand.

The rather swift explanation had Issei blink.

It had also been a rather good explanation as well.

"Uhh…well…I didn't…"

He hadn't considered that at all.

Highwire dropped their shoulders, beeping some more.

"Look, I…well, I was more nervous on your behalf than anything else to be honest with you. It wasn't really about me…It would have likely gone the same way if we had done it a couple days from now."

They only stared at him.

"Uhmmm…I forgive you?"

Then they gave a relieved electronic beeping before stopping and tilting their head.

"About Aika?"

He had to think about that for a moment, because it was a pretty tough question for him to answer.

All things considered, he didn't know that much about her in the first place…not really beyond their short dealings here and there when she was pointing and laughing at them. Fact of the matter was that this had likely been the very first instance in which they had ever spent a considerable length of time together.

It was weird.

Which meant he didn't know what she would do now.

"...I mean she did seem a little freaked out?"

Highwire gave an understanding beep of the head, indicating they had expected as much.

"Huh. I thought you would be more freaked out."

The Minicon only stared at him before giving a puzzled beep.

Issei flushed at the sudden statement and coughed, raising his fist to cover his lips and glancing across to the side, breaking eye contact.

"Y-you just caught me by surprise, is all. Anyone would have screamed in that situation!"

Highwire gave a slow and bemused response which indicated that it was the response they had been expecting from Aika, which is why they were asking him what he thought would happen now.

"...Well, we aren't friends." Issei explained. "But…I don't know…I really don't know."

The Minicon gave an understanding beep.

"Wait and see then, huh?" Issei folded his arms. "...What do you think she'll do?"

Highwire folded their arms and held about as thoughtful and expression as they could manage with their lack of a face, eyes shifting and squinting before they widened again and looked right at him, electronic beeps followed with more confidence.

"You are seriously optimistic, you know?" Issei chuckled. "Can we swap? Can you be the president?"

Swiftly raising their hands and shaking their head, Highwire chirped out some encouraging words to him.

Issei was fairly sure they were being seriously humble.

Highwire was definitely better for this than he was, that much was certain.

The rapid beeps and wide sweeping movements of the minicon broke him from his thoughts and drew him back to the present, as did the words of the robot which Issei could not possibly have said with a straight face.

Not only was Highwire giving a rather good speech, they were also doing it completely without shame.

…

…He was really thankful that Highwire had been born(?) a robot rather than a person, because he was convinced that by the way they talked and the way they acted, they would have been some pretty boy who all the girls fell head over heels for. Like Kiba but perhaps even worse than that.

A terrifying thought, he realised.

But the speech was good.

"You're convincing me to just make you the actual president of the club, you know?"

Highwire stopped speaking, then pointed at him and gave a firmer retort.

Was he being bullied into accepting praise?

Because it certainly felt like it.

"Okay, okay." Unwilling to argue with them further on the subject, Issei raised his hands in surrender and endured the withering stare until the minicon was satisfied. Lowering his arms, he continued. "But I'm not sure if we'll be able to speak with Aika again, to be honest with you…she might not come to school."

Highwire looked visibly stricken at that.

"Worst case scenario!" Issei hastily tacked on at the end. "Not like it's going to happen! She probably has loads of questions and will definitely want to ask at least one or two of them…probably? I mean, I would have a lot of questions I would want answered if I was in her position."

Several beeps followed that.

Issei flattened his features.

"Yes. I know I was in her position not long ago."

Though until they managed to speak with Aika about Highwire and the hunt for other minicons, Issei wasn't sure what they should do…

Actually, he did.

The thoughts returned to him, lost on account of the excitement, but he quickly snapped his fingers and pointed up. The movement drew the startled gaze of the minicon in the process.

"We were going to look at mythological figures who transform into different shapes, right?"

Highwire nodded their head rapidly.

They had an idea.

Surely there couldn't be that many people who could do that in myths and history, right?

Issei caught himself barely a foot out the door and dropped his expression immediately.

Why did he have to say something like that?

Aika stared up at her ceiling.

She blinked very slowly as her thoughts seemingly caught up with her.

Then, without warning, she bolted upright in her bed and found herself staring straight ahead to the other end of her room.

"...what…?"

The whisper spilled from her lips beyond her control, the single word bouncing around again and again inside of her head the whole while through the day.

Images and words all jumbled together like a dropped jigsaw became eerily coordinated all of a sudden and rather abruptly she was watching everything play out with a sense of clarity she had lacked form a certain point of time during the day.

With another blink, she stopped just before she could pinch herself.

But she really wanted to pinch herself just to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

At first she figured she had to be, because such an absurd thing could not be possible so she had gone to bed and expected to wake up and forget about this entire incident or merely set it to one side to laugh about at a later date and wonder how she could have possibly concocted such a wild and fanciful tale.

Except she hadn't woken up.

Rather, she had just sleep walked through the remainder of the day and then back into her bed.

So.

She played it all back again from the moment things had started to go strange.

Issei acting weird.

Which, for everyone, was him suddenly going around and asking people to join up a club which he was making. Big shocker there, but the real surprise had been the fact that neither one of his friends had actually joined up with him and he was legitimately - or seemed to be - on the hunt for members to join.

Then there was the club itself.

Aliens.

His entire club was geared towards aliens.

Not to mention he was weirdly serious about it, she had thought it still might have been some sort of massive joke, but the effort he had put into this club was far beyond anything he had ever put effort into during his time at school.

Between his terrible grades which everyone knew about and his perverted nature which earned him plenty of scorn.

…Issei had willingly gone to the student council.

It just did not make an ounce of sense to her.

So she got curious and looked into it, throwing herself into the belly of this beast.

He was still bumbling around and showing he had no idea what he was doing, but he didn't go the traditional route for aliens.

No crop circles or nothing.

No.

He was going ancient aliens.

Which had been a little funny but also a little concerning to behold, she had genuinely believed he was going off the deep end and she had signed herself up to that rollercoaster without actually realising what it was.

Then he led her out to the forest.

…And then his bike turned into a robot.

And tried to give her a fist bump.

Everything after that became a little hazy, but she believed that her next course of action had been to just turn around and walk away.

Yes, that had been what she did.

She met a robot that tried to talk to her with beeps and chimes.

It spoke to her like a doorbell.

And then she just ghosted them and left.

That…

Wow.

Her hands rubbed against her brows as she found herself succumbing to a headache induced by so many weird things happening at once over the course of the last few hours. It had basically been one thing after another this week and here they were.

…Did that mean Issei's sudden interest in aliens had come from…?

The hands on her forehead stilled, then started to drag down as her eyes were pulled wider and wider.

…Was Issei's bike actually…?

No.

No way.

It had to be some sort of super secret government project that somehow got lost or something, that made much more sense than whatever else she was thinking.

And yet…was it more interesting?

Dropping her hands onto her lap, Aika thought through all of it and then found herself slumping back into her bed, once more with her eyes fixed on the ceiling above in the darkness of her room.

Unblinkingly staring up, she felt her lips start to curl upwards at the absurdity of it.

First contact with an alien race…

…came from Hyoudou Issei.

"Snrk."

Rolling her lips inwards, she muffled the initial snort but failed to manage anything else which spilled out after that.

"Pffft!"

Turning back and forth in her bed, her hands clamped down over her mouth to prevent the laughter - more like a cackle, she would wager - from spilling out of her and waking up everyone else in the house. She didn't fancy explaining what she was doing with such a laugh so late at night.

But it was a close thing.

Her eyes were starting to water from the strength of the laughter and she was kicking her legs back and forth.

Aliens came to earth and they met Issei!

They disguised themselves as his bike and probably lived with him too!

"Mhmhmhmhm!"

Clamping her eyes as tightly shut as she could, tears of mirth dripped down her cheeks as the final thought sprung to the surface.

And broke her hold on her mouth.

Issei was probably making aliens sit down and watch porn with him!

"Pfffftahahahahahaha!"

She did not even care for the sudden muffled sounds of alarm and surprise from her parents at her roaring laughter.

This was absolutely too perfect!

It was incredible!

Much, much better than anything she could have ever imagined!

There was no way she was letting something like this slip away from her now, not in a million - billion - years.

With that in mind, tomorrow she had an incredible idea.

Issei jerked into consciousness while in his chair.

With a groan, he cupped his head and opened his eyes to a bleary world, squinting through the fog and towards the black screen in front of him.

Reaching out, he fumbled over his mouth and clicked twice, shaking it back and forth and then blinking again as he was suddenly assaulted with a bright white light.

Hissing, he span around and pushed himself away from it, a square burned into his eyes as he rubbed at them furiously and continued blinking to try and get the block out of his vision, it was only during that period he heard the soft whirring and beeps of a familiar tone.

"Highwire?" With a grunt, Issei turned his head to the large grey humanoid shape that took a step towards him with a thud. Another blink bled focus - if only a little - into his eyes and he stared at the shape of the minicon.

Highwire's bright white eyes beamed down at him, tilting ever so slightly.

"Hey." Waving his hand, Issei turned and looked around. "What time…?"

Trailing off as Highwire raised something that he could not quite make out, at least not at first.

Yet, slowly but surely, the shape started to take form and he found himself peering at his alarm clock with only a few minutes left before his alarm went off. He glanced up and gave a thankful nod of the head before spinning in his chair and chancing another look towards the computer screen.

It was easier to look at now, at least.

And revealed the same search tabs he had open that he last remembered, which must have been from before he fell asleep,

It was just a long list of mythological figures who could change their bodies.

Very few of which had actually registered with him as being wholly anything to do with the minicons.

And he really doubted the minicons were transforming into yokai.

Then again, Highwire hadn't been very clear on whether they could transform into animals or not, they had just said it depended on the minicon and left it at that.

Now that he thought about it, could it have been possible?

The thought at least made a bit of sense, especially given that Highwire's ship had crashed in Kuoh.

So that meant most of them might be in Japan.

Maybe?

He was still iffy on details.

A weight settling on his shoulder had him jolt, eyes flying up and to the concerned gaze of the minicon peering down at him.

With several beeps and hums, Highwire made a couple comments about their concern for his health.

Issei just yawned and waved his hand, adjusting himself in his chair and then pushing himself up with a pop of bone.

Ouch.

He was never going to fall asleep in a chair ever again if he could help it because that was absolutely awful.

"Did you have a look while I was asleep?" Eventually asking, he looked to Highwire to see their reaction.

With an assortment of affirmative beeps, the minicon quickly started making the announcement that they had compiled a small assortment of names and figures whom could be related to his people based upon the descriptions that had been assembled from the pages.

Issei nodded his head.

That was at least another thing they had going for them.

"We'll look over those at school."

Highwire chirped.

Issei paused and thinned his lips. "...Maybe? Depends if she wants to."

Aika's help was all dependent on her.

But he was expecting her to try and chase both him and Highwire down later for some answers, rather he was counting on that, and was already mentally preparing himself for that.

With another roll of the neck, resulting in a pop, he went about getting ready for school.

"You know, we should probably think about finding a way for you to contribute during club meetings and stuff." Issei remarked.

Highwire inclined their head and replied.

"I know we have my phone." He nodded. "But that means someone has to lean over my shoulder to see what you're saying…personal space."

The minicon made a small noise of understanding, then dropped invisible brows upon their eyes and started to visibly think of a solution.

"We can workshop it." Issei announced. "For now we can look more into those guys and see if any of them spring out to you."

Wheeling Highwire out of the door, he raised his head and then stopped as he spotted someone right at the foot of the road, standing there with a visible smirk on their lips and whose gaze sharpened when they noticed him.

Issei, meanwhile, found himself straightening in surprise.

"Wha-? What the heck are you doing here, Aika?"

She only managed to look a mixture of disappointed and amused. "Is that really so much of a shock?"

Her eyes slid pointedly to Highwire and then back to him.

The minicon vibrated in his hands with some rather excited chirping.

Issei shot a look down. "You can say hi to her a bit quieter, you know?"

Aika looked rather puzzled at him, eyes sweeping back and forth. "You understood that?"

"Of course I-" He stopped. "You didn't?"

"No." She replied slowly, lips thin. "So he was just saying hello to me, was he? That's nice of him. Tell him I said hello back."

"...He can understand you pretty well. Just saying." Issei shrugged, wheeling forwards and tilting his head.

"But seriously," He began again. "why are you here? How are you even here?"

Aika snorted. "Seriously? Everyone knows where your house is."

They did?

"They do?"

This was news to him.

"Oh, yeah." Aika grinned. "That's how the girls know what route to avoid taking."

He jolted at the invisible punch and hunched over ever so slightly, only for Aika to then roll her eyes and shake her head.

Issei sighed. "You're joking? Seriously? Don't do that to me, I was seriously shocked that the girls in the school knew where my house was."

"Hmph." Aika only grunted and smirked a little wider. "I'm sorry, I'm probably one of the few girls who knows."

"Talk about a let down." Issei grumbled, then stopped. "...So? I take it you have some questions."

At that, Aika's brows rose.

"Some questions?" She said, leaning forwards and dropping her hands to her hips. "Oh Issei…you have no idea."

He shuddered a little.

And if his grip wasn't mistaken, he was sure Highwire did as well.