Episode 5: Outbreak

Part 1: Please, Never Do That Again...

Earlier that day...

Afternoon on Mt. Ogusu...the sun shone its radiance upon the entire mountainside. Bluebirds rising from the horizon and singing their lovely calling songs. A gentle breeze swaying the trees and leaves to and fro, brushing against the soft pillow of grass surrounding the trees...

That same breeze brushing against a scarred place, distraught with a tear in its landscape...

The sensation triggered an action potential of mild pain from the scalp throughout the body.

"Nn..nnnn..."

Laura finally woke up, it seemed. She stayed on the ground, lying motionless in anticipation for a signal from the heavens to grant her permission to wake up. She slowly, lazily opened her eyes ad surveyed the area around her.

Completely surrounded by shady trees; various, curious birds perched behind the greenery; the summer winds swaying her hair, occasionally piercing her forehead with sharp needles of air...

She stretched as hard as she could and stood herself up. For a second, she looked puzzled, wondering how she wound up in the mountainside.

Ah, that's right. She had escaped from the cemetery facility. The police had caught up to her in an attempt to arrest her, but she refused them their victory. In a desperate and blind attempt to unleash her pent-up rage, she blasted her railgun through the roof and took to the skies to rain down her weapons of wrath. But one of them shielded herself with something large, almost like her own IS. She was too blinded in her own rage to truly see that, though. After wiping out everyone else, she charged straight into her. But she was socked by a huge metal fist. Afterwards, she was repeatedly kicked and scratched, until the final blow when she was punted all the way to Mt. Ogusu. And now, here she was...

"So, it has come to this," she muttered, "Well, it won't be long before Ich-uh-HE...begins to fret over this matter...So be it-huh?"

She didn't notice until she nudged a small bag that was left beside her when she was unconscious, "Who would-"

Ah, that's it. After she contacted Clarissa for the last time, one of her soldiers must've dropped off a care kit for her, knowing how she would object to being taken back to the Academy. For personal reasons.

But now's not the time to worry about that. She opened the bag to inspect its contents.

"What is all this?..." Well, it's not really a care kit. More like a disguise kit. A wig, a hairnet to conceal her original hair, a black dress, a set of contact lenses, a few accessories, some money, and a first aid kit.

"So, that is how we will play out this mission..." They know her face now. She has to go incognito and blend in with the crowd if she is ever to get anywhere close to the renegade. She pulled out the wig and hairnet first. But then, she stopped midway.

Even with some of her hair gone, she still has too much for the hairnet to handle. If she is to disguise herself, she must remove any and all traces of her former appearance, with the risk of being isolated from her comrades for an indefinite period of time. But given her track record on and off the battlefield, that should be nothing to her. What is something to her is the most important connection she will be cutting off.

Ichika...the man she had always chased after, who she admired for his unparalleled strength within himself...now just another abandoned memory simply because he favored another girl, one that has been with him longer than she has. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

She unsheathed her knife and sliced nearly all of her hair off, including what one of her dear friends coined her other trademark. She waited until the final target fell to the ground, and gathered all the hair clumps into one pile. Next, she reached for the hair-set. She cupped her hair into the hairnet. Then, she donned the wig.

Then it was her uniform's time to go. She checked her current environment for any possible peeping toms. When she confirmed their absence, she quickly undressed herself, uniform and all, then quickly gathered her fallen articles into a pile and heaped it onto of her fallen hair. She grabbed the dress and a choker and slipped into them.

She checked herself on her progress so far. The dress seems to be in order. She snugged her hair in perfectly. She was worried about her boots standing out, but they actually blended in with the rest of her outfit. All that was left was...her face.

She ran her fingers gently across her eyepatch. So many memories made because of her hidden power, power she had to cover up. Her golden eye was flawed, but it was her gateway to incredible power. Whenever she removed her eyepatch, that is. However, she has been questioning whether she should completely ditch the patch due to the constant assaults on her friends, as well as the strikes on various enemy hideouts.

This was a different story. If she has her patch at all, they can easily recognize her. She doesn't have a choice now. She has to do something she struggled with since the VT System incident. But they did remove it from her IS, so it can't activate it anymore, right? But then, there is that risk that she could become very angry and cause something dormant inside her to erupt and unleash her wrath on the nearby populace, just like a certain renegade. The thought of the possibility of becoming one of him made her insides cringe, but her outward appearance cannot allow that to become transparent.

She cut off her eyepatch, revealing the golden eye given to her at birth. She looked to the clouds in the sky as she placed the red contact lens on her eye. She blinked her eyes a few times to settle the lens in. When she was ready to see her transformation, she took a deep breath and held out her hand mirror to view her new look.

It looked completely natural. Brown short hair with red eyes, choker, black frilly dress and boots. With this, she can blend in more easily with the Japanese people. But she couldn't help but smile for some reason. To her, she didn't look like that girl who had her hair ripped off. She looked like someone who was raised in a well-to-do family. Like she actually found her place in the open world. She turned to her patch, just about to fall off her hand until she clutched it by the string. She gave it one last, almost apologetic goodbye.

Finally, she set it alongside the rest of pile. Then, she lit up a match and hovered it above her old set of clothes. She paused a bit, staring at her uniform for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and silently prayed. Prayed for the safety of her comrades, for the safety of the world, and for the capture and submission of the renegade.

She dropped the match. The fire spread all across her uniform. It was as if she had created an altar to offer a final sacrifice to Dionysus, communicating her last moments of freedom, merriment and ecstasy. No longer will she be allowed to make merry, befriend strangers, or breathe without the constant surveillance from the public eye. She must now abandon all pretense of freedom of expression and live among the crowd, in unrelenting pursuit of her prey.

She watched the smoke billow all the way to the sky as the fire grew into an uncontrollable inferno. Then, she threw the bag into the flames, cuffed her kit and money, and ran as fast as she could.

A few hours later...

A rather large flatscreen TV was projecting the headlines to an outdoor cafe:

"A wildfire has been spotted on Mt. Ogusu. Firefighters have promptly responded to the distress call made by a sightseeing tourist and successfully eliminated the fire before it could spread to the residential areas. So far, no one on the scene has been able to determine the exact cause of the fire, and the only clues found were a huge ash pile and a burnt-out match. Witnesses say that the renegade has been instigating riots throughout the country, carried out by male teenagers and middle-agers, and believe that the fire was a method to-"

"Ugh...why am I not surprised?..." Laura was sipping on her latte, trying to ease her mind with this new environment. How anybody was able to stomach these biased news reels was beyond her. Not three years ago did the world's leading superpowers gather at the summit to discuss the gender imbalance of power according to the debacle caused by the IS, as well as how to "move forward" due to Ichika's decision to support a girl other than her...

...only to have...this...shoved down everyone's throats.

"*sigh...* This was not at all prevalent before...Oh, and look at that. Two angry women screaming at the top of their lungs even though they're arguing the same position..." Such humor to be found in pointless arguments about the chaos of man...

"Oh! Oh! Thank god!"

Someone blurted out. Laura turned towards the commotion. It was an unruly man trying to grab attention from the masses, but was abruptly stopped by a waitress.

"Heh, good luck, fool," she quietly commented, "There's no changing the law of the land now..." She turned back to the newscast and- "What the-"

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice her suddenly empty cup. She noticed a waitress walking near her, "Excuse me?"

"AAGH! What is the matter with you, young lady?! Do you have any idea what's happened here?!"

"Wha-uh...I just wanted another Chai Tea..."

"Oh...Um...Coming right up!" The waitress scurried off.

"Huh?" This reaction was far different from that earlier scuffle, "Much different than when I last visited..." Since when was it a thing to hold a grudge against a customer? Not that that mattered anymore because she's coming back with her latte...and a few answers.

"Here you are, milady," she said, "One Chai Tea Latte."

"Milady? That came out of nowhere..."

"Oh. Well, it's common to address our customers as milady," she explained, "It maintains our service and credibility."

Laura thought, 'HUH?', but she just agreed, "I see, and what about the...y'know?"

"Oh, them?" she asked, "Those wretched, penis-flinging bastards?"

"You just give'em the boot, huh?" And that's how today's conversation started. See, Laura? It's not that bad living incognito! "Back in Germany, we used to just throw whatever food's available on the table."

"Really?" the waitress's curiosity peaked. She sat down in front of her, "Tell me more of this custom."

"Well...wait, are you on break right now?"

"Yeah, for about thirty minutes."

"Ok, ok, ok, get a load of this..."

And they went on for about fifteen minutes before ending with a laugh.

"I didn't know that Germany was still struggling with this issue," the waitress commented, "even though it should've been obvious!"

"I know, right?" Laura just ran with it, "I've been petitioned to the Bundestag, but I still haven't gotten a response yet!"

"It's all because there's a gorilla rampaging in there that nothing gets done. They think that they can rule over us with their "Iron Fists"."

"Turns out that we're the iron, and they're just our fists!"

"Ugh! What I wouldn't give to have them kick him out of the-"

"What's happ...did the renegade do this?"

"What, renegade?"

"Well, that's what everyone calls the thief who stole from the-"

They heard a table clank.

"What was that?" Laura checked for any major disturbances.

"I dunno-Oh..." The waitress stopped her eyes on the same man who shouted for no reason at all, "Hang on a second, ok?"

"Um...sure..." Laura watched the scene unfold in front of her eyes. The waitress was about to give him the boot when someone else jumped in and heeled his behind. He yelped and snapped back at her, but she simply shooed him and his older acquaintance off the cafe grounds. Everyone shunned them both as the two walked off quietly. After that, the waitress returned.

"Whew, sorry about that. They dunno when to quit."

"Indeed. If only the renegade had just stay in his place..."

"Who?"

"Ah...that yellow-haired freak who broke a hole in a-"

"YES! That filthy slime, yes, that's him!"

"To think that a teenage delinquent would cause us this much trouble...this must not bode well for the rest of the world."

"You seem to know a lot about the IS world around us."

"I have to. I'm..." She almost blurted out her pursuit of the renegade. She took a quick breath to disguise her voice as that of a victim and said, "I'm a victim of this sort of thing myself."

"Really? What happened to you?"

"Well...how do I explain..." Yes. How do you explain your childhood isolation while enduring all kinds of tests WITHOUT ACTUALLY TELLING HER? See? "Don't ask, don't tell" sounds stupid when used in this context, doesn't it? "Since the introduction of the IS, everything has changed. My parents forced me to join the army so that I can defend Germany from any threats from the IS. For a while, we enjoyed peace and stability, but then came two problems."

"Two pro-Oh! Wait, Ichika could only operate one because he was Chifuyu's brother! That's not really a problem; everything he does depends on her!"

"He enrolled in the IS Academy, so there's no issue," Laura stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts, "But then comes...him."

"Oh, man. Don't even get me started on him! First thing he does is break into a high-security facility, then he just f***s off for a week. Next thing you know, the mall, the memorial grounds, the Academy itself...this guy's either got a screw of a nerve busted inside his head." Oh, you have no idea...

"A nerve gone would mean that he's trying to rise against the entire world?"

"The guy should just accept it! He's already done because of the IS! The males had it coming since the dawn of society! Why can't they just back off and give us the reins, huh?"

"I swear, it's all kinds of radical conservatism shoved down our throats. It never ceases to amaze me how they still allow them to ramble on like that."

"We showed them last week in front of the Tokyo tower. They all ran away like a bunch of flies!"

"Chiyo!" The manager called from the reception desk, "Break time's over! Let's get back in it!"

"Ah, yes! Coming!" She got up to leave, "So will I see you around here again?"

"Perhaps...But I have to go soon."

"Well, here's your bill. Have a wonderful day, ok?"

"I will. Ciao."

And with that, she went back to serve the other tables, leaving Laura alone. She picked up the bill and saw that woman's phone number. Was she really that much of a talker? Did she really just receive an invite into a circle of intimates? She couldn't help but stare at the bill, this time wondering if she really made the right choice to go undercover or not. But none of that mattered now, because there was something odd about that man's acquaintance. She couldn't figure out what it was though, and she was determined to find out. She paid her bill and followed them to an apartment complex.

Luckily, she rented a fully furnished apartment complex for a month, but that drained over two-thirds of the money allowed to her. Just one of the many things on her mind as she sat herself on a couch and tucked her legs in, allowing those thoughts to overflow her mind.

But that was just the start. During her trip over here, she witnessed firsthand what the waitress was talking about. As if the sensationalistic news articles weren't enough, now there are such things as human coat hangers, restroom attendants to say the nicest, among other demeaning occupations that very few would be willing to put up with to make a decent living...now in the hands of the male. It looked like the female has stepped up its humiliation tactics, treating the male anywhere from nonexistent, to human footstool.

"I wonder if Ichika would really be fine here..." She does recognize his need to protect his comrades, but in a world like this? Where people of his gender are at risk of public humiliation as if it was a way of life? What happened after they graduated the IS Academy? Were they told of any of this?

Now her mind is focused on the safety and sanity of everyone back on that island. How they must be faring with the public eye, civilian and powerful alike. The original ISRCs must be going crazy just trying to keep their own minds on track with the world's unravelling. The renegade's started an uproar all over the world, and Japan, the leading authority on IS technology, now has to answer to the disaster that overtook the storm already caused by the discovery of a second male pilot.

She was just about to go deeper into though when she heard a door slam from across the hall. That snapped her back into her mind.

"Ugh...never again..." she said as she rubbed her eyes and felt around her stomach, "Hmm?...How long have I..." Let's see, you arrived here at around 15:00, so...Ah...It's ni-

"FOUR HOURS?! I've been drowning in my own mind for four hours?!" Thinking that long makes one's head hurt and stomach growl. And considering her current situation, she needs to load up. NOW. She trudged out of her apartment to where the door was slammed and knocked on the door.

"Coming!" A childish male voice muffled past the door. When it swung open, "Oh, hello! What'cha doing?"

It's that same kid from the cafe. She inhaled and said, "Would you mind if I joined you for dinner?"

Really? Right outta the blue? You're just gonna-

"Yeah, come on in! You're just in time!" Ok! Let's spill some salt, people!

"Really? I...ok..." She saw herself in and sat at the table. Right between two tall women and in front of someone who could easily cosplay as a young maid.

"Uh, kid?" The black-haired woman said, "Why'd you let in another pipsqueak?"

"Come on, you bought too much food!" He snapped, "Even for me, I'm seeing about a week's worth for all of us."

"Really?" The blonde-haired woman inquired, "I've never heard of a family living on just this amount of food for a week."

"It's easy if you know how and when to actually eat," the male swanked, "The key is to eat strategically. Load up just before it's actually time for lunch, but take it easy on the breakfast and dinner."

"Take it easy?" The orange-haired woman joked, "Yeah, 'cuz spaghetti and meatballs is sooo light in calories."

"Hey, don't be snappy for wanting something I never once ate in my entire life!" The boy snapped.

"You've never had spaghetti?" Laura asked.

"Sad, isn't it?" The blondie jumped in, "He's never tasted the divine strand of Italy, even if his life depended on it!"

"Oh, yeah?!" He couldn't resist, "Well, taste this!" He twirled his fork endlessly until a huge chunk of noodles, tomato sauce, and meat accumulated within the pile. Once he lifted his fork, he began his work.

"Ooo! Getting ballsy, aren't ya?"

"Tch...I've seen better."

"Hey, get the camera! We must preserve this moment!"

"Wha-you too?!"

"Come on, wolf it all down!"

"I'm going outside..."

"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!~~~"

Not even five minutes before the first bite was taken, and already they thought of Laura as a part of their broken family. They never asked her name because they didn't need to, nor did they want to. She just stared at the miracle that has taken place atop the dinner table, all cause by a jokester of all people.

"Jawohl...never again," she whispered to herself before splashing some water on his shorts, inciting the stupidest thing you could possibly do when you're hungry.

Outside, the black-haired petite woman sat on a wooden chair, trying to enjoy her meal while drowning out the noise inside the apartment. But it was impossible for her to even blink without something agitating her every single moment she's awake. She slowly went on with her meal when she noticed a golden glimmer beside her feet. It came from a small locket, half opened and showing a picture of someone who looked a lot like her, but was older. She quickly stomped it into pieces and kicked it off the balcony. Then, she propped her feet on the rail.

"Never...EVER again..." she silently hissed as she sipped her soda and continued with the night's entertainment...

...a lone star shimmering alongside the full moon.