Getting back to her apartment one evening after a nice meal out, Rie flopped onto her couch and turned on the television. It was her day off, and it had been a day off well spent. She had given Chance a small tour of her new workplace, she checked out possible apartments she might be able to move into in a few months, and now here she was, exactly where she wanted to be. No homework, no bus delays, no nothing.
She flipped through the channels. Ever since becoming a nurse she found that the last thing she wanted to see were medical dramas, but other than those her tastes were pretty broad. Game shows, mysteries, an interesting little sport that involved pitting two remote control “battlebots” against each other – they were all up her alley, provided they were done well. Eventually she stumbled across a nature documentary that piqued her interests, so she put down the remote, and settled in.
Just as she was getting into the show, though, her phone rang.
It was the hospital, calling her in unexpectedly. There had been a mass-casualty incident involving a failed large-scale criminal operation of some sort. Virtually all of the casualties were the perpetrators themselves, and they would be taken into custody once sufficiently treated. Although there were thankfully no fatalities and hardly any life-threatening injuries, there was a large number of mild to moderate injuries, particularly concussions. The hospital needed more nurses than were currently on duty. “Candace and Jordan are both on vacation, so we’re turning to you next,” said the operator.
At first Rie felt annoyed, but then a sudden sense of unease descended on her. She… recognized that general profile of casualties, and she… recalled Bianca mentioned a “welcoming party” for Aika and her friends. Knowing that she had no choice anyway (certainly not when her performance review was right around the corner,) Rie hesitated a moment before responding that she would be over there right away. After she hung up the phone, Rie then tried several times to call Bianca, praying she would get a response.
No answer. The anxiety worsened.
Rie had no time to spare dwelling on this however. The hospital now expected her ASAP. Hurriedly changing into her nursing uniform, Rie left her apartment, got into her car, and started driving to work. As she pulled onto the road, she tried to think of alternate explanations. Maybe it was just some street gang. Maybe the Delmos were perfectly fine. Maybe she was just overreacting.
At least she tried telling herself this. Somehow it proved of little comfort. As Rie got closer to her destination, a vague sense of dread came upon her. She almost began to feel like she was a lamb walking in for the slaughter. Part of her wanted to pull over and claim her car broke down so she couldn’t make it to work, or perhaps even to deliberately rear-end another vehicle. It didn’t matter, it just had to be something – anything – that could get her out of needing to show up. Perhaps…
No. Rie realized this wasn’t an option as she waited for a light to turn green. Trying any of those tricks could land her in an even worse situation. And besides, her old friends needed her.
When she reached the hospital and pulled into the parking lot, Rie was greeted by the sight of flashing red and blue police lights. She turned off the engine and got out of the car. Her worst fears were confirmed. She saw dozens of defeated Delmos being carried, escorted, or in a few cases dragged around by police and paramedics. Some were laid out on stretchers being wheeled towards the hospital by its employees. They appeared to be either fully unconscious or just beginning to come to. Others were being led away in handcuffs by the police into squad cars and prison vans waiting to take them away to jail. The air of defeat was as bad if not worse than how it felt during the loss of the first base.
Rie closed her eyes for a moment. She felt sick to her stomach, partly out of her distress at seeing her friends defeated and detained, partly out of her own worries that this would somehow lead to her own arrest, but also partly out of a strange sense of shame, a sense that she, as a nurse, was now a collaborator with “the other side.”
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes again. She could do this, she told herself. She could make it through this one night without being exposed or ruined. All she needed to do was just be professional and keep her Delmo and non-Delmo halves from touching, even as their respective worlds collided.
Rie began making her way to the hospital’s entrance. As she did, she got a closer look at the Delmos. There were a few she could not remember at all, but most of the faces were at least vaguely familiar, which made the scene all the more unnerving. At one point she saw a semiconscious Black Delmo with shoulder-length blond hair and realized it was Sylvie, that new Delmo who insulted her at the ceremony for Tonia. Woozy and unsteady, she was being led by an officer into a police car, handcuffed. Rie saw a big bruise around her eye; it was clear she’d been knocked out and had only recently woken up. “No…” Sylvie kept repeating in a dazed manner, “You can’t do this… My daddy’s rich… You can’t do this.” It was a far cry from the Sylvie she met earlier.
Passing by a paramedic who didn’t seem to be too busy, Rie stopped and asked, “What happened?” She already knew the basic answer but felt the need to confirm it and get whatever details she could learn.
The paramedic didn’t look up. “Oh, a group called the Delmos tried going after a certain woman they really hate, but they weren't able to take her down because she had some sort of superpower type thing, and she and her friends beat the shit out of them.”
“Delmos? Who are those?” Rie asked, playing dumb. In reality there were so many other questions she wanted to ask. Was this and this Delmo okay? Were they in custody? What about Sania or Tonia, if those names mean anything to you? But she wasn’t so foolish as to ask anything like that. Even now, she absolutely needed to somehow keep her Delmo and non-Delmo worlds separate. Even asking this much was probably pushing her luck.
“You haven’t heard of them? Basically an all-female gang. A bunch of sluts with machine guns.”
Rie nodded and simply moved on. That remark stung.
Farther ahead, Rie saw none other than Aika Sumeragi, talking with the police. Her blood simultaneously ran cold and began to boil. Pushing these feelings aside, Rie knew she couldn’t let Aika see her, but she and the officer she was talking with were standing between Rie and the entrance to the building. She hesitated for a moment, waited until Aika wasn’t looking, and then speed-walked as fast as she could to the door, keeping her face out of sight from her old nemesis. Thankfully, Aika remained oblivious. She was too busy with her discussion.
With that, Rie entered the building and made her way to the waiting room. There were several unconscious Delmos on stretchers there. None of them seemed badly hurt from the outside, but Rie knew that there still may be less apparent injuries like dislocations or (in all likelihood) concussions. Among them was her friend Bianca, unconscious. Still clad in her uniform like all the others, she was tied down to the stretcher just as a precaution in case she woke up. Meanwhile there were two other people in the waiting room sitting down in the chairs, apparently just ordinary people. They did not seem to notice Rie as she entered the room, and she didn’t pay much attention to them either.
At that point Rie couldn’t stop herself. This was her friend. Ignoring completely the two individuals, she went over to her unconscious ex-comrade and shook her gently. “Bianca?” Rie worriedly asked in a low tone. “Bianca?!”
Bianca half opened her eyes and then asked dazedly “…Rie?”
Hearing her old name in public caused Rie to suddenly recoil back in alarm. Crap! Crap! She felt as if the mask she had been wearing for years had just been ripped off her face. She began frantically looking back and forth. Anyone heard that?! Was her cover just blown?!
After a moment, however, Rie realized she was probably overreacting. A simple slip like that probably wouldn’t endanger her. She just needed to calm down. Rie closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and began to take one last look around the room to make sure everything was fine.
It was at that point though when Rie’s eyes fell upon the two people who had been sitting in the waiting room when she entered. They were glaring right back at her now. Gulping, Rie realized that far from just being “ordinary people,” the pair was none other than Aika’s tag-alongs Rion and Gust. The two parties were simply too preoccupied previously to notice each other, but utterance of that one name changed all of that. A small smirk crept onto Rion’s face as if she had just been vindicated following the embarrassment at the gym.
Right at that moment, Rie simply wanted to die.
To Rie’s horror, Gust got up and started advancing towards her. “No… No!” she frantically pleaded. “I’ve turned my life around! I’ve changed! Please! I’m–”
No use. Rie panicked and tried to run away, but it was too late. Gust was already in striking range and delivered a powerful blow to the back of Rie’s head, sending her world spinning. Her legs gave out from under her and she tumbled to the ground with a thud. Everything was rapidly growing blurry and dark. As she lay sprawled out on the ground, consciousness fading away, Rie vaguely realized that her skirt had hiked up entirely, completely revealing her butt and her cotton white panties.
Her final thoughts before passing out completely was a despairing sense of déjà vu. And then everything went dark.And that was how Rie came to be arrested.
