Ishimura Heights Hotel, Penthouse
Echelon had emerged from her room, dressed in the Bubblestar Galaxite costume, and indeed as she'd boasted, she looked like the cutest Galaxite, clad in the uniform. "I'm still a Govon fan though," she sighed as she looked at Luca, who just had the stupidest smile on his face.
Luca, meanwhile continued watching television when there was a knock on the door.
The knock sounded more than once, a huffed grumble behind the wooden slab.
Luca blinked and thought that it was Room Service. "Just a moment, I'll get it," he said to Zeta as he got up out of her embrace and walked towards the door. He opened the door and saw nothing initially, looking left and right, then down.
Below stood a familiar figure: his employer, dressed in a rather peculiar way. Gone were the shirt and spats in favor of what appeared to be a winter school uniform: dark dark navy blue accented in sailor white with cut to match. She shuffled in the door-way, waiting for his brain to finally tick and acknowledge her presence as her thighs rubbed together: thin bands of stark white peaking out above long dark stockings.
"Huh..." she began, rolling her shoulders. "May I come in?"
"Aiesu?" Luca asked himself and his new guest. He looked back up and leaned forward, past her to look either side of the hall carefully. Acknowledging that things were safe and this was not a joke nor a hologram projected to get his attention. "Sure, come in. What's with the getup?"
In her pale hands swung a black leather bag, resembling a brief-case as she pitter-pat into the room, slumping rather conspicuously on the couch -- seemingly engulfed by its massive form. With no regard for Yamataian or Nepleslian etiquette, her knees hung apart as she stared at the ceiling, making note of the room with a quiet whistle.
"I'd always been told Yamataian rooms were so small..." she uttered thoughtlessly.
"This is the Penthouse, and hello to you too." Luca said, turning around and closing the door behind him. Zeta looked over to Aiesu and blinked with a frown, but turned her attention back to the television.
"Gettappu?" she aped the sound back, unfamiliar with its meaning. She seemed to chew on the words like a dog struggling with thick toffee through her accent.
"The... schoolgirl costume," Luca asked as he swivelled past the bar and saw that most of it had already been ravaged by Shayla. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Its not a costume, its a uniform: A student bunking off class is a lot less conspicuous than a foreigner's child walking the streets. And please. Something sharp."
Luca examined the bottles on the shelves and found something good. "So... Camouflage then." He poured the drink into a tumbler glass and carried it over with a cooled stone in it, while in his other hand he had a Yamataian craft-beer. "What're you doing down here anyway?"
"Well, I've only been here once before. I like to think of it as being like a holiday. That and Allison wanted to take me apart."
"She isn't here." Luca said as he put his legs over the couch and sat down between Zeta and Aiesu, passing the drink to Aiesu, and the beer to Zeta, leaving him empty handed.
"I know" she sighed in relief. She stared at the contents before tipping it back, taking a long careful drink. The face she made was priceless: not quite dog-toffee territory but not far out either. Some coughing aside, she went back for another taste. Her Yamataian had an unexpectedly nasal quality.
The captain's smirk was difficult to hide. The drink was a vodka of some description, good stuff that you'd have to get imported from Nepleslia - just the thing for delegates, consuls, rock stars or the sorts who'd rent out a penthouse to begin with. "Why're you speaking Yamatai-Go?" Luca asked his accent was quite countryside and bumpkin compared to Aiesu's.
"When north, go north and ignore obvious exits." she grumbled, taking another drink. She had no understanding of pacing.
"Oi oi, easy there," Luca cautioned on the drink. A suspicion begun to rise as to her carousing skills.
"Uh?" she paused, eyeing the contents. "I'm synthetic." she tried not to laugh, feeling particularly smug: "I don't get drunk."
That suspicion was quashed. Meanwhile, Echelon noticed the new face and walked over to the couch. Her Mimicom body's eyes looked down into Aiesu's. "You and me both, 413SU," she observed as she slipped back into her native accent, grinning. "What brings you to this neck of the woods, bunny?"
"Mostly to amuse myself but really, this strange behavior, between Seiren and Rebeka?" she hummed. "I wanted to see it for myself."
"What's strange about it?" Luca asked as he leaned up and sniffed the air wafting in from the kitchen. "Huh... that smells very nice."
"What is it?"
"Hey Seiren, Rebeka, whatcha cooking?" Luca asked across the room, trying to get the duo's attention. "It smells great."
A pair of still eyes peeked over the rim of the other room -- staring for a moment before disappearing like a jellyfish of hair back behind the door-frame. Whispering could be heard before a pan struck the floor. Rebeka could be heard apologising profusely.
Luca looked back towards Aiesu, then back towards the kitchen, bottom lip drooping as he heard the apologies. "Guys?" he asked.
Echelon turned around to look at the kitchen too, with a different angle to view it from compared to Luca's.
The large woman in back had what appeared to be an apron over her bodysuit: On her knees, picking at chopped pieces of something, putting them into a cup. Even like this, she was still taller than her companion. Offering the cup, he could be seen trying to explain something to her, arms out in sing-song. Presumably he was explaining why food that had been on the floor wasn't fit for eating -- pulling her hand away from her mouth by the wrist as she tried to eat the small jibblets of floor-fruit and then her resulting disappointment.
"But it'll go to waste. Waste is bad, isn't it?"
Luca looked over to Aiesu and stated plainly, "He's a good influence on her. I didn't figure out the five second rule until I was in college."
"Euueeeh...?" she drawled, not in the high-pitched styles of those who usually wore the uniform but something closer to a jaded office-worker.
"I'm guessing you've only been house-trained recently?"
Echelon snorted abruptly. Luca rolled his eyes and shrugged. He looked at Aiesu's drink.
"That's a yes then?" she eyed Echelon's reaction: Pale lips stretched into a thin smirk.
Echelon looked back down at Aiesu, "Yep. Oh, what's with the lipgloss?" she asked. "Last time I saw you you were barefaced."
"Uh?" Aiesu's wide lipped mood became cold now, airbreaks applied. "What?"
"It looks pretty good on you, who applied it," Echelon asked, tugging a string she could see. Last time she saw Aiesu, she didn't have anything at all, but she noticed that the bags under her eyes were smoothed out and evened out, and that she had foundation on.
Aiesu was visibly taken aback -- going as far as to lean away from Echelon's scrutiny. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Luca's attention was still resting on Rebeka and Seiren but, the conversation between Echelon and Aiesu made his head swivel back around. "Huh?" he looked at Aiesu and was relieved to see that she'd crossed her legs. "What's going on?"
"Aiesu's got makeup on."
"Hmph. Its... camouflage!"
A silence hung between the two.
"Makeup's for males and insecure foreigners anyway."
Luca blinked. It sounded like girl talk or gossip to him. "What of it?" he shrugged, disinterested as he looked back at the television. There was an advertisement on for an upcoming episode of the Captain Phoenix! cartoon.
Seeing the connection between Luca's attention and the television, Aiesu cleared her throat.
"That's yours, isn't it?"
A cariacature of Luca appeared on the screen, cleaner faced and smiling more than the Luca sitting across from Aiesu.
The preview seemed to be showing that there were twenty Seirens, Luca and what appeared to be a cariacature of Aiesu attempting to figure out why there were twenty of them. "Which is the Real Seiren and will the team find him? Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode of Captain Phoenix!"
"W...Wait..." she began, staring now. "is that meant to be..?"
Luca tilted his head. "I never said a thing."
Echelon whistled innocently behind them.
"Is that me?"
"She's taller."
"She's stacked.." the Lorath stared flatly. The episode's description stung particularly hard.
"She's pretty, too."
"Who writes this?"
"Not me," Luca said. "Writing team comes up with their own stuff."
"That's ... There are constructs of Seiren. He gave permission like a year ago. This is really spooky."
"Its just a cartoon," Luca said. "I mean, from your reaction this is already pretty far from the truth."
"Oouh? You're calling me ugly?" she smirked, almost smug.
"No...!" Luca raised his eyebrows. "Hey-!"
"Its fine, its fine - like I'd even care" she tittered to herself. "It is creepy though."
"You should see the episode where I get eaten by a huge dragon. I get so much creepy fan mail about that."
"Oh?"
"Or the Episode Hanako appeared. I got so many phone calls from the Yamataian Government about it but the PR team smoothed it over."
"Huh. I've seen that one. I liked the part where you compared her
to the dragon."
The show itself had a fairly loose continuity, but fan theories had pieced together the rough ordering of episodes, and from what Luca understood according to fan feedback, that was right. He grimmaced at Aiesu. "Egh... you don't get fan mail, Aiesu."
"That can be arranged," Echelon giggled as she looked down to Aiesu with dancing eyebrows.
Once more the L'manel inched away from the Freespacer, a pink heat in otherwise pale features. "I'm flattered." Whether this was cynicism or not was a mystery.
Luca sighed and slumped in his chair as the news came on. It was noted that there was a small disturbance in the Central Business District today that upset lunch, but otherwise it was a fine and sunny day on Yamatai.
"I'd love to see what constitutes a big disturbance in Yamatai," Luca smirked as more feel-good, wishy-washy journalism came on.
"Disturbance? What are the specifics?"
"Well," Luca looked over to Argyle, who had now integrated himself with a massage chair and had hacked it into awesomeness beneath everyone's notice. "We saved him from being bumped off by someone who was using Lagrange assets, but we don't know who hired them."
"So no new information, then?"
"He has the paper trail," Luca nodded, "But he'll be willing to tell us when he feels like it and I'd rather not rush him. Its been a stressful day for him," he nodded. "I think all of us could use a break."
An image appeared on the TV Screen. "...in other news, two unidentified Nekovalkyrja were found splattered against the side of this building north of the CBD..." Luca could be heard chuckling a little, as though to a private joke. "...their consistency was similar to that of jam, and were pronounced dead at the scene." Luca snorted. They really used that wording.
Aiesu could be heard tittering. "I've never understood Yamatai's trust in those things. I have tumors with more world-experience. I know this'll get be lynched here but... Just between you and me? I hate Nekovalkyjra."
Luca leaned in to hear Aiesu's opinion and shrugged, "Can't argue with that. Lots of people think so. I keep one and a half of them employed though."
"Yeah one of them's half ID-SOL, big accident or something," Echelon nodded. She'd spent the most time around Shayla anyway.
"Half ID-SOL, half... How does that even...?"
Echelon shrugged at Shayla.
"...What a terrifying prospect" Aiesu cringed.
"Ask her if you want but I got nothin'." Echelon then turned around and looked for Tani, adjusting her Galaxite uniform, "Tani! I declare that I am the Greatest Galaxite of the Biggest Bubble!" she proclaimed.
"I was more of a Star Constable Govon fan," Luca said to Echelon before turning back around.
"...You sound like Seiren."
"He asked me if he could voice act on Yami NekoNeko," he nodded, "I said hell yeah you can voice act on Yami NekoNeko. Easiest money you'll make and a sixth of the effort too."
"Seriously? He's... How old now?" Aiesu leaned, getting a look into the kitchen. She watched Seiren sat on the countertop, Rebeka stirring some big pan of something hot and bubbling.
"Twenty five. He's two years younger than me. Why?" Luca said as an advertisement for the show came on TV, and Luca could be seen smiling at
Ryuji, the
coolest of cats.
"...Why is he still acting like such a child?"
"Says you in a school uniform, older than me by about --" Luca shot back, but was cut short.
"Let's not go there" she said with a particularly democratic smile.
There was another knock on the door. This time it announced itself as "Room Service." Luca wasn't going to get up for it. Perhaps it was more food for Makari, or something someone had ordered.