"Wait! You gave me information about the thief, and I healed Subaru. We're even now, so there is no need to help me anymore!" Emilia stepped out in front of them, her expression firm.
Sol stopped, his hands sliding into his jacket pockets. He looked at the silver-haired girl with a clinical eye. "In the place I just came from, saving someone's life usually puts you on the hook for a lot more than a 'thank you.' Call it a lingering habit, but I don't like being in debt."
"No, that's not true," Subaru added, taking the lead as they left the alleyway. "You helped us with the thugs and then you healed me, so we still owe you one. Now let's go."
He turned around, grinning. "What are you waiting for, we need to go as soon as possible!"
Sol looked at Emilia, shrugged his shoulders with a lazy smirk, and joined Subaru. Emilia sighed, her shoulders dropping in defeat, and followed along. The three of them, with Puck floating overhead, walked towards the direction Felt had headed.
There was an awkward silence, broken by Subaru's characteristic energy. "By the way, what is an insignia? Is it one of those badge things that shows your social status?"
Emilia bobbed her head. "That's a pretty crude description, but yeah, that's pretty much it. It is about this big, and it has a jewel in the center." She made a circle shape with her hand to show the size.
Given this information, Subaru looked at Sol. "Hey, Sol... how did you know that the girl took Emilia's insignia? You seemed pretty sure back there. How did you even know what an insignia was?" He narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion.
Sol didn't miss a beat. His mind, sharpened by the fast-paced life of a merc, already had the 'official' version ready. "Unlike you, Subaru, I wasn't busy staring at her hair while we were getting mugged. I have a habit of scanning for high-value targets. When that blonde girl sprinted past, she was clutching something that didn't look like a commoner's coin purse. Once Emilia mentioned something was stolen, I just connected the dots. It's basic observation."
"Hey! I wasn't staring... that much!" Subaru shouted in protest.
"You know it's true," Sol said, his voice flat but carrying a hint of amusement. This shut Subaru up, especially as Emilia and Puck gave him a judging look.
"How observant of you, Sol!" Puck praised, floating closer to him. He then looked at Subaru. "Learn to be more like him."
"Hey! Can't someone praise me for something? I just wish somebody would treat me nicely today!" Subaru whined, hanging his head.
Sol reached out and gave Subaru a brief, grounding pat on the back. "You say that, but Emilia here would have left us without you. Give yourself some credit for the good things you've done. Don't just linger on the negative ones."
Subaru smiled, looking a bit more energized. "Thanks, Sol. I don't know if getting beat up and passing out is worthy of praise, but thanks."
Sol looked ahead, his expression neutral. Sorry about that, Subaru. I knew you were in a lot of pain, but I wasn't ready to burn out my nervous system on three thugs just to save your pride. I'll make sure I'm faster next time.
During this exchange, Puck stared at Sol. "He's hiding something," he whispered to Emilia, his voice too low for Subaru to hear. "I said that I didn't sense any malice, but I do sense that he is concealing something... something heavy."
"It's fine, Puck," Emilia whispered back. "He seems like a good person. Besides, with you by my side, there is nothing to worry about."
"Nonsense," exclaimed Subaru as they continued their walk. "Even if you only think of your aid as one deed, we will continue helping you for our own satisfaction. Right, Sol?"
"Yep," Sol agreed. He was doing a mental count of the streets they had passed. He didn't know the layout, but his internal sense of direction was still functioning. Stick to the script for now, he thought. Subaru hasn't died yet, and keeping things predictable is the most rational path.
"No, I've already told you that I've received enough compensation for my services..." Emilia was stubborn, but Sol could tell she was softening.
"Okay then, if that is the case, we uh... we want to do one good deed a day, so we need to help you!" Subaru was definitely getting better at coming up with excuses on the fly.
"Yeah, so please let us help!" Sol added, giving Emilia a calm, reassuring look.
"You should accept their offer, Lia. I see nothing bad that could come from it," said Puck. "Besides," he added with a mischievous glint, "they could serve as pretty good meat shields."
Sol let out a dry snort. "Spoken like a true combat vet, cat."
Subaru seemed to have called Sol a few times. Shaking his head to clear the tactical data scrolling through his mind, Sol looked over. "Oh, sorry about that... what were you saying?"
"Are you coming or not? You keep on saying that you want to help out, but once we started walking, you just stood there. Make up your mind, man!"
"Sorry man, I just got lost in my thoughts for a second there."
Subaru seemed to understand. "Oh, that's fine. Just don't hold us up, okay?"
"We could say the same to you," joked Puck.
Subaru gently punched Puck—a move that surprised the spirit. "It's unusual to see someone that can casually touch a spirit like that," Puck noted. "Where exactly are you from?"
Sol raised a hand, signaling Subaru to let him handle the backstory. "We lived in a small village that sits just outside of this country's borders. We speak the same language there, but we have a different writing system and different currency. That's why we can't read any signs or buy anything."
"Oh, that explains a lot," Puck claimed. "No wonder you're so helpless. You're broke, and you probably don't have any people here that can help you."
"They may be in an even worse situation than we are," stated Emilia.
"Well, I doubt that. Aren't you rich or something, since you seem to have such a valuable possession?" asked Subaru.
"No. I'm also broke."
Both Sol and Subaru stared at her. Well, she isn't lying, Sol thought. In high-stakes politics, the candidate usually doesn't carry the wallet.
"Well... we can always do some manual labor, right Sol?" Subaru flexed a bit. "I try to work out and stay in good shape since I'm the shut-in protector of my house."
"Yeah, I guess," Sol said, glancing at his own hands. "I'm in decent enough shape to handle some lifting."
Out of the blue, Emilia grabbed Subaru's hands, then Sol's. She examined them both carefully. "Your fingers don't look like the working type at all, and the muscles don't look like the kind you get from field work."
Sol pulled his hand back gently, his mind racing. Darn. In Night City, you don't do field work, you do wetwork.
"Like I said before," Sol began, his voice taking on that calm, overcompensating tone, "we come from a village in a forest, but we didn't exactly do much physical work. Most of our population was composed of men, so there were very few women to do chores. Because of this, all children help the women inside until they are 18. That is what Subaru meant when he said 'shut-in'. We are shut inside doing chores instead of doing real work."
It was a total fabrication, but Sol delivered it with such grounded confidence that Emilia seemed to buy it. Subaru gave Sol a subtle look of gratitude for the save.
Time skip
"Dang. Not even a single lead..." Subaru sighed.
They had been asking around for hours, but no one seemed to recognize the description of the thief. Sol knew it was Felt, and he knew where she lived, but bringing that up out of nowhere would trigger every red flag Puck had.
While everyone was sulking, Emilia noticed something. "That child over there, don't you think that she looks lost?"
"We can't lose focus. Don't forget about finding the thief," Sol said, testing the waters. He knew they'd help the kid anyway, but he wanted to see how Emilia prioritized.
"Well, I know that it's important, but if she's lost, we have to do something." Emilia took a firm stance.
"Y-Yeah, Sol, we should go and help. Emilia helped us even though she didn't need to, so we should do the same for the kid, right?"
Sol watched as Subaru did a coin trick to stop the child from crying. It was a simple, human moment—the kind of thing that didn't exist in the gutters of Night City. He stayed back, leaning against a post, his eyes scanning the perimeter for any of those thugs returning.
After they guided the girl back to her mother, Subaru asked, "Hey Emilia, what benefit do you insist that you got out of that? I know that you like helping people, but how did that help you?"
Emilia smiled warmly. "That's easy! Now we can continue our search with our minds at ease because we did the right thing."
Sol let out a soft huff, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Rationalizing altruism. I like it."
They eventually ended up back at the Appa stand. Subaru walked up to the vendor, putting on his best fake smile. "I have valiantly come back to this fruit stand looking for clues!"
"It's you again!" The Appa guy seemed pretty irritated. "If you're not gonna buy my Appas, scram! I don't want you tak—"
"Hey mister, thank you for your help earlier!" The little girl from earlier ran up and hugged Subaru.
The situation flipped instantly. Once the Appa guy realized they had saved his daughter, his attitude shifted from hostile to apologetic. He cleared his throat. "Well, sorry about my attitude earlier. You said you came looking for clues?"
Emilia lightly hit Sol in the shoulder, a triumphant look in her eye. "See, Sol? A little extra bit of effort on our part came back around in our favor!"
Sol just gave her a sarcastic mock-bow. "I stand corrected. Karma is a much faster system here than I'm used to."
The vendor leaned in. "You sayin' that she's a nimble blonde, right? Because that sounds like Felt. She lives somewhere in the slums, but I don't know exactly where."
Subaru's face lit up. "Thank you so much! You just helped us so much! I'll make sure to come back and buy some Appas from you!"
He took off running. Sol pushed off the wall, his eyes sharpening as he looked toward the more dilapidated part of the city.
"Off to the slums," Sol muttered, his hand brushing against the small of his back where the Sandevistan sat waiting. "That's where things always get complicated."