With Matoi & Samuel's absence, there was only Mia & Marisa & Makoto & Aimee left. They could not be around any electricity, and so had chosen to temporarily stay in an abandoned home for the night after cutting off its connections to the grid.
Mia held a single fire scarab glowing like a lantern in the living room, sitting on the couch and running her fingers through Aimee's hair in her lap.
"We've gotta kill the electrical host." said Aimee. "Can't get to her while she's guarded, so we need to figure out something to kill her without her knowing we're coming. Scorch marks she leaves behind point to her, at least."
"Yeah, I can't wait to get shocked a thousand times to track this fuck down." said Makoto. "I feel like I'm in the Milgram experiment."
Mia shot her an odd look, mostly for Makoto knowing anything about a subject that was not killing hosts.
"I mean, what did Samuel say about it? He has to know the ability, right, when he copied the shit?"
Aimee nodded. "I asked him once him and Matoi got back to Urasaria. He says the way it worked was that the tendrils sense the difference in conductivity between hosts and civilians. Sending out dogs to hunt rather than aiming the gun himself. From what we know, she can't direct them unless she's in visual range. But... tracking her's the hard part. Don't know how many scorches we'll need to track her."
Mia spoke up. "We only need three, if we triangulate her position."
"You're so goddamn smart." Aimee leaned up to kiss Mia's chin. "Hate to separate again, though. But I'm just so sick of dealing with these tendrils."
"Yeah, that's great, because I just realized something else." said Makoto. "If it scorches hosts, why don't we see a bunch of random rogue hosts getting attacked? I mean, we've been through three states and nobody on social media has posted shit about it."
"Is your assumption that rogue hosts post obvious signs of them being rogue hosts on their public social media profiles?" said Mia.
"Uh, given I've gotten like 30 kills from tracking down people who shit-talk Urasaria on Twitter, yeah, I do."
Aimee sighed. "She's got a point, unfortunately."
"Yeah, that's right. Now call me smart and give me a kiss on the jaw too."
"How about I call you a moron and punch you in the mouth?"
"They probably do it by body type." said Marisa. "Like, they know where to squeeze and hit. She knows what we look like at this point."
"I mean, if you guys are wanting to use your Revenants as bait, there's only two people here that can do that." said Makoto. "Me and Aimee can't."
Mia sighed. "Worldwide's scarabs will self-destruct if struck. Marisa, can you think of anything?"
Marisa paused and became steep in thought. "Umm... actually, I... It's through conductivity, right? Yeah. With Boudoir, I can modify the conductivity to like, match how a host would react. And shape it like humans so it thinks it's just hitting a random rogue host. That's probably good enough to work, right?"
Mia was flummoxed. "Boudoir can modify its conductivity?"
"Yeah? We tested it right after you got electricity, but then you got your own metal right after and didn't need me anymore." Marisa mock-pouted, though Mia could not recall this training session. "But I still need you to help me test."
Aimee nodded. "I'd make two of them. Detachable parts, too - once it's scorched, we need to be able to reel them back in and check it. I'll figure out where Mia and me can stay for tonight once we're done. You two get a scorch, we'll get a scorch, then... think it should be up to us to get the third one and the kill."
Maris set to work ripping out pieces of Boudoir's regenerating dress and creating several mannequins from them. She asked Mia to electrocute them to test their conductivity; few survived the initial jolt, fewer the sustained current. Mia could not tell whether the conductivity was close to the skin of a host or not, but she relayed what she felt to Marisa as she could.
Marisa set her hands to two Boudoirquins, closing her eyes as she infused them with further strands. "Just need to reinforce these and they'll work. I remembered what we used to use now for training." Before Mia could respond, she hurled them over Mia's head and they both hit the wall, shattering completely: "Fuck! Makoto, please, can you-"
"-got it." Makoto played Hymn to repair them and carried them over to her.
"Test, Mia?"
Mia tested again and the conductivity had changed completely; she made certain not to register any surprise. "These will work."