Metallic Rouge – 04 – Through the Fog

I really didn’t like where Naomi and Rouge left things, so even if Naomi doesn’t technically apologize for her harsh words, she does end up refuting them, telling Rouge that neither of them are tools of Alethia, and she’s helping her because she wants to. Good friends get into fights sometimes, and they often end as soon as they start.

Rouge is ostensibly the captive of the CFN under suspicion of killing Juval, but she knows she’s been framed. In any case, once the human cops storm the settlement and commence the wholesale hunting, beating, and killing of any and all Neans they find, Rouge ends up helping her accusers out with her superior strength and speed. Also the Joker Alter was disguised as Dumas, for reasons?

Naomi manages to get into the settlement thanks to Investigator Ash, who along with his Nean partner are from Ochrona, an earth organization searching for the red figure. That said, Naomi only uses Ash to lend her credibility while they convince the guards to let them in. The minute Ash realizes Naomi isn’t going to help him find his suspect, she’s already ditched him.

Rouge somewhat wearily allows Sion to lead her to “safety”, but her suspicions are proven right when Sion sticks her with a drug that gives her hallucinations of her past kills. At the same time, the Joker confronts Naomi, which is bad news since Naomi is just a weak human (though she’s got power in her kicks). Joker gets her name ends up letting her live, again, for reasons.

Rouge is able to snap out of the illusions, and is confronted by Dr. Afdal, who kills Sion as he transforms into Phantom Verde. Verde’s shtick seems to be that no one—not Neans, not Humans, not even Alters—is free, unless they are killed of course. So he tries to kill Rouge while emitting a cloud of fog that messes with her vision and balance.

In the end, Rouge refuses to give in to Verde’s nihilism, though by the time she’s defeated him and extracted his id, she’s completely out of gas herself. This, just as a representative of the flying circus that arrived at Wellstown at the end of the previous episode arrives at the Nean settlement gate. Here’s hoping they’re not foes, and Naomi can buy Rouge some apology chocolate at some point next week.