Zhu Yuan and Nicole Demara (Zenless Zone Zero)

Zhu Yuan wasn't the type of officer who "loved her job"-- saying something like that would be a denial of the amount of corruption she'd seen firsthand and helped to stamp out within the New Eridu Public Security faction, NEPS. That said, she was quite good at it, in terms of her physical capabilities, her quick thinking, and her unique quality of being one of the few NEPS officers more concerned about actual public service than advancing her ranks and getting in good with TOPS, the elite of the city.

So even if Zhu Yuan didn't love her job, no one was more qualified to lead NEPS' Criminal Investigation special Response Team. That gave her an amount of pride that her modest nature would never allow to slip out.

The rest of New Eridu enjoyed watching her do her job as well. Not a lot of police officers inspired the sort of fan-base that she managed to organically cultivate. Saying she stayed in working shape or wore her uniform well would be the polite ways to put it, but outside of ear shot, her long legs in tight, black leather slacks were the talk of Sixth Street and getting a good look at the curves beneath her blue PUBSEC zipper jacket made crime worthwhile for criminals everywhere. For that reason, a large crowd had assembled, composed of fans, paparazzi, and a few of her fellow officers keeping everyone back from the scene of her arrests.

The officer tousled her black hair, running her gloved fingers through the unusual red streaks that slashed through it. The fingers came to rest at the grooved, iron ridges of a thematically cuff-shaped hairband securing her ponytail. Today had been a great day in terms of succeeding at her job and serving the city, but the wrap-up was leaving her shaking her head.

Two out of four of the criminals she'd apprehended were the usual suspects: hollow raiders, easily identifiable by their tough guy muscle shirts and their rounded helmets, possibly designed to protect them against ether corruption inside the hollows... no one really knew. The big shots got horns on their black helmets and the lesser ones wore cherry red ones with faces spray painted on. She didn't pretend to understand all their culture, such as it was, but whether small fries or big shots, none of them were really a problem for her in a fight.

The bigger concern was the third. Annoyingly, this was someone that Zhu Yuan was more used to working alongside than putting in handcuffs. Nicole Demara was the leader of the Cunning Hares, a sort of odd job association who tended to be both law-abiding and somehow tied up with criminals at all times. When Zhu Yuan had first met Nicole, she'd been eager to slap cuffs on the cheeky, pink-haired swindler, but it had turned out that Nicole was more or less a **** for public good.

Until today, anyway. For some unknowable reason, Nicole had been found trading supplies with Hollow Raiders. The snarling, helmeted men weren't very forthcoming with the reason why, but it seemed like they were eager to get their hands on Nicole and enact vengeance. Actually, they probably wouldn't mind doing that for other reasons too... the catty girl was always turning heads, with her tight black shorts and white tube-top t-shirt.

"Alright, Nicole... Paint a picture for me," Zhu Yuan requested, pulling out a little notebook that was somehow charming and quaint to see in the hands of one of NEPS top officers, pulling her back to her beat cop days. She produced a ballpoint pen and clicked it with one thumb. "How long have you been supplying hollow raiders?"

Nicole rolled her pretty green eyes, then smirked, leaning her check down into her bare shoulder as she tilted her head. "Should I start doing that? Is there a lot of money in it?" she questioned in a teasing tone.

Zhu Yuan was the last officer that was going to respond correctly to that type of joke. Her pen hadn't started moving yet; the Cunning Hares boss wasn't telling her anything worth recording. "You tell me, Nicole."

"Alright, alright. I wasn't... supplying them," Nicole sighed, rolling her eyes once again. "I'm a savvy entrepreneur, yes, but I've also got a heart of gold, just like you! I'm not a crook, I'm an angel. I just so happened to have gotten into the W-Engine reselling business recently and of course, like with any business, we had a modest ten percent of our stock that was defective. Those duds all would have represented lost margin for me if I just threw them out! So what did I do? I set up a meeting and sold them off to these bozos here! A real win-win: I get paid and the criminals get sold non-working W-Engines that fizzle out when they fight. Makes all of our lives a little easier, right?"

"Wrong. As evidenced by the headache I'm dealing with here," Zhu Yuan retorted, now writing busily in her notepad while keeping her eyes on Nicole.

"If it's a win-win, then I ought to be winning something too, right?!" the leader of the hollow raiders growled, struggling against his handcuffs.

"Um, duh! You got a discount," Nicole scoffed. "I barely charged you guys a Denny for those W-Engines; all you guys had to do was tell me about that Reality Crystal rumor! If you hadn't stayed to haggle after that, I wouldn't have been caught! I mean, you still would have, because you didn't have a good route out of the hollow like I did, but-"

"Enough! There'll be plenty of time to argue about it in lock-up," Zhu Yuan scolded her.

"Lock-up?! Listen, can't you vouch for my good character or something? You're not really taking me to the slammer, right?" Nicole thrashed around a bit, then went docile, putting on big puppy-dog eyes. "Come on, I'm a gentle lady! I'm not built for prison!"

Zhu Yuan narrowed her eyes and frowned, gulping in a way that was only slightly audible. She wasn't any good at bluffing, despite her earnest attempts to learn the skill from her shifty colleague, Jane Doe. She'd made Jane hold an official seminar for her and everything. Still, she pressed on, trying not to make it too obvious she was planning on letting Nicole off the hook without punishment. "I'll keep that in mind as long as you cooperate and keep answering my questions. Now, I get how the three of you figure into all of this... what about that one?" She pointed the button tip of her ballpoint pen at the fourth and final captive that she'd pulled out from the stronghold of the hollow raiders.