Cop Craft – 06 – Jump Out If You Want To!

While they’re a formidable duo when they’re on duty, I might just like Tilarna and Kei better when they’re off duty, as it presents so much more opportunity for the two to talk and interact off-the-cuff. And both professionally and personally, they’ve built up a nice rapport. Just take Tilarna using an elixer to eliminate Kei’s cat allergy, but not to tell him about it until he wakes up with Kuroi in his room and is breathing fine.

Even so, things only go so far, and Kei would rather continue to live alone, so he’s trying to find a place for Tilarna, with little success (realtors in San Teresa are apparently racist). And when their leisurely crepe lunch is interrupted by a stolen truck shearing off the side mirror of Kei’s car and he gives spirited chase, Tilarna would kinda rather be anywhere but in the passenger seat, losing years off her presumably otherwise extremely long life.

With a bit of reckless driving, Kei manages to wreck the rig, which is full of…legal porno mags. Tilarna decides to be useful and move Kei’s car out of the flow of traffic, but neglects to set the parking brake, so it rolls right back into traffic, into the grill of another passing truck, and into utter ruin.

Tilarna gets to see a whole new side of Kei at the station; that both of someone who just lost some(thing) precious too them, as well as someone who acts like a little kid who wants their toy when they meet with Chief Zimmer for a new ride. Tilarna also gets her first look at human porn, which is doubly shocking to her considering how little photography exists where she’s from.

Kei gets his colleague Tony to pose as a fence and arrange a deal with the Semanian truck thief, who is indeed trying to make a killing selling the stuff across the gate. One wonders why he didn’t simply buy up a lot of porn legitimately, as there’s no doubt he’d still make a profit re-selling it in Reto Semani. Kei also gets his new car—a repo’d Ferrari 812 Superfast (which costs over $360,000 US) and takes it for a spin while Tilarna meets with Cecil.

Tilarna came to Cecil for driving lessons unaware that “ex” meant “ex-lovers,” something that embarrasses her. When asked, Cecil isn’t sure whether she likes Kei, but she doesn’t hate him, and simply wishes he’d treat her as an equal rather than a kid, hence her desire to learn to drive. Cecil warns her that might be tricky, as there’s a good chance Kei sees a lot of his lively younger sister, whom he lost ten years ago, in Tilarna. They have tended to act like siblings, haven’t they?

The next day, the porn deal goes south when the Semanian kid is double-crossed and Tony is captured at gunpoint. Kei is temporarily blinded by being too close to a gun blast. so Tilarna grabs his hand, tosses him into the passenger seat of the Ferrari, and shows her what she’s learned. (The automotive pedant in me would question whether she’d know how to work the controls of a car so different from the Jeep Cherokee she trained in, but never mind.)

What matters is, Tilarna doesn’t quite drive like anyone else Kei has ever driven with—which is to be expected—and she gets an absolute goddamn kick out of it; a true need for speed! It’s immensely fun to see the tables turned for once, and Kei begging for death and being given the option to jump out the car window. Tilarna launches the F12 like a projectile into the fleeing baddie, wrecking them both.

Thanks to modern automotive safety, nobody is seriously hurt and the perp is arrested. When Kei starts to scold her again, Tilarna speaks up for herself and gains a deserved apology from Kei for going too far about the Mini before. At this point he believes the Ferrari is still reparable, and agrees to go with her on more driving lessons, but it soon bursts into flames, GTA-style, and he’s back to the same blind rage and despair when his Mini was busted.

He eventually cools down, and when he arrives home (by bus) from a meeting with the real estate agent, he finds Tilarna has already made a cozy home for herself on the lower level of his house, and invites him in. Looks like he’s not going to get rid of her so easily…if that’s even what he wants at this point. After all, it’s not every day you get to have your beloved little sis back in the form of a knight from another world!