Poli/Story

Spoilers!*"Your greatest villain Drake shall warn you, SPOILERS AHEAD!"*The following article or section contain **spoilers!** Viewer discretion is advised.

Overview**Story**VoicelinesGallery

## Behind the Scenes

###

Park Ri-na

###

Madeline Dorroh

###

Kaori Maeda

## Profile

A member of the Ark Central Police Unit (A.C.P.U.), the primary law enforcement of the Ark. Poli takes her job as seriously as her colleague Miranda, though it becomes clear that Poli is significantly less prone to blunders. Due to regulations prohibiting Nikkes from working in law enforcement, Poli is required to keep her status secret except from relevant parties.

Poli is largely instinct-driven when it comes to investigating crime scenes. Between this, her penchant for literally sniffing for clues, and how she practically melts when she's petted, Poli gives the impression of a particularly large dog, though she does not appreciate this comparison.

### Nikke Backstory

A member of the Ark police force and captain of the A.C.P.U. Squad. Her appearance and her temperament are like that of a little puppy. Though she can be rather careless sometimes, she's a real professional at work and always does a perfect job.

## Story

### Background

In her past life as a human, Poli was a police officer assigned to find Ingrid's pet dog, who also was named Poli. The dog in question was kidnapped and used in gene-splicing experiments and was eventually strapped with a bomb. She was let let loose to have the bomb kill Ingrid, but Poli, the human, was dealt the brunt of the explosion when she protected Ingrid. Even in her last moments, the officer wanted to capture the one responsible for kidnapping Poli, the dog, so Ingrid granted her wish by turning her into a Nikke.

### Character Story

#### Episode 1 - Poli, the Chimera...?

Poli and Miranda are on patrol, following reports of barking and meowing noises and a tipoff about illegal animal trafficking. Poli's nose somehow leads them to a cosplay cafe, which they break into only to find nothing there. Upon further investigation, they find a paper listing gene splicing experiments, which confuses Miranda as the list is coded, yet Poli could read it without having a cipher on hand.

Back at the Outpost, Poli and Miranda consult the protagonist about this case, wondering if he has any experience with human-animal hybridization, to which he answers no. Poli believes him, somehow detecting his honesty with her nose, which combined with how she enjoys his petting, giving off the impression of a dog, which Miranda points out to Poli's chagrin. Almost immediately after, A.C.P.U. HQ sends an update on the splicing list. For some reason, Poli's name is on the document as a canine chimera experiment, much to her shock.

#### Episode 2 - Poli, the Puppy

Shortly after the shocking revelation, Poli is getting increasingly worked up, not wanting to believe she's some kind of dog-Nikke hybrid. She briefly calms down when the protagonist pets her, but then jerks away, declaring a ban on petting until this case is solved. She doesn't really want to go through with it, but if the canine-like behaviors continue, she might be ordered to undergo a physical exam, which would out her as a Nikke and see her removed from the force by law. When Poli states her intent to solve the case and clear her name, the protagonist insists on helping her, to which she accepts. They decide to return to the cafe where they found the splicing list in search of clues.

At the cafe, Poli sniffs around for more clues, finding a switch that reveals a hidden passage leading to a laboratory. In the lab, Poli can't shake the feeling of deja vu, leading the protagonist to ask if Poli still has her human memories. Poli goes on an exposition about how sometimes, civil servants such as police officers fall in the line of duty, are revived as Nikkes. Their new status as Nikkes is concealed, and their disappearance explained as an extended vacation. Poli has most of her memory as a human, save for the exact moment of her death, and that the time between her death and her revival as a Nikke was very short. The protagonist suggests Ingrid may know something, but Poli doesn't believe the no-nonsense CEO of Elysion would be involved in something like gene splicing, even if she does feel an inexplicable pull to her. With no further clues to be found, the two depart from the lab, only for the protagonist to stumble over a collar bearing Poli's name and the insignia of Elysion, much to the two's disbelief.

#### Episode 3 - Poli, the Pet of Ingrid

Back at the Outpost, Poli asks the protagonist a favor. It turns out the collar they found belonged to Ingrid's old dog, also named "Poli". Between this and the relatively short time between her death and rebirth, almost as if it was prepared for, lend further credence to Poli being a chimera Nikke. But Poli isn't ready to try and poke Ingrid for answers yet, instead wishing to tap the protagonist's connections for leads. More specifically, she wants to talk to Maxwell, a Missilis Nikke unaligned with M.M.R.

A short time later, Maxwell is meeting with Poli and the protagonist. When asked, she admits to hearing rumors about attempts to create Nikkes using animal brains instead of humans, though after the scientist working on it was fired from Elysion, no further developments have been heard. Following Maxwell's departure, Poli is shaken. She can't believe that Ingrid would be knowingly party to gene splicing experiments, wondering if perhaps she *is* a chimera, and her loyalty to Ingrid is a carryover from *dog* Poli instead of *human* Poli. Trusting her instincts, Poli decides to speak with Ingrid.

When Poli finally meets Ingrid, she asks if Ingrid owned a dog named Poli. The CEO admits she had a dog named Poli, but she died. When Ingrid asks if she's being suspected of links to the gene splicing case, Poli declares she can't detect the "smell of a criminal" from Ingrid. After an awkward silence as Poli keeps digging a bigger hole for herself, Ingrid admits her dog was kidnapped over a year ago, and at the time, she filed a report to the police. She can't disclose any more detail, though Poli is determined to get to the bottom of all this.

#### Episode 4 - Poli and Poli

In the archives, Poli is checking news articles, and while she can find bits and pieces of Ingrid's dog being kidnapped, the case itself went nowhere, as the authorities could not locate the dog or verify her status. Which makes it odd how Ingrid could decisively say that her dog was dead. Coincidentally, articles dated around the time of the kidnapping also note an explosion occurring at the Elysion building, though damage was only minor. Poli finds this suspicious, and goes around looking for anyone who might've known about the dog.

The search leads to none other than Emma, a Nikke of Absolute and a known associate of Ingrid. Emma reminisces on dog Poli being so cute and fluffy, briefly becoming silent when she learns the dog died. Emma was out on a mission at the time, so she doesn't have all the details of the incident. When she returned from that mission, she did get a message from Ingrid, stating that the dog was dead and there was no need to keep looking for her. There were some casualties reported from the explosion at the time, but Emma can't quite remember whom. What she can remember, however, was that the explosion was a terrorist attack. Animals embedded with explosives were used to suicide-bomb the building. With the interview over, Emma takes her leave, hoping Poli can get to the truth of the matter.

Poli and the protagonist gather together all the clues. Dog Poli was kidnapped 1 year ago and used in gene splicing experiments. Once they were done, they put a bomb in her and used her to attack Ingrid. The only person with both the means and motive to do this would be the Elysion scientist that was fired over his animal-brain-Nikke research. As for the police officer assigned to look for the dog, they may also be an accomplice by fudging records. Luckily, Poli already sent Miranda to investigate the records, except it turns out the *human* Poli was the officer assigned to look for *dog* Poli. Dog Poli died while human Poli was looking for her, then human Poli went on an extended vacation before returning to the force. With all the pieces put together, Poli deduces the culprit to be the expelled scientist, who according to the records has been holed up in Royal Road after he was fired. It makes a perfect place for his kind of work, as the shops catering to the rich mean it's perfectly justified for a shop to have a bunch of pet animals, and the noise of Royal Road means few, if any, would pay attention to some barking or meowing.

At the Royal Road, the A.C.P.U. prepares to raid the scientist's hideout. The protagonist has his worries, but Poli is confident her instincts (and her nose) will lead her to the truth.

#### Episode 5 - Poli, the Police Officer

The raid on Cosplay Paradise goes perfectly. Miranda's team manages to extract all the animals kept in the building, and Poli's team successfully apprehends the scientist, bringing both the gene splicing and Ingrid's dognapping case to a close.

Back at Elysion, Ingrid congratulates Poli for solving both cases and catching the culprit behind them, but Poli still has questions. While in custody, the scientist claimed that the cafe that Poli first investigated was abandoned over a year ago. Moreover, the collar that was in the laboratory, Poli's dog collar, is something that should have been in Ingrid's possession, unless it was intentionally planted there. Ingrid admits to being behind the collar and the tipoff, as she believed Poli should be the one to solve the case. With that answered, Poli still has one last question about the circumstances behind her death and quick awakening as a Nikke. Ingrid decides to answer it.

On the day of the explosion, human Poli saved Ingrid from the bomb planted in dog Poli, but was critically injured in the blast. Poli was still determined to root out the culprit of the DNA splicing case, so Ingrid offered her a chance to live again as a Nikke, and the rest is history. With both Poli and Ingrid thankful to each other for what they've done, the meeting adjourns.

With the case resolved and the petting ban lifted, Poli and the protagonist waste no time making up for lost pettings. Mid-session, Ingrid messages the protagonist. As it turns out, there may have been some dog DNA mixed in when they made Poli a Nikke...

## References

Notes

References
1. ↑ Poli's character story."