Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)

Ashmaker said:

Any ideas you would especially enjoy writing?

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Mm...

If... if the personal assistant idea were to be supported in any significant way, I have an idea for, well, essentially a Process Gaiden. Well, the personal assistant option, or, any kind of option that allows Process units free reign.

I won't say much more, it's something I fully intend to play close to my chest until it's actually happening.

---

It's really on the train home, watching the city pass by and letting the gentle rocking lull you into sleepiness that you begin to... weigh the pros and cons of telling Creme and Lumen for a moment.

Pro- you don't need to hide the Process from them while you work on it.

{Definite pro.}

Con- you might end up stealing Ada's thunder, and lessening the impact of her story.

{You could always just, you know, wait until she's done, then bring it up. Complementary information rather than fighting for their attention.}

It's going to do that anyway, but putting it forward as complementary information would definitely do the least damage to Ada's credibility.

Pro- they may be able to help you figure out exactly how best to implement the Process because the ideas you're having are all over the place.

Con- Ada may hide behind your own admission to keep from talking about it-

{That's a stretch, admittedly not much of one, but one that can still be fixed by going after her.}

Ok! Ok, fine, you have literally nothing to say against telling them beyond being scared they won't believe you! At least with Ada, you had 01 to prove your point, but over text, with nothing to prove it, that becomes...

Difficult.

It'll be fine. Worst case scenario, you can just meet up and show them.

... Point.

Still, until Ada actually starts talking to people, there's not much you can do.

|||

The show started while you were just sitting in your room, vegging out on Glyphstory's desktop version, waiting for something to happen. Your opponent is turtling, posting snipers at varying chokepoints, their range keeping you from doing much to them until you build a Gold Mound to spawn Myrmekes, so for the moment you're just throwing Nevermore Minor at them for the sake of harassment and building your slower, more durable units up.

Then Ada posted in the group chat and you found your attention split.


At this point, you're just kind of waiting for her to finish up and keeping the group muted for a while. In the meantime, you throw a couple more Myrmekes at one of your opponent's blockades, the ranged Huntsmen there suffering as they're dragged into melee range faster than their AI can actually react, before supplementing your main force with a Hag for some cheap healing and on-site reinforcement.

Check your base, queue up a couple Vampyr, get a message from Lumen, upgrade breeding pits so you can eventually spawn a Storied Grimm, you haven't tried Ashen Gehenna yet, they only added it maybe two days ago, and you haven't really had a chance to sit down and take your time with an opponent to build it-

{Jaune.}

Fine.


Anyway, where were you? Right, bugging this guy by fucking up every one of his blockades individually, because you're in that kind of mood today- oh what the fuck when did he call in Brunhilde and Siegfried-

As you watch a large chunk of your force go down in flames to those goddamn walking AOE attacks, you scatter your units, trying to keep them away from the pair of legendary Hunters, wreathed in Brunhilde's ring of fire.

Agh, where'd you leave those Nevermores- ooh, no, the Vampyr, go for irony-

{She's finished telling them.}

Yeah ok, just a second-

{Jaune I swear to god-}

You are not prepared for this, ok?!


It takes you some time to explain the Process and your Semblance to Creme and Lumen, especially since you have to split your attention between them and hunting down Siegfried with a Vampyr, because strong against stealth, he ain't.

Some may say that bouncing between a video game and a life-changing revelation is somewhat callous, but frankly, it's better than focusing in one everything you've dealt with all at once.

Eventually, you finish both of those and watch Brunhilde as she's overrun by popcorn units, her lover's death crippling her.

You almost feel bad about it.

Almost.


Figuring that's as good a time as any to bow out, you turn back to your match and find that whatever advantage you gained by killing off your opponent's hero units has been recovered since you last looked, and you have to scramble to keep them from gaining too much ground now that they're fully the object of your attention.

Perhaps you're just tired, or they're better than you gave them credit for, but you don't just crush them for a change. If anything, it's actually really quite evenly matched until you finally pour enough resources into the breeding pits and summon Ashen Gehenna.

What you didn't realise, because reading patch notes is for wimps, is that Ashen Gehenna, The Island of Hate, is not a unit.

It's a superweapon.

The sky darkens, and ash begins to fall across the screen, spots of it growing across the map like mould, and you watch as some of his weaker units twist and turn into ashen homunculi, spreading chaos amongst their ranks, while the land morphs, turning white and buffing your units to frankly ridiculous degrees, giving them a permanent boost to armour, speed, and attack, leaving them almost unstoppable. When you begin to drag your forces through that, you realise that the ash only buffs two or three units before disappearing, keeping you from just upgrading your entire army in one fell swoop.

That was actually something you could do pretty much yesterday, but they patched in the limit for obvious reasons.

Your opponent's only saving grace is that those ashen areas are sparse, mainly around chokepoints and near his base- wait, no, that's the opposite of a saving grace, that's just straight fucked him over.

Well then.

Your victory is almost assured at this point, with his forces now fighting amongst themselves and yours buffed to hell and back, and you make quick work of him, taking victory within minutes. Your efficiency is really just a result of your fatigue, though, and after a quick two-letter message of appreciation for the game, you close the game and settle in for the night.

It's... been a tiring day.

The sixth one in a row, honestly.

{Get some sleep, buddy. Tomorrow's gonna be great.}

You almost question why, but sleep claims you before you can.

|||

""Happy birthday, Jaune!"" The twins kindly inform you as you grab a cup of coffee the next morning.

Standing there in your blue onesie with the built-in bunny slippers, really not entirely aware of what's going on around you, pouring your coffee until the Transistor gently nudges the pot back to an upright position, you give them a tired squint that only sets Jasper off on a cackling fit.

... Wh-

{Happy birthday, big guy. Also hey, you realised it before noon this time.}

As if rubbing it in, a calendar flickers into sight, the square marked July 23rd gently pulsing blue.

... Every goddamn year with this-


|||

"It still amazes me that you can consistently forget about your own birthday, Jaune," Jaana tells you from her place in the centre of the van.

"It's been a weird week, ok? It just slipped my mind."

"Every year, Jaune. How."

"Oh, leave the boy alone, I'm the same with my birthday." Your mother comes to your defence.

"And mine." Your father gently ribs her.

"It's not my fault I'm from the only Kingdom on the planet that puts the month above the date!"

Yeah, Atlas is weird like that.

Despite your propensity to completely forget your birthday on a consistent basis, your family does not, and actually planned to do something with you- namely, visiting your favourite place in the whole wide world.

Unknown to, or at least not cared much about by, most people in the City of Vale, there is a large-ish near the city centre, the shops of which consist entirely of electronics and electronic parts.

Wholesale. Fully working, legally sourced parts, sold at wholesale prices. Motherboards, graphics cards, CPUs and heatsinks, motherboard standoffs, Scroll logic boards, hardlight projector parts, diodes, fucking Scroll power buttons- you've checked, you could build your own Scroll using the stuff from there.

Aside from a natural interest that you've always had, even before you awoke your Aura, this place is very near and dear to your heart as the place you've bought all of the Transistor's hardware upgrades from.

You must have spent tens of thousands of Lien in just this one shop over the past few years.

{Not that they're complaining.}

True.

The journey there is peaceful, the most interesting thing being a news announcement that they identified half of the pair that robbed an SDC train as Adam Taurus, a noted figure of the White Fang, and an as of yet unidentified female cat Faunus.

But that can all wait because you're here~

Your favourite place in the whole wide world~

Some people, the shop owner and anybody who looks at the sign, mainly, would call this place Electron Palace.

You?

You call it home.

|||

You walk through the tight aisles to the checkout/front desk/office space of the owner and see a pinkette with skin the colour of milky coffee sitting there, head resting on her palm, bored out of her mind until she sees you approaching.

"Hey hon, long time no see!" Rosalind greets you as you and a couple of your sisters walk in the door. The rest of your family decided to wander about the rest of the mall, leaving Jasper and Jaana to accompany you. You don't mind, you wouldn't subject most of your family to this either. Jaana came along out of curiosity, and Jasper...

"Heeey, Rosie, long time no see to you too honey-" Jasper purrs, effortlessly sliding along the countertop on her elbows to meet her crush, legs gently kicked up behind her, only for Rosalind to gently push her off course, and off the counter altogether.

"WAGH-"

You're sure the thud of lesbian against hard concrete floor would be a lot less funny if she'd forgotten to pull up her Aura at the last second, the violet light of her soul keeping her from hurting herself too much.

"You're so cruel, I love it." Your sister says, not getting up from her place on this floor.

Rosalind gives a little snort, a half-smirk growing on her face.

"You are still as much of a pest as ever, and the only reason I don't kick you out of my store is that your brother is pretty much my only customer."

"Don't keep her around on my account, Rosalind."

Jasper turns and makes a pitiful sound at you, one that none of you can keep your composure around.

"Fine, fine, you can stay!" Rosalind manages between giggles.

While your sister celebrates her minor victory in not having a restraining order put on her, Rosalind turns to deal with you.

"So, whatcha been working on, big cat?" She asks, giving you a little smile as she does.

"That's... got a very long answer this time."

"Well stop teasing already~"

God, it's good to talk shop.

---

First thing's first, the full image I took the Cell from.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's here.

It's time to actually upgrade your sword.

Upgrades are done through buying random bits and bobs of computer parts and using them to upgrade the given part of the Transistor. As far as you can tell, it's more of a conceptual unlocking of capability in exchange for sacrifice, and once the word 'sacrifice' entered your head you just decided to not question it, ever, at all, you never questioned it in the first place, not you, no sir, definitely never considered offering your sword a firstborn child to see what happens.

And oh, hey, look, a birthday gift of [UNSPECIFIED AMOUNT OF MONEY GOOD ENOUGH FOR ONE PURCHASE FROM THE GENERAL UPGRADES OR 10% OFF THE SPECIALIST UPGRADES IN THIS FINE ESTABLISHMENT].

How thoughtful.

General Upgrades: These are upgrades that simply enhance the Transistor's capabilities in one way or the other. This is done by buying unspecified odds and ends and throwing them at your sword for it to use.

[] MEM- Upgrades the Transistor's MEM capacity. Allows you to keep more Functions running at once, and more heavy-duty Functions at all. (5000 Lien for 4 MEM, 5000 after this purchase.) Current MEM: 12/64

[] Attack Up- A blanket upgrade to your offensive Functions, letting them deal more damage and put down enemies faster. (3500 Lien)

[] Defense Up- Upgrades the Transistor's Durability, allowing it to withstand more punishment before it breaks. (2750 Lien}

[] Range Up- Upgrades the Transistor's leash. (2500 Lien, adds 10 metres with each purchase.)

Specialist Upgrades:

[] Sound Processing- … Fuck it, the secret's out anyway. Time to give your sword a voice. (7000 Lien)

[] Hardlight Projection- Do you really want to give your sword the ability to smack you whenever necessary? (11,000 Lien)

[] Function Boost- Instantly push one Function to completion from Beta, or from Alpha to Beta. (12,500 Lien)

[] Forksplit- Upgrades the Transistor's processing power enough to bring a third fork into the fold. This fork's speciality can be chosen at 'birth,' which will also dictate its personality. (15,000 Lien)