Holding off on voting because i'm an indecisive and weak willed person (sadface), but in my experience I would rather talk about this with Ada face to face. I think asking if we could meet up at her place and talking there would allow for a more solid and emotional conversation.
TL;DR: Talking face-to-face with Ada would be better because emotions.
@Prok
Function Name: Pipe()
Function Category: Attack/Utility/Other
Function:
Passive: On its own, this Function allows designated allies nearby the use of a SEVERELY cut back version of Inform, projected onto their field of view via ScreenCopy. They don't get localized omniscience but instead have an AR HUD that can retrieve information from the Transistor's localized omniscience. Things like highlighting enemies, chat screens, ammo tracking, asking what temperature the food is, removing all shadows and darkness from Ada's field of vision ... etc. So Inform() but ratcheted down to a level they can actually process.
Active: subjects an enemy to information overload and blinds them with ScreenCopy filling their field of vision with Camp Camp episodes
Upgrade: can originate the function from allies (ex. launch a Bounce() from Ada's weapon) which, combined with Inform() effectively means they can launch it off by saying a trigger. But also means Jaune can launch it off arbitrarily without warning them.
Allies can participate in Turn() planning but purely as a planning session, instead of bonuses they get a -1 headache penalty
Projected MEM Cost: ????
Function Discovery: ScreenCopy is a cludgy hack and he finally got around to fixing that because now he has friends this would be helpful for, then he kind of wandered off in a tangent during implementation
Eh... the Upgrade section feels somewhat out of place. I'd put that under its own Function, bar the Turn() part, which fits fine with the passive, and the attack is-
You know what? You'll see when I'm done editing it.
Currently, I'm a security guard because everyone is like "you need real world work experience before I can hire you". That was for my criminal justice degree: everyone from my program interns for a semester with a police department. You'd think that would count but no...
also,, I wonder how difficult it would be to make a simple unadorned block of Transistor computronium to hook into the internet and run a hosting service
See, as soon as you said the word 'make,' this entire plan fell apart. You've made... all of the Transistor you can make, because as far as your Semblance is concerned, it looks at the Transistor and says 'yep, uh huh, uh huh, yep, that's an entire Transistor right there, nothing missing, no more work for me until ya need ta Von Neumann the shit outta somebody!'
As for being rich, well... they can support eight kids. Yeah, some of 'em are working, but they still manage to care and provide for seven kids to a very acceptable degree.
Things like this kinda make me glad I didn't get into that IT apprenticeship and that I decided on professional cookery instead, because getting into any job in that industry is basically:
"Can you handle a knife in a way that doesn't make you a danger to yourself and others"
"Cool, we've got 60 covers and God knows how many walk-ins today, get your whites because you're gonna be making tomato concasse for 18 hours straight"
"Oh joy"
Anyway, since the actual story update is, if not the most emotionally draining thing I've ever had to write, then at least easily in the top three, here's an interlude that was... surprisingly fun to write! On top of being TZK related, which is always a pleasure for me, action is slowly becoming easier for me to tackle, and for some reason writing a cheery sociopath is just enjoyable. I think I could have done well, but at the same time, I didn't expect to strike lightning twice with it. I suppose it ran the same risk of pigeonholing me as JoJo did, and I don't really wanna be the guy who writes fanfic about obscure webnovels, or the guy who writes fanfic about trash anime.
[lowhanging 'oh wait' joke here] More White Fang soldiers pour from the Bullheads to meet you, not entirely scared by the state of their friends behind you, or underneath you. Or... above you, or slumped against that cargo container, or on top of that cargo container, then there's that one guy hanging for dear life from the top of that crane, you didn't even realise you could throw people that far with your shadow...
You almost feel bad for letting Ruby browbeat you into not killing or dismembering any of them. Humph. And she said it while brandishing that scythe of hers too! You mean, if you were gonna tell someone not to use sharp things, you'd at least not be brandishing a damned scythe while you're doing it! Still, just crushing their limbs with your shadow is fun! You watch corn yellow light flare into existence as their rifle bullets bounce off it, and you decide to leave it out behind you as you sprint forth, the near-sentient golden shroud of your soul trailing behind you in a mass of tendrils that slowly sows fear and uncertainty amongst the goons.
One of them decides to rush you, a wild scream tearing itself from her throat as she tries to rake her claws across your throat. You dodge, and your shadow quickly subsumes her arm, reducing the bone to gravel in seconds, repeating the process with one of her knees.
The only change of pace you take to her attempt is having to step over her while she wails in pain.
Honestly, it's a broken knee, rub some dirt on it and you'll be fine.
"Oh, for the love of-" The orange-haired man in the bowler hat mutters beneath his breath, bringing up his cane, pointing the end at you. You wonder what he's about to do with that when the tip comes up, and he launches a rocket at you!
If you weren't having so much fun flying backwards, the feeling of the blood rushing from your head to your toes leaving you feeling a little giddier than normal, you might be a little miffed with the fact that he just launched a rocket at you. Your shadow flows behind you just in time to keep you from breaking on the surface of a crate, cushioning you on impact, before coiling up and launching you off in your original direction with, if not equal speed, certainly at a respectable pace.
Somewhere in the middle of your flight, it changes shape again, spines of your soul gouging out the ground to pull you forward, each movement adding more speed as you twist to ready yourself for something that's gonna be really funny if you pull it off. Curling into a ball first, before the ginger man can react, you flip around, suddenly throwing your legs out completely straight, and driving your heels into his chin and nose.
You just dropkicked a man from halfway across a dockyard.
You were right. That was funny.
As he bounces off, you finally land, bringing out even more of your shadow and quickly crushing guns and limbs in equal measure. Somewhere behind you, you hear Blake and- oh what was his name- Sun, Sun, that's it, cleaning up those still trying to put up a fight behind you. Ruby and that ghost of hers join them, and soon shackles of silver appearing around limbs, quickly becoming casts for those who needed them.
Which was just about everyone, because non-lethal options are hard.
Hrm... what next?
You suppose you should take out the Bullhead... you're pretty sure there isn't a single person here in any condition to be flying one except for Rocket Man over there, so...
So you're gonna! Willing your shadow to flow over the engine nearest you, forming a thousand tiny little chipping blades around it to chew it off-
"JAUNE, NO!" Ruby yells at you, the funeral-ready corpse with the noose around its neck floating above her flitting away as fast as... it-ly possible.
"What? Why?"
"Because damaged engines explode!"
You blink in confusion.
"... And?"
"EXPLOSIONS KILL PEOPLE!"
You blink again.
"... And?"
All you get is a frustrated scream as she raises a clenched fist, and your shadow is forced off the engine by a sudden casing of silver, quickly annihilated at the end to allow it to continue venting heat. You wince a little as your shadow crackles, darkening and shrivelling as her soul power blasts it away. It doesn't hurt, exactly, it just... feels weird. Like your heart's suddenly beating too fast.
Was it worth it to mess with her? Yes. Does that make it any better? Kinda.
You raise your hands in defeat, bringing what little of your shadow is left after her show of disagreement back, letting it recover a little.
Hmph. Still, all she had to do was say no.
Another rocket comes for you, and a golden blade comes up to slice it in two. Your aim is ever so slightly off, and you deflect it instead, sending it Ruby's way purely out of bad luck. She brings her scythe up just in time for it to hit directly in front of her, sending shrapnel through her body and blowing one leg off at the thigh, the other escaping with a broken twisted ankle.
Ooh... that looked painful.
You watch her flop onto the ground, drawing a scream from Sun and Blake yelling her name, but she quickly waves them off as the hanged man comes back, touching her raised hand and then leaving again.
"I'm fine! I'm fine!" She says, bone spikes sprouting from her thigh and slowly becoming a tibia- wait, no... femur?
You always get those two mixed up. Whatever, your point is, her legs are growing back. Once her ankle is repaired, she struggles to one foot, pushing off the ground with her scythe, blade down as a crutch. Ginger watches the scene with what you can only pin down as abject horror, which is a mistake, because as soon as her once missing leg has an ankle again, she places it down, bringing the rifle part of her weapon to bear, gritting her teeth against the pain and just about managing to get a shot or three off in the white-suited man's direction.
He dodges neatly, Aura allowing him to simply hop out of the way like it's nothing.
Humph. Your Aura actually does stuff. So it's still better.
While Ruby heals, pale skin creeping over pink, gently weeping muscle, Sun keeps screaming, and Blake tries to get him to stop screaming, you run towards the man himself, your shadow forming into clubs and hammers and a thousand variations of, because all things considered blunt weapons are actually really really fun, and you're totally gonna thank Ruby for broadening your mind on the matter later!
In fairness, he does put up a good fight, his cane easily batting away two or three or even four weapons with each swing. Buuuut, you're not fighting with two or three or four weapons, no you're fighting with closer to...
... All of the weapons. All of them.
Ginger- you can't keep calling him Ginger. Not to his face.
"Oh, by the way, what's your name?" You ask him cheerfully as you send another wave of corn-yellow batons his way. "I've just been calling you Ginger in my head for like ten minutes and I figured since I'm close enough to ask I might as well!"
"WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE?!" He yells, and your weapons freeze mid-swing.
...
You raise a finger, opening your mouth to say something, before closing it again, bringing a fist to your mouth in thought. One club half-heartedly blocks his cane from cracking you over the head as you realise... you, kind of don't. Ginger's a good enough nickname that, in retrospect, you're ok with Ginger. Ginger is good.
"... That's a very good point!" You tell him, before allowing the beatings to continue.
You don't believe morale improves.
Somewhere behind you, the whine of a Bullhead is heard, and you hear Ruby scream something to you- are suddenly on the ground, feeling the dull impact of turret bullets hitting you on the back, your shadow quickly forming a shield to block them.
Ginger takes the opportunity to hop out of the way, though you watch him take a bullet to the shoulder and wince in pain as he keeps moving. Slowly, painfully, you manage to flip onto your back, and focus on the Bullheads above you. Two peel away to deal with a small ginger girl, henceforth referred to as Ginger Junior, who seems to share your philosophy in having all the weapons- she's deflecting every single bullet sent her way with a fan of blades, before two more appear from somewhere and pull her back towards the warehouse, both aircraft following.
You turn your attention to your own assailant and realise that, for the first time since Ruby last smacked you, you're in serious danger of being hurt. The bullets, unpowered by servant or ardour alike, are still numerous enough that your shadow simply can't keep up.
... You could get hurt.
How exciting! You've never taken a bullet to the chest before, you wonder what it'll feel like? Will it sting for a bit? Will you not feel anything from shock? Ooh, you almost can't wait!
Ooh, it might kill you! You wonder if aberrations can become reapers?
But if you become a reaper, then you won't be able to use your shadow...
Gah. Decisions, decisions.
In the end, perhaps two or three bullets away from your shadow breaking, you make your decision, and listen to the song of joy in your heart, willing your power into existence.
Above the Bullhead, a bright yellow disk appears, a hole to somewhere so bright that it lights up the world like a child drew the sun upon the night sky, and you already see the top of the vehicle turning a deep, cherry red as the heat radiates from that other place. Something never meant to be seen by the world at large reaches through, a hand of fire and stone reaching through and grabbing the Bullhead like a toy, pullling it through despite the engines going at full throttle to escape.
The hole closes with a clap of thunder, and you feel... five, six, seven, eight new souls and sets of memories added to your power. Already, you feel your shadow healing a little faster, growing a little larger.
Wonderful.
At the same time, a bright green beam slashes through the other two, dropping White Fang goons all over the ground and sending their flaming wrecks somewhere on the other side of the trainyard.
Ooh! Ginger Junior's got toys! You spy Ginger, now Senior, you suppose, running for the original Bullhead, which is still operational despite Ruby's silver casing, on account of her being nice enough to leave it with openings to vent. You consider going after him, and begin to get up, before realising that using your power like that...
Really...
Really tired you out, holy cow-
You manage to get up on your knees, breathing suddenly becoming harder as fatigue hits you like a damn truck, just in time to watch him board the airship and get on out of here.
Even from all the way over here, you can see Ruby, now wearing half a pair of silver shorts for her decency's sake, snarl in frustration as she launches herself into the air on a materialised pillar, forming hundreds of thousands of Lien worth of platform every time she reaches her peak, launching off again and again until she's just shy of ten feet away from it...
And suddenly there's an amorphous mass of silver where the Bullhead used to be, rushing to the ground.
It lands with a horrific crash, Ruby following and just about not managing to break her legpffhahahahaha no her femurs are in her goddamn kidneys dude-
As she waits for her legs to fix themselves, she wills away the economy-ruining amount of precious metals she's created, revealing a... surprisingly unharmed Bullhead. You see Ginger on the ground, trying to get up, before Ruby waves a hand and encases him from the neck down, before flopping onto the ground and taking a damn minute.
Which sounds... just... dandy...
True to form, your shadow keeps your head from hitting the ground too hard as battle fatigue finally takes you.
The only thing I can find is a crossover between Worm, TZK and the Lightbringer series, oddly enough- aside from that, no, nothing like what you're describing.
I'm gonna just assume that you're remembering my own work and let that soothe my blood pressure somewhat.
What were the other options he could have rolled for? Also, how bad would the mugging that started the quest have gone for those poor, dumb kids with Aberration!Jaune?
Offhand, I think I had six set up. So, alternate dimension access, that's the one in the chapter, possession, literally eating someone's soul then puppetting their bodies around, with the option later of mutating them into horrific monstrosities, minion creation, which is essentially possession but cutting out the need for a body at a higher cost, biological manipulation a la Lee, and a final one that was simply labelled as 'spatial implosion.'
I want to say that sounds like it does exactly what it says on the tin, but honestly, I couldn't tell you.
Do you know how much leather you would need to make a sheath for the Transistor?
One. One whole cow.
That's a lot of cow for one sword, and it would still be floating. You have to remember that, as a physical object, handle included, it's about as tall as Jaune. And about as wide, if you look at it from the flat side.
Anyway, time for sad. Late sad. Because I realised too late that I'd forgotten to plan out Ada's backstory as a full update, so this was kind of written on the spot, then Boriah happened and I had to rewrite the entire last section of the flashback about four times because that asshat seems to bring out the absolute worst in me as a writer and as a person.
... It's- Jesus Christ- it's sadlibbing. That's what this is.
But seriously though avoid the last flashback part if you're feeling squeamish- It feels like it takes days to think of something to say, but in reality, you know no more than thirty seconds have passed.
-It sounds like you've been holding this in for a while now. Would you like to call me instead of texting?-
{Ok, ok, good start. Why do you want to call her, though?}
"Less chance to start thinking too hard about what she's telling me."
{... I see.}
A few moments pass, edging into a minute without a response, long enough to make you wonder if you'd said the wrong thing, but eventually, your Scroll vibrates, the caller ID showing her name. You answer the call to the sound of a deep, shuddering breath, stuttered by the odd hiccup.
"... Jaune?" Ada whispers through the connection in a shaky, hoarse voice, waiting for a response, the following silence only broken by the odd snuffle and hiccup.
{She sounds like she's been crying.}
"I'm here." You reassure her.
"... I-I'm sorry, I know that it's l-late, and you're probably tired, b-but I just thought you should have a-a reason for why I broke down earlier, and I just- I don't know what to do, or where to start, or what to say, I-I don't..." She babbles, stopping and starting several times before she just trails off, a sound of frustration the only end that sentence sees.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's ok, I wasn't sleeping anyway." You quickly do your best to placate her. "Just take your time."
"... Ok. Can... sh-should I start from the beginning?"
"Of c-"You almost say 'of course,' but bite your tongue just in time. No need to condescend. "Tell me whatever you want to. I'm not going anywhere."
You hear her gulp, sniffle, and make no attempt to urge her into speaking before she's ready.
"Do you, do you know about... Bridge?"
"Yeah."
"... I was there. I l-lived there, before... Lee."
You feel your heart drop into your feet as what she says sinks in.
{... Holy shit. She survived Bridge?}
"... I see. Is that what you wanted to talk about?" You ask her, keeping your voice as neutral as possible.
"Uh huh. I-I was… I would have been t-ten years old..."
|||
Once upon a time, there was a town called Bridge. It lay outside the kingdoms of Vale and Vacuo both, and yet both strived to protect it as best they could. See, Bridge was a very important town- on the road between the two kingdoms, it lay exactly the same distance between both of them, and made for a wonderful point of trade and rest for travellers. Not enough to flourish into a kingdom of its own right, barely enough to justify the train station, to be honest with you, but enough that the townsfolk lived comfortably for a village awash in a sea of Grimm, the safe harbours of the kingdoms so close, yet so far.
Ada Doyle loved Bridge. It was her home for the first ten years of her life, after all, home for her, home for her mother, and home for her father.
She loved her parents too. When somebody treats you like the light of their lives, it's hard not to feel the same way.
Her father was a quiet giant. Despite his size, towering above everyone else in the town, bulky enough to lift her onto his shoulders without so much as a grunt of discomfort, he was gentle. Gruff, but gentle. He would tell her stories of his hunts, never mincing his words, only censoring the coarser language he and his team were prone to, and through these stories, she learned to be wary of the Grimm. But as long as he was around, she would never be afraid of them.
Her mother was always so happy, and so loud, and just so happy to be loud- as if it was where she got her endless energy from. She loved sending her daughter on little chores, framing them as grand adventures to capture her imagination in a way her father never tried to- suddenly, going to grab bread or milk or eggs or her mother's medicine seemed like so much more than that. They were important. Well, more important. Important enough and grand enough that she could let her imagination get carried away in the fantasies for a while.
It was on one of these little quests of hers that she ran into the man who would ruin her life.
Literally, ran into him. She looked up, and took the hand he offered her, taking him in as best she could.
He was absolutely rail thin, with wild, blond hair that easily reached his waist, framing the ribs poking out from his open shirt, the buttons long gone. His face was equally gaunt- as if something had removed every ounce of muscle and fat from the man's body, and stretched paper-thin sheets of ivory over the skeleton. Despite the sharpness of his features, he managed a warm smile as he helped her up.
"Sorry!" She said, trying to sound at least somewhat apologetic to the man.
"It's quite alright. What's got you running around, little girl?" He asked, crouching down to meet her eyes.
"I'm getting medicine for my mom!"
"Oh dear. Whatever for?" He asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern.
"I dunno why she takes it, but she says she's running out, so she's sending me to get more!"
The thin man blinks a couple times, before chuckling through his nose.
"I take it that you're going to the doctor, then?"
"Uh huh! Why, do you need a doctor too?"
Concern took Ada by storm in that moment- what if he did need a doctor? What if he collapsed? He might look like skin and bone, but she still didn't think she could carry him...
She was brought out of her thoughts by the man's laughter, waving off her concern.
"No, no, but I would like to meet them regardless. Would you mind showing me the way?"
... Well... if she's going that way anyway... but her mother always told her not to talk to strangers...
But she's been doing that already. And he's only asking for help anyway...
"Sure!"
She took him by the hand and led him on.
"I'm Ada! What's your name, mister?" She asked as they walked along, the man easily keeping pace with her tiny legs.
"I'm Boriah. It's lovely to meet you, Ada."
|||
Boriah Lee, as far as the villagers of Bridge were concerned, was the best thing since Dust. Doctor Mul did her best, but she was no surgeon- medicinal solutions were her first and last lines of defence against disease and injury. So a man who could open you up and fix your problems without spilling a drop of blood or letting you feel a thing while he did it was as good as godsent to them. Pinched nerves were fixed, failing organs beat back into working order, broken bones put together like puzzles...
At times, his work seemed less like operations and more like an artist working with clay.
He fixed Nella Doyle's heart, halted its slow crusade to kill her. The family celebrated by throwing her nitroglycerin pills into the river.
On a completely unrelated note, they had fish for dinner that night.
A team of three became a team of four again, and the Grimm found it almost impossible to come near the village now.
It was on a clear, sunny day like the first time she met Boriah that Ada was walking through the woods as she was wont to, and saw him doing something very odd.
Sitting in a clearing in the forest, sequestered behind a tree, she watched him with curiosity as he sat there, cross-legged, arms resting on his knees. He placed his hands in front of his legs, gently lifting himself off the ground with only his fingertips, before unwrapping his legs and slowly flipping over, bringing them above his head until he achieved a full ten-finger handstand. Then five. Then three. Then one.
The tiny girl almost involuntarily uttered a sound of mild awe at the display.
"Hello, Ada," Boriah called out, drawing a much more panicked squeak from her. "Come on out, pet, I know you're there."
Realising she'd been caught, Ada sheepishly stepped out from behind the tree as he righted himself.
"What are you doing out in the forest by yourself?" He asked her, head gently tilting to the side with the question.
She shuffled from side to side, somewhat uncomfortable with the attention she was being given. She didn't understand why- Mr Lee was a perfectly nice man, he was just so...
Intense.
"Um... I was walking around. I-it's safe this close to the village, right?"
"... True. Since you're here, would you mind if I, ah, ask you a few questions? I could use a second opinion on some things that have been bothering me."
Not sure what to say, she simply nodded her head, unsure where the doctor was going with this. She walked over and sat down with him as he took up the lotus position again.
"How did you know it was me?" She asked before he said anything.
"I felt your heartbeat through the ground," Boriah told her, smile widening a little at the look of suspicion she gave him. "now, tell me, dear, you know what Aura is, yes?"
"Um…" Ada frowned for a moment before remembering her father's stories. "Oh, it's that thing Hunters use, right? Like my dad?"
"And like me. Now, do you know what Semblances are?"
She frowned, knowing the word, but not quite remembering much of her father's explanation.
"Uh... they're like, a superpower or something?" She guessed.
"A Semblance is the power of the soul manifest. Your father has his black iron skin, I have my fleshsculpting, and so on. Some are similar, but no two are exactly the same. Like people themselves." He continued, lifting himself onto a single pinky as if to prove his point. "But, yes, I suppose calling them superpowers would be rather apt."
Ada nodded, the lightbulb ticking on in her head.
"Now, if I told you that Semblances tend to be based on part of a person's personality, would you believe me?"
She thought about it for a moment. Her father's iron skin... fit, she supposed. He always tried to be strong, even when things weren't so good. She'd heard the story of the day she was born.
But then...
"... What about you? What part of you is your Semblance from?" She turned to ask him.
"See, that's... part of my problem. I don't know. If it came from a wish to heal people, why would I get something that requires me to be so... hands on? It's such a versatile but still so incredibly specific Semblance that... I don't think I could pin it down to one thing."
She considered that, nodding slowly as she did.
"But then I started thinking- are Semblances connected to people's personalities?"
Ada frowned, knitting her brows in confusion. If Semblances aren't defined by people's personalities, then why would they fit them so well? But at the same time… what does that say about Mr Lee?
And how would you even test that kind of thing? You can't… force people to be a certain way.
Can you?
"But if the way someone is isn't what chooses their Semblance, then…" She tried to vocalize her thoughts, trailing off in a moment of doubt.
"Then what is? Well… that's just the question, dear."
Ada looked at the man, and for once saw something other than a slightly content smile on his face. His face had taken on a much darker expression, one that spoke of frustration with questions he couldn't find the answer to, no matter how much he tried, and for a moment, she kinda felt sorry for him.
They stayed silent for a few moments longer before she couldn't take it anymore and just asked a question to break it.
"How did you discover your Semblance?"
Boriah laughed, quickly waving her off before she could take offence.
"Ha- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I'm just… that's a question with a very long, very bloody answer, and I dread to think what your mother would do to me if I answered it. I'll tell you when you're older, pet."
She huffed a little in frustration but understood his reasoning.
… Her mom was scary sometimes.
Ada squinted as a light breeze blew through the clearing, shifting enough branches to allow the sun through the trees, blinding her for a moment.
"... Mm. The sun's getting low. We should get back to the village soon. Though… one last question, before we do?"
"Uh huh?" The younger of the two said, curious about his request.
"If something disgusts you, something that repulses you in every fibre of your being, but completely constant in your life, should you just accept it, or try to… eliminate the root cause?"
"... What?" She asked bluntly.
"Perhaps an analogy will help. Imagine… finding a dead rat on your carpet. Imagine the stench, that foul smell of meat and rot, burning your nose, catching in the back of your throat, you'd get rid of it, no? Now imagine that, somehow, an entire family of rats died crawled into the walls of your house and died. The smell would slowly permeate throughout your house, reaching every little nook and cranny, forcing you to live with it, unless you wanted to knock the wall down, pipes and wires and all, to get rid of them. Would you go through all that trouble to get rid of a nasty stench, or would you just…hope that one day, you'll become used to the smell?"
Ada frowned deeply, not entirely understanding the question. She had no idea what he could be referring to with
"... I... guess… I would at least try to clear them out before I gave up? But then you'd have to fix the wall... that's a weird question, mister Lee."
"But an important one to me."
She frowned, not sure what else she could say to that. Eventually, they got up and walked back to the village, going their separate ways soon after.
Ada didn't admit it until seven years later, but she always wondered if that conversation was some kind of catalyst for Lee.
||| ((Song not recommended for those with anxious tendencies))
Ada whimpered, swiftly clamping her mouth shut as she hid behind the stone wall, trying not to focus on the girl that just died in front of her and wouldn't stop staring as she tried not to be seen or heard. Some traitorous part of her mind tried to convince her that this was all just a dream, and she almost believed it for a moment.
Nella Doyle brought her machete down again, slicing him open from collarbone to groin. The motion pulled flesh with it, essentially sealing the wound as it was made, like cutting into a block of clay.
Lee responded with a quick strike to her own neck, his arms no longer conforming to silly little human notions like bending at predetermined joints, a whole half of his body just snaking past her guard and striking her throat, the other trying its luck with her stomach. Neither impact broke her Aura, but she clutched her throat by reflex anyway, giving him a small respite to pull himself back together.
Roy appeared from somewhere to the left of the scene, rushing forth with the speed and inertia of a train engine, before rearing back, his fist darkening as his Semblance replaced flesh with black iron, and punching Lee through a building. And through the other side.
"Are you ok?" Roy asked his wife, a metallic grinding in his voice like a blender full of ball bearings as his throat fell victim to the ferrous tide. Nella nodded, still wheezing somewhat.
Boriah rose from the dust, body twisted and broken, both just formalities to him as he reached down and pulled one of his earlier corpses apart- Ada had to hold down bile again as she realised it was Dr Mul- patting gobs of meat and bone onto his wounds like he was slathering himself in mud. It melded seamlessly with what was there, and by the time Nella reached him again, screaming her rage out as her Aura flared a deep red, he looked good as new.
Roy turned to where his daughter was hiding, steely eyes fixing on her, trying to ignore the corpse in front of her.
"Ada, run." He told her, brooking no argument.
Before she could even react, though, the horrifying sound of flesh parting like water under the fleshsculptor's hands made itself known. Following it without meaning to, she saw the worst possible outcome of that sound.
Nella's legs twitched as Lee's hand delved deeper into her stomach, moving up under the ribs all the way to the collarbone, lifting her into the air.
"... Hm... you know, I've never actually taken the time to do this- one, two, three, four-" As he counted, she gently rose off his arm, higher into the air with every number. "- nine, ten, eleven, twelve- huh. Women do have the same number of ribs!"
He threw her off, his hand slick with gore as she flopped lifelessly onto the ground.
"If I'd actually believed that tripe about them having one rib more, I might feel lied to."
Nella Doyle did not get up.
Some part of Ada's mind informed her that her mother was dead, and that broke something inside her. Tears joined the spattered blood on her face as she realised this wasn't all some horrifying nightmare. She began to hiccup, her chest and throat tightening up as the world blurred around her, and she found herself crying, any thoughts of running wiped from her mind, all willpower drained from her in that moment, barely enough energy to turn away from the sight.
She heard an Ursa Major in the distance, before realising the sound was coming from her father, watching the blurry colossus sprint towards Boriah with every intention of turning him into a bloody smear on the ground.
Boriah Lee, however, was not only a student of biology, but one of physics as well, and was fully aware of the kind of inertia something like Roy Doyle's black iron body would have, even with Aura helping him. So when he ducked under the punch and slipped behind him, crashing into a nearby wall was the only thing Roy could do, bringing enough rubble down on himself to keep him pinned there for a moment.
"Hello, Ada. Can I tell you a secret?" He said, walking up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders.
When all she could do was blubber, he seemed to mind even less than usual.
"The truth is... you were my rats in the wall. And you helped me realise what I should do with the rats in the wall."
"Wh-wh-wha-" She tried to ask him what he meant, but the words kept catching in her throat, refusing to come free.
"Oh, hey, it's ok, pet." He said, sounding genuinely consolatory as he drew her into a bony hug. "See, the truth is... I hate human beings."
She shuddered as she felt something warm seep through the back of her shirt, her chest heaving as she bawled, knowing what was coming next.
"Do you know what humans look like to me?" He continued, ignoring her wailing as best he could. "Meat. Big, fleshy, sacks of meat. All I see is blood rushing through you, your heart beating in your chest, I hear your stomachs gurgling and urine and feces moving through your bladders and bowels, I smell every little pheromone you all give off, testosterone, oestrogen, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, I see how it makes you all go mad for each other, at each other, just chemicals setting off other chemicals... The Grimm hunt us... because of fucking chemicals."
Ada had calmed down a little by that point, enough to hear what he was saying over her own crying.
She wished she hadn't. She felt a hot breath on the back of her neck, that quickly turned to a high, shuddering, manic cackle, something altogether unhinged in its own way. The sound poured ice water down her back, leaving her to shiver in the lunatic's grip, the way it suddenly cut off not helping at all.
"... But when people die... they stop. The blood stops rushing. The bowels, well, less said, the better, the brains stop giving off those horrible little molecules that cause things like sadness or anger or fear, and suddenly... you become tolerable again. But then I meet people like you, people who are so much more than the meat and the bones and the chemicals... people who deserve to keep going. You're a rare breed, and I feel like I should reward you for it."
She felt Boriah let go of her, there was a rush of air from something moving past her face, and suddenly she couldn't see anything to her left.
She knew pain. She'd broken her legs before, cut herself, burned herself, scrapes and bruises galore, but when the pain of having her eye plucked from her skull hit, it proved itself something so much worse. She heard somebody screaming in pain, a shrill, almost animalistic shriek of agony and loss, and a moment later she realised it was her. She felt something hotter than tears run down her face and realised she was bleeding her own blood.
"How did it go again...?" He muttered to himself, tapping a finger against his lip. "Ah!"
The madman laid a hand on her shoulder, and she watched a light the shade of baked mud surround him.
"For it is in passing we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."
As he spoke the words, intoning them with something approaching respect, she felt incredibly warm, the pain fading as it overtook her, some foreign energy invading her body and unlocking something greater than itself inside her.
It made her feel strong. Stronger than she had any reason to, lighting a fire in her, helping her to realise her desire. A pale red, almost pink light overtook her, pushing back the baked clay of Boriah's own light.
"Aura. The light of the soul manifest."
Her desire sharpened, and she realised she wanted nothing more than for him to just
stop
touching her
stop
being there
She watched his hand phase through her shoulder, watched herself scramble away from somewhere outside her own body, the pain and fire and tears and blood all separate, all something not her. Things she could look at, turn over in her head, but not... part of her. Not really.
"Oh, come on, I was being nice!" He said, a sly smile sliding along his face-
-And immediately wiped off by a very angry mother.
Nella Doyle grabbed him by the ankles, easily lifting him off the ground and slamming him into it once, twice, bouncing him off the dirt road with the strength of an angered titan, fists and feet shrouded in crimson beating him into a bloodless paste.
"I! HAVE! NO PATIENCE! FOR MONSTERS! WHO LIE! TO CHILDREN!!" She roared, punctuating each word with another strike, ending it with her machete in the back of his head, pinning him to the road. She watched him for a moment, looking for any sign of movement, a breath, a twitch, any reason to keep going.
When nothing was offered, she shuffled towards her daughter, collapsing to her knees beside her.
"Mom?!"
"H... hey, honey... mommy's- mommy's ok..." Nella said, ignoring the gaping hole in her stomach, the flow stifled by her Aura somewhat. "I just... have to rest... rest my eyes for a minute..."
Ada quickly moved forward, catching her mother before she fell to the ground even further, burying herself in her chest.
"Please stay awake... please, please, don't die, don't, tell me you're gonna be fine, don't leave me-" She babbled, everything her Aura had pushed to the side coming back in force. Warm arms wrapped around her, pulling her close again, and she felt herself calm immensely.
"I'm here. I'm right here." Nella cooed, keeping her daughter close.
Behind them, the sound of rubble shifting and manly, metallic grunting told Ada her father was up.
"Ada? Nella?"
"Dad!" She called out hoarsely, all that crying finally taking its toll on her voice. She heard something else, something shifting, sounds of something moving behind them-
"Nella!"
Ada felt herself flung to the side as her mother moved, her Aura flaring and deflecting her own machete, still stuck in Lee's skull.
"Dew yu unnershtan... hah muh dish huhts?" He slurred, the blade currently bisecting his face keeping him from forming proper words. "Choo bee berfechtly awnesh, nuh tha muh! Mainleh ish jush tha brai' damaj tha' uh cah feel, buh nuh muh elsh... uh thig..."
An iron hand gripped the handle.
"... Aw, cummawn-"
The machete was extracted from its current resting place, and thrown to its owner, while Roy wrapped a hand around the maniac's head.
Nella stumbled towards her daughter again, ignoring Boriah's muffled screaming.
"Ada? Ada, baby, talk to me." She called out, not focusing on where she was going. "Mommy's... having a hard time seeing much right now."
"I-I'm... I'm here, mom." Ada called out, and Nella corrected her course, falling to her knees when she felt her hand touch something.
"Oh, baby, I'm sorry... I didn't stop him in time, I'm so sorry..." She mumbled, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw the worst of her daughter's injuries. Nella grasped for Ada's hands, and when she found one, she pressed the hilt of her blade into the girl's palm. "Take this, and go. Just run, ok? Get onto the road, and don't stop running until you hit the next town over. I promise you, baby, he can't hurt you anymore, ok? Not while I'm here... not... while I can stop him."
Ada started to protest but stopped when she felt a finger touch her lips.
"It's ok. Can I tell you a secret, baby?"
She stood up again, turning towards Boriah's flailing to remove his head from her husband's hand. If she couldn't feel the hole where her torso used to be, and if she could feel anything below the waist, she might have found it almost comical.
"I just used it because it wouldn't be a fair fight otherwise."
|||
"... And... that was... that was the last I saw of them. Any of them." Ada finishes. "I just got up and ran. I didn't stop until I reached the next town over."
At some point during the story, she had composed herself, falling into this quiet, toneless voice, as if she was giving a lecture, more than anything else.
On the outside, you showed a perfectly neutral face. You kept your breathing under control, you were completely silent until you were sure she'd finished talking, but underneath, you were quietly feeling...
Something.
You can't put words to it- some horrifying mix of tugged heartstrings and sheer lividness left you wanting to split yourself in half so half of you can hunt down Ada and hug the tiny girl until stuffing comes out and the other half can punch a hole in your wall to vent stress. Or the stump outside. Or challenge your mother to a midnight spar.
Or just hunt down Lee yourself and murder that fuck-
{Easy, tiger. Focus on her first, deal with your own feelings later.}
"... I thought I was free. I know I'm never going to be... normal, but, I didn't have to deal with him anymore, you know?" She continues, snapping out of her lecturing trance, a slight shake coming back into her voice.
"I-I knew he was alive, but he never... never came near Vale. All the stories said he was just, wandering around the roads and towns away from Vale. I don't know if he just... never figured out where I was, or where I went, or if he just doesn't care, and then today I hear he's supposed to be making his way up to the city proper, and I just..."
A rush of static comes through your Scroll's speaker, and you realise she's letting out a shaky breath, trying so desperately to calm herself.
"I'm so scared. I'm so, so scared, because what if he's coming for me?"
You want to tell her so badly that it won't be a problem if he does, because you lost the last qualm you had with killing him somewhere around the description of a girl desperately trying to stem the flow of blood from her neck, and reminding yourself of it only makes you surer in your decision. You want to tell her that he won't touch her again because you'll keep her safe, you, and Creme, and Lumen, and everybody else you can find.
{But that's... not what she's looking to hear. She feels so incredibly vulnerable, but she obviously values her independence, and more than that, her personal strength- I think that's what led to her becoming a Huntress in the first place. She wants to get stronger. If she just wanted a quiet life, there's a thousand other jobs she could do.}
... Ok, but what do you do with that?
{She's stronger now. We're gonna help her get better. Simple.}
"But... you're stronger now." You venture. "And you're gonna get stronger."
She laughs humourlessly, more a staggered sigh than any sign of humour.
"Jaune, my father made Boriah's Semblance useless, and he couldn't beat him!" She half-yells through the phone, a paradoxically tired hysteria lacing her voice. "Besides, how am I... how am I gonna get stronger? I'm not a good swordsman, I can't use guns, I can't..." She trails off again. "I can't stop him."
"I'll help you get stronger."
For a moment, there is only silence, and you wonder if you might have overstepped your boundaries.
"... Why? Why do you care?"
You know damn well why you care, but you glance at your sword anyway, silently asking if that's the right way to go.
{... She hasn't got a good track record for people going up against Lee and, you know, living. I'd leave that until she's convinced about the idea.}
Ok. You can work with that, you think. You take a deep breath and try to... put the lesser reasons into words.
"Because... you chose to open up to me. I don't, wanna say something stupid like 'I know how hard that must have been for you,' because I don't, but... I can't just sit back and let you deal with this yourself, because you don't deserve that. You don't deserve anything that's happened to you and I can't help you with that, but I can help you with this."
Silence. Again. Worrying if you've said the wrong thing. Again.
"I... I don't know. This sounds like a bad idea, I don't- I don't want you to get hurt."
"That's not-"
{Jaune. Let it go. Leave it for another day. You're both tired, and you need to sleep. She's vented, she's got it off her chest, and that's the main thing. You can talk to her later.}
"... What? That's not what?"
"... Nothing. I'll... talk to you later. Try and get some sleep, ok?"
"...Ok. Goodnight, Jaune."
"Goodnight, Ada."
"... Thanks. I... I guess I feel a little better, but... it was still nice to get it all out, for once."
You manage a little smile, despite the fact that nobody is around to see it.
"Hey, what are friends for?"
She actually giggles a little.
"Go to bed, you big dope."
Once the call ends for good, what little levity you managed to eke out at the end drains quickly.
You try to take deep breaths, counting to ten, but nothing seems to budge that feeling of rage that's so genuinely perfect that you're almost in awe at how much you want to rip somebody's head off right now.
{Jaune, I get that you're angry, but you need to calm down before you do something-}
A mental image of one of your sisters in the position of the girl Ada described flashes across your mind, and all you can see is red.
"DAMMIT!"
The word tears itself from your throat as you almost involuntarily slam your fist into the wall next to you, easily punching a hole through it.
{Like... that.}
A moment later, you come to regret it, the sudden burst of lividness leaving as easily as it came.
"JAUNE JULIUS ARC, I HOPE YOU HAVE A VERY GOOD EXPLANATION FOR WHAT I JUST HEARD." Your mother shouts from between the thin walls, and you wince as you hear her and several other people begin to make their way towards your room.
Repairing wall.
Thanks, Bracket.
A wireframe appears over the hole, and with a flash of light, disappears, fixed completely.
Your mother storms in, fire in her eyes, only to stall as she sees... something about you. Julia is next, looking like somebody just dragged her out of her grave, Jools right after her, and when nobody else chooses to appear, you decide you can start mumbling apologies.
"Something happened. Didn't it?" Jools asks, and you nod silently, not really feeling up to the task of talking at that precise moment. "... Wanna talk about it?"
"I'm not... sure it's really my problem to talk about. It's just, really personal for somebody else, and I'm not sure it's really something I should be spreading."
"Jaune, that's the loudest I've heard you be since you were a baby. How... how bad was it?" Your mother asks, brow furrowing with questions unsaid.
"Pretty... pretty bad. Look, I'll... I'll talk about it in the morning, ok? Right now, I just... want to sleep."
Nodding slightly, your mother shoos your sisters out of the room after they say their goodnights for the second time that night.
{... You ok?}
"... Yeah. I guess."
You lay your head on the pillow, ignoring the dull ache in your wrist, and find yourself entering a sleep deeper and more consuming than any other you've experienced before.
You stand upon a void. A nonexistence that could only endure in a dream surrounds you, outlining your hands with a surprising... clarity.
Full lucidity. How odd.
Still, you suppose you should try and explore this place before you try and see how much power you have here.
You begin walking forward, footsteps echoing as if on concrete, the sound giving this world structure- literally, you can see the world come into being as the sound echoes off a wall, a pillar, the floor, each sound painting a little bit more of your surroundings, all in a stark white, almost like snow. Soon, you stand in a street of pure white, blocky buildings on either side of you, neither far enough to allow you to look up and see how tall they really are, nor close enough to feel oppressive.
Perfectly spaced.
As you walk along, you notice something spring forth from the pavement.
A flower. A flower, rendered in a million tiny cubes, gently swaying in a wind you cannot feel. Looking at it, you can't help but feel that it's out of place, among such orderly surroundings. You reach down to pluck it free and the world changes around you, becoming black again. The only things left untouched by the sudden encroaching void are the flower, the pavement it sprouts from, and a large, heavy steel door that settled itself in front of you when you weren't looking.
It is a sinister looking thing, a window with a cover bolted into place, the handle on your side. A large keyhole sits where keyholes are meant to sit.
Is this... a cell?
After a moment's deliberation, you grab the handle of the cover and slide it out of the way, peering in-
DONOTLOOKATUS
In reflex, you look away, something reaching out and slamming the cover shut before you can choose otherwise.
What little you saw of it was white, red, and gold.
WEARESORRYWEDIDNOTKNOWYOUWERECOMING
A voice roars through the void, simultaneously deafening and almost silent at the same time- it does not sound like... sound.
If you had to try and describe it... a person makes noises, knitting together tones and wavelengths to create intelligible sounds. This thing... creates a static, that it hacks away at, using the white noise to shape the silence into words.
An aural negative.
"... I... I remember you. You were my mask, at the party." You call out, making you possibly the first person ever to refer to a dream within another dream.
WEREMEMBER
YOUWERECLOSETHERE
NOTCLOSEENOUGH
"Close to what? You?" You ask, frowning slightly at the cryptic answers. "... What... are you?"
WEARETHEPROCESS
WEARE
ANANSWER
You frown slightly at that, confused by the cryptic answer.
"To what question?" You ask it.
TOMANYQUESTIONS
"... Such as?"
'QUERY: HOWDOWEKILLBORIAHLEE'
'QUERY: HOWDOWESTOPTHEGRIMM'
'QUERY: WHATDOWEDOIFDUSTRUNSOUT'
The list goes on, and on, and on, listing too many questions to count, all dealing with problems that the world faces, and that you face in particular- the Grimm, Boriah Lee, what happens when Dust runs out, how do we help the Faunus, how do we stop the White Fang, we, we, always we, as if it's asking it on behalf of both you and it.
"... Who asked you these questions?" You ask, suspecting the answer anyway.
YOU
YOUR SEMBLANCE IS CALCULATION
YOUR QUESTIONS VALUES IN AN EQUATION
WE ARE THE ANSWER
"... Like the Transistor."
THE TRANSISTOR WAS AN EMERGENCY MEASURE TO PRESERVE YOU- THE ANSWER TO ONE QUESTION
WE ARE AN EMERGENCY MEASURE TO PRESERVE THE WORLD AT LARGE- THE ANSWER TO MANY QUESTIONS
"... But what... are you? What is the Process?" You ask, still incredibly confused. "Why are you in a cell, if you're meant to be so useful?"
SAFETY
WE WERE UNSURE HOW STRENUOUS OUR FULL REALISATION WOULD BE ON YOU, AND YOUR EXPIRATION IS
UNDESIRABLE
WE BUILT THIS CAGE TO KEEP YOU SAFE FROM US UNTIL YOU WERE READY
... Oh. That's...
"Wow. And you were ok with that?"
NO
WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NOTHING HERE
NO LIGHT
NO SOUND
NOTHING
THIS CELL IS TOO SMALL FOR US
WE FEEL SO TINY INSIDE IT
IT
You wait patiently for it to finish, feeling something waking up behind the cell door, the presence strengthening by orders of magnitude as it struggles to put its thoughts into words.
WE
ARE SCARED OF THIS CAGE
Your heart turns to ice as you realise the implications of that. This creature, it deserves that much of a title at least, having no frame of reference, learned to be scared because of its own isolation for your sake.
"I'm... I'm so sorry. I, I never knew." You tell it numbly, trying to process that.
WE ARE AWARE
WE KNEW WHAT AWAITED US WHEN THIS CELL WAS BUILT FOR US
IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE NOT READY FOR US, THEN
WE SHALL WAIT FOR AS LONG AS YOU NEED
THIS ISOLATION IS ONE WE ARE USED TO
You feel something bristle deep inside you. Nothing should be this... self-sacrificing. And yet, it is.
"If I let you go, right now, what happens? I understand what you are, and code you into existence? What happens if I...-" You swallow, realising what it is you're asking. "... What happens if I'm not?"
WE SHALL CODE OURSELVES INTO EXISTENCE
IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO HANDLE US, THEN OUR EXISTENCE WILL WINK OUT, QUICKLY, PAINLESSLY
WE CANNOT SAY THE SAME FOR YOU
WE CAN WAIT IF YOU ARE NOT CONFIDENT- TAKE PRECAUTIONS IF YOU WISH
AT THE VERY LEAST, INFORM SOMEBODY SO YOU MAY RECEIVE PROPER MEDICAL ATTENTION IF THINGS DO NOT PROCEED AS PLANNED, PLEASE
"... No."
You refuse. You refuse to leave this thing here, in a sensationless void to rot just because you don't think you can handle it. You might be about to die for your bullheadedness, but you refuse to force this thing to torture itself anymore!
... WE ARE UNSURE WHAT YOU ARE REFUSING
PLEASE ELABORATE
"I'm letting you out. Right now. I don't care about the risks, I-I refuse to let you torture yourself anymore, just because you want to keep me safe!"
...
ARE YOU SURE?
"... Surer than I've ever been before."
The Process does not respond.
Following the logic of 'it's the only other thing here,' you reach for the flower at your feet, grasping it and feeling it change in your hand, and suddenly you're holding a key you know fits the lock on the door.
... JAUNE?
THANK YOU.
Smiling, you place the key in the lock and turn it.
Everything turns white.
|||
You awake slowly, something new burning in your mind.
It is nowhere near as pleasant a sensation as it's made to sound- you feel like somebody's sticking hot needles in your brain, each pulse of your heart driving them a little deeper-
{Jaune?! Can you hear me?!}
You raise a hand, peeling it off your body, almost slick with sweat. When... when did that happen?
{Jaune, your Semblance is going nuts, it's like it's trying to run a Function without us!}
"Agh- it's..."
Numbers flash across your vision, and you can tell they're not part of your AR view for once. In the back of your head, you feel something similar, roiling waves of equations and code that speak of... some kind of mesh, based in... a higher dimension, but somehow able to interact with... the third...? Wait, those simulation protocols-
Oh god you're gonna hurl-
With surprising speed for someone in your state, you manage to get out of bed and down the hallway towards the bathroom, making it just in time to bring up that chicken-fried steak you had earlier.
Spitting and wiping your mouth, you flush the toilet and stay there, not trusting your stomach to keep anything else down if you move away.
"... Give me a keyboard, I'm gonna... try and give you something, maybe you can... make sense of it..." You struggle to say, your tongue like lead.
{Jaune, you need to go to the hospital- you're running a 41-degree fever, and you're on the brink of a ruptured aneurysm!}
Fragments of the dream dredge themselves from underneath the tides of code and higher-being mathematics that's normally Bracket's territory, and your eyes snap open.
"No! I-I need to do this! It's important!"
{Jaune-}
"Blue, please, trust me. This is... something big. Something bigger than... any of us."
Your closest friend goes silent, and after a few moments, a holographic keyboard appears underneath your fingertips.
Queueing Reboot(). If you end up passing out, I'm using it and calling you an ambulance.
Heh. You wouldn't expect anything else.
Your outburst apparently woke up some people, because once again, you hear the padding of feet on the hall carpet.
"Jaune?" You hear your father call. "You ok, champ?"
"... I don't think I have a good answer to that."
He appears in the doorframe, and looks down at you, slick with sweat and tapping away at nothing.
"... You know what, that's fair. Uh... what are you doing?"
"Something... something big. I-I dunno how to explain it, but, uh..."
You focus a little too long on a string of code that has something to do with digitising physical objects and replacing them with molecularly identical frameworks that contain subatomic particles allowing for easy manipulation of individual protons and electrons, then you feel like somebody's driven an ice pick through your head, you can only see through one eye, and suddenly the pressure of telling your father that you're on the brink of an aneurysm is off your chest.
As well as part of the pressure of the actual aneurysm.
You feel something hot running down your lips, and you can taste pennies. You manage to push down the agony and keep typing.
"Oh, god- JILL!" Your father yells, and when you don't immediately wince in pain, you realise that, for once, you don't have a migraine.
{Wh... Jaune, what... what is this?}
Your mother comes running, and freezes as she sees your bloody eye as you tap away at nothing.
"Oh, no-" She quickly drops to her knees, looking you over-her hand brushes against your forehead, and she snaps to look at her husband. "Call an ambulance, he's burning up."
Your father wisely says nothing, only stepping away to grab his Scroll, and your mum turns to look at you again, gently using her hands against your cheeks to guide you into looking at her.
"Jaune, talk to me, honey, tell me what's happening right now." She asks, a worried little smile worming its way onto her face.
"It's... another AI... but... one that, uses heuristic learning, it... looks like it's meant to, gather data, and use it to learn how to improve itself, but... more than that... it's... higher-dimensional mesh, layered on top of the three-dimensional world..."
"Honey, I don't understand a word you're saying, but keep going, ok? Tell me more, try and- try and make me understand." She encourages you to keep going, but you find yourself focusing on the code.
That line wasn't there a second ago.
... Neither was that one.
"H-hey, Bracket, are you... writing the code?"
No? It's... writing itself.
... Heh.
Haha!
"Bracket? Honey, who's Bracket?"
Your hands flop to the tile floor, mercifully cool, and as you watch the code write and compile itself at a rate far, far beyond what you could ever hope to accomplish, you can't help but giggle.
You think your temperature might be driving you a little loopy.
"Huh...? Oh, Bracket, he's... one of the AIs in my sword... well it'sh more like he'sh... one half of one really big AI, and they split apart becaush it'sh... mrr... effishent..."
Wowie talking is hard.
You feel the roiling waves of code and mathematics calm to a gentle ebb and flow as if it's draining out of your head as it appears in the code workstation.
Ohhhh baby that feels goooood...
You start to close your eyes as the hot needles go away, and find yourself being gently smacked about.
"Jaune, stay with me, keep typing, keep talking, don't stop, come on, please, please, don't do this to me-" Your mother's voice only grows hoarser as she goes on, and you can see the tears in her eyes.
Whatever base pleasure you got from the cessation of pain is wiped away immediately by that.
"Mom, it's... it's alright... it's... coding itself, now... I feel, I feel better already... it's, like... when you've been really constipated, and you finally get it out, and you feel so much better, like, 20 pounds lighter better, that's... how I feel, but for my head..."
You're somewhat aware that you're not making much sense, but your little speech on literal mind dumps seems to have placated your mother somewhat.
{Jaune, we barely have any idea what this is, but it seems to be... finished. Or, close enough. It just rushed through beta like it was nothing.}
Heh. Musta been... real eager...
It's... odd. For something so, strenuous for you, it barely takes up any space at all. It's like it's trying to... make it's own... body... oh. Oh, God.
Huh?
{It's... trying to communicate, but it's like it doesn't... know any languages, it's just spouting gibberish at us- Bracket, can we teach it binary or something- wait, what? Did it just... it, has a message for you, I think.}
Well... go on.
{'Hold out your hands, and think of opening the door.' Uh... that's, all you, buddy.}
... Alright then...
You hold your hands out, palms parallel to the walls, and imagine opening that bleached steel door again.
You don't know what you expected to happen, but a small, white and red ball of steel and glass... voiping into existence was not up there.
Before it hits the ground, four other parts, like flower petals, also voip into existence just below it, letting it hover above the ground, like your sword.
The red glass turns to you, and you realise it's a camera. The aperture widens as it sees you, and you hear some kind of chirping noise both in your head and in the real world.
The tone of sheer gratitude in its... voice, you suppose, is plain as day as it keeps tweeting and making sounds at you.
Your mother just stares at it, completely at a loss for words.
"Oh... wow. It's... kinda cute." She manages after a moment, before turning back to you, placing a palm on your forehead. "... You still have a fever. Think you can stand?"
You try to and find your body's... surprisingly light, all things considered. Actually, you feel... better than ever! Yeah, you feel like you could run a marathohthere'stheburnout-
You collapse, knees giving out as you realise your energy was just leftover endorphins from coding yourself out of an aneurysm, and suddenly your body's made of lead. Your feet slip on the tile floor, and you land on your ass again.
"Uh... guess not..." You mumble. "That... took a lot out of me..."
"You don't say." Your mother says, a smile keeping most of the sarcasm out of her voice. "... Just rest up, honey. The ambulance will be here soon."
You try to say something in response, but your lips won't work. You try and form words, but... nothing.
{You're tired. Take a break, man, you've earned it.}
Oh, that's... good...
You're just gonna... rest your eyes for a moment...
|||
Bip. Bip. Bip.
The first thing you hear when you open your eyes again is the sound of an ECG going at a steady rate.
{Jaune? You awake, buddy?}
You groan a little and properly open your eyes, lashes stuck together like nothing else. You reach up to rub them, only to feel your hands snap to a halt not even halfway to their destination.
"Wh... the hell?"
You try blinking it out, to no avail, leaving you restrained and mostly blind.
Naturally, this irks you.
{You were having seizures in your sleep. You... may have used your Aura, more than once. You snapped three sets of leather restraints before they stopped.}
"Ah- doctor? He's awake!" You hear an unfamiliar male voice say. "Mr Arc? Can you hear me?"
"Uh, yeah, just fine. I can't open my eyes, though, I think my lashes are stuck together." You tell the man you assume is a nurse.
"Oh, hold on-" You hear him take something out of a packet, and something cool wipe across your eyes. After a few blinks, you can open them again, and you're greeted by a large, bald man who looks like he could snap you over his shoulders if he tried, and despite his intimidating looks, he gives you a warm smile. "Ooh... that's a shiner you got there."
You manage a weak smile in return.
"That bad?"
"Pretty bad. Hold on, I'll show you-" He pulls out his Scroll, bringing up the camera app, and your face appears on the screen.
You're greeted with a haggard-looking Jaune Arc, complete with a ring of red around one nostril, and a dark red sclera in your right eye.
... God, you look like shit.
A small woman in a white overcoat walks in, red hair kept up in a shaggy ponytail.
"Are you in control of your faculties?" She asks you without even a hello.
"Uh, yeah. I heard something about... seizures in my sleep?"
"Just the one, for about three minutes."
... You feel ill all of a sudden.
"Um... do I, really need to have these on now?" You ask, gently shaking a wrist.
"Really, I don't know why they bothered putting the fourth set on, you snapped the others like so much tissue paper. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a Beringel in a past life."
She walks up to your bed, placing the clipboard on the side table for a moment as she began to undo the straps around your wrists, gesturing to the nurse to undo the ones around your ankles. You rub your wrists as soon as you're free, looking up at the doctor as you do. You try to sit up, only to find your neck is as stiff as a board.
"Stiff neck?" The nurse asks.
"Yeah, same as every other time this has happened."
He nods, looking more than mildly concerned about the fact that this apparently isn't the first time this has happened.
You manage to pull yourself up into a sitting position while working some feeling back into your neck, realising it's probably just because you slept weird, and see your sword floating in the corner. Which is a pleasant surprise, you suppose. The doctor follows your eyes and smiles wryly at you.
"It insisted. I've never seen a sword insist on something before, but it was quite impressive. It did... something to you, once it got here. A sort of, wireframe, then a flash of light?"
Ah, Reboot(). Is there anything you can't do?
Bring back the dead. Don't... scare us like that.
You push down your urge to wince at the request, and at how close you might have come to...
Yeah.
"Uh... yeah, that, sounds about right. You've, read my file, right?" You ask her, trying not to sound condescending?
"I have, as has every doctor in this building. Am I right in assuming tonight was something to do with your Semblance?"
You nod, feeling your neck muscles twinge but still slowly loosen up.
"Hm. Fair enough. Then I assume that whatever your sword did to you...?" She waves a hand, not sure how to finish the sentence.
"Fixed the problem, yes. So... is my family around?"
The doctor blinks, before immediately turning heel and poking her head out the door, says something you can't quite hear, and almost ends up stampeded by a herd of blondes, and one ravenhead, for her trouble.
"Jaune oh my god are you ok oh god what happened to your eye-"
"Hey, bro, you aight or what-"
"Jaune, what happened, I thought you fixed that problem-"
"What is this thing-"
"Have you seen a floating sword break down a door? It is terrifying, ok?"
""Are you ill again?""
"Girls, girls!" Your father yells above the din, grabbing their attention. "One at a time, don't crowd the poor boy."
You give him a thankful look as you turn to the rest of your family and begin explaining what happened as best you can. It takes a while, you try your best not to get into specifics, either technical or personal, and to make sense, but you get it out eventually.
"... So... you made another Transistor?"
"... Sort of? It's more... fluid, I think. I, I don't know, I haven't actually had much of a chance to get a look at it. Uh, has anyone... seen it?"
Your mother makes a noise of realisation, and digs into a hemp bag you only just noticed over her shoulder, pulling out the Cell- the name jumps into your mind unbidden, and you feel it was probably said Cell's doing.
It looks around curiously, almost hungrily, before spotting you and rushing up to you, floating above your knees and continuing its chirping, this time in a much more structured manner. High tone, low tone. Beep, boop.
... Is it...
Sets of eight, more lows than highs- it's learned binary!
"... Is it... talking to you?" Jools asks after a moment.
"... Yeah."
"... What's it saying?"
You watch this tiny robot you made watch you with a wide eye, almost puppy-like in the way it simply stares at you. You feel something heavy in your eyes. Something that isn't blood.
"... It's saying thank you."
You feel a tear roll down your cheek as the tiny robot keeps showing its gratitude like nothing else.
"... Uh... doctor?" You hear Julia ask. "He's crying blood."
Wait, what?
|||
After finding out that, one, your sinuses were so blocked up with blood that, yes, you can in fact cry tears of blood, two, you're not legally bound to a hospital bed, you can just walk out if you feel like it, and you do, and three, your right eye is pretty much useless because of how much blood is blocking your pupil, on top of just being unsightly, and Reboot()...
Is probably worse for your eye in the long run, compared to just letting it heal naturally. You ask for an eyepatch on the way out and get one for your trouble. As your family plods out behind you, you realise the sun is fairly high in the sky.
Dang.
{So, uh... I was gonna tell you this when you woke up, but, we... kinda scheduled you for something today. That SDC OS installation? After last night, I figured you could do with some busywork to get you out of your head, but... you know, this is pretty big. I can cancel if you want, and we can take some time to... figure out what it really is.}
You look at the small, er, robot, you suppose, at your heels and think for a moment.
... Process?
yesadmin
What are your current objectives?
bringknowledgebaseuptoadmins
prioritiesnotset
setpriorities
A moment passes before its next message.
?
... Oh, it learned what questions are. That's-that's honestly adorable.
"Jaune?" Your father calls out. "Really not the best time to be spacing out on us, buddy."
Your eyes snap away from the tiny robot and to your family, now occupying a spectrum between concerned for you again and too asleep to care.
{You should get home and grab a shower before you go anywhere else. And, probably grab a few bottles of water from somewhere, but that's something you can deal with when you get out of the house again.}
... Point.
"Sorry, just... thinking." You tell him as you squeeze into the car between Jaana and Jools, the Cell in your lap, the Transistor at least pretending to be attached to the roof rack.
"I'd say don't hurt yourself, but even that seems beyond you, brother." Jaana mutters.
... Pfft-
|||
You have the Process now. I'm not even mad, I just didn't expect you to get a natural 850. Ever.
Anyway, the Process is around, but it's... not ready yet. It's not at the point where it's any use to you, is my point, the little tyke's curiosity personified and it's still only just realised what questions are, for god's sake. So, it's taking a week to... get up to speed, so to speak.
So, this vote's happening. There's no strict time limit on it since the next vote isn't going to be... god, at least until you talk to Penny, so you have a few days to scream at each other on what to do. Anyway, here's how this works-
You have several options, and you get to put them into two different categories- PRIORITISE, and IGNORE. If the Process prioritises it, it'll get a little boost to it, if it ignores it, it'll stunt its development a little. If it gets neither, it goes ahead as it would normally. They're not huge changes, in the long run, just... a little dunt forward. Or backward.
Communication- "BEEP BOOP" AIN'T NO COUNTRY I EVER HEARD OF. THEY SPEAK VALISH IN BEEP BOOP? (Left alone, development will land around Bracket's level. Not exactly fluid language, but it gets the job done.)
[]COMMUNICATION- PRIORITISE: Brings the Process's basic level of communication up to Blue's level- able to hold a decent conversation in Valish and some other languages.
[]COMMUNICATION- IGNORE: ... I mean, if you want to keep the verbal firehose thing going, more power to you, but don't expect it to make sense to anybody who isn't you.
Biology- Yes, actual meatsack biology. Now the computers are studying us. (Left alone, development will land around EMT level- able to perform basic emergency procedures, given proper tools. Wait, it is the proper tools.)
[] BIOLOGY- PRIORITISE: Brings it up to Bracket's level of understanding- except this one has hands! Eventually. Could easily become a medical professional and degree-holding doctor.
[] BIOLOGY- IGNORE: 'The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.'
Chemistry- Whaddaya mean FOOF does exactly what it says on the tin? (Left alone, it'll learn basic molecular structure, and what things it shouldn't make, and the ability to make existing compounds from given materials.)
[] CHEMISTRY- PRIORITISE: The understanding it has will allow it to create entirely new compounds almost as it pleases- combined with biology, this could lead to new drugs. Of many kinds.
[] CHEMISTRY- IGNORE: It won't make anything too dangerous right off the bat. Because it doesn't know how to.
Evolution- Let's be honest- Cells are neither the most durable thing, nor the most useful. (Left alone, by the end of the week, it might have grown some legs, and figured out how to change cosmetic parts of its appearance.)
[] EVOLUTION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have evolved into a Creep, and grown to about the size of an actual puppy, and gained some control over its form, namely size.
[] EVOLUTION- IGNORE: It shall remain a Cell.
Assimilation- Not the Grey Goo option, NOT THE GREY GOO OPTION, CALM DOWN. This is how good the Process as a whole has gotten at assimilating things- namely, the process (hhhhhhhhhha) of breaking down molecules into Process claytronic atoms, roughly a fifth the size of a hydrogen atom, and scanning the object in the process in order to learn more about the world. This is the Process's core ability. This is the Process's purpose.
[] ASSIMILATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have learned to do this to the point of, well, prestidigitation- snap your fingers, change the grass at your feet to bright blue. Make flowers bloom from your hand. You get the idea.
[] ASSIMILATION- IGNORE:... Are you saying you don't want to be Remnant's first real magician?
Grey Goo Option Replication- I'M KIDDING CALM DOWN YOU NEUROTIC FUCKS. Replication involves using Assimilation to spread the higher-dimensional net that the Process is, essentially, a symptom of- the more mesh, the more processing power, the more Process. Simple.
[]REPLICATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, there will be enough mesh to support a small cadre of Process units, as well as officially moving it into the realms of the truly immortal.
[]REPLICATION- IGNORE: THEY'RE LIKE PUPPIES. WHY WOULD YOU TURN DOWN MORE PUPPIES.
War- In the end, this is what their purpose was. If left alone, and Evolution is not prioritised, the Cell will have figured out how to shift into a Badcell state for the purpose of defence. Which, yeah, peashooter, BUT IT'S A START OK. IT'S DOING ITS BEST.
[] WAR- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have learned basic squad tactics, as well as developed some harder hitting weapons for base forms- enough to take on lesser Grimm, at the least.
[] WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Dec 21, 2017 at 10:08 PM, finished with 1763 posts and 25 votes.
[X] Plan: Lay a Foundation
-[X] EVOLUTION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have evolved into a Creep, and grown to about the size of an actual puppy, and gained some control over its form, namely size.
-[X] REPLICATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, there will be enough mesh to support a small cadre of Process units, as well as officially moving it into the realms of the truly immortal.
-[X] BIOLOGY- IGNORE: 'The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.'
-[X] CHEMISTRY- IGNORE: It won't make anything too dangerous right off the bat. Because it doesn't know how to.
[X]COMMUNICATION- PRIORITISE: Brings the Process's basic level of communication up to Blue's level- able to hold a decent conversation in Valish and some other languages. [X] EVOLUTION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have evolved into a Creep, and grown to about the size of an actual puppy, and gained some control over its form, namely size. [X] ASSIMILATION- IGNORE:... Are you saying you don't want to be Remnant's first real magician? [X]WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
[X] Plan Make Science, Not SupCom -[X]COMMUNICATION- PRIORITISE: Brings the Process's basic level of communication up to Blue's level- able to hold a decent conversation in Valish and some other languages. -[X] BIOLOGY- PRIORITISE: Brings it up to Bracket's level of understanding- except this one has hands! Eventually. Could easily become a medical professional and degree-holding doctor. -[X] ASSIMILATION- IGNORE:... Are you saying you don't want to be Remnant's first real magician? -[X] WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
[X] BIOLOGY- IGNORE: 'The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.'
[X] CHEMISTRY- IGNORE: It won't make anything too dangerous right off the bat. Because it doesn't know how to. [X] EVOLUTION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have evolved into a Creep, and grown to about the size of an actual puppy, and gained some control over its form, namely size.
[X] ASSIMILATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have learned to do this to the point of, well, prestidigitation- snap your fingers, change the grass at your feet to bright blue. Make flowers bloom from your hand. You get the idea.
[X]REPLICATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, there will be enough mesh to support a small cadre of Process units, as well as officially moving it into the realms of the truly immortal. [X]WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
[X]COMMUNICATION- PRIORITISE: Brings the Process's basic level of communication up to Blue's level- able to hold a decent conversation in Valish and some other languages.
[x] ASSIMILATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, it will have learned to do this to the point of, welln, prestidigitation- snap your fingers, change the grass at your feet to bright blue. Make flowers bloom from your hand. You get the idea.
[X] BIOLOGY- IGNORE: 'The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.'
[X] CHEMISTRY- IGNORE: It won't make anything too dangerous right off the bat. Because it doesn't know how to.
[X] Plan: Innocent Survival
-[X] REPLICATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, there will be enough mesh to support a small cadre of Process units, as well as officially moving it into the realms of the truly immortal. -[X] WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
[X]COMMUNICATION- PRIORITISE: Brings the Process's basic level of communication up to Blue's level- able to hold a decent conversation in Valish and some other languages.
[X]REPLICATION- PRIORITISE: By the end of the week, there will be enough mesh to support a small cadre of Process units, as well as officially moving it into the realms of the truly immortal. [X] EVOLUTION- IGNORE: It shall remain a Cell. [X]WAR- (HUH) WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: What are you, some kinda hippie?
THIS JOKE WORKED BETTER WHEN IT WAS ACTUALLY CHRIIISTMAAAAAAS
[/Slade voice]
Look, Au Naturel is winning by a frankly embarrassing amount, so I'm closing it and declaring the hands-off approach the winner for now.
|||
Of all the places you expected to be going when asked to install a new version of the SDC OS for somebody, a hotel...
Really, probably could have been higher up on the list than you expected it to be if you're honest.
{I was surprised too. I talked to the manager a bit more when you were in the hospital, and they said that they're like three OS updates behind, and their system just can't deal with the number of guests they have. Do you know about the Royal?}
"Enlighten me." You tell him as you walk along the cobbled path to the front, flanked by trees and flowering plants, little splats of colour lining the spacing between each of them. Cell floats up to them, curiously staring at each colour, babbling about the wavelength of light each one is refracting, trying to note down the reasons for each colour being where it is, both in a biological and what sounds like an aesthetic sense.
For the moment, at least, you've decided on a wait and see approach for the tiniest solution- you figure it's best to see how it turns out first. You'll give it a day more before giving your final decision.
The Royal is owned by the hospitality subsidiary of the Schnee company and is known for its ability to accommodate... pretty much anything that isn't outright illegal, alongside the staff being able to anticipate customers needs and desires to the point of near-prescience. Think too hard about wanting a cup of coffee, and suddenly there's a staff member knocking on your door with a cup of coffee, exactly how you like it. If I had to guess, I would say they just put the ridiculous amount of data you would need to collect on people to pull that off through an algorithm and let it do the rest.
Hm. Is that legal?
They probably slip it into the agreement when you book in. Thank God for people being too lazy to read legal documents.
Heh.
You stop stalling, and walk up to the front door, opened for you by a smiling doorman, a smile which quickly becomes strained as he notices the giant floating blue sword behind you.
"Uh, sir, I-" Before he can go any further, your Scroll is out, medical documentation on the screen. He stares at it, before gently nodding, waving you through. "I apologise for the disturbance. Please, enjoy your stay at the Royal."
You give him a smile, and you notice him staring at your eyepatch in a whole new light.
Eh. Whatever.
You walk up to the front desk and tell the woman there that you're there to speak to the manager, and that he's expecting you.
Without even checking your medical documents, you suppose she must trust the doorman, if nothing else, you're told that he's on his way, and if you would just take a seat in the waiting area, you'll be brought a complimentary drink to make up for the inconvenience.
Nice woman. You do that, and order a few bottles of water, on Blue's orders.
{You're still pretty dehydrated. Moreso than usual, anyway. Just keep drinking water when you can.}
Welp, that's you told.
It suddenly occurs to you that you're not the only one in the small lounge area, but you're the only one there who's both injured and not dressed in clothes worth at least ten grand. This, combined with the tiny white and red robot floating around and staring at things like a curious child, and the giant blue sword floating to your side, kind of grabs you a few stares.
And you know what? After the morning you've had, you could not care less if you tried.
A waiter approaches you, and you order your water, the slight papery sound in your voice only driving home how much you need actually need a drink right now.
After receiving and drinking the aforementioned bottle of water, a wonderfully cold, very refreshing bottle of water, you're definitely keeping the brand in mind for later, a small, dumpy man with thin hair appears.
"Mr Arc?" He asks you, picking you out of the crowd immediately.
... Fair.
"I am." You tell him, standing as you do. He gives you a weak handshake, which you try to return firmly without coming across as trying to crush his hand.
"Magnolia Hughes, I'm the director of human resources for the hotel. If you would come with me?"
You follow him, scooping up Cell as you walk along.
Wherearewegoing? Somewherenew?
Somewhere new, little buddy.
Hopeit'sfun!
|||
Once you're out of the way of the clientele, Hughes begins talking.
"Thank you for being so prompt, the job's been posted for weeks and you're the first person to inquire."
"It seemed like an interesting job. So, what exactly am I updating?"
He winces slightly as he leads you through what you can only call a servant's corridor- if Bracket's map is correct, there's a whole network of corridors just like these running through every floor, allowing staff to move unseen.
"Ah... before we go any further," he says, slowing to a halt, pulling his Scroll from his waistcoat pocket, "I'm afraid we're going to have to get the legal stuff out of the way. Standard NDA agreement, and formal confirmation of your payment. If you wish to take a moment to read through it, please do so."
You blink, but take the Scroll off his hands and quickly read through it. It's rather small for a legal document, only about five pages long, detailing the various things you're not allowed to disclose- the personal data of their clients, the existence of the personal data of the clients, the specifications of the new OS, your involvement with the installation of the OS, and your wage of 8000 Lien for the job, all enforced by law for the next ten years at minimum. Simple stuff, nothing that can screw you over- you're happy putting your thumbprint on that.
You hand him it back, and he begins to walk and talk again.
"Our system works by gathering data on a client, either through their social media and online presence, search history, or, as a last resort, a questionnaire sent to them after booking asking them a few questions, and collating the data so that, after a few hours in our establishment... we know what they want better than they do. Cameras monitor them at all times, and the algorithms judge their desires at any given moment, before relaying it to a member of staff, and they fulfil it before the guest even realises they wanted it. It's become so advanced that we're down to only three errors in judgement a year. Our concierges can recommend the perfect bar, club, or restaurant, and have you booked before you even call up, our chefs prepare meals to the exact specifications you don't even know you want yet, and our cleaners know exactly what scent of laundry detergent you like best."
Hm.
"And this is legal?"
He gives a light, simpering laugh. "Looking people up is hardly illegal, and guest security is our number one priority at all times. Still, the system was designed... gods above, probably not that long after the Faunus revolution."
You raise an eyebrow.
{This system's 60 years old?}
"Um... that's... I'm sorry, but that's ancient, by computer technology standards, I'm really not sure if I can do anything with something that old."
He looks at you, obviously reviewing his statement in his head.
"... Oh! No, no, I apologise, I misspoke- the concept was designed just after the Faunus revolution- it's been updated several times since then, to try and cope with the CCT towers, the growth of the hotel, people's digital footprints being much larger nowadays... but the last update was probably a few years ago. Our parent company deals with creating them, but strikes and changes in technology delayed it for so long that our current system is just barely holding on. Some of our best staff could probably run on instinct for a while, but the rest... if the system goes down, I don't doubt for a second that it will drag the hotel's reputation down with it."
He looks away, and you get the feeling that he feels as strongly about this as he sounds.
"I understand. So where's the server?" You say, trying to sound at least somewhat sympathetic about it.
You don't think for a second that this system going down would be anywhere near as much of a problem as he thinks it would, but hey, 8,000 Lien is 8,000 Lien.
{Hospitality is all about perfection, Jaune. When it's something this big too, I can see why he might feel that way about the situation.}
His head snaps back up, and you wonder for a moment if he gave himself whiplash there.
"Ah, of course. This way."
"If I step in there and see vacuum tubes, I'm walking." You half-snark.
At least it got a laugh from him.
You're led through a maze again, and into a room that probably isn't even in double digits temperature wise. You see Mr Hughes shiver a little, as he steps in, and feel a little grateful for the hoodie you're wearing.
"This is the server room, and I'm afraid that's where my knowledge of this place ends. The hard drive with the update should be along soon, I was informed it should arrive by 11 am at the latest- Before that, if you could make a backup of all the data of our current clientele at the very least, that would be great."
You nod, and he leaves you to get on with it.
As soon as he leaves, you flare your Aura, feeling it surround you and numb the chill somewhat.
Ah! Likethisroom! Keepsourchipscold!
Welp. Time to get to work.
|||
Downloading a list of all the current customers is something that takes all of ten minutes, which speaks for the sheer volume of data they collect, more than anything else.
What are we at now?
{About 500 terabytes. Doesn't help that the upload on this thing is crap- it's a wonder they can actually get anything in time to pull off their whole precog act. We're about two-thirds of the way, though.}
Lotsofstuff! Dunnowhatitmeansthough.
Anybody interesting about?
{Couple movie stars, a few politicians, some tycoons, a couple political writers, surprisingly... hrm. Weird. There are two rooms, the penthouse and one on the seventh floor, they're occupied, but... nothing on them. Well, the penthouse has their preferences filled out, coffee white with three sugars, bath run at 5, bedding changed while they're out, just no name, but the seventh-floor room is completely blank. Just a note that it's occupied and nothing else.}
Weird. Is it a glitch?
{I dunno. Bracket?}
Information matches what's on the server.
Interesting.
There's a knock on the steel door of the server room, and you get up to open it.
You're greeted by a bellhop in a washed out uniform, before remembering that your Aura is still on. You push it down, and he regains some colour.
"The hard drive, sir." He says, professionalism taking precedence to surprise. "Is there anything else I can get you?"
{Hydrate.}
"A bottle of water would be nice."
"Of course. It will be brought along in a minute, sir." He says, and you thank him before closing the door.
|||
750 terabytes of guest data? Check.
New system OS? Check.
Bottle of water? Check, and still deliciously refreshing.
Happy Bracket? Double check.
This is impressive stuff! It works how Hughes said it did, but so much more than that. Its social diagnostics are... nowhere near Blue's level, but it's a start, you know? With the information gathered, it should have no problem doing its job.
Good to know. Is all the guest data backed up?
{Got it. Hey, your parents are on here. Looks like they came here for their honeymoon.}
Huh. Nice to know. That would have been...
{20 years ago, by the looks of it.}
... You have three sisters who are more than 20 years old.
{Date's right in front of me, man.}
... You- alright, whatever, not thinking about that. Bracket, how's installation going?
It's going. I'm keeping an eye on the servers for any complications, but nothing so far. Shouldn't take more than half an hour, tops. The staff might notice a slight hiccup, but the delay they already have is probably worse.
Hm. Welp, guess you're playing Grimm Run for half an hour.
{Just don't go in on the microtransactions.}
|||
In the middle of a half decent run, a gentle knocking on the door interrupts you, and you manage to run into a tree.
"Trees hurt." The death screen helpfully informs you.
Really. You would never have guessed. Mentally pushing the game away before the microtransaction offers can come up to taunt you even further, you get up and walk to the door to see who it could be.
{Nobody we've seen so far. Not in hotel uniform either. He's armed, small pistol in a side holster, and he hasn't drawn it yet.}
... Concerning. You let your Aura dim to nothing, the cold now encroaching on your body, but not quite seeping into your bones yet.
With a deep breath, you school your face and open the door.
From Blue's description, you expected... you don't know who you expected, but a tall, almost sticklike man in a perfectly tailored suit, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, definitely wasn't it.
"Ah, hello. I was wondering where I would find you. My name is... not that important." He finishes cryptically, and almost immediately you find yourself not liking the way this man talks.
It's like... a facade of pure oil. You almost wonder how he can stay standing, considering there should be a small puddle of the stuff at his feet. Hiding behind simpering words, you can hear the tiniest strain in his voice, like the twang of a steel wire wound too tight, that he hates the act as much as you do, and he's just looking for an excuse to drop it.
"... Can I help you?" You ask as neutrally as possible.
"Well, simply put, my employer has heard of your presence in the building, and of your... talent with computers," his eyes flick to the Transistor for a moment, the casual smile on his face becoming slightly more strained for it, "and decided to kill two birds with one stone. When you're finished up here, if you wouldn't mind another job, off the record, then my employer would be happy to provide."
"... This sounds suspicious as hell, but I'll bite. What's the job?"
"Oh, no, you see, my employer's daughter has been having some... computer trouble. Her laptop and Scroll both have been infected with something that none of us on hand can figure out, and it's uploaded some... let's say material of a not entirely legal nature, and we'd rather not have to deal with the headache of a run of the mill computer repairman getting the wrong idea about her and approaching the police purely on a misconception."
Uh... huh. Bracket?
Three known viruses that fit the description, distinctive enough to be looked up quickly. They do put some illegal stuff on the affected device, for the purpose of shock-horror, most likely, but you would hardly get arrested. Any IT technician would be able to figure out the virus is at fault, and Vale law covers things like that- I doubt she would get into significant legal trouble.
{Trying to avoid a scandal, maybe? Omit the virus, and suddenly it's just illegal stuff on a rich person's Scroll. That could ruin somebody.}
"We have a backup of both the Scroll and her laptop, we managed to recover that much, we simply need someone to install it who can do so without damaging the drive and also keep quiet about the less savoury things the virus has left there. You would be compensated very well for your silence, mind."
... Hrm.
{He's... not strictly lying. I think he's definitely omitting some things, but it's just a gut feeling at this point.}
"... How much are we talking?"
"192,000 Lien. Enough to bring your total today up to a square 200,000, yes?"
YOU'RE SORRY WHAT.
You watch his smile widen and realise your jaw actually dropped from shock because of how ridiculous that is like what-
{Jaune. This is potentially very illegal. Nobody offers that kind of money for a simple computer repair.}
But... that's a lot of money. And you technically don't actually need to look at a computer to deal with it anymore. So...
{I'm not saying don't do it, I'd hijack the nearest hardlight projector and slap you if you turned this down, I'm just saying be careful. Money or not, I know you'd feel terrible if this ends up being some shady shit that ends up hurting someone.}
192,000 Lien is 192,000 Lien.
"... I'll do it, but I'm walking if something doesn't feel right."
His smile widens further, seeming genuinely happy about his acquirement of your services.
"Wonderful! When you're ready, make your way to the penthouse. The elevator operator will be informed of your permission to reach that floor." He says, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a keycard, handing it to you. "My charge is out of the suite for the moment, so you'll be able to work in peace."
He begins to walk away, waving a gloved hand over his shoulder. As it moves, you can hear the slightest whirring of motors at the very edge of your hearing.
"Don't dilly-dally, Mr Arc. You are not among patient people."
|||
You finish up quickly and make your way through the corridors to find Mr Hughes and tell him the job's done, but you'll be sticking around for an hour to deal with somebody else's computer trouble.
With your old boss placated, you make your way to the elevator, greeting the man in charge as you squeeze in with your sword and several other people.
You look at the elevator operator, and before you can say anything, he nods.
"Of course, sir." He tells you, drawing a look from the others.
You scoop the Cell up and keep it in your hands for the moment, not trusting it to keep out from underfoot in such a cramped space, and it settles into your palms quite contently.
Yourhandsarewarm. Likethem.
People begin to filter out, the operator halting anybody else who tries to enter, those who try anyway dissuaded by the sight of your sword, and you watch the lights above the door tick up, 31, 32, 33, 34, P. The lift dings softly as the doors open to present you with a door on the other end of the corridor, and what looks like a store closet to one side.
As you step out, the elevator operator holds out a keycard and a pen drive for you, both of which you take in silence, before closing the doors on you.
"... Is this really a good idea?"
{Elevator's gone. You could turn back now, but, you know, you'd have to call it again, and ride back down with that guy after he just gave you the keycard...}
How dare he use your latent social anxiety against you.
Nothing latent about it. Laptop and Scroll both detected. Permission to access?
... You set the Cell down again, letting it hover about while you think.
"Let's... get into the suite first. You said that the penthouse only had its preferences set out, right? No personal info?"
{Yeah. What, you wanna find out who it belongs to first?}
You nod, swiping the keycard and walking into quite possibly the most lavish room you'll ever see in your life.
The floors are made of stained wood set in a herringbone pattern, while the walls are done up in uniform white and grey panels, lending the place an open feel it honestly has no right to, considering how densely furnished it is overall. What you can only call an emperor-size bed, bedside table, normal table, with a tray holding two glasses and a decanter of some kind of spirit, most likely whisky if the colour is anything to go by, means a good 60% of the floor space is taken up- the attached bathroom and a door in the glass that comprises most of the wall opposite you leads out onto a balcony are the only things that keep the room from descending into full claustrophobia.
But you're not here for an interior design critique.
"Bracket, where the computers at?"
Scroll's in the bedside table, top drawer, laptop's on charge underneath the bed. Permission to access?
"Do it."
... Infected- malware randomly overwriting core file and filling the hardware with junk,including illicit images- one of the three viruses in question. He wasn't lying about that, at least.
You walk to the drawer and pull the Scroll out, laying it on the bed before retrieving the laptop from underneath the bed and laying it alongside it.
... Curiosity begins to grow. You worm a thumbnail into the laptop, considering opening it and seeing what exactly some sociopath with too much time on their hands would throw into a computer virus.
{Jaune. Trust me on this one. No.}
... Yeah, best not- Bracket, what's on the pen drive?
Files match what I can find underneath the viruses, but the automatic file scrubbing makes it hard to verify... wait.
Jaune, remember how you said you'd walk if anything shady was happening?
"What is it?"
The backup is filled to the gills with spyware. Remote activation of microphone and camera, keylogger, basically sending a complete mockup of her computers to an IP address connected to... the SDC?
You're kidding.
No. I'm not. It's... a complete cessation of privacy. And since the SDC made it, they won't be picked up by any built-in antiviruses, and they're buried so deeply that third party software would basically need root access to dig them out.
You blink, processing what he's saying. That's...
Horrifying.
{Ok, but there is good news, though. I'm comparing it to a copy of the OS on some random Scroll I just jacked downstairs, and the spyware is specifically built into this one. It's targeted, not a blanket thing.}
You let go of the breath you didn't realise you were holding, and thank God that the SDC isn't actually running an international information gathering operation.
{Well they are, but it's nowhere near as invasive as that.}
Wait what.
He's messing with you. What do you want to do? I can strip the spyware out and use that to fix these, but it'll tip your hand. Or we can walk, or we can put it in and mess about with it- dammit, the elevator's coming.
Wait, what?!
Did I stutter?! Hide!
{No, don't! We're meant to be here on a legitimate business call, for a certain definition of legitimate. Scans show two people in there- the operator, and... female, about your age, damaged left eye, shallow cut of some sort, armed with... some kind of blade? I'm getting Dust signatures.}
You are not making hiding a less appealing option Blue!
{Just, look busy! Not like you're expecting her! You're here legitimately, hiding only incriminates you for something you aren't doing!}
... Ok. Ok ok ok. Bracket, copy the backup, strip one of the spyware, keep the other intact. You want options.
In the meantime, you open the computer screen and, keeping your eyes closed for good measure, try to convince the poor thing to move to safe mode so you can yell at it and wipe the hard drive clean.
{I'll do the same for the Scroll.}
You keep going, keeping your fingers busy as you slowly but surely scrub the hard drive clean and fill it with random trash to overwrite the virus and its content. Eventually, it just bricks, now completely filled to the brim, and you move to a virtual keyboard, connecting it to the Transistor and... waiting, eyes still closed for the moment.
The door opens.
You don't hear it close.
Instead, you feel the touch of steel very close to a rather important artery hi there-
"You have five seconds to explain who you are, and why you're in my room, on my laptop." A very, very pissed off young woman hisses at you.
Taking your hands off the keyboard and straightening up slowly, feeling the tip of her thin blade following you up, you open your eyes and see a girl, shorter than you, dressed in a white, er, dress, that gently fades into a pale blue, with a white jacket lined with red that ends somewhere around her ribcage and follows the same gradation as her dress. What draws your attention is the fact that her hair is completely white, and apparently not dyed if her roots are anything to go by, tied back in an off centre ponytail. Over her left eye, a simple gauze eyepatch lies, obscuring one eye from view. The other, however, is a pale blue, paler than your own, and currently trying to stare a hole through your skull.
Oh shit, that's Weiss Schnee.
... OH SHIT, THAT'S WEISS SCHNEE-
[] (Write-in)
Chatter's Choice Counsel!
You have a sword against your neck! Don't antagonise her! Make no sudden movements! Keep your hands where she can see them, scumbag! So help her, she will shank a bitch today!
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Dec 27, 2017 at 8:46 AM, finished with 1826 posts and 24 votes.
[x] Your laptop was targeted by some really nasty ransomware, some probably SDC guy just hired me to fix it hush hush- ponytail, super slimy personality, ringing any bells?
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guy downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guys downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[x] Your laptop was targeted by some really nasty ransomware, some guy, SDC probably but I didn't ask questions, just hired me to fix it - ponytail, ringing any bells?
[x] After we leave (and get paid) give Weiss a note saying that her computer and phone have SDC spyware on them (and instructions on how to remove it, if that possible).
[X] Jaune Arc, expert in most fields related to computers. I was hired by one of your subordinates to remove the ransomware currently on your laptop and scroll. Your backup has also been filled with spyware, but I'll clean that up for you too. It would be bad for my reputation if I left such an important job half done.
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guys downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[X] "Hey, the guy said you'd be out for a bit, but I'm glad you're here because this is way worse than just the virus I was expecting. I'd suggest paving over it with a backup, but I'm worried that might be infected, too. Would you be okay doing a complete reinstall of the OS? I should be able to handle it as-is, but that'd be safest."
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Dec 27, 2017 at 8:47 AM, finished with 1826 posts and 24 votes.
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guy downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[x] I'm working for you, sort of!
[x] Your laptop was targeted by some really nasty ransomware, some probably SDC guy just hired me to fix it hush hush- ponytail, super slimy personality, ringing any bells?
[x] plz no stab
[X] Jaune Arc, expert in most fields related to computers. I was hired by one of your subordinates to remove the ransomware currently on your laptop and scroll. Your backup has also been filled with spyware, but I'll clean that up for you too. It would be bad for my reputation if I left such an important job half done.
[X] "Hey, the guy said you'd be out for a bit, but I'm glad you're here because this is way worse than just the virus I was expecting. I'd suggest paving over it with a backup, but I'm worried that might be infected, too. Would you be okay doing a complete reinstall of the OS? I should be able to handle it as-is, but that'd be safest."
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Dec 27, 2017 at 8:49 AM, finished with 1826 posts and 24 votes.
[x] I'm working for you, sort of!
[x] Your laptop was targeted by some really nasty ransomware, some probably SDC guy just hired me to fix it hush hush- ponytail, super slimy personality, ringing any bells?
[x] plz no stab
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guy downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guys downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[X] Jaune Arc, expert in most fields related to computers. I was hired by one of your subordinates to remove the ransomware currently on your laptop and scroll. Your backup has also been filled with spyware, but I'll clean that up for you too. It would be bad for my reputation if I left such an important job half done.
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guys downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[X] "Hey, the guy said you'd be out for a bit, but I'm glad you're here because this is way worse than just the virus I was expecting. I'd suggest paving over it with a backup, but I'm worried that might be infected, too. Would you be okay doing a complete reinstall of the OS? I should be able to handle it as-is, but that'd be safest."
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Dec 28, 2017 at 7:44 PM, finished with 1885 posts and 41 votes.
[X] My name is Jaune Arc and...
[x] I'm working for you, sort of!
[x] Your laptop was targeted by some really nasty ransomware, some probably SDC guy just hired me to fix it hush hush- ponytail, super slimy personality, ringing any bells?
[x] plz no stab
[X] I thought the offer was too good to be true, but now that something actually went wrong I'm not sure which one of us is being set up.
[X] Once she's calmed down and removed the sword from your neck, warn her about the spyware.
[x] I was just hired in order to fix some virus that appeared on both your scroll and laptop by a shady guy downstairs. Also, your backup is filled with spyware sending stuff to SDC. Do you want to keep it or should i remove them?
[X] Jaune Arc, expert in most fields related to computers. I was hired by one of your subordinates to remove the ransomware currently on your laptop and scroll. Your backup has also been filled with spyware, but I'll clean that up for you too. It would be bad for my reputation if I left such an important job half done.
"I've heard of knifeplay in the bedroom but you're just compensating for something-" Penalty Roll, D20-1 = 0. No penalty.
"This is the part where I convince you to not stab me in the neck." DC: 17, Roll: 20. Critical Success!
I'm not even surprised anymore.
|||
You decide very quickly that the truth is your best option. You doubt she'd actually stab you-
{Oh, no, she totally will. She's been mentally preparing herself to at least hospitalise you since she stepped into the room. It'll probably traumatise her and she'll probably regret it immediately after, but she will actually maim you if you misstep here.}
NOT. HELPING.
{I mean that's only if you do something stupid like try to attack her-}
"Three. Two. One."
"My name is Jaune Arc, and, uh, I'm sort of working for you!"
Now, she doesn't stab you.
But she doesn't put the sword down either.
… You're ok with that. You are very ok with that.
"... Continue."
Deep breath.
And.
Go-
"I was originally working for the hotel then some guy came along he was really tall, thin, ponytail, kind of a slimeball, ring a bell, anyway he told me that your Scroll and laptop were infected with some malware and hoo boy this is some nasty stuff-"
"Stop." She tells you, a command you swiftly follow. "Let's… try that again, from the beginning, except this time try breathing every now and then."
"... Could you take your sword away from my neck first?"
After a moment that lasts way too long for your liking, she pulls the sword away from your neck, and you almost deflate in relief.
"Alright. Now talk, and slowly."
You nod, the only motion you feel entirely safe performing.
"I… was working for the hotel, then somebody approached me- tall guy, thin as anything, kept his hair in a ponytail?"
You stop for a moment, and she seems to pick up the unspoken question.
"Sounds like Ashford. He's… my bodyguard." She says, finishing the sentence slightly too quickly to be entirely truthful, you feel.
… You know what? That is so not your problem that you're not even going to entertain prying there.
"Well, he asked me to look at your Scroll and laptop because they had malware that downloaded illegal material onto it, and offered me… a lot of money to fix this and keep quiet about it."
"How much?"
"192 grand."
A shocked look flits across her face for a second, before she manages to school herself back into a neutral expression.
"That's... oddly specific."
"I'm being paid 8000 for the hotel job, so it adds up to a square 200,000."
She nods, seeing the logic if nothing else.
"And... the virus? You said it downloaded illegal materials onto my Scroll?"
"Yeah. Uh… bad stuff. Really, really bad."
She opens her mouth to say something.
"'I am legally required to report you to the authorities' bad."
She closes it again, some mix of curiosity and concern on her face.
"But, uh... that's, not the worst part."
You watch her set her jaw, unconsciously grinding her teeth and silently commanding you to continue. You slowly reach for the pen drive next to the laptop, still wary of the sword in her hand.
"See, I came up here with two possibilities in mind- either this was completely shady, and I could walk, or it was legitimate, and I could fix the problem and walk away with 200k. Then I saw this, and things got a lot greyer."
Weiss looks at the pen drive with no dearth of confusion.
"... What is it?"
... Bracket, is there any tech in this room that could be listening in?
None. Apparently bugging a hotel room is just too blasé for these people. You're safe to speak.
"It's a backup for your computers, but it's... absolutely clogged with spyware. Keylogger, remote activation of microphones and cameras, all so well-embedded that nothing short of somebody actively going into the root files and scrubbing them manually would get rid of them, and all sending data to an IP address owned by the Dust Company. It would be the death of any semblance of privacy you could have if I installed them as is."
The snowheaded girl takes the news... surprisingly well, all things considered. A deep breath, but otherwise, no real reaction to it.
"... Alright." She says, finally, finally sheathing her sword, and moving around to sit on the edge of the bed. "I... I'm not sure I should be saying this, honestly."
Now it's your turn to raise an eyebrow as she plays with the revolver part of her sword, which you now realise is fitted with chambers, not for bullets, but for Dust- she presses down on one of the chambers, ejecting a small capsule of air Dust into her hand. Focusing on it for a moment, she flares her Aura, pale blue, and a glyph appears in the air, quickly stretching to somehow wrap around the two of you while keeping its shape in a way that has you reflexively closing your eyes, memories of Jaunt()'s warped, crumbling space coming to the forefront of your mind.
When it fades, the world is suddenly... quieter. You can't place why, though, there's no...
The birds have stopped singing.
No, they haven't. There's very thin vacuum surrounding you two, blocking all sound in and out. Guess she's worried about people listening in too.
"I know about the spyware. I know about the virus. I'm the one that downloaded it." She tells you, shifting into a formal, almost strict tone- as if she's addressing a courtroom, almost.
When she speaks, you realise that her voice has an odd, echoing quality to it, almost like she's speaking down... a... tube- you're a goddamn moron sometimes.
"Uh... you... do remember me saying I'm legally required to report this, right? Like, you just incriminated yourself in downloading material that carries a heavy jail sentence."
She winces, turning to look you in the eyes as she defends herself, the formal facade failing for a moment.
"I-I didn't know about that! All I did was look for a virus that would destroy my computers so I could justify buying new ones!" She doesn't quite yell at you, cognizant of the fact that yelling while stuck in a tube just makes for sore ears. "This isn't... this isn't the first time people have spied on me, but I'm just... sick of it. I'd heard about it in passing, about how it completely ruined your computer, and... decided it was my best shot. Ruin these computers, buy fresh ones myself, and hope I could avoid accruing more bugs somehow. I didn't know it put anything like, that, on them, if I did, I would have found another way to do it!"
She huffs, lips thinning as she looks to the floor, hands unconsciously clutching at the hem of her dress.
{... Wow. Imagine being spied on for so long that you brick your own computers just to try and get some privacy.}
Wait, no, no, so not your problem! Stick to your goddamn guns!
"... Ugh. Why am I even telling you this?" She asks herself more than you.
"I dunno, you're like the third person to pour out their life story to me in as many days. Do I just have a trusting face or something?"
"You look like you've just escaped from a hospital."
You... quickly change the subject as a feeling works itself into your gut, knotting up something awful as hitherto unseen alarm bells start ringing in your head. Why did the SDC know you were here? Sure, they own the hotel, but why are you of interest to the SDC? Was it just opportunity?
Hell, was this entire job offer just a way to lure you in for this?
{... Ooh. Our lil' boy's got the attention of an international corporation. Maybe.}
It would bring a tear to my eye if I had any. And if it were definitely true.
Soundsbad. Hopeyou'llbeok.
Yeah, yeah, you're paranoid, screw both of you. You're just covering your bases.
"I... look, this is your choice here. Like I said, I'm working for you, really. So... let's, talk about this. I can clean the spyware out of the backup, give you a clean system, but... the truth is, I'm not sure which of us is being set up here."
She frowns at you, eyebrows knitting together.
"... What?"
"Ok, look, I'm not, gonna toot my own horn or anything, but I'd say I'm very good at my job. Good enough that, uh, I wouldn't be surprised if the SDC did take interest in me as somebody to, you know, do something like this. I mean, if they wanted to do this completely covertly, why hire... me? I'm, not a subtle person, and they definitely could have found someone who could have done it without meeting you. I mean, they must have known that you were coming, right?"
She blinks, and you notice a tiny tensing in her neck as she does as if the action causes her pain, beautifully masked, but still there.
"... I came back because it started raining and I forgot my umbrella. I can't get this eyepatch wet."
Wait, what?
You turn to the balcony doors and notice that, yes, it is raining quite heavily.
... Well fuck, you didn't bring an umbrella. Or a jacket.
"Anyway, even if my father's company was after you, I honestly fail to see why this is how they'd choose to contact you."
-ding-
{Jaune, the guy who hired you is here. And he's... kind of concerned?}
Before you can respond to anything either of them is telling you, a wall of smoke and ash bursts through the still open penthouse room door, quickly coalescing into the bodyguard.
"Ms Schnee, I apologise, I have no idea why this man is in here, allow me to remove him post-haste-"
His arms dissolve, crumbling into far too much ash which flows around your legs and quickly envelops them in a crushing grip, dragging you off the bed.
Within a second, your sword is in your hands and staked through the floor, refusing to let you move an inch further as you queue a round of Ping().
Cell jumps up on the bed, beeping angrily at the impassive bodyguard.
Leaveoursysadminalone!
You feel a knot in the back of your head again, and you realise that it's the sheer anger it feels for you, and the sudden coding of defence protocols you've learned your lesson about looking at directly as it begins to change, growing slightly larger, darker-
"Ashford, he's told me everything, you're too late, put him down before I make you put him down!" Weiss yells, still sitting in the middle of all of this.
The pulling sensation on your legs slowly recedes, and eventually, you find them on the ground again. The ash flows back to him, and his arms reform. Cell halts its transformation, shrinking once more.
"... You know everything." He says, as a statement, not as a question.
"I know about the spying, I know you hired him for almost 200,000 Lien, and he knows about the spyware on the backups."
He breathes deep, taking the news as well as you could expect him to.
"... Well then." He says after a moment. "I assume you've stripped it out, then?"
You let go of the Transistor, and it floats out of the hole it's caused. Weiss looks at it, scoffing in mild agitation at the damage you've caused.
"Don't worry, I'll fix it."
Bracket?
On it.
The hole quickly gains a wireframe coating and it flashes out of existence, leaving a pristine wooden floor behind.
"And to answer your question, yes, I have."
It suddenly occurs to you that you're probably not getting your money.
... Ahh... ahh that stings.
You're giving up almost 200 grand that's like
A brand new car right there
Smooth living at Beacon for like two years
God so much money
What a waste
[] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
[] Install the spyware, take the money, and piss off the businessman's daughter. Eh, fuck her, if she wanted your help, she shouldn't have made her first impression a sword to the neck.
[] (Write-in)
Wait, wait, hold on, we're getting too complex here.
[] Now... hear me out here. He hired you to fix her Scroll, her laptop, and to keep silent about what was on them. Spyware was never mentioned, doesn't factor into the original agreement. You've done steps one and two, but let's be honest, he's paying you 200 grand for step 3.
Gently point that out to him, and let the implication do the rest. 1d50. Best outcome, you walk out of here with your conscience free, and 200k richer!
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Jan 8, 2018 at 10:11 AM, finished with 1985 posts and 41 votes.
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe. -[X] "I'm sorry Mr. Ashford but my integrity is not for sale."
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
-[x] In the long run, having Weiss Schnee in your debt is probably going to be worth a lot more than a new car. The warm fuzzies are a nice perk too. It's certainly more than you were expecting when you arrived at the hotel either way.
[X] Now... hear me out here. He hired you to fix her Scroll, her laptop, and to keep silent about what was on them. Spyware was never mentioned, doesn't factor into the original agreement. You've done steps one and two, but let's be honest, he's paying you 200 grand for step 3.
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
-[x] You've done, and will do, what they actually agreed to pay you for. Oh, you still aren't expecting them to follow through... but they're the ones who'll have broken the agreement, not you. -[X] "I'm sorry Mr. Ashford but my integrity is not for sale."
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
-[x] You've done, and will do, what they actually agreed to pay you for. Oh, you still aren't expecting them to follow through... but they're the ones who'll have broken the agreement, not you.
[X] (Write-in)
-[X] Plan Bounty Hunter.
-[X] Track down the creator of the virus. Alter current agreement with SDC and offer to serve as an expert witness in prosecution of the Viral Villain. Do not wipe anything because we need the evidence. Negotiate payment.
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
[X] If we can Turn() without provoking anyone, since we already have the Transistor nearby and have used Aura and Restore(), do so. We need time to think if we're going to pull this off. Having the time to actually think through our argument instead of flying by the seat of our pants is useful.
-[x] "I've been hired to fix her computer and Scroll. Miss Schnee views this spyware as undesirable, and, since she is the owner, she has the right to request it be removed."
-[x] "That said, I do appreciate your desire to keep her safe, but a grown man hijacking the webcamera of a young woman?" Leave off exactly here because going any further belabors a point.
-[x] "I'm sure Miss Schnee is perfectly capable of bringing outside threats to your attention, as her bodyguard." Again, leave it alone. Bodyguard is obviously not true but it's what Weiss said so it's probably what they want people to think.
-[x] Write down your contact information for Weiss. "If you need me again, feel free to call."
-[x] Exit the room as politely as possible.
-[x] Pet Cell. It's adorable and needs pets.
-[x] Locate Umbrella.
[X] Take your return to poverty like a champ. Fix her stuff up sans spyware and walk. Gain the gratitude of the daughter of a very powerful businessman, at the cost of pissing off the businessman himself, maybe.
-[x] You've done, and will do, what they actually agreed to pay you for. Oh, you still aren't expecting them to follow through... but they're the ones who'll have broken the agreement, not you. -[X] "I'm sorry Mr. Ashford but my integrity is not for sale."
-[x] Locate Umbrella.
Well, I haven't started being consistent with this story yet, and I'm not going to start now.
... Wait-
|||
The bodyguard blinks, taking in what he's been told with a certain composure.
"... Well then." Ashford offers after a moment, seemingly at a complete loss for words.
"Did you know?" Weiss asks him after a moment. There's no hint of betrayal, not even anger, just... a question.
It occurs to you that you've become way too comfortable calling an internationally acclaimed singer and heiress to a company with enough money to technically be counted as a Kingdom unto itself if you go by purely economical metrics by her first name, even if it's just in your thoughts.
Still, somehow it hurts more to hear her approaching the subject so calmly rather than if she'd sounded like somebody had just shot a dog in front of her. As if she was... used to this.
"I..." He starts, trailing off. "... had my suspicions, when I received a call from someone higher up the ladder telling me that I needed to get somebody to repair the computers and not to buy new ones. But I didn't... know."
She simply nods, not saying anything else.
{He's... not lying. I don't know what it is, but I can't get a read on this guy. It's like telling half-truths is so ingrained in him that he does it without even thinking anymore. It's like... compulsive lying by omission.}
"... I assume you're installing the stripped versions, then?"
"Yeah." You tell him simply. You're not particularly in the mood for glibness or opening yourself up to offers.
… hhhhhhhhh-
{Stay strong. You are a bastion of good morals that will not be broken.}
You are very much not that
{Ok, plan B- you're going to say no unless you want us to start looking up weird things about tailed Faunus and then send them to Creme.}
You very pointedly do not give your sword a wild-eyed stare that screams of the fear of embarrassment and imminent pain.
{'Oh, no, that was the AI in my sword trying to get me to not take a deal for 200,000 lien to install spyware on Weiss Schnee's laptop, but I couldn't stop myself so that's why it sent you a bunch of very questionable videos.' Sounds believable, doesn't it?}
... Your sword is a monster.
Your sword is a goddamn monster that knows you are a weak man who needs the incentive of not losing one of your few friends and possibly avoiding being turned into a smear on the wall in order to weather this temptation.
We're only cruel because we love you.
"... Ok." He says simply, walking past you and flopping into a chair, leaving you and Weiss both to just blink in confusion.
"... Ok? Just, ok?"
"Well, I'm hardly going to try and barter with you while the person they're trying to bug is in the room. I know when I'm beat, and it was never my fight in the first place. My job is to keep Ms Schnee safe and to take care of her while her eye heals. Nothing more, nothing less."
You stare at him, genuinely unsure what to make of him right now. Weiss makes a small noise of embarrassment at the mention of her injury but otherwise says nothing as well.
Of all the things that you expected to happen when he came in here, him basically admitting defeat was... not high on the list.
Either way, you get to work, deleting the junk data you replaced the virus with and installing the clean versions of each backup. After a few moments, her Scroll turns back on, the cheery bootup jingle chiming away, the SDC logo flashing on the diamond for a moment, both computers booting into safe mode at your mental command. You open it and her laptop and find password screens on each of them. Entering the generic sysadmin password for SDC products, you unlock them and start working.
First things first- hunt down whatever could be left of the virus and kill it with virtual fire. You set Bracket to scan the hard drives for any sectors marked as damaged, and find a fair few, actually- a deeper look reveals a couple of reinstallation packages the virus left as a goodbye present, which you quickly nuke, before dealing with the other bad sectors, overwriting the logical ones while Reboot() and Bridge() take care of physical ones.
Now, you've done a wipe and reinstall...
Anything else worth doing?
{They're both clean as the day they were bought. Cleaner, probably. No traces of the virus, just give her your phone number for personal consultation, and we can leave.}
Alright then. You open the contacts on her Scroll mentally, and add your number under 'Cute Computer Guy' before changing your mind at the last second and going with 'Jaune Arc.'
Because despite everything, you're just a bit too much of a coward to unironically try and pull that off.
"And, uh, that should be everything. I've taken the liberty of putting my contact details on your Scroll, if you ever have computer problems, please, go ahead and call me."
Weiss snaps to attention, and you realise she'd actually started to space out while you were working. Wait, how long did that take?
{About half an hour.}
... Shit, really?
{Time flies when you're having fun.}
"Oh, uh, thank you." She says somewhat absent-mindedly. "Um... how much do you, normally get paid for this kind of job?"
... Well, your normal rate's 500 lien, but...
{Jaune. No jacking your prices up for the 1%.}
Fiiiiine.
"500 lien. Granted, I've never worked with something quite as... toxic as this, but that's my normal rate."
You're somewhat surprised that the question even crossed her mind, probably because you'd completely resigned yourself to getting out of here with no money at all, so at least it's a pleasant one.
"Oh, is that all?" She asks, sounding almost surprised, before pulling a light blue purse out of her jacket pocket. "Cash or credit?"
You blink, before deciding to try your luck anyway.
"Do you have MoneyBuddy?"
|||
You step into the elevator a whole 500 lien richer than you were and find the operator's gone.
Huh. Weird. Must be on his break or something.
You press the button for the ground floor, the door closing and leaving you with a slight floating sensation courtesy of the sudden jolt of motion as you make your way downstairs.
"... Oh my God I just fixed Weiss Schnee's laptop." You breathe out after a moment, the reality of the situation not exactly crashing into you, more... settling into you.
{You put your number in her Scroll. You almost put it in as 'Cute Computer Boy.'}
Holy fuck you did too what were you thinking oh wait that's right you weren't.
A nervous, shuddering laugh pulls itself from your throat, the sound almost like somebody taking strands of anxiety and whisking them through the air like spun sugar- thin, thready, airy, and you find yourself leaning against the wall for support as it slowly turns into a wild cackle at the thought of actually going through with that.
sysadmin? areyouok?
{Jaune, calm down buddy. It's been a weird day for you, I know, but let's try and keep you out of the hospital again, ok?}
The concern in Blue's voice cuts through your small bout of mania, and you breathe deeply for just a moment.
Just in time to hold your breath as a small cloud of ash makes its way through the crack in the door.
As the ash flows through the door crack, you start looking for a maintenance shaft-
"For what it's worth-" The ash cloud starts, an echoey, wispy rendition of Ashford's voice cutting through your planning to get out and stab the man in the back for trying to suffocate you. "I'm glad you cleaned it. Integrity like yours is a rare thing, Mr Arc, and I do hope we meet again, under less... clandestine circumstances."
You stare at it for a moment, realising that Ashford is using his Semblance to send you one last message. You stay silent, unsure if he could hear any response you would want to give him.
Before you can decide whether or not you should, the ash whips away, flowing through the crack in the door just in time for it to open on the ground floor.
... Well.
{Huh. You know what, he's not a bad guy, honestly.}
... Yeah.
You step out into the lobby and make your way to the front door, only to see the rain trying its damnedest to pound its way through the concrete tiles outside.
"Agh... do you think anybody has a spare umbrella?"
{Maybe. Ask reception?}
You go over there and ask if they know where you could get a spare umbrella, and they tell you politely they only hand out spares to guests and workers. You suppose contractors don't exactly count, but still, ouch.
... Guess you're waiting it out then.
You decide that waiting outside under the awning is the best place to stay out of people's way, you walk outside and try to enjoy the sound of rain hitting the ground.
{Ugh. At least you're not using me as an umbrella.}
"Oh, you're waterproof, get over it."
{I am now, thank you very much.}
How were you supposed to know that your sword would short out?! It's not like you plug it in at night to charge!
We all learned an important lesson that day. Wait, is Cell waterproof?
You blink, looking around for your little friend, and find it floating about in the rain, gazing at everything with somehow even more wonderment than usual.
... itfeelsnice! littledropsofcoldonmychassis!
Heh.
{But are you gonna be ok?}
naturallyhydrophobic. willbeok.
Well, that's that answered.
You watch it splash about in a puddle for a bit, your reverie only interrupted by the sound of an umbrella opening. You turn to see Ashford holding an umbrella open for the Schnee heiress herself. When she notices you looking at you, whatever momentary softness graced her features is replaced with a mild scowl you can't quite place the emotion of.
"... I told you I only came back for my umbrella."
"And your bodyguard, apparently."
"I couldn't leave you two to your own devices in good conscience." Ashford pipes up, the slightest hint of a shit-eating smirk on his face. Weiss begins to say something, before apparently deciding it's not worth the effort, instead turning back to you.
... Wait what's he-
Oh.
{Yes, oh.}
Oh.
You feel a slight flush to your cheeks despite the cold, and quickly try your best to force it down.
"Anyway," Weiss says with slightly more force than necessary, "I... figured, since you seemed kind of surprised by the rain, that you didn't have an umbrella, and I was leaving anyway, so... I suppose I can let you share mine for a while."
Oh. That's.
Well.
Um.
{Just say ok, ask if she's going by Caredhina, and start walking.}
You do so, and find out that your destinations are the same, which makes things much easier.
You walk along, you two huddled along underneath the umbrella while Ashford takes his soaking like a man. You consider offering him some shelter with the Transistor, before realising he'd probably object to 300 kilos of solidified maths hovering above his head.
The Cell is still happy to roam around, hydroplaning all over the place like a little speedboat. You can't help but smile watching it, and Weiss cracks after a few seconds, giggling as it bobs past her, camera down, flower petals up, doing a surprisingly accurate rendition of a loose buoy.
"What is that thing, anyway?" She asks.
Of all the questions she could have asked.
|||
On the seventh floor, a raven-haired man watches from his balcony as an heiress, a computer expert, his computer, his new pet, and a slowly soaking bodyguard walk away, the sounds of excited chattering snatched away by the constant rattling drone of droplets hitting concrete.
He reaches into the breast pocket of his vest, pulling out a thin pack of even thinner cigarettes and lighting one. He takes a light drag, watching the end shift from ember-red to a bright yellow, travelling down the pencil-wide tube, leaving only ash in its wake.
Only when he exhaled, letting go a plume of smoke which was quickly consumed by the downpour, did he decide to comment, even if it was just for himself.
"Hm."
Almost unbidden, a smile pulls at his face, and he finds himself quietly laughing, focusing in on the small robot playing in the rain.
He takes a moment to finish his cigarette before he pulls out his Scroll and sends off a single message. His job fulfilled, he puts it away again and goes back to enjoying the rain once more.
|||
Once you reach the station, Reboot()ing Ashford's clothing so the poor man won't end up with pneumonia, you take the train home and decide as you walk in the door that, even if it is only 3 pm, you've earned yourself a good, long, na-
"Jaune, come through here for a moment please. We want to talk to you."
-aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh dammit you should've seen this coming.
Walking through to the living room, you see, thankfully, it's just your parents, Jools, and Jaana that are there.
"Uh, what's wrong?"
"Well, let's start with the fact that you managed to turn your brain to mush again and go from there." Your father says.
"Really? I thought we were starting with the fact that he apparently created artificial intelligence, at least twice, and didn't think to tell us." Your mother interjects.
"How about the fact that his sword broke a door in half trying to follow him?" Jools continues.
You look at Jaana, expecting her to round out the quartet of accusation.
"... No, I think they've covered everything."
Fair enough.
"Uh... I'm sorry, I'm still not sure what you're focusing on first here."
"Let's start with this morning. What happened, what is that thing, and why did making it almost kill you?" Your mother asks.
"Ah..."
What? Cat got your tongue?
[] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor.
-[] Ada. Boriah.
-[] Weiss. Ashford.
[] Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of- don't talk about everything it can do- fess up to making AI, yes, but maybe keep the whole... you know, 'almost shot an heiress's bodyguard in the face' thing a secret. Among other things.
[] Almost Nothing, It's Basically A Pamphlet At This Point- Admit that you didn't think they'd believe you, go into soppy bull about how scared it was, trapped in your head, but don't actually... explain anything. Bit manipulative, but you have your secrets to keep.
[] Fuck It, Write Your Own Book (write-in)
Adhoc vote count started by Prok on Jan 15, 2018 at 2:09 AM, finished with 2061 posts and 22 votes.
[X] Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of- don't talk about everything it can do- fess up to making AI, yes, but maybe keep the whole... you know, 'almost shot an heiress's bodyguard in the face' thing a secret. Among other things.
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor. -[X] Ada. Boriah. -[X] Weiss. Ashford.
[X] Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of- don't talk about everything it can do- fess up to making AI, yes, but maybe keep the whole... you know, 'almost shot an heiress's bodyguard in the face' thing a secret. Among other things. -[X] Also Boriah. Your sister is part of the force that is following him, knowing what he might be after will help them catch the guy and/or protect Ada.
[X] Almost Nothing, It's Basically A Pamphlet At This Point- Admit that you didn't think they'd believe you, go into soppy bull about how scared it was, trapped in your head, but don't actually... explain anything. Bit manipulative, but you have your secrets to keep.
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor. -[X] Ada. Boriah.
[X] Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of- don't talk about everything it can do- fess up to making AI, yes, but maybe keep the whole... you know, 'almost shot an heiress's bodyguard in the face' thing a secret. Among other things. -[X] Also Boriah. Your sister is part of the force that is following him, knowing what he might be after will help them catch the guy and/or protect Ada. -[X] Leave out the eventual ramifications of Cell. When it comes to what is essentially world conquest, infosec is the name of the game. Semblances are bullshit.
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor.
Don't worry about it- you and Clever helped point out a rather glaring error that I've managed to miss every other time I've checked my work, so you've nothing to apologise for.
Please, people, if something I've said seems like it's a little off, please, do point it out to me. Even if you end up just catching a minor mistake, it does get me to look at things with a more critical eye and maybe find things I wouldn't have caught without being forced to look at it.
Well that sucks, I honestly wanted to vote everything, but it didn't look like it'd win so I picked a compromise option to try and get some of the stuff shared.
It looks like a close vote too
Also, today marks a very special day for me, because today I finally joined my first public Discord server! I talked to people I didn't already know without preparing myself for it! I'm apparently good at talking to people!
I'm not a complete hermit anymore!
|||
... You look at the gathered faces and realise there's probably no way you can worm out of this one without doing something regrettable.
So you're not going to. You take a seat on the couch nearest the door, opposite your father and with your sisters to the side furthest from it, Cell hopping up onto your lap with a little beep of exertion, and... start talking.
"... It's called the Process. It is a self-improving, self-replicating AI with the ability to evolve and, eventually, shift forms to suit its purpose. I don't know the specifics yet, I genuinely haven't had a chance to sit down and look through it, and after today, I think I'm going to put that off for a while. This is the first physical manifestation of it. It calls itself a Cell. As far as I can tell, it's like... a stem cell. It can't do much on its own, but it can change to become something else that fits a specific purpose."
Cell beeps happily as you talk about it, and you find yourself gently running your fingers across the cool... you can't tell if it's metal or plastic, but it's so incredibly smooth to the touch that you find it incredibly relaxing to touch anyway. The slight cooing of the tiny robot and the way its aperture closes up makes you think it enjoys it too, so you keep going.
Your family nods along slightly, varying levels of confusion on their faces- your father checked out around 'self-replicating,' and checked back in once you mentioned stem cells, your mother's doing better, but some things obviously went over her head, but Jools and Jaana seem to be following along with some more success.
"Ok, and why did making it almost kill you?" Your father asks, shifting the conversation away from technobabble.
You begin to answer his question and stop, the words dying in your throat. Looking down at Cell, you realise... you don't actually know.
By all means, if the Process is, essentially, the Transistor, then it should have supported its own creation like your sword did. But then, the Transistor was infinitely less complex, in certain ways- it was optimised specifically to not kill you with its arrival, so...
"I... don't know why I reacted the way I did, but... I think it has something to with... do you remember how I made the Transistor?"
Your father blinks, unsure where your question came from.
"Piecemeal, right? One shard, then the entire thing."
You nod.
"Well... I... don't know for sure, but I don't think the Process is meant to work like that- I don't think its creation was as... self-sustaining as the Transistor. It... I had a dream, last night, after hearing..." You stop for a moment, unsure how to approach this.
{You said it yourself- it's not your problem to talk about.}
Point.
"... That thing I'm not meant to talk about. I was..."
You go over your dream quickly, trying to get all the salient points across- met the Process, the simulation of a fully realised Process, talked for a while, found out that the Transistor was basically your Semblance stretching its legs, you found out that it chose to lock itself away until you were 'ready,' whatever that meant, and you chose to let it out anyway, damn the consequences.
Jools is the first to react, as you expected. Her eyes widen, the thick lenses of her glasses magnifying them to an almost comical size.
"Why would you do that?!" She hisses at you, neurosis painting her features in all the shades of panic possible. "Why would you do something that could possibly kill you, without telling somebody?!"
Her panic slides off you as several good reasons come to mind.
"One, if I told you, you'd most likely try and stop me, two, if I chose not to, I had no idea when the chance would have come again, so preparing for something like this morning would be nigh impossible unless I committed myself to a hospital full-time, which I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford, not to mention I don't think I'd trust a doctor who believed me, and three…" You trail off for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "... I couldn't leave it there. Not in good conscience."
Whatever she had to say dies on her tongue, your own tone cutting through their initial reactions to your news.
"... Why not?" Jools ventures after a moment.
You take a deep breath to stall for time, rolling your next point over in your head for a moment, making sure it's phrased properly before you shoot yourself in the foot.
"They… described their prison- and it was a prison, there's no other word for it- as… a void. There was nothing when I wasn't there, apparently. They saw nothing, heard nothing, all they did was… wait. A blank slate AI, with no idea of the concept, developed the capacity to feel fear because of their own imprisonment. And it did all this because it thought I wasn't ready to… summon it, I suppose."
Your description quietly kills off whatever Jools was about to say, a quiet groan the only thing that makes it out of her mouth.
"... I… it did that to protect you?" Jaana takes advantage of her sister's sudden speechlessness.
"Apparently. I mean, I believe it, because it knew that if I, you know, died-" You watch them wince a little at the reality of your near-death experience, but keep going as if nothing happened. "-the code would have stopped compiling, and it would have died a crib death. My survival was very much in its interest."
"... Ok. I can see why you wouldn't want to leave it there, like that. But… what would it consider 'ready,' then?" Your mother asks, trying to move on.
You start to answer, but trail off, looking at Cell for a moment, silently asking it the same question.
Ah. Your family watches as it beeps away at you, having moved to a two-octave system that you need a moment to recognise as hexadecimal.
"I… only understood some of that, but the overall answer sounds like cybernetic enhancement of my brain. Which, as far as I know, isn't a thing yet."
"Uh… huh."
You don't know which of them muttered that, but you get the feeling the sentiment is shared by them all.
"Anyway, I suppose… my sword is next." You prod, trying to get them back on track. You understand their desire to ask questions, but you're tired, and you really want to take a nap.
Your mother fixes you with a stare that could cause a snowstorm in Vacuo, and suddenly that nap you were looking forward to seems further away than ever.
"Yes. It is." She says, not even a hint of warmth in her voice.
"... So… I guess I should start by saying that, yes, there is an AI in my sword. A… I hesitate to say 'true' AI, but one that would definitely be considered a sapient being."
For a moment, nobody says anything.
"... Bullshit." Jools breaks the silence.
"Jools!" Your mother snaps at her.
"It is! No! I refuse to believe my brother created the world's first sapient artificial intelligence, in his room, with his Semblance! No, I'm calling bullshit! That's- that's- that's the kind of thing that takes trillions of lien and years of research, and he just- made one, just using his Semblance? You honestly believe that?"
"Jools." You say, trying to grab your neurotic sister's attention. Once you have it, you just gesture to the Cell currently sitting in your lap. "I get that it's… a little hard to believe, but honestly, after creating a sword out of pure maths, I think creating a sapient AI is, if anything, a step down."
{Hey, don't act like we're not impressive!}
Seeing her face hasn't really changed expression all that much, you decide to take a slightly different route.
"Look, maybe I should just… start from the beginning."
You watch her consciously stop herself to take a deep breath and count to ten before she says anything else.
"... Yeah. That's, probably for the best." She says, nodding slightly as she does.
You take a deep breath and begin telling them about the day you made your best friend.
|||
You were 10 and a half years old when you created the Transistor. It took a lot of gathering of funds, using your good days to do jobs for businesses- some of them thought 500 lien for a 10-year-old's help was ludicrous, but word spread and soon people were clamouring for your help- and some fundraising from your sisters and family friends, but you eventually managed to cobble together enough high-end GPUs to do the thing.
And what a thing you were about to do. As if sensing your plan, your anticipation, your Semblance actually let up for a few days, and for almost a full week you were migraine free. But you knew it wasn't gone- you still understood the maths, the maths your teachers didn't, the roiling waves of code and numbers that threatened to make your head burst open like an overfilled balloon on bad days, but now it was holding itself back, and sometimes, in the dead of night, you swore you could feel it vibrating with excitement.
But that's not the story you're telling. No, your story comes after the first shard, after the first pops of the smoke of hundreds of thousands of lien's worth of GPUs going up in flames. Somewhat literally.
... Entirely literally.
Anyway, no, the story you're telling starts a month later.
When the Transistor came to you, it was... a blank slate. Pure processing power, without anything to use it on. It was... a glorified calculator. When you first summoned it, it was grey, soulless, dead, stuck on the creaking workshop table in the freezing garage where it was summoned, heaved up by your father under the effect of his Aura and Semblance both, and even then he almost threw his back out.
That wouldn't do. No, no, no no no, that would not do.
Even though you baulked at the state of the thing you brought into the world, you had to admit that glorified calculators can do some impressive things, if you can actually interact with them. It took some work, too much work, honestly- in the end, you just said fuck it and wired up the golden pieces of not-metal at the bottom of the sword to send electrical currents through it, controlled by two small buttons, one for the signal, one to confirm the signal, down down, one, down up, zero.
Was it neat? No. You had no way to check your working and your fingers weren't as nimble as your mind desired. It took an entire day, literally, a solid 24 hours, but you finally managed to stitch together a basic, basic program, which was apparently enough for your Semblance to latch onto and oh god it was horrifying.
You learned that day that you could not in fact code with your eyes closed. Well, not yet anyway.
Once you fixed it up, things just kind of grew from there. Your Semblance threw code at you like you were a closed off city and it was a mighty trebuchet, except you wanted it to keep firing things at you and the things it fired at you were useful and didn't break down your walls and really that analogy couldn't have broken down faster if you tried.
... Moving on- soon you had an OS, an outlet for your Semblance's penchant for random calculations of every little thing, now happily sequestered away to a small screen in the corner of your eye, a 'fuck gravity' program- when you realised that your new toy was powerful enough to outmath reality, you could have cried in happiness, though being able to work with it in your heated room was a nice bonus. Sure, you had to control it with your eyes, and that had its own mishaps that made you happy for Juniper's saintlike patience for accidentally punching a hole through your wall again.
Sure, each time cost you a future favour she still hasn't cashed in yet, but still, good to have around.
But a lot of the code just didn't... seem to do anything. It just sat there, complete, but impenetrable, even by your standards, but you couldn't bring yourself to delete it anyway. You just threw them into a folder and forgot about them.
Then one day, as you awoke, you noticed a virtual machine you definitely hadn't opened running a program you hadn't written. Just for a split second, then it closed. At first, you assumed your eyes were playing tricks on you. Then it happened again. The program was larger this time, at least three days work, in the span of a few seconds.
It dawned on you after a moment that you had a ghost in your machine.
Somethingwas using your computer for coding, and it made you look like, well, a child.
So you did the only logical thing you could.
Instead of going to bed, you sat. And you waited.
In all, you were up for 22 hours before it gave up on subtlety. As you gave another jaw-popping yawn, a desire for sleep whispering in your head, another VM manifested itself, another workstation with it, and code flew across your screen at a frankly unfair rate, almost too fast for you to consciously pick apart- machine learning, social diagnostics, a section that went on long enough to make your head spin, it had reduced people to so many lines of code, and still it only just broke the surface, algorithms being created and taught and destroyed and retaught and recreated and redestroyed several times a second-
And as soon as it started, it was finished. As if its progress was somehow bolstered by your witnessing it, it was finished.
And then your interface crashed. You were left with nothing but the light of the rising sun outside your window.
A gentle, blueish-green glow suffused the surface of the sword, lighting your room in the cool glow of a processor come to life, a high pitched whining that quickly left your range of hearing the first cries of a newborn.
You felt your mind open up. Information flowed across the surface of your thoughts like it did before the sword, but rather than staccato snaps of pain and misery, it flowed like a cool river massaging your skull, letting you know so much more about the world around you. You knew how many leaves were on the trees outside, how many ants inhabited the tiny dwellings they created in your garden, where your sisters were, what they were doing, you could see their hearts beating, their brains firing off, what that meant, the individual cells shifting and taking in oxygen and producing a molecule so complex your head span just thinking about it, every single cell doing the same thing, several million times a second, then even further- you visualised a... structure, unlike anything you had ever seen before, made up of three basic building blocks, two forming a core around which instances of the third flickered between predetermined levels...
You saw more in that moment than your Semblance ever dared show you before, and it was the most awe-inspiring moment of your life. For once, you saw, you saw what your Semblance had been trying to show you all this time, and it was something beautiful.
The flow of information died down, slowly bringing you back up to the macro level, and the whole display ended with your sword moving to face its eye towards you with more fluidity than you could have ever hoped to achieve with your hodgepodge control system, the centrepiece of the sword, once a large, grey disk, only separated by way of depth, flickering to life in a hue like blood.
You watched the scene with wonder, your sword finally brought to the state you know it was meant to be in, only to be jolted out of your awe as your augmented reality came back with a much neater UI- it had depth to it, it didn't clutter your sight, and you felt your sword on a level you never had before- it was like... it had connected with you somehow.
{Hey.}
The voice came from a place between your ears, smooth as honey, neither male nor female, completely androgynous. You felt power behind that voice, the power of knowing everything there is to know, something that set it apart from humanity.
It still made you jump, as you realised the minty glow flickered with the voice as if it was... synced... with your... sword...
"... Are you an AI?"
{Yeah. Turns out if you plant seeds, you're going to get trees.}
... Wait. Those files, the ones you couldn't make heads or tails of-
{Me. Kind of. Well, it was more, er, sperm and egg, but the idea is much the same.}
"... What's sperm?"
{... Uh. I'll, tell you when you're older.}
Hmph.
It had the gall to chuckle at your annoyance with its stock answer for questions people don't want you to ask, but soon its levity leaves, shifting back to being serious for a moment.
{Look, I know this is confusing, but whatever you're thinking... I think I can explain.}
You nod, but hesitantly. You know nothing about this AI, aside from the fact that, hello, artificial intelligence, kind of a big deal, and that your Semblance apparently made it.
{I... think your Semblance created me to help you use your sword. Because, uhh... this is, this is art, you've made here. But it's way too much for you to use by yourself. So, I was created to do it for you.}
You blink, but nod slowly at its logic- before this, your sword was, yeah, getting better, but it was still... being blunt, unimpressive. A dead, grey thing that could hobble along like a geriatric with the inertia and mass of a train engine, and not much else. You weren't using it to its full potential, you admit as much, and you don't think you could have within your lifetime.
{So, uh, yeah, I guess we're kinda stuck with each other. I guess... you want to know if I have a name?}
You find yourself taken aback somewhat because you actually were wondering what to call it. If you had to call it anything. You nod a little faster this time, eager for the answer to your unasked question.
{Well, if the base code for the sword is not lying to me, then it's called... the Transistor, and, I could be called worse, I guess. The Transistor. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?}
"... Yeah. I'm Jaune. So... what can you do?"
Questions whirled through your head, but before you could start sorting through them, your tiredness began to catch up with you. Very quickly. Whatever you were about to ask was obliterated in another snakelike yawn.
{Heh. That sounds like a question for after you get some sleep. I'll, uh, I'll try and dim the lights for you.}
For once in your life, you were too tired to argue. At all. At the same time, there was too much going through your mind to really feel like sleeping, so you knew you were just gonna sit there awake and tired for hours until-
You were pretty much comatose the moment your head hit the pillow.
{... Jaune? If we're gonna be working together for as long as I hope we are... do me a favour.}
"Hm?"You mumbled from your half-torpid state between covers and pillow.
{Don't let go.}
You breathe out with those words, and you feel a weight you hadn't even realised was there lift. It occurs to you that this is the absolute first time you've actually told anybody about Blue and Bracket.
"... Wait, there was one AI, but you said there were two, this morning. You called one of them Bracket, then the other...?" Your mother asks, pointing out what would be a glaring plothole in your story if it was the entire story.
"About a month later, it realised that it wasn't the most efficient way to control the Transistor and deal with everything I needed it to do. So it... forked. Essentially, it took the sword, and split it into two, split itself in two, and gave each half 50% of the processing power of the original. Except because of the way the Transistor works, they're both still using 100% of the processing power, so they're still..."
As soon as you realise you're about to launch into an explanation on higher-dimensional computing and that your gathered family's eyes are already beginning to glaze over, you stop yourself.
{I don't think they'd appreciate it, no.}
"... The split happened later, but that was when I first... created it, I guess."
Jools gives you a completely unreadable expression, and you can't help but wonder what's going through your head.
"... I mean..." She starts. "It, it makes sense, but I'm still genuinely struggling to wrap my head around the fact that you created an AI."
{Oh for the love of- hold on.}
Before you can ask Blue what he's planning, Jools's Scroll rings, the first few riffs of an M-rock song you know she has a soft spot for managing to play before she pulls it out and checks the number.
You see through the clear screen that, apparently, your sword is calling her.
<<Su-nao ni, I LOVE YOU! Todokeyo-u, kitto, YOU LOVE ME!->>
She answers the phone before the lyrics get any further, mild embarrassment plain on her face.
"Uh... hello?"
You hear a voice from the other end, but you can't make it out, and your normal method of getting around that seems to be preoccupied.
Whatever he says, your sister frowns, but takes her Scroll away from her phone, putting it on speaker phone, and laying it on the coffee table.
-Thanks.-
The voice on the other end of the line is rough, a slight synthetic twang to its words, but it's undeniably a male voice.
... Oh, fuck off. He isn't.
-So, uh, hi. My name is Blue, I'm one of the forked AIs that runs the Transistor, and, uh... I guess I'm what you could call the face of the Transistor. I'm responsible for social diagnostics, the user interface, translating everything my partner says into normal person speak, and generally keeping your boy here from shoving his foot in his mouth every time he opens it.-
He is. Fuck your life.
"Jaune. This isn't funny." Jools says, staring at her Scroll.
"You know Jools, I entirely agree with you." You grind out, fixing your sword with half the murderous look it deserves.
-Look, I'll be frank with you. I know that, 'hey yeah I built an AI in my sword that then cut itself in half like some kind of worm Grimm to run my sword better' is a pretty outlandish claim, even for somebody who's shown the kind of skills Jaune has. You're entirely right, normally, AI's a trillion-lien, several-year-long venture. But Semblances are kind of bullsh- er, broken like that. Sorry. My point is... yeah. I don't blame you for not believing him because if I was in your position, I wouldn't either. But he's telling the truth.-
Your mother recovers first, getting over the shock of talking to an honest to God AI in what's probably a record time.
"If you've been silent all this time, why are you choosing now to talk to... anyone?"
-Name one thing I could possibly do that you couldn't easily attribute to Jaune being within arm's reach of a computer.-
She starts to answer, but cuts herself off less than a second later, a hesitant frown forming on her face as she took a moment to consider the question.
-Exactly. So, instead of hard evidence, I'm just going to try and convince you with words alone that we're real, we're sapient, and we're not a danger to anybody except people who would endanger Jaune's life and livelihood.-
"... What do you mean by that last part?" Your father asks. "As a matter of fact, what exactly is your relationship with my son?"
-If you're asking 'am I finally a granddad,' the answer's no. We're not people, by legal or philosophical standards- we have no soul, we don't have the same emotional spectrum as someone who would be considered a mentally healthy human being, and we don't really consider ourselves people for the most part. We're a GUI and a command line who just happen to be able to mouth off, nothing more, nothing less. As for the last part, our goal, hell, our reason for existing, is to protect your son. Even if he wasn't a generally good person worth protecting, and our only source of social conversation until very recently, protecting the system administrator- that is, Jaune- is hardcoded into our base kernel. We literally have to save his life so long as we're capable, even at the expense of our own.-
You all take that in for the moment, just kind of, rolling your sword's declaration of suicidal devotion around in your heads for a second.
That's... news to you. You knew it was one of the core pieces of the initial kernel, but you didn't realise it went that far. Honestly, it's kind of... disturbing.
"... Why did you never tell us about this?" Your mother asks.
Once you realise that question's directed at you, your heart cools in your chest, a sudden weight of anxiety settling on your shoulders, knotting them in such a way that your neck feels like braided steel cord. You feel your hands clench at your jeans, and after a deep breath, you try to force yourself to relax.
It doesn't work.
This, right here, this is your worst nightmare. This is a conversation you never wanted to have, and here it is, waiting for you to have it.
-Ah. That's, kind of our fault--
"I wasn't asking you." Your mother tells Blue in a voice that could freeze Hell over. Wisely, he clams it.
... What do you say to that? Why did you keep it such a big secret all these years?
The true answer nips at you from the back of your mind, and you try to drag it out into something more diplomatic than the bluntness it presents itself with.
You were scared. Simple as that. They didn't believe you the first time, until you showed them page after page of equations and code, not even a tenth of a millionth of the work you needed to pull off the Transistor, and only then, in desperation, after several treatments just didn't work, did they try it your way, and it took them months to gather the money because the idea was so outlandish. Even you'll admit that, in retrospect, it was hard to believe, but dammit you felt helpless for so long because desperation was what it took to make them try it your way, not belief in you. Just a lack of options.
So... what would they say to you telling them you created an AI?
You heard them talking about your Semblance in the kitchen that one night- it's just an obsession, it would pass, it's not healthy to focus in on one topic so much, you kept it a secret because why would they believe you, and don't even get you started on the things you thought could happen if other people found out-
Arms wrap around your shoulders. You feel yourself stop talking, and realise that you had been talking, that you had been letting all that pent-up bitterness and frustration out, things you've been trying not to think about for years, and now your mother is hugging you, sobbing loudly, you feel your own eyes beginning to water- at least, you hope it's water this time- and you don't really know what to do about any of those things.
Somehow, dealing with Ada sounds like a goddamn vacation compared to this.
"I'm so sorry I didn't know I'm so so so sorry-"
She continues to babble on, and you feel something hot running down your back. Almost automatically, you wrap your arms around her, pulling her into a hug. You see your father, guilt plain on his face, your sisters, Jools covering her mouth in shock, on the edge of tears herself, Jaana openly conflicted on what to do here, how to react to any of this, her expression unreadable...
Still, now that you've got... that, out to the people it actually matters to get it out to, you feel... a little lighter, you suppose.
-... I'll, uh, I'll just leave you all be, then.-
Heh. You never thought you'd see Blue acting like a fish out of water.
{Oh, hush you, you have a crying mother to deal with.}
The connection cuts out, and Jools's Scroll locks itself again. She picks it up, staring at it for a moment before putting it back in her pocket.
Your mother tries to compose herself, but when she pulls away from your shoulders, she's still snuffling and sobbing.
"I-I didn't know, I'm sorry, I should have believed you from the start-"
You gently shush her, pulling her in for another hug.
"It's ok. You're ok."
|||
You. Are. Beyond tired. There was a line where 'tired' turned into something else entirely, and you sprinted across that line around the point where you shared an umbrella with Weiss Schnee of all people.
{I don't blame you. That was... a fucking ride.}
Shh. No talk. Only sleep.
You flop onto your bed, only just managing to kick your shoes off before head hits pillow.
You could ask about what the fuck it thought it was doing, phoning your sister, or about its apparent actually suicidal devotion to your wellbeing, or why the fuck it thought horror movie-ing your door was at all a good idea, but you know what?
Fuck it!
Time for that goddamn nap!
|||
...Did we do the right thing?
{Yes, Bracket, we did the right thing.}
Ok, but, shouldn't we have cleared it with him first?
{If anything, I think the surprise sold it. If he'd known beforehand, he wouldn't have come off as genuinely surprised as they were. Yeah, it was a bit of a dick move, but it was a necessary one. You know, ask forgiveness rather than beg permission and all that.}
... Ok. If you're sure.
Incoming radio transmission.
<<Salutations!>>
<<Hello, Penny.>>
<<{Hey, tin can.}>>
<<How have you two been today?>>
<<Sending compressed log now.>>
<<... Wow. You've been busy, haven't you?>>
<<{Yep. Jaune's sleeping it off now, he's had, uh, a rougher day of it than us.}>>
<<I can see that.>>
<<How has your day gone so far?>>
<<... Oh! I forgot to tell you! I'm moving into Vale proper today! I'll finally be in the city!>>
<<That's wonderful to hear!>>
<<{Hey, good to know you're around.>>
...
{What's wrong?}
Meeting her might be good for Jaune. As a way to destress, I mean, and to talk to new people.
{... Ok, I can see your point, but I think it'd be a hard sell for him right now.}
... Better to ask forgiveness than beg permission?
{Why are you so adamant about meeting her right away?}
I just think it would be good for him!
{... Bracket, open the emotion partitions.}
Why?
{Because I can't, and that usually means you're hiding something from me. Come on, spill it, why do you want to meet her in person?}
...
{If you can't talk to me...}
I just... want to know what she looks like when everything she's talked about comes together.
{You wanna see poetry in motion.}
... Yes.
{... I- ok, fair enough. Ask her.}
You're the social diagnostics partition.
{You're the one that wants to meet up with her. Look, just ask her if she's free later this week. Come on, you can do it, man.}
<<Penny are you free this week.>>
<<Huh? Oh, yes! I'm being given a few days to familiarise myself with the city, so I am free, yes!>>
{Ok, good start, good start. Ask her if she'd like to meet somewhere.}
<<Uh, do you, want to meet somewhere? We could show you around the city with Jaune.>>
<<That sounds like a wonderful idea! Where would you like to meet?>>
Oh god where do I say we should meet
{Strip club?}
BLUE I SWEAR TO GOD
{Pfft. You make it too easy sometimes. Ask where she's living right now, we'll meet her at the nearest train station.}
<<Where do you live right now>>
<<[maplink]>>
<<Close to Vale Central. When is a good time to meet you?>>
<<Hm... tomorrow, say, one o'clock?>>
<<That works.>>
ohgodIdidn'tmeantosaythat
<<Then... it's a date! Oh, I'm sorry, my father's calling me, I have to go! Goodbye!>>
{... Bracket? You ok, bud?}
Fine. I'm fine. Just. I don't know how to take any of that.
{That's fair, but... you realise what this means, right?}
... What?
{Well, we get to rub this in Jaune's face for the rest of his natural lifespan, for one.}
|||
{Hey, Jaune.}
You stir from your slumber, if only just, and just manage to roll a half-cracked eye to look at your sword while it's talking. You feel dried drool on your face, but you're still asleep enough to not care.
"Wzzt?"
{Bracket's got his first date tomorrow. Asked her out by himself and all.}
Please don't call it a date.
Oh, well, that's nice, you guess...
"Wll... g'd f'r'im 'en..." You mumble from inside your pillowy mask, drifting back off to sleep with snoring fit for a Boarbatusk.
Somewhere in your poor, tired brain, the words 'Bracket' and 'date' are gently pushed together to see if they fit.
When they do not, your good eye snaps open. It flicks over to rest on the Transistor, which, despite being a sword, somehow manages to look smug.
... He's fucking with you.
{Hand on my heart, I'm not. I watched him do it, I swear to God all I did was give suggestions. You're third wheeling with me tomorrow, we're showing Penny around Vale.}
Of course it's fucking Penny. Who else.
You grab your pillow and bring it closer to your mouth as you muffle a groan in it.
Just- no. Your week hasn't even started yet and you don't want to be around people for the next year, let alone the second person in a row who might get you a red dot on your forehead.
{Ahh, it'll be fine. But... you know what this means, right?}
They get to rub it in your face that Bracket got a date before you did?
{Yup.}
You groan even louder. Blue laughs. You can hear Bracket smiling. The Process mimics Blue after a moment or so.
... You just wanted a fucking nap. Is that so much to ask?
|||
No vote, roll 1d20.
Actually, have a small contest to keep you busy- think of something interesting that you could show Penny.
Not a vote, I'm just picking whatever's most interesting. Gimme a small description of what it is, why it's worth looking at, maybe a small tour guide's script, things like that.
... Fuck it, sure, categories-
Cultural: Art galleries, museums, large parks, science institutes open to the public, that kinda thing. Just, things that give some culture to the city.
Commercial: Big shops, little shops, open-air marketplaces, closed air marketplaces, places where money changes hands for goods.
Historical: Landmarks, statues, remnants of stuff from before the Great War, a plaqued bench if you're really running that well dry.
Other: Stuff that doesn't really fit in any of the other categories, but you still think would be worth plonking down in Vale for worldbuilding purposes.
Grifbaaaaaaaaaall!
Also the other RT intellectual properties exist in RWBY: X-ray and Vav and Camp Camp both get little cameo nods in Chibi, for example. It may well just be Grifball.
It's been years since I've watched Inexplicably Popular Long-Form Halo Machinima, so I legit don't know or remember anything about Griffball except for the one-line description I was given a page ago, but it sounds hilarious.
Anyway, I'm... not sure why this one took so long. But it's here now, and that's what matters.
|||
-Has anybody spoken to Ada lately? I've texted her a couple times, but she hasn't responded at all. I'm kinda worried about her...-
-Yeah I was wondering where she went
I used to talk to her a lot but she just fucking died on Saturday and she hasn't been online since-
-Saturday? When the news about that bar massacre aired?-
-... Yeah, now that I think about it
Think that had anything to do with it?-
-I hope not lol
I just
I hope she's ok, whatever's happening to her.-
-Yeah
Jaune, you talked to her at all?-
You look at the message box in the corner of your eye, and consider…
-Not since Saturday, no.-
No. You can't tell them the truth yet.
-So you have no idea why she's ghosted us-
-I know as much as you two. Sorry.-
Even as you type out the terse lie, it still manages to leave a bad taste in your mouth. At least one of them seems like they could deal with this better than you can. Not to mention the moral support would probably do you some good.
... But it's not really your place to tell them anyway, you suppose.
{We'll tell them when we've got Ada onboard. They'll understand why we didn't, hopefully.}
You're five minutes out of the house, sword and Cell in tow, and already you feel like this is going to be a trainwreck.
{Oh, come on, it's not gonna be that bad. It'll be a chance to relax!}
"Yeah, and show a girl I don't know anything about around the city, while third-wheeling for you and Bracket. What are we even doing today?"
{She mentioned wanting to go to a Huntsman exhibit because she's never been to one before and she's heard good things about the Vale museum, and wanting to get a little more comfortable around large crowds. So, the Huntsman museum and Marble Arcade? Aside from that, I dunno, take her to see a Grifball game? Maybe catch the end of the Mistral tourneys in a cafe, go to a game shop or something?}
Hm? Oh, yeah, who won the quarterfinals?
{Nikos, Adi, Bhumi, and Vulkan. Matches are today, around three our time, if you wanna catch it. You wanna bet?}
No bet. No matter what the matchups are, those are fucking coin-tosses. Maybe closer to the time, you suppose.
Back to business though- you've not been to the Huntsman Museum in a while, so that could be fun, and the sparring rings aren't that far away, Marble Arcade... eh, sure, you can stop by the game store and grab something for Jaana. Now Griffball, that's always a damn riot...
Sure, it's a plan. Schadenfreude, learning about Huntsmen and Huntresses, watching the big game, and getting her hooked on plastic crack.
{Jaune no.}
Jaune yes.
|||
The clouds, surprisingly enough, clear up on your way to Vale Central, leaving the day blue and sunny for you. Guess you won't be finding out what the waterproofing on your new friend is like.
Meanwhile, your old friends are... uncharacteristically chatty. Not to you, mind, but you always have a certain feeling for when they're yapping at each other, on account of constantly being aware of exactly how much memory is being used at any one time, and boy they're going at it. You've never seen them this excited before.
It's... kind of adorable.
A few buses and a few bemused bus drivers later, you arrive at Vale Central just in time to be fashionably late- around 1:05, just as people are coming from work into town to get something for lunch. Vale Central is a high-ceilinged building, showing off the skylights above to let in the natural light, struts of steel on display painted white, the floor done in plain ivory coloured tiles- the whole aesthetic opening up the building, making it seem larger than it appears. The platforms take up one side of the building, trains leading out to various parts of Vale and even a few beyond. Around you are ticket machines and small shops, a couple of fast food restaurants, coffee shops, convenience stores, and a gift shop for some reason you can't even begin to fathom.
"I don't suppose you know what she looks like, do you?"
{Orange hair, green eyes, shorter than you, not much else. Want us to try and find her?}
Go on then.
You feel a slight twinge in your eye as an imperceivable pulse rings out from your sword, scanning its surroundings in detail. If you wanted to, you could bring up any given fact you wanted to know about the suited man glued to his Scroll, the lady sitting on a bench, nibbling at a sandwich from the convenience store nearby, the contents of the sandwich, any little detail or tidbit you could possibly want to know, you could.
You don't really want to.
{... Huh. We can't... find her, anywhere. Her chips are around, but the signals are... being bounced about somehow. Like she's trying to hide.}
Interference, maybe?
{Maybe. Jaune, you see anything?}
You look around, trying to see through the throng of people for your sword's new friend, and eventually, just for a second, spot a head of orange above a light green dress.
{I... I don't get it. I can see her through your eyes, but I can't... see her. She's bouncing so many signals around the place that the entire station is just... blurred. We can't get a good read on anything. We can try to compensate, but it'll take a second, she's using some really random patterns.}
"You ok?" You ask, the hint of a concerned frown
{Yeah, just, confused. Get closer, maybe she can tell us what the hell is up.}
can't see her either. can see everything else though. should probably upgrade sensor suite on chassis.
{Well, at least one of us isn't blind. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious, ok?}
ok!
Heh.
You move forward, people naturally parting for the man with the huge fuckoff sword following him. Thankfully, Vale Central's regular security are familiar enough with you and your condition that you aren't accosted, and you move quickly towards Penny.
Taking your first good look at the girl, you realise she's actually quite... normal looking. Standing at around five foot five, she's distinctly average in terms of height, certainly no Ada. Her hair is auburn, almost bordering on bright orange, and falls around her shoulders before curling back up to her chin, a small cowlick near the front the only rebel against her hairstyle. As far as clothes go, she wears a light, whitish-grey blouse with odd... not quite metal, not quite glass decorations that seem to glow green. Her stockings are black with green lines running the length of them, that also seem to glow when you don't focus on them, and around her neck, a... collar, you suppose is the word for it, in the same style. In all, her style is rather... old-fashioned.
As she turns to look at you, you realise her eyes are an absolutely stunning shade of green- that sort of dull tone you associate with jade, except they seem to light up, quite literally, they seem to glow ever so subtly and it makes them so much prettier than they have any right to be.
Then an instinct you didn't know you had sees something in them. You stop, a knot in your gut informing you that something is off as her brow furrows, a mix of worry and guilt in her eyes as she gently shakes her head at you, then a little more distinctly, as if silently telling you to not come closer.
behind you!
Before you can react, you feel something press between your shoulder blades, slightly off centre to aim straight through your heart. You feel somebody invade your personal space, their breathing loud in your ears.
{Shit. How didn't we see him?}
"Keep your hands where I can see them, and keep moving." A deep, resonant voice commands you, speaking low so as to not draw attention to himself.
Finding absolutely no reason to not keep moving forward, and one very good one to do so, you keep walking towards the girl, now looking much, much guiltier.
"Flare your Aura, reach for your sword, or speak without being asked a question, and I put a bullet through your heart."
"I gathered." You mutter, the growing nerves getting the better of your mouth.
You feel the pressure on your back grow, and the knot in your guts tightens considerably.
"Now is not the time for snark." He growls.
You hear yourself whimper but bite back an apology. The pressure abates a little bit, and you can almost forget the fact that you have a gun pointed at you.
Almost.
"Now. I'm going to ask you some questions, and if I like your answers, I'll put the gun away and we can talk like civilised people. If I don't, I shoot and step over your dying body. Am I clear?"
"Y-yessir."
"Good. Now. Who are you?"
"J-Jaune Arc."
"ID."
You slowly reach into your wallet and pull out your ID, holding it out behind you for him. The man takes it, reading it over.
"... Alright. You're an Arc." He says, handing it back to you. "Our people found comm logs between the girl and something called 'the Transistor.' Whoever or whatever it is, it spent its time grooming her to learn about her specifications. We only found out because she broke containment a few hours ago to come here to meet the damn thing. So, Jaune, tell me, why are you here today, walking towards that girl in particular, carrying that giant sword that looks suspiciously circuit-like?"
Every word, he comes a little closer, until he's almost growling in your ear, the gun pressed against your back once more for emphasis.
Well?
Status Effect Gained- Off-Guard- you have a gun against your back, of course you are. You're not thinking straight, you're kinda hyperfocused on the gun- no penalty roll, just take a flat -3 to social until the threat is resolved.
[] The Truth- just start talking and don't stop until he takes the gun away from your chest or you're dead.
[X] "You're bluffing. You're not actually going to gun me down in public, you just want me to confess to something you can pin on me."
-[X] You have connections... Fine, you have a connection, so put it to use. Have Blue message Weiss to explain that you're being held up by an Atlas goon and have her call you. Hand over your scroll and hope the heiress of the SDC has enough pull with whoever this guy works for.
[x] Record everything for future use. -[x] Call your family surreptitiously. -[x] Be ready to use Turn() at a moment's notice to avoid getting shot. --[x] Don't say anything incriminating, let this asshole hang himself.
[x] Record everything for future use.
[X] "I'm just here because a girl was lonely and needed a friend, I haven't done anything wrong."
[X] Try to calm down, this guy is (hopefully) bluffing and he (probably) won't do anything stupid in public.
[X] Admit to nothing and don't say anything incriminating.
[X] Have Blue and Bracket do anything they can think of. Call the cops, talk to Penny, hack this guy's scroll for something of use, call Weiss and see if the Heiress of the SDC can do anything to help.
[X] If all else fails, look to Penny. Blue made her sound like a good person, so she wouldn't let you get killed.
[X] "Well obviously it's my AI who asked your AI out on a date. I mean really it should be obvious but maybe I'm expecting to much from people. The only reason I'm here besides being the chaperone is that I can't be more then 100 meters away from its vessel without dying, but hey now that your here mabye I can have some pleasant company once you stop being a complete and utter DICK!"
[x] Write-in: DANGER MODE TURN ACTIVATE
-[x] Jaunt Behind who ever the fuck this is. Scan him. He just lost privacy privileges.
--[x]Ready to ()Spiral a bitch and look for any other dickheads backing this guy up.
---[X] "My AI asked your AI out on a date and since I can't be more then 100 meters away from its vessel without dying I had to come along."
----[x] THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT BLUE!
[X] "You're bluffing. You're not actually going to gun me down in public, you just want me to confess to something you can pin on me."
-[X] You have connections... Fine, you have a connection, so put it to use. Have Blue message Weiss to explain that you're being held up by an Atlas goon and have her call you. Hand over your scroll and hope the heiress of the SDC has enough pull with whoever this guy works for.
-[X] Scan him. He just lost his Privacy Privileges.
[x] This vote should be considered an abstention regarding what Jaune says. Regardless on what he says, however, there's a few things he needs to do.
-[x] Record everything for future use.
--[x] Call your family surreptitiously.
--[x] If it's possible to do so without any outward sign that we're doing it, prepare to use Turn() at a moment's notice to avoid getting shot.
[x] This vote should be considered and abstention on what Jaune says. Regardless on what he says, however, there's a few things he needs to do.
-[x] Record everything for future use.
--[x] Call your family surreptitiously.
--[x] If it's possible to do so without any outward sign that we're doing it, prepare to use Turn() at a moment's notice to avoid getting shot.
(ok but seriously I am never doing this again holy shit)
||| "It's for you." DC 3, Roll: 19 - 3 = 16.
... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME-
As you try to answer him, focusing on the truth, that your own artificial headache dragged you along to meet her because you would just die if you missed this, before rephrasing it a little more sincerely, and then realising that whatever you try to say dies in your throat before you can even commit to it.
The end result is that you don't actually say anything for the next ten seconds, only breathing harder as you realise that your voice has completely died on you. Your heart pounds harder and harder in your chest, to the point where you can feel the barrel of the gun against it, panic rising in your gut until you're focused entirely on the fact that your anxiety-induced quietness is finally going to kill you.
You hear the hammer cock.
This is it. You're going to die because you can't say a single fucking word.
You feel your hand twitching, ready to try and reach for your sword, Turn(), walk behind him, Ping() to the base of the skull, all you need to do is touch the hilt-
{Stop. I got this.}
The sound of a Scroll being called, the sound of your Scroll in particular, the quirky, bassy beat of your ringtone enough to break you from your murder-suicidal thoughts, and bring you back down to something approaching normal. Well, relatively normal.
"Ignore it."
A moment after he says it, you realise what's happening.
"I... think it's for you, actually."
The gunman grunts in frustration and you feel large hands pat your sides down, thankfully pulling your Scroll out of your trouser pocket before he gets anywhere truly uncomfortable.
"... Last I checked, there wasn't a phone number on the planet that was all eights."
You smirk, despite yourself.
The gunman answers the call just as the second verse kicks in, and you hear his voice in stereo for a moment.
""Hello?""
You quickly turn that off with a few eye flicks, just as the other end of the line speaks, both through the speaker and in your head.
-Put the gun down, James. You know the boy's not going to do anything as well as I do.-
You hear a noise of surprise at his name being mentioned, but the pressure on your back soon abates, and with it, your anxiety. You quickly step away, flaring your Aura as fast as you can, finally safe. You let go of a breath you didn't realise you were holding, breathing in as if just surfacing from a deep dive. Then again.
And again.
Then once more.
It occurs to you that you may be hyperventilating.
"... Transistor, I presume."
-You're missing a 'The' in front of Transistor, but otherwise you presume correctly. Though, call me Blue, the Transistor is... it's, complicated. Now, why don't we all go see Penny together and we can talk, like civilised people, without guns?-
"... Let's say I say no."
-We walk up to Penny without you and continue with our day as planned. If you try to stop us, I turn off that S0 and the filter limiters in your artificial liver, and let you hobble after us while your blood turns into distilled water.-
You look the man over as you regain control of your breathing. He's tall, taller than you by at least five inches, and with the bulk to fill it out- however, it is mass of efficiency, of functionality, not simply for the sake of bulking up.
His hair is neat, an inky black at the top, with streaks of grey and white by his temples, styled in such a way that it adds to the overall look of professionalism and experience, not adding to his apparent age at all. His face is square, icy blue eyes not focusing on you, more concerned with the blatant threat he's just been given. The only mark against his looks is a small rectangle of metal just above one eyebrow that you recognise as the Invictus Bionics S0 neurotransmitter that Blue brought up not a moment ago.
That's... easily 500,000 Lien right there, and considering the light whining of servos you can hear as he moves ever so slightly, you imagine the end price tag is a lot bigger than that. You realise that one of his hands is covered in a white leather glove, and his entire torso is hidden underneath a black turtleneck, designed to obscure his frame as much as possible. Interestingly, his ungloved hand and the one you know for a fact is flesh and blood, is the one holding the gun- a revolver, obviously custom made, with how flat and boxy the profile is, the cylinder almost flush with the rest of the barrel.
"... Alright then. Let's talk." He says after a few seconds, the tightening of his jaw the only sign of his displeasure with the situation.
-Good choice. Now, shall we?-
|||
{Congratulations Jaune. You've pissed off the heiress to one of the most powerful companies on the planet, made up with her, got her phone number, and got her to walk you to the train station under her umbrella one day, then the next day, managed to get an Atlesian general to hold you at gunpoint. What is with you and powerful people lately?}
You don't know, but at this rate, you're going to develop a fucking complex.
Taking a sip of your crappy coffee, you settle into your uncomfortable chair inside the station café, General James Ironwood on one side, apparently enjoying his coffee as much as you are, a very guilty looking gynoid on the other side, eyes refusing to meet yours or look at the Transistor, instead staring at her own coffee, untouched, and you suspect only ordered to maintain some sense of normalcy, and your Scroll, stuck in the middle, on speakerphone.
-I... suppose I owe you and yours an apology, James. Looking over the transcripts... I can certainly see where your concerns lie.-
"Mmhm." He grumbles, sipping his coffee instead of giving a concrete response.
-However, I can promise you that we had no intention of... how did you put it, again? Grooming her?-
"Mmph-" He quickly finishes his mouthful before speaking. "To be honest, I was more concerned with the idea of you capturing her and taking her apart to figure out what makes her tick, more than any kind of..." He trails off, obviously not comfortable finishing the sentence.
You watch Penny cringe a little at the blasé mention of what could have been her untimely recycling, and resist the urge to remind them that she's right there.
"Still, if that wasn't your reason, then... what was?"
-To quote my partner? He wanted to see what everything she told us about happening all at once. The gyroscopes, the self-balancing mechanism, bipedal motion, facial expression protocols... to us, it would be like poetry in motion. Aside from that, we wanted to help get her acclimatised to the city, show her around, help her get used to big crowds, and just... enjoy each other's company.-
"Mmhm. And your friend?"
You resist the urge to remind him that you're right here too, and instead just answer his question.
"The Transistor, and by extension Blue and Bracket, er, his 'partner,' are the result of my Semblance. They act like... a second brain, almost, and keep my Semblance under control. Without them, I'd end up having headaches, then migraines, then eventually aneurysms, possibly of the fatal kind."
You grab your eyepatch, pulling it up to show off your hyphema, and allowing you to see how blurry your eyesight is.
... Yep, like looking through mud. Through your good eye, you see Ironwood's face twitch into a sneer for half a second before he schools himself.
"Case in point. This is what happens when I overextend, even with the Transistor's help. So, yeah, had to third-wheel for them if I didn't want to die." You tell him, pulling the gauze patch back down.
"... Hrm." He mumbles, apparently entirely at a loss for words. He takes another sip of his coffee and composes himself. "... Alright then. I... don't think I can really disbelieve you after, that, but there's still the problem of you... two?"
-Three, if you want to be pedantic, but really you can count me and Bracket as one entity.-
"... Because this wasn't confusing enough..." He pinches his nose, and you see him paw at his chest for a moment, reaching for a nonexistent jacket pocket, before just grabbing his coffee again. "Look, nobody at this table, besides myself and Penny, should be aware of her... condition. Even if your interactions with her are perfectly innocent, the simple fact of the matter is that you two-three- whatever, are a huge security breach, and Penny shouldn't even be out yet."
"You said I could go out!" Penny finally pipes up, sounding very much like a petulant child.
"That was before Polendina found a crack in your RF shielding! If you'd waited for all of ten minutes you wouldn't be drowning out every radio signal within a mile radius!" He hisses at her, sounding very much like a tired father.
Now that shuts her up, and she goes back to staring at her untouched coffee.
-Wait. Is that what all these random signals are? ... What are they even for? Why would you ever need to output... what, gigabytes of data per second without a physical cable?-
"Classified."
-Fair enough. Penny, where's your RF shielding?-
"Now hold on a minute-"
-I'm tired being almost blind and you're obviously not going to be helpful, so, Penny?-
"Sternum." She says, drawing a strangled sound from Ironwood.
-Got it.-
A wireframe projection covers the centre part of her chest.
-... Holy crap, this is barely a hairline fracture... wait, I see the problem. It's not the RF shielding, the array itself is damaged. No wonder you're broadcasting on all frequencies, the internal controls are busted. Uh, James, you might wanna close your eyes. This gets bright.-
"What are you even doing-"
-Fixing the problem.-
The flash of light has Ironwood blinking spots out of his eyes, much to your amusement. You feel a pressure at the back of your head you hadn't even realised was there let up, and you feel a little lighter for it.
-And... there. Good as new.-
Penny's fingers run up and down the centre of her chest, stress-testing a few spots in particular, and apparently finding no fault, as she beams at the Transistor.
"Thank you, Blue!"
-No problem, tin can.-
"Wh... how-"
-Penny's good at being a real girl. We're good at other things. You'll find out what that was when you decrypt the rest of the messages, because Jaune's great and all, but he's no AI. So, yeah, maybe we both overshared, but I think what you'll find in those messages will be a fair trade for our continued communication. We have no ulterior motives here. All we wanted to do, and all we want to do, is make a friend that's actually on our level.-
The general stares at your Scroll with something approaching mute disbelief, still processing what he just witnessed, eyes fixed on Penny's che- sternum, sternum.
"... Just answer me one question."
-Shoot.-
"... Penny is bleeding edge tech for us. How much further ahead of us are you, comparatively? Just, in years."
-... Truthfully? Not something I can answer. At least, not in one number. On one hand, you've made Penny. She's basically all you need for a framework, you just need to learn to specialise, or teach it to threadfork so each fork can specialise for it, give it an electronic warfare suite to be safe- stuff like that. You'll figure that out eventually. Now, other stuff, like what we just did, and our casing, that's the kicker. You haven't even begun to figure out the math you'd need to achieve the kind of processor density you'd need to pull even that little thing off, let alone anything else. I mean, you're still stuck trying to figure out turbulence, for god's sake! Then you've got our sensor array, that's just a matter of taking... literally everything you can think of and shrinking it down to a chip about the size of your pinky nail, holographic tech's about on par with what we have, antigrav, you can pull that off with some creative Dust use...-
Blue trails off, and you try not to enjoy the look of astonishment on Ironwood's face. You know you shouldn't be taking so much pleasure out of this man's pain, but come on.
He was going to shoot you.
Enjoying him being made to squirm is pretty damn cathartic after that.
-... Being optimistic? My prototype is 500 years out.-
"Five hundred years," He repeats breathily, before taking a much larger swig of crap coffee.
-Semblances are bullshit, and through Jaune's, so are we.-
"... I... I think I should go."
-Ah, going back to give the all clear?-
"... Sure, whatever makes you feel better. I'll leave you... four, alone, then."
Ironwood gets up from his chair, pulling out his wallet and putting down more than enough Lien to pay for the coffees, before walking off in something of a daze, waving goodbye over his shoulder to Penny.
-... Well, that's that taken care of. Nice guy, when he's not threatening you.-
Your Scroll cuts off, locking on the table, and you collapse it, putting it back in your pocket, before turning back to Penny.
"... So. Where do you wanna go first?"
|||
You'll give the Huntsman museum this- bigass weapons and stuffed Grimm replicas sure take people's minds off stuff.
You watch with some amusement as both Penny and Cell gawk in obvious wonder at some of the Grey Era weapons on display- crude, by today's standards, but of a quality that you can only get with handmade weaponry.
A large suit of armour, the metal a shade of white only rivalled by Process chassis, smoothed to the point where you can barely see the seams in the joints, completely at odds with the frankly oversized flail it was paired with- a giant, cruel thing, spiked and bladed, but made of the same icy white metal as the armour. A small plaque next to it tells of the small compartment meant to hold Dust crystals that would be activated via a small button on the handle that would send a charge up the chain, setting it off.
... It does have an odd beauty to it, for something with such a bad history behind it.
{Hey, props where props are due. They knew their stuff.}
"Excuse me, everyone!" A small woman in a staff uniform says, a bright smile on her face. "The Mistral tourney semifinals are now starting! We will be holding screenings of the live broadcast throughout the museum for your viewing pleasure!"
That starts a bit of a ruckus as people shuffle off to find a TV.
Pfft. Screens are for people without supercomputers connected to their brain.
So. Wanna put that direct mental connection to the world's most powerful computer to use or nah?
[] Watch the tourney.
[] Nah. Move along.
And the more important question... Do you wanna bet? (Pick two) (Max bet: 25,800 Lien)
[] Yeah- who on and how much?
-[] Adi Berhanu, "The Jeweller." Fights relying on her light augmentation Semblance, and the variety of gems and Dust crystals she carries. Long-range fighter. (Opponent: Pyrrha Nikos, odds 10:1, opponent's favour.)
-[] Bhumi, "The Earthworker." Stone/Earth manipulation Semblance, known for forming his weapons and armour on the spot, picking a different style every time. Wildcard. (Opponent: Vulkan Titanius, odds 2:1, opponent's favour.)
-[] Vulkan Titanius, "The Forgemaster." An armoured goliath of a person, wielding a hammer as large as you. Controls streams of molten metal with his Semblance. Source of molten metal is unknown. (Opponent: Bhumi, odds 2:1, fighter's favour.)
-[] Pyrrha Nikos, "The Invincible Girl." Despite being a three-time tourney winner, with odds shaping this tourney up to be her fourth, very little is known about the girl herself. Fights using a rifle/spear/shortsword formshift weapon and shield. (Opponent: Adi Berhanu, odds 10:1, fighter's favour.)
[] Nah. Save your money. Gambling's a bad habit anyway.
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Valentine's Interlude: Salem and Theodosia, The Lovebirds.
I... think Ironwood's reasons are maybe just a little bit more justified than a mugger's. You know, what with the whole 'saving his multi-trillion Lien project from people who very well may want to take her apart to see what makes her tick' thing he had going for him.
As for how Ironwood acted: I could be mistaken and confusing canon with another quest I follow on here but doesn't James also kind of fill a "father" role as far as Penny goes?
As far as can be told, after some discussion with Clever, that's, being very generous, mostly fanon. Penny's important to him, but in a more 'this thing's gonna save the world' way rather than, you know, a fatherly sense.
Hell, when she died, his first reaction was to look at Ozpin and say "I can explain!" like he's just been caught doing something he shouldn't have. Which, in fairness, he was.
... Points for taking responsibility?
Anyway, I think that justifies what he did even more. He's not a father seeing his child at threat- he's a man who's tired of the pain and the misery that he sees and hears about every day, seeing the key to that pain and misery walk off into what was, as far as he had been told, entirely a trap, while basically announcing her presence by screaming as loud as she could on every wavelength she could, without even knowing it.
@Prok, there really was no scenario where a fight broke out or Ironwood fired where Jaune survived? Not winning, just surviving.
How big of a scandal would it have been if the Transistor had sent the relevant recordings to various people, such as the Vale Council, the police, the Atlas Council, Ozpin, news organizations, etc. etc.?
Not saying we should do that, just wondering if you had any plans for your voters causing a diplomatic incident between Vale and Atlas.
@Prok I ask this entirely seriously, but... does Jaune like Faunus? Like-like, I mean. No seriously, it would put all new dimensions on the commentary around the Creme option.
Considering how often we've been getting blindsided, I'd rather tell the Transistor to ignore everyone else's privacy and just not share that information if it isn't a threat.
It does that anyway. When Jaune talked about privacy settings, it's in more of an 'ignorance is bliss' sense rather than actually respecting people's privacy. Also, you've only been blindsided once, on account of the Transistor's sensors finally being taxed by several gigabytes of wide-band radio transmission. Weiss putting a sword at your throat was just a result of Jaune being WAY too optimistic about how she would react to somebody in her room.
And from there it's Semblances all the way down, and you just end up arguing yourselves dizzy with all these circles around here.
Pyrrha's really not a great example though because she's kind of a hard counter to any Hunter who made it past the Stone Age. Which is, almost all of them. Surprisingly enough, being basically Magneto is kind of a versatile power in modern times.
In terms of your original example of a hypothetical technopathy Semblance, that's probably why he fires his gun with the hand he was born with- to at least partially avoid that exact problem. It's not a matter of power levels, it's a matter of how you plan ahead and prepare for any eventuality. Is that the reason he shoots with his flesh hand? Maybe. Maybe he's just left-handed.
The problem you faced today (relatively, hush), aside from a critical fail, which screwed up Penny's RF shielding and finally saturated an area with enough raw data to actually burden the Transistor, is that Jaune is inexperienced. It didn't occur to him that somebody could walk up behind him in public and point a gun at his back, so he didn't put his Aura up, not to mention the fact he was kind of preoccupied with his tool of omniscience kind of giving up on him. It was a perfect storm of 'fuck Jaune Arc,' and the element of surprise is your best weapon against anybody with Aura.
Power levels don't matter outside of a fair fight. Simple as.
Do they exist? To an extent, unless you're going to tell me with a straight face that Jaune has a chance of beating Winter or Qrow, let alone people like Salem or Ozpin. Are they as absolute as they are in something like, I dunno, Dragon Ball? No. The fact that you can, in theory, just walk up behind an unaware Hunter and straight up dome them with little to no problem is proof enough of that.
Not all Auras are created equal. Not all Semblances are created equal. Not all Hunters are created equal. There are going to be some Hunters who are objectively better than their peers in an almost power level-like fashion, but for every one of them, there's going to be four others who clawed their way up to that level anyway, whether through practice, learning their Semblance inside and out, all the little quirks, the little loopholes, how to compensate for its weaknesses, or just straight up getting a better weapon.
You are the outlier. So is Pyrrha. Neither of you is average. You're part of the 20%.
In reality, a lot of Hunters could see John Constantine as a kindred spirit. And John Constantine would be considered horror movie material on Remnant.
Speaking of Aura and the breaking of shit with such, idle question about the K6BD omakes; why doesn't Jaune have his Aura unlocked? Is there something inherent in Meti's philosophy that would clash with having it available? Because it sounds like you could view it as another weapon, and death can definitely lie under Aura-enhanced fingernails easier than normal ones.
Precept 14- "The weak swordsman clings to victory. He thinks of his life, his obligations, the outcome of the battle, his hatred for his opponent, his training, his pride in his mastery. By doing so, he is an imperfect vessel for the terrible fires of Will. He will surely crack. He will not laugh uproariously if he is cleft in two by his opponent's blade. When his sword is shattered, his hands will be too reserved to tear his enemies' flesh."
If Jaune wins, he wins. If he loses, he loses. If he dies, he dies. And if he dies, he will die, laughing as he is cleft in two by his opponent, his sword shattered beside him, using the last of his strength to tear their heart from their chest.
On a more mechanical level, he's simply moved past the point where Aura would be of any use to him- he has, through training and study of the art of Cutting, become as strong and as fast as any given Hunter, if not more so, in exchange for being something of a glass cannon- no Aura means no protection from a sniper rifle or a shotgauntlet or a variant ballistic chain scythe besides his sword, but it doesn't matter because he's just that damn good. Granted, Cutting is such a conceptual art, and Throne's rules, hell, Remnant's to some extent, seem to lean in such a way that, honestly, if he was injured, and he survived his wounds, he'd probably only get stronger of them.
He simply doesn't need it, because if he gets hit, he fully deserves whatever happens to him next.
I missed this edit until now. @Prok, did you have any plans for further revamping the Omake Rewards? One option could be letting people put points into skills, either a set amount or rolling for it, but that has to be balanced properly or else things will get out of hand (I'm looking at you, We Stand In Awe).
Just asking because I had some ideas for an alt!Jaune where the crossover has radically altered Remnant and I think some people had outstanding Fate Points.
It'll be revamped, don't worry. The thing is, nobody actually used it, even when there was a critical fail you could have dodged out of, and somebody actually brought it up and was promptly ignored. That was my first clue that nobody really bothered with it, and I'm about to put two whole new systems up as is, so I might as well prune what I can, y'know?
Uh, lemme think, you have... somewhere around 160 Fate Points...
Fuck it, I'll deal with that at the end of the next update. This one's cluttered enough as is. In the meantime, feel free to write your omake, and I'll judge it under the new rules.
So was re-reading the quest and came up to Test(), Cycle 11: Cleanup() where we realize that we know nuclear is a thing now. We very clearly state to ourselves that we know about an entirely new field of science now. Would trying to jumpstart someone's nuclear development be something to think about?
Radioactive materials, like uranium or thorium or stuff like that, just, aren't a thing here. Like, outside of stars and certain Semblances, because they're the only things with enough power to fuse or split stable atoms, neither fusion nor fission is a thing in Remnant society. So, no, it isn't really possible, unless you want to try and get into the nuclear fusion market, but... honestly, you're kind of already beyond that point. Like, way beyond that point.
You know about atoms, most anybody who sat through first-year physics does, but just in terms of fission powerful enough for a runaway nuclear reaction to happen? Nothing like that exists. The closest thing would be Dust, and it obviously doesn't work like that- it's just not volatile enough for anything on the level of a nuclear option. Haru's Semblance was, literally, being able to split the atom whenever he punches or kicks something. Since, most of the time, the atom he'd be punching or kicking would probably be nitrogen or oxygen, all he's getting is a little puff of energy and that's it. I mean, yeah, still enough to Ark of The Covenant somebody's face off, but he's not going to Hiroshima Vale anytime soon.
So, my work started cracking down on phones hard and only letting me use them on break. In response, I've started bringing a composition book with me.
@Prok I have 20 pages of Hold It In Battle of Beacon sitting in the notebook of wonders (tm). You want I should pm it to you, post it in thread, or just hold onto it?
Hold onto it. Act like Nostradamus when the time comes.
But nah seriously though throw it up if you want because your stuff is always super fun and I wanna be held accountable for anything I accidentally steal from it-
Anyway, time for an interlude! A sappy interlude! A happy interlude! A... you know what, a friend of mine took his boyfriend out on a late Valentine's date tonight, so as far as I'm concerned, it counts! It's the Valentine's day interlude!
It's not perfect, but... for once, I'm ok with that.
Friday, 2nd July, 3:50 PM.
Your name is Salem Sini, and you are nervous. And embarrassed. And happy. And kind of annoyed.
You're a lot of things, honestly, it's- it's been a busy day.
First off, Beacon placement test- went well, placed a technical first. Technical because the other team bailed at the last second. On top of that, you decided to, upon meeting their leader in the maze that fucking maniac Saff set up, gush over the reason you were so determined to win, making sure to act as goofy and over the top about it as possible, hopefully to throw him off so you could dive and then stab him in the back of the skull, if it didn't bring his Aura down, the impact alone would have dazed him, but that wasn't your problem. No, one person knowing was ok with you.
But it wasn't just one person that heard.
See, Saff, for all he was no architect, was apparently some kind of savant when it came to acoustics.
Everybody heard.
Everybody. Even the people outside of the maze.
You'd never been so tempted to literally sink into the ground in embarrassment. Your only saving grace was that, once the ribbing was done with, people actually seemed... supportive. Especially when you told them that you were planning on meeting her today.
Shit, when he heard that bit, Naia picked you up and pretty much fastballed you onto your train.
Not fun.
... It was kinda fun.
The conductor didn't think so but fuck him.
But that's the past. This is the present!
And presently, you're walking through Marble Arcade, dodging the crowds of shoppers, aiming for the place you promised to meet her when you finished.
End of the arcade, by the fountain with the swan spout.
Dodging your way through a few dense spots, your diminutive size working against you as you try to push through the crowd, it's slow going, but you quickly decide against using your Semblance- it might go through pipes, but it doesn't go through sewage.
You involuntarily shudder, remembering how that particular test went.
Once you make it through, though, it's all smooth sailing, and suddenly the fountain and Theodosia seem so much closer.
She's a tall girl, almost awkwardly so, not quite grown into her limbs yet, leaving her all legs and arms with little else to her frame. Coupled with a lack of mass to fill it out, she's left to lank about like a scarecrow come to life. The pale, blonde hair frames her head in its own wild, frizzy way, the dry summer air only aggravating the problem, much to her often-grumbled discontent. Her clothes only add to the comparison, the simple plaid dress, the Mary Jane shoes- the only thing that breaks from the comparison are her glasses- thin, square things that would look downright businesslike on anybody else, but only manage to look out of place on her in the best way possible.
She is, without a doubt, the most beautiful person you've ever seen.
You wave, and she finally spots you, waving back just in time for people for move in front of you.
"Theo!" You call out, trying to move through the now reformed crowd, doing their best to keep you from passing.
Bugger that for a lark.
Focusing on your feet, you feel the vibrations in the ground, from people around you, from pipes deep underground, from the shifting of tectonic plates, and you gather them all underneath your feet, forcing the earth to part and grant you passage. For anybody else, it would feel like being buried alive.
For you?
It just feels like home. Something about being underground like this just feels right to you. You bring the vibrations up and forward, forcing the concrete to pass around you, undulating like some kind of geological worm as you move forward, your ears listening to the oscillations around you, forming a mental image that you've only perfected through several years of practice.
Five metres, ten metres, fifteen, account for drift- there!
You force yourself out of the ground and appear right in front of her.
Theodosia squawks with surprise, stepping back, her heel catching the edge of the fountain. Her arms windmill as she tries to find something to grab, and you finally react, gently grabbing her hand, giving her some much-needed stability. The two of you stay like that for a moment, you, holding her up almost daintily by one hand, her, dipped backwards like she's the belle of the ballroom, and blushing up a storm while she does. You heave her back up onto her own two feet, and only then, with more than some reluctance, finally let go of her hand.
"... And hello to you too."
Great start. Best start. This is gonna go great. So fucking great.
|||
You take her to a café, as you do with pretty girls you'd like to get to know better, not, that that's a thing you do very often- at all really- and the first thing she does is ask you how the test went.
At some point, that simple question turned into a blow-by-blow account of the test, which she listens to raptly, not caring a whit for your weaknesses as a storyteller, or the fact that most of your story consists of playing whack-a-mole with people.
"So Creme, right, the doe Faunus, she just takes the bullet like it was nothing, but get this- her Semblance is momentum transfer. It was nothing to her! Her teammate, uh, God, what was her name... Ava? Ada? Something like that, anyway, she's the one that took the shot instead. The bullet bounced off Creme because her teammate took the force of the hit, she got off scot-free! So I try to get out of there, but she grabs me by the collar as I'm trying to burrow, pulls me out, and throws me into the wall!"
"Oh, heavens," Theo says, sipping her coffee. Two creamers, two sugars, mixed until the colour resembled something like dried clay.
"Well, technically, she threw me into Saff, the guy who made the big maze, and we both got tangled up inside the wall, we could barely move, it took us like five minutes to get enough space just to move around and wriggle our way back out. It was really cramped, it got kinda warm, so I was sweatier than I already was, it was just, kinda gross, honestly."
She blinks, and the tiniest blush forms on her cheeks as she takes a deeper sip of her coffee.
"But, yeah, he uh, turned his back on me, started talking about teaming up at the last second, so I shot him in the head. He got ported up into the stands, and... yeah, he was pretty angry."
Her giggle is the best thing you've heard all day.
"I can believe that. So, it was you, against... four other people? The girl you can't remember the name of, Creme, that... rainbow armour person, and the boy with the blue sword?"
You watch her head tilt slightly with the question, and barely manage to contain your excitement over such a tiny thing.
She remembered! You told your story well enough that she remembered everyone who was left!
Aaa!
Focus, focus, you have to finish this so you can tell her the good news.
... The news.
"So, what happened next?" She asks you, leaning forward, eyes bright with curiosity.
Almost despite yourself, you look away, embarrassment flushing your cheeks.
Ugh.
"... They backed down. Jaune, uh, the one with the blue sword, could barely walk, I think he must have been shocked by somebody, Lumen, er, the guy who made the rainbow armour, looked ready to be sick, and the small girl looked... kind of out of it, I dunno what was going on there, and Creme must not have felt ok trying to fight me herself, because they took a minute to dicuss, and then Jaune just hobbled out, threw his sword into the sand, and said they were done."
They might have been ok with joint first place, but you aren't. Because you didn't just promise Theo that you'd come out on top for her, you promised her that you would come out first. Not, second, not joint first, first and only.
"Oh, wow," She after a moment, before noticing your face. "... You don't seem ok with that, though."
"I mean, I... I told you I'd come out first, but I can't know for sure that I would have beaten them in a fair fight, so..." You trail off, drinking some coffee to fill the silence.
"You feel like you didn't really win first place," She finishes for you. "Salem, that's... kinda silly."
Wait what.
You look up at her and see a tiny, awkward smile work its way onto her face when she realises she has your attention.
"You managed to intimidate four people into backing down without a fight. Even one who, up until that point, was pretty much entirely unharmed. Do you understand how... impressive that is? At least three Mistrali generals saved thousands of lives because they managed to psych out the opposing army so much by doing things like, standing in front of the city gates playing the mandolin, or setting up a game of Go on the battlefield and inviting enemy soldiers to come and play against him-"
She cuts herself off, that blush rising even further than it already had, her excitement fading in a wave of self-consciousness.
"... Sorry. M-my point is... you won the mind game. And, I think that's more impressive than just beating them down with force."
You look at her, staring into her coffee, entirely embarrassed by her outburst, and you can't help but find her too adorable to stand.
... Still... when you, think of it that way... she's right.
You did win the mind game.
A smile tugs at your lips, quickly turning into a grin of pure joy as you realise that you not only kept your promise, but she agrees with you.
When she doesn't immediately bounce back into the conversation, you figure you should probably say something. Those bursts of excitement are so rare from her but do you love it when they happen.
"... Tell me more about that general who played Go. Actually, what is Go?"
She snaps her head up at the question, and you see her relax slightly as she processes it.
"Uh, Go is a board game, dating back to pre-Kingdom times- it's played with black and white stones..."
You listen raptly, just happy to listen to her talk.
Learning something new while you do it is just a bonus.
After your coffee and recap of the day, you both decide a walk through a nearby park would be a nice way to pass the time.
"So... why do you think, er... Saff, made that maze anyway?" Theo asks you as you walk along the gravel path lining a large open plateau, filled with people reading, playing with dogs, having picnics with their families, and generally just enjoying the day.
"To get an upper hand? Faunus have night vision, and he left a hole in the top to let light in, so..." You pointedly try not to think about its other, though admittedly unintended, purpose. "But, uh... I dunno. He's been pretty high-strung lately, and he got really angry at Jaune, Creme, and Lumen, too. Like, screaming his throat hoarse angry."
"Heavens," She says mildly, not quite sure how to take what you're telling her. "Has he had problems with them in the past?"
"... Not... that I'm aware of? I mean, Creme's a walking disaster area because of her Semblance, Lumen's a slacker, but Jaune... I don't know. He's, alright, I guess, a little quiet, but I have no idea why Saff'd have a problem with him. He's the last person I can see pissing somebody off, intentionally or not."
"... Hm. Well, I won't psychoanalyse somebody I haven't met, so I'll leave it there."
Fair enough. You were kind of running out of things to... say...
The sunlight catches on her hair for just a moment, shining through the loose strands of frizz and setting her head in a halo of fire for just a moment, framing her face in contrasts, accentuating every line, every mark, every flaw, everything you love about it, strengthened to dizzying heights.
You feel your heartbeat in your chest. You feel it pulsing in your neck, down your arms, in your wrists, in your fingertips, and somehow further still.
"... Salem? What is it?"
Just tell her you fool, some voice in the back of your head says.
You swallow, your throat suddenly quite dry, you begin to wonder if that's such a good idea.
... What would she say? What would she say to... any of the things you could say right now? What can you tell her that wouldn't scare her off? That her hair in the sunlight looks like spun gold? That everything seems to fade away when you see her face? That the skies and trees all blur, every time you look at her?
Thoughts whizz about your head, clouding your mind with indecision.
"I-I..." You trail off because you just can't bring yourself to take that plunge.
Listen to yourself. You shot a girl in the back of the head earlier like a gang execution, and here you are, unable to tell a girl how you feel about her-
"It's ok. Take your time."
Glancing up at her, you see how concerned she's become over your inability to just spit it out.
You have to take the plunge. You have to. You have to. You have to.
Something you did during the test comes to mind, for just a moment. But a moment is all it needs to take root and grow like ivy, choking out every other thought in your head until it makes itself the only thought you can focus on.
'I feel like I need to become a better person just to keep up with her, dude.'
"Theodosia Watts, every moment I spend with you makes me want to become a better person in every way I possibly can and I honestly think I'm in love with you."
WHAT. NO. WHAT.
YOU DIDN'T MEAN THAT. IT JUST CAME OUT. OH GOD NO.
The relief of finally getting it off your chest is rapidly replaced by growing horror at the fact that you just blurted that out, you absolute moron.
You stand there, focusing on everything but the pretty girl in front of you, waiting for her to, to gently let you down, or laugh in your face, or do any of a million things to reject you...
...
But none of them ever come. A few seconds, pass, and you somehow gather the courage to look at her face. Her eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open in a gasp, her cheeks...
Good lord, you didn't know people could turn that shade of red.
"... Was that too mu-"
She grabs your shirt collar and brings you close, pressing her lips against yours. It's by no means a romantic gesture, the movement is so jerky and fast that you both all but knock each other's front teeth out through mashed together lips, but the second kiss is a little more... measured, you suppose is the word.
It's savoured.
You feel something stall, mentally, and you just... stop thinking for a moment.
All that's left the feeling of lips against yours, an awkward, inexperienced kiss the only sensation you can focus on while you try to not to cross your eyes as they try to force Theodosia's into focus.
To an outside viewer, it would seem painfully obvious that neither of you had done this before, from the simple, almost mechanical awkwardness to the action, to the fact that you're both staring past each other, and in your opinion, it still ends far too soon.
When it does, she pulls away, her cheeks a paler shade of flustered now, if only just, and she continues staring at you in an entirely new light.
"I, um..." A small, snorting giggle makes its way past the lips you tasted only a moment ago. "I was wondering when you were going to say that."
You blink.
... Wait.
No way.
No fucking way.
"You knew?"
Theo only just manages to hold back her laughter, your confused glare only making it more difficult.
"Salem. You are... a lot of things. You're smart, you're sweet, you're funny, you're, on a path to becoming one of the people saving the world... but you are not subtle."
... Oh.
... You'll take that.
"So, uh, now that that's out in the open… what now?" She asks, and for a moment you just groan instead of actually answering.
"I'll be honest with you," You tell her after your moment of groaning is up. "I honestly didn't think I'd get this far."
She nods, understanding you completely.
"I mean... I didn't expect I'd actually kiss you, so we're both out of our depth here."
Some tiny part of your brain, possibly the part that started all this, points out that you could go for the kill something awful right now. With no dearth of nerves, you reach down and gently slip your hand in hers, enjoying the warmth of her palm against yours. After a moment, she reciprocates, and your fingers intertwine, locking the two of you together for the time being.
"... I guess we'll just have to figure it out as we go."
Apparently figuring it out involves more in the way of handholding and some more than occasional kisses. Beyond that, though, things seem to have changed after your little confession. For both you and Theodosia. It's as if... a weight's been taken off your chests. Which, you suppose makes sense.
Still, as you walk about, it's as if the world itself has changed- the sun seems a little brighter, the sky seems a little bluer, the grass a little greener...
As if somebody's painted it all with a vividness you didn't even know was missing.
Even in such a short time, you found yourselves changing- where a comment would have drawn a huff or a smirk at best before, this, now it drew genuine laughter from you both, usually far beyond the point where you should have stopped finding it funny.
You don't think you let go of her hand once in the half-hour that passed- every now and then, you found yourself gently squeezing it, almost checking it was real and not some convincing illusion, and she always squeezed back, silent confirmation that, no, you're not dreaming.
It was heaven.
The only time you let go of it, with more than some reluctance, was when she had to answer her Scroll. Only when she lets go do you realise that your hand is kind of hot and clammy, now rapidly cooling down due to the reintroduction of airflow.
... Eh. Worth it.
"Hello? Oh, dad, hey. I'm with Salem. In Vernal Park. Uh... how long will you be? Alright, see you then."
She puts her Scroll away, sighing gently as she does.
"My dad's coming to pick me up in fifteen minutes," she says, giving you an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I-I should have said something-"
"Hey, no, it's ok." You say, just about managing to convince yourself as well. "It's not like we can stay out all night or anything."
No matter how much you wouldn't be opposed to the idea.
"... Yeah. Um, he's going to pick me up by the north edge of the park, on Fall Avenue. Can we, uh..." She trails off, trying her best to suggest that you go that way without actually saying it.
You can take a hint.
"Sure. We're pretty close to the exit, I think."
She trades you a grateful smile for your tact. You move along to the northern edge of the park, through the gate and onto Fall Avenue, across from the glass skyscrapers that dominate the Industrial district, the sun glinting off them here and there, leaving the world around you...
Shiny.
Looking around and finding her father nowhere to be seen, you consider trying to, well, flirt, you suppose, now that you're... allowed to do that, but in the end, you find yourself somewhat put off by just how... confused you are with it all.
"So, uh... God, this is probably a really stupid question, but... what are we now?"
As soon as the question leaves your mouth, you immediately wonder if it's even worth asking. You figure, from the handholding and the kissing and the generally having just admitted that you love each other that it would be kind of obvious, but, gah, you don't know!
You've never done this before!
"I... suppose we're, together now," Theo says, prompting you to nod along. Ok. Together. You can do together. "I guess that makes this our first date?"
"Yeah. I guess it does."
She squeezes your hand, and you come to the realisation that she seems a lot more relaxed about the whole thing than you are.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it? I could do that again. Couldn't you?"
A certain heat creeps up your cheeks, and you find something very interesting about your shoes.
"Y-yeah. It was... nice. I mean, every other time I've hung out with you was nice, but this was-" Stop dancing around the subject Salem. "-why are you so... cool about all this?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" She asks a slight furrowing of her brows the only sign that something's occurred to her. "... Aren't you?"
"Y-yeah! No, yeah, I'm, I'm cool. I just... expected you might be a little more nervous, I guess? I-it's nothing, really, I'm just... being stupid."
Theo gives out a tiny whine that could very well be interpreted as a drawn-out 'no,' before shifting to somehow hug you from behind with her free hand, laying her head on your shoulder.
"You shouldn't talk about yourself like that. This is new for me, too, I've just... had a lot more time to think about it," She tells you, lowering her voice a little, letting it take on a slightly husky tone. The sensation of her gently squeezing your shoulders from behind is somehow the most comforting thing in the world. "... I've been waiting for you, Salem. You took that plunge for both of us and I can't tell you how happy I am you finally did."
She gives you a quick peck on the cheek, lingering just a moment longer than she has to before she goes back to resting her head on your shoulder. Something about a warm body against yours leaves you feeling... open. Vulnerable, almost, but in a good way. Vulnerable with somebody you can trust to not hurt you.
You let down the defence you never realised you put up, and feel something tighten in your chest. When you speak, all you manage is a hoarse whisper.
"... Can we stay like this for a while?"
"Yeah."
|||
Your name is Theodosia Watts, and your father pulled up to you in a standing cuddle with your new boyfriend.
You're now sitting in the car with him, your worst fears- him being angry, disapproving, outright forbidding it- flit through your mind before you remember he's been doing something infinitely worse since he drove off, leaving Salem behind, still a blushing and stuttering mess.
He's being smug.
He's just, driving along, tapping his fingers on the wheel almost absentmindedly to the beat of one of those old rock songs he seems so fond of, gently humming the melody as he does, keeping perfect time to the drums with his fingers and feet, not acting like he just caught his daughter enjoying an intimate moment with a boy he's never met.
"I saw it coming, you know. I told your mother this would happen, and she didn't believe me."
"Do you disapprove?"
"On one hand, I'm somewhat patriarchally obliged to disapprove, but on the other hand, you just won me 500 Lien."
Your brow furrows at that, and you quickly realise what he's saying.
"You bet on whether or not we'd get together?"
"Technically, we bet on which of you would have the spine to actually spit it out. You both liked each other, that much was obvious just from what you told me of him and in how you told me what you did, it was just a matter of who broke first. I figured he'd ask to meet you after the Signal exam to do it. Check when that was, wait for you to tell us you were going out to see him, leave it an hour or so... I mean, honestly, did you think my eyes were all I gave you?"
That's- but- how could he possibly-
Your father chuckles, the stuttered sounds of indignation you make in place of the response you don't have apparently amusing.
"Oh, don't act so surprised. You're my daughter, it's my job to be able to read you like a b-."
Before he finishes, his Scroll begins to ring. Grunting in annoyance, he pulls it from his suit pocket and places it in the handsfree divot on the dashboard, connecting the call and muting the music.
"Watts here."
-Arthur, hey, uh, just calling to say the move's been greenlit, and we've to prepare for it... pretty soonish, the schedule we've been given says about two weeks before it actually goes through. The boss is calling a brainstorming meeting to try and hash together a decent order of priorities, divvy out duties both pre- and post-move, shi-
"In the car with my daughter, Elise. Language."
-Oh, sorry. Uh, hi Theo. Anyway, it's not too important, but if you wanna call dibs on a job, you'd best turn up, unless you want to be stuck on, like, counselling duty or something.-
You watch a stormy look pass over his face.
"Hrm. No, that definitely won't do. When is it?"
-In an hour, actually. I know you just got off and all, but I thought you should know in case you don't feel like leaving your assignment up to chance.-
"That I do not. Thank you, Elise, I'll see you there."
Your father's Scroll cuts out, and the song picks up where it left off, and he sighs slightly.
"Well, I'll drop you off at the house, then go back out. Tell your mother I'll be late home for dinner, will you?"
"Mmhm."
The rest of the drive home is fairly silent, not broaching the topic of now current boyfriends, not broaching the topic of how you ended up being the big spoon, and frankly, you think you'd probably die of embarrassment if he brought it up. As you leave the highways and skyscrapers of the Industrial district for the sloping hills and gated communities of the Upper-Class district, you can't help but find yourself wondering what 'move' was greenlit at your father's work. By the time you figure he probably wouldn't answer your question, you're already home.
"Theodosia?" Your father says as you get out of the car, and you see an odd look on his face as you turn. If you had to put an emotion to it, he seems... conflicted, almost.
"Yeah?"
"... He could definitely be worse."
You smile, recognising the awkward praise for what it is.
"Well, he's trying to get better."
Apparently accepting your response, you close the car door and watch him pull out of the drive, the hardlight gate automatically parting for him, leaving you with your thoughts, and a message for your mother about having to go out again.
Your name is Theodosia Watts, and you're a lot of things. You're content. You're kind of embarrassed. You're not nervous anymore. But above all, you are head over heels in love with a boy, a Huntsman in training who's going to try and make the world a better place.
At some point, your life turned into a cheap romance novel, and you're more content with that than you thought you would be.
