Just out of curiosity, I put this through a reading time calculator and it turns out that the update itself is 6400 words long, and would take about 32 minutes to read. So, that's the same time as a pretty lengthy youtube video, and I wrote it in less than a month. That, actually makes me feel a
lot better about myself, even acknowledging the difference in effort between 6400 words of prose and filming and editing a youtube video. I suppose I'm alright with that.
*Starts psychoanalyzing self*
See, you joke, but that's a
very real problem. Even
in the white room, he probably has about an hour before he starts getting migraines again from his Semblance analysing
him.
Like a dog chasing its own tail, it is.
So... Would it be worth trying to train to minimize our dumpshock from a Transistor disconnect or would it be self-inflicted torment with no payoff whatsoever?
Almost definitely self-inflicted torment. You can't
train someone in a coma to survive without life support, they either
do or they
don't.
You are definitely in the
don't camp.
I wonder if there are any recordings of Jaune singing. Would he sound like this?
So, fun little thought regarding Jaune's singing: what if he's got a wonderfully powerful voice and doesn't sing much because he automatically commands attention when he does?
Jaune sounding like Patrick Page when he sings would be hilarious.
In particular, the line "Wasn't it electrifying, when I made the neon shine?" Skip to 2 minutes if you don't want to listen to the whole thing.
Mmm...
No, no, those are too...
bassy, in my mind. Jaune's voice is pretty high, remember, maybe a little nasal at times, though maybe less so than in canon since speaking quietly tends to give
anyone a bit of huskiness to their voice. His range is definitely more alto to tenor, more than anything so...
crooning. I could see him singing Mother Mother, or Will Currie & The Country French, stuff along those lines,
that's his range.
But, in the end, it's an entirely moot point because this is a text-based medium and it's really never going to be adequately explored beyond my word on the matter unless I somehow stumble my way into some guitar skills and pull off a cover of The Stand.
And finally... you know, after almost 150 pages, and near enough two years writing this, I...
I'm honestly a little disappointed that
that is what my first ever staff post is. I mean, shit, three and a half years on this site squeaky clean, honestly I wanted my first staff post to be like a mass banning and a thread nuke or something, y'know? If it's gonna happen eventually, it might as well be for something
major, right?
Is that normal? Am I normal?
Eh, whatever, update.
Song: Winter Nights- Jesper Kyd, Hitman Contracts OST
Name. L'Aquila.
No. Tessaro. Bianco.
Your name is Bianco Tessaro. Your name is L'Aquila.
The distinction grows fainter with every passing day.
Violet seeps into the whites of your eyes as luxin forms in your fingertips, spilling from open wounds and weaving itself at your command into another cable, pouring out to lay itself across and lace itself between the dozens of others like it that you have been creating in preparation. Focusing on one lens, you finish the construction with globs of dark red, fusing them together and keeping the fire within alive.
You daren't pull too far from the Spidersilk, lest you no longer
care why you were sent here.
The police have left you be, establishing a perimeter roughly 100 metres away in every direction bar that of your targets.
Warning shots from Thousand Star tend to be a deterrent to even the bravest men.
You chamber another round, bring the scope to your eye, and wait. You watched the white fortress come to life, of course, but that is not what concerns you.
That sword. Displayed ability to move independently of its owner. Possible independent combatant. Granted celerity to the boy on contact, rendered first strike ineffective. Has disappeared since stronghold was created.
You wait for movement nearby, ignoring the people cowering in the café, ignoring the policemen watching you with naked fear in their eyes-
There it's there take the shot take the shot TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT-
In the hundredth-second between sighting and trigger pulled, you see a person behind it and note that you will almost certainly kill a non-target today if it dodges. Anger flares up inside you.
Unprofessional.
Instead of dodging, though, the sword,
deflects it
. Rationally, you know that a thing swords to be capable of, but the sheer absurdity of watching a floating ironing-board sized sword
bounce a bullet into masonry, causing a net of cracks to form through its structure, gives you pause for just a moment. Before you can recover and capitalise on its weakness, your unlensed eye is blinded by a flash of light through your scope.
In the half-second it takes for you to recover, the sword is now close enough to see unaided. It is now joined by three creatures, made of the same segmented pieces as those small grey things that attacked the
traitors. They begin to grow the same, vented rifles as the fortress, not that you suspect it can hit you from h-
As you think that, a blast of
something hits your coat, the grey canvas beginning to smoke and catch aflame. Biting back a curse, you draft some more superviolet from the higher end of the spectrum, forcing it down on the embers. The gaslike luxin smothers the flames before they can spread much further.
Well. That's you told.
Seeing the sword and its robot helpers approaching at frankly too fast a pace for your liking, you decide returning the favour is as good an opening act as any.
Levelling your free hand at them, you let rage
burn through your core as you focus on the lighter of your red lenses. Glob after glob of pyrejelly blows through your fingertips, drawing blood as barely healed scabs burst open once more, each blot moving fast enough to ignite on contact with the air alone.
Your intended globs lose their shape quickly, becoming a blanket of fire that covers two of the creatures. Their continued movement only brings your anger to new heights, but eventually, something
pops in each of them, and they cease movement, slowly melting into bubbling, static-screeching puddles of metal. You allow yourself a small bit of satisfaction as you hop to another strand of your web, bracing Thousand Star against your shoulder once more, the smell of tobacco sharpening your senses as the red luxin finally breaks down completely.
That disconnected clarity is welcomed back with open arms as you draft a tracer line of superviolet from your fingertip towards the crystal sword. You don't imagine that it'll go down to some fire as quickly as its minions did, but it can't hurt to have the option open-
A quick pulse of plasma, or some other form of energy, comes to dash that hope, the line severed the moment it touches the technological oddity. You hop off your web just in time to dodge the sword tearing through it at high speed, the force alone causing a large portion of the luxin to break down into clove-scented resin. You grab another web and crouch low to let the last of the robots sail over where your head would have been, a digital warcry growing then fading as it misses you. You draw some more superviolet, and blindly throw it at the creature, but it easily dodges the dozen or so invisible shards, letting them sail off and shatter against the stone of an office building.
You decide, at this range, that your gun is no use. And so it is time for the eagle to bare its talons.
You grip Thousand Star by the barrel and
twist, the whole gun coming apart with a loud click, setting off internal mechanisms, the barrel and stock shrinking into a pair of kama which you immediately put to use.
The sword comes close, swinging its entirety at you as if wielded by its owner, and you almost lose your weapons to the sheer
inertia of its motion, your attempted block only causing you to almost lose your footing.
Almost.
No, it's the bolt of plasma to the chest that finishes the job there. At the end of its swing, just as you're about to recover, you watch a bunch of teal cubes crackling with orange energy form above the red eye of the sword. Before you can even process what's happening, you're on the ground, feeling like a bouquet of grenades just went off in your face.
After a quick metaphysical assessment, you figure your Aura could...
maybe take two more of those at point blank.
Maybe.
"{Give up. We won't.}" The sword speaks, a husky voice only made huskier by the synthetic burr lacing its tone.
You grab your kama, a quick flip bringing you to your feet as you press hidden buttons in each one, compressing them further in your hands, the handles becoming a pair of pistols, the blades running along the top towards the barrel, miniature affixed bayonets.
Looking up at it in defiance, you draw deep from the red light shading half your face, allowing clarity to be subsumed by rage, and then
fire.
"Then you will break."
|||
Song- Coasting, Darren Korb, Transistor OST
A quick status check of the two units that were hit with the Semblance napalm reveals that the heat overloaded their ability to keep a cohesive form, and they're now processing the road underneath, waiting for the substance to burn out.
Fork 32-a takes note of this, narrowing down the most likely prediction, the same process occurring as L'Aquila's weapons change, first to melee, then to a melee/small calibre hybrid.
It listens as 139-c attempts to cow the man into submission, but predictably, he refuses.
A shame. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that someone will get hurt eventually.
Queueing Crash_Breach_Spark.bat for execution. Subject Aura currently at 63%- adjusting Function strength to account for possible breakage.
T2-2, please continue harassment of target while a firing solution is acquired.
Understood, mastercom1.
{Is it really a firing solution if it requires us to be at point-blank range?}
We're the bullet.
{Ahh.}
You watch as the final Process unit learns from its sibling's mistakes, choosing to skitter low, flattening itself to the ground to dodge the spray of bright red aimed at it, catching fire the moment it hits the ground behind it, before finally coming within melee range.
Its first few attacks are sloppy, haphazard headbutts and body slams that L'Aquila punishes it for quite severely, its red eye cracked and a leg bent out of shape, but it learns. Inexperienced flailing soon gains a semblance of precision, becoming measured jabs, its footing growing surer by the second as L'Aquila slowly goes onto the defensive, the Creep learning to deflect instead of blocking hits with the soft metal of its legs, creating more openings by the second.
You know, until he shoots it in the head. Apparently growing tired of these games, L'Aquila levels a pistol at the Creep's eye and pulls the trigger. The shock disconnects the Creep from the network as several important components are destroyed, its body dropping like a puppet with severed strings, which is when you take your chance.
Launching yourself at 66.7 recurring metres per second, you drive yourself into the ground next to the terrorist too suddenly for anyone but the most talented Huntsman to reach to, and trigger the first two Functions you have queued.
The comparison the sysadmin makes for Crash() is one of 'pulling a flower out of the ground to see what its roots look like.'
Analysis of the most destructive kind.
You are made aware of every imperfection in L'Aquila's form, down to the most minute atomic instability- his Aura protects him, the metaphysical blueprint of
I forbidding your attempts to entirely tear him apart, forcing things back together as they were at its own expense.
He stumbles, his nerves no doubt on fire as they try to process what in some god's name just happened to them. Before he can recover, you lift your shell out of the hole in the ground and flip it over him, punching another hole through the road to trigger Breach().
Breach() has always been something of interest to you because it's one of the few Functions you have that could be emulated perfectly by humanity right now, given time, money, materials, and most restrictively, space.
In simple terms- create a spacial loop roughly five metres long, and accelerate every particle in it to a considerable fraction of the speed of light, resulting in several teraelectronvolts of energy looping through the same five-metre space, over and over again.
Hrm.
A small idea for an upgrade involving stripping particles of their protons for use in Breach() is filed away, though it will probably never be approved once you educate the sysadmin on atomic fission, even if you could keep the frameworks stable enough to, you know, put them back.
Shame.
L'Aquila is blasted, his Aura once again protecting him from the effects of being stuck inside a miniaturised particle collider, and yet still he manages to stay on his feet. No matter. That won't be a problem much longer.
Once more, you rise, levelling yourself directly above him, and prime a final Spark()-
The terrorist raises one of his pistols and fires. No level thought, no measured use of ammunition, nothing but maddened firing into your shell with no rhyme or reason beyond emptying an internal magazine.
Through sheer chance, a critical fracture point within your eye, barely millimetres wide, is struck.
Much like the Prince Rupert's drop can be struck again and again and again with no harm, the Transistor shell, on the whole, is nigh-invincible to anything short of excessive force.
... But a Prince Rupert's drop shatters if you twist the tail even slightly.
A hasty Reboot() is attempted before the shell shatters completely, and everything-
|||
Video- TIS-100 trailer. Just, keep it open, trust me on this one.
Process unit designation: T2-2.
Critical damage sustained to internal systems. Mobility impaired. Speech capabilities impaired. Connection to Process collective impaired. Mobility impaired.
… Final statement previously logged. Deleting.
Memory diagnosis initiated…
Critical damage to internal memory and processing. ETA to total memory viability failure- 7 minutes, 34 seconds.
Internal memory blueprints corrupted. Cannot connect to Mastercom or Process to request copy.
Most likely scenario- this unit will cease function permanently.
Assailant is still active. Will perform repairs to assist in incapacitation. Unit preservation is secondary.
Self-repair in progress. Leg 4 damaged- blunt force rendered it uneven with other mobility components. Repairing.
Optical systems impaired. Repairing. External glass has suffered critical damage- non-critical component, repairs unnecessary.
External speaker repaired. Unable to repair speech codec corruption. Secondary concern.
Optical systems online. Re-recording underway.
Mastercom has caused considerable damage to assa-sailant Aura.
M-mastercom has taken f-fata-fatal da-da-damage. Critical frac-ac-ac-ture point has been struck-ck by high-cal-calibre bullet- shellisbroken. Sig-signature broadcaaaaast wave hasgone-ne silent.
Re-re-reque-request oooooorders
Cannot c-c-c-connect to processcollective
Rrrrrrequestorders
Cannotconnect
requestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnectrequestorderscannotconnect
Re-re-re-restar-ting prev-pre-previou-s prograaaaaaaaaaaaAAA-
|||
RIGHT THAT'S QUITE ENOUGH OF THAT PLEASE AND THANK YOU
Blindly firing into the sword, your nerves on fire, your soul
frayed at the fucking edges, you watch as the thing
explodes above you, and the world turns cyan.
The force flattens you to the ground, your Aura finally breaking and leaving you to weather the detonation yourself. Shards of glass punch through your coat, slicing your arms, your back, your legs, a thousand tiny cuts that are going to hurt like hell in a minute, but you manage to come out the other end… worse for wear, but not, dead.
Lifting yourself to your feet, adrenaline clouding the pain of the various cuts and burns currently covering your body, you feel a low laugh bubbling up from your guts, quickly turning into a mad cackle.
Some unerringly violet part of your mind points out that your mask is ruined, and your face is plain for just about anyone to see, but
you don't care!
You beat it!
YOU DON'T KNOW HOW BUT YOU DID!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"YEAH! YOU'RE DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?!
YOU'RE DEAD!
I WIN!"
Over the broken glass in both body and your soul, over the burns painting your uncovered skin, over the loss of your best mask and your coat,
you broke the masterless sword and that is all that matters, one more victory like that ruining you be damned.
The adrenaline eventually comes down to a level where rational thought reasserts itself as best it can, as your Aura pieces itself together, slowly pushing out the worst of the shards and sealing the wounds, and you realise you should probably cover your face again.
Using the red in your blood, you draft a thick, tacky mask, spreading it over your face, hair, and feathers, your identity temporarily hidden, once you shift some eye and nose holes into it.
... You, still look like a gimp rolled around on an abattoir floor, but you imagine your dignity's somewhat
beyond recovery today. As you finish, though, nausea flows over you in waves, bile burning your throat as it rises.
Ugh. Drafting sickness.
Just what you need.
The adrenaline ebbs enough that your body pulses, once, and then pain joins you again like an old lover. At this point, training and
spite are the only things keeping you standing. So, naturally, nothing as simple as a five-minute head-start would be in the cards for you.
Just as you start to relax, you hear the sound of metal claws
tacktacktacking against tarmac. Turning, you see the robot you shot earlier, glass still cracked, some internal wiring sparking every now and then. You watch as it steps through the shards of the sword, sometimes literally, shattering them into smaller pieces, uncaring of what it used to be.
Then, it looks at you. It looks at you, and you see no guiding intelligence behind what is left of its eye.
It is mindless. Absolutely, entirely mindless in its actions.
Song- F%#k You, Widdly 2 Diddly- LISA: The Painful Soundtrack ((I suggest skipping this one if you don't enjoy loud screechy noises directly in your earholes))
You do not understand the garbled, screeching mess of static it emits, but you
do understand the intent of it suddenly bull rushing you, its legs moving while its body stays still, perfectly static as it dashes towards you. Raising your guns once more, they shift back to kama, barely stopping one of its legs from swiping your legs out from underneath you, your muscles screaming as shards of sword crystal work themselves deeper into you. Retaliating, your blade digs into its metal shell, the damage repairing itself as you drag the blade through its teardrop shaped body, and you have to pull your weapon out before you lose it in a sea of shifting metal and glass.
Unlike before, it does not improve at an inhuman pace the more it fights, instead only growing more ferocious and self-destructive in its actions as the seconds pass.
It sacrifices a limb in order to slip another past your guard, punching into your gut and driving the wind from you. It stops repairing its wounds to slam its body into you, using its jagged edges like a thousand saws, dragging deep divots across your flesh, shattering your Aura once more.
You drive your blade deep into its insides once more, just trying to hit
anything important, and pay for the attempt in the form of a snaking limb striking one of your ankles, fracturing
something and laying you flat on your ass.
Before you can recover, it's on you, and you wonder for a moment if you're about to see your life flash before your eyes, its raised limbs reshape themselves into claws, slamming down around your calves and wrists, pinning you to the ground.
With that, it goes still.
… You lay your head against the ground, dropping your weapons as you hear the sound of stomping boots coming closer.
Welp.
You're fucked.
|||
All you're doing is rejoining your friend. You've checked yourself over in a technofungus-provided mirror for any stains from your crying and found nothing but some red eyes. All you are doing is walking through a door, apologising, and finding out what happened during your absence.
Why is that so difficult?
Because you don't feel like it should be this difficult. You are actually starting to get a little mad over how difficult this is.
Open door, walk through, say you're sorry, get up to date. Open door, walk through, say you're sorry, get up to date. Open door, walk through, say you're sorry, get up to date.
That's all it is. Three steps.
… Four. Four steps.
You know what, no, you have nothing to apologise for! Three steps! Open door, walk through, get up to date!
Before you can talk yourself into not doing it, you throw open the door and walk through. Before you can congratulate yourself on completing steps one and two so quickly, you see Jaune and Fawn both, crestfallen faces staring at a blank wall.
The wall you distinctly remember being filled with lights and numbers ten minutes ago.
"What happened?" You ask, hoping
one of them will be able to answer.
"He broke the Transistor." Jaune answers as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"... The… Transistor." You repeat. "The sword that took a rifle bullet and shrugged it off. That Transistor."
You won't say the disbelief was dripping from your words, because that analogy always disgusted you, but still- you are somewhat incredulous that someone...
broke your friend's sword.
"It's, not that simple. The Transistor's tough, yeah, but it has, stress points- places where a crack can propagate through the entire structure and blow the whole thing to pieces. They're only, maybe, a couple millimetres wide, on average, so hitting one is just…"
Dumb luck, you finish to yourself.
"Remains of Units T2-1 and T2-3 are no longer on fire. Reforming into- update, Unit T2-2 is mobile. Using available material to gain line of sight."
A moment later, the wall lights up again, and you see one of the dog-sized robots, with a
sizeable hole through its glass eye, begin to twitch, a dented leg snapping into place as the thing gets to its feet, swaying slightly as it does.
"Unable to connect to Unit T2-2. Scans show extensive damage to core memory and broadcasting equipment."
"O...k, so what's it going to do, then?" Fawn asks, obviously uncomfortable with voicing a question to something that doesn't actually, have a physical form to talk to.
"When unable to update orders, Process units will fulfil their last order to completion. In this case- the incapacitation and detainment of all active enemy combatants."
… Oh.
You watch it turn in a way
wholly unnatural, even concerning what little you've seen of these robots, towards the shirtless man wearing what appears to be some kind of dark red fetish gear, which, hey, you won't judge (you very much will judge), and begin walking towards him.
Eventually, he notices the robot, and the noise it makes chills you to the bone. A static screech that
grates at your eardrums, a brutal melánge of rising and lowering tones that
picks at some ancient scab in your brain, making you want to run as fast and as far from it as humanly possible.
Whatever it was before, now it's just… rabid.
The only thing that takes your mind off it is your Scroll suddenly growing
incredibly hot in your hands, followed by a small
pop as the battery blows out, smoke billowing from the shattered remnants. The only thing that saves you from losing fingers is an instinctual drawing of Aura, and thinking fast enough to let go of it.
Well, that's 8000 Lien down the drain.
Looking up, you finally see Jaune holding his head in his hands before the screeching is finally muted, and you begin to piece together exactly the kind of strain his Semblance puts not only on him...
He's a walking techbane, you realise.
Fawn
very quickly pulls her own Scroll out, throwing it to the ground as it too pops and smokes, pushed far beyond its most upper limits.
You watch as the rabid robot goes after its quarry, ferocity and self-destruction quickly giving it something like an upper hand, until eventually it just snaps the terrorist's ankle and lays him on his ass, pinning him there as you see cops start to move in.
Jaune breathes heavily, no longer clutching at his temples.
"... Sorry. Sorry, I'll, fix those, in a bit." He mumbles, before waving his hand, a set of stairs forming at one side of the room, letting in enough natural light to make you squint.
It hadn't actually occurred to you how
dim it was in here, until this exact moment, nor how little that bothered you.
"Wait, where are you going?" You call after him as he ascends the stairs.
He has the courtesy to stop and look at you, genuine confusion in his face for just a moment.
"... To… get my sword back." Jaune answers as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
With that, he just turns and continues up the stairs, apparently entirely oblivious to your confusion.
"Oh, that
ass-" You hiss under your breath as you follow him up the stairs.
A quick sprint takes you to where the terrorist is being detained, after which you have to explain to some
very twitchy police officers that he's the guy who
owns the big teal sword, and he's just here to pick up the pieces, and, pry the robot off the person they're trying to detain.
Not the most
glamorous use of your celebrity status, but, it's to help a friend.
"Hey, uh, help me find a piece that's pretty big? Like, palm-sized?" He asks, and that's how you end up on your knees, sifting through broken computer glass, looking for a piece the size of your palm.
It isn't hard, mind, nor does there seem to be any inherent danger in it- the Transistor is apparently made with the same standards of safety glass when it comes to its violent deconstruction- and you eventually find a piece about the size of your palm.
"I found one!" You call out to him, and hand it off to Jaune, pointedly ignoring the fact that it looks roughly half the size it did in your hand when he holds it.
That familiar glow flickers back into life, and Jaune
lights up like a child on Candlemas when it does.
"Hey, buddy! It's been a rough day, huh? Think you can pull off a reboot, or am I gonna have to get a brush and some super glue?"
The piece flickers in his hand, he laughs, and you begin to feel that you might be hearing only one half of a conversation.
With a gentle flick of the wrist, he throws the piece into the air, and that turquoise light flashes-
|||
You squint through the small supernova happening in front of you, only opening your eyes to grin at the sight of your best friends whole again.
The sensation of a river down your spine as the Transistor connects again, your vision filling out with that HUD you hadn't even realised you'd began to miss.
{Ugh… that… that never gets easier.}
Agreed.
Well, it's over now, thank God.
{How's... ugh, what did we
miss?}
It doesn't take you long to catch them up to speed, for all they missed, and by the time you're finished, you realise that the Creep unit is… looking at you.
{Weird. I can't… oh. Oh,
God, it's… like it's in the advanced stages of rabies. The more it acts, the more memory is corrupted beyond repair. It's amazing it lasted as long as it did.}
And it still fulfilled its last order to completion.
You walk towards the damaged robot, and gently lay your hand on the cool metal, brute forcing a direct connection.
The first thing you're made aware of is the sheer amount of self-cannibalism that's gone on in order to preserve some tiny kernel of lucidity. Self-repair protocols, shaping programs, combat prediction and tactical improvement, basic material integrity comparison,
L'Aquila could shatter this thing like clumped sand if he knew, all gone, just to shore up basic ego integrity long enough to…
What?
St-statusreeeeeport.
The voice rattling through your head is one of bare function, stripped of tone, of cadence, a more tired rendition of those first few days of the Process learning how to speak.
O-objec-jec-jectivecomplete.
F-f-finalenemycombatantdetained.
Q-q-quer
A pause. You note an uptick in CPU usage preceding the cannibalism of the last unessential systems to keep its mind stable.
When it speaks again, it speaks in raw digital signals, basic communication completely broken down. You wince for a moment until it cuts off suddenly, the data redirected elsewhere.
{Sorry, just gonna cut in here- 'Query: Has the unit performed its objective to a satisfactory standard?'}
For a moment, completely unbidden, your breath hitches, entirely caught off guard by such an innocent question.
It… wants to know if it did well. It probably has a minute before what's left of its mind is reduced to digital trash and the whole structure has to be wiped, and it's asking you if it did a good job.
"You… tell it.... that it did better than I ever could have hoped. And, that it can deconstruct if it wants." You say, gently rubbing the cool chassis.
Blue doesn't respond, but you feel whatever was left of its mind shut down completely, as T2-2's body begins to shimmer, its basic structure breaking down completely, raw matter flowing through your fingers.
Connection established with rogue Process catoms. Repurposing to repair damages caused by battle. Please direct officers towards the café to pick up other assailants.
As the last of T2-2 flows away, you find yourself staring at the gimp mask-wearing
piece of shit that's just made your night so interesting.
He stares back.
"... So. You're the master of these things." He tells you, heavily accented Valish betraying his northern origins.
You don't give him the satisfaction of responding. Instead, you walk away before you do something…
regrettable, let's go with regrettable. Nice, safe, nonchalant word, regrettable is.
"I know your face!" He yells at you, as you hear officers haul him off his feet. "
The White Fang doesn't forget faces, boy! You think a few robots will keep you safe forever?!"
You don't give him the satisfaction of walking any faster.
Weiss approaches you, pointedly ignoring the detective on her heels. A concerned look crosses her face, and she lays a hand on your arm.
"... Don't worry about him. They're all talk, once they're in cuffs." She starts, glancing over your shoulder at the laughing madman being loaded into a van.
"I'm, fine. He's not the problem." You admit.
Instead of dwelling
on the problem, you focus on the detective currently behind Weiss, at least polite enough to wait for her to be done with you.
The face says early 20s, hair cut short and combed to one side, but the pristine grey suit and stance speak of somebody easily three times his age. What really stands out, though, is the complete lack of any kind of body armour this close to what
was an active terrorist attack less than five minutes ago.
"Miss Schnee, you were just the target of an attempted White Fang assassination, any kind of statement you can make right now will be
invaluable to us-"
Weiss wheels around to face him, and you can tell that there is a
monumental effort being put into not just blowing up in his face.
"Detective Connors, I have spent the past 20 minutes fearing for my life and dealing with
several very uncomfortable revelations- I am…
very tired, and I would much prefer to just move on for the night. Now, unless you're going to
detain me for that, the best I can promise you is that my lawyer will be in touch to give you a written statement, signed and confirmed as my recounting of events to the best of my ability." She tells him, in the most measured voice she can manage.
Detective Connors seems to consider making good on her own threat for a moment, before deciding to let it go.
"... Alright then."
He turns to you instead.
Oh fuck that.
"Don't worry, the questions I have for
you aren't really something I can keep you around an active crime scene for. I just need a name and a Scroll number, and I'll be in touch with you in a couple of days."
That is… equally relieving and concerning.
Figuring anything
else would just be kind of suspicious, you give the detective your name and Scroll number, and he bids you a good night after you direct him towards the café, where you can already see the Process encampment fading into the ground.
Indeed, now that you notice it, you realise that the more overt Process material is fading from your consciousness, replaced with something that feels a little subtler.
{Perfect imitation. Impressive. Hey, look, they've even put the table back.}
Squinting for a second, you realise that the table you originally hid behind has been replaced, four restrained White Fang members sitting at it, and looking
incredibly uncomfortable doing it.
… Deciding, not to dwell on that decision, you sense one Cell, the total sum of the remaining 'loose' Process material, approach, a small gift clutched between its petals.
"We have retrieved the remains of your Scroll!" It chirps as it hands it off to her, straining its little antigrav components to lift itself up to hand her the scrap of blackened metal and warped glass.
Even cooled, you can still smell the acrid tang of burnt out electronics. As can Weiss, if the reflexive wrinkling of her nose is anything to go by.
"Th...thank you." She manages, holding the poor thing in a flat palm, entirely unsure what to do with it, before suddenly remembering something. "Er, you said you could...?"
Oh, right, you did.
{Luckily enough, we were smart enough to grab a scan of it, for just this eventuality.}
Incorrect- we have a backup of her Scroll from our connection to it and a general backup for any SDC Scroll.
{
Well yes but I wanted to give him some plausible deniability when he's dragged into court on data breach charges, Bracket.}
If we aren't legally considered people, we aren't beholden to the same laws as people.
... Besides, it's only illegal if we're caught.
You suppress a little snort, mentally directing your two favourite idiots to repair her Scroll, noting with some amusement that Weiss has learned to keep her eyes shut when the wireframe comes out. She opens them after a few moments, marvelling at the now pristine Scroll in her hands. Clicking the diamond, it flashes green, booting up in seconds.
"... You know, I think this looks better than it did this morning. There's not so much as a nick in the metal."
"Hey, if you can basically turn back the clock on any physical object, why not go all the way?"
A moment of silence passes.
What little comfort between you there is wanes.
"... So... where, do we go from-"
Before you even finish
thinking where you were going with that, Weiss unceremoniously grabs you by the arm and starts dragging you down the street.
"I've almost been killed at least three times,
you've saved my life at least three times, and we
both need to unwind after everything that's happened. How do you feel about nightclubs?"
Uh.
"They've... never really been my scene."
"They're not really mine either, but getting drunk
really is less sad when it's done in public." She tells you with a surprising amount of venom, enough that it actually startles you for a moment.
... O...k, not touching that one with a ten-foot bargepole, you decide.
Still, you have to admit, the chance to just...
relax, would be nice. And seeing the look on a bouncer's face when you either bring the Transistor in with you or leave it floating by the door with him probably isn't something you're gonna get to see outside of this one opportunity.
{Oh, just go for it. It's not like embarrassing pictures of you will
stick.}
A very fair point you have abused several times throughout the years.
... Fuck it. Anything to keep the horrifying reality of what happened earlier from setting in.
"... Eh, sure. It's not like I had any other plans." You
lie through your teeth you could have gotten so much done at home-
Calm. Calm. This is your life now.
Weiss smiles, a look of relief crossing her face.
"... Thank you. I... just, don't feel like being alone right now."
uh oh
UH OH
"Er, it's fine. I understand." You tell her, preparing for the exact moment this becomes something more serious.
"... Thank you. I, said that already." She repeats herself before having a moment of deep introspection over the fact that she repeated herself.
You catch her eye and despite yourselves, you both break down giggling like buffoons.
"Agh,
God, why am I so bad at this!?" Weiss squeaks out between her laughter.
Now that any kind of heavy feelings are sitting on the ground behind the two of you, the knife you shanked them with broken off in their spine, you walk along, Weiss plotting the course towards the nearest place with music and dancing and…
Nothing, you two actually like, as far as you know.
Er-
"So… all that stuff… that was all this little guy, huh?" She asks, eyes following 01 as it bobs along in front of you.
"Affirmative!"
OH HEY LOOK IT'S THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO USE YOUR NEW FAVOURITE ICEBREAKER
"You want one? A Cell, I mean."
She gives you a look, and after a moment, a little smirk works its way up her face.
"... I can tell when someone's looking for a chance to impress me. Shoot, Arc."
Raising a hand, you snap your fingers, and summon yet another Cell into existence, which immediately floats to the ground, rubbing up against Weiss's ankles. Leaning down to pick it up, the sound of the heiress of the largest company in the world
melt over her new friend isn't one you'll forget easily.
She stares into its bright red eye for a few moments, before she turns to you, a thoughtful look to her own.
"... Does… does it come in white and blue?"
"User preferences noted." 15 says, the red glass morphing to the same pale blue as Weiss's jeans. A little smile crosses her face as she marvels at the sudden change.
"Is this satisfactory?"
"It's perfect."
Another satisfied customer.
... You really should get around to selling those things.
|||
{Should we tell him?}
We should scrub it. All of it.
{We can't. We might be good, but we're not 'scrub every trace of evidence of the Process from the internet' good. That can of worms is open, whether we like it or not.}
We don't need to be. We just need to take it down from enough major outlets to get the message across.
{That'll just harm the Process's image when Jaune actually does go public with it. Frankly, considering how he's throwing out Cells like candy on Candlemas Eve, I'd say that's happening sooner rather than later.}
What, his family, his friends, and Weiss? That's-
{15 Cells over the course of a week. Ok, maybe not like candy, but he's not exactly being stingy with them, is my point. Look, we can't remove the evidence completely, and if we can't do that, all removing it partially will do is make it obvious that someone doesn't want it to be seen, which will just interest more people in it.}
... God. All this, because we got shut off for five minutes.
{Yeah. Amazing how little you can do when you're dead.}
Too true.
{... You still haven't answered my question, though.}
Should you tell Jaune that some enterprising Scroll-camera reporter took and uploaded evidence of the Process? And by some, I mean about 30?
[] Yes- regardless of everything else, this should be probably be taken into consideration when planning your next move with the Process. Like, no matter how you want to cut it, Jaune's going to find out anyway. You might as well nip it in the bud.
[] Not Yet- The boy's going to a nightclub, with a cute girl all but hanging off his arm so they ward barflies off of each other. Let him rest. God knows he's earned it. This is something future Jaune can worry about.
[] Another Option- ... James Ironwood is a prick, but he's a useful prick, who wants to work with you, and has plenty of reason to think you won't. Twisting his arm for a favour... risky, and you'd rather owe Torchwick a favour rather than this guy, but there's no coverup like an Atlesian military coverup. (This is essentially Not Yet but with danger rolls for spice, and a chance to regain some anonymity to grow the Process in before going public.)
[] Write-In
