Tonight
or tomorrow.
It is now tomorrow.
And oh look at that there's an update.
I
AM AN HONEST MAN
(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.
