Looking at Vista, Taylor shook the sheet of paper slightly. "Is this a four-dimensional chocolate frosted donut with sprinkles?"
Vista nodded with a very wide grin, hindered slightly by the fact that she was still trying to chew a bite of her sub. Once she'd swallowed she bounced a little in her seat. "Most people just get headaches when I show them my drawings."
How do you even envision something like that, much less draw it with line art?! No wonder it gives everyone headaches.
I'm looking forward to whatever this universe's version of Cloak ends up being. The amount of bullshit that can be made...
"Sizable additional storage had to be constructed specifically to hold the inactive and unneeded portions of the Shard device. Said storage was built to be flexible up to its maximum size so that less energy is required to maintain it as I empty it. To that end, I'm steadily moving through the extra Shard components to render them down into raw materials suitable for other purposes, which allows for significantly less space consumption than the original systems even with my raw materials storage at capacity. Within two weeks I should have sufficient extra storage to hold a small to medium sized Shard device in secondary storage, sooner if we utilize materials to construct additional items before then."
"So you could possibly 'store' one of the Shard devices I found?"
"Negative, my Lord. I am currently incapable of storing something that large without passing it through my repair systems for initial processing, in part because pure Shard devices default to constantly consuming their surroundings. That functionality needs to be disabled before storing them is safe. I would also not recommend targeting Shard style devices found on planets like that, as they may be tasked for use by those who installed the slave systems and we won't be able to tell until it's too late."
You know that your Device has
entirely too much time on its manipulators if it can feasibly store a
continent, regardless of how much preprocessing it would need first. At least she realized that doing so if the Shard is active could cause problems.
Well, that was annoying. Taylor hadn't been expecting to name anything. Well, it would be defaulting to a halberd, right? That was easy enough to shorten. Pulsing mana into the device, she spoke. "Hal, set up."
Shouldn't it be a
red orb, not a blue one? Also, Armsmaster is going to have a slight objection to this plan. Or Dragon might be upset that she now has a competitor for his interests. (I recall once seeing a shipping chart where the "true love" links went between "Armsmaster" and "Halberd" (with another to "backup halberd"). Fairly sure it was in Silencio; that would explain a lot.)
"My Lord," Hive said, getting Taylor's attention. She was smiling proudly. "In addition to the functionality we'd previously discussed, I was able to integrate two more systems. A mana-based version of the molecular splitter device tested against me and my own variant of the nanotech disassembly system. They're both limited to appearing along the physical blades at this time, but I hope to add them to the spike at a later point."
Oh no. Cue PRT classifying her as a power-copying Trump, and Armsmaster having an even bigger fit. Heck, she has working nanothorns before
he does! (Side note: Wasn't he hiding that for an EB fight? Why would he bring that out for semi-everyday testing?)
Frowning at the tape on the box, which was obviously reinforced with string or something, she grabbed a sharp-looking smaller rock. It made quick work of the tape, and she opened the box. Inside was the metal object she'd already known was there thanks to her sensor scan, wrapped in paper. She picked it up and removed the paper, hoping it explained things, only to hear a click. A moment later the metal object showed that it was a pipe bomb by exploding in her face.
Many pans died in the making of this scene. Also, this is not how the normal person opens mail. At least I hope not.
Hive moved down to poke at some of the shrapnel pieces. "I wonder if that's the same person who wants you dead or a new one?"
Taylor rubbed the bridge of her nose under the eye shield. She didn't need this kind of thing right now. "Either way, mail is getting a deeper scan before I even consider opening it in the future."
Yes, that's a good idea.
It's funny that she basically ignores that as more of the weirdness that her life has become.
Interestingly, Hive had integrated a point sensor into the support structure for the space, likely so that Taylor would always know where everything was inside of it. That was something that she hadn't considered herself, but it made sense.
Aaaand now she can emulate Circus. As if being a magical girl with mono-atomic weapons isn't enough, she
now has hammerspace. Villains and Euclidean geometry beware...
There was even an integrated mana battery like structure, though it should be more of a capacitor than a battery based on how it functioned if she understood it correctly, that could keep the thing powered if she couldn't for some reason. though that would probably only last a couple of days at most.
I think this is a run-on. The last part is also a fragment.
But now there was something bothering Taylor. "Why does it look like you copied a toaster to make the thrust elements?"
Ah, the question that everyone who meets her will now ask, I'm sure. I wonder how long it will take to regret that feature?
That afternoon Taylor noted that some work was being prepared for along her normal route home. Looked like new traffic lights were soon to come to a few intersections, at least one of which she was happy about since the walk buttons didn't work in that intersection. From some of the chatter of the workers trying to figure things out they were putting in a new system that used cameras instead of normal sensors for vehicles, but getting enough height on poles so that the camera feeds could be tied into outside monitoring across town was a problem of some kind.
Dammit, Coil!
You'd think that he'd give up,
eventually...
"The one that worked or the one that didn't?" was Hive's response.
"Did the one that didn't work do so in an interesting way?"
"The beams over or under-corrected seemingly at random as they attempted to hit your counterattacks and can only 'bend' in one direction. They aren't exceptionally useful as anything other than a distraction as a result."
...That's still pretty much the whole of Mr. Foot's power, at least if you ignore the non-laser things they do
aside from bending.
Also, the glitch-beams would probably be useful just for being unpredictable and by shifting through a lot of space rapidly.
Her debut will now be also followed by a number of awkward questions by
and to the Triumvirate. At least Legend has a valid excuse...
