Penny's body wasn't… warm, nor was it cold. It was firm, of a more solid steel than even Charlotte's body.
Charlotte stepped back from the hug, though a hand of hers remained on Penny's shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Sorry. Right. Because that'll mean anything to her, Charlotte thought, slowly shaking her head.
"Wanna check out a shooting range?"
Penny squeaked. Honestly—she really did. A little, high-pitched eep noise as she abandoned her pre-planned sentence out of sheer confusion. "...sorry? A shooting range?"
"His name is Liger Shishioh. He's…"
It was later in the afternoon, the same day as Penny's awakening.
Charlotte had taken her to the shooting range, apparently against 3G's whims—when they were tracked down, there was a minor argument between Charlotte and her superior. Not for abuse of authority, or inappropriate actions—
But for endangering Penny.
Penny hadn't felt endangered, not by the small calibers they had shot. No, it wasn't related to the activity. It was her leg. Its damage was visible from the outside, though minor, and 3G had not wanted Penny to walk on it any longer than she had to.
Thus, as a few hours passed, they asked a number of questions to Penny, relating to her own construction. Holding the wireless interface Inubouzaki had told her to test, she transferred the files requested. Her schematics, her repair procedures.
All while along the way to a side workshop, at the SDC headquarters. She was told to await the arrival of the foremost robotics expert—with only Renais Kerdif-Shishioh to keep her company.
She had introduced herself properly, by name and by designation; G-Stone Cyborg.
"...my father," Renais finished.
The two were sat on simple metal folding chairs, amidst a room of complicated machinery and robotics equipment; they were not to the apparent advancement of Atlesian technology, but something about them seemed thoroughly… practical.
Penny would have guessed grandfather, by their apparent ages, but she understood. She nodded.
"He was the first person to check on you after we found out you were still functional—you remember."
Penny did.
Renais looked away. "He's… going to make you uncomfortable. In, and with, your own body." The grit-toothed grimace was beyond apparent, even with her turned head. "...the people he works on, he always holds them to his own standards—appearance standards, quality of life standards, everything. He'll make you feel judged for who you are—but he cares," she spat.
Renais breathed for a moment. They were the uneven breaths of someone struggling for calm. "That's what makes it hurt the most. He cares so, so much—" she held out her arm, metal up to the elbow, with the G-Stone set in it. The ever-present heat haze surrounding her body followed each motion. "—he gets burns from my maintenance and repairs. So many that he has nerve damage in his fingertips."
Penny leaned forward, to look closer at the haze surrounding her, and at the articulation of each joint—the elbow, the wrist, each knuckle of each finger.
"I wouldn't want Liger to work on you," Renais continued, now meeting Penny's gaze. Her eyes then drifted, down Penny's body, to where her leg had been visibly—if only slightly—damaged by the thruster malfunction. "But he's the best in the world, and you're alien tech."
Her hand found itself placed upon Penny's shoulder.
High temperature warnings made themselves present in Penny's awareness, and Renais retracted her hand.
Liger arrived not long after, and had Penny sprawl herself along the surface of a metal table. It was cold, although that offered no discomfort for her, and there were adjustable restraints—metal shackles—for each joint, that all went unused.
Renais never left the room.
The first sensors descended from the ceiling, blue-green probes mounted at the ends of metal tendrils. As they worked, and as Liger inspected her body—without the slightest touch—Renais drifted nearer, always placing herself within Penny's line of sight.
In her hand, she clutched another of those interfaces.
The conversion to workable file formats for 3G, for Liger to use, took only minutes.
Liger ran through the schematics, then inspected closer the damage to her leg. "These engines…" he trailed off. "You said they run on this… Dust?"
When they had been planning her repairs, she had answered questions of her own body's functions.
"Yes," Penny replied. "A mixture of Gravity and Combustion Dust."
Liger tsked and then stuck out his head closer to Penny's leg. She wanted to fidget, under his gaze, but carefully held herself still. He was looking at her purely analytically, yet still it felt… off.
"I can't fix these," he said, tapping one of the thrusters. "Not without Dust of my own to work with. But besides, thrusters like these—" again, another tap. "—joints like these—" no contact, but he gestured towards her knees. "—and conduits like these, these are largely obsoleted by the latest in Ul-Tech…" again, he tsked. "Frankly, it would be better to go for a full rebuild, or even a new—"
"No," Penny hissed. "No." Her eyes found themselves shut tight, tight.
Another Penny, standing there, with her face, her hair, her clothes. Her voice. What use was there for the old Penny, cast aside?
Her father, stooped over a workbench, working with a soldering iron and magnifying glass on Penny's eyes, while she watched through a camera.
"Please," Penny muttered. She continued, and her voice gained in volume, though lost its steadiness. "No. I'm me—I have to be… me."
There was a short bout of sizzling.
Penny opened her eyes to find the source of that sound was Renais, her hand set upon Liger's shoulder. She released it, and Liger stepped away, a fist clenched. "No," Renais said.
"...The same body, then." Liger agreed. He turned back to Penny, though his eyes flit back and forth towards Renais over the next seconds as he inspected the leg. "...Your leg has lost some integrity from this. I can fix that in a pinch! But you'll have to keep your thrusters turned off."
It would have to be enough. She could still be… Penny.
Later, still, though the same day. The evening, or more accurately, nearing night The sky black, clear, and few stars were visible, courtesy of G-Island City's light pollution.
Liger had treated Penny's legs to a coating of some special substance. It would protect against damage, to some degree, as well as minor scratches, dirtying, and corrosion. It also gave them a lacquer-black finish. They felt as solid as ever to stand on, like the damage had never even happened.
She still had warnings, in her systems log; primary thrusters nonfunctional.
Penny had boarded another flight, which had taken her north, and backwards through the day; here, in rocky badlands, it was a late sunset, with an orange sky, clouds strewn every which way.
It was a training exercise for the 'mobile unit' of 3G, in the middle of rocky badlands. The shuttle drew closer and closer, and introduced her to Hirume.
Hirume was the shortened name of the ship. It was otherwise known as Division IX: Ultra-Brilliant Twin-Hulled Recharge Warship Hirume.
Penny wondered why the craft had such a name, if nobody used it. She only wondered that briefly, though, as the shuttle came in closer, and unveiled the size of the warship. It wasn't much longer than Atlas' finest airships, but must have outmassed them ten times over, greater in height and breadth by an unmanageable amount.
For a people without Gravity Dust… how can these fly? Penny wanted to wonder. She remembered, shortly after, though… Earth might not have dust, but they certainly had artificial gravity.
The shuttle circled around, and flew past Hirume, for while it was a beyond impressive sight—almost like the city of Atlas itself, in some strange way—it was not the subject of her visit.
Her shuttle touched down at the edge of a cliff, beneath which was a wide expanse of salt flats. Penny stood from her seat, and stepped from the ramp down to the rocky surface. There stood Guy, with a phone to the side of his head, overlooking the action occurring deep in the flats.
The flats, despite the image that the name conjured, were not empty. A series of automated turrets were built into towers, or boulders, or dug into the ground itself, aiming this way and that. They fired beams of energy that resulted in flashy, brilliant explosions—but very little damage. Dummy ammo.
It was a live-fire training exercise. Mecha of 3G's 'mobile unit' were evading cannon fire, and retaliating with their own weapons. When they hit a turret, it was not obliterated, but it was disabled, going through an exaggerated powering-off motion.
Again, dummy ammo.
She stepped close to Guy, who was still speaking quickly into the phone, even as he turned and waved her over.
"...alright, she's here," he said. "Power down all the turrets, and tell them to come on over."
The person—no, people—on the phone gave a reply that Penny couldn't parse, and Guy smiled in response. He set down the phone, then and turned back to Penny. "Hey!"
Penny waved. "Salutations."
"...I guess I never got a chance to say… I'm Guy Shishioh, and I'm captain of the Gutsy Galaxy Guard Mobile Unit! And…" he turned back, as three mecha started heading towards their edge of the cliff.
One, pink, Penny already knew closely; KouRyuu. She was the only one running. Another one, orange, Penny recognized, but did not know closely. RaiRyuu, Kou's older brother. He was using an enormously oversized dump truck scoop as a hoverboard, gliding along the ground like it was nothing.
The other one… it was harder to decide what he was built after. He was light blue, with a darker blue visor rather than eyes, and he was riding aboard a hovering… concert stage. His armament was a mecha-sized, double-necked keytar-guitar.
"Penny!" that robot yelled, as he shot up the height of the cliff, hovering above. "Nice to meetcha, baby!" he said again. His voice was… it had a strange accent. "My name is Mic Sounders, the thirteenth!"
"It—" Penny glanced from his… glamorous instrument to his other hovering companion. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mic Sounders."
"But all my friends just call me Mic!"
"...Mic," Penny repeated. He had an energy about him; young, bold, but nice. She found herself smiling.
"Penny!" RaiRyuu called as well. "Little sister wouldn't stop talking about you! Good to put a face to the name. A tiny, tiny face…" he chuckled.
"Penny!" a third voice called, finishing the trifecta. Hers was much louder than the others', and while it was further away, it was also rapidly drawing nearer.
KouRyuu was soaring up the cliffside, on jets of green energy from her boots and from her back—and she wasn't slowing down. She shot past the precipice, only cutting power afterwards, and her descent was entirely gravity-assisted.
A 700-and-change ton robot landing on what amounted to solid rock, with nothing to cushion it, did not leave intact ground. KouRyuu was smart enough to space her landing enough that she didn't squish anything, nor the shrapnel she kicked up, but it was still plenty enough to throw Penny from her footing.
Guy, too, though he recovered by drawing on green power and floating through the air.
Penny just landed on her butt, and looked up as the rocks settled. "...Kou!" she said. This mecha wasn't bringing a smile to her face; no, it was a grin.
"I'm sorry, Penny!" Kou called. "I couldn't be there when you woke up. But I was giving you best wishes anyways!" She stood, backing away from the crater she had made.
"KouRyuu…" Guy muttered, gesturing at the crater she had made. He set down on the ground, and his power faded. "Careful."
"Sorry!" Kou responded, before turning to Penny and crouching. "How've you been?"
"I've…" Penny faltered. The response she always had loaded was that she had been sensational, because she always had been, for the last years. But now… no. Kou's face fell, as Penny's silence dragged on, though, so she forced herself to straighten out. "I have been well," she said.
And hiccuped.
Kou's eyes, those great amber-yellow lenses, focused on Penny for a long, long time. She leaned back a little and laughed. A twenty-meter mecha's laugh was a powerful thing, enough to shake the ground around. When it finished, it was with a shake of the head and a fall into a crouch, closer to Penny than before. "Glad to hear it!"
Gently, for once, scarcely even disturbing the surface, KouRyuu's multi-ton hand fell, palm up and fingers splayed. Penny stared at it, for a moment, trying to decipher the meaning, until…
"Climb aboard, silly!" Kou said.
Penny obliged. One big hop took her to the smooth surface of the palm. A moment after that, KouRyuu lifted her, without a hint of effort. It was with enough momentum that a normal person might be thrown to their knees, by the rapid ascent.
She was brought up on level with KouRyuu's big, stupid smile.
Around her, Mic Sounders drifted closer, eventually dismounting from his floating platform. He was a small amount taller than KouRyuu, less than a full meter, in raw height—and the same held true of RaiRyuu.
"Tell us about yourself, Penny!" Kou said. Although she was normally loud, and her voice was bursting with excitement, being brought this much closer to her mouth somehow did not make her louder at all. "Like… you said you had a cool weapon a few days ago! Can you show us?"
It was six days ago, just shy of a week, when KouRyuu had asked about Penny's function. That was when she was still trapped in this body, at the whims of the virus, scarcely able to function, and communication had been… difficult.
Still, she had told KouRyuu her purpose; protector.
"Of course," Penny answered. "My weapon's name is Floating Array."
Twelve blades deployed from a panel in Penny's back, connected by tiny strings, levitating by Gravity Dust catalysts. Each blade could dance to Penny's whims, could slice and cut and thrust independently—or each could dance together.
Penny had the blades twirl in a circle over her head, gradually widening.
"Wow! Those are controlled by tiny cables?" Kou asked.
Rai leaned in closer, as Penny guided the blades on another motion. "They don't get tangled…"
"Wow, wow, wow!" Mic called. He clapped—and it didn't sound like clapping at all. "Amazing!"
Penny wanted to be annoyed, to some degree. Being patronized, buttered up by robots so much more imposing—physically larger—than her…
…but that wasn't it at all.
She saw on their faces, the tone in their voices, that they really, genuinely thought that Floating Array was one of the coolest things out there.
"What about you?" Penny asked. She turned from KouRyuu to Mic. She knew—in broad terms—how the two Dragon Robots fought, but this mecha was a new one.
Mic stepped back, laughed, and brought higher his oversized instrument. "This is my Razzle-Dazzle Double-V!" He turned away, and played a few power chords on the great thing.
Literally.
The sound of the music was enough that it formed a shockwave, carving a foot-deep trench in the ground along the way he was facing. "I can play notes like this, and create devastating soundwaves! And by setting on special Discs, I can perform special moves!"
"Yeah!" Kou said. The hand on which Penny stood shifted, as she turned to face Mic. "He can make barriers out of raw sound, he can power us up in a pinch, and he can summon copies of us for a li'l bit!"
…Summon copies? Penny mused. That kind of thing sounded more like a Semblance than any kind of technology, especially technology lacking the use of Dust. Penny wanted to see it in action.
"And I!" RaiRyuu stepped forward. "I control electricity, and magnetism! This scoop here is my Rei Dong! Using the superconductors inside it, I can levitate, as you saw! And…"
Rai thumped his chest, and turned a dial. Two out of five lights lit up on his chest, as he stepped back, and crouched. "Ti Gao Two!" he called, thrusting his arms into the air. "Lei!" he cried.
Lightning traveled up each arm, and along them into the air. Some of Penny's hair stood on end, charged by the ambient electricity, as those bolts of lightning seemed to arc in the shape of some kind of constellation, as if in slow motion.
It faded, and RaiRyuu lowered his arms. He crossed them, self-satisfied, even if it meant shifting the scoop awkwardly to the side.
KouRyuu cleared her throat—no, mecha don't need to do that. She played back a noise as if to clear her throat, and fell into a crouch. She set her hand down on the dusty ground. A small hop from the hand to the ground freed KouRyuu up for her demonstration.
"My weapon," KouRyuu said. She had an utterly delighted grin, as she stood from her crouch, and reached around to her back. Her weapon was affixed to a shoulder, but had hinges and joints such that it could swivel around.
Pink, like most of the rest of her body, with what seemed to be a satellite dish on the front. The dish structure on the front, the blocky build of it, the length and size—Penny was given the strong impression of early Atlesian particle beam prototypes.
"Her name is Primrose no Tsuki!" KouRyuu called out, as she swung the fore of her weapon into an open hand, palms curling around it. "She is a bimodal, Ul-tech augmented LASER-MASER weapons system, capable of bomb-pumped overcharge firing!"
Penny had heard vague, vague stories of Primrose before. Enough that she figured it was some kind of beam weapon, and enough that she wasn't entirely surprised to see that the weapon was integrated into Kou's body—Floating Array was, too, after all—but she was somewhat caught off guard by the sheer mass of the thing.
Bomb-pumped…? Penny wondered.
KouRyuu adjusted her grip on Primrose, fell to a crouch, and aimed it upwards. "She weighs eighty three tons," she said, as Primrose began to gather energy. "Guy!" she called.
Guy lowered the phone he was talking on, turned over, and waved to Kou.
"Can I fire her at full power?"
Penny felt that KouRyuu needing permission to fire her weapon at full power, even during a live fire training exercise, was a statement to its efficacy.
What she wasn't expecting was the actual result of this full power.
Guy was frozen, for a moment, deliberating—he asked that same question over the phone, and then returned to KouRyuu with a high-up thumbs-up.
"Roger!" Kou called. She giggled. "Primrose no Tsuki! Limiters off!"
There were a series of eight clinks, one after another in rapid succession, although no parts could be seen moving. A whirr, a whine, and a hum of energy, as the laser cannon charged. Before that rising sound reached its zenith, KouRyuu racked her hand along the underbarrel pump, and there was a louder chunk-ing noise as internal mechanisms set into place.
"Full! Power!" KouRyuu yelled out.
Behind her, the other mecha were taking cover, ducking behind plateau side and an impressively sized boulder.
Primrose no Tsuki… fired.
There was a boom, and there were jets of plasma that shot out of side vents along the surface of the weapon. Then, there was the purple-pink energy, gathering around the dish, and projected as a crackling, violent beam.
A beam that tore across the sky, that made contact with the mountaintop KouRyuu had been aiming at.
Her weapon's report was a roar, a scream, as the atmosphere lit itself on fire along the path of the beam.
A beam, a laser—there was no travel time, not visible to Penny. It was there, and then it had reached the top of the mountain—and then, an upwards eruption of dust, magma, shrapnel, and vaporized plasma, the top of the mountain was gone.
Not the very peak—the top third of the entire mountain had been obliterated. Miles and miles of rock, millions and millions of tons. Seconds passed, and KouRyuu's devastation cleared itself out. Rather than mountainside, Penny saw the sky that it had once obscured.
It was a cloudy day; but where Primrose no Tsuki was concerned, there would be no clouds. An oval-like gap in the clouds, as wide around as the mountain itself, ripping free the orange sunset for all to see.
Penny found herself staring.
A moment passed.
She… she had been expecting something incredible, the same as the Argus Colossus.
She hadn't been expecting something impossible.
"Penny?" KouRyuu called. She racked the slide of her weapon again, and stowed it over her shoulder. She fell forward, lying flat—crushing rocks to gravel beneath her—and crossing her arms under her chin.
Boulders and slag still fell from the sky, around the mountain, like some imitation of a volcano's eruption.
These… Penny turned from Kou, to the other mechanoids, who were peeking from their hiding places. These are the guardians of Earth.
Penny was built to be the guardian of Mantle, protector of Atlas, savior of her world—and here, on Earth, her purpose was pointless.
They don't need me.
Rather than stripping meaning from Penny, that idea somehow felt… relieving. Like some joints within Penny were tightened beyond tolerance, and had only just been loosened.
…Safe. That's what it was.
It felt safe.
Earth was safe, and she was safe, here, on it.
"...Penny?" Kou asked her. "You okay?"
The mecha straightened an elbow, sending an upturned and open palm towards Penny. Penny glanced down on it, and stepped forward into the open palm. Penny was brought up to Kou's face once more, and she took a seat amongst the great metal fingers.
Penny could only be truthful. "No," she said.
"Wanna… talk about it?"
"...Yes. I do."
