Mandalore the Administrator
- Thread starter AgelessReaper
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- Mature
Chapter 9
AgelessReaper
A Custom Title
(Taylor)
I wake up in a tangle of limbs.
Amy is still passed out next to… actually she's on top of me. This is probably going to become a regular thing, so we need to get some furniture that we both actually fit on.
I lay there for a moment debating whether or not to get up, and eventually decide it would be best if I get to work.
Easier said than done due to the unfortunate position of the biomancer on top of me.
I try to shuffle out from under her without waking her up, but her eyes flutter open before I can get free.
She blinks the sleep from her eyes, then tenses up when she notices our position relative to one-another.
We stare at each other for a while, before Amy speaks up.
"This is a little awkward isn't it?"
"Yeah."
The silence returns, and I have to fight off a groan.
Screw it, this isn't productive.
"Could you get off me?" I ask. "I need to get to work."
Amy moves to comply with my request, but stops moving and narrows her eyes when I give me reasoning.
"No." She says and wraps her arms around me.
I blink in surprise. "What?"
"You're not going to bury yourself in your work. It's not healthy."
I have to hold back a sigh. "Amy, I need to get everything set up in the base. We're not going to be safe unless I can set up some defenses."
"Do it tomorrow." She says as she cuddles into me.
This time I sigh out loud. "Amy, the E88 is still pissed at me. They won't wait 'till tomorrow."
"We've been over this. They'll leave you alone for a while." She says with her eyes closed as she uses my shoulder as a pillow. "Kaiser may be a piece of garbage, but he at least respects the unwritten rules. He'll give us a week at least. That means you aren't doing any tinkering today."
I glare at her, but the effect is lost given that her eyes are closed. I let out a long sigh, and relent.
Something tells me I'm not going to win this fight, and she's got a point about Kaiser. I don't know if he himself gives much of a crap about the rules, but his image says he does, and he's not going to risk that for me.
Then again, Dotty and I did already do our best to ruin that image through the website. Maybe I should get to work after all…
Before I can talk to Amy about it, a muffled voice from outside the room says, "Anyone home? I come bearing TV and movies!"
Amy groans, and climbs off of me. "Vicky's here." She walks over to the door and pulls it open.
Freedom! And I didn't even have to convince her to let me go.
She stops at the door, and looks at me expectantly.
"What?" I ask.
"Come on."
"What."
She narrows her eyes at me. "I'm not leaving you alone right now because you'll just go build something, so come on."
I do my best to look offended. "Amy, I'm not going to sneak off to tinker."
She smiles. "Then you can come grab the TV with me!"
I sigh, and grudgingly climb to my feet. "Fine."
She grabs my hand, and we head towards the front door.
Vicky's standing there yelling in through a broken window. "Anyone gonna let me in?"
Amy stops walking and gives her sister an expressionless stare. "Did you break the window just so we would hear you?"
Vicky crosses her arms, offended. "It was like that already, I just took advantage of it."
I let go of Amy's hand, and unlatch the door. I'm sure she could have gotten through it if she wanted to, but it's nice she didn't smash her way in.
She isn't the only one who could though, I should probably make the door more secure. But what if someone goes around the door through the walls? I'll have to reinforce those too, maybe get HK to help. Actually, another helper might be a good idea. It's already public knowledge that I can make robots, so what's a few worker droids to lighten my load? Might as well make some security droids too. HK's good, but it would be nice if…
Amy bops the top of my head. An unexpected feat, given our height difference.
"Stop thinking about how to turn this place into a death trap." She scolds.
I feign offense again. "I wasn't thinking about how to make this place into a death trap."
"Uh… you were mumbling about making security droids." Vicky speaks up.
"That was out loud?" I ask her.
The blonde nods, prompting me to groan.
Amy sighs in exasperation. "Taylor, you and I both need some time off. You're going to relax even if I have to tie you down."
"Amy, I'm fine." I stress.
Vicky shakes her head at me. "If anyone tells you they're fine, they're actually not fine. Amy's right, you need a break." Her face lights up. "Lucky for you, I happen to have a TV and a bunch of movies with me. The furniture should be here soon, so I'll make a snack run, then the three of us can have a movie day!"
"I don't think…" I try to cut in.
"Great idea!" Amy speaks over me. "We'll set everything up while you're gone."
"Be back in a bit." Vicky exits the building, and leaps into the sky, leaving Amy and I behind.
I look at Amy over my shoulder. "Don't I have a say in this?"
She nods as she sifts through the movies Vicky brought over. "Yep, would you rather watch an action flick or a comedy?"
I sigh, and start going through the movies with her.
I'm not getting out of this, so I may as well make the most of it. Besides, maybe a movie day might actually be nice?
We settle on a trashy cape story, and have HK carry the TV up to the break room we crashed in last night. By the time we've got everything set up, a truck pulls up in front of the building.
Amy and I walk down and pay the man dropping off the furniture Vicky ordered for us last night.
He shoots some skeptical glances our way when HK begins to unload everything, but he just mumbles something under his breath about bullshit capes, and leaves.
"Statement: This is degrading, master. My protocols are wasted on menial labor." HK complains as he's helping me haul the bed up the stairs.
"Suck it up." I say. "I'll build someone to help us out tomorrow, but until then, deal with it."
"Statement: Very well, master. Request: Construct a lower functioning platform soon."
"She said she'd do it tomorrow, cut her some slack." Amy says as she plops down on the new couch.
It's nothing fancy, but it isn't falling apart, so it's an improvement on my last one.
HK glares at Amy, and goes to speak, but I interrupt him.
"HK, go see if Dotty needs anything else set up for the slicing rig. If he doesn't, make some sensors for the base. Sensors that only detect when someone gets too close, or inside. Don't make anything that can fight back just yet." I want to supervise him when he does that. Actually, it would probably be better just to make them myself, he can help.
"Statement: I will do as you say, master." HK says dejectedly. He turns and leaves the room.
Maybe I'm being a bit too restricting towards him. He set up the Bacta Tank while Amy and I were asleep without me having to order him. I'm not going to give him free reign to wreak havoc, but he deserves a little leash.
Wow that sounded bad. I don't want to be a slaver. Is ordering him around slavery? Dotty likes his job, but HK doesn't seem happy.
He enjoys fighting and killing right? Maybe I could set something up where he works with the Guild when he has off time.
Note to self, bring that up when you call Dragon. She'll probably have an idea or two.
I sit down on the couch next to Amy, and settle in to wait for Vicky.
She leans into me, and we sit in silence for a while.
Eventually, my mind drifts back to tinkering, and I start brainstorming out loud.
"We'll need to get a lot of projects started tomorrow. I'll need to call Dragon to see if she could get me some parts for my bigger project, I'll need to make another droid to help around the base, and we'll need to go to the beach and collect some crabs or something. I don't want people to freak out and label me a biotinker, so it's probably best we keep the fact that we're growing you armor on the down low as long as possible."
Amy lets out a soft sigh. "Taylor, we're supposed to be taking a trip to New York or something remember?"
"I know, but I want to get your armor started as soon as I can. Even with your help, the things I'm making your armor from will need time to grow. They can grow while we spend however long out of Brockton. I still need to teach you how to properly fight too."
She hmm's softly. "How long do you think that'll take?"
"I don't know. I've still got things I need to improve on, and I've been at it for months. I can probably give you the basics in a week or two, then we'll just improve upon those and make sure you practice."
"Sounds like a lot of work."
I tilt my head down to look at her. "If it can save your life it's worth it."
She sighs. "I know. I'm just irritated. My Manton limit keeps me from working on myself, so I can't cut any corners."
"What kind of corners?" I ask.
"I doubt I'd be able to give myself the right muscle memory without knowing what I was doing, but it would be nice if I could fix myself up so I wouldn't have to train myself to the point where I can run for an hour without throwing up, or be able to alter my muscles."
I swallow a lump in my throat.
"Um," I awkwardly begin. "I might be able to help with that."
Amy looks up at me with a raised eyebrow. "I would hope so. This whole thing was your idea, so it would be kind of disappointing if you didn't have a training plan."
I shake my head. "No. I mean I might be able to help you cut corners."
She looks at me in confusion for a moment, before her eyes go wide. "How?"
I scratch the back of my head and look towards the blank TV screen. "Well, I told Dragon I can make prosthetics, but I left a lot out. Anything I make would be like having the original limb back, except better in most cases. I've also got a huge library of cybernetic implants that will boost various aspects of your physical and mental capabilities."
Amy's jaw hangs open, and she doesn't respond.
"Not that you have to do any of that!" I hurry to add. "I'm not saying you have to make yourself a cyborg, just that I have some options."
She shakes her head, and closes her mouth. She pokes me on my cheek and frowns. "I don't see anything like that in you. Why haven't you done any of that to yourself?"
I chuckle. "Because I was on my own. I wasn't too keen on doing extensive brain surgery on myself, or cutting myself open in general. I would have to be awake to do the procedure, and no matter how many stims I take, I'd still be messing with my own organs."
Amy nods. "I can see how that would be a little off putting." She looks up a little nervously. "I can do it for you?"
I raise an eyebrow. "Can your power move my tinkertech around?"
She shakes her head. "No, not the implants. I could just use my power, and cut out the middle man."
I tilt my head at her.
Huh, why didn't I put it together that she could do that?. It would definitely be nice to get some upgrades.
I go to respond, but a chipper voice yells up from downstairs.
"I brought the snacks!" Vicky calls up.
Amy frowns, and stands up. She begins walking down to let her sister in.
"Hey." I call out.
She turns back around.
"I think it would actually be pretty nice if you'd be willing to do that for me, but let's worry about it later. I think it'll be easier if we do everything at the same time, so I'll order some parts from Dragon, and think about what kind of improvements I'd want. You do the same."
She smiles brightly, and says, "Okay."
I stand up, and follow her downstairs.
True to her word, Vicky is holding several shopping bags overflowing with a wide variety of snack foods.
When was the last time I had a Twizzler? This might actually be fun.
"You got everything ready to go?" Vicky asks.
I nod. "Yeah. The break room's all set up. We've actually got some left over pizza up there too if you're interested."
She raises an eyebrow at me. "You mean to tell me I didn't need to make a snack run?"
"Uh…"
Amy elbows her sister. "Stop giving her a hard time."
Vicky laughs. "Let's get this party started!"
All told, I don't think we left that room for anything other than the occasional bathroom break. The three of us spent the entire day just lying about watching crappy movies and eating junk food.
It was nice. Really nice.
We didn't talk about any of the bullshit from the past couple days, be it my dad or their mom. We just hung out and had fun.
I enjoyed it.
Eventually, the sun went down without us noticing, and we decided to call it a day.
Vicky didn't feel like going home for whatever reason, so she passed out on the new couch while Amy and I shared the bed. A bed that was large enough for two people, meaning they wouldn't have to literally sleep on top of each other.
What a novel concept?
As we laid down to sleep, I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
It had been a long time since I was this happy. Maybe I need that vacation more than I thought?
I feel Amy shuffle in closer, and wrap an arm around her.
Yeah. This is nice.
There's a clicking sound accompanied by a bright flash of light.
I grumble and bring my hand up to ward it off while I open my eyes.
Vicky's floating in the air above me with a shit eating grin on her face. She has her phone out, and is pointing its camera downward. There's another flash as she takes another picture.
Amy moans next to me and rolls over. "Turn the light off." She whines, then rolls over to wrap her arms around me.
Vicky starts giggling, and floats back to the floor. "It's probably about time for me to head back, I'll leave you two to your snuggle time. Let me know when you guys figure out what you're going to do."
"Wait!" I say, but she's already through the door.
I groan and lay my head back against the pillow.
She better not post those anywhere. If she does, I'm sicking Dotty on her.
Amy shuffles around a little bit after I move, then settles back down.
"Morning." I say.
"Morning." She mumbles back, eyes slowly opening. "How are you feeling?"
I don't even try to fight the small smile that makes its way onto my face.
"Better." I say honestly. "A lot better."
She smiles back, then pulls me in for a hug. "Good."
We lay like that for a while longer, just enjoying doing nothing.
"We should probably get up soon." Amy observes. "The sooner we get everything done here, the sooner we can get the hell out of the city. I'd like to leave by tomorrow if at all possible."
I raise an eyebrow at her. "You know we could have started yesterday right?"
She shakes her head. "No. An extra day isn't worth your mental health, now come on."
A little heat creeps onto my face when she says that.
It's nice to have someone worried about you, even if it can be a little taxing.
She rises to her feet, and pulls me along behind her.
I put up a token resistance, but I know she's right. The sooner we finish everything we have to do in the city, the sooner we can ditch for a week or so.
"I'll go talk to Dotty and order some food, you should call Dragon and Armsmaster." Amy says.
"Okay, but be ready to go to the beach in a bit. I'd like to get your armor started as soon as possible."
She nods, then walks off.
I watch her go for a moment, then head in the opposite direction to get my phone calls done.
I only really need to talk to Armsmaster and Dragon, and I'd rather talk to Armsmaster first. The PRT's probably ordered him to get me to come in or something, so I'd rather get that over and done with before I talk to Dragon. Nothing against Armsmaster himself, but I really don't like his bosses.
I make it to my armor, and pull my phone out of the belt.
There's a host of messages and missed calls, but I disregard them. I don't feel like listening to the same condolences over and over again.
I dial Armsmaster, and he picks up on the second ring.
"Mandalore." He greets.
"Hey. Dragon said you wanted me to call you?" I cut to the chase.
"That is correct. Firstly, I would like to offer my condolences for your father."
I suppress a sigh. "Thanks, but can we get to the reason you had me call?" I'm a lot better off than people give me credit for, and all their condolences accomplish is dragging this out.
"Of course." He responds simply. "I have been asked to see if you would be against coming to either the rig or PRT building to discuss the events of both your fight with Bakuda, and with the Dragonslayers."
"I'll pass." I say, though I keep the bite out of my voice. It's not him specifically I'm mad at. "I've already got plans for the next few weeks."
There's a moment of silence.
"Is there anything I could do to convince you to come in?" Armsmaster asks calmly.
"Not really. I'll have Dotty send you a report about everything, but I'm going to be too busy to show up in person." Maybe I shouldn't antagonize the PRT like this, but they kind of pissed me off.
"Very well." Armsmaster sighs. "I will do my best to explain the situation to the director. Would you be willing to send us an overview of the capabilities of your robots?"
"Sorry, no. The fact that their capabilities are secret saved me against the Dragonslayers, I don't want anything to leak."
"I understand. Thank you for your time Mandalore." Armsmaster says, resigned.
"You're welcome." I hang up.
Honestly, I like Armsmaster, but so long as he answers to the PRT, I can't really trust him with anything. Even in the little time I've known him I was able to figure out how dedicated he is to his job. If I give him anything, he'll give it to his superiors who will do god knows what with it. Best to keep the whole organization at arm's length.
One conversation down, one to go.
I dial Dragon's number.
"Mandalore?" She answers.
"Hey Dragon."
"How are you feeling?" She asks gently.
I smile at her question. "Better. A lot better."
"I'm glad to hear it." She says with genuine joy. "What can I help you with?"
"A couple things. Amy said you wanted to talk to me about the Guild, I was hoping to get some tinker materials shipped here, and was wondering where to send some prosthetic designs."
"Well, I would be happy to send you whatever materials you need, and I'll give Dotty a secure email to send any blueprints to me that you would like to work with. As far as the Guild is concerned, I have spoken with Narwhal, and, in light of your accomplishments, she would be open to accepting you into the Guild whenever you choose to accept the position."
My jaw hangs open.
"Just like that?" I say, shocked.
"No. Not just like that. You've made a worldwide impact with your tech, and eliminated the Dragonslayers. A group that has been impeding our progress for years. You've earned membership."
I swallow a lump in my throat. "Can I think about it? A lot's changed in a short while." Dad, Amy, and the droids just to name a few.
"Take as long as you need Taylor. Even if you do not decide to join, we would like for you to become an affiliate. Essentially all that would entail is an agreement to help one-another when the situation calls for it."
"Well, I'm pretty sure I'll accept that regardless. Oh! Would you know of any way that HK could work with the Guild without my oversight?" Keeping him locked up in a run down factory isn't really fair to him. If I can point him at the bad guys and cut him loose, we'll both be happy.
"I can honestly say I don't know. There has never been a precedent for something like that. I'll talk to Narwhal, and see what we come up with."
"Thanks Dragon."
"You're welcome. Now, may I ask what you are planning on doing in the short term? I would recommend taking a short break to collect yourself."
I smile. "Way ahead of you. Amy and I were going to take care of a few things, then get out of town for a couple of days. Maybe a week."
"Good." Dragon sounds relieved. "I would hate to see you run yourself into the ground. Let me know if you need transportation of any sort."
"I might take you up on that."
"It was nice to speak with you Taylor, but I'm afraid I'm needed elsewhere." She says apologetically. "I'll contact Dotty regarding the materials you require."
"Go ahead. I would bet you've got a lot on your plate right now."
"I'm glad you are doing better, Taylor. Goodbye."
"Bye."
We both hang up.
I let out a sigh as I put the phone down.
I really need to get away from all this. I was planning on building some more droids to help defend the warehouse and move stuff around, but Amy's right. If we can be leaving Brockton tomorrow morning, I'll be more than happy.
"Hey." Amy pokes her head into the room. "Foods here. I ordered sandwiches."
I follow her back to the break room-we need to find a better thing to call this room-and we sit down to eat.
The meal's nothing fancy. Just some ham sandwiches she ordered from a sub place. It tastes good though.
"Are you ready to go?" I ask in between bites. "If we can get back here before too long I can make some defenses for this place while you work on the creatures."
She raises an eyebrow at me. "Where'd the urgency come from?"
"I was thinking about how you said you maybe wanted to leave tomorrow, and realized that was really appealing to me. If we can get out of here tomorrow, I'd like to."
"Alright. You'll have to get me started on what to do, I can't make something without knowing what I'm making, but I don't see any issues other than that."
"Cool." I swallow my last bite. "I'm ready when you are."
She finishes up her sandwich, and stands. "How are we getting to the beach? Our pictures are just about everywhere, and I'd like to avoid drawing a crowd."
"We'll just huddle under my stealth field. So long as we don't move too fast, it should cover both of us."
She gives me a skeptical look. "'Should'?"
I shrug. "It'll be fine."
I ignore her half lidded stare, and the two of us get ready to head out. I grab my helmet as I'm leaving so I can use its HUD to help us locate things faster. We also grabbed a large bag to carry everything back in.
Sure enough, the stealth field covers both of us so long as we walk slow, but if we stray too far from each other or make rapid movements it fails. It does work though.
Sadly, Amy didn't see the smug grin I shot her way due to the whole 'us being invisible' thing.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders to keep us from getting separated, and we were off. Talking was kept to a minimum so no one would hear us, and we did our best to just avoid people in general.
All told, it took us a little over half an hour to make it to a clear part of the beach. The warehouse is surprisingly close to the beach. I don't know if that jacked the price up at all, but if so, I owe Dragon.
I deactivated the stealth field, and used my helmet's HUD to hunt down some crabs.
Truthfully, with Amy's power we don't need crustaceans, but it'll make things easier.
Using my HUD makes the hunt child's play, and we start gathering ones that I'll be able to use.
"So you haven't really told me what you're planning to make yet." Amy prompts as we start gathering crabs. "All you've really said is that it'd be made from living things, and I've pieced together it'll be a shell of some kind given we're hunting crabs."
I really haven't told her what I'm planning to make have I?
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to keep it from you or anything. It's called Vonduun crab armor. It's resistant to extreme temperatures, plasma, laser bolts, blades, blunt weapons, a lot really. There will also be a lot of sharp spikes and blades protruding from various places that you should be able to control with your power. Add onto that the Bacta I'm now planning to put in it, and you'll have some effective weapons as well as protection. We could maybe even set something up where we put mosquitos or something in it."
"We are not putting mosquitos in my armor." Amy says with passion.
"Oh no, not regular mosquitos, but between the two of us, we could probably design something that would inject you with stims or some other things I can make to help you fight or numb pain as needed. We might even be able to weaponize it somehow."
"Huh." Amy's eyes lose focus as she starts to think.
She doesn't move for a full minute, and I start to get worried.
"Amy?"
She jolts out of her stupor. "Sorry, just thinking. We really need to discuss power combinations when we get a moment."
"Yeah. There's a lot the two of us can do together."
"We'll save that discussion for later."
I nod in agreement, and we continue gathering sea creatures.
As we gather crabs, we kill them as humanely as possible. Neither Amy nor myself are psychopaths, so we are not going to be cutting these guys open while they're still alive.
I was originally going to kill them back at the lab through a combination of my vibroblade and a freezer like I read online, but Amy's power is literally the least pain inducing way to kill these animals, so she volunteered to do it.
Once the bag is full, and I'm satisfied we'll have enough to get everything growing properly, we reactivate the stealth field and head back.
We've been gone for a couple hours when we make it back to the warehouse.
Man, we really need a better name for this place.
We haul everything inside, and HK helps us to get everything up to the floor where we'll be working.
Feeling a little dramatic, I clap my hands together as I look down at the fruits of our labor.
"Showtime!"
(Amy)
I roll my eyes at Taylor's theatrics, and ask, "So now what?"
She turns to me, and purses her lips. "That depends on you. If we do this my way it'll probably take around a month to grow enough to make the armor, and that's only if I checked on them every day or so. What do you need to duplicate things?"
I shrug. "I really just need an example. The reason I had so much trouble with the Bacta was because I was trying to alter something I had never seen before into something else I'd never seen before. If you can make me something to copy, I should be able to replicate it fairly easily."
Taylor tilted her head at the crabs while she considered what I said. "Ok. Give me a bit."
She walked over to the bin and pulled out a single crab. She brought it over to a table with a weird blender-like device.
"Are you going to puree it?" I asked, skeptical.
"What?" She asked, then followed my gaze to the blender thing. "Oh! No, this is what I use to make my stims. I'll need to make some fluids to inject into the crab in order for it to start changing into what I need to go further."
"Ah. Can I help?" I ask as I walk up next to her.
"Um… sure? You can help me mix everything."
The two of us spent the next fifteen minutes pouring various vials full of tinker fluid into the weird blender thing while Taylor prodded at the dead crab.
"Ok. That should do it." She says as she pushes a button on the blender.
There's a low humming sound as the thing powers on, and a faint blue light starts leaking out from behind the mixture we just mixed.
"That looks high tech." I comment as I watch the device do its work.
Taylor shrugs. "Eh, I've been wanting to make a better one for a while, I just haven't had any materials to spare. Just another thing to add to the post vacation to-do list."
"I guess. How much longer until it's done?"
Taylor holds up three fingers…. two fingers…. one finger…
There's a faint *ding* and the machine powers itself down.
"Nice." I say.
Taylor grins, and pulls the container free. She produces a syringe from… somewhere, and sucks some of the liquid up into it before injecting it into the crab.
"Ok." She says as she steps back. "That should take an hour or two, but we can work on the others while it does its job."
Curious, I poke the crab to see what's happening.
The foreign agent Taylor injected into the crab is changing it. I mean, that's kind of obvious given what the goal of this project was, but I didn't expect it to work like this. The crab's DNA is being altered in front of me.
I'm so shocked I didn't realize Taylor poking me on the shoulder.
"You alright?" She asks, concerned.
"This is amazing." I breathe out.
I start prodding the crab with my power, and realize I can accelerate the process.
Taylor looks on in confusion as I speed everything up. The crab's sand colored shell turns darker, rougher, and much tougher. A few small, greyish spikes even protrude out from it in random places.
Transformation finished, I turn to Taylor with a wide grin and ask, "Does it look right?"
Her jaw is hanging open, and she's numbly staring at the crab.
"You just… there were like fifty more steps to get it to that point." She turns her gaze on me. "Your power is complete BS."
I snort. "This coming from the girl who unironically said she could blow up the sun?"
She smiles. "Point." She looks back down at the crab. "So, that was essentially what I was trying to do. That is more or less what I'm making the armor out of. Now I just need more, think you can change the rest of the crabs and maybe get more growing?"
I poke the crab again, and my power tells me everything there is to know about it. "Uhuh. I'll change the rest, and get more growing. It won't be too hard to get some eggs fertilized." I'm already moving to the bin of dead crabs at the thought of making more of the weird material. I've never done something like this before. It's exciting!
"Huh. So that's what a tinker fugue looks like from the other side. Okay, I'll leave you to it. Just make sure that nothing can reproduce when you're done. We need more material, but make sure that everything you get growing is sterile." Taylor says seriously.
I nod. "I know. Don't worry."
"Ok. Do you need any help?"
"Nope. Go ahead and build one of those droids you wanted. We should finish at about the same time."
"Alright, I'll see you in a bit." She leaves after giving me a quick hug.
I turn my attention back to the crabs, and grin.
This is going to be interesting.
(Taylor)
I seriously underestimated how much help Amy would be with the crabs. I was expecting I'd have to walk her through everything, but she really did only need a single example, and from there I became obsolete. Her power really is as bullshit as mine.
Is it bad that that thought brought a bright smile to my face? Probably.
Thanks to her help, I was able to spend the next couple of hours putting together a simple worker droid. He's not impressive, but he does have his own little charm.
He's a darker shade of bronze than HK, his faceplate is more rounded, and his chassis is bulkier, but otherwise he looks something similar.
"Greetings master. Is there something I can help you with?" He asks politely as he stands for the first time.
"Well, first things first you need a name."
Let's see. BLX General Labor Droid doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. GLaD? No, I feel like that needs more letters to be a good name. BLX… 'B'… Barry? I actually kind of like that.
"What do you think of Barry?"
"I would be honored to receive such a designation."
"Alright then. Your name is Barry. I don't really have much work for you right now, but could you give the warehouse a once over? When Amy and I leave I'll also need you to watch the crabs."
"Of course master. I will do so now." He leaves.
Hmm. Much more cheery than HK. Maybe if I let the droids do what they were designed for they'll be more happy. Guess it's a good thing Dragon set up that position for HK.
"All done?"
I turn to the voice and see Amy leaning against the door frame.
"Just finished. You?"
She grins at me. "I was done an hour and a half ago. I just spent the time double checking everything."
"Showoff."
She chuckles, and we walk out of the room and down the hall together.
"Anything else you need to get done before we leave?" She asks me as we head to our room.
"Not really. Barry can handle building most of the defenses I wanted while we're gone, and I can always make a few security droids when we get back. All we need to do now is take off."
"Um, important detail, how are we leaving?" Amy asks.
"Dragon said she'd be willing to give us a ride, so unless you have an issue with that, I was thinking we'll take her up on that."
Amy shrugs. "No complaints here."
"Cool."
The two of us munch on some snacks left over from our movie day, and lie down in bed.
"I'll call Dragon in the morning to see if she'll give us a ride somewhere. You should probably tell Vicky we're heading out. I remember she wanted to know when we left."
Amy nods tiredly. "I will, but sleep now."
She rests her head against my shoulder, and closes her eyes.
I smile down at her, and start running my hand through her hair.
It doesn't take long for the two of us to fall asleep.
We woke a little after the sun came up, and went about making our respective phone calls. Amy called Vicky to tell her what we were doing, and I called Dragon to ask for a ride.
Dragon was more than happy to help. I was expecting a bus ride or something, but she bought us a car. Like, she bought a car and just gave it to us.
I tried to talk her out of it, but she just said she'd already spent the money on it.
She also had good news about HK. Apparently the Guild was more than willing to accept the help of a droid who helped take down the Dragonslayers. He'll be under Dragon's oversight, but he didn't seem to have a problem with it when I gave him the phone.
I'm not sure exactly what he'll be doing with Dragon, but he seemed excited, so I'm happy.
Dragon told us she was on her way, and we hung up.
HK practically pranced off to get his gear, leaving me alone with Barry. I spent the little time before Dragon showed up talking with Barry about the defenses I wanted him to get built. Some things were beyond him, but all the basic stuff should be taken care of by the time Amy and I get back.
"Taylor!" Amy calls up from downstairs. "Dragon's here!"
"I'll be down in a sec!" I quickly stow my tools, and grab everything I've decided to bring with me.
Both Amy and I have blasters, shields, our communicators, and phones. I also have my lightsaber and stealth field generator, and Amy's bringing a jar of bacta fluid.
"We're leaving Barry! Watch the warehouse and the crabs! And get as many of those defenses done as you can!"
"I will do so. Enjoy yourself, master." Barry's kind voice replied.
I think I managed to make the perfect butler droid. That's pretty awesome.
I run down the stairs, and out the front doors after saying a brief goodbye to Dotty.
Outside, an orange and green Dragon suit, Amy, and HK are all waiting for me. HK is geared up with all of his extremely dangerous equipment, once more looking like robot Rambo, and I can't help but feel like he's smiling.
"Sorry about that." I say. "I was just talking to Barry."
"No worries." Dragon says. "HK and I were just clearing up exactly what it is he will be doing with the Guild during your vacation."
I turn to HK. "Does everything seem good? You won't be bored or put into a situation you don't want to be in?"
"Answer: No master. Quite the contrary, I will enjoy this immensely."
So he probably gets to shoot people then. Oh well, if they're Guild targets, they deserve it.
"I'm glad." I turn to Amy. "Are you ready?"
She nods, and points her thumb at a small blue sedan parked behind her. "I'm all packed up. Not like we're bringing all that much."
We really aren't. Just clothes, some snacks, toiletries, and the tinker gear. Everything else we can buy whenever we get to wherever it is we're going.
"Thanks again Dragon. This means a lot." I say sincerely.
"Think nothing of it. Just focus on getting better. Now, HK and I must depart. Call me if you have any problems." She holds her arm out, and HK latches on. A moment later, the two of them fly away.
"He's going to blow up so much shit isn't he?" Amy asks as we watch them fly off.
I nod. "Most likely."
"Welp, he's Dragon's problem now. I vote we get on the road, and worry about everything else later."
"Seconded."
I throw my stuff in the car, then hop into the driver's seat.
Neither Amy or myself ever went through the process of getting a driver's license, so we technically shouldn't be driving, but I'm an outed tinker who is likely a better driver than most NASCAR racers thanks to my bullshit tinker skill download. If anyone pulls us over Dragon said to just have them check PHO.
I start the engine, and turn to Amy. "So, where to?"
A.N. Next chap will be up when it's done.
I wake up in a tangle of limbs.
Amy is still passed out next to… actually she's on top of me. This is probably going to become a regular thing, so we need to get some furniture that we both actually fit on.
I lay there for a moment debating whether or not to get up, and eventually decide it would be best if I get to work.
Easier said than done due to the unfortunate position of the biomancer on top of me.
I try to shuffle out from under her without waking her up, but her eyes flutter open before I can get free.
She blinks the sleep from her eyes, then tenses up when she notices our position relative to one-another.
We stare at each other for a while, before Amy speaks up.
"This is a little awkward isn't it?"
"Yeah."
The silence returns, and I have to fight off a groan.
Screw it, this isn't productive.
"Could you get off me?" I ask. "I need to get to work."
Amy moves to comply with my request, but stops moving and narrows her eyes when I give me reasoning.
"No." She says and wraps her arms around me.
I blink in surprise. "What?"
"You're not going to bury yourself in your work. It's not healthy."
I have to hold back a sigh. "Amy, I need to get everything set up in the base. We're not going to be safe unless I can set up some defenses."
"Do it tomorrow." She says as she cuddles into me.
This time I sigh out loud. "Amy, the E88 is still pissed at me. They won't wait 'till tomorrow."
"We've been over this. They'll leave you alone for a while." She says with her eyes closed as she uses my shoulder as a pillow. "Kaiser may be a piece of garbage, but he at least respects the unwritten rules. He'll give us a week at least. That means you aren't doing any tinkering today."
I glare at her, but the effect is lost given that her eyes are closed. I let out a long sigh, and relent.
Something tells me I'm not going to win this fight, and she's got a point about Kaiser. I don't know if he himself gives much of a crap about the rules, but his image says he does, and he's not going to risk that for me.
Then again, Dotty and I did already do our best to ruin that image through the website. Maybe I should get to work after all…
Before I can talk to Amy about it, a muffled voice from outside the room says, "Anyone home? I come bearing TV and movies!"
Amy groans, and climbs off of me. "Vicky's here." She walks over to the door and pulls it open.
Freedom! And I didn't even have to convince her to let me go.
She stops at the door, and looks at me expectantly.
"What?" I ask.
"Come on."
"What."
She narrows her eyes at me. "I'm not leaving you alone right now because you'll just go build something, so come on."
I do my best to look offended. "Amy, I'm not going to sneak off to tinker."
She smiles. "Then you can come grab the TV with me!"
I sigh, and grudgingly climb to my feet. "Fine."
She grabs my hand, and we head towards the front door.
Vicky's standing there yelling in through a broken window. "Anyone gonna let me in?"
Amy stops walking and gives her sister an expressionless stare. "Did you break the window just so we would hear you?"
Vicky crosses her arms, offended. "It was like that already, I just took advantage of it."
I let go of Amy's hand, and unlatch the door. I'm sure she could have gotten through it if she wanted to, but it's nice she didn't smash her way in.
She isn't the only one who could though, I should probably make the door more secure. But what if someone goes around the door through the walls? I'll have to reinforce those too, maybe get HK to help. Actually, another helper might be a good idea. It's already public knowledge that I can make robots, so what's a few worker droids to lighten my load? Might as well make some security droids too. HK's good, but it would be nice if…
Amy bops the top of my head. An unexpected feat, given our height difference.
"Stop thinking about how to turn this place into a death trap." She scolds.
I feign offense again. "I wasn't thinking about how to make this place into a death trap."
"Uh… you were mumbling about making security droids." Vicky speaks up.
"That was out loud?" I ask her.
The blonde nods, prompting me to groan.
Amy sighs in exasperation. "Taylor, you and I both need some time off. You're going to relax even if I have to tie you down."
"Amy, I'm fine." I stress.
Vicky shakes her head at me. "If anyone tells you they're fine, they're actually not fine. Amy's right, you need a break." Her face lights up. "Lucky for you, I happen to have a TV and a bunch of movies with me. The furniture should be here soon, so I'll make a snack run, then the three of us can have a movie day!"
"I don't think…" I try to cut in.
"Great idea!" Amy speaks over me. "We'll set everything up while you're gone."
"Be back in a bit." Vicky exits the building, and leaps into the sky, leaving Amy and I behind.
I look at Amy over my shoulder. "Don't I have a say in this?"
She nods as she sifts through the movies Vicky brought over. "Yep, would you rather watch an action flick or a comedy?"
I sigh, and start going through the movies with her.
I'm not getting out of this, so I may as well make the most of it. Besides, maybe a movie day might actually be nice?
We settle on a trashy cape story, and have HK carry the TV up to the break room we crashed in last night. By the time we've got everything set up, a truck pulls up in front of the building.
Amy and I walk down and pay the man dropping off the furniture Vicky ordered for us last night.
He shoots some skeptical glances our way when HK begins to unload everything, but he just mumbles something under his breath about bullshit capes, and leaves.
"Statement: This is degrading, master. My protocols are wasted on menial labor." HK complains as he's helping me haul the bed up the stairs.
"Suck it up." I say. "I'll build someone to help us out tomorrow, but until then, deal with it."
"Statement: Very well, master. Request: Construct a lower functioning platform soon."
"She said she'd do it tomorrow, cut her some slack." Amy says as she plops down on the new couch.
It's nothing fancy, but it isn't falling apart, so it's an improvement on my last one.
HK glares at Amy, and goes to speak, but I interrupt him.
"HK, go see if Dotty needs anything else set up for the slicing rig. If he doesn't, make some sensors for the base. Sensors that only detect when someone gets too close, or inside. Don't make anything that can fight back just yet." I want to supervise him when he does that. Actually, it would probably be better just to make them myself, he can help.
"Statement: I will do as you say, master." HK says dejectedly. He turns and leaves the room.
Maybe I'm being a bit too restricting towards him. He set up the Bacta Tank while Amy and I were asleep without me having to order him. I'm not going to give him free reign to wreak havoc, but he deserves a little leash.
Wow that sounded bad. I don't want to be a slaver. Is ordering him around slavery? Dotty likes his job, but HK doesn't seem happy.
He enjoys fighting and killing right? Maybe I could set something up where he works with the Guild when he has off time.
Note to self, bring that up when you call Dragon. She'll probably have an idea or two.
I sit down on the couch next to Amy, and settle in to wait for Vicky.
She leans into me, and we sit in silence for a while.
Eventually, my mind drifts back to tinkering, and I start brainstorming out loud.
"We'll need to get a lot of projects started tomorrow. I'll need to call Dragon to see if she could get me some parts for my bigger project, I'll need to make another droid to help around the base, and we'll need to go to the beach and collect some crabs or something. I don't want people to freak out and label me a biotinker, so it's probably best we keep the fact that we're growing you armor on the down low as long as possible."
Amy lets out a soft sigh. "Taylor, we're supposed to be taking a trip to New York or something remember?"
"I know, but I want to get your armor started as soon as I can. Even with your help, the things I'm making your armor from will need time to grow. They can grow while we spend however long out of Brockton. I still need to teach you how to properly fight too."
She hmm's softly. "How long do you think that'll take?"
"I don't know. I've still got things I need to improve on, and I've been at it for months. I can probably give you the basics in a week or two, then we'll just improve upon those and make sure you practice."
"Sounds like a lot of work."
I tilt my head down to look at her. "If it can save your life it's worth it."
She sighs. "I know. I'm just irritated. My Manton limit keeps me from working on myself, so I can't cut any corners."
"What kind of corners?" I ask.
"I doubt I'd be able to give myself the right muscle memory without knowing what I was doing, but it would be nice if I could fix myself up so I wouldn't have to train myself to the point where I can run for an hour without throwing up, or be able to alter my muscles."
I swallow a lump in my throat.
"Um," I awkwardly begin. "I might be able to help with that."
Amy looks up at me with a raised eyebrow. "I would hope so. This whole thing was your idea, so it would be kind of disappointing if you didn't have a training plan."
I shake my head. "No. I mean I might be able to help you cut corners."
She looks at me in confusion for a moment, before her eyes go wide. "How?"
I scratch the back of my head and look towards the blank TV screen. "Well, I told Dragon I can make prosthetics, but I left a lot out. Anything I make would be like having the original limb back, except better in most cases. I've also got a huge library of cybernetic implants that will boost various aspects of your physical and mental capabilities."
Amy's jaw hangs open, and she doesn't respond.
"Not that you have to do any of that!" I hurry to add. "I'm not saying you have to make yourself a cyborg, just that I have some options."
She shakes her head, and closes her mouth. She pokes me on my cheek and frowns. "I don't see anything like that in you. Why haven't you done any of that to yourself?"
I chuckle. "Because I was on my own. I wasn't too keen on doing extensive brain surgery on myself, or cutting myself open in general. I would have to be awake to do the procedure, and no matter how many stims I take, I'd still be messing with my own organs."
Amy nods. "I can see how that would be a little off putting." She looks up a little nervously. "I can do it for you?"
I raise an eyebrow. "Can your power move my tinkertech around?"
She shakes her head. "No, not the implants. I could just use my power, and cut out the middle man."
I tilt my head at her.
Huh, why didn't I put it together that she could do that?. It would definitely be nice to get some upgrades.
I go to respond, but a chipper voice yells up from downstairs.
"I brought the snacks!" Vicky calls up.
Amy frowns, and stands up. She begins walking down to let her sister in.
"Hey." I call out.
She turns back around.
"I think it would actually be pretty nice if you'd be willing to do that for me, but let's worry about it later. I think it'll be easier if we do everything at the same time, so I'll order some parts from Dragon, and think about what kind of improvements I'd want. You do the same."
She smiles brightly, and says, "Okay."
I stand up, and follow her downstairs.
True to her word, Vicky is holding several shopping bags overflowing with a wide variety of snack foods.
When was the last time I had a Twizzler? This might actually be fun.
"You got everything ready to go?" Vicky asks.
I nod. "Yeah. The break room's all set up. We've actually got some left over pizza up there too if you're interested."
She raises an eyebrow at me. "You mean to tell me I didn't need to make a snack run?"
"Uh…"
Amy elbows her sister. "Stop giving her a hard time."
Vicky laughs. "Let's get this party started!"
All told, I don't think we left that room for anything other than the occasional bathroom break. The three of us spent the entire day just lying about watching crappy movies and eating junk food.
It was nice. Really nice.
We didn't talk about any of the bullshit from the past couple days, be it my dad or their mom. We just hung out and had fun.
I enjoyed it.
Eventually, the sun went down without us noticing, and we decided to call it a day.
Vicky didn't feel like going home for whatever reason, so she passed out on the new couch while Amy and I shared the bed. A bed that was large enough for two people, meaning they wouldn't have to literally sleep on top of each other.
What a novel concept?
As we laid down to sleep, I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
It had been a long time since I was this happy. Maybe I need that vacation more than I thought?
I feel Amy shuffle in closer, and wrap an arm around her.
Yeah. This is nice.
There's a clicking sound accompanied by a bright flash of light.
I grumble and bring my hand up to ward it off while I open my eyes.
Vicky's floating in the air above me with a shit eating grin on her face. She has her phone out, and is pointing its camera downward. There's another flash as she takes another picture.
Amy moans next to me and rolls over. "Turn the light off." She whines, then rolls over to wrap her arms around me.
Vicky starts giggling, and floats back to the floor. "It's probably about time for me to head back, I'll leave you two to your snuggle time. Let me know when you guys figure out what you're going to do."
"Wait!" I say, but she's already through the door.
I groan and lay my head back against the pillow.
She better not post those anywhere. If she does, I'm sicking Dotty on her.
Amy shuffles around a little bit after I move, then settles back down.
"Morning." I say.
"Morning." She mumbles back, eyes slowly opening. "How are you feeling?"
I don't even try to fight the small smile that makes its way onto my face.
"Better." I say honestly. "A lot better."
She smiles back, then pulls me in for a hug. "Good."
We lay like that for a while longer, just enjoying doing nothing.
"We should probably get up soon." Amy observes. "The sooner we get everything done here, the sooner we can get the hell out of the city. I'd like to leave by tomorrow if at all possible."
I raise an eyebrow at her. "You know we could have started yesterday right?"
She shakes her head. "No. An extra day isn't worth your mental health, now come on."
A little heat creeps onto my face when she says that.
It's nice to have someone worried about you, even if it can be a little taxing.
She rises to her feet, and pulls me along behind her.
I put up a token resistance, but I know she's right. The sooner we finish everything we have to do in the city, the sooner we can ditch for a week or so.
"I'll go talk to Dotty and order some food, you should call Dragon and Armsmaster." Amy says.
"Okay, but be ready to go to the beach in a bit. I'd like to get your armor started as soon as possible."
She nods, then walks off.
I watch her go for a moment, then head in the opposite direction to get my phone calls done.
I only really need to talk to Armsmaster and Dragon, and I'd rather talk to Armsmaster first. The PRT's probably ordered him to get me to come in or something, so I'd rather get that over and done with before I talk to Dragon. Nothing against Armsmaster himself, but I really don't like his bosses.
I make it to my armor, and pull my phone out of the belt.
There's a host of messages and missed calls, but I disregard them. I don't feel like listening to the same condolences over and over again.
I dial Armsmaster, and he picks up on the second ring.
"Mandalore." He greets.
"Hey. Dragon said you wanted me to call you?" I cut to the chase.
"That is correct. Firstly, I would like to offer my condolences for your father."
I suppress a sigh. "Thanks, but can we get to the reason you had me call?" I'm a lot better off than people give me credit for, and all their condolences accomplish is dragging this out.
"Of course." He responds simply. "I have been asked to see if you would be against coming to either the rig or PRT building to discuss the events of both your fight with Bakuda, and with the Dragonslayers."
"I'll pass." I say, though I keep the bite out of my voice. It's not him specifically I'm mad at. "I've already got plans for the next few weeks."
There's a moment of silence.
"Is there anything I could do to convince you to come in?" Armsmaster asks calmly.
"Not really. I'll have Dotty send you a report about everything, but I'm going to be too busy to show up in person." Maybe I shouldn't antagonize the PRT like this, but they kind of pissed me off.
"Very well." Armsmaster sighs. "I will do my best to explain the situation to the director. Would you be willing to send us an overview of the capabilities of your robots?"
"Sorry, no. The fact that their capabilities are secret saved me against the Dragonslayers, I don't want anything to leak."
"I understand. Thank you for your time Mandalore." Armsmaster says, resigned.
"You're welcome." I hang up.
Honestly, I like Armsmaster, but so long as he answers to the PRT, I can't really trust him with anything. Even in the little time I've known him I was able to figure out how dedicated he is to his job. If I give him anything, he'll give it to his superiors who will do god knows what with it. Best to keep the whole organization at arm's length.
One conversation down, one to go.
I dial Dragon's number.
"Mandalore?" She answers.
"Hey Dragon."
"How are you feeling?" She asks gently.
I smile at her question. "Better. A lot better."
"I'm glad to hear it." She says with genuine joy. "What can I help you with?"
"A couple things. Amy said you wanted to talk to me about the Guild, I was hoping to get some tinker materials shipped here, and was wondering where to send some prosthetic designs."
"Well, I would be happy to send you whatever materials you need, and I'll give Dotty a secure email to send any blueprints to me that you would like to work with. As far as the Guild is concerned, I have spoken with Narwhal, and, in light of your accomplishments, she would be open to accepting you into the Guild whenever you choose to accept the position."
My jaw hangs open.
"Just like that?" I say, shocked.
"No. Not just like that. You've made a worldwide impact with your tech, and eliminated the Dragonslayers. A group that has been impeding our progress for years. You've earned membership."
I swallow a lump in my throat. "Can I think about it? A lot's changed in a short while." Dad, Amy, and the droids just to name a few.
"Take as long as you need Taylor. Even if you do not decide to join, we would like for you to become an affiliate. Essentially all that would entail is an agreement to help one-another when the situation calls for it."
"Well, I'm pretty sure I'll accept that regardless. Oh! Would you know of any way that HK could work with the Guild without my oversight?" Keeping him locked up in a run down factory isn't really fair to him. If I can point him at the bad guys and cut him loose, we'll both be happy.
"I can honestly say I don't know. There has never been a precedent for something like that. I'll talk to Narwhal, and see what we come up with."
"Thanks Dragon."
"You're welcome. Now, may I ask what you are planning on doing in the short term? I would recommend taking a short break to collect yourself."
I smile. "Way ahead of you. Amy and I were going to take care of a few things, then get out of town for a couple of days. Maybe a week."
"Good." Dragon sounds relieved. "I would hate to see you run yourself into the ground. Let me know if you need transportation of any sort."
"I might take you up on that."
"It was nice to speak with you Taylor, but I'm afraid I'm needed elsewhere." She says apologetically. "I'll contact Dotty regarding the materials you require."
"Go ahead. I would bet you've got a lot on your plate right now."
"I'm glad you are doing better, Taylor. Goodbye."
"Bye."
We both hang up.
I let out a sigh as I put the phone down.
I really need to get away from all this. I was planning on building some more droids to help defend the warehouse and move stuff around, but Amy's right. If we can be leaving Brockton tomorrow morning, I'll be more than happy.
"Hey." Amy pokes her head into the room. "Foods here. I ordered sandwiches."
I follow her back to the break room-we need to find a better thing to call this room-and we sit down to eat.
The meal's nothing fancy. Just some ham sandwiches she ordered from a sub place. It tastes good though.
"Are you ready to go?" I ask in between bites. "If we can get back here before too long I can make some defenses for this place while you work on the creatures."
She raises an eyebrow at me. "Where'd the urgency come from?"
"I was thinking about how you said you maybe wanted to leave tomorrow, and realized that was really appealing to me. If we can get out of here tomorrow, I'd like to."
"Alright. You'll have to get me started on what to do, I can't make something without knowing what I'm making, but I don't see any issues other than that."
"Cool." I swallow my last bite. "I'm ready when you are."
She finishes up her sandwich, and stands. "How are we getting to the beach? Our pictures are just about everywhere, and I'd like to avoid drawing a crowd."
"We'll just huddle under my stealth field. So long as we don't move too fast, it should cover both of us."
She gives me a skeptical look. "'Should'?"
I shrug. "It'll be fine."
I ignore her half lidded stare, and the two of us get ready to head out. I grab my helmet as I'm leaving so I can use its HUD to help us locate things faster. We also grabbed a large bag to carry everything back in.
Sure enough, the stealth field covers both of us so long as we walk slow, but if we stray too far from each other or make rapid movements it fails. It does work though.
Sadly, Amy didn't see the smug grin I shot her way due to the whole 'us being invisible' thing.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders to keep us from getting separated, and we were off. Talking was kept to a minimum so no one would hear us, and we did our best to just avoid people in general.
All told, it took us a little over half an hour to make it to a clear part of the beach. The warehouse is surprisingly close to the beach. I don't know if that jacked the price up at all, but if so, I owe Dragon.
I deactivated the stealth field, and used my helmet's HUD to hunt down some crabs.
Truthfully, with Amy's power we don't need crustaceans, but it'll make things easier.
Using my HUD makes the hunt child's play, and we start gathering ones that I'll be able to use.
"So you haven't really told me what you're planning to make yet." Amy prompts as we start gathering crabs. "All you've really said is that it'd be made from living things, and I've pieced together it'll be a shell of some kind given we're hunting crabs."
I really haven't told her what I'm planning to make have I?
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to keep it from you or anything. It's called Vonduun crab armor. It's resistant to extreme temperatures, plasma, laser bolts, blades, blunt weapons, a lot really. There will also be a lot of sharp spikes and blades protruding from various places that you should be able to control with your power. Add onto that the Bacta I'm now planning to put in it, and you'll have some effective weapons as well as protection. We could maybe even set something up where we put mosquitos or something in it."
"We are not putting mosquitos in my armor." Amy says with passion.
"Oh no, not regular mosquitos, but between the two of us, we could probably design something that would inject you with stims or some other things I can make to help you fight or numb pain as needed. We might even be able to weaponize it somehow."
"Huh." Amy's eyes lose focus as she starts to think.
She doesn't move for a full minute, and I start to get worried.
"Amy?"
She jolts out of her stupor. "Sorry, just thinking. We really need to discuss power combinations when we get a moment."
"Yeah. There's a lot the two of us can do together."
"We'll save that discussion for later."
I nod in agreement, and we continue gathering sea creatures.
As we gather crabs, we kill them as humanely as possible. Neither Amy nor myself are psychopaths, so we are not going to be cutting these guys open while they're still alive.
I was originally going to kill them back at the lab through a combination of my vibroblade and a freezer like I read online, but Amy's power is literally the least pain inducing way to kill these animals, so she volunteered to do it.
Once the bag is full, and I'm satisfied we'll have enough to get everything growing properly, we reactivate the stealth field and head back.
We've been gone for a couple hours when we make it back to the warehouse.
Man, we really need a better name for this place.
We haul everything inside, and HK helps us to get everything up to the floor where we'll be working.
Feeling a little dramatic, I clap my hands together as I look down at the fruits of our labor.
"Showtime!"
(Amy)
I roll my eyes at Taylor's theatrics, and ask, "So now what?"
She turns to me, and purses her lips. "That depends on you. If we do this my way it'll probably take around a month to grow enough to make the armor, and that's only if I checked on them every day or so. What do you need to duplicate things?"
I shrug. "I really just need an example. The reason I had so much trouble with the Bacta was because I was trying to alter something I had never seen before into something else I'd never seen before. If you can make me something to copy, I should be able to replicate it fairly easily."
Taylor tilted her head at the crabs while she considered what I said. "Ok. Give me a bit."
She walked over to the bin and pulled out a single crab. She brought it over to a table with a weird blender-like device.
"Are you going to puree it?" I asked, skeptical.
"What?" She asked, then followed my gaze to the blender thing. "Oh! No, this is what I use to make my stims. I'll need to make some fluids to inject into the crab in order for it to start changing into what I need to go further."
"Ah. Can I help?" I ask as I walk up next to her.
"Um… sure? You can help me mix everything."
The two of us spent the next fifteen minutes pouring various vials full of tinker fluid into the weird blender thing while Taylor prodded at the dead crab.
"Ok. That should do it." She says as she pushes a button on the blender.
There's a low humming sound as the thing powers on, and a faint blue light starts leaking out from behind the mixture we just mixed.
"That looks high tech." I comment as I watch the device do its work.
Taylor shrugs. "Eh, I've been wanting to make a better one for a while, I just haven't had any materials to spare. Just another thing to add to the post vacation to-do list."
"I guess. How much longer until it's done?"
Taylor holds up three fingers…. two fingers…. one finger…
There's a faint *ding* and the machine powers itself down.
"Nice." I say.
Taylor grins, and pulls the container free. She produces a syringe from… somewhere, and sucks some of the liquid up into it before injecting it into the crab.
"Ok." She says as she steps back. "That should take an hour or two, but we can work on the others while it does its job."
Curious, I poke the crab to see what's happening.
The foreign agent Taylor injected into the crab is changing it. I mean, that's kind of obvious given what the goal of this project was, but I didn't expect it to work like this. The crab's DNA is being altered in front of me.
I'm so shocked I didn't realize Taylor poking me on the shoulder.
"You alright?" She asks, concerned.
"This is amazing." I breathe out.
I start prodding the crab with my power, and realize I can accelerate the process.
Taylor looks on in confusion as I speed everything up. The crab's sand colored shell turns darker, rougher, and much tougher. A few small, greyish spikes even protrude out from it in random places.
Transformation finished, I turn to Taylor with a wide grin and ask, "Does it look right?"
Her jaw is hanging open, and she's numbly staring at the crab.
"You just… there were like fifty more steps to get it to that point." She turns her gaze on me. "Your power is complete BS."
I snort. "This coming from the girl who unironically said she could blow up the sun?"
She smiles. "Point." She looks back down at the crab. "So, that was essentially what I was trying to do. That is more or less what I'm making the armor out of. Now I just need more, think you can change the rest of the crabs and maybe get more growing?"
I poke the crab again, and my power tells me everything there is to know about it. "Uhuh. I'll change the rest, and get more growing. It won't be too hard to get some eggs fertilized." I'm already moving to the bin of dead crabs at the thought of making more of the weird material. I've never done something like this before. It's exciting!
"Huh. So that's what a tinker fugue looks like from the other side. Okay, I'll leave you to it. Just make sure that nothing can reproduce when you're done. We need more material, but make sure that everything you get growing is sterile." Taylor says seriously.
I nod. "I know. Don't worry."
"Ok. Do you need any help?"
"Nope. Go ahead and build one of those droids you wanted. We should finish at about the same time."
"Alright, I'll see you in a bit." She leaves after giving me a quick hug.
I turn my attention back to the crabs, and grin.
This is going to be interesting.
(Taylor)
I seriously underestimated how much help Amy would be with the crabs. I was expecting I'd have to walk her through everything, but she really did only need a single example, and from there I became obsolete. Her power really is as bullshit as mine.
Is it bad that that thought brought a bright smile to my face? Probably.
Thanks to her help, I was able to spend the next couple of hours putting together a simple worker droid. He's not impressive, but he does have his own little charm.
He's a darker shade of bronze than HK, his faceplate is more rounded, and his chassis is bulkier, but otherwise he looks something similar.
"Greetings master. Is there something I can help you with?" He asks politely as he stands for the first time.
"Well, first things first you need a name."
Let's see. BLX General Labor Droid doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. GLaD? No, I feel like that needs more letters to be a good name. BLX… 'B'… Barry? I actually kind of like that.
"What do you think of Barry?"
"I would be honored to receive such a designation."
"Alright then. Your name is Barry. I don't really have much work for you right now, but could you give the warehouse a once over? When Amy and I leave I'll also need you to watch the crabs."
"Of course master. I will do so now." He leaves.
Hmm. Much more cheery than HK. Maybe if I let the droids do what they were designed for they'll be more happy. Guess it's a good thing Dragon set up that position for HK.
"All done?"
I turn to the voice and see Amy leaning against the door frame.
"Just finished. You?"
She grins at me. "I was done an hour and a half ago. I just spent the time double checking everything."
"Showoff."
She chuckles, and we walk out of the room and down the hall together.
"Anything else you need to get done before we leave?" She asks me as we head to our room.
"Not really. Barry can handle building most of the defenses I wanted while we're gone, and I can always make a few security droids when we get back. All we need to do now is take off."
"Um, important detail, how are we leaving?" Amy asks.
"Dragon said she'd be willing to give us a ride, so unless you have an issue with that, I was thinking we'll take her up on that."
Amy shrugs. "No complaints here."
"Cool."
The two of us munch on some snacks left over from our movie day, and lie down in bed.
"I'll call Dragon in the morning to see if she'll give us a ride somewhere. You should probably tell Vicky we're heading out. I remember she wanted to know when we left."
Amy nods tiredly. "I will, but sleep now."
She rests her head against my shoulder, and closes her eyes.
I smile down at her, and start running my hand through her hair.
It doesn't take long for the two of us to fall asleep.
We woke a little after the sun came up, and went about making our respective phone calls. Amy called Vicky to tell her what we were doing, and I called Dragon to ask for a ride.
Dragon was more than happy to help. I was expecting a bus ride or something, but she bought us a car. Like, she bought a car and just gave it to us.
I tried to talk her out of it, but she just said she'd already spent the money on it.
She also had good news about HK. Apparently the Guild was more than willing to accept the help of a droid who helped take down the Dragonslayers. He'll be under Dragon's oversight, but he didn't seem to have a problem with it when I gave him the phone.
I'm not sure exactly what he'll be doing with Dragon, but he seemed excited, so I'm happy.
Dragon told us she was on her way, and we hung up.
HK practically pranced off to get his gear, leaving me alone with Barry. I spent the little time before Dragon showed up talking with Barry about the defenses I wanted him to get built. Some things were beyond him, but all the basic stuff should be taken care of by the time Amy and I get back.
"Taylor!" Amy calls up from downstairs. "Dragon's here!"
"I'll be down in a sec!" I quickly stow my tools, and grab everything I've decided to bring with me.
Both Amy and I have blasters, shields, our communicators, and phones. I also have my lightsaber and stealth field generator, and Amy's bringing a jar of bacta fluid.
"We're leaving Barry! Watch the warehouse and the crabs! And get as many of those defenses done as you can!"
"I will do so. Enjoy yourself, master." Barry's kind voice replied.
I think I managed to make the perfect butler droid. That's pretty awesome.
I run down the stairs, and out the front doors after saying a brief goodbye to Dotty.
Outside, an orange and green Dragon suit, Amy, and HK are all waiting for me. HK is geared up with all of his extremely dangerous equipment, once more looking like robot Rambo, and I can't help but feel like he's smiling.
"Sorry about that." I say. "I was just talking to Barry."
"No worries." Dragon says. "HK and I were just clearing up exactly what it is he will be doing with the Guild during your vacation."
I turn to HK. "Does everything seem good? You won't be bored or put into a situation you don't want to be in?"
"Answer: No master. Quite the contrary, I will enjoy this immensely."
So he probably gets to shoot people then. Oh well, if they're Guild targets, they deserve it.
"I'm glad." I turn to Amy. "Are you ready?"
She nods, and points her thumb at a small blue sedan parked behind her. "I'm all packed up. Not like we're bringing all that much."
We really aren't. Just clothes, some snacks, toiletries, and the tinker gear. Everything else we can buy whenever we get to wherever it is we're going.
"Thanks again Dragon. This means a lot." I say sincerely.
"Think nothing of it. Just focus on getting better. Now, HK and I must depart. Call me if you have any problems." She holds her arm out, and HK latches on. A moment later, the two of them fly away.
"He's going to blow up so much shit isn't he?" Amy asks as we watch them fly off.
I nod. "Most likely."
"Welp, he's Dragon's problem now. I vote we get on the road, and worry about everything else later."
"Seconded."
I throw my stuff in the car, then hop into the driver's seat.
Neither Amy or myself ever went through the process of getting a driver's license, so we technically shouldn't be driving, but I'm an outed tinker who is likely a better driver than most NASCAR racers thanks to my bullshit tinker skill download. If anyone pulls us over Dragon said to just have them check PHO.
I start the engine, and turn to Amy. "So, where to?"
A.N. Next chap will be up when it's done.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
Awesome to see more of this. It's adorable and awesome at the same time.
a little less leash?
You want "siccing"
I wonder how much the police are used to at this point? I feel like that should be one of the stranger things they'd see, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.
I can see why getting a car would be sensible but she's just going to build a speeder or swoop bike somewhere down the line.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
Can't be Heartbreaker, he's been left alive due to too many people he's subverted and left as deadman switches. Can't be Nilbog, he's also got deadman switches of the biological warfare variety. Can't be Elsburg for the deadman switches of the technological variety (and risk of him being subverted).
Whelp, guess that means say goodbye Jack. You won't be missed (at least you won't be after HK finishes calibrating his gun sights).
No, a little more leash as in giving a dog more leash to run around with, less leash means keeping them closer so you can keep an eye on them.
Similar but opposite "giving someone more rope to hang themselves" means giving them more opportunity to screw themselves over.*
*In theory that saying can also be used positively by mashing in another metaphor**: "I gave them more rope to hang themselves, but they used it to climb out of the hole they dug"
**Still not my favorite mashup of two metaphors: "We'll burn that bridge when we cross it" mashing up "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" and "We've burnt our bridges".
Kell of Snow
Verified TinTin enjoyer
- Location
- New York
Something something things keep evolving into crabs.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I'm half imagining an interlude of The Adventures of HK and Dragon. Wherein Dragon or Narwhal learns HK stands for Hunter-Killer and 47 is his model number, implying there were 46 other models before him.
- Pronouns
- Psychic energy
That would be nice but the only issue I see is bonesaw and crawler
- Location
- The Hub
Yeah getting a mounting board that's both large enough and nonreactive enough to mount Crawler's head would be difficult.
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
HK47: Statement: Challenge accepted, meatbag.
Then he goes and pulls something like phrik out of his binary rusty arse.
- Pronouns
- Masculine
HAHAHAAH! Oh god, HK-47 hunting down the S9 and other Guild targets makes me grin viciously. Hell, send him to Africa and let him start hunting Warlords.
Enjoy yourself in Colorado, Jack! You will soon have a new friend coming to play!
The conversations between Dragon and HK would be pretty priceless too. With HK giving his data to Dragon and Dragon sharing her own. Hell, HK would be perfect in dealing with a number of guild targets. There are a LOT of really dangerous capes out there and multiple, never used containment zones across the US. Sending him to hunt down emotional controlling Masters and other targets would be perfect too, even Heartbreaker. Because well... Heartbreaker is feared to have all these deadman switches, but when you consider canon and the like, he didn't. He was too lazy and too lost in his own power trip to be properly paranoid.
As it is, I think Taylor and Amy will have a good vacation, and allow their relationship to progress. Uhaul lesbians is a good joke, but clearly these two have gone beyond that. Starship Lesbians. Heh.
Its going to be interesting to see how the world reacts to things, especially the Guild's new Bounty Hunter.
I mean, hell, the Butcher would be the perfect target for HK to hunt down too. Not only is he immune to the switching, but he could non-lethally capture her pretty damn effectively with how skilled he is, or if she kills herself, he could hunt down the new Butcher before they go insane.
Now I'm imagining the fun the next Endbringer fight will be when Taylor's Droideka roll up and pop shields and start blasting Leviathan, forcing him to focus on disposable minions. Which is one of the best ways to deal with Endbringers without a direct weapon to kill them with. Which... probably exists in Star Wars tech tree somewhere without being a planet buster. I mean, a turbolaser could send Leviathan blasting off again, but probably couldn't kill it. But there probably is something there.
Also, will be amusing to see Taylor and Amy come back to a fortress of a base as Barry has gone wild. Shield generator. The works.
VERY glad to see you back, AgelessReaper. I hope your reality is treating you well. Looking forward to any new treasures you drop in our laps in the future!
A special note there. The 'woobie fanon' is, in fact, canon. It was what Amy was before Wildbow went back and edited Worm to reflect Ward. Calling it fanon is simply wrong, because Amy was literally changed by Wildbow to be a horrible person. Because he is a nihilistic asshole.
Any story or work of fiction that has the author go back and edit their work to literally change it to spite the fanfiction writers can no longer be considered to have a stationary canon either. Merely multiple levels of AU. Which is why I consider Ward an AU of 'canon' Worm because of Wildbow's own spiteful editing.
I read Worm when Amy was a woobie and yet still snarky. Anything afterword I consider Wildbow altering canon to suit his own ends. Which in turn invalidates it. Like Star Wars now no longer has any canon, its all fanon, because it has so many writers contributing to it and everything Disney has done to it has basically turned it into Fanon.
Enjoy yourself in Colorado, Jack! You will soon have a new friend coming to play!
The conversations between Dragon and HK would be pretty priceless too. With HK giving his data to Dragon and Dragon sharing her own. Hell, HK would be perfect in dealing with a number of guild targets. There are a LOT of really dangerous capes out there and multiple, never used containment zones across the US. Sending him to hunt down emotional controlling Masters and other targets would be perfect too, even Heartbreaker. Because well... Heartbreaker is feared to have all these deadman switches, but when you consider canon and the like, he didn't. He was too lazy and too lost in his own power trip to be properly paranoid.
As it is, I think Taylor and Amy will have a good vacation, and allow their relationship to progress. Uhaul lesbians is a good joke, but clearly these two have gone beyond that. Starship Lesbians. Heh.
Its going to be interesting to see how the world reacts to things, especially the Guild's new Bounty Hunter.
I mean, hell, the Butcher would be the perfect target for HK to hunt down too. Not only is he immune to the switching, but he could non-lethally capture her pretty damn effectively with how skilled he is, or if she kills herself, he could hunt down the new Butcher before they go insane.
Now I'm imagining the fun the next Endbringer fight will be when Taylor's Droideka roll up and pop shields and start blasting Leviathan, forcing him to focus on disposable minions. Which is one of the best ways to deal with Endbringers without a direct weapon to kill them with. Which... probably exists in Star Wars tech tree somewhere without being a planet buster. I mean, a turbolaser could send Leviathan blasting off again, but probably couldn't kill it. But there probably is something there.
Also, will be amusing to see Taylor and Amy come back to a fortress of a base as Barry has gone wild. Shield generator. The works.
VERY glad to see you back, AgelessReaper. I hope your reality is treating you well. Looking forward to any new treasures you drop in our laps in the future!
A special note there. The 'woobie fanon' is, in fact, canon. It was what Amy was before Wildbow went back and edited Worm to reflect Ward. Calling it fanon is simply wrong, because Amy was literally changed by Wildbow to be a horrible person. Because he is a nihilistic asshole.
Any story or work of fiction that has the author go back and edit their work to literally change it to spite the fanfiction writers can no longer be considered to have a stationary canon either. Merely multiple levels of AU. Which is why I consider Ward an AU of 'canon' Worm because of Wildbow's own spiteful editing.
I read Worm when Amy was a woobie and yet still snarky. Anything afterword I consider Wildbow altering canon to suit his own ends. Which in turn invalidates it. Like Star Wars now no longer has any canon, its all fanon, because it has so many writers contributing to it and everything Disney has done to it has basically turned it into Fanon.
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Ah, malphorisms. They're great. I think my particular favorite is "it's not rocket surgery."
Of course between Taylor and Amy we might actually see Rocket surgery soon...
- Location
- The Hub
I'm quite partial to "Not the brightest spoon in the toolshed."
- Location
- Hong Kong
Now I so want HK to introduce himself to a Guild target:
"Blatant lie, we come in peace."
"Blatant lie, we come in peace."
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
Yea, but they don't know that, they just know that he's demonstrated the capacity to do this before.
WoG says that if a non Parahuman were to kill The Butcher it'd just jump to the nearest parahuman 'within range', which in theory could lead to a kickass Fallen like attempt to kill him. Only to have the same "hahaha, you thought you'd killed me, but you didn't have all the facts!"
"Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a photon torpedo"
"Fascinating"
Upon review of his memory banks the Butcher was dead and his creator wasn't the new one as speculated to happen when the Butcher was killed by a tinker's creation this new one lead him to believe within a certain distance a random parahuman may be selected to become the next Butcher. This lead to his current predicament.
"Bastard when I get out of here I'll gut that lesbo slut you call a master" The new Butcher, XV, formally Hemorrhagia raved.
"Statement: my programing prevents me from aiding someone trying to kill my Mistress. Insult: You couldn't escape from a dissolving paper bag." His job was the death of the Butcher and regardless of how the PRT wanted this carried out he now knew the best way.
"Firing in 2 minutes please clear the blast range." His mistress was such a kind and understanding individual didn't even ask why he needed a one man ground-to-space rocket he made the calculations himself the craft's oxygen would last until it reach it's destination.
"Warning 1 minute until Ignition." His one complaint was the 5 minute warning to clear the area and the count down woke the Butcher leaving him to listen to her mindless and uncreative threats to his maker and her lover.
"30 second until Ignition." He was going to bring these complaints to his mistress the next craft should start when he activated it and not a second later.
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Ignition." About time he had to return and get his next tar-assignment.
I sat there in the committee room as HK recounted how he defeated the Butcher and it was actually more humane then I thought HK was going to handle her. I thought that he'd launch her into space and let her oxygen run out but sending her to the sun was probably better and easier then to explain somewhere down the line when mankind was able to retrieve the craft from space to see what it contained.
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So LoTR and Tolkien making slight changes to it and stuff is ok as he didn't make changes to the characters or major events
- Pronouns
- Masculine
True.
There is definitely a difference between editing a work and going back and rewriting and resetting canon to suit your own ends. Look at Episode 1 and the Midichlorian bullshit that Lucas pulled out of his ass.
The only reason he did it was to invalidate the entire Legends AU. Because fuck all the fans and writers who took inspiration from his work, right?
Anyway. Really looking forward to future chapters of this fic. Its a deeply entertaining one. Cannot wait to see where and how things go and change.
I've never read any of the books. Just movies. How does the midichlorian concept invalidate all of Legends?
- Pronouns
- Masculine
The biggest issue was the source of the Force. Legends always had it that the Force was just that, a force. Midichlorians were something Lucas pulled out of his ass as some kind of strange biological component for what was always considered a spiritual or psychic phenomena. Midichlorians were just... so bullshit when they were first revealed. Its possible to explain that contact with the force would cause some biological changes, but biological changes being the things that caused access to the Force were a total bullshit explanation.
But that is a very old argument in the Star Wars fandom and has no real connection to this fic, lets not get too intensely onto the subject.
Amy being her original Worm self in this before Wildbow went back and turned her into a rapist and a monster thanks to Ward is a good thing. Makes it sweeter. Wildbow butchered her character in Ward and went back to Worm to directly alter her character and make her as much a monster as Emma and Sophia, if not worse. So any complaints to the 'woobie fanon' are mostly spurious... because the fanon there was actually canon before Wildbow went back and changed it in Ward because of his usual nihilistic storytelling.
This story is excellent though. This Taylor and Amy are awesome together, and I really cannot wait to see how their relationship, as unhealthy as it is, grows.