Rise in Revolution (Chapter Thirty-Three)
Jun. 21st, 2016 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldri
Chapter Thirty-Three
Warden
Train Station Beta-3, Sector SOV. March 24, 2272. Time instance 842N.
“Mars!”
Mars looked up from the bench she had been sitting on, bored out of her skull. She had asked Seven what she could do to help and he had told her to watch the train station and keep track of any train usage. She was pretty sure it was just to keep her out of the way.
A grin crossed her face as she realized who it was and got to her feet, stepping forward. “Jimmy! You’re okay!”
“Devan’s good at what he does!” Jimmy grinned at her, Gali beside her wearing a matching expression. Mars raised an eyebrow at how close their hands were, and how both seemed to be twitching slightly, aching to grab the other but not willing to admit it first.
Mars rolled her eyes. These two. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You...didn’t look so good after that.”
Jimmy sighed. “Yeah, that sucked. Guess I’m just too cool to kill.”
“You almost died!” Gali protested. “You’re about to start punning about it again!”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jimmy demanded. “It’s when I’m not punning that you should be worried. Swordied.” She paused when no one responded. “I got hurt by a sword. See, it’s-”
“Tac would kill you for that,” Gali informed her. “And you could have died!”
“But I didn’t,” Jimmy said, grinning. “Thanks for being worried though. I appreciate it.”
“You guys are so cute,” Mars said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at them.
“She might be, but I’m not,” Gali said immediately. Jimmy turned to look at her indignantly.
“Yes you are!”
“No I’m not!”
“Fight me!
“Bring it!” Gali raised her fists jokingly and Jimmy followed suit, cringing when her wound was agitated.
“Um, maybe in a while?”
“Stop being injured!” Gali scolded.
“You should get her to Scara,” Mars suggested. “Heal the rest of that up.”
“We should do that,” Jimmy agreed. “Thanks, Mars.”
Mars smiled as she watched them go, settling back in to watch the trains.
~~~
Nine sped up as he walked when he noticed Tac and Shawn moving towards him. He silently hoped they wouldn’t bother him- not because he wanted to avoid them, but because he was in a bit of a hurry and needed Seven’s help for an issue he was experiencing.
Unfortunately, they didn’t catch the hint that he was busy. “Nine! Nine, hang on!”
He repressed a sigh and stopped, turning around. “Yes?” He noticed that Tac seemed to be tagging along behind Shawn, almost reluctantly. Odd.
“Can you go through the database of the Steelwings and tell us anything you’ve got on who unit 7475-β was?”
“Sure. Why?” As Nine spoke, he set the robotic part of his brain to searching through the files and grabbing the relevant one, reading through it as Shawn responded.
“We think it might be Tac’s brother.”
Nine blinked a few times and nodded swiftly. “Matt Avilena?”
Tac whimpered quietly and nodded.
“Yes.” Nine hesitated and stepped forward, putting a hand on Tac’s shoulder. “I’m...sorry. But he has no memory of you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I ran into him yesterday. It’s like...it’s like we’d never known each other…”
“You can try to reconnect with him,” Nine suggested. “Convince him you’ve had me look in his file and tell him who he was. Just...don’t expect a miracle, alright?”
Tac nodded, but he could tell that she wouldn’t or, if she did, she would do so reluctantly. Shawn hugged her briefly.
“Thanks, Nine,” he mumbled, looking at Tac sadly.
“You’re welcome.” Nine turned and continued walking, silently cursing what the Mainframe had done and hoping that talking to Seven would clear his mind.
It didn’t take long to find the other cyborg. He quickly caught Seven’s attention and motioned him over, starting to walk even as he approached.
“I need your advice for something. I’ve got a cyborg that’s a bit of a...special case.”
Seven looked at him quizzically as he fell in step beside him. “How so?”
“Well, he’s got a magic suppressor- a pretty powerful one, too. Problem is, it’s a huge waste to keep his powers suppressed. It’s...hard to explain what he can do, but it’s damn impressive. Unfortunately, it fucks with his systems a lot, so he’s...interesting.”
A passing cyborg spoke up as Nine finished. “You’re talking about Neves, right?”
Nine nodded.
The cyborg snorted. “If by ‘interesting’ you mean ‘as defective as a microwave that can’t cook anything’, then yeah, he’s real interesting.”
Nine shot him a withering glare. “Neves’ magical powers are useful, but they mess with his systems, as magic tends to do when a cyborg uses it. Wouldn’t you know that, Mekor?”
Mekor shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, um…”
“I thought so. Keep your suppressor on or Kyir will flay you alive.” Nine kept walking, Seven following easily. “Anyway, as I was saying, he’s far more useful to us magically than he is as a cyborg, but I just don’t know what to do about him. Kyir’s having to repair him almost constantly, as even having the suppressor off degrades his systems over time. And it’s not like he can just deactivate it anytime he needs the magic- it takes him almost an hour to get enough power charged to do much of anything, and at that point his arm or jaw or whatever tends to start malfunctioning.”
“Malfunctioning?” Seven questioned. “Malfunctioning how?”
“Well...we’re almost there. You’ll see.” Nine pushed open the door to the building and stepped inside.
Kyir’s voice immediately rose into a growl. “If it’s someone else wanting repairs, they can fuck right o- oh, it’s you.” Kyir threw down his screwdriver in disgust and motioned to the cyborg he was working on. “Come up with a better solution for this asshole! He’s going through my supplies and it’s pissing me off!”
The cyborg in question was slightly darker than Kyir himself, with his natural right eye being blue. He had light brown hair and seemed to be sulking. He likely would have had his arms crossed had his left arm not had a panel open with several wires hanging out. His right arm was unmodified, but both legs were replaced as was his left eye, left side of his face, and his jaw, as well as a section on the right side of his head to allow his jaw to connect properly. He looked to have a section of his back replaced as well, but it was hard to tell due to the shirt he was wearing covering it and his lack of wings.
“Seven, meet Neves, unit 7007-β. I figured you might find your matching numbers interesting.”
Neves glanced up, but Seven didn’t seem to react otherwise. When no one spoke, Neves sighed and said, in a very obviously Doravian accent, “What? Come to laugh at me too?”
“We’re trying to figure out a solution for your...magical and mechanical problems.” Nine told him.
“Good! Seems I spend all my time being grumbled at by his asshole.” Neves jerked a thumb at Kyir, who threw a screw at him.
“Kyir, could you reconnect Neves’ arm? I’d like to show Seven what’s wr- what’s been going on with him.” Nine quickly corrected himself at the dangerous glint in Neves’ eyes. Right. He doesn’t like being reminded that there’s something wrong with him.
“Not that it’ll do anything other than break him further,” Kyir mumbled, plugging wires back in and shutting the panel. “Knock yourself out, asshole. If you fry more circuits you can fix ‘em yourself.”
“Not my fault I have a shitty mechanic,” Neves fired back, getting to his feet. His comment was met with growls from both Kyir and Cataclysm, which were promptly ignored.
“Right. Neves, could you try moving your arm?”
Neves started to lift his arm, only getting it about halfway up before it froze, a quiet clicking and creaking sound being heard. He lowered it and tried to extend the blade, only getting it half out before a similar click could be heard and it stopped. He growled in frustration.
“Turn on the magic suppressor,” Seven said immediately. “It’ll slow, if not stop, the degrading of his circuits.”
Nine shook his head. “No. Neves has very useful magical powers- he could give a demonstration if he’d li-”
“No!” Kyir barked immediately. “I’m not repairing all the circuits in his fucking body! If he wants to demonstrate he can fix himself!”
Neves crossed his arms, struggling to withdraw the blade. “It’s a form of life manipulation. I can drain the life out of some things and pour it into others. Healing, growing, restoring energy, whatever. It probably won’t work on cyborgs other than maybe one thousand units because of their magic suppressors, but I can heal and detect lifeforce no matter how hard you try to mask it.”
“We need healers,” Nine reasoned. “So far the only magical healer other than Neves that we’ve got is Scara, and we can’t keep pushing her like this. She’s practically passing out multiple times a day anytime we get into a battle.”
Seven nodded and circled Neves a few times, thinking and looking him over. “Are you ever going to try to attach wings to him?”
“No. We’re afraid his magic will corrode the systems required to make that work, causing him to crash and die.”
Neves looked annoyed at this, but said nothing.
“True. Well, you could attach something onto his back that could be damaged instead of his limbs. Figure out what the magic tends to corrode first and is easily replaceable, put it in the apparatus, and it should divert most of the damaging effects there instead of actually important things, like his limbs and jaw. It would need to be repaired frequently, but if it’s designed right, it could be repaired quickly and easily with common spare parts.”
Kyir looked Neves over a few times and nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea. Frustrating and not as good as I’d hoped, but it’s the best thing I’ve heard about fixing this defective fucker.”
Neves growled and puffed up, whipping around to glare at Kyir. “I am not defective!” His mechanical eye spun and clicked while his natural eye narrowed.
Kyir snorted. “Oh, yeah? Tell me, can you even fucking wave without your arm freezing up?”
“Fuck off!” The blade on Neves’ arm half extended and he tapped Kyir’s chest with it before stepping back, re-crossing his arms and glaring. “I’m not defective. I’m not! I just...have difficulties with magic.”
Kyir snorted. “Whatever you want to call it. You want to get your failure box attached to your back now or when you can’t walk again?”
“Now is fine. The sooner you attach it, the sooner I can get away from you.”
“Finally, something you say that I can agree with.”
“I’m not defective,” Neves muttered, almost reassuringly, to himself as he sat back down. “I’m not…”
~~~
Jimmy leaned against the wall after sitting down, smiling as Gali sat beside her. They were at the top of a building, one with a short wall around its edges to prevent people from blundering over the side and falling to the ground below. It was a good place to be alone, hard to see the top of from a distance and with a long staircase up to the top. It was a pocket of seclusion in a busy sector with thousands of bustling and determined people, and all that intensity could get to you after awhile.
Especially once you’re used to the quiet of IAL again, Jimmy reflected. Even when it was full of people, IAL had always been a relatively quiet sector. Now that it was practically empty, the deserted sector felt lonely, but peaceful, in a way.
Still, Jimmy preferred the rooftop. She and Gali sat in silence for almost an hour, watching the sun go down and thinking their own thoughts until Jimmy’s mind wandered back to their conversation with Mars at the train station and what had been said before they had raced off.
“Did you mean what you said about me being cute?” Jimmy regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth.
Gali looked at her curiously. “Of course I did. You’re adorable.”
“No, I’m not!” Jimmy protested. “There is one cute person on this roof and it is you.”
“Absolutely not. You’re cute even if you did almost die. I mean, look at that face. Excellent.”
Jimmy crossed her arms. “No, I’m not! Shut!”
Gali raised an eyebrow at her, smirking slightly (probably jokingly, Jimmy thought) and displaying far more confidence than Jimmy was sure she had. “Make me.” Her eyes glinted with a light that practically drew Jimmy in, a smile pulling itself across her face as she unconsciously leaned closer.
“Okay.”
Jimmy wasn't sure what made her do it. Continuing the...joke, she guessed? Was it a joke? Did she mean this? Did Gali mean to imply this?
She wasn’t sure.
But she kissed her anyway.
It was brief, and the moment that Jimmy could tell that Gali had locked up she pulled away and turned around to not look at her, face bright red and embarrassment seeping into every corner of her being.
When Gali didn’t speak for a good ten seconds, Jimmy scrambled to her feet. “I...I gotta get going, I’m n-needed for something, and-” She took off without another word, racing down the stairs in an attempt to outrun her embarrassment and Gali both.
Gali, behind her, stared at the doorway she had darted out of.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, before getting to her feet and following.
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Date: 2016-06-21 09:02 pm (UTC)I see what you did there.
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Date: 2016-06-21 09:36 pm (UTC)*coughs* ¬_¬
*mumbles* thanks for holding onto my thread of life Scara til Deven got there, oh no problem Jimmy you're welcome *mumble mumble*
XD
[Tana pointed out in chat that Jimmy probably thanked me face to face when she woke up, I imagine it as something like this:
Jimmy probably woke up and was like Scara, thanks for finding me before I passed hell out from bloodloss hugs me and rips her stitches open opps do you think you could get that for me? ^^"]
“You should get her to Scara,” Mars suggested. “Heal the rest of that up.”
Jimmy I swear if you keep popping your stitches I'll...I'll....withhold cookies! Yeah that'll teach you! XD
“I know,” she whispered. “I ran into him yesterday. It’s like...it’s like we’d never known each other…”
“You can try to reconnect with him,” Nine suggested. “Convince him you’ve had me look in his file and tell him who he was. Just...don’t expect a miracle, alright?”
Aww I really hope Tac can jog her brothers memory somewhat, the old hims still in there somewhere right?
The cyborg snorted. “If by ‘interesting’ you mean ‘as defective as a microwave that can’t cook anything’, then yeah, he’s real interesting.”
Nine shot him a withering glare. “Neves’ magical powers are useful, but they mess with his systems, as magic tends to do when a cyborg uses it. Wouldn’t you know that, Mekor?”
Mekor shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, um…”
“I thought so. Keep your suppressor on or Kyir will flay you alive.” Nine kept walking
Mekor just got served XD
Also Mekor also have a suppressor on then? How many cyborgs are converted people who had powers? Not many I'm betting.
“Seven, meet Neves, unit 7007-β. I figured you might find your matching numbers interesting.”
Ah, we all see what you did there Tana XD
Neves crossed his arms, struggling to withdraw the blade. “It’s a form of life manipulation. I can drain the life out of some things and pour it into others. Healing, growing, restoring energy, whatever. It probably won’t work on cyborgs other than maybe one thousand units because of their magic suppressors, but I can heal and detect lifeforce no matter how hard you try to mask it.”
Oooooo, interesting :D
“We need healers,” Nine reasoned. “So far the only magical healer other than Neves that we’ve got is Scara, and we can’t keep pushing her like this. She’s practically passing out multiple times a day anytime we get into a battle.”
Please I would like to go more than 24 hours without passing out, thank you XD
Also our coffee supply is running low and without that I'll be passing out every 5 minutes in a battle scenario :P
“Fuck off!” The blade on Neves’ arm half extended and he tapped Kyir’s chest with it before stepping back, re-crossing his arms and glaring. “I’m not defective. I’m not! I just...have difficulties with magic.”
Kyir snorted. “Whatever you want to call it. You want to get your failure box attached to your back now or when you can’t walk again?”
“Now is fine. The sooner you attach it, the sooner I can get away from you.”
“Finally, something you say that I can agree with.”
“I’m not defective,” Neves muttered, almost reassuringly, to himself as he sat back down. “I’m not…”
Aww poor Neves *hugs*
Jimmy wasn't sure what made her do it. Continuing the...joke, she guessed? Was it a joke? Did she mean this? Did Gali mean to imply this?
She wasn’t sure.
But she kissed her anyway.
Aww the adorkableness of Jimli XD
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Date: 2016-06-21 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-21 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-23 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-23 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-24 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-22 04:57 am (UTC)-Observing Anon