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RP: ISC Phoenix [Side Job] - Humouresque

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Moogle

Retired Member
(This takes place between Mission 2 and Mission 3, starring @Luca and @Moogle)

ON!

Crimson Kestrel, Cargo Bay, Seiren's Workshop
Time moved mysteriously on the decks of the ISC Phoenix. Luca had just come to accept that sometimes it took a day to get home, and other days, it took more than a day. Today however he was waist high to everything in Seiren's workshop, having to look down at what the kid was working on today.

He couldn't believe that he wasn't joking about that Energy Ball thing as he saw Seiren working on the Grapple Stunner. His right arm felt naked, but he was in his home, so it was acceptable to feel naked - or be it.

A volt of energy lanced off of Seiren's table towards Luca, but bent - in midair - towards a Van deGraff generator sitting on the opposite side. He was humming a tune while he worked, chipping away at this new project with childlike enthusiasm.

Luca didn't seem disturbed by the bolt that nearly hit him a moment ago, all it did was make some of his hair stand up. "So," he said as he leaned in and looked down.

Seiren looked up at his hero, revealing that he was wearing goggles of a sort, with tiny readouts visible in the lenses. "H-huh? Oh, sorry about earlier, again. I just... sugar rush. Good idea. It happens, yanno?"

"Oh I know the feeling," Luca said as he noticed the zipper and some of the buttons lower on his jacket being tugged by magnetics.

The younger of the two saw the tugging and snickered.

"Ah, you might want to place your jacket behind the shielding over there. I had to place everything I wasn't using or anti-magnetized away so it didn't stick to my setup. This is dangerous stuff, like if I turned it on and there were a hammer a few feet away... it wouldn't end well."

"At least you haven't told me to shave," Luca said as he turned around and left his workshop, the sound of his jacket unclicking and unbuckling from behind Seiren. As he was stripping down and hanging the jacket up, he saw Allison walking by with another box of parts for the Kestrel's engines. Melissa was following them with a wheely toolbox.

"I've never heard of a hair magnet, and that sounds like a TERRIBLE idea... but could be fun," Seiren said, eyeing Allison's box.

"I lost my sideburns in Yamatai once - it was crazy to get them back, long story," he nodded. "Its definitely possible."

The inventor cocked his head, but gave a shrug and pointed at the Stunner. "Right... So you know how you have the punch and the grapple, and then your magical blast thing right?"

"You mean the EMP blast?" Luca said as he looked at the streamlined part sitting on the table. "Yeah, its one of the few things I've built that works."

"Well, I think I can make it a bit... well, it wouldn't exactly be MODULAR per se... but it'd be more like swapping out a tank cannon for a different tank cannon. The original design is kind of, ah... crap, so I have to work in the boundaries here. It works, but I can't make it easy to switch out. A-anyways, I think in addition to that cool ball-lightning, I think I can make your grapple line more like a staff or something. Like, using magnetics to contain it in one shape."

"Like... a blade or lance of some sort."

A loud clunk could be heard outside followed by a stream of Delsaurian accented cursing. Luca chuckled. "So, what you're saying is that I'll be ready for anything after you're done toying with it. Like..."

He grabbed a piece of paper, made a rough sketch of the grapple stunner, and then started drawing some crude pictures of what replacement parts would look like - there were three key areas that he could identify where swapouts could be made. The back of the palm and knuckles, the grapple mechanism on the forearm, and the elbow generator.

Seiren pulled out a marker and crossed out the swapout 'schematics'.

"Welllll... not quite. Like I said, it isn't really module so much as a total conversion. And you lose out on the EMP blast for the electromagnet housing... but on the bright side, I think you'll be able to do some cool stuff with magnetics besides the two big ones. It'll take a bit of configuring, but, it'll be really, really cool."

Luca cricked his neck a little bit and looked around the rest of Seiren's workshop and saw some of the other things he was working on, and he could see some of Rebeka's experimental equipment there too - it almost looked like you'd have to mount it on a bipod if you wanted to carry it yourself. "Huh. I thought it was one gun," he said, seeing it in two separated guns.

"Ah, that? Yeah, I'm gonna put out on a limb here: I have no idea how it works. She does... things to it. I just can't figure it out for the life of me," Seiren said with a shrug. "Just one, two, and poof! The two guns evolve into megagun."

"Lazarus magic," Luca sighed as he looked around. "Does she build stuff of her own down here too?"

"Well, yes and know. Building would be putting it lightly. But she seems more interested in assisting me, half the time... but I could just be a bit selfish and just not be seeing her own work. Aaaanyways... I was thinking maybe something like this could be done."

Seiren flicked off the machines on the table and double-checked the straps on the Grapple Stunner before rigging up some additional wiring. An angle of the palm later and it was aimed directly at Melissa's toolbox.

"Don'tmissdon'tmissdon'tmiss..." He mumbled turning it back on. The toolbox wiggled in place.

"eh?" Melissa said as she watched things wiggle in her toolbox. Allison turned her head at the toolbox too.
"What's that?" Allison asked as she was peering into some of the wiring.

A loose drawer slammed open, narrowly missing Allison's nose. The Grapple Stunner emitted a shrill screech and sparked. All the machines in Seiren's area depowered.

"Aw, crap. I shorted a fuse."

After breathing for a little in shock, Allison looked over to Seiren and her brow furrowed. Melissa didn't exactly look amused either. "OI!" Melissa yelled. "What you doin'?!" Luca seemed to be wide eyed and shook his head at her, teeth clenched.

"Uh... trying to borrow your laser spanner?"

She held up the item and then lobbed it at Seiren from across the room. Her throw cut to the right a little and it ended up clocking Luca in the face instead, sending him toppling over.

"There y'are ya little squirt! We're tryin' ta work here!"

The lights eventually powered back on and things resumed.

"Er... SORRY!" He called after them. Seiren helped Luca back up, mumbling, "Some assembly still required..." Luca was rubbing his head and the newly created spanner-shaped bruise. The spanner, however flew into the palm of the Grapple Stunner, clipping his hip and nearly sending him arse over teapot again.

"One of these days this is going to kill you," he sighed, now nursing two bruises. "I would hate to find out what happens if I use this in a cutlery drawer."

"Eh, as long as you're around, I think you'd just magically attract all the nearby danger. It's worked before!" Seiren giggled, turning the Stunner back off to continue working on it.

Luca looked around again and found a glass bowl of candy. He took one, unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth and started chewing, mostly to forget that he'd been smacked in the face by a wrench.

"Uh, which one of those did you just eat?"

Luca chewed a little more. "It tastes like a battery."

"Huh... You sure that's it? No... you know, tingly feeling?"

Luca blinked a little. "Uh... maybe?" He could feel the gum tingling in his mouth, like sorbet or perhaps pop rocks, but harder and heavier, almost threatening to knock his perfect teeth out from inside. "I think its tingling."

"Uh... you remember those cans of that limited edition Phoenix Energy you gave me?"

Luca sweated, keeping his mouth shut as he realised that it was positively electric and negatively tasty.

"Well, those candies, er..." Seiren mumbled, scratching his neck. "They're made of 'em." Luca's face screwed up and he seemed to dance in place for a moment, teeth clenched as the sound of crackling exposed could be heard coming from behind his teeth.

"BUT WHY," he asked through clenched teeth.

"... For science? I was thinking more as a er... friendly deterrent? Um, yeah I have no good reasons here."

"THAT'S NOT A GOOD REASON!" Luca yowled, seemingly belching lightning as he talked, trying to shield his mouth from spewing lightning at Seiren. "WHY DO YOU MAKE THIS STUFF?!"

"AAAA BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP EATING CANDIES THEY SHOULDN'T!" Seiren squeaked, hiding under the table.

Then he found himself in front of the Grapple Stunner and a bolt of lightning emerged from his mouth, perhaps the biggest, and it hit the Grapple Stunner, powering it back up for a moment. On the plus side, that tingling sensation in his mouth was gone.

On the not so plus side a handful of tools were now sailing towards him. This time he saw it coming.

From his position, Seiren could hear the sounds of Luca grunting in punching exertion and the sounds of metal being punched, and metal hitting the walls of his workshop and the floor outside. When the silence came and his arms came down, Seiren noticed that the last two things to sail towards him were in his hands, a wrench and a screwdriver, both caught by the handle.

"Ooooora..." he breathed as he admired his handiwork and a very annoyed looking Melissa, face positively red and froglike as she looked for Seiren. "You might not wanna come out," Luca sighed.

"Y-yeah, I think I'm gonna stay here. For a while. Until it's safe," the small voice came from under the table. It looked like there was still a LOT of work to be done. On the bright side, this display gave Seiren ideas...

A couple of tense minutes passed before Melissa got bored of looking for him and focussed what little attention back to that engine upgrade with Allison.

"Well that was terrifying," Luca said as he walked towards one of the walls of Seiren's workshop and pulled a wrench out of the drywall. "So it can bring things towards me with a big enough jolt..."

The inventor peeked from his hiding place, nervously smiling. "Let's work on the more close range things, huh?" Luca nodded back in reply and gave the side of Seiren's desk a boot to make him skitter back out.

-OFF!
 
Shota Kageyama - Jubilife City

Crimson Kestrel, Hangar Workshop

Vitalia dropped her guitar on the table and leaned on it, watching Seiren working and waiting for his attention.

Seiren kept a small, improvised workshop space in a corner of the Hangar bay, with his truck parked nearby, partially to shield from prying eyes, and partially because the truck was where he lived. Otherwise, with all the bric-a-brac, the place looked as though it were a Freespacer's flea market - or a bad Nepleslian hot dog stand.

Vita cleared her throat. "Hey. Seiren."

The inventor jumped in place, dropping a multi-tool he had in his hand on the table with a loud clatter into the parts he was screwing together.

"A-ah? Ah, Vita. Hello! What brings you 'round here?" he asked, cheerily picking up the tool and inspecting it. His expression held after he nodded a confirmation to himself. Seiren fully faced Vita now, placing the tool back on the table. "Or are you looking for a gadget of your own?"

Shaking her head, Vita pushed the guitar across the table towards Seiren. "I got this in the mail, but it got busted up. I was kind of hoping you could look at it? I think the neck's twisted and I haven't tried plugging it in yet, either."

"Huh. . . Well, I'm no expert on instruments, but I'll give it a shot," he said. Seiren took the guitar in hand and carefully nudged his previous project aside. Several minutes went by before he finally came to a conclusion.

"Yes, this is most certainly a busted instrument," he declared, lifting the bent part. "It was busted up when you got it, yeah?"

"Yeah." Vita played with a curl at the end of her ponytail, idly, though she seemed down. About the guitar? "Just came like that. I thought you might have tools or something like that. I don't know anything about it."

Seiren rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh. "U-uh. . . I mean, I'll see what I can do, but this isn't my area of expertise. Yanno? I'll give it a few hours of work."

The girl smiled. "Making electric balls of magnetic pain, though, you can do?"

"I was on a sugar high when I came up with that! And it took me hours to reverse-engineer my own goddamn prototype. . . but it was really, really cool."

As if on cue, he unwrapped a jawbreaker he took from a nearby bowl. Popped it into his mouth.

"And don't take the candies marked with a lightning bolt, if you have any."

"Why?"

"They're candies made of lightning."

Vitalia looked somewhat incredulous. "Got any with you?"

"I mean they're all in the bowl-" No sooner had he finished the sentence, then Vita had snagged the bowl and pulled it over, searching through the various candies. She found one of them almost immediately and held it up between her middle and index finger, grinning.

"Y-yeah that's the one but uh. . . I mean-"

"Okay so how do I make the lightening?"

"I mean it's basically the experimental Phoenix Energy in crystalline sugar form, so as soon as your saliva's digestive enzymes crack the candy shell. . ."

Flick. The little candy drifted up, into the air, and for a long moment - longer than the moment should have any right to be - it soared, free. Then, Vita just managed to catch it in her mouth on the way down. She sucked on it thoughtfully, resuming her previous lean, apparently unconcerned.

Seiren watched the display with mild horror splayed across his face. "Your dad's totally gonna kill me. . ."

She shifted the candy to the other side of her mouth. Suspense. Trepidation. "Why?"

"Well right about now you should be spitting lightning. Well, it took Luca about thirty seconds to start breathing sparks, but. . ." Seiren whistled innocently, flicking a switch on a nearby APC to power down his electronics. What had it been? Fifteen? Twenty seconds? Vitalia stopped sucking on the candy, apparently a little nervous now.

"What if I just spit it out?"

"It might explode in that case. I'm just uh. . . gonna hide. . . Under my desk. . . right now."

Seiren bolted for the safety of his worktable. Somewhere behind him, in the danger zone, he heard her spit. Lightning followed, along with the roar of thunder. Localized chaos; lights flickering, some of his electronics temporarily making strange, staticy sounds.

Seiren would have to remember, in the future, to have his lightning rods set up permanently. This was happening far too often for his liking.

After what had been a relatively short time, Vitalia poked her head down under the desk where he was hiding, apparently no worse for wear, and grinned at him. "Mind if I take a few of them? That was actually pretty cool." The inventor just stared at her, dumbfounded. This family was CRAZY.
 
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