RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 6: Hart Issues

ON> Queen's Slave, CIC.

Uso had swapped out of her more business oriented bodysuit and was lounging around in the CIC wearing sweat pants and a black tank top, her hair pulled back in a high bun to keep it out of her eyes as she looked over the display in the center of the Queen's Slave. The table itself in the center of the room was displaying footage of the battle Alex had gotten caught up in on various volumetric screens. The entire place may have even looked professional if it wasn't for the power armor that was half-disassembled off to one side, a reminder that the ship was still a fairly small one, with many of the rooms pulling double-duty.

"So newboots, I'd ask you what you're story is, but from what I hear you don't quite know yourself?"

Hesitantly, Alex responded, "Yes ma'am. The first thing that I can remember is being woken up aboard the Necromancer."

"Then there is little point in talking about that. We could drop you off on Nepleslia if you like, but it sounds like there wouldn't be much for you on that planet anyways. I guess that makes the next bit pretty simple. Want a job shooting things for money?" Uso offered.

Taken aback by the sudden offer, Alex was nervous. "I mean, I guess that's my only real option at the moment."

"Don't talk much do you?" Uso asked, standing up straight and shifting her weight ot one side.

"I really don't have much experience with social situations." Alex replied, grinning sheepishly. "All I really know is how to fly that thing," he said, "And I don't know much about combat in it." He gestured toward the screens. "As you can see, all I was good at was dodging." Just then, one of the screens began to show clips of him attacking the misshu craft.

"You don't have much experience with anything." Uso replied, "...which means we have some problems regarding how to integrate you into this operation. Lucky for you we need pilots and just about every able body we can get our hands on. So what do you want?"

"I guess the first thing I'd like would be to know what I'll be doing," Alex said. "Another thing that might need to be done would be fix up my mecha."

"That's all pretty short term stuff.... I was talking more about your long term goals." Uso replied, "Who exactly am I dealing with? Do you have a good idea of that?"

"I'm not really sure about that. I mean, the only things I can think of at the moment is that I want to help people and get better at piloting my mecha. I guess finding out about my past would be good as well." Realizing that he had no idea of who he would be working for, Alex began to become curious.

"Not very ambitious then? We'll get your bot working again, and we'll assign you a flight lead. Just be sure to follow any orders given and you'll be fine."

Uso paused for a bit, and then looked over at Alex,

"Wait... I can't just leave it at that. You've got that lost puppy look. Have a seat." She said, walking over to him and doing her best to size him up, Uso's purple eyes starting with his shoes, and then working their way up towards his face. "You beg more questions than you ask. Quite frankly that's fuckin weird. People don't wake up without memories and just sorta go 'oh ok, I guess that's that.'... Unless you're the submissive type? Just waiting for someone to latch onto you hm?"

As Alex sat down he began to act confused, "What do you mean by that?" When Uso took a step towards him he began to become nervous. "Listen, I'm still trying to figure out who I am now, let alone anything else."

"So decide who you are. Sure you're fresh from the tube but you're humanoid. That means you probably already have some kind of personality built in. Clearly you've got a thing for giant robots but you've also got no direction in life. You barely seem to care about how you got here... " Uso would pause for a moment before adding, "What do you like?"

"Well, whenever I start to worry or think about how I got here, for some reason I get a splitting headache. It's like something is keeping me from thinking about it-" Alex stopped for a moment, puzzled. "What do you mean, what do I like?"

Uso covered her face with her hands for a moment, "OOOOOH kay..... " She huffed, "Do you like women? Do you aspire to get laid? Do you care that much about how you got here?"

"Of course I care how I got here. I just can't seem to concentrate on thinking about i-... what?" Startled by the question, Alex scooted backwards.

Alex sure looked funny trying to take a step backwards while sitting down, Uso leaning in, putting her hands on his shoulders to press him against the back of his seat, "I said, Do you like women? There has to be something that motivates you. I don't think you're just a Popsicle designed strictly for mecha piloting. Does thinking about that make your head hurt too?"

"I, I don't know... I mean, I guess I don't mind talking to pretty girls..." At this point Alex had begun to blush profusely. When he heard Uso mention motivation he was happy to change the subject. "I think that I would like to try to find out more about my past if I can get rid of these headaches."

"Do you like men then? Candy maybe? Movies? Toy cars? There's got to be something that you enjoy... " Uso said, a bit of frustration creeping into her voice as she continued to press the subject, keeping Alex pinned in place while she awaited an answer.

Alex was becoming more and more uncomfortable. "Look, I'm not sure what you want to hear. I honestly don't know what I enjoy."

"BAH!" Uso shouted, "You can't not like things.... Food. How about food?" She looked at the skinny little kid infront of her and furrowed her brow, "Or.... FUCK!" Uso looked like she was trying to drill into the kid's head with her glare, "Shooting things? You like that right?"

Remembering the freedom he felt when he first took off in the mecha, Alex said, "I guess I liked flying my mecha. Well, before it started to get shot at anyways."

"I swear if you don't start giving straight answers I'm going to tear out that defective spine of yours and replace it with something stiffer." Uso said.

Becoming more and more worried, Alex said the first thing that came to mind. "I've heard of this thing called chocolate."

"Well... I guess it is a start." Uso said, letting Alex go for the time being, "Go hunt down Vier, talk to her, get your robot working again then we can figure out what to do with you."

ON> Osman City Landing Fields, Pumpkin Eater.

The I'ee had certainly come a long way in a very short time. What was once gentle rolling dirt and mud had largely been turned into flat, solid, concrete. The landing field stretching a little bit more than a kilometer in every direction, certainly large enough for Uso's latest purchase to land.

The Pumpkin Eater itself was a giant frieghter, looking like little more than a large, rounded, box shape that was much longer than it was wide, and much wider than it was tall, with some stubby wings on the end that had engines on them that were now partially dissasembled. The front and back loading doors were opened up to make ramps, and a combination of Junker drones and workers from the city were busy hauling buckets of sand, dirt, and other mess into the rear of the ship, the entire process being observed by Vier, watching from the side in her grey running shirt and shorts.

The Captain of the heavy freighter stood beside the ship, arms crossed as she eyed the happenings. Before she could wonder any longer, she approached the woman in grey and extended a hand, "I've seen you only on the beach and perhaps a time after that, but I've forgotten my manners along with some other things of equal value recently, so let me rectify that and offer my invitation for a hello. I am Aashi Nath, current Captain of this beaut."

"Vier," She would point to herself for a moment, before extending her hand to shake.

"Good to finally meet you Vier, I-" she began to say before hearing someone walk up nearby. Turning around, she saw Alex walk up to her and Vier. "Oh?" Aashi said, instead, "Oh, Alex. This is Alex, Vier. Vier, Alex." Extending a hand in greeting, Alex introduced himself. "Err, hello. I think I recognise you from the beach."

"Uso instructed me to help you get your mecha functional again." Vier said, turning her attention towards Alex. "This will require some custom work, as we do not have the plans for your machine, nor the inclination to purchase a new one. One of the Junkers has been assigned to this task, and I can directly assist you with the middle work between the new design work and getting the junker to preform that work."

She would then turn her attention to Aashi, ever concerned with the work infront of her, "I am uncertain how I can assist you in captaining the Pumpkin Eater. Right now we are working on moving the fabrication equipment to its own area so that the rest of the ship is free for other work. Of course, we can not spare the time to have the fabrication equipment turned off, so there is a bit of work involved in cutting it out of the ship, and then moving the rest of the ship."

"It seems the two of you have a lot of work to do together," Aashi said, unfurling her arms from in front of her stomach and taking a step away from the two. She said, "I'll be in the galley for a short while. Is there anything I can get you two while I'm there, food-wise?"

Slightly hesitant, Alex replied, "I'm not sure. Whatever you think would be good I guess." Turning his attention back to Vier and the mecha, he began to have an idea. "Hey Vier, might the computer on-board the mecha have some information we can use?"

Aashi took her leave and could hear Alex's voice less and less as she went into the ship.

"It has specifications for parts, and much of the original design can be inferenced from what we've seen or public avalible documentation but specifications are not design and construction documents. We will be better off replacing the arms and shoulders with our own mechanical arms. We have the full specifications for a variety of arms used with the Junker Drones and I would like to use those to approximate what you had on your machine before it was damaged." Vier replied.

"I don't know much about engineering, but I think that would work." Alex responded.

"It is acceptable to leave the engineering to me." Vier replied. "What I require from you is consent to carry out the modifications, and whatever information you may have about your machine that would not be apparent from the general schematics available online. We also have an issue of arming your machine as most of your weapons were destroyed in combat. While I am not familiar with using this kind of vehicle in combat. I also suspect that we may not work well together if I select your weapon systems."

"I'm going to go take a look at it," Alex said, "see if there is anything that we can use." Walking around the armless mecha, which was located a few yards away from The Pumpkin Eater, Alex examined it. In a kneeling position, it was in decent shape aside from the loss of its arms. The white and orange pair was scratched and there were many dents, but for the most part it looked serviceable. Alex saw some weapons remaining on the craft. One seemed to be some sort of giant sniper rifle and the other, a set of missile launchers located on the hips. Calling out in Vier's direction, "I found a couple of weapons still here"

Vier would look over in this direction, watching as Alex walked around the slumped over mech. The entire thing looked like a doll that had its arms torn off and was left on the floor. The shoulder areas seemed entirely melted, and there wasn't much left of the armored panels along the front either. "I would recomend intigrating them into the machine on their own mounts, but I suppose you would prefer to keep them separated?" Vier asked.

"I think that integrating some weapons would be wise," Alex said, "but I think keeping some hardpoints available would be smart as well"
Remembering how the shields of the NMX ravager had thrown off his attack, Alex had an inkling of an idea. "I wonder," he said, "could we put some sort of anti shield weapon in one arm?"

"If you wish, but is the arm the best choice for placement? Intigrating it into the head would provide a greater range of fire, and the chest-space is currently unused." Vier replied. "We will need to replace the chest armor anyways, or at least attach some additional armor over the melted components to get it back up to spec."

"I suppose that all depends on how big it is." Alex replied, "when I was in battle I noticed that there were some beam weapons in the head that the mecha seemed to use to shoot down missiles automatically. Could you modify those to be able to disable or pierce shields as well as function as effective anti missle weapons?"

"Yes," Vier said, "Would you like to discuss the specifics of anti-missile operations or would you prefer I handle it?"

"I think that you probably understand that better," Alex said. "I'm also wondering if we can squeeze some sort of cannon into the left arm and as a rapid fire weapon for taking out conventional vehicles and armoured infantry in the right one"

"Very well," Veir said, "Though please keep in mind that this machine can only carry so much weight and still retain its speed and manuverability. Adding additional weight to the arms will wear out the arms faster as well. In other words, the more weapons we intigrate into the machine, the fewer weapons you will be able to carry with you. While anti-personal weapons are fairly small, carrying the larger anti-armor gear will require much more arm-space."

"I guess that makes sense," Alex said, " I'm out of ideas for now. My suggestions were mostly guesses on what the best thing would be."

"Look what we have!" Aashi said, returning from the ship's galley with a tray of gyoza, steamed buns, bowls of shrimp and ramen noodles, and glasses of water. "Vier, would you mind bringing that table over here to set them on? Thank you," she said. "Make any headway?"

"Errr, A little I guess." Said Alex. "Thanks for the food by the way."

"We are still trying to square the circle between completing the repairs of this unit and ensuring that our fleet will be able to handle the NMX force in the Ee'ee system," Vier said, one of the junker drones breaking off from its duties. The mechanical spider would bring its large bucket of ore over to Aashi, then extend two small mechanical tendrils to lift up the table and set it back down where she requested. It would then scoop up some of the dirt and compact it into an earthen chair, making three such small mounds before returning towards the Pumpkin Eater.

"Thank you, I suppose," Aashi said as she beckoned Alex to sit down. "Why is repairing the mecha and handling the NMX at odds with one another?" she asked.

"Uso requested that I assist Alex in repairing his mecha and 'get it how he likes'." Vier said, quoting Uso as directly as she could while moving to sit down, "And for the time and resources it takes to repair this machine, I could produce another dozen F2 combat drones. With a done all I need to install is a simple Vier node to run the drone, engines, weapons, and a sensor package. All fairly cheap and they will respond as expected consistantly. In comparison, our flight wing has reacted with less than optimal tactics during the inital NMX encounter. Of course, I could install a full Vier node on this Mecha and force Alex to pilot and target optimally but this would also involve removing Alex from the machine...

... Uso has instructed me not to do that."

"Vier, the idea of combat in its core is the idea of a team working to immobilize others. It isn't to have heartless drones being sent off to mass murder. The joy in doing that should be reserved for sentient life forms. Vier, take me, for instance. I cannot use synthetics or cybernetics. My race can't handle what you do, but some of us fight and conquer regardless, to great reward. My view is that to fight, you must fight with your heart. To win, you must have passion and drive to do so. Drones and robotics help pave the road to victory, but we the people ride on that road. Discounting Alex is discounting the entire nature of combat, of war," Aashi said.

"Please do not misunderstand. The question of the human element in warfare is not entirely lost on me. I represent nearly a decade of work on solving that particular problem." Vier said, placing her hands on the table infront of her but not eating just yet, "Normally what you would point out is organizations like Yamatai use organic soldiers instead of drones, while groups like Avanet, QIS, and even to an extent the Nepleslians and Elysians use a force heavily augmented with drones. I can bombard you with statistics for reaction time, power to weight raitos, even my predisessor's steller kill ratios against organicly crewed ships but at the end of the day those all-drone forces have not been able to acomplish what Yamatai has." Vier huffed a bit, sounding a bit frustrated with her inability to put these thoughts into words.

"There does seem to be a role for people in war, however I am not certain that placing them out front is the best option. If I was not following Uso's orders, we would waiting another month before engaging the NMX, and I would need three times the number of drones to defeat the enemy force with minimal losses. As it is, that will not be the case."

Busy eating, Alex observed as the two talked. This was his first time eating most of these foods, and his eyes widened in amazement at the taste.

Aashi smiled at Alex as he ate and turned back to Vier, saying, "When I was given command of this ship it was said in the same that I should do whatever I could to help you do your job. I wanted to know what that job was and, secondly, how I can help you in accomplishing it."

"Right now that job is to produce a fleet capable of destroying the NMX force at Ee'ee. As I do not have a full production facility avalible, I am having to make due with what I have brought, and what Uso has provided. The additional complications include caring for the people of this planet and ensuring that they are fairly treated for their assistance with building this attack force. Things like tasking Junker Drones to this mecha rebuild will slow other tasks like growing our production facility. Then there is an issue of labor force, as I can expand the factory size faster with more junker drones assigned to that task, but there is a point where I need to start tasking more drones to deliver raw materials to the factory to use the extra capacity that is created. Arrcos has been quite helpful in organizing the locals to free up the Junker drones to work on more important tasks but even so we can not organize enough of them to meet the demands from the factory."

"The best way to go about really getting things done is having a large workforce behind you, as you're doing. Arccos can only rally the troops so much if there are minimal troops to rally, though. I see a lot of this problem being freed up once the Vekimen arrive. I had never heard of them and I'm assuming you haven't either, but they're spooky scaley creatures that exist in caves they've built on a planet new to them after being used as slave labor for centuries." Aashi took a bite of a dumpling and set the remainder of it down on her plate. "Once the Vekimen arrive, 5000 of them, total, we will have the work force you are looking for. Once they do, I can assume you will have your hands free to really make the ships you're looking to make. And once you make those, you are free to use your attack force to destroy the NMX once and for all for the precious little I'ee I saw scuttling on the beach some time ago. Am I missing something or am I right on the money, hmmm?" she asked before picking up the rest of the dumpling and tugging a piece off with her hand and popping it into her mouth.

"I can not give optimized numbers without knowing the amount of material they will be able to move per unit time, but anything helps. 5000 Vekimen could be a three or four sized multiplier to our force size. Even so there is still a limit to how fast I can grow our numbers and I think launching the attack at the end of the month would be premature." Veir would pause for a moment, before adding, "Do they still use slave labor?"

Aashi had chewed fully and said, "I would like to know more about this attack, but that question I will pursue after we have dicussed the current issue at hand. The Vekimen are not the slavers, but have been the slaves. Uso is granting them the opportunity to work for payment, of sorts, since their history as slaves is done and over with."

"That is acceptable then, assuming the Vekimen are paid a fair wage for their work." Vier said, pausing before continuing, "The attack will use a wild rabit chase into a leapfrog style strike. Our first ship will arrive in system and bait out the NMX's perimeter defense unit. From our previous encounter we expect them to keep one carrier and eight mid-weight ships in reserve ready to jump into the system to attack or block off as nessisary. We expect them to jump ontop of our first ship and cripple it with their initial volley. Our fleet will then use the targeting data provided by the first ship to jump ontop of the enemy fleet for maximum effect. At current production rates I expect to have three drone ship-killers and a few hundred anti-ship kenetic kill vehicles. I expect to be able to cripple this portion of the NMX fleet with a loss of only 90% of our comitted force...

... Of course, that still leaves 15 mid-weight craft and two carriers inside of the Ee'ee system's hill sphere. We will not have the force strength to deal damage to the remainder of their force."

"I can see why Uso wants you around, you seem to know what you're talking about and when to talk about it. I like that, I do," she said. Then, rather bluntly, she said, "I see myself as an asset to this group alive. I would like to know what I can do on-planet before this happens, in case I wind up dead in the process. I would like to add to Uso's plan before then, but need to know what it is I can do for you."

"I do not intend to send in our manned units for this combat operation if that is what you are worried about." Vier said, a slight smile coming to her face, "Uso says she knows what she is doing, and to...." That smile immediately softened a bit, "Make it work... If you can help arrange the Vekimen's resourcing operation and take the load off my junker drones I can increase the amount of ships we can bring to the initial engagement and help ensure that more survive."

"That is done, if both Uso and you need it done, then consider it done. Now, i wanted to know. Could you imagine building a tall building? Taller than these shacks around us, by the beach, with perhaps ammenities and restaurants within its ground floor and rooms and compartments on the top floors? You may not see hwta I'm getting at, but Uso needs something to draw people in to the planet and keep them here, and I want to know if we can build what she needs."

"She did express an intrest in building an arcology style structure here, but currently all of our production is being focused on building done ships for combat. Once this initial phase of the contract is fufilled, she will be expected to use that production capacity to construct a Very Large Array as soon as possible, and then a deep liquid emersion neutron telescope before the end of the year. Inbetween those two projects we can scope out the underground bedrock and begin construction on a foundation for the city...." Vier paused again before adding, "Though, Uso's plans tend to be fairly fluid."

"But if I were to...procure," she said, choosing words carefully, "the materials to build an arcology style structure, one the Iromakuanhe are inherently good at creating, would that please her?"

"We do have an abundance of money, and a lack of local production. Sourcing the materials from elsewhere would certainly be preferable to building them entirely on site."

"I'll source them, then. A small amount of money will do. I have my connections throughout the planets and systems, still. I'll be able to find something suitable. By the way, are there any filtartion plants for the Algae sea?"

"The Algae filters the water as it passes inside of it. The larger grape sized pieces have a small amount of fresh water inside of them. Though I assume you mean large scale filtration. A junker drone was setup to use electrical-field-filtering to purify a small amount of the water during the Volleyball game, but no large scale facility has been setup yet." Vier replied.

Aashi responded, "Hmmm, it makes me think of a biomedical molecular furnace from back home. It can filter water and make it medicinal, or just make it drinking water. Your choice. If I can get my hands on one of those, which are sold pretty commonly, we could get ourselves a solution to that problem."

"Getting one or two should not be a problem. But please remember that we are needing to deploy this kind of technology on a large scale. We could have billions of people on this planet." Vier responded.

"One or two or ten," Aashi said, "I got it. Besides all of this, anything you need on a perosnal level, Vier? A different assortment of food? Are you a drinking type of girl? Tell me about yourself while Alex finishes his last remaining food before we grill him about his mecha again."

"..." It took Vier a while to come up with a response. "I am... this." She explained, "Where you might have billions of other people to draw a cultural memory from, my line is 3.... well, 2 people. I was made to run things, to manage large scale systems. Where you might wonder what you were meant to do in this world, I do not. This work is what I was made for, and I think I am exceedingly good at it."

"I can only imagine, then," Aashi said, setting down the dumpling she had only just picked up. Well, who created you and who are those two people?"

"Please keep in mind that the barriers between people are fairly straight forward. While you have a family tree, I have version control management. Before me there was Ein, Zwei, and Drei, though only the later two directly contributed anything to me." She explained, "My father would be Heram J. Wazu, and it was his experiances with Zwei helping run QIS, and Drei helping to run Nepleslia that led to me. While I am very similar to other AI systems, I am still partially human. I really have more in common with cyborgs than I do with super-computers and that is mainly an attempt at solving the Avanet problem. The issue with a pure AI system that seems to result in that system failing."

"Control management sounds a lot less familial than I was expecting. I didn't know such a person can exist, acually. You are an anomaly to even me. Well Alex, what do you think?"

Having finished his food, Alex was now free to participate in the conversation. "I'm afraid I don't really understand most of what you're talking about." Cocking his head to the side slightly in thought, he continued. "But from what I do, Its seems like Vier is some sort of hive minded cyborg."
Turning his head to look at vier, he spoke once again, "You said that you were made to do a certain kind of work. I think that these implants might have been put in for a similar reason."

"It does seem that your implants and your mecha go together. From the packaging we found you in we could infer that you are supposed to be a package deal, intended for sale together. However I am not familiar with any companies currently engaged in that line of product development using humans." Vier responded.

"By the way," Alex said, "I just remembered something that happened on-board the necromancer. When I was first waking up, there was some text that said that the mecha had been remotely activated."

"The only combatants in that operation were us and the NMX. I find it unlikely someone else would activate your mecha then. It was likely responding to our commands to open your pod. I would have expected opening the pod would trigger whatever startup procedure there was for yourself and the machine." Vier said.

"That might be why, but it also said something about 'recognising a neural pattern.'" Alex responded.

"I am uncertain what you are getting at." Vier explained, "Mind machine interface technology is fairly standard, and that sounds like the usual startup process."

"It is?" Said Alex, "Well, goes to show how much I have to learn."

Several hours later>

A junker drone had removed the arms, and much of the exterior armor of Alex's 'bot. The huge mechanical spider was now carefully removing and replacing small mechnical joints inside of the robot as part of a process of connecting new arms.

"OK NEWBOOTS!" Uso yelled, the neko wearing a boonie hat, aviators, a fanny back hanging off her side hip, and a black and pink set of running shorts and a tank top... which did seem to clash a bit against the grey shotgun strapped to her back. "WHERE ARE YOU! GET OVER HERE!"

Turning to look in the direction of the loud sound, Alex wondered what was going on. Seeing Uso yelling something in his direction, he decided that it would probably be in his best interest, not to mention in the best interest of his health, to head over to her.

"Whats going on?" He asked as he approached. "Why do you need to see me?"

*CLACK*

Uso pulled the shotgun off her back and opened it up.

"So.... Newboots.... You've got a problem figuring out who you are in the very real sense of you don't know who the fuck you are, but also in the just as real sense of you're basically just a blank slate with a hard time figuring out your direction in life. While I can tolerate the first one." Uso said, one hand cradling the open shotgun, the other reaching into the fanny pack on her side and pulling out a pair of blue shotgun shells. "... I can't tolerate the second."

*CLICK*

Uso loaded the first round into the shotgun.

"And since I basically own you, your problem is my problem. So we've got to teach you how to be a useful person and we've got to do it fast."

*CLICK*

Uso loaded the second shell into the shotgun.

"See, Ronin's too cool for school, but no one gives a shit because he's so good no one CAN give him shit. You're basically a waste of space. You don't fight well. You're a liability to the group. You need to react faster and be more confident.... course it wouldn't help if you were about something... shit, focus on being so good at piloting that robot over there that no one can give you shit ever again, don't just be the best. ANY loser can dream of being the best.... and you'll find that none of those guys are the best at anything. Thinking you're the best breeds this mentality of stopping."

*CLACK*

Uso pumped the shotgun, loading the first round in the chamber.

"You're gonna have to work to get good Newboots. Take an intrest in every part of your mech, learn, practice... and more importantly get your head in the fucking game. You're fighting your next battle RIGHT NOW. Every bit of preparation you do will give you that much more of an edge. You also need to learn how to react in the battlespace. How to watch your surroundings. How to anticipate what is going to happen next and ALWAYS be doing something that helps you stay alive and achive your objective."


As Uso leveled the shotgun at him, his brain was wavering between fighting and running. Running didn't seem like it would work, after all he couldnt outrun a shotgun blast. Alex instinctively tensed up before sprinting at Uso while dodgeing from side to side, Alex closed the distance in the blink of an eye. As soon as he got close enough, he lashed out with his foot, which connected with the shotgun with a loud crack. The weapon flew out of Uso's hands and ending up a few yards away in the sand.

"So what was your plan there exactly?" Uso asked, "You disarmed me, sure, but now you're in hand to hand range with a creature designed to tear apart people like you. Just getting rid of my weapon isn't going to be enough, you got to use everything you've got. 'Course I'm not talking punching and kicking alone. You've got a mouth, you should try and talk me out of this as well. Call for help. Hell, be creative in using more than just your fists."

Uso would strike back against Alex, her palm open, her arm moving forward, her whole body turning to provide more force as she slamed her open hand against his chest. She clearly wasn't trying to break any bones, but the force would knock him back, and it would hurt.

Alex hadn't been expecting that. As he skidded along the ground, he could barely form a corehrent thought. After he had come to a stop, Alex stood up and shook his head. Taking stock of his surroundings, he noticed a small cloud of dust rising from the ground that he had slid along. I can use this. he thought. Picking up a hefty rock, Alex threw it with all his strength into the dusty ground.

The rock knocked up a plume of dirt, but it didn't seem to obscure Alex all that much, while Uso calmly walked over to where the shotgun had fallen, "Come on Alex, I expect better of you. Look at who you're up against. I'm a rocket powered death machine. You can't outrun me, you can't out punch me. What other options do you have avalible to you?"

Realising that he had no way of beating her on his own, Alex began to devise a different approach. Concentrating, he tried to reach out to his mecha the way he had on the Necromancer, instructing it to rise up and fly towards him. Meanwhile, he sat down and proclaimed, "I give up."

"Welll.... shit, that isn't what I wanted to hear." Uso said, picking up the shotgun, "You know you don't always get to just give up?"

*BLAM*

Alex didn't really have time to move in between when Uso pointed the shotgun at him, and when she fired. A beanbag flew at him at high speed, and hit him square in the chest.

As Alex toppled over from the force of the impact, the mecha arrived. Clumsily coasting in on its thrusters, it activated its ultraviolet laser nodes and targeted the shotgun in her hands, maneuvering its weapons to slice across the weapon. "But," Alex said, "I can out think you."

The shotgun lit up as soon as the lasers swept accross, creating a blinding light and tearing the shotgun in half, "That's a bit better new boots..."

" USO! ALEX!" Vier shouted, the woman coming stomping up from the landed Pumpkin Eater, "I was working on that machine. I can not fix it if you keep moving it around!"

".... Fiiiiine..." Uso said, sounding annoyed. "Points for the mecha... New training method: Talk me out of punching you."

Thinking for a moment before speaking, "Well, I'm one of your two mecha pilots, and if I get killed, then you either have to bring on someone new, or train a local."

"Don't expect your first attack to work. Always be ready to follow up with a second. You should be giving me another reason right as you finish your first. Keep them coming!" Uso said, taking a step towards him, a sense of purpose in her voice, "Consider what you have avalible to you. You're certainly right about being one of the very limited resources that I have. You've also got that big robot of yours to back you up. Maybe you have friends that could help you..."

As the fight cotinued, a small group of Vekimen wearing goggles had started to watch from a distance. A Vekimen wearing a full VDTF combat uniform with helmet walked over to see the Gathering and also got interested in the fight. Their loud talking could be heard from quite the distance, but they were all speaking Vekimen. One thing that was common though was an odd chuffing sound that all of them would make, almost like laughter. The one in armour pushed another over with the butt of his rifle and ominously walked towards the knocked over Vekimen who was over dramaticizing trying to get away while the group laughed.

One of the other Vekimen got on the shoulders of another in a feat of acrobatics, and waved it's arms around ominously, making the armoured Vekimen drop his weapon, and having the double Vekimen limber off. They were obviously reenacting the scene they were lookig at and having a good laugh. The armoured Vekimen picked up his rifle, and by the way none of the others went after it, they seemed to all have a good relationship with each other.

Thinking for a moment about what Uso had said, Alex spoke. "Well, I only really know Aashi..."

"UGGH!" Uso pulled some shotgun shells out of her fanny pack and threw them at Alex's head. "YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN!" She shouted, throwing another shell at him, "You keep starting and stopping without following through to a conclusion. If a task is set infront of you like giving me a reason not to kill you, you better give a solution rather than an excuse. Grow a fucking spine and say Aashi would be upset if you died, doesn't matter if it is true or not!"

The Vekimen listened to the whole situation, one of the falling over laughing. Watching this kid get yelled at by the Neko girl was great to them, seeing the whole difference. Sure, in Vekimen culture women were terrifying, but that was because they /were/ terrifying. The only reason their race survived was because of how terrifying the female vekimen could be in a fight. This though? Uso appeared to just be a small girl yelling at this cowering confused kid.

"You know what? Go take a break, I'll figure out how to make a man out of you eventually..." Uso said.



Continued Here