Heart of Metal
Chapter 1: Accidents
A/N: Uh...yeah.
"Hey son, what can I ge'cha?" the man smiled, too sincere to be considered appropriate for a hot dog vendor, in Soul's opinion. As it was a Saturday, families, friends, and couples strolled the open streets. Not a single car could be seen in this active city.
"A hotdog, no mustard." he ordered simply, pushing up his shades in case any vivid red could be seen above tinted glass. He was already getting a lot of stares just for his white hair, some kids even screaming when he accidentally showed his sharp teeth (That was pretty un-cool).
"No problem, I've never seen you around these parts before, Kid." the man squirted a generous amount of ketchup before rolling the hot dog in aluminum foil.
"Just got here." Soul said simply as he took the hot dog and gave the man a dollar. He just wanted to go back to his new penthouse and just chill with some video games. Where were all the police sirens? The blood-rushing clubs? The afternoon traffic? This city was boring.
And then a loud alarm had him jumping a foot in the air.
He stood corrected.
"Well you're just in time to see a DWM match, here they come." the hotdog man grinned, turning to the center of the particular park where a crowd had formed.
"DWM..?" Soul echoed, turning to the scene himself. Robots. He almost dropped his hotdog, "What the heck are those things?"
"You've never heard of the DWM?" the hot dog man laughed, "The Death Weapon-Meisters battles? Well you're looking at the weapon-meister part right now!"
"Death Weapon-Meisters?" Soul mumbled, unconsciously moving closer.
Now that he thought about it, those robots had humans strapping in to them. One robot looked strangely like a bird, with a tail and spindly metal wings with a sharp beak for a helmet. Currently adjusting a plethora of wires was a geeky-looking boy.
He was completely bald save for two patches of isolated hair above his ears. His dorky, swirl-patterned glasses flashed in the sunlight. Another man was already strapped in to the machine, looking quite bored.
"How's that feel? Is the wrist still tight?" Dork Wonder asked, screwing back the platelet on the robot's arm.
Soul watched in fascination as the other man left his hand, encased in the robot's more deadly looking claw, and flexed his fingers.
"It feels good, not as much resistance. Should be enough to defeat another of her failures."
Dork Wonder snorted, "Yeah, probably. Do you think Kim's here?"
"I seriously doubt it, Ox."
Dork Wo- Ox, looked noticeably disappointed, but continued suiting up his partner.
"That there's the mechanic."
Soul jumped once more.
"Sorry," the hot dog man laughed, "Did I scare you?"
"Uh...no, you mean that freak with the glasses?" Soul diverted the subject.
"You shouldn't insult a mechanic boy, those type are devilish smart. He constructed that machine over there, you know?"
Dork Wonder after all.
"And the guy inside..?"
"He's the pilot." the man whistled when the armor completely encased the boy, the metallic bird came to life then and shrieked a warning, flapping it's wings which emitted sparks.
"Is there a malfunction?" Soul panicked.
"Nah.. it's just taunting its opponent. Over there."
Soul's eyes strayed to the other machine, assembled so strangely he couldn't tell which animal it was. The mechanic was currently fighting with her pilot.
"You're insane!" the pilot exclaimed, trying to get out of the suit furiously. The mechanic slapped a hand on to her forehead, thoroughly smudging her already dirty face.
"Chickening out, I knew you were useless." she grumbled, letting the pilot struggle his way out.
"You didn't tell me we were against the Thunder Team!" he shouted at her, jamming an accusing finger at her face. That bothered Soul slightly, until she bit the pilot's finger.
He swore, yanking his hand back and stomping away, giving her the finger as he went. He pushed through the crowd roughly, knocking over a person of two.
"Hey kid," the hot dog man said calmly, "You going to leave the match like that?"
"Yeah?" the boy hissed, throwing his helmet on to the ground, "You want to go up against that?"
He jammed a thumb back to where the large mechanical bird was currently showing off to the crowd, lightning shooting out of its metal feathers. "That bitch hasn't even made a functioning Weapon yet! I just did this to get on her friend's good side."
He pushed passed the rest of the crowd, effectively shoving Soul to the front of the crowd.
Sucked for him really, seeing as how the dropped helmet was now in his way. He cursed, tripping over the stupid object and falling right on top of the mechanic herself.
She screamed, not those high girly screams where they just tried to alert for someone. She gave a scream of fury, eyes flashing with something that gave Soul a chill down his spine and smacked him right on the top of his head.
Soul saw stars for a second, stumbling backwards, and right in to something that felt kind of weird.
"What the-"
That weird something had come to life at that instance, wrapping around Soul's body like nylon, fitting his form perfectly.
"What the-"
"Get out of my machine you IDIOT!"
"How?" he growled, reaching to tear off a belt strapped across his chest, to realize a metal arm had reached for it instead.
"Oh shit." the two said at the same time.
He looked to the mechanic's panicked face (no doubt holding some sort of shocked face himself) when a helmet clunked over his vision, suddenly showing the world in a tinted yellow.
"Hello? Are you the pilot?" a voice Soul could tell was the other pilot's asked, his static voice alert.
"Uh..."
"Energy at 94%." an inhuman female voice listed off then, statistics flashed on the yellow tinged screen constantly, colored charts and maps swirling around too fast for his eye to catch.
"XF866 fully installed. Auto-pilot, on."
"Fuck!" Soul growled, "Get me outta here!"
"Is your machine malfunctioning?" was the pilot's voice when a much more angry voice almost burned his ear off.
"GET OUT OF MY MACHINE YOU THIEF!"
"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW HOW!" Soul bellowed back.
"Commencing battle."
"Say what?"
Soul yelped with less manliness that he would own up to when the machine jerked to life, humming with contained energy. He stared helplessly at all the controls and buttons, settling for just holding the strange handle bars on either side of him.
He could hear the faint 'oohs' and 'ahs' from outside and Soul realize he and the bird were now circling each other.
"It's auto-pilot is on, Harver," Soul heard the mechanic again, considerably calmer this time, "Take it down so I can murder whoever is inside."
"It was an accident okay-" Soul's head jerked back when the machine lunged at the bird. It dodged just barely, shooting out its beak to clamp on the rampaging-machine.
The crowd had long since backed away, cheering from a distance.
"Alright, sorry whoever you are. I'm going to break the machine and get you out of there." the disinterested voice informed, "You're going to feel slight discomfort-"
Soul yelled when he felt the machine get thrown to the ground, "SLIGHT?"
"Oh deal with it, you big baby." that infuriating voice again!
"Functions freezing, witch-hunter off, resonance off, auto-pilot off, w-"
Did it just say the auto-pilot-
Soul grunted when he felt the bird attacking again, holding on to the handles of the machine for all her was worth. And then he realized they were moving. "Oh shit.."
Harver was a bit surprised when Maka's new Weapon jammed it's arms at him. He yanked his machine back before the deadly claws could reach.
"Oi, Maka, I thought you said it was on auto-pilot."
"It's supposed to be!"
"Uh..it's not." Soul said, realizing he was now controlling the metallic hands, and that those handlebars were part of a glove, "It kind of shut off when you threw me to the ground."
"Oops."
Soul got it now...he could tell when his own feet moved, the machine's moved, the numbers had slowed now that he wasn't on auto-pilot. Soul stood up easily, the feeling of destructibility radiating from his skin.
He was in control.
And he was still in control when Harver tried to slice him with a wing. Soul unconsciously blocked it with his arm.
"What the...how are you controlling it?" the now known Maka's voice asked, her voice was no longer panicked or angry. More like...incredulous?
"How can anyone not?" Soul suddenly grinned, wrapping his fingers around the wing and yanking the bird over his shoulder. He heard Harver grunt before feeling a beak clamp on the outer metal shell of his arm.
Soul's grin only widened, and he spun, trying to dislodge the obstruction. The bird simply clamped two large claws around his other arm and leg, binding Soul to stay on his knees.
"Hey, Idiot, now that you're on manual, turn off the machine." Maka's voice said, sounding a bit nervous, "I didn't want my machine to get too damaged."
"Ah, oops." Soul snapped out of his recent high. When Harver felt the machine drop its grip, he let go himself.
"You see the key down under the control panel?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Turn it and pull."
He did so, realizing it slid out a calculator-like object.
"Just hit the red button, that should do an immediate power down and auto-open of the cock-pit."
Soul pushed the button reluctantly. He felt like a little kid who had to give up his would-be Christmas present. The machine instantly quieted, as did Harver's.
The yellow screen lifted up along with the top of the metal frame, revealing Soul to a sea of applauding onlookers.
"Hey, Idiot." he turned to the mech-Maka. She was staring at him grimly.
"Uh...sorry." he scratched the back of his head with his real arm, prepared for another outrageous attack.
"You busy?" she said suddenly.
"Huh?"
She huffed, putting her hands on her hips, "You were good, you want to be my Meister?"
"You serious, Maka?" that was Dork Wonder, who was helping Harver out of his Weapon.
"He was compatible, which was a good start from all the lame candidates I've had so far. No one's been able to sync up with the Dragon like this idiot." she snapped at him.
Soul's eyebrow twitched. Could she stop calling him idiot?
"So what do you say? The pay's good, if you're wondering."
Holy- he was going to get paid?
"Uh, I'm kind of new." Soul said as she easily unlocked the chest hatchet and helped him out, "I only heard about the DWM today."
Maka snorted, "That makes this even better. Here, my phone number. Call me later if you're interested."
Soul was vaguely reminded of a pick-up line.
"Hah! You that desperate to hire a newbie?" Dork Wonder jibed and Maka growled. Soul sensed a bit of rivalry.
"You're lucky we weren't even close to destruction mode Ox!"
"Yeah, or we would have to pay to clean up your poor Dragon's remains."
"Bah! Whatever! We'll show you when this idiot gets trained up! Hey, Idiot! Move away from the merchandise!"
+Short chapter because I got a presentation tomorrow~
+Need help some help with storyline (again). Just some names for machines, who gets what type and what not. Like I've said before...I'm not creative. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
+Leaving machine description to your imagination. I would say the size of these weapon/machines would be about 8 feet tall, it's really just machine armor (with cool gadgets).