Chapter 11
Mindy's Perfected Diplomacy.
Mindy hangs her head. Then looks up to face the leader of this particular tribe in the light of day and without his helmet on for the first time. He's a smidgen over six feet and well built for a man with that much gray in his hair. He has a pair of ears on the top of his head that look like they were stolen from a German shepherd. He's also holding a rifle of some kind. In fact, most of the adults are. None of them are pointed directly at the two of them but some come closer than is polite and most of the tribesman carrying them have some fairly white-knuckle grips on the weapons.
Then there is some switch thrown in her brain. The fight or flight switch that was tampered with so extremely by her father.
Though she loves him dearly even in memory, she is at this point mature enough to recognize that the man had possessed many demons of his own. Dragging her into them was maybe not father of the year material. Whatever his intentions had been or the love he had shown her, in the end, it can't really be denied that he had fucked her up pretty severely. Sadly, knowing you've been screwed up in the head doesn't by itself solve the problem. Even if you wanted it too.
And really, it has to be said. She kind of doesn't.
"If we're gonna have a talk, put that crap away. If we are going to do anything else, just know that I won't go after anybody that doesn't shoot first. You can't intimidate me. Not with those pieces of shit, and not after I saw what passes for fighting around here already." She pauses for a moment, and as the man is angrily opening his mouth she continues. Talking over him. "I'm going to give you thirty seconds. After that, if I still see idiots waving guns around we'll get our bikes and leave. Everybody's happy, everybody's alive."
Dave is muttering under his breath.
"Damn it Mindy, what the hell?"
She doesn't take her eyes off the crowd for a second, only speak to Dave while seemingly waving her arms in front of her randomly.
Her armor appears on her body when she does this, the helmet a millisecond later. Though she does flip the face-plate up into 'visor mode.' Dave does the same moving at a frantic pace as the tribe begins to doubt what is going on even more.
"Screw these cocksuckers. We risked our lives to save their hides, have done nothing to earn this, and for that, they are trying to intimidate me? ME?! Fifteen seconds."
Dave steps in front of her.
"For crying out loud, everybody calm the hell down. Mindy, you don't get to do public relations anymore. Ever."
She smiles. "Then the first part of this plan worked out great. Five seconds."
The dog eared man, at this point quickly approaching a blind panic, screams out.
"Put them away, now!"
As one, the entire tribe hastens to make their weapons disappear. Some out of fear. But it should be clarified that many, perhaps even most, really weren't excited about this anyway. When the idea had been put forth during their sparring match to 'rattle sabers' in an effort to get answers, the idea was that it would, if everything worked out, be a precursor to potentially inviting them to join the tribe. Here in Vacuo, in the hellscape of Grimm and desert that chews up and spits out the weak or unwary, standoffs like this weren't uncommon. Almost expected, really. They had members now that had gone through similar and been with them happily for many years.
Nobody had ever reacted like this as far back as even the tales had been told. This was supposed to be the opening bid at the bargaining table. A way to show that the tribe was able to take care of their own, was worth joining. Not a declaration of war as it had been taken.
Though, to the best of anyone's knowledge, it had never been tried on anyone that was hunter caliber or better. Additionally, it is somewhat expected that a pair traveling without a tribe here would want to join up. That was not looking to be the case in this instance.
The old man sighs. All the weapons are still there of course. Most were placed on the ground. Many in the cabs of nearby vehicles. A few were merely holstered or slung, though it seems that is enough when the old man looks at her again with his hands half-raised.
"So, it's your move. What happens now?"
Mindy reaches out in front of her, pulls out a chair from her camping gear, unfolds it, and then sits down.
"Well, you were the one with questions." She shrugs. "Ask 'em"
Dave rolls his eyes and gets out his own chair while the old man's eyes go wide and he blurts out:
"Seriously?"
Mindy can't help it and looks to the sky as though she is asking the heavens for strength.
"Look you fuck'n cock-bobber, let's go over our history together. We see you are in trouble. We come to help. We are offered a meal we didn't get, access to water we haven't been shown to, and we stand around all damn night keeping watch so you people can sleep after telling you that we would be sparring in the morning. Then after we're done with said spar, you're demanding answers while forty people are waving guns around. If you really can't see how that could possibly put me in a shit mood, then I honestly don't know what to tell you."
Dave at this point is just holding his head in his hands trying to figure out if he's getting ready to laugh or cry. The old man is shaking his head in disbelief.
"You'd really just leave if we asked?"
Mindy shrugs. "We'd appreciate it if somebody could scribble out a map to the nearest city, we're pretty lost right now. But aside from that, sure. Nobody's gotten hurt yet despite your extreme levels of retardation, and all things being equal I'd rather keep it that way."
He looks as though he is starting to understand exactly what happened here, and he shakes his head.
"So if I asked how you are able to destroy rock with your hands and fight like you do without using Aura, and make things appear and disappear at will, you'd tell us?"
She smirks. "Sure. It's completely on you if you believe the answers though."
There is silence for nearly twenty seconds, and then the old man sighs, having figured out her game.
"So, how do you destroy rocks and fight like that without Aura."
Mindy nods, though her smile once again creeps up on minor levels of smirky-ness again.
"I don't destroy rocks with my hands. I'm not nearly tough enough for that, probably shatter every bone in my hand if I tried. As for Aura, I would first need to know what that is. When I said we were new in the area, I kinda meant it. Now I get to ask a question. What's your name, old man?"
He blinks, then thinks back.
"I never... I told you the name of the tribe, and when I would have introduced myself we all got distracted by your talk with Rebecca. I apologize. My name is Hans Grend. I'll answer to either. If where you are from matters to the answers, then I'll ask that next. Where are you from?"
The expression on her face could be only mistaken as truly innocent by someone who was blind and trying to judge it from a photograph.
"Another dimension, as near as I can tell. Next question, since you were clever enough to not rise to the bait. What is Aura, and Semblance while we're at it?"
Hans almost smiles this time.
"If I am understanding this game of questions you are playing, then I think that should really be two. But since they are so closely related, I'll answer them. But after I'm done I expect better than 'from another dimension' as an answer to my last question. Aura is the power of the soul that allows us to be able to fight back against the Grimm. Depending on the myths you believe, it was gifted to humans and Faunus long ago by some manner of deity. Once unlocked, it can act as a shield, or barrier to keep a person safe from harm. Though each person has different potential levels of it, and many do not have enough to be viable in any kind of real battle even were it to be unlocked. It can also lend strength and speed if it is trained, and there are schools that do this. Hunter schools." He looks almost bemused, as he is still questioning whether or not she is being honest about needing what is legitimately common knowledge. Even those that have never even seen a school know these things. "Semblance is the other benefit of Aura. It allows a person who has unlocked their Aura to be gifted with a particular ability. A power, if you like. There are far too many different examples to name, but I will tell you that my own family has often been gifted with the ability to find water with Semblance." He shrugs. "While we generally lack enough Aura for it to be of particular use in a fight beyond an extra layer of protection, here in Vacuo it can be quite useful." He grimaces. "Now what did you mean about being from another dimension?"
She once again smiles. "Just what I said, Grend. But if you'd like I can offer proof?" At his nod, she answers the unspoken request. "I notice that you live in a desert and use rather large vehicles to get around. But while I don't see anything that tells me what they actually run on, I'm not seeing anything that would make me think you have any kind of solar power. Is this a new concept to you? Electrical energy from the sun?"
He looks at her quizzically. "I've read of some kind of experiments a long time ago involving mirrors and a boiler for some kind of steam generator, but in the end, it was proven to be less economical than just buying Dust given how much protected land is worth and how big the system needed to be. But I can't see how that would help us or why we would want to boil away our water supply, so I am afraid I'm not sure what you are talking about." He offers a tentative smile. "It isn't like we could fit a steam plant on our homes anyway."
Mindy raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah... What I'm talking about isn't anything like that. Gimme a minute while I get mine set up."
Then she stands and backs away a good forty feet. Pulls a rather large box-shaped object out of her inventory that is about the same size as one of her steamer trunks, but is built quite differently. She sets it on the ground, undoes a few latches, and the whole thing extends outwards like an accordion to twenty feet by three feet, only with three sides being a glossy black and the bottom being open aside from the metal bits that work as the infrastructure. Then she raises both sides, sets the tilt to face the rising sun, and the system sits there. Generating electricity. Then she pulls out a couple of the batteries she has that have been used and the charger. Plugs it all together, and the look of widening eyes as the spark comes off the jumpers when she attaches them is gratifying. She starts to hope this will actually work to convince them.
"The big flat bit is my solar generator. It collects sunlight and uses it to make electricity. The second thing is the charger. It moves that electricity and refines it. The boxy things are my batteries. In the kind of sun you have here, it'll take about a day, maybe two at most for my system to charge all of my batteries to full. Each of them can move my bike over a hundred miles." She nods at the trucks they use. "Moving something that size would require a lot more than the system I use, but you'd have enough room on the roof to at the very least supplement your needs with something like this. So the fact that you didn't have one made me think that nobody in this dimension had figured it out yet."
Hans is torn. He really wants to call bullshit, if he's honest. There's no reason that this whole system couldn't just be a clever diversion that is actually powered by the same Dust his trucks use, that mysterious element that is dug out of the ground in crystal form and refined by various grades and types to power nearly everything the humans on the world of Remnant use. With the only evidence that it is working being a few small lights and her words, he really knows that he should be skeptical.
But if it is true, it could help so much. Dust is expensive and required for everything. If there was an alternate power source as abundant as the sunlight that bakes them every day, that could... Rather that would, change everything.
"Not saying I am completely believing you, but just for the sake of argument what would it take to make something like that for my trucks?"
Mindy swivels her head over to look at Dave and motions her hand to him. He'd advanced his electrical engineering skill a lot more than she had while he was attempting to figure out a way to add a lethal electrical discharge to his maces. In the end, he hadn't managed to sort out a way to make the system robust enough to survive the kind of combat he'd be putting it through, but the failed attempts and research he'd done had brought him along quite well.
Dave frowns thoughtfully. "Given your lifestyle, where you travel for a while and then sit somewhere for a few days or even weeks? It should be possible to make things that size that would work. It'd need a hell of a battery system to be viable though." Then he sighs. "But without knowing anything about the system that is in place, I couldn't tell you if it'd be worth it to try a conversion on these things. If they're internal combustion engines, probably not. You'd need to start fresh I think. Small scale combustion to electrical conversion isn't impossible but rarely very efficient. Something this size? I think you'd lose so much in the conversion that it probably wouldn't be worth it." Then he perks up. "That said, as a supplementary power source to run things like cooking, power tools, lights, air conditioning, and that kind of thing while you are camped somewhere? That wouldn't be tough at all. The problem would be getting together the equipment and supplies to actually make what we needed." He frowns. "I'd need to brush up on how to make the power cells, too. Although..."
He looks to be pointing into the air, and a large trunk appears in his hands. He opens it and starts going through what appear to be hastily put together books, bound together largely through simply putting them all together in binders. After pawing through them a bit, he digs out one and opens it up. He presses something in the air, and the book seems to disintegrate into motes of light that sink into his head. He gives Mindy a meaningful look while the tribesmen stare at him gobsmacked.
Mindy gets the idea. They've gotten smarter. It's worth it to go through their books again. Dave pauses with a finger upraised to buy time while he reads what is on the 'screen.'
NEW SKILL LEARNED FROM A SKILL BOOK!
WIND AND SOLAR POWER GENERATION: 1
INCLUDES ALL THE BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTRUCTION, USE, OPTIMAL PLACEMENT, AND MAINTENANCE OF THE MOST COMMON 'GREEN' ENERGY SOURCES AND THE BATTERY SYSTEMS THAT MAKE THEM VIABLE. INCREASED SKILL WILL ALLOW HIGHER PRODUCTION RATES FOR THE SAME AREA AND TIME EXPENDED. ADVISORY: IF POSSESSED, ONE HALF OF YOUR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING SKILL CAN BE ADDED TO THIS ONE.
"Huh." Is his only comment after reading it. Mindy walks over and pokes him in the side. Looking down, he smirks, then whispers.
"Yeah, I can do it. Plus it stacks with half of electrical engineering. So my skill is... Well, still crappy but it should go up quick if they both level while I am working on it." Then he frowns and speaks to Hans again.
"It can be done. But I'll need a lot of supplies and a shop to work out of. Plus, depending on what you are using now I may need to build all new equipment to even make the parts I need. Frankly, even for something pretty simple this could take a long time and be hideously expensive. Are you sure you want to try it?"
Grend frowns mightily at this answer. But the potential is great, and his people followed him for a reason. He is capable, reasonably well educated, and able to think ahead. Even if the initial cost is extreme, the long-term savings might be worth it. He manages to hold back the sneer in his next thought due to the mixed company, but it's close. That thought is that even if it turned out to be half as effective as advertised for twice the cost he was warned of, it would be worth it to get something like this out into the world just to cut into the Schnee Dust Company's bottom line. While technically nothing they did was against the law, they leaned exceptionally hard on local lawmakers to see to it that Faunus, people with animal features, remained second class citizens. Ones that could then be bullied into working in their damn Dust mines and brutalized by the poor pay and horrible conditions into an early grave. Every Faunus knew of this, and all but the youngest had known members of their kind that had died in those pits. There is even a movement called the White Fang that is lobbying for Faunus rights. Or had been, until recently when they began to go the route of the terrorist in their desperation. Finally, after nearly a full minute of his mind racing, he decides how to move the conversation forward. After all, while everything they are saying sounds good it is currently based on trust that had yet to be established.
"I'll admit to being very interested. But first, tell us how you destroy rocks with your fists."
Mindy breaks in at this point. "Nope. My turn. How do your trucks actually operate? What powers them?" She sees Dave look at her with a bit of snark in his expression. She rolls her eyes. "I'm curious, sue me."
Hans nods in moderate irritation. It is actually their turn after all.
"They're powered by Dust, of course. Same as everything else on Remnant. Ours run a dual power system and can use either combustion or electrical dust, whichever we find cheaper when we are in the market for more. The monopoly that provides it will get every last Lien they can for an ounce of it, so the dual engine system was worth investing in a few years ago. The smaller vehicles are mostly combustion."
Mindy turns to Dave. "Dust?" He shrugs.
"Thanks, we'll need more information on that later if we decide to go through with this. But for now, your answer. The reasons I can break rock are threefold. First, I am pretty strong if I do say so myself. Second, I heal pretty fast and my skin is pretty tough. But mostly it's because I got in a bit of trouble a few years ago and they had to brace a lot of my bones with metal so they would be reinforced enough to heal properly. So I can do things like that without the worry I'll break myself too bad. But now my question, since I am apparently part of this game now. How do you 'unlock' Aura?"
Hans drums his fingers against the truck he had leaned against. These two were already ridiculously dangerous. But trust is a two-way street, and really. Them being able to kill everybody here three times over rather than just twice wouldn't really matter to the tribe in the long run if they decided to do it.
"Through meditation and effort, sometimes in desperation due to fear or rage. In most cases by allowing someone that has already done it to help you out. We'll talk about that more later. How do you do your disappearing and reappearing equipment thing if you don't use Dust at all? I'd thought maybe you just had some kind of new and really good storage tech, but now I'm even more confused."
Dave looks at Mindy and motions to her.
"Your call, remember?"
She grumbles under her voice.
"Thanks, jerk." Then she seems to consider for a moment and sighs. "We have an ability where we can treat our bodies and some of the world around us like it's a kind of game. Like learning from a book as fast as he did, or using an inventory that's built into our... Soul? Kind of?"
Hans is openly dubious of this.
"You expect me to believe... What the hell is this!?"
Dave sighs. He wasn't really expecting them to have to go this far, this fast. But Mindy treating the negotiations like a proverbial bull in a china shop has removed a lot of their damage control options unless they want to just leave.
Which frankly, he's starting to think they should have. But he put Mindy 'the diplomatic wrecking ball' McReady in charge of this, so he's kinda stuck backing her play. Never putting her in charge of this again. Ever.
Mindy makes a haphazard gesture towards the man. "Just press 'yes' and say 'status.' At that point, you'll either be a believer or you'll have to think we already read your mind somehow, there really isn't a third option."
After motioning with a finger and mumbling 'status' the dog-eared man pales considerably. Impressive, considering how tanned his skin is.
"How?"
Mindy grumps a bit as she sits back down. "No idea. Some jackass gods that think screwing with us is the height of comedy, apparently."
"Gods?"
The two just stare at him for a moment. Then Mindy answers after frowning slightly.
"Can't prove that one, so either you believe it or you don't. Most of my further questions are going to involve Aura, Semblance, the local people, and technology. So it might be better for a sit-down discussion that is a little more private. Is there anything else that you wanted to know now?"
He blinks twice. Considers his options. Glances around to the rest of the tribe, and then turns to her again and shrugs.
"Originally, the intention was to offer you a provisional place in our tribe if you were interested. You derailed the normal way that goes pretty quickly, but I don't see any reason not to extend the offer anyway."
The two look at each other. Dave nods. Mindy shrugs. Then she turns back to Grend.
"We'll travel with you for a while with no worries. But we can't promise to stay forever. If that's okay with you, then we're good."
Usually, when this kind of decision is reached there is a lot of cheering. This time there is an awkward silence from most. The winged child watching from under the truck doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, however, and her cry of joy is completely undeterred from the rest of the tribe's reticence.
Author's Note:
I got a PM from a well-intentioned and insightful individual that warned me that using a fandom in the story that wasn't complete could be a horrifyingly bad mistake. As they mentioned, nobody even knows how to get rid of a local immortal permanently. So trying to write up a story that does is bound to run aground on that most dangerous of places: "Writer's Block Island" at some point.
I totally agree. But here's the thing. They don't need to beat Salem or "Fix the world." That isn't their job in the narrative here any more than it was to wipe out the Combine on the last world. Their job is to be an infusion of chaos into an established story, to throw a big 'Ol wrench into the plans of the wicked, and then generally just when they have tilted the odds heavily in favor of the good guys, they'll get pulled away again. What Mindy says here is more accurate than she realizes, though there is more to it than she knows. They are most definitely entertaining to the gods. But I've always thought that gods were more interesting in stories if they had to work within rules. Restrictions.
What these two are is a loophole to shake things up in places where the bad guys have had their own way for far too long. Additionally because of the way I intend to write this I can use the worlds and maybe even some of the additional cast without being dependent on completely mutilating the main storyline or destroying the stories of the main characters. Explore other facets of the world a bit, and pick up a few new tricks of their own on the way.
That is not to say that the heroes of any given world can't be involved. But they won't be love interests or anything like that. Sorry if that's a deal-breaker for anybody.
If that's a story you want to read, stay tuned for more. If not, thanks for making it this far!
Reviews and Fave's appreciated!