A Dragon's Tale
Chapter 2: The Birth of an Angel
Disclaimer: CLAMP owns Angelic Layer, not me. They're cool like that, and I wouldn't want to cut in on their profits even if I could make money off this. So don't sue me! .
Author's Notes: 2 months have passed, and Serge has spent most of them busy making the perfect armor for Karsh. Short chapter, but it deserves its own. Read and Review, and I'll hopefully see you at the bottom!
The egg made a dull click as it popped open for the first time in Serge's hands. The shock absorbent liquid overflowed out of the egg, and was quickly sucked down the bathtub's drain. "Wait until you see what I have planned for you, Karsh. I've got your armor all made, and your parameters all planned out. I've been waiting for an Angel for so long..." The doll didn't reply, it just lay limp in his hands, a blank slate waiting to be carved.
Serge toweled the doll dry, and then returned to his room to apply everything he had planned for so long. He took out the hairpiece he had ordered and worked on for the last 2 months. Twice he had decided he didn't like what had become of the hair and had to start over, but now he was sure it was perfect. The hair was a dark blonde, almost brown, and cut very short in the back. The rest of the hair was spiked and slicked back, creating the image of teeth in a shark's mouth.
He smiled and placed the hair that he had worked for so long on the angel's head. "Perfect. I knew it would look great," he said, double- checking the CG model he had long since perfected for accuracy.
Taking a look at the instructions, he read out loud, "Now that your Angel has hair, set up the Data Computer and place the 2 control rings on the miniature layer." He did so, and read, "Now turn on the Data Computer and hit 'Initialize.'" He smirked as the rings separated, creating an orange pillar between them, and without reading, placed his Angel in the space. The angel silently hovered over the layer, its hair stirred by an invisible force only inside the layer.
After a minute, a new screen popped up on the computer, "Please set your Angel's parameters. Do you want a speed emphasis Angel? Perhaps an Angel focusing on Defense? Attack? Or maybe a combination of all three... a balanced Angel?"
Serge blinked, Balanced? I've never heard of a balanced angel before. Perhaps it's a new setting because of the elemental system. Well, this changes things. Now I don't have to waste points equalizing his base stats. He selected "Balanced," and a new menu opened up.
"What weight class should your angel have? Lightweights are generally faster with worse offensive and defensive capabilities, middleweights are a balance of all 3 attributes, and heavyweights are usually slow but strong." Serge selected "middleweight," and moved on.
"Please distribute your angel's points between speed, defense, attack, and special." Serge checked the base stats. All of them were set at D, slightly below average. "Well, I certainly hope that elements provide large bonuses, or I could end up losing very quickly." He shrugged and put all of his available points into Special and pressed Enter.
A small dialogue box opened up, with a warning, "WARNING! Your selection has left your angel with little to no ability to defend itself or attack. You may wish to reconsider your settings. Proceed?"
"Yeah, yeah... I know what I'm doing," Serge muttered as he clicked 'Yes' to proceed with his Angel's creation, "...I think."
The next screen was for his elements: "Special Points: 12. Please select at least one element." Serge clicked on every box for the elements except Time, put 1 point into Elemental Multitasking, and put the remaining 3 points into Elemental Affinity. With all of his special points used up, he hit Enter, and the Data Computer's screen went blank.
"Wait... what?" Serge blinked. He tapped the computer and stared at the screen for around 30 seconds. Frowning, he turned to take his Angel out of the miniature layer, "This better not have screwed Karsh up... I paid a lot of money for him."
His hand recoiled as he saw the layer's aura slowly change from orange to all the colors of the spectrum, and he realized that this new delay was caused by the added need to upload his selection of elements into the Angel. I bet they didn't anticipate anyone choosing so many elements, so normally the creator wouldn't notice any real delay. This may turn out better than I thought, if this works as well as I'm hoping it will, he thought.
He turned back to the computer as the final menu appeared on the screen: "Please name your Angel." Serge took a big breath and entered the letters K-A-R-S-H in the computer, and hit Enter. The computer spent a few seconds processing, and then shut itself off, its job being finished for now.
Serge took Karsh off of the miniature layer and turned it off, catching the rings before they fell to the layer, and inevitably, off the table. Briefly scanning the manual, "Now it's time to make your Angel some..." he read, "Bah, I've already done that. Anything else..." He flipped through the last few pages, finding nothing but legal information and warranty details. Well, it looks like I've finished once I put his armor on... he thought, and then I just have to learn how to control him.
Serge walked to his dresser, where he had dedicated an entire drawer, albeit a smaller one, to storing his Angel's armor. Sliding open the drawer, he extracted the armor, and carried it reverently back over to the table. The armor consisted of a metallic blue, almost teal, breastplate, with two small, almost triangular, outcrops on the back, which the control cords fed out of the angel; one rounded pauldron covering the right shoulder; an elaborate left armguard with overlapping sheets of the strongest armor-type on the market that slid over each other for unimpaired movement; angled gauntlets made of the same material as the breastplate; and armored greaves and cuisses made out of the same material as that of the armguard.
Serge then set about getting the armor he had made onto his Angel, which was proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated, "Now I see why you're supposed to make the armor on the Angel after you have it... this is like trying to squeeze a ship into a bottle instead of building the ship inside of it." After a large amount of effort, and more than a little colorful language, he had finally gotten the armor onto his Angel.
30 Minutes Later
"Well, you stubborn little... I've finally won! Man, after all that grief I went through trying to get Karsh equipped, I'm..." Serge's monologue was interrupted by a huge yawn, "tired."
Serge stood up and stretched before getting ready for bed. When he returned, he placed the Angel on a pillow he usually just tossed off of his bed because it was too small to be of any use to him. "Goodnight, Karsh. Shawn and Dean know I made you tonight, so we'll probably go to the Piffle Princess tomorrow afternoon so they can help me learn to play..." And with that, he turned the reading light next to his bed off, and rolled over, into sleep.
End of Volume Two
Author's Notes II: I'm finally done with this chapter! It took a lot longer than I had expected because I was suddenly attacked with a vicious case of writer's block, trying to figure out how I wanted Karsh created. I hope to crank out Volume Three by the end of today, as well, because I don't want to leave my readers (however many there are, =3) with no fighting or anything for three weeks. That's right, I won't be able to update for 3 weeks because I am going out of town with no access to the internet, much less a computer. Many apologies, but I promise that if I do not get Volume Three done today, it will go up as soon as humanly possible when I return. Read and Review please, even if you don't have anything to really say, it makes me happy to know people read the story. I'll do my best to answer any signed reviews via e-mail, so I can better explain your questions and further learn from your suggestions.
One more thing, it's come to my attention that the actual pronunciation of "Serge" is "Sayr-gay." I knew of the name Sergei, but I was trying for something a little different. For the purposes of this fanfic, Serge's name is pronounced "Surge." There's a possibility I will change his name in the future, but for the time being, bear with me.