Ride 3: Return to Arms
The leg worked just fine, to Gally's delight. Her new foot was fashioned from a plastic sandal, covered in a tightly wound black fabric and filled with wiring and pistons so it could move and connect to her leg. Gally had torn away the 'skin' on her shin, pointing out the ports and places that would need new wiring so that Yusei could connect it to her leg properly. It worked, but it wasn't perfect. It made her stick out like a sore thumb even more now, and wouldn't be functional in combat but it was a start.
Now she'd been given a bandage to put around her missing eye, around the rest of her head in an eye-patch/headband combo of sorts – a gift from Rally. Yusei had begun to work on an arm for her but at the moment it was just a mechanical rod with a few bits added on until he could affix an elbow joint to it. He's said it would be harder to make since it would have to directly connect to her shoulder circuits that A-2 had cleaved through, which felt like a week ago for Gally. And on top of that, replicating all the subtle movements of a hand would be a luxury few could afford, even up in the City. It was day four in this new place and so far she found Satellite was less harsh than Scrap-Iron City, but still rough enough to feel like home.
There wasn't much to do when she was inside – which was most of the time. Rally had taught her the fundamentals of 'Duel Monsters', the game that she saw Yusei play when he'd summoned Speed Warrior, but Gally lost interest in it quickly. She'd much rather fight against the various creatures with her own cyborg body than summon her own gaggle of beasts to fight in her place.
"Wait, Gally! If you used Limiter Removal just now, you woulda won!" Rally said, looking surprised as he turned over the set cards she'd placed on the table, overcoming her monsters with his slightly stronger force.
"Er, right. Guess I forgot. You win this time, Rally." The cyborg said, patting the boy on his hat.
"Still it feels less genuine knowing you could've won." Rally said and Gally shook her head.
"It's like that in combat though. Even if you could theoretically have done a different move or attack, you're stuck with how you react at the time. The principles of combat share a few things in common with this game but in a real fight, you don't take turns like this." Gally said.
"Right. You were a Hunter-Warrior, right?" The boy asked, remembering bits of her story.
Gally nodded. "That's right. Where I come from, there's no Security, so it fell on Hunter Warriors to do their job."
Rally glared, putting a hand over his marker. "I wish that we didn't have Security here!"
Gally smiled. "Well how about this? I'll go out with you tomorrow and if they give you any trouble, I'll beat the snot out of them?" She proposed, clenching her good fist.
"Eeeh! No! If you do that, they'll definitely want to catch you!" Rally said.
The cyborg exhaled. "Drat. I just hate being cooped up like this is all. It stinks."
"Hang on!" Rally said, disappearing into the closet of endless hand-me-downs and emerging with a purple hoody and black baggy sweatpants.
"If you cover up your exposed cyborg parts in these, you can go outside!" Rally said and Gally blinked. "And sorry about the smell – we have limited water and not a lot of candles or air freshener." He added as Gally pulled on the clothes, needing his help to finish the job as it was more difficult with just one arm and the new leg.
"Just don't beat up Security, right?" She asked and Rally giggled.
/
They found Yusei as he was returning from the Scrap-Yard, the Duelist carrying a spotless engine strapped on his back.
"Gally. You feel well enough to go out then?" He asked, looking at how she'd be able to pass for human now.
She nodded. "With Rally's help I can be inconspicuous."
He gave her a brief smile and kept walking, answering any questions that Rally might have about the engine.
Then they all froze as the ricochet of a bullet was heard.
"Get down!" Gally yelled, tackling the pair into the gravel. She knew it would hurt, but it was preferable to getting a bullet in the back.
She had to kick herself for thinking guns were outlawed here – it wasn't Scrap-Iron City after all – but still, from what she understood, Duel Monsters was the medium people used to settle disputes here. Using firearms meant they must seriously be targeting one of them.
Gally turned to see her attacker and was stunned. Not some assailant holding a firearm at all. Rather, it looked like a modified Motorball player, a visible cybernetic spine and reinforced rib cage and head bolted into a far larger cyborg body. The handiwork was clear – this was one of Nova's creations, never-mind the how or why. The cyborg had a gun barrel built into its palm, steadying the arm to prepare another shot. Gally narrowed her eye and lept to the side, rebounding off of a garbage pile to gain momentum as the cyborg fired and missed. She thrust the Damascus Blade forward with as much momentum as she could muster, slamming into the cyborg's chest and penetrating his core.
The cyborg laughed in her face, his heavy eyebrow contrasted with the false green and round lenses inset into his head, clammy skin contorting with each sound he made. It was a false core. Nova would definitely do something like that if he was still alive.
Then the gun arm was still a threat. Gally let go of the blade and pivoted so that she could grip the very end of the blade, wrapping her legs around the gun arm and twisting it until she heard a definite snap.
The cyborg roared now and managed to swat her away with his free arm. She landed on her back and he looked down at her, ready to strike. Still, it was outmatched even in her damaged state. Gally skidded back on her good foot and then moved straight at him, leaping towards the Damascus Blade and grasping the end of it once again.
This time she aimed to rotate it, putting her bad leg on the head of the weapon and pushing it straight down, splitting the Cyborg's chest open with the rotating blade and immediately shoving her fist straight through the new opening. Then the Cyborg's expression changed to a calm one and it stopped struggling as it stood dumbly while she clung on to it.
"I knew it was a matter of time before you'd show up, Gally, so I brought a welcome wagon." An excited and slightly malicious voice said. A monitor turned on right next to where her fist had embedded itself, revealing Professor Nova, reclining in a fancy chair and eating his signature flan.
"Nova!" Gally said in surprise, removing her fist and rotating her body before slamming a knee into the cyborg's face. Its big hands shuddered as he fell into the ground and the whole place shook.
"Gally, I want to know why you're here. What has fate decided to do with you here? It's a mystery even for my Karmatron Dynamics." The scientist said as he took a bite of his flan. The cracked screen annoyed Gally as she wanted to do the same to him.
Gally glared as Nova chewed the stuff audibly from wherever he was on the screen. "And what about you?! How did you follow me here? And how did you survive?" She asked, the questions piling up.
"Cloning, my dear. And the jump you made left a trail for me to follow. Gally, I don't want to be your enemy in this world. The cyborg here was just bait to draw you out. I see that your body has been damaged from your last adventures, and I want to replace it." Nova stated, giving her a serious frown.
"Why?" Gally asked him. Trusting him was beyond her capabilities at the moment – the wounds he'd dealt to Ido still too fresh in her head despite happening a long time ago now. And he'd just sent a killer cyborg after her and her new friends as well.
"Because you are a catalyst! An influencing presence that causes waves of Karma where you go! Even now you're altering these people's destiny just by existing here!" Nova said passionately, gesturing with his flan spoon like a music conductor. Gesturing to a powerful cyborg frame beside him. Lacking a head or any core unit for that matter. It looked to be made just for her.
Gally turned and looked to Yusei and Rally, both of whom were still huddled on the ground, Yusei shielding Rally with his body in case the cyborg would move again.
"A new body would let me fight at full power, but I don't trust you." She spoke to Nova.
"I don't expect you to! I'm merely here to observe what you do in this world – and see if you have the key to get back to our own!" Nova responded with a chuckle.
"Currently I'm at a place called the B.A.D. area. Though the name's a bit much, I'd like to meet you there soon if possible. And do bring a new friend! I want to know more about this place" Nova waved to her and the screen winked out.
"What was that?" Yusei asked as she helped him up. He took his turn to help up Rally and they both looked at her.
"That was a grunt sent by Professor Nova. Like I said, he's one of my enemies – and how I got here." Gally said, closing her eye.
"Oh, by the way!" A prerecorded message from the cyborg body yelled, "This body is going to undergo cellular combustion in about a minute! Can't have the natives in this dump trying to make their own cyborgs, now can we?" Nova asked.
The three hurried now. Yusei gave Rally the engine to carry while he grabbed her Damascus Blade in his hands and carried Gally on his back – her leg wasn't made for long distance running. Gally was impressed at the speed of the two, getting far away enough that the detonation was a small red cloud in the distance.
/
"Is meeting him safe?" Yusei asked, though it sounded rhetorical.
"No, but I need to see him. At worst we'll at least know what he wants and at best I can kill him again." Gally said matter-of-factually as she held onto his chest.
Yusei nodded and looked to the engine that Rally was holding.
"If you're lucky, I can have the D-Wheel working by tomorrow. We can see this 'Nova' person then." Yusei said.
"You're awfully quick to trust me with this." Gally said, wondering what Yusei wanted out of this.
"Well if he stays here, what will happen? If he can make monsters like that one we just saw, Security won't deal with them until they become the City's problem. And you're the only person equipped to deal with them." He said.
"Yeah!" Rally said, pumping a fist. "Gally's stronger than I thought! We have nothing to worry about if she's around!"
"But Rally, stay with the others. If I can get the D-Wheel working then I'm going to go with just Gally. This Nova fellow is dangerous." Yusei said and Rally nodded.
"Then I'll wish you the best of luck! Go Yusei!" Rally said, blinking as he looked to Gally. "And go Gally!"
The two of them chuckled at the boy's energy and he gave them both a hug before running off somewhere else in the hideout.
Yusei looked down to the engine and the red frame of the D-Wheel. "Now it just needs the chip and it will reach the speeds I'm looking for." Yusei said out loud before looking up to Gally. "But for our purposes, installing the engine as-is should be fine."
He stayed up all night, but by the time the sun arose, the D-Wheel was finished, a proud gleaming red with white accents.
"Impressive. So let's go." Gally said as Yusei returned from a test lap.
"Right." Yusei said, entering the coordinates to the B.A.D. area.