Stella threw her wrench down and sighed. Her Skell was still malfunctioning and she had no idea why. It had started a few weeks ago, after a particularly rowdy tyrant had knocked her to the ground and began tearing Hazama apart in an attempt to get to the cockpit. She'd taken it through the usual repairs, but even after a second round and a checkover by Alexa, it still refused to function properly. Every time she booted up the engine, it simply refused to supply power to the right shoulder. As a result, her G2-Buster wasn't able to function properly, and the right arm was affected too.
"Something on your mind?"
Stella saw a streak of dusky red out of the corner of her eye and turned, a tired smile already forming on her face. It wasn't often that she saw Flame around the place: the woman was usually either at her workbench, out on a mission with H.B. or otherwise occupied. Her roaring red hair was dulled with dust and metal, and her practical outfit covered in oil streaks and the occasional burn mark.
"Flame? Good to see you. I'm just trying to fix my Skell. The power's acting up and the right shoulder's not getting the proper amount. I had Alexa look it over but she can't figure it out either."
A frown crossed the mechanic's face as she walked over to Hazama's maintenance bay and hauled herself up to get a better look at the shoulder. Pulling off the armour plate, she passed it down to Stella and stuck her head in, only to withdraw it a few moments later.
"You mind turning this on? I've got a theory."
"Sure. Watch that you don't fry your face though."
Stella climbed up the torso and slid into the cockpit, taking a moment to ensure that Flame wasn't in the way before firing up the engine. As the machine whirred to life around her, she took out her comms and synced it before pulling up a scan of her frame's power circuit. Extracting herself from the cockpit, she showed the results to her friend.
"Here. The power's not flowing properly into the right shoulder, and the entire arm's affected as a result. Any idea what could be causing it?"
Flame gazed vacantly at the scan, deep in thought, and Stella briefly wondered if she'd actually got any sleep the previous night. The mechanic muttered something to herself a few moments later and climbed back up to look in the arm.
"I see…whoever fixed this got the cables mixed up. If we shuffle these around and put everything back in the proper place, it should work. But then again, everything looks in order, so what could…Stella, could you turn it off for a moment?"
The Mediator obliged, and within moments, Flame had a bundle of cables in her arms. The pair picked their way through them before Flame found what she was looking for.
"Here. The casing is damaged and there's a shard of something inside. Virago claws repulse electricity and have a minor magnetic field to aid them with their digging. It'd hard to see, and since it was on the underside of the cable after it was replaced it's likely that the mechanic either missed it or chose not to do anything about it. If the second, somebody needs a talking to. You know who worked on this?"
"No, sorry. I was off jogging around the rim of the city at the time."
"Alright then. I'll do what I can to see what happened. I'll get going then."
"Thanks Flame. Really. I'll pay you back as soon as I can. You free for a meal anytime soon?"
"I'll check my schedule and get back to you later. See you around."