Chapter 5: The Lab
We arrived at Futura Cavern about twenty minutes later because of our vehicle modes.
"My father's lab is right there," he told me, pointing to one of the larger buildings in the cavern. He led me straight to it and opened the door cautiously. "Dad? Are you home?" he called out.
"I'm in here, Mark!" a voice replied from behind the door to the lab. We walked up to it and Mark entered a code, which let us in. "Ah, you must be Mr. Shane!" he exclaimed when he saw me. He walked up to us and shook my hand, hugging Mark afterward. "Mark already told me that you needed my lab, so it's all ready," he told me, gesturing to the awesomeness that is his lab.
I nodded. "Thank you. Where do you keep your concentrated slug energy?" I asked to begin with, so he showed me to a large vault, pointing out each and every machine on the way. When we reached the vault he opened it and revealed a surprise.
"Vitalis Crystals?" Mark and I both asked.
He nodded. "Futura is currently sitting over the largest Vitalis Crystal deposit in all of SlugTerra," he explained. "Even then, each of us is only allowed so many Crystals a week to prevent the mine from drying up. Some of the smarter researchers, such as I, stockpile our crystals, even when we don't use them, in case they're needed for larger projects. The slug energy is right here," he added, pulling out a box about half the size of the safe. He opened it and, inside, were about fifty large bottles of concentrated slug energy.
"I'm fairly sure this isn't regulation," Mark stated.
"Well, the Blaster Research Department is always in constant need for slug energy for projects as well, so we got a grant that vastly increased our energy stores. It's all completely safely harvested, too. All Fandango slugs secrete energy at a constant rate. All we do is collect small amounts at a time, not enough to kill the slug, but enough for one drop of concentrated energy," he explained. "So, where shall we begin?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, Mr. Smith, but I have to do this alone," I told him, taking the box.
"What?" he demanded. "The creation of one of the most powerful blasters of SlugTerra, and I'm not allowed to watch."
I shrugged. "Only one person watched me make one the last time I did this, and he was my mentor, sorry," I replied before Mark pulled him out and placed the room under lockdown, only able to be opened from the inside.
"Now, time to get to work," I told myself, bringing up data about Leo's Super Blaster and my own. I would have to make each and every one by scratch, but they would need to match the other blaster as well as possible for a seamless transition. As it was, I planned on adding numerous additions to mine, such as mods that would pop out from the blaster whenever I would need them.
As I went to work, days started to become meaningless. The lights were always on, throwing off my sense of time, and whenever I got tired, I simply fired Dynamo at myself or drink an energy drink. The numerous modifications were proving difficult, but I would figure it out as Red Hook's student.
One week later, Karina's POV...
"Mark, have you heard anything new on Jake?" I asked Mark one day. It had been a week since Jake left, and I was getting worried. We would bring up illusions of him firing slugs whenever we had to deal with a crime, and Emma would be in his place because she and Leo knew his dueling style the best.
Mark shrugged. "He hasn't contacted the outside world since he entered that lab, but I'm sure he's fine," he told me. "He's your son, after all."
I smiled and thanked him before sitting on the couch to worry some more. The last time I hadn't seen in in several days, he went missing for a year. I wasn't very eager for history to repeat itself in that way.
Another day went by before I got a call on my Holo-Glasses from an unknown number, so I hesitantly answered. "Hello?" I asked.
"Hey, Mom," Jake's voice replied. "Sorry I couldn't use my Glasses, but they're recharging from constant use."
I smiled. "It doesn't matter. Where've you been all this time?" I asked him.
"I'm been working," he replied simply. "Well, yesterday I was sleeping, but anyway, I finished my blasters."
I smiled wider. "That's great!" she told me. "Whose are you going to work on next?"
I heard him chuckle. "Why do you think I'm calling you?" he asked me. "When you get here, I also have a surprise for you," he added before ending the call.
"Everybody, I'm off for Futura," I told them all as I holstered my blaster and Saphira jumped on my shoulder. I wouldn't need any other slugs with me for the simple trip, so I left then and went full speed to the Cavern.
A few minutes later, Jake's POV...
As I waited for Mom to arrive, I looked over my surprise for her. Inspired by her skill for long range weaponry (bow and arrows she used to use), I had a feeling she would love it. It took me a couple days to whip it together with the necessary modifications and accelerators, and once that was done, I slept for a full day to recover from a week without sleep.
"I think she'll love it," Yang assured me as I continued to look over it.
"Are you sure?" I asked him. "She's never even mentioned wanting something like this."
He nodded. "I'm sure," he told me before the door opened behind me and Mom called out my name.
"Jake?" she called out, so I spun around and looked at her. "So, what've you got for me?" she asked me.
I smiled and lifted her gift, handing it to her.
"It's...a sniper rifle?" she asked me.
I nodded. "I know you used to use long-range weaponry when you were our age, so I gave you a blaster to match," I explained. "There's a scope, a suppressor to hide the firing noise, and I even hand-painted the Shane symbol on it," I added, pointing to the stock, on which I painted the Shane Star. "There a small slot on the side to load slugs in, and I even got some long-range sniper tubes," I told her, pulling out a box with twenty strange-looking tubes. "They use a special system. The tube stays with the slug after you launch them, and after a certain distance, it opens up and uses air pressure built up in it to launch the slug even farther. The slugs can only reach MegaMorph, but it's still pretty good if you need to hit a target a long ways away."
She smiled and pulled out the tubes. "They're pretty clever," she commented. "These guys in Futura are geniuses," she added before noticing how the metal seemed to glow slightly. "What's that from?" she asked me.
I smiled guiltily. "I crushed some Vitalis crystals into powder and mixed them into the liquid metal used. I call the new alloy 'VitaliSteel', and it's way more durable and lighter than normal steel," I explained.
She narrowed her eyes. "Where did you get the Vitalis Crystals?" she demanded.
"Sorry, but that's something I can't tell you," I told her, imagining the havoc if the people of SlugTerra learned of the giant Vitalis deposit.
"Fine, but make sure nobody else finds out about it," she replied, handing me her main blaster.
"Okay," I replied, setting her blaster on the table as she lifted the sniper blaster and put it over her back, the box of sniper shells fastened to the back of her Mecha.
"I want that back when you're done," she told me. "That blaster and I've gone through a lot."
"I know, it'll be fine," I assured her before she walked out and I went back to work. I made sure her original blaster was working fine, picking out dirt and other contaminants from the core. The core was so old, though, that I was surprised it hadn't already broken, so I replaced it with a newer version that would last her longer before creating a 3-D scan of her blaster. The Super version of it would be almost identical, but I made it more streamlined and easier to use. It didn't take me as long for me to build it this time since it wouldn't have as many additional modifications as my own, so I called her to get them both before I settled in to make a couple more for Leo. Since both Mom and I have additional blasters as well as our normal and Super blasters (her sniper blaster and my fusion blaster), I was going to do the same for him. I created a new project and began calculating power and material requirements for his new blaster. I was planning on making each of their extra blasters completely unique, so each one would have to be from scratch.
About three days later, I called Mom and Emily to have them come to the lab to pick up blasters and drop them off as well.
"Jake!" Emily screamed when she arrived, a few minutes ahead of Mom. She ran in and just about full-body tackled me, so I caught and hugged her before she pulled back slightly and kissed me.
"I'll take that to mean you missed me," I whispered when we separated to get our breath back.
She smiled widely. "Just a little bit," she replied sarcastically.
"Of course," I said before kissing her again, although we separated when I heard Mom arrive on her Mecha.
"So, do you have my blaster ready?" Mom asked me.
I nodded and handed her blasters. "I tuned up your old blaster, which was about to fall apart from all the stuff it's been through," I told her, pointing to the new core before I handed her an extra one. "That's for Leo," I added. "I'm sure he'll like it," I added. It was a semi-automatic blaster. It was a bit longer than most blasters, too, because of the large clip of ten tubes directly in front of the trigger. It could only reach MegaMorph, but the ability to launch ten slugs in succession could overpower any slug unless it's in UltraMorph.
Mom nodded and thanked me before leaving, so I turned to Emily. "Like with Mom and Leo, I also made something extra for you," I told her, holding out a strange bow.
"Um, I already have a bow," she said, picking it up and examining the extra mechanical parts.
"It's a blaster," I explained, holding up a slug tube, which Yang jumped into. I grabbed her bow, loaded the tube into a compartment, and pulled back a string made of energy. "The further back you pull it, the more energy the slug has," I told her, pulling it back far enough for MegaMorph and releasing. The moment the string hit the tube, Yang was launched straight into MegaMorph, launching shadowy stars at the walls before returning to protoform.
"Cool," she whispered.
I nodded and handed it to her. "It took some thinking for the energy string, but it was figured out in the end," I said before she kissed me again.
"I really wish you didn't prefer to do this yourself," she said unhappily, stepping back.
I smiled. "Don't worry, it's all for the best," I assured her, so she nodded unhappily and handed me her blaster before she walked out. I smiled after her for a few seconds before returning to the lab to work. Mark's father stopped in to see what I was doing, but it would never be when I'd be working on the secretive things, like the accelerator or the VitaliSteel. I had gotten so used to the process that it cut my time to make her blaster in half, so I spent the rest of the time working on an extra blaster for Luke before calling the two of them to get over to the workshop.
"How's it going?" Luke asked me, looking anxiously at a blaster covered in a sheet.
"Pretty good, thanks," I told him before removing the sheet to reveal a blaster that almost had him drooling.
"Is that...?" he began.
I nodded. "A fully-automatic blaster. It's not as big as Blakk's Gatlers, but can fit twenty tubes in a clip," I told him, pointing to the slug tubes in the barrel clip. "They can only reach MegaMorph, but it should be more than enough."
He grinned as he picked it up. It was a bit heftier than most blasters, but he could easily handle it. "Awesome," he said before handing me his blaster and walking out, Emma entering seconds later, rolling her eyes from something he said.
"Hey, there," she said happily.
I smiled. "Hey, how're you doing?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Not too bad. Better now, though."
"I wonder why," I said sarcastically before pulling her in for a kiss.
She pulled back a minute later, breathless. "Did you really miss me that much?" she asked.
I blushed slightly. "Well, I have a year without you to make up for, and there's no better time than the present," I stated before she picked up her blasters, kissed me, and left. I then got to work creating another blaster for Luke. I was tempted to just have him pick it up that day, but I decided to get the rest of them over with, making extras for Mark and Vinyl before calling all three of them there at once.
"Why did you call three of us?" Vinyl demanded when she and Mark arrived.
"I decided to do several more at once," I explained, holding out blasters. Mark's was a concealable MegaMorph blaster with no metal components, allowing him to get it through any security check, and Vinyl's was a shoulder-mounted blaster turret.
"You're supposed to control it with your powers," I explained as I showed her how to strap it onto her shoulder.
She nodded and her eyes glowed red as the turret rotated a full 360 degrees. "It's nice," she admitted before leaving their blasters behind and leaving. Luke arrived a minute later to collect his blasters, so I happily retreated to the work area again. I went as fast as I could while making sure the blasters were the best they could be.
I finished the blasters five days later, when I copied every last iota of remaining data onto data storage devices. The only thing I left behind was a paper with the instructions for VitaliSteel.
"I left something for you to thank you for your troubles," I told Mark's Dad as I left the lab, tossing him the key. He nodded and walked inside it.
I could hear him cheering about the instructions as I rode away.
"Time to go back home, guys," I told Speedy and Yang as we left Futura Cavern and turned toward home, going at a comfortable pace, although I sped up when I heard blaster fire near the Hideout.
"Hey, Jake!" Luke called out as I entered a large clearing that wasn't there the last time I was at the Hideout. There were Molenoids, Humans, and Cave Trolls everywhere, working on their abilities with a blaster. "Since so many people can't sling slugs, we decided to help them out!"
I nodded in understanding until I saw his Mecha. "What happened to it?" I asked. It was larger, more powerful, and was painted all black except for the Shane Star, which stood out.
He looked down at it and grinned. "This, my friend, is the result when the best Mecha Engineers in all of SlugTerra get together," he said. "All of our Mecha's have been upgraded except for Black Skies. Kaiya wouldn't even let us get close to him."
I nodded and went on to the garage, where Mark and Vinyl were waiting. "You've missed a lot while you were gone," Mark told me as I gave them back their blasters. "The Mecha Engineers found ways to boost the power of our Mechas and make them better overall, Ms. Shane, Emma, and Leo got a bunch of people to join, Pronto got almost the entire Molenoid kingdom to join the cause, and we figured out how to disguise ourselves to get into Dark Cavern, as we like to call it," he explained.
"We collected samples of the forcefield protecting the cavern," Vinyl began. "We managed to make a near-copy of it, but composed of slug energy, and integrated it into the Mecha hearts. It doesn't even affect them, and they, as well as their riders, can get past the forcefield."
Mark nodded. "Yeah. Also, when so many people began showing up, we cleared out part of the forests and began teaching them how to fight. We call it 'Slug Point Academy'. Luke's been teaching people how to fight from the back of a Mecha, Leo's teaching people how to sling slugs like a pro, Emma's teaching a bunch of people how to be scouts, like how to stay hidden while exploring new locations. Ms. Shane is teaching some of them how to be snipers, and Kaiya was practically forced to teach those who don't sling how to fight only with their Mechas. She's taken a liking to it, but I think it has to do with the fact that she has Skies roar at anybody that messes up. Overall, it's going pretty smoothly."
I nodded. "Interesting," I said before Mom walked up to me.
"Good, you're back," she said. "I need you to help Mario teach some kids who want to learn trickshots. Also, Kord and the other Engineers will need to upgrade your Mecha."
I nodded and walked out. I saw Mario's Speedstinger race by, so I followed its trajectory until it reached Mario, when I ran over to the area.
A/N: Hello again, readers! So, the gang finally upgraded their blasters, and even started a military academy of sorts!
Disclaimer: I do not own SlugTerra, only my story and characters
Elina, Quora, and her family belong to JackieWinters
Kaiya Skyes belongs to Hills-to-Sky
Leo Shane belongs to Create-gunner1209
Thanks again for all you reviewers, don't forget to leave one at the bottom!