Redshirt Falcon Presents
Virtua Republic
On tap: raster act one
"powered gear"
Z/'''
January 21, F2C Year 2050, 9'30 AM
L-S Machine Shop, 2281 Bitmap Brothers Road; Raster City, Raster
The L-S Machine Shop[1], located in the heart of Raster, was a large establishment. This is due to it being a humble vehicle shop that fixed everything from the smallest bikes to middle-class[2] mecha. This could be attributed to four dataroid mechanics: DRN-002 Roll Ryan Light[3], a cast who was designed to work in the field, Rollanette Caskett[4], sworn human sister to Roll Light and a teenage genius inventor, Jin Saotome, a human mecha pilot/repairman who along with the former had started up the shop in the first place, and the android Hunter Killer model 47 version 2.5, known as either "HK-47" or "smartass" by the above, who helped with the more advanced fighting machines.
The shop had a counter, with a little table bell most often found in banks and what not, and all around you could see different machines of every make and type (including one such machine for vending) surrounding the counter. Naturally, someone had to be at the counter. This time, it was Jin's shift to run the counter. This Japanese man was pretty tall for his race, being 5'9''. He was black-haired, dressed in a white-and-black outfit adorned with a white headband, and also proved to be quite the fighter. In fact, him, Roll, and HK-47 were great fighters, with Rollanette being more of tactical support. If there's ever an emergency that threatens the shop and/or its client(s), all four would be there to defend it and/or them.
Unfortunately, it was a pretty slow day. Rollanette and HK-47 were both out running errands for the shop, so it was just him and the younger, android-er Roll Light, the two founders. As was previously stated, Jin was 5'9'', but Roll was much shorter at 4'2''. She was blonde and traditionally wore a red-and-white dress with black sleeves, the chest area being white and having two large black snap-on buttons where the breasts would be, had she had any (despite her knowledge in the field, she did only have the appearance of a thirteen-year-old girl. No one knows how that happened, and no one has asked.) In addition, her hair was much longer than Jin's, and poses a dangerous mechanical-related-death[5] threat were it not tied back with a green ribbon.
Today, however, she wore her red overalls and a white tanktop, matching her boots which were red-and-white. The reason why? She was fixing up the AEX-10M[6] Blodia, the variant armor[7] that her best friend/business partner Jin piloted. See, the reason why it's called the L-S Machine Shop was that it repaired -like I, the narrator, have said before- pretty much everything. It wasn't called the L-S Factory, as they never built anything on a regular basis. Though, it had enough space to store nine hovercraft (mostly just Ride Chasers[8], though there have been instances where they had some AG cars[9] in the workshop) and two middle-class mecha, one of which being Blodia; much like a factory.
One of Roll's favorite things about being small was that she could fit in the gap between the floor and whatever she's working on, no sweat. Unfortunately, this also proved to be an encumberance when working on mecha. She needed some hoverboots to get to the taller bits of any given mecha, such as the heads for some ganmen[10], most LEVs and Orbital Frames[11], and the SVA-06L Reptos, which was actually fairly tall for a light-class variant armor. Unfortunately, hoverboots weren't exactly the most stable of android equipment. The best hoverboots available still jerked around on occasion. Hell, even the police-grade Force Jetboots still bobbed up and down. There was an alternative, and that was G-Diffuser technology. G-Diffuser tech was everywhere, from hoverboards to hovercraft, even aircraft had this advanced gravity-stabilizing device. There was only one problem with G-Diffuser tech: they couldn't afford it. As much money as the shop needs to function, G-Diffuser devices would just cause additional grief and would probably cause them to go broke.
Then the door opened, accompanied by a traditional 'ding-a-ling' that you would normally hear in such shops and interrupting Roll from her normal thought processing functions. From the doorway came a young cat-rabbit hybrid with black fur, red jeans, a red collar that was at least three sizes too big on its neck and a baseball cap bearing the logo of a once famous Dataroid[12]. It's, or rather, his, name was Klonoa, and he needed something repaired. Or else he wouldn't have come inside a machine shop.
Fortunately, Jin was at the counter instead of Roll, so she didn't have to interrupt her work, and the aforementioned Saotome said "Yo, welcome to L-S Machine Shop. What do you need?" to which the aforementioned cabbit responded, "I'm Klonoa. I made an appointment about a few weeks ago."
Actually, that came out something like that but with a sort of stutter that the writer is too lazy to write out. At any rate, Jin replied "If you're thinking about an internship, that's not my department. Ask Rollanette Caskett when she gets back. I'm sure she'll love the help."
"That's not what I meant, Mr. Saotome."
It should be noted that Jin had a father, a Genma Saotome[13], who he respected at some times, and thought he was completely off his rocker at others. "Please, Klonoa... what's your first name?"
"It's just Klonoa, Mr. Saotome."
Now Jin was getting annoyed. If there was one thing Jin didn't particularly care for, it was formalities. "Please stop calling me Mr. Saotome, Klonoa. That's my dad. Call me Jin. And, hell, I don't mind you hanging out here until Rollanette gets back from running errands and does an interview, but I'd mind even less if you had something for us to fix."
Just then, that android I was talking about a few paragraphs ago, Roll Light, popped her head out from the garage door. "Something needs fixin'?" she asked with a smile, and before Klonoa could open his mouth (muzzle?) to speak, Jin said "Oh, Roll, you're just in time. This is Klonoa, and he set up an appointment with your sister."
"Sworn sister, Jin-sama[14]. And I thought that she didn't do appointments, just interviews."
Klonoa took this time to answer "I set one up ahead of time, if that is alright with you, Miss Roll.", to which Roll reminded him, "Call me Roll, Klonoa. I'm only thirteen, after all."
Jin soon interjected, "I thought you were 26[15]." "No, you're 26. Us Casts are the age we were created to act, minus any redesigns. I was created to be fifteen, but I've had two redesigns. Now, I thought I heard a machine crying out in pain."
Klonoa looked at her in surprise, to which Jin neutralized by saying "Don't look so surprised, dude. I didn't sign up with her to start this place due to her good looks."
"JIIIIN!"
"I started this place up because she's got a talent her brothers don't have. You've heard of the Light family, right?"
Klonoa nodded. Apparently he had heard of the famous family of Dr. Thomas Light, premier robotics expert and inventor of the Android chassis[16] for Casts. Hell, between Dr. Light, his rival Dr. Wily, and his associates Dr. Cossack and Dr. Gero[17], they've cooked up enough Androids to fill about 23.2% of the Cast population.
"Okay then. Then you have heard of Rock, Blues and X, by extension. Each Android has a particular talent, like Rock and X being Mega Man and Mega Man X, respectively."
Klonoa nodded again. "So I guess what you're getting at is that she is an Android too, right?" he asked. This time, it was Roll who answered. "Yeah, it was a pain to get that paperwork in order. Anyway. My talent is reading mechanical thoughts. I can tell you exactly what kind of shape a particular machine is in, as well as read its mind. And I can tell you that there's a Powered Gear nearby. Wait, no, that's just Gamma[18]. Jin, would you kindly get the door, please?"
Jin grunted. He wished Roll wouldn't use that phrase[19].
-=VR=-
1] Ah yes, the LS Machine Shop. A staple everytime I run this story back.
2] Middle-class here meaning between three and fifteen stories.
3] If you look it up, this is her real middle name. I'm not telling where, of course.
4] But if you look this up, you won't find a Rollanette. This is because that name is a longer version of Roll, to differentiate herself from Roll Light.
5] If you paid any attention to my last chapter, you would know that AF Energy can revive the KO'd after two weeks, but not if you've been meat grinded.
6] I chose to go with the Armored Warriors serial numbers for the mecha from that game, i.e. Blodia, Reptos, Fordy, Guldin, the like.
7] A Mecha By Any Other Name: Armored Warriors and Cyberbots. The Variant refers to the customizable capability of these mecha.
8] You know, the bikes from Mega Man X2 on.
9] This refers to any car powered by Anti-gravity devices used in the AXG-Zero Circuit.[9a]
9a] The AXG-Zero Circuit is basically a combination of the WipEout, F-Zero, and Extreme G races, which will debut in a different chapter.
10] AMBOAN: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan, in which they were hijacked by the main characters.
11] AMBOAN: Zone of the Enders, the one with the anatomically correct Mecha designs.
12] This is only one of the outfits Klonoa will wear in later chapters. I should make it a point to use alternate costumes when (un)necessary. (PS. That once famous dataroid? Pac-Man.)
13] Yes, Genma and Ranma are related to Jin Saotome in this story. I can't wait to see what Jin says about Ranma...
14] I was thinking of using Japanese honorifics in this story for the Japanese characters, but then I realized... formalities make Jin annoyed.
15] You know, since Mega Man as a series is 26. Happy Birthday!
16] Casts are unique amongst Virtua Republic races, in that, instead of skin color and whatnots, they have chassis. The Android chassis was what was probably refered to in Dr. Zachary Snider's journal entry from last chapter.
17] Dr. Gero is a mad scientist from the Dragon Ball Z Android Saga, so of course he'd be a perfect fit amongst Drs. Light, Wily, Cossack, and (maybe) Eggman.
18] AMBOAN: the Japanese name for Armored Warriors; here it means a human-sized or smaller suit of mechanical armor piloted by a biological being, such as E-102 Gamma from Sonic Adventure, or maybe Iron Man, but as he's a comic book character, he's not going to be in this story. Sorry, Tony!
19] lol Bioshock 1 spoilers.
Next up: vector act one
"river city ransom"