When Sucy woke up, she was greeted with a pleasant aroma wafting by her from her nightstand. Blinking several times in quick succession, she groggily stepped to the nearby sink before rinsing her hands for about a minute. Rubbing her eyes, Sucy returned to the nightstand before feeling a smile creep up on her face as she laid her eyes upon the still steaming mushroom omelette in front of her.
Honestly, I'm gonna end up spoiled by the end of all this. Is she trying to get on my good side or something?
In any case, dwelling on it wouldn't do her any good. Taking the plate, Sucy snuggled back under the covers as she debated whether or not to pop a temperature-adjust potion before deciding against it.
After all, I don't have too many of these. May as well save them until I need them. Plus, Constanze's blankets are cosier than the Luna Nova ones, so I may as well take this opportunity while I can.
And so, the room was filled with Sucy's contented sighs as she wrapped herself up in a cocoon of cloth.
###
What's that noise?
After falling asleep for a little, Sucy was awoken to a distinct crackling sound filling the room.
"Constanze? That you?"
Getting up quicker this time, Sucy lazily opened the door to leave her room before…
*CRACKL-*
…immediately regretting every life decision she'd made up to that point and slamming it shut.
Alright. No problem. All she needed to do was to pop a sound-filter potion.
Opening the door again and letting out a sigh of relief when her eardrums weren't violated, Sucy smiled at the addition of a clearly labelled doorbell at the entrance to the machine shop. Sucy waited, tapping her foot as she felt the vibrations in the ground cease. Well, even if she had to wait a little, that was fine. After everything she'd been through in the past 2 days, there was probably nothing that could surprise her anymore-
*CLANG*
-Though she didn't exactly plan on being clocked in the face with the door.
"Ow… What the hell-"
However, even as Sucy rubbed her head and her vision slid in and out of focus, a thought that had just so happened to cross her mind was ever so slightly pushed to the forefront:
Constanze was beautiful.
Sucy had never thought Constanze ugly, far from it. One would be hard-pressed to find a witch at Luna Nova who didn't fall in the 4-7 range according to Sucy. But something about the soot on Constanze's face, the loose way she held a rivet gun in her hand, and the way that her enchanted overalls hugged her body, it was all just… right. Kind of like how she felt when Akko was wearing that white witch's outfit, but different, somehow. Was it the gap between someone so small yet so capable? Or maybe the fact that Sucy only really saw people in Luna Nova uniforms? Yeah, that must be right. After all, her love potions were safely stored back at- Oh god, was she drooling?
Oblivious to the extended silence, Constanze tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at Sucy as if to ask:
"What's up?"
Recollecting herself, Sucy hastily dusted her body down, standing straight and looking off to the side, saying:
"O-oh, I just heard some noises coming from here but I think-"
She stopped talking, however, as her attention was garnered by what looked like a metal super soaker on the welding table.
"You working on that?"
It was good that Constanze was so distractible, Sucy thought. The way that she snapped to attention before scurrying off to pick up the device with those wide eyes caused Sucy to crack a smile as she let some of the tension inside of her dissipate.
"That was a little energetic of you, Constanze."
While she hadn't so much as cracked a smile, the fact that Constanze was buzzing with energy was so self-evident that it wasn't even necessary. She eagerly handed the device over to Sucy who looked it over in her hands as if it were a delicate piece of jewellery instead of a clunky water gun.
"So, what exactly is this?"
Constanze pulled out her whiteboard, scrawling down the words:
"Stan Sprayer"
"What does it do?"
Constanze appeared to be at a loss for a second, scribbling something on her whiteboard before erasing it, writing and erasing again before simply taking the Stan Spray back in her hands and, before she could react, swiping one of Sucy's potions from her belt.
"Wha- hey! Constanze, that's danger-"
Before she could even get a word in, Constanze had emptied the contents of the potion into a different canister that would normally be filled with water before screwing it onto the Stan Sprayer and pulling the trigger.
"What the heck are you doing, Conz-"
Sucy stopped herself as an ice-cold realisation washed across her body.
When she'd entered, she hadn't even noticed how it was in the room, but in a flash, all of the sweat on her body had vanished, leaving behind a vague tingling sensation before her body fell back into equilibrium.
Slightly dazed, Sucy could say:
"O-oi, don't waste it."
In response, Constanze unscrewed the container before pouring it back into the flask, only to find that the liquid level hadn't dropped at all.
"Eh? But how… why…"
Sucy was so dumbstruck that she almost didn't notice the sweat beginning to pool in her brow.
When she did, however, a swift realisation once again struck her as her mouth went into an 'o' shape.
"Oh, I see. So, you trade potion duration for usage efficiency. Is that right?"
Constanze nodded, prompting another spiralling of thoughts from Sucy.
There were many potions that a shortened duration would render useless. Say, for example, most temperature or toxin resist potions that needed to work over long periods of time in order to remain effective. On the other hand, however, there were numerous potions that only needed a momentary burst in order to be effective such as a fire potion, or a potion of magical energy, or, perhaps…
"A vomiting poison…"
Seemingly able to fill in the blanks from that word alone, Constanze nodded and handed the SS back to Sucy.
"Wait, are you giving this to me?"
Constanze nodded, only stepping back after making sure that Sucy had the contraption in her hands. Shaking off her disbelief, Sucy asked:
"Then what about you? Got any new fancy weapons for yourself?"
Constanze stared at Sucy for a few moments before gesturing for a few Stanbots to come over. In a flash, the 3 small robots hopped on top of one another and in a few short movements that Sucy recognized from one of the mecha shows Akko had forced them to watch, they'd morphed into…
"A Stan rifle?"
Constanze nodded, seemingly pleased that Sucy had gotten the name correct on her first try.
"Sweet. How are we looking on the GPS?"
Constanze gestured towards the wall and, in a flash, a globe popped up, displaying their position as being right at the southern tip of Africa.
"Huh. We're pretty close. Think we should talk about how we're gonna get this lizard in squirting range?"
And with one last nod, the 2 of them got to work.
###
According to legend and scholarly texts from ages past, the Forge Lizard was certainly not something to be trifled with. Long enough to swallow the stanship whole and with stomach acid capable of melting even adamantine, it was a small wonder that it hadn't already consumed the entire world.
Still, it had a digestive tract and as such, a good shot directly into a nostril would send it retching up no small amount of perfectly usable bile.
How to get right up to its nose, though…
Constanze had already burned through several markers by this point as she sat next to the alchemy station. Sucy, meanwhile, had rejected her offer for a Stan Scuba Suit.
"I prefer my potions." she had said, prompting Constanze to hammer out a simple wetsuit for her.
Truth be told though, there hadn't been much work. Unlike the metal of the Stan Sprayer, the cloth of the wetsuit was a material that Constanze didn't have any particular fondness or aptitude for and as such, she'd sent a few Stanbots to work on the suit while she fruitlessly drew up plans and occasionally bouncing ideas off of Sucy.
After ruling out the possibility of Sucy going inside of the Forge Serpent to collect bile from the inside (Constanze still had absolutely zero clue as to how she dreamt that up), Constanze decided that sometimes, people need breaks.
Pulling her chair closer to the table and putting on her welding mask, Constanze failed to lean over Sucy's shoulder, instead settling for looking around her to see what she was doing.
There was something oddly satisfying about the slowly bubbling mixture in the cauldron, something alluring about how it shimmered and changed colour whenever Sucy added a pinch of this or a dash of that into the broth, something enchanting about the way that Sucy's face lit up into a wide smile after inhaling a particularly large puff of smoke…
"So? How do I look?"
Snapping out of her trance, Constanze noticed that something was… different about Sucy. Her usually clear skin became almost crystalline and there were odd growths on the side of her face…
Ah. Right. The 'Marine Transformation' potion. Sucy had mentioned the name in passing.
"It's a potion that'll turn you into a fish if you drink it, but I figured that if I just modified it a bit, I'd get just enough fish in me to swim well."
Wait, she figured that that would happen?
Seeing Constanze's panic, Sucy practically cackled, nearly doubling over before squeaking out:
"Oh, that was my first time testing it out on Akko! And don't worry about me getting stuck like this. It took some time, but I managed an antidote."
At that moment, Constanze felt an unprecedented surge of sympathy for Akko.
Nevertheless, Sucy didn't look all that different aside from some scales and fins, though Constanze could bet that more would change once she entered the water. Flashing her a thumbs up, Constanze started walking up to the deck.
"Oh? Should I come too-"
Constanze shook her head, instead gesturing for Sucy to put a lid on her cauldron and to lie down on her bed.
"Eh? Why, exactly?"
Despite not receiving an answer, Sucy did as she was told before shooting Constanze a confused look from across the room as she reached into the fume hood, taping the cauldron's lid to the pot.
"Hah? Why-"
Before she could even finish, Constanze had already exited.
"Weird. Wonder what that was about-"
But when Sucy tried to roll over in the bed, she realized something:
She was stuck.
"Wha- Constanze!"
A metal belt had trapped Sucy, securing her waist right to the bed. Sure, she could melt through it with one of her solvents, but something told her that Constanze wouldn't take too kindly to that.
"Constanze! What the hell is going on-"
And that's when a new sensation filled Sucy's mind, one that she'd hoped she wouldn't experience, especially not a kilometre above ground:
They were falling.
