Hello everybody. I'm genuinely surprised I got this out in a week. maybe I can make this work after all.
Anyway, enjoy.
Chapter 2 is here, so let's get to it.
"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 2 – The Beginning of Infinite Possibilities
No Job, Crescent Rose
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" *THUD*
…
…
"Bah!" Crescent pulled herself from the ground.
She lay on her back, panting, her heart pounding in her chest as her chest rose and fell rapidly.
It took a few moments before she realized something. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, feel her lungs expanding and deflating, see the infinite blue and slightly cloudy sky gradually turning grey and smokey heading towards something beyond her sight, and could even smell the grass around her.
Checking herself, she saw that her body wasn't even harmed. No scratches, or even a single grass stain.
…She did remember there were a few video games where the main character fell from the sky and landed safely…now she was just embarrassed about screaming.
While trying to catch up with the fact she survived a fall that should have made her a pancake, she decided to look at her stats just in case.
Name: Crescent Rose
Total Level: 0
EXP: 0/100
Embryo: N/A
Embryo Type N/A
Embryo Form: 0
Main Job: N/A
Main Job Level: 0
Sub Job: N/A
Sub Job Level: 0
HP: 110
MP: 10
SP: 21
STR: 10
END: 11
DEX: 17
AGI: 20
LUK: 20
"Hmm, I am level 0 so I guess this should be par for the course, but then why wasn't it more uniform?" she pondered for a moment. "Are there hidden values that determine the stats…" then she remembered she had used her own body for a base. She had always been a fast runner…and about as strong as a twig…yeah that explained it.
After a few moments of lying on her back, she got up and started walking towards Vandelheim, the capital of the Dryfe Imperium.
Looking from her spot on a high hill, seeing it, truly seeing it for the first time, Crescent gasped at the massive walled-off city that looked like a cross between old Mantle and nineteenth-century Vale. Rows of workshops and common housing surrounded a rich looking district which itself surrounded a massive gear-themed fortress that rose three times higher than the next largest structure, including smokestacks.
"Sooo cooool." She chittered.
After about ten minutes of walking, she made her way to the city gate.
The gate was guarded by four people armed with mechanical-looking rifles that seemed more advanced than the city would have led her to believe.
She had heard Dryfe had assault rifles, but she wasn't expecting StG 44s. Not as advanced as some of the newer models in Vale, let alone Atlas. But, not out of date entirely either. She had seen many older guns enthusiasts with them in their collections.
And she still felt like geeking out nonetheless, however, what caught her eye, was the bipedal robot standing about as big as an Atlesian Paladin-290, but it was different. It looked like they took the design more from the Atlesian Knight-130, but kept the paladin frame with the knight's head and gave it some kind of powered wheels attached to each heel for higher mobility. (1)
"Um miss?"
Why hadn't they thought of that? It was so obvious. Enhancing mobility would be invaluable in any form of conflict. Everyone knew that despite their destructive potential Atlesian Paladins were painfully slow. That was their most famous weakness after all. But with this, it would be an easy fix.
"Um miss?"
Of course, the treads would need to be altered for their environment. After all, Mantle was a tundra and Vacuo was a literal desert. The treading would need to be altered for such extreme environments to prevent slipping or breaking due to intense heat, respectfully. In fact-
"Miss!" someone shouted, bringing her out of her reverie.
He was a plain looking man. A few years older than her and despite her new height, still a good foot taller than her.
"Are you okay, do I need to call a Doctor or Priest?" he asked, seemingly genuinely concerned.
"Oh, um, sorry, I was just so caught up in the scenery. I was lost in thought." She meekly apologized.
For his part, the man only chuckled, "I completely understand. Ever since the new Magingear, the Marshall II's, have been coming out, I find myself marveling at them too." He said, giving her a reassuring smile.
Only when he smiled did she notice that he had a small scar creeping up his neck. The tensing of the muscles in his face was the only thing that drew it from under his collar.
When he looked at her again, he seemed to focus on her left hand. "You're a Master, aren't you?" he asked pointing to the gem on her hand.
Holding it up, Crescent gave an awkward smile, "Y-yes."
"Oh, I'm Duncan Royal by the way." He introduced himself quickly and politely offering his hand out. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm Ru- I mean Crescent Rose." She replied shaking his right hand, and lowering her left. "Nice to meet you too."
"I gotta say when Masters started shown' up here, what has it been, two, two and half years ago?" he asked to which Crescent just nodded. She knew that time in the game was three times faster than real life, so that seemed about right, but what had her mind wondering was if this guy separated her as a player then that meant he was an NPC, right?
She honestly could see him working the counter at the local grocery store on Patch.
"I heard the Clock Tower guild went from nothin' but ideas in their heads to the Marshall II in just a month. A MONTH, can you believe it? (2)" he said gesturing to the Marshall II. The pilot, whoever they were was nice enough to even waive to them.
Waiving back she was brought back to Duncan, "My dad says Masters are nothing but trouble, no offense, but I think you lot are awesome. You make so many amazing things and you're blessed by Embryos that are so cool. What's it like? What's your Embryo going to be?"
Crescent was trying to back away slowly, but he kept taking a step forward when she took a step back. He didn't even seem to realize it.
Is this the setup for some kind of quest? I hope not.
"Royal!" a voice bellowed from behind Duncan as a large rotund man who looked to be in his late forties bounded over with a speed she wouldn't have expected from such a heavy man.
"What have I told you about bothering Masters with your questions?" he more shouted than yelled waving a clipboard like it was a deadly weapon.
"C-captain, I- I-"
"Will be on latrine duty for the next month if you don't get back to your post and stay there until the end of your shift!" he shouted.
"Catch you later Crescent." Duncan waved off before sprinting to what she presumed to be his post.
The large man turned suddenly when Duncan had gotten halfway there. His eyes fixed on her so sharply and quickly that she involuntarily let out an "Eep!" in surprise.
And then he did the unexpected, his face softened and he gave her a warm smile. "I'm sorry about Royal there, he's a good kid, but gets excited by all the new shiny things you Masters make. I hope you can forgive him."
"Oh, um, sure."
"Thank you." He said politely.
"Now, I believe you Masters are a busy lot so I won't keep you, but if you're ever in any trouble, talk to the guard and tell them you know Captain Roland Stone and they'll help you out." He said warmly.
He kind of reminded her of her dad when he was 'spoiling her' as her sister and uncle sometimes called it.
"I will, thank you very much, Captain Stone." She quickly moved through the gate, catching some of the guards saying things like "Wow, the captain really does have a soft spot for kids."
"Well duh, the man has three daughters and his oldest is only fifteen."
Now she was wondering if she should have made herself look at least a little older.
/-/
After a few minutes of walking Crescent smelt something mouthwatering.
"Well, the whole point of a game is to have fun. And I'll only be in for a few minutes to try the something." She reassured herself while looking at the large counter of desserts on display in the nearby café.
"Sweets" she read the sign aloud. If that wasn't an invitation to come in, she didn't know what was.
The interior was spacious and kind of reminded her of something called a malt shop her dad took her and Yang to when they were kids.
Sitting down a waitress dressed as a cute maid with her hair in golden twin tails with matching bunny ears seemed to pop up out of nowhere. "Hello Mistress, I'm Bun-Bun and I'll be your server today." She beamed handing Crescent a menu before striking a pose.
"Oh, thank you." She replied immediately flipping to the desert section. Mistress?
She recognized most of the things on the menu; chocolate mousse and red velvet cake, however, she had never heard of a remberry tart or clearberry parfait. As someone who prided herself on being the devourer of all things sweet in the world, she couldn't let this stand.
So, she asked the waitress when she came back. "Excuse me, what is a remberry?"
"They're a type of berry that has the texture of apples, but tastes like the ripest juiciest strawberries you've ever tasted."
"I'll take five remberry tarts," Crescent said without hesitation.
Her eyes may or may not have become star-struck and squealed in excitement at the taste.
Just as she finished cleaning her plate, Bun-Bun brought the bill. 5,000 lir…wait WHAT?!
"Um, Bun-Bun?" the silver-eyed girl asked cautiously.
"Yes mistress?" she asked with an unbroken smile.
"Why is this so expensive?"
"Mistress, did you not read the prices of the menu? Remberries have to be imported from the Kingdom of Altar and even there it cost 5,000 lir to pick just one basket. To compensate, for the expenses of importing them even a single tart is worth 1,000 lir and you've eaten five, so your bill is 5,000 lir."
"Or…" her voice took on a tone that chilled Crescent to her very core as liquid metal blades seemed to appear out of nowhere, pointed at every one of her vitals. "Will I need to 'explain' to mistress why dine-n-dashing is not allowed?"
It was only at this moment that Crescent noticed the yellow insignia of a twisted and melted sword on her left hand.
She was another player.
"Well, mistress?" Bun-Bun asked giving her a warm smile that would melt a person's heart if not for her eyes freezing her very soul.
/-/
"Thank you and come again Mistress" Bun-Bun waived as Crescent left the café sans all the money she had on her.
Yang must never know. She thought sourly. Her sister had warned her about not watching her money and this time it had come to bite her.
It was the Dust shop incident all over. Stupid half-off sales that make you want to buy more than normal.
Well, she could still make this work. Yang had said earning money was easy. All you needed to do was get a job and either kill some monsters or take quests.
Easy.
…now how do I get a job?
It was at that moment Crescent had forgotten if her sister had even told her that part.
"Well, I'll just ask Yang when I see her." She reasoned. Her sister told her where to meet and even gave her her screen name; Javanista.
Getting to the fountain near the gate had been easy enough. There were also quite a few people around making her a little nervous.
"Now who looks like a Javanista?" she asked more to herself than aloud.
"That would be me." Someone said behind her causing the red- and blonde-haired girl to jump and spin to face her.
In front of her was a woman dressed in what she could only describe as a blouse made from threaded metal with black pants and high-heeled black boots, which also looked to be inlaid with sturdy metals. She reminded Crescent of a fashion model she had seen on TV once. Her wavy hair was to her shoulders transitioning from caramel to dark brown at the tips.
"Yang is that you?" Crescent asked without thinking before the woman clamped a hand over her mouth.
Raising a finger to her own lips, the woman gestured for Crescent to be quiet. Nodding her head, Crescent watched the woman retract her arm.
"First, no real names. There are a lot of untrustworthy people in this world."
Crescent nodded. That was true. "Sorry Javanista", she apologized.
"You can just call me Java."
"Sorry, Java."
"No problem, I'm just a friend of your sister's instead of your sister herself."
"WHAT?"
"She told me to hand you this." Java handed her a sealed envelope.
Quickly opening it, she read the letter inside of it.
"Hi Rubes,
"If you're reading this, welcome to Infinite Dendrogram. You're probably wondering why I'm not just telling you this in person, right? Well, I thought you could learn to socialize more. So, I won't tell you where I am and neither will Java. If you want to find me, you'll have to figure it out yourself…and hopefully, have some fun on your own.
Love,
The best big sis in the world"
"She tricked you into going to the wrong country, didn't she?" Java asked eyebrow raised as she looked upon the younger girl's expression.
"No, my sister did not trick me into going to the wrong country."
/-/
Somewhere in Legendaria
"I totally tricked my sister into going to the wrong country." A woman said sipping a strawberry sunrise and giving an appreciative nod and wink to the hunky shirtless bartender who had made it.
"Why would you do that?" said the woman next to her.
"My sister is shy and tends to lock herself in her room or her workshop. I don't want her to do that for the rest of her life. This way she's forced to interact with other people, even if it is virtual." She said taking a sip of her drink.
"Besides, can you really talk given that you've lied to your sister saying you didn't have time to play games just so she doesn't know about this?" she said waiving her hand to gesture to the entirety of the woman.
While the first woman was dressed in a rather risqué yellow and gold Mistralian cheongsam stylized with a golden serpentine Mistralian dragon on it with a short skirt with slits on the sides up to the middle of her hips she at least had on gauntlets, pauldrons, and grieves whereas her friend was dressed in a black latex corset, thong, and thigh high boots with arm length gloves that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than an 18+ profession.
Said dominatrix blushed heavily, something she hadn't seen on her before.
"My sister still sleeps with a stuffed animal she hides under her pillow. She is far too innocent for a game this realistic."
/-/
Somewhere in Caldina
Surrounded by the mutilated, heavily poisoned, and mangled corpses of both his students and fellow assassins, Allo Ulmill, looked on in horror as the woman with cat ears and long black hair that gradient into a stary blue with specks of white like the stary sky walked ever so slowly towards him, floating weapons that looked like a cross between swords and lances made of ice, dripping with the blood of his compatriots.
"Y-you can't do this. The Death will have your head for thi-" he was cut off as by some unknown means he was suddenly floating in the air, a sword/lance piercing each of his limbs and two running through his abdomen.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed as the blade began to move further and further apart literally ripping him limb from limb before eventually dropping the pieces of what once here Allo Ulmill to the ground in a heap.
"If you didn't want me to kill you, you should have just given up the Superior Job when I asked you." (3) She said before casually walking out of the building.
/-/
Back in Dryfe
"Uh, this is like the time she taught me how to swim all over." Crescent bemoaned onto the bar top in the restaurant they were in, courtesy of Java. "Just throw me in and hope I swim." She sighed. She did learn to swim that way. She just wished Yang had known about the other kid she had tossed her onto.
"Another." She said as the bartender slid another chocolate float to her, soon to finish the three she had already consumed in the slow cycle of accepting her sister had in fact, tricked her into going to the wrong country.
"So, feeling better?" Java asked while secretly wondering just how much chocolate one person could handle.
"A little." She sighed again before suddenly slamming her fist on the bar top before standing. "You know what, I WILL do something awesome MY WAY for a change. No more 'lessons' from my big sister. This time it's the Rub- I mean Crescent Rose way this time!"
"Yeah, go for it." Java cheered, "So what are you going to do?"
…Crescent slumped back in her seat, "I have no idea."
"Oookay, well, what do you want to do in the meantime?" she tried to cheer her up, "Like something you just want to do while you figure out your bigger goal?"
"Hmmm, I guess I want to know how to get a job first…and maybe upgrade my weapon to something more than a piece of metal on a stick." She said gesturing to the scythe on her back. She did see the flare and interest in simple weapons, they were the originals, the precursors for all that followed, but they just weren't for her.
Java smiled, this was a question she could answer, "Typically you just go to the Job Crystal of the job you want. Most guilds have their related Job Crystal, but there are some jobs you can get from any Job Crystal."
"Really? I just what, touch a crystal and get a job?"
"Yeah. You can have up to six low rank jobs, each capping off at level 50, that just need you to touch the crystal and two high-rank jobs, each capping off at level 100, which you'll need to meet certain requirements like max leveling a low rank job or two."
"And then there's Superior Jobs that only one person can have and are SUPER hard to get, right?" Crescent added recalling a conversation with Yang.
"Right."
"Okay, but how do I know what job I wan-" Crescent slowed as Java pulled a book out of her bracelet.
Was that also an inventory? So cool!
The Suitable Job Diagnostic Catalog?" She read the title aloud.
"You just answer a few questions, and it'll list the job most suitable for you at this exact moment."
/ One short quiz later/
"It says there is a tie between Mechanic and Engineer. What's the difference?"
"Those two are pretty common in Dryfe. Mechanics specialize in repairing, and improving existing machines so it has skills for analyzing machinery, repairs, auto-crafting from recipes, and buffing machines. While Engineer is more focused on crafting new machines, so the skills include things like blueprint creation, crafting buffs, and tool proficiency. That's why most people have both low rank jobs."
"The Clock Tower is full of people with both jobs. Granted, most of them are supposed to be Atlesian engineers IRL. Or at least that's the rumor. Hard to tell with how energetic their guild master, Doc Cricket, is."
"So I can just select them both and level them up?"
"Not quite. You can only have one main job at a time and that is the job all your EXP goes to. All the rest become sub jobs. You'll only be able to use their skills if the job has a similar grouping to your main job. which in this case would work since Mechanic and Engineer have similar grouping. You could also do something like Knight and Rider since both have riding related skills but can't do something like Alchemist and Dancer since the two don't have anything in common."
"Oh, how many jobs are there anyway?"
"Supposedly over 10,000."
That had Crescent's eyes about to bulge. How had they come up with so many? How could the server even support such a massive job class system?
"It's still best to pick one and then level it to max first. Even if you did get two at once, you'd have a hard time maxing the skills of both at the same time. Personally, I'd recommend Mechanic first since there are more quests for Mechanics making it easier for a production type like it to level up."
"Wow, thanks Java."
"No sweat kid, I owed your big sis a favor." She smiled before giving Crescent directions to the conjoined Mechanic and Engineering guilds.
Truth be told, she probably could have just told her to go to the second largest building in the entire city and that would have been enough.
Walking in Crescent immediately moved to the receptionist's desk.
"How may I help you today ma'am." She smiled.
"I'm here to get a Mechanic job," she said going with Java's suggestion.
"Excellent, please follow me this way." She smiled sweetly before leading Crescent to the job crystal while explaining about them. By her tone, Crescent could tell she had given this speech several times already.
Apparently, guilds were built around their Job Crystal, and since the crystals themselves couldn't be moved, they tended to decide where the guilds were located. It also determined what jobs a country was known for.
Their neighbor to the south, the Kingdom of Altar, was known as the "Land of Knights" as that was the only place to find the Knight Job Crystal.
Some jobs were common everywhere such as Chef.
When she finally got to the Job Crystal Crescent simply touched it and a menu appeared before her.
The job Mechanic lit up, but she could also see other jobs such as High Mechanic or Gadgeteer, but they were greyed out.
Tapping the menu she equipped the job Mechanic.
"Would you like to take some quests while you are here?" the receptionist asked. "We get so many quests every day and new Masters tend to eat them up because it helps level them up quickly."
"Sure." She said.
"Excellent." The receptionist beamed before taking her to the quest catalog.
Needless to say, Crescent hadn't expected her first quest in a game so real to be a decision between producing thirty manifolds for 2,000 lir or repairing an animatronic scarecrow for a theater for 6,000 lir.
Why was the scarecrow more expensive than the exhaust manifolds anyway?
As she continued to flip through the pages of quests she could take, something caught her eye.
"Repair the Broken Marshall II Level 5 Quest. Notice, the Clock Tower issues this quest for all up-and-coming Mechanics level 50 or lower with a total level of 100 or less. There is a Magingear in the clearing less than a kilometels south of Vandelheim. If you can fix it, you can have it."
Crescent blinked.
They were just giving it away?
She might be naive some (read: most) of the time, but this sounded fishy. "Excuse me miss, what is this quest about?"
"…and what is a 'Level 5 Quest'?"
The woman who had thus far been waiting patiently looked over her shoulder, "Ah, yes. A few months back the Clock Tower damaged one of their prototypes, accidentally losing it for a few weeks due to an attempt to make it fly. Once they found it, rather than scrapping it for parts, they decided to post a quest to try and recruit some fresh talent. So far no one has been interested or was restricted due to the level cap placed on the quest."
She could understand that. They were basically asking fresh graduates to try and do the work of a professional technician as a way to find skilled talent to recruit.
"The level is an indicator of how difficult the quest will be. While Masters can receive notices from taking event quests calculated by their Embryo (4), the level in the book is calculated by the guild. In this case, a level 5 quest is marked as such due to the difficulty for a low-level Mechanic to fix such a complex machine. Personally, I would only try it if I had Mechanic, High Mechanic, and Engineer jobs equipped."
that would make a person's level 200 if she remembered right. Well above the overall level restriction.
Still, something told her she should take this quest…however, there was a small problem.
"How would I go about doing this- strictly hypothetically- if I -again hypothetically - didn't have any money?" she asked with a nervous smile.
The receptionist for her part, simply gave her a reassuring smile, "The guild has a program that started rather recently for new Masters such as yourself. Simply sign a magic contract that you will pay us back, either all at once or in an installment, and we will give you the tools and materials needed. Within reason." She quickly added.
Not seeing any choice in the matter, Crescent agreed.
/One magical contract and journey later/
Mechanic, Crescent Rose
Finding the remains of the Marshall II wasn't hard. If anything what took her so long was simply trying to not stop and stare at…well EVERYTHING.
It was just too real.
She could smell the grass, feel the wind in her hair, still taste the remberry tarts on her tongue – that she vowed to eat again despite the terrifying bunny maid-, and hear the sound of children laughing and playing not too far off.
It just seemed too hard to believe this was all just a game.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she set out to fix the mech…after playing with the children for a few hours. She just couldn't help herself being the 'big' sis for once.
/-/
Finally getting to the actual work, Crescent immediately noticed how her Mechanic skills worked. It didn't so much put information in front of her as she thought it would. Originally, she thought it would be something like Appraisal is in anime. Just a screen with more information the higher her level. Well, it did tell her what each part was, but at the same time, it was…different.
Machine Analysis didn't just give her information, it seemed to give her an idea of how each component functions, and how they are integrated as a whole, and she didn't know…pinged the relevant data from her own mind. Normally, she would prefer to view a schematic to understand the inner workings of a machine and its electrical system, but just by looking at it long enough, she seemed to instantly know which lines went where, what wire was ground- seriously she was taught that black was to be used as ground, why didn't everyone just do that? -, and where the parts that weren't working were.
Most of those were the result of being left out in the elements. Most of its metallic grey chassis was either missing or starting to rust.
Though not as much as one would expect, if anything it was far less than she expected until she remembered her second skill; Machine Enhancement. Whenever she worked on a machine she could use MP to enhance its parameters such as durability, energy efficiency, and even alter its performance to a small degree.
Those that tried before her probably had used this skill on it as well.
Mechanical Mending allowed her to almost mend the minor damage herself with just MP, but for larger fixes, she used the ingots of copper, iron, or titanium that were supplied by the guild.
It was clear some people had been working on this before her. A lot of the mechanical parts and systems clearly had pieces fixed, welded, or soldered. Though she had to retouch the last part.
Her professor, Mr. Mulberry (5), had drilled into her skull to NEVER leave soldering bubbles and drips handing. It was unprofessional and power inefficient at best, a safety hazard waiting to happen at worst.
About halfway through she started to see the problem where most people probably failed. Rather than have the power, the MP from the pilot, go directly to each limb, the conduits were designed to be routed through the back of the chest and spread out to the different sections of the machine like the circulatory system while connected to the individual motor systems.
Whoever worked on this prior tried to directly link each limb to the device that collected MP, the MP reactor as her Machine Analysis identified it as, but forgot to take into account that they were still connected to the original set up resulting in it double drawing on the user's MP. This in turn caused several components to overheat and the left shoulder was hooked up in reverse causing the current to try and flow the wrong way through the system completely frying it.
It would make sense that she would catch something like this. She was an engineering student. The average person just using their job skill wouldn't be able to figure this out because the skill, if they were as low as hers, would just show that power needed to flow to the limbs.
"Be careful to not lose the forest through the trees." Was one of her dad's sayings. It seemed to fit this situation rather well.
/three hours later/
For the time being, she had to disconnect the powerlines to the left arm. Getting into the cockpit, Crescent strapped in and pressed the ignition button.
Moment of truth…
….
…..
…
….
…..
…. and it started. "Whew hoo!" she cheered as the terminal started to light up and display the different systems.
"Okay, so the left arm is inoperable, the wheels on the heels are inoperable and the left knee doesn't have full its full range of motion. There are inventories built into the sides of the thighs for supplies and weapons, but they're empty." She muttered to herself observing the magingear's diagnostic report.
"Okay, now to test the visual/audio display." She said flipping a few switches. Her Machine Analysis skill seemed to help her work the console despite her never working with anything like this.
The image was a little weird due to what she suspected was a crack on the lens, but she could see the kids from before still playing, the setting sun in the background.
The only problem was that there wasn't any sound. "Hmmm, I'll need to work on that." She muttered tapping on the console to see if she could figure out what the problem was.
However, something on the monitor caught her eye. She wasn't sure what it was at first, but then she saw it. The outline of a large two-headed lizard was slowly stalking toward the kids. Its name read Twin-Headed Lesser Chameleon Basilisk.
Based on the name, the kids couldn't see it because it was probably camouflaged, but her sensors could pick it out.
"RUN!" she shouted only to remember the audio wasn't working and cursed in a way Yang would have washed her mouth out with soap before trying to pilot the Marshall II to try and save them.
She had to make it. She couldn't let them die. Not like this. Kids didn't deserve to die.
She knew how the controls worked, but getting them to move the way she wanted was hard. She wasn't going to make it. Even at its current top speed, the Marshall II would take at least two minutes to reach them, while the Basilisk didn't even need a full minute.
No! No! No! Not like this!
She needed this bucket of bolts to work! She had to stop that thing! Whatever it took she needed to save them!
She had- whatever her thought had been it was cut off by a blinding light from her left hand.
"Master the Swaying Weapon!" she heard someone intone.
Before she knew what had happened, she felt her machine whizzed forward like a rollercoaster and just as Crescent could process what had happened someone say, "Runic Script!" followed by the assaulting sound of grinding and rending metal as well as the sound of something going squelch.
When she finally opened her eyes, the monitor had the image of a surprised two-headed lizard disintegrating into red starlight as something fell past a red metallic arm that groaned as though it had just handled a load it wasn't designed for. Furthermore, it wasn't red from blood, no that had disintegrated with the monster, no it was red as though it had always been painted red.
Undenounced to Crescent, a red energy cape flapped in a non-existent breeze as it cloaked the now shiny red Marshall II.
Well, talk about an ending.
(1) in case you didn't catch it, I'm talking about the Landspinner Propulsion System used by Knightmare Frames in Code Geas. Since the Marshall II's are player made, let's just say I'm going to have some fun with this fact.
(2) I remember Franklin took around half a year of Dendro time to get the Marshall II out however, there is a difference between the Triangle of Wisdom and the Clock Tower. Franklin could use people he could get a hold of such as mechanics, auto parts manufacturers, engineering grad students, motorheads, etc and while they would have a great deal of knowledge Atlas seems even more technologically advanced than the Earth of Infinite Dendrogram, if more gun focused, and had literal giant robots. Additionally, the Clock Tower was formed by Atlesian military engineers goofing off making their dream robots led by a man who literally created an artificially intelligent android and advanced mechanical prosthetics along with a team of similarly capable, or close enough, people. So his taking less than a sixth of the time would be reasonable.
(3) it is canon that when ID first started up, it wasn't uncommon for Master to kill tians with Superior Jobs to open up the slot and possibly take it for themselves. Additionally, ludos see ID as just a game, and let's face it, more than a few people will kill NPCs just for the fun of it, let alone a chance to get something like a Superior Job.
(4) Event quests are actually handled by two of the Control A.I., but I am fairly certain only a very small number of tians know they even exist so the rest probably just assume that it's the Embryos.
(5) This is actually a cannon Beacon Academy character from 'After the Fall'. Professor Harold Mulberry was a teacher at Beacon that taught Weapon Crafting and Upkeep.
You're probably wondering what Ruby's Embryo is and what those skills do…well you'll have to wait to find out next time on Dragon Ball Z. (thumbs up if you're old enough to get the reference)
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