Chapter 2 - Budding Spring:

Touko was busy tapping away on her scroll, she had been trying a new fighting game that had just come out, and though she was terrible at it she had still had some fun and gotten a few wins, she always played against CPUs though. The last time she tried going online she got mouthed off to by an angry man who had started swearing at her and insisting that he had done something to her mother. And even turning off voice chat on her end and muting any players she came across she found herself well outpaced, which would lead to bouts of anger and frustration, struggling to figure out why she was always having difficulties, she could have just played a simple platformer, but she thought the characters in the fighting games looked way cooler. But the anger from losing a match was nothing compared to the anxiety she felt when she heard her mother call down for her. "Touko, dear! Come on down, we have company!"

It had been a few years, and the dinner plan had gone off surprisingly well for the Fuchsias. For Touko though, this was tantamount to both public embarrassment and a bit of fear. It's not like she had anything to do, she just was there to look presentable and make it look like her family actually was normal and functioning, like her parents weren't completely consumed by work and like Touko wasn't just a homebody who mostly stayed in her room except to get snacks or handle hygiene.

She'd gotten complaints from her homeschooling program that while she clearly had the mental aptitude to excel her actual schoolwork left a lot to be desired, usually being done late or right at the deadline. She just wanted to spend more time doing... something, she didn't know what, and she was always struggling to ask teachers in the call for help, feeling like she would come across as annoying, so she usually just didn't say much except 'ok' or 'sorry', it wasn't that she didn't want to talk, it's just that everybody around her always looked to be in physical pain when she went on and on about small things that mattered to her. Because of that, she didn't have anybody to call a friend. Not that it mattered much, since 'company' meant 'company business', and it was once again time for a bunch of adults she didn't really know to visit and discuss business, and to Touko that meant having to wear a dress or a skirt, and she hated how it felt every time.

She sighed as she once again put on the barely worn outfit and tossed aside the pajamas she spent most of her days wearing to come down. Coming to the dining room she once again saw the same faces of the same old men she'd been used to seeing at this point, but it didn't make it any less awkward. "Well, if it isn't Miss Touko! Its always so good to see you." The jolly man in the odd mechanical chair smiled at her, Touko tried to force a smile and answer back but the intimidating pencil man nearby cut her off. "Yes, yes, the Fuchsia's daughter once again, Pietro. You see her every few months and she still barely ever says hello to you." It didn't take a genius to figure out Touko didn't like him very much as she shut down and began to look away as she took her seat by her mother. "I hope you don't mind Claude, but I brought an... understudy with me today." The mustached man motioned over to a man he had brought with him, a slightly slimy looking man who looked like he had committed some sort of crime by how sweaty and disheveled he looked, and Touko had to look presentable? Talk about a double standard.

Claude didn't think much of it, "Oh? I'm guessing by the guest list that you're Dr. Watts' +1? Looks like you're... Morton?" The slimy looking man smiled, Touko couldn't put a finger on why that smile made her so uncomfortable, "That's correct, Mr. Fuchsia, pleasure to meet you. I've heard so much ab-", the man had been cut off by Watts, who merely raised his hand. "So, will the General be joining us tonight or will we be doing yet another one of these without him?" Watts had a point, the General, who had been invited every single time, rarely actually attended these meetings, owing to being a council head in Atlas and this year being one where the Vytal Festival was being held in Atlas, made for difficulty in his presence actually being ensured. "Unfortunately, no. Once again he's busy with coordinating things with the festival. We understand his absence in this time, having people from all over Remnant in Atlas all at once must make his job pretty difficult." Touko could already feel herself getting bored, and dinner hadn't even been served yet.

This dinner ended up being mostly just discussing new projects, without really anything to new to show but agreements to keep current contracts in place. It was agreed that they'd wait until the Vytal Tournament concluded and the general was freed up to do their next one. Watts made his leave first, followed shortly by Morton, then even more piled out. Pietro stayed a bit longer to talk, being probably the only one of the people truly interested in the advancement of science for human benefit rather than financial incentive, the only other person who likely came close was Ironwood himself.

Touko usually tried to dip out back to the safety of her room as soon as she could but she was stopped by a question, "So, young Touko. What kind of things are you working on during your off time?" The kindly Pietro seemed genuinely interested in what the girl was doing with her time. "Um, Pietro. Maybe not best to ask her much, you know she doesn't talk too mu-", Touko cut her father off, lighting up as somebody had asked her about her hobbies. "I mostly play a lot of videogames, I'm in a virtual schooling but school topics haven't been very interesting so my grades haven't been so good."

Her parents sighed, meanwhile Pietro just chuckled. "That's good to hear, you know the best and brightest minds aren't always ones who follow the rules, as going outside the realm of what's expected of you is how innovation and breakthroughs are made." The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cylindrical item and handed it to the girl. "This is a mechanical finger that we've made in Atlas, its just a prototype but why don't you take a look at how it works? See if you find some inspiration from it." The kindly older man smiled as the legs of his chair brought him to the bullhead which took off back to Atlas. Touko observed the finger, and decided to examine it a bit more, finding herself fascinated at the delicate mechanisms.

-

Sure enough, the next year had arrived with lots of development. Touko had taken apart the finger, curious to see how it went together, but seemed unable to actually get it to work when she had finally reassembled it. She shivered a bit as she continued to try and figure out what she had put together wrong, as while Vale wasn't nearly as cold as the Solitas tundra even in the winter, she still felt chilly even inside her room. Wrapping a scarf around her neck seemed to help, it was a nice thing with the family insignia, a simplified picture of a Fuchsia flower, on the end. Still, she had wanted to give the finger back to Dr. Polendina in a working condition, her parents said they had something big to show off tonight so she didn't want to potentially wreck any major dealings by breaking such a valuable piece of tech, she once again combed over it to see if she'd missed anything major, before hearing that ever dreaded call from her mother. She sighed, resigned to defeat as she once again put on the formal wear and came downstairs.

The table felt a bit different, Pietro was there, his usual cheery self as he waved at the young girl. "Miss Touko! It's been a while, hasn't it? Did you by chance figure anything out with that finger?" Touko shook her head as she handed the broken device to the older man. "I'm really sorry, I broke it after taking it apart. I couldn't figure out how to fix it despite trying at least 20 times." The old man looked closely at the device, pulling out a jeweler's eyepiece to inspect the finger and sure enough he saw many small microfractures caused from a shock, likely static. He chuckled, reassuring the girl that it wasn't a big deal. "You know when I started tinkering like you I didn't know what a static band was either, I must have broken so many electrical components in my youth that I didn't even know about it. Besides, you don't have to worry, we make multiple prototypes and since then we've made some advancements I think you'll like." As he says that, a hand places itself on Touko's shoulder, she turns behind her, expecting her father, but only sees air, but the hand is still on her shoulder, taking a look at the hand she notices its a mechanical hand. She jumps in shock before getting a closer look at the hand, its using the same fingers as the one she was given, it even seems to have a bit of a mind of its own?
"Is it... alive?" Touko asks, curious as to how its moving, Pietro simply chuckles again. "Not quite, I'm controlling it with a remote. This is part of a new line of replacement arms for people who lose them in attacks from Grimm or were simply never born with two arms. Its a more affordable version for civilians and huntsmen. Nothing quite as elaborate as what the Military uses, very few can afford what the General can." This didn't really surprise Touko, having met the General at least once in her childhood her parents told her how the General was a literal 'Tin Man' in how much machinery was in his body, Nobody was ever entirely sure of the ratio of man to machine but to some people it was a sign of both the brilliance of Atlesian science and the strength of their military might, having a near unstoppable general who would take the meaning of 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.' to an absurdly literal degree.

Touko continued to open up a little more to the aging scientist, but their discussion was short lived as her parents came into the room, bringing with them the aforementioned General Ironwood, who Touko was always slightly intimidated by, followed by that slinky looking Morton. No sign of that twig Watts though, as everybody sat down it was apparent something was not normal. "Right, I forgot to mention that Watts is-" Pietro was cut off by Claude's sudden decision to talk, something Touko had become extremely familiar with as he belted out "Watts is dead, thanks to an incident regarding the Paladin project, one headed up by the group foolishly working with the Schnees, Atlas has lost one of their brightest minds! I've told the general time and time again never to trust Jacques, he's a clown!" Which caused the general to look over at Claude with a frustrated look and tight fists, before he sighed and began to discuss business.

"That being said, besides the incident the Paladin project is proceeding forward as planned. Now Mr. Fuchsia, how is the Knight project proceeding? You mentioned today you had something to show?" Ironwood looked expectantly over at the Fuchsia patriarch, expecting his time and resources to not have been put into nothing, Claude nods and walks over to the item draped in a black cloth, Touko hadn't even known what to expect as her father pulled the cloth away, revealing a man-shaped machine with dark gray lines. "Behold, the security force of the future! I call it the Atlesian Knight-100! It still has some bugs to work out until its ready, but let me show you how it works!" Claude stepped back as he activated the bot, the dark gray turned red as the dust powering the android activated, it looked around and looked over at Ironwood, before a deep, synthetic voice came from the unit. "GREETINGS, NOTHING TO REPORT." The bot then saluted and went into its monitoring loop.

"Unlike that pesky Paladin unit, the AK-100 doesn't require a pilot, it can be programmed to protect anything and identify hostiles, intruders or unknowns, it can be linked into local databases to determine who's a friend and who's a foe, for example. Its got a basic AI but it will learn with time, and its actual ability to attack is second to none! Here, let me demonstrate." Claude said as he walked the group over outside, where he has set up multiple standees, all crude representations of Grimm. Touko had learned a bit about them in her classes, alongside the concepts of Aura and Semblances, but that was more for a Huntsmen, right? She wanted to be a scientist, secluded away from danger and working to advance the well being of others. Despite that she looked at the weapons the AK-100 was holding, a basic hard-light dust blade and a slightly modified military rifle, only changed to withstand the strength of the machine.

With the press of a button, the metallic humanoid lights up and detects the targets as 'hostiles', the synthesized voice rings out of the machine again 'INTRUDER, IDENTIFY YOURSELF!' as the targets begin moving, as Claude made sure this was an effective way of testing the machines as it began shooting the targets in order of how threatening they were, regarding proximity and speed, it had marked every target, having been set to a test gun without live rounds it was simply shooting paint rounds. "Now, with handing Grimm, its not got any problems, what about White Fang?" Claude grinned as he started the second round of tests, a bunch of people came out wearing white and red masks, it seemed that they were actors? Touko seemed curious as she noticed the witnessed the same thing that happened to the Grimm effigies occur to the people in the masks, they got shot by paint rounds and laid on the ground, presumably acting as if they were dead. Once the demonstration was over and the AK was turned back to its friendly setting, the men and women all groaned and walked off, some of them grumbling about pay and wondering why paint rounds hurt so much, taking off the costumes and doffing them in a bin as the adults went back to the dining room.

While the others weren't looking, Touko went to grab one of the masks, curious to see it up close, she'd never seen these before, she'd heard about the White Fang before, it was sort of impossible to have not, but she hadn't actually seen anything related to them in person. She grabbed the Mask as something to look at later before her attention was diverted to the AK, her parents made this? Or at least, her parent's company? And she didn't know at all that something so neat was even possible? She went in to take a look at its mechanics, trying to get more insight as to how it was made, not realizing it was still active. The machine whirred to life, staring at her with its featureless head glowing. 'INTRUDER, IDENTIFY YOURSELF!' Touko jumped back, clearly it wasn't recognizing her? Was it because of the White Fang mask she was holding? The Metallic Beast silently stood pointing its gun at her, she threw away the mask hoping that would get it to stop, but it didn't seem to stop! Was it a bug? 'LEAVE THE PREMISES, YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS TO COMPLY!' Touko froze, hearing it count down as she didn't want to get pelted by paint rounds, it was just paint rounds after all. "Its just a bug... it won't kill me." Touko whispered to herself as she fell back... '3...2...1...'

*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*

It appeared it was out of ammo, Touko sighed a sigh of relief, but the machine assassin didn't stop there. 'OUT OF AMMUNITION, MOVING TO CLOSE RANGE COMBAT.' The machine bellowed as it dropped the dummy gun and pulled out the very real and very deadly hard light blade. It approached as Touko tried to get the machine to stop, causing her to scream out in terror. "HELP! ITS COMING AFTER ME!", she had managed to get the attention of the adults, but they weren't doing a great job. "Claude! Where's the killswitch? Its going to cut Touko to ribbons!" Shirley belted out as her husband was furiously messing with the controls, "I'm TRYING! Its not responding to the shutdown command!" Touko was running out of places to dodge the machine, as Pietro quickly grabbed the remote to begin fiddling with it. "You didn't check the shutdown commands worked before testing? Let me figure this out, I know my way around programs." As Pietro started work Touko was cornered, she dodged a few lucky times but the machine was learning her movements. "With this... it should work!" Pietro re-sent the shutdown command, right as he did it though his face sank.

Touko flew back, having been sliced by the Knight right as the shutdown command was called in. "Oh god, call an ambulance!" Shirley screamed as she ran up to her daughter, who opened her eyes with a groan much to the shock of her parents. A light pink shimmering light had briefly enveloped her body as the wound, which was quite deep, seemed to hold in place without any loss of blood as it slowly closed up. "I'm... what happened?" Touko asked, not sure exactly how she wasn't dead or at the very least horribly injured. "Young lady, it appears when you were running in fear from that machine you must have unlocked your Aura, though usually you'd still take some damage, you must have a very defensive semblance to survive a hit like that without a scratch first try." Pietro explained. "Sem...blance? Aura? I think I recall seeing something like that in a school document, but I thought those only came to people who fought." Touko asked, a bit woozy. "Nonsense, everybody has the capacity to have Aura and a Semblance, not everybody awakens to theirs, but that doesn't mean you can't get it." Pietro said, as he said that Touko faintly noticed the green glow around him.

"Right, that would be why my parents don't have it?" Shirley only nodded, Claude was busy trying to beg Ironwood that the issue was an accident and it will be ironed out and to not hand the project over to a different group. "A protective semblance like yours could be useful if you ever wanted to consider becoming a Huntress, you know. And if you did you could learn all sorts of skills, like making weapons or fighting, very useful skills to have even if you don't take an active combatant role." Pietro chuckled. "Of course, you'd have to enroll in a combat school first-" Shirley cut the older professor off harshly, clutching onto Touko as if she was protecting a cub. "I'm not risking my little girl getting ripped limb from limb by Grimm! I can't put her in a combat school!" Pietro simply sighed, looking over at the younger girl. "Well, eventually she's going to get old enough to make that choice on her own, anyway, we should be getting back to Atlas now, I think James is done giving your father the third degree over that incident." Touko waved off Pietro as he boarded the transport back to Atlas, his parting words leaving an impression on her as the General and Morton eventually piled on as well, the slimier looking man giving Touko an odd look as he walked off. "Interesting semblance..." He muttered under his breath.