Do What You Can (Worm x Celestial Forge V3)

by Throwaway1971

All credit goes to the OG author PsylentFox on QQ

7. Chapter 7 - Gut Punch Followed by

[Jason Wilke]
[February 1st, 2011]

"16, it's time," I called out to the T-Doll as she stood next to the pipe that was continuously flowing brackish saltwater into the nanomaterials sieve.

She was wearing a short skirt that cut off mid-thigh and was sans socks and shoes, a white button-up covered her torso, but considering the high flow rate of the pipe she'd gotten splashed and it was nearly translucent. She wasn't wearing a bra, so her shapely assets were on display, her brown nipples peaked from the cool temperatures and the ocean breeze.

M16A1 had spent the morning shifting for more materials while I had been in the Magic Lab, constantly enchanting materials only to break them down so I could collect the runes- it was the only way to stockpile them because the Rune Generators would only replenish if the rune was used in the construction of a Glyph. It was an annoying limitation, but the workaround was simple enough- the supercomputers in the Rune Research lab were constantly observing each and every successful Glyph creation, and I had no doubt that with enough data and maybe some experimentation the highly specialized machines would be able to help me come up with new Glyph combinations or maybe something entirely new.

The woman gave me a big grin as she sifted the last pound of nanomaterials and poured them into the bin before she collected her socks and shoes and began dragging the wheeled dolly along behind her as we returned to the Work Site. We were going to create her little sister, well, one of her little sisters- I'd decided to create M4A1, M4A1 SOPMOD II, and ST AR-15 since they had subdued character designs and they all utilized the same weapon platform as well as ammunition. However, we only had a limited amount of bio-goop available for one more T-Doll, so rather than make M16A1 agonize over the choice of which of her sisters to make first, I made the command decision for her.

M16A1 only paused to hand off the half-full bin to the shelving robot before trotting alongside me as we made our way to the Medical/T-Doll construction area. Subee and Alpha were standing by, as were Bravo and Charlie, the two newest Lifegivers I'd bade them to construct. Enbee, BB, and Echos 1 through 16 were on standby to observe and assist, but for the most part, this was just ceremony- it wasn't like they had much to do considering a single Hurgok could run the maintenance for every piece of equipment we had, so for 18 of them they were probably bored.

I flipped through the T-Doll catalogue as I approached and found that the recipie for M4A1's construction was virtually the exact same. Grabbing onto the talent I began pulling the Ammo, Rations, Parts, and Manpower tokens off of the carts and laid them out on the table. The light show was the exact same as last time- the materials deconstructing into a near-blinding sludge before reforming into M4A1's physical body. She was just as gifted as her sister, but where her sister had been 5'10 in height M4A1 was a touch shorter at 5'8, which made sense given her namesake weapon's shorter profile.

M16A1 breathed in deeply as the light faded, revealing her little sister's nude, synthetic form. "I've seen a lot of T-Doll construction, Master, but this was not how we are made, at all. I take it this is the Fiat backing of the Forge at work?"

"Yes, it is. I don't know how Manpower can be quantified into little metal tokens, but it is what it is. It just works." I said before I turned towards her and spoke softly, "Now, this process... isn't pretty to look at. I don't know how you'd handle this, but... are you sure to want to watch?"

Her lone eye narrowed slightly as her lips pressed into a determined line. "I can handle it, Commander."

Despite the confidence in her words she still took the hand I offered and squeezed it firmly. I looked back to my arrayed Engineers and nodded. "Begin."

M4A1's synthetic flesh and muscles were quickly stripped away, leaving only her skeleton behind; M16A1 looked rattled at the sheer quickness in which the half dozen Hurgoks were able to remove everything- a school of piranhas had nothing on the bois. Her firm squeeze became a death-grip as they stripped her bones down until it was nothing but wires that had barely enough structural rigidity to not collapse; the Forge hummed in agreement at the deconstruction but warned that attempting to strip away anymore would cause the process to fail. Looked like the Hurgoks had nailed the percentage that could be removed down to 0.0001%, and would no longer need my direct guidance for future T-Doll construction.

Then they began to build her skeleton back up with the Phrik/Beskar/Ultrachrome/Cortosis laminates. Within ten seconds her endoskeleton was fully realized, and that was when I patted M16A1's hand, gave her a confident smile, and had her release me so that I could grip my Corusca Gem etching tool and begin carving the same runes that were present on her own skeleton. Red, Blue, Purple, and Yellow runes flowed off the table in a constant stream, joining their corresponding etchings and sinking in without issue as I took the same level of detail and care. She would be just as hearty and as durable as her sister.

The glowing magic faded after they connected and settled into her frame.

With four Lifegivers working in tandem, the construction of her brain and the rest of her body went far more quickly than before, and within a few minutes the new bio-android T-Doll was laying out naked on the table. The T-Doll Subee Serum was pulled from the Vita Radiation stabilization chamber and feathered into her body. "She'll need 24 hours, 16, and then she'll be ready for activation."

The woman licked her lips and nodded as the apprehension washed away from her and she slumped in relief; I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled in close to give her a firm hug, which she returned. "Thank you, Commander."

I chuckled lightly as the hug ended and I used the tip of my index finger to tilt her chin up. It was plain to see the fear on her face, and my mind recalled the phrase from the T-Doll catalog's description of her- "having been both friend and foe". I don't know what caused that to happen within her universe, but it was obvious that there were still some hang-ups she had about whatever occurred there. I gave her my best reassuring smile, "I'm certain that she'll be happy to know that you're here with her, 16. Safe and... uncontrolled."

It was a shot in the dark, but the only way I could see a T-Doll being disloyal to her comrades in arms was through enemy action. Hacking was a mechanic in the games, where the player could commandeer enemy mechs for their own use, so would it be so far outside the realm of possibility that M16A1 herself couldn't have been captured and turned?

The smile she gave me was wet as tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, but she did smile. I felt that true catharsis wouldn't occur until M4A1 was awake- only then would the pressure that was building be released. "Come on, let's go into town, we have some shopping to do."

I took her hand and we walked towards the entrance to the Work Site where the F100 was parked and ready to go, but I didn't miss the way the T-Doll looked at her sleeping sister until we exited the warehouse, the Entry Barrier closing behind us as I shut the door and locked it up.

---

We drove back to the house to change into some better clothes- we had a number of places to go and things to do, and I was not about to drag M16A1 around while she was wearing an otaku's wet dream version of a miniskirt.

We got showered up in our separate showers and got dressed. I was the first out considering I didn't have any long hair to take care of, and I started cooking a nice fish-heavy meal since the pork, chicken, and beef I had available were extremely limited; we would be taking care of that problem while in town. I mentally sent Enbee a request to have two chest freezers constructed, and within three minutes I was pulling two large freezers out of the warehouse and plugging them into the wall in the dining room area of the kitchen.

Tiffany came in through the front door, the old woman raising an eyebrow as M16A1 exited the guest bedroom wearing blue jeans that looked painted on, a leather belt with a modest brass belt buckle, and a grey t-shirt that had a silhouette of an M16A1 across her breasts; the shirt was just as tight as her pants, hugging her bosom and showing off the definition of her eight-pack. The T-Doll was scrubbing her hair with a towel, and the woman's lone gray eye crinkled as a small smile slipped onto her face, "Hello, you must be Miss Tiffany."

"Well I guess I should have expected a hunk like you to work fast, Jason," The old woman muttered under her breath as she gave me the side-eye, but then she was all smiles as she turned her attention to the T-Doll in front of her, "Hello, dearie. Yes, I am Tiffany, it is a pleasure to meet you. I didn't know that Jason had already made a friend, so it's quite a shock to see you here."

She wasn't wrong, I did make a new friend.

I grinned mirthfully as I plated the fish and stirfried vegetables and sat them on the table, "I still have extra, Ma'am, would you like for me to make you a plate?"

The woman's weathered features tightened as she smiled and shook her head, "Oh, no, dear, I already ate breakfast before I came over. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that my birthday is next week, and my Granddaughter has promised that she'll be coming over. Though whether she'll actually be able to make it is anyone's guess; the PRT do like to make her work."

"Tea or coffee then?"

"Well, some coffee wouldn't go amiss," The old lady replied as she as down on the couch and pulled out a cigarette the moment I poured her a cup; it was a few hours old, but the hot plate kept it warm. Tiffany liked her coffee black, but had to add in cream to take down the acidity because it was hard on her stomach.

Nothing like a good cup of coffee and a cigarette to start the morning.

We ate quickly, powering down the food, and just as we finished Tiffany spoke up. "Do you have a hairbrush?"

M16A1 blinked, "Ah, no, I don't. We were going to go into town to do some shopping for my toiletries and other necessities."

I drew up a designed and sent it to Enbee, who puttered in a minute later with a hairbrush in hand- er, in tentacle. Tiffany stood up and placed her empty coffee cup on the counter before tossing her cigarette butt into the trashcan, she stood behind the T-Doll and grabbed the brush from the Hurgok. "Thank you, Enbee."

The best boi whistled and nodded before tooting back into the warehouse.

"Hold still, girl, let me fix your hair." She spoke softly, her aged fingers combing through M16A1's genetically superior locks to feel out for any knots before she found them with the brush. Finding none, not that she would, the woman began to brush the T-Doll's hair. I washed the dishes as she worked, and within a few moments the old woman was humming a soft, somber tune to herself that caressed my ears. There were no words to this little song, but I could feel the emotions behind it- its cadence and melody were old, probably harkening back to a time well before you could hear music with just a push of a button.

I ignored the Forge trying to grasp onto a star to focus on her song.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

As I dried off the two plates I shut off the water and leaned my hip up against the counter and crossed my arms, taking the moment to close my eyes and just enjoy the sounds. After a few minutes, the singing was over and Miss Tiffany came back to herself, the woman licking her lips as she placed the brush on the card table. She cleared her throat. "How do you do your hair?"

M16A1 had relaxed throughout the entirety of the process, seemingly caught off guard by the spontaneous grooming; I wasn't certain, but considering the 'big sister' vibes I got from her this was probably the first time anyone had done something like this for her. Was she used to doing this for others? A small smile graced her lips as she tilted her head so that her lone visible eye could be seen by the old woman. "Just a simple braid, Miss Tiffany. It's always how I've done it; fancy hairstyles are just too difficult to keep up with."

"A simple braid for a simple girl, is it?" She smirked a little bit, the tender, old Tiffany being replaced by the sardonic and no-nonsense old woman I'd come to know the past few weeks. Well, almost a month now. I hadn't hung around her as much due to my focus on Glyph enchanting and getting the warehouse stocked up with nanomaterials. Once I had more help I could do more, the poor woman was probably lonely, and the simple admission that her Granddaughter might not even be able to make it home for her birthday probably had her feeling some type of way.

"Indeed," M16A1 grinned as she settled back into the Hurgok reinforced plastic chair, "I don't like all of the fancy things, I just prefer my iron sights, so to speak."

"So, about your birthday, Ma'am," I asked as I grabbed the wallet and keys for the truck before slipping them into the pocket of my thin coat, "What kind of cake do you like?"

"I'll let you get me a cake, and maybe some ice cream," Tiffany huffed as she tucked an unlit cigarette between her lips, "But no more, you and your gas bag have more than fixed up enough things in my house to avoid needing to get me a gift. Also, I like chocolate on chocolate, and mint chocolate chip."

"Mint chocolate chip? There are a lot of other flavors to try out there in the world," I grinned and crossed my arms across my chest.

"Let me tell you something, I've been on this earth long enough to remember when Baskin Robins was once Snow Bird Icecream and they only had 21 flavors," She pulled the cigarette from her lips and gestured at me with it, "Back in '45 they came out with the flavor and I'd been in love with it ever since. So don't knock my ice cream, boy."

I held my hands up with a grin, "Don't worry, I like it myself, it's just... I'm a peanut butter and chocolate kind of guy."

"Bah, too rich for my blood," She grunted as she finished with M16A1's braid and pulled a rubber band out of her own hair, and wrapped it around the tail, "Just get me a pint and a small cake; you can bring whatever you like for yourself."

"Now, you two are heading out into town to do something, yeah?"

I nod, "Yup, need to restock and get some more yeast."

"Good, then if you wouldn't mind picking me up a dozen eggs and some bread while you're at it? Sunbeam, the good stuff, none of that Wonderbread crap," She reached into a small pocket on her dress and pulled out a few crinkled bills.

I shook my head as I pulled out my wallet and flashed her some of the cash we made last night, "Took down a few Merchants last night, Ma'am. I'm set for cash for a good while."

Her nose scrunched up and she shook her head, but she did put her money back into her pocket, "Fine, fine. I know I ain't gonna get you to take my money anyway. Now, go on, you two."

"You aren't going to ask me my name?" M16A1 piped up, her eyebrow arched.

"Nope. Don't want to know. You're a Cape, that much I can tell. Ain't no young woman got as much muscle as you do yet still don't look like one of those muscle-bound female bodybuilders I seen on the TV," She shook her head as she lit up her cigarette and walked towards the front door, waving her hand at us as she pushed the door open, "The less I know, the better. Taa-taa."

The T-Doll smiled softly as she pulled her braid over her shoulder and stroked the tail a few times. "I like her, Sir. She's... nice."

I agreed.

---

Before we left, M16A1 and I tugged a bunch of scraps from the scrap field into the medium-sized barn on the property. The 'Goks built a door out of some scrap wood and created a doorknob with a lock so that we could open up the workshop from anywhere; all we had to do was roll the doorframe around and bada-bing bada-boom we had instant access. With the door to the warehouse opened up a trio of Engineers floated inside and began repairing everything they could get their tendrils on, and with the scrap they deconstructed it all and began building a large cattle car that we could hitch to the back of the F100.

After that, we drove into Brockton and stopped by the supermarket to grab every bit of food that wasn't nailed down. Twenty-five one-pound packs of bacon, every steak and pound of ground beef they had on the floor, all of their pork and half of their chicken; we didn't have any more room in the cart, but we did remember to grab Tiffany's eggs and bread. On a whim, we grabbed the ice cream and some ingredients to bake a cake, which necessitated we grab more eggs.

We ended up snatching ten whole cartons, just to give us some more variety. I didn't know how much the T-Dolls would end up consuming, but even my metabolism required triple what was recommended for normal people; the fact that I could do all I could do with just 6,000 calories a day was a testament to Subee's stellar work on my new body.

The very tight smiles on the teenage cashier and bag boy's faces at the mountain of food we had in the cart were only offset by the fact that they got to ogle M16A1's tits. The acne-ridden bag boy coughed into his shoulder. "I, uh, like M16s too. They're the coolest."

My T-Doll grinned at the paise, "I know, right? I mean, sure, they aren't the self-cleaning wunderwaffes that Mr. Stoner advertised them to be, but there isn't another rifle in the world that's seen more combat than the M16!"

The blonde cashier nodded along dumbly with a goofy smile on his face, the young man interjecting into the conversation here and there while the brunette female cashier with braces working the next station over glowered. I gave her a winning smile and her eyes widened a little bit before she ducked her head, a blush creeping across her cheeks as she scanned the items on her counter more quickly.

"- prefer Aleph's Modern Warfare 2, though. Better balancing on the weapons and stuff; our's is just a mess with the inclusion of Tinker Tech weapons into the DLC." Bagboy remarked, and Cashier nodded, "I mean, Dragon is sweet, the coolest Tinker around, but there is no reason why Confoam grenades should be as good as they are! What's the purpose of having flashbangs and concussive grenades when confoams obstruct vision and movement better than both combined!"

"Totes, my guy, they should restrict the count to one grenade, and patch One Man Army so that you can't restock your Lethals and Tacticals with every class change," Cashier added on, and once the last item cross his scanner he looked up at me, his eyes going wide as if he was just seeing me for the first time, "Uhhhhhh... that'll be $1,597.36... Sir?"

Come on, dude, I've been standing here the whole time! Granted, I guess it does mean that even my 7-foot-tall self doesn't attract more attention than a pair of tits; even the females were all too busy glaring at her to make doe eyes at me.

Then again, they're teenage boys, expecting them to not get distracted by the woman wearing tight clothing without a bra was just wishful thinking. I flipped through the cash and handed over $1,650 before I reached over and gathered half of the bags in my massive paws and nudged the laden cart into M16A1's hands with my hip, "Keep the change."

"You sure you don't need help getting all this over to your vehicle?" Bagboy asked, his voice cracking just a touch.

"Nope, we're good, thanks."

I grinned, and the T-Doll waggled her fingers at them, "It was nice chatting with you boys~."

Only the sound of the woman who had been in line behind us clearing her throat snapped the boy's attention away from M16A1's ass as we walked away. I couldn't be mad at them for staring, because I too was a man, a man that slowed my walk just enough so I could get a good view of her janes; they were indeed tighter than sin, and without her underwear, the cleft of her cheeks deliciously contrasted the plump hump of her camel toe.

We loaded up the truck and drove back to the house, offloading the groceries into the fridge, freezer, and two chest freezers before we connected the cattle car up to the F100's trailer hitch and trundled off towards a place I found about three hours southwest of Brockton called "Windy Valley Farms".

The truth was we needed a lot more biomass if we were going to keep producing T-Dolls; the deer and other animals the Lifegivers had rendered down into the bio gel that they used to build them up had been tapped dry with M4A1's construction.

"So, you want 10 cattle and some goats?" The elderly gentleman raised an eyebrow as he flipped through some paperwork on the desk in his old, rickety office.

"Indeed I do," I nodded, "I just got back from a trip to the grocery store not too long ago, and my bill was outrageous. I'm a big boy that likes my steak, but the prices they're charging up in Brockton will make your hair rise."

The balding old man chuffed, "That they will; but food prices are up every year everywhere in the country. It's the way things are."

"Yup, can't change it, but I have a butcher that I know in town who'll slaughter any animal I got for a fair price, so I figured I'll cut out the middle-man and save myself some cash that way," The wooden chair creaked as I leaned back and hefted my ankle on top of my knee, "Besides, I got a new property that's really overgrown; waist-high tall grass and lots of underbrush everywhere. It's already got a fence, so I can unleash the grazers upon it, and skip the rental fee I'd have to pay for a tractor and cutter."

"Well, that's certainly one way to go about it, I suppose," He shook his head as he lifted up his paperwork and shuffled it to the side, "Tell you what, I don't usually sell piecemeal like this, but I can respect a man that goes out and does for himself rather than letting others do for him."

I ignored the small stab of pain in my heart.

Having my pootie bois and tootie gurls doing all of my work for me doesn't make me any less of a man, right?

It doesn't.

Right?

As if feeling my pain about not having any skills to build my own shit the Forge patted me on the head and puffed up, as if to say "I got you, bro."
It was all bravado though, as the star he reached out for was a big six charge beast, and it failed to budge it. "Maybe next time."

[Remaining: 250 CP]

"I got fifteen cattle that are getting up there in age, and they aren't producing milk much anymore. They should last another year or two just fine, and all are as healthy as can be, and since they aren't capable of birthing anymore I can sell them to you without going through the state legislature's horseshit," He scrubbed at his mustache, "I know you said ten, but if you take all fifteen of them I will sell them to you for a thousand each."

The cattle car would only be able to hold ten, but that was fine, I could make the trip back tomorrow to pick the other ones up. I nodded and reached into my pocket to pull out fifteen grand and set it on the table. He was getting a good deal- state law required that he take care of all of his animals, regardless of whether or not they were capable of making him money, so he would have either had to of taken care of them until they died, or he would have to sell them off for slaughter, and considering their age and lack of real meat he wouldn't get much for them. The cost of transporting them to get slaughtered alone would have eaten nearly half of his earnings.

Fifteen thousand in cash, under the table with no paper trail, was probably a nice little come-up for him. He took the wad of bills and sat it in one of those old money counters, and when it checked out he took a yellow counterfeiting pen to it. "The money seems good, let's go out and get you your, heh heh, mobile lawnmowers, son."

We exited the small farm house's office and trotted outside where we caught sight of M16A1 behind a wooden fence with a calf halfway laying across her lap, the T-Doll cooing and making baby noises as the cow chewed grass and enjoyed her powerful fingers scratching his scalp and ears.

The T-Doll's lone visible eye looked up and me and pierced my very soul.

"I want her, Jason."

My smile was brittle, "He can't sell us the calf, sweetheart."

"Jason. I want her."

I sighed and turned my attention to the older man as he rested his gut against the fence and scrubbed at his bald head. "I'm sorry darling, but as much as it brings me joy to see you fall in love with her, I'm afraid she's on my books. I can't let her go."

M16A1 pouted, "This is America, damnit! I should be able to own a cow if I want to! Too much damn paperwork for something that's supposed to be simple- what happened to my dear 'Land of the Free', huh? You used to be able to buy all sorts of things! Like suppressors in hardware stores, and my good friend Thompson! You could buy her back in the day for $45 dollars! Now you can't even buy a cute little cow without the government telling you 'NO'-"

The T-Doll continued to rant underneath her breath as the owner of the farm chuckled, "She's spirited, your girl there."

"That she is," I shook my head, "Let's go, sir. I'd like to make it back before the sun sets."

---

It took us four hours to make it back to Brockton, if only because we kept the speed at an easy 50 miles per hour; the F100 was an old truck and there was no way it could pull 12,000 pounds of cattle and trailer. Granted I could simply say that I had a Tinker friend who owed me a few favors, but the sight of the short truck easily pulling the 18ft trailer with the heads of cows sticking out the sides was probably funny enough. We avoided most of the attention by skirting the city and taking the highway around, but we did have to cruise through the Industrial district and suburbia to make it back to the house.

No doubt we caught a few eyes on the way through, but I like to think that the few people who cared to gander were just appreciating the old classic truck.

I would have avoided the city entirely if I could have, but there weren't any backroads from the house; the road ended two miles down the road from the trailer park, so through Brockton Bay we drove.

The sun was just setting as we trundled up the drive, and I pulled in behind the double-wide, hopping out and moving into the barn with M16A1 at my side. We spent the remaining daylight clearing out a good one hundred and fifty foot by one hundred and fifty food section of ground of junk and debris. After that we moved in and started grabbing armfuls of four-foot-tall steel posts that the Engineers made for us and started pounding them into the ground with some rubber mallets to make a perimeter; with our strength, it was easy, and with our night vision? Well, it might as well have been daylight outside.

We connected two poles between each post, and the last thing to go one was the gate. We let a few of the Engineers out to float around the cleared area, searching for any scrap metal, nails, metal shavings, etc. Just because we were going to humanely render these animals down into bio goop to build T-Dolls didn't mean I would just let them cut themselves on crap or get a nail stuck in their hooves. I wanted these cows to enjoy the rest of their lives before they made the ultimate sacrifice to build me an army of T-Dolls.

M16A1 was still a touch sullen about not getting her own moo-cow to spoil rotten, but I promised her that we would find some suitable pets for her and the girls; animals were often used as emotional support for the T-Dolls, and the base that they had with Griffen & Kryuger had a whole room of their complex filled with cats and dogs and other animals for the girls to play with and decompress. It sounded like a great idea- there was something about just loving on an animal that really was therapeutic.

We offloaded nine of the cattle, the two of us easily able to steer the bovines into the enclosure, and Enbee set up a water trough while Echo 1 and 2 constructed a rickety-looking sunshade out of wood and rusted sheet metal for the cattle if they wanted to get out of the sun; emphasis on 'looking'. The structure was as solid as anything else they built.

I pulled the cow into the warehouse and guided it onto a small lift next to the large glass enclosure. The cow mooed as it was lifted up into the air and sat down into the bio-gel tank, and Subee floated above the rim and stroked the bovine's face before her tendrils reached in and shut off its brain. The old girl slumped onto her knees and let out her last breath; a peaceful, painless sleep. Alpha and Bravo hovered into the tank, and between the three of them the cow was deconstructed into its individual components- the only things that weren't included in the slurry were the few bits and pieces of steel that had gotten stuck in its hooves and the tracking chip attached to the tag in its ear.

We could make five more T-Dolls with the biomass that was added, and that was what I did.

M4A1 SOPMOD II, ST AR-15, H&K 416, and K2, were all chosen due to their being derivatives on the M16A1. ART556 was chosen because she had a caliber commonality, and the team needed a cute girl to do cute things; it may have sounded bad- demeaning in a way- but even in a world like Worm, the court of public opinion still believes that Cute is Justice... even if they don't exactly describe it in those words.

It wasn't because she was adorable and had big old fox ears and a tail that Subee and the girls would lovingly render into flesh.

I moved from T-Doll to T-Doll, etching the Glyphs into their skeletons while the Engineers and Lifegivers worked like the hard-working bois and gurls they were and put them all together. It took almost an hour for them to construct them from start to finish, and after they were done I set the Hurgoks to double their numbers once more while I whipped up a massive, carbohydrate-laden, yeasty meal for them.

Subee took the lead in constructing the four new Lifegivers while Alpha and Bravo took over the applications of the T-Doll Subee Serum; their workflow was slowed down by the fact that it took an hour for each dose of the serum to be properly irradiated, but Enbee fixed that by adding six more irradiation stations.

I had been wondering how they irradiated the serum, and to my surprise, it was simply twelve bricks of the Nitrimine explosives that had been rendered chemically inert and were stacked in a circular housing before a thick layer of lead was built up around it, and then a shell of Phrik with a little swinging door was built up around it. Huh.

By the end of all of the construction, I had 26 Engineers and 8 Lifegivers that were now voraciously hungry, and I walked by the Hurgok that had arranged themselves in two rows with large paper bowls held in their tentacles. If I smudged dirt on their cheeks and wrapped a ratty kerchief around their necks I could have cast them in the Forerunner production of 'Oliver Twist'.

Those six beady eyes were all looking at me searchingly, "Please sir, can I have some more?"

However, instead of puffing up and shouting in disbelief, I scooped another serving of rice, molasses, sugar, and yeast into their bowls with a pat on the head. M16A1 squealed and gave them each a kiss on their snakey snoots as we passed by with the big steel pot held between her hands. "They're so cute~!"

I ignored the feeling of the Forge spooling up and failing to grasp another Perk in favor of observing M16A1 as she walked beside me, the big pot of sloppy-slop held in her hands as I ladled big scoops.

[Remaining: 350 CP]

I didn't miss the way that her eyes kept wandering over to the T-Dolls that were being cared for by Subee once she had eaten and relieved Alpha and Bravo, the pink Hurgok hovering from Doll to Doll and checking them over while the newborn Lifegivers enjoyed their first meal. Her expression was forlorn and melancholic. I had a feeling that the relationship she had with the others was far more complicated than I'd been leading myself to believe.

"Friend and Foe" was something that sounded... innocuous when you were just looking at the words, reading them in a sentence; it doesn't really convey the meaning properly, nor the emotions behind them.

What had happened between M16A1 and the others? Would it cause problems?

No, I don't think so- she would have warned me if there was bad blood thick enough to cause friction.

If they felt like sharing when they woke up, then I would let them; for now though, they were free to keep what transpired between them close to their vests. I'd only dig if it got to be a problem.

Once we finished feeding the Hurgoks I grabbed Enbee and dragged him over towards the force crystals in the Supply area of my warehouse, and M16A1 decided that she would head back down to the ocean to resume collecting nanomaterials until night had settled. Being unable to seal the warehouse with me inside of it, I walked out with her and we drove down to the Work Site where she could spend some time to clear her head while she did 'something useful'.

During the drive over I ran through some schematics of the Lightsabers and settled on a design I liked; the body of the blade was made up of the wavy, Damascus-steel like Beskar while the handguard tines were made up of the purple-colored Phrik. The grip was covered with six quarter-inch wide strips of heavily knurled Ultrachrome, and the activation button was a toggle that had a soft, rubber-like cover that was sealed to prevent anything from getting inside of it. It had no seams and the charge connector on the bottom was recessed and similarly protected.

When I shared the schematics with Enbee he was happy to finally have a use for the super dense Forerunner power cores- while we could have used them I wanted to keep things at the tech level we needed at the time, that and the Forerunner power cells were... extremely costly with the nanomaterials; a one thousand pound bin of nanomaterials could only craft four power cells that would fit on a lightsaber, and it really made me appreciate just how capable the Star Wars power cells were. The Diatium power cells had to have not only a significant charge capacity, but significant throughput as well; a plasma blade like it required roughly 30 kilowatts worth of power per second and many Knights went long periods without charging their lightsabers if they had to.

Some of the largest battles of the Clone Wars involving Jedi went on for months, and they fought for hours and hours with their weapons going the whole time.

Granted, they probably charged their blades whenever there was downtime to do so, but it was little things like that that we barely saw throughout the franchise except in some small excerpts from books and the like, but if you were an average fan you'd just assume that Lightsabers could run for forever and a day. I think I remember seeing somewhere that the Jedi's connection to the Force and the Kyber crystal itself that took some of the strain off the power cell which often led to the significant endurance, but as far as I knew I didn't have access to the Force.

At least, I didn't until I grabbed onto the purple Kyber crystal and broke it off as the Forge guided my hand.

It was small, a pinprick. A prick that began to widen into something more substantial until it flowed into my body like a torrent.

My breath caught in my throat as the crystal crumbled into my hand, taking the perfect shape needed to complete my blade. It was a strange and uplifting experience- for a moment the whole of the workshop opened up before me in a way that I'd never experienced before, which was saying something because I was aware of everything and everyone within it. It was like static electricity bubbled in the palm of my hand, reaching out and touching the beating heart in my chest before it expanded out like a wave in every direction; it was like... sonar, almost. The surfaces of the workshop, the tools, the materials, the robots, the Hurgoks, and the still sleeping T-Dolls they all... reflected and bounced back towards me, and I could feel.

What? I didn't know.

The expanding bubble of awareness contracted just as quickly as it had come, the energy condensing within the crystal- like oxygen bubbles flowing through the tube in a fish tank, except in reverse.

I was finally able to breathe again, and a small tremor shot down the three chains of nerves in my spine.

Enbee rapidly signed. "W-a-t-?"

I blinked and looked over at him, "Did you feel that too?"

His snakey head nodded before his neck contorted to take a closer look, and when he reached out with his tendrils I gently grasped them. "Don't, don't mess with these, okay, buddy? These are sentient, they're connected to the Force, and they won't appreciate you trying to take them apart to study their secrets."

His tendrils quivered a little bit, but he slumped, his bulbous body bobbing in the air as he let out what sounded like a plaintive whine and a sigh all rolled into one utterance. My stern visage morphed into a soft smile as I patted him on the head, "I'm sorry buddy, but that's the way it is."

His ballast sack pooted and he floated over to the Beskar, Replica Phrik, and Ultrachrome, the Hurgok shaping the material from the bottom up with the Forerunner power cell at the bottom. I gently slotted the crystal into place, and the housing formed up around it, and then Enbee handed it over to me.

I swallowed and held it out to the side before flicking the toggle switch, and with the iconic snap-hiss a four-foot-long plasma blade erupted from the blade emitter; its purple light casting everything around us with a flickering glow. Considering we had shelving all around us I could only wave it up and down, but it still didn't detract from the shit-eating grin on my face. The blade hissed as I switched it off, and once the blade retracted I wrapped my arms around Enbee's body and gave him a big squeeze. A careful squeeze.

Just enough to get a little toot.

"This is so fucking cool," I grinned and I let him go before patting him on the head, I looked down at the blade and flicked it back on before I played with the dial on the side, the positive clicks of the interface sounding out each time I dropped the intensity until I dropped it down to its lowest setting; the Training Saber setting being just powerful enough to maintain blade cohesion and delivering a painful shock and a burn no worse than one might get at the beach.

I heard the Door-Jam get moved aside by the Mk IIs, and M16A1 came strolling by us with a full bin of nanomaterials being dragged behind her. She stopped and gazed at me for a moment and her jaw dropped. "Is that... a lightsaber?"

"Did you have Star Wars in your world too?" I asked, curiosity lacing my voice.

She smiled wanly, "Oh yeah, it was one of the few things to survive World War III; the DVD and stuff were so widespread by the time it kicked off that when the war ended you could still count on the riveting tale of a soap opera beyond the stars to keep you entertained."

Her eyes crinkled a little bit, "P90 really loved Master Yoda because he was also small and really fast. She spent all of her credits on the black market to pick up an original boxed set from 2008 when they remastered all eight of the films. The girls and I got together and we all watched every film, from the start of Anakin's journey to his fall to the dark side-"

She bit her lip and looked down, her left hand grasping her wrist. It didn't last for long though as a small smile tugged at her lips and she looked up at me, "- to his eventual redemption and return to the light. It was a beautiful story, exciting. More than enough to distract us from the operations and struggles we were sure would come."

Ignoring the fact that her dimension had eight Star Wars films, I turned off the blade and held out my hand, "Come here, 16."

Her lips parted and she looked from me to the remaining Kyber crystals and she shook her head. "I don't think that would work, Sir. I'm a T-Doll, not a human, or an alien."

"Did you even pay attention? Even droids can be felt by the Force, young Padawan. If they can feel and influence it, then you certainly can," I smirked and walked over to her, grasping her hand and tugging her over to where the various crystals sat in their housings, "Besides, haven't you realized it yet? Even if you are a T-Doll, in my mind, that doesn't mean you aren't human. Why don't we let the Force decide, hmm?"

M16A1 spluttered for a moment before sighing in resignation, and she let me guide her; I clipped my lightsaber onto one of my blue jean's belt loops and grabbed her shoulders from behind, and walked her until she was only a few feet away. I bent down and whispered into her ear, "Close your eyes, 16. Breath. Don't think about anything else, just try to feel."

I didn't know if this would work or not, but while I chose my color, I would let the crystals do the choosing.

Actually, that begged the question: Did I choose purple? Or did it choose me?

I decided that thinking about it was pretty silly while I was trying to help M16A1 with finding her Kyber crystal, so I started spewing out some mystical mumbo-jumbo, with some genuine Star Wars quotes thrown in here and there for good measure.

Her eye closed, and eventually, she raised an arm up- as if finally resigning herself to humoring her crazy Commander's wishes.

It remained stock still for a minute or so until it started to tremble, minutely at first, but as the seconds ticked by the muscles within her arms started to twitch and it looked like a small tug of war began to ensue.

With my enhanced vision, I saw it get tugged in three different directions- towards the Yellow Kyber crystal, then towards the Red, and finally towards the Black.

The Yellow tried its best, but the struggle between Red and Black became more ferocious until there was a pulse that even I felt, and the Red was repulsed- M16A1's hand crashed against the Black crystal with judicious force, and when the large chunk crumbled away it revealed a perfectly shaped black crystal that thrummed with power.

The T-Doll inhaled sharply before her breath caught in her throat, and I felt the Force bubble up just as my purple crystal had done for me, and I could feel her presence; she wasn't just standing in front of me... there was something more to it.

I could feel the emotions flickering through her, feel the turmoil, helplessness, and fear. More than that though, I could feel emotions far, far stronger- her love, her dedication, her regret. I could feel a solemn vow take place within her mind... and thus the bond between Black Kyber and the Living Weapon was forged.

While all this was going on I felt a rapid exchange of data packets between M16A1 and Enbee, and the Hurgok got to work. Aside from the necessary electrical components, the entire construction was Beskar- its design was utilitarian, but it had a distinct Mandalorian feel to it. I released her shoulders so that she could walk over and place the crystal within the housing, and in a few moments, a black blade with a soft white shell erupted with a more harsh crack than the traditional snap-hiss.

I knew of the Darksaber, but I also knew that this wasn't the legendary blade reborn. This blade didn't signify the Ruler of Mandalore... if anything the black crystal seemed to resonate with Duty and Responsibility; self-imposed or imposed by blood, this crystal would only resonate with someone who had the fate of more than just their own person resting on their shoulders.

The blade shut off, and the T-Doll spun around and buried her face in my chest, soft wet sobs muffled by my shirt as she did her best to squeeze the breath from my body.

I didn't know what transpired between her and the crystal, but all I could do was hold her tightly and stroke her head.

Enbee softly pooted away, the Hurgok trilling as one of the MK IIs guarding the entrance grabbed the full bin of nanomaterials and dragged it away to be shelved.

---

A few hours later saw purple and black clashing together in a flurry of quick, powerful blows. With our stupendous superhuman abilities, we were flinging strikes with a ferocity that would have made General Grevious green with envy. Neither M16A1 nor I were trained in Lightsaber combat, and we didn't know shit about the lightsaber forms, but through reflexes and physical skill we were trading blows that looked anime worthy; 5 strikes, 10 strikes, 20 strikes, 30 strikes and many more.

They were on the Training setting so any strikes were barely enough to singe our clothes, and any burns were healed the moment after we struck. It was possibly the best workout I'd gotten since I had obtained my new body after the Subee Serum; sweat dribbled down my brow and my lungs worked hard to keep up with M16A1's measured assault. She thrust towards my face, and even with my enhanced reflexes it came so damn fast; I had to tilt my head as her previous overhead blow had knocked my purple saber out of position.

Still, my enhancements and physical body were superior to hers, and I was able to poke another hole in her shirt with the tip of my blade before she could retaliate. She didn't even acknowledge the blow, instead opting to twist her wrist so that the edge of her saber could clip my ear. I clicked my tongue and decided to press the attack, poking again with my saber to force her to back off- my added height afforded me a four-foot long blade while hers were the standard three feet- and I followed it up with a rising cut that she caught with her saber before shoving it off to the side.

I ducked my shoulder and rammed into her hastily raised guard, sending her tumbling ass-over-teakettle; I still out-massed her and I made sure to use that to my advantage. She slid a few feet across the concrete before popping up to her feet, the black lightsaber interposed between us- the T-Doll ready to respond to my next assault.

Her lone eye was shimmering in the black and white light of the blade, her chest heaving with exertion as the burns on her shirt revealed to me her bountiful flesh. Her bangs were a mess and sweat trickled down her chin; her parted lips captured my attention.

I felt the hunger boil up from the pit of my loins. I'd put myself off for far too long now, and I was going to do something very forward. I knew that it was the effects of the formula stoking the flames of my lust as I gazed at the sweaty, battle-worn woman, the damage to her clothing doing far more to titillate me than having seen her completely naked not two days ago.

My back popped as I straightened up, and after a few moments of heavy breathing, I shut off my lightsaber and clipped it to my belt loop. She blinked as I approached her with purposeful strides.

"Uh, Commander?" The beautiful woman didn't have time to do anything more than avert her blade from my body as I bent down and grasped the back of her head, my hands grabbing hold of her thick brown braid as I firmly pressed my lips against hers. Her sound of shock was muffled by my lips, but when I ran my tongue across hers the woman's mouth opened and our tongues danced; her squeak fading into a low moan that sent all of the blood running straight to my cock.

Her saber finally shut off when I moved my hands away from her head and reached down to cup the perky, perfectly shaped asscheeks that were straining against the denim. I gently bit her bottom lip before I broke the kiss just long enough to speak, "I've been without a woman for a long time, 16. If I don't get some relief right now I just might pop."

Her chuckle was low and throaty, "I was wondering when you'd finally break, Commander. I've been trying to get your attention since I woke up."

Really?

I shoved that away and focused on kneading the muscular, fatty flesh beneath my palms, and the T-Doll shuddered as her hands rubbed up and down my torso, her fingers questing over the holes her blade had poked into my shirt. When she finally got down to my belt I gave her bottom a firm smack. "No. No hands, 16. Get down on your knees."

A shuddering breath left her lips as she dropped low, her lone gray eye gazing up at me with an intensity that I'd never seen before. "Yes, Sir."

I felt some loss at the lack of flesh within my hands, but I settled holding onto her head, my fingers threading through the silken locks of her hair. "Use your teeth, 16. Take it out."

She grinned and grasped the leather of my belt with her teeth, but more than that she also grasped my waistband too. What was she-

I heard a -chomp- followed by tearing of denim as she bit through the leather and my pants and tugged downwards; I had somehow forgotten about superhuman strength in the time between we finished duking it out with lightsabers and me kissing her. Even with a super brain, it seemed that the almighty penis could still find a way to short circuit a man's thoughts.

It certainly did the job, as my half-erect cock popped out and planted itself firmly against her face. "I was made for this, Sir. You know that, right?"

Her breath was hot, her voice sinful as she rubbed her cheek against my quickly thickening length. I felt her teeth rub against the side of my flesh, felt her tongue lap over a throbbing, pulsing vein. "You built me like this, specifically for this purpose."

Her gray eye crinkled as she licked up from the base of my cock all the way to the tip before she engulfed the thick, bulbous head, "There's no need to be embarrassed, or deny it."

A pop resonated as she pulled away and stared down its length before she looked back up at me. "I'm a T-Doll, made to serve humanity, but you also made me to serve you. In every, single, way, a woman can serve a man."

Her tongue flashed out, lapping at the underside of my penis, a small thrill of fear running up my spine as she continued to speak. "I can't feel it, nor do I sense it. It's quiet. Insidious. Whatever you did to my code I couldn't tell you what it is or what it does, but I know how I normally function. That and I've experienced many different forms of control during my lifetime of service, but this one is by far the best."

"You know?" I asked, and she engulfed my penis and slowly began to work her way down my cock until the head was firmly lodged in the back of her throat. There was no gag or pushback, and if anything her lone eye hazed over in pleasure; dormant nerves that only came alive in response to my pheromones flaring as pleasure surged- her throat was now just as sensitive as her clitoris, her tongue as well.

She pulled off with a shudder and she nodded, "I do know that something is different about me, Sir. It makes me loyal far beyond what a T-Doll should normally be. The only reason I can even parse out what I'm feeling is because of the Anti-Master protections you gave me; my electronic half keeps acting as if nothing is going on, but my organic half can see that I'm being subtly manipulated. However, I don't hate you for it. If anything I can sympathize; betrayal is a very real threat, and not even T-Dolls are immune to being forcibly turned."

Her tongue flashed out to lap at the string of saliva and precum that trailed from the tip to her lips, "I won't tell the other girls, I promise, Sir. I only wish that something like this had been in place before... to stop me from turning on them. I never wanted to see my sister and friends cry."

A shuddering breath left her lips and she placed her lips against the tip, "Do whatever you have to do to keep us loyal, Sir. We're your weapons- your Rifles, Pistols, Shotguns, Machine Guns, and your Assault Rifles. We were built by you... for you. Our love is yours, our lives are yours, and always will be, no matter what terrible things may happen down this road we tread together."

"So, hold me tightly, Commander, use me," Her grin was far too cute and cheeky for something as heavy as this, "I can sometimes be unreliable when I'm dirty, but cleaning me up is half the fun, no?"

Well, if she insisted...

I swallowed and pulled her down my cock, and I bottomed out halfway down her throat- her nose pressed tightly against my abdomen. There was a muffled moan that escaped her nose, and I'd forgotten about the redundant breathing systems that the Promethean and Serum introduced; preventing choking from airway obstruction was one of the many physiological upgrades.

Her visible eye went hazy as I began to saw my hips back and forth, one hand reaching up to expose her breasts and stiff brown nipples to the air while her other slipped into her jeans and began to strum her clit. With the combined stimulation from her enhanced tongue and throat, the T-Doll was climaxing every ten seconds or so- moans and bubbles of saliva squeaking past the lips that were sealed around my girth.

I began to treat her more roughly, no longer measuring my strokes, and that seemed to make her cum even harder, her throat contracting around me like a snake as she swallowed reflexively. I let go with one hand so that I could reach down and grasp onto one of her perky breasts- squeezing firmly and rolling the tit-flesh around the palm of my hand; God damn these were the best tits I'd ever felt in my life. This had the adverse effect of shortening up my thrusts, but feeling the cool air of the warehouse along my spit-covered length made me shiver.

My penis was many times more sensitive than before, and I was thoroughly enjoying the experience. I kept thrusting until I was nearing the precipice, and M16A1 tapped my thigh with her hand, and at her gentle insistence, I pulled back. Her left hand stroked the tip while her right hand slid up and down my length, her hand soaked by her own juices. "Do it, Sir. Come for me, Commander. You made me, now mark me."

I couldn't hold myself back with those words, and I roar escaped my lips as an orgasm so powerful it almost knocked my legs out from underneath me ripped from the tip of my cock, surged down my length, and into my testicles. It then surged back up and I began releasing a pulsing burst of thick semen that roped over her face, coating her eye patch, nose, puffy lips, and across her eye. She kept stroking and I just kept cumming, each trip of her right hand from the base back to the tip inviting another spurt of my seed that she happily accepted; her mouth open and tongue waggling.

I don't know how long it lasted, but once I was able to see anything other than the tip of my nose the T-Doll was fairly coated. A cloth was offered from the side, and I arched my eyebrow at the Lifegiver who took the soiled rag that M16A1 used to wipe the excess off before her tendrils came over and removed the remainder. "Thank you, Delta, that was mighty kind of you."

The Hurgok trilled and boobled her head, happy to be of assistance before she turned away and puttered off back towards the T-Doll corner.

I chuckled a little bit in embarrassment and M16A1 joined me, but our chuckles ceased when she reached up and pulled me down for a kiss. "Don't be afraid to hold us whenever you want to, Commander. Loving you is in our Code now just as much as it's in our DNA. We were built to serve, and we do so at your pleasure, so don't be afraid to make selfish or unreasonable requests; we'll always accommodate you."

I swallowed as she kissed me one last time and moved over to the MJOLNIR station, "Are you sure to don't want to keep going?"

She gave me a wicked grin, "I don't know about you, Sir, but I came like twenty times during that whole thing. You really had our bodies made to a good spec, huh?"

"Besides, we need to make some more money, and we need to increase our reputation;" The black-haired woman murmured as she fiddled with the strands of yellow-gold hair, "-and M4A1 and the other girls are going to need some new clothes when they wake up so... I think its best if we continue where we last left off?"

A grunt escaped my lips, she was right, we really should keep moving; I'd blown my load, got my rocks off. My mind was more clear than it had been since I arrived here- superhuman post-nut clarity was something else. "You're right, we don't have too much time for fun and games, we need to keep moving forward."

We have Tiffany's birthday next week, and if I remember correctly the Simurgh would be making an appearance in Australia in a few weeks; while we wouldn't be fighting her directly, I would be providing security and medical supplies.

I felt the Forge warm-up and it reached out for a star, but it was half a charge short.

[Remaining: 550 CP]

---

[February 2nd, 2011]
[2:31 AM, Boat Graveyard]

Twin engines could be heard roaming through the night, and I'll be damned if it didn't sound cool as shit! The deep rumble of a big-bore Harley combined with the Vvrrm of a sporty-ass rice rocket; it took almost three whole minutes for Enbee and myself to settle on the artificial sound I wanted because it didn't make sense not to use the electric motors combined with the hydrogen/oxygen separating fuel cell. He was adamant that excess noise was not needed, and that installing vibration machines that corresponded with your revving just was a complete waste.

Enbee, buddy, come on, this is a man's romance! I futuristic motorcycle that combines the best of both worlds! It even had some limited shape-changing abilities that took it from a hunched over riding position to something more upright and comfortable looking; now that particular feature wasn't needed as comfort was no longer an issue, but still!

M16A1 and I had decided to kick the hornet's nest so to speak- we hade the location of six more stash houses, but they were all pretty small time. The one location that many cash runners move the Merchant's dough to was a dilapidated ship called the "Sea Queen"; an old small-tonnage cargo shipping container that used to do quick jaunts up and down the east coast. It wasn't the biggest target on the list, but it had the most traffic.

The plan was to gut punch them, hard, and then watch them contract. Even with the eyes in the sky, we had found frustratingly few Merchant targets; the key to their success was their disorganization- I doubted Skidmark knew where half of his stash house locations were, and that was not just because he was bluto'd half the time. His Sergeants all operated independently, and whenever they felt like they had a close call with the LEOs then they booked it to a new safehouse; as long as they delivered the profits to their Head Honcho he was content to let them operate how they pleased.

With the Empire we'd identified over twenty targets that we could strike, and the ABB had forty-seven due to their operations being smaller and more spread out. The Merchants though? I reiterate, we found a grand total of nine targets, three of which we already hit yesterday.

I refused to believe that they were so small that nine stash houses were the best they could do- a small un-powered splinter of the Crips moved into Brockton Bay two weeks ago from New York if PHO was to be believed (thank you, Bagrat for your service), and despite having only known about them for two days we managed to find four of their stash houses.

The Merchants were too decentralized to do more than bloody their nose by going after their fringe assets- we were going to make them consolidate.

In a span of two hours, M16A1 and I blitzed through every stash house that we had on record, all calm and quiet-like as we did the night before. We informed the police and had them take the sleeping gangers into custody, but we told them we would save a full statement until after we completed our operation; we'd be more than happy to come by a precinct of their choosing to give a full report for each mission.

The "Sea Queen" was the last stop, and by far the biggest target; the Indias had almost thirty unpowered members armed to the teeth hanging in or around the ship. This time though, we wanted to go a bit louder, thus the loud motorcycles.

I leaned into the corner, taking the bike nice and low as I tried to enjoy the thrill of riding a motorcycle again to the fullest; sure, we were only doing 40 miles per hour- the speed limit in the Docks area- but with how responsive the bike was and how sticky the tires were it was still a hell of a ride. I hit the clutch and revved the engine nice and high as we approached the cluster of ships that were closest to the road.

The "Sea Queen" was about fifty yards into the beach and had four smaller ships surrounding it- two large fishing boats and two tugboats. They weren't arranged in a nice box formation on purpose, as whoever set this whole shit-show up obviously didn't count on the vessels being used by druggies to hole up their cash, but it perfectly framed the small cargo container in such a fashion that it allowed for the protection of the ship itself and plenty of vantage points for sentries and non-powered defenders.

Immediately one of the men sitting on the deck of the closest fishing boat stood up to his feet and started to yammering away into a walkie-talkie. I tapped into the unsecured band, "-Shit, Rico! Rico! We got Capes!"

Another voice responded, decidedly less panicked and certainly annoyed, "Didn't I tell you not to use my damn name on the fuck'n radio, idiot!? And so what if there are Capes? Probably some dumb kids coming out to test their new powers. Remember to stay low and pretend you didn't see them."

"I don't know Ri- uh, Boss, these two don't look like kids. Pretty sure one is like seven-foot or something. They are also wearing some pretty hefty power armor."

I waved at him and I heard M16A1's husky chuckle fill my ears.

"He also just waved at me."

"Fffuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkk, well if they start moving closer you start shooting; I'll get on the line with Skidmark."

Yeah, how about no?

"Nugget, deploy the Electronic Warfare suite," I spoke, and the dozen surveillance drones hovering overhead began to hum inaudibly. Just like that, everything within three hundred yards that wasn't on a Forerunner band lost its ability to receive or transmit.

"Let's go, 16. Just like we planned," Though it wasn't much of a plan, just go in and put all the bad guys to sleep before taking all of their cash.

"Simple plans are always the best ones," She grinned as she snatched her rifle off of her back and snapped a quick shot at the Merchant that was trying to figure out why his radio didn't work; I could see the dart sail across the intervening 150 feet in three-tenths of a second before sinking into his bicep.

Not one to be outdone I grabbed my Battle Rifle and popped a 10mm tranquilizer off at a Merchant on the ship opposite of hers, the round punching into his armpit as his buddy was handing him what looked to be an Uzi; he flinched at the impact but toppled over soon enough. He tried to get back up on his feet, but his legs failed him as he drifted off to sleep.

"Nugget, play me some music; M16A1 too if she wants."

I didn't have a shotgun, but this felt appropriate enough.

A small smirk crossed my lips as I took up at a sprint, crossing the distance between me and the tugboat in the blink of an eye, and I leaped twenty-five feet into the air, sighting in two Merchants and putting a round into each of them as I hit the apex. I hit the deck hard enough to rock the vessel, which caused three men who were running from the prow of the boat to trip and slide across the decking; three pulls of the trigger, and three darts into the targets and I was moving on, letting the 3-D layout of the ship guide me to my targets. I tore open a bulkhead with a horrific shriek, and a Merchant stuck the barrel of his weapon in my face, but I snatched it from his hand before he could pull the trigger and I gave him a gentle push with the buttstock of the AK while I fired off a round into his thigh from the hip.

I moved across the two floors of the small vessel and put down the three remaining Merchants before I pinged M16A1's location- the cheeky girl had already cleared her ship and was moving onto the two ships on the opposite side of the "Sea Queen". India pinged me and a video feed popped up showing two men hauling ass from the deck of the cargo container and were heading towards a pair of trucks parked nearby.

They probably figured out they were being jammed and the Boss dispatched these two to be runners.

I leaped up the vertical staircase to get back onto the surface of the tugboat before I hopped the railing over the side; the moment my feet touched the sand I was off sprinting, peeling around the side of the ship so fast I looked like a cheetah cornering on the Savanna. Sand was kicked up but it had little bearing on my traction; the BR55-NL came up to my shoulder and I had all the time in the world to line up my shots- the targeting program indicated that the guy on the left would try to juke the moment he saw me, but considering he was running right next to his buddy the only place he could go was left. I shifted my aim just a hair to left and fired off a 10mm tranquilizer before I shifted back to his friend before the bolt had even finished riding back to chamber the fresh round.

With a hiss of CO2, the second dart left the barrel, and I got to watch as they sailed through the air- guy number one did indeed try to juke, a quick sideways turn around juke that he probably had some muscle memory left from his days on the Winslow High School football team before he got kicked off for failing the drug test; huh, Nugget, I don't need that much information on the perp, alright? Thank you.

Instead of dodging the shot, he caught it in the back while his partner caught the round in the shoulder; the kid was wearing a thick coat, so I was going to put another one in him, but the sensor on the tranquilizer indicated that he'd been dosed successfully, and a few seconds later his motor control started failing him before he slumped onto his side.

I sprinted again, this time when I kicked off the sand I started running along the angled side of the ship, the Titanfall/Halo armor thrusters kicking in to keep my bulk at the optimal angle while the magnetic treads of my boots powered on and off with microsecond precision; I snapped off a few rounds, and while the rounds were mid-flight I flicked a mental switch to turn the hit-markers on. I had thought them annoying when I first designed them, but knowing when I get a solid hit with payload injection was really handy; the Green hit markers in my hud indicated 'hit with payload injection', and Blue indicated 'hit but no payload delivery'.

My body shifted as I reached the apex of the prow of the ship and I engaged my legs once more to soar into the air, my thrusters firing to get me up the last few feet of that seventy-foot leap onto the deck of the "Sea Queen". I touched down in the middle of a group of eight Merchants, their weapons all coming around and training on me.

"So, how do you want to do this?" I asked firmly, and much to my surprise, the Merchants didn't immediately start shooting at me, the three behind me darted to the left and right out of their buddy's immediate firing lines, and then they started letting off. Bullets pinged off of my shield, and I eyed their weapons; two AK-47s in poor condition, an old hunting model of a Remington 870, and a Tec-9 that looked like it was about to fall apart. When their weapons clicked dry I eyed my shield bar, noting that it had barely dipped at all.

Four yellow hit markers landed on the men who'd emptied their weapons on me- that was M16A1's colors. I felt her soaring through the air before I saw her out of the corner of my eye- it was a touch strange, having an idea of where she was at all times; every since we crafted our lightsabers I felt a strong connection to her, unlike anything I've ever felt. I wasn't an idiot, I knew it was the Force, but knowing it and experiencing it are two different things. If anything it meant that this was now something I was going to have to dedicate time to, and while I was all for super Force powers and stuff I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with the tech I already had.

M16A1 landed about thirty feet away from me, on the opposite side of some large wooden crates, and we smoothly moved around to where each Merchant was taking cover; I pricked them with the glove needle, but M16A1 had no problems dumping one in the at point-blank. I could feel her giddiness- I guess her usual battles were a lot more intense than this.

The T-Doll flashed me a cutesy emoji as she grabbed a fresh magazine and slapped it into place; seeing that I was almost down to halfway I did the same, grabbing a mag from my pouch between my thumb and forefinger while my middle and ring ringers caught the partially depleted magazine. I slipped the old mag into slot one on my rig with the rounds facing up, not that I didn't have all the time in the world to physically eyeball my magazines, but it was always best to stick to an established system. It was how I did it in the Army- putting it back in my mag pouch instead of my dump pouch if I had the breathing room to do so was old hat.

The Forge glowed hot and I tried to ignore the sensation of my skull splitting open as it pulled a large, six-charge star into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 20.0370 - Mad Science! - 600CP - A Miracle of Science - Knowledge Future Tech]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I activated the Strategy Trance on reflex as a way to slow down my perception of time while I was flooded with a deluge of scientific and mathematical knowledge. Thankfully a lot of what I'd been downloading into my brain mathematics and physics-wise was something that I'd at least touched upon, but most of those things had been theoretical and the knowledge that was pumped into me either proved or disproved a lot of those. Shielding tech, FTL, Weapons, Communications, Robotics, and so much, much more.

I would have been ecstatic at the possibility of actually being able to contribute more to the planning and creation of schematics and stuff with my 'Goks if it wasn't for the immense amount of strain I was under. Without the new Superbrain and implant, I probably would have been knocked unconscious for this.

I was dragged out of my Trance when India 4 pinged myself and M16A1, a video springing up in the corner of my visor while a map opened up simultaneous within our implants; the small video displayed the highly detailed wire-frame of the boat, with four Merchants carrying four large jerry cans and heading towards the containers.

Were they going to light everything up?

I don't know how Skidmark would feel about having his cash and drugs seized, but he was quite good and having Squealer drive one of her vehicles through the wall of the local precinct to steal his drugs back. He would probably lose his shit if it all burned, but whoever was running this operation was probably freaking the fuck out.

"Secured the containers, 16, I'll clear the ship," I hissed out as I stood up.

"Are you okay, Commander?" She asked, probably catching my hiss; hell, she probably could have sensed my discomfort through the Force for all I know.

"Yeah, new Perk. Big one. Carry out your assignment, 16. I'm going to be fine; the discomfort is already fading," I raised my weapon and moved forward at her nod.

Behind me I heard the snap-hiss of her lightsaber; I didn't need to turn my head to see what she was doing as I rushed toward the first flight staircase leading into the ship.

The T-Doll saw that we were right over the target- so why not just cut her way through? M16A1 had leaped over the guard railing and strode to the center of the two metal doors that opened up to allow shipping containers to be lowered into the cargo bays, and once she got over the shipping containers that held the cash, weapons, and drugs, she stabbed her black blade into six-inch thick steel panel and spun clockwise.

The moment she completed her cut the bottom dropped out and she fell into the bay.

Deciding that I was getting a touch sloppy with my reliance on my drones providing me a clear picture of every person on the ship, I started clearing properly, dredging up some of my old Army training on hallway and room clearing; I wasn't like my brother who served in the Marines and had experience running ship clearing drills, but it was enough.

Maybe one of my T-Dolls had experience on ships and could show me how it was done?

Regardless, I swept every hallway and room using every ounce of concentration I had, moving my body and rifle in perfect unison, poking around and checking my corners at every junction as I made my way towards the trio of targets that was closest. Considering they were holed up in a room with their rifles pointed at the doors I reached down to my belt and grasped a paralytic grenade; with a small grunt, I punched through the bulkhead before flicking the grenade into the center of the room. I'd already pulled my arm back out well before the bullets started firing at the hole, and the moment the grenade impacted the floor it burst and filled the room with a thin cloud of gas.

"Gas! Cover your mouths!" One of the Merchants cried out, and I saw him cover his mouth and nose with a thick cloth. That wasn't going to work, my guy; it is contact-based- if it touches your skin you're going down regardless. Breathing it in just makes it work faster.

"WHAT!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" The second yelled as he reloaded his AK-47; the third was already coughing before he went still.

Within twenty seconds the other two fell victim, the weapons falling from their limp fingers as they slumped behind whatever cover they had. I stuffed my hand into the steel bulkhead and shoved it open with my shoulder before I walked around the room, gathering up their bodies and carrying them outside to rest in the hallway; I gave them each a prick as I put them down and out of the way so they wouldn't be trampled if someone came running or caught a stray round if someone started shooting.

The last thing I did before moving on was collect the housing for the grenade and tuck it into my dump pouch before I moved on towards the next location. There were fourteen Merchants left active on the ship, and for some reason, M16A1 decided to make this a race, and I watched her race from cover to cover, returning fire with her rifle.

Rather than get caught up in her pace I stuck to my metaphorical guns and kept up my methodical clearing; there was a time and a place to rush, and this wasn't it.

I cleared out one more room in the same fashion as the last one, this one contained two Merchants, but unlike the previous room they'd left the bulkhead door open, so all I had to do was toss the grenade in and weight.

With the Merchants pricked and secured I moved on towards the final room that was occupied on my floor; it had what looked to be three full-grown men and one teen all crouched behind overturned filing cabinets and the bed it looked like they weren't going to go down without a fight. Considering this room had a placard on it that read "Captain's Quarters" I figured that this was where 'The Boss' stayed. Not seeing any reason to tempt the fatal funnel and chance some tinker tech, I kept my modus operandi the same; I still had plenty of grenades, so why not use them?

I punched through the bulkhead and tossed in two grenades to account for the fact that this room was a fair bit larger than the others.

A shrill whine filled the air and I leaped to the side, bowling over some wooden crates in the process, and not a moment too soon because a green beam of jagged, zig-zagging light pierced through the steel wall and sent vaporized molten metal in all directions. "What the fuck, Boss!? You really using that shit!?"

Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by a great deal of hacking and coughing, and a few seconds after the Boss collapsed I felt comfortable peeling the bulkhead door back and clearing the room.

I stepped close to the weapon laying away from the man's hands and saw that it was chrome with glowing orange lines. It was pretty small, but considering the damage, it packed quite a punch.

I felt Hoarder's Eyes kick in.

"Disintegration Ray: A weapon created by the Tinker known as Leet that can fire plasma hot enough to disintegrate human bodies on contact. Modeled after the Aleph video game 'Destroy All Humans!'"

A hum escaped my throat- I probably would have been fine with my ring protecting me from 97% of the heat damage this thing put out, but if this had been anyone else but myself of M16A1 this guy could have killed someone. I winced at the train of thought- with the number of people and weapons the Merchants had here if the BBPD had tried to take this place there was no doubt it would have turned into a charnel house. Not that I doubt the abilities of the BBPD SWAT, but with all of the tight corridors acting as natural fatal funnels someone from the Blue would have died.

It made me wonder how 'the Boss' stole this from Leet in the first place. I pulled the man's head back and got a good look at his face, and Nugget started running through the BBPD databases; ah, he used to be a henchman for Uber & Leet but after a few arrests working for them it looked like he dipped and moved over to the Merchants- probably stole this weapon and a few other goodies on the way out. "Nugget, search Uber & Leet's public Youtube Channel and find anything related to a show with 'Destroy All Humans!' I want to know if they ever used this in their live streams, and if they did, how many times they fired it."

From what I know of the Tinker he had a Prototype specialty, where he could create all sorts of different technologies, but they came with some pretty heavy drawbacks- he could only utilize a type of technology once, and each time he tried to create tech it had a percentage chance of failing spectacularly. I was a little fuzzy on the details, but if I remember correctly he didn't figure out his limitations until after he'd burned out access to some of his more versatile tech trees. The fanfictions I'd seen had him crossreferencing detailed spreadsheets that he used to keep track of the things he built; I know for certain that this thing had been fired at least once, and considering the surprise of his companion that they knew the origin behind the Tinkertech as well.

The Forge spun up and tried to reach out for another star, but it was by far one of the largest I'd seen to date; I didn't even get to scratch the surface of what it was- it had to be at least 8 charges.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

I had just finished securing the unconscious Merchants when M16A1 popped into the room, "The containers are secure and all known hostiles have been neutralized, Commander."

She gave me a salute that I felt compelled to return, "Anything else?"

The T-Doll looked away, "Yes, sir. One of the mundanes down there freaked and... Triggered? He went stiff, looking like he passed out behind some barrels; then he stood up and started throwing all sorts of objects at me- wrenches, weapons, and he even started tearing out chunks of the ship and throwing them before the Tranquilizer put him down."

I blew out a sigh and nodded, "Alright, that means we need to get the PRT involved now too. Nugget, power down the EW suite and patch me through to the Parahuman Response Team, please."

As we waited for the dial tone M16A1 and I moved through the ship towards the container that was containing the cash; we vaulted over the side of the guard railing in the storage area and our boots hit the deck the moment the phone was picked up. "Parahuman Response Team, this is the non-emergency line, how can I assist you?"

"This is the Independent Hero Horizon, I'm calling in the aftermath of a raid on a Merchant storage area in the Boat Graveyard; I'm certain you're aware of the other locations we took out earlier in the evening?"

"Yes, the BBPD has kept us appraised of the clean-up operations that are still ongoing, Horizon. If you're calling us then that means the situation has changed and there is now Parahuman involvement?"

"Indeed, it appears that one of the Merchants triggered during the gunfighting that occurred within the Cargo Container Ship the "Sea Queen". Powers displayed as a Striker, possible ferrokinetic; was able to manipulate objects he touched and could swing them around or fire them off like projectiles. Reminiscent of the E88 Cape, Rune. He only threw around metal objects, but that doesn't mean he can't manipulate anything else." I spoke as we weaved in between numerous cargo containers on our way to our destination.

Some of the containers looked like someone had tried to turn them into swiss cheese with the number of bullet holes in them.

"Understood, Horizon. How many un-powered members?"

"38 un-powered Merchants, 1 freshly Triggered Cape."

"Noted. I have Armsmaster, Velocity, and Miss Militia en route to your location, and PRT teams are already on their way. E.T.A. for Armsmaster is 5 minutes, Miss Militia 8 minutes, Velocity 5 minutes, and 20 minutes for the PRT Tactical Team. If you can get to a location where you can be spotted from the road that would be greatly appreciated, Horizon." Her smooth voice spoke out.

"Reading you Five-by-Five, Miss. One of us will be standing by the road and waiting. Horizon, out."

M16A1 cracked the door open to the shipping container we were after and I was greeted with the sight of twenty duffle bags that were filled to the brim with cash; the bags themselves were wrapped with clear plastic bags- likely to keep the money from being affected by the moisture this close to the water.

I looked at the Warehouse key in my hand before I consulted the map of the ship.

There wasn't a normal door on this mother fucker- everything was either a bulkhead door or a standard door without a lock that met the requirements. I sighed and started grabbing the bags of cash; both M16A1 and I had six wrapped around our bodies while each of our hands held two.

We left the ship quickly and sprinted across the street to the nearest door that had a lock that qualified; I made sure to spread the drones out a little further to give us some coverage to keep any peeping eyes away. Enbee pinged me, informing me that the Door-Jam had been moved out of the way, and I found the side entrance to an empty warehouse and slotted my key in. Once the door was open we tossed the bags of cash inside and shut the door. "16, start gathering the Merchants that are down in the belly of the ship and bring them out here to the roadside, line them up nice and neat for the PRT."

"Yes, sir," The T-Doll spoke, a small smile emoji flashing across her visor before she took off at a good clip back towards the "Sea Queen".

I moved to do the same, starting with the fishing vessel and tugboat behind the container ship that M16A1 had cleared. With a Merchant under each arm and carrying one in each hand by the waistband of their pants, I began dropping them off at the roadside, making sure to secure the hands behind their backs and their ankles with zip-ties. I moved from ship to ship, dropping off every person while M16A1 made a collection point at the base of the staircase that he led up to the "Sea Queen"s deck.

The fifteen members on the outer ships were lined up in a neat row, and then I started grabbing the Merchants from M16A1's collection point. I'd grabbed another twelve by the time I heard Armsmaster's Armscycle off in the distance, but before he arrived the red blur moving in a fast walk was the first to show up. Velocity dropped out of his Breaker state with a small wave, "Good evening, Horizon."

He looked at the twenty-seven men we'd lined up already, "Busy night tonight? Heard you were taking out every known safehouse in Merchant territory."

I gave him a nod before I slowly walked forward and offered him an open handshake, "Evening, Velocity, and yeah, we decided to step things up just a touch; put some pressure on Skidmark and see how he reacts."

That was when Armsmaster rolled up, parking his next to ours. I had to admit that while it wasn't as cool as the motorcycles I made- okay, no, it was actually cooler; my bikes were sort of last minute. It did irk me a touch when a scanner popped out of the side of his bike, no bigger than a pencil eraser, and started to take readings on my motorcycles. "Hello, Armsmaster, glad to see you here, though, if you would, please refrain from scanning my bikes and technology."

He stiffened minutely, and he looked like he was having a conversation; I could see his throat move, along with minute movements of his jaw and lips. Subvocalization? Was he speaking with Dragon right now? A small breath of air left his lungs, but he pressed a button on his bike's handlebar and the scanner retracted. "Apologies, Horizon. I haven't seen a design like this before, and while it has a tailpipe there isn't a visible combustion engine; is it electric?"

I let a smile emoji play out across my visor and gave him a thumbs-up, "No worries, Armsmaster, I can appreciate a man who likes bikes as much as I do; and to answer your question its electric- hydrogen separator, it runs off water, no matter how dirty or brackish."

His head nod was exaggerated, likely part of his PR training when dealing with new Capes. I extended an olive branch, "If you'd like then we could probably schedule a time to trade some notes, maybe Tinker a little if we're not too busy. Maybe you could invite Dragon? I'm certain there are all sorts of fun things the three of us to get up to."

Velocity snorted, but Armsmaster nodded again. "That sounds like it would be an interesting endeavor, however, we can talk shop once these arrests are concluded. I see that you are consolidating the un-powered members; have they been searched?"

I shook my head, "Other than a cursory pat-down to check for weapons I haven't gone through their pockets, no. My companion is busy retrieving the last un-powered members, but if you'd like to get started with that before the Tactical Team arrives?"

"Yeah, sure, we can do that since the excitement's already over," Velocity chuckled and moved towards the first sleeping gang member.

"Would you show me how you're searching them? I'd like to have a reference from the Protectorate and PRT so that I can show my other team members." I spoke, hoping to get some time to watch and observe while the Forge spun up. I was only a charge and a half off from grabbing this particular star from the "Skills Alchemy" constellation, and seeing what it was I was truthfully quite bummed.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 21.0250 - Alchemical Tome - 400CP - My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic - Skills Alchemy]
[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

Say what you want to about My Little Pony, but in terms of craziness, versatility, and unpredictability, the home universe of Princess Luna and Princess Celestia has quite a selection to choose from; no doubt the Alchemy book would have been chock-full of powerful potions and stuff that could have given me an edge this early in the game. Considering it came with automatic mastery of the craft that I wouldn't have to train as well as all of the materials I would ever need the Perk could have been a game-changer.

Armsmaster looked at me before giving me a nod, "Admirable, using the PRT's Searching protocols will ensure that you and your team will be able to secure suspects properly. The men and women we catch are often quite clever, please, turn your attention to me and make note of what I'm doing."

Velocity chuckled and moved towards the last member in the line, but I focused on Armsmaster as he started rifling through his pockets and placing everything in them in a pile at the base of the Merchant's feet. The sleeves were scrunched down, the pants were scrunched much the same, and the waistband of the pants and underwear was next. The shoes were pulled off and the feet checked; the man had a small wad of cash tucked into his right sock, but unfortunately for them, they were Protectorate and unable to take part in any of the spoils.

M16A1 strode up carrying a few gang members just as Miss Militia arrived, the camouflage bedecked hero wore her stars-and-stripes bandana with pride, and I'll be damned if she didn't fill her uniform out nicely. My T-Doll noticed my eyes and she decided to take an exaggerated gander herself after dropping (read: gently placed down) the Merchants she was carrying and arranging them in a second row since Velocity had started on the opposite end, "Hello, Miss Militia."

The beautiful olive skin around her bottle-green eyes crinkled as the Protectorate Cape walked over, "You must be M16A1, a pleasure to meet you."

She turned to her side and the Desert Eagle on her hip fluttered into black and green energy before it slithered up her torso and reformed on her back, a complete M16A1 devoid of any attachments, "I'm a huge fan of your namesake myself."

The T-Doll turned her head to face me, a laughing emoji flickering across her faceplate, "Oh, I know who the team's favorite Protectorate Cape is going to be, Horizon."

I replied with an eye-roll emoji, "I'm well aware of that, 16. Just bring the last of them over, will you?"

She nodded before turning around, "I'll get it done, no problem."

Having seen Armsmaster roll through a couple of searches I squatted down in the center and began going through the motions, pulling out spare change, dollar bills, some baggies of weed and what looked to be crystal meth, a cellphone, a wallet, and a few other bits and bobs. I made it through four searches before Armsmaster engaged me, "Your fine motor control with your suit is very fine, Horizon; I'd almost suspect that you weren't a new Cape with how well you're moving in your power armor."

"That's because I'm not a new cape," I spoke, patting down some pockets and pulling out... a used condom that was tucked into the wrapper. Oh, fuck, gross. There aren't any women here, who the hell did he bang? It was still moist so... I scanned my helmet over the other unconscious gangers, and Velocity started laughing out loud, "New to Brockton Bay, but not new. My team and I just preferred to stay under the radar; handle things quietly. However, there comes a time when you need to stand out into the light and start tackling problems head-on."

Miss Militia squatted down next to me and started working on another perp, "So what made you and... your team step into Brockton Bay?"

"Well, that's a simple question to answer, really," I paused and looked up at the container ship, "We looked at all of the various cities in our fair nation and asked ourselves 'where could we do the most good?' We looked at every major city- their populations, crime statistics - both powered and non-powered- Protectorate and PRT presence, local Police presence, infrastructure, educational systems, among a variety of other economic and sociological factors."

I went back to searching my Merchant, "With the size of my team and our capabilities we knew we could be effective in helping Local Law Enforcement in not just stemming the tide of crime, but reversing it. We have the personnel, we have the training, we have the equipment, and more importantly, we have the will and drive to make things happen. California has Alexandria on speed dial, Houston has Eidolon, New York has Legend, and even Chicago- the once crime capital of America- has Myrrdin and lower crime rates per capita than Brockton Bay."

"We've been doing our information gathering and so far we've uncovered a variety of heinous crimes being committed here- human smuggling, sex trafficking, vast drug rings that target the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Merchants, the low-grade pushers who don't care if their product kills their customers. The ABB work actively with foreign entities to get them their opium and cocaine. The E88, actual, factual nazis who sell their designer drugs to the wealthy and well connected," I shook my head as I finished my search and moved onto the new row that M16A1 had set up, "And that's just the narcotics side of the house, and we haven't even touched on the racketeering, counterfeiting, property destruction, assaults, rapes, murders, and everything else."

I turned my helmet to look back at them, "There is no doubt in my mind that you all work incredibly hard, and are highly competent, but for one reason or another, this city hasn't been getting the funding or personnel needed to truly make you effective. Your PRT branch should be twice its current size with three times the budget just based on the PRT's annual funding charter with Congress. The Protectorate team should have at least four more members as well, but whoever is calling the shots is trying to balance your shortcomings out with a large Wards team that you cannot reasonably be expected to deploy."

I returned to my newest perp, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket and setting it by his shoes, "You are one bad turf war from being up-shit-creek and without a paddle, and the worst part is that you'll be hamstrung by some yahoo who isn't on the ground who doesn't know the city or its gangs. I don't know Director Piggot, but if she's as hardnosed as I've heard, then there is probably a time penciled into her schedule so that she can pound her face against the brick wall that is Rebecca Costa-Brown trying to make things happen."

"You guys need help, but nope, it's Boston that gets the newest Tinker to enter into the Protectorate, and San Antonio gets the new earth-manipulating Shaker that would be a Godsend here in Brockton to fix the streets up after whatever flare-up occurred this week." I pulled out a small wad of bills from the Merchant's waistband and set it down on the ground next to everything else.

"So, to answer your question, Miss Militia, you guys need help, and we're going to give it to you," M16A1 spoke as she dropped the last Merchant in the second row, though she kept the teen segregated from the others, "This is the kid who Triggered. Don't know how you want to handle this so I'll just step out of the way."

Armsmaster stood up and moved to take over for my T-Doll, the Protectorate Cape speaking lowly out loud as he moved around the pale-skinned young man, "Suspected New Trigger appears to be a teenager, estimated 16 years of age. White Caucasian Male, five foot five inches tall, estimated 145 pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes, no noticeable scarring or tattoos, track marks on the inside of his left elbow indicate injected narcotics use-"

I tuned out his droning as I took the time to write up a complete report for all of the safehouses we took down, and once those were completed I had M16A1 write up the report for the assault on the "Sea Queen"; I wasn't about to do everything- I had smoking hot T-Dolls to help now. While we were finishing up the gang members I verbally laid out the foundation for what we did here, what we accomplished, and what we found in the cargo ship, "-on top of the weapons we found an estimated 300 pounds of Crystal Meth; its a pink and purple mix I haven't seen before."

"Yeah, it's a new twist the Skidmark has been pushing; pretty potent stuff- we've had more than fifty ODs in the hospital this week alone," Velocity chimed in, "Dunno what they've added to it, Armsmaster hasn't had a chance to run a toxicology report on it, and the lab is swamped as it is."

"Velocity," Miss Militia chided, no doubt about the small slip about the lab workflows.

"What? It's no secret that everyone is understaffed and overworked, hell, Horizon succinctly pointed out all of the problems we're having in the bay," He grumbled as he started packing up each pile of belongings into plastic baggies he pulled from Armsmaster's Armscycle, "Just frustrating to deal with."

"No worries, I get it," I shook my head as I finished my last guy and stood up, "So, now that all of that is done, would you like a more formal report?"

Without looking over at us Armsmaster pressed a button on his gauntlet and a small cylinder poked out of the top, "If you would please, Miss Militia, I'm currently utilizing my armor recorder for this new Cape."

Without another word, the star-spangled Cape grabbed the recorder and flicked it on, and from there I gave a report of the events on my end before M16A1 gave her end. I popped out two SD cards and handed them over, "Here is an itemized list of everything we found including weapons, numbers, serial numbers if they had any, drugs, type, and quantity, among other things. The second card has my helmet camera footage, though it has been sanitized of all graphics and display data."

My T-Doll handed over her own SD card as well, "That and we're claiming the 1.1 Million dollars that were found on the scene as Spoils per the Vigilante act, just so you don't think we're forgetting."

Velocity whistled, "Quite the payday for what, 30 minutes worth of work?"

"From start to finish the engagement lasted just under seven minutes, at least on my end," I flickered a smirking emoji over my faceplate, "Not to humblebrag or anything, but we're pretty efficient."

The red-clothed cape chuckled underneath his breath while Miss Militia's eyes crinkled, "Well, thank you very much for your assistance in taking out these Merchants, no doubt with them having been so entrenched it would have been a slog otherwise."

I nodded to them as M16A1 and I watched four PRT vans arrive and disgorge dozens of armored troopers while eight more vans pulled up to collect the Merchants and the evidence, and boy it was a lot of evidence. "Well, as fun as this has been, I'm afraid we still need to make a stop by Precinct 4 to meet with Lieutenant Hansen; we still have to hand over our reports for the other raids earlier in the evening."

"Well, it has indeed been eventful, I'm sure you're ready to go home and get some rest," Miss Militia nodded to us as the Troopers began grabbing the Merchants and hauling them into the vans.

"Before I forget, there was a Tinker weapon that the 'Boss' for this group used; it was a disintegration ray gun. Considering I'd seen its like in an Aleph video game I'm pretty certain it's probably some of Leet's tech. I'd only seen it fired once, but not wanting to chance carrying around un-tested Tinker Tech I left it on the ship for you guys to handle."

"Sensible," Armsmaster stood up from where he'd been kneeling, a scanner on his halberd clicking shut, "Technology from Uber and Leet is notoriously unstable at the best of times. We have the facilities at the ENE Headquarters to safely dispose of it if it proves to be too dangerous to study or store."

"Well, that's good to know, I'll let you guys know if we come across any more of Leet's tech," I nodded and felt the Forge spin up and it reached out and grasped onto a star and tugged it in close before reaching out for another one in a different constellation.

Not gonna lie, my dick got a little hard in my suit. It was very uncomfortable.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 4.0070 - Titan Engineering - 100CP - Titanfall - Vehicles]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 250 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 7.0010 - Advance Processor Fabricator - 100CP - Battle Action Harem - Highschool Side Character Quest - Facilities Mundane]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 150 CP Remaining]

I don't know jack shit about Battle Action Harem, but the fact that this was a Quantum fabricator meant that all of the limitations we had with the Hurgoks being only able to manipulate things at the molecular level were just wiped away. Just because it was designed with computer chips in mind didn't mean we couldn't apply the principals to other automated manufacturing processes.

Also, "-PILOT, STANDBY FOR TITANFALL-".

Need I say anymore? I might have missed out on the Alchemy, but the Titanfall database combined with the Mad Scientist Perk with Quantum engineering? That was much more my current wheelhouse. The Dr. Gero in me was pleased, but found the lack of puffy sleeves on the robots disturbing.

All in all we managed to pull in $1.35 Million dollars between all of the stash houses. Lets see how Skidmark reacts.

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Special thanks to Lmc9389, Xodarap4, Artillery, DrkShdow, AuraofCalm, Zerak, Mioismoe, Zath, Splendid, D. Wongsonegoro, Darkarma, Acrimonius, T. Balewood, Randall Randall, Dominyx Black, CyberCrisis, Blue, Russ Stilter, Legion_13, Mike Fatal_Bullet, P. Nguyen, Fred65, and K. Nielsen for being Patrons!

You guys rock!

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Mad Science! (A Miracle of Science) (600CP)
What you came for, or at least took this origin for. Your technological genius is centuries ahead of your time across the board. In one area, such as chemistry, robotics or FTL physics, you outstrip even the hyper-advanced Martians.

Titan Engineering (Titanfall) (100CP)
Titans are incredibly complex machines, and due to the disposable nature of their use and production, and not designed for easy repair. You've got the deft touch though, and know exactly where to tweak and shore up the structure to keep it purring like it's fresh out of the drop pod for years.

Advance Processor Fabricator (Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest) (100CP)
This quantum scale fabricator is focused on producing complex processors and other computer chips. It is able to create quantum computing matrices including seven state processing chipsets.