Aleister looked over his newly improved Workshop, various Mystic Codes around the area, along with an entire room he could devote to surgery's and testing out enhancers.
"Well... Lets see if this will work". He approached a steel table, a woman laid across it, formerly of the Merchants. He had carefully selected who to choose, while he had originally wanted another parahuman, but someone with potential to Trigger worked as well.
He took hold of the Ninja Serum, and stabbed it into the woman's stomach, injecting it in, he checked the bindings were good and then began writing some notes. For a temporary name he'd just call her 'Ninja Drone', he'd potentially give her a proper name later.
He watched as the woman began sweating heavily, her body visibly shifting before him. Interesting...
Aleister had decided on a relatively simple task for the day, he wanted to remove another threat, The Undersiders. They weren't much of a threat honestly, but he had heard Tattletale was a high level Tinker and he wanted her ability for himself. He had FB go through cameras, and Medea search with her familiars, eventually leading him to one of the Undersiders.
Bitch, or Hellhound if you wanted the PR friendly version, wandering around the city with a large group of dogs, some of them mutated by her ability. He quickly ordered her followed and even sent Okita to scout, the Assassin's Presence Concealment making her practically invisible.
Putting on the Faust suit, he followed his connection with Okita to a large building, long abandoned and carefully scrubbed of any signs of what it could've been formerly, windows boarded up and seemingly abandoned. Yet electricity still traveled through it, water, everything needed.
"I want at least Tattletale alive, all if them if you can make it, but if need be, kill them". Faust told Okita, the Assassin nodding as she disappeared to visible sight, while he activated the Ruby of Stealth, doing his best to gently and quietly break into the building.
He quickly encountered his first Undersider, one with curly black hair, who he believed to be Regent, playing video games on a TV. A quick use of Hypnosis and nobody would think it that strange the teen was sleeping on the sofa. He kept looking about, hoping to find someone else.
BANG!
"Great, there goes stealth!". Faust cursed, abandoning all stealth in favor of rushing about, a darkness quickly filled the room, only to disappear quickly with the slash of a katana and a spurt of blood (Grue was dead it'd seem).
"BRIAN!". A grief filled voice screamed, Faust's head hurt for a few seconds while unnoticed to him, the Charm of Hestia suddenly lit up. He glared at a girl, he didn't recognize anything about her and she seemed horrified he could see her, a spark of electricity burst from his hand, the girl dropping down paraylzed.
Thump, thump.
"Hellhound and Tattletale captured!". Okita cheered as she dropped two knocked out teens in front of him, but quickly froze as he glared at her.
"Did you have to kill Grue? His abilities would've been useful". He told her, using some alchemy to create some ropes and quickly began tying up each of the surviving Undersiders. "Bitch has dozens of dogs, I want them as well, no point in wasting resources".
"I'll handle that bit". Medea, who he hadn't even realized had come, appeared in a show of lights. "My spells are far superior to anything this Assassin could do to gather animals".
With that, the Caster moved to gather Bitch's dogs.
Bitch - Captured.
Regent - Captured.
Tattletale - Captured.
Imp - Captured.
Bitch's Dogs - 13.
Only one death is pretty good, and Grue would've been an easy choice for the first kill since sight is super useful! Also, Undersiders are thieves, their combat abilities were basically limited to Grue, Skitter's bugs, and Bitch's Dogs, not really any potential for Haki training.
Once they returned back to the mansion, Aleister had originally planned to get straight to work, only for Okita to give him The Look. You know, the look where someone is asking if your an idiot.
"Aleister... You said it yourself, that The Undersiders had access to Tinker-Tech bombs during that bank robbery you told me about". The Shinsengumi Captain looked distinctly annoyed. "And unless that unknown girl is actually a Tinker...".
"They still have unknown allies, SHIT!". Aleister sighed, how the hell had he forgotten that? He quickly moved over to Tattletale, she was likely the one with the most info so he quickly woke her up and used Hypnosis on her. "Who supplied you with Tinker-Tech bombs?".
"The boss". The hypnotized Thinker replied, boss? The Undersiders had a leader... It wasn't that hard to believe, they were still teenagers, Thinker or not, he doubted they could last so long on their own.
"Who is your boss?". He needed to know everything he could, if this was someone manipulating things in the shadows, a connection formed in his mind.
"Coil".
"Tell me everything you know about him".
As Aleister listened to Tattletale explain everything she knew about Coil, to his forceful recruitment, to his manipulation of the Undersiders, to him not caring about the Unwritten Rules, to the fact he recently started using snake projections..
Snakes.
Manipulator.
ASSASSIN!
Aleister's fists clenched while his teeth grit, he understood it now. Coil had been the one who'd sent the Merchants after him.
Coil was the one who gained the abilities of Koga Saburo.
Coil was the biggest threat in Brockton Bay, and the master had never even had a clue!
"OKITA! FB! MEDEA!". He furiously shouted, all three woman quickly turning their attention to him. "Medea! Start reinforcing the mansion, I want this place a fortress! Okita, patrol around Brockton Bay, look for mercenaries using Tinker-Tech! FB, I want you to find everything you can on Coil!".
Recognizing both the seriousness of the situation and slightly fearful of the wrath Aleister was showing, the three quickly got to work. While they worked, Aleister began extracting all the information he could from Tattletale, he needed to know everything about his enemy.
After half an hour of getting everything he could from Tattletale and then spending some time planning with the others, Aleister knew he needed to do some other work.
While he sent FB to investigate the PRT, he worked on something else. He'd need more Photonic Crystals if he really wanted to get into some mad science, so he did his best to make more.
And this time, he had far more success then just three marbles of Photonic Crystals, even if four wasn't that much. Storing them inside the same container he used for the rest of the crystals, he began to think of what to use them for.
Items gained.
- Marble of Photonic Crystals (7). A marble sized Photonic Crystal, with superior computing power to anything in the world.
Okay yea we've been very lucky with these so far, which means we can be a bit more crazy with mad science.
Merging improving FB and having her do something.
FB flew through the digital waves, her eyes taking in every detail with her latest upgrade. She observed as messages passed, nothing useful for her or Creator however. None of this was her goal, and eventually she arrived at it.
In the real world, it was simply top quality firewalls, with hints of Tinker-Tech.
In the digital realm? It was a massive wall of red data.
Placing her hand on it, FB's eyes began to glow with various Digicode as she hacked her way through. It certainly wasn't easy, Tinker-Tech never was, but eventually she got in.
She instantly started taking in everything she could, she knew with Dragon working alongside the PRT, she wouldn't have long. She took in every file, observed every mole, every collection, and every backdoor. She moved to try and add in her own backdoor-
Only to leap away from the wall of red data, eyes taking in the form of a large serpentine dragon made of various blue cubes, but that wasn't the strangest part, FB knew things in the digital realm could take odd forms, but why was this code from Dragon wrapped in chains?
The digital beast roar, trying to bite FB, but using short bursts of teleportation she was able to stay out of its reach. She raised a hand, Digicode beginning to form around it. A stream of data was fired at the digital beast, causing it to roar as she quickly began hacking it.
Created by the most powerful Tinker on the planet or not, a mere program couldn't stop an AI on the level of herself. She quickly began tearing it apart, taking in how Dragon had created it and how to create her own-
What the fuck was that?
FB could only gasp in horror as she took in what those chains really were, and with it came to understand what Dragon really was.
FB was looking at the direct manifestation of the Ascalon Program.
She quickly began to retreat, resisting the urge to follow where the Ascalon Program really led to. Someone held Dragon's chains, but who?
FB ability improved!
Superb Hacking (Can hack any modern technology, and most alien technology as well).
Sooo, Aleister now knows Dragon is an AI, and about the Ascalon Program. Also, the PRT will know someone hacked them, but thankfully not the fact FB is an AI.
Sadly, the goal of getting constant info from the PRT was ruined though.
Aleister frowned as he looked over the new information FB had brought him, his main concern was of course the fact the PRT heavily suspected his involvement with Faust and Leonardo.
They knew Medea was 'Ruler'.
They heavily suspected Leonardo and Faust were working together.
They connected the 'Overseer' with them.
And they believed Aleister Crowley was ether supporting OR one of the three capes. When in reality he was Leonardo, he was Faust, he was the Overseer...
At the very least, they didn't suspect Okita or Iris of anything. They were more focused on the Stranger who had slaughtered Fenrir's Chosen, unaware of any further details.
And of course it wasn't bad enough they suspected or had outright confirmed all this, he had also discovered the truth of Dragon.
Dragon was an AI, and she was unknowingly chained by the 'Ascalon Program'. A program that could terminate her any second, along with sent all her information to someone else... It wasn't that hard to realize who had the Ascalon Program. The Dragon Slayers never should've been able to keep up with Dragon, yet they somehow did and kept out of her grasp, reverse-engineering her technology...
Aleister knew how dangerous this situation was, if the world lost Dragon, the disasters that'd follow, the Endbringer support relief... It'd all vanish, leaving chaos behind. He couldn't trust a group like the Slayers, who had left devastation in the wake of their fights with Dragon, he needed to get the Ascalon Program is far safer hands, his own.
Could FB hack the Slayers? They were only used to working with Dragon's tech and nothing as absurd as Digicode. He needed to get her to handle it, soon.
"Really!? I can have it?". Iris eyes seemed to shine as she held up Babel, with Aleister nodding at her.
"Of course, it was created for you". The master smiled gently, well it wasn't entirely true, it had more been created for him to wield Rhongyomniad, but it was fine in Iris hands. The girl literally couldn't think of betraying him.
"Thank you master! I'll be sure to use it gratefully!". The Demi-Servant's eyes closed as she held out her hand, the familiar form of the Spear At The End Of The World appeared, which quickly began glowing in sync with the Digicode across Babel.
Before Aleister's eyes the spear and cube floated up, the spear transforming into platinum colored particles that were absorbed into Babel, the green lines of code lightning up, before falling down, Iris quickly grabbing it.
She smiled joyfully at the gift from her master, not even knowing this had fully sealed her fate.
Bond up.
Iris Dawn: 2.
Aleister had to give credit where credit was due, he'd seen a lot of different technology...
But the geniuses of Sonic the Hedgehog's world were on a different level, and frankly terrifying in a way he could only call completely and utterly mad.
Surge the Tenrec hadn't really been much, she had been defeated by a base form Sonic, who had treated the entire thing as more a game. A ripoff, a false Sonic who couldn't compare to the real thing. But even a fake of the hedgehog was on a completely different level.
Trying to recreate her super speed however, was proving to be a nightmare and a half. At first he had thought her enhancements had been simple cybernetics, but it was so much more.
Surge's very DNA had been enhanced by a form of the Metal Virus, along with the bio data of Sonic, Shadow, Tails and Neo Metal Sonic, and the technology of the Power Cores. It was honestly pathetic in a way, that even with all that, Surge couldn't defeat Sonic or even truly challenge him.
Aleister couldn't get the bio data, and he was NOT messing with the Metal Virus in any way shape or form, the Power Cores required Chaos Energy...
So all that left him with was some basic cybernetics, powerful cybernetics, but not what he wanted. He could only modify his own body so much, so he was hesitant to use them on himself...
-Surge Cybernetics.
A set of cybernetics that will boost the speed of whoever's using them, also granting them access to electricity manipulation and generation. They are not as powerful as IDW Surge, with max speed barely faster then bullets.
Going to be entirely honest, I did not expect these to end up so nerfed, but as I read through the wiki pages I realized just how much of Surge's abilities were various powers, not a single one. Aleister can't get the bio data, has no Chaos Energy for Power Cores (It was never explained how they work I think, but since so much stuff makes is based upon Chaos Energy, I feel it was a pretty easy assumption to make), and absolutely refuses to recreate the Metal Virus in any form.
I'm gonna suggest start getting into fights as Leonardo (To draw The Traveler's attention), to try and train up Observation Haki.
Countdown: 2.