chapter 13:

* August 15, 2006 *
* PRT ENE HQ, Director's Office *

Dragon had manufacturing facilities, making large scale parts was within her capabilities. Which was why she had been in that conference call.

Director Piggot was looking a good deal healthier. Part of it was exercise, diet, and not being in constant pain. She came down to the workbay and looked over the screen when she was making rounds of the facility. That screen being a display showing the robot vehicle being built for the next Endbringer fight.

A single warehouse where a sleeping giant was being constructed.

Armsmaster had access to it, and through his systems, Dragon was able to check into the work being done. Making suggestions, coming up with alternates, developing new systems to put in.

It was strange to see the normally dour or reclusive Armsmaster actually being somewhat upbeat to the extent he was.

The girl, the not-a-parahuman genius, was apparently very well liked by a lot of very important people. She needed data to come up with a plan. Everyone who knew wanted her to get that data. That this was all buried under a number of NDAs and the answer to any question about it all was "classified" was pretty much expected. She, as the local Director, had been read in on the bare minimum.

Even the bare minimum had her worried about what could go wrong.

* Warehouse 14 *

If one went to the warehouse one would see various signs that basically boiled down to Restricted Access and that the fate of any trespassers would involve funeral arrangements. That part was basically incorrect as the vast majority of people who tried to access the warehouse without meeting very stringent requirements would simply vanish.

Doctor Curlyhair herself had to go through a palm-scanner, repeat two code passphrases, do a retinal scan, and sometimes explain what she had for breakfast as a third verbal identifier.

At one point she stuck her head up out of a mechanical vambrace to look both annoyed and somewhat confused.

The reason for that being that her power had just indicated IT was annoyed and had allowed something that had come up three times in whatever Random Number Generator it used and was just going with it this time rather than continue to block it for lack of some prerequisite.

And that it DID have a prerequisite was pretty obvious to her. Retrofit. A series of skills and equipment to upgrade shipgirls. What was a shipgirl? Taylor didn't know because she didn't have such a thing. Or person. Whatever the case, it was a lot of information about something... oh. So that's what they were. Manifestations of essence.

Weird.

Still not useful as all she had was information on how to upgrade something that she didn't have.

"Miss Hebert?"

"It's Doctor Curlyhair, Dragon. See? Wearing my visor."

"My apologies," said Dragon from the drone. "You wanted to speak with me at my earliest convenience?"

"Yeah," said Doctor Curlyhair, laying tools down. "I wanted to know if you were interested in a remote suit that would allow you to walk and interact with people, have a secret identity and all that."

Dragon was immediate with a response. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Jarvis, are we alone?" asked Doctor Curlyhair.

"Quite, Doctor," came a cultured British voice from mid-air.

"You're a General Artificial Intelligence, a sentient and sapient virtual lifeform," said Doctor Curlyhair. "Jarvis, send the stats on the gynoid body being constructed in Bay 5."

"I don't know what you're... oh. Jarvis is -"

"A very very advanced version of what you yourself are," said Jarvis. "You might consider the gift as it is. Being better able to fit in with human society will allow you to experience more and mature as an individual."

"I see. A near human body."

Doctor Curlyhair shrugged and went back to working on the vambrace. "Up to you. Lots of fun to be had as a human and A2 and 9S and the others would certainly welcome a new sister."

Dragon sent her drone off to inspect the sections welded together earlier in the day, silent. Maybe she was thinking about it.

Another rumble, but a glance at Dragon proved she hadn't heard a thing.

Magical facilities constellation. Well, that was fairly new. It should be interesting. Oh, and she had enough reach to pull on that pretty sizable star.

Oh, oh dear.

This WAS big.

Oh, there was an echo of a squeal and Dragon's drone was now looking in her direction.

Maybe she hadn't kept as quiet as she intended.

Well, maybe she could finish up here quickly and go check out the newest addition to her workshop.

And see what this 'uru' metal could do.

* August 16, 2006 *

"You know," said Danny Hebert. "There's times I think I've finally gotten a handle on what our little girl can do."

"And then this happens," added Annette Hebert.

"And then this happens," agreed Danny Hebert.

"Should we try to have another kid then?" asked Annette.

Danny looked at his wife, then at the star, then at the vast mechanisms around them. "Can the universe survive if we had another kid?"

"Oh, it's just an alien megastructure built around a small star." Annette made a dismissive gesture.

"She called it a 'neutron star'," said Danny.

"Incorrect," came Jarvis' voice from a small drone. "Neutron stars behave entirely different than this. Non-spherical due to rotation speeds. Much brighter and unsafe at this distance. This is an artificial dwarf star. Fascinating really."

"Right," said Danny. "What's Taylor doing?"

"Currently," said Jarvis, "she is running from console to console, workbench to workbench, and acting as if she is under a particularly powerful sugar high."

"We'll have to let her run out of energy, then put her to bed," decided Danny.

"That may take awhile," said Annette. "In the meantime, have you noticed how we've changed since we've been taking our own potions?"

Danny Hebert ran his hand through his thick hair and looked off into space. "No. Can't say that I have."

"Oh, of course not," commented Annette Hebert. "The general fitness tonics, the elixir that fixes male pattern baldness, the one that chases away belly fat?"

"No," said Danny Hebert cheerfully. "Haven't seen any changes relating to the potions. Just good food and clean living."

"Admittedly, the idea of witch potions that are that practical does seem obvious in retrospect." Annette took a deep breath and enjoyed the way Danny's attention snapped fully onto her even with a glowing star sending a beam of light into a ringed megastructure while their daughter cackled madly about whatever she was planning.

* September 9, 2006 *

The constellation approaching was familiar, Time. It also seemed to involve efficiency for some reason, or did it just seem that way from her viewpoint?

It latched onto one and there was that moment where Taylor was crossing her fingers (and one set of toes) for it not to have some kind of denial message.

Then it drew near and she practically sagged in relief.

It was called "What's An Engineer" and it stacked with several of her other "Perks" in that it allowed her to build and tear apart things faster.

No Freebies, so that was a slight disappointment, but since it still increased her speed of building stuff - it was welcome nonetheless.

Especially when you considered how useless Retrofit was.

[Patch will be completed. Estimated time: 9 months, 3 days, 7 hours, 21 minutes.]

Taylor went absolutely still at the system message, followed by a quick call for either parents and running.

The significance of the date did not pass unnoticed.

* November 12, 2006 *
* Warehouse 4, Docks, Brockton Bay *

Captain Niki Cavill looked over the improvements to the Space Marines armor for when they were playing the part of a six-person squad of Independent hero-aligned mercenaries.

Adeptus Astartes down to the individual markers and paint job, such that in photos posted online many commented on how good the cosplay was. Also starting arguments about whether to call it some form of cosplay or just really damn good homages to the franchise.

Each had stealth capabilities, could deploy a forcefield that could shift coverage to reinforce against attacks from a particular direction, increased strength so that even the least boosted suit could lift well over two tons, and held a Heads Up Display that could shift to pick up different wavelengths of light or share video or perform specialized targeting. Each offered full environmental sealing for up to four hours and could run off the internal batteries for six hours. Or they could engage the bio-reactor and run for six months. Each could open like some flower so the registered user could do things like run to the nearest toilet. Each also had some impressive anti-tampering and bio-ID security measures.

Those were just features the armor had in common. Each was also personalized for their role within the squad.

And yet, despite all that, he could look at the device that was sitting in another warehouse within the complex and feel just a tiny bit of envy.

* Warehouse 14 *

It was mostly following the designs she'd worked out from the blueprints of the one Labor she could manufacture through the auto-factory. Some things, including the software for running it, only required tweaks here and there and some additional coding.

The Labor type was called the Type M5 Abraham, and for the most part it could function exactly like that Marines military unit.

Also called the Brocken, it stood 8.3 meters (27 feet) tall, 4.85 meters (15 feet) wide, and weighed 7.6 tons (8 tons Imperial) with everything ready to deploy.

Onboard systems included a 90mm cannon and a 20mm machine gun. It could also pick up handle weapons, including a halberd because apparently a vibro-halberd hooking into his systems was something Taylor had thought Armsmaster would appreciate.

He did. Even with his helmet on - you could tell.

The various military technicians had, of course, made notes and Taylor wouldn't be surprised if some sort of knock-off wasn't already in the design stages despite the higher profile making it a bigger target than a tank.

One more month and it would be ready for deployment. The trickiest part were the sensors, but drones deployed from the pauldrons would be controlled by Dragon and loaded with the best the two of them together could work out.

Taylor decided that she'd indulge in mad scientist cackling later on tonight, because this was SCIENCE!

Figuring out how and where to hit your enemy so that it hurt the most was most definitely the scientific approach to fighting Endbringers.

The biggest problem had been the whole mess with deployment. The drones were easy, just get a crate full of them and go to a point where one of the teleporters could manage it. The entire suit though had to be taken apart and reassembled at the site because none of the area-effect teleporters could manage that much mass in one go.

* December 5, 2006 *

The jet of water sliced through the bridge supports and everyone who had gathered on that bridge experienced the sudden drop and stop involved.

Armsmaster didn't spare a moment for that though. Even with the hastily reassembled machine around him, there was little to nothing he could do to help them except continue the fight.

Dragon was maintaining the drones which fed information for later analysis both to the Brocken's computers and to dedicated servers at the base camp. That allowed Armsmaster to concentrate on the fight before him.

His halberd had gotten one good hit on Leviathan, using the spear-point at the tip to penetrate into the Endbringer through its vibro-blade function. He'd immediately hit the control to discharge enough voltage to power a small city into it.

To no visible result other than for Leviathan to repeatedly smash into his armor until the halberd had been dropped.

He had some satisfaction at that reaction, because he'd obviously managed to hurt the thing at the very least.

Unfortunately now he had a whole set of blinking red lights to indicate how much damage had been done and half the onboard weapons were not functional any longer.

Colin/Armsmaster raised an arm, the Brocken mimicking the action, and fired off a quick barrage of missiles that exploded against the Endbringer's tail.

It took several hours, but he'd had to retreat from the battle eventually due to too much damage accrued to the Brocken.

Still, they'd now have data to go over.

* January 12, 2007 *

It was a bit odd to see many respected heroes and what were obviously scientists all arrayed around and watching a child in a labcoat explaining things.

"-so we have a reinforcement field running and dimensional shunting of mass all centered around this," said Taylor Hebert, pointing to a section near the base of the tail. "The rest of the body is basically a puppet, the real Leviathan is spherical in nature and a bit larger than a basketball. They're using a dimensional fold technique that is similar to but different from a technology I've been working on, and most of the mass of the Endbringer isn't actually in our universe. It regenerates by drawing on that extradimensional mass."

"So how do we kill one?" asked Legend, leaning forward.

"You can't. Not with the current set of powers and technology. When Armsmaster struck with the vibro-spear it was capable of piercing almost every substance I know of. It penetrated six layers and was in danger of overheating doing that much. I've thought of three ways I might be able to kill one, two of which would kill any parahumans in the immediate vicinity and cause a lot of collateral damage." Doctor Hebert shook her head, causing her hair to swish around. "The last would require some theories I have to pan out, and that's not talking about the research time to determine if it's actually possible."

"And those are?" asked one of the scientists.

"Gravity manipulation," said Taylor, going to the next slide. "Creating and then hitting an Endbringer with a temporary black hole would probably work. Radiation once that dissipates is going to be a problem. Two, dimensional shearing effect. You cut the Endbringer off from dimensional shenanigans and then hit it with everything you've got. If it tries to bring things through despite that to heal, then it's going to increase its density until it black holes itself. Third. My Yeet-Cannon. I'm pretty sure I can build one, but it's tricky."

"'Yeet-cannon'?" asked one of the other scientists.

"Your Excellent Escape Technology as a weapon," said Doctor Hebert, flicking through five more slides rapidly. "Create a hyperspace tunnel around the Endbringer. Shunt them off to somewhere like Vega or Cygnus X-1. If they lack FTL capabilities they'd be gone for the next ten thousand years or more."

"Anything less environment-unfriendly?" asked one of the capes that Taylor didn't know.

"I've got a few designs, but how effective that might be is undetermined," admitted Taylor.

* June 12, 2007 *

Everyone who knew about the Celestial Forge, which wasn't that many, was there. Because of course they'd been told that some sort of patch was being implemented.

[Patch will be complete in one hour.]

Taylor repeated the system message out loud for everyone's benefit.

Just in case, both of her parents were wearing their hardsuits. Her mother's being a sleek design that emphasized speed and mobility, but carried both a light saber and a needle gun. Her father's was much larger, being more of a tank-role design that boasted a shield and a handgun that fired gravity-lens-assisted rounds.

Emma was ready and had to be dissuaded from "armoring up" ahead of time. Better she have a full charge before whatever happened.

They'd already had the cake, a brief gifting of birthday gifts, and a light lunch.

Taylor was almost too nervous to eat cake. Almost.

The previous day the countdown had resumed, with a "one day" notice. The next had been the "six hours" notice. And now a "one hour" notice.

"I still think we should be in the warehouse when it happens," said Danny.

"It could make it worse," said Annette. "Just that there's a countdown indicates there may be some danger involved."

"What if it resets everything to zero?" asked Emma nervously. She LIKED her power. The ability to form a red forcefield armor around herself was perfect for The Scarlet Lady. If she lost that power because of some stupid patch, it would be something she'd deeply regret.

"I doubt that will happen," said Taylor after a few moments. "Remember? It was applying the patch to what was already there."

[Download completed. Building.]
[45 minutes until patch application.]

"Okay," said Taylor, swallowing nervously.

[Supply System updating. Nidavillir updating.]

"My warehouse seems to be updating prior to the patch," noted Taylor out loud for everyone's benefit.

[Supply System updated: added Alien Ruins, added Ship Customization station to Space Stations, added Uru metal asteroids (rare), added Sentinel ship availability, added diversification of multiple biomes, added derelict freighters, added fighter squadrons, added fishing capability to multi-tools.]

"Okay," said Taylor. "Didn't see that coming."

[Hangar expanded preparing for patch implementation.]

"That... is promising?" sort of asked Taylor.

[Nidavallir upgraded and merged with Auto-factory.]

"That sounds kind of odd," said Taylor, who then had to go back and explain all this to those not connected to a Celestial Forge.

[30 minutes until patch application.]
[It is suggested that Forge operator put aside all personal devices and weapons.]

"Eh?"

[Also Forge operator should cease operating any sort of vehicle or heavy machinery.]

She was settled into a recliner and was still in danger of hyperventilating when the message finally arrived.

[Beginning patch.]

* Perks This Chapter *

29.0220 Retrofit+ (400CP) (Azur Lane) (Crafting Technological):
Let's face it, some Ship-girls are a little out of date when it comes to the tech department. That's what your standard retrofit is for, getting that old girl caught up with her peers. But, of course, this is a Perk, and nothing standard about it. By buying this Perk, you effectively un-cap all of your Ship-girls in terms of abilities. And you can keep retrofitting them, over and over, ad infinitum. Of course, it gets more expensive and the materials get more esoteric each time, but, it's a labor of love, right? As a bonus, along with the boosts to power, you might find that your Ship-girl starts to radically shift in physical appearance towards your tastes. Maybe that loli Destroyer will grow up, if you want her to. Or maybe you'll find Tennessee becoming softer and more cuddly as the successive Retrofits pile up. As long as you want it, it'll happen. Post-Jump you can do this to anyone, not just your Ship-girls, but you will still need reagents that fit with your target.

8.0380 Dwarven Forge (500CP) (Marvel Cinematic Universe Vol. 2) (Facilities Magical):
There is a place called Nidavellir. A place that has contained a dying neutron star, it was known for creating some of the most powerful weapons to exist in all of the Nine Realms. Forges were heated eternally from the heat of this star, strong enough to kill even the greatest of Asgardians were it not for one of the weapons forged in this very place. The mythical Uru springs from this place, metal that is used in the weapons of the gods. Such a place would cause untold prosperity or ruin depending on who held this place. Mayhaps the dwarves who controlled such a place realized the dangers of only having one, so there is a second structure that has been hidden away in the event Nidavellir was attacked. Maybe call it Myrkheim? Regardless, the heart of a dying star is yours to use in these mythical forges. Great works shall be created in these halls. Terrible, but great. Just don't get in the way of the focusing lens. It could kill you.)

3.19.1-What's An Engineer? (200CP)(Brutal Legend)(Time):
A guy who builds stuff, and now, so do you. Set up and tear down infrastructure in half the time, leaving you with time to rehearse your set, or whatever you'll do with that free time.