A Field Test [open]

[sephiroth]

It had been an uneventful day so far. No breakthroughs, no clients yet, nothing. It hadn't been that long ago that Renze had secured an area to convert into a garage, and even then it may need to be upgraded if she intended to take on larger projects. Small steps, small steps.

That is, until she got tired of those same small steps and took a wrecking ball to the procedure.

This was a field test, nothing more. To ensure that her latest projects had gone smoothly. The materials here were strange enough to provide some annoyance; it was taking longer than she would like it too. Of course, she could work on random weapons systems and cheap machines all day to sell to those who wanted them, but there was just something missing from those that she missed. They were just things. Not her lovelies.

Oh well.

Renze Fray continued walking, glancing about now and then. "HO-I! Lissen UP, bugs!" So far, no shadows, soldiers, anything. "I gotta schedule to keep and no time to waste it on things like you! So if you wanna come DIE for my cause, now's your chance!" As emphasis, she struck her staff on the cobblestone, letting the metal sound ring through the streets.

There are those who'd say that actively calling out Heartless was reserved for those with a death wish. Those were the ones Renze ignored the most, and did exactly that. There was no better test to ensure everything was wired right than ones done on the field. Better to know now if there's something wrong than when it matters.

Besides, she hadn't gone that far in; she didn't think that was too necessary. And it wasn't. They'd be here. And she'd be ready for them.

A Scuttler actively scanned the area, making erratic loops about. Her Barghest was on reserve, but it wouldn't do to be caught off-guard. As if they could, she scoffed mentally. They'd come. When they did, she'd destroy them and retrieve anything of value they were carrying.

[darkunslint]

Darkun had been through the shadows, he eventually decided to go back to the start in his search for Sam. He decided to go to Traverse Town. Forming out of his shadow he walked along the streets, it had been yet another day… or had it been a week?

The problem’s Darkun faced were these. Whilst in the shadows time didn’t mean a whole lot, he could come out and it had been a second or he could come out and a week had passed, he was unsure how the correlation of distance and time worked but it didn’t matter. To him, a nobody, time didn’t mean anything at all, he had thousands of years, theoretically, he had what humans always seemed to strive for… immortality, as how can nothing die of old age?

He was on such a long mind rant to himself that he failed to realise the woman walking around. He had reached the second district and it wasn’t until a sound made his ears prick up. A loud ringing, how annoying, his face quickly flipped to the source of the noise and his face scrunched up.

In the movement of his head Darkun observed several things, a girl complaining and hitting the floor with a stave, a strange kind of robot sitting back, and another strange robot that was considerably smaller. “ What in the name of all that is…?” He didn’t even bother finishing the sentence; he had started walking towards her when he felt it.

“Heartless?” he proclaimed louder than he probably should have and that’s when he saw a variety of shadows spawning up from the floor around him and the girl from whom he was now several metres away from.

He considering just phasing into his shadow and leaving, but what should he do about the girl? She didn’t seem all too scared and be was curious to see what these robots were doing, he would watch and defend himself if necessary, and heck, maybe even save her if things got ugly.

[sephiroth]

And that is when those 'bugs' decided to show themselves.

"Hah!" Renze grinned, spinning her staff around in her hands and stepping back. "That's more like it. Scuttler, wall. Barghest, forward!"

The Scuttler gave a small electronic beep and zigged off somewhere to provide her a good mental map of the battlefield, away from where the Heartless typically spawned. As Renze stepped back out of the main area, the quadruped bounded forward, its boxlike head scoping its enemies with a red lens briefly to confirm. It seemed almost curious, which wasn't the approach Renze was interested in it taking at the moment. "No no, scan other ones later. These ones die now!"

That gained a small electronic three-tone cadence of a reply before it crouched, again pausing.

"What is it?" Renze asked, moving forward as the Barghest backed up to meet her. She quickly inspected its head, slid open a panel, adjusted something, then closed it again. "There, go."

While Renze was making quick field adjustments to her mecha, the Heartless were not pausing in their approach. The Scuttler was making small warning beeps and whoops of concern as they approached her, which earned it a brief scolding from its mistress even as it performed its sole job with determined dedication. "Yeah. I know."

The Barghest leapt back into the fray, this time a lot more energetically. The closest shadow did not last a chance; the thing whipped around, twisted its head, and shot a fireball at it. Shadows were weak, luckily; enough that that killed it.

"Next time? Try tellin' me news," Renze muttered, continuing her conversation with the Scuttler even as the battle started between the Barghest and the Heartless. She didn't look the least bit concerned, instead watching her mecha move with interest. Everything was in perfect order now.

[darkunslint]

Darkun watched as the bigger machine jumped in and started attacking all of the weak shadow heartless. He felt kind of shocked that technology could fight magical creatures such as the heartless. He began his walk towards the woman, the heartless mainly ignoring him due to his lack of a heart and the fact that they were a bit preoccupied with the robot.

Darkun was just a few metres away from the girl now, she seemed pleased with herself and what he assumed was her creations. He didn’t know whether or not to get closer, he was unsure if the robot would attack him thinking he was a heartless or something, after all, the shadows shared the same powers as him.

“Nice robots” he commented as he walked within the 2 metre limit. “Did you create them?” he spoke, his azure hair poking out from under his strange stitched hat. Darkun always made an impression by the way he dressed, the impression probably wasn’t the best one, his cloths were red and yellow and looked like they had been stitched together in the dark. The large belts wrapped around his cloths seemed to be the only thing holding them together and his collar hid the majority of his face.

Walking within one metre he spoke once more, “ I was just wondering why you was trying to kill heartless” he asked again as if he didn’t really care, but his curiously was peaked inside, he just didn’t want to let it show, if people knew he was curious they might take advantage. “ I mean, after all, these are only shadows. There are far stronger heartless out there”

He stanced his feet apart and kept an eye on the machine that seemed to be aimlessly destroying the shadow heartless, he watched as they scuttled along in there own shadow trying to get away, a lot succeeded in escaping this way, after all, it was the ultimate escape mechanism, a few though, were caught in the fray… that or they thought they could actually beat this thing.

[sephiroth]

Pleased with herself didn't begin to describe it. Renze was grinning from ear to ear, watching the Barghest tear through shadow after shadow. And to think, no other could manage that, she told herself proudly. Because no mere machine could do quite what she'd managed here. (Clearly, she'd not visited Radiant Garden, and chances were that were she to, she'd insist on figuring out just how it was rigged.) That was no mere fire.

The woman didn't seem the least bit startled, surprised, or even curious that there was someone else here. Instead, she glanced up from watching her mechanical friend's slaughter and shrugged as though he'd asked a very obvious question. "Of course I did."

Darkun was lucky in one regard; she had no interest in analyzing what others wore. In fact, the assumption that she even remotely cared was a large one to make, and a fallacious one at that. So what?

Once the Barghest had gotten its entirely hypothetical teeth sunk into a task, or even just a local species, it had no qualms or compulsions in attacking. Much like the dog it took creative licenses in claiming to resemble, it ran in circles around its mistress, destroying anything that dared get too close that was registered as a threat. Now and then a soldier may appear, which took a little more damage to demolish.

The Scuttler had taken to giving a running report of beeps, whirs, and other such sounds of distress, escalating in volume when something got near. Renze seemed completely unconcerned, not even flinching when one shadow drew close enough to take a swipe at her. It was incinerated before it connected.

"Field testing. Keep closer, Barghest. Good boy." Her tone changed some when addressing the robots; they were orders, but almost conversational ones. The contrast was all the more evident that she spoke softer to address the thing that arguably almost hadn't wheeled back in time to save its mistress injury than the bark she followed it up with directed towards the fellow humanoid. "Why? What's your point?"

[darkunslint]

The boy cocked his head to one side, looking at her as if she had asked a stupid question. To him it was obvious. “ Well… A shadow is nothing, anyone can destroy these pests without looking”(and for Darkun that was literal) “ I could understand if you was fighting something stronger but I don’t see your reasoning behind killing the heartless.” His head became upright once more as he looked at the quickly diminishing number of heartless. What was her aim?

He looked at her once more, then he looked at her shadow, it was normal, she was humanoid that much was certain, there was no fallacy about her height or weight, she wasn’t hiding anything as far as her shadow told him. He glanced at each machine in turn, checking the shadows, there was nothing … “ I don’t understand” he mumbled to himself quite quietly.

He returned his gaze to the girl, an idea finally popping into his head. “ Are you trying to protect Traverse Town from the Heartless and Nobodies?” he asked curiously.

Darkun didn’t have to look anymore, he could feel the shadow’s of the heartless disappearing all around him, even if they was just heartless, the feeling of a shadow disappearing really made him feel uncomfortable, he hated the feeling. But alas, it was always happening and he couldn’t stop it.

[sephiroth]

"You going to stand around all day asking stupid questions?" she shot back. The Scuttler paused in its report to beep a few times, then continued rattling off beeps, whirs, and whistles. Renze leaned back on her staff to get a look at this guy. Sure, sure. The moment you start going after easy enemies to make certain everything works on your newest addition, someone's gonna show up and start criticizing. "All you gotta know, boy, is that they're Heartless, I'm not, and I'm killin' this bunch of 'em. Gotta problem with it? Tough."

The numbers were diminishing; as expected. It was true that they weren't a challenge at all, but that was the point of a test. This wasn't meant to become a fight for her life; she'd have brought around Aelon if it was. This was just a test to make certain that the new Barghest was in perfect order. Which it was.

And for this young upstart to show up here out of nowhere and compare her to just anyone - showed what he knew. This was nothing. But that was for her to say, not him.

[darkunslint]

“Defensive nature, so she doesn’t like active criticism or being questioned…” Darkun mumbled to himself making constant studies of the woman in front of him. “ Chances of a superiority complex…” again he mumbled the words his face looking at the ground. It wasn’t until he was done noting everything that he returned his gaze to her.

“Im actually probably older than you” he stated very matter of factly, it was true, he had the body of a 19 year old, but he was completely unaware of how long he wandered when he was first born as a nobody, and seen as nobodies don’t seem to age at all then he could be ancient for all he knew.

She was avoiding the question that he wanted to know the most, the reason why she had these creatures, maybe he should… “ Do you mind if I get a better look?” he asked just as he shadow stepped directly to the side of the Scuttler. He stared at it slowly and tapped its top very lightly. “So what does this one do? It’s not fighting, is this one a back up?” he was very curious, he had never seen such intricate robots and machinery before, it reminded him of the Old Mansion’s computer rooms and the strange crystal buds that he found there.

He looked at the amount of heartless, it was almost reaching zero. “That one fights… so this one… is it some kind of healing robot?” he kept questioning and asking, he was truly curious about what all of these machines did.

[sephiroth]

And now he was analyzing her. What a piece of work.

In light of his revelations, she gave a distinct and dignified rebuttal in the form of a derisive 'tch'. That wasn't deserving of any answer. Instead, she ignored him until the Scuttler blared a brief alarm and skittered away out of reach. Hm? Wasn't he over there earlier?

"What now." Renze rolled her eyes, stalked over, and leaned against the wall where the Scuttler had moved out of effective range, and was beeping random alarms. She left the Barghest to finish clearing out the remainder; what little they dropped she trusted it could guard until she got around to collecting it. "You wanna know what it does? Here. I'll be nice enough to tell you what it does. It sits there. And beeps."

As far as he could tell, that was all it was doing. She wasn't about to let on just what use they gave her. If it wasn't obvious, no need to let go of advantage. Instead, she remained where she was and continued to give him a very unimpressed look.

[darkunslint]

“It beeps?” he questioned not impressed by the answer, she was in the way of the little guy now and he couldn’t see the little robot. “He kept trying to look past her but it was no good she was in the way.

He got an idea, quite an evil one at that, Darkun was a good singer, and with good singing came a good voice, and with a good voice came a good ability to mimic. He mimicked her quite well and let out a “Tch” sound before walking towards her and then phase directly through her and towards the little machine once again. “ Its so cool, anyone can kill heartless but this beeps” he looked so amused, it was so nice to see something that wasn’t violent for once.

He knew immediately that this would get on her nerves, he had only known her for a few minutes and already Darkun was convinced he knew how to press her buttons. “ So can it make different tones of beeps?” he turned around and asked looking quite serious in his question. Oh the joys of having no emotion, the ultimate poker face, he could play any emotion face he wanted and it would never falter.

He returned to looking at the small robot and simply being intrigued by it, they always said good things came in small packages.

[sephiroth]

Renze tensed automatically. If she wasn't in any better control of herself, she would have hit him, or set Barghest on him. It was more maneuverable than he was. She was pretty certain it'd do at least a lot of damage.

That is, until he passed entirely through her.

Renze stopped for a moment, blinking. He had continued talking beyond her, causing her to ever so casually glance back, and turn along the wall. He wasn't about to get any such reaction from her. What was he, another Summon? Some elements could range into the incorporeal, especially some of the secondaries. A raw spirit? Whatever he was, he wasn't going to get whatever it was he wanted that easily. If he wanted to mock her, it'd have to wait until she got something a little bigger than just a Barghest online.

Forcibly, she let her fists unclench, and instead slowly gave him a winning smile. "Sure, kid. It sure can."

It was a dangerous smile; one that seemed perfectly fine on the surface and was all the harder to read due to it. Her Barghest stilled now, and moved over. Just to prove a point, she reached through her connection to touch the Scuttler briefly, and sent it here and there, retrieving spare coins, bits and pieces the Heartless had dropped, depositing each in a lower pouch in her clothing that it could reach. "Not only that, but look!" she continued in mock surprise. "Why, it's being a lot more useful than you are. And all it does is beep."

[darkunslint]

Darkun watched as the small robot began running around fetching the coins. “ But what if it gets tired, here ill help” and with that he placed a hand out, the coins and items on the floor sank through into there own shadows and he forced them to his palm before they reformed on the floor near him. “ There we go little fella” he said in a perfectly innocent tone “now you don’t have to run around.” It was at this point that he put his head up and in a completely casual tone said “ Sorry I didn’t catch what you said?” he was of course referring to the useless comment.


He sat back down near the smaller robot examining its outer body, it was interesting to say the least, he liked it, it buzzed and whirred and beeped and made an entire array of sounds, he still wondered however what its actual purpose was. “So what’s your name?” he asked the small robot and his gaze nonchalantly turned up to the woman “ Oh and I should probably ask yours too” his azure eyes oh so innocent face, he was killing her and he knew it.

He looked back down to the robot before attempting to slowly stroke its top. He loved this thing, it was so… cute? Was that the word? He hadn’t used it in a while. He wondered if the girl had more of these little robots, he should probably ask when he came clean about whom he was and that he was just being a pest.

Money makes the mere go, but man should not do so.

[sephiroth]

The Scuttler pulled from the new pile without missing a beat. The work went faster when the items in question were closer.

Two things were evident. He thought that talking to the Scuttler would get replies, and he also was something supernatural. Perfect. Just what she always wanted: a thorn in her side. Who insisted first and foremost on talking to her Summoned, and then only her as an afterthought.

Additionally, he wouldn't have to come clean that he was being a pest. She could tell that much perfectly well.

"What do you want?" she asked, cutting straight to the point.

[darkunslint]

Darkun was still mumbling nonsense to the small robot for a few moments after the question was asked. “ Oh… you’re talking to me?” Darkun asked looking up at the girl. “ Well first my name is Darkun it is a pleasure to meet you” he smiled up at her before slowly getting to his feet. “ And there’s nothing I particularly want, apart from maybe one of those small robots. I was just passing by and got interested” he smiled looking at her.

His gaze settled on the bigger robot, it was time to fix what ego he had broken like a good little boy. “Impressive, it took out those heartless quite efficiently, and you say that you was just testing it? If you upgrade it then maybe it’ll take out stronger versions of heartless just as easy, even I struggle with some heartless.” He smiled as he felt his own non-existent ego grow.

He glanced at the two robots and then to the girl. “ So just what are you?” he queried?

[sephiroth]

"Not for sale," she informed him curtly, when he mentioned interest in it. What good would it do him?

Renze just continued to look unimpressed. She didn't need his charity, and if he was actually impressed, he'd have to do a lot more to make up for it than that. While she was fond of her Scuttler, she was not fond of being completely ignored in favor of it. After all, it was her creation, her summoned. Hers. Still, it was difficult not to raise herself a little higher; praise did go a fair way with her. Of course they were impressive; he'd seen what one Barghest could do. And that was just a mere test.

A mental image of a larger version- rideable, came to mind; she almost missed his next question lost in a half-dream of cogs and gears. "Hm, me?" Oh, well. She could indulge him that. He deserved to know, after all.

And here, she pushed herself off the wall, and moved to stand by her Barghest. The Scuttler moved back as well, swiveling its grasper to 'glance' to her, then to Darkun. "I am Renze Fray, granddaughter of high energy summoner Callaghus, and first machine summoner." There was no small amount of pride in her voice.