The Weatherlight

[Hal Henderics]

"So, do you want me to fix the problems buried in your biological makeup, or are we just going to pretend this conversation didn't happen?"

 

Law says, already popping some weird cube cracker into his mouth and typing on his holographic screens again, dismissing all the images he brought up, and turning around in his seat.

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine shrugged, but it was the sort of shrug one made when they were at a total loss, shoulders scrunched together and hands up at her side. "I don't know," she said somewhat petulantly. "I don't want anyone to mess around with my body, but I don't want to be like this any more." She sighed again, trying to pull herself together. "I guess, yeah, I want you to help, but, umm. . ." She glanced to either side for a moment. "I don't really want to be a rat person either. No offense." Even without that particular prospect, she didn't seem particularly keen on the idea regardless of her asking for it. It was still someone changing her, it was just someone else. "I just don't wanna die." 

[Hal Henderics]

Law rubs his temples.

 

"I'm not going to "turn you into" anything."

 

"I'm going to assume I just didn't explain that part well enough."

 

He picks up the can of the green stuff from before.

 

"This is Green Eco.  It is what the Precursors use on any species that is not themselves, for healing wounds, and curing diseases.  That includes yours.  The Dark Eco is what turns people into "rat people"."

 

"It is the only type of Eco that can do that, and, furthermore, the chances of it doing so even if you took a bath in it are incredibly, improbably small."

 

"Because it is far more likely that, if Dark Eco were applied to any living thing, that they would be unequivocally dead instead."

 

"I'm going to program this Green Eco to remove the malicious functions in your body, leaving you roughly as normal a person as can be expected."

 

"It will then be absorbed into you, and do the job it was set to do, and nothing else.  You can stand up or sit down, it won't make any difference."

 

"Is there anything even remotely unclear or concerning about what I just said?"  He says, with just the lightest, barest hint of exasperation in his tone.

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine didn't seem entirely comforted by the explanation that, were it possible, she would most likely die horribly as mutations ravaged her body rather than turning into a weasel person, but seemed reassured enough that the green stuff would not, in fact, mutate anything. She picked up on Law's tone, frowning, but decided that since he was being helpful, it was probably best for her to not call him out on it. "I didn't think you were planning on turning me into a, um, Precursor, I was just worried that it might happen by accident." She did her best not to sound accusatory; she didn't really mean to be, Lucine was just trying to explain herself. "I understand. Although, umm, if it cures diseases and stuff, are you sure it'll actually get rid of that stuff?" Her mood visibly went lower once again as she completed the thought. "Since they're supposed to be there. . ."

[Powder Miner]

As surprisingly comforting as the orange-haired engineer had found the long hug, it couldn't last forever. And eventually Satomi indeed withdrew from holding Kusuke, going back into a simple sitting position on her knees. She looked down at her legs, a combination of embarrassment, shame, and hesitation making her take a few moments before she actually responded to the person she had just basically draped herself over. Eventually, however, she did manage something. "I... yes, I suppose I can." She let out a long breath -- the panic and urgency that had welled up within her without an outlet, leaving her overwhelmed and feeling blind, had drained out when she'd bawled into Kusuke. But she still wasn't going to enjoy talking about this. "I suppose that you're going to want to know exactly what happened, right?"

 

She tapped her fingers together, looking away. "It... was after the siege. I was very, very angry. The strange third Taint was still there --and oh, no, I didn't even return to it, it's still there--" Satomi forced herself to stop talking and took a couple of deep breaths to avoid panicking again. "I had been attacking one of the larger ogre-like creatures, and it had been fighting while Arminius had been talking to it, but he was angry that I hadn't stopped killing the oni destroying our things so he could talk to it. So he threatened me. So I... I told him it was an empty threat unless he backed it up, and that I was not afraid of him. I expected him to try to stab me or something, and I could out-duel him. But..."

 

Satomi choked up for a couple of seconds, having to take another breath before she could carry on. "Instead he leapt at me with a piece of his soul magic. I managed to slash him with my sword, but... he hit me with it, and... and my world became fire. I was just burning, and burning, and burning, my skin was fire, I was fire. It was agonizing... I managed to scar him, but -- but it didn't stop him. After he did that to me, he then... augh... he..." Satomi cleared her throat. "He-- he took a piece from me. Like he did with all of those others... I think he stole a piece of my soul, and-- it-- it-- it looked kind of like me, but it was on fire. It at least hated him. I don't know what I would do if it had been fawning over him, like..." Satomi shuddered and made a disgusted noise. "Azgrurk killed it, in the end. But... I think... I think it really was a piece of my soul. My revenge, it hasn't-- it hasn't been there in the same way, since. I'm not sure if it's gone forever. I-I..." Satomi trailed off.

[Hal Henderics]

"Diseases can be there when a person is born."

 

"Are you familiar with the idea of a Genetic Illness?"  Law asks.

 

"Sometimes, two halves of a disease can be in two parent's genes, so, if by some unlucky chance, both halves are passed on to the child, they may suffer as a result."

 

"Green Eco contains the sum total of Precursor Medical Knowledge, which includes defeating diseases like that."

 

"By that same measure, the malicious things in your body are every bit as much a disease as other in-borne ones, even if someone put them there."

[Chevaleresse]

"Wow." Kusuke took a deep breath as he took in what Satomi said. Arminius's soul magic, the exact thing that had initially caused sparks to fly between them. Something he barely tolerated as it was. The only reassuring part of the whole story was, ironically, something that had come out of a discussion with the dryad. "It probably was. But I think you'll be okay. Do you remember Tania from the last world we visited?" He was doing his best to stay calm. For now. "She said something about carrying the rules of our homes with us. My Drive still works because, for me, the rules are the same as where I'm from. According to that slimy fuck, lost parts of your soul grow back. So you'll be fine." He didn't bring up the obvious possibility of the man lying. It was about 50/50, those odds. It was the obvious thing to claim, really. "My unholy, foul magic that deeply violates the core of your being is okay because you can heal from it." Kusuke reached over and pulled Satomi into another hug, less tight this time - it felt like the right thing to do. "You'll be alright. We'll find a way to deal with this." 

 

---

 

Lucine nodded. She was vaguely familiar with the idea, even if it was one that didn't strictly apply to her. The closest thing to a "parent" she had was Justeaze von Einzbern, her and the various models of homunculus that existed in the Yggdmillenia's pool of knowledge. "That makes sense." The homunculus took a deep breath, then nodded again, crimson eyes squeezing shut for a moment as if to mentally prepare herself for the process. Nothing Law had said indicated that it would be anything to worry about, but she was still worried. Her father had told her to especially never allow anyone but him or Uncle Hildebrand to perform any sort of magical treatments on her. . . but then, he had also never told her that there existed a function that would destroy any trace of her ever existing buried in her blood. "I think I'm ready."

[StormLord]

Right around the time Leo and Frigus's conversation had petered out a flash of light could be seen outside the ship through the control deck window.  A small craft made of brass, bronze, and black iron with a prominent horizontal strut, a standing platform, and several smaller support struts.  Carrying only one rider in red and bronze armor very similar to Frigus's own armor.

"That's me, I'll see you around some other time then?"

With that Frigus turned and walked out of the room, down the hall, and to the nearby airlock.

 

A gentle thud resonates through the uppermost levels of the Weatherlight as Ignia touches down on the outer deck.  One might also recognize the sound of an airlock cycling shortly afterwards and decide to come see what's going on.

[kj1225]

It's because of the fact that Aquila has zero clue what's going on that he goes to investigate. Those were really fucking weird noises after all, so the Conqueror donned his helmet and rapidly approached the area it came from.

[Chevaleresse]

Law manages to disable the "Terminate and Dispose" function before the green eco encounters a strange and hostile energy field.  Several tense minutes later, Lucine vents harmless green fire out of her ears and Law loses contact with the eco.

 

Lucine sat nervously as Law worked, resisting the urge to ask if it was supposed to take this long until she felt anything. After several moments of largely nothing, and several more of her feeling slightly queasy, her silence was broken by a loud, high-pitched squeal as the fire shot out of her ears. She froze as the urge to flee short-circuited (as a result of the object of fright being something coming from herself,) simply screaming in place until the jets ended. "W-What was that!?" she asked, thoroughly spooked, assuming Law hadn't managed to make himself scarce after the jets initially appeared.

[Hal Henderics]

"Hmm? Oh, it worked.  The Process isn't complete, though.  I've managed to remove... Maybe half of it."

 

"Unfortunately, I've exhausted the last of my supplies doing so.  We'll need to have at least one more session before we can call this cured, but it will take some time for me to obtain more supplies from the Precursors, or at least obtain some from Tim's transmutation."

 

"Note that nothing has strictly gone wrong.  I simply do not have enough to complete the treatment."

 

He says, waving off her concerns casually.  It might help if he had the opportunity to study her biology, but that is the last thing she needs right now, he suspects.

 

"Let's take our minds off the matter for now, as there's nothing to be done about it."

 

"I'm planning on preparing some tools, care to supervise?  I've recently come into possession of a special assembly station."

 

 

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine took a few moments to breathe, giving Law a very wide-eyed look. "Is the fire normal? Usually healing doesn't make you shoot fire out of your ears." She was slowly calming down, assisted somewhat by Law's lack of panic, but that didn't mean she was going to relax immediately. Helpfully, the precursor provided a distraction in the form of some sort of "special assembly station." which seemed to arouse at least some interest. "And, um, yeah, I guess I can watch." An idea struck her. "Oooh, you had those big guns earlier, right? Do you think we could make some stuff for this shotgun?" 

[Hal Henderics]

Law places a poisonous mushroom carefully into a drawer of the machine, before bringing up a holographic screen.

After some tapping on his screen, Law simply calls it done.

"Your shotgun's ammunition is now doped with poisonous materials.  Be careful who you shoot it at."

 

This is odd, because, for one, Lucine never actually handed over her shotgun, nor did Law even touch it.

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine blinked. "Wait, that's it?" She was a bit disappointed in a few ways, but at least attempted to not let this show on her face. "We're not gonna take it apart and do custom work on it or machine new pieces or anything like that?" She had actually been looking forward to the process of modification. That, and she was hoping for a bigger boom or something; poison was kinda lame. 

[Hal Henderics]

"What, not impressive enough for you?"  Law grins.

 

"I think we can figure something out.  This unit right here completely removes the need to actually crack it open, though." He pats the QED.

 

"It can teleport anything you stuff in the feed drawer anywhere else nearby, and even manufacture parts on a molecular scale.  I used it to teleport toxic mushrooms into the shells of your gun, for example."

 

"Hold on.  Let me just..."  He digs through the various materials that have made their way onto the ship somehow or other.

 

"What are you thinking, Lucine?  Stronger barrel, bayonet, perhaps some sort of... Magnetic Rifling and a scope." He begins to trail off, thinking to himself.

 

He drags out a bucket filled with smoking fragments of stone, and dumps them into the QED, before pulling out his own overcompensator gun, printing strange crystals onto it that burn with purple flames.

[StormLord]

Aquila rounds the corner to see Frigus standing with a woman roughly as tall as him and wearing similar dress(at least in the sense that it could've been made in the same place) albeit reddish browns and blacks instead of grey and blue.  She has dark hair up in a pony tail and almost bronze colored armor plates under her clothes and over her left arm.

"Hey Aquila, I figured someone would come see what was going on.  I didn't imagine it'd be you though."

Frigus gestured to the person standing next to him, who acknowledged Aquila's presence with a nod.

"Meet Ignia, she's from the same place I am and she's going to be taking my place in the team for a little while while I deal with some....stuff at home."

[kj1225]

Aquila almost sighed. If it had been an enemy of some form then he could have made progress on his training. Still, this wasn't a bad turn of events. "Well, I figured I didn't know what the sounds over here were so good or bad I should find out." Aquila says while he approaches the pair. He extends a hand towards Ignia when he's finally at a normal distance. "I'm Aquila. I don't mind what you do very much as long as you're a capable fighter."

[Powder Miner]

Satomi nodded quietly when Kusuke asked if she remembered who Tania was -- Tania had been who Satomi got the Purification Powder from, after all. The samurai then remained quiet as Kusuke spoke to reassure her, and when he finished speaking for a moment, she responded with a shaky nod and a quiet "O-okay." From the weakness of her tone, though, it wasn't terribly clear if she in fact believed what he was saying, but she at the least didn't have the energy or desire to argue it. It would be nice if that were the case, after all. She didn't want Arminius to have taken a piece of her forever... Satomi had just begun to look down, once again despondent (though at least not, when Kusuke hugged her again. She nestled into his arms, closing her eyes. He could just hear a murmured "Thank you, Kusuke."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Freya

 

After she suddenly left Aquila, Freya began to... Well, wander. There wasn't actually anything she had to work on, she had just wanted some quiet time to think. Maybe she could've worked on her room, turning it into a proper workshop? That would be nice, would make it feel more like home... If she had the materials to work with. Nevertheless, Freya was so deep in thought that she didn't notice the dull thud that went through the ship, due to the arrival of someone new.

 

However, deep thought was no match for a sudden high-pitched scream.

 

Instantly, Freya snapped back to reality, freezing in place for a second before straightening her hat, beginning to run to the source of the sound.

 

It didn't take her long in order to reach said source, rounding the corner to find both Lucine and Law doing... Something. It didn't really look like anything had really happened, neither looked distressed this time around... But Freya was sure that she heard a scream come from here. 

 

For Law and Lucine, if they bothered to look, they would see Freya sprint around the corner, nearly losing her balance as she came to a stop, only just managing to keep herself up, before brushing herself off, "I heard a scream, is everything okay?" she asked in between breaths, barely able to keep herself from falling over.

[Chevaleresse]

"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine." A bit emotionally shaken up still, but fine. "Law just did something that startled me is all. Have you ever had fire shoot out of your ears?" She shrugged before promptly returning to her subject of interest: namely, the shotgun in front of her. "We could add some reinforcement to the barrel and stuff in case I hit anything with it. A scope on a shotgun is kinda silly, though." She gave the weapon a pondering look, before glancing between it and Freya. "Ooh, I bet we could do something neat with necromancy! I could turn it into a Mystic Code and do cool necromancer stuff if you wanted to help, Freya. I heard of a necromancer who did all kinds of gross cool stuff with guns once." 

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Freya

 

With Lucine's explanation, Freya let out a sigh of relief, "Sweet, that makes me feel better" she said, taking a deep breath in order to stop panting, "But not really. I mean, Law did put my own bear on fire earlier, but other than that, nothing bad really happened" she continued, walking further into the room in order to see what Law and Lucine were doing... Which, as per usual at this point, was something she wasn't all to familiar with. But, at the very least, she recognized the object in Lucine's hand was. A form of gun.

 

However, soon enough, Lucine turned her attention back to Freya, and at her question, Freya brought her free hand to her chin, "I mean, I probably could to something. What do you want?"

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine shrugged. "I dunno. We don't really have a bunch of mage fingers or teeth or whatever like that one guy used." She made a face; evidently she wasn't exactly fond of using those sorts of materials, either. After a moment, though, her disgusted expression lit up with an idea. "Oooh, I know! What if we made it a break-action, and the action bit people!"

 

It wasn't long afterwards that the trio started working on the gun. Law, however, didn't seem particularly keen on the methods of the other two, apparently perceiving them as crude. At the end, though, an absolute beast of a Mystic Code came out of the process.

Quote

Necromantic Shotgun

Base: Deals 1d8+DEX damage. +5 to opposed checks that involve shooting or striking someone with the gun.
Craft Level: This gun now deals Synergy-based damage. 
Craft Level: Craft level: as an action the user may make a melee attack with this weapon for 1d6+[Syn]+5(due to it's other attribute) Necrotic damage, successfully hitting a biological enemy with this attack increases the damage of the next normal attack made with this weapon by 2d8, cooldown of 2.  
Craft Level: This weapon is only usable by Freya or Lucine, if both are present in the same combat this secondary attack of this weapon deals an extra 1d6 Necrotic damage and the damage buff caused by striking biological targets also increases damage dice by one step.
 

 

Lucine stared at the result of their crafting with an expression just short of wonder. Finally, her very own personalized Mystic Code; one that wouldn't verbally abuse her, anyway. "Wow, guys, this is amazing!"

[Hal Henderics]

The Weatherlight arrives with a rumble into some sort of reality.

 

some sort of dark open place.

To the left of the Weatherlight, A plant is growing up from the nothing stretching down forever.

It is topped with a black flower, the flower has bloomed, and inside it, a Rotary Dial Phone is Ringing.

[StormLord]

Spoiler

Piss off ya git

 

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Freya

 

"Thanks, I'm glad you like it" Freya replied, "I should warn you that my necromancy tends to get a bit wonky once I'm not around to supply it with my own mana, but I think it should be fine anyway" she added as a small note.

 

However, shortly after she said that, she was assaulted by visions. Several of them, to be in fact. Ones she didn't understand at all, locations and events that were lost to her. Other worlds, by the looks of it, but why? Why were they being shown to her? What WERE they?

 

Unfortunately, she wouldn't get an answer, as they soon vanished... Leaving Freya to stumble, barely keeping herself upright as she leaned heavily on her staff, "Ugh... What... Was that..?" she muttered out, bringing a hand to her temple.