My shop wasn’t large enough to accommodate JaffMeern so I brought him around the back to The Range. Thanks to my crash and then plasma tests, The Range was mostly a large, well packed, area of dirt. The next rain would turn this into a sea of mud... I should talk to the construction team about getting a large hanger type of structure...
“Jaff, Meern, welcome to AutomaTown. With your permission, I’m going to [Inspect] you guys and see if there is anything going on MagiCode wise before we can take a look at how you were built.”
“Sure, you got it doc— he’s not a doctor. Well it feels like we’re at the doctor office. I bet you want a lolly when this is over too. Oh, that’d be nice. Wait, do you have lollies, Doc?”
“Ahem... Guys, I guess this is a bit like a doctor’s examination, but no. No lollies, sorry. Besides, you don’t even have a mouth,” I answered with a mental smirk.
“Ha! Don’t even have a mouth! Oh shut up,” JaffMeern said, crossing their arms with a huff.
“Okay, let’s take a look. We’re a bit pressed for time at the moment so I won’t be able to take too deep a look. [Inspect],” I said, opening up my [Console].
Initially I got the standard information about JaffMeern’s various stats and abilities. They had been built expressly for manual labor, no surprises there. Looking a little deeper at the active processes, I could see that there were, indeed, two souls fighting for control of the same body. Whoever had built JaffMeern had basically chained two Soul Cores together in order to meet the mana requirements for such a large frame. The curse program had suppressed their individual personalities with the strictest set of constraints and left them as something that couldn’t make a move unless directly ordered to do so.
Each one of them must have felt like prisoners inside of their own body. Now that they were unlocked, they find a single driver seat and keep shoving each other out of the way to sit in it.
“Okay guys... I think I can separate your Soul Cores and give you new bodies. It’ll be a bit tricky, and I don’t have spare bodies at the moment... but I’m nearly certain that it’s doable.”
“Oh that’s fantastic! Gor, I can’t wait to be rid of this guy. Double for me, mate!” They said excitedly.
“When I get the materials and time, I can build you new bodies that will take into consideration your unique... challenges. Right now, though, we’re expecting company and I have to make sure that we are all prepared.”
“You got it Doc! Thanks! He’s not a doctor... Oh who cares, I’ll be free of you!”
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“In the meantime,” I laughed, “we’ll see what we can do about getting you something better than dragging yourself around or lashing you to the boulder cart. Maybe some hands.”
“Hands!” they screamed, “oh, hands... wow... you never really think about how much you miss having hands... right?”
“Looks like Ratchet is just about done repairing Ram... She’s still missing some components though, but we should be able to get her functional, I think.”
“Who’s Ram? She’s that girl that got us off that plinth, yeah? Oh her! Wait.. repair? Idn’t she dead? I mean, she blow’d up an’ all. You never listen, she was a proxy of Master Prime, here. She was dead, I saw it. I saw an idiot. Where? In the mirror. I didn’t see no mirror.”
Trying to keep track of who was talking, left my head spinning. Especially since they shared the same voice. Maybe adding a second voice modulator would be in order along with new hands and a lower half...
“Hmm, according to Carnivac— oh, he’s the wolf guy that picked up Ram and Rom— we’ve got about 3 hours until the royal caravan arrives,” I said folding my arms and tapping my chin. Sentinel was scouting the road a bit for a good intercept position. We would want the place to be to our advantage, of course. It wasn’t an ambush if you didn’t attack them, right?
“I do believe that we’ve got just enough time for some QA, right JaffMeern?” I said, clapping my hands together and walking out to the center of The Range.
“Cueaye? Do you know— nope, no idea...” JaffMeern verbally stumbled.
“He’s going to do some testing, old bean,” Alfred spoke up. “You should likely stay back, just in case. Actually, on second thought, let’s move back a bit and watch from around the corner of the shop.”
Once Alfred and JaffMeern had moved to a safe distance, I held my arms out to my sides and yelled, “[Power Extreme]! [LandMine]!”
The armor began appearing around me and snapping into the docking ports on my body, the halves of the PyroVibe hammer attached to my lower legs, fire-resistant armor plating covered my thighs and arms, back and chest armor— each with a motorcycle wheel folded away— clamped around me, a stylized motorcycle helmet appeared on my head, and a heavy staff materialized in my hand.
I needed a proper mirror to see how this looked, but seeing myself through Alfred’s eyes was almost as good, though at a distance. Alfred noticed Elita looking on and warned her to stay back for safety.
“Okay, first test... [Transform].” As soon as I issued the command, the wheel on my chest folded out and spun into alignment, the armor on my forearms attached to the axle to stabilize it as the staff connected on one end to the front fork. The backpack armor shifted up to shroud my head and unfolded the rear wheel, which swung down and through my legs. I fell forward, landing on the front wheel as my legs crunched and attached to the rear wheel hub. The free end of the staff plugged into the rear fork and I felt pretty stable. Nothing was shifting or felt loose.
I spun out my rear tire in the dirt, kicking up a spray of rocks and bits of sod before releasing the front brake and going up on a wheelie for several feet. I raced a loop around The Range, shot past the watchers by the shop, and down the main path to the fountain at the center of town. I heard a couple of expletives as I dodged around people doing their thing and trying to get out of the way of a baby version of Cyclone. I banked just a little too hard, coming around the fountain and lost traction. I tumbled a bit, but transformed back into bot mode quickly enough to come to a sliding stop on my feet. I took two large, running steps back in the direction of the shop and jumped into the air, transforming back into bike mode.
I didn’t think that I was nearly as fast as Cyclone, but I wasn’t burning nearly the amount of mana that he does either. I raced back up and through the crowd to more expletives and would have slammed into Elita, if Alfred hadn’t gently nudged her to one side.
I transformed at speed and hit the ground somersaulting till I popped up on my feet at the center of The Range. “I’d say test one is a success!” I beamed. Or would have beamed if I had facial expressions.
“Is he... Is he always like this?” JaffMeern asked Alfred.
“Yes,” both he and Elita answered in unison.
“Test number two, the hammer,” I said to no one in particular. “[HammerTime].”