Kaleb drew a curious stare from Roy as he walked back into his garage and Daivor immediately asked.
“What happened?”
Kaleb smiled at his two companions as he detached his metal arm and set it on the workbench. As he described his encounter werewolf he took off several of clawed up plates. It surprised him how much damage Shaggy had done with just his claws. He hadn’t broken the frame, but Shaggy had clawed through several sheets of metal. When he finished his story, he was looking over the thin metal sheets he had used in his arm and he found something.
“Is this blood?” Kaleb asked as he brought the metal sheet closer to his eyes.
Daivor crept closer as he looked at the piece of metal in Kaleb’s hand. “Yeah, looks like you got hair in there too. The damn wolf must have been cut himself.”
“Ew, you probably want to clean that off, Doc.” Roy said looking over Kaleb’s shoulder.
Kaleb nodded slowly before he had a better thought. Walking over to his shelf full of bins, he searched for a decent-sized vial. He eventually found what he wanted and did his best to gather the werewolf hairs and blood into two separate glass tubes. Daivor’s nose curled in disgust as he watched Kaleb work.
“What in the 6 Hells are you doing?” The Gnome asked.
Kaleb studied the blood. “This guy had an impressive regenerative ability. He was a mutant so maybe I can isolate the errant genome that evolved to give him those powers. Maybe replicate them in myself or give my regeneration a boost.”
Daivor shook his head. “Whatever you say. That medical crap is beyond me. But this...” he said pointing at Kaleb’s metal arm. “This is something I can work with.”
Kaleb nodded. “Yeah, whatever you can think of, let me know.”
“Don’t you have the genetic research from that Rat King guy?” Roy asked as he went back to his little nest of equipment.
“Yeah I did, it’s on my laptop. Wait… how do you know about that?” Kaleb asked.
“I was using your laptop to look up some stuff. It was just sitting there on your desktop, labeled research.” Roy explained as he went back to work on his bracers.
Kaleb shrugged his shoulders as he thought about Dr. Kane’s research. He should probably protect that better. He set the vials of hair and blood down on the workbench and opened his laptop. Sure enough, Dr. Kane’s work was on a folder on his desktop. He remembered reading through work before gaining a whole level in Genetics. He password protected the folder and closed his laptop as he thought about his Genetics skill.
As he thought about using genetics to give himself powers, he looked around his tiny garage. He had nowhere near the equipment he needed, let alone the space to fit it all in his garage. He sighed, deciding to let the matter wait until he moved to his new lair this weekend. He would save the blood and hair until he could gain access to what he needed. Kaleb also made a mental note to collect more samples from other mutants and aliens. Once he had a full genetics lab up a running, he would have a good base to start from.
Setting those thoughts aside, Kaleb glanced downward to see Daivor removing the few rail spikes from his arm. The Gnome had a small pile of the spikes lined up near where Kaleb was standing. Once he saw Kaleb watching him, Daivor barked orders.
“Done with your daydreams? Good. Time to get back to work. You need to Imprint these with Protection Runes. I will sort out that mess you got going on inside that arm.”
Kaleb wanted to say something but he really couldn’t think of anything else he could do with one arm. So he set about Imprinting the rail spikes as Daivor dove into the inner workings of his arm. Kaleb tried to think about what he wanted to get done tonight. He needed to line his armor with the Ifrit skin, add some hardened leather to Shocky 2.0, rebuild his Taser Egg, and Rune his new Magic Gun. Side-note: come up with a better name for Magic Gun. Kaleb thought as his hands worked at Imprinting whenever he felt a headache coming on he would stop and wait for his Mana to recover.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He finished his task far faster than Daivor, so Kaleb set about practicing different Runes on the slim rail spikes. He put a Fire Rune, an Ice Rune, and Sickness Rune on some spikes. He wanted to place a Gravity Rune on one of them but the complexity of the Rune, along with his instincts screaming that it was a bad idea stopped him. He didn’t know what would happen if he tried to shove a complex Rune into something that wouldn’t hold it, but he didn’t want to find out.
He saw Daivor clamber his way back out of his arm and asked. “Everything good to go in there?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, you should be good. I replaced some parts and strengthened the pneumatics. Also cleaned the gunk out of the thing. You really need to do daily maintenance on that thing.”
Kaleb nodded absently as he reloaded and reattached his metal arm. He gave his arm a few rotations before he grinned at Daivor.
“Well, it’s time to get back to it.”
Daivor just nodded as Kaleb set about replacing the plates on his arm. Once he had new sheets of metal in place, he lined Shocky 2.0 with strips of Ifrit skin bolting the bits of skin in place. As he worked, and the night grew long, Kaleb’s stomach rumbled in hunger. He ignored it until he had finished adding the skin to his armor. He would imprint the various Runes on his equipment at a later date. The day was growing to a close, and he had the job with the Quinica in the morning.
He turned to let Roy know he should wrap things up and was surprised by his young assistant. Roy had covered his bracers in hardened Ifrit skin making them look like dark-orange rectangles attached to his forearms. Roy seemed to have finished with his little experiment and was now smiling down at his bracers.
“So… what do they do?” Kaleb asked, drawing Daivor’s attention from the workbench.
Roy glanced up at him pensively before he jerked his left wrist. As he did, there was an audible mechanical click in the garage and Roy was suddenly holding a foot-long metal baton. The baton sparked with electricity as Roy gave it a few swings. Then the young Nova made the same jerking motion, and the baton vanished. Kaleb tried to follow the cylindrical piece of metal with his eyes but the baton seemed to jump up into Roy’s bracer.
Kaleb gave a short whistle, impressed. “Cool, so how did you do it?”
“I stored three collapsible batons in the bottom of my left bracer. When I tilt my wrist, it drops the baton into my hand. To put it back, I twist the wrist again and a tiny arm grabs it and puts it back in the bracer.” Roy explained.
Kaleb nodded slowly as he thought about the amount of trial-and-error Roy had to go through. As he looked over the left bracer, he thought about the right one. Roy seemed to catch his look as he made the same twisting motion with his right wrist this time. This mechanism was a little slower and when it finished Roy was holding a sharpened spike. Kaleb nodded as he understood, the left bracer was the non-lethal option while the right was the lethal one.
Roy collapsed the sharp spike himself and placed it in a small compartment in his right bracer. “I haven’t got the mechanism done for the right bracer yet.”
“So what was the yellow crystal for?” Kaleb asked.
Roy took off his left bracer and opened a hinge on the top. Inside sitting on top of the three collapsible batons Roy had made was the power housing. Roy had wired the crystal into the sockets that held the batons. The crystal was charging the baton as they were cradled in the bracer. Inside Kaleb saw a gratuitous amount of epoxy and a thin layer of Ifrit skin lined the inside of the bulky bracer. Roy answered his unasked question.
“I had to insulate the hell out of the inside.”
“Good call.” Daivor said. “While Magically conductive, the stuff won’t conduct electricity that well.”
Kaleb nodded as closed up the bracer. “Well, it’s good work, Roy. But we will have to call it a day. I have to go to Under-Town in the morning. I don’t know how long I’ll be helping down there, but Daivor can let you in to finish up your work if I am out all day.”
Roy nodded and cleaned up his workspace as Kaleb moved to his workbench and did the same. After the three had finished cleaning up, Kaleb had the others help him finish the lasagna Varlin had made them. After the food finished reheating, the three sat at Kaleb kitchen table and discussed their plans for future builds until Daivor asked
“So what are you doing in the Under-Town, boss?”
“Helping a vendor resell K-tech’s broken equipment. I fix it up, they sell it, and I get the odd bit of equipment.” Kaleb explained.
“Well, shouldn’t I come along? Maybe I can help you spot some of the rarer stuff?” Roy said excitedly.
“Me too, Boss. Gnomes have a nose for this stuff.” Daivor said.
Kaleb shook his head at the two. “YOU have school.” Kaleb said pointing at Roy. “And I didn’t know if you wanted to leave your new home so soon, Daivor.”
Daivor shrugged. “This sounds more interesting than waiting around here.”
Roy waited until Daivor stopped talking before he added his own two cents. “They will not fail me for missing a day. Especially the day before the last day, they almost expect seniors to stop coming to school.”
Kaleb put a bite of lasagna in his mouth and chewed as he thought, eventually shrugging. “Fuck it! I am not your parents. If you are here in the morning before we go, you can go with us.”
“Fuck yeah!” Roy shouted.
Kaleb chuckled to himself as he finished his plate and got up to put it in the sink. He watched Roy and Daivor pantomiming stealing each other's food and he smiled. He hoped he wasn’t making a giant mistake allowing the two to come with him. But, he figured the Quinica would welcome two more sets of hands.
Soon after they finished eating, Roy rushed home and Kaleb locked down his house. He closed up his garage and got everything set away before he went to his room. Turning on his heat lamps, Kaleb curled up on his bed on yawned, thinking: That was a fucking long day.