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Post by drake on Jun 14, 2006 20:45:52 GMT -5
Ione tinkered around with the internals of a plasma cannon, a little something a customer had left in the shop earlier. He'd wanted it modified to handle an increased energy output, by about 200% normal. Ione thought it was a wonderful challenge, and a stroke of luck, after all, it was her shop's opening day. The store was called simply, 'The Tinkers'. And that's exactly what she did.
Ione was a mechanic, and a programmer, and a hardware expert. Anything you brought to her, she could improve, upgrade, or fix. Didn't matter what it was, from a stubborn program to an ancient vehical, she could get it to work. A lot of the time better than the origional specs said it would. Being a curious girl, she'd also studied the nuances of the supernatural, bringing the extrasensory and the technological together. So, naturally, her shop had already come out with a warped reputation. Luckily for her, the supernatural was becoming more blatantly obvious each day, so it wouldn't last long until she was an accepted member of the community.
Until she installed the hoverstuds on her Ninja that is, then everyone in the community would get really angry with her, since they made everything within a hundred meters vibrate like hell. She was still debating whether to modify her lovely bike, she almost could bear the thought of taking off the wheels that had carried her so far. But needs must when the devil drives, and everything must give way to progress eventually. She twisted a bolt a little tighter, wearing protective rubber gloves. She'd been installing super conductive alluminum in the cannon, enhanced with a thunder based enchantment. Anyone who touched it was likely to get a hefty shock, but it would hopefully meet the increased power requirments.
Occasionally, when she got bored, Ione was also known to take on mercenary work. Though she preferred going out for bounty hunting, as she had the means and the drive to do it. No matter where she went, Ione was practically clothed in weapons. Pistols, rifles, submachine guns, anything she could get her hands on, she strapped on and used. She had a devestating (for everyone else) facination with destructive weapons. Of corse, this also meant she had to find a means to defend herself against such weapons, so she tinkered with weird magical orbs and strange tech to try and make herself less vulnerable to such attacks.
As a result, the enhanced energy charge in the air around her did manage to deflect energy bolts, but it also made her extremely hyper, as well as sending her senses into a state of hyperactivity, which could get extremely annoying with explosions and gunfire going off all around her, so she tried to keep her defensive mechanisms off. Finished with the plasma cannon now, she looked around hopefully for a new customer. All she had to occupy her time otherwise was a cheesy romance novel, and as it didn't even have any dramatic battles or interesting innovations, she was bored as hell with it.
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Post by ch00beh on Jun 14, 2006 22:39:46 GMT -5
"Nice shop you have here," said a male voice from the door of the small shop. Attatched to that voice was a man with a long face, completely dishevled brown hair, and barely noticeable pointy ears. The man wore a dark, forest green ankle length coat, opened in front to reveal fairly bland black clothes. His eyes seemed to sparkle as he cast a glance at the various things within the shop.
"The name's Nick Taruic, pleasure to meet you," the man said, taking a few steps in. "I read the ad in the paper. You're a mechanic who blends technology with magic. I like your style. A lot like mine." He grinned. "I myself specialize with the combination of nanotechnology and alchemy." He took a small rock out of his pocket and allowed the nanites within his body flow out of the holes in his fingertips and onto the rock. The rock seemed to shimmer as the silverish substance surrounded it, analyzing then breaking it down to nothing but protons, neutrons, and electrons, then rebuilding it. A moment later, the silver mass of nanites were sucked back into Nick's fingertips, and the rock was now a nugget of pure gold. He tossed it onto the front desk and grinned again.
"By the way, I personally find that out of town shops work best if you like tinkering," Nick said casually, trying to make some small talk. "Folks don't seem to get as mad if you happen to blow up your eastern wing."
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Post by drake on Jun 15, 2006 2:52:25 GMT -5
Ione laughed at the jest and picked up the chunk of gold. She frowned for a moment, wondering if the change was permanent or simply a temporary illusion. If it did happen to be permenent, he could produce vast quantitys of rare materials, that would both be very useful, and make material wealth a problem of the past. She looked up at him.
"Hi, I'm Ione, any chance I could get a sample of those nanobots? That is a truely amazing piece of technolodgy that I'd just love to tinker with." She said, smiling in the absolute cutest way she possibly could, though she doubted she pulled it off well. She did dangerous more often that cute, and she hadn't had any boyfriends, so she was a total novice at influending the male mind. She paused in mid-grin, "Blow up the west wing? What are you talking about?" She asked, she pulled out a one time activation teleport device. "If I screw up, I intent to be very far away. Very, very far away." She said.
She gestured expansivily at the various devices, magical energies, and rare materials in her shop. "Can you imagen what it would be like if I screwed up, and this whole lot went off?" She asked, pointing in particular at the rod of nutrainium alloy on the far wall. "That thing would gain enough inertia to orbit the earth at 2 meters from the ground for over a hundred years, though granted its extremely heavy." She said, then an expression of horror danced across her face as she remembered something. She ducked down behind the counter, and came back up holding a mini singularity in a heavy glass globe. "Or worse, this thing could crack." She said, setting it on the counter.
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Post by ch00beh on Jun 15, 2006 11:31:30 GMT -5
Nick was never good at reading people, but he could tell what the slight frown meant when Ione picked up the gold. "Not to worry, it's permanent. My nanites broke the rock down all the way to protons, neutrons, and electrons, then recombined everything. Unless I managed to mess up and create a radioactive isotope, it should stay that." He shrugged as if radioactivity was no big deal, even if someone was holding it.
He paused and looked at her attempt a cute smile. It came out as a weird looking grin. He knew what she was trying to do, but she wouldn't need to try. He had actually found someone with simiar pasions as him, with a talent for technology and a curiosity for the supernatural. That was good enough for him to be friendly. "Yeah, sure, I could get you some nanites... um, not right now, because I've only created nanobots that survive for no more than a minute outside my body. I guess you could come by my place sometime when you're free." He paused. "Wait, I meant that in a totally not creepy way," he said awkwardly.
"Actually, yeah, I can probably imagine what it would be like. Nutrainium is really really fun to play with. Somehow I have a feeling one of those news making supernatural guys would probably somehow get over here if it exploded and contain it or something. They're magical like that. Literally." He chuckled then prodded the singularity's globe with his finger, rolling it around semi-carelessly around the table. "I only brought it up because I was playing with some chemicals the other day and managed to blow up the eastern wing of my house..."
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Post by drake on Jun 17, 2006 2:55:06 GMT -5
Ione laughed. "Don't worry, people like us have little to worry about, what with the general creepyness of our lives." She said. "Besides, if you do manage to get creepy, I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. Besides, your cute, I might not mind." She winked at him, and lead him out to the front of her shop, where her awesome Ninja motorcycle awaited. Ironically, she dragged the neutrainium bar off the shelf and out front, using it to bar her door shut. She noticed the look on Nicks face, and laughed. "Very few people could lift this thing up, no one normal at least. And if someone not so normal wants in, a lock and key will stop them no more effectivily than this extremely heavy neutrainium bar." She said.
She took a moment to look at all of the unusual objects in her shop. "One of the great things about government grants, I'm rather well funded when it comes to supplies. At least, starting off I am." She looked over her bike, making sure it was in perfect condition before she rode it. She didn't want to put it through any stress, it'd seen enough action already. The paint job was a mess, scratches and chips in the paintjob occuring frequently. But both tires were fully aired, and the gas tank used a pressurized gas system that allowed it to hold a great deal more fuel than most bikes. On top of that, their was a fire enchantment on her engine, allowing her to get up to 400 mph on a straight rode, and an air enhacement on the upper part of the body, helping the powerful machine stay on the ground.
It was a midlife crisis mobile, the kind of thing a suicidal man dreams of, and even foolish teenagers keep their distance from. The lights in the front had been ripped out, replaced with smooth bowls, with forward projected steel studs at the center, veined with circuitry. She noticed Nick looking at those to. "Particle Cannons. I suffer from rode rage." She said, grinning. "You have your own way of getting around, or you want a ride?" She asked, pulling off the seat of her bike, and pulling out two automatic pistols, strapping the holsters around her theighs. She pulled on a belt of ammunition, and checked the guns. Making sure the barrels were clear, safties on, so on and so forth. Then she loaded the guns and replaced them in her holster, pulled out a pair of sun glasses and tied her hair back in a funtional ponytail.
She took out a kunai, and tied her hair through the ring at the end of the handle, making sure it was secure. "I'm sure I won't need these at your house, but it never hurts to be prepared." She said, finishing up and wiping a speck of dust off her shoulder. She looked at Nick expectantly.
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Post by ch00beh on Jun 19, 2006 22:16:37 GMT -5
"Cute?" Nick asked, with one of those 'huh?' expressions on his face. He smirked again and said, "I thought the pale nerd skin mixed with blotches of the green goblin skin usually put girls off. About transportation, I could run," he said, then pointed to his legs, "since I've installed various things throughout my body, but I have a feeling riding would be more fun and would make it easier for me to give you directions."
The alchemist hopped on the back of the Ninja and let Ione get on. (OOC: autoing a bit, hope you don't mind BIC) After she started the massive 'cycle, Nick shouted the general direction of where the two were going to go. With that, the motorcycle flew off to Nick's house.
Nick was just going to let Ione do the driving as long as she didn't get lost, so he decided to tell her which house they were looking for, too, once they were close. "It's the somewhat big house on the hill outside of town. You can't really miss the domed tower with the large observatory telescope sticking out of it or the various bright colors.
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Post by drake on Jun 20, 2006 0:10:32 GMT -5
Ione nodded, and reved up the bikes big engine, quickly surpassing the maximum posted speed limit. She side swiped and car, and continued onwards, everything around her and Nick blurring as the speed increased. "Well yes, the green is rather offputting. But your general body structure is sexy, and your ears are really cute. I get the idea that, if you wanted to, you could change your skin tone to whatever you felt like. So yes, looking past the genetic traits that are purely self inflicted, you are cute." She yelled over her shoulder, sticking her tongue out at him, and narrowly avoided hitting a bus at three hundred kilometers and hour.
She wiptailed down two more streets before skreeching to a helt in front of Nicks house. "Ah. I guess I was right, material wealth is not a problem for you at all." She said, examing the place. She laughed, "Nerd heaven."
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Post by ch00beh on Jun 20, 2006 5:12:45 GMT -5
"Actually, if I wanted to change my skin with my nanites, it'd take a long time. Organic matter takes a bunch longer time than, say, the rock, to process for various reasons like the complexity of tiny moving parts, defense mechanisms, etc. I guess I could introduce a virus into myself to cut out the DNA, but that would be boring."
As the bike came to a hard stop, Nick calmly stepped off, his body quickly recallibrating before he could lose his balance. Had he been a normal person, he probably would have been dead from accelerating on that crazy bike. But, he wasn't, so he head enjoyed the ride. The alchemist walked up to the front door and just pushed it open, since he knew that no one was stupid enough to walk into a house that had recently exploded. He gestured for Ione to follow.
Nick walked down a flight of stairs to his giant basement. When he flipped on the lightswitch, that unsettling fluorescent light filled the messy room. Experiments and their accompanying notes were tossed all over the place, and, in some cases, the experiments were doing the tossing. Nick carefully walked around those experiments and into one of the rooms.
The room that he had entered was actually organized. Books were in their shelves, the desk had papers neatly stacked next to the computer, and the large opaque cylinder in the center of the room was spewing various gases in a controlled manner. Nick went up to the cylinder and typed in a code on the keypad, causing a panel to slide out. Fog rolled out of the opening as Nick pulled out a tray with a petri dish from the freezer. He held up the dish.
"Here's a small batch of nanites. They're in stasis right now, so they shouldn't melt down or anything. Feel free to do what you want with them; you have access to the entire lab. The nanite factory, like the one I have installed in my body, is over here," Nick said as he opened a panel in the wall. Behind the panel was a livershaped and liversized metalic object with tubes and wires running in and out of it in a complex pattern. "And to answer your question, yes, it does take the spot of my liver, since I lost it in the lab accident where most of my body was damaged," he said with a laugh.
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