((From ACDC Net))
MachMan warped back into the PET looking no different than he did prior to departing, save the mangled hand, but his mood had made a complete 180 in that time. Mazer sat back and tried to consider his options as his Navi wordlessly moved back to the data recovery tube and deactivated his arms and upper armor.
Several minutes passed, and Mach didn't even look in his NetOp's direction during the interim. Frustrated, Mazer stood up from his chair and walked into the hallway. A few moments later Mazer's voice echoed from deeper in the house. Though slightly muffled and entirely unintelligible, it seemed like the NetOp was having a conversation with an unseen and unheard partner. The volume of his voice raised several times, suggesting the solo conversation became an argument. This went on for almost five minutes, but was eventually followed up by sounds of clinking dishes and running water as Mazer tried to redirect his frustration to more constructive outlets.
A few hours later, Mazer finally returned to his room and looked down to his PET. MachMan was standing outside of the data recovery tube with his arms and upper torso armor reactivated. He held the ruddervator from his right engine nacelle in his hands, and appeared to be scratching at it with a finger, etching something in the metal. A flashing email notification quickly grabbed Mazer's attention, and he wondered how long the email had been sitting unread in their inbox. Mach would've gotten the notification as well, was he purposefully ignoring it?
Regardless, Mazer opened the email and read its contents. A few moments later, Mazer remarked "Hm, looks like we have a mission, Mach." The Navi didn't seem to be listening. "It's from Prez, their airship's done, but they've lost contact with it and its crew," Mazer continued, momentarily undeterred by his Navi's behavior. Said Navi stopped his scratching, only to mutter "Of course she did..." in an unsurprised, condescending tone before he opened the email himself. "How about it then? Best case you save the ship and crew for pay, worst case you get a 'hat-trick' in blowing up TerrorMan." Mazer tried to add some humor and ego-boosting; it seems he'd calmed down from his living room rant, but Mach didn't appear amused even while obscured by his cockpit-like helmet. "She can deal with her own damn problems," he gruffly concluded and closed the email, then went back to scratching at his trapezoid-shaped ruddervator.
Mazer furrowed his brow, his Navi seriously passed up the chance to sortie against a fat, juicy target, with no significant downside? "C'mon, if it weren't for Pres, you wouldn't be able to do... whatever thing you're doing. You at least owe her that." MachMan jolted to stillness for a moment, then with one of his spindly thin arms he placed the ruddervator back in its proper place. "Fuck you," MachMan countered gruffly, though his tone suggested he was struggling with more mournful emotions.
The bespectacled NetOp was initially floored by his Navi's blatant insult, and was about to respond in anger, but he was able to pick up on his Navi's tone and held back for a moment. As he looked down at the Navi, a brief metallic twinkle caught his eye, it originated from the ruddervator Mach was previously scratching on. He briefly zoomed in, and realized what his Navi was doing. He'd etched a rudimentary shield crest into the outer surface of the ruddervator. Inside the crest was a simple diagonal thunderbolt design, wreathed in a halo and flanked on the trailing side by a birdlike wing, but made up of many small, angular shards. The realization sunk in like lead through water. "Damnit," Mazer said aloud, and his voice cracked. He instantly knew what it meant, and began to understand his Navi's reaction and regret the nearsightedness of his previous comment. "I'm sorry Mach, I didn't-" Mazer continued from a downward gaze, then paused as he looked back to the PET and saw one of Mach's open metal palms pointed in his direction, prompting him to stand fast.
Though Mach's anger continued to linger, it was cooled to a simmer by his NetOp's immediate change of tone. He understood, and regained a bit of the Navi's respect. Though Mach still felt Mazer was partly to blame for his current situation, Mazer was correct in saying Mach owed Prez for restoring him to fighting shape. "You're not entirely wrong, I'll do it," he concluded before he opened a reply to the email.
Mazer's House
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After he replied to the email, he closed the holographic access window and stood up straight. His control surfaces actuated, including his recently emblazoned ruddervator, before he clunked towards the PET's exit portal. "Send me," Mazer curtly ordered just prior to setting foot on the slightly raised platform.
A moment later, MachMan disappeared in a flash of cyan and disappeared as he was logged into the network.
((To Hades RogueNet))
A moment later, MachMan disappeared in a flash of cyan and disappeared as he was logged into the network.
((To Hades RogueNet))
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((From liberating TerrorMan MkIII in Hades Rogue Net))
Mach materialized back in the PET, still sporting the battle damage from his relatively one-sided gunfight on TerrorMan's bridge. The data recovery tube awaited him, and Mach didn't waste any time deactivating his arms and upper torso armor. With the armor shed, what was left of him didn't look especially damaged, save for one grazing gunshot wound near his right collarbone. It wasn't especially serious, but the specks of "blood" that peppered his jaw and side of his face made the wound look worse than it really was. After he backed into the tube, it began to close down over him and flood the area with regenerative data.
Mazer looked at the miscellaneous diagnostic readouts to make sure his Navi was successfully on the mend, then did some mental math after looking over their new zenny total. "Looks like we have enough to get you some more upgrades," he concluded when he reached to his coat that was draped over his bed nearby. Mach didn't respond, he elected to simply stand still as his body was fully "submerged" in the shimmering green energy. "Hang tight here while I do a quick run to SciLabs, I have a few errands to run anyway."
A few minutes later, Mazer picked up the PET and turned off the screen before he slid it into his jacket pocket, then made his way out of his room and out the front door. The crisp, cold air hit his face, causing him to briefly flinch before pressing on to the bus stop. He grumbled something about getting a car, and the fact he couldn't afford one, before he finally reached the stop a few blocks away.
((To SciLabs))
Mach materialized back in the PET, still sporting the battle damage from his relatively one-sided gunfight on TerrorMan's bridge. The data recovery tube awaited him, and Mach didn't waste any time deactivating his arms and upper torso armor. With the armor shed, what was left of him didn't look especially damaged, save for one grazing gunshot wound near his right collarbone. It wasn't especially serious, but the specks of "blood" that peppered his jaw and side of his face made the wound look worse than it really was. After he backed into the tube, it began to close down over him and flood the area with regenerative data.
Mazer looked at the miscellaneous diagnostic readouts to make sure his Navi was successfully on the mend, then did some mental math after looking over their new zenny total. "Looks like we have enough to get you some more upgrades," he concluded when he reached to his coat that was draped over his bed nearby. Mach didn't respond, he elected to simply stand still as his body was fully "submerged" in the shimmering green energy. "Hang tight here while I do a quick run to SciLabs, I have a few errands to run anyway."
A few minutes later, Mazer picked up the PET and turned off the screen before he slid it into his jacket pocket, then made his way out of his room and out the front door. The crisp, cold air hit his face, causing him to briefly flinch before pressing on to the bus stop. He grumbled something about getting a car, and the fact he couldn't afford one, before he finally reached the stop a few blocks away.
((To SciLabs))
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((From SciLabs))
Mazer got back to the house about an hour later, he'd gone to a grocery store on the way to restock his fridge, so he had to do some creative maneuvering to unlock and open the door with two hands full of grocery bags. He was ultimately successful, and a quick check of the eggs proved they survived the trip without issue. After a few minutes of putting the foodstuffs in their appropriate places, Mazer brewed a cup of coffee and went back to his room.
After he hung up his jacket in the closet, he finally sat down and replugged the PET back into his PC. It appeared Mach was out cold, since it looked like his eye was closed and didn't seem to respond to any of Mazer's inputs to the PET's console. [Might as well let him rest, the strain is probably taking one hell of a toll...] Mazer thought to himself before he got to work on applying the new upgrades. It didn't take him very long to install the new upgrades, but once he checked the time, it was already evening. [Guess we'll just try them out tomorrow,] he pondered before he walked out to cook himself up some dinner.
About a half hour later, he came out with some basic, but piping-hot mixed pasta dish and sat back down at his computer. He then spent the rest of the evening gradually eating his meal, while looking up different emblem designs on the net, and fiddling with some of the editing options in the PET. As his meal became closer to being finished, his ratio of eating to working continued to swing towards the "working" side.
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The next morning, Mach received the standard 0600 internal alarm, rousing him from his prolonged stay in the recovery tube. The tube slid away, allowing the currently armless Navi to step out, each footfall making a subtle metal-on-metal chime. He didn't hear anything from the PET's outer mic, so he activated the PET's forward-facing camera. From what little he could see, the sheet-covered lumps in the bed suggested Mazer was still asleep. ["[i]Hmph,[/i]"] he huffed, apparently already in a sour mood. His arms and upper torso armor activated over his body as he pulled up a personal settings display and highlighted the added changes. The changes categorized under the NetBuster.APP caught his attention first. [[i]200hp, 3 buster upgrades, and a seeking shot... useful.[/i]] he mused to himself.
He briefly turned away from the opened display projected on his HUD to look down at his right forearm. He activated his buster, which caused the entire first row of his knuckles to rock outwards before sliding back down to his wrists, causing his fingers to lay flat against the back of his own hand, to expose the rectangular buster barrel inside his hand. This was normal, but a rectangular object also rose up from his forearm, a couple inches behind his wrist. As soon as it clicked into place, the targeting crosshairs on his HUD quickly became the centerpoint of a larger rectangular window, that seemed to display everything with much higher sharpness and definition, but with no additional magnification. "Hm..." he hummed before testing the theory in his head.
He activated one of his decoy drones, which quickly projected a mirror image of himself, before dashing backwards a dozen yards or so and stopped in place. He swung his buster towards the decoy, and confirmed his theory. While the rest of his view showed a mirror-perfect doppelganger, the buster's "gunsight view" saw through the projection, so he could clearly see the decoy drone's spherical shape located near the fake Mach's chest. He deactivated the buster and the decoy simultaneously, then focused back on the rest of his self diagnostic.
While he'd cleared through all of the changes to his battling routines, there remained one more highlighted field, but this one was filed under his graphic model. He opened the subfolder, and found two image files, which he opened. After opening them, his body suddenly became still and quiet. Projected in front of his eye were two emblems. The one on the right was a gold-bordered shield crest with a black background. Inside the crest was a simple orange diagonal thunderbolt design, wreathed in a white halo and flanked on the trailing side by a birdlike wing, but made up of many small, angular blue shards. The bottom of the shield was bordered with a scroll-like banner with a similar gold outline and black field, with the words "HONORA JACENTES" written in gold text. The image on the left was identical to the right with exception of the color scheme, everything other than the black background was changed to a matte gray, a "subdued" version of the emblem. The images were super crisp, and to his memory the dimensions of the design he etched into the one ruddervator were replicated exactly, but enhanced to a much higher quality of craftsmanship.
His spindly arms reached up and plucked the ruddervators from his engine pylons, then held them out in front of him. With an unheard command, the outer surfaces of the ruddervators became adorned with the multi-colored versions of the emblem. The Navi was deathly silent as he snapped the control surfaces back into their places, though beneath the opaque canopy, his eye had welled up with tears. It took him a moment, but with an audible exhale he momentarily regained his composure. To keep himself occupied, he moved to a more open area of the PET floor and activated a simple rectangular seat to rise up from the floor, allowing him to sit down and quietly reflect.
A couple hours later, Mach heard some activity from the PET's mics. He reactivated the camera and saw a disheveled and groggy-looking Mazer looking bleary-eyed as he sat up in his bed. It looked like it took him a few moments to remember how to be alive, then he got up and out of bed. A couple dozen minutes later, a slightly more awake-looking Mazer looked down at the PET, with mug of coffee in hand. "Mornin', feeling better?" Mazer asked, in a much more lucid tone. [[i]"Yeah... and thanks,"[/i]] Mach replied, prompting Mazer to blink a couple times and focus down at the Navi. A quick scan of the seated program would reveal the colorful (compared to the rest of his body) emblem on his ruddervators. Once he saw it, he nodded thoughtfully before saying, "They deserve nothing less." [[i]"Agreed,"][/i] Mach rumbled a few pregnant moments later. "Mach, are we okay? I want to make things right. I might not have known Aera and Vector quite as well as you did, but... I know they wouldn't want us to get torn apart. We can carry their legacy together, under that emblem," he pleaded.
Mach's silence prompted Mazer to continue. "I know this won't fix everything, but I want to fix this, no matter how long it takes. Can we be a team again? For their sake?" he continued to plead, with a tone of sympathetic fatigue in his voice. Mach inhaled and exhaled slowly from his seated position as he mulled it over. To Mazer's credit, Mach came to a similar conclusion: Aera and Vector would be heartbroken if they saw the two of them break apart. Both of them respected Mazer to an equal degree. He still couldn't forget the missteps Mazer made in his mind, but he could accept them enough to continue working as a team. [[i]"We're still a team,"[/i]] Mach finally responded. [[i]"But we've lost our edge,"[/i]] he added, providing a bit of a dampener on things. Mazer nodded thoughtfully, before he commented as well. "You're right, we can use this opportunity to hone it. I apologize for sleeping in, but I think we've both gotten a good enough rest to try a busting run. Want to give your new upgrades a test-drive?"
Mach stood up with a mechanical smoothness thanks to his prosthetic legs. [[i]"Alright,"[/i]] he replied simply; it was all Mazer needed to re-open the portal in the PET. This time, it was directly linked to a network they haven't visited in what seemed like decades: Yoka. Mach saw the portal activate, and calmly walked into the portal, warping him into the new-ish network.
((To Yoka Chaos Net))
Mazer got back to the house about an hour later, he'd gone to a grocery store on the way to restock his fridge, so he had to do some creative maneuvering to unlock and open the door with two hands full of grocery bags. He was ultimately successful, and a quick check of the eggs proved they survived the trip without issue. After a few minutes of putting the foodstuffs in their appropriate places, Mazer brewed a cup of coffee and went back to his room.
After he hung up his jacket in the closet, he finally sat down and replugged the PET back into his PC. It appeared Mach was out cold, since it looked like his eye was closed and didn't seem to respond to any of Mazer's inputs to the PET's console. [Might as well let him rest, the strain is probably taking one hell of a toll...] Mazer thought to himself before he got to work on applying the new upgrades. It didn't take him very long to install the new upgrades, but once he checked the time, it was already evening. [Guess we'll just try them out tomorrow,] he pondered before he walked out to cook himself up some dinner.
About a half hour later, he came out with some basic, but piping-hot mixed pasta dish and sat back down at his computer. He then spent the rest of the evening gradually eating his meal, while looking up different emblem designs on the net, and fiddling with some of the editing options in the PET. As his meal became closer to being finished, his ratio of eating to working continued to swing towards the "working" side.
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The next morning, Mach received the standard 0600 internal alarm, rousing him from his prolonged stay in the recovery tube. The tube slid away, allowing the currently armless Navi to step out, each footfall making a subtle metal-on-metal chime. He didn't hear anything from the PET's outer mic, so he activated the PET's forward-facing camera. From what little he could see, the sheet-covered lumps in the bed suggested Mazer was still asleep. ["[i]Hmph,[/i]"] he huffed, apparently already in a sour mood. His arms and upper torso armor activated over his body as he pulled up a personal settings display and highlighted the added changes. The changes categorized under the NetBuster.APP caught his attention first. [[i]200hp, 3 buster upgrades, and a seeking shot... useful.[/i]] he mused to himself.
He briefly turned away from the opened display projected on his HUD to look down at his right forearm. He activated his buster, which caused the entire first row of his knuckles to rock outwards before sliding back down to his wrists, causing his fingers to lay flat against the back of his own hand, to expose the rectangular buster barrel inside his hand. This was normal, but a rectangular object also rose up from his forearm, a couple inches behind his wrist. As soon as it clicked into place, the targeting crosshairs on his HUD quickly became the centerpoint of a larger rectangular window, that seemed to display everything with much higher sharpness and definition, but with no additional magnification. "Hm..." he hummed before testing the theory in his head.
He activated one of his decoy drones, which quickly projected a mirror image of himself, before dashing backwards a dozen yards or so and stopped in place. He swung his buster towards the decoy, and confirmed his theory. While the rest of his view showed a mirror-perfect doppelganger, the buster's "gunsight view" saw through the projection, so he could clearly see the decoy drone's spherical shape located near the fake Mach's chest. He deactivated the buster and the decoy simultaneously, then focused back on the rest of his self diagnostic.
While he'd cleared through all of the changes to his battling routines, there remained one more highlighted field, but this one was filed under his graphic model. He opened the subfolder, and found two image files, which he opened. After opening them, his body suddenly became still and quiet. Projected in front of his eye were two emblems. The one on the right was a gold-bordered shield crest with a black background. Inside the crest was a simple orange diagonal thunderbolt design, wreathed in a white halo and flanked on the trailing side by a birdlike wing, but made up of many small, angular blue shards. The bottom of the shield was bordered with a scroll-like banner with a similar gold outline and black field, with the words "HONORA JACENTES" written in gold text. The image on the left was identical to the right with exception of the color scheme, everything other than the black background was changed to a matte gray, a "subdued" version of the emblem. The images were super crisp, and to his memory the dimensions of the design he etched into the one ruddervator were replicated exactly, but enhanced to a much higher quality of craftsmanship.
His spindly arms reached up and plucked the ruddervators from his engine pylons, then held them out in front of him. With an unheard command, the outer surfaces of the ruddervators became adorned with the multi-colored versions of the emblem. The Navi was deathly silent as he snapped the control surfaces back into their places, though beneath the opaque canopy, his eye had welled up with tears. It took him a moment, but with an audible exhale he momentarily regained his composure. To keep himself occupied, he moved to a more open area of the PET floor and activated a simple rectangular seat to rise up from the floor, allowing him to sit down and quietly reflect.
A couple hours later, Mach heard some activity from the PET's mics. He reactivated the camera and saw a disheveled and groggy-looking Mazer looking bleary-eyed as he sat up in his bed. It looked like it took him a few moments to remember how to be alive, then he got up and out of bed. A couple dozen minutes later, a slightly more awake-looking Mazer looked down at the PET, with mug of coffee in hand. "Mornin', feeling better?" Mazer asked, in a much more lucid tone. [[i]"Yeah... and thanks,"[/i]] Mach replied, prompting Mazer to blink a couple times and focus down at the Navi. A quick scan of the seated program would reveal the colorful (compared to the rest of his body) emblem on his ruddervators. Once he saw it, he nodded thoughtfully before saying, "They deserve nothing less." [[i]"Agreed,"][/i] Mach rumbled a few pregnant moments later. "Mach, are we okay? I want to make things right. I might not have known Aera and Vector quite as well as you did, but... I know they wouldn't want us to get torn apart. We can carry their legacy together, under that emblem," he pleaded.
Mach's silence prompted Mazer to continue. "I know this won't fix everything, but I want to fix this, no matter how long it takes. Can we be a team again? For their sake?" he continued to plead, with a tone of sympathetic fatigue in his voice. Mach inhaled and exhaled slowly from his seated position as he mulled it over. To Mazer's credit, Mach came to a similar conclusion: Aera and Vector would be heartbroken if they saw the two of them break apart. Both of them respected Mazer to an equal degree. He still couldn't forget the missteps Mazer made in his mind, but he could accept them enough to continue working as a team. [[i]"We're still a team,"[/i]] Mach finally responded. [[i]"But we've lost our edge,"[/i]] he added, providing a bit of a dampener on things. Mazer nodded thoughtfully, before he commented as well. "You're right, we can use this opportunity to hone it. I apologize for sleeping in, but I think we've both gotten a good enough rest to try a busting run. Want to give your new upgrades a test-drive?"
Mach stood up with a mechanical smoothness thanks to his prosthetic legs. [[i]"Alright,"[/i]] he replied simply; it was all Mazer needed to re-open the portal in the PET. This time, it was directly linked to a network they haven't visited in what seemed like decades: Yoka. Mach saw the portal activate, and calmly walked into the portal, warping him into the new-ish network.
((To Yoka Chaos Net))
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((From Yoka ChaosNet))
MachMan warped back into the PET, battered, exhausted, but victorious. He clunked towards the data recovery tube, and deactivated the entirety of his upper torso armor, including his arms themselves. The right side of his face was still as damaged and raw as it was when he first returned from his battle with the Spectre, and it was slick with red "blood" from the strain of his battle. He stood in the ring where the tube would rise up, then turned around as said tube rose and sealed him in with the recovery data that rapidly flooded the tube.
The Navi deactivated his legs as well, as he began to "float" in the recovery data, allowing all of his limbs to be repaired while what was left of his body could heal. "Go ahead and take a load off for a while, I'm going to get some errands done in the meantime; you've earned it," Mazer's voice spoke in Mach's head. He quietly agreed and closed his eye before going into sleep mode.
Mazer then audibly exhaled, as if he'd been holding his breath throughout their last battle, and ran his hand through his hair before he rocked his neck from side to side. Now that Mach had done his work, it was time for him to do his. He unplugged the PET from his PC and picked it off his desk before he gathered up his things and headed out to the Chip Shop just down the road.
((To Chip Shop))
MachMan warped back into the PET, battered, exhausted, but victorious. He clunked towards the data recovery tube, and deactivated the entirety of his upper torso armor, including his arms themselves. The right side of his face was still as damaged and raw as it was when he first returned from his battle with the Spectre, and it was slick with red "blood" from the strain of his battle. He stood in the ring where the tube would rise up, then turned around as said tube rose and sealed him in with the recovery data that rapidly flooded the tube.
The Navi deactivated his legs as well, as he began to "float" in the recovery data, allowing all of his limbs to be repaired while what was left of his body could heal. "Go ahead and take a load off for a while, I'm going to get some errands done in the meantime; you've earned it," Mazer's voice spoke in Mach's head. He quietly agreed and closed his eye before going into sleep mode.
Mazer then audibly exhaled, as if he'd been holding his breath throughout their last battle, and ran his hand through his hair before he rocked his neck from side to side. Now that Mach had done his work, it was time for him to do his. He unplugged the PET from his PC and picked it off his desk before he gathered up his things and headed out to the Chip Shop just down the road.
((To Chip Shop))
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((From Chip Shop))
Mazer walked back in, and checked his watch before closing the door. It was already getting dark as he was walking home, and a check of his watch showed it was already mid-evening. He exhaled with a sigh before muttering "it's been a long day" under his breath. He pulled his PET from his pocket to check up on Mach, and saw the Navi was still in sleep mode inside the data recovery tube. Since it appeared his Navi had already turned in for the night, it made sense for him to do the same. He had some leftovers from the night before, and some work to do, he'd be able to keep himself occupied before heading to bed.
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The next day, Mach awoke to the familiar sight of the interior of the data recovery tube. He checked his internal clock and was surprised with the reading, it was already mid-morning; he knew how much energy he spent on that battle, but he didn't expect to be out for that long. As he reactivated his legs and began to step out of the recovery tube, the screen of his PET lit up, indicating to Mazer his Navi had begun to stir. "Mornin' Mach, sleep well?" Mazer asked as his face, and cup of coffee, appeared as a pop-up screen in Mach's view. By that time, Mach's arms and upper torso armor had materialized over his body, and his opaque cyan canopy eased down over his head with a series of mechanical clicks. [[color=blue]"Yes, too long. Let's get back to it,"[/color]] Mach's grated voice urged, the Navi seemed to remained focused on regaining their lost "edge," as he previously mentioned before their foray into the Yoka Chaos Network.
"I agree, but if I could make a suggestion," Mazer interjected, which prompted the Navi to pause as his NetOp continued. "How about we check up on on the Shogunate? We haven't heard a thing since you exposed BrainMan's coup d'etat. I doubt they've gone to hell in a hand basket, but it doesn't hurt to check,and I can't help but be curious how the aerial squadron and the rest of the shogunate has fared. They could use your strength, and pay you in kind; we got a significant boost to our chip arsenal, but I'd like to see where we stand in the grand scheme of things before I make some major purchases. Know what I mean?"
Though Mach wanted to get back into the battlefield to continue hammering himself into a more powerful and efficient Navi, it didn't counter Mazer's argument. He too began to wonder what had become of The Shogun, Yasu, Skywriter, Roc, Pestilence, and the rest of the Shogunate in his absense. [[color=blue]"Alright,"[/color]] the Navi agreed, though his voice still sounded reluctant and/or stubborn. Mach flexed his prosthetic arms and hands, while the memorial emblems on his ruddervators changed from their multi-colored to their "subdued" versions. He started to clunk towards the portal on the other side of the "room," which began to glow as Mazer activated the hyperlink to the NeoShogunate Camp. Mach stepped onto the platform, then disappeared in a flash of cyan as he was logged in to the network.
((To NS Camp))
Mazer walked back in, and checked his watch before closing the door. It was already getting dark as he was walking home, and a check of his watch showed it was already mid-evening. He exhaled with a sigh before muttering "it's been a long day" under his breath. He pulled his PET from his pocket to check up on Mach, and saw the Navi was still in sleep mode inside the data recovery tube. Since it appeared his Navi had already turned in for the night, it made sense for him to do the same. He had some leftovers from the night before, and some work to do, he'd be able to keep himself occupied before heading to bed.
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The next day, Mach awoke to the familiar sight of the interior of the data recovery tube. He checked his internal clock and was surprised with the reading, it was already mid-morning; he knew how much energy he spent on that battle, but he didn't expect to be out for that long. As he reactivated his legs and began to step out of the recovery tube, the screen of his PET lit up, indicating to Mazer his Navi had begun to stir. "Mornin' Mach, sleep well?" Mazer asked as his face, and cup of coffee, appeared as a pop-up screen in Mach's view. By that time, Mach's arms and upper torso armor had materialized over his body, and his opaque cyan canopy eased down over his head with a series of mechanical clicks. [[color=blue]"Yes, too long. Let's get back to it,"[/color]] Mach's grated voice urged, the Navi seemed to remained focused on regaining their lost "edge," as he previously mentioned before their foray into the Yoka Chaos Network.
"I agree, but if I could make a suggestion," Mazer interjected, which prompted the Navi to pause as his NetOp continued. "How about we check up on on the Shogunate? We haven't heard a thing since you exposed BrainMan's coup d'etat. I doubt they've gone to hell in a hand basket, but it doesn't hurt to check,and I can't help but be curious how the aerial squadron and the rest of the shogunate has fared. They could use your strength, and pay you in kind; we got a significant boost to our chip arsenal, but I'd like to see where we stand in the grand scheme of things before I make some major purchases. Know what I mean?"
Though Mach wanted to get back into the battlefield to continue hammering himself into a more powerful and efficient Navi, it didn't counter Mazer's argument. He too began to wonder what had become of The Shogun, Yasu, Skywriter, Roc, Pestilence, and the rest of the Shogunate in his absense. [[color=blue]"Alright,"[/color]] the Navi agreed, though his voice still sounded reluctant and/or stubborn. Mach flexed his prosthetic arms and hands, while the memorial emblems on his ruddervators changed from their multi-colored to their "subdued" versions. He started to clunk towards the portal on the other side of the "room," which began to glow as Mazer activated the hyperlink to the NeoShogunate Camp. Mach stepped onto the platform, then disappeared in a flash of cyan as he was logged in to the network.
((To NS Camp))
last edited by Lurch
((From ElecTown ShogunCon))
Back in the PET, a large cube about the size of two phone booths sat on the floor of the netspace. While enclosed, its sides appeared to be transparent, with only the corners made of more opaque construction.
After Mazer hit the log out command, a flash of cyan came from inside the quarantine cube, followed by an unhealthy-sounding thud and a pained groan. Due to the quarantine mode, all 'foreign' data was removed, meaning even the plug-like receptacles for his prosthetics were absent and left the heavily damaged stumps bare. So Mach was left limbless and sans armor, but at least his damaged bodysuit remained. As Mach tried, but ultimately failed to maneuver himself so he wasn't stuck face-down and bleeding in his cell, Mazer looked the Navi over. To his relief, there wasn't even a drop of the inky black data that had previously clamped down on the back of the Navi's head. "Looks like the filters worked, I don't see that weird claw on your head, like the one on Agony and the NS soldier," Mazer concluded.
Mach gave up and stopped trying to roll himself to his side or back. "Ngh...Claw? Guess that's how the bitch hijacked my audio..." Mach surmised, and didn't verbalize his relief to finally hear Mazer's voice without Agony's planted demands to think about pain, etc. "Now that I'm clean, rgh, let me out. I don't plan on drowning in my own blood here..." Mazer raised his eyebrows in realization. "Shit, hold on..." he sputtered and adjusted his glasses before he started clicking and typing away. A few moments later, the quarantine cube slid over the PET floor and over the base of the data recovery tube. Mach then shortly found himself suspended in the regenerative "bath" of the DRT, which definitely helped blunt the pain as his prosthesis jacks were reinstalled in/around his amputation sites. "Hm, thanks..." Mach remarked with a noticable tone of relief in his voice.
A few long seconds passed in silence, then Mach cut back in. "I'll be ready to head back in... 28 seconds." "Sure, but before you go... Did you mean it?" Mazer asked, looking down at a point just below the PET's external camera. Mach's eye peered back at the window showing the man's stonefaced expression. "...What you said... that they just held you back," he continued, then looked straight into the camera, so his eyes locked with his Navi's. "Did you mean it?" He asked again, and Mach's eye looked away.
"I have become stronger, but... I miss them... so damn much... " he grumbled, and sounded like he was on the verge of sobbing near the end, but seemed to catch himself and inhaled sharply in an attempt to compose himself. Mazer's expression softened, glad to see his friend's heart hadn't become completely cold. "Me too, bud, me too... You want a breather, or do you want to get back,to it?" Mazer asked, and made a few keystrokes to restore his Navi's normal access during the last part of his question. Mach responded simply by reinstalling his legs and deactivated the DRT. Once he got some elbow room, he reinstalled the rest of his armor alomg with his engine nacelles and arms. "Let's see what chaos awaits us," he commented wryly before disappearing in a flash of cyan.
((To NS Camp))
Back in the PET, a large cube about the size of two phone booths sat on the floor of the netspace. While enclosed, its sides appeared to be transparent, with only the corners made of more opaque construction.
After Mazer hit the log out command, a flash of cyan came from inside the quarantine cube, followed by an unhealthy-sounding thud and a pained groan. Due to the quarantine mode, all 'foreign' data was removed, meaning even the plug-like receptacles for his prosthetics were absent and left the heavily damaged stumps bare. So Mach was left limbless and sans armor, but at least his damaged bodysuit remained. As Mach tried, but ultimately failed to maneuver himself so he wasn't stuck face-down and bleeding in his cell, Mazer looked the Navi over. To his relief, there wasn't even a drop of the inky black data that had previously clamped down on the back of the Navi's head. "Looks like the filters worked, I don't see that weird claw on your head, like the one on Agony and the NS soldier," Mazer concluded.
Mach gave up and stopped trying to roll himself to his side or back. "Ngh...Claw? Guess that's how the bitch hijacked my audio..." Mach surmised, and didn't verbalize his relief to finally hear Mazer's voice without Agony's planted demands to think about pain, etc. "Now that I'm clean, rgh, let me out. I don't plan on drowning in my own blood here..." Mazer raised his eyebrows in realization. "Shit, hold on..." he sputtered and adjusted his glasses before he started clicking and typing away. A few moments later, the quarantine cube slid over the PET floor and over the base of the data recovery tube. Mach then shortly found himself suspended in the regenerative "bath" of the DRT, which definitely helped blunt the pain as his prosthesis jacks were reinstalled in/around his amputation sites. "Hm, thanks..." Mach remarked with a noticable tone of relief in his voice.
A few long seconds passed in silence, then Mach cut back in. "I'll be ready to head back in... 28 seconds." "Sure, but before you go... Did you mean it?" Mazer asked, looking down at a point just below the PET's external camera. Mach's eye peered back at the window showing the man's stonefaced expression. "...What you said... that they just held you back," he continued, then looked straight into the camera, so his eyes locked with his Navi's. "Did you mean it?" He asked again, and Mach's eye looked away.
"I have become stronger, but... I miss them... so damn much... " he grumbled, and sounded like he was on the verge of sobbing near the end, but seemed to catch himself and inhaled sharply in an attempt to compose himself. Mazer's expression softened, glad to see his friend's heart hadn't become completely cold. "Me too, bud, me too... You want a breather, or do you want to get back,to it?" Mazer asked, and made a few keystrokes to restore his Navi's normal access during the last part of his question. Mach responded simply by reinstalling his legs and deactivated the DRT. Once he got some elbow room, he reinstalled the rest of his armor alomg with his engine nacelles and arms. "Let's see what chaos awaits us," he commented wryly before disappearing in a flash of cyan.
((To NS Camp))
last edited by Lurch
((From Internet City))
MachMan materialized in the PET with a flash of light, then made a sliding landing on the floor of the PET's netspace. Soon after he skidded to a stop, Mazer's pop-up window appeared. "Want to call it a day? I've got some stuff to code and you could use some peace and quiet," he offered quietly. Mach didn't move from his statuesque position, and took a few seconds before replying. [[color=blue]"Fine,"[/color]] he eventually said with a fatigued sigh, then started to get himself situated in the data recovery tube nearby.
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The next morning, Mazer woke the PET out of sleep mode after he'd finished breakfast, and still had a mug of coffee in-hand. "Mornin', Mach," he greeted, though the look on his face hinted he wasn't exactly sure what reaction he'd get from the moody Navi. "...mornin'."" Mach replied as he paced back and forth along the floor of the PET. There was no telling how long he'd been up, nor how long he'd been pacing. "Um... everything okay, buddy?" Mazer asked as he placed his mug down on his desk. Mach continued to pace, but replied in a notably less-aggravated tone, "Restless; and still haven't found my answer." Mazer pinched his chin between his index finger and thumb. He was uncertain if asking what he meant would provoke the Navi, so he tried a different route. "Maybe this'll help, maybe to shake things up a bit, so you can look at it from a different angle, as it were."
After a few keystrokes, a packet of data rapidly began to materialize and build on the floor in front of the Navi. In just a few seconds, it produced a small, roughly humanoid-looking program. Its stubby arms and legs were connected to a single large sphere, with no head to speak of. Its legs were cylindrical while its arms were slightly more flattened out and streamlined, but appeared to have simple three-clawed manipulators rather than human-like hands. The squat, bi-pedal robot stood silently in the middle of the room, until Mazer made it's introduction. "MachMan, meet Shrike."
Suddenly, the program's spherical torso spun in its housing to reveal a large mechanical eye. Its pupil started to glow a soft green, then flickered several times as its eye panned and spun around in multiple directions as if it was calibrating itself while scanning the room, then finally planted its cycloptic gaze towards MachMan. "Systems: Active. Radar clear," it said in an robotically androgynous voice. "Hm," Mach pondered aloud and began to pace around the SP, still not sure what to make of his new partner. Shrike's eye tracked Mach as he moved around, with its pupil glow occasionally flickering as if it were "blinking."
Mazer decided to explain while Mach paced, to avoid inadvertently frustrating the Navi. "I designed Shrike to be a mobile weapons platform, with a focus on amplifying your offensive capabilities. Right now it's relatively fragile, but has chip preset and full flight capabilities; it should be able to keep up with you while filling a fire support role." Mach continued to look down at the squat SP, while it met his gaze with its own. "Unless it has some serious power in those little engines, I'll leave it in the dust," the Navi critiqued. He had a valid point, but Mazer was prepared. "Got it covered. Shrike, mount up."
The little SP hopped straight up, then the jet engines that made up its legs came alive and sent it into the air. It paused midair for a moment as a couple panels on the upper surface of Mach's torso armor reformatted, then it gently set itself down on Mach's armor, just behind his helmet. Mach struggled look back to see what was going on, having only one eye didn't help, but he could see one of the SP's arms and legs splayed out before hooking into low-profile mounting brackets that had materialized on his armor. "Secured and Ready," the SP chirped before looking straight forward. "Now Shrike's more-or-less bolted to your frame. The extra weight and drag should be negligible with the trim settings I added, you can fine-tune literally on the fly, but this should keep you pretty much straight and level," he said before he uploaded the settings to the Navi. "It can also continue to shoot from this position, albeit with a more restricted firing arc."
Mach listened, and shifted his upper torso, noting the surprisingly lack of significant resistance or sluggishness from the added weight. Shrike's eye panned in the direction of the tilt of Mach's torso as he moved, but otherwise didn't react or utter a peep. Even with the SP mounted right next to his head, its eye seemed to float in its housing without a sound. "Want to take it out for a spin? We can try out some of those Bounties I've read about. It'll give you some specific targets as opposed to just random wandering," Mazer suggested hopefully. Mach thought it over for a moment; tinkering with the new SP probably wouldn't help with his restlessness, and testing it out in a real battlefield made sense. It also didn't seem to have much sentience, so he felt he could treat it like a piece of equipment rather than an ally. "Sure, ready when you are," he replied.
Mazer smiled and jacked the PET in, which activated the portal nearby. Mach's engines spooled up and he started to slide forward, kicking up sparks before he briefly went airborne just prior to hitting the portal and disappeared.
((To Bounty Shop))
MachMan materialized in the PET with a flash of light, then made a sliding landing on the floor of the PET's netspace. Soon after he skidded to a stop, Mazer's pop-up window appeared. "Want to call it a day? I've got some stuff to code and you could use some peace and quiet," he offered quietly. Mach didn't move from his statuesque position, and took a few seconds before replying. [[color=blue]"Fine,"[/color]] he eventually said with a fatigued sigh, then started to get himself situated in the data recovery tube nearby.
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The next morning, Mazer woke the PET out of sleep mode after he'd finished breakfast, and still had a mug of coffee in-hand. "Mornin', Mach," he greeted, though the look on his face hinted he wasn't exactly sure what reaction he'd get from the moody Navi. "...mornin'."" Mach replied as he paced back and forth along the floor of the PET. There was no telling how long he'd been up, nor how long he'd been pacing. "Um... everything okay, buddy?" Mazer asked as he placed his mug down on his desk. Mach continued to pace, but replied in a notably less-aggravated tone, "Restless; and still haven't found my answer." Mazer pinched his chin between his index finger and thumb. He was uncertain if asking what he meant would provoke the Navi, so he tried a different route. "Maybe this'll help, maybe to shake things up a bit, so you can look at it from a different angle, as it were."
After a few keystrokes, a packet of data rapidly began to materialize and build on the floor in front of the Navi. In just a few seconds, it produced a small, roughly humanoid-looking program. Its stubby arms and legs were connected to a single large sphere, with no head to speak of. Its legs were cylindrical while its arms were slightly more flattened out and streamlined, but appeared to have simple three-clawed manipulators rather than human-like hands. The squat, bi-pedal robot stood silently in the middle of the room, until Mazer made it's introduction. "MachMan, meet Shrike."
Suddenly, the program's spherical torso spun in its housing to reveal a large mechanical eye. Its pupil started to glow a soft green, then flickered several times as its eye panned and spun around in multiple directions as if it was calibrating itself while scanning the room, then finally planted its cycloptic gaze towards MachMan. "Systems: Active. Radar clear," it said in an robotically androgynous voice. "Hm," Mach pondered aloud and began to pace around the SP, still not sure what to make of his new partner. Shrike's eye tracked Mach as he moved around, with its pupil glow occasionally flickering as if it were "blinking."
Mazer decided to explain while Mach paced, to avoid inadvertently frustrating the Navi. "I designed Shrike to be a mobile weapons platform, with a focus on amplifying your offensive capabilities. Right now it's relatively fragile, but has chip preset and full flight capabilities; it should be able to keep up with you while filling a fire support role." Mach continued to look down at the squat SP, while it met his gaze with its own. "Unless it has some serious power in those little engines, I'll leave it in the dust," the Navi critiqued. He had a valid point, but Mazer was prepared. "Got it covered. Shrike, mount up."
The little SP hopped straight up, then the jet engines that made up its legs came alive and sent it into the air. It paused midair for a moment as a couple panels on the upper surface of Mach's torso armor reformatted, then it gently set itself down on Mach's armor, just behind his helmet. Mach struggled look back to see what was going on, having only one eye didn't help, but he could see one of the SP's arms and legs splayed out before hooking into low-profile mounting brackets that had materialized on his armor. "Secured and Ready," the SP chirped before looking straight forward. "Now Shrike's more-or-less bolted to your frame. The extra weight and drag should be negligible with the trim settings I added, you can fine-tune literally on the fly, but this should keep you pretty much straight and level," he said before he uploaded the settings to the Navi. "It can also continue to shoot from this position, albeit with a more restricted firing arc."
Mach listened, and shifted his upper torso, noting the surprisingly lack of significant resistance or sluggishness from the added weight. Shrike's eye panned in the direction of the tilt of Mach's torso as he moved, but otherwise didn't react or utter a peep. Even with the SP mounted right next to his head, its eye seemed to float in its housing without a sound. "Want to take it out for a spin? We can try out some of those Bounties I've read about. It'll give you some specific targets as opposed to just random wandering," Mazer suggested hopefully. Mach thought it over for a moment; tinkering with the new SP probably wouldn't help with his restlessness, and testing it out in a real battlefield made sense. It also didn't seem to have much sentience, so he felt he could treat it like a piece of equipment rather than an ally. "Sure, ready when you are," he replied.
Mazer smiled and jacked the PET in, which activated the portal nearby. Mach's engines spooled up and he started to slide forward, kicking up sparks before he briefly went airborne just prior to hitting the portal and disappeared.
((To Bounty Shop))
last edited by
((From SharoNet thread))
Mazer sat back in his chair with an exasperated sigh before placing his hands to his face. His Navi was defeated yet again; but unlike the encounter with the monstrous program that consumed Aera and Vector, the stakes didn't seem as high, and the foe truly seemed invincible, Mach never really had a chance. It made the spectral program look like a cakewalk, their best option was to run, but Mach kept fighting. It was sobering to think monsters of that caliber lurked in the net, especially those that fully eclipse the program that nearly destroyed the Navi.
Thankfully this battle resulted in both of his programs being returned to their respective recovery areas within the PET. Shrike was being reconstructed and repaired piece by piece, while Mach's battered, limbless frame was suspended in the data recovery tube. Mazer looked down at the pile of chips he frantically had run through the PET, then shunted them to the side with a forearm so he had room to type. Reloading their chip magazine would come later, now was the time to get to mending his broken programs.
About an hour later, it appeared that both Mach and Shrike had been restored to 100%, and were ready for reactivation. He had Mach "boot up," Shrike soon after, and Mach opened his eye. It was difficult to see from Mazer's zoomed-out perspective, but his eye initially looked straight forward, then started to glance in several directions. "...Mazer?" the Navi croaked.
"Hey, Mach. How are you feeling?" Mazer replied, not quite sure how his Navi will react to the defeat. Anger? Acceptance? Disbelief? Instead, he got something entirely different.
"... I can't see."
Mazer sat back in his chair with an exasperated sigh before placing his hands to his face. His Navi was defeated yet again; but unlike the encounter with the monstrous program that consumed Aera and Vector, the stakes didn't seem as high, and the foe truly seemed invincible, Mach never really had a chance. It made the spectral program look like a cakewalk, their best option was to run, but Mach kept fighting. It was sobering to think monsters of that caliber lurked in the net, especially those that fully eclipse the program that nearly destroyed the Navi.
Thankfully this battle resulted in both of his programs being returned to their respective recovery areas within the PET. Shrike was being reconstructed and repaired piece by piece, while Mach's battered, limbless frame was suspended in the data recovery tube. Mazer looked down at the pile of chips he frantically had run through the PET, then shunted them to the side with a forearm so he had room to type. Reloading their chip magazine would come later, now was the time to get to mending his broken programs.
About an hour later, it appeared that both Mach and Shrike had been restored to 100%, and were ready for reactivation. He had Mach "boot up," Shrike soon after, and Mach opened his eye. It was difficult to see from Mazer's zoomed-out perspective, but his eye initially looked straight forward, then started to glance in several directions. "...Mazer?" the Navi croaked.
"Hey, Mach. How are you feeling?" Mazer replied, not quite sure how his Navi will react to the defeat. Anger? Acceptance? Disbelief? Instead, he got something entirely different.
"... I can't see."
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After several minutes of chaos and confusion, both Mazer and Mach seemed to understand what happened. Upon closer inspection of Mach's face, Mazer could see the gnarled, seemingly necrotic-looking wound that made up nearly the entire right half of his face had somehow spread due to the damage inflicted prior/during the EJO. A line stretched out from the the left-most side of wound like a tendril, just barely reaching Mach's eye. Now instead of a clear, deep sapphire pupil, it appears darker, with a hazy sheen. No matter how many times Mazer tried to reset or repair, nothing could bring the eye's function back. His world was dark, featureless.
Mazer wracked his brain, caught up in trying to figure out why the resets didn't work, while tried looking at the problem from another angle (pun not intended). He then activated his Enhanced Perception program, which caused two pinholes of orange light to appear on either side of his pupil, before they began to rapidly spin up, creating a ring of light. Suddenly, his mind began to "see" things, but only for a second or two when the program crashed. The spinning lights shuddered and stopped in an odd angle before shutting down. Mazer saw the prompt showing the activation and subsequent crash, causing him to curse under his breath.
"I got something, but only for a second." Mach grumbled, which gave Mazer a new avenue to try. "Really?! Something that sorta works is better than something that's hard-broke. Hang on a second, let me try something. I first tried to re-route your "eye" to something else, like Shrike's own visual sensor or your own armor's sensor suite, but the whole system is unresponsive. Your Enhanced Perception signature attack seems to work, but maybe it's failing from errors with your visual system... getting blocked by your eye. Hang tight, I think I can make it work. If not, maybe the TerrorGirls might be able to help." Mazer half-explained, half-thought aloud over the chittery din of keystrokes and mouseclicks. Mach gave a disapproving grunt; he had enough of "Prez" and her organization already.
It took a couple hours, and several failed attempts, until a truly promising solution arose. Routing the program to the camera suite on the underside of his armor's "fuselage" was too exposed, Shrike's feed was often too far to be a reliable connection, and he couldn't "attach" an stable enough construct on the right side of his face or on the surface of his left eye. It wasn't aesthetically pleasing and looked a bit jerry-rigged in places, but the rectangular, dark-blue sensor array painfully bolted in three areas on the left side of his face started to boot up.
Seconds ticked by, and it didn't crash; while Mach couldn't "see" in the conventional sense, his Enhanced Perception at least allowed him to "detect" his surroundings. For example, as Shrike slowly floated by, a "dot" appeared in his mind, labeled with name and positional information just like his normal program. He couldn't tell what color Shrike was, but he could see it was floating from his left to his right at 6 feet off the ground. The floor appeared to be a grid, one that he assumed would "look" like a topographical map to indicate changes in terrain. It was all available to him previously, but he was so reliant on his much more intuitive vision, he honestly didn't notice. It was incredibly basic, but it was better than total darkness. That said, it didn't help his mood.
"Is it still working?" Mazer asked urgently; everything appeared "green" on his end, but his Navi was quiet. "I guess so, I'm just getting what's like a... basic overlay. Dots and lines... that's it," Mach finally responded, his gravelly tone accented his understandably somber attitude. "It's a start, but I'll figure something out. If we can't fix your eyesight, we'll soup up any alternative we have."
Mazer wracked his brain, caught up in trying to figure out why the resets didn't work, while tried looking at the problem from another angle (pun not intended). He then activated his Enhanced Perception program, which caused two pinholes of orange light to appear on either side of his pupil, before they began to rapidly spin up, creating a ring of light. Suddenly, his mind began to "see" things, but only for a second or two when the program crashed. The spinning lights shuddered and stopped in an odd angle before shutting down. Mazer saw the prompt showing the activation and subsequent crash, causing him to curse under his breath.
"I got something, but only for a second." Mach grumbled, which gave Mazer a new avenue to try. "Really?! Something that sorta works is better than something that's hard-broke. Hang on a second, let me try something. I first tried to re-route your "eye" to something else, like Shrike's own visual sensor or your own armor's sensor suite, but the whole system is unresponsive. Your Enhanced Perception signature attack seems to work, but maybe it's failing from errors with your visual system... getting blocked by your eye. Hang tight, I think I can make it work. If not, maybe the TerrorGirls might be able to help." Mazer half-explained, half-thought aloud over the chittery din of keystrokes and mouseclicks. Mach gave a disapproving grunt; he had enough of "Prez" and her organization already.
It took a couple hours, and several failed attempts, until a truly promising solution arose. Routing the program to the camera suite on the underside of his armor's "fuselage" was too exposed, Shrike's feed was often too far to be a reliable connection, and he couldn't "attach" an stable enough construct on the right side of his face or on the surface of his left eye. It wasn't aesthetically pleasing and looked a bit jerry-rigged in places, but the rectangular, dark-blue sensor array painfully bolted in three areas on the left side of his face started to boot up.
Seconds ticked by, and it didn't crash; while Mach couldn't "see" in the conventional sense, his Enhanced Perception at least allowed him to "detect" his surroundings. For example, as Shrike slowly floated by, a "dot" appeared in his mind, labeled with name and positional information just like his normal program. He couldn't tell what color Shrike was, but he could see it was floating from his left to his right at 6 feet off the ground. The floor appeared to be a grid, one that he assumed would "look" like a topographical map to indicate changes in terrain. It was all available to him previously, but he was so reliant on his much more intuitive vision, he honestly didn't notice. It was incredibly basic, but it was better than total darkness. That said, it didn't help his mood.
"Is it still working?" Mazer asked urgently; everything appeared "green" on his end, but his Navi was quiet. "I guess so, I'm just getting what's like a... basic overlay. Dots and lines... that's it," Mach finally responded, his gravelly tone accented his understandably somber attitude. "It's a start, but I'll figure something out. If we can't fix your eyesight, we'll soup up any alternative we have."
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After nearly a day and a half of troubleshooting, both Navi and NetOp were at their limit. Mazer leaned back in his wheeled office chair and blearily looked at his coffee mug, still warm after the 4th refill... or maybe it was the 5th. "I really wish I had better news, but I think this is the best I can give you. We do have a good amount of zenny saved up, so we could buy some more upgrades to give us more 'room' to work with," Mazer admitted. He really couldn't fully put himself in Mach's shoes, but the in-depth work on his Enhanced Perception program gave him a solid picture of what Mach's visible world had been reduced to. It was little more than a radar screen mixed with the graphics quality of nearly ancient video games, but with the alternative being utter and total blindness, it was a blessing in comparison.
Mach was silent. He remained silent for an uncharacteristically long time throughout the troubleshooting, responding with little more than a couple words at any one time, but his voice had a noticeable lack of venomous bitterness or rage's bite. This made the Navi even harder to read, which made things all the more concerning to Mazer. He tried to fall back on a tried and true method: focus through action. "If you're down for it, I can send you in to turn in the bounty to give the program a simple ops test, then head over to NetCity to run a full shakedown run while shopping." Mazer offered, even though he doubted he himself could remain focused for the duration; he felt like he was crashing hard from the steady flow of caffeine. "Whaddaya say, Mach?"
The Navi, who was standing in a makeshift framework "hangar" instead of floating it the data recovery tube, slowly closed his fighter jet-inspired canopy/helmet down over his now more scarred and mangled head and face, protecting and obscuring the raw ugliness. "Sure," the Navi responded in an near-monotone voice. Mazer's face crinkled into a concerned grimace in reaction to the Navi's reply, but it didn't seem talking it out or more inaction would help the situation. "Alright, logging you in, stand by."
In either a flash of brilliance or caffeine-fueled frenzy, Mazer had relocated the link warp pad from relatively secluded corner of the PET to directly beneath the "hangar" in which Mach stood. The pad lit up, and in half a second the Navi disappeared in a flash of cyan without needing to take a single step.
((To Bounty Shop))
Mach was silent. He remained silent for an uncharacteristically long time throughout the troubleshooting, responding with little more than a couple words at any one time, but his voice had a noticeable lack of venomous bitterness or rage's bite. This made the Navi even harder to read, which made things all the more concerning to Mazer. He tried to fall back on a tried and true method: focus through action. "If you're down for it, I can send you in to turn in the bounty to give the program a simple ops test, then head over to NetCity to run a full shakedown run while shopping." Mazer offered, even though he doubted he himself could remain focused for the duration; he felt like he was crashing hard from the steady flow of caffeine. "Whaddaya say, Mach?"
The Navi, who was standing in a makeshift framework "hangar" instead of floating it the data recovery tube, slowly closed his fighter jet-inspired canopy/helmet down over his now more scarred and mangled head and face, protecting and obscuring the raw ugliness. "Sure," the Navi responded in an near-monotone voice. Mazer's face crinkled into a concerned grimace in reaction to the Navi's reply, but it didn't seem talking it out or more inaction would help the situation. "Alright, logging you in, stand by."
In either a flash of brilliance or caffeine-fueled frenzy, Mazer had relocated the link warp pad from relatively secluded corner of the PET to directly beneath the "hangar" in which Mach stood. The pad lit up, and in half a second the Navi disappeared in a flash of cyan without needing to take a single step.
((To Bounty Shop))