Reunions, Long Awaited - II

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Assembled, his prot-type 'Mobile Armored Suit' was roughly humanoid, with a simple rectangular cockpit in the chest for the pilot to sit in. Its mechanized joints were all semi-ball socketed, encased in thin layers of protective armor. That, its frame and electrical, hydraulic and computer infrastructure was all then covered in a thin layer of plated, black cyber-steel. Which gave its entire body an almost reptilian, black look, the lights of the Foundry shimmering and glinting off it as it lifted its arms and legs experimentally. The feet and hands were no different, and with organic limitations, were built to match their pilot's one to one.

All of this was enclosed in boxy stretches of armor that covered their forearms, upper arms, and both lengths of their legs. Their feet were encased in a sort of 'boot', as Sienna had put it, with small hinges at the heel and toe to allow more 'flex'. So that the pilots could find purchase more easily, based on input from Flash Bang, a mercenary he'd hired to give the 'theoretical idea' a once over.

Minus most of the more critical, internal inputs, of course - and the entire idea of an organic pilot.

A fool, Jury-Rig was most certainly not.

Their chests, owing to the reinforced cockpit's inclusion, were longer than normal for the original frame. So he'd made it taller - enough to stand a head over him, now - and encased it in four layers of the same metal as the rest. They were smooth, and according to organic inputs, aesthetically pleasing. So he carried the pattern to the stomachs, layering a dozen thin plates over the flex-point to allow maneuverability. The hips and shoulders he enclosed in wide pauldrons of layered, boxy plate-sections, that dipped down a bit over the very tops of their thighs and upper arms.

Their tests had shown minimal loss in mobility - but already, his test pilot wanted to remove or modify them for her 'speed needs'.

Such would be her choice…

Finally, was the head. A complicated suite of computerized controls, coordinating with the body, in a facsimile of the organic equivalent. It had simple photo-receptor eyes, capable of filtering through thermal and electromagnetic options for those interested, but he could not widen the field of view or add more. Doing so caused dissociation, headaches, and rejections. It's 'face' was armored with a thin mask, designed like a flat face, with a small nose and even eyebrows, to fill in the data the organic brain expected and avoid dissociation. And, to protect the joint, a simple raised, ridged collar ran around the entire base.This particular unit had simple 'ears', built onto the side with audio receptors inside it. And the communications suite even had directional prediction, allowing the computer-assist to predict the location of a speaker - or any other audible sound - and place the sound on the right 'side' of the 'head'.

The ears could, of course, be swapped for any number of Faunus ear-types, again, to combat dissociation. Though their ability to move was an unfinished, tricky feature he had yet to quite perfect.

"How does it feel?" He asked, watching his test-pilot leap and roll in the dirt of the badlands, just outside the Foundry.

"It moves well." She answered, turning and lashing out with the claw-tips at the ends of her fingers, carving through a sheet of rusted scrap they'd erected for the purpose. The steel came apart and she straightened, rolling her shoulders reflexively as he stepped closer. Turning to him, Sienna Khan went on, "Unless I look at a door, or a Faunus, or, well… You, I feel like I'm just me. Training."

"And the armor?"

"A bit much." She shrugged, resting a hand on a hip and waving the question off with the other. "I could do with less, but…"

"We still haven't found a way to project Aura." He nodded, "So less armor is much more risk than you're used to."

"Yeah, I know…" She sighed, "I just-"

"I know." Jury-Rig chuckled, "You've said it precisely eighty three times. 'I'm a woman set in her ways'. Quite contradictory for a social advocate, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, so you all keep telling me. More importantly-" She cut off and cocked her head, then sighed and shrugged. "Got a call coming in. Kali. You mind?"

"I quite literally work for you both?"

"Fair." She chuckled, turning away and raising her hand to her mechanized head, then when it went limp, lifting it up to the side of her head. In a somewhat amusing pantomime of what she was doubtless doing inside.

That she already had fine enough control to manually disengage the neural link partially so she could do it, and enough association with the mech not to vomit from the disorientation it'd bring, was impressive. Even to Jury-Rig himself, who was often less than easy to impress at all. While she talked to the Chiftess, he turned away, bringing up an arm and flitting from one console to the next. Checking on production lines, supervising supply distributions in his sector, charting maintenance requests and finalizations… It all passed the time amusingly enough.

Suddenly, the woman behind him shouted, voice loud and shocking , "You're with who?!"

"Oh that sounds wonderful…" He murmured, sighing quietly and shaking his head as he turned to watch her nod stiffly.

"Fine, yeah, I won't fucking kill him." She sighed, turning back to him as she lowered her Scroll and reactivated her head-systems. "Alert security for a… Some kind of energy spike, and some visitors, coming down."

"Down?" He asked, confused, "From where?"

"Apparently, the Tides-damned moon." She grunted, "Just do it."

"R-Right, yeah." He nodded, raising his interface units again and punching in the command.

Then, as if on cue, Jury-Rig registered a litany of various energy spikes a hundred or so feet away. Turning, he watched the world almost… Warp, electricity arcing out in a wide radius and burning the bare ground. Then a splash of colors, like a rainbow spinning out from nothing into a sphere that seared the sand, rock and soil beneath it, expanded out and solidified. And then, less than a process-cycle later, it vanished. And in its place…

"By my burning Spark…" He murmured, watching his creator, Shockwave, step forward in living circuit and kneel, opening his hand to drop of two small Faunus he quickly recognized. "The Chieftain?!"

"Indeed." He rumbled as he stood, turning to meet them as Sienna trundled up in her mech and, still stunned, Jury-Rig followed beside her. "I found them in Mistral and, after extracting them, tended to young-"

"Bastard!" Sienna shouted, just as her armored fist came around and slammed into his Creator's face-plating, hurling him off his feet and sending him sprawling on his back while the Chieftain and her daughter scrambled to get clear. Looming over him, she went on, "How dare you-"

His leg swept hers and he rolled onto his mechanized hand, pushing up as she rolled onto her hands and knees and pushed herself up, too. He rose and his cannon came around, warming as it did, but she stepped into the blow, checking it across a shoulder and slamming a knee up, into his sternum as she rose. As the light stun-shot seared into the ground, she grabbed him by his shoulders, slid a leg between his and pivoted, hurling him off his feet and onto the ground.

Finally, he found his words and shouted, voice a half dozen octaves higher than he'd intended, "Sienna! Why?!"

"Sienna?" Shockwave hesitated just a moment as he pushed himself up again, which was long just enough for her to belt a kick into his side and send him rolling.

Finally she stopped, nodded, and said, "Yeah, asshole. I got my own ten foot tall robot leg just so I could kick your ass when I saw you again. Tell me, how'm I doing at that? Because from here, looks like I'm doing pretty good."

"I sense you are… Displeased."

"Oh, I'm gonna give you a new hole you absolute-"

"Sienna Khan!" The Chieftain bellowed suddenly, drawing both their metallic gazes to her standing a few feet away, hands on her hips while her daughter lingered in the background, holding her arm anxiously. "You can cut the crap right now or I'll have Jury-Rig turn you off!"

"I…" She cocked her head, "You can do that?"

"Yes?" He nodded, tapping an interface on his arm. "Easily?"

"Ah." She grunted, backing up a bit and letting his Creator stagger up, shaking his head and flicking his spines in a huff. "Well, fuck me, I guess. But fine, whatever."

"Good, you're calm." Kali decided to summarize all of that as, shaking her head and saying. "Get that thing put away, and quick. We need to have a meeting. Now."

"About?"

"A lot, Sienna." Kali sighed, "A lot."

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They found a good enough spot nearby, in the shadow of the Foundry where a spot of ground had been left clear between two larger structures. A leftover of the space left between the Dark Mountains from before the Foundry's time, bare but for a pair of struts that stretched down from a walkway far higher in the air. Shockwave leaned back against the corner between the two curved walls of the angled structures while Sienna leaned her mech against the struts, back to the otherwise open badlands and resting on its haunches while she sat on its knee. Blake sat on the other, turned so that Sienna could hold her synthetic hand, feeling its differences and scowling as the reality of everything settled in.

"So…" She growled, flicking Kali, who paced between them all, a look, "Taurus did this?"

"And died for it, too."

"Too swiftly, I believe." Kali turned a look on him, part pleading, part bemusement, and part dark agreement, and he shrugged simply. "After my intervention, we withdrew to my moon base-"

"Tides, you sound like a cartoon villain…" Sienna cut in, pinching the bridge of her nose and adjusting the hips of her body-suit with her other hand. "Jury-Rig!"

"Y-Yes?" He asked from his spot, further out in the badlands where he was pacing anxiously. "W-What is it?"

"We need better fitting suits." She grumbled, tugging at the stomach of the fitted material, too. She felt a headache coming on, and gods, this too-tight suit wasn't helping. In the mech, it was fine. Breathable and fitted to keep from obstructing instruments. Now, though?

Ugh, she felt like some sort of cartoon character…

"I'll… See what I can do?"

"Alright." She sighed, shaking her head, "Taurus is… A pity. I remember seeing him when he was younger, when he was up and coming. His skill, his drive… He could have been something, one day."

"Brilliance burns." Shockwave rumbled, fingers rolling, tapping at his knees as he spoke. "Whether it burns you up, burns you out, or propels you is always the question. The gamble."

"One we lost…" Kali murmured, "One Blake lost."

"Mom…" She murmured, looking down at her false hand for a moment before grimacing and sighing tiredly. Finally, she said, "I'm… Well, not fine, really. But I'm alive. It's as okay as it can be, now. We have bigger things to worry about."

"The Grimm…" Sienna nodded, "I heard about the attack on Menagerie. But Mistral? Vale?"

"Vale's was more concerted." Shockwave rumbled deeply, "Coordinated. Between the Grimm, Cybertronian mercenaries and others who pursued their own… Objectives. Including the death of the Headmaster of the Academy, in his office."

"A Grimm couldn't have done it?" Sienna asked, "No chance?"

"They pierced deeply enough, but not so far as to reach up to Beacon's apex." Shockwave shook his head, spines flicking agitatedly. "No. From our data, and the lack of Vale's revelation of the fact, I am doubtful that he fell to Grimm. He fell to an infiltrator."

"Like the ones you mentioned." Blake offered, "Before. When you were working on my… On me. You mentioned infiltrators attacking you before."

"A long time ago." He nodded, "Yes."

"After you abandoned us?"

"Sienna, I did not-" She shot him a glare and he sighed, inclined his head. "I abandoned no one. I feared… I feared my return would only inflame things. And that, in my state, I was dangerous to be near. After what happened- What I-"

"We know what you did, Shockwave." Sienna said, voice softer than she'd expected. Biting her cheek to keep the fire in her, she asked, "Just… Not why."

"I do not know why." He answered quietly, spikes flattening along his shoulder and around his head. "After Ghira was… After he… Even now, I do not understand my mindset. Only that I inflicted great harm due to it. And, for a time, acted quite… Illogically. That is, as I said, why I fled. For fear of my own instability."

"As if we can't protect ourselves…"

"Against me," he rumbled, "you cannot."

She opened her mouth to argue but the words died in her throat. He'd annihilated Atlas as if he were merely swatting a fly. So little effort, it made all their warring and tactics and planning and struggling looked pathetic. Childish flailing in the dark. Then, in just a few years, he'd forged such a weapon that it could annihilate more than a dozen Leviathan class Grimm in a matter of minutes. And, posed with the imagining of him losing his mind and turning on them…

What could they have even done?

What could they do now?

Still frighteningly little…

So, after a long moment, she sighed and whispered, "Fair enough."

"...Indeed." He rumbled, cocking his head before turning to Kali and going on. "To the matter at hand- Soundwave, my comrade who you encountered on my orbital station, also encountered assets in Beacon I myself came into conflict with. Assets directing the Grimm. This, I feel, is the most important facet of the situation."

"Someone controlling the Grimm." Kali nodded, running long fingers through her by now messy, tangled hair. "I was afraid you'd say that… What do we even do against that sort of thing?"

"We develop." He answered simply, gesturing at the base above, "I suggest we allow Soundwave to begin an espionage program here, on Menagerie, to weed out potential infiltrators."

"You want to spy on us?"

"I sense your anger, Sienna." He rumbled, though he nodded at her question, "But yes."

"How dare you finally come back, after years, and say that." She snarled, hands curling so tightly into fists that her knuckles ached and her claws threatened to come out. "We finally see you… And it's not one day before you're pushing us back down, back under your control."

"That is not my intent-"

"Why should I care about your-"

"Sienna!" Kali shouted, and when Sienna turned to her, the woman's face was flat. Hard. Angry, even. Quietly, but staring Sienna down to keep her from arguing, she said, "Shockwave, she's just upset. You leaving the way you did… Didn't leave anyone short of hurt. And now you're back, and with the situation, or, well, the situations at hand… Well, the stress is hard for even me to keep under control."

"Kali-"

"I am sorry." Shockwave cut her off, his voice… Quiet, almost distant. When she looked up at him, his optic had dimmed and he was avoiding her gaze. "I understand our anger. But… I knew you would be so when I left. And I am prepared to accept it, even if it does not fade."

"You… Knew?"

"I did."

"Then why leave at all?" Sienna asked, "Why go away?"

"To protect you." He answered, "As I said."

"That's bull-" She sighed, shook her head and said, "That wasn't your choice to make, Shockwave."

"I disagree." He answered simply, curtly even. "I accept that you disagree with my conclusion, and can accept that, too."

"Why?" Blake asked, "Why are you so… Accepting of all of this? You- Normal people would argue, defend themselves."

"What were you even thinking…?" Sienna added, "I just- Why are you so damn certain?"

"My actions were my own, by my own logic, and I knew the harm in them when I enacted them. Or shortly after. The difference is, largely, immaterial." He answered the young woman simply, before flicking Sienna a look and going on quietly, "My logic was simple, and irrefutable. I would rather those left who I care for hate me, but do so from safety, than risk their lives for my own comfort."

For a minute, they were all quiet…

Then Kali spoke up, chuckling as she did, "Shockwave… That's noble, but-"

"Fucking stupid." Sienna finished with a snort, pointing a clawed finger at him as his optic brightened and his spikes flicked unsurely. "Next time, you talk to us first, you… Absolute walking natural disaster."

"I…" His spines flicked, "What?"

"We'll explain when you're older." Kali sighed, shaking her head, "We're not letting you install spies, Shockwave. I'm sorry, but we will win this war without compromising who we are, at our core."

"That is… Dangerous."

"It is." Blake agreed quietly, shrinking in on herself a bit when the massive 'bot turned a red-eyed look on her, "B-But, um, well… If we have to give up who we are just to survive, did we really even survive at all?"

"You have been reading your father's writings." Shockwave rumbled quietly.

"You have, too." Sienna smiled, "To recognize them."

"Of course I did." He rumbled simply, "Very well. I will… Attempt to find other means to achieve our ends."

"Good." Kali nodded, "Now, why don't you give us an… Overview, on these 'infiltrators' you've fought."

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