"Young mistress, I must protest this course of action with the most strenuous of tones," Henderson noted, his modulated voice nonetheless possessing the same British disapproval of her late caretaker. The AI had been a condition of the field test being approved, and while he had a tendency to dote on her, Biiko knew she was pushing the rules that'd been laid down just a little this time.
Not that it mattered to her.
"I was told that I could test it out in real field conditions. I'm getting my hero's license next month. This is field conditions," the teenager declared, waving one gauntlet at the surrounding, mostly deserted upper tier of Skyway's roads. "And I picked this route to avoid heavy traffic or buildings too, so it's fine."
"As impeccable as your reasoning is, your margin for error on whether your mother will accept that explanation is rather slight, young mistress. Your license paperwork has yet to clear, and I suspect a major incident will most definitely result in her not signing the final approval. Especially if the truant officers spot you."
Despite herself, Biiko smiled behind her faceplate as she ran final system checks on her sensor systems, flight path, and environmental seals. "You're behind the times, Henderson. They haven't had truancy officers in decades," she said, before booting up the thrusters and taking off, the purple and silver armor gleaming in the sun as she came out from under the overhang. Truly, it was a glorious day. She was almost ready to get her hero license and be able to go out on the streets herself, just like her parents, and on the first day of school, she could show off the armor she'd personally built with no outside help at all. The fact it was advanced even by Paragon's local standards was just the icing on the cake. And if they'd goggled at her taking the family limousine to school, just wait till they got a load of thi-
WARNING! INBOUND OBJECT APPROACHING AT HIGH SPEED. RADAR SIGNATURE MINIMAL. SPEED INCREASING TO PURSUIT VELOCITY. LACK OF RADAR SIGNATURE INDICATES HEAT-SEEKING MISSILE OR LIGHT MOBILE ARMORED COMBAT MACHINE. EVADE IMMEDIATELY.
Biiko blinked and barrel rolled to the left as a red and white streak pulled through where she'd just been flying, before her exterior cameras adjusted to proper shutter speed and compensated for the speed at which they were both traveling.
"Hiya, Biiko!" Eiko beamed, running alongside her in nothing more than her favorite white school blouse and blue skirt, her red hair streaming backwards in the slipstream. "Finally got that tin can working, huh?"
"I did indeed, Eiko. With this suit, I can keep up with you in every way," Biiko smirked back. She couldn't help but gloat a little. Eiko'd been physically superior to her in every possible way as long as she could remember, but this time she was sure she'd closed the gap. Sure, she couldn't bend steel bars with her bare hands, but that's what technology was for. Papa had always told her that that was why she should just smile and nod whenever Mr. Knight went on about the merits of physical training and absolute potential. And why she'd never been allowed tear a strip off him for his unintentional belittling of anyone who wasn't gifted that way. Which was why Biiko had always been content to come up second best to Eiko in physical competition; the red haired girl had always had to come to her when test time came for tutoring. But the ability to use that to surpass Eiko in her own arena was just icing on the cake.
"Oh really? Let's see it then," Eiko grinned, before Biiko's radar registered her beginning to increase in velocity as she pulled away. "Last one to school's a rotten egg!"
"Young mistress, I know what you're thinking, but you musn't do what you're about to do! Think of what your mother would think! You'll be grounded for at least a month! All that paperwork you'll have to re-file!" Henderson pleaded, as Biiko's eyebrow twitched and her grin spread a little wider.
"Sorry, Henderson, but in this case, to knock that smug little smile off Eiko's face, it's worth the grounding. Hyper-jets, online!"
HYPER-JETS, ACTIVATED. WARNING, MANEUVERING IS HIGHLY LIMITED AT THIS VELOCITY. ENGAGING CRASH SHIELD.
Pylons extended from behind her shoulders as the quad-ion engine array came online, blue-white exhaust trailing behind her in a shimmer of hyper-accelerated particles, while her airspeed monitor hit three digits and kept climbing. "You've always beaten me to school, Eiko, but NOT TODAY!"
***
Old Tom had long since passed his days as a fearsome Clockwork Prince, leading the Mad King's court in their assault on ferrous materials of questionable ownership in Skyway City. These days, the joints were a little creakier than they had been, and the voices in his head were a little quieter. Most of the time, he was content to scavenge out of the wreckage of the latest Babbage that had gone on a rampage for spare parts, and listen to a little jazz band that performed out by the park. He'd even picked up a rather beaten up old hat that had allowed most of the older heroes to recognize he wasn't one of the Clockwork out for blood and bolts. Truth be told, for a construct that existed primarily due to the King's tendency to woolgather in his off-minutes, Old Tom thought he had a pretty good life.
He was just creaking his way across the street, knowing the upper half of Skyway was all but deserted this early of the crazy drivers that infested it during rush hour. Thus, one could forgive him for not noticing the tell-tale sonic boom in the distance and discerning its meaning, or note the car alarms steadily getting closer. In fact, Old Tom really didn't even notice the first near miss, though he did wonder why the world had suddenly turned from an array of shapes and colors into zig-zagging smears moving at high velocity.
However, he did notice the second impact, mostly because the purple and silver shape didn't quite bank in time and instead punched through him like a bullet through a soap bubble with a tremendous crash, sending Old Tom's head bouncing and skittering halfway across Skyway like a rusty pinball. Eventually it came to a stop, his old, beaten up hat rolling to a halt beside him. With a groaning of metal like a sigh, the head sprouted a pair of mismatched arms and legs, grabbed the hat and stuck it back on, before shaking its tiny fist impotently at the upper level of the street and getting on with locating the latest Babbage wreckage to start scavenging a new body from.
***
Biiko mentally egged her engines on, hoping for every last G of acceleration she could manage as the distance between herself and Eiko closed. She was steadily gaining on her, but her HUD display showed the nav beacon of the school getting dangerously close. Around the next turn was the final straightaway, at which point it'd be a test of who had the most raw linear acceleration. Truthfully, Biiko was fairly confident that she outdid Eiko there, even if her friend might be slightly stronger than her even with the suit. Despite the uncertainty, she allowed herself a smile of victory as they tore around the corner, several cars swaying onto two wheels for a moment in the shockwave as a handful of Skulls were flung through a plate glass window from where they'd been working on breaking into a shiny new red convertible. The distance indicator in her HUD slowly fell as she watched Eiko get closer...and closer...and closer....
"HA! Victory!" she crowed as she shot past the redhead, continuing to make headway as Eiko panted, clearly at her own exceptional limits. "Today is the day, Eiko! The day you are defeated for the glory of Biik-"
"Young mistress?" Henderson broke in, snapping Biiko out of her declaration.
"What is it, Henderson?" she growled.
"Had you planned on how you were going to stop in time?"
"....stop?" she blinked, before she looked up and her computer ran the numbers she'd already calculated in her head. Between her present velocity and the closing distance between herself and the front gate....
"Oh, shit."
***
"Honestly, you two!" Miss Ayumi said, pacing back and forth in full Disapproving Teacher mode. "Having to cancel school on account of insufficient facilities on the first day!" she said, pointing back at the large hole that looked like a slug the size of a bullet train had been fired through the school building....and the next three office buildings in line. "A little friendly competition is one thing, but I would think that by now you two would have learned to be more responsible!"
Eiko winced as Miss Ayumi glared at her. "And to tell the truth, even if I expect these kinds of things from Miss Romanova, I would've hoped you'd been taught better, Miss Stingray!" she frowned, before looking up as a loud roar set off a few car alarms that'd just finally calmed down after the sonic booms died off, a humongous beast of a motorcycle coming around the corner and pulling to a stop. "....on the other hand, perhaps not," Miss Ayumi finished, before sighing and walking over towards the vehicle.
Eiko and Biiko couldn't hear the conversation, but judging from Miss Ayumi's growing red tinge as she talked with the woman in the red helmet with a reflective black visor, she wasn't getting the kind of reaction she was hoping for. After a while, the teacher walked off in a bit of a huff, as the rider stepped off her bike and walked over to them. Biiko inwardly cringed as the rider took off the helmet, shaking out her dark mane of brown hair and looking over the two with something like a disapproving grimace. "So....was this little race worth all this?" Priss asked. "The buildings can be rebuilt, but..."
"With your pardon, Mistress Priscilla," Henderson piped up from Biiko's watch, earning a faint grimace from the older woman as he used her proper name. "But there were no casualties."
"None, Henderson? How exactly is that?" she asked, suspicious.
"Why, because there was an unanticipated fire drill in the surrounding buildings shortly before impact. The young mistress was rather impulsive, but unlike some I could name, she did compensate for her impulsive behavior to keep it from causing any harm to others aside from some...slight financial discomfort, which I'm certain her allowance will cover."
Biiko blinked, as Eiko looked over at her wide-eyed. Both of them knew the young Stingray had been far too engrossed in her competition to consider something so forward thinking. The only one that had had access to her comm. suite that could've done it was...
Priss looked at the watch, before glancing back over at her daughter and shaking her head, a wry grin slipping onto her features. "Alright. You've got a point, Henderson. And besides, a good race is worth a little trouble every now and then....who won, by the way?"
"Uh, I did, mama," Biiko blinked, looking up at her.
"How close was it?" Priss wondered.
"I won by a full length," Biiko noted, feeling slightly more smug as Eiko simply pouted at her friend's back.
"That's my girl," Priss chuckled, ruffling her hair.
"Just you wait, Biiko. I'll beat you next time!" Eiko declared.
Biiko grinned as Priss laughed. "I'm sure you'll give her a run for her money, kid. But next time, you two can go racing in the Reclamation Zone where there aren't any buildings people mind if you crash through. C'mon, you two. I hear school's out on account of short-notice remodeling. Let's go pick up some ice cream and then we can talk with your papa about how many months it'll be until you get allowance again to pay for all of this," Priss chuckled, Biiko sighing as Eiko giggled, the three walking towards Priss's bike.
Thanks Henderson, Biiko said through her internal link to her watch as she climbed on the motorcycle behind her mother
I'm here to look after you, young mistress. It's my duty, the AI replied in a tone that called up the image of his avatar's old appearance smiling with a twinkle in his eye.
Still, thank you, she said again with a slight smile as Eiko started jogging alongside them while Priss rumbled their way through the streets again.
Of course, young mistress.
***
Author's Note: The end result of my and Spud watching his belated birthday gift last night, and my noting several...significant parallels. Neither of these two are rolled up....yet.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Not that it mattered to her.
"I was told that I could test it out in real field conditions. I'm getting my hero's license next month. This is field conditions," the teenager declared, waving one gauntlet at the surrounding, mostly deserted upper tier of Skyway's roads. "And I picked this route to avoid heavy traffic or buildings too, so it's fine."
"As impeccable as your reasoning is, your margin for error on whether your mother will accept that explanation is rather slight, young mistress. Your license paperwork has yet to clear, and I suspect a major incident will most definitely result in her not signing the final approval. Especially if the truant officers spot you."
Despite herself, Biiko smiled behind her faceplate as she ran final system checks on her sensor systems, flight path, and environmental seals. "You're behind the times, Henderson. They haven't had truancy officers in decades," she said, before booting up the thrusters and taking off, the purple and silver armor gleaming in the sun as she came out from under the overhang. Truly, it was a glorious day. She was almost ready to get her hero license and be able to go out on the streets herself, just like her parents, and on the first day of school, she could show off the armor she'd personally built with no outside help at all. The fact it was advanced even by Paragon's local standards was just the icing on the cake. And if they'd goggled at her taking the family limousine to school, just wait till they got a load of thi-
WARNING! INBOUND OBJECT APPROACHING AT HIGH SPEED. RADAR SIGNATURE MINIMAL. SPEED INCREASING TO PURSUIT VELOCITY. LACK OF RADAR SIGNATURE INDICATES HEAT-SEEKING MISSILE OR LIGHT MOBILE ARMORED COMBAT MACHINE. EVADE IMMEDIATELY.
Biiko blinked and barrel rolled to the left as a red and white streak pulled through where she'd just been flying, before her exterior cameras adjusted to proper shutter speed and compensated for the speed at which they were both traveling.
"Hiya, Biiko!" Eiko beamed, running alongside her in nothing more than her favorite white school blouse and blue skirt, her red hair streaming backwards in the slipstream. "Finally got that tin can working, huh?"
"I did indeed, Eiko. With this suit, I can keep up with you in every way," Biiko smirked back. She couldn't help but gloat a little. Eiko'd been physically superior to her in every possible way as long as she could remember, but this time she was sure she'd closed the gap. Sure, she couldn't bend steel bars with her bare hands, but that's what technology was for. Papa had always told her that that was why she should just smile and nod whenever Mr. Knight went on about the merits of physical training and absolute potential. And why she'd never been allowed tear a strip off him for his unintentional belittling of anyone who wasn't gifted that way. Which was why Biiko had always been content to come up second best to Eiko in physical competition; the red haired girl had always had to come to her when test time came for tutoring. But the ability to use that to surpass Eiko in her own arena was just icing on the cake.
"Oh really? Let's see it then," Eiko grinned, before Biiko's radar registered her beginning to increase in velocity as she pulled away. "Last one to school's a rotten egg!"
"Young mistress, I know what you're thinking, but you musn't do what you're about to do! Think of what your mother would think! You'll be grounded for at least a month! All that paperwork you'll have to re-file!" Henderson pleaded, as Biiko's eyebrow twitched and her grin spread a little wider.
"Sorry, Henderson, but in this case, to knock that smug little smile off Eiko's face, it's worth the grounding. Hyper-jets, online!"
HYPER-JETS, ACTIVATED. WARNING, MANEUVERING IS HIGHLY LIMITED AT THIS VELOCITY. ENGAGING CRASH SHIELD.
Pylons extended from behind her shoulders as the quad-ion engine array came online, blue-white exhaust trailing behind her in a shimmer of hyper-accelerated particles, while her airspeed monitor hit three digits and kept climbing. "You've always beaten me to school, Eiko, but NOT TODAY!"
***
Old Tom had long since passed his days as a fearsome Clockwork Prince, leading the Mad King's court in their assault on ferrous materials of questionable ownership in Skyway City. These days, the joints were a little creakier than they had been, and the voices in his head were a little quieter. Most of the time, he was content to scavenge out of the wreckage of the latest Babbage that had gone on a rampage for spare parts, and listen to a little jazz band that performed out by the park. He'd even picked up a rather beaten up old hat that had allowed most of the older heroes to recognize he wasn't one of the Clockwork out for blood and bolts. Truth be told, for a construct that existed primarily due to the King's tendency to woolgather in his off-minutes, Old Tom thought he had a pretty good life.
He was just creaking his way across the street, knowing the upper half of Skyway was all but deserted this early of the crazy drivers that infested it during rush hour. Thus, one could forgive him for not noticing the tell-tale sonic boom in the distance and discerning its meaning, or note the car alarms steadily getting closer. In fact, Old Tom really didn't even notice the first near miss, though he did wonder why the world had suddenly turned from an array of shapes and colors into zig-zagging smears moving at high velocity.
However, he did notice the second impact, mostly because the purple and silver shape didn't quite bank in time and instead punched through him like a bullet through a soap bubble with a tremendous crash, sending Old Tom's head bouncing and skittering halfway across Skyway like a rusty pinball. Eventually it came to a stop, his old, beaten up hat rolling to a halt beside him. With a groaning of metal like a sigh, the head sprouted a pair of mismatched arms and legs, grabbed the hat and stuck it back on, before shaking its tiny fist impotently at the upper level of the street and getting on with locating the latest Babbage wreckage to start scavenging a new body from.
***
Biiko mentally egged her engines on, hoping for every last G of acceleration she could manage as the distance between herself and Eiko closed. She was steadily gaining on her, but her HUD display showed the nav beacon of the school getting dangerously close. Around the next turn was the final straightaway, at which point it'd be a test of who had the most raw linear acceleration. Truthfully, Biiko was fairly confident that she outdid Eiko there, even if her friend might be slightly stronger than her even with the suit. Despite the uncertainty, she allowed herself a smile of victory as they tore around the corner, several cars swaying onto two wheels for a moment in the shockwave as a handful of Skulls were flung through a plate glass window from where they'd been working on breaking into a shiny new red convertible. The distance indicator in her HUD slowly fell as she watched Eiko get closer...and closer...and closer....
"HA! Victory!" she crowed as she shot past the redhead, continuing to make headway as Eiko panted, clearly at her own exceptional limits. "Today is the day, Eiko! The day you are defeated for the glory of Biik-"
"Young mistress?" Henderson broke in, snapping Biiko out of her declaration.
"What is it, Henderson?" she growled.
"Had you planned on how you were going to stop in time?"
"....stop?" she blinked, before she looked up and her computer ran the numbers she'd already calculated in her head. Between her present velocity and the closing distance between herself and the front gate....
"Oh, shit."
***
"Honestly, you two!" Miss Ayumi said, pacing back and forth in full Disapproving Teacher mode. "Having to cancel school on account of insufficient facilities on the first day!" she said, pointing back at the large hole that looked like a slug the size of a bullet train had been fired through the school building....and the next three office buildings in line. "A little friendly competition is one thing, but I would think that by now you two would have learned to be more responsible!"
Eiko winced as Miss Ayumi glared at her. "And to tell the truth, even if I expect these kinds of things from Miss Romanova, I would've hoped you'd been taught better, Miss Stingray!" she frowned, before looking up as a loud roar set off a few car alarms that'd just finally calmed down after the sonic booms died off, a humongous beast of a motorcycle coming around the corner and pulling to a stop. "....on the other hand, perhaps not," Miss Ayumi finished, before sighing and walking over towards the vehicle.
Eiko and Biiko couldn't hear the conversation, but judging from Miss Ayumi's growing red tinge as she talked with the woman in the red helmet with a reflective black visor, she wasn't getting the kind of reaction she was hoping for. After a while, the teacher walked off in a bit of a huff, as the rider stepped off her bike and walked over to them. Biiko inwardly cringed as the rider took off the helmet, shaking out her dark mane of brown hair and looking over the two with something like a disapproving grimace. "So....was this little race worth all this?" Priss asked. "The buildings can be rebuilt, but..."
"With your pardon, Mistress Priscilla," Henderson piped up from Biiko's watch, earning a faint grimace from the older woman as he used her proper name. "But there were no casualties."
"None, Henderson? How exactly is that?" she asked, suspicious.
"Why, because there was an unanticipated fire drill in the surrounding buildings shortly before impact. The young mistress was rather impulsive, but unlike some I could name, she did compensate for her impulsive behavior to keep it from causing any harm to others aside from some...slight financial discomfort, which I'm certain her allowance will cover."
Biiko blinked, as Eiko looked over at her wide-eyed. Both of them knew the young Stingray had been far too engrossed in her competition to consider something so forward thinking. The only one that had had access to her comm. suite that could've done it was...
Priss looked at the watch, before glancing back over at her daughter and shaking her head, a wry grin slipping onto her features. "Alright. You've got a point, Henderson. And besides, a good race is worth a little trouble every now and then....who won, by the way?"
"Uh, I did, mama," Biiko blinked, looking up at her.
"How close was it?" Priss wondered.
"I won by a full length," Biiko noted, feeling slightly more smug as Eiko simply pouted at her friend's back.
"That's my girl," Priss chuckled, ruffling her hair.
"Just you wait, Biiko. I'll beat you next time!" Eiko declared.
Biiko grinned as Priss laughed. "I'm sure you'll give her a run for her money, kid. But next time, you two can go racing in the Reclamation Zone where there aren't any buildings people mind if you crash through. C'mon, you two. I hear school's out on account of short-notice remodeling. Let's go pick up some ice cream and then we can talk with your papa about how many months it'll be until you get allowance again to pay for all of this," Priss chuckled, Biiko sighing as Eiko giggled, the three walking towards Priss's bike.
Thanks Henderson, Biiko said through her internal link to her watch as she climbed on the motorcycle behind her mother
I'm here to look after you, young mistress. It's my duty, the AI replied in a tone that called up the image of his avatar's old appearance smiling with a twinkle in his eye.
Still, thank you, she said again with a slight smile as Eiko started jogging alongside them while Priss rumbled their way through the streets again.
Of course, young mistress.
***
Author's Note: The end result of my and Spud watching his belated birthday gift last night, and my noting several...significant parallels. Neither of these two are rolled up....yet.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
