mutantsgohome | RP WITH ME(ME)

The day begins with a thundering quake that ripples through the void.

It's enough of a disturbance to force Add away from his work, cursing along the way as he checks for damage to the lab and temple. Fortunately, nothing is too serious, but whatever the hell hit them had to be huge. Is it an attack on the temple? The Heavens as a whole? Has reality finally begun to tear itself apart??

He can barely get the door open when he finally reaches the temple entrance, but the explanation becomes clear within moments—a massive metal claw rests against the side of the temple. Attached to it is, of course, an equally massive metal arm, and a massive metal body, and...

Ah yes, of course. A giant dragon mecha. What else would it be?

Like any good and responsible god, Add immediately sets about... climbing ontop of this cool robot and looking for openings to start jamming tools into. He doesn't even take the time to get the damn claw out of the door.

The noise doesn’t escape Jakob, and Add will feel a very definite and intense feeling of agitation emanating from his shinki as Jakob sprints back home. He knows he’d promised not to think the worst of Add, but dammit, it’s things like a giant robot on the far horizon that’s making him reconsider these things!! Enough giant creatures have rampaged across the Heavens as it is!!

“Add! Where are you? Add!!!” Jakob yells as he stumbles onto the temple grounds and nearly running into the robot’s toe in his haste, a bag of groceries in hand. Can’t he even go shopping without some cataclysm happening in his absence anymore??

"Up here!" There's an arm waving excitedly somewhere up in that mountain of metal. Can Jakob even see him from down there? Who knows, there are more important matters to attend to— "I think I found the central core! It's huge! Imagine how much power this thing could generate! There's some damage to the torso but I think I can repair it... ahhh, if I could get it running again...!"

... he's probably still rambling away, but good luck hearing any of it across all that distance. Not that it would make much sense to Jakob. Add is already off in his own little world, imagining all the ~~dangerous~~ ~~destructive~~ fascinating uses he could put a giant robot to.

“Get down from there!”

Jakob’s already drawn one of his knives out, ready to fight the giant creature for his master’s safety.

So of course he doesn’t appreciate getting his thunder stolen when he catches a glance at Add waving at him from all the way up there. He squints up, thinking that of course Add did this all on purpose, so why listen to Jakob now.

…There’s really no other way to deal with this, is there?

With a huff, he sheathes his dagger, sets his groceries down, and rolls up his sleeves before he begins climbing the robot.

Predictably, Jakob's warning goes completely unheeded. At least Add isn't running off anytime soon? He's still prodding away whenever Jakob makes it up to the machine's chest, a faint and definitely-not-ominous glow flickering at the center of its core just a few feet away. It's more obvious up close that this thing was recently in battle—the massive scrapes and bullet holes scattered across its outer shell are still warm to the touch—and Add is already shoulder-deep in one of them, fiddling with the circuitry inside, his dynamos floating in a jittery arc around him. This is all kinds of not safe.

But he's an expert, so it's totally fine!! He (mostly) knows what he's doing!

"Jakob? Lunch is going to have to wait, I think I found the problem—" He pulls back for a second as something makes a loud crackling noise followed by a burst of smoke. He coughs into his free hand, waiting for the air to clear again. "Ugh. Anyway, I swear I'll get this all cleaned up. Amaterasu's goons will probably show up soon to stick their noses in everything, so I need you to keep them busy. I can't have those idiots damaging such a valuable specimen!"

At least Add’s easy enough to spot, although Jakob’s already dreading the prospect of having to pry his master from this giant hellthing that appeared out of nowhere. Add can’t possibly have built this thing right from under Jakob’s nose—that’s impossible even with his godly powers. And so Jakob can only assume that it was summoned, and that…troubles him.

But once he finally reaches Add, he opens his mouth to speak—only to immediately regret it once a puff of smoke slams him in the face, reducing him to a coughing fit for a few seconds and further cementing the fact that whatever Add’s doing right now is, indeed, A Bad Idea.

“Your problem, Add, is that I will have to withhold dinner as well until you banish this golem at once.”

"I'm not banishing it, there's no way!" Add whines, looking up with a petulant scowl. "And it's not a golem, it's a highly advanced Nasod defense unit! Something like this is one-of-a-kind! I can build a hangar for it, or we'll keep it above the temple, but I'm not just going to get rid of it like a piece of scrap! 'Banishing' is out of the question!"

He'd put his foot down, but he's still on his side and clinging to that smoking hole in case Jakob decides to try prying him away from it. A giant dragon robot doesn't fall from the sky every day, after all. If he passes up this opportunity who knows if he'll ever get another chance to analyze such a beautiful specimen?? This is clearly an act of fate! He must do it! He needs to study every inch of this machine...!

"It'll be our own personal anti-aircraft defense system! Wouldn't that be great?! We'll have the most secure temple in all of the Far Shore!" In his head this sounded way more convincing.

Right, it’s a golem then.

“And what would we need protecting from, I ask you?” Henir’s temple is already simultaneously the safest and most dangerous place in the Far Shore, after all. If anything, it’s the Heavens that need defense mechanisms against them.

But Jakob shakes his head, knowing that he isn’t going to like whatever Add’s answer to that is. It’s bad enough that he must try and safely bring Add down from here—he’d rather not go with the prying option, when Add has a perfectly decent set of dynamos to do the work for him.

“Ugh, never mind. At least you understand that the Heavens will not ignore this, hence it is in your best interest to remove it at once before they pin the responsibility on you.”

"Kukukuku, we wouldn't need protection from anything if we had a defense unit this capable! Even Rin couldn't hope to compare to such a massive unit." That doesn't even answer Jakob's question, but whatever, Add isn't fooling anyone here—he just wants to keep the cool robot. He decidedly takes Jakob's words and inaction as approval, sticking his head back into the hole of smoking machinery. "I doubt the Heavens will be able to do anything once it's flying again. So, sure, I'll 'remove' it for you, keke."

He's not messing around in there for long before something else happens, but this time the bright sparks are followed by a tremor. The giant metal dragon shudders, a mechanical whir sounding from some somewhere deep inside, the glow in its core growing stronger...

And then, nothing. Or so it seems.

Add allows a few more seconds to pass before standing up, frowning at the lack of movement. "Hmm, there was definitely a response that time... perhaps another part was damaged...?" He mumbles to himself as he climbs higher up the steel guardian, making his way up towards its head.

“I don’t like the sound of that at all!” And he means that for everything Add’s told him so far, with all intensity of feeling as he grips at the edge of that chest cavity while this monstrosity shudders, threatening to shake them both off.

Well…Add will probably be fine if the dynamos can get to him, or if he can summon Jakob’s vessel form in due time, but there’ll be no helping them if this thing topples over them afterward.

“Honestly, why can’t you content yourself with playing with those little golem toys the young humans from the Near Shore use?” He means action figures, or possibly gunplas, but the sentiment is the same either way. With a sigh, he starts climbing up after Add, because he’ll absolutely get funny ideas if Jakob isn’t around to make an attempt to dissuade him.

“After all, that’s all you’re doing in the end, isn’t it? Playing with these things?”

Wow, okay. That actually does get Add to stop for a second, shooting Jakob an irritated look. Comparing such an extravagant Nasod specimen to a... a toy?? ~~And not even the cool electronic kind that has light-up bits and moving parts and sound effect buttons?!?!~~

"What the hell do you take me for, a child?" Add huffs childishly, gripping one of his dynamos to hold his balance. "I am a highly-educated Nasod scientist, and this is research, not playing! I'm going to get this thing up and running and use it to strike absolute fear into our enemies! What part of that suggests to you that I'm here to 'play'?! I'm 23, Jakob!! I'm allowed to pursue my professional interests!"

Were the eyes on the robo-head behind him always glowing like that? Oh well, it's probably not important.

If it looks like a child and acts like a child…

But all Jakob does is give him the most unimpressed look.

“You are a terrible liar,” he says flatly as he pushes his way further inside this monstrous chest. If they’re going to have this discussion, then he might as well do so within the relative safety of a robotic cockpit, rather than dangling off of it like an unused Alien prop.

“And I doubt that there is anything useful that can be learned from—what was that?!” There’s a pneumatic hiss behind him as a hatch shuts over the robot’s open chest, trapping them both inside and plunging them into darkness.

"I am not," Add whines some more, sparks flying off him now, but he doesn't really have time to argue further when Jakob has the genius idea of jumping into the cockpit. Now he has to be angry for a new reason. "Hey, what do you think you're doing?! Don't touch anything, those are delicate instruments!!"

He abandons his position next to the head, sliding down to follow Jakob. His next step would be to throw his shinki out of there so he can study in peace, but— "H-hey! What the hell did you do?!"

With the door clamped shut behind them and Dynamo still hovering outside, Add lands ontop of Jakob instead. It's dark, but not impossible to see thanks to all the tiny lights and switches scattered around the control panel and the fact that Add is made of glowing spatiotemporal matter. He grumbles irritably, grasping around them for the control panel with one hand while the other is shoved at Jakob's chest... or maybe his face, he's not actually looking. Or caring.

"Ugh, good job idiot. With how busted this thing is, that hatch might not even open again! Would you at least stop touching things if you're going to insist on—"

He cuts his rant short, though, when he finally notices the growing thrum of machinery moving around them. Is it... turning on? The robot shudders again, metal creaking loudly from outside.

"... Huh. Well, the good news is it seems to be working now."

Well, a more optimistic man than Jakob could at least be glad that Add’s safely inside when all’s said and done. Not that Jakob can appreciate the view, since somebody’s hand has to get rudely shoved in his face like that!

“The one time you manage to blurt out sensible advice—” Jakob cuts in at mid-rant, but the realization that Add’s not stopping precisely to let him speak also gets him to drop his reply as this monstrosity begins moving.

He gasps, quickly grabbing hold of the headrest as he glares at Add in the relative darkness.

“Augh, never mind, then! I told you to get rid of this thing at once! Now there’s no telling what havoc it might unleash!”

Add is fiddling with the controls, looking for something that might be an on switch or a light or anything that might help them. He manages to get some more tiny lights on and a few panels start softly beeping, but that's about it so far. Hopefully none of those switches will screw them over later somehow.

"Calm down, you're probably worried over nothing." Probably. God he hopes that sounds convincing. "It's a defensive unit, so it's not going to start attacking people for no reason. This should still be unfamiliar territory, so it'll probably just wander around looking for it's assigned location. Since that place is in another dimension, we have plenty of time to regain control."

... assuming, of course, that no one panics and tries to attack it. Or that all the existing battle-damage he didn't get a chance to repair doesn't cause it to crash. Or explode. Or that it doesn't have the equipment installed to attempt dimension travel, which would most definitely kill both of them instantly...

The fact that Add's being so quiet right now should probably be tipping Jakob off, but he's just going to keep pretending everything's fine anyway and hope that they both don't die in a really stupid way. He clears his throat loudly, twisting a few more dials at random.

"Anyway... if you're going to be in here, you might as well make yourself useful. Go check the other side for compartments. Maybe there's a manual." Even giant dragon mechas need a glovebox, right?

Plenty of time to ravage the entirety of the Far Shore, you mean, Jakob thinks—but blessedly doesn’t ask, although Add might not be able to escape the flood of emotion behind that sentiment. And despite having fought battles in ships before, he feels a little sick as this mechanical monstrosity continues to stomp across the scenery.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and tries not to let what might’ve been some muffled screams from outside get to him. It’s fine. They’ll be fine.

It’s fine.

“What were you tinkering about with earlier anyway?” Jakob decides to say instead as he rummages in the compartments as instructed. The silence does worry him, but even he knows that yelling at Add won’t really stop this thing. He has to be the adult here now, the twenty-three-year-old spatiotemporal god of chaos be damned, and he’s going to do his job properly no matter what!

It's probably just the old machinery creaking! They wouldn't be able to hear screaming from inside of here anyway, right? So that can't be it...!

Add is halfway through the panel in front of him when he finally hits the lights, a soft blue glow filling the cockpit. Progress! He can do this!! He takes a deep breath of his own, looking over the buttons again now that he can see what he's doing. Most of them aren't labelled very clearly, but...

"There was some battle damage, so I was trying to repair it. I assumed it was shut down by the excessive damage, but perhaps it was only disabled temporarily..." It makes sense in retrospect, considering the pristine condition of the core. Something might've just caused it to reboot. "Whatever the case, some of its features may still be disabled. The arms in particular looked like they'd taken quite a beating. Let's hope the particle cannons are offline, too."

He hits a few more buttons, but nothing seems to be happening yet... until he notices a small blinking light at back corner of the panel. Add leans forward to press it and the space around them is instantly flooded with light, several dozen holoscreens opening all at once. They just needed to turn the holoprojectors on, apparently. Most of the screens are fairly useless, but there is a big one at the front with what looks to be the main external view from the mech's perspective.

They're not ravaging the countryside yet, but uh, it's probably a good thing they had that abandonned temple next door. It now more closely resembles a pancake. Add cringes.

"... What other temples are next to ours again?"

“It should have stayed damaged,” Jakob mutters, but without the usual venom behind his words. The lights coming on had made it a little easier for him to search in his corner of the cockpit, and thusly improved his mood, if only slightly.

He’s trying not to think of the possible implications of all these screens and panels lighting up around him as he listens to Add punch away at all the damn buttons in the cockpit. As he gropes about for a latch or a handle or something—being far too afraid to outright push any buttons in case those cannons Add mentioned were fully functional after all—he stops whatever he’s doing and looks up, giving Add a flat look.

“You had better steer this thing clear of the Metis and Freyr temples.” That’s where Zelda and Roxas are, after all. But everything else can totally go the pancake route—he’s more worried about what the Heavens might do to Add once this is all sorted out, anyway.

"R-right, right. Obviously." He doesn't even want to think about what Zelda would do to him if he crushed her temple with a robot. Steering, though—that's a good idea. He starts looking down at the various levers and pedals near the front of the controls. "One of these should do it, so..."

He picks a lever and gives it a tug. The giant mech finally stops... and a weird mechanical hum starts to build somewhere behind their position. A new notification pops up next to their lovely view of the Takamagahara countryside:

PREPARING LAUNCH
PROPULSION SETTINGS: 100%

"Uhh." That's... not the steering. "I'll just turn that one back off—" but he doesn't get a chance to before the mech suddenly rockets straight into the air, knocking him back into Jakob from the sudden shift in momentum. Their path of destruction on the ground ends in a giant flaming crater. Above them, the machine lets out a deafening roar.

Well. At least they know the flight propulsion system still works? And will hopefully continue to work until they can get back down...

Jakob yelps at the sudden halt, but he manages to catch himself in time—at least until the mecha launches itself into the stratosphere—

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” At this speed and without any seatbelts or other safety devices on Jakob’s quick to lock his arms around Add while bracing himself against the nearest lever, hoping that he won’t be triggering anything important. His back hurts where it digs into some pointy, uncomfortable part of the hatch and his skull is still ringing from the sudden shifts in momentum banging them around inside this hulking monster.

Dammit, Add, when he said to steer it away from the temples where the people he actually cared about lived at, he hadn’t meant like this.

“Ugh, never mind! Stay still while I heal your injuries!!”

Add immediately begins struggling, because of course he does, even if Jakob is actually being quite helpful by keeping them rooted. After a little while a bright red WARNING sign starts flashing in the corner along with some smaller text, probably because they're flying this thing straight up into the air with no regard for anyone's safety. Their only view of the outside is a jumbled blur of ground and sky. They might be spinning? It's hard to tell.

"I'm fine, stop— let me get at the controls! Do you want to die here?!" At least he has a reason to be difficult this time. He flails in the direction of the main control panel, trying to grab onto the back of the seat to maybe drag both of them over there. "If that's the flight controls then the steering must be close by! I can at least slow the acceleration!"

Is there an upper limit to the Far Shore's atmosphere? What would happen if they hit the 'top'? As fascinating as that question might be, Add isn't too keen on testing it by ramming a giant uncontrollable robot into it.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Jakob snaps, knowing fully well what the answer to that question is as he stubbornly hangs on. The flashing warning sign can’t be good, but neither is anything about this situation, and that’s why Jakob’s hanging tight.

It’s a terrible thing when you realize that Add still has a better handle on the situation than you do. Regardless, his eyes dart around the cockpit, seeking out some manner of escape somewhere amid all this rattling and flashing lights and alarming noises and he really, really wishes things would quiet down for a moment and…

His eyes widen. That’s it.

“Open up a portal.”

"I know more than you do!!" AKA look, he knows a lot about Nasods but he's not gonna pretend he has any idea how to pilot this deathtrap. He's trying his best! He found some controls, that has to count for something!!

Add is still trying to squirm his way free, though Jakob's next words do make him pause. He shoots his shinki an incredulous look. "Seriously?! You think abandoning an out-of-control defense unit is plan A? First of all, if it crashed or got lost that would be a total waste of a perfectly good Nasod specimen! Secondly, what do you think's going to happen if we leave it here, it doesn't have infinite fuel sources! It could crash-land on our temple! Third—"

Another rant is cut off by a loud click as they both slip down a little. Between Jakob's clinging for dear life and Add's stubborn flailing, they finally managed to yank down that lever. There's another hiss and a creak of grinding metal and turning gears, the holoscreens at the front of the cockpit parting as a sliver of light cuts through the dark interior...

... yeah, so, turns out the hatch does still work, it was just kind of stuck. And now they're several thousand feet up in the air with the door open, a dozen different safety warnings are flashing all around them, and no one has their seatbelts on.

Add stops flailing and grabs onto Jakob, the roar of wind almost enough to drown out his voice even at this range. "Pull it back up!"

Jakob is still clinging to that lever, because fuck if he’s got any other lifelines right now. Although the damn thing might snap if they keep this up for much longer.

But right now he isn’t thinking about that. Right now he’s thinking about that awful lurching feeling like he’d been yanked out of his own skin, and that feeling had yet to subside—indeed it had grown even worse the moment that hatch opened, at literally the worst fucking time, because of course it did!!!

“I’m—I’m trying!” he screams above the dim of alarms, feeling his jaw rattling in his skull as he says it. The fact that Add’s finally stilled and grabbed a hold of him like he should’ve ages ago is of small comfort to Jakob, who feels as though he might be yanked out of there and into that flashing, roaring darkness—wherever this is.

His grip on the lever is steely, but given the awkwardness of his position vis-à-vis the damned contraption as well as the fact that he’s clinging to Add tightly with his other arm means that his progress will be slow, and will look for all the world like he’s dancing at a rave. A midnight robot rave of death in the midst of an extra-atmospheric techno-beat acid trip with an extra heaping helping of blaring sirens.

And maybe it’s the jerk of the cockpit as the hatch opens or maybe it’s because Jakob’s too distracted to really make sense of things anymore, but when he finally flips that damn switch Add will find himself engulfed with an overwhelming feeling of relief through their emphatic link…

Only for it to be cut short the moment an airbag pops out of somewhere nearby to slam them further back into the cockpit.

It's relief in 3D when that hatch seals itself back up, Add slumping into his shinki's ironclad hold. In reality that whole ordeal only lasted a few seconds, but at least it's finally over...

Part of it, anyway, as he's reminded when the airbags decide to go off. Right, they're still stuck in an out-of-control mech. That part hasn't changed yet. He groans irritably, punching at the stupid airbag (why does a giant flying robot even have airbags?!) to try and fight his way back to the controls again. This isn't over yet! They can still regain control...!!

The alarms finally stop blaring, a new flashing message filling the main display as the holoscreens re-materialize at the front of the cockpit:

PILOT INCAPACITATED
REACTIVATING AUTOPILOT MODE

... and just like that, the wild spinning and accelerating stops. They're still flying and no more in control than they started, but at least someone here knows how to steer a mech properly (even if that someone is the mech). Add sighs, giving up and slouching into their airbag prison.

"Maybe teleporting out isn't such a bad idea after all. It'll probably sort itself out eventually... we'll just pick it out of whatever rubble it ends up causing and say we had nothing to do with it."

RIP TFS but shenanigans live on forever

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