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Ascension Of The Ashen Fiend: Chapter 4 First Step
🕑 Added 2022-08-18 02:08:22 +0000 UTCThane felt something wet drip down his ear a second after he was blinded by the EMP, reaching up as he opened his eyes. Thane looked at his wetted fingers to see blood, "What the fuck? I was only joking about that suicide thing. It shouldn't have exploded."
Propping himself up, Thane looked around the warehouse. Nothing had changed besides the scorched patch of stone around the remnants of the EMP. Looking behind him, Thane could see Victor and his bodyguard rolling on the ground holding their eyes with blood coming out of their ears.
Standing up, Thane felt woozy, and the sound of his footsteps was muffled as if he was underwater, 'Dammit, not my eardrums again, great, I won't be able to hear for a few days at least.'
Pushing aside his annoyance, Thane stumbled over to the power armor, hoping that his reckless attempt had resulted in something. Wandering over to the armor, Thane paused as he stared into the now glowing eye sockets.
"I can't believe that worked," Thane was stunned for a moment before he quickly tried to pull up his PRD, only for nothing to happen, "Oh, that's right, all electronics, then why is the armor online? Was it deactivated for transport purposes, and the EMP caused a hard reset."
Thane was lost in his thoughts until he felt a pair of hands grab him by the shoulders and spin him around, "What the fuck did you do!" Victor was staring down at Thane with hate radiating off his body, but some of the effect was lost as Thane had trouble making out the crime lord.
"I didn't mean for the light show to happen. I think I miscalculated the output to-capacity ratio and fried the batteries. But that's beside the point. I got your stupid power armor working." Victor seemed ready to punch Thane until he looked up and caught sight of the power armor's glowing eyes.
The priceless look on the crime lord's face almost made Thane forget about his current state when there was an electronic chirping directly in his ear. What was supposed to be a gentle reminder that his PRD was back online now sent a sharp lance of pain up the base of Thane's skull as his injured ears wailed at the abuse?
'Okay, I'm going to have to disable sound later, but for now..' Thane's thoughts trailed off as he quickly connected his PRD to the powerful Leyline signal coming from the armor.
Immediately his vision was flooded with system notifications from the armor, each seemingly listing a thousand minor and significant issues that needed to be fixed, "Fuck, that's going to take a bit to fix. Where the hell did you get this thing, Victor? Half of its circuits are fried."
"Maybe the goddamn bomb that you set off a few minutes ago did it." Victor said in a monotone, "It doesn't matter. Can you get it working?"
Thane looked from the armor to the screens floating in front of him, "Most likely, yes, but it's going to take a while. Hopefully, while I'm doing that, I can figure out why an Arbiter can only wear this thing."
Victor raised his eyebrow, "I would have thought by now, you'd at least have a theory."
Thane nodded, "I do, but I need to confirm it. If I'm right, however, this should be easier than I thought."
"How long do you need?" Victor asked as he finished smoothing out his ruffled jacket, "I'm guessing the entire month, I'm looking at some of the parts I need, and it's going to be a hassle getting onto them. But I'm sure your people can handle it."
Victor stared at Thane for a long time as if searching for something. When he couldn't find what he was looking for, the crime lord turned on his heel, "I'll do what I can, but don't forget you work for me, Thane. It would be best to watch your mouth around me."
Taking the threat in stride, Thane kept his mouth shut for once, instead focusing on the slew of screens that needed his attention.
---
[Bastion Seventh Ring: District 5]
Juliet sat on the edge of her bed, staring at an online auction site for various mechanical parts. She had several ongoing auctions pinned as she kept tabs on the current bid. The first thing Juliet did upon arriving was contact every significant manufacturing company that could supply the necessary parts to repair a set of power armor.
After using the authority of the DOB, it wasn't hard to convince them to keep track of certain items and where they went. Every day Juliet would get a ping from each company about what had been sold and to who.
Juliet had been there for a week, and she hadn't had many leads as the specific parts required for power armor were expensive and didn't have many uses otherwise. Juliet froze when all of a sudden, each auction ended as each piece was bought out instantly.
Latching onto the sudden change, Juliet pressed her temple, where the PRD module was installed under a piece of synthetic skin. Closing her eyes, Juliet focused as the familiar energy of the aether began to wash over her.
It wasn't long before Juliet's energy began to merge with her PRD, synchronizing with its Leyline signal. From there, her consciousness bounced from Leyline to Leyline. First, finding the server where the site was based on the PRD belonging to the same account that had bought all the pieces.
Straining to push herself further, Juliet could find a security camera nearby, and tapping into its feed, she could see a housing megacomplex.
With her job done, Juliet pulled back her consciousness into her body with a gasp, 'found you.' Making sure she memorized the signal of the PRD that she found before searching for the locations of the nearest housing complex.
When she had them pulled up, Juliet stood up from her bed and grabbed some street clothes. There were three complexes in the range of her ability. All she had to do was find the PRD and the person it was installed in, and Juliet would be one step closer.
