Today was going to be a great day… nay, an AWESOME day! Why do you ask? Because today was the day he was going to do his first ever Shadow Mission.
Jet had thought long and hard about who to shadow on his first mission to the point where he missed a lot of opportunities when those missions weren’t available in the end. But this time, Jet saw the Engineer Peri Scone put up an ad saying she needed an assistant for the day. It was like providence, for Jet thought he was stagnating in his designs, them being too straight forward and hardly creative anymore.
All the gadgets he had been doing lately left him frustrated with how unoriginal they were, the last one was a simple retractable sword to safely carry it. Useful? Of course. Original? Definitely not! Every professional in every disciplines come to a point where they can’t evolve by themselves. They hit the dreaded wall of what they can accomplish by themselves and must then search for new ways of thinking. For Jet, this mission was perfect as he could watch how this accomplished engineer worked, learn how her mind designed her products and possibly further reveal some of his own potential.
Yes, today was going to be a fabulous day indeed!
I was with trepidation that Jet mounted his bike. The sun was barely rising and he was fully awake. The fact he was awake already said a lot about his excitement about the job. Usually, he would have stayed up most of the night either reading, going to the music room or tinkering with stuff, be it his weapon, his bike or something new. But this night, Jet actually went to sleep early with a plan to wake up with the sun. To make sure that happened, he didn’t wear his night eye mask. Yes, Jet sleeps with an eye mask. It is black with the words “Will only wake up for Bacon” on it. This was because the barest amount of sunshine was enough to prevent him from sleeping, which had the benefit that if he slept without it, he would wake up the moment the sun started rising on the horizon.
Checking his scroll, he opened up the mission parameters, double checking he wasn’t forgetting anything.
Simple and effective. The ad didn’t specify exactly how early so Jet guessed he should be on time if he got there at 5am… would he? If he had to be honest Jet was so used to sleeping in almost all mornings that he completely forgot what time normal people usually woke up, maybe five am was a pretty normal hour to get there?
Fortunately, the airship taking students down the mountain and into the city worked all the way through the night so even if he was the only one boarding it, it was still operating. By the time the cold morning air flowing in his helmet finished waking him up, he had gotten to the workshop where he was to spend the day.
It looked pretty dark inside, indicating that no one was there or in any visible part of the building. The door was also locked obviously so he was stuck outside. Looking at the sign on the door, he frowned.
“Awww man, I got so excited I got there super in advance… Oh well, might as well get a coffee across the street.” Jet made sure to secure his bike before going for the coffee shop conveniently placed so that he could see when Peri got to her shop. Still, he waited for up to three hours and no one showed up, until his scroll began to buzz. Looking at the caller id, Jet realised he was being called by the same person he was waiting on. Taking his most enthusiastic voice, he answered.
“Good morning Mrs. Scone! How are…” The interruption almost made him jump.
“Where the hell are you Jeyson?” Peri’s voice sounded pretty irritated.
“I am in the coffee shop across the street, I was there very early so I thought I’d wait for you to shop up since the shop was closed.” There was a bit of nervousness in the black haired man’s voice, he didn’t expect the first interaction with his supposed mentor to be on the negative side. He did make sure to be early.
“Coffee shop? You idjit! That’s my store! I’m at the goddamn workshop three blocks down! Didn’t you get the address on where to show up?” She now sounded pretty angry and Jet could actually detect some desperation. Maybe she really needed his help? Checking quickly the missions parameters again, he finally realised he could click on the location and a map opened with the location which was, as the angry faunus said, three blocks down. How did he not even see this? What a gadgeteer he made…
“Oh damn! I just ch…” Jet started to defend himself but was cut again.
“I don’t care just get your ass over here, you have three minutes before you’re fired.” Peri then hung up and Jet was on the move.
He gulped down the rest of his almond croissant and had the extra one he got bagged up. He paid so quickly that he actually gave double the amount by error even with the extra coffee he got. He took the time to ask if the guy knew how Peri took her coffee and the guy made one on the spot without having to be asked. Well, it seemed he knew.
Riding the relatively short distance very quickly while holding the coffee and croissant in one hand, Jet still got there on time. The door to the workshop was unlocked so he entered to find the small faunus woman glaring at him. She walked to him, grabbed the coffee and the bag with the croissant then walked away as if she already knew he was going to give them to her. No thanks though, she didn’t look to be in the mood for politeness.
“Alright I have to go meet a client but couldn’t leave until you were there so I had to call and tell them I’d be late, which I despise having to do!” She was walking toward a pile of what looked like junk. “So your work for the day is to go through those and determine which of them are busted, which can be repaired and which are in good condition. Another of my client wants twenty of those tomorrow and I don’t have the time to work on them, which is why I asked for a student. I want twenty in working order by the end of the day. You’re already late so better get to work now. I’ll be back by noon.”
So that was how it was. Jet didn’t even say a word and she was already gone. Feeling a bit bad he went to check on the work he had to do. From where he stood, cause of the light, he couldn’t see well what the task was. Maybe it was mini-engines? Or some form of guns shooting lasers and stuff? But in reality it was!... Music boxes? And not the complex puzzle like music boxes, just, normal ones that your reel to make work. That was it? Sighing, Jet started to work. Might as well…
_____________________________
Around noon, as was planned, Peri came back to the workshop. She could hear weird noises from inside. No way in hell repairing those music boxes would make that kind of loud noise. Fearing the worst, she ran inside only to find a sight she never would have thought she’d see in her workshop.
Jet had arranged a bunch of planks in a square-ish ring. Inside, there were a couple of robots that looked to be circling each other. One of them was spiderlike with a flamethrower, the other had a hammer on it swinging it down and back up with impressive speed. “Are those… Battle bots?”
By then, the temporary engineering assistant finally realised his temporary boss was back. He had been looking at his droids with a big proud smile on his face. “Oh hey! Welcome back. So I repaired all the music boxes that weren’t completely busted, they’re over there. Had the time to put some more shine to them so they look better than new.”
Looking where Jet was pointing, Peri could see the boxes neatly aligned and they did indeed shine, even the wooden ones. The afore mentioned busted ones couldn’t be seen though, which brought back her sight to the two robots still duking it out in the “pit”. She could actually ten other robots waiting their turn in the background under a blackboard with tournament brackets on it. The names of the battle bots were there too, stuff like “Killer-Saw” and “The Infernal Spidey” were set up to go up in the brackets to designate a champion. Apparently Killer-Saw had already won against Tornado-Buster and currently The Infernal Spidey was trying to survive Hammer-Time’s … well hammer.
Jet continued from there. “Since I quickly got bored and I had a lot of free time before you got back, I decided to use the remaining parts and the other scrap parts around here to make stuff. Soon one robot became two and then before I knew it I had twelve!”
Peri was a bit dumbstruck. Those music boxes weren’t that hard to repair and she expected, or at least hoped, he would finish ahead of time. But how fast did he manage it if he was able not only to maintain them too so they looked new AND make twelve robots with apparently their own AIs to fight each other? “That is such a guy thing to do… But really I can’t say I’m not impressed. How did you manage that?”
Killer-Saw was about to smash The Infernal Spidey when a blast of fire made its way to it and burned through the oil in the joint that was allowing the hammer to move as fast as it did. The heat was enough that the metal even started deforming a bit until the hammer stopped working entirely, granting victory to The Infernal Spidey. With a piece of chalk inserted in the remains of a bullet casing, Jet used his semblance to have it cross the name of the defeated party and writing the name of the winner on the next round. With an excited smile, he turned to the faunus woman. “Well my semblance allows me to feel and control metal with precision. So I can basically just extend my aura and know the position, shape and all of every metallic parts in a gadget. That and being proficient with it enough to make allow me to dismantle them without even touching them, I was able to find the issue and fix the music boxes very quickly when possible. I was done in thirty minutes really, including the polishing. The robots aren’t super complex either, I just build them with whatever I could find, spent much more time writing up the programs for the artificial intelligence.”
Peri started laughing. “Hahaha, so you basically got bored and decided to make useless robot just so they could destroy each other? I’m impressed you managed it but this is such a typical dumb-guy idea. Couldn’t you have taken that time and skill to make something more useful?”
Jet frowned, a bit of his good mood washing away. “Well, that was the reason I signed up for this shadow mission. I’ve been stagnating in my designs, they all lack originality and they’re all overly used ideas. I wanted a fresh point of view and hoped I could get that from watching you work. I was quite a bit disappointed when you just left me to work and went your own way.” As he talked, he removed the arm holding the hammer from Hammer-Time and filed up the metal so it would be able to move again.
“Well, that is what you signed up for. I asked for an assistant since I didn’t have the time to do both orders, not an apprentice. Still, you finished early and even cleaned up my workshop from all that scrap that was lying around so I guess I can have you help me on the main order. You seem good with AIs so you might be able to help me a great deal on this one.” Peri put a hand on her hip, having the attitude as if she was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. Which, to Jet, at this precise moment, was completely true.
The black haired guy smiled as he got up. “That would be awesome.”
[2245/1000 words]
Jet had thought long and hard about who to shadow on his first mission to the point where he missed a lot of opportunities when those missions weren’t available in the end. But this time, Jet saw the Engineer Peri Scone put up an ad saying she needed an assistant for the day. It was like providence, for Jet thought he was stagnating in his designs, them being too straight forward and hardly creative anymore.
All the gadgets he had been doing lately left him frustrated with how unoriginal they were, the last one was a simple retractable sword to safely carry it. Useful? Of course. Original? Definitely not! Every professional in every disciplines come to a point where they can’t evolve by themselves. They hit the dreaded wall of what they can accomplish by themselves and must then search for new ways of thinking. For Jet, this mission was perfect as he could watch how this accomplished engineer worked, learn how her mind designed her products and possibly further reveal some of his own potential.
Yes, today was going to be a fabulous day indeed!
I was with trepidation that Jet mounted his bike. The sun was barely rising and he was fully awake. The fact he was awake already said a lot about his excitement about the job. Usually, he would have stayed up most of the night either reading, going to the music room or tinkering with stuff, be it his weapon, his bike or something new. But this night, Jet actually went to sleep early with a plan to wake up with the sun. To make sure that happened, he didn’t wear his night eye mask. Yes, Jet sleeps with an eye mask. It is black with the words “Will only wake up for Bacon” on it. This was because the barest amount of sunshine was enough to prevent him from sleeping, which had the benefit that if he slept without it, he would wake up the moment the sun started rising on the horizon.
Checking his scroll, he opened up the mission parameters, double checking he wasn’t forgetting anything.
Employer : Peri Scone
Field : Engineering
Request : One student with a knack for gadgets to be my assistant for a day.
Date : Early morning on the 27th of February.
Location : Scones ‘n Drones workshop.
Simple and effective. The ad didn’t specify exactly how early so Jet guessed he should be on time if he got there at 5am… would he? If he had to be honest Jet was so used to sleeping in almost all mornings that he completely forgot what time normal people usually woke up, maybe five am was a pretty normal hour to get there?
Fortunately, the airship taking students down the mountain and into the city worked all the way through the night so even if he was the only one boarding it, it was still operating. By the time the cold morning air flowing in his helmet finished waking him up, he had gotten to the workshop where he was to spend the day.
It looked pretty dark inside, indicating that no one was there or in any visible part of the building. The door was also locked obviously so he was stuck outside. Looking at the sign on the door, he frowned.
It was Saturday, so Jet began to wonder how he’d get in there. Sticking his hands to the window to block the reflection in the glass, he tried to peer inside to see if there might be some signs of life. Since it was dark he could see pretty well and could easily tell that there were no light sources anywhere in that building.‘Open Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm.
Weekends on appointment only.’
“Awww man, I got so excited I got there super in advance… Oh well, might as well get a coffee across the street.” Jet made sure to secure his bike before going for the coffee shop conveniently placed so that he could see when Peri got to her shop. Still, he waited for up to three hours and no one showed up, until his scroll began to buzz. Looking at the caller id, Jet realised he was being called by the same person he was waiting on. Taking his most enthusiastic voice, he answered.
“Good morning Mrs. Scone! How are…” The interruption almost made him jump.
“Where the hell are you Jeyson?” Peri’s voice sounded pretty irritated.
“I am in the coffee shop across the street, I was there very early so I thought I’d wait for you to shop up since the shop was closed.” There was a bit of nervousness in the black haired man’s voice, he didn’t expect the first interaction with his supposed mentor to be on the negative side. He did make sure to be early.
“Coffee shop? You idjit! That’s my store! I’m at the goddamn workshop three blocks down! Didn’t you get the address on where to show up?” She now sounded pretty angry and Jet could actually detect some desperation. Maybe she really needed his help? Checking quickly the missions parameters again, he finally realised he could click on the location and a map opened with the location which was, as the angry faunus said, three blocks down. How did he not even see this? What a gadgeteer he made…
“Oh damn! I just ch…” Jet started to defend himself but was cut again.
“I don’t care just get your ass over here, you have three minutes before you’re fired.” Peri then hung up and Jet was on the move.
He gulped down the rest of his almond croissant and had the extra one he got bagged up. He paid so quickly that he actually gave double the amount by error even with the extra coffee he got. He took the time to ask if the guy knew how Peri took her coffee and the guy made one on the spot without having to be asked. Well, it seemed he knew.
Riding the relatively short distance very quickly while holding the coffee and croissant in one hand, Jet still got there on time. The door to the workshop was unlocked so he entered to find the small faunus woman glaring at him. She walked to him, grabbed the coffee and the bag with the croissant then walked away as if she already knew he was going to give them to her. No thanks though, she didn’t look to be in the mood for politeness.
“Alright I have to go meet a client but couldn’t leave until you were there so I had to call and tell them I’d be late, which I despise having to do!” She was walking toward a pile of what looked like junk. “So your work for the day is to go through those and determine which of them are busted, which can be repaired and which are in good condition. Another of my client wants twenty of those tomorrow and I don’t have the time to work on them, which is why I asked for a student. I want twenty in working order by the end of the day. You’re already late so better get to work now. I’ll be back by noon.”
So that was how it was. Jet didn’t even say a word and she was already gone. Feeling a bit bad he went to check on the work he had to do. From where he stood, cause of the light, he couldn’t see well what the task was. Maybe it was mini-engines? Or some form of guns shooting lasers and stuff? But in reality it was!... Music boxes? And not the complex puzzle like music boxes, just, normal ones that your reel to make work. That was it? Sighing, Jet started to work. Might as well…
_____________________________
Around noon, as was planned, Peri came back to the workshop. She could hear weird noises from inside. No way in hell repairing those music boxes would make that kind of loud noise. Fearing the worst, she ran inside only to find a sight she never would have thought she’d see in her workshop.
Jet had arranged a bunch of planks in a square-ish ring. Inside, there were a couple of robots that looked to be circling each other. One of them was spiderlike with a flamethrower, the other had a hammer on it swinging it down and back up with impressive speed. “Are those… Battle bots?”
By then, the temporary engineering assistant finally realised his temporary boss was back. He had been looking at his droids with a big proud smile on his face. “Oh hey! Welcome back. So I repaired all the music boxes that weren’t completely busted, they’re over there. Had the time to put some more shine to them so they look better than new.”
Looking where Jet was pointing, Peri could see the boxes neatly aligned and they did indeed shine, even the wooden ones. The afore mentioned busted ones couldn’t be seen though, which brought back her sight to the two robots still duking it out in the “pit”. She could actually ten other robots waiting their turn in the background under a blackboard with tournament brackets on it. The names of the battle bots were there too, stuff like “Killer-Saw” and “The Infernal Spidey” were set up to go up in the brackets to designate a champion. Apparently Killer-Saw had already won against Tornado-Buster and currently The Infernal Spidey was trying to survive Hammer-Time’s … well hammer.
Jet continued from there. “Since I quickly got bored and I had a lot of free time before you got back, I decided to use the remaining parts and the other scrap parts around here to make stuff. Soon one robot became two and then before I knew it I had twelve!”
Peri was a bit dumbstruck. Those music boxes weren’t that hard to repair and she expected, or at least hoped, he would finish ahead of time. But how fast did he manage it if he was able not only to maintain them too so they looked new AND make twelve robots with apparently their own AIs to fight each other? “That is such a guy thing to do… But really I can’t say I’m not impressed. How did you manage that?”
Killer-Saw was about to smash The Infernal Spidey when a blast of fire made its way to it and burned through the oil in the joint that was allowing the hammer to move as fast as it did. The heat was enough that the metal even started deforming a bit until the hammer stopped working entirely, granting victory to The Infernal Spidey. With a piece of chalk inserted in the remains of a bullet casing, Jet used his semblance to have it cross the name of the defeated party and writing the name of the winner on the next round. With an excited smile, he turned to the faunus woman. “Well my semblance allows me to feel and control metal with precision. So I can basically just extend my aura and know the position, shape and all of every metallic parts in a gadget. That and being proficient with it enough to make allow me to dismantle them without even touching them, I was able to find the issue and fix the music boxes very quickly when possible. I was done in thirty minutes really, including the polishing. The robots aren’t super complex either, I just build them with whatever I could find, spent much more time writing up the programs for the artificial intelligence.”
Peri started laughing. “Hahaha, so you basically got bored and decided to make useless robot just so they could destroy each other? I’m impressed you managed it but this is such a typical dumb-guy idea. Couldn’t you have taken that time and skill to make something more useful?”
Jet frowned, a bit of his good mood washing away. “Well, that was the reason I signed up for this shadow mission. I’ve been stagnating in my designs, they all lack originality and they’re all overly used ideas. I wanted a fresh point of view and hoped I could get that from watching you work. I was quite a bit disappointed when you just left me to work and went your own way.” As he talked, he removed the arm holding the hammer from Hammer-Time and filed up the metal so it would be able to move again.
“Well, that is what you signed up for. I asked for an assistant since I didn’t have the time to do both orders, not an apprentice. Still, you finished early and even cleaned up my workshop from all that scrap that was lying around so I guess I can have you help me on the main order. You seem good with AIs so you might be able to help me a great deal on this one.” Peri put a hand on her hip, having the attitude as if she was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. Which, to Jet, at this precise moment, was completely true.
The black haired guy smiled as he got up. “That would be awesome.”
[2245/1000 words]