The Bonding Continues

[chaseandoldlace]

Who: Chase Stein and Uther Pendragon (again, yes)
What:  The Morning After
When: Mid Morning
Where: Around the castle grounds
Rating: Chase has a bit of a potty mouth
Status: Closed/ Complete

Comments

[chaseandoldlace]

"Got that, brother. I'm beginning to think my habit of being such a disobedient little fuck gave my 'rents a thing about having everything they built be programmed to kiss their ass and enjoy it." He laughed to himself a little.

"Though, if the Frog is any indication, she'll be taking orders from you in no time. The 'rents were big on user friendliness too. Bus, say hello to Uther Pendragon."

'Hello, Uther Pendragon. If you wish to learn how to operate me, I am capable of instructing--

"Hey, hey, that's enough flirting from you." Chase cut the Bus off. There was a loud, cranking wrench from deep within the engine and when he appeared again, he was holding a long, cracked length of metal tubing. "What is this and how do I replace it?"

'The fuel injection matrix must be reconfigured, the current configuration is insufficient to power utilization. Consult alternate configurations in holo records.' The Bus said in a tone that was slightly more demure than it had been a moment before.

"Display." He turned to Uther. "Watch this, it's really awesome. And yeah, it steers a bit like a boat, at least when it's on the ground. It's a bit much to explain, the best way to do it is just teach you. You can start by getting into the driver's seat and turning the engine off."

The problem was, really, Chase had never had to teach anyone anything before, and the Stein Bus probably wasn't the best thing to start him on, assuming he didn't even understand internal combustion, which Chase was more than willing to bet he didn't.

[pendraeg]

There were many ways, Uther had learned, to turn things off. There were buttons, which you pushed; and switches, which you flipped; and spigots, which you turned. There were sliders and toggles, cord-pulls and dials. And in the direst of circumstances, there was unplugging.

Uther swung the door on its hinge and slipped into the left-hand seat. It was a snug fit, a seat that was designed to place the wheel right at arm's reach, so that the hands rested naturally on the leathery curves. He looked around for a button or a switch.

"How do I turn it off?" he asked, his voice raised to be heard. He leaned out of the door to peer at Chase.

[chaseandoldlace]

"There is a key on the drive shaft to the right--" The Bus began, only to be cut off a second later.

"Key to the right of the wheel, turn it. It'll turn off the engine but not the battery or...whatever this thing runs on. Haven't exactly figured that out yet myself." Chase called over the voice of the Bus, disappearing under the hood again.

While Uther had slipped into the bus, the holo records projected a blue, flickering image in mid air that fuzzed once when the engine was turned off.

"You know, stuff like this makes me wonder what else my 'rents built that I had no idea what it actually was." Chase said, poking his head up and tossing out another ruined engine part. This time it was a coil of wire that had melted and fused together.

"We had a car like this when I was little, and you know how kids pretend that cars can fly or shoot missiles?...Well, you wouldn't, but the twins will. And all I can think about is that our old car probably could. My mom drove me to t-ball practice in that thing for fuck's sake. Probably could have literally leveled the playing field with the amount of weaponry on it."

A year later and it still boggled his mind.

[pendraeg]

He looked to the right and found a flat piece of metal protuding from a round holder. He turned it. The van went blissfully quiet.

"A catapult would be nice. Especially effective if you put flaming things in it."

[chaseandoldlace]

"Nah, bro, lasers are where it's at. Few thousand degrees of concentrated light, burn through damn near anything." Though his voice was even, Chase was struggling with something deep within the engine.

It seemed as though in their fight with the Majesdeanians, a hunk of shrapnel had gotten lodged dangerously close to what looked to be a black box, like the kind they have on jets.

"Oh, come on you stupid piece of--!"

There was the sound of tearing metal, and all of a sudden, the entire cabin of the bus began to pulse dark, angry red.

'Warning, central CPU under threat. Releasing emergency security daemon.'

Suddenly, all of the seats behind Uther in the bus slammed down and folded back, vanishing seamlessly into the floor. The bus vibrated violently, rocking on it's wheels and shuddering as though it were an animal going through an extremely painful labor. The sound within the cabin was hellish.

"Oh shit, oh shit!" Chase jumped back and away from the bus, glad he'd started keeping his Fistigons in the tool box. "Uther, get out of there, now it's one of my dad's--

CLANK!

The undercarriage of the bus fell away in the back, and what clamored out from under was something that looked very convincingly like a manticore the size of horse.

"Security...deamons."

[pendraeg]

The angry red lights seemed bad. The tremors, worse. Chase's reaction was worst, but by then Uther was ready to leap out of the driver's seat as urgently as Chase demanded. He moved, and for a moment, hung in space as his sword caught in the innards of the cabin. Then he was out, feet carrying him away from the door, pivoting, the encumbering sword in his hand without a thought.

He didn't know a security deamon, but he knew a manticore when he saw one, grotesque chimera that it was. Grotesque...large chimera. It seethed with belligerence, an agile, muscular mass that roared its intention to get them away. He saw the creature gather itself, saw it fix its eyes, human and yet not human, on its target, and then it lifted a leonine paw and surged forward.

[chaseandoldlace]

"Get back, let me handle this!" Chase called, having pulled two strange, heavy metal gauntlets over his hands from the tool box. Fire sparked in his palms.

As soon as Chase spoke the sentry turned it's attention to him, veering away from Uther as the new threat was assessed. If there were time, Chase would explain that the creature wasn't real, alive in the sense that Uther was used to--just another machine like the bus--but knowing his parents Chase was pretty sure the daemon wouldn't stop with attacking them if they didn't stop it right there.

It only took two massive bounds for the creature to be right on top of him, which was when he curled his fists and a wave of fire shot from his hands, scorching fur and metal.

It smelled like real burning fur. Chase choked, waiting a beat to see if his attack had hated the thing.

A gleaming, wicked metal paw darted out of the inferno and sent him flying.

[pendraeg]

Well. He had touted the advantages of flaming things. Fire-breathing gloves, that was a good one.

Unfortunately, not good enough.

Chase fell, swept away by the now-mutated paw, just metal skeleton now. Machine after all, not monster. Oh brave new world.

Uther swung his sword double-handed, laying the full weight and momentum of weapon and man against the join that was the machine's wrist. If it looked like a skeleton, it would act like a skeleton. If it had the flexibility to move, it would be weaker.

He hoped.

[chaseandoldlace]

As Chase stumbled to his feet, pain lancing through one arm--the arm that had been dislocated less than a year ago-- he saw what was most likely the fourth most awesome thing in his life.

Uther had managed to find the proverbial chink in the armor and all but hacked one paw off. Apparently this was one of his parent's early models--they weren't into using the experimental alloys in the 70's.

"The neck, Uther, aim for the neck!" Chase was just about to rejoin the fray when something large and scaly came bounding out of the Castle, summoned by his pain.

Old Lace. The dinosaur crouched protectively by Chase, growling.

"I'm okay. Let's show this retro Terminator here what's what."

Without a word, Old Lace leapt at the daemon, sinking claws into the metal flank and sending glinting slivers of armored hide flying.

"Atta girl--aaah!" Chase reeled, clutching his head. The daemon's scorpion tail had lashed out in defense, plunging deep into Lace's shoulder. "Sonofabitch Uther, finish it!"

[pendraeg]

Uther danced back, avoiding the beast's tail and jets of flame alike. He edged around so that he was on the other side of it, looking for an opportunity to strike.

The manticore-machine and the not-dragon fought tooth and nail, Old Lace holding its attention and most of its defences.

Uther ducked three rows of snapping teeth and thrust his sword up into the manticore's neck, driving the point deep into the space between two of its exposed metal vertebrae. Sparks flew. The hilt vibrated in Uther's hands.

The creature swung its neck, trying to dislodge him--and almost succeeding. The force carried him, unwilling to let go, into the side of the van, a jarring impact that he took mostly with his shoulder and upper arm. He grunted in pain and disorientation.

Holding on more through blind stubbornness than anything else, he was flung the other way, and finally the blade came loose, trailing something fibrous and colourful. His own joints throbbing, tendons stressed to tearing, Uther drew back the sword, waited for the creature to swing its head toward him again, and threw his weight against the same spot again, so that metal met metal with a resounding, compounded crash, bringing more power to bear than his own strength alone could have summoned.

It carried him through the neck of the manticore and past it, straight into the still ferociously slashing remaining front claw.

[chaseandoldlace]

The problem with his empathetic link with Old Lace was that half the time, Chase felt like nothing more than a spectator. It worked with the Runaways because someone usually needed to hang back to keep an eye on Molly for when her powers exhausted her. Here, Chase watched helplessly as the daemon threw Uther around like an over grown cat toy.

He winced when Uther hit the bus and Old Lace was finally thrown clear by the daemon's panicked thrashing.

'Lace, distract this fucker for me.' Chase saw Uther's head on a collision course with the one good front paw, backed up to get a running start and tackled Uther away, the two of them tumbling under the manticore's large body, the sword thrown loose to land point-down in the ground a foot away.

The manticore reared, one large yellow eye flickering in it's head before going dark. Old Lace leapt and mauled, following ancient instinct to clamor onto the back of her prey and tear at the spine. Chase pulled Uther to his feet gingerly.

"Nice hit bro, think you can manage another and leave your sword in there? I got an idea. You ever seen lightning hit a lightning rod? We're gonna fry this bastard." Chase's attention was suddenly drawn to Old Lace, who only just managed to dodge another hit from the manticore's tail. It spilled a jet a flame into the air in frustration, almost setting the roof of the stables alight. "Just get as far away as you can once I say so, if she blows, it'll be big." He handed Uther his sword with a short, determined nod.

[pendraeg]

Uther had seen lightning hit a tree. He had also seen a church spire after it had been struck.

He balked.

"My sword is irreplaceable," he said in an injured tone. He struggled for words that would convey the significance to the modern man.

[chaseandoldlace]

Chase rolled his eyes. On one hand, he did understand--his Fistigons were one of a kind, and with his parents dead as door nails, there was unlikely to ever be a Fistigon Mark II.

But on the other hand, the manticore slammed Old Lace into the stone wall of the stables and a shudder of pain spasmed over his entire body. He struggled to stay on his feet.

"But so is Old Lace. Gotta put this thing down before it kills her!"

Unable to simply stand by any longer, Chase sparked two orbs of crackling red energy into his palms and charged, a bellow of rage swelling his chest as he plowed forward.

The creature had Old Lace pinned, it's great jaws about to close on her wide, strong neck but something was suddenly stopping those jaws from closing. Chase had the beast by the jaws, putting every ounce of his strength into keeping them pried open. The red energy danced over the manticore's mouth, and Chase could smell the gas from the jets that allowed it to breath it's scorching breath.

"Any time you wanna help, dude, that'd be great!" He called, unable to spare even a glance in Uther's direction.

[pendraeg]

The daemon's head was loose on its neck, attached only by what counted for it as a sinew. And yet it continued to attack, just as strong and ferocious as ever. He watched for a horrified second as the creature suddenly seemed to have both Chase and Old Lace in its clutches.

But just as equally they had it in their clutches. Immobilized.

Uther strode forward, seeing his chance. He set his booted foot down hard on the manticore's shoulder, checked to be sure nobody's extremities were in the way, and hacked hard, straight down through that last connection, severing the creature's head from its body.

He saw Chase draw back from it hurriedly as the jaws, continuing their battle of strengths as though nothing had happened, finally closed. The manticore's bodiless head snapped its teeth repeatedly, spinning and pushing it over the ground.

"Will it--" Uther pointed his sword straight down at the weak spot that was the thing's eye socket.

"--just die--" He pushed down hard with the whole weight of his body.

"--already?" The sword pierced it, and it shattered like a ceramic bowl, fragments falling away from one another.

[chaseandoldlace]

For a moment, Chase was still, his weak and trembling arms finally falling limply to his sides. He staggered, adrenaline seeping out of his body as Old Lace hopped back to her feet just in time to brace him up.

"Thanks..." there was a hiss and the Fistigons fell away onto the ground. It took more than he wanted to admit to raise a hand out and grab Uther's shoulder. "I would have lost her without you."

Old Lace shifted a little so Chase could still lean on her dirty, scratched side and nudged Uther's head affectionately, making the same contented clicking purr sound with the back of her throat that she'd made in the great hall the night before.

Chase smiled.

"Well, at least now I know the 'rents really did booby trap everything they made. Blame the design on my mom by the way, she always had a...weird sense of humor. She was the type of mom who got a kick out of telling me all the monsters under my bed were totally real." He kicked the motionless mechanical head.

Very, very warily, he looked back at the bus.

"Think we should risk turning it on?"

[pendraeg]

Uther weighed the merits of learning how to drive against not awakening any more daemons. But they had beat the last one, ultimately, had they not?

Uther's shoulder ached.

"It would be a waste not to make use of the vehicle now we have vanquished the beast within," he said, pretending that this was a reasonable line of argument.