Forums » General Roleplay » Sands of Time (1x1)

Clutch hesitated. "I heard something crack...but I thought it was the bumper. I didn't know about the crystal."

Chris sighed. "Well, whatever happened, fixing it might require a new crystal. Unless..." his eyes lit up and he leaned over his computer, typing furiously, "maybe I can find a way to hook up a capacitor which will supply or at least hold the extra energy you need to employ this 'secret weapon' of yours. Think it'll work?"

''Whats a capacitor..?'' She inquired.

''Well, it could work. I just have no idea what this weapon is. Whatever it is let me sneak into crowd undetected, and was really strong. Are you sure it'd be safe to activate with my core in this fancy car?''

Chris hesitated. "A capacitor is something used to hold energy until it's needed. It'll probably help with storing energy until you need to deploy this secret weapon of yours. As for deploying it in that car, I might not recommend it. Someone dropped the vehicle off for a tire rotation and an oil change. I'd prefer to keep it in one piece until they claim it next week."

He was curious though and dying to know what this secret weapon was. But he also didn't want to blow up the shop. His father would have a fit. "Well I have the engine dried off and most of the important bits as well. If I add a bit of oil, I can relocate you back to your shell, add a capacitor, and we can see what happens. If it happens," Chris offered.

''Then give it a go. Or try. I can't guarntee my core likes to be moved..'' She replied, the core beeping a silent protest of the offer.

"Well, let me get the engine block at least finished so I don't have to keep moving the crystal." For a good half hour, Chris devoted his attention to the engine, scrubbing and spraying oil and waterproofing what he could. At last, he added a bit of oil to the car, patching a leak he discovered along the way.

"Alright, let's try it." He found a capacitor and charged it up for good measure, before turning to CD. "Brace yourself for what you're about to feel."

He made quick work of transferring the crystal, careful not to drop it, and wired it in easily enough. He hooked up the capacitor as well and then started the engine for CD. "Alright...I wonder if this is going to work."

The enginr putters breifly before rearing to life, the half-out headlights turning on as an unnatural whitish electricity started to cackle over CD violently, staticy. It came from the core, which was pulsing white aswell. CD shuddered a bit, as gears that were stopped began to whir from within, then faster, and faster...

"Oh shit..." Chris scrambled backwards and tripped over the AutoWrench he'd dropped sometime between when the static began to race over the car and the gears began to whiz.

"Please don't blow up," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as he braced himself for the seemingly impending explosion.

Metal started to bend, peices shifting and gears sliding occasionly as something strange started to occur. The purple rusted build vanishes beneath an even rustier metal plate.

The shifting continues until a confused and blind humanoid robot sat where CD had been, sparks coming from cut wires, and one arm resting limply against the sides. They wore a burned up dress, and the brownish hair was in a great mess. Two somewhat intact small guns rested on the shoulderblades, and a few blades was on the fingertips.

''Huh.....?''

Chris opened his eyes to see that the car was gone. "Holy sh--!" He started back and ran into Clutch's front bumper in surprise.

"Wh-what- that's your secret weapon?" His eyes were huge.

"What is it?" Clutch demanded. "Be careful that's my bumper."

"Shut up, Clutch; Cranky...Cranky Doortrap...just...changed. What are you? You're not a car!" he caught his breath and stared at the humanoid robot. Slowly he began to make out the damage and repairs needed to fix it.

''I guess I changed. In all honesty I still can't see anything.'' She replied grimly. ''I know I'm sitting down, I can feel the floor. But I'm blind...I know I'm more than 'just' a car. Did I explode?'' She asked, attempting to stand. She does stand, but shakily and weakly, hands held together, standing about 5'8 in average, white eyes looking at Clutch, or the general direction she assumed he was in.

Chris grinned, watching CD move. "Oh man, it's a good thing my friend Jim isn't here to see this. He'd be all over you to pull some prank or other. Wait a minute, if you can't see...it might be because of the cameras, I didn't fix them yet. Here, sit down again."

"And no, you didn't explode. At least not the way I thought you would. No wonder you made a good spy. Sorry Clutch, for earlier. Looks like you brought home a good catch." Chris got to work on the cameras, fixing the frayed wires where he could and cleaning off the lenses with a rag not soiled in oil. "Any luck?" he asked.

She had sat when he had said to, guns retracting ad the blades sliding back until she looked somewhat less threatening. Her camera eyees flickered brown a bit. ''Some images I can see, but it's flickering. I can see Clutch has a dent on his bumper.'' She retorted. Her cameras shut off again. ''Agh!''

"A dent? You put a dent in me?" Clutch panicked.

Chris scowled."I can buff it out no problem, Clutch. If you had eyes, you'd see that CD has more need than you anyway."

"And if you were half the mechanic you say you were, you'd have installed cameras already!" Clutch beeped.

"Argh!" Chris said. "I can't work on two AIs at the same time. Either help or back out of the garage, Clutch. And Cranky Doortrap, please don't panic. I'd rather not explain any mysterious bullets or holes to my father. Let me look at your cameras again..."

He spent a few more minutes on them before sighing and pulling away. "Alright. Um, I'm gonna try to replace them later. I've done what I can so far. Um, how long can you last in this humanoid shape?" Chris was trying to work out how to explain a robot in his father's car shop.

''Whenever the core leaks?'' She replied questionably. ''I think I can shift back to my car form, but you might have to spot me on if I'm near anything. I can feel my surroundings, but my cameras aren't functioning. And stop bickering you two! I've been a war where most cars got shredded by the gear grinder. I was friends with an AI that was a giant plane, but they also crashed into the ocean after ggetting shot!''

Chris and Clutch subsided, Chris glancing at Clutch when CD mentioned the AI plane. "That would be something to see," Chris muttered.

"An AI plane?" Clutch asked, equally awed. "I'd like to fly."

Chris rolled his eyes. "Alright, CD, at the moment you haven't really moved enough to put anything immediately in danger if you change back. I think." He picked up the AutoWrench, not wanting to lose it.

CD shut her eyes as she started to shift back to her car form carefully, the metallic purple rust returning until the rusted hunk was back in place, though one of the gun fired off and the bullet richoted about inside CD before hitting her windshield and shattering it. ''OW!'' She hissed, flinching back from a tinge of losing her windsheild, though the cameras stayed unharmed. Her tires rolled over the glass, and popped. The only good thing was that CD's speakers cut out again just as she was about to say something.

''....! .....!!!! .....!!!!!! ....!'' AI core beeping angrly. Thankfully muting anything she would have been saying, replaced by a earhurting loud beeping flurry from her core, which was still at full charge. It was also a good thing to know her horn was out too, as it remained deathly silent.

''....! ....!! ...!'' More fits of angry beeping, and CD hadn't shut down yet, though straining the fixed engine.

Chris ducked for cover behind the nearest solid contraption he could find when the bullet fired. He cringed hearing the ricochet.

Clutch did a remarkable impression of trying to get the hell out of dodge. "Don't shoot!" he yelled, flooring into reverse before slamming on the brakes as he careened very nearly into the WRX that CD had been in.

Chris clapped his hands to his ears as CD beeped. "Ahh! CD, please stop. It's alright. Can you stop the beeping?" If the beeping was any indication of her system failures, then that wasn't a very good sign. And then he realized the beeps weren't coming just from her, but from his laptop. "Shut up shut up," he said, pressing a button repeatedly. "I know!"

In the background, Clutch yelled: "What'd you do? Trigger a bomb? We're all gonna die!"

The beeping continued for hours until the stress proved to much as CD shut down and fell silent, systems shuddering as they slowed to a halt. The beeping stopped, and black smoke starts to pour out from the hood again..Small flames licking out from the holes. CD was on fire!..And her core still inside, starting to turn black from the flames.

"Ack! Fire!" Chris scrambled for a fire extinguisher and turned it full blast on CDs hood. At least the incessant beeping had stopped. Too bad the rest of the car had too.

"Oh man, my dad is gonna kill me..." Chris murmured, looking at the extinguisher fluid dripping over everything. "Ugh. Well, I have another few hours before he gets back from his..." In the distance a door could be heard slamming shut. Chris flinched. "Or maybe not." He scurried to clean up the mess, hosing it away rather than bothering with anything, well, flammable like papertowels.

By the time everything looked almost back to normal, barring the blackened streaks inside CD's hood from the fire--Chris hadn't yet checked on the condition of the AI crystal--his father had come down to take a look around and make sure the shop was still standing.

"Hi dad, yep, we're all good--just found another, er, fixer upper," said Chris. He caught his father's suspicious glance at the wreck behind him, and then heard a sigh.

"If you insist on working on such rust buckets, take 'em out back where they won't set my garage on fire!"

Chris flinched. "Yes, sir, sorry sir." But there was no helping it. He wasn't going to move CD without some help and he didn't think Clutch was going to help after the fire. He opened CD's hood, waving away smoke and seeing yet more water. "You certainly have a penchant for getting wet, don't you," he muttered to the car. "It's gonna take me hours to get you back online."

But already he was grabbing his AutoWrench and throwing himself headfirst into the engine to work.

CD remained deathly silent, but it seemed only minutes after he started to work her charred core started to respond a bit. The engine somehow puttered lightly, but stayed off.

Somehow, even though fire had damaged the engine area badly...The core was still working. But CD herself stayed shut off, still deathly silent.