Turn 44

--- Maya ---

“So you sure you want to do this?” She asked, taking a seat across from Aisha.

“Yes, I am.” Aisha nodded, laying her cards out on the table. “I’m tired of you bad mouthing Madness decks every other turn.”

“Then I’m just going to have to prove how crap they really are.” She declared, laying out her own as she stared down the other teen.

“You two are being very dramatic over a children’s card game.” Ying pointed out from the sidelines where she was reading a book.

“It is not just a children’s card game!” She scowled at her best friend. “It’s a collectible strategy card game where you create a team of the best heroes and villains to crush your enemies!”

Ying looked up from her book curiously. “Do they have the Witch of Blackwell?”

She couldn't help but frown. “Who?”

“Nevermind.” Ying sighed, immediately losing interest as she resumed reading her book.

(Okay…) Deciding that was a matter for another day, she turned back to Aisha. “Ready to reveal?”

“Sure.” Aisha nodded as they both flipped the three cards they’d set on the table.

On her side of the field were three M.A.D. heroes. Front and center was Iron Guardian, a man in metal armor who was also (the hero guild’s number one tech M.A.D.) On her mid left was Flora-ecent a bio-M.A.D. whose picture was surrounded by glowing plant vines. And lastly on mid right was Blendin Splicer, a Bio-M.A.D. in a lab coat with a bioengineered monstrosity at his side.

“You weren’t kidding about the M.A.D. minion deck.” Aisha noted, drawing Maya’s attention to the other teen’s cards.

Front and center amongst Aisha’s team was a muscular teen in a leather jacket covered in a black thorn pattern. Mid-Center she had a young dark haired girl without a care in the world as dark tendrils began to rise out of her shadow. And lastly, mid-back was a man in a black suit with a palm of black flames.

“Was kind of expecting a minion deck out of you too.” She confessed, not seeing any of the Wonderlanders she was familiar with amongst the other girl’s heroes.

“Figured you were.” Aisha nodded. “That’s why I used a different set of Madness masks.”

“Fair.” She conceded before frowning as she finally recognized the teen in leather. “Hold up. Since when is Styles Fleeting a Madness user?”

Aisha blinked. “Uh, always?”

“I thought he was an Arcane?” She admitted, picking the hero’s card up as she read his stats. (Madness User, Scrapper-Bruiser, Hero, five attack, fifty speed, twenty-five HP, one range and movement with no armor, resistances, or weaknesses.)

“No, he’s…” Aisha’s face scrunched up as she thought about it. “I’m not really sure how it works, but he’s got this whole weird short-range field… thing, that lets him manipulate things in his favor.”

“Yeah, his… Rule of Cool?” She asked in disbelief as she read the ability name. “Spend a point of Madness to allow Styles to negate an enemy’s dodge effect or to avoid an incoming attack. If it wasn’t his only ability that’d be kind of busted.”

“It’s even worse when you realize he produces two units of madness each turn.” Aisha pointed out.

“So he’s an anti-dodge dodge-tank?” (At least M.A.D.s aren’t big on dodge effects.) “Still, how do they know he’s a madness user and not an Arcane? I mean most madness users are either the powerless masks, or Wonderlanders.”

“Madness is more of a meta-energy generated through thought and emotion, while magic -or ‘Anima’ as its scientific name states- is a passive energy generated by life regardless of said life’s ability to think or feel. In fact, despite lacking both sentience and sapience some plants actually manage to generate more magic than most humans, such as Methuselah the five-thousand year old tree.” Ying lectured from the sidelines.

For a moment both Aisha and Maya simply stared at Ying, before finally Maya had to ask, “Where the fuck did you learn all of that?”

Ying shook the book in her hands.

“I read.”

---

Once she was done hanging out with her friends, Maya quickly made her way towards her lab for a productive day of programming.

As soon as she entered the hospital room she’d turned into a lab she was greeted by all three of her minions, though most excitably by 1B who nearly fell off the counter while waving at her.

(Yep definitely not the smart twin.)

(Hush.)

“Hi, boys, all of you doing alright?” She asked, receiving a number of nods (or at least the equivalent there of.) “Good, then it’s time to science!”

(Mad Science!)

(Quite.)

With this thought in mind she made her way to her chair and computer before beginning to work on the bits and pieces necessary for her to transfer the parts of his programming that allowed DM-1 to predict someone’s visual range and apply it to her own UI system.

There was of course some mild issues in the fact that the extreme uptick in processing power, requiring an actual drain on her power supply unlike the Headset’s usual passive functions. (But that’s nothing I can’t handle.)

What she could handle slightly less was the fact that just like last time her newest minions felt the need to try and help her with her project. Something that she usually would’ve found cute and adorable if not for the fact that said help was actively setting her back because neither of her newborn minions actually knew anything about coding.

(You know, I suddenly realize what it was like for mamá back when I tried ‘helping’ her as a kid…)

(Too bad we don’t have a TV to distract them with.)

“Okay, that’s enough halp- I mean, helping you two.” She informed her minions before picking both of the LCMs up and taking them to DM-1. “So why don’t you two play with your big brother, maybe he can show you a thing or two about helping around the lab. Hm?”

DM-1 paused as if taken aback before looking at her in what she assumed was a, ‘why is this my problem?’ kind of way.

“Like I said, you’re their older sibling so it’s your job to take care of them and show them how the world works.”

(Isn’t that the same bullshit our parents fed us about Izzy?)

(Shut up.)

---

With all of her minions sufficiently distracted by ‘sibling bonding time’ Maya was given enough time to actually finish the project she’d set out to do at the beginning and port her drone program upgrade to her UI system. A rather straightforward procedure when she didn’t have to undo and fix her minions’ well intentioned halping.

Of course this only accounted for her newest minions’ assistance.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked herself, finally looking up from her computer screen for the first time in hours.

(You’ll find out in a moment.)

(Ooh, ominous!)

“Okay, I’m not liking where this is going.”

The sudden sound of something breaking behind her caused her to flinch and close her eyes.

“Scale of one to ten, how much do I not want to turn around right now?”

(Probably a five or six.)

“Alright, that’s not too bad.” She admitted, reluctantly turning towards her minions to find DM-1 instructing the LCMs on how to do something to a surprisingly detailed cut-out of a squirrel. “Uh, what am I looking at here?”

After another moment, DM-1 nodded before stepping away from the LCMs and the cut-out. From there 1A seemed to almost snap his fingers just before 1B lunged at the cut-out and began ripping it to shreds.

(Aw, he’s teaching them how to annihilate their enemies!)

---

Deciding that despite their… bonding it might be best to give her minions a little bit of space, she once more grabbed DM-1 and snuck him over to the trainyard.

“You remember what to do here boy?” She asked her minion after finding a suitable car for him to stash whatever he finds.

DM-1 nodded happily before running to a nearby piece of metal and dragging it over.

“Right, but remember you’ve got tools to help you with your gathering now too.” She reminded the little drone.

DM-1 seemed to process that for a moment before staring at the metal for a second one. Eventually however, the little drone succeeded in figuring out how to activate its new tools and released a few bits of metal from just beneath its camera where a mouth would be if the drone was more organic in nature.

There was a faint clicking for a couple of seconds, before two of the metal bits ignited revealing a pair of miniature blow torches to help DM-1 in dismantling bigger pieces of metal.

“Very good.” She clapped, like a proud parent whose child had just managed their first steps.

(Well we did make him, and these are his first steps towards proper destruction.) Her inner madness pointed out.

She gave that a huff of amusement. “I think you mean construction.”

(I know what I said.)