“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Rom asked her sister as she closed up the access panel of a damaged Automata body and returned it to [Storage].

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Ram replied, forcibly ripping off a damaged chunk of IronHide’s armor.

She tossed the mangled metal onto a pile of other scraps and transformed her arm into a high output plasma torch. Sparks flew as the plasma sliced through steel so that she could clear away more of the damage.

“I think we should reinforce this bit here when we rebuild it,” she suggested. “This part is only exposed in Power Master mode though...”

“If Prime can’t get his mana levels back up then we’ll never see that mode again. I think we should focus more on what we can do with what we have now,” Rom countered.

“He told us to rebuild ‘hide though,” Ram said, looking skeptical and popping her head out of the cavity in IronHide’s body she was sitting in.

‘Oh, we will, we will. But maybe we should look for lower hanging fruit first?”

“Look who’s started thinking for herself,” Ram teased. “What if daddy gets mad at us?”

Rom’s eyes shifted pink in embarrassment and she looked away.

“I only said that once! It was an accident! A slip!” she yelled, flustered.

“Whatever,” Ram said, rolling her eyes and smirking as she climbed out of IronHide and hopped to the ground. “This guy’ll take me a week, at least, to fix up. What do you have in mind, sis?”

“For starters, I think we should activate Ratchet. In the HeadSpace, it’s been useless and inactive, but we could use the help to be honest.”

“Okay, I can see that; but daddy wanted to limit how many proxies were running to save on his mana. Ratchet’s not cheap.”

“Yeah I know,” she said, looking annoyed at Ram’s teasing, “but we’ve lost Carnivac now so it’s not like he’d be spending any more.”

“True... what do you think happened to Carn anyway? He should have shown up in the HeadSpace, right?”

“I don’t know... you don’t think he got deleted, do you?”

“Could be. Prime could spin up a new subRoutine but I guess it wouldn’t be the same, huh. He’ll need to send someone out to investigate and deal with that Dezarus guy too. I call not it.”

“We did pretty good in that one fight we were in...” Rom offered.

Ram gave her a side glance.

“Since when do you want to get into fights? We were designed to build things, not to break things. Leave that sorta stuff to Cyc or ‘Hide, once we get him fixed up.”

“Oh! Speaking of, little Hide is a wreck. I have some ideas to run past you.”

Rom pulled out some design notes and spread them out on a work table. Ram mashed her shoulder into her sister’s and looked over the concepts and diagrams.

“You haven’t told him, have you?” she asked, glancing over at Rom.

“Of course not,” Rom replied, mirroring Ram’s mischievous smile and adjusting her glasses.

“Cyc is gonna be pissed. Let’s do it. This design uses a lot of common parts so we should be able to knock it out pretty quickly. Especially if we enlist Ratchet’s help,” Ram said, tapping thoughtfully on one of the blueprints.

“Exactly. Though I would like to do something for little Cyclone too. I’ll have to give it some thought,” Rom said, leaning back and twisting her mouth to the side.

“You’re a good older sister. Daddy should be proud.”

“Oh shush, or I’ll disconnect your voice modulator,” Rom threatened, flipping out a number of blades and drills from her fingers.

“So violent!” Ram laughed, backing away.

They pulled Ratchet from [Inventory] and it booted up right away, ignoring the sisters, and gathered up all of Rom’s design notes. Ratchet pushed three work tables into a U shape and positioned itself in the center. The design notes were arranged in specific groups and precisely positioned on the tables.

Without a word, Ratchet pulled various components from [Storage] as well as scrap bodies and materials, only to remove a single small part and toss them back into the void.

“You know, Ratchet... we could work on this together...” Rom offered, giving a doubtful glance to Ram.

“Ratchet does not require your assistance at this time. The design is basic and simple. Ratchet will have the new body completed in twenty six minutes and thirty eight seconds, as long as Ratchet is not interrupted. Please wait until then.”

“Charming as ever. Heh, it called your design basic,” Ram huffed, linking her arm with Rom’s and resting her head on the other’s shoulder. “So what should we be working on if it’s taking the low hanging fruit?”

“The Princess. I think a new body for her should take priority. After seeing how she likes to fight, we should adjust the design to keep up. Daddy’ll be bringing her here soon, I’m sure. We should have the upgrade parts ready for her.”

“Ha! You said daddy!” Ram squealed.

Rom’s eyes fully dilated, shifting to pink, but she ignored the jab and rolled out several large sheets of design paper. Rom started sketching out the design schematics that they had used when originally building Lena’s body. Once she was finished, Ram took the drawing and started marking the areas of extensive damage, according to my observations and initial assessment. Some areas could be fixed while others would need to be completely replaced.

The two were discussing how they might be able to increase Lena’s arsenal of magic since that seemed to be her preferred method to fight. It would be helpful to figure out a way to change out different mana crystal load-outs on the fly without having to rely on someone else to change them for her. They would also have to determine a solution for Lena’s mana limit.

As advanced as Lena was compared to the standard and off-the-shelf Automata, her mana limit was still only around that of an average organic person. She was a far cry from any competent mage but that didn’t mean that becoming a proper magus was impossible. Unlike any organic magic caster, we could cheat.

Ram designed a system that would allow Lena to store however many mana crystals she wanted in an internal [Inventory] with a modification of my [Cannon.load({ammoType:default,enchant:function(x)})] function. The modifications should allow her to mentally visualize what she had in “stock” and swap them out as needed as well as specify which crystals were installed in which ports. The new design would add four more large crystal ports in her thighs and two medium ports in her calves. If all of the crystals were of the same type then higher level magic shouldn’t be out of her reach.

“Hmm...” Ram hummed, tapping her pencil on the design. “If we make room for these crystal ports in her legs, then we’ll have to seriously decrease the mechanical output strength. No more super jumps for her.”

“What if we make her bigger?” Rom suggested, looking over the sketches.

“She’s still a teenage girl. I can’t see any girl readily agreeing to upgrading to extra thick thighs.”

“No, no. I mean all of her. Go from a teen sized body to an adult sized body,” Rom offered.

“That’d get weird. I mean, she has the hots for Daddy and is already a head taller than him.”

“True... I was thinking of increasing the internal build space for higher capacity mana collection units, but all I could think of was increasing the size of her chest... Guys might like it, but I doubt she would.”

“Yeah I guess that’s true. Okay, let’s refine these designs then. We can increase her bust and thighs slightly but we should really try to stay within the current parameters.”

“Agreed.”

The two shook hands, like they were signing world peace and gave each other kurt nods. An uncomfortable silence stared at them and they slowly turned, in sync, to look at Ratchet.

“It is completed. Ratchet will now begin work on the required modifications and repairs to the proxy body, designation: IronHide at this time,” it said, and scuttled off, climbing inside of the hole in IronHide’s chest.

“I guess the low fruit is back to us,” Rom said, twisting her mouth to the side and adjusting her glasses.

“Well, you knew that would happen as soon as you summoned it,” Ram agreed, shaking her head.

“True. If it wants to do the work, I say we let it. We’ll do the fun stuff. Okay, let’s get this little guy booted up.”

On the table, laid the body of a child sized Automata. The design was similar in proportion to my own, if a little smaller, but with heavier armor plating. The armor design was bulkier too, giving the bot the look of a tiny heavy knight made from red and black gas cans.

“Doesn’t Prime need to do this part?” Rom questioned.

“Normally, yes, but we’ve just copied over all the existing firmware from his main body and the subRoutine already exists. He’ll have to handle the part remapping and perspective calibration on his own though. Normally, Daddy rewrites that part during the installation.”

“I think you’re doing that to mess with me back now...” Ram said, narrowing her eyes.

“Believe what you like,” Rom said, turning her chin in the other direction.

Notification

Prime.IronHide connecting to Proxy Body: LilHide...

Connection successful

The panel lighting and running lights flared to life, spreading out from the chest of the small body. The eyes glowed a bright green before dimming back down to normal operational levels as they shifted around, glancing at the surrounding workshop.

Carefully, IronHide propped himself up onto his elbows and looked around. One leg, then the other, swung off of the table and he attempted to stand up. His feet hadn’t reached the ground and he suddenly found himself dropping the rest of the way.

“Gah!” he screamed, stumbling back and crashing backward into the table. “The floor is too close!”

Rom giggled and reached out a hand to pull him up.

“Big... Sister?? How? How did you get so big?? Are you a Titan Class now? We’re supposed to be conserving mana! How HUGE are you?? Rammy?? You too??” he shouted, gesturing wildly.

“We’re the same size as before,” Ram said, squatting down to look him in the eye and covering a smirk with her hand. “Look over there,” she said, physically turning him around. “That’s your usual body, little brother.”

“Eh? EEEHHHH? What’s going on? Why am I so small??” He shouted again, falling back over and into Ram’s arms.

“This way,” Rom offered, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind and putting her face next to his, “you can use up way less mana and get out of the HeadSpace. Plus, now you’re Fun Sized!”

“Not cool Rommy! This is so not cool! I mean... what am I even supposed to DO at this size?” he complained.

“Oh, you’ll figure something out,” she teased, giving his head a little push as she stood back up.

“Uh, oh,” Ram cautioned, getting serious. “The minibots say the kids are in trouble and will need help. Looks like you’ll get to do a little fighting after all, my dear sister.”