Ep 1.5 Level Up (Closed)

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Proving herself to the Wrecker was going to be her undoing. She was sure of it. Even if she wasn't real sure why she went out of her way to prove what a BA she was. They knew she was, but sometimes she wasn't so sure. What if they thought she was getting soft? Or worse yet, what if they actually started listening to what Ratchet or some of the others said?

However, by the time she made it down to the bottom, she was sporting two sore legs and was panting like she'd ran the mile. She wasn't an out of shape kid at all but maybe she should take up track or something to keep up with the calisthenics required to be a Wrecker. Maybe she should get back into martial arts classes or something.

"Piece of cake!" She wheezed out and bent over, resting her hands on her knees.

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Wheeljack's first thought was what did cake have to do with climbing down rocks. But he suppressed the thought quickly because therein lay the way of endless logic loops. And those were the worst kind of thoughts. Already had one mental human-bot culture clash for the day and that was enough, thank you very much.

"Didn't doubt you for a second," Wheeljack replied absently. He frowned at himself as he picked up Mko'a elevated biosigns and made a private note to bring along supplies for his companion next time. He did recall something about the desert and the importance of hydration in his mental folder on 'Keeping Humans Alive.'

The Wrecker waited a moment to let Miko recover. Then he nodded at the dummy laid out on the ground. "Want to get our good friend here set up or should I do it?"

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Miko often thought it would be useful for the Bots to have a care package for the humans. How not to get them killed and that sort of thing. But then, as Raf pointed out, it made them sound more like hamsters than humans. So she'd not suggested it to Fowler like her first plan. Instead she just (whined) reminded the Bots when she was hungry or thirsty or the other needs that the body needed.

"No, I can do it." She'd finally regained her breath and straightened up with far more zeal than she felt. Her legs felt like jello when she walked. Weiiiird. She thought there was something about a vitamin deficiency to do with that but was probably wrong. Health class wasn't exactly her thing.

After she'd propped the dummy up, improvising some supplies and a very handy rock, she stood back and admired her work. Eh, it would do. The dummy was actually a lot heavier than she'd thought. Which was weird. Wasn't this supposed to be modeled after her? Miss Darby had said something about "dead weight" and why it was heavier. Miko definitely should have been paying attention to that bit of trivia.

Shrugging, she jogged back to Jackie's side and gestured to the dummy. "Got it!"

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There hadn't been much to do but wait while Miko set up the test dummy. Wheeljack ran a few idle calculations while he was waiting. Improvements he could make. How to get the most mileage out of the gauntlet's limited power supply. How to increase said power supply without making it too bulky and heavy for Miko.

"Nice," he said. Wheljack nodded his head at the gauntlet lying on the ground with the rest of the equipment, only a few metres away from his foot. He pinged the gauntlet and several seams appeared along its length, as the gauntlet's internal machinery unlocked thus allowing its diameter to be adjusted.

"Honors are all yours," the Wrecker told her.

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She wouldn't admit that she was moved by the very fact that Wheeljack had made her something. Miko wasn't a mushy type of girl. Not that there was anything wrong with mushy, silly stuff like that. She just didn't need squishy, sappy songs or to dress like some of the other chicks in her class. She had her own thing and she was just fine with everything.

But there was something wrapped around her heart that turned all warm and melty when she ambled over to the gauntlet and stared down at the very cool piece of tech. To her, it was awesome looking. She didn't care what anyone else would think. This had been made just for her. Just for her protection. She was never going to take it off.

At least until they'd field tested the crap out of it.

Scooping it up, she juggled the weight of it, and ran her fingers over the device to familiarize herself with it. She was thoroughly tempted to slip it on her arm but she stopped herself for the moment. She could control herself for one evening. With a smirk, she moved over to place it around the arm of the dummy.

"So..just how powerful is this thing?"

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"Not as powerful as I'd like it but as powerful as it can be, given the tools and materials at hand," Wheeljack answered.

He looked over Miko then the dummy, now bearing the gauntlet. Wheeljack hadn't actually told her yet what it did and he figured that there probably wouldn't be a better time to discuss it.

"What I've done is taken a hardlight projector and modified it," he told her. "You've probably seen an emitter in action before, they're what makes the holographic interfaces for our computers. Or, if you've ever seen a mech use a holo, that's probably using hardlight."

"Anyway, the gauntlet? Instead of building an interface, it layers the hardlight tight into a protective bubble. Nothing will be able to penetrate it, or at least in theory. It also means you won't be able to move when the shield's active. Using hardlight like that will use up a lot of energy though, so it'll drain the power source fast. Not to mention that heat it'll generate, the gauntlet will automatically switch off after a certain point so it doesn't get too hot and burn you. Then, you'll have to wait for a cooldown period before you can use it again."

"All in all, I think you've got about 30 seconds max of shield time, by my best estimate. And enough charge in there for three goes before it's outta power, maybe four, depending on how long you run it. It's not a lot but anything more would be too heavy for you. Nor can it be run longer without risking injury to you," the Wrecker finished with an apologetic tone.

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"Thirty seconds, huh?" It didn't seem like a long time to Miko. Than again, time seemed to go a little too slow at times. Especially when she was in math class. So maybe she was looking and thinking at this from the wrong angle. Screwing up her face in thought, she held up her hands and started counting to herself for thirty whole seconds.

Huh. Didn't seem that short of a time after all. Not when it meant the difference between living or being a splat on the ground from a giant robot. Miko figured thirty seconds was just enough time to hold off an attack. Most bullets only took like, what, a second or two?

"Thirty seconds is very doable." She nodded as if she was an expert on the matter. "...when you say I can't move...do you mean like...I can't move at all or....?" Not moving wasn't exactly her forte when it came to, well, anything. That was more Jack's thing. Even Raf was fidgety.

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Thirty seconds and Wheeljack wasn't happy with it. But so far, it was the balance he'd achieved between cooldown, the weight of the gauntlet as well as the amount of charge and weight of the power source. Still, things could change in less than a sparkbeat on a battlefield. A second could be the difference between life and death.

"The shield's got a set area," Wheeljack corrected himself. He frowned at himself as he pictured the scenario. "You do have bit of wiggle room, a small area that you can walk around in but it's not that big and it's safer if you stay in the centre. The bigger the bubble, the more power it'll need so it ain't that large. But also, there needs to be a bit of space between you and the hardlight as a buffer, in case something has enough force to make a dent in the hardlight. Which shouldn't happen, but I have to think of worst case scenarios."

"Two reasons why the area is set: if the shield was constantly re-adjusting to whoever you were moving, it'd weaken significantly. The hardlight wouldn't be able to layer tightly if it keeps having to move somewhere else again. Plus, an even larger drain on the power supply."

After that little educational spiel, the Wrecker dropped to one knee, knowing Miko's propensity to scrabble up mecha if she could. "Want the best seat on the house while I put the gauntlet through its paces?" he offered.

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Unlike every class in school, Miko actually paid attention to his spiel about the gauntlet. (Whether she knew it or not, the small bout of physics was actually sinking into that potato she called a brain.) After all, it was a subject near and dear to her heart after all. And she had a ton of questions to ask but she was going to keep those for later. Right now it was time for explosions!

She flashed Wheeljack a thumb's up at the end of his speech. But when he invited her to climb on up, she hesitated for a scant moment. The look on her face clearly saying "what, for real?" before a grin split her face nearly in half. With agility belying her small form, she took a running leap and landed onto his leg. It took half a second for her to find a foot hold and to start climbing up with a suspicious amount of familiarity.

"So, if I hold onto something, would it be protected by the shield?" So much for waiting to ask the questions.

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Wheeljack held still as Miko scrabbled up his frame. He only rose to his full height once he was certain that she was secure.

"Set area," he repeated, in answer to her question. "The shield's been specified in accordance to your height. If something's caught within the diameter and is small enough, it'll be enclosed too. If it's too big, it'll stick out and...hmm...that'll create a hole in the hardlight. Point of weakness. Hmm…"

"Might be able to adjust the gauntlet's settings so that it pushes out anything not you from the immediate area," the Wrecker said thoughtfully. "Like the hardlight forms a small bubble that expands outwards, rather than it forming the layers at a distance. If that makes sense? So that something hostile can't get trapped underneath the shield with you. Things to think about and tinker with later, anyway."

Wheeljack transformed his right servo into a cannon and took aim at the test dummy. "Now hang on tight," he instructed. "And enjoy the show."

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"Yeah, I don't really want to get trapped in a bubble with a grenade." Miko nodded sagely, adding her two cents of wisdom to Jackie's debate with himself. She only knew the tiniest inkling of what he was talking about. Something about energy and light and how formed the right way, they could make barriers and hard surfaces. This was Raf's sort of thing to understand. She just nodded and went along with it for the most part.

Once seated comfortably on his shoulder, she crossed her legs at the ankles and sat with both her hands lightly placed against him for support. Should he need to move suddenly, she was ready to catch herself so he didn't need to worry about her. She and Bulk had actually been working on that whole team work thing a bit more.

She was finding herself a lot more certain on her footing and her movements. The graceless, two left feet of childhood was slowly being worn away as she grew familiar with Bulkhead's own movements. Neither of them were going to be graceful beings but Miko was less likely to run face first into his leg like she'd done so many times before. Or make him trip. Ratchet's worse nightmare.

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Wheeljack took careful aim at Wonder Woman. A shot began to charge in his inbuilt cannon. Just before he fired, he pinged the gauntlet to activate.

A bubble of bright yellow light appeared around the mannequin.

The second before Wheeljack's shot hit the testing dummy, the Wrecker's optics widened. The dummy was taller than Miko. And the gauntlet was set for the human's height. Wonder Woman's plastic head brushed the top of the hardlight shield. There was almost no buffer between the two.

The blast smacked the bubble hard. The hardlight crackled and held but the force of the impact dispersed through.

Wonder Woman's head snapped back. The dummy was not braced or secured to the ground. It was tossed backwards, smacking into the hardlight behind it and bouncing off it, pitching it forward. Again, it hit the shield, this time the part in front of it.

The mannequin had not been made to handle this sort of treatment.

Limbs flew everywhere.

Silence reigned as the shield flicked off due to a quick ping from Wheeljack. For a long moment, he stared over the mess, one optic ridge raised.

"Huh," he said at last.

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Whatever Miko had been expecting, the mannequin being jostled into pieces wasn't even close. The whole thing started out wicked but then took a nosedive around the point that arms started falling off of Wonder Woman. For a quiet second or two, Miko stared at the experiment, her eyes wide open and her mouth snapped shut. The silence didn't last that long.

"...that gonna happen to me?" She pointed at WW with a chipped fingernail. (She'd been meaning to repaint them but had misplaced her bottle of paint.) "Because if so, I change my mind!!" She wanted cool tech but she didn't want to lose pieces of herself in the process. ...Although, the thought of cybernetic pieces was kinda cool...

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Wheeljack had recovered from his shock and his processor had been whirring away at the exact sequence of events that had reduced Wonder Woman down to a sad tangle of plastic limbs.

At Miko's question, his helm snapped up. "Nope," he answered confidently. "For one, you're not made of plastic and are therefore unlikely to fall to apart with a little rough treatment. Secondly, the gauntlet wasn't set to Wonder Woman's height, it was actually still calibrated to yours so the shield wasn't large enough to protect her properly."

"And thirdly, well thirdly, this is why we are out here, testing. To make sure it doesn't do that when you turn it on."

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Miko was sure that Wheeljack was very smart and an awesome Wrecker. And something about being a scientist. Which was all well and good, but all she got out of the talk was "blah blah blah there is a small chance of losing a limb." She stared hard at the mangled mannequin and started to have...doubts.

"Wait, there was a chance this could have happened?! What happens if something outside influences the bubble's....bubbleness?!" Her mind was gleefully supplying all manner of horrible things that could happen. She didn't want to be bounced around inside the light barrier like a doll. That looked painful! And she had some dignity, darn it.