/simu/ - Simulacrum

>>247
>Valkyrie Labs, Downtown Sanctuary City

>The office of Lisa Dawkins looks less like a professional workspace, and more like a child's bedroom, sans the bed. Various papers line shelves, some weighed down by pieces of scientific equipment. A small, unorganised workstation sits in the corner of the room, a collection of personal projects sitting on it, most of them half-finished. Taking up a corner is a full tower server and computer setup, with wires coming in and out it for various purposes. In the centre of the room, the owner of the office herself can be found, napping on a desk, her hair knocked out of line due her face being pressed against a stack of papers as she snores.

>As the sun shines into the office, it hits the young scientist's face, and she mumbles something before moving out of it, clearly not wanting to be disturbed. . .

>Just as she seems to have gotten herself comfortable again, the setup in the corner beeps and starts loudly printing out a ticker tape, waking her up completely.

>With a yawn, Lisa walks over to the tape and pulls it off the machine.

"Robbery. . . yadda yadda yadda. . . 4th and Maine. . . nearest unit is 10 minutes. . ."

>With another yawn, Lisa brings her hand near her face, looking at a ring on it, rotating it once as she thinks.

"I can handle that, I guess. . ."

>With a quick look around to make sure no one is watching her, she brings her fist in front of her and presses a button on the side of the ring, causing it to eject a rapidly growing costume.

>After a quick stretch of her neck, Lisa and the costume disappear in a storm of lightning and force, disturbing the papers in the office again. . .

>>264
>Maine Street, Sanctuary City

>The alarms of a jewelry store ring out, breaking apart the usual "silence" of the city. It doesn't take much inspection to see the cause of the disturbance, as a clean, precise gash can be seen, the source of which is visible from the outside.

>Standing in the centre of the main showroom is a tall woman, made even taller still by a set of blades coming from the bottom of her legs, the bulk of which hide all details from below her knees. As a group of store staff cower in fear of her, she shoves on of the blades down into a display case, shattering the glass and letting her kneel down and carefully pick up some of the jewelry, gently putting it into a rucksack on her back.

>After gathering what she can from the display case, the woman turns her attention to one of the staff, their nicer clothing betraying them as a manager.

"The nice stuff, where is it?"

"W-what?"

"The nicer stuff, stuff that's too expensive to display normally, that sells for a lot, I know you have that kind of stuff, where is it?"

>The manager shuffles backwards, trying to move away from the woman as she approaches them, stopping as a blade suddenly comes down, stabbing into the ground by them.

>Using the blade as leverage, the woman leans down so that she's almost face to face with the manager.

"Where. Is. It?"

"I have no idea what you-"

>The woman pulls back, carefully unsheathing the blade from the ground and positioning it over the manager, then, she brings it down violently, aiming straight for the manager's chest. . .

>>266
>The blade slams down, hitting the ground with enough force to crack around the entry point rather than the flesh it was aimed at as the manager disappears in a flash of lightning.

>Letting out a grunt of annoyance, the woman turns her head to see Speedrunner behind her, brushing herself off.

"So let me guess, quick and easy job, loads of extra stock in for Valentine's Day, big payout. That right. . ."

>Speedrunner looks the woman up and down.

"Sword. . . legs?"

>Annoyance still on her face, the woman turns back, moving her other leg and body to allow her to use them as leverage to pull the stuck blade out of the ground, turning around to face Speedrunner.

"Swegs? No that sounds like some weird toy. . . Blade. . . foot?"

>The woman makes her way over to Speedrunner, towering over her.

". . .oh wow you're tall, Stiltlady?"

"Just shut up. . ."

>With a spin, the woman slashes at Speedrunner with her left leg, the speedster dodging it just before it hits her.

>The arc of the blade leaves a clean burn mark alongside a display case that was behind Speedrunner, causing her to look at it with surprise.

"Ok so those are a bit more serious than they first look, so first we should get everyone out of here. . ."

>Keeping an eye on the woman, Speedrunner makes her way over to one of the staff members.

"Hi. . ."

>In a blink of an eye, both Speedrunner and the staff member are outside.

"Please stay in here while I deal with. . . Katanaknee? No that name doesn't work as well. . . Oh look that's my cue. . ."

>Inside the store, the woman turns and notices Speedrunner outside, beginning to walk over to her after readjusting herself. . .

>>267
>Speedrunner disappears in another stream of lightning, reappearing behind the woman.

"Hey stilty, over here. . . I'll give you a chance t-"

>A blade cuts down at Speedrunner, narrowly missing her due to her shifting place slightly.

"Yeah that. . ."

>The speedster is forced to adjust her position again as the woman lets out of cry of frustration and tries to slice across her throat.

"Just. Keep. Still."

>The woman jumps up, her hands managing to hit the roof, and pushes off from it, building up more momentum. As she speeds towards Speedrunner, she brings her legs together, becoming a "javelin" to strike her, the blades humming with an odd energy.

>Seeing the woman heading to her at high speed, Speedrunner begins stepping to the side, stopping as she notices the energy, tapping her goggles quickly, she makes note of something before moving to the side, stopping in front of the woman's head for a moment.

"You're too slow."

>Speedrunner steps out of the way again, letting the woman embed her blades into the floor, the task of removing them distracting her enough for Speedrunner to remove the last staff members from the store.

>>270
>With everyone out, Speedrunner returns to the centre of the store, tapping her foot and crossing her arms as she faces the woman.

"Ok so, we can do the easy way, or the hard way. . ."

>The woman keeps on trying to pull her legs from the ground as Speedrunner talks.

"The easy way is you step out of those fancy swords, tell me who gave them to you, and hand yourself in. The hard way is. . ."

>The woman manages to get one blade free, using the leverage from it to twist around and slash at Speedrunner.

"Yeah that's the hard way, guess you've made your decision."

>Speedrunner shifts, taking a boxer's stance.

"To be a little more fair, I'll avoid moving as much as possible, use some old boxing tricks my dad taught me. . ."

>The woman manages to get her second leg free, bringing it up into the air and slicing it down, narrowly missing Speedrunner as the speedster leans out of the way, throwing a jab and hitting the metal.

"Do you ever shut up?"

"Not really."

>The woman stabs at Speedrunner, missing again and earning a set of three jabs followed by a strike from Speedrunner's knee.

"It gets boring when I don't talk, especially as everything's really slow to me. Also I like to think the people I fight value our little verbal bouts."

>The woman slices at Speedrunner again.

"It's really annoying, just leave me alone."

"No can do. . . in fact. . ."

>Speedrunner throws another set of punches, hitting both of the blades at different points. Once the strikes have finished, the construction attaching them to the woman's legs breaks apart.

"That's checkma-"

>Speedrunner stops her quip as she notices that the woman's legs end where they met the blades.

"Ohcrap."

>>275
>Speedrunner rushes forward, grabbing the falling woman and depositing her safely on the floor.

"So. . . I'm not an expert on disabled people, but destroying prosthetics isn't something you should do, right?"

>Speedrunner begins pacing, a small trail of lightning following her as she does.

"Does this make me a bad person? Were the shop people actually the bad guys? How do I even-?"

"Shut up. . ."

>Speedrunner looks down at the woman, awkwardly trying to avoid looking at her legs.

"I was trying to steal from this place, you can even check the bag on my back, not like I can stop you. . ."

"That makes it sound even worse!"

>Speedrunner facepalms, letting out a high pitched noise.

"Why did you even do this? Did someone blackmail you, or?"

"Money. I was stealing jewelry so I could sell it for money."

"Because you were being blackmailed, right?"

"No. . ."

"Oh good."

"I needed it for new prosthetics."

>Speedrunner lets out another high pitched whine.

"Say these things ahead of fighting next time, that way I don't. . ."

>Speedrunner indicates at the discarded blades.

"Why, it was a good move? I thought it looked cool."

"I just. . I. . ."

>The woman rolls her eyes, pulling herself up into a sitting position with the wall.

"Are you always like this? The news reports make it look like you're cooler."

"I don't usually beat up disabled people!"

>The woman quickly looks herself over.

"I'm not injured and I was stealing from the place so. . . you can shut up with that stuff."

>Speedrunner paces for a few seconds, then takes a deep breath.

"Right. . . yeah. . . ok. . . so you were stealing stuff to pay for new prosthetics. . . but if you were doing that for that reason, how did you get those?"

>Speedrunner points to the discarded blades.

>The woman thinks for a moment, then looks confused.

"I can't really remember? Actually, the last day or so is really hard for me to remember, I don't even get why I was trying to hurt you, except trying to escape. . ."

>>276
>Speedrunner scratches the back of her head awkwardly, her ponytail being nudged out of place by her hand.

"Well. . . I'm not really sure they'll accept that reason. . . sooo. . ."

>The woman looks up at Speedrunner.

"I'm not going to jail am I? I don't think jail would be good for people like. . ."

>She looks down at her own legs rather than finishing the sentence, earning a grimace from Speedrunner.

"Maaaaaybe? I hope not. . . errrr. . . oh!"

>Speedrunner looks at the room for a piece of paper and rushes over to one, grabbing it and a pen. She writes a number on it and holds it out for the woman to take.

"Call this person, they'll pay your bail and for a lawyer if you need one, just say Speedrunner asked you to, ok?"

>Speedrunner coughs awkwardly.

". . .do you have any other. . . legs? I don't want to just leave you here without any but I can't just give you back the sword ones - I kind of need to take them for my own stuff. . ."

>The woman narrows her eyes at Speedrunner, taking the note.

"You're not going to steal my stuff if I tell you where I live, are you?"

>Speedrunner shakes her head in an exagerrated manner.

"Of course not, I don't do the whole stealing thing, that wo-. . . I don't steal stuff. . ."

>The woman sighs.

"I live on the next block, apartment number 5 in the big block, the elevator doesn't work despite me telling the super he needs to get it fixed, I've got a key in-"

>Before she can finish, Speedrunner disappears and returns with a pair of blade prosthetics, carefully putting them by the woman.

"Cute penguins. . ."

>She looks at the woman, then at the prosthetics.

"Do you want help to. . . y'know?"

>The woman sighs and grabs one of the prosthetics, shaking her head.

"Errr. . . then do you want me to stay and talk with you while we wait for the cops to come?"

>The woman thinks for a moment, then sighs again.

"Sure. . ."

>>288
>A few hours later.

>Lisa Dawkins slumps down on her office chair, with a new addition, or more accurately pair of additions, to her workbench as the blades rest in a vice, a collection of wires having been added to it. Running a hand through her hair, the scientist sighs, her eyes running over the blades.

"Completely normal, except for being exceptionally lightweight. . . no firmware except a junk file labelled '72'. . ."

>Lisa closes her eyes, spinning in her chair.

"But I could've sworn. . . for a second. . ."

>Lisa lets out an annoyed grunt.

"Guess I need to recalibrate the goggles. . ."

>Lisa looks over at the blades again.

"And those need to go into the place where every other thing goes before anyone finds them, can't have someone getting their hands on them if that wasn't a glitch. . ."
[The End]