Lets Try This Again

Job Info:

Another day, another normal crisis for Aliarey when she woke up that morning. Much to her shock the poor girl had summoned up her piggy bank from her magic storage dimension and found it completely empty. No amount of shaking it while holding it upside down would spontaneously spawn money from its insides. Just to be sure, she even used her guns to shoot it into pieces. Only the glass that once made the piggy bank what it was littered the floor. No jewels at all. Now how was she supposed to pay for her breakfast? The jewels she got from her last easy peasy job of making a random potion lasted a while, yet somehow she still expected it to last forever even though it was a small amount. Surprise! A mage had to keep consistently doing jobs to keep that jewel flow going. It was common sense logic to most, but for a mage that thought people should just give her what she needed for free that sort of thinking just did not exist. Now there she was, sitting at a round wooden table of one of the many inns in Talonia with a few others that held flyers in their hands. What was on those flyers? Guild recruitment details. What was the topic of conversation? Convincing Aliarey to join one. Considering her constant money issues and lazy habits they thought joining one would help keep her in action and maybe solve some of the issues that had them facepalming every day of the week.

"What about this one?" A large middle aged man suggested as he slid over one of the flyers towards the blonde that leaned back in her chair, not caring all that much about the conversation or even what they were trying to do. She liked going solo and money issues were easily solved eventually. Their efforts were completely pointless. She only even stuck around to humor them all.

The blue eyes of hers glanced down at the flyer that had been turned so that she could read it properly rather than try to decipher everything with upside down text. West Fiore Trading Company? Was that a serious suggestion? She snorted a short chuckle, trying to hold in a burst of laughter. "Yeah, going to pass on that."

"What?! Why?! They're pretty popular and have a lot of pretty well known mages in their ranks!"

Aliarey leaned forward in her chair and grabbed the flyer, holding it up and then pointing her finger at one of the key details listed. "Uh, did you even read this? They all wear uniforms! No thanks. What kind of mage even decides to work for a trading company anyway? Bunch of weirdos."

Another person at the table, this time a woman, held up a different flyer. "What about Crystal Swan? It's not as old as other guilds, but it has become a much talked about and popular guild."

"Huh, I think that's the guild Liam joined some time ago." The guild name making her remember the mage that she had teamed up with a few times in the past. She hadn't really seen or heard from him in a long while, but she had still heard of his switch in guilds. "Still going to pass though."

"Damn, how old is that flyer? Crystal Swam doesn't exist anymore. Instead there's Aurora something or other."

"Never heard of it. I doubt I'd fit in there anyway. What are they like?"

"Uh... they... huh." The one that brought up that particular guild paused and tried to recall what that guild stood for and the type of wizards that were in its ranks. It seemed to slip her mind, but well, it was a new guild so they were probably still spreading the word and getting stable. "Well, they have a unicorn. Or so I've heard."

"Me and unicorns go splendidly together! Yep!" A heavy hint of sarcasm was within the blonde's voice. She grabbed one of the flyers that were on the table, crunched it up into a ball, and threw it at the criminal that dared suggest she join some guild that had a sparkly unicorn as a mascot. The thing was probably actually a intimidating beast instead of a cute fluffy critter with that breathed rainbow glitter, but, well, Alia was not going to bother thinking about that. Surely it was really the common stereotype instead.

"Black Rose?"

"I think that's the one Grema was a part of. I haven't heard from her in ages, and no one has told me anything about her. I am going to assume that guild sacrificed her as part of some evil ritual and then sold the magitech parts of her body for profit."

The other people at the table stared wide eyed at Aliarey, completely baffled by her outrageous conclusion of what happened to that friend of hers. She was completely serious with her theory too. That guild had done something to Grema.... which really was probably sending her packing back to Bosco, but where was the fun with reasonable thinking?

"Sabertooth?"

"They still exist?" Her blue eyes blinked in confusion at the guild suggestion. She hadn't heard anything regarding that guild in a while. There was also the assumption Liam had left it because the guild no longer existed. Well, apparently she was wrong with that theory. Huh. It was still a no though. All suggested guilds were. Every single one that was known and not considered a dark guild was named. By that point the others at the table were convinced Aliarey was not really taking the suggestions seriously. Every guild from the start would have been refused.

"Hey! Aliarey! When are you going to pay me for the nights you spent here?!" The owner of the inn she was staying at shouted as he entered the room.

"Probably never. I'm out of jewels," she replied in a nonchalant tone as she leaned further into the table and rested her head on it with the thought to take a nap.

"Oh, no you don't! You are not getting a free ride this time, girl!" The owner of the inn then slammed a job request onto the table by her head. Aliarey instantly sat up, her relaxed state now entering heart attack mode. Rude! She glanced down at the request and rolled her eyes as she read the details. "This again? Pass." It was a job that had been posted up before and one that she had taken for herself to complete. Things didn't go so well though and it ended up as a total failure. "I can't believe no one has completed that job yet. I attempted it a while ago."

"Well it's a good thing no one did because you're going to finish what you started and give me part of the reward as payment for all the nights you have stayed here. This isn't some homeless shelter!"

(Total So Far: 1159)

Lots of arguing, yelling, failed bribing and IOUs, some damaged furniture, and a few more bills added onto her already heavy debt later, Aliarey had decided to complete that mission she took on a long time ago but never finished. The reason for that being her "help" had completely disappeared in the middle of it! So freaking rude! They could have at least set her up so she would be fine and able to complete it herself but noooo. She was left to deal with a weird robot army from another planet all on her own and with no warning. Bastards. Aliarey had to make a retreat that day and consider the mission a complete failure. They would regret it if they ever ran into her again. For sure!

Now here she was again trying to do this job. A job that apparently no one else bothered doing. Did it just not pay enough for the trouble? Or were there just a lot of people allergic to walking over-glorified tin cans? Well whatever. She'd get paid if she could accomplish it this time. Although, the pay was less than before, and that was just annoying all on its own. She couldn't blame the clients though. It did take her forever to finally get around to trying again. "Huh, not much has changed." Aliarey commented aloud to herself while standing on a high cliff that overlooked the large robot factory she had visited once before. She looked down below and observed what she could, using her magical eye visor to get a better and closer look. As far as she could tell nothing noticed her there, and so she trusted her safe feeling and assured herself that she could take as long as she could to plan. "Wow, even the power towers are still shut down. Either those bots didn't come with a maintenance model or something else is up."

Those towers had been very important during her first visit. Only four of them existed throughout the whole factory, and all of them very far apart from each other. They kept most of the walking tin cans up and running as well as gave them basic commands and protocols. The plan had been to shut all of the towers down, thereby shutting down the numerous yet way too annoying to bother with bots that worked and patrolled around the factory. Easy. Peasy. Three of those towers were shut down during her first attempt at the mission. One by herself, and the other two with the two mission partners that ditched. At the very least they handled that much themselves, and it even worked in her favor if the towers really were still shut off. With the inactive bots standing around, and the fact many of them were still lying around as destroyed parts instead of being cleaned up and repaired, that had to be the case. It was enough proof to at least move in anyway. She wouldn't necessarily walk out in the open screaming hi to every idle bot standing around, but she would at least leave the cliff and investigate further. "I really need to get some equipment upgrades. Some kind of stealth device or something. Hell even some teleportation thingy would be cool right now." Naturally she would have just used the latter to get back to the tower she took out before so she could at least be closer to the final one. It was pain to feel as if she was starting all over, even if she technically wasn't.

Aliarey made her descent and began to sneak her way around the factory. There were some wandering bots around, but she made no effort to engage and just let them pass her by or look for other routes if she felt that she could not get past them undetected. They were few in number, but they were still functioning for a reason. Either they were part of the army that was powered by the fourth tower, or they were the much stronger variety that did not even need those towers to be functional. She was many things, but not suicidal. Or powerful. The re-quip mage would sooner run than engage in a tough fight if she didn't have to. And right now, she didn't have to at all. There was only one fight she needed to do and that was against whatever nifty robot leader was controlling the others. If she got lucky maybe she wouldn't even have to fight at all. She just needed to be sneaky about it. Maybe there were other types of controls in the main sector. That would come later, and she would be sure to call up a communicator bot of her own to get advice from one of her more intelligent friends. Maybe. Blowing it all up was a good option and less annoying to deal with.

"And there it is!" Alia whispered to herself in mild excitement. So far things were going her way. Nothing noticed her, and as she peeked around the corner to get a look at the fourth tower's entrance she could see that nothing was guarding it. Suspicious some would say. Lucky was the word she was going to choose. Her blue gaze shifted upwards towards the top of the tower. From what she remembered, the controls were up at the top. Before she had used her jet pack to make it up there, but this time it seemed she would be having to do things differently. She clicked her tongue and sighed. "Damn." The fourth tower didn't have windows at the top room like the one from before. The longer way to the top was going to have to be taken. Not that, that was an entirely bad thing. It was bound to be a lot safer than last time.

(Word Count: 976
Total So Far: 2135)

And so the requip mage made her way through the tower of lacrima powered walking trashcans. It was not safer. Not at all. What the hell was she thinking?! They all came equipped with guns, lasers, sharp slicing weapons, and abilities that no normal type of trashcan or refrigerator should have. Ever! It was a walk through a scrap metal convention that was in a clubhouse that clearly had the "no humans allowed" sign missing. Every corner the blonde took, every hallway ventured through, every door opened, had some type of evil machinery that threatened to kill her. Sure her beginning tactic of going in guns blazing may not have been the most stealth like or helpful to go unnoticed way easier but, well, that was just how it was now. It was too late to rethink her entry. A shame she couldn't just leave and let all the independently working robots "reset" back into an idle status, but life was not some ilac game. Each bot was taken out in various forms from her equipment, making a real mess of things that she was so not bothering to clean up. Nor would the bots be doing the cleanup since those may have been taken out as well during the fights. Better safe than sorry in case they had some psycho setting like Grema's cleaning bots had that one time long ago. Still, no matter how many bots were taken out there were still more to replace them. As long as the fourth tower still remained operational it was going to be one versus infinity.

"Yeah, I may have just been a bit too stupid on this one." Aliarey told herself after running into a room that was, for once, empty. She quickly closed the door as the attacking bots were about to waltz inside and right after flipped a switch on the wall beside her to lock it. Not that that was going to help much if they just blasted right on through it. "I need to think of something fast." The woman sighed and slapped her own forehead. "And I'm still talking to myself. Progress down the line of insanity has been made. Fanfreakingtastic. If I make it out of here I should just go ahead and check myself in at the nearest mental institution." The sounds of shots and bangs against the door brought the blonde back to focus on the real issue. She looked around, scanning the room for a way out or a way to improvise some form of plan. There was a vent that she could get to easily. A small cannon materialized on the top of her arm and as she aimed for the vent she shot at it to bust the covering off. All that remained was moving a table under it so she could jump and crawl right in. Lucky her that she was quick about it since the door shattered into pieces just as she got completely inside the vent and started to move through the cramped metal tunnels to a new location. The beeps, boops, and whirling sounds she forced herself to ignore entirely. If she worried about them following her then she'd probably waste time panicking... Or shooting them in that very tiny space. Aliarey made a turn at an intersection, which led to the end of her tunnel. Thankfully that end had an exit opening so all she had to do was force that piece of annoying metal off its hinges and then allow herself to fall out in a not so graceful manner. She was a mage with guns, not some silly twirling ballerina with the grace and balance of some divine god. "Ouch!" Was all the woman said after her body hit the ground. She pushed herself up to her knees and peeked up over the desk she had fallen behind. "Huh, well that's convenient." At first glance and upon further inspection as she stood up fully to get a better look it seemed as if she had finally made it to the control room. "But how did-" she began to think, and then stopped herself as her mind was clueless. Just how did that particular vent get to the top floor of the tower when she was moving horizontally and not vertically? Or was she going up and didn't notice? Magic? A wizard did it? Twilight zone phenomenon? She shrugged. "Eh oh well." Who cared, right? She was where she needed to be to shut the factory and entire rogue lacbot army down. Screw normal logic! Hurrah!

(Word Count: 763
Total So Far: 2898)

Now that she was in the right room, she needed to actually get everything to power down. She walked over to a large set up that had a bunch of controls, levers, and buttons everywhere. It was different than the other towers from before. In fact, she was quite sure that, that one probably could not be blown up. Damn. So much for that easy alternative. "Hmmmm." Aliarey pointed a finger at the controls and moved it from button to button. "Obviously the big red button is the one I should not press. That's the cliched 'oh no why did I press this and make everything get even worse' button.' Man why did this have to be so techy? I barely understand magic and here I am forced to deal with this alien technology crap." She sighed in frustration and then just picked a random button. It was round, small, and yellow. Aside from the fact that it was the only one not lit up it could have been easily looked over. At first, it appeared to do nothing once pressed. "Ehhhh?! What the heck?!" Well obviously the button that was not lit up wouldn't work. Yet, that particular blonde was surprised and angry that so much effort was wasted on pressing it only to get no results. Being stubborn and unreasonable with her thoughts, she pressed it again. And again. And then ten more times in rapid succession. Each one making her scowl get more serious. The sound of buzzing and a door sliding open did not even register to her. It wasn't until she got the creepy sensation that something was right behind her and invading her personal space that she realized something was off.

Aliarey slowly turned around, now worried that maybe that yellow button actually released something inside the room. "Oh, crap." Once she fully turned around, she saw a lacbot that was just a bit taller than her, but was a lot more lethal looking than her. How a walking trashcan could actually look angry she had no idea, but those lights behind those eyeholes were doing a good damn job with the intimidation factor. That and the magic energy radiating from the thing was also probably doing the trick. Unlike the other ones running around and shooting things up, that one was implanted with a lacrima that was high in quality, giving it more magical abilities than standard weaponry devices. The scene reminded her of being in Grema's basement with the giant tech monstrosities that were on their kill setting. The reaction the blonde had was very much the same. "Nope! Not dealing with this!" She then ducked as the killbot nearly took her head off with an energy blade, and she ran around the room looking for an exit. The magic the bot was infused with made it go faster than the typical ones she had run into thus far, and it seemed to be able to teleport very easily. When it wasn't quite literally going through every obstacle she tried to put between it and herself anyway. The plus side to it was that the bot didn't seem to really care about the large desk with buttons all over it. It had actually destroyed quite a bit of it while trying to catch her. Red lights and warning calls were going off, indicating that the tower's power was about to shut down and as a result all of the normal bots that were getting their orders were also powering down or switching to idle mode. Now she just had to deal with the main killbot going after her.

Somehow, someway, Aliarey managed to get away and destroy the damn killer robot. Its lacrima core was also removed and taken for herself. Factory shut down, and ready to be labeled as a junk yard. Mission success! The details of how she got from step ten to full completion no one will ever know.

(Word Count: 660
Total So Far: 3558)