It was half a day after Abyssal's arrival in the hideout. Astral was busy maintaining her ship within the hideout to give Abyssal further attention, at least for the moment. If there was a time to act, it would be now. Though that being said, it wasn't like Abyssal can do much, considering that she was stuck within the stasis field. Still, it's not like that she had nothing to do. She was currently within the cargo bay with Kuon and Meica looking towards the crate given to them by E just before they left the supercarrier. It was a large box which looked like it could fit a human in it. It was now, within an enclosed room surrounded by a cloud of nanites. Abyssal wanted to play safe, should the content be a dangerous object.
"You know, I was excited about opening the package just earlier. But now, after hearing the truth of the carrier, I feel a little hesitant," Abyssal said as she circled around the crate, trying to find signs of anything suspicious.
"The next time we meet with her again may very well be enemies as opposed to previous relationships," Kuon said to Abyssal, looking at the crate with suspicion as well.
Only Meica was standing slightly away from the crate, just looking at the object with curious eyes. She was at a safe distance away from the others.
"Then we ought to be stronger by then, right? Continue gathering more resources from asteroids, continue to upgrade the ship, and continue to get more technology. Now that we are out of the Lawless Maw Zone, everything should be smooth sailing."
"I won't deny that thought. But remember that we are still being chased by that Jinko. Plus, I don't have an inch of trust in Astral, as well."
"I think Astral is fine. But yeah, we will have to deal with Jinko one day."
"When will we ever be strong enough to deal with her? She is not exactly a small fry."
"Don't worry about it. We will deal with her when the time comes," Abyssal said nonchalantly as she approached the crate.
"Sorry, nyaa," Meica said softly. "Meica caused so much trouble for Abyssal."
Kuon let out a clicking noise before backing away from the crate. "Trouble is one thing. I don't want to say this, but I think it might be best if you just went back with Jinko, to Dawning Star."
"Meica, don't want to be heir. Prefer exploring…" Meica pouted, looking away from Kuon.
"All of that trouble, the amount of times we almost died. What an adventure this is, huh?" Kuon said sarcastically.
"Muuu… Meica pouted even further.
"Don't fight you two," Abyssal said, as she got a construction drone to pry open the crate.
"We aren't fighting."
"Not fighting, nyaa."
The both of them answered simultaneously.
"You know, I don't think I ever asked. Why does your parents want you to be the heir anyway? You said you have brothers right? Can't one of them be the heir of Nipon Steel?"
"...Mother wanted me. I'm better at designing weapons for ships than brothers. Better engineer as well. Brothers better suited for business, not weapons design."
"And why don't you want to become the heir? Sounds like an easy job. Beats being a slave in some nation who had no qualms erasing and reformatting your memories."
"Meica don't want to create weapons that kill people...."
"Ahh… that would be a problem for a weapons company, huh," Abyssal replied.
"That doesn't make sense. Didn't you assist in the design of this ship? The whole ship is meant to destroy—"
"It's not the same! Ship is cool!" Meica yelled out, cutting Kuon off. "Besides, weapon is stupid maid drone's idea, not mine."
"Why you little…"
The two went on to have a little argument which Abyssal completely zoned out as she concentrated fully on the crate. It was tightly sealed, but the construction drone made short work of it. Abyssal then lay it down upwards on the floor before lifting the lid off slowly. As the lid came off, Abyssal floated above and peaked at what's inside.
'I hope it's something good,' Abyssal thought to herself.
What was inside the crate was a body. But not just anybody, it was one of those android humanoid bodies that was sold within one of the shops in E's body. It was about 160 cm tall and had feminine features— clearly built with a female body as a base. It was a tech that Abyssal could easily assimilate and reconstruct to re-create her avatar in real life. A way for her to finally ditch the drone that she had been using for almost a year.
"..." an interested Abyssal could be seen speechless about the gift.
Normally, Abyssal would be excited about the prospect of getting the body that she wanted for a long time. However, she only remained silent with a deadpan face as she stared at the humanoid android body. She then glanced towards her left, towards a wall in the cargo bay. Over there, just laying on the floor with the back facing the wall were two android humanoid bodies of the same type as the one in the crate.
She had already 'acquired' the bodies beforehand. It wasn't an easy task, but Abyssal had managed to get them via Julia's and Meica's help. Thanks to them, a simple resupply operation turned out to be more profitable on Abyssal's side.
It wasn't only the bodies, she had also taken one of the numerous fighters within E's hangar before she left. It was right now, tucked away in a little corner, next to the two bodies. Abyssal had thought about the probability of making an enemy out of E by doing so, but soon decided that they were already pretty much enemies anyway— might as well get ahead in terms of technology.
'The fact that she sent me one of these means that she didn't notice. Huh… After all that talk about me being easy too. I guess I'm the one who got the last laugh, Abigail E. Eternity.' Abyssal thought before checking the rest of the crate to make sure that she didn't miss anything else.
Once confirming that it was only the android body in the crate, Abyssal closed the lid of the crate before sealing it tight.
'I should just get rid of this one, just in case. Even though she said it was as a sign of friendship, I just can't trust her. Don't want E playing another mind game crap on me again.'
"Kuon, I'm done here. Come on, let's try out the new body chassis," Abyssal said.
Kuon who seemed to be still arguing with Meica got taken aback by the sudden order. "Hmm? What about the crate, Master? Is the content of the crate unwanted?"
"Yeah. It's useless to us. I've sealed it with lead so make sure to dispose of it later on before we leave the hideout.
"Understood," Kuon bowed.
* * * * *
"Wow…" Abyssal let out a cute voice as she looked at herself in a mirror.
An actual mirror in real life, not one in her virtual realm. It was basically her avatar, just with a little insignificant deformities here and there— like slightly shorter hair, different colour in the clothing and her hair. All of the deformities was due to the materials she used to reconstruct the body and the difference in lighting. It wasn't a perfect job, but it was almost there. About roughly 99% of her looks were translated over to the new body.
She twirled around in order to see more of herself. Despite her entire body being made out of metal, her skin felt smooth and squishy. Her extra fat is bouncy, her long hair looked silky and wavy. It was hard to believe that her new body wasn't created by biological components of any means.
Bringing her hands towards her face, Abyssal put both her fingers on both sides of her cheeks and started to drag them upwards, forcing a smile. Her squishy cheeks felt squishy to the touch, as if touching real flesh. Not only that, but she could feel the sensation of touch and the heat around herself— something that she could not feel in her previous body.
She then started to change her expression rapidly— forming a smile, a frown, an angry look and various more. Her new body changed expression just like how she would as a 'human'. Once satisfied, she then started to move her body around, stretching her arms and legs and started to do small star jumps. Her bouncy fat went up and down as she did so. Even her clothes had physics like it was made out of cloth. The only thing that didn't happen was her running out of breath and sweat pouring down her body.
'Yup, no irregularities with the new body. Amazing… so this is the power of zenatonium and a chassis, huh…' Abyssal thought to herself.
Yes, Abyssal had taken out most of the zenatonium used in the ship in order to do the final reconstruction of the two humanoid chassis. While the upgrade to her gun was helpful and great, Abyssal found that it used too much power with the zenatonium infusion to be of much use in battle. The power hungry gun which already took a lot of power and time charging up devoured even more power. Although the firepower was excellent, it was hard for her to use the gun without being stationary. She decided that she might as well put it towards her new body. If she didn't do so, then there would be even more of a deformity in the body. Unlike the 1% deformity result she saw here, it could very well be about a 40% deformity— not good enough to pass off as a living being.
'Might be a backward way of thinking, but I'll find more zenatonium later on. Besides, I can always deconstruct the body and recoup the zenatonium again,' Abyssal explained her reasoning towards no one in particular.
"Master, are you done?" Kuon's voice came from behind.
"Ah yup!" Abyssal replied, moving outside of the room that she was in. "How this looked?" Abyssal said as she did a silly pose in front of Kuon.
"That looks good on you, Master," Kuon answered as how a maid would normally respond to their masters, but Abyssal could see that her heart wasn't in her words as she said that.
Outside she could see a well-endowed woman with grey hair tied in braids wearing a victorian-maid outfit kneeling in front of her. With closed eyes and head looking to the ground, the woman had an air of nobility and class to her. Next to the woman was Kuon, still in her drone, making her final adjustments.
"Wow…" Abyssal let out another amazed gasp as she looked at Kuon's avatar in front of her.
"Why do you look so surprised? Haven't you seen my avatar in the virtual realm?"
"Yeah, I know. But it looked so much more different in real-life," Abyssal said as she poked Kuon's uninhibited body on the face. She could feel the soft skin pushing against her own.
"I see… Well, if you may," Kuon said as she turned her drone around and opened up the hatch, revealing her core.
While it used to be round before, it had now taken the shape of a rectangular object, fitting the shape of a chip that was supposed to be where the CPU of the drone would be.
Abyssal nodded and reached her hand out towards the chip shaped-core. Compared to when she did this the first time with the drone, her new body felt much better. Simple actions like grabbing something could be done with much more dexterity than before. Picking up the chip was no problem at all for Abyssal.
With one hand, she held Kuon and with the other, she lifted the new body's long hair aside. She then placed the chip onto the new body. The chip slowly melted and was absorbed into the new body. Or rather, Kuon was actively assimilating the new one. It was long before Abyssal could hear grunts and sighs from Kuon's new body. Kuon opened her eyes before standing up.
She moved her body around a little bit before giving a small bow towards Abyssal. A real maid's bow, which looked much more professional than the ones she always gave in her drone form. She then picked up the remains of her old body, giving off a bittersweet look towards it.
"You can keep that if you want, you know," Abyssal said, giving out a soft smile to her.
"Then don't mind if I do just that," Kuon smiled as she gave the little thing a small hug. "Shall we?"
Once that all was done, the next step was to show Meica their new bodies. This should effectively be her first time seeing their avatars, so her reaction was sure to be amazing. And the results weren't disappointing at all.
The moment Meica laid her eyes on them, sparkles came out of her and her tail wagged uncontrollably.
"Abyssal is so beautiful!" She screamed as she went over to hug Abyssal. She then started to rub her cheeks onto Abyssal's own. "Body so squishy! Like pillow!"
Meica went over and touched Abyssal for a good minute before letting her go. She then took a look at Kuon's grumpy face and let out a frown. The expression was shared by Kuon who gave out a frown towards Meica.
"Meica liked maid drone better as drone."
Kuon responded by bringing her hands on Meica's cheeks before pulling it apart very hard.
"Nyaa! Nyaa! Sytop it, you styupid Myaid Drone!" Meica yelled out trying to pull Kuon's hands away, though the maid never stopped pulling on her cheeks.