"I just remembered," says Marko.
"What"
Marko and Sean step out of the jet and into the grassy field just right beside the seacoast, somewhere in England. Despite Sean's participation, this was just an A-rank mission.
"Isn't this a bad matchup for you?" Marko proceeds to ask the question circling around his mind, carrying and resting on his shoulder is a massive, unorthodox weapon with a long and thick handle.
This weapon, named by Marko as "Shelly" is a large, blunt weapon. Although Shelly would normally be considered as a massive mace, it would be somewhat inappropriate to put her in that category given that despite its purpose and use was similar to that of a mace, its resemblance was nowhere near close to one. A long, thick, golden handle and at the end is a huge, smooth metal ball, around a meter in diameter, like a huge inflatable beach ball. This is Shelly. A massive weapon fitting for a massive person.
"What do you mean?"
"These things petrify anything they touch, right?"
"Yeah, if the fuckers CAN touch me," it was the answer one would expect from the proud Sean.
Marko simply smiles at the response. Fair point.
The two large men proceed towards the massive ruins of the crumbling stone fortress in front of them. It was the makeshift home of the two stone gargoyles flying around and in circles above it, the monsters that they flew in just to pulverize.
They stop and look at up at the flying monsters, seemingly horsing around and playing with each other in the air.
"Now I'm starting to think that this is a bad matchup for the both of us," says Marko. "Should've brought a trampoline."
"Nah, these fuckers are coming down," Sean was ever optimistic. Some would say that it's actually overconfidence.
"Just need something to catch their attention," Sean looks at massive weapon Marko is carrying.
"Not happening," he knew what Sean was thinking and he was not on board with it.
"Come on, you'll get her back in like a second"
"I am not using Shelly as a projectile."
"Okay, then I'll do the throwing."
"Shelly is not leaving my hands."
"Ah, fine," Sean walks up to the ruined stone castle and strikes its walls with a restrained kick. Weak enough to not topple the entire thing, but strong enough to damage it a little bit, shaking and cracking the crumbling castle. A piece of the wall of stone crumbles down on the ground. Sean picks it up and throws it at the flying monster. "Down here!"
Having successfully tested out a variation of his void energy manipulation on the Redwood mission, Sebastian was intent on perfecting it. And to do this, he would need some upgrades on his swords. The way he had done it previously is by manually applying and coating his swords with the void energy. And although it worked the way he intended it, it was far from being efficient. Reason number one being this method takes too much time. This would be a hassle in extremely fast-paced fights where he would have little to no time in manually coating his blades. Another reason is that this coating that he applies slowly depletes in every hit. In the case of a long, drawn-out fight, the coating will eventually wear off and he would have to manually apply a second coating.
He approached the tech and engineering department regarding an idea of brand-new swords that will automatically absorb the void energy that he will emit. This way, he wouldn't need to manually cover the blades with it any time he would have to use his void blades in battle. Having the smartest minds and most advanced tech and equipment in the world, this request was more than doable for Eden. The only slight bump is that they would need to spend some time researching and gathering data regarding the void energy as it was still borderline unchartered territory even for Eden.
For the past days, Sebastian has spent most of his time in a testing room, providing the scientists and engineers with ample data that they can study and work on. If he wasn't out on a mission, he was Eden's guinea pig. Normally, he would be completely opposed to this but as this was needed for his idea to come into fruition, he obliged.
Sebastian was planning to give Benedict a visit in his office. He warps right outside the door like he always does but just when he was about to open the door, he notices that Ben is down at the mission control floor and not in his office.
He approaches the head of operations who was in the middle of a conversation with someone at the time, both people's eyes are glued on the computer screen sitting at the desk in front of them.
"What is it," Ben asks the approaching Sebastian, his gaze still on the computer.
"I went to the nerd hive to check on the progress of my new cool swords and apparently, Kristoff was the one working on it hands-on and I don't have access to that nerd's cave," Sebastian was like a kid asking his parent for help.
"Wait back at my office," Sebastian groans loudly at Benedict's response.
Benedict goes back to his office after 20 minutes. Upon opening the door, he was greeted by loud music coming from the game Sebastian was playing on his computer.
"Are you playing Candy Crush," he asks the person who has decided to invade the sanctity of his desk, seat, and work computer as he walks towards the person.
"Hey, it's your computer," Sebastian defensively answers, still busy matching candies of the same color.
"How are you on level 345 already," Benedict asks after peeking on the computer monitor. "I haven't been gone an hour."
"It's fucking Candy Crush, how hard can it be."
Benedict closes the game. Playtime is over.
"Rude."
"Come on, I have a lot of work to do," Benedict steps outside the office to escort Sebastian into Kristoff's workshop.
"So, how's the nerd," Sebastian asks while making their way, referring to Kristoff.
"Kristoff? Surprisingly great. He was up and working the next day," Benedict answers. "'Working' as in working on something or somethings on his workshop," he clarifies.
"Huh, heard he's been locked in since. Thought he'd, you know," Sebastian makes a finger gun and puts it inside his mouth.
"Anyone with that weak of a mental doesn't belong here and wouldn't be here in the first place," Benedict responds to Sebastian's implication.
They stop right outside the door a large room. Benedict places his entire palm on the biometric scanner. The automated metal door opens.
"All yours," Benedict says before turning around and leaving.
Sebastian quickly steps inside the room, avoiding being locked out and asking for Benedict's help again. The room was large, probably about the same size as the mission control room. Heaps of metal everywhere, a couple of robots loitering around and tinkering on whatever, holographic monitors, several tables with unfinished tech on top, an inventor's paradise.
Kristoff was nowhere in sight. Sebastian decides to look around in the meantime. He notices two robots and some hanging mechanical arms working on what looked like a half-finished silver armor that the sentient bodies of metal were working on.
"What are you doing here," he hears a voice behind him – Kristoff.
"Yo," he turns around to see Kristoff with a large, high-tech visor on his eyes, white button up shirt rolled up to his elbow, pajama pants, and socks and slippers. To top it all off, the renowned inventor and engineer now has a black metal arm to which Sebastian was surprised. He thought it was cool.
"What's up, Bucky," he says, immediately teasing Kristoff.
"Do I look like I work for the Nazi," the man bites, walking past Sebastian.
"You kinda do, yeah."
"You here for the swords?" asks Kristoff while going around the workshop, seemingly looking for something.
"Bingo."
After a couple more seconds of rummaging in his messy workshop, he walks over to the little room that is supposedly his office at the corner of the workshop, disappearing for a few seconds.
Sebastian continued looking around and toying with the robots who served as the workshop's helpers. One of the small robots passes by him, he grabs it by the head and places it a couple of paces where it was before, just at his arm's length. It passes by him trying to get to where it should be and he grabs it and returns it a couple of paces again. He does it again. And again.
"Don't bully the damn things," Kristoff scolds him for afar, walking towards him holding two black swords.
He places the swords on top of the nearby table beside Sebastian.
"It's done?" asks Sebastian, asking for confirmation before grabbing the swords, desperately trying to hide his excitement.
"It's done," Sebastian immediately grabs on of the swords and unsheathes it. It looked the same as his old one, the only exception being the handle which looked slightly different.
"The same fragment-enhanced, obsidian swords. Same size, same look," Kristoff explains while Sebastian was staring at every inch of the blade. "The handle will absorb the energy you emit and re-channel it into the blades. Only the blades will be on fire."
Sebastian tests out his new weapon. Firm grip on the black handle, now with a rough, gritty texture compared to before. He feeds void energy into the handle, the obsidian blade immediately starts being covered in black flames. Sebastian couldn't help but let out a huge smile. It was exactly as he envisioned.
"I assume you already know to only use an appropriate amount of energy on it," says Kristoff. "You overload it, it's gonna break."
"Yeah, I know," Sebastian grabs the other blade and starts swinging the two flame-covered blades around. He was like a kid playing with a new toy.
"Thanks, Santa."