A failed attempt... (Solo)

Sat Aug 31, 2013 4:28 pm

Kei stepped out of the cave, hands outstretched towards Neko. He was nearing the point where he would be able to control Neko with one hand, and controlling two puppets at once seemed a lot cooler then just one, so he set out to make the new one. Neko was mostly just a pawn anyways, since he was so cheap. He was expendable. What Keiji wanted was something more permanent. He needed something stronger by far then Neko. Last time he’d made a puppet, it had been with materials he’d bought, but this time, he wanted to gather them himself. There was something much more satisfying about building your tools by the sweat of your brow. And he figured it was a good chance to train his chakra thread control, so Keiji had bought along Neko, making him walk with the threads, instead of carrying him on his back. He climbed rock face that separated the cave from his shack, with Neko taking point. Kei had gotten to the point where his puppet had started becoming human to him, so he felt a little bad about taking him to find his replacement. No, the puppet he had in mind wasn’t a replacement for Neko, it was… a partner. A much stronger, better armed, partner. He walked through the gates, into the forest. He had created a sort of workshop in the forest, a little ways away from the cave. That was where he was heading, her workshop. He made Neko run out as far as he could extend the threads for practice, trying to push the distance he could control his puppet at, before walking after him to catch up, and reattaching the strings. The shack was quite some ways from the cave, but all the better, that made it less likely for anyone to have found it. Eventually, he reached the workshop. It was a shabby old wooden shack, almost completely covered by dirt on one side. Kei had to make Neko shovel away most of it from the door with his tail (He wasn’t being lazy, but trying to move sand with your fingers is impossible). Eventually, the way in was cleared, and Kei released the chakra threads from Neko, stepping inside the shack. It was dusty and dark in here, far less pleasant then when Kei had been there before with his mom. Regardless, this was still a place for Kei to work. He lit one of the oil lamps at the door, glad there was still a little left inside, and looked around. He picked up a pickaxe laying against the wall, slinging it onto his back, and grabbed a burlap sack. He stepped back outside the workshop, making Neko march towards the small Iron deposits that were found near the shack. He wasn’t making progress very quickly this way, but he didn’t care. He had all the time in the world now. Finally reaching his destination, Kei stepped past Neko, spotting a vein of metal. He took the pick and swing it at the rock, breaking off a chunk. He scooped it into the bag, and repeated the movement. It was repetitive, mind numbing work, but Kei had spent most of his life doing just that, and this time, he had some happy thoughts to keep him occupied.
Kei continued to work on getting Iron for refining, filling the bag steadily. How exactly was he going to get revenge? He figured the village might get a mission having something to do with those missing ninja some day, but what were his chances of getting assigned THAT mission? Probably even less then any other ninja, since he’d had past encounters with them, and was likely to act more radically towards them then another ninja. Then again, he also knew far more about them. With any luck, he’d get the mission, but he wasn’t counting on it. And if he wasn’t assigned the mission, then, by god, he’d go anyways. He wanted a piece of the action. He wanted revenge on them for depriving him of his life, his family, and his freedom. And someday, he would get it, one way or another. But he could sense that was quite far in his future, not something he needed to worry about for a while. He looked into the bag, figuring he had enough metal for the body. He walked back, slinging the bag over his shoulder, and attaching chakra threads to Neko, making him walk as far ahead as he could go, breaking the threads, catching up with him, and doing the same again. He did that all the way back to the shack, where he dumped the coal into the refinery, smelting the ore into metal, and forming it. He figured while he was here, he might as well start on the puppet. He didn’t want to make him out of wood, that was too breakable, so he would make this puppet completely out of metal. He shoved a chunk in, heating it up, and separating the metal from the rocks. He pumped some air into the fire, stoking the flames. He remembered watching his mother do just that, and he knew most of how this works. He pulled out the smelted metal out, molding it into a bar shape, and then putting it on the anvil, hammering it into the curved shape required for his puppet’s body. The puppet was designed to be much stronger and better equipped then Neko. His name would be Kyohaku, equipped with a senbon launcher, explosive tag launcher, smoke bomb launcher, two sets of claws, a bladed tail, fangs, a Fuma Shuriken for dealing with anyone to who gets too close. And, as one, final touch, a flamethrower. Because everything is better with a flamethrower. The blueprints were folded up in his pocket. He hammered the metal into shape, making bands of metal, and setting them down on the rack, before going back and fashioning short, flexible strands of metal and using them to bolt the rings that made up the body together, making it so that the puppet could move freely without being inhibited by the heavy armor that made up the body of the puppet. Kyo would be very difficult to damage, and the Gyro system he was devising would make it nearly impossible to hurt his puppet. He snapped the last piece on, stepping back to admire the body of his puppet. This was merely the frame for Kyo, and it possessed no weapons yet, but it was a good start. He then started working on the Fuma shuriken slot. He didn’t actually have a fuma shuriken, but he planned on getting one eventually. Or five. He really loved those things, he felt so badass throwing those giant blades that were nearly unbreakable. He started to work on it, pulling another chunk of metal out of the smelter and hammering it into shape. He made an indentation in it so that extra shuriken would be folded and stored in one specific slot. Next he bolted it into Kyo’s center, and turned to make another plate, making the same indentation on that one, and bolting that onto the other plate.
Hopefully, this would allow the Fuma Shuriken to sit securely on the inside without jingling from hitting the metal. It would be nice for him to actually have a Fuma Shuriken to work with on this guy, but what was he to do? He had no money for such a thing. Anyways, it would cost an awful lot of ryo to fully stock Kyo, but he figured it would be worth it in the end. A senbon firing, Explosive tag launching, Fuma shuriken slashing, Smoke bomb hurling, scroll shooting, flame spitting puppet was quite a good deal. Plus, he could use both of his puppets while using his kekei genkai, allowing him to turn invisible while controlling them. That was a good deal. He pulled another chunk of metal from the smelter, hammering it into the shape of a rod, and notching it for the shuriken to attach to. He dipped it in a pale of water, and set it inside the container, bolting it in, and spinning it experimentally. Now he had to work with the mechanics of it, so he started fashioning gears and cogs to make the rod pop up and spin. He made them all from one sheet of metal, using a press that worked sort of like a cookie cutter that could cut through steel. He placed them in the pale of water, cooling the metal, and setting the cogs inside the puppet, bolting them in place, and attaching them to the rod in multiple places. He shot a chakra thread into the puppet experimentally, willing the rod to rise. It did just that, and then he twisted his hand, causing the rod to spin quickly. Perfect, except it was jamming a little bit on every third or fourth spin. He released the puppet from his control, sticking his hands in the gearbox, and fiddling with the mechanism, trying to figure out what was wrong with Kyo. After a few minutes of searching blindly, he whistled triumphantly, pulling an extra cog that he’d dropped into the mechanism out. Making sure that was the only problem with the gears, he shot another thread into the puppet, popping up the rod again. It seemed to work. He shrugged, making it spin again. This time, it seemed to work fine, so he tested it out, shooting it into the puppet, and pulling it back out over and over again. The gears seemed to be doing their job, so he moved on to the next part of the puppet, the scroll holder. He was planning on sealing his puppets into scrolls, and then putting them into Kyo’s scroll holder, so that he could deploy them once Kyo got into the fray. The only problem with that was that was that he’d need Kyo deployed before he could send them out, so maybe Kyo could just hold more pawn-type puppets like Neko. One Kyo plus five Neko equals death to all. Of course, he could only control so many puppets at once. He’d have to work on a more defensive puppet once he finished Kyo. Something that could protect him and his allies while he focused on the more immediate threat. While he was daydreaming about his next puppets, he hazily worked on Neko’s scroll slot, hammering it into place. The scrolls would be stored on the sides of the slot, which would pop up the scrolls one at a time, then retract. That would allow him to select the scrolls he used before they were deployed. The scrolls themselves would be held inside Kyo’s body, and the launcher would be in a box shape. He finished the hollow box frame, bolting it into Kyo, and going to work on the holder. It would stack the scrolls one by one, with three on one side, two on the other. Once it was done with the scroll, it would lower it back to the bottom of the pile. Once again, he had no sealing scrolls to work with, so he had to go by memory alone when trying to figure the size of the box and storage area, but he figured he was doing okay. The idea of having sealed puppets inside his puppet appealed to him very much, he hoped that would work alright. He figured he’d have to learn the puppet sealing technique to do that, but since he lived in the Village Hidden in the Sand, he knew it would be relatively easy to learn that technique. He pushed the scroll slot into the puppet, and realized he’d have to do a lot of missions soon to pay for all of Kyo’s equipment, and that would be a pretty high sum. He sighed.
“The things I do for my art.” He said, walking over to make more gears. He pulled out some metal from his dwindling supply, and hammered it into shape, putting it under the press, and making the gears. He pressed them, and dropped them into the water, pulling them out once the steam went away. He set them inside the puppet, under the scroll box, and nailed them in place, spinning them quizzically. He shot a chakra thread into Kyo again to test the scroll box. He turned the gears that cycle the scrolls, peeking inside the puppet as he did so. It seemed to work so far. He sighed, walking back to the metal and pulling out some more, hammering it into bands to make the puppet’s legs. He figured he should finish building the body before he added the fancy extras. Attaching the bands one by one, he slowly started to form the legs of the puppet. As he finished the bands, he ran out of metal, so he dug through his mother’s supplies for the rest of what he needed, repurposing the old metal from forgotten puppet designs to suit his needs. For the most part, the metal was already close to the shape he needed, since his mother liked to make cat-based puppets. That was a trait that had rubbed off on Kei, though he did have plans for his next puppet to be a humanoid, most likely. That would probably be his defensive one, and if not that one, the next for sure. He wanted a wide arsenal of puppets, not a bunch with the same abilities. He hammered the metal into shape to complete the legs, bolting the front two legs in place. He then started forming the claws, sharpening them on the grinder, and attaching them to the front feet of his puppet. So far so good, he supposed. He walked back and found a few more shards of metal laying around, heating them up, and hammering them into the curved shape required for the claws. He then set them to the grinder, sharpening them to a fine point. Anyone who messed with him would have to deal with Kyo, and that was not a very pleasant concept, considering how sharp these things were, and just how many pieces of equipment Kyo had. Of course, he wasn’t good for anything much besides melee combat for the moment, but that would change soon enough. After mounting on the claws, he sat back in his stool, admiring his work so far. He was far from finished, but it was a very good start. He decided to step outside the shack for some fresh air, walking to the door, and stepping outside, sitting up against the one exposed wall of the workshop. He napped for a few hours, resting peacefully, before standing up slowly, walking back into the workshop, putting the finishing touches on the puppet. As he fiddled with the flamethrower, he jumped back in surprise as the thing went off on him, incinerating the wall behind him. He flinched, dodging the flames, watching as the shop went up in flames. He cursed his luck, trying to douse the flames and salvage his puppet, to no avail. He finally managed to put out the fire, looking over at his destroyed creation. It seemed useless to him now, it was completely destroyed. His puppet was useless now, melted as it was. He sighed, walking back out the door. He had had enough of building for the day, and decided to just train a little with neko. He stepped out of the shack, shooting threads into Neko, making the puppet walk along with him. It seemed he had gotten the hang of controlling the puppet… His chakra threads were now invisible, and he felt it was much easier to focus on the puppet! He walked along with his creation, watching the joints swivel and spin as he walked. This was so cool, he could actually control him while moving now! He laughed a little as he walked. He couldn’t wait to show this to Yaju! He started running towards the cave, eager to show his master the new trick. It seemed simply walking with the puppet had given him quite a bit of practice… As he walked, He made Neko do a few acrobatic feats, doing flips in the air, whirling his tail around, making a singing sound as the metal hit the air. This was fun, being able to control him so effortlessly. As he neared the cave, he extended his puppet as far as it would go, and found that his range was quite a bit farther now then it used to be, and Neko could go quite a fair distance away from him. He smiled, making Neko walk into the cave, before following him inside the cave.

(Exit, Topic Closed.)

(WC: 2800 Exactly)
+14 Stats
+28 JP
+Chakra threads mastered

Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:24 pm

Approved of appropriate rewards, try and use paragraphs next time, it's a bit kinder to the eyes.

A failed attempt... (Solo)

A failed attempt... (Solo)

Re: A failed attempt... (Solo)