章 67: A Soul, an Aura and a Semblance
The City of Atlas is a wonder of science and technology to those outside the nation. Boasting the only military in the world, no wonder it could survive the frigid north.
Grimm were suppressed by the same winter the original inhabitants experienced. Years of painstaking survival made them who they are today.
The city of Atlas was not the first to house the citizens. Originally the nation was named Mantle. What once held the seat of power was now evidence of the class division that ran rampant.
It was a perfect symbolism. Atlas floated as a defense mechanism, many attribute it to the gravity dust technology Atlas held secret over.
In truth, Atlas contained and used one of the relics to float Atlas to the skies - quite literally overshadowing the old capital of Mantle.
Now, Mantle was still significant but not once would it ever come close to Atlas' prominence ever again. Hanns knew this the moment he entered the city.
At least, entered in a way that would make sense for anyone that was a wrecked aircraft. Hidden under a large tarp and being hauled by a robot in the shape of a teenage girl.
Hanns vaguely recalled watching something like that back when he was on earth. Though many things get reminded to him during his time in Atlas.
'Why does this place have to be so damn cold! Curse you moderator for making me feel temperature. It's like I sense a disturbance, like my ancestors calling as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.'
Hanns felt the stone-cold ground below as he was dragged. 'Now I know why I hate winters, reminds me of something bad - something that rhymes with stalling grab.'
He felt his body stop for a moment. 'Oh? I assume we are here.' Hanns gets left behind outside as the room was too small for him to enter.
Penny entered the pharmacy with a skip in her walk as she happily greeted her creator. "Greetings father! I have made a friend!"
Pietro almost leaped with joy if not for his legs being in a wheelchair. "Really? Darling, that's great. Even though I recalled you from Vale it seems it didn't have dimmed your smile."
"Thank you, father. I have to tell you about him! He called me a friend even though we just met."
"Him?"
Outside, Hanns suddenly felt a sneeze coming even though he had no nose. 'The heck was that? Why did I feel like sneezing for some reason? The cold must be getting to me now.'
"Penny, who is this friend you talk about? I'm curious to see who would befriend you so fast."
"Indeed! We have the same circumstances and I've learned more about him in a few minutes. He says he doesn't like getting seen much but he told me that friends should help each other out."
Pietro continued on the cybernetic arm he was preparing. He stops to scratch his chin at his daughter's explanation. "Same circumstances?"
"He is right outside. He cannot fit inside so I saw it necessary to leave him in front of the clinic."
"Outside? Darling, it's almost 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) outside. I'll go see him, introduce him to me."
Penny leads Pietro along. The mechanical workings of his legged wheelchair carry him along the floor as he goes outside.
"Where is he?" Pietro asked, confused at the large tarp in the middle with no one around.
"Right in front of you father!" she hops in front of the tarp and pats it.
Pietro goes closer to it while curious about his daughter's actions. "If you may?" he gestures for Penny to lift the tarp which she follows with an excited nod.
"Father meet friend. Friend meet father." she lifts open the tarp for Pietro to see Hanns in his ruined jet fighter.
"Hello there."
"...Penny? Is this the friend that you were talking about? Is he... the same as you?" Pietro tried to confirm with his daughter. He heard about Hanns from Ironwood and was shaking in his seat, shocked at the appearance of that same machine Ironwood had been so adamant about ripping apart.
"Yes, father! He said it himself."
"..."
"Father?"
*THUD!*
Somehow, Pietro falls to the ground despite him being in a wheelchair. He fainted from the sheer heart attack of knowing the machine he had been so interested in was in front of him.
"Father? Are you suffering what my database calls a myocardial infarction?" Penny started engaging her life-saving protocols as Pietro fell to the ground.
Hanns meanwhile was staring at the situation, reminiscing his time with team RWBY when Ruby did the same thing. 'Are all inventors/geniuses in engineering prone to getting a heart attack or something? This seems to happen way too much.'
"Huaaa!" Pietro regains consciousness. He exhales as he remembers the last few minutes. He looks to his daughter and then back to Hanns.
"Hello there?" Hanns tried the gentler approach.
*THUD!*
It was going to take a while for Pietro to recover and Hanns was going to have to stay out in the cold for even longer.
~
Half an hour later…
Penny had carried over Hanns to a storehouse nearby owned by Pietro. It was one where he'd usually store parts in bulk from orders.
Penny settled Hanns down, still stuck in an unrepairable state from the battle being considered still ongoing.
"So, may we know your name? I understand you are my daughter's friend as of now. You can call me Pietro. This is my daughter Penny."
"Salutations!"
"Likewise, the name's Hanns." Hanns would've nodded but he was still an unmoving pile of scrap.
Pietro went around Hanns, inspecting him closely, to the discomfort of Hanns who felt like he was being violated with peering eyes.
"Sorry if I'm being too straight forward but I can't help but notice your curious design. Who made you and what methods did they install to create your consciousness?"
'A moderator with a sick sense of humor with those damn tentacles, if I were to be truthful.' Hanns thought to himself.
"You mean you have not seen anything like me?" Hanns was indeed curious as to how the lore in the show even held up.
"Some likeness from our earlier era VTOL but currently we have nothing like you. Our aircraft got larger and larger with better Gravity Generators and Wind Thrusters. So eventually you would see the standard like the bullhead. Thrusters with wind and a generator for gravity in the middle."
'That makes sense… they never needed to figure out what our physicists in the real world needed to discover. Dust was already present so it's the field they specialized in and evolved instead of aeronautics. Something like Dust is their crutch, makes me wonder if I can create my own version of an industrial revolution.'
"For the record, no one created me. I may be the first of my species, a machine race if you want to have an easier time determining what I am."
Pietro slowly nods, jotting down everything on his notepad on the armrests of his wheelchair. "A machine race… curious. Do you have a soul?"
'Maybe not. I played Warthunder for 10,000 hours last time I checked. The snail had sucked my soul away but I enjoyed every single moment of it.'
"Yes, at least I think so. Why do you want to know?" Hanns asked.
Pietro headed for another part of the storeroom. "Well, I want to run some experiments."
"Are you going to get out the probe now?" Hanns assumed the worse, based on his knowledge of being tested.
Pietro almost gags at the image. "Goodness, no. It's the same thing I measured Penny's aura. Unlike humans, there is a special process to unlock and measure the aura of a machine."
"Hold on, unlock my aura? Why are you doing this? Aren't I like supposed to be the enemy of Atlas by now?"
"Yes, for sure but I don't doubt who you are. Your interaction with that Faunus is genuine despite your hostilities with Atlas. I myself see their problem. Though I do have some qualms with your methods. Bringing in Grimm is the highest of crimes but I can't say anything about it since I'm not the one being hunted for being a naturally conscious machine."
He chuckles after his explanation. "Besides, if you truly are my daughter's first friend then I'd do anything to make her happy. Helping you out will make her happy and that is enough reason for me."
'Damn, what a good dad. I feel bad for making the friend thing up to save myself. Maybe I should introduce Penny to the gang as compensation.'
Pietro brought out a ton of devices while calling for Penny to help. Pietro relaxes in his chair while he spoke while setting up the apparatus for unlocking an inorganic's aura.
"It's not like I know how you directly react to being targetted by Atlas, in comparison I guess you can still be more of a neutral party than anything else. After all, I assume you've been fighting Grimm this whole time."
Hanns had doubts about his intentions. "How would you know that? It's not like you would know if I'm a good person or not based just on killing Grimm."
"I saw your footage and brief report, courtesy of the papers General Ironwood showed me. It highlights not needing to refuel despite fighting for a continuous 12 hours straight. You must be dedicated to fighting Grimm and that means something, to me at least. Shows me you don't endanger humans all too often, contrary to what you did today."
'…Yeah okay, I admit that it looks like I have a vendetta against the Grimm if someone heard I killed Grimm for 12 hours straight. I guess killing them just became my grind set.'
"Still, didn't I cause negativity?" Hanns mentions.
"True, but it isn't large enough to create a disaster. Although I am suspicious about the numbers. It's unusual to see such a number of them based on the negativity. No way is a few flybys and indecent imagery is going to rile up the population."
'Surely that doesn't mean? Damn, Salem might have caught sight of me somehow if what Pietro is saying is right.'
Pietro finalizes his apparatus and takes a seat back to a monitor in front. "Don't take my word for it. I'm just a researcher is all."
'Wouldn't a researcher be a good source though? Old man's too humble.'
Pietro clears his through before proceeding. "Now you may feel a tingle or a dozen but ignore it. It's my own aura interacting with yours. I have the ability can inject part of my soul into an inanimate object, it's the way I created Penny and it's how I'm going to know if you have a soul or not."
"Won't this reduce your aura even more?"
"That's if you don't have a soul but I believe in my theory that you have one. Brace yourself I'll begin now."
Hanns waited for the tingles that Pietro mentioned. A few seconds passed and he seemingly didn't notice anything.
"Huh, odd. Didn't feel anything at all, does this mean I have no soul after all-"
"-Holy Jesus!" Suddenly a thousand prickling needles were felt all over his body. Like he just wandered into an off-brand healing parlor on the side of an abandoned road where the therapist makes you into a hedgehog.
"Quite the contrary!" He laughs. "This means you have the potential for both an aura and a semblance just like Penny. I can unlock it for you if you want. Though your semblance will have to be discovered in your own time."
"I have a feeling I can figure it out on my own," Hanns says as he looks at the hud and his system. 'At least the moderator is better than the devs.'
"Alright, Penny would you like to do the honors?"
"Yes! Friend Hanns, I would like to the honors as father says." She starts to place her hand on Hanns' side panel as she starts to chant alongside the tingling sensation coming back. While Pietro activates the machine.
"For it is in the crucible of creation that we achieve immortality. Let each piston and every gear be blessed by the virtue and glory to rise above all - infinite in distance and unbound by the flesh. I release your soul and by the spark of innovation let machine protect thee."
A faint glow finally emerges from Hanns' soul, like a spark into a blaze it expands and covers his entire frame. A gray-greenish color blankets his exterior as a warm feeling embraces his very body.
"This? Is an aura?" Even he was amazed at the result. He didn't even think someone like him could get an aura. On the thought that he wasn't from this world.
He observes the color through the faint light emerging from his body. 'Feldgrau? How fitting. The system should be detecting it by now.'
[Notice: Aura and Semblance Unlocked.]
[Aura]
[Description: You have a soul! Congratulations, your humanity is still intact. For now.]
[Acts as an extra layer of defense regardless of the vehicle used, need to will Aura to come forth to activate. Will break upon receiving too much damage and leave your physical body to absorb hits. Mechanical parts will slowly repair over time if Aura is active.]
'Slowly repair over time?! Does this mean I don't need to wait for a battle to be over to get myself fixed?'
Hanns excitedly waited for the change to happen. He suddenly heard a creaking noise as part of his windshield somehow grew, albeit extremely slowly.
'Damn, I guess the moderator didn't want it to be too overpowered. Although what I am much more interested in is this.'
[Semblance]
[Description: You are special! Congratulations, apart from being a gamer that sits on a gaming chair for 12 hours per day - you actually have something to be proud of.]
'I feel like the moderator is hearing my complaints to him and he's changing the descriptions just to spite me.'
[That would be correct.]
'Salty much? We're basically frenemies by now with the number of times you tried to fuck me over but also help me.'
[True, my friend.]
'Exactly, let's see what Semblance I have. It's supposed to be related to who I am as a person, right?'
Hanns mentally selects the semblance information.
[Overclock I]
[Doubles attributes in a certain amount of time, cost of consumption will also be doubled. The limit is 5 minutes which can be increased over time through use. After Overclock has ended, you will be incapacitated for the same amount time. An example would be Overclocking for a minute and being unable to move or do anything for the next minute. Independent movement is also now allowed meaning you can bend and split parts of yourself in any shape or form but will be forced back after Overclock has ended.]
'So much to take in! But this is definitely going to be useful in fights where I can Blitz even faster. Though if I make a mistake I'd be dead. Also, what would independent movement mean? Let's test it out.'
"Don't be alarmed I'll be testing something out."
'Overclock.'
He felt his entire body surge with energy like he had drunk Redbull. 'So I'm literally based on my addiction to energy drinks? I mean it fits actually.'
*CREAK!*
Hanns willed his tail on the back to split apart, it creaked as he got used to the feeling before splitting apart his entire tail and wiggling it around in a screech of metal against metal.
'Wow, so I can basically transform if I know how to but only in Overclock. This is not going to be permanent but I can dodge better during Overclock. Though being stuck incapacitated is going to be a problem if I'm not careful.'
"Hanns, is that your semblance?" Penny curiously asked.
Hanns could finally try nodding by splitting the cockpit into a neck and swaying his head. "Nope. Just a side effect of my actual Semblance."
*THUD!*
"Father?"
'Not again. I think he just saw the light 7 times by now. Well, I am slowly regenerating while I could maneuver my entire body as if it was a robot instead of being stuck as a jet. Still, I'm half destroyed so I can wait anyways.'
Pietro had seen everything, not once in his life was he so enthralled in wanting to research more about Hanns. Regeneration in front of his eyes, freely moving parts, an aura, and maybe even more in the future.
It was now a common sight for Hanns, seeing Pietro on the ground every time he woke up. 'Researchers…' he rolled his eyes in his imagination.
Then he remembered a certain cookie lover back at base. 'Maybe I should hold off in revealing the existence of my Aura. It's not like I need to rush anyways.'
Hanns watched as Penny tried to revive her constantly fainting father over and over again before a thought crossed his mind. 'I feel like I'm forgetting something.'
~
Meanwhile…
"We need to rescue Hanns! He has not sent us a telepathic message like usual!" Weiss practically begged and shouted at Blake.
"Weiss, I know you're worried but relax. Shouting doesn't make it easier, Hanns told us not to make any more moves after Weserübung. I'm not committing the Wehrmacht in this. The Luftwaffe might be more useful but Ruby hasn't finished the prototypes yet."
Weiss impatiently walked in circles with visible marks on the ground while they all sat in base.
"Hah! Even your Ice Queen keeps doing this. Sisters… must be so fun to have them am I right!" Qrow comments, keeping himself drunk while leaning on the wall.
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Why is this drunkard here? I thought Ruby kept watch on him. Isn't this a security risk?"
"Nah, chill out for a second Ice Queen. Don't be so cold, am I right?" Yang joked, to the horror and disgust of the others. Weiss looked the most affected by it since she just stared into Yang like a hawk. "What is it, Weiss? Frozen in fear?"
"Gah! I can't believe I managed to live with your constant puns for almost months now." Weiss felt defeated at the situation.
"Weiss, I know you're worried but we all need to trust Hanns more than ever. I think we know him enough to believe right?" Blake suggests.
Weiss didn't reply but she hesitatingly nodded. The others on the team agreed as well.
Yang took the sign of silence as another opportunity. "Why so quiet Weiss? Cat got your tongue?"
"That's it! Get over here, Yang!" Weiss finally snapped.
Yang ran away as fast as she could but turns one last time before exiting. "Ah! Weiss, Icy the problem!"
Blake looked on with disappointment, like a babysitter looking over unruly children. 'Hanns, why did you have to leave me with this?'
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