"The hell are you doing here?"
Grey walked into Globb’s shop, heaving for breath. He looked like death and there was everything but a reaper’s scythe around his neck.
It took some doing to get himself away from Sir Trolley. The old knight was worse than any nagging mother—which was ironic considering the fact he had woken him up with a bucket of cold water.
The old bastard couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be overprotective or a dick. But Grey had scrambled his brains up pretty good over the last hour, so maybe Edmun deserved a pass.
Still, Grey managed to drag himself back to Globb’s shop after commandeering the old man’s services.
Grey hadn’t forgotten that the armor Terran stole was probably under all the debris and rubble of Terran’s estate. He hadn’t been able to confirm that earlier, but the good thing about having a powerful master was that he was pretty good at moving big rocks.
After another panic attack about the kind of armor he was looking at, Grey finally let the old man take it away for safe keeping.
Whether he could trust Edmun with that or not, honestly speaking, Grey didn’t actually care. He was more enraged by the fact Terran had taken it than the fact the armor had been taken in the first place.
It wasn’t like his Circuits could withstand using an armor like that right now, and he certainly didn’t care about helping Giyoto with his plans all that much until Bishop Calixan decided to find a problem with him.
That said... after learning about the Buddha and Paladin Frames, Grey realized that he had underestimated himself quite a bit. There was very little Bishop Calixan could do to him even if he did come out of seclusion.
There was just one worry on Grey’s mind, and that was the fact that Calixan’s breakthrough was very coincidental.
Did he just so happen to break through after he saw Joaquin’s transformation? Or was it because of Joaquin’s transformation that he had had a breakthrough?
If it was the latter, there was definitely still trouble afoot, but what else was new?
Regardless, Grey had gotten what he really wanted out of Edmun’s help: the very same black and gold Cyber Mat that was now tucked beneath the fat folds of his tits and his meat flap of an arm.
It also couldn’t go into his inventory, so that was actually quite good news about its level of quality.
What he didn’t expect was to come back to Globb’s shop to find Silva waiting for him.
The shop was tidier than when Grey left it. The counters had been updated to a polished stainless steel, as had the floating shelves. Everything was organized and color coded, not to mention labeled, in ways Grey had been much too busy or annoyed to be bothered by.
Silva looked up from a rocking chair he had brought in. His legs were crossed and he looked like he was reading a book. The thing was that it was no "book", it was a comic, and as elegant as he looked right now, when he put the comic down a bit Grey could see the blood and guts spilling out of a character that had just gotten his belly sliced open.
"Ah, Sir Temolt. I’ve taken the liberty to make some arrangements. Baron Giyoto assigned me some funds and the task of making your accommodations as accommodating as possible. I was meant to do this before you returned, but I did not expect that you would come back so soon, forgive me."
Grey raised an eyebrow and his eyes landed on a chair he had glossed over before. It looked almost like a half egg, half typical gaming chair set up, like an enormous black egg had been carved out for his seat.
But looking at it now, he felt that it was radiating quite a bit of hidden streaks of energy.
He had seen something like this before. It was for those fancy technicians and mechs. It didn’t actually help much in the actual crafting process, but it could help sustain energy and smoothen output between you and your Cyber Mat.
"Is that so?" Grey nodded. "Thanks, then."
He actually did need something like that right now. His mind felt like mush and he’d have trouble doing what he needed to do in his current situation.
He also wasn’t sure how this new Cyber Mat even worked just yet. If it needed more energy out of him than he could give, it would be a problem.
Originally, he wanted to make a powerful enough mech to house the Wolf Spirit in his fang necklace. He still felt like there was a lot more potential in the Legendary Set he wasn’t quite taking advantage of yet. But it seemed he would need to do that for Prometheus first.
Although one might think he should just use his eye Prosthetic Mech blueprints to create another vessel for Prometheus instead, there were several problems with that.
For one, the only reason that mech had such a high Sync Rate with Prometheus was because someone as powerful as Esmeralda had been involved in the final step. She was the one who fueled it with the proper intent.
The mech alone might not be enough.
Second, a Prosthetic Mech wasn’t just like a normal mech that could be easily swapped in and out. It was a far more involved and permanent process.
Grey wasn’t against the idea, but an eye just felt too sensitive of a body part to risk on that when he could count on one hand the number of mechs he had crafted before.
For now, Prometheus’ vessel would have to be something less permanent, and this would have to do...
Until he found something better.
Silva hesitated as though he wanted to say something. He thought Grey didn’t see his hesitation because he was too focused on the surroundings, so he fell into silence. But Grey had.
"What is it?" Grey asked.
Silva started hesitating again.