An Amped Misunderstanding! Gretel & Tess!

[Vio]

^{Tess #1}

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The village of Paddyville had seen devastation in recent weeks. A pirate crew led by Walter ‘Longhorn’ Bison had taken up residence, slaughtering defiant villagers and forcing others to seek refuge in neighbouring settlements. A call to the World Navy had been sent out by The United Farms of Windia’s council, which had soon seen a successful yet vicious battle by Marine forces against the Longhorn Pirates.

Since that day, Paddyville had been under extensive repairs, though there was still some time until its rightful residents could fully return. A portion of those residents had been offered shelter in nearby Barleyham — a larger settlement a few miles south of Paddyville — and the temporary increase in population there had heralded more unusual news. Sightings, reported by those more cautious of pirates and other ne’er-do-wells, of a woman matching the rather notable description of a wanted criminal.

Bzzt… Bz– Bzzzzt! From within a small workshop at the edge of Barleyham’s central concentration, close to the base of one of the larger hills that broke Flat Farm’s usually gentle, sloping terrain, the sparks of innovation buzzed and crackled. Faraday Tess had managed to find a cooperative owner of property who had allowed her to use the workshop, itself no longer seeing much use outside of being a glorified tool shed, and thus she had gotten to work. For close to a week, she’d been hard at work.

“Alright… That’s that secured,” she said to herself, standing and stepping back, wiping her brow free of sweat with an available cloth as she observed with eyes — one red and one blue — the masterpiece before her. “What’s next, what’s next… Hm! I’ll need to test the transformer’s ability to handle the voltage in a live scenario,” the ‘Thundermonger’ reminded herself, “else there’ll be no point to any of this if it can’t handle a single windmill’s worth of energy!”

Fetching a wooden wheelbarrow from its resting place beside the workshop, the girl with purple hair and a shocking yellow streak carefully lifted her creation from the workbench and into the barrow. A strange device, composed mostly of metal, approximately one foot in height and breadth and one-and-a-half in length, she covered it and a toolkit with a tarp for the time being as she wheeled it out of the workshop and began to push it along the dirt road leading through the village…

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SPOILER: Click to show

{Post Synposis:}
<sub>After completing most of her work on a device, Tess sets off through the village to perform a live test.

Notes: Smiley</sub>

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Faraday Tess | #8f00ff
Miscellaneous [NPC] | #eeeeee | #bbbbbb | #888888 | #555555

[Smiley]

Headquarters Ensign Gretel was in the area. For a completely unrelated reason to the situation at Paddyville, but she was still in the West - and being the ever dilligent marine that she is, she had decided to stop by Paddyville to see how the situation was faring, totally not because a report had reached her through a snail phone that spoke about a supposed terrorist, of the bomber kind. Why would she, a career-focused marine, ever do that? Nah, ain't happening, nope.

And once she was there, she very kindly dismissed everyone that tried to pester her about bullshit like 'progress', or 'funding', or 'manpower' and assured them that she had full faith in the competence of the man in charge to keep things running at full efficiency and that it would be unbecoming of her to butt in and question his leadership when things were running as smoothly as they could. It was also a fantastic excuse to get underlings and civvies off her ass while looking humble. Which was a plus.

"Reports point to.. this shack?" Gretel muttered to herself while watching that small workshop from afar, her ever trusty rifle resting next to her, hunkered down with a pair of binoculars up to her eyes, noticing that there were sparks coming from it, seeing how there was a constantly flashing light from something being soldered. It was hard to mistake identities, given that woman's reputation and appearance, but she had to make sure.

. . .

Confirmation. The woman herself, Tess, walked out of the workshop with some sort of device in a wheelbarrow and she seemed not at all aware that she was being watched. "An easy shot." Gretel muttered to herself, placing down the binoculars to grab her rifle, loading a bullet into it and taking aim. Distance was favorable and the wind negligible. The girl was moving at a slow pace and predictable direction, completely exposed. She, though, when her finger was just hovering above the trigger, she found herself lowering the gun. 

This..

Was just too easy. Like she was targetting someone who had no experience with terrorism. All the shots she had ever taken, the assassinations she had performed against revolutionaries and pirates, she had found one constant: unless they were in a situation where it made sense for them to be vulnerable, they never made themselves THIS easy. Only civilians or innocents made themselves this easy. 

Either that or she was targetting someone so powerful that they didn't need to fear assassinations. The fact that she was in the West Blue made her throw out that theory altogether.

After she pulled the lever once to unload that round and put it away, she'd grab her shit and just walk directly to Tess, deciding that she should at least speak to her before she took the shot. That vulnerability, that simple attitude and lack of urgency, it just didn't sit well with her.

"Halt, girl. I'm Ensign Gretel and I received reports of a known independent terrorist with purple hair and heterochromic eyes. What are you planning?" The young woman asked, looking oficial, sounding oficial but with non-aggressive bodylanguage. There had been a creeping suspicion and fear in the young marine: she had been wrong this entire time and just been hunting for a glorified tourist. 

[Vio]

^{Tess #2}

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“This is absolutely going to work…! It’s such a simple design, I could readily make a more efficient version with some better parts,” Miss Faraday mused to herself excitedly as she wheeled the device up the winding path of a gently sloped hill. A spring in her step, any struggle was well worth the effort, but despite many leaving her to her own devices unless she explicitly approached, there was one who found themselves the focus of those alternating eyes of red and blue.

“Halt,” she said. A young lady, perhaps of age similar to Tess herself, with a placid teal mop of hair and standing a good few inches shorter. For her to be calling Tess “girl” would have been more apt if she were taller, or at the very least older, yet none of that truly concerned the inventor. No. What threatened so readily to shatter the optimism that charged her were the colours the lady wore, clarified by continuation to be those of the World Navy. Here and now, a Marine of all things — an enlisted officer as well? The spark of brightness had been sorely dampened by the depressing reality of her situation.

She was known: To this one, too.

^{“What are you planning?”}

^{“G– Good day, Ensign,” Tess shuddered:
“I– Well! About that, I…”}

Her grip upon the wheelbarrow’s handles tightened.

C’mon, Tess! What’s the best option, here? I can stand-up for myself if things start to get dicey, she entertained, eyes kept in check by the unusual gaze of the woman before her. Her signature means of defence secured to her left hand, Munja Rukavica had at the very least a decent enough charge to deliver quite the paralytic shock. Enough perhaps to buy her time to flee and hide, but then what? A quandary as thoughts flashed like lightning through her mind. No, no, that would just make the situation worse! I’ll just do the right thing! Right? Tell the truth — honesty is the best policy, she cheered herself on mentally as she inhaled and suppressed the shakes that pestered her knees.

“I’m going to try and test out a new device I made — I’m an engineer, see?” she gestured, flipping enough of the tarp that covered the barrow to reveal the toolbox and its hastily packed accessories. A corner of the gadget presented itself to prying eyes and, though a less inventive mind could readily misread its intentions, it very much posed about as much an active threat as the Ensign’s own body language suggested. “If this works, it’ll convert any excess mechanical energy from the rotations of a windmill into electrical energy! And that could be used to provide a home with lighting at night without the concerns of candles or lanterns creating a fire hazard, or… or! With the right adjustments, I could make a system that boils water through the excess heat produced by the electrical resistance…!”

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SPOILER: Click to show

{Post Synposis:}
<sub>As Tess finds herself confronted by a Marine Officer, she considers fleeing, but instead tries to face down the challenge with positivity and excitement by explaining her short-term goals!

Notes: None</sub>

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Faraday Tess | #8f00ff
Gretel Strumbaccle | #f53b34
Miscellaneous [NPC] | #eeeeee | #bbbbbb | #888888 | #555555