Chapter 3-4: Testing in Progress

Gyokutō, also referred to as the Jade Rabbit, is a mythical moon rabbit in Japanese and Chinese folklore, believed to live on the moon while endlessly pounding mochi. Often associated with longevity, wisdom, and fortune, this celestial creature appears in legends and artwork, symbolizing prosperity and divine connection. 

In modern Japan, the Gyokuto tends to appear as frequently as Maneki-Neko, though more often than not in workshops rather than storefronts. In Hokkaido, it has become something of a Guardian Spirit for the northernmost island, with the Jade Court branch of the Keiretsu stationing many rabbit themed Ronin to maintain order.

-Ancient Legends and their Modern Incarnations, 2042

Jill

You never really understood how big the world was until you could see it from high up enough. I had thought that the world was massive when I stood atop the Spire Alice called home, considering I could actually see the entirety of the city and a bit beyond the walls from there. It was a beautiful sight, to be sure, seeing the Fog Cloud covering the plates and the lines of traffic reduced to lines of never-ending black. 

Yet, from where I sat now, New Phoenix was less than a speck of dust compared to the entirety of the Earth. It was a marvelous blue sphere, considerably less green than what I saw in old photos and maps, yet still breathtaking. It was a good idea to ask Morrigan to move my testing grounds to the Earth-facing side of the Moon, even if she had to make a whole new tech tree to camouflage it from Earth-based observations.

As I lay on the compacted, razor-sharp Moon dust, held in place by the artificial gravity anchor that Morrigan had mercifully explained as “Magic” to me, I took a snapshot of the Afro-Eurasian side of the world. I opened my messenger app and pulled up the chat room I had between myself and my… Girlfriend. Boiling Sands above, even after two months, I still felt giddy when I referred to her as such. Ambrosia felt akin to a hurricane in my life, blowing down the walls I was already trying to take down and letting herself in. 

I scrolled through our messages and photos again, something I did between training or equipment testing runs. Feeling my smile widen on my face. Our time together physically might have been short, but we kept in constant contact, sharing sightseeing photos, food pics, and some more intimate moments. Nothing overtly sexual, of course, but lots of cute moments, after training moments, and some outfit pics of things we would like to see the other in. 

She also sent me pics of the different Samurai she met on her travels and their “wacky” tech. There were a lot of pics of giant teddy bears from Cascadia, who were very cute. If she could, I am certain she would have tried to keep the actual giant one called Bob.

Sands, the amount of abb photos I sent was staggering, wasn’t it. 

Before I let myself feel self-conscious about that, I sent her the photo of Earth after agonizing over the message to attach to it. Dozens of cringy, way-too-lovestruck notes were written and deleted, things like “Caricature of you” and “I can make this yours,” before I finally stuck with “Maybe we could do a food tour of this part of the world someday.”

As I hit send, a call from Morrigan’s assistant, Hughbert, reached me. “Fraulein Jill, calibrations on the course have finished, as have the ones on this iteration of Gyokuto. Please return to the staging area so we may commence what I hope to be the final round of stress tests of the mobility systems.”

My smile transformed from one of bliss and calm to a feral grin of anticipation. I did a quick kick-up maneuver to stand before jogging to the open-air maintenance pavilion Hughbert and his merry band of penguins set up. It truly was adorable seeing the dozen or so three-foot-tall penguins in lab coats and PPEs running around the seven-foot-tall pillar of fluff, yet my eyes were on the white pillars that held the Gyokuto.

As I stepped into the pavilion, I felt the familiar breaching of a bubble sensation that accompanied entering a clean space. I saw a near-perfect outline of myself on the outside of it made of the moondust that stuck to me before it fell to the ground. I shook my head as I strode over to the starting platform, planting my feet on the marked spots. Hughbert waddled up to my right before speaking to me. 

“The last round of testing we did was for the phase shifting of the Gyokuto onto your body while in various states of motion, poses, and unfavorable conditions. This time, as we are simply looking to see how far you can push yourself, we will not be phasing the Gyokuto onto you, but rather activating the manual synthesis module. The course this time is going to be a speed trial, where you must not hit any of the walls, obstacles, or projectiles while maintaining what you believe to be your top speed.”

As he spoke, the course was materializing out of hard light projectors. The testing area was a massive circle with a circumference of twenty miles; the course this time would be relegated to the edge of the testing area. Numerous walls, ramps, overhangs, and terrain features were generated, all in order to mimic the most common environments I might find myself in when I put on the Gyokuto. I tried to pull up a map from the control room but was blocked by Hueburt. “No warnings this time, Fraulein Jill. Simply do your best, ja?”

I could have ignored him and used the AI counterhacking defense program to obtain it, but where would the fun be in that? Nodding to Hughbert, I connected to the Gyokuto before pulling, feeling the connection between the two of us grow as my arms and legs began to shift in anticipation for the synthesis program. 

My legs expanded, giving me another two and a quarter feet in height as the materials went from compact to wireframe. My arms followed suit, growing in length and width while losing bulk, making me look rather comical with my normal-sized torso and head. But not for long, as the Gyokuto responded to my pull, launching itself out of the storage pillar it was in and sliding itself into alignment with my implants.

My arms and legs slid neatly into the power armor-like frame, connecting seamlessly into the neural network the suit contained. My torso and head were covered in nearly two feet of solid protective insulation, metal, and life support systems while my organic senses shifted to the Gyokuto’s. 

My line of sight was now nearly four feet higher than my norm, yet the sense of vertigo was something I had conquered weeks ago. My hearing had been enhanced with some fucky echolocation stuff, while my sense of smell had been shifted to something far more mechanical and artificial than an actual nose. Touch, however, was far better than anything I could ever remember. From the flow of the air to the feeling of electromagnetic influences, I could tell where everything was all around me for about fifty or so feet, further if I focused on it or cranked up the sensitivity. 

As the Gyokuto settled into place on me, I rolled my shoulders and neck, feeling the servos move smoothly under my command. Pulling up my startup diagnostics, I marveled at the form, my form, once more. It was based on my own form with a slightly more exaggerated hourglass figure, covered in futuristic metal armor reminiscent of those old mechs from Gundam. The most significant difference to me was that the Gyokuto had large, floppy ears and a bunny’s tail. 

We tried to add sensors to the ears, but the constant motion made it nauseating to use. 

As I finished my light ‘stretching,’ I received a reply from Amby. “Any time, any place. ;)”

I smiled at her message as Hughbert started the countdown for the test run, forcing me to drop into a sprinter’s starting stance. I saw the first section of the course looked like a suburban neighborhood, with the route forcing me to find a path through or around a few houses, yards, and probably some other moving obstacles, if Hughbert kept to his usual pattern. 

The timer hit zero, and I launched myself to my full speed without activating the pulse jets in my legs and back. I easily accelerated to sixty miles per hour before I hit the first house, vaulting over it in a single bound. I landed in the backyard with a practiced tumble before noting that the glowing waypoint path turned sharply to the left. 

I ended up digging a massive gouge into the ground to redirect myself, somersaulting over the fence to land on the road before jumping forward to avoid a speeding van. Shit, Hughbert was really kicking things up a notch. 

The first part of the course was filled with rapid movement to dodge a barrage of obstacles.  Power lines, dense flocks of birds, and many, many cars: I was forced to constantly bound through yards and over roofs while doing my best to never drop below forty miles per hour, per Huebert’s requirements. 

After a little over six minutes, I had escaped the neighborhood section of the course and ended up in a series of caves and tunnels, where I had to traverse terrain not meant to be navigated by anything alive. Dashing through the tunnels while dodging various simulated antithesis digging through the walls and creating pit traps was annoying. Not because I couldn’t see them coming, but because the test required speed, not elimination of threats, so I had to avoid every engagement! I was looking forward to sparring with Cari later tonight to blow off this frustration.

As I exited the caves section after another eight minutes and entered a sewer section, I felt something off in my knees. As I moved to inspect it by stopping the test and myself, they fully gave out, causing me to fall and roll at my maximum speed through a hard light wall, shattering it and throwing me beyond the testing course and out of the range of the artificial gravity.

I activated my inertial dampeners and gyroscopic stabilizers before I ended up flying off the Moon’s surface, catching myself fifty feet up. 

“What the fuck was that, Hughbert?!” I shouted into the comms, the feeling of my knees having gone from off to excruciatingly painful rapidly. I had to forcibly turn off my pain simulators from my spine to make it stop, causing me to lose feelings in my legs as a whole. Fuck, I hated not feeling my body, but the pain was ramping up and would have debilitated me if I didn’t.

Hughbert’s face popped up on my HUD, and the face he made caused my anger to falter. Hughbert was a massive penguin, and while his face was a lot more expressive than any penguin had any right to have, it was still that of a penguin. And yet, that face currently looked apprehensive? Mortified? Some combination thereof, but it looked extremely pitiful on his facade.

“My apologies, Fraulein Jill. It seems as though Chief Morrigan made a change to the Guokuto that I overlooked. She made an update to the joint servos and their hydraulic fluids, but did not update the maintenance pod with those changes. Thus, when the Gyokuto went through the last tune up, the fluids were changed while the servos remained the same.”

“And how come that led to my knees blowing out from beneath me?” I asked, doing my best to rein in my emotions while maneuvering back to the testing pavilion. 

Hughbert sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “That is because the fluid reacted poorly with the old alloy, degrading it rapidly while also being shaken, creating an exothermic reaction, one that overwhelmed the heat sinks due to a catastrophic containment failure, which led to a cascade failure as the resulting fluid melted through the synthetic nerves and muscles. This will not happen again, and I will be sending a full complaint to both Chief Morrigan and the General to make certain she is punished.”

As I landed, or rather collapsed, into the awaiting arms of the maintenance pod, I activated the manual separation program and slipped out and onto the polished floor. As I lay on my ass and looked up at Hughbert, my arms and legs rematerializing to their normal state, I could not stay mad at the big fluff ball. 

“Okay, so we are done for the day.” I said, brokering no argument. I felt my nerves reconnect to my legs and stretched them before springing back up. “That was way too unpleasant, and while I get that you will make sure this never happens again, I need some time to decompress.”

“I understand, Fraulein Jill. It will take some time to repair the Gyokuto, anyway. I hope you are able to rest well.” Hughbert said as I walked through the exit portal and made my way back to Earth, more specifically, my room, then my bathroom. I activated the bath subroutine as I undressed, my clothes melting off of me and into a decontamination bath of their own.

As the scent of cinnamon filled the bathroom, I slipped into the very bubbly bathtub, rubbing my legs to try and massage away the phantom pain that lingered as I sprawled out in the warm water. While they may be cybernetic, Morrigan had worked extremely hard to make sure that they both looked and functioned like normal, organic legs when I was not in combat at my request. Same with my arms, and I was forever grateful towards her for the hard work she put into them, to allow me the opportunity to feel…normal. Something that, even after all the mental upgrades I had been through, I still could not remember the time before I had my limbs hacked off and replaced with-

I slipped beneath the water for a moment, forcing myself to let go of my anger and simply relax. That past was over; I was a new woman, and I would never end up in that situation again. 

As I reemerged from the water, lying my head on the headrest and activating the water jets to massage me, I seriously contemplated video calling Amby to tease her. Long-distance relationships were…difficult, to say the least, especially considering the fact that toys gave poor aftercare when the thing I wanted most was to be held. I have been tempted to go to the Lower Six by Daliah on occasion, with her whispering honeyed words of reassurance that it was not a betrayal towards Amby if I indulged in my physical cravings, yet something held me back. 

Maybe Buddy was right, and I should just talk to her about it. Probably before I head to Japan, at least, as putting an entire ocean between us was far different than her simply traveling. 

Fuck it, I hated feeling this way, as if my insides were just as twisted and melted as the Gyokuto’s knees were, constantly doubting and overthinking bullshit. I would call her after I finish up here, so let's simply enjoy the water. 

Once more, a bit of a spoiler on the relationship between ThisIsMyFateNow's Ambrosia and my Jill, especially since that arc probably won't be public for a while, but it's fine.