I could use a Hand [Selka Ventus]

[Cassus Akovin]

Aboard the Junk'd Up Ship...

Triam sat essentially naked, save for her necessary undergarments. Sometimes, she did this in the safety of her own ship... walking around, unarmored, sometimes even totally nude. It wasn't exactly a relaxing experience, more of a meditative recuperation. In the six years that she had been isolated from the rest of the galaxy, she often found herself dwelling within herself in this way.

The reason being was an entirely natural response that she had acquired from Preliat Mantis; the fear of having a mask, and then becoming that mask.

She sometimes feared, that her armor was turning into that very mask that Preliat had feared in becoming the Wolf. Unlike Preliat however, Triam's mask was supposedly a physical entity, the armor itself, so in her own privacy she simply removed it. To escape the mask... to feel human, rather than as mechanical and inanimate armor.

But it did not seem that she could truly escape it.

There was this.... thing where her arm should be. An inexpensive replacement to the flesh that she had lost to a Jedi in her earlier years. She had tolerated it for a long time... but as she grew older... more wisened and spiritually aware... in her messed up sense of spirituality, she began to resent it. It wasn't her. It couldn't be apart of her.

She hated it. Feared it even, for the symbolism it represented it. That she was becoming more machine than woman. It was why she entered the cybernetic design business with Selka Ventus with such delay and hesitance... getting the upgrade was a final testament on whether or not she was continuing down her shaky path.

Her flesh hand rose up to graze the new implant in her head, frowning... not knowing what to think and possibly regretting her decision. If she was worried about becoming a machine... why did she continue to create devices that made her appear so... even be so? If she hated the sith so much, why had she dealt with them and their allies in business so much. She remembered her talk with Preliat... not thinking yet on the results of it, but focusing on the revelations of her own character.

A conundrum rested within her heart, a tendency to engage in activities she knew she should despise... she was not a good woman, but she did the best she could to inspire men and women who were better than she was, to fight the good fights. But how could she do that if she could not even trust herself to do the right thing? There was a selfish greed within her heart...

... today is the day she will vow to expunge and cleanse herself of any desire to stray away from her moral obligations.

She would start by expunging the resentable filth that had become of her prosthetic, the representation of an "other" force influencing her through technology.

Today she would not simply make a replacement...

Today she would regain a piece of herself.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Cassus Akovin]

If she were to begin this new path, this vow self-improvement, where would she start?

Long ago, when she had lost her guilty hand to the murder of man simply doing his job, by a protector of light, she attempted to dismiss it all, and gained the fastest replacements she could find. Something to fill the hole while her failure galvanized her productivity into creating her Phantom Fingers. Though truly, it had been her "other" hand that had become the thing of phantoms.

It came to her suddenly then, as she browsed her technologic arsenal and the confines of her own mind, that she concurred that there may be a way in which her arm could become permanently untouchable, through the use of repulsion field technology. Her hefty research into the department had been fruitful as of late, and surely they could be used for any variety of uses. On Mustafar for instance, repulsion shields were used to protect structures from molten magma, so then, why not a lightsaber?

Utilizing her skills of research and deductive reasoning, she scoured the market for a prosthetic that was similar to what she had conceived of. After a bit of searching, she was able to find, and purchase an illegal Repulse Hand. It would likely take some time to be delivered, but that did not stop her drive to think.

Inspired, suddenly, among her ship of junk and droids, she began to review her old holovids in the tournament, of which she had been studying for the last six years with brutal academic scrutiny... and finally decided her days of falling were over. Repulsor Vests, she knew, could be used to reduce fall impact to safe levels, and reasoned that even a prosthetic intended for deflection and basic damage properties, could be converted to fulfill this task, possibly in addition given enough tinkering.

It began to take on the symbolism that she required, into something that would serve to be a part of her... though it was far from being totally satisfying.

It represented her untouchability, and the tenacity of her mind... though it was not yet truly hers.

It was not Akovin yet.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Cassus Akovin]

And what did it mean to be Akovin?

Her most basic characteristics included some of her most dreaded vices, such as her penchant for thrills and gambling. There were however, qualities to her that were in ways quite admirable. She refused to give in, adamant on always getting up after every fall, relentless in her pursuit of her desires in life. Her mental durability was in many ways, quite similar to many things that could be translated into technological form.

The most easily accessible of them all however, was her recently acquired Laminanium. It was a strong material, capable of withstanding a turbolaser blast, but was most impressive for its resilient ability to engage in self-repair.

Triam almost smiled in the dark, as she drew up the design for it. The imagery it would produce for her, would be perfect in ensuring that she regained herself through this device. The first step towards her vow to Preliat Mantis to prove that she was not a gun, that her morals would not be any longer swayed by the prospect of money.

After hours of naked meditation with her drawing board, finally the emotionally exhausted woman collapsed over her desk and started to sleep... actually sleep, and what felt like months. Unfortunately, it was done so unhappily... Geonosis was taking its toll, since its dreaded imagery was pointed out to her by her Mandalorian friend... of whom, she hoped would be her mentor.

He likely would not understand what this prosthetic meant to her...

... what it should mean to him.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

At some point, after the progression of an indiscernible amount of time, Triam's Repulse Hand and Repulsor Vest were picked up and brought aboard. She bought two of each just in case, seeming as she had some money to spare for it. When she brought them aboard, she stripped down just as before and began to dissect the Repulse Hand.

She started at the base of the prosthetic, peeling away the outer structure to find the skeletal support of the arm, along with its wires. Cutting away at the frame with her plasma torch she was able to move up the prosthetic to discover that the main repulsive device was present in the palm of the prosthetic, which could create a wave of repulsive energy surrounding the hand without interacting with the prosthetic itself.

With the first Repulse Hand completely dismantled, she then took the Repulsor Vest and began to tear through that as well. The structure was simple as butter, and hardly took a dozen minutes to locate the repulsors inside the vest. At this moment she had to make a minor choice in the design of the structure. She could either spend her time attempting to dissect and modify tiny repulsors... or she could just have two types of repulsors present in the arm with two different duties.

The simplest choice was obviously chosen.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

"Rigsy, get your arms warmed up. I have a new task to teach you."

"Again? Oh fine... at least put some clothes on first. Lots of sparks." The snarky droid called back. Triam rolled her eyes, as brought the functional Repulse Hand over to the stationary droid, who was just waking up from deactivation. It's many various arms reached out as if the droid was stretching, it produced a whir that reminded her of a yawn. The amalgamation of droid parts often fascinated her with its many varying unexpected quirks. It was to expected though, from a droid that was never wiped of memory. Why would she erase the part of the droid she needed to continually manufacture her products? Besides, his personality was perfectly suited to her anyway, a real friend in a way many organics weren't capable of forming with her.

"Yeah yeah. Anyway, we're going to reverse engineer something today, I'm gunna help you dismantle this thing." She tossed the prosthetic on Rigsy's work space with a clatter.

"Goody me," The droid said, as its arms began to peel back the layers of tremor-alloy with careful ease, removing screws, bolts, and anything remotely removable and unwelded with Triam leading it along down her earlier process of trial and error. All the while, Rigsy was learning the motions. In order to reconstruct it, all he would need to do once she was done, was create an inverse algorithm of the deconstruction process.

Meanwhile, once the droid was set on the task of reconstructing the prosthetic, Triam moved on to the next step, which was forming a mold for each individual piece of the prosthetic in order to pour Laminanium into.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

The Laminanium poured easily into the molds Triam created, slowly giving her the ability to construct the prosthetic entirely out of Laminanium without much fuss. Rigsy was also almost done reconstructing the prosthetic. Once he was done, she was going to have him move back several steps into the process so that she could inject a new programming experience by adding in new components and wiring.

Once all of the parts were molded with Laminanium, she went searching through her junk piles, searching for any sensors she could inject into the Laminanium prosthetic, which she could wire into its basic system. It wouldn't make sense for an engineer like her, to have a numb hand she couldn't use. She had to have the ability to touch and feel, it was a must that this system did not simulate or possess. Her methods of adding sensors though were incredibly crude, and she wasn't entirely satisfied when she finally got around to injecting them in.

She pulled out some circuits, and began to reprogram the system to be more amicable with her recent changes in the system. Eventually, it came around to agree with her, but it had to put up with an extreme talking to, only a few tantrums.

Rigsy was done constructing the things hours ago by the time she was able to reprogram the prosthetic to her liking, to account for the new repulsors she was adding and ALL of those sensory nodes she injected into the Laminanium "skin".

Exhausted, she plopped herself on top of Rigsy's work bench, and his tiny robot arms hesitantly sort of... patted her.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

"Master, are you going to finish your task or just sort of... lie there for a while?" The funny frankenstein astromech droid said after a long while, close to an hour.

"Love you too," She said as she began to pick herself back up. At that moment she could have sworn she saw Mr. Follow peeking around a corner. Creepy ass droid. "Rigsy." There, that should establish who she was speaking to. She could almost hear the disappointment in the stalker-y droid.

"Uh huh." The droid snarked back.

"Anyway, pulled back the outer layers, 75% deconstruction should be good, I'll wave my hand at you if I need it pulled back to 50%." She commanded the droid, who obediently moved its arms in unison as it perfectly remembered where all the parts where and began to dismantle the thing in the way that Triam had done a few hours ago. "Stop. Manually inputting new code experience." She said when she reached a point that she liked in the deconstruction process.

She took one of the droids arms, and put a repulsor system she had pulled out of the Repulsor vest and condensed, into its robotic hand. She then moved several parts around utilizing the machines various arms, and then injected the system into prosthetic. She let it move on again, then stopped it in order to rewire certain things as it went along, and then began to teach the droid how to copy the circuit program she had created an hour ago.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

Finally, Rigsy had an entirely backwards experience of producing the prosthetic she wanted, minus the Laminanium. With the newly coded programs in reverse, it would now have to perform in forward motion. Under her supervision, she watched as Rigsy picked up the deconstructed pieces and began to piece them together bit by bit, and only yelled at the droid a little bit when he got something wrong, and promptly corrected him and overwrote the bad programming.

Once he was able to construct it, deconstruct it, and construct it again correctly without damaging the pieces too severely, she felt that was time to replace the pieces with Laminanium, and complete the construction to the fullest.

Bit by bit, her Laminanium prosthetic masterpiece was slowly coming underway. Rigsy set down the skeleton and began to weld it together permanently, rather than with temporary glue as they had done during practice. Then the droid set down the wiring, while it solder a circuit for the programming, and connected it into the base of the prosthetic. It then placed in the various micro-repulsion generators and the Repulsor Vest parts into the system. Finally, the Laminanium overlay wrapped around the entire system, encasing it in the self-healing metal.

Once the arms parted away from the prosthetic, Rigsy let a single and definite: "Product complete."

With hesitant hands, Triam lifted the new prosthetic up to her inspection, handling it with the care of a newborn baby. This was a precious thing of hers... it was supposed to be literally her, in her mind, so her hands hesitated to even touch the thing too hardly for fear she might somehow wake of from her dream. Her palpitating heart fluttered with joy as it became apparent that she had succeeded to create something that was truly representative and symbolic of herself... and not just some cheap replacement or weapon she was strapping to the stub of her arm. She brought the arm close for an embrace.

This was Triam she was holding.

This was Akovin.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

A day went by, and she hardly slept. She was looking across from her sleeping hammock (where she rarely slept anyway) at the new silvery arm resting neatly among Rigsy, who was now acting as a crib.

She was seriously taking her mother care of her own arm waaaaay too far at this point.

Triam had been suffering from phantom pains in her missing arm all night at this point, as if it was aching to reconnect with itself. It was like it new she was going to finally have a lost piece of her returned after so many years of waiting. Finally, she would be whole. But first, she had somewhere to visit, she required surgery... and she was almost certain the intelligent people at iBorg would have some improvements to give it.

They would be damned however, to think that she wasn't going to be the one to make those changes herself, at least for this one single prototype. She would insist, that they board her ship, and teach Rigsy how to make their improvements. It would be the only way she would allow it, and only under her observance.

Upon arriving at the facility, her prosthetic cradled in her arms, she called down the research and development team she often worked with. They were the ones to request blueprints for the design in order to sell. This particular device though, she made clear, was very close to her heart, and she wasn't going to give up full ownership to iBorg. She designed this. She constructed this. They were merely improving upon the design.

Eventually, the team conceded and entered her ship with only a degree of reluctance.

She observed over the procedures they conducted to improve and simplify her circuitry work, especially in regards to the sensory inputs. She was there and helped to move around certain parts of the arm, in order to add in a new part of her life: an iBorg node. It was crammed into the design as an afterthought, but it was symbolic of herself, who had become involved with iBorg as a career afterthought.

Finally, they were able to get the blueprints out of a stubborn Rigsy, and finally, she could hold the grace of a fully mature addition to herself... the return of her flesh and blood in mechanical and electrical form.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

"When I awoke from surgery, I was immediately aware of my existence. My eyes had become alert to the entirety of my surroundings and for the first time... I felt like I could feel everything just by looking at it. So when I lifted my arm to the light to shield my eyes... looking up into the make of my silver skin... a rush tingled through my entire body... including the tips of my fingers... the ones that were gone for so long. My breathe was taken away, and I could hardly believe it.

"I felt the essence of greed within me, practically evaporate as the phantom that existed around the void of my arm, was replaced with a renewed vow to purity. I have never felt so alive in all of my life... which is saying a lot for me, considering I've been so close to death before on so many occasions. There was simplys something about that I can't really describe very well. I felt like it was my hand again... not some machine, but me. It didn't feel like a machine was replacing me any more... it felt like I was replacing the machine that was inside me.

"Now I feel whole again... I feel opened to a whole new set of emotions I had shunned and represses this entire time, and I feel more motivated than ever now to conquer the evils of this world and the next. I had been named relentless.... and with me completely hear now... I feel like I can finally live up to that name again.

"No more exile for me, I'm going to a bar to celebrate. You coming with?"

There was a moment of silence.

"I'm sorry master, but I'm afraid you've nailed me to the floor..." Triam laughed, as she kicked Mr. Follow out of the cockpit, and jumped to hyperspace.

Rigsy was so funny.

FIN​