Turn 16

--- Maya ---

For once, Maya’s morning was not devoted to running alongside her sister.

Instead, this morning was devoted to sparring with Izzy, who felt she needed a little more practice if she wanted to win her upcoming tournament.

Of course, since Maya knew very little about actual combat, she spent more time being thrown into the ground and having face ground into the dirt.

(I think I might’ve preferred the running…)

(I know this is honestly kind of sad. I mean you’re getting our ass handed to us by a middle schooler.)

Deciding it was best for her sanity and her ego if she just ignored her inner wild thing, she spat out a fair amount of dirt and grass before turning towards her sister.

“Is this actually helping you?” She asked. “Because I feel like this might be a little too easy for you, hermanita.”

“Oh, it is.” Izzy nodded. “But at the very least I’m building muscle by throwing you around like a crash test dummy.”

“I don’t appreciate that comparison.” She glared.

“To be fair, you’re the one who agreed to let me do this.” Her little sister pointed out.

“That’s because I thought I’d pick up some of the stuff you’re doing!”

“Well… You’re learning how to take a hit and a fall?” Izzy offered, scratching the back of her head.

(She kind of has a point…)

“Ugh, I do not need this…” She groaned in frustration.

“Yeah, what you need to do is put up your guard.” Izzy agreed.

“Wait, wha-agh!”

---

(I feel like it might be a bad idea to mess with the code that literally hacks reality.)

(Wussy.)

“Yeah, if we’re going to improve our abilities and unlock new tiers of hacking we need to figure out more about how all of this stuff works.” She explained shifting through pieces of code that could set things on fire with the proper calibrations.

(Only if something is touching the projection point.)

(Like our hands, which are inside said projection point?) Her inner reason pointed out.

“We’ll add heating shields or something later.” She promised half-heartedly.

(That doesn’t quite quell my concerns.)

(Ooh, ‘quell’ that’s a fancy word.)

(Not now you.)

“Alright, then which parts of our code do you want to mess with?” She asked, as she continued to type and delete away at the very code of reality.

(Preferably one, that doesn’t risk spontaneous combustion.) Her inner logic growled. (For instance, how about we try figuring out how our memory compression works on our programs?)

(Boo! Boring! Keep playing with fire!)

“Well, given how I’m voting for messing with our energy programs too, it looks like you’re outvoted at the moment.” She sighed in a sarcastically sympathetic manner.

(So, what if you two voted to stick a fork in the wall socket I’d have to put up with it?!)

“Yep.”

(It makes our hands all tingly!)

---

As her –(insane)- luck would have it, Maya did make a few discoveries while experimenting with her energy codes. Discoveries that inspired her to make a few tweaks and modifications to her Blaster Protocols.

Prior to these modifications, and Blaster-esque device she used would have to have their energy loadout set prior to a fight. This was due to a need to manually switch out the code pieces related to what kind of energy her inventions were using. A task that could take a good half-hour if her luck held up, and two if it didn’t.

Now however, she managed to rig it so that any Blaster type invention, such as her -Hand Cannons- would be capable of switching between any and all energy types that she had available. Admittedly how effective these energy types were, was still limited to whether or not her invention had been optimized for said energy or not.

“Let’s see…” She flexed her hands, her eyes locked onto the blue reload band and the blue ammo LEDs. “Clinch fist. Hold reload. And Rev.”

The circle around the LEDs of her Hand Cannons began to slowly fill with grey, before a slight altered version of her reload jingle that ended in a guitar rift she’d recorded from one of Tommy’s band sessions played out as the LEDs turned grey..

Flexing her hand and hitting the trigger she watched the air in front of her ripple as weak blast of sonic fired from her Hand Cannons.

Smiling, she repeated her earlier sequence of clinch, hold, and rev. This time the blue circle slowly filled with blue, before the LEDs turned grey as a crackle of electricity played out of her Cannons.

With another flex she threw out a wave of static jumping through the air.

“Heh-heh-ha, it works!” She grinned firing out another wave of electricity from one hand cannon, before throwing out a sound wave as the other switched to sound.

(Shock and awe, baby!)