Silhouette

Decanov's metallic eyebrow twitched.

A fool would blame the problem on a faulty circuit, but he was no such imbecile. He had modified this body himself, all within the guidelines of his father's already great design. There was no room for such a silly mistake.

The next conclusion then would be that this was a natural reaction, his visage instinctually emoting. This was equally ridiculous, not least of all because as an artificial entity, he had no such animal instinct. Even if he did, he had far too much control over his emotions to lose his cool this way, no matter the situation.

No, his problem was a much more annoying external source, one that he couldn't solve as he pleased.

"Aw, aren't you adorable!"

The ghostly squeal of the small phantom floating about at Adam's compliment caused a few more errors in the scientist's programming, errors he had to solve manually while grumbling. He was good enough to solve the problem nonchalantly, not even slowing down in his walk through the halls of the old orphanage they found themselves in, but it was annoying to deal with nonetheless.

"Adam, do not encourage the supernatural entities to run amok.

"Right, sorry Doc. It's just... They're so cute, you know?"

"All that I know is that I will have to work overtime to figure out a way to get everything running in there without them ruining it."

"Come on, Doc, I'm sure you can make ghostproof stuff easily."

"I can, as I have done with our home or Silhouette's facility on the surface. The problem is making sure it won't harm or disorient them. The answer to specters is usually an exorcism, not cohabitation."

The young man in an oversized cybernetic body looked away sheepishly at that, though he didn't stop patting the head of another ghostly child who followed him.

"Right. But I'm sure you'll figure it out, Doc. You're the smartest guy I know."

The Draskian grunted in response, but Adam knew the man well enough to know he was pleased with the compliment, even if the frowning mouth embedded in his face couldn't smile to show it.

"In any case, Adam, while you are here officially as my assistant, Silhouette understands and agrees to the true nature of your presence."

"I'm not actually your assistant?'

"Adam, I value you greatly. More than any material thing. That being said, I think Silhouette and I would prefer not to waste thousands of Xerins buying back materials you could accidentally damage because you got distracted and tightened your grip a little too much."

"Ah. Yeah..."

"Do not worry, I will still have tasks for you. I won't stuff you in a room until the time comes to return to the surface. I am merely being pragmatic in preferring to keep you away from the more... Delicate parts of the overhauling of this location."

"Don't worry, I get it Doc."

"I know you've made a lot of progress, Adam. Some of these items are simply too fragile to risk, to the point only I will handle them."

"Not even that kid genius you keep bringing up?"

"These are not the words I used to talk about the brat and you know it."

"But you know who I'm talking about~"

The Draskian's glare, carefully aimed away from Adam, was still more than enough to scare away the ghostly children that had been following them so far. Adam let him stew in his grumbling for a bit as he continued to follow the one other living person present, the member of the Shadow Commando who was guiding them to their rooms. The man was strangely silent, given what the young man had heard about the group from Decanov. He knew his savior was quick to dismiss others' intelligence and exaggerate their flaws, but he never truly lied. For someone from the group the scientist described as a circus with guns, Adam expected a little more noise.

The man finally stopped their little group in front of a door before opening it, revealing a small room with two beds. And not much else. A wardrobe and a dresser, both placed between the beds.

"This is your room, sirs. If you need anything, just ask me or one of my colleagues."

"Thanks, man."

"No problem, it's my job."

"Quite. Adam, let the man return to his duties. Namely, bringing our luggage here."

"... You guys weren't carrying it?"

The Draskian's scowl sent the armed man running right out of the room, probably to take care of that.

"... I forgot to bring our stuff."

"No worry, it's why people like him are here."

"Still. I... I get what you meant, about me being a bad assistant."

"I never said you were a bad assistant, merely that there were a wide variety of tasks you couldn't do. What you can do you do well, something a bad assistant does not."

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Doc, but don't worry about it. Say, shouldn't go help with the luggage? I know you planned on bringing some of your fancy tools."

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"Ah, but I managed to secure a safer means of transport. Silhouette will be bringing me the most sensitive material himself."

"Oh, how kind of him. You trust him with that stuff?"

"The man is paranoid. He will make sure everything arrives in one piece. If I didn't know he put a lot of importance on consent, I would expect him to have all of it 'upgraded' before it arrives."

It was at this moment that the telltale sound of things crashing and fabric falling on the floor came from outside, reaching their room through the open window - not that there was any sunlight in the area, everything instead illuminated through those strange black flames in lanterns that made no shadow.

"On second thought, perhaps it is best I go oversee the transfer of our belongings. Take the time to rest, Adam. I know the trip was exhausting."

When Decanov left the room, upon seeing him, one might think he looked the part of the picture-perfect definition of calm. Upon hearing him, however, it would be hard to miss the loud echo of his footsteps, the only reason his metal feet hadn't broken through the floor being the fact that the wood had been magically reinforced by a century of ghostly exposure and the corruptive touch of Silhouette.

Adam made sure to wait until the scientist was out of earshot to chuckle, and even then he had a feeling the robot had sensors sensitive enough to hear me regardless. From the way he grumbled all the time, he seemed more than aware of all the noise their neighbors made. That amusement lasted until he spotted something out of the corner of his eye, a strange shape stumbling along beneath the window. When he approached it to see what the strange thing outside was, his mechanical heart almost leaped out of his chest - for there, roaming around, was a monster that could undoubtedly only be a Patchee. What else could a creature covered in human skin of varying tones, almost moaning in pain at every step, with a deformed body, could be?

Adam carefully stepped back from the window, ready to run and warn Decanov, until he noticed the robot himself walking toward the creature and berating it, leading the young cyborg to finally notice that the monster had been gathering his clothes before shuffling to put them back in his open luggage. He also noticed the green armband the abomination wore.

"What the hell..."

"First time?"

Adam turned around to meet the masked face of yet another Shadow Commando member, though this one sounded like a woman.

"Excuse me?"

"It's your first time down here, right? I mean, the Patchees are new, but at this point, anyone who's been around the boss long enough wouldn't be that surprised."

"Can you tell me what's that thing doing out here?"

"After the Patcher bit the dust and got himself a trip to hell, his victims had nowhere to go. They spread through the slums. The boss had some of his minions gather those he could and bring them here, to try and give them back a sense of normalcy. Ease them back into being people again before we can bring them to the city to be reunited with their loved ones. It's a bit of a sob story, I know, but the big man has a soft spot for tragic tales. He tries to play it cool and mysterious, but everyone knows he has a big heart."

"I only met him once, when he came to recruit the Doc... But I'm willing to believe it. Doc isn't all that different himself, you know? Sure, he's grumpy. And he loves to brag. And he finds a way to insult anyone he meets within a few minutes. But... Deep down, he genuinely wants to help."

Adam's gaze returned to the creature outside, and how Decanov, done with his scolding, was now helping it gather their belongings.

"In a way, I'm his adopted Patchee."

"If you say so. Hard to notice that sort of stuff when the guy keeps calling you an idiot. I mean, I'm self-aware enough to tell the Commando isn't composed of the sharpest tools in the shed, but we do our job and we do it well."

She walked to look out the window alongside the towering cyborg, and when she spoke next he could hear the smirk she had to wear under that mask.

"Gotta say, I'm not actually all that surprised. I told you, the big man has a bleeding heart, and he has the knack for recruiting people like him. Weirdos who hide that they care behind prickly personalities, strange looks, and general oddity."

"Wouldn't that include you?"

"Ah! Like I said, I know who I am. You're Decanov's protégé, you probably heard the stories. When Silhouette was at war with that one dude who got exiled from Wicked Witchcraft, we beat his invisible commander through the art of stupidity. Well, some of the boys did, I wasn't there myself for that one."

"How do you beat someone with stupidity? That doesn't make sense."

"Oh, it does. Honestly, I think it would work on the grumpy bot too. Lucky for everyone involved, there's no reason to weaponize idiocy against him, and with us around he's protected from hostile idiots."

"None of what you just said made sense."

She shrugged.

"Your loss, kid. Say, while Decanov's busy with that Patchee, wanna meet his sworn enemy?"

"Techlord? He's here too?"

"Of course he is. The Shadow Den might as well be his home. The kid never leaves the place, and neither does his kid."

"Techlord has a kid? Isn't he... A little young?"

"Decanov didn't tell you? Long story short, Sunburn cooked him once, the big boss had to skin him alive to remove the molten remains of his old suit, and some magic nonsense gave life to that and it came back crawling, looking for its origin. Now it's Techlord Junior and they help around the base. Don't let the limited vocabulary fool you, the kid's smarter than he looks. Still slow, but much sharper than you'd expect from discarded skin and flesh fused with metal and plastic."

Adam could only stare in horror.

"Holy hell."

"Yeah. It ain't pretty. It's why they both rarely leave their suits. Well, okay, maybe not for Techlord Senior, he just feels more comfortable wearing his fancy armor and isn't ashamed one bit of his looks, even if he's annoyed at how the cold and humid air feels on what's left of his skin. But Junior? Yeah, love the kid, but if I met them in the dark without their suit on I'd shoot no questions asked."

"Yeesh. That bad?"

"We had Mesker, a known demonologist and exorcist, just as shaken as the rest of us. Trust me, it's that bad."

"Oh. Do you really think they'd want to meet me? Both of them, I mean. I am the Doc's assistant, and I know he hasn't been very friendly with Techlord."

"Oh, don't worry about it. Junior likes to be friends with everyone, and Techlord is too busy being a workaholic to dislike folks."

"Ah. Reminds me of the Doc."

"Oh, trust me, we know. The main difference is that Techlord is the dismissive sort of arrogant genius, whereas Decanov is the belittling sort. We're happy to have the kid here long-term rather than your pal. No offense, but I prefer a boss who lets us do our thing than one looking over our shoulder and pointing out every little thing he dislikes, mistake or not."

"That's a somewhat unhealthy point of view. You need to know what you did wrong to do better."

"Sure. But I'm not paid enough to hand around Decanov for more than a handful of days, and that's saying something considering how generous Silhouette is with our salaries. Besides, we already have the nuns around to make sure everything is going well. That, and the boss' body double."

"A body double?"

"I don't know the specifics, just that it looks like him and they can communicate telepathically somehow. We report to it, and the boss gets what we did. However, we can call him directly if we think it's urgent or don't know what to do. It's just that since business has been expanding, he doesn't have as much time to deal with us anymore. Makes sense, though I won't lie, I miss the days we all hung out together. We still get our donuts from Pete, but it felt different when he was the one to bring them himself, you know?"

"Whoa, you guys really were that close?"

"You wouldn't expect it, but the big boss is actually pretty sociable behind all the doom and gloom. He's just too busy preparing for the next catastrophe to take the time to kick back and relax and actually do that kind of stuff."

She stared out into the night silently before clapping her hands.

"So! Let's get you to meet Techlord and Junior. Everything should go smoothly."