paixaorpg | Ain't no one putting a sign on my shop! [Active, Open]

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Ain't no one putting a sign on my shop! [Active, Open]

Character(s): Cid, and anyone dropping by his shop
Content: Cid takes a dim view of the new signs
Setting: Cid's shop
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: ...Cid

Okay, so he'd gotten mostly used to the place. He'd dealt with the lack of a sky, and all the other damned inconvenience of place. It had been hell doing it, but he'd done it. This, however, was the last straw. He was the one owning the place and it should have been his place to deal with who got to come in.

Needless to say, the offending sign was rendered into as many pieces as had been physically possible. His spear hadn't really been the best suited for the job, but it had been remarkably therapeutic. The broken pieces he'd left sitting under where the sign had been, as a clear indicator of his thoughts on the matter. In it's place stood a simple handwritten sign.

'All are welcome. Come as you are.'

Although he might have made an exception for the mayor, if he showed his face around the place.

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Having been turned out of a good many stores already for her "offending clothes," Lightning found herself in a predicament and needing therapy. Fortunately for her, she was close enough to Cid's shop to see that it was just the kind of place she might need if Lionheart ever broke or needed a tune-up. She wondered if he'd ever worked on a gunblade before.

The state of the sign out front was an added bonus.

Taking a chance, Lightning walked in and started to look around. "Tch. At least someone around here has a brain."

Edited 2010-08-17 14:29 (UTC)

He certainly hadn't yet, although he'd worked on both guns and swords to a certain extent. And hell, it wasn't like he wasn't willing to learn how anything outside his experience worked. In a place like this a man couldn't be expected to know every damned thing, after all.

"Next time they try puttin' up a sign like that without askin' me, I'm gonna give 'em what for."

As for the store itself, it was comparatively neat, although just what was on display didn't seem to be organized in any particular order apart from keeping them loosely organized by weapon type.

"Sounds like they could use it," Lightning agreed as she glanced over the different weapons. No gunblades were around that she could see, but she couldn't say she was really surprised. Few people here seemed to know what they were all about.

"Do they not have gunblades anywhere?" she grumbled, running her hands along a large sword.

"Course they could," Cid answered. "Bunch of stuck-up assholes, the lot of 'em."

They weren't as bad as ShinRa had been - not yet - but it was all too easy in his mind to see how they could get there. Okay, so they'd probably have less of a mechanical presence, but that sure as hell wasn't going to be any great consolation. Not if things got as bad as they could have been.

"Gun-whats?"

Lightning liked this guy already. He didn't put up with anyone's shit and she respected that in a person.

"Gunblades," she repeated. Turning and walking so she was far enough from anything that she wouldn't hit something, she reached behind her. Flicking the switch on her weapon, she pulled it out of its bag in one smooth motion born of many years of training. The blade physically and mechanically swapped from gun mode, which it was normally in while resting, to sword mode.

"These things," she clarified, holding the blade parallel in front of her so the man could see it.

Well, that was something you didn't see every day. Sure, he heard of (and seen a few) weapons that could be collapsed to fight into a smaller space or to make carrying them around easier, but that wasn't really the same as one thing becoming another. Damned interesting though, as he came closer for a good look at what could be seen of the parts that let it change like that.

"Haven't seen anything like 'em," he answered. "But give me a bit of time an' I can try my hand at fixin' 'em up for you."

It couldn't be any harder than some of the things he did in his spare time, right?

Lightning let him examine the weapon, noticing that he was truly interested in it. Maybe he would be a good repairman if the blade's mechanics ever needed tuning up.

"It'll need upgrades soon," she clarified, flicking the switch again she the blade turned back into a gun. "And I can always use decent ammo."

She was still holding it in one hand by this point, though now she was aiming the gun up to the ceiling in case it fired. Not that she expected to slip and trigger it accidentally or purposefully.

Edited 2010-09-16 20:57 (UTC)

Upgrades. Well, that shouldn't be too hard, theoretically speaking. Getting the appropriate hands-on experience might be a little tricky if that was the only one, but hell, he could appreciate a good challenge. It might even take his mind off of things for a while.

"I'll take a look around. See what sort of things I can find."

If he was at all bothered by the fact that she was holding an ostensibly live weapon in the middle of his shop, he wasn't showing it - and given what he was selling, odds were he didn't much care. Or trusted her to know how to handle it.

Lightning let the man look at it a little longer before quickly stowing Lionheart back in its bag. "Thanks. It's hard to find someone who knows enough about mechanics to deal with it."

Most people specialized in either guns or swords, usually swords, not both. Finding someone who wouldn't mind learning and wouldn't destroy it on first touch was a nice addition, too.

"I haven't seen anyone with the capabilities to deal with anything close to it yet. Seems they like their baby weapons here."

"Probably has something to with the city," he answered with a shrug. "Can't get any sort of halfway decent engine around here either, unless you want t' build off what they run the trains with and that ain't much good in the long run either."

That and apart from him, he hadn't seen any honest-to-goodness mechanics around the place, which said all that you really needed to know about the place. It was a wasteland, stuck in the past of all places, and that had never really sat well with him.

"Tch," Lightning agreed with a single sound. "The trains aren't much help. They don't even seem to work well enough as they are."

She got tired of waiting for them most of the time, so she generally walked or ran everywhere. It wasn't like doing that was any particular burden on her, either. She was used to running everywhere after her journey through Cocoon and Pulse.

"If I had a spare gunblade, I'd let you play with it." But this is her baby. Lionheart gets upgrades; that's it. No playing and definitely no dismantling.

"You ever tried building an engine from the ground up?" Cid shot back. "It's a goddamned pain in places you didn't know could have pains."

He'd done it before, once or twice. But that didn't mean he was looking forward to having to do it again, and without anyone to help out. And he wasn't about to let just anyone work on something so important. He needed people he could actually trust to listen when he had something to say.

"Might have something close enough in the back. Figure I can test things out on that."

That actually got a laugh from Lightning. She liked this guy. Deciding to take a bit of a risk, she pulled Lionheart back out, and flicked it into blade mode.

"I'm a warrior, not a mechanic, but I learn fast."

Which was true. So, if Cid wanted an extra set of hands, Lightning wasn't doing anything else all day. So, she lifted her arm and offered him the blade.

"Maybe I'll get lucky and another one will turn up." Hand built here or otherwise.

Well, now that was a surprise. Cid hadn't expected to find another set of hands so soon, much less be handed the gunblade again. But hell, stranger things had happened, and he wasn't about to look a gift chocobo in the beak.

"Stranger shit's happened," he answered, as he carefully took the blade. You didn't treat something that nice any other way, especially if wasn't yours to begin with.

"And hell, I ain't gonna say no to another set of hands."

Lightning approved of the careful way Cid handled the gunblade, watching him pointedly to be sure he didn't try anything. She wasn't completely unarmed without it by any means, but she knew what people were capable of with it in their hands.

"So what first?"

At least this set of hands didn't have any problem with getting dirty, either.

Luckily enough, Cid wasn't really the sort to try anything with someone else's weapon. He'd leave that to people like Barret or Cloud. The headstrong idiots, basically. He'd stick to letting them charge in and deal with cleaning up the stragglers.

"Depends on if you want to have this looked at first or not."

Lightning shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" She had no real plans aside from not breaking her weapon. "It usually just needs a few random scales, hide pieces, or other things to make it stronger and more durable. Not sure if this place has anything that would work." But it was worth looking into.

That had to be about the strangest method of upgrading a weapon that he'd ever heard of. Whatever happened to the good old methods of taking something and using smithcraft or whatever to make it better. Or hell, just traded it in for a better model at some store somewhere?

But he'd trust her to know how to upgrade it, damned odd though it might have seemed.

"You think the plant life around here might work?"

She shrugged again. "Worth a shot." Lightning noticed the way he seemed to react to her explanation. "I didn't make up that method. I would have made something that made sense."

"Hell, if it's what works..." Cid answered with a shrug. "Can't say I'd see why someone'd do it that way, but hell. It ain't like it was my choice." If it had been it'd have been something that was at least a little bit more sensible. Give the things metal or something, not old bits of hide.

But start with what he had. With the currency of the city being what is what he'd managed to pick up a surprising number of odds and ends. But he'd start with the simplest stuff. The stuff that it was easiest to replace.

"Somethin' like this maybe?" he asked, holding out what passed for a branch in Paixao. A cleverly designed thing made of metal and gems, that had absolutely nothing in common with ordinary plant life save for the shape.

Whatever the heck that branch thing was that the man held up, it looked downright stupid to Lightning, but by now she'd gotten used to how everything was weird here. She reached out a hand to examine the silly thing and then nodded, resting a hand on her hip.

"It should do."

They should be able to at least make the gunblade more durable with something like that and that was what she was after. Stronger, faster, more durable.

"You can get more 'f the things outside, if you need 'em. I'm pretty sure that's the only one I've got."

Various other things, yes. More not-really-twigs, not so much. But there had to be more things around the place that could go into some kind of bizarre upgrade system.

"So how do you actually put th' two thing together?"

Lightning shrugged and reached out to take the branch and her blade back, propping the blade up against her side as she flattened the branch. It took her a while to work out how to do it, but a moment later, the branch had flattened around the blade and the gems had been set into the metal. She tested the blade's weight. It hadn't changed much, but the feel of it was different, the placement of the weight. Flicking a finger at it, she nodded at the feel.

"Should do," she answered. "Think the blades just meld together. The pieces fit if they work. If they don't, the blade becomes weaker. Feels like this worked."

Just meld together, hunh? Odd sort of magic if that was the case, but hell, he'd seen it work and it seemed to do just fine. Even if it did make the blade look all sort of funny afterwards.

"I can keep an eye out for random shit, if you think you'll want to come back for another round."

Lightning nodded. "Could always use some sort of tune-up. Weapons don't stay in good quality if they aren't well-taken care of." And she wasn't stupid enough to turn down his offer to upgrade her weapon further.

"...Thanks. For your help."

"An' don't I know it," Cid answered with a nod. It was one of the things you picked up damned fast when you were tagging along with some else's quest to save the world. Materia only got you so far, after all.

"Don't gotta thank me. It's what the shop is for."

Lightning just nodded once, flicking the switch on her weapon a final time and storing it back in its case. She'd gotten what she came here for, so it was probably time to leave. She wasn't much of one for formal goodbyes. By now, her companions had gotten used to her gruff manner and very few words, so she didn't think anything of just nodding and leaving, which was what she would do unless Cid stopped her.

Cid had no problem with gruff and to the point. It was how he was, and so he simply offered a slight nod as she headed on out. She wasn't a bad sort of person, really, even if her weapon had some bizarre mechanics built in.

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Ain't no one putting a sign on my shop! [Active, Open]

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