This day represented the apex of the base's achievements, ushering in a phase of unparalleled advancement and affirming Adam's prescience.
As a self-proclaimed RTS boomer, Adam's economy-boosting style was the only thing that could prevent 200 people from dying in the coming winter, and the early focus on production machines and power plants quickly started paying off.
The biggest and most exciting accomplishment was the Fabricator Machine, the Solarium's specialized machine for 3D printing anything according to the lore, but it lacked the ability to print textiles or optical products, which was a significant hurdle for the coming winter.
Textiles are usually synonymous with clothing, and Adam needed a ton of them for his survivors and summons to prevent them from dying of cold. As for optics and mirrors, they are vital for Blazer-arms production. Typically, then, they would have been Adam's next order of business, had it not been for the arrival of a huge influx of survivors at his doorstep.
So, in order to make all his dreams come true, Adam needed extra hands to work in his base—skilled, efficient builders. Luckily for him, he had planned a mass summon before he left the base to meet with the Alfari, and he was just conserving his strength until his return to the base. Now was finally the time.
"Where are we heading?" Yuki asked, appearing less concerned than she should have been.
"You've figured out I can summon troops. At least witness how I do it, so you can better understand what you'll hide from the public." Adam replied, heading towards the Boot Camp Building, checking that it was empty before stepping inside.
"So you paint your minis, and they come to life? Just like that?" She asked, now a tad more interested than before.
"Isn't it nice?" Adam asked in return.
"It's weird. I know for a fact how other guys would use that kind of power." She said.
"I suggested summoning a Barbara doll once," Kave said, remembering the conversation he had with Adam after hooking up with Elena.
"You sure?" Yuki looked at him dismissively, "That would be a huge waste."
Feeling that his joke didn't land well with her, Kave chose to stay quiet as Adam put his toolbox in the center of the Boot Camp gym.
"Area is clear, Commander."
Another individual entered the room through the other door, reporting that there were no prying eyes around the building. However, the moment he laid eyes on Yuki, his steps halted, and a rare smile appeared on his face.
"I didn't realize we had such a rare guest." Sharp said, walking slowly into the room.
"Cut the crap." Yuki retorted, "You knew I was here from the beginning."
Seeing the two eccentric lovebirds reunited, Adam and Kave decided to stay quiet, helping each other line up the newly painted miniatures on the ground. However, the conversation was only getting weirder.
"What are you doing here?" Yuki asked, taking a few slow steps closer to Sharp, "Shouldn't you be organizing survivors somewhere?"
"I'm on a different job." He replied, matching her pace as they drew closer, intensely exchanging looks, "I deal with… trespassers."
"Tsk, tsk! That's not good PR. I'll have to clean up after you now, you know." Yuki said, now standing less than a foot from him, "How is this for trespassing?"
"Careful! My actual job is to shoot new recruits." Sharp replied, reaching for a pistol and running its muzzle along her left hip.
"How many have you killed?" Yuki said, her voice remained steady as she asked.
"None. The Sergeant trains her dogs well, though I'd advise you to run, just once. I have a few shots I want to try." Sharp replied, now feeling her clear scent, liking how emotionless she smelled.
"It's a promise then." Yuki said, almost smiling, yet she bit her lower lip, her hungry eyes fixed on Sharp.
Adam cleared his throat, trying to get the two to read the room. They slowly did, still mostly paying attention to each other.
"Elena won't be joining us?" Adam asked Sharp, who finally paid him attention.
"Sarge is busy handling the old Senator. She said if she doesn't report in one hour, prepare her trial for the abrupt execution of a citizen." Sharp replied, passing on Elena's snarky message.
"Heh!" Adam barely smiled and nodded, "Killing politicians is more like Sol's Mercy. Let's just get this over with and join her."
Sharp nodded and looked past Adam, at the ground; a slight frown appeared on his face. "The short guys, huh?"
"Titanite Troopers, if you please. You don't want these guys pestering you." Kave replied, correcting Sharp, who merely returned a cynical smirk.
"What's that about?" Yuki asked Sharp, fully understanding most of the summoning process, but not the subject of that conversation.
"Men-at-Arms from Titan, some of the best builders in the Solarium, albeit short and odd-limbed." Sharp explained.
"As long as you don't mention their height or call them Dwarves. No Tolkien jokes. As far as everyone is concerned, they are average; everyone else is too damn tall." Adam warned.
"They are a bit sour until you give them a drink; they'd take any joke and call you 'cousin' afterward." Kave also added.
"So, basically, a Dwarf archetype." Yuki understood.
Both Adam and Kave nodded, but at least a warning was issued to prevent further complications.
Kave turned to Adam and asked: "So, how are you going to do this? I can't remember more than three Titan Trooper characters from the lore, and I don't think that would be enough."
"Yep, me neither." Adam nodded but still had a bright idea, "We can still ask them to name a few of their cousins, as Titanites love their ancestry."
"Or you can try something new." Yuki stepped forward and asked, "Those guys come from a fictional world, right? Is it like a universe that really exists, or are they just poofed out of your imagination?"
Adam and Kave shrugged, followed by Sharp, who had no strong feelings about it either.
"You said you need lore to make summons. I know people make up lore all the time in other games. Wartopia is the same, isn't it?" She asked again.
"Something like that." Adam confirmed.
"Then do it. Imagine some Dwarves… Titanites, I mean—and tie them to the lore you know. Make up names and try summoning."
"Good idea!" Kave agreed and turned to Adam, who wasn't as excited as they were but still agreed.
"Wanna take it a step further?" Yuki stepped closer to them, "Tie it to something you already know about your summons; see if it affects them."
"Wow! That's some next-level mind fuckery." Kave commented, and a grin formed on his face as he turned to Adam, "Do it."
Adam let out a sigh and nodded, starting to turn the gears of his homebrew lore, trying to make something original this time.
The Sage's voice echoed in his mind: Would it work, though? It should, shouldn't it? After all, what is the difference between official lore and homebrew? Earthling Humans wrote both, right?
Adam felt a level of fear, but the experiment was too important right now, and if it succeeded, it would change how he viewed his Puppeteer Rune to a frightening degree.
"Sharp, you've been to Titan, right?" Adam asked.
"We died on Titan, sir. The whole squad was annihilated." Sharp replied.
"Anything interesting you remember?" Adam asked.
"Sarge went missing once," Sharp retold casually. "She starts wandering around when she's bored, and once she went missing for a week before reporting back to base. She never told us what happened."
"Okay."
Adam had an idea formulating in his head, a smile growing on his face as his homebrew lore came together nicely.
"Hey, you're using Elena in your experiment?" Kave asked, a bit worried about his lover.
"Just filling some gaps. Hopefully, not too many gaps." Adam smiled and turned to the seven miniatures he had laid out, "I have some names and characters in mind."
The three bystanders showed anticipation as Adam walked around his miniatures, declaring their names. Yuki frowned as she heard them; Kave was a bit horrified, while Sharp didn't feel anything strange with the names, since all seven were Auxiliary Privates who got butchered names anyway.
But once Adam said the word "Arise!" a rift of shimmering holy light appeared in the space; the miniatures all disappeared, and seven men stepped out.
Adam almost fainted from the mental strain, but a smile appeared on his face as the experiment he had conducted seemed to have succeeded.
≪ Your [Psyche] has improved! (IV → V) ≫
"YELENAAAA!"
"GIRRRRL!"
"WE MISSED YOU!"
The sight of seven short men charging Sergeant Elena Skarn—the sternest individual on Earth—and hugging her from all directions was a hard pill for half of her soldiers, all the recruits, and the survivors (at whom she had been shouting all evening) to swallow.
"You guys…" She looked at them, half-shocked, half in disbelief, as she didn't resist them, "Grimsby, Hazard, Sleeper, Basher, Sneery, Doper…"
Her voice softened as she looked at the eldest of the seven brothers, who lagged behind, watching her from Adam's side.
"Heyya, girrrl. Been some time since you've been to your old cousins, eh?" The eldest Titanite spoke in a thick Titanite accent, rolling his "R"s and crunching his "G"s until the words sounded like gravel in a mixer.
"… Duke!"
She was let go by the Dwarves before she ran and hugged Duke, who hugged her back with his abnormally large and thick arms—the norm for the short-statured Titanites.
She seemed genuinely happy after reuniting with the seven brothers who had rescued her a long time ago. She looked at Adam, her eyes asking "How?" but he couldn't show her anything other than a smile he barely kept on his face.
It was the story he had made up, the homebrew lore that had succeeded without him understanding why.
That's scary! Even the Sage admitted.
He forced his smile a bit longer before nodding and turning away, walking back to Kave, Yuki, and Sharp before Megan joined them.
He looked at Sharp, his eyes stern and his tone flat. "Not a word of this to anyone. What you saw in the Boot Camp, take it to your grave."
"Yes, sir," Sharp replied without saluting, still acknowledging the weight of his summoner's words.
"The rest of you, I ask the same," Adam said, looking at the three Earthlings.
"Sure," Yuki nodded sideways with a shrug.
"What's going on?" Megan asked.
"Well, it turns out he could use his summoning ability with homebrew lore, make up characters out of his ass, and apparently turn Snow White and the Seven Dwarves into Sergeant Elena and the Seven Titanites."
"Yo!" Megan was taken aback. "That's fucked up! Why'd you do that?"
"I was experimenting." Adam shrugged. "I wanted to see the extent of this power, but… not like this." He shook his head. "I crossed a line."
"Duh!" Megan nudged his shoulder. "This can potentially change the summons' personalities."
"But it also means that the Wartopia universe isn't real if Adam can change character backgrounds on the fly." Yuki commented, "It's a useful tool to use surgically, if needed."
"Adam kinda feels his summons are real people." Megan said.
"They are real," Adam insisted.
"This emotional dilemma is above my feels grade, so figure out how to use it; let me worry about how it looks to others." Yuki shrugged and looked around, "Tomorrow, though, I'm beat, and it's late. Where do I sleep?"
"Wherever you like in camp," Adam replied. "You're a recruit now."
"Permission to take her as my Skinward, sir?" Sharp asked from the side.
"You two are grown-ups; decide on it if she agrees to it," Megan retorted before Adam could even reply. "And no more of that Skinward nonsense."
"What's that?" Yuki asked.
"It's a military relationship with a superior. Don't let it get weird, though. Set some boundaries," Megan spoke up, making sure nothing weird would happen as it did with Kave.
"Boundaries?" Yuki tilted her head and turned to Sharp. "I'd like to test how far we can push those."
"Right this way then," Sharp cleared the way for her, taking her to his tent.
"Goodness!" Adam shook his head, shuddering at what those two might come up with.
"Was she even listening?" Megan asked as she watched them return to the base uphill.
"You two worry about yourselves." Kave hit them both on the shoulder before walking past them towards Elena. "I'll go check on my Skinbinder."
As he strode away, Megan walked to Adam's side, and he put his arm around her shoulder.
They watched for a while as Kave joined Elena's side by the fire, while she laughed and chattered with the seven Titanites whom Adam had forced into her life with his rune's influence. Megan knew that Adam now regretted what he had done, tampering with the personalities of his summons, but it would be hard for him not to do so again in the future, since even his random thoughts could have such a wild effect, especially now that he had realized it.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I am." Adam nodded, then a smile formed on his face as he turned to face her. "What's on your mind?"
"You, me, shower, bed, and sex," she said sweetly. "We have to fit food somewhere, too."
"Ambitious!" Adam met her smirk with a short laugh. "Personally, I'm starving," he said, but then looked at the survivors standing around separate fire barrels and gathering inside the few intact buildings with their blankets. "Probably everyone is starving as well."
Hearing him worrying about the people who were now under his protection, she stepped in front of him and held his hands, comforting him:
"They wouldn't blame you for tonight's hunger. They saw you fight, shed blood, and bury the dead," she spoke softly. "Tomorrow, we'll have to burn through our stockpile for food, but food production will still be sufficient."
"The resource acquisition, though…" Adam's worries still surfaced, but Megan shook her head.
"Stress about it tomorrow." Megan's tone became stricter. "It is not your job to fix the fucking apocalypse. Security, you've provided. Food? Everyone will salvage materials for tomorrow. Shelters? If we can't build them, we have Titanites who can dig burrows like ants. There is a solution for everything."
Adam nodded, his mind still troubled by worry, but for tonight, he allowed himself to set those concerns aside for a new day.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
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