Step’s silver furred body was in sections and her chest was opened up revealing her soul-drive-core. Her eyes were shut and she couldn’t open them up, however she could still hear and listened to her environment. She was in a lab, several computers and advanced machinery made this apparent. The only voice she heard was a creepy sounding man, his voice made her think of a troll and she didn’t like what he was saying either.
“What a fascinating female specimen ou are! A perfect marriage of magic and science! Oh the things I’ll be able to do with you…hehe.” He chuckled breathily.
Steph would shudder if she could still move. She didn’t know how much time passed before her eyes were once again in her control. The cybernetic girl laid eyes in the lab, it was much more trashy than she was expecting. It looked like the room of a terminally online gamer: boxes of takeout and pizza littered the place, half empty bottles of soda and creepy posters or half naked women and anime characters.
The creepy sounding scientists she heard earlier looked a little different than how she pictured: he wasn’t a disheveled old man, he was a young man who couldn’t have been older than 17, he wore a wrinkled lab coat over an ill fitting suit. His dirty blonde hair was long and covered his eyes, he had pale, freckled skin and wore almost robotic looking gloves with multiple tools attached. Most striking was the six robot tentacles that came from his back, each had humanoid hands at the ends.
Steph tried to speak, to call for help but found she couldn’t, she doubled it would do any good , she knew she was at some Normal lab.
The young scientist used his mechanical arms to grab all of her pieces and transfer them onto a slanted table, she noted his arms felt up her thighs and chest as they grabbed her. Once her parts were secured to the table the scientist brought her soul-drive over to another workbench and he began working on it, then one of his arms extended over to her head and shit off her eyes once more.
This time her sight wasn’t returned and she could only listen to him tinker with her insides, every sound she heard from his work on her heart made her more and more anxious. After a while she heard a door slam open and a pair of footsteps enter.
“Well Dr. Ivy? You’ve had the thing for days, when can we expect results!” A stern sounding voice boomed.
“Uh…w-w-w-well…y-you see Director Moffman sir, t-this device isn’t entirely u-understood a-a-and—“ the scientist meekly stammered.
“—I don’t care! I want this thing in parts and you better have results or there will be consequences! Am I understood?!” The man yelled.
“Y-y-y-yes s-sir, Director Moffman, sir!” Dr. Ivy squirmed.
Steph almost felt bad for the guy, but she was even more concerned about his threats. The last thing she wanted was to be ripped apart in the name of a deadline.
“T-that dickwad, he doesn’t understand that this is delicate work! She’s one of a kind, not some run of the mill maid droid!” Dr. Ivy grumbled.
“Zzzmb76;09 y-you c-c-c-called m-m@ster?” A feminine, glitchy voice called out.
“No MAR-13, wasn’t talking about you.” He dismissed.
Steph wondered who this new voice belonged to. Was it another soul-drive like her? Some kind of other robot?
Then her sight returned and she looked upon a cute face. Or it would have been cute if it wasn’t for the pitch black eyes and missing synthetic skin on her lower jaw. Her arms were bare of skin and showed her android endoskeleton, her legs were in various states of repair which gave the robot a slight awkward gait when she walked. The gynoid’s hair was pink and pulled into pigtails, and wore only a pair of panties.
“S-she ha-há@-has pretty eyesssz” the robot said and Steph could tell she was trying to smile by the way her upper lip curled.
“Don’t start, your eyes were built to analyze opponents and counter their attacks.” The scientist sighed and went to shut off Steph’s sight again.
“MAR-1113 would l-likee pr/etty ey-eyes like her-r.” MAR-13 seemed to sigh.
Dr. Ivy paused before he could shut off the furry robot’s eyes and then remotely unlatched her jaw and fiddled with something in her throat. Then Steph’s jaw re-latched and a gasp escaped her mouth and she knew she could speak again.
“W-who made you? Reports say the C-Catalyst did but can you…can you confirm?” He asked nervously.
“Darren—the catalyst. He did make me what I am.” Steph said calmly, hoping that by answering his questions she could keep her ability to speak.
“Uh…y-yea—that’s what I uh…r-right.” He stammered.
“What? Is this your first time talking to a girl?” The soul drive snarked but immediately regretted what she said.
“W-what? N-no—I uh…t-that’s—I’m not the one asking questions here.” He tried to regain his composure.
Steph could tell by the way his face was turning red, that she was right.
“N-no—I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you.” The wolf robot tried to take back what she said, lest this scientist take away her voice again.
“Who’s that?” Steph asked and motioned with her eyes to the other robot, trying to change to topic.
“That? That’s MAR-13, she—it, is just one of my prototypes, she was uh…n-never finished but I still use her for tests a-and—and uh…” the teenage scientist stammered and trailed off.
“69!$&—MAR-13 is master’s p-pleasur/e socket!¡” the pink haired robot chipped almost proudly.
Dr. Ivy’s face went from red to ghost white and he stuck a screwdriver into MAR-13’s jaw and manually closed her mouth.
“J-j-j-just I-ignore that! I-it’s a glitch! Experimenting with AI left MAR-13, a little g-glitchy.” He spat out an excuse.
Steph couldn’t help but let out a giggle at the pair but immediately regretted it.
“Q-quiet soul-drive!” The blonde teen tried to sound tough.
“I’m sorry, I did’t mean to laugh. I know boys have…urges. Believe me I know, I used to be a maid droid.” Steph tried to explain.
“Wait? Y-you used to be a maid droid? But your inner workings are not indicative of such a thing. Your programs have integrated neuro-metalizers, phonopathical mapping and chromosomal circuits. That’s more advanced than even the most powerful AI, let alone something that came from a maid droid.” He exclaimed.
“Uh, I don’t know what half of those words were, I was made with magic and stuff.” Steph replied.
“Even so, your body is rooted in science and physics, even with reality warping magic. Whatever magic was used to transform you can’t just break the laws of physics, only adapt them to work within the limits of reality.” Dr. Ivy explained.
Then his mechanical arms went to work on her body, carefully dissecting her and mapping out her inner workings.
“Your brain! I-it’s not possible!” Dr. Ivy shouted.
He quickly reassembled her head so she could speak.
“What are you talking about?” Steph asked nervously.
“It’s entirely mechanical but it’s designed like a human brain! Most of the pathways and prefrontal cortex are one-to-one with an organic brain! Y-you used to be human didn’t you?!” He questioned.
“S-so what if I was?” The silver fox responded.
The scientist disassembled her head again and turned back to work on her soul-drive core.
“D-don’t worry if this works then I won’t have to disassemble your core. But I will have to open it up—shit, t-that means I have to ask Dr. Umba’aku to use her soul table.” He said grimly.
Steph couldn’t ask him why he was reluctant to ask this other doctor, but judging by this other doctor’s pronoun, she was a woman