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Post by Derrick Ottoy on Oct 25, 2020 20:10:43 GMT -6
Thread PL: 36,000 | Items: N/A
"Hey Lucas, ya got the flathead on ya still?"
For the past several hours, Derry has been tinkering around inside the Dirty Snakes shack, their sort of disguise for their hideout. Here, the Snakes typically work on various different cars and bikes, usually either giving them a paint job or doing some heavy maintenance. Today was different, however, as Derry booked the garage for himself for the entire day. A while back he got the idea of investing in his very own scouter, but he didn't feel like purchasing one from some sort of shady vendor, so he thought that he could build his very own. With an instruction booklet provided by Epsilon, Derry borrowed Lucas to help him in his current escapades. At first, things were going pretty well for the duo, but ever since getting into the electronics section, the two have been stumped, shocked, and blown up on several occasions just this morning. It's now 2 p.m., and this is now their 4th time running the electronics.
"Yea Derry, I still got 'er right here." Lucas took the flathead screwdriver from his belt and tossed it over to Derry, who was now closing up the device. As Derry was placing the cover and inserting the pink sheet of glass into its fitting, Lucas was grabbing one of the nearby goggles on a workbench in preparation for when the device eventually went up in smoke. Derry sighed to himself as he picked up the now 'finished' scouter, and claims, "Well, it should work now. I don't know how the hell Epsilon can stand these electronics, but... here she is." Derry attached the scouter to his right ear and turned the device on. He fully expected the piece of junk to start smoking, but it appears to be displaying numbers on the screen.
"Ah, finally. Hey Lucas, stand still." Derry then turned towards Lucas' direction and waited for the makeshift scouter to read out Lucas' power level. To Derry's surprise, the scouter produced an actual result, and it looks as if Lucas' power level was a grand total of 9. "Huh, thought that would be a bit larger." As Derry was taking off the scouter, however, he notices that Lucas was eyeing a folder on the workbench. It was filled with various different papers, reports, photographs, and even contained some contact information. Derry coughed loudly and Lucas was startled by the sudden noise, dropping the folder and its contents.
Derry walked towards Lucas to pick up the papers and properly stow them away this time. He shoves the folder in a small safe resting on a second workbench and slightly closes the door. He didn't feel like going through the effort of punching in the code just to get it back out since they'll be done anyway. "What did I tell you about going through that folder, Lucas? That there is for a very special customer, and I don't think he'll appreciate you snooping through the documents, either." Lucas then looked down at the floor with worry in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Derry, I was just wanting to help ya out on that case." "Well, I consider it more of a... personal project. General Kraktus is placing a lot of trust on me, and I don't need any of this information leaking out." The information Derry was referring to was dirt related to Carro Hofferson, the current president of Earth. For the past couple of weeks, Derry has been gathering information regarding the man on the side, but it was proving to be quite difficult.
"Here," Derry mutters as he tosses the scouter towards Lucas' direction. As he clumsily catches the device in his hands, Derry continues on, "Put it on and take a look at me. Let's see what I get." Lucas raises the scouter and places it on his right ear. He turns his attention towards Derry and waits for the device to read out the numbers, but nothing was popping up. The moment Lucas grew a confused look on his face, the device started smoking, and an alarm can be heard from the scouter. Instinctively, Lucas throws the scouter at the shack door, and before it could even hit the door, the mechanism detonated, blowing open the door and filling the entire room with smoke. After a couple of seconds, Derry made his way towards the scouter on the ground and picks it back up. Strangely enough, it was fully in tact, but he knew for certain the wiring was ruined yet again. He coughs as he walks towards a whiteboard next to the door and places a mark right next to a set of three. "Trial number 4 is another failure. Damn."
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Post by Carro Hofferson on Oct 25, 2020 22:07:20 GMT -6
TRIAL AND ERRORCARRO's PL: 100 (NOT YET PRESENT) || LEO's PL: 1,000 (SET | 200k BASE)
Life on Earth had returned to its fairly peaceful, routine schedule for the President and his feline companion. When she wasn't worrying over her partner's declining self-care or working at Crop Co. HQ, LEO was patrolling the city streets. Crime tended to just vanish with the feline's mere presence- most sane people knew better than to stir up trouble when the eyes of the strongest being in the galaxy were stalking the streets. Meanwhile, for the mecha herself, it was usually a nice, calming walk through the city that reminded her of all the little good things Earth had. The local gas station's fuel was filling for the robot, the glimmer of street signs, the chirps of city birds, and the bright sun in the sky were all little things she appreciated.
A resounding bang snapped LEO's attention away from the peace of the city... Of course, no day in the life of a defender was complete without something happening.
Not far away from the park she stood in, LEO could spot a thin plume of smoke trailing from an inconspicuous and very flammable-looking shack. All it took was one swift pounce to cause the ground to tremble slightly around her and inside the shack Derry and Lucas were working inside, and a pair of orange lights cut through the smoke blocking the entrance.
A thin plume of extinguishing gas trickled out of one of LEO's cannons, dispersing the smoke and putting out any small fires that may have been stirring... And in turn revealing the massive mecha to the two humans inside, casting an imposing shadow over them. "Do be more careful with testing your equipment. Inhaling that smoke for too long would have harmed your lungs or caused a fire." She lectured briefly, crouching down to put herself on a slightly more level line of sight with the Earthlings.
LEO was going to be on her way after a bit more explaining of fire safety, but the busted device in Derry's hand caught her attention. A rudimentary attempt at making a Scouter. Scouters were usually treated as a rookie project back at Crop Co to teach new mechanics- was this another striving engineer? "There's a Capsule Corporation vendor down the street that sells Scouters if you require a functioning model quickly... Though if you would like some pointers on how to better make one yourself without creating fire hazards, I could give you some pointers." She offered with a smile. The second best part of her patrols was always the friendly interactions she had with the people of her city.
LEO's [UT1] Ki Suppression lowers her PL to 1,000. It can be sensed as per usual.
LEO's [UT1] Life Link and [UT2] Soulbound are passively active.
Carro himself is not currently present, but may appear later!
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Post by Derrick Ottoy on Oct 26, 2020 16:15:16 GMT -6
Derry turns around as he hears the hissing of what sounded like gas being shot out of a steel pipe, and is confronted by a rather large mech suit. The behemoth of metal soon lowered itself while it was talking about the smoke acting as both a health and a fire hazard. As if Derry didn't know that already. Hell, he practically breathes fire, at least, he's been attempting to as a bit of a party trick for the rest of the Snakes. Putting that aside, Derry continued to stare directly at LEO and took note of its... familiar design, and not in the sense that it looks like a giant cat. The shining white steel plates contrasted quite well with the orange lights radiating from the eyes, but Derry felt that he should be at least a bit on edge. Again, he felt as if he knew who specifically this mech was, but he just couldn't remember. For now, he should probably keep it safe and assume he doesn't know LEO.
"Thanks for the *cough* warning, but we've got it under control, or at least, I thought we did." Derry proceeded to break eye contact with Lucas, who was still mesmerized by what he was staring at. "Lucas, where the hell was the extinguisher?" Derry asked Lucas, snapping him out of his trance. Lucas focuses his attention back on Derry and apologizes, saying, "I'm sorry Derry, I was gonna when... that showed up." Before Lucas could raise his finger to point at LEO, Derry slapped Lucas' hand back to the ground, stating, "Well, that's not a very nice way of addressing our new guest."
It was only then that LEO began eyeing the scouter in Derry's hand and talked to him about just getting one at a vendor. To Derry's surprise, however, instead of continuing to lecture on about safety and all of that garbage, the mechanical cat offered to give some advice regarding the device while also maintaining a smile. Derry walked over to one of the nearby workbenches and placed the scouter on top of the soot covered surface. "Well, thank you for your offer, but in terms of mechanics, I think I've got this under control. See, we... fix cars here. I'm mostly doing this as a side project. I certainly know a thing or two about mechanics, but an electrician, I'm most certainly not. If you're offering to give out some pointers, I don't see why I wouldn't accept."
Upon finishing his sentence, Derry glanced over at the safe that was also resting on the workbench, only to find that some of the contents of the folder had spilled out onto the ground. Cursing under his breath, Derry quickly grabbed as many pieces of paper as he can and placed them back into the folder, which was still resting inside of the safe along with the few documents that remained inside said folder. He still leaves the safe door open and begins to brush off some more soot off of his clothes. "Sorry 'bout that. Regardless, perhaps we should have a more... proper greeting. The name's Derrick Ottoy, and that's Lucas over there." He then proceeds to point at Lucas, who had turned his attention back to LEO's shining metal plates. Derry proceeds to pinch the bridge of his nose in disappointment.
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Post by Carro Hofferson on Nov 22, 2020 14:23:30 GMT -6
CARRO's PL: 100 (NOT YET PRESENT) || LEO's PL: 1,000 (SET | 200k BASE)
One of the two humans, Lucas, seemed to be in awe of the giant mecha looming at their humble doorstep. LEO usually preferred to be humble despite her claim to fame as the President's partner and Earth's single strongest being- it was hard to find people who didn't know what a LEO was these days... Which oddly enough, these two didn't seem to know her by appearance, despite being apparently native Earthlings who lived in the city she patrolled on a near-daily basis. "If you'd prefer, I can take on a smaller size." She spoke to Lucas, before a wave of light promptly flushed across her form, seemingly dissolving the fifty-foot mech. In the colossal feline's place was a petite, three-foot bipedal version of the Plexroid.
LEO stretched her back, and would let herself inside provided she had the humans' permission. To add more to the blatant disregard of fire safety, some oh so flammable papers were scattered across the floor. LEO grumbled to herself but spared the duo further lecture, instead favoring to help pick some up and place them in the folder with a pair of tractor beams from her cannons.
...As she was passing one of the papers over, though, a particular word- a name- stuck out on one of the more prominent pages to her keen eyes. Carro Hofferson. Maybe these were just some of his public papers and guides for student engineers. She didn't comment on it, but narrowed her eyes slightly in thought.
Regardless, introductions were in order. "I'd imagine you are already somewhat aware of my identity, but I am LEO. Crop Corporated employee and defender of this planet." She spoke with a bow of her head. "It is a pleasure to meet you both!"
"Moving along, though..." LEO picked up the Scouter, flipping open a panel on its side to examine its inner workings. "...Goodness, its no wonder this short circuited. You'll need a far more durable CPU if you want it to be able to analyze anything above a few thousand units without overheating. Though you could likely invest in some cooling units, which would be cheaper, but they might make it a bit bulkier and cumbersome to wear..." LEO scratched her chin in thought.
She caught eye of Lucas silently gawking over her again, causing a sly smile to spread across her face. "If there's anything you'd like to ask or discuss with me, I'm all ears." As the pinnacle of Earthling ingenuity and technology, LEO was not unfamiliar with this type of awe. Still, she held herself fairly modestly while opening herself up to respond to the earthlings' curiosity.
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Post by Derrick Ottoy on Nov 23, 2020 20:36:58 GMT -6
As the giant mech began talking to Lucas and began to shrink and the inexperienced gangster began going on about how cute the cat was, Derry once again pondered on who exactly this was. He has lived in Central City for the past 6 years. Surely, something like this would stand out in his mind. As he was pondering, however, Derry notices that the formerly giant mech has taken a glance at the papers while he was gathering them off of the floor. He noticed a slight change in the robot's expression. Perhaps it was just some mechanical calibration thingamajig, but Derry was now a bit more cautious.
Soon after, however, Derry's question is answered by the mech, stating that its name is none other than LEO of Crop Corporated, stating so in a notably friendly matter. Lucas' mouth opened up and let out a sudden gasp, followed by him asking, "Wait, are ya THE LEO? You're not just some duplicate or whatnot, right? I reckon with what's going on over at Crop Co., they'd have more of ya." While Lucas was naively pondering about how many LEOs could be out there and not realizing the fact that creating such a copy would likely take maybe thousands of hours to recreate, Derry possesses no such thoughts. His mind was now filled with dread as he now fully recognizes who exactly he was dealing with: LEO, a defender of Earth, Crop Co. employee, and most importantly, companion and guard of Carro Hofferson himself. Of all of the people to walk into the shop, LEO was perhaps the worst one to come by. How could he be so foolish not recognizing LEO? But that begs the question: If LEO was currently here, then where's Carro?
Derry had to focus, however. Should he lose his composure now, LEO would surely grow suspicious, and may begin to ask questions. "Oh, well... it's great to finally meet ya in the flesh, or, steel in this case." Fortunately, LEO continues on with her advice regarding the scouter the two have been working on. After noting that the duo need a stronger CPU or they'll need to install a cooling system within. Derry didn't exactly want to make the scouter any more cumbersome, so he thinks that acquiring a stronger CPU would do the trick. "Yeah, not really a big fan of lugging around extra weight. I'm going with the CPU. Hmm, Epsilon's still around, but I'm pretty sure she's still busy right now."
Considering the fact that Epsilon was the Snakes' hacker for hire, she's likely to possess a spare CPU on her, that is, unless she ruined that one as well. "Though, I'll have to ask her later. She's... doing some company business right now." As Derry makes his way slowly towards the safe containing the documents, LEO asks if there was anything else the gangsters wanted to talk about. While Derry picks up the papers and shuffles them in a pile, Lucas pipes up and asks LEO, "Can you really take down a bunch of goons in the blink of an eye? Can you travel around the Earth in only a minute? If you're here, does that mean Mr. Prez is nearby?" Derry himself was curious as well, but didn't want to ask. He didn't want to draw any attention, and Lucas made for the best distraction he could afford.
In the back of his mind, however, Derry came up with an idea: Perhaps LEO could have some information regarding Carro. If he could get him to start talking about Carro, something just might slip out. Of course, he doesn't have a recording device on him, so 'investigations' will have to take place at some other point, but if he could get something, it would certainly make the General pleased. "Yeah, speaking of which, what's it like workin' with the big guy in charge?" Derry asks as he places the neat stack of documents inside the safe. He slowly shuts the safe door and spins back around to give his full attention to LEO.
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Post by Carro Hofferson on Nov 27, 2020 15:13:53 GMT -6
CARRO's PL: 100 (NOT YET PRESENT) || LEO's PL: 1,000 (SET | 200k BASE)
LEO furrowed her brows at Lucas's mention of "duplicates." "The one and only. There are other Plexroids, but they are their own people. I have always been the only LEO there is, and I'm certain that I could not be replicated or cloned." Mild irritation was evident in her voice- being overly treated or spoken of as just a machine and nothing more never felt right to her ever since her Life Link was established with Carro. Though she quickly brushed off her brief frustration, LEO did again take notice of Derry's subtle shift in mood at the revelation of her identity.
Moving along to the issue of the busted Scouter, Derrick briefly mentioned a person named Epsilon. "A friend of yours, I assume?" The name didn't ring any bells, though she still kept up the casual small-talk. More like-minded mechanics were always nice to meet.
Regardless, Lucas was eager to learn more about the mightiest machine on Earth. "Unless those goons also have power levels somewhere in the level of five million, yes. And without my warp drive, which would make it instantaneous, and assuming I am flying at the altitude that most commercial planes fly, it'd take me... About twenty-two seconds, by my calculations, for me to orbit the circumference of the planet at my average speed." LEO was usually humble, yes, but she could brag a little bit as a treat.
And then there was the question about her other half. "Carro? Yes, he's near- Finishing up a press conference a few blocks down as we speak. Crop Co, our usual workspace, isn't too far away from here either. If you'd like to meet him, I'm certain he'd be happy to say hello before we head home." The little saiyan had been working himself ragged for what felt like forever. Thankfully she'd managed to persuade him to take a little break after his current meeting.
"As for working with him... Well, he's the hardest worker I have ever met. He'd put even some of the strongest folks to shame in a contest of work ethic and sheer effort. The guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body- even he surprises me with how kind he is sometimes." Sometimes the president's pure heart was to his own detriment- there were many who tried to take advantage of Carro's good heart, to try and turn him bitter and cold. Somehow, despite everything, he still pursued for peaceful solutions and understanding, with violence as an absolute last resort. "Though don't get me wrong, despite the fancy titles and interplanetary power he and his title hold, he's still a total nerd. I blame him for getting me neck-deep in Star Warriors." What started as an innocent movie night of Carro dragging a tired LEO to watch the adventures of Leek Soywalker eventually lead to LEO having the full collection of comics from the series now. Thankfully she decided to spare the two humans a rant about how much she disliked the prequel movies.
"Really, there isn't too much for me to say that probably isn't known already about Carro. Pure of heart, stupid nice, an absurdly dedicated worker who's put his life on the line time and time again despite his physical weakness to help our planet. Y'know the drill, likely- I did spy his name on some of those papers of yours." She mentioned with a gesture of her head to the safe in passing. It felt odd to put a bunch of what she presumed were regular research papers in a combination safe, but she was moreso curious rather than suspicious currently...
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Post by Derrick Ottoy on Nov 29, 2020 17:24:39 GMT -6
As LEO was answering Lucas' first question, Derry notices some visible agitation coming from the cat. The gangster leans closer towards his partner and gives a light tap on his shoulder. Lucas turns around to meet Derry in the face, who proceeds to shake his face in discontent. Derry turns his attention back towards LEO and responds, "Sorry 'bout that." Derry sure wouldn't like to be questioned about his own conception.
LEO then pipes up about Epsilon and presumes that she's a friend of theirs. There wasn't really any harm in talking about Epsilon, so Derry responds, "Eh, kinda. She tends to keep to 'erself most of the time. Values her work more than social ties, I'm afraid. Don't say we've tried to loosen 'er up a bit. We invited her to a couple of parties before, but she just declines each invite. Hell, Epsilon is just a codename. Pretty sure John, my boss, is the only one who knows her actual name. What matters to my boss is that she gets the job done, and, well, she gets it done alright." This was, of course, with the exception of the recent briefcase they found, which irritates Derry with how slow it was going. "Mostly," he adds while rubbing his chin.
While Lucas was keeping LEO occupied with some random trivial questions, Derry began thinking about several different possible scenarios. If LEO noticed what was on those papers, Derry had to come up with some sort of excuse regarding why he had such documents in the first place. Perhaps if he gave an excuse to do some background checks, that could pass it off. After all, one would like to make sure that their customers are squeaky clean and don't come from any criminal backgrounds, which was ironic considering the fact that Derry is the lead enforcer of a criminal organization. Even if it was the President of Earth himself, checks would be necessary, right?
As expected from LEO, the cat went on about how Carro is just the most swell guy around and how he's just such a hard worker. Despite his physical weakness, he tends to put his life on the line, but Derry knows that Kraktus doesn't want him dead, so that little piece of info was mostly useless. Mostly. The fact that he's a huge nerd as well didn't exactly surprise Derry. From the rumors and lies that he's gathered regarding the president and is currently stored away in the safe, he seemed pretty into this whole nerd culture thing, especially that Star Warriors thing LEO mentioned. It was mostly surface level, so Derry needed some more... juicy information.
Then the part Derry dreaded finally came. LEO quickly mentions the papers that Derry placed back into the safe and how it spotted Carro's name on said papers. "Oh, those? Yeah, see, given out current situation here, we tend to run background checks on customers and potential future customers. We've had a bit of an eye on Carro for a bit, but we never really expected either you or him to ever show up here. Even if he's the President of Earth or a galactic hero, a policy is a policy." Hopefully, the mech would buy that lie. Before the gangster could continue, however, Lucas pipes up from the back once again and asks Derry, "Wait, I thought those papers were for ya job with-" Before Lucas could say anything else, Derry quickly interrupts and states, "What, the one with Wallace? Those are at John's desk. The papers in the safe are just background stuff on Carro." A close one, to be sure, but if Derry was to keep up with this little façade, he had to make sure to keep Lucas in line. Derry has already revealed more information than what he desires, but if he can keep up the lie, it'll be worth it in the end, at least, he hopes so.
Hoping to cool down the situation and wait to ask questions regarding Carro later on, Derry turns his attention back to LEO and asks, "Do ya see anything else that's wrong with this thing?" while picking the pink scouter off of the worktable. To Derry, the CPU change could very well be the only thing that could get the scouter functioning again, but it wouldn't hurt to have a second opinion.
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Post by Carro Hofferson on Jan 30, 2021 21:49:38 GMT -6
CARRO's PL: 100 || LEO's PL: 1,000 (SET | 200k BASE)
LEO nodded along at Derrick's explanation of his friend Epsilon- she did raise a brow at the mention of that being a mere codename for the mystery woman. LEO couldn't think of many occupations that required a secret identity, but she had no further reason to be suspicious, so the feline stored the notion away and moved along to a different train of thought.
At least, she had no further reason to be suspicious until the human opened his mouth again. The papers were only personal background checks on the President of Earth under the impression that he could be a "future customer." Red flags galore raised in LEO's head- challenging the feline's keen insight on business, laws, and paperwork from her time with Carro and Crop Co. was not a good idea, especially when she could not recall Carro ever knowing of this company, let alone giving his consent for this background check. Even Lucas piped in with fleeting confusion regarding Derry's claim, only to be interrupted. "...I see." LEO narrowed her eyes slightly. "What kind of background information are you gathering, if I may ask?" She asked after relaxing her posture, picking idly at her claws. The mech didn't verbally voice her suspicions, but her locked gaze delivered a clear message of newfound, subdued skepticism.
With an inconspicuous shift of topic back to the Scouter, LEO silently stared for a few more moments before focusing on the device. She'd play along for the time being. "Aside from a much better CPU, if your Scouter still struggles with higher power levels you may want to invest in dulled plasteel instead of glass- if it breaks it would be much less damaging to both you and the device that way." She continued, though LEO's sights lingered on Derry this time instead of the Scouter. A bud of suspicion had began to form in her mind, though it was not yet enough to act upon.
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Post by Derrick Ottoy on Jan 31, 2021 23:42:35 GMT -6
As Derry talked about Epsilon, he notes LEO's slight facial movements and keeps a close eye on them to see if something bothered the cat. Thankfully, nothing really seems to tick it off, and Derry is able to move the conversation along past their computer expert. As for the whole background check situation, it was clear that LEO was certainly very curious about the whole process, and even asks about what sort of background information they're gathering. Sensing that Lucas might get Derry in trouble again, the gangster asks LEO, "Give me just a moment," before turning his attention back to his partner and asking him, "Ep has been in the office fer quite a while now. Ya think you can check in on her?" "Uh, sure thing, but I have so many other questions to ask-" "You can ask 'em later, Lucas. I just need ya to make sure everythin's alright." Lucas pauses for a moment before nodding his head in agreement and waving goodbye for now to LEO before entering the door that connects the workshop to the HQ.
"Now, back to what we're talkin' about," Derry mentions as he moves back towards the safe and starts inputting the code to the safe. "There's of course the simple background stuff like name, email, number, all that good stuff. That's just basic stuff to verify, but very much necessary considerin' the neighborhood 'round here." The grungy nature of the local neighborhood acted as the perfect front for the Dirty Snakes, and it also gives Derry a serviceable excuse to be cautious regarding his customers. As he inputs the last few digits of the code, Derry pulls on the handle to the safe and takes the documents back into his hands. The documents that he's been able to scrounge up were merely just rumors or events so minor that they wouldn't really cause any harm to Carro's actual image, but perhaps being a bit more transparent would help ease tensions. "Of course, when operatin' in this neighborhood, we also make sure we ain't dealin' with any criminals. Hell, we've even caught a few trying to pass as capsule corp employees. As for Mr. Carro, arguably the most famous person on the entire planet, his record is remarkably clean considering all the exposure. In this stack alone, we've only found rumors that regular ol' tabloids would use."
To help further seal the deal, Derry pulls out one of the papers at random in the hopes of pulling out one of the more ridiculous rumors. Thankfully, he grabbed quite an odd one out of the bunch. "Like this lil guy right here sayin' how the president is lookin' to move to Vegeta of all places. I'll tell ya, researchin' him has been one hell of a laugh riot, that's for sure." Hopefully at this point, LEO's suspicious would dwindle as Derry reveals more and more of the info he has on Carro. He's just thankful that he didn't pull out any of those minor incident forms.
Thankfully the conversation moves back towards the scouter as LEO suggests using something called plasteel for the actual visor instead of regular old glass to help improve durability and prevent it from shattering while reading high power levels. "Ya know if it's any lighter or heavier than regular ol' glass? 'Cause if it is heavier, I might opt for the glass if the thing gets a bit too heavy, or hell, maybe I'll just go out and actually learn how to sense ki like all them other fighters flyin' around. For now, though, I just have this little guy to rely on."
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