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A few months had passed since Jukkerbaut's disappearance, shortly after the thing had reached the Ring of Fire. All tracking on him had been shut down, as were all sources of communication or sending messages. Even the vital readings that would have been received and displayed on the screen in the dark lab were offline. Jukkerbaut was completely gone, or at least, completely gone from under control; the metal beast was left to roam the landscape, doing alchemy-knows what.

Although, Zaxaxx knew no better at what had really happened, for he had taken the assumption Dorty had finally eliminated it on the fire isles. In all honesty, he was expecting that to happen in the future anyways; Jukkerbaut was his first creation, after all. A hulking behemoth of a burnt, fleshy charr underneath with a tough, metal exoskeleton on top, surrounding the squishy insides in a protective coating. The mind was wiped of most previous memories, and then imputed with new code and orders to follow, essentially making the charr a loyal servant.

Alas, time was starting to take its toll anyhow. The chip in Jukkerbaut's mind was glitching out, and occasional shut-downs were becoming more and more common. Even after Zaxaxx had made some adjustments himself after such a long while, Jukkerbaut was still loaded with bugs. All he needed was one good push and he would be destroyed, either by the chip being destroyed and shutting down the brain, killing them within, or the armor would be exploited and leave them exposed, easily leaving them open for being killed.

How long was it ago that Jukkerbaut was made? A couple of years, perhaps, or more, but Zaxaxx had improved on his technique since then. He had some practice with working with Scarlet's twisted watchwork, admiring the rather larger one he had acquired, and to which struck his inspiration. After acquiring the corpse of a dead asura, he began working to compress the larger machine down into smaller parts, before cutting up the dead asura and shoving the machinations into them. From there, all he had to do was make some new, more complex coding, and soon Xakat was born, a horrendous watchwork creation cleverly disguised as an asura. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most convincing. While the metal and such inside was almost perfectly hidden, it was rather obvious that this asura was previously dead. He did whatever in his necrotic powers he could do to cover this up, stitching parts back together, a few touch-ups on the face and head, then a cost and other clothes to cover the rest.

Once Xakat was complete and ready, he sent him out to the Wastes to gather intel on the Inquest security development from the local krewe there. For a while it worked, and Xakat had sent back numerous designs for security and such that Zaxaxx could use. Sadly, the krewe leader caught on to some of the issues Xakat was causing, and when he was found out, the watchwork within him sprung into its full form, eradicating anyone it could find in the lab to leave no trace. Sadly, Xakat was destroyed halfway through his rampage, but thankfully the core in the chestpiece that was inside of him was rigged to explode shortly after death, but even that was faulty. In the end, it was another experiment down the drain, but what was learned and earned was going to further aid in this dark research.

Following this, Zaxaxx proceeded to focus more on the same technology used with the Peacemakers armor, throwing in some of the watchwork and golem technology, as well as a few dribbles of the toxic fluids he has developed. These creations that soon came were more focused on single things, rather than balance the usage. Each one he made was more advanced than the next, as he experimented with new ways to gear them, ranging from blades to internal functions.

The next creation he made after Xakat was a norn with their arms and legs sawed off, and replaced with legs like that of a golem dog, if those even existed, and a large turret on their back, which he called the L4Z-Walker. The idea was for them to run around on all fours, while the turret on top shot beams of energy out at targets. The two things worked seperatly, meaning the norn part could focus on one thing while the turret focused on another. A deadly weapon good for laying siege on places, but it had yet to go out into the field for a real test.

After that came what he called the A5A-Leecher. His ideas for this one were more nefarious than before, taking a human female and implanting blades onto their arms, legs, and back, but that wasn't the important part. The important part was the multiple short-ranged mechanical tendrils that were able to puncture into flesh, and suck out blood to power the thing, hence the "Leech" in the name. For good measure and extra terror, one of these replaced the tongue, where as the A5A stabbed into its helpless target, the tendril would come out of the mouth and jab into the victim to speed up the draining process.

Zaxaxx continued to make more of these nightmarish creations for some time, all with watchwork built into them under the surface of the skin, or visible in some areas. All of them had chips implanted into their brains to wipe their memories and replace them with code, if he hadn't removed it himself and just replaced it with pure code, but he found that if a creature can think, they could make decisions and thus be able to deal with targets easier, or escape. After all, a damaged creation dragging itself back to him was better than a destroyed one that was either left dead or stolen.

For the current moment, the A5A and the L4Z were guarding the various doors in the lab, along with the others. His current plan was to make as many of these as he could without being found out, and then send them all out to finally deal with the pathetic asura he always hated. After that would come the attacking of any settlement that wasn't asuran, taking the dead that were taken and making more of these minions for himself, until all that would be left would be the asura race, with no idiotic beings to drag them down. That, however, would be far in the future, should this come to that, and for the moment he was sterilizing tools for his next project.

The dimly-lit green glow from above gave the lab a poisonous look, the light illuminating the center of the lab where his worktable was, or rather his operating table. Strapped down on the thing was a young human girl that, rather than kill, he put to sleep and kidnapped to bring back here. Normally, his creations were revived bodies, but this one was still live, he was curious how this one would differ from the others, and he already had ideas how to make this one. The A5A and L4Z had wandered into the room to examine the being who would soon be their next soldier, sitting above to watch the process.

Done with the cleaning, Zaxaxx set the tools on a rolling table to bring over next to the operating one. Atop it, aside from the tools, were the various pieces of tech he was going to put into her. He wouldn't be able to stick a watchwork endoskeleton into them without killing them, so external and partially internal incisions would have to be done. He had left the sleeping girl in a cooling chamber over the night to reduce their temperature, and minimize blood loss from cuts.

The part of the floor under the asura and the rolling table rose up to a suitable height where the subject was about level with his waist. He looked over their sleeping form, they were almost too innocent to do this to, but he had little to no mercy. Just to prepare for the surgery early, he went ahead and ripped out the left eye while they were still in the cooling chamber, some blood was still visible in the socket where it once was. Zaxaxx grinned, turning to grab a vial off of the roller and uncork it, carefully pouring the contents in a single, straight line across the forearm, close to the girls elbows. The A5A above him tilted its head, and started to climb down from the seat above.

"No, A5A, you may not take the blood directly from the girl." He scowled at it, making it stop for a moment, before he continued. "You may, however, be of assistance and clean up the floor as I work. I believe this will get at least a little bit messy."

Nodding as if in understanding, the A5A crawled down all the way, taking cover under the operating table, the metal tendrils poised to suck up any blood that spilled onto the workspace.

Zaxaxx stood there for a few moments, wondering where else he would pour the fluid, before shrugging and setting it back, picking up a handsaw. He held the tool over the fluid line on one of the arms, bringing it down slowly until it touched the skin. The next moment, he began bringing it back and forth, back and forth, the sound of flesh being ripped through echoing through the chamber, accompanied by the splatters of blood that were gushing out. As he had asked it to, the A5A's tendrils were zipping around frantically to suck up the blood, fueling itself with the life-sustaining cells. The gentle cutting sound was quickly replaced by the grinding sound of bone-against-saw, Zaxaxx hastening the motions and applying more force until it was cut through, and kept going until it hit the metal of the operating table. Lifting the saw back up over his shoulder, he grasped the dismembered arm with his free hand, purposefully dropping it onto the floor beneath him. The sound of metal piercing through flesh rang out from underneath the operating table, Zaxaxx grinning as the A5A punctured the hand and began to viciously suck it dry.

With one forearm off, Zaxaxx leaned over the body and began to do the same with the other one now, just as quickly as the previous one due to the blood oozing out now, cutting through the flesh and bone before dropping the second arm for A5A to consume, though it was still busy with the first one. He set the saw down, picking up two hands, very similar in design to Jukkerbaut's, but different functions. One hand had a hook built into the palm to shoot out to grab someone, while the other had a sword that flipped out from the underside of the arm to use. Green crystals were built into these ones, storing the energy from his latest, unique toxin, that was both deadly and could energize. Rather, it would energize the girl but harm anything else. How he was going to do this however he had already figured out. In the meantime, he stuck the hands over the bleeding stumps, spiked sensors digging into the flesh to pick up nervous signals, allowing the subject to move them around.

Next, he grabbed what seemed to be some kind of scooper, a strange mix between a sharp edge and a double ice-cream scoop. He opened it up, then stuck it down into the skin right above the sternum, and then clamped the two parts together through the flesh, pulling up to remove a spherical chunk from near the top of her chest, perfect in size for the next part of the procedure.

A bright green power crystal was sitting on the roller, which he grabbed, examining it for any imperfections. It was filled with the toxins that were also in the hands, but this had a ring of sockets around it sticking in, just a little off-center. On the very bottom was a single spike of the crystal pultruding out of the almost-perfect spherical shape. Carefully, he lowered the crystal down into the cut he made, the spiked end first, until it was about half-way in and half-way sticking out, just what he had hoped for.

Next, he grabbed two objects for the following part: an eye-visor, as he called those things that work as eye-patches, except they can work like normal eyes and more, and a tiny vacuum. He started with opening the empty eye socket up and using the vacuum to suck out the excess blood that was there, before setting that down. Then, he fastened the eye-visor over the socket, clicking on a single switch on the side just to turn it on. Connecting it to the brain for registering would come later.

Now that most of the risky parts were done, it was time to outfit the subject with some actual clothing so he wasn't seeing them naked. Thankfully for him, he had taken the liberty to scan their form and create a permanent tunic to cover up their torso in. Stepping off of the elevated floor, he waddled over to a control panel that was linked up to a great multi-tool device attached to the ceiling. Normally, he would use this to place watchwork endoskeletons into subjects, but this time it would be used for something else.

A claw reached down and gently grabbed the girl by the sides of their head, lifting them up into the air. Two more claws moved to pick up the metallic tunic Zaxaxx had put together for them, and proceeded to open up the back of it, then placing it over the girls body before folding it around and reattaching it on the back. Another device lowered down to the opening in the tunic that was meant to hold the crystal in, and gently pushed that in place before activating the small coat. Immediately, small plugs extended out of the small holes within the larger hole, and connected into the crystal, pulling the hole around it tightly so as not to leave any gaps.

The two claws from before were already pulling some metallic pants onto their legs, which also had boots connected to the bottom of them, with blades on the heels and knees. They moved away with their job done while the third device started to fasten the clothing into them, making it stay so it wouldn't be able to be taken off, at least not normally.

Now the second to final step of the whole procedure was ready. One final instrument of the large multi-tool, a sharp needle, gently stuck into the back of the girls head, just a little on the left side, inserting the chip that would allow Zaxaxx to program their directives. Meanwhile, one of the claws was attaching a circular device tightly around the needle onto the side of her head, for future fixes if they were needed. The claw holding her up began to lower her back onto the operation table, facedown this time, so the needle could stay in her so this chip could continue to be edited.

Zaxaxx clapped slowly, admiring the newest creation of his. All that was left now was the programming. He stepped away from the controller and over to the larger computer to begin coding. He glanced back at the girl, then back at the computer, starting to type.

>POWER VENOM INSTALLATION:1 >LINK @ E73 >NAME:

He paused here, names were usually difficult to come up with. He tapped his foot impatiently, glancing back at the girl again. A5A and L4Z were looming over her while he was typing. He turned back to the computer, typing in something out of the norm, because this one wasn't his usual creation.

>NAME: L3SSA

He nodded, liking it, then continued to type.

>LINK @ SW-2 >LINK @ GR-2 CHECKING FOR POWER CORE...

Now that everything was linked up, he waited a few moments for the rest of the installation process to go on by itself. One that was done, he could type in directives, and direct her to, of course, kill Dorty. He let out a short laugh, followed by some more hysterical laughter, for this was his finest creation yet.

Suddenly, a red light began to flash on and off above them, his laughter cut short by a grimacing snort as he glared near the main exit. He swung his head to glare at the other two creations, pointing toward the door. They began to scuttle and crawl towards it, while he grabbed one of his saws to bring along with him. Whoever had broken in was going to regret every single little decision they had ever made in their life that led up to this moment.

>POWER CORE DETECTED, INSTALLING ENERGY... >WIPING CURRENT MEMORY... >PREPARING TRACKER INSTALLATION... >ERROR: INSTALLATION INTERRUPTED >PREPARING TRACKER INSTALLATION... >ERROR: INSTALLATION INTERRUPTED

A5A leapt out from behind the corner, metallic tendrils poised, only to be greeted with the closed front door. L4Z and Zaxaxx followed shortly behind to witness the mystery. One of the windows in the door had powered down, and on the floor was a rock.

"This is it?" Zaxaxx huffed, stomping forward to pick it up. "This is what set off the alarm?" He snarled, tossing it aside. He had been hoping some bookah or an asura would be here, but instead whoever it was threw a hard object through his door and ran. If this was their idea of a prank, it was a very poor one.

Zaxaxx slowly turned and walked back toward the two, glaring at L4Z. "Blast the rock." He spoke, turning back toward the central chamber. L4Z's back-cannon took aim, and charged up before releasing a blast that charred the surrounding structure while destroying said rock.

Just outside the door back into the chamber, Zaxaxx looked back at his two creations, wondering just when he should even send them out. The blaring alarm couldn't allow him to think, so for now he just had to go back in and turn it off himself, opening the door.

He stared inside for a few moments, then screamed in rage.

The operation table was empty, the needle broken, the console left on an endless loop of attempts. L3SSA had somehow escaped, but how? Was the rock a distraction? Did they just wake up and walk away?

After some moments thinking, it hit him: the drug he used to capture the girl was a powerful tranquilizer, meant to last for at least a day. It must have run out while she way laying there, giving her the chance to break out and escape.

Even still, Zaxaxx stiffened up in anger, unsure what else to say about the matter. On one hand, at least the procedure worked; he had successfully created a living minion to serve him, one that wasn't resurrected. On the other hand, they had escaped, and now doing something else for all he knew. Or maybe...

Zaxaxx stomped over to the computer, punching a button to turn on all of his devices that were already programmed correctly. He typed in a command:

>SEARCH LAB AND RETRIEVE L3SSA IF HERE

The sounds of mechanical creatures waking up and moving quickly became apparent over the alarm, which was promptly shut off. Zaxaxx sighed, but grinned a little. He could further enhance his future creations with the things he had learned from this one. Already, a new idea was forming, one for specifically dealing with leaders. While his many creations scourged the lab for L3SSA, Zaxaxx began typing in notes for his next creation...

Having a birthday the day after Christmas is not fun for many kids. I had not given it much thought until I met the bf. While his friends and siblings got a birthday party,  birthday presents sometime during the year, then Christmas presents, he often got a 2 for 1. 1 present for birthday and Christmas put together. Christmas parties also doubled up as his birthday party. Luckily he grew up to be a happy and well-adjusted adult. Still, I like to extra-spoil him on his birthday. I make sure that I give him his presents on Christmas then his birthday presents on the 26th and NOT wrapped with holidays wrappers.

Lucky enough for me, he is very easy to please. A nice steak dinner on his birthday makes him very happy. So every year I take him to different steakhouses in San Francisco. A5A Steak Lounge was the venue this year.

FOOD AND DRINK

Truffle Fries  $11 (appetizer):  White truffle oil, sriracha aioli

**32oz 

Bone-in Ribeye $64 (the bf’s):**      Brandy-peppercorn sauce, cipollini onions, sausalito watercress

10oz Prime Rib $31 (mine):      Garlic mustard rub, au jus

Truffled Mac & Cheese $13 (side):     Gruyere, mozzarella, cheddar

Mashed Potato $13 (side):   Smoked white cheddar, maple bacon

**Flying Lotus   $15 (my drink):  **Green Chartreuse, Pineapple, Yuzu, Falernum, Strawberry Dust

A glass of **Capita Vidal Brut Cava Spain

$10** while waiting for our table

Arnold Palmer for the bf

Ice cream cake for dessert

**Complimentary birthday cake **

2 **amuse bouches **from the chef  

OUR DINNER

A5A Steak Lounge is upscale and trendy. It was the perfect  venue to make the bf feel special on his birthday. Even on the day after Christmas, it was busy with birthday celebrations as well and couples on a date. Service was very attentive and friendly. Our server took time to carefully explain each dish.

The specialty of the house is wagyu. I encouraged the bf to order it but he opted for the 32 oz bone-in rib eye. He only managed to eat half and ate the other half the next day. He said that the steak was very good – moist and mediium-rare. We received 2 amuse bouches while waiting for our order before and after we finished the fries and bread. I enjoyed everything although I barely touched my prime rib because “Hello, Christmas!” Ha! Ha! I could barely move from Christmas feast the day before. I enjoyed my prime rib for lunch at work though. The truffled mac and cheese was rich, dense and delicious! The mashed potato came with thick slices of maple bacon which tasted like tocino. Divine! Aside f_r_om dessert we ordered, our server delivered a birthday cake with a lit candle. (I told them that it was the bf’s birthday when I made the reservation.) Oh, and that drink – The Flying Lotus – strong and yummy!

It was a splurgey dinner at $250 after tip but the bf is totally worth it and more. He is a wonderful man and a sweetheart — mine. And as his birthday present, I got him a gift card for Ruth Chris’ – another steakhouse. He was happy!