Fire It Up!

Ungraciously kicking Meatball out of the pilot chair, 02 smiled a child like smile as she started to hum the same song that she had

been humming earlier.

If Meatball was still alive, he would be so happy to have a pretty girl like 02 in his cock-pit, but at the same time, he would be very distraught that he had been named Meatball and rolled out of his chair like one.

"Now how does this work..." 02 asked herself with her chin in hand.

"I'll just hit the biggest button!"

"Oh oh oh! Look its shaking I wonder if I turned it on!"

"What's this password required thing?"

02 proceeded to talk aloud to herself and when faced with this new 'password' problem she just flicked it with her finger and a crack appeared on the screen in front of her.

"Oh... hmmm... maybe I shouldn't have done that. Perhaps I have to like really think of the password and like touch the screen in front of me?" 02 pondered aloud once again. The only one who could hear her was Meatball.

"Meatball your not being very helpful, I guess I made the right decision in making Scales my bestfriend." 02 proceeded to make a verbal jab at Meatball who was currently in the corner of the cockpit hunched over looking rather dejected.

Well, that's what 02 thought he looked like. In reality...he was just a dead person's skeleton. So how could he be sad and dejected from hearing her words? Skeletons dont have ears you know.

Leaning forward, she placed her palm on the cracked screen that was asking her for an annoying 'password'.

What the heck is a password! Is it a fart that talks?

Concentrate! 02 chided herself for getting distracted once again. She had to repair her beloved base of operations(her mecha).

'Just work already!' 02 willed the mecha to turn on.

Now normally, this kind of incomprehensible stuff doesn't work, but for some reason when 02 placed her palm on the screen and willed it to come to life...it did just that.

"Powering on. Status update ready, would you like to receive my findings?" The mechas AI chirped out, albeit a little distorted from the wear and tear of age.

02 knew it would work! Elated that she got the mech to turn in without having to start pulling out wires and pushing more buttons, 02 replied to the AI in a extremely pleasant and melodious voice.

"Yes please, Sir."

The AI "..."

Did the pilot just name this humble AI Sir?

The AI only hesitated for a few seconds before proceeding on to report the mechas current condition.

"Power core 1 and 2 are completely empty, whole the backup power core has only 55% power remaining. This system has calculated that you can remain powered in for approximately 6 1/2 more earth hours if your mech is not moving. If you engage in strenuous battle you have about half an earths hour worth of power. If just minorly using the power to move about, you have approximately 3 earth hours worth of power. This concludes the systems power usage calculations, would you like me to repeat these calculations again for you to hear or move onto the damage sustained analysis?"

Just when she thought the robo-voice would never shut-up, it finally ended its powwow report or whatever it was talking about. It even had the nerve to ask her a question! And what question might you ask? The question asking if she wanted to suffer through the same torture again! No thanks! Definitely not getting thanks from her...

She definitely didn't want to hear it repeat all those boring numbers again!

What the heck is an earth hour? How is she supposed to know if she doesn't even know what or who an earth is!

While 02 knew what an hour was (miraculously), how was she supposed to know if this "earth hour" was the same as the kind of hour she was thinking of.

The mecha's AI had been waiting for a response for a full minute now...

Somehow the AI had a premonition that this was not the same pilot that she had before...

That's right, this AI had a gendered identity, thanks to its previous eccentric master pumped them full of bizarre stuff.

Bizarre stuff such as "How To Be A Good AI Girlfriend",the ebook, "How To Serve Your Master", the ebook, and... various other weird self-written fanfics made by the pilot, where their previous pilot would do something called 'make love' to her circuitry and other 'degenerate' things, as the AI would find out in years to come...

And the pilot the AI was thinking of... was none other than Meatball the Skeleton.

A couple minutes more had passed since the initial one minute wait mark, and 02 finally deighned to answer her actually very normal and simple question.

"No repeats. get on with your blabbering."

02 had a small pout ever present on her pretty ivory skinned face now. Her thin white eyebrows furrowed in annoyance at the stupid robo-voice still.

Just as the AI was about to start their 'blabbering' again, 02 spoke once again.

"Actually just like, tell me how badly the mecha is hurt."

The AI "...Eh?"

The AI was just about to tell their new master just that! The AI had a feeling that this new pilot was going to be even weirder than their previous one.

And they were so totally spot on...

02 somehow sensed that the robo-voice wasn't going to talk unless she clarified, after nervously clearing her voice, 02 spoke.

"Um what I meant is, that, um, could you tell me if it's still usable? The mech that is. Like can it walk and fly and cool stuff like that?"