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"So I was thinking," Jade says as she raises her rifle and braces the stock against her shoulder.
Dirk waits for her to take the shot -- the twenty-meter-tall feathered predator that's been scaring the local herd of not-actually-deer they're trying to domesticate roars and thrashes, suddenly blind in one eye -- then says, "An ominously vague opening statement. Care to clarify it?"
Jade takes out the featherbeast's other eye. This shot seems to penetrate at least partway into its brain, since it falls heavily to the ground and continues its thrashing on a much more restricted scale. "Well, it's obvious there's a lot of megafauna on this world. And they don't fit any known Earth or Alternian taxonomy, which effectively makes them monsters. Giant, stomp-on-houses, pick up busses, poison breath and projectile quills and actual metal claws monsters."
"Also known as kaiju, yeah, I can see the thematic similarities. Hang on, lemme finish this one off." Dirk gives half a second's thought to slogging through the boggy meadow toward the wounded featherbeast so he could say they legit took one down without using any fancy game powers. Then he takes to the air, because fuck that.
Besides, he still needs to train the whole flying without a rocketboard thing until he has it integrated into his reflexes.
The featherbeast has some kind of supplementary exoskeletal plates as well as a spinal cord with individual bones as big as Dirk's whole body, but it cuts as smooth as butter. Which is a comparison he can now honestly make from personal experience, though he still kind of prefers fish oil and Crisco. It's all in what you were used to, he supposes.
He wipes his katana on the trampled grass and waits for Jade to fly over to the still-twitching corpse.
(He wonders if Jade had much butter as a kid. She grew up alone in the middle of nowhere too, right? He never got around to asking Jake about stuff like that, little everyday boring details. He'd rather not repeat those mistakes with his new friends.)
Dirk shoves that mental tangent aside and says, "Okay, we're stuck on a world of kaiju. What about it?"
Jade pokes at the exoskeletal plates exposed by the contorted angle of the featherbeast's limbs. "Well, obviously they're no match for us! And just as obviously, they're very cool and need to be studied in detail so we can build a full and accurate picture of this world's ecology before we accidentally alter anything irrevocable! We don't have enough people to do all that, but I can put together a super awesome lab and I bet you could build a bunch of robots to gather samples and run most of the basic analysis."
She makes a face. "I miss doing science. I used to fool around with miniature nuclear physics gadgets before the game, but biology and robotics are cool too, and certainly more practical under the circumstances."
Dirk sits on an oversized scaly foot and considers. He hasn't built any robots in years, and he's not sure what he feels about making drone-type bots instead of full on 3D personalities. On the other hand, Jade's right that they need the info and don't have time to handle all the details themselves. (Unless they talked Dave or Aradia into looping them a couple times each day... but no, that's not going to happen, and anyway he's trying to back off the micromanaging shit. Really he is.)
"Yeah, okay," he says.
Jade beams. "Cool! Oh, and if I maybe had a slightly less practical side project in mind..."
Dirk raises one eyebrow just enough to be visible behind his shades. "Do I detect an ulterior motive, Ms. Harley?"
Jade makes a face at him. "Of course not! It's not ulterior if I tell you." She raises one finger and says, very seriously, "Giant robots."
Dirk blinks.
"Specifically, giant mecha. Which we will pilot to fight the kaiju whenever they get too close to our settlement."
"Why?" Dirk asks, after a slightly too long silence during which he fails to find a more intelligent response.
"Because it would be awesome," Jade says, as if this should be obvious.
Well, in hindsight, yes, it should have been. And equally, yes, it would be awesome. Completely unnecessary, a blatant and frivolous waste of time and resources, and fucking awesome beyond the wildest dreams of generations of weaboos. How could he possibly refuse?
"I'm in," Dirk says.
Jade pumps her fist in the air. "Yes! We are going to be the best science and engineering partners! And we are going to organize and categorize the shit out of this planet, after maybe blowing a few parts of it up with machine guns and lasers! I promise you won't regret this!" She lunges forward to wrap him in a hug that seems made of tentacles and steel for all the hope he has of getting free before she deigns to let him go.
It's kind of nice, Dirk thinks. After a moment, he raises one arm and tentatively hugs her back.