Steel Heart

Ch 9 - Resilience

- Flashback 4 years ago, Nana: 12, Franky: 30 -

Franky sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded tightly around him, while he angrily stared at the seawater in front of him. He had stormed out of that insane meeting with Bakaberg and was cooling off at the top of the scrapheap on scrap island. Some super homecoming this was, he thought with a scowl.

The plans for Pluton were stored safely in his body and out of sight, but it was like he could feel it burning a hole through his stomach. Franky knew that to be impossible because his stomach was nonexistent and was now a cooling system for his cola bottles. He clenched his fist and scowled. Why is Bakaberg asking him to do this? Why is he even helping the government? Nothing good ever comes with working with the government.

He heard the sounds of rolling metal and he turned around to see a strange little girl standing behind him on another scrapheap, with a wrench in her hand, a thunderous look on her face, and a growling dog next to her.

"Ow, what's your problem, brat? Can't you see I'm trying to have a moment alone?" Franky yelled at her.

Clang!

Without warning, she had thrown her wrench directly at his head, knocking it back. "Owwwww!" he shouted. He snapped his head upright and glared at her, "What was that for?!"

The girl was staring at him now with widened eyes and she tilted her head to the side. "Your head is...metal?!" she asked softly. She had caught the sound his head made when the wrench came into contact with him. She knew iron when she heard it.

Franky got up to his feet. "Ow! That's right, you little brat. I re-engineered my body so that I'm a super human. I'm a cyborg!" He put his forearms together and stuck it over his head so that she could see his star tattoo. "I'm Franky!"

"How'd you get work done on your back?" the girl asked without missing a beat.

Franky fell over with shock and he landed hard on top of the scrapheap. "You're not impressed at all?!"

When he sat back up, he saw that the girl was now sitting beside him. She ran her hand gently over his arm and her dog was sniffing in circles around him.

"Whoa," she breathed.

He jerked his arm away from her. "Ow! What are you? Some kind of pervert? Don't just go around touching people."

She scrunched her nose at him. "You're the one running around in a bikini."

"I never said I wasn't a pervert," Franky said, flashing her a grin. Then his head throbbed in pain and he realized he had gone off subject. The grin switched to a frown. "Ow! Why did you super throw your wrench at me, you brat?!"

She folded her arms and stuck her tongue out at him. "You made Icy sad," she said accusingly.

"Icy?" Franky was perplexed, "Who is-...ICEBERG?! You mean Iceberg?!"

"Whoever makes him sad needs to answer to me," she said with determination.

"Who the hell are you?!" Franky barked back.

"I'm Mizu Nana, child of Water 7, adopted daughter of Mayor Iceberg, and top mechanic for the Galley-La Company," she said with her chin held high.

"Adopted...?" Franky was stunned, "Why would Bakaberg adopt a brat like you?"

"Bakaberg?" Suddenly, the girl was cracking up and rolling around the scrapheap in laughter, "Oh, that's a good one! Haha, I should call him that one day."

"Yah. I made that name up for him when we- WAIT! Crap! I've gotten off topic again," Franky yelled in frustration, "Listen here, Nana-brat. You can't just go around throwing wrenches at people that piss off Bakaberg, especially me."