An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Yay, another chapter up for @brundle-bambi‘s gift fic!
Please enjoy <3
Summary:
The eccentric Professor Junkenstein needs an assistant that won’t meddle in his research.
Mako needs the credits as to not lose his scholarship.
Dr. Ziegler decides to play match-maker.
Tags: College AU, Age Reverse, Age Difference, Professor Junkenstein, Student Mako, Sexual Tension
My Lovely Assistant- Chapter 4 (Junkenstein Meihem)
Junkenstein sat with Mei’s body propped up against him, his tongue stuck out in concentration as he ran a hairbrush through her locks, carefully bundling it with one hand before snapping the circlet back around her new pigtails. “There we go! You look good, darl, I think I’m getting better at this. No more tangles for you, eh?” He eased her stiff form back down into his bed, tucking the quilt around her chin before pausing. “Oh! Looks like you’ve uh…s’popped open again; here, lemme get that for you.” One of the jiangshi’s eyes had half opened, staring blank and white as the doctor leaned across to lick his broad thumb and very carefully push her eyelid back closed. “There! Pretty as a picture! I’m just…I’m just gonna be over there if you need me.”
His own eyes felt droopy and tired, and the bags under them had turned almost black with exhaustion. He had shut himself into his personal quarters days ago, with piles upon piles of books and papers. He hadn’t been eating or drinking, hadn’t been sleeping, and definitely had not been bathing. Even he had to admit that he was beginning to stink a bit, spending all his time hunched over his notes of translated Chinese characters, useless taosims, charms, and manuscripts as he tried to understand everything he had on hand about the jiangshi. Everything had to be cross-referenced and then corrected, filling in the bits that were lost in translation, piecing together what he could…but he’d always been good at piecing things together.
“Don’t worry about a thing, love, we’re almost there. You’re going to be right as rain. Here, you got lots of room if you need it; you got the bed all to yourself again, wouldn’t want to suggest anything improper while you’re asleep. Don’t you fret, I’m going to keep working and make it all better. Don’t let anyone say that Dr. Junkenstein ever gives up on a project.” He gently patted her head before moving back to his desk, slumping down into the chair and taking up his pen. The words and symbols all over the papers were starting to blend and blur together, an incomprehensible mess of ink and parchment as he tried to focus.
Sure he was feeling a bit tired and all, but he had to keep at it. His genius was the only one who could fix her, after all.
He still blearily remembered falling to his knees with the jiangshi in both arms, pleading with the Witch to bring her back. But the Witch had turned him away time and time again. Mei was his servant, not hers. She owed the Witch no debt and had never been bound to her will, not like Junkenstein or the Reaper. Mei was not one of hers, and no matter what the good doctor had tried, the jiangshi’s life could not be bartered for. He had asked for the Summoner, and received a curt reply that the ancient Dragon’s power had no way to revive a creature that had already felt the ice of death. He had even asked for the advice of the Reaper, but the Reaper had never bothered with an answer at all. So it was up to him to undo what he had done.
There had been a particular character that had caught his attention, seeing it used time and time again. 血液, for ‘blood’. Over and over, it spoke of blood. The jiangshi were not precisely like their Western vampire counterparts, but they had a specific interest in their victim’s essences and their blood. And though Dr. Junkenstein didn’t know how to harvest something as nebulous as ‘essence’, he knew how to get blood.
And not just any blood…
***
He’d taken a bath and forced a meal into his jaws, waiting for the moon to rise into the sky. The Monster stood firmly by his side, his gut shuddering occasionally as his piecemeal lungs struggled to breathe life into his massive form. Junkenstein fussed nervously at his hair, still a little damp where it had formed into a spike on one side and dried that way, refusing to change shape now. Scarecrow was nowhere to be seen, though that was hardly unusual. A small group of zomnics drifted around the enormous lab space, carrying tools and stacking equipment…And a new figure lay under a large white cloth on the same table that had birthed his beloved first creations.
He waited, chewing at the tip of his glove nervously, the rubber catching in a disgusting textural way between the tips of his teeth, squeaking as he gnawed and waited. Occasionally he heard the opening and shutting of doors as the zomnics moved around the tower and courtyard, but they were not the sounds he was listening for. The only solace was that this breed of company was never late, and he waited for them with bated breath as the clock on his wall ticked down the minutes to their alloted meeting time.
The Monster tilted his head down to him, and offered one of his very, very rare instances of input. “Hrm…Bad idea.”
Junkenstein’s glare snapped upward, baring his teeth with the sharp canines still sunk into his glove. “Begging your pardon for my language, mate, but that’s tough tits for you! Because it’s the only idea we got. You know what to do! I’m going to bring her back, just like I brought you back. And this is the only way I can do it.”
The Monster rumbled unhappily and turned back, lifting his ponderous chin as footsteps sounded from down the hallway.
Junkenstein beamed, clasping her hands together as the doors to his lab creaked open with the squeal of old wood and even older hinges. The Reaper came first, metal boots heavy against the cracked tiles, the grin of his jack-o-lantern head throwing eerie shadows over his leather-clad form, coat trailing behind him. The Summoner was second, scaly hide emanating heat and malice as her eyes glowed wild yellow against the darkness of her scales. And behind them came the Witch herself, carrying her broom in one hand and not nearly so intimidating as her servants; her expression kind but cold, and her soft lips curled into that ever-present smile that never truly reached her eyes, her presence a potent mixture of both offputting and soothing that Junkenstein had never been able to understand.
Her attendants stood aside to let her pass as the Witch strode forward, resting her broom on the ground before removing it again with a little curl of her lip…The floor was too filthy even for her broom. Glancing back up to the twitching Dr. Junkenstein, she placed a gloved hand to her hip, her eyes drawn past him to the sheet-covered form on the slab. “I understand that you think this is worth gathering us all here, good Doctor?”
Junkenstein wheezed out a shrill giggling laugh, tapping his fingers together nervously. “Ladies and gentlemen! I’ve had some spare time on my hands as of late, and I happened to remember an old prototype I’d been working on ages ago. I’ve improved on the zomnic formula to make them better than ever. But we’re still missing something, don’t you think? The zomnic shock troops and the rank and file are all well and good, but what we need is something a bit more…in-your-face, shall we say?”
The Summoner examined her claws, somehow managing to look the most unimpressed out of all his audience. “You brought us here to look at an old prototype?”
He tried not to bristle at the criticism, tried to remember Mei’s sleeping face on his pillow instead. “N-not at all, my dear Lady! I brought you here to look at its improvements. If we put a few of these out onto the battlefield during our attack, it’ll make them think twice, if they’re still alive to think at all! So, for your approval, I want to present you…The Harvester!” With a curt nod, he signaled the Monster, and the sheet was yanked from the table to reveal his newest creation.
The zomnic below was thin and scrawny, with skinny metal digitrade legs and curved claws. Its top half resembled something of a cocoon, almost a thin metal barrel with vertical slits up and down its circumference, up to a metal skull-like head, its mouth brimming with needle-sharp spikes, on top of a spring-loaded coil neck. It wasn’t really the most elegant thing he’d ever made. Honestly when he looked at it now, it looked a bit topheavy and silly, and judging by the expressions of his ‘business partners’, they thought even less of it. He quickly lifted a hand, bearing a remote control panel, and fumbled with the switches. “Unassuming now, isn’t it? But wait until you see what she’s capable of!”
With a press of the button, the Harvester whirred to life, its eyelights flickering on and glowing bright blue as electricity crackled over it, shuddering to life. It launched abruptly upright, landing with a click of rigged-together metal feet as numerous arms extended and unfolded from the length of its body, unfurling into multi-jointed appendages that each ended with a sharp metal scythe. Junkenstein made it perform a little twirl, its movements rapid, but unnatural and jerky as its arms whirled and spun, transforming it into a whirling dervish of deadly metal blades, whistling through the air as it tromped forward at them.
The Reaper tilted his head and for once seemed thoughtful. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but…this one isn’t that bad.”
The Witch tapped her chin and nodded. “I suppose we could use a more deft sort of troop to deal with melee distractions. What else can it do?”
A zomnic target-bot drifted forward at that, and the Harvester turned its head and immediately set upon it, scythes whirring and slicing as its unlucky victim was shredded into parts with a screech of metal. The next several target-bits suffered much the same as the Harvester gave several agile little leaps, slashing apart anything that stood in its way. But then it shuddered hard as electricity suddenly crackled around its lithe body, head jerking to and fro before its glowing eyes set upon its next target, and it leapt again…
This time it slammed into the ground next to the Reaper, and its scythes swung straight for him. The pumpkin-headed specter managed to dodge the first two, much to his credit, but the third and fourth caught him across the arm and torso, spraying black ichor as the ghostly figure bellowed. The Summoner’s yellow eyes widened and she tried to step back as the berserk Harvester turned upon her next, its blades clanking against her hard dragon-like scales.
The Witch turned upon the doctor, eyes narrowed. “Turn it off!”
Junkenstein slammed at the buttons, “It’s not listening! It’s not listening!”
The Summoner’s armor broke, a long cut opening up along her upper arm as it bled molten yellow-red. She clutched at it and fell back, just as gunshots echoed through the hall. The Reaper was retaliating, his lower half shrouded in black smoke as the bullets clicked and clanged off the Harvester’s steel form, bouncing off its armor plating where it did not manage to rip through. Junkenstein made a show of slamming his fist into the buttons of its controls, then paused when the metal monstrosity turned its eyes not upon the Witch…but onto him. With a warped cry of mock vocal-cords, the Harvester set upon him, one of its blades catching him across the chest and another along his shoulder and nicking his cheek. He fell, red fountaining out over his once clean labcoat, the control panel shattering under him.
Still, even as he grasped at his new wounds, Dr. Junkenstein watched as the Harvester finally -finally- fixated on the Witch herself. It advanced, its blades dripping with blood of all sorts, as the Witch took several steps back, cursing under her breath. But before it could reach her, The Reaper blocked its path yet again, more gunshots ripping through it and sending two of its arms clattering to the ground. And Junkenstein almost screamed aloud when his Monster joined the fray, grasping one huge hand onto its spiked head and pulling it up away, crushing and ripping even as the Harvester flailed its scythes at its bulky form. With several more wrenching blows and the squeal of metal, the blade-bearing omnic monstrosity went limp, sparks occasionally erupting from its twitching body.
Blood still oozed down his front and onto the ground around him as Junkenstein clutched his chest. The rush of adrenaline in his ears almost drowned out the words of those that gathered around him, shouting insults and abuse at his stupidity. He saw the wounds on the Reaper and the Summoner above him, and only the presence of the Witch and his Monster kept the two from destroying him outright as he lay bleeding on the floor. His eyes darted under his goggles, searching for any sign of a cut or gash on the Witch herself, but his heart sank when he found none, her skin as young and beautiful and unmarred as she had always been.
He mumbled apologies and excuses, promising to do better, that this was just an unfortunate accident. The Reaper was not convinced, his gravely tones still raving. The Summoner even spat on him, a glob of molten saliva oozing down his coat and eating away the fabric. Junkenstein quailed and shook slightly, and the Monster rumbled dangerously and moved to shield him, grasping him by the peg leg and pulling him out of the fray, smearing red as he went.
“The next time one of your creations goes awry, I’m putting it- and you- in the ground,” the Reaper snarled after him. “You’re lucky it didn’t manage to hurt Our Lady or I would have destroyed your mad soul!”
“I told you including this lunatic was a worthless endeavor!” The Summoner ran a claw ruefully along her wounded arm. “If your zomnics were not necessary to this plan, I would do this world a favor by sparing it from your further ineptitude!”
The Witch waved a hand to calm her associates, speaking platitudes and calming things that Junkenstein could barely hear. “Well, it seems as though we have seen enough here for tonight, I think. The prototype I liked, I think. The mess that came from it? Well…” She gestured to the wounded. “Come now, my friends, I will take you back and heal your wounds. Although I believe I will let the good Dr. Junkenstein think on his mistakes for just a bit longer.”
The Summoner and the Reaper vanished in a spout of black flame just as Dr. Junkenstein slipped into unconsciousness, still holding his wounded front.
***
Things returned to a tenuous quiet despite the carnage around them, as the Witch tapped a finger to her chin and watched as the Monster leaned down to scoop up the doctor’s limp body. “You know,” she said in an almost conversational tone, “This was all a rather bad idea.”
“Mmm,” the Monster agreed.
“I will admit, I actually do like the prototype. We might be able to use it later, although I believe there are more…pressing matters to attend to. It’s a shame he ruined the thing with this little plan of his.”
“Ghmm.”
“Still, there’s almost a part of me that’s impressed that he had the gall. And another part that was impressed that he actually managed to get my servants to bleed. I suppose it’s the only way he could get it. His acting could use a bit of improvement, but I appreciate the effort,” she waved a hand, a little flicker appearing in her palm before going to hand the Monster a tiny vial. “This is a single drop of my blood. If he is planning what I believe he is planning, there may actually be a small chance for it to work. Or well, I hope it does. I’d love to be able to invite Mei for tea again, she’s a breath of fresh air in the chaos of this place.”
The Monster nodded and took the vial carefully into one huge palm, before offering up the Doctor’s sprawled form. “Mm?”
“He will live, and really, it’ll be a good reminder about caution during these schemes of his. Do let me know if all this works, won’t you? This has been…amusing.”
With that, the Witch vanished in a whirl of black shadow, and was gone.
The Monster placed one huge hand to his creator’s chest, staunching the blood under his fingers as he carried him away.
***
Junkenstein awoke later, his chest and shoulder crudely bandaged, slumped in his favorite armchair in his study. He groaned, clutching at the stained gauze, muscles sore and his mind still delirious from stress and lack of sleep. He coughed wetly and heard the answering shuffle of someone nearby, as his Monster loomed up out of the dark and into the fire’s light. Junkenstein allowed himself to relax slightly. “Did we get everything?”
“Mm,” the Monster confirmed.
Scarecrow appeared on the other side of his chair, straw shuffling with a dry hush as it held out containers filled to the brim with blood; the black sludge from the Reaper, the molten yellow of the Dragon’s servant, the bright red from Junkenstein himself…and there was the teeny, unassuming vial that glowed eerily from within. Her blood. The Witch’s blood. Strange. He couldn’t remember seeing his creation wound the Witch, but he must have simply been mistaken. He had all the blood he needed now.
“Victoryyyy!” he managed weakly, lifting both fists in his chair. “All right, naptime’s over, boys. I’ll take these!” He snatched the vials from Scarecrow’s hands, heading for the set of vials and tubes he had rigged up on the table earlier. Turning on the burners, he went right back to work. Far from the chaotic mess he had caused down in the kitchens, now he had the need of being precise and careful, no matter how much his hands were shaking. Dumping the blood from vial to vial, he carefully measured, poured, and stirred. The blood was not the sort to mix naturally, and he had done all the research he could on getting them to meld. The Summoner, a being of fire, and the Reaper, a dead thing of black cold, were not exactly close friends in business relationship or blood types, and it had taken all his chemical finesse to get them to blend. Perhaps it had been a good thing the Harvester had accidentally provided so much more of Junkenstein’s own blood then, a human blood that the other blood types could blend into and dominate, adding in more and more of his own red as it was threatened to be consumed by the yellow and black. When the balancing act was perfected and boiled and blended and finally stabilized…then came the final ingredient; the Witch’s own blood, that single, precious drop of glowing red that was so much stronger than his own. The droplet bobbled and wobbled, clinging reluctantly to the lip of the vial before gravity finally seized hold, dripping into the mixture. There was no crackle of electricity, no steam or smoke, not even the faintest of booms, but Junkenstein felt something ripple across the mixture, change it, and its power changed tenfold.
Very carefully, he took the mixture and dumped a portion into the ink pot, taking the jiangshi’s spell paper and her old peacock feather. Dipping it into the mixture, he carefully painted the Chinese symbols he had made before, the bloody mixture seeping into the paper, redder than ink and blacker than blood. With his tongue stuck out and biting until it almost bled even more, he carefully swirled the pen into the last symbol, finishing the new spell into an infinitely more powerful version.
“Bring her in!” Junkenstein shrilled quickly, just as the door opened and the Monster reappeared, cradling her stiff body in both powerful hands. He brought her down to Junkenstein’s level, the Monster shifting her into one massive arm so his other could pry her fanged jaws open. The doctor took the remainder of the blood mixture and, after pulling her tongue out of the way with two delicate pinching fingers, poured it down her cold and unresponsive throat. Pushing her jaws shut once more, he attached the spell paper to her hat and then draped it across her forehead as the charm fluttered slightly, the symbols on it seeming to glow for a moment before going dull.
Junkenstein held his breath as he and the monster leaned in expectantly. Scarecrow, lurking nearby, also tried to lean in, only to have Dr. Junkenstein roughly grab onto its head and shove it away again. He and the Monster listened quietly…and then they heard the jiangshi swallow. Smacking away the sticky blood concoction in her throat with a few gulps, Mei’s eyes rolled back down into focus, turning from unseeing white back to their usual gentle darkness as she blearily adjusted her glasses as though that would help.
Junkenstein didn’t feel tired anymore, a too-wide grin stretching nearly across the entire width of his skull, baring almost every single one of his sharp teeth. Especially when she coughed a little and tried to find her voice, whispering aloud in her strong accent, “D…doc-..tor?”
“Welcome back, Mei.”
Ooh, like, in Junkenstein AU? that’s a really cool thought, and I kinda like it! He has a run-in with the Summoner, and she offers him a contract with a powerful dragon...
The woods outside of town were beautiful this time of year. Trees slowly changing from greens to oranges and yellows, while the ever greens retained their beautiful green leaves. Almost as if they mocked those changing, reveling in their neighbor changing.
Mako had lived in these woods for many years; ever since the unfortunate passing of their parents. Every town needed a woodsman, and they filled that slot perfectly. It was probably the only thing on this planet that they would fit into. They were a strapping seven feet plus tall, wide, with arms thick as the tree trunks they fell each day with their ax.
They had rarely any reason to go into town, beyond delivering wood. Out here in the woods there was a river to fish from, and they could hunt easily enough for elk and wild boars.
Today though, they had to head into town due to an accident. Dealing with axes always came with the threat of injury and lo and behold the young man had finally had a mishap. Wrapping the injury of their leg in a torn shirt, soaked with blood, they made their way to the doctors surgery.
@asclepiusangel Liked a thing for a short Junkenstein Starter!
It was useless. No matter how hard he had tried, the corpse remained just that. Theoretically, it should be as simple as switching on a robotic creation. Organics were just the same as schematics, really- just a tad more complicated. He’d stitched and rebuilt, scrapped and tried again, over and over, but it wasn’t so easy as simply turning it on.
Perhaps this was foolish, a moment of clarity wafting through his mad determination whispered. Perhaps the king was right. But the Good Doctor was not about creating tools. No, this was a scientific search for more than that, and he needed him to see, needed all of them to see...
With a sigh, he slumped in the corner of his work shop, staring at the heap under the stained white cloth, useless, pointless rubbish.
There had to be a way. Something simple, he must have been missing something simple, that’s how it always went...
Dr Jamison Junkenstein’s coup d'etat against the King had failed. The castle overrun by the King’s allied soldiers and heroes, the doctor’s servants escaped without incident – however, they had left their master behind.
Captured and arrested, Dr Junkenstein was sent to gaol to await trial for his unethical experiments and crimes against the Crown.
At first there were an endless stream of angry villagers from near and far who had visitation rights to torment and ridicule the disgraced doctor – except their plans did not go as expected. They rarely stayed… and he could not understand why.
The mad scientist would only discover exactly why his appearance struck fear and horror in all those who had come to see him, once he’d escaped his prison. What sort of punishment the forest witch Mercy, had failed to disclose as the price for using his soul to give life to the monster Hog.
Dr Junkenstein had been cursed, and transformed, into a ghoul – the undead, unrecognisable.
@qadiim Liked a thing for a short Junkenstein Starter!
His zomnics lay in smoldering heaps, nothing but so much spoiled scrap, his precious creature torn to shreds. His head was spinning from the fall, well aware he was bleeding out and something or many somethings were probably broken. Judging by the sparks threatening to catch his trousers on fire, his leg for starts.
Dimly, the good doctor could hear footsteps. Light- possibly the alchemist? “Serve a king what don’t give a damn about progress, I see. Hope it feels fantastic, mate.” He wheezed dimly.
So this was it. This was how he’d die.
He expected a lot more screaming and explosions, honestly.
@ninzen Liked a thing for a short Junkenstein Starter!
“Well this certainly isn’t my work,” The good Doctor gave a fresh giggle as he suddenly grabbed the cyborg’s arm, twisting it this way and that as he gave the mechanics a good appraisal. “Good job on them, though! Where’s the flesh end, this come off?” There had to be a release button somewhere for maintenance, right? Ah, no, bolts in the way!
