The fae-touched Witch looked coldly onto the factory and its adjacent doll-filled dumpster. She took slow, long puff of faestuff from her pipe.
"So how goes the heavy industries?" Twilight mused, her mood unreadable to her companion.
"Slow. Its hard to find the right dolls for the work." the other witch responded. He stretched his aching arms. "Someone's gotta teach those dolls the value of hard work."
"Sure- sure." Twilight replied dryly, seemingly more interested in her own pipe.
Brooke looked across at his guest with equal neutrality. For a genderfluid shapeshifter, Twilight sure seemed to have a favorite body type. Oh well, might as well shoot his shot.
"Is dick on the menu tonight?" Brooke coyly inquired.
"No" Twilight replied with a sort of smile, something between playful and coy and smug.
"Well, I really need to get back to the factory floor, then. I've gotta earn my keep too. See ya later, Twilight."
Brooke got to factory floor, only to be flagged down by Secretary doll. Why was it so damn hard to find time to bang metal with other metal? Steeldoll Heavy Industries had a completely flat organizational structure, but every doll turned to him for decisions anyway. Was this the curse of being unspoken, unwilling upper management?
"Ma'am, Bridget's missile designs have ended up in failure again." Secretary doll chirped while flipping through sheets on a clipboard. "At our morning meeting, we reviewed her progress and decided she has wasted too much R&D resources. We voted for her to be dumpster'd."
Brooke sighed. If they already decided, why were they asking him?
"Madam witch! I promise I'll be useful!" a meek sounding doll cried out. The stout doll, Bridget, ran up to him "Just give me another chance! I'll cook up a good design one of these days!" Bridget cried, her oversized doll tears streaming from her big doll eye. "The raisin bomb was great! I know R&D isn't my Purpose but but but- It should be as easy as pie, right?"
Brooke let out a longer, heavier sigh. Hard work was simple, logical, and objective. Why do dolls have to make it so complicated, emotional, and fuzzy?
Brooke called out to Crane Doll "Grabby, take Bridget away."
"NOOOO. Not the claw!" Bridget sobbed as she dodged the grip of the factory's high accuracy lifting arm. The noise, obnoxious crying, and pathetic begging was quite distracting for the factory floor workers. After a good ten minutes, Grabby gave up the lifting arm, and simply used the industrial magnet to snatch up the misbehaving doll.
"Into the DOLL DUMP, ya useless scrap!" Grabby announced victoriously "All done boss! You can count on me for all your doll-napping needs!"
Brooke breathed slowly and centered himself. Why were dolls so dramatic? "Next time, please handle the offending doll without my input."
"Got it." Secretary Doll scribbled some notes, "That's actually it for today, sir."
"Thank the goddess. I have got combat exosuits to build. And some QA to do." Brooke took his leave.
Twilight was passing by again today, and wanted to say hi. So Brooke met them in the guest room. Today, instead of tall and waif-y, they were small and kinda... short-stacky. Likely without the equipment underneath that appealed to Brooke.
Twilight puffed from her pipe, her face twisted into a cat's grin. "So, just as heads up, I've emancipated some of your dolls." she exhaled an o-ring of faestuff smoke "It didn't seem like you were using them."
"You mean from the dumpster?" Brooke laughed to himself. He knew being tough on the dolls gave him a certain hardened image "Do what you want with them. The whole dumpster thing is just a way to convince them to leave."
"I made you scones Miss!" a familiar squeaking voice entered the room. Bridget, in a little apron, entered the guest room. "Wow! That's a huge factory! Do you think they make bread there? Did you know I worked in a factory once? I was bad at it! They threw me in the dumpster!"
Twilight took a bite of the scone knowingly "Awww, who could throw away such a cute and industrious little button like you?" she shot a glare towards Brooke. Brooke shrugged in return. Twilight returned her attention to the doll "If you keep working hard, Miss might let you see her muffin top."
"Wow! I love muffins!" Bridget replied, starry eyed.
Twilight addressed Brooke again "Anyway, let me know when you toss a doll that knows how to treat a lady-thing right- since you seem to be so so so particular in your tastes~" Twilight took her leave with the little baker-doll in tow.
Brooke shrugged. Another mixed-messages meeting with the faewitch thing. Witch relationships were hard. But at least pumping out tanks with big guns was easy. Well, relatively easy.
