And, as it happened, he arrived at an idea! There were a couple of places he could work on this plan, but ultimately settled on going into Mauvian HQ. No chance of having an unsuspecting Agent walk into something...though there was a small chance of a Mau doing that, he figured they were less likely to cause problems. Though the place he'd found with that fuzzy agent Vit was still a strong possibility for setting things up, he wanted to work in private a bit before he could be FOUND while doing it...
As for what it was he was doing, Chip decided that while he had is Mauvian Beam that he could use to dissuade people from fighting him, he wanted options when it came to battle. So, pencil in mouth, he set about drawing up on a big sheet of graph paper designs, which he wrote in somewhat crude block letters at the top:
CAT PORTABLE OFFENSIVE WEAPON
(CPOW)
No project worth its salt should have anything less than a Magnificent name, after all.
Ultimately, he scribbled somewhat messily across four different blueprint papers before he arrived at an idea he was actually satisfied with enough to go forward in assembly. He had gathered up an impressive pile of junk quality materials during his explorations (never mind that obviously personalized to not Chip letterhead on some of the papers he had for "material"), so it was just a matter of rearranging it all into an appropriate shape.
Ultimately, he needed three parts:
- A Harness (It was Cat-Portable, after all)
The Weapon. Its design bore a rather striking resemblance to a classical crossbow, except with possibly too many gears around it. (Chip wasn't about to pull the thing himself, naturally)
The Ammo Holster. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd use for ammo. For his experimental version, he settled for some pebbles, as he very likely would be shooting at something he wouldn't want to annihilate, or anything. Once he was sure it was going to be the Next Big Thing in the Negaverse, he'd work on snazzier ammo.
With The Plan all laid out, there was really only the matter of putting it together and testing it.
In spite of their appearance, Mauvians were quite good at putting things together. It is perhaps better to not think too closely about how they do it, but needless to say, Magic is involved. Ultimately, though, Chip put together a device that was, well, a crossbow on a little mount strapped to his back. It was a tiny crossbow, so those pebbles were about all it could fire. He'd managed to rig up a contraption that, through use of many spinning gears would crank the crossbow to prep to fire, and then plunk a pebble which was lifted out of a small pouch on his side directly onto the firing bracket. When he was ready to fire, he merely had to flick his ear a certain way and FWINK! A pebble launched off!
He was a very pleased little Mau, and purred his approval before saying aloud to the empty room, "Okay! Now to get a super helpful test subject!" He couldn't claim it to be a properly vetted combat tool if he didn't use it in combat, of course.
