The junkyard looked considerably less like a battlefield by late afternoon, although that was mostly because the ninja had spent several hours dragging overturned cars back into place, rebuilding collapsed scrap piles, and sorting the enormous amount of metal the Fangpyres had scattered across the property. Ed and Edna moved through the mess with surprising enthusiasm, treating the destruction less like a disaster and more like an opportunity to reorganize everything they had been meaning to reorganize for years.
Jinx still didn't understand why they were doing any of it.
He stood beside Zane with his arms folded, watching Cole carry an engine block across the yard while Kai used controlled bursts of heat to straighten bent pieces of metal. After several quiet seconds, Jinx glanced sideways and asked whether Zane understood why they were carefully reorganizing garbage into different piles of garbage. Zane considered the question seriously before admitting that, from a purely organizational perspective, much of the distinction appeared arbitrary.
That was enough validation for Jinx. He nodded toward him and muttered that he was glad at least one person there was sane before grabbing a twisted axle with a strand of Darkness and tossing it into whatever pile Ed had designated for "things that might become useful if you stared at them long enough."
Jay, meanwhile, was thriving.
He had spent most of the afternoon repairing damaged machinery with his father, and the longer they worked, the more confident he became. By the time he finished bringing one of Ed's old lifting machines back to life, he stepped away from it with grease streaked across his face and a grin large enough to irritate everyone nearby.
Jay wiped his hands together and announced, with absolutely no humility, that there was a reason he was the best inventor on the team.
Kai stopped what he was doing.
Cole slowly looked over.
Nya raised an eyebrow.
Even Zane turned toward him.
Jay noticed all of them staring and immediately became defensive, though not enough to take the statement back. He pointed toward the repaired machinery behind him and reminded them that he had rebuilt half the Bounty's systems, designed its defense mechanism, understood engines better than any of them, and had even managed to repair technology while under attack. Kai opened his mouth to argue, then hesitated when he realized fire did not technically qualify him as an engineer. Cole looked similarly offended but lacked evidence. Nya crossed her arms and told Jay that being the only person arrogant enough to declare himself the winner did not automatically make the competition official.
Jay only grinned wider.
Jinx looked up from the scrap pile.
He had been ignoring the argument until then, but something about the phrase best inventor on the team scratched directly against his pride.
"Oh?" he murmured.
Zane heard the change in his voice and immediately looked toward him. "Jinx?"
Jinx was already walking toward one of the largest junk piles.
Jay noticed and tilted his head. "What are you doing?"
Jinx didn't answer.
He stopped in front of the mountain of discarded parts and stared at it for several seconds. Broken engines, wheels, steel plates, exhaust pipes, hydraulic arms, chains, old vehicle frames, and countless pieces of machinery were piled together with no obvious relationship to one another.
Then something clicked behind his eyes.
His expression changed.
The world in front of him stopped looking like junk.
It became pieces.
Nya noticed first. "Why is he smiling like that?"
Zane's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched Jinx reach into the pile. "I believe Jay has challenged him."
Jay immediately pointed at himself. "I didn't challenge anybody."
Jinx ripped a large metal panel free.
Then everything happened very quickly.
He moved through the junk pile with an almost unnatural certainty, grabbing pieces seemingly at random and snapping them together without stopping to measure anything. A truck chassis became the beginning of a torso. Two heavy industrial pistons disappeared into the shoulders. Wheels became rotating joints. Thick pieces of suspension turned into reinforced legs.
Kai stopped pretending not to watch.
"What the…"
Jinx climbed halfway up the growing structure, jumped from one side to another, and caught a swinging chain before using the momentum to pull another section into place. He seemed less like someone assembling a machine and more like someone uncovering a machine that had somehow always existed inside the scrap.
Pieces flew through the air.
Some he caught.
Some he kicked into position.
At one point he threw a wrench over his shoulder without looking, and Zane caught it automatically.
Zane stared at the wrench.
Then at Jinx.
Then, apparently deciding this was happening regardless of logic, tossed him a different tool.
That only made things worse.
Jinx started moving faster.
Within minutes, the machine had legs.
Then arms.
Then massive shoulders built from layered black, purple, and red armor plates. He mounted curved golden horns on either side of a broad mechanical head, giving the machine the unmistakable shape of a bull. Thick hydraulic muscles ran beneath the armor, while salvaged exhaust pipes and engines disappeared into the torso.
Jay's grin slowly vanished.
Cole walked closer.
Kai forgot whatever argument he had been preparing.
Nya simply stared.
Ed looked like he was witnessing the birth of a new religion.
Jinx dropped from the shoulder, landed beside another pile, and immediately began tearing apart an old crane assembly. A long metal shaft became a weapon almost as tall as the mech itself, with a heavy mechanical head on one end surrounded by jagged components and salvaged blades.
By the time Jinx stepped away, everyone was silent.
The thing standing in front of them was enormous.
A humanoid bull mech towered over the junkyard, built from mismatched machinery that somehow looked deliberate now that it was together. Black armor covered most of the frame, broken by deep purple plating and aggressive red-orange sections around the shoulders and chest. Golden horns curved outward from the head while thick mechanical arms hung at its sides, one gripping the massive staff-like weapon Jinx had constructed from whatever happened to be nearby.
Jay stared upward.
Then he looked at Jinx.
Then back at the mech.
Jinx brushed dust from his hands.
Jay opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Kai slowly turned toward him with the most satisfied expression Jinx had seen all day. "So," Kai said, making absolutely no attempt to hide his enjoyment, "best inventor on the team?"
Jay pointed frantically toward the mech. "That doesn't count! He didn't even make blueprints!"
Jinx looked genuinely confused. "Why would I waste time drawing it when the parts were right there?"
Zane tilted his head as he studied the machine's construction. The longer he examined it, the more disturbing the design became. Jinx had used several components in ways they had never been intended to function, yet the weight distribution was surprisingly stable, the joints actually lined up, and the improvised hydraulic system looked functional.
Zane finally looked toward Jinx and asked how long he had been planning the design.
Jinx blinked.
"I wasn't."
That answer somehow offended Jay even more.
"You built a giant mech with no plan?!"
Jinx looked back at the towering bull machine before shrugging. "I saw the pieces."
Ed suddenly grabbed Jinx by both shoulders.
The older inventor looked close to tears.
"Son," he whispered with absolute sincerity, "that may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."
Jay's head snapped around. "Dad!"
Ed immediately corrected himself by glancing toward Jay. "Second most beautiful."
Jay stared at him.
Ed smiled nervously. "Third if we count your mother."
Edna, standing several feet away, nodded approvingly.
Jinx looked toward Jay with a slowly growing smirk.
Jay pointed at him. "Don't."
Jinx said nothing.
He didn't need to.
The giant mechanical bull standing behind him had already won the argument.