Chapter Text
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
― Plato, The Republic
The faint hum of engines filled the small cramped hallway where two mecha whispered to each other underneath green synthetic light.
One of them was a rather big and bulky individual with a rusty brown paintjob and a scowl etched onto his brow who towered over the slender and almost brittle state official.
The official reached his waist and was a bright blue with a pale face, noticeably different from the busted up plating of the mining official, and while the bigger mech was wealthy enough to afford a better paintjob it was just very impractical when he observed the mining facility, and it got busted again within three hours.
The pair made their way towards a set of doors, their footsteps echoing on the metal floor.
Paradron, the small blue one, clutched his hands around a big metal box that he had dragged with him for the last few hours. From the base, to the ship, all the way to this dump. His blue optics shifted nervously across the doors. The soft light reflecting against the polished walls.
A loud smack was heard next to them.
“Eep!” Paradron squealed, his high vocal tone ringed in Momus’ audials.
“There is nothing to worry about sir.” Momus assured him, slightly irritated.
Paradron was not so sure of that, the looming setting of the place they were in did nothing to ease his mood.
Momus’ big form shifted towards a control pad which he placed his left hand on. The security system went offline with a loud beep.
Paradron felt a shiver run down his spine, how could his superior officer leave him alone to make amends with this brute?
“I can see that myself Momus, now if you would please lead us to our destination.”
Momus just grunted in reply, not bothering to answer to the pompous bastard. He too, was carrying a metal box. The heavy hitter was grateful for the blessed silence of Paradron, Primus help him if he had to listen to another word from him.
“How long will we actually have to walk?” And the silence was gone.
“I’m not one to complain, but the administration said it would take no longer than half an hour.”
That’s because I’m slowing the pace for you. He doesn’t even notices!
He didn’t want to hear the mech talk and chose to ignore the pipsqueak, instead focusing on the gunmetal grey box resting in his servos. It wasn’t big, not for him, but Paradron looked positively dwarved by his. A snicker formed in inner mechanisms of his chassis. Tsh, high castes, there wasn’t much to them.
The box started to stir the closer they came towards their destination. The outer metal of the box slowly increased in temperature which Momus felt through his digits with his neuralnet, furthermore he could feel the energy signature through the alloy that his processor translated in colors.
The swirling colors in blue, green and white could only be described as ethereal.
Momus almost regretted ignoring the smaller one for he somehow managed to talk even more.
“Momus?” His patience went thinner with the second.
“Momus? Momus answer me.” The pair made a turn to the right.
“It’s at the end of this hallway sir.” Short words, short sentences. He hoped that the time would pass faster. What an aft.
Another door, and this time both Paradron and Momus had to hold up their altmode cards.
Altmode cards were cards that showed the owner’s alternative mode to state enforcers and allowed the owner to enter certain places. The cards also had personal data on them and were basically meant to show one’s place in society. Now, normally Momus wouldn’t be allowed near the facility, but his boss had pulled a few strings for him.
An accident caused by faulty machinery had cost the lives of some miners whom he supervised. Another mining official (whose name Momus didn’t even bother to remember) had failed to dismiss the ‘new’ equipment that the senate had cared to give them. Momus was of course aware that you couldn’t just throw away machines for financial reasons, but he still cursed the fragger that knowingly condemned his workers to certain death.
Miners sometimes used chemicals to burn away the hardest rocks, this proved to be way easier, but more importantly; allot faster. However, the chemical waste that was produced in the process could contain fluorine, (which is highly flammable) and a certain corrosive element that can never be found in official documentation. Because of the mixture of corrosive elements, this particular molecule was even more dangerous to work with than fluorine gas. Which, what anyone with a chemical worker license would know, is not a sentence you get to say very often. A set of vacuums and pipes led the dangerous gas away from the mines and to the surface where it would be contained and neutralized.
Let’s just say that of the pipes had a blockage, a big one. The leak blockage caused a building pressure until the bolts gave in, and a full ton of it spilled out into the mines below. The mine was dug deep into the planet which caused very high temperatures and so the liquid fluorine was quickly converted into gas.
No one in the shafts realized what was happening before the air held a high concentration in it.
Fluorine, as you might know, is a very good oxidizer, which means that it can set things ablaze that normal people might think are nonflammable.
Like rocks, or metal, or things that have already been burned.
One spark from a pickaxe and a fluorine fire burned everything down. Well, not everything, the miners that got out were able to tell the story. An eyewitness described the accident only as; “The whole shaft was on fire”. The fire had completely destroyed the bigger structures that carried the tunnels and most collapsed.
Half of the mine was closed and miners were relocated to Primus knows where. The team that lost most of his members to the fire was reassigned to Momus, he had only heard about this one joor before he was suddenly promoted to a mining official knockoff. Great. His whole team consisted of three bots, and no new offplanet miners would be arriving soon so he was left with little choice.
Next thing he knew Momus was sent off planet to pick up some newbies and deal with a bot who had a stick up his aft. Paradron had no idea.
The doors slid aside and revealed a dark room. No sounds were heard and nothing moved.
Needless to say, there wasn't anything in it that required his immediate attention.
Paradron opened his mouth. “That’s it?”
“Wait for it.”
Momus turned on the light.
Twelve empty frames were laid out on cold hard tables in the middle of the room, the harsh white lights were barely reflected on their dark paintjobs.
The frames were made from durable material, or would be when the spark would harden it out according through the coding in the processor. Right now, the metal was soft and pliable. It bore more likelihood to gallium than battlegrade armor.
They might be offline and weaponless, but that didn’t mean that they’re unrecognizable. Most were military fliers and Paradron even noticed some tanks at the back of the room.
But, this was not the first thing that the bot noticed, he was awestruck by their sheer size.
Each one them could wrap a single hand around his waist. He shuddered.
These empty frames were made for harsh conditions, their protoforms were encased with nearly impenetrable armor and each digit ended with a razorsharp and slightly curved claw.
Their overall build suggested great endurance and strength.
Civilians had seen them of course, but never up close, for that was just not how it was done.
They're called warbuilds, and they don't exactly visit the same places as he does. After all, the times were these mechs roamed the streets of Iacon had passed before he himself onlined there.
“Momus?”Paradron asked, but was once more ignored by his larger companion, for he moved from the door. Paradron could understand his own hesitation, but not that from Momus, for all he knew the brute was surrounded by them most of the time!
Heavy footsteps echoed on the stone tiled floor
The room was sparsely filled, old and useless energy conductors lay in corners and the flaked paint was covering the floor around them.
The ceiling of the room was twice Momus’s height and was covered in all kinds of pipes, the lights between them flickered and busted from time to time making small rains of sparks. The walls were windowless and on the rights was a large rusted plate that said.
Protoform Con Facility
This was all good and well were it not for the still colorless frames, grey and liveless, that lay on the metal slabs like puppets that had their strings cut from under the puppeteer.
Pedes inched towards the first of three rows of frames. They were finished four orns ago but apparently they hadn’t had a clear from the higher ups, the state enforcers and military officers couldn’t be bothered. He stood next to the first slab and parted its chestplating.
He put the box down and it stood with a loud thud.
The faceplates were non-existent, the shoulderguards broad and the overall frame bulky and big, the finer features would properly form when the frame was online so he wasn’t worried.
Momus sat down on the edge of the slab and put his servo on the smooth metal surrounding the empty sparkchamber, his digits hovered a moment over the box before his optics caught something out of place on the stabilizing servos. He shouldn’t be surprised really, and waved for Paradron.
He didn’t react so he resetted his vocalizer and blue optics shot up to meet his. He waved again.
“Right”And he scurried towards the frame. His long, nimble digits curled up into a tense ball until he relaxed them again and typed in de necessary codes. The box moved.
The upright sides bended halfway and parted to reveal two swirling orbs, the light they made reflected on his palms. Sparkenergy, directly taken from the allspark and the most potent stuff you can get.
Paradron’s digits gently coaxed one orb from its socket, the energy tingled and made webs of electricity on his palm. Suddenly, the spark leaped from his servo and straight into the sparkchamber.