My shop was starting to feel more and more like a doctor’s office than a machine shop. Though when you’re a being made out of magic and metal, I suppose they’re one in the same for your species. Scara, from our construction team, had built me a lovely reclining chair. It wasn’t soft or cushy but it was solid and strong enough to handle the added weight of an Automata.

It reminded me a lot of the chair at a dentist and was super useful for being able to examine my fellow Automata. Today, I was the patient though. After a mishap on my part, I’d done considerable damage to myself that included destroying half of my face and losing an eye.

I sat in the chair and my proxy, Ratchet, set a pin in the chair to recline me back. Ratchet had been designed expressly for handling repair work and building things. He had three sets of arms that ranged in function from high detail work to things that required a larger amount of force like forging. He also had a ring of eyes around his decidedly inhuman face that let him use all the arms independently.

I was still getting used to controlling him since his body shape was so alien to what I was used to. Having Ratchet work on me was basically me performing surgery on myself but I didn’t have the luxury of having anyone else around that was up to the task. Carefully, Ratchet removed the armor plating covering my face and exposed the mana fibers and wires that connected the plating to my systems to give me a simulated sense of touch.

The ruined plate was set aside. I’d only had just enough magisteel left to forge a replacement, but I’d recently received a boon of illusion stones that were the base material used for Automata eyes. Via Ratchet, I tutted, looking at the damaged eye socket. Ratchet’s high precision hands made quick work of the repairs though. Replacing some parts, reshaping others, in no time he— it? I didn’t have a gender identity with Ratchet. When operating any of my proxies I tended to adopt a particular personality for the given Proxy. It kept things fun for me and tended to creep people out less if they didn’t have to think about all of these bodies being extensions of me.

Mostly, I didn’t have to think much about each one and they kinda ran themselves with an awareness of what they were doing in the back of my mind. It was sorta like having multiple tabs open in a browser and then minimizing them. So far, I had eight proxy bodies I could control, though I couldn’t run them all at once.

The more powerful the proxy, the more “slots” it took up. I currently had ten slots total with Ratchet, here, using up three of them. My high detail proxy, Rom, was bent over a work table nearby. She used to be a maid type Automata that I rebuilt into her current form. She’d been outfitted with a number of high precision drills and tools in her hands as well as glasses that let her zoom her view to macro levels.

Rom was working on repairing my pretender shell, Carnivac. For most intents and purposes Carnivac looked like a big, black, wolfkin. I’d built him to let me become an adventurer and pass for an organic. I can control him remotely like the other proxies, but he’s a lot more powerful when I’m inside of him. In our last battle, I’d managed to get his face burned off so Rom was working on stitching new shadow wolf fur in place. It was my last scrap of the fur so I’d need to find more somewhere or come up with another solution for Carnivac. I was told that the fur would only last a month or two before it started to fall apart.

Ratchet installed the replacement eye and I finally got back the right side of my HUD, or Heads Up Display. Ever since the accident, the right half of my vision was just a black wall. Ideally, one should be offline for this sort of thing, it was really disorienting as the eye calibrated.

On my left, my smallest proxy, Shrapnel, worked on replacing a finger stump that I’d managed to melt off in a plasma accident. Shrapnel was only about six inches or so tall and could transform into a stylized stag beetle. He couldn’t talk but he was useful in other ways. He’d been upgraded to have various tools and a cutting torch that could focus like a laser if needed. He was great for getting those hard to reach areas.

Ratchet set the new face plate into position and I tightened down the internal connection screws, locking it into place. I looked over at Shrapnel and he’d completed the new finger installation and gave me a thumbs up. I tended to be a big dork like that; giving myself thumbs ups and witty quips or whatever between my proxies. It made me laugh to do it and would really annoy my best friend, Elita, which made me want to do it more.

Thinking about Elita brought me down. I had no idea what kind of existence she was now, but I knew that she had made me promise to terminate her if she lost it. I had the chance to end her life, like she’d asked me to but I was thwarted and she got away. I could have gone after her but that was when the princess was hurt. I made the decision to save the princess instead of killing my best friend... I was sure that Elita would have understood but it still weighed heavily on me.

My friend, Shiro, stuck his head into my shop. Shiro had been a butler type Automata, but now that he was freed he still retained a lot of that posh sophistication. He’d told me that before his conversion, he was a “Maahesian” which is apparently a cat-type species so when I had the chance to build a new body for him I went with something that was closer to that. Of course, because I can’t help myself, I also made him into a transformer that can change into a winged lion that may or may yes resemble a certain black robot lion that could possibly join together with a handful of other robot lions.

“Ah, Master Prime. I have to say, you’re... looking much better,” he said tapping the right side of his face.

“All the better to see you with, my dear,” I responded. Poor guy, I was clearly rubbing off on him.

“I see Mister Carnivac is on the mend as well. Mister Sentinel isn’t looking so hot though. Well, actually he looks too hot. I mean to say he’s not looking so great.”

Sentinel was blasted with a high tier flame magic attack that left him scorched and barely functional.

“Yeah... I’d love to get our resident sheriff back up and running but I’m all out of magisteel. I don’t even have the ores to make more of it. Elita had been collecting a bit of it here and there along with all those beast materials, but...” I trailed off.

“Yes... I’m sorry Master Prime. I know this must be hard on you,” he said coming over to my chair and holding my head to his chest, gently tapping on the top of my head. The lion face for his alternate mode was positioned on his chest so I ended up with a face full of cat face. Shiro was always very physically affectionate and openly emotional. A stark contrast to how Elita had been for the most part. I didn’t mind, but it did strike me as funny for a “robot” to behave this way.

“I’ll be okay. Right now I’m more worried for her as well as anyone that might come into contact with her,” I said, patting his arm. “How’s the princess doing?”

“Oh, I love having her around. She has such poise and class but is easy to talk to. Jayce and Carmen, her former attendants, were a bit standoffish at first. Understandable of course. I can’t imagine how I’d be if my former master was suddenly an Automata brethren that I had to get along with. Though it seems like she— the princess that is, that she treated her servants kindly. Her brother, Prince Milliardo, not so much. I think Carmen will be happy to never see the prince again. Not that I blame her of course. Isn’t that odd?”

“What’s that?” I asked, reeling from the onslaught of conversation.

“Well that Jayce, a male, was put into a female type Automata body and given the name Lucy while Carmen, a female, was put into a male type and given the name Carmikle. I just think it odd.”

“Just goes to show you how little the manufacturers cared about the souls that were converted.”

“True...” he said, nodding slowly and passively petting my head.

“Um... Shiro... I’d like to get up.”

“Oh! My apologies Master Prime,” he panicked, releasing me and backing up.

Rom chuckled and covered her mouth, or at least her face plate where her mouth would be if she had one.

“It’s too bad I can’t go to the market in Urd to pick up some more supplies. They didn’t have a lot, but I could usually find the base materials I’d need around the industrial district,” I lamented.

“Why don’t we go shopping in Trone? They have an Adventurer’s Guild branch there where you can sell those beast materials to get the funds,” he suggested.

“Trone... That’s where The Factory is, right? Where you and the others were murdered and converted into Automata.”

“Well, that’s true. I’m not fond of the idea of being back there, but the markets outside of The Factory will have plenty of the materials that you’re looking for.”

“You know, I could use a guide. I’ve never been there and wouldn’t want to try to haggle with anyone as some country bumpkin that doesn’t know any better. Fancy coming along?”

“Master Prime, I would be honored,” he said, giving me his fancy butler bow.

“Great, then you’re going to need these,” I said, tossing him an illusion stone.

He looked down at the stone then back at me and cocked his head. One of the ears on the lion face twitched. I rolled my eyes and stood in front of him.

“Open your chest compartment,” I ordered.

He wordlessly complied, revealing his core chamber to me. Around his core, I’d given him four mana crystal ports. The ports allowed him to funnel mana through the stones in order to power various spells. In a sense we became our own magic tools. It wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as an organic with an aptitude for that type of magic but it let us cheat a bit. Shiro had two wind crystals, a fire crystal, and an ice crystal installed. The wind crystals were used for extended gliding in his lion form while the fire and ice crystals were used when Shiro cooked.

I removed the fire and ice crystals and put them into a pouch on Shiro’s waist and replaced them with the illusion stones. He made a pained expression that I knew had nothing to do with physical discomfort and everything to do with him losing the ability to chill or heat people’s drinks.

“Okay, close it up and run [cloak()].”

He did as asked and the illusion of warm, golden fur started sprouting all over his face and hands while his spiky metal hair took on a softer texture and his trenchcoat-esq armor plating looked more like a heavy leather. I didn’t have a mirror for him but he looked great. I was happy to see that the illusion code was running properly and I hadn’t messed anything up this time.

“You look awesome buddy. Very regal. King of the jungle and all that.”

“Jungle? Wouldn’t that be a horned ape? Or maybe a grench...” he wondered, tapping a soft looking toe pad on his chin. It made a soft clink sound since he was neither soft nor actually furry.

I waved away his query. “Given all the fur, this disguise will cost you more mana than the one I did for Elita. It’s a much more complex illusion. Try not to let anyone touch you either since none of it has any substance... oh and the fur won’t be affected by things like wind... so you’ll have to be very careful... I guess don’t get too close to people... best at a distance, yeah?”

“I got it!” he yelled, smiling. “I’ll be careful.”

He totally wouldn’t be careful, but it was better than nothing. Rom had finished up with Carnivac and he came online and sat up on the work table. He didn’t look too bad. To sell the patch job, Rom had stitched the new fur in such a way that Carnivac looked like he had deep scars across his face. I hoped it would pass.