After my update, I got all of my proxies powered back up and back to whatever jobs they were in the middle of doing. The exceptions being Carnivac and IronHide. Those two got the honor of hanging out in my [Inventory] as I prepared for my mission to Trone.

I thought about also packing Cyclone but I got this strange feeling like the proxy shell wanted to stay behind and hang out with Sentinel and keep an eye on the village. I couldn’t really explain it. It was the same sort of feeling that I’d gotten with Carnivac the night before. By this point I had dedicated subroutines that I partitioned for each proxy. Since each one took on a facet of my personality and a voice of their own, it was just easier to mentally juggle that way.

I liked being able to just let the subroutines run in the background of my mind rather than maintain direct focus on each one. Given the way that I had played them initially, the subroutines would carry on in the same way. Could it be that the subroutines had been becoming more and more defined as they were devoted to “being that character”? As they became more defined, were they becoming more autonomous?

It was a really strange feeling. As Cyclone, I greeted Sentinel and offered to take a trip around the village with him and Prowl. As Sentinel, I was happy to have the big guy along. How did that make any sense?? I’m cracking. That’s the only explanation for it. It was also really weird that I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about this. I mean, sure I had Shiro, but the connection that he allowed with me was different from the connection he allowed with me as Alfred, which was different from the connection he allowed with me as Carnivac. Prowl always felt a bit contemptuous towards me, yet was perfectly chummy with me as Sentinel. Jackie was the closest I had to a friend for the actual me, but that felt more like a “work friend”.

I missed Elita. I wondered what she was doing these days, though I tried not to think about it too much given the crazed state I last saw her in. A set of mechanical hands rested on my shoulders and I felt the conk of a metal head resting on mine. I patted Rom’s hand and looked up at her.

“Let’s get the princess’s body finished up so that we can get your sister back, yeah?”

Rom nodded and went back over to her work station. I must have had her come over subconsciously. I looked over at Ratchet, though it didn’t give any indication of caring and just focused on stripping down a couple of stock bodies for parts while also refining a small sample square of magisteel mesh. Ratchet probably had the least amount of personality of any of my proxies and looked the least human with its six arms, 4 legs, and eight eyes. I had built it with a voice modulator but it was rarely used. As Ratchet, I was aware of being stared at by my main body but there was so much work to do and I, frankly, didn’t care.

At the corner of my work table, Shrapnel was working on a project of his own. He was constructing a small saddle that could be mounted onto a fire squirrel. I had no idea how Sparky would feel about being a mount for Shrapnel, but I thought the idea was hilarious. He stopped his work and looked up at me as I held my hand out to him.

“Come on buddy, I might need your sneakiness tonight.”

Shrapnel nodded and vanished into a disintegration of cubes as I put him into [Inventory]. I looked around the shop, and nodded to no one in particular and headed out the back to the Range. The stars were beautiful without the light pollution of my old world. If anything, the sky was even more alight with smudges of color from distant nebulas. I didn’t see any of the few constellations that I knew, but that was to be expected on a different world.

I should really look into what planet I was even on at some point.

Inspect:Search(planet)

Current planet: Arpigia

“Oh,” I said aloud. “So that’s what the upgrade to Inspect got me, a search function!”

I looked around to share my excitement, but I was alone in the middle of the dirt patch I called the Range.

“Ah. Right,” I said, slumping my shoulders.

“Everything okay Mister Prime?” came a small voice from the edge of the Range.

I looked over to see Baju, one of the two “kid” bots in the village.

“Hey Baju, I’m fine thanks. Where’s your brother? Odd to see you on your own.”

“Eh,” she shrugged, “Yani is over at Mister Uri’s playing with those weird instruments he makes. That’s, um, not really my thing.”

“Ah, say no more. You can’t beat Uri for enthusiasm though...”

“Okay.”

I chuckled to myself, the kids were pretty direct and occasionally brutal, but that’s kids for you.

“Hey, you did all of your own brass inlay work, right?” I asked, referring to the ornate scrollwork that decorated her body.

“Yup!” she said, sticking her chest out with pride. “Also did Yani.”

Yani was also covered in brass inlay work, but he had been his sister’s practice canvas as she perfected her technique. He didn’t particularly care but it wasn’t what you’d call attractive.

“Ratchet and Rom are working on coming up with the designs for Princess Relena’s new body. I think some inlay scrollwork would really take things to the next level for a royal. Think you could help them out?”

“Oh! Absolutely! I can totally help out with that! Later Mister Prime!” she squealed as she ran off to my shop.

Via Ratchet, I watched her enter the shop but skirt around the edge to avoid the inhuman Automata and get to Rom. Rom showed the sketches to Baju and she bounced on her toes as she looked over them. She was a good kid that had a knack for flowing scroll design which I lacked.

I could hear conversations and laughing in the distance. Scara walked past the Range, flanked by Mixie and Grappa. They were headed for the forest and likely gathering up more wood for the inn addition. A village full of robots doesn’t sleep, but I wish they’d take some time off. The construction team had a habit of working continuously on a project until it was completed, without break. Not that I couldn’t sympathize, of course.

With the addition of Jaff and Meern to the construction team, they were up to five members. One more and I’d have a combiner team on my hands. I laughed at my dumb joke and shook my head. It was time to get to work.

“[Power Extreme(CloudBurst)]!” I called out as the CloudBurst centurion armor formed around me. I [Blink]ed high into the air, transformed into my jet mode, and shot off in the direction of Trone.

The night air was cool on my hull and the multiple moons lit the ground below me in shades of pink and purple. Sprinting as Carnivac it took us about six hours to get to Trone but by air I figured I should be there in a bit over an hour if I just used the wind turbines.

I could see the city of Trone on the horizon. Most airborne threats like dragons and wyvern were active during the day so I would likely go unspotted in the sky. Just to be safe, I veered north over the mountains to detour a bit and come up on the Factory from the cliff side of the city.

I reached the crest of the cliff ridge but I could see Automata guards stationed and patrolling. I thought about hitting them with [Liberator] rounds to free them from the Control Curse binding them but I didn’t have a plan to be able to take care of them afterwards. Unlocked and confused Automata were wildcards that could be good on the way out but not heading in.

I touched down out of sight and switched to Carnivac, letting the Carnivac subroutine take over. Carnivac came online and took in his surroundings. He was positioned halfway up a craggy ridge and could see the mana trails of Automata above him glowing against the dark sky with the ultraviolet light overlay. The Automata were backlit as flood lights watched the ridge. This wouldn’t be easy.

Silently, Carnivac crept up to the nearest guard. He glanced around and noticed that floodlight back lighting this one was in view. He cast [ShadowCloud] over the light, letting it flicker before swallowing it up in darkness. Both of the Automata guards looked in the direction of the light. As soon as they were distracted, Carnivac rushed the guard from behind with [ShadowCloak] wrapped around him.

His wakizashi punched up through the Automata’s neck and into its brain module. It wouldn’t kill them, but they’d be floating in the void until they got repaired. Carnivac pulled the limp body back over the ridge and set it sitting against a large rock nearby. They would be pretty easy to spot once the sun came up.

Cloaked in the inky shadow fog in the darkness of the blocked light, Carnivac slipped over the ridge and took out the second guard as it approached the blocked light to inspect it. He propped the body up against the low wall and released the shadow blocking the light before someone else came to take a look. Carnivac peered carefully over the low wall of the building onto the roof to see more guards, but they were facing the other direction looking out over the front of the building.

Near the middle of the roof was a smaller building with a door on it, but it was well lit. Carnivac might be able to make it over to the door without getting spotted but he didn’t like the idea of not knowing what he’d find once he got through the door. He scanned the rooftop and lit on an exhaust column. Smoke from the forges and machinery inside bellowed out.

He crawled up onto the roof and ducked around and behind various pipes and chimneys until he got to one that looked large enough to let him slip in. The exhaust column was huge, at least two stories, it had a ladder for maintenance facing the front of the building. Carnivac ran up to the column and leapt up, spiking in a kunai near the top and pulling himself up enough to catch the top edge.

He looked around before going over, but no one had noticed yet. Once inside the column, there was another ladder going in on the far side of the column. Thankfully it was an easy leap through the smoke to reach it. Below him, steel was being heated to a melting point and skimmed by Automata workers for impurities and slag.

The ceiling was quite high up from where the workers were and Carnivac was able to climb into the support structures and catwalks like he had on his last visit. The amount of building visible from the outside was deceptively small as it continued both down into the ground and back into the mountain. It wouldn’t have shocked Carnivac if he found Lord Jhiax in a swivel chair, petting an overly fluffy white cat.