I didn’t know how long I had been there or even recall coming online, but I found myself in a grand dining room of what appeared to be a wealthy, if neglected, mansion. Thoughts of the last time that I’d nearly killed myself and went offline rushed forward. Would I see Beam again? Was this a fever dream of sorts?

Everything in the room was caked in dust and it looked like there hadn’t been a meal in this room in decades. Stacks of books littered the table and surrounding area, the curtains were drawn and the room was poorly lit by a few candles.

I could see a middle aged, human dressed in a style of clothing I didn’t recognize, though I understood him to be the butler, or maybe he was an assistant. Seated at the table was an old man, also human, tinkering with a very basic, and very crude looking Automata body. Pinned to the walls and littered on the floor were notes and design drawings of this body.

An ornate magic circle had been carved into the wood of the table, around the Automata. The old man held out a hand and the butler brought him a clay pitcher. The pitcher was poured out along the circle and a thick, viscous liquid filled the carved grooves and channels. Though the liquid was nearly black, I got the impression that it was blood that had been processed in some way.

“Do you think it will work this time, Master Rotwang?” the middle aged man asked, peering over the old man’s shoulder.

“It must work, Fredersen... We’ve sacrificed so much,” the old man replied.

Rotwang got up and retrieved an urn from a side table I hadn’t noticed. The urn was covered in papers inscribed with binding magic. He then took a knife that had been placed next to it and slit his forearm, letting the blood ooze onto the edge of the blade. The bloodied knife was then used to slice the binding papers and the urn was unsealed.

Fredersen rushed over with a damp cloth to staunch the bleeding, though Rotwang mostly ignored him. He reached inside of the urn and pulled out a blue gem that pulsed with an inner glow.

“My dear, sweet, Maria...” the old man muttered, seemingly addressing the gem. “I was too late to save your mother and my grief led me to necromancy... my studies and devotion blinded me to your own illness and I let you suffer. Surely you must have felt abandoned. I won’t abandon you again my lovely girl. Thankfully, I was able to bind your soul to this gem. Now, after thirty years and countless failed attempts, you will transcend the weaknesses of flesh and have this undying body of steel and magic.’

Gently, reverently, Rotwang placed the gem into the chest of the Automata. He poured more of the blood from the pitcher as well as some of his own into the chest cavity and over the gem as he began chanting words of power and magic. The magic circle flared to life as light erupted and wind whipped around the room snuffing out the few candles.

Louder and stronger Rotwang chanted as the spell consumed more and more power. Fredersen shielded his eyes and looked away. I would have done the same, but found that I was unable to. I was being forced to watch, to observe, and had no ability to see if I even had a body that could be turned away.

The wind and light eventually died down. The curtains had been ripped from their rods and I could see that it was dark outside. Pale light from the moons crept into the room, but the main light source came from the glowing blue gem in the chest of the Automata and its now glowing blue eyes.

Slowly, the Automata turned its head to look at Rotwang, who burst into tears. Dispassionately it watched him for a moment before mechanically raising a hand. Rotwang spotted the hand and cautiously reached for it, his own hands trembling.

Just as he touched the hand, it lashed out and grabbed him by the throat. Feebly, he clutched at it, trying to pry the steel fingers away. No air, and no sound escaped his lips as the Automata sat up, screaming in sounds that reminded me of an old modem connecting.

With a final crunch, the old man’s windpipe collapsed and he hung limply in the Automata’s grip. The Automata started shaking violently and turned to Fredersen, who backed up to the exit door. If Fredersen was afraid, he didn’t show it. He watched with curiosity and intrigue as, what I assumed was a guard or soldier, opened the door in a panic.

“Everything okay? I heard a strange noise. Gods! What is that thing?” the soldier called out, taking in the situation.

“Capture this thing and lock it in the basement for now,” Fredersen ordered. He scoped up some of the design notes from the floor and looked over them. “This... Automata... might prove to be very profitable...”

The scene around me froze as if someone had hit pause and I felt a warm presence envelope me.

“Ah... So that’s what was sealed... interesting.” the presence spoke into my mind.

I couldn’t turn or even change where I was looking, but the presence felt familiar to me. I tried to respond but seemed to lack that ability as well. The presence squeezed me a little tighter.

“To think I really was `the first` after all. I had a fun time playing with you Prime, it’s too bad it was just for a little bit at the end there. I sent you a friend request so look me up when you’re done. No rush.”

The feeling and warmth of being embraced faded away and the scene before me dissolved into blackness as I saw my own boot sequence kick in.

Various checks and system messages scrolled by as my system started back up, shut down, and started back up again. I was getting some kind of system updates, but none of it looked interesting or granted me any new abilities or permissions.

As I watched the text go by I realized that for the first time in a long time I was alone in my thoughts. In this state there were no subRoutines, no parallel thoughts, nothing. Alone in my own head, I couldn’t help but wonder if anything I did had any meaning.

The boot up sequence completed and my vision kicked in as various start-up systems went through their own checks, giving me little alerts in my HUD and then going away. In front of me was a large expanse of off-white with decorative molding and a fancy chandelier of light stones.

I realised I was on my back and looking at the ceiling. I tried to sit up, but apparently that’s not an easy task when you’re missing everything from the stomach down. I held up a hand— my only hand I guess— and looked it over. My arm was partially transformed with the ruined and bent remains of my arm blade obstructing the mechanisms from closing back up. What was left looked charred and pretty filthy too.

I let the arm flop back onto whatever I was laying on. It bounced a bit. Was I on a bed? I went back to looking at the ceiling. I heard a door open and close from a room or two away followed by the sound of something with a slightly squeaky wheel. I turned my eyes in the direction of the sound to see Duchess Naina Peacecraft looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

Behind her was, of course, her knight, the dragonoid Rankor. To her side was her Automata maid, Laura, pushing what looked like a wheelchair of some sort. Or possibly a low drink cart.

“Let’s get you some fresh air,” Naina said in a syrupy sweet voice.

Laura walked around the chair cart and gently picked what was left of me up, propping me up in the seat. From that position, I could see that I was, in fact, laying on a bed. From what I could recall, it looked like Lena’s bedroom, though who knows if there were more that all looked similar. The covers on the bed were ruined though, thanks to whatever fluids had been leaking out of me.

I felt woozy. According to my HUD my health indicator stat was still critical and various warning messages were still flashing. I wondered why I even came back online, though I supposed that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like rest and chicken soup was going to fix me up.

The maid of the Duchess wheeled me squeakily through the hallways of the castle while the Duchess, herself, prattled on about useless things. Most of which I couldn’t quite hear. Maybe I had a short in my auditory systems somewhere too.

Eventually I was wheeled outside of the castle and we went along the ramparts of the city. From there I could see the massive amounts of destruction that the dragon had brought to the buildings immediately around the castle. I didn’t see any trail of destruction leading to it though so maybe it flew in and just plopped itself next to the castle and started attacking.

I could see Automata construction workers as well as larger species like oni and loxodons working on reconstructing parts of the castle ramparts that had been damaged. Was that an ent? A big tree-like groot was struggling to push a massive boulder up into place to plug a hole while other workers rushed in to seal the cracks.

I also saw a collection of sheet covered bodies in neat rows and columns amidst an area cleared of rubble. Given the nature of the attack, it could have been worse... though not for the families of those that were lost. On an upper castle platform I could see four of the Titan mechs, standing tall and shiny. Gleaming in the afternoon sun.

I craned my neck around to try and look at the Duchess.

“Do you know what happened to the sprint scout Corporal Marshoo?” I asked. “Or Captain Sunni?”

Her eyes turned down on me with a look of derision.

“Why would you assume that someone of my station could be bothered to care about the names of the lower class? Much less, their fates? You might as well be asking a god to care about what happens to a filthy human,” she laughed.

“Is Lena okay?” I tried again.

“How DARE you!” she screamed, grabbing my head and pulling back on it. “How dare you take such a familiar tone when regarding PRINCESS RELENA! Toys like you should know their place! Everything is so busy now that we are at war. Her highness has no time for playing with toys, especially broken pieces of junk.”

She let go of my head and looked down at her gloved hand in disgust. We stopped moving, and she held out her “soiled” hand to let Laura remove the glove and replace it with a “clean” one.

“Still!” The Duchess screamed. “She won’t shut up about Prime this and Prime that and keeps worrying herself sick over this useless heap of garbage! The empire needs the Princess now more than ever, and the Princess needs ME. The Princess does NOT need you.”

“You’re making a mistake,” I argued, though as I looked out, I could see we had walked the city wall until we reached a dumping point where scrap and waste was tossed over the wall.

“Ha! Hardly!” she chortled. “The Princess may be a bit cross with me for a bit, but this is for her own good. She’s too old to be playing with dolls. If she gets really angry, I’ll just buy her a new one and she’ll be perfectly happy again.”

Naina stepped back and flicked her fingers in a shooing motion over the wall. Laura looked down at me and grabbed me with one hand by the head, lifting me up. I tried to grab at her arm with my remaining hand but it wasn’t responding properly. She swung me backward for her toss and I pulled a [Liberator] round from [Inventory] in hopes of smashing it into her, but I missed the grab and it fell uselessly to the ground.

I swung back forward again and was tossed over the edge of the wall, headed for the mountain of scrap and waste, discarded by the city.

“[HotSwap(Cyclone)],” I tried, but I got an error message. My body shape had changed too drastically to align with the body mesh map to accurately form the proxy shell around me.

Instead, I tumbled down the refuse pile, clattering and bouncing until I came to rest at the bottom. I was now, unceremoniously thrown out of the capital city, laying among broken carts, discarded magical tools, and even some rejected Automata. I guessed other rejected Automata would be more appropriate.

Picking through the junk I could see material scavengers carefully climbing and searching through the pile. Maybe my next stop was to be the project of some low end artificer looking for scrap parts.

The empire will need her if they are headed to war. The prince will certainly need her, it’s not like you have anything to offer.

You liked to think that maybe you were a hero, like the guy you named yourself after but you’re just a guy playing with toys.

You couldn’t even keep your promise to your best friend and in the end, she ended up saving you instead.

Which one was that? Mainframe, maybe? It’s not wrong though... I built myself up and put myself in a position where a lot of people were depending on me and look at me now. Once again, I’m reduced to a pile of parts because I did something stupid.

If I had backup parts, something like this wouldn’t even be a setback.

This might even be an opportunity for some upgrades, right? Failure or not, even if Princess Relena didn’t need me, there were others that I could still help. It was too early to give up.