A Little Insight [K414/Invite]

K4 was on Hibernal's payroll, but the cyborg knew what would become of the lizard once his conquest stalled, his allies scattered, and his enemies joined together to bring him down. The machine man's own calculations said as much, in no way would this galactic conqueror stray from the end of all other galactic conquerors, dead and a footnote to history. The General was an intensely interesting man, more's the pity, but K4 needed to diversify his assets.

He ran the numbers, and found another man to... serve, in a sense. Azoth, a fledgling lord, far too young and far too powerful to not make a bid for the throne. His humble (for a lord) beginnings ánd military service hinted at the exact sort of profile perfect to be pit against more established aristocrats. It spoke to the anxieties of the laborers, without fully rupturing with arcosian orthodoxy. In short, a lordling of the small lordlings, his movement would doubtlessly have the a more industrialist bent to it. Not that he expected Azoth to grasp wholly any matter besides warfares. Arcosians were hyperfocused to the extreme, he knew the case of a seamstress that wove plastic fibers so finely that a war was waged for her hands. He hoped for the same sort of talent from Azoth.

Having followed the man for a good hundred and thirty-four hours, he leapt on him — metaphorically — when he was at his most vulnerable. A flip phone, old and earthling, would ring on his person. If Azoth was so brave as to open the lid he would be met by the following message: 

Osu!! Dig the tech best budy? (Y/N)

There was nothing more satisfying than pulling a trick and doing it well, especially on a mark so smart and dangerous. :> filled the screen before it shut off and the lid closed by itself. K4 was busy flying his unmarked drone into a smoke stack, and masking his presence as he followed Azoth through the cameras and scouters around him. It was strange connecting to so many and so different systems at the same time, he likened it to a pure organic noticing all of the sudden how their ears click when they swallow. Or was that just him? His inventors had fixed it, so it wasn't much of a concern anymore... He returned again to his little lizard, comparing how he acted now to before.

The lid shot open. K4 was taking material from a idol fandom chatroom, hoping to put as much distance between himself and this alter-ego as possible. Plausible deniability and all of that.

Osu!! Some really bad peeps want us dead
Old blood v new blood, u know how it goes
Feel like not dying 2day, arcobro?

The machine man was on Hypothermy Plaza, not too far from the Lord. He had a plan, a great plan.

Oh, this was going obscenely well! K4 thought that making use of the unstoppable breakdown of the organic body — that tragic process that culminated in death — was a master stroke. Not everyone was afraid of it, he was once told, which was why he had briefly considered infecting Azoth with a nanite disease, dismissing the idea as he had neither the time or equipment to alter himself so much... Still, he had archived that succulent devilish morsel in some dark corner of his database, under the folder "Plan_200-299".

:>, he messaged to Azoth. A loading bar would take over the phone and slowly fill out as the machine man hacked into a ship. Done, the screen flashed with a very crunched and pixelated rendition of the ship his lizard had just passed by. It was still recognizable by its high domed cockpit, disk-shape and tripod legs. Over the image was a bar screaming 'rigged 2 xplode!!'.

The ship blew up. Or rather, the motor short-circuited and a plume of smoke rose from it, buckling the legs and crashing the vehicle against the sidewalk. It was so pitiful and so slow, that besides some worried passersby, nobody seemed to notice.

whew! read the phone.
I wouldve done better


How r u?

His target had deviated from the predicted course, but a failed set-up was always in the plan. It worried him slightly that Azoth was nearing Hypothermy Plaza... Could he possibly know what was going on?

think the killer robot will f up 2?

K4 wrung his hands, running algorithms in his head, promptly deleting them once Azoth set foot on Hypothermy Plaza... Damn it all! What use was the most advanced CPU in the galaxy if not even it could account for every variable? The one certainty, now proven false, that K4 had in this whole plan was that success was assured for as long as the lizard lord kept away from him — but now that was no longer the case, he was again wrestling with pure chance! And the plan had been going so well...

The plaza was dominated by the statue in its center, Lord Hypothermy in marble holding up to the skies the maned head of a bestial alien. As well as acting as a router, the colossus brought to the android's mind the eccentricities of the man: his use of body doubles and obsession with pitting would-be rivals against one another. He knew for a fact that the lord could have never killed the sort of monster he was sculpted with, but he nevertheless admired the dead man's guile. He liked that in every planet there were these tall tales and legends, especially these of such a recent past... And the statue had served as inspiration for this next step!

K4 had been to the Broiling Moon, not only to reap some bounty money but also to get the parts to build an android. A full android, with the sort of processor commonly used in million-digit calculators. No chance to develop a consciousness, then, the saiyan cyborg made sure that it would not feel anything either... Put simply, the 'droid was a input/output battle marionette that he sent rocketting at the arcosian without warning.

The thing reeked, roared, its 3ft and 1000 pounds shaped into the form of a bull-horned carnosaur. K4 was watching from the balcony of a restaurant, disguised in the tight-fitting clothes of a sommelier. He could not stop himself from actually seeing his creation battling their target. Then again, there were a lot of people looking at the scene, most of them running and screaming away. Typical tourist behavior.

oh boi!

Something about this didn't feel as it should. Was this plan truly bloodless? The 'killer robot' he had built was meant to be destroyed, but that did not make it deserving of a life measured in seconds, spent in mad combat and servitude! Sadly, this was a sacrifice already set in motion, and even if K4 could stop it... would he? As the patrons fled around him he leaned on the balcony railing, leaving on it grooves of his mechanized digits.

His sweet carnotaur child, assembled in a type that in nothing resembled his own, buckled under the ki sword. It roared in a composite file K4 poured hours into, it sounded like crocodile with a jet engine for a larynx bellowing in the heart of a cave! How proud was the android of that haunting, primal noise...

He wished to protect it, but that was impossible. He was keenly aware of all the cameras, scouters, phones around him. It'd be enough for one of them to not be connected, to catch him in the act of fighting an arcosian noble, before even Hibernal's orders, for his reputation to go down in flames! Nobody ever hired a showy secret mercenary, a step ahead the wishes of their employer.

"Forgive me." he whispered to the war toy as it slid between Azoth's legs, diving for a chomp at the base of the arcosian's tail. Perhaps it would cut it off, K4 hadn't specified how much force to put into it.

K4 winced when his robot sunk its teeth into the tail, it even managed to draw blood! The mechanist smiled and his heart swelled with pride, but the whimsy soured with the reminder that his creation would never bite again, either ferociously or in play. It had carried out its function, and now was time to die.

The carnotaur dangled from the tail, brought to the level of Azoth's eyes, trying to tear as much meat as it could. It felt nothing and thought nothing as the ki-blade sliced through its power core. Light faded from its bulb eyes, its sensors sent out only static to its maker... The cyborg counted the instants until the NCLB Protocol engaged, he had copied it from his own code. Afraid, curious, he kept on looking.

... oi

Suddenly from the joints and openings of the robot came a fizzling yellow-green liquid. The hull tore apart in handfuls of metal slop, strands of wire frayed and burnt fell to the ground like bunched guts, dissolving away in the pooling acid. Arcosian bioarmor wasn't reactive to it, but a shallow hole spread to Azoth's feet, bursting a crack down to the plumbing.

been a sec, u dead? (Y/N)

K4 disappeared into the restaurant. He was going to take the elevator, go to terrace, fly away from this cursed plaza and its ugly brutish statue. He'd disappear among the other flyers and ships if given the chance.

Well would you look at that, Azoth did have some neurons. K4 supposed he deserved a small measure of the truth, but he wouldn't get any. The lord was also owed some respect for not wanting to fight somewhere so full of people, and that the cyborg could afford, smothered as it would be by layers of slang and nonsense.


u think im the bad peeps??
i been watching over u 24/7 making sure u wouldnt die

K4 set course to the iceberg where he and Polarus would meet. Brief as his stay on Arcose was, every hour was a race to set up as many contingencies and failsafes as possible, and this was the arcosian he was betting on should Azoth fall not long after Hibernal.

look ik having a guy telling u all about this is mighty sus but like u need to trust people u need to trust me bc the people who want us dead dont know that we know eachother friend azoth my name is k9 and id like u not to die bc if u die im next and then the old bloods will rule forever and get nothing done now that u know this if u still dont trust me well i think that makes u sus

see u monday xx

That ought to be deranged enough to come off as passably believable, yet no so trustworthy that it wouldn't inspire some sort of investigation. He wanted this piece making moves of its own.