Chapter 18: At Any Cost

Rubbish's optics glowed as they glared at his former masters. He smiled as he brought up his launcher and looked down it's sight. The Quintessons braced for the shot, turning their damaged section away from the oncoming blast. Trying to evade is cowardly. They must bear the attack—even if it's from a weapon meant to punch a hole in a star-cruiser. Rubbish smiled as his weapon charged up.

"Ah'd get outa the way if I were you!" he gloated, as he fired the weapon.

The beam shot across the arena and struck the Quintessons' frame just below the torso. The pristine steel was blasted into pieces. Lingering pieces had melted from the heat and were welding themselves to the arena floor. The Quintessons howled as they endured the intense pain. When the dust settled the centre slot was vacant. All faces blinked and tried to reorient themselves. Malice finally crawled his way around their head to take control. He tried to stand, only to feel their body fused to the ground. He looked up at their target to see Rubbish was already stampeding towards them.

Rubbish leapt and slammed their head back down on the ground. The two bodies were similar in size. Rubbish's mess of limbs immediately began scratching, kicking, and grappling the pinned Quintessons. He stared down and was met by five sets of eyes staring back. He soon had a solid grip on both their sets of arms and all five tentacles.

"Y'know wot? Ah always wanted to try this..." Rubbish said with a gleeful grin on his face. He brought up his two original arms and reached for Malice's head. He wrapped his fingers around the horns and started to pull. The Quintessons tried to flail and escape but it was no use. Everyone could hear the slow creak of metal being stretched. Five heads screamed. In an instant, Rubbish was sent flying back as a bright beam of light shot out from inside the Quintessons' body. Rubbish hit the ground as a few fragile limbs broke away.

The Quintesson's torso opened and unhooked itself from the enlarged, spherical head, which started floating upward. It hovered above the ground on an anti-gravity beam originating from inside. Both arms and Malice's face were still intact, but the head wobbled and jerked as he constantly fought to hold steady. They caught sight of their target and quickly moved to engage. They crossed the arena in a burst of light that kicked up plumes of dust and debris. Squads of enforcers stood in awe at their masters going berserk on one of their disgraced comrades.

The Quintessons descended onto Rubbish as he struggled to right himself. His many limbs were constantly getting tangled as they tried to push and pull in different directions at once. The Quintessons immediately began pulling limbs out of their sockets one at a time. With each limb they dismembered, Rubbish tried to strike. But atop their beam of light, the Quitnessons were too agile. Moving as if they were weightless, they soared over Rubbish's brutish arms as they flailed desperately. Other strikes were caught in the beam and pushed effortlessly into the ground.

Rubbish scrambled to right himself as he threw strike after strike to fend off his enemy. One by one each limb was snared by a tentacle and chopped off by a swift, skeletal hand. As his balance returned, he charged again. But this time the Quitnessons glided to one side, grabbed him and used his own momentum to hurl him towards a squad of enforcers. The mob didn't have time to react as the giant enforcer tumbled over them. Each one dropped their weapon to try and seize a limb, they were soon climbing over to pile onto Rubbish, hoping one might deal the blow to end the fight.

The pile of enforcers grew higher until Rubbish could hardly be seen. Occasionally an enforcer climbing up would be thrown across the arena, and the next moment would see the whole pile lurch to one side as the sound of bodies being crushed could be heard under the volatile mass. The Quintessons watched from a distance, but slowly closed in on the brawl. By the time they reached the centre of the action, Rubbish was using the few limbs he had left to rip apart the last of his pathetic contemporaries. Rubbish stood alone at the centre of a crater of broken limbs, and lifeless bodies. His strength had been waning up until that very moment. His power reserves had just enough energy left to look up at the Quintessons before he collapsed from exhaustion.

The Quintessons weren't sure if the body that lied before them was alive enough to be a threat. It lied trembling, desperately searching for the strength to carry on. Out of his multiple limbs that he had started with only three mismatched pairs remained. His firearm was lying somewhere in the oasis of twisted metal. In their deepest thoughts the Quintessons were proud that something they made could be such a formidable adversary. But they would never admit it. They hovered over to the broken heap, and hoisted him off the ground. They carried him over until they hovered over the centre of the molten pool. They let his legs dangle just above the surface, that he might realize his end had at long last come. They waited for him to raise his head and look them in the eyes one last time.

"Ah... yield!" Rubbish uttered weakly.

"But will you submit?" asked Faith. Rubbish slowly gathered the strength to say one final word.

"No."

"Pity." said Faith. With that, the Quintessons dropped the body into the pool and watched it sink. They hovered back over to solid ground to see lines of enforcers aiming their rifles at the protoforms at the centre of the arena.

"What are you waiting for?" Asked Malice, "Fire!"

"They've been trying, sire. These new weapons... they're all jammed." said the nearest recorder.

"ALL OF THEM? That's impossible!" shouted Pride.

"I'm afraid so."

Faith took control and pulled the recorder up by his neck.

"I don't care if you have to use your bare hands. We want those protoforms dead. Now!"

"But... my lord," stammered the recorder as he pointed to the protoforms. "they're completely surrounded."

Faith turned back to the recorder.

"Then what are you waiting for? Advance. Wipe them out!" and he shoved him towards the line of enforcers.

"At once, my lords. Where are you going?"

"That is none of your concern..." said Pride. As he marched off he glanced over and saw the broken remains of Razor half-buried in rubble. "But do have someone bring that scrap to our laboratory. As soon as your finished with them."


Chiron lead Tracer to the rift in the floor of the Colosseum where Rubbish had burst through. Tracer leaned over and saw the heavy mechanisms working underneath. Directly below them was a narrow gap, between a retracted wall section and a vat of molten metal. Chiron was securing anchors and dropping long cables down.

"You want me to climb down there?" shouted Tracer, panicking. This was reminding Tracer of the last time he saw Alpha Trion. His other encounters with deep holes didn't always go well either.

"Yes, I do. I told you you weren't going to like it." Chiron answered smiling. He kept his optics fixed on dropping more cables. Tracer could see nearby protoforms crowding around and not hesitating to slide over the edge and grab the nearest available line. Somehow, Tracer could tell many of these were not the resistance, but merely spectators that followed the crowd after the enforcers started attacking everyone.

As he looked around he saw squads of enforcers closing in. Tracer realized he didn't have the luxury of arguing this time. He grabbed the nearest cable and started down. He kept looking down to make sure he was still following the former platform operator, as he did he looked straight down and saw another dark chasm with no visible bottom.

"I hope your plan doesn't involve falling into that!" shouted Tracer.

"Try not to think about it." shouted Chiron. "You're right above a hydraulic arm, climb down it."

"What arm? This arm?" Tracer stressed as his leg grazed the top of a large cylinder. He looked down to see, it was large enough to wrap his legs around but there was nothing to grab with his arms if anything should happen. "No way!"

"It's your only chance. Straight down has a few maintenance decks. If the fall doesn't kill you the drones will find you easily."

Tracer swung over and wrapped his legs around the tube and carefully slid down. When he reached the bottom he was inside the frame for the arena's articulation grid. Tracer and Chiron grouped up with a small collection of other protoforms from the stands. Tracer followed Chiron through a series of tight gaps leading through service corridors.

"Where are you taking us?" called Tracer as they ran.

"The Quintessons are going to search every possible exit to stop us." The platform operator said. "So what we needed was something that wasn't an exit!"

"And where's that?" asked Tracer as Chiron climbed through as small hole that was cut into a wall section.

"See for yourself." said Chiron as Tracer climbed after him and looked at a familiar hall. They came out right next to an armoured service elevator.

"The dungeons? Are you insane?"

"There's a way out, we just have to get to level six." Chiron said as he lead the party into the elevator.

One of the protoforms dialed the command to take the elevator to level six. They watched the screen register the numbers: two, three, four, five... when suddenly something heavy could be heard crashing on the roof of the elevator. Everyone jumped. They all heard a horrible grinding sound as they felt the elevator lurch and abruptly stop.

"Help me get this door open!" shouted Chiron. Everyone could hear whatever was on the roof begin to scrape and kick his way inside. Tracer leapt over to help.

"I think one of the enforcers followed us." said one of the others.

Chiron and Tracer opened the door enough for protoforms to start squeezing through. Their pursuer on the roof was almost through himself. Tracer looked through the opening and recognized the enforcer from the arena that killed Lug: Fang-Core.

With the last protofrom through the gap Tracer closed the elevator behind them as Chiron drew up a torch and started welding the door shut. He worked as fast as he could until he heard the enforcer jump into the elevator. The door was meant to keep prisoners from escaping when they were locked, and should be almost impossible to cut or bash through. Whether he knew this or not, Fang-Core immediately began to bash his way through the sealed door. His first several hits were loud but hardly dented the door.

Chiron lead the group through the corridor past several occupied cells. The inmates gawked and hooted at the escaping fugitives. Chiron reached an alcove and looked frantically around as the thunder of Fang-Core slamming into the sealed door rang through the structure.

"Where's the access point?" Chiron asked himself. "This is level six, right?"

"Nah, you're only on level five, buddy." chuckled one of the prisoners.

"Dammit. We still need to go down one floor."

"Can this torch cut that deep?" Tracer said tapping his toeplate on a floor panel.

"It'll have to..." sighed Chiron as he lit the torch and started slowly tracing a hole.

Tracer and the other protoforms watched. But they hated feeling so useless. They all looked around for something to make them feel useful. Tracer saw the prisoners leaning against their bars. The nearest one grinned as he met Tracer's optics.

"Need some help?" the prisoner gleamed. Tracer recognized him as Argent, from the first arena fight.

"Not from a murderer like you!" Tracer spat.

"No need to be so hostile." said Argent, nonchalantly. "I didn't exactly choose this career y'know."

"Still, you've murdered protoforms." said Tracer.

"What you call 'murder' is really just a debate to see who wants to live more. I've learned I'm very persuasive when it comes to this... difference of opinions. I see it really as me teaching them that my side really is the right choice. It's never personal, I don't hate my opponents."

The thunder came again from down the hall. Everyone could hear the shattering and bending of heavy metal.

"He's almost broken through!"

Argent pretended to feel sad, "Ugh. I wish there was... some way I could help you. But this cage y'know..." and he rocked on his bars to show how solid they were.

"Oh yeah, I bet you'd love to wreck that enforcer and throw away all the fame and glory you've earned as a fighter." sassed Tracer.

"Throw it away?" Argent held his hands to his face, acting terrified. "Oh, no! What could be worse than slave-fighter they can demote me to?"

"Maybe a dead slave-fighter..." teased Tracer.

Argent turned serious as he leaned against the bars again.

"Well you kinda just made my point, there. Death is death no mater where it happens, but I think the arena has... a few too many rules for my tastes. You may have heard deviations result in immediate and inexorable penalties, I don't even know what that means but it sounds baaad. I want to be where you are, because there are no rules outside the arena. That's how I can finally move up from slave-fighter and keep my winning streak going."

Chiron watched the flame on the torch start to dim. He shut it off and started to kick on the section he'd cut. He slammed his foot several times before accepting the flame hadn't cut all the way through.

"Fine, I'll cut the lock." said Chiron "Might not make a difference, we're out of time anyways."

"Much appreciated. Oh, by the way... could you cut their locks off too?" Argent said, nodding to a row of cells with fierce looking protoforms waiting anxiously at the bars.

"Absolutely not!" groaned Chiron.

"Aw darn," sulked Argent "I forgot to mention that was one of my conditions: they have to come too." Argent made another sarcastic attempt at looking sad.

"Fine." cringed Chiron.

Chiron cut the locks off as he gave a suspicious glare to every inmate that stepped out of a cell. Just as he cut the last lock, the door burst open and Fang-Core tumbled through. The nearest inmate jumped on him and before anyone else could get close, the enforcer grappled with him and bit his arm off in one, clean chomp. The inmate at this time appeared to have a change of heart taking on this enforcer, but as he moved to back away Fang-Core shoved his hand into his chest and crushed his spark chamber.

Argent turned and saw Fang-Core charging down the corridor toward them. He laughed to himself that this was the fight he'd hoped for, although the confined space left more to be desired. There wasn't enough space to surround him, he'd be able to easily take them out one at a time. He looked around and formed his plan.

"Percussor, Concussor, get back in your cells and wait." he ordered. "And you, hand me that torch." he said gesturing to Chiron, keeping his optics on the enforcer.

"It's almost empty."

"It'll do."

Fang-Core howled in rage as he ran. His arms were low, waiting to pounce on his prey. Argent watched calmly as he bounced the torch in his hand, feeling it's weight. He watched the enforcer's feet carefully. The claws gouged deep scratches in the floor with each step. He waited until Fang-Core was the right distance away, dropped down and hurled the torch. It skipped and slid across the floor and neatly landed in between the enforcer's foot and the floor. Fang-Core's optics widened in an instant as his foot slipped forward and and his body collapsed. As he fell, Argent quickly dashed up. Fang-Core's arms were flailing to keep him stable, leaving nothing in his path as he stepped in and drove his knee into Fang-Core's head. The two bodies tumbled together and when they stopped Argent was nimbly standing on top of the limp enforcer.

"You killed him, haha!" said one of the inmates.

"He's only unconscious." said Argent as he pried off a piece of Fang-Core's armour and pulled out his power cores. "Now he's dead. So, which way to freedom, partners?"

"Well, I guess we could try the elevator again." said Tracer.

The group climbed back onto the elevator and pressed the button for level six. The protoforms seemed a little weary about being in such as close space with the escaped inmates. They reached the secret escape hatch and descended into the tunnels. Chiron was prepared with a light augmented onto his arm. Tracer walked close to him.

"So, you were part of the resistance the whole time?" he asked.

"Actually, no. But that's kind of a funny story. I'll tell you when we get there." Chiron said, "We're getting close to the base."

The escapees came to a large chamber with several tunnels leading out.

"Take the third from the left. GO!" said Chiron as he waited behind to cover the rear.

Tracer ran, but before he reached the tunnel something leapt out from one of the other passages and slammed into him. Sending him tumbling. When he looked up he saw the others fighting a single strange drone. Tracer had never seen a drone like this before. It moved fast, yet it's movements were very bizarre. Tracer saw it turn to fend off the other protoforms. Whatever it was, it didn't fight aggressively, it seemed to be playing. The more strikes it had to take to land a hit, the more fun it seemed to have. He knocked two more protoforms down before the team of fighters joined in.

Argent was the next to get in close to this new assailant. He charged up and started with a kick. This new drone turned fast and blocked the kick as another arena fighter came from the other side. Every time someone swung to hit it, it became excited. Every strike that it deflected with little effort made it sad. After several blocks one of the protoforms gave it an opening. The drone stepped in close with joy in it's optics and delivered three sequential punches. All landing in the same spot, with the final punch driving straight through into their spark chamber. The deranged drone shifted expressions several times as the protoforms optics went dark. A spectrum of responses, culminating in a sigh of disappointment that it was over too quickly.

When the drone let his victim fall he looked down at his hands. They were stained with energon. He stared puzzled, and tried to fleck away as much as he could before the arena fighters returned.

Argent was regaining his balance as he readied for another attack. He got in close as the two traded blows and danced around one another. Just as it seemed Argent was ready to land a hit the drone would bend giddily and step out of harm's way. Argent watched as the drone's arms unsheathed blades that fanned out and spun as they slid from wrist to elbow and back again. Argent's fellow arena fighters joined in as they surrounded the assassin.

"Tracer, go!" shouted Chiron, as he pointed again to third passage from the left.

As Tracer started to run, he heard the sickening sound of a spark chamber shatter as the drone cartwheeled over and took him down again. The drone stood over him as Argent and fighters followed. Tracer was lying beneath a crowd of fighting robots as feet stepped over and on him. He could tell the drone was waiting for the chance to rip his spark out next. Argent was the only real opposition, but while he occupied most of the drones attention, each new protoform that joined barely distracted it enough from striking back with full force.

Tracer couldn't stand, so he grabbed onto the drones calf and tried to wrestle him to the ground. The drone was thrown off balance as his knee buckled. He had protoforms starting to pile onto him. As he came down he shifted all his blades to one arm. He swung up and cut one protoform in half at the waist, more energon sprayed over him as he turned and shoved all six blades into Tracers chest. Tracer felt his strength drain as fluids leaked out and systems started jamming. Tracer could feel his inner drone shutting everything down. He tried to find the strength to stay conscious.

Everything faded.


"Forget the anesthetic!" cursed Suspicion.

"We have to replace your synapse implants." diagnosed Pride. "This won't be easy."

"I'll do it myself." concluded Suspicion. He turned to one of the monitors that was connected to the remote surgical unit inserted into their cranium. As he took control, the other Quintessons continued to lay out the parts to repair the gash in their spherical head. Their shared head was currently lying on the operating table inside their personal medical lab. Their body was far beyond repair. It was ideal in zero gravity, but was far too cumbersome while they remained marooned on this planet. Their anti-gravity beam would suffice until a new body could be designed.

"I suggest you let one of us perform the procedure, Suspicion." coaxed Greed, who slid around and tried to retake the centre slot. "You should relax."

"I don't trust anyone to operate on my brain but myself. Thank you." Stated Suspicion, as his face bumped back against Greed's.

Lodex Gamma entered. He kept to the far side of the room while standing at attention where he could be seen.

"Your honours," he said. "I come bearing news from the Colosseum."

"Just tell us Tracer is dead." barked Malice.

"As you wish, Tracer is dead."

"Let's try this again..." Malice groaned. "did you find Tracer's remains?"

"Negative."

"Great." sighed Malice.

"What about the protoforms?" inquired Pride.

"Most of the spectators from the stands have been either apprehended or executed. Many appeared to have followed the escaping Tracer into the caverns beneath the structure."

"Did anyone bother to follow them?"

"To their credit, the enforcers did pursue without a moments hesitation. However, it became clear they were far too heavy for the cables used by the protoforms. As such, we could not follow them."

"Has there been any sign of Atross?" inquired Faith.

"None. It's as though he's vanished entirely."

"What about the protoforms in the rest of the city?" asked Greed.

"After we secured the Colosseum, enforcers fanned out and began rounding up protoforms from all nearby sectors. So far, there haven't been too many problems. If this continues every protoform still in the city will be detained within the next twenty cycles."

"Once the city has been cleansed," began Faith "we must scour the caverns beneath the city until we find the resistance hideout. Every team will have a recorder to ensure the search is thorough."

"Yes, your honour."

"Done." Suspicion withdrew the remote surgical unit and deposited a small pile of bloody electrodes as the other Quintessons began to weld their new pieces into place. With every limb working in unison the task was done in mere seconds. Some of the welds were still red-hot as the Quintessons hovered up from the operating table and put away all their tools.

Pride noticed Lodex was still standing at attention. "Have you anything else to report?"

"Only this." Lodex lead them out into the main chamber of their laboratory, where the remains of Razor lied strewn across the main workbench. The body exhibited damaged from an explosion in the chest, melting from intense heat and other parts that were crushed. Surprisingly, the head was mostly intact. The Quintessons looked at the mess with disgust.

Greed moved to the centre slot, "Such acts should really be beneath us. However..."

Pride took control and finished, "We gave him our word we would punish his failure. And I, for one, always keep my promises."

Suspicion connected a diagnostic cable to Razor's head, "Yes, it looks like his program survived the explosion. Prepare a storage cube."

Lodex immediately walked over to the A.I. archives, but paused just outside the communications station with a bewildered look on his face.

"What is it?" asked Suspicion.

"There is an alert on our long-range scan. The message reads: "Protocol 87-F."

Faith immediately dashed away from the workbench. "Retrieve the cube, Lodex, and carry out the transfer. I was hoping we had something more important than punishing a mere drone, I wasn't expecting something this important."

Lodex did as he was told and returned with the cube to complete the transfer as the Quintessons analyzed their instruments. Each one took a different monitor and used a tentacle to enter commands.

"That anomaly," began Pride, "will pass between us as the Carver ship. It's difficult to identify at this range, but I'm fairly certain it's a black hole."

"Yes, it appears we may finally break radio-silence for the first time since we landed here." said Greed.

"We will only have enough time to make a single transmission." Suspicion pointed out.

"I think we all know who we need most at this time." said Faith. "With the protoforms becoming more of a nuisance each day we must have the insight of the High Court of the Kraken Nebula."

"Yes," agreed Pride, "they do love challenges when it comes to technology. We certainly don't want this to make it back to the Supreme Court, do we?"

"You're right." said Faith. "We had best encrypt the transmission, so that only the High Court will be listening in."

"I'll start working on the encryption." said Suspicion.

"Excellent." said Pride. "Meanwhile, we should gather up as much spark-based technology as we can. The more we can demonstrate, the more certain they will drop whatever it is they're doing and come here."

Lodex finished entering commands into the console.

"The program has been stored, your honours. There is some unused memory, would you like to save a message for Razor to hear?"

"What would you say to him, Lodex?" asked Pride.

"What every intelligent program hates to hear: You're obsolete and we're donating you to a museum."

"Hmm, interesting." mused Pride. "Though I think we've endured his insolence enough to warrant a more personal farewell..."

"As you wish." said Lodex, beginning the recording. "Ready."

Pride hovered their head over and placed his hand on Razor's mangled face. He let out a slight chuckle.

"Razor... Do you think we are completely stupid? Did you think we would believe that rogue protoforms somehow invented a projectile weapon that is identical in firepower to our own? Did you really think we wouldn't have surveillance at our personal armoury? Of course you killed our guards. You allowed Tracer to escape, so that you could prove yourself fit to return to duty. We knew what you were doing the whole time! We rigged the fight so that Tracer would kill you. In killing you he also damned himself. Enjoy floating through the emptiness of space for eternity. Pray you fall into a star. Pray you crash into a rock. Pray for death to release you from your virtual hell."

"Saved, and implanted." said Lodex, as he disconnected the cube and handed it to his masters. "His program will hear that message every cycle. Forever."

"Good." chuckled Malice. He lead their body out of their laboratory and through their throne room. "Hmm, I suppose that if we're going to demonstrate all our spark-based technology, we should have a protoform as well."

Faith concurred "We would have to chose the most loyal and intelligent. Lodex, who would be our best candidate?"

"Spander from melting mill omicron is without a doubt your most loyal model. I can have him brought to the palace immediately."

"Proceed." said faith. As they reached the large veranda at the far end of their throne room. They looked out at their city as they dropped down, taking their weight off the anti-gravity beam and propping themselves on their tentacles. The sphere of their head rotated, bringing the beam to line up with the cube they held in an outstretched hand. They charged the beam and fired the insignificant cube through the atmosphere and out into the eternal void of space.