CHAPTER 1: "Happenstance."

"The hardest moments in your life are always your best. Embrace the pain and despair of your condition, for it is what distinguishes Machine from Man. Man from Animal. Animal from Dust." - The XII Mechanor Tridex (Circa 1958).  

It was another routine day for the Scrappers.

Currently, it was around 16:44 ST in the cold empty husk of a junkyard that they called home. It was about time to head on back to Outpost 6 and offer the few valuable scraps they found in the Ruins to the Lords.

A small, monstrous, and lithe robot with orange highlights and glowing yellow eyes clawed at an indistinct pile of junk, its eyes intensely focused on the strange trinkets that composed this pile of detritus.

The orange robot would fish out a peculiar piece of Ore-Silver composite that had four fingers with a missing thumb "Guys! Found this strange doohickey in Pile Number #89!" yelled the tiny little robot to his companions: a slightly taller, triangular, and grey robot armed with dual missiles on its arms observing a strange silver spheroid, a black robot with spikes protruding from every inch of its body sulking in the corner, a massive robot with artillery on its arms and shoulders looking out for targets, a hunched, silver, and rusting robot with dual mounted laser rifles on its shoulders, and two short insect-like robots attempting to cheer themselves up at the corner.

"Not again.. What piece of scrap did he find now?" muttered the grey robot while he fiddled with his spherical metal skull.

"Might be useful." said the massive robot, who was peering out into the vast ruins of the junkyard that lay above them.

The grey robot tossed away the skull into another pile with more body parts resembling it, "How does Hephaestus keep finding the worst places to scavenge? First, it's Pile Number #425 with all that random aristocrat crap from Sector 7, then Pile Number #721 with nothing valuable but a NeuroCore from some guy's dead head. Now, it's some random pile from Triad-knows where with just nothing! Plain nothing!"

The spiked black robot used his sharp teeth to chew on some stray wires in the pile while sitting down on the pile "Tell me 'bout it."

"Don't think I'm on to you too Hades. One more wrong move and you're going in Pile Number--"

The black robot stood up from the pile, "#75? I think that's what you were going to say. You got my parts from Pile Number #13, not #75. I thought you were smarter than this 'Bomb!"

Hades wheezed with amusement as his large frame began to damage portions of Pile Number #91.

"Shut your trap and get back to work." Dreadbomb retorted, his arm missiles began to hiss as smoke flew out of their exausts.

Hades fidgeted with the source of the stray wires: a dead Peace Division grunt with a missing head "Sure thing boss!"

Dreadbomb pointed to the massive robot, as he and the orange robot were inspecting Pile Number #89 "You too Dreadnaught!" 

Dreadnaught held out his index finger behind him and towards Dreadbomb "Quit it. Blowstick found something interesting in this pile."

Hades shrugged "Might even be what we're looking for Boss!"

Dreadbomb would probably contest Dreadnaught's decision, but he remembered that 'Naught could easily tear him in half if he really wanted to. Hades had 'prior experience' in the Peace Division so that was a no-go too. 

"Fine. Majority vote?"

Blowstick, Dreadnaught, the old robot with the laser rifles, and Hades were all holding up their fingers. Blowstick held up his hand in a devil horns gesture, the old robot held up a pinky finger with both of his hands, Dreadnaught raised his index finger, and Hades crossed his middle and index fingers on both hands: one raised to Dreadbomb and the other behind him.

"Can't believe we're bothering with this.." Dreadbomb sighted as he clasped his head with one hand. "What is it?"

"A body!" yelled Blowstick, who began rummaging through the numerous pieces of scrap that composed this particular pile.

"We see bodies all the time.." remarked one of the insect-like robots, who was consoling his distraught companion.

Blowstick signaled with his hand, "No Reject! This one's different! It has a Qionic Signature!"

Dreadbomb sighed "Entertain him. We shouldn't waste this waste of our time by talking."

"Good call." muttered Dreadnaught.

The Pile had already been dismantled, most of the junk that composed it was scattered around the body of a peculiar Scout Ranged Versatility Unit 42 type Mecharus.

Its head was in Televised Broadcast mode, as its Withdrawn form's head was seemingly missing from its head assembly. Notably, it wasn't a Set-Top-Box like its modern counterparts. Instead, it was a flatscreen. 

The Scout Ranged Versatility Unit's color had grown heavily discolored, as its silver finish had withered down into a rusty grey.

The SRVU-42's head was linked up to the upper chest unit, which had numerous dents and was falling apart near its joints, which didn't even have limbs nor a lower waist.

Dreadbomb sighed, "Is this some sorta practical joke Blowstick? When you said 'macabre', I didn't think it'd involve staged corpses."

The old robot pointed at the Scout Unit's Broadcast Head "I'd hate to be one of those y'know? To live with that piece of crap on me at all times." The old robot snapped his fingers "Heard lately that they've been broadcasting some Talkies on those fancy TVs they have."

"Talkies? The hell are those?" Dreadbomb inquired.

"Back in my day, they used to show words on the screen to represent dialogue on a screen. They said it's to 'encourage good reading in the new arrivals'. Now the guys on the TVs just speak the words 'stead of showing them. Mechs from the Precursor Generation call those 'Talkies'."

"Oh got ya, so it's just a bunch of nothing. Ain't that right Crackpot?"  

"If you wanna believe that. Go ahead. I ain't gonna complain." sneered Crackpot.

Blowstick whispered "Guys! Look.."

The SRVU-42's flatscreen began to flash with strange geometric shapes, an insignia depicting a king flanked by pawns from an ancient tabletop game the Caretakers called 'Chess', an eye surrounded by three arrows pointing up and to its sides, and an emblem depicting what the Caretakers called a 'Cow' smiling as a Caretaker's fetus burns inside while crying.

Hades gazed at the Scout Unit whilst his hands were fiddling with the head's wires, "Heh. Say it ain't so! The damn flatscreen actually works!"

The Scout Unit's Broadcast Head then shutdown, with the flatscreen turning to a pitch black.

Dreadbomb sighed "Oh well! False alar-"

"Look Dreadbomb! It's activating again!" yelled Blowstick.

The flatscreen began to display a 'Loading in 10..' GUI, and it began to count down.

"This is the worst bomb I've ever seen Blowstick." muttered Dreadnaught, who had begun eyeing the distance for any rival Scrappers attempting to steal their loot. Even if their loot was nothing special, they wouldn't want to risk a surprise ambush.

By this time, the loading screen had counted down to 6, 5, 4

3.

2.

1.

The flatscreen turned pitch black for a second before lighting up again.

The display would attempt to reorganize several random geometric shapes into the Scout Unit's face as what remained of its body began to convulse violently. The SRVU's face would then turn into a glitchy mess of white noise as it began to emit a faint screaming noise.

First it was a male voice.

Then a young girl.

The voices would meld together into a hybrid chorus. Apparently, this model had been damaged when it was delivered to the junkyard.

The chorus would sing. Or more accurately, it would scream.

Dreadbomb stuttered his way through what should've been a simple sentence for him "Blowstick.. what the hell did you just find..." 

The screen's face would begin to change color from the default grey, to a hideous green, then to a fluorescent yellow.

Then a violent, glowing red.

After that, a sad, somber purple.

Finally, the SRVU would settle on a bright cyan blue as its main display color.

The simple shapes that had begun to appear on the SRVU's screen would once again begin to deform and rearrange into a face. This time it was successful.

Most of its face was simple and rudimentary to the point of being unsettling. Its eyes were completely closed, like it was sleeping.

The screen's mouth was far more detailed in comparison to its eyes, and its mouth had begun to twitch.

Like it was afraid. Afraid of the fate that it had already met.

After a short silence, the face of the SRVU would convert into its normal form. What it would've looked like in its normal life.

Unlike the spectacle it had shown before, this face was calm. If its previous face was horrified, then this face was at peace. Like it was asleep.

Crackpot took a long drag on his gasper, taking a moment to enjoy as much of the sensation of the smoke that his sensory receptors would allow.

Dreadnaught glanced towards the SRVU, his eyes would widen once he got a read on its face "My goodness.. No--it can't be.."

Dreadbomb pointed towards the Scout Unit, a certain stress in his voice "You know this guy?" 

"I'll explain it to her once we arrive back at base."

"Her? How well do you know this thing Dreadnaught? I noticed you raised down your railguns. Don't think you could get tired of those even if you want to." 

Dreadbomb would nudge Dreadnaught as he stared at the SRVU's head "What's going on here pal?"

Dreadnaught would raise his hand like a claw towards Dreadbomb, with his hand mere inches away from his face "Nothing alright?! I just need some downtime later.."

"Ok.. Alright.."

Dreadbomb looked at the rest of the Scrappers. Blowstick had begun to look away from the body into the piles of scrap that loomed above them in the distance.

As usual, Crackpot was merely taking drags from his cigarette, Hades was grinding his nails together, and Reject had to hold his companion back from beating up the corpse even whilst it was booting up.

"Damn you! Damn you!!" Deject screamed as he began to damage himself.

"Deject! Please! She's already gone! Take a look at her, there's no way she's coming back!"

Deject grunted in response as he began to bang at the body. "So what?! Then she won't care when I do this!"

His fist had already made contact with the inside of the Scout Unit's chest, with parts rattling underneath its cold, dead metal shell.

Deject would stop at the second punch, which had cracked the display of the SRVU into three jagged sections.

"You know what? Fine.. You deserve this.. But so do I.." Deject's voice trembled as he began to tear clumps of metal off his own body, his efforts becoming weaker with each injury to his mainframe.

"No!--No please!" Reject yelled as he restrained Deject within his arms.

His hands suddenly became sharp, and Deject felt a pain in the back of his left arm.

He then fell into torpor, his body crashing onto the ground face first. He was mere inches from the Scout Unit.

"Alright.. Time's getting late. We should head back to Outpost 6 to deposit the goods then head back home." said Dreadbomb with a hint of impatience in his voice.

"Are we taking the Scout with us?" inquired Dreadnaught, who had an uncharacteristic swiftness in his voice when compared to his normal slow, deep drawls.

"Honestly, I'd say no but we've come too far to ditch things that we can carry along." remarked Dreadbomb. "We'll need all the scrap we can get."

Dreadnaught motioned to the serene face of the sleeping SRVU "Oh. One more thing. We are not scrapping the Scout Unit."

"Alright then.. Have to tell you something there 'Naught. If this thing doesn't wake up in the next four days, I'm going to get rid of the Scout Unit."

"You remember the Contract we signed to the Lords, right?"

"Yes, Yes. I know the whole deal. Don't eliminate any of the scraps. They could be 'useful to the Triad'. But that doesn't mean keep 'em around."

"If your idea of not keeping them around is disposing of them, then yes. It does mean keeping them around."

"Alright then. But if the Scout messes up our operation, then I'm disposing of this thing." Dreadbomb hissed. 

Blowstick sighed "Fine..." as the group moved away from the Piles towards Outpost 6.

Hades did a low giggle as he begun to grab several nondescript parts from Pile Number #87 "I can tell this'll be fun."

"Yes. I concur." said Crackpot as he tossed the burnt-out cigar away.

The Scrappers would decide who among them would carry which item.

Dreadnaught would insist that he carry the Scout Unit, and since he was over 26 feet tall when the next tallest of the group was around 22 feet tall, no one would argue with him about carrying the SRVU.

Blowstick would carry all the small goods: all the knick-knacks that the Socialites seemed to dump into the slagheap as the saw fit. This was due to his measly 14 feet tall height not allowing him to carry all the heavy scrap in the junkyard like his companions could.

Hades would be responsible for moving all the body parts that they found in the piles. He was around 15 feet tall, so he was more than able to pull this off. Regardless, no one among them was vying for the role to carry the severed limbs besides Blowstick, and he was too small to carry them all. 

Crackpot was tasked with transferring all the other large parts that were too big for Blowstick to carry and too uninteresting for Hades to carry. Crackpot didn't mind, after all the years he's been in the junkyard, he learned to tolerate menial labor.

While he would normally get all the things that demanded tact due to their fragility, Reject would be spared from this task. Instead, Reject would get the unenviable task of carrying his unconscious brother from the Piles all the way to the base, all while hearing his mumbling on how he wants to tear the Scout Unit and himself apart.

Last but certainly not least, Dreadbomb would carry all the miscellaneous things that the others didn't want on their person, whether it be severed limb, silly trinket, or piece of outdated technology.

They would pack up the scrap on their Loaders and the Scrappers would begin their long journey to the center of the junkyard.

To the outpost..