Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – Can I call you Rob?

Along the grassy beach between a lake and a forest, partly embedded in the muddy dirt was a deep green coffin-shaped box. It had no markings or outside ways of opening it. The heavy rain slammed against its metal composite exterior as the large leafed trees were waving in the wind. The coffin unblocked, lifting a tiny bit as pressurised air escaped in a hissing puff. The lid opened a full 90 degrees revealing the robot inside and letting the rain in. It had a rough humanoid shape, much flatter and slightly more square torso; a plate along its chest and metallic abs split up by horizontal silver bands facilitating its bending. Shoulders, elbows, wrist, knees, fingers, in fact all joints were large multidirectional hinges looking like cylinders. The feet were flat and split into two: the front and back part linked together with a cylindrical hinge. Its head had an almost angular thruster engine shape with a flat plate on the back of its head, and a deep rounded rectangular indentation in the front that housed 5 objects. Three small lenses and an equally sized contraption all located around its much larger central lens which had a frosted plastic-looking ring around it. For being such a high tech object, it looked rushed in design and almost cheap, all things considered. This was furthered when one looked at things like the hands; which were hard plates with a slight bend, where the fingers extended from. The metal joints had a silver metal colour whereas most of the other platings had a matte rubber coating.

Climbing out of the box it had a cable connected from a socket in its wrist into the box itself. The cable disconnected from the coffin side and reeled into the arm, disappearing completely into its holding place.
The robot looked around for a few minutes, its central lens changing colours several times as it did so. Looking to the dark night sky it stared straight into the rain for a moment before it lowered its head.

Walking back to the coffin it started doing something to the electronics within it, once done a small red light was blinking steadily as a tiny screen was displaying a pulsing wave.

Suddenly the sound of screaming came from the forest not far from where the robot was. It closed the lid to the coffin, as the lid and box connected there was a mechanical whirring sound as it properly closed itself the final distance, sounding like there was an electronic lock engaging after.
Setting off in an inhuman high speed run towards the scream, it made surprisingly little sound on its own as it disappeared into the forest.

Having been running only for a minute at most it came around a boulder to a sight it was not familiar with. Two human men, both well built physically, one had short brown hair and the other was bald, both being in their late twenties somewhere. They were ganging up against a young woman, seeming to be in her mid-to-late teens, long flowing black hair and a simple brown dress, she was slightly bruised and her clothing was ripped. Some of it was from running through the forest in such a simple dress, but other damages were clearly and purposely targeted tears. The two men were wearing some old leather outfit, almost ineffective but ‘better than nothing’ old armour by the robot’s standards.
The woman was cornered against some trees, she was breathing heavily, in fact they all were, but the men were easily better off than the woman.

“Do you require any assistance?” The robot spoke from the forest, startling everyone involved.

The two men shouted some slurs that contained questions about who, or what the fuck it was. The woman struggled to get her words out, exhausted coughing took their place.

Walking closer there was no harm in getting involved, either everything was fine and the humans could leave, or there was an emergency and it was good to get involved.
“Please, help me!” The woman shouted, finally having found her words.

The men drew a knife each, the one furthest away added a warning. “Why don’t you just fuck off and leave us alone, and nobody gets hurt?”
This was clearly a threat.

The robot walked closer, the men got agitated, one of them running towards the robot and aiming a stab. The robot didn’t move in the slightest, the only thing that happened was the blade breaking its tip off as it collided with the much harder metal of the robot’s armoured exterior.
The previously dim teal light coming from the central lens of the robot changed to a dim red. It didn’t speak or make any noise, the servos whined for a short second as the robot grabbed hold of the man’s hand, pulled him in closer and delivered a punch hard enough to break his skull. In a single sharp pulse blood exited the man’s nose as well as around his eyes. Through the new cavity in his forehead spraying blood, brain, cerebral fluid and gore across the robot’s hand and lower arm. The man collapsed instantly without any ceremony.

“Please do not resist and submit for questioning.” The robot’s mechanical voice was oddly terrifying to the both of the remaining humans. It lacked the subtlety of human tone. It was ‘fine’ but didn’t feel natural and all too synthesised.

The man seemed conflicted, he looked around like he was weighing his choices. He clearly wanted to run, but also wanted to attack.
“Please do not resist. The odds of you winning is Zero.” The robot confirmed. It had analysed the situation, the weapons, the armour. The low quality metal of his knife had no chance of doing any damage.
In the end the man turned tail and ran into the forest.

In a supernaturally swift movement the robot had bent down to the dead man, picked up the knife and thrown his dagger at the running man, all of this took much less than one second. The man said nothing and just fell over mid stride, the knife lodged in the back of his head all the way to its handle.

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Turning to the female, the only remaining survivor of the three, the robot squatted down. As the rain was cleaning his right arm at a surprising speed he did a quick scan over the woman. A grid pattern projected across her as a red line moved up and down her for a short few seconds, this caused the woman to shriek out being suddenly startled. As she calmed down only a few seconds later the robot was done analysing her.
“You do not have any threatening damages. The slight scratches and bruises will heal naturally in a few days without problems.”

Just sitting there, the rain bouncing off its hard surface as it landed, it seemed to wait for a response from the woman. She was just confused now that she could look a bit better at the metal man, though its black colour made this harder in the nonexistent illumination of the deep-forest night.
“... err... Thanks?” She sounded very, very confused. Clearly not sure where to go from here.

“You are welcome.” The robot’s voice was again hard and cold, making it a bit hard to feel welcome, all things considered.

The girl got to her own feet, not seeming to feel exactly comfortable with this creature in front of her, though finally mustering a little bravery.
“Just... who or.. What.. are you?” She sounded very hesitant, almost like she expected it to be a rude question of her saviour.

“My designation is X11-5-1, Serial number 13198134.” The voice was without irony or hint of anything that could be considered a jokey tone. “I am a robot built for combat. Although my series are mass produced and comparable cheap to other models, I am built to fight.”

She looked at him blankly, seeming to perhaps have gotten half of that. “Soo... You’re some construct warrior?”

“That is not entirely wrong.” X11-5-1 confirmed. The concept of a robot seemed a bit strange for the woman.

“And your name... is... Robot?” His model number didn’t seem to register with her, nor his serial number.

“I am a robot, like you are a human. My designation X11 is my model number, not unlike different human species. My unique identifier is 13198134.” Putting it in context made sense to its logical brain.

“... None of that makes sense... Can I just call you Rob? That’s a name?” She seemed satisfied with that question, and somewhat proud of the name she was giving the weird construct.

“Understood, my temporary designation is Rob.” He nodded a single quick nod in acknowledgement.

She seemed to feel a bit safer now that the weird ‘face’ had a name. “My name is Liana, by the way.” She smiled widely to her savour.

“Do you have a torch... I can’t see where I’m going in the darkness.” She smiled a bit sheepishly. In her defence it was absolutely pitch black, and the heavy clouds didn’t help.

Without replying Rob got up from his crouched position, the ring around his main lens lit up into a ring-light, illuminating anywhere he looked. “If you explain where we need to go, I can take you there.”

The ring-light was plenty bright to see where they were going, though Rob himself didn’t need the light it really helped Liana, it was brighter than a torch could ever be, removing any danger of the forest.
“Let’s go, then!” The girl shouted to her mechanical saviour, doing her utmost best to forget what she saw happen to the men just a few minutes ago. She headed into the forest illuminated by Rob’s lens-light.

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