Chapter 3: Chapter 3 – The beam

The man in charge didn’t like the response and the blatant disobedience. “Hyd, take it into custody-” After ordering Hyd he moved his focus properly back to Rob. “-Do not resist, it will only end badly.”

Besides some changes to the main lens, Rob had shown no hints that he was planning to do anything, however under the surface the combat program was properly loaded and active. He was not in attack mode but rather self defence mode, especially based on the primitive nature of their weaponry.
Turning his head towards Hyd who was trying his best to walk around Rob, he had put his spear away, leaned it against the stone wall and loosened some manacles from his belt, aiming to put them around Rob’s hands.
“I recommend you do not follow that order, I will not attack but I will defend myself as I deem necessary.” It was hard to read the statement due to lack of an actual voice, but even with that handicap it was absolutely clear that this was a threat of the unknown.

“Construct, disable yourself and stand down.” The man in charge seemed to be aware that these constructs could self-disable. And though Rob could absolutely do that, there was no chance.

“Allow me to leave and there will be no bloodshed. I only wish to recharge.” Rob was programmed for combat, deadly and effective combat with an absurd amount of lifetimes of knowledge put in his programming, however he was also programmed to preserve life where possible, this hybrid of concepts boiled down to an attempt at diplomacy.

It fell on deaf ears.

Hyd was not happy and logically scared as he walked over to Rob with the manacles, Rob quickly processed that this was probably a show of force for the other people, though a robot as himself, and potentially other ‘constructs’ might not be disabled by it, it was a show of disabling someone.
Hyd was at the moment doing his best to not threaten the futuristic combat-bot, but doing his best to follow orders. Rob heard muttering under Hyd’s breath, praying to some god that he didn’t want this to go badly, just let this go well.
Rob interpreted this as Hyd not wanting to be a combatant and registered him as such, until he showed any aggression he would not disable him.

As Hyd came into range he grabbed Rob’s metal wrist and tried to make him move it behind his back, needless to say Rob didn’t budge in the slightest.
This caused anger with the leader of the group who seemed to at this point having run out of patience, he stepped forward and delivered a strong thrust of his spear at Rob’s chest.

Rob didn’t move.

The spear contacted Rob's faked metal pecks in a dull plink as it didn’t even properly make it through the rugged rubber coating around Rob’s futuristic armour plating.
“Understood.” Rob replied in his cold voice, he took this as a response to the request of letting him leave.

Rob’s main lens’ aperture blades opened to their widest opening as his head spun a full 360 degrees around, this alone made people uneasy though a modern soldier would recognize this as the robot doing a full area scan to have everything in mind for combat.
In an instant and swift movement afterwards Rob broke the spear’s metal tip off and threw it at the man in charge, it lodged itself deep in his throat extending through his neck, the man let out a single gurgling cough as blood filled his throat. The man fell down like a light switch had turned him off.
This had Hyd drop the manacles and run away shouting that he was sorry, over and over again, the noncombatant flag was left on him.

There was three incoming crossbow bolts and two very uncertain guards on the inside of the wall, a show of force to everyone around had Rob deciding to not dodge the crossbow bolts, they all landed against Rob’s hard exterior, two of them straight up breaking against his metal hull, the last hitting a slanted surface and just tumbling into the still moist dirt.
The leader of the group was bleeding profusely even though his neck was most likely severed as Rob detected a surge of the weird energy signature Lyever displayed before when he was doing his illogical powers.
A quick glance showed that he was forming a circle in the air, it was not yet complete but it was close, to the best of Rob’s analysis, some of the smaller circles didn’t yet have runes in them so it was a best guess.

Rob crouched, in the same motion he picked up the manacles and threw them at the man, aiming for the circle he was creating. This gamble proved to work out, as the manacles passed through the glowing circle it seemed to destabilise and fade on its own, the manacles contacted Lyever in the chest and knocked the air out of him, forcing him to drop to his knees.

Noticing that the crossbowmen were working on reloading their ranged weapons there was another precedence to be set. Taking two steps towards the crossbow bolt that survived the hit, Rob picked it up and aimed at the only crossbowman he could barely see between the gaps of the stones on top of the castle wall. Having felt the balance of it in his hand after picking it up, a blindingly swift movement of Rob’s left arm had him throw the dart in a flawless manner at the man’s head. The sheer speed had it pass through the head with such force that the bolt disappeared in the distance. Only the fletchling remained stuck to the circumference of the entry wound in the man’s skull, most of the other side of his skull was missing and its contents had spread itself across the battlement in a fine pink mist.

Not being in war-mode, but still in self defence mode, Rob simply got back on his feet and allowed everyone to process what had happened. In the course of about 6 seconds Rob had killed their leader, allowed one man to run away, tanked three crossbow bolts, disabled their mage and thrown a crossbow bolt at supersonic speed at one of the ranged attackers. This seemed to successfully send a message as there were no further attacks.

“What... what do you want...” One of the guards on the inside of the walls asked through a pleading voice, clearly wanting to deescalate the situation rather than fight.

“I wish to recharge my power cell.” The tone of his voice hadn’t changed at all, but it seemed to carry much more weight.
Before, he tried to be civil, at least as far as his programming let him, though he’s only in self-defence mode these people are flagged as potential enemies, and they seem to have something he needs. Being in an unknown setting and indeed an unknown world the programming is more free.

Commanding in the ever same synthesised voice Rob walked over to the mage. “Create the electricity like before, and hold it as long as you can.” Though there was no tone to the voice, given the scenario that had just unfolded the mage seemed to not resist.

Doing as instructed he formed the same magic circle, taking his time, seemingly out of fear. The circle looked the same as the first time he made it, collapsing into a sphere in between his hands before pulling out a large electric arc.
Rob analysed it more than last time, taking the remaining of the spear handle and putting that into the lighting. Once it charred and combusted he analysed the result for a few seconds before pulling out a thick cable from his right wrist. Rob took the cable in his left hand as a blade extended from another slot in his right wrist, it made a barely audible high pitch whine as it looked almost blurry to the naked eye, he pulled the cable through it which cut it instantly and without effort. Using a few more seconds he stripped the ends of the cables, ending up with a bunch of small cables with exposed wiring. The whole process took less than 10 seconds.

Holding them separately he seemed to process for a few seconds he ended up putting them in different parts of the lightning arc. This seemed to destabilise the lightning a little, uncertain if this was due to the hesitance of the man producing this or the existence of the cables, Rob tried again now that the man at least knew it was happening.
This time it remained stable with the cables held within the arc.

They stayed like this for a solid few minutes before there were the foot sounds of a group of men walking closer. It didn’t take long for them to come out of the gate and see the events from just a few minutes ago as well as whatever was currently happening.

“What the fuck is going on here?!” A middle aged man with thinning black brown hair on a receding hairline and some scars going through his left eyebrow and under his eye. He had a fading brown beard with a slightly pointy moustache. He wore a similar outfit as the other men but his had a medallion and some more ornamental engravings along the chestpiece.
Alongside him through the gate came eight more men, dressed and armed similarly to the men out here.

“Captain Tarn, I... I think I am recharging it...” Lyever replied as he maintained the electric arc for the metal man.

“Then fucking stop and explain what’s going on.” The captain ordered, his voice was pissed.

“I... I don’t dare to.. Sir...” It was clear that he wanted to, but it seemed that he feared Rob even more. The man in charge inhaled to respond, but Lyever continued before he could say anything. “I want to leave, Captain... But.”

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Rob didn’t move more than he needed to compensate for Lyever’s shaky hands and unstable stance. Keeping the cables in the needed sweet spots needed for a proper effect.
One of the other guards ran up to the man in charge and started whispering to him, Rob overheard it all easily enough; it was all explaining the events that happened here. Rob took note that he was apparently moving faster than anything this man had seen, it was a decent benchmark.

“You, construct. Tell me the fuck you’re doing in my city.” This was clearly a man in charge, his voice carried well and he was clearly used to the respect that came with whatever position he had.

Rob turned his head to face the new man in charge, he had enough sensors to keep adjusting for the mage’s unsteady hands.
“I am recharging, once I am done I will leave.” For the first time there was a man who didn’t react to Rob’s harsh voice, his men reacted a little to varying degrees but he simply lifted an eyebrow.

“The hell you are, you killed one of my men-” one of his men sharply whispered that one of the archers was also taken out. “Two, two of my men, good men. And you expect me to let you leave?” He absolutely didn’t sound like he planned to let Rob leave.

“Yes.” Rob’s voice like always didn’t hint to one way or the other, a simple affirming reply.

The channelling mage was getting more and more worn out, though he hadn’t been doing this for the ten minutes he hinted to before that he was capable of doing this, the stress and fear of an immediate death probably didn’t help.
As the lightning flickered and seemed to destabilise, Rob’s head whipped back, servos in his neck making a swift whine almost to emphasise the movement, ending up staring into the eyes of the mage, who promptly refocused, the beam stabilised as a result.

Rob’s head turned around at a more leisurely speed once Tarn continued speaking. “Now tell me why I would just let you go after killing two of my men. Your master needs to stand trial for the actions you have committed.”

“I will not stand trial for self defence.” Though Rob’s combat program was still active, it was more beneficial attempting diplomacy at the moment. Not only could it have a better outcome, but it delayed the stopping of this man’s electricity.

“There is no self defence in murdering two m-” Before he got to complete the sentence, Rob cut him off with his own counter argument. “I only attacked some of those who attacked me first. Had I been a human I would have died from their attack. The men who didn’t attack I let go.”
Rob’s argument was sadly, for the human men, incredibly logical. Based on the recounting of the soldier when these men knew very well that he had only reacted.

Sadly for Rob’s sake, this didn’t seem to matter.
“Like that fucking matters, you’re going to power down and we’re going to talk to your mast-”
Again Rob interrupted him “No, I am leaving or this will get violent.”

Rob’s words seemed to put fear in the men, this higher rank man not counted. Though Rob was not programmed for social scenarios his combat programming passively had intimidation capabilities.
The men seemed to hesitate, Tarn didn’t seem to react much, it was clear this man had seen his share of combat, perhaps even against constructs in the past.

Before anyone said anything else, more men came to the scene, three of them to be exact. One was dressed like the other guards, but the others had shining metal armour, golden sun-like symbols adorning their chests. One with a heavily adorned sword and a shield in his other hand, the other with a silver-colored spiked ball at the end of a heavily engraved metal handle.
Both of them eyed the metal man getting recharged for a few seconds before they looked at each other and shook their heads.
With Tarn, the two heavily armoured men, the mage and the now nine remaining soldiers after a few left their posts, there was a total of 13 opponens. The only one that was potentially any problem was the man currently recharging his power cell.

“I will leave after this is done, and I will kill anyone who tries to stop me.” Rob gave the final warning as the mage was starting to struggle, this time staring at him didn’t change anything and all he could do was shake his head in a response. The man was sweating and looked utterly exhausted.
Looking him in the eyes Rob nodded as he pulled the cables out from the electric current. “Understood, you are dismissed. I thank you for your assistance.”

Lyever finally gave up, the electric current dissipating with a single pop as he fell to his knees, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his brow.

Turning around to leave along the road he came in from, trying to do so in a non threatening way he was instantly stopped by most of the entourage that had gathered over the last few minutes.
“I will leave-” Rob stated to the group. “-Anyone who chooses to leave will not be harmed, anyone remaining will be assumed hostile and attacked. You have ten seconds.”
Rob gave them a good solid few seconds to consider this before he started counting down.
“Ten..... Nine.... Eight--” People were looking amongst each other, some were looking to the heavily armoured men and as the counting neared three, two of the men left the group running.
Rob let them run.

“Three... Two...” A tiny red light slowly charged up in Rob’s lower left device on his face, this device looked like a small cylinder with six triangles raised on the flat side, with a hole in the middle going into the metal. The red light was glowing stronger over the course of a short moment, a high pitch whining sound was building alongside it as he counted down.

Another man ran away before he counted to one, but as Rob stated the number One, the men in heavy armour acted before he could hit Zero.
One simply said ‘Fire’ in a powerful voice, the other shouted ‘Strength’ as he darted towards Rob. As the count hit Zero there was a powerful explosion of fire coming seemingly from nowhere that engulfed the robot, as the puff of fire seemed like it was going to calm down it changed into a spiral of fire that locked itself around Rob. At the rough same time the man with the sword and shield had closed the distance and delivered an incredibly powerful blow against their common enemy.

The sound of metal hitting something denser than itself rang strong in the area, immediately after a bright red beam extended from the fiery cyclone and pulled itself across the men in the group. The very air around it popped and crackled as even the particles in the air that came into contact burst into a micro explosion. Tarn managed to throw himself to the ground as the beam which extended from Rob’s lower right module cut through the men like a glowing-hot knife through butter. Their leather armour, the heavy armoured man’s metal armour, their weapons and even a few objects like barrels and horse carts behind them. The beam passed through everything. Limbs fell off, tops of bodies separated from the bottom half at the stomach, weapons fell to the ground cut in two, and a substantial amount of innards, gore and blood which pulsed a few times more started to spread across the ground. The men started to scream in pain once they properly realised what had happened. The blood soaked the dirt ground into red mud and chunks, the men had only seconds left to live and there was nothing that anyone could do.
Tarn looked to his men, himself covered in a substantial amount of blood, mud as well as some of the guts of his subordinates.

The fire that surrounded the metal man faded as soon as the armour-clad man who originally shouted fire fell into the pool of muddy blood cut in two across his chest, the emerging Rob was unscathed, the fire had barely affected the topmost part of his rubber coating.
His robot hand instantly grabbed hold of the sword that had landed against his chest, the sword had barely scratched the rubber along Rob’s chest. A tight squeeze from Rob’s side bent the metal before he dropped it on the ground, the man who swung it let go of the sword as he took a few steps backwards.

“What is this demon?” He looked utterly terrified after he had even the quickest of glances at the carnage that came from this one attack, not even taking a second.

Rob didn’t reply, but rather did as he promised from the start and simply walked past all of this without reacting to anything.

The two remaining men, as well as the others hiding between buildings could only stand there and take it in, their minds using time to process what just happened as the culprit simply left the scene, heading along the road.

“Wait!” Tarn shouted as he wiped the human remains off his face. He forced himself to his feet and walked past the pool of his men before he stopped.
“What....” He wanted to ask several questions starting with that one word, but he just stopped as the metal man left them to their carnage.

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