Chapter Text
Hell's violence layer is home to a barren wasteland at the deepest depths. Ashen hills of gravel, dust and crumbled stones paint the surroundings with an air of silent hostility. Nothing lives here, nothing organic anyway. A small sign of movement drags across the landscape. Yellow paint peeling of its large rectangular head, lopsided dragging of its feet as it moves. Anything to preserve a drying battery in this cold, empty area. The only sign of color being the crimson sky above, dotted with endless white meteors fizzling into nothingness. It could even be considered beautiful, if one thought not of the horrors that could have made this dead landscape.
How many human hours had it wasted crossing this lifeless dry wasteland? How long had it been since it saw something, anything?
In the distance, a large dark hill formed. Stranger a shape than the rest, angles in several places. Swordsmachine looked up at the odd thing, square shapes that seemed to be its eyes gazed onward. As it approached, they noticed the pinpricks of flickering white lights. Something that could be worth salvaging parts off to reinforce their structure, maybe even a drop of blood to refuel. Its pace picked up, damaged leg leaving an imprint in the rough, loose gravel. Even a scrap or two would do some good. If only it could walk faster, feet slipping roughly against the ground in its movement. It paused. Falling would only make it worse, best to take it slow. Not like a hill could move, it wasn't going anywhere.
As Swordsmachine made it's approach, the flickering light got brighter and brighter, the shape of metal pieces seemingly jumbled together to create a mass of machinery and wires in its large form. Swordsmachine gazed at the lights before recognizing the six circular shapes as some odd form of eyes, most of them flickering and shattered. Metal grinding against metal contines to crush and move inside it, the mass twitches slightly. Despite the whining and horrible scratching of metal, the thing is clearly no longer functional. No longer keeping up the appearance of life. A giant metal corpse in a barren wasteland, still cooling off from impact. If something here was dying, however, that meant something had to kill it in the first place. Swordsmachine didn't want to know what in all 9 circles could have killed something as gargantuan as this. Best to get in, get out. No room to stick around.
It finally made it up to the corpse, dark shadow shielding Swordsmachine from the endless red sky. It was even colder here, not that Swordsmachine could feel cold. The light frost growing on the large metal mass made the material practically steam when Swordsmachine put its own metal hand upon the being to steady themself from the movement. Allowing their systems a moment to rest, they looked around for any easy scrap material to pry off. Thick cables lay upon the surface of the land, bits of broken glass and plating littered the ground. A massive hole gaped in the beasts chest area, right below the long neck of disks.
Further behind the creature there were more lights. An odd array of what seemed to be buildings, some shoved sideways as a result of the collapse. Window lights were still on, despite little life left to roam the hallways, as if the inhabitants had simply vanished.
What caught Swordsmachine’s attention, however was the small yellow box in front of the city, slightly dislodged from the flooring wires. Swordsmachine climbed up the side of the creature, busted leg not making it any easier. It reached the top layer of metal slower than it would have liked to. Its focus never left the little yellow rectangle.
The box is a terminal, a kind of dictionary system placed in every layer of hell, here and there. Normally they show menus of the many creatures of hell, not that Swordsmachine ever actually used one before for that purpose. Usually, the internal components of a terminal were far more valuable, and the yellow casing was tougher against attacks than it looked. This particular unit was certainly damaged, no longer connected to whatever the wires were supposed to be attached to. The screen was cracking at the corner, there were faint traces of red covering its casing, and as Swordsmachine approached it, something felt off. The screen was not supposed to be on before it moved closer, so why was text displayed upon the screen?
For the first time in its blood cycle, Swordsmachine stopped, taking in the text on the screen.
[Welcome back, Benjamin! =)]
“…You are mistaken,” Swordsmachine’s gears grind painfully stiff as it speaks for the first time in what feels like a human decade, “I am not Benjamin. I do not know of a Benjamin.”
What? Swordsmachine’s processors whirred. Who is Benjamin? Why is it saying that? Why am I talking to it?
Swordsmachine’s systems kick it back into gear when its fuel gauge reminds him how dry it is becoming, what little blood remaining is at risk to freezing. It reaches forward to start dismantling when the screen changes again to an unexpected message.
[Oh. =(]
Swordsmachine stares. It has never had a conversation with a dictionary before. Could all terminals do this? Why didn’t they? Why would they? It’s processed thoughts are cut off by the screen changing yet again.
[Benjamin is friend. Report if you see him. Status: Unknown.]
Perhaps this text should have felt more familiar, with its odd language. However a terminal calling something a friend? When it only displayed factual information? What sort of terminal was this? And as well as that, where was the terminal’s music? Swordsmachine spoke up again, asking none of these questions and instead attempting to get more information.
“Further details?” Less rust in its voice this time.
[Benjamin is best friend. Big, tall, dark. Travelled many places.]
Swordsmachine looked down, processors running furiously before it realized. Something tall, perhaps giant with dark plating and ability to walk. How it hadn’t realized before what this was, corpse beneath them they didn’t know. It recalls six eyes and deadly aim, even when slow not much can stop an electric current like that one.
It must have lost more blood than it thought if it was not even recalling such memorable foes as an entire Earthmover beneath them.
Swordsmachine looked at the little terminal, unaware of its loss.
“Benjamin is here,” The corpse felt sickening beneath its feet now, “You exist on it.”
The screen flickered faster this time, perhaps in eagerness.
[Say hello.]
Swordsmachine thought that would be all, before another small line appeared beneath it. Almost as if the terminal was hesitant to ask.
[For me.]
Swordsmachine would have been holding its breath if it had one. So it could recognize its own sentience. How had this little yellow box cause it so much concern? Was it the fact that the terminal had shown more signs of life than they had seen in several human cycles?
Swordsmachine looked around, seeing nothing but the broken, crumpled form of the metal body, an Earthmover that would move no more. A friend to this insignificant little encyclopedia, no more than a grain of sand into the vast abyss of dust surrounding them.
“I do not believe that possible.”