B-64 wasn't used to darkness. He always had something to look at, to imagine or to see, even in his darkest or direst of situations, he always saw something, as his mind could never truly rest. This was the only time he had ever not seen.
The dark void he was in was oddly comforting if anything, it kept him from imagining what could possibly go wrong with what Ion was doing. Even without his knowledge on most things about Ion, he knew that he wasn't in the memory business.
Still, the lingering feeling of being watched and observed was ever present in his mind, even in whatever state he was in. He could feel something tugging in his mind, and he could barely string together a few words in his thoughts before being disjointed.
His body was rigid, he couldn't move anything and nor could he feel. He could only hear words, words that held no meaning to him because he didn't have the capacity to understand them at that time. It was oddly calming though, like even if he couldn't understand it, he knew it was nothing dangerous.
Consciousness for Protogens was oddly a rough spot for many civilizations, even his own. After all, their brains were technically organic, but still artificially created and modified since they were not an organic race.
All B-64 knew was that it was taking quite a long time to finish, and the longer it droned on, the more worried he got. Despite not having a good concept of time, B-64 could tell that he had been in there for around thirty minutes.
After ten minutes, a buzzing sound had erupted in his hearing sensors, the kind that always fills in for silence. In that black void, it was agonizing, as he always heard something, saw something, felt something.
Here, he felt alone.
Luckily, he wasn't in there for too much longer. He slowly regained his thoughts and intelligence, and he slowly began to understand the words being spoken around him, but only barely.
Soon, his vision slowly returned. An almost blinding light pierced the void, and since Protogen couldn't really close their eyes, he had to endure it until it receded.
He then began to feel his limbs again, and he flexed his claws just to be sure that he had them still. The more the light bled into the void around the edges of his eyes, the more color and actual uniformity began to begin.
Shapes and colors now began to take form, slowly forming into things that he remembered. A light bulb, tiled ceiling, red beneath the tile, blue beneath the red, white beneath the blue, and black beneath the white.
Then, everything came rushing back to him.
He felt everything around him to an almost painful degree. The ever so slight rise in temperature, the feeling of his fur moving through the air, and if he strained, the light hitting him.
Soon enough, the other two awoke as well, with Ion stumbling slightly backwards and Catalyst fidgeting arrogantly underneath the light. Ion's facial features switched a few times from curiosity, to shame, to curiosity and then to delight.
"Wonderful!" Ion said in English, clapping his claws together. Mason and his friends were both somewhat shocked as well as intrigued on how fast it worked, since the last time they saw it happen, it happened both fast, and the protogen could barely speak.
"This language is rather... Weird." Catalyst said, his Protenia accent somehow blending with the English language and creating an almost posh British accent. B-64 wasn't sure how that worked out.
"I must say, it is surprisingly easier to understand and speak than... Oh, how do you combine it again?" Ion turned to Catalyst with a vague, ill-defined emotional expression. Catalyst shrugged, his tiny little needles on his body shivering with some sort of indignation.
"Pro... Protenia! My my, your species' alphabetical fabrication is modularly better than my own. The phonetics, the lyrical and oral simplicity of it! I quite like this!"
Marissa was the most put off by the yellow protogen, finding his observations just a tad too perfect for not understanding their language. It might've been a bad reason to feel put-off by him, but she was.
Mason and Axel, on the other hand, were more intrigued by how well he gripped their language, "How do you know so many, well, expanded words I guess? I don't even know what one of them even meant." Mason said, eyeing Ion.
"B-64 spent most of his newly crafted body's life in a science lab, filled to the brim with scientists that used expanded diction and occasional slang terms. He might not know how to spell that well, but he understood a lot of it after eighteen years." Catalyst said, his pixelated eyes blinking rapidly.
"Correct!" Ion said, waggling his finger in the air, "As well as the fact that your language is rather nice in the fact that I can break down the words into their base meanings, and craft new words from that. With both combined, I can safely say that I understand most everything."
"But... That protogen that brought us onto the ship? He did something to B, and managed to talk to us, but it was all broken. Why?" Marissa asked, settling herself down on one of the many tables in that room.
Catalyst was the one that answered her, "B-04 is his name, and I think I understand what you are asking, or implying." He paused for a moment, then nodded, "Right, he can tap into the banks of Protogen memory and syphon some of that knowledge. The reason why it was so broken was because it was so quick and not a full transfer, like here. Plus, it takes a lot of energy to download memory files."
"Right again my friend." Ion said, settling against a chair that somehow appeared out of nowhere, "I guess I should properly introduce myself and my friends here, as should you. What are all your names, hmm?"
"I thought... You syphoned the memory bank or something?" Axel asked, raising an eyebrow. Mason also raised his own, but not towards Ion, but to Axel. Wasn't he angry a while ago? Did something change, or?
"Yes, but though I did a thorough scan, I was unable to extrapolate your individual names. B-64 here still thinks of you as your species sometimes, and due to memories shifting, it showed just as your species instead of your names. He does know them, but he often doesn't use them in thoughts. All except Mason here."
All their eyes turned to Mason, who suddenly grew rather embarrassed. Why he wasn't sure, but he did understand the knowing look from Marissa, "I think we are all well aware of why." She stated plainly, flashing a smug smile.
Ion nodded his head as well, his visor splitting into a small smile, "Yes, I am aware. Some of the thoughts are rather haunting, if I do say so myself. Either way, that does not change the fact that the rest of you need to introduce yourselves."
Axel sighed but sat up, "My name is Axel Smith, I'm a hyena. I don't think there's anything else besides that, but..." He shrugged awkwardly and slowly sat down, crossing his arms while turning his head to face Marissa.
"My name is Marissa, and I am a lion-"
"Forgive me dear, but I do have something to ask." Ion interrupted her, a vague sort of fear took hold of Marissa despite knowing that they most likely wouldn't judge. They were robots, it's not like they had a concept of gender.
"Yes?"
"When you all entered the room, I managed to snag a neocortex scan and found something odd. Despite the fact that you consider yourself, thought wise and generally, as female, your biological gender is not?"
Marissa took a deep sigh, rubbing her head. Of course this would happen. Why couldn't they be those types of robots that all had the basic "Text-to-speech" robotic voice and had no concept of gender. Why would they even-
Oh right, they scanned B-64.
"Yes, I was born male and I transitioned. I hope we don't have a-"
"No my dear, it is not a foreign concept to me, nor to many species. Some in fact do that quite on the regular, as it is ingrained in their culture. I just wanted to make sure, as although you do look like the average female, the job was rather rudimentary. No offense."
Marissa bit her lip, but said nothing more than, "Non taken." and sat down.
Catalyst chuckled a bit, then turned his head towards Hannah, "And I assume that's your... What's the word, sister right?" He turned to look at Mason, who nodded.
"Her name is Hannah." He stated, a small little smile making its way onto his lips. Hannah was on one of the chairs, singing a little made-up song while giggling every once in a while. She was rather cute, despite being a menace sometimes.
"Ah yes. We have yet to find a species that does not have a child variant."
"Do you... Not?" Marissa asked, looking rather intrigued. This was the first time she thought about it, and honestly it made sense. She always thought of them as robots, and just by looking at B-64 she never considered the fact that he had no... bits.
"No, we have no sexual reproduction, not even asexual reproduction as some life forms call it. We simply are made. We have no fathers or mothers, we have something called a maker, and the one before them is the grand-maker, and so forth. Simplest translation, that is." Ion said, appearing rather interested in interacting with them.
Catalyst spoke up again, this time with a relatively bored tone and an impatient expression, "Look, they're done with the whole thing, let's just introduce ourselves and cut to the chance, The plan, okay?" He said this in Protenia.
Ion nodded and turned to the others, "My name is Ion. I am the lead scientist here in The Research in Bosonic Studies and Advanced Applications division of the United Federation of Galaxies."
He turned his head to Catalyst, who spoke, "I am Catalyst, Ion's personal and private assistant. I am currently taking the role as the lead planner for, well, The Plan." And he turned his head to Cypher.
"She is cypher, a protogen hive mind created by Ion here. Basically, she's the tenth model in her series, and the lead Mind. Nine of her "Sentences" as they're called are stationed in this building for Ion's safety."
He then turned his head to the group, chuckling to himself, "And you, my friends, are going to help us prevent the destruction of your planet."
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Heya!
So, yeah, new chapter. Slightly shorter than the other ones, but hopefully it was alright. I'm trying to introduce some strange concepts here, but they are loosely based around Protogen cannon.
'Course I can say that this is an alternate universe where the origins were different than the cannon, but that would just be a cop-out in my opinion, so I'll just say this is the prime universe in my own PBU (Protogen Book Universe)
Oh, yeah, and this won't be the last book~
Hope ya like this chapter, and thanks for reading!
~ Candle