Return to Coruscant [Exemplary]

[Vitruvius]

He knew the exact time of when it all happened. He could convert it into seconds, minutes or hours. In fact, he had. Back and forth. Over and over. His sensors provided visual backup. A perfect photographic memory to most humans. To Vitruvius, just an internal backlog of everything he's seen in his very long life. The kinetic imprints were left in his body. The feel of that raging inferno welling up in his system, almost like his infrastructure was being compromised. The explosion of chemical flames erupting from his hands. The heatsinks instantly cooling the fire within when all was said and done.

Vitruvius stared at his exposed palms. Open. Closed. Opening with each finger slowly extending. He stared at his wrist, looking for the barrel that killed the innocent. He couldn't see it. No choke. No exit. Just the sinews of wiring and the flexible metals that made up his arm. Completely normal. He searched through his coding and programming, going in full detail, scanning lines and lines of processes, programs and master systems. He couldn't access anything that led through the keywords he saw during that incident. Everything was on lock down and hidden from active searches. Centuries of being functioning and all the in depth routine checks and not once did he come across anything that even hinted at his systems being tampered with or his body being modified in such a way that he was a war machine.

A war machine? He couldn't imagine being one. He had been designed to be creative and expressive. He had been created specifically to avoid war. To deter struggle. His creators died for their cause. If the military had taken him during his shut down period, why hadn't they just produced replicas? He may not have been able to find any leads within his system regarding his weaponization, but he could determine for himself that at some point he had been altered. And the military was the obvious perpetrator.

In all his time back home, the dangers he faced, the fights he was in and the deaths of humans on his hands, not once did he malfunction in such a way. And while he had killed people before, it was as punishment for their crimes and the detriment to his society of peace he was trying to build. Never had he killed for the sake of killing. Nor had he killed through miscalculation. He didn't miscalculate. He was precise. Every move was triple checked and analyzed for best possible outcomes. This particular event was a...glitch. He glitched. What happened was not an intended action. He would have gladly been shot by a weak laser and escaped and repaired himself over setting a man on fire and watching his body char black and melt.

But that's not what happened. And worse he had not faced the consequences of his actions. He was responsible for all this and yet he had run away. Why? Why had he run away? And why did he continue hide? He couldn't process what he had done. He needed to check his systems. Needed to find the fault and correct it. If he allowed himself to be caught, how much of a chance would he have to search himself? Especially being an inorganic killing an organic? They would have deactivated him. And if these Tiers were any clue to how this Verse worked then he'd probably be parted out.

Yet he found nothing. Had nothing but speculation. Very probable speculation. But not facts that he could present. Or anything he could fully understand without further evidence. Worse, he had a code. Not a code programmed into his system. But a philosophy he adopted as he set up society back home. People could not do harm without punishment being administered. If their crimes were outrageous or they had a serious defect that made them a continued threat to civilization, they needed a permanent solution. Whatever the solution ended up being. Those rules applied to him as well. He had murdered without reason. Taken a life under very weak circumstances. And he lost control of his own body and reflexes. He was dangerous. He needed to face this head on and with integrity.

His hideout had been a series of buildings in the worse parts of Tier Five. He needed seclusion to work on his programming. The buildings had provided excellent cover and for the Imperial guards who had gone looking for the murderer, he was able to sneak from building to building, room to room to avoid detection. The structures were mostly abandoned aside from the gangs or other unfriendly types that gathered. It seemed to be their playground. A sense of uprightness had compelled him to act and bring them down. But his rationalization told him he'd be better off not drawing further attention to himself and just to continue figuring out what was wrong with his systems.

He rested on the fourth floor of some rotting building that overlooked the main street passing through the area. No accommodations, no furniture, nothing. Just an empty room with wood floor and two windows facing the same direction toward the more densely populated city. Vitruvius stood there without his cloak. His streamlined body resembling a human male with excellent musculature. A heavy chest plate of black metals designed to relax and contract like human pectorals. Rows of individual moving ribs and abdominals that allowed him to bend, tighten and rotate like a normal biological entity. His hands rested behind his back as he stared out the window. The wandering single eye dashed a blue streak back and forth as he scanned his surroundings. Could it be his adventure would come to a close just as suddenly as it began? Would this Omni being allow it to end so simply since he was considered “interesting”? He enjoyed new experiences, but something deep inside him prompted him that being back in his own world may be preferable to whatever came next.