Return to Coruscant [Exemplary]

[Vitruvius]

His data stream flooded every inch of his core with new code. He had spent these past few days fighting and trying to break through what all of it meant and holding it back until he could determine why he had dangerous weapons laced through his body. It had been disconcerting and like a man who found out he was some sleeper cell agent, he wasn't quick to embrace his new role. But they were in danger. His new ally needed his help. And try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to just come up with some offensive weapon. He could, but he didn't like the idea. He was built much tougher than biological entities, he was built stronger than they were. He was powerful enough to harm, why did he need more power?

And though it took him time to figure out how to become a weapon, he discovered all it really took was the thought of being captured and potentially destroyed. Time had forced Vitruvius' hand and Samus'. Her preparations had been ready and this whole time was spent waiting on the machine. A multi-tasking thought flashed through his consciousness, he wondered if that's how humans used to feel about computers as they processed information. Ready to go while all the infinite possibilities ran through a limited hard drive. He wasn't limited by anything aside from a sophisticated morality program. But as was becoming the leit motif since arriving in Omni's world, self preservation was a funny thing.

Through his system he felt a heat well up inside him. It was different than the discharge of flesh melting napalm that got him in this situation in the first place, it felt like a slow build up of energy rather than the chemically charged flames. His sensors began alerting him to ambient radiation building up...within him? Ah. So. He did have it within him after all. There was mild disappointment, but he quickly compartmentalized the blasphemy that was going against his intended purpose.

Vitruvius followed in Samus' footsteps, taking himself to the elevator. Had he been human, he would probably take note of a shaking body, nervous sweat pouring from a furrowed brow and the knotted up feeling deep in his stomach at what he was about to do. Of course the heroes of stories he read would, in contrast, have taken powerful strides, leapt at the chance to fight off the enemy and not thought twice about the lives they were about to take. After all, they were the bad guys and the hero was just that, the hero. Of course the hero had to win. All who stood in opposition of good was, by nature, evil. Vitruvius wasn't naïve, there was no black and white, everything fell in shades of gray and there was potential for good in all beings. Good people were going to die.

Within his chasis was an oscillation. A reverberating hum that quietly traveled all his hollow parts and bounced around in his mechanized skull. If he was reading the signs correctly (which unfortunately for him, he was), Vitruvius was gathering deep cosmic radiation. The background noise of the universe. The messy and chaotic energy that filled space in all its deep, dark corners and exploded from the light of the brightest stars. His body was converting it into a smaller compound called HZE Ions. HZE being made up of High Atomic Number(noted as Z) and Energy. What was being broken down inside him was the energy that eventually split off from supernovas and solar flares. Though instead of expanding greatly from stars trillions of light years away, allowed to bloom into harmless galactic cosmic rays, Vitruvius was going to hit a capacity in which his body was going to release it in a focused explosion.

The project had been one canceled by his government from where he came from. An Ion Cannon that was deemed too dangerous for human soldiers to wield due to the detrimental levels of radiation along with the fact that the intensity of super energetic particles that penetrate the body and are so dangerous that they'll strip everything down to the DNA molecules and eliminate cells completely. This is what he was now. A weapon.

And yet he calmly waited as the elevator brought him to the surface of the ship. Assessing the situation at hand, he took his place next to his ally as he began hitting a critical level of home grown heavy particle ionization, his sensors jumping erratically. Samus was focusing her cannon fire on another set of ships, the first ship he witnessed careening out of the skyline and into the city below. He owed this companion machine everything for assisting him. It was his debt to her that gave Vitruvius some solace as he zeroed in on the pursuing Empire craft. He wanted to swallow all this energy and let it dissipate into the atmosphere. He wanted to shoot it into the sky and make it a warning shot to scare them off. But humans were never scared off. They were just made more angry that something had greater power than them. A realistic list of possibilities hit him all at once. He and Samus being hunted down by these soldiers. The Empire doubling their efforts to get a hold of impossibly powerful weapons. His hesitation leading to their destruction. Immortal or no, death didn't seem like an experience Samus wanted to go through. Capture seemed worse by her calculation. These people needed to disappear. It would give them the head start they required if they were to be successful in this escape.

He ripped open the shirt beneath his cloak, revealing a chest plate vibrating with boiling hot radiation. Steam was rising as the twin pectoral casings split wide open, separating over his front deltoids to reveal a glowing concave core that wasn't part of his original design. His ribs, all sectioned individually and anatomically correct, down to six on one side and seven on the other, slid backwards. He felt them connect behind him as his core was reinforced, bracing for the oncoming explosion. The core was seeping with collected energy and he couldn't hold it back any longer.

He didn't have the biological instincts to flinch, wince or close his eyes from the heat or light. Which meant he watched with unfeeling blue eyes as a funnel of hazy purple and navy mixed in all variations of the two colors exploded from this unknown core. It extended from his body and ate away at the ships directly in its path. His memory perfectly stored the plates of the hull as they shredded, peeled and flew apart as they were rend from their ship. He watched glass melt. He watched micro explosions bloom into larger and larger furious flames. In the end it looked like he had skewered a pair of ships, the blast piercing from one end to the other. The cannon within his chest shuddered and quickly began draining of energy. The blast was quick and merciless despite the time it took to gather. He knew what had been coming. The remains of the ships never did. It was abrupt and painless.

In stories, the character would be drained. Powerless. Vulnerable. Trading his stamina and health for an ultimate attack. Allies would crowd the hero and praise him for saving everyone's lives. Instead Vitruvius stood there. His ribs disconnected and slid back into place. His chest covered over the core that had receded within his body and hid away under the internal organs of his machinery as though it never existed. His sensors alerted him that everything returned to normal. Everything was at optimum efficiency. By all standards he was operating as he should be. All systems go.

From beginning to end, Vitruvius recorded the strike down to watching the ships helplessly descend into Coruscant. Like all his millennia of memories, this would stick with him forever. Perfect. Instantly replayed as though he were experiencing in real time. Something he'll never forget.