Chapter Text
Flint may have been a manager at C.O.G.S., Inc. which was not a company exactly known for its ethics, but he wasn’t a monster. So, when he heard whimpering coming from an alley, he left his usual route on the freezing cold street to investigate. He was still apprehensive though, the sound was distinctly organic, no filter or metallic accents to it, so he braced himself for a potential toon. If they were injured, he’d not strike first, but he would defend himself if needed…
Following the sound, the pavement abruptly ended and there was a small, snow filled yard. The piled-up scraps from the plow created a barrier blocking his view. Another moan, weaker than the last, came from behind that snowbank. Stepping up on top of it, Flint found himself staring down at neither Suit nor toon. The figure was taller than a toon, and completely bald aside from a shock of black fur on top of their head. Having been tricked too many times before by disguises, Flint hesitated, their track suit was awfully toon-like with its bright purple color after all. But when the being rolled over in the snow to reveal some pretty bad injuries, Flint jumped into action.
He'd seen hypothermia before, this district wasn’t called the Brrrgh for nothing, but usually toons had a layer of dense fur to protect them, and Suits were generally immune to these temperatures so long as they had the right kind of oil in their system. This helpless thing, no, human, Flint corrected himself, finally remembering what it was, needed intervention, and fast. Their fingers were already turning a shade that wasn’t natural, and they didn’t even look at Flint, eyes lifelessly staring off into space.
Without much more thought, Flint tore off his warmed suit jacket and laid it over the man. Then, extinguishing his flame with a long exhale, he lay down in the snow to cool down his body to a temperature that wouldn’t burn thin human skin. Once the snow around him stopped hissing into steam, he sat up and pulled the human into his lap.
They were shaking like a leaf and immediately curled towards Flint’s source of warmth. Flint knew he’d have to take him indoors eventually, but in this moment something else struck him- the human was beautiful. As tenderly as his metal frame would allow him, he stroked the length of the human’s fur, no, hair. It was genuinely the softest thing he’d ever touched, so he could not help himself but to pet the man, rationalizing his actions as just spreading warmth but he knew there was a deeper reason, a reason that was making it very hard for him to keep his helmet from lighting back on fire.
The human was actively pressing against him, wanting his touch. Torso wrapped in his jacket as they sat on his thighs, the skin of their face naked against his shirt, eyes closed and breathing even, warm air puffing out in visible bursts. Yes, this contact was for survival, but Flint had never been wanted before, at least not this way. It felt good.
All that time ago, in another world, he had wanted something like this so badly that it hurt. It had been a long time since he’d felt those desires though, but they came rushing back along with so many more painful memories that he’d stifle for the sake of the situation at hand.
The human was hurt.
And they were also so beautiful.
But they were hurt. They couldn’t linger any longer.
The trance broke when Flint’s finger joints got caught in that silken hair, and the human flinched in pain when the strands were tugged. Frowning at the broken hairs stuck in his frame, Flint tucked his arm under the human and stood. There was only one place to go now, and he dreaded it. The human’s condition wasn’t improving, so he needed to hurry. Activating his propeller, Flint shielded the being as much as possible against the winds as he flew him to the factory, the very one where he’d woken up some months ago.
It wasn’t fair to doom the human to this same servitude, but what other choice did he have? He’d tried the toons before. They’d immediately attack at the sight of his imposing figure, and if he just left a human on their doorstep the toons would be just as likely to reject them out of fear than help. At least he knew the Suits would repair them back to functioning order, even if it meant a deal with some metaphorical devil.
Besides, no human ended up here accidentally, right? They knew what they were getting into, at least somewhat.
Flint landed in front of the factory with a thud and shoved his way through the door and past rows of half-broken Suits waiting for repairs.
“I need the Artificer.” He demanded of the clerk, a small woman sitting at a raised desk that nearly brought her to eye-level with the manager.
“Everyone needs the Artificer. Take a number.” She droned, not bothering to look up from her rolodex.
“Ma’am, I really need the Artificer.” Flint tried to remain polite but was immediately frustrated. Could she not see how dire his situation was.
Still not peering up, she mechanically reached for the slip dispenser bolted to the edge of the desk, “I said, take a number.”
Flint didn’t accept the paper slip, and instead stepped up onto her podium, “Either you’re going to let me through to see the Artificer, or I’ll turn this whole office into scrap and feed it to Treekiller!”
Now, she saw the situation, sighing deeply before continuing. “Another one? You androids just love to collect strays. Fine, I’ll bump you up in the queue. But you’re going to have to wait here until your number is called.” She shoved the slip into his hand and went back to her papers.
Flint immediately backed up and his confidence shrunk, only a privileged few knew his condition, so as he tucked the flimsy paper tag into his pocket, he checked around the waiting room to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
The clerk, unfortunately, knew him better than most. She knew his threats were empty, and she’d been working when he first arrived at the factory.
In the human world, Flint had been a struggling woodworker, a lone man consumed by his work, trying to make ends meet in an industrializing world. No time for anyone else in his life, he was high strung and generally unhappy. He’d worked too hard for too long, and one night in his exhaustion he’d accidentally set his home alight. When he built it, he didn’t consider fire escapes and found himself trapped. It was a miracle he survived, but he’d been hurt badly and unable to work, falling into destitution.
Ultimately, Flint shut himself away from society even further.
He'd felt lost, hopeless, and like a failure. How could he expect to make anything of his life if he couldn’t even take care of himself? So, when a mysterious wizard had promised him a life of meaning on the other side of a magical portal, Flint figured he had nothing to lose and jumped through to find himself in the middle of a prank war between cartoons and robots. Frankly, he’d felt pranked himself.
At first, he’d approached the cute critters, but they were afraid and refused to listen to him. Not wanting to make the situation worse, or sure where he’d fit in, he retreated into the woods. When the logging operations began, he accepted a low-level woodcutting position with C.O.G.S., Inc.
However, a human in working conditions designed for machines was a recipe for disaster, and before long there was another accident. Flint couldn’t remember who’s fault it was, but he’d known that he only had two choices, death or rebirth.
The rest was history, and he was glad to have been given a second chance in his current form, but something about this opportunity to help someone felt like yet another cruel prank. The human in his lap was so far innocent, but here he was dragging them into the belly of the beast. What other option did he have, though? The toons had proven themselves to be hypocrites, reckless, and untrustworthy. At least he could trust Suits to keep up their end of a contract, and he’d try and get this person the best deal possible.
“Next!” The clerk boomed, and Flint looked over to see his number blinking on top of the door.
He thanked her with a nod and toed his way into the hall, following the signs until he reached the familiar office of the Artificer.
The eight-limbed skeletal robot greeted him with a scowl, eight eyes glowering in his direction. “She told me you found a stray, I didn’t think she actually meant it. Whatever, you’re here now, but do you have any understanding of how many resources this conversion takes? You just paid off your own procedure last week!”
“Then you know I’ll be able to pay for this one as well.” Flint deadpanned back. The Artificer may be his only hope, but that didn’t mean he liked them. Genuinely, he felt that the Artificer had taken advantage of him, creating a second form that he didn’t choose, one that actively haunted him with the element of his destruction, but Flint was working to find his peace with flame, and now he had a chance to help someone else have a better next stage.
The best case, ideally, would have been to send this human back to where they came from, but Flint knew all too well that this wasn’t an option. The portals were a 1-way trip, so this would have to do, they were out of time and out of options, he’d noticed in the lobby that the human’s breathing was getting slower and slower, and their eyes had rolled shut, only opening if Flint manually pulled up the delicate lids.
“Fine. Follow me.” The Artificer turned and stepped over Flint to journey back into the hall. Flint had to jog to keep up with their long strides as they went past the factory and into the workshop. The walls were lined with tools and shelves full of shiny new parts, and a lone steel table adorned the center of the floor. This was the room where new Suits were assembled, and Flint laid the flesh body down onto the cold, hard surface.
He cringed when the human unconsciously whimpered at the loss of his heat source, a painful looking frostbitten hand reaching out for him, grabbing with useless fingers. Flint stepped back out of his reach, his fate was sealed and now he had another battle to fight.
“I don’t want you to… change too much. They didn’t ask for that. No weird gimmicks.”
The Artificer grunted, “Hmph. You certainly asked for some changes, ‘make me strong’ you said, ‘I don’t want to hurt anymore’. I don’t know why you complain, you are equipped with some of my best rotors, and you’re entirely fireproof.”
“And I am grateful for that, but now I’m asking for you to be…” he stopped himself from saying kind, that was a word far from the Artificer’s vocabulary. “Thoughtful about this one.”
“Thoughtful costs more than what you can afford. But…” They reached up to a top shelf, digging around in a tub full of parts, “I’ll cut you a deal. I’ve got some newly developed Speed-Servos™ that need testing, you let me put them in this one and keep track of their performance, and you can pay for the standard works.”
“Could it hurt them?”
“Why does it matter? We don’t feel pain. But if it puts your servers at ease, I’ve tested them enough that I’d use them in myself if they were compatible with my drivers.”
Flint stood over the human, considering this offer. What alternatives did he have, if he didn’t agree to this condition the human would continue to be injured, or the Artificer could concoct some horrible, ironic machination. Their cruel creativity really knew no bounds, and they used that as leverage to keep the power and debt they had over many of the Suits.
Knowing what it was like to be a mangled shell, Flint nodded, “Fine. But I have one more request.”
The Artificer whipped back at him, eight eyes glowing red, “WHAT?”
“Try to keep their hair.” Flint said softly, resisting the urge to stroke it one last time.
Booming into a jittery, stuttered laugh that was more of a clacking sound of their mandibles, the Artificer nearly fell over, “We don’t have fur, idiot. If you wanted that, you should have taken them to a toon doctor. But alas, no refunds.”
With that, the Artificer plunged one of their mechanical legs into the human’s heart, implanting the first of many alterations, a bright glowing central hard drive.
The human inhaled sharply, eyes flashing open for less than a second, and then the hard drive took over and put them to sleep.
“Masculine, feminine, or neither?” The Artificer asked as they began to lay parts out around the human, silver limbs and mechanical bits creating a human-shaped mosaic around the flesh body. Their limbs were hesitating over a choice of torsos, twitching in anticipation of Flint’s choice.
“Oh, I don’t know…”
The Artificer paused in their work to laugh, “Wait. You’re doing all this for someone you don’t even know? Did you just find them passed out in some dumpster?”
“No, not a dumpster I mean. They were freezing in a snowbank.”
“Same thing. You really are quite the caring little Suit. You’re lucky you’re dedicated to your task, and that the board hasn’t voted for it, otherwise I’d have half a mind to give you an Override function.”
Flint shuddered at that thought. There was a time where he and Chip, the only Suit he knew with such hardware, had been friends. Ever since the installation of the Override function though, the Suit had been an absolute wreck, shifting between apathy and pure rage at the flip of a coin, “That won’t be necessary.”
“Keep it that way. Now then, which one?” The Artificer held up two torso pieces, one bulky and more masculine in shape, and the other with more curvature as generally preferred by female-identifying folks (although there were always exceptions to the binary).
“Neither, for now. They can choose what they want but I don’t want to force them into anything. Is there something with… something more like the current shape?”
“Fine. But just to repeat. No fur, no hair, nothing soft, and just for you because you’re paying me extra, nothing flammable. Now shut up or get out.”
That was the end of their conversation, and now all Flint could do was watch. He knew the gender presentation choice was purely cosmetic, and if the human did lean one way or another, they could adjust as such upon awakening.
Flint was mostly desensitized to what this alteration procedure entailed, but he still felt a pang of guilt as the Artificer carved skin from the bone, welding machinery onto natural structure and scrapping much of the organic matter. Red blood became black oil, and soon the only thing that remained was a human head.
“Please…” Flint whispered as the artificer’s tools approached the face.
The Artificer rumbled, “You’re pathetic. I thought you’d harden up working the streets, but you’re still that sad, shy man, who came groveling to me for your life, aren’t you.”
“You don’t know me.” Flint snapped.
“Oh, trust me. I do. We all do. There’s a reason you’re still on patrol with the likes of the Duck Shuffler. There’s one thing in common with all you low-tier managers: you’re impulsive. That’s why you’ll never be promoted until you change, and frankly I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“Is there a problem with listening to my feelings? Respecting my human nature? It’s done nothing but help me anticipate the toons. The blaze of passion only ignites my strength! Maybe we’re exactly what this company needs to finally make some real progress against the toons.” Flint hardened, not wanting to look weak, not now. He needed to be strong, both for his own sake and the newly forged android on the table. The Artificer would take advantage of any weakness he showed.
Moving away from the table, the Artificer opened a low drawer, “Fine, whatever helps you charge at night. Just don’t go saying that kind of bullshit at a board meeting.”
Flint fumed, seeing heatwaves in his vision. Not wanting to piss the Artificer off further, he forced himself not to respond and instead just watch.
The selected drawer was full of bicycle tires, and the Artificer pulled one out and began slicing it into wedges, bolting it together with the smooth, slightly ridged interior exposed. Flint realized he was shaping it into the same form as the human’s hair. Flint also realized that such a flexible material would not protect the being from aerial attacks.
“Can you add some kind of helmet?” He requested.
The Artificer was at the end of their patience and snapped. “GET OUT!”
As Flint backed away, he saw a flash of purple metal being shaped into a dome and he felt some form of relief. It didn’t last long though, and a minute later he was pacing outside the door of the workshop, back and fourth down the narrow, quickly warming hallway.
Some time later, the doors burst open, “OH! I have got to run!” A flash dashed past him, and the Artificer followed behind, pausing in front of Flint.
“Satisfied?” The Artificer smirked, or at least sounded like they were, their insectoid mouth didn’t exactly emote.
Flint could just stare at the back of the newly forged android, a bright purple dot in a drab landscape. Their shockingly casual purple suit was striking, there wasn’t even a tie, and Flint noticed a protective bicycle helmet sparkling atop their head, crowing a thin yet sturdy frame.
“You’ve got to let me out of here, man! I need space to stretch these legs! I feel good!” They turned back to flash a wide, fleshy grin at Flint.
Flesh? The entire bottom half of their face had been preserved from the nose down, framed by a bright purple chinstrap and matching sunglasses.
They were gorgeous. A gem among coal.
“Sure, yeah.” Flint managed to stutter out, wandering in the other android’s direction.
“You’ll get the bill in the mail. Maybe pick a higher interest payment plan as thanks.” The Artificer mumbled, tossing Flint’s wet suit jacket at him. Then they began walking back down the hall, “And please go get Mx. Payser, they are going the wrong way.”
“Payser?” Flint asked, pulling his jacket on which quickly dried on his hot form, steam rising from his shoulders.
“Yes. Graham Ness Payser. Keep up.” The Artificer chucked to themselves as they fell out of earshot.
After another dazed moment, Flint snapped into the moment and chased after the new android, “Mx. Payser! Mx. Payer! The exit is this way!”
But he was far too slow, and only caught up with them when they reached the factory, stopping to stare into a window, “What is that?”
“That’s the factory, where us Suits are made. Well, the fully mechanical type. You’re part human.”
Graham nodded slowly, “I know that much. I know a lot of things now, actually. The only real question I have now is how did I get here? I remember making a delivery to some weirdo in the woods, then getting lost in the arctic or whatever and then: Wham! Here I am, in… some form of metallic flesh. Feels pretty sweet actually, I was due for a knee procedure back in… my old life I guess? But look at me now, all oiled up and ready for a marathon!”
“Well, I brought you here,” Flint replied gently, musing at his reflection in Graham’s purple sunglasses. He also made a mental note to ask about the weirdo in the woods later, he had a sneaking suspicion it was his wizard.
“Gotchya, but why?”
Flint sighed, “You were dying, something hurt you, or you were just out in the cold too long, and you ended up in a snowbank.”
“Huh. But what could have possibly hurt me?” Apparently tired of standing still, Graham started to jog in place.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Graham shrugged, “All good, thanks for the lift, and the heat. Looks like you’ve got plenty to spare. Now, how does a guy like me get out of this suffocating little space?”
“Guy?” Flint was a little surprised, but it wasn’t a bad surprise. He’d been attracted to men before, probably preferred them if he really thought about it.
“Yeah, a guy, man, dude, male, masculine. You know, a gent! He and him and his. Yourself?”
“Uh, same. He and him.”
“Coolio! Lead the way, mister…?”
“Bonpyre. Flint Bonpyre. But you might hear some call me Firestarter.”
“Lit. According to this mobile pad thingy my corporate assigned nickname is Pacesetter. I dig it.” Graham nodded, and Flint noticed something new. The rubber facsimile of his hair bounced adorably. He felt his internal temperature rise exponentially.
“Hey man, are you ok. Flint?” Graham stared up at him, curious.
“Yeah, I need to get out of here too. Too hot, too cramped. Follow me.” Flint replied mechanically, trying to get ahold of himself. He was never more thankful for the monotone inflection his mask added to his voice. He ignored the stares of the broken Suits in the waiting room but did see how the clerk blushed when Graham flashed his bright grin at her.
He wasn’t the jealous type, and there was nothing to be jealous of, but boy did Flint wish Graham was smiling at him instead.
Back outside, the cool evening air hit him pleasantly, cooling his vents.
“Well, it’s been good, but I’ve got to get a move on. The road calls to me!”
Graham was off before Flint could even say goodbye. Acting fast, he shouted after the runner, “What’s your ID Number?”
“09001!” Graham shouted back, and then he was gone.