AN: Warhammer 40K and any other Warhammer franchise isn't my property. All Rights belong to Games Workshop. This is a free work No-Profit.
AN2: Even Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom don't belong to me. Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom belong to Osamu Tezuk and the Tezuka Productions
AN3: I Know guys, started another story when i have already two story waiting for update is not wise....BUT I WANT THIS SO MUCH!!!!! It's been YEARS i thinking to start this story and now i decide to make it.
I LOVE too much Astro Boy (expecially the 2003 series) i rewatched so many times the series and the movie that i lost the count XD
Recently i see even the WEIRD but holy 1963 series and even 1980.....i even read some Manga of Astro Boy, Pluto and Atom The Beginning. Well you get it!
So i decide to made this story, i hope you like it.
Please be free to comment and spread the word XD
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Food, water, electricity, scrap, oxygen... people.
Everything in Necromunda was a resource for survival and fighting for resources was an ordinary occurrence in the underhive. Violence was unleashed practically everywhere in the underhive, a merciless and merciless struggle where the luckiest would know death ... no matter how.
But there were places where one could find a certain refuge in this chaos, neutral zones that even the most ruthless and insane inhabitants of the underhive respected.
One such place was what could be called a tavern. The place was dirty and stuffy like any part of the Underhive and what they served drinks was better not knowing what it was .... let alone the food.
A figure in a cloak approached the counter of the tavern, a very small figure that immediately attracted the curiosity of some customers of the tavern. Seeing a figure in a cloak was not something new, especially in the underhive, but seeing someone so small it was.
Ignoring the gazes of onlookers, and paying attention to any suspicious movement, the small figure sat down on one of the stools on the counter. The sound of golden eagles crashing on the counter immediately attracted the attention of the innkeeper who turned out to be a beautiful girl with black hair and obvious cybernetic parts on her face and a cybernetic three-fingered arm.
"You're back" the girl said "I haven't seen you for months, I thought you were dead"
"Careful girl" The hooded figure spoke, revealing a very young, almost childish voice. "For a moment I thought you really cared about me." The figure, giggling, raised his head and revealed his boyish face to her. For all intents and purposes he looked like a very young child or boy on the height of his adolescence....or almost.
The figure, which it be revealed to be a young boy, was undoubtedly the most out of place thing that could be found on the entire planet. The boy's skin was perfect and clean in a world where gang violence, radiation, excessive furnace heat was commonplace.
But the most disturbing thing in the eyes of the bartender and the underhivers was the eyes of the boy. Necromunda was a dark, desperate, evil place where living one day with a full stomach was a luxury for many and where things like friendship and love were just trash. This was everyday life... but it weighed. No one could bear its weight without showing its signs. But his eyes were filled with joy, curiosity... and hope.
When he showed up for the first time, everyone thought he was the son of a noble who had lost his way on the lower levels for some reason, without a guard and with no one to accompany him. Easy prey they said, so everyone's thoughts at the time until everyone who tried to kill or capture the boy simply disappeared. Nobody knew what happened to them but the boy always showed up with his pockets full of eagles ever since.
Many were rapidly convinced that the boy was not defenseless like he want make believe and rapidly was spreading the voice that there was some kind of killer with a cloaking device to protect the boy, but for some reason she thought that was not the case. She feeled in her cybernetics and her cybernetics was never wrong.
"Yeah, fuck you too Atom" replied the girl putting her hands on the counter "Can I bring you the usual?" The question was met with a nod from the hooded boy. Taking the eagle that he had left on the counter, the girl walks away and after a few moments she returns with a small can of industrial oil in her hand.
With a small smile Atom accepts the oil and after a few sips the can was already empty and with a slightly embarrassed look, massaging her head with one hand, he turns to the bartender who merely observes him with an eye while clean aglass with a piece of dirty cloth.
"Hey" Atom started slightly embarrassed "You know... I'm kinda short on cash these days, it's not like you could-" A violent bang on the counter interrupted the boy's request, the bartender was now looking him in the eye with anger.
"No! Absolutely not! Stay away from my stuff!" The girl screamed attracting the attention of only few customers, the others knew what was happening and they knew it wouldn't have been a problem if Atom hadn't done anything. "I'm still recovering from the last time! I don't want to repeat the experience." The girl finished her last sentence with a calmer voice, with a subtle amount of anger, pointing one of three big cybernetic fingers.
"Ok, you're right," Atom said shrugging "I recently thought of doing something else to finance myself." Rising from the stool Atom descended to the ground and this increased the height gap between the two. Raising his head and smiling warmly, Atom greeted the bartender and decided to walk out of the tavern ignoring the strange, menacingly and or subtle sexual invitation from the other customers.
The bartender with a 'See Yah' greeted the boy as he left and turn herself to cleanse the glass and bottles... or at least seems so. She knew what the boy wanted: Work. Within the first week of their first meeting Atom asked if he had any work to do, he offered to do cheap repairs for her... much cheaper than usual. It was a bet, after all she didn't know who the boy was or if he was capable of doing something but she decided to bet. It was a mistake she will never repeat again!
Normally when someone is prevented from doing this kind of work, it is because they broke something, started a fire or, as in the case of Atom, caused problems.
Since the boy was new he had decided to give him an easy job, repairing an air conditioning fan, so he would know if the boy was capable and in the worst case, she would just have to fix the fan herself.
Atom was good in his work, more than good! He had been good enough to be dangerous! When the boy was done with the repairs, the air inside the tavern not only circulated again but it was fresh and clean, Emperor's head sake!
And, as if that doesn't raise enough alarms, a few days later, she knew from a voice lurking in the sahdows of the underhive, two fucking Tech-Priests come to his fraking tavern!
When she found out, she had to close the tavern, cleans it from every possible way she will incriminated with the gangs of the udnerhive in record time and clear the place of any possible 'Techno-Heresy' and Archeo-Tech. When they arrived it was all clean but the Tech-Priests didn't care and instead focused on asking questions.
When the day was over her tavern was safe from any possible Adeptus Mechanicus or Arbites retaliation, but it took weeks to convince her customers to come back and convince them that the place was safe... and they are still asking that today.
As for the fan it was now full of litanies of devotion, techno-seals and candles, the Tech-priests had turned the place into a small altar with so much stuff than even the Tech-priest, who is "clean" enough to enter the tavern and make business, sometimes use it for prayes or for cleanse the weapons into sacred oils.
Since then she had sworn that she would NEVER allow that boy to do anything in his tavern... except pay and drink, not necessarily in that order.
Looking back in the direction from where the boy had gone he thought back to how much his life and that of the Underhive had changed since he had introduced himself.
His cybernetics told them that this was just the beginning of something huge, something so huge that he will shake the entire Hiveworld and rip the universe apart... and his cybernetics are never wrong.
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You can find this work even on:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
archiveofourown.org
Abominable Intelligence, Silica Animus, Men of Gold, Men Of Stone and Men Of Iron. These are the names that have remained in the legend. The legend of sentient machines. Many know the legend, few know of the events that occurred during the Cybernetic Revolt. But nobody knows the whole truth...
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