The short intro of Panagiotis from the 'Oh, Ionia!' storyline. Quickly written as inspiration dictated. Will edit to correct mistakes later.
'Oh, Ionia!' and all characters, designs and concepts are (c) MCD and Rachel Prince. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution is strictly prohibited. Any likenesses to persons living or dead is purely coincedental, as are to existing franchises.
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Space. The silent realm of stars and planets. Cold, yet full of life. Panagiotis felt as if he was trespassing as he floated past the neighborhoods of gas giants, white dwarfs and comets. His optic sensors scanned his surroundings and a smile crept over his faceplates. Beautiful.
How did he manage to survive this long? To see such wonders? How was he still functioning? He pondered these questions over and over in his processors and had been doing ever since he had left his home world behind. The home world that was doomed to destruction. How was it that such a wonderful planet could suddenly face such a tragic end?
His thoughts wandered back to the scientists in their labs that he had ecountered. They had been running around in a state of frenzy over something their scanners had picked up. Panagiotis had been called in since he was part of the world's military and had recalled several scientists yelling at him. He couldn't tell what they were saying. He only heard high-pitched voices drowned by the roar of their computer turbines. It was only when one scientist had taken him aside and explained the situation that he finally understood. The planet had begun a new orbit cycle, only this time it was directly into the black hole that they had been monitoring for centuries. 'Aegis', as they had nicknamed it, was to be their destroyer.
Panagiotis shook his helm at the memory of the evactuation. All shuttles had left it too late and had been sucked into the black void. So many friends, so many allies. He had taken flight long before the others to oversee the evacuation being one of the few bots that could sustain space flight without the need for a shuttle, or other vehicle and had watched in horror as he saw his family devoured by Aegis.
A red flash blinded him for a moment. His systems were low on energy. There were no suns near him and that was what he relied on. Solar energy was vital for his race. The planet he was now so far away from had two suns. Glorious balls of energy and no night. Just constant daylight. The dark of space was almost overwhelming.
He had set himself adrift to conserve his energy with no idea of where he was going. Where could he go? What if there were no worlds like his? And even if there were worlds out there, did he really deserve to live on them after all of his friends and family had died so needlessly? He offlined his optics and vented a sigh. He did not deserve it. Not now. And besides, he figured that he wouldn't make it on his low energy levels anyway.
Time passed as he floated in silence. He had no idea of just how long, as he had shut down most of his thought processes to save his energy as before. Another red flash blinded him. Then another. He was lower than he thought. He onlined his optics and marvelled at the spiral galaxy before him. He had never seen anything quite like it. Another red flash. An optic ceased to function. Was this it? Would he offline like this? It wasn't so bad a fate. Much better than facing death in a black hole, at least.
His thoughts returned to his home planet again. How he would miss it. The bots that he knew, the places he loved, his femme Hoia. Hoia... Poor Hoia was in one of the first shuttles to get sucked into the void. Horrible! So horrible! Another red flash shook him from his anger, followed by three more flashes. He was close to offlining. He would see his Hoia soon.
It was the his gaze rose to meet the sight in front of him. A big, blue-green planet. It looked amazing. He trued to scan it, but he could not do it. His energy reseves were far too depleted. It was then he saw it. The sun peeking over the edge of the sphere. Was he too late to harness the energy? He tried his thrusters, but even they had failed him. He just stared at the orb of light as he was pulled into the atmosphere, hurtling downwards like a comet. The heat of entry was fierce and it shorted the wiring to his lower extremities. And down he came. Over the ocean, as blue as the one back on his own planet. He wearily smiled, not caring that his fate was sealed. Not even the sun's rays could help him. He was too far gone.
With a loud boom his body collided with the sands on the shore of the blue sea in a natural cove. He saw the white cliffs, could only just hear the sea lapping at his feet and his internals buzzed with happiness. He raised a servo to the sun in the sky as his vision dimmed. With one last shred of energy he thanked the land for catching him in the language of his home world, before he offlined forever.
