“Oh sweet Unicron, destroyer of worlds... that is just too precious,” Sentinel said, laughing.

Jackie gave him a side eye. “Come again, mate?”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just... proxy stuff.”

“Oh? Wass goin’ on now? Someone gettin’ deep in the muck?”

“A bit,” Sentinel said, smirking, as he worked on stitching a new duster. “Prowl and Cyclone when searching for whoever left that dead animal by our gate.”

“Right... Prowl’s your.. What ya call ‘er agin? Deputy?”

“Yeah. Anyway, she and Cyclone followed a trail all the way back to some big cave and found a couple of ogres.”

“Oy! Do we need ta do somethin’? They in trouble??” Jackie exclaimed, jumping up from his office chair.

“Nah, nah. Don’t worry, they’re fine. One of the ogres is pregnant and sick, the other one wants them to help.”

“I’m failin’ to see the humor mate.”

“That’s not the funny bit, the funny bit is they think IronHide is a god. They left that animal carcass as an offering in hopes that he’d help them out.”

“I guess that’s kinda sweet... but it was juss dumb luck that Cyc an’ Prowl bothered ta tracked them back home, yeah?”

“Yup. I guess IronHide moves in mysterious ways,” Sentinel teased, while waving his hands in mystic gestures.

Outside of Jackie’s office, they could hear and feel the heavy thuds of a giant walking past.

“I guess he does. Sistahs know I’ve no clue how ya power that bloke.”

“Well, Prime got a little upgrade not too long ago. He can maintain all of us going at the same time now.”

“Noice.”

“Yup.”

“Prime goin’ out with him?”

“Nope. He’s busy working on building a new Carnivac so the big guy is on his own. It’ll be good for him to get away from daddy for a bit.”

“Daddy, eh?”

Sentinel shrugged and went back to his sewing. “You get a chance to see the new facemesh system that Prime made for the princess?”

“Juss glimpses. I try ta make a point of not bein’ around too much when the princess is.”

“I get what ya mean,” Sentinel chuckled. Through his own subproxy connection to one of the various “security camera” units positioned around the village, he watched as IronHide passed through the village border.

IronHide hadn’t been out on his own much. Of all the proxies, he spent the most time on his own in the [Inventory] space and offline. As he thought about it, the only times he’d been on his own without Prime taking direct control was the fight against the golems and ogres. He had only the vaguest of senses of how to act, personality wise. One’s personality only really develops as one comes in contact and interacts with others, right? Had anyone ever talked with IronHide? Prime’s direct control certainly influenced IronHide’s thoughts and helped shape him. That time back in that village with the weasel people and the well felt like a learning experience. Was that meant to be a demonstration for IronHide to show him how to interact with people?

IronHide understood that he took up more proxy slots than any of the other proxies, so it wasn’t like Prime could keep him going all the time. He’d resigned himself to being on his own in his subroutine room until whenever he was called to action, then put back. He wasn’t happy about it, but he understood the logistics of it all. If Prime had taken direct control back in the fight against the golems and ogres then an IronHide subroutine might never have been created.

With the upgrade though, Prime got more proxy slots. Maybe this meant that IronHide would have the chance to come out of his room and stay active all the time. He hoped so. Another proxy that didn’t even have a body had opened up the door to IronHide’s room. It called itself MainFrame, but it wasn’t very friendly. IronHide had stepped out of his room to find an open floor area with some couches and a TV that was showing whatever it was that Prime was experiencing. There were no walls and no ceiling, just endless blackness, though doors attached only to the floor ringed the area. He had peered through windows in the doors to see other proxies active and doing things. Other than MainFrame, the only other proxy around seemed to be Carnivac, he wasn’t terribly friendly either.

IronHide had plopped himself down on a couch, it wasn’t much but it was better than just sitting in his room he supposed. He found a remote control sitting on a table in front of him, that he wasn’t certain was there when he sat down. He picked it up and pointed it at the TV and flipped through the channels to cycle through what all the other proxies were working on.

A feeling of loneliness and being left out had started to creep in that hadn’t been there before when he was just locked away in his room. The time before now felt like he had been dormant or sleeping, but now he was fully aware of what everyone else was doing while he hung out in a common room by himself.

Something had happened though, Cyclone needed his help. That was going to be his chance to prove himself, to show that he could be useful beyond just when big things needed big punches.

As he crashed through the woods, following the trail that had led Cyclone and Prowl to the cave, he felt like he was smiling. He had a solid faceplate, like everyone else, but in his head he knew he was smiling. In the back of his mind, he thought about how he’d like to have a facemesh like the princess did, so that he could make facial expressions too. Prime would allow that, right?

It took IronHide far less time to reach the cave than it took Cyclone. Partially because he took much larger steps, but also because he had the added benefit of having Cyclone’s synced knowledge of coming through here once already.

The mouth of the cave was large enough to grant him access but it wouldn’t take long before he’d lose head room. He looked around the area. They’d want to bring the ogre lady outside, but where to put her? A bath would be good for a sick person, right? He had a boiler full of water! He could totally make a bath! But where to make it?

He started piling up rocks in the area and then stopped himself.

“Okay, that’s dumb. The water will just go right out the cracks,” he said aloud.

Maybe big brother Cyclone could help, no wait, he was in the cave trying to keep the ogre calm. Gah! What should he do?? He was useless if he wasn’t punching something! Then a little tickle pulled at the edges of his mind. He felt the distinct sensation of big sister Ram tugging at him to keep searching the area, so he did.

He found a spot where the solid stone of the outer cave wall ran perpendicular to the ground. The area around it seemed to be just dirt, what was so great about this spot? The memory of digging the grave trench for that punk kid back in that village popped into his mind. IronHide guessed he should dig out a bath so he started digging.

Before too long, he’d managed to carve out a sizable hole that followed the edge of the cave wall. The solid rock would be impermeable so he’d only have to worry about the other sides and the bottom. He stomped and slapped at the dirt to compact it but was still worried about retaining the water. Having solid rock on the other walls would be helpful. Could he crack solid rock? He smashed that rock dragon that one time... so maybe?

He got up out of the hole and searched around until he found a large boulder that had a lot of striations in it that was at about half of his height. If he thought of the striations like wood grain, then it might break along those areas, possibly? He pulled back his fist and tensed his body, ready to deliver the blow and stopped. Oh yeah, he had a gun. He’d been charging up the steam cannon this whole time in order to have hot water for the bath, it wouldn’t hurt to use some of that pressure here.

He inspected the boulder once again, looking for the best spot to strike and stepped back, pulling out his cannon. He took aim, and fired one of the steel rounds, the size of a soup can, into the side of the boulder at nearly point-blank range. The force of the impact cracked the boulder along a seam line and mutilated the steel slug.

“Yeah!” IronHide shouted as he pumped his fist in the air.

He put away his cannon and grabbed half of the boulder, lifting it up. These things were really quite heavy, weren’t they? And this was just half of one. How heavy was this thing? IronHide bounced a little with the weight to get a feel of it before running some rough numbers assuming about 150 pounds per cubic foot. He stumbled a bit but carried the slab over to his hole and dropped it in with the cracked, flat side facing the cave wall.

“A bit shy of 30 tons? Dang, ya boy IronHide is diesel! Well, no. Steam engine actually,” he laughed at his own joke, then immediately felt embarrassed and glad that no one was around for it.

He shoved and pushed until the rock was wedged in tight. The “tub” would end up being more of a triangular prism than a rectangular one and wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

After smashing the other half of the boulder into reasonable sizes he completed the tub, he just had to seal it. He mixed up some mud with the dirt from the hole and water from his boiler and packed it into the joints and crevices of the tub, as tightly as he could. When he’d finished, he charged up the heat from his fire crystal and directed it into the stone cavity. It was a lucky thing that Prime had adjusted his systems to be able to work the crystal that way for the manaSteel wire project. Maybe Prime could come up with other ways to make use of this crystal. Maybe flamethrower weapons or fire hands like big sis Ram.

The pressure within his boiler was reaching dangerous levels so he decided that was plenty of heat for the mud. He released his pressure valve and opened up the drain valve to let the water drain out into the tub. The water was at a rolling boil now, but hopefully it would cool off enough by the time that the ogre lady was ready to get in. It would be terrible if she thought he was trying to make her into soup.