Place in Hierarchy

The beast could hear one of its cubs barking at a threat and tried hard to wake its self up. It had the responsibility of protection. It growled at the pain as it tried to claw something off of its head ripping it to pieces.

Then it noticed the scent of a predator and blood. Fearing the worst it looked around stumbling to its feet and found the massive hawk sprawled over the bolder. The beast took a defensive position and clawed at the talons that could easily kill it. There was no response but it could be playing dead so it snapped its jaws down hard on a talon until it broke freely from the body. This bird was definitely dead.

With one problem solved it then looked for the thing that started all this. That weird creature that approached its den. It hurried to the den and looked in it to see all but one cub still safe. It could hear the other one barking out side. But the thing it used to scratch its back was gone. It nuzzled the cubs to ensure they were not hurt and they licked its nose in return. And then it turned its attention to the cub outside.

Walking in to the open it saw the cub barking at something behind a bolder and waging its little tail. The beast barked at the cub, The cub looked at the beast and then back at the edge of he bolder then back to the beast as it started to run. And the beast walked over to the birds corpse to make it dinner for its family.

- - -

Nick was waving his arms "Quiet you mutt. Go away."

"It can't hear you."

"I have an idea. let's ignore this pest and slowly walk away, with the bolder blocking our view."

"What if 'this pest' fallows us and we need to run or I need to use the gun. I don't have the energy to do either."

Nick started to grab the broken robots arms and grabbed a module to uninstall. "Then I'll cover you with this."

Several portions of the robots arm detached and slithered in to the module. "That sounds like a plan."

Nick took off the module, repositioned the life less robot and stuck the module in to a port on his arm. "Then you start the retreat."

Hasso started to walk backwards facing the bolder and Nick did the same then they heard the beast bark and turned around on their heals and started to run.

- - -

Hasso looked back at the beast's den in the far distance. "This should be a good enough distance away."

Nick dropped the robot to the ground. "Time to see what we can salvage."

"By the way, what did you install before?"

Nick materialized a single edged short sword. "It looks like a long knife, but the solid edge can shock you."

Hasso watched Nick show off the blade by turning on the shock function. "How much battery does it drain?"

Nick let go of the weapon as it slid back in to components of his hand and arm. "It's minimal in short bursts. I could probably maintain contact for a few minutes but that's it."

Hasso looked over the robot. "Well, its battery was fare better than ours but is completely destroyed."

"It looks like this shoulder module is an upgrade for my knife. And the other shoulder module is an upgrade for your gun."

"The skull has two targeting modules, one for each eye and a monocular module still functioning."

Nick grabbed one of the arms "Let's start with the upgrades and targeting first. Then we can see who needs the other module."

Hasso started to dislodge the module from the arm. "This must have been a military scout."

Nick started to take off one of the targeting modules and an eye to replace is bad one. "What did that make us? No defensive or offensive modules but limited communications?"

Hasso started to put the new modules in "What amazes me is the compatible design. If we were meant to be nothing more than a limited communications robots, then why give us the ability to upgrade at all?"

Nick stood up placing the tracking module in "I don't know. But now it's time for show and tell."

Hasso placed the tracking module in "You first."

Nick picked up the board he was using as a weapon up till now and waited for the signal from the targeting system. Hearing 'target acquired and locked on' in his head he threw the board in to the air. Quickly manifesting a two handed sword that cut the board in to three parts before it hit the ground.

"Nice"

Nick bent over to pick up one of the wooden pieces. "That took more than half of my energy. But can't argue with results."

Hasso saw the piece of wood Nick was showing off. "You cut a perfect square around the brand?"

"Targeting shows me what I need to do and how to do it." Nick said manifesting a fork in his hand with electricity passing between the tips of the fork. "But the weapon costs me almost nothing. Shock can be applied to everything but cost goes up with coverage."

"So you can manifest almost any weapon but pay the price in skill of use and non lethality?"

"Not any weapon but blades. Also the bigger it gets the more hollow it is."

"Now it's my turn?"

Nick picked up a scrap of board "Would you like a target?"

Hasso manifested his hand gun "No, my battery is still too low for shooting practice. Targeting is less than five percent of my battery use, I can manifest almost any gun. But the shot cost just goes up from here. The fewer shots the better and that's per projectile."

"So what your saying is you want the scope."

"A scope is attached to a weapon. A monocular is a single eye variant of the binocular."

"Just say yes."

Hasso started to dislodge the module "Yes. I think it fits my weapons streanths and limitations better than yours."

"Fine"

Hasso installed the monocular module. "Looks like there are several visual fields I can cycle through. Something fun to play with."

"Sense you got the last part could you also take this"

Hasso looked down at a cylindrical device with wires and gears coming out of it. "It would be impolite to not take it."

Nick handed over the scrap robot's core device to Hasso. "So that should be it then."

Hasso placed the core device in to a small compartment in his chest. "Yeah, that's it from this signal."