The orb (all)

Ruby didn't go to the engineers workshop that often, most of the time they just worked with her in the classes workshop. But when she needed maintenance on her new cybernetics she needed to head down into the workshop so he could take a look at it in the clean room. Which meant that she was down there every other week or so, as long as nothing went wrong.

But her power output had dropped by a third of a percent so she had decided to get it checked out, none of the diagnostics said anything was damaged but a second look with better scanning equipment would help. And if she did need something fixed she'd already be in the room.

The door to his workshop was in one of the bunkers it was an odd machine in the middle of the room, and the door didn't actually lead anywhere, it was just a door in a frame not even on a wall, but when you turned the machine in the room on and opened the door it would open up to room filled with turrets, and that room had a hallway connected to his workshop.

It was a teleporting door and ruby still wasn't over how cool it was, he had figured out how to make it by looking at semblances and hers in particular had been a big help, though moving around with all those sensors had been difficult.

The teleporting doorway was already being sold by the engineers company, and she was getting a small portion of the profits, letting her afford so many new weapon modifications and ammunition types.

The doorway lit a green light showing that she was authorized to enter and she walked through, the turrets on the other side scanned her again and then the door to the workshop unlocked. One time ruby had entered carrying a backpack, and apparently she had tricked the weight sensors into thinking she was an intruder and one of the engineers teammates, 2B, had to come turn off the shield keeping her trapped.

Now the other side of the portal had a little scale she put things she was taking with her on so the defenses would know how much she was supposed to weigh.

The engineer wasn't actually in his workshop, but his giant of a son, Ruby assumed he was adopted and swore that the kid looked older than the engineer, and 9S were in the workshop. And they were both looking at an odd silver orb that was floating over one of the tables. She watched 9S poke it with a screwdriver only for the screwdriver to wrench itself from his hand and start orbiting it.

"Hey guys! What's that? And have you seen the engineer anywhere? I need him to take a look at something" her sudden voice seemed to startle 9S but Palisade only shrugged at her questions before speaking "he left a few minutes ago and he'll be back soonish, and we have no idea what this is, it's just some sort of floating orb" as soon as he finished speaking the screwdriver stopped orbiting and fell to the floor, only for the orb to start pulsing in light. 9S picked up the screwdriver and put it under a scanner, neither of them seemed concerned that the orb was pulsing at a slowly increasing rate. Ruby decided she was going to be concerned about it if no one else was "is it supposed to be doing that? Should we be worried? What if it explodes?"

9S spoke this time "it did the flashing thing like four minutes ago, and it isn't putting off any radiation besides the visible light and no energy buildup inductive of a detonation. So it's probably fine"

By now Ruby was standing next to Palisade, only coming up to the giant's waist and she was staring at the orb. The flashing light was bright but it didn't seem to hurt her eyes or leave spots in her vision. "What happens if we poke it while it's flashing?" At her question Palisade grabbed a glove and a second screwdriver, put the glove on and then poked the orb with the screwdriver. Immediately the screwdriver caught on fire but didn't seem to burn, the flame spread from the screwdriver and covered the orb, pulsing in time with the light, the flames vanished when the screw driver was removed, there hadn't been any heat.

Palisade took off the glove "it does that, don't know what that is, but the flame isn't hot, it doesn't burn, and it isn't formed from gas or energy fields." the orbs pulsing slowed to a stop and it started to spin on its axis, Palisade and 9S stepped away from the table. "Did the engineer tell you what it was for?" 9S grimaced and Palisade laughed, it was 9S who spoke "he… doesn't actually know. He just got… drunk, and built it" ruby being ruby focused on the entirely wrong part of that sentence "he got drunk! That's against school rules! And the law!" Palisade started laughing harder before speaking "not on alcohol, just some fluids that enhance his cognition or something, but he can't really remember what he does while on them" ruby watched as the orb kept spinning faster and faster, causing the room to get a slight breeze that just kept picking up, small arcs of electricity began to come off of it. "So no one knows what it does?" Palisade nodded, "yeah but we will figure it out, eventually"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

One of the screwdrivers on the table started to roll closer to the orb as the wind pulled at it, and it came in range of the arks of electricity, one of the arks hit it and the screwdriver started to slowly float and come apart, now ignoring the wind. Eventually small bubbles of plastic and metal were just floating over the table, all that was left of the screwdriver. "Would it do that to a person?" 9S shrugged, "the engineer left to go get a steak, we were going to test that." Ruby took a few more steps back, Just to be safe.

Eventually the spinning slowed down and the wind died with it, the energy lingered a while longer but it disappeared too, but then the orb started growing larger, which ruby thought was a little more concerning. Palisade and 9S kept scanning the orb but they didn't get any readings off of it, it just scanned like a hunk of silver.

One that was apparently floating and growing for no good reason. It rapidly grew over a few seconds before it started to split apart into two orbs. Ruby was beginning to think it would be a good idea to come back later. Both of the orbs started to fade out of visibility until they couldn't be seen. Considering both Palisade and 9S hadn't seemed concerned about the self replication or the disappearing act Ruby decided to ask an important question, "has the orb duplicated itself before? Or was that new? And is it still here?". Palisade shook his head, "the orbs are still there, but no they haven't done that before. It's fascinating, where are they getting the material?"

Ruby decided she could get her reactor looked at a different day, just in case.

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Titan (warhammer 30K)

Palisade was more than a little concerned by the maniacal laughter coming from his connection to the engineer. They had been working on this project on and off for a few months now and it was finally finished. The hanger they were standing in was massive, but there was only one thing within it. A 120 meter tall mecha, made out of metal and plants, with biter chitin as armor. It had 4 arms, each more weapon mount than limb and it was covered in dozens of massive weapons. Rather than standing on two legs like a man it had four granting it greater stability.

Its legs were covering an area of 80 meters, giving it a wide enough base that it would be nearly impossible to topple without picking it up and knocking it over, not that anything would be able to move the massive monstrosity. Isha had even installed defenses against psyker and warpspawn attacks. The plants granted it a nearly unprecedented level of self repair, as long as its main torso was mostly intact the mecha could regrow entire limbs.

It genuinely had more durability and firepower than their battleships, and those were far larger than this behemoth. Even just the shock waves and radiating heat of a full volley would be enough to kill everything living within miles, not even counting the defenses and scores of drones and smaller machines it could deploy and manufacture.

More than capable of surviving drop from orbit this beast would serve as a mobile war base and factory, making the troops it would need to fight on a planetary scale and keeping anyone inside safe from all but planet destroying weapons. And even then it would need to be a planet cracker, not just something that destroyed the atmosphere.

This thing wasn't practical in the least, but it was never meant to be. It was a statement. Something at the pinnacle of what they could build working together, and it was a beast. Even through the few fights he had already waged on the great crusade he had yet to see a fortress or force this thing would be unable to beat, and Palisade doubted anything but dark age tech, Necrons, or weapons from the war in heaven could challenge it, and most of those considered weapons that could detonate a planet as childsplay.

Not even the dark gods would be able to topple it, and that was the creations true prey of choice. A true super predator for creatures of the warp. Showing the mortals and gods were not toys or tools, but threats that could bring them to an end. It would teach the warpspawn to fear, and they would quake at the sound of its battlecry.

Those of Nauvis did not fear the warp, they never would, and soon it would learn to fear them.