A month had passed, and the three boys had grown closer—though Tessal and Ace still butted heads. Most of the time it was Ace who pushed for a fight, throwing challenges or sharp words. Tessal usually dodged him, either with a calm dismissal or by distracting Ace into testing one of his half-finished devices. More often than not, those contraptions exploded in Ace's face, leaving Sabo doubled over in laughter.
Despite their rough edges, the boys began to find a rhythm together. They wandered the Terminal, sneaked into the noble district to stir up trouble, and clashed with local scrapper gangs. Their most frequent rivals were the Bluejam Pirates, who strutted about as if they ruled the Terminal's underworld. But when it came down to it, the Terminal wasn't much of an empire—just a sprawling dump where the nobility tossed their trash and the unwanted were left to rot. Calling it an "underworld" felt like a cruel joke.
One day, Tessal set out alone on his usual salvage run. He combed through piles of scrap, picking over wires, broken gears, and discarded tools, his mind already churning with ideas. Lately, he had been fixated on the notion of building a robot. The problem was, he couldn't decide what kind. A helper? A spy? A fighter? The possibilities tangled in his thoughts like the wires in his hands, and he wasn't sure where to begin.
Tessal trudged back from the salvage heaps, arms loaded with odds and ends—copper wires tangled like vines, a cracked lens, and a few battered cogs he thought he could smooth back into shape. The Terminal's smoke hung low in the air, clinging to his clothes as he made his way toward his little workshop.
On the path, a flicker of movement caught his eye. A beetle, its shell glinting green in the dim light, scurried across the broken planks. Tessal paused, crouching down to watch it. The way its legs worked—so precise, so efficient—made his mind buzz.
And then, like a spark leaping from a loose wire, the thought struck him.
Mechanical insects.
The idea hit with such force he almost dropped his bundle of scrap. Insects were small, quick, and could crawl where no one else could. Perfect for spying, distracting, even sabotaging if built right. His eyes widened as he imagined swarms of little creations—some designed to scout, others to sting, maybe even one or two tough enough to fight.
By the time he reached his workshop, his hands were already twitching with the need to sketch. The piles of junk before him no longer looked like trash but the building blocks of something new.