Paladin had been up all night, he'd spent hours running models and testing data, searching through reports... Nothing. He couldn't conform his plan to save Ariin or if Ariin even still existed, the most he knew was that hardline links normally killed the pilots and fried Framewerk when they were tested. Yet this had not happened, Paladin knew all of his specs well all of what his systems could access but... Perhaps there was more inside this frame than the others? It was developed on Mars and not under Lorenzo, perhaps there was another reason why this happened.

Rubbing his eyes, he changed into his plug suit and pulled Ariin's jacket on on putting the hood up before slowly stepping out into the hall. The former framewerk walked along until he reached the docks, spotting two of the squad members at the end of the hall. He stopped looking at them curious as to why they were here, his robotic eye moving in an out of focus before resting on the backpack. "You are pilots, Jake and Mai? Are you here to test your frames?" He asked as the tech sent an order out from his robotic eye to the techs, who began to move Paladin to the end of the catwalk opening the cockpit.

"If you are here because of concern for me, there is none. Ariin and I were doomed from the start, much as it pains me to admit it." He said starting to move past, yet yet shorter boy could not move past the two so he sighed and leaned back on the railing. "Ariin is sentenced to fight until death or victory, after which he will put in prison. I will used as a model for cheaper lesser models based off of my combat data and performance review." He stopped a moment. "But the mission dictates victory... I need my pilot, and he needs to control my frame." He spoke like the machine he was, yet pangs of emotion crept into his words.