Capture
A/N: From being a story to being a one-shot. I don't own Get Ed. Sorry for the poor descriptions. It's been long since I've seen the series and I forgot a few things.
I heard his shouting. Apparently he didn't have anything good to do.
"Crouch, where's my jacket?" I asked the robot that was passing through my door. I was in a hurry and I needed his answer.
"You lost it again?"
"I need it or I'll get my ass kicked again." I pointed at the choker in my neck. It didn't look like it, but if I disobeyed or tried to revolt against him, I could get electrocuted; something I did not like after the first hundred times or so.
"Sucks to be you then." The toaster robot ran away.
I growled. "You idiot!" I sighed. Might as well suck up the pain... again.
"Mr. Bedlam has been asking for you," I heard Cora behind me.
"I lost my jacket," I told her as I turned towards the hologram. "If I don't look presentable to him; I'll get beaten-up again."
She sighed. She hovered towards my closet and pointed at a vest. "Try this and say you were in the kitchen."
Cora was usually—and surprisingly—nice to me, unlike that scumbag Crouch. Maybe having someone new in her surroundings was something that lifted her spirit... after all, she was alone with Crouch the whole damn day. Spyker was no fun either; he ran around the city causing trouble, though I heard from Crouch that he was a good guy... if you ignored his bullying.
I heard him shouting again. I placed on the vest and ran out the door. "Thank you, Cora!" I shouted.
When I arrived at his dark office, he stared at me grimly. His physical state, while laughable because he looked like a child, was terrifying to people who knew what had happened to him. "Where have you've been, Brandon?"
"Kitchen," I replied without looking at him. If I looked at him in the eye, I get zapped. I stood up straight. I was nervous, but couldn't show it. I don't know what he's doing or what he's going to do with me.
Bedlam looked at me quietly for a while. "Fair enough."
I mentally sighed. My tense mind had eased.
"I have a request for you." He stopped, waiting for me to answer back like I did before he robed me of my life. When I didn't respond, he continued, "You fought so much two months ago. Is that fighting spirit gone now?" he mused. "Anyway, I will allow you to do my errands for me. Doesn't that sound nice?"
Meh... this is better than getting scolded or painting the walls...
"What do you need, sir?" I asked as I removed my white gloves from my vest's pocket and placed them on my hands. Apparently servants do this also...
"Run around the city with Crouch and do these things," he said as he threw me a notebook with a list of things to do. "You know how to drive, no? You're old enough. Please take the hover car. After all, your motorcycle is mine." He smirked.
Now why can't I punch him? Seriously, somebody remind me...
"Will do, sir," I said as I bowed. I walked away towards the door and when it close, I grinned.
I've never stepped out of Bedlam's tower since he kidnapped me two months ago.
"Hotshot, you get the North hospital!" I shouted at Ed as I checked the area off the list.
"The North? B-But that's the—"
"No buts! Just do it."
"Fine..." he muttered as he walked away to get his hover board.
"Burn, what do I get?" Fizz's green eyes lit up as she approached me.
"You stay here."
"But why?" she moaned. She was a very helpful girl, so staying out of that work was a pain to her.
"You're helping me today with this item." I pointed with my pen at the small box on the table. "A hoop-bot stole it and we need to track it to its rightful owner. Can you do that?"
"Eh... sure! Why not?" Though not what she was expecting, but a job nonetheless.
I turned towards Loogie and Deets. "You get East..." I pointed at Loogie. "And you get West." I pointed at Deets.
"Why do I get the far sectors?" she whined.
"Because I don't like you," I said bluntly.
The pair walked away. Deets cursed under her breath while Loogie joyfully spoke to Dr. Pinch.
That was the last time I would ever see my friends together.
Fizz sat on the table. She was looking at the contents of the box. It was a twine necklace with dozens of medallions, big and small, and a few brown and blue rocks. "Could be a museum?"
"But also could belong to a collector."
"Right..."
I sat next to her. I noticed that she stiffen a little bit, but then continued with her work. Hmm... I wonder what that was all about...
"I think I'll have to check with the computer on this one..." she stood up and grabbed the necklace.
"I'll follow you too," I said as I stood up.
"Eh..." Eh? What does she mean "eh"? "Don't you have stuff to do... places to go?"
"Not really. I have Ol' Skool's job of staying here and monitoring everyone. It's a sad job when I'm alone." I smiled. "You know, I'm glad to have someone here today. I'm usually by myself doing chores around here."
She smiled warmly. The stiffness of her body melted away with my words. "I'm glad to be working with you..." She ran away to her workshop.
I grunted. Now that's something I didn't expect. I walked towards the couch where Ol' Skool's laptop lay. I opened it and the screen displayed a map of Progress City and Ed, Deets and Loogie's symbols moving towards the affected areas. 'Ah... another peaceful day! Just what I need.'
Something exploded on the inside of the Dojo after I thought that. The first thing I did after the earth shook was to run to the workshop.
"Fizz, what did you... do..." I started, but later silenced when I saw her on the floor shaking in fear of the riot-bots that had broken down the wall. She looked up at me and ran to hide behind me.
The robots scanned the area, hoping to find something. They didn't find what they wanted, but there were two pesky humans living here. They had to be destroyed.
"Fizz... where are your weapons?" I whispered to her.
"In that closet over there." She pointed at a door that was close to the robots. "Don't bother with it. Let's go into hiding."
"No."
"No? Burn, are you crazy?" Fizz pulled on my arm.
I pulled an EMP patch from my pocket. "If you wanna run, then run. I'm defending the Dojo."
She sighed as she let go of my arm. "You really are stubborn. It can get you in trouble one day..." She picked up an EMP patch from her pocket. "But not today."
"Thanks, Fizz!"
We ran towards the robots and threw EMP patches on the weak point, the joint in their feet. We had few patches in comparison to the number of robots. It was a risky move, but I had to get a weapon. After I threw the last patch I had on hand, I ran.
"Burn, no!" Fizz yelled.
I was almost there. Just needed to touch the door's button on the wall...
But I never got a chance to.
A riot-bot grabbed my leg and pulled me up. I hung in the air backwards.
A screen pop in front of me. I could see a young dark-dressed teenager. I cringed at the sight. I was very surprise to see Bedlam... "So you've got the leader... but not Ed!" he shouted at his robots. "Bring this courier back to my tower. Let's use him as bait as we have done before."
The riot-bot's hand flew towards my face. A small hole on his hand liberated some sort of gas.
That was my last memory of the Dojo.
"I found your jacket," Cora said as she appeared in the hall. "Crouch threw it in the laundry room. He says it was an accident, but I didn't buy it."
"Thanks, Cora..." I sighed in relief. "Can you locate me the keys of the hover car before you leave?"
"Hover car? You aren't trying to escape, are you?"
"No, he let me go out to do some errands with Crouch. Now that I think about it, now I can hit that piece of crap for stealing my jacket!"
"A robot will deliver you the keys. Also please wear the glasses it will give you."
"Glasses? What for?"
"People won't know who you are if you hide your face with glasses. I don't know what runs the human mind into thinking such a thing, but it works. You don't want to attract attention after all that has happened. Mr. Bedlam wouldn't be pleased to know that you tried to escape or fight with another courier group who found out your identity."
I sighed. "How can I run away, Cora? No matter how far I get from Bedlam, I'm still attached to him enough to injure me. I won't run that mistake again..."
A small robot came to me. It balanced its thin body with a ball wheel. In its hands, it held silver keys and rectangle-shaped black-framed glasses.
"They won't affect your vision," Cora explained. "Crouch should come so—"
She was cut off by a loud shout and something heavy thrown at us.
"Found him walking slowly," said Spyker's cold and metallic voice as he approached us. "Maybe throwing him here would make him go faster. He muttered, "Why do I have to go with the scary one?" over and over again."
I cracked my knuckles. "So I'm scary now, huh?"
Crouch, who was laying on the ground, sat up and ran behind Spyker.
I picked up my jacket from the floor and the keys and the glasses from the small servant robot. I pulled Crouch away from Spyker and made him walk towards the garage in the basement level of the tower.
"Why do I have to be dressed as a butler of some sort?" I asked Crouch on the way there. It really was annoying to dress formally every day, even though I was dubbed as a servant, which in my perspective shouldn't wear clothes that cost more than two-hundred cred.
"I-I think he's doing this because it's his dream to have human servants, but since everyone knows he's evil; won't happen."
"Y-You're telling me I'm his fantasy come true..." I said in annoyance. 'It's been two months... two months... things won't get weirder after this...'
We arrived at the garage. Crouch pointed at the vehicle we were going to use. It was a standard-model black hover car. We both got in.
I put on the glasses that Cora gave me. "She said I won't attract that much attention, but who sends a person dressed as a servant to the streets?" I muttered.
"You ask too many question," Crouch said as he clapped. "Let's go! Let's go!"
Crouch was just as excited as I was about leaving the tower. He didn't go out as much too.
The first thing on our list was going to the Bazaar to pick up groceries.
"He has some interesting tastes, huh?" I said as I looked at the list. I growled. "Going into all of these international stands is going to take forever!"
"Hey! At least enjoy that you're out of the tower," Crouch reproached me.
"Well... yeah, you're right! For the first time ever, you are right!" I joked.
"Where's that remote to zap you?" he grumbled.
We walked around to the Indian section where we had to buy all of these spices I can't really pronounce that well. Crouch, being a toaster robot, could actually speak other languages really well. The guy kept a big eye on me though; this was one of Bedlam's robots with a normal human... something was off with this sight.
Oh... did I mention nobody knew that Bedlam was alive yet? I guess I forgot...
I gave one of the two bags to Crouch. "You're helping." I glared down at him.
"With those glasses, you don't scare anyone."
"They don't look geeky... They look like normal sophisticated glasses..." I said to him.
"Doesn't matter, you don't scare anyone."
"Then why were you saying that I was scary an hour ago, huh?"
"Spyker was lying! I can prove it!"
His "I can prove it" usually meant he couldn't.
I sighed. This was better than running around inside his broken-down tower the whole day.
I heard some people shouting. Someone was running around between the crowd. A big whirring noise could be heard also.
"Ed! Stop them!" a female voice shouted.
I gasped. Ed? Fizz? Here?
"I-It's your friends and rogue hoop-bots," Crouch pointed out.
"We-We've got to save them!" I told Crouch.
"Cora said not to attract attention."
"B-But I can't stand here and..."
I remembered something... a thought that hid on the back of my mind... something I didn't want to believe. I've always been sort of the impatient type, so I started to believe they wouldn't rescue me after a week inside Bedlam's tower. It's been two months already; haven't heard from them...
I sometimes wondered if they ever cared for me...
Ed jumped on top of one of the hoop-bot's heads. He slashed his head away with the Slammer and jumped into the next robot. Fizz was running away, trying to divert the robots away from the Bazaar and the innocent civilians. She wasn't focusing all that well because she crashed into me.
"Ah, I'm sorry, sir..." She looked up and gasped. Glasses could fool everyone except my friends. "Y-Y-You're alright!" She grinned as her eyes got watery. She held onto me tightly. "I'm so sorry..."
"Fizz, less time hugging strangers; more time destroying robots!" Ed called her.
"How did you..." she asked me.
"I'll be here all day, just go. We'll meet up later," I told her calmly.
She smiled warmly and cleaned her eyes. She ran with Ed to continue with their mission.
"Listening to her... that's the girl that couldn't save you," Crouch said as he stood next to me.
"Yeah, that's her..." I told him with a sigh. "C'mon, I got a good idea." I ran towards another stand. "Can you give me that? I need to save those kids!" I said to the woman who owned the stand as I pointed at a fire extinguisher she had on the wall. Yeah, same trick, just different approach.
The woman slowly nodded and gave me the fire extinguisher. I gave Crouch my bag and ran off to help them.
"Don't run off to far! He will freak out if he finds out you escaped!" Crouch warned me.
Ed and Fizz didn't run too far away since they got trapped in one of the alleys. If I attack them from behind, they wouldn't notice me or tape me, since Bedlam can see through their eyes.
'Hopefully, this will work!' I threw the fire extinguisher between the robots. It crashed with the ground and exploded. The cold shocked them and fell down.
"Okay, hugging strangers helped us..." Ed said in surprise.
Fizz ran towards me again and hugged me very tightly. She started whimpering and crying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Ed ran towards Fizz. "Thank you for saving us, mister..." he said.
"Ed, where are you vehicles... and the rest of the guys for that matter?" I scolded him.
"Burn?" He looked up.
"Yes?"
He laughed. "You look like a dork!"
"Shut up!" I punched him on the head.
He cried out of pain and Fizz giggled between her crying.
We all sat on an outside table in a restaurant near the Bazaar. Crouch and I on one side and Fizz and Ed in the other.
"We've been searching for you all this time," Fizz explained. "Your signature disappeared all of the sudden. It entered Bedlam's tower and it disappeared inside hours later. We thought you died, but you're tough enough to evade death. So how are you cloaked?"
"I don't know." I punched Crouch in his arm. "Tell us. You should know."
"That choker prod conceals your signature also," he told us.
"But it makes no sense. Wasn't he using me as bait?"
"He is!"
"But the signature..."
"Well... there was a time he took the prod away from you in your sleep..." he remembered. "We waited for Ed, but nothing happened... He left it on you ever since. He told us they didn't care for you anymore. A hungry leadership battle was in debate in the Dojo all of this time. Dojo Deliveries would crumble soon without their leaders."
"He? You mean Bedlam?" Ed shouted.
Me and Crouch shushed him down. Prying ears could hear this conversation.
"These robots aren't rogues; they're still under Bedlam's control," I whispered to them. "They're still looking for you. The destruction that robots have made around the city is a way to keep you out and for his hunting. He's still out for your head."
Ed gulped. "Does he still want the Machine's power? He must have lost it just as I did."
"He wants you, with or without the Machine's power," Crouch told him.
Ed slumped on his chair; perplex of what we told him.
"Even if we lost your signature, we tried to search for you. All of the possible entrances have been blocked... so how did you manage to escape?" Fizz asked.
"Escape? Nah! We're just doing some groceries for him," I told her.
"Y-You're kidding, right?" Her eye twitched. "You're out here and you're returning to the tower soon?"
I pointed at the choker prod. "Can't do anything about it... and what do you mean all entrances have been blocked? The garage door is open."
"T-There's a garage?"
"With tons of cars too."
She stood up and slammed her hands to the table. "You mean to tell me there's an unknown opening in the tower that we haven't seen?"
"Yeah... or maybe you didn't care enough to see them."
"Don't say that!"
"Deets has the leadership role; Loogie won't have anyone giving him crap about his wacky actions; Ed would be the best courier around; and you wouldn't have to see me again. Pretty much what Bedlam said." I scoffed. "I don't know what's crazier: this or that Bedlam knew this already?" I stood up with Crouch. "We're leaving." I looked at them. "Even if you don't care, I still cared enough to save you two." We started to walk away. "Why did you tell them his plan?" I asked Crouch.
"If they stop Bedlam, they save us," he said. "It's not like we want to be with Mr. Bedlam, but we have to stick together when the time comes."
"A family of some sort, right?"
"Like you had with the Dojo."
"Yeah... back then..."
Two hands grabbed my arms. They didn't have enough of me yet.
"You leave when you just gave us a way to free you; what's wrong with you?" Fizz started to hit my arm in fury.
"Fizz always felt in debt to you after you saved her in the Dojo. You think we haven't tried everything? Maybe you don't notice because you're stuck inside all day," Ed stated. "So what do we have to do? Remove that prod thing and get you back with us. Sounds easy enough. Fizz, you can remove the prod, right?"
"Of course I can! With the right equipment on hand..." she muttered.
"So now that we know where you are, know where to enter and exit, we can devise a plan to free you!"
"Stop!" We all looked at Crouch. "You can't! You can't!"
"Uh... did you hate me...?" I asked meekly. I was very surprise. I looked at Ed and Fizz. They were just as surprised as I was.
"If you leave... we'll return to our old lives. Cora... Spyker... We'll return to the same old life with no one to have compassion over us. It's no fun dealing Bedlam alone..."
"A... family, right?" I sighed. It was a big decision to make. Either go with the Dojo to help the city... or stay with Bedlam for the well-being of some robots who were once my enemies.
They didn't care, so why should I? Two months as the only human besides Bedlam. If I tried to rebel myself, I got punished severely. If I talked back, I got zapped. They knew Bedlam was evil and if anything got near his tower, it meant serious danger or even death itself.
But...
It's not that they don't cared, it's just the situation itself is hard...
Imagine... you lost the adult leader of your company after a massive destruction of the city. Weeks later, you lost the leader of the crew. Deets knew only in part how to take care of the Dojo if either Ol' Skool or myself happened to be absent. They needed the money for new devices and weapons. Deets had to make the call.
Man... since when did I thought this much about anything?
"Tell me, Ed. What was Deets' call? Her first call," I asked.
"She stood silent for a while. Went to her room all day. She returned and divided us and our days to sustain ourselves and try to look for you," he said.
I chuckled. "After telling her I didn't like her, she waited."
"Waited? What do you mean?" Ed defended Deets with his aggravated tone.
"Ah, she and I understand it..."
"Loogie went out and searched for you the first day," Fizz said. "Guess he owed you after helping him escape the Klowns." At least I heard some good news.
I walked towards Crouch. "Fizz, Ed, go. I'm staying."
"What?" they shouted.
"I'm not doing this because I want to; I'm doing this because they need me. I have to stay... for the sake of them." I looked at Ed. "Ed, you have to get strong... stronger than Bedlam... strong enough to destroy him for good. I can't speak for Crouch, Cora or Spyker, but I can speak for myself that if you come to destroy him once and for all; I'll help you.
"Search for your Items, they're around Sector Nine somewhere; Bedlam told me. The rest of your Items are with him in a safe room he and Cora know the code to. Forget about me for now; go and save Progress City and the world. I'm nothing in comparison to the rest of your troubles.
"While you're getting stronger, know that I'm trying to make other's happy and that I will be alright and out of trouble from Bedlam... just long enough until you guys get there." I turned to Fizz. "Don't worry about me. You guys will save me someday. Might not be today, but someday. Just be patient. It wasn't your fault I was captured; it was my own. I shouldn't have been reckless to save ourselves. You were right all along; we should've escaped while we still had the chance. Now go, before Bedlam suspects something is wrong." I walked away with Crouch next to me.
"Big words for such a nerdy guy, huh?"
"Shut the hell up, will ya?"
"Hopefully, he'll come..." Cora mumbled as she played with her holographic fingers.
"You're crazy. He left and took Crouch as hostage. Good... this means no annoying toaster," Spyker said.
The door to the garage opened and Burn and Spyker came out with bags.
"Ah! Twenty cred!" Cora sang.
"Scrap!" he cursed.
"What's wrong?" the teenager asked.
"Nothing... nothing..." Spyker said as he walked away.
"Did you two have a good day?" Cora asked sweetly at the pair.
"At least we stretched our legs and got some sun," Burn told her as he and Crouch walked all the way into the kitchen.
"Mr. Bedlam is expecting some food at six, you know," the hologram warned.
"Yeah, yeah..." Burn removed his glasses and his jacket. "Why do I have to do it anyway? Does he have a chef-bot or something?"
"He does." She pointed at Crouch.
"And why isn't he helping me?" His orange eyes narrowed at the toaster robot next to him. He cracked his knuckles and punched the robot straight in the head.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the robot wept.
"Geez, you're helping today..."
It was then that he realized that he had grown attached to these robot servants.
It was said the next day there was a very loud laughter; DJ Dive informed it while Burn and Crouch washed the morning dishes. Nobody knew for what it was, but an anonymous source told DJ Dive that it was Deets, the now-leader of Dojo Deliveries, in the outside of the Dojo laughing hysterically with wet eyes and a red face.
Only the Dojo—and somewhat Burn in the back of his mind—knew the truth. She had caught a picture of Burn that was taped when Fizz and Ed were speaking to him.
Vengeance was definitely too sweet.
A/N: Sorry if Deets seems a bit like a villain at the end. XDDD My dislike for Deets kicked in. The original story for this was a bit different (well, it involved a dog for some reason, so I won't say anything else for how much this was going to suck as a story XD) so when I found the idea back when I was cleaning up my profile, I went and turned it into a one-shot, killed the dog idea (still can't believe I had a dog in here D: I'm so ashamed) and went on with writing something that didn't involve romance for a change. Yes, no romance! If anything sounds sort of romantic, I didn't mean it!
Ugh, not having a real English class for two years in a row has affected my writing skills. So if I have any grammar problems, please notify me so I can fix it right away.