Episode 9: Darkness
It had just turned dark as the city of Kelna prepared itself for another nights rest, but a few people had other, much louder, ideas in mind. Kopi, Abel, Tam and Sorun laughed loudly as they tore threw the empty streets of Kelna. Recently Abel and Querl had made some sports equipment for everyone, mostly due to Sorun's constant pestering.
After a week they finally caved in. Sorun had gotten a bright red skateboard and Tam had been given green roller-skates. Kopi had a blue scooter and Abel had a yellow bicycle.
"He's the alpha dog, the ultimate king of style, the awesome master of the half-pipe!" Sorun chanted as he got ahead of the others. Soon they quickly arrived at the garage. Inside Querl had just made himself a fresh cup of coffee when the four kids came charging in.
"Excuse me Querl, sorry about that." Kopi smiled apologetically as she zoomed passed him.
"Heads up Querl!" Abel suddenly cried. Querl quickly ducked as the youngest member of the team and his bike went over the Coluan's head. Querl then jumped out of the way in time before Tam could crash into him.
"Nice recovery Querl." Tam called. Querl just rolled his eyes. Suddenly the coffee in his hands was gone.
"Hey thanks Querl!" Sorun smiled as he rode off with the coffee in hand. Suddenly all the lights went off and plunged the garage in darkness. There was suddenly a crash.
"Nice wiring Abel!" Sorun mocked.
"I promise it's not my wiring, maybe it's a blackout." Abel replied.
"Well what ever it is, who ever that is has exactly three seconds to remove their hand before I snap it clean off!" Kopi snarled. Querl quickly created a small energy ball that gave the room a dim, purple glow. He saw that the others were thrown into a small pile in the centre of the room where they had collided with each other.
"Must be a power failure, You four should go out and investigate and see if it can be fixed." Querl said as they untangled themselves.
"We're on it!" Sorun grinned and they mounted their sports gear once again. Once they were out of hearing range Querl groaned to himself.
"I feel like I've gone from happily single to a father of four over-night."...
"I don't think that Querl meant we should investigate this far." Kopi pointed out.
"You can never be too sure." Tam reassured with a grin. The team had gone to the top of the garage, which was quite high up, and saw that nearly every building was dark and powerless.
"This whole side of town is dark, a substation must have gone out." Abel said. But Kopi wasn't convinced by Abel's explanation.
"Something's not right about this, shouldn't there be emergency lights or something like that?" She asked. "Yeah it's totally pitch black down there." Tam added. Sorun smirked.
"Which means there's only one thing for us to do."...
Sorun and Tam laughed like lunatics as they, Abel and Kopi enjoyed their sports gear in the dark, empty streets.
"Guys do you really think we should be doing this? What if somebody sees us?" She asked.
"That's the beauty of it Kopi, nobody can see us. It's pitch black!" Sorun exclaimed.
"Get with the program blue. It's a once in a life time opportunity to have a blast without the fun police crashing it." Tam smiled.
"Hey check this out." Abel whispered and pointed to the museum. They looked and saw two figures climbing up the side of the building and onto the roof.
"I don't think that's allowed." Abel said.
"Who wants to give those two a little museum tour?" Tam smirked...
The two figures wandered the museum until they came to a display of different kinds of swords. One of the armoured figures placed his hand on the glass and a small wave of electricity was sent through the display, deactivating the alarm for the exhibit. He then smashed the glass as his partner pulled out a large metal glove. The figure put the glove on and reached for the white samurai-like-sword with a dark pink handle.
Suddenly a small blue energy blast shot passed and missed his head by an inch. The figures looked towards the blast's direction and saw Kopi, Sorun and Tam with their weapons ready for a fight while Abel hid behind a statue.
"Gift shops on the first floor boys, but they don't take kindly to shop lifters and neither do we." Kopi glared. The figure's partner aimed a blaster at them while he made another attempt to snatch the sword. But Kopi fired another blast.
"Now before you make off with the goods you might want to consider a few things. One: You're out numbers, two: Don't let the pretty faces fool ya, we're a lot tougher than we look!" Tam growled.
Suddenly at least a dozen more armoured figures jumped down through the roof.
"And three: We're about to get out butts seriously hammered!" Sorun gulped nervously. "Check it out, punching blades!" Tam laughed as he tore through the crowd on his roller skates, punching the figures as he went passed. Abel gasped when he saw one of the figures heading his way. He quickly climbed onto his bike and road up to the approaching enemy.
At the very last second he turned around and his bike's back tire slammed painfully into the figures knees, causing him to hit the ground with a loud thud. Sorun rammed into one of the figures while on his skateboard and sent him flying into three more.
"Strike!" He laughed. He noticed there was some kind of logo on their chests and so he ripped it off. "Cool, a trophy." He grinned but then he noticed something about the new hole in the figures. Instead of flesh he saw circuity. They were robots.
"A little help here!" Kopi cried out as she was surrounded by three of them.
"WE'RE ON IT!" All three boys shout as the raced to Kopi's aid on their sports gear. But when the robots saw the teens coming they lept out of the way and the teens crashed into a jumbled up pile again.
"I sense Querl giving us a long teamwork training session in our future." Sorun groaned. Upon seeing they were distracted the robots grabbed the sword and made their great escape. But before they left the robot with the sword aimed it at the teens and something very strange happened. The white metal of the blade began to glow and shot a powerful energy blast at them before leaving.
It was only thanks to Sorun's super speed that they were badly injured...
Back at the base they told Querl about the robots at the museum.
"What does this symbol mean Querl?" Kopi asked when Sorun gave him the piece of armour he had taken from the robots.
"Trouble." Querl simply said and started walking to his lab.
"You know something about these robots?" Tam asked.
"We should go after those creeps and that sword!" Sorun growled.
"NO! We shouldn't go after an enemy we don't fully understand." Querl quickly said.
"But Querl, who knows what they could do with that sword." Kopi pushed.
"And if it wasn't for Sorun's speed that sword might have killed you!" Querl growled. The others flinched. They had never heard Querl that angry. Without another word Querl entered the elevator and headed up to the lab. Suddenly Abel got an idea and ran to the main computer.
"What're you doing little buddy?" Tam asked.
"There's more than one way to seek out your enemy." Abel grinned as he typed something up. While he was doing that Sorun glanced to the elevator.
"What's up with Querl?" He asked.
"It's that symbol. It's got him all weirded out." Kopi replied.
"I say we head top-side, kick butt, take names and find out the whole story for ourselves!" Tam exclaimed as he punched the wall next to them.
"Whoa! Remind me never to get on your bad side, dude." Sorun gulped. But Tam didn't even look at him.
"Too late." He growled as he walked away towards the elevator, but Kopi jumped in front of him.
"Hang on, Tam. No one's going anywhere." She glared.
"Guys! Check this out! I hacked into the power company's computer system. Looks like there's another blackout down by the docks." Abel said.
"Well what are we waiting for?" Sorun grinned.
"Hang on, guys. Querl told us-"
"Not to go after the robots. He didn't say anything about not investigating power failures." He grinned as he walked away with Abel and Tam.
"Excellent. I have a few new surveillance toys I wanna test." Abel smiled.
"Wait up!" Kopi sighed as she ran after them. They were completely unaware that Querl was watching them through the security cameras...
Kopi, Tam, Sorun and Abel were standing atop of a bridge and see a whole part of town is pitch black.
"Total blackout. Just like last night." Tam said.
"But this time, I came prepared." Abel smiled and pulled out a special pair of googles from his bag. Sorun grabbed them and put them on.
"Cool, night vision." He laughed.
"How do we survey such a large area?" Kopi asked.
"I came prepared for that too. I've been dying to try this puppy." Abel smiled and pressed a button on his watch. A pair of wings expel of his bag to form a high-tech glider.
"Wait, you mean you haven't tested it?!" Kopi exclaimed. But she was ignored.
"We'll stay in touch via the coms. I've worked out all the theoretical aerodynamics. It's fool-proof." Abel reasurred before jumping off the roof with the glider!
"Abel? Able!" Kopi called in the coms.
"I'm okay. No problem." Able reassured. He suddenly noticed a strange beam emitting from a cannon hitting the water. "Guys, I'm picking up something strange down on the river." He said.
"What is it?" Kopi asked.
"It looks like they're searching for something under the water." He said.
"Who's searching?" She asked.
"It's our robot buddies again. They have that sword they stole rigged up to some kind of vibrational cannon. I'm over Pier 16." He said. Suddenly the technicians noticed him and shot right at him. The blast hit his glider. Abel cried out as he headed straight into the water.
"ABEL?!" Kopi cried into the coms.
"I'm OK, take out that weapon!" He coughed when he resurfaced. Kopi nodded and they raced in. But before they could get near the cannon they were surrounded by 7 other robots. They fended off many robots on the boardwalk. Kopi jumped onto the boat for more room and fought more ninjas. Meanwhile, Abel surfaced on another boardwalk but he was ambushed by two robots from the boat he was next to.
He quickly ducked back under the water and swam as fast as he could when he heard the robots jump in after him. Meanwhile Sorun climbed up a cargo net attached to a pole on the boat when a robot used a built in knife to cut the net. As Sorun fell, he used his sai to stop himself near the bottom of the pole. He growled when two robots came at him.
Tam smirked as backed up on the boat he was on while raising his fists at the robots.
"Avast, ye scurvy sea-dogs! Argh, shiver me timbers! Blow me down!" He laughed. He continued to laugh until the robots' limbs transformed into dangerous and deadly weapons.
"Okay, about that blow me down part?" Tam gulped. They charge at him but then suddenly a large sail fell on top of them. Tam looked up and saw Kopi smiling down at him with a small knife in her hand. "Thanks for that, blue." He grinned. Back on Sorun's boat, Sorun faced the two robots in front of him. One of them threw a chain at him but he blocked it with his sai.
"Nice try, loser." He grinned. The other robot wrapped a chain around his legs and he tripped over a railing and hung upside down while the first robot jumped down below him. Kopi aimed her blaster at the chain and shot in, freeing Sorun and causing him to fall on the robot.
"Not a pretty win, but I'll take it." He smirked. Meanwhile, Abel swam like he was trying to get away from a shark. The two robots, while not really built for water, were gaining on him. Abel quickly swam up up to one of the support beams under the cannon. Just as the robots hit him he moved out of the way and they slammed right through the beam and into the sea floor.
He quickly swam out of the way as the boardwalk started to crumble. On the surface, the boardwalk under the cannon started the fall away and the beam slowly aimed towards the city. The two robots controlling the cannon made a run for it.
"Talk about bad vibes." Sorun said.
"Not funny, Sorun." Tam glared.
"Abel, can you shut it down?" Kopi asked as Abel climbed out of the water. The youngest member jumped onto the cannon and gulped.
"Well, I might be able to disconnect the sword from the accelerator, but crossing the power terminator could result in a feedback bloom that might wipe out everything in a ten mile radius." He said.
"Here!" Sorun shouted and threw the boy the metal glove. He put it on and pulled the sword out of the machine, which shut down almost instantly. The four kids sighed in relief and slumped against the machine. But their relief was short lived when they heard police sirens approaching them fast.
Tam pushed the machine into the ocean and they ran before the police arrived on the scene...
The kids made it back to the garage and showed Querl the sword they had taken.
"The design is unmistakably ancient Japanese, but the metal is unlike any I have ever seen." He explained as he finished scanning the powerful sword.
"That isn't reassuring." Sorun whispered to Tam, who nodded back.
"What else can you tell us about the sword, Querl?" Kopi asked.
"Clearly there is more to this sword than meets the eye." He said and placed the sword in a safe. "Best that it remains out of the wrong hands." He added before locking the safe. He then turned to his team. "Let's gets some sleep." He said and almost pushed them into the elevator.
As the team went up Querl turned and looked at the screen with the robot's symbol...