I poised the jar and lid in the air with all the sadistic glee of a kitten ready to pounce. My quarry had fled around the ceiling of the lab for a good half hour, leaving a trail of overturned furniture and shouting wherever it flew. And now the little jerk was mine.
*CRUNK*
"Yes! Finally!" I held my captive and it's new prison joyfully above my head, basking in the glory of my triumph. The biggest smile that I could manage was plastered across my face. Victory was mine at last, and I was savoring every last moment of I-
"It's a fly, not the Holy Grail, Rock." My sister was a few feet away, an exasperated expression on her face.
"It's not just a fly. It's an annoying fly!"
"Uh-huh. And was it really worth tripping over the couch for?"
Grinning a little more sheepishly now, I paused for a moment and thought it over.
". . .Yes."
Roll deposited her forehead in the palms of her hands and just kind of stood there quietly. I knew I was being pretty silly, but catching that fly was highly cathartic.
"What are you even going to do with it?" Roll asked.
"I'm going to release it outside. What else would I do with an insect?"
"I don't know, leave it in there with a wet wad of toilet paper until it dies of neglect?"
"Oh ha, ha Roll. You know I can't do that. It's a violation of my programming to kill non-threatening animals. Also bug jars are kind of tacky."
I walked up to the front door. As I turned the knob, Roll grabbed my arm for a moment and told me what she felt I needed to hear.
"You better not release it right next to the door. It'll just buzz right back in and this will all happen all over again."
"I know, I know." I lifted her hand off of my arm and made my way outside, holding the jar up and berating it's contents as I left.
"See now, Mister Fly, this is why we don't go sneaking into people's houses. You just get caught and it's all a big waste of time. You're lucky that I'm a nice, friendly robot or you might have had a far worse fate than being taken back outside. See? Outside. Pretty!" I cooed, baby talking to Mister Fly somewhat. The fly responded by ramming the sides of the jar furiously. Sucks to be him, I guess.
Outside the house the sun was shining and the morning dew was only half dried off of the grass in the yard. Normally the birds would be singing and the crickets chirping too, but Rush had apparently decided to amuse himself today by chasing Beat around the perimeter of the lab. The resulting flurry of barking and squawking drowned out just about any natural sound that could have been heard. Fortunately, they both answer to me, so a ruckus like this is easily broken up.
"Hey, Rush! Beat! Come watch me set this fly I caught free!"
Both pets immediately complied. Rush ran up to me and excitedly sniffed the contents of the jar. Beat flew up beside him and hovered apathetically. Pleased with having an audience, I waved my hand dramatically over the lid of the jar before opening it. Mister Fly immediately fled the container and hovered in front of me. Then he started doing circles around me. I giggled. You would think he'd be sick of me.
That's when something unsettling started to happen.
Mister Fly seemed to be falling apart. And shedding. Confused, I started to look closer at Mister Fly. Funny thing is, it didn't seem to look so much like a fly anymore. It was a black and dusty looking blob and for some reason it appeared to be getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger.
Hang on.
That's not a fly.
That's not a fly at all!
At this point I attempted to break into a run, but my feet were now glued to the ground. The air around me was growing bitterly cold, and the sky had turned a peculiar shade of sickly green. The dust kept whirling around me faster and faster and it never seemed to stop swelling. I felt my feet being forcefully ripped off of the ground. Streams of black dust began slithering up my arms and legs.
I should have been screaming. Yet somehow I wasn't. I felt calm. Peaceful, even. What I could still see of the world outside the dust seemed to be melting. I didn't care anymore. As my face followed the rest of my body into the cloud, a single phrase burned itself into my memory.
Audi famam illius.
That's. . .That's Latin. It means "I've heard legends of that person", I think. . .
The next thing I remembered was lying on my back in a pile of white dirt and feeling quite baffled. The sky was pink and blue in the light of early dawn, and out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw some of the black dust flying away.
I laid there for a moment and contemplated life.
Then I slowly pulled myself up off the ground, knocking up little puffs of dirt in the process. The white dirt I woke up in was arranged around me in a circle with about a ten foot radius. I was apparently in a small clearing, with a thick forest of deciduous trees on one side and a rocky cliff on the other. I blinked. I had no idea where this place was, and I'm not sure anyone else did, either.
Being as confused as I was, I reached to rub the back of my head. It was at this point that I became aware of the fact that I was somehow now in my Mega Man armor. Great. Just great. I quickly deactivated the cyan and blue outfit and hoped no one had noticed. Not that I'm ashamed of having a heroic reputation, but flaunting it is in bad form and honestly I'm not proud of some of the things I've had to do in the past. I had no idea why on earth I was wearing it, though. Perhaps the dust blob glitched my systems?
At any rate, I was lost, and I had no idea what to do. Fortunately, I had a (feeble, childish) plan for how to find out.
I was going to tempt fate.
"Oh, dear. I'm alone in a big, scary forest. It's certainly not like I'm about to have save some random civilian from a big scary monster or get chased by angry soldiers or something like in all the cartoons, right? Because this totally isn't just like that, right?"
. . .
Yeah, I think I just heard someone screaming. Way to go, fate. Predictable as ever.
