Here is chapter three. Originally I was just going to post this without editing first because I finished this pretty late and just wanted to go to bed, but I decided against that. Luckily for me I didn't post because I found a lot of errors. Enjoy reading.
For almost an hour, Chiro didn't move or make any sound, trapped in a dreamless sleep. But slowly he started to regain consciousness. At first when he opened his eyes, he didn't recognize where he was because it was so dark, but he knew he wasn't in his bed back at the orphanage. The floor was hard and cold - not at all comfortable. Pushing himself into a sitting position, Chiro looked around the dark room.
Almost at once did he remember where he was, and suddenly Chiro started to panic after realizing he had no idea how long he had been wandering around inside the robot, much less how long he had been unconscious.
"I gotta go!" He said, standing and stumbling to the door. He ran down the hall and the door softly closed behind him. Had he stayed even a moment longer, perhaps he would have realized that the stasis chambers the monkeys were in were now running with more power and that they're residents were showing lots more signs of life. They're tails were moving and occasionally the their arms or legs twitched.
When Chiro got back to the tube he had came to the hallway through, he found it wouldn't work. Luckily, going further down the hallway in the other direction, Chiro found a stairwell going upwards. It seemed to take him forever to climb but when he finally reached the end, the door was a little odd. It blended into the wall so well Chiro thought for a moment he had reached a dead end. Pushing against the wall, it moved outwards pretty easily. Once he got it opened all the way, Chiro found himself back in the same hallway as before. The door started to close behind him and when it fully closed, Chiro stared at the wall amazed. It blended in so well that if Chiro hadn't just come through there, he wouldn't have ever guess that that portion of the wall was actually a door. It was kind of strange to look down see his footprints in the dust looking as though they had appeared out of nowhere.
Following his foot steps in the dust, Chiro made it back to the elevator which, much to his surprise, worked better than it first had. But he didn't dwell on it much because once he got back outside, he saw that the sun had already began to set and was already half hidden by the horizon. "Oh man." Said Chiro, sprinting as fast as he could in the direction of home, "I'm going to get in so much trouble when I get back. There's no way I'll be able to explain why I'm so late."
At the orphanage, Chiro's roommate Ethan, sat on his bunk, a comic book lying in front of him. While it might look to someone on the outside that he was just reading, Ethan's mind was actually preoccupied with something other than reading. Miss Allaway had just finished hounding him a few minutes ago about why Chiro was still gone. Earlier in the day when she had started questioning Chiro's disappearance, he had just been annoyed at being bothered. But now that the sun was setting and no one had seen Chiro all day, even he was starting to get a little worried. He stood up, the comic useless in distracting him left forgotten, and wandered over to the window. The sun was almost completely gone and if Chiro didn't show up soon...
Something red caught Ethan's eye and he turned to the street below. Chiro was running up the orphanage's doors, looking like he just ran a mile in two minutes.
"Hey! Chiro!" Yelled Ethan, just loud enough for Chiro to hear. Chiro turned to see Ethan half hanging out of their bedroom window and waving at him. Ducking into the alley, Chiro stopped just under the window. "What have you been doing all day? Miss Allaway just got done interrogating me about where you've been."
"I'm in so much trouble, aren't I?" Asked Chiro, leaning against the brick wall of another building.
"You can thank Trent for that." Replied Ethan. "When lunch time came and you didn't show up, he made an 'innocent' comment about it to Miss Allaway. I told her that you left early to get to the city library and that then you were planning on hanging out at the arcade for a bit. She brought it for awhile but now I'm pretty sure she knows I was lying." Ethan finished talking and disappearing into the room for a moment. When he came back, he held three books in his hand. "Here." he said, dropping them one at a time for Chiro to catch them.
"Thanks." Clutching the books in his arms, Chiro pushed open the front door. There didn't seem to be anyone there. He walked inside and closed the door, breathing a sigh of relief.
"And just where do you think you've been all day?" Chiro turned around and found Miss Allaway standing behind him, looking very unhappy. She sat down in a chair in a room on her left, indicating that Chiro do same in a chair directly across from her. Chiro groaned inside his head, hoping the next hour would go by quickly.
Inside the super robot, the hyperforce was waking. While at first the process had been slow, things were now moving quickly. The monitors turned on, lighting the room and several windows popped up, showing graphs and charts. Lights on the base of each of the chambers started flashing and beeping. Faster and faster and lights flashed and beeped until all five of the chambers suddenly burst. Like five mini explosions all happening at the same time, glass shot in every direction and water drenched the floor. The monkeys once in the chambers laid on the floor, still for a moment before one of them started moving, groaning a bit.
Sparx sat up, stretching his arms and tail. "Man, I feel like I've been asleep forever." He said.
Aside him, Nova stood up, also stretching. "I feel pretty refreshed actually." She said, offering a hand to help Gibson up. Otto jumped around, happy to be awake.
"I see we all woke up at the same, just as I had calculated." Said Gibson, heading for the monitors.
Antauri floated in the air. "Gibson, what is the condition of the robot?"
"It doesn't seem to have attack since we've been asleep. In fact, I'm finding any threat to the city."
"So the old bag of bones hasn't been back yet?" Asked Sparx.
"It would appear so." Answered Antuari, standing beside Gibson at the control station and watching the monitors.
Nova jumped up, standing next to Sparx and Otto. "But then why are we awake?" She asked, voicing everyone's thoughts. "I thought we were supposed to wake up when the robot detected the Skeleton King coming back."
"We were supposed to wake up then. But since I can't find any threat, there must have been a malfunction or something that started the awaking process. But so far all the systems are in prefect working order."
"That's good." Said Sparx.
"No it isn't." Said Gibson. Everyone looked at him, unsure if they had heard him correctly.
"There must be water logged in my ears," Said Sparx, lightly banging his hand against his head for effect. "Because I thought I just heard Gibson say that everything is working is a bad thing."
Otto pushed through and ran up the one of the other stations, rapidly pressing typing and pressing buttons. "It is a bad thing." He said, bring up more window with data.
"Would someone mind telling us why?" Asked Nova.
"It's a bad thing because someone has started up the robot." Answered Gibson. "Only the absolutely necessary systems, like the stasis chambers, should be working. But all systems have been online for over an hour. Which means that someone has been inside while we were asleep."
Everyone was silent for a moment, all confused and worried. "I thought you and Otto put up an advanced disguising system to keep anyone from finding this place." Said Antauri.
Gibson brought a new monitor and replied, "We did. But we've been asleep for much longer then we thought we would be and the robot is almost completely out of power. It's quickly failing." While Gibson explained, Otto noticed something dark blue lying on the floor in the corner. He walked over and stared at it.
"Um guys?" He said, but he was drowned out by Sparx.
"Is that why we woke up?" Asked Sparx. "Because the powers failing?"
"No. Who ever was in here seems to have had accidently started the awaking process manually."
Otto tried again. "Guys!" Everyone turned to Otto, looking slightly surprised.
"Yes Otto?" Said Antauri.
"I found this on the floor." He said, hold it up by the only non-broken strap. The team stared at the packback, now wet and punctured by glass shards. Gibson took the backpack from him, examining carefully it. "Well done, Otto!" He said. "This backpack probably belongs to our intruder." All the monkey crowded around to look at it.
"It looks like a kid's backpack." Observed Nova. "It's kind of small for an adult."
That made Sparx laugh a bit. "You know, that really says something about your guys' fancy defense system if a kid just waltzed in here with no problems."
Gibson glared at Sparx but didn't say anything. He unzipped the bag and reached took out what was inside. He pulled out a English book, a half finished math worksheet, a five dollar bill and twenty-six cents, a toy airplane, and a folded piece of paper.
"So it does belong to a child." Said Antauri, examining bag's contents. Sparx picked up the toy plane, admiring the great detail put into it. "And he's fan of jets." Said Sparx. "I think I could like this kid."
"Yes, he has fairly good math skills too." Noted Gibson, reading the math sheet. Gibson started mumbling off numbers and formulas, grading the homework sheet. Sparx held the toy above his head to look at it in the light saying something about what model of plane it was. Nova, Otto, and Antauri watched them unimpressed.
Nova sighed. "Poor kid. Had to attract those two." Otto nodded in agreement with her.
"Now I'm sure he would be happy to get their approval." Defended Antauri. "I think." Nova and Otto didn't look convinced.
"Anyway," Said Antauri loudly to get Gibson's and Sparx's attention. Realizing what they were doing, they quickly put down the toy and homework. "Is there anything that identifies the owner?"
"Oh..right.." Said Gibson, looking a bit sheepish. "Unfortunately he hasn't signed his homework. And nothing else in the bag carries a name either."
"Wait a minute." Said Sparx. "What does it matter if we know who the kid is? I mean, from the looks of things, he didn't do any damage."
"I agree with Sparx on this one." Said Nova. "It seems like a waste of time."
"I think it would be best if we found the owner as soon as possible." Answered Antauri. "I want to know how he got in the robot and how he knew where to find us. This room should have been completely hidden and possible to enter once we went into stasis. I would also like that the people of Shuggazoom remain unaware of us for a little while longer. The Skeleton King may have spies living in the city and I don't want him to know we're back yet."
Gibson started putting things back into the backpack. "The only problem now is how will we find him." He said, zipping the bag back up. "Kids lose backpacks everyday and without at least a name, I can't use Shuggazoom's data base to search for him."
"That shouldn't be too hard." Said Otto. The others looked at him a bit strangely. "He'll probably come back for his backpack." He said, pointing at the bag. "It has his homework and he'll need that for school."
"Gibson, what day is it?" Asked Antauri.
Gibson typed away at the computer, accessing a data base and searching through it. "Tuesday. But all the schools are closed for break. They re-open the week after next."
Antauri sighed. "Hopefully he'll come back before then. Otto, can you prepare something that could help us communicate?...Otto?"
They looked around, not seeing him anywhere. Suddenly he popped up from behind a control station, holding a screw driver and covered with oil. "I'll see what I can do."
"Well then, everyone start your duties. The faster we can prepare the robot, the better." Everyone nodded and started leaving to begin work. But Antauri hung behind, looking at the stasis chambers. He was lost in thought until a voice broke him out of it.
"You are a good leader, Antauri."
It was Nova, standing alone in the doorway. Everyone else must have left already.
"I know that all of you think so. But some times...I'm not so sure."
Nova walked up to him and with a little hesitation, gave him a hug. "You've been doing a great job since Mandarin left." She said. "And besides, who else could lead us?" Antauri returned the hug. It gave him comfort, knowing he had everyone's support.
"But the fact remains, we need a new leader." Said Antauri, breaking the hug and heading for the door.
"Antauri."
He left, leaving Nova alone in the room. She sighed.
"So he's still not gonna make it official?" Asked a new voice. Sparxs reappeared in the doorway, leaning against it.
"No." She answered. "He still thinks that there's a better leader somewhere out there." She walked up to Sparx, looking clearly concerned. "What are we going to do, Sparx? I'm starting to think that replacing Mandarin is a lost cause."
"I'm sure it's not." Said Sparx. "Eventually Antauri will either find this new leader or accept being our new leader. He knows as well as we do that we can't stay like this forever."
They began walking down the hall, heading towards the staircase. "I hope you're right." Said Nova quietly.
Well, this chapter is done. I honestly had a very hard time with the last little bit. I knew what I wanted to do, but I had so much trouble trying to figure out how to present it. Not completely happy with how it turned out but at least it's better then what I first wrote. Anyway, Chiro will finally meet the monkey team in the next chapter. Which is a good thing too because life at the orphanage is about to go downhill really fast.