Chapter 4: Evil Forces
A large flat spaceship made its way into the atmosphere of Boldan, and stopped high over the one city, Silver City. Immediately, over a hundred small pods ejected themselves downwards, and plummeted to the surface. As one impacted near a large crevice in amidst the dusk, ten robots marched out with no damage whatsoever.
These robots were silver, like the city they were marching in. They walked with human-like legs, but their bodies were abnormally wide and boxy, with stubby little arms holding guns. Their heads were similar to Clank's – round with a single antenna and big green eyes.
As the marched through the street, a rock landed, near the crevice, attracting the attention of just one of the machines. The automatons began to disperse to different buildings to deliver food supplies, but that one that was distracted moved over to the rock and picked it up.
"Hi-ya!" a yell called as the robot studied the rock. Before the droid could respond, a tall man in a black coat leaped out of the crevice and slammed down on the robot with a magenta umbrella. The robot deactivated almost immediately, and Guy Milligan quickly dragged the limp robot into the crevice.
"What was that?" yelled one of the robots in an inhuman tone. All of the robots turned towards the crevice, aiming their guns, but saw nothing. Slowly, they all began to resume their normal duties.
After a few minutes, the machines all disappeared from sight, probably going somewhere to recharge and wait deactivated for a week until the next round of supplies were needed. Guy peeked out of the crack, and saw that it was safe.
"Let's go," he said in his rich, low tone. Following him out were Corrina and Ratchet, Corrina with the robot's gun in her hands and Ratchet with Kyra.
This is great, she thought. With Angela not around, I can finally see if I can get through to Ratchet!
"I hope Angela and Luci are all right," said Ratchet to no-one in particular, already missing his Lombax friend and the short funny Tyhrranoid.
"I told you it was safer to split up and meet up back at the Clock Tower," answered Guy, once again not looking back to talk. "Now that I think about it, Corrina, Luci and I are like the perfect trio. Luci's the brains, Corrina's the brawn, and I'm the leader."
"Who made you the leader?" Corrina joked. Ratchet was the only to laugh, trying to make Corrina feel better.
"I didn't expect someone like you to have a child," Ratchet said, and it took a while for Corrina to realise he was talking to her.
"Oh…" she stammered. "I don't want to talk about how it happened." Corrina looked down, remembering the man had caused her to give birth.
"Well, at least the result was great," Ratchet smiled, putting a pacifier back into Kyra's mouth after she spat it out.
"Yeah…" burst Corrina, feeling a little bad that she was putting her only child in danger.
"Shhh!" Guy suddenly yelled. After walking for a while, Guy had stopped in at the edge of an alleyway where he gazed upon over a hundred of the silver robots marched towards a platoon of motionless vehicles.
These vehicles slowly lowered themselves so that their edges were touching the ground. They then opened their ten compartments, each with a charging station inside. Guy, Corrina and Ratchet watched as each robot walked to a station, and plugged a cord into their side. Immediately they were deactivated, and their antennas flashed blue.
"This is going to be difficult," Guy said as watched as many of the machines were activated, waiting for their turn on the charging stations.
"Guy!" hissed Corrina, tugging on the black coat. He turned around and saw that Corrina and Ratchet had heard a marching noise from behind them.
"That means…" began Guy, but Ratchet and Corrina had already crawled into the two trashcans, hiding themselves from sight. However, this left Guy out in the open, sandwiched in between the two groups of soldiers.
"Aww crap!" he hissed, beginning to move one way, but then stopping and heading the other, repeating this as time run out. A battalion of eight robotic soldiers marched down the alleyway and stopped just before the edge.
"Nice mannequin," said one of the automatons, looking to the left where he mistook a very still Guy for a plastic figure. The others looked as well, and Guy began to sweat. Before they noticed anything, they heard a crying sound to the right of them.
"Was that a baby?" asked one of the robots, and they all shifted their attention right, allowing Guy to rest for a bit. He saw one of the heads turning back to him and quickly got back into his mannequin pose, but didn't need to hold it long,
"Meow," purred Ratchet from inside the bin, cupping his hand over Kyra's mouth. He remembered Angela had tried this once on the Thug Leader, and hoped it would actually work this time.
"Just a cat," assured another one of the robot troops, and they all marched off to the recharging stations. Guy was exhausted from smiling too much when frozen on the spot, and Corrina and Ratchet released themselves from the bin.
"Well, that sucked," said Corrina, taking a banana peel off her head. They all walked to the edge of the alleyway again and looked at how the straight path that lead to the entrance of the Clock Tower was blocked by a group of five vehicles on a diamond courtyard.
"Hey, look!" hissed Ratchet, pointing towards the edge of the far left vehicle. A small Tyhrranoid had poked her head out from behind it, and was then joined with a female Lombax. "It's Angela and Luci!" Luci spotted the three looking at them, and quickly winked before disappearing from sight as a robot blocked their line of vision.
"What are they doing?" grumbled Guy. "They'll get themselves killed at this rate."
"But Luci has all the brains," retorted Ratchet. "She'll probably figure out a way to go undercover." Ratchet was right, because a few moments later, sparks flew from the vehicles, and the charging stations overcharged the deactivated robots, causing them to explode.
"What happened?" yelled one of the robots, as the three onlookers smiled. In amidst the uproar, one droid ignored the loss of many of his kind and walked to the front.
"All right!" it yelled, shutting everyone up. "Everyone to a different set of stations, I'll tell the boss that these malfunctioned!" All of the robots began to disperse, but before they could turn around, Guy, Corrina and Ratchet had all disappeared into their hiding places.
In a matter of a few minutes, the droid had all disappeared, and the three only came out once they were sure it was quiet. Guy smiled as he saw Angela and Luci running towards them. He began to do the same, but stopped when he heard a grumbling noise.
"What was that?" yelled Corrina, catching up with Guy. They all looked up and saw that the flat spaceship had not disappeared, and a helicopter flew out of a hangar and blasted towards them. The five ducked as they thought that the helicopter would crash into them, but actually levelled out and landed on the roof of the Clock Tower.
"Champio…" whispered Ratchet as he saw a blurry figure walk out of the ship in the distance. After that, the flat roaring spaceship was covered with clouds as it took off from the planet.
"How did you two do that?" asked Corrina to Angela and Luci, shifting everyone's attention back to the matter at hand.
"Wormy helped us," said Angela, holding out her palm, which contained the sleeping black and lime Worm-droid. "He crawled in and took out all of the control panels, and then pressed some buttons to overload it. And then he put them all back in."
"Very undercover," said Guy. "I'm impressed."
"WOW, what a shock," said Angela, sarcastically. While the five were catching up with Angela and Luci's journey, Corrina thought about how she didn't score with Ratchet.
Damn it, I was too slow! I could have used Kyra as something to talk about, and made it work from there. But we were distracted, so I should have hurried up. Corrina just shrugged, and realised that she had completely missed out on Angela and Luci's journey, not that it was important.
"To the Clock Tower, then," Guy announced as Ratchet looked up at the roof of the Clock Tower. The helicopter that Champio arrived in was still sitting there, but Champio was not in sight, probably on the top floor. As he looked down he checked the time.
11:12pm. It's only been a few hours since the lockdown happened, although it feels like a few years. Ratchet looked over Corrina. I've loved girls before, but I've always been confident. Why can't I be with her? Is she really the one for me?
Corrina began to walk with the group and noticed Ratchet was looking at her. She smiled quickly and looked away, and Ratchet realised that she must have felt weird with him looking at her. He slapped himself quickly, before catching up with the group.
"Guy," said Ratchet, attracting his attention enough for him to turn around. "While I feel we should still save the people here, don't you think it would be a good idea to steal the helicopter on top of the Clock Tower?"
"Hmm," said Guy, a little embarrassed that he didn't think of that himself. "While I think we should stay undercover for the time, we should steal it and take it somewhere hidden for later, when our presence is known. And I agree that we should save the people, they are whole reason we are trying to get to Champio."
Ratchet nodded, feeling a little proud that he had contributed. In the corner of his eye, he noticed Corrina was looking at him with a smile, but as soon as looked over to her, she turned her head back away from him.
"Don't those panels look weird?" asked Angela, gazing at four protruding panels around the door.
"I've never seen them before," muttered Guy, wondering if something was wrong. His suspicions were correct as the four panels began to transform, and Guy screamed as he turned and ran. Four broken-down robots appeared in front of the door to the Clock Tower.
"RUN!" yelled Guy, with the four following him as the four robots began to fire at them. They were short and brown, all of their heads missing, but were still able to fire with their hands that acted as guns. However, they had no legs, and floated in the air with a blue exhaust coming out the bottom.
"What are they?" yelled Guy to Luci as they were being blasted by the droids. As they all ran, they could hear the robots saying behind them "MALFUNCTION! MALFUNCTION!" The bullets were too rapid to avoid, but thankfully the only damage was to Angela's shoulder and Guy's bottom.
"Look politic robots," began Luci as they entered the alleyway and all ducked behind the bins "Obsolete, they malfunction." Guy nodded, understanding what she had said. He looked behind him to see if they were all there, but was shocked to see only Angela.
Ratchet and Corrina had run to the left of the three paths, and were still running from the robots, not finding any cover. Ratchet shielded Kyra with his body, and ran behind Corrina to protect her, but she shoved out of the way.
"Eat bullets, bastards!" she howled, and before the machines could respond, she fired a stream of energy pulses from her gun that she stole from the robot they had knocked out earlier. All of the pulses collided with the robots, knocking them down.
"Come on," she said to Ratchet, leading him into another alleyway that led to the one Guy, Angela and Luci were in.
From high above on the top floor of the Clock Tower, Champio stood there, watching the display of brawn from Corrina. "So, this Corrina is quite the fighter…hmmm." He turned away from the window and went to his desk he had set up to make a telephone call.
Corrina and Ratchet looked around the corner of the alleyway, and saw Angela looking straight at them. "Where have you been?" she asked, smiling.
"I just wasted a few bots," Corrina said, scowling and cocking her gun. By this time Guy and Luci had turned around and were looking at the two.
"Loved your war cry," began Guy, smirking.
"Thank you!" Corrina exclaimed, pointing the gun at Guy's crotch. "Bang!" she whispered without actually firing the weapon. She looked to the left and saw a panel on the wall. "Hey, wait a minute…"
"Oh, shi-" began Ratchet, but was cutoff by a blast from Corrina's gun, however, the energy pulse just bounced off. "Run!" The group all ran together, but kept their heads turned to watch the transformation from panel to droid, and this one had no head as well.
"It's one I shot just before!" yelled Corrina, ducking around a corner. "I notice the damage on it. This way!" She ran to the front of the pack and led them to the droids that she had defeated, however they were only three instead of the four that should have been there.
"Get behind me," she yelled, and everyone heeded her order. She waited in silence as the droid appeared, floating in mid-air, and as it turned towards them, she aimed the gun and fired. Three pulses of energy hit their target, but simply bounced off, unlike last time.
"I know these models of robots," said Angela unexpectedly. "After you shoot them once, they become resistant to the bullets you fire at them."
They all ducked as the robots a stream of bullets just over their heads.
"Well if that's true…" said Ratchet, pulling out a tiny pistol from his belt and firing a crackle of electricity towards the machine, immediately deactivating it.
"Where did you get that?" exclaimed Corrina, impressed by Ratchet's feat. She smiled, showing off her pearly white teeth.
"Found it in the trash can when we were hiding," Ratchet answered. "I figured out that it fired electricity, and after studying the gun, it should recharge in about five minutes."
"I still don't know, however," began Angela, and everyone turned their attention to her. "How did that robot survive after you fired an energy pulse at it? It should have killed it." She walked over to the deactivated robot, and was baffled at how it could have survived. "Well, this is a political make, used for assisting with speeches and guarding politicians when they travel. These went obsolete years ago."
Guy walked over and studied the droid. "Well, here are weld marks. It must have been repaired very quickly after Corrina destroyed it. But by who? Plus, it was malfunctioning before, probably it was obsolete. Hey, check it out." He opened the stomach compartment and pulled out a small device.
"Device?" asked Luci, watching over the scene. "Rapid spinner, yes?"
"Correct," said Guy, taking off his backpack and pulling out the gadget he had used to cut open the elevator. "I almost broke this thing cutting through the main door to the apartment building. With this attachment, I can cut through metal like it was rubber, and if this persistent automaton ever reactivates again, it won't fire as quickly."
"Speaking of reactivating," said Ratchet, putting his hand up sheepishly. "The effects of the gun are temporary, so it will reactivate soon."
"Almost midnight," said Corrina, looking up at the gigantic clock. She looked at Ratchet quickly, and then looked at the door of the Clock Tower in the distance. "And there's nothing blocking us."
"Well, then," began Guy, preparing a one-liner while smirking. "Full speed ahead!"