BUST-A-GROOVE

"First Encounters" (Part 3)

By Toasty

As Heat runs through the tunnel, he hears a scream. "Shorty!" He runs faster towards the direction of the voice.

"That's no fair! You cheated," Shorty pouts. "Start over."

"I wouldn't have cheated, if you didn't let Columbo drink my ice tea, Shorty," Strike yelled back. They both sigh, then Shorty takes back all the cards, shuffles them, then hands them back out. "Do you have a Goldfish?"

"Go, Fish. Do you have a Blue Bass?"

Strike groans and hands her the card, "Do you have a Cat-?" Both turn to see a flame at one of the entranceways to their tiny room, "Heat!" Heat comes from behind and punches him behind his head. The two men start fighting on the floor.

"Stop. Stop it, stop it, stop it!" They continue. Shorty finally lets out a long shrill and the both of them stop to look. Shorty points to Columbo, "A MOUSE!!" The two get up to pound the small caged creature to death for the small girl, until they realize that it is Columbo and Shorty puts her hands on her hips, as she gives them both a look of disapproval. "LOOK AT YOU TWO! Grown men, fighting. You should be ashamed of yourselves." Both of them frown at their scolding. "Now, shake hands and be friends."

"He attacked me, first, Shorty."

"He kidnapped you!"

"No, I didn't. Pinky did."

"Well, you were holding her here against her will."

"It's ok now, since Strike's my friend," Shorty butted in.

"Then, let her go!" Strike holds out his arms towards Shorty, in a gesture, that she could have left anytime she liked, since she was not tied down. "Then, WHY are you STILL here, Shorty?"

"He won't give Columbo back to me until he says he's sorry. So, we're waiting until he says it." Columbo squeaks something. "He didn't know that we preferred to be called that, so forget it." Columbo squeaks something, again. "Ok. He said there's no reason for him to say sorry to Strike for biting him, if Heat doesn't say sorry for hitting Strike, too."

"What!?!"

"You heard the pre-teen. None of us ain't going anywhere until both you and Columbo there say you're sorry to me."

"OH, NO I'M NOT! Give me those cards! This is going to be a long night."

"Heat!" Heat and Strike sit opposite of one another and Strike starts shuffling.

"Name the game, 'Burnout'."

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

"Oh. I see. Only your little girlfriend can call you that, I got ya."

"Frida's not my girlfriend," he flushes across his face, for a moment.

"In fact where is she?"

"I lied to her, so I can take you out, myself!"

"Well, you might think we have all the time in the world, but I don't think so. If we don't quit first because of the dance tournament, it's definitely gonna be that Frida finds us first." Heat's face shots a look of question. Strike laughs, "That's right. She's a woman. And, once she finds out that you lied to her, she's gonna kick your butt, and it's not going to be on pay-per-view, either." Strike laughs wickedly. Heat mumbles something under his breath. "Huh? What was that? Couldn't quite hear you."

"I said, 'I'm sorry'," Heat repeated in a hush tone of voice.

"Repeat? I still didn't hear it."

Heat's face starts to show anger from his humiliation, "I said, 'I'm sorry'."

"Loud enough, so that Columbo can hear ya, now."

"Look, if you heard me, then Columbo definitely heard me. He's a mouse, stupid!" Columbo squeaks something.

"Columbo says he's sorry too," Shorty interpreted.

"Ok. You all can go." Strike lets Columbo out of his cage.

"Where am I?" Frida opened her eyes and found that she was in a cage. She rubbed the back of her head, since the pain was the first thing she noticed when she had awakened. Someone definitely snuck up on her, that was a given. But, where was she now? As she looked to her right, she saw, that she was not alone in the white room. In the cage next to her, she saw two gray aliens, that looked alike to her.

"The artist," one of them said.

"Huh," Frida said with a groggy voice.

"You are," one started and the other finished, "the artist."

"Groove-tron? You both possess a grove-tron?"

"Yes. We would use out powers to get out, but they crampt us in here," the first one said.

"With no room to dance," the second one finished.

"Who captured us?"

"Corporation 'X'. They wish to use the powers of our groove-tron devices to rule the world. They tried to use ours, but it did not work," the second one said.

"Huh? Why?"

"For one thing, the groove-trons work the best with their intended masters. Secondly, since Lala and I dance together, we had combined our groove-trons to make us stronger, while we dance."

"We are Capoeria. But, recently, we had named ourselves Kiki and Lala. I am Lala. And, that is Kiki."

"Combining groove-trons? I've never heard of that."

"It is safe to do, but could be potentially dangerous to their users. Since Kiki's and my groove-trons were similar, we thought it safe to combine ours. The reason why they can not use ours is because their minds will never become one."

Kiki nodded, "Groove-trons know their masters. But, groove-trons hold too many secrets for them."

"So, instead of using humans…."

"They choose to build a robot which pocesses powers similar to those of the groove-tron."

"They believe this strategy will be more efficient then building a groove-tron and then trying to find a human that is worthy enough of working it."

"They are using the tournament to flush out the person with the best mastery of groove-tron."

Frida blinked, "What will they do after they find that person?"

"We have not heard yet."

Lala started to wave his hands in the air, as if stretching, "They will not let any of us go until they have studied all the properties of our groove-trons."

"And, even after that, they will not let Lala and me go."

"They have to let me out," Frida said as she started shaking the bars, "I'm in the tournament!"

"This is it, Shorty," Heat said as he looked at Shorty's house.

"Hey. I thought Frida was supposed to meet us here."

"Yeah. I wonder where she is."

"Let's wait for her."

"NO, NO. Shorty, just go to bed. I'll just sit out here for an hour or so and walk her home when she comes back."

"Ok, Heat. Goodnight!" She came up on her tippy toes as he leaned down to hug her. Then Columbo and she ran off inside. Heat smiled as Shorty peeked out at him from the window, then finally turned out the light. After he saw the curtain close, he started to run off.

"Oh, no. Why did I have to be so stupid and suggest that we split up," Heat began to think, "And, what if I was wrong? What if I lead her straight to Pinky Diamond and I didn't even know it? Or even someone worse than her?"