Chapter 9: The Mysterious Island
Ash fell for hours, and he anticipated a splash in the forever-going ocean, but he never experienced such. In fact, he crashed on a sandy shore, just inches away from a sharp rock that could have very well pierced his back.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" he called out in an unsure voice.
Then, hearing the crackling of sparks, and seeing a blue light show, Ash walked toward the fallen mechoid known as White Face.
He forced the chest cavity open, and inside was May.
Her breathing was shallow, and she needed water. Ash found a spring nearby, and filled a canteen with water and tried to make her drink it.
He couldn't, so he put some water in his mouth and then kissed her, forcing the water past her lips.
"...My first kiss." she said calmly.
Then, as Ash told her what happened in Scorcher Fortress, she started to lose her optimistic tone.
"...So that's what happened," she said as she stared at the remains of the platform that had collapsed.
"We have to find the others, but where could they be?" Ash asked her.
On the other side of the island, Lao was regrouping with Iris, Serena and Solisos.
"Well, I have no clue how we survived that, but we did," Lao said.
"Well, it might have been the platform that kind of protected us," Serena said. "We have to be more careful from now on."
"Yeah..." Iris said.
In the center, Misty was lying there, surrounded by the black fire and black goop.
"Ugh... what... is this stuff...?"
It slowly inched toward her.
"What the?"
It had to accumulate in front of her, so it made a path that she could run through, and she managed to escape.
Just over the hill was the wreckage of Dark Face, who spoke like a broken record, repeating, "The black slime will ru-" over and over again.
When they all met up at the wreckage, they pondered the statement.
"The black slime will ru-" is an incomplete statement, and Ash pondered its meaning.
"It could be saying, 'The black slime will rule...' but it could also be saying 'The black slime will rue...'"
"Yeah, but it will rue what?" Misty asked.
The sun then rose on the land, illuminating the place and letting them know of a threat.
"I have no clue," May said.
Then, a security drone flew down and started firing at them.
"Get down!"
Lao shot at it, but it flew out of the way, and started emitting weird radio waves.
"What...?"
It seemed it was calling out for assistance.
When it found it could not receive assistance, it stopped and magnetized nearby metal objects to it, forming a large, bipedal robot that could shoot lasers from its eye.
It tried to mash them with a metal mallet, and it missed horribly. It was not used to its new body.
"It's not used to its body! We could use this as an advantage!" Ash exclaimed.
He threw his sword at the robot, cutting off an arm.
By this point, it got the basics of controlling a humanoid body. It then punched at them, trying to crush them under hundreds of pounds of metal, but Ash, who it was aimed at, dodged the punch. Still looking at the group, it spun its body around, and then tried to punch without looking. Ash proceeded to sever the head, and thus killed it.
"Well, that ended quickly," he said.
When they found a civilization of humans living on the island in the center, they were surprised.
They spoke in the language of Japanese, a language only Lao could understand.
"They fell off the sword, landed on the island, and created a colony," Lao translated. "They were thrown overboard during the battle. Hard to believe it's only been two months..."
Lao then explained to them that they were travelers who were on a mission of revenge against the creator of the Mechanice.
"They understand, and will do anything they can to help us," he said. "Of course, these guys are just mainly here because they invaded Scorcher and yet fell down. Somehow they survived."
They then explained how to get into Mechanice Field, using some form of drawbridge, that went into the foot of the metal titan.
As they crossed it, they looked back. They only got to know the humans of the island for less than a day and they were already on their way to Link.
Ash made one last look before crossing the ominous bridge into the sweltering metal field.
The group of friends were on enemy turf.