Chapter Twenty Seven: Confrontation II
Rapunzel sprinted at full speed down the hall, Pascal darting between her feet as he followed his fighter. Jack and Bunnymund raced behind.
"Come on, come on!" The blonde cried. She'd gotten the message from Hiccup telling them to get to the office, and had immediately taken off.
The couple burst through the doors, eyes searching frantically for Hiccup.
"He's not here!" Jack muttered. "What…?
Rapunzel gasped, grabbing onto Jack's arm and spinning him around. The white haired man's jaw dropped. Pascal and Bunnymund whirred at their feet as the two fighters stared at the shelves inside Viggo Grimborns office.
The shelves that held every stolen bot in San Fransokyo.
"They're… trophies," Rapunzel spat, staring at the bots. She recognized Anna and Elsa's, Violet's… countless more. The shelves lined the perimeter of the office, elegantly displaying the stolen tech.
"They're locked," Jack muttered. "And there's no way we can take all of them,"
"We just need our people," Rapunzel said. "Bunny promised to return the others,"
"That's still a lot of locks to crack," He said, eyes scanning the doors. "Way too long for me to do it,"
Rapunzel ran her hands over the cabinet doors. They couldn't break the glass. It would give them away too easily - police would be after a thief. The best option would be to have each lock individually picked, but Jack had already said that it would take too long. What they needed was a quick way to immobilize alarms and break the lock open.
'Immobilize…' She thought. Her mind automatically whipped back to years of watching Jack's fights, of seeing bot after bot freeze in mid-movement as the frost ejectors glowed.
"That's it!"
"Punzie?"
"Freeze them!" The blonde cried, gesturing towards the Bunnymund. "Freeze the locks!"
Jack paused for a moment, blinking back and forth between his robot and the cabinets.
"That's brilliant!" He yelled, grabbing Rapunzel in a tight hug. "I love you!"
Rapunzel blushed and hugged him back.
"Get on it!" She said. "Pascal and I will keep watch!"
The two fighters set to work. Jack used the Bunnymund's frost ejectors to carefully freeze the locks, and Rapunzel and Pascal used her own robot's tail to open the doors. The blonde picked out their specific bots, grabbing Invisi, O.L.A.F. and MASHmallow to put in her bag.
After each of the cabinets was opened, Jack made sure to subtly close them again. He turned to Rapunzel, who was zipping up her backpack.
"Ready to go?"
The blonde nodded, but before they could get to the door, both heard voices coming down the hall.
"Security!" Jack hissed, pulling Rapunzel into a shadowy corner out of the view of the doorway. The young adults held their breath as they waited, and two large men entered the room.
Rapunzel's eyes widened. They matched the descriptions of two of Merida's attackers.
"Boss never leaves his office open," One of the brothers muttered. His twin nodded. The man pulled Viggo's office door shut. There was a beat before Jack and Rapunzel heard the lock click, and no footsteps.
"They aren't leaving!" Rapunzel whispered. "We have to get out!"
"How do we do that though?" Jack answered, craning his neck to get a glimpse of the brothers.
"There!" Rapunzel cried, pointing towards the single window in the back of the room. "There should be a fire escape!"
Jack's eyes darted between the doorway and the window, and he sighed. He moved his controller back into the open, and the Bunnymund slowly slipped towards the window. After a few agonizing minutes, the lock was completely frozen over, and in one quick jab, the robot popped the panel open.
Jack pulled Rapunzel over to the window, stopping and checking to make sure the Stabbingtons hadn't seen them. He shoved the window open and glanced back again, then lifted Rapunzel up onto the sill. The blonde slipped through to the fire escape and took her heavy backpack, then held the window open for Jack to climb out.
They were almost free when Jack's foot caught the edge of the sill and he tripped, accidentally smacking into Rapunzel, who let go of the heavy window. The window slammed down, and the two fighters looked at each other in shock.
"WHO IS IT?!" One of the Stabbingtons yelled, bursting back into the office. Jack and Rapunzel held their breath, hidden just under the window frame. Finally, after what felt like an agonizing amount of time, they heard the door close and lock once more.
Rapunzel looked to her left, where Jack's eyes met hers. They stared at each other for a few more seconds before bursting out into quiet laughter.
Toothless leapt into the room, landing on Viggo's head. Merida flung herself out of her chair and punched Ryker in the face. She stumbled backwards, fixing her stance as Hiccup raced into the room to help.
He locked eyes with Merida and threw her own controller at her. Merida caught it, eyes lighting up as Wisp flew into the room after Hiccup. The brunet fighter slipped back into the hallway, Viggo Grimborn lunging after him.
Ryker stood back up and lunged for the redhead, who easily ducked out of the way and reset her bot controller. Wisp's lights blinked on as the bot recalibrated, landing in a pre-fighting position.
Wisp flew in front of its fighter, lasers charging. Ryker didn't have time to get out of the way before the three electro-shocks hit him in the chest. The attacks were dialed at the lowest pulse, which should have barely shocked him, but three at the same time seemed to do more damage. Unfortunately, the man just groaned and reached out for the bot, which Merida just barely made evade.
"Give it up spitfire!" Ryker roared, shoving one of the chairs at Merida. The redhead dodged (barely) and tripped backwards, falling into the wall. Ryker grinned and stalked towards her, fists closing. "I am going to make you wish you'd never left that alley!"
Merida's hands scabbed for her controller, pulling in up into her lap as she fiddled with the dials. Ryker grabbed her by her hair - she really needed to find a solution to this - and yanked her up.
"Any last words red?" He snarled. Merida smirked and spit in his face.
Ryker wound up to punch Merida in the face, but was interrupted by a sudden and loud buzzing. He turned around to see Wisp, outer frame shaking with electricity as the laser pulsed. Toothless - who'd sensed he was needed - growled below the floating robot. His eyes glowed brightly and the thrusters at his joints were smoking.
"Turned it up ta' eleven bassa," Merida muttered, smirking.
"NO!" Ryker yelled as Wisp fired and Toothless lunged. Three electric blasts - Merida figured they were each about the force of a small taser - connected with the mans chest as a large metal dragon sent him sprawling to the ground.
Ryker hit the ground hard, twitching. He let out a low groan, but didn't get back up. Merida let out a sigh of relief. She stood up and scooped up Wisp from where she rested on the conference table, cradling the robot as she tried to reboot it.
"Thank ye Toothless," She muttered. "Now we gotta help Hiccup…"
"Toothless it would have been great if you'd stayed with me!" Hiccup mentally cursed as he sprinted down the hall, Grimtech's CEO hot on his heels. He made sure to stay away from the office, wanting to give Jack and Rapunzel as much time as he could.
Hiccup burst through another set of doors, tripping a little in the dark. Viggo burst in after him, throwing the doors open and sending a beam of fluorescent light into Hiccup's eyes. The lights in the room slowly came on, revealing that they were in some sort of arena.
"One of my practice rooms," Viggo muttered. "But there's no bots in here to help you,"
"Bot fighting is a huge business!" Hiccup yelled. "Why'd you start hurting people?"
Viggo rolled his eyes. The lights had finally reached the corners, fully illuminating the entire practice room. Hiccup's eyes scanned for anything to help him, but the middle - where he and Viggo were facing off - was completely empty.
"San Fransokyo is the robot capital of the world! But it's so very hard to make your mark! And once I discovered how… creative you backstreet fighters were… then it just all fell into place," Viggo hissed. "Then I met Councilmen Black, and he hated the bot fighting more than anything!"
"Doesn't make sense to work with him then," Hiccup muttered, edging towards a worktable piled with spare parts. If only Toothless was there!
"Everyone has a price," Viggo Grimborn muttered. "Mr. Black got what he wanted - criminals locked up, and we get the spoils,"
"Spoils!" Hiccup yelled. "Your men assaulted a fifteen year old girl!"
"An aspiring criminal with outlandish technology,"
"She and her boyfriend spent a year on that!"
"And people will pay handsomely!"
Hiccup shook his head in anger. He gritted his teeth and stared at Viggo. The older man grinned and pulled out his chess piece, tossing it up and down. A look of clear victory was written on his face. He had won, and there was no way for Hiccup to beat him.
Viggo Grimborn smiled wider, and Hiccup reached behind him and hurled a spare robot limb at his face. The man let out a surprised yell, dodging just in time. He stepped towards Hiccup, but with a loud yowl, Toothless landed on his head for the second time.
Viggo yelled in pain as his vision was blocked by Toothless's wings. He pulled at the robot, but only stumbled around. Hiccup grabbed for his controller, syncing it with the robot as the dragon leapt from Viggo's face and towards his fighter.
"You took our bots,"" Hiccup muttered. "Now, we're just taking them back,"
Toothless's wings flung out to the sides, catching the air expertly as he glided into the air. The dragon flew around Hiccup's head, eyes glowing and thrusters smoking. Under him, Hiccup stood legs apart with his controller clutched in his hands. His eyes narrowed a bit as he glared at the CEO.
Viggo growled. The older man reached out to a panel on the side of the door, and began tapping in several codes. Two hidden panels on either side of the practice room opened, and two large black robots crawled out.
"These are fearling models," Viggo drawled. "Mr. Black's collected most of the parts in his raids. These are only prototypes, but they've packed quite a punch before,"
The CEO smirked as he stepped out of the ring, just as a solid metal door slid into place and locked Hiccup inside. Viggo stepped back up the stairs and watched, a thin smile stretching across his face.
"Toothless, evasives," Hiccup muttered. The dragon swooped into action towards the first fearling. The dragon climbed into the air, and at the height of the arc, pulled his wings in tightly and dove towards the other robot.
Toothless slammed into one of the fearlings joints, hitting so hard that the leg broke off. Toothless hit the ground and rolled towards Hiccup, landing back in a protective stance. The prototype robot wobbled, falling back to its knees as it tried to regain balance.
The other fearling jumped for Hiccup and Toothless. Hiccup slid out of the way as Toothless leapt into the air, wings revolving around to form a shield as the fearling's blow connected. As Toothless and the fearling delved into their own fight (Toothless running on his personality chip and fearling on different programs) Hiccup turned to the first robot. He slid to his knees by the struggling robot, yanking one of its back legs out and slamming his elbow into the joint. The leg snapped cleanly out of its socket, and Hiccup shoved the robot to the ground.
Holding the fearling down with his knee, Hiccup pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. He used the removed leg to pry open the back panel, revealing the pulsing control systems. The batteries glowed brightly, and some of the metal was tinted red from the heat. The fearling whined angrily, struggling against the fighter, but Hiccup slammed the leg between two gears, causing the bot to glitch and repeat it's twitching movements.
"Rewire, rewire, rewire…" Hiccup muttered, trying to reach the battery with the screwdriver. The heat from the prototype robot radiated off the power sources, almost making it unbearable. That was the most dangerous part of these bots - that they hadn't gone through consumer testing yet.
Hiccup's screwdriver slipped out of the screw and he cursed. Toothless and the other fearling wrestled in the background, and Hiccup could tell that he couldn't hold his down forever. He needed to do something - and fast.
"There's only two ways to stop a bot fight…" Hiccup muttered. "Take its head off… or remove the power source…"
The power center glowed a sickening red. He could feel the heat through his clothes. But he knew this might be the only thing left.
"The gods hate me," Hiccup whispered, holding up his hand and looking at it.
Hiccup plunged his hand into the robot's controls and wrapped it around the battery. His entire hand burned and he resisted the urge to scream, instead pulling so hard he removed the battery from its port.
"Ahh!" Hiccup yelled, holding the battery up as the fearling shook once more and died, now just a pile of parts loosely held together. He dropped the burning power source, grabbing his burned left hand with his right, cringing as the burns began to set in.
Toothless and the other fearling wrestled around, fighting while Hiccup disabled the other robot. Normally, Toothless would have easily destroyed the bot, but the little robot had already fought two humans and another robot, and the use of his wings had some drawbacks.
Toothless stumbled a little, mechanically growling at the fearling bot. The dragon slipped back to protect his fighter, who was wincing in pain. The dragon whirred anxiously, trying to alert Hiccup of the fearling lurching towards them.
The fearling moved shakily towards Hiccup and Toothless, growling lowly. This robot was more armored than the other one, and any hit would cause a lot more damage.
Toothless whirred again as the fearling raised its legs to pounce.
"ARGH!" Hiccup yelled, swinging the removed robot limb and slamming into the other robot, sending it flying across the ring and into the ground, where the lights slowly died. Hiccup's adrenaline finally wore off and tears pricked up in his eyes, and he clutched his burned hand. Toothless looked concerned (as concerned as an expressionless robot could at least) at his fighter.
"No!" Viggo Grimborn yelled, slamming his fist on the wall. He glared down at Hiccup and Toothless. "You have been a thorn in my side for too long! You've clearly proved that you're against the easy way, so I guess I'll have to do this with force!"
Hiccup winced again, but pulled himself to his feet. Toothless climbed up his leg and rested on his shoulders, also staring at the CEO.
"I will do whatever it takes." Viggo growled. "No. Matter. What."
"Bring… it…" Hiccup muttered.
"Oh, I will…" Viggo said. "You will regret the day you-"
Suddenly, Viggo's body seized and he collapsed to the ground, shaking violently before finally going still with a sigh. A small teardrop shape took the CEO's place, followed by another human. Instead of Ryker Grimborn or another employee, Hiccup let out a sigh of relief as he recognized Merida's bushy hair and robot.
"Ah think we've all 'ah enough of you," The redhead spat before gazing down at Hiccup. "Wouldnae you agree?"
Authors Notes: There are two weeks of this story left! AHHHH. I don't know if I'm ready, are you guys?
Also spent the week coming up with more Soulmate Story ideas instead of writing Omega Project like I intended, so be on the lookout for more of that content.