Episode 6: The Bewildering Bout of the Astounding Automatons

Ok I MIGHT post the special episode after this one! Just a warning, it's all about Verge and Fairy World!

Also, why do the new episodes have long titles :')))

The teachers at Middleburg High were giving away free car washes, which included having the students to act. Since it was a wing-soaking disaster waiting to happen, Verge was at Fairy World once again. This time, the King and Queen gladly gave her a tour, and the fairy princess enjoyed the wonders of the different seasonal valleys. She saw Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, all in one large world. She marveled at her working fairies that were all gathered to prep for the next season.

Some fairies waved at her. She waved back.

When they arrived back in the palace, Verge couldn't help doing a loop in the air. "Fairy World is so much more incredible than I imagined!"

King Lauqui chuckled. "If you think it's that great, wait until you start working."

There was a twinkle in Verge's blue eyes. "I get to work?"

"Yes," Queen Lareon replied. "As you very much know, you were a true blessing to this world of ours, and were fated to assist the fairies of each kind, since you possessed every single fairy talent. Moreover, you can create your own dust! Did you know fairies have to rely on dust from the Pixie Dust Tree?"

Remembering a certain dust keeper fairy she'd encountered a long time ago, Verge shivered. "Yeah…well, I'm at least excited to be with my subjects!"

"That's my girl!" The King ruffled Verge's pigtails. "We can get started—"

"Maybe the next time I come here? It's time for work in the other dimension! With Zero, and Sashi and Boone!"

At this, King Lauqui and his wife exchanged a look, and Queen Lareon smiled politely. "You sure like this Zero, my dear."

"Of course I do! He's my best friend!"

Her dad cleared his throat. "Verge…I just hope you keep in mind…whether this information may be of use to you or not…"

"Yeah?"

"A fairy and a human can never be."

The fairy blinked. She had no idea why her father would share such detail to her, but she found it in her heart to just keep it memorized. "Alright, dad."

Her mom kissed her forehead. "Go on to work now. You must always remember: you have a purpose. You must always get the urge to fulfill it, no matter what."

Verge beamed, nodded, hugged her parents, and zapped back home.

She arrived in front of the Odyssey just in time to see Penn, Boone, and Sashi walking to work. She turned smaller, hoping to surprise them, but stopped herself when she heard Penn's complaining.

"The bucket backpack! Another terrible idea courtesy of Boone Inc.!" The redhead held the door open for the other two and Verge sneaked into his hair. "Well, at least Rippen still got soaked, thanks to Larry. Or should I call him, Rippen's Boone?" He laughed at his own little joke.

"Whatchu talkin' about?" Verge poked her head out of Penn's hair and let it dangle so Penn was looking at her while she was upside down.

"Verge! When did you get back?"

"I don't tell you everything! Now tell me what happened."

Sashi rolled her eyes a bit. "Penn and Boone tried to be stupid and failed at it."

"Hey!" Boone said defensively. "Don't you mean I got even more stupid?"

"Let's just zap properly today and hope nothing else goes wrong?" Penn suggested through a forced smile.

Verge frowned. Wow, she must've missed a lot.

Without another word, Phyllis zapped them in.

When they arrived in the new world, Verge immediately felt creaky. She moved her arms and legs and found that she was golden-skinned. No, golden-metalled. Her whole body was made of metal, and when she looked at her reflection in the glass, she saw she was actually a robot! The only thing that was still the same about her was her pair of golden wings. "Sweet!" she cheered, actually liking her new form. Even her voice was a bit robot-y.

Boone, who was wearing a lab coat and had wacky hair, looked around and said, "Whoa! A dimension that looks like my grandma's garage?"

Verge scratched her head. "Well, it is kind of old-timey looking here."

"Yeah, the world did a number on you!" He poked the fairy's stomach, who huffed and flapped her wings. "Penn? Sashi?"

"What's this?" Verge landed on the only machine that was on a desk beside Boone. She eyed the item atop of it, wondering to herself why it looked like Sashi's Specs.

"Hey, music box!" Boone beamed, beginning to wind up the crank beside it. The machine whirred to life instantly and Verge flew off of it.

"Boone, Verge, it's me!"

The two immediately recognized the voice as the part-time sidekick's. "Sashi?" Verge gasped. "Wow! What a twist."

"Lookin' good Sash!" Boone pointed out. "You make gears and old-timey stuff work." He winked playfully.

A metal hand moved by the Sashi machine. "Save it! Alright, this is the city of Retrofuturopolis. You are a white inventor, and I am your trusty mechanograin engine. Verge is the robot fairy, of course, who is to guide you and make sure your inventions go right. You have to build an automaton. Your automaton must win a boxing match against an evil automaton created by an evil inventor. If the evil automaton wins, it will be mass-produced into an evil army that'll take over the world!"

"Oh, wings, the pressure."

"We get the same amount of pressure nearly everyday, Verge."

"Fun," Boone smiled, as if thinking this was all a mere game. "Where's Penn?"

If Sashi could make expressions, she could've looked deadpan. "He's the automaton you have to build."

"What?!" Boone and Verge exclaimed at the same time and glanced at the desk a few feet away from them. All the automaton parts and blueprints were there, waiting for them to start working.

"That's a crazy twist!" the part-Wiseman cried.

"This is insane!" Verge's wings fluttered more. "I can't help Boone without Penn! I know nothing about technology!"

"Celebratory salutations, master inventor!" Boone quickly grabbed Verge, who yelped and was hidden in his pocket, as he turned around and saw a man that looked like he was part-automaton himself. Larry was walking beside him with his own automaton parts and blueprints in a box. "It is I, Mayor DiReginald Hindenburg. I say, we're a wee bit short on automaton assembly workspace. Would you mind terribly if your rival builds the opponent for your upcoming grudge match right here by your side?" The mayor chuckled and turned away. "I thought not! Cheerio! I'm off! Oh! Look at me, I'm flying! I'm flying! I have a balloon as part of my body!"

"What a weird mayor," Verge commented, flying out of Boone's pocket.

"Tell me about it!" Larry piped.

Sashi began to speak. "Boone, you can't let a villain work in our wor…" Suddenly, her machine body began to shut down, and would be in need of cranking again.

"What was that Sashi?" Boone questioned.

"She needs to be wound up again!" Verge said, trying to do a backflip in the air. She started to frown when she realized she didn't turn bigger. "What—"

"It must be because your body is physically metal?" Boone wondered, rubbing his chin. "Would make sense on why you can't get bigger!"

"But—"

"Man, it's been pretty lonely here since I haven't built Rippen yet!" Larry suddenly said.

The brunette boy smiled. "I know! It feels so different without the Jazz Man."

"What?" Verge frowned.

"Penn kept saying 'jazz' today. Dunno why! But that's what Penn makes me call him."

"Uh-huh…but hey, I'm still here."

"Hmm, but maybe it's good that it's different! We need to focus on building these robots!" It seemed like he was only talking to Larry.

"Yep! Time to focus!"

"Great, okay, then you guys should get working!" Verge was already getting impatient and her wings fluttered furiously.

"Hey, chillax, Vergie!" The part-time Wiseman suddenly grabbed her body and pressed something against her back. "You should get some sleep too! Leave it to the Wiseman!"

"Wait, what?!" Verge suddenly did feel sleepier, and it was then did she realize she had an on-off switch. "Boone! You did not just—"

Her voice trailed off and everything went black.

The next day, on the day of the automaton wrestling match, Boone had finally finished building Penn and was now wound up and ready to rumble. "Hi guys! Ah, you have no idea how weird it was not being built."

"Pretty sweet, huh? I built you!"

"Uhhh…" Penn glanced down at himself and began to have his doubts. "Ah, great. Then I should work about as well as the buckpack." At this, Boone frowned. "Wait a minute, wasn't Verge supposed to help you build me? Or Sashi? Where are they?"

"Off to sleep!"

"What?! Where?"

"Well, uh, Sashi's back in the workspace, and Verge is in my pocket."

"Please bring our part-time fairy guide out."

Boone reached into his coat and Verge was there, still in shut-down mode. When the Wiseman pressed her button, she whirred to life once more. Her wings flapped once, twice, before she flew off his hand and right up his face. "You did not just turn me off."

The boy shrieked his girly shriek and held up his hands. "Sorry! I thought you needed a rest!"

"I never felt so useless! It feels so weird being off!"

Penn huffed. "Tell me about it."

"Lookin' shiny, Zero."

"I could say the same about you, robot fairy dear!"

The two stuck their tongues out at each other.

Mayor DiReginald began to speak to the audience. "Whichever combatant is the first to separate the other from his head, wins! Automatons, commence pugilism!" A bell dinged out, and a robot lady carrying a sign labeled "Round One" move forward.

"Good luck," Verge whispered, as Penn and Rippen began to walk towards each other.

The moment their boxing gloves met, their bodies came apart underneath them.

The audience gasped. Boone and Verge gasped as well and pulled Penn back to fix him. Larry did the same with Rippen.

"Guys?" Penn blinked. "I think there's something wrong here."

"Don't worry, Penn!" Boone reassured. "We got this!"

Round the 2nd began. Rippen pressed a button on his wrist and a gush of sand hit Penn's robot face. As sand got in the part-time hero's eyes, he used a blue fan to shield himself.

But Rippen punched him right in the face, laughing evilly. That punch however, caused the glove to come off and hit the bell, signaling the end of the round.

"And that concludes the end of the round!" the Mayor announced.

The crowd seemed to not be impressed by what was going on.

"Oh wings," Verge muttered.

Penn panted as he sat back down in his corner. "Paper shields? Really?"

"I don't know what gets into me," Boone said sadly as he leaned on the ring's ropes. "I was all like, paper shields would be totally confusing to Rippen, giving the Jazz Man the advantage he needs to win…so stupid."

Boone looked so sad, that the anger Verge felt at him for shutting her down earlier completely melted away. She sat on the boy's shoulder and patted it. "Look, Boone, you're not useless. And not all your ideas are stupid. You actually have good thinking most times! It gets in the way in other times but, you're still a valuable member to the team."

"She's right," Penn put in, sighing. "Look, I was outta line buddy. Truth is, I couldn't win these missions without you. I—We, need all your weird ideas that no one else would ever think of, and I need them now more than ever."

Their words brought back the big smile on Boone's face. "You got it Penn!"He reached over and pretended to make the robot speak. "Thanks, Boone. And thanks, Verge."

The fairy smiled and did a tiny fist bump with him.

The rest of the rounds went by like a song ((A/N: Sorry for the joke and for the laziness HAHAHA)). The Mayor suddenly began rapping and it was very unclear on who was winning the boxing match, since both robots had their weird ways of attacking one another. Verge did her best to help Boone put Penn together when he needed fine-tuning. Despite her lack of knowledge in tech, she still tried to assist the part-time Wiseman.

At around Round 11, Penn tried to fire another object, but was confused at what he got. "Uh, Boone? This looks like a croissant!"

"That's French for boomerang!"

"Sounds good!" Penn threw the bread and it flew off. It missed Rippen, and unfortunately hit himself instead.

"Zero!" Verge cried, flying over to pick up the few screws that came loose. "Keep it together, man!"

The robot only groaned in frustration.

"A mop? Larry?!"

"So you can mop the floor with him!"

"…Whatever."

Tossing the mop aside, Rippen came up and pinned him down with one fist, the other one raised high. "Despite Larry's absolutely terrible work, I'm still going to defeat you." He laughed as he punched Penn's face repeatedly.

"It's time to win, Penn!" Boone called out. Verge nodded, her robot hands clasped together.

Penn kept feeling his head come off. He had no choice but to listen. A tiny metal Boone popped out from his shoulder and said, "Prop in the clock, and set the hands to three."

"Okay…I'm gonna trust Boone."

The automaton did exactly that, and the clock he had turned out to be a cuckoo clock. The little bird hit Rippen in the face numerous times. At the final hit, he fell to the floor, and the mop he had earlier said, "Exploding mop device activated."

"What."

There was a huge blast and Rippen's head came right off. The Mayor approached Penn happily and held his arm upwards. "Top Hat Bot wins!"

Unfortunately for Penn, his arm came off his body.

"Larry! Why didn't you say it was an exploding mop?!"

"You didn't ask!"

"…I didn't ask…"

Verge flew up to Penn and hugged his automaton head. "You did it!

The hero chuckled. "Well. Couldn't have done it without you and Boone."

"See you later, Larry's Penn!" Larry had suddenly hopped onto a balloon with Boone, and the two floated off together.

Until they hit another balloon and crashed into the city.

"That's gonna leave a mark," Penn rolled his eyes playfully. Verge laughed and reached her hand out to tiny fist bump him. Penn used his other arm to do it.

But accidentally punched her away. "Sorry!"

As the heroes exited the Odyssey, Sashi was shuddering. "It felt so weird being useless today."

"You weren't useless!" Penn defended. "You…um…" Sashi glared at him, daring to continue the sentence. The redhead smiled nervously and patted her shoulder. "You were there."

Boone sighed. "I'm sorry I left you off, Sash. And shut you down, Verge."

The fairy sighed as she grew bigger. "It's okay. I just felt a bit bad when I realized I'm not always going to be in on your inside jokes and stories. I'm not always around, and I hate that I know that but can't do anything about it."

"Aw geez, Verge," Penn said, smiling a bit. "You don't have to feel bad about that! We have our jokes and problems but we'll never exclude you from our group. Intentionally, at least!"

"Besides," Sashi nudged their fairy friend. "You can't complain entirely. Remember the 'trusty' mechanograin I tried to be today? Thanks to a certain someone?"

"I said I was sorry!" Boone complained.

The four laughed together.

"Hey, you could stay around with us more if you weren't going to Fairy World so much nowadays!" Penn had meant for it to be a joke, but Boone and Sashi could clearly see where his intentions lay.

Verge, however, just pushed him lightly. "Ha! You wish!" She chuckled as she put her vest on and started to walk ahead. "Let's get some dinner, I'm starving!"

Penn exchanged looks with Boone and Sashi. The three of them were frowning.

Will the special episode be after this one? Who knoooows? OoO