Space Cadet
A/N: First o' all, I'd like to say… Thankyou to the reviewers… *GIR-ish voice* I like youuu… xD
Second o' all, I'd like to say… If I ever take that long to update again, please threaten to impale me on a random, pointy object. Motivation is always good!
Chapter 6 – Captivity Crisis
Rapsheeba came to an abrupt halt about ten feet away from the oversized cereal bowl. She refused to go any further.
"Uh, this is as close as I want to get to those nasty robots and such." She claimed, trembling. "I'm sorry, Snap."
"That's alright, Queen. Thanks for your help." The little drawing replied, gazing up at the future dome. It was even bigger than the last time he remembered seeing it.
"Anytime! But, um, please, do be careful." And with that, she edged away from the scene, obviously paranoid, as if she were afraid little… robot things would spring out of the bushes and lunge themselves at their throats.
Rudy, who had remained silent for the past ten minutes or so, was also in awe, but he was too heavily weighed down with panic to care. In a hurry, he snatched the chalk out of his back pocket and poised it in the air, ready to draw.
"What should I go with, Snap? Grappling hook? Jetpack? A really big ladder? What would be best for climbing up the Dome of the Future?" He asked, speaking up at last. Snap, who was partially distracted by the retreating Rapsheeba, soon returned to his senses.
"Wha…? Eh… Oh, I like the jetpack idea myself. Gotta go with the rocket boosters!"
"Right! Of course." Rudy quickly doodled up two identical jetpacks (which, upon being finished, became blue-and-silver with black fuel tanks), kept one for himself, and gave the other to Snap, who toyed with the controls curiously.
"How do you activate this thing?" He asked, unsure.
Rudy sighed. "I dunno- but I'm assuming it has something to do with the little buttons on the bottom of the place where you put your hands."
"Which would be…?"
Moaning impatiently, Rudy showed Snap the correct hand position. Apparently the blue boy had never seen an actual jetpack before. To be honest, his creator sure hadn't either, but he'd seen a lot of them in clichéd action movies.
"Oh! So you just press this, and… WOAH!"
Snap rocketed suddenly off the ground, doing several cartwheels in mid-air before righting himself, already dizzy. But it still didn't take him long to figure out the basics. Soon, he stopped spinning and slowed to a hovering position about four feet above ground. "This thing sure is cool, Rudy! Is this what they use to travel in the human world?"
"Nah… just in movies, and stuff. We drive around in cars, which are bulkier, safer but far less efficient."
"Oh. But why?"
"SNAP! Let's stay on track, please?! The future dome is THAT way."
Rapsheeba waved to them both as they blindly flew over the top of the dome. Snap wavered a bit and even crashed into an oddly-placed tree on one occasion, but Rudy was already an expert. After a few short seconds, they both disappeared from sight. The rapping girl shook her head sadly, hoping they'd be alright.
"Good luck, boys!"
She got no reply but a random screech from above. It was a pencil with wings, fluttering around her clumsily like it had serious head trauma. Mumbling under her breath, Rapsheeba casually ambled away, trying to ignore the winged pencil trailing her. Gosh, it was annoying.
From a bird's eye view, the future dome looked far more advanced than it did close-up, mostly because you couldn't make out the details that made the devices technologically worthless. A giant, lopsided spoon with several doors (some suspended in midair), windows, and no apparent purpose sparked a few times, leaving a sudden trail of smoke spewing out of one of the pipes. A small, computer-run hot dog stand was set up on ground level, the robot manager missing half of his vital appendages. Everything in the Future Dome was faulty and useless.
But even so, it came as a surprise when they realized… nobody was there.
"Hey, uh, Rudy?" Snap suddenly asked out of the blue, gazing down at the buildings in awe. "Didn't this place used to be packed with all kinds of curious Zoners?"
The boy took a second to reply, still a bit startled. "Yeah… But then again, you'd think if a giant jellybean monster takes one of the creators hostage, people would be afraid."
"Penny ain't a creator."
"She has chalk, and she's used it. Define the ChalkZone meaning of the word 'creator', Snap."
"You win." His drawing sighed.
They took another second to admire the area. From afar, it looked like some kind of glistening utopia, but the malfunctioning hardware inside the dome suggested otherwise. The buildings were all bent over to one side, some were missing doors and some still were abandoned and unattended.
And then, they saw it. It was a huge, globular pod hovering above an enormous tower that ejected from the dome like a lightening rod. The pod was higher than even the tallest of the other skyscrapers, and from the looks of its twenty or so security systems (one on every floor), it seemed to be especially important.
"Betcha anything Penny's up there." Snap murmured. Rudy nodded in agreement. None of the other buildings were so well-guarded.
"I'm just surprised we haven't been shot down yet." The boy thought out loud. "I mean, here we are, stepping right into Skrawl's trap… With rocket-powered jetpacks… I mean, we might as well be wearing glowing neon signs around our necks."
"Now's not the time for pessimism, Rudy. If we survive this, then I've got a full life ahead of me, and I'm opting to live long enough to fulfill some of my lifelong dreams." Snap grumbled, warily. "Just draw us a laser beam and we can destroy that dome and get your friend back."
"We'd have to land first. Piloting these jetpacks around takes both hands." Rudy pointed out. "Come on, we can land by the tower, I can draw something, and we'll be back in the air, ten seconds tops."
"Hows about YOU land by the tower, YOU draw something, and… I'll just stay up here in the air where it's safe?" Snap suggested, squinting his eyes grumpily.
"Fine, you stay here, chicken boy." Rudy lowered himself towards the ground, gradually slowing down until he was close enough to fall.
Once his feet hit the ground, he groped around in his pocket for the magic chalk. He knew it was in there SOMEWHERE. I mean, his suspiciously invisible (at least, until he needs them) pockets couldn't be bottomless…
Finally, skin met chalk. With a satisfactory grin, he pulled out the chalk and started to draw. Snap watched closely, keeping a sharp eye for any threats nearby.
"Can you hurry, Rudy?" He requested, glancing around nervously. "I'm… starting to get this odd feeling that… perhaps we're being hunted… Or watched… or possibly both…"
"SNAP! No cliché ramblings while I draw! I need to concentrate!"
Unfortunately, while poor Rudy was drawing, he was completely oblivious to the approaching Craniac… as was Snap, who was actually looking out for any trouble such as the event described… But we cannot blame him, because he has no pupils for which to see.
It was Craniac 3, Rudy's closest acquaintance out of the Craniac line. Craniac 3 was creepily intelligent, all-knowing, and his only succussor was the just-as-ambitious Craniac 4. But let's not get into that. Craniac 4 was off somewhere in another part of the Future Dome. Maybe he was buying hot dogs from the robot hot dog man with the lack of vital appendages. Ooh, slacker.
ZAP!
Penny gasped in surprise as Craniacs 1 and 3 dragged in a seemingly unconscious Rudy and Snap. Her fears had been brought into reality. They had failed, and all three were now hostage.
"Got his instant matter materializer, Master Skrawl!" 1 exclaimed, waving the chalk in the air like a baton. Skrawl quickly snatched the utensil from the robot, sneering rudely.
"It's called chalk, you moronic android." And with that, the giant cootie crushed White Lightning with a simple clench of his clawed fists. "Actually, now it's dust. Harmless, innocent, defenseless dust. You're free to go, Craniacs."
The two robots quickly wheeled themselves out of the room. Skrawl pressed a button on a pad attached to the side of the wall, and the door rolled shut.
Penny watched her motionless friends hopefully, as if by some twisted miracle, they'd wake up and manage to get their way out of trouble yet again. But nothing of the sort happened. Skrawl smirked triumphantly as he gripped Rudy tightly by the collar of his shirt, waving him around as if to prove he had conquered his creator.
"I've waited so long for this moment, Master Tabootie." He sneered, before hurling the boy against the wall, yards away from Penny. "And I know you can hear me. The disintegrating beam – which paralyzes, in case you've forgotten - only disables usage of the body… not the mind."
Penny felt a pang somewhere in the excruciatingly precise depths of her mind - what Skrawl had just described was yet another scientific impossibility. She never could make heads or tails of ChalkZone logic, assuming that there was any, of course.
"Then again, revenge is always more fun when the person you're wreaking doom upon is awake." Skrawl snapped his fingers. "And I'm just dying to know what my hostages think about the ingenuity of their captor and his plan to eliminate them!"
All at once, Rudy's eyes popped open, his pupils small and vague and first, and then widening once he realized his situation.
The green jellybean veered over at him, poking his oversized head into Rudy's line of vision.
"Pleasure to see you, Master Tabootie." Skrawl jeered tauntingly, painfully calm. "Glad you can drop in."
Rudy glared angrily up at the monster, refusing to answer. He was at a loss of words. They'd lost, and to a potato with appendages. Beside the boy, Snap was waking up, more gradually than Rudy had.
"Ugh… oh yeah, great, Rapsheeba…" The drawing murmured in half-sleep, turning over in his semi-conscious state. "Sounds just great…"
Rudy bit his lip. His ally, the powerless Snap, was just about as helpful to him as the bound Hispanic girl in the corner, watching the scene in disbelief.
It took a while for this to seep in.
"Penny…!"
A/N: Next chapter WILL hopefully come quicker. Review, my captivated readers. Oh, how you will review. Work your reviewing charms upon my fanfiction.