It took Rock everything short of biting through his lip to stop himself from twitching. "Auto, are you almost finished?" Rock asked, looking down as his feet as he lay on his back on the operating table.
"I'd have been finished ages ago if only you'd stop squirming your feet around," Said Auto testily, poking away at the insides of Rock's bare feet.
"Sorry, I can't help it," said Rock apologetically.
"Nevermind," said Auto, flicking his thin instrument into the sink as he grabbed some thread, "I'm finished now, anyway."
As soon as Auto had finished stitching up Rock's feet, Rock gingerly stood up. "What did you put in me?" he asked, wiggling his toes.
"It's a starshooter adapter," Auto replied, peeling off his bloodied gloves. "You know how you can double-jump in midair?"
"Yeah?"
"When you have that starshooter active, you can triple-jump in the air."
"Cool," said Rock, tapping his heels against his ankles.
"Be careful using it, though," said Auto clearly, making sure Rock understood him. "I know it works, but I'm not sure how well."
"Huh?"
"That extra jump," said Auto, "could propel you anywhere from two meters to fifty feet."
"Fifty feet?" Rock gasped in astonishment.
"Well, I don't know," said Auto sheepishly, "I can't test how far the starshooter will actually propel you on my own, you know. But if I'm right, it should give you at least ten meters of air."
"Thanks, Auto," said Rock as he picked up his leg armor. Slipping into the sleek titanium alloy, Rock walked out of the room. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an incineration bay to hose down."
*********
One flash later, Rock found himself standing in front of a small booth with a door, in the middle of a barren grassland. Quickly dodging behind a nearby tree, Rock held the side of his helmet closer to his ear and quietly whispered, "Roll, can you hear me?"
"I hear ya' loud and clear, Rock," Roll replied.
"I'm at the back entrance of the underground incineration plant. Can our frequency reach underneath?"
"It might," said Roll, "It worked in the ore mines because there were tons of natural conductors in the ground, but it probably won't work here. Auto said he was working on another com system, but I don't know how long it's going to take him to build it."
"Hopefully I can find some way of reaching you when I need to warp out," said Rock, readying his arm cannon. "Well, Roll, wish me luck. I'm going to shut this baby down."
"Be careful, Rock," were Roll's last words before the connection between them fizzled out in Rock's ear.
Rock dashed towards the doorway, swung it wide open, and dashed down the stairway. As soon as he crossed into the long hallways, a sudden wave of heat made him freeze. "This is the incinceration plant, all right," Rock muttered to himself, dashing down the hallways.
The first room he came dashing into was nothing but a giant chasm with seemingly no end. Rock never had the chance to look down as he boldly leapt across, double-jumping in the air to let him land safely on the other side. The buzz of drones now filled the air, and Rock felt like hundereds of them would come challenge him at any moment. Another wide open pit neared him as he ran, and just before he was about to jump across, a swarm of drones suddenly flew up from inside the pit. Already with too much momentum to come to a stop, Rock leapt across the chasm again, planting his foot square on the back of the hovering robot as he springboarded off of it, landing on the other side of the pit again as he charged towards another shuttter.
An alarm suddenly blared, filling the hallways with a ear-peircing screech. Gritting his teeth and bearing the painful noise, Rock quickly noticed that the ceiling in front of him was slowly starting to compress towards the floor, and the iron shutter was slowly rising. Sucking in a deep breath, Rock pushed himself forward with all the speed he could underneath the decending ceiling, and just as soon as the ceiling came to the top of his head, Rock threw himself on his side, sending his body skidding along the floor and slipping under the iron shutter just as the ceiling hit the floor. Taking a moment to collect his breath, Rock scrambled back to his feet before charging down the hallways again.
It was not long before Rock found himself at the beginning of a long, narrow corridor with the floor lined by a conveyor belt, carrying bits and pieces of scrap metal. Not knowing any way else to go through the plant, Rock stepped onto the belt and ran along. A sudden blast of flamed from overhead made Rock send himself to the ground again. Looking up, Rock realized that the whole corridor was filled with nozzles on the walls and ceilings, blasting the scraps with flames and dropping into another pit at the other end. Not wanting to fight the conveyor by turning back, Rock made himself dash further down the belt, as blasts of flames and fire nipping at his heels. Leaping, sliding, and barely avoiding the scorching flames, the moment Rock came to the end of the conveyor belt, he saw yet anoher gaping chasm before him. With his mind already on autopilot, Rock leapt off the edge of the belt as the scorched scrap fell, planting his hands on the wall in front of him. Rock let himself slide down the wall as he listened to the peices of metal hit the bottom, echoing into a swelling boom. Spotting a balcony with a door on the wall, Rock let himself drop to the lege, blast the frail door open, and charge into another hallway.
His path was soon cut off by yet another heavy shutter. Skidding to a halt, Rock turned to head back, when another shutter came crashing down in front of him, sealing him inside the hall. "Great," Rock muttered, looking at the first shutter. Bravely approaching the shutter, Rock tapped once on the heavy sheet of iron, and the shutter was immediately raised.
The searing heat was even more intense behind the shutter as it slammed down behind Rock. Rock felt that he would be sweating by the buckets if his body still needed to perspire as he looked around the rusty-colored room he was now sealed inside, seeing nothing in it's perfectly cubed interior than a bare floor, walls, and a bare ceiling to match. Spotting a lone shutter on the other side of the room, Rock stepped one foot towards it.
As soon as his foot touched the floor, the ground began to split and pull apart. Rock jumped back, flattening himself against the shutter as he watched the floor open up and slide into the walls, leaving him on just a small platform, with another in front of the shutter on the other side. Once the floors had completely seperated and vanished inisde the walls, Rock looked down into the chasm below, and his jaw dropped wide open. A sea of open flames roared beneath him in the pit below, and Rock felt the temperature sharply rise. Heat waves began to play tricks with his vison, making the room around him wave and swagger.
"I see you've come to see our main incinerator," said a hissing voice.
Rock looked up to see a tall, thin Virtuloid on the other platform, clad in bright red armor and weilding a flamethrower nozzle in place of his hand. "I guess that you're the famous Blue Bomber that everyone's been talking about."
"The one and only," said Rock, readying his arm cannon.
"Whoever destroys you is going to be rewarded hamsomely," said the Virtuloid, "and when I do, I'm going to be commander Burn, so thanks for being my stepping stone."
"Don't get so full of yourself, Burn," said Rock, charging his arm cannon and aiming it at Burn's chest. "You're going to have to come and get me first!"
For a second, Burn stood still as the barrel of Rock's fully charged cannon stared him down. Then, Burn took a step off of the plaform, and a small block suddenly appeared underneath his foot, keeping him aloft. With Burn in the middle of his cannon's sights, Rock unleashed a massive blast of energy at his enemy. Burn quickly raised his nozzle arm and let loose a flash of flames, and Rock's shot was quickly dissolved. Burn snickered as he hopped off of the block, leaping into the middle of the chasm and landing on another floating block, popping up from out of nowhere as the one behind it vanished. Burn kept his flamethrower going as he steadily advanced on Rock, hopping from vanishing cube to appearing cube. With nowhere else to go and with Burn coming closer with his flamethrower, Rock flattened himself against the shutter as Burn approached.
Suddenly, Rock noticed that another cube had formed in front of his platform, and Burn was just about to mae the leap upon it. Hoping that he could jump high enough, Rock quickly bolted off of his feet, taking a wild leap off of the cube and vaulting himself over Burn's head as they crossed past each other. As Burn steadily landed on the platform where Rock once was, Rock found himself falling though the air and into the flaming pit below. Another cube suddenly popped up right in fron of his face, and Rock clung onto it with his life.
"Having fun with the phasing blocks?" Burn taunted, watching Rock climb up onto the cube.
Rock quickly leapt upwards, catching onto the ledge of the solid platform on the other side of the room. Pulling himself up, Rock growled silently as Burn snickered. "I've got it all memorized," Burn jeered, tapping the side of his helmet. "I'd love to see you try to reach me over here."
It took all of Rock's willpower to stop himself from blidly charging towards Burn. "Why don't you come and get me?" Rock challenged, switching his weapon formats and producing a nozzle of his own from his cannon.
"Happy to oblige," said Burn, waiting a few seconds before stepping onto another materializing block.
Just as Burn hopped onto another cube, Rock aimed his cannon at Burn and let out a violent blast of water at him. Burn yelped just before the torrent of water smashed into his chest, knocking him off of the platform and into the pit below, vanishing into the flames.
Rock breathed a sigh of relief. "That was easy," he said, turning towards the shutter.
Before Rock could tap on the shutter to make it open, a speeding fireball shot up from the pit, landing on a new block in the middle of the chasm. "I see that you've met Hydro," Burn hissed angrily, his armor smoking and charred black.
"Want another taste?" Rock snarled back, aiming his nozzle at Burn again.
As soon as Burn fired a stream of flames at Rock, Rock let out another blast of water. The two streams hit, and a shrill hiss filled the air. Burn continued to jump from block to vanishing block, steadily advancing on Rock as their streams kept blocking each other out. Knowing that Burn would expect him to leap over his head again, Rock held his breath, hoped Auto was right, and dropped himself down from the platform, and plummeted into the firey pit below.
"What is he doing?" Burn gasped, stunned at Rock's apparent suicide.
Just before Rock's feet touched the tips of the flames below, he leapt in midair off of his double-jump, and with all the power he could muster, Rock willed the starshooters in his feet to activate. A violent burst of powr surged through Rock's legs, and before he knew it, he was sent flipping wildly upwards, spinning head below heels as he shot through the air, landing on his feet on the platform on the other side.
"How did he-!" was all that Burn could manage to gasp as he whirled himself around in time to see Rock aiming his nozzle at him again. And without a word later, Rock unleashed another blast of current at Burn, knocking the Virtuloid off of the block and down into the flaming chasm below again. Thanking Auto over and over again in his head, Rock dropped down into the fiery pit once more, dousing the flames below him with his water cannon as he fell. Landing on a wiremesh grid from his extinguished spot, Rock watered down a path as he searched the flames for Burn. Once he found Burn's motionless body, completely blackened and beginning to crumble, Rock placed his hand on Burn's back, and a jolt of energy surged through his cannon. Feeling a new power inside of his arm cannon, Rock leapt up, double-jumped, and then sent himself skyrocketing upwards again, up on top of the opposite platform. Tapping on the shutter once, the heavy sheet of iron quickly lifted, allowing Rock to step through the doorway before crashing back down again.
The sight of a lone radio desk in the small, barren room made Rock grin. Quickly darting towards the radio, Rock picked up the reciever, adjusted the tuning dial, and spoke. "Hey Roll! I told you I'd find a way to talk with you."
"Good," said Roll with an odd tone
Rock could tell that something was awry. "Roll, is there something wrong?"
There was a short pause. "Maybe you'd better come here first," said Roll.
Biting is lip, Rock wondered what could have possibly happened as a bright light enveloped him and he vanished into the air.
"I'd have been finished ages ago if only you'd stop squirming your feet around," Said Auto testily, poking away at the insides of Rock's bare feet.
"Sorry, I can't help it," said Rock apologetically.
"Nevermind," said Auto, flicking his thin instrument into the sink as he grabbed some thread, "I'm finished now, anyway."
As soon as Auto had finished stitching up Rock's feet, Rock gingerly stood up. "What did you put in me?" he asked, wiggling his toes.
"It's a starshooter adapter," Auto replied, peeling off his bloodied gloves. "You know how you can double-jump in midair?"
"Yeah?"
"When you have that starshooter active, you can triple-jump in the air."
"Cool," said Rock, tapping his heels against his ankles.
"Be careful using it, though," said Auto clearly, making sure Rock understood him. "I know it works, but I'm not sure how well."
"Huh?"
"That extra jump," said Auto, "could propel you anywhere from two meters to fifty feet."
"Fifty feet?" Rock gasped in astonishment.
"Well, I don't know," said Auto sheepishly, "I can't test how far the starshooter will actually propel you on my own, you know. But if I'm right, it should give you at least ten meters of air."
"Thanks, Auto," said Rock as he picked up his leg armor. Slipping into the sleek titanium alloy, Rock walked out of the room. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an incineration bay to hose down."
*********
One flash later, Rock found himself standing in front of a small booth with a door, in the middle of a barren grassland. Quickly dodging behind a nearby tree, Rock held the side of his helmet closer to his ear and quietly whispered, "Roll, can you hear me?"
"I hear ya' loud and clear, Rock," Roll replied.
"I'm at the back entrance of the underground incineration plant. Can our frequency reach underneath?"
"It might," said Roll, "It worked in the ore mines because there were tons of natural conductors in the ground, but it probably won't work here. Auto said he was working on another com system, but I don't know how long it's going to take him to build it."
"Hopefully I can find some way of reaching you when I need to warp out," said Rock, readying his arm cannon. "Well, Roll, wish me luck. I'm going to shut this baby down."
"Be careful, Rock," were Roll's last words before the connection between them fizzled out in Rock's ear.
Rock dashed towards the doorway, swung it wide open, and dashed down the stairway. As soon as he crossed into the long hallways, a sudden wave of heat made him freeze. "This is the incinceration plant, all right," Rock muttered to himself, dashing down the hallways.
The first room he came dashing into was nothing but a giant chasm with seemingly no end. Rock never had the chance to look down as he boldly leapt across, double-jumping in the air to let him land safely on the other side. The buzz of drones now filled the air, and Rock felt like hundereds of them would come challenge him at any moment. Another wide open pit neared him as he ran, and just before he was about to jump across, a swarm of drones suddenly flew up from inside the pit. Already with too much momentum to come to a stop, Rock leapt across the chasm again, planting his foot square on the back of the hovering robot as he springboarded off of it, landing on the other side of the pit again as he charged towards another shuttter.
An alarm suddenly blared, filling the hallways with a ear-peircing screech. Gritting his teeth and bearing the painful noise, Rock quickly noticed that the ceiling in front of him was slowly starting to compress towards the floor, and the iron shutter was slowly rising. Sucking in a deep breath, Rock pushed himself forward with all the speed he could underneath the decending ceiling, and just as soon as the ceiling came to the top of his head, Rock threw himself on his side, sending his body skidding along the floor and slipping under the iron shutter just as the ceiling hit the floor. Taking a moment to collect his breath, Rock scrambled back to his feet before charging down the hallways again.
It was not long before Rock found himself at the beginning of a long, narrow corridor with the floor lined by a conveyor belt, carrying bits and pieces of scrap metal. Not knowing any way else to go through the plant, Rock stepped onto the belt and ran along. A sudden blast of flamed from overhead made Rock send himself to the ground again. Looking up, Rock realized that the whole corridor was filled with nozzles on the walls and ceilings, blasting the scraps with flames and dropping into another pit at the other end. Not wanting to fight the conveyor by turning back, Rock made himself dash further down the belt, as blasts of flames and fire nipping at his heels. Leaping, sliding, and barely avoiding the scorching flames, the moment Rock came to the end of the conveyor belt, he saw yet anoher gaping chasm before him. With his mind already on autopilot, Rock leapt off the edge of the belt as the scorched scrap fell, planting his hands on the wall in front of him. Rock let himself slide down the wall as he listened to the peices of metal hit the bottom, echoing into a swelling boom. Spotting a balcony with a door on the wall, Rock let himself drop to the lege, blast the frail door open, and charge into another hallway.
His path was soon cut off by yet another heavy shutter. Skidding to a halt, Rock turned to head back, when another shutter came crashing down in front of him, sealing him inside the hall. "Great," Rock muttered, looking at the first shutter. Bravely approaching the shutter, Rock tapped once on the heavy sheet of iron, and the shutter was immediately raised.
The searing heat was even more intense behind the shutter as it slammed down behind Rock. Rock felt that he would be sweating by the buckets if his body still needed to perspire as he looked around the rusty-colored room he was now sealed inside, seeing nothing in it's perfectly cubed interior than a bare floor, walls, and a bare ceiling to match. Spotting a lone shutter on the other side of the room, Rock stepped one foot towards it.
As soon as his foot touched the floor, the ground began to split and pull apart. Rock jumped back, flattening himself against the shutter as he watched the floor open up and slide into the walls, leaving him on just a small platform, with another in front of the shutter on the other side. Once the floors had completely seperated and vanished inisde the walls, Rock looked down into the chasm below, and his jaw dropped wide open. A sea of open flames roared beneath him in the pit below, and Rock felt the temperature sharply rise. Heat waves began to play tricks with his vison, making the room around him wave and swagger.
"I see you've come to see our main incinerator," said a hissing voice.
Rock looked up to see a tall, thin Virtuloid on the other platform, clad in bright red armor and weilding a flamethrower nozzle in place of his hand. "I guess that you're the famous Blue Bomber that everyone's been talking about."
"The one and only," said Rock, readying his arm cannon.
"Whoever destroys you is going to be rewarded hamsomely," said the Virtuloid, "and when I do, I'm going to be commander Burn, so thanks for being my stepping stone."
"Don't get so full of yourself, Burn," said Rock, charging his arm cannon and aiming it at Burn's chest. "You're going to have to come and get me first!"
For a second, Burn stood still as the barrel of Rock's fully charged cannon stared him down. Then, Burn took a step off of the plaform, and a small block suddenly appeared underneath his foot, keeping him aloft. With Burn in the middle of his cannon's sights, Rock unleashed a massive blast of energy at his enemy. Burn quickly raised his nozzle arm and let loose a flash of flames, and Rock's shot was quickly dissolved. Burn snickered as he hopped off of the block, leaping into the middle of the chasm and landing on another floating block, popping up from out of nowhere as the one behind it vanished. Burn kept his flamethrower going as he steadily advanced on Rock, hopping from vanishing cube to appearing cube. With nowhere else to go and with Burn coming closer with his flamethrower, Rock flattened himself against the shutter as Burn approached.
Suddenly, Rock noticed that another cube had formed in front of his platform, and Burn was just about to mae the leap upon it. Hoping that he could jump high enough, Rock quickly bolted off of his feet, taking a wild leap off of the cube and vaulting himself over Burn's head as they crossed past each other. As Burn steadily landed on the platform where Rock once was, Rock found himself falling though the air and into the flaming pit below. Another cube suddenly popped up right in fron of his face, and Rock clung onto it with his life.
"Having fun with the phasing blocks?" Burn taunted, watching Rock climb up onto the cube.
Rock quickly leapt upwards, catching onto the ledge of the solid platform on the other side of the room. Pulling himself up, Rock growled silently as Burn snickered. "I've got it all memorized," Burn jeered, tapping the side of his helmet. "I'd love to see you try to reach me over here."
It took all of Rock's willpower to stop himself from blidly charging towards Burn. "Why don't you come and get me?" Rock challenged, switching his weapon formats and producing a nozzle of his own from his cannon.
"Happy to oblige," said Burn, waiting a few seconds before stepping onto another materializing block.
Just as Burn hopped onto another cube, Rock aimed his cannon at Burn and let out a violent blast of water at him. Burn yelped just before the torrent of water smashed into his chest, knocking him off of the platform and into the pit below, vanishing into the flames.
Rock breathed a sigh of relief. "That was easy," he said, turning towards the shutter.
Before Rock could tap on the shutter to make it open, a speeding fireball shot up from the pit, landing on a new block in the middle of the chasm. "I see that you've met Hydro," Burn hissed angrily, his armor smoking and charred black.
"Want another taste?" Rock snarled back, aiming his nozzle at Burn again.
As soon as Burn fired a stream of flames at Rock, Rock let out another blast of water. The two streams hit, and a shrill hiss filled the air. Burn continued to jump from block to vanishing block, steadily advancing on Rock as their streams kept blocking each other out. Knowing that Burn would expect him to leap over his head again, Rock held his breath, hoped Auto was right, and dropped himself down from the platform, and plummeted into the firey pit below.
"What is he doing?" Burn gasped, stunned at Rock's apparent suicide.
Just before Rock's feet touched the tips of the flames below, he leapt in midair off of his double-jump, and with all the power he could muster, Rock willed the starshooters in his feet to activate. A violent burst of powr surged through Rock's legs, and before he knew it, he was sent flipping wildly upwards, spinning head below heels as he shot through the air, landing on his feet on the platform on the other side.
"How did he-!" was all that Burn could manage to gasp as he whirled himself around in time to see Rock aiming his nozzle at him again. And without a word later, Rock unleashed another blast of current at Burn, knocking the Virtuloid off of the block and down into the flaming chasm below again. Thanking Auto over and over again in his head, Rock dropped down into the fiery pit once more, dousing the flames below him with his water cannon as he fell. Landing on a wiremesh grid from his extinguished spot, Rock watered down a path as he searched the flames for Burn. Once he found Burn's motionless body, completely blackened and beginning to crumble, Rock placed his hand on Burn's back, and a jolt of energy surged through his cannon. Feeling a new power inside of his arm cannon, Rock leapt up, double-jumped, and then sent himself skyrocketing upwards again, up on top of the opposite platform. Tapping on the shutter once, the heavy sheet of iron quickly lifted, allowing Rock to step through the doorway before crashing back down again.
The sight of a lone radio desk in the small, barren room made Rock grin. Quickly darting towards the radio, Rock picked up the reciever, adjusted the tuning dial, and spoke. "Hey Roll! I told you I'd find a way to talk with you."
"Good," said Roll with an odd tone
Rock could tell that something was awry. "Roll, is there something wrong?"
There was a short pause. "Maybe you'd better come here first," said Roll.
Biting is lip, Rock wondered what could have possibly happened as a bright light enveloped him and he vanished into the air.