Hundreds of robots marched, until they caught a visual of Odd, preparing for the coming onslaught.
"Uh oh," Odd said, watching a laser shot whiz over his head, "that's not good."
He dived out from the rubble, firing a missile into the field, watching physics work their magic. Robots scattered everywhere, corpses flung into living robots, heat sizzling off their mechanical skins.
My god, Odd thought. Even if they are robots, that's cold. He loaded another missile, as D'Artagnan charged forth, two guns blazing.
"Wait!" Odd yelled, watching two robots surround her from the sides.
"Target eliminated," he heard a voice chirp, as the robots looked back up at Odd. He had missed the action through the robots, but he knew exactly what happened. He felt his hands – still covered by the robotic gloves. He ran down from the wreck, screaming with fury, deflected laser blasts with his gloves, as he ripped apart robots, put his hand through them, and tore them apart. He put two fingers around one's tubed neck, and tore it off, battering down other robots with the head.
"Dart!" Odd yelled, completely annihilating the army, as he reached the final robot. It was a general, marked by a gray giant metallic arm; which Odd proceeded to rip off and jam through its own stomach, rupturing its circuit board.
"You son of a bitch!" Odd yelled, tearing it apart. "You - you monster, you god forsaken monster."
Odd growled, as he slowly slid the gloves off his hand, standing up tall again, silhouetting against the setting red sun, realizing what he had done.
He had taken thousands of artificial lives – lives just as real as Aelita's, or D'Artagnan's. He walked slowly over to her corpse, barely alive. "I'm sorry," Odd whispered into her ear. "I'm sorry; I'm sorry."
"Odd," she mumbled with her dying breath, "you're a great warrior. I love you, Odd. Take them all out for me."
Odd put his lips to hers gently, and smiled a sad, dark smile.
"I will," he said, walking over towards his metal gloves, "I promise I will."
He picked up his gloves, and walked towards the hills. The rest of the gang climbed out from their hiding spots.
"It's so beautiful," D'Artagnan whispered up to the sky, crying. "If you don't make it out of here alive – then we'll all be trapped in here forever; so go. Go without me..."
"Dart," Odd said, through tears. "If we don't make it – I'll see you in heaven."
"You will make it," she said as the virtual particles slowly peeled off her wireframe form, which soon disintegrated. Odd looked up at the windmill, over the hills. "There has to be someone, or something alive in there. They can tell us where to go to end this all."
"We have to save Yumi," Ulrich growled.
Odd walked slowly up to Ulrich, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and holding him in midair. "We're going to the Windmill."
Ulrich struggled free, terror in his eyes. In Odd's eyes, he saw Hell ablaze. He saw years of anger and sorrow, years of loneliness and rage.
"Alright," Ulrich said, submissively.
The gang climbed the hills defiantly, up towards the windmill. As they reached the top, they looked down on the chaos Odd had caused – all the robots' oil and fuel was spilled across the land.
"I'm so sorry," Odd whispered.
"What's in the past is done," Robert said, marching towards the windmill. Odd picked himself up, dashing towards it. He opened the door, to see nothing. Just a tower. As everyone looked in, Odd ran up the stairs, dashing towards the top. "There has to be some hint of where we're supposed to go, some way of getting there."
He looked up at a map: it was clearly labeled, "OUTPOST II TAKEOVER PATH."
He noticed it was a path ending in a gigantic desert. He also saw a lever. "If it's a lever, pull it, dad always used to say," Odd remarked as he swung it back.
He looked around, as the ground began to rumble. "Whoa!" Odd yelled, losing his footing. "Did somebody give Kiwi baked beans again?"
"My god!" Jeremie said. With his low stamina, he had barely started climbing the stairs, and he was there to witness the revelation of a gigantic orange freighter ship.
"Sweet ride!" Odd yelled, jumping out of the opened window of the windmill, running to it, and hopping in.
The interior was luxurious, in the front: a lounge area, auto-piloting computers, any drink you wanted on tap, and hanging potted plants; even a restaurant-like fixation inside.
"Hmm," Odd said, settling into the cockpits. "Just one thing missing."
He put some fuzzy dice on the pole suspended over the dashboard.
"Oh, it's so tacky, it ruins the whole atmosphere," Razputin remarked.
"Shotgun!" Robert yelled. He dived into the co-pilot seat.
"See what good comes out of pushing buttons?" Odd claimed.
"Light these engines up!" Robert yelled, excited. This was what he came here for – not to find his grandfather, not to save his friends, but for one hell of a thrill.
"Lighted!" Odd said, as he punched in the engine startup. "Set us on cruise mode! We're on a mission to the other side of the planet!"
"Acknowledged," the ship chirped, firing up the cruise engines.
"300 K to the desert," Odd said.
"Jeremie, I'm sorry I've been so weird, liking Robert."
"Don't worry, Aelita. It's something everybody goes through. It's called a crush."
"You're right... I wanted to make it up to you, though," Aelita said, leaning her face into his; just before Odd's raucous voice blurted, "Hey! Jeremie! Can you get me a shake?"
"Aaagh! Get it yourself, you lazy bum!"
"I can't! Somebody needs to watch the ship and Robert... has motion sickness! Also, get us a pizza."
"Odd, you jerk."
Jeremie got up, filling the cup with a sweet vanilla shake, and taking from the refridgerator a pizza, as another one materialized in its place. He heated it up in the microwave, and brought it to the two 'pilots.'
"What? What's this?" Odd knocked over the shake; as its dense form slowly spread across the floor. "A SMALL shake?"
"You didn't say how big it was."
"If you want something done right around here, you gotta get – Ulrich!"
"Huh?" A dazed voice responded, from a couch in the lounge.
"Get me a HUGE vanilla shake! The biggest one possible!"
"Lazy bum." Ulrich remarked.
"Grouch!" Odd yelled.
Ulrich brought him the biggest shake possible, which was one gallon.
"Holy jumping Kiwi! This shake is bigger than my head! Awesome! I knew I could count on-"
Just then, the ship came to a screeching halt over the desert, sending the contents of the shake all over Odd. "OH NO!" Odd cried.
"Destination reached," the ship boomed. "Docking."
It slowly hovered to the ground, as Robert pointed and laughed at the milkshake-covered Odd.
"Karma, my friend," Jeremie said, walking out of the conveyor belt that extended out to the sand.
Before them was a vast, shimmering desert, mirages everywhere, water seemed to surround them.
"Jeez," Ulrich mumbled. "This is hotter than that photo of Yumi Odd too - wait a minute."
Ulrich had just been brought back to a time when Odd had, in humor, given Ulrich a photo of Yumi half-naked on the phone with Ulrich; and had just dawned on him that obviously he had to have been in her house, watching her half-naked.
"Odd, you ass," Ulrich grumbled.
"And a lucky ass at that," Odd laughed. "Now, all signs say go west for the best!"
"There are no signs," Ulrich muttered.
"There are in my head, Ulrich buddy, and they all point to the funny farm."