A/N: Oh Lord, I'm sorry this took so long. My computer was virused recently and I had to clean it up... I was fortunate enough not to lose my work, though, so here's chapter 4!
Chapter 4: Evil Machine
…………cas……
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……man… you…… stop…
……God…
………………………………………………kill……
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The next thing Lucas knew, he was awake and not in the best condition. His head was absolutely throbbing, and he was dizzy and disoriented; it hurt just to open his eyes, so he kept them shut and remained as he was for a moment. He could tell there was light… why was there light in the middle of the night? He then reached to push himself up… only to notice that he had to reach much further down to reach the surface of his bed than he should have. By now he was alert enough to realize that he wasn't laying down, but sitting up, sweating and breathing hard.
He groaned in obvious discomfort; he felt like he'd ran a marathon at full speed without stopping, and the headache on top of it didn't help. He let out a more aggravated groan when he realized that a headache meant that his PSI would either do little, or nothing at all, meaning that he couldn't cure his fatigue. So he did the only sensible thing: lay back down. At least he was still in his bed. "Ughhh…"
"Good morning, sleepyhead!" said a female voice. Kumatora was in his house this late?
"M… morning?" Lucas mumbled. How could it be morning? He was sure he was only out for a few minutes… "Ohh, my head…" he mumbled, flipping onto his stomach and burying his head in his pillow in the hopes that it was cool. Luck was not on his side however, so he flipped the pillow and set his head down on it then.
Kumatora was standing beside his bed, looking at him with skepticism and slight amusement. "Man Lucas, did you get drunk last night?"
"Rrmmff… that's nort ffurnny…" The words were muffled through the pillow, but still intelligible.
"I wasn't joking." Kumatora deadpanned. "You sure look like you have a hangover."
"He wasn't drunk, Kumatora." Flint responded from afar, working on Lucas' breakfast. Kumatora turned to look at him. "He was with me all night working on the ranch, and he's smart enough to stay away from alcohol."
Kumatora groaned. "Lucas, don't tell me you just randomly woke up sick…" she said as she turned to face the boy again, who was now laying face-up and groaning while he held his hot forehead. She sighed and shook her head before reaching her hand to that spot, gently pushing Lucas' own hand out of the way. He was too out of whack to wonder or even care about what she was doing. "PK Healing. Rise and shine kid, we've got a lot of work to do." Her hand was enveloped in a sky-blue glow.
Lucas' headache had quickly melted away, and boy was he happy about that. He opened his eyes and said, "PK Lifeup." His body was bathed in a green light, and he instantly felt energized. He sat up, and Kumatora took her hand off of his forehead. "Thanks, I needed that."
"You're welcome." Kumatora replied. "But seriously, what happened to you?"
"I… I don't know. I went straight to bed last night and… I had this weird dream." Lucas told her. "Something was speaking… but I couldn't understand most of it, it was really faint. All I heard clearly was the last word: kill… next thing I know, I'm awake with a pounding headache."
"…Wow. Creepy…" Kumatora stated.
Flint cleared his throat and interjected, "But that's all it is. Dreams and nightmares are just our imagination at work while we're asleep, you have nothing to fear from them." He set Lucas' breakfast of toast on the dinner table.
Lucas sighed. "I know, I know… but it wasn't that scary, really… I don't know why I woke up like that." he replied, throwing the covers off of him and getting his meal. "Anyway, I'm not gonna think about it. Kumatora's right, we need to find those needle holes."
"I just hope we're not going on a wild goose chase…" Kumatora said worriedly. "The guy didn't even show his face. It's hard to trust him…"
"But for all we know, he might be telling the truth." Flint told her as he took his own seat at the dinner table to eat his own toast. "If we really are in danger and Lucas is the only one who can siphon the power from the holes – which you saw for yourselves – then what choice do we have?"
"And that's why I don't like it." Kumatora replied, crossing her arms. "We could be walking right into a trap…"
Both father and son knew that she was right. Lucas had only been told about what the "Sanctuary Pieces" were and what they did; he wasn't told the most important things, how or why. The worst case scenario was that he could be dooming the world… but there was still the chance that he had caused an impending Doomsday by releasing the Dragon of Darkness anyway, so there was nothing to lose by trying, was there?
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Once Lucas had finished his breakfast and got dressed, he, Kumatora and Flint headed out. They made sure to bring Boney with them, knowing that Flint and Lucas' faithful dog not only hated being left behind, but was probably itching for some adventure. Lucas had changed the style of his clothing slightly; instead of his shirt having yellow and orange stripes, the stripes were now crimson and darker-crimson colours, just for a little bit of change. Kumatora said she liked the new style.
"AAAH!" rang a familiar voice, followed by the sound of glass shattering and something smashing against the floor hard. Everyone turned their heads towards the lab of Dr. Andonuts, which was a couple of buildings down the street from them. It was a simple, pure-white building with two floors not including the roof.
"What the hell was that?" Kumatora wondered. As if on cue, the front door to the laboratory burst open. Out tumbled the doctor, growling and muttering unintelligible curses as he wrestled with… something. Lucas and Kumatora immediately recognized it as the same kind of half-robotic creature that had attacked them yesterday… but it was considerably smaller than the one previous. Its arms and legs were about a foot and a half in length, all spanning out of its eye that served as both its head and its body. "Oh, c'mon! Not again!" Kumatora groaned.
Like its predecessor, the small robotic creature was distracted by Lucas and Kumatora's arrival. Dr. Andonuts took this moment to throw the thing off of him. Rather than take revenge on him however, it started clambering towards Lucas and company. Kumatora didn't even give it time to attack, jumping from where she was standing and using her foot to crush its eye against the ground. Some popping and sizzling sounds could be heard coming from its spasming form before it stopped moving entirely. The doctor let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you!"
His moment of peace was disturbed by Kumatora's rage as she kicked the trashed robot away. "Damnit, doc! We went through a lot of trouble to wreck that thing, and you turn it back on!?" she scolded.
Dr. Andonuts was quick to retort. "Don't blame me! I just set a piece of the thing beside one of my computers, and the next thing I know, it devours that computer and transforms into that!" he explained.
"Well, you should've made sure it was off!" Kumatora argued.
"I did! I was completely out power after Lucas short-circuited it!" Dr. Andonuts fired back.
Lucas and Flint could only watch as the fired up princess and doctor exchanged words. Since Lucas wisely opted not to get involved in matters like these, it was his father who interrupted. "Enough, both of you! The robot was destroyed, no one was harmed, and that's all that matters."
Kumatora and Dr. Andonuts both looked at Flint for a moment, then at each other. The latter coughed and said, "A-anyway, I was about to come looking for you two psychics before the thing came back to life. I took a look at its memory, and… well, come and see." he told them, motioning the group into the lab before heading in himself.
Lucas and Kumatora looked at each other, wondering what the doctor had found.
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Lucas, Kumatora, Flint and Boney were crowded around a computer terminal that Dr. Andonuts was operating. Beside it was the cracked eye of the robot that they fought yesterday, trapped in a glass jar with a trio of wires plugged into it. "Wait, what the hell? I thought I just stomped on that eye!" Kumatora said in disbelief.
"No, you stepped on an entirely different one." Dr. Andonuts explained. "The piece of robot you destroyed seemed to grow its own eye when it converted my computer into parts for itself."
Now Kumatora was more confused. "Uhh… what?"
Lucas thought for a moment. "I think he means it ate his computer to grow bigger?"
"Well… something like that, yes." Dr. Andonuts answered somewhat irritably.
"Uhh… that makes sense… I guess." Kumatora said, just leaving at that before she gave herself a headache. "So what're we supposed to be looking at, doc?" Kumatora asked.
"This…" Dr. Andonuts replied, typing a few keystrokes. A slight surge of electricity jolted through the wires, and the cracked eye sparked to life, emitting a dull-red glow. At the same time, some words appeared on the screen. "Translating this thing's machine code into words wasn't easy, let me tell you."
Lucas began to read it aloud. "Reactivation complete. Scanning for life forms… complete. Human life signs detected in vicinity. Commencing elimination method 1." Lucas read off of the terminal.
As if cued, a shrill ringing began to erupt from the glass jar. Everyone covered their ears. "GODDAMNIT, NOT AGAIN!" Kumatora roared. But just as she finished speaking, the siren-like noise stopped. Carefully, everyone uncovered their ears to make sure.
More words appeared on the screen. "Exception: no compatible life forms for sound hypnosis detected." Lucas read off of the screen, confused. "What does that mean?"
"The only thing I can think of is the Chimeras." Dr. Andonuts told him. "From what I can gather, that siren was supposed to enrage all the animals nearby and have them attack the people… but not just any people."
"What do you mean?" Lucas asked.
Dr. Andonuts punched in a few more keystrokes and asked Lucas, "Charge up some PSI power in your hand. Nothing fancy, just a little bit."
Lucas looked at his hand; what was the doctor planning. "Uhh… okay… PK Love?" he muttered, a green spark forming at the tip of his index finger.
Everyone's attention was caught by the shattered robot eye now bouncing around in its jar. The screen was being bombarded with the same phrase, "PSI-CAPABLE LIFEFORM DETECTED! DESTROY!" being repeated over and over again.
"Whoa, talk about a moodswing…" Kumatora stated. Lucas crushed the spark of PK Love in his hand, putting it out, but the robot eye was still having a panic attack. Dr. Andonuts typed in a few more keystrokes, causing another electric shock to rock the jar. This time, the eye stopped moving, and the screen had been filled up with nothing but gibberish.
"Are you telling us that this machine was built to destroy PSI-users?" Lucas asked incredulously.
"I'm afraid so, Lucas." Dr. Andonuts said solemnly. "And it gets worse. After scanning its memory, I found a model number; this was the 3216th robot made for this purpose. There are a lot more of these things out there… and they're all coming from deep under Nowhere Island."
Flint spoke for the first time in this meeting. "Under the island?" he repeated.
Dr. Andonuts nodded. "Yes. I don't know how or why, but it looks like the Dragon had company. These machines need to be destroyed, or there might be a repeat of what happened yesterday."
Kumatora grimaced. "That's not good…"
"Not at all." Dr. Andonuts continued. "But all hope is not lost, I've discovered a way to stop them!"
Lucas looked at the doctor with anticipation. "How?"
Dr. Andonuts cleared his throat. "From what I've seen of the robot's programming, it seems to be linked to a hive mind of some sort. Rendering all of the robots inoperable is as simple as shutting down the source beneath the island."
Kumatora blinked. "Wow… that's convenient. One of the needle holes is down in that cave. We can kill two birds with one stone!" she exclaimed.
"And I suggest you make haste in doing so." Dr. Andonuts. "I'm sure it won't take long for the source to notice that one of its robots its down. We might wind up getting attacked very soon."
That wasn't the news that Lucas wanted to hear. "But… that's bad! The city could be attacked while we're gone! It could be destroyed by the time we get back!" he wailed.
"A risk that you'll have to take, because the attacks probably won't stop unless something is done." Dr. Andonuts reminded him.
Kumatora grunted. "He's right, Lucas. We can't sit here and do nothing."
Flint cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Then it looks like I'll be staying behind."
Lucas looked at his father with confusion. "Dad? Why?"
Flint wore a serious expression as he spoke. "I can rally some of the townspeople together to set up a resistance. We can protect the town while you and Kumatora shut down the machines."
Lucas' eyes widened. "That's way too dangerous!"
"Mmm… I have to go with Lucas on this one." Kumatora agreed. "These machines are made to kill humans, and they can use PSI to boot. A normal person wouldn't be a match for one of them, let alone a whole group."
"But what other choice do we have?" Flint asked her. Kumatora and Lucas desperately tried to think of an alternative, but could find none.
"Then we'll have to do this fast." Kumatora finally said. "We need a way to get to the needle cave and back quickly…"
"Which I just so happen to have handy!" Dr. Andonuts piped up. "If you'll follow me to the roof…"
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And so the group did as they were told, heading up the stairs to the rooftop of Dr. Andonuts' lab. There wasn't much too it, it was made of cement to be like a landing pad. There was something large in the centre of the roof, covered in a white cloth. "Behold!" Dr. Andonuts proclaimed, grabbing the white cloth and pulling it off.
Kumatora and Flint were able to hide their surprise, but Lucas was agape and Boney was barking enthusiastically. Before them stood what they could best describe as a U.F.O.; it was a sphere with several circular windows around its sides, an antennae on top of it and three legs on the bottom that kept it standing up. Its alien spacecraft-like appearance was given off by the round rim that surrounded the sphere. "Wow… what is it!?" Lucas asked.
"This, Lucas, is the Sky Runner!" Dr. Andonuts informed him. "A flying machine that took me years to perfect. With it, you can soar the skies endlessly!"
"Ahh… I get it! We can use this to get to the cave!" Kumatora understood. "But… how do we fly it?"
"Oh, it's not hard at all. I had to make it simple since the Pigmask Army based their aircrafts off of its design." Dr. Andonuts explained. "Come here, I'll show you. You too, Lucas."
Kumatora and Lucas walked over to the Sky Runner with interest, though Flint stayed put, not exactly interested in this new-fangled technology. Boney barked, causing him to look down at his dog who looked at him in confusion, wondering why he wasn't checking out the flying machine. He knelt down to his dog and said, "Oh, I'm alright. I'm just not good with technology is all… and I don't want to do something wrong to the thing since it's the only way Lucas will get to the cave fast enough." Boney lolled his head to the side, then let out a bark in understanding.
Meanwhile, inside the Sky Runner, the three were crowded into the leather seats. The flying machine was definitely a tight fit for any more than the three people; one seat was at the front of the sky runner with a few terminals and a joystick, while the other two seats were positioned behind it. Lucas and Kumatora sat in these seats and watched Dr. Andonuts explain the systems. "…And this is the autopilot screen, it'll take you to any place you touch on the map… except inside places like the Dragon's cave, you'll need to fly it manually for that. But even then it's easy, just touch this control pad to move it up, down or side-to-side, and the joystick to move forward or backward."
Kumatora was only pretending to be interested, but Lucas was hanging on the doctor's every word, think of how cool it would be to fly something like this. And he would have to learn, given the circumstances; something like this would be great for getting to the needle holes around Nowhere Island… and the thought of not having to go through the ocean floor to make it to Tanetane Island appealed to him. He involuntarily shuddered at the memory of the Oxygen-Replenishing Machines… he and Kumatora promised each other never to speak of that again.
"And that's all there is to it. Simple, no?" Dr. Andonuts finished. "Alright? I'm sure you two want to shut down those menacing robots as soon as possible, so I'll leave you to it." He then began to climb out of the pilot's seat.
"W-wait, you're not coming with us?" Lucas asked, slightly worried.
"I can't, I should probably be here when your father starts rallying the townspeople. They'll need to know what they're up against, after all…" Dr. Andonuts explained.
"Oh… yeah, I see…" Lucas understood.
"The doc's just got a yellow belly if you ask me…" Kumatora muttered.
"I heard that!" the doctor roared. Kumatora grinned innocently in response as Dr. Andonuts grumbled and exited the Sky Runner.
Lucas hopped out of his seat next, headed for the exit as well. "Hey, where are you going?" Kumatora asked.
"Saying bye to Dad." Lucas replied simply, hopping back out onto the roof. He jogged over to his father, who was waiting patiently. "Well… I guess it's time to go…"
Flint raised an eyebrow. "You seem a little discouraged."
Lucas shook his head. "Yeah, it just feels so weird… getting thrust into something like this. I was expecting a little bit of trouble when I was heading out for the needle holes, but nothing like this… I'm a little worried…"
Flint crouched down by his son and put his hand on his shoulder. "Don't be, son. You're no stranger to the battlefield, and you've been preparing for this since your brother's passing. You've become so strong, and you have me, Boney, Kumatora and the rest to help you. There's no need to worry, son. I know you'll be fine and be able to protect this city."
Lucas smiled; that little pep talk was just what he needed. "Thanks, Dad."
Boney barked, trotting up beside Lucas. ("Don't forget me! I want to help you too!")
Lucas knelt down beside Boney and ruffled up his fur a little. "Of course! There's no way I'm forgetting you, Boney." he assured him. His dog barked happily in response.
Flint smiled at the two. "Well, then the doctor and I had better get the town ready. I hope we don't actually have to fight, but I'll make sure we're prepared if we have to."
Lucas nodded, standing up straight. "I do this quick, Dad. I promise." he said, turning around and walking over to the Sky Runner with Boney in tow.
Dr. Andonuts walked up to Flint. "That boy has definitely changed." he said as Lucas and Boney climbed into the airship. "He's come a long way from the timid boy I met in the Chimera Lab… he almost reminds me of…" he trailed off. Flint was about to ask what the doctor was talking about, but he was cut off when he said, "Anyway, we need to get the townspeople ready. Can you go and rally them while I figure out what to tell them?"
Flint grunted and nodded, heading towards the doorway to the inside. He turned around as he heard a noise coming from the Sky Runner; its entrance hatch had shut. It made a whirring noise as it began to rise off of the roof, its landing gear retracting into its spherical form. It moved back and forth, side to side and up and down for a moment… Flint figured that the one flying – whether it was Lucas or Kumatora he didn't know – was getting used to using the flying machine. After this was done, the Sky Runner started flying in one direction, quickly picking up speed. They were on their way. Flint turned around and continued into the laboratory, while Dr. Andonuts was still watching them fly away. When Flint began to walk down the stairs…
"You didn't tell them?"
The sudden voice made Dr. Andonuts jump. He quickly looked around the rooftop in search of the speaker, but saw no one there with him. Almost immediately, he realized that was happening. He sighed and replied, "We don't know if he's still alive, or if his machines are just carrying on his work. There's no need to worry them with this."
"Not yet, but you'll have to tell them the truth sooner or later…"
Dr. Andonuts shook his head. "I know…" he conceded. "This would be so much easier if you could just explain everything."
"And I want to, I really do. But we have to stick to the plan. I know it's unlikely, but if he's still alive, he can't know I'm here. I can't reveal myself yet, not until Lucas gets the sanctuary powers from all the holes."
A grim expression donned the doctor's face. "You mean if he gets them all… we're doomed if he doesn't. Every part of your plan depends on Lucas' success, and if he fails…"
"You really need to think more positively."
"If you've been through what I have over the past few months, you'd understand…" Dr. Andonuts lamented.
"I know… I miss them too, I miss them so much… but remember, we're doing this for them. I've seen what Lucas can do, he'll pull it off. I know it."
Dr. Andonuts sighed as he lifted his head up to look at the Sky Runner as it flew away. "I hope so…"
A/N: The mysterious stranger and Dr. Andonuts seem to know each other, as well as something about what Lucas, Kumatora and Boney are facing... please Read and Review, the more reviews I get, the faster I update the story!