Author's Note: Yeeeessssss!!! I'm finally back!!! And I know it's been a really, really, really long time since the last update, but unfortunately life has caught up with me from the last update back in February until right now. I deeply apologize for leaving everyone hanging from the last update and not giving a sign that I have indeed not fallen off the face of the Earth. Since it's summer, I will have more time to focus updating this story and giving it the attention deserves, despite having summer school. So once again, I apologize for the time it took to finally update the story and I sincerely hope you will continue reading this fic ;-)
So now onto Chapter 8!!! Enjoy!!!
---
"Oh, um… that would be my boomerang on the floor there, Claire." Nate was relieved when Cameron saved him from awkwardly explaining what just happened. "Yeah, we were messing around with it… and I… uh— accidentally destroyed Nate's… er, clay thingamajig there…"
At first, Claire leered at the two boys with much suspicion. "I see…" But not wanting her mind to think since she was exhausted, the older Figueroa decided to let it go and just buy into the story. However, she did have an urge to just ask one more question. "Care to explain why there's a ton of smoke coming out from the shattered art piece?"
"Uh, well you see…" Nate decided to jump in. "It was getting sooo cold in here and closing the window wasn't enough so we decided to… er— have a lil' bonfire going on in here." The brunet tried his best to keep eye contact with his older sister, as she was pretty good at telling whether her little brother was lying or not… damn growing up all these years.
Christ, that was the best excuse I can come up with? Jeez my skills are starting to come down a notch...
Claire, deciding that she really doesn't want to deal with the utter weirdness going on in her brother's room, just decided to wave it off and go back to sleep. "Riiiggghhhttt… anyways… I'm going back to sleep. I just heard a lot of noise and I wanted to be sure no weird shit was going on in here… like it hasn't already… And put that fire out because your stupidity might start a fire…"
"Ugh, whatever…" Nate lamely replied as he closed the door. "Phew, that was close."
"Yeah, what great bullshitting abilities you have," Cameron chortled as Nate threw a pillow at him.
"Dude… shut up!" Nate rolled his eyes as he began to dig his way into bed, getting comfy into the comforters while turning off the lamp on the nightstand. "Yo, Cameron?"
"Watup?"
"Just wanted to say… that even though it really wasn't exactly intended for you to do it tonight, thanks for trying to save me."
"No probs dude," the blond happily replied as he shuffled around to find the perfect sleeping position. "What are best bros for?"
"Heh… yeah…" Nate smiled. However, he was still wide-awake, staring into the ceiling and at times glimpsed at the window, recalling tonight's events. "Heh, crazy-ass night the three of us had earlier, huh?" Nate lightly chuckled at Cameron, but got no response as he heard some soft snoring escaping from the blonde's mouth.
Yup, he's definitely knocked the eff out…
And with that, Nate lay on his side and soon drifted off to sleep as well, knowing that he will need to wake up in a few hours to finish off his so-called homework.
---
Somewhere in an undisclosed location, an injured Metal Man unhurriedly walked his beat up ironclad body down a long and dark concrete corridor, leading towards his superior's office. The droid grumbled, as he knew trouble would be looming for him once he stepped through the double doors ahead of him. In addition, Air Man was supposed to go to the office as well, but due to the extensive damage from tonight's earlier battle in North Hollywood, the big blue and yellow robot was stuck at repair center within the compound.
Not a moment too soon, Metal Man arrived in front of the ominous steel plated double doors. He awaited for a few moments before the steel doors slid open, finally revealing yet another dark, but grand sized room. As the robot walked in, he noted the numerous whirring machines, computers, screens, and model bots that lined up the walls. He was pretty delved into a cold, sterile, and dark ambiance
"I see it took you long enough to arrive here…" A mysterious figure spoke with a thick German accent; sitting behind a desk in an elaborate executive chair amongst the Cimmerian shade, save for the lit and sizable screen behind the chair, displaying some sort of CAD design for another robot.
Metal Man simply sighed as he replied, "My apologies Dr. Wi—"
"SILENCE!!!" The mysterious being rose to his feet, slamming his fist onto the desk, the impact echoing around the room. "What did I say about mentioning your superior's name out loud?!? Even if we are in private?!?"
Metal Man cringed at the screeching voice filling up the hollow room. Deciding to play it smart, the robot remained silent as he looked down onto the floor, not daring to stare directly into the mysterious person's eyes… like he can see them anyways…
"Now then…" The figure calmly spoke as he sat back down into the big chair, reclining back a bit before typing onto the elaborate keyboard that lay before him. "Where is your assigned partner, Air Man?"
"He's at the repair center, sir…" Metal Man hastily replied, hoping to get out of the room as soon as possible with little questioning from his superior.
"And… why is that?" An expected response came from the desk.
"Because… because…" The red, black, and yellow clad robot tried to formulate the best possible reply without any retribution from the one at the desk. "Another robot attacked us with the aid of another human…"
"Wait a minute…" The shrouded being leered a bit forward, as if he were trying to get a closer look at Metal Man. "Did you say, with the aid of another human?"
The robot simply nodded.
"And who is this robot that attacked you?"
"I believe his name was Mega Man…" Metal Man kept his gaze on the floor.
"Mega Man, huh…" Finger tapping can be heard from the desk. "And a human aid… my goodness… hehehehe…" A demonic cackle ensued right after.
Metal Man just stood in place where he's been ever since he entered. He was confused on what the hilarity of the situation could be.
"I created you guys to be the most advanced and powerful robots ever…" The mysterious figure rose from his seat, now walking around the desk and slowly sauntered towards Metal Man. "I created you guys to easily surpass any other robots created out there in skill, design, and intelligence… but yet…"
The anonymous one suddenly stopped in his track, just shy of being revealed under a lit part of the room. The droid could only make out a white lab coat and the silhouette of two clumps of hair coming from the sides of his superior's head. Certainly the halt of the advancement made Metal Man flinch just a teeny-tiny-bit, very out of the ordinary.
"You guys just seem to… FAIL ME EVERY TIME!!!" The abrupt shout bounced off the walls, creating an atmosphere of terror and tension.
Metal Man still stared onto the floor, knowing it was not wise to interrupt his superior… but yet he did anyways.
"But sir, I—"
"SILENCE!!!" The mysterious one's voice started to become hoarse with all of the yelling he's done. "I must say Metal Man… I expected more out of you… I was expecting you to be one of my top robots in aiding me with my world domination scheme…" The man began to walk back towards the desk. "But how can that even happen if you can't even do your part?!? Your part in making sure that the Eastside of the Valley was our territory?!? If we can't even take over the Valley and eventually all of Los Angeles, how can we take over the entire world that will be filled with intellectuals and robots that will aid in a new generation of society?!?"
Metal Man simply didn't have a response as he just stood there in place, continuing to gaze upon the linoleum floor.
"Now this is what's going to happen…" The figure resumed his seat, folding his hands on the desk once again. "I am going to give you another chance to redeem yourself... but I stress one more chance…"
Metal Man simply nodded.
"Now… if you screw this plan up one more time…" He turned his seat around to face the large screen on the wall. "Considered yourself scrapped…"
Though Metal Man was just a robot, the thought of being scrapped by his superior was even frightening to the normally tough droid. "Yes… sir…" he meekly replied.
"Now get out of my sight…" The man gestured his hand for Metal Man to leave his office immediately, to which the droid did just that. After hearing the sounds of the doors slamming shut, he began to type hastily on the keyboard for a few seconds until a picture of the familiar blue robot, along with his creator, appeared on the screen.
"Mega Man…"
---
The next day proved to be a horrible one for Nate. Only attaining at most one hour of sleep in order to finish his homework, the brunet was like a mindless zombie, getting through the school day without saying much and consistently falling asleep in class, earning him trouble with his Honors Trig teacher. In addition, he fell asleep onto his lunch, earning him laughs from the others and a nice tomato sauce stain on one of his favorite Stüssy shirts.
Now back at home with Cameron and Judy, the three were going to talk about how Nate was planning his seventeenth birthday party. However, Cameron decided to bring up a subject that Nate has been evading as of late.
"So Nate… aren't you gonna finally tell us who this Quick Man dude is?" Cameron was browsing the Internet on Nate's iMac, while Judy sprawled on the bed, reading the latest issue of Cosmopolitan.
The brunet immediately halted changing his shirt in his walk-in closet when he heard the familiar name fly into his mind.
"Yeah Nate, tell us…" Judy was eager to know as well ever since Cameron told her everything during lunch.
Putting on a baby blue Hurley shirt, he walked back into the bedroom where he now had a dude and a chick staring at him with their undivided attention, waiting for some sort of explanation from the brunet.
"What?" Nate spoke as he glanced back at his two best friends.
"Dude, we're wait-inggggggg…" Cameron hummed as he closed the browser on the computer.
Nate exasperatedly sighed as he took a seat on the beanbag couch next to the bed. He rubbed his hands over his face as if telling the story was going to be an extraordinarily difficult task to do.
Well, it is gonna be difficult!!! The brunet rolled his eyes at his thoughts. I just don't know why…
"Well…" Nate took another long, dramatic pause, trying to formulate how he is going to story tell today.
"Well what?" Judy started to become slightly impatient.
"Whoa, chill out Cosmo girl!" Cameron humorously told Judy, earning laughs from all parties in the room. "Let Nate take his time… it must be a long and traumatic experience for him…"
Well, I don't know if 'traumatic' would be the word… though it's pretty damn near the same magnitude…
"Anyways…" Nate tried to play off what Cameron said in a humorous fashion, "I guess I can tell you about this… er… Quick Man… dude…" He tried not to cringe his face at a particular name.
"Go on…" Judy encourage, setting her magazine down to give her full attention.
"Okay… here it goes…" Nate took another deep breath. Oh how he wishes to stop being overdramatic about this. "So a couple of days ago, I was boarding back home on Ventura Blvd. And then some old geezer who can't drive for his life almost ran me over and I landed hard onto the concrete with my board zipping into the alley."
"Hahahahaha!!!" Cameron and Judy couldn't help but to bust out in laughter.
"You would!!!" Cameron said in-between chortles.
"For sure!!!" Judy added her two-cents.
Nate flushed red for a good few seconds before clearing his throat. "Do you guys wanna hear the story or what?"
"Okay, okay, my bad dude, my bad…" Cameron slowly ceased his chuckles.
"Yeah, sorry Nate, continue on…" Judy motioned for the brunet to continue.
"Anyways, before I was sooo rudely interrupted…" A smirk was painted onto Nate's face, earning the eye-roll from his two friends. "I went into the alley to retrieve my board. And then, that's when I saw… it…" Nate paused for a few moments as the image of that exact day began to instantly replay in his head all over again.
"Saw what?" Cameron was eager to know, moving his hands around to get the brunet to continue.
"A huge, red, black, and yellow clad robot sitting in the corner, clutching onto my skateboard like a hostage…"
"Did the board hit the robot you saw?" Judy inquired.
"I don't know…" Nate replied. "But I knew for sure that he was hella pissed off because he began to stalk towards me when I tried to ask for my board back, growling a bit in the process…"
"And then…" Cameron requested.
"And then it was basically a chase…" Nate rubbed his calves a bit, remembering how sore they were after the long chase. "The damn robot chased me for a good amount of blocks on Ventura until White Oak. And I also had to run across traffic since the light was red on White Oak. Nearly got hit by several cars on Ventura."
Cameron and Judy stared at Nate with wide-eyes, not comprehending on what just happened to their friend a few days ago.
"And that's not all… Eventually I had to hide behind a car and let Quick Man pass me by. I thought it worked so I went back home, but then guess what?"
"He knew where you lived?" Cameron answered rather quickly, since he did see part deux of their encounter.
"Unfortunately… yeah…" Nate sighed. "I was gonna take a nap and then I landed on some hunk of metal on my bed. And what gets worse is that he almost tried to ki—… kil—… kill me…"
"No... freakin'… way…" Judy's jaw dropped opened. "Dude, and I thought last night's event was a close call.
"Nah, it's true Judes…" Cameron interjected. "Last night, I found Nate being throttled to death by that Quick Man robot last night.
"Holy shit…" was all that the Wu could peep out.
"Yup… and I got to see the throttling three times too…" Nate shook his head side-to-side in discontent.
"Wait, three times?" Cameron was surprised, thinking it was just that one time.
"Yeah… remember the time you found me on the floor after you went to the bathroom yesterday at school?"
Cameron shook his head in agreement.
"Yup… that was the second time… and you just happened to see the third round…"
The room fell silent for a moment as the De La Loire and Wu tried to absorb what they've just heard from the Figueroa.
"Dude Nate… we gotta do something about this…" Cameron's tone became serious, appropriate for the moment.
"No kidding…" Nate replied, but not before remembering what he also forgot to mention. "Oh yeah, and this was from the encounter I had with Quick Man at school…" He began to dig around under the bed, under the curious eyes of both Cameron and Judy. After a few more moments, Nate finally pulled out the familiar yellow boomerangs of a particular someone.
"Holy shit!" Judy exclaimed as she pointed at the object. "Those are the things you used to take out that one robot with the fan!"
"Yup…" was all Nate could utter.
"Dude… what the hell are we getting ourselves into?" Cameron started to become worry, which was not usually within his nature. However, who could blame him, considering the fact that they are probably now listed as enemies against possibly a group of these things.
"Well—"
DING
Before Nate could reply to the question, the Mail application notified everyone that a new e-mail has arrived. What was particularly special about it was where it came from.
"Perfect…" Nate double clicked on the e-mail and began to peruse.
"What do you mean by that?" Judy wondered.
"Perfect in the fact that..." Nate turned around so that he was facing his friends, a smile painted on his face. "Dr. Thomas Light could help us out with our robotic problems."
---
Don't forget to review ;-)