Retrieval Saga

Galvanized Wills

Chapter 2: Aggravated Assassin

The gang decided they might as well see what there was to be seen while they waited for their ship to be repaired. They figured out that since they had some pocket money, they should do a little window-shopping. The Galvans were among the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy so it was always interesting to look at the tech they sold. There just happened to be a place to do that, a building that somewhat resembled a cross between a shopping mall and a science expo that is called by most the Tech Mark.

As the gang entered, they noticed that not only were there Galvan tech on sale, but other species were marketing their wares. The girls were fascinated with some gemstones from the Petrosapian colonies, which sparkled in all the colors of the rainbow.

Then they noticed a quaint little store that sold plants from worlds like Leppidopterra and Flors Verdance. Morph waddled over to one flower-like plant and said, "Hello Mr. Flower, do you mind if I sniff you?" He put his nose up to the petals and took a big sniff. Suddenly the petals closed down on his nose and the plant started shaking Morph around. Eventually, it shook Morph's nose off and tossed him away. Morph re-grew his nose and said, "I wonder if they have any hypo-allergenic versions of that plant?" "You don't want to see those, kid," said the merchant in charge of the store, "Trust me."

Then they noticed an odd curio shop that had merchandise that had many swirling color. Matt approached the Galvan in charge and asked, "What is all this?" "This is Les'de's Shack of Stupefication," said the Galvan, "I sell all kinds of things that can send your friends and foes into a stupor. "Even more than a real-estate pitch?" asked Matt.

"Deeper than that," said Les'de indicating a ray gun on the counter, "for example, that machine can disrupt the brainwaves of most sentient beings, making them act in all kinds of wacky ways." "Sounds like a concentrated version of a television." "You don't know how many times I've heard that joke.

Neither of them noticed the machine in question had just given off a few crackles of electricity and was now moving its blaster over the shop. It stopped on Chip's head and locked onto its target. The machine shot out a beam of stupefying energy straight at Chip. But Chip moved away at the last second and it zapped Morph in the back of his head while he was mesmerized by a hypno-screen. When the beam hit him, Morph's face went even blanker and he apparently lost all his motor skills. Chip didn't notice anything unusual and though Morph had simply stared at the hypno-screen for too long. He gave him a small zap to bring him about. "C'mon Morph, let's go," he said as the group walked out of the shop. "Yako," said Morph in a garbled voice and started walking backwards after them.

At this point, they were getting hungry so they looked for someplace to eat. Quite to their luck, there was a cuisine stand that was being run by a Gourmand. Gourmands had the best sense of taste in the galaxy, so they made excellent chefs. Matt looked at the broad range of items on the menu and said, "Er, do you know how to prepare anything from Earth?" The Gourmand nodded and said, "I know how to prepare anything, from that planet, from apples to zucchinis. Had anything in mind?"

"How about good old pizza?" asked Lilo. The sentiment carried around so the Gourmand said, "Okay then, old-fashioned Earth pizza coming up." As he went into his kitchen to prepare his ingredients, the sauce-dispenser suddenly let out some crackles of electricity and switched the selection to Pyronite-style hot sauce. It then launched some in the direction of Draco. However, it missed and landed on Morph's head. Morph didn't have much time to scream as the hot sauce quickly ate through his head and dissolved a large portion of his upper body. Draco looked at Morph and said to Contrinus, "I might have what's on him on my piece of pizza. I like hot sauce."

This was hardly the oddest thing that happened that day. The gang kept visiting various places and at each place, some machine gave off electrical sparks and tried to attack Draco or Chip and some bit of luck made the attack miss and hit someone else, usually Morph. In this manner, most of the gang was sent back to the North Star. Morph eventually got fed up with continuously being assaulted and went back to the North Star, leaving Matt, Draco, Chip, and Contrinus to look about Galva Prime. But the intelligence responsible for these attacks was even more frustrated. Its patience was wearing rapidly thin, but it did notice that its targets now had less people around them, making them a lot easier to attack now. But knowing that using nearby machines would probably not work, it decided to take care of them itself.

Matt, Draco, Chip, and Contrinus were now in a quieter, less-used part of the visitors' community. "Have you noticed anything odd?" asked Matt. "You mean how our comrades have been picked off one by one by malfunctioning machinery?" asked Chip. "That and this hat I'm wearing, I think it's too tight for my head."

Draco looked closely and asked, "Could that be why your hair's turning green?" Matt quickly snatched off the hat and chucked it into the shopping bag. "Lousy quality headwear," muttered Matt, "we're going to ask that Petrosapian for our money back."

Suddenly they heard a loud explosion from somewhere and they looked around in confusion. "What was that?" asked Contrinus. Then suddenly, a large section of wall from a building near them was blasted to pieces. They quickly ducked to avoid the flying pieces of debris. They looked at the hole where the explosion came from, which was billowing out smoke. Then a rather odd-looking robot emerged from the smoke. It had a circular body that was flat on the top and bottom. Attached to the sides of it were six jointed limbs that each ended in a canister shape with four claws on it. It also had a tail that ended with a sting shaped slightly like a horseshoe. It had a long neck that ended with a snake-like head with red eyes and had six snake-shaped crests surrounding it. It was about the height of an adult human, but it was hard to tell as it hovered off the ground with a levitation disc on its belly that had a marigold symbol on it shaped somewhat like an eye. The robot grinned nastily and said, "Dear me, am I causing a ruckus?"

"Mantichrome!" cried the experiments. Matt looked at them and asked, "You know him?" "Well, it's a bit of a complicated story," said Draco, "we can explain later as soon as we get rid of this creep." Mantichrome frowned and said, "Oh, I'm not planning on being 'get rid of' so easily. I was sent to exact vengeance on you as a programming, but now it's personal."

Matt extended his ion staff and said, "I haven't met a bot whose butt I couldn't kick." Mantichrome looked at Matt and said, "Now I recognize you. Matthew Lynch. My grandfather told me much about you, particularly about your loud mouth." Matt paused in confusion, "Your grandfather? Who's your grandfather?" Mantichrome simply shouted "Iron Gorgon!" and sent a hexagon-shaped beam at them. They barely dodged it and watched as it turned a fire hydrant to solid adamantium. "Never mind, I think I can guess now."

Mantichrome then started firing marigold blasts of viral energy at the four of them. They ducked behind a building and out of Mantichrome's sight. "Where did you meet this guy?" asked Matt. "Well, there are some parts that have to remain secret," said Chip, "but basically, this guy's a revenge droid from the future who came back through time to complete his programming; which is destroying me and Draco and taking over Earth, not exactly in that order. He managed to do the last part by digitizing the globe, but we stopped him and now he's apparently focusing on the other part of his programming."

"Wait a minute," said Matt, "if that thing digitalized the planet, I think I would have remembered that. All I'm getting is this weird déjà vu feeling." "Yeah, that's normal," said Draco. "What?" "Nothing."

Then Mantichrome blasted through the wall and said, "You're not escaping that easily, trogs!" "I didn't think we would," said Draco, "I just want to escape." He breathed ice at Mantichrome, which frosted over his eyes and temporarily blinded him. When he cleared his eyes, he noticed the group was gone. Mantichrome roared with impatient fury and yelled, "This is not over! I will make sure you will never leave this planet alive!"

Now the gang's really in hot water. For those of you who haven't looked at my deviantART account, Mantichrome's from a story found on it. There's also his picture and another story he appears in. I apolgize about the tardiness of this update. My main computer still can't connect and I'm forced to retype my chapters on the other computer. I'm planning on getting a memory stick to cut out the middle man soon. The next update will be soon and very suspenseful, so you will not want to miss it. Please review.