As the Wizard of Oz tells Dorothy Gale, "You've forced me to a cataclysmic conclusion." Moi is having world-class issues with writer's block. Therefore, as he did with his Heroine's Legacy story, he is jumping the squares on the game board.

I had planned an extreme boffo cataclysmic battle scene…and it's just not jelling. And the uploading of a story for one fandom caused me to want to clear the decks and upload another. It's an end-of-year thing. I'm bypassing a couple scenes to cut to the chase. Moi hopes his loyal readers are favorably disposed toward him. He promises he will get back to the missing scenes.

Berserker

the battle aftermath

Robot XJ-9 and the Silver Shell stood back-to-back, each in a combat-ready stance. Carnage surrounded them. The landscape was strewn with wreckage and littered with the unmoving bodies of their opponents.

There was Lancer; and Himcules; and the Hammer Brothers; and a rogue unit of Cluster drones. There was an assortment of other foes; Dr. Locus' flying pigs; Lil' Acorn's marionettes; splatters of the Mush Monster trying to replicate itself through fission; and even a Tadpula.

Some of those who were carbon-based life-forms were actually showing signs of life; they were stirring and making groaning sounds. Most of the mechanical foes simply issued curls of smoke and random sparks.

XJ-9, aka Jenny Wakeman, turned to face her ally. She gave him a high five. "Way to go, Silver Shell! We sure knocked the daylights out of 'em!" And impulsively, she hugged the bigger robot around his neck. "You were great!"

The Silver Shell was caught by surprise. He acted embarrassed. "…Well…it was…easy, with you…covering my back…" He clumsily began to return the hug.

Jenny abruptly noticed herself and in turn became embarrassed. Her cheeks suffused blue, in response her biometric programming that mimicked a human blush. She tried to slip of of the Shell's ungainly embrace.

And he let her.

Both shuffled their feet.

"Well…Skyway Patrol ought to be along shortly…"

'…Yeah. They always show up late…"

"…After we've cleaned up their mess…"

"…And they'll lecture us…"

"…Or even try to arrest us…"

"…So we should go…"

"…I guess so…"

"…Well…see ya…"

"…For sure…"

"…We should get together…someplace…to hang out…"

"…We should…but not at Mezmer's…"

"…No…you know how he is…'No Robots Allowed!'…"

"…Yeah…we save the poor guy's life, and he's still biased against robots…"

They both laughed nervously.

"…Well…see ya…"

"…Yeah…bye…"

And Jenny took to the sky, in the direction of the neighborhood that she called home. She resided with her builder and recognized parental figure, Dr. Norene Wakeman, aka Nora, in the house next door to the Carbunkle house.

The Silver Shell watched wistfully. Then he flew to his home, in a less dramatic fashion. He went into stealth mode in mid-flight. The light bending field he generated allowed him to pass furtively through the holographic projection that concealed the entrance of his lair…Sheldon Lee's garage.

to be continued

A / N

It's been about a year since I "rediscovered" MLaaTR. Like with another heroine, I was a Compleat Ignoramus. So I viewed every episode I could find on the web. As the program's creator, Rob Renzetti, tells us, he intended for Jenny and Sheldon to become a couple if the series had continued another season.

Many fans favor a Jenny / Brad pairing. Many fans are even more slash-oriented and favor a Jenny / Misty or a Jenny / Vega pairing. This not how moi rolls. Moi tends toward canonicity, and what could be more canon that the program author's stated intentions? But this is the beauty of fan-art and -fiction. We get to decide how the story unfolds. As the Outer Limits Control Voice says at the start of each episode: "There is nothing wrong with your television set…We are controlling transmission…sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear." As Willie Wonka tells us in his 1971 movie, "We are the music makers, / And we are the dreamers of dreams…" This, BTW, is from the poem Ode, written in 1874 by the English poet Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

(Aside; don'tcha just love Wikipedia? I do. It's a veritable trove of trivia. To paraphrase Ron Stoppable, "I've got the mad love for Wikipedia." And since I'm using it for fan-fiction as opposed to real-life research, there's not the stigma of rather faulty facts, or the snobbish attitude of the naysayers that the rather faulty fact can engender; "Let me guess; you got your data from…" (*gasp* *huff*) "…Wikipedia?")

But I digress. I wanted to explore a facet of Sheldon's attitude and resultant behavior…but you'll see in the next chpt.