Alright, yeah, characters getting a bit sueish.

But remember: While Bowen might be sueish in strength, he's gullible, hotheaded, somewhat dumb, and can't use his danmaku at a range for crap.

Flawed enough to get away with danmaku-enhanced physical strength? I think so, but maybe you don't.

Chapter 4: Man versus Machine

"Where did this crater come from?! Were we attacked last night?"

"You made that, bonehead..."

"I'd remember doing that!"

"You can't remember any specific number more than 100."

"As if that matters!"

"Y'know what? I'm just not arguing anymore."

"Good!"

We wandered in the same general direction as yesterday for several more hours. What I wouldn't give to find civilization right now...

"...Hold on. Ray. What's that over there?"

"What's what?"

THANK YOU GOD!

"I think I see some kinda hut or something over there."

Upon further inspection, I now see that what he's saying is true. There's something off in the distance, and it doesn't look natural.

"Bonehead... If we were traveling at anything less than 60 miles an hour, it'd take forever to get there."

"Well then."

"Bonehead... You're not implying..."

"And if I am?"

"FUCKING YES!"

"Grab my arms, and if you manage to hold on the entire time, I'll have us there by last week!"

I put my arms behind my back, and soon after he had gotten a grip, we were off.

"I'd forgotten how good it felt to go this fast!"

"It's only been 3 months since Luke launched us into space, though!"

Of course, my statement was blatant lies, but hell if it didn't feel good at the brink of breaking the sound barrier again.

About a minute later, we had arrived. It wasn't much, but now that we inspected it this closely...

"It's... a robot?"

"It's in pretty good condition. Must have just recently run out of power."

"And I only know one person who could build something like this..."

In unison, we exclaimed the same name...

"Luke!"

"If this is his, he must have gotten through safely!"

"That's a relief... but how are we supposed to find him?"

"We both know he'd never build a robot without a return system. We just have to get it power..."

"No problem! Climb onto its back, I'll have it on in a minute!"

As we both jumped onto the fallen robot's back, my hands began to spark up, almost frying Bowen in the process.

"Watch where you put those!"

"Relax, bonehead. Give me a minute, and we'll be on the road to finding Luke."

I plunged my electrically-charged hands into the robot's battery socket as the gigantic humanoid machine roared to life, apparently not noticing us in the process.

"Hold on tight!"

It righted itself, pulling its chassis out of a small hole in the ground as its' rocket-powered leg substitute began to flare up, suspending it just over a foot from the ground.

"LOCATION UNKNOWN. ACTIVATING GPS TRACKING..."

"That sounds good."

"LOCATION RECOGNIZED. POINT OF ORGIN FOUND. RETURNING TO FACTORY FOR REPAIRS."

"Factory?"

Before I had time to reassure Bowen that it just meant where it was built, it raced off in the direction it was facing.

"Guess it already needed repairs."

"Uh huh. Wait, isn't this the opposite direction to where we were going?"

"I guess so."

"MOTHER FUCK!"

"VOICE RECOGNITION PROGRAM HAS CONFIRMED IDENTITY AS USER 7."

"...He made THAT my authorization phrase?"

"Hey, it could've been worse..." I shrugged.

"Hold on, this isn't the EXACT direction we came from... But how the hell did we miss that?"

"Miss wha-... Oh my GOD."

A towering metal building loomed in front of us, going at least half a mile above the tree line before what appeared to be a floor-in-construction marked the current top.

"If Luke built that, I don't think I'll have any trouble living here anymore..."

"Me neither."

"Come to think of it, when did we last eat?"

"2 days ago, now. Why?"

"I don't feel that hungry..."

This was surprising, coming from him.

"Are you having a hunger stroke? You're... you! You're never not hungry!"

"Well I'm not now!"

"Shut up, we'll have to jump off in a couple seconds..."

Just before the robot entered the mechanical tower, we landed in what looked like a completely mechanical garden.

"If this is the work of Luke, why all the frills? That's not like him."

"Who cares? Nobody here could POSSIBLY have these kinds of technological advances other than him."

"I guess so."

Suddenly, the robot that had carried us there came out of the door it went in through.

"USER 7 WILL COME WITH ME."

"I'm not going without Ray."

"USER 7 WILL COME WITH ME."

"I SAID, I'm not going without Ray!"

""RAY" IS NOT A RECOGNIZED USER. USER 7 WILL COME WITH ME."

"Fine... but first, are you equipped with a facial recognition software?"

"THIS UNIT IS EQUIPPED WITH REQUESTED APPARATUS."

"Scan Ray over there."

It turned to me for the first time, and out of its right eye came a blue beam that enveloped my entire face in a blinding blue light.

"SCAN COMPLETE. USER NOT RECOGNIZED."

"Whaddaya mean, "user not recognized"? I'm Luke's best friend!"

I kicked it. Bad idea.

"UNRECOGNIZED USER IS CAUSING DISTURBANCE. TERMINATING."

Suddenly, out of the top of its right arm came a small gatling gun, with which it then opened fire.

"Whoah!"

Instinctively dodging, I then took off, running up a conveniently placed concave and onto the outer wall of the building, making sure to keep my momentum up so as to not fall off.

"UNRECOGNIZED USER IS ATTEMPTING TO BREACH PREMISES. ACTIVATE DEFENSE MEASURES."

Suddenly, the once-bleak surface of the tower sprung to life, revealing a huge arsenal of varied defensive measures, from simple ridges and extending panels to gatling guns and... GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, LITERALLY!

You'd think this much gunfire would be able to hit one person.

But, no. Plot armor is a great thing to have.

"Nice aim!"

I was quickly racing towards the top, just barely avoiding some of the approaching storm, when, suddenly...

Just as I was about to reach it, the top floor simply EXPLODED.

Fortunately, I managed to jump it and propel myself onto the now one-floor-lower top floor using, once again, my danmaku.

Damn, this stuff's useful.

"I'm at the top!"

"Hooo, this is REALLY high up now that I look at it from here."

The top of the now-broken elevator shaft was open now that the floor built around it had exploded, so I jumped in and hoped for the best.

As the bottom floor came into view, I began hopping from one wall to another to slow my descent, eventually reaching the lowermost door and blasting through it.

"Luke, are you in here?"

"UNRECOGNIZED USER IS CAUSING DISTURBANCE. TERMINATING."

"Not again..."

These ones seemed smaller, most likely built as guards.

"Let's see how you like an overload!"

I made a low hop, attempting to duplicate my spin from when I first used danmaku, charging through both automatons at once with an explosive result.

I HATE mooks...

"Luke? Come on out, your robots are trying to kill me here."

Just before I left the room, a small control panel in an adjacent room caught my eye.

"Let's see what we have here..."

Before I could get there, a thick glass sliding door closed it off.

"PASSWORD REQUIRED."

"Password THIS!"

I generated an electric jolt from my chest, overloading the keypad and opening the door.

"WELCOME, LUKE."

"So this IS his... I was beginning to have doubts."

When I finally managed to get to the control panel, two things became evident:

One, the building was void of human life.

Two, it hadn't been like that a few minutes ago.

"Well then."

I clicked on a file labeled "Welcome_Message_001". Its description was "Will play in the lobby when construction is complete"

"So, this place is still under construction..."

I opened it, and, lo and behold, a hologram of Luke began projecting itself just in front of the screen.

"Welcome! This place is my robot manufacturing site. Please don't go anywhere you aren't directed to, it's very dangerous... Anyway, enjoy the tour."

The hologram then stopped and a window popped up on the screen: "Play again?"

I closed that, and decided to leave the building.

Just outside was the robot that had tried to shoot me earlier, in multiple pieces and partially on fire.

"What's all this?"

"Thing started pissing me off."

"Sounds like you. Anyway, nobody's in there. Just robots."

"How do you know?"

"A control panel said that. It also said the last scan was conducted 10 minutes ago, and I doubt anything could've changed since then."

"But it also said that it had been bustling in the previous scan. Considering they're done every 10 minutes, I'd say that's a little fishy."

"Did Luke get out okay?"

"All escape pods were used at around the same time everyone left. I doubt he died, but some people definitely did."

"What do you think happened?"

"Robots went haywire, I guess. They attacked me in there, too."

"It's getting dark."

"Would it be safe to sleep in there if we barricaded all the doors?"

"It should be."

"Let's do it, then."

After arranging the robot's armored plating combined with a controlled flame of Bowen's to weld them in place, we slept once again.

Through not taking nearly as many breaks in writing, I managed to get this to you before the Mann vs Machine update! Now I can play it guilt-free!

Yes, I play TF2. Get over it.

Blah blah something about criticism blah somewhat new writer blah blah humor blah goodbye.