Episode 5, part 2
#This episode contains mildly descriptive scenes suggesting "feisty" yordle mating behavior. Viewer discretion is advised#
Rumble stepped forward, looked across the room, and laughed maniacally.
"And just how are you going to stop us from taking this store over, Jayce? Just my mech alone can beat all of you combined!"
Rumble paused for a second, then reached into his cockpit to press a button. "How rude of me! Before we begin, I forgot that Heimerdinger had a personal message for you guys straight from Darkplum HQ!" A light started blinking on his mech, and it emitted a transparent blue holo-screen into the space in front of him.
Jayce, Ahri, TF, and Veigar all looked towards the screen. It flashed, and then the holo-screen focused itself, revealing a large, lavish-looking room with chandeliers and luscious red carpeting. Laying sprawled on the floor was a female yordle sporting pigtails and dressed in sexy lingerie, looking like a coked up smurf prostitute. She had her legs spread open beside a ladder encrusted with diamonds and gold foil, and on top of the ladder stood Heimer, who was looking down at the female yordle and saying something to her, while cocking his legs and preparing to jump down on her. There was a crackle of audio.
"Hee hee hooo! Poppy my love, I'm craving for some more sweet nectar!"
"Ohh Heimy, my sweet little boo boo bear! My honey jar is open and ready!"
Rumble cleared his throat, then spoke meekly into a mic in his cockpit.
"Excuse me Mr. Heimer. I'm sorry to bother you, but didn't you tell me you wanted to say something to the LOLmart employees via the holo-communicator before we took it over?"
Back inside the holo-screen, Heimer looked up, appeared to stare outwards from the screen, then smiled and casually looked towards where Jayce was standing.
"Oh dear, what do we have here? Jayce? After we take over your store, please kindly go back to Mundo and tell him to stay away from the Institute. It's ours, got it? I've already sent a team to start building a new retail Plum super-store across the street, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Now, Rumble, hurry up and finish your job, I have important business to get back to!"
Heimer looked back down at Poppy, bent down slightly, then leaped off the ladder into a belly flop, his body accelerating towards where Poppy was laying spread eagle. Back in the store, Rumble frantically reached into his cockpit and mashed some buttons, and the holo-screen dissappeared.
Ahri stole a quick glance at Veigar, with a slightly horrified expression on her face.
"...Heimy? I'm never going to use "Veigy" the same way, ever again..."
Jayce shook himself, trying to clear his mind from what he just saw, and growled angrily.
"Enough of this! I have NO CLUE what I just witnessed, but if Heimer wants to send Mundo a message, he can do it himself! It's time to end this!"
Jayce flipped his golden pen into the air. The pen flew upward and, as it reached the apex of it's ascent, suspended itself and started spinning in the air. Sparks began to fly out from it in all directions, and it began emitting sounds of electric discharges and tiny whirring gears. In a flash of light, the pen suddenly enlarged and took the shape of massive hammer. In one swift and impressive motion, Jayce somersaulted into the air, grabbed the handle and, still somersaulting, landed onto the ground, smashing the hammer into the earth with a thunderous blow.
"Time to make a stand! Ahri and Veigar, support me from behind, TF, let's do this!"
On the other side, Darius took a step forward and brandished his axe menacingly while his brother started whirling both axes and laughing maniacally.
TF smirked at the display, took one step back, reached into his coat pocket, and took out a deck of cards. He looked down at the cards, then over to the two axe-wielding maniacs, then back at the cards, then finally looked over at Jayce.
"Ok Jayce. In all seriousness, I asked Mundo for a Hextech rifle, and he gave me this pack of cards instead, mumbling something about a recession and cutbacks. WTF does he expect me to do with a pack of cards-"
Darius slammed his giant axe down right beside where TF was standing, and TF barely dodged to the side in response. Twirling around, he brought his leg up and shot out a swift roundhouse kick straight into Darius's face. The man stumbled back, stunned momentarily. TF took out a card from the top of the deck, and aimed it at Darius' head.
"God, I'm so screwed," TF mumbled to himself, as he readied the card, then threw it at Darius. The card sliced through the air, pinged Darius in the forehead, then flopped and floated harmlessly to the ground and came to rest beside his feet. TF groaned. Darius looked down at the card, then burst out laughing.
"Ah, hahaha! Playing cards? Is this supposed to be a jo-"
A massive explosion of mana suddenly erupted from below Darius, and sent him flying through the store. He landed on his back, half conscious, his body covered with mana burns.
TF stared at the broken body of Darius, then looked down at the deck of playing cards in shock.
"Seriously Jayce? These cards explode? And you've been letting me play poker with 'em?"
Jayce shrugged. "I've been meaning to tell you, but it never came up."
Draven stepped forward, then threw an axe that flew through the air and landed with a thud between the two men.
"You're gonna pay dearly for that, Jayce and TF. Don't think I'm gonna fall for your tricks as easily as my idiot brother! Get ready for Draaaaaaven!"
Draven took out another axe and, whirling both simultaneously to form a tornado of spinning axes, dashed forward and engaged Jayce and TF, locking the three of them into a mortal combat of whirling death and destruction.
From behind the main fight, Ahri and Veigar watched as Jayce and TF struggled against the mass of spinning blades. Seeing an opportunity, Ahri began to focus her mind, and twirled her hands, summoning three tiny fox-fires that began to circle around her. As she was about to release them at Draven, there was a sudden click of a gun being cocked, a blur of something brown, and Graves appeared right before Veigar. The yordle cried out in surprise and attempted to ready a spell, but was quickly dispatched by a rapid uppercut to the face with the butt of Grave's shotgun, knocking him out cold. Before Ahri could react, Graves swiftly dashed up towards her in one fluid motion, and she realized that Graves was now behind her and about to bring his gun up to fire a volley into the defenseless fox-girl.
I didn't expect him to be so fast! ...But he underestimates my speed as well!
Ahri whipped her nine tails around in a twirling motion, leaped upwards and, using the momentum of her tails and a surge of magical energy, flew upwards and over Graves in an awe-inspiring display of agility, flipping around and landing a short distance behind the man, using her tails skillfully to control her landing. At the same time, Graves had unleashed a volley of bursts from his triple barreled shotgun into the space Ahri had occupied seconds ago.
Ahri saw her opportunity, and fired her three fox-fires directly at Graves. Sensing immediate danger from behind him, the grizzled veteran spun around while whipping his heavy cloak around to cover his body, and blocked the fox fires with it. The fires impacted the heavy cloak and ignited it into flames, singing and charring his exposed flesh. With a grunt of pain, Graves unlatched his flaming cloak and threw it aside, then turned back to face Ahri. He grinned evilly. Ahri didn't flinch from his gaze, and instead she used this brief lapse in action to analyze the old man's tactics.
I think I have him! ...He's fast, but can only maintain that speed in a straight line...I just have to be ready and react quickly to his dash..!
"Not bad, missy, but I have decades of fighting experience over you, and you'll find that this old dog definitely still has some tricks up his sleeve!" Graves cocked his shotgun, and again dashed with blinding speed towards Ahri.
Even though she expected the dash, Ahri barely had time to react, and she desperately leaped to the side, landed, then swiftly turned around and fired off three fox-fires at where she thought Graves would be.
THUNK!
Ahri blacked out momentarily, and when she came to, the world was spinning, she was laying face-down on the ground, and her head was throbbing. She saw blood dripping down from her face and onto the floor, and felt the hard pressure of a boot and a cold metal barrel pinning her to the floor.
"I'm impressed! If times were better I woulda spared your life and tried to bring you in as one o' my mercenaries." Graves shook his head. "Lady, what a shame..."
Ahri struggled to get away – she felt like she was suffocating.
...How did he anticipate all my moves? How? I'm so sorry everyone...!
There was a slight disturbance in the air from behind Graves, and an arrow whizzed past his ear. Abruptly he whirled around and fired a quick blast from his shotgun at the empty air behind him. A voice cried out in pain, and two arrows flew out from nowhere and pierced Graves through his chest and thigh, forcing him to the ground and making him cry out in pain. Twitch materialized in front of the fallen Graves and doubled over as well, heavily wounded by shotgun shrapnel and bleeding from his abdomen.
A jarring explosion erupted all across the store, and Ahri managed to turn her head and watched hopelessly as Rumble fired off electrical hooks that struck TF, disabling him with shocks of powerful electricity. With TF down, Rumble moved in to try and finish off Jayce, who was now cornered and forced to fight off both Rumble and Draven by himself.
Ahri struggled onto her knees and started crawling towards Twitch. Her head was still throbbing, and the entire store seemed to be swaying back and forth in a dizzying motion. She found Twitch down on the ground and out cold, completely unresponsive. Not knowing what to do, and still slightly dazed, Ahri started crawling towards Jayce. She knew she had to do something - Jayce was outnumbered and wouldn't hold for long...but what could she do?
Still crawling desperately forward, Ahri suddenly brushed up against some cold, yellow steel. She looked up and saw Blitzcrank, who had now moved onto doing a robotic version of the Hawaiian luau. Ahri reached out and grabbed the robot's ankle. She was scared, but tried to remain calm and forced herself to hold back tears welling up inside her.
"Please...do something..."
The robot continued to dance, and Ahri laid her head down. A tear streamed down her face, and she thought about that time long ago, when she was still a fox desperately longing to be human. After all that happened, was this to be her ultimate fate?
As she laid there and started crying, Ahri felt something stir from within her soul, and she became aware of a tingling sensation that traveled down her arm and into her hand, which was still grasped around the robot's ankle. The robot suddenly paused, shuddered, and then came back to life, and steam started to escape rapidly from it's exhaust ports. Ahri's head started throbbing again, and she began to lose consciousness.
"AHRI. JAYCE. TF. VEIGAR. TWITCH. I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING. I WILL PROTECT MY MASTERS."
Blitzcrank became supercharged, jets of rapid steam pouring out from it's vents, and the robot jerked forward, then started charging at Draven, who was now standing over Jayce and about to stab one of his axes down into the struggling man. Drawing back its fist, Blitzcrank popped Draven with a punch so strong that it sent him shooting out of the store entirely. Rumble drew his mech back, surprised at the sudden show of force, but quickly recovered his composure and activated his equalizer rockets, and fired a salvo of mini-missiles at the robot.
"MANA SHIELD ACTIVATED. BATTERY RUNNING AT 37%."
An energized barrier formed around Blitzcrank, and the missles slammed violently into the shield and exploded, sending bits of debris and shrapnel everywhere. As the smoke cleared, the robot emerged unharmed, his shield still active. Rumble's jaw dropped.
"This can't be! Those missles are one of my most powerful weapons, and it didn't even scratch him!"
Blitzcrank charged forward, then leaped and slammed into Rumble's mech, clinging to its front end. It started punching and ripping at the armor. A low metallic thud rang out, and a piece of the mech's forward armor plating crumpled and tore off the mech, revealing the more vulnerable aluminum plates underneath. Rumble was in complete shock, and he desperately spun his mech around and slammed the front of his mech into the ground in an attempt to get the robot off his mech. Rumble drew the mech's fist back, then slammed it into the robot, this time knocking the robot off and a distance away. The robot flew into one of the aisles, scattering food products everywhere, and landed with a loud CLANK into the floor, but it quickly got up, and started walking towards Rumble. It showed little sign of wear or damage from the struggle.
Rumble cried out in frustration. "How? How did Mundocorp suddenly get so advanced in robotics?"
A shotgun blast rang out towards the back of the store, a several smoke canisters landed onto the floor around. The canisters filled the entire store with black, acrid smoke that made it impossible to see what was happening.
"Rumble, I'm getting my men out of here! We weren't prepared for this, they were ready for us! If you've got any sense, you'll fall back as well!"
There were sounds of men being dragged and metallic clanks of movement, and when the smoke cleared, the Darkplum invaders were no where in sight.
With Rumble gone, the electric harpoons stopped responding, and TF got up painfully and yanked the harpoon off his body. Jayce walked over to help him up.
"What was that? I had no idea our Blitzcrank model was that strong..." Jayce supported TF on his shoulder and helped him walk. TF looked up and fixed his gaze towards the half conscious fox-girl.
"I was disabled, but I was still able to watch the the whole thing. That fox-girl had something to do with it. I saw some kind of magical energy transfer from her hand into the robot, and it suddenly became sentient."
Several warning beeps sounded across the store, and Blitzcrank jerked and then stopped abruptly.
"WARNING. MANA BATTERY CRITICAL. SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED TO PROTECT INTERNAL MEMORY." The robot's steam dissipated, and it's lights went off and became inactive.
TF looked over at the robot, then to the fox girl, and racked his brain to come up with an explanation. "Jayce...you remember how they briefed us at HQ that the fox-girl had turned into a human by some magical force years ago? I'm guessing that somehow this mysterious power has developed within her over the years, and she is now somehow able to grant sentience to objects that already have a desire to become human themselves. My guess is that all robots have an innate desire to become sentient and more human-like because of how we made them, and she's able to tap this desire with her magic to bring out the hidden potential of those robots."
Jayce looked over at Blitzcrank, who stood there motionless and powered down. "TF, take my teleporter and put the robot back into the hextech hover-truck, and drive back to HQ to have the robot analyzed. I'm going to call in medical and help the fox-girl and the others - if they can be helped, that is."
TF nodded, took the teleporter, and limped over to complete his task. Jayce took out his communicator and dialed in a line for medical. He looked over at the unconscious store employees, taking particular notice of the fox-girl. She had much more resolve and determination than he initially gave her credit for. Ahri was her name, right?
Jayce let out a sigh of relief, then brought his communicator up to his mouth to speak into it. They had somehow driven off Darkplum's annexation attempt, and they were unlikely to try another outright show of aggression like that again for fear of League retaliation, but he wasn't naive - he knew this was only the beginning of a long and brutal corporate war between the two mighty companies over control of Champion's villa.
Episode Epilogue
Poppy was dressed in a sexy french maid costume, and sitting bound to a chair with ropes. She stared lustfully at her lover. Across from her, Heimer was dressed in a leather getup, and was sitting inside the cockpit of a mini-replica of a German Panzer battle tank, except that it's main gun was shaped in a rounded phallic-like cylinder with a bulge at it's head.
"Oh Heimy! France is utterly defenseless! How will we ever stand up to the might of Germany's invasion?"
The mini-battle tank lurched forward, and Heimer armed it's phallic-like main-gun at the defenseless poppy.
"Hee hee! Prepare for the invasion of France! Resistance is futile! Main cannon armed and ready to fire!" Heimer commenced the launch sequence, which involved him bucking his hips forward repeatedly in order to activate the pressure sensors that would initiate the main-cannon firing sequence.
The door to Heimer's office opened, and a wheeled robot strolled in, and went up directly to Heimer.
"MASTER. MISSION 111 HAS FAILED. I WILL NOW SHOW A VIDEO REPORT OF THE SCENE AS TAKEN FROM RUMBLE'S COCKPIT CAMERA."
Heimer stopped the main gun launch sequence, shut down his battle tank, and viewed the video quietly. When it ended , the yordle angrily dismissed the robot, jumped out of the tank, and walked over to his executive desk and sat down. He pressed a button to call his secretary.
"Yes, Heimer?"
"Wilma, make a call over to Darkplum Robotics and have them send over Urgot. Tell him it's urgent, we have a new development that may threaten our robotic superiority over Mundocorp."
"Understood Heimer, I will make the call right away."
The com closed, and Heimer leaned back in his chair, contemplating the video he had just seen.
"So her name's Ahri, huh? If I can find a way to extract, isolate, and control her power, it might be just what we need to give our robotic division the power to crush all of our rivals...and take over the institute itself!" Heimer sat there brooding, contemplating at the new developments that had occurred in the complex corporate world of Valoran.
Episode End. I know this was a long one, and thanks for reading!