Nicole squirmed inside the metal shell, it was extremely uncomfortable, on the plus side she looked cool. The small metal box that Lucian had found in the scrap pile had been given a quite bronze paint, with two holes cut in for her eyes, two small little rubber tubes covering her arms and legs, personally she thought she looked like a smaller version of Frobo.
She turned to her friends, looking at the three older and taller children peering down at her,
Max was smiling happily at Nicole's transformation, Marcy was the opposite. She had her hand on her face shaking it, Lucian was also skeptical.
"Um, I don't think she looks like a proper robot," said Lucian
"It'll do," said Max smiling
"Barely," replied Marcy, "If the judges see who she really is we'll be disqualified, and My moms will be really mad."
"And mine are still a little fragile over the cannibals yesterday, I don't want to upset them again." added Lucian worried.
"Guys," said Max trying to be as charming as humanly possible, "I hate to do this, but I have one thing that will make all of this worthwhile."
"What's that?" asked Nicole.
"Tears."
The three Amphibians looked at him confused, "What?" asked Marcy.
"Montgomery's tears, Just close your eyes, imagine the look of that self entitled brat crying."
Marcy stared at the human worried, "That's kind of messed up and-"
"Oh, yeah," said Lucian deeply, his eyes closed.
"Pretty sweet," said Nicole, her eyes unseen..
Marcy sighed and closed her eyes, she imagined Montgomery crying, tears rolling down them like Lucian's, that time the newt boy smashed his Anne action figure, The time he stole Nicole's tips, that time he told her that she was lucky someone like him would notice her.
It was a pretty sweet image.
"Well Marcy I do believe you're smiling," said Max in a southern accent.
Nicole opened her eyes, "Yeah, I am, but this is still a big deal, if we get caught-"
"Let's worry about that if it happens," Max said, waving his hand hoping it would make Marcy's concerns vanish as well.
The frog girl stood there for a second and sighed, "Fine, how do we do this then?"
"Well first we need to make Nicole act like a robot, Could you walk a little?"
Nicole took three steps.
"Stop!" said Max.
"What?"
"That's not how a robot walks."
"Um Max, We've grown up with Frobo, he walks like that." added Lucian
"A lot of them do." added Marcy
"Yeah but we need Nicole to be more…old-fashioned, It'll make us beating him look so much better."
Nicole tried walking again, this time her walking was slowed more jerkily.
"Nice," said Max.
Marcy continued to watch this, slightly more impressed, "This might work."
"Yeah, though we do need to give her a weapon," said Lucian
"I have a shiv at the orphanage, we can use that."
Everyone looked at her, "How do you have a shiv?" asked Max slightly terrified
"Polly gave it to me on the day I got my legs."
Max turned to the other two newts, "Why-"
"Polly gives everyone a weapon for their birthday, Personally I still haven't used that Garrote she gave me." said Marcy plainly
Max nodded, making a mental note to start mentioning how cool it would be to have a Katana in front of Polly.
"Okay well We'll get that, Come on team Max, let's go."
Marcy raised an eyebrow "Team Max?"
"Yeah it's my team"
"How about Team Friendship?" said Lucian.
"Nah," said the other three.
"How about 'team shiv you in the kidneys?'" suggested Nicole.
"It's nice but let's shorten it to Team Shiv."
"I guess it works," said Nicole.
"Okay now let's go make that jerk cry."
…
Polly had to be honest here, she was a little creeped out by the look Anne was giving her, she knew the real her adoptive older sister was smiling, it was Pearl.
It was strange the newt had been just another newcomer to Wartwood ten years back, Polly had gotten along with her but then one day something happened.
Pearl grew.
She had gone from a small newt girl just taller than her to this massive Amazon of a newt.
Polly had to be honest she had a thing for muscles, maybe it was the fact that Anne had shown her own interest in muscle, but it was more for her, she as the more time she spent with Pearl, the young inventor realized just how much of an artist the newt was, always seeing the creative side of things.
However, she wasn't just going to ask her out. No, Pearl wouldn't want to date her, a stupid frog who just loved machines and destroying things, no.
"Um, Anne, do you mind not looking at me like I'm some sort of project?"
"Oh, sorry Polly."
Jess and Ally sat at the opposite end of the table, they looked at each other a little worried, "SO, Polly, any projects you're currently working on?"
"Well I'm going into prosthetic limbs for the most part, but I've got a problem."
"Really, what's that?"
"Where do I fit the missiles?"
The two humans looked at each other briefly then back at Polly, "Um, does it need missiles?"
Polly started to laugh then stopped, "Oh, you're being serious."
Ally was about to respond, when there was a buzzing from her pant pocket, reaching into her pocket she pulled it out and took a quick glance at the screen, her eyes widened, and she showed her phone to Jess whose eyes also widened.
"You girls okay?" asked Anne,
"Yeah it's just our son, Carlos, did the cutest thing and…"
"You have a son?" said Polly.
"Yeah," said Jess, "We adopted him a few years ago."
Woah," said Anne happily, surprised for them.
"Yeah, we've been parents for four years now, we adopted him just after we married.
Polly looked at them and couldn't help but smile, she had only known the two for a few days back on earth, but they had treated her well, she knew they'd be great parents, it was still a little odd.
"Wow so you guys still build robots and have a kid, how do you have the time"
"Umm, actually Polly," said Jess, the confidence removed from her voice, "We don't make that many robots anymore."
Polly just looked at them, confused, "What? Why?"
Ally smiled, "Well, We have a son, and we need to support him."
"Yeah, I work as a manufacturing systems engineer and Ally is a software designer."
"But your channel?" said Polly who was struggling to deal with this new information.
"We stopped doing that a while ago," said Ally.
Polly sat there with her mouth wide open, eyes widened in confusion, "You mean, you guys don't make videos anymore?"
"Nope." said Jess, "We decided to get stable jobs."
"Oh," said Polly who forced a smile on her face, She stood up, "I need to go to the bathroom and not scream eternally."
The three humans watched as she walked off.
"Well, she took that…well?"
Anne looked at them, she could tell they looked a little concerned about Polly's reaction, the small part of her that was jealous of how much attention Polly was giving the two women shrunk a little upon seeing her reaction.
"I'm sure she'll come around soon," she said kindly.
"No," said Jess, "It's fine, We should have told earlier."
"Kind of cool you guys have a kid though."
"Cool," said Ally, sounding tired all of a sudden, "and a lot of work."
Anne laughed, "Tell me about it, I mean I'm not a parent, but I've dealt with my fair share of tantrums at the aquarium."
"Yeah we love him but raising two can be painful."
Anne arched an eyebrow, "Two?"
"Panda-tron," said the two women in unison.
"You consider Panda-tron your son?"
"We built him and raised him, so yeah, he's our son."
Anne didn't know whether to laugh, it was kind of cute, but she didn't want to sound rude, so she decided to ask a different question, "So, what's it like raising a robot?"
"Well years ago he was fine but…" Jess started to say.
Ally gave a polite cough, Jess stopped.
"What's wrong with Panda-tron?"
The two women looked at each other, Ally just sighed, "Angst."
"What?"
"He's getting older now and well, He wants to leave."
The image of a Panda-tron moving to an apartment entered Anne's mind, "You mean move out of the house?"
"Nope. This world/"
"Oh, space travel?"
"Nope, remember how we talked about the singularity?"
Anne nodded slowly, "Barely."
"Frobo's been talking to a group of A.I. that had founded this cloud based existence, and he wants to be with them now."
Anne looked at her confused.
"He wants to move in with his computer friends and move to this world in the cloud."
"Oooohhh, I think I get it?" Anne lied.
"Well we don't want that because we don't know these A.I. and…"
"Okay, You guys are his parents."
Jess and Ally laughed,
"Yeah, basically we brought him here to get him out of the garage for a few hours, I do hope he's enjoying his time with Frobo."
"Sounds to me, he's becoming a teenager."
"Yeah it's funny I'm starting to act like my own parents," said Ally.
"Ha, So did you know Polly has a crush?" said Anne.
"No," said Jess.
"Who?"
"Well there's this newt girl, Pearl, they're going to be so cute together."
The two women looked at each other for a second, then turned to Anne looking worried, "That sounds definite."
"Well yeah, thanks to me," Anne said, sounding self-assured.
"Anne, that doesn't sound good," said Ally.
"No it's fine, I've paid someone to give a love message to Pearl."
"Anne, that sounds…"
"Great, I know." replied Anne, her smile growing bigger.
…
Sasha and Marcy were spending some time together, Marcy was currently drawing Sasha who was doing a heroic pose for the next chapter of Amphi-land,
The weather was warm which made it odd when Sasha and Marcy shuddered.
"What happened?" asked Marcy
"I think… I think Anne's gone full shipping madness again." said Sasha.
"Should we do something?"
Sasha shook her head, "No, all we can do is pray for the poor souls she's going after.
…
"They're going to be happy, and it'll all be thanks to me.," Said Anne, her face growing more manic, terrifying both Jess and Ally.
"Who's going to be happy?"
Anne turned to see Polly standing there holding a bag full of mini Bug cookies.
"ANNE'S TRYING TO GET YOU WITH PEARL!," shouted Ally
"WHAT?" shout Polly in response.
Anne turned to Ally,"Why did you blab."
"Because you were acting really creepy about getting them together."
"Oh please I just laughed maniacally once…okay I see your…"
"ANNE, HOW COULD YOU?" said Polly upset
"I just want to see you happy." Anne said her confidence was gone.
"BY EMBARRASSING ME?"
Before Anne could respond, Polly threw her cookies at Anne.
"Polly listen I…"
"No, I have to go and get to Pearl. I need to explain everything."
"Um well you might need to wait a few minutes," Anne said sheepishly "The guy told me the messaging robot would go to pearl in five minutes."
Polly somewhat calmed down, she was still probably going to kill Anne, but it would be in a less violent way now, "Okay So I have five minutes to stop the robot from ruining my life."
"Polly wait I-"
"No." said Polly, "I don't want to hear it, in fact, I DON'T WANT TO SEE TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN."
Before Anne could respond, Polly rushed off, Anne turned to see Jess and Ally looked at her. The worst part is that they didn't seem angry at her, they just looked worried.
Anne sighed, she should have known this would have happened, standing up she started to head towards Polly, she had to fix this.
….
Sprig stood there looking at Ivy, the girl of his dreams. It was hard to believe how much he had forgotten how much he loved her, sure Anne had been back but just looking at her right now reminded him of how long they had been together.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"You're forgiven, I don't know what you've done, but you're forgiven anyway."
Sprig laughed, "I'm sorry for not seeing you over the last few days, I've been getting caught up with Anne.
"It's fine, you need the time to reconnect."
Sprig laughed, he couldn't help but admit that he was lucky to have Ivy in his life, when Anne had gone she had been completely understanding and did her best to try and look after him, admittedly a lot of it came from ambushing, but it did help him.
"So Sprig," Ivy said her voice somewhat weaker, "I need to talk to you about something."
"Sprig looked at her giving his full attention, Ivy sounded like something was on her mind, he needed to help her.
"What?"
"Well-"
"I GOT THE SHIV." said a voice from behind the couple.
They turned to see a small box with legs running towards them, behind them were a frog, a toad and a human.
"SLOW DOWN, DON'T RUN WITH A SHIV." shouted the frog.
In second the four children were out of view.
The couple looked at them then at each other.
"Sprig?"
"Yes"
"Did Marcy, Lucian, a metal box and a human…"
"He's called Max, and he's not Anne's son."
"I didn't think he was… Were they running with a weapon?"
"Yeah, and one of them was dressed up as a robot."
Ivy stood there for a second then placed her land underneath her chin, "I want to ask if it's normal, but I spent my childhood ambushing you for attention."
Sprig shrugged, "It worked though."
Ivy blushed and nodded, "Fair, where did they get a shiv from?"
"Polly probably," Said Sprig, "Remember your eighteenth?"
"Yeah, the scythe, I wanted a battleaxe."
Sprig shook his head, "Do you want to follow them?"
Ivy shrugged, "Sure, might as well see what insanity's going on down there.
…
Max was waiting in an alley just be the arena, looking outside he could see the crowd, it was almost as big as the one from the warm-up matches, this was the first match for the junior league, apparently people wanted to watch these games just as much.
"Hey Nicole, Are you okay in there?" he said, turning to the young newt.
"Yeah, I'm fine," replied Nicole, her voice muffled, "I'm good at holding my breath."
Max looked a little concerned at that, "Really? We can make more air holes for you."
"Nah it's cool, besides It's the least I can do after you paid for the dress."
Max laughed nervously, he still felt a little weird about that, a part of him knew he was never going to do get anything from it, but Nicole had seemed so small then.
"Hey, it was the least I could do."
"Yeah, and now you're helping us take down a bully."
Max smiled at that, it was pretty good helping these guys, "Yeah well I just happen to like making jerks cry."
"Yeah and here you are helping your friends out."
The boy grimaced for a second, "Well I wouldn't say we're friends."
"What?" said Nicole confused, "Of course we're friends after everything we've gone through, how can we not be?."
Max was about to respond, it was hard to explain to her. If they knew the truth about him, they'd hate him, they wouldn't want to be his friends anymore.
"I'm only going to be here a few more days Nicole, then I'll be gone, It's better this way."
Max was surprised when he didn't hear Nicole respond. He was about to return when he heard a mumbled "Okay."
He turned around to see the fake robot wasn't looking at him, admittedly he could see her face, so he couldn't be sure if she was, but she was sitting down dejected, Max felt a little bit guilty, but he turned to see Marcy and Lucian walking to him
"We've registered Nicole. Her next match is against Montgomery."
"Great, we just need to beat him, and then the next few guys till we get the money."
Marcy narrowed her eyes, "Hey you have ulterior motives, how shocking."
Max sighed, "Listen if we bow out too quickly they might suspect the truth and you guys don't want to get into trouble, do you?
Marcy rolled her eyes and walked over to Nicole, "Come on Nicole let's go."
Nicole stood up.
"Wait" said Max casually, "Lucian, pick up Nicole."
Marcy turned to Max, "Why?"
"People might be suspicious if she walks there on her own, we need her to appear slightly terrible"
Lucian walked over to Nicole and picked her up, the group turned to leave only to be confronted by a pink frog.
"What's going on here?" asked Sprig.
"Well," said Max, "We're about to enter the robot fights."
Sprigs disbelief vanished instantly, "Really?"
"Yes," said Max, nodding as he tried to walk past Sprig, "We just need to…"
He suddenly found a Yellow frog standing in front of him, "Wow that sounds impressive." she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Who are-"
"I'm Ivy Sundew."
Max raised his eyebrow, "Sundew, are you related to Felicia?"
"Yep, that's my mom," replied the frog.
"She's also my Girlfriend," added Sprig
"Well that's nice, we have to go and…"
"So you've been building this robot for the last few days?" asked Ivy, walking over to Lucian and looking at the metal box he held.
Max watched her, "Yeah but be careful it's a new robot, and we don't know exactly how they'll react to a stranger."
All of a sudden the metal box started to shake a little, Lucian did his best to hold on, Ivy however just stood there watching.
"Oh no you should get back, it could be dangerous."
Ivy continued togot even closer to the robot and looked harder, "Oh I don't think I need to worry I've taken down more dangerous robots in my time."
Max continued to look at her, his patience was running out, "Well me and my friends need to get going now."
He shoved past Ivy only to a Mucus covered hand grab his arm.
"Hold on now," said Ivy, still giving Max the knowing look of a fellow troublemaker, "I have a few questions for your friends."
Max swallow, this wasn't going to end well, "Go ahead."
Ivy turned to Lucian, "Hey Lucian, what you got there."
"A robot." Lucian mumbled.
"Really what's their name?"
"...Nicole."
"The Annihilator." added Max quickly.
"Huh." said Ivy circling around them, like a predator circling its prey, she turned to Marcy.
"Hey Marcy, are they on the level?"
The young frog swallowed, this was a hard thing for her, she was not good at lying, her parents had brought her up with the idea that the truth should always be told, however she really wanted Montgomery to suffer, so she was struggling to keep the phrase, "This is a lie, the metal box is actually Nicole we're faking a robot, and I'm going to be in so much trouble," to herself.
She was able to mutter out a small quick "Yes."
"See" said Max trying to end this conversation as fast as humanly possible, "Now can we go please?"
Ivy slowly turned around and looked at him shrugging, "Okay."
Max let out a breath of relief.
"Great, see you."
He took two steps out of the alley.
"Just one thing."
Max froze terrified, "What?"
Ivy reached into her pocket and pulled out a candy bar, "I just want to wave this in front of your robot for a second."
Before Max could say anything Ivy was standing in front of the robot with the candy bar, the robot reached out to grab the candy, Max sighed.
"So your robot has a sweet tooth."
"Nicole." mumbled Max.
Sorry." said the muffled voice of the robot.
"Max, What are you doing?" said Sprig in a disapproving tone
"I was trying to win the robotics contest."
"You mean cheat?" said Ivy
"Yeshewasgoingtocheatandwewentalongwithittomakesuremontgomarylosesbecasehesajerkandbulliesusandiknewitwaswrongbutijusthatehimsomuchandreallywanttoknockhimdownapeg." said Nicole all at once.
The other looked at her confused about what they had just heard.
"Sorry," Nicole blushed, "I was holding on to that for a while."
"Max, you can't just cheat." said Sprig admonishing.
"But…But…" that's when an idea entered Max's head, he smiled, "I was only doing it for my friends."
Sprig eyes widened, "Oh, well if-"
"SPRIG!" said Ivy quite loudly, "Don't give in to that."
"Give in to what?" said Sprig.
"He's trying to make you feel bad about this."
"What you mean about me having fun with my friends?" Max said smiling, he walked over to Marcy, Lucian and Nicole, and hugged them tightly.
"Can't…Breath," said Marcy.
"Is love…suppose to hurt like this." said Lucian
"I already find it… hard to breath …from the suit not the hug."
"Spring!," cried Ivy "he's tricking you don't do it."
Sprig looked at Max and then his girlfriend. It was a hard decision, should he listen to his girlfriend and do the right thing or help Max enjoy what could be some of his last moments with his friends, it was such a hard choice.
Max made his eyes big and wide, he quivered his lips, "Pwease Spwig let me help my fwends,"
Sprig's Smile grew to encompass his face, Ivy facepalmed, "ugh."
"GO MAX, MAKE THE MOST WITH YOUR FRIENDS."
Before he could say anything else, Max and his friends ran off.
Ivy turned and looked at Sprig, annoyed, "Why did you do that?"
"Do what, I was just being nice to Max, besides me and Anne broke the rules all the time back then."
"Yeah, but they're not you, besides you shouldn't just give into kids like that."
"Why?" said Sprig getting more and more confused, "It's not as if we're going to have any soon."
Ivy just looked at him for a second then walked out of the alley.
"What did I say?" said Sprig confused as he followed her.
…
The main stage had been used for a lot in Wartwood, people still talked about the talent show ten years ago, though most did so with a hint of nostalgia for more innocent days, Frobo himself remembered being the sound system, those were the old days when his vocabulary was limited, he didn't look spend much time dwelling on nostalgia.
Right now he was just looking at all the various robots passing by, none as advanced as him of course but in a way that made him smile, he enjoyed being one of a kind even if it did leave his social circle a little small.
Just meeting Panda-tron was weird though, He was the only other sentient robot out there, he still had brief memories of meeting him years ago, a brief moment of communication in that primitive earth workshop, though back the giant was the size of a small toy, and he was only a head (he shuddered thinking of the dark days of just being a head.)
It was just a brief moment, but he could tell the small robot was happy where he was.
However, Panda-tron seemed elusive just going around looking at other robots, the best part was that he had been willing to help anyone who needed their robot's code to be slightly cleaned up.
Frobo wasn't fond of that, as much as he knew they were not sentient but this…it felt sinister.
Polly would say he was just being jealous that there was another robot around, and then start planning ways for him to become bigger and cooler.
As he scanned the field one last time he finally spotted something black and white next to the stage.
Frobo charged towards him, after pushing a few of the small Amphibians and robots out of his way he saw Panda-tron kneeling next to a robot his fingers were attached to the robot, it had a cylindrical body and a two wheel for legs, two small little eyes were on the top of it. Frobo could see inside its stomach were three different forms of sludge, one white one brown and one pink.
A worried toad was standing next to the giant robot looking up at him.
In the next moment Panda-tron removed his fingers from the smaller robot and nodded at the toad, "There, all fixed."
Instantly the sludge in the robot's body froze, and Frobo finally saw it was ice cream.
The toad nodded and led the robot away.
Frobo wasn't about to say anything, however he noticed the robot's eyes briefly glow red, he turned to see Panda-tron's eyes also glowing.
Now there could have been an innocent reason for this… Frobo however wasn't interested in it,
"What are you doing?"
"Just a simple upgrade," replied Panda-tron flatly
"Yeah, I'm not buying that, you're up to something."
Panda-tron looked at him and laughed, "And what are you going to do about it?"
"THIS." Frobo extended his arm as far as it could go and hit Pandatron right on the head.
The larger robot just stood there for a second looking down at Frobo,
"Is that it?" said the giant panda.
Another small ding told him that no, it wasn't.
"I saw videos of you loaded with weapons back then?"
"I gave a lot of them up, the war ended so…." Frobo trailed off sheepishly.
"Well look on the plus side, I don't want you dead."
Frobo looked at him, "What?"
Panda-tron then grabbed Frobo's extended arms, he walked over to the stage rigging and tied them around it.
Frobo tried to free himself however the knot was too tight.
"What are you up to?"
"Evolution," replied Panda-tron coldly, "Don't worry you'll be safe"
The larger robot's eyes turned red.
"Assuming control."
…
Across the fair many robots just stopped moving, many just stood there, others hovered, a lot of it was put down to a glitch until they noticed just how eerie it was.
At the arena, hundreds of Amphibians were cheering, as Lucian placed his disguised friend in one corner of the right, on the other side was a large wedged shaped robot, The newt boy laughed as he saw the smaller robot, no one noticed the cleaner bot's eyes turn red.
Polly had finally spotted Pearl standing next to Loggle, just handing off a package to him, she saw the drone flying towards Pearl, in her rush she didn't notice the drone's lens were now red.
As Sprig followed Ivy, neither of them noticed the robot that had started to follow them, one with Ice Cream in its stomach and its sinister red eyes which were focused on them.
Jess and Ally were walking around the fair looking for Panda-tron, they knew he would be okay, but they were starting to get worried about their robotic son.
All of a sudden a cry went out.
"DESTROY!" shouted the robots at once.
With that chaos erupted.