New Orleans
"No!"
Kiko whirled around
to face her brother. Tears still poured over her
cheeks but they were less visible against the bright
red face of the angry young woman than they had been
on her pale skin just a few seconds earlier.
"No no
no!" she repeated. "Why... why would you say
that? What makes you think...! NO!"
Senshi stared at his
feet.
"I'm
sorry," he said. "I don't know what I was
thinking."
He turned quickly
and hurried to the edge of the dense foliage by the
side of the lake. Kiko was stunned. She had never
seen her brother react that way before and she had
never expected to see him react that way. He
had always presented himself as so strong and so
capable that nothing could ever bother him and she
knew from experience that her opinions and comments
had next to no influence over him; seeing him all but
fleeing from her confused her terribly.
"Senshi!
Wait!"
Kiko's words came
too late - Senshi had already disappeared into the
bushes. Kiko looked down at Cog who stared back at
her from the palm of her hand, her tiny mechanical
head cocked to one side.
"What was that
all about?" Kiko asked. "Why would he run
like that?"
"Kiko!"
Cog said. "Senshi and I talked for a long time.
You know the Earth Defence/Leadership
Directorate has been destroyed, and so has Science
Island. Your brother is all alone!"
Kiko frowned.
"No he's
not," she said. "You heard him. He's Doctor
Brachis' deputy. He can stick with her if he's
feeling left out."
Cog scowled. She
knew something that Kiko did not. When Cog first
arrived in New Orleans she told Sei that Doctor
Brachis and Doctor Nagura were safe and that they
would contact the team as soon as they had the
chance; she had lied, on Doctor Brachis' orders. As
far as Cog knew, Doctor Brachis was inside Blizzard
Base Zero when Sei used Gattai Robo to teleport the
giant Buki Robo inside the base moments before it
exploded.
Senshi had told Cog
that he had had no contact with Doctor Brachis since
leaving Science Island a fortnight earlier. Even he
did not seem to know whether or not Doctor
Brachis had managed to escape Blizzard Base Zero in
one piece.
"Kiko..."
Cog said slowly. "What happened between you and
Senshi?"
"I'm not going
to talk about it," Kiko replied quickly.
"It doesn't matter anymore, as long as Senshi
stays out of my life!"
"What if he doesn't?"
Beep-bip!
Beep-bip!
Kiko glanced at the
communicator attached to her left wrist and saw that
one of the red buttons was flashing. She pressed it
firmly and heard Ikku's voice come through the
communicator's speaker.
"Miss Sato?
Can you hear me?"
"Yes,
Ikku," Kiko replied. "I have Cog." She
smiled. "And why do I have to call you Ikku when
you won't call me Kiko?"
Kiko heard Ikku
laugh.
"Okay, Kiko.
We can't find that pixie of yours."
Kiko's communicator
began to emit a regular beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.
"What's
that?"
"I changed my
communicator so it would find anyone using Eternity
energy," Kiko explained, "but Cog and
I are the only ones - "
WHUMP!
Kiko felt the hairs
on the spider-pixie's leg even through her robosuit.
She stumbled forward as the large limb struck her
back, but managed to keep holding on to Cog.
"Kiko?
Kiko? What's going - "
"Let's
go, Robo!" Kiko shouted.
Rather than emerge
from within her robosuit, the jagged pieces of metal
that formed the stronger components of the Roboman
armour came hurtling over the trees and scrub,
changing shape as they got closer. As Kiko waited for
the metal to fully reform and bond to the fabric of
her suit the spider-pixie attacked again, and then a
third time, knocking her off-balance but not causing
her any real harm.
I'm not going to
put Cog down again! Kiko thought. Senshi's
around here somewhere, and - ARGH!
One of the
spider-pixie's extra limbs hit Kiko's armoured chest
and she staggered backwards. Cog clung tightly to the
tiny grooves in Kiko's metal glove, grooves that
would have gone unnoticed by anyone but the two-inch
robot with her unique perspective. Quickly, Kiko
placed Cog in her left hand.
"Electro
Blaster!"
she said.
A dim blue glow
surrounded her arm and the spider-pixie stopped
moving and stared as, slowly, the handgun-sized
weapon materialised in Kiko's right hand. Kiko
stepped backwards as it formed, keen to put as much
distance between herself and the pixie as possible
while the Electro Blaster took shape.
Why is it taking
so long? she wondered. Normally - ah.
Kiko felt the
familiar weight of the Electro Blaster in her hand
and raised it hurriedly to aim point blank at the
centre of the spider-pixie's chest. She did not
hesitate to pull the trigger and two bright bolts of
yellow energy arced from the end of the blaster and
hit the monster hard.
Without warning, the
spider-pixie's extra arms began to flail wildly and
so quickly that Kiko found herself completely unable
to keep track of them. She took another step back and
reached for her communicator.
"Ikku!
Sei!" she shouted. "I'm at the lake, where
we - !"
Kiko was cut off as
the spider-pixie again struck her in the head, but it
did not just hit her once - it struck again and
again, knocking Kiko from side-to-side as well as
back and forward. The blows were not hard; she did
not feel any pain, but she did feel dizzy.
Suddenly Kiko could
no longer feel Cog holding on to her left hand.
"Cog!" she
shouted as the spider-pixie continued to push her
back and forth.
"Kiko!"
she heard the robot respond. "Raise your blaster
now! Straight ahead!"
Kiko did as she was
told and saw, out of the corner of her eye, two more
yellow energy blasts race from the end of the Electro
Blaster aimed directly at the spider-pixie's head.
One of the blasts missed completely and disappeared
into the undergrowth; the other hit the centre of the
monster's face... and it stopped moving.
Kiko fell to her
knees and began to breathe heavily before she
realised what had happened. She turned her head
slowly to examine the Electro Blaster and saw Cog
dangling from the weapon's trigger.
"Thank...
you," Kiko panted.
"Don't rest
yet!" Cog said. "The blaster's almost out
of energy!"
"What?"
Kiko asked. "I've hardly used it!"
Cog shook her head
furiously and climbed from the Electro Blaster back
onto Kiko's hand.
"You use jera
shards to create and power the Lightning Jet and
Robo Defender as well - and they take a lot of
that power!" Cog explained. "That thing
won't stay frozen for long!"
Kiko nodded.
"What should I
do?"
"Use your Alert
Bracer to call Ikku and Sei again," Cog
suggested. "Make sure they know where you are
and then you can destroy it with the Robo
Defender."
"Alert
Bracer?" Kiko raised her left hand. "You
mean my communicator?"
Cog nodded.
"Ikku? Sei? Can
you hear me?"
"We're
almost there!" Ikku's voice came through
the Alert Bracer's speaker clearly. "Just
hold on a little longer!"
"I'm
okay!" Kiko responded. "We managed to
freeze it, but Cog says it won't stay that way for
very long. We need the Robo Defender."
"We can see
you now."
Kiko turned her head
and saw the blue-hulled Water Cutter speeding across
the lake. She sighed heavily, and neither she nor Cog
noticed the spider-pixie moving again.
It flashed it arms
more quickly than ever, pummelling Kiko's chest, arms
and head. She fell onto her back and Cog rolled away
from her hand. The spider-pixie pounced and balanced
itself over Kiko, using its six arms and two legs to
form a living cage around her. She tried to scream
but could only imagine a quick yelp as spinnerets
poked through the pixie's skin and bombarded her with
thick, sticky webbing. In a single moment Kiko was
bonded to the soft ground - several moments later,
all but her head was wrapped in a coccoon of webbing.
"Chaos
Sword!" she
heard Ikku shout.
She smiled inside
her helmet as she saw the translucent red blade of
the Chaos Sword pass cleanly through one of the
spider-pixie's arms. The pixie squealed in pain and
scuttled several feet to the side.
Ikku slashed again,
and again, and a moment later the webbing was gone.
Kiko quickly got onto her knees and searched the
grass for Cog.
"I dropped
Cog!" she shouted.
"I'm over
here!" she heard Cog squeak beside her. She
turned her head quickly and found the tiny robot. She
scooped her back into her left hand and stood beside
Ikku. "Kiko... does the pixie look a little
bigger to you?"
Kiko nodded.
"Yes, but I
don't care!" she replied. "Sei, it's time
for the Robo Defender!"
"Vertex
Shield,"
Sei said calmly as he stepped down from the Water
Cutter. There was a bright blue flash as the shield
appeared and attached itself to his right arm. He
removed it and held it up in front of Ikku.
As the Robomen
moved, the spider-pixie moved from side-to-side,
never taking its eyes off Kiko. It did not see Ikku
push his Chaos Sword through the centre of the Vertex
Shield, but it clearly saw Kiko slide the barrel of
the Electro Blaster over the sword's hilt.
"Robo Defender, Slash Containment Burst!"
Kikopulled the
trigger on the Electro Blaster, sending a spark of
yellow energy along the length of the Chaos Blade,
directly at the centre of the spider-pixie's body.
The area around the battle turned pitch-black, the
only light provided by the crackling energy that
struck the eight-legged creature. The pixie stumbled,
fell... and began to grow.
"It's
the jera energy!" Cog said. "Kiko,
when you shot it the first time you must have increased
the speed around it! Now it is growing and
evolving so quickly... it might not stop."
"No,"
Sei said. "It is slowing down."
"At
five hundred feet..." Ikku muttered.
"We
will need Gattai Robo again," Sei announced.
Ikku
and Kiko glanced at each other. They did not need Sei
to tell them they needed a giant robot to fight
a giant monster.
"Phase
Three! Go
Robo Vehicles!"
Once
again the metal components separated from Kiko and
Ikku's armoured bodies and hovered in the air around
them. They changed shape, grew and fused together to
form two large and powerful machines; the rumbling
red Flame Tank and the unyielding yellow Lightning
Jet.
The
three Robomen hurried to the cockpits of their
respective vehicles. Kiko reached hers first and
immediately took flight. She flew in circles around
the head of the massive spider-pixie and narrowly
avoided the meters-thick strands of webbing that it
launched to keep her contained. It was only when Ikku
and Sei reached their own vehicles that she heard Cog
shout:
"Robo
Fusion!"
"Robo
Fusion! Gattai Robo!" they replied in
unison.
From
her vantage point high in the air Kiko was able to
watch the reflection in the lake as the three Robo
Vehicles combined to form the enormous Gattai Robo.
First, the Water Cutter split horinzontally down the
middle and folded apart to form a pair of black and
blue legs and a strong black 'pelvis'. Then the
turret of the Flame Tank lifted off as the rest of
the tank split in half. The turret connected to the
Water Cutter 'pelvis' to form a red 'spin', and the
two remaining pieces of the Flame Tank became red and
black arms.
Then
the spider-pixie struck.
["What?!"]
Kiko cried.
The
process of forming Gattai Robo had taken less than
five seconds and still, as Kiko watched from the
cockpit of the Lightning Jet, the spider-pixie
managed to strike the incomplete robot several times.
Before Kiko could do anything to help the stricken
Ikku and Sei the wings of the jet folded back,
leaving the jet looking like a solid rectangular
block with a nosecone attached. The block settled on
top of Gattai Robo's 'pelvis' and in front of its
'spine' to form a yellow torso and the nosecone
folded backwards as though it were a hood, revealing
the black and grey head of the robot.
Kiko
struggled to hold onto her controls as the Lightning
Jet's cockpit merged with those of the Flame Tank and
the Water Cutter to create a single control centre in
Gattai Robo's chest. The spider-pixie struck again
and Gattai Robo fell into the water and was
completely submerged.
"That
thing's fast!" Ikku shouted.
"Cog?"
Kiko asked. "What should we do?"
Cog
shook her head.
"You
need to get Gattai Robo upright!" she said.
Kiko,
Sei and Ikku pulled hard on the control sticks
embedded in the centre of their individual control
panels and slowly Gattai Robo began to right
itself... until the spider-pixie pummeled it again,
one hairy fist after another.
"How
did the pixie end up like that anyway?!" Ikku
asked. "I thought Miko actually cared - "
WHUMP!
The
spider-pixie hit Gattai Robo hard with all eight
fists at once. It lifted its arms again.
WHUMP!
"We
cannot last long against such powerful blows,"
Sei said. "Vertex Shield."
Blue
energy shimmered around Sei's right arm as the Vertex
Shield once again took shape and attached itself to
Sei. Outside the cockpit, on Gattai Robo's right arm,
a much larger version of the shield appeared.
"Vertex
Cutter," Sei said calmly as he raised his right
arm.
Gattai
Robo lifted its right arm too quickly for even the
spider-pixie to react and the razor-edged Vertex
Shield sliced through all three arms on its left
side.
"Vertex
Field," Sei said.
To
Ikku and Kiko the Vertex Shield seemed to disappear
into Sei's arm and the same blue energy rippled over
his body and began to cascade over his skin in
regular torrents. Outside, the same thing happened to
Gattai Robo.
The
spider-pixie raised the three arms on its right side
and punched Gattai Robo's chest; the lights inside
the cockpit flashed off and on as all of the power
within Gattai Robo was channelled into the hull. The
spider-pixie pulled its hands away quickly and the
blue cascade around Gattai Robo - and Sei - quickly
faded.
"Now!"
Sei said. "Stand up!"
Ikku
and Kiko pulled on their control sticks again and
Gattai Robo staggered to its feet. The spider-pixie
hissed at it angrily and rushed forward again.
"Chaos
Sword!" Ikku shouted.
The
black-and-silver hilted, red-bladed sword appeared in
his right hand amid a flash of blue and the same
thing happened to Gattai Robo. Ikku swung the sword
forward and into the topmost of the spider-pixie's
four remaining arms. The spider-pixie pressed up with
the same arm while it punched out with the remaining
two; Gattai Robo fell back and the sword slashed
through all three arms.
The
spider-pixie slowed down. Blood started to slowly
pour from its severed arms. It screamed again - and
the blood began to gush forth.
"What?
I didn't mean to...!" Ikku said.
"It
is the jera energy," Sei replied.
"It has worn off. Time is now moving normally
for the creature and it can feel the pain we have
caused it."
"But
it's just a spider, right?" Ikku asked.
The
spider-pixie screamed again and Ikku and Kiko
shivered. For a brief moment both of them saw an
image pass through their head; an image of a
red-skinned man looking down at a pixie as a spider
sank its teeth into the poor creature's flesh. They
could not feel the pain, but they felt what both the
pixie and the spider thought at the time - a
revolting mixture of pleasure and terror.
"What
was that?!" Kiko shrieked. "Cog?"
Cog
shook her head. Sei shrugged.
"It's
a pixie!" Ikku cried. "We have to help
it!"
"It
is too late for that," Sei said. "The best
we can do is put it out of its misery."
Cog
nodded.
"Sei..."
she said. She turned and showed her back to Sei. Kiko
had not noticed earlier, but the narrow slots on
Cog's back had all fused together. Only the topmost
slot, which contained a raido shard, remained
undamaged.
"Cog!"
Kiko cried. "Did he - "
"No!"
Cog replied quickly. "I did this to myself
trying to get away."
Outside
the spider-pixie collapsed face-first into the lake.
Blood spilled into the water and died it dark red.
"Guys...
we have to do something now," Ikku
said. "I can't - "
Cog
ran from Kiko's control panel to Sei's and looked up
at him. He knew exactly what she wanted to do.
"Vertex
Shield," he said.
The
shield quickly reappeared on his right arm even as
its larger counterpart attached itself to Gattai
Robo. Cog slowly walked along Sei's arm and, when she
reached the shield, she closed her eyes and jumped.
Her
arms, legs and head disappeared into her body so that
all that remained was a two-inch long flat rectangle.
Cog slipped into a narrow slit at the center of the
shield and it began to change, to lengthen, until it
resembled a long, thin gun barrel strapped to Sei's
arm.
An
identical transformation took place outside.
"Saikou
Blaster: Vertex Mode," Cog and Sei said
in unison.
They
aimed the gun barrel at the fallen spider-pixie and a
concentrated burst of blue energy blasted forth and
smothered its dying body. It glowed brilliantly for
several long moments, and when the bright blue
luminance finally faded, Ikku, Kiko and Sei saw the
spider-pixie's body as a solid lump of blue which
seemed to shatter into thousands of blue pieces and
disappear into the lake.
With
the threat gone, Gattai Robo began to fade away and
the three Robomen found themselves surrounded by the
same blue energy, which transported them safely to
the soft shore of the lake.
Sei
removed Cog from the centre of the Vertex Shield and
it, too, vanished; Kiko stared blankly into space;
and Ikku, the closest to the water's edge, collapsed.
He fell, face-first, into the blood-filled water and
did not resurface.
"Ikku!"
Kiko shouted.
She
dived in without thinking and groped blindly in the
murky water for Ikku's body. She found him quickly
and her arm wrapped around his torso as she kicked
her way back up to the surface. As soon as they
appeared above the water Sei reached down and pulled
Ikku onto the shore.
Ikku
coughed once and bloody water spilled onto his chest,
but he breathed easily.
"Ikku!"
Kiko cried again. She kneeled beside him and placed
her hands around one of his. "What's
wrong?"
"We
killed it," Ikku said. "We killed that
pixie. I know we killed others at Blizzard Base
Zero... and when Sorceress Miko robbed the bank...
but we didn't know... we didn't know they were really
alive. We didn't know they could think and
feel!"
"I
knew," Sei said.
Kiko
shot him an angry glare.
"Ikku..."
she said softly. "You're right. We didn't know.
That doesn't make it okay... but we know now. The
pixies have to be stopped, but we can find a way to
do it without making them suffer like that."
"H-how?"
Ikku asked. He sat upright. "How else could we
have stopped that pixie? It was a monster! It was
half-spider... why would Miko do that...?"
"Sei
knows," Kiko said. She stared up into Sei's
eyes. "Obviously these monster attacks haven't
stopped. Sei is going to show us how to use our
powers properly. Aren't you, Sei?"
Sei
closed his eyes.
"Miss
Sato - " he began.
"I
will!" Cog interrupted. "I will help you
learn!"
"Thank
you, Cog," Kiko said.
"Yeah..."
Ikku wiped his wet hair off his face.
"Thanks."
New
Orleans // March 16th, 2010
Kiko
walked through the shopping centre carrying several
shopping bags in each hand. Her robosuit was
concealed by a thick black coat over a bright yellow
t-shirt and a pair on black dress pants. Her feet
were slipped neatly into a pair of black high heels.
"Wow!"
Cog called from her hiding place in Kiko's pocket.
"This is shopping? I like it!"
Kiko
smiled.
"I
can't wait to see how the boys react," Kiko
responded.
She
walked out of the shopping centre and hurried down
the long streets between it and 'Hey, Pizza!'. She
was exhausted, not only from the sleepless night that
followed her team's destruction of the monstrous
spider-pixie but also from the effort of buying
things... and carrying things. She never
thought shopping would be as hard as it was.
She
walked into 'Hey, Pizza!' and, for the first time,
was not met with stares from the store's customers.
They barely even glanced at her as she walked through
the kitchen, past Trick and Kageki, and into the back
room she shared with Sei and Ikku.
"Wow,"
Ikku said as he saw her enter. "What happened to
you?"
Kiko
smiled. It was the first time either of the boys had
responded when she entered the room. She liked buying
things. She liked having things.
She
liked having something to do other than
thinking about monsters and villains... and Senshi.
"Miss
Sato," Sei said. "How could you afford all
of this?"
Kiko
smiled.
"Kiko
got a job!" Cog cried.
NEXT:
On Guard!
COG'S
SPECIAL REPORT!
 |
Hi! I'm Cog! The Robomen use a lot
of complicated technology, and sometimes it
can
be a bit hard to get your head around it all
- especially when you can't
actually see what's going on! (Hey,
if you can accept that a two-inch tall
robot is talking to you, you better be
able to accept that than they can
break the fourth-wall and acknowledge they're
a character in a work of
fiction!)
|
To help you out, I'm going to pop in
from time to time to let you know what I know
about the technology - and that isn't as much as you
might think. Doctor Nagura told me a lot, but he's a
world-famous bioroboticist... and while I might have
been one at one stage, I'm not 100% sure!
Today,
we are going to talk about the Robo Defender.
The Robomen wrapped their heads around this
one pretty quickly, but it isn't very complicated...
even the people on Science Island have a file on it!
After
my big day out with Kiko today - can you believe they
don't make dresses in a size 0.0000000000000002? -
I'm a little too tired to come up with something new,
so we might as well look at the same file Senshi saw
in Doctor Brachis' office!
That is
a really simple image of the Robo Defender in what
Doctor Nagura called its 'Basic Rendition'. There's a
good reason for that... but you're not going to find
out what it is just yet!
As you
can see, the Basic Rendition Robo Defender has three
parts: the red Chaos Sword; the blue Vertex Shield;
and the yellow Electro Blaster. The design is very
simple - the energy moves from the blaster into the
sword, and the shield works like a satellite dish, to
keep the energy focussed forward and not bouncing
around at odd angles!
The
Robomen haven't figured it out yet, but the Basic
Rendition Robo Defender can fire any sort of
energy - raido, jera or kenez... or
even a combination of them!
In
fact, it uses all three automatically and that's why
everything goes black - the raido energy
teleports everything in the area away while the kenez
energy warps reality, which it can do instantly
when it is sped up by jera energy. So far
though, the Robomen have just used it to freeze their
enemies, and that's good, but they could also
teleport them away or change reality around them!
Now
that they have me to show them the ropes maybe they
can learn how all this works - as long as Kiko's job
doesn't keep her too busy!
Next
time I will let you see what Gattai Robo looks
like and show you how the Robo Vehicles actually
combine together... but I don't think Gattai Robo
will be as useful against the team's next big enemy
as it was against the spider-pixie. He's not so big,
but he's definitely tough!
See you
next time! ^_^
