SpeedBlade:
I activate the hidden stone in the wall. Watching as the fake stone disappears into the brick wall, the wall then splits open. I walk into the OutPost, and the first things I see are QuickShot and JumpStart in front of the glowing thinking stone.
"Anything?" QuickShot asks when she sees me.
"No," I reply, shaking my head in shame. "I have run around and across the vast city many times, but could not find the evil Dr. Cho. She must be in hiding."
"Of course, she's in hiding," JumpStart says, his eyes focused on the glowing thinking stone. "There is no way she wouldn't be, especially when she's back to building a tiny little army of machines."
Crossing my arms, I walk up to JumpStart. Standing by his side, I look up at the glowing thinking stone and see a map of the city with notes on it.
"Have you found anything on the thinking stone?"
"It's called a computer," QuickShot says.
"Yes. The com--put--er. JumpStart. What are you doing?"
"I am trying to learn where there have been other robberies," JumpStart answers. "Remember last time? When Dr. Cho was building the Iron Fist Armor, she and Silent stole a lot of things from all over the city. Well, she must be doing it again. She needs supplies to build evil robots, right?"
"That makes sense," I say, nodding. "Did you find anything?"
"That's the strange thing," QuickShot answers. "We did find something, a lot of something, but it's not what we're looking for."
"What are you talking about?"
"According to the thinking stone, there has been a major increase in robberies. Some were done with fleets of small planes, just like the ones we fought earlier. Others were done with ground units."
"Ground units? Do you mean, like little metal soldiers? Ones that walk on the ground instead of flying?"
"Exactly," JumpStart says, putting up a finger. "Little metal robots that walk up to stores and---"
"Banks," QuickShot interrupts, her eyes looking at one of JumpStart's notes.
"Banks? What are banks?"
"Banks are places that hold money. A lot of money."
"Money? Do these banks hold anything else?"
"Maybe a few personal items or valuables, but that's about it."
"That does not seem right," I say, lowering my head. "The evil Dr. Cho is stealing money. She is not stealing metals or blacksmith tools."
"Maybe she's going to use the money to buy supplies," JumpStart says.
"Maybe," QuickShot replies, "But if she's going to steal, why not steal the parts she needs? Why steal money to buy them in the first place?"
QuickShot and JumpStart look at each other. As the two stare at each other, I look around and realize something is off.
"Wait? Where is Ms. Justice?"
"She's...gone," QuickShot answers. Uncrossing my arms, I look at QuickShot.
"What do you mean she is gone? What happened while I was gone?"
"I don't know," QuickShot answers.
"You do not know!"
"I don't know," QuickShot yells. She turns away from me, not being able to meet my gaze. "She said she was going out to help you find Dr. Cho and then just disappeared."
"What? Neither of you tried calling her?"
Snapping her head back, QuickShot looks right at me.
"You don't think we've tried calling her!"
QuickShot walks up to me and pulls the communicator from her pocket. "I tried! JumpStart tried! We tried over and over again, but nothing! We can't get a hold of her."
Gasping for air, QuickShot turns away from me and stares at the floor.
"I will try."
I pull my communicator and try calling Ms. Justice.
"Hello, Ms. Justice. Are you there? Hello. Hello? Ms. Justice? Ms. Justice! Can you hear me?"
No matter how loud I screamed or what I said, Ms. Justice would not answer me.
"Something must be wrong," I say, putting the communicator back in my pocket. "I am going back out to try and find her."
I do not waste a moment and turn around. Walking toward the base's exit, I open the door. About to step out, QuickShot stops me.
"SpeedBlade," she says.
"Do not stop me," I yell back. "I know finding Dr. Cho is of the utmost importance, but something is troubling Ms. Justice. She is not herself, and she keeps vanishing. I do not think she should be alone. I am going to find her."
I walk out of the OutPost, but stop again when I hear QuickShot.
"I wasn't going to stop you," she says while the doors are sliding back into their places. "I just wanted to say, find her. Please."
Turning to look at QuickShot and Jumping, the pair looks back at me. I nod just as the doors seal themselves and the OutPost is hidden again. Turning around, I start running.
SharpShot:
Throwing his arms around me, one of the robbers grabs and holds onto me.
"I got him," the robber screams. "I got him! Do it. Do it!"
While trying to shake the robber off, I look ahead and see his buddy running up to me. Armed with a blaster, the bubby raises his blaster and aims it at me.
Thinking fast, my arms still stuck against my sides, I read down and grab one of my blasters. Pulling it out from my holster, I fire.
The robber holding me lets me go. He screams and jumps up and down while holding his foot. While he's dancing around, I swing my blaster up and fire at the buddy, hitting his weapon and knocking it out of his hands. Pulling out my second blaster, I aim one blaster at the two of them. Shooting and knocking them out, I holster my blasters before turning.
"What are the chances of two armored truck robberies in one night?"
I ask myself this as I walk toward the truck. The heavy-duty back doors were blown open. One door is on the street, while the other one is barely hanging on by a squeaky hinge. Besides the destroyed door, there are hundreds of dollar bills raining around me and falling to the ground.
Walking over the bills, I check on the three security guards. Checking the one in the back before the two in the front, I let out a sigh of relief.
"They're all okay. Unconscious, and chances are they'll wake up with one big headache, but they're okay."
About to close the driver's seat door, I stop when I see something on one of the guard's uniforms.
"What is this?"
Reaching over, I pick up something small and flat, about the size of a quarter. However, as I pick it up, it zaps me. I scream and pull back my hand.
"Ouch," I cry, shaking my hand and then blowing on it. Thinking back to when I first arrived, I remember seeing the buddy shoot the driver with a blaster. The driver screamed and shook before falling.
Searching my pockets but finding nothing, I notice a pen in the driver's shirt pocket and an empty paper cup in the cup holder.
"Excuse me. I hope you don't mind me borrowing this for a quick second."
Taking the pen and cup, I push the thingy into the cup before sliding the pen back into the pocket.
"Definitely a blaster round," I say, "But not a normal one. Custom-made, like mine."
Folding the cup in on itself, I pocket the strange blaster round. As I shove the cup and round into my pocket, I hear something loud. Sounding like a series of mini explosions, I pull out my blasters and look around.
"What was that!"
Looking up, I see what looks like a black and white humanoid robot flying high in the night sky. The robot has rocket boots and is leaving a trail of thick black smoke as it flies.
Dropping like a rock in the water, the robot lands on the street with a thud, making a crater and sending shockwaves that rattle the whole truck. Screaming and nearly losing my footing, I grab the truck and hold on. When the shockwaves are over, I look up again and see the robot. At least 10 feet tall with one massive body, a single small head, and a pair of arms and legs bigger than my car, the robot stomps toward me. Pulling back one of its arms, the robot then throws it at me.
"Ahhhh!"
Jumping and rolling out of the way, I watch as its hand goes right through the truck's roof. In one quick motion, the robot rips the roof right off.
"First, a human copy machine, and now this! Seriously, how do the OutCasts do this?"
Aiming my blasters at the giant robots, I'm surprised to see the robot completely ignoring me. It rips the truck into pieces, throws the pieces away, and then takes the bags of money still inside. When its hands are full of cash, a compartment in its chest then slides open. Dropping the bags into the hidden compartment, the robot goes back to the truck for more bags.
"...Okay," I say, "Not sure what a robot wants with bills. I've always figured robots would use credit cards."
Raising my blaster, I begin shooting at the robot, but my rounds literally bounce off it, not even leaving a dent. It seems like, despite my rounds, I still managed to get the robot's attention. It drops the bag it was holding and slowly turns to face me. As the robot looks at me, its eyes go from black to red.
I begin to hear a revving sound, as if a machine is warming itself up. A few seconds later, a pair of bright red laser beams shoots out. They shoot from the robot's eyes and fly through the air toward me. Crossing my arms, I brace myself as the beams hit me.