By Talmid, beginning 12-14-2013
The Figdroids! 2 =O
Chapter 1
Jay was unlike any average minifig living in the suburban towns lying a few miles out of Nimbus City, the #1 Place To Build In as voted in the Nexus News Channel.Currently he was lanky, had brown hair, an expressionless face, was rather bored, didn't like building, and was more than a bit worrisome.His hometown of Nimbus Grove, the aforementioned suburban town, was usually a calm city, and Jay planned on keeping it that way.
If it wasn't for him and his sister Katie, the entirety of Nimbus Station, and Nimbus Grove included, would have been up in flames only a month ago, and glowing embers now.It wasn't because the town was not all that up to date with the technology of the rest of the whole Nimbus area, which it wasn't, but even if it was armed with the biggest, baddest, most powerful defenses the Nexus Force could put together, they would all still fall in the shadow of the Maelstrom.
All but two.
Two secret weapons, built as weapons, used as weapons, and now, living as weapons.
They are called Figdroids, though they go by the names Jay and Katie.
The Maelstrom were gone though, so now it was up to them to resume normal life.At least, as normal as they could make it.For Jay, that meant getting up 4 AM in the morning, getting on his bike, falling off his bike, breaking his bike, fixing his bike, getting back on his bike, going to the post office, picking up mail, coming back and delivering it to everyone in his neighborhood, going home, and getting jumped by Katie, three and a half long, repetitive, redundant, and boring hours later.
There was only one difference though.He no longer used a bike.
Now he had an ATV.
Chapter 2
Outside in a large spacious backyard behind Jay's house at 4 AM in the morning were only two occupants, a very tired Jay, obviously, and the aforementioned ATV. Through his red eyes Jay immediately saw with dismay that All Terrain Vehicle had already been Katie-ed. Yesterday it had been red. Now it was pink, with a heart flag already welded to the frame, and a bunch of Funky Girl decals adorning the vehicle's plastic body.
With a sigh, Jay looked past the ATV's exterior and examined its inner workings. There was a small dashboard with a key hole and two lights, one for when the ATV was turned on, and one to let him know it was in reverse, which it wasn't. Reaching a hand into his jean's pockets, Jay fumbled around for the key, and once he found it, he slipped it in the hole and turned it.
The running light turned on.
Nothing else did.
Now how did he start this thing?
His eyes landed on a little knobby thing on the handlebar, next to the brake lever. The starter switch.
Oh.
Jay reached over and pressed it. The starter immediately started spinning around, making an annoying whining sound as it spun around and around and around and.... that was the only sound. The engine didn't catch, and the ATV still didn't turn on.
A chilly November wind slammed into Jay's form, sending his hair blowing in one direction, then the other direction, then into his face. Suddenly conscious of the cold, he remembered reading about the choke switch, which was supposed to make the ATV easier to start in a cold environment. He reached around for it somewhere inside the frame, and once he found it, flipped it on. Then he ran the starter again.
This time the engine thundered to life, and Jay nearly fell off as the seat violently shook under him. He held on though, and let out a whoop at finally getting the thing to work.
Then it stalled.
He just had to figure out how to use it.
Chapter 3
Two hours later, the ATV was running and it and Jay were halfway across town, armed with a LOT of mail and already on their way back. Surprisingly, Jay was actually ahead of schedule, despite spending so much time trying to get the ATV to start, and stay on. In the end, Katie had to come down and get it running for him, and he was grateful, but now he had to give her something in return.
Jay sighed and just continued with his job. His neighborhood was just ahead, and once he entered through those front gates, the next hour would be spent doing the long, repetitive, redundant, and most of all boring task of going over to a mailbox, sorting through all the mail, finding the correct stuff at the very bottom (or not finding anything at all), putting it in the box, repeat the process, for some.... hundred plus mailboxes?
By the time 7 O'clock rolled around, Jay was just at the end of his route, with one mailbox to go. He pulled up to it and pulled out the last package from his mailbag, thrusting it into the mailbox and slamming the door, glad to be finished. With that, he turned around and headed home.
Then something rattled inside the mailbag.
The brakes went on and the ATV squealed to a stop, courtesy of Jay, who peered back into the mailbag again with a very annoyed look on his face. He had been wrong. There was one more package in the mailbag, staring back up at him with two googly eyes. It really had googly eyes glued to it, and a leek.
Jay picked it up, ready to go back to wherever it was supposed to go to and deliver it, once he found the address. He did, but the address wasn't to where he expected it would be.
It read 15 Exeter Drive.
His home.
Jay facepalmed. There was no normal return address on it, but he didn't even need to open it up to know where it came from. The leek was the return address, and he knew exactly who sent it.
The only thing he didn't know was why, but he figured it was horrible anyway.
Jay opened the front door of his home holding the package, his intention to go inside and leave it somewhere then go eat some more breakfast and go to school and come home and open the package. What actually happened was a pail mounted above the door overturned and dropped two gallons of water onto him. Or at least he hoped it was water.
"Ugh," Jay groaned, his hair, skin, and clothes sopping wet. His body heaters automatically turned on then, drying him, but leaving his clothes dripping droplets on the floor. And then there was the package, which lacked both heaters and clothing. Jay was glad he wasn't a cardboard box.
He ran to the kitchen, opened the oven, put the package in, set the oven to its lowest setting, hoping to simply dry the package, then closed the door before dashing upstairs and coming back down again 60 seconds later, this time in a different set of clothes that were not soaked with water.
Katie was crouching in front of the oven, peering through its door at the package. Jay blew up at her.
"What was that for?!" he shouted, annoyed.
"What was what for?" she shot back.
"The water!" Jay pointed to the pool of water that glistened over the tiles in the foyer.
Katie stood up to face him and folded her arms. "Are you accusing me of rigging a pail of water to fall on you the instant you opened the door?" she demanded.
"Yes." Jay affirmed.
"I thought you set it up."
Jay coughed. "Putting the blame on me now?" he sighed.
"Yeah," Katie sniffed. "I passed by this morning and I saw a pail over the door. Figured you did it so I left it there to backfire on you."
Jay facepalmed. "So you're still responsible."
"I thought you were responsible!"
"Well if itsn't one of us," Jay grumbled, "who did it?"
"Actually it is one of us." an apologetic voice said from the foyer.
Jay looked up from his facepalm as he and Katie whirled around to face the source of the voice. Their eyes landed on Sandy Studs, a rather short - for an adult - man with shaggy sand colored hair and a poorly shaven face. Their dad.
"Sorry," their dad repeated.
"I got two gallons of water dumped on me, so I hate you right now." Jay retorted.
"I'm not the one who got two gallons of water dumped on me, but I hate you right now too." Katie added.
"Hey," Sandy said, holding his hands up in peace, "remember, I helped build you two, you're water proof. No harm done, right?"
"Maybe after you build water proof clothes." Jay retorted.
"That's actually not a bad idea," Sandy thoughtfully thought out loud, thoughfully gripping his chin in his hand, thoughfully stroking an imaginary beard, lost in thought.
Then the oven exploded.
Chapter 4
During the mayhem of their dad grabbing a fire extinguisher and putting the fire out, fire trucks appearing from all over the place, firemen being all over the place, and the insurance company grudgingly paying for all the expenses, Jay and Katie managed to grab their backpacks and make it to school.
School. Jay hated school, though he never admitted it. Katie on the other hand was known to be very vocal about her likes and dislikes with the educational system, and made it very clear to all the teachers when she failed math in the previous year.
Things were different now, however.
After the mayhem of school, Jay was tired and bored. He sat on a concrete wall by a lamppost some 100 feet from the main building, waiting for Katie. As he watched, the last bus that stopped anywhere near Exeter Drive fired up its antigravity thrusters and disappeared down the road. Jay sighed.
He picked up voices from some 100 feet away, and through his right eye's peripheral vision focused on a large group of excited - and very loud - 7th grade girls, with Katie in the middle. He tuned in to their conversation, wondering what kind of mess his sister had gotten into now. She was always a fighter, getting into trouble a lot because of that, so the attention she usually got was either from the bad kids praising her rebelliousness, or the goody goody kids enacting their own punishments on her.
But the interesting thing was, this sounded different.
"How did you do it?" he heard one girl say.
"I'll be your best friend forever if you do my homework for me...." another girl pleaded.
Oh brick.
Jay jumped off his perch and turned to run to Katie and rescue her, when she suddenly appeared next to him, grabbing his arm and pulling both of them back behind the concrete wall.
As soon as they were under cover, Jay hissed, "What did you do?"
"I ran," Katie told him matter-of-factly.
"No, what did you do that caused this?" He gestured to all the girls who were now frantically searching for their lost center of attention.
Katie sighed. "I aced Math. And Language, and Social Studies, and Fitness, and-"
Jay groaned and facepalmed, for the second time that day.
"You know, you should hold a tally for that." Katie suggested.
Jay turned off his ears.
Chapter 5
The rest of the daylight hours passed by uneventfully, and by the time nightfall rolled around and everyone went to bed, Jay had all but forgotten about the doomed package from earlier that day. So as he got ready to snuggle up in bed and get a good night's sleep, he couldn't care less about the origins or objective of the ill-fated mystery box.
Standing in his dark room with the shine of the full moon through his bedroom window as the only source of light, the first thing Jay saw was that his sleeping place was messy. Make that very messy. And that didn't just refer to his bed. His blanket was scrunched up in a ball somewhere on the floor, as was his pillow. As for what did occupy his bed consisted of several articles of clothing and some various junk.
With a sigh, Jay set to work. Ten seconds later everything was in its correct place.
His mission completed, Jay flopped stomach down onto his mattress and yanked his blanket up to his head, doing so in a way that restored any form of neatness back into the mess it had been before. Then he closed his eyes went to sleep.
Or at least, tried to go to sleep.
With a groan, Jay tossed and turned, rolling over one way, then the other. Even Figdroids had trouble sleeping.
He opened his eyes again, and tried forcing himself to get tired by focusing on the dark ceiling some 7 feet above him. That didn't work, as he ended up effortlessly making out every single crack and indentation in the plaster.
Jay sighed again, and closed his eyes, but ended up opening them immediately after. That only gave him a clear view of what the inside of his eyelids looked like, which didn't look very pretty. Darn super eyes, he thought.
Then he realized that his room had gone dark. He tilted his head towards the window, but it was completely dark. Where had the moon gone?
Then the window shattered and something wet impacted on the floor of his room.
Jay screamed.
Chapter 6
Jay immediately cupped a hand over his mouth to cut off his scream. It was way past bed time for anyone under planning on making it to school tomorrow, and he didn't want to wake up the neighbors, if he hadn't already. He hoped it wasn't too late, but he didn't dwell on that. There were more pressing matters on hand.
Whatever had came in through his window, it was in his room now, somewhere between him and the light switch. The room was pitch black, and he couldn't see a thing.
Where are Super Eyes when you need them, Jay thought, but he didn't have to look very far. All he had to do was use his ears. In response to Jay's terrified scream, the something that was wet that had fallen on the floor emitted an even more terrifying sound, a horrible, malevolent, guttural, and very loud "QUACK!"
Jay dove head-first off his bed and right down on whatever it was that had made the "QUACK!" sound, prompting even more "QUACK!" sounds from whatever it was that had made the "QUACK!" sound, though now they were muffled because he had landed on top of it. In doing so, he had smashed his head into the opposite wall, which hurt the wall, but didn't hurt him.
Jay rolled over, clutching the "QUACK!"ing thing while he made his way to the light switch. He flipped it on, and found himself face to face with a pink duck. Incredulous, Jay held up the duck, staring into its face and wrinkling his nose in disgust. It looked like a duck, quacked like a duck, and smelled like a duck. It was most definitely a duck.
Jay looked lower, where a rolled up something was wrapped around the duck's left leg. Still clutching the duck, he pulled off whatever it was from the duck's leg and unrolled it.
It was a post-it note, with half a message written on it.
He didn't get a chance to read it though, because then the sound of glass shattering made its way over from Katie's room.
Chapter 7
Jay darted out of his room and into the hallway, still holding onto the duck. Up ahead was the closed door to Katie's room, where what sounded like a scuffle was going on.
Leave it to Katie to wrestle with a duck, Jay thought, bemused, before running to the door and grabbing the handle. It was locked.
"Open up!" he shouted, twisting the handle and forcing the door open, inadvertently breaking the lock in the process. Jay was then bombarded with the biggest wave of vibrant, hot, pink he had ever seen, and hopefully would ever see. And he was only looking through the doorway.
Jay shook his head and ran through the doorway. He instantly tripped over a pile of dirty socks strategically placed to trip anyone not staring at the floor, which he wasn't. He faceplanted on the plush pink carpet, and quickly rolled over only to get kicked in the back of his head. Jay saw error messages for a few seconds, and during those few seconds a green rabbit hopped over him and hid under Katie's bed, followed by Katie, who being several times larger than the duck, ended up getting stuck, still sprawled over Jay.
"Get off!" Jay groaned, extricating himself and standing up, only to stumble into Katie's dresser and knock all of her various things that were so precariously perched on it, down to the floor.
"Get out," Katie retorted, interrupting her continued attempts at reaching the green rabbit, which was hiding in a dark corner under the bed. "What are you doing here anyway?"
Jay coughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Saving you." he grumbled.
"From a bunny?"
Jay facepalmed. "Yes."
"Three." Katie counted.
"What?"
"You've done that three times now."
"Oh brick." Jay walked over to the end of the bed, grabbing it and hoisting it up. The rabbit, exposed to the light, freaked out and hopped straight into Katie's arms, which latched onto it and held it fast.
"Now what would a little bunny like you be doing here?" she cooed, and Jay was about to facepalm again, before he caught himself.
The rabbit bit her, and she held it up as if to throw it against the wall.
"Animal cruelty." Jay warned.
"No, look," Katie said, holding the rabbit to Jay and with her other hand gestured to a gaping hole in its back, where its tail should have been.
"Now look down." Jay followed Katie's gaze to the floor, where a green pom-pom lay, deeply contrasted against the pink carpet.
They turned back to the hole. Visible through it was a gray colored plate, with wires running through it.
"It's a Figdroid!" Jay gasped.
"Robot." Katie corrected him, and Jay sighed. "What's it doing here anyway?" she continued. She turned to Jay and glared at him. "What are you doing here?"
"I already-"
"Yeah, whatever."
"I have an answer," Jay said.
"Oh?"
"It's a messenger."
"That doesn't tell me why you're invading my room."
"I'm answering your first question!"
"That still doesn't-"
Jay facepalmed, and instantly regretted it.
"Four," Katie added.
"Look," Jay pouted, holding out the post-it note he retrieved from the pink duck. "I got this from the pink duck."
"What pink duck?" Katie asked. "Where?"
Jay actually wasn't sure where it was either, but he ignored her, instead reaching for the bunny's- rabbit's leg. That kick must have messed up something, because now he was thinking like Katie. As he expected, tied to the rabbit's robotic limb was a rolled up post-it note, which he unrolled. He held it up next to his own.
"It's a message." he said.
"Read it." Katie told him.
The message read....
Chapter 8
...."Meet me at Brick Annex" was on the first post-it note.
"'s Launch Pad to Frostburg. - NOW" was on the second post-it note.
Katie glanced at Jay, who glanced at Katie, who shrugged. "I guess we'd better go to the Launch Pad, like, now." she said.
Jay scanned the note again, his brow creased in thought. "I'm not sure...." he said slowly, "the message's formatting is pretty weird...."
"Look bro," his sister decided for him, "it says now. So let's go now. What could go wrong?"
Everything could go wrong, but that didn't seem to daunt Katie, who Jay saw had already bundled up in a white winter jacket and slouch boots while he was busy poring over the post-it notes. With a sigh, he headed back to his room and got himself ready for the inevitable snow.
Even if they didn't go to Frostburgh, it was cold outside. It never hurt to be prepared, especially when again, everything could go wrong.
Five minutes later, Jay and Katie stood outside their house in the driveway. Jay was buried inside a blue and black jacket that was a bit too big, camo-colored snow boots that fit just right, and black gloves that were slightly small, and did little to protect his hands from the frigid air of the autumn night.
"Alright then," Katie said, snapping Jay to attention. "Where's Brick Annex?"
"Far away." Jay said. He shivered. "Think we can catch a bus?"
"This late? Nah. Can't we run?"
"I think I'm too frozen for that."
"Then you can drive."
"What?"
Katie glared at Jay. "Last time I looked out the window, there was an ATV in the back yard. You can drive."
Jay stared back at her incredulously. "But it's loud, and it'll wake everyone up."
"I'm pretty sure the mailman already does that at 4 AM."
"Fine." Jay submitted with a sigh.
Five minutes after that, the ATV was up and running, with the two siblings well on their way to Brick Annex. Jay was practically perched ont he gas tank, with most of the small seat and the footwells occupied by Katie. The ATV actually wasn't all that lud, and thankfully didn't seem to wake up anybody either, as they didn't see any lights being turned on in windows as they drove by. No shotgun blasts were heard either, not that they would have hurt the Figdroids, being, well, Figdroids.
"Left turn!" Katie called, and Jay turned left onto the next road that would take them to where they needed to go. They were not completely out of their neighborhood, and Jay wasn't really sure how they were supposed to get back, but he pulled a Katie and tried not to think about it. Nimbus City was up ahead, with quite a way to go before they would arrive at Brick Annex. To do so, they had to go past Nimbus City, then go around Nimbus Plaza, then head Northeast to the apartment complex that was Brick Annex.
The ATV was far from aerodynamic, as it wasn't designed for maintained travel at high speed. While it was an All-Terrain-Vehicle, its suspension and tires were meant for more off-road driving, not street travel. And there was no windshield for Jay, so at 30 MPH+, with the cold wind blowing his hair all over his face, he was very, very uncomfortable.
Katie had a windshield though. It was called Jay.
After fifteen minutes of driving down empty roads, they finally made it to Nimbus Plaza. Jay had topped off the gas tank just before they left. The fuel gauge now read just under three quarters full. Or a quarter empty, Jay thought morbidly as he navigated around the circle.
Ten years ago, this entire place used to be surrounded by lots of trees, and was navigated completely by footpaths. Now there were still a lot of trees, but rather than walk on footpaths, the current population drove on asphalt.
Regardless, these roads were slower, and Jay was happy to drive slower. Less wind to batter his red face.
"There's Brick Annex," Katie pointed out, gesturing to a road at the side that lead to Brick Annex. Jay complied and headed down that road. After awhile, a huge billboard with several signs on it appeared over a hill. "Welcome to Brick Annex!" was written out on it in alternating yellow and blue neon lights. Underneath it was a smaller noticeboard. Jay pulled up in front of it and flicked the kill switch before locking the brakes and putting the key in his pocket.
"Look at this," Katie said, and Jay turned to her. She was holding an old flyer, showing a pretty accurate CGI photo of the Brick Annex skyline, with the same mega billboard they stood under in the foreground, along with a Donation Jawbox. "'Brick Annex'," Katie read. "'Help us build the City of the Future. Donate NOW at the Nimbus Jawbox today!'"
She looked up from the flyer, then down at the ground, where an old, battered Jawbox lay on its side on the ground, half buried by vegetation.
"It's dated 2016." Katie said about the flyer.
Jay was staring up at the towering apartment buildings around them. "Well, they sure did built the 'City of the Future'."
For a few moments, they took in the mesmerizing sight that was Brick Annex. It was truly a most magnificent sight, just one of countless examples of the power of building, and how with that power, imagination could be built into reality.
Katie coughed, and Jay snapped out of his reveree. "Alright then," she said. "Let's go?"
Jay nodded. "Let's go."
After pushing the ATV behind a bush, Jay and Katie elected to walk. According to the maps they had, the launch pad to Frostburgh wasn't far.
Let's just hope we don't stay long, Jay thought.
They went.
Chapter 9
The roads were especially quiet for the sprawling residential city that Brick Annex was. Most cities had cars, people and lots of noise all over the place, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and then how many years the city had been there for. In Brick Annex's case, it had been the city it was now for around ten years.
And it was pretty hard to believe that for ten years, Brick Annex had been the quietest city in the Nimbus System. Actually, it was hard to believe that any city could be quiet for ten years, or even one year, or one week, or one day, or one hour.
Growing up in a little suburban town full of houses and cracked streets, Jay was used to quiet, but here in Brick Annex, the silence was defeaning.
Katie broke the silence. "The Launchpad to Frostburgh is thataway," she said, pointing towards the only building that was not 30 stories tall: A relatively flat, but very large, bus station with huge soundproof hologram windows spanning the entire perimter and height of the building's sides, instead of walls, with lots of buses visible through the the windows.
Being holographic windows, Jay and Katie were able to walk right through them, though they immediately found themselves lost in a maze of hover buses.
"Which way?" Jay whispered.
"That way," Katie told him, gesturing to a gap between two buses on the left. She proceeded through it, and Jay went in after her. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it through, only to find themselves surrounded by even more buses.
"Now where do we go?" Jay hissed.
"This way," Katie said matter of factly, and headed between another two buses. This kept happening two more times before Katie snapped, "Just shut up and follow me," which he did, not without a sigh. Jay had to admit though, his sister had gotten them this far anyway, so he had little reason why not to trust that she knew where they were going.
Where were they going?
Chapter 10
After a bit more walking they arrived at a series of launch pads. Jay looked around, but couldn't see anyone else in the area, aside from Katie. "Something tells me these aren't the launch pads we're looking for," he said thoughtfully. These launch pads were more like launch tubes without the tubes, so they were literally launch pads, except they were hirozontal and faced holes in the "wall."
"Either way, there's no launch pad to Frostburgh either," Katie added, glancing around the bus station. She stopped suddenly. "What if we've been sent on a wild goose chase? Think we've been tricked?"
Despite the prospect, Jay found himself barely holding back a laugh, which he painfully swallowed. "You only thought of that now?" he coughed.
Then a door slammed, loud and distinct in the still night air. Jay and Katie jumped into each others' arms and in an instant found themselves in a tangle of arms and legs on the floor. "Hey-"
Jay was cut off by Katie, who pressed a finger against his lips. "Shhhhh," she hissed, and then whispered in his ear, "it came from that way." She pointed up.
They looked up just in time to see three dark figures disappear into a balcony after traversing an industrial catwalk near the roof. They were silhouetted against the sky, so Jay and Katie could only make out their shapes, and sizes. The first was distinctively minifigure, and large enough to be around 16, probably a boy. The other two following him were much smaller. One was shaped like a duck, and the other like a rabbit.
"I think that's our man," Katie said, and stood up, determined.
"Do you think he saw us?" Jay whispered.
"Definitely."
"Well, we're expected, aren't we?"
Jay stayed silent, and instead followed Katie towards one of the buses. In one leap, she made it onto its roof, and from there looked ready to jump onto the catwalk, which she did very silently. She waved, and with a sigh, Jay attempted to replicate the process.
He climbed onto the bus just fine, but from there realized early that he had jumped a bit too low to hit the catwalk. That would be just fine, if his course wasn't going to have him hit the windshield of a fast approaching bus instead. Which it was.
In a panic, Jay flailed his arms, and his hands touched the metal floor of the catwalk. Magnets in his hands instantly pulled him to a painful halt, dangling from the catwalk, which also would have been fine, if his momentum hadn't transferred itself to the catwalk.
Metal creaked and groaned as the catwalk, and Jay's stomach with it, lurched very noisily. Whatever cover they could have had, it was now blown. Several pairs of footfalls reverbrated across the catwalk from neighboring balcony, which were then joined by the sound of Katie's slouch boots pounding against the other side of metal piece of metal Jay was attached too. Then he heard an "Oya!" and a bang, then a short scuffle, and finally a "Gotcha!" from Katie. Then there was silence.
Cautiously, Jay peeked over the short railing. With his super eyes, he saw Katie half crouching, half kneeling on whoever the guy was she had just tackled. Jay hoisted himeslf up and joined her. She began the interrogation.
"Who are you?" she demanded, and even Jay found himself trembling from the intensity of his voice. He had never heard his sister this harsh before, and suddenly he was very thankful for never being on her bad side, at least, not a lot....
The guy was pretty scared too, because his voice trembled when he replied, "I'm Now."
"Spell it out!" Katie yelled, and Jay nearly fell over.
"Naive Oxymoron Wheel!" the guy shrieked. "Please don't hurt me!"
"Uh, yeah," Jay agreed, "please don't hurt m- er, him."
Katie turned at Jay and rolled her eyes. "Fine then, what do you want with us?" she asked to Wheel, in a slightly softer, but hardly less intidimating tone of voice.
"I could ask you the same," he squeaked. "What do you want with us?"
"Alright then," Katie nudged her knee a bit more into his back. "Where are your friends? You know, the duck and the bunny?"
Wheel was silent for a second, which was too long for Katie. She nudged him a bit more forcefully until he yelped, "Alright I'll call them!" He paused a moment, like he had second thoughts on betraying his small furry and feathery friends, but he opted against getting his back broken by a twelve year old girl. He took a deep breath and called, "Woralet, Komalelet, come out!"
Promptly, two pair of eyes appeared in the shadows, and their owners, a pink duck and a blue rabbit, came out into the open to stand by their master.
"Wora-what?" Katie repeated.
Wheel sniffed. "Don't make fun of my friends."
"Alright," Katie said. "Now, again, what is it you want with us?'
"I don't know what I want with you!" Wheel cried, exasperated. "I don't even know who you guys are."
Katie looked like she wanted to sock him, but Jay tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey, he might be telling the truth. We might as well introduce ourselves too."
"And please get off me," Wheel whined.
Katie scrambled to her feet, and a very relieved Naive Oxymoron Wheel stood up and dramatically dusted off his clothes, the front sides of which were covered in dust, courtesy of Katie. They were green dungaree pants, a red shirt with a green heart in the center, and a leather jacket. He wore a utility belt around his waist, held in which were a sceptor adorned with a yellow gem, a black drill, and a scabbard with the handle of a sword sticking out of it.
"I'm Jay," Jay said, "and this-"
"I'm Katie." she cut him off.
Jay sighed. "We're the Figdroids."
Wheel's eyes widened and his jaw dropped, then closed, then opened again, like a fish. His hands twitched and his legs buckled. Finally he dropped to the floor and actually bowed down to them.
"My heroes," he gasped, before fainting.
Katie folded her arms. Jay facepalmed.
Chapter 11
Jay quickly stopped facepalming, but he was too late. Katie had seen him, and she looked smug.
"Don't tell me," Jay started.
"Five." Katie announced.
Jay ignored her and turned back to Naive Oxymoron Wheel. "Why exactly are you bowing to us?" he asked.
Wheel remained on the ground.
Katie rolled her eyes and grabbed Jay's arm. "Come on bro, we're not getting anything from this.... guy. Let's go." She yanked him onto the catwalk, and Wheel didn't follow. She made her way to the ground and started walking towards the edge of the bus station.
"You seem like you're in charge," Jay said, once he caught up with his sister, "what are we doing now?"
"We go home." Katie said, an edge in her voice.
"After all this?" Jay flung his arms in the air, annoyed. "We're not going to try and find out more about why we were brought here-"
Something crackled under Jay's foot. They stopped walking, and he bent down to pick it up. It was a newspaper clipping. It read, "Young Heroes Save the Imagination Nexus!" underneath a picture of Katie and Jay standing in an elevator at the top floor of Nexus Tower. The sad thing was, half of Jay's face was missing. He crumpled his face at the memory.
"Look," Katie said, and Jay looked up. She stood behind him, and was pointing over his shoulder. He followed her gaze, which was towards a rickety notice board, covered with more newspaper clippings, like the one Jay was holding, which must have fallen from it. The creepy thing was, they were all about Jay and Katie.
Jay broke the silence. "I feel stalked," he admitted at last.
"Cheer up, we obviously have fans." Katie said, playfully punching him in the shoulder.
"And I bet I know who," Jay grumbled.
They turned around, and found themselves facing a trembling Naive Oxymoron Wheel.
Jay finally noticed, as in really noticed, the guy's attire. "You're a Nexus Force soldier?" he asked.
"Yes," Wheel said.
"Achievement unlocked, get Naive Oxymoron Wheel to talk," Katie drawled sarcastically.
"Will you talk now?" Jay asked.
"Yes," Wheel said.
"Good," Jay sighed in relief. "So can you please tell us what's going on here?"
* * * * * * * *
The three were up on the balcony again with Naive Oxymoron Wheel's little furry friends, except this time he was actually making sense.
"I work with the Nexus Force," Wheel began. "Just this morning, or was it yesterday? I can't remember, but I was at Frostburgh."
"You were at Frostburgh?" Jay repeated.
"Yes," Wheel continued, "you see, I got a message from my team leader that some really strange monsters were causing problems at Frostburgh and they had to be eliminated, at all costs. The guy who gave me the mission sounded very urgent, and since I was in Nimbus Station right then, I went immediately without backup. When I got there the monsters were everywhere and they were destroying things. They were strange, nothing like I'd ever seen before, but they were definitely Maelstrom. They were infecting the place too, but seemed to care more about destruction that simply infecting. Wherever they went, a trail of fire followed them. They outnumbered me, so I got back on my rocket and tried to launch. Then I found these guys in the cabin with me,"
He gestured to the pink duck and the blue rabbit.
"They're strange too, but they're not Maelstrom. I think they might be native to Frostburgh. I've heard that it's a magical place, and these little guys seem pretty magical too." Wheel said.
"I'll bet," Jay agreed.
"So anyways, as soon as I launched, one of the monsters jumped on my rocket and partially infected it or something. Then I saw a very bright light with hints of violet, and suddenly I was here!" Wheel exclaimed, looking around wildly. "Up on this balcony in this strange building with Rowalet and Komalelet. I walked around a bit and found that notice board with then newspapers with you in them. It said you saved the Imagination Nexus, so I figured you could be trusted. I told Rowalet and Komalelet to find you and bring you here. I wrote a note."
"Yeah, I have them here," Jay reached into his pocket and handed Wheel the two notes.
"I just didn't expect you to get here so fast," Wheel was saying.
"Well, you did say 'NOW'." Jay said.
"Those were my initials." Wheel snapped.
"Oh."
"I planned on using the time it took for you to get here to find my rocket and prepare it," Wheel continued.
"Prepare for what?"
"Going back to Frostburgh." Wheel said matter-of-factly. "Except this time you're coming with me."
Jay stared at him like he had just said an oxymoron. "Hold on a minute, look, Naive Oxymoron Wheel, your story is already pretty hard to believe, no, make that very hard to believe. You seem like a nice guy and all, but you have to understand, we can't go with you."
"What?" Wheel looked shocked, then hurt. "But you're heroes, and so am I! Together we can go and save Frostburgh!"
"But that's the thing," Jay said. He put a hand on Wheel's shoulder, and looking him straight in the face, he said quietly but firmly, "there is no Frostburgh. The comet's been melted for ten years."
Chapter 12
Silence hung over the balcony for several long moments. Wheel repeatedly opened and closed his mouth like a fish, as if he wasn't sure how to respond. Jay wasn't sure what to say either. Wheel seemed like an honest minifig, but his story was just too unrealistic to be true. Maybe the guy had memory loss, and he was a hermit hiding out at the top of this building for ten years, and the last thing he remembered was Frostburgh. That couldn't be right though, because clean-shaven Naive Oxymoron Wheel didn't look to be older than eighteen, and the Nexus Force and its subsidaries didn't draft kids.... unless they were super robots like himself.
"What do you think Katie?" Jay turned to his sister, and found her sitting the ground with her back to the wall. In her ears were pink earpods, which in turn were connected to her I-Brick.
Jay barely stopped himself from facepalming for a sixth time. "KATIE!" he yelled.
"What?!" she stood up and glared at her brother.
"How long have you been ignoring us?" Jay groaned, gesturing behind towards Wheel. Katie glanced past him and rolled her eyes.
"Well it's just you now," Katie said, and went back to her I-Brick.
Exasperated, Jay flung his arms and turned around. Katie was correct, Wheel was nowhere to be seen. He'd probably run off again. With a sigh, Jay ran off too.
His super-eyes detected a large heat signature around a bend in the balcony, obscured from normal vision behind a supporting pillar. Jay approached it, and found Wheel standing in front of a damaged rocket. It was truly in a sorry state. The nose was severely dented, the windshield was cracked, and the side windows were blown off. The cargo bay doors in the underbelly where bent open at odd angles, with everything down under either ripped apart or missing, including the landing gear. The thruster section however looked great in comparison, with it and the interior of the cabin receiving only minor damage.
Wheel was in the cockpit playing with the ignition. A dull whine was all that came out of the rocket each time he pressed the power button for the engine. He stopped when he saw Jay standing beside him, and he jumped out.
"This is my rocket," Wheel said. "She's very damaged."
"I can see that...." Jay said.
"Take a look at this." Wheel continued, and he helped Jay climb into the cockpit. It was a small cabin, with accomodations for only one passenger, the pilot. There was a bit of storage space behind the seat, though it was occupied by random items and a backpack, most likely Wheel's.
Wheel jabbed a finger towards the dashboard, and Jay stared past it at an antiquated navigational display system. "Look at the flight log," Wheel pointed out.
Jay blinked. Under the destination tab was Frostburgh, if he wasn't imagining things, or if the computer was displaying realtime information. He pressed the refresh button, but Frostburgh remained on the screen.
"No way," Jay gasped, turning to face Wheel. "So you want us to fix this rocket, fly this rocket, and go fight some powerful, never seen before monsters? What if it's a sensor glitch? Frostburgh that may or may not even be there."
"These sensor systems were the best and most expensive sensor systems available when I installed them," Wheel bragged, "and I installed them myself."
A light clicked on in Jay's head, but it was quickly shrouded by more pressing matters, like that of the rocket. "You're the expert," he said to Wheel with a frown. "What do you think we need to do to get this rocket into the air?"
"The flight controls and thrusters are intact, that's all that matters," Wheel said. "Frostburgh is only a short distance from Nimbus Station, so you'll only be in space for a short time. You can just hold your breath, though you probably don't even need to breathe.... and even if you don't, trust me, Frostburgh is there. You really gotta do this."
Jay sighed. "Fine then, we'll go. But first," he reached behind the seat and started throwing stuff out, "we're getting rid of this junk."
"It's not junk." Wheel whined, but he helped clear some space behind the pilot's seat for a second passenger. Katie appeared then, not looking too pleased, but when she saw Jay in the pilot's seat, she climbed up and started pulling him out.
"Hey!" Jay protested, as she forcefully removed him from the seat and took his place.
"Move over, bro." Katie affirmed, and Jay grudgingly climbed into the small space that would be his seat for the duration of the journey to the phantom Frostburgh.
"All we need now is more power to get the engines up and running," Wheel stated.
Katie glanced back at Jay. "I wonder where we'll get that from...." she said, sounding thoughtful. Jay shuddered. He knew exactly what her plan was.
A few minutes later, Jay was literally wired up to the rocket's power system, specifically to its large black battery in the front of its thruster section, accessed through a panel at the rear of the cabin.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Jay called, worriedly.
"Definitely safer than where we're going," Katie quipped.
Jay swallowed his fears and shut his eyes as Katie's finger hovered over the starter button. Then she pressed it.
The thrusters shuddered to life with a loud reverbrating rumble that could probably wake up everyone in Brick Annex. With all of Jay's energy reserves at its disposal, they had unleashed a powerful beast that would take them to Frostburgh and back - hopefully.
"Let's do this!" Katie whooped, and she transferred power - Jay's power - to the antigravity core. The rocket began levitating, then slowly aimed its broken nose towards the open wall.
"Good luck!" Wheel called, barely able to be heard over the roar of the engine.
Flames began shooting out of the thruster cones, and the sound increased twicefold. Then Jay remembered something important he'd forgotten to ask Naive Oxymoron Wheel.
"Wheel!" he shouted. "What year is it?!"
Whether his voice made it to Wheel, or if it could be heard at all would never be known to Jay, because a moment later the rocket shot out of the building at breakneck speed, pulling up hard till it aimed straight up into the sky. It cleared the trotosphere, then the stratosphere, then the mesosphere, and finally past the ionosphere until it was enveloped in the vacuum of space. Behind them was Nimbus, receding farther and farther away while in front of them was what appeared to be some sort of gigantic bright ring floating in the middle of space, and it was approaching very, very quickly.
"That doesn't look like a comet." Jay pointed out.
Then the rocket flew into the ring, and all Jay and Katie could see was white, then darkness.
Chapter 13
It took Jay several moments to realize that the darkness shrouding his vision was actually what the inside of his eyelids looked like. He opened them, and instantly wished he hadn't. Blindingly reflective whiteness as white as white could ever be filled his entire vision, and seemed to fill his entire world too. All around him white coated the ground, formed a wall over the horizon, and floated through the air in infinite tiny particles.
He felt weak, so the realization that he was buried in snow came several moments later, as did the memory that he had probably become buried in snow by crashing into it with a rocket - a rocket which he had been powering.
A rocket which his sister had piloted.
The snow was like pitch black darkness, except it was pitch white... whiteness. Jay looked from side to side, trying to discern something in the ground. One of his hands wrapped around a wire, and he pulled it.Â
Energy and strength flowed into his motors, and feeling renewed, Jay got to his feet, easily balancing himself on the powder. His eyes auto-dimmed like sunglasses, letting him make out smaller details in the snow, like a strange potrusion where he'd just gotten off from, shaped like the engine module of a rocket.
He had to dig it out.
Jay immediately set to work. He tried wrapping his arms around where he assumed the rocket's thruster cone to be. His hands disappeared into the coating powder, unable to find anything to grab onto that wasn't snow. Then he felt metal, and wrapping his fingers around it, he pulled with all his strength.
A second later Jay was flat on his back, a rocket on top of him, pressing him into the snow. Maybe he hadn't needed to use all of his strength, he reflected, and he slid out from under the rocket, though its heavy, rounded mass was starting to sink in the soft powder like quicksand.
Before that could happen, he brushed off a section of the cockpit glass. It was frosted over and sealed shut, so without further ado he raised his fist and punched it.
Chapter 14
The glass shattered into a million pieces which sprayed out in a million directions. Jay was about to climb through the pretty big hole he had just created when Katie climbed out, and she didn't look very happy.
"Why'd you do that?" she yelped, giving Jay a glare once she was out of the rocket. She had to shout to be heard over the rushing of the wind. "I was chilling in there, and it was warm."
Jay bristled. Pinpricks of snow battered his face, and the jealousy of how Katie got the luxury of warmth while he was stuck outside the snow actually warmed his cheeks, somewhat. "Look, the rocket was sinking." he explained. "We may as well get going."
"Where?" Katie asked.
"Well," Jay said, "We could try and find civilization, or try and launch the rocket-"
A loud groan filled the air, and Katie lunged at Jay, knocking him to the ground several minifigure-lengths behind where he'd been standing before, and just in time. The soft snow around the rocket separated, revealing cracks in the harder snow below. Then it all plunged into an abyss of liquid water, which promptly froze over, after the rocket fell through.
Jay sighed, and Katie punched him in the shoulder. "I guess we're finding civilization." she said, and Jay nodded in agreement.
The two siblings stood up and examined the seemingly endless length of powder, snow, and wind that awaited them.
* * * * * *
The storm let up after half an hour, and the snow hardened into a slick, slippery surface that was easier and faster to slide on than to walk on. After another hour of travel, Jay and Katie were still surrounded by endles snow. Jay surveyed his surroundings, and found himself and his sister surrounded on all sides by towering hills of slippery snow, which would be absolutely no fun whatsoever climbing up.
Katie bolted halfway up one slope, then slid right back down a few seconds later. "Try it," she said.
"It's a lost cause," Jay groaned.
"It's fun," Katie said.
His eyes widened incredulously. "So we're stranded on lots of ice, lost, probably away from home, and probably on some other world too, and all you can of is fun?"
"I didn't say that," Katie grumbled. "If the situation really is that hopeless for you, it can't hurt to be optimistic."
"It can't help either," Jay challenged.
"It will when you die happy."
"Can we even die?"
An enourmous rumble filled the air, again, and Katie looked ready to do some tackling, again, when suddenly a familiar looking rocket appeared over a mountaintop. Jay starting jumping up and waving his arms, hoping to get the pilot's attention. Then Katie tackled him.
"Take cover!" she shouted.
"Where?!"
He didn't have a chance to go looking when several explosions rocked the ground.
Chapter 15
The sound of one rocket engine at full power was soon complemented by several more sounds of rocket engines at full power, and now Jay could hear gunfire, and the explosions were getting stronger. But there was no place to run and no place to hide!
"I say we surrender," Jay said.
"They're not shooting at us." Katie said.
"What?"
Indeed, the rockets, of which there were twelve seemed to be shooting at each other, and ignoring the two Figdroids out in the white open on the ground. Jay looked closer, and found that one rocket was being ganged up on by the eleven others, which were dark purple in color. Missiles streaked out of the lead purple rocket, locking onto the lone rocket whose pilot expertly out maneuvered the guided warheads. They slammed into a nearby dune and exploded, creating a narrow path through which chunks of snow rolled down, right on Jay.
"Ah!" He dove out of the way of the snow, and caught a glimpse of four of the purple rockets firing their laser cannons, scoring direct hits on the lone rocket. It spun out of control, then careened towards the ground. The purple rockets chose this time to rocket off into the horizon, their mission done, while their target crashed.
Katie was quick to react. "Let's go!" she shouted, and bolted towards the sight of the crash. Smoke and flame billowed out from the downed rocket's engine bay, but the impact had sprayed snow into the air, and it rained back down on the rocket, partially dousing the flames. His sister easily closed the distance between the edge of the valley and the crash sight, and Jay quickly ran after her. Something about the rocket was familiar, it was eery and unnerving.
He figured it out when the cockpit glass slid open and the pilot climbed out.