4.06 – Utility
Oh CRAP! That was the most of a full blown monologue I’d yet heard from any villains. He was the real deal!
Aurora set her teeth and pocketed her useless communicator. She couldn’t call for help, and this villain might have her number if the cannon was able to break through her shields.
Thinking about his threat and offer, she had no certainty that he’d keep his word. It would just eliminate someone who could fight him. But she’d demolished one of his robots already.
She formed a massive megaphone from her halo construction power and yelled into it. “There’s no guarantee you’d stand down peacefully. The word of a villain is meaningless.” She spread her wings, letting the megaphone dissipate, and charged back into the fray. This time she’d go back to basics and use her light concussive blasts to fight the next closest, which had already attacked her.
She zoomed at it and fired off a series of energy bolts, satisfied when her blasts created a series of dents in its chassis, but as she released the energy, something occurred to her. If she were to push her powers to their limits she might be able to produce a single beam like a classic attack from a certain anime.
If she continued releasing smaller blasts, she’d certainly wear it down in time, but it would take time she didn’t have.
The robot which previously opened fire on her was one equipped with a wrecking-ball and it had moved on to demolishing a nearby building with surgical strikes. There was a large SWAT van nearby turning around a corner. Its tires screeched on the road as it came to a stop. A squad of armored officers deployed from it. Two of them were carrying what seemed to be heavy artillery. Rocket launchers.
They opened fire on another nearby robot which had neared them. The rockets hit and had a somewhat less effect than Aurora’s small blasts. The robot rocked back on its heels but it didn’t fall. The wrecking ball-type turned and supported its fellow automaton by charging up its shoulder-mounted antenna cannon and its deadly pinkish energy attack to strike the SWAT van. It exploded and the team members were sent flying like tenpins.
Aurora paused, considering that massive beam attack, but the SWAT’s appearance distracted her.
“Ah, but as a hero, mustn’t you take the chance I give to save this city from my attack? Aren’t you a hero, or are you an overrated and shallow shill? Make your choice.”
Aurora clenched her teeth and she considered these taunting words. What would other heroes in her favorite stories do? The scenario was more than a little overwhelming. Saving lives and taking care of all ten robots in time might not be possible. Trying might be childish. A kid would fight on no matter what the odds were or what lives might be sacrificed for their folly and arrogance. She questioned her ability to protect people if she fought on.
Forming a megaphone again, she shouted her response, swallowing hard.
“Fine. If my surrender will make you stand down, I must do what’s necessary to protect lives.”
She hated giving up. It was her pride that urged her to fight on.
The voice originated from the closest robot with a wrecking ball-accessorized arm. It pointed its antenna at Aurora and fired. Her shields activated reflexively and she was protected from the brunt of its blast, but the impact nearly made her pass out as she crashed through a storefront and skidded on the floor while broken glass rained on her.
She tremblingly crawled to the near counter and crouched behind it, not that she thought it would provide any real cover. Meanwhile a robot approached where she landed. Creeping into the back room, she stayed still, listening carefully. It was obvious that this man was a villain through and through. Surrender was not what he was after. Death and destruction were what he was after.
“I have destroyed your protector!” He announced through his tinny-sounding speaker loud enough for all around downtown to hear. It was more than a little foolish on her part to assume it would end so quickly or easily. Her first instinct was more accurate.
He droned on, “With this, I will now allow you to contact Vanguard and Midnight Avenger! I want them to surrender personally to me as well, and I will give you but an hour before my destructive rampage continues! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
One of Aurora’s eyebrows raised. Who was he supposed to be, a certain loudmouthed RPG protagonist? Well, he certainly could pass for one of the cheesier villains, at least.
As the maniac’s laughter rang through the street and Aurora pulled out her communicator, noting that this statement at least was finally some truth. The communicator card was receiving a signal. She started to dial Mistral, but then the line cut again.
Hmmmm. She was sure she’d managed at least one or two rings at least before it cut, so Mistral would know that something was amiss.
She picked her way through the back of the store and moved up a back stairway higher up and approached a window where she could spy the locations of the robots and assess the situation.
Sure enough, the robots were standing in place and weren’t taking action. The villain’s word went this far at least. The mayhem had been halted, but it was a temporary ceasefire.
She tapped at her communicator and tried to call Midnight Avenger, but again she couldn’t reach the SoS network. Sighing in frustration, she heard the sounds of one of the robot's heavy feet slamming into the pavement outside. Spying out the window again, she saw it, time time one equipped with a gun hand. It continued along the street and sauntered if it could be called that. Slowly turning on its torso joint, it strode. The clear dome on its head reflected light at her.
Scanning for more of them, she noted that the other robots were flashing less than previously, indicating that they were deactivated or at rest.
Was this one the master? Were the commands coming from this robot?
Aurora tilted her head, thoughtfully. Taking it out might nullify the others, but would it be so easy to put this situation to an end? The robot continued on its way which took it away from her position. Perhaps he assumed that she was dead.
Decoying it might work. If there was a limit to how far its signal might reach, maybe, but wouldn’t it have its slave units gang up on her? The drill trick she’d used seemed most effective, but the possibility of charging up a big concussive blast had a certain appeal too. Ducking back, she slipped back downstairs and rounded a corner to shriek when she ran into a man in a dark-green zentai suit.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!” She raised her arms, ready to unleash her energy. His sudden appearance was suspicious, but how he looked was even stranger.
The guy gasped and took a step back, moving his hands away from his belt and pouches hanging from a belt around his waist. “Aurora!” he said as he took a step back. “Wait, I’m a friend.” His hands went as high as possible. “Your exploits inspired me to try to be a hero too.”
His voice was electronically altered, or so Aurora thought. It was obvious, based on the way his voice sounded, kinda artificial. Aurora drew lines between the green zentai’d guy and the operator of the giant robots. He went on, babbling, “I slipped in here to check if you were OK. I call myself ‘Utility’. I don’t have any powers like you, but I do have some useful technology I’ve developed that might come in handy. I wasn’t prepared for giant robots, though. But, I’d like to do what I can...”
Aurora tilted her head and considered his words. They seemed genuine, but his ‘power’ origin was fishy, considering the two mysterious newcomers were both science-based.
She wasn’t able to take him seriously, in any case. He seemed more like a weird distraction, but if he was the mastermind, letting him close to her would be a serious mistake.
“Tell me more about this useful technology you have,” she demanded, not willing to drop her guard. This timing was too much of a coincidence.
“I have a powerful stun gun I can dial up that might do something to those things,” the zentai-suited self-proclaimed hero explained. “I’ve been trying to hack their wireless network for a while, but I can’t seem to break through. I’m not quite sure how they communicate, yet. I even tried using a cell phone jammer, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on them no matter how much I amplify the signal. If you can get me up to one of their domes, I might be able to get inside and reprogram one and make use of it.”
Aurora watched and listened as he finished. “Maybe I’d even get them to shut themselves down, making them close themselves up like how they started.”
This guy seemed to know far too much about these robots. “How did they start? Go on. I haven’t seen as much as you have. There’s a strong possibility you’ve been responsible for blocking my signal.” She arched an eyebrow. “But then, if any generic villain could block one of these things, they’d have been doing it all the time,” she said wryly as she flashed her SoS communicator card at him.
Utility nodded, arms still raised. “A truck drove through town, kicking out large cubes from their backends. They dropped them one by one into the streets and when they unfolded, they became what you see rampaging out there. The original form is basically the core of the machine. The thing expands and its limbs sprout out when they activate. Maybe if I’m not the cause of your communication issues, I can boost your signal so you can call out. Aside from my signal, there’s another, and it probably was implemented by this villain.”
Aurora blinked and nodded. So Mr. Mechanical hadn’t lied about everything, at least.
The green suited man talked again, “I know something about these sorts of things and I can tell you that this interfering signal requires a great deal of resources. Keeping it going might gimp him, too. I’m not sure how large the footprint is now, but the fewer of these robots move, the larger the potential range.”
“Interesting.” Aurora murmured. “I suspect that the active one is the master automaton. It’s one of the gun-equipped types. From what you’re saying, the further the others get from the master, the better chance they’ll not be able to act. Drawing it out of range is probably impossible. If you can hijack the master robot, or at least mess with it, things might work out, but I’m seriously thinking about just blowing out its core just to see what happens. There’s not much other choice I have since I have little information, yet. Do you have a better suggestion?”
The green guy blinked and shook his head. “Wait, I just thought about something. You destroyed the core of one of those robots already, didn’t you? That shouldn’t have been possible. For the kind of power you’d need to do something like this, it probably should have exploded, assuming you breached its power source!” He gaped. “I’m guessing this, but if you did it to one, it’d work with the others. I’m under the impression that the others are slave units like you suggested. These only have pre-programmed instructions, perhaps. Maybe they possess a limited AI. If the one moving is controlling the others, so long as it can’t communicate with them, they should remain in the state they’re in now.”
This was helpful to know, and what he said supported her own reasoning. “I think so, too. That was my line of thought. What kind of explosion are we talking about? Like destroying the city-level, or maybe a block?”
Utility shook his head, finally putting his arms down. They had to be tired. “I doubt these things fill up at the local station,” he said dryly.
“I imagine you’d need something at minimum like a micro nuclear reactor or something along those lines. The fact that you cored the one without any resulting fallout or er… well that implies a radioactive… explosion. Errr… it means they probably aren’t powered by internal batteries, which means they’re receiving broadcasted energy coming from somewhere. If you give me a few, I can try to figure out where it’s originating from, but this kind of science is all but unknown. Can you give me a few to try to figure things out?”
Aurora hesitated, frowning. “Please understand that you’re very suspicious. You showed up and you have a tech-based theme just like this villain. You chose to make your debut right at this moment, when a tech-based villain showed up. No offense, I do suspect you, but I’ll trust you for now.”
He flailed and pointed at himself like some kind of a sentai character.
“Wh-what!? You suspect ME? I promise I’m not working with this villain… honest!” His tone expressed his surprise and dismay. He probably thought it would go differently.