Another day went by and we were served food but saw no more appearances from either Kaiser nor Alabaster. I wondered what they were planning for us. Kaiser said that it would serve their purposes. We only had fragments of what they were doing anyway.
Just to recap…Alabaster Creole and Kaiser Roboto were being financed by a rich young investor named Clint Bowers. They had bought this old Sprocket and Tool factory that we were being held in and turned it into some kind of laboratory and production facility. At the very least Roboto was rebuilding his mechanized army that he had used in the Neo-Techno Empire that my father and Higgins helped destroy. What else they were doing here, I could only imagine.
Our conversations were brief and sporadic. We didn’t know who could be listening or when. There really wasn’t much else to say either. We only had about twenty square feet each in our cells and if we touched the bars we were electrified. If by some chance we could get out of here, we had no weapons. Only my magic and limited athletic skills, Wraith's parkour abilities, and Arduwan’s strength. We’d be fighting through an entire legion, only to find ourselves out in the desert. Escape was not an option at this time.
That was no longer on the menu but it didn’t need to be. Finally, on the morning of the third day, a human guard brought us food and said, “eat up. You’re being taken out of this facility in an hour. Kaiser’s got something special planned for you.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but after he left, I figured we should make some kind of game plan.
“Arduwan?” I asked, “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Yes, Eric?”
“If they try to separate us or take us away, don’t fight them unless you are absolutely sure you can get clear. You can’t overpower their bullets, okay?”
“Ugh. Yeah. I don’t like it. But I understand.”
“Wraith? Same goes for you. Let’s just see what they’re up to and try to stick together.” “Gotcha,” he replied.
A while after we ate, a large patrol of guards came to retrieve us. They had triple the number for Arduwan as they did for us since they were expecting a fight. But she behaved herself on my account.
We were taken outside in a chain gang with shackles on all three of our legs. They marched us through the outer facility and passed several buildings. Inside of one, the large garage door was open and we saw an assembly line constructing robot soldiers like the ones we had been seeing. Every minute or so a droid would drop off the line and a man in a lab coat with a clipboard would ask, “what is your primary objective?”
To which, the droid would salute and say, “To hail and serve Herr Kaiser.”
This was really gonna suck if we didn’t find a way to put a stop to this pretty soon. There were probably a couple hundred of those things around the time we arrived here. By now, there had to be over a thousand of them. Creole probably was in possession of the stone by now since Emily had left it in our hotel room and they had raided it. No doubt he was gonna have Kaiser march these things all over the realms once they cleaned up this world.
The guards led us to a bus-like vehicle that ran on tank tread. We still didn’t know what was going on. For all we knew, they were just gonna drive us out into the desert and kill us. But that didn’t seem to be the case. We were loaded onto the vehicle and a human driver drove us away from the facility. There were only four droid guards on the bus with us but we were soon flanked by two dune buggy-like vehicles that seemed to be manned by a human driver and a robot guard. It would appear that these droids weren’t quite good enough to pilot vehicles so Kaiser used his human followers for that task while the robots acted as infantry.
The bus drove us for a good thirty minutes before finally arriving at what looked like a small coliseum out in the desert. There were a lot of people arriving. A lot of very well to do looking people. I didn’t like what this looked like.
Still in shackles, the three of us were taken off the bus and received by another squad of those robot soldiers. Still no sign of Alabaster or Herr Kaiser. We were brought into a windowless room inside the arena. We could hear the noise of at least a few hundred, if not, a few thousand people outside. That’s when a human cohort of Kaiser’s came to speak to us.
The man said, “Good morning, lady and gentlemen. I would assume you have realized that you have not been brought here as observers, but will be taking part in a demonstration.”
“Demonstration of what?” I asked.
He replied, “Kaiser wishes to show off his latest technology against worthy opponents to convince potential backers to support him. It’s been a long time since he’s had any real power and he plans on making a statement today.”
“Where’s the girl I was captured with?”`
“Oh, she’s around. You’ll be seeing her soon enough.”
The man turned around and walked away before I could ask anymore questions. Looks like we really were going to have to fight our way out of here.
“I don’t like this, Eric. When should we make our move?” asked Arduwan.
“Don’t do anything yet. They’ll kill us if we step out of line. Looks like they’re at least gonna give us a fighting chance if we play along.”
A few minutes later a guard opened the large iron garage door in front of us and released us from our shackles. The three of us stammered into the arid arena as the door shut behind us. The stadium was filled with onlookers. Many of them were dressed in a way that seemed very high class.
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Ladies wore big hats and had little binoculars on sticks to see us better. It was like we were at the Kentucky Derby.
But not everyone was high class. There was a subsect of angry people. I was starting to get the feeling that these were former adherents to the Neo-Techno Empire. There must have been around a thousand people in this small arena.
That’s when my heart skipped a beat. Directly ahead of us as we slowly walked out towards the center of the arena was a small open air observation deck. Kaiser sat with two droid guards flanking him and to his left was that Devil himself, Alabaster Creole. But beside him, still in her trance-like state, was Emily. She just looked onward, blankly.
When we reached the center of the arena we stopped. From Kaiser’s right, a certain young, rich boy with slicked hair came into view. It was of course Clint Bowers. Kaiser’s primary financier. The arena was small enough that a microphone wasn’t needed. The acoustics were enough. Bowers raised his hands to get everyone's attention.
“Greetings all! Old friends. Former allies. New partners,” he gestured towards Alabaster, “we have all gathered here today to unite under a cause. The cause is to transform Brasshaven and the entire world into a new Technocratic Hegemony. I have seen the light of Mr. Creole’s philosophy of corporate unity and we all know of the past successes of Kaiser Roboto’s military prowess and inventive mind. Today, we hope that you too shall join us in creating this new power. And so to convince you, we have brought you three of the finest warriors to display our might against. These three will show you their skills and strength. And in turn, we will smite them with our awesome scourge.”
Alabaster leaned over and whispered something to Clint but we couldn’t hear. He continued…
“Very well. To make this a fair fight. We shall allow the combatants to have the items they infiltrated us with.”
A human guard came over to the ledge of the arena floor and tossed Arduwan’s sword, Wraith’s satchel, and my…nothing, because I had decided not to bring any weapons until needed. Dammit, because now I needed one.
Clint then turned to Alabaster and said, “Mr. Creole. If I may, that woman you have in your company…she made a fool of me in my own home and is just as much responsible for compromising our facility as those three. With your permission, I would like some retribution.”
Alabaster gave his sinister grin and replied, “Why yes, Mr. Bowers. Go ahead and have your retribution.”
Clint walked over to Emily, who just stood there with her blank gaze. He stopped just a foot away from her and looked at her, almost as if he expected an acknowledgement. Then a moment later, he smacked her straight across her face. It was so hard that her head knocked to the left. He waited a moment and then started smacking her again, repeatedly. Emily was completely unable to respond, or even register that she was being hit. Her face started to redden. After a good thirty seconds of slapping, he grabbed her by the shoulders and kneed her in her gut. She dipped forward and then recomposed herself as if nothing had happened.
I was dying inside seeing what was happening. Arduwan was fuming. Clint had just put himself on the kill list assuming we would ever be able to enact it.
“Thank you, Mr. Creole. I believe I have reached satisfaction,” he said, politely.
“You’re quite welcome, Mr. Bowers. Should you require any more satisfaction from Detective Grimwood, I’m sure we can make some sort of arrangement after today's festivities.”
“Why, that would be delightful, Mr. Creole.”
“Enough with the pageantry. Let’s see what these three can do,” said the metallic voiced Kaiser Roboto.
On his signal, another steel door opened dead ahead of us. About two dozen robot infantrymen came running out and surrounded us. They weren’t armed with guns though. Each of them carried an electrically charged police-style baton.
“In the interest of fairness, since you cannot harm us from that distance with only melee weapons,” Kaiser continued, “we shall only battle you with melee combat.”
“Got those daggers handy, Wraith?” I asked.
“Yeah, here, take one,” he said as he tossed one to me and secured the satchel to his shoulder.
“Eric! I can’t fight like this!” Arduwan said, as she fanned her hands downward at her explorers outfit.
“Go ahead, Arduwan. Do it.”
And with that command, she ripped her clothes to shred and revealed nothing underneath except a set of white bra and panties. There was an audible gasp from the audience as wives attempted to cover their husbands eyes.
Kaiser then clapped his hands together and the soldiers surrounding us started to close in.
“Alright guys,” I said, “huddle in close as long as we can. Let Arduwan draw as many as she can and hit the ones in her blind spots.”
“Got it,” Wraith affirmed.
Over half a dozen droids closed in and just before they got within striking range with their batons, Wraith felled one with a dagger. I did a scissor kick to one that was getting near me. Me and Wraith’s shoulders almost flush with each other’s and Arduwan’s, so that kept her back clear long enough for her to destroy the four robots right in front of her with a few mighty slashes of her Great Sword.
The next wave of bots didn’t like what they had just witnessed and swarmed us at once. Wraith immediately leapt into the air and landed on the shoulders of an attacking droid. He pressed downward and leapt off its back, diving into another with his fists extended. I took a more direct approach and started brawling with one using Wraith’s dagger and my bar hand. I tried to get its baton away from it. Arduwan also took a direct approach. Remember her tornado attack from back at the Bard’s Tomb dungeon? Yeah, she did that again.
By the time I had disarmed the bot with the baton and turned it on him, I noticed that Arduwan had reduced about eight others to scrap metal. But as she was slowing down, I could see she was dizzy and trying to get her footing again. I finished off the droid in front of me and ran to help her. On my way, I bashed the head of the droid on the ground that Wraith sprang off of. He was busy fighting two bots at once at the moment.
After keeping the ones attacking Arduwan at bay while she gathered herself, I saw Wraith forcibly headbutt two droids into one another to finish them off. Arduwan easily dispatched the remaining few. We were winded, but we survived this entire platoon of bots with relative ease.
“Impressive,” Kaiser announced, “you are every bit as skilled as Mr. Creole had inferred you would be. But that contest was merely to display to the audience what you were capable of.
That way they will see what we are capable of.”
He clapped his hands together and the door ahead of us opened up again. He then raised the device he had been controlling Emily with up and pressed three buttons. We could see the silhouettes of three beings inside the area where the gate had lifted. A red light shined in the center.
The three of us gathered ourselves and prepared for the next fight. Arduwan and Wraith formed up around me. Wraith to my right and Arduwan to my left. A moment later, the figures emerged from the darkness.
On the far left, directly across from Arduwan’s position, was a cyborg-like muscle man with a curly mustache. He must’ve been six foot four. Even taller than Arduwan!
At the center, my worst fear was realized. It was the former lover of Higgins, Italia. But she was now the mechanical subservient cyborg known as Italix. A pawn of Kaiser Roboto.
But on the far right, a non-humanoid figure emerged. Also over six feet tall, what appeared to be a robotic scorpion scurried out in Wraith’s direction.
“Well, maybe you didn’t get your giant robotic spider. But it looks like you’re not going away empty handed,” I joked.