Part 3 - Baby's First Robbery! - Uranium Fever

Conan's car parked outside of the warehouse in the pouring rain “Here we are, Danison Electronics W.01.”

“Why must it be so, so-”

“-Lifeless?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well, I'm sure you saw many colors three hundred years ago, but now… companies keep it low-key. After the corporate wars and all…” Conan tracked off and murmured to himself.

“Are you fine?”

“Yeah-I just… got a little sidetracked-” Conan took a deep breath “-but it's not time for old stories, those times are long gone. We're here for parts, I'll scavenge through the store boxes, you stick with me.” Conan unbuckled his and Rusty's seat belts.

The two sneaked their way to the side door.

“I've got this…” Conan cracked the thick steel door open; he and Rusty entered the warehouse.

They snuck inside, hugging a tall industrial scaffold to keep themselves hidden.

Conan turned back and said “Hey, you see those?” Conan pointed at a gray orb mounted to a wall.

“Yes?”

“Those are what we call cameras, they watch.”

“Really?”

“Yep, if it looks at you, we get caught, so if you see one, call me over.” Conan looked at the camera, in seconds it drooped down.

“What was that?” Rusty asked.

“I made it hot, hot enough for it to stop seeing. Now come on, the parts we need are only a couple ways down.” Conan and Rouillé crouched down and snuck through the empty cold place, rain pouring on the glass ceiling above. Conan turned a corner at the sixth scaffold.

“Here. The parts we need, C-980 capacity drive readers, we take these and we'll get something o install them into your goggles.”

“Well that's great!”

“Might be able to find other useful things while we're here…” Conan said looting the crate. “I need to get one more thing while we're shopping.. shouldn't be too far.” Conan crouch sprinted across the aisle, taking a medium sized crate. “OK WE'RE GOOD TO LEAVE!” Conan whispered across the aisle as he started coming back.

“What is it?”

“A VERY important tool. Now let's go-”

“INTRUDER DETECTED, VAGABOT REDIRECT TO ISLE A-6.”

“FUCK.”

“How did they see us?”

“IT DOESN'T MATTER, WE NEED TO GO. NOW!” Conan started running back the way they came, until a giant chained claw, one third of the scaffold's size, grabbed Conans arm, ripping it clean off, no blood spilt from the wound. One handed and running, he popped the crate open, grabbing the thing inside, force welding it to the nub where his arm was. He stopped, dead in his tracks, and started running back to Rouillé. When Rouillé was grabbed by Conan, he saw the object on his arm.

It was heavy, or it looked that way at least. It had a sleek carbon fiber appearance, though it was still three times the size of Conans other arm, it had a long screen on the inner forearm, on the screen was ‘X-26, welcome back.’

Conan grabbed Rouillé with the arm, having no problem throwing him on his shoulder. He started running through the scaffold maze.

“WHAT WAS THAT- THAT THING?”

“A VAGABOT, STRONGEST ANDROID DANISON MADE, EXCEPT FOR- NEVERMIND”

Another chained arm shot out from the aisle dividing the left and right scaffolds. As the arm started retracting, Conan and Rouillé heard the behemoth's steps, creeping through the isle. One booming leg dropping, one after another shaking the concrete floor, as a metal hand grabbed and crushed the fifty foot tall steel scaffolding.

Part 4 - Death Metal - Beelzeboss

The hand threw the scaffold into the wall, crushing it against the concrete like a tin can. What stood before Rouillé and Conan was a conglomeration of hard metal, and large thick wires you could see through its metal plating. It stood seventy feet tall when crouched over. Its head was long, with a giant camera lens in the middle.

“X-26.” The Android said with a robotic gritty voice.

Conan lowered Rouillé off his shoulder “Kid… if you truly want to make it back home, we're-...you're gonna have to go to this location-” Conan looked at Rouillé, and uploaded a map of the Appalachian Mountains. Conan handed Rouillé the parts “-You aren't coming with?”

“Nah, I've got a fight with Death Metal.” Conan slammed his fist into his palm and cracked his knuckles. “Get outta here, I'll try to make it out, but no promises-” Conan shook the artificial arm and Rouillé staggered, but he ran.

“Oh X-26, it has been a while, hasn't it? Here to be humiliated and stripped of your title again?”

“Oh no, I was here to steal a couple parts, but now all I want to do is beat your steely ass.”

Conan ran at the robot and took a leap, swinging on the things neck with his robotic arm and disconnecting cables, jumping off its back, using his arms rockets to propel himself through the beasts chest and up to the ceiling of the complex, jetting back down to the android and grabbing its left arm, ripping it off without a singular bead of sweat rolling down his face. The robot used the arm it had left to grab Conan, though Conan simply opened the things palm back up, screeches of steel echoing through the warehouse.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“I've decomposed THOUSANDS of your kind before, do you think you're different?” Conan said, though he couldn't withstand the pressure of the beast's hand as it closed its palm again.

“WHAT?” Conan yelled, being crushed in the robot's cold metal hand.

“You don't think they'd add some… new features to me while you were gone?” The Vagabot squeezed more as Conan yelled in pain, Rouillé heard, so he ran back and saw the wretched sight.

As Rouillé slid back around the corner he yelled “CONAN!!!” The robot's head shot over, looking at Rusty.

“And who's this little racoon?”

“YOU DID THIS?? YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO- TO KILL HIM DEMON?” Rouillé threw the parts to the ground.

“NO, Rouillé DONT-AUGH-DONT TRY TO FIGHT IT!!” Conan said, his bones starting to crush under the pressure.

“DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO-” Rouillé's veins started glowing, more and more, until electricity started to spark off of him “-THIS DEVIL DESERVES TO DIE.” Rouillé's tight fist opened, revealing an odd purple orb, rapid sparks flashing off, before he closed his palm shut again, rushing the Vagabot and taking a leap, opening his arms and fists, Inside of which were the glowing electric orbs, and as Rouillé got to the head of the thing, his arms shot shut together, electrocuting and crushing the Vagabot's head.

As the Vagabots body let go, Conan's body fell to the ground, limp.

Part 5 - Mothman Museum - I Talk to the Wind

Rouillé used all the strength his body could handle to drag Conan back to his car and threw him into the passenger seat as he got into the driver's side.

“Now… how do I use you?” Rouillé said, his hands both gripping the wheel.

Conan badly coughed and said “You might wanna take these-” Conan raised his shaky mechanical arm to hand Rouillé his keys. Rouillé held them in front of his face, jiggled them a bit, looked back over to Conan and said. “The fuck do I do with this?”

“You put it in this hole-” Conan put his finger to the keyhole on the car's main panel “-and twist. Then-” Conan put his finger on a button next to the keyhole “-you press this.”

“Ok…” Rouillé cautiously did everything.

“Now, grab onto your implant and-UGH-and pull it-” Rouillé slowly pulled his implant “-put the black thing in there.” Rouillé plugged it in, and a screen popped up.

‘CHOOSE YOUR DESTINATION!’ “Press the first thing.” Rusty pressed it.

The car started slowly levitating, as a screen popped up on the windshield saying ‘TARGET DESTINATION, APPALACHIA. TRAVEL TIME; SEVEN HOURS.’

“Good job kid… good job.” Conan repositioned himself upright though still somewhat rag dolled.

“Will you be ok?”

“I'll be fine, the arm’ll heal me… Now you're gonna explain the shit you did in that warehouse.”

“What ‘shit’?”

“What do you mean ‘what shit?’ You know… CRUSHING A FUCKING VAGABOT’S HEAD LIKE A TIN CAN?”

“I-I don't know… it just… happened.”

“So decommissioning a machine that can destroy tanks with your bare hands WHILE IT WAS FUCKING ONLINE just happens?” Conan said sarcastically.

“What is a tank?”

“God… to put it in ‘your terms’ you destroyed a man that had the power of ten thousand- no, a hundred thousand men.”

Rouillé scowled and looked down at his hands “I did?”

“YES?”

Rouillé started breathing heavily.

“We need to find out what that crystal is… if it even is a crystal.”

The car landed in a patch of forest at seven o'clock, as it blared loudly ‘YOU HAVE REACHED: APPALACHIA.’

“Finally… good to feel non-broken bones again.” Conan said.

“Now what?” Rouillé said, laying in the back seat.

“Now, we hike-” Conan got out of the car and opened Rouillé's door. He took off his jacket, revealing his cybernetic arm in the sunlight.

“What's with the arm?”

“I knew you'd say something about it… it was my assigned unit in the wars. I was a Danison soldier, they chopped off my arm, and made it this. It does a lot of cool shit.”

“Like what?”

“Laser cannon, gatling forearm, Suit mode.”

“What's ‘Suit mode’?”

“Doesn't matter right now, what does is finding out what that crystal does, and installing those parts. Let's go, don't wanna keep the thing waiting.”

“Ok!”

Rouillé and Conan walked up, and through the mountains, until they eventually ended up at a beat up old wooden hut. Conan waltzed In, Rouillé following, and on the inside was a man… or what was half of one.

The man was giant, he had two glowing red eyes, antennae that reached the ceiling of the hut, two giant wings and hands the size of Rouillé. He wore a pink apron and a green visor.

“Well hello there, Conan. Haven't seen you round here in months… haven't seen anyone round here in months.” The thing’s voice was deep, yet also light and friendly.

“Hey Mothman.”

“DE-DEMON!!”

“Well that's not nice.” Mothman said sarcastically.

“Don't worry about him, he's not… from here.”

“I can tell, what is he? A French revolutionary?” Mothman chuckled.

“Well… you ain't wrong” Mothman dropped the glass he was cleaning.

“...What?”

“It is true! My name is Rouillé Minuteur.”

“You gotta be kidding me… you sure you didn't just pull this kid off the streets?”

“I'm sure man, the guy just… appeared outta nowhere-” Conan went on to explain Rouillé's situation. “-so we need you to do two things for us bud…”

“And what's that?”

“One, install these-” Conan dug into Rusty's pocket and dumped the parts out. “And two-” Conan reached into Rouillé's pocket and pulled out the crystal. “See what the hell this really is, and how it got Rouillé here.”

The Mothman looked at the crystal.

“Hmm.. Come with me…” He said, grabbing the parts and the gem.

The Mothman led them to an underground area of the hut and he sat down at a desk, grabbing a pair of small glasses and looking at the crystal closely.

“This… is interesting. The crystal has a heartbeat! I see it slowly pulsing… there seems to be a line through the middle of it, perfectly through the middle of it-” Mothman took the glasses off sighed and said “-I'll do it-”

“-YES!-” Rusty yelled

“-But, In order for me to properly observe this, I'll need specific equipment, and I'll need you two to stay here for a while so I can observe the effects of the gem on you.”

“Damn it.”