There we were. We stood on one end of the giant room, The Rat King stood on the other. Rats were scurrying all over the place, slowly filtering out of the room like sand emptying out of the top an hourglass.

The Rat King leapt, with surprising agility, and landed in the very center of the room. The three of us ran toward him, and stopped in front of him. Gary and Erin readied their respective abilities- Retina put a hand to the side of her helmet, and Gary's eyes began to flicker as he rose a hand toward Rat King. I held out my hand to the side, signaling for them to wait.

Looking at Rat King, I spoke with a voice that exuded confidence. "Look, we'll give you a chance to come quietly. Call off your Rat Army, and we'll make things easy for you. If you choose to fight us... I can't say things are going to go nearly as well for you."

It was pretty easy to feel confident about fighting him, he was basically just a giant rat. Compared to an old lady in a supersuit... or worse, Super Semicolon, he didn't seem so tough.

But the Rat King just laughed in response; a rich, throaty echo reverberating throughout the room. "My dear boy. You don't seem to understand the gravity of your situation. You're going to die here, no questions asked."

At that moment, I flashed a thumbs up with the hand that had signaled for Firebird and Retina to wait, now telling them to attack. A burst of red energy immediately flew from Retina's helmet, and Firebird flicked another burst of flame toward the menacing rat.

Rat King moved the minute my hand signal changed. He spun perfectly, avoiding Retina's laser completely. The burst of fire hit him, but it just puffed against him and he seemed unfazed- it was as if his fur was made of some kind of fireproof material.

As the fire hit him, he dashed right into Firebird, propelling himself forward with one stubby little leg and landing a kick on Firebird's abdomen, sending the man flying backward.

Retina attempted to blast him again, but he saw this coming. He pulled the golden crown off his head as soon as he'd landed his kick on Gary, and blocked the laser with it. Upon hitting the reflective material, Retina's laser ricocheted in a different direction- mine.

The laser hit me square in the chest, sending me flying backward. I thought the suit would protect me; but this laser seemed to be concussive in nature, and had actual force behind it.

Now, I'd had a lot of experience with being sent flying through the air at this point- so much, that I was actually able to react this time. I held out my other hand, the one that wasn't holding my Freeze Ray, and imagined the spear- this time, quick as lightning the weapon materialized in my hand. I'd gotten pretty used to forging it after my time training with Angler.

I plunged the spear into the ground, anchoring me in place. After landing on my feet I then pulled it back out and dashed toward Rat King, who was now locked in hand-to-hand combat with Retina. Well, I say hand-to-hand combat- but really, she was just doing her best to avoid his attacks. She landed a blow here and there, but it seemed hard for her to damage him with his weight.

I realized she wasn't wearing her helmet, and figured Rat King must have knocked it off of her after I got blown back. It was lying off to the side, pieces of it scattered around the two combatants.

Once I reached Rat King, I swung my spear at him- and it connected, creating a big gash on the side of his body. He yelled in pain, and I attempted to follow up with a jab- but he whirled out of the way, clutching his side and grabbing the end of my spear. But after a couple seconds, a loud sizzling noise filled the room, and Rat King let go of my spear with yet another yelp. He looked down at his paws, and they were red- as if he'd touched something extremely hot.

I guess nobody can touch my weapons but me..* I thought. He then looked at me with pure hatred filling his eyes. He was about to lunge toward me, when a huge laser beam and a burst of flame- this time, evidently with a little more force behind it- hit him at the same time, sending him flying into the back wall. He then lay there, in a small crater of his own making. Pieces of freshly fallen concrete were littered all around his feet.

I ran over to him, and pointed my spear at his head. "Last chance- you going to call them off?" I asked him, and he coughed up blood before answering.

"G- go to hell.." he said, his tone and voice betraying the way he spoke earlier. "T- this is our revolution. You think this ends with me? ... you think this is the end of me?"

I attempted to run his head through with my spear, but he ducked out of the way. In the same motion, he landed a kick on my stomach- having put all his weight into it, the kick sent me flying back. and I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me. As I looked around, I saw Retina blast him again- but he took off his crown and deflected the blast. This time, he didn't deflect it so it would hit me- he had it hit Firebird.

Firebird shouted in pain, and was blown back. He didn't hit the wall- but he skidded across the floor. Cynder was flying all around him, and a warm flame began to engulf his body. Retina ran over to check on him, as I staggered to my feet.

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Rat King got on all fours, and bounded out of the room. He said he was going to use the Old Man's stash to get revenge for all rat-kind, and combined with the massive army of rats that was overtaking the city at this very moment, I figured we would need something huge to get us out of this mess.

I slowly walked over to Gary, where Retina was crouching next to him and apologizing profusely.

"I-I'm really sorry, I didn't think he'd do that. And if he did, I thought he'd just hit Starlight... I'm sorry. A- are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah, Ret, I'll be okay... I think." Gary answered, laying very still as the bird tended to him.

"I- is Cynder cremating you?" I asked, sure that wasn't the case but not really understanding what was going on.

Gary just shook his head. "She can heal me. It takes a few minutes... but I guess this is just one of the perks of being bonded to a phoenix. The real question is, what are we going to do now? I doubt any of us has the firepower to take on that many rats."

He was right. Or, well, I was hoping he could do something about it, but evidently he couldn't. I thought back to what got us into this mess in the first place, and suddenly got an idea. "Give me a sec." I ran over to where the Old Man Without His Ray Gun was tied up.

He looked less than happy to see me. "What do you want?" He asked in his gruff voice.

"Earlier, your grandson told me that you were probably building a giant robot to take on his grandmother with. Is that true? And if so, can we use the robot?"

The Old Man looked shaken up, as if he'd just learned of something disturbing that he couldn't comprehend. "H-how did he know about that? Did someone leak information to Gary? Blast it... I do everything I can to keep these things from getting out, but by some miracle everyone always seems to know about everything I've been doing. It's maddening."

By this time, Gary and Retina were behind us. Gary sighed in response to what his grandfather said, putting his hand over his head as if he was completely exasperated.

"Everybody knows about the Giant Robot Fights, Grandpa. Last time you guys fought, it was all over the news."

"Oh.. I see. Well, how am I supposed to know that? All I do is build machines and watch romcoms on Netflix." The Old Man answered. "I suppose you people can use the Cool Bot. I don't want the rats tearing up the city any more than you do... and besides, if we don't do something to stop them, this could become a national crisis." The Old Man said. "Now will you please untie me?"

* * *

We untied the Old Man, and he led us back to his lab. Tables lie overturned all over the room, and many of the bigger contraptions had been smashed to bits. Anything that was small enough to carry was missing- so basically, nearly everything the Old Man had made.

The Old Man led us to the back of the room, where his whiteboard that had the Freeze Ray schematics was. He started examining the floor, and a nearby table that was smashed to bits. He seemed to be looking for something, and grew frustrated when he couldn't find it.

"Where is.. oh, that blasted Rat King. He took my remote control... how else am I supposed to open the secret door?"

"What door?" Retina asked, and in response he gestured over to the wall we were standing on front of.

"My Cool Bot is just on the other side of that. If only..."

Retina put a hand to the side of her helmet. It was still a little beat up but still seemed to function. The Orange Visor dropped down, and her heat vision blasted the wall, melting a hole in it.

"Oh.. right. I forgot you people could do things like that." The Old Man commented. We ignored him and just proceeded through the hole, where we found ourselves inside a large rectangular room. We appeared to be near the top of the room- the bottom was somewhere very far below us. We appeared to be standing on some kind of metal grate. Across from us was a console with a large red button, and about 20 computer monitors all lined up next to each other, in a pattern that formed a rectangle.

The Old Man walked over to it, and seemed to be about to press the button, when he stopped. He looked back at us, and motioned us over.

"Perhaps it would be best if one of you turned it on. Whichever one of you wants to pilot this thing."

"Why don't you pilot it?" I asked, and he shrugged in response.

"I... don't seem to have the combat prowess that you people possess. I just wanted to freeze the town, and then fight my ex-wife with this thing. I don't really care much for saving anyone."

Retina and Firebird nodded at me. "I'll fly around you and provide support." Firebird told me.

"Fly?" I asked him, and he smiled.

"You'll see." He replied.

Retina put a hand on my shoulder. "I'll protect you, in case anything gets into the Robot. So you can focus on piloting it." She said.

I nodded at her, and replied "Thank you. I don't know what I'd do without you guys." And it was true. I'd only just met Gary today, and Erin a few days ago- but the way we all worked together earlier felt so right.. like we'd been doing it for years.

I walked over to the console, and pushed the button. Immediately, the entire room began to shudder and shake. A loud hum filled the room, as if we were inside a giant refrigerator. I thought this was a button that would open another door, that led to the Robot- I didn't realize that we were already in the Cool Bot.

Suddenly, the machine seemed to be traveling upward. It felt like we were on the world's biggest elevator. Before long, all the monitors flared to life, and seemed to depict what was going on outside the Cool Bot. Basically, they served as a way for me to see outside.

I took a few steps back, as the Old Man reached under the console. He withdrew a Wii Remote, and handed it to me. The controller was connected directly to the console that sported the giant button.

"The Cool Bot will mimic your movements completely. That little thing came with a toy my grandson bought for me a few years back- I never had much use for it until I started building this thing. The buttons let the Cool Bot execute different functions, and you can aim it if you want to direct the Cool Bot's attacks. This is my "Real TIme Control" function- pretty cool, eh? I bet Gary's Grandma never thought of anything like that."

I had to admit- it was pretty cool. I walked in place, and found that the entire machine started moving forward with me. I raised my hand, and a giant robot arm moved with me- I could see it from one of the monitors, that depicted what was going on outside the robot. It was like I was playing a first-person video game.

"This is going to be fun." I said, as I saw a massive sea of rats heading straight toward us.