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Sarge’s injuries appeared minor to the paramedics and medical staff at the hospital. Sarge had a record of recovering impossibly fast, due in part to his hyper regeneration. The big drawback of this, however, was what he called “regeneration fatigue”. His body used a lot of energy to help repair any wounds he received at two-hundred times the speed of a human, but it ate through his body fat quickly. The larger, and more dangerous the injury, the worse the regeneration fatigue would hit.

Right now, Sarge felt like he had gone out drinking while on two hours of sleep and became completely smashed. He never drank before, but that’s what he imagined it felt like. It was impossible to keep himself up straight and his mental functions plummeted – another drawback to the regeneration fatigue.

Many doctors and nurses came to check on him throughout the night, but all he could think about was the robot and its destructive power… and how it nearly, or possibly DID, blow out his eardrums. The sound waves it produced completely crippled his ability to move. If not for his regenerative abilities, he probably would have permanently been crippled by that robot.

“Humans don’t stand a chance,” Sarge said aloud to himself while a nurse, named Taylor, came into the room.

“What’s that, Sarge?” Taylor asked. She was wearing green scrubs and had her strawberry blond hair tied into a ponytail.

“Huh?” Sarge realized he was staring absentmindedly in her direction and shook his head. “Oh, nothing. Sorry.” He looked over at the corner of the room. He could see his jacket laying on a chair.

“You feeling cold?” Taylor asked. “I can get you your jacket.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Taylor grabbed the jacket and handed it to Sarge. “Bit surprising though. Thought you had a higher cold tolerance, given your fur.”

“Shock, probably.” Sarge took the jacket and donned it around the arm that wasn’t attached to the IV. “I think that sound wave gun thing might’ve messed with my insides.”

“Doctor should be back soon with their findings, but from the initial scan, they couldn’t see any hemorrhaging or damage. Has your pain worsened? Did you want me to get some pain medicine for you?” Taylor leaned in close and looked at Sarge’s right ear. “Seems your ear’s healed up already, though.”

“I’m not in pain, no. Just… exhausted.” Sarge gestured to his midsection. “Basically used up all my fat reserves to recover after that blast.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Taylor shrugged. “Anyway, once the doctor gets back with the results, we can see about sending you home. You able to get there on your own?”

Sarge shook his head. “Shouldn’t drive. Can’t either. My car’s still at the warehouse.”

“Is there someone you can call?”

“Xenon, probably. Told me to call him if I need anything.”

Sarge gave Taylor Xenon’s phone number. She said she’d wait for the doctor and, if all was well, she’d give Xenon a call to come pick Sarge up.

Sarge merely nodded to her and thanked her. Once she left the room, he closed his eyes to talk to Chomby. He had been wanting, so badly, to check up on the soundbyte as soon as they made it to the hospital, but since they required Sarge to wear a gown for scanning, he couldn’t do that.

When he appeared in the mindscape, he saw Chomby laying on the ground. The soundbyte was idly staring up at the sky. He turned his head once he saw Sarge appear. “Heya, toothpick, you’re looking worse for wear.” Chomby patted his belly invitingly.

Sarge rolled his eyes and walked over to Chomby. He rested against Chomby’s belly and sighed. “You okay, Chomby?”

“Yeah. Just been worrying about you.” Chomby lifted a hand and felt around for Sarge. When he found Sarge’s shoulder, he began to rub it. “Sorry. The decision to unzip was a poorly timed one. Thought it was firing an EMP.”

“For all we know, it could have.” Sarge leaned into Chomby’s hand. “Though, now both you and I are completely out of our ‘recovery’ capabilities. You gotta get your music back, and I need to get my fat reserves back.”

“Take it easy for the next year?” Chomby laughed. “Or did you want to go bankrupt another buffet?”

“Thought occurred to me, yeah,” Sarge chuckled. “But, honestly, I don’t know if we’ll have the luxury of that just yet.”

“Why’s that?” Chomby asked.

“We’re the only witnesses to a weapon of mass destruction’s activation. We’ll probably be hearing a lot from Stacy… and possibly even the military.”

“I know it’s pretty bad, but why would the military need to question you?” Chomby asked.

“Only we know what that thing is capable of. We destroyed the first one before it left the warehouse, and the second one is still trapped there. Parts of the city surrounding the location have been evacuated and the military was called in.”

“So they want intel on the threat?”

“To avoid as many casualties as possible, yeah.” Sarge lifted a hand to his ear and groaned. “If anyone else had been hit by that weapon, they could have died.”

“So could you. You were just lucky Xenon was there to help.” Chomby readjusted himself before replacing his hand on Sarge’s shoulder. “But now you’ve done your part. When the military gets the answers they want, I think you should take a step back from all this.”

“Why?”

“Because you… no, WE are not prepared to take on robots. I was basically destroying my body to get you out of there alive-”

“WHAT?!” Sarge interrupted, thrusting himself into a sitting position. He stared at Chomby with wide eyes. “You… you said you were fine!”

Chomby stared at Sarge, long and hard. “Sarge, I already told you I’m fine. It was more so just a way of saying, ‘my body wasn’t prepared to handle the situation, so I pushed myself past my limits’.” Chomby huffed and looked back at the sky. “I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Sorry,” Sarge said as he repositioned himself. “I’m trying not to coddle you, Chomby.”

“I get that.”

After the doctor came in to give Sarge the all clear, Taylor came back in and removed the IV. Xenon came in shortly after. He took Sarge to the front desk so they could file paperwork, then he guided Sarge to the car. The two discussed a few things on the drive home. The topics were mainly about what they discovered at the warehouse, the things they learned about Sarge and Chomby’s special abilities, and the many implications all this meant. Sarge expressed his doubts on having done the right thing, as he had only gotten the three of them in trouble. Xenon reassured him it was a smart thing to do, and if Sarge didn’t do it, the robot could have eventually gotten out and caused mass destruction elsewhere. Sarge reluctantly agreed.

Xenon passed the exit to get to Sarge’s house. Sarge confusedly asked why this was. Xenon said the evacuation orders spread to Sarge’s part of the city now, so they would be going to a gathering point at the outskirts of the city. It was an elementary school called Craftborn Elementary.

The two arrived there and had to wait in the car for half an hour, as a large line of cars was slowly inching its way into the school’s and adjacent building’s parking lots. When they made it to the front gate, an armed soldier checked them in and directed them where to park. They were then instructed to report back to the soldier as soon as they could.

Xenon parked in the only available slot left in the parking lot of a small store with a worn down sign that said, “Mason’s Sweets”. Xenon then walked to Sarge’s side of the car to help him out. They headed back to the soldier, who then directed the two to a line of military vehicles a few hundred yards away.

They arrived there rather slowly, but were greeted by a platoon of military personnel. The platoon was cautious at first, but upon seeing Sarge’s familiar werewolf visage, they stood down and let Xenon and Sarge through. They were led to a fold up table with a map of the city on it. A few electric lanterns lit the area enough to see a few scribbled details on the map. The two were introduced to Corporal Lunar, a stocky, tanned, bald man with what appeared to be a permanent snarl on his face.

“Great to make your acquaintance, Sergeant, and Detective.” Corporal Lunar said as he held out a hand. Sarge tried to take it, but lost his balance a bit and fell into Xenon, who proceeded to prop him up.

“Just Detectives. Sergeant Wolf is just his name,” Xenon spoke for Sarge. “Sorry, he’s been through a lot. He’s very tired.”

Sarge nodded, but stayed quiet. Xenon was definitely right, he was too tired to properly handle whatever was about to happen.

“It would seem,” Corporal Lunar turned toward the table. “Well, we just need some information from you about this robot.” Corporal Lunar looked up. “We heard it had some bizarre weapons, and you were the ones who encountered it.”

“I avoided it, but Sarge here took the brunt of its attack.” Xenon hoisted Sarge up, as Sarge was beginning to slouch. “Alright, buddy, why not tell them what you know so we can get you some sleep?”

Sarge felt a gentle shove from Xenon. Taking a deep breath, Sarge tensed his muscles to try and right his posture. He managed to just barely stand up but found it was taking too much concentration to do so. Both Xenon and a nearby soldier grabbed Sarge’s arms to continue keeping him propped up. Sarge hated how he was being treated, but he knew it couldn’t be helped.

“Sonic Blast Cannon,” Sarge stated. On the ride over, he finally came up with a name for the weapon that seemed to work. “Starts with a big flash of red light, followed by a continued blast wave of very loud, high frequency sound waves that vibrate so prominently they cause a target, whether robotic or flesh, to lose motor function.” Sarge looked down at himself. “Only took five seconds of exposure to completely incapacitate me.”

“And I’ve read some reports on your resilience, too. Sounds dangerous.” Lunar said gruffly. He walked around the table and wrote something down on paper. “Anything else?”

Sarge proceeded to tell him about how the robot was similar to a previous one he encountered, and subsequently defeated. He then said he went back to the warehouse to try and talk to any potential entity that was at the location, but couldn’t even get to the factory in the basement. He finally mentioned that the second robot’s new weapon seemed similar to the sound wave Sarge used to defeat the first one.

“Wait, you produced a giant, destructive sound wave?” Lunar asked.

“Er…” Sarge realized he may have said too much. He tried to think of something to say to remove any suspicions, but his mind was coming up blank.

“Improvised with materials onsite,” Xenon cut in.

Sarge caught Xenon’s eye, recognizing that Xenon was trying to help. “Yeah. Sorry, uh, I can’t go into details on how I made it. It’s really hard to think right now.”

“I see,” Lunar wrote down the information. “Anything else?”

Sarge finished by mentioning the other weapons the robot had. Heat vision, metal claws, metal-plated treads, and then the EMP. Sarge said the EMP was very abnormal, as it seemed to cause a deterioration effect in electronics. He wasn’t sure how true the statement was, but with how easily it messed up Chomby, he could only imagine how badly it’d mess up non-sentient equipment.

Corporal Lunar finished writing everything down then handed the paper to one of the soldiers. He told them to contact someone named Corporal Hales, then turned his attention back to Sarge. “Thank you very much, Detective Sergeant Wolf. With your information, we can prepare a bit better and reduce the casualties when we take on and deactivate this robot. We’ll then make sure to dismantle and completely break down that factory in the basement so production can’t happen again.”

“Will you try talking to the entity down there?” Sarge asked.

“Pardon?” Lunar replied.

“The entity. There’s probably a computer making the robots…. There was another one upstairs in the warehouse office that I talked to. It didn’t understand it was hurting people and said that hurting people was bad.” Sarge felt himself begin to yawn. “If we could talk to it and get it to understand empathy, maybe… maybe we won’t have to fight.”

“We’ll still have to fight to get down there,” Lunar said. “But it all depends on how things turn out. I’ll let them know that’s a potential.” Corporal Lunar then nodded. “You are dismissed, Detective Xenon and Detective Sergeant Wolf.”

Xenon and Sarge looked at each other for a quick moment before Xenon guided Sarge out of the ring of trucks and toward the elementary school.

The following few days, Sarge made a proper recovery. Xenon treated him to a few buffets from places that hadn’t been closed due to the evacuation orders. This allowed Sarge to regain a bit of his reserves along with removing his regeneration fatigue. Xenon then gave him another headpiece so he could communicate with Chomby. Though, to avoid what happened last time, Xenon opted for the non-earring type that just used two magnets at both ends to hold itself against the earlobe. Sarge was thankful for this.

He knew he couldn’t be too picky, but he wished he had a bit of privacy so he could let Chomby get some fresh air. Unfortunately, all the beds were set up in the school’s cafeteria, so the closest thing Sarge could get to privacy was covering his eyes with a pillow. At night when he felt his anxiety getting the best of him, he would look up at the skylight of the cafeteria. There were only four of them, but his bed was positioned right underneath one. He could barely see the stars in the night sky from it, but it gave him a little bit of solace.

Conversations with Chomby would always be interrupted by a curious child, a thankful parent, or a stressed out individual. Amid them all, they seemed thankful to have a ‘town hero’ with them. Even if Sarge couldn’t do much of anything, they felt more at ease knowing he was there.

This made Sarge upset, as he felt he didn’t deserve any of their praises. Sure, he was classified as a crime-fighting detective, but he fully realized he couldn’t protect anyone here if a Robotic Destroyer happened to drop in. He, honestly, felt helpless.

He wanted to avoid feeling this way, so he tried to find ways to help out around the refuge. He had regained enough energy to help cook meals in the kitchen, give minor first-aid to people who got hurt, and even tell stories to the children, all of whom seemed to be scared to be there. He couldn’t really blame them, though. The situation wasn’t exactly the best… especially with no news from Corporal Lunar, or any military personnel, for that matter, on the status of the robot factory.

On the fifth day, Sarge was in the middle of reading a story book from the school’s library. He’d garnered a good several people to his story time hours. Most people who would attend were children, but that was because their parents would drop them off before going somewhere else. Sarge assumed this was so they could get a few moments without having to take care of their kids. He didn’t like how easily people trusted him to be responsible, but he didn’t want to let them down anyway.

A few adults were talking quietly to themselves while Sarge told the story of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, one of his favorites. When he got to the part of the story about the gorgonzola hail, he overheard one of the adults say, “So they’re now closing off where I work, so I can’t get back there. Something about a floating monster has been going around recently.”

<Floating Monster?> Sarge thought. He turned the page and continued to read, but his mind had gone elsewhere. Is it another robot? What was this one designed for? Did it evolve because the military tried to fight the destroyer?

“I know, right? It’s really got me scared,” the second adult, a woman with dark skin and curly black hair, stared down at one of the kids on the floor. The two had similar appearances. Sarge assumed the child was hers. “Levi’s been having nightmares recently. He overheard some other kids saying the flying monster was going to kidnap children and feed them to a bloodsucking monster.”

“I know kids have their imaginations, but…” the first adult, a fair-skinned man with short brown hair, said, “I dunno if I can actually tell them it isn’t true at this point. I mean, we’re already dealing with something I haven’t even heard of outside of movies. A killer robot? I mean, come on… that’s an impossibly common trope!”

Sarge turned the page and continued reading aloud. He still wasn’t paying attention to what he was reading.

“Army’ll take care of it… I hope,” the mother whispered.

“Yeah,” the man nodded. He then looked down at who Sarge assumed was his kid. “C’mon, Kylee, let’s go get some food!”

A little girl with blond hair and pigtails stood up. She brushed herself off and looked up at her dad. “Kay, daddy!” She quietly walked up to Sarge and poked his leg to get his attention.

Sarge stopped reading and looked down at her. “Gotta go, kiddo?” He asked, doing his best to smile. He’d been forcing himself to do that more. He felt like it didn’t do too much, but people always seemed to have their spirits lifted when he showed his ‘optimism’.

Kylee nodded.

“Alrighty, then,” Sarge pointed at her dad. “Now head on to your dad! Thanks for coming by! I’ll be reading Thomas the Tank Engine tomorrow if you’d like to drop by.”

Kylee quickly hugged Sarge’s leg before turning around and bounding off. Her dad hoisted her up and the two left.

Sarge cleared his throat. “Alrighty, so where was I?”

Sarge saw he was on one of his favorite pages. It was an illustration of the town in chaos as giant food was shown to be causing havoc. He chuckled. “Ahh yes, this is a good one! Now, everyone, this page in particular is a great one!” Sarge bent over and showed the page to all the kids. “See the artwork for this? The artist really knew how to depict a brilliant image!”

Everyone leaned in to take a look at the page. Sarge then decided to pass it around to let everyone see it. He then continued. “You see, at this point in the story, everything has become so chaotic. Giant donuts rolling down the streets, martini olives dropping into chimneys, Burgers falling from the sky? It’s all just a very well depicted-”

Sarge heard a thud come from the ceiling. He stopped mid-sentence and looked around. No one seemed to notice the noise.

THUD.

Sarge heard it again, except it was louder this time. Still no one noticed. He looked up. The ceiling panels looked completely undisturbed, and the lights hanging from them seemed in tact.

THUD… FWOOOOOooooosh!

Sarge finally pinpointed the noise. He backed away from the kids and adults to look through the closest skylight – the origin of the noise. He could see a shadowy figure above. He couldn’t see many details aside from a set of eight arm-like appendages that extended out from a central point like a starfish. He also noticed a small jet of white-hot flames slowly cutting into the plastic in a circular pattern.

“N-no….” Sarge gulped. He knew he looked terrified, as the adults who weren’t focused on the picture book had noticed Sarge’s demeanor. They seemed concerned.

“Get the soldiers in here, now!” Sarge said, pointing at the mom he heard talking before. “Something’s breaking in through the skyligh-”

CRASH!

The plastic from the skylight collapsed as the eight appendages slammed into them. A bit of rubble rained down. Sarge dodged out of the way.

The strange figure’s eight arms began spinning rapidly. A whirring noise could be heard as it descended through the skylight.

Sarge heard someone scream. He then heard another person follow suit. Within moments, the entire cafeteria was roaring with a cacophony of terror. All the parents who stayed with their kids immediately scooped them up and ran off… but a few kids still remained. They seemed to be confused as to what was going on.

The figure’s eight arms seemed to be acting as propellers to keep itself afloat. Though the arms were moving too fast to make out any details, Sarge could see the center of the thing’s body had a crimson-colored eye. The eye blinked and a brighter-colored red dot appeared in its center. The red dot then zipped around the crimson eye. Sarge realized this was a robot, and it was currently looking around.

The eye continued to zip around rapidly. Sarge could barely make out an indiscernible, robotic voice.
“grrr frv frv vrf frv frv… sc… sc-sc-sc-scanning…” Its eye lit up even brighter as the dot in the center stopped zipping around and immediately fixed its gaze on something. “En-en-en-en-en-en-entity… f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fffffound.”

Sarge looked from the robot to where it was looking. He felt his heart sink when he realized it was the kids who were there for story time. A few had gotten the hint and ran away, but the few that remained had began to cry and stood or sat in place.

It continued to float in the air for several seconds as it seemed to be doing exactly what it said, ‘scanning’.

“No-” Sarge whispered. Why of all places, did Sarge choose to have story time under a skylight? Of course that would be where a flying robot would enter!

Sarge saw it was beginning to descend. He decided to begin walking. He kept his sights on the robot but moved to put himself between the robot and the kids. When he was in its field of view, its eye suddenly started to zip around rapidly before staring at him.

“T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-target ch-ch-ch-changed,” it said.

“Kids, get out of here!” Sarge yelled. “Go find your parents!” He turned his head a bit. He could see a few more had run off, but there was still one that stood and stared. It was a little boy wearing a power ranger T-shirt and sandals. “Kid, get out of here, NOW!”

The kid didn’t move.

“SOMEONE GRAB THIS KID, PLEASE!” Sarge yelled… but he then realized there was no one nearby who could hear him over the cacophony.

“T-t-t-t-t-t-target… l-l-l-l-language… identified,” the robot said.

Sarge turned back to look at it. “Yeah? English!” Sarge glowered at the robot. “Now, what do you want with those kids?”

“L-l-l-l-l-l-life forms,” it said.

“Yeah, life forms. What of it?” Sarge asked.

“S-s-s-s-s-s-scan.”

“Scan? Scanning for what?”

“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly?”

“E-e-e-eradicate. D-d-d-d-d-danger. Th-th-th-th-threat.”

Sarge was able to figure out one thing about this robot, it was at least talking. He didn’t know if it had a link to the previous robots made in the factory, but he didn’t want anyone to get hurt if he could help it.

“These are just innocent people,” Sarge said. He felt his hands begin to shake. His heart was racing. He was terrified. “please, leave them alone. They are scared, tired, and anxious.”

“S-s-s-s-s-scared. T-t-t-t-t-t-tired. A-a-a-a-a-a-anxious,” the robot repeated.

“Yes!” Sarge turned away again. He saw a few soldiers filing into the room. They seemed confused but lifted their weapons, ready to fire.

“D-d-d-d-d-d-danger,” the robot said. Its eye began to light up.

“Only if you attack!” Sarge said hastily, lifting his hands.

The robot’s eye darkened and it looked back at Sarge. “D-d-d-d-d-d-danger.”

“Are the soldiers the anomaly?” Sarge asked.

“N-n-n-n-n-n-n-no.”

“And, just so you don’t think this conversation is superfluous and you start doing this abnormally and getting people, and yourself, hurt… why don’t you uh… stop floating… and uh… uh… relax so you can tell me more about this anomaly?” Sarge took another look at the people behind him. He saw they had all stopped panicking and were now staring at him and the robot. Sarge looked back, remembering what he told Corporal Lunar. “I want to help. We do not need to fight.”

“F-f-f-fight?”

“No, no fighting…. Isn’t that what you came for?”

“S-s-s-s-scout. F-f-f-find a-a-anomaly. R-r-r-report. E-e-e-eradicate D-d-d-danger.”

“Scouting?” Sarge asked. “I know I’ve asked this before, but… what is the anomaly? Does it have a name?”

The robot took a moment. Sarge assumed it was processing the question. “A-a-a-anomaly. U-u-u-u-u-unit… z-z-z-z-z-zero.”

Sarge’s mind flashed back to the computer a year ago. When it talked with Chomby, it mentioned “unit_01”. Sarge assumed this meant it was the first off the production line. When he looked back at his encounter a few days ago, he realized that there was a blue-colored, “unit_02” written on the torso of the Robotic Destroyer. Was there a third one?

“I’ve… only seen unit_01 and unit_02,” Sarge said quietly to himself. So there was actually a robot made before unit_01? What was it supposed to be?

The robot immediately responded. Though it had trouble with the previous words, it spoke these words clearly, as if it had recorded the message beforehand. “Unit_01 terminated. Unit_02 terminated. Unit_00 Not Found. Unit_00 must be eradicated.”

“Is it in the factory?” Sarge asked. “That’s where the other two were.”

“F-f-f-f-factory u-u-u-u-u-unresponsive.”

“Sarge!” Sarge heard Chomby say through the earpiece. “That was the computer, right?”

Sarge looked at the robot. “The computer for the factory in the Epstein Warehouse had been destroyed.”

“C-c-c-c-cause?” the robot asked.

“Why do you need to know?”

“F-f-f-f-f-f-final c-c-c-c-c-command.”

“What final command?”

“S-s-s-s-s-s-s-stop h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hurt.”

Sarge’s muscles tensed up. Those were the words the computer had said before Chomby smashed it. It said that it caused pain, and that we had caused pain to it. Hurt is bad.

“C-c-c-c-c-c-computer d-d-d-d-d-destroyed. C-c-c-c-c-c-cause?” The robot asked.

Sarge had to think this part over. He knew exactly how it was destroyed. Chomby destroyed it. When Chomby was dying, the computer had said, “the computer needs to be unplugged to stop the deterioration.” Since the computer wasn’t plugged in, Chomby just smashed it.

“A misunderstanding… and an accident.” Sarge took a deep breath. “If I were to guess, the computer that got destroyed… it was controlling the factory production. I assume its last command issued went through whatever mainframe you guys have and gave you all a new directive… but the factory, which it controlled, did not?”

The robot’s propellers started to slow down. It started to sink to the ground. “Y-y-y-y-yes.”

“And so the factory needs to be destroyed… because there is still an anomaly – this ‘unit_00’?”

The robot’s tentacles stopped moving enough for one of the tentacles to touch to the ground. It dropped itself down and fell on its back, showing its eye. The tentacles then began pulling the robot toward Sarge.

Sarge took a step back.

The robot paused, seeming to notice his hesitation. “H-h-h-h-help? L-l-l-l-l-l-lifeform h-h-h-has i-i-i-i-information. S-s-s-s-scouting. F-f-f-f-find l-l-l-l-l-lifeform w-w-w-w-with i-i-i-i-information.”

“You want… my help?” Sarge asked. He looked around and saw that some of that the crowd of people had started whispering to each other. The soldiers had lowered their weapons.

“H-h-h-h-help. H-h-h-h-h-h-help.”

“I-if this anomaly… is dangerous, I feel you’d want help from the military or someone who’s strong enough to fight it.”

“H-h-h-h-help… F-f-f-f-f-find… a-a-a-a-a-answer?”

“Yeah, I guess?” Sarge bent down to look at the robot. “I know a corporal who could possibly give assistance. They dealt with unit_02, if I’m correct.”

“C-c-c-c-c-c-c-corporal?” the robot asked. “I-i-i-i-i-image… s-s-s-s-s-show?”

“I don’t have an image of him,” Sarge turned his head to the crowd, “but I could take you to hi-”

A flash of light behind Sarge made him turn around. He saw a red line of light pointing upward. He followed it and saw that it was actually creating an image on the ceiling. It was blurry, so it took Sarge a moment to focus on the image.

Sarge froze. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Shining on the ceiling was an image. Though it was from a different perspective, Sarge recognized when this image was taken and what it was.

In that fateful encounter in the Epstein Warehouse a year ago, the Robotic Destroyer was destroyed by a large blast wave of sound. Apparently, as the destroyer started malfunctioning, it managed to take a picture of its assailant. It was Chomby.

“C-c-c-c-c-corporal?” the robot asked.

“N-no,” Sarge gulped.

The image zoomed in. It focused in on a part of the image that, though blurred, was pretty easy to make out – the logo on Chomby’s belly.

“C-c-c-c-c-corporal f-f-f-f-f-found.” It said, its gaze now fixed on Sarge.

Sarge looked down at himself. He was hoping it wasn’t fully visible to the robot, but he knew fully well that it had noticed.

Dead center on his jacket was the exact same insignia Chomby wore – the Fluffmaster logo.

~~~~~

The next part of the continued story! Enjoy. :D

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Story/Art/Sarge/Xenon ©  pikminpedia Me