Metal Vs the Monster-Maker

It was all darkness at first. There was nothing. Everything had happened so suddenly that he didn’t even have a chance to react before being plunged into it.

Then there was sound. Wind? It was rushing past his ears.

Warmth? He could sense levels of direct heat beating down on him. Sunlight perhaps?

But there was nothing under him, and nothing was holding him. There was nothing there. Only sunlight and wind.

Was he floating? No. Not floating.

Finally, his eyes came back online. He could see a bright sunny blue sky above him. However, the clouds… they was rising away from him.

Not floating.

He was falling.

The rest of his body activated and he spun around in the air to see below him. He was indeed falling from the sky. How did he get there? What had happened?

He felt confusion as he tried to piece it together, but nothing made sense. How did he go from being in the lab, then being several miles into the sky? There was no logical answer to that.

The machine.

Could it have been that machine that did this? Could it have been some kind of portal after all? All he could remeber was the blinding flash of green light after he’d bumped the controls. He’d never heard of such a random teleporting machine before. Perhaps that was why it had been hidden away in that room.

Though, his thoughts wandered as he fell. His eyes scanned the world below. So much greenery. So much… life. There were large collections of trees like forests dotting the land, a vast rocky terrain that looked almost like a desert to him, a sparkling blue ocean that stretched off to the right, and what looked like a small city far below him. This didn’t look anything like his planet. His planet didn’t have such abundant nature anymore.

A world made of metal. That was the world he came from. So then… What was this place?

He soon realized he was coming rather close to reaching the ground now. Specifically, the city below. He needed to slow his descent before he crashed down.

He flipped himself so his feet were falling first and activated his rockets. However, to his surprise, they only sparked to life a couple times before going out. That wasn’t good.

He tried again, getting the sparks again from the soles of his shoes, but they refused to stay on. He kept trying as he saw the skyscrapers coming towards him at alarming rates. At this rate, he was going to crash into hundreds of pieces. This was very bad.

He kept at it, knowing that he was very hard pressed for time now. Based on his calculations, he had about two minutes left to get some kind of resistance to the pull of gravity before there was no saving him from bursting apart once he hit the ground. He was just falling way too fast. He fell past the first skyscraper building.

Finally, the rockets came to life, but they would stop suddenly before coming back on. It would be a very rough landing, but at least he could come out of it with minimal damage.

He continued to slow his descent a little at a time, as he aimed towards a back alley, careful not to hit any buildings or land on anything important. He stayed calm and focused, only a few yards above the pavement below.

Suddenly, his rockets gave out entirely and he fell with a heavy thud. He could hear the tiny alarms going off in his head as he laid there. Definitely harder than he’d wanted, but not enough to break him.

He sighed as he laid there, letting his body do a quick scan. After a moment, he could tell that his back, which he’d landed on, his right arm, and his legs were all in yellow zones of damage. He would need to repair those soon so not to have anything falling apart on him.

He finally sat up and looked around. He was now sitting in a rather neat, clean back alley. Black pavement free of cracks or stains under him and tall buildings of pastel colors with black tinted windows standing around him. Much more colorful and clean than the city he came from.

He got to his feet and dusted himself off, “Well, that wasn’t how I expected my morning to go.” He looked around, still speaking softly to himself in a voice that sounded more like a speaker, “I wonder where I ended up. This doesn’t seem like Kivo anymore. Just where did that machine send me?”

He looked down at his arms, his skin a shiny blue-tinted metal despite the scratches and tiny dents, “Mostly cosmetic damage. Nothing I can’t restore with time.” The bonuses of having a body of metal over a body of flesh.

Before he had a chance to figure anything out, there was a loud roar that shook the ground and boomed like thunder, followed by a huge crash and the screaming of a panicked crowd. He didn’t waste a moment and rushed down the alley towards the end of the row of buildings. When he came out, he found himself in a large square full of shops, a beautiful fountain in the center, and a road that circled the fountain in a roundabout.

However, the beautiful square was in hysteria. Cars had crashed or screeched to a stop, people were running for safety, and the police were helping others who were in the line of danger. The cause of such a panic?

The enormous dragon now sitting in the center of it all.

The dragon was about the size of a two story building with fiery-red scales covering its body, large wings from it’s back that stretched to have a wing span equal to its own height, and a long neck that allowed the vicious head to move as needed to growl at the panic below it. Its long tail rose and smashed down on vehicles, throwing anything in reach around the square.

The robot boy watched in worry, “What… What is this?” That couldn’t be… a real dragon, could it? But dragons didn’t exist. It made no sense.

However, he had to remind himself that this was most certainly not Planet Kivo. Could it have been true? Was he… in another dimension? Such a thing was only theorized, but never successful.

Could that strange machine have actually done the unthinkable after all?

He didn’t get to dwell on the thought for long as the creature roared again. His ears almost sparked from the audio overload, making him instinctively cover them with his hands. He had to focus. One thing at a time. There was a dragon in front of him!

He then heard a scream that was louder than the others, and another voice that called out, “Eris!!”

He looked to see a boy not far from the dragon. He was the only person who wasn’t running from the dragon. He had to be in his mid-teens, his lanky build made only lankier by his baggy clothes. His hair was a vibrant red mahogany color, more on the red side, while his bright blue eyes were that same shade as the sunny sky above. His look of horror and fear was aimed up at the dragon as he yelled over the noise around him, “Eris!!”

The robot boy looked up where the other boy was looking to find something in the dragon’s claws. A girl? Her bright pink hair made her stand out against the dragon’s red scales and black claws. She looked about the same age as the guy yelling up to her, her soft green eyes full of fear as she called for help. The police nearby who saw what had happened could only look on, looks of worry and sympathy. Could they not do anything?

The dragon roared again, this time swinging its tail in a sweeping motion. Everyone did their best to duck or jump back from it. The guy near the dragon dropped to the ground, protecting his head with his arms, just missing being thrown into nearby buildings like the vehicles that were not so lucky. It didn’t, however, protect him from the chunk of the fountain that finally gave way and fell right over the guy on the ground.

It was time to act.

The boy managed to force his rockets to come on, giving him a burst of speed to throw him towards the boy on the ground. Just before the chuck of marble could land on the fear-stricken boy, the robot swooped in and snatched him out of the way. The chunk smashed to pieces against the cement as the robot boy landed and sat the other boy down gently.

The robot smiled kindly, “Please stay here, ok? I’ll go help your friend.” The boy only watched in shock as the robot flew off towards the dragon.

The robot focused as he flew towards the dragon’s hand, getting the beast’s attention. He held out his arm and it suddenly shifted into a new shape. The shape being similar to a cannon. The robot aimed at the dragon as it roared loudly, finally releasing a bright green light into the monster’s side. The dragon roared louder as it dropped the girl.

The girl screamed as she fell towards the ground below, but the robot zoomed after her, catching her halfway down and landing carefully on the ground out of harm’s way. The robot gently let her down, “There you go. Are you hurt?”

She looked up at him, her shock matching the boy earlier. The robot smiled, understanding that she was in shock, “Just wait here while I get rid of that monster, then I’ll come check you for any injuries.” She still didn’t reply as he flew off for the dragon.

The beast was clearly furious as it spotted the robot flying towards it again. It swung it’s large claws at him, from which he managed to duck away before taking a few shots at it. The dragon roared again before taking a deep breath. The robot had certainly heard enough stories about dragons to know what that meant. Without any hesitation, he flew down out of the way as a plume of red fire burst from the dragon’s gaping jaw at him. The robot quickly flew around the dragon like a pestering fly as he fired shot after shot into it, clearly having the upperhand against the enormous creature. It was clearly not capable of fighting something so small and elusive.

Finally, the creature spread its wings and gave them a heavy flap. This not only threw everything loose around it through the air, but it also even blew the robot back from it. A couple more flaps of its wings and the creature lifted off the ground. It roared one final time before flying off from the city.

The robot sighed in relief. His readings told him he was nearly out of power for anymore cannon shots, and his rockets were already sputtering again. It was a wonder they lasted even that long. He knew he had cut it a bit too close. These thoughts crossed his mind as he slowly landed in the damaged square.

Once he was safely on the ground, he noticed the silence. He looked around to find that everyone was still staying back, watching him. There was still fear and shock in their expressions. The dragon was gone, so why did they still seem scared?

Were they scared... of him?