By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)
May 31st, 20XX, 4:26 PM , PST
Gauntlet placed his hands on his
knees, his breathing slightly ragged, and synthetic sweat clinging
to his ash-caked face. His uniform was a mess of burns, cuts, scrapes,
and general abuse. But to the little girl before him, he was still
a much easier sight to behold than the brutish PC thugs her father
had entrusted with her life.
The rest of the maniacs looked a lot like Gauntlet, with various
injuries painted onto their bodies, pain apparent in some of their eyes,
much like Shadowman’s displayed. But despite that, the cybernetic
shinobi forced himself to smile gently for Alicia.
“Hello.”
“…Hi.”, the diminutive child whispered.
“I’m Shadowman. Your name’s Alicia, isn’t it?”,
he asked, unable to remember if he had asked her already.
“Yeah.”
“Alicia…We need your help.”, he said, getting straight
to the point. “Can you please help us?”
“I’ll…I’ll try.”
“Thank you. Alicia, do you know anything about what happened here?”
The little girl’s eyes wandered downward, and she shook her head
back and forth.
“Alicia…Please. We really need to know what you’ve
seen here. I know…Your dad may have asked you not to tell any
strangers anything…But…Your dad’s in trouble too.
We can’t help him if we don’t know what to do, okay?”
She looked up into Shadowman’s eye, then his very slight smile,
tinged with slight impatience which he desperately tried to cover up.
She looked over to the other Maniacs, some of them not smiling in the
least, with a couple outright frowning. But SparkChan’s ever-cheerful
expression helped ease her doubts.
“There was…A lot of wind…”
“Go on…”, Gauntlet assured.
“I was really close by here. Daddy sent me here to meet with some
friends of his, and then the wind.”
“How did you survive?”, Lennon asked with much urgency in
his voice. Gauntlet gave him an eyeful, but didn’t necessarily
berate him for asking the question so soon. After all, he was just as
curious as he was.
“I…I don’t know…”
“Don’t give me that! I-“
NeedleGal grabbed Lennon’s shoulder mid sentence, shaking her
head “no” firmly. In return, he freed his arm with a gruff
tug, but didn’t continue his verbal assault. Just yet, at least.
“Okay, Alicia. I’m sure you’ll remember eventually.
Can you tell me when your father was last seen, though?”, Shadowman
continued.
“I think…”, she said as she checked a watch she kept
in her pocket, rather than her wrist. “ Umm, four…five…forty-five
minutes ago? I think…”
“Forty-five minutes ago? We just missed ‘im then…”,
Hardman whispered to Topman.
“The soldiers took him…”, Alicia slowly managed. “I
was hiding with the robots Daddy had just fixed when a heli…heli…chopper
came down and soldiers came out and they grabbed him.”
“Alicia, how long were you here with your dad? Did he come with
you to LA?”
“Umm…Daddy came here…at seven-oh-clock in the morning.
I think.”
Gauntlet stood up slowly and addressed his team quietly. “Just
as I thought…The Pale Riders brought Dr Enstehung here.”
“What? Why would they do such a thing?”, SparkChan asked,
concerned.
“Leverage. They wanted him to find his daughter for them.”,
Lennon interjected again, more calm than before. “A little girl
is far more likely to come out of hiding for her father than some big
brutish soldiers.”
“I get that much…But why wouldn’t they take her right
away instead o’ lettin’
her and the Doc wander around, fixin’ some ol’ friends of
ours? Doesn’t make much sense.”, Hardman added.
“Hmm…I think Dr Enstehung may have managed to get away
from the Pale Riders for a bit. Is this true, Alicia?”, Gauntlet
asked, looking for some sort of confirmation.
“I…I think?”
“Probably.”, the ninja reasoned. “However, now we’re
onto the most important question. Namely, why are the Riders so concerned
with finding Alicia when they have her father?”
“…She’s got something.”, Geminiman concluded. “Alicia,
let’s have a look in that bag of yours, shall we?”
“No!”, Alicia screamed, running behind Classi’s legs. “Daddy
told me to keep it safe!”
Gauntlet looked NeedleGal in the eye, silently confirming what
he had already affirmed.
“Alicia, we don’t have time for this!”, Lennon pleaded
without much in the way of niceties.
“Lennon! Leave her alone!”, SparkChan demanded, holding
the Twin Terror at bay.
“Are you mad? She may very well have the answer to everything
in that bag of hers! We don’t have time to fool around here!”
“I agree, but there are better ways of going about this, rather
than bullying a child!”
“Hey…Where’s Mags, anyways?”, Topman randomly
muttered.
“Who cares?”, Hardman countered. "My heartburn's killin'
me as it is."
"Heartburn?", Classi asked. "You mean...Your engines
are cutting out?"
"Sumthin' like that, yeah."
Classi thought this over for a second, looking as though she
were concentrating on something in the atmosphere.
Gauntlet ignored this, however. It was a bit strange that Magnetman
wasn’t around, though he felt the strange tingle in his bones
usually associated with the magnetic master.
But, his prime objective was standing right before him. “Alicia,
listen to me. We want to help you and your father, but we really need
your help to find him. I think you’ll be able to help us out if
you show us what he gave you, Alicia.”
“B-But Daddy said…He said to not let anybody see it!”
“I understand, Alicia, but your dad needs our help. We need to
know what the bad guys want from you.”, Gauntlet pleaded.
Gauntlet knelt down before the little girl, still hiding behind
the mango-colored SparkChan’s tall legs. With a look of genuine
compassion, Shadowman did his best to reason with the young girl.
“We’re gonna save him. We’re the good guys, Alicia.
You’re a good person, too, so we should all work together to help
your daddy. Then we can all go home.”
“H-home?”
“That’s right. Home.”
“I…I don’t wanna!”, she screamed, tears beginning
to flow.
“Th’ hell’s that all about?”, Hardman grimaced.
He had enough loud noises for the day as it is.
“Poor girl…Sounds like home isn’t too great a place.” Topman
frowned.
“The hell with this!”, Geminiman growled, reaching for her,
almost pushing Classi aside.
“Lennon!”
“GUYS! Get outta here!”, Shadowman suddenly shouted. “MOVE!”
The team didn’t have much time. Within seconds, a Harrier jet
was above them, coming from seemingly nowhere, using the maelstrom of
dusty clouds as cover. A solid series of “clanks” announced
that the pilot didn’t much care for Alicia’s safety, as
a pair of missiles unlatched from the wings of the lithe aircraft, breathing
to life with tremendous exhaust, pushing away the grey and brown dirt
smog.
Somewhere in the chaos of seven bodies moving in seven directions,
one Maniac managed to grab Alicia and dash for safety.
May 31st, 20XX, 4:47 PM , PST
“Alicia, are you alright?”,
Needle asked of the shaken child in her arms. She had waited to ask
her until they were clear of the explosion that separated the team
yet again.
“I-I think so…Yeah…”
“Good…”
Needle looked up, watching a Hard Knuckle in the distance unsuccessfully
fire towards the jet in the distance. It looked like a few of the Mechs
were doing their best to keep the Harrier at bay, away from Alicia.
But the Harrier wasn’t the only one looking for the child in question.
“Hand her over…”, the dark, coated man demanded as
he marched out of the dust. It was the same man who shot Hardman earlier,
nearly crippling the massive Mech in the process. “I don’t
want any trouble.”, he claimed from behind his plain black helmet.
Needle knew better, stashing Alicia behind her, ready to fire
at him with her Needle Cannon. She was wary about fighting with a child
so close by, but she was out of chances for the day. She had to keep
Alicia close.
Another set of footsteps announced another presence.
“Take the girl and go, Needle.”, he demanded.
“Mags?”
“Go.”
The spiky mistress was hesitant, wary of turning her back to
the dark-clothed man. However, even he motioned for her to leave upon
seeing the helmeted Magnetman.
After a few seconds of stalling, she gulped, nodded to Magnetman,
and ran back towards the others with Alicia riding piggy-back. Hopefully,
the Harrier will have been dealt with by then.
“…Can’t say I’m glad to see you.”, the
man groused towards Magnetman.
Kenta said nothing. The two simply stared at each other in
the sandstorm from behind their helmets.
Then, the mystery man gave a small “heh”, and decided to
remove his helmet.