The Grabbem agent with the torch leapt backwards. A thick disc of metal with smouldering edges toppled out and fell with a crash that echoed throughout the cavern.
An unearthly light – crimson and gold like a sunset – blazed out from inside the vault. All the agents gasped at once. Axel could just make out the light’s source: a cylinder that looked like a lava lamp, thrumming with power.
‘The Phoenix Reactor,’ said Mr Grabbem, licking his lips. ‘Come to Daddy!’ His eye-craft drifted forwards.
‘Axel, quick, grab it before he does!’ yelled Yumi.
Axel went into action. Leaving his legs locked in place, BEAST reached out with his arms and shot forwards and up with a steely sproinnnggg, extending out like a stretchy piece of gum. He arched right over the astonished Grabbem guards, a robotic rainbow.
‘It’s that flipping kid again,’ roared Mr Grabbem. ‘Ooh, he’s a bigger pain in the butt than my piles! Well? Don’t just stand around, you useless lumps. Stop him!’
Captain Weiss tilted the top of his head right back like a lolly dispenser and screamed, ‘You heard the man! Bogey Dingo Niner on a quad bike, go, go, go!’
The guards swivelled their rifles around and pointed them at BEAST. But before they could fire, REAVER rushed out of the shadows as quick and silent as a pouncing panther. He zipped all the way down the line of guards and with one slash of his arm, he sliced right through their rifle barrels as easily as if he’d been cutting through bamboo. He skidded to a halt and turned around in one graceful motion.
The rifle barrels fell clinkety-clank to the ground like useless lengths of plumbing. The guards stared at the stumps of their weapons, unable to understand what had just happened.
Axel kept on stretching above their heads. He prayed BEAST would be able to stretch far enough. The longer his body got, the thinner it got. It was getting pretty cramped inside BEAST’s cockpit. BEAST’s arms couldn’t stretch any further, so he stretched his fingers instead. They reached for the Phoenix Reactor. Almost … almost … got it!
Captain Weiss took out a big, ugly handgun and took aim. ‘Tic-tacs on my poodle, hunky dunker,’ he snarled. ‘Gonna banjax your Ralphie Tango all the way to South Central!’
‘What?’ said Axel.
Weiss opened fire. BEAST catapulted his body backwards, like elastic twanging back, and the bullets spanged harmlessly off the cavern wall. BEAST’s torso wobbled giddily about. His eyes rolled around in his head. But he kept a tight grip on the Phoenix Reactor.
‘Good work,’ Yumi called across to him. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’
Axel shifted BEAST back into his usual form, glad to be done with ELASTO. That form had been useful, but all the boinging about made you feel seasick.
He turned and ran back up the tunnel. REAVER came racing up to join them, and together they headed towards the surface. Captain Weiss fired wildly at REAVER, but the elegant robot ducked and weaved out of the way with hardly any effort at all.
‘Oh no. We’re not having that,’ said Gus Grabbem. He shoved the levers forward in his eye-craft and went zooming up the tunnel like a bowling ball in a gutter.
Axel and Yumi glanced back over their shoulders and saw him looming up behind them.
REAVER sprinted on ahead, but BEAST saw Mr Grabbem’s furious face and let out a tiny terrified squeak. He staggered.
‘BEAST, run!’ Axel yelled.
BEAST recovered himself. He put on a burst of speed. Mr Grabbem was already catching up. He pressed a button. A thin telescopic arm with clutching fingers emerged from under the eye.
From up ahead, REAVER hissed angrily: ‘THROW ME THE PHOENIX REACTOR, YOU FOOL. I AM FASTER THAN YOU.’
Before either Axel or Yumi could say anything, BEAST – eager to please – had hurled the Phoenix Reactor towards REAVER.
It spun through the air, end over end, lighting up the tunnel with its intense glow.
REAVER went in for the catch, but Mr Grabbem’s telescopic arm shot forward with blinding speed and snatched the reactor out of the air. It vanished inside his craft.
Grabbem guffawed. ‘Thanks. That was easier than I expected.’
The guards were pouring into the tunnel, and they had replaced their sliced-off rifles with scary-looking new weapons. Axel saw rocket launchers, grenades and something that looked like a minigun.
‘Now what?’ Axel yelled.
‘We take him down,’ Yumi said, her voice shaking with anger.
Mr Grabbem reversed away from them, crowing over his prize. One of the guards tossed a fist-sized something past him into the tunnel.
‘Bye bye, kiddiewinks,’ said Grabbem.
A red light blinked on the object for a second.
‘Grenade!’ shouted Yumi.
Axel went staggering back as the grenade exploded. The tunnel filled with tumbling rubble and choking dust.
When it had cleared enough to see, they saw the tunnel was blocked from floor to ceiling. There was no way through to catch Mr Grabbem now.
‘No time for blame. We need to get to the surface, fast,’ Yumi said.
BEAST fired his foot-thrusters and REAVER sprang forward like a grasshopper. They reached the ragged-walled shaft where the bombs had blasted them down into the mine tunnels.
With BEAST flying and REAVER hopping from surface to surface before it could crumble under his weight, they quickly made it back up into the open.
‘There he goes!’ Axel pointed to where Mr Grabbem’s eye-craft was zooming out to sea, towards the huge shape of a ship, half-visible in the sea mist. There was something else there, something on top of the ship … but, no, it couldn’t be. A robot the height of a tower block, lying on its back?
‘REAVER,’ stammered BEAST. ‘I AM SORRY. WE FAILED AND IT IS MY FAULT.’
REAVER snorted a ‘HA!’ but Yumi spoke over him: ‘You have nothing to apologise for, BEAST.’
BEAST and REAVER both said, ‘WHAT?’
‘Through this entire mission, you have clearly done your best. REAVER, on the other hand, has been an idiot. It is he who should apologise to you.’
‘APOLOGISE?’ grated REAVER as if he’d been told to sit up and beg like a good puppy.
‘Yes! BEAST was doing fine until you told him to throw the reactor to you, just so you could show off how much better than him you think you are! And because he wanted to impress you, he did as he was told. Do you think you are in charge here?’
‘NO,’ said REAVER softly. ‘BUT I UNDERSTAND NOW.’
‘And?’
‘I AM SORRY, BEAST.’
‘OKAY!’ said Beast happily. ‘I AM GLAD WE ARE FRIENDS AGAIN.’
REAVER’s eyes flashed red, but he said nothing.
Axel said, ‘Guys … I think Grabbem’s coming back.’
‘In that floating eye?’
‘Not exactly. You’d better look and see for yourself.’
A colossal figure was striding towards them through the sea. It was so tall that waves washed against its shins. The tower blocks of Ghost Island only came up to its chest. It turned its huge helmet-like head back and forth, with a grinding noise like a ship’s anchor chain swinging. In the middle of its forehead was a single huge eye, and looking out from the eyeball’s lens was Mr Grabbem.
‘Hey, kid!’ came his voice, massively amplified, ringing out between the empty buildings. ‘Glad we caught up! What do you think of my robot suit, eh?’
‘Boys and their toys,’ Yumi said with a half-smile. ‘It’s all about who’s got the big expensive one.’
‘You about ready to get stomped flat?’ Grabbem yelled.
‘It’s me he’s after,’ Axel said. ‘You should get out of here.’
Yumi gave him a withering look. ‘Please. I’m here to get my property back. And I’m not leaving without it.’
Tektonicus Max came stomping up the shore. The ground shook and wobbled like a backyard trampoline under its feet. It looked at a building, seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then casually swat
ted it with its fist. The building came crashing down in a shower of rubble, as if it had been a sandcastle kicked over on the beach. The rubble turned to glowing dust and faded away.
‘THAT IS A VERY POWERFUL ROBOT,’ said BEAST.
‘It’s not even our biggest problem,’ Yumi said. ‘That Grabbem idiot doesn’t realise the Phoenix Reactor is unstable. If we don’t pull it out of his robot and shut it down, it’ll destroy everything within a hundred kilometres of here.’
‘So we fight,’ said Axel.
‘Agreed,’ said Yumi.
‘AGREED,’ said REAVER.
‘AGREED,’ said BEAST.
Tektonicus Max stomped up the street towards them. He punched down entire office blocks as he came. The masonry turned into glittering nothingness as fast as it came crashing down.
‘Time for another one of our famous thirty-second plans?’ said Axel.
Yumi nodded. ‘I’ll shift REAVER into his black widow form, DARKWEAVER. He can spin polymer webs that even that mecha won’t be able to break. Can you keep Grabbem busy with some kind of hit-and-run attack?’
‘The SWARMER form should be good for that,’ said Axel.
‘Cool. Get him to chase you. I’ll trip him with a web-line, then quickly tie him down. Once he’s immobile, you pull the reactor out.’
The two robots shifted form. SWARMER had caterpillar tracks to zoom around on, while both BEAST’s arms turned into stubby missile launchers. DARKWEAVER was a lot like ARACHNON, but lean and gleaming black. He went scuttling off into the shadows by the side of the road. SWARMER took up position in the open, where Grabbem would be sure to see him.
And see him he did. ‘Hold still! This won’t take a second!’ boomed Mr Grabbem. Tektonicus Max came bounding down the road with huge earth-shaking strides.
Axel lined up the aiming crosshairs and fired. Missiles streaked towards Tektonicus Max in a flaming cloud, like fireworks going off. They blew up in its face, fountaining fire and sparks everywhere.
The gigantic robot staggered, and for a second Axel thought, We got him. He’s going down already. It must have been a lucky shot. But then he heard Mr Grabbem laughing.
‘Is that all you’ve got? Those poxy little shots? Didn’t even leave a scratch!’
Axel reversed SWARMER up the road, acting like he was trying to keep Tektonicus Max at a distance. He fired again, but Tektonicus Max swatted the micromissiles out of the air, just like a man irritably shooing a fly from his drink. DARKWEAVER crouched just ahead of him, still hidden, waiting for the moment.
‘Wait till my son hears I was the one who dealt with you,’ leered Mr Grabbem. ‘He’ll be so jealous!’
‘You’ve not dealt with me yet,’ yelled Axel.
‘Oh, I will. Just watch!’
Tektonicus Max lurched forwards again. The mighty metal foot came down – and DARKWEAVER whizzed across its path, a blur of legs and motion, leaving a tight web-cable behind.
Tektonicus Max couldn’t stop in time. It kept moving and the cable strained against its leg. Slowly, like a felled tree, the robot began to fall.
‘You did it!’ Axel cheered. ‘He’s coming down!’
And then the cable snapped.
Tektonicus Max turned to look down at DARKWEAVER, huddled at its feet.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Mr Grabbem. ‘I see you. Trying to trip me up, eh? Looks like this is a bug that needs to be stomped.’
Tektonicus Max raised its foot, ready to crush REAVER – and Yumi – to a pulp.
Axel had to do something, fast. ‘BEAST, lock missiles on that robot’s eye and fire!’
The flurry of micromissiles struck home with sharp, popping explosions like firecrackers. Momentarily blinded, Tektonicus Max teetered on one leg. REAVER quickly skittered out from under it, sprang into the air and shifted back into his regular form before landing. Cool move, Axel thought.
‘Where’d you go?’ roared Mr Grabbem. ‘That trick won’t work twice!’
REAVER skidded to a halt next to BEAST. ‘So much for that plan,’ gasped Yumi.
‘We’ve got to keep fighting. Together we can beat him, I know we can!’
‘We have to combine our strength. BEAST, are you willing to use Interface X?’
Axel tried to ask, ‘What’s Interface X?’ but BEAST was already saying ‘YES!’
‘REAVER?’ Yumi asked.
‘I … AM WILLING.’
‘Okay, Axel. Get ready. We’re going into two-player mode!’
Axel couldn’t contain himself. ‘Yumi, what the heck are you talking about?’
‘Show him, BEAST.’
An icon Axel had never seen before lit up. It showed two half-circles clicking together to form a whole.
Axel took a deep breath and pressed it.
Both BEAST and REAVER went as stiff as boards. BEAST reached out his left hand. REAVER took it with his right. Their fingers interlocked. The machinery inside their bodies hummed in harmony.
Tektonicus Max loomed over the buildings. The blackened eyeball swivelled to look right at them.
‘INTERFACE X ACTIVATED,’ said BEAST and REAVER together.
What happened next happened amazingly fast. In a juddering rush that threw Axel around inside his cockpit like an astronaut in a crashing spaceship, BEAST and REAVER fused. At first BEAST looked like he was riding on REAVER’s back, but then BEAST’s legs merged with REAVER’s arms. Their bodies flowed together like a complicated animation. Axel’s cockpit module nestled next to Yumi’s and locked in place, so they were suddenly sitting side by side. She flashed him a quick grin, as if she did this kind of thing all the time.
Where there had been two robots, there was one double-sized one. It had BEAST’s eyes and REAVER’s snarling mouth and lashing tail from his dinosaur form. It held the GALAHAD sword in a two-handed grip.
‘I didn’t know he could do this!’ Axel said, amazed.
‘Nor do Grabbem,’ said Yumi. ‘My mother baked some secrets into the shifter technology. It’s just a matter of knowing how to unlock them.’
Like a cheat code, thought Axel. Too cool for words.
Mr Grabbem was confused. He didn’t understand why the two robots had merged into one big one, but as if that weren’t enough his own robot was glowing, and he didn’t think it was supposed to do that.
‘The reactor’s going critical,’ said Yumi. ‘I think we’ve only got one shot at this.’
‘Let’s take it.’
They each gripped their controls. Axel didn’t need to ask Yumi if she was a gamer, and she didn’t need to ask him. It was obvious. This was a co-op situation now. They both knew exactly what to do. Under their joint control, the BEAST/REAVER fusion ran down the street towards the oncoming giant.
Tektonicus Max drew back its fist to strike. Golden twinkles of lethal energy fell from it like toxic fairy dust. The Phoenix Reactor in its chest throbbed and seemed to moan with hunger.
The fused robot leapt up into the air, propelled by the twin power of REAVER’s leg pistons and BEAST’s foot-thrusters. As Tektonicus Max’s fist swung slowly through the air, the robot leapt gracefully onto it, using it as a stepping stone.
Mr Grabbem stared in horror. How could anything move like that?
Then the fused robot was moving again. It launched itself from its first perch, spun through the air to gather momentum and swung the crystal sword at Tektonicus Max’s neck.
Mr Grabbem squealed and threw his hands up over his face as he saw the fused robot coming for him.
The sword bit deep. Tektonicus Max stopped in its tracks … but its head didn’t. It kept going, rolling off the neck and plunging to the ground with a crash. Axel and Yumi heard Mr Grabbem’s despairing cry as he fell.
Axel quickly thrust the fused robot’s hand down inside Tektonicus Max’s gaping neck, grabbed the Phoenix Reactor and pulled it out. The blinding golden light steadily dimmed down to a more peaceful glow.
The two robots separated and were left standing on the headless robot’
s shoulders. Axel realised he was still holding the reactor. He held it out to Yumi.
‘This belongs to you.’
She took it. ‘Thanks for helping me get it back.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Yumi frowned. ‘Be honest, Axel. Helping me wasn’t your original mission, was it?’
‘No. I was meant to take the reactor for myself, to help the fight against Grabbem.’
‘I thought so,’ Yumi sighed. ‘You going to try fighting me again?’
‘Nah. It’s yours, not mine. Can’t just help yourself to something because it’s cool, you know?’
‘Good call. Well, see you around, I guess.’
‘Wait. REAVER got damaged when we were fighting. I’d like to fix that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Shift REAVER into a form that can fly and follow me,’ Axel said. ‘We’re going to the Meatball. I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.’
‘Meatball?’ Yumi laughed in disbelief. ‘Now this I have to see …’
It was many hours before Axel headed for home. Yumi had left earlier in a repaired REAVER, taking the Phoenix Reactor with her, bound for a new top-secret location. Agent Omega had made a solemn promise to work together with the Minamoto family in future, and to share information about the Grabbem threat.
‘I think we’ve made an ally,’ Omega said, after Yumi was gone. ‘Possibly even a friend. Good work down there.’
Now Axel was flying BEAST towards his house. It was dark, but they didn’t have BLACKBAT loaded, so they weren’t exactly stealthy. (Slicing their way in with Galahad wouldn’t be an option because Nedra’s seen quite enough damage done to the house already!)
Then Axel almost had a panic attack. There were relatives everywhere. The twins were out front, playing with his old skateboard. Kyle was in the back garden yet again. Aunty Vicki and his mum were on the deck. There was no way to reach the secret lair without being seen.
Or maybe there was.
‘BEAST, I need you to shift into BLINKER.’
‘AGENT OMEGA SAID BLINKER WAS ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES.’
Axel thought of what Aunty Vicki would say if she saw BEAST coming. ‘This is definitely an emergency.’
Robotic Rumble Page 4