Off the coast of California, a boat sped along. It wasn’t the exactly largest boat- not a cruise liner, nor a container ship, but certainly larger than the average fishing trawler. Its exterior was rusted, but it maintained a good clip. Behind it followed a churning wake of salty foam, and a Neo Arcadian naval interdiction unit.
On the deck of the ship, gunners aimed at the pursuing boat, daring it to come into range. Most of the non-combat crew were already belowdecks, but some still rushed about, securing equipment in place and delivering crates of spare Energen to the gunners. In the midst of the orderly chaos stood two figures: a titan of a robotic man clad in radiant golden armor; and the ship’s captain, a slightly less towering robot sporting a stereotypical pirate’s uniform. From the stern they watched as the enemy slowly closed the distance.
The pair were ancient as far as robots went. Once upon a time, King had been a revolutionary leader. He was the first of Wily’s sons to go his own way, desiring to create an exclusive haven for his kind. Pirate Man was his most loyal lieutenant, a former civilian maritime worker bot that had stuck by King’s side since the day they had met.
Pirate Man racked the charging handle on his personal weapon, a heavily modified grenade launcher. “Accordin’ ta Engineerin’, th’engines’re at th’limit. They’re gonna be in range soon‘nuff.”
Pirate Man’s voice was obviously synthetic, and harsh to boot. By contrast, King’s speech was booming, regal, yet smooth.
“I assume our boarding defenses are ready, yes?”
“Yessir, that they be.”
Pirate Man couldn’t smile. His face was odd, distinctly robotic in its construction. Nonetheless, he felt mirth. These young Neo Arcadians clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with.
His uncovered eye scanned over the enemy, drinking in the details. It was a medium-sized yellow boat with indigo accents. It lacked much in the way of an upper deck, instead covered by blocky walls hiding the interior. To Pirate Man, this indicated it could be submersible to some degree. The boat’s exterior was lined with small doors covering up missile tubes. Pantheons milled about on the few traversable spots of the vessel’s exterior, making ready for combat.
Along the side of the boat, in faded paint, Pirate Man spotted an emblem. It was an italicized blue capital letter R in front of an inverted golden triangle. He recognized it instantly and elbowed King to get his attention, pointing out the emblem. King’s face froze in a frigid, controlled anger. Drawing his axe, he spoke over their ship’s interior comms.
“See how they mock us! Tonight, our enemy has brought to bear the weapons of our long-fallen brethren, the Repliforce! This insult must not go unpunished!”
Repliforce had once been a military arm of the UN. An incident had incited it to separate, with the intent to create an autonomous nation for Reploids. King had been in talks with them about forming alliances, but before anything could come of it, they were silenced by the humans for the sin of freedom. A few in King’s retinue were survivors of this purge. They had never forgotten what had happened.
The weapon covers opened on the opposing ship. A second later, a barrage of rockets shot forth, crossing the distance with deadly speed. Atop the bridge of Pirate Man’s ship, a laser defense module sprung to life, instantly tracking the missiles. Invisibly, a beam of infrared light lanced out through the gap between the boats. Energy dumped into the rockets, each disintegrating one by one. Several detonated with a terrible thunderous crack, their explosives cooked off from the heat.
King bellowed a hearty laugh. “Fireworks! Excellent!”
Pirate Man intoned, “’Ere they come…”
A squadron of Pantheons had launched right behind the rockets, gliding forth on winged jetpacks. Leading their formation was a pair of Pantheon Aces- elite aerial combat models. Pirate Man could tell them by their lilac paint and golden enhanced V-shaped targeting optic in place of the usual red camera lens.
The gunners on the ship opened fire. Large orbs of plasma shot forth at the Pantheon squadron. Most scattered and dodged, but a few were too slow to adjust course, blowing to pieces that fell into the dark waters.
Pirate Man aimed his grenade launcher towards the center of the formation. It lacked conventional sights, instead smart-linking with his body, projecting data into his vision. He pulled the trigger, and the projectile flew from the muzzle with a soft thump. It was an odd thing, covered in thrusters meant for active trajectory adjustment. As it flew, he readied another shot.
The grenade exploded in the vicinity of the enemies, showering them with deadly flak. Several fell, their wings or vital components lacerated. Pirate Man pulled the trigger again, this time launching a concussive grenade. They were already close enough that another shrapnel load would be dangerous to him and the crew.
The Pantheons opened fire. The second grenade found its mark, blowing one to dust. The plasma arced through the air, slamming against the ship’s gun turrets. Most of the shots hit the gun shields, distorting the metal and severely rattling the guns and gunners, but leaving them mostly unharmed. However, one turret caught a bad hit. Bright blue flame erupted up out of the gun, its occupant thrown to the ground by the blast.
Pirate Man growled into the comms. “This’s th’Cap’n. Get’a med team on standby, a man been hit.”
The remaining guns continued to shoot. At this range, they were much more deadly. In just a few seconds, the approaching squadron was reduced to a few remaining bodies including the pair of Aces. The whole exchange of gunfire had lasted twenty seconds at most. Now the boarders were here.
King leapt up at one of the Aces as it crossed over the deck. It leveled its buster at him, but his axe was quicker. He landed back on the deck, accompanied by the clatter of the Ace’s now-separated two halves. Two of the fliers swooped in close, blasting at the regal fighter. Their shots simply dissipated harmlessly into his armor. In a flash, they were both cleaved fatally.
The boarding party was now reduced to the sole remaining Ace. Undeterred by the loss of its comrades, it kept firing wildly as it swooped to and fro, now a mere foot above the deck. Holstering his grenade launcher on his hip, Pirate Man addressed his king. “’Ey. Check this out.”
The obsolete robot weaved around the buster fire with a precise grace that was unexpected of his size and age. He leapt at the Ace. It angled its thrusters forward, attempting to dodge backwards. The pirate carried too much momentum. The both of them went down in a flurry of limbs. With his dominant hand, the captain pinned the Mechaniloid’s buster arm. With his pincer claw hand, he gripped its head. The machine strained against his grip, staring at him with that unfeeling V-shaped visor. It simply saw a target.
Pirate Man crushed the machine’s head. It went limp.
After the slightest pause, he pried his prize off the body. Jumping to his feet, he held it up so King could see. It was the Ace’s jetpack. King grinned in approval. “Most clever, my friend.”
The pirate donned the jetpack, fastening it over his greatcoat. His hand dove into his pocket and pulled out a short data cable. He lifted up one of his armored epaulets, pressing the connector into a shoulder port. The other end went into an auxiliary control port on the pack. Instantly, the jetpack responded to his command, its control surfaces flexing and its engines brightening.
“Be back inna ‘sec. Don’ go nowhere on me now, mate.”
The remaining crew on the deck cheered as their captain lifted in the air. In only a few moments, he crossed over the gulf to the enemy boat. He unholstered his grenade launcher as he went, chambering a round as the Pantheons on the deck aimed up at him. Their shots missed pathetically. His didn’t. With the deck clear and bearing fresh scorch marks, he set down. Wasting no time, Pirate Man began to forcibly wrench open the boat’s missile tube doors. They tore open with the screech of bent steel. After only a few, he found what he was looking for- tubes that hadn’t launched their missiles yet. Saving a follow-up volley would be the Neo Arcadians’ downfall tonight.
He dropped several of his high-yield remote grenades into each tube.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Satisfied with his handiwork, he was about to leave when the hatch opened and another Pantheon emerged. Unlike the fliers, it was bulbous, mostly coated in yellow plates. It was a Pantheon Aqua, a diver unit equipped with buoyancy chambers along its body, giving it a shape not unlike the human deep sea diving suits of old. It leveled its harpoon gun at Pirate Man. He simply chuckled and took off.
After putting sufficient distance between him and the enemy boat, he sent the trigger signals to the explosives. In a burning instant, they blew apart the missile tubes and set off the warheads, tearing the ship asunder. Its front half disintegrated in an immense fireball. The back half sank silently and with little ceremony. One moment, the repurposed Repliforce boat was chasing Pirate Man’s ship, the next, it was simply gone but for flames and debris launched upwards.
The Robot Master laughed. It had been a while since he’d had that kind of fun. A few hundred feet ahead of him, King was crisply saluting him. He fired a salute back. He’d be back home in just a moment.
His comms crackled. “Captain! We have an unidentified contact approaching fast through the debris field! It must have been hiding behind their ship!”
“Ah. Shit.”
He looked down and behind him. With his grainy light amplification, he spotted a patch of water that seemed darker than the rest. It had a delta shape with a tail- some sort of manta ray-esque visage. Unlike the ship, it was catching up quite rapidly.
“Watch out, sir!”
A barrage of icy javelins shot up from under the waves at the flying pirate. He rolled, narrowly dodging one, two, three, four of the projectiles- but a fifth one caught him in the upper chest. He felt pain. The damage control subsystem gave a report- superficial damage, some minor circuits and a few tactile surface sensors crushed, but nothing major. With an angry growl, he pulled the spike free, letting it drop to the waters below.
Pulling up his grenade launcher again, Pirate Man aimed at the shadow. Just as he lined up the shot, another spread of ice spikes shot up at him. This time, the very first one pierced the wing of his jetpack, snapping it clean off.
“SHIT”
The captain spiraled out of control towards the water. In just a moment, he impacted and sank below the waves. There was a new damage report- the hole in his chest was filling with water. This wasn’t a problem in and of itself- robots were usually insulated against even internal flooding, doubly so for maritime models. The problem was, it was weighing him down. In just a short moment, the bubbles stopped flowing from the wound. The shadow passed by him overhead, chasing the ship.
Pirate Man attempted to fire the jetpack’s engines in a vain hope that it would bring him to the surface, but there was no response. The thrusters were flooded with seawater. Quickly, he took the pack off, dropping it in hopes that shedding the weight would help him swim to the surface. But his strokes didn’t bring him any further upwards. He couldn’t ascend without the buoyancy afforded by his unpierced body.
It wasn’t the sort of thing that was generally a problem for him. Sure, he wasn’t the most mobile robot in the water, but usually his armor was good enough to keep him un-pierced, and usually, he had assistive hardware for water excursions- flippers, small water jet thrusters. Or, failing that, he simply walked along the bottom in the shallows.
His comms came in, the signal already weak as the ship got further and further. “Captain! Are you okay?!”
“Run, ye fools! Ya gotta get outta here!”
The comm signal went dead. The intraship comms weren’t set up for range, serving mostly as a convenient intercom system.
All he cared about was their safety. King’s safety. He aimed at the manta ray shadow, firing a grenade. Its thrusters fired, speeding it along. It burst near one of the machine’s wingtips. It slowed. It stopped. It turned around.
“Yeh, bet that got yer attention, ye bastard.”
As the shadow began to close in on Pirate Man, he sank, faster and faster into the black depths. He pulled a bundle of chemical lights from his belt pouch. They cracked all at once, casting a sickly yellow light. He dispersed them around himself. The shadow grew, a spot of the same impenetrable dark he was sinking into. The chamber of the launcher clicked open. A shrapnel round slid into place. The charging handle clicked, muted by the seawater. His prospects were grim, but it didn’t matter. No matter what, this fool was going to rue the day it attacked his ship.
The shadow approached, cautiously. It lingered outside of the reach of the chemical lights, matching the speed of Pirate Man’s descent. Even with his light amplification cranked to the maximum, he couldn’t make out details beyond the odd contour here and there- regions where the shadow was slightly less dark, but nothing coherent.
There was a tense silence. The pirate aimed his weapon at the shadow, but didn’t pull the trigger. Likewise, the shadow launched no frigid spears in his direction. Was this a standoff? Or was it merely surveying its prey, fulfilling idle curiosity?
A few moments later, shapes began to emerge from the depths- large, vertical blocky things at odd angles. Pirate Man couldn’t figure out what they were until he sank next to one and the dim yellow light revealed the details. It was a building. All of the shapes were buildings. A realization hit him. He checked his internal navigation system. Sure enough- he was roughly where Los Angeles used to be. It was now a tomb under a few hundred feet of sea.
His feet touched down on the seafloor. It was a mix of sand and chunks of asphalt- once, it had been a street. The encrusted, barely-recognizable remnants of some vehicles were still visible here and there, strewn between the grim spires. Pirate Man could hardly see beyond the immediate surroundings. He’d lost track of his pursuer, but the shadow didn’t take long to reveal itself.
Darting out from behind one of the buildings, she was properly visible for the first time, lit by the eerie glow. It was a feminine body, fused to a large manta-like combat shell, held aloft on the thrust of two large turbines and the undulations of its trailing tail. Her face was visible at the apex of the delta body, a serene visage adorned in a helm of seashells.
He’d never met her, but the pirate knew instantly who it was. Fairy Leviathan, member of the Four Guardians and highest admiral of the Neo Arcadian Navy. He wasted no time, spared no moment to taunt or converse. The trigger was pulled on recognition. The shot surged through the water, a hateful torpedo. It burst in proximity to its target, fanning shrapnel towards her in an attempt to jam her engines.
Even as she retreated, two more shots burst with muffled booms. Pirate Man was lining up for a fourth shot, but she’d already retreated behind the edge of a building, apparently unharmed. A gentle feminine laugh distorted by the water was audible. He cursed.
Seemingly in response, a cacophony of low roars echoed through the abyss. From the alleys and nearby streets, one after another, came ice-drakes, rushing at the pirate. Two fell to shots. One bit his arm and received a crushing claw to its neck for its trouble. The rest grabbed him, pushing his back against what had once been a large truck. He struggled. One was crushed in his grip. One was caught between his boot and the ground, smashed flat. Soon enough, they lashed him in place. He struggled with futile rage.
Leviathan floated back into view, approaching cautiously. In her humanoid form, she would have been shorter than the captain, but here, she loomed. Her face bore a grin of mild amusement. The sailor roared, his voice carrying despite the water.
“Yer foul beasts chain me ta’ th’rock an’ seek ta’ peck at me, Siren o’th’ Deep! Ye see fit call yerself "Leviathan" ‘coz y’think yer’ th’ruler o’ these seas! But there be things far elder and dire than one such as ye in these waters! Fer every bleak wyrm ye summon forth, a great Cetus will follow in yer wake, an’ they’ll gnash ‘n’ snap at yer body until it's but bones rustin’ ta nothin’ on th’silt! Come, fell King Neptune, come forth’n’ invoke yer wrath upon this sea-witch! Grind away her rust with yer tempest currents ‘til naught remains, not even a name!”
Leviathan cocked her head at the words, as if perturbed by their bile. The pirate stared his foe in the eyes, straining to break his bonds if only to swing at her. Something in his mind attempted to notify him that the water was becoming more ambiently corrosive than seawater usually tended to be, but he paid it no mind, consumed as he was by his fury. One arm broke free. He laughed a hateful laugh. The other came free, too.
A jet of viscous, corrosive brine lanced from the dark, striking Leviathan in the wing. Parts of it started to warp and deform and crumble and melt. Her face turned pale with some sort of recognition as she recoiled, attempting to evade. Another blast of the near-invisible solution slammed into her, fully breaching a hole into the wing. With a final glare at her former prey, she turned and sped into the dark, retreating for good.
The dragons fell limp, and Pirate Man attempted to scramble after her. He picked up his weapon, shooting in her direction. It was useless- she was gone. He screamed of bloody murder, stomping in frustration.
“I coulda’ crushed’er, if’n she weren’t a coward!”
A gentle, odd voice responded, seemingly completely unchanged by the sea. “Were that you would have, but she knew the threat that had arrived by the burn it left.”
Pirate Man whirled around. His anger was replaced immediately by shock. Floating towards him was a humanoid creature with webbed flippers, scales, fins, and a silver crown of vicious hooks.
“Well I’ll be damned! It be not th’ Neptune upon whom I called, yet it be’a Neptune indeed!”
Neptune was an aquatic member of the alien invasion force known as the Stardroids. His kind had invaded Earth twice. The first time had involved global devastation, including the sinking of the very city in which they stood. In the second invasion, guilt had made him defect- or, more accurately, made him fight against his masters and cease war against the Earth’s peoples.
After the fateful struggle had ended, Neptune disappeared into the sea, seldom seen and quickly passing into legend. There was no effort to capture him- partly in thanks for his act of rebellion, and partly out of simple fear of the immense power of a Stardroid. The pirate had encountered him a scant few times over the decades, but never for long.
“Disappointment is not intended, but intervention was unfortunately a necessity. Much of the honor has disappeared from this world. It would be a worse disappointment to allow one such ruler to extinguish a remaining source of that honor.”
The pirate holstered his grenade launcher. His stance relaxed. He asked, “So what’re ye doin’ in these parts, anyhow?”
A long pause. “Penance. A day for each body, spent among the many ruins left behind. So much time… and yet, is that enough for the acts committed?”
Pirate Man thought about it, running numbers. “Yer gonna be ‘round ‘ere fer a real long time, y’know.”
“The regret runs deep. The command of the leader was no just reason. Justification won’t undo the harm. Commitment is the sincerest repentance. But come, your companions await at the surface, and the foe is indeed gone.” Neptune offered a hand.
Gripping the biomechanical alien’s arm, the captain intoned, “Much obliged.”
Neptune kicked off, dragging the robot upwards. His powerful legs churned the water and they rose, much faster than the descent had been. After a few short moments, their heads popped above the surface, scarcely fifty feet from the ship. The alien treaded water, effortlessly supporting the hefty robot as he waved and shouted and loudly clacked his pincer.
“Oi, oi, over ‘ere! Down ‘ere!”
A few minutes later, Pirate Man and Neptune had both been lifted to the deck, and most of the water had been bailed from the captain. He now sat cross-legged as he patched the hole in himself, carelessly welding with a small torch. Neptune stood off to the side.
“So, what I be wonderin’, is how’dja know ta’ come back fer me?”
King scoffed. “Of course we were going to come back. Nobody gets left behind.” Quietly, he added, “Especially not you.”
The captain looked the monarch in the eyes meaningfully. Had his face allowed it, he would have sported a sly grin. “Ye best not be givin’ me preferential treatment, matey.”
King replied, “No, of course not. But we were clear of the enemy, and we knew where you’d fallen. Recovery was an imperative. We were preparing a dive team when you popped up with our friend here.”
He addressed Neptune. “I must thank you again. It sounds like you truly showed up at the most opportune moment.”
Neptune replied softly, “It was simply payment towards the unending debt. Those ruins have enough dead, and he belongs up here.”
King smiled warmly at him. “Good. I certainly doubt the Neo Arcadians will be entering our territory for a while. Doubtlessly, they fear that I have a live Stardroid among my men… Ha! Imagine that.”
Pirate Man laughed. “What’d’ya think, matey? Spend some time in the sun, helpin’ us out?”
Neptune’s generally unreadable affect was slightly broken. In some alien way, he seemed genuinely surprised about the idea. “Well- it does sound rather enjoyable, an extended break from solitude. If it is appropriate is another question. It must be considered before an answer is reached.”
The captain beamed, looking out at the sky. The very edges of dawn were creeping. “Well, it be yer choice. ‘Sides, we’ll be fine if’n ya go back ta’ yer own way. Them freaks’ll never get th’better of ol’ King!”
The two aging robots laughed.
Even a Guardian had failed to defeat the King Numbers.