Robotic Who Now? (Trog)

Darren had no idea where he was or what he was doing in wherever he was. If someone asked however he wouldn’t tell them that. No, no reason for anyone to know that the kid had no idea what he was doing best if they thought he was exactly where he was supposed to be doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He was also pretty sure that was from some old movie but it isn’t like anyone would actually know that right? At least he would hope so if he ever had to explain to someone why he was currently sitting on top of a really weird looking white building that probably would fit in better in Ancient Greece with a giant stone man sitting on a throne inside of it.

Americans were totally weird and that was coming from him. A guy who jumped off the top of a pretty tall building after being covered in pixie dust because it would make him fly. Stupid movies and their stupid strict rules; it wasn’t his fault that apparently pixies weren’t exactly close enough to fairies. He still should have been able to fly after being covered in the stuff as that was how it was supposed to work. He was getting off topic though, or was he? Tilting his head to the side Darren tried to remember what exactly he was supposed to be doing here it had something to do with a brain right? No, no that was over in LA and he still wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t found it yet. I mean it was a brain it wasn’t like they moved around or anything. Should have been totally easy to find. In fact-

Whatever Darren was going to think about next was cut off by the sound of an explosion, people screaming, and running or at least he thought they were running; people just moved so slow compared to him he could never tell what was what. Anyway, he could understand the running part. Running away from explosions and whatever caused them was generally a good idea, one Darren didn’t adhere to, but the screaming? Really? You’d think that in this day and age people would have seen everything there possibly was to see. This stuff had to be a regular thing, explosions, robberies, super powers they were all just something you should expect to run into on your average day. Screaming was just getting yourself hurt.

But, the screaming did give him a general direction of where he needed to go. As if the explosion hadn’t already done that. Standing up from his perch Darren looked down only just now realizing how high up he really was and sighed closing his eyes, opening them up a second later. To him it looked as if the entire world was standing still, as if time was paused as he fell from his ‘perch’ on top of the Lincoln Memorial. Racing down the side of it he took off towards where the explosion was making it there in a matter of seconds skidding to a halt dressed in his ‘Super Hero Costume’ sword in his right hand slung across his back, in a sort of kneeling position with his right leg bent and left out to the side with his left hand on the ground out to the side as well.

He accessed the situation in front of him as his body slowed down, the rest of the world finally catching up with him. It was definitely not something you would expect to see every day. Two giant robots were standing in front of him holding what appeared to be gatling guns. Except just calling them giant robots didn’t do them justice they appeared to be giant terminator style robots with American Flags for wings, and their scarred and messed up faces looked eerily like the guys on the one and five paper money that Americans had. They were also dressed up in some pretty old fashioned clothing, and looked to be pretty strong. Also scary as they turned their guns on Darren as if just now noticing him. “Uhhh…Can we talk about this guys?” He asked with a sheepish grin on his face.

((The Robots

Spoiler:

))

T'was the night before Saturday and not a creature was stirring. Caleb was rather bored. before he was a superhero he had not realized how much of the work was actually just sitting around waiting for adventure and excitement to suddenly rear its ugly head. He once again looked down at the monitor, despite the fact that he had promised himself to wait another minute before doing it. The fact that he did not even need to look at the monitor made it even duller. After all, he had programmed the computer with advanced algorithms that were more than capable to determine whether a crime was in progress and alert him if it was the fact.

The screen was nonetheless displaying the visual and auditory data from his small fleet of drones observing various parts of the city from on high. Most of it was of empty alleys and people strutting confidently through the streets. He supposed he aught to feel good for their sake, but a part of him wished that someone could try to mug one of them. He would stop it of course, and it would be exciting and all that jazz. This was not his ideal way of spending a Wednesday night, sitting on a box on a rooftop in the middle of the city, looking at people going from something stupid to nothing at all. A few moments he had tried standing, striking a heroic pose against the night sky. He knew it was a fairly ridiculous thing to do, but he was a hero, and he had expected it might helped him get into the proper mood for these things, but the attempt had failed miserably. Well, at least this time he was on his home-ground so he wouldn't have to fly over half the country when he was done here, plus he knew where all the best takeout where to be found in case he got hungry. It wasn't much, but hey it was something

Who was he kiddding? He wished he was back in New York. That was where shit happened! where superpowered villains ran around in the alleyways cackling and doing villainous things. He had tried patrolling New York city once and he had ran straight into some sort of demonic soul-sucking beastie which he had defeated with due speed, of course. But here? Bupkis. However, suddenly a small beep in his comm-link revealed that one of the drones had found something that might be of interest. Thank god for the drones! Without them he would probably have been sitting here all night. He briefly wondered how all the other heroes managed to make do without them as he magnified the scene observed by the drone in question An explosion!

Caleb quickly activated his anti-grav-pack and took off, flying towards the explosion. Hopefully nobody was hurt yet. A part of him cursed himself for wishing for excitement. He didn't want a big lump of excitement like this, but rather he wanted it in small bite-sized chunks spread out over the night. The sight of people running for their lives down on the streets did not make him feel any better either. He already knew that this was going to be painfull.

However as he arrived at the scene, percieving it from high above, floating high above the buildings he saw the causes of the disturbance. A pair of gigantic, somewhat battered-looking robotic version of President George Washington! How cool was that! He was going to face off against a pair of evil robotic presidents. He looked at the guns they were carrying and felt his heart sink a bit. He had no doubt that armor or no armor they would make mince-meat out of him with those guns, but the odds were not entirely stacked against him. He had a minigun too now, a laser one, and he had been aching to try it out for quite a while now, but he was hesitant on utilizing it when there where still innocents nearby.

However, suddenly there was a man there, arriving so quickly he was nothing but a blur, seemingly out of nowhere. His suit gave him away as some sort of super-person, but Caleb was nonetheless bothered by this. It put quite the dent in his plan to cut the robots down by heavy ordnance. Unfortunately he had little room to change his approach. He doubted his arm-blaster would be enough to take these things out. He took a deep breath and dove in, followed by a half-dozen drones, all firing their laser-guns at the two presidents.

Incomming! Caleb shouted at the other hero, his voice-modulator transforming his teenage voice into one that sounded like a deeper, more bad-ass Darth Vader. Normally Caleb would have aborted his attack, but the man obviously had some variety of enhanced mobility, which would hopefully get him to safety. After the warning Caleb gave him roughly half a second to clear out of the way. After all, if the newcomer remained standing there the robots would no doubt fill him with so much daylight he'd be the meat-equivalent of a smoothie.

himself activated the minigun, and targeted the one on the left with a salvo of laser-beams even though the burst only lasted about four seconds before he once again flew into the heavens, his gatling-laser were capable of firing roughly 133 bolts of energy per second, each one capable of punching a whole through a kevlar-clad opponent. As the minigun hopefully dented one of the robots, he fired two globs of capture-foam, aiming not for the robots themselves but but for their guns Hopefully the gooey, quickly hardening polymer would be enough to get inside the cracks of the nasty-looking weapon and jam it for a while. That way he would at least be reasonably safe up in the sky where they could not get their massive robot-hands around his puny neck

“Vengeance is  Mine!” called out one of the giant robotic things as Darren asked his question which in all honesty was not what he had been hoping for. Obviously by that response no they couldn’t talk about this. Which was fine by Darren, he was the Swordsmaster, Jokester Hero Extraordinaire or something like that, and he was pretty good at fighting. He was just about to leap into the fray sword at the ready when someone yelled out a warning of ‘incoming!’ Not needing to be told twice he spun around on his heels as the world around him slowed down as his body sped up. Getting a good look at the totally not Darth Vader-Iron Man knock off Darren took off to the side while the robots were blasted with…lasers?

“For Fatherland! For Faith!” The second one called out as both the Robots were pelted by the laser blasts from the drones. Automatically they turned their sights on the new challenger, their gatling guns warming up with a hum. They didn’t get very far though as the one on the left was pelted with 133 bolts of energy in the span of four seconds staggering it backwards. In those four seconds the other one’s gun had warmed up and started firing upon the flying Iron Vader with rounds that were strong enough to tear through cars and cement walls like they were nothing. Only for both of their guns to be clogged shut by the strange glue. The one shot full of the pewpewpew gun as Darren was now calling it could be seen short circuiting slightly but still functional as both of them attempted to fire their weapons, continuously heating up.

“Woa man that is some seriously awesome weapons you got there. Kinda jealous.” The hooded Hero, not vigilante because he was obviously the most awesome hero ever, said with a grin as he swung his sword around as he got into a more offensive position. “My turn though.” With that he darted forwards towards the closest Robo, which just so happened to be the one that had been hit by the pewpewpew gun. It attempted to fire it’s gun at Darren spouting something patriotic or what not only to realize that nothing was going to happen as Darren got closer and closer. In a last ditch attempt it swung its gatling gun at him in an attempt to bash the young hooded hero into the ground. Darren was having none of that.

In fact he was simply messing around with the ‘big bad robot’ waiting for the perfect opportunity to end this as quickly as possible. He liked doing things quickly, he had a reputation to uphold. Sure, it was one he had given to himself but even Sean once said that he’d be faster than everyone one day. Or dead. He really didn’t remember. Anyway when the giant gatling gun came sweeping down at Darren he simply jumped up over it and landed down on top of the gun propelling himself off of it and over the Robo-Washington. During his decent his sword slashed into the things back only to get stopped about half way down right where the wings connected. “This, totally isn’t good.”

While this was going on the other Patriot had decided that the flying individual would need to be dealt with. It raised it’s wings flags and lifted its self into the air flying towards Caleb. Heating his gun up much faster than the robot Darren was currently dealing with because it wasn’t filled with laser holes the glue like substance melted and the bullets were sent flying out at Caleb. All the while it sounded as if Robo-Washington 2 was spouting out the Declaration of Independence. That or Barney’s Let’s be Friends.

As Caleb rose upwards again after a job well done, he could see the stream of bullets slice through the point where he had been just barely a second ago, fortunately the robot ceased its firing as the capture-foam started mucking up it's hand-held gatling-gun. A quick survey of the area around him showed that the evil George Washingbots had decided to split up, in order to fight them one on one, but not only that, it seemed that one of them had taken to the air somehow. For a robot of such gargantuan size it was quite manouverable in the air. Our Airborne hero silently cursed his rotten luck. of course he got fight the uninjured one. In his not-so-humble opinion this turn of events was best described and summarized as being quote 'totally unfair' unquote, he had done the damage on the first one and now he had to face the undamaged one.

There was a grayish smoke comming out of gun now, and even though he hoped it was from the electronics giving out inside of it, he would not bet on it. His capture-foam had a rather low tolerance for heat and those fumes looked more or less precisely like the vapours from that expiment he had attempted once. He decided to put some buisness and a building between that monster as soon as possible. After all, there was no way he could stand up to firepower of that magnitude for long. As he flew he quickly opened up his left-top and with a few quick key-strokes he designated the flying Washingbot as the primary target for his gun. He lowered his altitude so that any of the bots that miss would fly into the air instead of hitting the ground and wrecking up another street. The laser-Gatling-gun quickly spun around and fired at the Washington under the control of the suit's on-board computer whilst Caleb concentrated on getting behind cover before the Washingbot's own weapon would be functional. However, the barrel of his opponents weapon had started rotating, although not quite at firing-pace yet, but it was merely a question of seconds.

He needed more time, or he would no doubt be ripped apart by red-hot lead. He quicly spun around in the air and fired the grenade-launcher located on his other shoulder. However, this time he did not have offence on his mind. as soon as the grenade had left his shoulder it started emnating a thick, oily smoke, effectively creating a smokescreen between him and his washingbot opponent. our hero hoped that this would be enough to cover him until he was behind the building. However, it was rather windy, so the smoke would be dissipated in barely no time at all. As he moved he once again pressed a few buttons on his left-top, thus relaying the drones visual information to his Auto-targeting-system, that way his own gun could keep firing despite the smoke. Just before he dove around the corner to relative safety he could hear the ratta-ta-ta-ta of the Washingbots minigun springing to life, fortunately the shots did not hit him, and he was pretty certain he could hear some of the bullets smash into the concrete wall as he dove around it.

Whew. Narrowly made it. Hopefully his laser-gatling-gun had done some damage to the Washingbot. after all, it had been firing for far longer than he had time for when he dove towards the other robot, but he knew that the targeting-system whilst normally very accurate was less so when he moved about during high speeds. With a few key on his left-top he relayed his scout-drones visual feed into the HUD in his helmet, thus looking in on the robot to see what it was up to. After all, the good thing about the scout-bots was that they made sure he could see it, whilst it could not see him.

Darren was in a bit of a situation, sure the Iron Vader was probably off dealing with his own Robo-Washington but he had his own fancy looking suit of armor with weapons to deal with the thing. Darren didn’t have that. He had a sword that he was currently hanging from and was shoved inside the Robo-Washington as it moved around attempting to get the boy blunder off of him. Quickly running through scenarios in his mind while attempting to not get distracted by every little thing, like that butterfly that just happened to land on that tree over there. Obviously it was harder for him than it probably should have been but eventually, or to other normal people about five seconds of holding on for dear life while a mechanized robot Washington thrashed about, Darren had an idea.

It was a terrible, awful, no good bad idea but it came from Darren Cross the Swordsmaster; so could there be any other kind of idea? No. The answer to that question is a resounding no. Darren moved and positioned his body so that he was facing the thing’s back, still holding onto his sword but now only with one hand as his other hand flew forward palm facing up as at the last second his hidden blade escaped from its hiddenness and lodged its self in the back of the mechanized dollar man. From here he wasn’t entirely sure what to do until that is he saw the other robot take to the skies after the helpful Iron Vader and yet another idea formed in his head. Or maybe it was the same idea as the one before but because of something or another he had gotten distracted and thus thought this was an entirely new idea. It didn’t matter. Actions spoke louder than thoughts anyway.

Ripping his hand down and across the back off the Robo-Washington the hidden blade ripped through metal and circuitry while cutting the flags/wing things off of its back and dethatching Darren from the beast as well. The hobo with a sword landed on his back with a ‘thump’, yes an actual thump, next to the two American flags that were used to propel the robot presidents into the air. Aforementioned mechanical dollar man did not seem too pleased about the removal of his flags as he spun around spewing out lines from a song Darren could hardly decipher, something about a bridge falling down and ashes? Did America even have a bridge? Any thoughts of that was soon left from his mind however as the mechanized monstrosity burst into flames from where the flags had previously been marching forwards towards Darren the gatling gun firing off at a rapid pace.

At least at a pace that would seem rapid to perhaps anyone else in the world. Darren simply leaned back, put his hands on the ground and spring pulted, because that’s a thing, himself up onto his feet and ‘casually’ walked around the hailstorm of bullets lifted the surprisingly heavy gatling gun out of the Robot’s hands and shoved it down its own back. Hilarity ensued. If you counted a giant metal robot that just so happened to look and sound like George Washington exploding in the middle of Washington D.C. hilarity. Darren had of course been smart enough to get any civilians out of the way before the explosion but had forgotten just how far he needed to be and so was sent flying by the shockwave and landed in the grass a few feet away, spitting out dirt. “I don’t like paper money man…”He muttered still trying to clean his mouth hoping his hopeful new friend was doing any better.

Which, more to Darren’s eventual and only momentary disdain, Caleb was in fact having a much easier time dealing with his Robo-Washington. It helped when you had drones, smoke bombs, and your own much better gatling gun. The laser gun had in fact done quite some damage to Robo-Washington. Sure, not all of the shots had been exactly what one would call accurate and most had missed completely but the ones that did hit, hit for some pretty good damage. Blowing up the gatling gun taking most of Robo-Washington’s arm with it and somehow hitting the flag/wings knocking him out of the sky to land a few feet away from them in the ground in a nice firey explosion. Because explosions were always fun. However it begged the question, who built such highly advanced Robots, designed them after Presidents, had them rob whatever it was they robbed, and then get taken down so easily?

Calebs brow furrowed as the drones relays showed that apparantly his hail of concussive laser-beams had been enough to take the robot out with him barely noticing. Either these things where weaker than he had anticipated or he had underestimated the raw power of his awesome new Gatlin-laser. He expected it would have been the former but he really, really hoped it was the latter. He unleashed a few extra rounds into the downed robots with his gauntlet, aiming for strategic places to make sure it wasn't playing him for a fool before he slowly descended, keeping a close eye on the robot, looking for signs of metaphorical 'life'. Well, signs of movement anyway

As he descended he felt mighty pleased with himself and his performance, and even though his mandalorian-style helmet hid it, he was sporting a big, smug, goofy grin all over his spotty face. The next time those Ninjas came by they'd be in for a nasty surprise. Last time he had barely had any gadgets at all, just a laser-gauntlet-gun, his shock-fist and a jetpack. He still had the gauntlet and the shockfist, but he had added drones, com-equipment, the various sort of grenades as well as upgraded the capture-foam balls to grenades and his jetpack had become an anti-grav-pack- Superior in all ways except as a flamethrower. And now he added in his newest invention, the Laser-minigun. . . If he was a villain now would be the time for a megalomaniacal laugh.

As he touched ground he stumbled forward a bit. He cursed silently as he hoped nobody saw that. He had been way cool up until that point. However, due to his victory this was not enough to take the smile of his lips or the spring out of his steps. He looked at the remains of the downed robot, and his mental powers got to work. Even though the robot was pretty beaten up, his amazing brains gave him the rundown of its systems, and from this he could extrapolate how it worked. Or rather how it had worked when it was still functional. It was quite a bit more advanced than the technology avalible on the market. very impressive from a mechanical standpoint, but he expected he could have done better with the onboard computers. And the guns. The guns were bog-standard, nothing special there. Sure they were good, but not super-science good. But that was not really what he had hoped to find at all.

He had really hoped to find a transmitter from whence it had recieved orders with, but he was not so lucky with this one. However, he had found what remained of the computer. By using his onboard systems he could probably find a log over what the robot had been up to before it had decided to blow up a museum. He quickly pried the component loose and made sure it had no connection to the robot body or any sort of self-destruct advice before he used it. He plugged in his own computer and started working his magic to see what this little baby had been up to. With any luck he would be able trace it's steps back from whatever it had came from

"Hey, quick-man. Like, thanks for the help an' all that. You really kicked butt." He said cheerfully, giving the other hero a thumbs up. as he worked
"If you're up for it, I think I can probably trace these Washingbot's back to where they like, came from and stuff. Cuz I'm like, totally a genius." he continued, and it was quite clear from the smug tone of voice that he was mighty pleased with himself, and probably thought that everyone else should be appropriately impressed.

"Heh, Washingbots. That's bloody brilliant. I'm totally calling them that now." He continued as he kept checking the logs, typing furiously on his gauntled-computer, the left-top

“No problemo Iron Vader, you weren’t so bad yourself what with your Pewpewpewpew Gun and all.” Darren replied to well Iron Vader, as he stood up and dusted his costume off. Sure, the grass and dirt didn’t really stick to it but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to not check and make sure that it was as spotless as he could make it. Tyuki only caved and cleaned the thing for him so often and he really didn’t feel like rushing off to go find her and beg her to get it cleaned for him however it was she did. That and she usually tried to get him to wear a shirt whenever he showed up out of the blue. He’d wear them of course for that little amount of time but it wasn’t his fault that they usually just got ripped to shreds at the speeds he was running; and what was he doing exactly?

Blinking, and happy his eyes were mostly hidden by his hood because no he totally did not just zone out and miss whatever it was Iron Vader said, Darren just nodded. So, instead Darren zipped around so he was looking over the other hero’s shoulder attempting to understand everything that he was doing. It wasn’t so much that it was going by too fast, hah yea right, more so that well Darren didn’t actually understand anything the was doing. One of the side effects of only have a ten year old education given by an orphanage back in Australia, his ADHD didn’t help much either. “So, uh what exactly are you doing? Looking for the…Washingtonbots? That’s a weird name, I was gona call them money men because they look like the guy on that one coin and paper money.” Mostly because Darren didn’t realize they were one in the same. Wasn’t his history.

It was only then that he realized what it was that the guy had origionally called him. Sure, Darren almost never called anyone by their actual names but his super hero name was awesome! Way better than ‘quick-man’ anyway. “Also, the name’s Swordsmaster. Y’know because I like to use swords and I’m actually pretty skilled with them and you probably don’t care do you? Yea sorry just go back to your fancy computer stuff and lemme know when we can go find the guys or gals that sent the evil flying really American looking robots after some random building!” If Caleb hadn’t noticed by now Darren was not your average ninja like person; he loved to talk and he was very good at it

"Iron Vader? You serious. I based this suit on a Mandalorian design. Y'know, Boba Fett-style. Yeesh." Caleb said annoyedly as he kept fiddling with his computer. Fortunately he had the superpower to be able to talk, fiddle with electronics and be both annoyed and grumpy at the same time. Iron Vader. Seriously. He kept going through the logs, it took some time because of the size of the thing and the limitation of his left-top. With any luck he would find something soon enough.


"Y'know, I haven't actually choosen a proper codename. at first I thought whiz-kid, cuz y'know, I'm clever. Then it was the Tinkerer, cuz I build stuff, but like, both of those sounds like I'm really keen on peeing, so I'm looking for a new codename. Whuddaya think 'bout 'Devastator' or 'Desolator'. A bit over the top maybe?" he continued, and even though the childish poutyness had gone from his voice, the Darth-Vader-sounding voice-modulator made it sound quite odd due to his less than bad-ass intonation. In short, it was not a good voice-set to have for small-talk. However, on the brighter side of things he was making progress when it came to looking through what passed for a 'memory' for these Washingbots

"Washington is the guy on the one-dollar bills, genius." Caleb said jokingly as he kept fiddling. For some reason it was hard to dislike the superspeedy sword-swinger, despite the fact that calling him "Ignorant" would probably be an insult to all the ignorant people in the world. He reminded him of a particularly excitable boy who had been in his class until the fifth grade until sixth grade. From what he heard he had been sent away to another school after he had slashed all the tires at the parking-lot.

"And I'm looking through the robot's memory to see what it's been up to before it fell out of the sky thanks to my superior tactical acumen. And my lasers. Anyways, I am hoping to see where it was started out from." he explained as he continued to fiddle. It was rather nice to have someone who could stand around and be impressed by his computer-magic.

A small laugh escaped Caleb as he found the point of origin of the machine. An adress and a set of coordinates even. He did a quick search of the place on google (although he did his best to make sure that the other man did not see that google was part of his investigative method) It was an old car-factory a few miles outside of town. It had been closed for some time. he quickly gave instructions to his drone to head there aswell and stake the place out from the outside, but not enter

"Apparantly they came from an old factory just out of town. Follow me, I'll show ya the way!" before zipping off, and even though his anti-grav-pack made him an incredibly fast flier, he had no doubt that the superspeeder could keep up with him.

“I’ve never actually seen Star Wars sorry. Just you know your voice kind of sounds like him and you remind me of Iron Man a little bit, well more specifically War Machine but you don’t look like a government contracted soldier dude. No offense of course.” Darren babbled off his Australian accent still pretty thick even after being in America for a good year or two or three, or well he actually really wasn’t sure it felt like forever but that’s because everything else moved so slow compared to him. So, realistically it was probably about a year maybe a little more. I mean he was still seventeen. Or at least he assumed he was seventeen he didn’t actually know his birthday just the random day that the orphanage slapped on the calendar and said was his birthday.

Mentally shaking his head Darren focused back on whatever it was Iron Vader was saying just barely catching the end, something about ‘Devastator’ or ‘Desolater’ both of which made him sound evil or something. Which is exactly what Darren intended on telling the other hero. “Nah, it makes you sound like you’re some sort of super villain and with the voice and guns you could already get confused as one enough as it is. Might want to try something else. Whatever it turns out being you’re definitely still going to be Iron Vader to me just because it kind of rolls off the tongue, or my tongue at least. As for the dollar thing well I totally knew that, you know despite being Australian and not knowing my own counties history let alone this one. Yea obviously knew it.” He said nodding knowing that obviously the Iron Vader would believe what he said.

Whatever happened next Darren kind of ignored, sure he had been the one to ask Iron Vader what it was he was doing but that didn’t mean he actually had to know. Sciencey stuff could be interesting depending on who or what was going on or explaining it but this was not one of those cases and thus he just kind of zoned him out while watching the numbers and letters fly by on the weird holographic screen thing. It was holographic right? Darren wasn’t just staring at it for so long that it was starting to look all weird and blurry or something right? It didn’t really seem to matter as eventually Iron Vader had done it! After what appeared to be a google search, that piece of technology he did know as google owned everything, he had found the location of the creators of the Washington bots! Also, Darren would never admit that was a good name, mostly because he didn’t think of it first.

Old factory just out of town! Awesome! Darren had no idea where that place was and was sure he could find it in no time and take down all of the bad guys. With that information he took off a sonic boom or three left in his wake as he sped off only remembering about three miles out that Iron Vader actually knew where he was supposed to go and thus turned around making his way back to where the other hero was, who surprisingly had made it pretty far for whatever slooow speed he was going but to Darren it was like a snail. Okay no not a snail but like a slow person chasing off after a very fast person. Yes, great analogy Darren, mental high five. Racing up behind him Darren sped underneath the flying super suit man and matched him pace for pace. “So uh, where we going exactly and how far is it?”

"You've never seen Star Wars!?" Caleb exclaimed loudly, seemingly the first time during this whole encounter that he had actually lost his grip about things. He even spun around in the air and looked at Quick-man in shock, even though he still traveled forward as he did so, because his drones were still keeping their eyes on the road for him, so he did not have to.

"Dude! That's totally like, an unforgivable crime right there! When we're done here you should go to any movie-store and like, buy it. And then watch it. No if's and's or but's" He ordered sternly as he turned back to his standard-superman-esque pose of flying. Apparently this man was hiding behind the door when they were dealing out brains as well as when they were dealing out culture. Still, whoever did the dealing seemed to have felt sorry enough for him to give him enough speed to run around the world twice and still be home in time for dinner.

"It's kinda funny you said that sutff about Iron Man and Warmachine, because when me and my buddy started out. He's a genius too by the way. We had a bit of a discussion whom of us would be Warmachine and who would be Iron Man. I kinda won by default, though." Caleb continued, chattily, even though as previously stated him bad-ass voice was hardly appropriate for chit-chat. He just nodded as the man tried to convince him he knew stuff about history. He had pretty much made up his mind about how much the man knew, but it was kind of mean to just call him out like that.

We'll be there in minutes, man. Keep your pants on. Caleb responded annoyedly as the man asked how far they had yet to go. For a brief moment he felt a wave of sympathy for his father whenever they had to go anywhere by car together. Cable was not an individual known for his abundance of patience and neither was his mother. However, it did not take the pair long to arrive at the factory. It was a huge construction that looked run-down and deserted from the outside. Some of the walls had been cracked and about half of the windows where broken, and the other half were too dirty to even see anything through. It was a place of decay. However, Caleb was completely sure this were the point of origin of the Washingbots.

And he appeared tobe right. Along the wall of the building eight holes opened up, revealing eight metallic boxes, seemingly looking like metal coffins which immediately opened up revealing that inside them were more presidents, although this time of a slightly more modern variety. There were Richard Nixon, JFK, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton both of the Bushes, Gerald Ford and Ronald Raegan.

"To arms, brave Americans! Or the Communists Win!" Nixon cried triumphantly as his hands transformed to a buss-saw and an automatic weapon of some variety. . . . Or the terrorists win! The younger Bush echoed as his hands transformed in the same manner.

"If you can't make people see the light, make them feel the heat!" The Reagan-bot roared as he fired his weapon at the two heroes! whilst charging at them, closely followed by Clinton-bot and the elder Bush-bot

"Biological lifeforms are creatures of narrow vision who are afraid of the future" the Carter-bot Howled as he speedily ran towards Darren, firing wildly, ready to slice him to pieces with his buzzaw

"the computer is still the most extraordinary man of all!" John F. Kennedy howled as he leapt off the ground towards Caleb, Ready to slice him in pieces

The robotic presidents had been rather unexpected, but Caleb was not the sort of man to stop and stare in wonder for long, so he reacted quickly by making poor Kennedy-bot the target of his Laser-Gatling-gun, and him to pieces with the weapon. Despite being alot faster than the washing-bots this series of presidential robots were not nearly as sturdy. The shots ripped through the robot, tearing it to shreds. However more were comming. Caleb quickly shot a glob of capture-foam at Clinton-bot and Bush-bot senior before ascending, but even as the foam hardened, it was only a question of time before they would get loose again

Not watching Star Wars was an unforgivable crime? He should go out and buy it as soon as they were done here? Well He would, he totally would, but it wasn’t exactly like he could just run into any video store thing, if they still existed, and buy a Star Wars movie. He kind of needed money for that and he was going to tell Iron Vader that but was stopped short by the no ‘ifs ands or buts’ part. This was apparently a pretty serious offense to the guy standing in front of him hacking into who knows what. Guy had some pretty weird priorities but it was all okay because he had an awesome looking pew pew gun. One that made him look like War Machine from Iron Man mixed with Darth Vader, or not Darth Vader. Maybe this guy would get along with Vader lady, probably not though as she as an evil assassin with no sense of humor.

Despite Darren’s internal complaining about how long it was going to take for them to arrive at the warehouse thing a ma bob at the speed they were traveling they actually arrived pretty quickly. Well, quickly for everyone else in the world probably. Did he mention this was all slow? Like they didn’t even cause one sonic boom, not even one! That was all okay because they made it anyway and it was exactly what Darren had been expecting a big run down, decaying and decrepit factory. What he wasn’t expecting was for eight holes to open up and reveal eight metal coffin like boxes, except you know huge ones. He also hadn’t expected more robots to jump up out of the boxes and spout out weird nonsense. Well maybe the robots were a tad bit expected, an evil robot factor had to have some guards and these guys were obviously it.

“Are all of Americas President’s evil?” Darren asked as one with a weird face shouting something about biological wielding a buzz saw and a flamethrower jumped out at Darren at a pretty fast pace, only for the Boy Blunder to duck underneath the flames roll to the side and come slashing up at its arm. Cutting off the weird pipe attaching the flamethrower to something in the Robot. Which caused it to immediately catch fire, buzz saw hand flying about wildly in an attempt to take something down with him before he was taken out of commission and Darren was more than happy to comply as the world around him started to slow down while he took off racing after one of the Robots, the one that had been shouting about communists, and picked him up throwing him in the path of other president’s buzz saw.

Needless to say they both went down burning, cutting each other, and screaming about pointless things that Darren wouldn’t understand anyway. America may have been his adopted country for the past whatever time frame but that didn’t mean he actually knew anything about its history. Sure, he’s probably seen more of it than anyone else in the country though and thus knows a lot about the culture of today but not of yesteryears. That didn’t mean anything though as Darren turned his attention onto the two remaining robots that hadn’t been shot up by Caleb’s pew pew gun or his glue things and made quick work of them actually, his sword slicing through their metal exteriors and interiors as if they were butter. Both were quickly cut down at the knees before being decapitated. “Wow these robots are going down way faster than the Washingtonbots.”

Of course as he said this a big one busted out of the factor. It was all black, as if wearing a suit and had a top hat on. He was a good two feet taller than the already eight foot tall robots, and had what appeared to be a katana on his back and two ‘wooden’ though probably metal stakes in his hands. Darren only knew him as something or another Vampire Slayer and he was spouting out something about ‘Divided We Cannont Stand. So I shall remove the opposition! I shall Slay you as easily as I slayed the South!’ Which Darren wasn’t an expert on US History but he was pretty sure Texas was in the South and it still existed. “Again, are all your presidents this evil? And weird too? This guy looks kind of tougher…”

Caleb winced as mecha-lincoln suddenly appeared from the building. He looked as he was quite a bit tougher than the other presidents, and unlike the others, who seemed to be the same model of robot underneath different costumes and masks to look like various presidents of the United States, this one seemed have a completely different construction. No doubt he was far more dangerous. It was pretty clear to him already that there was more to those wooden stakes than met the eye.

He quickly flew further into the air, to try to get some distance between himself and the Mecha-Lincoln, and once again activated his Gatlin'-gun, however, he was not aiming for Lincoln just yet, instead he was gunning down the trapped Clintbot and Bushbot, reducing the two arch-rivals to scrap-metal. It seemed that Quick-man had dealt with the other robots in a timely  fashion, slicing them up with that nasty-looking sword of his. He may be goofy and as dumb as a bag of moon-rocks, but it could not be denied that he was dangerously skilled with that blade of his.

"I don't know, I've never met any of them in person" Caleb responded as the other man asked him wether all of Americas presidents were evil. It was a stupid question and thus it would be met with a stupid answer.

"Those two that shouted about communists and Terrorists probably are, though" he added after a brief second of reflection. Apparrently what remained of the Nixonbot's decapitated head had heard this and his jaw moved slowly, the rubber mask hiding his robotic features had started melting as it was  overheating. The effect was rather eerie-looking

"I am not a crook's Head!" It announced boldly before a puff of oily-smoke erupted from it's eags, marking the end of it.

"Dude, the big one's supposed to be like, Lincoln. He's one of the good ones, so let's, uh, like, kill him respectfully or something" Caleb added lamely as he aimed his Gatlin-laser at presi-bot and started  fire. With a quick key-stroke he ordered his  drones to start firing from the sky as well. At this range they would mostly miss, but he expected every little bit helped. No matter wether it helped or not all of the laser-bolts flying through the air made him feel really proud of himself. After all, it was not so long since he had invented the single-shot concussive laser-blaster, and now he could rain death from the sky like an expert.

He had never met them in person? How could he have ne-oh right. Most people didn’t actually get to meet the leaders of their countries and only ever read about them in big boring books, watched documentaries of them, and a lot of other things. There was also the fact that most of these guys had been dead for quite some time probably. Well not these guys exactly, this group was just robots created by some crazy bad person more than likely and only ‘died’ when Darren and Iron Vader completely destroyed their metal bodies with a sword and a laser gatling gun. The real Presidents however had probably been dead for a while now, or if they were still alive than they probably wouldn’t like to find out that their likeness was used to create these Pres-Bots. They were already used on money and probably t-shirts, didn’t need their faces on everything.

Mecha-Lincoln, as Iron Vader so graciously revealed its name, was definitely terrifying as it spouted out the start of the Gettysburg address before going off on a tangent about…vampires? Weird. Anyway, Darren stopped whatever it was he had been doing and looked at Iron Vader with his head cocked to the side. “Wait, how exactly do we kill something respectfully? It’s kind of the least respectful thing you can do to someone. Well unless they ask you to so that you can end their suffering or something but that is beside the point.” This was all said out loud of course but it was mostly Darren’s thoughts jumping out of his mouth. He was definitely confused on how to kill someone respectfully as well as how they were going to beat Mecha-Lincoln. He was big.

But as they say, the bigger they are the harder they fall. Right? Hopefully. Iron Vader definitely seemed to think so as he had some awesome little robots in the sky shooting laser beam-bullet things out at him. Lincoln obviously didn’t like that and raised his hands firing, yes that’s right firing, the ‘wooden’ stakes off at the drones like they were bullets and each time one was shot another was loaded into his hands. Which begged the question, how did he use the giant Katana that was on his back? Not wanting to find out Darren took off not as fast as he could, because he didn’t think it was needed, but still pretty fast in the direction of Lincoln. Jumping up into the air palm extended forward his hidden blade snapped out ready to stick into Mecha-Lincoln only for previously stated Robotic President to knock Darren out of the air with a backhand.

Darren was sent flying and crashed into the ground skidding a bit before coming to a stop. “Ugghh…He hits hard. Maybe jumping up at him wasn’t the best idea ever.” He muttered to himself as he stood up, groaning ever slightly. He was no doctor but he was pretty sure his chest area was bruised in some way shape or form. Or maybe he had a broken rib. Poking his ribs to make sure he was relieved to find that they were in fact not broken, or at least from what he could tell. Letting out a slow breath before breathing in and repeating the motion, Darren grabbed his sword and tightened his grip on it sprinting forwards at Mecha-Lincoln once more and this time he wasn’t intending on jumping into the air.

Caleb was rather flustered when it came to answering Quick-man's question. He somewhat regretted making the statement to kill their opponent respectfully, after all, why should they? It was not the real lincoln just a tin robot in a goofy mask. Besides, it was clear that whoever had made this had gotten most of his inspiration from that movie where Lincoln kills vampires. He was fairly sure that the real President Abraham Lincoln did not run around and attack people with sharpened metal stakes or Katanas. If he had done something like that the history-books would definitively have mentioned it.
But back to the matter at hand. Just how did you kill someone respectfully. It was like, a million times easier to kill someone disrespectfully. He grunted in frustration as he pondered this.

"I dunno. Try to not aim for the groin." he shouted out, rather lamely, his Darth Vader-ish voice definately not appropriate for this sort of back-and-forth. However, he was rather pleased with his answer. being kicked in the groin was definitely humiliating and kicking someone in the groin was definitely a sign of disrespect or general douchebaggyness. That would have to do for now.

Caleb and his minions rained hot laser death over the new opponent but it did not seem to be doing much. In fact, it only seemed to anger the thing rather than actually killing him. The Mecha-Lincoln raised his hands to the sky and started shooting the wooden stakes up into the sky, targeting his drones. Most of them missed, but a few of his drones got smashed apart. God dammit! Those things cost about 10 dollars each! And took about half an hour to make! He tapped a few buttons and made most of the drones withdraw for now. He was not loosing his entire fleet to this president of evil!

That was when Quick-Man unexpectedly leaped forward towards the Mecha-Lincoln, obviously hoping to end him in one single blow, however, Caleb was hesitant. This robot was different from the others. It seemed to be the magnum opus of whoever this president-obsessed american history buff/Patriot/Wackaloon was. However, Caleb quickly tapped a button on his left-top to stop firing his awesome Laser-gun, as to not hit his heroic sidekick whilst he did his thing. Cuz Quick-man was totally the sidekick, no question about it.

The Mecha-Lincoln almmost immediately slapped him aside in an almost indifferent fashion, and even the light slapped looked like it could knock aside a car. It certainly sent Quick-man flying that was for certain. However despite bouncing like a thrown-away ragdoll the other hero seemed to be alright. He looked a bit wobbly, but nothing important seemed broken. Maybe they could beat this thing by workign together. He could buy him a bit of time, by distracting the mecha-Lincoln whilst Quick-man attacked! He quickly aimed his gauntlet and fired out another small white pellet that quickly grew into a big glob of sticky foam that would stoon harden. Hopefully it would keep the robot stuck until Quickman had time to cut into it. 'Better safe than sorry' he thought to himself and shot another glob at the things face, hopefully blinding it temporarily.

"Quick-man! Try that again! I think it'll go better this time!" He shouted out to his companion. He felt bad for making the guy risk his life like that, but there was not much of an alternative.

He wasn’t exactly sure how he was able to hear people talking at a normal pace when he was running at a not normal pace but hear Iron Vader he did. Skidding to a stop Darren turned and looked at him “The name is Swordsmaster! Come on I’m even on an official hero team and everything!” He said grabbing his Talons’ Dog Tags that were hanging around his neck underneath his ‘costume’ and holding them out for Iron Vader to see before putting them back on around his neck. It wasn’t like they worked anymore, he still wasn’t entirely sure why that was, but Iron Vader didn’t need to know that. All he needed to know that Swordsmaster was totally a legit hero and had been through all sorts of weird things. Not nearly as many weird things as John or Tyuki, or their future daughter, and he wasn’t even Sean’s league but still!

“Also, again!? I mean sure whatever you seem to be smart.” Darren wasn’t the smartest person in the world but he was pretty good with tactics, sometimes, and attempting something over again after it failing last time was not usually a good idea. But! If Iron Vader said it was going to work this time than he had no reason not to trust the guy. Sheathing his sword he backed up a bit getting enough distance to build up speed for his jump as Iron Vader did his thing, shooting his weird glue off at the Mecha-Lincoln. Once that was done the aforementioned Hero took off racing forwards and jumped into the air, hidden blade once more springing loose but this time succeeding in stabbing into the robo-president’s stomach area.

“Hey it worked!” Darren called out the obvious in a very happy and excited manor. Using the hidden blades on both his wrists he climbed up the robot, leaving small holes in the things stomach, until he was able to propel himself up onto the things shoulders. He was just about to cut off the things head when his eyes rested on the giant Katana and a grin spread across his hooded face. Unsheathing the big blade he back flipped off of Mecha-Lincoln holding the sword as if it were as light as a feather and quickly cut the thing free of the glue like substance that was holding him in place. “Hey, Iron Vader! Heads up!” Turning the big katana sideways he swung it like a baseball bat and sent Mecha-Lincoln flying through the air heading towards Iron Vader. Darren was such a good team player.