QuickShot:
Looking at all the little planes as they hover around a downed Ms. Justice, I raise my bow, pull back the bowstring, and take aim.
When a few of the planes turn to me, I shoot my first trick arrow. It hits a plane, going right through it. The plane sparks as it struggles to stay in the air. As it hovers, my arrow starts beeping. A few seconds later, my arrow explodes and unleashes an EMP wave. The EMP wave hits the surrounding planes, disabling and knocking them out of the air. Jumping, I use my body as a shield to protect Ms. Justice.
"Ms. Justice," I say, gently tapping her on her soft cheek. "Justice! Come on! Say something. Are you okay?"
Thankfully, it only takes a few seconds. Moaning at first, Ms. Justice opens her blue eyes.
"QuickShot? Wha--What happens?"
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, Ms. Justice wraps her arms around me. Pulling me in close, she pushes off against the ground, and we roll out of the way of an incoming explosive. Rolling for a few feet, we stop and look at each other.
"Thank you for saving me," Ms. Justice says.
"Thank you for saving me," I reply.
We stay like this for a little bit longer, until we hear the sound of dozens of tiny engines. Looking up, we see more planes flying toward us.
Flying in circles, surrounding us, Ms. Justice and I push ourselves up before slamming our backs against each other. Bringing up our weapons, we watch the planes fly around, not doing anything.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I don't know," Justice answers. "I was walking back to the OutPost when I saw all of these planes flying inside a store. They saw me and immediately started firing. One of them fired a rocket, and I was knocked out."
"One of them fired a rocket," I repeat.
Ms. Justice doesn't answer me. Instead, a plane answers for her. The bottom of it opens, and a red and white rocket pops out.
Watching as the rocket flies toward me, I feel Ms. Justice grabbing and pushing me behind her. She raises her shield and blocks the oncoming rocket. Almost falling off her feet, I rush to catch her.
"Those are some powerful rockets," I say, pushing Ms. Justice back onto her feet.
Hearing the sound of gears turning, Justice and I see the other planes hovering. Like the first one, their bottoms open, and more rockets appear. Before the planes can fire, though, the wind picks up, and we see a red blur. Less than a second later, all of the planes in front of us fall to the ground. As they fall, they split into two halves, the halves sparking and exploding when they hit the ground.
"Are you two okay?" SpeedBlade says, walking up to us with his sword.
"SpeedBlade," Ms. Justice and I say simultaneously.
"And me," JumpStart says, waving after jumping, flipping, and landing on his feet. "I'm here too."
"JumpStart," Justice says. "Oh, I am glad you three are here."
"Justice," JumpStart shouts, pulling out his stun batons. "What's going on here? Also, I am really curious. Where did you go?"
"I'll tell you later," Justice answers. "For now, we need to stop them."
Turning around, Justice points at a whole formation of tiny planes. Despite how many planes SpeedBlade and I destroyed, there are still many more in the air.
While half the planes open up and reveal rockets, the other half open up and reveal blasters. They start firing at the four of us.
"Get behind me," Justice yells. Raising her shield, Justice pushes all of us behind her and blocks as many attacks as she can.
While Justice covers us, SpeedBlade and JumpStart run out from the sides and attack the formation. Meanwhile, I stay behind Justice and fire arrows.
Altogether, we work to destroy the planes. SpeedBlade runs circles them, quickly cutting them in half with his sword. With his stun batons, JumpStart shocks them, destroying and knocking them out of the air. Meanwhile, the planes I shoot are either destroyed or covered in slime, the slime clogging up the planes and forcing them to fall. As we destroy more and more of the planes, a few of them fly away.
"They are leaving," SpeedBlade shouts.
"No," Justice screams. "They're escaping! Look!"
Pointing at the planes again, I see that only the planes with boxes and bags are leaving. The ones that have blasters and rockets are staying behind, firing at us.
"Cover me," Justice says, running away.
I nod and do my best to cover Justice as she runs ahead. Shooting and destroying any planes that so much as look at her, I watch as Justice runs and spins her arm. Throwing her shield, she hits one of the escaping planes. It, and the box it's holding, falls to the ground. The second this plane hits the ground, the lights on the other planes all turn red.
"What is happening now?" SpeedBlade asks, stopping to look around.
Before any of us can do anything, the plane unleashes a sharp shrieking sound. The sound is so loud, it forces us onto our knees.
Fighting through the piercing needles in my head, I force myself to open my eyes and see the planes still with flashing lights. All of them turn around and fly away, disappearing into the night sky.
"Ouch," JumpStart yells. "Ouch! Ouch! That hurt! A lot! Someone stops that thing!"
The sound stops a few seconds later. Rubbing his long, pointed ears, JumpStart looks around. He shakes his head as he pushes himself up, but he's barely on his feet for a second before almost falling over.
"I got you," I say, running to catch the elf.
SpeedBlade:
Watching as QuickShot rushes to catch JumpStart, I instead turn to Ms. Justice. For some reason, Ms. Justice is standing by herself, away from the rest of us.
"Strange," I think, sheathing my sword.
Taking a moment to look closer, I notice something else. The flying machines flew away in one direction, but Ms. Justice was looking in the opposite direction. I turn my head and follow her gaze. Seeing the moon, I turn back and walk over to Ms. Justice.
"Ms. Justice," I shout, Ms. Justice jumping when she hears me.
"SpeedBlade," she answers. "Yeah. What is it?"
"Is everything...okay? Why are you looking at the moon?"
"It's nothing," Ms. Justice answers quickly. She lowers her head and turns away from me. "I need to see something."
Ms. Justice then leaves. She runs and disappears inside the destroyed building. I keep watching Ms. Justice, even after she disappears. When she is gone, I turn and look up at the moon. As far as I can tell, there is nothing too special about this moon. It looked exactly like the moon back in my village; big, wide, and colored blue.
Turning back to where I last saw Ms. Justice, I follow her into the building. It takes me almost no time to find Ms. Justice. She's on her knees, rubbing her fingers against the floor. In front of Justice is a massive steel door lying beside an even bigger hole in the wall. As I walk into the building, I step on something and look down.
"What is this?" I say, picking up a green paper.
"It's money," Justice answers, standing up. "At least, our money. I don't know what you used for money."
"Gold coins," I answer.
"Gold coins? Wow. That sounds awesome."
"I do not know about that." Dropping the green money, I look at Justice. "What happened here?"
"A bank robbery. Someone used those drones to blow the vault door off before robbing it. The question is who?"
"I can give you an idea," JumpStart says, walking into the building with QuickShot. Holding up one of the flying machines in his hand, JumpStart looks it over before holding it up for all of us to see. "Dr. Kimberely Cho."
"Dr. Cho," Ms. Justice and I repeat.
"Wait," I say, waving my hand. "Are you sure? We have not heard anything about the evil Doctor Cho since she escaped from IronWall Prison."
"Well, I can't be sure," JumpStart says, looking at the flying machine again. He scratches his head as he looks it over. "But this wiring, how it's all put together, it reminds me too much of Dr. Cho's machines. Remember those little machines that tried to eat Silent and us when we were trapped in that hallway?"
"How could I forget?" I ask, gripping my sword. "So this is Dr. Cho's doing?"