The Explosive Robot

Chapter 11: Final Seconds of Destruction

The thunderous boom was the first thing that greeted the team as they saw the missile blowing up another few houses.

'Too late.' Bibi snarled under her breath as she ran straight towards the boss robot. 'We're too dang late!'

'At least they haven't killed any of us yet.' Carl stated plainly as he threw his pickaxe towards an approaching mouse bot. Then he turned towards Mortis in fear. 'Right?'

The dashing assassin's reply was nothing but a mere shrug.

Bibi was just about to attack the boss robot at the foot when a sudden force pulled her backwards.

'Hey!' Bibi shouted at Gene, who was using his Super to hurl her towards another group of Brawlers. 'What's the big-'

The second explosion occurred. Smoke billowed from the head of the boss robot as its body fell apart and collapsed to the ground, covering the place where Bibi was just a second ago in dozens of sharp metal scraps.

Bibi felt the blood draining from her face. 'Holy gods.' She whimpered in fear.

'I sent one of my shadows to destroy the internal system of the robot.' Tara murmured in her distorted voice. 'Seeing that you were running straight for death, Gene had to bring you over before the final blow was dealt.'

'Ha bu ha va ha.' Gene babbled.

'"Too close."' Tara translated as she nodded her head. 'Too close indeed.'

'How many boss robots are there left?' Bibi asked as she scanned the area. The faint glow of the moon and the stars up above was barely enough to illuminate the area. If there were any street lamps in the area once before, they were all probably destroyed or out of power by now.

'Two.' Tara murmured as she threw three cards into the darkness near the group, where they crashed into the bodies of a few silent mouse bots. 'One of them's nearer to Retropolis. The other is about to kill Town Hall.'

Bibi sucked in a deep breath. 'Retropolis and Town Hall, you say?'

'It'll be understandable if you wish to rescue Retropolis instead.' Mortis's sudden statement made Bibi jump in surprise. 'After all, it's the environment you've been introduced to right when you first stepped into this realm.'

Bibi shook her head. 'Okay, I get it, I follow my heart instead of my head almost all the time. But if I'm not mistaken, Town Hall is the only stable gateway we have to the outside world in here, right?'

'If you exclude an excruciatingly long and painful journey through Hollow Woods, then yes.'

'Then of course Town Hall has to be rescued. We don't want the only good path back to the terrible world being destroyed, right? Imagine the poor non-recruited Brawlers that are going to suffer so badly.' Bibi suddenly shivered as she finished her sentence. 'I'm not joking about that last sentence, by the way.'

Tara gave a rare smile underneath her bandages. 'In that case, let's go.'

______

Colt was trying his best not to die to the swarming mouse bots all around him.

He could feel the electricity burning like sudden whips on his limbs, his hands aching from holding his guns and pulling the triggers and reloading their magazines too many times, his ears nearly deafened by the buzzing attacks of the mouse bots......

'Burn in the depths of the Underworld!' Colt cursed as he fired a Super and tried to force his way over to the newly-cleared area littered with metal scraps, but the painful sensation of being attacked continued to plague him.

Great. He was going to die. And this was probably the very last time he would die as a Brawler too.

The shining bullets whistled as they flew through the air and killed more mouse bots, but Colt was beginning to grow too tired to even care anymore. He was bleeding badly. Parts of his body were burnt severely from the electric shocks. And yet this pain wouldn't end unless his HP bar reaches rock bottom.

The overwhelming pain was the reason why he didn't notice Bibi bashing in the metallic heads of the mouse bot as more Brawlers came to his aid.

'Colt. Colt! I swear to literal God if you decide to die now-'

'Make way, make way!' A shimmering green glow appeared in the air just a few metres away. Colt forced himself to crawl over to the peaceful glow.

A beautiful tune played shortly, and the air around Colt was full of bright and happy music notes as he felt his energy returning to him, his pain fading away almost instantly.

'Where were you guys even at before this?!' Colt shouted with a hint of anger in his voice. 'I was literally dying!'

'Got held back by the mouse bots. Sorry, sheriff.' Bibi shrugged and blew another piece of bubblegum.

'Lo siento, mi amigo. But we had to take quite a detour.' Poco murmured as he strummed his guitar and unleashed a few attacks on the bots further away. 'The boss robot made a terrifyingly large crater in the ground, and we had to go through the path that was covered in the ruins of the houses.'

'Understandable.' Colt grumbled as he reloaded his guns. 'And how's Town Hall?'

'Isn't it just right here?' Bibi pointed to the metal building right behind Colt.

'Wha-' Colt spun around and instantly looked surprised. 'Huh. I thought that the sudden tsunami of bots had brought me far away from the centre when I'd been here all along-'

The sluggish, booming footfalls interrupted Colt's sentence as the group slowly turned towards the towering metal beast that was just a few steps away from Town Hall.

'Oh god no.' Bibi whispered under her breath.

Colt sighed as he lifted his revolvers.

'Time to brawl. Again.'

The missile went off into the air, and Colt screeched in anger as he aimed his Super at the flying bomb. The explosion rocked the ground as everyone tried their best to dash towards the boss robot across the trembling and ruin-scattered ground.

Bibi closed in on the robot and lashed out at its foot as hard as she could. The robot fell downwards and would've crushed Town Hall if Gene didn't pull it away from the building from behind.

'Ha garrah har!' Gene groaned as he ducked away from the robot's powerful lasers.

Something fast zipped by and bounced towards the boss robot before going up in smoke upon contact with the lasers.

Blast it! Tick cursed as his head regenerated in its place once again. Thought that I could reach the thing in time for the kill!

'Stealing someone else's kill isn't really appreciated here!' Bibi shouted as she launched her Super at the robot. 'You'd be looking for a wave of anger from your teammates if you find yourself doing so!'

Whatever! Tick shouted back as his bombs rained down just a few metres away from the boss robot. Just kill the stupid thing already!

'Can't you see that we're trying?!' Colt hollered. He kicked rubble off to a side as he loaded his guns once again, snarling under his breath as he did so. 'Watch and learn.'

Many of the glowing bullets were misfired, but some of them finally managed to pierce through the struggling boss robot's core. The wounded metal beast collapsed to the ground, it's singular red eye becoming fainter with every passing second.

And that was when the explosion rocked the entirety of Brawl Town.