(Ryans POV)
"What's going on?" Spyder asked when he and Harris met us in the control center.
"Where's your mom?" Harris asked.
"I don't know, try and track her." I said. Harris turned to his computer and started looking. As everyone crowded around I looked up to see Harpers new monster stomping towards us.
"Hey guys," I said pointing out the window.
"He was just waiting for her?" Mark questioned. It was weird to see my mom willingly walk into the mouth of this monster.
"What's happening! What's wrong with her?" I said stepping to the control pad. Harpers ugly face once again appeared on our screens,
"What did you do?" Mark demanded.
"Guys, I design monsters, big ones like this monster I'm in, and little ones, like the one I placed in your moms brain. And that one," Harper paused, "That one is making some powerful suggestions.
"Ryan! Mark!" Leo screamed bursting into the room. "You'll never guess what I found! I ran some scans on Grace and I saw that-" he paused at the sight of Harper with Mom behind him. "Everything's already gone south hasn't it?"
"Hey, Leo!" Harper cheered. "Glad to see you could join the party."
"And you're finally the monster you've always been." Leo sighed.
"I'm warning you, let her go!" I demanded.
"Hey you know what? I just realized, with Grace out of the robot, I don't have to pull my punches." Harper said as a sinister smile spread across his face. The monsters hand grasped around the skull of the robot as I screamed.
"Everybody hold on!" Leo grasped the back of Dakotas chair as I tried to get back in the harness, Harper landed a jab to the stomach of the robot. Leo stubbles back to the wall behind as and everyone just clung to the thing nearest to them. Harpers monster continued to rain down punches left and right.
"Critical hit! Get us out of here!" Harris yelled to me as he was looking at his computers. I was all out of sorts and couldn't focus on anything, as I looked to Leo in panic he called out,
"Emergency Evac! Tango! Copper! Muttonchop!" He then smacked a big red button on the wall and the robot blasted up and away from Harpers monster, barely avoiding a punch. We were all looking around at each other in relief as the robot eventually came to a stop. Harris and Spyder rushed down to the control pad and helped me to my feet.
"Are you okay?" Spyder asked.
"I'll live." I said. "How's the robot?"
"It's gonna take some time to get it up and running." Harris said looking around at all the damage.
"Mom doesn't have time!" Mark added coming down from the loft.
"So we make some. We have to slow that monster down before it gets back to Harper Futuristics and launches that missile." I said.
"This monsters different." Harris pointed out.
"Harris is right." Leo said stepping over a piece of ruble from the robot. "Harper is the brain of that monster. If we distract him, if we hurt him, and I really, really, really, really, really wanna hurt him. We slow the monster down. Give you time to get your mom back." Leo continued.
"Yeah that could work." I said.
"What are we thinking?" Harris asked.
"I have an idea." I said, "It's a little crazy but, it should work."
"Oh, crazy's my favorite!" Spyder said excitedly.
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"Everybody clear on the plan?" I asked through the Mech-links.
"Leo and I get Mech-X4 up and running." Harris said.
"Spyder distracts the monster, and I slow it down." Mark added.
"Good and I'll get mom back and we won't let Harper fire that missile." I said before signing off. I was outside of Harper Futuristics, around the corner from the main entrance getting all the tech I brought with me ready. I was trying to kill to birds with one stone, and was able to tap into Harpers security cameras as I worked. After searching his databases in my head, I came across his secret levels cameras. If Harper was going to keep Dakota anywhere, I assumed it would be there. There had to be hundreds of doors, no cameras were in the rooms, just the hallways. So instead, I used my powers to unlock every single door I could. I had to try something.
"Hey bro we slowed Harper down the best we could, but he's already on the move" Marks voice said through the Mech-links. I looked over my shoulder as I ran to see the monster slowly standing back on its feet. A few short moments later, Harper and Mom walked out of the mouth of the monster that stood outside the main doors. I followed a ways behind them, watching Morris hand Harper the trigger.
"The trigger is know shielded from the technopath." Morris says. "You can launch it anytime." I blasted the trigger out of his hand, with one of the drones that I had flying behind me.
"You're not launching anything." I had some fun shooting more lasers to keep them from getting to the trigger on the ground. I sort of enjoyed myself a bit. "Now get away from my mom, and give me the trigger." I said. "Or else I'll give you a hair cut. From the inside out."
"Oooo. Okay, one edgy." Harper said from the ground. "And two, I don't have it." Morris was rising from the ground, remote in hand, eyes locked on me. Before I could set off more lasers, Morris was hit from behind in the back of the head with what looked like a scrap piece of metal. He fell, out cold, dropping the trigger across the floor, Dakota was standing behind him.
"You're okay." I said absolutely relieved, before she herself fell to the floor. She wasn't out like Morris, but something was wrong, like she had to use all her energy just to stand and hit him.
"What do you mean by okay?" She asked, completely out of breath, barely able to keep her face off the floor.
"How!" Harper yelled, absolutely furious.
"I have my ways." She smirks at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mom bend down and pick up the trigger.
"Oh, look at that. You want to blast the person holding the trigger Ryan, go ahead. She's standing right over there." Harper said with a smile. It felt as if time had stopped as Grace bent down and picked up the trigger.
"Mom, give me the trigger you don't want to do this. If you press that button. It is literally the end of everything." I say, trying to be calm
"He makes a very good point, but here's mine, do it!" Harper yelled.
"I don't care what Harper put in your brain, you're stronger than it." I said as Mom looked from Harper to Dakota to me.
"Okay, this whole, family moment, is adorable but you know what, I'm bored and I want it over!" Harper snapped. "Ryan, your not going to hurt your mom."
"You're right." I said as the drones fell to my feet. "And she won't hurt me. No matter what you did to her. You're my mother. You adopted me, you fought for me my entire life. I know you're in there! So fight it!"
"Finish it!" Harper screamed. She continued to look my direction before turning to Harper. Then laying a perfectly placed punch to his jaw then grabbing at her head, dropping to the floor and loosing the trigger.
"Nice form." I weekly chuckles from the floor, Morris starting to stir from the floor..
"She just finished it jerk!" I said speeding over to my mom. Harper made a grab for the trigger before I could, hand on the button.
"It's over." Harper said, Morris rubbing the back of his head, standing behind Harper. "you lose." Harper smiled as his thumb hit the button releasing the missile outside. I helped my mom up, trying to take Dakota with me, Morris got there first.
"Hey let her go! She doesn't deserve any of this!" I yelled, Morris was holding her arms behind her, and was not letting go.
"Ryan if you don't go right now, what happens to me won't matter, we're all done for!" She says. "Go!"
"I'm not leaving you here!" I said, trying to figure out what to do, my mom still hanging off my shoulder.
"Just go! You don't have time!" She pleads. I hesitated before turning with my mom, running as fast as I could towards the door.
(Dakota's POV)
"I won't abandon you again, I promise!" Ryan yelled over my shoulder as we got close to the door.
"I know." He couldn't hear me though." Harper goes to follow them, Morris goes with him, forcing me along. Ryan stood as Mech-X4, that he had just summoned, grew closer, and turned back to us.
"It's not over yet!" Ryan said, just before the robot stepped on him and Grace, and took off after the missile.
"They're going after the missile!" Morris yells.
"That's not going to happen." Harper began to run back to his monster.
"I told you he'd stop you." I said a Harper took off.
"He hasn't won yet." Harper says, nodding at Morris. Morris dropped me in between the set of glass doors that led inside Harper Futuristics. He locked both set's of doors from the outside, trapping me inside.
"For safe keeping." He yelled though the glass. "You'll go down with the rest of humanity anyway." With that he was gone.
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(Ryan's POV)
"We won't have a lot of time before the monster heart plunges into the ooze." Harris says as I strapped back into the control pad after dropping mom in Med bay with Leo.
"Then we need to get there first." I say in between jumps.
"Company!" Harris yells just before we got tackled from behind by Harper in his monster.
"Spyder keep him off us!" I yell over my shoulder. Spyder did just that, unleashing all the shoulder missiles we had in his face, allowing me enough time to rocket jump away. But Harper was back up chasing as almost immediately.
"Guys it's not going to stop him." Harris says.
"Then we need a missile big enough that can." I point to the one in the sky. "How about that one!"
"That big monster heart missile?" Mark asked. "Go for it."
"Grappling Grip!" I called out.
"Grappling grip!" Spyder and Harris returned it. When I launched the hand from the robot it grasped around the missile perfectly, pulling it from the sky.
"Alright you heartless monster." I said sending the monster heart back towards Harper. "I believe that belongs to you." Everyone cheered as the heart went straight through the stomach of the monster leaving nothing but ooze behind. Harris, Spyder and Mark all joined me on the control pad.
—————
"We did it!" Leo yelled as we came into the X-deck.
"Shhhhh!" We all shushed him at once.
"You could wake up my mom, then we're all dead!" I yelled in a whisper.
"Yeah what are we going to do about that?" Mark says.
"You figure something out, I don't care what." I said grabbing some tech. "I'm going to get Dakota back."
"You need us to go with you?" Spyder asks.
"Just in case?" Harris suggests.
"That's fine. I saw her when I saved mom, so she's there." I respond. "I don't know what Morris did to her after I left."
"You left her there?" Spyder asks.
"I had to, believe me that was the last thing I wanted to do." I threw the tech bag over my shoulder. "Morris had her, I wasn't going to be able to get him away from her, and save mom. Beside she told me to go. I promised her I'd come back for her though."
"I think I have an idea of where to take mom." Mark looked out the window in the X-deck. "I'll take mom, you guys take the robot, just to be safe."