So, since the four friends had managed to rescue Nautica and take down Radia for good, with a lot of help from Molly and the runaway bots, you would probably think that things in Cyberlantis would start to get much better for everyone in the city, right?
Well, they did eventually, but for a couple of months after the night of the rescue mission, some very interesting things happened.
Some good and some not so good.
Firstly, Ryan was very quickly faced with dozens upon dozens of questions from many people who were left shocked by what they saw in the live broadcast that Radia had activated on that night. Because the whole city had now seen Nautica and Ryan's extraordinary powers, Ryan realised that he could no longer keep it a secret and decided to just reveal the truth to everybody that asked about it.
Once the secret was out, lots of people gave Ryan support by telling him that he had done something good by taking down the cruel and monstrous cyborg that was Radia. However, other people were not so happy with what he had done and were more in favour of The Huntress, who was soon introduced as the new ruler of the city of Cyberlantis.
But, despite all of that, the most interesting thing that happened during these next months came in October 2088, when The Huntress very randomly announced that she was allowing all the runaway bots to become Sector Bots again under her command, alongside the current Sector Bots who were currently patrolling the city.
Almost all the runaway bots were very excited to hear this news, genuinely believing that The Huntress had truly had a change of heart, and decided to accept the offer, despite the news being very sudden and out of nowhere. However, there were three runaway bots that still did not trust The Huntress and quickly declined, those three bots were Lee, Olivia and Jack. This meant that Olivia and Jack would be the only two bots living at the campsite in the woods, something that the two of them did not really like the sound of.
So, to solve the problem, Molly made a deal with Ellie.
Molly invited Jack to come and live with her and her girlfriend, Emily, whilst Ellie offered to let Olivia live in her garage with Lee. Both bots gratefully accepted and went on to do exactly that. Olivia was especially pleased about this arrangement as she would be able to be around Lee, who she had greatly missed for the last four years and saw as a very special friend.
On December 26th, 2088, the day after Christmas, a thin sheet of gleaming white snow had descended across Cyberlantis as festive lights lined the city's streets beneath a clear and calm light blue sky. Somewhere along a quieter network of roads on the outskirts of the main city area, Ryan was riding his holo-bike to Ellie's house to meet up with his friends as usual. Nautica sat comfortably on Ryan's head during the journey, which by this point had become something completely normal for the two of them.
Ryan was wearing a large thick black winter jacket with green light up stripes on the sleeves and a furry ended hood, as well as a pair of internally heated boots, since the temperature outside had dropped massively in recent weeks. When the two arrived at their destination, Ryan parked his holo-bike down the side alley as usual, but this time was much more careful about it in comparison to how he parked it on the night of the rescue mission.
As the pair re-emerged from the dark alley, they began to hear the muffled sounds of Christmas themed music that was blaring from inside the garage, growing louder and louder as they approached. Ryan knocked firmly on the large garage door, then patiently waited for a response. After a few seconds of waiting, the bottom part of the door began to glow with an illuminous pink burst of energy, before swiftly swinging up and open, releasing the rest of the sound from inside the garage. Beyond the garage door, the interior of Ellie's garage had been beautifully decorated for the time of year with wireless fairly lights, long pieces of red and silver tinsel drooping from the ceiling and a Christmas tree that seemed to have been shoved to the side of the garage to make room.
Amy, Olivia and Lee were also inside the garage, sitting around a long wooden table playing a holographic board game together. The pink energy beam that was holding the door open for Ryan and Nautica was coming from Amy's right hand, she was using her new powers, of which which she and Ryan had now become quite good at using, to hold the garage door open.
"Hi guys!" Amy happily greeted the pair.
Lee and Olivia quickly shifted their heads round when they noticed their arrival.
"Hey!" Ryan and Nautica both replied at the same time.
Ryan casually stepped into the garage before Amy carefully lowered the large metal door, looking around and admiring the delightful festive decorations as he did so.
"So, Ryan, how was your Christmas yesterday with Nautica?" Lee asked politely.
"It was pretty fun; we just went to see some of my family for the day. They were all really excited to meet Nautica, which was pretty cool, wasn't it bud?" Ryan responded looking down at Nautica.
"Yeah, I had a great time!" Nautica buzzed happily with his usual smile.
"That's nice, we spent the day here with Ellie and Amy's family" Olivia said, before Amy added "yep, and I slept over" pinging the collar of her pyjama top.
During the conversation, an old wooden door at the back area of the garage quickly swung open, revealing Ellie, who was wearing a purple Christmas jumper and holding a dark metal tray with three mugs of hot chocolate on top.
"Oh, hey you two" she said when she noticed Ryan and Nautica had arrived.
"When did you get here?" she added.
"Just now!" Nautica answered cheerfully.
"Oh, cool, well luckily I got some hot chocolate for you too in advance Ryan!" Ellie commented, walking over to the table and handing out two of the mugs to Amy and Ryan before taking a sip from the other one herself.
Ellie's eyes then shifted to gaze over at the corner of the garage that had been sectioned off and hidden behind thick blue curtains. Ryan noticed this and asked "how much longer is it going to be until you show us what's in there? You and Molly have been working on it for ages now!" Ellie lowered her mug and smirked.
"Very soon, don't you worry" she replied in quite a suspiciously confident manner. Ryan then looked over the table to Lee, hoping that he would explain what Ellie might mean by that, however Lee and Olivia both just shrugged, as they were just as confused as Ryan.
"Actually, talking about that just reminded me of something, I'll be right back!" Ellie announced as she quickly left the garage once again through the wooden door with her mug still half full of hot chocolate.
After that, everybody that remained in the garage went completely silent, leaving the Christmas music and the wrath of the winter wind outside to be the only audible sounds.
"It's been a weird few months hasn't it" Amy randomly commented.
"I'd say crazy is a more fitting word!" Lee added, as Ryan nodded in agreement.
"You know, sometimes I think about what may have happened if we had never gone to investigate that crater, or if somebody else beat us to it" Amy mumbled in deep thought.
"Well, one thing's for sure, it was a good job you clever little ones got to it first, and not that absolute monster" Olivia said.
"Besides, if you didn't, I would never have been reunited with Lee, or met any of you! So, I'm very glad that you did" she added, turning her head to look happily at Lee.
Suddenly, Ellie returned to the garage, however in her arms she was holding a huge mechanical metal box with glowing purple lights on the side, signalling everyone to clear the table. Ryan and Amy immediately used their powers to messily push everything off the table as Nautica hopped into Ryan's arms to get out of the way.
Ellie placed the box onto the table, making a loud thud noise which showed how heavy it had been to carry. For a brief moment, everybody except Ellie stared awkwardly at the massive box on the table, confused.
"So, um, Ellie, what is this supposed to be exactly?" Lee asked Ellie.
Ellie chuckled, "here, let me open it" she replied, leaning over the box to type a four digit code into a small type pad, fitted into the top of the box.
After she had typed the code, 2088, a loud click sound was heard before the whole thing quickly folded outwards and revealed what was inside.
Everyone's eyes widened when they saw a pile of Christmas presents, all wrapped in different coloured paper.
"Surprise! I got presents for all you guys!" Ellie cheerfully announced.
"Oh, wow! Thank you very much Ellie, so whose ones are whose then?" Olivia asked, closely inspecting each present.
"Hold on, I'll sort them for you" Ellie replied before handing out the presents to their owners.
"There, now come on, open them!" she said, stepping backwards to watch all her friends open their presents.
Amy was the first one to begin tearing the wrapping paper from her gift.
Once she had fully opened it and revealed what was inside, she was stunned to see what it was and held it up to get a better look. It was the pink bomber jacket with the fur ended hood that Amy had seen way back in the clothes shop, when the first map had appeared on Nautica's visor.
"Woah! I remember this jacket, it's the one that those sector bots slipped on!" she said with a great big grin on her face, before trying the jacket on and finding that it fit her perfectly.
"Yeah, I know. I saw you looking at it back then and I know how much you love getting new clothes, so it seemed like a good choice for a present for you" Ellie explained.
Lee and Olivia had also removed the wrapping paper from their presents and looked down at the contents.
"Are these what I think they are?" Olivia asked.
"Depends, what do you think they are?" Ellie asked back sarcastically.
Lee then held up a pair of dark jeans, a pair of trainers, a belt and a dark navy blue leather jacket with a glowing blue pattern going all around the back.
"You got clothes for us!" Lee cheered upon realisation.
"That's right!" Ellie replied with a smile.
"Do you wanna try them on?" she added.
"Oh, sure!" Olivia answered, before she and Lee began putting on their new and first ever pieces of clothing.
When the two bots had fully dressed themselves, they both inspected their outfits by looking down at themselves and at each other.
"Wow, you guys look so much cooler now!" Ryan commented.
"Ha, thanks" Olivia happily replied, now wearing a soft striped pink and white jumper, a pink knee length skirt and a pair of dark trainers that were similar to the ones Lee had been given.
Ellie then brought over a large rectangular shaped mirror on small wheels for the two bots to see themselves in.
"Yeah, you two do look great. Here, take a look for yourselves" Ellie offered, rotating the mirror to face the two bots.
Lee and Olivia then took a glance at their new looks, but almost immediately froze in shock at what they saw and remained silent for a few seconds. In the mirror, Lee and Olivia's reflections did not appear as robots, but instead as two human teenage figures who looked to be around the same age as Ellie.
Olivia's reflection showed a girl with pale skin and lots of long, wavy reddish-ginger hair. Meanwhile, Lee's reflection showed a tall, skinny boy with dark skin and a very neatly trimmed haircut. Ryan then waved one of his hands in front of the pair's faces to get their attention.
"Guys? Are you OK?" he asked.
Lee and Olivia both flinched.
"Oh, um, yes we're fine! We just... didn't expect to see that" Lee replied.
Ryan looked at the reflections in the mirror.
"What do you mean? It's just your reflections, haven't you seen them before?" he asked back, not seeming to see anything unusual.
It seemed almost like the two bots were seeing something completely different to everyone else in the room.
"You know what, never mind, it's probably nothing" Olivia commented, nervously patting Lee on the back.
At that moment everybody had opened their presents from Ellie, except Ryan.
"Come on Ryan! Aren't you going to open your one?" Amy asked cheerfully.
"Oh, yeah, I'll do that now" Ryan answered, looking down at his very small and rectangular shaped present, before slowly clawing off the wrapping paper to reveal a small remote-control device of some kind.
Ryan and Nautica's eyes both darted in Ellie's direction in confusion.
"What's this for?" Ryan asked, confused, holding the remote upwards.
Ellie walked over to Ryan to explain his present.
"It's one of the remote controllers that I use to control things like the lights and other stuff in here" she answered.
"Okay... But why are you giving me one?" Ryan asked, still confused.
"Because, to reveal your true present, you'll need to press one of the buttons. So, press the top one" Ellie explained with excitement.
Ryan looked down at Nautica on the table, who was also very excited to see Ryan's reaction to the surprise, and shrugged before pushing one of the glowing buttons on the remote control device. Once he pressed the button, all the lights in the garage suddenly switched off, darkening the entire room.
"What happened? Is this part of the surprise?" Olivia asked curiously.
Ellie sighed, "No, he pushed the wrong button!" she replied, taking the remote control from Ryan's hands and reactivating the lights in the garage, before handing it back to him.
"Press the top one this time" Ellie told Ryan, rolling her eyes.
Ryan took back the remote "yeah, okay, sorry" he said with a nervous laugh, before finally pushing the correct button.
After Ryan had pushed the correct button, nothing really seemed to happen at first, but after just a few seconds something highly unexpected happened.
Over in the sectioned off corner of the garage, the huge thick blue curtains were swiftly thrown open with a satisfying swish noise from the curtain pole, revealing Ryan's true gift.
Everybody in the garage twirled to face the corner, only to be astonished by what they saw.
Beyond the curtains was a huge, dark grey robotic body with the stolen mannequin's head from the clothes shop as a head piece.
It was made of various different mechanical body parts from lots of different types of robots and was being held in place by a bunch of short chunky cables, connected to a large and strange looking black device, which had been mounted onto the ceiling in the garage.
Ellie moved to the side of the open curtain to face Ryan and casually leaned back on it.
"I told you it'd be soon. Merry Christmas you two!" Ellie announced.
Ryan proceeded to slowly walk towards the massive mechanical body as dozens of questions began to quickly pop into his head.
"Well, what do you think Ryan?" Nautica happily asked Ryan with a great big smile.
"This is awesome, I love it! Even though I have no idea what it is!" Ryan replied with excitement.
"Great, I'm glad you like it. I don't really know what it's supposed to be either, Molly just brought over some spare parts that she had, then we just put them all together with the things that Nautica led us to" Ellie explained.
"Hold on, where did she get those extra parts from?" Lee asked as he noticed that some areas of the mechanical body were made of parts taken from a Maximum Security Bot.
Olivia placed her hand on Lee's shoulder, before his head turned to face her direction.
"You probably don't want to know, that girl just has her ways" Olivia commented.
Nautica then shifted his glowing green "x" shaped eyes to look upwards at Ryan.
"Well, I know what it is and what it does. Put me on the head piece and I'll show you" he energetically instructed Ryan.
Ryan glanced up at the stolen mannequin head that had been fixed onto the robotic body.
"Oh, I see, alright then" he said, before lifting Nautica up and above the mannequin head with his powers.
Everybody else in the garage watched Nautica slowly rise above the robotic body, all very keen to finally find out what this entire journey was leading up to.
Without wasting any more time, Nautica forced himself down on top of the mannequin head and when he did, his loveable glowing smiling face disappeared from the helmet's visor and bright green sparks quickly began to jump out of the silver joints between the mechanical body's arms, legs and neck areas. Then, seconds later, all the body's lights began to flicker on and off in a neon green colour, before stabilising into a constant glow which spat bright green light all over the garage, just like the exact moment when Nautica had first crash landed in the nearby woods.
Everyone in the garage shielded their eyes from the enormous mass of vibrant light and stumbled backwards slightly. This event continued for about 10 seconds until suddenly, the intensity of the blinding light began to weaken, allowing everyone to uncover their eyes and safely look at what Nautica had done. In front of them, the robotic body stood in a slouched over stance and was no longer being held in place by the small, thin wires, as it seemed somebody had pulled them out of the mannequin head.
Ryan took a few slow and careful steps towards the mechanical body, leading him to find that Nautica had just attached the dark astronaut helmet directly on top of the mannequin head, making it look like the body was now wearing it on its head.
"Nautica?" Ryan called quietly, crouching down to view the helmet's visor.
Suddenly, Nautica's glowing smiling face reappeared at last on the visor, before he used his new body to stand up straight, making Ryan jump back in surprise.
"Nautica! Oh my god, buddy you're.." he yelled before pausing.
Nautica laughed with excitement "Ha! Cool right? I've got full control of my movement now!" he said happily, taking his first ever steps out of the sectioned off corner of the garage.
"That looks so weird, I mean, don't get me wrong, you do look awesome now, but it's just kinda strange since you're so much bigger now!" Amy commented.
"Yeah, I agree, but it's good because now I guess Ryan doesn't have to carry you around anymore, right?" Ellie added.
Nautica nodded in response.
"Yep, that's right" he replied.
Ryan then turned his head to look at Ellie.
"El, thank you so much for this, it's amazing!" he said very gratefully.
Ellie smiled, "no problem, even though I think Molly is the one you've really got to thank. Without her I don't think I would have been able to build it on my own" she responded with an honest shrug of her shoulders.
"I hope we'll get to see her again, and Jack too, despite his quite troublesome attitude" Lee said, as he shifted his head to look at a printed photograph of himself, Olivia, Jack, Molly and Ellie together, that was stuck on the bottom corner of a window in the garage.
"Don't worry Lee, I'm sure we will someday!" Olivia comforted Lee, giving him a pat on the back.
For a brief moment, everybody went completely silent, leaving the cold wind outside to be the only audible sound.
"So, what do you guys wanna do now?" Ellie suddenly asked, breaking the silence as everybody else's heads turned to her all at the same time.
Ryan then spotted Amy's pink holo-bike helmet from across the garage and used his powers to summon it towards his hand by stretching out his arm.
When he caught the helmet, he passed it over to Amy, who was stood next to him.
"Holo-bike ride?" he suggested with a smirk.
"Absolutely" Amy enthusiastically replied, firmly taking her helmet from Ryan and putting it on.
"Alright, sure! Why not" Ellie said, as she walked across the garage and reached through the large blue curtains to grab her holo-bike helmet, before quickly slotting it onto her head and lifting the garage door open.
A strong blast of freezing cold wind quickly flew into the garage as the door lifted from the ground upwards. Once the door had fully opened, the band of great friends, that now consisted of six members, all sprinted out of the garage into the snow covered street, then into the alleyway where the group kept all of their holo-bikes.
One by one, each of the group's holo-bikes zoomed out of the alley way at an astounding speed, with Olivia sharing Lee's bike and Nautica on the back of Ryan's. The cold temperatures and the snowfall did not seem to affect the group in any way as they quickly rode straight into the main City. Nautica was amazed by the new energy that he could now feel in his body when riding on the holo-bike, a feeling that he had never experienced when he was bound to just a small space helmet.
"Wow! This is absolutely amazing, I feel so alive!" Nautica buzzed with glee.
Ryan laughed at Nautica's comment, "well, Nautica, welcome to Cyberlantis!" Ryan yelled in excitement as the group continued to whiz around the City to their heart's content.
[END OF STORY]