Heat of the Moment

[Android 17]

The number of astronomers had been reduced to eight, not including Julius Peppers. Prior to their departure, the magic-wielding researchers had disassembled their fallen comrade’s equipment and stored a lot of it into ‘bags of holding.’ Although he was curious, Seventeen bit his tongue as he watched two men ease a motorcycle into a bag the size of a basketball without so much as a single stretch in the fabric. Once the astronomers had finished packaging up the belongings of their dead associates, the group continued their trek into the Ashen Steppes.

Once they got down the other side of the mountain and started to traverse a long stretch of flat land, Seventeen found the Barrel Train’s equivalent of an autopilot. After keying in the information, he let out a yawn and tried to clear his head a little as the astronomers and their motorcycles led his little troupe of turtles onward.

As always, he found himself wondering how the old world was keeping together. Had they defeated the invaders? The cyborg certainly hoped they had managed such a feat, because he sure as hell hadn’t sacrificed himself for nothing! If Kirano, Mikey, Piper, and the others had failed, they’d all be getting an ass whoopin’ when Seventeen made it back home.

The cyborg wondered if the Omniverse had a telescope or something that would let him see back into his home universe. One of these days, he would have to set about trying to find the white guy—Omni. He hadn’t been very informative in his jumbled, hazy introduction to Seventeen. Why wouldn’t you wait a good eight or twelve hours to dump a bunch of information at someone who had just been bludgeoned and battered within an inch of his life? How many people went to go listen to a lecture with a concussion and a few broken limbs?

That’s Instruction 101, dude. C’mon.

Over the course of an hour, the terrain grew increasingly uneven, with the rolling hills giving way to nearly jagged moguls of shale and obsidian. At one point, Seventeen realized that the ground was black rather than brown, and that the fissured soil he’d grown accustomed to had given way for terrain made from hardened lava flows. In that time, the machine-hybrid had managed to properly reflect upon a few older memories. If he had the basics of omnilium correct, all the glowing and rainbows meant that he’d at least attained a few more pieces of his skillset.

Lifting a hand, Seventeen willed a little sphere of ki into existence and let it hover a few inches over his palm. The warm little ball jiggled in the air for a few moments before the cyborg drew his last three fingers over his palms. As he did the motion, the ball of energy flattened out and started to hiss and crackle as it was forced into a disc shape. With a grin, Seventeen flung the Frisbee-shaped projectile and watched it vanish into the haze around them.

He knew he didn’t have much, but he had enough at his disposal to kill things a little more effectively. Who wanted to take a whirring buzz saw of energy to their face?

Then again, those astronomers got murdered by flying pig-bird monsters…

Just as he was about to drift back into the realm of daydreams, Seventeen was jostled back to complete awareness by a screech from his dashboard communications. “Mount Escorial is just up through this patch of foothills.”

‘Foothills’? Seventeen glanced out at the landscape around their convoy and noted that they were close to four thousand feet above sea level (if such a concept existed in a world with no oceans or bodies of non-fatal liquid). I can’t imagine what he considers to be a mountain.

For a few more miles, the convoy of astronomers and koopas wove their way up until they reached what seemed to be a massive fissure at the base of an inert volcano. Seventeen stayed parked inside the Barrel Train until the astronomers were finished packing up their vehicles. As the cyborg disembarked, he signaled to the koopas to get ready for the next leg of their adventure.

“We need to be on our toes,” Dutch Koopa grunted as he took the key out of his kart and eased it beneath a cover of rocks. The muscled reptile waved over his comrades before moving to join his commanding officer. “You hear me?”

Seventeen, who had been distracted by a stumbling astronomer inside the tunnel ahead, turned and nodded to the koopa. “Toes?”

“We were being following,” Dutch muttered.

At that, the cyborg furrowed his brow and stepped back toward the path they’d taken. A longer glance confirmed what he already knew—they’d ascended a path of perfectly black stone intermittently broken apart by slow-moving lines of lava. From up here, the landscape looked almost beautiful. The moguls blended into the ground, making the scene in front of the raven-haired adventurer look like splintered black glass.

“There’s nothing out there.”

Dutch shook his head. “Just keep your head on a swivel. Once we’re in that mountain, we’re going to be trapped like mousers in cages.”