A Different Place

Chapter 48 - I Forgot About Glyde!

A Quick Note: I didn't actually forget about Glyde or the Birdbots. I just thought the title was appropriate in light of the fact that the last chapter seemed like everything was magically going to turn out perfectly. Hee hee.

The door to the Spotting car was flung open. "Roll, I'm back!"

"Dantz!" Roll bounded towards her Digger and away from the Spotting equipment which she'd been hovering around for the past half-hour. She locked her arms around Dantz's waist in that post-Dig grip with which he'd grown so familiar.

"The Bonnes caught up with me just after we'd lost contact," Dantz explained, a huge grin on his face, "but I was able to trick them!" He laughed so hard that it could be felt through his armor, and Roll was shaken around a little. "They didn't even check the bottom floor! They just took my word for it that there was nothing there!"

Roll found Dantz's good mood infectious. "You mean there WAS something at the bottom?"

"Oh, yeah." Dantz looked Roll in the eyes. "It was the biggest refractor I've ever seen! It must have been as big as this car!"

"All right!" Roll found herself being pulled into dancing a small jig as Dantz's huge fiscal realization took hold in her mind. "All you have to do is go back down there and get it!"

Dantz stopped dancing. "Right. I guess I will have to go down there again, won't I?"

"What's the problem?"

"Oh, nothing, I guess," said Dantz, "but that refractor's so big, I don't know if I can carry it all by myself."

"I'll think of something," Roll said, wracking her brain in thought. "I know! We can make some sort of cart or something, right?"

"Works for me," Dantz said.

"Just think," said Roll dreamily, "with that much money we'll be able to buy a new skyship! And to fix it up so it'll look really great..." She stopped.

"What?"

"I was just thinking about Grandpa again. If we get a new ship, it'll seem so empty."

Dantz tightened his arms around her. "I know. Look, Roll, no matter what happens, from now on I promise that I'll always---"

A rolling, thunderous eruption cut off Dantz's words. The ground around the Old City started shaking violently. Both Dantz and Roll had to hold on to the console in order to prevent a nasty fall. The shuddering stopped, and the two looked at each other in confusion. Now that the sounds of the explosion had subsided, a persistent whiny noise could be heard.

"What was that?" asked Dantz.

"How do you like your hamburger, Miss Tron?" asked Servbot Number Three. Three, along with Numbers Twenty-One and Sixteen, had been the Servbots responsible for building this little business enterprise. The truth was, Kattleox Island was in dire need of a restaurant, as the bakeries in Apple Market were the only eateries currently available for for the islanders' patronage. Tron had to admit, her little boys had taken a remarkably interesting step, as far as hamburger stands went.

The restaurant was clean, almost spotlessly so, and instead of sitting at the counter, customers had several tables and booths at which to seat themselves. Tron herself was now seated at one of those booths, chewing up a bite of hamburger, the "Number Sixteen Special," to be specific. Each Servbot had a hamburger named after him. This system worked well in theory, but it clearly had been very difficult for the Servbots involved in the planning to come up with forty varieties of sandwich. The "Number Thirty-Two" was raw hamburger meat with a slice of onion, the "Number Twelve" consisted of fried bologna and barbecue sauce, and the "Number Twenty-Eight" and the "Number Thirty-Nine" were technically the same sandwich (a patty melt with grilled onions and mayo), though Twenty-One insisted that it was because those two Servbots were so similar in appearance. The "Number Forty" was simply a plain bun with ketchup on it, although the real-life Number Forty didn't see this as an insult, but rather a tribute to his ability to think "outside the box," as it were.

"It's really good, Number Three," said Tron between bites. "I guess I was wrong about this place. You guys will make your money back in no time!"

All of the Bonnes were now dining inside the Servbot's new restaurant, conveniently-placed in the southwestern corner of the downtown area. Teisel had been so pleased with his hamburger, he'd immediately ordered another and wolfed it down. He was now clutching his stomach, which had rebelled against so much food being forced into it in three minutes' time.

Bon was standing contentedly in the kitchen area, with Number Twenty-Six faithfully shoving burger after burger into his mouth. The younger Bonne brother would have been murmuring in bliss, but he was so busy scarfing down the constant stream of snadwiches that he was close to complete silence, save for the sounds of frenzied chewing.

MegaMan was standing next to the counter, his own eating momentarily halted as he stared at Bon's massive project. The boy's green eyes were wide as he gaped at the spectacular culinary feats in front of him. Tron wasn't going to say it out loud, but she was sort of hoping that he would come sit next to her at her booth.

"This is really exciting," said Number Sixteen, the mastermind behind the whole idea, who was sitting across from Tron and looking remarkably proud of himself. "We've already made a profit of twenty-thousand zenny over the first week's costs alone!"

Tron put down her sandwich. "Really? That's impressive! Maybe we should think about doing some franchising..." Her eyes narrowed in speculation. If a new-fangled hamburger restaurant could bring in that much cash, maybe she was in the wrong business. Okay, not really, but maybe she should consider dipping her hand into a second honey pot.

Teisel stood up abruptly. He had evidently recovered from his sour stomach, as he instantly went back to the counter. "Let's see. This time I want a 'Number Twenty.' No, wait, a 'Number Thirteen.'"

"How about both?" suggested Number Twenty-One, who was manning the cash register.

"All right!" Teisel swiftly agreed without giving the matter any thought whatsoever.

Number Twenty rang him up. "That'll be three hundred and fifteen zenny, please."

Teisel paid up and got to work on his latest sandwiches. As he popped the last piece of the "Number Thirteen" into his mouth, Tron felt the booth underneath her start to quiver, then shudder, then finally, shake with all the force of a nearby earthquake. This seemed highly unusual, because as everyone familiar with geology knew, Kattleox Island was not located on or anywhere near a fault line.

The restaurant's occupants began rushing outside as they heard an audible crack, which as they discovered, was the Kattleox City wall cracking as an insanely large beam sawed through it. This new gap in the wall complemented the nearby chunk taken out when the Flutter had scraped itself across it. Tron, Teisel, and the rest searched above for the source of the blast, but the blue, clear sky seemed strangely empty.

MegaMan looked at Tron. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Tron said. "I think maybe it was---"

It was lucky that at this point, most of the restaurant's occupants had fled the premises to investigate the current unusual situation, for just as Tron was speculating on the nature of the previous blast, another beam lanced through the air and collided directly with the Servbot's latest business venture. The roof caved in, then collapsed under the beam's awesome power.

"It came from that skyship!" Teisel pointed to a small, green pleasure yacht hovering over the city. "A little ship like that shouldn't have that much power!" Teisel's voice was slightly muffled, as the elder Bonne was still hard at work on his fourth hamburger of the afternoon.

"Yeah," MegaMan agreed following the ship with his eyes. It continued flying over the city, unleashing its devastating weapon on random buildings.

Number Sixteen was agape, looking on in horror as the last of his project caved in. Numbers Twenty-One, Twenty-Six, and Thirty, the only Servbots that had remained within the restaurant, emerged from the smoking rubble, scorched but otherwise none the worse for wear. "I...I can't believe it," said Sixteen softly. "It's all gone. All of it."

"It'll be okay, Number Sixteen," said Tron, putting a comforting hand on the overachieving Servbot's head. "Your insurance should cover most of the damages, and you'll be able to re-open in no time!"

"My what, now?" Number Sixteen asked.

"Your insurance," Tron repeated. "You did sign up coverage for this place, didn't you?!" Her hand tightened on Number Sixteen's metal skull.

"Ummm...no?"

"You moron!!!" Tron yowled. "What am I ever going to do with you? How are you going to pay back your loan without a business to make any money?!?"

She was about to launch into a diatribe on the dangers of idiocy in small-business planning when MegaMan interrupted her. "Don't worry Tron," he said, "we can always just rob the bank to get some more money, right?"

The fact that MegaMan jumped in to defend the Servbot made her even angrier. "What, rob a bank to pay back a loan that we owe to that same bank?! That's just stupid!"

"Really? I think it would work."

Tron opened her mouth to argue further, but nothing would come out. Finally, she gave in. "Number Three!"

"Yes, Miss Tron?"

"Take Number Twenty-Eight and Number Thirty and go rob the bank while everyone's confused! They'll just think whoever's attacking them now is responsible!" The Servbots saluted and began jogging for the northern district of town. "I wonder who is attacking the city," Tron said.

"Just a wild shot, here," said Teisel, watching as the small skyship leveled another building, "but I'm betting it's Glyde. That's why he didn't care about the Digging Contest! He just wanted time to get his weapon ready!"

"I forgot about Glyde," Tron admitted.

"Maybe we should just get out of here while the getting's good," MegaMan offered. "Once we've finished robbing the bank, that is."

"No!" Tron said arbitrarily. "I am not letting Glyde, or whoever that is up there, get away with smashing our restaurant! I didn't get any payback from that doofus Digger, but I want some now!"

"Sounds good to me," said Teisel. "Let's head back to the ship. We'll attack him from the air!"