The Next Step

The Writer's Lounge - A place specially made for aspiring writers and powerful gladiators. And Lucario is one of the gladiators - wRHGs to be exact. And at the moment, he was finding an opponent.

"Is there anyone available right now, Miss?" asked Lucario politely to the receptionist of the Writer's Lounge's main building.
"Sorry Luke, but there's no one available right now. Why don't you go outside and relax for a bit? You did fight some guys right? Too much fighting isn't exactly good for you, right?"
"Maybe you're right...Guess I'll take a small breather." And then Luke turned around and left. The view of the busy streets of StickPage was quite astonishing. Many different kinds of people were walking on the streets. The sun shone down the slightly displeased Lucario. He went to the nearest park and sat down on a bench.

"Now what...The part-time job as a waiter managed to scrape me enough money to live...But at this rate, before finding him, I'm gonna die of hunger." He grumbled.
"What should we do? Travel to other places for food?" Rio, a freeloading ghost inside Luke commented.
"Geez. Stop be...Actually, that's a good idea. I might be able to enter a "super-friendly-village-where-they-give-free-food. Alright. Guess I don't need to do anything at all. Time to D.D. travel."

Luke stared down his Different Dimension Watch. It had been a while since he took a good look at it. The screen showed...nothing like always. When he turned around his hand, the clasp locking the watch to his hand is easily visible. The black material connecting the parts together didn't look like regular steel at all. They are hard, REAL hard. Luke once tried to remove it by force and ended up with sore fingers.

"I don't get why that old man, Kraden if I'm not mistaken has it. Do you know about this?" Lucas curiously asked.
"Don't know. He had been my servant since I rescued him from bandits a few years ago, but he never told me anything about himself." Rio answered immediately.
"That's it?" Lucas was greatly disappointed by that answer. "Guess we're clueless when it comes to Zoroak AND this watch, not to mention the ability-copying gauntlet, the Technique Machine. But there's something-"Before he had the chance to speak, his stomach's grumbles interrupted Lucas with its cries for food.

"Looks like I better feed my poor thing. Time to go." He pressed the button on the side of the D.D.W. and a blue portal appeared out of thin air in front of him. He stepped through it and experienced a familiar, yet still frightening experience: His body was quickly decomposed into billions of small particles, transported with the speed of light through a tunnel comprising of different overlapping dimensions and put back together as quickly as the beginning. And all of that happened in just one second.

"Ugh...I can NEVER get used to this." Lucas complained as he was stepping out of the portal.
"Tell me about it. I asked you to let me try once and now I still regretted that decision." Rio showed his agreement.

The Encounter at the Secret Laboratory

The both of them then started to examine the surroundings. They were in a building of sorts with white walls, white floors, white ceilings,...White, white everywhere. It was quite bright thanks to a line of white neon lights on the ceiling. He walked down the curved corridor for a bit before seeing a door installed into the wall. The door itself had nothing remotely close to a knob or a handle, just a horizontal line in the middle. Next to the door was a button. Only an idiot (*cough*Rio*cough*) wouldn't know what to do. Luke pressed it a few times, but nothing happened. He then decided to ignore the door and kept moving forward, past a couple more doors on one side of the wall.

"I think...I might know where we are." Lucas's voice was calm, almost to the point of heartless.

"Really? How?" Rio's curiosity was piqued by Lucas.

"This might be an underground facility. First, the lights didn't flicker which indicated a large amount of electricity. Secondly, the reason this path is curved was probably because this path was at the outer part of this facility. The fact that the doors are on one side of the wall also supports this theory." He paused for a bit then continued. "But then, why no windows? I can think of many, but the most plausible one is..."

"It's underground?" Rio interrupted Lucas's professory speech.

"Correct. You're not much of an idiot after all.(Lie) Anyway, the abudance of electricity and the way doors work around here can mean that this place is a reasearch facility, or a laboratory for short. Sadly, this is all a hypothesis, or a guess if you can't understand, Rio. I can't say if I'm right or not."

"Wow...Just how smart are you, Luke?" Rio suddenly blurted out.

"Smarter than you, at least." And...Lucas replied with a sarcasm-filled...sarcasm.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" Rio didn't take kindly to that. But his rage was cut short by Lucas.

"SHH! I hear something! Hide!" Lucas whispered then moved into a nearby room after hearing a strange sound heading towards his way. After heading inside, he found himself inside a room comprising of a small greenhouse and a tiny farm. It didn't take long for Lucas to head towards the nearest food. After eating a few fruits, he realized that he needed to get out of there. After checking whether the noise were gone or not, he continued to eat a few more and headed outside. After walking silently so as to not attract the attention of someone (or something) here, he reached what seemed to be the entrance. Well, what was left of it. Pieces of what used to be walls and pillars was everywhere. There was a hole on the wall which was probably resulted from an attack. The floor was scattered with ashes from an already-extinguished fire. And the most eye-catching scene was the sights of spherical drones "trying to" clean the place with the brooms and mops with its little mechanical arms.

"Hm...So that's what made the sound when we hid inside the greenhouse." Lucas said while he was rubbing his chin, appearing to be thinking hard.
"Aw...They look so cute...and SMASHABLE!" Rio said with a tone changing from that of a girl to a mindless brute.
"Once again Rio, you've successfully proved your idiocy." Lucas felt the necessity to say that. But their attention was drawn to something else now. Two people, appearing to be talking to each other. One person is a girl whose brown hair was tied into an arcing ponytail. Another was an android, black from head to toes except for the three grey locks surrounding a single glowing green eye.

"Blast Android Class AKA: Bl.An.C. - a pseudo-android whose pilot is Cooper Price. With his arsenal of weapons and analyctical skill, he is a dangerous gladiator." Lucas gave a short profile of the black android.

"How did you know that?" Rio asked curiously.

"Google. Just kidding.(Not that you know about it anyway) I took a peek in the wRHG database. Research is necessary. And don't worry Rio, I'll tell my foe a bit about my abilities to ensure "fair play" and I will NOT look at the "weakness" part. A challenge is needed to become stronger and perserve one's honor. Or that's what you would say. As for the girl, I have no idea who she is. But she's perhaps Bl.An.C.'s assistant who specialized in fixing his suit. And that this might be their base." Then Luke shut his mouth and tried to eavesdrop their conversation. Because of the distance, he could only hear bits and pieces.

"...next battle...Rhami and Astor..." The android's monotonous voice could hardly be heard.
"Then stay, you've proven enough!" The scientist's plea didn't reach him, however. She held his arm, but was shrugged off by the pseudo-android. Then he turned around and exited the lab. As his footstep echoed across the devastated lab, Luke could easily see the pain-stricken face of the young woman. He knew how she felt, the pain of seeing a loved one leave without anything to make sure of his safe return. Luke remembered her face very clearly, as if it was just yesterday: A beautiful girl sleeping in the hospital, trapped in a coma with no signs of waking up. He snapped out of it when he saw Bl.An.C. leaving the lab.

Luke proceeded to leave stealthlily pass the female scientist and the cleaning drones and made his way up to the surface through the hole on the wall. Heading towards the light in the dark tunnel, he climbed up the rocky walls and eventually got out of it. And the first thing that his eyes recognized was the intense yellow light from the sun...and sand. Lots of em orange sand. It seemed that this "secret" lab was located in the middle of the desert. Luke accidentally made a small sound of sand shifting and Bl.an.C. turned around. It went without saying that he was extremely surprised to see Luke's presence.

"Query: Who are you? What are you doing here?" said the pseudo-android as he aimed his weapon at Luke, ready to fire at the slightest of movement.

"Oy, oy, hold your fire! It's me, Lucario! We met in the Chat Room!" He raised both of his arms up to show his lack of resistance. "And for your second question: Teleport. I was randomly teleported here because of my watch. Had no idea where I was until I saw the entrance." Lucario lowered his left arm, showing the android the black watch on his wrist.

"Query: How can I know you're telling the truth?" His weapon locked onto Luke, with no signs of letting him go.

"How about a demonstration?" Luke slowly pressed the button on the side of the watch. In an instant, a blue portal appeared right in front of him, separating Luke and the Blast Android. He then jumped into it and disappeared along with the portal, leaving behind a black android.

"Exclamation: What the hell just happened?"

When Luke opened his eyes, he was at the front gate of the Writer's Lounge.

"And so we're back to square one. With only a few fruits, I don't think I can last long...AH! I remember! The Chat Room! The food there is free! Alright, let's go and have a feast, Rio!" Then Luke dashed off to the Chat Room, a place that shall grant his belly's deepest wishes: FREE food. But he didn't know that somewhere, a figure was laughing:

"Fool...Enjoy your pathetic life. Because soon...the color of despair will be all that you could see. Until then, enjoy that fleeting happiness of yours."