Timeskip/Prime Time

Flashback

 * Lee Prower
 * Onyx
 * Zero the Bushdog

Story

 * Lee Prower
 * Cassie Prower
 * Onyx
 * Mallory the Wolf

Story
The green beam subsided, revealing Zero the Bushdog. As always, his blade was at his side, but something felt different. Physically, he hadn't changed, but his energy was… unusual. The Gray Lee and Azul's bonds vanished, the pair freed by the returning villain, apparently.

Lee Prower sprung to his feet, gritting his teeth. "Ready to throw down again, Zero?" He growled, two glistening Soulblades appearing in his hands. With both fists tightened around the handles, the Flynx dashed towards his enemy. "I beat you before, I can do it again!"

Onyx screamed at Lee. "Stop! Something isn't right!"

The Bushdog just extended his hand, and the weapon lunged forward. Lee stopped to look down, feeling a tingle. The blade had been lodged just below his heart, jabbing into his ribs. "No. You can't." Zero stated. The blade pierced through flesh and bone, it was clear Lee shouldn’t have survived. “Huh. Tougher than you pretend,”

"Lee, he's going to kill us!" The Shadowy Ancient shouted from inside Lee's mind.

"Wrong, Onyx. I'm just going to make make you wish Lee had never been born." An invisible hand gripped Lee's right side, the blade lifting him off the ground. Everyone gasped as Zero threw his left hand to the far side. Lee splintered, everything except his left arm and ribs flying into a nearby wall. A thin trail of blood connected the Flynx and his limb. "I'm a god now."

Lee's head was reeling, but Onyx's voice was clear as day. "I think it's over, my ally. He’s too strong, he can even hear me." Lee’s heart raced, the very act hurting because of the open air invading his chest. Everything hurt, he wanted to curl up and cry; but he didn’t.

"Onyx… we're the Dryden. He got one lucky shot, since when do we give up like that..?" He spat out a bit of blood, then wiped his muzzle off and stood up shakily, his legs wanting to give in to just laying there. A blue bulb formed over the wounded area, exploding into an arm and covering his missing ribs.

"That all you got?" Lee declared, his eyes narrowing and fists tightening.

Present day, four years later.

A motorcycle nimbly slid down the freeway of Mobotropolis, moving around, between and past normal cars. Lee, the driver of the small vehicle, wasn't dressed any different than usual, having just a helmet on. His black-tipped tail swishing behind him as he drove. His driving style was erratic, to say the least, as if his mind was someplace else.

The gray-blue motorcycle he was driving belonged to his father and was the cutting edge of technology- 40 years ago, at least. It’s plating (titanium alloy for some reason) had to have been replaced and a large number of the power cells were shot. This had only taken Lee a few hours to fix. Now the Razor-Blade (as Flyby often joked calling it) was on the road burning rubber again. Maybe it was the feeling of control given by driving the bike, but Lee did enjoy sliding between other cars on the road.

He got off the freeway, driving past a large abandoned airplane hangar. “Huh… that place is still standing, I guess.” Certain stories told by his parents came to mind, stories of good and evil. Of hope and sacrifice.

“Lee, why are you monologuing?” Onyx asked, a strange, yawn-like noise following it. “It’s very noisy.”

“Sleeping well?” Lee replied.

Onyx grunted, irritated slightly. “Not anymore, loud person.”

“Sorry, just remembering things.” The Flynx answered, turning back to the road.

After a few more blocks (and rude comments), Lee pulled a scrap of paper out of his right pocket and began looking around for the address listed. Despite his crude handwriting and the worn paper, it was… fairly easy to read it. Finding the address led the driver to a large gate with sounds of bustle and hustle on the other side.

The gate was at least thirty feet, but he could see what looked like buildings on the other side.

“Hey!” A voice shouted at him. He looked towards the gate.

He turned, changing his position and sitting sideways. “Yeah?”

“Get off my lawn, numbskull.”

Lee paused, not sure what to say next.

“I’m kidding, but I do need to know why you’re here.” The voice said, calming down to more a friendly talk.

“OH, uh, right… Cassandra Prower sent me here, said you guys could use a hand with some stuff.”

“Oh, you’re Lee, aren’t ya?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” He answered, spinning back to the primary position.

He heard a clicking of gears and the door began to move, opening to reveal the interior. Inside, there was the area with cameras, lights and crew while the area beyond that was a faux city, built scaled down by about fifty percent. Lee drove in, finding a parking spot at the back of the cement surface.

He touched the side of his helmet, and a glowing circle appeared. The circle shifted in intensity, then the helmet disintegrated, reforming as the red bandana Lee had.

Once he got closer to the faux city, he saw Cassie walking into it, tying her hair behind up behind her in a ponytail-like style. She had on her normal clothes, but with black markers on her joints and other areas. She had a few people checking the small disks with tiny computers, but the people peeled off after a few seconds.

Lee waved, Cassie noticed and waved back, then pointed to a hedgehog in a chair and mouthed “talk to him”. She smiled and kept walking into the city.

Making his way to the person Cassie had pointed out, Lee realized it was the director. Honestly, he shouldn’t have been surprised. “Sir, uh… I’m Lee Prower, the help you got for the gear around here?”

“Oh, yeah. Before you do that, I want you to watch our star do her stuff. See all those black disks?” The Hedgehog was wearing a button-up shirt, dress pants and a generic beret. His whole outfit screamed “rich”.

“Yes sir,” Lee replied, watching Cassie.

“Those are motion capture disks. Know what those do?”

The Flynx facepalmed. “I’m aware of the idea, sir. Now please tell where I’m supposed to be.”

“Just wait a second, kid. We used motion trackers instead of a suit…”

Now a good distance into the city, Cassie grew to about forty feet, a size where she could still maneuver without crushing anything.

“So when she does that, they stay in place.” The director said, leaning back in his chair.

Lee just blinked. “Ok, that’s… kinda clever, actually. Now, where am I supposed to be?”

“Over there, in that big building looking thingy with the giant doors. Our construction bots need some fine-tuning.” He waved to a structure in the corner of the shooting area.

The director kept talking, but Lee walked off. Looking at it, the building was old, probably the original structure for the company.

But boy, did it stink. The venting was broken, so the door was left open. Still felt like an oven. Thankfully, someone had left him a toolbox. He scooped up the gray, metal rectangle, but turned to sounds of someone walking his way. The footsteps were quick, but with an almost nervous pace to them. They vanished after a few seconds.

Shrugging it off, Lee made his way to the robots. Each one must’ve been twenty feet tall, a Bright Horizons model. The right arm was a hand, for lifting and moving. The left was a sort of multi-tool, designed to do multiple tasks, like drilling and screwing things in. Their color was yellow, making them easy to see anytime. The “head” was a bubble holding a built-in computer designed to give commands to the rest of the robot. The legs were built like tank treads, allowing the bots to move across any terrain.

Overall, it was a tank.

Grabbing a wrench, Lee slid under the main torso of the deactivated robot.

“Jeez, what happened to these things?” The wiring for the treads had been essentially microwaved, looking more like burnt spaghetti than a complex wiring system. It’d take a lot more than a wrench to fix this.

“I better get pa-- OW!!” Lee screamed, groping for his right foot. There was another scream, and it sounded female, so the Flynx slid out from his work area with a grunt.

A gray wolf girl had tripped over his foot and was getting off the ground, brushing herself off. When she got up, Lee got a clear view of her. A messy bundle of black hair flowed between her ears and down to about the middle of her back, covering part of her face. She had a red dress on, tied with a grey sash across her stomach, both showing off her very average build. “U-um… sorry....” The girl scrambled to collect the papers she had been holding. “I-I didn’t mean to trip over your sh- foot, I mean.”

This girl was a bundle of nerves. Yet, she did seem familiar, Lee just couldn’t pin it. He got up to help her with the papers, and she looked at him.

“W-wait, I know you… you were at that Bright Horizons gala last night… y-you saved me, when that-- Um, sorry. I’ll just go,” She blushed, grabbing the papers from Lee and turning to walk away in a panic

‘’“Well, that was weird.”’’ Lee thought, turning back to the robot. He did what he could, repairing a lot of smaller things. Eventually, he was tired of touching metal, as well as hungry, so he took a break. He told the director he’d need a lot of tools to get the bots running again, so he was given an authorized break.

The wolf was standing by one of the craft services tables, looking at the food. Lee glanced at her, but sat down more towards the center of the tables provided. She got herself some food, a lot of cookies for some reason, and sat across from him.

“S-sorry for tripping o-over you… You’re the one who saved me last night, from the grenade.” She stuttered.

“Oh, yeah. Um… y-you’re welcome?” Lee shrugged.

The wolf blushed. “I-I’m Mallory, nice to meet you.” She reached to shake his hand.

“Yeah, you too.” Lee grinned back, giving his best first impression whilst shaking her hand. The grin only made her blush more. This gave Lee his first clear look at her eyes; A piercing red, almost unnerving in color. But they seemed familiar as well. “Um, sorry… I’m Lee.”

Mallory smiled, still blushing. “Is that your full first name? I sometimes get called Mal.”

“Yeah, that’s my name.” The Flynx replied.

“Huh…” She took a bite of her sandwich and looked over to the shooting area.

Cassie, still big, was pretending to run from something, with cars and buildings in her way. On a screen nearby, they could see her motions being used for a digital counterpart, one being chased by an even bigger monster.

“Do you ever wish your life was like that? Running around and fighting monsters..?” Mallory asked, her curiosity overpowering her nervousness.

Lee shrugged. “Who has to wish?”

The Wolf blinked a few times in confusion. “What?”

He chuckled, scratching his neck. “I… had quite the adventures when I was a teenager.” He looked up at Cassie. “Never handled anything quite that big, by myself, at least.”

Mallory just stared at him. ‘“Quite that big? By myself?’ What did you do?”

“Umm… remember that big storm, above Bright Horizon Towers about five years ago? Believe it or not, that was a crazy cultist trying to bring a deity into our world.” Lee shrugged.

Mallory was back to staring at him.

So Lee shrugged again.

Cassie finished the motions she’d been taught for the role, some heroine named “Stature” or something, she didn’t know the character; But, it was her first acting job, so she’d learned her parts. The enormous fox walked back to the main area, stepping over things whilst shrinking down.

She’d dropped the black cut-off tank top of her teenage years, after seeing how… unprofessional it looked (especially when she increased her size), and now wore a pair of shorts and a white jacket for her everyday outfit. The jacket was open in the back, which let her spines poke out. She’d tried out a lot, but this was the one she’d had treated so it’d mesh with her powers.

Cassie managed to get out of the faux city without crushing anything, just having to jump over the last car. She undid her hair, and it poofed out like a small fireworks show, bits of red everywhere. The director looked to her, giving the fox a thumbs up. She nodded back, looking around for her brother.

Lee was sitting down near the craft services… with a girl? That was new; Honestly, that was more Link’s thing. She smiled, rolling her eyes. ‘’”Way to have confidence in him, girl.”’’ She found a seat a few tables away, just watching the two talk.

Mallory sank her teeth into a cookie, letting the hybrid talk about the bizzareness of his adventures. She had a hard time imagining him doing some of the things he said, his face looked so young. Plus it seemed he was leaving parts out. The wolf threw the last bit of cookie into her mouth when she noticed something going on in the background.

A pair of repairmen were entering the building she’d found Lee in earlier, they looked like brothers, and each had a very large backpack with various tools sticking out.

“Hey, Lee?”

He stopped talking. “Hmm?”

“I thought you were the only guy they called in.” She pointed them out to him.

“I did tell the guy in charge I needed some tools, maybe they’re dropping those off?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They waited a few minutes, but the pair didn’t exit. Instead, it sounded like they were working on the robots.

“I guess I’ve been replaced?” Lee said.

“That stinks… Maybe you can work someplace else…” Mallory replied with a genuinity that made Lee grin a tiny bit.

He stood up. “I’ll go ask the director guy, you wait here.” The Hybrid said, running off.

Mallory chomped another cookie. She’d down a few more (her metabolism was nuts), when a loud noise emitted from the building the robots were in. The noise got louder, causing more and more of the film crew to turn their heads.

The two figures sprinted out of the side door, scrambling for the exit. Then a bright yellow claw broke through the wall of the building. The robots were loose.

“What repairmen? That’s why I brought you in!” The director angrily said, getting out of his chair and storming towards the building.

Lee followed, only to have the director turn and run when the two robots broke free of the building around them. “AAAAAAAAAH, THEY’RE LOOSE!!”

“Well, that kinda makes sense.” Lee muttered, rushing past the people, towards the robots. One was chasing the people while the second was tearing up the faux city. The first was the immediate threat, so Lee went for that one. “EVERYONE OUT!” He shouted, drawing confidence from somewhere and injecting it into his voice.

Surprisingly, it worked, and the crew all ran for the front exit.

Lee sprinted towards the robot, jumping over its fist as hundreds of pounds of metal came swinging at him. The head housed all the central computers, but a tougher, glass bubble was over it now. On the next swing, Lee ran up the metal titan’s arm, kneeling beside the thing’s head. He prepped his left arm, the robotic one, and slammed it into the robot’s brain case. The blow did nothing to it.

“Wait, what?!” He exclaimed. “There was enough force in there to bust a car open!” About that time, the robot gripped Lee’s leg and threw him away from itself.

He was thrown probably about thirty, forty feet; thankfully, his shoes (now made from the same material as Link’s) took all the impact, leaving Lee relatively unharmed. He watched it, looking for its new weakness. The head was protected, and the body was armored. So the only was it was gonna get hurt is if he beat off the armor.

The Hybrid looked up, the robot’s multi-tool arm shifting around. “Oh geez,”

Cassie ran out for the gated area, stopping when she saw the second robot go for the faux city. Lee had the first one, so this was up to her. She ran towards, increasing her size to get there faster. Upon reaching it, she wasn’t quite sure why it was doing what it was doing. The robot was randomly toppling the oversized model buildings.

It noticed her and zoomed in her direction. Standing at 8 feet, the robot still towered over Cassie, and she didn’t want to risk going bigger at the moment; so she ran away from it. Almost mirroring the movie she was shooting, Cassie dodged the robot’s attacks with a mixture of strength and gymnastics.

The robot was picking up cars and basically anything it could grab, lobbing them at her. She tried climbing a building at one point to escape the robot, but it just knocked the thing down. With less and less buildings to hide behind, she’d have to take this thing down quickly. Cassie poked around a corner, watching its movements for a weakness.

Meanwhile, the robot that Lee was fighting transformed its arm into a giant magnet (a function used to clean up scrap metal from construction sites), turning it towards Lee.

“Ha! My ar-- ohwait, this one is.” The power magnet gripped Lee’s left arm in its powerful hold, dragging him towards it. “Oh crud oh crud oh crud…” He grabbed a parking sign, holding on as much as he could while his arm tried to fly away without him.

“Subject Resisting: Increase Magnet Power.” The antagonistic android said, doing what it had decided was best. Lee’s arm began to pull away harder.

The pieces clicked in Lee’s head. “Alright, you want me..?” He let go of his handhold, zooming at the robot. He shifted positions, placing his left arm in front of him like a battering ram: one aimed straight at the robot. The two collided, with Lee going through the multi-purpose arm like a missile, tearing a hole straight through it and successfully disabling the magnet. The robot ran through protocol, looking down at its disabled limb. “You got me.”

On the far side of the robot, Lee opened his palm to find the multi-tool’s main processor in his grip. “That worked… thankfully.” He sighed. The Hybrid spun around to find the robot bringing a punch down on him. The wrecking arm was designed with multiple forced levels, and would crush a normal person like a bug. Lee dropped the chunk of wiring to catch the blow.

Neither budged, one arm able to take the forced the other was dishing out. “SUBJECT RESISTING. INCREASE POWER.” The robot declared, a begrudging sound in its deep, artificial voice.

“Go bite a circuit box!” Lee shouted back, the giant metal arm pushing harder on his. Wires in his began popping, the very metal that made his arm up crumpling like paper. He tried his best not to move, thankfully there weren’t any nerve endings in his left arm.

“LEE! I’M COMING!” A voice screamed, getting louder as the sentence went on.

“Mallory…?”

The robot had its back turned, so Cassie ran towards it, leaping onto its back. It grabbed her, throwing her into a building. “EEEEEEEEEK!!” The tower of wood and plastic came down on her, covering up the Fox completely.

Deciding its prey was finished, the construction robot turned away to break more things. It had wiped out another “block” when it picked up a groaning sound from the rubble of the city.

The building Cassie was under began to rise, its prisoner growing from within. Her hair was ruffled, her jacket was torn and she was mad. The robot just watched, unsure how to handle this situation. She glanced over at the other robot, the one crushing her little brother’s arm.

“I’m gonna turn you into paperclips.” Cassie growled, running at it. But instead of just slamming into her opponent, she jumped above it. Her size diminished to her normal stature, but still carried the momentum of being 30 feet tall. These two factors sent Cassie soaring at least a hundred feet into the air.

The robot looked up, even more unsure. Cassie started falling, so she grew, taking up more of the robots view as she went for her limit. Essentially, there was a 70 foot wrecking ball coming down on it. She stuck her foot out, hitting the ground with enough force to cause a shockwave, finishing off the buildings; and just crush the robot. The Fox lifted her foot up and brushed the broken metal and gears off her sneaker.

‘’”Well, not gonna lie and say it doesn’t feel good doing that.”’’ She said to herself, turning to go help Lee.

Mallory ran up beside Lee, placing her hands on the robot’s powerful arm. “J-just give me a moment…” Red lines begin creeping up the metal surface, aiming for the head.

“What are you…?” Lee asked, when the arm disengaged and the plastic bubble popped open.

“Now, hit it now!” Mallory shouted.

The Hybrid jumped onto the robot’s arm, running up it. He reached the head. “Lights…” His right fist was plunged into it. “Out!” The enormous robot powered down, its central computer having been destroyed.

On the ground, Mallory clapped. “Yay! Teamwork!”

Lee sat down on what was now a useless pile of metal. “We’re probably gonna get blamed for this, and my arm’s busted.” He held up his limp robotic limb, crumpled and fried.

The Wolf girl stopped clapping. “O-oh… sorry, I should’ve gotten here sooner.”

Lee shrugged. “So what is it you just did? I’ve met some telepaths, but never one for robots.”

“Oh, that. I… can hack? Kind of, I just sorta… go in there and turn things off… it’s really hard to describe.” She muttered her way through an explanation.

“Huh.” He replied, jumping off his opponent. “Well, I gotta go talk to my si-- oh, hi there.” Lee said, looking up.

Mallory looked up as well, and Cassie was there, casting a huge shadow over everyone. Shrinking down, she scrambled over to Lee. “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARM?! IT’S DESTROYED!!!” She screamed.

Mallory took this as a good time to go rejoin everyone who had been running away.

Lee gave a quick wave before turning back to his sister. “It’s fine, I can replace it. Calm down, I can take care of myself; I did for two years, remember?” He referenced his disappearance. Cassie growled, running her fingers along the limp limb. “You’re sure you aren’t hurt?”

“Not physically, but we did just watch two robots do millions in property damages.” He said.

“Oh yeah, I guess we’re gonna be working here for a while, huh?” The Fox said, letting go of Lee and spinning to look at what remained of the faux city.

Lee smiled, looking over at Mallory. “And I don’t mind one bit.”