Nova and Sam made it back to the library. They laid Maram down on a table next to where Bishie and Wisdom were studying, her body still and unresponsive. Bishie, ever the troublemaker, poked her with a pencil.
"Umm, is she dead?" Bishie asked with a mischievous chuckle.
"No, she was just tossed around a bit; she'll bounce back," Nova said, checking Maram's condition. He placed a hand on her neck—no response—and then on her ribs, which made her grunt in pain. "Probably bounce back," he stated, correcting himself.
"I need you to fix her ribs; simple bandages should work for now, and fix her bruised muscle if you can, Wisdom," Nova commanded.
Bishie, surprised by Nova's serious demeanor, quickly stopped his antics. "What about you? Are you not going to heal her?"
"No, there aren't any healers in the sect," Nova stated bluntly.
"But you're the leader, shouldn't you do more than just lay her on a table, not even a bed?" Bishie protested.
"Don't worry about that, just nurse her back to mediocre health," Nova said, turning to Wisdom.
"Sam, you know what to do." Nova began to prepare, although he had nothing to really get ready besides straightening up his cloak and attaching the flash box to his belt.
"What happened to the orbs?" Wisdom asked, her hand on her cheek.
"I dispersed them. I expected all the lights to be back on, but I guess I was wrong," he clipped the flash box to his side and exited the library, making his way toward the rec center. Once he entered, he unclipped the flash box and activated it in his hand.
"Will, Gala, where are you!" Nova yelled into the darkness where the flash box couldn't cover.
Nova made his way toward the community kitchen. "Where the heck could they—" As he spoke, his foot met a body on the floor; it was a passed-out Will, snoring softly.
"Really?" Nova kicked Will, but kicking a man who weighed 215 pounds of raw muscle was indeed a challenge. "Smelling salts could work?" Nova instinctively drew a circle in the air with his finger... Nothing happened. He smacked his head. "Duh, she's not even here."
Nova covered his nose and mouth with his hands. Will began to struggle, his chest pumping back and forth as he gasped for air. Will pulled Nova's hands off his face, gaping for air and holding his chest. "Are you trying to kill me?" he said between breaths.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Nova retorted. He forced Will up by the arms. As Will stood up, he towered over Nova, a 7'0" man meeting a barely 5'5" man. Will's stomach blocked the flash box's light. "Why are you here? Me and Ruby got it covered."
"It's Ruby and I, but I'm not going to correct him on that," Nova mumbled under his breath. "I'm here because I need these breakers on immediately, but you guys can't seem to do that."
"We spend most of the time here, but we're usually just on the couch playing games or watching TV," Will pointed toward the darkness, expecting Nova to recognize what he was pointing out.
They ended up at the other side of the rec center after walking through the kitchen, where they saw the breaker box. Nova shone the flash box onto Will's face. "Why are you shining that in my face?" he tried to block the light with his hands, but it was too powerful to cover the blinding ray. "I just wanted to see if you still had your damn eyes." Nova charged the flash box exactly as Sam did. Flicking off the switches and flicking them back on, with two blankets of lights covering the living area and the community kitchen.
Just then, Ruby appeared, stepping from the shadows near the bathroom on the far side of the room. "There you are, Will! I've been looking for you," She said, her voice surprisingly flat, without the usual cheerful lilt.
Nova and Will stared at her, the beam from the flash box illuminating her. It was Ruby, with her dark, silky smooth hair over her pale face. Her red eyes met Will's.
"Took you long enough," Will said with a small smile, trying to shake off the strange feeling. He noticed her flash box was missing, a detail that immediately bothered him. "Where's the flash box? You know how Maram gets when we lose her stuff."
"I... I lost it," she replied. Her hands were held stiffly at her sides.
"Lost it? How did you lose it?" Nova asked, confused by her lack of reaction; Her calm response was completely out of character.
Ruby ignored his question, her gaze fixed on Will. "Come on, let's just get the breaker."
Will, still bothered by her strange behavior, pointed to the wall, "But... we're right here. It's right there."
Ruby's head tilted slightly, as if processing the new information. She looked at the wall, then back at him. A thin, almost forced smile stretched across her lips. "Right, my bad. I just woke up from a nap." The three of them started to head back to the library, with Nova keeping a wary eye on the girl who looked like his friend but didn't act like her.
As they reached the library, they saw Sam and Wisdom helping a groggy Maram off the table, her ribs now bandaged up.
"How'd it go?" Wisdom asked. "Did you run into the robot?"
"No, but we did get the breaker back on," Will said with a happy sigh. "We found Ruby, too; she's been a bit off cause she just woke up."
"I'm fine," Ruby said, her voice flat, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.
"That's a cool trick," Ruby's voice emerged from the library's entrance, a flash box in her hand and a face drenched in water.
The copycat Ruby froze. The hollow smile on its face was instantly erased, replaced by a frown of pure disappointment. Its skin and facial features melted away, sloughing off to reveal the same sleek, dangerous-looking mechanoid from before. It was just a smaller version, with a face eerily similar to a human one.
The machine then looked at Bishie, who was just standing there with his eyes wide, gaping at the strange sight before him. It morphed its features, turning back into the 12 year old version of itself.
Nova, realizing the danger, shouted "No!" but it was too late. The mechanoid grabbed Bishie, its metallic hand closing around the boy's arm, and clawed its way into a ceiling vent. It forced the vent cover open and pulled Bishie inside it.
Everyone stood in shock, too discombobulated to even process what had just happened. The clang of the vent cover as it fell back into place was the only sound in the entire library. Nova slammed the flash box to the ground, falling to the floor with a dull thud as the crystal shattered. His breath hitched in his throat, and a raw, guttural cry tore its way from his lungs. It was not a word, but a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. He yelled, and yelled, and yelled, the sound echoing off the library shelves and rattling the spines of the books. The other mages looked at the young man's temper tantrum in dumbfounded silence, their own shock giving way to pity.
He stopped, his chest heaving, his body trembling from the aftershocks of his fury. His eyes, now wide and wild with a dangerous glint, darted from face to face. "What!?" he shouted, his voice hoarse and raw, startling all of them out of their stupor.
"Umm, what do we do now?" the real Ruby asked sheepishly, her voice shy of a whisper.
Nova's breath shuddered. "No capturing, we terminate on sight now. No exceptions and no arguments," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. He began to draw a circle in the air with a finger. The air shimmered, twisting and contorting into a vortex. He reached into the shimmering space, his hand disappearing into the glowing portal, and pulled out an array of weapons. He tossed Ruby pouches filled with what sounded like metal pellets about the size of blueberries, their weight a surprise in her hands. To Maram, he tossed a massive pike hammer, its head a blunt, powerful instrument of destruction.
To Will, a shield—its surface was smooth and refined, though the edge of metal was sharpened like a blade. Finally, he pulled out a pair of razor-sharp sickles for himself. A deep, cold, calculated command came from the deepest parts of his soul, "Get ready, we're killing that robot."
Wisdom tapped on Nova's shoulders. "And me?"
"You don't get to have a weapon, you can't even leave this library." Nova tried to take off, but she stopped him again. "So what do I do if it comes back? What if I can't dismantle it?"
The reasoning made Nova cave. He handed the sickles to Wisdom and reached back into the portal, pulling out a pair of knuckle dusters. "We'll move out around the base. If you hear anything in the vents, you have permission to destroy it."