The Twins of Techno

04

           The twins had spent the first half of their day practicing with their new abilities. Their parents returned home at three in the afternoon and greeted the siblings with stories and souvenirs before rushing off to get ready. Having been told to "hurry and get cleaned up", the twins headed upstairs to get dressed for their parents' award ceremony. By the time they were done getting dressed and met back up in the foyer, their parents had already left to go to the riverhouse that the company their parents worked for owned for occasions like this where the ceremony would be held. They went out to the front porch and locked the door behind them to wait for their driver. Naru will be staying home tonight as it will be too crowded at the party.

          "I hate wearing fancy clothes. Always so itchy." Grumbled Wilson who was loosening his tie a bit. The chain of his necklace could just barely be seen. Alison had hers hidden in the small turtleneck of her dress. In the dim lighting of the house and with how crowded it's bound to be, they doubted anyone would notice. Neither of them were particularly looking forward to tonight or how long it meant they would have to wear these clothes. Not too long after, their driver arrived and they were on their way to a night full of old people and a lot of speeches.

                                                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

          "Finally! Some fresh air. It's so stuffy in there." The twins were walking out to the gazebo located over the surface of the lake, the small waves gently lapping at the sides of the platform. They'd been trapped in the river house for a few hours now and though it is a rather big house, seeing as it's designed to hold big events like this, it gets hot being trapped in rooms with all those people. Not only was it crowded, but they also got bombarded with questions from a bunch of old people who either smelled like alcohol or the faint scent of oil and metal or books. Both of them had taken their shoes off and were enjoying the feel of the soft grass on their aching feet when they reached the gazebo, its soft fairy lights twinkling among the wooden beams. Facing the water, they sat down on the bench. Neither of them said anything, both of them enjoying the break from all the cheers and laughter and loud, booming voices of the adults which could still faintly be heard in the distance.

          Unfortunately, their peaceful silence is interrupted by a loud bloop sound followed by two smaller ones. The siblings look down at the surface of the water to find seventeen glowing circles, some being the size of an adult's head, and some being the size of a baby's head, shining just beneath the surface of the waves. Startled, Wilson and Alison jump off the bench and begin running back to the house. Behind them, a giant robot breaks the surface of the water and pauses to float above the gazebo, its metal tentacles somehow looking weightless, flow behind it and drape down underneath it slightly. Suddenly, one of the tentacles speeds toward the two with shocking speed and grabs Wilson, yanking him back towards the giant metal monster. Wilson yelps at the sudden movement but yells to his sister to run and hide. Though frightened, Alison tries to calm herself and starts to quickly examine the robot from where she was standing and figure out exactly what she was dealing with.

          Meanwhile, Wilson stops struggling, finding it pointless to try to forcefully free himself from the tentacle's grip, and thinks back to when he and Alison were training their powers. Calming his breathing, he recalls the tingling sensation and imagines electricity flowing through him and gathering at his chest. He imagines it bursting out of him in a huge explosion. The next thing he knows, electricity seems to erupt from his chest. The air fills with a crackling feeling and his entire body is engulfed in electricity as he falls to the ground with a thud. His electrical explosion had sent the giant robot's tentacles flying all over the place. Wilson quickly stands back up and runs to meet Alison, who was in the middle of running to him.

          As they reach each other Alison gasps out, "Are you okay?" Still a little shook up, Wilson only nodded. "We can't just run, it'll follow us to the house." The robot righted itself and landed on the roof of the gazebo, its six legs latching in and destroying the wooden tiles. "Your electricity seemed to work. We should keep hitting it with electricity." Alison said and straightened up. The two braced themselves to gather their electrical powers.

          "Hey wait, look there." Wilson said pointing at the robot, "That one circle amongst the eyes isn't glowing red." She looked at where he was pointing and indeed, there hidden almost completely from view under the biggest eye in the center of the robot, was a white glow. Just like the one their stone, well stones now, give off. "You don't think that it's another stone like ours, do you?" "I don't know, maybe." Another tentacle came careening towards them and they dive out of the way. They jumped to their feet and threw out their hands. Another explosion ruptured out of Wilson's palms with a small boom sounding while bolts of electricity headed directly for the white glow from Alison's hands. The blasts from Wilson sent the tentacles scattering again, unfortunately blocking some of Alison's attacks. They both dodged out of the way again and continued to fire blasts and explosions of electricity at the machine.

          The metal beast climbed down from the gazebo and rushed towards them with shocking speed. Its singular arm shoots out in an arch to try and knock them down. As it reaches Alison, she jumps up and lands on the crab claw-looking attachment. After regaining her balance, she begins to carefully run up the short length of the arm to where it joins the body and begins to climb over to where the eyes are located. As Wilson continues to blast his power at it, the robot swerved sharply causing Alison to grip onto the slippery metal. Once the swerving and moving stopped a little, she was able to use the light indentations where the glowing red orbs were placed to climb up to the top of the giant bot. Unfortunately, the robot saw her climbing up its surface and started moving quickly, trying to get her off. Alison held on as tight as she could with how slippery the wet metal was and tried to avoid her brother's blasts of electricity. Once on top of the robot, she carefully walked to the middle of the robot, trying to see if there were any weak points or if it was all the same.

          "Alison, what do you think you're doing?" Wilson shouted before narrowly dodging a swinging tentacle. Finding no weak spots, she walks to the middle of the robot. Without responding to Wilson, she aims both hands down and a thick beam of electricity runs down her arms and into the top of the robot. The robot started waving its tentacles around more wildly and almost fell over when an explosion erupted on its side. Alison forced more electricity into her arms and gritted her teeth. The metal began to melt under the electricity and the tentacles seemed to move more stiffly. Alison dug her feet in to prevent slipping and focused more. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she reached the core of the robot and it seemed to stutter for a moment before collapsing on its side with a metallic groan followed by a heavy thud as it hit the earth, scattering dirt everywhere. Its gears clunking and clicking for the last time before the glow in its eyes sputters out.

          "Gee, thanks for the dirt shower, sis." Wilson said begrudgingly dusting off the dirt that had sprayed him when the robot fell. Alison stood up from where she had fallen off of the giant machine, the hole she had made was sizzling. She walked over to where he was standing and brushed some dirt out of his hair. "Sorry. Showers are gonna feel real nice later." Wilson shook some dirt off his legs and turned towards the destroyed robot. He stepped up to where the still glowing white light was placed and reached up to grab it. After a few moments of struggle, he managed to pull out the glowing stone that was identical to their own. "There's more of them?" Alison said quietly. Her twin sighed, "Apparently. We should probably try to find the others before they end up in the wrong hands. If they haven't already." Exhausted, they text their parents that they're heading home and call their butler to come pick them up.