Imagination's last hope: The quest to save the unseen world

Chapter 33

Rachel stood behind the laser. The other three robots were there too. She was on the side closest to the door.
The doors went open. A robot came in holding Finnigan. Rachel almost gasped. Then two holding Hootwiggle and Paws came in. Lastly it was Mira. They didn't even try to fight. They were probably exhausted already.
Rachel's heart sank. She hated seeing them like this. They looked so devastated as if they had given up. They were tied to the chairs and the four robots holding them left. Mira tried getting loose, but she stopped once she realised it was no use. Mira burst into tears. Rachel wanted to cry too, but she had to hold her pose. Hootwiggle looked like a dark cloud was hovering above her head. She has tried so hard to protect everyone, and now it's all coming to an end.
The doors opened and Mike entered the room. Mira suddenly stopped crying. You could see the confusion on everyone's faces. They had no idea what was going on.
"Mike?" Finnigan asked.
"Hello, my dear old friends. I have missed you so very much." He laughed. He had such an ugly and evil laugh that could make any baby cry.
"Mike, I don't understand. You're dead." Mira said.
"I was almost, thanks to you. Luckily, I saved myself."
"What is going on?" Paws asked.
"I suppose I owe you one last explanation before I say my last goodbye to you." He looked so proud of himself for doing all of this. "You have always chosen Mira over me. She got the better ability. She could choose where we were going after we died. She always got everything. Until I got Rachel. She was my ticket out of that dump. Until that stupid cat ruined everything for me." He pointed at Finnigan. "Then, you left me here to die. You didn't care about me at all. Luckily, I'm smart and charming enough and got myself out of there. I hacked into the systems and changed the code so that they will refer to me as their boss. Once I did that, I started planning. You think you're so smart, but I was watching you long before you even knew what was going to happen. I hacked into your system, and lucky for me, you take notes of everything, so I knew your every move. You thought that you rescued Rachel, but that was all part of the plan. And now, I have all of you here. Rachel is also here, but I have different plans for her. She's going to help me take over that awful world of yours."
"Rachel is here? Did you kidnap her?" Mira asked.
"I wouldn't say kidnapped. She just fell for my trap."
"Don't you dare do anything to her." Paws said.
Mike just gave his evil laugh.
"Once I get rid of you, the world will be mine." He walked over to Mira. "You had your time to shine sis, now it's my turn."
"You don't know what you're talking about. You have always been mum and dad's favourite. When you were stuck here, we came to rescue you, but we thought it had been too late. You have just always been too full of yourself to realise that you were the spoiled one."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
While they were arguing, Rachel managed to catch Finnigan's eye. She lifted the head up just a little and winked at him. His eyes went wide open.He didn't have a clue about what was going on now. Paws saw too. Yes! At least two of them know that I'm here, she thought to herself. They didn't look impressed with her being here.
"Enough!" Mike shouted. "I'm so tired of all of you. You have ruined everything for me. This ends today. Do you have any last words?"
"Mike please, no." Mira burst into tears again.
"Mike, we can sort this out." Hootwiggle was just as scared.
"No? Well okay. I'll count to three and then my bots will shoot."
Rachel knew that this was it. She had to think fast. She looked at the other robots. She wiggled the laser a bit and felt that it was really easy to turn. If she's fast enough, she could get them all with one shot. The sweat started dripping off her forehead. Finnigan and Paws didn't look like they had much faith in her.
"One..." Mike counted.
Rachel got ready to turn the laser.
"Two..." Rachel turned the laser as fast as she could. As soon as it was away from the guardians and aimed at the robot, she pressed the button. She got two of them and they evaporated into thin air. One got away. He was running to the door, but Rachel got him right before he got out and he disappeared just like the others.
Mike was standing in the corner. He tried to run to the laser, but Rachel stopped him.
"If you take a step closer, I'll shoot. And tell your bots not to try anything." She took the robot head off of her head.
"Rachel. How?" He asked.
"Who's the smart one now?" She smiled at him.
"Rachel, this doesn't have to be like this. We can work something out. I never meant to hurt any of you, you have to understand that I was just trying to protect myself."
The guardians didn't say anything, they were too stunned to speak.
"Go untie my friends, and if you try anything, or any of your bots try anything, I will shoot you."
He went to Mira and started untying everything. Rachel kept the laser pointed at him the whole time.
"Rachel, do you know what we'll be able to do once we take over the world?" He finished untying Mira and Rachel told her to get behind her.
Mike then moved on to Paws. "We could be unstoppable. What can these guardians ever give you? They were just trying to save themselves and benefit from it. They don't care about you at all."
Rachel ignored him. She knew his plan wasn't going the way that it should, and now he was trying to lie his way out of it. Paws also got behind her.
Mike moved onto Finnigan.
"You. You destroyed everything for me." He looked like he was going to slap Finnigan.
"Stop it, or I'll shoot." Rachel said.
Mike didn't take this well at all. He didn't know what to do now that he couldn't get his revenge. Finnigan and Hootwiggle got behind Rachel.
Paws and Finnigan instructed him to sit, and they tied him to the chair.
"What do we do with him now?" Rachel asked, still pointing the laser at him. She didn't have any idea what he was capable of, and she didn't want to take any chances.
"I have some contacts in the Rulesphere that can help us. I'll give them a call." Hootwiggle's voice was shaking. She walked to the other side of the room and made the call.
Everyone gave Rachel a big hug. "How did you manage to do this Rachel?" Finnigan asked.
"I'll tell you everything when we get back. I just want to get out of this suit, and you should probably lock the door. We never know when his robot buddies are going to come back."
Finnigan took the laser and Paws locked the door. It felt so good climbing out of that awful robot suit.
"Mira, I'm your brother." Mike said. "You can't do this to me."
"You're wasting your breath, Mike. I can't believe you would do this to us." Mira didn't even want to look at him.
Hootwiggle came back once she finished the call. "They'll be here in about five minutes. They'll send someone to come and rewrite the code. Everything is going to be fixed." She started crying. She was so relieved about all of this. She grabbed Rachel and gave her a big hug. "Rachel darling, I don't know what we would've done without you."
Rachel didn't want to cry again. She tried to hold her pose as well as she could. "You have to tell us the whole story once we get back to the world of imagination."
They didn't talk much while they were waiting for the people from the Rulesphere to arrive. Everyone was so stressed out. It really was a lot to take in. They mostly sat in silence, one or two of them shed a tear of relief. Mike tried sweet talking them into letting him go, but no one was going to fall for his act. The damage had already been done.
The people from the Rulesphere finally arrived. They were ten men all dressed in pitch black suits and black sunglasses. They all looked like identical twins. They walked the same and sounded the same.
"Where is he?" The one asked when Paws opened the door for him.
Paws pointed to Mike who was sitting in the chair.
"You have to believe me; I didn't mean to cause any trouble. They did all of this." Mike still tried to get out of it.
"Zip it. You're not getting out of this."
Two of the men untied him and placed a pair of handcuffs on him. He tried yelling a few things at them, but no one listened. They all gave each other a big group hug. The man from the Rulesphere was still standing there.
"Thank you so much sir." Hootwiggle shook his hand.
"We want to thank you. You did go against the rules by bringing a human through the portal, but we are going to let it slide. Without your help, the world wouldn't have been saved." He held his hands out in front of him and a portal opened. "You can go home. We'll take care of everything else."
They all said goodbye to him and then stepped into the portal.