The Paradox Corridor

Chapter 48: A Battle of Royal Proportions

Despite only having one arm to work with, the robot regained its balance pretty quickly. It swiftly raised its right arm and fired a heavy laser from its cannon. Instead of firing directly at them (it had learned its lesson), it fired in front of them, forcing them all to scatter. Surprisingly, Arthur was the quickest to leap out of the way, despite the fact that he'd never seen a laser before.

"It probably comes from his years of fighting experience." James thought as he veered to the right. The tremor of the blast caused him to stumble, but that was it. As they continued to charge at the robot, James realized how stupid they were being. They were literally charging straight towards a 50-story robot with medieval weapons. And yet, somehow, it made sense. It was either that, or run away, and running away wouldn't accomplish anything. The robot stepped back with its right foot, brought its sword up high in the air. It wasted no time in bringing the blade back to earth, slicing right at Arthur. Arthur stopped in his tracks and leaped back a few feet, sprawling on the dirt as the blade barely missed. The robot changed tracks, and sliced straight downward at Amber, the person closest to it. Right as it was about to make contact, she disappeared, and reappeared next to Arthur, then stumbled and fell. The enormous blade got stuck in the ground, so the robot decided to try a new tactic

Andrew would have been impressed. Up until that point, the cannon on the robot's arm had stayed stationary: wherever the arm was pointed is where it would fire. But all of a sudden, with its blade still stuck in the ground, the robot said:

"SWITCHING STARBOARD CANNON FROM MANUAL TO AUTOMATIC. COMMENCING." Parts of the cannon suddenly began to glow blue, looking sort of like enormous veins, and the cannon suddenly began to move up, like it was moving out of a socket. When it stopped, James realized that it was actually hovering a few inches off of the robot's arm. The socket that it had been in disappeared, and the cannon suddenly turned towards James, rotating at a pretty quick speed. Without any hesitation, the cannon fired an enormous laser beam (not a blast or bullet, like it had been before) straight at James. If it hadn't taken the cannon so long to switch to automatic, James would have been fried. As it was, the presence screamed;

"JUMP, JAMES! JUMP!" Without asking why he couldn't just deflect the laser, James immediately sprawled to his right as quickly as he could, falling right onto a bunch of rocks and other assorted sharp objects. The laser whizzed right over his head: had he been even a split second slower, he might have gotten a buzz cut. As the robot continued to try to yank its sword out of the ground, the cannon turned towards Arthur and Amber, shifted a bit around the arm to adjust its angle, and fire another laser beam at them. Amber, who was further away from the beam, dodged it easily, but Arthur, who was the beam's intended target, didn't have enough time to react.

Suddenly, James felt his mind go empty: wait, no, not empty. It felt like something was missing... Then he realized it. The presence, who's, well, presence James had gotten used to, had left him, if only for a moment.

Arthur barely had time to register the fact that that...thing was firing at him. He knew immediately that he didn't have enough time to avoid it: warriors instinct. But suddenly he felt a presence in his mind that he had never felt before. This presence spoke to him, saying;

"Arthur! There's no time to explain! Hit that laser with your sword! It's the only chance you have of surviving!" Without delay, Arthur held up Excalibur in front of his body, with both hands clutching the handle. James and Amber watched as Arthur, instead of running, held up Excalibur, seemingly in defiance of the enormous laser beam that was about to incinerate him.

Thankfully, that's not quite how it turned out. When the blue laser stuck the blade of Excalibur, Excalibur began to glow bright white. And as more and more of the laser stuck the legendary sword, the sword began to glow brighter and brighter, until eventually all of the laser was completely sucked up into it. The robot finally yanked its sword out of the ground, and turned towards Arthur, clearly expecting him to be dead. Instead, its eyes widened as it saw the valiant Arthur, bravely holding up his sword, which was now hot-white with power. Arthur noticed that the robot was now paying attention, and waved his sword back and forth almost tauntingly.