On A Doorstep (unedited version)

Chapter 17

Now let's see how the team's meeting went and a few other things. Enjoy!

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Now as for the team's meeting with the allies has gone considerably better than Mandarin thought it would turn out. After leaving the robot and making it to the underground base, Mandarin was led to the meeting site after going on the cart. It was a bunker that had several computers, showing many parts of the city and a long table with many chairs of varying sizes. He was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of allies that were there. He felt his legs shake a bit before he felt his arm being tapped, making him jump a bit. Mandarin looked down at Otto.

"You know, we got a little walker for Erin to play in." He said as Erin squealed at the amount of attention he was getting.

Mandarin watched as he was placed into the walker and was given some toys.

"Is he alright in there?" Mandarin asked.

"Oh yeah he's fine, now go play with him." Otto chirped, leading him to the small infant.

"Here's mommy, Erin!" Otto chirped before walking off.

Mandarin sat down as his son babbled a bit, smiling at his mom. The other allies kept looking back at him as everyone got into their seats, which made the large monkey feel a bit awkward.

"Ma-ba." Erin cooed, waving his toy butterfly around.

"So uh Chiro is he...?" Johnny began to say before Chiro nodded.

"Don't worry, he agreed to coming here." He said as Nikita peeked over at him.

"No I mean is he gonna be okay talking about this? I mean I don't want him...you know..." Johnny muttered.

Chiro sighed.

"I think he'll be okay, he's gotten a lot better these past few months." He said.

Johnny wasn't so sure but it's not like he could do much about it, so he just left it for now. Nikita smiled a bit.

"So how are you?" She asked.

Mandarin looked up at her as he was waving the butterfly toy towards Erin, who frowned as his mommy stopped playing.

"Tired, achy and heavy." He said, resting a hand on his belly.

Nikita chuckled but nodded.

"Don't worry it will pass soon." She said as Chiro began the meeting.

Chiro cleared this throat as everyone sat down.

"Okay has anyone seen the other robot monkeys wandering around the city?" He asked.

Oliana raised her hand.

"I saw the pink one gathering some metals, but when I tried to get to her she slipped away." She said.

Chiro nodded as Mandarin and Otto looked off to the side a bit when Artemis was mentioned.

"Yeah they've been pretty good getting away from people." He said.

"The question now is why are they taking so many metals with them? What does Skeleton King plan to use them for?" Master Offay questioned.

"Whatever they're planning to use, it must be something big, given with how much metals they've taken." Gibson hypothesized.

Chills went up Mandarin's spine hearing that. The others tried to figure out what it is they could be building.

"Whatever weapon they must be creating we must be ready for it. They're probably suspecting us to be unprepared to face whatever they are creating." Antauri said, with the others agreeing.

"Yeah those buttheads won't know what's coming!" Seren said, pounding her yellow froggy fist into her hand.

She then jumped a bit when someone cleared their throat loudly and turned to Mandarin frowning.

"You do realize that my children were brainwashed into following Skeleton king's every command right?" He asked.

Seren scratched her cheek in embarrassment.

"Oh yeah right." Seren muttered.

Mandarin sighed and went back to interacting with Erin, who was now gnawing on his butterfly toy.

"Erin it isn't food." Mandarin snickered.

"Eh?" Erin looked up at Mandarin curiously.

Chiro snickered as Otto stood up.

"We got the guns and sticky bullets all set and ready to go! Now we just need to play the waiting game until...well until they get here." He said before shrugging.

Aurora six eyed Chiro.

"We can handle the robot monkeys, but what about those robots that are in the lab?" She asked.

"The robots?" Nikita asked.

The team uncomfortably looked over at Mandarin before Gibson explained.

"They were the robots that more or less took care of Mandarin and are responsible for turning the monkeys...well into what they are now."

The screen popped up the images of the robots as they were shown about to attack Antauri, Chiro, and Sprx the first time me they came down to the lab. Mandarin quickly looked down as soon as he saw them.

"Don't look at them don't look at them don't look at them. Focus on Erin, just focus on him." He thought as he kept interacting with Erin.

Erin noticed his mom's nervous behavior and whined a bit, confused as to why he was upset. His whining stopped when Mandarin placed his finger against his cheek and the grey monkey giggled.

One of the robo apes scoffed.

"Those little things? They don't seem so tough." They said.

Antauri looked over to them and frowned a bit.

"I know it may seem like that, but trust me they're extremely dangerous. They have an array of weapons and have larger bulkier robots with them. They have..." Antauri paused, unsure with how to say what he was going to say next.

"They have even manipulated and physically abused Mandarin multiple times. Just so he would have stayed in that lab." Antauri finished, causing the allies to whisper to each other worriedly.

Mandarin didn't look up, he dared not to look up. Were they judging him? No, of course not they seemed very concerned. However a part of him does not want their pity! What happened happened and there is not much else they can do about it. At least, those were the thoughts swimming around in Mandarin's mind.

He sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a brief moment.

"So what should we do if they...if they try to take him back?" Nikita asked.

"Destroy them. What else?" Mobius Quint huffed.

Chiro nodded.

"Yes but be careful, they're still a threat." He reminded him.

Mandarin at this point mentally blocked all of their conversation and just focused on Erin. He had to.

"I can attempt to hack into the labs servers tonight to gather more information. But I have to be quick and quiet about it." Gibson stated.

Sprx scooted his chair a bit closer to the table.

"Wait aren't they not detecting us right now? Shouldn't you just hack and take your time?" He asked.

"It wouldn't hurt being careful Sprx. They could still detect him." Antauri said.

Johnny tilted his head.

"Wait how are they not detecting you? I thought their security would be pretty tight." He pointed out.

"That's what we keep thinking but apparently we've hacked in once and they didn't do anything." Nova explained.

"Now that's weird!" Johnny breathed.

Quint placed a hand on his chin.

"You don't think they have a mole do you?" He pondered.

The others, including Mandarin, looked at him quizzically. He waved his hand a bit.

"Think about it, they haven't attacked yet, their security is loose, they've been pretty quiet. Someone's gotta be down there pulling the strings." He said.

"Yeah but who?" Jinmay questioned, looking around.

Mandarin then felt a bit uncomfortable when everyone turned to him. He eyed the sides of the room.

"Why is everyone looking at me?" He asked.

"Well we were wondering if you knew anyone that could possibly be going against the other robots." Sprx said.

Mandarin wasn't sure if he was totally comfortable with thinking about the robots, but if it will help...he took a deep breath.

"The robots had varying types of treating me. Some of them were...were terrible...however the very few robots that didn't either treated me so terribly or just checked up on me and whatever child I was carrying at the time, I'm unsure if any of them could go against their programming. If one of them did, I would suspect it would be 84." Mandarin suggested.

"84?" Gibson asked.

"He was in charge of putting the information of...basically everything about all of you, Skeleton King, me, the information about the children's given roles...everything into their heads." He explained, remembering what happened to Violet.

"However whenever he and I would cross paths he's usually pretty decent, but was more strict with my children. Why I'll never know." Mandarin finished, closing his eyes.

Nova looked around.

"So you think that 84 robot could be the one keeping the other robots down there?" She suggested.

"Could be a possibility, but how did he go against his own programming?" Suupa asked.

The room was almost silent, minus Erin playing with his toys and babbling.

"Who knows for now. Gibson get as much information as you can and as quickly as you can." Chiro said to him.

Gibson nodded.

"When the robots monkeys get here with their secret weapon, we'll have the allies on the building roofs ready to stop them while we distract them. If the robots happen to come out at the same time we'll split up our numbers and take them down." Chiro explained, using the map of the city to point out the locations of where they need to be.

The bridge and the alleyway where the entrance to the lab was.

"And no matter what, Mandarin must not be brought back to the lab. Under any circumstances do not let that happen." Antauri brought up.

Mandarin was about to argue and say he could protect himself but he paused. Well physically he could but mentally? Could he? Mandarin would have to seriously think about that. Otto noticed this and turned to Antauri.

"Couldn't he just protect himself? I mean-" he whispered to Antauri but the silver monkey put up a hand.

"I know he can, but still in case anything happens we still need to make it so it doesn't happen." Antauri replied.

Otto paused before nodding a bit before looking back at Mandarin, who was still in thought. He heard Chiro stood up.

"Well since everyone is in agreement, let's call it a day and go back to our duties. We'll send out an alarm in case they come a bit early." The young leader said, causing everyone to agree and begin to get ready to leave.

"Eriiin! Time to go home!" Otto chirped, picking him up.

Erin whined before resting his head against Otto's chest, now getting tired.

"Don't worry squish ball, maybe when we get home we can try to get you to crawl." Otto chirped before putting the grey monkey in the carrier.

Mandarin sighed heavily and struggled to get up until he finally got to his feet.

"I...hate this." He wheezed, rubbing his aching back.

Otto patted his leg and they began to leave when Mandarin felt eyes on him. He turned to some of the allies suddenly coming up to him.

"You know once a month the team brings the kids over here and we have a huge dinner. Maybe if you're up to it maybe you can come along?" Nikita asked.

Wait why wasn't Mandarin told about this? Oh right because usually on those days he could barely get out of bed. He thought on her offer....well if he was able to...

"I'll...I'll try to." He briefly said before the others parted.
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Mandarin watched as Roland stomped past him and into his room. He flinched as the door slammed shut as Sprx came down.

"You get back up there and apologize!" He yelled to Roland.

"Are you kidding?! Not happening!" Roland snapped.

Sprx rubbed his forehead and exhaled through his teeth. That kid and his anger issues.

"What happened now?" Mandarin asked.

Sprx quickly lifted his arms into the air.

"Your son and his temper! He wanted to go up to level four during training and when we tell him no he flips out!" He huffed.