The Tales of Brawl Stars

The Nightmare

Jessie's PoV

I was sleeping when I heard Mom calling my name urgently. "Jessie! Jessie! Get up now!" She yelled.

Still sleepy, I opened my eyes. My bedroom was dark, and a faint streak of red was just appearing outside the window. It was sunrise. I could hear bangs, booms, and crashes coming from the first floor (my bedroom is on the second floor), so I turned on Scrappy, my robot dog, in case of emergency. After booting up, Scrappy yapped as it followed me downstairs.

I froze as I saw Mama. She was covered with blood. She was defending our house with her Scrapstorm Pack. At the front door, vicious humanoid robots were attempting to destroy our front room, only to be blocked by Mama's scrap bullets. Some of the bots had spiked iron fists, and the others had pistols. Each robot had one eye that glowed red. The punching bots couldn't break through the defense, but the shooter bots landed a few shots on Mama.

"Jess! Quick! Take the blueprints and go away! From the back door!" Mama yelled as she fired another round of scrap bullets.

"Mama!" I yelled in anxiety. I didn't want to leave her alone. After all, she's my mother. She's the only one that takes care of me and shares my feelings. I can't leave her alone under this severe situation, so I told Scrappy to go upstairs and bring the blueprints down. After Scrappy yapped and ran upstairs, I grabbed a pistol Mom was experimenting with from a nearby workstation. I took aim at one of the shooter bots and pulled the trigger. Boom! I did take it down, but at the same time I was knocked over by the strong recoil. "Ouch!" I yelled in pain, but I decided to give it another try. I braced myself, took aim, and pulled the trigger again. Boom! Another shooter bot was down, but there was no way for an 8-year-old to handle such a strong recoil. I dropped the pistol and again fell down in pain.

I got up again and saw Scrappy with the blueprints in its mouth. I took the blueprints and pointed at the invaders. "Scrappy! Distract the shooters!" I commanded. Scrappy ran swiftly to the frontline, giving Mom some time to reload her Scrapstorm Pack. The robo dog dodged the punching bots' attacks but still took a few hits from the shooters as it approached them. It yapped but still continued to go forward. Suddenly Scrappy leaped onto one of the shooters' shoulder and jumped from one robot to another. They tried to shoot the dog but ended up either shooting themselves or missing their shots. This effectively stalled them and helped us take a short rest.

"Jessie, we need to abandon the house. There are too many robots!" Mom panted and said. At that time Mom had finished reloading and stood up, walking backwards to the back door, her eyes still fixed on the vicious robots. I followed her, doing the same thing.

Suddenly, a bigger punching bot emerged from outside the door and landed a solid punch on Scrappy as the robo dog leaped towards it, launching my dog towards us. Scrappy crash-landed on the ground and whined, and I hurried to pick it up while the bots were still in confusion.

"GO." The bigger robot boomed in a low robotic voice, and all the robots turned their attention onto us. They started advancing while we retreated out of the back door.

But there were more robots waiting for us.

The robots outside the back door were different from the punchers and the shooters. They have a spiked spherical body, two small arms and legs, an antenna, and a tail. They sort of resemble those small, elusive mice. There were about ten of them. The mouse bots charged towards us, and Mama had to take care of them first. When she took down the mouse bots, the shooters and the leading puncher had already approached us close enough to attack. Things looked desperate, and I didn't know what to do. I started to cry. Mom yelled to me as she traded fire with the robots, "Quick! Run! Run away if you don't wanna die!"

"Mom!" I cried, but I knew she was right. If I don't run and call for help, both of us would surely die. So I turned around and ran, holding tight the blueprints and the heavily damaged Scrappy.

I yelled something like "Help! Mom's in danger!" as I ran, but I didn't see anyone nearby. I kept running and running, despite having no destination. My legs were sore, but I didn't stop running just because I wanted to find a person to save my mom. After a while I found myself on a narrow path in a forest. I panted hard, my head hurt, and my legs burned in pain. Just as my vision started to blur, I bumped into someone and fell down on my back. The person appeared to be a tall and somewhat muscular archer, but I had no more energy to take another look. I had pushed my body over my limit, so my body forced itself to "shut down, repair, and reboot" -- in engineering terms that is. Just before I went unconscious, I managed to point towards the place where Mom fought the robots and squeeze out the words "Help Mama"...

I opened my eyes and saw Mama in front of me. She had a few scars scattered on her body. She was wearing her nighties and sitting on my bed, looking at my teary face. I looked at her in relief, then at Scrappy the robo dog, which had a retractable minigun in its mouth, an upgrade I made for it a few months ago. It's apparent that I had a nightmare. A nightmare about my past.

"It's all right, Jessie. Mama's here." Mom said soothingly while she gently stroked my hair.