~Worst day.

EVER.

Really bad cold.

Nothing to write with.

Gym first period.

Lunch at 1:00.

Didn't even get lunch... I fell asleep as soon as I sat down.

So my friends decided I should be taken to the nurse and sent home, they had seen how agonizing the day had been. That world-class jerk, Rick, was the one to help me. But he decided to make me go into the bathroom and wash my hands first, before going to the nurse, that is. So that all of the little cuts in my hands from being chapped would close up.

To make sure nothing happened, he went in with me. I was at the sink, when I sneezed on my rubber band pen.

Oh yeah, did I tell you? I did have something to write with that I grabbed in the morning and stuffed in my breast pocket... But I couldn't write with it. It was my TASTS, the Time And Space Travelling System. Pretty self-explanitory. The TASTS, most of the time, is in the form of a rubber band pen. The rubber band pen I sneezed on.

So we left the bathroom, I was leaning on his crummy shoulders. I don't remember why I thought I needed HIM. It was probably the cold.

It wasn't the same when we went out. It was all dark and stuff. Not a single person. Only light was the moonlight through the windows. We looked at each other like we were going insane. I managed to say something.~

Golem: Oh... we skipped the day.

Rick: Huh? Speak up.

Golem: I sneezed on the TASTS. That might have activated it somehow.

Rick: The TASTS?

Golem: This pen I have. It moves through time.

Rick: Riiiight...

Golem: It's true. It's what old me used to come back with his robots.

Rick: You're right, I forgot. Where is it? We can use it to go back in time and correct this.

~I reached around in my pockets.~

Golem: Uhhh...? It's not here...

~AGH!!!

So we checked the bathroom. Wasn't there.~

Rick: Okay... so we just have to walk home, I guess...

~Eventually, we bumped into something that surprised us...~

Mr. Pitnur: What are you boys doing here so late?

~Rick thought for a few miliseconds, then managed:~

Rick: Uh, just doing homework.

Mr. Pitnur: Ah. Well, see you tomorrow in class. ~walks down the hallway~

Rick: ~when Mr. Pitnur is out of earshot~ Why didn't he ask about Golem, or why we were here three hours past when doors are locked? What am I saying?... Why is HE here?!

~Then, out of the blue, something a bit more life-threatening appeared. It was... kinda a large robot grasshopper type thing... but navy blue.~

Rick: ~Golem starting to fall off of his shoulder~ So... ummm...

~The Grasshopper reared up it front leg scythes, and tried to attack Rick, but it didn't even touch me. Rick jumped backwards, lacking to manage his panic.~

Golem: Riiiiick!

Rick: Golem! Save yourself! Run!

~I made a run for it, but the Grashopper turned its treads completely around and hurled a net at me, capturing me. In some sort of an effort, Rick jumped on the lowest scythe, then the middle, and finally landing on the robot's head, smashing its optical receptors into a million peices. This caused the robot to continue foward, and out of the side of the building. Rick freed me, and we continued down the hall.~

Golem: Phew... I don't know... if I can do that... again.

Rick: Awh man, look at your hands... they look like--erm, I mean... hehe...

~Yeah. He wasn't very good at trying to make me "feel better." Probably trying to make me feel worse.~

Golem: Mmrgh?

Rick: That's why I made you get them washed earlier... when they're all bloody like that, you're only more seceptible to disease.

Golem: O-hhh...

~So we kept going for a few... until Mr. Pitnur randomly ran out of the hall.~

Pitnur: Kids, look--

~It was that robot. Its legs were barrelling down the hallway.~

Rick: How the--?!

~You didn't have to say it, Rick, we knew as little as you. Mind you readers, these legs were about a foot in diameter. So we started running. Mr. Pitnur was saying something, but we couldn't hear over the legs rolling. So he jumped out in front of us and fell through a square hole into the basement. Rick was given enough time to jump and carry us both over the hole.~

~He couldn't run forever, as much as the thought he could. Not to mention I was so sick that getting to this point was amazing. If we let those legs hit us, we'd get knocked off o' our feet and our heads would get bashed into--well, you know--by the other legs. Then he finally figured that this was a building, and being such, rooms were all over. He threw me at a nearby door, kicking it down, and with the momentum, throwing him in. That reminded me a lot of Sonic Crackers. We stepped back for a moment, and then realized that one of the legs had stopped in the doorway. Then we noticed that it had gotten longer... then it rocketted out subsequent legs, reaching all the way to the end of the room.~

Rick: Ummm... what?

~A giant red wall of light shot out of the legs to the ceiling, forming a solid barrier.~

Rick: What the...?! ~takes out a piece of paper, crumples it up, throws it at barrier, paper disappears~ Woah!
...Wait, then...
What keeps it from cutting through the ceiling?

~At this point Rick carelessly sat me down into a desk and tried to shove over the legs. It took him forever, but he was able to roll each one over. At the point that the red light was level with the ground, the legs that were still rolling stopped. Rick couldn't push the legs down any further, so it was useless to try to continue that way. We would've been stepping in the beam. He could pull it back up some, thus aiming the light upward, but that wouldn't have helped much, so he just let it slide back down to being level with the ground.

So Rick, finally realizing he had forgotten the easy way out, went into a classroom opposite the one he left me in. He tried to open a window, but Rick found that they were impossible to open. Yeah. Next option was to kick it to shards. Rick did that, but all he managed to do was wake up a seven-feet-tall shrike outside. Yeah. I wouldn't have believed it, but then again, I wasn't there.

"Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!" A giant screech was let out by the bird. It knocked the wall in, in order to attack Rick.

The Bird, across it's check bore the word, "AVES". Renouned for their ability to stab their prey, the giant shrike did this, too.

A close swipe from the bird almost ripped Ricks arm off, but did little more than tear his shirt. Realizing that this bird wasn't kidding, Rick formulated a plan: He lured the bird near the beam. The Bird lunged at him, but Rick slid under the legs of the AVES, and forced AVES to tunble into the Beam, disntegrating him.

With the wall cleared away, Rick went back to get me. Rather, wake me up. ^_^;; He helped me up and we slowly made it out to the other room, but waiting there were several shrikes. He could have tried to get them all on the light to discintegrate them, but that would have been way too hard, and timing would have to be more than perfect. Rick, knowing that he was only capable of the easy way out, ran back down the hall. I would have told him to go to the courtyard (through the window of the room he left me in, the window being on the wall opposite the doorway), but that would have just trapped us in the courtyard. He could have tried some stuff in the courtyard, but he doesn't have the fastest brain ever.

Rick ran back down the hallway. Nut that he is, he figured that going into that hole Mr. Pitnur would be the best way out of this mess. I guess it makes sense, being that the shrikes certainly couldn't fit. When we got up to the hole, he jumped in, me following. We landed pretty rough. Rick made sure to get in the way of my fall. There was a shadow in the distance... then the lights turned on. The passage, fully lit, was no taller or wider than a classroom, but its length was equal to that of the school.~

Mr. Pitnur: Boys! I was hoping you wouldn't have to enter that way... but no matter. Follow me,--

~--But he was interrupted by screeching. There was the shrike!! And--wouldn't you know--all the others! All of those huge birds crammed formed a nearly unpassable wall!

Nearly.~

Mr. Pitnur: What in God's name?

Rick: Not them!

Whoever had made these machines must have been a mechanical genius. These robots were being mass produced. Then Rick got an ebil idea. Rick got a wonderful idea. Rick got a wonderfully ebilly evil idea.

Rick: Mr. Pitnur, is there a Microwave oven nearby?

Mr. Pitnur: I think so, check that room.

There was, sure enough. Rick returned and plugged up microwave to an outlet in the wall. He knocked the door off, but broke off part of the microwave, causing it to think the door was shut.

Mr. Putnur: Are you out of your mind?

Rick: Grab Greg and try to roll out of that gap between the two birds. I'll follow.

Mr. Putnur did as asked, and Rick pressed the 1 Minute button and jumped for it. This caused the robots to spark, and short circuit.

~Mr. Pitnur set me down on my feet, after which I sat down. After the microwave stopped, Rick fumbled over the shrikes ran up to Mr. Pitnur.~

Rick: Okay,... what the HECK are YOU doing here, Mr. Pitnur?!

Mr. Pitnur: I'm here from Digipen. I must keep an eye on Golem and provide advice as his mentor.

~Suddenly, Mr. Pitnur convulsed. A headset was revealed from under his layers of hair, and his body fell to the ground seemingly lifeless immediately afterward.~

Rick: Headphones with a mic? But for what? ~picks headset up~

Golem: Be careful with that... It DID cause him to... you know... ~nods to Mr. Pitnur's body~

Rick: Yeah, but I won't wear it as secure. I can just hold it up to my head. ~examining headset, finds a clear red plastic sheet that sticks out--in layman's terms, a visor~ Hey, look... something for your eye!

~The dork didn't know what he was ready to do...

We walked on, me leaning on him, for about five minutes. We had to turn on lights as we went... it was VERY dark. Anyhow, after those five minutes, there was a division in the path--a three-way fork.~

Rick: Hmmm...

~I thought that the visor might help, but I didn't want him to use it. As if he could read my mind--~

Rick: OH! I know! I'll use the visor!

~So he put the translucent red part over his right eye. He stared down the halls for a few seconds... and then his face assured me that he had found the right path. He put the headset in his pants pocket and faced down the left path.~

Rick: This way!

~And from then on, all the lights were mysteriously on...

Take note, throughout these underground passages were mounds of paper and random stuff like empty cardboard boxes, crates, chairs, tissue boxes, desks... everything.

Eventually...~

Golem: So... more paths...

~And a giant "CLONG!" ushered from behind us. Uh-oh.~

~Rick whipped around 180 degrees, and I twisted my neck as I fixed my stance so that I could see behind me. The floor we were on being a concrete floor, any metallic object would have made a huge clang, so it was no surprise that it was one of those spiders from before, but only tall enough to meet our knees. As soon as our eyes found where the clang came from, we found it a surprise.~

Golem: Great...

Rick: ...Wait! This is only a small guy. Come on, I took out the full version!

~And then I felt something really creepy... and jerked my leg... then CLANG! We both looked at the wall to the right and saw another metal spider up against it.~

Golem, Rick: Crrraaap...

~One by one, they trickled in from the direction we were moving. Then they just flooded in. Rick thought out loud as he kicked them away.~

Rick: Okay... okay... okay... think: ...! I can't make a run for it with Golem... And he's too heavy to piggy-back...
Wait just a minute!!

~Rick had spied something in the corner. A large sheet of cardboard, in fact, along the wall on the right. He swept his foot and cleared out the spiders as he made his way to the cardboard, and then threw it on top of the spiders.~

Rick: Get on!

~As weird as it may seem, I figuredhe had a good idea. I climbed on as best as I could, and finally I sat on it. Rick then jumped at the wall with all his force and kicked off, landing shoulder-first into the cardboard. The momentum was such that the sheet surfed forward. I wished he had told me first, as I had quite a time trying to stay on... And soon enough, we were on our way! Rick put on the visor and managed to find our path and steer onto it. Lucky for him, it led into a side room, meaning we could escape without the spiders in our way. He slammed the cardboard into the wall, almost knocking us off, and opened the door, dragged me in, and quickly closed it. Rick moved his hand up the wall next to the door and found a light switch, then quickly turned it on. The room was small but spider-free. There were three doors, one on each other wall. Rick put on the visor again, and spotted that the door on the wall opposite the one we were up against was the one to enter.

He walked to the door, but before he got there, we heard a metal clanging coming from above. Rick looked up and saw that the spider things were climbing through a hole in the wall seemingly made for just a purpose... They dropped through, and Rick backed away as a natural impulse, giving them time to fill a border. We couldn't get to the door needed...~

Rick: Sheez! How did they know when we got here?!

~The spiders had not reached the doors on the sides yet...~

Rick: ~sweating, nods to door on the right~ We'll have to go through this door!

~So I got up whatever was left of my energy and followed him through the door. He slammed it behind me. I stopped to rest, but he urged me on.~

Rick: We've got to keep going to get as far away from those things as possible!

~We kept on going straight, me going as fast as I could to reach his unreasonably fast pace. Room after room, it seemed, without end. He made sure to close every last door behind him, I don't know why.~

Rick: Yes, we should be far away from them now...

~Silence was present for a few seconds, save for my panting.~

Golem: What now...?

~Rick put on the visor again.~

Rick: ~looking around the room in all directions~ Hhmmm...
There's...
~scans room again~
There's no exits here that will lead us out. Great.

~Then his eyes widened and his mouth dropped as I was tending to my bleeding hands with tissues. The bleeding was just in certain areas, not like it was gushing all over the place.~

Golem: What... is it?

Rick: According to this headset, I'm sending a signal to something!

~The door opposite the one we entered bulged, then busted open. Mechanical spiders ensued seemingly endlessly, slowly backing us up against the wall.~

Golem: Ermm... Are you suggesting something... wait... thethethespiders...

Rick: ~gulp~ Yeah!! I've been leading the spiders right to us the whole time!!

Golem: Ohhh... ~sniff~ mannn... ~cough, cough~

~This new revalation drained me. I just sat against the wall and closed my eyes. I should have gotten up and--!~

Rick: Wake up!! C'mon, we've got to... Hold on, I have it!! If this thing ~takes off visor~ transmits the message, then I know how to terminate these pests!

~I faintly recall that with that, he threw the visor up to the ceiling, at which point (being delicate machinery) it cracked into a million pieces, our hope of escaping going with it.~

Rick: Haha, gotcha!

~Yet they continued.~

Rick: Well... I'm fresh out... ~backing up against wall as much as he can to escape spiders~ What am I thinking?! I can just kick 'em all away! They may seem a LITTLE big, but...

~That seemed to cue the large foot-long blades coming up from their backs.~

Rick: I'm fresh out for real this time. Golem, c'mon man, help me here!!

Golem: I duddo... I duddo what do do.

~Then my tissue bandaging fell to the ground, and the blood was able to touch the air again. The tissue coming off stung, so I kind of flung my hand in front of me as a reaction. As you can guess, these two factors led to a bit of the red stuff flying through the air, hitting some of the spiders.~

Rick: Th-ththththsis is it?! Oh, God, I'm sorry for all the--

EEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooeeeeeeeeeoooo.....

~Said the spiders that were hit with my blood. They sat down quietly as the ones in the front were trying to stab Rick without stabbing each other. Luckily for Rick, he was able to play the latter fact against them and avoid the strikes.~

Rick: Golem, do that again!!

Golem: Ehh-hh?

Rick: Yeah, get your blood--ACH!! on some of these spiders!! Especially the ones that--WOAH!! are getting quite stabbity towards me!!

~I started by throwing the tissues at them, because the tissues were the easiest way of transporting the blood. They didn't seem to work, though. I stood up, as wobbily as I was, and just waved my hands all over the place. My mother had always told me that my hands would get chapped if I didn't use hand lotion, and I realized how right she was. I also realized how lucky I was that I forgot this morning. It still seemed a bit odd that they would bleed so much, though, especially since I had gone through other lotionless days fine.
Soon enough, the whole first row was out. I started on the second row, but this was not helping my current weakness.~

Rick: You okay? You look like you're about to--

~And I fell down on my right side, my right arm cushioning my fall. I wasn't quite out of it yet.~

Rick: Please... Just a little more...

~My hand, now covered in blood (not because my whole hand was bleeding, but because of the way I had dealt with the blood--what, with throwing it about like that), felt a strange feeling. It was a mechanical spider climbing onto it. It shut down. More legs neared, and shut down. Then every last spider made the weird noise and sat.~

Rick: You did it! You... You did it!!

Golem: Good, 'cuz I'm'a take a... ~sniff, cough~ ...a nap now.

Rick: You can't, not with those hands and the sickness you've got. You'll get even worse.

~Rick took some tissues from my pocket and covered my hands in them so that they were pure white. His hands came away bloodless. Then he helped me up.~

Rick: And we've got to find our way out, too.

~We went through the last door that Rick found with the visor. On the other side was a staircase. We went up and found ourselves somewhere in the halls. The room numbers were no help, as they were irrecognizable numbers. We heard a squawk, looked behind us, and there was the giant shrike again. It came after us as fast as it could, and we ran and ran until Rick decided to jerk my already jossled senses by pulling into a bathroom.~

Rick: You can't go on like that... take off the tissues and wash your hands, quickly!!

~The shrike was closing in on the door, we could hear it. Rick jeopardized us both by throwing us into the bathroom. Or maybe there was a rhyme to his--~

K-BAM!!!

~--and the door was off its hinges on the edge of the shrike's beak. The bird shook it off within a few seconds, enough time for Rick to disappear. I looked around for Rick, not daring to get close to the door, but also not thinking I should seek cover... after all, the shrike couldn't fit in the doorway.~

~The bird left the doorway and (as far as I could figure) went in search o' Rick. A minute later, it reappeared, backing up with another door on its beak. It held its head upwards, which came rapidly down towards the floor, knocking the door off with a loud thud. Before this action, I figured that Rick was clinging to the door and hopped off of it onto the shrike's back, because I noticed Rick haphazardly jumping onto the bird's back while the door flew.

After that, he groped around, probably looking for an opening to a control center or something. The shrike, seeming to catch on, turned its head around a full 180 degrees to meet Rick and its neck extended to allow for more motion. Instants later, it was working on impaling Rick. He jumped off to save his hide. Luckily for the shrike, it missed itself. However, quick thinking Rick saw a wonderful opportunity.

He dashed towards the old bathroom door (the one that had been discarded by the shrike first), and he layed halfway under it. As the shrike dove beak-first at it, Rick slid out of the way. Soon there was a mechanical crunch and the bird's beak folded upon itself, and it was dubbed useless. Rick, in usual uncautious fashion, was about to explain how that worked out when he realized that the shrike was still about and trying to attack.~

~Rick narrowly jumped out of the way of another of the Shrike's lunges and rushed into the bathroom. The shrike squawked at the doorway, but dared not enter, lest it would get stuck. He turned to me, now out of hiding (I was watching Rick fight, and in the process left my hiding place).~

Rick: Now, just wave your hand at it and we can get out of here.

Golem: Uhhh...?

Rick: You know, the blood! If it worked before...

Golem: Well... after I washed my hands... they kinda stopped bleeding...

~I hadn't even noticed that I washed my hands until he mentioned that. I guess I was on autopilot while watching Rick have fun with fate.

He looked at the shrike for a while, and then finally a smile appeared on his face.~

Rick: Here's the game plan: you stand in plain view of him out in the hall.

~What the heck?! Rick said this with a straight face, too! You can't make me do that! That's insane! That's--

Golem: Uh-wah? Okay, sure.

~But by this time, I was beginning to lose touch with reality because of the cold... So Rick dashed haphazardly under the shrike and drew attention to himself. In this time, I sluggishly went about ten yards away from the two. Rick ran in my direction once he noticed this, but before the Shrike had a chance to fully turn around, Rick was out of site, and I was. I, realizing the situation Rick had left me completely unprepared for, tried to high-tail it. As sick as I was, I couldn't get far, and soon I heard a startling crack. I whipped my head around and I saw that Rick had let his right foot take away the shrike's left leg. Rick skampered away from the bird to where I was, sat down, took some deep breaths, and then sneezed.~

Rick: Ta-da.

~We walked down the hallway further, and noticed the middle hallway coming up on our right. We were almost halfway to the front of the school! I wasn't feeling much better, though, and Rick was completely oblivious of me, as well as our surroundings. So it shouldn't be surprising to you that when a strange box slid in front of us--yellow and red, on legs, with arms, about seven feet tall--that we didn't notice it for a few seconds. Rick kind of jumped a little when he finally noticed, and this woke me up from my conscious slumber, making me take notice of the huge thing in front of us that could only be called a "mech." We stood still, as the mech stood still...~

Voice from inside mech: Golem, there is a force that has been watching you since your stay at DigiPen. This force, known as the Council, is present this night... the Council is the very reason that your TASTS did not work earlier today. They work from an omniscient view of all that exists, bending reality to fit their ends. At this moment, the Council works
against you. It would be in your best interest to join forces with me.

~At this point, my glasses were falling so far down my nose that I couldn't see out of them. I knew just who that voice was talking about... and not considering that I might get really really hurt if I defied this mech, I knew just what to say, too...~

Golem: You can't say that about Him!

~I couldn't quite fix my glasses right, but I gathered up whatever strength I had and charged at the mech.~

Rick: Golem, ~ACHOO!~ NO!!

Rick: Golem, what are the chances...?! And besides, you can't throw yourself at that thing, it's suicide!

Golem: But--!!

~I was helpless. Struggle as I may, Rick was so much stronger. Just then, Mr. Pitnur shows up!! He was all beat up--looking as if he was taking his last steps--and he threw this ball at the mech!! Well, before you could say "Hail Mary," a hole was in the side of the mech about two feet by two feet! As the circuits and stuff hung out, Rick seemed to look better, but my cold was getting worse by the minute. Mr. Pitnur was dusting himself off; he wasn't as bad off as he looked to be. Rick looked at Mr. Pitnur with an annoying look, and then told me in a whisper that he felt like that guy might be bad. Well, how could he be bad?!

Rick led me out of the bathroom, my hands all washed, and led me down to the nurse's office. My watch said it was 1:10 PM. I was sent home early that day.~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Setting Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Old Golem, or Saul as the Council calls him, sits at a monitor, reviewing the night in his mind.

Old Golem: ~thinking~ Well... my robots couldn't do the job. I think I broke Golem and Rick's friendship, however... that may work out to my advantage. I should try to coax Golem again, though. The Council must pay...!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Setting Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Council, six puffballs (missing one of their normal seven at this time), sit around a table with the palest one, Kirby, at its head.

Kirby: Briggs, undercover as Mr. Pitnur, has gained Golem's trust. He has also disabled Saul's hidden cameras throughout the school.

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