Kraze vs Jupiter 2 V

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It wasn't the list he had wanted to see when he arrived. He was out of the competition, and none of his teammates this season were there. Probably resting up for their matches or something. Even the rookie had gotten himself a spot in the playoffs. First time out, too. Admittedly, the champion had started with a few stumbles, but at least he was still in the running. He remembered when he had returned with the champion after the previous season, the reception they got was unbelievable, and the party that followed lasted until god knows what hour in the morning. Waking up disoriented and surrounded by batteries that turned out to be empty wasn't the best of experiences, but the night before was one of the best he'd ever had. Then there was the return after the nine-week unbeaten run he'd embarked on, since snapped, but back then quite the achievement. And the season before - his debut season, no less - toppling Adrenaline to make the playoffs. He wasn't in the best of shape when he came back, being pitted against Tank in the playoffs, but there were plenty of good times here that he could look back on.

Still, being called up to the team garage in the middle of a season was almost unanimously considered bad news, and Kraze knew this himself. Back in Armageddon, the rest of his teammates had been called to the garage the day after he secured his playoff spot...Incision, Cyclone, and poor little Terabyte...and he hadn't heard from them since. What had happened to them? Locked away? Shut down? He shuddered to think...maybe they'd even been disassembled, their components used to create other machines? The machines that stayed at the garage alongside him? The machines he called friends...? He at least hoped to see them again at some point, it was the team's very first season, after all. SWARM hadn't done all that well last season out, and they were still running around the place. Scatterbrain, too, lost all but a single match in its last outing, and seemed to be well liked by pretty much everyone. He wouldn't be meeting the same fate as his original teammates, he was sure of that. Mostly. Sort of. Not really. Okay, he was finished. Kraze slowly rolled into the Team Mongoose garage, his side lights a faint shade of blue, and almost instantly the room fell silent. Every robot turned to look at the flourescent flipper, some astonished, but all in unspoken agreement that the godfather of Team Mongoose was in all likelihood moving through the den for the last time.

He didn't really want to look at his teammates as he slowly made his way towards the room at the back of the facility. He knew he had let them down. Everyone had said this was the season he would go all the way, and now he didn't even have an outside chance. If he had, though, he would have seen that the rest of the team weren't angry with him, or disappointed, they looked...if anything, sorry for him. He didn't deserve what was going to happen to him, he'd just had an unlucky draw. He'd faced power spinner after power spinner, he was getting beat up week after week, knocked out before the buzzer, but he'd kept going. Even if it looked as if he wasn't going to make it, he had still given a hundred percent, because that was what his line of work was all about. Heading into the arena, squaring off with any number of opponents, and playing the best damn match you could. Even if it was a whitewash, or a single point of difference, it didn't really matter what the outcome was. What mattered was that the audience was happy, and that he was happy. He thought back to just after that nine-week run he'd had, and his playoff match against Blood Thirsty. Sure, the 23-22 decision had fallen the wrong way for him, but even so, that had been his favourite match of his career to this day. Even if Blood Thirsty wasn't competing anymore, he couldn't help yearning for one more chance to face the jaws of that machine. They were tied one-all with each other too, it seemed only right to have a decider.

That was, if he would even fight another match. He had come to the heavy steel door that marked the entrance to the lair of The Mongoose. The mysterious, benevolent force that ran the whole operation. He had never been in there, and those that had gone in there before him had never came out again. Maybe they were burned alive...the place had to get power from somewhere...no, he couldn't dwell on things like that right now. He had earned his place in Team Mongoose, he had scratched and clawed his way to wins he never should have gotten, and his experience helped lead Braveheart to the team's very first championship. He was too valuable to get rid of...wasn't he? He just wasn't sure anymore, the long and winding corridor he had just made his way through gave him nothing but time to think about what he had done to get here. The wins, the losses, the closest of close decisions. A faint hiss, a few wisps of air coming from his horns. Kraze took a moment to compose himself, make himself ready to present his case, and then prepared to head into the heart of the den...

"...Dad?"

Kraze stopped in his tracks. He shouldn't have heard that voice. That voice wasn't supposed to be here, but it was. Turning around, he could just barely make out a faint outline somewhere in the distance, the outline of a machine. A machine he knew, a machine with what looked like wedges on every side, a machine with something stuck on top of it, a machine with a big, pink bar...

"Frequency?"

The Lightweight slowly edged out of the shadows, motor housing still a little dented up, and with one or two nicks out of the skirts. You weren't a Team Mongoose member without having one or two battle scars to show off. Kraze's lights turned a vivid purple colour, and flickered for a moment.
"What are you doing here?!" he began in as hushed a tone as he could manage, "You're supposed to have a match with Poison this week!" The spinner glanced away slightly, and Kraze could have sworn he saw the pink markings on the skirts shift a little towards red.
"I...I snuck out when I heard you'd been brought back here..." Frequency mumbled, with that tone that every youngster uses when they know they've done something wrong. "But I've fought tougher guys," he pleaded, "And I'm already in the playoffs! Besides, I've told mom I was going away, and-"
"You still shouldn't be here, though," Kraze retorted, venting a little more air through his horns, "And you really shouldn't be getting your mother involved in this." His lights gradually turned to an orange hue, and he sounded a little scared for the spinner. "If anyone finds out that you came back to the garage during a tournament..."
"Are you in trouble, dad?"

Kraze looked at his son, and Frequency looked back at his dad. "Mom says she hopes you'll be okay."

Cutie Honey...he didn't know what it was about her that drew him to her, but even so, he couldn't think of any other machine to be with. It was an unofficial testing meet between seasons, Team Ignition had turned up, so too had Team Ectogasm and Team Blood Gulch. It was when Team Zlayers arrived, though, that things started to become interesting. He and Cutie Honey had first met while testing their flippers. It sounded like something out of a terrible movie, playing it back to himself. Something, however, had simply clicked between them, and following the test, they had stayed in touch, had a few nights out, a few nights in, one thing led to another, and along came Frequency. He hadn't been the easiest of bots to handle, but between them, Kraze and Cutie Honey had brought him up, trained him in the art of combat, and soon after, Frequency was walking into battle alongside his parents. So much had changed since then, the team's first championship, watching the new recruits tear it up, and finally heading back out there themselves. And in that time, Kraze had watched Frequency grow up. The joys of his first win, the talks they had after the spinner fell just short of the playoffs, and the recent run of form he had been on during this season, momentarily claiming the number one spot in the conference. Even if Cutie Honey was going to be the more successful member of the family, Frequency was still family. And Kraze was family to Frequency.
"...no," the flipper lied, "No, I'm not in trouble." He knew Frequency wouldn't buy it, who had began idly spinning his bar at a very slow pace. "The Mongoose just wanted to have a chat with me, see how things were going, y'know..." Frequency looked towards the ominously sturdy door that they were sitting outside, before his gaze dropped to the smooth concrete floor.

"...I'm sorry I shouted at you so much in my first season..." the spinner said, almost in a whisper. Despite their being father and son, there had been more than a few times when they hadn't exactly seen eye to eye, the final week of Frequency's debut season being the most explosive of them. No matter what Kraze tried to calm his son down, Frequency just wouldn't listen. He had attacked his father, torn his own components apart, even gone so far as to attempt self-harm and suicide. The team returned after the season, and rightfully gave Frequency some time to rest, relax and reflect. Kraze would talk to him every day about what happened, and in the time off, had taught Frequency almost everything his son now knew.
"Don't worry," the flipper replied, his lights now a dark shade of pink, "You were young, probably too young." He sidled up alongside the Lightweight, who dutifully swiveled his bar out of the way. "I sent you out there before you were ready," he told the spinner, "I'm the one that should be sorry." Frequency glanced up at his dad, almost surprised at his half-revelation. "But no matter what happens, win or lose, you're one of the best machines I've ever seen. Right now, you're on one of the best runs this team's had, and I know you're gonna do everything you can to get yourself a championship, son." Frequency turned a little closer towards Kraze. "And I know I don't say this often enough, but I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you."

Silence fell between the two machines. If you listened closely, you could just hear the rest of the team who were there back in the main room. Both still felt like they had something to say, but neither could bring themselves to say it. Kraze gave a soft hiss of air through his horns again, and Frequency gave him a tap with his bar. The flipper's lights became yellow, and he turned back towards the steel door he had been waiting outside when his son had arrived. "When you get back," he asked, "Can you wish your mom good luck for me?" Frequency gave a little twirl of his bar, before he heard a heavy clang, and watched the door swing open with an eerie creak. It was completely dark in there, neither of them could see a thing. But it was the reason Kraze was here. Taking a deep breath, Kraze closed his eyes, gathered his composure, and made his way in...

"Bye, dad," said Frequency. Kraze paused for a moment, and looked back towards the spinner waiting outside the room, as the door began to swing shut.

"See you around, son."

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And with a metallic crash, Kraze was alone. Alone with only the unremitting darkness of this room. No sooner had he been closed in, though, that a blinding spotlight came from the ceiling directly upon him. Instantly, his lights set themselves to bright white, and began strobing. Just as he was beginning to get his sight back, a quiet electrical whirring emanated throughout the room, and a panel ahead of him slid back to reveal a blank screen, which flickered momentarily, then before him appeared what looked like some sort of rodent dressed head to tail in black robes, with a heavy black hood obscuring most of his face. The only thing Kraze could make out clearly was the mouth and nose, and it was clearly a hologram. This, Kraze thought, must be The Mongoose.

"Well?"

The hologram's question ruthlessly cut through the silence, and Kraze forgot for a moment that he had to answer. "Oh! I-uh..." he began, frantically glancing around to try and find any sort of reference as to what else would be in this room.
"Any explanation?" The Mongoose asked, giving Kraze no chance to get his reply out.
"Ex...explanation?" Kraze asked unsurely.
"Explanation!" The Mongoose snapped, "Why haven't you made the playoffs this time?"
Stammering, Kraze frantically tried to put his case together. "I-I, well, I..." he began, "I got drawn against a lot more spinners than I thought I would..."
"A good machine," The Mongoose interrupted, "Can beat ANY opponent. So you faced some spinners, why could you not beat them?"
"...they were too strong..." Kraze replied, retreating back from the hologram a little.
"They were not 'too strong'", bellowed The Mongoose, "YOU were too WEAK!"
"M-Mongoose, I-"
"YOU FAILED!"

Kraze was visibly shaking at this point, barely able to think past the myriad horrific demises that his hologrammatic captor surely had planned for him. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move, he couldn't run. He had given everything for his team, and now he was completely at the mercy of this hologram, who held the life and death of each member of the team in the palm of his hand.

"Team Mongoose has no need for you anymore."

Kraze's horns spewed air in such a burst it nearly tore them clean off. "What?!" was the only word that came to him. Was that it? All the seasons, all the wins, all the accolades? Three times he had made the playoffs, three! Once becoming the top seed in the division! And now he was being put out to stud? "Because of one season?!" he asked, bewildered. The Mongoose gave no reply.

"I've been with this team since the start, I've brought so many guys in, I helped train them, I've given absolutely everything to this team!" Kraze's lights couldn't stay on one colour, flashing every single colour they possibly could. "I'm the most experienced machine here!" he yelled. "Without me, Team Mongoose never would have gotten off the ground, Braveheart never would have won his championship!" The hologram raised his head slightly. "I've had one bad season," Kraze continued, screaming, "ONE BAD SEASON! Why is that a reason to get rid of me?! Why is that a reason to say I have nothing left to give?! My son had a bad season, you gave him a second chance, and he has been one of the best machines in the field! He has been THE best machine in the field!" The hologram remained defiantly, almost arrogantly silent. "Do you honestly think that Frequency could go out there and do what he's doing right now if he didn't have a dad?"

No reply. And Kraze was out of ideas. His lights gave a final flicker, before they faded away, the suction fan beneath him slowing to a stop. At the very least, if he was going to go, then he would not be going without letting this tyrant know how he really felt. Just as he was ready for The Mongoose to send him down, he heard a heavy clang behind him, and light began to fill the room ahead. Spinning around, he saw the door to the lair opened, and a very familiar figure standing in the doorway. A human figure.

"The hell is going on here?" the human asked, in what sounded like a decidedly Scottish accent. "Mongoose, are you interrogating my team again?" it asked, as it made its way past Kraze towards the hologram with a determined stride. The Mongoose bowed its head as the human approached. "This one has fallen short of expectations, and I-"
"I know what Kraze has done, shut down..." the human said, and the hologram gave a look of surprise, before disappearing altogether, the panel sliding back into place. Kraze was trying to get his composure back together, if this was who he thought it was. "You okay there?" asked the human, crouching down in front of Kraze. Kraze looked up at him tentatively, and noted the long, light brown hair, the slim build, the T-shirt, jeans and red Converse attire, a little stubble from lack of shaving, and the off-green eyes behind a pair of glasses.
"Yeah..." Kraze again lied, "I'm okay..." The flipper was visibly shaken, and the human gestured for him to follow. He was led out of the dark room, and back down the long corridor towards the main room, momentarily glancing behind him towards his son, who watched his dad heading away, and gave another quick twirl of his bar.

================================

"I thought The Mongoose ran this team." Kraze said, as he sat in front of a sofa in the main room, the rest of the machines going about their business, but all making sure to keep one eye on Kraze.
"No, he's just an AI I installed," the human - whose name turned out to be Nick - replied, "He's meant to keep the den going while I'm at tournaments, I really should sort him out."
"What about Terabyte?" Kraze asked. "And the others, are they okay?"
Nick smiled, and leant towards the flipper slightly. "They're fine," he told him, "I've just been a long time redesigning them. It's quite hard to think of how I can turn them into something that isn't too generic."
Kraze looked around the walls of the room, at the various doodles and blueprints that were strewn across them, almost haphazardly. "Is that why there's a drawing of Frequency up there?" he asked, gesturing towards an almost exact blueprint of the Lightweight spinner in its current guise.
"Yeah," Nick told him, walking over towards the wall with the drawing, "I sketch out ideas, and then run with the ones I think'll work, like Frequency." He glanced towards the other side of the room, where Frequency and SWARM's Worker were chasing each other around in circles, and Kraze did the same. "Do you think it was too early for him?" asked the flipper.
Nick's brow furrowed a little, and he headed back towards the sofa with Kraze in tow, sitting himself back down in the same place. He pondered for a little, while Kraze watched his son tangling himself up with the triplet. "It probably was too early for him," Nick said, drawing the flipper's attention, "but he did really well nonetheless."

It was at that moment that Kraze noticed that Nick was looking at something above the two smaller machines. It was another doodle, but this one did look familiar. A wedge at the front, dark grey middle section, polycarbonate outer sections, red strips separating them. And on the top, a crushing arm...
"I'm sure you'll see him back sooner or later," Nick told Kraze as he sat himself on the floor alongside his machine. It really brought home to Kraze how small humans actually were. "So..." the flipper asked, glancing back towards Frequency, "What do we do now?"

Nick took a look at the little spinner himself, before looking over to a drawing somewhere behind him. Kraze looked over Nick's shoulder at the doodle, which was of a four-wheeled box with a wedge at the front, a motor housed inside a bright pink cage above it, and a large spinning bar between them. "I think it's time for a redesign," Nick told the flipper, as he nudged his glasses up a little, and began to examine Kraze.

"We do know, at least from this season, that you're not the best at fighting powerful spinners like Ridley or V'Ger," he began, "So I think the thing to do is toughen you up a little." Nick gave Kraze a knock on the front flipper panel, before lifting up the hinged wedge beneath it. "The vacuum skirts are a neat idea, but they get torn off too often, so we might have to ditch at least the front one." The flipper fired its suction fan back up just as Nick let the wedge drop, so it fell back into place, and firmly stayed there. "We should keep the fan," he said, "I don't want Tank happening again." Nick nodded. "That's a given," he replied, "But I'm wondering if the shape needs a change, if the sides are a bit steep." Kraze turned a little, trying to take a look at his own sides, before bringing his side lights back on in a fiery red.

Nick smirked. "Those are staying!"

Kraze spun around once, showing himself off a little. "And it's no big deal if you lose a few more matches than you'd expect," Nick told him, "Everyone loses matches at some point." Kraze looked over towards the unhinged Scatterbrain, who was currently seated by himself in the corner, muttering something about 'Pyrite'. "He'll be aright," Nick chipped in, "It's just the Melty Brain." Kraze lit up his side lights in a deep blue this time. Scatterbrain was Team Mongoose all over. It didn't matter if you won or lost, as long as you enjoyed the match.

"Shouldn't we be heading back now?" he asked. Glancing at his watch, Nick picked himself back up off the floor. "Yeah, we really should," he told the flipper, before heading over to collect Frequency as well. Kraze decided to stop his fan, and gave a quick shot of air from his horns, making his way towards the entrance to the garage. Looking back, he watched Frequency spinning his bar slowly at Nick, pretending to be trying to fight him off. He would be a champion one day, Kraze thought to himself, it was just a matter of time.
"Reminds me of you."
Kraze glanced towards the voice, and saw Cryoseism sitting beside him, also watching the Frequency vs Nick not-battle. He flashed his side lights at the see-through machine, who gave his shell a little nudge. "Let me guess, mom's side of the family?"

Nick finally caught Frequency and picked him up, to which the Lightweight started spinning his wheels aimlessly in mid-air. "Alright, Kraze," he said, "Let's get going." He set Kraze's son down alongside him, and headed towards the car, fumbling in his pocket for the keys.
"I'll see you two when you get back," Cryoseism said, with a slight spin of his shell. Frequency gave his bar a twirl, and Kraze flashed his side lights green as the pair rolled out of the garage, which began closing behind them. "Good luck!" called the see-through spinner.

As the Mongoose Den closed behind them, and the duo were loaded into the back of the car, Kraze's fan and side lights died down once again, and he had a moment to think about what lay ahead. It wasn't always going to be easy, but it was sure as hell never going to be dull. Not when you were a part of Team Mongoose.

And Kraze wasn't leaving any time soon.