Mission Start

Jenny flew low over the commercial sector of Mega-City, jetting in between the many skyscrapers that dotted the skyways. Many lights were still on in several of the buildings, a promising notion that meant the power station was still up and running. The Power Station itself, though, was nowhere to be found, and Jenny had used up a lot of her energy.

Checking her vitals on the computer built into her wrist, she saw that she had used up half of her fuel, dilluthian crystals. Hopefully, since there were only two sub-stations and the one main station, this terrible night was almost over, and she could get home on fumes. It would stink to have to walk home or get mom to pick her up. Then again, how many teenagers called their mothers because they needed a ride home since they ran out of fuel while fighting bad guys.

A drop of water striking Jenny's wrist computer awoke the teenage robot from her thoughts. Turning her attention to the sky, she noticed small white powder slowly falling from the clouds.

It was snowing.

"This can't be right." Despite it being January, there were no reports of snow falling that night, or even that week. Even more weird was the fact that, when Jenny looked out around her, the snow was only falling in a small circle in one part of town. Nowhere else in the entire city was there snow.

Looking below her, Jenny was amazed at the sight laying down there. The Mega-City MegaMall, an enormous shopping complex several acres in size, had been covered in snow. However, it wasn't the snow on the outside that bothered Jenny. It was the fact that piles of snow were pouring out the doors that got Jenny's attention.

Rather than entering the front doors, Jenny decided to go for the more dramatic approach and maybe catch the bad guy off-guard for once.

Cutting her jets, Jenny free-fell fifty feet, through the massive glass dome that capped off the center of the mall, then fell all the way down five flights, landing feet first in the mall floor and creating an awesome crater right in the tiled marble floor.

Despite her intense entrance, Jenny's actions were met with no response. As she stood in the center of the mall, watching for whatever might be lurking in the shadows, drops of snow slowly drifted through the newly opened dome, settling next to Jenny's feet.

Jenny observed the mall suspiciously. Whatever was causing the snow also seemed to have the power to freeze things, as almost all the stores were frozen solid, their glass store-fronts smashed in and mannequins and displays covered in ice.

Finding nothing, Jenny decided to head farther into the store. Around the corner, she could hear the low humming of some machinery.

Running across the mall, Jenny jetted a short distance up onto a balcony which gave her a good view of the rest of the mall. Hiding behind a large tree, Jenny observed the scene below her. In the center of the large hallway, the floor had been frozen and cut away, and two enormous snow machines were pouring snow into the hole. The hole must have been very deep, since the two machines were dumping large amounts of the fluffy stuff inside without any sign of fill.

Next to the hole, two figures were observing the operation. One looked like a short Eskimo in a blue parka with white fluffy cotton fringes and brown boots. He was busy freezing the snow to make it even heavier than it was, and was obviously the one who was responsible for all the ice and snow.

The other was a robot Jenny hadn't seen before, cloaked in a long brown cloth that covered all but his helmet on top of his head. At this distance, she couldn't really tell the color of his helmet, but it wasn't black or yellow, ruling out the chance that it could be the electric robot she had seen earlier. He was supervising the ice robot, which meant that he was probably knew who was causing all the problems, or maybe he was even the one leading the attack. Jenny knew that the time for stealth was over. It was go time.

"Hey, badniks!" Jenny jumped over the banister, diving at the two robots with her fist cocked back and ready to fight. At the last section, she drove her fist into the ground, smashing the marble into a million pieces. The robots, however, jumped away, the Ice robot rolling a few feet away from Jenny, the leader bot jumping over the pit and, upon landing, bounded up a flight of stairs, stopping at the top.

Jenny looked at the leader bot and caught his eyes, since the rest of his face was covered by the brown cloak. They were evil and sinister, as if he was hiding a dark smile underneath the cloak.

"Who might you be?" he asked.

"Are you behind this?" Jenny shouted to him.

The robot didn't answer the question. Rather, he merely chuckled to himself.

Jenny's attention changed to the Eskimo-like robot. He hadn't said a word, but was just staring at Jenny.

"What are you looking at, sno-cone?" shouted Jenny.

"The robot master rolled his eyes. "Sheesh," he groaned. My name's Ice Man. And you seriously need to chill."

Extending his arms forward, his hands retracted into his forearms. Pointing them at Jenny, a blast of ice flew out towards the titanium teenager. Once again caught in a battle with a robot master, Jenny jumped left, prepared to spring towards the ice master.

However, contrary to Jenny's plans, Ice Man was already in the midst of his own plan. Instead of aiming at Jenny, he aimed at where Jenny was about to land, completely freezing over the ground.

Jenny landed, but the lack of friction sent her sliding across the room into a boutique store. Finding herself upside down with several dresses falling onto her, Jenny couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

"I've heard of shop till you drop, but this is ridiculous!"

Jenny's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an enormous ice cube barreling towards her at high speeds.

"Oh, so you want to play hockey, huh?"

Thankfully, since it was the winter months, Dr. Wakeman had outfitted her daughter with her winter accessories, which just happened to include a giant hockey stick.

A slot popped out in Jenny's back, and reaching behind her back, pulled out a titanium hockey stick out of her back like a samurai sword.

With a slap shot that would have made Gretsky jealous, Jenny smacked the giant ice cub back at its origin. The ice cube barreled into Ice Man, exploding into a million pieces.

Though dazed, Iceman was not out. His superior, however, was not amused. He shook his head.

"Stupid robots. Iceman! Are we ready?"

The Eskimo robot gave the other robot a thumbs-up.

"What? What are you doing?" Jenny was taken aback since she had expected them to focus their attention on her.

"Run away, scrap," he lifted an arm out of his cloak, but at the end of his arm, instead of a hand, there was a large cylinder which looked like a large olive, with a hole on the part where the hand should have been. "With so little space in the commercial zone, to save space, as well as protect the Power Station, the generators were placed deep underneath the mall. We've been pumping frozen snow into the generators for some time now, effectively freezing the generators, making them very vulnerable- to this!"

He jumped high into the air, over the hole, pointing the strange arm directly downward. With a mighty blast, a shot rang out from his cannon, traveling at high speeds down the hole and into the darkness beyond.

Suddenly, the entire ground shook, and the loud crackling of smashed ice sounded below them. The other robot turned to leave.

"Where do you think you're going?" shouted Jenny, leaping at the master robot.

"I think you'd be better off worrying about yourself."

With that thought, the entire floor rumbled once more, shaking up and down, sending both Jenny and Ice Man scrambling. Starting with the hole in the ground, the floor shattered like ice, at first taking the two snow machines with it.

Jenny's communicator crackled to life.

"XJ9!" A transmission came over Jenny's com. "XJ9, I've been studying the Power Station's structure, and I've found its underneath the mall!"

"Little late on the update, mom!"

"Don't you use that tone with me, young lady!"

"Mom, the floor is giving way! The Power Station was already destroyed!"

"Oh no! The Power Station holds up the mall! If it's gone, there's only one way for the mall to go!"

The collapsing of the floor told Jenny the answer to that question. Racing through the mall, the three robots leap from floor to floor, bouncing off of plant pots and walls to avoid the now quickly collapsing floor.

Jenny, on the third floor and reaching an edge, bounded off the edge with as much power as her joints could spare. Shooting out her left arm with a cable still attached to her shoulder, she grabbed the skylight she came in at the last second, holding on as the floor overtook her momentum. If she hadn't made the jump, she would probably have fallen several stories to the factory before.

Looking down, she saw that the gray robot had easily bounded ahead and was now safe on an overhanging balcony not attached to the floor. The Eskimo robot was not so fortunate. Still on the ground floor, he iced what was left of an escalator and rode down them like a skier on a slope. Reaching the bottom, he bounded off, headed for the same balcony that the black robot was on.

The ice robot flew out, reached out with his hand, and caught the edge of the balcony, holding on for dear life. The gray robot stood over top of him. Ice Man reached out with his other hand, trying to get some help from the other robot.

"Quick! Pull me up!"

The gray robot sneered. With no remorse whatsoever, he pointed his blaster at the ice robot and fired. Jenny watched, horrified, as the icy master fell into the black hole that was now the floor.

"He was on your side! How could you do that to him?" she screamed.

"They call themselves robot masters, but they're nothing more than tinker toys."

"What are you? Cluster?"

The gray robot shook his head.

"They call me Jazz. I'm the first of a new breed of robot. Not even you, XJ9, can compete against us."

Jenny was surprised at the sound of her serial number.

"How do you know me?"

Without another word, the robot changed into a beam of gray light and shot into the sky.

"He…teleported?"

Jenny, feeling a pang of remorse in her circuits, let go of the skylight and hovered down into the floor to the factory beyond. The tiled floor had crushed the machinery below. Not a power generator hummed. On top of the wreckage was the destroyed robot master. Inside his chest, just like the hulking robot master before, was a small crystal. However, unlike Guts Man's crystal, this one glowed an icy blue. Jenny picked it up and examined its beautiful interior.

"What are these things?"

Jenny's communicator beeped. It didn't take a genius to figure out who it was.

"XJ9! A huge fire is threatening to engulf the waste sector! Get over there quickly, XJ9!"

Jenny sighed.

"I'm fine too. Thanks for asking."

Examining her map of the city, Jenny saw that the waste sector was, of course, half-way across town.

"Great…"

Incoming Transmission…

"Dr. Wily."

The mad genius turned away from his work on some kind of machine surrounded by a gooey yellow gel to check the transmission screen.

"What is it, Jazz?"

"I destroyed the fifth power station. I also ran into an enemy."

The doctor, now intrigued, turned towards the audio enhancer.

"Who? One of Thomas' breed?"

"No. It was the girl robot, the one our benefactor told us about."

"Ahhh, that robot? Interesting…"

"Your orders, Doctor Wily?"

"Bring her back. Alive if possible, but if she's scrap, no matter. Make sure you get the head."

"Yes, Dr. Wily. Jazz out."

The gray robot flipped his com closed. Somewhere in his core programming, a nagging voice lingered. However, his new programming did a quick override to the notion. He was a servant of Dr. Wily now. Robots existed to serve. Without that reason, no robot deserved to exist. Jazz served Dr. Wily. Jenny opposed Dr. Wily. By logic, that meant one thing…

Jenny had to be destroyed.

Next: Fire Man