The Edges of Lightreach

Chapter 4: Littlest Bot Shop

A/N: These past few chapters have written by me, Moskeetees, because KingOfPlayer2 has been a little busy. He has edited them and written a couple of passages, but this chapter he wrote himself, and he'll be writing more often in the future. Enjoy!

Felix drummed his fingers against the workbench, silently humming to himself. His older brother had left town for a few days, leaving him alone to work the shop.

He was incredibly bored.

Casting a look to their grandfather clock, Felix muttered to himself, "C'mon Frankie, where are you?"

The doorbell jingled, but little did he know, Felix wouldn't be greeted by his brother. In fact, that sound would lead Felix on quite the adventure.

Outside, Asher couldn't help but flip the business card over in his hand, Skara's words repeating over and over in his head.

You think you bond with someone but noooo, it turns out you're just another piece to someone else's plan. A cog in someone else's machine.

Asher's dad had "friends" like that... People who'd claim friendship, but really just wanted to sell you "fairy dust". People who wanted to get close to you, but just needed a favor only the royal family could give them.

And as it turns out... Skara was the same as the rest of them.

Asher didn't want to run forever... Phoenix was someone who didn't recognize him as Asher Viewpoint... someone who was simply in the right place at the right time, offering to fix a robot.

"Look, mope all you want, but I'm here to avoid getting you killed," Skara said, glaring at her companion.

Asher sighed and slipped the card back into his pocket.

"So, where exactly is your trusted associate, Ms. Trusting-people-is-bad?" Asher pointed out Skara's own hypocrisy.

Skara rolled her eyes, "Look, he owes me a favor, and he better pay up."

Asher noticed Skara looked slightly more... murdery... than normal.

"We can get your dumb robot fixed and then head to the inner city. With any luck, your magic Spark powers will save the kingdom, and you can go get yourself killed however you want."

Skara didn't know Asher couldn't use his spark.

Asher gulped, suddenly becoming hyper aware of the situation once again. His dad was dead, and a Sparkless prince would have to be the one to lead Lightreach.

The two approached the outside of the mechanic, Caepio. Skara walked in first as Asher held the robot tightly in his arms.

Skara loudly entered the room. "Frankie! You dust-breather, you owe me a favor! I'm here to-"

Felix stared wide eyed at the red haired lady who had just insulted his brother, his jaw on the ground.

"I'm sorry, beautiful, but we don't seem to have a Frankie in stock," Felix responded. "I'm sure you and your boyfriend would be interested in our card collection or repair services."

Felix was over the moon. He finally had customers!

"Great! And he isn't even here-" Skara sighed, and pushed past Asher and the dumb robot, heading to the door.

"Hey! Wait! I'm sure whatever you needed Frankie for, I can take care of!" Felix jumped over the workbench to intercept Skara. "I'm his brother! Felix Caepio!"

Skara eyed him, and then looked at Asher, motioning to the prince to hand over the robot.

"Well... Can you fix this..?" Asher held out the robot for Felix to inspect. The young boy eagerly snatched the robot and began turning him upside down. With every turn the robot made an unenthusiastic woahing noise.

"Heh, he makes funny sounds," Felix said, continuing to turn the robot around. "So, does he have a name?"

It was Asher's turn to look back at Skara.

"I'm not the one who picked up that dumb robot! Why should I know?"

"I am 005C4! Would you like me to respond to dumb robot?" The machine spun around to face Skara, staring like a puppy dog at the roguish lady.

"Well, that's no name for a robot..." Felix drummed his fingers on the desk. "What do you think my dark haired customer?"

"Oh! My name is Ash-"

"Ashton!" Skara blurted out. "His name is Ashton, and I'm Skara." Skara shot a glare over to Asher.

Great, and now I've lost my name too.

Although Asher understood why Skara wouldn't let Asher say his name, it didn't stop him from sighing to himself.

"Well Ashton, Skara. That leaves us with the name of this lil guy." The robot quickly spun around back towards Felix.

"Can I be lil guy?!" He looked at the mechanic. "But... I do like the name dumb robot... I'll need to process both of these..."

The robot made a series of whirring and clicking noises. He was obviously thinking very hard on the matter.

"How about... Oscar?" Asher threw out the name. "I mean, it says on his side 005C4. You could translate that to Oscar."

The robot stopped whirring and jumped up at the name.

"I wanna be Oscar! I wanna be Oscar!"

Felix picked the robot back up and struggled to keep him from wriggling out of his arms. "Ok... Oscar! Got it, that'll be your name."

"Inputting new name into database: Oscar. Keepers are: Phoenix Inc., Luna Eagle, Skara Ridgewell, Felix Caepio, and Asher Viewpoint."

A thick silence filled the room.

"Well..." Felix broke the silence first. "If I'm working for royalty, I guess I better do a pretty dang good job at fixing this robot."

"Kid, you tell anyone the prince was here, I'll remove your heart from the rest of your body quicker than you can throw any amount of dust at me, is that clear?"

Felix quickly covered the robot's eyes, "Hey! Not in front of Oscar." He then turned to Asher. "Hey, don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

Asher smiled nervously, as to which Felix grinned back. Skara rolled her eyes.

"Let's see what I can do for this little guy."

Felix grabbed his toolbelt and went to work.