A Gizmonk in Rainbow Rocks

by Moheart7

Chapter 4 - Bad Day

Needless to say it wasn’t easy shaking Slash off, but finally after running for at least three blocks and one cowardly dive into a dumpster, Goggles had finally managed to loss the crazy dog before it turned tail and ran back to the Happy Pirate.

“I hate that dog,” he groaned and he clambered out of the dumpster, heaving with disgust at the new stench added to his own.

What made things worse was the fact that he dropped his backpack due to the worn-out strap about two blocks back, meaning that whatever pieces of treasured junk he had were now lost to the streets, thankfully he still had the twenty dollars and his guitar so at least it wasn’t a total loss. Looking over his surroundings, Goggles then noticed that the sun was beginning to set, meaning that now would be a good time to start heading back to where he and Blue had set up their living arrangements, after all the streets can get pretty treacherous at night, especially this part of town.

“Well, here’s to another day,” Goggles mumbled to himself, not really caring if he was heard or not by the non-existent by-standers.

However as he began talking the long walk home, the danger he was worried about walked up to him a little earlier than expected, in the form of three muscular figures jumping out from another alley and scaring him enough to make him fall backwards.

“What the Scrap!?!” Goggles squealed as he looked up at the three figures who jumped out at him.

They were three teenage boys, however while Goggles was basically gangling, these three thugs had defiantly had a bit more bulk than him, one was short with light brown skin and dark brown curly hair, the second was the largest of the three with blue skin and orange hair, and the third, who which Goggles assumed was their leader, was grey skinned with blueish grey hair, the only thing these three had in common was the fact they all wore gem studded collars along with matching vests, save for the leader whose vest was red while the others were black.

“Well, lookie what we have here boys,” the leader chuckled. “A poor sap who walked into the wrong side of town.”

At those words all three of them chuckled amongst themselves, Goggles would have peed himself with fright had he not sensed something familiar about these three, just like the two girls from earlier it was as though he had seen them before, perhaps he knew them before losing his memories.

“Uh… Have we met?” he asked nervously.

Needless to say, the three thugs were instantly confused with the question since they were not the same three Goggles had grown to know back home.

“Um… no,” the larger one said, raising an eyebrow.

Once again another disappointment, but again not anything new to Goggles at this point, the only thing that mattered to him now was to get out of this current situation and back to his abode before dark.

“Well thanks for the scare,” he said casually, picking himself and doing his best to look unphased by the thugs’ appearance. “But I gotta get going.”

However before Goggles could even take a step, the three thugs quickly blocked his path, showing that they meant business.

“Hold up you,” the short one growled. “Didn’t you hear about the rules?”

“This is our turf pal,” the leader added. “And anyone who walks through here must pay a toll.”

Goggles couldn’t help but deadpan at that.

“You’re kidding right?” he said bluntly.

However the three thugs only grinned at Goggles’ statement, suddenly before he could even blink Goggles soon found himself being held upside down by his leg by the largest thug, before being shaken for everything he had and dropped on his face.

“Okay, so you’re not kidding,” Goggles groaned as the short thug and the large thug grabbed his guitar and twenty dollars respectively, thankfully his goggles didn’t slide off his head.

For a brief moment Goggles let out a sigh of relief when the three thugs looked like they were turning to leave, however that was when the leader spoke up again.

“Hey wait a moment,” he said. “My boys each have something, but what about little old me?”

Goggles gulped at that.

“Oh come on dude,” he pleaded. “I don’t even have anything else.”

At first the poor guy thought that the thugs were going to take his goggles, even after coming to a different world and losing his memories, he still had a strong attachment to them so he was hoping that wasn’t the case. Turns out that it wasn’t.

“I like your sneakers,” the leader said with a smug grin.

#

Yet any problem to add to the pile, not only has Goggles lost his backpack, but now his guitar, which was his only means of financial income, the 20 dollars, the most money he had ever made in a single day since waking up without his memories, and to top it all off, now he had to walk back to his abode with bare feet thanks to the theft of his shoes.

“Oh sure, take my sneakers!” Goggles complained sarcastically, once again not really caring who was listening. “It’s not like I need them or anything! Why don’t they just take the shirt of my back while they’re at it!?! Honestly, you’d think someone like that would at least leave the homeless guys alone!”

This was just the latest of angry outbursts that Goggles had been letting out for the past twenty minutes, granted he was grateful that he still had the goggles on his head, but that still didn’t excuse the fact that he was robbed of everything else he had. It had to have been one of the worst days Goggles had since coming to this world. Finally deciding to take a breather from his tantrum, Goggles soon took a seat on a bench whilst taking a shortcut through the local park, at this moment he really needed some time to calm down.

“What am I gonna do now?” he asked himself, a flow of depression just flooding all over him.

However that was when he heard it, it was faint but Goggles could definitely hear it, a voice that was so beautiful that it was as though it were emanating from the heavens themselves. Quickly standing up, Goggles looked over his surroundings to try and find the source of the voice, there was just something about the way it sang that just made him feel slightly better, finally he spotted who the voice belonged to. Just up the hill from where he was, standing next to a taco cart, was another girl, he couldn’t tell what she looked like due to her face being hidden by a purple hoody, but Goggles could definitely tell that she had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, at least from what he could still remember. Suddenly Goggles found himself being snapped out of his trance by another voice, one that was gruffer and had a lot more urgency.

“LOOK OUT!” the taco vender screamed as he accidently leaned up against his cart, instantly pushing it down the hill.

Thankfully Goggles managed to snap out of his trance just in time, if he had stood where he was for only a second more, then that taco cart would have sent him flying, luckily he managed to avoid it with one quick jump to the side. Unfortunately due to the sudden urgency Goggles didn’t exactly look WHERE he was jumping, he may have avoided getting run over but that still didn’t stop him from getting stuck by several needles from a nettle bush. When he finally managed to crawl out of the bush, Goggles looked back to the hill just to catch a final glimpse of the girl just before she ran off, leaving Goggles to once again grumble with irritated anger.

“Can this day possibly get any worse!?!” he snapped.

And yet just as Goggles finished saying those words, it did. With one quick flash of lightning, a vast amount of rain quickly began to pour all over him and everyone else in the park, it seemed that luck was certainly not on Goggles side today.

“I just had to ask didn’t I?” he sighed, admitting defeat and miserably continuing his way back through the heavy gushes of water.

#

For Goggles, the trip back to his abode was not the easiest, but then again it was never easy. With no money to rent a place, he and Blue had no other choice but to squat in one of the abandoned living arrangements just outside of town, however due to the fact that Blue had to keep herself hidden, it wasn’t like they would be able to share living arrangements with the other homeless people so Goggles had Blue Lightning had to make a few compromises, even if it meant sacrificing their dignity. The abode in question was a rusted over trailer, with both its wheels torn off, sitting on a mud bank right in the centre of a flooded ditch, it wasn’t exactly the best option, in fact it was far from it, but at least no one else went near it, which made it the perfect place for Blue Lightning to hide. After once again unknotting the robe tying down his makeshift tire-raft, Goggles then paddled his way towards the bank using a broken tennis racket taped to a broom handle, upon reaching the other side Goggle then tied off the raft again and pushed open the door of the trailer.

“Honey, I’m home!” He said sarcastically.

As one can expect, the inside of the trailer was almost as bad, if not worse than the outside, rust completely swamped the ceiling, leaving a vast amount of holes which goggles had to fill with umbrellas just to keep the rain out, mould and mildew completely covered both the fabrics and the kitchenette, the only upside was that the stove was still usable, not sanitary enough for cooking but at least there was heat when Goggles and Blue needed it. It may not have been suitable for any sort of decent living but at least Goggles was able to get out of the rain.

“What happened to you sir?” said a gentle feminine voice to Goggles’ right.

Turning his head towards the voice, Goggles couldn’t help but smile as he was greeted by the kind visor of Blue Lightning. Like Goggles, she too was changed by the journey to a different world, in place of a metal pony now stood a robotic teenage girl, mostly silver with bronze hands, kneecaps and shoes, along with black rubber where she moved her joints, and just like Goggles, she also had traits from her previous form that one wouldn’t recognise if they had never seen her in the other world, such as her chest piece, the black visor with no lit up with a pair of blue lights that formed the image of expressional eyes, and of course the green and blue-streaked mesh that served as the hair on top of her head. No matter how many times Goggles looked upon his creation, she always created him with a genuine look of concern, she may not have had a personality yet and always insisted on calling him “sir”, but it was nice to know she cared.

“The result of poor timing and the luck of idiots, that’s what happened,” Goggles complained, taking a seat at the chipped and dented kitchenette tabe. “I was chased for three blocks by Mr Silver’s dog AGAIN, mugged by a trio of brain-dead lunatics, and almost ran over with a taco cart because some bimbo was singing to the vender.”

If Blue had eyebrows she would have raised one at that statement.

“That does sound… unique sir,” she said, taking a seat across the table from Goggles.

“I swear I’m at my wit’s end Blue,” Goggles replied rubbing his temples. “I only have a month’s worth of a life history and that’s AFTER we’ve hit rock-bottom, our food mostly comes from either the garbage or restaurants I ran out on paying at, we’re living in a trailer that not even the hobos would live in because of the constant flooding outside, and my attempts to spark some form of memory are starting to prove futile.”

At those words Blue stared blankly at Goggles, not really knowing the right words to say to comfort her creator.

“Well, on the positive side sir,” she said. “At least the latest flash flood did move the trailer slightly further away from the sewage outflow pipe.”

Not the best choice of uplifting words, but regardless Goggles appreciated the gesture, it was always nice to know that Blue Lightning was there to at least try to cheer him up.

“Great,” he said sarcastically, though still with a slight smile.

Of course Goggles had grown used to such a situation by now, after all one must acclimatise himself to his surroundings if he was going to find some kind of comfort, however that didn’t mean he had to like it, and needless to say Blue shared in his indigence. Normally around this time of day Goggles would usually work on another improvement to the trailer to make it a bit more liveable for him and Blue, however after the day he had just had he was more than willing to call it an early night, but not before taking something out of one of the storage cupboards and placing it upon the table.

“If I may ask, what is that?” Blue asked, inquisitively eyeing the object.

“Well I believe it’s called a laptop,” he said, opening it up and turning it on. “A device that allows the user to access a vast amount of information over a series of strange electrical currents called the Wi-Fi, I managed to find it somewhere in the scrapyard a couple of weeks ago. It’s simply amazing what some folks just throw away due one small technical error, I barely know how it works and I was able to fix it in less than an hour.”

Needless to say Blue was curious about the laptop, by the way it looked it seemed to be at a higher form of technology than she was, at least from a scientific perspective, from what her optics could make out there was no form of magic anywhere within it.

“And what purpose is this laptop supposed to serve to us?” she asked.

Goggles couldn’t help but sigh at that.

“Well since my amnesia has obviously taken away any shred of decent memory of how the world works, we will need a lot more information and I doubt we’ll have enough time to search throughout the local library, especially with my current odour.”

At those words Blue couldn’t help but giggle, in Goggles’ opinion that could only mean that her personality gem is on the brink of finally activating itself.

“I didn’t even notice sir,” Blue said finally.

“That’s because you turned off your sense of smell when it became too unbearable for you,” Goggle replied bluntly.

This was true, about two weeks after their arrival in this strange new world, Blue had managed to find a way to fiddle around with her Sensory Gem, allowing her to turn off certain senses whenever she needed to in order to make things easier for her, thus she hasn’t turned her sense of smell back on again since she caught a whiff of the outflow pipe outside.

“Okay, I managed to power this up yesterday at the local coffee shop so there should be enough power in it to last the night,” Goggles said as he pulled out a pair of wires and connected them to the USB port of the laptop. “I’m gonna use these cables to connect it into your Memory Gem so you can spend tonight searching through the information you find to see if there is a way we can get out of our current situation.”

Blue nodded at that, with every word her creator spoke she instantly understood, after all that was how she was built even if Goggles didn’t remember how he did it.

“The Wi-Fi wass a little tricky to figure out,” Goggles continued. “But I think I managed to successfully piggyback off someone else’s for the moment, so we should be okay at least for tonight. Once you’re all hooked up, you can absorb all you can.”

“I understand sir,” Blue responded with a nod. “Are there any specifics or key subjects you wish me to research?”

At those words Goggles scratched his chin with thought, he needed to make sure that Blue used the right key words to categorise the information they needed in order to priories what was needed. After all, they more than likely only had tonight to do the research, finally he nodded and gave Blue her new instructions.

“We’ll mainly need information on three key subjects,” he said, listing them out while counting them with his fingers. “First, general basics, with my memories all messed up like it is we still need more information on how things work, how they’re described in the basic language, street slang, anything that may seem trivial to the populace, understand?”

Blue nodded in response, showing that she did in fact understand and allowing Goggles to continue.

“Second subject,” he continued. “Entrepreneurial money-making, I can’t play music on the streets forever and we need a better source of financial income if we’re ever going to get out of this forsaken rust bucket.”

“And the third subject sir?”

Goggles couldn’t help but cringe at that, while the subject may have been important to him, he still felt a little embarrassed bringing it up, even if it is in front of Blue. Finally with a heavy sigh, he spoke.

“Magic,” he finally said.

At first Blue merely blinked her visor in response to that answer, but regardless she knew the right words to reply with this time.

“You still believe that it’s the key to recovering your memories sir?” she asked.

“I do,” Goggles answered simply.

“Then I shall operate to maximum capacity to find whatever information is available,” Blue replied with a gentle look from her visor, if she had a visible mouth she would have smiled too.

Needless to say, Goggles has happy to hear such a thing, he couldn’t have asked for a better friend to share this miserable life with at this point.

“Thank you Blue,” he said gratefully, “I really appreciate it.”

“But if I may be so bold sir,” Blue replied with a hint of concern in her tone of voice. “Should I not look up information regarding you? Surely your talents must have sparked some kind of headline, perhaps there’s a Missing-Person’s report?”

Goggles only sighed at that.

“It’s a good idea Blue, but I’m afraid it won’t do us much good,” he admitted. “We’ve been in this town for a month and I’ve checked every newspaper, and there’s not a single piece of information about me going missing from anywhere, not even from the world news. No, I think the best option is to look up those three subjects I’ve mentioned, besides I’m sure that if I made someone like you then I must have had some kind of secrecy involved so I doubt it was made public knowledge, after all it’s not like there are many other robots walking about.”

“Fair enough sir,” Blue responded, not wishing to argue with her maker’s request. “I shall restrict myself from looking over any other subjects apart from those you had listed. If I may ask, who are we piggybacking the Wi-Fi from?”

Goggles couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“I don’t know,” he casually admitted. “Some rich family up the road I think, I even had to boost up the signal receptor in order to get it, but it doesn’t matter now. Come on, let’s hook you up.”

With both of them exchanging a nod with understanding, Goggles then proceeded to hook up the other end of the cables to Blue’s Memory Gem, all it took was to open up her chest and to insert the drive into the port just below the gem itself, neither one of them knew whether the magic inside the gems made it possible or not but for some reason Blue’s entire body seem to adapt to every other machine she touches, thus allowing her to become compatible with every cable and thus making the process very easy. As soon as the process was complete, Goggles let out a loud yawn, causing Blue to once again giggle.

“Would you care for anything before you turn in sir?” she asked. “Perhaps a lullaby?”

At those words Goggles couldn’t help but laugh.

“What am I? 3 years old?” he asked playfully.

“Oh come on,” Blue responded. “You know you like it when you hear singing.”

Hearing this, Goggles once again chuckled as he rose from his seat, slowly walking past Blue as he made his way to what served as his bedroom.

“Track 3,” he said, rubbing her shoulder as he passed.

Blue then nodded at that and proceeded to place a finger on her chest piece, pressing down upon it and allowing a small resonance of music to start playing. Meanwhile Goggles simply crawled into his makeshift hammock, another Equestrian trait that Goggles still carried with him after losing his other memories, once comfortable, Goggles proceeded to take the first verse of the song.

GOGGLES:
Robots are better that people,
Blue, don’t you thinks that’s true?

BLUE:
Yeah, people will beat you and curse you and cheat you,
Every one of them is bad except you,

Goggles couldn’t help but chuckle at that, this was just one of the few songs he and Blue sang together before going to sleep, somehow it always made them feel like nothing was as bad as it was.

GOGGLES:
But people smell better than robots,
Blue, don’t you think I’m right?

BLUE:
That’s once again true, for all except you,

GOGGLES:
You got me, let’s call it a night,

BLUE:
Goodnight,

GOGGLES:
Don’t let the sewer-rats bite.

And on that final note, Goggles slowly drifted off to sleep, while Blue continued to sit at the kitchenette table, using the Laptop to download information while she turned off her visor and then she too, drifted off into what she considers her time of rest.

Author's Note:

The Featured Song was Inspired by Disney's Frozen, All credit goes to the original Composer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-oFqCVNnbM