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Chapter 29: Spotter in the Ruins

After studying the map data until his brain threatened to shut down entirely, Max abandoned Aero's old makeshift spotting rig for the second time in his career. He slid down the bluffs in search of that secret passage into the ruins he'd bought so many months ago. That little hole in the ground was almost impossible to spot, but after about a half an hour of searching, he stepped straight into it and landed flat on his face with a dusty thud.

Once he was sure that he hadn't broken any of his own bones, he pulled himself to his feet and squeezed through the tunnel ahead into the ruins.

"Uh-oh..." he muttered when he realized that the Shekuten had probably respawned ages ago. Here he was, completely unarmed, dressed in street clothes, and surrounded by miniature time bombs everywhere he looked.

One of them heard his voice and sprung to attention with a mechanical whir and click. The gang leader let out a shriek that awoke no fewer than a half a dozen of the little robot's buddies. Max sprinted through the hall as if his life depended on it, barreling straight in the direction he hoped that old hole in the wall was located as Shekuten after Shekuten detonated behind him. He didn't even bother to look back and check for zenny. He just dove straight into the hole before any of the slow-moving Reaverbots could even hope to catch up to him.

The snug little passage was slightly damp, and the dirt packed around him was beginning to soak through his pants. "That's it," Max grumbled as he pulled himself through the tunnel with every ounce of upper body strength he had. "When I get back into town I am buying myself pants so epic that they'll make this pair seem like no big loss! I will have the fanciest pants in Teomo Ci...ugh!" he suddenly groaned when he found himself face-to-face with the fork in the tunnel. "I can't even remember which way led to a better part of the ruins and which way hit the dead end!"

He stared down the left path. He stared down the right path. He really couldn't tell which one led where. They both just looked like dark tunnels that went on forever. "Didn't I end up randomly choosing which path to take last time, too?" he muttered to himself as he crawled into the tunnel on the right and hoped it would be the one that led to the hub. He tried to remember how he'd figured he'd find the tower entrance from there, but there were just so many other thoughts running through his mind that it was hard for him to recall much besides the name of his favorite clothing outlet.

Max's heart almost skipped a beat when he heard the sound of buster fire and distant explosions in the distance. "YES! I'M IN THE RIGHT TUNNEL!" he exclaimed so loudly that, had he actually had a spotter, that spotter would have had to remove his headphones. It was enough to spurn him into quickening his pace. By then, he'd already almost forgotten that Russell was lying on the ground somewhere in excruciating pain.

As soon as Max stepped out into the Klickelan hub, he fought the immediate urge to step back in. There were diggers everywhere. There were even more Reaverbots than there were diggers. One wrong step and he'd be caught in someone's crossfire! To complicate things even further, this was also the first time Max had seen the hub itself in person. Finding himself suddenly standing in an immense, bioluminescent blue cavern numerous stories high and filled with ramps and precarious ledges was enough to leave him in an awestruck stupor until he almost wound up getting hit in the face with a bomb.

"YO!" Max shouted at the offending Horokko, which waddled toward him like it'd had a few too many drinks. "Watch where you're aimin' that thing! I've managed to get enough crap on my pants for one day thanks to that stupid tunnel, so back off!"

The Reaverbot didn't listen to a word Max said, and spun into a whirling tackle. Max leaped out of the way in a panic as it smacked into the wall behind him. "Man, I've got no time to lose! I've gotta find the...main..." he trailed off and sighed. "Okay, yeah, I'm lost. This place is freaking huge."

Most of the diggers Max accosted for directions weren't exactly friendly, despite the obvious fact that he was not in the ruins to try and edge in on their territory. But just when he'd lost all hope, he finally spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

"Troy!" he shouted. He rushed over and frantically waved in the perpetually-agitated blond man's direction as the digger drilled an Amistal until it exploded. Troy completely ignored the little drones flying around and threatening to detonate in Max's face as the Rebel Rider trotted over. "Troy Carter! Long time no see!"

Troy resisted the urge to peg his helmet at Max. "What are you doing down here?!" he hissed. "You don't even have a license, do you? Do you know how much trouble I could wind up in if someone from the Guild saw me talking to..."

"Look, man, I don't have time for this." Max cut him off.

"Lemme guess. You were spotting and now one of your diggers is in mortal peril or something?"

Max deadpanned. "How did you...?"

"So what is it that you need from me this time?" Troy frowned and folded his arms across his chest. With the drill equipped, it didn't look like it was a particularly comfortable position for him.

"I was spotting for the old guy's coach up in the Main Tower of Ghiotte Summit. The ground collapsed from under him as he was climbing up," Max explained. "I think he broke his leg or something. He can't walk like that, so I meant to come down here, find the Main Tower, and carry him back to the surface! I really did! But...I ended up getting lost right away even after trying to study the maps. Some spotter I turned out to be, huh?" he added with a sheepish grin.

Troy just stared blankly at the disheveled spotter. "Forgive me for getting a little blunt here, but you are a complete idiot, you know that?" he remarked, struggling to keep himself from completely losing his cool and shouting at the guy. "You come rushing into the ruins without a license, wearing expensive street clothes, no weapon to speak of, and you seriously think you can drag a grown man out of the ruins by yourself?"

Max felt his face turn red. "Yeah, that's pretty much it," he admitted.

"If his leg's really broken, you'd probably screw it up even more!" Troy groaned. "Did calling the Digger's Guild or the hospital ever even remotely cross your mind?!"

Max just slowly shook his head as an Amistal drone floated by without heeding him so much as a second thought.

Troy sighed. "I guess I don't have much of a choice in this, do I?" he muttered more to himself than to Max as he pressed a button affixed to the side of his helmet. "Change of plans, Amanda. Think you can get me and this doofus here to the base of Ghiotte Summit's main tower?"

The biker couldn't hear exactly what Troy's spotter's response was, but it involved a lot of high-pitched shrieking. Eventually Troy managed to convince her that it was a necessary mission, if only to keep Max from getting himself killed or further aggravating any of Russell's injuries. Max knew better than to think too hard about it. What mattered was that he finally had the help he needed, after all.

Amanda led Troy and Max all the way down to the bottom of the hub and through a dimly-lit tunnel. The passage had a greenish tinge to it that made Troy slightly uncomfortable. "I never would have guessed this would be the right way," Max admitted outright with a nervous laugh. "And here I spent all that time studying the map readings thinking we'd need to go up instead of..."

"Shut up."

Max took that sentiment at face value until Troy grabbed his arm and pulled him up against the wall after a few minutes of walking. "Hey, what'd you do that for?" the biker hissed a little too loudly for Troy's liking.

"Reaverbot up ahead." Troy whispered. "It's a Karubun, too. Those things are tough."

Max squinted into the distance. "All I can see is a pink hippopotamus."

"Do not underestimate that pink hippopotamus," the digger warned. "This is the first time I've ever seen one outside of the Digger's Database. They're said to only appear in the most dangerous areas underground. I should have never agreed to this. Once I get close to an enemy it doesn't take much with a drill, but those things spit out bullets like they're a mouthful of watermelon seeds! I don't know how I'll be able to get close to it!"

"Well, you'll need to get past it if you want to get into the main tower," Amanda declared.

Even though Max couldn't hear a single word Troy's spotter had said, he could tell by the look on the digger's face that he didn't have much of a choice but to take it down. Unfortunately, before Troy could think up a plan, the other spotter in this equation started jogging toward the Reaverbot.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Troy shouted in a panic.

"What I do best," Max replied with a grin, right before he broke into a dead sprint. "Being incredibly distracting!"

"Did he just say what I think he said?" Amanda asked. Troy could hear her fiddling with her headphone jack from the other end, but now that Max had just destroyed any chance of him sneaking past this Reaverbot, he wasn't about to waste any more time. If Max wanted to divert the Karubun's attention, Troy sure didn't want to make that impulsive act of complete idiocy go to waste.

The goofy-looking pink Reaverbot was surprisingly fast on its four stout legs as it toddled over to get closer to Max and pitch a cluster of bombs straight in his direction. "Not cool, man!" Max shouted in frustration. He slipped past the hostile machine and positioned himself so the Karubun would need to face away from Troy to attack the loud, moving target that had presented itself.

As soon as Troy saw the opening in his enemy's defenses, he made his move. Ignoring all of Amanda's shrieks of protest, he silently strode up to the Karubun, poised and ready to rev up his drill the minute he got within range.

He couldn't have been more than a few feet away when the Karubun opened the top of its head up and tossed some more bombs up into the air. One of them coincidentally wound up heading straight for Troy. The digger took a split second to react to the situation and rolled out of the way just in time, but unfortunately that roll made enough noise to entice the Karubun to do an about-face.

"Uh, Troy, I think it noticed you!" Max needlessly exclaimed as Troy ran for his life and the Reaverbot fired a steady stream of bullets after him.

"Shut your mouth and go do that distraction thing you keep telling me you're so good at!" Troy retorted, resisting the urge to just run straight at Max to try and goad the raging Karubun into putting the biker out of his misery. Max took that as a cue to run up and give their foe a swift kick in the shin. With those steel-toed boots of his, the impact actually managed to dent the robot's leg enough to impede its mobility.

"Wow," Max said as the machine staggered around trying to face the source of the attack. "Maybe I'm not that useless underground after all!"

"Don't get your hopes up, buddy," Troy sighed as he closed in with the drill. The Karubun didn't even know what hit it before it exploded and scattered refractor shards everywhere. "Go ahead and take half. That wasn't too shabby for a spotter."

Max snickered as he heard snippets of Amanda yelling through Troy's earpiece. Just from beating up that one Reaverbot, he'd be able to replace his good pants and then some.

The passage into the main tower wasn't too far from there. After ascending a spiraling ramp and picking off Golbesh using their bait-and-switch technique for what felt like hours, Max and Troy emerged on a landing about a quarter of the way up the inside of the tower. They spotted Russell groaning on the floor in pain right away. "That's him," Max explained as he scrambled down the stairs and tried not to trip over any debris. "Hey! Hey Rusty! You alright?"

Troy just stood on the landing. "Woah. I've seen that guy before. He's Class S! What's a moron like you doing spotting for a pro like him!?"

"I told you already," Max huffed as he hot-footed it to where Russell was staring in astonishment at the bizarre situation. "He was my friend's coach, and he needed a spotter to get him to the top of the summit."

"Max, what are you doing down here?" Russell interrogated. "Did you not think to call the Digger's Guild about this?"

"I don't think he thinks about anything!" Troy pointedly assessed as he descended the staircase. "It's just your legs that hurt, right? We don't have a spinal injury on our hands, do we? I don't think it'd be a good idea to mess with that. I mean, I don't think it's a good idea to mess with this, either, but..."

"Nothing like that," Russell explained. He managed to pull himself into a sitting position. "See? It's not my back, it's my legs. I tried to land on my feet, but it didn't work out too well. It hurts to even think about trying to move either of 'em, and for as many hits as I've taken underground over my lifetime, that's saying something. I'm no doctor, but I'd say they're definitely broken."

"Okay, that's good at least," Max replied. "Not that your legs being broken is a good thing, but at least you seem fine otherwise..."

Troy looked from Russell to Max and back again. Although he was by no means fat, Russell looked to be quite a bit heavier than Max, who appeared to have never actually used any of the exercise equipment he kept in those boxes in his room. It was fairly obvious that despite having a drill for an arm at the moment, Troy would still be the one doing most of the heavy lifting. "Are you sure you're even going to be much help with this?"

"Let's just figure out a way to haul him out of here, huh?" Max retorted.

"I blasted a hole in the wall down here to get in," Russell informed them. "Head out that way. It's pretty close to the Class A gate. Once we're outside, I'll have decent cell phone reception, and we'll be able to call in a rescue aircraft."

"Alright then," Troy sighed. He gripped Russell around the waist with his normal arm. "Let's see if we can get him out the door without making the injuries worse."

It felt like hours before they made it to the elevator to the surface. Troy hit the button with his drill and the platform began its ascent.

As soon as the doors slid open, Max, Troy, and Russell found themselves nearly blinded by headlights. "Troy Carter?" A woman interrogated over the mid-sized Digger's Guild airship's loudspeaker. "Is there a Class B Digger named Troy Carter in your party?"

Troy felt the color drain from his face. "Y-yeah," he stammered. To his surprise, it was dark outside. He knew he'd been down in the ruins a long time, but he had no idea he'd let the entire day slip by. "That's me. What's going on?"

"We're here to pick up the man with the broken legs," the Guild official replied. She parked the airship and opened the back hatch, where a trio of Digger's Guild paramedics hopped out with a stretcher. She followed them out and looked over the sweaty, dirty group. "Your spotter called us about a half an hour ago. She said you were probably stuck down there and headed for this gate from the inside...but it looks like you made it out alright. Unfortunately, once we get the big guy over to the hospital, we're going to have to bring the two of you down to Guild Headquarters for questioning. Unregistered diggers are strictly prohibited from exploring the Klickelan network..."

As the medics transferred Russell to the stretcher, Max glanced over at Troy. The digger looked like he was seconds from drilling a hole through him right in front of the Digger's Guild rep.

This really wasn't his day.