Chapter 370: Toywar (16)
Chapter 370: Toywar (16)
"Uh... Xprofessor?" Feng Bu Jue asked.
"That's right", Xprofessor replied in his infectiously warm and kindly voice. "Hello there."
"Woah, wait a second", Xiao Tan reacted quickly, leaning close to Feng Bu Jue to whisper, "This guy can read minds, right? So if he accessed Xianzhi's thoughts..."
"Professor", Feng Bu Jue ignored Xiao Tan's concern and deliberately asked, "may I inquire about your superpower?"
Unexpectedly, this Lego Xprofessor replied, "I don't have any superpower."
"What?" Xiao Tan blinked in surprise. "Are you serious?"
"It's actually obvious", Feng Bu Jue turned to whisper to his teammate. "Toys can't possibly have mental abilities like memory reading or mind control. If they did", he shrugged, "then your whispering just now would've been pointless - he'd already know what you were going to say before you even opened your mouth."
"Oh... right", Xiao Tan nodded thoughtfully before frowning moments later. "Wait, does that mean Professor has absolutely no combat ability at all?"
"Knowledge is power", Xprofessor smiled. "Even without superpowers, I can still accomplish many things. Of course, you're welcome to perceive me as an ordinary, wheelchair-bound bald man."
"No, no, no! I didn't mean it that way!" the ever-compassionate Xiao Tan hurriedly waved his hands in denial.
"Hmm, good", Xprofessor maintained his serene smile. "Because if you dared mention either 'wheelchair' or 'bald man,' I'd have my students pin you to the ground and crush your skull with my wheelchair."
"Hey... This is definitely a complete heel turn. He's clearly super-sensitive about lacking superpowers... And he just repeated those two terms twice himself", Xiao Tan muttered under his breath.
Feng Bu Jue stepped forward to change the subject. "Professor, since you can't use telepathy, how did you know 'they're already here'?"
"I'm merely delivering a message on behalf of Xianzhi", Xprofessor replied. The next moment, he suddenly added with theatrical shock, "What?! Are you implying I don't have legs to run with?" He then pulled out a handgun from his shirt pocket. "Die, you two impudent brats!"
With that, he actually sprang from his wheelchair and began firing randomly.
Feng Bu Jue and Xiao Tan were immediately shocked, rolling sideways in panic while clutching their heads.
Fortunately, Xprofessor's marksmanship was terrible - not a single shot hit. Moreover, both the gun and the bullets were composed of tiny Lego fragments, causing minimal damage to their surroundings.
Suddenly, a red blur zipped through with a "whoosh", seizing the gun from Xprofessor's hand. "Hey! Enough playing around! It's time for your medication, Luther!" (Lex_Luthor, Superman's archenemy and classic antagonist)
The Lego Flash swiftly pinned Luther back into his wheelchair and pressed a button on its rear. Several Lego bars shot out from the wheelchair's sides, restraining the thrashing bald man.
"Aaaaargh! Release me! I'm Xprofessor! They're discriminating against the disabled! Aaaaargh!" Luther kicked wildly and struggled against his restraints as Flash pushed him away.
"Apologies", another blue figure instantly materialized beside Feng Bu Jue and Xiao Tan at Flash's speed. It was Lego Quicksilver (Magneto's son, essentially Marvel's Flash). "He gets some personality splits without medication. Last week he smeared paint on his bare chest trying to impersonate Kratos before getting pancaked by Hulk."
"Sending someone like him to report this... what's the point?" Xiao Tan remarked.
"Regardless", Quicksilver continued, "based on Xianzhi's intelligence, two Novel members have bypassed security patrols and are approaching Lego House. They'll arrive soon."
"Xianzhi's instruction is to have you confront them outside."
"Oh? They actually came knocking on the door", Feng Bu Jue sneered. "Hmph... Brave of them, those Survey Corps guys..."
"How many times are you going to use that Attire gag?" Xiao Tan sighed weakly. Clearly, Feng Bu Jue had been teasing Si Yu relentlessly about her "attire" during the two weeks between "Cangling Debate of Swords" and "I'm a Writer."
"Alright then, let's depart." Feng Bu Jue jumped onto the "Lego Puffer Fighter" and opened the cockpit hatch.
This mecha resembled a pufferfish with long legs. Its entire structure consisted of just two parts: the body (fish anatomy doesn't really distinguish torso and head), and two cone-shaped legs that couldn't fully extend despite their peculiar joint design.
This Lego Puffer Fighter had only legs, no arms. From Mushiro Koganei's "completed" declaration, it was clear he deliberately omitted arms to make the design look bizarre, not due to time constraints.
Its cockpit arrangement resembled a biplane, with front and rear seats accommodating two people. A perplexing question remained - how was this supposed to fight? And more confusingly, why did a robot without arms require two pilots? Did they each control one leg?
"Wow, the controls are delightfully simple", Feng Bu Jue discovered upon entering the front pilot seat. He found only two joysticks and a rotary switch - "Off" on the left, "ON" on the right. Naturally, the joysticks controlled left and right leg movements. The control panel proudly displayed six characters above the interface: "Movement Control System."
Xiao Tan followed, entering the rear co-pilot seat, only to be shocked. "Hey! Why are there so many buttons here?!"
"What?" Feng Bu Jue found this incredible. In the front pilot's seat, he only had three controllable components, which felt more than sufficient. What complexity could possibly exist in the rear?
"I'll check." Feng Bu Jue climbed out of his cockpit, took a couple steps across the mecha's top, and looked into the co-pilot seat from the rear tail section.
What he saw was truly shocking - Xiao Tan's cockpit was surrounded by at least a hundred buttons on all sides, plus levers, knobs, touch switches, various instruments, and indicator lights. Most absurdly, in a prominent position, there was a button covered by a glass casing, marked with a yellow-black nuclear warning symbol...
Above the control panel in the co-pilot seat were four characters: "Weapon System."
"This guy's definitely a pervert!" Feng Bu Jue couldn't help shouting. "The movement system's simpler than bumper cars, while the weapon system looks like a fully-featured universal continuous-enhancement mobile arsenal (General_Unilateral_Neuro-Link_Dispersive_Autonomic_Maneuver)!"
“Don’t know why… but I feel like I could just roll my face across the keyboard and destroy the world from inside this thing…” Xiao Tan replied with a squinted gaze.
“Hmm… Wait, let’s think clearly. A weapon built in just twenty minutes using less than a box of Lego bricks couldn’t possibly be ten times more powerful than expected,” Feng Bu Jue mused. “Maybe all these buttons seem impressive, but most are useless gadgets. Like… a huge cluster of buttons all just regulating cabin humidity and temperature, with only one or two actually controlling weapons.”
“Haha… Be my guest to try it out,” Xiao Tan said, pushing open the co-pilot’s hatch. He stood up, braced his arms, flipped over, and landed in the main pilot’s seat. “I’ll handle the movement.”
Feng Bu Jue shrugged and leapt down into the co-pilot’s cabin filled with adjustable components shaped like a fish tail. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Xiao Tan twisted the knob in front of him to the “ON” position and pulled the control lever, steering the Lego Puffer Fighter forward.
“Hey…! Pulling the lever once only makes it take one step!” Xiao Tan realized with frustration after moving the robot less than ten steps. “And the leg movement speed and frequency match my lever-pulling speed exactly!”
“So what?” Feng Bu Jue asked.
“This driving method requires constant back-and-forth lever pulling. The physical energy consumption is practically the same as me walking on my hands!” Xiao Tan retorted.
“Hmph…” Feng Bu Jue scoffed, raising his right hand. “That’s just your lack of skill. If I did it, I could—”
“Hey!” Xiao Tan interrupted with a shout. “What’s there to show off about that creepy confidence?”
………
At the same time, on a high shelf outside the Lego House, a pair of sharp eyes peered through the scope of a sniper rifle, locking onto the sole exit of the Lego House.
This was a near-perfect sniping spot—overlooking the area, windless on all sides, and at an ideal distance. Even better, there weren’t so much as a sandbag to hide behind at the Lego House’s exit—just open ground.
With her night vision goggles, Bei Ling could monitor the area clearly. Not even a fly (though to them now, a fly was about the size of a rat) could slip past undetected.
“Now we just wait,” Si Yu said, crouching beside Bei Ling and holding a night vision telescope. Their sniper-and-observer partnership was perfectly synchronized—Si Yu would monitor for anomalies outside Bei Ling’s field of view, ensuring no mistakes.
“Actually, they might’ve already left the Lego House and returned to Classic’s territory,” Bei Ling said, keeping her aim steady without the slightest movement.
Si Yu added, “We received the Honor Guard Unit’s report at 1:53 AM, and Bu Jue and Xiao Tan entered the Lego House at approximately 1:40 AM. If they went in to complete a task or advance the plot, logically, they wouldn’t come out so soon.”
“But what if they’re like us—ignoring the night shift security guard—and dared to stay outside after 1:55 AM?” Bei Ling countered. “That would give them a ten-minute gap to escape before we arrived.”
“Hmm… That hypothesis has two premises: first, they completed their mission inside the Lego House at lightning speed; second, they’re avoiding a fight with us,” Si Yu mused. “Considering Bu Jue’s style…”
“Commander would likely avoid us temporarily for a side quest or hidden task,” Bei Ling said. “And such evasive action wouldn’t count as ‘passive play’ in the system’s eyes—it’s just tactical maneuvering.”
Si Yu nodded. “If they’ve truly returned to Classic’s territory, our position here becomes dangerous.”
Bei Ling exhaled slowly. “I’ve thought about it. The security guard’s patrol ends at 2:15 AM. We’ll wait fifteen minutes after that. If we haven’t seen them by 2:30 AM, or if any hostile Toys spot us, we’ll retreat first and regroup later.”
As the two female warriors analyzed strategies, the two male pilots of the perverted gentleman-class Lego Puffer Fighter were already approaching the Lego House’s exit.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud… The Lego Puffer Fighter stomped forward in giant strides.
Inside the main cockpit, Xiao Tan was exhausted, panting like a whipped puppy. Feng Bu Jue, meanwhile, lazily propped his cheek on one hand in the co-pilot seat, yawning with boredom.
“Actually, shouldn’t we have asked Mushiro Koganei to build us a flying vehicle? Approaching the enemy from the air would’ve been fastest and safest,” Xiao Tan grumbled, out of breath.
“If you’re going to argue like that… then why not just have me sprint across the shelves toward the enemy base, or use Moon Step to carry you up higher and sneak in?” Feng Bu Jue countered.
“Ah, right!” Xiao Tan agreed.
“Exactly. I considered all those options,” Feng Bu Jue said, resting his head on his hands and leaning back. “But then I’d be the one panting like a dog, wouldn’t I?”
“What?!” Xiao Tan snapped. “You’re just trying to screw over your teammates!”
“That’s not it,” Feng Bu Jue said. “Don’t forget… you were the one who climbed into the main cockpit yourself…”
A second later, a smack echoed from the front—Xiao Tan had likely just slapped himself.
“There’s… something coming out,” Bei Ling suddenly said.
Seeing she didn’t fire, Si Yu adjusted her telescope to focus on the area in front of the Lego House. After a moment, she lowered the scope, rubbed her eyes, then raised it again.
“I’ll bet five cents Bu Jue’s inside,” Si Yu said in a cold, matter-of-fact tone.
“This Lego monster was probably built by those two idiots themselves,” Bei Ling replied, her voice dripping with the weight of a doomed verdict.
“If this Toy already existed in the scenario…” Si Yu added.
“It’d never sell,” Bei Ling finished, loading a special bullet into her sniper rifle. “Now this gets interesting… I wonder if they’d survive if their vehicle exploded suddenly?” A sly, scheming smile curled her lips as she aimed at the Lego Puffer Fighter’s torso.
Bang—
The moment Bei Ling pulled the trigger, a thunderous crack split the air. A bullet glowing with cyan light streaked forward like lightning.
(End of Chapter)
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