The Universe's Mixer

"I have been tracking their movements through the police server. Erratic and scattered. There's no good way to guess where they might be going nex--"

"But if we could pick up a better report?" Frohike interrupted.

"Anyone got a police cruiser on hand?" Langly joked.

Byers paused for a moment as the proverbial lightbulb blinked above his head. Police vehicle? Not necessary. All they needed was a means of patching into the City police radio transmission. And lucky for the Lone Gunmen, they had just that sort of equipment available to them in their van. Not quite a Mystery Machine, but definitely deserved credit for being cool and hi-tech. If not a little bit rusty under the fender.

And their mission? Well, ever since crossing paths with the so-called Dynamic Duo the Lone Gunmen had found themselves extremely curious as to their makeup. Robotic? Cybernetic? Artificial Intelligence? Well, probably not in the A.I. department. They were relatively dimwitted. And seemed only to be able to repeat poorly written dialogue from the sixties. But there was still something to be learned from them. And if nothing else, perhaps they could create their own pair of robot counterparts.

If three Lone Gunmen were cool, imagine how five would be!

"...Still, I really think we ought to just craft ourselves some super hot robot babes," Frohike said as they drove up and down the back streets, listening for an A.P.B. on the Batbots. Or whatever it was they really were.

"You would," Byers replied, making a left turn to avoid a dead end. The City was full of them.

"Dude. It'd be sweet if we made her look like that Resident Evil chick," Langly added.

Byers rolled his eyes. Frohike pulled out a map. And--

"Two masked suspects in tights and leotards spotted outside coffee house in City Industries district! All vehicles report! Proceed with extreme caution!"

"Floor it! Floor it!" Langly yelled.

"Oh, I wish we'd checked the transmission earlier!" Byers said, slamming his foot on the gas and speeding off.

"Ma'am, calm down!" Robin held his hands out and tried to block the screaming, frantic woman from Batman.

"I don't know what she's so upset about, Boy Wonder, I was merely trying to save her from the giant rodent attacking her!"

"That was my baby!" the woman screamed. "My chihuahua!"

"I've called the police!" The barista shouted over everybody. "They're on their way."

"He's really very sorry, ma'am." Robin tried again. "Please. Stop screaming. He's never seen a chihuahua before."

"It's not a dog, Robin, it was a vicious and rabid rodent. You should have seen the teeth on that thing."

"I'll sue! I'll sue and you'll both go to jail! I'll make sure of it!"

"Maybe it's not dead..." Robin ventured.

"Oh. It's dead. I killed it good." Batman was mighty filled with pride.

Meanwhile, not too far away, the Lone Gunmen were trying to race the police to the scene of the -- crime? Well, whatever it was. They hadn't entirely agreed with each other over whether or not this pseudo Batman and Robin were actually criminals. Byers had taken a logical approach and blamed their creator. Langly thought they were kinda cool. And Frohike just wanted to prove his masculinity by taking something apart and turning it into something ... sexier.

Their van started sputtering and creaking, especially whenever Langly screamed at Byers to take a sharp corner when he was just about past it.

"Stop yelling at me! It's hard to obey traffic signals with you screaming in my ear!"

"Just drive, man! Driiiiiive!"

There was a small crowd surrounding the coffee house, and the Lone Gunmen pulled up in front of a fire hydrant. Their exhaust was smoking more than normal.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Frohike asked, peering out the window.

"Look! There they are! Get your tools, fellas!"

And, rather comically, the Lone Gunmen stumbled out of their vehicle and headed towards the robot pair and the ... dead chihuahua?

"Eww."

"Grotesque."

"Wicked."

Batman, unconcerned about the screaming woman and worried barista, turned to see who had just arrived.

"Oh, look, Robin. It's those men who went crazy due to the gasses. They look more sane now. Why don't we go say hello?"

"Batman, we can't. We have to deal with this woman and her do...where are you going?"

"Hello boys!" Batman said, hands on his hips. "I take it you're feeling better than you were during our previous encounter. There will be no biting from anybody, will there? No. I should think not."

"Batman!"

"The cops are coming" The barista pointed down the street to the cruiser stopped by traffic.

"Batman! Come on!"

"Let me talk to the nice boys and make sure they're okay."

The Lone Gunmen blinked in unison. Why weren't the robots attacking them? Wasn't that their duty? It had to be in their programming. That and being complete menaces to society.

Frohike carefully held a wrench behind his back. Not exactly the suave means of going after the two robots, but he was hoping it would work better than their fists. That hadn't worked at all the first time around.

Byers had been working on a distortion device to see if he could block out the signals that kept them alive. Or, at least, disrupt their circuitry. He kept it with him as they approached the Batbots, doing his best to make it seem inconspicuous.

And Langly? His style veered towards the lead pipe. Just because he wanted to hit something. He would have thought of something better. If he had more time. And more motivation.

They all faked smiles and nodded their heads.

"Oh yes!"

"We're much better now!"

"Thanks to your help!"

"You really provide a great service to society!"

"Might we have your autographs?"

"To remember the men who changed our lives."

"Pretty please?"

"Why, sure, Citizen. We would be glad t..."

"Batman."

"Shh, Boy Wonder, we have fa..."

"BATman."

"I'm going to give these nice boys an auto..."

"BATMAN!"

"For god sake, Robin, what is it?"

"You're standing on the dog."

"I'm what?"

"The dog? The dead dog?"

"What dog?"

"The oversized rodent."

"Oh. What about it?"

"You're standing on it. IN it."

"Ew." Batman looked at his boots and stepped away. "I don't think I'm going to be able to get that stain out, Robin."

"I don't think it's going to be much of an issue, really. The cops are on their way, and you might be arrested."

"Nonsense! I'll just talk to Commissioner Gordo..."

"Not here."

"Say again?"

"He's not here."

"Well. I'm in some dog poo now, than aren't I?"


When Robin, or "Robin" as the Lone Gunmen had termed him, mentioned the dead dog guts, Langly made the mistake of looking. His response? Turning around and gagging up some of his lunch (instant ramen noodles) near Byers's shoe.

"Ew!"

"Sorry, man... Glurrghh.."

"Should I bash him now?" Frohike whispered to Byers.

Byers stuttered on his words a bit. Langly's sudden decision to get sick on them kind of defeated the purpose of a three-way attack.

"You okay, Langly?"

"Yeah ... Just give me a second..."

"On the count of three, maybe?" Frohike offered.

"One..."

"Two?"

"Three!"

Langly lept up from his small puddle of vomit and whacked Robin with the lead pipe.

"HAHAHA! EAT YOUR HEART OUT, COLONEL MUSTARD!"

And then Frohike attempted the same on Batman with the wrench. Whack, whack, whack! Trying not to look at the dead chihuahua guts.

And Byers stepped back a bit to turn on his robot distortion device which may or may not work. It worked on some of his battery operated toys from the eighties, but this would be the first real test. Not exactly the best way to try out a product but beggars can't be choosers.

They were being assaulted!

Robin tried to cover his head and wonder why the lead pipe didn't hurt all at the same time. It was a next to impossible task.

Batman sprung to with his batbelt and started to go through it while deflecting the blows.

Neither of them noticed the device. But even if they had, they wouldn't have known what to think about it. Or what it might possibly be used for.

They hadn't been made to really understand technology.

Or much of anything.

"AHH! THEY'RE DEFLECTING!"

"They're DEFECTING??"

"No! They're-- YARRGH!"

Frohike and Langly continued to whack the robots but with seemingly little avail. Though the Batbots did make peculiar metallic-like thunking sounds. Sort of. No Matter. What did matter was that it didn't look as though they were winning, and Langly was beginning to wish he'd stayed at home playing HALO. At least that was something he knew he couldn't be taken at.

"Byers! What's taking you so long?!"

"There's something wrong!"

"As if we couldn't tell!"

"Oh, wait! I forgot to turn it on!"

Byers flipped a switch.

Batman was effected first. Being the closest. He wasn't sure what was going on. Everything felt fuzzy and electric. Half of his body slumped as if he'd had a stroke.

"Booooooy wunDER, I theeeenk theeeese boys have DONE sometink NICHT GUT!"

"Holy electric monkeys, Batman!" Robin lunged forward to help, and that's when he was hit with it too. More of him was disrupted by the whateveritwas because he was smaller. Or maybe not made as well.

The pair stood on the sidewalk, twitching and unable to walk.

Byers was shocked. Sure, he knew there were few limitations to his intelligence. Especially where computer hacking was concerned. But he didn't actually expect his device to work. It probably had a weird aftereffect he didn't know about, though. Something he'd find out about later. Like taking out the power in the City Industries or something wild like that.

Frohike was still lunging with his wrench when the robot superheroes started stumbling about. It took him a moment to realize he was no longer in any imminent danger.

And Langly? He set his pipe aside and crossed his arms.

"Yeah, dat's right, robot biotches! I'm a lean mean fighting machine! Yowza!"

Byers and Frohike looked over at Langly with quirked brows.

"What? Appreciate my sacrifice, bros! Those guys could have killed me!"

"They could have killed us too," Byers replied.

"Well ... yeah ... But did you see me hit that guy?! POW! BAM! SPLAT!"

Frohike snickered.

"So, now what are we going to do with them?"

"Wait for them to power down and then we can dismantle them in the van."

"Wait'll Mulder gets a load of this. He's not going to believe it."

They all paused a moment and looked at each other. Sure, Mulder would believe in AI robot like superheroes. But he'd never believe the Lone Gunmen were capable of their own form of arrests. It'll be fun to boast.