Star Harbor Nights

The tiny little figure crept along the edges of the alley. It was remarkably stealthy considering the awkward gait caused by its mismatched metal legs: one relatively normal except for being robotic, but the other of which looked like it had once been an egg beater. The arms sticking out of the sides of its gleaming ovoid body also appeared to be different sizes, though it was difficult to say what they looked like as the thing was wearing a sort of brown-green tunic. A tiny little bowler hat was plopped down over the top of its body, though it had no discernable head.

The oddly dressed little robot made its way to the bright blue garbage bin and took a couple of half-steps from side to side, looking around. A plump, sleek-furred black cat watched the diminutive automaton with unblinking eyes from its improvised bed on a crate by the end of the alley, but other than that, nobody was around. Satisfied, the thing raised its right arm and extended a tiny little circular blade.

It had just gone to work on the side of the metal container when the whole thing shook with a massive boom.  The robot leaped back a full foot and tilted its body backwards, scanning upwards. A stout, tawny-haired woman in a tan jacket had landed on the dumpster, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Faith and begorrah, but that's sure'n a funny place to be lookin' for gold," she said in a breakfast cereal-caliber approximation of an Irish accent.

The robot beeped loudly and then began hop-running towards the end of the alley. It careened around the corner wildly, skidding just past the box with the black cat on it. It had only made it a few feet down the street when there was a horrendous crashing sound and the world went dark around it. Sheer momentum carried the little thing forward, and it bounced off the badly-crumpled side of the metal garbage can that had fallen from the sky on top of it.

"Ah, yeah!" whooped the skinny, spiky-red-haired young woman who had ridden it down from the top of the building. "And that's how I learned to stop worrying and love the can."

"I don't need to know any more details about your sex life, thanks," the broad-shouldered blonde woman said, surveying the results of her sister's gambit.

"Aw, but Dandy, if you don't learn this stuff from your family, you'll just end up learning it on the street," the redhead said, wagging her finger as she crouched on the bottom of the inverted can in her sleeveless orange vest and jean cut-offs.

"You are the street, Lily," Dandy said. She turned and wheeled around towards the crate, upon which now sat a curvaceously plump woman with long curls of black hair and a tight black sweater and jeans. "And, Willow... it ran right by you!"

"Yeah," Willow said, stifling a yawn. "I was there. I saw."

"Well...?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, why didn't you do something?"

Willow just glared at her.

"So, um, how do we want to do this?" Lily asked Dandy. "I lift and you grab, I lift and you smash, I lift and... and... uh oh."

A moment after Lily's muted exclamation, there came two metallic clangs from inside the pail, and then an electric whine as the battered container lifted several inches clear of the ground. Lily yelped and gripped the edges of the bottom as the can began to rock back and forth. Initially unable to find purchase, her hands shifted slightly, the fingers becoming shorter and broader, the nails narrowing and lengthening into curving claws that easily punctured the metal.

"Hey, here's a thought!" Lily shouted as the thing spun around and bucked beneath like a mechanical bull. "Someone who weighs more than eighty-five pounds help me!"

"Well, don't look at me," Willow said. "I'm positively sleek."

"Just let go, Lily!" Dandy yelled. Lily did, at a particularly inopportune moment, her momentum catapulting her into the brickwork between the building's plate glass window and its front door.

"Oh... fiddlesticks," she said. She whirled around on the sidewalk, getting up on her hands and knees. Her green eyes seemed to have grown in her skull, the pupils somewhat elongated from top to bottom. Her skin was tinged slightly orangish, and appeared to have changed texture as well. "Now it's on," she growled.

Almost as if in response to the challenge, the robot suddenly tore the crumpled can apart like it was tissue paper, letting the two halves fall to the pavement. Lily sprung at it, claws and teeth bared. The tiny machine raised its left arm and pointed it at her. There was a flash of light and a loud VOIP! sound, and Lily again found herself slammed into the wall.

With a fierce roar, Dandy charged at the machine's flank. It lifted its egg beater leg, which spun around like a chain gun firing a succession of projectiles from between its spokes. Dandy raised her forearm in a warding gesture and four metallic spikes bounced off an invisible shield, but her momentum had been broken. It whirled around and gave her a blast from the repulsor arm as well. Her defensive shield took the hit, though it rocked her back a foot and a half and she grunted with the effort. Her mane of hair seemed to recede into her head as short golden fur sprouted from her body.

The robot cocked its arm back and fired again, this time a sustained stream of blue force. Dandy raised both her arms, crossed at the wrists, and started wading in against it, making slow progress.

Lily saw her chance and darted in low, swiping at the tin toy with her claws. It hopped nimbly aside, keeping its force beam focused on Dandy even as it slashed Lily with its saw-hand. She turned as she skidded past it, swiping with her other paw but missing as it dodged again.

"Ow, you fucking fuck!" she cried as the pain from the buzzsaw registered. The wound wasn't deep, but it was bleeding badly. "No fair, this thing's like a ninja and a robot. There's got to be some rule against that."

Punctuating her observation, the thing flicked its right arm at her and threw the saw blade like a star. She flipped over backwards to avoid it, landing once again in a cat-like crouch.

"Ha ha, little fucker threw away its claws," she said, starting forward, eyes glittering with dark relish. She stopped short when the thing raised its arm and another saw blade popped out into place. "Oh, that is completely unfair."

"I have had... just about... enough of this," Dandy said, still struggling against the force beam.

"Okay, new plan," Lily said. "We'll hit it from two sides. On the count of three, I'm going to leap up and..."

Suddenly, the robot was obliterated, smashed to pieces by a large brick. Dandy stumbled and fell over forwards, barely catching herself with her hands before she ended up eating pavement. Both she and Lily looked over at Willow.

"Got bored," she said with a shrug.

"Good shot," Lily said. She relaxed and let her fur melt back into skin, giving her head a little shake as if to somehow unstick the fangs and cat eyes.

"And just where did that brick come from?" Dandy asked as she got to her feet and changed back. She was looking at a suspicious hole in the facing of the building.

"Found it," Willow said.

"So... what the heck is this thing?" Lily asked, holding up the robot's detached "head" segment with the hat still atop it. "I thought we were chasing a leprechaun or something."

"It looks like one of those Portalien drones," Dandy said. "Maybe it somehow came across the legend of leprechauns and decided to use the hat and shirt as some sort of camouflage. Regardless, I guess that solves the mystery of the little people."

"Dude... don't say things like that!" Lily said, dropping the head as if it had bit her.

"What, 'little people'?"

"No, like, 'Durr, I guess that solves the mystery of...'" Lily said, affecting a deeper voice in mockery of Dandy. "We get enough 'Josie' comparisons as it is."

"Okay, before you start ragging on our band name again, remember that it was based on your suggestion," Dandy said.

"I said, 'Something cool, like Le Tiger,'" Lily said. "How'd we go from Kathleen Hanna to Hanna-Barbera?"

"I didn't hear you coming up with any better names," Dandy said.

"You didn't hear me saying Sparkling Muscatel?"

"That is not a band name!"

"It's better than The Hex Kittens!"

"Well, if you don't like it..." Dandy began, only to be interrupted by her watch beeping. She looked down at it. "Uh-oh."

"Time for pie?" Willow asked hopefully.

"Time for concert," Dandy said. "We should have just enough time to get back to the hall before the warm-up band finishes."

"A Million Screaming Jesuses... see, now there's a band name," Lily said.