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The cool evening air of Crossroads greeted Medkit as he stepped off the bus. It was a rather long day for him, having been scheduled for several phights throughout the day and being utterly exhausted after constantly running around and tending to the wounds of his teammates. Thankfully, his apartment wasn’t far from the station where he was dropped off. After verifying nobody had stolen his belongings on the ride (Who knows whether Shuriken had followed him to mess with him again or not), he began trudging back to his apartment, shivering just a little. Hopefully Sword hadn’t made a mess of the place.
Sword frantically tried extinguishing the flames raging through the kitchen. He was relaying water from the bathroom to the kitchen in a small pot, since the kitchen sink and most of the larger pots and containers were blocked by the fire. The edges of his cape had already been singed since he hadn’t bothered to take it off before becoming a part-time firephighter, which he was starting to regret.
"Med’s gonna kill me when he gets back…” he muttered, throwing more water at the fire and flinching backwards as a flame licked at his arm.
Sword had never been particularly good at cooking, anyone who’s been around him while he attempted it can attest to that, but he at least wanted to try again to surprise Medkit. Sword knew he likely wouldn’t have the energy to make anything for himself once he returned home, so he wanted to try making him something. He didn’t actually have any idea of what to make, so he had spent a few minutes looking up fancy dishes to see what he could even make in the first place with what they had at the apartment while potentially impressing his friend.
Clearly he had chosen the wrong dish, since he left for not even 3 minutes and the whole kitchen had gone up in flames. Sword knew he was fighting a losing battle, so all he could do was call someone for help. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and frantically searched his mind for anyone who could possibly help him out. As the flames seemed only to grow in size, he could only think of one person that even had the means to help, so as he continued throwing water onto the fire he pressed the call button.
Slingshot was closing up the café for the night when he heard his phone ring. After briefly glancing at the caller ID and seeing it was Sword, he put down his cleaning rag to answer.
“Hey Sword! What’s-”
“SLING!” Sword interrupted, “ I really need your help, do you still have that one Biograft at your café?”
“Oh, Cocoa? Yeah, he’s charging up for the night. Why do you ask?”
“This is gonna sound really weird, but I need it to get over to my apartment as soon as possible. It’s urgent!”
“Uh…”
Slingshot was, admittedly, a little confused by this. Cocoa was popular with his customers, sure, but this was certainly the first time someone wanted him to come to their home. Well, anyone he was close with, anyway. Plenty of customers had attempted to solicit Cocoa for an evening, some even offering to buy him from the café owner outright. Were Sword and Rocket having some sort of sleepover together and wanting some cozy beverages to accompany them? But then why would it be such an urgent matter? And why would he specifically need Cocoa there instead of making some pre-packaged hot chocolate? And-
“Sling! Are you still there?” The sound of Sword’s voice interrupted his train of thought. He detected a slight hint of panic in his tone of voice, which by itself dismantled the whole sleepover hypothesis. Clearly he’ll have to ask about it later after everything is said and done.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. I can send him over right now, just make sure to get him back safely, alright? I don’t need any superfans dragging him away to some shady corner of Playground.”
“Oh man, thank you so much, Sling! I promise I’ll do anything to make it up to you, just please hurry!” And with that, Sword had hung up.
Slingshot, not wanting to waste any time if this was as urgent as Sword seemed to make the situation out to be, jogged to the café’s storage room. As he expected, he spotted Cocoa sitting against the wall, its cord plugged into a socket to charge for the night. Cocoa’s lights flickered on as Slingshot entered the room.
Biografts never truly shut off unless it was manually done by someone, most of the time opting for a low-power mode whenever they’re resting or otherwise not doing anything. Although Cocoa had no real need to stay alert at all times due to its situation, it was still produced with all of the other Biografts and as such had the same habits and tendencies.
That being said, Slingshot was able to get Subspace to modify it into a fairly unique model (At the price of free coffee for a year, which Slingshot reckoned to be a fair trade). Most of its non-essential components were removed in favor of a large hot chocolate storage unit in its chest, which Cocoa would be able to dispense for customers. It retained its weapons, although there was never much reason to use them outside of vague threats towards unruly customers. What Sword needed with it was beyond Slingshot.
“Hey Cocoa, got enough charge for a small trip?” He asked the bot.
“AFFIRMATIVE. I HAVE APPROXIMATELY THREE HOURS AND TWENTY THREE MINUTES OF BATTERY CHARGE.” It replied.
“Great, that should hopefully be enough. Um… do you know where Sword lives? He apparently needs you for something urgent, but I don’t know what.”
“AFFIRMATIVE. YOU UPLOADED A LIST OF ADDRESSES FOR DELIVERY SERVICES.”
“Great, can you get over there as fast as possible please?”
Cocoa wordlessly nodded before unplugging itself from the wall and dashing out the back door. Slingshot had no doubt that Cocoa would get there fairly fast, as part of the modifications he requested also allowed for increased speed for deliveries, but he just wished he knew how to actually repay Cocoa for all of its hard work. Would a robot like, or even appreciate, a vacation? He thought about it as he picked the rag back up to clean off more tables before leaving for the night.
In the minutes after finishing the call, Sword had been tirelessly working on controlling the fire as much as possible. As he continued relaying water, he cursed his apartment’s landlord for not installing sprinklers in the apartment. He had opened as many windows as possible to let out the smoke building up inside, but he couldn’t help but cough and hack as it made its way into his lungs anyways.
Just as he was beginning to lose steam, a rhythmic knock knock knock sounded through the front door.
“SWORD, IT IS COCOAGRAFT. YOU REQUESTED MY PRESENCE?”
“Please, yes! Come in, the door is unlocked!” Sword yelled.
The door swung open as Cocoagraft stepped inside, seemingly unbothered by what was going on. “WHAT DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE WITH?” it asked.
“Please for the love of SFOTH can you dispense some of that hot chocolate on this fire!? Preferably before it spreads any further!” Sword responded, gesturing towards the open flame that had begun spreading past the kitchen.
“AFFIRMATIVE. PLEASE STAND BACK.”
As Cocoa lifted its arms, its hands transformed into nozzles that were normally used to dispense hot chocolate at reasonable rates. This, however, was no time to be reasonable, and as such a large surge of hot chocolate began firing out from Cocoa. The flames hissed as the beverage smothered them, slowly dissipating until all that remained was a burnt kitchen dripping with hot chocolate.
Sword collapsed onto a nearby chair, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his glove. He didn’t know how long he was at this for, but he knew he was exhausted. Cocoa’s hands transformed back to normal before facing Sword.
“WAS YOUR DELIVERY EXPERIENCE SATISFACTORY? YES OR NO.”
“Yes, it was. Thank you, and let Sling know I appreciate it.”
“AFFIRMATIVE. HAVE A PLEASANT EVENING, SWORD.”
As Cocoa turned to leave, both it and Sword looked to the doorway to see Medkit staring at them slack-jawed.
“What the PH**K happened!?” Medkit exclaimed, reeling from shock at the site in front of him. The kitchen was charred black, dripping in hot chocolate, and there was a Biograft unit standing in his apartment.
“HELLO, MEDKIT. YOUR KITCHEN HAS BEEN EXTINGUISHED.” Cocoa strolled out of the apartment as casually as it arrived and began making its way back to the café, while Medkit could do nothing but stare in horror at the state of the apartment.
“Hey, Med! Uh… welcome home?” Sword said, smiling sheepishly.
Medkit slowly walked into the apartment, staring at the mess of what was once a perfectly functional kitchen. How in the world did this happen?
“Sword. Tell me what in Inpherno happened here.” Medkit demanded, barely managing to keep it together.
“Well, uh… I knew you had a long day today and thought you would appreciate having something made for you when you got back? I don’t… I’m not sure how this happened, to be totally honest with you. Let me see if I can at least salvage what I made for you…”
Sword made his way up from the chair and over to the kitchen, feeling the handle of the oven with the back of his hand before opening it, grabbing and putting on a remarkably intact oven mitt over his glove, and reaching in. Medkit watched as Sword produced, by some miracle of SFOTH itself, a perfectly baked crème brûlée.
“Is that...?” Medkit asked, staring at the dish in front of Sword.
“Y… yeah, it is, it still needs to cool, but-”
“Sword.”
“-I didn’t know what else to make you with what all we had in here, I wanted to make something to impress you so I used up the rest of the milk and eggs we had to-”
“SWORD.” Medkit repeated, a bit more forcefully. Sword stopped talking and looked at Medkit, a bit of worry starting to creep onto his expression. “Yeah, Med?”
“Sword, I’m lactose intolerant.”