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Later in the evening, the sun had already left, and the three figures approached the school grounds. After taking a turn to the back, the tubby cat motioned the other two to wait. The expert stealth that they were employing made Chester turn to Fotia, who stood still like a statue.
Tom tip-toed, very carefully, until he was close enough to knock on the door. He made a specific pattern of sounds, which Chester picked up as “high to low to high to low to high”. Soon enough, the door went open ajar, revealing a beak of a tired, and friendly looking woodpecker. Chester recognized his workshop teacher, who was the brother of Mr. Woodman he worked for during summer.
“Good to see you Tom, come inside,” he led the trio in. He sounded very tired based on his voice alone.
The workshop was the same as it always been, with a metallic smell and loud echo. There were fewer lights this time, but the place was still brightly lit. The biggest light came from a table, drawing attention to a medium sized machine, made of mostly wheels, skeleton, and walls for its sides. This was Tom’s battlebot, clear for all to see. Beside it stood three kids,  each one distinctively geeky, as Chester saw. One was a lanky goose with large glasses, and a pronounced upper beak. His wings were folded, looking impatient. Next to him was poodle with large hair covering his eyes, slouching very low on his chair. Last was a piggy, a girl, with pigtails, freckles and braces.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” Tom greeted the others. No one answered him with anything, but silence.
“Erm, Tom, you were late today!” The goose was first to speak up. Through his nose, no less.
“Sorry, I needed to get some materials. Guess what I found for our bot!”
“This is an emergenthy, Thom!” Piggy girl pleadingly sputtered through her braces. “The fronth wheels has sthopped responding do the remothe again!”
“What!” Tom dashed to the table. The first thing he did was check the open back of the remote. “You oiled the axles right? Oh geez, and I got the new parts yesterday!”
The poodle boy with long hair made an odd, nasally growling sound. Chester shook in place when he heard it. He did not expected this at all, something sounding like in the middle of cleaning his throat, while doing a zombie wail.
“Puh-lease, the batteries don’t run out just like that, Napoleon!” Tom shot back to the poodle. The dog made another noise, managing to mumble a small “zuh” sound. “Maybe you should pull more weight and actually help out with installing the fan.”
The dog scoffed via snort.
“I would implore you to focus more on mending our little device back to working order, Tom, as   otherwise we can kiss entering the championship goodbye!” The goose said, hovering right above. He looked up at Chester, and then at Fotia, who was busy inspecting a drill. “And who are these two outsiders, if you would kindly elucidate?”
Chester scratched his head. “You guys okay with smelling paint here all day?”
The goose threw his head back and gawked from outrage.
“Everyone, these are my friends!’ Tom quickly intervened. “They’re cool.”
“Oh really now!?” The goose scoffed again, while adjusting his uneven glasses. “I can’t believe it! You found two random ‘typicals’ and now you have new friends, huh?”
The pig girl elbowed his stomach. “Calm down, Matthew!”
“My name is Vector, thank you very much!”
“Ith’s noth easier tho pronounce for me.”
“That would be beside the preliminary point, m’lady.”
As the two continued to argue, Tom continued to work on his device, not paying attention to anything. Chester decided to check on Fotia, finding both Mattew and the pig girl a headache. He was met with a heart attack instead when he found the crow-boy holding a drill near his eye then turning it on. After yelling at him, quickly unplugging it, and putting it away, he said,
“DON’T. DO. ANYTHING.”
Fotia sat down on a nearby chair guiltily.
Suddenly, the adult woodpecker ruffled himself between them, “Excuse me, I need to-“ He stopped midway, and then exhaled loudly, scratching his forehead, which was so few of feathers. From Chester’s point of view, he looked glum. Adults tend to be like that when they are about to make some really awful decisions, even though they may hurt. The young boy picked up on that fast.
“You sir!” Fotia moved up to him. “Your place is filled with extraordinary set of tools! I do not remember any blacksmith having something like this!” Fotia quickly caught himself, as the older woodpecker scrunched his eyebrows. “I mean, you must be the best blacksmith dude, eh?”
Mr. Woodman took a moment to figure out what he said, whilst Chester soundlessly slapped his face with his hands. Baby steps, he thought, baby steps.
The former then went to move again, only to finally land his eye on Chester. “Oh, and here’s you…” he said.
“Hey, um, teach. How’s…mister Woodman? He’s okay?” Chester didn’t know why, but he couldn’t stop from fidgeting a bit. It’s not like he was at fault for what happened right? Maybe it was just awkward.
Mr. Woodman finally answered after a pause,“You mean my brother? Oh, he’s been well, shoulder is pretty good. I’ve talked to him about you, and he said he probably still gonna wait before having anyone else work for him, again.”
“Sorry about what happened.” Why are you saying this? Chester just couldn’t get of the lump in his throat. He wanted to just get this over with.
“Not your fault, I mean, it wasn’t as if you were the one who did it. I think.” Mr. Woodman sighed. “Anyways, just to ask you, you’re – friends – with Tom, correct?”
Chester nodded. “For a while.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Woodman was certainly curious, if a bit suspicious of him. Chester on the other hand just wanted to shrink and disappear. Why was this so hard? Why is he taking this as his fault? Of course it wasn’t, stop getting mad!
Both of them heard Tom’s voice reach them from beyond, “Did you guys remember to put in the new PSx-500 Ram processor?”
The goose snorted loudly, “Of course we did! None of us are born on a Monday, Thomas.”
“Well, some of us seem tho like tho act like ith, Matthews!” The piggy jabbed at him.
Tom began pushing the remote. After few more attempts, the wheels finally started working, both front and the back.
“Alright, then what we need is to attach the hammer, and we’re ready!”
“Are you sure about that?” The goose questioned him through his crooked glasses.  “You do understand what sorts of competition that our bot will be skirmishing with? Saws, claws, swords and even magnets…a shield and a hammer would be enough for us?”
Tom looked at the goose’s glasses. “Matt, I’ve been working on this since three months ago. I’ve taken into consideration every possibility and even improbability, all the while making sure the machine will work perfectly with the available resources that we have. With my plan in place, I shall make sure we win this, mark my words! We just need to get the arm ready and…” He suddenly stopped, as Mr. Woodman moved into his view.
“Sir?” Tom looked up to him, with some form of dread. There was some sort of sense of gloominess coming from him. “Is something wrong, Mr…”
“Unfortunately, I cannot hand you that hammer.” He cleared his throat, before continuing talking to stunned boy, “I was unable to get the permission. They seemed to be completely against using it for this, altogether.”
“But, but, but how are we supposed to battle without a weapon!? We can’t-”
“I’m…sorry,” Mr. Woodman cut him off. There was genuine sadness in his tone. He left the boy alone as the latter slumped on his seat. A moment of silence began, as the trio of geeks all looked to one another, both disappointed and sorry for the orange cat.
Chester approached him from behind.
“Well, can’t you get something else?” He asked.
“What else is there?” Tom mumbled, very defeatedly. “The only other material we had was saws, and we were prohibited from them. No, we can’t even use a hammer? It is so unfair!”
Chester watched as Tom buried his head into his hands. Everyone around could feel the frustration the boy was experiencing through, it was that strong. And truth be told, it was definitely unfair.
“Hey,” the goose spoke up, “Thomas look-“
“We could’ve gone to the city! I could’ve done something for Mom, something on my own,” he mumbled through his tears.
The piggy put her hand on his furry one. “Ith’s okay! We can thry ith nexth year!”
“Well, unless the whole thing moves away. Then it is just a waste of time,” the goose noted, to which the poodle agreed.
“One must not lose hope in the face of adversity!” Fotia suddenly exclaimed, getting attention of all the kids in there. “If one way is barred, look for another! You have the strength, young Tom, which could topple even the gods! Believe in yourself!”
There was a momentary pause before anyone spoke.
“I do not think your poetically literate friend understands exactly the trouble we are experiencing here, Thomas” said the goose. “There is no warehouse of tools nearby for us to take stuff from. Most of it can only be found in school, and what we have were the only things allowed.”
“So you need a weapon, but not from school, then?” Chester said, eyeing the weird mini-car on the table.
“If possible. But nothing illegal,” The goose replied. “Regardless, who would think a hammer would do. Beat someone to death? It’s nowhere near that powerful! We would’ve been crushed in the first round.”
“Oh shuth ith!” The piggy ribbed him.
Chester, ignoring another one of their spats, began thinking up a thought. One which might help them.
“Hey Tom, wanna go somewhere?”
Tom looked up, showing his still wet eyes.
“Where exactly?”
“A church.”
…