Future Mining: Part 1

**Future Mining** is an episode of Venturian Battle.

## Synopsis

Robert Jacob sees a guy walking through the streets of Flakerot. The man tells Robert that he owns a company, Future Mining, and that Robert can join. Robert gathers Terrence and Tyler, and the four become a team at Future Mining. The man reveals his name to be Duke, and that he has a vehicle for them to try out, the Stone Chopper. Duke demonstrates how the Chopper works, and finds a Rock Monster. Duke tells them that the stone creature is common and always homicidal. Once they eat a power crystal they get large surges of fury that they use to go kill people. Duke tells them the name of it, Melt-Stones, and uses a crystal on his bike to trap Melt-Stones. Duke tells them to have fun with the Future Mining technology, and continues excavating, sending rocks and Rock Monsters flying.

Terrence attempts to retrieve an energy crystal from the underground cavern. He finds the crystal, but spots a large energy crystal in the cavern as well. Terrence pulls out the crystal, which awakens a Boulder-Racks and he is chased through the cavern. As he escapes, the Boulder-Racks blocks the exit with a boulder. Terrence then wrestles the monster using the Miner Mech. Terrence uses the saw blade on the Boulder-Racks, which stuns it. Terrence grabs the Boulder-Racks with the claw and brings it back.

Duke introduces the smallest vehicle in the Future Mining fleet, the Granite Grinder. The Grinder's role is to drill rock. Duke turns on the headlight, which he says is used to trap Rock Monsters inside. He introduces the oxygen tanks, which power the vehicle, and that does are the most important parts. He also shows an ax stowed on one side, which can be used to decapitate Rock Monsters. As Duke is about to introduce the wagon attached with chains, he find a Glacier, which he casually sticks the ax into it's mouth and puts it in front of the headlight. Duke ends up finding one blue energy crystal, which he stores in the trailer, which is a dump truck dump truck bucket.

Robert gets in the Claw Digger and uses the claws to smash rocks. Sulfur-I attacks the Claw Digger in attempts to destroy it, but does not leave a scratch. Robert claws the Sulfur-I, stunning it. He then throws dynamite at it, which kills it. To make sure it died, Robert grabs a chainsaw and saws the top of it's head off. Robert continues smashing the stones and finds two sulfur power crystals. Robert puts them into the bucket up front, along with the Sulfur-I and his upper jaw.

Robert uses the Boulder Blaster to blast through tough rock walls. As he uses Acetone Peroxide to destroy big rocks, and uses bulldozer blades to sweep through the rubble, and finds a Rock Monster. The Glacier attempts to destroy the vehicle, but again, fails and ends up doing nothing. Robert launches sticks of dynamite at it, exploding the Rock Monster's upper jaw off. Robert finds two blue crystals; one in it's hand, and one in it's mouth. Robert collects both of them, and boards back onto the Boulder Blaster, which he launches the dynamite sticks to blast even more obstacles.

Duke and Tyler board the Storm Driller and tunnels through the underground world. Duke explains that the Storm Driller is the most important vehicle in the fleet as they drill through solid stone. After drilling through solid rock, they fall into a deep underground cavern. The cave is filled with hidden rock monster hives. A Fire-Rocks runs over to the Storm Driller, but gets crushed under the giant spiky wheels. The Fire-Rocks escapes from the huge spiked wheels, but gets it's soul sucked out by two headlights. Tyler throws a stick of dynamite, which blows up and allows them to continue drilling. Duke runs back and gets an orange energy crystal from the Fire-Rocks corpse. Duke runs back to the Storm Driller, and ends up grabbing the auto-rotating planetary drill, which Tyler mentions looks like a tremendous ice cream cone.

Meanwhile, Duke and Terrence are in the Crystal Sweeper, and are looking for more energy crystals and Rock Monsters. The Rock Monsters use a double-launching catapult to launch themselves onto the Sweeper. Terrence extends the drilling arm and drills the top of the Glacier's head off. The Melt-Rocks ends up getting rotated in the harvester and tossed into a bucket on the back of the Crystal Sweeper. Robert sweeps three red crystals, two orange crystals, and two blue crystals into the auto-rotating harvester, and the huge cargo of crystals is dropped into the rear-mounted bucket. However, more Rock Monsters attack the Sweeper, and all the Future Miners get in a war against the Rock Monsters. All of the vehicles are destroyed and the miners are killed except for Robert, Terrence, Tyler, and Duke. Robert suggests that they rebuild the vehicles into new ones by combining the wrecks of two to create one more powerful, more durable vehicle. Duke and Terrence make a Cave Cutter from the Stone Chopper and Mine Mech, Duke and Tyler make an Aero Shredder from the Granite Grinder and Storm Driller, Robert and Terrence make a Crystal Crawler from the Claw Digger and Crystal Sweeper, and Duke makes a Cargo Crusher from the unused parts of the Granite Grinder. The miners fight the Rock Monsters with the vehicles, and destroy the catapult, making it so that the Rock Monsters can no longer catapult themselves into the vehicles, and they kill all the remaining Rock Monsters. Duke finds out that some of the miners are still alive, and Robert suggests that they continue mining with their new vehicles and find more power crystals to use as energy sources for Flakerot's various technology in place of Scarlet Rock.

## Allusions

* Bane: The Storm Driller is based on the drill tank Bane uses in the comics.