MSMF Prompt #3: Coffee
Antauri was waiting, in his customary floating position in the Command Center, when his brothers returned from their excursion to the small blueish world they had just saved from the Dark One Worm.
"So, did you enjoy yourselves?" he asked.
"Sure did, we got some great stuff!" Sparx said cheerfully. "You should have come!"
"Sparx, you know perfectly well that Antauri did not join us because the three of us were conspicuous enough, he would have been even more so!" Gibson admonished, carefully hiding a few select packages.
"We got food and movies and lots of cool stuff!" Otto declared.
"Here, I got you this yoga stuff, looked like your kind of thing," Sparx said, handing over a parcel.
Antauri peered at the yoga mat and accompanying DVD. "How am I to view this video disc?" he asked.
"I've got the player," Otto said. "And I got COFFEEEE!!!!"
"What is coffee?" Nova asked, walking in. "And what's for me?"
Sparx pulled out a large box. "Here, don't say I never got you anything."
Nova looked at the box. "An inflatable punching bag? I thought I already had one of those...you!"
Sparx backed away. "Hey, hey, I got you a gift and you still want to beat me up?"
Nova smiled. "No, I just like scaring you." She skipped off with her punching bag.
Chiro finally brought up the rear, hauling several more bags. "A little help here?"
Antauri's hand became a purple ghost claw and the myriad parcels floated from Chiro's hands and landed in the middle of the room by all of the other packages. "You were busy down there," Antauri said.
"This planet is really fun!" Otto said. He dug through the bags and ran off with a small box.
"Where's Otto going?" Chiro asked.
"I don't know, what did he have in his hands?" Gibson pondered.
"Didn't see, looked like a red box," Sparx said. "What did we get that's in a red box?"
"I forget," Gibson admitted. "But I have a feeling it's something he shouldn't be using unsupervised."
"Thank you for volunteering Gibson," Antauri said. "We will handle putting the rest of these objects away."
Gibson grumbled softly but didn't argue as he headed after Otto, a small package cradled in his arm.
Before he got very far, Otto bounded back in the room, a glass full of brown liquid in his hands. "COFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEE!!!!!"
"Too late brainstrain!" Sparx teased. "What is that stuff?"
"I believe that was the caffinated beverage coffee that we picked up. Apparently caffeine is something Otto should not have," Gibson said.
"You think?" Chiro said. "How are we going to calm him down?"
Otto was running in speedy circles around the room. Antauri closed his eyes. A moment later, Otto was running in place a foot above the floor. The green monkey didn't notice, however, just took a sip of his coffee and kept running.
"Otto, will you stop running already!" Gibson cried.
"Huh? Why?" Otto went to drink more coffee but discovered the glass had been floated out of his grasp. "Hey!"
"I am sorry Otto, you've had too much already," Antauri said.
Otto pouted. "But it's so good!"
Gibson shook his head and snuck off to the next room to hide the coffee supply while Antauri ordered Otto to Gibson's lab.
After Otto had left, Chiro smiled awkwardly at Antauri and quickly gathered up a handful of items from their haul and hurried off to his room. Sparx laughed, but he too grabbed a few items and scurried off. Antauri shook his head and moved to the Robot's controls to set course for Shuggazoom, muttering to himself, "That's the last time I let them visit a planet unsupervised."
THE END
