Chapter One: It Had Been a Bad Day
Summary: Here we see exactly what drove Chiro to the ends of the city, a peek at what he saw and felt, and hopefully I'm not screwing up anything too terribly. Enjoy!
Chiro sighed, looking out the window longingly, unable to wait for the bell to ring.
After a day like this, yes, two minutes was too long.
He had only come to Shuggazoom a couple of days ago. It seemed to be a nice city with fairly nice people. His foster parents, unfortunately, weren't a pair of those nice people. Off the bat, they seemed to want to ignore his existence, but that was okay. It wasn't the first time Chiro didn't fit in.
Being a misfit continued with today, his first day at Shuggazoom Middle School. The school bullies had already bothered him, destroyed his math book, and made fun of his doodles of monkeys. Everyone seemed to want to steer clear of him.
It was among the many things Chiro didn't understand. Despite this treatment, he had carried on with a smile on his face. His parents had always encouraged him to smile, to show confidence, and to follow his heart. It was lessons like these that kept that smile, albeit not as sincere as it used to be, on his face.
Chiro sighed again, but a small smile crept onto his face. He had made plans to explore the city that afternoon, and Chiro did love an adventure.
The bell rang. Chiro was out of his seat and out the door before the teacher could fully explain their next assignment. Chiro knew it was reading, whatever the rest of the assignment was didn't matter to him today.
Chiro took a deep breath as he stood outside. The weather was nice, only a few clouds graced the blue sky, and Chiro had at least three hours to explore, what was to him, the unknown. He knew he had to be home by the time the sun set.
With a bounce in his step and a more genuine smile, the young teen took off into the city. He had decided to head towards the east end today.
The streets became more deserted. The buildings began to look a little more
run-down as he headed into the part of the city that seemed to be forgotten. He wandered further in, marveling at how there seemed to be no more than a little plant overgrowth to show how long this neighborhood had been abandoned. Surprisingly, it wasn't filled with homeless people, gangs, or general troublemakers. It was just empty.
"This is a little creepy," Chiro said out loud to no one. "But it's still cool. Maybe I could hang out here after school every day,"
He looked down absently and found a can lying in the grass. For fun, he kicked it a few times, leaving his new path to the fate of where the can fell.
It had taken a sideways course when Chiro looked up, suddenly feeling the chill of a shadow. At first, he supposed maybe a cloud passed over the sun. His eyes widened when he found he was in the shadow of a very tall, gray, boxy-looking robot.
"Whoa," he breathed reverently. "That is so cool."
Different thoughts began turning in his head along with his already active imagination.
What was a robot doing in an abandoned part of the city? Was it meant to be a statue? Was it a monument to something that happened in the past?
Deeply intrigued, Chiro wandered around the boxy feet, looking for a plaque, an inscription, anything that would give an answer to this odd riddle.
"Hello? What's this?" Chiro wondered at a set of buttons on the side of one foot. They had weird lettering that somehow looked familiar. "Maybe a race of aliens?"
Shrugging, he decided to give cracking the robot open a try. His fingers moved, almost of their own accord, as a code was punched in and it worked. Chiro jumped back as a door opened up.
"Yikes. Uhm, beginners luck?" he said to himself with a shrug.
However, now there was a new problem.
"Do I continue on this possibly perilous quest? Or do I turn around and run away?" He wondered, knowing he was being dramatic in his choice of words.
He stared into the open doorway. There really didn't seem to be anything inside. There apparently weren't any buttons, other doors, or tunnels that lead anywhere. Perhaps it was just a simple empty space with a door.
Chiro suddenly felt a chill from inside his body. Somehow, he could tell something was in there, and he couldn't just walk away.
Feeling a little numb, he walked inside, and didn't mind the door slamming behind him.
"O-okay, now what?" he stammered slightly.
The platform below him moved up, and a bright light blinded him. Chiro shut his eyes tight and bent his knees to keep from falling as he traveled up through what he guessed was the robot's leg.
When the moving stopped, Chiro tried opening his eyes. The bright light didn't go away, but after a second it didn't matter because something had sucked him up from the platform. He screamed, scared of the unknown, then suddenly he was sent sprawling onto a cold metal floor.
"Uhg," he groaned. "That sucked. Literally,"
Chiro looked up, and found the breath taken away from him.
The sight before him seemed very unreal. There were five tall tubes that went form the floor to the ceiling, and inside were five robots. Each has a different color. There was a black one, yellow, pink (or red?), green, and blue.
"Is this something out of Power Rangers or what?" Chiro muttered to himself.
He went closer to the tubes to get a better look at these robots. They certainly weren't very big. Chiro had to be taller than them.
As he came closer, he noticed they all had tails. It made more sense when he saw that the robots looked like monkeys.
"Monkey robots?" Chiro murmured. "This is really messed-"
He was cut short by a strange sound. He could hear it, yet there wasn't any sound in the room. It was in his head. It sounded like a deep voice, the kind that television shows and movies put to prophetic or spiritual characters.
There were no words. Instead, there were sounds, emotions, thoughts, it all flowed though his head and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it.
He moaned slightly, this sudden assault on his head was beginning to hurt. But how was he going to stop it? There didn't seem to be a way out, and he felt that if he moved too much he was going to be sick.
Chiro stumbled to the control panel and looked it over. Whatever was in his head was somehow giving him directions on what to do. He started pushing buttons and pulling levers, doing his best to keep whatever it was in his head under control.
Suddenly, lights started flashing. An alarm went off and the room turned red.
"Oh no, what have I done?" He exclaimed, suddenly coming back to himself. "I can't even program an mp3 player, why am I trying to resurrect a bunch of robots?"
He looked over the control panels; he had no idea which button meant what now, whatever force that had been guiding him was overridden by his own emotions. He looked at the robots still in their tubes, electricity crackled around them.
"They'll short circuit!" Chiro cried out in a panic, suddenly feeling very protective of these strange creatures.
He ran over to them and without thinking, reached for the black monkey. The electricity crackled around him, his body went numb, and he felt the surge of energy rush through his body. Chiro cried out in pain, and then he heard another screeching cry joining his.
Chiro was thrown backwards onto the floor. His sight was fading, but he could swear the black monkey came down from his suspended position in the tube; its yellow eyes gleamed at him with an unknown expression.
Then Chiro's world went black.
Author's Notes
So, yeah…had to put a mention to Power Rangers in there, it just had to be done.
Sprx-77…Red vs. Pink…see, I don't care what anyone says. If they intended him to be red, then paint the monkey red, not pink. Although I have seen this one episode where it looks like he's a darker pink, close to red, but it's still classified as pink. You really want to flame me on this? It's your time, not mine. It won't change my mind.
So, I hope I haven't invoked the wrath of the SRMTHFG fandom, I'll post more soon enough I'm sure.
