Another addition to my little story, tell me what you think, this is almost done, but not yet, thanks for reading!
Entire crowds passed by Newton's stand, cheers of praise roared after his demonstrations, yet another grape fell from the creation and into his mouth. It was becoming like a show… Lance watched from his chair as the idiotic crowds came and passed, closely examining the machine, had they nothing better to do? Then again, he was the one stuck at such a pointless gathering.
Another roar of cheers arose as another performance finished, impressed Earthlings shouted out various compliments. The young soldier couldn't help but feel envy towards the robot. Lance had never received much of any appreciation after his father's death; of course he was given several military service awards throughout the years. But those were simply systematic rewards distributed by his commanding officers; it wasn't an actual 'good job, Lance', but more of a 'Thanks for your service, here's a metal, now get back to work'.
He wondered if this was what his father experienced when another scientist bested him, jealousy and envy. Slouching in his chair, he glared at the bulky robot teen, who was pointing out details on a diagram to his audience.
Feedback sounded through from the PA system, and the loudspeaker projected a man's voice, "ladies and gentlemen, we will be having a brief intermission as the judges discuss which projects will be entering the finals. If you are not a contestant in the competition, please move to the food court area where refreshments will be sold. Those of you who will be competing in the finals will be contacted at your stand. Thank you."
The majority of the crowd exited talkatively from the room, only one of two people stood by each stand, versus the earlier crowded environment of observers. Newton approached, "Lance, now that most of the people are gone, I am going to call Kimmy and make sure she is all right. Will you look after my-"
"Yeah, sure. Whatever." The robot exited the room to get a better reception, his communicators would have no problem sending a message, but Kimmy's less sophisticated Earth phone would have trouble from inside. Lance stared at the machine; he wondered if it was easy to maneuver, curiosity bested him. Taking hold of the remote control, he fired up the contraption and moved one of the joysticks.
The propellers buzzed as they lifted off the ground, adjusting the controls, Lance moved Octus's creation from side to side.
"Are you Newton Lunis?", a voice from behind asked. The noise nearly scared the soldier to death; he jolted forward, accidently hitting a lever on the controller. The hover craft sped forward and crashed into a wall.
"No, I'm watching his stand for him, he'll be right back." The man looked suspicious, "I'm Lance Lunis, I'm checked in."
"Alright then, say, is your project damaged?"
Lance picked it up off of the floor and examined it for cracks or scratches, "it's fine."
"Alright, well when Newton returns, please inform him his project has been accepted into the finals." lance nodded that he understood and the man walked away. Casually he activated the remote and ordered it to fly. Three of the four propellers started spinning, the last engine had gone dead, and the body simply spun in circles on the ground.
Panic surged through his chest, a heating sensation. He'd broken the blasted thing, and it was only moments away from the final judgment. Grabbing a screwdriver from a nearby stand, he opened up the dead propeller and looked inside. An assortment of scrambled wires scattered in various directions like the colorful lines in the art Ilana was very fond of.
Like a surgeon, he carefully moved them away to expose a small cracked rod. Rummaging through Octus' tool box he found a replacement part. Quickly; lance switched them out and closed up the machine.
Starting up the remote once again, his heart pounded as he waited to confirm he'd fixed the problem. Newton would be fine if he'd broken it, knowing him he wouldn't be mad. But Ilana on the other hand… she would be furious, also he wasn't sure he wanted to be responsible for the invention's failure, it was Newton after all, what had he done to deserve presenting a faulty project.
The remote was ready, Lance turned the propellers on. Anxiety overflowed, sweat trickled from his brow. It must have been getting warmer and his shirt tighter than before. Slowly his finger inched the joystick upwards.
At first there was no response, then the low hum of the rotors spinning. Waves of relief flooded over Lance as he saw the belly of the craft lift off the ground. After the quick confirmation he landed it back on the desk and sat down in his chair like nothing had happened.
. . .
Ilana and Kimmy had just finished up shopping; the girls had stopped at several clothing stores, Kimmy was Ilana's personal fashion guide. The blonde girl just didn't understand why she laughed at her whenever she asked if something has 'Hop' or not, she didn't think that the cloths were that bad…
After a long day, the two found a small restaurant in town. The sun had gone down and the street lights were on, the mall had just closed so food courts weren't an option. They had grabbed an outdoor table; Ilana gazed into the world around her, Kimmy was in the bathroom so she was by herself for the first time in a while.
Her eyes feasted upon the lights from the taller buildings. Cars hummed in the distance and conversations from the other customers at the restaurant morphed into a single roar like waves of an ocean. A cool breeze tickled her neck and flowed down her shirt.
The stars above twinkled and the single moon gleamed; the princess couldn't help but look for other moons like they had on Galaluna. Geaus, Areus, and Raeus were the three moons from her home world; it was odd the earthlings simply called their lonely moon, moon.
Skies looked empty in the absence of the other two, but it allowed more view of the stars, she still remembered when they were forced to abandon their explosive friend, Tashy 497 (Ilana still referred to him as Mushy) in space, their space travel was beautiful.
She still missed the little guy, maybe she'd ask Lance if they could get an Earth pet. He'd probably get mad and say it was a threat. It was amusing at first, him being so over protective, but now it was just annoying, he wouldn't let her do anything. It was his fault she didn't have any friends at school.
Deep in her thoughts, she stared down at the table. Sounds of laughter were heard, teenage laughs. Older families started yelling out things, look out, watch it, and other less friendly remarks. At first, she didn't pay attention, noises of plastic wheels gliding against the concrete came closer.
"I see you're alone with a table for two, mind if I sit with you?" she looked up, a tall, skinny brown haired boy about her age stood before her, in his hands was an old scraped up skateboard. He had a silver nose piercing and wore a black shirt and grey pants with a chain hanging from it. His baby blue eyes gazed into hers.
"Sorry, I'm uh, here with a friend." Ilana awkwardly replied. A slim girl in black skinny jeans and a matching leather jacket approached. She had long curly blonde hair underneath a grey hat pointed sideways. Several other matching teens followed.
"Babe, what are you doing with this loser?" she asked in a completely calm voice, her tone almost sounded like Lance's.
"Excuse me?" Ilana retaliated.
"Yeah, hitting on my boyfriend? I don't think so."
"I was doing no such thing."
"Don't play dumb." the girl put her hand on the table.
"Why? It is clearly an activity you're good at." Ilana stuck up her chin, proud of her witty comeback. Several ooh's emerged from the crowd.
"You gunna take that, Maria?" a blonde skater boy asked. Maria glared at Ilana.
"Think you're pretty cool eh? Well let me tell you something, doofus. First step to being at least normal is getting rid of that ridiculous hair do." She pointed at Ilana's curl in the back. "you look like a troll doll, heck, guy's this is alphalpha times ten."
Tears started building up in Ilana's eyes, "I'll have you know this is a very traditional-"
"Traditional? Look, if we all dressed traditionally, Scott here would be in a man skirt with some bagpipes." She pointed to a boy wearing a beany. The blonde bit her lip. Maria grinned and leaned closer. "Step two to being normal, don't be you."
A single tear escaped, and ran down her cheek, Ilana wanted to say something, but only a quiet whimper came out. She moved her eyes away, looking at Maria was like looking straight at the shaman they'd encountered that controlled their fear.
"What is this? No crying here! I thought this was a restaurant, not a memorial service. Cry baby need to go home to daddy?" That was the last straw, Ilana looked Maria in the eyes, tears still pouring out, the leather jacketed girl put on a smirk, "doofus"
Ilana burst out bawling and ran into the restaurant, she passed Kimmy and went straight to the bathroom. Locking herself in a stall, she sobbed for a while, Ilana didn't know what a troll doll was, but she remembered her father telling her about trolls and bridges… and her father, no one was allowed to talk about her dad. If she could go home to him she would.
After a few minutes of collecting herself, she opened the stall and stood in front of the nearest mirror. Was her hair the reason people didn't like her? Maybe it wasn't Lance being over protective; after all, people still didn't like her even when he wasn't around. She wished her big, strong soldier had been there, he could beat them up for her.
Wetting her hands in the sink, she soaked the back of her head in the cold water until it stayed down. For Earth standards she looked completely normal now, she stayed in the bathroom for a while longer, not really wanted the skater punks to see she'd adjusted her hair because of them.
There was a knock on the door, "go away." It must have been Maria.
"Ilana, it's me, Kimmy. Please let me in." her voice was soft and gentle, like Ilana's mother back on Galaluna, she had passed when the girl was very young.
The door slowly creaked open. Kimmy entered the first thing she noticed was Ilana's downed hair. "Oh man", Kimmy said in a sympathetic voice as she started to cry again. After some time of comforting, Ilana got her voice to talk again.
"Kimmy, do you think I'm weird?"
"…yes, but totally in a good way" her cherry red libs formed a comforting smile. "and you shouldn't listen to them, I heard some of what they said, and honestly I think their wrong."
"Why do you say that?" she asked as she scooted next to her, both sitting on the bathroom floor.
"Because…" Kimmy moved in front of her, and put her hand behind Ilana's head. "I think you're a pretty awesome little weirdo." Kimmy moved her hand up and pushed her downed hair back to like it was before. They both exchanged smiles.
The bathroom door opened and a lady in a light green shirt and tan pants walked in holding the hand of a little girl no older than six or so. The two girls were still sitting on the bathroom floor, and Kimmy had her hand extended behind Ilana's head, the woman stared for a moment and crept back out.
Not noticing, Kimmy pulled back her hand and they stood up, walked outside, collected their bags and left, "where did the skaters go?" Ilana asked puzzled.
"Oh, I convinced that girl to move along, being a cheerleader, I'm very persuasive." In the corner of her eye, Ilana could have sworn she saw Maria tied to a 'no parking sign' by her hair, but they were walking too quickly to see for sure.
So, what'd you think? Eh? please comment, it means a lot. anyways, I look forward to expanding this story more, maybe i'll do more stories of events in between episodes, because i feel like the show was alittle rushed, considering the awesome amazing program was only ordered for 30 episodes, but then cut to only 20, *cough Cartoon Network* if they had like 200 episodes like generator rex and ben 10 i think we'd see a lot of side stories and more character development scenes, and i don't know, a finished outcome? *cough cough* Anyways thanks for reading, this story still probably has more to come.