~Sym-Bionic Shorts~

Short No: 10
Prompt: Unite
Characters: Solomon, Steel
Words: 837

The general had stayed within the confidents of his compound for the past week, unable to face the world with yet another failure: The Hammer. His robot, along with his reputation had been torn to shreds, leaving those damn aliens to wander freely on earth once more. Not to mention how smug Solomon and G3 must feel.

He slammed his fists onto his carbon steel desk, causing some pens and assorted sizes of paper to fly off. Sighing, he cupped his forehead in his gnarled hands, until he spotted something in one of his draws, knocked open by the bang. A picture, fading with age, lay crumpled in the bottom, amidst other miscellaneous artefacts. He dusted off the surface, revealing a younger him, looking through a telescope with a snowy-haired youth.

"Julius!" Hey! Julius" The snowy-headed youth came bounding over to his best friend, his face filled with excitement. "Guess what Julius? Mom just told me that there's gonna be a lunar eclipse tonight! Wanna come round so we can look at it through my telescope?"

"Sure!" the boy grinned. "It's gonna be awesome-"

Steel was startled from his flashback by his intercom beeping. He pressed the button. "What is it?" he blasted out.

"Umm, General, G3 is on line one for you." Answered his receptionist, with her cool crisp voice.

"Tell 'em to beat it!" shouted Steel, then paused. "No wait…. Put 'em on…." He mumbled.

A monotone beep was followed by the voice of Solomon himself. "Whadda ya want Solomon?" growled the General.

"Look Steel, I understand you must feel slight…. Anger towards me and g3 right now…"

Steel answered with a "pfft."

"But face facts: if we didn't come along, you know your robot would have destroyed half the city trying to fight those aliens, before being destroyed yourself. We saved your life out there."

"But why? You should have just left me there to die! One less problem to deal with at your end…."

"Steel! Listen…. I know you were once a great friend. We were… great friends…

"Wow, cool!" cried the boys, as they watched the sun disappearing behind the moon. The larger of the two snuck a glance at his friend.

"Hey… Solomon? Let's make a promise…"

"Okay. What promise?"

"Let's promise to never break friends… and to go to the moon!"

"The moon? Like, the moon in the sky?"

"Yeah! Someday, we're gonna go there!

"Awesome! Great idea!"

"We can fight aliens!"

"Or study moon rock!"

"And make a giant fortress on it!"

"Or we could preserve the wildlife…"

"Not unless I kill it all first!"

The two boys tackled each other to the floor, mock-fighting and laughing.

"But then… I'm not quite sure, but we changed…."

"We changed? You mean YOU changed! You and your money, and your fancy awards….."

"And this year's award for excellence in science goes to…" Julius' eyes were as big as flying saucers, as he stared at his mini rocket, built form scratch. It was sure to win! It was-

"Wait!" cried out a voice. A snowy-headed teen strided through the door, holding nothing but a remote. "I haven't shown my project yet!" Steel snickered under is breath at the sight of a mere remote.

"Very well Solomon, show us what you've created." The head nodded in Solomon's direction. He pressed the remote, and the room vibrated as the giant, metal doors of the auditorium screeched open to reveal…

"Are you really still annoyed with that one science competition? How was I supposed to know that we would both build rockets? Besides, we both know I won that fair and square."

"You only own cuz you had enough money to build a life-sized rocket" muttered Steel. "And that wasn't the only time you've taken something from me…"

And now, to present the science scholar's award for excellence in astronomy. The reward is $2,000, and a once in a lifetime trip to the moon. This year's award goes to….

"The Scholar's award? They allowed me to take a plus one. I offered for you to come to the moon with me! You said you weren't interested!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE I WAS JEALOUS!" let out the General in one, huge breath. He huffed in the silence. "You always had all the money. You won every competition. You were always that bit smarter than me. You were smug in all your success, all your glory, that you forgot about me! You were funded for starting up that damned G3, while I went to boot camp. You spent every evening in luxury while I suffered long, cold nights in the trenches! And even now, when I build the most magnificent robot anyone has ever seen, you come along and squash my hopes! Dammit Solomon, you're nothing but a fake who bought his way to fame!"

There was a long pause, filled with only Steel's heavy beathing. Finally…

"I'm sorry." Replied Solomon, before hanging up, leaving the General to sit in his small, metal box of an office, wallowing in his own failure.

I am uber ubeeeer sorry about the long wait for this, guys D: I've had dozens' of exams to revise for/life/work/holidays/etc, so I've literally had like no time :/ But I'm hoping to start this up again, and reach my 100 goal :D So I'm officially a tenth of the way there xD Only 90 more to go :L
This one was actually quite difficult to write. I feel like the characters are a bit OOC, but meh, I couldn't be assed to change it :P Basically, since Steel and Solomon's rivalry, I've always kinda wondered if they were once friends. I mena, they seem to know each other quite well, and yet hate each other, mainly from Steel's POV. So yeah, I thought I should make up a little backstory to them ;) So yeah... I hope you guys like it, and I'll try to write more ASAP :D