Atomic Galaxy
Planet 102: Your Lucky Color is Red
It's time to decide what color the students will wear during graduation. Such a small detail could keep the Earth safe or get it blown up.
"Blue," Betty declared her color of choice. She had been asked by Noah which color she preferred and that was her choice. A choice that she thought at the time would not change. The high school students were about to graduate and for the events they would wear the classic graduation robes. Those days, only colleges used the classic black and schools almost always used other colors. If the winning color was going to be blue or red, it was yet to be decided.
Noah nodded his agreement. "Yes, I think that's the best choice."
"Right, blue should win." Betty had her own reasons to say that. In a way their costumes looked similar to Maximus IQ's clothes and red would make them too much alike. Little did Betty know that by stating her opinion aloud she had doomed the color blue to lose.
"Red!" Penelope shouted as she awaked by. She had heard Betty say blue. "Red will be the color that wins."
Sarah and Megan looked at each other slightly confused. "Didn't you say you wanted blue to win before?"
"I did not say such a thing!" Penelope insisted.
Betty immediately realized what was going on. Penelope was always trying to do the opposite of what she wanted. But this time she wouldn't get her way. The color would be decided by everyone's votes not just hers.
xoxox xox xoxox
By the next day, word on the hall was that red would win. The possibilities had shifted overnight. It was Penelope's doing, she was using her popularity to get her way. "Did you hear what everyone is saying? They said red would win. Just yesterday it looked like blue was going to win." Noah arrived at their usual lunch table.
Paloma was there too. "I have a feeling this turn of events may be a good thing."
"You think so?" Noah asked.
"Yes... Oh, never mind maybe it's nothing. Wouldn't it be great if Penelope lost?" Paloma continued.
"I hope she loses. Why did it have to be red? They might as well throw in a pair of cat ears while they're at it," Betty grumbled.
Paloma, who understood the joke, laughed, but Noah looked confused. Paloma obviously found it funny, but he could not find the humorous relation between cats and the color red. He couldn't exactly call it a Betty thing if Paloma also understood. Maybe it was just a girl thing. "I've heard Penelope was going to vote blue, and all her fans along with her, but she changed her mind because she heard you wanted to vote blue too," Paloma revealed.
"Yeah, it's true, that's pretty much how it happened," Betty got an idea. "Maybe I can use this against her." A plan was put in motion. Betty made sure to let everyone know how much she loved the idea of the red graduation robes because they matched her hair. This reached Penelope's ears and so another drastic change was made in the color possibilities. The next day the students would vote after school and the results would be counted and reveled the following day's afternoon.
xoxox xox xoxox
Even if the votes were secret, everyone knew what everyone voted for. The answer was just a question away and sometimes people said it without even being asked. Their graduation clothes color was the main topic of discussion everywhere on voting day. Satisfied that it looked like blue would win, Betty, Noah and Paloma walked home laughing, joking and discussing their plans after they finished high school. Little did they know that the Earth was doomed.
First they arrived at Noah's house. Then Betty and Paloma continued walking on their way to their respective houses. Everything was fine until Paloma stopped. Holding her head with her eyes tightly closed. "Paloma!" Betty wondered what could possibly be wrong. Paloma was perfectly fine just a second ago. "We're already in front of my house, come rest inside."
Paloma nodded trying to get the images out of her head. Once inside she sat down on the couch. "That vision..."
"Rest a little, then you can tell me about it. I'll go get you some water." Betty soon returned with a cool glass of water, which Paloma drank.
Taking a deep breath, Paloma reveled her vision to Betty. "I couldn't see it clearly, but I know it's bad. I sense death and destruction upon the Earth. There was a red dot in a blue background. Then there was a voice yelling something about an enemy. After that, came an explosion, then total silence. The Earth had been destroyed, it blew up and we all died."
Betty knew the situation was serious. Paloma's ability to predict the future had improved greatly over the years. Her predictions still needed to be interpreted. "How can we stop this from happening?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I will figure it out." Paloma had to find out what to do. She wouldn't accept that the planet that had become her home was doomed to be destroyed.
Purrsey curiously approached. For some reason he always liked Paloma. He jumped into her lap and meowed. She was worried and so was Betty. Except Purrsey never cared much for his sister, but Paloma was another story. She was different from any human had had ever met, it was a good kind of different.
Paloma petted him. Animals always liked her. It was as if they could sense she was different, but that gave them trust instead of distrust. "Its okay Purrsey, we'll be safe." She concentrated trying to find the answer to their problem or at least a clue. When she closed her eyes she saw the colors in the beginning of her vision. There was a dot of red in a lot of blue. It was as if those colors would decide the fate of the Earth. She had learned that the smallest details were enough to affect the lives of millions of people. If she could only find out how those colors were tied to reality. What did they represent? She suddenly opened her orange eyes as the answer came to her. Her eyes changed back to human looking brown eyes. "The graduation colors... Blue will win."
For a minute Betty wondered how this was related to the possibility of Earth being destroyed. There was the part of Paloma's vision where she saw those colors, but could her school's graduation clothes somehow decide the future of the Earth? "I don't quite understand."
"Me either but many times my visions only tell me what I need to do and not why I need to do it. I think it will all become clear in the end. We need to make red win somehow. If that is what this vision is telling me to do, then I'll know it when we do it." Paloma explained.
This plan would probably include breaking into the school, finding the votes and changing them so that when they were counted the next morning, red would be announced as the wining color that afternoon, but doing all of that was certainly a much better choice than letting the Earth blow up.
xoxox xox xoxox
Betty and Paloma met that night at mid night in front of the school. With a little help from the Starcruiser breaking in without breaking anything was no problem. After being beamed inside, searching for the votes was another story. After checking several offices they finally found them half an hour later. Paloma had tried to use her abilities to find the votes, but instead got the same vision over and over again. She concluded it was happening because the vision was so powerful. To stop an entire planet from being destroyed was a very important thing after all.
Once they had the votes, there came the task of changing them to make sure red won, without it looking suspicious, and putting everything back how it was. With that done, the girls later left the school unnoticed. What was a little lost sleep compared to an entire planet? Besides, it wouldn't be the first time they stay up late saving a planet.
xoxox xox xoxox
The next day came and to everyone's surprise the winning color was revealed to be red. "I feel a lot better now," Paloma announced after hearing the news.
"Then the Earth is out of danger?" Betty asked.
"Yes, I'm sure of it now," Paloma answered.
xoxox xox xoxox
Time passed and graduation day came. As Noah, Betty and Paloma enjoyed the events, on Earth's atmosphere, Maximus's ship approached Canada.
"Putting a tracking devise on the Starcruiser has been my best plan yet," Maximus looked at the radar. "I'm such a genius!"
"If you're such a genius why didn't you do this years ago?" Minimus's angry face asked. Maximus hit him on the head, making the sidekick's head spin around, stopping on his normal face. "You're a genius your evilness!"
"Yes, I know I am. People should worship my greatness." Little did he know, that he was about to get his wish, or so he would think.
xoxox xox xoxox
The graduation events had nearly ended and everyone had received their medals and awards. All except for one student who was in the honor roll and had perfect attendance. Oddly enough he didn't show up for the graduation events and no one knew why. Rumors had their own theories. Some said he was sick, some said he was dead, some said he was kidnapped by aliens and some said he was an alien who had to return to his home planet, but no one knew the truth.
Maximus had decided to take a look around the planet before destroying it. The tracking devise placed on the Starcruiser indicated that the ship had had come to a point near by, stopped briefly then headed back into space returning to the Galactic Guardian headquarters. Maximus assumed that Sparky and X-5 were taking Atomic Betty to her secret home planet before returning to the headquarters.
"It's an invader!" Someone yelled.
Maximus looked in the direction of the voice and saw Duncan. He looked familiar, but it had been such a long time since the day Betty's bracelet was stolen, that Maximus didn't remember where he had seen him before.
"You're not welcome here!" Duncan yelled. "You're the enemy!"
Maximus noticed that everyone there was wearing red, except for the one called an enemy. Their clothes were somehow similar to his, except they all had funny looking hats.
"Did you hear that?" Paloma headed towards the commotion with Betty and Noah. The graduation events were over, but the graduates would stay for a little longer, then return that night for the prom.
The guy wearing the blue graduation robe must be from their rival high school. No wonder Duncan was making such a big deal out of it. Their football teams hated each other. The one in blue, clearly outnumbered, fled the scene.
Betty realized something. "If blue had won for our school then his school would have probably picked red."
"A little red in the middle of a lot of blue," Paloma nodded. But surely that boy couldn't be the one to cause the chain reaction to bring Earth to its destruction. Maybe there was more to it than that.
"I thought the girl with the rabbit ears on her hat was the most original, but that guy takes the cake," Noah pointed.
Betty and Paloma looked to where he was pointing and found none other than Maximus IQ. Sometimes students added little details to their hats like the girl with the rabbit ears. Sometimes they modified the graduation robes like that guy who panted a shark in the back. It would seem that people thought Maximus was only in disguise.
"A red dot," Betty started to say.
"In a sea of blue," Paloma finished.
Had their color been blue, then Maximus would surely stand out. Everyone would probably still assume he was just an original student in disguise, but if their color was blue and red belonged to the rival school, then he wouldn't blend in. Duncan would most likely notice and go looking for trouble because, due to their team's rivalry, he had come to have a strong dislike for anyone from that school. He would anger Maximus, who would end up retreating to his space ship and blowing up the planet in revenge.
A teacher who was carrying the medal and award that belonged to the student that had been absent spotted Maximus. "There you are. We thought you weren't coming." He was in disguise, which was not like him, but maybe since this was his graduation day, he wanted to be original. Everyone else was present so the one in the cat disguise had to be their missing student.
"I was expected?" Maximus was confused. How could those pre-contact ignorant creatures know he was coming? It was odd enough that Betty chose a pre-contact planet as her home, but that a civilization that could hardly be called civilized knew about his existence was also a big surprise.
"Well of course. Here, these are yours and don't forget the hat, didn't you bring it? Good thing I brought some extra hats," the teacher voiced.
Maximus then received a medal with the word 'honor' written on it and an award for perfect attendance. That student was the only student with perfect attendance in the entire school. The word 'perfect' was written on the award. Names were rare or none existent in awards those days. It was a lot easier for the school to order a certain amount of medals for the honor students that were all the same than to have each one inscribed with their names.
After the teacher left, a square rock slowly approached. "Your evilness!" The rock called.
"Minimus?" Maximus looked at the odd rock, which didn't look anything like any real rocks on that planet.
"The tracking devise was destroyed. Its signal was coming from the Galactic Guardians headquarters but now it's gone. They must have discovered it and destroyed it. I just thought I'd let you know. Besides, I was getting bored of waiting for you to come back so I came here to tell you," Minimus rambled.
"Suddenly it all makes perfect sense. Let's return to the ship," Maximus decied and they snuck away, back to the ship.
xoxox xox xoxox
Once out of his square rock disguise on the ship, Minimus took a good look at the silly hat Maximus was wearing. "Nice hat!"
"Shut up Minimus! This is an important cultural item in that planet!" Maximus hit him on the head. He took off the hat and looked at it. It really was strange. It was a red square with little gold decorations that hung to the side.
"Are you going to blow up that planet now your evilness?" Minimus inquired.
"No, it was all a trick. The Galactic Guardians knew about the tracking devise all along. Instead of revealing the location of Atomic Betty's home planet, they led me to the planet of my worshipers. Did you see it? They are obviously my fans. Maybe I'm some kind of legendary superior being in their planet. They all looked so happy that I had finally visited their planet and look what they gave me." Maximus showed off the medal and award. "They think I'm honorable and perfect!"
"They're all crazy," Minimus's angry face muttered. He quickly switched faces and changed the subject. "Then that's not Atomic Betty's secret home planet?"
"No, I'm sure Atomic Betty couldn't stand to live in a planet where everyone admires my greatness so much. This planet will not be destroyed," Maximus concluded.
xoxox xox xoxox
On Earth, "I believe Maximus thinks people in this planet worship him, so I doubt the Earth is in any danger," Paloma realized.
As if on cue, Betty's bracelet chimed and she answered it. "Atomic Betty reporting for duty!" Paloma being a Galactic Guardian herself, already knew about Betty's little secret so there was no need to hide.
"Atomic Betty I have bad news. We discovered a tracking devise on the Starcruiser that might have revealed the location of your home planet to the enemy. Since his usual symbol was on it, we have concluded that the tracking devise belongs to Maximus IQ. It was destroyed, but he might already know the location of your secret home planet." Admiral Degill paused. "Why are you dressed like that?"
"It's all part of the plan," Betty replied. "Don't worry about Maximus discovering my secret. Paloma and I already took care of that."
"Excellent! We can always count on you to be a step ahead of everything Atomic Betty. Atomic Paloma, you have become a great Galactic Guardian as well," Admiral Degill didn't know how they did it, but if the Earth was safe, then everything was fine.
They saluted and ended the communication just in time. "There you are," Noah found them. Betty had been disappearing for years and some time ago, Paloma started disappearing with her. "We're all still going to the prom tonight together, right?"
"Of course," Betty replied. "We deserve a little party, right?"
"Right!" Paloma agreed, they had saved the Earth after all. Even if no one on the planet knew about what they did, knowing that the Earth was safe was enough for them. There they were, laughing together as if they knew something he didn't know. Betty and Paloma, those two girls would always be a mystery to Noah.
End of Planet 102
Disclaimer, I don't own Atomic Betty. The title of this story is based on one of Cait Sith's fortunes "your lucky color is blue" in Final Fantasy VII. Minimus's square rock disguise is a reference to Konohamaru from Naruto. The episode where Betty's bracelet is stolen is "Bracelet Yourself".
