I still don't own Medabots, but I certainly wish I owned Henry, and all his other personas. However, Bunny and Quicksilver are mine, and if you take them, I will hunt you down and unleash the terrors of the nine levels of Hell upon your unsuspecting souls!!!
Chapter Two: Disaster (in more ways than one)
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and all was peaceful and perfect….
CRASH!! (Sigh, never mind.) A small figure burst out of the house and was running at warp speed across the lawn toward the oak tree, giggling like the Mad Hatter, with whom a family relation was suspected.
This figure was none other than the notorious six-year old Elizabeth Jennifer Monroe, or Bunny, as she was known as. An albino child, her curly white hair was up in two adorable little pigtails, and her garnet red eyes were full of mischief. At first glance, she had the appearance of the perfect little angel…..Puh-Leeze!! If there was any proof at all that Satan was a living being, it was Bunny. This kid was on a serious sugar high, and it seemed to be permanent. All anyone could hope for was that it would expire before she hit the teenage years (keep your fingers crossed).
Bunny was about to reach the safety of the tree when.. Whoosh! A figure came out of nowhere and scooped up the still madly giggling figure of Bunny Monroe.
"I've caught you Bunny!" Quicksilver, true to her name and function, had indeed caught up with the little devil. Since their first meeting three years ago, the two had become virtually inseparable. Good thing too, if Bunny was left on her own for too long, she could very likely cause the Apocalypse. If Bunny was the Mad Hatter, than Quicksilver was the March Hare. They were (quite literally in Quicksilver's case), made for each other. They had quickly settled into a routine and Quicksilver could predict almost any of Bunny's plans or actions before they were put into play. (Go girl)
"Hey!" the pint sized demon complained, kicking her feet in protest at her capture. "You cheated! You go too fast! Not fair!" (Ah to be six again). If Quicksilver could smile she would have. "If I'm too fast for you, why do you keep wanting to play tag with me?" She put forth logically.
"'Cause no one else will play with me!!"
"Then why complain? Simply choose another game to play." Bunny stopped kicking her feet as she attempted to wrap her six-year old mind around this concept.
"Oh." Her eyes caught the fluttering movement of something past her face. "Let's chase butterflies!!!" Bunny wriggled out of her medabot's arms and scampered off after the fluttering, and floating insect, once again giggling like a mad child (which she probably was).
"I swear that kid's got more energy than a power plant. You got your work cut out for ya Silver." A voice squawked from behind Quicksilver.
"Be quiet Baton." Quicksilver ordered, "At least I can do what I was programmed for. You couldn't predict the weather if you could see into the future."
"Silver!! Come on!!! Hurry up slowpoke!!" The miniscule voice of the aforementioned Mad Hatter.. Uh I mean Bunny rang from a short distance away. Quicksilver jetted after the tiny tot. As she ran Baton's voice could be heard over Bunny's wild laughter. "Don't stay out too long!" He called. "It's gonna rain tonight. Really it is!!"
As the two moved out of sight and hearing distance, Baton spoke again. "Somehow I get the feeling she doesn't respect me at all."
"Don't get upset Baton." Rokusho had come up behind the tree and was looking at the parrot. "I know you'll get it right one day." Baton sighed, and turned his head to the water where the sun would soon set.
'I still say it's gonna rain tonight.' Baton thought to himself.
Several hours later, an exhausted Bunny asleep in her room, with Quicksilver by her side, Dr. Hushi sat at his desk in the living room looking at Quicksilver's design schematics. He sighed. His greatest work, he believed, information that could revolutionize the world, but he had to do something to protect his work, and his grandchild from those who would his research to do evil. One of his assistants at the Medabot Corporation was asking questions about Quicksilver. Far too many questions. Dangerous questions, if it was discovered that he had taken one of the non-duplicated medals without the knowledge of the corporation. It could be potentially dangerous to both Quicksilver and Elizabeth. Her parents had died recently, so Elizabeth was all he had left. He knew what he had to do. 'What do I do about Baton and Rokusho?' he thought. 'They can't know about this. The corporation doesn't know about them either. Who can I trust?' He realized that there wasn't anyone he could trust, not even his apprentice, Eugene Aki. He had already made the necessary arrangements with a boarding school in England, where he would send Elizabeth and Quicksilver and no one would ever find them. Nor would they find his research, for he had hidden it somewhere that no one would ever find it, not even the one who he had given the information to. Al he had to do was follow through with his plans.
Dr. Hushi got up from his desk and went to the guest room, where his granddaughter lay asleep, a pair of headphones covering her ears, and woke Quicksilver.
"Quicksilver." He whispered.
"Yes doctor?" she replied, equally quietly. Hushi looked around, as if searching for eavesdroppers.
"Quicksilver, I want you to do something for me."
"What is it Dr. Hushi?"
"I want you to take Bunny and go wait by the roadside. Someone will be there to meet you and take you someplace safe. Don't let Rokusho, or Baton see you. Alright?" Quicksilver looked puzzled at this request he could tell, but he also knew she would obey. "Take care of Elizabeth for me, and don't ever let her forget that I love her more than anything, and I'm doing this to protect the both of you."
"Doing what, doctor?" But the doctor had already left the room. Quicksilver was incredibly confused, but she would obey. All that was left was to follow through without Rokusho suspecting.
Back in the living room, Rokusho was standing near the desk and turned when he saw the doctor enter.
"Good evening Doctor." Rokusho greeted. "Is Bunny sleeping?"
"Like an angel. Rokusho?"
"Yes?"
"Can you do something for me? Go climb the big oak tree out back and see what the weather will be like tomorrow. I think we'll go out on the lake tomorrow." 'Please understand that I'm doing this to protect all of you.' He thought.
"Of course."
Rokusho went outside and climbed the tree. He sat on a high branch and observed the setting sun on the horizon over the water. 'A beautiful sight' he surmised. 'I think it's going to be a lovely day tomorrow.' After several more minutes, the sky went dark as the sun disappeared. Stars could be seen in the sky, but Rokusho could also see some dark clouds approaching from the south. 'Hmm' he thought. 'It would appear that it is going to rain after all.' He saw a glow out of the corner of his eyes, and turned to see the house ablaze in a giant fire. Panicking, he jumped from the tree and ran towards the house, completely focused on finding the doctor and Bunny.
"Dr. Hushi!!! Elizabeth!!!!" There was nothing but the silence of the night accompanied by the crackling of the fire that was quickly consuming his home. He couldn't get even close to the house, let alone enter it to save the occupants. Further away, by the road, a small car drove off silently, it's occupants including a rabbit-type medabot and a sleeping child, but no longer wearing the headphones. As far as Rokusho knew, as he stood there in the rain, he lost everything he had ever loved that night.
* * * * * * * *
15 years later
Hey look, its another beautiful quiet day in the neighborhood, or it would be but for an argument happening at the Hop Mart. Thirteen-year-old Ikki Tenryou was currently in a fight with his Medabot, Metabee concerning the summer TV rights.
"I keep telling you Ikki, if you'd just get another TV, we wouldn't have this problem!!"
"Metabee!! You don't need to watch those stupid soap operas every single day!!" Metabee gasped.
"Hey. Don't you dare call my soap operas stupid. I'll have you know that they are very educational to me."
Ikki did a double take as his friend Erika, her medabot Brass, and the store clerk, Henry looked on in amusement. Such arguments between the medabot and medafighter were commonplace and were often seen as a source of entertainment during slow days.
"How are they educational?!?" he demanded. Metabee thought quickly. "Uhh, well they..um, they give me an insight on to how humans deal with crises and how they.. interact..uh… interact with each other during those crises. Yeah." A snicker was heard and Metabee turned rapidly toward Henry and glared. Henry, completely unabashed, continued to look amused and gave a shrug as if to say 'what? I didn't say anything.'
"Argh!! You are impossible to reason with. Why don't you just tape them?" Ikki countered.
"On what? You broke the VCR last week!!" Touché! The argument continued along similar lines for several more minutes, while Erika and Henry chatted on the sidelines.
On the side, Erika was becoming annoyed at this constant bickering between the two.
"This is ridiculous," She said to Henry. "They're arguing about soap operas for crying out loud!"
"Well," replied the twenty-one year old store clerk. "At least he's finally admitted he watches them."
"Yeah, but only after we caught him on tape. Then it was just blackmail. Admittedly, that was my best piece of investigative journalism to date. Too bad it wasn't in a professional capacity so I couldn't publish it."
"I thought Metabee destroyed the tape after you showed it to him." Asked Henry.
"Yeah, that too. That's why the VCR is busted."
"Huh." Before they could continue their conversation, a bell chimed, announcing the arrival of a customer.
Henry stood up straight as a young woman wearing a pair of blue tinted sunglasses (I would love to have a pair of these), faded blue hipster jeans, tennis shoes and a dark blue tank top approached the front. The sunshades hid her eyes but her skin was pale, and her mouth seemed slightly curled in one corner as if the concept of life kept her in a state of perpetual amusement. Altogether a rather attractive woman.
"Good morning. Can I help you with anything?" Henry greeted courteously. The woman smiled and removed her sunglasses, revealing a pair of garnet coloured eyes. Her white hair could be seen under her blue baseball cap, so Ikki figured she must be an albino (ooh, what a smart guy). Henry began to stare.
"Actually I was wondering if you could give me some directions." Her voice was pleasant and friendly as she purchased a bottle of water and the local newspaper. "I just got here a few days ago and I need to find the Medabot Corporation building." She smiled again, and Ikki found himself smiling as well. He liked whoever she was, simply because her smile reminded him of Karin. Metabee, having no sense of tact whatsoever, asked, "What do you want to go there for?" Ikki was mortified that once again, Metabee's lack of tact had probably made him look like an idiot.
Instead, the young woman looked more amused than offended, and Henry, still staring at the woman, looked like he was off in another dimension, and seemed totally oblivious to the conversation.
"Actually, I have an appointment with Dr. Aki this afternoon, and he didn't give me very clear directions." She laughed lightly. "Actually, he didn't give me any directions except that it was in Tokyo." Ikki decided to say something next. "Yeah, that's Dr. Aki for you. His mind is a bit weird. Must be all that pudding he eats." The woman looked surprised. "You know him?"
"Yes, we do." Said Erika, speaking up. "We're friends of his niece, Karin. My name is Erika, and this is my Medabot, Brass." Brass stepped forward and gave a cute little medabot curtsey. Ikki butted in, eager to introduce himself to this pretty lady. "I'm Ikki. What's your name?"
"Hey!! What about me? Aren't you going to say who I am?" Ikki started, realizing he'd screwed up.
"Well, uh, I just figured you'd want to do that yourself." Ikki laughed nervously. Metabee just 'humphed' and just crossed his arms. Ikki sighed. "This is Metabee." He said resignedly. The woman smiled yet again (she smiles a lot doesn't she?)
"I'm Elizabeth, but most people call me Bunny." Bunny turned and pointed towards Henry. "Is he okay?" Ikki glanced at the out of it clerk. "You mean Henry? Yeah I suppose."
"He's probably just out to lunch cause you're cute." Metabee suggested. Ikki threw him a death glare. "What'd I say? She is kinda cute…for a human you know." This time Bunny outright laughed, startling Henry out of his dreamscape. He had a sort of 'Huh?' look on his face, looked at Erika and she gave him an answering look that said 'Just go with it'. Bunny turned to Henry, no longer laughing, but still amused. "Ah, back with us I see, Henry is it?" Henry barely hid a blush. "Think you can help me now?" Before Henry could answer, Metabee jumped in, trying to outdo Ikki, as usual.
"I can help you. I've been to Medabot Corporation before. I'll take you there."
"Great, then you can meet Quicksilver, my best friend." Metabee looked interested.
"Is she cute?"
"Metabee!!" Metabee ignored his medafighter's admonishment, and Bunny's only reply was another cute little laugh, more of a giggle really.
"What!! It's a perfectly valid question."
"No it isn't!!"
"Is too!!"
"Is not!!"
"Too!"
"Not!!"(Imagine this continuing on the background, while the scene moves on)
Bunny turned to Erika and asked, "Are they always like this?" Erika nodded in affirmation. Bunny sighed, and turned back to Henry. " I guess its back to you then."
Henry, now over his little lapse in attention, proceeded to give directions, and Erika offered to come along in case she got lost. The two, or three in Brass's case, left the Hop Mart and walked along the sidewalk toward the Medabot Corporation.
~*~Back inside the Hop Mart~*~
"Hey Ikki? Where'd they go?"
"They left two minutes ago." Answered Henry. Metabee grabbed Ikki by the arm and dragged him outside. Seeing them in the distance he called out. "Hey!!! Wait for us!!!" The pair ran off after Bunny, Erika and Brass.
Henry watched through the window and sighed. 'Those two are gonna kill each other some day.' He thought. Out loud he said, "I wonder why she wants to see Dr. Aki. I didn't see any Medabot with her." Henry resolved pay a visit to Dr. Aki later that evening.
End
Why does Bunny want to see Dr. Aki? If she's the same Bunny as mentioned earlier, then where is Quicksilver??? What's she been doing the last fifteen years?? If you've even read this far, do you really care? Should I keep going with this? You the viewer decide!! Reviews are more than welcome. Flames will be laughed at by myself, my sister and the people in my head, and then fed to my pet goat, Freddy.