Chapter Two

Astro stopped abruptly when he heard screaming coming from around the corner. He didn't hesitate to see what the matter was, and he dashed round to find a horrifying sight. A corner of a skyscraper had broken off and was plummeting towards the ground at a terrifying speed. At the base of the huge building Astro noticed that much of the debris that had already fallen had trapped a young girl's leg, preventing her from escaping the soon-to-be crash-site. There was no time to get the pieces of concrete off her and move her away from the area, so he had only one choice: he had to catch the mass of rock and metal that was about to crush her. He had only a thirteen second window before it hit the ground, so he activated the thrusters in his boots to dive down at maximum speed. The girl looked up and closed her eyes, moving her arm out in front of her as she braced for impact. Her breathing slowed as she felt nothing fall on top of her. Was she dead? Was it really over that quickly? She lowered her arm and opened her eyes to find a teenage robot in red boots and black spandex shorts standing between her and a five-hundred tonne mass of skyscraper.

"Are you…ngh…ok?" he asked her, straining to keep balance of the object he was holding. The girl had dark brown hair trailing down to her hips and emerald green eyes, full of shock, surprise and fear. She looked about thirteen or fourteen years of age, and she nodded slowly. Astro looked around himself for a place to put the bit of skyscraper down. He noticed that all the people and even the robots were too frighted to help, for fear that Astro may drop the colossal lump. He gritted his teeth as the weight became unbearable, but he held his position for the sake of the girl's life. In an attempt to help, she continued to try and pry herself free. After many failures, she looked back up at the hero, not sure what to do.

"I'm stuck! I can't get out myself!"

"Don't worry. I'll get you out of this."

They both gasped as smaller bits of debris began pummelling the onlookers, sending them running. Someone was doing this on purpose to see what Astro would do. It was either one life or many others. Astro and the girl's eyes met once again, and the expression on her face begged him not to drop it. Tears began streaming down her face – no one could free her while Astro was struggling to keep her from dying. His eyes shot open to their full extent when he felt a heavy shudder on the piece of the skyscraper, making him have to use one hand to support himself as he collapsed to the ground. His face was brought right up to the girl's, and she seemed to blush a little. The super-robot strained to bring his arm back up to the fallen corner, and he tried desperately to stand back up straight. Something was making it heavier, and Astro was determined to rescue the girl and find out who was causing this. It was then he got an idea. Sure it may have been reckless, but the area was cleared of people and robots that could get hurt, so it was the only option he had. He took away one arm and activated the arm cannon in it, aiming it straight up at the mass of skyscraper. He charged it for a few seconds and then released, sending the plasma blast catapulting through and completely destroying the super-huge piece of collapsed building. He crouched over the girl and shielded her from anything that might fall on top of her. She brought herself up closer to him for greater protection and closed her eyes, waiting for it to all end.

When all was quiet, the two of them opened their eyes and looked around themselves. Smashed-up rubble now populated the streets, with added dust clouds and smoke shrouding the area. The girl coughed and waved her hand in front of her face to waft away the dust threatening to fill her lungs. Astro backed up a little to finally free her leg, and she hugged it tightly when he lifted up the last piece that held her down.

"How's your leg?" he asked, kneeling beside her.

"I think I'm just lucky it's not broken. Oh! I'm Aurora by the way," she replied, shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Aurora. I'm pretty sure you know who I am."

"Yeah, the world-famous Astro Boy!"

"I wouldn't say I'm 'world-famous'…"

"Don't be silly. Of course you are!" Astro chuckled and helped her up. Ok, Aurora. Just play it cool. Don't say or do anything stupid, she thought to herself. All her life she wanted to meet her robot hero, and now he'd actually saved her.

"Do you think you'll be fine from here? As you can see I have a bit of a mess to clear up…"

"Can I help? I feel at least a little responsible for this, since I'm the reason you had to do that."

"Ok, you can help. Just don't strain yourself and let me do the heavy-lifting, alright?"

"Sure thing!"

Many cleaning robots and police officers soon came by and helped with the clean-up too. Aurora carried as many stones and pieces of rubble as she could over to a dump truck, and Astro brought over the bigger debris that many of the robots couldn't handle. One of the officers noticed that Aurora was the only civilian in the area, and he walked over to her to ask her to leave.

"Excuse me, miss, but I'm afraid you can't be here," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"It's ok, sir. I have Astro's approval!" she replied, hoping that he'd let her stay.

"I'm sorry, but orders are orders. Come along, now."

Aurora moaned and followed the officer out of the site, looking back to see Astro watching her go.

"Bye, Astro!" she called out to him.

"Until next time, Aurora!" he replied, waving.

Next time? OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH! she thought, barely containing her excitement. Though she may have nearly been killed that day, it sure was the best day of her life.

Axis sat down in his seat with a huff, sulking like a vulture on a hot day. He was disappointed that Godrick didn't listen to him about the skyscraper incident that day, and how he thought that it might be a lead to the recent fires and robot outbreaks. He also wasn't happy with the fact that Astro Boy had been there and dealt with the issue. All Axis wanted was to prove he was ready for a proper mission, and now there was this other robot that could possibly do his job better than him. Electra came up beside him and tapped at his metallic shoulder, sitting down next to him.

"Don't be such a grump. You can't expect Clyde to let you go on every task possible."

"Easy for you to say. I can't believe I've been here longer than you and you're already still beating me in training."

"Maybe whoever built you didn't realize you needed fighting programming instead of your own mind."

"Why you little…! I ought to-"

"That's enough, you two," said Godrick, coming out from the room beside them.

"Yes, sir," the bickering pair said, standing to attention. They still exchanged angry glances at each other.

"Watching Astro deal with the building incident this morning was very interesting. He could prove to be very useful, even for you two. His intellect allows him to get out of any situation, and he doesn't react without thinking, either. You could learn a lot from him, and that is why I want you to meet him in person."

"WHAT?!" cried Axis, clenching his fists.

"You can't be serious! That robot's barely a newbie! He practically knows next to nothing about combat!" Electra added.

"But he has a lot more experience out in the field than he does in mere training. He could be a very valuable addition to the team. Oh, and by the way, Xenon will be returning tomorrow. You are dismissed."

The two left the room, grumbling to themselves.

"So, who's the grump now?" Axis mocked.

A few seconds later, all that could be heard around the carrier were the sounds of metal colliding with the walls, along with many painful yells from a certain robot.

Astro face-palmed after Zoran and her new rocket boots smashed head-first into the trees around the park, and several times Astro had to grab hold of her feet and dig his heels in the ground to stop her from knocking over people that were passing by.

"Focus, Zoran! Focus!" he instructed, a slight hint of frustration in his voice. He knew that it took some time for him to get used to it when he found out he could fly, but then again he wasn't taking nearly as long as Zoran was.

"I'm trying, ok?! WHOA!" she replied angrily, spinning out of control and shooting up into the sky.

Astro sighed and followed, sticking close to his sister. Maybe it was better that she was up in the sky, considering there was more room and Astro was able to help her easier. He flew directly over her and grabbed her arms, straightening her out. He kept her level until he was certain she could maintain balance by herself.

"Ok, now close your eyes and concentrate on your feet. You should start to get a feel of how the circuiting works," Astro said, making sure that she wasn't about to ram into anything that just so happened to be in the sky. Zoran did as told, and she tried picturing what the insides of her new rockets looked like while they were working.

"I think I've got it!" she cried, opening her eyes and diving downwards, performing several tricks as she did so.

"Hehe, not bad, Zoran! You only took twenty-six minutes longer than I did to learn!" Astro teased.

"Oh, shut up!"

She angrily chased after her brother, but he was far too fast for her. As soon as the fire in his boots turned blue, there was no catching him.

"Ok, now let's see what you've got!"

Astro slowed down so his little sister could follow him around the buildings and roads, performing many corkscrew dives and somersaults. Zoran copied his movements and stayed close behind him, but she soon realized that was a mistake when she noticed that she couldn't see where Astro was headed. He made another swift dive towards the big Metro City Stadium, and for poor Zoran it was too late to follow. She rammed right into a flagpole that was sticking out the side of a building. The sheer force of her smacking into it made it snap, and she clung to it as she fell, too stunned to realize what was happening. Astro looked behind him after hearing the loud clang of metal, and he flew after his falling sibling. He pried her off the pole and slowly brought her to the ground.

"Are you ok?" he asked, seeing the pole hit the ground from the corner of his eye.

"I think so," Zoran replied, rubbing her stomach where she'd hurt it.

"That wasn't bad for your first flight, anyway."

"You think so? Thanks!"

"You're welcome."

Astro smiled at her and helped her back into the air, and they were soon heading for home.

The afternoon sun boiled down on the carrier as a pair of black boots with a cobalt flame pattern around the bottom entered through the cockpit. Xenon's hazel-coloured hair bore several striking royal blue highlights, and it was combed backwards away from his face, making it slightly spikey in the middle. He wore a black jacket with a golden robot emblem on the back, and his undershirt too was black with a blue circuit pattern all over it. He had baggy navy blue slouch trousers with a cyan colour threading vertically down the sides. His blue-grey eyes were scanning the deck for his teammates, and he let out a sigh after catching no glimpse of them. He soon came to a stop in front of Clyde and looked up at him.

"Welcome back, Xenon. I assume your mission went well?" Godrick greeted.

"Yes sir, and it's good to be back. Where's Axis and Electra? I can't wait to see how their doing!"

"They're in the main control unit room. Follow me."

Xenon eagerly followed, being the excited-but-can-easily-hide-it fifteen year-old. He specialised in mainly long-range weaponry, but melee attacks he needed more training on. Godrick led him down him the main corridor until they came to the control room, where many of the agents were busy handling the flight controls and managing all the files. Xenon soon spotted his friends down by the front of the room, gazing out the massive window.

"Hey, guys!" he cried, making them both turn towards him.

"Xenon!" exclaimed Electra, running over to him with Axis.

The three of them hugged each other, for they hadn't seen Xenon for almost five months. They each went into the training room to practise fighting so they could catch up a little. Once inside, Xenon and Electra held their stances in the ring. She knew he wasn't the best at physical combat. Or maybe it's just boys that suck at fighting. Including robots, she thought to herself, glancing over at Axis who was hitting a punching bag with brute force. Xenon stepped up towards Electra and tried to punch her in the stomach, but she blocked it and kicked him in the shin.

"So…how did the mission go? GAH!" she asked, continuing to block Xenon's attacks.

"WHOA! Easy there!" Xenon replied, only just dodging a blow to the face. "It was successful, more or less. GRAA!" He grabbed her oncoming fist and pulled her forward, failing to deliver a knee-kick to her stomach. "Professor Yan-kin was taken down, and I received the information that he was going to use against the Navy. I sent it to Godrick and claimed the mission a success." Electra front-flipped over him and kicked him in the back, knocking him down.

"It probably wasn't easy, though, right?" asked Axis, walking over to him and helping him up.

"Sort of. The hacking and figuring out Yan-kin's plans was the fun part. The fighting? Yeah, now that was difficult. …Is it me or have you been upgraded since I left?" Xenon replied, noticing that Axis looked a little different.

"Yeah, I got a few new modifications and weapons."

"Awesome!"

Axis's main body was slightly silver in colour, as was his face. His arms and his legs were jet black with a few silver patches, and he had two black spikes on the sides of his head, of which were also black. His shoulders were spiked and his arms were equipped with a large array of many different guns and mini missile-launchers. On his back was a pair of rocket boosters which he flew with. He had a golden pattern on his forehead that consisted of two lightning-bolt shapes on the sides that connected along the bottom, and in the top centre was an arrow-head shape. From a distance it looked a little like a pitchfork head, but up close it was almost a work of art. His eyes glowed an eerie yellow and held a sense of mystery in them. After all, no one knew where he originally came from, not even Axis himself knew. The same gold colour weaved in between some of the gaps on his arms and legs, creating a cool pattern all over him. His feet were made to look like he was wearing boots that came up to his knees, but more metallic than leathery-looking. Electra came up and tapped on his arm.

"He hasn't been that interested in his new 'toys', but they do make him look cooler."

Electra had hazel coloured eyes that matched well with her little-past-shoulder-length red hair. She wore a dark purple skin-tight body suit that had no sleeves, despite the material reaching down to her feet. She had white high-heeled boots on as well as white arm-length gloves to match. She was not the average girly-girl one might expect her to be, but once people got to know her, she was a serious tomboy. Her gloves were made of a special rubber so she didn't get accidentally electrocuted by her whip, which occurred once or twice before she got her "superhero costume".

"So, have you improved on your training, Axis?" Xenon asked.

"Not very much, believe it or not," Electra answered, much to the robot's annoyance.

Xenon tried hard not to laugh, but he couldn't prevent a quiet giggle from escaping his mouth.

"Ok, so I may be a little rusty right now, but in a few days' time, I'll be able to beat both of you at once, just you watch!" Axis said, gaining a little too much confidence in himself.

"And there's his cocky side," said Electra, rolling her eyes and leaving the room with the two of them.

Zoran sat next to her father while he ate his dinner. The coloured pencil she had in her hand was crazily scooting across the piece of paper she was drawing on. After a satisfied "Mmhmm!" she put the pencil down and grabbed a different colour, repeating the process she was doing a few seconds ago. Astro pulled out the chair beside her and sat down, busily looking at his holo-pad.

"What are you doing, big brother?" Zoran asked, pausing to look at whatever Astro was looking at.

"Research," Astro replied, tapping a few areas on the screen.

"Oh. What're you researching?"

"…Stuff."

Dr Tenma chuckled to himself. That was the exact same excuse Toby used whenever he didn't want his father knowing what he was looking at. Maybe Astro wasn't so different after all.

"Stuff?"

"It's complicated, alright?"

"We're robots; since when is anything complicated to us?"

Astro hesitated before answering. His little sister had a good point.

"Ok, well, if you must know, there have been recent reports and sightings of that creature that's been on the news. Apparently it's some kind of humanoid robot with Artificial Intelligence, just like us."

"So there's a chance it still came from space?!"

"I still highly doubt it, but yes."

"That is so cool!"

"Hey, Dad, you haven't made any robots similar to the reports, have you?"

Dr Tenma put down his knife and fork and turned to face his robotic son.

"I shouldn't think so. I don't normally make black and gold AI robots that go around anonymously saving people."

"Hmm…"

"I just think that Astro's jealous of it," Zoran teased.

"Hey, being jealous is the last thing that I'd be feeling about this!"

"Astro's right. He would never be jealous of anyone or anything. The blue core wouldn't allow him to," Dr Tenma added.

Zoran sighed. When her father built her, he had used some of the blue core's energy to power up her artificial one, which Dr Elefun had graciously created. She knew what it was like to have some of the positive energy flowing though her, but in order to project her design to the computer so it could make her look like a female version of Astro, not only did Dr Tenma have to use some of Toby's DNA, he also had to use someone else's DNA to give her a female gender. So technically she was Astro's little sister. Since she shared another girl's DNA sequence, her personality was quite hyper and energetic, so her father had to reduce her strength to half that of Astro's. The alternate sequence also gave her negative energies, but the energy from the blue core kept her emotions from going haywire – literally. It was true that Astro could feel anger, but not in the same way people would think. The anger that flowed through him was toward his enemies, but he could control it so it wouldn't get the better of him. It never lasted long anyway, since he was so forgiving.

"Are you going to do something about it, anyway?" she asked, referring to the mystery robot hero.

"It depends. First I have to find whoever it is, and then I'll have a lot of questions to ask," Astro replied, putting down his holo-pad. "I'll start with my usual night rounds, checking around the city for anything unusual."

"Alright, be safe, Astro," said Dr Tenma.

"I will!"

"Bye, Astro!" said Zoran, giving her brother a hug.

"See ya later, little sis!"

Astro turned to the balcony and ran towards it, leaping off the edge and diving down the building. Once near the bottom, he activated his rocket boots and shot off into the heart of Metro City.

Axis let his legs dangle over the edge of the skyscraper he and his teammates were sitting on. The night air always seemed so calm in the city, not stressful like it was up at the carrier. Electra fiddled with the end of her whip out of boredom, and Xenon wouldn't shut up about his recent mission.

"And with those guys gone, it was easy to infiltrate Yan-kin's main labs to obtain the USB drive that contained the information on the latest missile target systems that were-"

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!" Electra hollered. Xenon forgot how easily ticked-off she got. "DON'T YOU THINK WE'VE HEARD ENOUGH?! WE DON'T NEED EVERY LITTLE DETAIL!"

"Ok, ok! Gosh…"

"Just calm down, Electra. Xenon's probably been dying to tell us what happened while he was away," said Axis. He stared up at the clear sky, gazing at the stars that glittered amongst the darkness. "Besides, we're not here to argue."

"We know, we know. We're here to find Astro Boy and somehow convince him to come to the carrier," Electra finished.

"Exactly, and Clyde put me in charge."

"Then why aren't we doing any 'finding'? Kind of boring just sitting around and doing nothing if you ask me," Xenon pointed out.

"Clyde said that Astro Boy flies around the city at night, keeping a look out for any trouble on the streets. So what I'm doing is waiting to catch a glimpse of him, so that way he'll be easy to follow."

"Well there's no doubt that Astro will be looking for you, too," said Electra, putting her whip away.

"Why?"

"Word on the street is that he's trying to find out who's been rescuing all those people and then mysteriously disappearing afterwards. Now I wonder who that could be?"

Xenon and Axis both knew that Electra had a habit of being sarcastic, and the strange thing was that she always made sense out of it.

"Hmm, true."

The three of them sat in silence until they heard a distant sound of rockets. Axis got up immediately, knowing who it was. He activated the boosters in his back and took off toward the sound. Electra and Xenon sighed. They both took out a small gadget and threw them onto the ground, waiting for them to fold out into a pair of hover-boards. They hopped on top of the devices and made sure that their feet were tightly secured before taking off after Axis. The black, gold and silver robot was getting closer to Astro, and soon enough, Axis had him in his sights.

Astro was enjoying the night air whooshing past him, and so far all had been quiet and peaceful. He had his arms by his side, having no need to place them in front of him. After the battle with the Peacekeeper, he felt a lot more confident with his flying, and he could soon navigate in the tightest of places. He turned sharply around a building and watched the ongoing cars zooming up and down the roads. His cheery smile vanished when he heard another pair of rockets behind him, but when he turned to look back, he couldn't see anything following him. As he flew, the sound got louder and louder as it got closer and closer, and the next time Astro looked behind him, he saw a black and gold robot gaining on him, closely followed by two teenagers on what looked like hover-boards. Astro was familiar with people around his age trying to get to him, but he knew that the robot that was with them was the one he'd been looking for, so there was no way that they were fans of his. He flew upwards and around a building, soon diving back down again. If he had veins, adrenaline would have been rushing through them, mixed with emotions of confusion, excitement, and fear. Loosing these guys would be easy, since Astro knew the city like the back of his hand, but he didn't know if the robot had special tracking technology, so he had to make his decisions carefully. He weaved in and out between the buildings and often did double-takes to confuse his pursuers. He kept close to the bright lights of the skyscrapers in the hopes to blend in and be harder to spot. When he was certain he lost sight of them, he landed on a nearby building and breathed a sigh of relief. What on Earth would they want with me? he thought, knowing that the black and gold robot was chasing him out in the open where people could see it. Wait a second… What was it that that guy said about 'when the time comes to make this decision'…? Astro shook himself of the thought and hunched up against the wall on the top of the building, looking around him to see if he was being followed still.

Electra and Xenon soon caught up with Axis. He wasn't too far behind this so-called "Astro Boy".

"Hahaha! Is he seriously wearing only shorts and boots? They don't even match!" Electra cried, laughing her head off. Xenon laughed as well once he realized what she was talking about, but they continued to follow Astro and Axis despite the funny comment. Axis wasn't going to give up easily, and he copied the same swift manoeuvres that Astro performed as he tried to get away. He soon realized that he had no knowledge of the city whatsoever, and Astro Boy was using that to his advantage. He followed him downwards where they were more level with the buildings, and the mass of many coloured lights blinded Axis and hid his victim surprisingly well; the fact that his eyes were sensitive to light wasn't exactly coming in handy, and they made his vision fuzzy and distorted. He breathed a sigh of relief when the lights began to dim, signalling that they were reaching a more quiet part of the city. He caught sight of Astro Boy again, heading upwards to a pretty tall building. After circling around it for about the fifth time, Axis couldn't see the super-robot anywhere, and he stopped completely in mid-air. He couldn't even hear Astro's rocket boots anymore, so he must've landed.

"Ok, so randomly chasing the guy isn't going to get us anywhere," said Electra, hovering behind Axis.

"No kidding. He knows this city and we don't," Xenon added.

Axis groaned and landed on the skyscraper that they were next to.

"Maybe this requires a tactic that doesn't involve a wild goose chase," Electra suggested, hopping off her hover-board.

"Such as…?"

"A stealthy approach may be best. The next time we see him, Xenon can have a tracker ready to shoot onto Astro."

Xenon nodded in agreement, stepping down beside her. If he was going to get to use some form of gun, he was happy. Axis continued to think for a moment however, completely ignoring Electra's idea and Xenon's snort of annoyance. Suddenly, he clicked his fingers and leapt into the air, hovering just in front of his friends.

"I got it! Maybe if we can figure out where Astro Boy lives, we can easily disguise one of you two to meet him in person!"

"And just how do you expect us to stroll right in? We don't know if his home is a VIP building or something," Xenon stated, shrugging his shoulders.

"And why would he see a random person? Surely he wouldn't have time for that," Electra added.

"And that's what perfectly good excuses are for. We could make out that we don't come from Metro City and our remote town or something is in danger!" said Axis, getting a little too excited.

"Seriously? That plan is way too predictable. If we want his attention, we have to make a crime scene of our own in this city," Electra replied as if it was the only option and it had to be done.

"Um, no. Not only would we get in trouble with Clyde, but don't you think the city would be pretty mad at us?" disagreed Xenon.

"He's right. Causing trouble in the city would only make him hate us, along with everyone down there. We need a plan that will get his attention without a raging mob behind our backs," said Axis. Electra and Xenon sat in silence, not being able to think of anything. Then Axis got a brilliant idea; something that he'd been doing for quite a while and was sure to get Astro Boy's approval.

"YOU JUST LET THEM GET AWAY?!" Zoran shouted so loudly that the whole city could've heard her. When Astro returned home, he told his sister and his father about what happened.

"Well, first off, please don't yell that loud – some of us have very sensitive hearing, you know?" Astro started, covering his ears.

"Sorry."

"And second of all, there were three of them, and I didn't want to cause trouble. Besides, I have no idea what they're capable of, so I think it's going to be best just to study them from afar until I know what they can do."

The family sat in silence at the couch, the person on the TV completely muted by the power of the remote control. Dr Tenma picked up some files that were spread across the table and shuffled them as he skimmed through each page.

"Oh, by the way, Astro, I'm going to be gone for a few days. I have important business at the Ministry with President Logan, so I'm going to be enrolling you and Zoran into Metro High to keep you busy and supervised," he said, standing up and grabbing his coat.

"Oh, cool! I've never seen a school before! This is going to be so fun!" cried Zoran, jumping up and down and making a cushion fall off the couch.

"Wait, you're leaving now? This late?" questioned Astro as he picked up the cushion. Zoran stopped jumping and whimpered.

"I'm sorry, you two, but the meeting of which I will be attending has been delayed several times today, and it can't be rescheduled to another day, so it has to be now or never."

Astro sighed. "Ok, I understand. Isn't this going to be your first personal meeting with the new president?"

"Yes, and that's why I can't miss it. I hear he's a big fan of you apparently too, and he is very eager to meet both of us, so I wouldn't want to disappoint him."

"Logan's a fan of mine? Wow, it sure would be great to meet him!"

Dr Tenma nodded and headed towards the door. "Goodbye, you two. I'll be back as soon as I can." He pressed the button and waited for the elevator to reach their floor. As the doors opened and before the scientist could step in, Astro scooted over to him and gave him a hug. Zoran hadn't noticed since she was so engrossed in the TV which had been turned back up.

"I love you, dad," the robot boy said softly.

"I love you too, son," Tenma replied.