~*Improviso Vir*~

Unexpected Hero

Lucas grimaced, pulling himself from the chair he was sitting in to answer the door. Fuel was there, with a big grin on his face, untidy brown hair pointing everywhere as usual. He smiled.

"Hey, stop moping around! Let's get going!"

"Where?" He asked tiredly.

"My house! These weird Pig people just dropped off this box thing that's called a 'Happy Cube.'"

Lucas had heard of those. He raised one eyebrow. "You mean Happy Box?" They were supposed to improve your life or some nonsense.

Fuel bounced excitedly. "Let's go!" Before Lucas could react, he was dragged down the street and away from his house. Boney hauled himself out of his doghouse, padding along beside them.

"Bark, bark! (Where are we going?)" The dog asked, wagging his tail.

Lucas shrugged, lowering his voice. "We're going to look at a Happy Box or something."

Fuel snickered. "You talk to your dog?"

"Who doesn't?"

They entered the town, and the first thing Lucas noticed was the strangely dressed people in their stranger vehicles.

"What's going on?"

"Those Pig Masks people are going to remodel the village." Fuel explained. "Or so I hear. C'mon, this way!"

They dodged some of the strange people that Lucas instinctively didn't like, heading into the woods and toward Fuel's log cabin. Fuel opened the door to his house. His father, Lighter, was nowhere in sight, but Lucas saw there was a brown box on the table in the middle of the room. Fuel tore it open excitedly, pulling out a good sized pink box with a blank, grey screen.

"How do I turn this on?" He mumbled. "Here!" Flicking a switch on the device's side, the screen flashed on.

Lucas blinked. The device was giving out a strange, high pitched sound that danced on the edges of his hearing. It was somewhat pleasant, but it gave him chills as well. The screen had images he couldn't exactly make out, because it was covered in a veil of changing, glowing colors. He thought he could stare forever.

The shimmering Happy Box seemed to call him in, and Lucas and Fuel were silent for a moment.

"Whoa."

Boney whined at Fuel's comment. "(Lucas…)"

The box seemed to be making promises about some new life somewhere, but Lucas didn't seem to be able to-

Boney grabbed his leg and suddenly hauled him bodily away from the box. The dog wasn't a big one, but he was fast and strong. The brown canine dragged him from the room and into the yard outside, dropping him once the Box was behind.

Boney had his tail between his legs. "(I remember your father saying he didn't like 'that Box', but I didn't know what they were called. Those must be the thing he was talking about.)"

Lucas sat up, rubbing his leg. "Dad doesn't want me looking at them?"

When Boney nodded, the boy shrugged. "Okay. I had a bad feeling about them anyway. Fuel?" He raised his voice, but the kid didn't reply.

"Let's go." He mumbled. Boney cocked his head to the side.

"(Shouldn't we help him?)"

"It's in his house, there's not much we can do. Try if you want."

Boney raced into the house to get Fuel away from it, and Lucas looked at the sky.

The Happy Box is glowing…

~***~

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