Hey everyone!

On with this story.

For most of the afternoon, Tommy was in his room, sitting on his bed, reading a Human Fist comic book.

But he was still somewhat depressed in his mind. "I tell ya, Ro. It's not that easy being me. Having to live life the way I do. Sometimes I feel like it's just me and you against the world."

RobotBoy was sitting next to his bed, but was deactivated, so he didn't respond.

"Yeah, yeah. I know what you would say. 'Ignore no solve anything. Tommy must fight back. Stand up for self.' Look, I get what you mean, Ro, but this is the best I can do for now. The less I interact with Donnie, the better."

Speaking of the devil, Donnie kicked down the bedroom door with no warning.

Tommy wasn't too pleased about it. "If I ever get a chance, that is," he muttered.

"Hey, Dirt Clod!" Donnie ordered. "Get your butt downstairs pronto!"

"No thank you," Tommy replied. "I like it better up here."

"I don't think you understand. Dad put me in charge of the house when they're gone and asked me to keep an eye on you."

"Oh really? Well mom told me to be on my best behavior. Interacting with you would mess that up for me. So I'd appreciate it if you would please get out of my room and let me be."

"You'd better get off the bed by the time I count to three or else! One…….two……..three!"

Tommy still didn't budge.

This angered Donnie to no end. Until he noticed something on the side of the bed and grabbed it. "I guess you won't get to see your little robot doll anymore!"

Tommy's eyes shot open wide and he was not amused by what he saw Donnie doing.

"Hey! Put RobotBoy down!"

"Make me!"

Tommy hopped off the bed and leaped towards Donnie. But Donnie immediately stepped aside and dodged him.

But the little boy wasn't finished. "Donnie! Give him back!"

"If you want him back, you gotta come get it."

Donnie ran out the door with RobotBoy.

Tommy was very angry. "Ugh! I wanted to stay out of trouble, but noooooo! This is what I have to put up with. Oh well, it's just to get my buddy back."

He ran out of his room and saw Donnie taunting him at the end of the hallway.

He ran after his big brother as the latter ran into a room. He then came out of a different door and through another one as Tommy was still chasing him. This went on again and again until after a while, they got a bit confused and began going through and out of different doors separately. After a few more times, Tommy finally caught eye on Donnie and chased him into one more room; his parents' bedroom.

In there, the boys were bouncing on the bed as Tommy was still trying to get his robot friend.

Donnie then hopped off the bed and headed out the door, bumping a nearby nightstand in the process.

On that nightstand was Debbie Turnbull's prized possession; her porcelain swan, which was wobbling around near the edge.

Tommy immediately stopped when he saw the swan was about to fall onto the floor. Luckily though, he was able to catch it before it could break.

"Phew! That was close. If this thing broke, I'd be in big trouble. Better put you somewhere where you can't shatter."

He took the little figure out of the room to find somewhere safe to put it. Unfortunately, trying to find a safe place was easier said than done. The best he could find was the coffee table next to the window with a desk lamp on it.

So that's where he put it.

"That'll have to do for now. Now where was I? Oh right!"

And Tommy went back to his chase.

All throughout the rest of the night, as the sun was already down, Tommy spent nearly the whole evening chasing after Donnie around the house, trying to get RobotBoy back.

Unsurprisingly, much of the furniture was wrecked and knocked down, and yet the swan remained intact.

After so much running, they stopped in the middle of the living room.

By this time, Tommy was getting fed up with his brother. "Donnie, stop doing this to me! You're making me really mad!"

"I know. I can tell. Question is, what are you going to do about it? Sock me?"

Tommy growled even more. He knew Donnie knew he was a pacifist and was using that against him.

"Donnie, listen! I don't want to fight right now. I just want RobotBoy back and then I'd like you to leave me alone."

Donnie smiled sinisterly (or seemingly sincerely). "Well, if you insist. I guess you can have it back if you really want to." And he held RobotBoy out in front of him, close enough for Tommy's reach.

Tommy seemed puzzled about this. Was Donnie actually willing to cooperate with him? Or was it just another trick?

Either way, Tommy immediately lunged forward.

But little to his knowledge, Donnie instantly pulled RobotBoy away, causing Tommy to slam his face into a wall.

"PSYCHE!!"

The sudden impact shook the wall and caused several picture frames to fall off and break onto the floor.

And Donnie once again teased Tommy with RobotBoy, making him even more angry. Tommy ran towards him, but Donnie hid behind the mantle and spilled a jar of marbles in Tommy's path, causing him to slip.

Tommy then slid across the room and bumped the coffee table, which caused the desk lamp on it to swing so fast that it knocked the porcelain swan straight out the window.

The boys ran to the window sill and watched as the swan fell down to the ground and broke on the sidewalk into pieces.

Donnie shook his head with faux disappointment. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. You just can't stop making trouble, can you?"

And he laughed as he walked off.

As angry as Tommy was and as much as he wanted to argue with him, he was more concerned about the swan breaking to care at the moment. "Oh man! I'm so busted! What am I going to do?"

Just then he heard the car coming up the hill and parking next to the hill.

Too frightened to think of a solution, Tommy ran and hid behind a recliner chair as the front door opened.

Within seconds, the parents stepped in. When they did, Donnie immediately stepped in to play. "Why hello mother, father. I hope you had a lovely evening."

Dwight was the first to speak. "My boy, it was a wonderful evening. I trust that you were able to hold down the fort while we were gone?"

"I wish I could assure you that this house is in the best shape possible. But sadly, that's not the case."

Donnie gestured toward the living room, which was even more of a wreck than the last few times the boys were home alone.

And this time, just saying that they were flabbergasted would not be enough to justify their feelings.

"Oh no!" Deb said. "Not this again."

"I'm afraid so," Donnie proclaimed. "So sorry you had to come back to this again. And I'm especially sorry about your precious swan that fell out the window."

"WHAT!?!?!"

Deb immediately rushed to the open window, and looked down to the ground, devastated to find her treasured item shattered into smithereens.

Behind the chair, Tommy gulped and tried to back away as his mother looked outside.

"MY SWAN!!!" She cried. "MY PRECIOUS PORCELAIN SWAN!!! IT'S IRREPLACEABLE!!!!"

Dwight 'tried' to comfort her. "Now, honey. Calm down. I'm sure there's a good explanation."

"You bet there is!" Donnie intervened. "This was no accident."

"What do you mean?" Asked Deb.

"I mean your prized possession was pushed…….By Tommy!"

Donnie points towards his younger brother, who was standing in the living room looking sheepish, as all eyes glared at him.

"Hey, come on. You don't actually think I meant to knock it out the window, do you? Mom and dad?"

"Oh don't try to weasel your way out, you clumsy little pest!" Donnie accused.

"Now, it was an accident, guys. Come on. You gotta believe me."

"All I believe is that you deliberately went and broke something special to your mother!" Dwight scolded. "How dare you?"

"But I'm innocent! I didn't do it!" However, it wasn't entirely true. "Okay, yes, I did touch it, but only to move it somewhere safe. But Donnie took RobotBoy and wouldn't give him back. Then I bumped it and it fell out the window. I didn't think it would break so quickly. Honest. I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Get a clue, Dipwad," his brother continued. "You just couldn't handle that little thing hogging all your attention, could you Tommy? Didn't want to face the fact that maybe your mom had something special to her. So you got rid of it. Well what if I start playing with something special to me, Tommy? Huh? You gonna throw that out of the window too?!?"

"I don't think we should give him the chance," Dwight suggested.

"Boys, that's enough!" Debbie declared.

At first, Tommy sighed with relief as it seemed like his troubles were over.

But then…….

"Tommy, go upstairs to your room! We need to have a word with you."

"But-!"

"Now!"

Deb pointed up the stairs and Tommy ultimately obliged, sadly. She then went upstairs herself.

Just as he was about to go up, Dwight grabbed the deactivated RobotBoy from Donnie. "I'll be taking that."

Donnie then smiled sinisterly once they were both out of sight. "That little twerp is going to be in so much trouble! I should get my camera."

Meanwhile, up in his bedroom, Tommy was still trying to prove his innocence to his parents.

"But I'm telling you the truth! Donnie started it! He pushed my buttons and made me bump into it!"

But his mother didn't buy it. "Tommy, you knew how special that porcelain figure was to me. I told you not to break it and you didn't listen."

"It wasn't my fault, it was Donnie! He's always being mean to me and always getting me into trouble!"

"Oh, really?" his father scolded. "A real man would own up to his misdeeds. Not a little girly boy like you. How do you expect us to believe you when there's a witness?"

"Can't you give me the BOTD, just this once?"

"No! I certainly can NOT give you the BOTD! Because……. I don't know what that means."

"Benefit of the doubt," Debbie clarified.

"Oh, well I can't give you that either. You have to take responsibility for your actions, which means……"

"We're going to have to punish you," Debbie told Tommy.

"But—!"

"No more buts, young man," his mother demanded. "You are not to leave this room for the rest of the night. We'll discuss a proper punishment in the morning."

"In short: you're grounded," his father simplifies, holding RobotBoy in hand. "And this is staying with us tonight."

"No! You can't!"

"Sure we can. And we are."

"And I don't want to hear a peep out of you for the rest of the night," his mother finished.

Tommy tried to say something, but his parents slammed the door before he could.

Just as he was about to head to bed, Donnie opened his bedroom door and walked in.

"Wow, I've never seen you so miserable," he said.

Tommy was too upset to say anything. It just wasn't fair.

"I should get a photo." Donnie pulls out a camera from behind his back and snaps a picture of Tommy looking sad. "One for you….."

He gave the photo to Tommy before putting him in a dress and snapping another one. "And one for the internet."

He took that photo for himself and headed out the door. "I'll be seeing you, Butt-Monkey! Oh wait! No I won't! Ha!"

He slammed the door shut, leaving Tommy all alone in the dark.

At that point, something changed inside Tommy. Something snapped.

His eyebrows furrowed, his teeth gritted tightly and he clenched his fists even tighter. He began punching on his bed, kicking his furniture and screaming into his pillow like crazy.

After doing so for a while, he managed to cool down a little, but was still very angry.

"I can't believe this! They didn't listen to me! AGAIN! I'm so sick of that!" He tried taking a few deep breaths to calm down, but it didn't exactly help much because he was still mad. "Why do I put up with this? Why do I have to live in a place where I'm constantly tortured?"

Tommy slammed his head down against the wall, but then he got an idea.

"Hey! Wait! Who said I have to put up with it? If my parents won't listen to me, why should I have to live here? I'll just go find a new home, and a new family. Yeah! That's what I'll do! I'm just going to take my things and just go away."

That night, while everyone was asleep, Tommy snuck downstairs to the kitchen, opened the fridge and began stuffing his backpack with food.

"This should do for the road," he said. "Just one more thing to do."

Soon after, Tommy began sneaking into his parents bedroom, trying not to wake them up.

The only thing is he kept stepping on things which would make noise. But luckily, nobody woke up.

Finally, he found RobotBoy sitting on the nightstand right next to the bed. So he tiptoed over, grabbed RobotBoy and immediately ran out of the room.

Upon getting back to his room, Tommy set the robot on his bed and reactivated him with the watch.

"Tommy, what going on?"

"Hey Ro. Listen, this is hard for me to say but……..I'm leaving."

"When you be back?"

"I'm not coming back. I'm running away from home. Forever."

"Forever?"

"I've had it with this family! So I'm going out to find a new one to stay with."

"Oh, okay. When we leave?"

"Sorry, Ro. You can't come with me. It's hard enough keeping you a secret here. I can't risk you being seen by the rest of the world."

"RobotBoy be fine. Tommy could use protection. Cold world out there, all alone."

"I don't know……"

"Please?"

The two stared at each other for a good few minutes, with RobotBoy giving him the puppy dog eyes.

Ultimately, Tommy gave in. "Oh okay. You can tag along. But you've got to stay in the pack and not super activate unless I say so. We can't risk putting anyone in danger."

"RobotBoy promise."

"Good." Tommy pressed the button on his watch and RobotBoy deactivated. He then placed the bot into his bag.

The last thing he did before leaving was to write a letter to his parents and leave it on his bed. Once that was done, he took out a bunch of sheets and tied them all together, forming a rope, and let it hang out the window.

He climbed out the window, down the rope and onto the ground. Once out of the house, he took off and headed out of the neighborhood.

"We should have done this a long time ago, RobotBoy," said Tommy. "Now we can both do whatever we want."

The boy kept on running until he got to a train yard.

By then, he was very tired and exhausted.

"Man, I didn't think running away was so complicated," he said.

He sat down to take a rest, when a loud noise startled him.

It was a train whistle. He looked towards a hill and saw a line of boxcars. Without hesitation, he went up to one of the cars and climbed right inside.

"Not sure where this'll take me, but I don't care. Wherever I end up, it'll be better than being grounded."

After settling himself inside, the whistle blew again and began to move. Tommy began to take one last look at his old home.

"Well, looks like I'm on my own now. So long, Bay Area."

And now we're getting somewhere

Now that this chapter is over, I might as well get this out of the way

As you may have guessed, yes, much of this story was inspired by the Fairly OddParents movie Channel Chasers (one of my personal favorites btw). However, I also included some elements from both The Lion King and a bit of the Prodigal Son narrative (which you shall see later on).

And yes, the whole confrontation scene was inspired by Toy Story (another favorite of mine).

After rewatching episodes of RobotBoy (as well as reading some of the other fanfics), I considered doing a story of my own that would feature The Loud House. The reason for that was because after reading numerous online fanfics (i.e. Trustworthy, Guy Token, Project Runaway, etc.) in which Lincoln runs away after being "mistreated" by his sisters, I thought to myself; "what if a similar thing happened to someone else, and the Louds took them in." And with that in mind, RobotBoy seemed to be the perfect match.

I could go on, but I'd rather not reveal too much.

Anyway, where will Tommy and RobotBoy end up? Find out next time.

So long, everybody!