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Just had an idea for a short cross over story. Here's part one of it. Cobalt meets a strange robot from another Anime that you might know. click for spoilerFlCl or Fooly Cooly



He walked silently, scuffing the soles of his boots along the broken concrete. The neighborhood around him wasn't familiar for he'd never been in this part of town before. The area was deserted and most of the buildings had been abandoned years ago, and had fallen into ruin. There was a jungle of vegetation growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk and the rubble of the building walls. It was strangely quiet too, he could hear the sounds of crickets and birds chirping as the usual city sounds were far away in the distance. The nearest rail line was a few miles distant, and the streets were empty of traffic. Nowhere to be seen were the usual constant sights and sounds of construction and urban renewal.

Cobalt sighed and sat down on a the hood of an abandoned car that lay on its wheel rims with its tires missing. He'd been walking for a few hours while deep in the solitude of his thoughts and hadn't been paying attention to where he was. He looked about him, and realized that he was lost, having no idea where he was, or how he'd gotten there. This wasn't the first time he'd wandered off by himself, his walk about behavior was a good therapy for the almost constant state of depression that he'd been in for the past few months. The clumsy, lanky robot had been a dark mood for some time. Some might have suspected he was suffering from an inferiority complex, or was envious of his younger brother's hero deeds. What Cobalt lacked were friends, when he was left alone, which was quite often, his mind would wander and take his body with it.

“This must be the precinct where the old medica facility once stood,” Cobalt thought to himself. He vaguely remembered Ochanomizu Hakase telling him and Atom about the abandoned part of the city where an industrial accident had occurred, leaving a huge stain of pollution that had been deemed too expensive to clean up. While the chemical remains were dangerous to humans, he knew that as a robot he was in no danger from them.

He got up and started walking again. Ahead of him was an alley that ran between several large buildings that must have been part of a factory complex. Cobalt trod lightly, trying not to allow his boots to squeak as he walked. Even so, the sound of his footsteps echoed between the walls of the derelict structures. Several times he stopped as he thought he saw a shadow following him out of the corner of his eye. He quickened his pace as a small knot of fear hardened in his throat. Ahead of him, he could see daylight at the end of the alley. Once again he glanced over his shoulder, and again the shadow was there, cast by a beam of sunlight between the buildings onto the pavement.

Cobalt stopped suddenly and stood his ground. He turned to face what ever was following him. It slowly advanced towards him, coming from around a corner of the nearest building. Cobalt stared at it, trying to keep a brave face. A turquoise blue in color, the robot was a head taller than he was. Although humanoid in design, its appearance only resembled that of a person. It had a graphical display for a face, with a grill below that for a mouth. It wore part of a cardboard box, held together with duck tape, over the back of its head. Hanging over its frame, it wore a blueish smock like garment, that only partially hid the robotic appearance of its middle torso in an apparent attempt to disguise itself as human.

The two robots stood their respective grounds and just looked each other over. Gradually Cobalt got the idea that this strange individual meant him no harm and was simply curious of him. “What's your name?” Kobaruto asked, “I'm Cobalt.”

The display panel face of the strange robot lit up in a slow repeating sequence of single Kanji like characters. Cobalt's electronic brain was able to decipher the robot's sign language. “Pleased to meet you Kanchi-san,” he said slowly, waiting for the stranger's reaction.

Kanchi's face plate singed again, and he made a slight bowing gesture. Cobalt's fear melted completely away at this point. He'd apparently found a new friend.

“I'd ask you to come home with me, but I think I'm lost,” Cobalt sighed.

Another train of symbols slid across the strange robot's TV like face.

“Well, if I could fly it would be easy for me to find my way home,” Cobalt sighed. “But I can't so I guess we'll just have to wander about this maze till I spot a familiar landmark.”
Kanchi signed again before lurching forward to grab Cobalt around his waist.

“What are you doing?” Cobalt cried out, “Let me go!”

Kanchi bent his knees and gently leaped upward. He slowly floated into the air like a balloon, and the two of them rose above the city desert.

“You can fly?” Cobalt gasped. The turquoise robot didn't have jet engines like Atom, or glider wings like Mars, he seemed to be using some sort of anti-gravity propulsion system. They weren't moving fast, but now at a few hundred feet in the air Cobalt was able to see where he was.

“There!” he pointed. “That's where my house is, in that direction.”

Kanchi signed, and started to drift towards the section of the city indicated by Kobaruto.

Cobalt looked up and noticed the halo suspended over Kanchi's head, actually it appeared to be an old 22W round florescent tube bulb held in place by a stiff wire attached to the robot's neck. Perhaps it was part of his anti-gravity system? Kanchi seemed to know where he was going, as they drifted lower Cobalt saw his house slowly coming into his field of view. They lighted gently down on the pathway leading towards the front door, and Kanchi released Cobalt from his grip.

“Thank you,” Kobaruto smiled. He opened the front door of the house and peeked about to see if 'the coast was clear', and then motioned for the tall robot to follow him in. Kanchi silently shadowed behind Cobalt, and the two of them entered his room.
“Maybe you'd better stay hidden in here,” he told Kanchi, “I don't know how the others will react towards you.” Kanchi nodded and signed something to indicate he understood.

The door to Cobalt's room slowly creaked open, and with a big smile on his face, Chi-tan crawled in. The baby 'bot looked up at the tall robot and cooed. “Oh Oh!” Cobalt thought as Kanchi bent down to get a closer look at the baby, and gently picked him up. Chi-tan laughed as he felt Kanchi's mouth grill and patted his face screen. The larger robot flashed some sign language on his TV screen face, which only got Chi-tan to laugh even louder. Kanchi sat down on the edge of Cobalt's bed with the baby bot on his lap. The two of them made gestures at each other, Chi-tan responding to Kanchi's signs with babbling baby talk. The two of them seemed to be playing Janken with each other for a bit, before Chi-tan got bored with the game and slid down Kanchi's leg and crawled out of the room.

Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief. “That was close!” he told his new buddy. “If you had gotten my little brother upset the whole neighborhood would have known about it!” Kanchi made a sign that he didn't understand that, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I'M HOME!” With a slam of the front door, Uran announced her return from her day's activities. “Go wash up!” Mom yelled back.
“Now you really need to stay hidden,” Cobalt said. “I'll be back soon, I'll feel my parents out and see if its OK for you to come out.”


Cobalt found his mother and father in the kitchen. As he showed his face his father spoke up, “have you seen your brother?” he asked Cobalt, “He's late from school again.”

“Īe,” Cobalt answered, I just got in myself.”

“Out walking again?”, Mom asked. “You've been doing that a lot. You feeling OK?”

“Ogenkidesu,” Cobalt answered. “I just need to be alone with my thoughts sometimes.”

“Oh, here he is now!” Dad said, pointing out the window. Atom waved at Ochanomizu's car as it drove away, and then turned to walk towards the front door.

“Sorry I'm late, Mom, Dad,” he said. “Hakase needed my help with something.”

“That's OK, son,” Mom replied, “Dinner isn't quite ready yet.”

Cobalt cleared his throat, “Would it be OK if I had a friend over to stay for awhile?” he asked.

“You made a new friend, son?” Dad asked.

“Sorta kinda,” Cobalt replied. “Actually, he followed me home.”

“Well, I guess so,” Mom answered. “Why don't you introduce him to us?”

“Hai!” Cobalt replied. He ran towards his room and grabbed Kanchi by his hand. “Come with me, I think it's OK.”

Mom and Dad looked at the turquoise robot that towered over all of them.
“Mom, Dad,” Cobalt said, “This is Kanchi. I found him in the ruins of the old Medica facility.”

Uran chose that moment to stick her head into the kitchen. “Who's the big tall guy?” she asked.

“His name is Kanchi.” Cobalt said. “He doesn't say much, in fact he only signs.”

Uran watched as a greeting seemed to roll across Kanchi's TV screen face. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“Hello Kanchi,” Atom added, extending his hand. The tall robot bowed down and shook Atom's hand in greeting, while signing something.

CRASH! KABOOM! Atom ran towards the front door and burst outside to confront whatever it was that was causing the commotion outside. Standing in the driveway, and towering over the house, stood a giant robot. The huge creature ripped the satellite antenna from the roof of the house with one of its giant fists and threw it into the distance.

Atom focused his long distance vision at the top of the robot's head and saw the glass dome on top. Inside of the clear compartment sat a man, operating the robot's controls. It was Acetylene Lamp! The giant robot looked down and Atom and it glared at each other.
“I'm going to destroy you Atom!” Lamp bellowed through the robot's voice amplification system. “I had Dr. Fooler build me this indestructible robot weapon. It has two million horsepower, so be prepared to meet your doom!”

“Not so fast, Lamp!” Atom yelled back, as he flew upwards to meet Lamp's challenge. Atom flew in a tight circle around the robot's head as he charged up his arm cannons and pelted the robot with depleted uranium shells from his butt guns.
The bullets bounced off the robot's heavily armored skin without even leaving a mark. Lamp laughed as he powered up his weapons, aiming a surge cannon at Atom.

By this time, the entire family was standing outside the house looking up and watching. “Oh no!” Uran cried out, as Lamp fired the particle beam cannon at her brother. Atom dodged the attack, but the weapon hit the roof of the house and blew a huge hole into the building. “You bastard!” Uran yelled, “That was MY ROOM!”

Atom dived down from a great height and fired his arm cannons. The beams seemed to surround the robot weapon, but had no effect. “I've got ray shielding good for a billion electron volts!” Lamp yelled over the speaker system. “Your arm cannons are useless against me!”

“Well let's try some kinetic energy, then!” Atom yelled. He flew up towards the stratosphere, and then dived downward at several times the speed of sound to smash into the robot with his fists. His charge knocked Lamp's 'tank' over on its side, but caused no real damage. Lamp's robot got back onto its feet and charged at Atom who lay on the ground recovering from his last attack attempt.

“Now I'm going to crush you!” Lamp yelled as his giant robot proceeded to stomp Atom into the ground with its foot.

“NO!” Uran cried out in tears.
Cobalt turned to look at Kanchi, “Can you do anything to help?”

Kanchi emitted a low growl. Uran and Cobalt turned about and watched as the tall lanky robot turned a bright red color as it seemed to undergo a transformation. His chest opened up into a pair of large jaws and he advanced on Cobalt and seemed to swallow him whole.

Uran gasped in horror, “What did you do to my other brother?” she yelled.

Kanchi, continued to metamorphosize as he advanced towards the giant robot with Lamp at its controls. He now bent over, and seemed to split in half as the maw of a giant gun emerged from his body and was aimed at the robot weapon that was about to crush Atom into the ground.

The weapon fired a blast that reverberated with a sound that might have equaled the detonation from the big bang itself. Dr. Fooler's robot tank exploded into atomic mist, leaving an oil soaked Lamp sitting on the ground in shell shock.

After firing his weapon, Kanchi suddenly started to return to his previous form. A blob of goo squirted out from him, which quickly solidified back into Cobalt! The TV headed robot then changed back into his turquoise form as if nothing had happened.

Cobalt got to his feet, and grabbed Lamp by his neck, throttling him with both hands.
“NO, ANI!” Atom yelled as he got back to his feet. “I'll take care of him!”

Cobalt reluctantly released his grip on Lamp and handed the wretch to his younger brother. “Here, he's all yours!”

“What just happened?” Uran asked.

“I'm not sure, myself,” Cobalt said. “I think I merged with Kanchi. He sucked me into himself as he transformed into a weapon. I was the one that fired that awful cannon at Lamp. When it was all over, Kanchi spat me out and we become our own selves again.”