Fan Fiction: Jaunting

[dannavy85]

Botanical gardens
Ikibukaro

“Click” Astro took a picture of an elegantly trimmed Bonsai, laid on his back and took another from a lower angle “Click.”

“So…what do I do during spring break?” He said to himself as he walked along the paths taking more pictures of different plants and flowers. “I could take Zoran to Tokyo Disneyland, haven’t been there yet.”

Astro flew up and hovered around like a humming bird. “Thailand? Doc says the diving around Phe Phe Island is awesome. Nah….Sapporo? Skiing…snow boarding. Yeah…Sapporo.”

Astro made a note of his vacation plans as he walked from the botanical gardens. “Now where?” He said to himself while he flipped through the pages of his pocket guide book. Another of those brilliant but devilish smirks came over his face.

Tokyo

A target is not hit by the aim of the eye but rather by the sinuitous and peaceful coexistence of physical and spiritual forces…

“What ever.” The young boy thought as he held the drawn bow almost over his head and relaxed his breathing. He allowed the draw string to slip from his fingers and let fly, his arrow making a high whistling sound as it soared through the air towards the target 15 yards distant.

“Perfect.” He thought pleased…till someone dropped from a tree and snatched the arrow in a hand. “Argh! You ruined my best shot!”

Astro twirled the arrow in his fingers. “I’m sorry oh 345th Grandson of the Sun Goddess, Next in line to the Imperial Dinning chair, All knowing, All seeing, Gifted grand master of Warcraft Online….”

The boy waved a hand. “Ok you can stop with all the silly titles.” Prince Atashi said as he took his arrow back. “How did you get in here anyway? You’re supposed to make a reservation.”

“You have underrated security?” Astro replied. He took out a Peach drink. “Want one? I’ve been taking a break from the Ministry and thought I’d stop by.”

The young Prince removed his court ghee and undid the traditional bun of rolled hair behind his head. “Save me from all this boredom. Have you ever sat for two hours learning about the tea ceremony? And history lessons, I didn’t know there were ten different mythical accounts of the Battle of Momushi and the great warrior Musashi.”

Astro giggled. “How about the Battle of Shinjuku and the skirmish of Sake?”

“I was grounded for a week.” The Prince said frowning. “That’s why you’re here? You want me to sneak out so we can get in trouble?”

Astro shrugged. “I wasn’t the one who went walking off the last time. Anyway I was going to ask for a place to spend the night.”

The Prince nodded. “There’s always room if you’re willing to risk to return the favor by getting me out for an hour so I can ride my motorcycle.”

Astro pursed his lips. “That’s all you want right? Just the motorcycle…no running off to do something dumb. Remember you do have an important reputation to uphold your highness?”

Atashi smiled. “I am very sure that centuries of Chrysanthemum rule will not fall apart on the account of motorcycle fumes. I bet my Grandfathers pulled some ridiculous pranks on their own account.”

National Highway
Kanagoya

“You’re squeezing a little too tight back there.” The Prince said as the vintage Yamaha rolled around a curve in the roadway.

“I’m not used to being a passenger on a motorcycle! Astro replied as he pulled on the leather jackets sides. “Flyings’ one thing, I can control that!”

“How can you take on evil robots, maniac inventions, lightening, bullets, rockets, heat electricity and you’re scared of a little speed on a two-wheel bike? Not a good expression of confidence.”

“I HATE ROAD BURNS. ALL RIGHT!” Astro shouted. The Prince laughed as he turned off the highway and stopped at the first “Circle K” store he found. Astro sat on the bike seat sucking down ramen while the Prince ate beef and rice from a plastic tray.

“So different from the house prepared meals. Sometimes there’s no taste, I think they remove it on purpose to maintain the family “stuffy-ness”.

Astro was craning his head to pick up sounds around the city. “Someone’s racing? I’m picking up a lot of whining motorbikes to the West.”

“Probably High School kids dragging.” Atashi said. “Let’s go see what’s up.”

Astro scratched his head. “It’s getting kinda late.”

“We’ll only stay a few minutes, trust me. Besides are you so in a rush to end your weekend and run to school?”

“Boogie Run”
Inter-city route 7
Ropungi

“VRRRRRRROOOOOOMMMM!” The speeding crotch rockets rushed by so close to the sidewalk that Astro took a step back in caution as he was clocking the speeds.

“140! Don’t you think they’d be worried about the side streets?”

The Prince smirked. “Nah…by now most people know what’s going on around here.”

Astro stepped up again and used his eyes to zoom in on the next two bikes lining up on the stop lights 70 yards down the street. “Looks like the Nishiki Samurai on the left’s gonna cream the one on the right.”

“How can you tell?”

Astro squinted. “His engine’s cooler even with the high RPM. The other guy’s lacking oil and his bike’s radiating super red purple.”

Both bikes screamed off the start and as Astro predicted, the right side bike blew a pair of gaskets with a noticeable “blang” and hobbled to a halt while the competitor screamed to victory down the street.

“See?” Astro said smiling as he looked back down the street towards the start. Now he was scanning again but this time his smiled became a serious frown. The Prince was knocked off his feet by a blast of air and caught only the multi-colored blur of speed as Astro flew low down the center of the road and caught his target by the chest, pushing him off his motorcycle which crashed into a light pole.

“ARGH!” The young man snarled as he pushed Astro off. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING YOU IDIOT! YOU RUINED MY BIKE!”

The crowd was quickly surrounding the two as the biker started looking for something, anything to take out his frustrations upon his tackler. “SOME ONE GIVE ME A BAT! I’LL MESS THIS STUPID ROBOT UP!”

Astro just stood calmly and folded his arms. “That’s a real kind way of thanking me for keeping you from being a road smear.”

Astro walked over to the damaged motorcycle and pulled the front wheel axel out…in two pieces.

“Your axle was stressed out. I saw it scanning your bike. It broke in half just as you took off. Had I not stopped you….you’d be a 100 mile per hour bouncing ball on concrete. Flesh doesn’t do well against concrete at high speeds.”

The biker took one of the pieces of the axel and blew a sigh of relief. “I owe you an apology.”

“Bah…that was a nice bike, I’d be a little upset too.” Astro watched as other bikers went back to their own motorcycles and started checking them over.

Atashi tapped him on the shoulder. “Think you could help me beat my brother Onishi at poker?”

Astro giggled. “You couldn’t pay me enough to help you cheat. I have a dishonesty prevention chip you know.

[dannavy85]

Imperial Palace
Tokyo

Astro trudged around the main household late at night dressed in a long children’s happy coat, a pair of black ghee pants and a pair of soft slippers. At 2am no one was up around the compound but the normal police uniformed members of the Imperial Guards. Astro heard the heavy boot-falls of a pair of them outside the south wall as he slowly entered the main throne room.

Though not the original structure, long since gone from the great destruction of World War II, the very chamber of old Japanese Imperial power designed and re-built to it’s decorative luster was still a thing to awe.

Astro stroked a hand over one of the decorative oak pillars and smiled. It could have been so easy for him to duplicate the same art with his laser finger but certainly he couldn’t duplicate every chip and knaw made to bring the twists of ancient Gods and mythical creatures to life.

A sword sitting low near the Imperial throne caught his eye. The placement seemed unusual, especially since Astro could quickly determine the age of the bamboo sheath. His curiosity caused him to pick it up off its stand and admire the craft work of the leather bound handle and the chisel pounded iron hilt. He froze cold when a hand slapped him on the shoulder…

“Put that back…” Prince Atashi begged softly. “If my mother catches you holding that we’ll have so much hell to pay.”

Astro returned the sword to its stand. “I was just looking at it.”

“Look at it from a respectful distance please? That is the sword of my forefathers…the sword of Emperors back to the Sun Goddess…”

Astro turned. “A very old sword that should I pull it from its sheath a bunch of moths will fly and eat every old thing in this house…”

“Astro! Show respect!”

The boy bot smirked. “Come on…I bet you called it a stir stick or some silly thing and the world didn’t stop?”

Atashi pursed his lips. “I once called it the ancient apple chopper.”

They both laughed as they walked back through the palace to their rooms. “So…where are the ninja trap doors and secret passages?” Astro asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Atashi replied. “Don’t try to find them. I wouldn’t want you to drop onto my mother’s futon mat.”

Astro waved good night and flopped onto his sleeping mat.

Mid-Morning
Kamakura Station

J-Pop, a big jelly pastry and total laziness. Astro leaned back against the backrest of his restaurant booth and looked out the window towards Kindishi Island and the long stretch of beach that was deserted of all but the most hearty of morning walkers.

It was raining outside and the hyper-reactive rocket bot was bushed. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and studied it. “A……Rapid Roket-player wall scroll. You can only get it from Ukazi’s book store in Kamakura.”

Astro smirked. “I just might get it for myself Reno.”

He walked from one book store in the city’s ginza and spent an hour picking through rows of CD’s in a music store. Astro seemed stuck between two CD’s, he spent minutes studying the song titles, comparing the case thicknesses, using his scanners to see what was inside the cases…

He popped the single CD he bought into his chest door and quietly walked around the ginza till he found the Ukazi Book store. The volume of manga and toys of all ages and numbers caused Astro to shuffle and stiffen to get by the towering stacks of books tied by endless wrappings of twine. The whole store had an old rice paper smell to it and the ages of the various books could be determined by the rainbow shades of browning and moisture marks on the exposed ends of the page sheets. Astro pulled one out, giggled, turned a page, giggled some more and looked through the pile in front of him…

“What’s Michael…I gotta have a few of these.” He said to himself as he took 3 volumes of the popular cat manga and placed them on the pay counter. “Do you have a wall scroll for Rapid Rocket-Player?”

The shop owner dropped a cardboard tube on the counter and smiled. “I suppose you would like this too?” He showed Astro a freestyle comic or Dojinshi a fan had published about the mechanical national hero. It made him blush.

“I don’t have a head that big. It’s a nice thing though.” Astro jotted down the address in the back of the book and stuffed his back pack. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Perhaps you could take this shirt with you and wear it around school? Sorry for the shameless advertisement on it but I can use the help.”

Astro pulled the shirt over his anime shirt and waved as he walked out. “No problem. Say….if you could find a model of the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine? Can you hold it?”

“I will.” The man replied as he waved.

Afternoon
Ministry of Science

Reno was playing with his PS3 till Astro came swaggering through the door and threw the cardboard tube into Reno’s lap.

“There it is.” Astro said as he plopped down on the couch, kicked off his red boots and sprawled across the padding. “Your wall scroll.”

Reno opened it up and looked it over. “Thanks! I called the Doc and he told me you went out for the weekend.”

Astro smiled. “What did you think of the video I sent? Those engine modifications you added to the ventry bells? Work great.”

Reno frowned a little. “Yeah…I wanted to ask you about that stunt. We already tested those and you go ripping around like you think you own those. This is like the 10th time any one’s had to talk to you about joy-flying and un-needed screaming around. You might think you own your body parts Astro but I have to spend the Ministry’s budget and hours of busting my butt fixing them when you blow them apart.”

Astro sighed. “ Everyone panics when I cross the street.”

Reno patted Astro’s feet. “For the last time can you just do me a favor and not Tom Cruise these baby turbo fans so much? I just don’t want to see you get into a mess when you’re taking on some window washing bee gone insane.”

“Ok…I was hoping you’d drop all these jobs you’re doing and come with me this weekend. I could have used you when I was getting my pride handed to me by some angry monkeys.”

Reno smirked. “What did you do?”

“I was totally innocent!”

“Yeah right.” Reno chuckled. “And I’m the Prime Minister.”

Evening
Doctor O’Shay’s house

Zoran oogled and hopped with joy as she showed off her new china tea set to the Doctor.

“Well I guess that loaded up my good return credit card.” Astro said smiling. “You’ll happily do the dishes this week, won’t you Zoran?”

Zoran smirked. “Wishful hoping. But you are the sweetest big brother in the world.”

“If he stops badgering monkeys.” Doctor o’Shay said laughing.
“Ok….ok….I made a few faces at them, I didn’t know it would offend them.”

Zoran snorted. “You have a face that offends plants.”

“Yeah…..yes I do. Think you could give me a face lift Doctor?”

Doctor O’Shay smiled. “Only if you’ll pay for it.”

Later that evening, Astro was swapping between catching up on his homework and reading his new “What’s Michael” manga. He finally tossed his math book aside and sat back in his study chair with the last can of Peach drink balancing on a finger. He gulped it down in a few chugs, savored the comforting taste, and finished reading one of the manga before he turned in for the night.

“Hmmm…next time? Chiba. I’ll go to Chiba.” He thought to himself as he closed his eyes, tuned into a J-Pop channel and fell asleep.

The End

[stoogefreaky]

Very Good!

[CommanderEVE]

Is there going to be more stories danavy85?

[dannavy85]

Of course. I'm writing another one called "Don't Worry, we'll save the world we're experts!"

A Zoran, Astro, Reno, Ken comedy. ; )

[CommanderEVE]

Oh, ok I’ll look forward to reading it. Do you make other stories too?

[dannavy85]

I'll have to dig some out and re-post them.

[CommanderEVE]

Ok, I bet you have loads of stories.