Hi! Do crossovers of Astro Boy with other characters from the Tezuka Star System count for the event?
Of course! So long as your contribution is a creative work that fills at least one of the prompts and has some connection to Astro Boy, it fits the parameters for the fanweek guidelines, so go for it!
Welcome back to Astro Boy Fanweek 2025, a weeklong prompt-based creative challenge to celebrate the birthday of everybody's favorite robot boy! Beginning on April 1 and ending on April 7, this event aims to bring the fandom together and inspire new contributions to the community through the use of prompts and spark words to fuel the fires of your imaginations.
There are 35 different prompts in total for the participants to work with, including 14 alternative options. You can find all the necessary information about the event here, and if you've got any questions, you can always head over to my askbox. Can't wait to see what you guys come up with!
Full prompt list below the cut.
ASTRO BOY FANWEEK 2025 PROMPT LIST:
April 1: Creation l Adjustment l Becoming
April 2: Accidental l Promise l Gentle
April 3: Vacation l Stubborn l Morning
April 4: Mischief l Impact l Backfire
April 5: Keepsake l Confession l Closure
April 6: Preparation l Impending l Loss
April 7: Future l Journey l Ending
ALTERNATIVE PROMPTS:
April 1: Practice l Observation
April 2: Afternoon l Decoration
April 3: Pathway l Destination
April 4: Unhappy l Impulse
April 5: Heartbeat l Static
April 6: Uncertainty l Breathless
April 7: Lightning l Dreaming
Hey, everyone! We're back again for Astro Boy Fanweek 2025, a weeklong prompt-based creative challenge to celebrate the birthday of everybody's favorite robot boy! Beginning on April 1 and ending on April 7, this event aims to bring the fandom together and encourage new contributions to the community through the use of prompts and spark words to fire up your imaginations.
The prompt list will go live next week, so be sure to keep an eye out for that, and go here for more information on the challenge. I'm so excited to see all the amazing stuff you guys come up with this year!
"You guys—?" Astro stares around the penthouse kitchen in total disbelief, turning slowly on the spot to try and take in everything at once — colorful streamers draped haphazardly over every available surface, and a paper banner clumsily tacked up over the arched entryway, one side noticeably lower than the other, and a cake on the table, topped with white icing and blue sprinkles and flickering candles, a handful of presents wrapped in bright yellow gift paper beside it. "You guys threw me a birthday party?"
Read on AO3.
Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper, because everybody is talking about it again, and the reminders are everywhere he goes — President Logan wants him to make a speech about the whole thing, for crying out loud, and he knows the guy means well, but he really wants to say no, except he's not sure if he can do that politely, and he's not sure if he can do it at all, actually, because this is the president he's talking about, and the last time he said no to the president, he died twice in as many hours, and he'd prefer not to repeat that experience, please and thank you.
On top of that, every reporter in the entire city is trying to corner him for an impromptu interview about the year-old battle, armed with cameras and microphones and notepads, and he doesn't want to be rude to them when he knows they're just doing their job, but he doesn't want to relive that day again, either, so lately he's been taking every backroad and byway he knows to avoid them.
Things aren't much better at school, either, where it's an even fifty-fifty split between the classmates who pepper him with way more invasive, uncomfortable questions about the Peacekeeper than the reporters ever have, and the classmates who never wanted a robot around in the first place, and now they're seething about all the renewed interest in the fight, which means they're being twice as nasty as usual — TJ Porter, the unofficial ringleader of that second group, had a "conversation" with his friends in the school cafeteria yesterday about Astro's "future career" as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up metal in the junkyard.
(Astro tried his hardest to pretend he didn't hear TJ at all, and tried even harder than that to not think about this time last year, when he actually was facing a future as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up scrap metal in the junkyard.)
The HRA just recently published a brand-new and characteristically scathing article about the upcoming anniversary, too, and Astro knows he probably shouldn't have read it, but morbid curiosity can be very persuasive when it wants to be, so he knows exactly what they said about him, and he knows it went like this: A year has gone by since the combat robot known as Astro Boy caused all manner of property damage, supposedly in the name of "helping" the city, and still, the wider community continues to passively accept its presence in our skies and streets, even allowing it to attend public junior high school with our children. When will the proud people of this great nation come to their senses, and realize how deceiving appearances can truly be? This "Astro Boy" is no more a child than your local bank-teller, and it experiences no more emotion than the average vacuum cleaner.
(Astro turned off his phone for the next forty-eight hours after that, and tried not to think about this time last year, when the HRA was publishing articles about him in the immediate aftermath of the Peacekeeper fiasco, saying perhaps the former President Stone was correct in his opinions, if not his execution, of what to do about this blatant misuse of Ministry technology and we must hope that Dr. Tenma intends to eliminate this danger to the public before it can do any further damage to our city.)
Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper.
That doesn't mean he wants to think about it.
But the reminders are everywhere he goes, and everyone is talking about it, and everyone wants to hear him talk about it, too, and President Logan wants him to stand up in front of the city and make a whole speech about it, talk about the week when the whole world wanted him dead, and he was all alone and nobody wanted him and he didn't know who he was, and he barely even knew what he was, really, except that he wasn't human and he wasn't Tobi so he wasn't good enough and nobody wanted him and he was all alone and Dr. Elefun had lied when he said there's a place for you, you just have to find it, and he can't stop waking up in the middle of the night with panicked apologies spilling from his lips, saying I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Dad I'm so sorry I'm so sorry Dad please I'm sorry I'm sorry I swear I swear I'll do better I swear I'll do everything right I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry please Dad please don't kill me—
Yeah, Astro knows it's been a year since the Peacekeeper.
How could he forget?
But he's so busy thinking about it, and trying not to, that he actually does forget something else that also happened in the same week — something that isn't the Peacekeeper, something that isn't the ice-cold grief and crushing loneliness of waking up on his own in the junkyard, in a pile of robots that were just as unwanted as him, or the burning fury of the Robot Games, the bone-deep humiliation as Hamegg treated him like a monkey in a circus, the iron-heavy guilt of murdering all those other robots, the choking sorrow of knowing he'd just lost the best and only friends he'd ever had, and the devastation and despair of realizing he was going to die when he'd barely begun to live, the devastation and despair of realizing he had nothing left to live for.
Something else also happened in the same week.
But he's so busy trying not to think about anything from that week he completely forgets all about it.
Everyone else remembers, though.
"You guys—?" Astro stares around the penthouse kitchen in total disbelief, turning slowly on the spot to try and take in everything at once — colorful streamers draped haphazardly over every available surface, and a paper banner clumsily tacked up over the arched entryway, one side noticeably lower than the other, and a cake on the table, topped with white icing and blue sprinkles and flickering candles, a handful of presents wrapped in bright yellow gift paper beside it. "You guys threw me a birthday party?"
He's been so wrapped up in everything, trying to come up with a polite way to decline President Logan's request without accidentally alienating another elected official so soon after the last one, and trying to avoid the overzealous journalists around every corner, and trying not to think about this time last year, trying not to get lost in the memories, crystal-clear like it all happened just yesterday, that he didn't remember or even really know it was his birthday today, but it is, isn't it?
On this day last year, he wasn't waking up on his own in the junkyard — he was waking up in his father's lab at the Ministry of Science in the dead of night, his systems coming online and the cameras behind his eyes pulling the world into sharper and sharper and sharper focus until all the pixels suddenly coalesced together, and he saw his dad and Dr. Elefun for the first time. On this day last year, his artificial lungs were expanding with his first breath, and the synthetic vocal cords in his throat were vibrating with his first words, and the joints in his knees were whirring with his first steps.
On this day last year, he wasn't dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — he was coming alive.
He can't believe he forgot.
But everyone else remembered, and they're throwing him a whole party for it, even though it's technically an activation day, and not a birthday, and robots don't actually celebrate their activation days, anyway.
He wants to thank them. He wants to tell them they didn't have to do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them he can't believe they did do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them it's totally amazing, and he loves it, and he's sorry he's being so weird about it but as soon as he can wrap his mind around it, he's going to be really, really happy.
But his brain is frozen, and he's not sure he could push everything he wants to say past the lump in his throat, anyway.
"You really don't have to pretend you didn't see this coming, Astro," Cora shakes her head, but she's laughing as she does. "Widget and Sludge gave it away, like, a thousand times all week. It's okay. We know you already knew."
"Everyone expects a surprise party on their birthday, Cora!" Widget counters immediately, with the air of somebody who's already had this argument on several previous occasions. "And if they expect it, then it's not really a surprise! So you've got to make it super-duper clear to them that you are throwing them a party, because then they think it's going to be something totally different, and then it's not! Which means it really is a surprise! And! Look at him! He is very obviously surprised! Check and mate!"
Sludge nods proudly, standing up as tall as he can and puffing out his chest. "It was a double submersion!"
Dr. Elefun chuckles. "That's called a double subversion, Sludge."
"Same difference," Sludge rolls his eyes.
"It's really not," Orrin says.
"I-I didn't even know you guys knew my birthday," Astro stammers, awkward and uncertain, because it's honestly the only thing he can think to say. "Did I tell you, and then just… forget?" Come to think of it, he's not actually sure if that's even possible — with such an advanced artificial intelligence installed in his system, he can easily remember everything that's ever happened to him in precise, pin-sharp detail — but it also sounds exactly like the kind of thing he'd do.
"Oh, no, your dad gave us a heads-up, actually," Widget tells him. "He… what did you call it, Zane? 'Came through in the clutch'?"
Zane gives her a thumbs-up. "You got it."
I didn't know my dad knew my birthday, either, Astro thinks, but he catches himself a second before he actually says it out loud, biting his tongue against the instinctive response. "Oh."
"Yeah, four days ago," Cora huffs, rolling her eyes and folding her arms over her chest. "We had four days to get everything together for this. And your dad totally sucks at parties, by the way, so he was zero help. He was just like—" she pushes her voice down to a much deeper octave, in an obvious imitation of his dad's low, gruff tone, "—oh, yeah, it's Astro's birthday on Sunday, haha, isn't it crazy how time flies! And then he was gone!"
"Guilty as charged," Dad says mildly, without so much as a trace of said guilt in his voice, and a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he's trying his best not to laugh. "I've been persona non grata with everyone since then."
"Anyway," Cora jumps in again, pulling the conversation back on-track, "that's why this isn't as awesome as the birthday party you guys put together for me in February. We just didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted — we'll do something way cooler next year, though, trust me. It'll blow this one right out of the water, you'll see."
Astro can't believe she honestly thinks there could ever be anything better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, safe and smiling and happy, and here just for him. He can't believe they did all of this just for him. He can't even begin to imagine what Cora thinks could top this.
"No, no, this is—this is perfect," he chokes out, his vision getting suspiciously blurry all of a sudden, but he's also smiling so wide it's hurting his face. "Seriously, guys, I love this. It's perfect. Thank you so much for doing this for me."
"Of course!" Orrin chirps cheerfully, like it's totally unthinkable that they wouldn't do all this just for him, and he rolls forward a little to wrap Astro in a hug. "We love you! You're such a wonderful person, and a great friend, and we're so excited to celebrate your birthday with oh my god the cake is on fire!"
"What?!"
Everybody immediately abandons their positions to scramble over to the table and stare down at the confection — which is, in fact, very much on fire, a bright orange-gold flame about the size of a grown man's hand dancing wildly atop the buttercream frosting.
"Holy crap!" Zane screeches. "What the heck kinda birthday candles do that?! Birthday candles should not do that!"
"You lit them too early!" Dad turns on him a little too quickly for this to be a brand-new argument. "I told you that we should have waited for him to get here before we lit the candles! Why didn't you just listen to me?!"
"Who cares why it happened?! The cake is on fire!" Cora yells at the pair of them as she dashes over to the sink, fills a glass with water straight from the faucet, and races back to the table with the cup clutched in her hand, clear fluid spilling out the sides and splashing over her fingers. Of course she's already three steps ahead of the rest of them — she always is, even in situations as unexpected as this.
But before she can douse the flame, Orrin throws himself in front of the cake with his arms spread wide in the universal pose of Fearless Action Hero Taking A Bullet For Another Character. "No, no, wait! Don't do that! The cake will get soggy! And then it'll be ruined!"
Cora grinds to a dead halt, the water still swirling violently around inside the glass, and gapes at Orrin like she's never properly seen him before. "Are you being for real?! Are you actually being for real right now?! The cake is on fire!"
"I know, but I worked so hard on it!" Orrin wails miserably. "And it's perfect! Astro is going to love it!"
"I-It's fine, Orrin," Astro rushes to reassure him, but he's way more focused on the miniature bonfire in the center of the table than the cake beneath it. "Seriously, it's totally okay. Let's just—"
"Salt!" Sludge hollers, waving his arms around in the air like a traffic controller. "Salt won't make the cake soggy, and it'll put out the fire, too, right? We can use some salt!"
Poor Orrin looks like he's about to cry. "But that'll ruin it, too!"
"We don't have a whole lot of other options here, Orrin!" Dad barks at him. "We have to take care of that fire now! It's going to get out of control!"
"This is not my fault!" Zane declares, despite the fact that no one is directly accusing him anymore. "You know what? It's your fault!" He jabs an accusatory finger at Tenma. "Yeah! It's your fault for having such crappy birthday candles that they can't even burn for—!"
"The birthday candles were perfectly fine!"
"Then why the heck are they burning so quickly?! Answer me that, Science Man!"
"Because they're birthday candles! They're not supposed to burn for long periods of time! That's why I told you not to light them until Astro actually got here, but—"
"Orrin," Cora seethes, in that dangerous voice she always uses when she's about to explode with sheer rage. "If you don't get out of my way in the next ten seconds, I swear I'm going to—"
"Oh, for the love of God!" Apparently, even Dr. Elefun has lost all patience. "Somebody just blow it out!"
Everyone goes dead silent and statue-still for a long, loaded second, gawking at Dr. Elefun like they've never even considered the concept of blowing out birthday candles before. Honestly, Astro is kind of embarrassed no one else came up with it first.
"…Huh," Zane says finally. "Probably should have thought of that one sooner, yeah."
"No, no, wait! Astro has to do it!" Widget pipes up, as Cora skirts around Orrin and bends down over the cake to follow Dr. Elefun's orders. "It's his birthday! He has to blow out the candles, doesn't he?"
"Guys, I think the fire might be kind of a bigger problem than who blows out the—okay, okay," Astro gives up the fight barely a second later, because Cora has backed off again to clear a path for him, and Sludge is trying to physically haul him over to the table with a hand on his leg, tugging on the excess denim at the knee of his jeans. He quickly steps around Cora and Orrin, leaning in close (somewhere in the background, he hears his dad mutter a quick be careful, son, like he doesn't face off against mad scientists and evil robots and convicted murderers and god only knows what else on a daily basis) to extinguish the fire in a single breath.
The whole group instantly clusters around him to inspect the huge black scorch mark on top of the cake. Poor Orrin looks absolutely devastated.
"I'm sure it still tastes okay," Astro pats him on the shoulder. "We can just cut that piece off, or something. It's really no big deal." He reaches to pull out a couple of the burnt candles — the lingering heat will sting, of course, but not as badly as it would if he had human skin — but he freezes halfway there, because the burnt candles… are not candles, actually. "Uh… Zane… w-why did you use… matchsticks?"
"You did what?" Dad wheels around to fix Zane with the Minister of Science Death Glare that has left lesser men (including Astro) fleeing the room in terror.
"Oh, man, that's what those things were?" Zane pushes past Cora and the twins to get a closer look. "I thought they were just really crappy candles! Sorry, Science Man, that's my bad." He even has the guts to reach up and pat Dad on the back, despite the fact that Tenma looks two seconds away from picking him up and bodily throwing him out of the penthouse.
"How did you even light these?" Astro asks, to defuse the impending argument (and also because, now that he's thinking about it, he actually really wants to know) as he hastily plucks the smoldering sticks out of the cake. "I mean, since you thought the matches were birthday candles…"
Zane puts a hand in the pocket of his shabby brown jacket and pulls it back out again a minute later to show off a silver cigarette lighter. "Duh. How do you think?"
"Oh, my god!" Tenma snatches it straight out of Zane's open palm before anyone else can react. "Why on earth do you have a lighter?! Who gave you a lighter?!"
"Hey!" Zane makes a wild grab for it, but Dad has at least six inches on him, and easily holds it out of his reach. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you guys don't carry them around, too! I mean, you never know when you need to set something on fire, am I right?"
"Um," Dr. Elefun says. "How many times have you needed to set something on fire, exactly?"
There's a suspiciously long second of silence after that, wherein Dad looks like he's having a few dozen heart attacks right there in the middle of the kitchen, and Zane wrinkles his brow in an expression of deep concentration. Astro has a terrible feeling that he's counting the various occasions in his head.
"You know what!" Orrin says, all of a sudden, and very loudly, in an excruciatingly obvious effort to break the tension, and redirect the conversation. "Why don't we have some cake! Who wants cake? Everyone wants cake, right? Everyone loves cake! Can't go wrong with cake!"
"Uh, yeah, let me help you with that," Astro gratefully latches onto the excuse to escape whatever kind of chaos is inevitably going to happen next, hurrying after Orrin into the kitchen proper. He grabs a handful of forks from the cutlery drawer, and pulls down a stack of plates from the cupboard, piling it all together to make it easier to carry before he heads back over to the dining table.
Orrin is already there, patiently removing a few of the matchsticks he missed in his shock over Zane's cigarette lighter, and carefully cutting the blackened section away from the rest with a large knife, while Cora and Zane are arguing vehemently over whether arson can really be considered a hobby or not. Widget and Sludge are arguing even more vehemently about which one of them did a better job of keeping the surprise party under wraps all week, while Tenma and Elefun are talking with their heads together, probably trying to decide how to tell Zane's foster parents that their twelve-year-old charge has a lighter.
(Astro really can't believe Cora thinks there's anything that could be better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, even if they're all a little frazzled from the fire, and the cuff of Widget's sleeve looks a bit singed.)
Right at that moment, Dad glances up and locks eyes with Astro, still lingering on the edge of the group with the plates in his hands, and waves him over. Astro quickly deposits the dishes on the table and makes his way over to his dad — who, to his intense surprise, puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close in a kind of side-hug.
Astro thinks about this time last year — waking up on his own in the junkyard, standing in the arena under the blinding sun as the Robot Games raged on and on, realizing he had nothing left to live for, realizing the whole world would be better and happier if he wasn't in it anymore, dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — and he realizes, with a funny kind of jolt in the pit of his stomach, that his life really could not be any more different now: he's alive, making a tangible positive difference in the city, surrounded by people who love him just as much as he loves them, and he's so happy he feels like he must be overflowing with it.
(He's not alone anymore.)
"I'm sorry about all this," his dad murmurs, pulling him suddenly out of his thoughts. "I know this has gotten off to a… rough start."
Astro thinks about this time last year, and shrugs it off, his mind finally calm for the first time in a week. "That's okay. The best things usually do."
Astro boy fanweek day 7 - Birthday | Surprise | Special
You're no human, yet you're so much more human than me.
I crafted your heart, yet you made it so much better than mine...
-
And here's my final piece for the week. Thank you so much @boyrobott for organizing this event!! I had so much fun doing my pieces and it was awesome to see everyone else's! <3
Astro decides to warn the townspeople about the earthquake in True's place. Unfortunately, they're not willing to listen to him, either.
Read on AO3.
Astro knows something is wrong from the moment that True bursts out of the seismology lab, panic written plain on his face and the big glass doors swinging wildly behind him — and it must be something really awful, to make him look so frantic — but as soon as the word earthquake leaves his lips, everyone else rolls their eyes, scoffing at him and folding their arms over their chests, muttering mutinously under their breath about that lying robot, and who does he think he's fooling, anyway? And Astro can't exactly blame them for being angry after what happened last time, and he certainly can't blame them for being a more than a little skeptical about the whole thing now, but the complete nonreaction settles like a block of solid ice in the pit of his stomach all the same, cold and hard and heavy, his skin prickling all over with a sickening swell of sudden dread.
Because True can't tell lies anymore.
Dr. Domoto made absolutely sure of that.
So that means there really is an earthquake headed straight for the town right now, at this exact second, and no one knows about it yet. No one knows how much danger they're in. No one knows they need to get out of here. No one knows they need to leave. No one knows they could die if they stay here. Somebody has to tell them about the earthquake. Somebody has to tell them to evacuate. Somebody has to get to the town, and tell them to get out before it's too late.
"I need to speak to the townspeople about this," True says, like he's reading Astro's mind. "Please take care of Miss Kozue until I get back, Astro. Make sure she gets somewhere safe, okay? Can you do that for me?"
But no one, Astro realizes, with a sharp shock of absolute, ice-cold certainty, washing over him like freezing water and chilling him to the bone, is going to believe it when True tells them.
No one is going to believe anything True tells them ever again.
And all because of one single mistake.
Like that storybook they just read in school last week, where the boy told everyone a wolf had gotten into the sheep pen even though it hadn't, really, and then, when the wolf actually did show up in the sheep pen at the end of the book, nobody believed the boy when he told them, because he had lied about it earlier, so nobody came to help him, and the wolf ate him up in one big gulp.
Nobody is going to believe True about the earthquake now, because he lied about it earlier. Nobody is going to listen when True tells them to evacuate, so the earthquake is going to catch them all by complete surprise. The earthquake — a horrible shudder runs down Astro's spine just to think it — is going to kill them all.
Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in that sheep pen with the hungry wolf, and his heart twists inward on itself with a sharp and sudden pang of pity, because it really isn't True's fault, is it? As horrible as this is, he can't pin the blame on the poor robot in front of him and be done with it, because True didn't know he was doing anything wrong — from the moment he was made, he was programmed to tell lies, his whole entire being built around the singular command of dishonesty, and how on earth can a robot go against such a central component of themselves like that?
Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in the sheep pen with the hungry wolf, and he wants to cry for True, and all the misplaced fury he'll face when this is over.
Astro thinks about the little boy in that storybook, all alone in the sheep pen with the hungry wolf — and he decides, in a sudden burst of iron-hard resolution, that this story is not going to end like that.
"No," he says, loud and clear, and firmer than he's ever been in his life — somewhere in the very corner of his vision, he can see his classmates, and Mr. Ban, too, as they stare at him with wide eyes and gaping mouths, but he doesn't look at anyone but True. "No, you're going to make sure Kozue and the others get somewhere safe. And I'm going to warn the town."
"What?" True grinds to a halt mere moments before liftoff, his pointy ears already pulling down around his head like a helmet, and his silver propellor peeking out the top of his scalp. "No, Astro, I can handle the town! I just need you to—"
"They're not going to listen to you," Astro cuts him off, blunt and rude, but he'll have to apologize for it later. "They're angry enough already about what happened earlier, and if you show up talking about another earthquake right now, they're going to think you're lying to them again."
"I didn't do it on purpose!" True blurts out, guilt bleeding through his voice like black ink on a white page. "I-I didn't mean to cause so much trouble for everyone, honest! I'm sorry!"
Astro swallows hard around another stab of sympathy. "I know. I know you didn't. And Dr. Domoto knows you didn't, too. And we'll have plenty of time explain it to everyone else as soon as the town has evacuated, all right? But right now, they aren't going to listen if you try to warn them about the earthquake — and they could die if they don't take this seriously."
True bites his lip, casting an anxious glance at the clear blue sky overhead like he can see the impending disaster swirling in the nonexistent clouds, but he finally nods, and takes a step back. "Go, then. I'll look after your friends for you."
Astro lingers just long enough to give True a quick, grateful smile before he turns away and takes off at a dead run, boots thumping heavily against the ink-black asphalt below with every step. He powers up his rockets and throws himself into the air as soon as he has the momentum for it — they're just barely outside the town proper right now, and it wouldn't take him too long to walk, but in a situation like this, every last second counts, and he isn't going to waste a single one.
"Earthquake!" he hollers, as soon as he touches down in the middle of the empty road, his vocal cords straining under the sheer volume of the shout. "Earthquake! Earthquake! There's a severe earthquake coming this way! Everyone needs to evacuate immediately! Everyone needs to evacuate! Earthquake!"
There's a long moment of ringing silence, no noise except the faint echoes of his own frantic warnings coming back to him… and then, all around him, people begin pouring out of their houses in waves and floods, crowding into the street and staring around with wide eyes, their faces pale and pinched.
"There's a severe earthquake coming this way!" Astro says, again, mostly to make sure they understand the situation, and pull them out of their shock, because no one has moved an inch since they stumbled out here. "You have to leave! Everyone needs to leave! Everyone needs to evacuate immediately!"
"Hey!" One man finally breaks off from the others, stomping toward Astro with a look of burning fury on his face. "You're that robot! The one who lied to us!"
"What?" Astro instinctively backs away from him, nearly tripping over his own boots, but he's getting that block of solid ice in the pit of his stomach feeling again — just yesterday, he had been laughing with True about how alike they looked: the same round shape to their faces, the same shade of dark brown in their eyes, the same spiked-up style to their hair, but it had never even crossed his mind that anybody could possibly mistake them for each other. "No! No, that wasn't me! That was a different robot — and he didn't mean to lie, either! It wasn't his fault! He was just—!"
Something hard and heavy suddenly slams into the side of his head, with a deafening clang of metal on metal, and a faint glint of silver, and so much sheer force that all the breath leaves his lungs in a big rush of air. A sharp pain explodes in his skull, almost startling in its intensity — he hasn't taken such a bad blow in a long time, maybe not since his last fight with Atlas — and his legs instantly give out on him. He collapses down onto the bumpy, uneven ground beneath his boots, blinking away the little white stars clouding up his vision, and trying to figure out what on earth could have happened.
Did somebody seriously just hit him?
"You're not going to fool us again, robot!" Another man barks, his mouth twisted up in an ugly sneer — and an actual lead pipe in his hands. He just struck Astro on the head with a lead pipe. Where did he even get a lead pipe? "We're not falling for it this time!"
Astro drags in a ragged gasp, shaking his head even though it hurts. "I-I'm not trying to fool anyone! I'm not even the same robot! There really is an earthquake coming, and you need to leave!"
"I say we teach this lying little robot a lesson!" The man hollers to the rest of the crowd, and jabs the pipe into his chest this time, so hard that an agonized cry tumbles from his mouth, and he curls up to protect his torso on blind reflex. "Teach it to stop running that damn mouth all the time!"
"Yeah! Let's shut this thing up!"
"We'll give it something to really scream about!"
This situation is spiraling completely out of control so quickly and so thoroughly that Astro can barely keep up with it, but he can tell he needs to leave — he needs to get back on his feet and get out of here before that man hits him again, because another strike like that could seriously mess up his circuitry, leave him too damaged to help in the upcoming evacuation. But he can't just go off and leave these people to the mercy of the earthquake, either. He can't leave them until they understand the depth of the danger they're in.
If he can just get high enough that they can't reach him, then he can explain everything from a safe distance, and maybe they'll listen to him, and no one will have to get hurt. But when he tries to activate his rockets, pushing a quick blast of energy toward the propulsion system, nothing happens except a faint sputter, and a pitiful little flicker of flame, before the power just bounces right back again, redirecting itself to his pounding head and aching chest.
The bottom of his stomach drops out.
He doesn't have enough energy to fire up his rockets.
He doesn't have enough energy to get out of here.
Somebody lands a blow on his back, then, with something just as hard and heavy as the lead pipe, and the sudden eruption of pain drags a scream from his mouth. He crumples back down onto the unyielding concrete, his throat raw. Somebody else hits him in the stomach so hard he reflexively gags, though he knows very well he isn't physically capable of being sick.
"J-Just listen to me!" he chokes out, trying to push himself up on his palms and push everyone away with a touch of superstrength, but he doesn't have enough energy for that, either. "Please listen to me! The earthquake will begin any minute now! You have to leave! It's not safe for you here!"
"Shut up!" The lead pipe crashes against his head again. "Shut up! Stop lying!"
"The earthquake!" Astro cries out, even as a tire iron cracks against his ball-jointed shoulder, because he knows he can make them all understand if he just tries hard enough. "The earthquake! You have to leave before the earthquake hits!"
The blows begin to rain down on him like a hurricane now, one right after the other, and so quickly he can't catch his breath in between them — his stomach, his head, his leg, his shoulder, his ribcage, his back, his head, his arm — until he tries, instinctively, to curl up in a ball again just to avoid further strikes. They don't let him do that, though — the man with the tire iron stomps on his ankle, and another man brings down a hammer on his kneecap, and there's a horrible bang and a burst of agony and he's screaming so loudly he's hurting his own ears but he just can't stop and he can't move his leg anymore and it hurts so bad he can't breathe.
His vision is beginning to flicker, blue sky and grey pavement and moving people fading in and out and in and out and in and out, like a radio that hasn't been tuned right, and cold fear claws painfully up the back of his throat, his breath barely more than a rough panicky rasp in his chest. He can't see anything except the hazy outlines of the humans above him, and a few faint smudges of color here and there. And then he can't see anything except the hazy outlines of the humans above him. And then he can't see anything at all.
He can't see anything at all.
He can't see anything.
He can't see.
"The earthquake…" he says, but his voice is giving out on him, too — glitching out into crackly, buzzing static every few seconds, and he's choking too bad over the pain and the panic to be coherent, anyway. "You have to leave… the earthquake…" his insides are scorching hot, a volcano full of molten lava — his engine must be overheating — and the background whirr of his inner machinery is steadily getting quieter and quieter as his system slowly gives up under the unrelenting onslaught. "You have to get out of here… an earthquake is coming this way…"
Everyone else turns their heads to look at him and he realizes, with the sudden burn of a flush in his cheeks, that he probably should have spoken up about this before they settled in their usual seats around the rickety kitchen table, and Hamegg dealt out the cards. Actually, now that he thinks about it, he probably should just go ahead and excuse himself from the game right off the bat, since he honestly doesn't know how to play, but he's not totally sure he can do that and not come off as rude to everyone else — and he doesn't want to miss out on an opportunity to spend more time with his new friends, anyway.
"I'll just sit out and watch for the first round!" he adds, quickly, before they feel like they have to pause everything just to explain the rules to him, or something. They've been so wonderful to him over the past few days, welcoming him right into their family and their home like he belongs here just as much as they do, and he doesn't want to be even more of an inconvenience than he knows he must be already. "If I watch what you guys do, I can figure out how to play from there. And then I'll join in the next game."
There's a second of silence, and then Hamegg chuckles. "Aw, jeez, kid, there's no need for all that. Why don't you and I just play as a team for the first couple of rounds 'til you find your legs? I'll explain everything as we go, don't worry."
"R-Really?" Astro reflexively sits up a little straighter in his chair at the offer, a tentative smile taking over his face even as he tries to suppress it. He really wouldn't mind if he has to sit out a game or two, honestly, and he's sure he can pick up on the basics through observation, but the way Hamegg says why don't you and I just play as a team and I'll explain everything as we go—
It reminds him of something a father would do with his son.
Astro pushes the thought away before it can settle too deep in his brain, and leaves his chair in favor of the one right next to Hamegg at the head of the table — Sam happily swaps seats with him for the low cost of another one of his pizza slices at dinner tomorrow night. As soon as everyone else has turned their attention back to their cards, shuffling them around in their hands and fanning them out to get a good look at them, Astro leans in close, dropping his voice to a low murmur, and says, "Thank you, Hamegg. This is really nice of you."
"Nah, don't sweat it," Hamegg waves him off with a flick of his hand. "You're part of the family, son. And family helps each other out."
Astro can't swallow around the sudden lump in his throat.
"All right, let's get started," Hamegg breezes on, throwing an arm casually around Astro's shoulders and holding his cards out in front of them, so they can both easily see the hand. He lets out a low whistle of apparent approval. "Now, how about that, kiddo? See, you're giving me good luck already."
Astro blinks blankly at the jumble of clubs, hearts, and diamonds staring back at him — and he knows there's really no such thing as luck, good or bad, and Hamegg is just making it up to be nice, but a warm, golden spark of shining happiness flickers to life in his chest, anyway. "I-I am?"
"Heck, yeah, you are. Look at this, we've got—" Hamegg pauses, right there in the middle, to throw a playfully suspicious glance at the others, and then pointedly drops his voice down to a dramatic whisper, so silly and exaggerated that Astro laughs, "—three kings right here, and an ace high! And we haven't even gotten to the trade-off yet."
"…I have no idea what any of that means," Astro whispers back, after a long, silent minute of trying to figure it out, with absolutely no success. He slowly lets himself sink into the warmth of Hamegg's side, smiling wide as he looks around the table at all of his new friends — his family. They're his family. Hamegg said he was part of the family. Hamegg called him son. "But it sounds good to me."
Professor Ochanomizu has some things to discuss with Dr. Tenma.
Read on AO3.
Dr. Tenma,
I'm so sorry you have to hear this news through a letter, but I can't seem to get in contact with you over the phone, and you weren't home when I dropped in last week. The press is expecting a public announcement from me any day now regarding this situation, and I don't believe it's right or fair for you to have to find out about this in such an impersonal way, so I suppose this will have to do.
Your robot son, Tobio, recently reemerged after nearly a year of absence, and I'm pleased to say that he is healthy, safe, and well-adjusted — remarkably so, in fact, considering his circumstances. He was in the United States, working as a performer for a popular American circus, but he wished to quit his role there, so I have taken him back to Japan with me instead, and I intend to ensure he has a proper childhood from now on. His upbringing so far has been… unorthodox, to say the absolute least.
However, we are still debating the subject of the boy's permanent placement. Until more suitable arrangements can be made, I have been acting as temporary guardian for him, and while I'm more than willing to continue fostering him indefinitely, I understand that you, as his father, have the strongest potential claim to him if you wish to exercise your parental rights, and I will not contest it if you choose to do this. My only wish is to see the boy receive the stable, loving home he deserves.
You should also know, to avoid any possible confusion in the future, that your son has decided to change his name to "Astro", and is no longer comfortable with any references to his previous name. Please keep this in mind should you choose to pay him a visit.
All the best,
Ochanomizu Hiroshi
Dr. Tenma,
I'm sorry to disturb you again so soon. I understand all of this must be quite surprising for you, and I certainly do not wish to overwhelm you, but as you haven't come forward to seize custody of your son just yet, he remains in my care for the foreseeable future. Of course, I'm perfectly happy to bear the bulk of parental responsibilities for as long as I must, but it has come to my attention that Astro needs further education than the few years he has received so far, and I do not believe it would be just to exclude you from the decision when you have such an important role in his life.
With the recent declarations of fundamental rights and liberties for robots all over the country, I've been considering the possibility of enrolling Astro in the local primary school, but he tells me that you tutored him privately within your own home for the majority of his life until the circus picked him up. It is my personal impression that he would flourish in a more social environment (he is an extremely extroverted child, as I'm sure you already know) but if you wish for him to receive a more independent form of education, I'm certain we can reach a healthy compromise that suits his temperament.
Please do try and respond to me as soon as you can. The window for enrollment is closing soon, and I will not allow the boy to miss yet another year of schooling.
All the best,
Ochanomizu Hiroshi
Dr. Tenma,
I suppose I'm beginning to sound a bit like a broken record at this point, and I do apologize for that, but as you have still not returned any of my calls or responded to my previous letters, I would simply like to remind you that your son is still residing in my home at the current moment, and you have given me no indication whether you would like to reclaim custody over him or not.
I understand this must be quite difficult for you to process, and it is absolutely not my intention to force you into a decision you aren't ready to make. However, now that Astro is attending primary school, and interacting with his peers on a more regular basis, he has been having some trouble understanding why the other children have a mother and a father to care for them and love them while he has no parents at all. It breaks my heart to see him like this. The boy is hurting, and I cannot help him. I cannot give him what he needs. I suppose it was only the foolish fancy of an old man to ever believe that I could.
The child needs his parents, Umataro. The child needs you. Please don't let him down.
Hiroshi
Dr. Tenma,
Well, your silence is certainly speaking for itself, and I suppose that was your intention all along. Perhaps I was an old fool, believing I could convince you to reconnect with your son when the two of you have been separated far longer than you haven't. I can see you have no interest in any further contact with him, and you clearly won't be changing your mind on this anytime soon. I assure you, I won't trouble you on this matter again.
But I don't think you fully understand what you're giving up. Astro is a truly wonderful, wonderful boy — he's kind and gentle, and always so eager to lend a hand. No matter the situation, he always drops everything to rush to the rescue when the city calls on him, and he is so genuinely happy to help. He has the most selfless soul I've ever seen. He's strong, and brave, and so bright. I couldn't be any prouder of him than if he was my own son. He is the greatest gift that life has ever given me, and every day, I thank heaven for the privilege to know him as I do. I never could have imagined such a blessing as his presence in my home.
He will be going away from me very soon. He will have a proper family from now on, with two parents, just like the other children, and he will have no further need of me. Nonetheless, I cherish every moment I have spent with him, and I wouldn't change a thing. I am saddened for you, that you will never know this incredible boy you created.
dededos
dailybridgerton
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
