Well, no, but - that wasn't really quite the truth, was it now?
Al Da Flaga sighed, then. His wife didn't seem to mean to let him up, any time soon.
"Come on, Rau, climb over him! That's why I'm holding him down for you, after all..."
And Rau had the temerity to look as gleeful as all hell, too...
"You're too old to be clambering all over me!" Al tried a last-ditch protest. Not that he thought it'd be worth anything, but...
"Noo I'm nooot! I'm only - four, after all..." Rau hooted his horn, giggling.
Well, technically, yes, that was true, but -
"Come on, Al, hold still. This is supposed to be a bonding experience, after all..."
His wife sounded terribly wistful, at that moment, and Al bit his lip, thinking about a certain son of - theirs - that wouldn't be clambering over him, ever.
Well, he hoped not, at least...
"Alright, here goes - yippieee!"
Al groaned as a Car that was quite literally his size and general weight jumped up and started crawling all over him. Well, he did know that this was a thing that many parents and children did, but - he hadn't done anything so - undignified with his father, that was for sure...
Well, he thought, that is.
About half an hour later, he was wiping wheel-prints off himself, sighing. It was a good thing they weren't very many guests here today, he supposed - well, it was hard to invite people over for the birthday of somebody who technically didn't exist legally, or not yet, anyhow, but -
"Well, well, well. Happy now?"
Al sighed again, then. Him.
"Yes, Ulen?"
The other Car wheeled over to him, looking somewhat drunk.
"It's all your fault, you know."
Al groaned. Yes, everything was, wasn't it just.
"-And what is my fault, now?"
Ulen glared at him, blearily. "You didn't call me. Not till it was too late, and you trusted those idiots, and - and now you expect me to pull off miracles?"
Al sighed yet again. "You're the one who was always telling everybody what a genius you are, Ulen..."
"Yeah." Ulen Hibiki mumbled, grimly staring at the mirrors. "If anybody could, I should be able too, but - "
"...But?" Al prompted quietly.
"You should have come to me, damnit. From the start. I wouldn't have done anything as stupid as try making a clone without a proper gene sample with long life-indicators, never mention the insanity of trying to fast-grow it!"
"His name is Rau, Ulen." ...Or Al Junior, though that sounded more stupid the more he thought about it...
"Yeah, I know that." Ulen muttered. "And now you want me to do something about the runaway aging..."
"Yes, Ulen, I do." Al said patiently.
Ulen hiccuped at him, miserably. "And just what makes you think I can?"
And so Al Da Flaga told his old schoolmate that he trusted in his professional expertise and genius and what-not, because...
Because what else could he do?
His wife and - son - were talking animatedly about something outside, something about fire-cans. Al sighed, patting a morose Ulen on the fender. He was going to end up trailing a fire-can behind him today, he just knew it.
...Well at least his father wasn't here to laugh at him and make him miserable, today.
Though...he sighed.
He was missing something, here. Like...
Oh, well, they were calling him now. Al gave his old schoolmate one last pat and steered him in the general direction of one of the guest rooms.
OK, OK, now to run around like an hillbilly idiot trailing a fire-can, he supposed... Al felt his lips quirk up at that, though. He'd always liked fire, in all it's forms.
And it was at the precise moment that he'd wheeled out again that he remembered with great and exacting detail just what he had forgotten, that day.
A very large piece of military equipment. That flew.
Al Da Flaga found himself half buried in sand, sound sensors ringing from the shock wave, halfway squashed over his - son. Well, if that one qualified -
"Yahooooo! Looook At Meee Mamaaaa, I'm Flyyyyyinnnnnnnnggggggg!!!"
Somewhere, someplace, his large squire wife was belting out orders in classic military fashion, but Al couldn't really hear it, frankly.
"- Mwu La Flaga! Come down here!"
"Ha ha Papa, Papa-2, LookatmeI'mFlyyyyyingggggg - "
"...Papa-2?" Rau groaned out, somewhere beneath him. "Is he ever going to remember my name? Ever?"
The Mobile Armour flashed across the skies like a gigantic coptor-of-prey.
Al Da Flaga had no answer to that. At all.
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(Posted Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:46)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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