This is an one-shot to explore the relationship between Tachyon and his foster brother, Ickabar, before the cragmite discovered his origins and betrayed his foster race.

Please review.

Parts

The room was untidy to say at best. A large table sat in the centre of the room that had no real purpose but for storage, covered and cluttered with different variations of tools, parts, mechanics and the lot. A window, a little on the large side, looked out upon the darkened sky and other light-filled square windows of the city on Fastoon, a soft yellow glow brimming from above and casting shadows of the mixed up tools onto the wall.

The lombax spent a few moments twirling a wrench in between slightly bony fingers, peered at it, then dropped it quite unceremoniously onto the worktop with a flop of his wrist. His shoulders had remained slumped, other arm likewise as he stared mutely over the shambles with tired, half-lidded eyes and his mouth turned slightly downwards in defeat.

Nothing worthy of being called a mechanical, engineered contraption was among the shambles, and the only thing that had been pulled together was a square piece of metal along with a few worthless bolts. It reminded him rather comically (and painfully) of a sandwich, and he couldn't help but add in his mind that it would have been as much as a reject as he was among other bread-made dishes.

With a sigh, he stared around the otherwise empty room; occupied by a few ceiling cupboards, an old couch and bookcase, and of course the window. The ground was bare and wooden; walls beige and blank.

He looked back at the pathetic excuse for an invention with a slight pout. Glancing at his hand once again and noted his recessive gene colour (a weird mixture of brown and slight purple-pink) he looked over at the only other occupant of the quiet room who wasn't an inanimate object.

His foster brother Percy was sitting on the cough beside the window, holding a book in his sharp hands and glaring at the words in a bored fashion, yellow eyes looking ready for slumber. Ickabar sighed again, and the cragmite's small pupils looked at him as he turned away.

Ickabar placed his palms on the table and shifted his weight onto them tiredly. "Ironic, isn't it, that even after having those classes drilled into my head all I can come close to inventing is something about a sandwich."

He heard Percy's familiar, sly chuckle behind him as he remembered the times Ickabar had been caught snaking on such a food choice.

"Of course it isn't as ingenious as a cupcake bot would have been." He drawled behind him with a slight pretend scoff and roll of the eyes. Ickabar grinned his trademark cheesy grin and turned, placing both hands behind his head and leaned back.

"That's a fool's dream for me. Me trying to create anything functional would be like Mgive giving out gift baskets."

He noted Percy's scowl upon being reminded of their all-time rival. The sixteen-year old cragmite glanced sourly about the room before his keen eyes locked on the pathetic contraption Ickabar had 'built' and grinned lopsidedly. "Maybe you could throw it at him. Better yet, make it explode in his desk. Now that would be a event worthy of recognition."

Ickabar gave a dramatic sigh and spun around, landing on the couch beside the cragmite with a flop.

His ears drooped noticeably. "I'm fourteen years old and I still can't engineer a bean. What sort of lombax is that, Perc?"

Percival glanced to the side and chewed on the side of his lip, scowling at the wooden floor. Raymas was better at this pep-talk stuff...

"I'm getting sick of all this inventing and construction boastfulness anyhow." He said slowly, waving his hands for effect and narrowing his eyes. He smirked. "Not everyone prefers staying cooped up in a garage tinkering away."

"Easer for you to say Perc." Ickabar said, forcing a smile as he gazed around the room, pale blue eyes avoiding his, "You're not a lombax. You don't have to live up to the status quo."

Percival scowled. Had it been any other day he would have continued scowling and perhaps hit Ickabar over the head for bringing up a topic surrounding his difference that he would rather not get into, but instead he sighed loudly and dropped his book onto the arm of the couch. He folded his arms and scoffed.

"If the most incredible, insufferable cheerful person I know of is acting like this then I know the universe is doomed."

Ickabar snorted and let out a laugh that he couldn't force down, still slouched down on the couch. Percival tipped his head from side to side continuing with a know-it all sort of air with his eyes closed. "Besides, if YOUR crazy ideas manifested themselves into robotic or machinery form I'd give this city a day before it was demolished. And really, what other nutball do I know can dive off a building and activate his boots a millisecond before he's planted on the ground? Don't do that again, by the way..."

"Aw, Perc, are ya tying to say that I'm special in my own way without being totally cliché?" Ickabar grinned widely up at him, and it was met with a stiff, warning glare. But he continued grinning, and Percy's eyes only narrowed the more.

"...Numbskull."

"Stiff skull."

"That isn't an insult-"

"Cupcakes."

Percival rose a quizzical, but otherwise unsurprised brow. He's grown used to Ickabar's sheer random behaviour long ago. He kept his tone even. "Indeed. They are yummy."

Ickabar burst out laughing right there, clutching his stomach and eventually slipping off the cough entirely as Percy rolled his eyes with a shake of his head. Sometimes that oaf would laugh at the strangest of things, be it the way someone said something, a look, a tone, or anything else that shouldn't seem funny at all.

Percival allowed shadow of a grin to appear as Ickabar tried to pull himself back onto his feet, still laughing like nobody's business. Oh well. Ickabar could do nothing with mechanical parts, but the strange, light-hearted cheerfulness he constructed was always a thing that rubbed off on him and others, giving them something to grin about.