Coincidence
                                by Ken Arromdee

    It was all due to that kid.  The kid who defeated his racket.  His, the
Boss Rabbit's.  Why couldn't that kid have just left him alone?  So he was
on a quest.  There were lots of quests in the world.  And now he was stuck in
this Kami-forsaken place, a quarter of a million miles away.  And the kid was
all the way down there....

    So he, the Boss, was stranded on the moon in a chain gang pounding rice.
He had little doubt that if he couldn't get away, he'd be there forever.
Parents would start telling their children tales about the rabbit on the moon
making mochi.  He wanted to be remembered with fear, with respect...  not as
a fairy tale.  So he had to escape, as soon as he could.

    Of course, it hadn't been the first time the Boss was in jail.  He'd broken
out before.  But never out of a prison as remote as this.  The first step was
to get away from the chain gang.

    "Get to work!" yelled the guard.  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!"

    "I dare you, come closer to me and say that!" replied the Boss.

    "I'm not going to come closer and let you turn me into a carrot."  The
guard waved his gun menacingly.  "Snd remember, no work, no food!"

    There had to be a way.  There was always a way.  Maybe if he tried to
figure out how that kid would have escaped?  Naaah, he'd probably have smiled
all innocently and then torn the chains to bits with his bare hands.  He
would have to find another way.  And then he could land on the Earth and tear
the kid to bits with his bare teeth.

    And he knew a way.  He had heard stories...  of other life on the moon.
Strange creatures, maybe not even of that dimension... all he had to do was
wait for one to wander on through the prison.  He'd thought about it every day.
It never happened.  He'd been here for months.  But it had to happen sometime.

    And finally, a small rabbitish-cattish creature waddled by.  He hated the
cute look of that thing.  But he knew that its species loved carrots.

    Gritting his teeth, the Boss leaned down to the creature and whispered to
it.  "You like carrots, don't you?"

    "Miya..." said the creature.  Heh.  The guards wouldn't even be able to
understand it.  But he knew perfectly well what it meant; the thing was, as
much as he was ashamed to admit it, part rabbit after all.  That was a miya of
agreement.

    "If you get me out of here I'll get you as many carrots as you want."

    "Miya?"

    "Really, I mean it.  I have a very special way to get you carrots."

    "Miya?!  The creature looked eager.  What a simple-minded thing.

    The Boss held his hands down to the creature.  It leapt upon the chains,
and suddenly the chains became immaterial, falling to the ground.  Then it did
the same to the ones on his feet.  He knew it!  Step one, accomplished.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The boss leapt for the nearest guard-- a fox--with his powerful rabbit
legs, and grabbed him.  Suddenly the fox disappeared.  In his place was a
carrot.  The cattish-rabbitish creature eagerly leapt for it and gobbled it
down.  A few guards shot at him, but rabbits jump fast.  The Boss escaped
from the prison compound, laughing wildly, all while a trail of carotene-rich
carnage betrayed his path.

    The creature was certainly eating well, though.

    The Boss's thoughts turned again to that kid.  Sometimes the guards had
their radios played loud enough for the prisoners to hear it, and he could
listen.  It seemed like that kid was making quite the name for himself.  He
not only won against the Boss, but he had won against so many others...  he
could be the champion fighter of the whole world.  Not bad for a little
scrawny kid that should have been rabbit food.

    The long-eared thing hopped on the Boss's shoulders again.  "Get off me!"
he yelled.  "You're not what I'm looking for in a henchman!  I don't even want
to stay here!  I just want to find a spaceship and get home!"  He swatted at
at, and hit it; it poofed out of existence, to be replaced by another carrot.
Snatching it out of the air, he started munching, wondering just how he was
going to find a spaceship.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    They had to get the mochi to the Earth somehow.  It couldn't stay on the
moon.  All the Boss had to do was wait for a ship.  It might be weeks, but
he'd survive; he'd always be able to get plenty to eat.  If he didn't run out
of prison guards first.

    Now, where would the ships come?  He had no idea.  His henchmen usually
took care of the little details when he needed to track something down; but
here, he was alone.  So he leapt off for the nearest large tower.  In fact,
the only large tower on the planet...  well, the moon wasn't really a planet,
but it was close.

    Landing on a ledge outside the top floor, the Boss smashed a fist through
the window.  A very surprised tanuki rose to his feet, yelled out "Stop!" and
reached for a button.  But the Boss was faster.  His hand reached the
kitsune's hand in a split second, and soon the kitsune was no more.  All that
was left was a carrot.

    "Come in, come in..." said a voice through a speaker in front of him.
"I'm here!" replied the Boss.

    "What?  Who are you?"

    "I'm, um, from Moon Base Alpha."

    "What?  What's the password?"

    Damn it.  Who'd think that a dinky little place like a prison factory in
the middle of nowhere would have a good security system?  He'd have to think of
something.  He yelled "I can barely hear you.  There's interference!"  With
that, he started to yell out some letters, then gave the machinery a good hard
smack and tried to tug the speaker off of it.

    The voice vanished.  "Reporting from the Tenkaichi Budokai.  The
championship battle is almost over" said a new voice, very hard to hear.  He
must have knocked it in such a way that it was tuning in a regular radio
station.  The Boss knew what the Tenkaichi Budokai was.  It was where the kid
who beat him was fighting!  That made him mad.  Not that he could do anything
at the moment.  But soon he'd find a ship and get to Earth and snap that kid
into two orange pieces with his own teeth....

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The Boss looked out the window.  Was that a little blinking speck out
there, in the direction of the Earth?  A ship, maybe?  It could be a ship.
Maybe if they thought there was something wrong with the transmitter, they'd
have to send a repair ship in.  That's right.  He could still do it.  Maybe if
he was lucky he could land right in that fight and get revenge on that kid.

    The speck was getting larger.  He knew it.  He'd get home, at long last.
He glanced out the window, looking for a good place to hide.  The Boss imagined
the pilot of that ship landing it, walking into the tower, opening the door...
when suddenly the Boss would jump at him like rabbits do and make him into
dinner.  And then he could just pilot the ship home.

    He hoped the ship would be easy to pilot.  It was already coming closer.
Say, wasn't that moving pretty fast for a spaceship?  And there were no
features on it.

    It was getting larger, larger...  soon it became the size of the Earth in
the sky, and the Boss still saw nothing shiplike.  A feeling of dread filled
his stomach, as he suddenly realized from just what point on the Earth that
the...  non-ship... had come, and what it must be.  Running back to the radio,
he hit it again and again, trying to get a clearer sound from it.  All he
heard was some newscaster saying "He didn't hit Gokuu after all", before the
world turned white and the Boss's life ended forever.

END.