A/N: Well, I feel this deserves a bit of explanation. I was searching one day for Exo-Force fics and realized, to my utter surprise and horror, no one had any. I am an avid fan of Greg Farshte, the amazing writer who does many of Lego's stories, both for their exo-force books and he writes all of their Bionicle books-- except the first three, they're by CA Hapka.

yeah, I'm a nerd.

Anyway, I was looking and looking and didn't find any exo-force stuff so I decided I'd write a whole bunch, until fanfiction HAD to give me a section, or something like that. However that works. I mean, Exo-Force is technically a game(online) a Comic, and a Book! Something must be done to make sure such a wonderful addition is made to this lovely online facility. Soooooo enjoy my little fic about Ryo, the amazingly awesome engineer who I love. (To write about 'cuz he's fun)

This is probably OOC, but since this is the first fic of it's kind, who's goanna know?!

Chapter 1: One of those days

It was shaping up to be another one of those days, and Ryo hadn't even had breakfast yet. Of course, that's assuming he wanted breakfast. Sighing, the teenage techie plunged a spoon into the 'slop', as it was called. True, it was a chock-full of beneficial nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates and energy boosting supplements specifically provided to be eaten in a hurry-- but that was only if you could choke it down past your gag reflex. Frowning, Ryo stirred the slop slightly, glaring suspiciously at the little lumps that floated to the surface.

A tray thunked down next to his, and Ryo glanced up, his eyes meeting those of Hikaru-- the top Exo-force pilot, and self-proclaimed 'brilliant leader'. True, he had good strategy plans, but they wreaked havoc on Ryo's --no, Exo-force's-- battle machines. "Hey Ryo, the Stealth Hunter's moving kind of slow. And it feels… off balance. Maybe the stabilizers need tweaking. You should check it out," Hikaru said, shoveling slop into his mouth rapidly before glancing at him with concern. "What, aren't you hungry?"

Tweaking? Ryo thought, Tweaking?! Tweaking is what you call it. Fixing a battle machine is a delicate balance of minute adjustments, carefully completed to bring the complex machine back up to it's optimal performance ratio. Tweak, indeed.

Hikaru snapped his fingers in Ryo's face. "Hello?" He said, "You awake?"

"What?" Ryo said, suddenly pulled back into the real world.

"I said the Stealth Hunter needs fixing," Hikaru said, "It's doing strange things."

"Like what?" Ryo asked, resigning himself to listening.

"Well, it just doesn't feel right. It slips way too soon when I roll even slightly, and it's engines sound like a blender trying to grind a chunk of cement."

Ryo frowned. "Did you take it out of first gear?"

Hikaru frowned. "What gear? It doesn't have any gears."

Ryo rolled his eyes. "It was just upgraded yesterday. It's almost ready for combat, I was just adding a few finishing touches. First gear isn't meant for flying very high. Speed is third gear. You need a Delta code to activate…" he frowned, realizing the Exo-Force Pilot had stood and was walking away.

"Change it back!" Hikaru snapped, louder than was necessary. "You're making it too complicated."

"I'm making it practical!!" Ryo shouted. "Unless you want it to be a useless hunk of scrap metal!!"

Hikaru spun around. "It was fine how it was!"

"It was a non-efficient, fuel-wasting, un-maneuverable, inefficient high-class-looking worthless pile of scrap metal!!" Ryo yelled back. "AS IT WAS, STEALTH HUNTER COULD'VE STOOD FOR Silly Technical Engineering And Lackluster Turbo Hikaru's…um... Hopelessly Useless Never Terminating Evil Robots BATTLE MACHINE!!" With a snort, Ryo exited the mess hall, door slamming behind him.

"Nice acronym for on the spot." Hikaru mumbled to Takeshi another pilot, who nodded absently.

Yes… It was definitely one of those days.

"Tweak the stabilizer, my foot. The stabilizer's fine. But this power converter… ack! It's practically melted itself to these other wires…" Ryo muttered, tearing components out of the Stealth Hunter. "What is this doing here --it was supposed to be-- he must have tried to fix it on the field… it's ruined!! Arrg!!" Ryo grabbed his hair and pulled… hard. "Ow!" He exclaimed, frowning. "Headaches and ruined battle machines… Stupid thing. Why is it…" Ryo pulled a few more things out. Screaming in frustration, he tore out all of the wires and re-wired the entire thing. By the time he had finished, he'd calmed down enough to know he'd acted like an overgrown toddler. He frowned. "I'll have to apologize to Hikaru, too," he muttered, closing up one of the access panels on the Stealth Hunter.

Turning, the engineer hopped off of the scaffold and glanced up at the huge battle machine. "One of these days I'll convince Sensei to let me pilot one of these things against the robots," He vowed.

He heard the door open behind him and turned around. Ha-Ya-To poked his head in. "Hey Ryo," He said, "What's up? I hear you exploded in the mess earlier today." He peeked around. "Have the computers been mean to you lately or something?"

"Not now," Ryo snapped, residual anger increasing at the reminder of the incident. Resisting the urge to chuck his wrench in the red-haired battle machine pilot's direction, he turned to face Ha-Ya-To. "What do you want?" he snapped, spinning back around to find a component to re-calibrate the structural integrity field in the Stealth Hunter's energy fusion system.

"Whoa," Ha-Ya-To exclaimed. "The ice king reigns. I'll just come back later."

"Oh no you don't!" Ryo snapped, turning around, striding across the room and catching Ha-Ya-To by his arm. "You came in here to ask me something, so what is it?!"

Ha-Ya-To cringed. "I was just… well, I was going to ask… if you…well…"

Ryo sighed. "Never mind. I don't have time for this." he let go, turned and grabbed a coil conduit and then turned back around. "I'm waiting," He said.

"Um, you know what? I'll ask later," Ha-Ya-To turned and fled from Ryo's lab. After he had left, Ryo happened to glance across the bay, where the hopelessly destroyed gate guardian stood. Smoldering, he turned to the very door Ha-Ya-To had just vanished through.

"I'm going to kill you!!" Ryo raged, brandishing his lucky wrench very much like a club.

Yes, it was definitely one of those days…

Sorry the first Chappie's so short too... forgot to mention that up above...