Bot Battle Overlord

by jules

1 - First Try or Bust .txt

At fourteen years old (and a hundred and forty-seven days, though really, only nerds counted days), Hiro Hamada felt perfectly entitled and suited to do his brother's homework for him. Out of some weird obligation to be an annoying prodigy of a younger sibling, or whatever.

Indeed, on one particular Friday night - which, in the Hamada household, was obviously homework night - Hiro was soldering battle-legal arm cannons to a prototype robot, and Tadashi was working on a new tech assignment. Hiro didn't have friends, and any that Tadashi had were all tryhards who basically lived at school, so Aunt Cass had never bothered to ask them why their social lives were so nonexistent.

He kicked off from the garage wall and proceeded to roll his chair to the next desk over. Hiro glanced at his brother's robotics assignment, soldered some more, tightened a few screws, then, with a loud, exasperated sigh: "Tadashi. That's completely wrong."

Said brother jolted up from his hunched position at the study table, and Hiro noticed his sibling's bloodshot eyes. The prodigy quirked an eyebrow.

Tadashi stretched his stiff arms out, then turned to face Hiro. "I've been working on this stuff for months, I think I know a little more about motion sense robotics than you do." A pause. "I hope. Given that it's my major."

"Sure," said Hiro, his voice hinging on a patronizing laugh, "but if you're trying to be one hundred percent accurate, why are your variances so high?"

"In what universe is fifteen decimal places not accurate enough?" Tadashi shot back defensively.

The younger Hamada made a face. "Well that, plus I just ran a sim on the other computer over there for you to check, at the peak level of activity, you know, when it actually matters 'cause who cares at that puny tier that you're testing - no offence - and your entire formula gets totally screwed up! So it's not just due to decimal points, but the entire basis of your calculation is faulty. Now, I'd fix it by…"

Tadashi gave him a look that he took to probably be, 'shut up Hiro, I can do my own damn formulas,' which was fair enough, except it would've taken Tadashi at least another hour to figure out. Because Tadashi still wrote his calculations down in notebooks, which were practically archaic. Hiro didn't like how messy notebooks got, with all the crossed out ideas and smudged writing - for him, everything had to be done electronically. As a result, he'd built a tablet PC to his own specs and kept all his data backed up on various clouds. Like a normal person. Who was not at all a nerd. After all, twenty-four gigs of RAM and three virtual machines weren't excessive or anything.

"Whoa, slow down," said Tadashi, who was now grudgingly transcribing Hiro's solution in messy shorthand. "My hand is going to cramp if you talk so fast."

Hiro rolled his eyes, and rested his canvas-clad feet on the closest computer tower. "That's 'cause notebooks are for losers, Tadashi. Remember the rules! We promised, in the solidarity of the Hamada brotherhood!" He pointed an accusing finger at Tadashi's dog-eared notebook, then motioned smugly to his own pristine tablet. "Voice to text is a beautiful thing."

"Dude, do you not remember rule 452? Hamada brothers don't judge notebooks by their covers."

"Please, that was overridden by the corrective clause I added immediately following."

"Our rules have amendments now?" His brother sounded incredulous.

"Uh yeah, rules are serious business. An inventor's gotta look cool, or else what's the point? Anyway, that's the solution, so have fun being a lame nerd. I just couldn't watch you struggle over it any longer."

Tadashi's eyes flicked down to look at what he'd written, then came back up to meet Hiro's. He didn't look very convinced. "But how did you get the answer?"

"I just told you! Like eighteen seconds ago!" Hiro gestured indignantly with his soldering gun, which was still glowing orange at three hundred degrees Celsius.

His brother frowned. "You didn't show any of your work, Hiro."

"Huh?" He furrowed his brows. "What do you mean, show my work?"

Tadashi massaged his forehead. "Right, I keep forgetting that your entire high school life involved skipping class and showing up late for exams. Never mind."

It was true. Hiro never had to show his work, because he never had to think about it. If there was a problem, he just intrinsically knew the answer. School was pointless, and bots had always been far more entertaining. 4.0 GPAs were a joke.

"So anyway." Hiro gave his brother an angelic smile as he cradled the newly finished bot in his lap. "Guess where I'm going now? Hacked onto the list for the prefecture invitational."

The taller Hamada (damn that five year age gap) pulled the brim of his baseball cap over his eyes. "I really don't get how you can call me a nerd when you're the one who hangs out with a bunch of bot fight enthusiasts and plays video games all day."

"I'm not a nerd," Hiro scoffed, crossing his arms in a decidedly not nerdy fashion. "Nerds don't wear cargo pants." This was, of course, infallible scientific logic, so take that, Tadashi. He absentmindedly keyed in a few combos on his bot controller, watching his prototype decimate a table with a delicate balance of explosive firepower and brute force. Hiro took a contemplative sip of his extra-carbonated soda. "Hmm. Might need to add a few handicaps, otherwise this will be way too easy. Hate it when I piss everyone off by winning too much. But these cannons are super sweet. What do you think?"

Tadashi, unfortunately, did not seem particularly thrilled by the fact that Hiro was destroying furniture and correcting his homework for him. Tadashi Hamada was one of those people who actually had to study in order to fully master a concept. Hiro just thought it was weird, because the answers were always so glaringly obvious.

He spun around in his chair and stuck his tongue out. "Look, I figured out your dumb formula, least you could do is take me to the fight. I need cash so I can afford another 3D printer. That thing is so useful. So can you -"

"I'm not taking you anywhere," his brother said, with an exclusive elder sibling finality that was really not helping the bot battle cause. "I know I can't stop you… yet, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy, either!"

"Fine, I'll take the train," Hiro grumbled, jumping to his feet and stuffing the bot into his hoodie pocket. He unplugged his fight pad from its charging station and snapped it back into its standard configuration. "Which means I have to go right now. See ya later."

"So what time am I picking you up?" Tadashi called over his shoulder, as Hiro sprinted out of the garage.

He stopped in his tracks, biting back a smile. What a pushover. "Whenever you finish your homework, duh."

Thanks for reading! :) Running joke with my friends right now is that my favourite character is Hiro's 3D printer (I'm so unbelievably jealous)... so this happened.