Chapter 1

Hiro Hamada wasn't your average teenage kid. He was thirteen and already about to start his senior year of high school. There was no denying that his genius would get him very far in life. However, he scarcely used said genius and instead had taken up the practice of bot fighting: a gang ritual and means of gambling determined by whose bot is left standing by the end of a battle between two small, remote-controlled battle bots.

It was nearing the end of July. Hiro had originally heard about bot fighting from some kids at school. He thought it sounded fun and heard about how much money people could make doing that, so thought he'd have a go at it one night. After his first bot fight, he was instantly hooked. Despite the fact that bot fighting was illegal, Hiro continued the practice and was consequently arrested several times for it.

Hiro's older brother, Tadashi, believed that Hiro was wasting his knowledge and potential. Hiro, however, believed he knew all there was to know.

"There is still so much to learn," Tadashi told him. But Hiro didn't understand this until a while later.

Tadashi wasn't the only one who didn't like Hiro bot fighting. Hiro and Aunt Cass had gotten into many arguments about it as well. But one night he decided that it was the last straw.

Hiro silently tiptoed down the stairs. When he came to the banister, he turned his head to look and saw that Aunt Cass was watching TV.

Hiro cautiously crept down the stairs, stepping over and around each area of every stair that creaked when treaded upon. He then came to the landing, then to the floor. Crouching down and crawling to avoid detection, he made his way to the second flight of stairs, careful not to let his shoes squeak or the zipper of his hoodie clink against the hardwood floor.

He was almost there when he heard the TV being muted and Aunt Cass walking to the kitchen. As she was coming back with some snacks, she casually glanced his direction.

"Where are you going?" she asked him, setting the snacks down and walking over to him.

Hiro stood upright and tried to explain to her.

"Well, you see," he told her, running his right hand through his hair, "I was on my way to SFIT."

"At 9:30 at night?" she questioned.

"I want to see what Tadashi's doing and maybe start on a project of my own," he told her.

"Then why are you crawling?"

"Uhh…"

Hiro hadn't exactly come us with an excuse for the last piece of this conversation, but he felt that Aunt Cass was onto him nonetheless.

Aunt Cass had tried to lovingly explain to Hiro why bot fighting was dangerous and not just illegal. She had heard of many incidences that occurred with it and had seen articles in the newspaper about it. She wanted to protect Hiro from these things, but he still made his decisions against Aunt Cass' will.

"Well, I think I gotta get going," Hiro said to Aunt Cass.

"Not so fast," Aunt Cass told him. "You didn't answer my question."

Hiro didn't know what else to tell her.

"Alright! You got me! I was gonna go bot fighting! And you know what!? I'd do it again!"

"I knew it!" Aunt Cass exclaimed. "Why do you do this, Hiro!? You know how this affects me, and not just you, right!? Why do you do this to me!?"

"Why do you do this to me!? Why don't you just let me make my own decisions!?"

"Because I love you! Besides, who's gonna get you out of jail? What if Tadashi isn't there to do it!? What if he can't do it because he was arrested along with you!?"

"If you really love me, why don't you let me make my own decisions!?"

"Because I care about you and I want you to be safe! You don't realize how much this means to me!"

"What this means to me is that you won't let me do what I want to!"

"I won't let you just do what you want because I love you and I care about you!"

"Why do you hold me back if you do!?"

"Because you don't seem to see the danger in bot fighting and what you do! You don't seem to see the risk you take every time you do!'

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Hiro burst out. "I feel that I should've done this a long time ago!"

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" Aunt Cass shouted, know that Hiro was planning to run away.

"JUST WATCH! I'LL NO LONGER BE UNDER YOUR CONTROL! I'LL MAKE A LIVING AS A BOT FIGHTER AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME!

Hiro made a run for the stairs, but Aunt Cass grabbed him from behind and held his arms and torso in a bind.

Hiro managed to wriggle his right arm free and elbowed Aunt Cass in the shoulder a bit harder than he originally expected to.

"OW!"

Aunt Cass had let go of Hiro and instead clutched her shoulder. Hiro froze for a second, a bit shocked and scared by what he realized he just did. When Aunt Cass went to stop him again, he bolted down the stairs, swung over his shoulder a backpack full of supplies that he had packed for this occasion, unlocked and flung open the side door, and darted out into the busy streets of San Fransokyo.

Aunt Cass gave chase to him and didn't let him out of her sight.

"HIRO!"

Hiro ran down the streets as fast as his legs would carry him, straight into oncoming traffic.

He's gonna get hit by a car. That was the first that ran through Aunt Cass' mind. Yet Hiro managed to dodge oncoming cars.

Cars came to a screeching halt when Hiro or Aunt Cass ran in front of them. Some honked. Other drivers yelled at them. Neither Hiro nor Aunt Cass seemed to comprehend what was going on.

Hiro ran through some crowds of people around a kiosk. "'Scuse me!" "Pardon me!" he told the people in the crowd. Aunt Cass didn't give up and followed suit.

He was out of the crowd, and was a bit tired. Aunt Cass was also growing tired, but she wouldn't give up yet.

Hiro sharply turned a corner and into another crowd, and then another one. When he was out, he continued running straight and then broke a right. When he came to a sparse street, he broke a left, then a right.

All the while, Hiro didn't look back. The only thing he knew was that he had to get away.

After a bit longer, Aunt Cass had finally lost sight of him and gave up the chase. Hiro was just too fast for her, even with that heavy backpack of his. Now it was just finding out how she would get back to the café.

Hiro had finally stopped as well. When he did, he found himself near a city park. Heart racing, out of breath, and sweaty, he dropped his backpack from his shoulders onto the ground.

After he briefly rested, he took out his flashlight from his backpack, flipped it on, and looked through his backpack for his Megabot, but he didn't find it or its controller. He searched through his bag a second time, then a third time. Where was his Megabot?

Hiro facepalmed when he finally realized where it was. The very reason he ran away was left at home!

"Well, I can't bot fight without my Megabot," Hiro said to himself. That was the only battle bot he had ever brought with him to bot fights, and he won every single time with it. Now that he didn't have it, he couldn't be the bot fighter that he had planned to be.

He felt a little thirsty after all that running and pulled out a bottle of water he had packed. He took a small sip of it, careful to conserve it and only drinking what he needed to. If he ran out of water, he would have to drink from a nearby creek or possibly a faucet, and he certainly didn't want the former.

Hiro wiped the sweat off of his face and swatted at some mosquitoes that buzzed around him. He then pulled out some bug spray and sprayed some on the back of his right hand. (He didn't spray it into his palm because he couldn't wash it off, and didn't want to waste his bottled water.) After he did this, he wiped it onto his neck and face, careful not to rub it into his eyes or mouth.

Hiro then felt sleepy and looked for a good place to sleep. He saw a park bench that was about 10 feet away and thought he would sleep there. After he had wiped some excess bug spray onto the exposed portion of his legs, he zipped up his jacket, pulled his hood up over his head, and walked over there with his backpack. He set his backpack on the bench first. Then he laid down on the bench, curled up on his right side and used his backpack as a pillow. Where he would go from here, he didn't know. But one thing was certain: this whole experience wouldn't be what he had originally thought it would.