Medabots: Open Ring
Chapter I : Consequences
=====
"Machinery is often misunderstood.
It may not be entirely alive, but then again, it isn't entirely brainless
either."
- Robots for Cynics
=====
"Granbeetle! Submachine gun!"
A flashing volley of high-velocity slugs shot and crackled across the asphalt pavement of the high school exercise yard as high-school student Kasumi registered his commands to his KBT-type medabot through his medawatch. Nodding in approval as Granbeetle shot with dead-eye aim at the array of practice targets, the blue-haired, bespectacled teenage boy suddenly turned as he heard a voice shout a greeting behind him.
"Hey, Kasumi!!"
Kasumi turned and saw Siden, a brown-haired, self-styled classmate waving to him from a nearby hallway. Signaling to Granbeetle to temporarily halt the training exercise, he turned back to Siden and grinned as he stepped forward out of the shadows. Siden looked at the array of targets and gave a grunt of affirmation.
"Five up, five down. Not bad, Kasumi. Not bad at all. I think you're almost ready for the Robattle World Cup."
Kasumi looked at the ground in an embarrassed sort of way. "Not really... I'm just practicing and warming up..."
Siden was a rich and a self-styled rebel of a schoolboy who had arrived to Kasumi's high school only about a year before. Always wearing the latest in boys' fashions, he was a charismatic lady-killer and often drew away from wearing the typical school uniform which consisted of a blue tie, dress shirt, and pants for boys or skirts for girls.
Siden looked at the trees swaying in the wind, then looked at Kasumi with a serious expression. "Kasumi, I'm a little curious though... Do you think that you're really able to take on the World Cup this year? There's a lot of competition for this particular tourney..."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Well, like, Victor from Kenya, several other international medafighter champions, not to mention the Phantom Medafighter, the Screws gang, Ikki Tenryou himself... Not to mention, Fubuki, Mizore, Goutetsu, and I are also going to be in this competition. Do you feel confident enough about taking on all of us?"
Kasumi merely shrugged. "Hey, what difference does it make if we win or lose in this contest? It's just a game, isn't it?"
Siden shook his head and looked up at the clock tower of the high school. "It's not that easy anymore, Kasumi. Two years ago I would have said that maybe it WAS just a game, but now..." He brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at the array of fallen practice targets behind Granbeetle. "It's not that simple anymore. You remember what we saw back at CLUSTER-001."
Kasumi nodded. "Well, what can I say? It was just a bunch of errors..."
Siden gave a sideways glance of mild reproach. "It's not just a bunch of errors. You saw what some of those Robattle-Research personnel were doing. Medabots aren't just being made as children's toys anymore, Kasumi. They're starting to become war material." He chuckled and his old familiar grin replaced the serious expression that had been on his face a moment before. "Speaking of war material, how's Kaiserbeetle doing? Still trying to shoot up half the windows in town?"
Kasumi groaned as he remembered the other KBT-type medabot he worked with. "Not as bad as before. He's actually made a lot of progress. Of course, his temper and his destructive tendencies still need a bit of fine-tuning, but... Who knows, someday he might become a robattler."
Siden nodded. "Just be careful, Kasumi. I didn't let you have ownership of Kaiserbeetle for nothing, you know. I let you have him with the confidence that you'd take better care of him than I could. If he gets out of hand..."
Kasumi nodded in turn. "I know, I know... It won't be pretty."
The silence was suddenly broken by the voice of a girl. "Hey, Kasumi!! Don't you know we have homework to do!!? Hurry up!!"
Siden grinned as he heard Kasumi groan again. "Oh no... Hiyori..." Hiyori was Kasumi's female childhood friend, a tomboy, and another classmate. Although Kasumi was well-known in handling medabots in a robattle, one thing that he had continual trouble with was girls, even with all the experiences he'd gone through on CLUSTER-001.
Hiyori continued to stand out on the sidewalk, glaring at Kasumi and signaling for him to hurry up. Kasumi finally grabbed his book bag and ran towards the brown-haired girl with Granbeetle in tow.
Siden chuckled again as he walked
back towards the classrooms, the leaves making echoing scratching noises
as they slid across the asphalt pavement.
=====
Young 15 year old Kaito Shingawa kicked the pebbles on the cement street as he walked down the avenue towards home, followed by his school friend Nitane. He sighed as he shifted the weight of his book bag from one shoulder to the other.
Turning a corner, Kaito and Nitane paused for a moment to stare into the glass window of the local 24-hour hopmart, their reflection mirroring their respective expressions of longing and boredom simultaneously.
Kaito stared at the displays of medals, medaparts and medawatches, all the while absently tracing an aimless path along the glass storefront with his forefinger. Nitane finally let out his breath in an exhalation of annoyance and sharply turned to Kaito.
"Why the hell do you keep staring that way at the hopmart window? You know your parents can't afford to buy or maintain a medabot for you!"
Kaito sighed again as he dropped the weight of his book bag. "I know, I know... I just... I really want to be a medafighter! I don't care what my parents want me to be; I just want to robattle! It's not that they're dumb or anything, or that being a lawyer is a bad job, it's just that..."
Nitane rolled his eyes as he finished Kaito's sentence. "It's boring. I know, I know, Kaito... I've heard it over a million times by now. You don't need to stare at the window every day... It's not going to get you any closer to getting a medabot of your own, you know..."
Medabots. Medarot. The names were somewhat different, but they were the same. Medarot in Japan, "Medabots" in America and any other English-speaking country, the craze had already dominated itself over the world several years before. A brilliant professor of cybernetics named Hushi had first theorized the "Medarot System", where the computerized personality and brain of the droid were contained inside a small, hexagonal chips he dubbed "medals", leaving a universal niche in a robotic body, consisting of a skeleton called a "Tin-Pet" and interchangeable appendages he called "meda-parts", that could admit and utilize almost any "medal", so long as they were created according to the matching template and format. Working on his theories, a young fellow colleague by the name of Aki had since then mastered the theory of mass-production of medabots, and put it into the practice of home usage, making better and better medabot medals and meda-parts.
Since then, Medabots had become big business, and were often declared the finest and greatest piece of technology since the personal computer had first made its debut so many decades earlier. They were used for competitive games, including races and battles, as well as home maintenance assistance and handling of chores. An engineering marvel. A truly fancy and hi-tech piece of technology.
And, much like any other fancy piece of technology, they were still expensive to buy, and expensive to maintain.
Kaito swore and kicked another pebble. Nitane followed the pebble's trajectory with his eyes, then turned to his friend. "Why do you want a medarot so badly? Is it THAT important to you?"
Kaito merely grumbled and turned
to the traffic signpost in front of the two. "It's not something
you would understand. But, yes, it IS important."
The dark-brown haired young teen
had never mentioned to any of his friends, not even Nitane, about his dreams
of becoming the world's top medafighter; about winning every regional and
world championship battle. But then, being a medafighter was often
a difficult and rather risky occupation.
Being a medafighter took several distinct talents, including strategy, intuition, quick-thinking-ability, a certain degree of compassion for the medabot that the medafighter worked with, and a deep understanding of how the robattle system and various medapart and medal combinations worked. Lacking in even one of them was often bad news.
And yet, for the few medafighters that met with success, the rewards and benefits that came with the victories were unmatched by anything else.
The problem for potential medafighter hopefuls like Kaito lay in the fact that as further advancements in medapart technology and medal systems were made, older medabot combinations of parts and medals became outdated, resulting in harder opportunities for new medafighters to win victories with older and cheaper medapart systems and medals.
Kaito sighed and kicked a third pebble.
"What seems to be the trouble, kids?"
A kindly-looking, bearded man with scruffy grey hair who was apparently the proprietor stepped out of the hopmart. Kaito stared at the stones on the pavement as he tried to splutter an explanation. Nitane spoke up.
"My friend here seems to have a problem coming to terms with the fact that his family is unable to afford a medabot. I keep trying to tell him, but..." The chubby, black-haired teenager threw up his hands in exasperation as he looked up to the sky.
The man scratched his chin and looked at Kaito. "Your name?"
"Shingawa Kaito. My friend here is Matori Nitane."
The elderly man merely smiled understandingly at Kaito and gestured to him. "Come here, young one. I want to show you something in my shop..."
Kaito looked at Nitane with an expression of bewilderment. Nitane merely shrugged and indicated to Kaito to go and follow him inside.
When the two stepped into the shop, the man was waiting for them behind the counter. Standing next to him was a battered-looking GWF-type medabot that still had a vague but detectable aura of power about it. The shopkeeper smiled at the two again and spoke up.
"Well, both of you young whippersnappers must be wondering why I brought you two in here. Now, I'm sure that both of you, especially you, Kaito, must be bristling with questions. But first, I'd like to ask both of you a question."
Turning to a TV monitor nearby, he motioned to the medabot to switch on the power. The screen flickered on and displayed some footage of a robattle.
The man turned to the two as they stared at the screen, the footage showing powerful explosions and smoke floating around the arena, with medafighters yelling commands into their medawatches, while ranged ordnance and melee weapons clashed in the air.
"Do you have any idea what it takes to be a medafighter?"
Kaito suddenly lost his focus on the TV screen and looked at the shopkeeper with a questioning stare. The shopkeeper returned his stare with a hard, analyzing look. "No, sir..."
The shopkeeper nodded. "And well you don't. I'm sure that neither of you have what it takes at this moment to even compete in a basic robattle, let alone the World Championships." He indicated the TV screen. "That's me right there on the left. Ten years ago."
Kaito stammered as he tried to register the information. "T-ten years ago!?"
Nitane looked at the shopkeeper with a suspicious glance. "Just how old of a geezer are you anyway?"
The shopkeeper gave a sharp slap to Nitane's collarbone, sending him gasping to the floor. "Watch the way you speak with your elders, sonny boy. I've robattled for ten years ever since the technology first came out on the market, and I've been playing ever since until two years ago."
Kaito looked at the battered GWF-type medabot. "Why did you quit?"
The shopkeeper shrugged. "Got tired. Being a medafighter takes a lot of energy, and I didn't have enough to keep up with it. So me and ol' Grayfang here quit when we got a little too old for it. The sport's for young kids nowadays. Too much smoke and too many guns. Plus, new medaparts kept coming out on the market all the time, and we couldn't keep up."
Kaito turned to the shopkeeper. "So why did you bring us in here?"
The shopkeeper gave him a hard look. "You look like the type of guy who really wants to get into the medafighting business. I'll tell you what. I'll teach you what I know about being a medafighter, and at the end of three weeks, if you feel like it isn't the type of future you want to pursue, then I'll stop the lessons. If you can show me that you've got what it takes to being a medafighter, I'll continue the lessons and give you a medabot of your own. What do you think?"
Kaito's eyes lit up. "It's a deal! When do we start?"
The shopkeeper held up a hand, motioning for Kaito to pause for a bit. "Hold on a second. You've got to think about this carefully. I'm not going to go easy on you, son, and being a medafighter ain't easy. I want you to think about this for a moment."
Kaito shook his head. "No, this IS what I want to do! So, just when do we start?"
The shopkeeper sighed and muttered something about the impulsiveness of teenage boys before answering Kaito's question. "Tomorrow. First thing after you've gotten your homework done. I don't want you ditching classes while you learn to be a medafighter. Deal?"
"Deal!"
"Good. Now get yourselves on home before your parents see fit to blow a capillary vein. I've no intention of being labelled a generator of juvenile delinquents."
As Kaito walked out the door, he turned to the shopkeeper. "Is there any name by which I should call you?"
The shopkeeper smiled. "Just
call me Tarou."
=====
"But Dad!"
"No buts, son. I don't want you hanging around that hopmart."
"Why?" Kaito was fit to be tied. Having come home in high spirits after hearing the shopkeeper's words, he had suddenly plunged into frustration after his parents rejected the idea after hearing what he had said.
His father sighed. "The reason is, son, we just want what's best for you. Being a medafighter is dangerous business, and simply being involved with medabots is dangerous in itself."
"How in the world can it be dangerous?"
Kaito's father sighed again and tried to be patient with his impulsive son. "The reason is, your uncle, who is my brother, went into the business of developing new medabot technology. True, the pay is good, but it was always dangerous work from him. Why, just last month he got several death threats from organizations that he refused to have dealings with.
Kaito's mother nodded in agreement. "It's very dangerous for you, son. It's not that we have anything against medabots. We're very sure that they're safe enough in themselves, but it's the implications and consequences that we're concerned about."
Kaito snorted in contempt. "That's impossible! How can that be? They're made for kids! Even students younger than I am have them!"
Kaito's father held up a hand
for silence. "As I've mentioned to you before, Kaito, we cannot afford
one anyway. So as I've said, no more is to be said on the matter."
He watched as his young son stormed up the stairs to his room in frustration
and anger. After a few moments' silence, the two parents looked askance
at eachother.
=====
"Aw, damnit!! Late again!"
Ikki Tenryou cursed as the bell rang before he could reach the school's gates. Metabee, his KBT-type medabot, merely gave a nonchalant shrug as he regarded the expression of annoyance and exasperation on his partner's face.
"Your loss, man. Looks like you're gonna have to serve some after-school detention again."
Ikki stared up at the ivy-covered walls of the schoolgrounds. "Not if I can help it. I'm gonna get to that classroom if it kills me!" Scrambling up the ivy, the black-haired teenager managed to vault ungracefully over the side followed by Metabee and landed on his backside, grunting as he rubbed his sore bottom. "Damn, I'm going to have to find a better way of sneaking next time."
"Going somewhere, Ikki Tenryou?" Ikki turned sharply around as he came face to face with the Riverview High schoolmaster. Ikki stammered for a response, but found no need to as the principal waved him away. "No need to respond. Why, when I was young, I had problems getting to school on time, so..."
Ikki and Metabee didn't stick around to listen to another one of the principal's anecdotes, and ran off in the direction of his classroom.
Soon managing to sneak inside without too much hassle, Ikki set his book bag down on his desk and exhaled sharply in relief.
"Hey, Ikki! You've been late again, haven't ya?"
Ikki grinned as he recognized the voice of Erika, one of his childhood friends. Sporting pink over-alls, short brown hair, and an ever-present camera, she was the school's resident reporter and one of the top muckrakers dealing with medabots. Brass, Erika's SLR-type medabot, was following in her wake.
"Hey, Erika... Yeah, I did get in somewhat late again... Thanks to a certain KBT-type medabot I happen to know," muttered Ikki, glaring at Metabee.
Metabee merely waved his hands in the air in denial. "Hey, I had nothing to do with it. If you hadn't slipped on that bar of soap and fallen face-first into the toilet bowl..."
Ikki blew up. "I TOLD you not to say anything about that METABEE!!!"
Metabee merely grinned. "Oops, my bad..."
Erika and Brass giggled as Ikki started to chase Metabee around the classroom, knocking over book bags, desks, chairs, and easels. The sudden entrance of the classroom teacher brought the madcap chase to a grindin halt.
"MR. TENRYOU!!"
"Meep!"
The teacher was standing in front of her desk with a pointer in one hand and a briefcase in the other, glaring at the two who still stood in an attitude of pursuit. Ikki gulped, and then meekly walked back to his desk.
The teacher smiled for a moment, then cleared her throat. "Thank you, Mr. Tenryou. Now, does anyone else wish to interfere with the learning process today?"
There was no need for further reminders as the rest of the students also filed silently into their seats, with their respective medabots marching to the back of the room. Erika glared at Ikki for a moment, then turned her attention back to the teacher.
"Thank you, class. Now, as I mentioned last night, homework has been put off until tomorrow, so all of you procrastinators can heave a sigh of relief. Also, I have a surprise for all of you." The teacher looked at each and every student in the eye, then continued. "I've just managed to arrange a class trip to CLUSTER-001."
A student raised his hand. "What's, um, a cluster?"
Ikki forgot to sigh in relief and sighed in exasperation instead. "Not A cluster, THE CLUSTER. CLUSTER-001, to be more exact."
The student stared at Ikki. "Well, what is it?"
Ikki shrugged. "It's a space station owned by the Medabots Corp., designed for research in robattles, medaparts and medal development. We're going to have to take a special space shuttle in order to get there... In fact, I was there before... Don't you remember, Erika?"
Erika nodded. "That's right, we were also invited to a certain research demonstration there. Although there was some sort of emergency that occurred while we were there..."
Ikki nodded. "Not to mention, I got my backside beaten there..."
"Tell me about it," Metabee groaned. "I got really pulverized by those new KBT-types..."
The entire class excluding Erika suddenly rushed up to Ikki's desk, assaulting him with comments and questions. "Who was it that beat you?"
"Yeah? Who?"
"He must be really good if he could beat you in a robattle..."
Ikki grumbled and muttered something under his breath as he remembered Kasumi and the rest of his classmates. He hadn't expected such advanced medabot technology to be utilized, and he and Metabee had been overwhelmed by a tag-team force of two new third-generation KBT-types. Although Ikki cut it as a loss and accepted it, for some reason, others couldn't come to grips with the fact that he had lost fair and square to a blue-haired, bookworm nerd of a kid from a private school. Erika's voice suddenly cut into his thoughts.
"Ikki, by the way, have you considered entering into this year's Robattle World Cup?"
Ikki shrugged. "I haven't thought about it yet... Maybe we will, maybe we won't. What about you, Erika?"
Erika looked at Brass, and Brass looked back at Erika. Erika looked somewhat embarrassed. "A-actually, Ikki, I know this is sort of late, but... Brass and I wanted to ask you if you could help us train... for the competition." Ikki looked at Erika and Brass for a moment, then suddenly started to laugh. Erika began to turn red as a beet. "Well, fine! Laugh if you want! See if I care..."
"No, no it isn't like that!" Ikki managed to splutter out through his guffaws. "It's just that... Why did it take so long for you to ask?"
Erika's blush slowly dissipated, and she started to laugh as well. "Well, it's just that I didn't... Well, I... I just didn't know how."
Ikki smiled. "There's no need for anything fancy, you know. If you want something from me, just ask me..."
Metabee had a mischievous glint
in his lime-green optics. "Hehe. Ain't that romantic."
Brass merely looked at him questioningly.
=====
Kaito cursed as brambles and twigs snapped and swatted into his face. Having been denied permission to have Tarou's lessons, the impulsive teenager had now resorted to sneaking off while his parents weren't looking in order to see Tarou.
Vaulting over a picket fence, Kaito sprinted down the street and scrambled into the hopmart. Tarou looked up from the novel he was reading and smiled.
"Ah, I see that you've made it. Very well, then, come with me to the back." Tarou stepped out the back door of the hopmart with Kaito closely following. Stepping into a large grassy backyard, Grayfang and a deactivated Tin-Pet with a medal and a medawatch on a mounting rig stood underneath a large pine tree that swayed with every gust of wind, shaking needles and cone seeds in a perpetual sprinkle.
Tarou turned to his pupil. "Now, Kaito, take that medawatch over there, and activate the Tin-Pet. I'm sure you can do that, can't you?"
Kaito nodded and clipped the medawatch to his wrist, and inserted the medal into the Tin-Pet. The system activated, and the Tin-Pet's eyes glowed with life. Tarou nodded in approval, then pressed a few buttons on his own medawatch.
"Now, watch as I transfer medaparts over to your practice medabot." With a dim flash, a set of simple armored punching arms with revolvers, a basic set of steel-plated bipedal legs, and a standard helmeted head and torso took their respective places on the vacant Tin-Pet.
Kaito looked at the display on his medawatch as it indicated the presence of intact medaparts, flashing several meters and counters onto the display. He then gave Tarou a questioning glance. "Now what do I do?"
Tarou gave a gesture for silence.
"Basics, Kaito, basics. Give a few basic movement orders to your
medabot, and then we'll move onto the basics of robattling." Kaito
nodded in agreement. Tarou smiled, and continued. "Ready?
Okay, let's begin the lesson..."
=====
By the end of the training session, Kaito was exhausted. He had never realized how much was involved in being a medafighter, including basic maneuvers in combat, medapart maintenance and upkeep, as well as basic interaction with the medabot's personality and working with the medabot as a team player.
Kaito stumbled back into the hopmart, his hands sore from welding and polishing the medaparts of his practice rig. Tarou and Grayfang followed, Tarou nodding in approval at his pupil's progress for the day.
"Not bad, Kaito, not bad. So, how does it feel like being part of the medafighter's world?"
Kaito collapsed against the glass counter and groaned. "Exhausting. I never thought that it would take so much work."
Tarou closed his eyes as he nodded again. "Indeed. This is but a taste of what being an actual medafighter involves. Next time, we'll be working more with basic melee and ranged combat tactics."
Kaito reached for his bag and
stumbled out the door. Turning to Tarou, he gave a weak wave of farewell
and started to walk in the direction of his house. Tarou waved back
from the door of the hopmart, and then silently walked back inside, followed
by Grayfang.
=====
By the time Kaito reached the avenue where his house was, it was getting dark, and he started to pick up the pace of his footsteps, trying to reach his room before his absence was noticed. Kaito, although tired, was in high spirits as he envisioned becoming the new medafighter champ, various arenas, challenges, and vague promises of victory all dancing within his head.
So absorbed he was, in fact, in his daydreams that he failed to notice the police cars parked around his house until he accidentally ran into one of the cars' fenders. Looking up in dubious surprise, his exhaustion quickly melted away as he noticed an ambulance and several police officers standing around near the front of his house. Fearing the worst, Kaito started to run to the front door and past the screen door, unlatching it with little regard for the officers who were asking that he'd stop and identify himself.
When he walked into the kitchen, he noticed the absence of his mother, who would have been cooking dinner by this hour. Running up the stairs to his parents' room, he muttered a quick prayer to kami-sama and pushed open the door, which was slightly ajar.
That prayer was nowhere near sufficient to prepare him for the sight that greeted him as he entered into his parents' bedroom. Bloodstains were everywhere, and in the air still hung the acrid, sickly-sweet smell of charred and bleeding flesh. Two pairs of staring, expressionless eyes stared into Kaito's own as he stared, dumbstruck with horror.
No... NO!!!!
The vision suddenly started to
swirl, and then all went dark as the floor suddenly rushed up to meet him.
To Be Continued...