Chapter 1: So long, Sensei Keiken

-Ryo-

"Do you have to leave, Sensei? You know it's not safe," Hikaru urged, frowning at the thought of Sensei Keiken leaving the Golden City, even for just a short time.

"I leave every year in this exact month on the exact same day to take part in this event," Sensei Keiken said, addressing me and the other four Exo-Force pilots standing just to my right. "I'm not just going to give up on it this year."

"But Sensei, the robots--" Takeshi began before Sensei Keiken interrupted him with a stony glare. After a moment, Takeshi's mouth closed and he glanced at the floor.

A half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Sensei continued. "As you know Hitomi, you will be in charge while I am gone. It shouldn't be difficult to contact me, and I'll only be gone for a week, at the most." Sensei Keiken smiled. "I think you can handle it."

Slowly Hitomi nodded, looking slightly concerned. "We'll be careful, Grandfather," She assured him. The other pilots, including myself, joined her in nodding.

"But…" Ha-Ya-To said, still nodding, "You be careful too, okay?"

Sensei Keiken raised an eyebrow. "Have I ever not been careful?"

Ha-Ya-To shrugged. "Point taken," He finally acquiesced. "Have fun."

"This is for learning," Sensei said, "But all the same, yes, I will have fun. Thank you."

"What if the computer tells me where another one of the codes are?" I asked. "Should we wait, or…"

Sensei Keiken smiled at me. "Ah, a valuable question indeed. Well, Hitomi can send a retrieval team, but she will not go herself," He said pointedly, sending Hitomi a stern look.

"But grandfather--"Hitomi began, eager to argue when Sensei cut her off.

"That was an order, granddaughter," He said firmly.

There's no arguing with Sensei when he talks like that. The five of us bowed slightly and Sensei waved a hand in our direction. "You can go back to your regular duties. I will be leaving in the morning."

The next morning after Sensei had departed, I sat in front of the large computer, grinned and cracked my knuckles. It was slightly primitive-looking on the outside, but the designs and schematics inside more than made up for the deceptive exterior. Everything about it was…unique, amazing.

Grinning, I pulled up a window and glanced at the design the computer had stored in it's large databanks. It looked like a fun project, and I couldn't wait to get it put together for Hikaru to test-fly. Smiling, I quickly printed part of the diagram and glanced around for my toolbox.

"Weird," I muttered, frowning anxiously. "I could have sworn I left it in here…" I quickly headed out of the lab and around the corner. "Oh… hello, Ha-Ya-To," I said, screeching to a halt. "Excuse me, please," I said. "My tools aren't where I left them."

"Where would that be? Scattered all over the floor?" Ha-Ya-To snickered.

I sighed and stepped around him. "I have everything organized," I said, "Just not organized in… well, containers. I organize the floor-- I'm a visual designer, it isn't my fault that…" I sighed, realizing Ha-Ya-To was already walking away. "Fine, don't mind me, I'm just validating my need to see everything I've got, whether I need it at the moment or not. It's not my fault I work six steps ahead!" I half-shouted, hoping he could still hear me. Rolling my eyes, I once more jogged down the corridor for my tools…

-Hikaru-

It was so frustrating I couldn't even find words to describe the way I felt. And because sputtering is obviously not an option, I strode all the way to Ryo's lab in utter silence. When I arrived, however, Ryo didn't seem to be in a much better mood. Without glancing up, he barked a sharp "get out" and tried to throw something at me. He hasn't done anything like that in a long time, so I almost left… almost. But this problem was a big one.

"Ryo," I started.

"What part of 'get out' don't you understand?!" Ryo demanded, whipping his head around, hair flying. His eyebrows were practically tucked behind the bridge of his nose, his frown was so intense. A smoldering gaze ran up and down my grease-stained Pilot's uniform and then snapped back to my face. "What," He demanded, "Is your problem?"

I almost left right then and there, his face looked so mad. I almost feared for my life, he definitely looked capable of biting my head off at the moment. But then again, if I didn't face him now and tell him what was wrong, he'd probably hate me forever and blame me for whatever happened after I didn't tell him. "Something weird is going on with the controls in half of the Battle Machine cockpits," I said quickly. "I don't want anyone to be hurt, so I thought I'd tell you."

"Go tell Hitomi," Ryo muttered. "I'm right in the middle of something."

"What's Hitomi going to do?" I demanded.

Ryo grumbled something under his breath.

"She's going to tell you to fix it," I answered my own question, walking forward. "I don't know what's going on, but you need to fix it."

"I can't!!" Ryo shouted. "Can't you see that?! What do you think I'm doing, twiddling my thumbs?!"

I blinked. "This is a little more important than one of your toys," I snapped. Couldn't he see that if the Robots attacked while our Battle Machines were down…

Ryo jumped to his feet, chest heaving. "What did you say?!" He demanded, eyes burning with rage. "Say it again!" He screamed, grabbing the lapels of my pilot suit and shaking me.

I glared back at him defiantly. He didn't scare me, the little twerp. Besides, what was he going to do, hit me? Please. Staring at him, I repeated a little more firmly, "I said, this is more important than--" With a blow I could feel all the way down my spine, Ryo slammed a fist into my jaw, sending my head flying backwards and landing me on the floor. With a shriek, Ryo jumped on me, slamming his fists into my face.

"Hey, hey-- ow!" I grabbed his arms and pushed him off of me, wiping my mouth and tasting the salty-coppery flavor of blood. "What's wrong with you?!" I shouted, "Are you trying to kill me?!"

Ryo's chest was heaving. "No. Yes. Maybe," He snapped. "Were you the one who hacked into my security system?!" He shouted.

"Who did what?" I asked.

"Someone hacked into my security system!" Ryo screamed. "It's down-- communications are out, and we don't have any power-- we're totally helpless-- and I can't find where or when the sabotage occurred, because the computer's down-- what am I saying? Everything's down!" With a glare, Ryo stepped forward and pulled me to my feet. "There you are," He snapped, "That's why your controls aren't working. The hacking messed up the circuits of most of the computers in here." Then, with a moan of despair and anguish, Ryo dropped to his knees, cradling his head. "Failure… everywhere. Every single computer hooked up to the mainframe was… I don't even know what happened to them."

I blinked. "But… the power's on," I said, glancing at the lights above our heads. Yes, they were definitely on…

"It was a surge," Ryo said, "Local. Only messed with the computers and communication. Maybe it was a spike… I can't know for sure." With a groan, the Engineer thunked his head on the cement floor.

I'd never seen him look so… beaten. Or confused. Hunkering down next to him, I put a hand on his shoulder. "I-I'm sorry," I muttered. "I didn't know."

"If I say get out, I mean get out," Ryo murmured weakly. "I need to think."

"I'll help," I said, not even sure why I said so.

"The best way you can help," Ryo said, "Is follow the coordinates to the latest code. I printed them out before working on one of the blueprints we got from the last code- then I left to find my tools and when I came back… everything was kaput!" He flung his arms out in a helpless gesture, almost hitting me. "Oops… sorry," He apologized, pulling his arms back to his sides. "It…I just…" With a sigh, Ryo shook his head. "At least some of the old machines are still functional-- they weren't linked to the Mainframe."

"Like…" I hinted, staring at his face.

"Oh, Stealth Hunter, Uplink, you know," He said. "That kind of old."

"Wow," I said, "When you said old, you really meant Sentai Fortress kind of old."

Ryo glared at me. "I don't exaggerate. When are you going to figure that out?!"

I folded my arms. "So sorry I'm not a mind-reader," I snapped.

"You don't have the brain to support that kind of ability anyway," Ryo shot back.

"Oh yeah?!" I snapped, trying to reign in my anger. Calm down, my rational side said, He doesn't mean it like that.

"Yeah!" Ryo shouted. "Go away, you with a minimal IQ!"

"My IQ isn't low, lamebrain, just shut up!" I snarled.

"What makes you think I wanted to talk to you anyway?!" Ryo snapped.

"Then why are you still talking to me, Mr. gray matter?!" I hissed.

"Your intellect is rivaled only by the chemical waste discarded during the production of battle machines!"

"Your mother was a robot!" I snapped back.

"At least she didn't resemble a large rodent!" Ryo shouted, waving a screwdriver in my direction.

After parrying insults back and forth for another few minutes, we'd both had enough. Ryo started screaming and throwing things, and I stomped out, smoke practically billowing from my ears.

It was not turning out to be a very good day, but at least I didn't believe it could get any worse…

Unfortunately, it did.

A/N: Okay, well, whadja think? I don't even know why i'm bothering-- no one is reading these anyway. but that doesn't matter, because reading isn't really the point. however, I have a standard of quality I hold myself to-- I'm not going to just throw together junk -Although the themesong fic was pretty cose- because I don't want a junky exo-force section. However, if I'm the only one writing, I think this might take awhile! Come on, exo-force lovers! Even if you don't, just go to and click on exo-force! I promise it's awesome. Check the profiles! Read the comics! maybe you'll like someone other than Ryo and they won't all be centered around the nerd! (though I try and include everyone-- I keep noticing that the 'born-leader stuck-up snooty hero types are usually the voted favorites-- take Jayko from Knight's Kingdom for instance, or Tahu in the Toa Nuva. It's so biased-- let's get some authors out there who like the more interesting characters! (in my opinioin)

Um, sorry for the spiel... Review anyway.