Cove Golems

RotBTD Botfighting Au Story

Chapter One

"Alright everyone!" The blonde yelled, gesturing wildly to the gathered crowd. "Two bots go in! ONLY ONE LEAVES!"

The crowd hollered loudly, some stomping and cheering as the ringleader blonde pulled the flag out of the ring. The two robots inside the chalk circle lunged at each other, the larger one swinging a small circular saw blade as it attacked.

Even though he'd seen at least a hundred botfights, and seen his brother win most of them, Tadashi couldn't help but wince when the saw cut Megabot in half. The crowd around him booed or cheered, depending on whether they were rooting for, Philip - the bar owner and head of this particular bot fight zone - or the kid sitting across from him.

The boy - Hiro Hamada, Tadashi's younger brother, only shrugged and extended his remote control into its expanded form, then proceeded to shred the opposing bot.

The fight felt unnecessarily short after Hiro used Megabot's full capabilities. The easiest way to stop a fight was usually one of two ways. One: If the winner was merciful, they could pull the power source and effectively halt the battle. Or two: take its head off.

Tadashi was fully aware that Hiro was showing off now. The fifteen year old gazed on, eyes glazed over boredly as he pulled Philip's bot limb from limb, then sent the head flying out into the crowd. Three little old ladies running the bar ducked and shrieked as the pieces hit the walls behind them. Tadashi rolled his eyes. Hiro was really turning into a huge showboat.

"Woah…" Philip muttered, staring at the wreckage of his bot. He nodded a bit then looked at Hiro. "Good job kid,"

Hiro smirked and gathered up his bot, carefully placing it into his backpack. He'd just finished a fifteen fight streak, taking each opponent down using carefully crafted moves and flair. Hiro liked flair. It made people remember him.

Standing up and stretching, Hiro held out his hand for the money he'd just won. The blonde - Aurora, he thought - handed it over. She turned to walk away when a large man ran into her at full speed. The girl yelped and tripped, falling over and dropping the money platter. It rattled on the floor, but was drowned out by the mans yelling.

"That kid's cheating!" He yelled, pointing at Hiro and sending the money flying into the air. "He's deceiving us all!"

Tadashi groaned loudly, then lunged forwards to grab his brother. A fight had started to break out among the patrons, and the dingy back room was suddenly alight with crazed movement.

Hiro was ducking under arms and crawling between legs, gathering up the money and stuffing his pockets. Tadashi (who was much taller) did his best to follow him, but the sea of bodies made it hard to move.

"GET THE KID!" The man yelled, just as Hiro stood up. The botfighters lunged towards him, but Hiro dove out of the way, smashing into the barstools. The mob followed, everyone punching and kicking at whoever shoved past.

Tadashi groaned as he was punched across the face. He pushed his attacker away, and the drunk girl happily moved onto her next victim. He tried to move towards Hiro again, but his little brother had disappeared. The teen began to get worried. Hiro's bot fighting habit usually led to trouble, and Tadashi remembered the crowded jail cell all too well.

The fighting was starting to get out of hand. The yelling got louder and tables were tipped over. Some people even brandished broken chair pieces. If it got any worse, someone in the main bar would hear and call the police, and that would lead to another jail trip for the illegal bot fighting.

"HEY!" Aurora screamed, climbing onto the bar. She glared down at the mob, the pink and blue streaks in her blonde hair sticking out awkwardly from when she'd been shoved. "THIS IS MY BAR! YOU CAN BE QUIET OR YOU CAN LEAVE!"

The fighting died down almost immediately. Philip and Aurora's bar might be small, and the botfights were contained to a dingy back room, but they were nice people, didn't charge much and the police rarely got called. The crowd dispersed under Aurora's angry glare, and many either left or headed back into the bar for drinks.

Hiro made a move to go, but was caught by the elbow. He turned back, only to see Philip looking down at him. The man had been a good fight, and a gracious loser, but his expression now was nonreadable.

Aurora slammed the door shut and turned to her husband, who sat both Tadashi and Hiro at one of the tables. The girl walked over and looked at the two boys, eyeing them up and down.

"Look man," Hiro tried, standing up. "I won fair and square, so my brother and I are just gonna leave -"

"Don't give me any of that shit." Aurora snapped, pushing the fifteen year old back into his chair. "You came into my bar and hustled my customers. You started a fight and you have the audacity to act like this? I should have let them beat you up!"

Tadashi paled. The girl hadn't seemed so threatening earlier. Now, she had a different air around her.

"What my wife is trying to say is that you're scamming people," Philip said, stepping in.

Hiro rolled his eyes. "That's the point,"

"We could always turn you in," Aurora snipped. Hiro's eyes widened a little bit. "But we won't. If you give us half the pot for the repairs you caused,"

Hiro looked like he wanted to argue, but Tadashi stepped in and quickly agreed. Hiro griped about it, but handed over some of the rolled up bills. He then stalked over to his backpack and busied himself with his bot.

Philip stuck a hand out towards Tadashi.

"Hey man, sorry about threatening you,"

"It's fine," Tadashi replied. "Better than jail. Besides, Hiro's getting too cocky. Sometimes I want to knock some sense into him myself,"

Philip laughed.

"If you want him to learn some humility and put a stop to the hustling, I think I know the perfect place,"

Tadashi hated bot fighting. Betting on it was illegal, a lot of modifications were dangerous and outlawed by official competitions, and most of the time, he was crammed into a backwater alley while his baby brother conned gangsters for fun.

So he was definitely interested in finding someone who could kick his brothers ass into quitting his act.

Tadashi nodded. Philip smiled.

"It's called The Cove," The man whispered. "Outside town, but the place is huge and the fighters there are legendary."

"Really?"

"Aurora fought there for a little bit, back before we got the bar." Philip explained. "Place is run by this group - the Cove Golems,"

"Sounds like a gang,"

"Nah, more like a club. They're all pretty nice over there."

"How do we get there?" Tadashi asked, suddenly very interested in his brother's illegal hobby.

"They keep the location pretty locked down," Philip explained. "But we know a guy, and I can get him to take you to their next MASH Night,"

"Okay," Tadashi said. "Sounds good."

He gave Philip his phone number, apologized to Aurora again, and bought a pretzel to make up for the mess. The blonde was quieter when she was calm, and she happily handed over the snack. Tadashi then dragged Hiro outside and drove them home.

"That's bullshit, what they did," Hiro muttered, kicking the curb.

"Nah, you destroyed their ring," Tadashi countered. "Plus, you could have really hurt their business,"

"Yeah right," Hiro groaned. "I'm going to bed."

Tadashi watched his brother move up the stairs and groaned again. He didn't know what to do about his brother. Hiro had always been smart, but he didn't like to talk to people he deemed 'lesser'. And because of the boys extraordinary intelligence, he decided a lot of people weren't worth his time.

He'd gotten a lot worse when he entered high school. Due to his IQ, Hiro was in college level classes, and had graduated early. Now, he didn't have anything to do but tinker with his bot and scam unsuspecting fighters. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but he also refused to look at options, and even though Tadashi was sure his brother would adore SFIT's tech lab, the younger Hamada kept refusing to visit.

Hopefully somebody at the Cove could teach him a lesson and fix all of this.

New story time! This story is already finished, and will be updated every friday until it's done. This is my own take on the bot fighting au, but was definitely inspired by the art online.

(also my goal is to get this added to the botfighing au page on the big four wiki, so…)

Enjoy!