Chapter 8

It was finally the night of the showcase. Hiro was excited, and nervous, to present his project. He'd been working on his project for almost a month, and he hoped the people would like it. He noticed Akari had been acting unlike herself the day before the showcase. She hadn't been eating, or talking to anyone but him.

He pushed it out of his mind for the time being though, because he was about to go on stage, and he was super nervous.

"You've got this Hiro," Akari said and hugged him.

"Thanks," he said, and then the announcer called his name.

"Next presenter, Hiro Tanaka."

"Good luck Hiro!" Gogo shouted, and Akari resisted the urge to glare at her.

Akari stood next to Tadashi when Hiro got up on the stage, and they could all tell he looked extremely nervous, "Hello. My name is Hiro Tanaka. I've been working on something that I think is pretty cool. I hope you all like it."

He put his neurocranial transmitter on his head and turned it on. Then he pulled out a tiny robot from his pocket. "This is a microbot…" he paused, and his anxiety was trying to get the best of him. He looked over to Akari, who was mouthing for Hiro to breathe, and Tadashi was giving him a thumbs-up. So he took a deep breath, and continued his presentation, "It doesn't look like much… but when it connects with its other friends, things start to get interesting."

A rumbling was heard by the entrance of the building, and a swarm of black microbots climbed up onto the stage. The microbots formed a box on the stage and the crowd exclaimed, many people walked toward the stage, to see what the young prodigy was presenting.

"The bots are controlled with this neural transmitter," Hiro explained, and pulled the band off, turning the box of bots into a pile. He put the bands back on, and the pile turned back into a box.

"I think what I want them to do… and they do it," Hiro continued and made a hand from the microbots, and made it wave. He heard the crowd gasp in awe, and that seemed to motivate him to continue.

"The applications for this tech are limitless. Like construction…" Hiro stated, and the materials on the stage were built into a tower. He ran behind the bots and appeared on the top of the stand. The crowd gasped in awe again.

"What used to take teams of people working by hand for months and even years, can now be accomplished by one person," Hiro explained, "And that's…just the beginning."

Hiro walked off the structure, causing the crowd to gasp in fear. Then he was caught by the microbots, which introduced the next topic, "What about transportation?" Hiro added, "Microbots can move anything, anywhere, with ease."

The microbots moved Hiro around the room, and he hung upside down from the ceiling. He made the microbots slide on a beam, and he high-fived Akari when Tadashi lifted her up while he was upside down. Then he continued to move around the building.

"If you can think it, the microbots can do it," he stated. The bots brought Hiro back to the stage, and created an escalator for him to slide down on, "The only limit is your imagination."

Finally, he ran to the center of the stage and created a large microbot out of the small microbots, "Microbots!"

After my presentation, he ran off the stage, tossing his neurocranial transmitter to the side, and the entire group congratulated him on his presentation, especially Akari.

"Hiro, that was amazing!" Akari exclaimed, and squeezed her brother.

"It really was," Tadashi agreed.

"Great job Hiro!" Gogo cheered.

"You totally blew my mind!" Fred said enthusiastically.

"They loved you!" Honey Lemon squealed.

"That was amazing!" Wasabi shouted.

"Yes. It certainly was. With some development, your technology could be revolutionary," Alistair Krei said as he walked up to the cheering group of friends.

"Alistair Krei!" Akari said.

"May I?" Krei asked, holding his hand out, wanting to see the microbot in Hiro's hand. Hiro handed it to him.

"Hmm. Extraordinary," Krei said, "I want your microbots at Krei Tech.

Hiro was amazed at the offer, but Akari didn't think he should take it. After all, Hiro's original goal was to get into SFIT.

"Shut up," Hiro said.

"Mr. Krei is right," Professor Callaghan said as he walked up to the group of young adults, "Your microbots are an inspired piece of tech. You can continue to develop them, or you can sell them to a man who's only guided by his own self-interest."

"Robert, I know how you feel about me, but it shouldn't affect the-," Krei began, but Callaghan cut him off.

"This is all up to you, Hiro. But you should know that Mr. Krei has cut corners and ignored sound science to get where he is." Callaghan explained. Akari felt a strange sense of déjà vu in this situation, like it's happened before.

"That just isn't true," Krei objected.

"I wouldn't trust Krei Tech with your microbots… or anything else, Callaghan glared at Krei.

"Hiro, I'm offering you more money than a14 year old could ever imagine," Krei offered.

Akari looked Hiro with a face that said, "It's all up to you." She was proud of him, when he finally made his decision.

Hiro sighed, "I appreciate the offer, Mr. Krei, but my microbots aren't for sale."

"I thought you were smarter than that," Krei mumbled.

"Robert," Krei walked away, but Tadashi saw something in Krei's hand.

"Mr. Krei," Tadashi called out and Krei turned around, "That's Hiro's," Tadashi informed him, gesturing to the microbot in Krei's hand.

He pretended to be shocked, "Oh. That's right," he said and tossed Hiro the microbot. Krei walked away, and his assistant looked at them.

"I look forward to seeing you in class," Callaghan said as he handed an acceptance letter to SFIT. Akari couldn't help but notice that Callaghan was a little agitated, but she didn't know why. She felt like she's been involved in this situation before, but she didn't know how.

She pushed it out of her mind for now, because she wanted to congratulate Hiro on his acceptance to 'nerd school' as he called it.

"I knew you could do it! Congrats Hiro, I'm so proud of you," she said honestly.

"Thanks Akari, that means a lot to me," Hiro admitted.

"Hey, come here you knucklehead," Gogo said, and pulled Hiro over to her, ruffling his hair, much to his disliking. Akari once again had to resist the urge to glare at Gogo, and she succeeded. They all walked out of the exhibition hall, but Hiro said her forgot his neurocranial transmitter, so he went back inside to get it.

Akari told him to meet her at the bridge overlooking the robotics lab, and everyone else went back to the parking lot to wait for them.

Akari had been for 5 minutes before she heard an alarm coming from the exhibition hall. She ran back to it to see that it was engulfed in flames. Once again, a wave of déjà vu washed over her, but this time, there was a flashback…

"Welcome to nerd school, nerds," Tadashi said.

"I wouldn't be here if you didn't give up on me…so thanks," Hiro said to his brother.

"I probably would be here, but it wouldn't be as fun without my twin. So thanks from me too," Akari thanked Tadashi and hugged him.

Tadashi smiled. They could all hear an alarm, so Tadashi ran over to where the alarm was coming from. It was coming from the exhibition hall. Tadashi ran up to a woman coming out of the building. "Are you ok?" he asked her.

"Yeah… b-but Professor Callaghan's still in there," she said and ran away from the building.

Tadashi looked at the building, and then at Hiro and Akari. He made the choice to run to the building. Akari watched Tadashi closely, so when he ran toward the building, she grabbed his arm.

"Tadashi no!" the twins yelled.

"Callaghan is in there. Someone has to help," Tadashi said heroically.

"But you'll d-die!" she cried.

"I'll be in and out. I promise," Tadashi said.

Tadashi ran into the building, his hat flying off as he ran.

Akari snapped back into reality when she realized that Hiro still hadn't come out of the building. She needed to think about what she saw later, but now, she needed to focus on getting her brother out and safe.

She ran towards the building when someone grabbed her arm. She whipped her head around and saw Tadashi gripping her arm tightly.

"Akari! What are you doing?" he shouted.

"Hiro's in there! Someone has to help him!" Akari shouted back.

"Then let me do it!" Tadashi shouted and ran in front of her. There was no way she was losing both of her brothers, so she ran in after him as quickly as she could.

Inside the building, it was an inferno. Everything was burning, and parts of the ceiling were falling. Akari spotted Tadashi, and looked above him, where a large beam was getting ready to fall on top of him without him knowing. Instinctively, she pushed the both of them out of the way just before the beam fell. Tadashi wanted to yell at her for coming into the building, but now was not the time, and he knew it.

The both of them ran around the building, looking for Hiro, finally finding him stuck under a large piece of debris by the stage. They pulled him out, and he was certainly shocked to see them in there. But before anything could be said, an explosion shot them all towards the front of the building.

Akari had hit her head on the wall when the explosion hit, so she became unconscious, and Tadashi had to pick up her up and carry her out of the building, while Tadashi and Hiro were getting dizzy and light-headed from all the smoke inhalation.

They were nearing the entrance of the building, but there was another explosion, and it pushed the three of them outside the building, down the stairs, and onto the ground. The last thing Hiro and Tadashi remember seeing was the paramedics running towards them, and then it all went black.


I bet you all weren't expecting that were you?! HUH?! HE SURVIVED THE EXPLOSION! YES! Next chapter'll be up in a couple of days! Until then, Just read this chapter over and over...

I had so many people begging me not to kill Tadashi, and I was laughing because I had already decided before the reviews started coming in that he should survive. LOL

Follow and Review! See you in the next chapter!

~Krypie