Johnny Velazquest liked to roast his Dad for liking wrestling. He liked to roast wrestling itself. He liked, come to think of it, absolutely crapping on everything that wrestling was and stood for. Why?

Because it's fake.

And don't even give him that line about the athletics being real. His father already had. "Those boys work hard to keep in shape then they go and work a match that looks entirely real. You know how hard that is? You need to show some respect, you little punk."

Look, Johnny got it. Guys put in a lot of real work and suffered real injuries, and yes, it was kind of impressive that they could work together in the ring and make it look like they were fighting. Johnny grudgingly respected that. Still, it was all fake. The trash talking, the fighting, the riverlries. Wrestling was scripted acrobatics that, at one time, promoters pushed as real. You can romanticize the business and its traditions all you want (like that Jim Cornette butthole Dad loves so much), but at the end of the day, wrestling was a sham that its promoters passed off as a legitimate athletic competition in order to part fools from their money. No two ways about it.

THAT was Johnny's major gripe about wrestling. He wasn't against REAL combat sports, though. In fact, boxing and MMA were the shiznit. He'd occasionally watch UFC matches on his phone, and sometimes he got so into it that he pumped his fist and cheered just as loud as Dad when Kane and the Undertaker were on. Fighting was cool when it was actually, you know, real.

During one of Johnny's many januts across cyberspace, he came across a show from the early 2000s called Battlebots. For some reason, it ran on Comedy Central in-between The Man Show and reruns of South Park even though it was anything but comedy.

Basically, people built their own robots and made them fight in a steel cage. Now, they weren't, like, full blown humanoid robots, but little Roomba sized things with saws, flamethrowers, and spikes galore. It was sooo cool. Johnny binged the entire series in two days, drinking Monster after Monster and refusing to sleep and postone one second of awesomeness. The next day, he excitedly told his lunch crew about it, acting out an epic battle between two bots. Sid leaned forward and listened, enraptured in his tale of mechanized violence. "That was really on TV? Really?"

A frenzied gleam crept into her eyes and her brows raised higher than Big Boss Man that time Undertaker lynched him. In addition to her love defying death, she was way into robotics.

"It totally was," Johnny said.

"That's so cool," she marveled. "We should build robots and make them fight."

Thus, Robot Battle Group was born. For the first couple weeks, it consisted solely of Johnny, Lincoln, Stella, and Sid - it was harvest season and Liam's Mee Maw needed him at the farm to harvest stuff, so he wasn't around at first. Every day after school, the four of them gathered in Lincoln and Johnny's garage. They built their first bot in four weeks using parts from a chainsaw and a remote control car. Sid and Stella, who had always been interested in the inner working of machines, handled the bot part while Johnny and Lincoln focused mainly on the "battle" aspects. The chainsaw blade (wrapped in barbed wire because barbed wire is cool) served as the robot's primary weapon. Lincoln added a cannon that shot bursts of nails and thumb tacks and Johnny modified the chainsaw to give it a better range of movement. "That way it can slice and dice," he said proudly.

Finally, in late October, they had their bot. It was kind of small and pretty slow, but it was the most beautiful thing Johnny had ever seen. They took it out back and tested it on empty milk jugs. The blade didn't cut very deeply, but pushing the big red button and spraying nails everywhere was pretty awesome.

Having their very own battlebot was cool and all, but they didn't have an opponent. If they wanted to have a sick brawl for all like the one that ended Dr. Death's WWF push (and Bart Gunn's WWF career), they needed another battlebot.

So back to the ol' grind they went. By this time, Liam was done shucking corn and pulling radishes from the ground so he joined in. Luckily for RBG, living on a farm and working on tractors and machines that were older than the dirt they processed gave Liam a lot of practical knowledge from hands on experience and obscure troubleshooting abilities that relative novices like Sid and Stella could only learn after many years on the job. He retooled the first bot so that the saw worked better, and moved the barbed wire to the tires, thus making it harder for them to be penetrated.

The second bot was largely Liam and Stella's creation. Using a Roomba as their foundation, they added a mechanical arm that ended in a comically oversized hammer and stuck spikes around the edges so that anything that got too close to it would be impaled. That, Liam explained, was so that the enemy bot would get caught on the spikes and be unable to get away, giving the hammer time to do its job. "I think barbed wire would work better for that," Johnny said.

Lincoln rolled his eyes. "That's your answer for everything. Barbed wire."

Yeah, it was, so?

"Actually, I reckon he's right," Liam said. "The point is to get the other guy's doohickey all caught up so mine can work it over with the hammer."

"Fly paper," Sid said.

When their bot was done, it was encased in a sphere of barbed wire that had been coated with a mixture of glue, tar, and melted rubber. It was so sticky that, in theory, any bot unlucky enough to touch it would become hopelessly stuck. For that reason, Liam called it "The Spydr." (The spelling was Lincoln's idea but Johnny took credit for it since it was actually pretty cool. Thanks, Linc. Johnny dubbed the other one "Leatherface" after the guy from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On November 5, with crusty patches of the season's first snowfall clinging to the ground, Lincoln, Johnny, and Liam built a makeshift ring in the backyard while Sid and Stella gave both of the bots a final pre flight check. They used garden hoses and ratchet straps for the ropes and castoff bicycles seats as turnbuckles, and when they were done, Johnny inspected it for safety. It wasn't what he would call "ready for primetime" but it's not like people were going to be in there, just robots.

He turned and started.

Dad, dressed in a puffy jacket, ear muffs, and a knit cap sat in an armchair with a bucket of popcorn and a tall glass of Coca-Cola. "What are you doing?" Johnny asked.

"I'm a simple man," Dad replied, "when there's wrestling, I watch it."

Okay, that ticked Johnny right off. "This isn't wrestling, Dad," he said, "this isn't a work, this isn't a bunch of fake fighting carny BS put on by an unscrupiloys carnival barker looking to swindle people for their money. This is real. This is RBG: Tuesday Afternoon. This isn't All Petite Wrestling or Raw is Bore. If you want to watch a bunch of guys working you, go download Capitol Combat. I hear the real Robocop showed up. For real."

For a moment, Dad just gaped at him...this his face screwed up in a mask of misery. Beginning to sob, he jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ran inside. "Elizabeth!" he wept. "Johnny cut a mean promo on wrestling again!"

Through the kitchen window, Johnny saw his mother hug his father to her chest and try to sooth him. She shot daggers at Johnny, and Johnny flashed a nervous smile. Sorry, Mom. He had it coming.

Just then, Stella, Lincoln, Liam, and Sid brought out Spydr and Leatherface. "Let's get this party started," Sid said.

They put the bots into the ring. "Who gets to control them?" Sid asked.

"I get one," Stella said.

"So do I," Liam said.

Lincoln held up his hand. "Excuse me, but this is my backyard."

Johnny shoved him. "It was my backyard first."

Flashing, Lincoln shoved him back. Before Johnny could lunge and tear his freaking head off, Sid got between them. "Knock it off, guys," she said, "let's be civilized about this."

"That's not how we do things around here," Johnny said and rolled up his sleeves, "in my hood, we -"

Suddenly, Johnny's neck prickled with the eerie sensation of being watched. He glanced over his shoulder, and Dad's face was pressed insistently against the kitchen window, cheeks puffed out and breath fogging the glass.

He was waiting for Lincoln and Johnny to throw down.

No.

Johnny refused to give his old man the squash match he so obviously wanted. "Fine," he said.

Instead of beating each other up, the five of them drew straws, with the two longest ones getting the honor of piloting one of the bots. The winners wound up being Liam and Stella, which hurt Johnny's butt and filled him with salt.

Smiling all over themselves, Liam and Stella took their places by the ring and the fight commenced. Leatherface hit Spydr with his saw, but instantly got stuck. "Got'cha," Liam said. He mashed a big red button and Spydr battered 'Face with its hammer. Stella shook her remote control and mashed all of the buttons in mindless panic. "Noooo!" she cried. "Get off of me!"

Liam let out a laugh that sounded suspiciously like Goofy ("H-yuck!"). "You done fell in my trap, girl."

After what seemed like an eternity, Stella managed to get her bot free from the grasp of Liam's. It was battered and leaking oil but still in good enough shape to hit Spydr with the saw, the marriage of blade and barbed wire kicking up a shower of sparks and producing a tortured scream of metal on metal. Lincoln cheered for Liam, so as a frick you, Johnny cheered for Stella. Sid just cheered for destruction. "Yeah, cut him up! Beat her with the hammer again! *Punches the air* "Use your nail cannon!"

In the end, Stella won by TKQ: Liam backed into one of the turnbuckles, got stuck, and couldn't move. The saw cut through the barbed wire and reached the mechanical arm, severing the wires that controlled it and rendering it useless. "That was sick," Sid gushed. Her hands were clenched into excited fists and her body trembled like a high tension wire. "We gotta build more bots and have more battles, bigger battles, bloodier battles."

She heaved for air, chest rising and falling.

"Whoa, calm down there, Colonel Cochran."

Sid relaxed and favored him with a quizzical expression. "Who's that?"

"The dude from Halloween III: Season of the Witch."

Lincoln furrowed his brow. "You mean Conal Cochran?"

Say what? Was this dude tripping? "It was Colonel Cochran."

"Bro, his first name was Conal."

"You need to get that snowy white hair out of your ears so you can hear right. It was Colonel. Like the chicken guy."

Lincoln cocked his fist to knock some sense into his brother, but stopped. Dad was in the window again, watching, waiting, just hoping for a glimpse of phony fighting. "Whatever, it's not important. Sid's right, we gotta build more bots."

"What did this Cochran guy do?" Sid asked, confused.

"Nothing," Lincoln said, "don't listen to him, he's dumb."

They set out to draw up plans for four new bots.

It just so happened that, days later, open enrollment for after school clubs started. Johnny already took a cooking class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and wasn't interested in joining another one, but one of the posters plastered to the cafeteria wall caught his eye. In tiny print it said: START YOUR OWN CLUB.

An idea struck him like a big boot to the face and he hurried over to the table where Lincoln, Liam, Stella, and Sid waited.

"You really think we should make it an actual club?" Sid asked.

"Sure," Johnny said, "we'll get credit for doing something we love. It's a no brainer."

"So easy a wrestler could do it," Lincoln said.

Across town, Dad shuddered, as if there was a disturbance in the force. He whipped out his official Hulk Hogan pacifier and shoved it into his mouth to soothe himself.

At the end of the day. Lincoln and Johnny went to the office and filled out a bunch of paperwork to incorporate their club, Robot Battle Group. They would meet Mondays, Wendedays, and Fridays in the shop room. They would have full use of the gym on Friday nights when it was not being used for basketball games and would be given a budget of fifty dollars a month for supplies. Neither one said anything to the other, but the same basic plan occurred to both of them. They already got their supplies - metal, wires, implements of destruction - from various places free of charge. If they continued doing that, they could pocket the money and split if fifty-fifty, adding another revenue stream to their network of income sources.

The first meeting of RBG convened the next day. "We're gonna be overwhelmed with new members," Sid said. "Our club is the coolest."

"We're gonna be popular," Stella agreed.

Wrong.

No one showed.

"Seriously?" Sid asked after ten minutes. "Battlebots are awesome, why isn't anyone coming through the door? God, our classmates are lame."

As if on cue, the door opened and everyone turned to heartily greet their new friend.

No one was there.

"Down here," a voice lisped.

Lisa Loud, in a lab coat and gloves, stood in the threshold, a box of parts tucked under one arm. Lisa was, if Johnny remembered correctly, was four, maybe five. Yes, she was a supergenius so this kind of club might appeal to her, but, uh, she was an elementary school kid. This was middle school. Could she legally be a member? Also, how did she know about RBG in the first place?

He asked and she waved him off. "I heard it through the grapevine, to paraphrase an old song." She sat between Sid and Stella, who both looked at her funny.

"This is Lisa," Johnny said, "she's a child prodigy."

Lisa sighed. "I don't like being referred to as a child, but yes, I am something of a prodigy."

"I didn't think robot fights were your thing," Lincoln said.

"They're not," Lisa said, "I find combat sports crass and vulgar. However, I am extremely interested in building a robot, and, as my mother wishes me to join after school programs and socialize, I figured I would do it here."

With the arrival of Lisa, RBG was six members strong. Lincoln and Johnny divided everyone into teams of two. Lisa insisted on being with Johnny, while Liam paired off with Stella and Lincoln teamed up with Sid. Each team would construct its own bot, and when they were done, they'd throw them into a triple threat match in a steel cage. "I will focus on the framework," Lisa said. "You just stand there and look pretty. You may also, if you like, design a complacent of weapons to ensure our bot's triumph over the others."

"Okay," Johnny said, "but first I need to know the general specs and stuff."

Lisa grinned. "You will see."

Over the course of a month, they worked on their bots, hammering, soldering, banging, crossing wires, and dreaming big. Lisa wanted to keep hers and Johnny's bot a secret from the others, so she built it piece by piece. "I will assemble them all shortly before the match."

Johnny brainstormed dozens of weapons for the bot, but Lisa refused to clue him in on what the bot would look like, how big it would be, or how it would operate.

In late December, they were finally ready. Lincoln and Sid's bot shot fire and acid, and Liam and Stella's bot featured diamond-tipped drills, chainsaw blades, and a water cannon. Johnny and Lisa's bot...well, Johnny didn't know. Despite his loud and vocifiorius protests, Lisa refused to tell him anything about the finished product. "I would like it to be a surprise for you as well as everyone else."

Normally, he wouldn't have stood for that, but this was Lisa, so there was literally no chance of her bot being anything but mind blowingly cool.

They decided to hold the battle on January 5 in Lincoln and Johnny's backyard. They dubbed it "Bot Battle I", had posters printed, and bought advertising space on local radio and TV stations. Lincoln priced the tickets at five bucks a pop, figuring that if they were cheap, more people would buy them. It's not like a major bot battle happened in Royal Woods everyday; people would be interested but only if the tickets weren't exorbitantly expensive.

He was right. They sold out in a week, making well over a thousand dollars. Johnny and Liam built a real ring in the backyard and moved in bleachers. Dad came out and flipped out. "What is this? What are you doing?"

Johnny told him.

"Absolutely not," Dad said.

Sigh.

Johnny didn't want to have to do this but…

"You can be the color commentator."

Dad's face lit up. "Okay!"

On the big day, hundreds of people packed into the stands to watch the show. Lisa was running late and Johnny was starting to get nervous. The show opened with an insane pyrotechnics display and the crowd went wild. To Johnny's shock, crews from three local TV stations appeared at the last minute and covered the event, broadcasting it on Channel 2, Channel 12, and Channel 35. At the announce table, Dad, dressed in a tux and wearing headphones, welcomed the viewers at home to the event. "...the most explosive night in the history of our sport!"

"Where's Lisa?" Lincoln asked, agitated.

"I don't know," Johnny said.

"The crowd's getting antsy. We're going to have to start without her."

Sid and Lincoln's bot went to the ring first to much fanfare, followed by the other one. The ref gave the signal and the match began. They locked up, cut each other, beat each other, and pushed each other back. One fired a torrent of water at the other but it didn't get into the motor. The crowd chanted, waved signs, and cheered the mechanized mayhem. Johnny paced back and forth waiting for Lisa. Finally, she showed. "Lise! Where were you?"

"Getting ready."

"You said it wouldn't take long."

The little girl adjusted her glasses. "I miscalculated."

In the ring, Lincoln's bot lay on its back lying a dead bug and the crowd lost it.

"Okay, fine, whatever," Johnny said, "where's our bot?"

Lisa grinned. "Coming."

She whipped out the remote control and they joined Sid and the others next to the ring. Lincoln's bot had made it right side up and launched itself at Liam's, pushing it back int one of the turnbuckles. Johnny looked around. "Lise? Where's our bot?"

Before Lisa could reply, the ground began to shake. The chatter of the crowd died and they turned to look up th entrance ramp just as a motorized monster standing fifty feet tall reared its dinosaur-like head. People screamed and cowed and Sid's jaw dropped. "Dear God," Stella muttered.

The creature - that was the only word Johnny could think of to describe it - resembled a T Rex only made of car parts. It had a powerful jaw, sharp teeth, and tiny arms, and as it came toward the ring, smoke and fire blew from its nose and mouth. The world trembled with every step it took and some of the fans ran in terror. The ref climbed over the top rope and cowered behind the announce table with Dad.

"I call it Truckasaurus," Lisa said.

Truckasarus lifted one massive foot and brought it down on the ring, crushing it and the other bots beneath it.

Lisa laughed uproariously and threw her head back. "I was wrong! Combat sports are delightful!"

"How can we compete with that?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah," Stella said, "she's too good."

"I'm going back to farming club," Liam said.

Right then and there, RBG broke up but even now, Lisa creates massive robots and pits them against each other for fun and recreation.

THE END