So I managed to get this little chapter out. Good for me, I guess.
I do not own any of these characters. Except for some of the OCs.
The magic component of Takeda Shingen High School had always been known for its strict, traditionalist stance of their views and, uh, teachings. After his troublesome first month at school, Rock could clearly say that about Diana, Hannah and Barbara. However, like all stereotypes, this was not a one-size-fits-all case; and one of those who broke the mold, so to speak, was Atsuko Kagari Cain.
Atsuko, or Akko as she preferred to be called, was 161 centimeters tall, had long, maroon-ish brown hair (part of which was tied up in a knot), red eyes, and typically wore a white t-shirt with red highlights and short jeans. She was something of an oddball in TS High, in that not only was she a first generation witch, but one that rejected the traditional norms that her teachers (particularly Ms. Finnelan) tried to enforce on her like everyone else who attended. Yet somewhat paradoxically, Akko had an idealized view of witches inspired by the performances of Shiny Chariot, which clashed with the perceptions of… well, pretty much everyone else.
This didn't mean that she was a selfish person. Quite the contrary; after getting to know her for a few months, Rock could say that she was one of the nicest people he knew, if a little reckless and impulsive.
During the third weekend of October, Akko invited Rock and his creator to her house for a day. Like Dr. Hikari's house/makeshift laboratory, she lived in a cottage a good distance from Setsuri, but it was who she lived with that surprised them most: an old colleague of Tsueno, Dr. [] Cain.
Dr. Cain was an archeologist in his early 40s, though by first glance you'd assume he was much older. He was bald, had a sharp nose, a long, white beard, and wore a blue robe with a red collar. Cain also had a walking stick, since he was an unusually frail person, even during his and Dr. Hikari's time at Kyoto University.
As the two colleagues caught up with each other, Atsuko went and showed her robotic friend her room. To say it was full of Shiny Chariot memorabilia would be a slight understatement, as Rock only now could comprehend just how freaking much the brunette looked up to the French witch/performer. She explained that she stumbled upon someone watching a 3D recording of her show in Tokyo in 2075, and that she's wanted to become a witch ever since then. After a while, Rock asked where her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kagari, were.
Akko looked… uncomfortable when he asked that, and replied that she'd rather not talk about them.
During his stay at Dr. Cain's hut, however, the lab assistant robot read a textbook that Akko had partially read, and read a few pages himself, learning a few things about how magic worked, and its abilities and limitations…
WARNING: SECOND INFODUMP IMMINENT!
The first thing to address is... what even is magic?
In its cultural definition and spiritual definition, that varies widely depending on which nationality or culture the person you're talking to comes from. In its scientific definition, Magic is the manipulation of Quintessence, in the form of magitrons, to influence the physical world, even the fabric of reality itself if it's strong enough. Natural quintessence, when not in a solid form (sakuradite), exists as a form of radiation (like Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation) augmented by the willpower of certain sentient lifeforms with variable carrier signals riding the radiation, in a manner not unlike a system code.
The prevailing theory is that quintessence, and by extension magic, is created naturally by the existence of organic life on a terrestrial planet. Every living thing has some small amount of quintessence in them; their spirit, if you will. When they die, their spirit leaves their deceased body, enters the planet's surface and goes down roughly 9 km+ deep within the planet's crust, eventually absorbing enough heat energy to coalesce into a solid form commonly known as sakuradite. To make a long explanation short, sakuradite is to the quintessence of dead organisms what fossil fuels are to the carbon the bodies they leave behind are made out of.
Sakuradite stayed in the crust until humanity began mining it out in the 2060s, and to this day use it as a fuel source. "Burning" sakuradite leaves no byproducts, for it does little more than release the energy keeping the magitrons together in a solid state, as the magic itself is released back into the biosphere (or the hideous vacuum of space), and eventually makes it back into newborn organisms.
Over millions of years, this "Magic Cycle" has resulted in the gradual creation of a planetary web that magic ebbs and flows through, known as the Yigssgadril. The amount of magic flowing through it at any moment depends on countless factors, including how much (if any) sakuradite is being mined, the birth–death ratio of every living species on that planet, the amount of life on the planet overall, etc.
The next thing we need to make clear going forwards: not every sapient creature can use magic. In particular, the Martians have been theorized to not have strong enough souls to wield magic, leaving them unable to use it naturally. However, this didn't stop them from using weapons enchanted with a type of magic, allowing them to use it in a limited capacity.
In addition, not all members of a magic-wielding species can… well, wield magic. For humanity, in order to be able to wield any of the types of magic (and only wield one type of it at that), need a specific gene in their DNA, which is only present in 20% of the population (Amerindians and Tibetians have a far higher percentage of their population that has this/these gene(s) than the other races of mankind). This means around 80% of humanity cannot use magic of any kind in the traditional way.
Naturally, this has led to some magio-supremacist beliefs manifesting themselves (or at least experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity) after the magic community returned to prominence following the Reckoning. Diana Caventish immediately popped into Rock's head when he learned this particular fact, but that's besides the point.
Another result is that a good number of people who– for whatever reason –still want to use magic, in addition to a sizable portion of the wizarding world, have taken a page of Croix Meridies' book and combined it with late-22nd century technology. To Rock, Magitek, the result of this combination, needed no introduction; he was a byproduct of magitek, afterall. However, it is also looking increasingly appealing to even the more conservative parts of the wizarding world, as the effectiveness of natural magic seems to be dwindling alongside the biosphere as a whole…
As for what magic can do and what its limits are, it varies on what type of magic is being used, which in turn depends on the personality and soul of its user. Because of the sheer diversity of what it can do, the International Ministry of Magic (IMM), the closest thing the magic community has to a government, has categorized magic into 17 different types; a magic user (usually referred to as a 'wizard' or 'witch,' although 'mage' is a widely-accepted gender-neutral term) can only use one type, which by unknown means is selected as they come into the world. Getting magitrons to do something specific is usually less of a physical task than a mental one, though verbally reciting "spells" usually helps get the mage into the right mindset to do so.
What follows is an index of each of the 17 types of known magic, and their abilities.
Quintessence (Psionics)
Abilities: Giving dreams and visions (e.g. fortune-telling), communicating with other quintessence-magic users telepathically, moving objects semi-telepathically, creating barriers out of quintessence (requires experience), manipulating the life force of planets, living beings, and sakuradite crystals (requires loads and loads of experience, DO NOT TRY AT HOME)
Personality Associated: irrelevant
Status: Unregulated; mostly harmless, no need for regulation.
NOTE: Quintessence is the most common form of magic in the world, accounting for the use of about 90% of "mana" (the colloquial term for augmented gamma radiation), and the only type of magic considered fully orthodox and completely safe to use.
Iron
Abilities: Creating, controlling and absorbing any type of metal (E.G. to create armor), and extreme endurance.
Personality Associated: unyielding
Status: Regulated; dangerous if used incorrectly or in certain ways.
NOTE: Very dangerous to robots, for obvious reasons.
Fire
Abilities: Creating, manipulating and absorbing fire/heat, making concentrated beams of fire/heat, detecting energy sources (since energy gives off heat), raising air and skin temperatures (requires experience), and extreme resistance to heat (at the cost of acute vulnerability to cold).
Personality Associated: short-temperedness, warm-heartedness
Status: Heavily Regulated; very dangerous, hard to control.
Plantlife
Abilities: Controlling, creating and manipulating plantlife, regenerating forests (requires experience).
Personality Associated: calmness, caring
Status: Lightly Regulated.
Water
Abilities: Creating, manipulating and absorbing water, sensing moisture (requires experience), resistance to corrosive waters, the ability to stay underwater longer than an average air-breathing creature, added underwater agility, and greater lung capacity.
Personality Associated: fluidness (possibly volatility), wanting what is best for oneself and others
Status: Regulated; can be dangerous if used in certain ways.
Ice
Abilities: Creating, controlling and absorbing ice/snow, making a concentrated beams of ice/snow/coldness, freezing anything (objects, people, enemies, etc.) and lowering air temperature (requires experience), and extreme resistance to cold (at the cost of acute weakness to fire/heat).
Personality Associated: coldness, antisocial tendencies.
Status: Regulated; dangerous if used incorrectly or in certain ways.
Sand (Dust)
Abilities: Creating, controlling and absorbing/destroying sand, dust and sandstone, creating sandstorms and dust storms, tougher skin, turning living organisms into dust.
Personality Associated: jealousy, envy
Status: Banned; extremely destructive, possibly racism towards Arabs.
Stone
Abilities: Creating, manipulating and absorbing stone, creating pillars, mountains, boulders, walls, etc. out of stone/rock, and incredible strength. NOTE: Cannot affect sand or sandstone.
Personality Associated: extreme stubbornness
Status: Regulated.
Earth
Abilities: Creating, absorbing and manipulating earth, clay and soil (e.g., to increase the content of nutrients), manipulating the terrain, causing earthquakes (requires lots and lots of experience), increased strength and incredible night vision.
Personality Associated: unknown
Status: Mostly Banned; extremely destructive (for obvious reasons), but undeniably useful for improving agricultural yields, especially in arid regions.
Crystal
Abilities: Creating, absorbing and manipulating minerals, solid crystals (bar water, ethane, methane and ammonia ices) and gemstones, creating varying structures of gemstone (Ruby/Sapphire, Emerald, Quartz, Diamond, etc.).
Personality Associated: being relatively honest, open about one's own intentions and wants.
Status: Regulated; the IMM would rather not crash the price of rare minerals and jewels.
Air (Gas)
Abilities: Creating, controlling and manipulating gasses (bar hydrogen, that's reserved for Solar), creating toxic concoctions and airborne poisons, creating cyclones (DO NOT TRY IF NOT A CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL), absorbing gasses to create a vacuum, and increased agility.
Personality Associated: being passive, disregardful of consequences or how their actions may harm/help others.
Status: Heavily Regulated.
Electricity
Abilities: Creating, controlling and manipulating electricity/lightning, shocking/paralyzing opponents with lightning bolts, creating electric defensive barriers and the ability to utilize chain lightning (requires experience), and resistance to electrocution.
Personality Associated: passionate, energetic.
Status: Banned, though advocates for magitek would beg to differ (for obvious reasons).
NOTE: individuals with electric-magic have a tendency to have the ability of increased speed and agility.
Magnetism
Abilities: Manipulating magnetism (E.G. to achieve flight), manipulating metals via magnetism and shooting beams of magnetic energy.
Personality Associated: curious, acute foolhardiness.
Status: Banned, though some (though not all) advocates for magitek would beg to differ.
NOTE: Don't ask why the universe decided to split the electromagnetic force into Electricity and Magnetism when it established the magic "system"; only God (if he/she exists) knows the answer.
Sonics
Abilities: Creating/using sound waves, sonar-based sensing, the ability to vibrate an enemy into dust and creating a sonic barrier/sonic boom (requires experience), enhanced hearing and the ability to imitate sounds.
Personality Associated: attention hogging.
Status: Banned.
Magma
Abilities: Creating, controlling/manipulating and absorbing liquid rock and metal, altering its temperature, and melting and/or vaporizing solid objects.
Personality Associated: sternness, whilst still having a deep passion for others.
Status: Banned.
Gravity
Abilities: Manipulating/controlling gravity (E.G. to walk on walls and upside-down on solid surfaces), levitating objects, and manipulating gravity to fly or create a Black Hole (requires experience, DO NOT TRY TO MAKE A BLACK HOLE, EVEN IF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE IT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY; Just… don't).
Personality Associated: Insufficient research has been done as of the time of writing.
Status: Banned, for obvious reasons.
NOTE: The most recent form of magic "discovered," only being officially classified by the IMM in 2154.
Shadow
Abilities: Creating, manipulating and absorbing shadows, using them to teleport (select users), making literal hands of shadow (requires experience), and unleashing blasts of pure darkness.
Personality Associated: unknown, but evidence suggests intense hatred (towards one's self or others).
Status: Banned; extremely destructive, the legacy of Agatha the Wicked.
Solar (Light)
Abilities: Creating, controlling and absorbing light, bending it to make oneself invisible, creating laser beams and solid/non-solid illusions (requires experience), and the ability to induce nuclear fusion and create mini-stars.
Personality Associated: unknown.
Status: Banned; extremely destructive, impossible to control.
NOTE: Solar is such a powerful type of magic, that anyone who has tried to use it has wound up only vaporizing their own bodies. As such, solar-magic, the practice of solar-magic, and research into/about solar-magic has been completely and thoroughly outlawed by the IMM.
Now, Magic is not a silver bullet to every conceivable problem; most beings with the ability to wield elements cannot use it limitlessly. There is a reason why technology eventually gained favor over magic during the 18th–21st centuries, after all. After using large amounts of mana, they must wait until their body naturally recharges it, or they absorb some. A mage's proficiency in the usage of any type of magic will allow them to perform more complex tasks with that power, which should come naturally through experience, unless the user dies before then).
In addition, there are some things even magic cannot accomplish. For example, a mage cannot turn someone into a mouse, fish, horse, rock, or any other type of animal or inanimate object. This was a misinformed stereotype that came from the great witch hunts of the second millennium AD [I refuse to use the term CE, because by autistic head tends to get CE and BCE easily confused], one that the magic community still hasn't entirely shaken off.
As for humanity's overall relationship to magic… it's complicated, like everything in history is.
Human mythology tells of feats of gods using a force by this name, but humanity had shunned its usage (and even denied its very existence) by the 17th century AD in favor of science. However, even in the dying world of 21st century Earth, there remained a few stubborn holdouts of mankind's ancient relationship with this hidden force of nature. England in particular had the largest number of magic-users in the world as of 2075.
However, the "magic community" of Earth, led and represented by the International Ministry of Magic, is extremely conservative, having tried to keep their traditions alive at all costs in a world that was hostile towards them throughout most of recorded history. For example, the laws of the magic community are ungodly strict, the use of anything besides Quintessence-type magic is seen as either potentially dangerous if not used correctly, as is using any type of magic with technology– although that's starting to change –and using Dark Magic (a catch-all term for shadow-magic, sand-magic, electricity-magic, magnetism-magic, magma-magic, and gravity-magic) is punishable by death or, more often, worse, though I will not entail what I mean in order to spare your sanity.
Ditto with using or even researching solar-magic, though Rock never found a satisfactory answer as to why that is within the textbook.
He found their overall resistance to any kind of change somewhat understandable, though, considering the magio-phobic, ultra-materialist, atheistic, absolutist, penny-pinching, extremely-far-right socio-political culture of East Asia, North America, and Western+Central Europe prior to 2076. Despite this, he could not deny that this attitude has left the magic community stagnant and behind the times, even at the turn of the 23rd century.
Thus, by the time of the Reckoning and subsequent Martian War, magic had long since fallen out of popular culture worldwide. However, it would make a reappearance in the mid-21st century with the spectacle of young showtress Chariot du Nord, better known by her alias, Shiny Chariot. From 2073 to 2076, she performed 15 shows throughout most of the world, bringing smiles everywhere she went, before disappearing without a trace during the chaos of the New Red Wave. Of course, due to her "incorrect" use of magic for entertainment instead of practical purposes, the Magic community of Earth mostly views Chariot as a blemish to their dogmatic record, and many witches downright hate her. The downtrodden crowds that had seen her shows and their descendants, however, disagree(-d) with that notion, including a wave of first-generation witches inspired by her performances from the 2080s — 2110s. In spite of that, and partially due to her… relationship with Croix Merides, Chariot du Nord's legacy remains extremely controversial, to put it lightly.
A more recent concern to the IMM, however, is that in the year 2197, scientists in Acadia (the former Mid-Atlantic states, Canadian maritime provinces, and New England) managed to create the first artificial Philosopher's Stone, specifically one that didn't blow up in your face if you so much as looked at it weirdly. It would be apt to say that the ensuing (and still ongoing) democratization of magic has been tearing through the magic community like a hot knife through butter. Tensions are rising between two developing camps: the "hardliners," or pureblood sect, who still believe that the practices of magic are sacred and must be preserved, in spite of the rapidly changing circumstances, and the "reformists," or magitek sect, who see the newfound attention to the community, and Croix Merides' success in uniting magic and technology (even if she was played like a damn fiddle by the Martians), as a necessity if the community is to survive.
Unfortunately, even this may not hold a candle to another growing crisis; the amount of magic present on Earth has been in decline since the Napoleonic Wars and First Industrial Revolution, something that has worsened exponentially as a result of the Martians misusing part of the Grand Triskelion's energies to cause the Great Reckoning. It has gotten to the point that access to Yigssgadril has all but disappeared outside 2 kilometers from the occasional philosopher's stone, unless you're on the island of New California for some mysterious reason, and even these rare green crystals have seemingly begun to lose their power in recent years. With this in mind, it came as no surprise to Rock to learn that the magitek sect has been growing rapidly, especially since it allows people without the "magic gene" to otherwise be a mage…
Info dump complete. Returning to the main story…
Rock was about to read about the magic community's role in the Martian War, but was interrupted by his creator calling out that it was time to go back home. Akko promised to return the favor by visiting the Hikari household, which she followed up on multiple times
However, if Akko was happy-go-lucky, Simon Tageki Bonne was a different story. The son of a family of sakuradite miners, he'd lost his parents when their mine went up in a massive fireball– the substance was quite volatile at room temperature –when he was 5. After being sent to a run-down orphanage in Shin Hiroshima [a satellite city east of Setsuri] for a year, he was adopted by scrapyard operator Rigel Bonne, who parented him along with his own children, Tiesel and Tron Bonne. There, he was taught not to take everything at face value; there may be something valuable hidden in a piece of junk, after all, or– more importantly –some piece of scrap that's even worse.
Unfortunately, Rigel died of a superbug two years ago. Fortunately, the family's yen reserves were more than enough to let the blue-haired teen continue his education, though Tiesel has apparently made some… questionable decisions after taking over the scrapyard.
Due to this background, Simon was usually the one to counteract Akko's more zany plans, projects, etc., as a voice of reason. Despite that, he sometimes went a little overboard, particularly when it came to getting the best grades. Not to mention he almost never wore a shirt beneath his jacket, something that annoyed many of Takeda Shingen's staff.
Every day Rock came home from school, his creator's progress on the robots he was building had continued steadily. Slowly, the nine Robot Masters began to realize themselves, materialize, take form.
The first of them that Dr. Hikari built was the sanitation bot, Poseidon. He was blue and yellow in color, and was 166 centimeters tall from head to toe. His head resembled a medieval knight's helmet, and had a crest that resembled the trident his mythical Greek counterpart wielded. His torso was somewhat rotund, but this would not slow him down if he worked like Dr. Hikari had designed him to. His right arm had a high-pressure water cannon built into it, while his left arm had a water-compatible vacuum on it to suck up dirt and grime, which went down a hose into two tanks on his back that resembled those used by scuba divers of old. His feet were also based off a scuba diver, resembling flippers that were… uh, not so flippy.
Next came Achilles, the lumber bot. He was orange and light gray– almost white – in color, and was 151 centimeters tall from the top of his head to his toes, which were designed to dig into tree trunks for pruning high branches. However, he was 159 centimeters tall if one counted the Rolling Cutters on his forehead, which was his primary tool (and weapon, if he ever encountered the island's hostile wildlife). They were made of ceramic titanium, or ceratanium for short, the hardest, toughest, most durable material known to man– tougher than even Mythril –meaning that they could slice and dice pretty much anything, provided it wasn't too big.
Besides his shorter stature, Achilles' appearance was a bit… odd. For starters, his head was a perfect orange sphere, with his eyes resembling large googly eyes of the late 20th century, and his "ears" were little more than handles that, when combined with the head itself and the Rolling Cutter, resembled a set of Japanese scissors. For a mouth, he had a small rectangle that glowed yellow whenever he was to speak. The rest of the body was even less conventional; in addition to his four toes, Achilles' legs were reverse-articulated, which Tsueno had designed for him to leap up to 10 meters high, and increase his otherwise low walking speeds. His arms, instead of being normal robotic limbs, were soft robotic hoses, with "hard" robotic components not showing up until one reached the wrists and hands.
Once Achilles was complete, Dr. Hikari began work on the construction foreman robot. Heracles wound up being by far the largest of the Robot Masters, a whopping 245 centimeters tall! His awesome height was matched by his girth, as Heracles was a yellow, black, and red behemoth. He had two large bars on his back that resembled smokestacks (these were actually radiators to dump the insane heat his stellarator power core would give off), and his jaw resembled the bucket of a bulldozer, the top of his head made to look like a construction hat. His arms were disproportionately large, but not cartoonishly so to the point that he resembled a gorilla, though they were big enough that one could see the large hydraulic pistons in his elbow joints. In all, Heracles resembled a construction vehicle on legs, as Akko described the first time she saw his completed form.
If Heracles was the giant of the Robot Masters, the sakuradite cooling robot was the dwarf, for lack of a better, unoffensive term. Penelope only stood at 144 centimeters tall, but was no less impressive than her predecessors, on account for also being the most human-looking of all the Robot Masters. And it wasn't skin deep, though out of respect, and taking inspiration from the Inuits in Kanata (formerly Canada), Tsueno gave her a blue and white parka to cover the details and… her modest rack… *ahem*
Let's go over the parts that we can discuss. She had orange, fluffy hair and ice blue eyes, which were separated from the rest of her face by red metal rims – something that Rock referred to as her "eyeglasses." Her arms looked entirely human, though her palms had a circular vent in them that her Ice Slashers– beam-ified successors to the Freeze Rays developed by the American military in the 2040s – fired out of. The synthetic skin stopped, however, at the knees; her lower legs, like Rock, were made of plasteel, but were painted white and resembled the large snow-shoes that Arctic and Antarctic explorers used to wear.
Next came the "ground disruption" robot. Hephaestus was a return to form from Penelope, being 171 centimeters tall, orange and black, bulky, and heavily armored. He looked like someone in a bomb disposal suit from back in the early 21st century, complete with toolboxes around his wide waist. He had no real face, the "visor" of the helmet (read: his head), which would glow neon green, being the closest thing he had to one. Hephaestus' "gimmick" so to speak was his Hyper Bombs, black, baseball-sized bombs that used miniature versions of the earlier, volatile synthetic philosopher's stones as their internal explosives. His left arm could, in case attacked by hostiles, shoot Hyper Bombs the size of basketballs, and even had the same pattern of grooves on them. Hephaestus wouldn't need to restock on them, either, as they were "grown" in a chamber within his abdomen, something that greatly contributed to his bulky appearance.
How powerful were the Hyper Bombs, exactly? Well, as anyone who first tried to make these could tell you, an artificial Philosopher's Stone the size of an American penny had enough energy within to reduce a one-bedroom apartment to rubble. It was for this reason that Dr. Hikari, being the pacifist he was, had a certain disdain for Hephaestus, even as he was building him.
Thus, it didn't surprise his son when he finally got to building Cacus, the waste disposal robot. He was 166 centimeters tall, was much more conventionally humanoid in form, and was red and black in color. He had a human face, but would normally be partially covered by a black mouth guard. The rest of his head, however, was essentially a black torch, and Akko intuitively equated the fire that would be on top once he was activated to be his "hair." His head wouldn't be the only place where fire would come out: his forearms, which were based off of those of a Sniper Joe like Rock, would each contain a disk of Hihi'irokane, a substance discovered on the Atlantic Ocean floor by the Portuguese in the 2050s in their territorial waters whilst surveying for mineral deposits. The crimson metal was as malleable as gold, but when an electric current was running through it, it would create fire on its own. These disks in Cacus' forearms, therefore, would eject his flames through nozzles like those on a bottle of glue, which would in turn incinerate most of the junk that came his way. Of course, the nozzles could retract into his forearms to make way for proper hands, if the situation required it.
Once Cacus was finished, the good doctor moved on to the energy storage and generation robot. Zeus would be the leanest and most nimble of the Robot Masters, standing 179 centimeters tall head to toe – 180 if one included the two charges that stuck out of his back, each leaning 20O out from his vertical axis. He was black, red, and yellow in color, with some metallic gray thrown in as well. Like Cacus, Zeus' face was human, though the latter's could be fully seen, with the only thing that came close to an obstruction being a transparent yellow visor. His eyes were sharp, and had irises that were reddish-purple if one removed the visor.
The rest of Zeus was no less detailed. The plating of his black upper torso formed a sort of collar, and a yellow lightning bolt was painted on his chest. His black shoulder panels had two gaps in them that resembled type A electrical outlets; his knee pads had similar gaps that resembled type B outlets. His forearms, though largely red, each had a blue dome just beneath the elbow motor-joint, which would become static globes once the good doctor was finally authorized to activate him.
One of the major changes from the other Robot Masters were his hands, which unlike the ones built before him, used soft, manipulatable rubber with wires inside. They were the most human-like aside from Penelope's, though hers had synthetic flesh and skin to cover the titanium skeleton and motor joints. In Zeus' case, the wires used to bend the fingers and such could also shoot bolts of lightning as a self-defense mechanism, in case any Martians tried to take over the power plant he was stationed at. Dr. Hikari, realizing how much easier this was to maintain than the metal ones on the others he's already built, decided that this soft robotic version of the hand would be used on the remaining ones he'd yet to build, and the mass-produced versions of the others.
Then came the search-and-rescue robot. Hecate was 156 centimeters tall, and was designed to resemble the uniforms worn by the students of Luna Nova Academy, specifically the more traditional-looking ones but without the hat; when Akko asked why she looked like that, the good doctor explained that this was his way of paying homage to the defunct establishment. Aside from the purplish-blue robes, she had shoulder-mounted light bars like those on the roof of an ambulance, and would indeed act as such during rescue operations. The "hood" of her robes became an upside-down elliptical half dome-shaped backpack, which would store equipment like ropes, first-aid kits, and even a harpoon gun. Rock asked if the latter was even necessary, and his response was along the lines of "you'll never know, so I'm including it just in case."
To simulate the robe's loose sleeves, Hecate's forearms were wider than her upper arms, though this was also so they could contain an artificial Philosopher's Stone each – stable ones, not the cruder, explosive kind used for Hephaestus' Hyper Bombs. Though these were expensive for the good doctor to get his hands on– 20,000 yen apiece –and he had to eat only two meals a day instead of three during the following month, this was deemed worthwhile. The reason for this was that these artificial Philosopher's Stones were necessary for Hecate to generate her Quintessence Barriers, which weren't barriers as much as they were a means of manipulating debris at a disaster site to access trapped survivors.
Thomas was only mostly finished with the eighth prototype Robot Master, and had only started assembling the skeleton of the time management robot, Kronos, when the yearly finals came for his son. Rock got all As and Bs on his finals, while Simon got straight As. Akko, of course, was all over the place, though fortunately she didn't get an F in any of her classes, and her grades weren't so bad as to be held back a year.
However, if one were to look at the records, one would see that all three of them got an A for one of their classes: exploration.
Exploration class was something that was mandatory for all freshmen students anywhere in Shin Honshu to take. Ever since settling the island's western coastline in the 2160s and '70s, the State of Japan had been constantly attempting to expand its colony of Shin Honshu inland. Unfortunately, the colony had never been able to expand beyond 60-ish kilometers inland throughout its roughly 40 year existence. This was due to a variety of factors, chief among them being Martian raids and the island's hostile, oft oversized wildlife. Kyoto, of course, got frustrated about the lack of progress very, very quickly. So, in order to encourage more civilians to settle further into the New Californian interior despite the risks, the MMEXT came up with the Exploration course to go alongside Japanese, English, Math, and other mandatory curriculum.
Most people recognized this as unnecessary at best, but the magic community in Japan absolutely adored this new part of the nation's public education. In particular, Takeda Shingen High School went as far as to build an entire dungeon near its sports field using mindcuffed Chosen labor. And this was no mock dungeon; it was completely authentic as the school's architects could make it, complete with tons of loot, half of which was allegedly stolen from a Red Briton Dragon in northern Scotland.
Allegedly.
The rest of it came from the labyrinth beneath the ruins of Luna Nova Academy, but that's a story for another time.
Why do I bring this up? Well, for starters, what few expeditions into the wilderness that came back alive revealed that there were plenty of dungeons within New California's interior, making what was seemingly a waste of time, effort, and money not seem so useless after all. Besides that, the exploration course at Takeda Shingen High actually has two yearly final exams. The first is for basic survival skills out in the wild, which is taken on paper. The other exam covered combat with both wild animals and uh… people from enemy nations also colonizing New California, for lack of a better term.
More importantly, this exam made use of the school's dungeon, as it was in the form of a mock treasure hunt.
Just outside the entrance to Takeda Shingen High School's dungeon, Setsuri, Japan
11:30 A.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
If an uninformed person looked at the entrance to the school's dungeon, it'd be hard to blame them for mistaking it for one of those fallout shelters built in the old United States during the First Cold War. Seeing a pair of large, metal doors within a concrete frame on the side of an unassuming hill does give that impression. However, there were a few differences between an actual fallout shelter and the place where all the freshmen students were gathering at this moment.
First and foremost, there was a sign right outside of it with an arrow pointing at it, saying "DUNGEON" in Japanese, in all caps. The larger difference was on the inside, which was, well, literally a dungeon, not a single room barely large enough to fit four people in a pair of bunk beds. That much could be inferred as the teacher, a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian middle-aged man whose name Rock had forgotten to log into his memory files, entered the passcode into a terminus on the concrete frame to the right of the doors, and they opened into the hillside.
"This will be the second half of your final exam," he said. "Unlike the first half, I'm certain many of you will find this part much more exciting. But before we begin, here's a few things we need to cover." The teacher pointed to an LED screen on the wall behind him, located just beside the terminus he'd just used to open the entrance, which gave the students visuals as he explained.
"This will simulate a scenario that, God be willing, you will find yourselves in whilst exploring the interior of this island. This entrance, if you couldn't tell by the sign, leads to a four-story labyrinthic dungeon, complete with loot, treasure, and the whole jist of what you'd expect in a game of Dungeons and Dragons or a fantasy RPG."
"A shitty dungeon-crawling RPG from what it looks like," Simon commented in a deadpan tone.
"I'm no expert," Rock quipped, "but can the school even do this? Legally, I mean?"
"Well, they aren't stopping now," the blue-haired boy pointed out.
Not hearing their comments, the teacher continued. "Each piece of treasure you find and return to the surface has a set amount of points. The students with the highest amount of points when they return will receive the highest grades, and vice versa. However," he raised his voice slightly, stressing the following point, "there are also monsters in the dungeon, so stay on guard at all times. Hell, fight them if you want to. You may work together in teams of up to five people, however that is not strongly encouraged, because as I've said before in this class, your safety is your own responsibility, and no-one else's."
As he finished up, someone in the crowd of students raised their hand. The teacher immediately noticed, knew who it was, and answered in annoyance. "No, Amanda, flying within the dungeon is not advised. The ceilings are not high enough for it to be safe, so it's best that everyone uses their own two feet instead."
Rock swore he could hear a female voice some distance behind him cursing profusely in response.
"Any other questions?"
He was met with silence.
"Good. You all have three hours to scavenge the place and return here. Any longer, and there will be a penalty to your score. Begin!"
This little chapter had two purposes. The first was to give some more background on how magic works in this universe, as it's different from the "Harry Potter, but as an anime!" approach Little Witch Academia proper took regarding it. I wrote a scientific explanation of what magic is, both for the sake of worldbuilding, and for it to fit in better with the sci-fi background of Mega Man. by the looks of it, transformation magic does not exist, meaning that Akko won't be turning into a mouse or anything else. Don't worry, though, I have something else in mind for our thick-headed heroine…
Second, we've gotten our first look at the first batch of Robot Masters. With the exception of Bomb Man/Hephaestus (because I don't think anyone would take his original design seriously, if I'm being honest), they look pretty much identical to their game counterparts, albeit with some revisions based on Adam Withers' take on the characters (and Wave Man's there too, of course). Bomb Man's redesign was inspired by his take on him as well. The purpose of this is so that if, by some miracle, this was adapted into a cartoon or anime, they'd look a bit more realistic – and cooler, too, but that's just my opinion.
Finally, we get into my personal take on the original LWA OVA. Not to spoil anything, but this is where Rock will first learn to fight (or if you want to use video game terminology, this unorthodox exam is basically the tutorial level), and will lead directly into the events of the first Mega Man game. Once that's covered, there will be a year-long time skip to the events of Girls und Panzer (both the anime and der Film) and Girls Dead Rise, where we finally get into the meat of the story.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We still have at least six chapters until we reach SeekerMeeker's original work. In the meantime, thank you for reading, and stay safe.
–NuclearAlchmist