Exception
By: Aviantei
53. Playing the Long Game
According to other, less ambitious schools, robotics club events at the high school level tended to go like so: Robots would compete in a variety of tasks, testing their programming meddle. There were obstacle courses, challenges to see who could complete an objective in the shortest amount of time, and even which pot could succeed in stealing a number of "flags" from their opponent. It was a serious competition, yes, but it was much closer to being a friendly affair that didn't have any robotic body counts to its name.
Both Black Order High and Millennium Private happened to share an opinion on that matter, that being that anyone who subscribed to such a lukewarm matter of challenge were a bunch of wusses.
Down on the main competition floor, there was the crash of metal upon metal, as two opposing robots had their weapons slam against each other, sending sparks flying and the audience up in a ruckus of cheers that were on par with something like a wrestling match. Amongst the bleachers, hawkers were out and about, collecting bets that most of the overseeing teachers just happened to conveniently ignore and maybe more than a few slipped some dollars to. Everyone who had gathered there for the day was ready to watch some good old fashioned robot carnage, and that was what they were getting.
The active robots had backed off, but they were charging at each other again, whacking at each other with blunt appendages that still did plenty of damage but nothing overwhelming. Still, it was enough to make the crowd worked up, each audience member cheering their respective side on. After all, they knew that there could only be one victor at the end of Robot Fight Club, so they didn't expect anyone to whip out their ultimate weapons just yet, but the combat was still enough to serve as an appetizer.
And yet, as much as the crowd was worked up, that was nothing in comparison to the pure burning passion of the competitors themselves.
"That's right, Johnny! Smash their stupid Noah face in!"
"You've got it, Chief!"
Komui, a practitioner of one-hundred percent maximum no chill, was screaming at the top of his lungs in encouragement, more than loud enough for the entire gymnasium to hear him, even without any such thing as a microphone attached to him. (It had been, coincidentally we're sure, the year that Komui had gotten hired that any such sound systems became heavily regulated in Robot Fight Club policy.) Johnny's own response, while nowhere near the same in terms of pure volume, was equal in enthusiasm.
Still shouting an enthused battle cry, Johnny pushed forward on his controller's joystick, pushing his robot into top speeds. The competing Science Club member—who had chosen to dress as a clown for some reason or another—hadn't been prepared for such a move whatsoever, and their in-comparison lightweight bot toppled, leaving it more than open for the strike that came next.
What followed was nothing less than pure destruction, bolts flying everywhere. The central support of the bot's metallic skeleton had snapped, making the victor obvious. The referee's shout of "Match!" was unnecessary, and also pretty inaudible under the roar of the crowd's excitement. Already, the Black Order squad was raking in the advantage, though it was still too early to call the game in any conceivable manner.
"Heck yeah!" Johnny cheered, jumping in satisfaction. Komui roared in excitement, pumping his fists in the air, and anyone who was surprised by such a display was in the minority. Johnny turned back, sticking out his tongue at his opponent before driving his own robot back towards him and picking it up the same way one might cuddle a cat who was in the mood to receive attention.
Komui was nowhere near as restrained, following up with a "Take that, Noah!" as their opponent went to clean up the remains of their bot in disgrace. Even so, Komui much more had eyes on his opposing chaperone/advisor. "Well, Lulu Bell? Looks like your club's standards are slipping over there, huh?"
"Think what you like," Lulu Bell said, sounding as disinterested as ever. The clown kid, having finished recovering their scattered remains, took the moment of distraction to retreat, though they knew they were in for a scolding much later. "Only a fool gets so worked up about beating one opponent, and one of the weaker ones at that." While Black Order High did no such thing, MPHS was much more concerned with its rankings, and as such considered everyone in "levels," with the Chairman's chosen Noah being the highest possible honor. The club member that had just gotten their ass soundly handed to them was nothing more than a Level Two, the lowest possible passing requirement to represent the school in any sort of public event. "Then again, you getting ahead of yourself is what always leads to your downfall, so, of course, by all means."
A stoic woman by any conceivable definition of the word, Lulu Bell's faint smile was ice cold, and Johnny even took a step behind Komui on pure instinct. It was an intimidation tactic that worked on the most essential levels, and it had a ninety-nine-point-nine percent success rate.
The final point-one percent?
Lee Komui was a man with next to no sense of a self-preservation instinct.
As such, he did nothing more that throw back his head and laugh. "Think what you want," he said. "If you want to let your guard down, then, go ahead. You know we're all at our best whenever we're cornered, after all." With a push of his glasses at the perfect angle to catch the reflection of the light for Maximum Nerd Intimidation, Komui smirked. "We have a secret weapon, you know. We're not going to hand you the victory."
Lulu Bell gave no other response but to turn on her heel as the announcer called for the next participants in the match.
After all, you couldn't call a secret weapon a secret if you went and announced its presence, now could you?
"Ari, what're our sales numbers looking like?"
"Gimme a sec to check all the data."
Meanwhile, the atmosphere outside of the main event gymnasium was just as, if not even more tense. Battles between robots were things were you could see tangible results right away: pieces broke, mechanisms stopped working the way they were intended, and blood of the metaphorical and robot variety was spilled.
When it came to the world of concessions, though? That's where things got a whole lot more complicated.
For one, it was a numbers game, and not everything was consistent. Products had different price points and profit margins. Keeping track of stock was just one part of the battle, and the popularity of the Robot Fight Club event meant that everything moved fast. From candy to chips to cans and bottled drinks, everything was a flurry of movement. To add to the complications, Lenalee had of course set out different concession stands at various strategic positions to increase the number of points of sale. That meant they had several different shops to explore and manage, and keeping real time track of their progress required a level of coordination that was rather difficult whenever one wasn't working with digital cash registers.
And that was just on the internal side of affairs. Things would've been difficult enough handling their own position on its own, but, well…
This is a competition, after all.
Meeting their own sales goal meant nothing if they didn't happen to surpass their opponents, and the Jasdevi team were no slackers. Sure, the brothers looked rather flippant, but they'd become Noah for a reason. Each concessions squad had the advantage of gaining support from students and alumni of their respective schools, but there were plenty of outsiders there, too, and that was where the true victory condition lie. Jasdevi's unconventional appearances and flamboyant attitudes attracted plenty of attention and curious customers who wanted a weird anecdote to share for later.
Thus, Jasdevi were serious competition. Further, their own sales numbers left plenty of unknowns in their wake. Even with scouts present to see how much product was moving, they couldn't do anything more than estimate what the other side was doing.
But that wasn't anywhere near enough to stop Ari from trying.
No one out of their collective was more suited to such a job than she. After all, Ari was a Bookman, which between her natural brains and her training made her into an information processing machine. The Black Order side had already set up a spreadsheet in the cloud to track all their stock and profits, just to make the aftermath easier, and everyone manning their concession stands understood the importance of keeping it up to date, even in the most hectic of times. With automated calculations doing most of the heavy labor, Ari was easily able to see how Black Order High was faring, which left most of her brain space open to do her real job.
That being calculating her best rough estimate of how well the Noah team was doing so they could cinch out their victory.
As mentioned, it was a difficult job to attempt to accomplish. Even with Lenalee's network at their disposal, the time investment wouldn't be all that worth it to dig into every ounce of data available to calculate the same numbers. After all, the goal was just to be victorious, so why not calculate the highest possible MPHS profit and send out directions to beat that?
So, with a little help from some extra volunteers to note the Noah concessions prices and scout them out to keep track of as many sales as possible, Ari kept tabs on that data and made the appropriate calculations. It was also worth noting that not a single member on their team felt guilty for spying, not whenever Ari had already noticed a handful of Millennium Private High kids doing the same on them. All's fair in love and war, after all.
And with the love matter shelved for the time being, Ari was more than ready to put all her resources into war.
"Total numbers for us are a little bit behind of what we projected for our initial goals, but well within range of correction," Ari said once she was done pulling together everything in her mind. Of course, some downward deviation was to be expected, considering that MPHS had given no indication of running a competing concessions stand that year, so it wasn't as concerning as it could be. "We're also in the lull period, so I predict things will pick up in the next few hours as everyone's breakfasts wears off." That little tidbit was a result of previous years' data, so she felt fairly confident in that assessment.
Understanding the logic, Lenalee nodded, taking a moment to glance at the numbers herself. She trusted Ari with the calculations, yeah, but there was something satisfying about seeing a steadily upticking number to concretely prove the results of your efforts. "And how are the Noah looking?" she asked, which had been her true concern all along.
"They're making sales just as steady as we are, though their general product selection is different." It wasn't anything ridiculously classy—again, take all that wrestling match vibes, and that impacted even the most stuck up of audience members—but they did have a few more expensive items on the docket. "So far, they've sold a little bit less per minute than we have, but the cost point means that they get a little bit more profit for go assuming they bought smart." Of course, the Noah wouldn't make any sort of foolish mistakes like that, so it was always best to assume they'd made a good choice when preparing their stock. "In the worst case scenario, they're kinda ahead of us."
Admitting such a thing was enough to make Ari grit her teeth, and even Lenalee pursed her perfectly glossed lips at the news. "Alright, then what are our chances for victory?"
"With expected deviation? We're still sitting in a good position, but that's only if we don't let up." There was no need for either of them to comment on that, though, seeing as there had never been any intention to let up from the very start. "Do you have any orders to change our strategy, though? We have the resources to go get extra product or even to go conduct some sabotage if we need to." Sure, the robots were the main level of competition on display, but no Black Order High School student wanted to lose to their eternal rivals, so there would be plenty of people to come through if they sent out a rallying call, no matter how nefarious the scheme at play was.
Being that most of those people would be part of her network, Lenalee knew that well enough—but she still shook her head, making her pigtails sway. "No, I don't want to deal with unexpected elements unless necessary." They'd done a lot of work to plan out their sales strategy in the weeks beforehand, and throwing in new factors now could create a dangerous butterfly effect. "Small, guaranteed gains are much more valuable at this stage. If things start to look desperate, you let me know, but I don't want to change things up too early." No, there were already plans for updating the concessions menu in place, and they'd stick to that strategy so everyone could keep operating as effectively as possible. "We keep our product as usual, though I'd like to see our exact stock numbers so we can keep everything on hand until the end."
"Roger that, Commodore," Ari said, carrying over her brother's strange penchant for giving unnecessary military nicknames in times of intense planning. "And on the second matter…?"
"We'll keep our hands clean," Lenalee said, though it had taken her some time to land on that concrete decision. "On principle, I'm not against doing anything it takes to win. But I want to hold off on that unless they end up starting it first. That way we might be able to invalidate their results and score a victory that way." Of course, such an approach was supposing that the Noah did anything underhanded and let themselves get caught, but that was a bridge they could cross when and if they came upon it. "That said, if anyone unassociated with us happens to do something that works in our favor…"
"Ah, yes. That would certainly be out of our hands now wouldn't it?" They two girls shared perfect smiles—which was a sign of possible evil afoot. "Alright, so about our stock, I think we should…"
As the conversation veered back into more expected territory—or, well, as expected as one could expect for a high-stakes game of fundraising—Allen tried to put what he'd just overheard out of his mind. Sales were busy, lines were long, and unnecessary thoughts would do nothing more than cloud his judgement. The key to customer service was to smile and work as efficiently as possible.
Thus Allen Walker cleared his hands of any sort of possible dirty tactics his friends were about to engage in. Rigging the competition? No, I don't know her…
"And here's your change. Next in line, please," he said, the perfect face for such a position. In fact, his adorableness alone had been enough to bring over a handful of interested parties, just for the chance to chat with him. That being said, his next customer wasn't one of them, instead it being a well-dressed gentleman in a top hat that managed to cast the perfect shadow over his face but not conceal his smile. "How are you today?"
"I'm doing well, thank you. And yourself?" Allen gave a polite reply before the gentleman decided to continue with his order. "Let's see…I'd like a bottled tea, as well as one of each of your dessert items, please." Having been at it all morning, Allen tallied up the total in his mind with ease, and he reported it back. By the time he'd gathered up the requested items and tucked them into a bag, the gentleman already had his money proffered. "Keep the change," he said, offering one more smile before stepped out of line, and Allen barely had the time to offer his thanks before he looked at the bill in question before trying not to gape.
Hello, this is like ten times what you had to pay for?! Are you sure about this?!
But the man was already gone, and there was another customer stepping up, so Allen tucked the bill into their cashbox, added the excess to the donations category on the spreadsheet and got back into the flow state of the strangely satisfying experience of fulfilling customer orders, the work pulling his mind away from the nagging thought that maybe—just maybe—he'd seen that man somewhere before.
And still smiling, Millennium Private High School's Chairman adjusted his hat as he navigated the crowd to enjoy the show with everyone else.
But Allen Walker, after so much time…
There was a storm brewing, yes, and no one was going to be able to see it coming, let alone stop it.
[Author's Notes]
This chapter brought to you on a chilly morning in which my cat won't stop trying to chew on my arm and steal things off my desk. I hope you enjoy.
Also apologies for any silly typos in this chapter. This was a super busy week and work, and I haven't quite had the energy to do super in-depth edits on my chapters.
Next Time: "54. Passion and Pride." Please look forward to it!
-Avi
[10.07.2023]
