Exception

By: Aviantei

55. Full of Surprises

While Lulu Bell was in the middle of cursing every single life choice that had led her to this moment, Road Kamelot was sitting back in the bleachers and watching the fun. And by sitting back in the bleachers, she meant that she'd managed to crawl up to the top if the safety bars on either side and was using that as her seat of choice because it gave her an excellent vantage point, and no one bothered to stop her.

For once, that was less because she was a well-respected Noah and more a result of the fact that the general security and safety of the Robot Fight Club was lax, but details. Really, it was a wonder the city government still let the event run, but that was probably because they reasoned it was much better to give Black Order and Millennium Private High School a place to burn out their energy instead of letting them run loose elsewhere.

Whether or not that was successful was another matter altogether, but again.

Details.

Road didn't care much for details.

It sure looks like Auntie Lulu's having a hard time of it, though. MPHS had been pulling ahead in the competition (as expected), but it seemed that Wiseley intended to throw a wrench into those plans by being…well, himself. Road was more than used to it thanks to her relation to him, but it was an awful lot to put up with if you weren't prepared. In fact, Wiseley was the exact opposite personality that Lulu Bell could tolerate, but it would be fine.

Wiseley Kamelot hadn't been chosen as a Noah for nothing.

Still, it was pretty fun to watch Lulu be so close to pulling her hair out. She worked hard for that cool and composed image, but that wouldn't be lasting for long as the rate things were going. Even so, considering that Wiseley's robot seemed to be more than capable of handling the situation on its own, there wasn't much to worry about, and Road sighed.

I told you it would be fine. Silly Auntie Lulu.

"How are things looking from up there, Road?"

Road glanced down below, more than ready to tell off whoever it was that decided to interrupt her monologue—and then changed her mind in the next second as she broke out into a smile. "Chair—" she started to say, but the Chairman held up a finger to his lips in a request for secrecy, which Road obeyed. Knowing that her current position would just end up drawing attention that he didn't seem to want, Road gave up her perch and dropped down to the bleachers with a noticeable thud that most people chose to ignore in favor of the fight going on down below. "I didn't expect to see you here today!" she said, catching the Chairman's arm in a hug. "Did you bring Lero along with you?"

"No, not today," the Chairman said, "I wanted to get some fresh air to myself without any interruptions, so I didn't bring him along."

Road, who had been looking about for one of her favorite emotional punching bags, pouted. "Boo. Lero's so fun to pick on." He freaked out over the slightest of things, which made dealing with someone like Road a veritable infinite panic attack. "Well, I'm glad to see you!"

"And I'm glad to see you. Though I didn't tell anyone I was stepping outside. Be a dear and don't let anyone else know, will you?" Road nodded, having already ruffled through the Chairman's pockets to find the snacks he'd gotten as her price for secrecy. It wasn't a bribe if it was an already agreed upon currency.

"I'm surprised you came to watch, though," Road said. "You tend to enjoy waiting on the sidelines for news like this, right?" That was why he'd been hands-off with the cross-school Valentine's dance, short of providing the signature for the proposal Road had come up with. Not that Road minded, seeing as she had a pack of skittles to work her way through. "So what gives? Did you come to see how Wiseley's doing? Spoiler: it's the usual."

The Chairman chuckled, finding plenty of evidence of that outcome down on the match floor, where Lulu Bell looked five seconds away from attempting to kick Wiseley awake. "That's not the main reason, no, though I did decide to take care of two things at once since I was here." Road was beyond intrigued, and she waited for the next words out of the Chairman's mouth as he smiled. "I thought I'd take advantage of the crowd so I could come and see Allen Walker in person."

If Road had been interested before, that was nothing in comparison to the way that her interest piqued at the sound of a certain Brit's name. "Isn't he wonderful? I just got to catch a glimpse of him from the distance since the Lee and Bookman girls were there, but he was still great!" His current late-winter combo of a light turtleneck underneath a button up had been an extra delightful treat. Road wished that she'd gotten the opportunity to take a picture, but she was pretty sure something like that would be a violation of the whole boundaries thing she was supposed to be respecting, so she'd refrained.

Looking was free, though.

The Chairman on the other hand of course had far different concerns than Road when it came to that matter. "He's grown up quite a bit," the Chairman said, sounding almost wistful. "Just like you've said, Road, he'd be a fine addition to our school. Once I get back to the office, I'll get started on preparing things for his transfer."

"You mean it?!" Road was already head over heels in a fantasy of sharing her high school days with Allen, and the prospect of being able to live out something like that so soon was almost enough to make her lightheaded. Good thing all the sugar she'd been eating was enough to keep her conscious on sheer hyper factor alone. "Ah, that'll be so wonderful, and I bet he'll become a Noah in no time, too!" He was skilled enough for it, at least in the sense that he'd work hard enough to achieve such an honor. As far as Road was (a bit exaggeratedly) concerned, Allen could do anything he put his pretty little white-haired head to; he'd stood up to her, after all, and that wasn't something… A thought she didn't quite like crossing her mind, Road frowned. "I hate to say it, but I'm not so sure he'd transfer that easily…"

After all, Allen Walker had friends at Black Order High that he cared for very much. To expect him to walk away from it would be a hard ask.

"Yes, I suppose you're right about that," the Chairman said, agreeing but not looking anywhere near as concerned about the matter as Road. Noticing her worry, the Chairman patted her hair. "Now, don't you fret, Road, it'll all work out. After all…

"Allen Walker has belonged with us since the very beginning."

And the Chairman's amicable smile spread open into a wide grin that sent shivers down even Road's spine.

(Allen, trying his best to do so, ultimately failed at letting out a sneeze.)

Whereas before Johnny had been feeling confident in his chances at putting up a good fight in the second round, the chances of that coming to fruition were seeming less and less likely by the minute.

Sure, he wasn't out of the game just yet, but he hadn't made any particular progress. He'd make his robot attack, Wiseley's robot would defend; Wiseley's robot would counterattack, Johnny would be able to dodge with skill and grace. It was a back and forth that had managed to scratch up the arena a decent amount, and it was exciting enough to watch from the audience's perspective with all the close calls, but it was getting close to a stalemate, the two bots of seemingly equal strength and their controllers of seemingly equal skill.

And it might have been, if it weren't for the fact that Johnny's opponent was dead ass asleep on the ground.

Anyone that knew Wiseley would know that his penchant for headaches made him a poor matchup for crowds. The noise combined with the further bright lights on center stage meant that entering a competition like the Robot Fight Club normally wouldn't have been on his radar. Hell, the only reason that he had was because the Chairman had asked him to as a showcase of his skills.

It didn't matter who you were; if you were a student at Millennium Private High School, you didn't turn down a request from the Chairman.

That said, this wasn't a story where the shy bookworm overcame their social anxieties and grew as a person. No, not at all.

This was a story where rather than put up with the crowd to show off his skill, Wiseley had used his skills so he wouldn't have to put up with the crowd, and thus he'd made a robot capable of fighting on its own. Of course, that plan had gone a little bit awry since Lulu Bell had dragged him in front of the crowd anyways, but he could still nap away the migraine, so it worked out about the same as far as he was concerned.

Johnny wasn't anywhere near as lucky.

It looks like we're on equal footing, but I can't find an opening no matter how hard I try. Whenever he thought he had a place to strike, Wiseley's bot would avoid him, and his hands were starting to sweat around his controller. And yet he couldn't spare a second to try and wipe his palms off, because the moment he stopped moving, he'd be leaving himself open.

The most he could do was work hard to keep moving, otherwise he'd be more belly up than a frozen shark. But that sort of pressure combined with the added psychological impact of knowing he wasn't even up against another human controller was rough.

"It's gotta be coded someway, right?" Johnny asked, hoping that Reever would back him up. The institution of Robot Fight Club might have found such typical challenges as obstacle courses and the like to be beneath them, but they still contained plenty of foundational programming skills. "I mean, it looks like it's following a pattern to me. It's gotta be set to respond to incoming motion and then counterattack after a set time…"

Reever had been thinking about the same thing, and he finished counting under his breath. "Yeah, looks like. You have about a fifteen second time between blocking and countering, and then there's no consistency about its response to you." To expect anyone else to be on the same exceptional level of mental data analysis as Ari would be a tall order, but keeping track of a small set of numbers and their relations was something Reever had no issue with whatever, especially in the middle of a crisis situation like this. "That said, I feel like that can't be its only trick. It's gotta be too risky to just sit still and hope nothing else happens."

Johnny nodded. It might've been unscientific to put too much stock in the idea of instinct, but that had been why he hadn't just pulled back already. It was rough on him, sure, and he was def gonna end up with an impression of his controller joystick in his thumb by the time it was all over, but it was better to keep things to a predictable setup for the time being and strategize from there. "Still, just hammering away like this isn't going to get us anywhere…"

Johnny had built his bot with speed as its primary strength, since plenty of others went for the bulky approach. That dodging capability often kept him safe, but his ability to wail on an opponent was limited. If he kept the same strategy up the whole time, his attacking lever would end up breaking, making him a sitting duck.

But that doesn't mean I can't give it my best. Okay, let's go!

Johnny went in for his next attack, coming in at an angle that he hadn't yet tried in hopes that Wiseley's bot wouldn't be able to keep up. That hope was dashed as it flashed to the defense, and Johnny's thumb managed to slip off the c stick, cutting his own attack short. It didn't matter much, and he wouldn't have done anything else but curse himself if there wasn't one major difference:

The tell-tale sound of their robots' weapons colliding didn't follow, which meant that Wiseleybot's arm had stopped short of actually blocking.

No, what's more important right now is—

"You can't guard against this!"

Johnny might have flubbed his controller input—but that was fight. He was a person who could see the mistake and recover, and the angle his bot's weapon was at wasn't fully blocked at. Feeling the rush of a successful break, Johnny pushed his c stick to make another attack, aiming right for Wiseleybot's joint in its arm to resounding success. With the force put into the hit, the joint crumbled, sending up a roar of approval through the crowd at the first successful attack. Now, Wiseleybot would be able to still move in response to his moves, but the full control of its weapon would be gone, and that was more than enough of an advantage for Johnny to win. The Reever and the crowd cheered him on while the MPHS side jeered, but all of those sounds faded away thanks to the pure excitement rushing through Johnny's veins.

This was what he loved about science so much, this exact moment when—

A second arm shot out of a hidden compartment on Wiseleybot, putting an end to Johnny's chances at an easy victory. Even worse than that, a third arm arrived, crashing into Johnnybot with enough force to send it flying backwards and enacting the first major bit of damage on Johnny's Fight Club record for the year. That was too much shock to work through, so Johnny and Reever alike just gaped, the latter looking over to see if Wiseley had woken up and taken over, but that didn't seem to be the case at all.

"Time out!" he shouted, causing the ref to scramble to do so. "What kind of game are you playing over there, Lulu Bell? That's the kind of move a human player would pull off. Do you have some sort of hidden member controlling the thing?" Such an approach was against the rules; all competitors had to have built their own bots, otherwise there would be an inflex of…outside built creations that just happened to be piloted by high school students. And while that did make for exciting matches, it also made for an easy way to pay-to-win, which had obvious issues. Reever's line of questioning, within the context, was a fair enough one.

Lulu Bell, though, didn't rise up to the bait. "Are you being obtuse on purpose, Reever?" she asked, her tone nothing but scathing. "My club members don't need to cheat to win against the likes of you. Just because Wiseley's controlling it doesn't mean someone else is. It's an AI that's programmed to fight and adapt."

"Okay, fine," Reever said, willing to accept that as truth. "Still, that's a bit advanced for a high school kid, yeah? If you—"

"Don't make me waste my breath on repeating the same arguments." Between Wiseley's unwillingness to show up to participate and Reever's spit balling, her patience was deteriorating at an alarming clip, and she cut her rival teacher off without mercy. It was a bit of luck that Komui was busy pumping up the other Black Order Science Club members, otherwise things would've turned into an even uglier argument by now. "For starters, I would never waste my own research on something of this degree, let alone let someone show it off in a public space. And, again, we don't need to cheat to beat you. If you don't have any students of this caliber in your school that's not my fault. Besides, you and that fool Komui faced me on this stage years ago. I think you're more than aware of what one of our Chairman's Noah is capable of."

Reever grit his teeth, already berating himself for getting so worked up that he didn't think things through. Noah might've become a general derogatory term thrown at MPHS kids, but to those who attended said school, it had a different meaning altogether. The Noah were special, having curried favor one way or another thanks to their achievements. If Wiseley was one of them, him being able to program such an AI wouldn't be all that out of the park. If he wanted to press the issue, Reever could always call to do a dive into Wiseley's project data, but that would just be pushing things far past the point.

It was an unfair scenario for the Black Order side, but it was well within the rules.

"Fine. Argument withdrawn," Reever said, conceding. It wasn't worth it to drag things out for his own personal issues' sake. "Johnny, I know you've worked hard on your bot. No one would blame you if you wanted to with—"

"No can do!" The look on Johnny's face was beyond determined, and Reever felt bad for even thinking about asking. "It may be strong, but that's all the more reason to keep trying to take it on. Even if I can't win against it, one of our other club members will for sure, so I've gotta give it everything I've got for them!"

Man, what's gotten into me? Giving up? Against a Noah? Like hell any of my kids would do that. Feeling just the slightest bit old, Reever patted him on the back. "Yeah, you're right. Go get 'em, Johnny."

The referee glanced between both parties, nodding once they determined everyone (or, in Wiseley's case, his robot) was at the ready. "Complaint withdrawn. Match—

"Resume!"

[Author's Note]

The best equivalent I could think of for Wiseley's mind reading in a normal world AU was having him program a robot with predictive AI, so that's what we went for. I also considered calling Wiseleybot "Wisdom" to reference his Noah title, but I couldn't figure out how to fit it in well, so we went for this.

As a side note, fanfiction dot net has been messy with its email updates. I have my full fic archive on AO3 as well, so feel free to follow me there, too, so you can keep up with updates until things get fixed or collapse. Whichever comes first.

Next week I'll be taking a break to celebrate the end of the first season of my FMA fic, Kamaitachi Chronicles. Feel free to check it out if you want to see me scramble to pull together another of my very early fics. I think there's some fun ideas there. The next update from me will be the continuation of Exception.

Next time: "56. Sacrifice, Share, Scout." Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[11.04.2023]