Exception

By: Aviantei

50. The Adventures of Sir Komlin III

There had been many different members of the Komlin line, but Sir Komlin III was the latest. As for what had happened to the first and second iterations—well, somethings were better left unsaid. Let's just say that the first one had been a bit too ambitious of an experiment and that the second was responsible for a lot of robot-related trauma that a certain Brit had from the year before.

But this one was different! Sir Komlin III was the accumulation of all previous knowledge. Komui had been working on him nonstop ever since the previous year's Robot Fight Club. Sir Komlin III had better movement, several neat tricks in the form of potential destruction level, a semi-autonomous AI function, and more drills than ever before!

Drills were the most important part. Obviously. How did all that fit in a tiny robot roughly double the size of your average Roomba? Well, it was easy to forget since Komui was seen by an unstoppable eccentric by many, but he had gotten his job for a reason. This man had the degrees to prove his skill, and he was far more qualified than any high school teacher had any right to be. Half the reason he was even teaching at Black Order High was because he'd wanted to be involved in Lenalee's education and no sane principal would put him in the vicinity of anyone under the age of thirteen. At least teenagers could sort of fend for themselves, but heaven help the world whenever Lenalee finally graduated and moved onto college. Good thing this was firmly a high school AU and there wasn't any point in dragging it out past that.

But all of that was to say that Sir Komlin III was an excellently designed robot considering Komui had designed and built him in the span of about two weeks. Despite all his great battle proficiency, there hadn't been much of an available outlet for such ability, so Sir Komlin III had been designated the very important job of—

"Oh, sorry, Komlin, I didn't mean to get in the way of your cleaning!" Lenalee said, skipping around the little bot as it worked on vacuuming up the usual dust from the living room carpet. Hey, the comparison to a Roomba was only part in jest. In some ways, it was impressive that a robot with so much extra junk crammed in it could even manage to have a compartment for dust, but leave it to Komui to figure it out anyways. What a mad lad. "Thanks for always looking after us. I'll be sure to leave my door cracked so you can get inside later."

Sir Komlin III beeped in response and waited for Lenalee to step out of the way before resuming the usual prowl. Yes, he had the desire to just try out his battle capabilities once, but domestic life was good, especially since Lenalee always took the time to appreciate him. Komui did the same, but he tended to leave so much more extensive messes behind that were much more difficult to clean up. Komlin still performed his job admirably, but he had to admit that it was exhausting sometimes.

Well, there wasn't much time to worry about such things. He needed to complete a sweep of the kitchen next!

Komui was up to something in his workshop.

That was a broad enough statement, considering that anytime Komui was in his workshop, it was certified that he was up to Something, capital S extensively necessary to make the distinction. This man just had no real sense of chill, which meant that any project he conducted had the potential to be a disaster. But whenever he got worked up into much more of a frenzy, up to Something became up to Something, and yes bold text was the purest way to convey the difference.

And whenever Komui was up to Something, that meant Sir Komlin III was going to be looking at a hefty cleanup job in the future.

Komui's workshop was what most people would consider one of the most dangerous places in the house. The rest of the Lee home was pretty well decorated, in no small thanks to Lenalee's tastes. Interior design wasn't quite her passion or anything—fashion very much took that spot—but she still had fun with it. Komui had given her plenty of budget to do whatever she wanted, so it was pretty tasteful overall.

The workshop on the other hand was a lawless land, where Komui handled any experiments or projects he wanted to handle in his free time. That could involve anything from working with questionable substances (who even needed some of these potions anyways?) to building the Komlin series, all of which created an extensive amount of mess. Even worse from Sir Komlin III's end, he was only allowed into the workshop whenever things were done, that way nothing essential got tossed out or 'misplaced' in the process, which meant the aftermath was always at least a day's work to get the place back into working shape.

So, no, Komlin was not looking forward to that work, especially as he passed the door while heading along the hallway and there was a loud crash, followed shortly by the sound of maniacal laughter. Sir Komlin III increased his speed a bit and just headed for the stairs, lifting himself up to climb the stairs, because of course Komui built a Roomba that could climb the stairs on its own, why wouldn't he? Mobility was clearly essential. Everyone just needed to be grateful that the whole process involved just some cute little legs instead of drills.

Always with the drills.

The sad part was that heading upstairs didn't do anything to make Komui's nonsense any less noticeable, and Komlin saw Lenalee sigh as she was skipping out of her room. "Did Nii-san even get any sleep last night?" she muttered. Komlin beeped a few times in a negative answer. Lenalee went to rub her temple as she was already on her way to the stairs. "Always working until the very last second on his projects…" Without any hesitation for the potential danger of getting in the crossfire of Komui's nonsense, Lenalee made it downstairs, knocking on the Workshop door. "Nii-chan! Even if you didn't sleep, at least come get some breakfast!"

"Ah! Is that you Lenalee? I'll be there in just a minute."

As scary as Komui could be, Sir Komlin III couldn't help but think that Lenalee was the most formidable opponent of all.

Mornings in the Lee household tended to go a lot like this. Komui would pull some ridiculous all-nighter, and Lenalee would at least drag him to the breakfast table so he could continue to function, and then a ridiculous amount of coffee would be consumed. Komui would get brought back to life.

Afterwards, the routine would differ depending on the day of the week. On school days, Lenalee would finish getting ready, Komui would take a shower to ensure that he was presentable, and then they'd drive off to school, beginning the school day. On weekends and other such vacations, Lenalee would generally make Komui take a nap of some sort, and he could easily sleep the days away. Lenalee's free time would be spent on either homework, social time with friends, or generally relaxing. No matter what, they'd always be sure to have family dinner together.

After all, they were the only family each other had left.

Having lost their parents at a young age, Lenalee didn't have all that many memories of them. Komui did, but he'd been just old enough to be able to look after Lenalee. Between their parents' savings and a bit of support from distant relatives, the Lee siblings had been able to manage, especially since the house was already in the family's name.

For Komui, Lenalee was his only precious little sister. He'd thought she was precious before, and those feelings only intensified. Since she didn't fully process what losing their parents meant, he wanted to give her the best. It involved a lot of daycare until she was old enough to go to school, but Komui hadn't minded. Of course, no one would have been able to predict the trajectory of his eventual sister complex, but—such is life?

Okay, maybe that was a stretch to wave it off as a normal part of the world, but that was how things were going, so there wasn't any point in belaboring the issue whatsoever.

For Lenalee, though she found him overbearing at times, she did treasure Komui. He was the one who had taken care of her, who'd done a lot of work to ensure that she could have the best possible future. Even whenever he was busy with his own studies, he'd cooked her meals, done up her hair even whenever she'd ask for it to be changed several times the same day, and he'd never hesitated to play with her. He'd given her so much, so Lenalee was glad to help take care of him now, even if it just meant preparing a lot of coffee, cooking meals, and urging him to go to bed.

Besides, Komui would always smile and say her coffee was delicious. That little moment, day after day, was nice.

That Saturday morning was a special one, though that didn't change too much about the usual routine. Lenalee still started up a fresh pot of coffee before pulling breakfast together, and the Lee siblings had their usual morning. Komui was high on the success of his latest Project, so he was generally pretty alert, but he doubtless down a few bits of his mental alertness, as people usually are after an all-nighter.

Except that Saturday morning was none other than the prelude to that year's Robot Fight Club, which meant that there was plenty to be concerned about.

"Ah, Lenalee!" Komui cheered, looking in pure bliss. "Your cooking and coffee is as delicious as ever. How lucky am I to have you take care of me. I promise that once I'm done with this project, I'll take you out for all the dessert you want. Big brother's promis

Lenalee giggled, making sure to chew through the bite she had before speaking. "I'm just glad you're eating. But you really need to stop pulling all-nighters. You are a teacher, so that means it's part of your job to make sure everyone at the event is okay! You need to be more responsible for these things, Nii-san!" Because a sleep deprived Komui was just asking for an extra chance of disaster, and it would have been nice if all the extra money they'd already raised through the fundraiser didn't have to get blown on restoration from an exceptionally large disaster.

Maybe raising money in advance was a bad idea, but also, we could be just prepared if this does turn into a disaster… Well, everyone's efforts had produced exceptional results so far, so Lenalee didn't have any intentions of telling the group to slow down. "Whatever you ended up making is amazing, I'm sure, but isn't this event about the Science Club's efforts and not yours?"

In most cases, getting scolded by Lenalee would make Komui deflate in an instant, but today was too exceptional for that to happen. "This is very true," he said, still looking smug. "However, there's also a special exhibition at the end, and that's where I'll be revealing my special project—Sir Komlin IV!"

It wasn't that Komui was ready to retire the good Sir Komlin III; he was still functioning perfectly well, and by this point was a beloved member of the family. However, Komui couldn't deny that once he'd seen that the Noah had expressed their interest in entering the event, he had been more than ready to shove his technical prowess in his and Reever's long-time rival's face. Even worse was that Reever had enabled him, so there was just no escape for anyone involved. Thus: Sir Komlin IV was set to make its debut the very same day as its completion.

Yeah, it was time to start the countdown to doom, it was nice knowing you all.

Lenalee sighed, making a mental note to add one of the fire extinguishers to the day's packing list. If nothing else, they had plenty of the things lying around, so it wasn't like it was a hassle to also pack one up. "At least tell me you didn't put anything too dangerous on this one." Komui's silence was answer enough. "Nii-san…"

"I can only promise that this one shouldn't set anything on fire. (Probably.)"

"Don't act like I didn't hear that 'probably' just now. And how did you manage to talk in parenthesis anyways?" Komui only smiled at her, and Lenalee realized that—short of pulling her I'm disappointed in you, Nii-san card—there wasn't any real way to stop him. Otherwise he'd go work himself into the ground making last minute modifications, and that would make them late, causing a whole other chain of problems. "If this goes wrong, don't say I didn't tell you so, Nii-san."

And yet she didn't go ahead and drop the ban on him, which Sir Komlin III (who had been resting in his charger nearby) thought was interesting. Well, it was probably a sign of Lenalee's faith in her brother. Whether that was misplaced or not was another matter, but Komlin still thought it was sweet. No matter what anyone else said, Lenalee trusted in Komui all the way.

"Don't you worry, my dearest Lenalee. I'll be sure to defeat Lulu Bell and show all the Noah who's boss for you!"

"I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for that, but thank you?"

With breakfast done and the dishes done (since Lenalee often took care of the prep, Komui at least handled the cleanup), it was time to load up the car. Komui's main job was loading up Sir Komlin IV, who even in his compressed and transportable form ("He can pack himself up and unpack himself as is best to the situation!" "Yes, very cool, Nii-san, now make sure there's enough room for this table."), while Lenalee was ensuring all the fundraising supplies were good to go. With long-practiced ease, they were ready to go shortly, and then it was just one last doublecheck and bundling up in their winter gear.

Whether the world was ready for them or not, the Lee siblings were on the move.

"Alright! It's time to make this fundraiser the most successful one ever!"

"And the Science Club will knock the Noah into the ground with our prowess!"

They gave their war cries as the garage door opened, letting in the light of Saturday morning, neither of them noticing that one extra party had also come along for the ride.

After all, cleaning up after Komui's messes was a very important part of Sir Komlin III's job.

[Author's Notes]

Happy chapter fifty, y'all! I wish I could give you a concrete number of how far we are in the grand scheme of the story, but the jury's still out on that one.

I can tell you that we're moving into the meat of this arc! Robot fight club shenanigans are go. Also, the idea of roomba Sir Komlin III was too good for me to pass up.

Just because of fic scheduling, there will be a bit of a delay in posting new chapters on this fic while I clean up another project/participate in my usual summer writing challenge. But! Come the end of summer, I do plan to post updates to this fic on a bi-weekly basis, so do look forward to that! Until then, either enjoy one of my other fics or just enjoy yourself in general. And, as usual, please look forward to it!

-Avi

[04.22.2023]