Exception

By: Aviantei

54. Passion and Pride

All in all, Tyki was willing to call the date rather successful, even if it wasn't all that romantic. After all, there was something rather satisfying about watching violence, regardless of if it was of the robot variety. You know, the same sort of enjoyment you got out of watching an action film filled with explosions and kickass action scenes. Sure, there wasn't any flashy cg effects or anything in the current situation, but that was fine.

Tyki was way more concerned with watching Lavi's excitement in full force, after all.

There was no denying that Lavi was an attractive guy. Calling him handsome wasn't quite accurate, nor was considering him adorable, but he managed to thread a certain sort of line between the two when it came down to it. On top of that, he had a decent sense of fashion and he'd mastered the art of "this looks like an effortless bedhead," though there was nothing effortless about it. Yeah, Lavi gave the impression of being a free-wheeling spirit—and that was still true, no doubt—but there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

Tyki wanted to explore all of that.

And he was being given ample opportunity to do so. Lavi was, as expected by everyone who'd been in his presence for at least a minute (or less, if we're being honest), a hype machine when it came to public events. His throwing of parties and starting of dance contests were further pieces of evidence. So when it came to some sort of competition…

"THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GO KICK THAT ROBOT'S ASS!"

Lavi had an enormous amount of volume on a regular basis, but what people didn't understand—or want to even believe—was that he was holding back most of the time, and he unleashed his full power in situations like these. Of course, adding to the general audience participation wasn't all that Lavi was capable of, and he also groaned in unison with the rest of the auditorium as the bot on the field suffered a crushing blow, knocking a massive dent into the chassis. On Black Order High's side, Tapp and Reever grimaced in unison, with the former doing his best to rally, the arm on his robot starting to spasm out of his control.

"Keep it up! You can fight this!"

In the history of Robot Fight Club, more dramatic comebacks had happened before, so there was a policy that Tapp could still eke out a victory. Even if there wasn't a chance, maintenance periods weren't allowed, so any last strike he could manage on his opponent was one less hit another robot would have to make. So, his face set in determination, Tapp pushed forward, taking one more swing in what was to be his final stand for the year's event.

His MPHS opponent wasn't kind enough to let that go, the hammer that had dealt the first dent coming in to strike the finishing blow. Tapp's bot twitched one last time, and then collapsed into a heat as the referee called the match. The Noah side all cheered for their win, and Lulu Bell was looking rather smug thanks to her club's recent string of victories. On the Black Order side, Johnny was helping Tapp conduct a small ceremony for his robot, the two of them in near tears together as they exited and made way for the Eastern Branch's contestant—a girl in glasses with twin braids named Lo Hwa—to step forward for her turn.

"Well, tough luck, Red," Tyki said, leaning back in his seat. "It looks like you guys are on a bit of a losing streak over there."

"You don't need to worry. We'll manage to make a comeback." Tyki raised an eyebrow, unsure of where Lavi's confidence in that matter came from. Lavi, of course, responded with even more confidence as he wagged his finger at his conversation partner. "We're talking about our whole club that's been working their butts off since last year. They're not gonna go down easy."

"That doesn't eliminate the possibility that they're still gonna go down, though."

"Yeah, but Komui's involved this year."

"…I see your point."

Sure, Lee Komui was much more of an urban legend when it came to the Black Order side of things, but that didn't mean he was an unknown to those at Millennium Private High. Between Road's obsessive research into her competition in Lenalee (which of course involved learning about any possible exploitable weaknesses) and Lulu Bell's recent griping at the Chairman's breakfasts, Tyki had a good enough picture. Lee Komui was a wild card no matter where he went, and maybe Tyki should have rethought things.

Well, Red will probably think that everything blowing up is a fun end to a date, so maybe it's not all that bad?

(It said plenty that everyone was expecting an explosion at the end of this event, and yet they were all still there without any sort of hesitation.)

"Still, I'm kinda surprised," Lavi said, folding his arms behind his head and turning his full attention away from the current battle and to Tyki for a minute. "I thought you'd be way more pumped up about your school crushing us, but you seem pretty chill about it all." Like, wasn't the whole rivalry between their schools a pretty ingrained part of their culture? All the Noah at the dance seemed to reemphasize that stereotype.

There were, of course, exceptions to every sort of presumption, though.

"Well, it's not that I don't care," Tyki said, brushing his hair back. Without his usual levels of hair gel, though, his bangs fell back down without any resistance. "I think pretty much everyone enjoys winning. But I also don't stake everything on it. When you do, you end up…a little bit more extreme." Sheril was a prime example of that, but Tyki didn't quite feel like getting into all of his ridiculous family just yet—or ever, now that you'd mentioned that. "Besides, I've never been one for shoving myself into one basket, so it's more fun to enjoy life from all sorts of perspective." Hence: his hobo chic for the day. "You, on the other hand, Red, seem to be all into it."

"Hm, I guess that's true." Lavi put his hand to his chin in exaggerated thought, which Tyki could confirm was pretty adorable. "I mean, I like getting stuff like this. It's fun, and it's even more excited when you're getting worked up with everyone else." His grin spoke volumes to the point, and Tyki could see the point. Whenever Tyki was with his non-school friends, life seemed a bit more enjoyable. "So it's not that I super care about our school's rivalry, just that I enjoy the energy that comes from giving something everything you've got. Besides." He winked and nudged Tyki with his elbow. "Not every Noah out there is all that bad, you know."

"Ho? You think so?" Tyki smirked in return. "I thought you'd met Road already."

Lavi grimaced. "…I'd say you're an exception rather than a rule."

Tyki chuckled. "Well, I'm glad you think so. You're pretty cute for a Black Order kid, too." Lavi scoffed and shuffled Tyki's shoulder, but his blush made it clear it was more out of embarrassment than anything else. "Oh, are you the type that likes to get rough, Red? It doesn't bother me if you do, but I'd just like to know in advance."

"Stop, stop," Lavi said, though the words were hard to make out with how much he was laughing. "Okay, no fair. You're not even embarrassed saying something like that in public."

"That's because I've been at this shameless flirting thing for longer than you have." It was more of a guess, but Lavi's embarrassed laugh confirmed it without calling his bluff. Lavi was just a bit too stunned by finding someone more shameless than he was to protest. "Aw, don't worry, Red. I swear I'll be nice as possible. I don't wanna scare you off."

"Hey, who do you think I am?" Lavi slapped a hand to his chest. "I have a little sister, I'll have you know. She's a hellion, so it'll take a lot of work to actually scare me off." Never mind all the mushy stuff about how it didn't matter that Ari was a hellion; she was Lavi's hellion—that was irrelevant for the time being! "So don't go playing that 'oh I'm dark and scary' card on me, mister."

He emphasized the point by jabbing his index finger into Tyki's chest, who blinked. It wasn't that Tyki was trying to scare Lavi off or anything, but it tended to be for the best to let people know what they were dealing with. That way no one could complain—and that was a mistake he'd made far too many times to want to repeat it again. Even so, there had been plenty of people who'd claimed they'd be able to handle it, just to fall off in the end.

But none of them had ever claimed their confidence with the same level of earnestness that Lavi was giving him now. Damn, that green eye of his was pretty much sparkling.

"Alright, alright, Red," Tyki said in an attempt to coerce Lavi into not jabbing a bruise into his pecs. "You know yourself best, so I'll take your word for it." Just don't complain to me later if you decide to give up, he thought.

And then, Maybe that means you should work hard to not have that happen, yeah?

Keeping that idea to himself, Tyki soaked in Lavi's grin as the crowd cheered at the Black Order East Branch girl's win.

Several matches later, and the competition was getting increasingly fierce.

All of the round one matches had been completed, and there was no shortage of robots who'd already entered the scrap heap. There were plenty more small memorial services taking place backstage, but anyone who had their bot decimated had become part of the cheering section, though a couple of the Black Order members were providing support to their comrades, sharing the strategies and quirks they'd noticed in their own matches.

With the Millennium Private High School crew, there was no such support. Everyone was on their own. It might not have been inaccurate to call the match a clash of ideals.

But whether that was true or not, it wouldn't have changed anything for the competitors stepping up to the plate. Johnny Gill was ready and determined to give everything his best, regardless of the larger competition at hand. He'd joined the Science Club, and while he had his pride in that regard, he had much more pride in himself as a creator. Part of why he'd joined up in the first place was because he was so interested in creating things with his own hands and seeing how much farther he could go. That pride was what he was riding on as he entered the competition for the second round, and it was just further enhanced by the fact that he was representing his club, a group of people who were always ready to support him no matter what, and he had Ari's blessing as well to encourage him.

"Alright," he said to himself, clenching his fist tight before letting it go to pump himself up further. "Let's do this." With a nod at Reever to indicate his readiness, Johnny stepped forward, controlling his bot onto the field. He'd been lucky enough that his bot was much faster than his first round opponent, and he'd managed to pull off a victory without taking any damage whatsoever. And while that was a great result that he wouldn't turn down, that didn't mean things would be easy whenever his opponent had pulled off the same feat. It was the luck of the draw that had pitted them against each other so soon. Even so, there wasn't any way that Johnny was going to let his opponent score two back-to-back flawless victories. Alright, I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be, so— "Alright, bring it—on?"

By now, Johnny's opponent should've already been on the field, and he'd been prepared to face the challenge head on—the key word in that sentence being should've. Because no matter how hard Johnny or the rest of the crowd looked on, there was but one robot in the ring, and there were also no signs whatsoever of said opponent arriving anytime soon.

Um, this isn't just me, right? No, the ref looks just as confused as I do, so… Johnny looked to the other side, searching for some sort of clue as to what was going on with the competition, but he couldn't even begin to form a hypothesis. "Reever-san, what do you think is happening?" he asked, not raising his voice more than necessary. "You don't think this is a forfeit, do you?"

While pretty much any Black Order or Millennium Private student that joined would rather die than give up a match, there were still rules to that effect tucked away for use if necessary. Not showing up for the round you were assigned to was grounds for disqualification, and that had lead to some rather nasty behind the scenes sabotage for a couple of years before they'd outright banned such practices long ago. That being said, failure to arrive within the specified timeframe still counted as grounds for disqualification of engineer and machine alike, and the Noah were historically pretty punctual due to their strict performance standards, which lead to a complication with that theory…

"No, that's not right," Reever said, scanning the other side. While none of the assembled MPHS students were showing it in an obvious way, their tension was indication enough that something wasn't right. "I know you haven't seen her in action much, but Lulu Bell's a hardass with her kids. None of them would risk getting on her poor side just to skip out." And given that Lulu Bell herself wasn't present on the field, that was a convincing piece of evidence that someone was getting chewed out. At the rate things were going, that year's Robot Fight Club might end up with a body count way before the atmosphere heated up. "Like hell Lulu Bell's gonna let your opponent get away with this. Don't let your guard down."

Recognizing the wisdom in those words, Johnny nodded, trying to keep his game on state of mind secure. It might not have been intentional, but dragging out the time until your opponent entered the field did have a psychological advantage. If he let down his guard, that was going to be one giant disadvantage he'd have a hard time recovering from.

Of course, the audience wasn't quite pleased with the wait, either. There was some understanding that cleaning up the field after a defeat would take a little bit of time, but waiting any longer than that was just asking for trouble. With half of the regulation wait time having passed, a number of Black Order supporters had already started a chant (started by Lavi, because of course) of "For-feit, for-feit!" which created an oppressive atmosphere for the MPHS side. Even if Johnny's opponent did show up, they'd be put on the mental back foot.

"As noisy as ever, I see."

Such utter apathy spoken with enough force to quell most of the audience's chattering at once could come from none other than Lulu Bell herself. Then again, she'd worked for a long time to refine her ability to make a striking impression, and it showed—especially whenever she managed to still look like a badass with a student slung over her shoulder in a fireman's carry.

A sleeping student, at that.

Still, Lulu Bell didn't let that bother her in the slightest, staring Reever down. "Did you honestly think that I'd let any of my students miss a match? Goodness, you've gotten overconfident, it seems. Referee, we're ready to start the match."

Said referee looked a little stunned. "Are you sure? Wiseley seems to be…" Unconscious would've been the correct term, but one glare later and it was clear that Lulu Bell wasn't joking. The referee squeaked and smartly chose to listen. "Alright, next match—"

"Now hold on a damn second!" Reever said, and, facing against a complaint from another club advisor, the referee had no choice but to let the burnt out science teacher take the floor. "What are you playing at, Noah? You trying to tell us that your kids don't even need to be awake to take us on? That's an insult I won't stand for!" Sure, Black Order High's Science Club wanted to win, but that didn't mean they wanted a pity victory in any way shape or form!

"As true as that might be, that's not what I'm saying whatsoever." And, without any sense of ceremony or gentleness, Lulu Bell dropped Wiseley onto the floor. "Wake up. It's your turn, and you won't disgrace us by failing to participate. While I may be questioning his judgement in doing so, the Chairman selected you to be one of his Noah, so prove your worth."

(Note: If Lulu Bell had any sort of idea that the Chairman was, in fact, in the audience, she might have changed her approach. Or, at least, changed her wording. A little. To not make it sound like the Chairman had made a mistake.)

Despite the fall he'd just endured, Wisely did nothing more than groan and roll over. "I can sleep, don't worry about it…" Lulu Bell was about to unleash another harsh retort, but Wiseley at least dug into his sweater vest and pulled out his controller. With a single press of a button, his own robot zipped out of the holding area, continuing to go through a series of complicated movements without Wiseley doing a thing. "Referee, you can start the match. I'm taking a nap now."

And, still sprawled out face down on the floor, Wiseley Kamelot did just that.

[Author's Notes]

Am I being perhaps a bit too liberal with Wiseley in this fic? Probs, but it's fun, so who cares?

The weather's at long last starting to feel more fall-like where I live, so that's been nice. I've been enjoying letting fresh air into my apartment. My cat is very worked up by this.

Next Time: "55. Full of Surprises." Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[10.21.2023]