The lab smelled like burnt metal and solder. The overhead lights buzzed, almost too bright after the dim hallways we'd just walked through. Kaoru grinned like he'd invented gravity, bouncing on his heels next to a thick sheet of reinforced glass. It was a window into a small enclosure, mostly hidden in darkness except for the lab lights reflecting off a metallic object inside.
"Ready?"
He asked, gripping a tablet in one hand and hovering the other over a light switch.
I crossed my arms, trying not to smile at seeing how proud he looked.
"You've been hyping this up for three days straight. It better be good, or I'm kicking you out of the team."
He laughed—loud and bright.
"Trust me, Himiko, it's good."
He flicked the switch, lifting the darkness out of the room.
It resembled a large metallic snake, approximately the length of a small car. It had a cylinder section, like one of the sections of a rocket or a missile, made of carbon fibre, and sticking out of it was a black plate with two eyes. Its body, behind the solid cylinder, consisted of multiple metal balls, joined together with thin silicon gangways. In the final section, its tail had two steel blades sticking out of it, resembling pincers.
I was enraptured by it.
Kaoru tapped a button on the tablet's screen. The snake made a low hissing sound as life seeped into it. There was a mechanical hum as the robot began to hover in the air, its body flowing through the air. Its eyes darted around the room, scanning its surroundings.
Kaoru spread his arms wide like a showman.
"Meet BB—Battle Bot—patent pending. My pride and joy."
I snorted before I could stop myself.
"BB?"
"Of course, short and snappy."
"More like short and corny."
He clutched his chest with one hand, resting his knuckles on his forehead with the other.
"Uh... You wound me. after all the late nights I spent on it."
I stepped closer to the glass, and BB glided towards it too, looking me up and down before meeting my eyes.
"Okay,"
I admitted.
"It looks cool, but what can it do?"
Kaoru's grin turned wicked. Our field engineer had transformed into a mad scientist.
"How about we find out?"
A couple of minutes later, Kaoru dragged us to a large concrete box with padded walls and a floor marked with gridded lines—a training arena. In the centre, hovered BB, gracefully curling and extending its tail, pincers now removed, as if it was tasting the air. I changed into some lightweight training gear: a black cotton vest and grey tracksuit bottoms. I was resting my hand on the hilt of the katana hanging off my hip, body leaning to the side, relaxed.
Kaoru leaned against the rails of the observation deck above me.
"Standard rules. BB is programmed to learn and adapt, so show it everything you've got."
"Because programming a battle bot to learn and adapt always ends well."
I rolled my shoulders, the familiar weight of the blade settling in my grip.
"Don't hate me if I send your pet snake back in pieces."
He laughed before tapping his screen once.
"Begin."
BB initiated the battle.
It was faster than I thought it would be, snapping forward like a whip. It spun like a saw, swinging its pincers down on me. I side-stepped, flashing my blade upwards, and parried the strike. Metal sang against metal as sparks flew in the air.
I countered with a quick diagonal cut in the snake's plating. It scraped harmlessly along the plating. BB twisted mid-air and swept its tail low. I jumped, landed, and immediately felt the air shift behind me. It had looped around.
I spun, just barely catching the strike. The force raised my arms, realising I was wide open, I leapt backwards.
I was on the offensive, charge, strike, parry, counter. I began breathing harder, circling, tracking my eyes on BB as it swirled around me in circles; It wasn't just attacking, it was studying me. Every block, strike and feint I made was being converted into data and logged.
It constantly shifted the flow of the battle. It sent another strike, and I raised my guard, but it whipped back, hitting the other side of my body. I tried to switch my guard, intercepting the strike.
But it wasn't fast enough.
I was clattered on the side, winding me and causing me to stumble to the side.
I needed to stop being predictable.
I exhaled long and slow, loosened my shoulders and centred my hips, just the way dad taught me—let the blade breathe.
BB whipped back, creating space between it and me.
Instead of charging in, I waited, katana low, baiting BB into making a move. If it's going to learn every move I make, then I need to save my strikes for the perfect opportunity. BB lunged. I let it approach, waiting for the perfect opportunity. It came. I leaned to the side at the last second, letting BB pass me as I swiftly sliced my blade up in an arc, scraping its side.
BB recoiled and retreated.
Looks like that did some damage.
BB responded by changing its tactics.
Small ports opened in its plating. Small weapons peeked out, spitting darts at me. I manoeuvred around them, deflecting darts with the side of my blade. Darts sparked against the padded walls and gridded floors.
It fired a small burst of darts. I guarded head-on, ready to deflect them.
But they stabbed straight into the ground, sprawled out across the room. They missed.
Or so I thought.
The darts exploded, engulfing the air around the room in thick grey smoke, choking my vision. I raised my guard, pivoting on the balls of my heels. scanning around me as I heard the sound of mechanical hums whizzing by from different directions.
I heard the hums get louder and louder from behind me—BB charging towards me from behind.
I threw myself around 180 degrees to parry the charge. I intercepted. Metal clanged against metal. BB hid in the veil of smoke.
BB continued charging at me from random angles, retreating after each strike.
The battle became an endless cycle of spinning and parrying. The smoke began to disperse.
Kaoru's voice crackled over the speakers.
"Stand down, BB."
BB froze instantly, curling its tail like a cat. Danger gone, I lowered my blade, chest heaving. I slumped onto the floor, arms and legs stretched out.
There was a peaceful silence for a second.
Then Kaoru's head peeked over the railing above me.
"Holy crap, that was amazing."
I wiped sweat from my brow, flashing him an exhausted grin.
"Your snake's good, it almost had me."
"Almost?"
He hopped down from the railing, tablet still glowing in his hand.
"He was smoking you."
He reached his hand out to help me up. I greeted his hand with mine, our combined effort raising me to my shaky feet. I turned to look at BB again, who was spinning in circles like a dog chasing its tail.
"You weren't kidding about the adaptation programming."
"You take me for a fraud?"
He chuckled.
"You really pushed it to the limit. I've never seen it adapt that much. You even had it switching tactics and everything."
"I could say the same for myself, too."
He tapped my back.
"Come on, let's run some diagnostics. There are some other tests I wanna run."
We walked back to the lab. BB followed, hovering just above my shoulder like a guard dog.
We ran other tests on it. Speed tests, reaction time and finally, a strength test.
Kaoru pointed to a thick steel support beam. BB coiled round it, squeezing tightly. The beam groaned and crumpled inward with a sharp crack, folding in like a sheet of cardboard. The bot released the beam and hovered proudly.
I whistled low.
"Wouldn't wanna be in an arm wrestle with that.
Kaoru laughed.
"Hopefully, it'll learn restraint."
I looked back at him sharply.
"Hopefully? Isn't that the kind of thing you should be tuning?"
I giggled part of it was serious.
"I just fought that thing."
"You can't tamper with the conditions of an experiment. It'll affect the outcome's legitimacy."
He chuckled, patting my back with rough taps.
Kaoru put BB back into the glass enclosure and powered it off. I watched as its eyes dimmed into standby mode. The room became smaller and heavy with excitement about the potential BB brought.
Kaoru turned to me.
"What do you think then? Gonna add it to the team?"
"It'll definitely help in operations. We could've done with it at school. Those mutants wouldn't have stood a chance."
I placed my hand on the glass, looking at the sleeping dragon through my reflection in the window.
"We'll periodically train it—keep it sharp. We'll run it through simulations and scenarios so it can adapt to any situation."
Kaoru ran his hand through his fluffy hair. Chuckling like a mad scientist.
"The wicked will tremble at the sight of BB—The God of War—on the battlefield."
I burst out laughing at the stupidity of what he just said; there wasn't a chance I could stop it.
"God of War. You're such an otaku."
His face subtly changed into a rose hue before laughing with me.
There was a moment of blissful silence.
"Hey, Kaoru. There's something I wanted to ask you."
"What is it?"
"Is there any chance you could make a tracking device?"
He shot me a confused look in surprise.
"That's random. What do you need it for?"
"The aethesium entity that appeared in the school—who saved us. What if we were able to stick a tracking device on it? We'd be able to learn his identity and maybe recruit them."
"That's an interesting idea. I'll see what I can cook up."
"Thanks, Kaoru."
He flicked the light switch, enveloping BB in darkness. We ensured the place was returned to the state it was before we arrived, saving ourselves from being chewed out by Mrs Isamu. We walked home, bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, sharing potential ideas for BB and other inventions we could cook up.
We entered the shared apartment, greeted by the aroma of sauce and spices. Aiko was sprawled out on the couch, half watching true crime documentaries, half scrolling through her phone. Beside the sofa, on the floor—leaning against the side of the sofa—was Nozomi, flicking through pages of a manga.
"What the hell happened here?"
"Nozomi and I had a cook-off."
Aiko said, eyes still glued to the phone.
"Did you not wanna wait for us? I would kill for whatever you cooked up."
"Who won?"
Kaoru butted in.
Aiko and Nozomi glanced at each other, coming to some sort of telepathic agreement.
"Draw."
They both replied, then switched their attention back to where they previously were.
Nozomi's manga caught Kaoru's attention, and he leapt to his side like a child wanting to trade cards.
"No way. Is that Chainsaw Demon Hunters?"
"Yeah, new volume just came out."
"No way, really? I need to get my hands on it. I heard they're making an anime."
"Is that true? It'll be interesting seeing how they animate it; some of the scenes will probably need CGI."
The two continued their nerd-off contest for a while. Meanwhile, I sat next to Aiko to watch the documentary.
"Hey, didn't this guy collect his victim's shoes?"
Aiko grinned.
"Yep. Polished them and everything."