Control Alt Delete (A BH6 crossover)

Chapter Forty Four: Prepare your bot

Bright light. Noise. So much noise. And what was that clashing sound? It was almost mechanical. It didn't help make his head feel any better. Why did his head hurt again? Oh yeah, Yokai had bashed him with a pipe. But he wasn't in that lab, and he wasn't inside the portal. Where was he?

A crowd was cheering and he could feel the press of bodies close by so he opened his eyes. He'd been here before. Where was it again? Then the sound of a saw cutting through metal filled his ears and he realized he was holding something in his arms. A robot. Megabot. He'd done it. He'd reset the timeline. Now he just had to make sure he did it right. And, for the first time since he'd gone back in time, his brain didn't feel jumbled. Perhaps he had the Doctor's toxic serum to thank for that. He hoped to never need it ever again.

"Winner, by total inhalation! Yama!"

The crowd cheered and bets were exchanged. A girl with spiky hair walked dejectedly into the crowd, the remains of her severed robot in her hands. She still looked rather shocked she hadn't won. Hiro knew better, though. Yama didn't play fair.

"Who's next?" a voice boomed into the crowd. "Who has the guts to step into the ring with Little Yama?"

Crap! That was his cue! Hiro began to push his way through the crowd, hearing the sound of someone popping gears on another robot as Yama's hulking form grinned. Now how did it go again? Oh yeah. He pushed past the last few people, pasting on his hesitant look, which really wasn't all that hard. The whole situation seemed like something out of a dream.

"Can I try? I have a robot. I built it myself." Hiro's heart pounded as he waited to see how events would unfold. Would they go on as they had before, or would something change once more? He wasn't sure he could handle any more surprises.

The crowd seemed to laugh at him, like they were enjoying a really good joke at his expense. Well, he'd show them. What they didn't know would, well, take them totally by surprise. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was rather looking forward to it. One last time.

The long skinny lady who called the fights all but got in his face, her ceramic pot tightly lidded in her hands. "Beat it, kid. House rules. It's pay to play."

Hiro reached into his pocket for the small wad of cash he knew would be there. "Oh. Is this enough?" It wasn't hard to fake the innocent expression, not with the headache finally subsiding behind his eyes. Besides, he was an expert at this tactic. He knew exactly what to do.

"What's your name, little boy?" Yama grinned at him like a predator staring down an easy kill.

Well, that was okay too. Hiro already knew this fight's outcome. Why not play it up a little? Surely that wouldn't hurt. "Hiro? Hiro Hamada?" He was more than appropriately the scared little boy up against a giant, with only a small robot as a weapon against the hulking mammoth. He was a midget up against a god. And he knew he would win.

"Prepare your bot, Zero!"

Gingerly, Hiro moved to the vacated mat across from Yama, trying his best to imitate the man with his scare tactics, cracking joints with loud pops, only Hiro had to supply his own sound effects. And all the while, he maintained the deer-in-headlights look. Since he was still a bit disoriented from the restart, it wasn't hard to pretend.

Then the lady with her umbrella was announcing the fight and he stole a peek at Yama, eyes appropriately wide as he took in the man's confident grin. Okay. Play it easy. Let him win the first round. That's how you reeled them in, with a false sense of security. Then you went in for the big prize. And he did. He let Yama trounce his robot, cutting it apart like butter. It was super easy to do, especially knowing how his bot was made.