Panic at the Haunted Lab

Miyuu stood in front of the gates to the abandoned laboratory. According to popular campus gossip, the place was haunted—a baseless rumour concocted by bored students with too much imagination and not enough coursework. The truth? The university had once been doing research into something classified, and then, predictably, things went kaboom. Officially, it was a “tragic accident.” Unofficially, it was a giant screw-up no one wanted to talk about.

The facility had been sealed off ever since. No one was supposed to set foot in it again. Key phrase: supposed to.

Usually, this would be the part where she’d be greeted by blaring alarms, flashing red lights, and a polite but firm reminder from SOLON to turn around and reconsider her life choices. But not today. Today, the gate slid open.

She wasn’t even surprised anymore. Whoever was behind this obviously had no problem bending SOLON to their will. The complete lack of effort to hide it was almost insulting.

As the gate groaned open, she was greeted by... OR5? Her brow furrowed. The receptionist android? The one who processed her registration when she first arrived? The same bot who once gave her a painfully detailed history lesson about the school's uniform policy because she’d rolled up her sleeves?

“OR5?” she asked cautiously, taking a step forward.

No response. No chirpy “Hello, student!” No lecture about her chronically dishevelled appearance. Just... silence. Normally, this would feel like divine intervention, the kind she’d wish for every time OR5 started monologuing. Today, it made her stomach twist.

Without warning, OR5 sprinted forward and lunged at her.

“What the—?!” She yelled, ducking just in time as his arm swept through the air where her head had been. His movements were jerky, almost glitchy, but still disturbingly fast.

K.A.T.O.’s voice pinged in her mind. Virus detected. Same signature as Grand Écrasant’s.

Of course it was. Why wouldn’t the same virus that nearly killed her (twice!) come back for round three? OR5 didn’t have Grand Écrasant’s bulk or its charming arsenal of missiles and machine guns, but what he lacked in firepower, he made up for in speed.

Her training with the student council kicked in—finally proving its worth beyond giving her sore muscles and existential regret. She ducked under another attack and threw a punch at OR5’s chest plate. Immediately, her knuckles protested the decision, sending a sharp jolt of pain up her arm.

The bot staggered. Barely. Maybe an inch. Not exactly a victory, but she’d take what she could get.

OR5 recovered faster than she’d anticipated, his glowing red eyes locked onto her with the single-minded intensity of a bot hell-bent on murder. She hated how often that was happening to her lately.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” She muttered, twisting her body into a one-handed cartwheel as OR5’s arm swiped again, narrowly missing her. She landed with her feet planted, adrenaline spiking, and immediately lashed out with a kick aimed at his midsection.

Her foot connected with a satisfying clang, and for a split second, she thought she’d done some real damage. But no. OR5 barely stumbled.

Miyuu backed up, breathing hard. Her gut screamed to retreat, to get the hell out of there. No shame in running from a homicidal android, right?

Except she couldn’t. Not this time. Natsuki was depending on her.

Her hesitation cost her. The next attack came fast. She tried to pivot, but OR5’s metal fist connected with the space between her shoulder blades and neck. Pain exploded across her nerves, and her vision blurred.

She hit the ground hard, her body uncooperative as her head spun. Her neural link crackled faintly with K.A.T.O.’s voice.

Miyuu, stay conscious! He said urgently.

She wanted to answer, to assure him that she was fine (she wasn’t) and totally in control (she wasn’t), but her head was spinning, her vision fading in and out.

And then she saw her. A figure walking through the gates. Red hair catching the afternoon sun, unmistakable even in her haze.

“Chiba?” Miyuu croaked.

The last thing she registered was the blurred image of Yuzuki Chiba before the darkness closed in, and her world went silent.

.

Bolts sat cross-legged on the workshop floor, his toolkit splayed open. Tools, spare parts, and half-finished contraptions littered the space around him.

He sifted through the chaos, tossing wrenches and soldering irons into the air and catching them like some kind of deranged juggler. Occasionally, something made the cut, landing neatly in the toolkit with a satisfying clink. Most of it didn’t.

“Where’s that—ah, there you are.” He muttered, plucking a small device from the mess. A micro-EMP grenade, one of his more experimental projects. It joined the pile of essentials in his kit: power cells, a pocket welder, a dubious-looking multitool, and a few other gadgets he probably should’ve tested.

Satisfied, Bolts pushed his goggles down over his eyes and tapped a button on the side, cycling through his surveillance feeds. Years of doing maintenance on Harmonia’s bots meant he had more eyes on the city than SOLON itself—or so he liked to think. Cleaning bots, utility drones, even vending machines—most of them were bugged. Nothing creepy, just enough to let him know if something weird was happening. And today? Oh, there was weird.

He paused mid-scroll. Something wasn’t right.

His thumb hovered over the button as he flipped through more feeds, his brows knitting tighter with each click. Androids, scattered across the city, moving in ways they weren’t supposed to. Nothing dramatic—no sudden malfunctions or violent outbursts—but small things. Jerky movements. Odd pauses. Patterns that didn’t fit.

To the untrained eye, it’d look like nothing. But Bolts worked with machines every day. He could tell when something was about to go sideways.

“Oh no…” he muttered, his stomach sinking. He cycled through another few feeds, each one confirming what he already suspected.

“She’s out cold, Bolts!” K.A.T.O. suddenly snapped, his voice crackling through the wrist node.

Bolts flinched. Having a sentient AI literally in his arm still sent a shiver down his spine. It was like sharing a room with someone who wouldn’t shut up, but worse, because the room was his body.

"Do you even understand how bad this is?"

Bolts sighed, lazily spinning his wrench between his fingers. He’d had a feeling things would go sideways—he just didn’t expect them to take a nosedive this quickly. “Yelling at me isn’t going to help. Maybe dial it down a notch?”

K.A.T.O.’s holographic fox form appeared above the node, pacing in mid-air like a caffeinated squirrel. "Dial it down?! Miyuu’s unconscious, likely surrounded by homicidal androids, and you’re twirling your wrench like this is just another Tuesday!"

"It’s Wednesday." Bolts deadpanned, flicking the wrench back into his palm.

K.A.T.O. froze mid-pace, his glowing eyes narrowing. “What—”

"And freaking out isn’t going to help her."

K.A.T.O. blinked. “Between me and Miyuu, I’m usually the calm one. You must be some kind of human anomaly.”

"Somebody’s gotta keep their head on straight." Bolts muttered, watching as K.A.T.O. projected a screen in the air, Yuzuki Chiba’s perpetually scowling face taking center stage.

"We know this gremlin is involved." K.A.T.O. said, his tone still sharp but a touch less panicked. The screen cycled through every scrap of data they had on Yuzuki Chiba.

Most of it was pulled from Miyuu’s memories and whatever public records K.A.T.O. could scrounge up. Grades, family ties, and a highlight reel of every unpleasant interaction Miyuu had ever had with her.

Bolts leaned in, squinting at the projection. "Yeah, I’m gonna say it. She’s not smart enough to pull this off by herself."

"Exactly." K.A.T.O. said, pausing his pacing to point dramatically at the screen. "Which means someone else is pulling the strings. And with her family ties, it’s obvious."

Bolts leaned back, crossing his arms. "Unity First."

“Unity First.” K.A.T.O. echoed grimly. “They’re behind all of this.”

Bolts tilted his head, eyeing the fox. "Okay, so we’ve got Yuzuki as the puppet, Unity First pulling the strings, and Miyuu... well, probably getting ready to do something monumentally stupid the second she wakes up.”

"Accurate." K.A.T.O. muttered, ears flicking irritably. "So what’s your plan, Wrench Boy?"

Bolts tapped his chin with the wrench, pretending to think it over. In truth, he already had a plan. He just enjoyed making K.A.T.O sweat. "First step, I head to the student council. We’re going to need all the resources we can scrape together, because I have a sneaking suspicion this is about to escalate way beyond what we’re ready for."

He paused, adding almost as an afterthought, “The fact that they haven’t killed Miyuu means they probably need her alive.”

K.A.T.O. didn’t argue, though the flick of his tail suggested he wanted to. Miyuu wouldn’t be thrilled about Bolts dragging the student council into this, but at this point, her approval was a luxury they didn’t have time for.

“And step two?” K.A.T.O. asked.

Bolts smirked, spinning the wrench one last time before sliding it into his tool belt. "Step two is improvisation. Let’s just hope Miyuu doesn’t manage to die before we get there."

K.A.T.O.’s tail bristled like an aggravated cat. "You’re just like her, aren’t you?" he grumbled, sounding both impressed and exasperated. "Why am I always stuck with the most reckless, unpredictable humans? It’s stressing me out."

"Relax, Foxy." Bolts said, casually strapping his toolbox to his back. "It’s worked for me so far."

K.A.T.O.’s eyes narrowed in holographic disbelief. "That’s supposed to reassure me?"

Bolts shrugged as he stepped onto his hoverboard, the engine humming to life beneath him. "Take it or leave it."