Ace and Sabo pushed open the creaky door to Tessal's workshop, expecting to find him hunched over another scrap pile or tinkering with something bound to explode. Instead, he was bent low over his desk, scribbling furiously on sheets of scavenged paper. Strange shapes filled the pages—tiny bodies, jointed legs, segmented shells, even wings drawn in neat lines.
"What's this supposed to be?" Ace asked, scratching the back of his head as he leaned over Tessal's shoulder. "Some kind of… bug?"
Sabo tilted his head, just as baffled. "You're designing insects? Out of metal?"
Tessal looked up, his eyes alight in a way they hadn't seen before. "Not just insects—mechanical insects. Spies, scouts, maybe even fighters. They'll be small, quick, perfect for places we can't go." He tapped his sketches with a smudge-stained finger. "But I need details. Movements, shells, wings. I'll need you two to help me catch some real ones so I can study them."
Ace groaned, throwing up his hands. "Great, so now you're dragging us into bug hunting? Disgusting."
Sabo just laughed. "Well, at least it sounds less dangerous than testing your exploding gadgets."
Over the next few months, their scavenging trips doubled as insect hunts. Tessal studied every beetle, cricket, and moth they brought him, sketching out legs and wings with painstaking care. His first attempts were disasters—gears jamming, legs collapsing under their own weight, or tiny shells that cracked at the lightest touch.
But Tessal didn't give up. Each failure pushed him to adjust, to refine, to try again. Piece by piece, idea by idea, his vision started to take shape.
And then, one late night, the first prototype stood on his desk. Rough and uneven, but unmistakably modeled after the beetle he had seen that day on the path. Its legs clicked uncertainly, its shell gleamed under the lamplight, and when Tessal wound the tiny gear inside, it twitched to life.
Ace and Sabo stared as the little machine stumbled forward.
"…It actually moves," Sabo said, eyes wide.
Ace scowled, though even he couldn't hide his awe. "Don't let it crawl on me."
Tessal just smiled, pride swelling in his chest as the metal beetle clicked across the desk. It wasn't perfect—but it was alive, in its own way. And it was only the beginning. He then sent a letter to father tell him what he had just accomplished. Albert was excited to hear not only that his son not only has great friends but is also come up with with an engineering marvel that would have most people stun.