Steel on steel screeched as the door to the abandoned garage rolled open on its rusty hinges. A dark void stood before the three friends as they smirked in a satisfied way. They entered the building as the door slid shut behind them, the bang as it closed echoing in the darkness. Suddenly, a brief yet immense boom rang through the air as a spotlight clicked on, flooding the ground with light. Soon, two more lights banged on, revealing three immense machines standing intimidating and powerful, towering above the friends.

The AC robot on the left was the shortest of them, but also looked the fiercest. The whole machine was a dark pine green, with area of black painted into it. It had four legs branching off like a spider's; these legs were made completely out of different sized cylinders and looked very lightweight. Next, the chest/core area was peaked out, like a diamond with two immensely destructive arms on both sides. These arms looked like medieval lances that the knights used, with an opening at the end. The shoulders had two large objects mounted on each one. On the left shoulder there was an extremely massive gun, it looked like somewhat of a grenade launcher. On the right shoulder was a colossal cube, holding dozens of missiles. Mount on the back was an immense cylinder, like a jet pack of some sort that appeared able to even jettison this colossal beast of iron and steel airborne. The head looked like half of a titanic medicine pill with an antenna protruding from the back, it looked extremely lethal altogether.

The second robot in the middle was the tallest, and also looked extremely dangerous. The legs looked like that of a dinosaur with the reversed joint. Four spikes jutted out from where the hip would be on each leg. The feet had two toes branching off in the front and one in the back. The core was a round, almost complete sphere and the arms were completely made of different rectangles and squares. In the right arm, there was a colossal gun clutched in the fist. The gun had a circular handle and the turret looked like a parrot's beak. On the left hand was a circular disk, used to emit a flash of intense laser light. On each should stood two titanic gatling guns, that looked capable of ripping through any steel or metal substance. The head looked like a tyrannosaur's and the whole AC looked like some kind of futuristic, steel dinosaur. On the back was the same jetpack as the other, but there were also two small spheres on each shoulder blade, these looked like some kind of booster that was able to propel even this hunk of iron to tremendous speeds. It was a pitch-black color and looked like something you definitely would not want to cross.

Chains suspended the last on the right seeing as it did not have any legs. A large object with six spikes protruding from the back was welded onto it, and appeared to be some kind of a hovercraft. The arms were large and looked extremely heavy, and on the left arm there was a disk, a shield of some sort. On the right arm was a mediocre-sized weapon and looked somewhat of a new-age machine gun. The core of the beast was an oval shape and a small cube placed in the center. This cube contained missiles within it. On the right shoulder was a gun that took up the length of the AC, and it looked somewhat of a shotgun. On the other shoulder was mounted what appeared to be an extremely powerful laser cannon. On the back was another jetpack but no two spheres on the shoulder blades. The head was a stout cranium that looked to be made of a circle, cut in half. In the center of it was a smaller disk that barely separated the two halves. The whole machine was a metallic silver, with stains of dark blue painted onto the steel. This AC appeared to be extremely fast and agile, not to mention a powerful blaster.

"Ah, Fugitive." Joe sighed, walking up and hugging the AC with four legs, Joe not even tall enough as half of the machine's toe, and he was the tallest of the three friends. "Good to see you again, old chum."

Ben strided up to the one in the center, the one that looked the most intimidating. "Hard to believe I made you from scratch, Benjamonster." He commented, patting the AC fondly. "It took me all this time, but you made it. And there is only a few things left to complete on you."

"Why, hello, Vengeance." Shane greeted his AC machine, looking up at it proudly as it stood suspended on chains. "Long time no see."

Ben grabbed his welder and slapped down his mask, sparks emitting from the black steel as he welded in his beast of iron and metal.

"You know," A voice stated from behind him. It was Shane. "If we didn't have the used parts in this abandoned garage we may have never been able to create these AC's."

Ben grinned and held up his welding tool in the air. "Amen to that, man." He chuckled before returning back to his work. Little did they know that as they laughed, sweat, and created their AC's that their destiny would soon be upon them…

(the next day..)

The bell rang as Ben, Shane, and Joe sat down in their desks side-by-side in the math classroom, a peculiar aura of misfortune and doom lingered in the morning atmosphere.

"Dude, I wonder what's up here? It seems so…so…" Joe broke off, struggling for a word to finish his sentence.

"Gloomy?" Ben finished.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, a voice crackled over the intercom speaker of the classroom, the voice sounding depressed and sullen.

"Students of this edification center please heed your attention to this message." All fell silent as the voice continued over the speaker. "As you all know, there has been a misfortune to this country…last night our state was attacked by several foreign AC machines not too far from this structure." A great bustle arose in the classroom at this statement as the announced proceeded. "There has been an immense demand for AC pilots to assist us in this civil war against our country and so this order proceeds as follows:" An intense, anxious hush fell over the classroom as the speaker paused and the sound of papers shuffling could be heard in the background. "Any person who or now with the knowledge of AC piloting absolutely with no regard must be drafted for army purposes. If a college student with enough knowledge of AC piloting may be released from their schooling education to assist this country. However, if in this instance, they must be tried to guarantee they can deal with the war. Tryouts are posted in every state at least once individual time and a default AC machine will be used for tryouts, but in the case one is already in possession of an AC droid, they are more than welcome to use their own."

Too much of a commotion broke out to possibly comprehend the rest of the message except for "…after school", "…Four-o'-clock", and "…Middendorf Hangar". Ben, Joe, and Shane were exceptionally loud. Not only did they have their own skills to definitely make it into war, they had their own AC's as well! They day seemed to crawl by and before they knew it, they were standing before their beloved AC's, shrink cubes in hand. Within seconds, the massive monsters were entrapped as billions of molecules within the cubes and in their backpacks. Shane grabbed his skateboard, as Joe whipped on his roller-blades and Ben strapped on his land-board. (Somewhat of a skateboard with three-times-as-large, all-terrain wheels, grip-tape, and straps for the feet) The garage door slammed loudly behind them, the garage itself now barren of the machines, as they zoomed down the pavement toward the Middendorf Hangar, looking their future straight in the eye…