1 Chapter 3: Battle

The two solitary AC's slowly walked into the center of the Arena. The champion and challenger stood in front of each other, motionless. The camera's turned on, the floating cameras revved themselves up, and the built in visual feeds of the AC's activated. The primary monitor in the center top of the vast Arena transmitted the countdown as thousands upon thousands of people watched in anticipation of the new battle. The battles between the old 2nd placeholder were quite exciting but it was getting old. This new challenger was a delightful change to the old battles and most had already heard of the battle before. They made their final bets, only a few betted for the old champion. Loyalty was always based on show. And the new challenger gave a lot of it.

The monitor transmitted the countdown. The crowd literally stuck their faces to the screens. The countdown ended. The AC's stood still. The crowd wondered why they did nothing. Only the seasoned veteran AC pilots, most of who fought the challenger knew why. They knew that each was slowly feeling each other out. Waiting for the other to make their move.

The 8-ball stood still, its black and white body was larger than most AC's it possessed six back mounted weapons and dual hinged arms and legs. Its core was similar to the new lightweight standard one except it was larger and had multiple rounded protrusions evenly spaced throughout its surface. Its head was more like a medieval knight helmet with glowing yellow eyes. Its most dominant feature was that it had a constantly twitching tail. On the end was a crablike three-way claw with polished edges. Among other things people wondered how that AC was allowed to compete. The judges should have ruled it out, unless of course they were properly bribed. Its feet were bird talons with one large talon raised above the rest on each foot. The reminded the people of a velociraptor, using its killing claws to strike the final blow. Its hands were claws with weapon holes in the center. The powerful laser weapon was somehow integrated to the hands; the hands themselves also were boasting powerful energy claws that extended beyond the fingers themselves. No one had ever seen it use its strange back weapons. The AC having ended all matches without the need proved that the pilot was as skilled as the AC was powerful.

The Death29ball was a strong contrast, with its simpler standard AC build using the standard bought parts. Although the pilot had the AC's name changed just before the match. It was now to be called the Death28ball. Most of the viewers could figure out why. It had lightweight next generation armor from top to bottom except for the headpiece, which was an extremely heavy piece. Its reversed joint legs held the pressure of it and its heavy weapon easily. It boasted nothing more than a laser blade, plasma cannon, missile launcher, and pulse gun. The only thing remarkable about the green and blue AC was that unlike others it did not need to stand still to fire any of its back mounted weaponry, an innovation the pilot kept to himself.

Then in one instant both AC's fired, Death29ball fired its plasma cannon while 8-ball blasted a combined laser from both hands. The beams struck each other in mid-blow, lighting the arena and temporarily blinding the cameras from seeing the two AC's circling each other, both with amazing speed and agility. Death29ball rushed foreword with rocket boosters and activated its laser blade for a severing blow. The core of 8-ball began lighting up the protrusions began spinning and within feet of hitting, the blade splintered like a broom hitting a steel wall. The audience was amazed at this unseen talent, a personal shield! The shield revealed itself as a blue dome around the AC and its tint lessoned the farther the part of the shield was away from the blade. It obviously consumed a lot of power and the AC could do little else but keep thee shield on. Then in one blur, 8- ball activated its laser claws and swept them at Death28ball. The claws broke through its own shields but intercepted the blade, swept through it and left deep gouges in the core.

Death28ball was swept back by the powerful blow; it depleted a large chunk of its armor points as well as raising hell with its power levels. The pilot new another close combat attempt would be fatal, so he switched to his modified pulse gun to trade blows. The 8-ball was far too agile and dodged them all before running at ramming speed towards Death28ball. At the last moment it jumped and turned in mid-air to bring its tail to bear. Death28ball was far to skilled and boosted back; the claws missed but instead of finishing its sweep, opened back and revealed a red dot at the tip of its tail. The red do began to glow and it created a small sphere that expanded in size ten-fold before being release in a burst of energy carrying Death28ball backwards until it hit the arena wall and the energy ball exploded damaging its already severely damaged core. Electrical bolts zapped all around it.

Despite it all Death28ball was very well built and survived in one piece. One more blow of even the smallest power would unfortunately kill the AC and the pilot. 8-ball was not finished though. It brought its back weapons to bear, they were double grenade cannons, double missile launchers, and a double pare of chain guns. In one glory blazing blast, 8-ball fired them all out. Death28ball max out its boosters and flew high above the exploding ball of fire. The blast was too much and consumed the AC in fire. Everyone thought that it was the end of the top ranking pilot and his AC.

Then he and his AC had burst out of the ball, scorched and burnt beyond recognition but still moving. Death28ball then locked its missiles at 8- ball and fired them all before blasting all the energy out of its plasma cannon. The AC just processing that its enemy had survived, attempted to retract its back weapons in order to maneuver. The AC was too slow and was surrounded by a ring of exploding missiles that kept it from escaping by the force of their explosions. When the AC raised its head to see if it could boost out it was struck through the head by the single blast of energy by the plasma cannon. The headpiece really did possess a helmet that was shattered by the blast. Before the 8-ball could recover, its head was vertically sliced open by the laser blade; it proceeded to cut the entire AC in half. Both of which exploded to pieces, one because of damage and the other because of stress. Medical units began to arrive as the battle was counted in favor of the ranking champion.

As the teams worked feverously to find the bodies some of the remains of Death28ball stirred and the burnt and haggard body of the pilot came out. The teams then turned their attention to finding the definite remains of the 8-ball pilot. Most did not expect to find anything as the laser blade probably wiped the pilot out, and one because he knew there was only a cold calculating computer. He was severely surprised at the sight of a large piece of the core stir and then open to reveal the pilot, a girl. The people were astonished no more than the apposing pilot. She was determined and cold-blooded looking. As the team offered their medical assistance she simply waved them aside. She walked to the exit and left.

The single audience turned off the screen. It digested the information form it and its Hustler 2 program before its destruction. The computer was not worried, even if it could feel emotion, its most important piece was still alive and she was returning to her. She was its random component. After months of studying its enemy the computer could not find how it could have defeated Hustler 1. It finally reached the conclusion that it was the human mind and movements were never always logical. They could not follow patterns and efficiency as easy as it could. It also processed the pilot's unnatural capabilities. The only way it seemed to defeat it was to add what its older counterpart lacked, a human mind to help. After extensive months it had accomplished that phase and its testing was perfect.

The object was not to defeat the pilot in the last match, merely to feel out his skill and reaction times. The pilot showed the ability of snatching victory form defeat, the very ability the computer now processed capable of stopping. It now had a human pilot that rivaled the skills of its enemy. She was extremely willing to help. Ironic that its predecessor's demise was destroying the pilot's home and family, this time that pilot destroyed the very things of hers in his attempt at revenge. The computer had to severely restrain her capabilities in the test, it was crucial that the computer let him win this first round; the second will be his death. Next time she will not be restrained, and next time she will have the Hustlers 2's full backing and the Ultimate 8-ball to command.