The teen flicked on the intercom, and it sparked to life with a soft buzz. His other hand, hovering over the robot's controls, drummed on the dashboard boredly, yet with a slight nervous twitch.

"Location sighted." He said, clearly, with an ever-so-faint tinge of excitement to it. "Mission has started."

He steered his mecha, a monstrous, metal destructive beast of a machine, towards the desolate space station floating aimlessly throughout the black void around him. The gigantic weapon was light black in color, not too deep but unmistakably onyx. Its appearance was smooth and sleek, to the point of rugged elegance. Its fingers were long, but not claw-like. Its head was pointy and its feet were well defined, which made travel and movement so much easier. Its weaponry was relatively simple: it had a massive beamsword, and two rapid-fire beam rifles.

As Phantom Zero, he was recently paid to scout out this place due to odd activity and suspicion. And he wasn't one to turn down a job.

Navix grinned behind his mask, anticipation gleaming in his colored eyes.

As he landed, he surveyed the area about him. The torn and dusty walls, the pain, tinted floor littered with aged debris, the broken and shattered windows that no longer held a distant shine, but a dingy glint; it was obvious that this place has been abandoned for quite some time.

The atmosphere was stiff, and silent.

All of the sudden, a sharp, soft whir caught the brunette's attention. He turned to face the direction of which the noise came from, but saw nothing.

"Target verified. Commencing hostilities."

The boy turned back around, and paled slightly.

And he gazed up at the towering monstrosity known as Nineball.

The mecha was tall and complex, making it seem all the more intimidating. Parts of it were a deep crimson shade, others vibrant silver, with patches of deep black and small pieces of menacing yellow woven in. It stood solidly, hovering over Navix's mecha and looking at it calculatingly.

Within a few seconds, he felt as if every single move he had been planning to make, and those he hadn't even thought of yet, had been figured out.

A cold bead of sweat threatened to slide down his forehead.

Snapping his thoughts back to the task on hand, the boy flicked a few switches and shifted into Zero-Shift, moving away from the enemy as quickly as possible.

As soon as he was away, Nineball lifted a cannon in the blink of an eye and fired a rapid round of fire at Navix. He dodged quickly, but found himself dodging another round of ammunition only seconds later. He lashed back with his own firing beams, but the mecha moved too quickly and was out of the way in no time at all.

Phantom Zero grit his teeth.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

His machine shook violently, suddenly, and he realized he had been attacked. His controls flickered and sparked, as he realized Nineball's energy blades, which had just appeared, had sliced one of his mecha's arms off.

Navix cursed loudly, using Zero-Shift again to make distance between them.

Unfortunately, Nineball utilized its boosters to speed up, and it glided over to the mecha and slashed again, deeply cutting the torso of it and nearly catching him by the blade.

"Oh c'mon!" He cried out in frustration, directing his good arm to slash his opponent with his beamsword. Nineball was knocked away, but it soon charged and attempted another strike. This time, Navix parried it and pushed it back.

Minutes passed, and all he could manage to do was parry and push away Nineball, in a fleeting defense that didn't do much to help.

And all the while, the teen racked his brain for what to do next. He found himself near panicking, having not expected this.

Think, Navix…think….

Think….

C'mon Navix! Think!

NAVIX!

"NAVIX!!!!"

"W-what?!?" The boy straightened out in his chair, looking around sleepily, expecting to see Nineball glaring at him, menacingly.

But he only saw a very ticked-off Xemnas.

The man glared at him. "Navix, I expect you to pay attention to these meetings. Is that clear?"

The teen nodded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Yeah, sure…"

His amber eyes narrowed, and he went back to rambling on about their Hearts and such.

The brunette propped his head up with his arm, and closed his eyes, not interested in hearing their boss' tired old speech for the millionth time.

He had a battle to win.

000000

This was certainly challenging. But I think it turned out alright….

This was a challenge drabble, given to me by GS. The criteria:

In it, Navix, as Phantom Zero, finds and abandoned floating space station he's been hired to scout out due to strange activity. In it, he fights longtime Armored Core final boss, Nineball. It's a mecha, and Navix fights it with his own Grunder.

I hope it turned out okay.

Also, there is a person who gets a cookie:

XedarlesFangirl

That poem was taken from my story, Redarle (which I still have!), that I wrote about Neopets some time ago :3

(and quite honestly, I AM surprised you still read this…)