Eva hadn’t even noticed how long the fight had gone on, given how much she was being pummeled. She backed up to the fence around the pit and glared at Min. Not that the pilot could see her expression inside the Protean armor.
“Min, qué coño?” she asked. “We’re already beat-up. If you don’t take Miles out now, estamos singado.”
Min grinned and flashed a victory sign at Eva. “I’ve got this, Cap.” To Miles, she shouted, “Prepare to get owned, noob!”
“Well, actually, if you fight like your captain, you’re the one getting owned,” Miles said. Pounder posed dramatically again, and Eva stifled a groan.
“Cap’s not a bot fighter,” Min said, slowly advancing her bot into the center of the pit. “But I am. And Pounder is about to get pounded.”
Eva glanced up at the balcony, where Hjerte still stood, arms crossed, her expression flat and distant. A winged todyk, its feathers red as rubies, approached and told her something. The corners of her lips rose in a smile that gave Eva a chill.
They needed to win, and they needed to do it without pissing off the boss. Eva ran her tongue over her teeth and wished her suit had come equipped with stims as well as explosives.
“Ready?” the referee asked. “Begin!”
Min launched Goyangi toward Pounder immediately, her speed boosted by rockets Sue had installed in the bot’s shoulder blades and calves. She landed a flurry of punches that drove Pounder back several steps, despite their half-meter size difference. Pounder attempted to retaliate with its hand weapon, but Eva had apparently damaged it more than Miles realized, and it sparked uselessly instead of firing.
Goyangi leaned on its fists and kicked at Pounder with both legs together, the limbs stretching so that the bot was still just out of reach even as its strikes connected. For the first time, Pounder raised a shield, its shimmering gold energy like a modified version of a spaceship deflector.
That meant Miles was worried. And if he was worried, they had a chance.
As soon as the shield disappeared and Pounder raised its undamaged arm to attack, Goyangi’s forearm plating retracted, exposing tiny missiles that Min fired toward her opponent. They exploded harmlessly against the shield, but in the haze of smoke they created, Goyangi once again leaped forward and struck. Step by step, meter by meter, Pounder retreated under the onslaught, and Eva cheered with the crowd, especially reveling in the extremely pissed expression Miles wore on his pale, rage-blotched face.
“Are you even trying?” Min asked, her bot leaping into the air and kicking down at Pounder, its leg stretching just over the upper edge of the shielding to hit the other bot square in the head.
“Well, actually, this isn’t even my final form!” Miles snapped, and with a roar, Pounder ripped its own helmet off to show a chrome-colored skull with sharp teeth and pointed fangs descending from its cheekbones. Its eyes shifted from red to a bright magenta-purple that Eva found eerily familiar, just before it fired a pair of eye lasers at Goyangi that burned twin holes through its chest plating.
Mierda, mojón y porquería. Eva’s heart would have stopped if it wasn’t mechanical.
The crowd roared, bloodthirsty and savage, and the band on the stage played a rousing, boisterous riff as if to punctuate the decisive strike.
Min’s bot staggered back, but immediately leaped forward again. This apparently confused Miles, who must have been expecting more of a retreat, so he was entirely unprepared when Goyangi grabbed Pounder and loosed a shock of electricity that lanced through the bot’s systems, sending up more sparks from its busted arm.
“Jódete, cabrón!” Eva shouted, even though the fight wasn’t over. Min had to win. They couldn’t afford to fail.
Pounder shuddered but didn’t fall, instead using the same repulsive force it had on Eva to push Goyangi away. But Min’s bot had extendable arms and legs, and it landed a flurry of hits even as it was shifted backward.
Eva’s sensors alerted her to movement on the back line. Jei, positioning himself to fire at Min, and even Nara angling for a shot from another direction.
“Not a chance, sinvergüenzas,” Eva said. “Sue, hit them with your bots!”
Sue noticed what was happening and nodded, firing her strange pistol at both the fighters. With a shrill order, her tiny robots rushed across the pit and leaped onto Jei and Nara both, harrying them in ways that were more annoying than destructive. One bot covered Nara’s optical sensors with what looked like a tablecloth—where the hell had it gotten one of those?—while another was waving a frying pan around wildly without actually hitting anything.
This distracted Miles, apparently, because he shouted, “Hey, where’s the ref?” and gestured angrily with his bot toward the altercations.
The referee looked up at the balcony where Hjerte stood impassively. She didn’t uncross her arms, didn’t move, simply stood like a frozen hologram and waited.
“No penalty,” the referee said. The crowd roared, whether in anger or approval, Eva couldn’t tell.
Min, certainly, was smiling like a cat who’d gotten a tin of fish. Miles raged, stalking back and forth from his controller position and tugging at his thin blond hair until finally he settled in a wide-legged stance, hands curled into fists.
“This ends now!” he shouted. Pounder’s shield sprang up, and the bot charged forward, knocking into Goyangi like a battering ram. Min’s bot slid backward, and Pounder’s shields dropped as it fired its eye lasers once again.
Except Goyangi wasn’t in their path. It had leaped into the air, boosted by its elbow and calf rockets.
Time seemed to slow. Pounder began to raise its arm to strike, but Goyangi was faster. A series of lasers coalesced in a point in front of the bot, forming a force field like a shimmering pink pyramid just in front of its arm. It dove down onto Pounder, the pyramid rotating like a drill, and the force of it drove Pounder into the floor, pieces of its armor peeling away to expose the cables and other anatomy beneath.
Miles screamed, in anger rather than despair. “Worthless thing is lagging!” he shouted. Pounder attempted to stand, but Goyangi gazed down at it in the pitiless way only a robot could manage. Or Hjerte, apparently.
“Aw, you’re trying so hard,” Min said with a giggle.
Goyangi opened its mouth and fired a blast of energy straight into Pounder’s exposed face. It must have hit something vital, because moments later there was a burst of light, then smoke began to pour out of Pounder’s eye sockets. The bot hitched once, then lay still, tiny sparks of electricity arcing up from the hole in its formerly fake-buff stomach.
The crowd flipped out like someone had thrown a chair, drowning out the band with their screams and roars and whistles and other assorted sounds. Eva assumed the angrier ones had lost bets and were preparing to take out their feelings in unproductive ways, but the rest of the crowd was living.
“Match complete,” the referee said, her voice amplified barely loud enough to be heard. “Your new champion is Number One, piloting Goyangi!”
Sue climbed out of Gustavo and rushed at Eva, hugging her in excitement. “We did it!” she shouted. “We won!”
Goyangi began to dance, waving its arms and spinning in place. Min did her own shimmy in her seat, grinning and shaking her blue-braided head to a music only she could hear. This elicited more cheers from the audience, and a few other people danced as well. The band finally started to become audible once again, and the bar was mobbed so thoroughly that additional bots were deployed to handle orders while the many-tentacled bartender prepared as many drinks as they could manage.