Marvin was going to implode. He'd been sitting in that dark room for five hours, nothing but the sound of dripping water and the scrape of his own metal limbs to keep him company. And the only thought passing through his head was, We're cooked. He could not beat any of the competitors. Neither could Ishaan, most likely. The three-round duel might as well be over.
Despite the impending tragedy, when the door to his storage room finally slid open, Marvin felt a relief like no other. And when he saw Ella walk in, he felt… even better?
That feeling went away before it could confuse him.
"Jeez, this is depressing," Ella said, regarding the room. "You hanging in there?"
Marvin raised a phantom eyebrow. "What do you want?" he asked. She was being too nice.
"Just wanted to check in," she said, flipping on the lights. Her illuminated face was surprisingly genuine.
"Really?" Marvin asked, relaxing. Maybe he should stop assuming Ella was a jerk—they were kind of becoming friends, right?
"No," Ella said. "Sorry."
"Dammit," Marvin muttered.
"I have a, um, proposal," Ella said. She put her hands behind her back and teetered on her heels. "I promised I wouldn't say anything to persuade you, so I'll just… tell you what's going on, I guess."
"Uh huh." Marvin had a sneaking suspicion what this was about, but he found Ella's awkwardness strangely endearing.
"You're going to be the tiebreaker," Ella began. "You versus Centium Prime. You've never fought Centium Prime. I fought them last year and beat them. It was a twenty minute fight. I learned Diana's patterns and stuff. You don't know any of that, right?"
"You want to pilot for me," Marvin said. I get it.
"Yes," Ella said. "Well, I don't want to, but it might be ideal—"
"Yes, you want to," Marvin said. And you're completely justified. We should've gotten you instead of me. Everyone is thinking it.
But no. His pride had gotten in the way, and now they would lose Ben and Renee to Centium.
"Whatever," Ella said. "But the thing is, we can't swap mechs, only pilots. Which means I need to pilot you. I need your Core."
Marvin realized what that meant. He would let Immortal Ignition take his place any day, but to put his life in Ella's hands?
No. That was stupid. There was no way it was worth it.
"How high are your chances of winning?" he asked.
"I don't know," Ella admitted. "I don't even know if they're higher than yours."
Then there was no question—he would not do the swap. If he was in control, at least he could decide when to forfeit. Sure, he could have a kill switch as Ella piloted, but he had no idea what Ella would do. He couldn't read when she was about to die.
Besides, Marvin sure as hell would not hand his life over to someone who wanted to pilot because they were jealous.
But he found it difficult to say the words. He didn't want to make another mistake and put the nail in Ben and Renee's coffins.
"Did anyone else want you to swap?" Marvin asked.
"I haven't talked about it with anyone else," Ella replied.
"Why'd you come to me first?" If you have any shred of self-awareness, you'd know what I think of this. You're doing this for your ego, first and foremost.
"To get it over with," Ella said. "Marvin, I genuinely want to help you guys."
Marvin studied her face. She was falling back into her usual, confident self, but a trace of unease lingered. She was lying about something.
"You don't just want to help us," Marvin said. "You want to prove that you could've won."
He didn't know what he was trying to accomplish. A part of him just wanted to be right. To justify his decision to not tell Ella about the three-round duel.
Ella rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm mad that you didn't ask me to be on your team. But come on, Marvin. No one gets this butthurt."
She was right. He was the one who wanted to prove he could win. That he didn't need melt-drills and the megacity's best engineer.
"Anyways, what'll it be?" Ella said.
It should have been easy to say he didn't want to swap. But he couldn't deny the facts: Ella had won against Centium Prime before—he'd watched it live—and her piloting instead of him would throw Diana for a loop.
"How certain are you that you'll win?" he asked.
"Didn't you ask that already?" Ella said.
"This is how you personally feel."
"I dunno."
Marvin sighed. He had to make a choice soon. There was an hour till the duel, and Ella needed time to warm up. Plus, Caroline would have to redesign the mech to behave more like last year's Immortal Ignition.
I can't. It's my life.
But he was responsible for Renee's and Ben's lives, too.
"Can you just give me something?" he said quietly. "Just one reason why I can trust you with my life?"
Ella's eyes flickered to the floor, and she smirked slightly. "'Cause I'm a damn good pilot."
Marvin stared at her, and then, to his own disbelief, he laughed. To think he had actually expected something sappy.
I guess that's all I'm gonna get. But it was enough. Ella had beaten Centium Prime once before, and she seemed confident she could beat it again.
I can't believe I'm about to do this.
-----
Everyone was gathered at the arena by the time Ella and Marvin marched up the steps onto the roof of the Hopper. The teams formed two arcs around their respective Bessmer chairs, waiting expectantly for their last pilots to sync.
Ella and Marvin passed by a pair of scavengers who scanned them and took Marvin's diagnostics. All clear. Then they passed another scavenger who shone a light into Ella's eyes to confirm she wasn't drugged.
Finally, they reached the pilot's chair. Ella stopped in front of it, turned to Marvin, and whispered, "Last chance to change your mind."
"Way too late," Marvin said.
I guess. Ella sat down in the Bessmer chair, causing Renee, Ben, Ishaan, and Sienna to take a step back.
"You got this," Marvin said, giving her a thumbs up. Then he continued walking towards the arena.
You can't be doing that, Ella thought, glancing around to see if anyone had caught Sabersong's suspiciously human gesture. But it was nice to have some reassurance.
Caroline tapped Ella's shoulder as she put on the piloting helmet. "Remember," Sabersong's engineer said, "spin controls are in the left hemisphere, not the right."
Ella nodded. Caroline had altered the mech to be as close to Immortal Ignition as possible. There were only a few things she couldn't change in time.
"Good luck," Caroline said, and walked away.
Ella spared a glance at Ben and Renee. Ben looked anxious, hands pressed tightly in his pockets, jaw strained. Ella hoped her being pilot wasn't the cause of that. Renee, strangely enough, was expressionless.
Across the arena, through that slightly distorting force field and past Marvin and Centium Prime, a blurry image of Diana Kane leaned against the Bessmer chair, talking frantically to Grayson Wright. This was the first time they'd seen Ella at the scavenger camp; everyone had expected Caroline to be piloting Sabersong.
Grayson probably had a lot of tips; after all, Ninth Gen and Immortal Ignition were historic rivals, and Grayson had eliminated Ella in last year's Mecha Realm. But Diana would have no time to think about the advice, while Ella had had several hours to prepare.
A scavenger stepped onto a podium overlooking the arena. "Prime your mechs!" she announced.
Caroline ran all the internal tests in her tablet, then informed Ella that all systems were a go. Ella took a hold of the neurobrick, heart thumping. Across the arena, Diana hastily got into her Bessmer chair and dismissed Grayson.
"Pilots, enter your mechs!"
Ella squeezed her hand. A single blink later, she was teleported into Marvin's point of view. As she observed her foreign silver and blue arms, her short daggers in place of her hands, and the sleek, unfoldable arm-shields, she felt a stab of panic.
This is Marvin. This is all he is. If I mess up…
Ella tried to calm herself. They'd given Marvin a kill switch to automatically forfeit or to take over as pilot at any moment. He was a good pilot, too. He would make the right choice.
"Can you hear me?" Marvin asked.
It wasn't exactly his voice, but more like words passing by Ella's retina.
"Yeah," Ella said quietly. She could not hear herself.
"You can speak as loud as you want," Marvin said. "My voice box is off."
"Oh, okay." Ella wasn't going to try to learn the science behind this. "So what's the point of this? Are you gonna coach me or something?"
"Would you mind?"
"Only if you really have to. I don't wanna get distracted."
"Understood."
Ella rolled the mech's shoulders—her shoulders—and loosened her arms. The thick daggers at their ends ignited with blue plasma.
On the opposite side of the ring, Centium Prime unfolded its weapon. It was a strange contraption, not resembling anything else in the mech-fighting world: three massive blades attached end-to-end, pivoting on one another, connected to the mech's arm by a slider mechanism that could control which blade was the point of reference. Centium Prime itself was larger than Sabersong, painted dark green and purple and sporting sleek, seamless armor.
Though it was familiar, it was no less intimidating than when Ella had first encountered it in Mecha Realm. Diana would have had time to correct her mistakes from that fight, but Ella was willing to bet some of her tells would remain the same.
"On your marks!" the announcer called. "Get set!"
Here we go, Marvin.
"Fight!"
Centium Prime barreled forwards, startling Ella. She unfolded her arm-shields and strafed to the right where the three-pronged blade couldn't reach her. Centium Prime spun, its weapon slashing across like a whip. Ella jumped over it, rose higher with her rocket boosters, and dove at the opponent. Centium Prime dodged deftly. Ella landed on her feet, skidded to a stop, and arched backwards as a blade sliced the air above her.
Ella retreated, and to her relief, the opponent did not follow. Centium Prime rotated its reference blade backwards, then folded the other two inwards so that they became one thick sword.
Hiding the rest of your tricks, huh? Diana had done this last year, too. She used a single blade when they'd been learning the other's moves.
Ella thought back to Mecha Realm. Diana's sword arm was exceptionally fast, but she was slow on the pivot. Ella needed to be nimble, keep the enemy off balance.
She went on the offensive. As expected, Centium Prime deflected all of her attacks, but Ella forced it to turn for each one. She saw its feet start to falter. It was a mind game as much as anything—if Diana saw her old errors being exploited again, she'd lose concentration.
Ella kept at it. She'd either force Diana to use that weapon to the fullest, which she could then exploit further, or she'd get lucky and win just like this.
However, as the minutes crawled by, Ella noticed that she'd hit a plateau of some sort. Centium Prime was no longer slowing down. In fact, it seemed to be adapting, countering her attacks better. She realized the opponent's torso was turning on a wheel, not beholden to its legs. Seemed like it had a tracking program for her, too.
Alright, change of plans. She would bait Centium Prime into attacking, defend well enough to the point that it unfolded its blade, and wait for it to show its weakness.
However, Ella was not expecting Centium Prime to unfold its three swords immediately. She quickly changed her stance so she was less low to the ground.
The next few minutes were overwhelming. Centium Prime switched from single to double to triple-pronged blade without rhyme or reason, never giving Ella a chance to remember the patterns for one variant of the weapon. Several times it snapped closed on parts of Sabersong's armor, biting off non-trivial chunks. Marvin did not say a word. Good to know he still believed in her.
You can't think of it as three different weapons, Ella told herself. She already knew the thing's general moveset from last year's fight.
She went back on the offensive, acting as though she was fighting against the unfolded version of the blades. Stay close and in its blind spot. Don't let it wrap around you. She got one stab in, then another. Her third jab hit Centium Prime's eye, causing it to retreat and switch to a backup camera.
Ella took the moment to breathe. "Marvin, thoughts?" It was still unclear if she could win this fight.
"Keep it up," Marvin said.
Ella vented the motors, reapplied the plasma lining onto her daggers, and strode forwards. Centium Prime approached as well. It attached the end of its third blade to its free hand and pulled its weapon apart at one of the pivots. Diana brandished the single blade along her arm, while the blade still attached to its pivot began to spin.
This was new, but Diana would still have the same tells, the same shortcomings. Ella just needed to be a lot more careful.
As they met in the center of the arena, Ella noted that Centium Prime was trying to keep the whirling saw blade away from itself, so she made sure to stay close. Her arm-shields kept the solo blade at bay, while she made sure the spinning one was just out of reach.
Finally, Ella found an opening. After a side swipe with the spinning swords, Diana liked to jab the other sword forward. Ella sidestepped one of the jabs, pressed her palms against the blade, and slid along until she was right in the opponent's face. She stabbed the mech's stomach and out through its back. If Ella had been a little less hurried, she could've had a killing blow.
She heard Centium Prime's blade stop spinning behind her. Next thing she knew, there was a click as all three blades connected with each other. Her opponent pulled its arms backwards, threatening to cut Ella in half from behind. Ella pressed forwards and tackled Centium to the ground so its elbows couldn't retract further. It detached its blades and kicked her off. As she stumbled back, it leapt to its feet and swung its chain of blades at her head, and she frantically held up her right arm-shield.
Her forearm was cut clean off.
She barely noticed the limb fall, barely even thought of where Centium's blade was heading. But when she felt her head suddenly loll sideways, she immediately boosted in the direction of the hit, letting herself get flung across the arena. She bounced and skidded and hit the force field. Centium Prime didn't give chase, instead repairing the hole in its torso.
"Marvin!" Ella shouted, getting up. "You still there?"
Silence. Ella's remaining hand went up to the opposite side of her head, where she registered the gash in the helmet. Her blood ran cold.
I wouldn't be able to move if she destroyed the Core, Ella told herself. But if the part that contained Marvin had been damaged…
"Marvin!" Ella repeated. "Are—"
"Yes, yes, I'm here, sorry," Marvin said. He sounded shook to his core, disbelieving that he was still alive. Ella let out a sigh of relief.
"We should forfeit," she said. "It's not worth it."
"No," Marvin said. "That hole. I bet you damaged its waist axis."
"So what? We're missing a hand!"
"It doesn't matter. Do that thing you did at the start."
Ella paused, realizing what he meant. Without an easy point of rotation, Diana was prone to losing her balance again.
"Do you want to take over?" Ella asked.
"It's your strategy," Marvin said.
Ella watched anxiously as Centium Prime approached, three blades connected once more. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yes."
So Ella brandished her remaining dagger and charged. Centium Prime hadn't just lost its waist axis—its entire frame was more sluggish. Ella was down one arm, but all her systems were still functional. It didn't take long for her to slow the opponent even further. Windows for killing blows were too tight for now, but she was certain one would open soon.
Diana tried her best to stop her. Blades folded and unfolded, connected and disconnected. Ella was used to it. She kept running circles around the opponent until finally, she found the opening. Centium Prime's foot slipped, and Ella swept a leg under it, then leapt upwards to deliver an uppercut.
Centium Prime caught her arm, spun her around, and slammed her into the ground.
Ella widened her eyes as the blade came hurtling towards her face. She caught it with her arm-shield and the stump of her right arm. It screeched to a stop several inches from her forehead, then began pressing down again.
Ella gritted her teeth and pushed with all the power her motors could muster. Centium Prime did not budge. Sparks sprinkled onto her face as the blade inched closer and closer.
I can lose, but I can't let Diana hit the Core.
Ella activated her thrusters, slid backwards, and let go. Centium Prime pierced her stomach, and the impact was so sudden that its weapon folded in on itself. The mech fell within arm's reach.
Warning sirens blared in Ella's ears, but one look at the systems told her she was still functional. She jammed her last dagger into the opponent's chin, activated the elbow thruster, and pulled Centium Prime's head straight off of its shoulders.