CHAPTER 2

Skirmish - Part 2: Costa Rica

Ice Storme looks back from the sidelines at the fans, who's heads are facing towards their lap at which they are holding their Laser Definition Monitors. He notices no one is cheering on Ice Storme's droid, El Infierno. It seems his reputation as a bounty hunter has overpassed what his work is really for. Only his customers can trust that El Infierno will not betray them; if he does, he will be assassinated. Ice Storme is not that ignerant to turn on his own team, because he knows that he can not kill 19 people on his own.

"Storme! Watch out," screemed Clouse of the Leviathan Corporation as he tackles Ice Storme to the ground. A collision between Dragonfly and Blackwing just exploded approximately 50 meters from where Ice and Clouse were standing. "Get off of me!" snapped Ice as he jerked Clouse off of him. "Your help is not needed for me... what happens to me, happens. I'm only here for the money. When this fight is over, I'm out of here. If you would have left me alone.. you guys could have claimed your precious credits back and you would probably end up claiming all my equipment. So just back off!"

"Chill out Decker, i'm only trying to help you out!" Clouse replied with a angry tone. "What did you just call me?" Ice yelled as his Sentinel just flew by him on the battlefield. "I called you a Deck-...."

Just before he could finish, Ice Storme punched him in his gut, sending him to the ground. As Clouse is falling, Ice smoothly whips open his trenchcoat, pulls out his Glock 9mm and aims it directly at Clouse's head. Clouse, frightened by the pistol, tries to make peace with Ice, attempting to convince him to put the gun back up. "C-c-come on m-man, chill out , I d-didn't mean anything b-by it."

"That's what I thought. Calling me a decker. Ha! A man who calls another a Decker, and then cries for help in a desperate manner such as this is truly the Decker. Isn't that right, decker?"

Clearing his throat in nervousness, Clouse replies, "Y-yes s-sir." Clouse flees from the scene scared out of his wits. "My point exactly," Ice concludes as he places his Glock 9mm back in its holster.

Ice turns his head, and notices only 8 droids remain: 1 Dragonfly, 2 Mammoths, 1 Stalker, 1 Blackwing, 2 Warlocks, and 1 Sentinel. His Sentinel is still alive in this battle. Thirty minutes have passed and still, no one has the doll. As Ice scans the arena for the doll, he can see a small figure of a sentinel which had to have been El Infierno! He scan the area, to find out where the doll is, the exact co-ords of where the Sentinel is located, and to find out how far El Infierno is in the programming. He scans the area, and finds that the doll is located at 23:63 and his Sentinel is heading for it from 45:59, which means that the Sentinel is more than likely going towards it to grab the doll.

The way Ice has the Sentinel set up, is that is will go one half of a mile, scan the area for enemies, and then continue to its destination. If there is a enemy, the droid delays its previous destinate and action, and begins the new action, which, in this case, would be to attack its enemy. It is after he kills the enemy, he returns back to going to the earlier destination. That is Ice's programming in more simpler terms that to read the raw coding and translating it.

El Infierno is heading towards the doll it seems, and there is no enemy in sight. Ice Storme continues to spectate the enemies to make sure El Infierno is clear. As Ice is scanning, he notices an enemy that just picked up El Infierno's signal and immediate pulls a 180 degree turn and his heading towards El Infierno. It is a BlackWing, from the KillJoy Corporation. The BlackWing's intelligence chip has obviously been modified, consider the action it had just done. The BlacWing, it seems, that it registered that the Sentinel was getting rather close to the doll, and was indeed heading toward it. After the BlackWing registered this accusation, he realized that his hypothesis was correct. The BlackWing immediate turned on his afterburners, allowing him to excess speeds 25 0.000000aster than he would normal fly.

El Infierno doesn't not have such a broadband, wide-ranged scanner as the blackwing, and it hasn't registered that the BlackWing is heading for it to attack. El Infierno continues on to his destination. Ice Storme starts breaking into a sweat as he remeber he forgot to equip the new scanner he bought with the work money on this job and realized he was running a Level eight scanner!!! "I hope he's gonna be alright. It will be hell to pay if he dies. It will take me at least 2 weeks to reconstruct him, if not more," Ice said as he was thinking of the consequences.

The BlackWing edges closer with its afterburners, and still, no sign of the Sentinel registering the BlackWings move. "What is wrong! Why hasn't he picked up the signal!? He's should be in range by now!" Ice is beignning to get nervous that the scanner, due to it's weak damage limit, is infunctional from maybe a Thermal Ray which could have melted the Ocult Robotics Chip... if the O.R. chip is damaged, it will not register anything except the doll and the powerups, since their locations are programmed into a "arena chip" by the Arena Hosts which is basically a chip that informs where all the locationsof powerups and dolls should be. Since Powerups and Dolls are static motioned, they can embed the coords within the droid before starting the fight... but since droids run in real time and change position constantly, the responisibilities of the O.R. Chip take into play. The O.R. Chip registers where all the droids are at all times, and records if the doll is picked up and moved. If the O.R. Chip is damaged, the radar recording looks as though everyone is cloaking and, if the doll is moved, that the doll no longer exists in the arena. So the O.R. Chip is very important, and if damaged, the Sentinel has no choice but to hope he makes it to the doll first.

Meters away from the doll, the Advanced Richter Scale mounted on the Sentinel is detecting something strong that is vibrating the earth. Ice looks at the Richter Scale Graph and notices that it's a light vibration, so it must be the aftershock of the jets on the BlackWing. "I hope El Infierno will understand that its a droid heading his way," Ice says to himself. The Sentinel stops and scans the area, 10 meters away from the doll. He scans that no one is in the arena. He continures on. Suddenly, he make an immediate stop right before he goes to grab the doll. He analyzes the data on the richter scale, and acknowledges himself that a Flying Droid is heading his way. He must act fast and grab the doll, or be dead.

Ice Storme, sweating like dew falling in a rain forest, begins to feel relief, but still is nervous of what El Infierno will do. Three droids remain. the BlackWing is closing in on the Sentinel. The BlackWing raising in acceleration faster than any known BlackWing has ever gone before. The AfterBurner begin to kick in once again... and he reaches El Infierno in no time.

A shot from the BlackWings Gamma Laser XXL10 was made. The laser screemed with anger as it was targeted head on toward the Sentinel. El Infierno detected the shot's firing from the vibrations it made, a slight resemblence to the Jet Engine.. but the vibration was slightly larger than the constant vibration of the jet, so it was easily detected.

A last hope manuever was made by the Sentinel.... The BlackWing making random shots and charging at speeding excessing over 175 miles per hour!!!! The Sentinel made a move that no one would ever forget that saw it.

"On my word! Did everyone see that! That move was by far the best move i've seen yet," the announcer screemed into the microphone as it echoed out to the crowds and sidelines. Yes it was true, this manuever was quite amazing comming from a rookie programmer.

"Yes! I can't believe it worked!" Storme cheered on as he was praised with excitement!!! El Infierno luckily detected the vibrations of all the shots and the BlackWing jet propellars, therefore he could analyze the distance of each shot and the droid... he then made a arena teleport to the coordinate directly beside him, luckily removing him out of target range and in range to grab the doll. The BlackWing buzzes past him. The Sentinel then spun around and began to fire at the falling BlackWing. Out of nowhere, a rocket flew buzzing through the air, and explodes the balckwing into small debris, only to wonder where that rocket came from.

Sure enough, the roket came from an allie of the team he is working for. None other than, Clouse's droid, Vextron, the mammoth from afar. "Dammit! That was my kill!" Ice Storme spoke with anger to himself." He glances over to his left, to see that Clouse was merely smirking at Ice Storme. "He will pay for that one. NEVER interfere with a bounty hunters work."

- Wes "Agent917" Hysell