Welcome to Battle 9 of the Fowler Fic War Series 3.1 Qualifying Round, and today we have 4 more robots looking to book their places in the main draw later on.

We€™ve got one of the oldest vapourbots€™ latest incarnation, a rip off of Red Square, a character from Sonic turned vicious and an American Battlebot with a venomous sting.

3€¦
2€¦
1€¦
Activate!

And at the word activate, all the machines do just that. Charging across the arena, Drilla Killa 7 is immediately proved to be the fastest as he charges across and slams straight into the side of Slam Job, immediately dragging him up the wedge. He allows him to stay in limbo for a brief moment, before bringing the drill out, sending him off in a shower of sparks.

Tails and Artemis seem to have seen this as an excuse to fight each other, and with Artemis having a srimech, Tails has chosen to use his rear end to try and win this particular battle. What he doesn€™t exactly account for is the 12mm titanium which seems to come off better in the battle as it stops the spinning bar dead. Realising that trying to win this particular battle is futile, Tails moves away and goes to chase the other 2 machines that are still locked in combat on the other side of the ring.

What he doesn€™t account for, however, is that Artemis will chase him, and although their speeds are equal on paper, Artemis has the better acceleration and soon catches up with him, sliding underneath the rear panel, and flicking him gracefully into a air bound cartwheel with the spike. Having done a 540 through the air, he lands on the ground on his back, but fires the flipper, which just as gracefully as he got there, turns him back onto his wheels, before he flies off to his intended target.

Having deserted his new nemesis, Tails finds himself embroiled in with Slam Job and Drilla Killa 7 quicker than he expected as Drilla Killa 7 pushes him directly in front of him, Tails decides to use this as an opportunity to intercept and slides the wedge underneath as he€™s going past, narrowly avoiding getting himself trapped on the hurtling figure of Drilla Killa 7. He pushes him around for a while before rolling him over with the flipper. The Battlebot tries to fight back by self-righting, but finds himself underneath the wedge again, and shoved into the fence, where he is again flipped, but this time onto his side against the wall, where he has no direct way of self-righting.

Artemis has used the opportunity to attack Drilla Killa 7 who is still wondering where the robot whose butt he was whooping, getting underneath the rear inverted wedge of the parallelogram and shoving him into the wall before trying to repeat Tails€™ trick with Slam Job. Due to the angle and length of Drilla Killa 7 it doesn€™t work, but it does punch straight through the 5mm titanium, and although not evident until later, takes out the use of the inverted wedges€™ drill.
Slam Job is impatiently trying to flick his axe around to wrangle himself free of the side wall, but he can€™t get away, and the tannoy system counts him out to make him the first victim of this battle.

Tails now seems to have decided to pick a fight with Drilla Killa 7, having now disposed of his intended target, and also having established that Artemis is too strong for him. Artemis seems all too happy to have aid in disposing of his target, and moves away to rest his batteries for a minute and to allow Tails to have a go at him. This time Tails uses the rear-mounted spinning weapon and has far more success as the hammerheads break into the 5mm titanium with not too much hassle. Drilla Killa 7 tries to move away from the Sonic character, only to find that Tails is more manouvreable, and he slides under the back wedge, this time with the flipper and sends him inverted.

It€™s at this point that Rich discovers the loss of his precious drill, as he tries to bring it out for use as a ramming weapon, only to discover that the damned thing isn€™t moving. Artemis comes charging in at Drilla Killa 7, only to be greeted by the wedge, and as the 2 almost clearanceless wedges meet, it€™s Artemis that is thrown over by the force of the impact. Drilla Killa 7 charges in under the inverted robot to try and slam him into the fence, but Dan€™s machine just flips itself off the wedge and back onto the ground. Cursing his luck Rich tries to mount another attack on the Welsh Wonder, but Tails intercepts as he did with Slam Job earlier, only this time it€™s Drilla Killa 7 he€™s attacking.

Slamming into him with the rear bar, he again rips into the side panel, although it stops the bar, and Rich uses this opportunity to move Drilla Killa 7 away from Steve€™s machine. The attacking is relentless however, and Rich soon finds himself confronted with Artemis, who slides underneath the front wedge this time, and rams him into the fence. With Rich safely on the wedge, Dan performs the highest successful launch of the series, throwing Rich€™s machine around 55cm into the air, and out of the arena.

CEASE

Artemis is art indeed, while Tails isn€™t all fiction. Drilla Killa 7 and Slam Job go out.