Gambling with Mechs

“Challenge accepted.” The Kasino King sat up right in his throne.

“Great, if I win, I want a one way ticket out of this place.”

Rollando suddenly coughed loudly over me. “Let's not forget who got you this far.”

I let out a sigh. “Also grant Rollnaldo whatever he wants.”

“Jacky likes apples.” Jacky neighed.

“And a sack of apples.” I added to my growing list of requests.

“Let's not forget about me too.” Eight butted in.

I looked back at the Kasino King as I shook my head. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

He grinned. “You're a smart man.”

“Muck you two… Just for that you're getting demoted, Recruit Number Eighteen." Eight irritability glared at me and her father.

Ignoring her, he continued. “Now’s probably a good time to mention that by royal decree, anyone who challenges me to a Gamble Showdown and loses will be executed.”

For a moment, I thought my ears were deceiving me. “Wait what!?... Didn't Eight just lose? Doesn't that mean you have to execute her too?”

He chuckled. “What kind of sicko do you take me for? I'm the King, of course I'm going to abuse my power and make an exception for my daughter… even if she just tried to overthrow me.”

I uncomfortably took a step backwards. “I don't know about this anymore.”

“It's too late to back out, you already issued the challenge.” Rollnaldo informed me. “Just relax, I got your back.”

“Enough chit chat. Let's get this game started.” The Kasino King snapped his fingers, as he began to glow with a golden aura.

Immediately, all the slot machines in the casino began to rattle and the roof started to retract, opening up to the blue sky above. One by one, the hundreds of slot machines in the area began sliding across the floor toward him.

“What the heck is happening?” I shouted over the loud collective rattling noise of all the machines.

“Just a little game I like to call mecha roulette.” As he spoke, a current of slots began to pile over him. As the machines glowed from the gambling sorcery he had just cast, they began morphing in size and shape while they merged together. Once his ability subsided a massive shadow towered over us…

“Is that a-?” I trailed off as I stood in both awe and fear.

Eight rolled her eyes. “I should have known that mucker was going to pull out that thing.”

Looming over us was an enormous white slotomaton mech with golden accents. It had no head or even a face for that matter. However, above the three reels on its chest was a small glass dome which the Kasino King sat inside of on his throne.

“Pip, I feel kind of weird.” Unexpectedly, Rollando had begun to glow with the golden aura from the Kasino King’s gambling sorcery, as well.

A moment later, he became encased in a shroud of light. His glowing silhouette began shifting into a more humanoid shape and growing to match the size of the Kasino Kings mech.

“What the pip?” As the light that had encased him subsided, it revealed a whole new form… He was no longer a two foot tall dice man, but a building-sized mech that tower over the High Roller Capital. His metallic human-like torso was red with black accents and on its back was a set of black rocket thrusters. Sitting on top of his torso was his cubed shaped dice head with a black V-shaped ornament on his forehead.

“Muck he looks even hotter as a giant robot!” Eight gawked at him as she bit her lip.

Suddenly, I myself began to glow. One moment I was standing beside both Eight and Jacky, the next I had been teleported into a cushy red leather chair inside of a cockpit that appeared to be inside of Rollnaldo’s chest. As I stopped glowing, I was no longer wearing my same clothes. I was now in a red colonial style military uniform with a black cape. Covering my head was a red dice-shaped helmet with black pips on all of its sides. It had a cutout for my mouth and two holes for my eyes where the dots should have been on the dice's four side.

“What's with the robots?” I spoke into a microphone that was on a control panel in front of me.

“That should be a given. I did already say we were playing mecha roulette. It's right in the name." The Kasino King remarked over his slot machine robot’s com system. From the wrist of his mech, he proceeded to launch a series of flares into the air.

The entire city began to rumble. Rising up around it was a circle shaped wall with sloped edges on the inside. Within that, on the ground, rose a slotted channel that was segmented in a black and red colored pattern with two greens mixed in. Each section had its respective number from double zero through thirty-six. The entire city had essentially become a giant roulette wheel.

A screen on the control panel of my mech suddenly powered on. “Pipping great, I don’t have control over my own body.” A voice whined from the terminal in front of me. Displayed on the right hand corner of the screen was a tiny cartoonish avatar that resembled Rollnaldo.

“On the bright side, you can still coach me through this.” Curiously, I began to inspect the dashboard in front of me, when something immediately caught my eye. “Is that a game controller?” Picking up the strangely familiar looking device into my hands, I pressed a singular button. My Rollnaldo mech suddenly jolted up then back down with a heavy crash.

“Watch it!” Rollnaldo exclaimed.

“So that’s how I control you.” Pressing up the left joystick, I was able to make him take a couple of steps. “This seems pretty straight forward.”

With the thrusters on the back of the Kasino Kings mech, he leapt out from the opened top of his palace and boosted himself over to this world’s version of the giant Vegas LCD sphere, which was over three hundred feet in diameter. Lifting it up, it displayed an image of his head on it. “The rules of this gamble showdown are simple. On the terminal in each of our mechs, it’s displaying a roulette betting layout and a balance of a thousand dollars. Like regular roulette, each time the ball is spun, both of us will be required to put down a bet using the touch screen, with the minimum bet being one hundred dollars. In this version though, we can use our mech’s to try and force the ball into our desired slots. The loser will be whoever busts first.”

“Seems kind of unfair that you get to be the one who spins the ball.” I retorted.

“I have no issue alternating the spinner each round.” He responded.

With that, the two of us stood across from each other with our mech’s staring each other down. With my life on the line, one way or another, this would likely be my final gamble showdown…