For the final event, someone gets the bright idea to hand out safety goggles, but the only person to put on a pair is some paranoid skinny guy. I'd be proud to take a piece of shrapnel in a robot war. The battle royal is an all-out robot melee-- a free-for-all fight pitting six robots against each other. Only the meanest, the deadliest, the baddest. The Master, Thor, Merrimac, Creeping Death, The Mauler.

The soldiers position themselves to kill. There's an eerie robotic silence. Smoke fills the arena. It's quiet. Perhaps a little too quiet. If there are doubts amongst any of these entrants, they should withdraw now. This will not be pretty. Hold on. Just wait a second. Something's coming! Something good. There's a last-minute entry! It's La Machine! La Machine, the robot of the people, a simple, elegant silver wedge. The invincible middleweight champ, who just stomped his opponents minutes ago. Now he's come to tango with the big boys. The crowd goes ape-shit. Everyone jumps to their feet. People high-five. Dads hug their sons. America is America once again.

The music starts. The melee begins. Robots accelerate towards the center. There's the screech of metal against metal. Movable drills buzzing. Power saws blazing. Sparks. Smoke. A robot sideswipes the robo-cam. Nooo! The robo-cam is our friend. It's an all-out robot demolition derby. Some join forces to do the tag-team robot crunch. Thank God I don't get weak at the sight of oil.

Some robots are mounting each other like horny farm animals. Is it a robot mating ritual? La Machine takes out competitors two and three at a time, knocking them over like tin daisies. Test Toaster One is shoved away. The Ball of Death swings, narrowly missing The Master. The Mauler takes a beating from the flippers. Creeping Death gets trapped in the hockey net. It's pure futuristic humiliation.

The crowd chants: "La Machine, La Machine." The Master gets tangled in a flipper. There's no question who's going to win. La Machine gets a running start, picks up speed and careens into the mighty but clumsy Thor. It's David against Goliath. The robotic monster is knocked off its wheels. It gets stuck on a flipper. Smoking and trapped, the once-mighty Thor is now a massive dinosaur caught in a tarpit. La Machine takes a victory spin amongst the wreckage of its weaker competitors. Robotic Darwinism is proven, leaving one survivor.