Mist Lion

**雾都雄狮** (romanized as **Wù dū xióng shī**, meaning **Foggy Lion**, officially translated as **Mist Lion**) was a Chinese competitor robot which fought in *King of Bots II*. Built by the experienced Cao Yu who had earned the 'Best Driver Award' in Season 1.5 while competing with Red River Hong, Mist Lion was the successor to Wild Beast from Season 1.

Mist Lion was selected by Di Yang during the opening rounds of Season 2, and joined his team after defeating Button Lee in its first fight, despite catching fire during the battle. However, Mist Lion briefly lost this position on Di Yang's team after losing to the British entry Rhino, by being stranded on a Grinder mount. Nevertheless, it returned to Di Yang's team after defeating Bullfighter in the redemption round, despite suffering from transmission issues and its opponent's flips. Mist Lion would next fight against Deep-Sea Shark and Thunder in a two-on-two fight, and immobilized the former, but ultimately lost mobility itself. Due to a late attack from Thunder on Mist Lion's teammate Cracked Sword, the battle was declared to have no winner, and all robots advanced. Mist Lion was then cut at the end of the following round, after Di Yang's team were defeated by Huang Jian Xiang's robots.

## Design

Mist Lion, much like Wild Beast and Red River Hong, was armed with a powerful spinning drum as its weapon. The weapon was more similar to that of Wild Beast, taking the form of a 'drisc', with two bladed discs at either end of the central shaft. As a result, the drum weapon was shorter than that of a conventional drum, but allowed Mist Lion to have wider wedgelets at the side of it, and the lighter weight of the weapon compared to Red River Hong allowed Mist Lion to use a four-wheel drive system. The robot was also somewhat invertible, running on two main wheels and two castors mounted above the drum, if the robot were to be overturned. However, an internal failure also saw Mist Lion quickly catch fire in its debut battle.

## Robot History

### King of Bots II (Season 2)

Before the main season began, Mist Lion competed in a two-on-two "warm-up battle" alongside teammate Saber, not included as part of the main series. The duo fought Doraemon and Agate in their battle.

At the start of the fight it was clear that Mist Lion's drum was not turning, so Saber engaged with Doraemon, which was attempting to spin up to top speed. Doraemon collided with the arena wall, and Agate missed its swing towards Saber, putting that team at an opening deficit shortly before Saber flung Doraemon into the arena wall, causing it to land upside-down. Emerald bumped into the weaponless Mist Lion, but Saber caught up to it, and Mist Lion was able to slightly push Agate back. Attempting to attack, Agate pushed its defeated teammate aside and swung its hammer at Saber but missed, instead wedging under Saber while Doraemon was counted out. The three active robots circled around each other in a two-against-one scenario until Saber found its way under Agate and threw it back. Another charge from Saber briefly buckled Agate's armor, although Agate responded with a slam of its own hammer which allowed it to drive Saber across the arena. Mist Lion and Saber then completed a pincer attack on Agate, again throwing up its loose shell, and Mist Lion then drove directly into the exposed back end of Agate. From this, Agate lost drive on one side, and Saber then threw it over. Agate had landed on the Grinder and could not swing its weapon, leaving it to be counted out by the referee, making Saber and Mist Lion the winners.

Mist Lion debuted in Episode 1 of *King of Bots II*, where it was selected by Di Yang to take on Button Lee in the second round of head-to-head battles.

Immediately, Mist Lion charged across the arena while Button Lee got its flails up to speed. The two robots eventually met each other, with Mist Lion proceeding to throw Button Lee upwards with its spinner. As it spun in recoil, one of Button Lee’s wheels buckled, severely compromising its mobility as Mist Lion charged into it once more. However, Mist Lion was having its own issues, as a fire began spreading immediately behind its weapon mount.

A burning Mist Lion momentarily destabilized Button Lee while pushing the blue axlebot towards a grinder and the red corner, which immobilized Button Lee for the rest of the battle. However, in doing so, Mist Lion immobilized itself by driving head-on into a spike strip; it was promptly hit by a nearby hammer, causing even more smoke to pour from within its center. Both robots were eventually counted out simultaneously, despite Button Lee’s attempts to keep its flails, body and unbuckled wheel rotating. As a result, the battle went to a Judges’ decision, which ruled in favor of Mist Lion, securing it the first place on Di Yang's team.

Mist Lion's position on Di Yang's team came under threat when the British robot Rhino was randomly drawn against it, with a loss at this stage sacrificing Mist Lion's place on the team to Rhino.

Mist Lion and Rhino collided head-to-head, with Mist Lion initially bringing Rhino off the floor with a powerful slam. Both robots then aimed their vertical spinners at each other, and Rhino ground away at Mist Lion's wedgelet, throwing sparks. At the end of this exchange, Rhino managed to wedge under the side of Mist Lion, and deliver a series of vertical spinner blows while driving it into the Grinder. The rotating Grinder absorbed Mist Lion, and pulled it up, which Rhino capitalized upon, delivering a light blow with its spinner to throw Mist Lion atop the Grinder, where it perfectly landed on a flat mount next to the arena hazard. With all of Mist Lion's wheels cleared from the arena floor, it could not escape, and the referee counted it out. As a result, Mist Lion lost the battle, and its place on Di Yang's team, to Rhino.

However, Mist Lion could rejoin any celebrity team of its choosing if it could win its Redemption Round battle against Bullfighter.

During the short drive test before the battle started, Mist Lion forcefully collided with the arena floor, and started to suffer transmission issues, with Cao Yu unable to drive Mist Lion away from the arena wall it had crashed into. With assistance from its opponent, Cao Yu repaired Mist Lion inside the arena, allowing the battle to begin properly.

"*I love this so much, this is what this is about.*"
— Emma Dumont on the sportsmanship of both teams

At the start of the fight, Bullfighter shot across the arena to tackle Mist Lion, which was not spinning its drum. This allowed Bullfighter to catch Mist Lion side-on, and used its four-bar flipper to throw Mist Lion into the wall. Mist Lion landed upside-down, and meandered over to Bullfighter on its back wheels, with Bullfighter missing its flip. Mist Lion finally powered up its spinning drum, although Bullfighter completed another lift on Mist Lion from a side-on attack, not quite turning it back over. Bullfighter followed this up by charging Mist Lion into the arena wall, where it briefly became stuck on one of its castors, although it managed to escape.

Mist Lion backed into Bullfighter again, posing no threat, and then drove into the Grinder in an effort to self-right, but was simply deflected by the arena hazard. Bullfighter responded by driving under the back of Mist Lion to launch it back into the Grinder, although this powerful flip did put Mist Lion back on its right-side up. Bullfighter's next flip was tentative, only propping Mist Lion up briefly, suggesting a decline in Bullfighter's flipper power. Mist Lion started to briefly suffer from radio reception issues again, outputting little movement and failing to spin its drum until Bullfighter caught up to it.

At the moment when the two robots reunited, Mist Lion's drum started spinning again, and Bullfighter fired its flipper randomly, allowing Mist Lion to take advantage and deliver a hit to Bullfighter's side using its drum. Bullfighter had also started lightly smoking due to an overheating drive motor, and as a result, Bullfighter ground to a halt near a Grinder. Smoke started pouring out of Bullfighter from a vent in the top, and the referee counted out the immobile machine while the suddenly victorious Mist Lion kept its distance. After winning the battle, Mist Lion rejoined its former celebrity captain, Di Yang, taking the fourth space on his team.

Through to the next round, Mist Lion was next drawn to fight alongside Di Yang's team captain Saber in a 2v2 melee against Drift and Storm Slasher, both members of Emma Dumont's team. Prior to the round, Di Yang nominated Mist Lion as one of the two robots he was willing to eliminate if his team lost, along with South Korean entrant ORBY Blade. However, Di Yang's team ended up losing two battles in a row, forcing the celebrity to choose between eliminating one of his robots or having Saber fight Drift and Storm Slasher on its own in a bid to keep his team intact. He would ultimately choose to fight on and as a result, Mist Lion was withdrawn from the battle, where Saber suffered a destructive loss to the opposing team, although Mist Lion still remained on Di Yang's team at the expense of ORBY Blade.

Mist Lion participated in the next round, teaming up with Cracked Sword to fight against Huang Jian Xiang's robots, Deep-Sea Shark and Thunder. Once again, Mist Lion was fighting for survival, with a loss potentially costing Cao Yu his place in the competition.

Mist Lion was initially absent until it pushed its way past its opponents, and Thunder drove onto the arena saws, which caused it to land on top of the evasive Mist Lion. Deep-Sea Shark was required to knock Thunder off its opponent, particularly as Mist Lion had ground to a temporary halt over the saws, due to one of its forks being wedged into the slot for the arena hazard. Mist Lion eventually backed away, but gyroscopic forces pulled it into the air, and Mist Lion landed on one of its own wedgelets, stranding it again.

Mist Lion remained in place for a while until Deep-Sea Shark hit the front of Mist Lion with its spinner, knocking its opponent back into the battle. Mist Lion avoided contact until Deep-Sea Shark launched a direct hit on the side of Mist Lion while pushing it away. It became clear that Mist Lion could no longer move with this side of drive, using only the gyroscopic forces of its drum to move outside of its circumference. Meanwhile, Thunder moved Cracked Sword into the grinder mount, inflicting severe recoil onto the bar spinner.

With Mist Lion clearly struggling for movement, Deep-Sea Shark attempted to capitalize and charged in, but directly collided with the drum spinner of Mist Lion and was thrown onto its front. Deep-Sea Shark's spinner threw sparks off the arena floor, but the robot did not fall back on its wheels, and slid into the corner of the arena, stranded on its front. Thunder moved in to try and free its teammate, but the referee counted Deep-Sea Shark out, and it became the first to fall in the two-on-two battle. Mist Lion drifted in to attack Thunder, but also ground to a near-halt in this corner itself, only twitching back and forth, leaving the battle up to Thunder and Cracked Sword. Cracked Sword joined the action, but Thunder guided the bar spinner of its opponent into the wall, where it ripped away an arena spike and lost all momentum to its bar spinner. Mist Lion was counted out at this stage, as it repeatedly backed into Deep-Sea Shark, failing to escape.

The battle proceeded between Thunder and Cracked Sword until the battle ended with Thunder driving Cracked Sword into the wall at the end of three minutes. However, Thunder then continued to attack, driving Cracked Sword into a Grinder after the robots had already been told to stop moving. Initially, the Judges were required to determine a winner of the battle, naming Thunder and Deep-Sea Shark as the winners. However, Di Yang objected to the decision, believing that rewarding a robot which launched an attack after time had expired would encourage other teams to attack their opponents in the same position, and worsen the issues they already faced with repairing their robots in between rounds. In response, the Judges and producers re-evaluated the battle, and concluded that no winner would be declared, thus saving Mist Lion from the potential elimination it could have faced if the original Judges' decision stood.

However, Mist Lion's respite did not last. In the following team battle, Di Yang lost outright to Huang Jian Xiang, forcing the celebrity to make a cut from his team. Out of nearly his entire available team, Di Yang opted to remove Mist Lion, eliminating it from the competition.

## Results

### Wins/Losses

* Wins: 2
* Losses: 1

*NOTE: Mist Lion's unaired 2v2 victory is not included, nor is its battle against Deep-Sea Shark and Thunder.*

## Series Record

*NOTE: The team also competed in the 2019 Opening Battle with the featherweight Red River Xiongfeng*.

## Trivia

* Mist Lion is the successor to Red River Hong due to both robots being captained by Cao Yu, although it is unclear whether the similarly named Red River Bull competing in Season 2 is related to these robots, particularly as Mist Lion shares many more similarities with Wild Beast.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/cvfgwd/king\_of\_bots\_season\_2\_episode\_7/ey46as2/