The Mech Touch

Leland's warning proved prophetic. The New Ylvaine Dynasty was one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the Protectorate. Under the leadership of their insane incarnation of Prophet Ylvaine, they didn't hesitate to kill their fellow Ylvainans in order to further their cause!

Right now, the Grand Church of the Grey Martyr lost its peace and serenity in the most awful way possible! A lot of locals already died due to the suicide attacks, and many more perished due to the subsequent stampede!

The worst part about it was that once the Ylvainans passed through the enormous main doors, they instantly became swept up by a battle between giants.

The True Believers hid numerous mechs throughout Krent and deployed them at the same time!

Even though the Protectors of the Faith maintained a strong guard presence around the grand church, a fifth of them suddenly turned against their comrades!

The treacherous Protectors stabbed their unsuspecting comrades in the back, disabling a substantial number of guard mechs right at the start!

This sneak attack not only affected the mechs, but also the footsoldiers! Random Protectors wearing combat armor or exoskeleton armor began to mow down both the masses and their fellow Protectors!

Total chaos ensued as Protectors fought against Protectors! While the traitors numbered fewer in number, they blended in so well that the loyalists constantly hesitated whether they should fire on their own!

As confusion and slaughter ensued around the grand church, the Avatars of Myth parked outside the church immediately adopted a defensive posture.

Commander Melkor tried to make sense of the confused situation. With Protectors fighting against Protectors, they were faltering in their attempts to fend off the mechs pouring in from the periphery!

With Ves and the others stuck inside the church, Melkor quickly knew what he had to do. He immediately issued his orders to Rhode Larkinson and the other Avatars in his squad.

"Leave the Protectors of the Faith alone as best as you can! Try not to fire back at them unless they focus their fire upon us! Our armor can take the potshots!"

"What should we do then, commander?!" An Avatar who piloted a Blackbeak asked.

"I want a Blackbeak in the rear to cover any attacks from rogue Protectors. As for the rest, take out the approaching unknown mechs! Make sure to check their transponder IDs first before you attack! They might be our reinforcements instead!"

Although the Avatars of Myth lacked combat experience, the quality of their mechs more than made up for it! The Ylvaine Protectorate wasn't as prosperous as the Bright Republic. The Protectors of the Faith simply couldn't afford to equip all of their rear garrisons with expensive mechs!

Therefore, the combat performance of the Avatars of Myth immediately overshadowed that of the surrounding Protectors!

With Melkor in the lead, the Crystal Lords fired continuous lasers at the approaching mob of insurgent mechs. The ramshackle mechs all stumbled from the ferocious barrage of lasers!

"This is easy!" A Crystal Lord pilot boasted. "The enemy mechs are all crap!"

"Pipe down and check your fire!" Melkor immediately rebuked the fellow. "Even if the enemy mechs are garbage, there are more than a hundred of them converging on the grand church! Don't attack them carelessly! Aim high or low and make sure that you don't hit anything but the ground or air if you miss! We can't afford to inflict any collateral damage!"

The awful part about this chaotic attack was that it took place in the middle of Krent! The capital city of Kesseling VIII housed millions of citizens, and Melkor couldn't imagine how many people in or around the church already got caught up in the fighting!

With so many mechs pulled into battle, the collateral damage was already ruining the exterior of the grand church as well as the rest of the densely-populated city district! The energy screens installed in the vicinity were barely active for a dozen seconds before they all broke due to the sheer amount of firepower thrown in their way!

Nowhere was safe! Many underground evacuation tunnels collapsed and any shuttle or aircar that attempted to fly away was shot down by one of the many insurgent mechs!

While the mechs deployed by the True Believers assaulted the grand church, they weren't shy about sowing as many deaths as possible along the way! Their trigger discipline was nonexistent and their aim frequently strayed towards office buildings, residential apartments, schools and other places filled with terrified Ylvainans!

The True Believers deliberately inflicted as much collateral damage as possible!

"Crazies!" Rhode Larkinson cursed. "How can they be so heartless as to slaughter their fellow Ylvainans?!"

"You're a fool if you expect any compassion from terrorists." Melkor replied while he carefully aimed the compact laser rifle of his Crystal Lord. "Watch your aim and don't descend to their level. If we accidentally kill even one innocent Ylvainan, we'll never hear the end of it! We can't bring any further trouble to Ves!"

Ever since the first sign of trouble erupted, he attempted to hail Ves, only to fail due to all of the jamming in the way. The True Believers prepared their attack well!

However, after numerous attempts, Melkor finally managed to open a weak connection! The Sparous Vize worn by Ves was an exceptionally expensive suit of combat armor and possessed a strong communication system!

"What's going on outside, Melkor?"

"It's bad! Some of the mechs of the Protectors of the Faith have turned traitor! We're getting swamped by a hundred enemy mechs!"

"Are you able to hold out?"

"The enemy mechs are numerous but weak." Melkor stated. "However, there's so many of them that it will take a lot of time to repel them. I don't advise you to step outside!"

"Damn! The underground evacuation tunnels have all been collapsed as well! There's no other way out!"

Both of them concluded that Ves had no choice but to hole up in the church and pray it didn't collapse over his head!

While a destructive mech battle raged on the streets, the interior of the church descended into hell! With the security and monitoring systems offline, it was impossible to pacify the panicking crowd of Ylvainans!

To their credit, none of the security guards turned traitor. However, they all had their hands full when random crazies popped out among the crowds and began to fire their weapons at the guards regardless of how many innocents were in the way!

Bodies dropped to the floor by the hundreds as a surprising amount of True Believers opened fire!

While most of the fanatics wielded basic weapons that barely dented the armor of the church guard, a small number of them employed heavier weapons that posed a serious threat!

The preoccupation of the church guard meant that they didn't have the manpower to spare to protect the bystanders caught up in the fighting. The reluctance of the guards to hurt the innocent hampered their attempts to take out the terrorists quickly!

During this time, Ves, Ketis and Lucky all entered battle mode. As the previous outbursts had already suggested, the main target of this large-scale attack happened to be them! Shortly after they found out that the emergency exits had been collapsed, a large mob of fanatics wielding an assortment of weapons barged in and began to fire their weapons wildly at Ves!

The Protectors of the Faith dispatched by Madame Cecily did their jobs and protected Ves and his companions from the attacks. They surrounded them and deployed mobile cover on the ground which unfolded thin, protective alloy barriers.

While they couldn't withstand a lot of heavy firepower, they nonetheless resisted the majority of the light caliber weapons wielded by the mob. For the moment, Gavin and Leon should be safe despite their lack of armor. Both of them huddled down to the floor and covered their ears against the noise of weapon discharges.

As for Ves and Ketis, both of them stood confidently in their respective combat armor.

"Just like old times, eh?" Ketis remarked in their private comm channel.

""Trouble always seems to find a way to haunt me." He sighed. "Don't move for now. There's nowhere else to go and our guard detail is doing a good job in repelling the mob."

Just as he said that, a large number of frantic fanatics pulled out grenades from their coats and threw them at his guard detail!

The combat armor worn by the Protectors of the Faith all activated their interception systems. Small laser mounts embedded into their armor bombarded the grenades with lasers.

While this function destroyed the vast majority of grenades before they arrived close to the defenders, a handful still slipped through and managed to detonate against the mobile barriers!

The ferocious explosions not only cracked some mobile barriers, but also injured the Protectors of the Faith huddling behind them! The grenades succeeded in creating some openings in the defensive envelope!

The crazy fanatics quickly fired their weapons through the gaps. Some of the shots even impacted the surface of the Sparous Vize and the Rising Red Dragon!

"Mr. Larkinson, get down!"

Ves casually waved his armored hand. "Weapons of this caliber won't pose a threat to me. You should worry about your own lives."

"Shall we test out our weapons?" Ketis asked with bloodthirsty eagerness. "I haven't killed someone in more than a year. I've missed this sensation!"

He glanced at her imposing armored form. "Don't shoot unless something dangerous comes up. I don't think this is the extent of the attack. The mob is barely even capable of killing heavily-armored Protectors of the Guard. If the True Believers truly wanted to kill me, they should know better than to throw some worthless bodies in my direction."

The True Believers sacrificed a lot of manpower and assets to launch a large-scale attack. Perhaps they spent a decade's worth of accumulation on Kesseling VIII to gather so many mechs and fearless fanatics!

Therefore, Ves, Ketis and Lucky each remained alert as they waited for the next shoe to drop.

They didn't wait long. As the mob of fanatics ran closer to makeshift defensive position, the thick and solid wall behind them suddenly collapsed!

A breach had been formed in a direction that every Protectors of the Faith assumed was safe!

As the dust and debris began to settle, a large group of fanatics armed with better weapons began to fire through the newly-opened gap!

A lot of Protectors of the Faith instantly fell into trouble as they became caught in a crossfire of attacks from multiple directions!

What was worse was that Ves and Ketis both became exposed to the attacks from the rear!

Ves and Ketis both came to the same decision and knelt to the ground. "Fight!"

Ves took careful aim and fired his Peaceful Repose through the gap. Currently, he loaded his custom ballistic pistol with a magazine filled with inferior Exil rounds. Each pull of the trigger expended 100,000 credits.

The expensive rounds left a blazing trail in their near-instant passage through the air. The powerful Exil rounds punched through the combat armor worn by the better armed and better equipped True Believers like butter!

Five True Believers fell from the first round alone as it passed through multiple bodies at once! As the Exil round lost almost all of its kinetic energy, it exploded in the body of its fifth victim, blasting the deluded fanatic's body into chunks of meat that were barely contained in his suit of combat armor!

While Ves carefully paced his shots in order to conserve his ammunition, Ketis shot her Udor with abandon!

The large, oversized laser pistol that looked like it belonged to a space barbarian barked out powerful laser beams that sliced through armored fanatics with ease! Ketis patched in her Udor into her Rising Red Dragon's targeting system, causing her to exhibit perfect accuracy!

Just as the attackers on the other side of the breach were almost wiped out, the stone ceiling above their heads suddenly collapsed!

"Ketis, cover Leon!" Ves yelled. "I'll cover Benny!"

Both of them threw their armored forms over their unarmored companions just as the rocks crushed down upon them all!