The Mech Touch

Venerable Maysha Emdis of the Trivaxis Helldoves did not share the mindset of a brute like her previous opponent.

Now that she encountered a new enemy, she did not intend to make a move.

No matter how much the newcomer insulted her, she still knew it would be a mistake to vent her fury at this instant!

Rather than fight one-on-two, it was better for her to stall for time until reinforcements arrived.

The Zeon Blademaster's lack of activity did not escape the Fridaymen expert pilots.

A private communication channel opened up between the Sulvar Mark III and the newly-arrived expert rifleman mech.

"This Hexer is very calculating. She's definitely waiting for reinforcements. We should gang up on her and see if we can't finish her off before any help arrives. While I can't muster up enough enough strength to finish off the Hexer, I can still pin her down so you can land some solid blows."

"I don't need your assistance." Ghanso replied to the older man. "My Charlemagne and Unit L are enough to defeat this fly!"

Ghanso's young voice and his arrogant declaration astounded Venerable Asmeran.

"Look, I may have acted unwisely earlier, but a rifleman mech like yours is heavily countered by a light skirmisher of equal strength! Even if that Zeon Bladedancer is not as fast and evasive as my Sulvar, it is still a light mech that can dodge all of your attacks!"

"You don't have to worry about me. If you want to contribute, then stay by my side and block the Zeon Blademaster if it suddenly draws close."

"Very well."

Venerable Asmeran knew that this CRC expert pilot possessed his own pride.

Just like the Vicious Mountainer, Ghanso Larkinson wished to utilize his greatest strength in order to develop it even further!

Yet just like before, Venerable Asmeran worried whether the Charlemagne would just waste all of its strength. After all, attempting to land a hit on an expert mech that was practically made for evasion was difficult!

The two Fridayman expert pilots exchanged no further words. Ghanso knew that the huge battle taking place around him did not afford him the time to chat and swap ideals with his opponents.

Not that he even wanted to. Hexers were incredibly repulsive to him. He harbored a special grudge against their arrogant women, though he did not let off their brainwashed boys either!

The latter were already too far gone to be saved! This was a truth that Ghanso only realized later as the CRC instructed him about the Hexers.

If he knew this sooner, he would have treated Ves differently.

The Charlemagne raised its large, oversized rifle. The Scara, the 50 rifleman mechs positioned behind the expert mech, followed suit.

For months, Venerable Ghanso Larkinson prepared this day. After so much training and exercise, he was finally able to link up with the Scara long enough to make a difference on the battlefield.

His Charlemagne charged another shot. If he wanted to unleash a regular attack, then all of this accumulation was unnecessary. Yet even if the Zeon Bladedancer boasted thinner armor than other expert mechs, they were still very resilient.

Only by employing his resonance strength would Ghanso have a chance of inflicting serious damage on his opponent.

The Charlemagne fired! A bright, dazzling blue-white beam raked just past the position occupied by the Zeon Bladedancer!

Venerable Maysha Emdis easily dodged the clearly telegraphed attack!

She did not even need to rely on her intuition or extraordinary judgement. She just had to keep one of her mech's sensors placed on the Charlemagne's rifle.

No matter what, wherever the rifle pointed at would always be in the line of fire! Observing the enemy mech's aim and avoiding its line of fire was a fundamental skill to all light skirmisher specialists.

As an expert pilot, she had long mastered this ability to an extensive degree!

Venerable Ghanso did not let this miss affect his mood. Against fast and evasive targets, it was normal to miss his shots.

The Charlemagne continued to resonate with its mech pilots as its rifle spat out three more shots in quick succession.

Even though Ghanso employed some technique and layered those shots to make it tricky for the Zeon Bladedancer to avoid getting hit, this kind of means was not enough to succeed.

Venerable Emdis was a seasoned expert pilot who had long prepared an answer against this trivial technique.

If this was all the Charlemagne could accomplish, then Venerable Emdis had no reason to worry!

"Hahaha! You're too young to make me break a sweat, little boy! Expert pilot or not, this little amount of skill and power is the worst I've ever seen! At least Asmeran forced me to fight seriously!"

Though Venerable Emdis looked down on Ghanso, she truly possessed the capital to do so. The resonance strength exhibited by the CRC expert pilot was noticeably weak.

Yet if that was all that Venerable Ghanso and his Charlemagne was capable of, then Master Huron and the CRC would never dispatch him to the frontlines of the Komodo War!

"I was merely probing you in order to establish a baseline of your Zeon Bladedancer's evasive capabilities." Ghanso dryly announced. "Even if you held back, I have enough firepower to end your life."

Venerable Emdis snorted. "What a big tone. Greater expert pilots haven't even dared to make that claim. Do you think those toy soldiers floating behind you can make a difference? Cannon fodder can never threaten the likes of us! It seems the CRC has truly degenerated if it believes it can overcome quality with quantity."

The Charlemagne prepared to fire another shot. True resonance swirled around the expert mech and its powerful rifle.

What surprised both both Venerable Emdis and Venerable Asmeran was that the fifty lesser rifleman mechs copied the Charlemange's actions!

Though their rifles were weaker and the glows surrounding their weapons were remarkably less intense, it did not change the fact that they dedicated fifty more instances of true resonance!

"What?! That's impossible!" Venerable Emdis reacted with shock. "Did you field fifty expert candidates at once?! How can evoke the same type of true resonance? This can't be done!"

"I thought you were an expert pilot, Venerable Emdis." Ghanso sneered. "Our kind is known for surpassing limitations!"

The Charlemagne discharged its weapon immediately after he finished those words!

At the same time, the Scara unleashed fifty potent positron beams in the direction of the Hexer expert mech at the same time!

Venerable Asmeran felt unprecedentedly threatened as he witnessed so many beams lighting up the local space in an instant!

Though the firepower of those lesser mechs failed to match that of the Charlemagne, the hint of true resonance empower their weapons had nonetheless increased the power of their attacks to a point where they could threaten any expert mech!

If a bystander like Asmeran already felt nervous, then Venerable Emdis had finally lost her composure!

Ghanso's timing was impeccable. Though Venerable Emdis had been on guard against incoming fire, the timing of it had still caught her at a slightly inopportune moment.

Venerable Emdis knew that the Charlemagne was the real threat out of the group of Fridayman reinforcements, so her Zeon Bladedancer evaded the main attack above anything else.

While it was fairly easy for her to do so, it was a lot harder to avoid the fifty lesser attacks!

All of them just happened to be fired in a remarkably coordinated zone around her Zeon Bladedancer. No matter where her mech attempted to evade, she would get hit by at least three positron beams!

Even so, the Hexer did not despair. She knew enough about the armor of her mech that regular positron beams did not pose that big of a threat.

However, it was only when her Zeon Bladedancer got struck that Venerable Emdis knew she had made an awful judgement error.

Alarms began to rang inside her mech as four surprisingly-powerful positron beams not only managed to pierce through its resonance shield and hit its frame, but also inflict serious damage onto its armor!

"This power!"

This time, Venerable Emdis no longer had any intentions to stall for reinforcements. The Charlemagne and its entourage had become enough of a threat in her mind that she didn't think it was unwise to linger any longer!

She didn't bother to bark a goodbye or offer any excuse. To her, there was nothing dishonorable about making a tactical retreat. Most of the time, light skirmishers weren't meant to clash head-on against strong opponents.

Though the Zeon Bladedancer's flight system became more active, allowing it to distance itself rapidly from the Fridaymen, Ghanso had already prepared his next volley!

Fifty-one positron beams struck the location of the Hexer mech and the surrounding area!

Venerable Emdis turned even more distressed as the integrity of her mech's armor system declined even further. Not even Venerable Asmaran inflicted this much damage against her mech!

She went all-out to preserve her mech even as it continued to widen the distance.

The greater the distance, the easier it was for her to evade the ranged attacks of the CRC mechs.

At least, that was supposed to be the case, but fifty-one positron beams raining down on her position all at once was still a massive threat!

Within the span of twenty seconds, the Zeon Bladedancer's resonance shield endured a considerable amount of attacks, causing it to quickly disappear.

A shield generator activated next. This was a rather unusual addition to regular light skirmishers, and even the Zeon Bladedancer had to give up some performance in order to incorporate this highly-miniaturized module.

Unfortunately, its strength was insufficient to repel resonance-empowered attacks.

The quasi-expert mechs of the Scara might not be able to inflict significant damage by themselves, but when they all pooled their strengths together, not even the Charlemagne was able to output so much damage unless it paid a significant price!

Against such a voluminous and highly-coordinated barrage, the Zeon Bladedancer could no longer hold on any longer. It sustained too many attacks for her front and rear armor to hold.

As Venerable Emdis became more and more distressed, she began to exhibit more and more judgement errors.

This allowed the Charlemagne to finally land a hit!

Once its powerful positron beam struck the Hexer expert mech, it just so happened to strike a damaged portion which already lost a lot of armor coverage.

The beam instantly penetrated past the remaining barrier and inflicted a huge amount of internal damage!

The Zeon Bladedancer jerked and froze in space. The mech had lost too many internal components to remain functional!

"It's over."

The Charlemagne fired one more leisurely shot that caused the Hexer mech to explode.

Venerable Maysha Emdis was dead! The Wrathful Witch that had long terrorized the Fridaymen during the past month had finally met her end.

Those who observed Venerable Ghanso Larkinson in action couldn't believe what they had seen. A single ranged expert mech accompanied by fifty special mechs had managed to take out a prominent Hexer expert pilot in a surprisingly lopsided fashion!

"Those mechs.." Venerable Asmeran observed the Scara with considerable doubt. "What are they?"

"They're the Scara. They're my retinue."

"Are they piloted by expert candidates or something?"

"It's classified."

Before they could speak any further, two more Hexer mechs arrived at the side of the broken Zeon Bladedancer.

"Sister Maysha! No!"

The Hexer expert rifleman mech and a Hexer expert space knight arrived too late. Only debris remained of the once-proud expert light skirmisher mech.

"You!" The Hexer ranged mech pointed its weapon at the Charlemagne. "You have spilled an honored sister's blood. I will settle nothing less for taking your own! Die!"

The Hexer ranged mech flew behind the male space knight and used its thick shield and powerful resonance shield as cover. The pair worked with such coordination that the Charlemagne could not possibly gain a firing angle on the more threatening of the Hexer expert mechs!

Yet this did not make Venerable Ghanso distressed. Instead, he grinned. Immobile targets like these were just sitting ducks in his eyes!

The Charlemagne and its entire entourage fired at the expert space knight!

Even though the defensive mech was extraordinarily resistant against damage, the concentrated firepower of fifty quasi-expert mechs was much more than the Hexer expert pilots anticipated!

The shield succumbed remarkably quickly and in the end, the male expert pilot had to sacrifice his life and mech in order to buy enough time for the female expert pilot to escape alive!

Though the Battle of Marraketh System had given birth to many heroes and heroic feats, this was the first instance where Venerable Ghanso Larkinson made a name for himself.

Defeating two Hexer expert mechs in his debut instantly propelled Unit L into the spotlight!