The Mech Touch

With the sudden arrival and outbreak of hundreds of violent and powerful beasts, the defenses set up in the Government District were slow to come online.

Part of it was because too little time had passed for the colonial government to complete the defensive arrangements.

Structural energy shields, turrets and physical walls were in short supply. The ones that did exist only held out for a short amount of time before the larger transphasic warbeasts broke through them by force, which was exactly what they were designed to do by their creators!

"Damnit, who created these beasts! Why are they so powerful and how much phasewater did those scientists pump into their bodies?!"

The defenses broke too easily, showing that the quality and the cost of the largest artificial creatures were exceedingly high!

"The scientists over at the Olena Volkova School of Genetics and Exobiology were crazy!" A more well-informed Davutan spoke out regardless of the consequences. "They promised to cultivate warbeasts that were powerful enough to compete against expert mech so long as their funding and phasewater allowances were high enough."

"What were those nutjobs thinking!? Granting the power equivalent to an expert mech to a bunch of feral beasts is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. To think that there are biotechs who were delusional enough to turn this into an actual research goal! How much phasewater has been wasted on this self-defeating venture!?"

"The original premise of this research project had a lot of promise at the start. Expert pilots are still difficult to recruit, and the rate in which they appear from the ranks is too slow to keep up with the projected loss rate. If we can deploy violent beasts in place of expert mechs at the cost of putting in more phasewater, then this could have worked out well for us. Don't you see how strong they are right now?!"

"They're fighting the wrong side! This is the problem with rearing warbeasts. Their control can always be subverted or hijacked by those that have managed to learn how they follow instructions. This is why human mechs are much better. Unlike bots or simple beasts, humans like you and I are much harder to subvert!"

Even as the people who were aware of what went on in the OVS figured out where the creatures originally came from, they could not provide that much useful information to the defense forces.

For one, many of the powerful warbeasts were mainly developed by Professor Murmillian Granse. The award-winning beast designer worked on another level compared to his colleagues and mastered way more advanced theories related to developing warbeasts than any other specialists in Davute!

Even though the majority of the unleashed monsters were actually failed or unfinished experimental products, that did not stop them from using their heavy bodies to charge through annoying energy shields or use their unnaturally sharp transphasic biometal claws and teeth to rip into the armor of any nearby mechs.

The vast majority of mechs present in the field consisted of standard mechs. It was impossible for them to be clad with transphasic armor plating.

As such, once the dangerous warbeasts fell upon their formations, the savage creatures easily tore through the thick layers of armor that should have resisted such attacks with much greater effectiveness if phasewater didn't enter into consideration!

"Ahhh! Help me! I don't want to die!"

"Why are you running away?! We'll all die if we don't fight back!"

"Why doesn't my mech have a flight system?! I am never going to pilot another landbound mech if I manage to make it out alive!"

"Screw this, I am out of here!"

Space knights equipped with thick alloy tower shields proved to be unable to hold back the aggressive warbeasts for long.

Enormous tears against their surfaces showed how useless it was to employ any layer of conventional armor against the might of these elite transphasic warbeasts.

"ROOOOOOOOAAAAA!"

A scaled tiger-like creature ripped a thick tower shield asunder with its claws before cleanly biting off a third of the torso of a R&R mech.

The impressive maw of the scaled tiger proved to be too much for the poor commercial mechs.

The large numbers proved to be a hindrance rather than a boon as the mechs physically collided against each other as they attempted to retreat or maneuver in a different direction.

The lack of cohesion showed that the mech pilots were largely unaccustomed to operating as a single unit outside of the parade formations that they trained for. The officers tried to rally the men together, but the sheer chaos along with other factors made it impossible for them to organize an effective defense!

Other parade mech groups fared just as bad for similar reasons. The mech pilots employed by purely commercial organizations never signed up for this and had never made any mental preparations to fight on this day.

Aside from that, the onerous restrictions on weapons set by the authorities deprived a lot of mechs from the ability to use their most powerful and effective armaments!

"My mech isn't carrying any ammunition for its gauss cannons!"

"My laser rifle is still locked!"

"What use is a sword when it can't even cut through this super beast's transphasic scales? They're way too hard!"

Although the weaker and less extravagant beast fell easily enough after getting attacked enough times, the ones that managed to survive the initial onslaught proved to be far more formidable than any of the mech pilots ever envisioned.

Even if they outnumbered these exceptional warbeasts by 100 to 1, the latter still managed to rampage with impunity as their transphasic attack and defense capabilities allowed them to fight as if they were wolves among sheep!

The rapidly spreading panic along with the continuous fall of mechs caused the attacks directed against these beasts to lose their effectiveness.

What was worse were the mech pilots who completely lost their nerve and ejected from their cockpit even though a beast was not even close to attacking them. Though they weren't obliged to defend the city against murderous monstrosities, they nonetheless incurred a permanent stain on their honor by fleeing before their mechs had exhausted all of their options!

"You... you dishonorable curs! Do you have no shame?! To think I treated you as my brothers. You have thrown away your chances of breaking through!"

"At least I get to live past this day!"

In the back of their minds, they knew that this incredibly cowardly act had essentially disqualified them from ever advancing to the rank of expert pilot or higher for the remainder of their careers, but at this time they couldn't care less about attaining greater power.

Their lives mattered the most to them and there was no willingness for any of them to sacrifice their lives for a bunch of strangers in Davute!

The fall of so many mechs along with the decreasing battle intent of the surrounding mech pilots encouraged the bloodthirsty warbeasts to attack even more!

While the mechs on land were getting shredded in rapid succession, the dark gray mechs that were capable of taking flight had already done so. Just as they thought they were safe, they came under attack by a different set of warbeasts!

There was no way that Professor Murmullian Granse had overlooked the existence of aerial mechs. The brilliant beast designer developed two different categories of warbeasts to cope against threats from afar.

"Ahhh! Those beasts are shooting lasers from their transphasic biocannons! The armor of my mech doesn't stand a chance! I'm ejecting!"

"Damn, this beast has wings! No wait, it even has an organic jet engine built onto its back! It's moving faster than my mech!"

The flight-capable warbeasts easily cut the aerial mechs to pieces. Without sufficient coordination or firepower, the machines that had taken flight essentially turned into target dummies that could easily be wiped out by the warbeasts that had especially been engineered to spread chaos and ruination behind enemy lines!

"Stand back, citizens! The cavalry has arrived!"

The military mech units assigned to guard Kotor City had already started to take action as soon as the threats emerged.

While they needed time to navigate to the streets where the beasts were let loose, once they came close enough they attempted to destroy the warbeasts with overwhelming firepower.

"All of the civilians in the vicinity have evacuated by now. We are cleared to open fire!"

"FIRE!"

A combination of laser beams and gauss projectiles slammed against the rampaging warbeasts!

Some of them managed to crack their scales and make them bleed, but the more formidable creatures managed to resist the attacks for a time!

"RROOOUUUUUAAAAA!"

The aggressive creatures instantly reoriented themselves to the greater threats. They began to counterattack in a variety of different ways, from spraying corrosive acids to flying over to where they were floating!

"Shoot them down!"

"We can't, sir! They are too tough!"

"Block them with our defensive mechs!"

"They can't! Their shields and armor are getting shredded with too much ease. Our mechs aren't equipped with transphasic gear."

"Spread out if that is the case. Make the beasts work for their kills! Call in backup from our expert mechs or ace mechs right away! We cannot hold these beasts for long!"

"Headquarters says they are busy! The nearest one is due to arrive in 25 seconds."

"25 seconds is too long! We will lose half of our machines at this rate!"

The military mech pilots tried to hold out as long as possible. Though they kept their fingers right on top of the eject button, they did not press it unless the warbeasts were truly close to felling their machines.

Each second they bought saved more lives!

Reinforcements from an unexpected group had arrived after a few more seconds had passed. Though the military mech pilots were glad to receive additional help, many of them became disappointed when they saw that the new arrivals hailed from the Planetary Guard of all possibilities.

"What are you doing here? This is no ordinary out of control mech! These are transphasic warbeasts! Your slime won't avail you much."

"We can at least try, and don't worry. We have another trick up our sleeve!"

The mech pilots of the Planetary Guard might not be as skilled as their military counterparts, but they possessed a much greater sense of duty towards protecting the citizens of the state.

As such, they bravely flew forward and used their array of nonlethal armaments to disable the flying warbeasts.

"Zap em!" A Planetary Guard captain commanded.

One of the winged creatures briefly faltered when three paralyzing lightning bolts struck its body!

"REEEEEEEE!"

Though the creature ultimately did not incur any significant damage, it did slow the aggressive beast long enough for another batch of law enforcement mechs to come close and activate their fluid projectors.

Enormous streams of slime engulfed the body of the winged beast. Though the creature violently tried to shake off the gunk, its ability to fly significantly dropped.

"Johnson! Bring your Pacifier and do your job!"

"On it, sir!"

One of the most unique law enforcement mechs to have come out as of late boldly approached the entangled beast and engulfed it with an aura that exuded pure tranquility!

Though the Planetary Guard mech pilots did not expect this glow to do all that much to calm down the beast, they became pleasantly surprised when the creature lost a lot of vigor and crashed onto the street.

Though the beast still contained a lot of rage and desire to kill the humans around it, the mystical glow of the Pacificer mech continued to subdue its ferocity, thereby suppressing it to the point where the other law enforcement mechs could continually pile up so much rapidly hardening slime onto its body until it became completely encased!

Even though the flying warbeast possessed deadly transphasic claws and teeth, there was no way for the creature to employ them effectively whenit had lost a lot of leverage due to being glued straight onto the surface of the street.

"Good work, Johnson! Let us proceed and tame these other feral beasts!"

"Gotta catch 'em all!"