Kapitel 53: How to NOT enter a Base.

Gray watched with satisfaction as Team 2 worked together to take the side door and head towards the mech hangar. "Nice work Team 2, hold the hangar until the timer runs out!"

"Why? Aren't we here to destroy them?" questioned someone from Team 2

"Our objective is to control 3 points, not demolish their mechs, although that is probably the most direct method to win anyways." Gray said.

"…Oh… so that's what those three flags were for…" someone from Team 2 laughed slightly realizing his mistake.

"Hold your position there and keep enemies out as best you can, we're going to take the command center!" said Gray.

"How? Are you with the main group coming through the hole in the front gate?" questioned the leader of Team 2.

"Uhhh, we're coming from the north… you'll see or hear us in about 15 seconds…"

__________

Gray, Geoff, Paul, and Yurika were all inching slowly down the slope of the mountain and found they were unable to climb back up in their current mechs.

"Ok guys, no point fighting it, the Command Center is closest to us, let's just capture it since Team 1 is capturing the main gate even if that wasn't the intention." Gray stopped fighting the mountain and started to slide down it faster. The plan was to use the slop of the mountain to reduce his sliding speed before coming to the ground level of the base.

"Gray! Use the towing wheels to build up speed!" Geoff suddenly yelled out.

Gray looked over at Geoff and saw him standing straight up as best as possible with the metal cylinders that acted as wheels when the mech was being towed into a gantry without a pilot.

"Hey that looks like fun!" Yurika shouted happily. Yurika looked around her HUD to try and see how to activate the towing wheels as well and then immediately activated it when she found it.

"Not you too! We don't have any brakes!" Gray said with great annoyance.

"Relax, I'll just retract the wheels and use the ground to eventually stop." Geoff said confidently.

"…Paul, it might just be you and me holding the Command Center…" Gray said dejectedly.

"…"

"What is it Paul?" asked Gray.

"Sorry Gray…" Paul said apologetically before laughing as he extended his towing wheels and started to pick up speed going down the mountain. "Whhheeeeee!!!"

Gray pictured all of them with goofy smiles on their faces as they giddily sped down the mountain uncontrollably.

"Damn you all making me look like the responsible adult!" Gray didn't extend his towing wheels but instead distributed his weight evenly to reduce the resistance to sliding and thus picking up a little bit of speed as well, but not nearly as much as the three idiots who did extend their wheels.

Geoff's mech had almost reached the edge of the northern wall of the base. Since this wall lined up against the mountain it was more of a catwalk built sturdy enough to support mech's patrolling the wall than an actual defensive wall.

"Ok, time to slow it down and slide gently in…" Geoff said to himself. Geoff's mech was in a standing tuck position with the mech's arms at the sides to help maintain balance. Geoff retracted the towing wheels and stood his mech up and leaned it back while now sliding at a very fast rate.

"I'm… I'm not going to stop in time…" Geoff said admittedly "I leave the rest to you!"

When Geoff said this the feet of his mech collided with the catwalk and caused his mech to flip forward he instinctively covered his face with his hands. With so much forward momentum the catwalk had no hope of stopping his mech and he ended up somersaulting over and over until he finally crash landed against a group of enemy mechs that were not aware of him since they were watching the main gate and attacking any of the attackers that came through it.

Watching this Gray pictured a bowling ball knocking over a few pins, sadly though it looks Geoff bowled a 7-10 split since a mech on each side of his pileup was still standing.

Geoff's engine was heavily damaged in the pileup so his mech was down for good, but he had created a nice pile of wreckage that plugged the northern most path the defenders were using to try to encircle the attacking mechs. Geoff's mech was down permanently so he could only sit in the simulator pod now and watch the match with the others that were destroyed this round. "Don't let my sacrifice be in vain!" Geoff managed to say before being disconnected and forced to only be able to spectate from the simulator pod.

"It was your fault in the first place…" Gray shook his head.

Yurika was not far behind Geoff and after witnessing his mech get flung from the momentum by colliding with the catwalk while standing tall, she hopped her mech at the last moment and retracted her wheels to try and land and slide like a baseball player slides into a base. Sadly her results were only marginally better. Her mech was already in the sliding position when she hopped making it look like she was giving a flying kick in her mech which would normally be impossible. Her luck was good though she did end up kicking another mech that had turned to face her mech as it was flying towards her. Yurika ended up knocking the enemy mech flat on his back and landed on top of him sliding off of him as her mech finally came to a stop after sitting on the head of the enemy mech.

Yurika noticed she had squished the head of an enemy mech by sitting on it and said jokingly. "Geez, take me out to dinner first!"

At this time Paul was happily rolling down the mountain and coming up to the wall. Seeing that Yurika was able to 'safely' land by jumping at the last moment, Paul tried to imitate how stunt men would stop their bodies when being tossed from a car by rolling. What Paul didn't know is that 600 tons of mech doesn't roll well… Using his mech's arms to protect the head of the mech, he tried to roll just like he remembered. Sadly, he ended up flopping on the front of his mech hard and then sliding. The slamming of the whole mech followed by coming to a stop after colliding with the wall of the Command Center severely damaged Paul's mech.

"I'm fine… just a bit of a spit shine and I'll be good to go!" Paul said jokingly while thinking "That was amazing and totally worth it!"

Paul attempted to stand his mech up, but the artificial musculature in his arms had torn and he couldn't push himself so for now he was only able to have his mech lay face down on the ground and play dead until someone could help him back up.

Gray shook his head with slight disgust as those three idiots either destroyed or severely damaged their own mechs while he maintained control of his slide and came to a stop by planting his foot against the cat walk. He then stood his mech up and stepped up onto the catwalk. Gray figured Yurika was the one in the best shape so he was going to help her first.

"How to get down from this catwalk though without walking over to one of the ramps." Gray mused to himself. "Yurika, I'm coming to you first."

"No rush, I'm just sitting in the middle of the enemy base alone and unarmed cause I dropped my rifle." Yurika said regretfully. "...and I really wish I hadn't..."

Yurika looked back towards Gray and saw an enemy mech come out from under the catwalk and aim his gun at her mech.

Gray looked down and saw the enemy mech advance towards Yurika from under his own mech while swapping clips in his rifle. "Time to be a bad ass" Gray thought to himself.

Gray aimed his Battle Rifle at the nape of the enemy mech, then stepped off the catwalk while firing a few rounds into the nape of the enemy mech causing it to fall forward. Gray stepped on the enemy mech's head, pushing the head of the mech down, then using the enemy mech to cushion his mech's jump off of the catwalk leading to the enemy mech getting it's face buried in the ground.

"Holy crap holy crap holy crap that actually worked!" Gray thought to himself excitedly. He then walked over to Yurika's mech that was unable to stand and Gray imagined her looking up at him with her eyes flowing with gratitude for saving her. Gray reached down to take her mech's hand and help her back up when she suddenly reached for the Battle Rifle in his other hand and shouted "Give me that gun ass hole!"

Gray's rescuing the damsel in distress image was shattered as Yurika grabbed the rifle from Gray and pulled him down using the momentum to roll her own mech up and kneel on Gray's mech before she fired off several rounds from the rifle into an enemy mech that was coming up behind Gray.

"I... knew he was there..." Gray said sheepishly while his mech was lying face down in the ground as Yurika's mech stood next to his with one foot on his back.

"Totally... you did look like a bad ass for a minute there, 'A' for effort."

Yurika helped Gray get his mech back up and retrieve her rifle and they both helped lift Paul back up to his feet. Unfortunately Paul's mech had lost the use of both of his arms so he was practically useless.

"'Tis but a scratch!" Paul said confidently.

"A scratch? Your arm's busted, both of them!" Gray said.

"No, it isn't."

"Well, then what's that?" Gray said as he pointed at Paul's limp mech arms.

"I've had worse" replied Paul

"You liar!"

"Com_" Paul started to say before Yurika smacked both of them on the head of their mechs.

"Shut up you idiots! We're still in a battle!" Yurika yelled.

"...Sorry..." both Gray and Paul both said apologetically but grinning to themselves.

Paul had fortunately landed next to the Command Center so Gray and Yurika took up defensive stances against the building while Paul was stuck with just being a lookout.

The 3 flags in Gray's HUD were now all lit up and a 3 minute timer began counting down.

"Now is when they will get desperate" Gray thought. Gray opened up the chat room of Team 1 and Team 2 and said "Hold these positions for 3 minutes and we win!"