Capítulo 50: Chapter 12: Pilotmania Ramping
The target they were following as well as the tracks took an unexpected sharp turn to the left, though they are no where near the edge of the map. It felt more like a emergency evasive procedure, or an intentional detour, so far, it's impossible to tell which one it is, though the silent tension pulling against the air particles within the vehicle meant both Rydel and Roloni went on high alert. Rydel gripped the steering wheel ever tighter, while Roloni hooked his arms and fingertips around the triggers and then stacked the guns on his lap without making a sound.
The centripetal velocity threw both of them towards the right hand side, and onto the slight curvature of their seats. Rydel fought to maintain neutral within his seat, while Roloni pinned himself by propping one of his foot against the corner of his seat. They are closing in on the target ever closer, though the distance is unlikely to reduce as Rydel carefully maneuver's his way around the track.
The tracker indicated they are about a kilometer away from their target as the pair finally made their way around the curve and practically turned around 150 degrees to proceed in a new direction. The tracks are straighter in the foreseeable journey ahead, and it seemed to lead towards a certain opening far in the distances.
'Where is this going?' Rydel asked as Roloni looked down to check on the map.
'There is a clearing in about a kilometer in the direction of where we are going. Looks like some sort of a small valley.' Roloni said quickly as he freed up one of his hands to zoom out and get a better view of their surroundings, 'great location for a trap.'
'Awesome.' said Rydel sarcastically, 'except things would have to be really bad for a trap to be set in such a free for all setting.'
'I would argue that the chaotic nature is exactly why we should be wary. We don't know what the others are planning.' Roloni picked up all the guns once again as the opening inevitably gets ever closer, and both of them are able to get a closer look to what's about to come. This is not the first time he wished he had Cellica's powers.
The bright white blurry dots far out in the distance began to clear, as the distances towards the opening began to become smaller and smaller, so is the distance from their vehicle to their target.
The target vehicle is stopping deliberately.
Rydel can feel his heart pounding ever faster as he unconsciously began to decelerate out of caution, and Roloni was the one snapping him out of it. Aquarians have superior vision to humans, so he saw what's happening long before Rydel did.
'It's a trap! Do not slow down!' As they get to about two hundred meters away, Roloni shouted as he popped off the safeties of all of the guns, 'there are at least two vehicles are the end of this!'
'Two?' Rydel blinked quickly and licked his dry lips, the minty flavour of the caffeine pill lingers on, 'are two of the other people ganging up on us? What's the point of that?'
'Guess we will be able to find out.' Roloni reached to the back and picked up a helmet before helping Rydel to put it on and then for himself also, 'from the look of it, they are planning to get us good the moment we show up.'
'Yeah and our flanks will be completely exposed.' Rydel freed one hand to pulled the straps much tighter. He is starting to understand what the knucklehead sitting next to him is planning, 'so you are suggesting we forcing them to move out of the way?'
If they are going to ambush them as they emerge, the best way to counter that is to surprise them with aggression, and speed!
'Or we just wreck one of their cars first and then getting the hell away.' Roloni said, 'or we take them out by running into them, I don't know. The contact protection suits should prevent any casualties, but it will put them out of commission for sure.'
'Limiting their numbers advantage, for as long as we can.' Rydel nodded as he gently applies more and more pressure onto the gas pedal. In the case where everything is happening so quickly and all at once, the crazy and the unexpected is ultimately what yields the most results in a chaotic environment.
At least that's the theory, Rydel continued with the thought. The trees on both sides of the dusty dirt track flew by the vehicle as it continued accelerating at the blistering speed towards the opening. There was a mild panic amongst the ambushers after the unexpected acceleration of the vehicle towards them, and soon the weapons and drawn and bullets began speeding towards them.
The bullets rained down on the vehicle, and easily pierced through the multiple layers of protection. The non-existent of shield generators was overwhelmed in almost an instant thanks to the combined effort of twelve guns firing at it at the same time. Rydel did not expect the lack of resistance by the car, since he did check the reserves within the shield generators when he prepared the car before the competition even started.
Within another few seconds, he can hear the clicking of the engines as the moving parts began to complain about the excessive strain, and a warning signal showed up on the front screen, advising them to abandon the car before the fuel tank is pierced and they are burnt live.
'Cheap cars.' Rydel slammed his fist into the steering wheel frustratingly and said, 'this car can't take any more of this. Don't know how they plan to let any of us make it out of this round with these pieces of junk?'
'We have to abandon the car!' Roloni said what none of them wanted to admit, but all they can do now is to work with what they have, and Roloni knew what they have to do, and it's going to be complete madness.
'Shields, up!' Roloni said as he flicked on both his and Rydel's shield generator, putting all of the generator''s energy towards the physical damage side of things, 'You keep the car straight, I will do the rest!'
'What?' Rydel turned and looked at Roloni all confused, when suddenly he unclicked the safety mechanism on the door handle, and kicked the door wide open. Then Roloni slid one of the rifles onto his belt, released both of their seat belts, grabbed onto Rydel tightly around the hips with one of his arms and jumped laterally outwards from the car with such power and speed that Rydel didn't realize an Aquarian possesses. As he traveled through the air and saw clearly where the enemies are, he also came to a realization.
They are still moving at seventy miles per hour. It seemed like Newton's law of motion really messed them up this time. This is obviously not the very first time that Rydel has done live vehicle abandoning, though he never enjoyed the process. It is true that the shield generators will absorb most of the impact and prevent any surface level injuries such as burns and scratches just by the sheer mechanics of it detecting and undoing any object moving at dangerously high speeds like the ground in this case, but this maneuver will undoubtedly burn out most of the reserves.
Then, there is impact.
The humming of the shield generator exerting itself was all Rydel could hear apart from the yelling and shouts of the other contestants as they scrambled to duck away from the ramming vehicle. He continued to roll forward at dizzying speeds while the shield generator continuously spits out the particles at the maximum possible speed to slow him down, though the deceleration isn't fast enough, yet Rydel couldn't down anything fast enough before he rolled once again.
Roloni had lost grasp of Rydel, but both of them had no idea where each other is amid the spinning universe, and that's when Rydel ran into someone else.
It's another person within the competition. Rydel is fairly certain that he is not one of the recruits as he had met most of them during a couple of the social occasions. Must have been another student, or someone from the forces of the Grey Wolf?
It doesn't matter too much, as his momentum was carried onto him, and Rydel was finally able to stop. Quickly checking the reserves within his shield generator before crawling to the nearest cover, Rydel tried as hard as he can to focus and fight the dizziness grounding him, yet in the corner of his eye he saw Roloni already charging in and disarming two recruits and swiftly knocking them both out while spinning around and keeping the other two behind the wrecked cars pinned down with the rifles.
Rydel still couldn't move from the impact, and yet Roloni has already turned the tide of the conflict with his individual abilities. After disposing of those two, he sprinted towards Rydel and slid to lay low beside him before the other two returned fire.
'Do you...not...get dizzy?' Rydel struggled to speak as his shaking fingers barely held onto his rifle and pulled it out.
'What do you mean? I am completely healthy.' Roloni looked at him all confused before slapping Rydel gently in the face, 'get it together, human! We have a car to raid.'
'Yeah...you, are...right.' Rydel shook his head and pinched his ear, drawing on his pain to focus, and then took a few deep breaths. He gained some of his senses back to be able to at least hold his own, and that's when he heard the people on the other side of the cover shouting something.
No, not shouting. She is actually just trying to start a conversation, but Rydel is too disoriented to distinguish between the two.
'You are not the usual students around here. We know that, that's why we await you here.' A feminine sound with a slight crackle perhaps from all the yelling done before came from the other side.
'You outsiders came here to take away our resources, and our weapons. We will change that.' Another voice came through, it sounded similar to the first one, but in actuality they are from others, 'come out, we won't shoot. Let's have a talk.'
Roloni and Rydel looked at each other with doubts and confusion, then Rydel put his head up and took a quick peep before ducking down.
It is true, the two human females standing on the other side aren't pointing the guns right at them, at least not for a long time. With shield generators running on the last of its reserves, Rydel stood up and faced them. Roloni yelled silently at him and tried to drag him down, but it was too late.
'What talk do you want?' Rydel asked nonchalantly as he scanned around the environment with the rifle held in his arms pointing at the ground. Then he finally had a good look at the two human females standing in front of him, 'this isn't exactly the best place for chit chats. Woah, if you want a date, that's another story.....'
Standing by the crashed vehicles are two human female, one with blonde hair while the other rocked a brunette. Their facial features are extremely similar to each other, both looked stunning with sharp tall noses, big green eyes like gems stones and rosy red lips. If placed anywhere else, they would have been cover supermodels for the glamour magazines, but they are here, and they are dangerous. The brunette leaned against the wreckage with arms crossed while the blonde stood tall and prideful with hands on her hips. She was the one talking.
'You are funny, outsider.' The brunette said, looking at Rydel distastefully.
'We are here to claim what is ours, and our journey begin with the victory today.' The blonde explained, uninterested in introducing themselves to the two, 'Your organization has been hoarding onto the artifacts for too long, and we will prove ourselves worthy by taking them away from you!'
'You...are from the Grey Wolf's.'
'We are the daughters of the Black Wolf, and he was murdered by an Aquarian from your organization!'
'Yeah alright. Go ahead and challenge him then!' Roloni provoked.
'The time will come, yes. But just so you know, we are going to take you down if you oppose us, and it starts today.'The blonde said, 'our target for this round is you, and you have already taken care of our friends here, who are your targets. There is only one vehicle left that's still functioning.'
'Thanks for that.' Roloni murmured quietly as he turned to look at the third car towards his left. It was parked well away.
'Then why are we still talking?' Rydel asked while pointing towards the car, 'are you stalling so that more of your friends can come and rescue you?'
'Not that funny, outsider.' The brunette said again and turned her face away.
'I wish to challenge you to combat, human.' The blonde pointed her finger at Rydel, 'I will beat you, I will beat the Aquarian, and then I will beat every single recruit in your year, and the year above, and the year above. And then I will gain the nanotechnology enhancement....'
'And the Academy will just let you do it?' Rydel questioned, then he realized how silly the question is. The academy doesn't really care what the students' motivations are, but rather they just want to produce the strongest beings out of them, and that is why he is here and doing just fine.
The blonde girl seemingly knew exactly what Rydel is thinking, and she dropped down her rifles onto the ground without speaking a single word, then she held a pair of blunted practice blades in her hands, no bothering with guns since the use of shield generators and the fact they are quit close to each other made them less useful then the conventional melee weapons.
'Alright, let's do it.' Rydel shrugged, finally something he can confidently do since the start of the pilotmania even. Thankfully, close quarter combat is something he had been putting a lot of work in, 'less talking, more fighting? This is how it is?'
'What are you doing!' Roloni shouted from behind the rock, obviously not happy with how carreid away Rydel is, 'Screw this!' With that, Roloni rolled towards the side and then crawled towards the vehicle in a speed even faster than his inaquarianly sprinting, yet a spray of bullets that tracks precisely a meter in front of him consistently stopped him dead in his tracks.
'Don't go, the challenge is going to happen between sis and the guy. If you win, you can take the car, we won't resist.' The brunette, for once, is out of the shadow. She held the gun steady, yet looked casual in the process, 'just stay for a little while, Aquarian.'
'I have a name!' Roloni protested, but nobody responded to that, 'I don't know what's gotten into you three, but Rydel you better not mess this up.'
'Should be fine.' Rydel acted like he was nervous towards Roloni just to spite in, though deep down he is still rather cautious as to what is going to happen. He has trained and fought against females, for sure, but none of his previous opponents are representative enough to allow him to gauge the actual abilities of the pair in front of them. He saw the blonde girl getting into a ready stance, and turned to his companion with a hand reaching out, 'Roloni, can I have a pair of blades too, please?'
'....'
'Roloni?' Rydel turned to look at him, yet the Aquarian's got nothing.
'Yeah, about that.....' Roloni guiltily scratches his helmet and raised all of his arms up in the air, 'I didn't take any...'
'Are you kidding...' Rydel turned his head rapidly between the crashed car and the Aquarian before yielding. He grabbed the rifle and swung it a round a few times as if it's a club, yet the wonky mass distribution made it clear that it's not designed for that specific purpose. He threw the rifle towards Roloni, who caught it by freeing one of his arms, and then got into a combat stance, with his left hand forward.
The glove shined underneath the sun, and his opponent raised an eyebrow as she eyed it carefully, fearing a trap. The glove is able to protect his hand against real physical damage, so it will have absolutely no problem protecting him against the blunted practice blade, though he hadn't tried to punch someone with that.
Even if he get severely injured in the torso area, the suit will tighten up like the protective skin suits used in the Space Force special forces training. A neat mechanism, dare he say it. The actual damage doesn't even have to be actual weapons damage, or sharp objects. Like before when he gave someone a good ol smack down with a pair of table legs, any blunt object applied with sufficient can deal a decent amount of damage, though Rydel wasn't sure if his fist can achieve the same effects.
'Ready yourself!' The blonde shouted as she took three lightning fast steps and charges in, closing the few meters of distance in absolutely no time at all, the blades within her hands flew around in two neat circles and targets two different areas in Rydel's torso and shoulder. Instead of waiting for the attack to come to his space, Rydel also took a step forward and invaded her space. With both arms in front of him, he caught and pinned the blonde's arms dead in its tracks. Now, it goes from a battle of speed and skill, to a battle of strength.
Strangely so, he can feel her overpowering him as his arms slowly gives away to the overwhelming strength of hers, and the blunted blade tip approaches him slowly like a predator sneaking up on a prey.
'What the hell?'
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