Chương 16: The Spar
Moses gulped nervously as he piloted his Paladin forward. Hex remained silent, but he could feel his battle partner's reassuring presence like a weight at the back of his mind.
<Are you guys ready?> Manuel asked over the transmission channel.
<Yes.> Came the reply from all four pilots.
<Okay, here we go!> Manuel exclaimed, and the thrusters on the back of his Paladin flared to life. Bright light exploded behind his lithe black mech as it brandished its twin short swords and shot forward.
Moses braced himself, immersing himself deeper into the connection that he shared with Hex. Their man-machine connection meshed at a deeper level as he forced his eyes to keep up with the smaller black mech that kept darting from side to side as it approached them, making it hard to keep track of it.
"I'll charge it!" Richard exclaimed and his own mech burst into a forward flight. His mech was a deep, earthly brown color, and wielded a one handed sword in its right hand. In its left hand, a black multipurpose rifle was charging up its shots. Richard's Paladin was a bit bulky, as it had multiple hidden modules within its frame. From the sides of its head, two small laser guns spat out beams of light and heat that tried to trace Manuel's mech. On his right shoulder was a mounted missile launcher. There were no payloads in he launcher, as it would be too destructive and wasteful to use them in this spar.
Richard's mech archetype was known as the hybrid mech type. As its name suggested, it was a mech that mixed in various notable features of the other mech archetypes. A sword from a swordsman mech, a rifle from a rifleman mech, and a rocket launcher from a rocketeer mech. These were the most notable parts of his hybrid mech that stood out.
"Shotgun mode." Richard grinned widely as he switched the mode of his rifle. The orange glow that ran underneath the surface of the riffle seemed to pulse before the brunette turned to the direction of Manuel's mech and fired.
Boom!
In the vast vacuum of space, an inaudible crack of RIchard's rifle reverberated through the frame of his Paladin. A dozen brightly glowing rounds shot out at rapid speed, approaching the direction that Richard's intuition had hinted at. As a Paladin pilot, his intuition was among the top, and he was sure that he could fight an entire company of normal mech pilots with his eyes closed as he was now.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Richard's rifle spat out rounds after rounds as he quickly approached Manuel. The latter did not sit in one place, constantly maneuvering his mech to dodge all of the shots Richard made like a slithering snake. With his mech type, and his better honed abilities, Manuel was easily able to predict the trajectory of RIchard's shots well before the rounds even left the rifle.
"You'll have to try harder if you want to hit me." Manuel chided from his cockpit. All this happened in the space of less than fifteen seconds, and in the next moment, Manuel's Paladin was already within melee range of Richard. Richard brandished his sword and gave a powerful sideways chop to block off Manuel, while also preparing to fire another round in the direction he predicted Manuel would dodge in.
What happened next blew Richard's top.
His powerful sword chopped nothing, slicing through empty space, while the rounds from his shotgun failed to his anything. Manuel's deep chuckle sounded through his cockpit as the more experienced Paladin pilot's war machine appeared behind his larger machine. Manuel did not waste any time, speeding off into the distance, while Richard's Paladin struggled to keep up with his pace.
"You are too hasty, Richard." Bethany's amused voice came in through the transmission channel that the four of them shared. Anthony and Moses concurred, and Richard's grumbling could be heard over the channel.
Moses had remained behind Richard just in case something like this happened. He brandished his sword as the mounted laser turrets on each of his shoulder glowed powerfully. Soundless laser beams sliced through the darkness of space as he tried to pin down Manuel's elusive machine. The closer Manuel came, the closer he actually got to landing a hit, but he constantly fell short.
Meanwhile, Anthony had started shooting at Manuel too, which added onto the pressure on the older pilot's shoulders. If he was not much stronger than themselves, and loaded with much more experience, then he would have surely suffered some hits by now.
In his mind, Manuel mentally raised his impression of the four a little bit. He was impressed at how well they were able to compose themselves against him. Although they had failed to hit him as of yet, the pressure that they put on his shoulders was definitely not little!
As he approached Moses' position, Manuel felt an increasingly bad feeling. Almost as if something or someone was watching him from right inside his cockpit. He was startled, but did not lose his cool. He had been around other Paladin pilots, and knew that there were many strange powers in this world. Perhaps Moses' Paladin came with an ability to induce mental stress on an opponent. He was not sure, but he did not discard the idea.
Meanwhile, Moses' shots were getting more and more accurate. He accelerated forward to meet Manuel in frontal combat, although he held back a bit on his speed. He wanted to be able to turn around immediately and give chase in the case that Manuel got around him.
[He will not get around us so easily.] Hex's voice boomed within Moses' mind. Moses nodded. He did not doubt his partner.
In Moses' eyes, it was like he was watching two different versions of the same movie. One was with color, while the other was bland and plain, as if it was in black and white. Most of his attention was currently focused on the image in black and white. His eyes flashed with excitement as he thought of the approaching black mech that was unaware that all his moves were laid out before Moses.
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