Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 238

238 Quarter-Finals, Pt –

Pilot: Tourniquet

Role: Advanced Reconnaissance

Loadout:

Federal Shipyards “Prowler” Light Scout Chassis [B]

Myrmidon Technology “Longbow” Modular Rifle Platform [B]

Federal Shipyards “Adjudicator” Electromace [B]

Federal Shipyards “Eagle Eyes” DeepScan Sensor Suite (SM) [A]

–

.....

Tourniquet advanced forward cautiously in the Dark Forest, hyper aware of his surroundings. He was, after all, deep in enemy lines. His sensors were on full blast, but in a very narrow cone aimed straight at Xylo.

He ensured that she remained just within his vision, and kept her a painted target. This allowed his teammates to harass her as much as they needed.

And as his target continued to flank, he was forced to stealthily move behind their front line. Thankfully, the two heavily-armed Ravens charged forward and met with his own front line.

“Hardball, what’s your status?” he asked.

A female pilot came on his comms display, irritation etched into her brow.

“Your target keeps moving too much!” she complained. “My mortars aren’t hitting!”

“Refine your targeting intelligence’s processes,” answered another 8th Shadow Legion pilot.

“Easy for you to say, Porkbelly,” Hardball countered. “You don’t have to deal with this damned roach! Tourniquet! Can’t you max out your detection algorithms? At least make it easier for me to see ’em!”

“Signal’s as good as it’s gonna get,” replied Tourniquet. “You’re just gonna have to make do, alright!”

His teammates suddenly winked off his screen, which irritated him slightly. He tapped on a few controls, but couldn’t get his connection back.

“Stupid trees,” he muttered. But something didn’t quite sit right with him – the trees couldn’t disrupt comms, only emissions and signals.

His eyes went wide moments before an alert flashed on his screens. Tourniquet instinctively performed an evasive action in response and slammed his control sticks to his right. His mecha slid sideways, propelled by his left thrusters.

They blasted at maximum for just a brief moment – all they needed to do was get him out of the way.

A slug thudded into the ground where he just was, the force of which blasted bits of dirt into the air. Tourniquet spun around and turned to defend himself, and watched as Raijin’s Tsunami dropped down from above.

He squeezed the trigger on his rifle, and spat out bursts of fire right at her. But she quickly zipped sideways, and disappeared behind the trees. There, her already-spotty signal all but vanished.

He quickly realized he was a sitting duck, and sped off to his side as well. His mecha wove through the trees in a wide circle as he attempted to flank Raijin. At the same time, he drew back his sensors and widened their range.

But he still didn’t see a damned thing. He tsk’d as it dawned on him which of his enemies he was fighting. He had read all their loadouts prior to the fight, and knew who was who among the team.

And he knew the only way for him to get a bead was to perform a wide ping.

So he sprayed the area down with suppressing fire, then hid behind one of the larger tree trunks. While he was still, he sent out a pulse through his sensor cluster, and “swept” everything in front of him.

Multiple active sensor readings spread outwards, and bounced back everything they found. Every tree, every branch, every leaf, every blade of grass.

But not a single mecha.

A chill ran down his spine when he realized that she could only have outmaneuvered him. Since he had done a 180 scan, the only place she could have been was behind him.

So he quickly spun around, and fired another round of suppressing fire blindly into the dense forest. His rounds tore into even more trees, and burrowed their way deep inside the wood. His shots splintered them deeply. Some even burst out the other side.

But when he performed another active scan, it reported that Raijin’s Tsunami was nowhere out there either. Nothing but more trees, and the remnants of his bullets.

It only dawned on him where she had gone when one of her pistol slugs slammed into the top of his left shoulder. There was very little force, and it actually did very little damage to the armor itself.

Before he could prise it off, the slug opened up its capacitors, and unloaded their full charge into his mecha. Arcs of electricity coursed across his armor, sunk down into its structure, and found a home in its electric systems.

There, they caused mayhem and flooded his circuit with too much power. They ran up and down its fluid connectors, and overloaded them. With every node completely overwhelmed, his mecha was forced to perform a brief systems reboot to discharge the extra energy.

His mecha powered down completely, but briefly. His screens flickered off, then back on again after a few short seconds. During those excruciating few moments of powerlessness, he could only imagine what Raijin’s Tsunami was preparing to do to him.

When his systems came back online, and his screens flicked on, he saw her mecha as it dropped down to the ground right in front of him. He was briefly filled with horror, then realized that he was actually completely fine.

Tourniquet laughed as it dawned on him that this was the extent of damage Raijin’s Tsunami was capable of. He remembered that all she had was a simple stun pistol, and that was pretty much it. At best, she could stun him over and over and wait for reinforcements... if they came.

He grinned when he realized that since she didn’t have the upper hand, it meant he did. So he aimed his rifle right at her and squeezed the trigger.

Except, nothing happened.

His mecha didn’t move. His arms didn’t raise the rifle, and his finger didn’t squeeze its trigger. In fact, his mecha couldn’t move, even a single millimeter! He mashed his controls, and spun his sticks, but his mecha did nothing in response. He even flipped the emergency power switch off and on, to no avail.

Nothing he did made his mecha move in the slightest.

His mouth fell agape when a 2D animated chibi Raijin appeared on his screen. She had a huge grin that she combined with victory fingers made with both her hands. Then she danced across his screens happily, and bounced off their edges for the rest of the match.

“I have taken control of the enemy scout,” Raijin told her team. “I am lifting their sensor shroud... now.”

Freya’s targeting intelligence quickly refreshed itself as new sensor data poured in. Although the trees’ interference was still omnipresent, there was now far less signal scrambling. She could easily see where her target was, though the target itself was a little blurry, and its exact location wasn’t clear.

Which was fine by Freya – all she needed to do was get in range and start harassing her.

To her chagrin, the enemy mortar began to blast her instead. The trees in front of her erupted into jagged chunks of splintered wood. Worse, they didn’t stop. Mortar after mortar fell down in front of, and all around Freya. They blasted the trees and the ground in front of her, and caused the earth to tremble.

One of the mortar shells burst right next to Freya. She felt its waves push through her, and shook her deep inside.

Although Varulv was thrown into a tree which snapped in two, Freya quickly recovered and evaded out of the way. At the same time, another mortar fell and blasted the broken tree even further.

The ground shook as piles of dirt were launched into the air.

What remained of the tree began to topple from having its lower section completely obliterated, but stopped halfway down. Its branches became caught up in the other branches around it, and stayed somewhat upright.

–

Pilot: Hardball

Role: Artillery

Loadout:

Federal Shipyards “Prowler” Light Scout Chassis [B]

Federal Shipyards MP55p Machine Pistol [C]

Federal Shipyards “Baby Eagle” MiniScan Sensor Gun [B]

Myrmidon Technology “Bombardier” Concussion Mortar System (SM) [B]

Federal Shipyards “Adjudicator” Electromace [B]

–

Hardball gripped her control sticks as she scanned the forest in front of her. She held her pistol scanner in front of her and ensured that Freya’s Varulv was in her sights at all times. Although she didn’t have fine targeting data, she didn’t need it. All she had to do was pepper her path with concussive blasts. She even threw in a few machine pistol bursts downrange whenever she got the chance.

Her targeting intelligence predicted her prey’s movements and blasted her position with unrelenting determination. She riddled the area with her bullets or blasted trees apart with her mortars.

Not that they helped much. Panic began to overtake her as she watched Freya evade her shots, and got closer regardless.

That panic slowly spun into fear when she realized there was no stopping her opponent. She quickly leapt backwards and retreated from the engagement. Though she didn’t exactly have anywhere to go, it was certainly better than getting scrapped.

While she drew away, she continued to blast the path in front of Freya, in hopes that she could damage Varulv. Or at least slow her down and screen her retreat.

If she could do that, then she could rejoin the rest in the center... Or even take the center objective itself!

But her short-lived plans were cut short when a beam sliced through the tree in front of her, and cut right through her left forearm. Her mecha’s hand fell, cut just below the wrist, and tumbled away as she skated backwards.

Her machine pistol along with it.

Hardball quickly began to zig-zag and performed evasive maneuvers, but there was little else she could do. Freya’s beam followed her wherever she went, no matter how fast or how far she pushed her mecha.

Worse, her opponent’s beamcannon simply cut through everything with incredible ease.

It cut right through the trees around her, and caused them all to topple all around. The beam had clipped one of her legs, and lopped it off from below the knee. The lower leg fell off and tumbled away.

At the same time, the entire mecha lost its balance and fell, even as it skated. It too began to tumble and roll along the ground as its thrust equilibrium was thoroughly unbalanced. Without both of its bottom thrusters, it was completely unable to skate.

She quickly rolled out of the way as another of her opponent’s beams swept the ground in front of her. Even more trees were cut, and the soil itself was deeply singed and turned to ash.

To Hardball’s horror, multiple trees began to fall all around her, and threatened to crush her with millions of kilograms of wood.

She raised her arms up to protect herself from the impact... but after a moment, nothing happened. Like many of the other trees, these had gotten caught up with the others’ branches, and remained off the forest floor.

Just as she realized her mistake, another beam cut right through her other arm. She quickly blasted sideways and slid out of the way, but the damage was done. Freya had taken her arm, and the sensor gun along with it.

Without her sensors, there was no way to know where her opponent was. Her screens were filled with trees and static and random data. Without her other leg, she was as good as crippled.

And so, she did the only thing she was able to do – power down and surrender.

.....