Ravens of Eternity

249 Mechageddon Finals, Pt Silvermoon sped towards the hangars as fast as he could, and shredded any drones along his path. He came to a halt in the zone’s courtyard, which was surrounded by two rows of large hangar bays.

Which was exactly when Raijin’s signal vanished completely.

There were a half dozen of the hangars total, all of whom were uniform in size and shape. And they were relatively large at 80 meters wide and 30 meters tall – there was plenty of room for Silvermoon’s Dark Elf to move around in them.

His passive scanners peered at everything around him, but found only deactivated drones all along the hangar bay walls. They also hung in racks along the middle. His logic circuits determined that each hangar held 100 drones, though two of them were currently empty.

But other than the powered down drones, and the general energy readings from the hangars themselves, he found no sign of Raijin. He looked in every direction with his rifle held at the ready as he walked between the hangars themselves.

“Captain,” he said, “I don’t see Raijin here at all. Her signal vanished before I got here.”

“Did the zone takeover countdown start when you entered?” asked Mad Monk.

“Negative.”

“Then she’s still there. Use active scanning, acquire sensor confirmation, then eliminate.”

.....

“Yessir.”

Silvermoon performed an active sensor pulse at one row of the hangar bays, but nothing came up. At least, nothing beyond what his passive sensors already found. He then spun around and sent out another pulse at the opposite row.

His eyes went wide as a small signature appeared on his screen. It was miniscule, but it was filled with electromagnetic energy. And it was located in a nearby hangar.

He immediately sped towards it with his rifle at the ready – and saw a 30 meter high stack of armored equipment crates in the middle of a hangar bay. It sat smack-dab between two rows of deactivated drones.

Silvermoon grinned as he realized he had finally spotted Raijin. That small trace of energy was no doubt her ElectroStun pistol charged to the maximum. Even with all her dampening, there was no way to truly hide “hot” weapons.

Their energy readouts would always be incredibly high, and there wasn’t a technological way around it.

He fired numerous rounds into the stack of crates and easily tore into them. His rounds punched through them, and into the far wall behind them. The force of his shots also caused a number to clatter and fall.

Then he charged straight towards them, and slammed into them. They tumbled all around and scattered across the floor from the impact.

But to his chagrin, Raijin wasn’t there. The signal sure was, though.

Then, to his horror, more signals blinked on his sensors.

Drones all around him activated in unison. The lights on their chassis blinked on as the racks they were locked into opened up with loud CLACKS. The walker drones dropped down, and landed squarely on their feet.

They all turned towards Silvermoon’s Dark Elf, and without hesitation, fired their cannons.

The mecha was immediately peppered with dozens of rounds of ammunition at once. Though his armor easily resisted them individually, the mass of them quickly scratched, then gouged, then dented it.

Dark Elf was literally pushed around by the sheer amount of bullets, and Silvermoon struggled to maintain balance. And thanks to the sheer amount of ammunition thrown at him, many slipped through between his armor, and tore into the softer structure underneath.

Filled with utter panic, Silvermoon charged straight out of the hangar. He squeezed the trigger on his rifle and drilled into any drones in his path. Any that survived his assault were instead wrecked as he ran into them. Their relatively smaller chassis were thrown around from the impact of their collision.

To his utter horror, the drones simply followed him as he fled, and continued their relentless attacks on him. His mecha stumbled as he skated down the middle. He had been riddled with so many bullets that his internal mechanisms and joints began to fail him.

Alerts sped past his screen as more and more of his systems and modules shut down. A knee finally blew out, and Silvermoon’s Dark Elf fell to the ground.

He rolled onto his back and fired his rifle downrange at the swarm of drones that followed, but paled when he saw the drones from other hangars leap out of them.

Hundreds of them swarmed his position, and peppered his mecha with an overwhelming amount of ammunition. They leapt all around, even up top onto the hangars, and fired down on his mecha.

The last thing his visual sensors saw was Raijin standing high above on one of the hangars, her light blue Tsunami practically invisible with the bright blue sky behind her.

~

Mad Monk grumbled considerably as he watched Silvermoon’s name turn gray in his team’s comms. He absolutely couldn’t fathom how he had been neutralized, and was utterly frustrated at how easily a nonlethal mecha beat him.

Without his advanced sensor suite, they were practically blind to the rest of the battlespace.

He swept his frustrations aside quickly, and instead refocused his ire on Freya. If he could neutralize her quickly, then he could support Big Dorf and turn the match around.

Mad Monk’s Charlatan charged towards Freya’s Varulv with a zig-zag pattern and closed the distance between them with expert maneuvering.

He performed another heavy swing combo – a right hook followed by a left uppercut followed by a right lunge, and then a swift left knee. Freya evaded him with incredible precision and avoided each of his strikes by mere millimeters.

In response, she spun her spear vertically, which brushed against his chest armor as he leapt back to avoid it. Then she thrust its tip straight at his sensors. He was forced to parry it and back away with greater speed.

Mad Monk grit his teeth as he wondered where that fire was at the beginning of the fight, why Freya didn’t exhibit this much skill from the start. Then it dawned on him that they tricked them all.

The Ravens subtly lulled his team into a false sense of tactical superiority, and capitalized on it at just the right moment.

They were far more experienced than he initially gave them credit for, and chided himself deeply. Disappointment filled him as he realized he still underestimated them, even though he himself ordered his team not to.

Then he resolved himself and refused to get beaten. He – the whole team – had been through far worse and had come out on top in the end. This was no different. All he had to do was outperform his opponent, even as overwhelming as she was with her spear.

He wasn’t going to let some upstart pilots take away his victory so easily!

Mad Monk quickly parried another one of Freya’s powerful thrusts, but instead of deflecting it aside, he instead stepped forward and wound his arm around its shaft. He grabbed it hard, then couched its blade under his armpit.

His grip on it was practically absolute, and Freya could hardly budge it – the two of them struggled to maintain control of it. She changed up her grip and attempted to wrestle it out of his hands, but he easily countered her movements.

He did his best to neutralize her attempts, and kept a solid handle on her weapon.

“Get your own spear!” she said. “I need this one to perforate your mecha with!”

“See, that’s where we differ,” he replied. “I’ve got a few issues about being beaten.”

He drew back a fist, and jabbed her shoulder with as much power as he could pour into it. His fist slammed into it with great force, and dented its armor severely. The structure underneath was easily warped from the blow, along with some of the machinery underneath.

Freya felt the shock of it travel through her core.

Alerts flashed on her screens as her shoulder joint began to fail. Some of its inner mechanisms had been mangled by his jab, and critically damaged its functions. He slammed down again on it, which ground parts into each other and broke them into shards.

Her shoulder’s armor caved in on itself and locked itself into the structure underneath. Her crippled arm immediately lost all power, and her grip on her spear faltered.

“It was great fighting you,” said Mad Monk. “Truly an honor.”

“You haven’t won yet,” she retorted.

He reared back his fist, but this time aimed it for Varulv’s head, at its sensor cluster underneath. They may not have won yet, but once he neutralized her, his team would be able to pick apart the rest of the Ravens without a problem.

But his hopes were dashed when something punched into his own shoulder. It pierced right through the armor, past the structure, and deep in its machinery. It lodged itself between parts, and froze them in place.

Even more, the force of it was powerful enough to push Mad Monk to the side, and caused him to stumble greatly.

The CRACK from Xylo’s sniper cannon echoed a second later.

She watched from high above, and looked down at the frenetic skirmishing below. There, her two teammates had been deeply entangled against their respective opponents and fought fiercely against them in melee.

Though their fighting was incredibly furious, Xylo still found the right opportunities to strike.

She shot at both Big Dorf and Mad Monk all throughout the fight at just the right opportunities, and interrupted their flow. Even if she didn’t hit them dead on, her shots still caused them to stumble as they evaded.

Most of her shots missed, however, and embedded into the soft ground with heavy THUDS. It wasn’t for lack of trying – she simply didn’t want to accidentally hit her own teammates.

And so kept her aim careful and cautious.

She shot another round at Mad Monk in an attempt to dislodge him from Freya’s spear.

Mad Monk sensors went crazy as Xylo’s gun charged up. He attempted to pre-emptively evade, but was utterly stuck in position – he and Freya were still locked for control of her spear.

His shoulder’s armor splintered into pieces as another bullet slammed right into him.

Mad Monk was pushed around by the force yet again, though he tried his best to keep hold of Freya’s spear.

Sadly, his efforts were in vain. His grip had slipped, and Freya pulled the spear back from him decisively. She didn’t hesitate and thrust it straight into his midsection with as much force as her one good arm could muster, and dug deep into the armor and the structure.

And once she had driven as far as it could go, activated its coilgun and fired a slug point blank.

The slug slammed right into him, and wrenched his armor wide open. The force of it threw him backwards, and splayed him out as he stumbled.

Mad Monk fell to the ground right on his back, his abdominal armor ripped wide open. A few of the chassis’ modules could be seen just underneath the structure, some torn open from the blast.

Inside Charlatan’s core, numerous alerts sped across Mad Monk’s screen as those modules began to shut down. He lost more and more control of his mecha as power began to leak, and the energy drained from his primary battery.

Before he could repair and recover, Freya stepped on his good arm and kept it from pinned down. Then she skewered his head with her spear, and utterly destroyed the sensor cluster inside.