Ravens of Eternity

250 Mechageddon Finals, Pt While the majority of the fighting occurred all around, Jester stood practically paralyzed on the roof he was stationed on. It took almost all of his attention just to fight against Raijin’s infection of his circuits.

He only had just enough wherewithal to duck behind a reinforced awning and hide from Xylo’s penetrating shots.

Other than that, he was completely immersed in his own misfortune. Sweat poured down his forehead as he fought against Raijin’s Truesight Engine, which did a serious number on his code.

How it had so easily bit into his circuits was well beyond him.

There was a heavy PING as a heavy 200mm round ricocheted from the cover he was using before the CRACK from Xylo’s sniper cannon echoed afterward. It was clear she knew where he was, and ensured that he remained pinned down.

Not that he bothered or cared at that exact moment – he had a whole host of other problems to deal with.

Although he initially made serious gains and fought off Truesight expertly, it quickly learned his patterns and began to counteract him. Even before he could apply the countermeasures himself.

It was clearly something far more complex than anything he could create, and fighting against it was almost beyond him. Only his many years of arena combat experience kept him in the fight.

He decisively swept away entire chunks of code, even ones that were clean, and initiated multiple restore processes at the same time. His intent was to keep sweeping Truesight away until there was nothing left of it in his circuits.

.....

But the fact was, as long as he was directly connected to Kali’s Rakshasa, it always had a way to infect itself.

Even as fresh code filled the circuit, Truesight bled in and corrupted multiple lines within.

Jester was driven to madness at its effectiveness.

“Who the hell are these goddamned Ravens?!” he screamed.

Not that anyone heard him. Not that he cared if anyone did. He was too busy with his circuit’s defense – if he dropped it for even a second he was sure he would be down for the count.

He was so deep into it that he never saw as Xylo’s sniper gun charged up, well past its maximum.

This time however, she didn’t draw excess power from the rest of her team. Instead, numerous drones all poured in a portion of their own power to charge up her gun. The drones themselves powered down to the minimum as they were wholly drained.

Some fell over as their batteries and circuits were completely emptied of energy.

Then, once Xylo’s gun had reached twice its charge, fired straight into the reinforced block that Jester hid behind.

It slammed right into it with incredible force, and caused its reinforced armor to rippled outward from the point of impact. The bullet ripped through the block and out the other side with ridiculous ease, then slammed right into the middle of Jester’s back.

He was thrown forward violently, the sheer power of Xylo’s shot literally knocked his Kestrel onto its front.

Jester himself was stunned by the blow, and was knocked around in his core like a doll. Though he was strapped tightly to his seat, his head and arms were thrown forward. The whiplash easily dazed him for a brief few seconds.

And that was all the time Raijin’s Truesight needed to complete its takeover. Without Jester available to manually defend his circuits, it had free reign over its intelligences. It spread from line to line, node to node, and circuit to circuit, and took it all over with hardly a fight.

By the time Jester had recovered, it was far too late. His screens were filled with massive amounts of alerts, but his controls were pretty much dead. He tried to reboot his systems and mashed on his controls, to no avail.

He had lost. Miserably.

Jester slammed a fist down on his control console in anger and frustration at his complete powerlessness over the situation.

Outside, his back armor had been completely split open, along with the structure underneath. Any mechanisms and modules near where Xylo’s bullet struck were mashed and fused from the pressure of the blow.

Some glowed a dull red from the heat of the impact itself.

Xylo’s bullet was only stopped by the S-ranked armored core underneath it all. Even despite the core’s impenetrable durability, it was dented slightly from the impact.

Wisps of smoke from Kestrel’s charred electronics rose up from its torn up and mangled back. It simply laid there as power slowly drained out of it. It wasn’t long until it shut down completely and helplessly.

Jester simply sighed in the dark.

“Well, second place isn’t too bad, I guess,” he muttered.

But he didn’t sound convinced.

~

Big Dorf overcharged his repair module by a great amount and poured its focus directly on his wrenched shoulder. Swarms of repair nanites ate away at the embedded bullets and interlocked mechanisms. They chewed through any parts that had fused into each other and left wide gaps in between.

Then, they filled up those spaces with the leftover materials and held them in nanoscopic lattices. Though the patchwork wasn’t nearly as strong as the original, it worked almost as well.

And Big Dorf regained some use of his shield arm’s shoulder once again. He rolled it in place to check it, and despite the few cracks and clicks, nodded in satisfaction. It worked, and that was enough.

He brought it to bear just as Kali drove her axe towards him and blocked her expertly. At the same time, he reared back his glaive, and swung it diagonally across Rakshasa and bit deep into her armor.

The two of them exchanged blow after blow, the strength of which reverberated through the ground around them. Neither spared any expense as they poured as much power as they could afford into their swings.

Kali allowed her anger to seep into her once again, but was careful to control it as best she could. Her berserk rage definitely worked while she was on foot, but not so much inside a core.

She would be more liable to break her controls than her opponents in those instances.

Not only that, but her opponent this time could easily weather an all-out attack. His shield was simply far too robust, and though she attempted to wrench it away numerous times with her axe’s beard, she never once succeeded.

His shield was literally part of his arm, and there was no way to separate the two.

Instead, she channeled her anger into a fine edge, the same way Freya taught her to. She narrowed her eyes with a predatory glare and sought for a way to open him up.

And when he thrust at her with his glaive, she found her opening.

Rather than evading out of the way, Kali instead stepped slightly to the side and crouched low. The edge of his glaive scraped against an arm as she overcharged her legs. Then she sprang forward with incredible might and slammed into him shoulder-first.

The blow was incredible, and the force shuddered Big Dorf deep in his core. The sound of the impact reverberated around him as he stumbled backwards.

And while he was stunned, Rashasa leapt onto him and tackled him to the ground on his back. She grabbed him with two arms, and literally pushed his glaive arm and shield arm out of her way.

Then, she brought her axe down onto his shoulder with every bit of energy she could muster.

Its edge came down on his shoulder with a terrible wrenching sound as it cut through layers of armor and structure and mechanisms and electronics. It clove through them all and dug into the ground underneath with a heavy THUK.

She let go of her axe and left it buried partway through his shoulder and into the ground, which pinned it. With her hands free, she grabbed his head, and began to pull at it. She wrenched it side to side violently as she slowly twisted and tore it out of its sockets.

Big Dorf was utterly confounded – by the time he had recovered, she had ripped his Silverback’s head halfway off. His displays began to short out and blink off as their connection to his sensors were torn off slowly.

“Stop!” he yelled. “I concede, I concede! You win!”

Kali then let go of his head, patted his chest, then got up off him. She raised a fist into the air as she looked up into the stands floating above them.

Up there, the crowds cheered wildly at the Ravens’ victory. A great many of them were utterly shocked at the outcome – they had never seen the Dragoons lose a match so quickly. The clock was still ticking down, but every member of their team was out for the count.

Though the great majority cheered, those who were most shocked simply stood there with their mouths open. They were simply unable to believe what had happened. Even the announcer was dazed at the sight.

It took him a moment to compose himself before he faced the cheering spectators.

“The Conspiracy of Ravens have won!” he said with rising gusto. “What an incredible upset! They unseated the reigning team in their first appearance ever and are now this year’s Mechageddon Champions! Give it up for them! They earned it! You all saw it!”

The cheering erupted doubly so, helped along by Amal, Claire, Pelli, and Pio. They certainly tried to be the loudest, but they were easily beaten out by everyone else.

~

Less than ten minutes later, the top four teams found their way onto a large antigrav platform. It floated up in front of the audience where everyone could see the best pilots of the tournament.

The four Ravens stood at the center of the platform itself, on a raised dais. The other teams were at their sides, but on lower and lower stages.

The announcer was also there, and he introduced each of the pilots by name. To which the audience cheered for the victories they had won. Next to him was a ceremony official who awarded the pilots with their medals, which hovered in the air in front of their chests.

While the pilots were all awarded their prizes, streams of holographic confetti fell down onto the platform while a beautiful fireworks display lit up behind them in the distance.

Mad Monk leaned over to Eva as she waved at the crowd, a huge smile on her face.

“Congrats on your win,” he told her. “Your team thoroughly trashed mine.”

“You guys did great, too,” she replied. “I mean, I was a bit worried at first. You all had great moves. You yourself have a really great right hook. Really did a number on my shield back there.”

“Pfft. Trashing a single shield hardly compares to trashing an entire team. And, by the way, it’s unanimous among us – your move with the comms and the drones was brilliant.”

She turned to him with an appreciative grin.

“Thanks,” she said. “It kinda came natural to us to do it, honestly. The whole evacuate and defend thing? We did that so many times in the past year. Colonies all across the Federation needed help, and we came to call.”

Mad Monk glanced over at the rest of the Ravens and saw them in a whole new light. They were all tough, capable, and intelligent. And best of all, experienced. Not through some training sim or endless practice, but through real conflict.

It was no wonder they won it all so decisively.

“Well, you’re an incredible leader,” he said. “And give our regards to your tactician, whoever he or she is.”

Eva laughed lightly. Leader?

“I’m not the team captain,” she replied. “None of us are.”

Mad Monk was immediately taken aback. He couldn’t fathom a team without central leadership. He always found that people needed someone to rally behind. Someone to act as the glue that held the team together.

“We just have each others’ backs, that’s all,” she continued. “Also, we don’t have a tactician. Or a crew. It’s just us six Ravens, but two are up in the stands watching. We all just try to do what we can with what we’ve got. It’s usually more than enough.”

This utterly blew Mad Monk’s mind. No central leadership, no support crew. And yet they ended up Mechageddon champions on their first try.

His head shook in disbelief.

“How’re you all not fighting amongst yourselves for control?” he guffawed. “Most other teams would’ve eaten each other alive!”

“That’s the thing,” she replied. “None of us want control. We just wanna protect each other. As long as we do that, we’re invincible.”

.....