The Mech Touch novel Chapter 38

What happened if a launcher spat out its entire complement of rockets at once? Something really fantastic and terrible, depending on who you asked. Miranda immediately became aware of the crisis and proved her chops as a young elite by throwing her sword forward while huddling behind her shield with both of her mech’s hands, making sure to crouch to present as small of a profile as possible.

The sword knocked a couple of rockets aside. Due to the safeties built into the warheads, they failed to detonate early due to their close proximity to the launcher. Instead, they flew or fell to the floor largely inert. As for the other rockets, the upper portion harmlessly flew past the crouching mech while the lower portion exploded harshly against the shield. Due to the decrease in lethality among all projectiles, the rockets failed to penetrate the shield, though they did cause quite a few layers to peel off. The force of the explosions also rocked Miranda’s mech backwards.

"Hah, I’ve got more where that came from!" Charlotte taunted as her heavy mech turned another 45 degrees so that her Kirby’s back faced her opponent at a straight angle.

"Shi-" Miranda got cut off as another volley of missiles came in her direction.

She tried to do a roll while keeping her shield forward. This successfully let her avoid most of the rocket barrage, though the lower corner of her shield finally fell apart from the few projectiles that managed to hit it with sufficient force.

Before Miranda could celebrate her survival, Charlotte’s final launcher disgorged its payload.

"You moth-"

The feminine mech finally escaped the last wave with the skin of its teeth. The few rockets that detonated against its armor managed to crater a portion of the chest.

"It’s checkmate for you." Charlotte gloatingly said as she kept turning slowly, allowing her to present her outstretched cannon and laser mount. The weapons at that side spat out a furious salvo that further damaged the bedraggled Miranda and her mech.

"Damnit, if it wasn’t for those stupid rockets, I’d have peeled your limbs off by now!"

Ever since Miranda dodged further away in order to escape the rockets, she lost the initiative. Her mech needed time to build up speed, and before she built up her momentum, Charlotte got a prime opportunity to sneak in a lot of damage.

The Kirby sinisterly aimed at the legs, hoping to impair Miranda’s mobility. A lucky high explosive cannon shell managed to detonate close to the legs, which stripped off the rest of the armor of the female mech’s feet. The force of the small explosion also unbalanced Miranda’s gait, causing her to lose crucial speed.

"Alright, I wanted to save this for the finals, but you leave me no choice now! Let me show you what Patricia gifted my mech!"

Uh oh. Ves bit his lip as Miranda finally took the match seriously. He knew that Miranda always kept something in reserve, as a mech designer as renowned as Patricia wouldn’t just let her partner go out in a boring stock mech.

The female mech’s back armor opened up to reveal a stubby flight system. Ves almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

"That fucking Patricia stole my design!"

Patricia not only stole his idea, she improved upon it. She expanded and sloped the back armor in a way that freed up space while not making it obvious a miniature flight system was attached in that location. The amount of engineering it took to create such a hidden surprise boggled Ves’ mind. He had to admit that Patricia possessed terrifying competence.

Miranda’s mech ceased to care for its damaged legs as the compact flight system allowed it to travel above the floor with sufficient speed. The light mech’s ability to dodge improved substantially. After building up sufficient speed, it flew towards the Kirby for a second showdown.

Charlotte gritted her teeth inside the cockpit. Her rear armor was burdened with empty rocket launchers. Though they already released their payloads, they still weighed her down a little bit. In addition, she sacrificed one of her shoulder mounts in order to fend off Miranda. With only one laser mount left, she was sorely pressed to keep off the looming threat.

The match entered another act, and this time even if Miranda had thrown aside her sword, she still possessed enough lethality once she unsheathed her backup knife.

Yet it never came to use, as Charlotte finally achieved a critical hit to the light mech’s weapon arm. Miranda managed to swap the knife to her mech’s other arm, but the damage it suffered when holding the shield caused the fingers to grip the knife unsteadily. The distraction allowed Charlotte to get in another couple of shots. When her next cannon shell impacted the light mech again, the competition’s inbuilt safeties kicked in and turned the projectile inert.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then cheered massively as they experienced an upset. The number two favorite of the Fusion Cup surprisingly lost to the 6th ranked contenders. Charlotte whooped through the microphones even as the people rooting for the other side stood silently, as if still not believing this was happening.

Both pilots exited the cockpits while technicians lifted the damaged mechs back to their workshops. Two pilots and two mech designers met in the middle of the arena to congratulate each other and shake hands.

Smugness overwhelmed Charlotte’s grin as she beheld her defeated rival. "It was a good match. I got lucky."

Miranda snorted at that. "They should penalize heavy mechs even more in these bullshit tournaments. Your mech weighs at least three to four times as much as mine."

"Well the rules don’t say you can’t bring one too. You’re welcome to join the heavy club. We got the fattest asses around!"

The defeated pilot just huffed in reply.

As the two pilots talked smack, Ves hesitantly shook hands with Patricia. Her gentle smile and soft, small hand mesmerized him for a moment. Being this close to her amplified the effect of her striking red locks and her lovely dimples.

"You did a really great job with integrating the flight system to the chassis. It’s a lot better than welding a couple of boxes to the armor like I did. If my mech partner hadn’t achieved a lucky hit at the end, then this contest might end differently."

Patricia shook her head. "Don’t belittle yourself. What you chose to augment worked out much better in the end. You chose to plug a gap while I doubled down on Miranda’s strength. I don’t think either choices are wrong, but as you said, it worked out better for you as the extra firepower was a lot more useful than flight capability in our matchup. To be honest, both Miranda and I expected to fight a medium or light mech. Yours is the only heavy mech in contention."