The Mech Touch novel Chapter 52

Joshua smiled with satisfaction as he leaned back in his piloting chair inside his personal simulator pod. After months of grinding up the ranks, he finally broke past the Bronze League and entered the Silver League. For a teenager of his age, reaching such a height was impressive. Only the top 3% of the potentates in his grade matched or surpassed this result.

"Aw man, you’ve finally promoted. Looks like we won’t be playing together for a while." Triceratopsss whined over the comm.

Joshua, or TheSeventhSnake in the game, smiled back at his friend. "Hey, at least you won’t be taking too long to follow me up. You’ve been showing plenty of improvement."

"I got more time to hop in the game now that summer break is here. I mean, the mech classes are fine and all, but a real match always beats a dry lecture."

While Joshua didn’t entirely agree, he kept his opinions mum. "I’m going to go pick out a new mech to play with the big boys. Are you interested in helping me choose?"

"Nah. I got to go eat dinner soon. See ya later, pal."

As both of them went their separate ways, Joshua entered the market district of the game. He approached a familiar holographic panel and set the category of the items from 1-star junk to 2-star mechs.

The machines that appeared in front of him roused his interests. The mechs all looked bigger, leaner or more ferocious than their more primitive counterparts. He long dreamed of piloting a more powerful machine than his favorite Seraphim. While the flier was a great machine, he came to grow frustrated at the mech’s extensive limitations. Joshua longed to free himself from those chains.

As he browsed through the many light fliers the catalog held, a recommendation attracted his eyes. The market interface pointed out a new 2-star mech to him. One designed by a familiar name.

"Chasing Clouds? So that’s what you’ve been up to. No wonder I haven’t seen any 1-star designs from your account."

Joshua regretted not piloting anything new from the upstart designer. Though his products were never the best performers in their categories, they all possessed plenty of character. It also helped they both came from the same planet.

He looked at the latest product the fellow Cloudsman released. When his view was filled with the shiny chrome exterior of the variant called Mist Prowler, Joshua was blown aback.

"It’s just like the Seraphim."

He did not refer to technical aspects when he compared their designs. The Seraphim was a light flier that mainly relied on a marksman rifle to harass enemies from afar. He only got in close to melee range if he needed to change his strategy.

This Mist Prowler on the other hand lacked any flight capabilities. Not only was it a weight class heavier, it also packed more power in its limbs, allowing it to run fairly fast for a medium and dodge about with almost unprecedented response time. It largely mimicked the nimbleness of light mechs while possessing the power of a medium mech. This helps with adding strength to its melee attacks, which this urban combat mech primarily relied upon.

No, despite their differences, they emanate a similar presence despite their different playstyles. Joshua was probably the most intimate Seraphim in the game, so he had a nose for these kinds of things. The Mist Prowler was just as aggressive as the Seraphim, only in a different flavor. Whereas the Seraphim sought to seek and destroy the enemy in the most direct fashion possible, the Mist Prowler was content to drag out the hunt and slowly envelop their opponents.

"Hm, that’s strange. What’s with the stealth option?"

Adding a particle ejector to a hunter or ambush type mech wasn’t unusual. But Joshua couldn’t figure out why the designer added it to a mech with such a bright and shiny chrome finish.

Then he noted the designer incorporated his practically trademark Cloud Festive Generator right next to the ejector. "Ah, so that’s why."

Joshua had a lot of fun playing around with the Cloud Generator. It made him the envy of his friends whenever they teamed up. Though it served no practical purpose and often attracted the enemy to him, he liked to arrive on the battlefield in a bombastic fashion. He loved using it to play games with his opponent’s minds.

The mech was different from anything he played before, so he considered whether it was useful to purchase this mech. As his first 2-star mech, he wanted to pilot something familiar so he could leverage his best skills immediately. If he picked the wrong mech to start his career in the Silver League, he might lose too many matches, causing his hard-earned rank to demote. That would be a disaster.

"It’s from Chasing Clouds. I don’t think he’d release something crappy."

He trusted the designer. He sometimes felt there was a connection between them, an intimacy many pilots had for their favorite designers. Sometimes they became so enthusiastic they resembled fanboys and fangirls. Joshua liked to think he wasn’t so blind, so he took the time to scour over the specs and look over the simulations of the variant before making his purchase.

"Ah what the heck, who am I kidding. I’m totally going to buy this mech anyway."

Though the hefty credit price was a step up from the dirt-cheap 1-star mechs, Joshua never paid attention to even eye-popping prices. With a quick credit transfer, Joshua now owned the first handmade Mist Prowler.

As Joshua returned to his private area and entered the mech stables, he could feel the presence of the Mist Prowler. It demanded attention even as it wanted to stay unnoticed. The dichotomy easily caused confusion, but Joshua only felt more intimate towards his new mech. He understood the designer’s philosophy, having mastered the Seraphim. No matter how much the designer tried to make a subtle mech, he just couldn’t resist showing off. Why else did he include cloud generators and bright colors?

After a brief time of familiarizing himself with the new mech’s controls, he threw himself into matchmaking. As he wanted to put his mech to its paces, he chose to enter the gigantic Wartorn Instances mode. Even the smallest 50v50 map possessed plenty of space for him to work his magic without bumping into too many people.

The game finished matching enough players together, causing them all to enter their team’s lobby. Joshua took a look around. This was his first match in Silver and he knew that he wasn’t playing with people from Cloudy Curtain anymore. Once a player graduated from Bronze, the entire galaxy opened up to them allowing them to play with people tens of thousands of light-years away.

A big and bulky spider mech stood in the center of the room. The small crown hovering over its head demanded everyone’s attention.

"Alright guys, I’m NotchedHalberd, and I’ll be your captain for this match." A young man’s voice spoke out from the team channel. "As we’re all playing in the Silver League, I won’t bore you with complicated plans. I know only 10% of you will even listen to me. Instead, I just want you to keep one thing in mind: don’t all rush forward when the hatch opens up. We artillery mechs need some help fending off the enemy scouts."

Whether much of their team followed this advice, Joshua wasn’t hopeful. In fact, he planned to ditch his teammates and find an empty zone to hunt for prey. He could only really stretch his new mech’s capabilities by fighting without distractions.

The map eventually loaded and caused the bay doors to open. The map revealed itself to be a hot desert canyon like map. Groans issued out from most of the mech pilots, especially those that relied heavily on energy weapons.

"Fuck! It’s Scorched Canyon!"

"Goddammit, it’s so hot you can cook an egg on a rock. Who the fuck thought of this stupid scenario? There’s nothing here that’s worth fighting for!"

"90% of my loadout is based on lasers. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to sit here and afk for a while."

Hot environments impacted energy-dependent mechs disproportionately. In the real universe, mech outfits tailored their mechs to the local environment in advance. Unfortunately, Iron Spirit’s matchmaking kept the map the players had to contest over a secret until the match finally started. This always caused some mech pilots to wallow in misfortune while others danced with glee.

Joshua also plastered a smile on his face. While the Mist Prowler was not set up to fight in deserts, it nevertheless held a slight advantage. His mech’s offensive power only consisted of a few melee weapons. The lack of any wrist or shoulder-mounted weapons limited Joshua’s offensive options, but honed his mech’s strengths in a couple of categories that could be fully exploited in the coming match.

"Don’t let the enemy bastards take over all of the top ridges!"

The Scorched Canyon map featured an unusual layout with many winding cliffs and canyons. The final objective of this map was to conquer and hold an ancient alien ruin situated in a deep valley in the middle of a lot of cliffs. Holding the nearby high ground was essential in either sieging the valley or preventing the enemy from taking advantage of them. However, the top plateaus were inaccessible to all but flight mechs. Their presence was essential in taking over the map.