[MissMisstep: Jarle, what do you think is better when it cos to ch duels, a win with severe battle damage or a loss without scratch?]
"A win! You’ve got to win all the way! If you’re already starting to think about repair bills when you’re duelling another team, you’ve already given up." Jarle emphatically said. "The only way to earn enough credits to keep your chs in tip top shape is to keep on winning!"
In truth, even a top-tier team like the Velvet Fists couldn’t afford to wreck their chs in every match. Each duelling season tested the skill and judgent of each team. So knew when to give up early and saved up on repairs, while others kept on fighting past the point of no return and faced exponentially greater costs.
Explaining all of that took a lot of nuance that belied his public image as a daredevil. With his handso face and his half-shaved blond hair, Jarle presented himself as the ultimate thrill seeker who constantly risked it all and won.
His bold but slighty dim person also helped mask his deviously tricky fighting style.
[ZevHarper: Will we be seeing you in action this sumr?]
Jarle nodded inside his virtual cockpit. "I’ll be appearing in a couple of rallies organised by the ch Corps. Be sure to check the schedule in my profile page!"
Even as he responded to his many viewers, his DarkSpear silently crept through the rocky cliffs and hills of a desolate moonscape.
His ch’s high powered stealth systems ran at quarter strength right now. It did nothing to prevent a ch from seeing his DarkSpear if it had a direct line of sight, but it was sufficient to dampen his other emissions as long as Jarle stayed behind cover.
Finding the right place to hide happened to be one of his specialties. Under his expert control, he slowly crept behind the highly advanced swordsman ch that kept a wary eye towards its surroundings.
In 1v1 duels like this, if your opponent never showed up, he probably prepared an ambush. As a fellow Diamond League player, the enemy pilot didn’t let down his guard. An extrely complicated dance erged as a result where both sides tried to maneuver in their most optimal positions.
The DarkSpear held a decisive advantage over the swordsman ch. The latter excelled in open duels, and did not include any sophisticated sensor arrays capable of detecting stealthed opponents.
However, even if the swordsman ch only possessed a standard set of sensors, their overall quality ensured they’d be able to detect any approaching assassin chs once it reached a distance of fifty to a hundred ters or so. That gave the pilot enough reaction ti to set up a guard.
As long as his swordsman ch withstood the first blow, his advantage only grew.
With soft and asured steps, the DarkSpear slowly closed the distance to the swordsman ch. Jarle moved practically in sync with his ch. He beca completely imrsed in the act to the point where he stopped paying attention to the questions of his viewers.
He was on the hunt.
The enemy pilot had a brain, as he chose the most open area on the battlefield. A wide stretch of moon plains provided precious few opportunities to conceal an approach.
Jarle estimated the DarkSpear’s power and heat reserves and noted that he had less capacity in the latter. It didn’t matter too much as his estimates placed his ch’s capacity within range of his targeted distance.
He flicked the switch that activated the full-powered stealth suite. The DarkSpear shimred out of existence, and a low oppressive dampening field minimized its other emissions.
Jarle entered a highly focused state where he constantly adjusted the movents of his ch according to his judgent. He moved when his opponent looked elsewhere and sat still when he risked getting noticed. Even if the DarkSpear obscured its entire fra, it was very difficult to hide its footsteps.
He managed, sohow. He utilized a special stepping technique that allowed the DarkSpear to move forward briskly while leaving minimal traces behind. It utilized the slight uneven terrain to its advantage as no battlefield was truly flat.
The swordsman ch had no clue a deadly hunter approached its back. As the DarkSpear slowly stalked its way closer, Jarle’s anticipation built up to a heightening crescendo. Target fixation threatened to overwhelm his mind but Jarle made sure to hold back his urge to propel his ch forward.
"Now is not the ti."
His ch subsided a bit as it realized that Jarle had a point. The swordsman ch turned around abruptly a few seconds later. If the DarkSpear charged out at this point, it would have been exposed.
It beca a test of ti. Would the swordsman ch turn back around before the DarkSpear’s cloak ran out? It might be better for the assassin ch to begin its attack, for if it beca exposed at a distance, it would suffer a very bad fate.
In this, Jarle could only rely on his own seasoned instincts. Normally, he never really took simulations like Iron Spirit seriously. For all of its professed attempts at realism, it always seed to pale in comparison to the visceral feeling of piloting a real ch.
Yet the DarkSpear changed his outlook on the ga. He only purchased the gimmicky model on a whim as he was curious to see how soone could marry a spear wielder and an assassin ch. Ever since he entered the cockpit, Jarle had the sensation that he entered into a black hole. The ch hid a lot of depth, and he’d plunged straight into the hole.
By now, he must have piloted the DarkSpear through hundreds of duels. All of his viewers got to see his overwhelming performance in the comfort of their hos. Even now, his fans scread for him to wreck this swordsman ch and add another victory to his already swelling record.
"Not yet."
As Jarle’s ch only had around five seconds left of cloaking ti, the swordsman ch finally turned around. The mont it did so, the DarkSpear erupted from its hiding spot and charged forth in a blazing black missile of doom. The Festive Cloud Generator attached to its fra billowed out demonically towards the unsuspecting swordsman ch.
The enemy pilot’s ch blared an alarm. To his credit, he turned around fairly quickly, though the only thing he saw was a big black streak of vapor closing in on his ch. The pilot panicked and prepared to dodge, only to stop when he belatedly noticed that his sensors detected a ch at the forefront of the cloud. The swordsman ch quickly raised its sword in a guard.
"Too late!" Jarle yelled as his ch deftly veered to the left at the very last mont. Propelled by the full montum of a ch at the apex of its charge, his spear punched right through the swordsman ch’s chest and dealt moderate damage to its internals, barely missing the core shell of the power reactor!
The stricken ch received such as heavy blow that it had been flung into a half-spinning back throw. Even then, it recovered remarkably quickly. It continued to spin and kicked out with its feet, preventing the DarkSpear from delivering its coup-de-grace.
"You’re bleeding." Jarle grinned. "I can feel your power reactor failing."
The swordsman ch exhibited unstable movents as its entire fra suffered from a lack of power. Still, even at half its strength, the swordsman ch possessed superior strength and speed. Besides its awful chest wound, all of its other sections remained undamaged.
As if realizing its predicant, the swordsman ch threw caution to the wind and embarked on a furious counter-attack with all of its systems running past their peak. Its pilot needed to ensure a quick win, and he was confident that his damaged ch could handle an assassin ch out in the open.
Jarle grinned as he guessed his opponent’s intentions. "You’ve already died after I made my first blow."
His viewers howled for blood and started betting on how much ti it took for Jarle to finish it off. The shortest bet ranged from ten seconds while the longest one went up to three minutes.
Perhaps an average pilot might be in trouble, but Jarle had more than a decade of duelling experience. While he missed his daggers, the DarkSpear’s eponymous weapon jabbed and spun with expert handling. Taking advantage of its reach, Jarle kept the fumbling swordsman ch out of range while slowly chipping away at the gaping hole in its chest.
"Damn it, if I had my daggers, I’d already be peeling open this can of worms!"
It took an entirely different set of skills to handle a spear compared to a pair of daggers. What got to Jarle the most was that his opponent read most of his moves like he was an open book.
Despite his earlier setback, the enemy pilot was still a highly skilled swordsman. Jarle had to take advantage of his opponent’s failing machine to get an edge. In addition, after hundreds of duels, Jarle had slowly beco used to the unwieldy weapon.
After parrying aside another sword slash, the DarkSpear plunged forward abruptly with its strong legs and shoulder bashed the swordsman ch. It dealt relatively minor damage to its opponent, but successfully threw the swordsman ch off balance.
Even as the swordsman ch slashed wide in a last-ditch effort to deter an attack, the DarkSpear took the blow head on, allowing its free arm to be amputated while the other arm thrust its spear into damaged sections of the swordsman ch.
The victory ssage hardly sated Jarle as the virtual battlefield winked out of existence. This fight shouldn’t have turned into an open brawl. Almost every opponent he t as of late survived the initial charge and fought back with the ferocity of a wounded bear.
"This ch is getting kind of boring." Jarle spoke to his viewers once his cockpit shimred away and threw him back to his lobby. "Do you think I should pilot sothing new?"
His viewers expressed divided opinions. So wanted him to carry the DarkSpear all the way to the top of the Diamond League while others missed his more conventional skirmisher style.
Jarle grinned at the comnts and responded with a simple ssage. "I’ll think about it."
After answering a few more questions, he said his goodbyes and shut off his stream. As he erged from his simulator pod, he felt oddly empty now that he left the virtual cockpit behind.
The DarkSpear had a way of compelling him to return and assassinate more chs. Even piloting his competition chs felt hollow in comparison. Personally, Jarle figured that the novelty of piloting such a unique variant must have infected his mood.
While Jarle left the simulator room and headed for the showers, his agent suddenly appeared.
"Jarle! I’ve got sothing interesting for you!"
"What is it?"
"There’s this kid called Gavin Neumann on the line. He says he represents the ch designer who ca up with the DarkSpear you’re ssing around lately. He wants to enter into a minor sponsorship agreent with you!"
Jarle frowned at his agent. Minor sponsorship agreent usually netted him and his team a paltry sum. "I thought I told you to refuse all these petty deals. I’ve long grown beyond grovelling for pennies."
The early career of a ch athlete always revolved around money. Jarle rembered that he used to sign contracts for baby feed and dog toys back when he started out.
"Hey, it’s not like that. This is more of a temporary thing where you pimp the DarkSpear for a couple of weeks." His agent replied defensively. "Gavin is claiming that the ch designer is willing to design a customized virtual DarkSpear for you."
That attracted his attention. Like any ch pilot, Jarle appreciated custom chs. Unlike the general models on the market that had been designed to accommodate as many pilots as possible, custom chs allowed their pilots to bring out their full strength at any ti.
ch athletes like Jarle hardly ever showed any interest if soone threw a money chip containing millions of credits in front of his feet. On the other hand, the mont a decent ch designer offered to design a custom ch, they’d all be slobbering like dogs.
Jarle only kept his composure due to the fact that he’d rely be getting a customized virtual ch. Even then, his constant longing for the DarkSpear made it very difficult to set this offer aside.
"Tell more. How much work do I have to do to earn this custom ch?"
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