"I’m in trouble!"
"Did they all take stimulants or sothing? They’re fighting to the death!"
"AAhhhhh! Save !"
They suffered their first casualty soon after the sudden change. A knight ch got surrounded by two sword-wielding pirates. The defensive knight lacked the speed to fend off both chs.
One of the pirates deliberately chipped away at the energy cells stored underneath its thinner rear armor. Once the pirate struck the energy cells, they both turned into conflagrations that further disarrayed the chs around them and even crippled the other pirate ch.
"They’re suicidal!"
"Calm down!" Kanaan roared over the channel. "Ranged chs, suppress the pirate rifleman chs. Don’t let them set off any more chs. Everyone else, don’t hesitate to eject! If the pirates are eager to blow themselves up, then let’s oblige them!"
Kanaan’s words stabilized the Blood Claws pilot who had been wavering in their resolve. While it was dishonorable to eject too soon, the changes the Glowing Planet imposed on their chs left them with little choice. They’d rather lose a ch and save a pilot than lose both of them for a needless cause.
chs continued to explode left and right, but the Blood Claws always ejected from their chs in a tily manner. Once the threat of mutual destruction had been taken away, the pirates fell behind, as their reckless offensive turned them into mindless savages that only knew how to attack in a straightforward way.
Raella felt like she had the ti of her life. Her nimble Sliverath easily coursed through the pirate formation and harassed them from the rear. Often tis, she aborted her attacks and spun away, which distracted her targets and even prompted a couple of them to hit their self-destruct buttons prematurely.
"Hahahaha!" She laughed as she just finished toying with another ch who blew himself up for no reason. "Is this all you’ve got!?"
"No."
A swordsman ch almost struck the Sliverath. Only Raella’s keen reflexes allowed her to juke her ch away at the last mont. She turned her sensors and gazed at the ch that almost cut off her ch and cursed.
She faced one of the elites this ti. The command squad joined their suicidal subordinates and shored up their dwindling numbers. Raella happened to have the bad luck to draw the personal attention of one of those chs.
"What’s your na?"
"You can call Takeru. And who might you be, milady?"
"Raella Larkinson."
The two chs stood opposite of each other for a couple of seconds. Eventually, Raella made the first move. Her instincts as a ch athlete scread at her to make the first move since she piloted the lighter ch.
The Sliverath slithered forth in an undulating trajectory that had been this model’s hallmark. It didn’t offer as much speed as the Vectrix, but it made up for it in flexibility.
Raella cautiously jabbed forward with a knife, only to get deflected by a powerful counter-strike that continued to chop at the Sliverath’s head.
Fortunately, the skirmisher ch easily contorted its fra out of the path of the sword. Raella struck with her other knife, leaving behind a shallow nick on the arm.
"Damnit, what is your ch made of?"
The Slitherath didn’t feature any compressed armor, but the ch piloted by her opponent evidently did. This placed a significant burden on her as the Slitherath had to target the sa areas over and over to penetrate the tough compressed armor plating.
The dragon ch’s pilot was no slouch either. Takeru showed an unprecedented level of mastery in swordsmanship as the dragon ch wielded its sword in both hands with powerful, sweeping strokes.
The speed and power behind each strike left little openings for Raella to exploit despite piloting the faster ch. Takeru ruthlessly took over her montum and pressed the Sliverath back again and again.
"What the hell are you?! You’re not a regular pirate!"
"You are way too green to know how real pirates fight. Let show you the might of the dragons!"
The swordsman ch unleashed a flurry of continuous blows that left the Sliverath flustered. Both her knives kept being knocked back by the power of the rapid swirling sword strikes. As the Sliverath braced itself for another chop, the dragon ch suddenly lashed out with a kick which ruined its balance.
The sword chopped forth and struck an ugly rent in the Sliverath’s chest. Only Raella’s quick decision to go with the fall had saved her ch from being chopped apart by the shoulder.
A couple of long-ranged lasers struck the swordsman ch, but they did little but annoy it. Dietrich sporadically fired his rifle at Takeru’s ch, but the angle and all of the other chs in the way made it difficult for him to suppress the elite ch.
"Hold on, Raella! Help is on the way! My buddy Fadah will buy so ti for you to retreat."
She didn’t want to turn her back on this opponent. Even though Takeru outclassed her in both skill and ch, Raella wanted to prove herself as a warrior. Picking off those weak pirates didn’t cut it for her.
Before the dragon ch unleashed another attack, a second ch struck it from behind, forcing Takeru to abort his attack. A slim moon-shaped phoenix shield slamd into the dragon ch’s sword. The impact pushed the pirate ch away and allowed the Blackbeak to position itself in front of the damaged Sliverath.
"Raella, right? Your ch is in bad shape. You’re in no shape to fight any further. I’ll hold this bastard off for you!"
"No!" Raella growled, and tested the responsiveness of her ch. "I can still fight! Let’s take him down together!"
Her left arm had lost most of its motive power. The damage to the shoulder had been too severe. Raella gave up on the limb and focused solely on using the Sliverath’s right arm to deliver her attacks.
If her ch was in better shape, she would have insisted on taking on the elite ch alone, even though the odds of victory was low. Teaming up with Fadah had already pressed against her limits.
The Blackbeak ch shrugged and turned around to face the swordsman ch with its sword and shield. As a slimd down offensive knight, the Blackbeak wouldn’t fare well if it engaged in a straightforward slugging match against the pirate ch. Much like the Sliverath, the modified Blackbeak began to approach the dragon ch in a zig-zag and at an angle.
Fadah unleashed a couple of probing strikes, but Takeru aggressively deflected the attacks. He proved to be well-versed in dealing with faster chs.
Once Takeru got the asure of the Blackbeak, his dragon ch surged forward and went on the offensive. Fadah had to rely on his shield to block most of the blows.
Before the dragon ch could press the Blackbeak further, the Slitherath quietly appeared from behind and tried to stab the dragon ch’s vulnerable rear.
"Did you think I was blind? Your intentions are too transparent!"
The dragon ch spun his sword in a spin that deflected the Blackbeak away and left another dangerous rent in the Sliverath’s chest. Raella’s reflexes saved her ch again, if barely.
"Go away!"
"Screw you, doghead! I’m taking this bastard down!"
Both Raella and Fadah found themselves in a tentative uncoordinated dance against the indomitable Takeru. His dragon ch’s specs exceeded the Blackbeak by a fair margin, though it still ran on energy cells so it was vulnerable to the sa risks as the other machines that ran on the sa source of energy.
This enabled the pair to exploit this weakness by constantly threatening to attack the rear of the dragon ch. Even if Takeru didn’t think much of Raella, he still had to shift his attention to deflect her latest probe.
Dietrich tried to lend a hand but he never got a clear line of sight. The pirates had finally gotten their act together and sent out additional chs to shore up the first wave of lee chs.
Despite the precautions taken by the Blood Claws, chs continued to explode in a disturbingly regular interval. Kanaan had largely lost control over his n as everyone fought for themselves.
Only the ranged chs maintained so sense of order as they coordinated their attacks on isolated enemies. They didn’t dare fire their weapons into the middle of the grand lee for fear of setting off a chain reaction.
Unfortunately, the pirates didn’t hold as much scruples and constantly tried to aggravate the situation. This in turn forced the Blood Claws to allocate all of their ranged chs to suppression duty. The pirate marksn shouldn’t be allowed to set off any energy cells with impunity.
Takeru’s dragon ch suffered a few more nicks and scratches after a minute of back and forth. Despite being outnumbered, the pirate elite possessed enough skill to fend off both of its opponents at once.
"Hahahaha! Amateurs! Both your blades are dull! Without tempering your skill through life-and-death battles, how can you call yourself a ch pilot!"
"Shut up you criminal!" Raella roared as she pushed her anger into her damaged ch, willing it to slide the knife in the waist of the dragon ch. She completely forgot about the precarious risk of setting off an energy cell.
The pirate ch spun away in the nick of ti. Takeru even left another sword mark on the Blackbeak’s chest armor.
Fortunately, the Veltrex armor system held up decently well against the power of the dragon ch’s sword strikes. For all of its speed and elegance, it relied mostly on technique and montum for its bite. By pressuring Takeru from two directions, they prevented him from building up sufficient montum for a heavy blow.
Fadah gained more confidence and started to regain so of the initiative. He didn’t allow his opponent to wind up for one of his endless flurry of blows by making frequent but shallow attacks. He even struck with the edge of his phoenix shield to knock the dragon ch out of balance.
Takeru’s ch started to suffer. Even Raella managed to sneak so superficial stabs in between the pirate’s occupation with the Blackbeak. Takeru had to devote more and more attention to fending off Fadah’s frequent attacks.
At so point, Fadah felt sothing deep within him echo with the Blackbeak he piloted. Their connection sohow crystallized in a deeper form of synchronization. The line between man and machine started to blur, but only for an instant.
Fadah made his move in that brief window of opportunity.
The Blackbeak surged forth at the swordsman ch’s left flank. Takeru released a windmill chop that would have forced the Blackbeak to block with its shield. Instead of taking the chop head-on, Fadah angled the shield in a way that put the brunt of the force on the rim of the shield.
This gave his Blackbeak enough of a push to swivel around and put more strength into its stab. Fadah’s sword sunk into the dragon ch’s joints. The thin, flexible plates of compressed armor only blunted half of the force in the stab. The remaining power proved to be sufficient to disable the joint between the arm and the shoulder.
"NO!"
Takeru’s ch lost a significant amount of threat after Fadah succeeded in disabling one of its arm. Even though the dragon ch continued to put up a good fight with one arm, the ch obviously lacked a lot of power compared to before.
This allowed Fadah to be more unscrupulous with his attacks. The Blackbeak’s sword and shield started to hamr the tough exterior of the dragon ch. In contrast, Takeru could barely bite into the Blackbeak’s Veltrex armor with his feeble sword strikes.
It didn’t help that Fadah decided to stick his ch close to his opponent’s machine. The shortened distance proved ideal for the Blackbeak to attack with its one-handed sword.
The dragon ch anwhile couldn’t leverage enough distance to enable its longer sword to exert its full power.
CLANG!
The swordsman ch shuddered as Fadah shaved off an important armor plate from the dragon’s ch chest. Its internals beca exposed.
SHUNK!
At the sa ti, Raella took advantage of Takeru’s shock by stabbing the Sliverath’s sole knife into the shoulder blade of the dragon’s chs sole functioning arm. While her knife didn’t manage to cripple the arm, the damage it inflicted had severed a couple of minor systems, which reduced the pirate ch’s responsiveness.
"I will not fall on this cursed planet!"
"Oh shut up you pirate!"
Both Raella and Fadah went for the killing blow. The Blackbeak locked the dragon ch’s sword with its shield while ramming the tip of its sword into the exposed chest of its opponent. Raella anwhile positioned the Sliverath low to the ground and sunk the knife into the dragon ch’s knee.
Takeru’s ch lost its footing and much of its power. It fell down onto face.
"Get away!" Dietrich yelled. He’d always been keeping an eye on their duel as he fired his laser rifle in support of other Blood Claws. "He’s going to blow!"
Both chs retreated in an instant, already bracing themselves for the inevitable blow.
Yet instead of an explosion, the dragon ch’s cockpit ejected from the rear. Its powerful short-ranged boosters took away Takeru away from the battle and back to the besieged pirate encampnt.
"Damnit! He got away!"
Even though the escape spoiled so of the glory, Raella still felt good about winning against her first formidable opponent. She didn’t mind too much that she needed help.
"Thanks for the help, dude. Let’s go clean up the rest."
The fall of an influential pirate elite rippled throughout the rest of the pirate faction. Despite their fanaticism, the rest of the pirates couldn’t withstand the determined Blood Claws.
Even the command squad from the Dragons of the Void suffered casualties and Raella and Fadah tead up to dismantle them one by one. This ti, they didn’t let their pilots eject. They both aid to take out the cockpit from the start.
After half an hour of intensive battle, the Blood Claws won the lee, though it cost them half of their lee chs.
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