The battlefield beca crowded with chs, both active and disabled ones. The majority of ch designers had pushed their works onto the field. Even if they were unwilling, they had to release their chs in order to stand a chance to win so coins.
While the latest wave of chs were built a lot more solidly, the quality of their pilots had deteriorated. This led to absurd situations like Alyssa Fill’s rabbit ch demolishing a couple of chs that had enjoyed twice or thrice as much design ti.
A third of the crowd paid no attention to the other chs as they rabidly followed Cadet Lovell’s ingenious thods. His performance proved that while the quality of the ch mattered a lot, an ace pilot was able to work miracles with even the trashiest of chs. While he hadn’t managed to gather a lot of coins, his future was already bright.
Barakovski’s light ch also entered the stage. As a suprely built machine, it acted like a crane among chickens the mont it descended onto the battlefield. Its pilot made great use of the tools at hand. While he generously made way for better ard chs, it ruthlessly hunted the shabby light chs that managed to eke out a ager existence. The light ch easily snatched a couple of coins with this strategy.
On the other hand, heavy chs also entered the field. Their stupendous amounts of armor and prodigious firepower deterred many chs from engaging them. Getting dragged into a head-on fight would always be a losing proposition. These heavy chs simply lumbered around and whenever they found an unclaid coin, they simply picked it up and walked to the delivery point without challenge.
As for the Unicorn, Cadet Lovejoy was forced to squirrel like a rat and avoid any encounters due to his damaged state. With a leg that was almost crippled, Lovejoy had to crawl through the most desolate terrain in order to avoid the crowded spots of the battlefield.
"I’m almost there. Only a kiloter to go." He muttered as he vigilantly paid attention to his sensors as well as his intuition. "This last stretch is going to be the hardest. The delivery point is right in the middle of an open plain."
The delivery points were decided semi-randomly. The battlefield had a couple of thousand potential spots where the systems governing the match could turn it into a delivery point. All of these spots were relatively open and accessible, aning that so devious pilots might wait in the bushes nearby.
After inching closer, Lovejoy sensed no ambush nearby, but that didn’t an much. All of the cadets learned how to minimize their emissions by lowering their heat to a minimum in order to blend their thermal signature in the environnt. So extre pilots liked to turn off the power reactor entirely, which ant they were completely exposed to damage if soone noticed them before they beca active.
Lovejoy had to make another judgent call. He decided to rush to the delivery point without reserve.
The Unicorn burst into the open and jogged as best he could without completely allowing his leg to collapse. The stresses on the damaged leg increased, but his actions proved his worth as he managed to skim away from a small kinetic projectile.
"Haha, is that pistol shot supposed to stop ?!" Lovejoy taunted as he jerked his ch a little to the sides. "Your accuracy sucks!"
If his ambusher piloted a competent ch, he’d surely pay for his words. Yet from the scattered shots, Lovejoy already determined his ambusher’s ch was nothing impressive. With grace akin to a drunken dancer, the Unicorn reached the delivery point and let go one of its coins, keeping the other stuffed in its log. The coin successfully ascended into the skies, which ant that Lovejoy gained another score.
"Haha you’re too late! Keep firing if you want to, but you’ve already lost your chance to steal my coins!"
The ambusher stopped firing his pistol. Lovejoy guessed the enemy ch retreated even though he still failed to spot it on his sensors. He smirked at his successful gambit. The idiot thought he only had a single coin and did not know about the second one that was still sitting snugly in his log.
"Fooled you." He laughed and swaggered back into the forest.
Up at the waiting area, Ves nervously sighed in relief as his pilot successfully made it past this challenge. While he wasn’t able to communicate with the sixteenth ranked pilot, he still felt a connection with the man.
Both of their futures were intertwined now. Lovejoy’s success carried over to Ves, while his own accomplishnts ant that Lovejoy could reach greater heights.
"Hello again Ves."
"Patricia! You’re done with your ch as well?"
"It’s just entered the battlefield." The woman replied and gestured down towards the spot where the ch descended. "I know it entered kind of late, but I’m confident my ch can catch up."
Ves stared down and gaped at the sight. His forr classmate had designed and put together an arachnid heavy ch. Not only was it very heavy and thus very slow, it also carried a ton of missile launchers. He had no idea why she’d resort to such an extre artillery loadout.
The massive spider ch ard its missiles while extending a powerful set of antennas. After turning on its powerful active scanners, it locked onto a series of chs and fired off half of its missile tubes in one go. A biblical torrent of guided projectiles rose up in the skies before raining down onto their designated targets.
Seven nearby chs instantly disintegrated. Two of them carried coins, which dropped upon the destruction of their carriers.
A further eleven chs suffered substantial damage. The sudden strike instantly crushed the fighting spirits of their pilots. All they had in mind was to put as much distance from the launch site as possible. None of the chs dared to approach the spider ch and confront it even though it was far from invincible at a closer range.
"What a strike! That’s the most deadly move I’ve seen so far in this match." The comntator praised as he put the replay of the attack on display. "Look at those chs who survived. They completely turned into scaredy cats! One of them even threw away its precious coin!"
With its powerful sensors, the spider ch slowly crawled over to the fallen coins. Though it took so ti to nab all three of them, no one ever thought to steal its bountiful prizes.
Only a single flight ch tried to inch close, only to receive a swarm of anti-air missiles to its face. The ch quickly fell from the sky like a bird who lost its feathers. All of the other pilots who lurked nearby shuddered and slinked away.
"That’s an incredibly domineering ch you’ve built."
"I know." Patricia modestly smiled, as if she was a mother watching her son performing on a stage. "I’ve spent over half a year on its design. Though it will have so trouble trying to resupply its spent magazines, as long as it still has missiles it should deter any challengers."
Many designers ca prepared with a well-developed design for the free-for-all. Perhaps they spent months calculating every single detail in order to maximize its efficiency. However, many of these overprepared designers grew nervous or made mistakes once they got on stage. Many of them ultimately released a bunch of chs that fell short of their theoretical capabilities.
Patricia evidently stuck to her design and succeeded in releasing a formidable ch. Ves admired her ability to maintain composure and deliver a consistent product.
He also had another reason to rejoice the introduction of her overbearing ch. The more opponents it killed, the more the pressure on Ves and Lovejoy eased up. With fewer chs on the field, the easier they reached the top 100.
"Luckily your ch is on the other side of the battlefield. I’d hate to see my light ch get bombarded by your spider ch’s missiles."
Perhaps it was luck, but the Unicorn never drew attention from any of the formidable chs currently dominating the field. chs like the ones designed by Barakovski and Patricia were obviously a cut above the average mid-ga chs.
Many of their designers had only lucked past the qualifiers. Now that they had to compete on their own rits, their shaky foundation proved to be their downfall. No matter how many hours they spent on their design, they could never catch up to the true talents.
That was also why when Lovejoy occasionally encountered another ch, he got away without getting crippled. Most of the badly-built chs weren’t able to hit anything with their firearms as their limbs were too uncoordinated and skewed. The abysmal hit rates of most of the chs in play proved why quality control and certification was essential.
Still, so chs ca equipped with rapid-fire weapons. These guns might not pack much of a punch, but their sheer volu of fire ant they’d always hit sothing if pointed at the right direction.
The Unicorn accrued significant damage over its entire fra. Most of its armor had turned into the ch equivalent of swiss cheese by now. Its responsiveness took a disastrous dive.
The Unicorn reached the final stretch just as it was about to collapse. A small distance remained until it could deliver its final coin, upping its score to six. Whether it was enough to reach the top 100 was still in question.
He only had to go past one final obstacle. Three chs were battling it out over a fallen flight ch carrying a coin. They must have shot it down when it flew past the area.
Unlike the previous situation, all three chs held back their aggression. They faced off against each other in a vigilant manner, but failed to make any move. Lovejoy found the situation to be fishy.
"What are they waiting for? Are they guarding against third parties like ? Or is it just too awkward for them to start fighting when there’s three of them?"
Whatever the reason, the Unicorn was at the end of its lifespan. The longer it had to wait, the more likely it would forcibly shut down. He couldn’t allow such a thing to happen.
After a mont’s consideration, he decided to ignite the conflict. He calmly raised his beaten-up laser pistol and fired a couple of ineffective shots. The focusing lens had cracked, so the beams weren’t very concentrated or straight.
The sudden attack spooked the three chs into enacting their plans. They already stood on a hair-trigger. The stray laser beams caused them to attack each other before their brains caught up to the fact that a bystander shot at them first.
Like a mouse scurrying between a couple of angry cats, the Unicorn hobbled closer even as they beca aware of its presence. The log managed to hide the fact that it hid a coin, but after a second or two the combatants recognized the old trick.
"He’s delivering a coin!"
Just as two of the chs turned their weapons at the Unicorn, the third ch went for the fallen coin. This drew back the attention of the two who were about to attack the Unicorn, which ultimately split everyone’s focus. The serendipitous circumstance bought the Unicorn enough ti to get close to the delivery point.
Just as a solid kinetic slug hit its torso, it managed to toss the coin just enough to land on the delivery point. As the ch finally deactivated due to incurring catastrophic damage to its exposed power reactor, the coin started to glow and fly in the air.
"I did it."
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