Embers After Flames, Chapter 9.5 (Patreon)

9.5

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Freud shot forwards, LOCKSMITH shifting into pure aggression. Dolmayan met his joyous assault with undaunted determination, ASTGHIK clashing with the other AC with grand fury.

Neither had been messing around before, but now both of them had acquired the measure of their opponents. The battle had moved, then, into something that was all imminent lethality, delayed only by the mutual skill of the both of them.

Every shot was one that was aimed to kill, or if not to kill then to at least make it easier to kill. Where the less skilled would be satisfied simply hitting the target repeatedly, Freud and Dolmayan settled for nothing less than imminent demise. Their blades sought out the gaps in each other’s armour, where the structure was thin or not covered because it would compromise agility. Freud’s Laser Drones made shots directly at Dolmayan’s optics and sensors, and the latter wasn’t hesitating to return the favour with his own Napalm and Missiles. Both of their rifles fired constantly, hemming their opponent in as much as they sought out the joints of arms and legs.

“I have fought more BASHOs than I care to remember.” Freud spoke, an echo of a laugh in his voice. LOCKSMITH’s fury didn’t abate even the slightest bit. “The rookie Pilot’s most common mech, up until a few years ago when BAWS showed off their new standard machine. Your AC, despite its appearance, is most certainly not a BASHO.”

“I will allow that you are skilled to notice this.” Dolmayan respond. ASTGHIK fired another batch of missiles, which LOCKSMITH dodged by the thinnest of margins. “Of all those who came to Rubicon... you’re not here to plunder riches, are you?”

Freud laughed. LOCKSMITH’s blade lashed out, and ASTGHIK’s own blade met it again. “I don’t care about the Coral.” He admitted it easily. “I don’t care about the profits that Arquebus is seeking. I don’t even care about all the attempts of that yapping mutt Snail to get me killed. All I want is one simple thing.”

LOCKSMITH’s bazooka fired. Dolmayan was too close to avoid all of the shots, so he shot down the one that he couldn’t avoid before it hit him.

“I want the challenge.” Freud declared. “I want to push the limit as far as it can go. I want a fight that lasts forever... And yet-” LOCKSMITH flung a kick out. ASTGHIK raised a leg, blocking it with the armoured shin and accepting the push backwards. “I have always been disappointed. All these Augments, all these Machines, all these Pilots, and AI, and none of them understand.”

ASTGHIK fired a burst of bullets towards LOCKSMITH. Freud shifted his mech, changing the angle of his armour so that they deflected rather than penetrated.

“There’s no trick to it.” Freud spoke. “All you have to do is be better. Excellence is not art, it’s pure habit. We are what we repeatedly do. So put the practice in, tweak your mechs, your weapons, your tools. Find what works, change what doesn’t. Make incremental advances, correct your mistakes, find the better path. Learn. Observe. Consider your options. Overcome yourself from yesterday.”

“Get good.” Dolmayan spoke, and Freud laughed.

“Yes!” Freud exulted. A series of bullets pinged off of ASTGHIK’s shoulder, and then LOCKSMITH shifted to the side in order to dodge another set of missiles. “You get it. Now then, I want nothing but your very best, so give me something memorable!”

LOCKSMITH Assault Boosted towards ASTGHIK. Dolmayan didn’t even hesitate. ASTGHIK’s Core Block opened up, exposing the internals for a brief moment. Crackling red sparked as the Generator briefly redlined.

A matching green-white sparked in LOCKSMITH’s own core.

ASTGHIK’s Coral-enhanced Assault Armour detonated outwards, consuming the area in a flash of crimson lightning and heat. LOCKSMITH avoided destruction only because Freud had triggered his own Pulse Armour in time, a scintillating shield of green battling with the lethal red.

ASTGHIK’s Pulse Blade extended at the exact same time that LOCKSMITH’s Laser Blade ignited again. ASTGHIK was wreathed in red lightning, energized Coral surrounding the mech. LOCKSMITH was draped in Pulse Green, the shield fading as the Assault Armour wore away the rest of it.

At the last possible second, just before LOCKSMITH swung, Dolmayan Quick Boosted forwards, ASTGHIK’s other arm moving upwards.

ASTGHIK swung to the side, the barrel of the Burst Rifle smacking into the left arm of LOCKSMITH. The effect wasn’t much, and it cost the Burst Rifle itself when the Laser Blade passed through the rest of it, but Dolmayan was able to force a redirection of the angle of the strike, forcing it to go wide.

ASTGHIK’s own Pulse Blade met no such obstruction. The Pulse Blade flashed forwards, punctured through the already failing Pulse Armour, and then carved straight into the right Core-Arm joint of LOCKSMITH. It was a narrow area to hit, with the armour around it, but not impossible at the angle he was on- and the effect was devastating.

The arm was severed from the rest of the AC, momentum carrying it onwards past the both of them. The assault rifle went with it, leaving both ACs down a weapon, but ASTGHIK was mostly intact aside from that.

LOCKSMITH was down to three limbs, and the worst was still to come.

The loss of a limb triggered the failsafe, and the ACS reconfigured.

It left LOCKSMITH briefly vulnerable. Dolmayan was quick to exploit it, his Napalm Grenade Launcher triggering at nearly point black. It hit, of course, and LOCKSMITH was immediately covered in burning napalm on top of having lost an arm.

There wasn’t too much else that Dolmayan could do here, unfortunately. His missiles were still reloading, the Pulse Blade was cooling, and he’d just lost his gun. His only remaining option was a simple one.

ASTGHIK’s arm pulled back, and then shot forwards directly into the head of LOCKSMITH. A thunderous clang rang out as one of the most overengineered actuators ever designed for an AC propelled about five tons of metal directly into another block of metal at a concerningly high speed.

I had to give Balam’s engineers credit. The MELANDER Head that LOCKSMITH employed was a solid unit, tough and well designed. Simple, but effective. The shape of the head prevented ASTGHIK’s fist from shattering the optic outright, but it definitely couldn’t have appreciated it anyway. The metal above and below bent backwards, too thin to handle things properly, but not outright shattering.

Dolmayan pulled back in preparation for another attack, ASTGHIK’s fist burning with a small amount of napalm gel that had scrapped off of LOCKSMITH, but he wasn’t quite able to follow through before the ACS had finished resetting and Freud recovered full control of his machine.

Freud flung LOCKSMITH backwards, and Dolmayan’s punch fell just short. A shame. Another hit would have made things quite a bit easier for Dolmayan.

As for Freud... he really didn’t seem to be as bothered by the fact that LOCKSMITH was on fire as he probably should have been. LOCKSMITH released another set of Laser Drones, before Quick Boosting backwards again. The Laser Drones flew down, even as more Boosters activated and Locksmith flew upwards.

Bereft of his Burst Rifle, Dolmayan was forced to dodge them while his missiles finished reloading. He weaved through the laser shots reasonably well, but while he was doing this, LOCKSMITH had started to spin in the air.

Freud built up quite a bit of angular momentum rather quickly. The gel was sticky, but not immune to physics. As the spin accelerated, it started to slough off, burning napalm flaring as the droplets dispersed through the air.

Then the Boosters flared, both frontal and rear sections triggering. The spin was cancelled in just a moment, scattering a lot of the napalm off the Frame. At the same time, LOCKSMITH went downwards, crashing into the ground, before shooting forwards into the banks of snow that covered this entire region at the moment.

LOCKSMITH went through it like a plow, to roughly the same effect.

It left LOCKSMITH covered in a thinner film of napalm, still burning. Most of the worst of it was gone, though.

This guy...

Dolmayan’s missiles streamed out, and the Laser Drones scattered. They weren’t moving like they had before, though... Had Dolmayan damaged something important?

Possibly.

Since Freud wasn’t directly controlling them anymore, it was a battle between software for the missiles and the Drones. BAWS programming won four of the six, destroying most of the little things.

Man, these two have really been beating the shit out of each other, haven’t they? Freud was down an arm and I doubted that he had a whole lot of ammo left for his weaponry. Dolmayan was down a weapon, and also running decently low on ammo. So long as they both still had Blades, though...

This battle could be decided one way or another in a flash.

Mmm.

Fortunately, both 621 and Rusty were having a bit of a better time here. Rusty was currently all up in Nile’s business, giving the latter a very bad time with his mostly range-focused AC. The only thing DEEP DOWN had to defend against STEEL HAZE was a Linear Rifle, and that... really was not the kind of weapon you want to try using against a Lightweight in close quarters.

At the very least, he had enough skill that Rusty’s Laser Slicer had opened rents over the entirety of his armour rather than one small part of it. The numerous needles also sticking out said armour spoke to the attempts that Rusty had made to deal with him.

It was just a matter of time, now. Rusty was a bit too good and Nile poorly matched for this kind of combat.

As for 621...

Had 621 still not taken a hit? LOADER 4’s paint is fucking flawless. It’s not like Michigan’s and O’Keeffe’s weaponry consists of shit that’s easy to dodge, Michigan has a fucking gatling gun for fucks sake...

Both Tetras were staying real close together, too. Offering support to each other without hesitation. A good showing, since they were meant to be on opposite sides of the corporate war...

And yet... I could make out the damage that the two had already accrued. BARREN FLOWER’s armour had small chunks of it torn out here and there. It looked minor at first glance, but my familiarity with the Arquebus Parts told me that each shot had been placed strategically. Some of them were aimed at attachment points, others aimed at the structural shatterpoints, where hits would have outsized effects...

Normally, to be able to target like that would require familiarity with the target, but unless 621 happened to be an engineer with intimate knowledge of each mech... No. 621 was apparently just that good...

And 621 was about to do the thing again, I could feel it.

O’Keeffe’s armour was compromised more than he realized. Michigan’s Gatling Gun would soon overheat, and the rest of his weapons were much more easily dodged. 621 was closing in on BARREN FLOWER in a rather roundabout manner, the distance chipped away in moments and minor shifts...

Until the critical moment came. Michigan’s Gatling Gun ceased its fire, venting heat as fast as it could. The Songbird shots he’d fired at the ground beneath 621’s feet left the cannon empty for the moment. The Split Missile Launcher was ready, but 621 had dodged it a dozen times already. Michigan, for a brief moment, couldn’t help O’Keeffe.

LOADER 4’s Boosters flared, and the AC shot towards BARREN FLOWER at a blindingly fast speed. The Tetra wasn’t prepared for how quickly 621 had shifted tracks, and while O’Keeffe tried to react, there was no stopping the inevitable.

A barrage of bullets slammed into the armour, carefully placed shots exploiting the weaknesses that had been created beforehand. Entire sections of the armour fell away, shattered, made loose, or simply breached entirely.

621’s Pulse Blade punctured the area a moment afterwards, the deadly energy piercing straight into the internals of BARREN FLOWER. A direct strike to the Generator, also breaching the capacitors and internal power feeds. A surer kill, there couldn’t be.

O’Keeffe was dead before he even realized what happened. BARREN FLOWER slumped, its inertia leading it to crash into the ground.

Three enemy pilots left, and at the rate things were going, it wouldn’t be long before all of this was over.