The Mech Touch

The arena match between the visiting Mirror Raiders and local Roid Rats attracted the interest of a lot of people!

Both locals and visitors filled up the small arena until there was no room left. Even then, the late arrivals merely decided to stand wherever there was space.

Something as exciting as a grudge match between two organizations didn't happen every day!

The Roid Rats may have provoked this fight, but they weren't completely brainless. As unkempt and dirty as they looked, they actually made some preparations and brought in a lot of extra equipment.

The moment the match commenced, only half of the Roid Rats fired at the Mirror Raiders!

The other half kept their weapons on their bodies. Instead, they slammed down various large plates onto the arena floor. Most of the plates consisted of corroded or damaged armor plating. All of them had been machined to the point where an average human could carry them around. A T-shaped base had been welded onto one of their ends in order to keep them upright.

"Cheaters!"

"You damn Roid Rats! It's not enough for you to outnumber those pirates by ten-to-one. Now you're building up your own fortress!"

Even though it wasn't quite proper to bring all of the extra gear, the critics were only making noise. The arena had witnessed many displays like this. As far as the arena operators were concerned, the Roid Rats were only leveraging their resources to give them a leg up in the match!

After layering the armor plates, most of the shots fired by the Mirror Raiders failed to overcome the defenses. This was because the materials were all built to resist mech attacks.

Even if the handheld plates weren't as thick as genuine mech armor plating, they offered a lot of resistance against small arms fire!

Dietrich immediately looked troubled. Out of his small group, only his Peaceful Repose managed to punch through the successive thin plates. Each time his pistol fired, A Roid Rat taking cover from behind dropped onto the arena floor in a bloody mess.

The power of the Peaceful Repose was not trivial at all! As one of the weapons previously chosen by Ves, the masterwork ballistic cannon possessed the power to end someone's life with every shot!

Unfortunately for Dietrich, he didn't carry enough ammunition to finish all of his opposition. The Peaceful Repose only fired specialized Exil rounds, which nobody in the Larkinson Clan could reproduce.

Perhaps Ves might be able to, but he had better things to do than waste his time on fabricating bullets.

As for his guards, their laser rifles only scored shallow grooves in the solid armor plating. The pirates weren't stupid enough to take cover behind the holes the Peaceful Repose had created.

While Dietrich and his guards were actually able to do more, they were reluctant to pull out any high-tech equipment. Exposing the altered Peaceful Repose was bad enough, but it at least made some sense for 'Bo' to own such an extravagant weapon. As the heir of the Mirror Raiders, it would be odd if he didn't own a powerful toy.

"Damn, how tough are these pirates? Did they steal them from the Sentinel military or something?!"

The combat armor of the Mirror Raiders all held. There were no objects in the arena that offered shelter against the rain of firepower, so Dietrich and his guards could only withstand the blows in the open!

The spectators sitting in the stands behind protective energy screens didn't think so much. They all cheered and screamed at all of the action! The volleys of lasers, the shocking boom of the Peaceful Repose and the constant impacts on armor plating caused everyone to become ecstatic.

Most arena matches mostly consisted of feeble brawls between debt-laden pirates. A large-scale battle involving so many fighters was a rare and splendid sight in these parts!

"You idiots! Those walls aren't going down by themselves! Why are you standing there?!"

"Are pirates always this stupid? Do they think that their combat armor can last forever?"

The trophies adorning the armor of Dietrich and the guards succ.u.mbed immediately. A lot of locals found it a shame to lose so many marks of honor, though most pirates tended to own copies in case situations like these took place.

Nonetheless, the crowd became increasingly more confused as the Mirror Raiders did attempt to close in. Every arena regular could tell that the improvised wall the Roid Rats had set up was too resilient to overcome with regular small arms fire.

If the Mirror Raiders kept shooting their rifles at these defenses, they would eventually use up their batteries!

Something needed to change, and the boisterous crowd eagerly offered suggestions.

"Charge forward! If you can't shoot past those walls, then just hop over them! I hope you brought some sharp knives!"

"Flank them already! Why are you clumping up together? Just split up in two parts and attack them from opposite directions!"

"That's stupid. The Roid Rats will just reform their walls to cover every direction."

The arguing went on and on until someone spotted a flicker in the edge of their vision. "Wait, what's that? Someone is sneaking up on the Roid Rats!"

Though most of the crowd hadn't noticed anything and kept shouting nonsense, a handful of perceptive spectators noticed that one of the guards had left the group of Mirror Raiders and circled around the arena grounds!

The Roid Rats didn't notice anything amiss. Neither Big Rat or his haphazard mob of gang members bothered to count the number of opponents. Whether they faced thirteen pirates or fourteen pirates was no different in their eyes!

The huge weight of fire unleashed by the Roid Roids drowned out every other consideration. Though the Roid Rats looked rather undisciplined, they still developed their own homegrown tactics that they could employ with very little conscious direction. Big Rat was not concerned that his men would go out of control!

Unfortunately, their lack of attention caused them to overlook an approaching form! By the time the Roid Rats in the rear felt the increasing vibrations from the arena ground, it was too late for them to turn around!

Crash!

Ketis made use of her upgraded Rising Red Dragon Mark II to charge right through the rear of the ranks of the Roid Rats!

Bodies after bodies flung away as the momentum of the powered armor smashed every Roid Rat away. Disarray instantly formed within the ranks as the other Roid Rats fearfully turned around and shot their weapons at the intruder.

Unfortunately, Ketis just happened to have reached the center of the Roid Rat formation. The panicked pirates hasty shots only occasionally hit her combat armor. The rest of the shots missed and instead hit the other Roid Rats!

Though most shots merely dented or melted the improvised armor plating on their bodies, some of the shots hit n.a.k.e.d flesh, causing numerous bodies to drop.

Big Rat immediately became alarmed! "YOU IDIOTS! STOP SHOOTING! YOU'RE KILLING YOUR OWN BROTHERS!"

Before the Roid Rats had time to reorganize themselves, Ketis did not stand still. She lifted her new cutlass and eagerly wished to baptize it in blood.

Inside her mind, Sharpie vibrated with excitement. The newly-birthed living spiritual construct shared a close bond with Ketis.

What Ketis liked, Sharpie liked. Simple as that!

With their intentions completely aligned together, Ketis turned into a human disaster! Her armored body outright ignored every weapon impact!

Even though the laser beams and ballistic rounds scarred her armor, the damage was contained at the upper layer. The top layer merely consisted of generic alloys in order to camouflage the fact that the lower layers actually consisted of Breyer alloy!

"My blade seeks your blood!"

For a long time, Ketis felt repressed. Spending time in the Larkinson Clan was alright, but she felt as if she was slowly starting to lose her edge.

In the frontier, every day was dangerous. In civilized space, she could go years without facing a single threat to her life!

It made her feel uncomfortable. She did not dedicate her life to become a Swordmaiden just to let her blade rust. She believed every warrior needed to fulfill her purpose in battle. What was the point of learning how to kill only to let these skills remain dormant all the time?

Even though she was a mech designer, she believed that exercising her skills in battle would help her design better mechs! How could she ever know what the Swordmaiden mech pilots truly wanted if she never wielded a sword and spilled blood herself?

Times like these allowed her to truly deepen her understanding of sharpness and swordsmanship!

New design concepts already started to fill her imagination!

With Sharpie supporting her all the way, she unleashed her repressed urges regardless of how many gang members attempted to take her down!

She swung her cutlass with a single powered arm. Though she did not employ much technique, the raw power and the sharp blade of her weapon cut straight through the exposed limb of the pirate shooting a pistol right into her helmet without much result.

"WEAK!"

Another pirate screamed and charged at her flank while swinging a hammer. The attack completely failed as the weapon bounced off while leaving a shallow dent.

Before the attacker could try again, Ketis reached out with her other arm and crushed the neck of the Roid Rat.

"More! I need more!"

She increased her pace and began to swing her cutlass in broad sweeps. No matter what flesh, bone or armor was in the way, her cutlass continued to reap lives as if they were worth less than nutrient packs.

The shocking sight astounded the entire crowd!

Rather feeling disgusted or horrified at the one-sided slaughter, the spectators went wild as they cheered on the red armored warrior!

"GOOO! BUTCHER THOSE ROID RATS!"

"More blood! More blood!"

"Cut them all from limb to limb! Don't leave any of their bodies in one piece!"

During this sensation massacre, Dietrich and the rest of his guards slowed their fire. Other than pinning the Roid Rats in place, it didn't seem as if they could contribute any further.

Dietrich almost couldn't believe that Ketis, who was supposed to be a mech designer, could be this strong!

It wasn't simple for her to keep killing right in the midst of the enemy. Even with her excellent equipment, she still risked getting mobbed if the Roid Rats all tried to pile on her armored form until she dropped onto the arena ground.

To prevent such an outcome, Ketis had to keep moving and pushing through the crowd of panicked Roid Rats. She had to anticipate any tricks the enemy might pull off and stay one step ahead.

Nonetheless, as soon as around twenty Roid Rats fell to her blade, the fear she exuded had left a permanent impression in the hearts of the gang members.

"Split up!" Big Rat shouted. "Split up and stay away from this demon! Kill those other bastards first!"

The Roid Rats finally left their walls and desperately tried to run as far away from the murderous butcher as possible. They focused their firepower on Dietrich and his guards, but their firepower hardly inflicted any serious damage onto their protection.

Instead, the Roid Rats fell rapidly as the Mirror Raider guards calmly picked the panicked and scattered gang members one by one. Though the infantry guards surrounding Dietrich were all good in marksmanship, they deliberately missed most their shots in order to hide their true skill.

Ketis had already revealed more than Dietrich wanted to show off in public!

"This woman." He inwardly cursed. "I thought she was a mech designer. Why is she so brainless?!"

Her little solo action was completely unplanned! She wasn't supposed to go out and flank the Roid Rats before cutting their bodies apart in the most bloody instances of butchery he had ever witnessed.

This madwoman spilled so much blood that the arena floor began to drown in blood!