The Mech Touch

This meant that the light mechs needed to disable the enemy machines in a timely manner in order to avoid getting downed.

While the Deceptor Project was armed with a ranged weapon itself, the problem was that the Bright Warrior in space knight configuration could easily intercept enemy fire from a single direction!

If there were two Deceptor Project mechs in this scenario, then at least they could have split up and attacked from opposite directions. The current setup didn't allow for that so the space knight shouldn't have much of an issue neutralizing the Deceptor Project's damage output.

What did trouble the Avatar mechs was that they also had to defend against the Ferocious Piranha. If the two Vandal light mechs attacked the Avatar mechs in a pincer maneuver, then the defensive mech would need to decide which one it should repel.

As the practice battle played out, the Avatar mech pilot in question made the right decision.

The Deceptor Project was only armed with a submachine gun and posed less of an acute threat.

The Ferocious Piranha on the other hand could easily make quick work of the Avatar ranged mech when it came close, so it had to be stopped at all costs.

The fight proceeded exactly as expected. The two ranged mechs were providing support while the melee mechs sought to overcome each other.

The Avatar space knight was not fast and agile enough to land a hit on the Ferocious Piranha. However, it was more than capable of frustrating the opposing mech by putting its large shield in the way of every attack.

It was virtually impossible for the knives wielded by the Ferocious Piranha to break the shield, so the light mech needed to maneuver around in order to inflict real damage.

The problem was that the attacker needed to make much more extensive movements than the defender. The Avatar space knight only had to rotate and reposition itself slightly in order to keep up for the most part.

The Ferocious Piranha made several attack passes, most of which yielded little success.

There was a difference, though.

The Ferocious Piranha hadn't activated its glow. The Bright Warriors hadn't done anything special either. Ves wanted all of the mechs involved to fight under normal conditions so that he could establish a baseline.

Now that he knew what to expect from the Deceptor Project under normal circumstances, he was ready to see what a difference the glows would make.

"Ferocious Piranha, please activate your glow."

When the light mech in question did so, the battle immediately reflected the changes.

Both Avatar mechs performed less smoothly than before. Their mechs pilots had to shift their concentration and expend mental resources in order to keep their minds together.

Despite the debilitating effect, every elite mech pilot learned how to endure suppressive glows! It was part of their standard training these days!

Since they were so accustomed to working under these conditions, the highly-trained Avatar mech pilots did not perform that much worse than before. They gritted their teeth and toughed it out as they continued to focus on beating their respective foes.

"Is this all?" A Vandal officer asked as he and his comrades watched the mock battle.

"It's not over yet." Ves said. "Let's see how the Deceptor Project can supplement the Ferocious Piranha's glow."

The Ferocious Piranha had to stay fairly close to the enemy in order for its glow to have effect. The light skirmisher buzzed back and forth, which constantly forced the Avatar space knight to keep up with the constant repositioning.

While it was fairly easy for the defensive mech to make a slight adjustment, the way the Ferocious Piranha kept circling around while occasionally threatening to perform a dive attack quickly began to make the Avatar mech pilot disoriented.

It was harder to keep track of everything when there was a lot more dynamic movement. The glow of the Ferocious Piranha exacerbated this problem even further.

"This is a familiar scenario for both sides."

The Avatars of Myth and the Flagrant Vandals constantly held practice bouts between each other. Whether they fought against each other in virtual simulations or live practice sessions, they collided against each other so much that they were highly familiar with the mechs, tactics and methods employed by their rivals and adversaries.

The constant repositioning of the Ferocious Piranha was a way for the Vandal mech pilot to increase the disorientation effect.

Having encountered this situation before, the Avatar mech pilot turned his mind into a rock and tried to remain as calm and stable as possible in order to keep up with the enemy's dynamic movements.

When the Vandal light skirmisher unexpectedly broke pattern and performed an attack pass, the Avatar space knight quickly responded by putting its shield in the right place to intercept the enemy assault.

"What?!"

The defensive mech slightly blundered by allowing the Ferocious Piranha to almost bypass its defenses.

The Avatar space knight should ideally blunt the enemy light skirmisher's attack by catching both its knives at the center of its shield at an angle that allowed for deflection.

While the Avatar mech pilot got the angle right, he misjudged the positioning!

When the Ferocious Piranha circled around to perform another attack pass, the Bright Warrior with the shield almost made another mistake!

"A space knight pilot of his caliber shouldn't be making this mistake twice in a row!"

"What is going on?!"

The Ferocious Piranha did not carry a lot of ECM systems so its movements should be easy enough for a typical mech to track. However, the reality was quite different.

The Avatar mech pilot tried to stabilize his mind even further, which allowed him to concentrate even better despite constantly being subjected to the Ferocious Piranha's glow.

Yet despite doing so much to turn his mind into a rock, it became even harder for the poor fellow to properly intercept the increasingly trickier Vandal light skirmisher!

Once the Vandal mech pilot caught on to the changes, he began to make more aggressive moves. The Ferocious Piranha dove in at more creative angles, and more often than not came close to bypassing the space knight entirely!

"It's happening!"

When the Ferocious Piranha swung around and performed its twelfth attack pass, the defending mech not only misjudged the positioning but also the angle of approach!

These crucial mistakes allowed the Ferocious Piranha to soar past the Avatar space knight at a steep angle and launch telling blows at the Avatar rifleman mech that was supposed to be safe from this kind of an attack!

Though the Ferocious Piranha only tapped the Bright Warrior armed with a ranged weapon, the fact that it got through in the first place represented a substantial failure on the part of the Avatars of Myth!

"It's not the Ferocious Piranha. It's that new mech! It's truly doing something to the perception of the Avatar mech pilots!"

Most clansmen already heard about some of the details of the new Deceptor Project. Ves didn't work hard to keep it a secret and its codename pretty much spelled out its capabilities anyway.

When the Ferocious Piranha came around to repeat its earlier success, both Avatar mechs became a lot more on guard.

Yet despite paying much more attention to the trajectory and movements of the Vandal light mech, the light skirmisher almost managed to circumvent the space knight once again!

"This is definitely not a coincidence anymore!"

"How the hell does this work?!"

After three more attack passes, the Ferocious Piranha managed to fly underneath the space knight and hit the underside of the ranged mech with its weapons!

Even if the damage was not that substantial, the pattern became increasingly clearer. The Avatar mech pilots were failing to keep up with the Ferocious Piranha somehow!

The strangest part of all of this was that the results did not grow better over time. The Avatar mech pilots tried several tricks and adjusted their mentality multiple times, yet that only seemed to drag their performance down even further.

By the time the Avatar rifleman mech got hit over a dozen times, Ves finally saw enough.

"Stand down! The test has ended. Please check your systems before returning to your mothership. Thank you for your cooperation."

Ves studied the data logs as the mechs slowly flew back to the main fleet. He rewatched the footage of the successful attack passes and saw that the Avatar space knight was trying to defend against a mech that came from a slightly different direction, angle and timing than in reality!

He smirked. "The Deceptor Project is truly working brilliantly with the Ferocious Piranha."

When the mech of the hour finally returned to the Spirit of Bentheim, Ves gathered the test pilot as well as the visiting Avatar cadre together.

"You've all seen what the Deceptor Project can do." Ves said as he gestured towards the machine in front of them. "In simple terms, its a light harasser mech with a twist. While the Deceptor Project does not possess strong offensive and defensive capabilities, what is truly special about my new mech model is its combination of mobility and utility."

"Utility, sir?"

"The glow." Ves smirked. "It's not that obvious at first, but once you begin to pilot it, you will see what a difference it can make. While the mech isn't able to achieve any drastic results by itself, it can achieve a much greater effect if it teams up with the Ferocious Piranha. You saw what happened to those hapless Avatar mechs, whose pilots should not be strangers to suppressive glows. While it was the Ferocious Piranha that was truly taking advantage of the misjudgments of its opponents, it is the Deceptor Project that is responsible for creating these invisible openings."

He called up the footage of one of the successful attack runs and paused when the defensive mech tried to fend off the incoming attacker.

"You can see where the mechs are located. The defensive Bright Warrior is here while the Ferocious Piranha over there. The latter is approaching the former from this direction at this speed. Look closely at the space knight. Do you think it is making the right response?"

Even though the Flagrant Vandals were mostly offensive mech pilots, they still knew enough about the basics to know there was something amiss.

"The space knight is just a bit off. It looks as if it is responding a little too late or something."

"It's not just the timing that's wrong, but also the angling of the shield. It's too steep, which increases the possibility that our Ferocious Piranha can slide right past its side."

"The Avatar mech pilot managed to mistake the positioning as well. He should have moved his mech or shield more to the left!"

Ves smirked. "You're all correct. According to the judgment of the defending mech pilot, the attacking machine was actually located here and was approaching from this angle."

He drew a fake mech in the paused footage and drew a line that indicated its probable trajectory.

Although the non-existing mech partially overlapped with the real Ferocious Piranha, it was just a bit different!

Perhaps a distracted or lesser-skilled mech pilot might make such a misjudgment, but the Avatar mech pilots were supposed to be better!

"Are you saying… the new mech can do all of this?"

Ves smugly nodded. "Exactly. Haven't you noticed the best part of all of this? No matter how much the Avatar mech pilot tried to concentrate on the Ferocious Piranha, his performance didn't improve at all! His actions were completely counterproductive! Instead of focusing on the obvious target, what he should have really been doing was to resist the subtle glow that was impairing his perception of reality."

"Uhhh…."