[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 38: Tough

Charlotte gritted her teeth inside the cockpit. Her rear armor was burdened with empty rocket launchers. Though they already released their payloads, they still weighed her down a little bit. In addition, she sacrificed one of her shoulder mounts in order to fend off Miranda. With only one laser mount left, she was sorely pressed to keep off the looming threat.

The match entered another act, and this time even if Miranda had thrown aside her sword, she still possessed enough lethality once she unsheathed her backup knife.

Yet it never came to use, as Charlotte finally achieved a critical hit to the light mech's weapon arm. Miranda managed to swap the knife to her mech's other arm, but the damage it suffered when holding the shield caused the fingers to grip the knife unsteadily. The distraction allowed Charlotte to get in another couple of shots. When her next cannon shell impacted the light mech again, the competition's inbuilt safeties kicked in and turned the projectile inert.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then cheered massively as they experienced an upset. The number two favorite of the Fusion Cup surprisingly lost to the 6th ranked contenders. Charlotte whooped through the microphones even as the people rooting for the other side stood silently, as if still not believing this was happening.

Both pilots exited the cockpits while technicians lifted the damaged mechs back to their workshops. Two pilots and two mech designers met in the middle of the arena to congratulate each other and shake hands.

Smugness overwhelmed Charlotte's grin as she beheld her defeated rival. "It was a good match. I got lucky."

Miranda snorted at that. "They should penalize heavy mechs even more in these bullshit tournaments. Your mech weighs at least three to four times as much as mine."

"Well the rules don't say you can't bring one too. You're welcome to join the heavy club. We got the fattest asses around!"

The defeated pilot just huffed in reply.

As the two pilots talked smack, Ves hesitantly shook hands with Patricia. Her gentle smile and soft, small hand mesmerized him for a moment. Being this close to her amplified the effect of her striking red locks and her lovely dimples.

"You did a really great job with integrating the flight system to the chassis. It's a lot better than welding a couple of boxes to the armor like I did. If my mech partner hadn't achieved a lucky hit at the end, then this contest might end differently."

Patricia shook her head. "Don't belittle yourself. What you chose to augment worked out much better in the end. You chose to plug a gap while I doubled down on Miranda's strength. I don't think either choices are wrong, but as you said, it worked out better for you as the extra firepower was a lot more useful than flight capability in our matchup. To be honest, both Miranda and I expected to fight a medium or light mech. Yours is the only heavy mech in contention."

The two babbled a bit about the design choices they made for their respective mechs. What actually Ves had in mind was trying to facilitate the X-Factor, but that was something of a secret weapon to him. He instead diverted Patricia's attention by pointing out he had a hard time convincing Charlotte of making any changes. She only approved the rockets due to agreeing with her affinity for more weapons.

"Miranda gave me the lead instead." Patricia explained. "As a gifted pilot, she's proficient in piloting many variations of light mechs, so when I proposed to adapt your flying system scheme to her mech, she readily agreed. Now that I think about it, I should have involved my partner more in the shaping of her mech."

The two teams parted after the announcers called in the next contestants. Charlotte and Ves returned to the workshop where the beat-up Kirby rested. While Miranda ultimately inflicted no damage, Charlotte caused enough of it to compensate. The mech's left shoulder was absent a laser mount, and the entire mech still suffered minor internal damage due to overheating.