Nami leaped through the air once more, feeling the wind beneath her Goliath as the massive battlesuit drifted through the air. She could see the different enemies moving out of the base, each of them splitting apart to go face the separate challengers. Porter and Ardwen's plan was working, forcing the opposing unit into unfavorable match-ups. Each one of them would be able to dispatch their opponent, and it seemed Nami would be first into the fray. Her incredible mobility had put her ahead of the pack, and her range let her begin her attack early.
Her fight would be against one Major Hitaki, a soldier who had only recently moved up in the ranks when they had been assigned to guard Irina. Their slightly modified Exo-class battlesuit wielded a simple pistol and an electrically-charged mace, fusing range with close combat. They were already charging across the snowy valley, aiming to close the distance on the sniper.
But Nami had her own plan, and her own way to counter those foolish enough to engage with her. She had grazed her opponent's arm earlier, dealing just enough damage to its mechanical systems to slow down its movement slightly. Nami would use every extra half-second she had in this fight. Her fingers drifted downwards towards her own pistol, ready to whip it out as needed.
Hitaki stumbled slightly through the snow, and his biggest weakness was immediately exposed; Hitaki had been a southern soldier, and he wasn't used to these conditions. He had been on guard duty, not actively combating enemy troops, so he had almost no practical experience in the snow. Nami didn't hesitate in leveling her rifle and firing once more, her lightweight Goliath pushed back a bit through the air from the recoil. She felt her mind travel with the bullet, the projectile twisting through the air before sailing through her opponent's shoulder. At a shortening range, it was the best she could do, matching Hitaki's dodging with her own ability to bend her shots.
The new hole that had been bored through her opponent was on their opposite arm from the previous injury. It wasn't Nami's intention, or her hope, as she would rather cripple one appendage than marginally injure two but she would take it. But the gap was over now, nothing separating the two Goliaths, and Hitaki's mace was already swinging around the execute Nami. The blow from the object would certainly destroy much of Nami's fragile suit if it connected with her, and she twisted through the air to dodge the swing, bouncing off the ground before re-aligning herself.
Nami was already prepared to deal with the pistol her enemy wielded. Its short range and low damage output wouldn't cause too much harm to The Valkyrie, but one solid connection from the mace would certainly end everything in an instant. She needed to maintain her balance and awareness at all times, chipping away at her foe with a shot here and there. Hitaki, on the other hand, seemed to want to limit Nami's range as much as possible, drawing in close to nullify the sniper's abilities.
The small girl smirked, her feline eyes gleaming with joy at the prospect of toying with her opponent. She whipped her hand back down to her side, withdrawing her own pistol, her fingers slipping into the specially-crafted hilt. The gun had knuckle-dusters built in, attachments to Nami's fingers with serrated blades for when she had to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The bottom of the weapon had a jagged dagger sticking out from it, half of a knife designed to gouge through enemies or drive into the cockpit.
Hitaki charged once more, firing off a few shots with his pistol. Nami could dodge them with ease, but both her and Hitaki knew that; these attacks were only to keep her pinned in place, designed to direct her movements so that Hitaki could set up his own attack with his mace.
The young girl was already a few steps ahead though, and she withdrew her pistol in a flash, the blade at the bottom coming up to deflect the head of her opponent's weapon. She turned him aside, letting his momentum carry the battlesuits even closer together. As Hitaki passed by The Valkyrie, Nami drove her knee into Hitaki's gut, forcing him backwards.
Nami continued her close-quarters retaliation, swinging her pistol around and stabbing it into Hitaki's shoulder. She squeezed the trigger, firing a bullet point-blank into the Goliath's armour, sending her gun back out as it recoiled. She then kicked the Major away, spinning wildly to bring her sniper rifle around, holstering it with just one arm.
Before the enemy could react, the tip of Nami's barrel unleashed a single bullet that ploughed straight through the skull of Hitaki's battlesuit, shredding apart the complex machinery and critical computer components. The fallen Goliath ceased functioning immediately, dropping out of the sky and crashing into the ground. Nami landed gently next to it, aiming her rifle down at the base of the warmachine's spine. She pulled the trigger without hesitation, severing through the battlesuit's core mobility controls. She could envision exactly what damage had been done, years of studying everything about Goliaths giving her a near-perfect knowledge of her enemy's construction.
Still, she hesitated a moment. She couldn't simply leave the corpse behind, face-down in the snow. It would be a nightmare for the pilot getting out of their machine. Nami bent down, grabbing under her enemy and lifting with all of her fragile Goliath's power, barely managing to roll the battlesuit over. As soon as she finished, she saw the chest shooting out steam as it began to open, and she was satisfied. She could join with Porter to execute the remainder of the mission.
* * * * *
Ardwen gasped as his opponent lunged forwards. His enemy was a bizarre creation, a battlesuit with a carapace on its back that split in half vertically, parting just slightly. Beneath the armour shell lay an elaborate set of thrusters that the Goliath had just used for its sudden burst of speed. Atop the warmachine's head was a long horn that ended in a prong, useful as a battering ram of sorts. Altogether, the Goliath held the appearance of a gargantuan beetle, striking with vicious ferocity and speed.
There was only a single second before the blow would connect. It was in that tiny moment that Ardwen felt his brain spinning, nerves exploding to send signals throughout his body. Already Mother Gaia's arms were moving, instinctively, to grab the prongs and push the force to one side. It was in the time after the attack based right by Ardwen that he realized what the training against Sigma had done. That all had seemed so terribly...slow. It was nothing like before, nothing like usual when he had fought. Even when he had taken part in the defense of the north and fought off Jahari, when he had considered himself at his last peak in terms of fighting capacity, this was a whole new feeling.
And he liked it.
There was no mistaking that what Shotuku and Sigma had done with the group had changed them. Ardwen was already scanning the rest of the battlefield, noting the position of Nami as she leaped through the air, firing off a round at her opponent, or even Porter in the distance at the base. It was surreal to be engaged in intense combat, and also fully aware of his surroundings, of the other fighters, of his allies and enemies, all at the same time. He had never done this before, and never imagined he would.
Major Erich spun in the snow, twisting to regain his view of Ardwen. His Goliath, the Biorg, shook as it removed the white powder from its frame, and its body prepared to lunge once more. Ardwen was well aware of all of this, already beginning to calculate trajectories and different attack patterns. Read your opponent, prepare for the strike. Shotuku's words, the constant mantra beaten into Ardwen, rang through the youth's ears. This was what they had practiced, the thing Ardwen could only glimpse against Sigma that was more than a match for a lower calibre opponent.
Ardwen threw his right arm up, sidestepping to let Erich pass by, and then drove his elbow down hard into the carapace on the back of the Biorg. One of the orbs circling Mother Gaia fired out a small laser, normally used as part of repairing Goliaths, and it cut a shallow line through the enemy's armour, chipping away at it.
Before Rich could react, Ardwen's knee had come up to meet the Major's falling body, causing the two forces in opposite directions to collide. It barely damaged the Goliath, and probably did almost as much in return to Mother Gaia, but Ardwen didn't care. He was undergoing a rush of adrenaline, the thrill of hand-to-hand combat flying to his head. He had never engaged anyone like this, and for a moment he thought he was as powerful as Raul or Porter.
But reality took over. Enrich took advantage of Ardwen's sudden lapse in concentration, snapping his head up and knocking back the young pilot. The palm of the Biorg suddenly opened up and a pulse of pure energy rippled through the air, a blast of force that crashed into Ardwen's chest, sending him flying.
He had forgotten his opponent, letting his guard down momentarily and imagining himself as the victor of a minor fight. That was Ardwen's folly. But it would not happen again. The strategist's mind was razor sharp once more, and his analytical side quickly returned as he stood up. As he prepared to dodge another assault, he brought up the files on the enemies all over again, checking for any patterns, weaknesses, additional concerns he should have.
All three of the majors were quite young, and one of the Generals had only recently been granted the title. They may have all had significantly greater ranks than the former students, but they were still new, inexperienced compared to what they could be fighting. It made sense though, for new officers to be sent out to guard a prisoner in isolation. Every veteran soldier would be called upon to stave off the Jahari, to answer the call of invasion. Having rookies or young majors on the frontline wouldn't do much compared to pulling away experience just to guard a former general in rehabilitation.
The fact that there were inexperienced majors on the battlefield, instead of veterans, was a great advantage for Ardwen. And it was an advantage he was happy to press. The choice to divide and attack, to remove strategy and instead enforce nothing but skill was where they had gambled, and the strategist was determined to make it pay off.
Another strike with the head. This time it was a feint, Ardwen knew that immediately as he saw the posture was slightly off, that Erich was clearly holding back all of his force, or at least it was clear to Ardwen's ultra-observant eye. It was in the tiny details that he noticed how the Goliath's legs weren't bent quite right, how the thrusters were humming at a lower frequency, how Erich's hand was being held back just slightly, waiting to strike forwards and unleash another burst.
Ardwen caught the false attack, anticipating the follow-up with the force weapon. He let the open hand collide with his own, guiding it by moving with it, absorbing the power and then trapping his opponent under his Goliath's armpit. Twin lasers erupted from two of the orbs around the Mother Gaia, firing a series of quick bursts into the Biorg's body. Ardwen then leapt back as quickly as possible, not wanting to give his opponent a chance to react. He knew he could easily be overpowered in long confrontations or actual duels, and so he had to constantly get in and out of these fights. He wanted skirmishes, little interactions of a second or two, nothing more or less, and then a hasty retreat to safety.
He would do this forever if he had to. He knew he could outlast his enemy, especially with his smaller motions and movements. While a battlesuit certainly couldn't get tired, the pilot inside could. Fuelling a portion of their battlesuit with their own chi, it was entirely possible to drain an opponent through conservation of energy. Of course, that was not Ardwen's larger plan, just one of many he had to fall back on in case things didn't go as expected.
Erich tried for another attack, this one more reckless, an effort to wrap up Ardwen and trap him. It seemed the Major had determined Ardwen's glaring weakness: the massive disparity in strength between the two units. But even this discovery was accounted for, taken into consideration when Ardwen bent backwards, letting the Biorg fly above him.
It was Ardwen, not Erich, who wrapped his arms around his enemy, using the natural momentum already generated by the Goliath during its attempted tackle. Ardwen continued to flew backwards, smashing his opponent down into the ground in a suplex. As he did, the balls hovering through the air unleashed a barrage of beams, slicing through more chunks of armour, slowly flaying the Biorg and generating new weak points.
This was what Ardwen had waited for, had prepared for during the fight. Each laser, each blast previously, perfectly aimed and co-ordinated to gradually strip away key defenses in the battlesuit. Even though the Biorg was a custom model, it was still based largely on the Exo-class model, and Ardwen knew almost every single possible class of Goliath inside and out from his studies. There would be no escaping him if he had a chance to chip away at an opponent.
The execution was simple and easy. Ardwen had stomped down on the shoulder joints of the enemy warmachine, snapping off the arms as the weakened connectors gave way. A concentration of laser fire at the base of the Biorg's spine severed the functions in its legs, cutting through exposed circuitry and wiring to cripple Erich. They didn't need deaths on their hands, especially senseless ones. The Goliaths just needed to be out of commission until the escape plan was completed.
And so, Ardwen walked away from the downed fighter, stepping back to rejoin Nami and Riya, provided they both won their bouts as well. He couldn't contain the smile on his face though, as he celebrated his first personal victory in a one-on-one match.
* * * * *
Nami and Ardwen approached Riya, watching as her twin gatling guns angled downwards at her fallen opponent. The foe she had gotten, one Major Branejan, was lying on the ground, his warmachine battered. It was coated in blackened craters, missing large chunks of armour in places, and one arm was twisted around into an unnatural position, clearly destroyed.
A fierce round of fire exploded from Riya's battlesuit, the bullets shredding through Branejan's warmachine. In a matter of seconds, the Goliath had been split in two at the waist, ripped apart but the barrage of fire from The Warlord. Ardwen and Nami both winced at the brutal destruction, the finishing blow coming not from grace or tact, but through sheer, merciless power. This had been in a match in which one machine outgunned the other, plain and simple, and it hadn't taken long from the looks of things. Ardwen had noted that Riya was the last one to engage in combat, Branejan taking longer to get to her.
"Then I guess that settles that," Ardwen remarked as he approached, still a bit shocked at the slaughter coming from Riya.
"That sucks," Nami pouted. "I was really hoping to watch something from you guys, but it happened so fast."
"Same." Ardwen's vision swung between the two girls. He was rather impressed by the efficiency they had displayed in dispatching their opponents. They would have never come close to this level of skill a month ago, not these three at least. Only Porter had ever been able to challenge a General and come away breaking even, and Ardwen still held on to bitter memories of his defeat at the hands of Jericho.
Things were different now though. They were stronger, different from ever before, and experienced. Unfortunately, they had seen things as well, learned things they had never hoped to discover, but it came with the territory of growth.
All three turned to face the base, the military station turned into a partial prison. They could see Porter's fight, but Raul was lost to the snow, duelling somewhere with the man he had so adamantly wished to fight. "I suppose we should meet with them then," Ardwen continued. It seemed he snapped Nami and Riya out of a daze, a shock all of them were experiencing at being finished so quickly.
They could only hope Porter and Raul would fare just as well.
A/N: The battle continues, but it's only Porter and Raul left. Who can survive in a showdown between Generals and students?