The Mech Touch

Everything happened at a fast pace. The Montebras were in the process of charging from one end to the other end of Phoca Arena.

During this short but crucial interval, the two lancer mechs had to find a way to successfully drive their lances through the frames of the two opposing drone mechs.

The Montebras already solved one problem by using their electrical bolts to accurately distinguish the real mechs from the surrounding illusions.

There was nothing wrong with the visual illusions and the false emissions projected by the offensive fey. They had successfully fooled the relatively modest sensor systems of the Montebras, but they failed to take more physical detection methods into account!

Illusions were ultimately false and intangible in the end. There was no way for the luminar crystal cannon fey to produce the correct kind of response when they were inexplicably zapped by electric bolts.

However, locking onto the real mechs was not enough for the lancer mechs.

If the Montebras wanted to drive their lances into the Fey Fiannas, they needed to be able to catch up to the relatively fast and agile drone mechs!

Ironically enough, the limitations of the mech arena actually made it a little easier for the Montebras. They weren't able to build up a lot of momentum, so the mechs could change their course a lot easier in a situation where their speed was quite modest for their mech type.

Yet that was not enough to secure a high success rate.

This was why the supercharged Montebras resorted to another solution, one that directly took advantage of all of the electrical energies produced through mysterious processes!

Two streams of lightning instantly formed between two pairs of mechs.

Each lancer mech channeled much of its electrical energies to its target on the other side!

The mech pilots of the Fey Fiannas reacted with surprise at this unexpected move, but found that the electrical streams were much less threatening than they appeared.

The constant flow of electricity continually tried to lock onto the metal frames of the main bodies, but became blocked by the water energy shields.

Yet that was not the purpose of this highly unusual phenomenon.

Once the electrical streams had been formed, the Montebras became attracted by the Fey Fiannas.

Literally.

The effect was not that obvious when there was still a lot of distance between the two sides, but as the Montebras rapidly closed in, the purpose of these odd electrical streams became more and more evident.

Somehow, two pairs of mechs became affected by electromagnetic forces that physically tried to pull them together!

Similar to how an electromagnet was able to attract ferromagnetic metals, the Montebras had essentially turned into powerful directional magnets that channeled all of their excess power into pulling in their chosen targets!

So long as the electrical streams tied the opposing mechs together, there was no way to block this inexplicable effect!

The Montebras had to exert a huge amount of effort to maintain this exceptional state. Electrical sparks continually blasted off its exterior as the machine continually converted a huge amount of metal energy as well as its own energy reserves to sustain this powerful phenomenon!

A lot of heat radiated from the Montebras. It became clear that their exertions were so heavy that they were already beginning to strain their heatsinks!

Ves could even tell that all of the forces and energies acting on the Montebras were taking a horrible toll onto their internals.

He did not think it was possible for these lancer mechs to pull off this dramatic move a second time!

The mechs already started to release the awful kind of smoke that could only be produced when components started to short circuit!

Yet all of the self-inflicted damage appeared to be worth it as the electromagnetic pull became stronger and stronger as the lancer mechs came closer to the elusive drone mechs.

None of the fey could do anything to stop the impending collision from happening.

The energy shields produced by the two defensive fey might be able to bleed away a bit of energy, but they would probably be nothing more than speed bumps in front of the two powerful lancer mechs.

The continuous barrage of fire laser beams was taking a toll on the defenses of one lancer mech, but the machine carried more than enough frontal armor to withstand all of the incoming laser attacks before it was able to complete its charge attack.

The mech pilots of the Fey Fiannas practically despaired as they saw the approaching lancer mechs magnify in front of their views at an alarming pace.

The Fey Fiannas did not give up, though. They started to make a lot of lateral movements. The more they moved sideways relative to the incoming lancer mechs, the greater the chance that they could evade the crucial charge attacks!

Yet as the distance continued to drop, the electromagnetic attraction forces rapidly rose in strength!

When the two mechs were only a few instants from making full contact with each other, the pull exerted by the mysterious electrical streams had become so strong that it seemed as if the two opposing sides were fated to 'meet' each other!

Naturally, the Fey Fiannas were not willing to connect with their fated partners at all! None of their attempts to shake off the attraction forces succeeded.

During the final moment before collision, the Fey Fiannas made a few unusual moves.

First, they hung as close to the large energy shields as possible. This would ensure the lancer mechs would painfully collide against the powerful defensive barrier if their momentum was still too great.

Second, all 6 offensive fey moved further away in an attempt to escape whatever might happen once the lancer mechs struck their targets.

Third, the two defensive fey overloaded their energy shield generators as much as possible. The subordinate spirits that were driving the two fey also did their best to channel their artistic conceptions as much as they could during this crucial interval.

A water dragon circled around a whirlpool! Both illusions put themselves in the middle of the electrical streams, causing them to crackle with lots of sparks, but utterly failing to break off the connections.

Fourth, the fey all removed their modular armor plates at once, causing them to expose their vulnerable internals.

The modular armor plates rapidly gathered in front of one of the Fey Fiannas, forming a thick physical shield over the mech's torso that was made up of a surprising amount of layers!

Whether all of this additional armor could make a difference remained questionable, but at least it was better than nothing.

Fifth and most importantly, the two Fey Fiannas made one more move that could possibly decide the outcome of this entire challenge match.

They did not separate from each other in an attempt to meet their impending dooms alone.

The mech pilots of the drone mechs instead chose to fly in alternating patterns around each other.

This caused the electrical streams to come into contact with each other.

Once the streams came into contact, they started to glitch out right away.

The two streams mutually interfered with each other in a way that caused the attraction effect to become a bit fuzzier.

Though the electromagnetic attraction forces that pulled the two pairs of mechs together did not break, their mutual interference caused the trajectories of the lancer mechs to wobble a lot more than they should!

Unfortunately, this was not enough to prevent the lancer mechs from homing in on the Fey Fiannas as if they were guided missiles. The interference would only cause the lances to strike at the target mechs a bit off-center at most.

Everyone became gripped by suspense as the ultimate collisions were about to take place.

At the final possible moment, the Fey Fiannas made one more move before the lances threatened pierce through their torsos.

The two mechs met with each other and physically utilized their legs to kick at each other's frames while at the same time trying to boost into opposite sides!

This last, desperate measure caused both mechs to make abrupt lateral movements that slightly helped to spoil the aim of the incoming lancer mechs, but only to a small extent.

BOOM! BOOM!

A rapid succession of loud crashing and collision noises ensued as both Montebras succeeded in driving their spears through the Fey Fiannas!

Shortly after the lancer mechs managed to land their brutal strikes, their momentum continued to propel them to the large shield barriers that prevented the match from threatening the lives of all of the spectators that were seated beyond.

The powerful energy shields flared as the two lancer mechs practically crunched their frontal armor upon collision!

Such crashes could disable many mechs, but the Montebras were made to withstand powerful forces.

The two lancer mechs instantly purged their frontal armor plating, causing them to drop a lot of warped and deformed pieces of metal that only served to weigh the machines down at this point.

The Montebras had transformed into spearman mechs at this point. Their dented and steaming frames did not appear to be in good shape.

Neither melee mechs came away unscathed. The self-inflicted damage combined with the strong collisions had definitely caused their conditions to deteriorate!

Normally, that shouldn't really matter so long as the opposing mechs had been taken out of the fight.

The Montebras would immediately be able to secure victory as long as they demonstrated at least a little bit of combat effectiveness!

The newly converted spearman mechs did not hold people's attention for long.

Everyone wanted to know what had happened to the Fey Fiannas!

As the dust started to settle, two very different drone mechs came into view.

One of them was in much better shape than the other.

The Fey Fianna that had received the additional protection of all of the modular armor plating of 8 fey managed to survive this battle, if only barely!

A large chunk out of its side had been torn away from the lance that still managed to pass through this section.

The drone mech in question experienced a lot of acute failures. Many of its systems malfunctioned, and a lot of emergency measures took place in order to contain and control the damage.

The poor Fey Fianna's flight system sputtered as its damaged components were unable to produce enough thrust power to keep the heavily damaged machine aloft. The mech made a haphazard controlled descent in order to reduce its burden.

The other Fey Fianna did not fare as well as its sibling. Without the protection of additional modular armor plating, the Montebra that charged into its direction struck with its lance with considerably greater force and direction!

The cockpit of the Fey Fianna instantly received the protection of Phoca Arena's powerful remote shield generators.

This measure successfully protected the life of the Larkinson mech pilot, but did nothing to prevent the rest of the torso from shattering apart!

The top half of the mech became separated from the lower half!

Both halves fell onto the arena ground in the midst of another shower of small metallic debris.

The four 'naked' fey that used to be connected to the destroyed drone mech seemed to lose direction and entered into standby mode.

The second challenge match had taken a turn that few people could have imagined.

The two Montebras successfully managed to complete their charge attacks. They undoubtedly paid a heavy price to secure this outcome, but the melee mechs still remained in fighting shape, if a bit reluctantly!

In contrast, the sole remaining Fey Fianna left in the fight was barely hanging on. The inability to fly severely restricted its mobility. The remaining damage to its torso also damaged many of its other systems, causing it to look as if it was a mechanical zombie that was on its last legs!

"Well..." Ves belatedly spoke up after he witnessed this dramatic result. "Your Montebras have certainly broken the rule that lancer mechs cannot strike agile targets. This... is quite a surprise."