The Mech Touch

The Montebra GHCMQ-3 clearly wasn't ready for primetime.

The mech appeared to be well-designed and polished from the outside, but now that it had completed an incredibly intensive charge attack, it had exposed a lot of flaws and shortcomings.

Whatever electromagnetic wizardry enabled it to form an unbreakable lock onto a target mech, the extreme measure clearly hadn't been designed for a mech of this caliber!

The fried components, the obvious reduction in fluency, the shaking limbs and many other indicators showed that the two Montebras had paid a heavy price to deliver their most powerful killing blows at their targets.

It worked, more or less.

Though one of the Fey Fiannas managed to blunt the force of the incoming lance by making use of the sum total of all of the modular armor plating attached to all of the fey, the powerful electromagnetic pull had been at its strongest when the distance between the two mechs had shrunk.

This enabled the Montebra in question to muster up enough force to deliver a crippling blow to the Fey Fianna!

Now, the main body in question was barely holding on to its remaining functions. The torso was a critical element to any mech. So many energy cells and other important components had been ripped away from the machine.

Many of the adjacent components became affected by all of the damage as well. The Fey Fianna's degree of compartmentalization was not high due to its slim build, and its redundancy was not that impressive either.

The fact that it could remain standing after missing an entire chunk out of its side was already a technical accomplishment!

Unfortunately, few people paid attention to the Fey Fianna at this moment. They had witnessed this mech model plenty of times now, so the novelty had started to wear off already.

The Montebras had become the latest highlight of the moment!

Even in their damaged and diminished state, the spear-wielding machines still looked amazingly handsome and deadly.

Electrical sparks continued to crackle off their dented mech frames. The loss of all of their prior excess armor caused the machines to look a lot less bloated and a lot more proportionate.

Combined with the strong electrical energies that continued to surge from the insides of the machines, the metallic machines gave the illusion that they were godly warriors that had been bestowed with the gift of lightning!

"Amazing! These lancer mechs can run down any agile mech with their electromagnetic power!"

"These Montebras have subverted one of the fundamental adages of lancer mechs."

"Who is Master Hubert-Colmain? How come I have never heard of her? Is she a famous mech designer over at the Greenwich Middle Zone?"

In contrast to the people who didn't know any better and became affected by the dashing sight of the lightning-blessed mechs, the mech designers among the viewers did not unilaterally praise the Montebras.

The mechs had certainly demonstrated great strength, but it did not pull off their amazing charge attacks without suffering great damage in return.

"The real reason why the Montebras are able to purge their heavy frontal armor is not because they need to gain a lot of mobility to improve their brawling capabilities. The mechs have no choice but to shed all of their excess mass because they cannot adequately fight anymore after they have overexerted themselves. Without this essential function, it is doubtful whether the Montebras could pull off a second charge attack!"

It became clear that the melee mech model in its current state was not meant to go on sale right away.

No one looked forward to buying and using a mech that fried itself to a semi-crippled state after pulling off just a single big move.

The logistical burden imposed by such a powerful and inefficient mech was more trouble than it was worth in most practical cases.

It was only in specific situations such as an important match that such an investment could be justified!

Ves directed a pointed glance towards Master Ginevra Hubert-Colmain.

He had the feeling that his Fey Fianna had become the foil this time. The Montebra model attracted so much admiration and interest that hardly anyone was thinking about how amazing it was that one of the two drone mechs had managed to escape certain death.

Many other mechs would have never been able to get away if they were put in the same position a moment ago! How come no one appreciated that the Fey Fianna was surprisingly hardy and difficult to take down for a machine of its kind?

"As you can see, the Turbo ElectroMagnetic Pairing mechanism is not yet complete." Master Ginevra calmly explained to Ves. "The E-energy to electrical energy conversion process is too rough and inefficient. The short-circuiting that took place is an inevitable consequence of trying to produce more electrical power than a standard mech of this construction can handle. It would have been much better to implement this mechanism in an expert mech or a first-class multipurpose mech. Their materials and components are able to endure much greater loads."

"Maybe you should dial down the power level." Ves made an obvious suggestion..

"I have tried that before, but the results were not satisfactory. My newly developed TEMP mechanism can achieve the greatest effect when it cannot be shaken off by the target machine. I have found that lower power settings not only reduces the activation range by a large extent, but also enables the opposing mech to break the lock. For better or worse, the TEMP mechanism can only be produced at an unsustainable level to the Montebra design."

"I see."

The mechs in the field had begun to make their next moves.

As the Montebras shook off the consequences of their brutal charge attacks and started to descend towards their final remaining target, the surviving Fey Fianna in the field took action as well.

The machine took control of all 6 offensive fey regardless of whether they were occupied by a subordinate spirit.

The fey did not have to be inhabited by an actual living spirit in order to be used!

Every Fey Fianna possessed the capacity to commandeer orphaned fey by relying on more conventional spur control mechanisms.

The mech pilot just had to take more direct control over the fey that did not contain any living spirit.

This was not a significant challenge to a trained drone mech pilot that had already piloted a more traditional drone mech like the Sparrow Storm in the past.

Once the Fey Fianna took charge of all of the offensive fey, the armor-less machines immediately opened fire with their luminar crystal cannons!

A salvo of 6 fire energy beams struck the Montebra that had incurred the greatest damage!

This just happened to be the mech that the Fey Fiannas targeted with their ranged attacks in an earlier sequence.

The Montebra in question already lost its energy shield. This enabled the fiery energy beams to rake across the diminished armor plating of the newly converted spearman mech without any obstacles!

Getting hit by a single energy beam was hardly threatening to a typical mech. Even a light skirmisher could shrug off a typical beam attack, especially when the attack was unable to concentrate all of its power onto a single point.

However, getting attacked by 6 fire laser beams at the same time was another story!

If the targeted Montebra had still been equipped with their full armor loadout, then it would have been able to endure a lot of salvos before anything serious happened.

Yet now was exactly the time where the spearman mech was at its most vulnerable!

The fey were relentless. They did not remain static, but obeyed the direction of a furious Larkinson mech pilot and began to circle around the spearman mech's rear!

Compared to its remaining frontal armor, the rear of the Montebra was considerably thinner and less protected!

The luminar crystal cannon fey did not attack the Montebra blindly, but purposefully tried to target its flight system, which not only happened to be particularly vulnerable, but had already incurred a considerable amount of internal damage due to the harm caused by the TEMP mechanism.

"How come the Fey Fianna is able to control 6 fey all of a sudden? Wasn't its limit supposed to be 4 fey?"

"The Sparrow Storms can control up to 64 spurs. What the Fey Fianna is doing is hardly a challenge."

"Two of the fey aren't as accurate and responsive as the rest. It is clear that there are shortcomings to controlling more fey than the recommended limit." Regardless of how the two additional offensive fey missed their shots more often than the other four fey, the continuous attacks from 6 fey already caused the targeted Montebra a lot of grief!

Without the benefit of an energy shield, the Montebra had no means to block the incoming shots from melting and vaporizing the crucial components that were responsible for granting flight capabilities to the spearman mech.

At a certain point, the rapid buildup of damage ultimately triggered a small explosion that completely disabled an important subsystem of the spearman mech!

The machine descended at a much faster rate than before because of the sudden loss of lift capacity.

Crunch!

Though the machine did not outright crash onto the ground, its damaged legs groaned and cracked in a few places as it clearly made a rough landing.

The offensive fey did not relent in their attacks. They were like sharks who smelled blood. Now that the Montebra had lost much of its mobility, it practically turned into a sitting duck!

The fire laser beam attacks continued to heat up the mech. None of the electrical energies sparking from the Montebra offered any protection against the barrage of energy beams.

The mech's mobility had become so compromised at this time that it was completely unable to evade the attacks!

Eventually, the fire laser beams managed to burn past the weak points at the rear and inflict enough crippling damage to the poor machine's internals that the Montebra ultimately shut down.

"What a quick takedown!"

"The Montebra was already half-dead after it had completed its charge. The fey only needed to finish the job."

Though the 6 offensive fey had done a great job at saving a bit of face for the Fey Fianna, by the time they redirected their attacks to the other Montebra, it appeared that they were already too late!

The other Montebra was in a much better condition. Its energy shield remained at half-strength due to internal damage, but that was more than enough to withstand the firepower of the Fey Fianna's luminar crystal rifle.

The additional firepower of the 6 offensive fey caused the energy shield to wear down much faster, particularly as the fire element possessed a strong advantage against metal-based defenses.

Yet the spearman mech easily managed to weather the storm long enough to land in front of the sole remaining Fey Fianna.

Even as its weakened energy shield finally lost cohesion, the spearman mech did not take notice of the fire beams raking its rear armor as it began to thrust its spear at the semi-crippled Fey Fianna!

The drone mech was in no shape to run or fly away. The only way for it to survive was to fend off the spearman mech at close range.

The Fey Fianna had shakingly attached its bayonet to the front of its rifle.

As the first spear thrust threatened to poke through the gaping hole on the Fey Fianna's side, the drone mech hastily attempted to deflect the attack.

Crackle!

When the spear made contact with the bayoneted rifle, the Montebra's remaining electrical charge suddenly spilled over to the Fey Fianna!

This caused the latter mech to endure unexpected shocks that induced multiple glitches and breakdowns of its damaged and vulnerable internals!

The Fey Fianna briefly lost the ability to move.

Though the mech's emergency measures worked hard to restore its functionality, the Montebra took full advantage of the opening and made a sharp thrust that poked straight into the exposed internals of the drone mech!

Boom boom boom!

Numerous secondary explosions erupted from the Fey Fianna's interior!

The mech finally couldn't take it any longer and completely collapsed as it was unable to recover from all of the excessive damage!

The arena's defensive measures made sure to protect the life of the Larkinson mech pilot, but they did nothing to save the Fey Fianna itself from ruination! "The Fey Fiannas... have lost the second challenge match!"