After firing two small lasers, the hornet destroyed the spider’s right leg, incapacitating it for the match. When Xiao turned her attention to Puhi, she was shocked to see her squadmate’s hornet also lying down for the count.
“What happened?” she asked Vesna hastily.
“The other spider pilot is really good. Puhi stood no chance against her opponent.”
“What’s the current situation?”
“You and the two cicadas pilots are left.”
If it weren’t for the fact that Puhi was defeated in a one versus one situation, Xiao would have liked their odds. The two cicadas had shedded their outer armor earlier so they appeared a lot smaller now. Both of them wielded chainsaws in each hand. Before the young woman could ask what was the plan of her allied squad, the two cicadas charged in against the remaining spider with each of them taking a flank. The spider simply charged at one of the cicadas before unleashing light machine gun fire. Since the cicadas only had structure left after abandoning their armor, the targeted cicada was easily destroyed. The other cicada tried to get behind the spider but it too was easily taken out. In a matter of seconds, the match went from a three versus one to one versus one.
“Vesna, who is that? That couldn’t possibly be a no name pilot!”
“I did my research! The spider pilot couldn’t be that good! None of the footage indicated that either.”
Xiao knew that, regardless of the true identity of the pilot, she was in a match and she couldn’t possibly go down without a fight. She still had plenty of ammo and the heat levels for the hornet had gone to almost minimum levels. Puhi was caught by surprise but she wasn’t about to make the same mistake.
“Vesna, please give me a quick summary of the battle between that spider and Puhi. I need to know as much as I can before we engage each other.”
Xiao purposely had her hornet walk towards the foe while she listened to Vesna. After hearing about everything, she was certain the opposing pilot was better than Puhi in every way possible. Xiao suspected that she likely couldn’t fare better but she had to at least try.
Wattan told me to do my best and not worry about the repair costs. If I’m going down, I’ll at least gain something from the loss.
By the time Vesna finished sharing all she could, the hornet and the spider met somewhere near the center of the arena. The young woman watched as the spider suddenly ducked downwards before it moved at incredible speeds to her right.
How is she doing it? How did the spider pilot achieve that?
The hornet started zigzagging as it backed up from the spider. Then, it fired two SRMs that were easily avoided by the spider. The spider quickly closed the gap and struck with its sword which took out the hornet’s left torso in a single strike.
Damn it! I lost both of my small lasers and much of my remaining SRM ammo. How is a sword that strong?
Knowing that backing up wouldn’t suffice against such a fast foe, Xiao chose to do something new.
She ducked down like this before she dashed with jump jets. It’s something like this, right?
The hornet was unsteady at first during the ducking due to the changed center of mass following the lost torso but Xiao quickly adjusted for it. She then activated her jump jets that allowed her to evade the incoming sword. During the evasion, the young woman focused on the sword arm and fired off her SRMs at it. Due to the close proximity, her opponent couldn’t dodge in time, resulting in a direct hit for the missiles. As a result, the sword arm was blown clean off, removing the dangerous weapon from play.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Thanks a lot, Puhi! Your efforts to weaken the arm have paid off.
Before Xiao could celebrate, the spider charged at her at incredible speeds with a sword in its other arm. Knowing that she couldn’t run forever, she had her hornet fire off the SRMs and light machine guns at her foe. To her horror, the spider before her vanished as though she was shooting at a mirage.
“Behind you,” Vesna shouted through the headset.
By then, it was already too late as the spider had already stabbed in the hornet’s left leg. Xiao hopelessly watched as her mech fell on its back, unable to get back up. Once the dust settled around the hornet, the young woman felt tears streaming down her face as reality of the loss had dawned on her.
Why am I crying? I just went 5-0-0 before I suffered my first loss. I should be happy. No one stays undefeated forever.
“It’s okay to cry,” said Vesna.
Hearing the sobbing from her headset, Xiao couldn’t hold back her tears. She couldn’t deny that the taste of defeat was very bitter. Once she got the emotions out of her system, she spoke into her headset.
“Tell Wattan that I’m sorry for the repairs. I’ll try harder next time.”
Xiao could hear raspy noises before someone spoke.
“Missus, you’re a silly girl! That was one hell of a match! You made everyone at Zavaso proud!”
As she waited for Wattan to organize the trucks for transporting her hornet to the mechbay, Xiao played the whole match through her head. Up until the moment she destroyed the spider’s first sword arm, she felt she stood a chance. Yet, the next attack caught her completely by surprise. She was certain that the spider was in front of her but her attacks clearly hit nothing but air.
How was that possible? Is that something special for the spider mech? Or is that something I can learn as well?
“Vesna, you recorded the whole match, right? I want to watch what the spider did at the end there. It felt like it just vanished before my eyes.”
“That spider performed a move commonly known as shadow step. It requires perfect control over jump jets as even a small mistake will result in failure.”
Shadow step? It’s so cool! I must learn it!
Later that day when Xiao settled down back in her hotel room, she brought out her tablet and watched the footage of the shadow step. Despite watching it a dozen times, she was still amazed how it came together. The skills needed to pull it off were incredible and only a selected few were capable of it. As she wondered how a no name pilot could master it so young, she received a call from Vesna.
“Hey Vesna! I’m not depressed about the loss anymore so don’t worry about me!”
“About that loss…”
Apparently, the spider pilot was a pro from the third highest league in the tournaments. By impersonating someone weak, he was disqualified from their match and might even face punishment for his actions. The disqualification meant that Xiao’s side won the match which meant that her winning streak was still intact. Apparently, both she and Puhi pushed the pilot to reveal his actual skills, thus his identity became known.
“You are now 6-0-0 so sleep soundly knowing that you are still the best!”
After Vesna hung up the call, Xiao looked out the window.
That’s the skill of someone from the third highest league? It was crazy how big out skill gap was. And the power of the swords….no wonder they are so rare. I cannot imagine anyone wielding those weapons well.
Despite Vesna suggesting that Xiao should go to bed, the young woman couldn’t fall asleep. The match had her adrenaline pumping and she had yet to get her heart back under control. She then checked her fanclub site to see how that was going.
Wait! When did the number of fans reach triple digits? Was it due to today’s match?
Xiao checked the comments to see most of it referring to her last match. There were a lot of short videos embedded in the comments that showed various highlights of her match. She had to admit that, while it didn’t feel particularly amazing during the heat of the battle, the replays looked far cooler. She knew there were certain pilots who fought a specific way to get highlight reels but she had no interest in those. She wasn’t an entertainer looking to gain more popularity but rather a pilot looking to move up in the tournament rankings.
Not only do I need to improve my skills but we can also use better subcomponents. When I get back to the academy, I need to work even harder to become one of the top one hundred students.
Finding that she had new motivation to work even harder, Xiao forced herself to go to bed. Even if she didn’t fall asleep immediately, she could at least get some shuteye before morning. She needed plenty of rest for the single match she planned on doing at the academy.