The Mech Touch

lation pod.
He paid little attention to the ongoing match.

Like a caveman staring helplessly at an aircar, the Pterodactyl emphasized its superiority by maintaining its altitude over the helpless swordsman mech.
It even dipped up and down in an exaggerated motion, which attracted further scorn from the audience.

”Finish it already you asshole! ”

”You don ’t have to take it Lovejoy! Just forfeit the match! ”

”You ’re despicable Gauge! If it ’s up to me, you ’d already be tumbling out of Carnegie space! ”

Back in his simulation pod, the constant beeping of his mech ’s proximity alarm grated Lovejoy ’s ears.
He stopped wallowing about his impending defeat to see why his mech hadn ’t been sent to the graveyard yet.

”What the? Are you teabagging me? ”

Lovejoy could accept getting beaten.
He could even accept a loss against a much superior mech.
After all, this competition revolved around mech designers, so the participating pilots already mentally accepted that they ’d face such disparities.

What he couldn ’t accept is the enemy pilot rubbing his face with a victory he didn ’t deserve.
The pilot of the Pterodactyl was certainly someone who certainly ranked far below him.
The only reason he won in the first place was due to his massively overpowered mech.

”Even if you ’ve won, that ’s no reason to diss me! ”

A spark of anger ignited amid his overwhelming grief.
He unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the sky while roaring at the Pterodactyl.

”You can trample my mech, but not my dignity! ”

Caught in the fires of his rage, Cadet Lovejoy wanted to spite the Pterodactyl.
He impulsively rotated the Sword Dancer and with a mighty heave he threw the sword at the behemoth in the sky.

Despite seldomly having thrown a sword before, the weapon somehow spun in the direction of the Pterodactyl without fail.
The sword did not only carry the momentum of the Sword Dancer ’s spin.
It also carried Lovejoy ’s defiance against his fate.

Back in the waiting room, Ves tracked the spinning sword as it flew up with undaunted purpose towards the heavy mech.
He had no hopes for the desperate throw either.
A sword flung from this much distance lost a lot of its power on the way up.
With the kind of armor the Pterodactyl sported, it would be like a pebble thrown against a suit of armor.

Strangely enough, everyone who took note of the duel still fixed their gazes on the sword.
It held a magnetic attraction to them, as if they could sympathize with Lovejoy ’s frustrations.
They also thought it was a pity that his mech stood no chance.

Once the sword neared the Pterodactyl, the pilot instinctively tried to dodge it by moving his mech.
Somehow, the mech ’s belated movements caused it to draw the sword to its damaged and exposed section.
The pilot had forgotten all about the hole in his mech ’s armor and was completely clueless about his mistake.

Both Ves and Lovejoy widened their eyes.
The tip of the sword scratched the edge of the molten hole before sinking deep inside the burned and melted internals.
The remainder of its force allowed the blade to cut through many layers of weakened components before it finally reached a critical cable attached to the power reactor.

A massive machine like the Pterodactyl consumed a lot of energy even at rest.
The interrupted cable along with the other damage the heavy mech had already suffered caused the spot to be engulfed in another localized explosion.

While ordinarily this explosion should not be any cause for concern, the safeties that were supposed to be in place had already been destroyed.
The explosion caused a lot of damage to other components, which started up a cascade of errors.

The Pterodactyl suddenly lost seventy percent of its power.
That was not enough to keep the mech in the air.
The flight system whined as it tried to keep the mech at a constant altitude, to no avail.

The pilot woke up to the sudden crisis and frantically tried to redirect more power to the flight systems.
Due to the damage his mech had already suffered, he found no alternative paths.

”What kind of piece of shit mech only has this many paths?! ” He cussed, completely forgetting his earlier flaunting of his mech.

While an ordinary heavy mechs possessed a lot more redundancies, Gauge only received six hours of design time.
He could not spare much energy in adding redundancies to his mech ’s internals when he had to invest most of his time in improving the flight systems.

Smoke trailed the Pterodactyl as it descended to the ground in a soft landing.
The wings possessed sufficient enough power to avoid a crash landing.
That did not help the Pterodactyl much when the mech had been designed solely for aerial combat.
It did not even possess legs, which turned it into a sitting duck on the ground.

Lovejoy ’s eyes gleamed.
Ignoring his mech ’s amputated arm and weaponless state, he drove his mech forward and approached the Pterodactyl just as it skid along the grass.
The pilot of the heavy mech noted the danger and rerouted power from the flight systems to the laser mounts.
A couple of weak beams started to pepper the Sword Dancer.

”As if those weakened lasers can save you! ” Lovejoy laughed as the Sword Dancer took the lasers head-on, causing it to suffer some light damage in the process.
The medium mech ignored the mosquito bites and jumped on top of the grounded Pterodactyl.

The entire audience stood still.
Even the commentators had no words to say.

As a mech designed to bombard the ground from above, the Pterodactyl was not meant to attack any targets that landed on its back.
When the side-mounted laser turrets turned around to face the assailant, the Sword Dancer simply grabbed the barrels of the lasers and snapped them off one by one.
They only managed to unleash a dozen ineffectual beams before their mounts got wrecked.

Even the majestic heavy mech ’s beak-mounted cannon posed no threat to the Sword Dancer.
Its range of motion only allowed the beak to swivel sideways.
Just to be sure, Lovejoy stomped his mech ’s foot repeatedly on the head until its neck collapsed.

The Pterodactyl lost all of its weapons.
The sudden reversal caught everyone by surprise.

”Are my eyes deceiving me? ” A male commentator befuddled asked.
”Did Gauge ’s mech got strung like a duck? ”

”I don ’t think anyone believed this has happened.
A thrown sword changed destiny.
The undefeated has tasted defeat. ”

”Gauge must be stewing in anger right now.
Look at his awful face! ”

Lovejoy cared nothing for the commentary even if he could hear it.
Somehow, he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, so he tried to cling to it as tightly as possible.
He resolved not to make the same mistake as his opponent and started to dig into the Pterodactyl.

Without a weapon and only one arm intact, the Sword Dancer could not inflict much damage to the grounded mech.
It had to kick aside a loosened plate and dig into the internals with brute force.

After a couple of minutes of helplessly sitting around, the pilot finally bowed down.
He could not take the humiliation and exited the match by forfeiting.

Ves and Lovejoy won their fourth duel after an arduous match.
Their total victories in the second round propelled them to the single digits in the top 25.
Their last victory especially gave them a lot of points.
It was a no-brainer for them to move on to the finals.

”Thank you Lovejoy.
You really saved my skin. ” Ves said with a smile.
He really dodged a bullet there.
He could not bear to think what he ’d do if he narrowly missed the top 25.