The Mech Touch

ch of the three wild gods called down different powers onto the battlefield.

One of them summoned a corrosive wind that spread out over hundreds of meters.
The strange properties of this acid wind rapidly ate through armor plating of the Swordmaiden mechs that fell into range!

Most of them managed to escape the affected area looking like sorry, rusted junkyard machines.
A handful suffered worse than others.
When their gravitic backpacks or their leg joints failed, the mechs lost all of their mobility.
The Swordmaiden mech pilots helplessly ejected their cockpits before the corrosive winds ate through the ejection mechanisms.

The heavy gravity did its best to pull down the flying cockpits, but their integrated antigrav modules lasted long enough for them to fly back to the rear.

The ejected pirate cockpits on the other hand displayed more mixed results.
Half of the time, their antigrav modules failed to fire up, causing the cockpits to slam against the ground after traveling only a couple of hundred meters.

Evidently, their mech technicians hadn ’t checked the cockpits in a very long time.

That said, a significant amount of pirate mech pilots became trapped in their own mechs as their mechs keeled over before they could release their gravitic backpacks and allow their cockpits room to eject.

Because the gravitic backpacks shifted the center of gravity of the mechs slightly to the rear, many mechs that stopped functioning had a tendency to fall onto their backs, which was the worst outcome as far as mech pilots and mech designers were concerned!

Right after the first wild god summoned a corrosive wind, a second wild god activated his powers in a different area.
Tens of Swordmaiden mechs fell into an area that suddenly turned muddy.

The soil didn ’t grow wet and muddy.
Instead, it became as pliable as soft clay, causing most of the mechs in the area to sink down into the ground.

This was a fatal trap to mechs, and it had caught over twenty Swordmaiden mechs over a wide area!

Even without orders from Captain Byrd, the Akkara mechs abruptly stopped firing their laser cannons at the two stalled wild gods and instead blasted the exobeast responsible for turning the terrain into a soft pit.

The blistering lasers immediately halted the wild god ’s efforts of attempting to sink the affected mechs into the ground! The soil abruptly hardened, trapping the Swordmaiden mechs and turning them into sitting ducks against errant laser fire from some of the pirate mechs.

Most hadn ’t sunk deep enough to trap them for long.
They forcibly pulled out their legs or hacked the ground with their extremely sharp greatswords until they loosened it up enough to break out.

Still, a handful of Swordmaiden mechs sunk deeper than others, to the point where they couldn ’t free themselves on their own power.
As more and more pirate mechs fired their lasers at the immobile mechs, the Swordmaiden mech pilots decisively bailed out and ejected from their cockpits.

”These impatient hags! ”

”Are their brains filled with muscles or something? ”

Many Vandals groaned as the Swordmaidens incurred unnecessary losses from these incidents.
Why couldn ’t they hold themselves back and wait for their ranged mechs to take out these wild gods and their bewildering powers from a distance?

”Focus on suppressing the wild gods! Instruct the Akkara mechs to focus their firepower on any wild god that begins to glow! ”

At this time, the first wave of Swordmaiden mechs finally slammed against the pirate mechs.
While many of their mechs suffered setbacks or delays due to the appearance of the corrosive winds and the quicksand pit, their line stretched out over kilometers, allowing most of them to close the distance unscathed.

The Swordmaiden mechs instantly tore the mechs of the Caged and the Red Tongs to pieces during the initial clash!

The difference in strength was too wide! As a whole, The Devil Razors outmatched the budget and bargain bin mechs of their opposition by a wide margin, both in cost and in maintenance levels.

The latter may sound a bit boring but it drastically affected the reaction speed and the amount of damage the enemy mechs could endure before they got wrecked.

What really sealed the deal was the disparity in training, discipline and skill! The mech pilots of the Caged fared a lot better than the unruly Red Tongs, who mostly earned their fame from the atrocities they committed instead of displaying valor on the battlefield!

The Vandal mechs in the second line faltered in their charge when they saw that the Swordmaidens didn ’t need any help at the moment.
The vicious Swordmaidens currently fought like wolves among sheep, felling pirate mech after pirate mech with alarming speed!

”Those ladies are tearing the pirates apart! ”

The only meaningful opposition came from the enemy leader mechs.
Their pristine states along with their skilled veteran mech pilots propped up the faltering lines of the Caged Tongs.
They even fought evenly against their Swordmaiden counterparts!

Yet time wasn ’t on their side.
The Caged Tongs continued to lose more mechs, causing their local numbers advantage to diminish by the second.
Already, the Swordmaidens started to gang up on the superior pirate mechs.

The cunning Swordmaidens adopted a devious tactic where one Swordmaiden mech occupied the enemy machine in front while two other Swordmaiden mechs targeted its gravitic backpack!

A single mech couldn ’t cover against three foes at once! Once the Swordmaidens managed to destroy the lightly-armored gravitic backpacks, the elite pirate leaders for all of their battle prowess became imprisoned in their own mechs as they slowed down to a crawl!

The Devil Razor or Silver Valencias occupying the mech at the front didn ’t need to display any fancy anymore.
They simply stabbed their swords straight through the chest plating and through the cockpit of the trapped pirate mechs!

While the brawl at the frontlines slanted heavily towards the Swordmaidens, the third wild god that quietly charged up her strength despite the lasers hitting her energy field finally activated her power!

She abruptly disappeared from view.

”One of the wild gods has disappeared! ”

”Where has the beast gone?! ”

An alert suddenly sounded inside the mobile headquarters.

”The wild god teleported from her position! She ’s right in the middle of our supply train! ”

Everyone abruptly became alarmed.
The heavy transport that served as their mobile headquarters was right in the middle of the supply train as well!

The teleporting wild god somehow circumvented hundreds of mechs including the Akkara heavy cannoneers and landed straight in the middle of the most vulnerable area of the Flagrant Swordmaidens!