The Mech Touch

Team Caper designed an unusual mech for the Wild Brawl Bowl.

Just like the mech designers of Team Youngbuck, the pair of Journeymen of Team Caper originated from the galactic center.

While Ves did not fear second-class mech designers who came from this prosperous region as greatly as before, they were still formidable in their own ways.

Ves considered Team Caper to be a much graver threat than Team Youngbuck.

While Team Youngbuck designed a strong swordsman mech, its young and inexperienced mech designers fell too much in love with their own advanced tech and failed to adapt to the circumstances of the Wild Brawl Bowl.

Team Caper did not make the same mistake. The duo were older and probably had plenty of tournament experience. They chose to design a mech that not only aligned with their specialties but also happened to counter a lot of competition mechs in this tournament!

"Of all of the teams we could fight against in the second round, Team Caper is the least desirable one." Ves said.

"Our mech can take the octopus mech." Ketis reassured him. "Lyain Kepper just needs to follow the brief plan that I have passed on to him. The Parnast is definitely a tricky mech, but its fighting approach is quite simple and one-dimensional. As long as our Heart of Victor can overcome it, then it should easily be able to win this match."

The two mechs appeared in the arena once again. The public became a lot more interested now that two strong machines faced off against each other.

Though the Heart of Victor did not perform in an impressive manner in the previous match, it was still a mech developed by a highly-rated team. Much of the audience hoped that it would show its true strength this time.

As for the Parnast, the octopus mech was definitely one of the weirdest machines designed in this tournament.

It looked exactly as it sounded. The Parnast was a giant, mechanical octopus that traversed the ground in a weird manner with its eight segmented limbs.

What was impressive and fearsome about this Parnast was that its limbs were all strong. This mech was all about exerting as much mechanical power through its octopus limbs as possible!

To that end, the strength of each limb was equivalent to the strength of a leg of a humanoid mech.

This did not sound too alarming at first, but when eight of them were installed on a single mech frame, then that led to a considerable transformation that could easily grab and crush any target within range!

[In its previous match, the Parnast has already shown that it is the nemesis of melee mechs. The poor humanoid mech it fought against was barely able to inflict surface damage on the sturdy tentacles before those sinuous limbs entangled its limbs and frame!]

The sight of the octopus mech literally latching onto the humanoid mech before it used its superior mechanical strength to steadily crush its prey was horrifying!

No mech pilot would want to get caught like this. If the octopus mech grappled an enemy mech in the right manner, it could neutralize all means of retaliation.

The biggest priority of Lyain Kepper was to prevent his Heart of Victor from getting caught by the Parnast!

"This isn't going to be easy." He muttered inside the cockpit of his swordsman mech.

He did not let that discourage him, though. He and his mech were still confident that they could handle this strange bestial mech.

Once the match commenced, both mechs began to move!

The octopus mech had only one means of attack, so it directly slithered over to the Heart of Victor.

The closer it got to its prey, the faster it could submerge the swordsman mech with its limbs!

As for the Heart of Victor, there was no way that Lyain was stupid enough to let the Parnast get close for free.

Even though the swordsman mech was not a particularly fast-moving machine, it was actually a bit lighter than the octopus mech, so it was able to maintain a continuous distance from the approaching threat.

This was not a permanent solution, though. The Parnast may be a larger and heavier machine, but it also moved with eight limbs at once!

Though it expended a lot of energy in order to power all of its strong and heavy limbs, the octopus mech had plenty of reserves to spare due to its large size.

Therefore, Lyain's actual goal wasn't to outrun the chasing octopus mech, but to delay the moment of contact as much as possible.

In the meantime, the Heart of Victor turned its torso just enough to throw its chainsword at the eight-limbed machine!

Clang!

The sword collided against one of the eight tentacles before bouncing away. Lyain already expected this result and quickly commanded the Heart of Victor to retract its chain and manipulate it with its two arms so that the chainsword would fly at the Parnast once again!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The Heart of Victor made the most out of its ranged advantage and constantly struck the Parnast with repeated blows.

The impact of these strikes was not that impressive, though. Each of the Parnast's limbs were thick and strong and there were eight of them. If the mech pilot of the octopus mech thought that one of the limbs took a bit too much abuse, he could just turn the orientation of this mech around and not lose any speed in the process!

"It's an omnidirectional mech." Ketis noted. "There are no real sides or rear for the Parnast. It can move and attack in any direction."

Ves nodded. "Team Caper is certainly an interesting bunch for designing such an odd mech under the circumstances."

He had already studied the background of the duo that made up this team. It turned out that one of them was actually an amphibian mech designer.

Although the Parnast wasn't optimized for amphibian combat, Ves could easily imagine it becoming a terror in water environments with a few changes.

Though the arena did not feature a speck of water, the Parnast was still able to move quickly. Together with its tough frame and strong mechanical power, it seemed as if this mech was impossible to overcome in a direct collision!

[The Heart of Victor's chain attacks are not dealing enough damage. It is difficult to damage one of the eight limbs when the Parnast is easily able to rotate its orientation. All of the damage it has incurred so far consists of moderate surface damage. I cannot see the swordsman mech doing any better unless it commits to a stronger attack.]

[That sounds dangerous. Entering into melee range with an octopus mech is a recipe for disaster!]

[Who knows. No mech is invincible. The Parnast is strong in several areas, but its design also contains numerous tradeoffs. I am curious to see whether the Heart of Victor can exploit these weaknesses.]

After several minutes of constant running and chasing, the octopus mech almost managed to catch up to the swordsman mech!

The Heart of Victor had stopped throwing its chainsword at this point as it would not be able to maintain its best speed when doing this. Just running wasn't enough to win this match, though.

[It's pouncing!]

Though the Parnast still had to overcome a short distance in order to grapple the Heart of Victor, it simultaneously used all of its eight octopus limbs in order to leap ahead!

Lyain Kepper already expected his opponent to do this. Though the Heart of Victor did not excel at evasion, the mech had already dashed aside before the Parnast could get close!

"My chance is here!"

Just like the previous time, Lyain had been lying in wait until his opponent revealed an opening.

The Parnast was ordinarily a dangerous mech to attack, the leap it had just performed was a hefty move that required plenty of time to recover from! To be more precise, the octopus mech had to bear the heavy impact of its landing by utilizing all of its limbs as temporary springs.

This left the Parnast briefly open and completely unable to make any other moves!

The Heart of Victor had already turned around to approach and stab one of the Parnast's limbs!

Since the swordsman mech held its weapon properly and attacked with a bit of momentum behind the move, the stab had finally managed to breach the armor of one of the eight tentacles!

The Parnast quickly tried to retaliate even as the Heart of Victor pulled back. Several limbs surged forward, but the swordsman mech already pulled back out of range.

A new and more intense stage of the battle had commenced as the two mechs began to tussle against each other at close range.

The Heart of Victor had to concentrate most of its power on trying to evade the enemy machine's powerful tentacles. It barely had any opportunity to launch any attacks, but to Lyain's credit he was still managing to inflict slow but consistent damage onto the octopus mech.

As the struggle continued, many people in the audience expected the Parnast to catch up and grasp the Heart of Victor, yet as the minutes went by, nothing of the sort had happened.

For some reason, the Heart of Victor continually succeeded in anticipating and evading the Parnast's powerful leaps!

When the mech designers of Team Caper witnessed their mech's continual failure to capture the Heart of Victor, they grew increasingly more concerned.

As this dangerous pattern continued to unfold in the arena, something had finally changed!

When the Parnast leapt and missed its prey before landing onto the ground with a strong impact, the force of its landing had finally caused one of its tentacles to malfunction!

The discordant element became obvious as the Parnast struggled to move forward with one crippled limb.

It was no coincidence that the failing limb happened to be the one that the Heart of Victor had managed to stab from the start!

Though the Parnast's fault tolerance was quite respectable, the damaged tentacle simply wasn't capable of withstanding so many kinetic impacts. All of those jumping and landing motions rattled the damaged limb and put more stress on the weakened part.

Now that it finally broke from all of the abuse, the Parnast decisively ejected the limb from its frame. The damaged and useless tentacle detached from its connection point and fell onto the arena ground.

The movement of the Parnast had changed. A hole had formed in its limb coverage. Though its mass had lightened, it also had one less limb to move around.

"It's leaps have become easier to dodge!"

"The Heart of Victor can attack the Parnast more easily!"

"The fighting rhythm of the Parnast has been disrupted!"

The octopus mech had grown weaker while the Heart of Victor still retained the same battle effectiveness. Though the changes were rather small, Team Larkinson's swordsman mech was able to deal with its opponent a bit more effectively than before.

The Parnast soon had to part a second tentacle!

This time, its mobility and performance was affected in a more serious way. Just when everyone thought that the Heart of Victor would continue with its scumbag strategy of playing hard to get, Lyain Kepper abruptly switched his approach and launched an all-out attack, much to the surprise of the audience!

The spectators weren't the only ones caught off-guard. The mech pilot of the Parnast also didn't expect the swordsman mech to turn around and go on the attack.

After so much time spent on chasing after the Heart of Victor, he had long developed contempt towards the swordsman mech. All of the hype and dread surrounding this mech had long faded from his mind.

Though the Parnast already moved to repel the attack, the chainsword had already stabbed deeply into one of the limbs!

This time, the blow was more serious. The third tentacle had to be scrapped right away!

When the octopus mech finally launched an attack that looked close to succeeding, the Heart of Victor did not retreat.

Instead, it jumped and actually climbed on top of the octopus mech's structure!

It had let go of its sword and grasped two of the closest tentacles to block them from doing anything detrimental.

Though there were three other intact tentacles that had managed to grab hold of the mech frame, they were not strong enough on their own to stop the Heart of Victor from getting into position!

The Parnast groaned and collapsed onto the ground. It was unable to move as all of its limbs were preoccupied with trying to grapple and crush the Heart of Victor!

[There's too few tentacles! Three of them are not strong enough to crush through the tough exterior of the swordsman mech!]

In a strange repeat of its previous match, the Heart of Victor began to stomp the mech underneath its feet once again!

The Parnast was tougher than the Zenomon Gamma, so it took a bit more stomping in order to crush its armor.

However, the match had already been decided as soon as the Heart of Victor had managed to reach this position.

Crush!

With one final stomp, the swordsman mech broke through the top armor of the Parnast and destroyed enough systems to cripple the octopus mech's powerful engine!

[Team Larkinson… has won again!]