The Mech Touch

The battle wasn't going well for either side.

Both sides kept learning and adapting to each other. Hundreds of mechs and fish-whales began to run low on reserves and started to accumulate damage. Once they exhibited obvious weaknesses, their opponents did not miss the opportunity to finish the job!

As casualties kept mounting for both sides, the mech pilots attempting to contribute to the battle in their own way experienced greater and greater difficulties.

The Phasers started to recognize the threat posed by the small and odd-looking metal machines.

While they weren't as clear of an enemy as the Evolvers, the mechs had an annoying tendency to hit the Phasers where they were weak!

This caused plenty of them to suffer crippling injuries, which eventually led to their downfall!

Although their spatial barriers were highly effective at keeping the mechs at bay, this was not a permanent solution as both the mechs and the Evolvers did everything they could to wear them down.

The Phasers opted to go on the offensive as a result!

One of the more dangerous developments was that the Phasers launched increasingly more attacks onto the mechs as opposed to the Evolvers. 

Most Evolvers fighting up close were tough and difficult to kill in a short amount of time.

In contrast, the mechs that were apparently made out of rigid materials crumpled faster when struck by serious attacks!

None of the mechs of Task Force Fisherman excelled at defense. Even if they did, it was hard to imagine that a defensive Bright Warrior or one of the Rigid Wall mechs could remain intact when struck by the full force of a tail strike or a massive bite!

The only consolation to the expeditionary forces was that the mech pilots also became increasingly more adept at finding the right time to activate eject command.

The mechs, while precious, ultimately weren't as crucial as the lives of their pilots. There was no need for the men and women to stick to their mechs to the very end.

The Phasers, while curious why the mechs constantly shot out smaller pieces of metals, did not pay too much attention to the ejected cockpits.

This allowed the mech pilots to flee the immediate battlefield and approach the rear where they could quickly transfer over to one of the many shuttles under guard.

Hundreds of Phasers and Evolvers had already fallen by this time.

Task Force Fisherman also lost over 400 mechs, which represented almost half of its battle strength!

The price of stealing several metric tons worth of phasewater from the Phase Kingdom became higher and higher. The losses became more severe, but that only made the surviving mech pilots even more determined to defeat their foes!

For example, after a long back-and-forth, the Dark Zephyr along with the Everchanger finally managed to push the Storm Prince to exhaustion.

The two expert mechs might not have been able to defeat this powerful phasewater wizard in a short amount of time, but they forced the creature to employ one ability after another in quick succession.

Whether it was putting up a spatial barrier, teleporting its body to another location to summoning powerful localized warp storms that could threaten a relatively thin and fragile expert mech like the Dark Zephyr, the Storm Prince had given both expert pilots a run for their money!

However, after the Storm Prince exhausted the organs responsible for increasing its defenses, the constant positron beam attacks raking the Storm Prince was taking its toll.

Venerable Joshua always made sure to target the parts of the fish-whale's body that it had damaged beforehand. Through a combination of positron beams and kinetic beams, the Everchanger's rifle bit deep into the Storm Prince's flesh!

As the formidable fish-whale reared in pain after the Everchanger's latest attack managed to disable one of its organs, the creature became a lot more vulnerable!

"Tusa, now!"

The Dark Zephyr had been waiting for this. It stopped circling around and accelerated forward with its knives poised to strike!

Venerable Tusa previously targeted the rear parts of the Storm Prince's body, but now his expert mech took the fish-whale by surprise by attacking its front!

The Dark Zephyr zipped in front of one of the Storm Prince's eyes and stabbed deeply, pushing its wickedly sharp blades through the eyelid and protective membranes that ordinarily shielded the organ from damage.

Blood gushed on the expert light mech's frame even as it pulled away in haste to avoid the Storm Prince's retaliatory bite!

"Hah! We did it!" Venerable Tusa grinned. "Only one more eye to go before this fish-whale is as blind as a bat!"

"Don't get excited too quickly, Tusa." Ves interrupted. "The Phasers may possess other senses that we don't know about yet. These fish-whales are born combatants and they should definitely be able to perceive us in multiple ways if that is the case."

As Venerable Joshua and Venerable Tusa continued to whittle down the Storm Prince, many other mech pilots were also struggling to make a difference.

Commander Casella Ingvar became increasingly more exhausted as she exerted her Command Field for an extended amount of time.

Extending true resonance to hundreds of mechs was highly draining, but the Sentinel Commander never stopped lending out her power!

Blessed with a fraction of the power of an expert pilot, the empowered ranged mechs within range dealt significantly greater power towards their targets than normal!

Over a hundred Phaser fish-whales already succumbed to their potent weapons fire!

If not for the fact that the ranged mechs needed to fire way too many shots to take down each large fish-whale, the firepower exhibited by the ranged mechs would have easily been able to shoot down ten times the amount of mechs!

As Commander Casella kept observing the changes taking place on the battlefield, she continually directed the mechs under her influence to make the most out of their capabilities.

"Watch your energy reserves and take care not to overheat your mechs. We have been fighting at a high intensity for more than half an hour now, but there are still too many Phasers left. The Evolvers cannot fight against them alone, so make sure you have enough reserves left to intervene when necessary."

Exhaustion had already begun to creep up on numerous combatants. Not even the fish-whales were able to fight as hard as before.

That didn't mean they were starting to give up, though. The stakes of the battle remained as high as ever and the weaknesses shown by their opponents encouraged them to persist!

One ominous-looking Phaser fish-whale eventually figured out that the Minerva played a key role in coordinating the mechs.

It called up its fellow elite Phasers and pushed their way past the Evolvers in order to target the expert command mech directly!

Commander Casella immediately noticed the change, but did not panic at this development. She designated the incoming Phasers as priority targets and nudged several mech units to direct their fire at the alien threats!

"Fire at these targets!"

The Minerva took the lead and struck at the lead Phaser with its formidable Irvan rifle.

The powerful shots from this weapon along with the beams fired by other ranged mechs quickly whittled down the spatial barriers protecting the fish-whales.

The beasts silently roared in pain as their bodies became riddled with scars and burn marks.

Numerous attacks even targeted the eyes of the Phasers, but the fish-whales already anticipated that and covered this vulnerability with a small spatial barrier that was much stronger than the larger ones that they could summon.

By using the bodies of their comrades as cannon fodder, at least half of the elite Phasers were gaining on the Minerva!

While the expert mech was already attempting to move away from the incoming fish-whales, the Phasers utilized whatever reserves they had left to speed themselves up, thereby overcoming their speed disadvantage!

"Imon!"

"Got it, sister!"

The Blade Chaser moved into action!

Although the custom mech was far too weak to challenge even a single Phaser fish-whale in single combat, the Blade Chaser and its pilot formed an exception.

As the mech piloted by her brother circled around and approached the group of Phasers from an oblique angle, Commander Casella quickly sorted out the instructions to the other mech units before releasing her influence from all of the machines.

The ranged mechs around the Minerva dimmed as they no longer benefited from the amplification provided by the expert command mech's true resonance.

Instead, Commander Casella chose to extend her influence to a single mech and its mech pilot.

The Blade Chaser glowed more than ever as Casella focused on channeling as much of her true resonance into the mech as possible!

Her mind connected directly with that of her brother. Their kinship and close relations allowed them to seamlessly combine their wills together, producing a strange phenomenon that massively elevated the Blade Chaser's effective performance!

Casella didn't need to remind her brother that this state was highly detrimental towards the custom mech. It hadn't been designed with the extreme performance of expert mechs in mind, so Imon only had a brief window of opportunity to make the best out of this massive boost!

"It's enough!" Imon grinned.

The Blade Chaser zipped forward and slashed at the bodies of the Phaser fish-whales with its twin swords as it flew by! Strike after strike caused the thick hide and flesh to part. Blood gushed out of the myriad of cuts, though the fish-whales quickly controlled their bodies to stop the bleeding.

Although the initial attack run did not deal enough damage, the story was different once the Blade Chaser turned around!

"I'm just getting warmed up! Take this, you fish-whales!"

A bright orange glow surrounded the Blade Chaser's swords. When it next approached an enemy, it struck down with Imon's burning desire to protect her sister!

A miniature explosion struck the Phaser in question! The creature slowed down as it had suffered a major wound in its side!

Seconds later, another Phaser suffered a crippling injury! A third one followed soon after!

Though Imon and the Blade Chaser weren't able to keep this up, they had already accomplished a lot!

Commander Casella had already studied all of the weak points and the best ways to take down the Phaser fish-whales.

By extending her awareness and guidance to Imon, the Blade Chaser had maximized its results!

The Quint, the Minerva and the other mechs were able to finish off this crippled group of Phasers by themselves now that the wounded beasts had slowed down.

Elsewhere, another group of mech pilots were experiencing a lot more difficulties!

Jessica Quentin and her fellow guest pilots had reluctantly listened to the advice of the Quint and had begun to throw themselves into battle.

However, their fight was not going as well as they wished! Each time the Enlightened Warriors closed in to attack a fish-whale, they constantly risked immediate retaliation.

One devious Phaser pretended to be preoccupied with fighting a pair of Evolver fish-whales.

When an Enlightened Warrior dove in so that it could stab its blade into the exposed flesh, the Phaser just happened to flip its body at such a rapid speed that the mech couldn't react!

"Bill! No!"

Jessica Quentin could only watch on as the alien beast chomped onto the mech with such force that half it ended up in the creature's belly!

The first of twenty guest pilots had fallen!

The death of Bill Otros weighed heavily onto the hearts of the remaining MTA mech pilots. Although they didn't necessarily fear death, they felt that losing their lives in a relatively trivial battle against a minor foe was not a worthy sacrifice!

Jessica and her colleagues did not back off, though. They were some of the most privileged mech pilots in human space. How could they lose heart against the fish-whales?

They steeled their hearts and resumed the fight with greater ferocity. The death of one of their own had galvanized their fighting spirit!

"Kill this damned fish-whale! Avenge our fallen!"