The Mech Touch

Disgusted viewers turned away from this farcical-looking sight in disgust. Concerned mothers covered the eyes of their kids. The most ardent fans of Venerable Vincent and the C-Man leaned forward in order to get a better view of what was about to pass.

Now that the C-Man had entangled the Everchanger with all four of its smart metal limbs, its options had considerably narrowed.

Although the C-Man's nanomachines were cautiously spreading across the exterior of the expert mech in an attempt to burrow through any cracks in its armor, the problem was that the Everchanger still retained its full integrity.

There were no holes for the TESMAS to exploit and the Unending alloy armor plating was far too resilient for the nanomachines to drill through by employing physical force.

In fact, the most efficient way to overcome Unending alloy was to apply an immense amount of heat or energy damage, but it was a pity that the C-Man was only capable of inflicting physical attacks.

No matter. Vincent had committed to piloting a brawler mech because he believed that a strong enough punch could pierce through any defense!

"Unending alloy or not, my expert mech and I shall break your unbreakable armor!"

The C-Man conveyed Vincent's excitement to such an extent that the golden glow surrounding its frame and especially its fifth limb grew blindingly bright!

"LET MY CHARGE PIERCE THE HEAVENS!"

As the C-Man decisively propelled its torso towards the Everchanger's exposed rear with its flight system boosting it forward, everyone who was still watching this dramatic attack expected a collision of epic proportions to take place!

No one had ever seen an expert mech attack another expert mech by employing such an 'exotic' attack method!

However, Venerable Joshua and the Everchanger were not willing to let this come to pass. They had both been trying to escape the clutches of the C-Man in order to avoid the outcome that they dreaded the most!

Neither of them would complain if an enemy defeated them on the battlefield fair-and-square, but humiliating them in this manner went too far! There was no way that Venerable Joshua and the Everchanger could ever hold their backs straight in the presence of peers if they allowed the C-Man's dramatic attack to succeed!

Joshua finally couldn't hold himself back any longer and resonated with a design spirit that could best defend the innocence of his expert mech.

"Qilanxo! Give me a hand!"

The Everchanger began to grow brightly as an influx of multiple energies revived its resonance shield in advance.

A shiny green barrier appeared behind the back of the green expert mech just in time for the tip of the C-Man's sharp and deadly 'spear' to collide against the new obstacle!

This barrier proved to be so unassailable that the spear completely deformed moments before the rest of the torso of the C-Man smacked against the powerful barrier!

"Ah!" Vincent yelled as his frustrated C-Man fed back its pain.

As the attacking machine temporarily lost the initiative, the Everchanger glowed brightly in an attempt to extricate itself from its current predicament.

Both Venerable Joshua and the Everchanger were no longer willing to play as the foil for their opponents!

Although Joshua still recalled the instructions that Ves had given to him, he couldn't care about them anymore. His dignity and his reputation was more important than exposing one of the less known features of his expert mech.

As such, Joshua fully channeled the power of prime resonance as well as true resonance and blended the properties of the two together to produce an astonishing result!

Power and energy surged across the frame of the Everchanger. With a single blast, the immense waves of resonance power forcibly shoved aside the nanomachines that kept the expert hero mech in the C-Man's clutches!

Now freed from its bondage, the Everchanger blasted forward and built up some much-needed distance from the C-Man.

Venerable Joshua had learned his lesson and understood that it was too tricky to fight against the latest Larkinson expert mech at closer ranges.

"I won't let you get close again!" He yelled as his Everchanger brought out its Vitalus rifle again and fired at the C-Man.

"Hah! My mech is faster than yours! If I can catch up to you once, I can do so again!"

The C-Man proceeded to do exactly that. The flight speeds between the two mechs were not the same at all. The newer expert mech's tech advantage was too significant and The Everchanger was unable to flee as fast as possible if it wanted to fire back.

Yet just as the C-Man launched out its stretchy limbs in order to perform the same move as before, the Everchanger's resonance shield firmly blocked the nanomachines from grappling onto its limbs again.

Vincent did not take this hindrance too seriously. He commanded the C-Man to go back to launching a continuous flurry of punches in order to wear out the Everchanger's revived defenses.

However, the problem this time was that the expert hero mech was able to sustain its defenses considerably longer than before.

Not only that, but the Everchanger also adopted a trickier evasive pattern that was no longer centered around opening up more distance from the pursuing expert brawler mech.

Instead, Venerable Joshua commanded his expert mech to make more lateral movements, thereby allowing the Everchanger to sidestep the C-Man to a much greater degree.

As a more bulky and armored machine, one of the relative shortcomings of the C-Man was its inability to turn on the fly!

Venerable Vincent became more and more frustrated at his expert mech's extended punches and grabs either missed the mark or bumped into a seemingly indestructible energy barrier.

"You little bastard." Venerable Vincent cursed as his expert mech failed to make any progress for the time being. "You're cheating. You promised not to employ any of that prime resonance crap."

"Well, excuse me for employing a core feature of my expert mech. I don't see you holding back when it comes to showing off the power of your TESMAS." Venerable Joshua unapologetically replied.

"That's because this duel is also meant to showcase the new smart armor system! How can I help increase its sales if I don't prove that it is effective in battles between expert mechs?"

"If I don't make use of my own expert mech's strong points, your C-Man won't be able to show off the full capabilities of its TESMAS. You should thank me for putting up a good fight!"

Neither of the two Larkinson expert pilots wanted to admit defeat towards each other.

Although Venerable Joshua was one of the more easygoing expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan, his pride and competitive drive were not light.

He no longer looked down on Vincent and the C-Man and took this fight extremely seriously.

The Everchanger became more active than ever as it cooperated with Joshua to adopt a more effective combat approach than before.

By focusing on launching persistent attacks while evading every possible attack run, the older expert mech successfully frustrated Vincent's attempts to capture it again.

Minutes passed by as the C-Man was left with launching long-ranged punches that were inevitably weaker and less damaging due to how far the smart metal arms needed to stretch in order to land a blow on the elusive Everchanger.

By resonating with Qilanxo that he had built a good relationship with, Venerable Joshua was able to keep his Everchanger shielded for a considerably longer time than normal.

Many knowledgeable mech insiders and observers could clearly tell that the effective defensive power of the Everchanger exceeded the level of an expert mech of its size.

"I thought the brawler mech was already strong enough, but the hero mech is not that bad either."

"How is the green mech able to block so many attacks? I thought hero mechs were supposed to be weak when it comes to defense."

"It's not just the performance of the hero mech that is catching up. The pilot has also become a lot more serious!"

After his recent scare, Venerable Joshua no longer treated this as an ordinary sparring session and show match.

He fought as if Vincent was a terrible opponent and that the C-Man was one step away from humiliating the Everchanger.

As Joshua continued to fight more seriously, he began to show an increasing amount of skills and techniques that he had developed over the last year.

He took considerable advantage of the fact that he had practiced with his expert mech for a longer amount of time by displaying more advanced tricks and moves.

Even though a hero mech did not possess that much of an advantage against a brawler mech at closer ranges, the Everchanger had become so slippery that the C-Man achieved little progress during this phase of the battle!

The much more unrestricted duel between the two expert mech turned into a battle of attrition of sorts.

The C-Man undoubtedly remained a great threat, but the cost of energizing its TESMAS was so considerable that the mech started to emanate more heat!

At the same time, the Everchanger's enhanced resonance shield was reaching its limits as Venerable Joshua found it increasingly harder to maintain his connection with Qilanxo in the face of repeated attacks.

"I told you, Joshua! Since I can break your defenses once, I can do so again!"

After pumping additional energy into the fists of the C-Man, the expert brawler mech slammed forth its limbs like hammers!

BANG!

The twin impacts not only broke the resonance barrier that had proven to be quite effective at blocking the C-Man's prior attacks, but also generated a small explosion that caused both mechs to back away from each other.

The Everchanger charged up its Vitalus rifle and fired off a powerful kinetic beam attack that blew back the C-Man even further while inducing considerable stress on the TESMAS.

"Your mech is vulnerable again!" Vincent crowed as he drove his brawler mech forward again.

The C-Man glowed brightly as the expert mech charged in like a flying superhero.

There was no way that Vincent wanted the Everchanger to slip away again!

However, just as the C-Man was about to collide against the Everchanger, the latter held its Heartsword in two hands and made an empowered sword strike that unleashed a wave of sword energy that partially succeeded in cutting through the incoming fists!

This interrupted the C-Man's attack to such an extent that the Everchanger was quickly able to turn a powerful head-on impact into a weaker glancing blow.

Bang!

Though the Everchanger's frame still rang from the impact, the mech was still in decent shape.

The C-Man on the other hand had already reformed its limbs and made itself whole again. However, heat continued to radiate from its frame as its high-intensity exertions rapidly caused the machine to deplete its energy reserves.

Though Vincent knew he could prolong his C-Man's operation time by resonating with the Marneium that was integrated with his expert mech, he knew better than to do so at this time.

"I still need to hide a few trump cards of my own." He muttered.

Besides, Vincent didn't think he needed to resort to this measure in order to win the current duel!

"Get ready, Joshua! This will be my final move!" He shouted over the private communication channel.

"Heh, you're not the only one who wants to end this fight. Take my sword!"

The Everchanger did not make any evasive moves this time but charged straight forward while its Heartsword glowed with increasing cutting potential.

The C-Man on the other hand made a completely different move by swinging back an arm that rapidly grew in size.

The expert brawler mech transferred a lot of its nanomachines away from its other limbs in order to unleash its singular most powerful punch to date!

Many viewers who had been watching from the beginning or joined in at a later date held still as they waited to see whether the flamboyant new expert brawler mech would be able to overpower its foe this time.

As the two expert mechs glowed brighter, they closed in on each other with single-minded determination and struck at the same time!

BOOM!