|
'That dammned VM is too nimble...
Chiisai was starting to get frustrated. That fight was starting
to last too much. The Excalibur appeared again on his sights.
He fired, but Kyozo avoided the shoot. Again.
When "The King" asked Chiisai if he wanted a little doghfight,
Chiisai was at first amazed. He knew he was an up-and-coming,
but Kyozo Iwazaki, the living legend, clearly out-ranked, out-fammed
and probably out-classed him. At first he thought that maybe he'd
just done something rude enough to make "The King" want to put
him to place, until he saw the broad, frank smile on Kyozo's face.
He was only looking for a good fight with a good pilot.
|
LEVEL 120
A Virtual Mekton arena
Simpler imposible. An "Aces High" arena, open space, with unlimitated
space to run (the computer has not much else to calculate!). The
main coding effort went into flight realism - if there's any diference
betwen its emulation of the Laws of Aerodinamics and the and the
real ones, you just couldn't tell. The starting point is at level
120 (pilot's talk for 4,000 meters, that is 200 hexes higth, and
with nothing on the way of cover but the Sun (counts as Basic,
Fire Control & Combat Cloack -plus fooling IR and UV sensors,
of course- if "coming from the sun"), the altitude (dif. +10 st
spot someone at higher altitude which is closer to you than half
said altitude) and some clouds (counts as Smoke).
No need to say, you need fligth systems or LOTS of guts. Ground
is HARD.
Games: Dogfigths of all flavours and furballs of all sizes.
Powerups: Not much to speak of. The Infamous Bomb and disposable 50/50
boosterpacks with balance verniers.
This arena created by LITTLE LOCUS
|
|
"OK, 'King'" he said, intently using his nickname, "what VM want
me to use?" "Just your Cora." "But, Kyozo, your Excalibur had
no weapon system able to overcome my shields last time I checked.
What monstruosity are you gonna throw at this poor schoolboy?"
joked Chiisai with his best "poor boy" voice. Kyozo actually laughed.
"Just my Excalibur! I wanna try something, and your Ubermech from
Hell is the best suited for what I'm trying!" "OK, then, I'll
meet you on the pods on five minutes. That is, as soon as I can
drink a soda before". Kyozo silently laughed again. He knew that
Chiisai actually wanted to gather all his friends to watch the
fight, and was not at all afraid for his rep in the event of lossing.
After all, he was still "The King", and lossing to a living legend
was almost expected - the mere fact of fighting him would be a
boom to his rep. Kyozo headed towards the pods.
Twenty-four minutes later, an eternity for a dogfight, Chiisai
was starting to get tired. Cora was a much more powerful VM than
the Excalibur, but it was clear, Kyozo hadn't lost even a bit
of his old skill. He was forced to ba on the deffencive all the
time by Cora's powerful laser gun, and none of his five-ratted
energy weapons was able of overcoming his class-13 E-Shield, but
anyway he still hadn't taken nor a single hit.
"OK, let's finish this once and for all." Chiisai oppened a private
channel - one that would not be heard on the outside of the pods.
"Kyozo," said choosing his name instead of the nick, "are you
only playing dodges or you actually trying to win?" "You getting
bored, Chiisai?" "No, just wondering. But there are other people
waiting for his turn to play, so if you've acknowledged your inferiority,
please, why don't you stay still and let me shooting you down?"
chided Chiisai. He got a laugh on the intercom, then, "OK, you're
right, let's get at it".
The Excalibur kicked his thrusters full open, climbing sunwards.
Then Kyozo inverted the thrust and dropped like a rocket-assisted
diver towards Cora.
Chiisai saw him coming at him on a straight line, without didging.
"It can be, he's flying right towards my sights." He steadied
his VM for a better shoot and fired.
Then, a thenth-second too late, he realized his mistake.
Kyozo streched his left arm wide open, protecting his right arm
behind the torso. Cora's blast hit square flat the most exposed
area of the VM, the head servo, vaporizing it. Indiferent to the
fact he'd just lost his sensors, Kyozo slammed at full terminal
speed his left forearm, like a 50 tons American Wrestler, into
Chiisai's VM.
The Excalibur's arm was blown into atoms. So was Cora's matter
shield.
Chiisai wrestled the controls, trying to keep Cora steady, but
had little sucess. Kyozo managged better. He turned the maimed
Excalibur around, steadied it right in front of Cora. He oppened
again the public channel. "KIAAAAY!"
"Boy, you can say 'for-the-public'", said a very small fraction
of Chiisai's consciousness while the rest of it was trying to
get Cora out of Kyozo's thrust kick, but to no avail - the Excalibur's
right feet slammed square center on Tora's torso.
"ARMOR PENETRATION- SHIELDS FALIURE- I'm hurt, meanie!", said
Cora's computer voice. "Don't tell me", answered Chiisai while
blasting away with the laser. The internal damage had shut down
definitively both shields, but the gun was still functional. The
Excalibur's leg disintegrated, buy Kyozo managed to fly away.
Now this was starting to get interesant.
Chiisay managed to out-fly the slower but more agile Excalibur
for a couple minutes, even managed to blow off the other leg,
but at last the Exclibur managed to close to combat range.
Kyozo switched the laser pod to sword mode.
Chiisai tried to parry with his right arm.
Kyozo slipped the sword under the arm and stroke into the weaker
armor of the waist joint.
The Hyper sword exploded into Cora's powerplant.
The powerplant explosion engulfed the Excalibur.
As both VM pods started oppening, both Chiisai and Kyozo were
loudly laughing. They removed their VR gear, stepped outside the
pods and slapped their hands above their heads. "BOTH VMs DESTROYED
- COMBAT IS A DRAW", boomed the speaker. "Not, it isn't", anounced
Chiisai, "'The King' defeated me on fair contest, Sir Knight.
Give him the victor's laurel -not to mention the confirmated kill
for his record!", joked. "Why? My VM is as trashed as yours are!"
Chiisai closed to Kyozo. "But only as the result of your kill"
, and on a softer voice, "whaddaya think, I'm letting you strip
me of a chance for a good show? No way!"
Kyozo laughed even more.
|