Ravens of Eternity

243 Semi-Finals, Pt “Gah!” cried Xylo. “It’s only just started, and we lost 14% of our troops! We’re literally already losing! That’s ridiculous!”

Kali was also alarmed at their losses, and was a little angered by the move. It was tactically sound, but she still felt it was unfair to them, somewhat.

“Freya!” she said. “Let’s take it to their faces! If they’re dealing with us, they can’t shell our people, right? Come on! Let’s go!”

“You will lose your stack bonus if you leave your armies with us,” said Raijin. “That will leave you vulnerable during their counterattack. But it is a viable option. It will give us time to speed into position.”

“I’m with this plan,” Freya replied. “We’ll leave our armies with you two – we’ll take their attention. Just make sure to move up fast, alright?”

Freya and Kali then blasted straight towards their opponents with their thrusters to the maximum. It wasn’t long until the two exited Raijin’s shroud, and became visible on their enemies’ sensors.

Their ploy worked, and the artillery mecha stopped shelling the rear. It instead began to pelt their path, and tore the streets ahead of them into rubble.

The two of them wove between buildings at top speed, straight towards Final Bastion’s reinforced position. Artillery shells fell down around them as they advanced, and tore apart the city that surrounded them.

Chunks of titacrete and metal flew in every direction as buildings were pulverized by the violent assault. The ground shook wildly from the sheer power of each impact. The two of them would have been easily thrown around by the blasts, if not for the fact that their forward momentum was at the absolute maximum.

.....

Hunks of broken titacrete and shards of reinforced metals flew in every direction, and pelted the two mecha mercilessly. Though their shields easily absorbed the majority of the blasts, much the debris and detritus pelted their armor, and scratched or dented it.

But the damage didn’t stop them. It barely slowed them down.

The shelling stopped once they reached 1000 meters in – presumably because the mecha had to reload.

Not that it was much of a relief.

Far ahead of them, a slot opened up near the center of each shield, and the wide barrels of their owners’ Grenade Launchers poked through. The two Bulwark mecha charged up their launchers until they whined sharply, then released their payload with heavy THUMPS.

Each launcher shot a large black cylinder straight towards Freya and Kali. Both held relatively low velocities, and dropped down only a few hundred meters from them. But instead of exploding, they bounced off the titacrete with loud PINGS.

And at the very peak of their bounce, each shot out dozens of slivers in every direction. Many of the thin needles dug right into their shields and any armor that wasn’t protected. Because Kali’s armor was near the top of A rank, half of those slivers simply bounced off.

Any slivers that didn’t hit them embedded themselves into the buildings all around with great force, and caused cracks to appear in between them.

Then, moments later, the cylinder itself exploded, and fragments of its outer shell ripped further into their shields. The explosions and the fragments compounded any damage caused by the needles, and tore down any buildings marred by them.

Freya and Kali’s shields had absorbed so much punishment that they were heavily dented and warped. Any of their exposed armor took on some minor damage and scratches, but nowhere near enough to impede their functionality.

Or their determination.

Worse, the two Bulwark mecha launched even more of their Porcupine grenades at them. A half dozen of them bounced down the street towards them, and riddled them with needles and shrapnel. Explosions rocked all around them and further damaged their shields and chassis.

Though the attack was utterly relentless, so were the two of them. All of the blasts and damage they suffered simply drove them further, pushed them harder. If they failed, it only allowed their enemies to pound on Xylo and Raijin’s position.

They simply raised their shields higher and let them absorb the majority of the damage.

Sure, their A-ranked armor could easily shrug off a good amount of damage, but not all. It was better to sacrifice their shields than let them chip away at their armor. Especially if they were going to fight in melee range.

They sped right up to their enemies’ shields at full speed and slammed right into them with their weapons.

Kali’s axe sliced right into the enemy’s reinforced shield, right across the hole where the grenade launcher was, and bit right into its barrel. She wrenched it out, and slammed on the shield over and over.

She gouged out huge trenches across its surface with every powerful hit.

Freya also slammed into the other shield, spear first. She jammed it right in the center and punctured through to the other side. Then she fired her spear’s magnetic coils and shot a fully-charged sabot right into the mecha behind the shield.

Her slug punched into its armor, and dented it severely.

The mecha itself was pushed backwards a number of meters from the force. Its heavy frame stumbled back, but recovered quickly.

He moved forward and slipped his forearm right into the shield’s connection slot and steadied his balance. Clamps on the shield slid into notches in the mecha’s arm and secured itself. Reconnected to the mecha, the shields powered up as the pilots pulled them both out of the ground.

The outer shield faces folded back into itself and layered on top of the center quickly. Soon the damaged portions were hidden under layers of thick armor, where their repair nanites stitched them back together without interruption.

The two Bulwark mecha then rushed forward with their thrusters on full blast, and slammed into Kali and Freya shield-first. Because of their relative bulk, both of them were thrown back with ridiculous ease.

Freya especially. Her Varulv was flung further than Kali’s Rakshasa. Regardless, both women were shaken to the core by the impact, and left them rattled. Their mecha slid back a dozen meters, which they countered using their rear thrusters.

While they recovered their footing and solidified their balance, the Bulwark mecha sped backwards and returned to their positions. As they did so, they fired a salvo of rockets from their shoulder-mounted pods and carpeted the two women with explosions.

They were thrown backwards even more as the rockets pelted them up and down their chassis. The rockets erupted all over their shields and armor with powerful explosions. Though the rockets couldn’t penetrate their armor, they certainly dented them, and left blast marks all over their surface.

Their shields had taken the brunt of all the damage thus far, and were looking worse for wear. They were warped and bent in places, and dotted with needles and shrapnel. Blast marks marred their surfaces and blackened them with soot.

Freya’s armor also fared worse than Kali’s. They both had A-ranked armor on their mecha, but Kali’s was far more robust. Freya’s thinner armor was visibly the more damaged of the two. She knew that it could probably take another couple of barrages, but that would’ve left her more or less defenseless.

Behind the two Bulwark mecha, the artillery mecha’s cannon fired a repeated salvo into the air. It let loose a half dozen shells one right after the other in quick succession. The shells flew high above their heads, arced over the city, then slammed back down a few thousand meters back.

Plumes of titacrete dust were flung into the air as buildings were torn down by the barrage.

But it didn’t stop there. The artillery cannon flung out another burst of six shells, but this time they landed slightly closer.

Freya and Kali charged back into the fray as Raijin and Xylo advanced forward as fast as they could.

Raijin had spoofed their army’s signals and made it appear as though they were spread out as they advanced. Because of the shroud, the Bastion’s targeting couldn’t tell which signals were authentic or not. And so they were forced to blanket the entire area that Raijin had spoofed, in hopes that they hit their marks.

The truth was that Raijin and Xylo had performed a hard flank and skirted the city’s right edge as they advanced towards the Bastion. Though it took them a little longer to get to the front, they were relatively safe from the bombardment.

By the time they reached the 1000 meter mark, the artillery mecha was forced to once again reload. This allowed them to run up to the 500 meter mark in relative safety.

They quickly posted up behind a reinforced building, and had their units hole up in the building behind that one. They took the Bastion’s cues and stacked their defenses as well, though the effect was far less effective.

“Forward point is secure,” said Xylo.

“About damn time,” Freya replied. “I’m getting shredded!”

Freya immediately blasted backwards, away from the enemy’s front line. While she did so, she fired her beamcannon at her opponents. Though it did little more than carve dirty curses into their shields, it kept them from opening up or doing anything too rash.

Not that the Bastion were interested in chasing them. They still had the upper hand in the fight, and simply maintained their position. There was no need for them to do anything else.

At least, for now.

All four members of the Final Bastion watched as Freya and Kali retreated away. Their signals became unreadable as they entered their signal shroud, but were still close enough that they could determine their rough position.

They could easily tell that they had holed up behind a reinforced building just south of them, and had stacked up their army’s defenses.

Which was fine with them – it wasn’t as though the Ravens could punch through their front line shields anyway.

Freya and Kali reconvened with Raijin and Xylo, and took back command of their units. Once everything was back in order, they all lowered their output and began any repairs they needed to do. Especially on their beat-up shields.

They all looked at their enemy’s readouts with grimaces on their faces.

“What’re we gonna do?” asked Freya. “They’re a seriously tough nut to crack.”

“Yeah, those shields are crazy tough,” added Kali. “Way tougher than ours, that’s for sure.”

“Could we assassinate one of them?” asked Xylo. “I mean, that would reduce their defense bonus by 25%, right? If we got rid of one, then we could possibly strike at their army. Even the odds a bit.”

“I’m always down for the fast kill,” said Freya. “Not sure how we’re gonna do that, though. They’re backed up against the edge, and we can’t flank around their rear.”

“Could your beamcannon pierce through, maybe?” asked Kali. “And maybe rip into a mecha behind a shield?”

Freya simply shook her head adamantly.

“Xylo’s sniper cannon is a better choice honestly,” she replied. “It’s way more powerful than my gun. It’d have a better chance at it.”

This time it was Xylo’s turn to shake her head.

“No can do,” she replied. “I mean, if I overcharged it to the maximum, I could definitely get through the shield. But no way would I be able to punch through to their mecha’s armor after that. Those things are designed to absorb most of that kinetic energy.”

The four of them fell into silence as they thought about their predicament. Punching through such thick armor, and doing any significant damage to whatever was behind it was an impossibility.

“I have an idea,” said Raijin. “What if we networked our power plants together? If you lift your cannon’s hydrophoton limits, and we wirelessly send you more power...”

“That would be insane,” Xylo immediately countered. “That’s a tremendous amount of pressure, and I don’t think the gun could handle it. We might get one shot, maybe. And that’s a big maybe.”

“Then we must make it count,” Raijin replied.