The Warrior Mechanic

Across the battlefield, Lazarro was currently engaged in battle against the shinobi-like exosuit warrior.

He dipped out of range of a swing from the man’s katana, before shooting an energy blast from his very own wrist-mounted rifle.

The energy blast wasn’t as impactful as those that were shot from shoulder-mounted rifles, but it was enough to deter and annoy his adversary. He shot three more in quick succession before he stopped.

He could feel the warmth coming from his rifle that was laid over his forearm, and he didn’t want to damage the armour around that area too greatly just yet.

This warrior used the tip of their katana to deal with these blasts. As they landed on the tip, they would scatter and only cause him to slide back.

With a wave of his palm, several shuriken were hurled at Lazarro. They moved too swiftly for him to do much about them. Surprisingly, they were sharp enough to pierce his armour just enough that they managed to wedge themselves within such plates.

Beep!

BOOM!

In a flash, the shuriken exploded and hurled Lazarro backward, with bleeding wounds now present under his armour.

Just as he brought his attention back to the battle, he could already see the katana shooting right in his direction.

Before he could get cut, he grabbed the man’s hands, struggling to stop him from pushing further. He fell back a step as they struggled against each other, but he saw no need to continue pushing against him.

It would only be a matter of time before he would be overpowered. Therefore, he swiftly stepped to the side, and allowed the blade to shoot down to the ground.

With an open chance to strike, he threw his fist right at the fighter’s head. However, as his fist charged for his jaw, he could see the metal katana blade lifting at a similar speed.

Clank!

The two metal objects clashed, causing a few golden sparks to fly outward.

Lazarro threw another attack in quick succession, but this opponent moved his blade in just the right way to catch his fist again. His moves looked quite rushed and had a sense of desperation to them, though, and he was forced backward as a result.

They continued to battle intensely, and Lazarro was struggling to get into range when this person had a massive sword to keep himself away. Whenever he’d have to spend energy moving around his blade, he gave the white exosuit warrior enough time to prepare for anything that was to come.

The two fighters ended up standing against each other, totally still. The air was thick, and both warriors were reluctant to just continue wasting their energy. Regardless of the outcome, both warriors desired to end this battle right here and right now.

The shinobi warrior hurled out another of his explosive shuriken, but only one was thrown. Lazarro assumed that this was the last of his arsenal of those weapons, and he managed to evade it before it could touch him.

The warrior lifted his sword, so that the handle was just to the right of his head, with his gleaming blade aimed slightly downwards.

Fwoosh!

He charged right toward the silver-haired fighter, who slipped past his initial attack. His blade slammed into the floor, then Lazarro lifted his fist to aim it right at his face.

Using his wrist mounted rifle, he launched a barrage of blasts, cracking his vice.

As this happened, he could see that his enemy was stunned. He cowered away, holding his face supposedly from the scorching heat that he was now feeling.

Lazarro sprung into action as a result. He could see that the tables had turned in his favour, and he was not going to miss up on this opportunity. With a stunned warrior, also with his attention totally diverted away from the current battle, he could show off his skills as a warrior and use all his best techniques.

He threw punch after punch, landing on mainly his abdomen to try and break the armour situated there down and this warrior couldn’t do much to resist.

With a final punch to his stomach, followed up with a close-up energy blast to the same point, he had punctured right through. His energy rifle already had steam flowing off its barrel, but he gritted his teeth and shot another blast.

The heat was agonising, and he could feel it even within his arm, but he believed that it was worth it.

He had shot far into the man’s stomach, and he ended up coughing out blood as he revealed his helmet. He possessed dark black hair, and olive-toned skin.

His body turned to nothing but blue energy, and he was transported to the spectating area with his damaged exosuit. However, the injuries to his person no longer remained.

Preston was currently making sure to keep the attention of the support warrior, but this caused him to incur several injuries. However, these fighters didn’t match the trio in terms of fighting experience and skill.

They fought more like brutes, and seemed to possess more talent than raw, quantifiable ability.

Preston slipped to the right, and punched the warrior’s shoulder mounted rifle, almost completely breaking it.

The fighter tried to spin to their left with a backhand, but Preston seamlessly slipped under the incoming arm, and landed two punches to his body with the same arm.

With the final strike, he managed to crack his armour, but this was leaving him in a vulnerable position.

His opponent was hoping to capitalise on this and had the damaged energy rifle aimed down at him.

PEW! BRR!!

As he shot his energy rifle, it simply turned most of the metal present to slag, and destroyed his left shoulder as the energy couldn’t escape the broken barrel.

“AARGH!!” He roared, upon feeling the immense agony in the area.

Preston almost felt bad for him upon seeing the injury that he had gained, but he wanted to get the win.

Therefore, he wanted to get the win.

This support fighter fell onto his only functioning arm and knees, before falling onto the side of his body from the growing agony.

At the same time, Ezekiel was in a vicious ground and pound, throwing relentless attacks onto his fallen foe.

The man remained courageous and stayed in the fight, trying his best to at least block or release himself from under Ezekiel. However, there was little that he could do.

Lazarro rushed in from across the battlefield in a sprint and leaped 10 feet into the air with his powerful leg actuators.

Ezekiel could see his figure in the corner of his eye, and just stepped back to let Lazarro finish the job.

POW!

His punch to the man’s head managed to throw him right back into the floor, shattering his helmet.

The man totally stopped moving and was left to spectate the support warrior that was hanging on by a thread.

Lazarro just stormed forward in a pacy stroll and launched numerous energy rifle blasts at his injured arm to add insult to injury.

The pain was simply too much for him to bare, and he was forced to forfeit the match.

[Match Won!]

[+25 Power Points]

With this given notification, Lazarro could see that they were only 12 power points away from advancing to the Skilled Rank. They constantly would be met with alternating games of wins and losses as they teetered on the edge of the Novice Rank.

However, if they just had this last push, they could maybe go forward.

Lazarro investigated the crowd to see the fat exosuit warrior briefly before he vanished along with them.

He could see that his armour had received substantial damage, and it resulted from blunt trauma from what he could see.

“This exosuit is something else! I can feel it taking a lot of energy but it’s crazy strong!” Ezekiel commented, moving his body along with the powerful exosuit placed on him.

The three swiftly entered another match, and wanted to make sure that they had the best loadouts possible. Preston had a shoulder mounted energy rifle, while Lazarro possessed a modular exosuit.

This meant that he could swap out items and utilise different weaponry when he wanted to. Therefore, he opted for two powered gauntlets this time, along with a shoulder mounted energy rifle. Something was telling him that the fighters they were bound to face would have much more firepower and so, he decided to be ready to take on their next foes.

This time, they were in a slightly different arena. It looked more ancient and was like a miniature version of the amphitheatres of the Ancient Romans millennia ago.

This time, they looked to be against more formidable warriors.

The most striking was the 7’0 goliath that resembled a humanoid rhino. His helmet was like that of a rhino, and he wielded a large mace with spiky ends. Across the black ball on the end of the weapon, were several intertwined wires that crackled with electricity.

These wires ran back up to the arm of his exoskeleton and were directly connected to power cores stored on his person.

The large rhino user went by the name of cakonada. Unlike the fighters before, that had chosen to go anonymous, the trio of cadets could actually see their opponent's usernames. The man to his left was a special fighter that placed many weight-efficient actuators in the arms and upper torso. This gave the arms similar strength to the legs so that they could seamlessly switch between bipedal and quadrupedal movement.

His exosuit looked sleek and metallic, glistening under the light from above, and was a silver colour. He went by the username Plasma_Zeus.

The final warrior had the username DRAKEDRAGON and stood confidently as he faced his foes. He had a green exosuit, donned with a massive shoulder mounted energy rifle that was as big as his head.

“How is he even balancing with that thing on his shoulder?” Lazarro wondered.

“It has multiple barrels so he can shoot several beams at once. He’s going to want to shred us apart with that thing.” Preston suggested.

Such an item wasn’t used very often and was a relatively new technology. Having multiple energy blasts shot out at any given time just wasn’t really feasible a few years ago. The amount of heat a single shot would generate would cook any traditional energy rifle.

Its energy demand would also tire out the user if used and abused.

“I’m going for the big rhino of course.” Ezekiel stated.

“I’m going for that spider guy. I want to see how he fights.” Lazarro commented, entering his fighting stance as he faced the warrior.

In reaction, even though he couldn’t hear him, he placed his hands on the ground and prepared for battle, bopping from knee to knee.

“I’ve got the final guy then. Not sure how but I’ll need to find a way to break apart that damn energy rifle on his shoulder.” He stated, watching him fearlessly stand before him.

The green veil dropped, and a ring was heard across the arena.

The match had begun.