The Warrior Mechanic

“Please may the remaining contestants make their way to one of the stadium hubs. On displayed billboards will be the created bracket for the tournament. The first matches will be detailed and if you are in one of these commencing battles, look for information on which indoor arena to head to in a timely fashion. Thank you.” An announcement elaborated, before harshly cutting out with a light fuzzing noise.

Cael and Lazarro did just that, and they could see their name on one of the upcoming matches. Lazarro Di Fonti was labelled, with Cael’s name in brackets beside it.

They were going to be participating in Indoor Arena 9. With him being allocated to the 9th indoor arena of this stadium, the inherent size of the place was still hard to comprehend.

In Carlo City, many indoor arenas had a single stadium to themselves, even if they were rather miniature.

Lazarro swiftly headed to the area, and surprised Cael with the pace of his walking. Individuals with mana were known to have slightly more pace in their strolls, but this made Cael slightly uncomfortable – but not tired.

It just wasn’t a very relaxing speed of walk. It made Cael wonder just how strong this boy was – he knew for a fact that he surpassed his level of strength. There’d be no way Cael would have a chance of competing on the fighter side of this competition.

His cyberjutsu was unorthodox and somewhat effective, but his lacklustre physical abilities hampered his ability to truly perform well with the style.

From the descriptions of WarriorBot, it’s true merits and advantages would only surface with a robust, conditioned body to work with.

The indoor arena consisted of a few elevated seats, centred around a single sand arena. The barricade was made of a clean, light wood, and neatly reflected the pure white light beaming down from the overhead lights.

Now, Cael and Lazarro had been directed to a locker room, where they were both able to see the exosuit in the flesh. Fabricated using some of the most advanced printing technologies in the world, Cael was spooked by its inherent precision.

The exosuit’s dimensions were spot on, and Lazarro was ignited with a new sense of passion as he clicked in the exosuit over his body. Giving himself the final adjustment to seamlessly fit the piece to his skin, he was ready to go.

He slammed his metal fists together and smirked as he looked at the dark oak door ahead. Passing through this room would lead to a dark hallway, which would then open to the arena.

There were a few minutes before the whole event was to begin, but the calm silence from outside soon erupted into a chaotic, lively din. Lazarro only felt more hyped up by the filling stadium.

Cael would be reserved a first row seat of the whole battle, and promptly began to head over to see what was going to happen.

“I won’t disappoint you, Cael. You gave me a nice suit, and now I shall give back. Just you wait.” Lazarro said, which warranted a nod of respect from Cael.

For a boy as young as him, his respect was surprising to him. He resembled a true, principled warrior; ready to respect those that deserve it.

“Here we have an opening match to His Majesty’s Fighter-Mechanic Event. Two formidable warriors from across the solar system, please welcome Lazarro Di Fonti!!” The announcer declared.

As the door opened, Lazarro was revealed in his black exosuit. His mana was of a glowing white, which gave his suit quite the contrasting, but alluring appearance.

Lazarro pumped his chest as he stepped foot on the ring and took in a deep inhale. His energy rifle lightly vibrated upon surveying the surroundings, ready to blast any detected targets.

As he stretched his arms and wrists, his powered gauntlets flashed a glowing white colour before settling. The gauntlets gave his forearms and hands bulky appearances, since they were packed with circuitry toward power supplies, along with tough plating and actuators to deal more damage in attacks.

The audience lightly clapped, as they weren’t fond of him. These individuals were more avid watchers of this tournament, just happy to see anybody fight.

“Please welcome Caspian Blakesley!!”

As the other towering entrance to the arena parted, the second fighter was revealed. He was very lean for an exosuit warrior; it was almost like he had no mana.

However, many of these ectomorphic types were renowned for their speed and skill. It was what they needed to compete against the bulkier, stronger warriors of today.

His hair was long and dark brown (pretty much black) and he had pale, clear skin. His exosuit was a gleaming grey, making it glisten under the white light above.

The two fighters had noted the third door to their right, which turned out to be a referee. This referee was a muscular person; even large for those with mana and had a bulky exosuit just for the purpose of breaking individuals up.

To get brawling exosuit warriors to listen to your command, you’d have to be quite the powerful, imposing figure.

A few seconds later, the crowd grew quieter as the referee explained to them how this was going to go. It consisted of basic rules that both fighters were fond of, then they were both pushed back from each other before the match was begun.

This exosuit warrior would be rather lenient with his control – many referees of today rarely needed to step in. Nanobot healing was a swift process and treatment against life-threatening injury was now top quality.

“Begin!” The referee announced, along with a bell to begin the battle.

Both fighters closed in on each other, but Caspian decided to try and attack from the side. Upon seeing the fighter leap to his side, Lazarro couldn’t help but crack a smile. If that was the speed that his opponent had, the fight would be over rather quickly.

Shooting to the side, Lazarro’s smoothness was visibly superior to Caspian’s.

He dipped down and landed a crushing elbow to his stomach, making his warrior gasp for air and cower away.

With this attack, his assault would not be over, however. Caspian lifted his right arm to reveal a wrist-mounted energy rifle, that was extremely miniature compared to Lazarro’s.

His attempt at hitting Lazarro was too sluggish, however, as a large energy blast had already fired toward him. It slammed into the affected part of his armour, causing cracks and melted sections of metal to appear on his abdominal plate.

Lazarro’s energy rifle had poor heat efficiency, but it wasn’t that poor. It still had the capacity to fire two more energy blasts and did so in quick succession.

BOOM! BOOM!

Caspian lifted his arms to block the incoming blasts and was forced back along the sandy arena floor with each incoming blast.

His forearms had already been melted down significantly, and sparks were flying out from the point of impact. Whoever had formed his exosuit for him clearly wasn’t the most adept mechanic.

Their shelling was sleek and impressive, but Cael watched the fight on attentively and could see a glaring issue in his internals. Everything seemed to be interconnected, and interconnectedness was something that a mechanic had to avoid as much as they could.

Damage to one component could affect the next, and the next, and so on.

As Caspian looked down to the melted metal on his arms, he received a straight punch to his jaw from Lazarro’s powered gauntlet. This attack was thrown rather confidently, however, and his body was left somewhat open in the process.

As his arm retracted, Caspian landed a whipping right kick to his left flank, followed up by a quick and precise punch to his face.

Taking the punch to the face, Lazarro just nodded back at his fighter and whipped his silky hair out of his vision.

He complimented how he’d managed to hit him, but the only reason he did this was because the attack was incredibly weak. It hit his face, but it didn’t really do much to him at all.

These two landed attacks gave Caspian a sense of confidence that he needed right now, and he rushed forward again to continue the battle. Shooting an energy blast forward, Lazarro received two quick laser-like blasts to his chest, before blocking a punch.

Another came in quick succession, but his attack was too predictable. His left fist soared toward Lazarro’s face, but all he did was watch the fist whip right past his face.

The wind thrown out due to his swift-moving arm made Lazarro’s hair flow back, but this gave him quite the clear view. His abdomen was wide open, and he activated his powered gauntlets.

Whirring into action, the gauntlet glowed brightly as he drove his fist into his ribcage.

Krak!

Lazarro was not over, however, as he pulled his fist over his retracting arm to land his knuckles right on his opponent’s chin.

BAM!

Caspian’s head jolted back as he stumbled away, then he continued fighting on the backend. He tried his best to remain out of the range of Lazarro’s deadly punches, but his much larger energy rifle made his wrist-mounted rifle somewhat useless.

He was equipped with two -one on each wrist- but Lazarro’s armour was too compact and strong for it to cause much overall damage. He was aware that the tournament would continue with this exosuit of his, so he didn’t want to damage it too much.

Therefore, he tried his best to either shoot the energy blasts using his own or evade them.

Once Lazarro saw an opening, he unleashed hell on Caspian, causing uproar in the crowd. Many were looking to see a knockout, and Caspian remained in this fight, holding on by a thread.

His skill was there, but who could continue to fight technically after taking straight punches to the skull.

Lazarro was looking for the win here, and didn’t want to exhaust himself. Therefore, he grabbed Caspian and slammed him into the wooden wall of the ring. A cloud of sand erupted around their feet from this impactful slam, and he followed up with a close-up energy blast to his chest.

“ARGH!” Caspian roared, upon feeling the heat through his armour.

Sliding down the wooden wall, the referee had arrived close by, and the fight surely had only seconds left.

“Come on! Finish him off!” Cael thought to himself.

POW!

With a final punch from his powered gauntlet, the fighter was sent right to sleep.

Lazarro had claimed victory.

Claps could be heard from the crowd including from Cael. Lazarro nodded to him, while Cael gave a thumbs up back.

“What a show! Lazarro Di Fonti has taken down his opponent in mere minutes, and advances to the next round, with 4095 other fighters.” The announcer stated, before the fight was concluded.

As Lazarro returned to the locker room, Cael was there to celebrate his first win.

“Good job out there, you did really well!” Cael said, getting a smile from Lazarro.

“Thank you, he wasn’t that skilled. I feel like the warriors only get much tougher from here, though.” Lazarro realised.

Half of the fighters had been removed right away, weeding out the bottom 50%. After this upcoming fight, the top 25% would remain.

During this time, Lazarro and Cael were directed to a room like an area where Cael had created his exosuit design. It was larger and had metal machinery all around them.

However, there were several autonomous bots, as well as robotic parts modifying the components of his suit. They replaced the energy supplies within his body, while also replacing the plates of armour that had been damaged with perfect accuracy.

The exosuit had been fixed almost completely, but what was striking about the repairs was that any damage to internals or major components wasn’t done. That sort of fixing would require much more skill and fell in the hands of the mechanics themselves.

There were a few tools for him to work with, but this wasn’t really a viable option for mechanics of his level. Real-time repair was a true art of mechanics that needed to be taught through some sort of institution, and through several years of pure experience in the field.

Cael hadn’t even performed that once, so didn’t think that he could do much to aid his fellow fighter.

The other fights continued and fought valiantly. This was going to be an opportunity for fighters and mechanics alike to get eyes from some of the bigger corporations, and even private militaries.

The Soburg military kept an eye on what was going on but from afar. It was usually only the top 16 fighters of the event that would get significant attention from such a powerful, prominent military.

They would mostly focus on the better premiership edition of this tournament.

As Lazarro’s exosuit received some adjustments, Cael and Lazarro waited patiently for their next battle. Weighing up different scenarios, Lazarro wanted to make sure he had a good strategy for encountering different types of foes.

Cael was a fighter as well and had been for pretty much his whole life. Along with his intelligence, his knowledge around the theory of battle was vast for an teenager that had never stepped foot on a battleground.

Now, the billboard had updated and both fighters eagerly looked toward it to see what would be ahead of them. Intently scanning the several fights that would take place, they could see Lazarro’s name near the bottom of the billboard.

[Lazarro Di Fonti (Cael Breckenridge) vs Kegan Breckenridge (Davis Omand)]

“For god’s sake.”