The Warrior Mechanic

There a few minutes of pause, as Cael believed that the instructors were just taking time to get everything ready.

Suddenly, a very large panel whizzed open with the sound of a classic notification. It reached near his knees and up to his head in height, while maintaining a widescreen aspect ratio.

The panel was quite bright and was just outputting white light for now. It had grey rims to show the colour scheme of this exam’s operating system, so he knew this was still related to the exam in some way.

The light dimmed down, then revealed a third person view of his special drone. The WM-02 Slasher was in action.

Surrounding the bot was a vast, but dense forest of tall spruce trees, with dense and thick grass beneath its feet. The air was still, and the sky above was clear. It seemed rather tranquil as there wasn’t any form of moving object within the view.

It resembled the view in third person games, and he had the option of manipulating his view of the scenery. Cael wondered about how he could adapt his bot to certain environments but since this was totally random, he saw no need to do so.

He decided to just vouch for a bot that could hold its own in various terrain, with its stable and nimble feet.

The Slasher remained robotically still as it awaited its deployment, and the event was soon to begin. Cael felt the anticipation within him growing, and the 1% odds was at the top of his mind.

No, those odds didn’t apply to him. He was confident that he had a much better chance than those he was competing against. With his system, he’d surely have the upper hand against most.

[60 seconds until battle begins]

“...”

Cael now rested on his bed, as he felt too intense to remain stood up. With his fist on his chin, he pumped himself up to see what his bot could do.

“Come on, slasher. Show me something.” He whispered to himself, anxious and slightly trembling.

[BEEP!]

Cael jolted back from this loud beep to commence the event, and was startled by it due to his anxiety.

However, once his attention was brought back to the panel, he could see that his slasher charged forward, seemingly ready for action.

It tilted its head around hastily, making sure to check for any hostiles and enemies. Cael was happy to see that his code was running somewhat well, as the bot could easily move in different directions on command.

Upon running a few hundred meters, the slasher ground to a stop upon hearing the presence of another bot.

A similar noise was heard from within the dense collection of trees.

Silence.

The two bots remained conserved, while the slasher held its left hand to its right katana.

Fwoosh!

Revealing itself from behind the tree, its sword was activated and glowed a golden-orange from the intense heat across its blade.

The other bot was revealed, which looked far less quality than Cael’s own. It had a shoddy exterior, with openings all over the place. The bot was small and seemed to resemble a lightweight bot, but was just too dense to easily fall in that category.

It looked around 5’7, but seemingly weighed around 200 lbs and above. The armour plates were placed in such a way and made so thick that they even inhibited the bot’s movements in ways.

Its exterior was a dark black, and the fight had begun.

With a shoulder mounted energy rifle, several blasts were shot toward the slasher.

Using its katana and agility, not a single blast landed on its person. The final red energy blast landed on its blade, but only brought the robot to a halt.

It didn’t cause any damage and the bot swiftly engaged in close quarters combat. It took several swings with its single sword, using both hands to deliver slashes with more force.

Slasher managed to dip under a punch coming toward its face, and drove forward with an elbow to its enemy’s stomach.

POW!

The force behind the attack was immense, and it took the liberty of adding insult to injury by slashing at this point on the bot’s body.

The blades weren’t going to pierce through the armour immediately, but damage had been done. Slasher reached for its second katana and held them in an X-formation as another wave of energy blasts were headed its way.

The bot had to rely principally on its agility to evade these blasts because its swordsmanship just wasn’t quality enough.

Bots with good enough skills could even slice the blasts in half, leaving themselves unscathed.

Slasher just waited patiently for its moment to attack again, and the time had come. The bot’s shoulder-mounted rifle had overheated and now needed to cool again.

This left it totally open, without its main weapon to keep the agile swordsman away.

Punches came Slasher’s way, but its speed was too much for the enemy to handle. It could easily evade and block using its heated blades to cause the bot damage to its robotic knuckles.

Once the chance was there, it dipped down and swiped both swords outward in an X-formation. The slash managed to swipe through the armour plates across the bot, hitting the wiring underneath.

As this happened, the bot immediately began to malfunction. Clearly, the internals of the bot had been made in a terrible way and now, a vital part of its circuitry had been affected. Sparks of heated metal shot out from the open slash in its midpiece, and the bot shakily staggered away.

With a final stab through the opening in its stomach, the bot was finished. The heated blade caused only more damage to the internals of the bot as it remained lodged inside it.

Slasher waited patiently, even turning the blade like a savage to try and subdue its adversary more quickly.

Slowly, the enemy stumbled to the ground, and the lights in its eyes faded.

Cael’s bot had gotten its first kill.

“Yes!! Let’s go, Slasher!!” Cael roared, lifting up from his bed.

Upon feeling this, he felt far too much energy and excitement to remain seated. With his eyes glued to the panel ahead of him, he kept his hands on his knees -slightly bent- and watched on attentively.

Slasher continued its advance, searching within this forest for more targets. Generally, it was better to play riskier at the start of the game when less quality players were still in the game.

However, as time passed, the average quality of bot out of those remaining gradually increased.

Fighting would be riskier, and less valuable because one wrong event could boot you out. 10,000 people had started in this tournament, and he had to be one of the 100 in the end.

Donning the mentality of a brazen warrior would not let him reach that end goal.

Slasher decided to take to the trees, using their thick branches to traverse the forest more covertly but more quickly too.

There was no need to step around large trees and follow natural paths, as it could use branches to practically go whichever direction it desired.

Abruptly, Slasher landed on a branch and remained still. It had found a target.

There was a bot below, a darker silver than Slasher, that scintillated under the dim sunlight that managed to pierce through the dense foliage above. Its frame was dense, but compact. This was a mediumweight bot that neared the heavyweight class. It stood at around 6’4 and had mammoth hands and limbs.

Slasher attempted to remain hidden within such foliage but the leaves around it rustled as it landed.

Its location had been revealed.

PEW!

An energy blast from a wrist-mounted energy rifle was shot toward Slasher, that had to leap down from the branch to evade.

Thud!

Charging toward its new enemy, Slasher utilised its elegance and speed to throw several slashes at the bot. Its feet moved gracefully, like it was in a dance as the heated blades slashed across the body of this bot.

Simultaneously, it was forced to try and dodge energy blasts from its two wrist-mounted energy rifles.

Suddenly, its movements were too slow and an energy blast landed square on its face. Slasher was hurled backward, being forced to take several steps to slow down. However, before it could do that, another punch was already headed its way.

The gargantuan black hand of the bulky bot shot toward Slasher, that was forced to use its blades to take the force of the strike.

Placing its blades in an X shape, the punch landed perfectly on the centre. Even with his katanas absorbing some of the impact, there was enough force behind the attack to throw Cael’s bot over and onto its back.

“No!” Cael called out upon seeing this.

The bots stared deep into each other eyes and struggled against each other in a game of pure strength. However, this was a game that Slasher shouldn’t ever be playing.

Cael had his hands cupped over his mouth and nose as he witnessed this. He wanted to get in there and shout for his bot to find a way out of the situation, but he could not. All he could do was powerlessly watch on in silence.

He couldn’t lose. Not here. His relatives would’ve been right then about him eventually amounting to nothing. How could he prove him wrong if he was booted at the start of just the qualifiers?

It was up against a bot that was not only larger but had the upper hand by being stood over Slasher. Its arms slowly bent in as the force was too overwhelming.

Before the fist could reach its body, though, Slasher pulled its arms outward, and the blades sliced at the bot’s fist.

Sparks came flying out as the heated blade had dug deep into its extremity. Slasher remained slightly slanted, with its blades ready for any form of defence.

After that sequence of attacks, the bot was not willing to blindly rush in to try and land slices once again.

A single energy blast was shot at it as the heavier bot retreated, but Slasher promptly rolled to the side to just about graze past the blast. It caught onto the blade of its katana that it held in its left hand.

The force behind the blast almost forced the sword out of the bot’s hand, but it lifted up to stand straight and swiftly caught the falling sword in a reverse grip.

Hastily reaching for the inside of its wrists, Cael knew exactly what this bot intended to do. It wanted to use its mana cores to power the swords.

VRMMM!!

Upon connecting the loose ports from its wrists to the openings in the superheated blades, they started to glow much more brightly. It vibrated intensely, and even Slasher could feel the heat coming off them.

Dashing toward the heavier bot, it rolled under two incoming energy blasts before slicing at its abdomen. Somehow, even with the extreme temperatures of the blade’s edge, only a shallow cut remained.

BAM!

Slasher received a straight elbow to its face, being forced to the ground once again. Upon impacting the ground, it received further damage from a sequence of downward punches from the larger bot.

Cael’s heart almost sunk into his stomach upon watching this. Before Slasher had managed to escape, but how could it do so in this situation?