[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 276: Blood Claws

A pair of light mechs matched blows against each other in a grungy underground mech arena. The skirmisher mech wielded a pair of knives while the swordsman mech wielded a single blade.

A rowdy crowd exulted in the reverberations of the high speed impacts between the dueling mechs. Only the thick but cracked and worn out transparent panels protected them from the splintering shards of plating that the mechs shaved off from each other.

One thing to note about the people was that they all wore similar color motifs. The lower ranked crowd wore shirts of red striped with diagonal black lines. The ranks above that made do with armbands of the same look, while the handful of leaders at the top wore exotic alloy rings that glistened in alternating red and black.

More interestingly, the mechs, which featured the same coating of red with diagonal black stripes, consisted of outdated models. Neither their armor nor their speed could keep up with currentgen mechs, but that also made them cheap and easy to fabricate on the fly.

From the reckless way in which they dueled, neither pilots gave a damn about conserving their machines. They danced at the edge of death in their reckless attempts to overpower their opposition.

"Come on Raella!" Dietrich hollered. "Go for Mackarel's left! He's half-blind in that direction!"

Like the others, he wore an armband bearing the colors of the Blood Claws, one of the most infamous gangs in Bentheim. Even though his main affiliation lay with Walter's Whalers, he answered to the same boss as the rest.

The skirmisher mech pulled out of the melee after leaving behind a criss cross of knife marks on the enemy mech. Raella's voice emerged from the speakers. "You're getting rather slow, aren't you?"

"I got much more in store for you than that, lassie!" The man inside the swordman mech broadcasted as he urged his mech to pursue his opponent.

The swordsman mech hadn't fared very well so far. Its pilot was older and more experienced than Raella, but he couldn't match her in terms of technical skill.

Raella deftly swerved her borrowed skirmisher mech to dodge the incoming hack. Her mech went in to leave behind another nick, only for her mech to receive a punch that pushed it back.

"Get her, Mack! You can do it!"

"Watch out for the legs as well, girlie!"

That advice proved to be telling as Mackarel's mech lashed out in a dangerous flurry of kicks. Raella's mech barely dashed out of reach, and swiped its weapons forward to slice some layers off the extended leg before it drew back.

That last attack had bit a little deep, causing the swordsman mech to suffer from unsteady footing. Raella took advantage of her opponent's preoccupation and went all-in, shoving the unsteady sword aside before surgically stabbing the weak points of the vulnerable mech before it could recover.

A huge cheer sounded out as the swordsman mech practically lost all of its connections to its limbs. The hapless mech collapsed onto its back like a puppet with its strings cut off.

The ringleader enthusiastically announced the end of the duel. "And the winner is Raella Larkinson! She's shown herself to be as capable as her famous cousin Melinda, but prettier by far!"

The battered skirmisher mech opened its cockpit, allowing Raella to jump out and float down with her anti-grav clothes. She approached the cockpit of the fallen mech and waited for its cockpit to open up as well.

A grizzled man wearing an armband and covered in tribal tattoos climbed out of his immobilized mech. He shook his head, trying to recover from the trauma of being inside a mech that fell onto its back. "If all the Larkinsons are like you, no wonder your family's so renowned."