"Avatars! Is anyone out there? Come on! Please respond!"
Imon Ingvar's Bright Warrior flew aimlessly in circles. Despite previously huddling behind an asteroid the rest of the Second Mech Company of the Avatars of Myth, everything disappeared once the wave of darkness swept past their position.
His mech lost contact with the Bright Warrior mechs that were huddling just tens of meters away from his machine.
It was as if the wave of darkness had all taken them away.
What was even odder was that the asteroid that Imon's mech previously used as cover disappeared as well!
"Is this an illusion?"
When Imon experimentally directed his Bright Warrior to fly downwards, he found to his horror that the obscuring darkness wasn't just muffling his mech's sensor.
It had actually displaced him in a completely different space!
Questions continued to well up in his mind as Imon tried and failed to make sense of this abnormal change. His shallow understanding of science didn't help matters either. All he knew was that he had lost contact with every comrade, including his sister!
"Casella! Where are you?!"
In his haste to reconnect to his fellow Avatars, Imon failed to notice that the darkness around his mech slowly began to seethe. It was only when a strange chill ran straight through his body that he suddenly paused.
In the periphery of his vision, Imon suddenly noticed movement!
He withdrew some of his senses from his mech and looked around in the darkened c.o.c.kpit. Even though Imon dialed up the lights to their highest setting, he could barely spot the c.o.c.kpit consoles in front of his piloting chair.
"Did I imagine it?" He questioned himself.
A second chill struck his body!
"What is going on?!"
A strange soundless roar suddenly rang through his ears! Imon grabbed his helmeted head. A strange pressure kept mounting on his mind as if some enormous weight was pressing down on him. The most infuriating aspect of all of these weird events was that Imon was completely unable to block them. He felt as if some unfathomable existences were attacking at this very moment!
"I have to fight back!"
Imon ignored every uncomfortable situation and immersed himself into his mech. As soon as his man-machine connection with his mech intensified, Imon found to his relief that his body was no longer subject to as many abnormal phenomena.
He didn't know why that was so, but Imon was not in the mood to look at a gift horse in the mouth.
Sadly, soon after he took shelter in his own mech, the boiling darkness beyond his mech convulsed.
Suddenly, a strange apparition banged against the armor of his mech!
"What?!"
Though Imon was completely caught off-guard, his instincts were still pretty good. His mech immediately retaliated with a sword, only to cut off some kind of strange grey transparent mech.
"The hell?!"
Another ghostly mech attacked his mech from behind. Fortunately, Imon had become fully alert. Before the strange ghostly mech could thrust its half-transparent spear into the rear armor of the Bright Warrior, the latter turned around and cut through the apparition!
More transparent mechs appeared with regular frequency. Some of them even fired rifles that only dealt a fraction of the damage they were supposed to have if fired by physical mechs.
Imon was forced to fly his Bright Warrior through the darkness in order to take out these strange mechs.
All the while, Imon continued to guess at their origin. What was the deal with them? Were they real, or were they merely figments of his imagination that had come to life?
"Wait a minute.. some of these mechs look familiar."
Though the greyish mechs had been stripped of all color, as a mech pilot Imon was trained to study the physical properties of the mechs he fought.
He gradually recognized that the designs of the ghost mechs matched the mechs fielded by the pirates he had just fought!
He even guessed that these ghost mechs all consisted of machines that the Larkinson Clan and Penitent Sisters had previously taken out in the previous rounds of battle.
This was because the grey mechs each exhibited at least some battle damage!
This damage caused the ghost mechs to function less optimally.
Slowly but surely, Imon managed to keep a grip on the situation. No matter the odd appearance of these hostile apparitions, they were considerably weaker than their actual physical counterparts.
First, their transparent nature caused them to inflict less damage than they should be capable of doing.
Second, that same nature caused every attack made by his mech to deal amplified damage to the enemy mechs.
In fact, much of the grey mechs that weren't immediately cut in half stopped functioning after suffering catastrophic internal damage!
Third, the enemy mechs fought as stupid as bots. Even pirate mech pilots knew better than to launch plain and straightforward attacks. There didn't appear to be any human intelligences controlling these ghost mechs!
Even so, Imon's optimism slowly began to make way for creeping worry, which soon became supplanted by dawning horror.
"These ghost mechs don't stop coming!"
It started out slow, but escalated over the course of the battle. The boiling darkness kept spitting out the same grey mechs that his Bright Warrior had cut to pieces before.
In addition, the longer this ordeal took place, the greater the darkness became active!
Each grey mech that reformed out of the darkness became just a little bit stronger than before. Soon enough, Imon's Bright Warrior could no longer cut down these ghostly apparitions as effectively as before.
Though their driving intelligences hadn't increased a single bit, their solidity and force grew with every single reformation!
Imon tried to be clever and stopped trying to take out the ghost mechs. Unfortunately, this caused their numbers to build up. If this kept on, his Bright Warrior would quickly be mobbed by more than a hundred ghost mechs attacking from each direction!
Even if his Bright Warrior was clad with incredibly resilient Breyer alloy, that many attacks would definitely exceed its defensive capabilities!
"Ahhh! What will it take for you to stay down!" Imon yelled in frustration as his Bright Warrior's sword cut through one ghostly swordsman mech while stabbing through the chest of a ghostly space knight. "Casella?! Where are you?!"
His sister wasn't faring well. Captain Casella Ingvar deployed into battle with a Bright Warrior in its rifleman mech configuration. This meant that the all-obscuring darkness around her impeded her fighting ability even more!
Her mech's laser rifle kept shooting at the ghost mechs, mostly managing to take them out in a single hit as long as she aimed at some critical component.
In order to prevent her mech from getting hit, she kept her mech mobile. During her initial confrontations against the greyish mechs, she also noticed that they didn't appear to be piloted by trained mech pilots.
It was as if a layman was puppeting them all by remote!
The attack and movement patterns of these mechs were very simple and did not leverage their individual strengths.
They also did not employ any tactics other than attacking her mech in the most direct manner possible. This meant that even if she was being swarmed by multiple ghostly attackers, they did not employ any boxing formations.
Due to all of these factors, Casella managed to overcome her disadvantageous situation by flying away and kiting her ghostly pursuers.
Since these stupid grey mechs only thought of reaching her mech as fast as possible, they solely flew in straight lines, making them easy targets!
Despite this favorable condition, Casella kept growing more and more worried. The darkness surrounding her in each direction kept becoming more active. The ghost mechs that chased after her fleeing machine were also growing stronger.
Who knew whether the darkness would introduce another danger?
Even if the situation remained the same, Casella still worried about her continued survival. This was because even if the mechs she fought were fake, her own machine was still very real!
"My energy reserves are dropping." She noted with evident concern.
Every mech only carried only so much fuel or energy. Spaceborn mechs were especially notorious for their elevated consumption of energy.
Some mechs designed for efficiency could last for hours even if their flight systems were being stressed.
Other mechs designed for peak performance were not as frugal! They were mostly meant to control their energy consumption until a critical moment had arrived.
The Bright Warrior's rifleman mech configuration consumed more energy than the other configurations. Its laser rifle drained energy with every shot, and its constant maneuvering didn't help matters either.
Even though Casella dialed down the power of the laser rifle to a point where it was just enough to kill a ghost mech, how long would her mech's energy reserves last? If her weapon gradually demanded more power, she feared that her mech might not be able to last more than thirty minutes!
In this all-consuming darkness, there were no friendly mechs to cover her back. There were no sh.i.p.s to get back to in order to replenish her machine.
She was completely on her own, and the continuously-intensifying darkness began to take a toll on her sanity.
"I'm a Larkinson now!" She reminded herself. "I can't give in to my fears!"
Though Casella managed to hold on, many other Larkinson mech pilots fared worse!
The Avatars, Sentinels, Battle Criers, Vandals and Swordmaidens engulfed by the anomaly all experienced the same difficulties.
The skill of the mech pilot and the quality of their machines generally determined how well they coped with the neverending attacks.
Those who piloted regular premium mechs managed to hold out for a time, but as the power of the grey mechs escalated, the damage kept acc.u.mulating.
Each premium mech suffered more and more scars. Some mechs, especially lightly-armored ones, exhibited serious damage that caused their performance to drop!
Once their firepower or mobility took a hit, the distressed machines became less capable of fending off the next wave of hostile ghost mechs.
Some of the mechs failed to kill off enough ghost mechs or lost ability to outrun them. Once that happened, the ghost mechs surrounding their victims kept growing in number until they finally tore apart their prey!
Already, an unknown but considerable number of Larkinson mechs had succ.u.mbed in this fashion!
Perhaps the only good news was that some other mechs were faring better!
The expert candidates stood out as the best performers. In another pocket of darkness, Commander Dise of the Swordmaidens maintained her iron will as the greatsword of her swordsman mech cut through three greyish apparitions at once!
"Begone, you fake mechs! You are not a worthy challenge!"
Her battle intent rose even as a part of her worried about the condition of her fellow Swordmaidens.
Too many of her fellow sisters had died in the past few years! The small amount of Swordmaidens who survived all of the ordeals that preceded them were incredibly precious to Dise.
Though she was confident that her fellow Swordmaiden mech pilots would be able to deal with these endless ghostly mechs with similar ease, she wasn't sure whether this would remain true for long.
"I have to get back to them!" She urged herself. Her growing desperation boosted her fighting spirit.
It was not in the nature of the Swordmaidens to shy away from a threat! No matter what kind of oddities took place, Commander Dise was determined to overcome every obstacle!
"If this fog keeps hindering me, I will cut it apart!"
Instead of cutting the constantly-reappearing grey mechs, she collected herself and concentrated her mentality until her swordman mech unleashed a cut with its Breyer alloy greatsword!
A momentary tear into the darkness had formed. The sensors of Dise's mech briefly glimpsed another Larkinson mech!
Even though the tear quickly healed in a matter of seconds, Commander Dise finally obtained some hope!
"If a single cut isn't enough, then I'll unleash more!"
