Older and smarter clans use the Circuit Fights at the Martian Olympics to scout prospective foes, without rousing suspicion. Younger and bolder clans used them for spending money, and shopping opportunities. Melissa Powell of the Defenders of Bunny wanted a new pair of shoes. Her Dreadnought (Dread Head) was looking for chassis upgrades, and they were expensive. Sean Laverty of the Death Curse AFF was after intel. The Death Curse had not looked to face the Defenders of Bunny, as they were in a higher division. Since the Bunnies split, the possibility they would face the upper tier of the Defenders of Bunny should war break out began to concern the AFF, and Sean had volunteered to scout.
Melissa stalked her Dreadnought onto the field, seeing the line up facing her, two Dilophos, another Dreadnought and a Rook, she decided this would be a great chance to open up with everything. Seldom did she have the chance to really cut loose without risking killing someone by accident. Her weapons had enough splash and trample, that she was always worried about accidentally killing one of her team members targets through accidental overlap. Against big steel, she could cut loose and let the girls go wild.
Opening up with her Exacto Shot she screamed into Comm 17 (Challenge channel) “Come on skull boy, mama needs a new pair of shoes!”
She saw the image of a man in harlequin makeup answer back with laughter as his Laser Spread carved a slash off her carapace “You won’t need anything but a coffin when I’m done with you”
Sean really needed to get laid more, she thought. He was starting to take things too seriously. Either that or the AFF was issuing one size fits all jock straps again. Gods knows, that kind of unfriendly compression can make people all kinds of uptight.
Melissa saw her left side Ballista “Nikita” land an early critical with her Chem Thrower, catching the Rook with open missile ports and detonating the warheads in the rack. With the momentary advantage in numbers, she told her girls to stand fast and salvo. It was a risk, stopping maneuver to fire off a combined targeted salvo, but given a 4/3 advantage, and generally superior mecha, it could wipe out whole ranks for the price of a little armor.
Sean took two blows like a boxers one-two combination. The Ballista to one side forked her strike between his Dilophos Masakari 2 and the Dreadnought (Mac II Monster). The missile strike proved to be enough to really fork him up, because while he shuddered off balance from that strike, he emerged from the smoke to see Melissa’s Dread Head Dreadnought, and hear the scream of target lock. He snapped a shot from his Smooth Bore, and watched it spill fragments of the unspoiled armor of her right flank, unfortunately that was the last thing he saw before the world went sideways. Melissa’s return Smooth Bore targeted the missile damage, and punched through to one of his reactor enhancers, releasing the compressed fusion plasma to rage through his main weapon bays. Sean hit the eject button as the flames blasted through his dying Dilophos.
Melissa was advancing towards the next rank of AFF as the explosions racked the shattered ranks of the Death Curse vanguard when she felt a hammer blow to her left foot. Not hearing any targeting lock, she didn’t know how Sean had managed to trigger another salvo as his dying mech collapsed face first to the ground, but only he was in line to have shot her foot.
She staggered forward, her ankle joint fouled. Looking at her external camera’s she saw the horrible truth. Sean had punched out while falling forward, the delicate pilot compartment was stuck between her claw like toes, and the hand less Dreadnought could not pull him out. No pilot would target a cockpit module on purpose, warriors were not butchers, but a pilot compartment did not have serious amour of its own, and stuck between her toes, would be destroyed the first time any weapons with splash hit her left flank.
“Help me out people, I have AFF stuck between my toes. Cover fire here, or my toe-jam is toast!”
So it was that Sean Laverty and Melissa Powell made it onto the Galaxy Gathering “Plays of the Week” vidcast. Melissa attempting to tap dance her way across the battlefield, spinning like a ballerina, dropping low and jumping high like a mad Cossak dancer as she strove to keep the toe-jammed cockpit away from the killing fire of his own lancemates.
Her constant swearing and cursing were mixed with Sean’s own mad laughter, as the Harlequin masked joker showed the spirit of the AFF, as he laughed at his own pending death. The highlight reels set the dancing Dreadnought to an ancient song called “Rasputin” by Turisas whose rock tempo pounding of Cossack music made the macabre scene turn from carnage to comedy. For the dancers the truth remained the same, she was dancing with death.
When the battle was done, Melissa’s Dread Head was wreckage, but its final act had been to kneel and interpose its heaviest armor to the Willie Pete enhanced flamers that killed it. It was enough to shield her erstwhile foes cockpit.
Sean was twenty seven hours in the regen tanks, dealing with sixteen broken bones, serious internal injuries, and some radiation burns. At battle plus thirty, Lt Domino Samdhi, Death Curse AFF walked her Dilophos (Masakari 1) through the Defenders of Bunny gate with a delivery for Major Melissa Powell.
Smiling enigmatically, she placed the ebony and silver box on the table in the mech bay, and the assembled Avengers and Defenders of Bunny witnessed what the AFF had sent to Melissa Powell as ransom for the life of Captain Sean Laverty.
With a flourish, Lt Samdhi revealed the gift. Dancing shoes with a grinning deaths head shining from the toes.
“From your friends at the Death’s Curse. If you are going to dance with death pretty lady, you need the right dancing shoes!”
That was life in this strange Mecha Galaxy.
Submitted by John T Mainer#28840 Defenders of Bunny