[On the count of three, we will leave cover and push forward. Once this area is cleared, we will return to our resting spots and take an evening break. I will take the first watch, and we can switch every two hours.] Max informed Nico, who gave him an affirmative beep from her radio in return.
[3,2,1,] Max burst up out from cover and unleashed all six Disruptors in a wide fan pattern, disabling all of the closest War Walkers and giving him a chance to approach unimpeded.
His left hand brought up his shield as a battering ram as Max drove Cleansing Light into the crowd of War Walkers with his defensive Lasers flashing constantly, tearing holes in the Arisen warriors while he headed for the larger Command Walkers toward the back of the group.
Once they fell, the detachment would be in chaos and much easier to eliminate than when they were organized.
On his right, Nico was going crazy again, but this time, it was actually productive. She had realized that the War Walkers' stabilization systems were weak, so she had timed her attacks with the Mass Driver to knock them over in a wave toward her target, and now she was chopping the smaller walkers down as they tried to stand back up.
It wasn't a bad tactic, but Max would have to put his sword away and take out the Mass Driver rifle mounted to his back to emulate it, whereas Nico had four arms, and two of them permanently mounted, so she didn't need to reduce her melee capabilities in order to pull the trick.
What he could do that she couldn't was to wipe out huge swathes of War Walkers with the Disruptors.
Max spread his arms and cleared another wave of light Walkers, which cleared his path to the Command Walkers, who had moved into supportive positions so that they could fight Max properly two-on-one.
The two Command Walkers shifted to encircle Max so that he would have to put his back to one or the other, and Max's alarms sounded as the lighter War Walkers prepared to coordinate an attack at his back again, using those strange particle weapons.
He would have to work quickly so that he could eliminate the Command Units before they could set the trap properly now that he had overextended into their ranks, but Max was confident that these ones wouldn't be any more trouble than the others he had faced.
With a twist of his arm, Max turned his shield parallel to the ground and slammed it into the chest of a Command Walker while he faked a sword strike at the other and fired a concentrated Disruptor beam into its torso.
The two huge walkers hit the ground, and Max spun on one foot, then took a knee and put his shield forward to absorb the imminent attack from the light walkers.
His main shield collapsed under the force of the massed particle beams, and the second barrier on his shield activated, then failed, but the job was done. The War Walkers needed some time, just like he did, to reach maximum power output, and they would be down for a few seconds before they could try that trick again.
Max drove his sword down into the Command Walker that he had knocked over with his shield, then turned his Disruptors on wide dispersion and combined them into two stronger beams to completely destroy the remaining targets in his region.
Many of the lighter walkers hit the ground, avoiding the attack, but their coordination was lacking, thanks to their overreliance on the Command Walkers, and the retaliation against him was sporadic.
[How is it going over there, Nico?] Max called as he charged into the survivors.
[Meet the slap chop three thousand. It slices, it dices, it purees.] Nico laughed in response, which Max took to mean that she was doing well enough.
One of the twenty meters tall, Phalanx-sized War Walkers stepped out of cover to challenge Max with a blade in each hand. It didn't hesitate and swung one low, with the other going for Max's head.
It was a familiar move, and the follow-up would be to lunge forward and drive the blades toward the chest of your opponent once their blades were out of position. Max wished that he could read enough from these enemies to know where they learned the style from, but like those strange people without an internal monologue, all that was in their minds was the next moves that they were making.
It was like the past, and future didn't exist for them, only the present.
Max waited for the lunge to start before smacking the arms of the War Walker aside with his shield, putting it off balance, and opening for a sword strike to the back.
The energy field on his blade flashed as it hit the shielding of the War Walker, which was driven into the dirt, but the shielding held out long enough that it wasn't cut in half.
Still, there was no emotion from the pilot, only calculation. They were doing their best to determine how to survive this encounter, but Max's tactics were confusing them. They simply couldn't understand how he knew their techniques well enough to counter them. That didn't happen. Everyone they attacked fell before the might of their battle skills. One lone Mecha shouldn't be able to stand before them like this.
That was the construct's last thought as Max hacked it apart and moved on to the next group, which had chosen to attack from cover, a tactical mistake that would cost them dearly when Max's Disruptors tore through the remains of the building.
They didn't have time to ponder their mistake before they died, and only a few seconds later, the battlefield fell silent as the last of the survivors fled the scene, leaving Max and Nico alone in the rubble.
[That went well. Let's head back to the positions that we were in before and see what the fleet manages to accomplish tonight.] Nico cheerfully suggested.
[Lead the way.]
Max had plenty on his mind tonight, starting with the enemy's battle style and the lingering feeling that he had forgotten something from his past life that would bring some sort of enlightenment to this situation.
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