by R. H. Tang
Julian couldn't stop smiling.
Hanging out with Emma outside of Overdrive was even more fun than playing with her.
She remained incredibly cool hearted in the middle of a battle. Nothing fazed her. But outside of combat, she was so fun and enthusiastic. Calling The Mechanical King a boosted game CEO was hilarious.
He knew that Felix and Tigger would both appreciate it. Considering the Overdrive CEO's new plans for the game, none of the pro players were particularly happy with him.
"Do you think you have a chance to get that Mech back?"
"Maybe. Let me show you what I've seen."
He reached into his backpack and pulled out the paper notes.
"You remember the Mandate System, right?"
"Yeah. The thing that lets him command NPC units."
"He's using it on March of Grunts to beat up beginners. That's actually why Tigger warned me about the blackmailer. He won't let opponents like us onto the stage. We'll need to share accounts with beginners to beat him."
She cursed so loudly that several parents with young kids turned and glared at her.
"What is wrong with him? Is that why nobody's going to the Forever Fortress?"
"Yep."
She furiously read through Tigger and Charles's notes.
"Nope."
"Nope."
"Nope."
She set them back down again and grimaced.
"These are some good ideas, but they just won't work. Did you come up with anything?"
Julian sighed.
"I was thinking of a nuke, but he'd never let that on the stage."
"Yeah. Besides, he wouldn't start the battle until he defused it anyways."
"Right."
Liefield didn't just get to pick his opponents. He also got to choose the precise conditions of the fight.
Emma abruptly finished the last bite of her burger and stood up.
Julian was still working through his third of the night. He really shouldn't have gotten another shake. His stomach felt like it was about to explode.
"What's up?"
To his surprise, she grinned and clapped her hands together.
"Man. This has got me hyped up to play! Let's get some games in. There's no need moping around. We'll probably have an easier time thinking about it once we're in the server."
Julian smiled too. He wasn't sure if the solution was as simple as just playing Overdrive, but Emma was so enthusiastic he couldn't refuse her.
Besides, she was right. Moping around definitely wouldn't help.
"Alright. Let's do it!"
He grabbed his food so he could take it to the car. Even though it was destroying him from within, he couldn't stop eating.
"Maybe we can go back to my mom's? She's got a spare computer there. We can grab your rig from your hotel room."
"Actually—I've got a better place."
He pulled out his Selection pass.
"They let us use this any time we want. Obviously, we can't talk about what we were just talking about."
Blabbing about an account sharing scheme in the middle of Overdrive World Headquarters would be one of Julian's dumbest mistakes ever.
She rolled her eyes and mimicked him.
"'We can't talk about what we were just talking about.' Real stealthy. Yeah, of course, we can't talk about it."
"Alright, then let me show you the bigshot pro experience."
14
Julian provided instructions on his phone as Emma drove to Overdrive headquarters.
Once again, they found themselves stuck in traffic. Emma thought it was typical, but Julian just didn't understand it. It was even worse than the traffic in San Francisco.
"I've never been there before, how will I know I'm there?"
Julian laughed.
"You'll recognize it by the huge tent—there's also an enormous dome. They're doing tons of construction work."
Emma started cackling as soon as Julian began telling her about the planned design. He thought about telling her about the talking sign, but he waited for her to reach it instead.
They crossed the talking sign at the perfect point in their discussion.
"HELL."
"HELL."
"HELL."
"HELL."
Emma just shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes.
"I thought you were exaggerating. I bet he tried to program the sign himself, too. What did I tell you? He's totally boosted!"
The two stepped into the parking lot and left the car.
To Julian's surprise, the building still had a substantial number of players even though it was almost ten. He supposed their thinking was the same as his. It wasn't every day you could use a state of the art rig from the Overdrive Corporation.
Unlike the battle boxes, there were no projectors on the individual rigs. The player's gameplay was private. The cutthroat competition of the Selection meant that there were plenty of spies. A secret weapon that'd bring someone to the top of the Selection was an unlikely yet feasible dream. If you found one, you didn't want anyone else to know about it.
Phillips was one of them.
The petite woman sat far away from everyone else, at a booth in the far left corner of the room, typing furiously away at the screen. She bobbed her head in time to music on her big purple headphones. Emma's theory about her being an Overdrive company employee was fresh on Julian's mind, but based on her current activity, she looked just like a master grinder.
Only the most experienced pilots went through a map without in-game sounds. They were some of the only ways to hear upcoming traps. You had to play stages countless times before you could comfortably navigate them with the sound off.
Julian subtly pointed her out to Emma.
"That's Phillips."
Emma raised an eyebrow. Phillips suddenly leaned back from her chair and stretched as she seemingly finished her mission.
She stood up and paced from one side of the room to the other before returning to her station. Then she put the headphones back on and immediately returned to grinding.
Her fingers danced with well-practiced ease across her keyboard and control board. She already knew exactly what it took to clear the mission.
"I wonder what map she's playing."
It was probably a good one if she was willing to do it over and over again. Perhaps Phillips's map had something to do with her strange psychic powers. Like Tigger said, there could always be an in-game situation.
"Hey, what's up man? Did you get my text?"
Julian immediately recognized Felix's voice. He'd stayed all night too.
"Oh, hey!"
Felix smiled graciously and introduced himself to Emma.
"Hey, I'm Julian's friend Felix."
"Yeah, I heard a lot about you!"
"You're Emma, right?"
"Yep!"
Felix smiled.
"That's perfect. Now we just need a fourth player. Can you check if Tyler's available?"
Emma frowned.
"What do you mean? Is this a mission? Can't we just find someone here?"
Felix shook his head.
"Best not to. These people are our rivals. I don't want them to find out about it. I got a huge tip from one of my buddies on a map-exploring committee."
Map-exploring committees were a huge part of the game. Most Overdrive players weren't looking to compete in the Selection or make the World Championship. They were just regular players trying to build the coolest machines possible. Instead of fighting in ranked battles, they spent their time pursuing rare prizes on various maps.
As a result, a clan's exploring committee was the biggest lure to new members.
Providing exclusive insights to new players was a surefire way to win their loyalty. The exploring committees of professional teams were essentially the inverse of a clan's. They were veteran pilots paid in parts, Credits, or even real currency to play maps repeatedly to discover rare parts for top-tier pros. Players like vermillionang
el or Brandon didn't have the time to grind. They had their hands full with scrimmages and strategy meetings.
"This could be big. My friend said the map was so hard he couldn't even complete it."
A mission that a veteran grinder couldn't clear was sure to award rare parts.
"He said that the prize was some all-new items, including some of the ones The Mechanical King mentioned earlier. You know, the ones that reward individual skill."
Julian's eyes widened.
Could this be it?
He didn't know of any items that could defeat the Heaven's Boxer. The Mech was just too overpowered. But the Overdrive Corporation was adding other overpowered weapons into the game too. If he found an overpowered weapon and used it to retrieve the Heaven's Boxer, he could combine them to form the most powerful Mech in the entire Selection.
"I'm in!"
Emma responded before he could. She loved finding new items.
"Is Tyler available? I don't think Edwin is skilled enough for this map."
Edwin had once been a pretty strong player, but he seldom played now that he was teaching. He usually got in a few easy maps with Julian and Felix about once a week, and now that it was near the end of the school year, Edwin's workload had dramatically increased. Not only did he have countless final papers to grade, he also spent tons of time helping his students with summer job applications.
He shot Tyler a message. He'd just gotten out of club practice, and he was excited to continue improving.
"So what's the basic info?"
Felix grinned.
"They added a Minesweeper mode to one of the Fortresses."
"Dang."
The Fortress Master's maps were already a gold mine of powerful machines. Only their extreme difficulty prevented grinders from constantly spamming clears. Julian had only fully cleared three of the ten Fortresses. On the others, he only had finished a few piecemeal stages.
A Minesweeper level would make things far more difficult, but the rewards would be correspondingly incredible.
Julian, Felix, and Emma entered the side booths, and Tyler met them on the server. Felix confidently strode to the mission bulletin board and inputted their desired mission.
"Alright. It's an upgraded stage on the First Fortress."
"Aw, I was hoping to play on the Tenth."
Emma was a massive fan of Vile, who'd developed several game-breaking Mechs that'd required intervention from the game administration. Eventually, they decided they wanted Vile on her side and hired her as the strongest of the Fortress Masters.
Felix cursed and shook his head.
"I'm sure they're slowly upgrading all the maps, but trust me, the new First Fortress will be tough enough. As I said, my friends couldn't clear it."
Tyler pumped his fist.
"Great. That just means we'll be the first!"
Emma made a finger gun.
"I'm feeling fierce today."
Julian smiled.
When Felix asked him how he'd kept improving, he'd explained that it was because of Tyler's drills. But it wasn't just that. It was because he had such amazing friends who kept pushing him forward.
15
Julian started carefully studying the map as soon as they landed in the opening lobby. It was very similar to the one he and Felix had battled against in high school.
The few differences he noticed were almost certainly because of the changes that'd occurred in the natural Fortress update process. The Fortress Masters were always staying ahead of guide creators and scouting committees. In general, Fortresses updated about once a month. In addition, the tactics and enemy order of battle were randomized every time you challenged the mission. There wouldn't be any wild swings—something like two armies appearing when there should have been one, but in general, you could expect a somewhat different experience each time.
The Minesweeper changed things. There were two different kinds of Minesweeper missions.
The first was fairly simple—a regular map that featured hidden loot you needed the bulky treasure detector to find.
The second was far more challenging. Equipping a Minesweeper to your machine would actively transform the map into a more challenging alternative. For instance, using a Minesweeper on the Devilguy Fortress stage significantly enhanced the quality of enemy Grunt units. The map usually featured enormous demonic Hemoborn armed with a variety of close combat weapons. Bringing a Minesweeper strengthened them with vast bat-like wings and the ability to spew molten fireballs.
From what Felix said, it sounded like a Type 2. The First Fortress was deliberately built to be easier than the others. An experienced grinder should have been able to clear them without any problems.
The Fortress Lobby hadn't changed much since the last time Felix and Julian challenged it. Watcher's lobby decorations featured plenty of helpful guides and tips for beginners.
His stages were somewhat easier than the other Fortresses, but that didn't mean the First Fortress was an easy path to the World Championships. When it came to piloting skill, Watcher and his transforming Paragons were second only to Vile. When Julian, Felix, and Edwin challenged him after clearing the map, they'd gotten utterly destroyed.
To Julian's surprise, that'd been almost six years ago.
That didn't feel right, but it was the truth. He'd been a sophomore in high school when he beat the map, and now he was a senior in college. Time had flown by.
The mission objective flashed before their visors.
OBJECTIVE: DEFEND YOUR LOCATION UNTIL THE EXTRACTION POINT
TIME: TWENTY MINUTES EACH ROUND
MAP CREATOR: WATCHER
Felix clapped his hands together, naturally taking the lead.
"Alright. Let's work on picking out our team composition. I'm guessing Tyler and Emma don't have Minesweepers yet, right?"
They shook their heads.
Julian had only purchased the obscure item to defeat Phillips. Ordinary, the incredibly expensive attachment was only used by experienced grinders, like scouting committee members.
Out of the 10,000 Points Cap on a Grunt unit, the Minesweeper cost a whopping 8,000. There was no way to decrease the cost by using Customization, and the bulky backpack wreaked havoc on your mobility. It was also a huge target. Destroying someone's Minesweeper Unit sometimes caused a chain reaction that inflicted severe damage to their machine.
The unit was ostensibly for removing mines from specific missions, but the cost was so inefficient that it was almost always better to just walk right into them. No mine could cripple your machine more than equipping a Minesweeper would.
According to Felix's information, there was a hidden box of treasure on the facility premises. To access it, you had to turn down the order for extraction—the box wouldn't spawn on the map until after the initial mission was completed. It also wouldn't appear if you removed your Minesweeper—you had to keep it on for the entire match.
After clearing the map, you had about ten minutes to find the box before the massive enemy army arrived. If you couldn't escape, you were guaranteed to lose.
The post-mission army had an infinite number of troops, just like March of Grunts. The map would keep spawning them until you fell. The initial wave had a thousand Grunts, and even if you destroyed them all by using a weapon like a nuclear missile, there would just be a second wave with even more enemy soldiers.
Putting the Minesweeper portion at the end was a brilliant twist of the knife.
Not only did you have to load in with a weak machine, but you also had to keep it for the entire stage. You couldn't use Julian's purge strategy. That meant that the Mech which equipped the Minesweeper would be crippled for the full duration of the mission. With twenty-minute rounds, it meant surviving with only three players for nearly an hour and a half.
It sounded extremely difficult, but Julian's friends couldn't wait.
Felix was already choosing his machine.
"Hm, so it looks like you guys are most comfortable with th
is SPG-Caster, right?"
Felix had already purchased every single Grunt unit available in the shop.
Experienced Grunt users like Felix were comfortable with all four classes—Hemoborn, Kingbreakers, Spell Titans, and Paragons. In a Fortress Mission, you needed to follow competitive regulations—one Ace unit with three matching Grunt frames. Alternatively, you could bring four matching Grunt frames, but there was never a real reason to do that. Professional teams sometimes used four Grunts to keep their strategy completely hidden, but the Fortress's spawns were the same no matter what machines you brought to the battlefield.
Felix's SPG Caster was still the default blue from the shop. Because of how many frames he cycled through, Felix had stopped custom-coloring most of his Mechs, only painting his most-used machines his preferred white and lavender.
"Between the two of us, it's better for me to use the sweeper. I think we need Julian on the frontlines."
The third portion of the stage involved a continuous underground assault. Pilots had to fight off over a hundred opponents while holding a narrow tunnel. It was the perfect task for a melee expert like Julian.
Felix could have pulled rank and made Emma or Tyler carry the Minesweeper, but that wasn't his style. He felt that making his teammates most comfortable was the best way to play.
That same congeniality was why he found a home on so many teams. Truth be told, that same flexibility was also why Julian hadn't changed his playstyle for so many years. He'd known that no matter what mistakes he made, Felix would cover for him.
On the spindly SPG Caster, the huge Minesweeper unit looked almost like a straitjacket. The burly item caused a corresponding decrease in the machine's Mobility and Speed stats. The only other weapons it carried were a pistol, a beam combat knife, and a pair of grenades. The cheap weapons were all it could fit under the strict points cap.
- General Data -
Pilot: Felix
Machine: SPG-01 Caster—Felix Custom
Class: Spell Titan
Sub-class: Support
Designation: Grunt Unit