by R. H. Tang
"Men! It's time to prove yourselves! Charge!"
Emma gave an amused laugh.
"Wow, the dialogue is pretty good."
She raised her sniper rifle.
This first mission made it extremely obvious who the commander was—Zane's plumed machine was so ostentatious it seemed like a deliberate decoy.
It was strange. Julian remembered him using a matching machine the last time they played the mission.
Why had the Fortress Master changed it? It was a better fit for the in-universe lore, but it made the mission way easier.
"I got this!"
"Thunderbolt!"
Emma activated one of the SPG Caster's three special abilities. Thunderbolt focused on high single target damage. Her sky blue rifle burst to life, and the long gem-studded barrel glowed with internal lightning.
Felix let out a sudden cry of annoyance and swore.
Perhaps he thought Emma was going to miss. Shooting Zane from such a long-range and expending a spell charge was a significant risk.
But as always, Emma's aim was true.
"Wha -"
As soon as he heard that surprised cry, Julian considered the first stage already won. That was the line Zane shouted every time you defeated him.
Emma's accuracy was almost preternatural.
One of the riflers streaked forward, moving faster than what should have been possible. One moment, it was about five arm's lengths away. The next, it dove in front of Zane's machine, taking the shot for him. It was like the unit had briefly gained access to the Reality Step, the Heaven's Boxer's signature teleportation ability.
"What was that?"
"Get down!"
Julian lunged and pushed Emma to the ground, saving her from the return round of gunfire.
She cursed.
"Why didn't that kill him? How did it move like that?"
From his perch on top of Felix's bunker, Tyler evaporated two spearmen and a rifler with a flurry of golden flames.
Fortress Grunts—even weak ones—had an AI roughly equivalent to a player ranked around 200,000 on the competitive ladder. That didn't seem particularly impressive until you remembered that there were millions of pilots on the Overdrive North American server. Even though they were using relatively weak machines that went down in a few shots, hitting so many at once was still extremely impressive.
It was a testament to Tyler's dedicated improvement. It was hard to believe he'd only been playing for a few months. There were players like Sunshine89 who found immediate success on Overdrive, but that was only because they'd played other video games. Tyler had started playing as a complete newbie.
Felix's submachinegun was far less powerful than Tyler's almighty head cannons, but the veteran pilot's reliability and experience made him a consistent threat.
Felix quickly cleaned up two melee units as he explained what had happened.
"Alright. You'd think that my friend would have led with this information. Instead, he stuck it at the very end! You can't kill Zane because he becomes a boss at the end of the stage."
"What?"
"Yeah, they have a special barrier protecting him. If you would kill him, one of the Grunts dies in his place."
"That's ridiculous!"
Emma was furious.
She hated missing, even if the map forced her into it.
It was a sign that the mission was still under development.
Ideally, the Fortress Master would find a much smoother way of protecting Zane. Fortresses were technically allowed to violate fundamental game mechanics to achieve a better experience—mini-bosses were the most obvious example—but they ideally limited their rule-breaking as much as possible.
"Tyler, try again and see what happens."
The Cerberus Roar's massive chest cannon sent a blast straight for the command unit, but once again, the Grunts teleported to save it. This time, two of the Riflemen vanished and reappeared in front of Zane's machine, dying in his place.
"Yep."
By then, Emma had gotten back into position. She raised her sniper rifle but was instantly pushed back by a round of artillery bombardment from the lieutenant's machine.
Instead of risking a shot, she fell back and circled around Julian's bodyguard unit.
"Dang it."
The Lieutenant and Zane were significantly stronger than the other Grunts.
Zane's machine was the only one that could fly, meaning you were in danger if he made it to the tower. On the other hand, Sarah's Mech was capable of artillery fire. She could hit you on the roof if you weren't hiding inside the bunker.
Felix stopped firing and huddled deeper in the rooftop bunker.
"Give me a second. Let me see if this guide has any more information about this. Maybe we can figure out what comes next."
Without Felix talking, their communications link turned silent. Julian fumbled with his words, trying to decide what to do. He was the next most experienced player. It'd be up to him to make the decisions.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He knew that Felix would start shotcalling again if they needed it, but this was a chance for Julian to train his decision making. Besides, he had strong teammates. Even if he didn't make the best call, they'd come up with a way to succeed.
Julian let out a started laugh.
The solution was obvious. This mission wasn't hard at all.
After calming down, he immediately saw what they had to do.
"Tyler. Just keep shooting at Zane. It takes two Grunts to block your attacks, so they'll just keep teleporting in front of him."
There was no need for Tyler to scatter his shots. The enemies would fly right to him, and the Cerberus Roar's power meant that he'd kill them in the easiest way possible. Protecting Zane using the pseudo-Reality Step was an unexpected change, but it was possible to turn even glitches to your advantage.
"Emma. Try to bring down the lieutenant."
Killing the lieutenant wouldn't grant them the bonus of scrambling the enemy force's coordination, but she was still the highest-ranking pilot outside of Zane himself. Sarah's machine was still determinedly bombarding Julian and Emma's position, but it was a bit too far away to seriously dent Julian's A-tier in defense. As long as he stood in front of Emma, she was safe.
It'd be best to get rid of her soon. An unfortunate shot might trigger the mines in his shield to explode, an omnipresent risk of the composite weapons favored by Grunt units.
"On it."
The Boom Staff charged up again.
Julian cursed.
In hindsight, he should have equipped his supportive Grunt with a particle transfer wire, which allowed machines to pass energy from one unit to another.
The item only would have cost about 1,000 Credits, and the ability to give Emma twice—or even triple—as many Special shots per round would have been invaluable. Julian still had both of his Special charges, as did Felix. However, their machines had nowhere near the power of Emma's sniper rifle.
Tyler's red and yellow super robot roared ceaselessly as it reduced the enemy's forces to rubble.
"No! My men! How dare you! I will avenge them!"
Julian frowned. That was a new line. He hadn't heard Zane say anything like that before. His previous personality had been that of a straightforward spoiled brat. Instead of mourning his dead men, he'd lambasted them for failing to carry out his amazing strategies.
Perhaps that was part of the new storyline. Fortress Masters mixed things up sometimes just to keep everything fresh. It was important to surprise your regular fans, the grinders who played your mission over and over again.
There was a loud crackle as Emma curled around Julian and fired a shot from the far corner of the rooftop.
It was a direct hit.
"Agh! No!"
Lieutenant Sarah howled as her machine crashed to the ground. Emma had wisely aimed at the lower thigh, splintering the leg and rocking the cockpit in the chest with a powerful explosion. The lieutenant'
s disabled Mech spiraled towards the ground.
"Sarah! No! Somebody! Somebody save her!"
The Grunts spiraled towards the ground, desperately trying to catch the falling Mech. One made it in time, cushioning her fall with its own body.
That was new too.
In the original version of the map, Zane had openly hated Sarah to the point of thanking you for killing her. He'd seen her as a babysitter forced on him by her dad. Julian remembered that line as a particularly apt bit of characterization that highlighted what a terrible person Zane was.
Felix cursed.
"Alright. We're in for a real challenge soon. My buddies said they couldn't beat Zane."
Julian's stomach swooped.
The map was so hard that a dedicated team of grinders couldn't get past the first round?
Bright red letters suddenly flashed across their visors again, informing them of the time left before the next wave. If you failed to kill all the enemies before the next wave arrived, the survivors would reinforce the next group of attackers.
FIVE MINUTES UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE
Despite getting rattled by Zane's bizarre invincibility, they were still making excellent time. Julian's strategy of focusing fire on Zane to exploit the Reality Step had whittled down the enemy force to just four machines—two Riflemen, Sarah, and Zane himself.
On top of that, Sarah's Artillery Mech was a crippled and inoperable wreck. All they had to do was polish off the enemies and then trigger the boss battle.
Julian's eyes widened.
"Wait."
"What?"
"Zane's boss battle. Does that reset the timer? Or is it still the same timer?"
Everyone groaned.
"Oh, man."
"It has to. Right? They want us to fight a boss battle in five minutes?"
Felix clenched his teeth.
"Alright. Let's destroy everyone now."
The pressure was mounting.
"Did your friend give you any data on the boss?"
Felix's lip curled.
"He says he wants it to be a surprise."
"Wow, what a jerk."
"To be fair, he already told me about this mission."
Julian frowned.
Based on Zane's Mech, he was probably going to use a swift melee attacker. Their roster didn't have any machines that excelled at high-speed single combat. If the timer didn't reset, Zane could make things difficult by running around and waiting for reinforcements. The changed lines made it seem like his arrogant personality had completely changed.
Perhaps Julian should have equipped different weapons to his caster.
As soon as Emma reloaded, she fired out another shot that pierced Sarah's ground-bound machine straight through the cockpit.
Zane roared with anger as she died.
After Tyler obliterated the remaining units, Emma fired a Thunderbolt empowered shot at Zane's machine, but it still had no effect. She frowned and shot again, but the blast dissipated off of an invisible barrier.
Felix and Tyler joined her, but again, nothing happened.
"My men. How dare you. You killed my men."
The plumed machine rose high into the air as their shots continued vanishing before they hit him. It was like there was an invisible forcefield.
"It's a cutscene, I think."
Their attacks were doing absolutely nothing.
Julian looked at the far corner of his screen.
"Wait. The timer doesn't stop for the cutscene."
"What?!"
"Wait, that's so cheap!"
"What's a cutscene?"
It was just a reminder that Tyler hadn't played videogames before.
"It's basically like a short video you watch in the middle of a game for story-building purposes."
Zane prattled on about how he'd avenge his former friends. The time kept ticking down.
2:29
2:28
2:27
"You will pay for what you did. The brave spirits of my men still remain with me."
Massive magnetic rings appeared in the sky, circling Zane's plumed Mech.
ABILITY ACTIVATED: SOULS OF THE FALLEN
Julian's eyes widened.
Felix groaned.
Emma cursed.
Souls of the Fallen was a one-use ability that magnetized and assimilated the destroyed parts of your allies into your Mech to significantly increase its power.
In competitive play, that ability had a lot of flaws.
The magnets required to use it cost a hefty 20,000 Points—40% of the Ace unit's limit. The substantial cost meant your Ace unit started the match far weaker than its enemy counterpart.
It also created an awkward timing with the Overdrive mechanic. You didn't want to activate Overdrive until after you'd powered up, but the item generally wasn't worth using until at least two of your teammates had already been destroyed.
The counter-play to Souls of the Fallen was simple—focus the Ace unit first. If a Mech equipping Souls of the Fallen was destroyed before its teammates, it'd reduced its strength by 20% for nothing. On top of that, enemies battling against Souls of the Fallen users would try and incinerate downed corpses to render the ability useless.
Julian had seen some amazing highlight clips where everything went right: both teams traded Mechs until it was a one for one, only for one side to suddenly activate Souls of the Fallen and create an invincible fortress with the strength of four machines.
But more often than not, a Souls of the Fallen strategy was too easily countered.
Here though, Zane had sixteen other machines to fuse with, not three, and the map had guaranteed that he'd be the final survivor.
The Fortress Master's creative design had turned Souls of the Fallen into an unstoppable menace.
The corpses of the destroyed machines slammed noisily into Zane's unit. Shattered arms and legs fused, forming a bizarre coat of armor. The remains Sarah's broken machine emerged at the very top.
Due to the machine's monstrous new height, the artillery unit's barrage of guns was now pointed straight at the roof. Their team's high position meant nothing.
There was a massive click as the Artillery cannons loaded. There was another click as ten rifles rose beneath it, emerging from an immense sphere that loomed over even their base.
A roughly spherical shadow cast the entire rooftop in darkness.
NEW ENEMY: ZANE'S GUILT
TWO MINUTES REMAINING
17
Zane's former Mech was modeled after a European knight, but his new boss machine no longer resembled anything human.
The plumed head loomed down on them, jarringly fused with a hulking mishmash of artillery. Sarah's four enormous cannons jutted out from the Mech's back. The Lieutenant's shield had been placed directly in front of Zane's cockpit located just beneath the head. The remaining ten rifles stuck out like enormous needles. Zane's legs had merged entirely into the rough sphere shape built out of his fallen comrades' machines. Every part had been mashed together into an enormous ball. Ten roving arms slid smoothly moved along the sphere's surface. Five carried a spear to deter attackers who got too close. The others simply curled their fingers into fists.
An enormous battery of thrusters flared around the spherical Mech.
Unlike the haphazard combination of artillery and weapons, the rocket engines were carefully spread apart, providing the machine with incredible speed and mobility despite its enormous size.
Emma shook her head.
"Wow. That thing is bigger than the Moby Dick."
The Moby Dick had been Vile's signature machine when she first began playing Overdrive. The enormous whale was nearly incapable of movement. Instead, it won battles by overwhelming its opponents with long-range attacks and impenetrable armor.
The blatantly overpowered machine had been quickly banned from competitive play, but Fortress Missions didn't need to follow the official Overdrive ruleset. The new Mech was larger than their entire base.
&nb
sp; If it got too close, it'd squash them like bugs.
Felix raised his rifle and fired, imbuing it with a cast of Thunderbolt.
"Don't worry—its size means that the armor is spread thin. Just think about it."
Even giant Mechs faced trade-offs.
The Moby Dick had excelled in firepower and defensive strength. The machine could hardly move—it was surrounded by countless plates of laminated armor.
Zane's new Mech eschewed defense to focus on firepower and mobility, an unconventional combination for such an enormous machine. No matter how intimidating it looked, Julian and his team had seen its creation process. This wasn't an unofficial cheat like the Grunt's pseudo-Reality Step. The sphere had been created with Souls of the Fallen. Other than Sarah's Artillery unit, his entire army had been comprised of weak defenders. The armor had to be correspondingly inadequate.
Zane tried twisting away from Felix's shot, but his spherical Mech was simply too large. Felix had aimed dead center. Zane's Mech was fast, but without the Reality Step, nobody could have dodged in time.
Julian smiled.
He had a long way to go before he could reach Felix's level of strategic thinking. When Julian saw a giant Mech, he got scared. When Felix saw one, he started thinking about an opportunity.
Unfortunately, Zane's Mech had another ability they had to worry about. The spherical Mech's metal liquefied, and the bolt was deflected straight into the ground. Julian swore. The last time he'd fought through this mission, Zane had used a Kingbreaker class.
But this wasn't the standard First Fortress mission. This was the Minesweeper-induced Challenge mode.
Felix pounded his dashboard with frustration.
"Why didn't they tell me this was a Paragon?"
Paragons had access to Liquid State Eternium, the most powerful of all the Overdrive boosts.
Since Julian and his friends couldn't see the status screens on mini-bosses, the change had slipped by them entirely. Come to think of it, it'd seemed like the Grunts and Sarah had gone down a bit too easily.
Julian had attributed their success to the quality of their machines, but the weak base stats must have been another hidden factor. To make up for their obscenely powerful Overdrive boost, Paragons had the lowest overall base stats of every Mech-type. Using them as a Grunt unit wasn't viable. They were never seen in competitive play.