Chapter 21: The Countermeasure
Upon beginning the customization of his Robo, Fletch realized something: He didn't know what kind of Robo Ronnie used. He felt even worse because he could have simply asked Jay. He shrugged it off and chose his weapons: Vertical Gun, Freeze Bomb, and Spider Pod. He confirmed his selections, then entered the holoseum.
His cube landed in a corner of the arena and activated into Robo form quickly. He started to dart his gaze around, but upon looking to his right, he saw Ronnie already swinging his hands from above for a physical attack. Fletch dropped his guns, raised his own hands, and grabbed Ronnie's arms to stop him.
Ronnie was using a dark green Shining Fighter: Splendor model Robo. It was impressively built and polished to shine, but what struck Fletch the most was that Ronnie had no weapons equipped. He had entered the fight with no guns, bombs, or a pod. All he had was standard feet and his bare robotic hands.
He began to squeeze Ronnie's arms just like Nick's, and he felt the armor start to crush similarly as well. Ronnie felt what Fletch was doing with his immense strength, and gasped, "Huh?" Fletch, squeezing harder, asked as he had with Nick, "Do you yield?"
Unlike Nick, Ronnie maintained his composure. Rather than yell out in pain, he just held his position and barely even flinched. Slowly, his confused expression faded into a smirk. "You remember more than you think…" He said. Fletch tried to squeeze harder, but for some reason, he couldn't tighten his grip any more. He knew he wasn't using all his strength, but he couldn't squeeze any harder than he already was.
Then Fletch felt his grip actually loosen. It was like the strength from his arms was being sapped away. His very ability to hold on to Ronnie's arms seemed to be diminishing until it was almost gone completely. He no longer had his augmented strength, and Ronnie pulled his hands away effortlessly while stepping back. Fletch looked at his arms. He could now barely even hold them in front of him to look at. They felt floppy and weak, and he was forced to drop them to his side. Ronnie smirked again, and continued, "… but you still don't remember enough."
Outside the battle, in the main hall, Jay was watching Fletch's battle in his mind. Kip wasn't able to view it with him through any connection because she needed contact to see a holoseum battle, so she and Tyson were just waiting for it to end or for Jay to say something. But Jay was silent. He saw in Ronnie's mind exactly what he was doing. He wished he had known earlier so that he could have warned Fletch, but it was too late now. The worst part was that there was nothing he or anybody else could do to help.
Fletch's legs began to feel the same strength loss that his arms had, and they started to collapse beneath him. He knelt in his weakness, confused and panicky. Ronnie picked up the weapons that Fletch had dropped. Fletch heard Ronnie approach him, and he tried to look up to meet his gaze, but he couldn't. His neck was growing weaker as well.