Infinite Stratos: God of Thunder
By: The 483
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Infinite StratosFranchise.
Spoiler Alert: Warning: Light to mild spoilers for the Anime may be included herein.
Cherenkov
"Welcome back, Ladies and gentleman, to the third day of out in depth coverage of the exposition. We've seen some excellent fights so far, and this year it seems that versatility is the key to victory."
"That's right, Chuck. We saw this principal at work in the first match on day one, where the combination of skill Lingyin Huang deployed over both close range and medium range against Cecilia Alcott, with her purely offense oriented build. It was a good match, but The British RC was just unable to keep her opponent out far enough to use her long range weaponry to full effect. She fought valiantly once they were locked in melee range, but she just could not hold out against the petite competitions dual bladed assault. In the second round, we saw the newcomer, Japanese RC, Ichika Orimura matched up against Africa's KimbeTusaba. He put up a valiant effort, but just could not keep up with the sheer speed difference. The "Cyclone Fencer" managed to retain her winning streak as pilot of the fastest IS ever fielded. Likewise, we saw that Miss Charlotte Dunois seemed to possess an advantage over Miss Laura Bodewigwith her general skill, but a lucky shot near the end by the diminutive German netted her a win. And finally, Miss Claudia Jimenez, having drawn the null, will be participating in the next bracket, also drawn from the winners. That redraw will contain the winner of the final contest of the first grouping, in our final Match of the preliminaries, America's Miss Catherine Chambers, versus Miss Illesia Cherenkov of Russia."
"Thank you for that summation of the events so far, Bob. This next match, I have to say, is shaping up to be the definitive match of the exposition. While we enjoyed the showing by all the excellent ladies, and extraordinary gentleman have shown so far, this next fight has the crowds frothing. As the fans surly know, this almost cannot NOT be an interesting fight. Both girls are known for their particularly vicious combat style, both being heavily tuned toward offense, though Cherenkov has both the record for heaviest armored IS in current play, and heaviest over all. This could shape up to be the most exciting match so far!"
(…)
It was a standard IS competition pitch. The floor was a fine grain, clean dirt, and the ground churned to a depth of about 4 inches. A collateral control shield protected the stands along with the emergency shutters, and the windows were screens that could amplify or display, if the pair took to the sky.
Catherine and Illesia were both at home on this new version of the coliseum killing floor. A holo plaque floated between them, in opposite sides of the arena, counting down from 10, before they were allowed to summon and attack. The timer struck zero, a buzzer roared, and both girls shouted their commands. A bolt of lightning struck, throwing up sparks and dancing light as the sleek purple and gold plating slid home and Catherine was enveloped in her IS. From the other side, flame boiled and seethed outward, as something truly large stepped up on four stocky, heavily jointed legs supported on large, conical pods. The body of the beast seemed to be a solid steel rectangular box, with a curved viewing dome covering the front part, where the pilot rode, straddling the control form like she was riding an Asian type motorcycle. From just behind the dome, two large, cudgel like arms extended, the rounded palm having spindly dactyls extending out from 4 points like flower petals, and the concave palm could clearly shoot some kind of projectile. A massive, tank like turret lay across the top of the cube, looking only slightly smaller than a sea-type ship gun, flanked by 2 swivel mounted machine gun turrets to either side. On the rear of the cube, 6 small mortar tubes, and 2 large mortar tubes were arrayed, as well as a device that could drop plate shaped mines in her wake. Mounted to each side of the cube, were yet another set of cannons, equivalent in size to Laura's shoulder mounted cannon. And, underneath, between the leg mounts, were another quartet of swivel turrets, and a quartet of grenade tubes.
(In the stands, Tatenashi leaned over to Houki, and whispered "See! Now that is more what I expected an American IS to look like!)
The girls stood, staring each other down, before Illesia spoke.
"Ah, Catherine. Such a nice, pretty little craft you have. It is a shame it will be broken soon." Catherine grinned, looking completely pleased to be looking up at the much larger IS.
"Possible. But I will give at least as good as I get."
"So much less cocky then I assumed. You always manage to amuse me." The Russian said with a smile.
"Oh, I am plenty cocky, believe you me. But, unlike my buddies at the Academy, I did my research, and I know what you can do. But I doubt that will give me an advantage where you are concerned. Unlike them, you know what I can do, too." Another holo bloomed, counting down from 5.
"That is true." Illesia replied, and then the buzzer sounded, and the word "start!" echoed through the stadium.
There was a loud, deep, air shaking boom, followed a split second later by two more, and several smaller pops as Illesia Cherenkov, The Steel Centaur, unloaded the armory that was her IS's main batteries at the offending pilot. Slow motion replays later would show small fingers of electricity reach out, and touch the explosive charges in the projectiles, detonating the rounds before they impacted the target. But currently, it just seemed that American vanished in a cocoon of smoke, dust, and flame. Observers, who could see the shield strength of the contenders, watched as shrapnel that could not be deflected impacted, dropping Catherine's shields 7 percent before the first fusillade had ended.
This second of quiet was followed by an earsplitting bang that caused the seats closest to the American side to gasp as the air around them throbbed. The wicked crack of the high density slug rocked Illesia's heavy IS to the side as it hit her left gun, and warped and partially shattered form impact. But, she braced her starboard legs, and did not fall. A small spurt of the dust had followed, sucked out in the wake of the supersonic projectile, and rather than try and turn, and fire at a target that had already moved, the grenade racks under her center of mass clanked, and dropped a quartet of smoke/heat grenades at her feet, which jumped with a pop, and began to spray thick, white smoke in all directions. Mixed in the smoke were micro sized fragments of burning plastic, and made heat monitoring vision ineffective. This gave Illesia a pair of seconds to take stock, see that her shields were down 11 percent, and her port cannon was wrecked. She swiped her palm over a control surface on that wall, bolts exploded, and the scrap dropped clear. With her right hand, she swiped downward in front of her, and then jinked it diagonally up to the right, selecting her heavy tubes and armament. She brought up her left hand, and poked two spots on her HUD map with individual fingers, selecting impact zones, then spread each with a pair of fingers until the zones edges touched, before working her feet in the control sleeves and lurching backward two steps. With the toggle of a button in her left control yoke, there followed twin hollow chunking vibrations, and the mortar rounds were away.
At apex, the shells exploded, firing smaller, HE bombs straight down at high velocity. The cluster bombs pounded the area where Catherine would have been, had she been stupid enough to stay still after firing the shot, less than 5 seconds earlier. But Illesia had already turned, and lifted one of her IS arms in the direction she expected Catherine actually was. A heavy boom, and the palm mounted scatter gun spoke, sending a few dozen 2 centimeter diameter steel balls in that direction. The echo of impact told her instruments that she had hit her, but the range was at least twice what she had predicted, perhaps hitting for 3-5 percent of the shield, instead of the 20 plus she was hoping for, as the arms only held 3 rounds a piece. Her heaviest cannon did not have that problem, and with a quick series of gestures, she sent another massive round that direction, without any real hope of hitting her target.
She scanned slowly left and right, knowing that the other girl would hit her, just not from which direction. Neither girl had any illusions. They knew that they had researched the capabilities of the other thoroughly, so both knew as much of the unclassified data as there was. Illesia saw a hint of movement in the white haze to her right, and swung that way, only to find a silver metal rod embedded in the soil, a red light glowing faintly at the tip. She went quickly to turn the other way, but was too late to stop the fist, crackling with electricity, from slamming into the left side of her view canopy. The blow was fierce, but not strong enough to do more than rock the much, much heavier IS. But the discharge from the electrified knuckles showered a gout of sparks from the impact, and cause her displays to fuzz over with static just long enough for Catherine to fade backward into the gloom. Illesia resisted the reflex to fire, and smiled.
"Ah, I had wondered why you took that hit without trying to dodge, even though you knew it was coming. Tricky, tricky, Ills. You only have the main cab shielded, don't you?"
"Of course, Catherine. Why would I waste energy protecting the non-vitals?" Your big boom, it did almost no damage to my shield, and has not impeded me more than slightly. And you cannot risk firing again for much time, without draining your own reserves critically, no?" Quiet over the radio for a few seconds, then a chuckle.
"A fair point. But I can still do this…" She said, and an incandescent bolt of electricity struck the control cage of Illesia's IS from the right. "…and this…" One struck her, dead center of her canopy, " …and of course, this as well." A final arcing bolt slammed into the rear of her IS. "Neat, right?" Minimal damage, really, but the fuzz and delay each hit caused in her manipulations of controls were miffing.
"If it were not such a simple gimmick, yes." She ordered a pair of her under mounted machine guns to target the metal stick with the red light. A short burst shattered it. "Infrared lasers creating channels of ionized air to direct your "lightning" to strike where you wish. Cute, but basic." She toggled a few switched, and punched a button, and a blast of air ballooned outward, repelling the smoke that was no longer useful away in all directions. She repeated this two more times, until the haze started to dissipate. As silver rods were revealed, they were destroyed.
"That is the flaw on your little machine, Catherine. Once all your gimmicks are dispelled, you have no ranged ability left. And if you insist on attempting to put your little magnets play, well, you will need to replace those, as well." Illesia might as well have saved her breath,for as she spoke, above and to the left, the canister containing the small, sticking magnets detonated into a cloud of falling black stars. A single toggle, and her point defense computer took over, and all eight of her little machine turrets locked a target, fired, and switched, with machine precision. There were far too many to the small things to get all of them, but the cloud was cut down to a less then critical mass. The small pinging clicks she could hear attested that a few hit her, but not likely enough to lock her down.
Judging by the direction of the canister, Illesia turned, and saw a dark shape in the thinning haze, used her right side cannon to aim, and fired. The heavy, solid alloy shell flew straight, and passed through the right "wing" of Catherine's IS, shattering the thing into tiny fragments, and destroying half the electromagnets she was carrying. A quick shift of aim, only a few degrees, and she blew away the other "wing" as well. Catherine looked from where one had been floating to the other.
"Fairly effective at neutralizing my little gimmicks, aren't you?" She shook her head. There were 8 magnets she'd have to remove from storage and warm before she was back at 100 percent. "But now that we've gotten all off that out of the way, we can get down to the fun part." Illesia, rather than be dismayed, looked excited.
"Oh? You are noting going to play defensive, and try to build up the charge in your Gauss rifle again?" She shifted her legs, making herself taller still. Catherine shrugged.
"Nah. If I fire again, should be fine, but I'd need to check the rails, and do a full maintenance on the capacitors and flow releases." She toggled something on either side of her machines waist. "Besides, I like my fighting like this, anyway. Been far too long since I got to play with someone bigger than me." Illesia knew what she meant. The Tesla was the fourth model of IS Catherine had used. The first three, The Edison (because the skeleton of the machines design had been stolen, so a fitting name was chosen (though she didn't let Everett burn down the original designers lab)), The Ampere, and the Faraday, had all been much smaller, bare bones models, using far less wiring and electric attacks, because the storage batteries of the time were insufficient. The Faraday was the only one that had any real electrical offence, and it's weight was triple the Ampere, just from the batteries.
But the Tesla had batteries that some of Illesia's own side projects had developed, using a special exotic metal, that, when immersed in a certain classified liquid, created an effect that could create temperatures of minus 400 degrees centigrade. By using this to super cool other metals, much greater electric force could be managed, with a fraction of the weight.
This made the Tesla special in another way. Because 90 percent of the machine conducted and directed electric current, very little of the IS was automated. Aside from movement assist, and the lift capacity, ALL of the control was manual. The magnets in her arms and pack alone created strong enough fields in the host metal, that no computer hard drive yet developed could work without coming misaligned. So, Catherine got a lot of exercise when she had to push the bulky thing around. And she loved the feeling of making such power obey her command.
Catherine drew out a pair of long, American Army design knives, and dropped into a ready stance. She liked to shoot, she loved to punch, but she lived to knife fight. She worked her hands in the control gauntlets, and electricity arced down the length of the blades. With a digging of a heel that threw dirt into the air, she launched herself straight in, hands up at her chest. Illesia did the sensible thing, and fired her heavy cannon.
Dirt fountained in the air, but Catherine was not there. She had leapt 4 meters to her left, seemingly magically, until Illesia realized that there was a large black star attacked to the wall in that direction. In the gloom, Catherine had attached one set of magnets to walls, and let her think she had smashed them all. She was using her magnets to yank herself in quick jerks, so she could better close without being destroyed. With another jerk in the opposite directon, Catherine impacted Illesia with a straight punch that rocked her sideways, and threw static acccross her screen.
The she was under the legs, sliding through, and swiping upward once, severing a turret and spreading current trough her control relays. Then she was out the other side, slamming a shoulder against the cab, and jamming a knife at her remaining side cannon, trying to slice the control wires. Not crippiling, but annoying. Illesia put an end to that by shifting the cab to the left, the slamming back to the right as hard as her legs could manage. There was a large thump, like hitting a deer in a tank, and the smaller IS went bouncing away, with more damage to it's shields from the one blow then from the rest of her attacks combined. Turning, she tried to raise the right cannon, but the knife was jammed in the rotation socket. An oversight she had not considered; no one had ever gotten close enough to try it before. After this maintenance, she would armor the area around the joint.
Instead, she popped off a double salvo of mortar rounds from her small tubes, and raised her arms to meet the already up and charging purple IS. She fired off her remaining 5 scatter shots from her palms, noting that the speed with which Catherine was yoinking herself clear with her magnets was slowing. The charge that powered them must be taking a heavy drain on her reserve power. She braced her legs, ready to swing left or right, whichever way Catherine dodged, but instead took a static charged knee strike to the center of her display which exploded into static as plumes of incandescent sparks showered away from the blow. It was sufficent to crack the wire inlaid double pained glass canopy and left Illesia blind for three seconds. She was pleased that this was as difficult as it was. Easy fights did not allow her to properly test all of her systems in real, live fire combat. A necessity, for the coming time of strife. She had the impression that Catherine was playing it that way, too. Giving a good show to the plebs in the audience.
Her displays resolved, and she was mildly surprised to find that Catherine was no atop her IS, pounding away with electrically charged blows, draining... quite a good portion of her powerful shields per hit. Around 4 percent. But, she had planned for this contingency, though she doubted it would ever pay off. A flip of a toggle, and a swipe of her hand, and she began to push voltage though the conductive cage welded around her own superstructure. Catherine, rather than be repelled, as a normal IS would have, began to absorb the energy. Very quickly, her capacitors filled, and began to overload. A failsafe killed all of her ability to absorb electricity, and also to direct it. Illesia dropped her front legs out from under her, and the momentarily distracted Catherine was unseated by the harsh movement, and tumbled forward off the Centuar, directly into the sight of the main cannon. It spoke once, the velocity of the projectile enough to smashed her shields, and activate her final defense, sending her across the pitched, unharmed and cushioned as her IS shattered around her, and the match was over.
(End 8)
Sorry, this one took forever, and the next will likely as well. At least this time I can blame computer issues. Oh well. Hope this doesn't go over too badly.