Chapter 161 - Duel of Ego (Patreon)

The training centre was packed to the brim, with hundreds of agents surrounding a boxing-ring-like arena. Already a few bookies were going around, collecting bets and a nice cut of the pool.

Of course, no one betted with L-credits – that currency was effectively useless to them. What they gambled instead was contribution points, the ‘currency’ used to purchase and acquire gear from the exosuit factory.

“Been a while since we’ve seen Riker duel, huh?”

“Yea, he used to be such a cute timid little boy when he first arrived. All the wins seemed to have gotten to his head. I kinda hope ‘Dumpling’ puts him down in his place – would be nice to see.”

“You’re only saying that because you placed your entire account on ‘Dumpling’, idiot.”

“You’re the fucking idiot! Where’s the joy in gambling when you go for such low odds? 1.13 to 7? Please, I’ll take the seven any day!”

The rowdy crowd’s noise began to cause a droning din, which was suddenly broken by a series of audible gasps from the entrance of the arena. “Riker’s here!”

Already donning his exosuit, Riker strode in with confidence, his right hand still tightly gripping the hilt of his sword. The striking blue and yellow combination gave off a domineering presence, as he stepped up onto the arena platform.

There wasn’t an announcer nor any commentators, so people merely whispered to their friends by their sides, ogling at the Azure Tiger. Not every rebel agent in the White Fang cell group could claim to have a custom exosuit, personally modified by the leader himself!

“What the hell is going on here!?” A stern female voice echoed through the center, accompanied by a flurry of agitated steps. It was the vice leader, Sierra!

“Aren’t you all supposed to be preparing for the offensive?! You’re wasting time here, scram!” She shouted at the audience.

“Oh don’t be such a spoilsport, Sierra!” Felicia was already part of the crowd, being one of the bookies herself as she slung her hand around Sierra’s shoulders, trying to pacify her. “Consider this visual training. It would be good to raise the confidence of the fighters before the offensive by showing we got some really good skill on our side.”

“Don’t bullshit me, if it’s just training why are you running a whole goddamn bookie system on it? Shut it down now!” Sierra insisted before Felicia leaned over to her ear, whispering.

Suddenly Sierra’s face had a growing grin on it as she nodded slowly.

“Alright then, carry on. But this is the only duel I will allow, okay?” Sierra coughed slightly, before whispering back to Felicia: “…half on Riker.”

Felicia nodded with a serious expression, but as Sierra began to walk away, Felicia could barely hold her laughter in, thinking of the fallout. “Oh no, she’s in for a rude awakening!”

A second wave of whispering began, this time with Ceres entering with his own exosuit. Many of the rebel agents were well aware of his recent promotion and capture of a Keeper, but they did not expect his exosuit to look so… plain.

The Swift Storm had barely any armour plate save for the chest and back, which protected the essential components. Wires could be clearly seen tightly clamped along the frames of his legs and arm, with the suspension system exposed for all to see. A flimsy plain warhammer was strapped to the back as well.

Ceres got onto the platform, with many assuming he was wearing what looked to be like a plain Victorious Revolt. Many exosuit repairers rubbed their eyes, trying to get a better look to see if they missed out anything. “Huh, it barely looks any different! Is this guy trying to throw the match?”

“Maybe he’s planning to lose the duel with grace. I heard they are in the same squad for the upcoming offensive, so perhaps this is a way of bonding…” Another exosuit repairer replied, himself unsure.

However, the night-shift exosuit repairers were unshaken, merely holding wide smiles on their faces as they watched the two duellists face each other. How could they not bet their entire account on Ceres after witnessing what happened?

“Is this some kind of joke?” Riker grunted, drawing his sword. “There’s no safety net here, you know. As long as the edge of my sword touches you, you might lose a limb or two.”

Riker eyed the Swift Storm, trying to pick up if there were any hidden tricks, but there seemed to be none apparent. There wasn’t even a compartment to hide a weapon apart from the chest! Riker quickly identified a few single-use thrusters on the joints of the Swift Storm, taking note of the potential speed boost.

“Nope, this is the best way I could come up with to defeat you.” Ceres retrieved the warhammer from his back with one hand, twirling it before resting it on the ground with a loud thud. The loud sound gave away its weight, making Sierra surprised. “What is that warhammer made of?”

Riker noted the apparent weight and mass of the warhammer. If the flat side of that thing hit any part of him, he knew the armour will be crushed immediately.

“Not using a spear I see.” He unsheathed his sword, the sharp dangerous edge glinting with a blue tinge on the azure blue sword. This was the true namesake of the exosuit.

“I try to challenge myself now and then,” Ceres replied without a tinge of derision. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Riker nodded, suddenly lunging forward with a fast thrust. The duel had begun.

The thrusting speed was so fast that many barely caught a glimpse of it, but before they knew it, Ceres had already parried it with the shaft of his warhammer, his right hand simply lifting it up upside down.

Riker immediately drew his right arm back, nocking it across his chest before slicing from the left in a blur. However, Ceres parried it again, using the shaft.

A few more slices and thrusts proved to be ineffective, as Ceres stepped back slowly, parrying each attack. Suddenly, Riker grinned, with the air around him in a sphere beginning to ripple for a split second before he striked again.

Ceres lifted the shaft to block again, but this time the sword’s direction was different from what he saw in his eyes. “What the..?” Ceres barely managed to block the attack, his hand almost being hit by the sword as he moved at the very last second.

The subsequent attacks came at completely different angles, with Ceres being unable to read the path of the sword. From his vision, it looked like the sword was travelling in one direction before the trajectory would drastically divert by thirty degrees to the slant.

Ceres squinted as he increased his parrying speed, blocking the unconventional attacks.

He noticed that the vision around Riker seemed to be magnified compared to away from him. “Fucking hell, he’s refracting the air around him to trick the light!” Ceres cursed to himself.

Catching on to the trick, Ceres began to parry more effectively, making one full circle around the arena as the sounds of metal striking each other echoed through the training centre in a rapid fashion.

Riker began to frown, a vein straining on his forehead as the air began to significantly ripple more. Ceres felt like his vision around Riker was zooming in and out non-stop, as Riker began to vary the refraction index wildly.

Suddenly, a slice managed to nick Ceres on the right arm, though it did not cut deep. Already a few wires were sliced up, but the redundant wires kicked in, allowing Ceres to move unhindered.

Riker grinned wildly, emboldened by the hit landed on Ceres.

“I got you now!” Riker began to increase his sword strikes, his feet continuously pressing forward against Ceres.

However, Riker could not land another hit for the next ten seconds despite having thrown more than fifteen swings. “What?! How is he avoiding me? He shouldn’t be able to track my sword movement that accurately!”

Little did he know, Ceres already had given up on the electromagnetic spectrum, instead relying on the emotional outline of Riker’s body, using his H.T. mode that was unfettered by the refraction index.

The spikes in hostility every time Riker swung, along with the clearly visible hands that did not get refracted allowed Ceres to easily dodge.

“My turn,” Ceres said out of the blue, before suddenly moving forward instead of backwards, catching Riker off-guard during one of his left-to-right swings.

Riker suddenly found Ceres in front of him, his sword blocked by the shaft of the warhammer before a strong hook from Ceres’ left hand nailed Riker right in the stomach area.

“Urgk!” Riker almost doubled over, but battle instincts drilled into him and made him immediately leap backwards as a reverse grip upward swing of the warhammer almost hit his chin. The excitement level in the crowd became more apparent!

“Holy shit, ‘Dumpling’ is actually on par with him! Who the hell is this guy?”

Sierra’s face darkened slightly, while Felica’s face only grew brighter and brighter, thinking of all the contribution points she was about to earn! She knew that the contribution points did not really mean much now due to the upcoming offensive, but she felt an overwhelming sense of validation.

Riker breathed rapidly, taking a moment to recollect himself. “Who the hell are you?” Riker had already lost all previous assumptions of him being better than ‘Dumpling’.

Instead of replying, Ceres went on the offensive, swinging the warhammer at Riker.

Riker hastily blocked with his sword, both arms supporting it, but the force still caused him to shift slightly as his feet dragged against the floor.

The brutal offensive began now, with Riker desperately dodging and blocking as many warhammer strikes as he could. Each strike sent a shockwave through his bones, making his arms and body weak.

“I’m not going to give up like this!” Riker overclocked his exosuit without warning, leaping towards Ceres and stabbing forward. Ceres was caught by surprise, but he was focused on something different.

Right now, Riker’s entire emotional outline in his view had been enhanced and multiplied three times over in terms of brightness, yet he could see clear spots where the emotions were being drained into a sort of black hole.

Blood trickled down the nose of Riker as he yelled a battle cry.

However, as his forward feet tried to plant themselves on the floor to deliver a strong thrust, the frame of his leg began to break apart into pieces, fragmenting!

The sudden loss of motor control on his leg caused Riker to stumble and trip forward, faceplanting into the floor. He quickly tried to roll out of the way, but Ceres was already on top of him, the cold metal surface of the warhammer aimed directly at his face.

At this point, everyone knew the battle was effectively over. Falling over that badly during a melee match was tantamount to death. Riker himself knew that as well, admitting defeat.

“Good fight.” Ceres stretched out his hand, which Riker politely accepted, pulling himself up from the floor.

Most of the crowd was still slightly shell-shocked at how fast the duel ended. “Wait, wait, wait! The duel should be the best of three! I want a refund!”

The crowd burst into a noisy discussion, with a few exosuit repairers finally noticing the difference in Ceres’s exosuit, running up to the arena without a care in the world. “How did you strengthen your exosuit to be able to handle all that weight and force you’ve been exerting?! What kind of motors are you using in there?”

Barraged by people and a stream of questions, Riker disengaged his damaged exosuit and tried to clear a path for Ceres but was foiled by the adamant exosuit repairers who wanted to know.

“ALRIGHT! That’s enough!” Sierra shouted with authority, a tinge of anger underlining her voice. “You all had your fun for today, now get back to work! Athen isn’t going to fix itself through gambling!”

This time, the audience could tell she wasn’t joking around nor could she be convinced otherwise, so they reluctantly began to disperse. Felicia excitedly carved her own path through the throng of exosuit repairers, reaching Ceres. “Everyone back off! Give him some space! I’ll be the one asking all the questions here.”

Felicia turned to Ceres, with a starstruck expression. “Can you please leave your exosuit behind for us to examine? I guarantee you we won’t hurt it. You can even use it as the base template for your upcoming mission!”

Ceres nodded, disengaging from the exosuit. He was never going to wear such a flimsy exosuit without airtight armour up to Haui’s Moon, especially when he most likely had to deal with heavy weaponry.

The exosuit repairers no longer crowded around Ceres, instead crowding around the Swift Storm and discussing rapidly. “Great fight, let’s head back to our squad room.” Riker tapped Ceres, who agreed.

Back in the squad room, the rest of the squad was already excitedly discussing the duel. “Holy shit, our secondary exosuit repairer is crazy strong. Wonder if I can arm-wrestle him?” A red-headed girl grinned to herself, flexing her arms.

“Exosuit repairers are notoriously particular about their hands, I suggest you don’t crush his hand lest he can’t repair for us any longer, Shai’li” Tyson warned, wagging his mechanical finger at the girl.

“Oh shut up, you’re just frustrated from the last time I crushed yours. I already paid you back for that!” Shai’li let out a hearty laugh.

She previously was extremely silent, though watching the battle duel had aroused her interest in the squad more, making her a lot more talkative now.

“What you paid was barely enough to cover the cost, you know.” Tyson involuntarily winced as he recalled the loss of his last prosthetic.

Riker and Ceres entered the room, this time being greeted with very interested expressions, especially towards Ceres.

However, Riker was by far the most interested in the duel. “How did you break my leg frame without even hitting it once?”

Ceres smiled. “As I said before, your Azure Tiger has a lot of flaws. The additional armour weight has been continuously stressing your leg frame, resulting in a fatigued frame. When you blocked my warhammer hits repeatedly, the force and shock would naturally affect the leg frame. Your exosuit’s shock absorbing capability is not high enough, hence why the base frame of your leg shattered.”

A wave of nodding and appreciation went around the room. “Finally, a repairer who knows his stuff!” A large palm slapped Ceres on the back. “I had my doubts seeing you two younglings be our repairers, but I’m convinced now! Great to meet you, I’m Xander. Looking forward to working with you!”

“Will you arm wrestle me? I promise I won’t crush your fingers!” Shai’li asked excitedly, catching Ceres off-guard. This truly was the problem squad.

“Hey stop bothering him with nonsense! He has a job to do to improve our exosuits!” Riker shouted back, his face clearly excited at the prospect of Ceres upgrading his exosuit. He did have extremely high self-esteem, but he also had proper respect for those better than him.

Ceres indeed wanted to get the logistics and upgrade tasks done before they were shipped off into orbit, but suddenly the room’s door burst open, with Pris proudly sauntering in.

Her eyes landed on Riker and Ceres, who was standing closely to each other. A wide grin appeared on her face, smirking. “Oh, what’s this, ‘Dumpling’? Finally admitted defeat to Riker?” Pris gloated with a smug expression.

“No, actually, he defeated me.” Riker said plainly. A ‘bomb’ exploded in Pris’s expression, her face frozen in disbelief.

“Wait, why is he the secondary and this little bitch the primary?” Shai’li raised a question. “’Dumpling’ seems like he’ll do a much better job at it than this unknown bitch.”

“Wh… what?! I’m not an unknown bitch!” Pris quickly pulled out her multi-terminal, checking the local rebellion social network. Seeing that Riker was not lying, her face became depressed, finding a seat to slump and mull over in silence.

“Okay, forget about her, she’ll bounce back soon enough. How are you going to upgrade our exosuits?” Riker excitedly asked.

“Hmm, first, I’ll need to inspect everyone’s exosuit one by one, and based on the role and needs of the mission I’ll discuss your upgrades later.”

Ceres started with Riker, who effectively agreed with every single upgrade Ceres had planned. Riker had absolute faith in someone who could back up his words with action, and Ceres had done all of that.

With the Azure Tiger already done, he moved on to the next person, which was a shy girl who had been continuously cuddling her rifle every time Ceres saw her. “Uhm, hi. Is this your exosuit?”

He pointed to an infiltrator exosuit outfitted with stealth panels, but not much else. It did not seem extremely mobile but was more geared towards ensuring the wearer could not be detected at all.

Ceres took a closer look at the rifle she was grabbing, which seemed to be a modified kinetic sniper rifle. However, it looked extremely rusted and old, a clear sign of overuse despite the obvious hints of consistent cleaning and care. Some of the components were outdated.

He tried to get a feel for the rifle, but the girl immediately moved it away from his reach, hissing at him slightly like a cat.

“It’s not your fault, Victoria is extremely attached to her rifle. Nobody can separate her from it.” A burly old man with a thick white beard named Xander said with a light smile.

Ceres sighed internally. If anything, this squad was probably the most problematic he had encountered so far, and he’s been through the depths of ELO hell on Shattered Empire.

He wrote down a few possible upgrades for the infiltrator exosuit, showing Victoria on his multi-terminal. “It’ll be good if I can upgrade your rifle to deliver modified ammunition rounds, such as EMP or bunker busters. We might need it if we engage the enemy on the prison’s surface.”

Victoria merely nodded but didn’t react any further, mumbling to herself.

“Do me! Do me next! Actually, you can do me and Xander at the same time!” Shai’li grabbed Ceres’s arm without warning, dragging him over to the two exosuits. They were both heavy defensive knight exosuits, specialized at controlling a single area. They also had deployable barriers, allowing them to provide cover for their allies.

“Not many upgrades here, but we could do something about firepower, or we can go more utility orientated. Which do you guys prefer?” Ceres as the two tanks.

“Firepower! I wanted a whole ass-mounted turret on my shoulder or a Gatling gun!” Shai’li grinned.

“Utility for me. It’s important that we have enough energy and backup supplies to survive the long stay in case we’re stranded on the prison’s surface.” Xander mulled.

Ceres quickly jotted down a few notes, not having too many ideas yet. He moved on to Tyson, who stopped him before Ceres could say anything. “I don’t have any exosuit. I’m already eighty percent cyborg, so I’ll be fine in space. Just need a helmet to breathe a bit. Not planning on fighting anyone anyway, I’m supposed to hack remember?”

Ceres also skipped Amelia, the designated ship pilot. She didn’t seem to be planning on leaving the ship to help out in the prison, so the default exosuit seemed to be fine for her.

Ceres finally reached the second last person, who was a heavily scarred middle-aged man. “Name’s Josef. I’m your average commando. I can do anything, really. Depends on what the mission needs.”

Ceres nodded. This mission had a wide range of variables, and the role Josef was to play was to be a generic problem solver or at least an independent agent. He might not be the best sniper, tank or hacker, but he could still get a mission done on his own. Ceres appreciated this sort of people, as it meant he could stack them with a wild number of upgrades to fit the situation.

The last one was Pris, but she obviously didn’t seem in the mood to talk, grumpily staring at the wall. Ceres didn’t waste time on her, compiling his notes and upgrades on his multi-terminal.