Greg

Mecha Skirmish 2

Added 2025-06-09 01:11:50 +0000 UTC

Continuing on with a group of friends who play a mecha video game. Let's meet the mysterious opponent they can't defeat!

Mecha Skirmish 1

———

Neakli munched contentedly on her salad while her three teammates brooded. Tota slurped loudly at his soda, trying to get the last drops up into the straw.

“Y’know,” said the geroo around a mouthful of greens, “if you didn’t want to meet Ace, you didn’t have to come.”

The three looked up, and Somchai growled, “We had to come.”

Staring at the giant feline, Neakli chewed and chewed and chewed. Finally, she swallowed. “Why?”

“Why?” gasped the lio, as if it were obvious. “Well, he could be… He could be … some sort of maniac! You could be in danger.”

“A maniac,” she repeated, “because he’s really good at Mecha Skirmish?”

Rolanz rolled her slitted eyes. “Because you don’t know anything about him!”

“So?” Neakli shrugged before digging back into her salad. “At one point, none of us knew each other. Any of you could have been maniacs.”

Tota shook his head. “I’m not,” said the coosa, setting his drink back down. “…Not a maniac, I mean.”

“Well, of course, you’re not a maniac,” said the geroo. “We know you now. But when we first met—”

“We met in first grade,” said Tota. “Mrs… I want to say it was Mrs. Depi’s class. Does that sound right? I think I bit you.”

She glared at him, her ears back and low. “You were a maniac!”

“You must be the pilot of the AT-77!” announced a squeaky voice behind her.

Neakli spun on her stool, her thick tail sweeping the deck. “Ace!” she exclaimed, but then her ears drooped when she saw nobody there.

After a moment’s delay, she looked down and spotted a white mysa, lying flat on the deck. The tiny thing looked up, and her big ears grinned. “Good thing I’ve got fast reflexes,” she laughed, “or you’d have launched me into orbit with that giant tail of yours!”

“Uh… Uh…” managed Neakli. “Sorry about that.”

Her crew stared with jaws open as the tiny creature climbed up a chair, then up onto the table they shared.

Somchai leaned closer until the two-and-a-half-meter tall feline was nearly nose-to-nose with the thirty-centimeter rodent. “No,” he said, “you cannot be Ace. Ace killed me a dozen times in that single fight.”

“That makes you the pilot of the Groundshaker, right?” she laughed and put out her paw. “Nice to meet you. I’m Xica.”

Instead of touching paws, the sandy-colored cat flopped back in his seat with a deep gruff.

The tabby geordian pounced, and the mysa cowered for a moment, but then they touched paws. “I have no idea how you got me at the end there. Didn’t see it coming, but I’m Rolanz.”

“A pleasure,” said Xica with some relief. “So, you must pilot the Phantom.”

“I do!” laughed Rolanz.

The mysa turned to Tota. “That just leaves the Bounder.”

“You got me. Heh. You got me so many times,” said the coosa with a grin. He also touched paws. “Tota.”

Neakli looked about, but Xica appeared to be alone. “Where’s your team?” she asked.

The mysa turned to her and made air quotes with both paws. “‘Team’ is a very generous term, in our case,” she explained. “More like pup-sitting, really.”

“Come again?” asked Somchai.

“My family isn’t that well-off,” explained the mysa. “We have only four tablets, and the house rule is, ‘You can play as long as you like, but when you die, you go to the back of the line.’”

“The l-line?” stammered Neakli in surprise. “So, we haven’t been playing the same four players each match?”

“Nah,” said Xica. “All my sisters and cousins want to play too, so we have to share.”

Tota slapped his forehead. “That’s why you guys use four identical mechs? To avoid arguments?”

Rolanz’s ears grinned wide. “That makes so much sense now. I’ve always wondered why your teammates could be decent one moment and then terrible the next.”

“A couple of my sisters are really young,” laughed Xica. “They know how to make their mech run, but they’re useless on aiming and shooting. Nobody minds when they get their turn though as it never lasts very long.”

“But not you!” said Tota.

Xica looked proud. “Once I get my turn, I try to keep it for the rest of the match. It’s the only way to play when you have to share with so many siblings.”

“No. No. No,” growled the lio, getting in Xica’s face once more. “You cannot be Ace. I will not be beat by a teeny, tiny—”

“Mysa?” she laughed.

Somchai’s teammates looked really worried about how aggressive Somchai was acting, but Xica seemed to take it in stride. “That’s the beauty of Mecha Skirmish,” she said. “Doesn’t matter how big and tough you are. Doesn’t matter how strong or how far you could run. It’s just reaction time, strategy, and skill. I got all three of those.”

“No,” he grunted once more. “I refuse to believe it.”

“Well, I’d suggest a 1v1 match,” said Xica, “but rules are rules. I’d have to wait my turn on a tablet.”

“No, I wanna see this,” laughed Neakli. “You can use my rig to demolish Somchai in a 1v1!”

The lio gave her a nasty scowl but said nothing.

“Mysa are too small to play a traditional rig,” explained Xica. “We just use those ‘cub’s first tablet’ things you guys garage sale off when your cubs get big enough for a real computer. We root them, replace the OS, overclock the CPU, and install Mecha Skirmish.”

“That’s brilliant!” laughed Neakli, her salad completely forgotten.

Despite how Somchai stewed, the remaining four became fast friends, and Xica tagged along on Neakli’s shoulder whenever the team hung out.

“Careful, don’t fall,” said the geroo, holding up one paw to catch the mysa should she slip.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Xica, “this is actually a lot harder than it looks.”

“Well, you can walk on your own,” said Neakli, “but I just worry you’d get left behind.”

With a tight grip on the geroo’s fur, Xica glanced down toward Neakli’s pouch. “Well, there’s always—”

But Neakli cut her off with a raised finger and a stern look. “I like you, Xica, but that would be … very personal, y’know?”

The mysa made a show of pinching the fingers of her free paw together in front of her lips and remained silent a moment before adding, “Forget it ever crossed my mind, okay?”

“Deal,” said Neakli, her ears grinning.

“Ooh! Ooh! What’s that?” shouted the mysa, now pointing at a prominent display. She scrambled down Neakli’s arm and leapt onto the shelf. With eyes wide, she fondled the black metal-plastic-and-glass gizmo, her slender fingers seeking out the knobs and buttons.

“That’s one of those AR goggles,” said Tota. “It overlays the video display on top of whatever you’re seeing, and they set the focus way out so your eyes don’t have to refocus between the display and the real world.”

“So cool!” said Xica, ducking down so she could climb inside and peer through one of the two lenses.

“Yeah, it’s a neat concept, but I got one when they came out.” Neakli shook her head when the little mysa looked her way. “It was a regrettable purchase.”

“Aw,” groaned Xica. “Can you play Mecha Skirmish with it?”

“You can,” sighed Neakli, “but you’re seeing the screen on top of whatever you’re looking at, so you end up staring at a blank wall just so nothing obscures your view. It’s easier to just use your screen.”

“Well, it was probably wasn’t my size anyhow,” laughed the mysa as she scrambled back up Neakli’s arm.

“Yeah, it might have been a bit snug,” agreed the geroo with a grin. “Would have given you a headache.”