This time, Henry would use basic tactics and basic sense; in simulated space, 'short distance' was a relative term, and so he can start out with a long-range weapon instead of jumping straight to the Beam Saber, which he knew was what he was being led to do. And so, the nineteen-year old boy took out his Beam Rifle first and fired, knowing full well that the beam-treated armor would withstand the blast; it didn't matter as the spray of energy was a distraction.

Then, should Lumen Team's leader close the distance himself, he would fire his Chest Vulcans, turning on the Beam Saber only at the last minute so as to conserve power.

But, if Lumen 1 kept waiting for him, Henry would oblige and charge against the opposing Rook, but still fire Chest Vulcans first, then use the Beam Saber at the last minute again.

@Crimmy

@Letter Bee

Francis Bertrand

Lumen 1's machine dodged out of the path of the beam with ease, shifting to the left in order to avoid the concentrated stream of particles that had been fired by Henry. His beam saber shut down, the sizzling blade of light disappearing as he replaced the weapon for the Rook line's signature bazooka. If the younger pilot sought to engage in a long-range battle with him, than he would respond in kind, immediately firing off a 550mm rocket in the direction of Henry's own Rook.

While it was a primitive weapon in many respects, the explosion that would occur on impact was to be appreciated.

Lumen 1's left was his right, and so Henry responded accordingly, deploying his right shoulder shield as cover right in the rocket's path, before backing up some distance; as trying to track his opponent visually would be a fool's errand, Henry would use his sensors to find the position of Lumen 1, before firing his Beam Rifle again.

@Crimmy

@Letter Bee

Francis Bertrand

Aimlessly firing from range would keep one relatively safer, but in the end, it was an utterly meaningless action. There was no purpose, and unchangingly repeating an action when it had proved to provide no result would not give it any purpose. In a duel such as this, any attack that served no purpose was a wasted attack, one that an opponent could take advantage of if they so desired.

Indeed, Lumen 1's machine dodged the beams with the same ease as he had done earlier, immediately firing off another missile as he danced away from the danger. However, the missile's target was not Henry, but in fact the cloud of smoke and dust where his initial attack had impacted with the younger pilot's shield. If Henry decided that sacrificing a part of his Rook so early on in the battle was a wise decision, then Bertrand would make use of that sacrifice.

His second missile crashed into the remains of the shield, exploding outwards and enlarging the dust cloud. It served the purpose of completely obscuring Bertrand's HFV from view, meaning that there would be no way for Henry's sensors to obtain a visual on the other Rook. All he could work on was the knowledge that his enemy was somewhere behind the expanding mass of dust and gas, and vague telemetry from his sensors on the general location of the other Rook. He wouldn't know what course of action Lumen 1 would choose to take. The dust was inhibiting aspects of his sensors.

For two long seconds, nothing seemed to happen.

Then a streak of light, a beam of particles, burst through the cloud towards Henry's position.

And behind it was Lumen 1's Rook, accelerators on its legs having kicked into action to close the distance between them. His beam rifle was still firing, launching several more shots towards Henry's general location.

As the cloud of dust and gas ballooned in size, Henry pivoted so that his mech's front was to the center of the cloud, then accelerated backward, trying to outrun the cloud, or, if that failed, making sure that he was at its edge, constantly moving away from where it was thickest. That left Lumen 1 less room to maneuver; not merely that, but the dust cloud would interfere with his sensors as much as it did with Henry's.

Thus, when the opposing mech attempted to sneak up on the nineteen-year old boy, Henry would be ready, relying on his beam-treated armor to absorb the first hits of Lumen 1's rifle, then firing with his Chest Vulcans as the opposing Rook came nearer...

@Crimmy

@Letter Bee

Francis Bertrand

Against the heavily armoured frame of the OSDT's upgraded Rook, the Vulcans were utterly ineffective, bullets bouncing off the onrushing body of Bertrand's machine with faint sparks. Against such a weak response, there was no need for him to change his current course of action. There was only so much that beam-treated armour could do against such a barrage of shots, and if the only attempt at retaliating was staying stock still and attacking with anti-missile weaponry, then he would just have to put Yatogami out of his mercy.

While Henry's Rook's armour may have been able to resist the initial impact of a beam, Lumen 1's follow-ups would only serve to tear the heavy armour to shreds piece by piece, bit and bit. Before the nineteen year old could even start to move his machine again, his opponent was already on top of him, rifle barrel pressing into his chest.

A second later, the world dissipated around them, and a simple message flickered onto Henry's screen.



"Yatogami, why didn't you attempt to dodge?"

"Yatogami, why didn't you attempt to dodge?"

"Overestimation again," Henry Yatogami's voice was dead and toneless. "I thought the beam-treatment for the Rook was more extensive, and that Vulcans would stand a better chance of hitting your mech than the Bazooka, which I should have used as soon as I realized I had a clear shot. But hindsight is 20/20, it seems."

Harrison nodded.

"Captain's orders, and I'm certainly not complaining. Good to finally get off the bench."

"Hope you haven't gotten rusty then," commented Stronin with an easy grin. "If we have time, try and take it for a spin out in the open. It'll net us a bit of data that we can program into the simulators."

A cheer rose from one of his team members. It looked like they'd managed to clean out all of the poor pirate's body parts and fluids, which were now on the bay rather than inside the drying and bleached cockpit. That meant he could get to work on the repairs while the others started getting rid of the mess. Hopefully he too wasn't too rusty. It'd been a while since he'd tried to get a Bradley functioning.

"Time to start then," he said, glancing towards the damaged cockpit. "I'll see if I can get a message to you when I'm done."

---

Francis Bertrand

"An unfamiliar machine is one that you must study the most," noted the leader of Lumen Team, his baritone crackling slightly over the speakers in Henry's simulator pod. "Always question if you need any further information on a HFV's capabilities."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"You made an unnecessary sacrifice by deploying the shield early in the battle. Do not detach portions of your machine so readily, particularly if you possess the capability to avoid damage through other methods."

His words were professional, neither berating nor overly lecturing.

"Space is a three-dimensional environment. You possess the freedom to manoeuvre in any direction, unlike within atmosphere. Keep this firmly in mind. Do not allow your soul to be entrapped by gravity. If one plane does not seemingly provide an answer, seek another. The decision to approach the centre of the cloud head-first was unwise when the possibility existed to avoid doing so by descending beneath it."

The simulators began to hum to life once more, the world around them materialising into the void of space again. Bertrand's machine was hanging in the darkness before Henry, the green Rook ready for another round. These lessons were ones that the young pilot needed to learn.

"Every action must be purposeful," boomed Lumen 1's voice across the speakers. "Do not waste a single attack. Do not allow yourself to be cursed by your assumptions. Now, show me again how you fight, Henry Yatogami."

A nod from Henry, and the nineteen-year old boy took out his Bazooka this time, and shot a missile at the simulated Rook, before, once the missile was launched, taking Lumen 1's words to heart and accelerating downard, then rolling sideways and moving upwards again; this time, he was using the friction-less environment of space to increase his speed, knowing full well that the opponent can do the same.

@Crimmy

@Letter Bee

Francis Bertrand

Francis' Rook pulled back, its Chest Vulcans roaring to life as a torrent of 60mm bullets burst through the void to strike at the incoming missile, intercepting it before it could impact his machine. While not always effective against other HFVs, the gatling guns were an effective gun-based CIWS, particularly thanks to the calibre of the ammunition used. Their best use was against missiles, aircraft and other lightly-armoured vehicles, and were more of a weapon of last resort in mech-to-mech combat.

The destruction of the missile provided less cover than the impact between his own one and Henry's shield in the last simulated battle, but that was of no consequence to Lumen 1. He wasn't planning on utilising the small cloud of expanding missile fragments right now. His own Rook began to move, choosing to pursue Henry while firing off a shot from his beam rifle in the younger pilot's direction. While the weapon was energy intensive, it was quite powerful, capable of easily tearing through armour that lacked beam treatment. In fact, even HFVs in possession with the treatment would need to be weary, for being hit would still do damage, particularly repeated ones.

This time, Henry would be able to dodge as he kept moving, stopping only once he got a sense of Lumen 1's position. After that, he would shoot another Bazooka shot at the opposing mech; the very next second, he would accelerate backwards, so that he can continue observing Lumen 1, so as to get a feel for the other person's countermeasures and strategies...

He had seen, while rolling, the flash of Vulcans just before his first missile exploded; can Vulcans really be used that way? If so, that was very interesting...and also foolish of him to overlook.

@Crimmy

Francis Bertrand

The second missile exploded, sharing its fate with that of the first. From such a range in a one-on-one duel, it was incredibly easy to detect and counter the slow-moving projectiles fired from the Rook's signature bazooka. Firing when the chance of success was so miniscule was essentially a wasted action. The situation needed to be changed by other means if it was to be effective.

Lumen 1 weaved around the cloud that was all that remained of the second missile, pursuit unchanged. If Henry sought to fight more carefully and defensively, then he would test those skills.

His Rook fired another shot from its beam rifle, intent on forcing Henry to stop traveling backwards in such a linear manner, before immediately accelerating diagonally to his up and right, closing the distance between them from a flank.

A second beam was fired.

Suspicion confirmed; so that was the proper countermeasure against Bazookas, Henry would think before rolling away from the slower-than-light beam, then travelling in zig-zags in parallel with Lumen 1's path, before shooting yet another Bazooka missile at the opposing mech. However, Henry sought to surprise Lumen 1 by immidiately taking out his Beam Rifle and shooting at the missile once the distance was safe, producing an intensified explosion that would hopefully blind Lumen 1 while Henry made a gigantic 'leap, trying to sneak up to above the opposing mech's antenna...

@Crimmy

Francis Bertrand

The use of the missile as a distraction was a creative tactic, but despite its effectiveness in stalling Lumen 1's Rook temporarily, the follow-up 'leap' by Henry failed to take advantage of the older pilot's temporary loss of visual contact. A sneak attack required speed and precision, but he had been too far away, too slow in taking action, when his thrusters pushed him upwards. Attacking while Bertrand was inconvenienced was not a bad plan, but the execution had been lacking. The safe distance between him and his missile was not one that allowed for easily sneaking up on someone, and without launching an attack during those brief moments that his opponent couldn't react, the action was unfortunately wasted.

Indeed, by the time Henry had moved into position, Lumen 1 had already recovered, accelerating through the cloud with a burst of speed to close the distance between them once again. His beam saber had been ignited in those precious seconds, and was now in range to stab forth towards Henry's chest.

Henry knew he was getting better, but not good enough. Deploying his left shoulder shield, he would manage to block the beam saber strike with it; if anything of the crude cover survive, he would then hold the remains of the left shoulder shield on his left hand, while activating his Beam Saber on the right.

He would then shoot his Chest Vulcans as a distraction, while slicing at Lumen 1's left armpit with his Beam Saber!

@Crimmy

Isn't She Just the Cutest, Father Joan?

"It was...stressful," Father Joan admitted, perhaps using a slight bit of understatement in her response to Sasha. The way she rested her forehead against the mechanic's clavicle no doubt gave away her half-truth; Joan decided to attack Sasha preemptively before she received the threatened scolding, and began stroking the grease streaks in her munchkin's unkempt blonde hair. "But I'm already feeling better."

She could already feel big blue eyes glaring at her in reproach.

"Sa-shaaaa." Joan smiled gently. "I'm already feeling better. All of us made it out okay, most of our HFVs received nothing more than minimal scrapes, and the pirates were successfully driven off from Jannah. The Paper Tiger crews deserve a lot of credit. Especially the caffeinated little midget who refuses to stop running diagnostics on my machine. It's thanks to her that I did so well."

Francis Bertrand

Firing indiscriminately would not yield any success, the bullets of Henry's Vulcans bouncing more-or-less harmlessly off the heavily armoured front of Lumen 1's Rook. An arm reached out to grab the wrist of his machine's right hand, forcing the beam saber away from his opponent and preventing him from rotating the hand to compensate. The older pilot's beam saber, however, had dissipated, leaving only the empty hole in Henry's shield. It immediately moved to point downwards, before igniting once more, lancing a blade of exotic particles towards the left leg of the nineteen year old's machine.

Shutting down the Beam Saber to ignite it later on...that was as old as Star Wars. So just before Mr. Bertand can turn on the Beam Saber, just before he can stab at Henry's virtual rook's foot, the nineteen-year old made his own machine headbutt the opposing mech's, hoping to throw it and its pilot off-guard, so that he can avoid losing a leg and furthermore have another opportunity to attack!

@Crimmy

Francis Bertrand

Unfortunately, at such a close range, and with one wrist being gripped tightly by his opponent, Henry's headbutt did little to faze Lumen 1, the collision between their cranial units failing to prevent the ignited beam saber from slicing off his Rook's entire left leg. In fact, the course of action that the young boy had chosen to undertake only increased his vulnerability to a counterattack. When in close combat, risky and unpredictable manoeuvres such as headbutts were high-risk, easily leaving one's defences open if they were not correctly executed.

And thus Bertrand took advantage of the opening, his ignited beam saber immediately shifting and slicing off the entirety of Henry's Rook's lower body, taking the majority of the machine's thrusters with it. However, the leader of Lumen Team immediately disengaged, letting go of the younger pilot's machine and accelerating backwards to create a short distance between them.

"Avoid unnecessary risks," his baritone crackled through the speakers of Henry's simulated pod. "Never assume that God's favour shall always shine upon you."

Mastery of the basics first. Risky techniques were left to when there was no other option.