A Visitor to the Future - 98 - Team Moss vs Team Nimble
It wasn't long after we returned that an announcement declared that the first battle was about to begin. Our Proxies slowly descended into the ground, moving through the infrastructure below to await us at our first arena. Guided by arrows which appeared on the walls in a mossy shade of green, we walked past other teams, who all seemed eager to begin the first match of the tournament.
"If I'm right," said Sarkona, "I think we're heading to the quarry-like arena I saw earlier. Lots of angled rock and uneven terrain."
Tungsten nodded, "That will complicate things," he said, addressing Gatecrash and me in particular, "We should watch our step."
About fifty metres behind us, I caught a glance of another group headed in roughly the same direction, wearing long robes of silver and light grey. I was reminded of some of the older space movies which depicted aliens in shiny fabrics - they wouldn't have looked out of place as extras.
"I'd bet good money those are the Nimble Poindexters," I said.
"That checks out," replied Sarkona, walking backwards to give the group behind a wave, which they happily returned. "I didn't see them earlier. Good to put some faces to names." As suddenly as I'd noticed them, their arrows lead them to the right, away from our group. A short while afterwards, we stood in front of the arena door.
What Sarkona had said held true - the arena door was a round design with a large window in the middle. Looking through, the best way I could describe the arrangement of rocks was a sort of top-hat shape. The centre of the area was filled with rocks stacked at angles multiple storeys high, which obscured the view and path across the arena. The outer edge of the area was fairly flat, if uneven, covered with scattered rocks less than a metre in size, though every now and again there was a larger rock or two which provided cover. The other team would probably begin at the other side of the obscuring rocks, out of sight. From here to the centre pillar of rocks was probably about a hundred metres. If the arena was symmetrical, that meant the entire area was two-hundred metres across. At the edge of that were the walls and barrier which protected stands where the audience sat, though the transparent surface was tinted to allow the audience to look in, but not the other way around. All in all, a colosseum or stadium-shape.
There wasn't much time to worry about exactly what the terrain might mean, as the portal opened by rolling anti-clockwise to the right. Immediately to the left and right were two rooms - pilots to the left, rest of the team to the right. The team wished us good luck, and we entered the left room, where three comfortable chairs awaited us behind a large window. We each sat down, lying back into a relaxed position. Tungsten gave me a thumbs-up, which I returned. Gatecrash looked up at the ceiling, a keen-looking smile on their face.
"Team Moss, ready to link," said Tungsten to the empty air. A few seconds later, there was the familiar dragging sensation of my perception extending out of my body, and my vision was overcome by pitch black. There wasn't anything wrong with the neural link this time - my Proxy was genuinely in darkness, and suddenly cast into brilliant light as a door opened above me. We were being pushed up into the arena on a large elevator.
Tungsten gave me a double thumbs-up, this time in Proxy form, the singular green ocular inspecting my own Proxy closely.
"All good?" asked Tungsten's voice from where he was still sat next to me, a distance from here.
"Just fine!" I said, giving my teammate's Proxy a wave. Though I'd probably never master teleforming, I had just about figured out talking and listening using my own senses, meaning we could easily communicate between ourselves. Gatecrash moved their armoured form around on the spot, rolling its shoulders and flexing digits to test tolerances. They gave a satisfied nod and stood stock-still, the three of us waiting for the match to start.
"Welcome once again, to the first round of this Resiliency tournament!" rang out the announcer's voice from somewhere in our control room, "In this arena we have Overgrown with Moss in the verdant green, and Nimble Poindexters in the bright silver! The condition for this match is Rocky Rumble - the arena is filled with rocky terrain! Teams, good luck, have fun, and may the most resilient stand victorious! Begin!"
We took off, sprinting forward as Tungsten broke down the situation, coming up with a plan on the fly. I tried to listen carefully, but the task was complicated by the fact you had to carefully watch your footing in this area - the protruding edges of rocks made for effective trip hazards.
"We should use the central rocks to our advantage," explained Tungsten, armoured head bobbing and clawed feet tapping the ground as his Proxy ran, "They're effectively wall-like, so that's one angle we can't be attacked from. I'll take the outside edge - let's slow down as we reach the halfway mark. We should try and see the opposing Proxies before we decide how best to engage."
"I'll take the outside," said Gatecrash, their Proxy moving to the outer edge, "I have better optics!"
I narrowly avoided tripping over a small rock as we quickly covered the ground. For all my practice for the tournament I still hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that you could run as quickly as you wanted in a Proxy and never get tired - the only limit was part wear and tear. I still very much saw my Proxy as an analogue to my own body. We began to move around the right side of the central column of rocks, eyes peeled for any sign of our opponents. My own optics surveyed the ground in front of us, but didn't pick up any signs, even as we approached the other team's starting area.
"Hang on," I said, "What if they had the same idea? We'll never catch each other if they're moving in the same direction around the rock."
"Patience," said Gatecrash's voice from next to me, "We'll find them eventually - the only other alternative is to split up, and that doesn't appeal much in this sort of engagement. Too easily picked off."
But as over two minutes passed without seeing our opponents, it was beginning to look like there was something we were missing.
"Stop," said Tungsten, as he slowed to a halt, "They might have some sort of camouflage."
"Not likely!" said Gatecrash, also slowing, but stance still guarded, "If they could make adaptive camouflage with only the parts available in the tournament, I'd be amazed. Way too complicated."
"It might not be so complicated," replied Tungsten, "It could just be netting, or they might be hiding behi-"
Tungsten was cut off as a blur of motion entered my field of view. A sleek, silver shape descended upon him like a missile, delivering the full force of its weight behind a single foot from above. The impact crippled the right shoulder joint of his Proxy, and his Proxy tumbled to the ground, rolling over the rocks.
His attacker, a humanoid Proxy standing only six feet high, landed on the ground with bended knees, and pushed off the surface, as a whoosh and roar of engine noise blasted it into the air.
Thankfully, Gatecrash saw what was coming a fraction of a moment before I did. They lashed out at me with an arm, pulling me backwards and us both out of the way as two other Proxies - identical in appearance to the first, did a similar manoeuvre. I fell onto my back, but rolled into the motion, springing to my feet again just in time to see the three opposing Proxies vanish out of sight over the edge of the rocky column.
At least we'd figured out what their gimmick was.
"Smaller, more agile Proxies - some sort of jump jet," said Tungsten, now standing up from where he'd tumbled to the ground. His right shoulder was bent and misshapen from the attack, only the lower forearm able to move now. "Blast, didn't even think they'd be able to get up there so quickly."
We backed up, giving the tall column of rocks a wide berth. Their initial strike had been a good one - use the momentum of the fall to effectively drop-kick their opponents in the shoulder. Were it not for Gatecrash's reaction, I'd have been in a similar situation.
"They're lighter, though, less armour and staying power, in exchange for mobility," said Gatecrash, "If we can pin them into a fair fight, we can probably take them. That's probably why they're opting for a hit-and-run strategy."
"Blaise said he could fit me a jump-jet as my gimmick. I'm sort of regretting not taking him up on that now," I said, "Got anything up your sleeves for this?"
"Not to challenge them directly," said Gatecrash, "We'll have to catch them out some other way. Besides, if you had a jump jet and not the two of us, that'd just be a 1 vs 3 - not good odds!"
"I might have had something," said Tungsten, pointing to the crippled shoulder joint, "But not anymore! They might not even keep up the same strategy, now they've got a good first strike."
Gatecrash's Proxy shook its head, but kept looking up at the rocky column, constantly scanning for signs of movement, "I think they really needed a decent first strike - ideally they wanted to hit all three of us. Even with Tungsten's Proxy crippled as it is we can still take them. Of course, they might not be planning to fight us at all, now."
Tungsten groaned, "They're waiting for the time limit? A technical victory? That's frustrating."
"Or for us to concede," said Gatecrash, "Think about it from their perspective - they think we have no way to get to them, and if they can keep striking us by surprise they won't take any damage themselves while we get weaker and weaker. This favours them heavily."
"There must be some other way up there," I said, "Something we didn't see as we moved over."
"There might be," said Tungsten, "But if there is, they're probably watching it. We'd be sitting ducks while we climbed up. Unless..." Tungsten's Proxy cocked its head slightly, a particular Tungsten mannerism that meant he was thinking. "Aha, I think I've got it. Gatecrash, do you think you could dodge another attack from them?"
"Now that I know what to listen for, probably," replied Gatecrash, "What did you have in mind?"
_
Tungsten's plan had three requirements. First, that the other team was watching us. It was probably a given, but warranted checking. Gatecrash approached the edge of the column alone, and made a convincing enough display of looking for a place to climb. Sure enough, one of the opposing Proxies darted over the edge and tried another strike - Gatecrash neatly dodged the blow, and even tried a counter-punch, but the smaller Proxy was just too nimble and avoided it deftly. Gatecrash escaped, unscathed.
Requirement one, check.
The second was a tall rock, and a place to use it. A big one that wasn't too embedded into the ground, that could be used as a sort of ramp to move up onto the main column. It would be heavy, awkward, and unwieldy to move, but if we were to use it well, it would significantly reduce climbing time. We found one that was about a single storey high and toppled it, Gatecrash and I noisily and slowly rolling it lengthways towards the main column, Tungsten's Proxy out front to keep an eye on the opponents.
Sure enough, he spied them over the edge of the column, waiting for us to get closer to strike. We kept moving though - the plan relied on their focus on the rock, and the threat we might pose if we were able to get up there with them.
Requirement two, check.
We were about twenty-five metres from the central rocky area when two of them made their dive at Tungsten, who was too far forward - too exposed - to possibly dodge their incoming strike.
Which nicely fulfilled requirement three, which was: Tungsten is bait, moving the tall rock is a misdirection.
The silver forms dived through the air, their trajectory towards Tungsten clearly telegraphed. Which is when Gatecrash and I leaned down, picked up the boulders we'd been kicking along with our feet behind the large rock, and lobbed them at the descending forms like dodgeballs with all the strength our forms could muster.
There was a satisfying crunch sound as my rock impacted the left Proxy's chest, with momentum enough to disrupt the manoeuvre of the lightly armoured Nimble Poindexters. Instead of a neat kick into a recovery, the Proxy I'd targeted span to one side, impacted the ground and slid in a tumbling mess, silver parts flying off in all directions. Unfortunately, Gatecrash's rock had barely clipped the right Proxy, and it only slightly changed course, allowing it to safely land a few metres from Tungsten. Safe though the landing may have been, what followed wasn't, as Tungsten quickly delivered a punch to its head with his remaining good arm. The second Proxy joined the first on the ground.
We wasted no time in running out from behind the rock, and I leapt on top of the Proxy that I'd hit, pinning it to the ground.
With the Poindexters effectively two Proxies down, there was an enthusiastic announcement that the Poindexters had conceded, and Overgrown with Moss had taken the match.