Chapter 92 - Out of Reach (1/2)

"Uhhh, what do you mean by that?" Paul asked slightly confused. "I'm already a man!"

"It was a joke... you earned your man card already after that match when we teamed up with the GameGo Gamers!" Gray said proudly.

Everyone remembered how Paul had basically let his mech be destroyed piece by piece to keep protecting Stacia's mech even after it was unable to move and nodded in agreement except for Jono who was unaware of this.

"This time, instead of showing us your bravery, we want to see your badassery!" Gray proclaimed.

"Bad...assery? You just made that up didn't you?" Paul complained.

"Maybe, but I'm sure others have used it, surely you know what I mean Geoff or Jono?" Gray asked.

"Heck yeah!" Jono said while fist pumping with his mech.

"It's like, the art of being a bad ass!" Geoff exclaimed.

Xyra, Stacia, and Yurika exchanged looks with each other and privately said to each other that men were idiots.

As if it was perfectly timed, a volley of 8 missiles was launched from the enemy in their direction.

This time Stacia spotted them first as she remembered where the first missile had come from and yelled "Take cover!"

Yurika and Geoff crouched behind a large boulder, Paul raised his shield and knelt down with it covering Stacia as well, Caleb and Xyra were already behind cover due to instinctively looking for places to snipe from, and Gray and Jono could only hope the thick trees they were next to could provide enough cover for them.

The missiles were targeted at the last known location of where Stacia was but were set to heat-seeking after a certain distance so they wouldn't hit just ground since the enemy was at least smart enough to know that nobody would stick around in the same spot.

The 3 missiles on the left broke off towards Yurika and Geoff, 2 missiles in the middle continued towards Paul and Stacia, and the 3 missiles on the right broke off towards Gray and Geoff.

The 3 missiles aiming at Yurika and Geoff slammed into the boulder, shattering almost the entire boulder. Yurika and Geoff peeked up over the remains of the boulder and knew they needed to find different cover if another missile or two came towards them again.

The 2 missiles coming towards Paul and Stacia collided with Paul's shield, but since Paul was holding the shield directly against them, the shield took a small amount of damage this time since it wasn't able to redirect the blast away. Gray wondered if Yurika could help him with shield handling since she had helped Gray earlier, even though it was mostly just Gray getting beaten up.

While thinking this, the last three missiles struck the trees where Gray and Jono were taking cover behind. Unfortunately the trees could only stop one missile each since they were coming in from above and would not hit any branches from a direct shot. As soon as the missiles descended into the trees, both Gray and Jono darted for cover behind different trees than before. The two trees they were behind were hit, blasting each tree in to two parts leaving half of a tree standing and the top half getting blown away from the explosion and crashing in to other trees around it. The third missile barely missed Gray as he heard his AI, Tiara, shout "dodge left!"

Without thinking about it, Gray dodged left as he heard this and the missile buried itself in the snow and exploded, his mech received minor damage to its legs and was covered in dirt and snow from the blast.

"Thanks Tiara!" Gray said as he shook the debris off of his mech and tested his legs to make sure they were still working.

"Of course Gray! We're in this together!"

Only Gray could hear Tiara talk, but for some reason he pictured a cute bubbly girl speaking even though Tiara didn't have a physical body or even an avatar.

"Amazing dodge dude!" Jono exclaimed "How did you know when to side step?"

"My AI, Tiara, told me, the training AIs are super helpful!"

"Tiara?" Jono stifled a laugh "What kinda girly name is that!"

"Tiara is a girl... what else would I give her?"

"Her?" Jono asked questioningly.

"Yes, I treat Tiara the same as everyone else, plus I've never had an AI with this level of self-awareness before so I feel more comfortable this way"

"True... the first is always your most memorable..." Jono said wistfully.