Chapter 92 - Out of Reach (2/2)

Gray could tell he was thinking of something else altogether and grabbed a handful of snow with his mech and chucked it at Jono. The snow glob merely thudded against the mech, but was enough of a distraction to bring Jono out of his trip down memory lane.

"Back on topic! Paul! You're the only one with portable cover, and you happen to have that grenade launcher accessory on the spear right?"

"Yes Gray! It only has 2 shots, but I can reload it!"

"Good, so Paul, you are going to approach from their southern flank while hugging the edge of the map, the rest of us are going to keep them distracted by dancing in and out of sensor range from the North East front to make it look like we're probing for an opening."

"Ok... and that is when I go kamikaze and disrupt their formation by blasting them with grenades? I don't think I can do that with just a two-shot grenade launcher."

"Yes and no, I want you to go alone with your grenade launcher and get in as close as possible, but I want you to aim for the mountain peak,I want to bury them in the snow."

"Yes, that is a great idea!"

"Of course it is! I came up with it after all!" Gray said proudly.

Immediately several clumps of snow came flying towards Gray's mech as everyone pelted his mech with snowballs.

Gray wiped the snow from his mech's face and said "Sorry, I couldn't resist!"

"Careful butt head! I know where you sleep!" Yurika said pretending to be mad.

Geoff snickered and said "We all know you do!"

While it wasn't possible for mechs to blush, everyone swore that Yurika's mech turned a slight shade of pink for a brief moment.

Gray looked over at Jono and saw that he was also picking up snow in his mech and tried his best to make a snow ball with it, but he had stopped after closing his mech's fingers around the snow and seemed to be lost in thought.

"Jono, what are you doing?"

"I saw this in a movie once! I want to see if it works with the next missile volley!"

Gray was afraid to ask because he knew he would want to try it too so instead he issued commands. "Paul, head South West, when you reach sector C5, head west and get to the edge of the map in sector A5, then proceed North. Inform us when you arrive and we'll proceed with the rest of the plan!"

"Yes sir!" Paul said resolutely as he picked up his shield and trotted south west in his mech towards C5.

Gray was about to say that everyone must call him sir from now on, but he felt killing intent emanating from Yurika as she probably figured what he was going to say. Gray wisely chose not to say it and instead said "Everyone else, we're going north to D10, keep your sensors passive Stacia, if they don't see us they will probably keep their defensive positions."

Various forms of confirmation from everyone as Paul made his way South West while everyone else headed north.

Paul really like his Hoplite Mk 01, but he had to admit that in a straight line it was painfully slow compared to other mechs. It may have had fast limb speed compared to other heavy mechs, but that didn't apply to the legs since they needed more strength than other mechs to be able to support the weight of the mech and the shield that could weigh as much as a light mech.

Gray realized as everyone waited for Paul to get into position that he never took into account Paul's slow movement speed, especially with the weather slowing them down, as they had already used up half of the time. While none of them had been destroyed or disabled, matchmaking would still chalk it up as a loss for them since they had taken a tiny amount of damage.

"So... almost there Paul?"

"...almost to the edge... let's call it close enough!"

"Works for me, now head north and get as close as you need to be able to get those grenades where we need them."

"Gray, I have a problem that might make your plan worthless..."

"I know you're slow, but you don't need to go nearly as far as before."

"No... the grenade launcher doesn't have the range to land a grenade that high!"