Chapter 114 - Coming Together (1/2)

"They fell for it! Quickly get into range and kite the ones that can still move!" Gray ordered.

"What about us?" Stacia asked.

"You and Yurika can engage at will as well, stay out of range of their heavy battle rifles, they pack a mean punch but are not very effective at range."

"Affirmative!" Yurika said excitedly.

Unable to turn around, it would only take a few good shots to hit the engine of the mech and disable it, the remaining 3 mechs that could still move on Kelly's team were able to be kited until they finally succumbed to Gray, Geoff, Paul, and Jono.

Kelly smacked the arm in her simulator pod's seat after their defeat and met with Gray's team in the lobby again.

"Good job Gray! Never expected you to break out of your comfort zone and go all in without taking time to think about it." Kelly said to Gray with a smile.

"I know, I am amazing." Gray said proudly.

Kelly rolled her eyes but continued to smile, "Glad to see that part of you hasn't changed, the idiotic fake arrogance."

"Well, you got the idiotic part right." Yurika suddenly said while appearing next to Gray. She took Gray's hand in her own and gave it a squeeze.

Kelly didn't miss the subtle hint that Yurika was giving and said, "You two look cute together, and I'm guessing it took a lot to get him to admit his feelings?"

"Yes, he is my wife after all!" Yurika said proudly while smiling up at Gray.

Kelly looked curiously at Gray; Gray knew she was confused about why he was the wife and said, "I don't get it either, but I just go with it."

"It's probably because she can kick his butt in and out of a mech." Paul said jokingly.

"Hey, out of a mech has yet to be proven!"

"She gave you a black eye while you were in a simulator, how much of a beating did you take that you could get a black eye from a simulator!" Geoff said with a big grin on his face.

"Shut up! That's because I hit myself!"

"You're not helping your case." Stacia whispered to Gray.

Kelly leaned in to Yurika and whispered, "I see you guys have already figured out how to keep him in check."

Gray shook his head in defeat and said, "Can we get on with the important matters?"

"Of course, so beating us in a team match really didn't matter I'm guessing and what you really intended was to get the rest of my team to at least be a little willing to let you take command, yes?" Kelly said sincerely.

"Guilty." Gray said admittedly while holding his hands up.

"And what would you have done if you had lost to us?"

"Probably resorted to begging, pleading, and puppy dog eyes."

"… I don't even know what to say to that because I have a feeling you're telling the truth."

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but we'll never know. Ok, so if you don't mind, could you and all of your teammates send me a message with details about which mech they like the most, which position they like the most, and which position they're strongest playing."

Kelly tilted her head and asked, "What for?"

"I can't tell all of that information from just one match where I didn't even know who was who and that you all had the same mechs."

"Well, we can save the match recording and go over it. I will be able to tell you who is who."

"Sounds good to me, um, just us?" Gray said nervously as he was pretty sure Yurika was trying to crush his hand right now.

"Well of course, we can't talk bad about everyone with them their!" Kelly said with a grin.

"Well, we're short on time so the sooner that your team gets me that info the better, do you need anything from my team?"

Kelly thought about it for a second, "Nope, nothing I can think of yet, we'll be trusting you to lead us so what I would recommend is breaking up our group of 16 into 4 teams of 4, assigning a leader, and then giving just that leader orders instead of trying to micromanage 15 other teammates on the fly."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, 7 was hard enough, ok, my team, free time until Kelly and I finish collaborating. We won't be too long, oh, um, Jono, you wanted to talk about something?"

"Yeah, I'd like to talk before we get much deeper into this…"

Jono seemed surprisingly straight-forward for once and didn't have his usual batch of insults trying to make himself look better in front of Kelly. This was actually a small concern for Gray since it was outside of Jono's usual behavior.

"Yeah, not a problem, Kelly, can you get a small private virtual room setup for us so we can go over footage and make fun of… I mean talk about our teammates?"

"Sure thing, I'll send you the link to once it is setup and wait for you there."