Five hospital beds, spaced evenly apart, were occupied by the barely conscious female pilots of Squad R—Everly Philips, Silvia Hoshino, Anabelle Outteridge, Elisa Darby, and Avery Longstaff. They lay in silence, their faces pale and strained, hearts still racing from the aftershock of the neural sync feedback that had surged through their bodies during the match.
Their mechs had taken hit after hit, not from the Rhupenshron, but from Squad X’s strikes. Strikes meant for the enemy that Squad R had intentionally intercepted, trying to steal kills. They had succeeded in stealing a lead—for a time.
Now, only the soft murmur of a wall-mounted TV filled the room. It was tuned to the post-match stream, displaying the freshly updated leaderboard with bold, unforgiving clarity:
LIVE: GLOBAL SQUAD RANKINGS — POST MATCH
- Squad B – 1093 points
- Squad Z – 1048 points
- Squad K – 1007 points
- Squad D – 984 points
- Squad X – 960 points
- Squad M – 927 points
- Squad F – 899 points
- Squad P – 886 points
- Squad E – 872 points
- Squad A – 854 points
- Squad H – 833 points
- Squad R – 820 points
- Squad G – 817 points
- Squad T – 790 points
- Squad L – 772 points
- Squad C – 759 points
- Squad V – 732 points
- Squad Y – 701 points
- Squad S – 688 points
- Squad Q – 670 points
- Squad N – 661 points
- Squad W – 647 points
- Squad O – 621 points
- Squad J – 613 points
- Squad U – 604 points
- Squad I – 598 points
“That’s right, folks,” came the voice of caster Ryn Sada, brimming with excitement. “Squad X, after already knocking Squad D down in a previous streamed match, just destroyed Squad R with a final score of two hundred fifteen to one hundred twenty-one. This isn’t luck anymore. Squad X is tearing through the mid-tier and gunning straight for top three. They’re the team to watch.”
The camera cut to highlights: Squad X’s clean combos, precise slashes, and synchronized execution. One slow-motion replay showed Lucas and Chika’s mech Xukita spinning through a crowd of Rhupenshron, just as Ryno darted in too late and caught the back end of an explosion. The blast rocked Squad R’s machine—and Avery, lying in her hospital bed, flinched hard at the memory. She gritted her teeth and looked away.
“Unfair…” Elisa muttered, barely audible.
“We had it,” Silvia croaked. “We were ahead…”
“But they fought better,” Everly snapped, her frustration boiling over, voice raw and sharp. “They earned it.”
No one else spoke.
Behind the glass wall separating the ward from the waiting area, Lekan, Niko, Floyd, Chet, and Saturnino stood watching the same broadcast. Their arms were folded, their jaws tight, their pride in tatters.
Rank twelve. After all that, they had dropped to rank twelve.
And Squad X—the ones they had mocked—were now just forty-five points away from overtaking Squad D, with momentum building behind them.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Three days after the match, in the Iron Fortress, the atmosphere in Squad X’s common room was finally relaxed.
Jessica lounged sideways across the couch, legs thrown over the armrest, eyes locked on her handheld as she lazily flipped through highlights from recent matches. A bag of spicy crunch noodles rested half-eaten on her stomach.
Josh perched on a barstool in the corner, fiddling with a new tuning chip for Xorenyl’s neural input delay. Emily sat next to him with a cold drink in hand, occasionally poking at his shoulder to hurry him along.
On the floor, Lucas and Chika were in the middle of an aggressive card game involving shouting, slapping the ground, and some made-up rules that only the two of them seemed to understand.
Mark had his feet up on the table, arms behind his head as he read off real-time battle alerts from the monitor screen mounted on the wall. “Squad P versus Squad F happening in Cairo now. F’s got a solid formation, but P’s speed tactics are shredding the outer flank. Oooh—look at that, Squad Z just dropped one eighty-four in one run. They’re nuts. Can’t believe we’re getting close to those guys.”
Riley scrolled the leaderboard again, her brow furrowed. “Squad M’s creeping up. They’ll be eyeing us next. We’ve got a target on our backs now.”
“Let them come,” Alex muttered from across the room, sipping a bottle of electric citrus fizz. “We didn’t climb just to play it safe.”
The center screen in the background aired live feeds of ongoing matches. One stream showed Squad V barely hanging on in Manila, their mechs surrounded by Rhupenshron brutes while med drones circled above. Another showed Squad H in a snowy wasteland, launching coordinated strikes in brutal cold.
Occasionally the screen flashed alerts:
BREAKING: Squad T defeats Squad G – 147 to 130
ALERT: Squad C’s mech unit Catanori collapses in urban ruins – emergency evac requested. Pilot status pending.
TOP KILL STREAK TODAY: Squad Z’s sniper mech Zayllen – 39 confirmed eliminations.
Jessica, still sprawled out, glanced at the screen. “That’s the third Squad C mech to go down this week, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they’re pushing too fast,” Marcus said thoughtfully from his spot near the holo-map.
Mark grinned. “Good. Let ’em set the bar high. Gives us something to break later.”
The leaderboard flickered again, Squad X still in fifth place, holding steady but with heat rising from below.
Inside the Iron Fortress simulation chamber, Squad X was fully suited in neural-link gear, seated in their cockpit pods as their minds connected to the combat sim. The room was dim, lit only by control monitors and the glow of holographic readouts. Five days remained until their showdown against Squad Z, now the top-ranked team. The next match would be a kill-count challenge.
Training began: Zone Delta-14, Urban Infestation. The mechs dropped into a burning cityscape, collapsing buildings and clusters of Rhupenshron spilling from ruptured subway lines.
Xarica, piloted by Mark and Jessica, led the charge with close-range bursts and brutal cleaves. Xorenyl, handled by Josh and Emily, flanked with long-range suppressive fire. Xukita, Lucas and Chika at the controls, drew aggro and pinned heavy units. Xofarma, with Marcus and Sofia, rotated positions and unleashed synchronized barrages. Xalirey, piloted by Alex and Riley, struck from above with grapples and plasma blade finishers.
“They may have long-range advantage,” Jessica said, sweat already forming, “but they can’t do this up close.”
“Keep that momentum,” Mark replied. “We’re not just matching Z’s score—we’re shattering it.”
Commander Orsin observed from behind reinforced glass. “Time-to-kill improvement?” he asked.
The AI responded, “Twenty-four percent faster than their last drill, Commander.”
“Good,” Orsin muttered. “But not enough. Not against Z.”
The simulation escalated. Flyers swooped in. Emily called, “They’re diving, six o’clock!”
“Got them,” Chika said. Xukita’s chainblades ripped one from the sky as Xorenyl blasted two more midair.
A buzzer ended the run. Time: 9 minutes, 42 seconds. Total kills: 167.
Josh exhaled. “We’ll need to cut that below eight minutes if we want to stand a chance.”
“Then we go again,” Alex said, cracking his knuckles.