Malfunction

"What is happening?!" Amelia shouted across the operating room located deep within the underground, about 20 floors below the factory building where Daniel and Jake's mechs were stored.

"Didn't I tell you guys that we are just borrowing the two mechs for a test drive? Why would you initiate a training module instead? The two people in the training field right now don't even have any battle experience!" Amelia could feel the cold sweat forming on his forehead when she saw what was happening on the large holographic screen in front of her.

On the right hand side of the screen was a rather large 2D map of the terrain where Daniel and Jake are currently located. Two small green flashing dots representing the two teenagers are currently moving about on the map. Meanwhile, one can see twelve red dots approaching one of the green dots at a breakneck speed.

On the left hand side of the screen were the faces of the two teenagers, showing their expressions as they piloted their mechs. Daniel's face, placed on top, had a rather serious complexion, which wasn't surprising as he had just managed to dodge and destroy a combat drone seconds ago. Jake, on the other hand, still looked rather leisurely, laughing to himself as he repeatedly tripped and fall to the ground before raising the million-dollar mech back up again.

Seeing the drastic difference in atmosphere between the two of them, Amelia couldn't help but feel slightly speechless for a second. Within an instant though, she immediately snapped out of her stupor and ran towards the operating stage reserved for operation commanders before her and instantly shouted into the mic placed at the very middle of the operation table.

"Daniel! There are more bogies headed your way!" amelia shouted frantically. However, before she could continue, Daniel, with his calm demeanour, instantly responded.

"How many? What are their combat capabilities?" He asked with an emotionless voice.

"12 combat drones. Six equipped with long-ranged laser rifles. Another six equipped with short-ranged machine guns. They are heading your way on your three o'clock! The former would enter striking range within 10-seconds!" Amelia shouted, firing her words as quickly as possible to lessen the time.

"Acknowledged." Daniel replied. "Permission to activate Minerva's Battle System."

"Permission granted." Amelia said as she pressed a rather large and conspicuous red button located beside the microphone before her.

Within an instant, Daniel, from within his own mech, could here a female robotic voice sounding within his head. The voice did not contain any emotions, and thus was quite different than the words of a certain other system also lingering within his mind. Even though the voice was quite robotic, Daniel felt that this voice is much more soothing compared to the other annoyance within his head.

<Initiating Tactical Operations Module. Scanning for enemies. Developing optimal strategy. Recalibrating. Please follow the optimized strategy displayed.>

Suddenly, as Daniel viewed the screen before him, an augmented reality interface superimposed in front of his eyes. Within an instant, a thick red line was drawn out in the horizon before him, telling him where he needed to go. From the bottom right corner of his eye, he could see green numbers currently displaying his coordinates and the speed of his flight. Meanwhile, another set of red numbers appeared right on top of the green numbers, indicating the speed and coordinates he need to get towards in order to fight against the combat drones coming towards him at high speed.

Using the mech as an extension of his own body, Daniel immediately used his will to increase his altitude, boosting the impulse engines firing from behind his back. When he finally entered the altitude required by Minerva, he instantly stated, "Activate Sniper Scope."

<Sniper Scope activated.>

The red dots indicating the bogies appeared within his field of vision, some dots were larger than the others, indicating that they were closer to him in distance. Minerva instantly decided which bogie Daniel needed to attack first in order to increase his chances of winning, making one of the smaller dots before him flash.

Daniel moved his sniper rifle towards the flashing dot as the display of a typical scope one would find when playing as a sniper within a FPS game appeared on the screen before him.

Adjusting for the windspeed, as indicated by Minerva, Daneil immediately pulled the trigger, firing a laser beam towards his robotic enemy still too far away for his eyes to see.

The bogie originally obscured by the clouds within the sky instantly became visible as the laser beam penetrated through, dispersing the water vapor within the clouds instantly. The second Daniel saw the drone from within the zoomed-in scope of his sniper rifle, it had already been destroyed, turned into several thousands of metal scraps after a small explosion.

Not even taking a break, Daniel shot several more times, destroying 3 more of those long-ranged sniper drones headed his way. Unfortunately, before he had the chance to destroy the 2 long-ranged drones left, they have already entered within striking range of their weapons.

Daniel did not even wait and instantly retreated when he saw the 2 drones firing their weapons. He managed to barely dodge the two laser beams, falling and tilting slightly left. Unfortunately, one of the drones took this chance and increased the magnitude of its laser beam, instantly expanding the radius of the shot by several centimeters, enough to graze against the mech's right leg.

Luckily, since Daniel had already taken the sniper rifle from his right leg, the laser beam only managed to damage its electrical systems as it grazed across the mech's ankle. If the sniper rifle hadn't been removed, he would have had to instantly abandon his position, detaching his right leg since a damaged sniper rifle might cause a large explosion.

Before Daniel could retaliate against those 2 drones though, another 6 close-combat drones have already arrived before him, shooting thousands of bullets within seconds as they surrounded him in a semi-circle.

Daniel instantly charged the shield on his left hand and placed it in front of the mech to prevent the bullets from getting through. He gritted his teeth and retreated as fast as he could while the drones chased after him. He also took this chance while the long-ranged drones were still charging their sniper rifles to focus on what strategy Minerva had made for him after seeing the changes in the battlefield.

However, when he saw what Minerva had suggested, his face could not help but turn ugly for a second. "Are you kidding me?!" Daniel thought to himself. Unfortunately, since this was the most optimal strategy suggested by the AI system, Daniel could only grit his teeth and connect a video call with his so-called 'teammate', placing his face on the bottom left side of the screen.

"Jake! I'm in a little bit of a pinch here! Can you stop playing around and help for a bit?!" Daniel cried when he saw the leisurely look of the other person displayed on the screen. He couldn't help but feel slightly angry at the latter even though there was not time to let emotions get in the way of the battle.

"Oh, wait a second." Jake said as he slowly raised his mech back up again after falling to the ground for who knows how many times. It was then that a friendly drone carrying a super-long-range sniper rifle approached him, allowing the right arm of Jake's mech to transform into the rifle itself.

"Don't worry my friend! I've got your back!" Jake grinned foolishly as he bragged. "I'll have you know I'm a Diamond Rank in CS:GO54! Sniping enemies are my specialty!"

"Stop bragging and help!" Daniel shouted frantically in reply. He couldn't believe that his friend still had the time to stroke his own ego when he's moments away from his own doom! "The drones will finish charging within a second!"

Finally, Jake seemed to have recognied the gravity of the situation and turned serious for once. Lying his body on the ground, he placed his long sniper rifle-cum-right hand in front of him and tilted it diagonally towards the sky, aiming towards the bright flashes one can see intermittently criss-crossing on the horizon.

"Well! Here goes nothing!" Jake thought to himself. Within an instant, he shot a super large beam towards the direction of the two drones, just as they were about to shoot themselves. Fortunately, Jake was just a nanosecond faster, as the two drones got caught within the large radius of the blue laser beam, instantly turning into a crisp.

It was only seeing the target on his back disappearing that Daniel could heave a sigh of relief. However, with six bogies still shooting at him from all sides, he did not have any time to relax.

Throwing his rifle away, he immediately took a beam saber strapped against his back and activated it, revealing a long glowing blue plasma beam before him.

*Slash!*

After several slashes, the rest of the drones were destroyed, their debris falling down from the sky.