CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

After making his decision, Jason turned to Stephanie.

"Alright...this is just going to be a regular mission with a few other objectives. We need to defeat the monks, gather items, and keep these kids safe..."

Stephanie laughed.

"Wow, Jason. Didn't know you had that in you! But why do you want to go for DISTINCTIONMAN? It's a pretty big stage, we could probably slip away..."

"It's his machine's passive - it has an item stealing ability, I remember seeing it in action."

Stephanie nodded.

"Right! Right! I remember Danny mentioning that. Got it, sounds like we will have to beat him down then. Looks like his machine is mostly long-ranged. Maybe I can blast it down? I know it can absorb projectiles, but it's gotta run out over time."

"Yeah, your long-range shooting is probably our best bet."

Before Stephanie and Jason could converse any further, the timer ran out and the Mechs were all loaded onto the antique-style catapults. Jason and Stephanie were both blasted into the central stage. They found themselves standing back to back at the center of a circular stadium-like arena. The floor was covered with marble tiles that stretched out for several miles each way. Meanwhile, the walls were made of thick steel alloy that'd been painted bright red. Just a single glance from the Red Minerva's scanner told Jason that he wouldn't be able to break through the walls.

The circular stadium's last notable trait was the internal pillars spaced throughout the building. Unlike the walls, these pillars were made of granite rather than steel, and they could be destroyed with sufficient force. Knocking over the pillars wouldn't make the roof fall down, but dodging back and forth between the internal obstacles would be a major part of the stage.

Moments later, the other players landed inside the arena as well. However, they'd been loaded far away from Jason and Stephanie. The pink Deadeyes Lionknight was at the northernmost part of the stadium. Meanwhile, the various high school kids were all clumped up together southern part of the stadium. Even though they were all playing together on the same map instance, the Overdrive system still kept them with their initial group.

"Let's get going. Maybe we can group up with them and set up a private link."

Jason nodded. The two machines moved forward, but they didn't get very far. Bright lights flashed across the stadium, and then new Devoted Monk Mechs appeared. The white machines promptly began attacking everybody around them. The stadium stretched on for miles, so Jason couldn't reach the kids right away-he could only hope that they held up against the Monks.

Fortunately, that was a lot easier than it sounded. The Devoted Monks were powerful machines, but they were being controlled by the Overdrive system's weak AI instead of Vile. Their moves were clunky and awkward instead of smooth and vicious. On top of that, they used basic and crude attack patterns instead of coordinating together.

Three Devoted Monks hurled themselves haphazardly at DISTINCTIONMAN. The first two Monks carried spears, and the last one used the same remote butterfly knives as Vile had used. The machine threw the knife so it'd attack DISTINCTIONMAN from behind while recklessly hacking with its main weapon.

For a while, their aggression beat the pink knight back, but the famous streamer quickly pulled out his swords and cut his opponents into metallic ribons.

DISTINCTIONMAN's arrogant voice boomed across the battlefield as he loudly boasted of his success.

"Hell yeah! There's nothing these monks can do to me. Even better, my Green-Eyed Envy means that I automatically get all the drops my teammates get! Don't forget, the Green-Eyed Envy passive is a rare drop on One Star Boss missions and Golden Lootcrates from the shop. You can get this ability yourself too!"

Stephanie groaned.

"God, that guy is so annoying. I can't believe he's sponsored by the Overdrive Corporation."

Jason could only shake his head.

"I mean, it's not too surprising...like you said, there's probably some pretty annoying players who are spending a ton of money."

Even after spending a lot of time studying finances and the inner workings of Overdrive streaming, it was still a little hard to wrap his head around the concept. A famous streamer who appealed to griefers was an extremely annoying opponent!

A pair of Devoted Monks charged at them. The first was using a long double-edged sword, and the second one had the item Jason was looking for - the Triple-Gravity Staff. Jason's heart thrilled with excitement, but he couldn't take it out just yet.

Stephanie had already charged up her cannons, so Jason shouted for her to stop.

"Keep that one alive!"

He pinged the Devoted Monk with the Triple-Gravity Staff just as it swung the weapon at the Red Minerva. Unlike Vile, this machine's moves were highly telegraphed. It brought the staff all the way around before striking, so Jason was able to easily avoid the attack. As the Devoted Monk stumbled forward, Jason swung his ooze-covered hand at it. His Mana Gatherer Spike flared, then the ooze surged forth, tripping the Monk and sending it crashing to the ground. Jason tried grabbing the Triple-Gravity Staff, but an error message appeared.

ITEM CANNOT BE STOLEN

RARE ITEMS CAN ONLY BE RECOVERED BY DEFEATING THE DEVOTED MONKS

Jason cursed. If he couldn't steal the item, maybe he could somehow cripple the enemy machine...if he left it battered but alive, he could just claim the item after defeating DISTINCTIONMAN.

Before Jason could make another move, the second Devoted Monk stepped forward, swinging its sword, but Jason kicked it aside. Stephanie shifted towards it, raising her machine's cannons.

"Can I shoot that one?"

Jason nodded.

"Yeah, it doesn't have any rare items."

A pair of red lights lanced across the battlefield, shattering the Devoted Monk, but new Paragon Grunts came to take its place.

"Cover me for now!"

Stephanie started blasting away at the new machines as Jason scrambled forward, climbing on all fours. After adjusting his machine to average the Red Minerva and Red Lamia modes, while also adding the ooze tank and hands, his machine had lost the ability to dramatically increase its speed by shifting its stance. However, the low position still allowed Jason to manuever past the surrounding Devoted Monks while pursuing his target. Normally, all the Devoted Monks looked the same, but the one with the Triple-Gravity Staff stood out because its left arm was covered in green slop.

First, Jason whipped his flexible tail blade. The new weapon lashed forward before the Ghostfire Dagger savaged it the Devoted Monk with an additional double hit. The Devoted Monk lost its footing and fell back, but the Triple-Gravity Staff remained glued to its hand. Next, Jason clasped his hands together and activated the Blazing Avarice. Even though he'd added new ooze abilities to his machine, there was no beating his machine's main ability when it came to close combat.

Jason summoned the Valorous Ji, then slashed twice in quick succession. The blazing spear removed his opponents legs and it crashed to the ground. Moments later, Jason stomped on its other remaining arm, shifting the ooze reserves on his machine forward to increase the weight of its attack. After grinding the last limb to smithereens, the Devoted Monk was left with only the hand that held the Triple-Gravity Staff.

The Mech limped forward and swung the weapon, but Jason easily sidestepped the attack. Next, he pulled up the new spellcasting command console and summoned one of the Biological Beasts. At the moment, he was only comfortable controlling a single beast at a time. Initially, Jason thought he'd quickly outstrip the machine's original pilot, but the control mechanisms were far more difficult than he'd anticipated.

Most drones and side-units could obey simple commands. The Biological Beasts wouldn't move by themselves, players had to manually control them at all times. Naturally, controlling two machines at once was already a challenging process, so Jason wasn't comfortable adding a third yet.

The spikes at his machine's elbows glowed. Slop erupted from his machine's resupply tank, and then the hound burst into existence. This time, the creature squatter than usual, with a long and round body that vaguely resembled a torpedo. Jason's fingers dashed across the controlboard, and the dog snapped up the Paragon Grunt, disabling it and dragging it off to the side.

For now, Jason couldn't kill the grunt, but he could keep it safe until the Lionknight's ability was de-activated.

Meanwhile, the kids were fighting off the Monks on the other side of the room. The newbie players not only had weak mechanics, they were also extremely uncoordinated. They'd sounded like good friends, but staying disciplined in tight situations was a natural skill that had to be honed over time.

The players accidentally smacked each other with their weapons, and they split apart whenever the Devoted Monks charged. It felt like they couldn't decide whether to attack or run.

"Man..."

Jason murmured and turned to Stephanie.

"It's pretty impressive how disciplined you guys were when I met you."

Stephanie chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"Alright, I know what you're really saying. You mean we were pretty disciplined for how bad we are, right?""

Jason couldn't help but laugh. To be honest, that was exactly what he was thinking. Stephanie and the other BAG Guild members had dramatically improved after taking on tougher missions, but their mechanical skills had been pretty bad. These players were total beginners whereas Stephanie had played on-and-off for two years, but to be blunt, her skills weren't too far off from these total beginners.

One of the starter Mechs stumbled and crashed to the floor. The pilot would have been trampled if it wasn't for Stephanie's quick shooting. Even though her accuracy was still mediocre, she had no problem with covering fire. The wide swathes of laser fire held the enemy off, giving them just enough time to scramble back to their feet.

Even then, the pilot barely escaped. His teammates picked the worst possible time to attack and almost knocked him right back to the ground as they stepped forward with their rifles.

Jason groaned.

"Maybe you can coordinate them?"

Stephanie laughed.

"Hell, no dude. You should take charge. These guys actually know who you are, there's no way they're listening to me."

Jason groaned, but he set up the comms link anyways. He wasn't really all that interested in being the one to boss around a bunch of high schoolers. He'd wanted to help them out, but actually wasn't like he was a coach or anything...

Maybe he could joke about it with Vinny later when he arrived at the Good Game Shoppe.

Jason's screen buzzed, and then an image of the kids appeared in the lower corner of his screen. He glanced through them, but nobody really stuck out-they just looked like generic high schoolers, almost like the kids who stopped by at the Good Game Shoppe. Considering the sheer number of people who played Overdrive, they probably didn't live in the Bay Area too, but Jason never would have been able to tell the difference.

There was an awkward silence for a while, then one of the kids spoke.

"Hey, so, um...what's the game plan...sir?"

His voice was confused and panicked, but also quite respectful. Before long, his friends were clammoring as well.

"Yo! Help us out!"

"This stage is too hard man!"

"What should we do?"

Despite the chaotic circumstances, Jason smiled to himself. It was pretty funny thinking of anyone respecting him for his Overdrive skills...

Now it was time to pay them off. He did his best to channel Danny and Steven.

"Alright. Alright. Let's group into a formation..."

The kids just looked at him blankly.

"What formation? How should we group?"

Jason rattled off the information without thinking.

"Tanks in the front, then we'll get artillery units behind it. After that, we'll have our melee players dart in and out of the fight. You don't really want those guys to nail you down."

There was another awkward pause, then one of the kids spoke up.

"We're all using the same Mech..."

Stephanie stifled a laugh as Jason tried to recover.

"Right..right..."

"Alright, in that case. Stphanie goes to the front and she'll act as a tank, I'll keep them off, and then you guys just focus on shooting from long-range."

During his time at the BAG Guild, Jason had learned that shooting roles tended to be a little easier than melee roles for beginners. Shooting took a lot more skill. After all, hitting someone from far away was a lot tougher than just smacking them with a weapon. However, it was also a lot riskier. Considering Overdrive's difficulty, it was better to treat any beneficial action from a new player as a bonus rather than than rely on it as a key part of his strategy.

A new row of Devoted Monks started charging at them. The first two held simple swords, and the two in the back used the remote butterfly knives, vigorously hurling the blades forward so they'd attack from all sides.

"Alright. Let's group up. Don't worry about the knives, we can have Stephanie shoot them down..."

"Run! Run!"

"Let's get out of here!"

The party scattered to the winds, fleeing in every direction. Only one of them continued attacking. Jason sent a wave of ooze at his opponents, causing them to trip and fall, and only then did the kids come back into the fold.

"Nice play!"

"Ah, I knew we shouldn't have run away!"

The coordinated gunfire returned, slowly pushing away the enemies. As they continued fighting defensively, Jason noticed that DISTINCTIONMAN had caught ahold of the dog. Like Jason, he wanted the Triple Gravity Staff

Jason facepalmed and shot Stephanie a look.

What the hell was up with these kids? They were the most skittish players he'd ever seen!

Stephanie just laughed again and made a dismissive gesture with her hand. She mouthed the words "herding cats" before going back to blasting away the grunts. Jason brought out the Titan's Macauhuitl, sweeping the blazing club in a wide arc to clear out the path. Due to the item's ease of use, he was able to spend most of his time staying away from DISTINCTIONMAN with his Biological Beast.

Eventually, they cleared away the enemies, revealing a comical sight - DISTINCTIONMAN chasing around the bio dog. Save for the Lionknight's size and flamboyant armor and the dog's hdieous shape, it looked like something out of a comedy movie.

DISTINCTIONMAN saw Jason, then cursed.

"What the hell is this? Give me that item back!"

Unfortunately, the creature was just too fast. It continued scrabbling on the ground, carrying the valuable Triple-Gravity Staff along with it.

Jason dismissed his Titan's Macuahuitl, keeping his hands free for a possible follow up attack.

By then, DISTINCTIONMAN had given up on chasing the dog and started running up to him.

The Lionknight skidded across the ground, drawing a pair of weapons before striking a pose. The pink machine carried a sharpened spear in its left hand and a katana in the right. Instead of addressing Jason, the famous streamer talked to the new players instead.

"Alright new guys. I can tell you're new since you don't know me, but watch this fight if you want to get better at Overdrive!"