Break out

"Boss! Kill him with one shot!"

"Destroy him slowly! Make him cry!"

"Kyaaa~~! Robert! You are so cool!"

"Let's bet on how long the loser can last!"

"I bet 50 bucks in 10 seconds!"

"A hundred on less than a minute!"

Robert's fanclub stated making noise as soon as we got to the field.

Hearing all their comments made me wish to win just to shut them up, but I knew such dream was not realistic at all.

Theodore approached the side of the field with a loud speaker in hand.

I expected him to do a count down, but the asshole just shouted at once.

"START!!!!!!!"

The second that I froze in surprise gave Robert the time to start aiming his right hand at me.

Noticing his move, I inclined my body to the right and activated the dodging maneuver "side jump".

(Fuck you Theodore! Where is the count down!?)

The legs thrusters turned on at once as the mechanical muscles worked on top speed to make the 15 tons Robot get out of stasis.

Bang!

The Black Beetle's right hand rifle shot out a bullet where milliseconds before was my Titan's cockpit, hitting my Titan's left arm instead.

Because I had already taken off when the bullet hit my Titan's arm, the power contained in the bullet added a spin rotation on my Titan, which I used to my advantage, using it to change the route of my jump by 180 degrees and dodging him second bullet at the same time.

Now Robert's Titan was behind me, but that didn't matter as the Titan had a back camera as well, the only problem is that the image was inverted, so I had to be careful to not jump to the wrong side.

I extended my right arm with the laser rifle and continued to spin, while reversing the thrusters to make me dodge to the other side. As soon as I catch sight of Robert at my aiming monitor, I shot it out, not caring where I hit.

My laser shot passed by his armor, leaving a little mark akin to a pencil scribble. First of all laser rifles dealt damage based on focused heat. The higher the heat resistance of the target, the less damage the laser would do. Against monsters made of hide, meat and fat, they were quite effective, but against a Titan's heat resistant metal plates they were quite useless, at least in a real fight. Even so, my objective was just to add a bit of pressure, but to win, so it didn't really matter how much damage I dealt to him.

"Worm, this didn't even leave a scratch!"

(I know....)

"Take this!"

I kept jumping and spinning for what if felt like an eternity. Little by little my Titan's armor started dismantling as the damage accumulated, but because no critical hit was taken in any important part the Titan's performance wasn't affected by much.

Even so I could not keep resisting for much longer. When a person looks at a Titan, most people can't imagine how much energy one spends while piloting this huge thing.

Different from all other kinds of vehicles, a Titan requires the pilot to use his whole body to move instead of just siting in a comfortable sit and pressing some pedals. While it's possible to automatize some routines like dodging and complex maneuvers, most of the running and jumping needs to be done by the pilot himself as they need to fit for the battlefield they are fighting.

Finally as my legs were about to give out because of how tired I was, I heard his declaration and knew it was time to end this.

"Loser, no, Joel, this game was fun, you have earned a bit of my respect, but it's time to end this!"

Turning on his back thrusters on maximum power, the Black Beetle lowered it's head, it's horn started glowing red and I could sense the incredible heat and danger emanating from it as it charged like a bull at me.

(All right, let's end this!)

Everything happened in a second, using a special maneuver I designed, I jumped over the BB's charge while leaving my right arm behind, then I activated the purging protocol on the arm to make it look like it was cut off by the B.B.'s horn and finished my adding a crazy amount of rotation to my own Titan, to look like I lost control.

Boom! Crash!

--//--

I blanked out and when I woke up the show was already over.

The amount of G force I had to sustain in that last stunt was too much for me, making me lose conscience, and maybe that's why when I woke up my head was throbbing and I was feeling quite dizzy.

"Kyaaaa~~!!!!"

"Run!!"

"Nooo~~!!!"

"Stay together! Don't run you idiot!!!!"

"Mom!!!!"

"Save me!!!!"

As I took my time to recover, I started hearing screams from all around me, but feeling quite groggy I couldn't make sense of any of them.

"Huh??"

Opening my eyes I saw that Robert's Titan was nowhere to be found, instead there were wolves bigger than horses attacking Robert's friends and painting the floor red with their blood.

"What is going on??? Why are there wolves here!?"

Their truck was turned over and the cabin was completely destroyed, explaining why they didn't ran away. At this moment one of them started running toward my truck but he was intercepted by one of the wolves who wasted to time in tasting his guts.

"May!"

Remembering my own cousin should still be here I looked at our truck just to find out it was still okay, giving me quite a bit of relief.

"Good she is safe!"

"Gahh!!! I'm dying!!!"

"Heeeelp!"

"Shut the fuck up!!!"

"Fuck, this is no time to be looking around!"

Two of Robert's friends who had run off were already dead after being intercepted by the wolves.

Theodore and other 4 girls were taking this chance to retreat and hide inside gym but they were noticed by one of the wolves who slowly started walking toward them.

My Titan slowly got up but it was ignored by the five wolves half it's size who were more interested in the easy preys.

Turning on the Titan's speaker I screamed out loud to try to attract the wolves attention.

"Ahhh!!!!"

Sure enough the shitty plan worked and I got everybody's attention, but what was I supposed to do now? Only after screaming I remembered my only weapon was gone and I had yet to reattach my Titan's right arm.

I decided to charge at them. Even if I know I got no weapons, that does not mean the stupid wolves also know. Taking advantage of my Titan's size, maybe scaring them away was possible or at least this could buy some time so that Theodore and the girls could hide inside the gym.

"Ahh!!!"

Seeing me charge the wolves retreated a few steps, but instead of running away they recognized me as not a big threat and started to surround me.

"Oh fuck! What now?"

After having me surrounded, the wolves started jumping at me from all side. Each of their charges did some damage, their bite was strong enough to warp metal and their claws were also no joke, but of course I wouldn't let them destroy what I fought so hard to protect, so I did my best to dodge and counter whenever I could.

"Haaa~~!!!"

A well-aimed kick hit one of the wolves head as it charged at me. Another tried jumping at me from behind but I was able to get him by the neck and throw him to the ground. A third one shot at me and I tried to get him with my right arms, just to be reminded in the worst way possible that there was no right arm as it bit off my Titan's head.

"Damn you!!!!"

Giving it a not so amorous hug with my Titan's left arm I broke it's spine then stepped on the other's head.

Three were gone, two were left.

I bet they were quite confused right now as they should have never seen a creature still being alive after losing it's head. Luckily my Titan has multiple cameras so while I couldn't see all directions like before, I was still far from being blind.

Maybe I had underestimated the power of a Titan. A Titan was still a Titan, even if it was unarmed and had a missing arm. Against these 3m high wolves, it still showed plenty of potential to kill them. Most of my problems were because of the battle prior to it, most of it's armor was already destroyed so any damage done by the wolves now was enough to critically cripple the attacked area.

After a few seconds it seemed like the two come to a consensus, acting together to attack my legs, one from the front and the other from behind me.

"Damn! Keep away!"

I tried kicking one again but it was prepared to me and dodged easily while the other used this chance to give me a bite behind my Titan's knees. Luckily the legs are one of the strongest parts of the Titan, because they have to endure all the Titans weight and still have strength left to jump around, so it didn't succumb right away.

But I still had to act fast unless I wanted to lose a leg, so before recovering my balance from the missed kick,I turned off the balance system and make my Titan fall on it's butt right on top of the wolf biting it's leg. The whole experience was not the most pleasant but the squashy sound on the end and silence that followed confirmed my kill.

"One more to go..."

The last wolf still didn't give up and jumped over me, biting my last arm.

"Fuck off!!!!!!"

Turning on the thrusters on one side of my back I was able to flip the Titan's body over the wolf, but because the weight was distributed through it's whole back this was still not enough to kill it once and for all.

"Damn! How do I kill this bastard now??"

I tried moving my arm but the last bite from the wolf had damaged the left arm's electrical wiring, making it unable to move anymore, so all I could rely on were my damaged legs and back thrusters which were close to overheating due to the long match.

Turning on the back thrusters again at maximum power, I dragged the wolf below me using it as a skate-board to slide through the asphalt street in front of us.

The shitty mutt didn't make a sound but on my back cameras I could see a huge trail of blood being left behind.

Finally after circling around school twice it let got of my arm, making the Titan lose it's balance and roll forward three or four times before colliding on the gym.

"Ouch!"

Restarting the balance system again and I got up for one last round in case the wolf was not dead yet, but to my surprise this little slide had done the trick and half the wolf's head had been destroyed by the asphalt.

"Haaa.... Haaa... Haaa...."

My wheezing breath fogged the display in front of me.

My arm's muscles were aching and my legs were out of strength.

I looked around the different monitors to double check for any sign of life but discovered most of the cameras had stopped working after this last roll and only the front camera was still working, so I had no choice but slowly turning the Titan around to confirmed all wolfs were dead.

"Great! Its finally over! Somehow we did it! I almost can't believe it! Wohoo--"

BOOM!!!

"Oh no!!!"

Before I could celebrate my victory the wall on the other side of the school ground was destroyed, revealing a gigantic wolf ten times bigger than the ones I just fought. The monster was so big that it made my 5 meters high Titan feel small near it.

"Holly shit! You must be fucking kidding me!"

Unfortunately it wasn't a joke.

As the ground trembled and the sound of it's steps got louder and louder the gigantic wolf entered the school ground while dragging a broken Titan inside it's mouth.

The gigantic wolf looked around as if searching something and upon seeing it's children were all dead, spread around the field, it howled in pain and glared at me.

My Titan's right arm had been purged, it's left arm had lost functions, it's legs were so damaged I doubt it could run any longer, and as if all this was not enough, the energy reserves were one step from running out.

"Fucking damn it! It seems like this is it for me! If only I could go back in time..."

As the mother wolf got closer and closer my mind drifted to the memories of a few days ago, but my cousin's scream wakes me up to reality.

"This is not the time to regret the past! We are still alive, this battle isn't over! As long as we are alive, we have still a chance to survive!"