Team Reforged; Power and Overpower
Copyright© 2026 by FozzieBare
Chapter 13: Mark I Eyeball
JojoBeasts knew Furiosa. Everyone knew Furiosa. You could argue about whether Amy Williamson was the best pilot in semi-professional WarMAC. People did. Often. Loudly. You could argue about whether Furiosa was the best machine. People did that, too.
What nobody could reasonably argue was that the combination of Amy Williamson and Furiosa had become one of the most recognizable things in the sport. The silhouette alone was enough: compact, aggressive, built to close and built to hurt. The JojoBeasts had prepared for it. They had prepared for Amy.
They had prepared for Adrian, too. And for Reforged’s tendency to treat every convention in WarMAC as a personal challenge. Then the first Reforged machine entered the Duel Round. Furiosa. The crowd reacted immediately, and one of the announcers laughed.
“No surprise there.”
The pilot feed appeared. The laughter stopped.
“That isn’t Amy.”
Adrian settled into the controls.
“No.”
A pause.
“That’s Adrian.”
His Furiosa was not Amy’s Furiosa. Not internally. The silhouette was close enough to be effectively identical at match distance, but the weapons, balance, and armor distribution were different. Adrian had built this one around himself, with more options and more ways to change what the opponent thought he wanted.
Less commitment to any one range. Furiosa as interpreted by Adrian. The first JojoBeasts pilot came in cautiously, and Adrian could almost feel the hesitation. The pilot knew the shape but didn’t know the machine. That was the point. Adrian pressured, backed away, threatened close range, then declined it.
He showed one weapon and used another. The JojoBeasts pilot spent the first minute learning what this Furiosa meant. By the third minute, he mostly understood. By the fourth, he was dead. Adrian had taken damage, enough to matter. The second JojoBeasts pilot entered, and now they had information. Adrian could see it immediately.
Different approach. Better spacing. Less respect for the threat he’d implied in the first duel. Good. They had learned. Adrian smiled. Then died. Not immediately. He made the second pilot work for it, stripping armor, forcing heat, and opening one side before his Furiosa finally went down. The crowd cheered.
JojoBeasts had killed Furiosa. Adrian leaned back from the controls. The next Reforged WarMAC moved into the arena. Same silhouette. The announcer stopped.
“Oh.”
Another Furiosa. Pilot feed. Reuben. The other announcer began laughing.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s Reuben.”
Reuben’s Furiosa moved nothing like Adrian’s. It went forward. JojoBeasts had just spent an entire duel learning that the silhouette didn’t necessarily mean immediate commitment. Reuben committed immediately. Hard. His build was heavier, less subtle, and more willing to accept damage in exchange for position.
The second JojoBeasts pilot, already damaged by Adrian, tried to establish space. Reuben refused to allow it. Thirty-eight seconds later, the pilot was gone. JojoBeasts’ third entered. Reuben attacked. The new pilot was ready. He gave Reuben the damage trade Reuben wanted. Then made sure he won it.
Reuben went down. The JojoBeasts had killed Furiosa again. The doors opened. Furiosa walked out. The first announcer went silent.
The second said:
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Pilot feed. Tex. The audience had begun to understand, and so had JojoBeasts. That didn’t help. Tex’s version was lighter, cleaner, more precise. Where Reuben had forced the fight and Adrian had manipulated it, Tex waited. JojoBeasts’ third pilot had prepared for pressure. Tex gave him patience.
The duel stretched. For the first time, the crowd settled. Then Tex found a mistake. One shot. Turn. Second shot. Kill. JojoBeasts pilot number three disappeared. Their fourth pilot entered. Tex fought him for nearly five minutes. Damaged him badly. Then died. The scoreboard did not tell the story.
Not yet. The audience did. The noise changed. JojoBeasts had now killed Furiosa three times. Three different pilots. Three different builds. Three different fighting styles. And each time the next machine had walked out wearing the same face. The fourth JojoBeasts pilot waited. The Reforged doors opened.
Furiosa appeared. Again. The reaction began as laughter. Then the pilot feed came up. Amy Williamson. The laughter became a roar.
One announcer said:
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“That one’s her.”
The real Furiosa moved forward. Not because the others had been fake. They had not. Every one had been a legitimate machine. Every one dangerous. But this one belonged to Amy. JojoBeasts had spent three fights learning contradictory lessons about the same silhouette. Adrian had taught them caution.
Reuben had taught them violence. Tex had taught them patience. Now Amy arrived carrying all the assumptions they had accumulated and none of the obligation to follow them. The fourth JojoBeasts pilot hesitated. Only briefly. At this level, briefly was enough. Amy closed. The pilot reacted to the range.
Correctly. Against Reuben. Not against Amy. Furiosa shifted. Snub-nose particle cannon fire tore armor away. The JojoBeasts pilot tried to disengage. Amy followed. Kill. Their fifth and final duelist entered. Fresh. Amy was not. The fight lasted. It was good. Very good. The JojoBeasts pilot refused to chase.
Refused to panic. Made Amy work. Furiosa lost armor. One side turned orange. Amy’s heat climbed. Adrian watched from the team area.
“Don’t get stupid.”
Amy could not hear him. Reuben did.
“She will.”
“Probably.”
“She knows better.”
“Definitely.”
“Will that stop her?”
“No.”
Amy pushed. The JojoBeasts pilot expected it. This time, Amy stopped before the trap. The opponent had prepared for Amy’s aggression. Amy had prepared for them to prepare for it. She reversed. Forced the JojoBeasts machine to choose between following and surrendering range. It followed.
Furiosa turned. Fire. The enemy staggered. Amy hit again. The machine fell. For several seconds, the crowd was simply noise. JojoBeasts had exhausted all five duelists. Reforged still had Amy. And one pilot who had never entered. The scoreboard changed.
DUEL ROUND
REFORGED 2
JOJOBEASTS 0
The announcer exhaled.
“That was a horror movie.”
His partner laughed.
“How so?”
“Every time JojoBeasts killed Furiosa, another Furiosa came hunting them.”
On the Reforged side, Adrian met Amy as she came out.
“How was it?”
She took the water bottle he offered.
“Weird.”
“Weird?”
“I kept thinking they’d figured out what Furiosa does.”
Adrian smiled.
“They did.”
Amy drank.
“You’re irritating.”
“Thank you.”
JojoBeasts expected Cass. That was obvious. Reforged had made Cass increasingly synonymous with the first 4v4. Mines, terrain, DragonFire, whatever fresh environmental felony she’d decided to commit that week. The JojoBeasts lineup reflected it: mobility, spacing, and ways to deny the battlefield control Cass liked.
The Reforged lineup appeared. Cass was not in it. Elias was. Then the machines loaded. WarMaster. WarMaster. WarMaster. WarMaster. One announcer stared at the display. Then began laughing.
“Oh, come on.”
His partner was already laughing too.
“Four WarMasters.”
“I think I understand what they’re doing now.”
“Please explain it to me.”
The four identical silhouettes entered the map. The announcer took a breath.
“If this fight were a cereal, it’d be Oops! All WarMasters!”
The audience loved it. JojoBeasts probably did not. Because they had seen what five WarMasters had done to Megaminds. They knew Operation Shell Game. They knew some WarMasters carried missiles. Some carried snub-nose particle cannons. Some were built to take punishment. They knew Adrian liked to disguise roles inside familiar shapes.
So they began identifying. Front-left. Probably brawler. Rear-right. Missiles. Center. Likely armored command machine. Fourth?
Unknown. That one moved conservatively. Support. Maybe. Elias watched them work. He smiled.
“Ready?”
Becky answered. “Yes.”
The WarMaster JojoBeasts had classified as support activated electronic warfare. Their sensor picture degraded instantly.
One announcer shouted:
“That’s Becky!”
“In a WarMaster?”
“Apparently!”
JojoBeasts adjusted. Immediately. Correctly. They marked Becky. Shifted pressure toward her. Elias had been waiting. The other three WarMasters moved. One opened fire from range. Missiles. Another closed. Snub-nose particle cannon. The machine JojoBeasts had classified as the likely brawler fell back and began supporting.
The one they thought was missiles pushed forward. Every time JojoBeasts established an identity, Reforged changed the visible role. Not because the machines magically changed weapons. Because they moved. Presented differently. Used secondary systems. Swapped who occupied the important space.
JojoBeasts kept having to verify. That was the attack. Not armor. Not damage. Verification. Thirty seconds ago, that WarMaster had been safe to approach. Was it still? That one had been firing missiles. Was it the same one? Was Becky still rear-right? Had the snub build crossed behind Elias?
JojoBeasts was not confused in the sense of having no idea what was happening. That would have been easier. They understood. Then had to understand again. And again. And again. The announcers got it.
“This isn’t about one surprise.”
“No.”
“Reforged is forcing JojoBeasts to continuously re-confirm information they should already know.”
“Normally battlefield knowledge accumulates.”
“Exactly.”
“You identify the missile boat. You identify the EW platform. You identify the close-range build. Then you use that information.”
“With Reforged?”
“You identify it again.”
Becky jammed. Elias pushed. The missile WarMaster became the front machine. JojoBeasts reacted toward it. The snub build crossed through. Particle cannon fire hit. One JojoBeast lost armor. The fight continued. JojoBeasts stayed disciplined. They even created a good isolation attempt on Becky.
Elias broke it. Then used the rescue to create a two-on-one elsewhere. The first JojoBeasts machine went down. After that, the round tilted. Not collapsed. JojoBeasts made Reforged earn every meter. But once behind, every attempt to recover required another round of identification. Another verification.
Another half-second. Reforged kept taking the half-seconds. The last kill came after a clean missile strike into a machine already opened by the snub build. The scoreboard changed.
REFORGED 4
JOJOBEASTS 0
The announcer looked at his partner.
“They prepared for Cass.”
“They got Elias.”
“They prepared for WarMasters.”
“They got four different definitions of WarMaster.”
A pause.
“This is not a match plan.”
“What is it?”
“Psychological vandalism.”
The second 4v4 did not begin on time. Not exactly. Nothing illegal happened. That was important. JojoBeasts used every second they were entitled to. Every one. Lineup confirmation reached nearly the deadline. Then one player shifted in his seat. A control rig cable came loose. Kelto paused the setup.
A technician approached.
“What happened?”
“Cable came out.”
The technician looked at the cable. Then the player. Then the cable.
“Came out.”
“Yep.”
“By itself?”
The JojoBeasts pilot looked innocent.
“Apparently.”
The technician stared for another second. Then reseated it. Rules were rules. Input test. Calibration. Verification. More time. Adrian watched from the Reforged side. Amy leaned toward him.
“They’re delaying.”
“Yep.”
“Can they?”
“Everything they’ve done so far.”
“Annoying.”
“Smart.”
Amy looked at him.
“Smart?”
“They figured out what we’re doing.”
Adrian watched the JojoBeasts players talking. Not frantically. Deliberately. Resetting.
“They want their heads back.”
The broadcast noticed too.
“JojoBeasts is slowing this down.”
“I don’t blame them.”
“Neither do I. Reforged has spent two rounds making them question everything they see.”
“And JojoBeasts wants five minutes where nothing shaped like a Furiosa or WarMaster is lying to them.”
Finally, Kelto signaled readiness. The teams locked. JojoBeasts looked calmer. Adrian could see it even through the player cameras. Good. They had recovered, which meant Reforged would have to work for the next two points. Reuben had planned the second 4v4 before Finals Day. Cass normally commanded one of the four-person teams, but this wasn’t a match for her mines and DragonFire. It was about scout movement, EW timing, and four pilots who could keep one another straight while everyone else’s electronics went crazy. Reuben had volunteered to run it. Adrian had given him the job.
When Reuben proposed the idea, Adrian’s first response had been:
“We might lose.”
Reuben had nodded as if Adrian had just pointed out that water was wet.
“Yep.”
“You’re okay with that?”
“Ask me after the 6v6. If they’re still hearing us in their sleep, I’ll consider it progress.”
Adrian had approved it. Mostly because Reuben was right. The two points mattered, but what the round might do to JojoBeasts mattered, too. Reuben wasn’t promising a victory or pretending the scouts could outfight four heavier machines. He was promising to give the opponents more things to worry about than they’d ever wanted. Now the lineup appeared: four scout WarMACs. There was a delay from the announcers, not because they didn’t recognize the chassis, but because they were waiting for something else to appear.
Nothing did. Four scouts. Small, fast, and lightly armored. Each carried one large cannon and almost everything Reforged could reasonably stuff into a WarMAC labeled electronic warfare. The four pilots had rehearsed short, overlapping EW bursts, with enough recovery time to keep the cycle going. They couldn’t simply hold down a button and hope for the best. Reuben would have to keep them moving, pairing their guns on the same exposed armor while the other team tried to find them. The announcer sighed.
“What now?”
The round started. Reuben keyed his microphone.
“Okay, scout squad. One at a time, just like practice. First one, make their headphones regret being invented.”
The first scout fired its EW package. JojoBeasts’ sensor picture collapsed. Their headsets filled with electronic noise. Not total silence. Worse. Interference, screeching, corrupted audio, bad ranging, unreliable targeting. The burst lasted only briefly. That was one reason Reforged had been able to fit it.
Short duration. Fast recharge. JojoBeasts endured it. The interference stopped, but Reuben was already watching the next pilot’s readiness indicator.
Before they could properly reacquire, he called out:
“Two, you’re up. Keep the headache going.”
The second scout activated. Screech. The JojoBeasts formation slowed. Reuben called the third, then the fourth. By the time the fourth ended, the first was approaching readiness again. The announcer stared.
“They’re rotating the electronic warfare.”
“Yes.”
“So JojoBeasts gets what, a few seconds of clean systems between cycles?”
“Sometimes.”
“This is awful.”
“Professionally speaking?”
“Personally.”
The first cycle began again. JojoBeasts tried to communicate.
“LEFT!”
“What?”
“LEFT!”
“My left?”
“The scout!”
“WHICH SCOUT?”
Screeching filled the captured comm feed.
On Reforged’s channel, Reuben kept the instructions short. There was no point building a wonderful, complicated battle plan if nobody could finish a sentence before the next burst.
“I can see one.”
“Me too.”
“Right side armor.”
“Same target?”
“Same target.”
The scouts fired. Two large cannon rounds hit nearly the same point. The first stripped armor. The second punched into what the first had opened. The JojoBeasts WarMAC exploded. For one second, nobody on Reforged said anything. Reuben stared at his targeting display. The plan was supposed to make the next round easier. He hadn’t entirely expected it to start working this well.
Then:
“WE GOT ONE!”
Reuben started laughing. Someone else joined him.
“How?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
“Do it again! And remember, same armor panel. We’re not trying to redecorate the whole thing!”
Another EW cycle activated. One of the Reforged pilots was laughing hard enough that his tactical call came out broken.
“I can’t see anything!”
Reuben answered:
“Neither can they! That’s the beauty of it!”
That made it worse. All four were laughing now. Reuben had to remind himself to watch their spacing and EW timers instead of the damage numbers. Not because the match was unimportant, but because it was important, and this was completely ridiculous. JojoBeasts had the opposite reaction. Their comms became louder, not merely from emotion. They had to shout. Their headphones were full of noise.
Every instruction sounded urgent because every instruction had to be yelled.
“MOVE RIGHT!”
“WHAT?”
“RIGHT!”
“CAN’T SEE!”
“USE VISUAL!”
“WHERE?”
“JUST FIND ONE!”
The EW stopped. For five seconds. Then resumed.
One JojoBeasts player finally shouted:
“FUCK THIS.”
The captain answered:
“What?”
“FIND A BASTARD. KILL IT.”
Silence in the static.
Then:
“YES.”
The tactical sophistication of one of the best teams in the Summer Tournament collapsed into a simple principle. Find scout. Kill scout. When there were no scouts left, they would be able to hear each other again. It worked. In one sense. JojoBeasts stopped trying to preserve formation.
They hunted. Reuben had been hoping they might. He split his four scouts into pairs, close enough to support one another but far enough apart that a single enemy couldn’t easily catch both. One would act as bait while its partner lined up a cannon shot on exactly the same armor location. Two guns weren’t much against a heavy WarMAC. Two guns hitting one damaged spot could be.
One JojoBeast chased. A scout fled. The pursuer gained. Almost in range. The fleeing scout turned sharply. Its partner appeared.
“Left torso.”
“See it.”
“Fire.”
Boom. Boom. The first shot tore armor. The second went through. The JojoBeasts machine survived. Barely. It tried to retreat. EW screamed again. Reforged’s other pair was already working another target.
“Mine’s chasing.”
“Bring him.”
“Coming.”
“I see him.”
“Right side.”
“Right side.”
Boom. Boom. Reuben laughed again, but he checked both pairs’ spacing before allowing himself to enjoy it. The announcers sounded appalled.
“This is not a professional tactic.”
“No.”
“This is a children’s slapstick cartoon.”
Another scout disappeared behind terrain. A JojoBeast chased it.
“It’s whack-a-mole.”
A second scout appeared and fired. The announcer paused.
“Except the moles shoot back.”
His partner laughed despite himself.
“That’s exactly what this is.”
“They’re popping out of cover, screaming into JojoBeasts’ electronics, and shooting them in pairs.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I hate it.”
“You’re laughing.”
“I can hate it and enjoy it at the same time.”
The JojoBeasts caught one of the scouts. Heavy weapons fire hammered it. It staggered, looking like it was about to fall. They celebrated as if they’d won the tournament.
“GOT ONE!”
Reforged would hear that later, through the broadcast delay. At the time, all they knew was that one of their machines had been heavily wounded. Then the JojoBeasts pilot’s voice came back over their team comms.
“No joy. He slipped back into the trees. Hurt. Badly. Not dead yet.”
Reuben checked the wounded scout’s status. Its armor was torn open, and one leg actuator was failing. But it was moving, and its cannon still worked. He could have ordered it to fight alone. Instead he brought its partner closer so nobody would be left as an easy target.
“Four left. Nobody gets heroic on me. We still need all four guns.”
The wounded scout limped back toward its partner. It was slower now, but it could still fire. The scouts reorganized, keeping their pairs close enough to cover one another. JojoBeasts kept hunting. Another double shot, same armor location, and this time the target went down. Two JojoBeasts left. Four Reforged scouts. The JojoBeasts captain had enough.
He called them together. The two surviving machines moved into a clearing. Stopped. Weapons ready.
“Enough.”
His teammate answered.
“What?”
“We stand here.”
The captain’s voice was hoarse from shouting.
“They pop out, we shoot them.”
It was sensible. Finally. No chasing. No bait. No allowing Reforged to split them. Force the scouts to enter open ground. Shoot them. The EW cycled. The JojoBeasts waited. A scout appeared at range. They fired. Missed. It vanished. Another appeared. Long cannon shot. Missed. The JojoBeasts stayed.
The referee warning appeared.
PASSIVITY WARNING
The arena erupted in laughter. The announcer almost choked.
“Oh, no.”
His partner saw it.
“No.”
“They’ve been tagged for passivity.”
“I’m sorry.”
The first announcer was laughing helplessly.
“This is cruel.”
JojoBeasts saw it.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
“We’re being attacked!”
“Not enough!”
“They’re HIDING!”
“I KNOW!”
On Reforged comms, someone noticed.
“They got tagged.”
“For what?”
“Passivity.”
There was silence. Then Reuben started laughing, and everyone joined him.
“Oh my God. We actually got them warned for standing still.”
“Guys.”
More laughter.
“Guys, stop laughing. We still have to win this thing.”
Nobody did. Reuben wasn’t entirely exempt from his own order.
“Seriously. We still have to shoot them.”
“I’M TRYING.”
The announcer recovered enough to speak.
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