Seeing as how he was another enemy and might potentially join the group attacking her, Cerise showed no mercy against Jack Huxley once she got into weapons range.

Ultimately, he was an opponent she would need to take down eventually if she wanted to win, so it only made more sense to hit him hard now and draw him and his ally into the battle that saw her at a three to one disadvantage.

'Now it's my turn.' Avery thought, a malicious grin on his face.

As he passed by, he showered Jack with a few volleys from his laser cannons.

This was not enough to pierce his ship's defenses, but his shields had now certainly taken a heavy beating.

However, Avery did not focus on Jack for long and shot past him.

"Four missiles inbound from the Stifur ship." Kasandra said, giving Avery a heads up.

As he had expected, Atlas had provided some cover fire for his temporary partner.

If Avery had stuck around to continue fighting, he would have quickly found himself being attacked on all sides from an explosive bombardment.

Except, his intention had never been to take Jack Huxley out right now. What he was doing was making the fight just a bit more chaotic so that he could break the deadlock between him and Atlas, and Liesel and Jack.

With four seeker missiles on his tail, Avery headed directly towards the test pilot that was currently ranked seventh.

Certainly, he did not have any qualms with them going after Cerise, but he needed her to have just a little less pressure on her right now if his strategy was to work.

At first they seemed caught off-guard by what Avery was doing.

He was just flying towards them without firing any of his weapons.

Eventually though, the rank seven test pilot noticed the missiles Atlas had fired that were trailing right behind the Dauntless.

'A little too late in realizing.' Avery thought as the ship he was charging towards opened fire.

The test pilot was pretty good despite not having any real combat experience. Probably around the level of a veteran three star mercenary, or a newly promoted four star. At least when it came to fighting. Their maneuvering was naturally fairly high level.

Still, this was the first time that they had ever seen someone leading along missiles fired from another vessel.

Honestly it was a dangerous and somewhat crazy tactic.

'They got three of them, but there's still one left.' Avery thought as he flew under the test pilot's ship with only about a meter of clearance.

A moment later, the missile hit the vessel that Avery had just passed by.

It had still been locked onto the Dauntless, since its targeting sensors were smart enough to distinguish between ships.

Nevertheless, Avery had gotten too close to the other vessel right before the missile had reached him. There had been no time for it to correct its course, and it crashed into the test pilot's craft and exploded.

'Looks like that was not quite enough to take him out, but his shields have certainly taken a heavy beating. And while they'll probably blame me for the most part, I bet that they'll also send some animosity Atlas' way. He is the one that fired that missile after all.'

Avery wore quite a sinister grin as he shot away and headed towards where the main fight was occurring.

Since Cerise had started attacking Jack Huxley, and Liesel had joined in as well, this had forced Atlas to get involved protecting his collaborator.

Obviously, rank four and rank eight who were already after Cerise tried to keep on her, but she was using her speed to dart around and avoid as much fire as possible.

This made Atlas an easier target, and he was proving to be a serious threat himself and not someone that could be ignored.

'Good, things are working out pretty well so far. Atlas had been forced to get involved and is taking some more hits, and Cerise might have a bit more breathing room, but her shields have already taken some damage and there's still a lot of focus on her.' Avery thought, pleased with the outcome of his plan.

Liesel was currently staying on the edge of the fight and taking shots only at Jack and Atlas.

Considering that she was only ranked fifth, no one was giving her much attention when the two biggest threats, Cerise and Atlas, were right in front of them. The two of them probably were the best in this competition, but that merely made them priority targets in this event.

Of course, most of the competitors soon understood what Avery's intention was, but there was not much that they could do about.

They were all enemies here, and at this point, trying to go after him would expose themselves to everyone else. Since it was impossible to cooperate, all they could do was keep fighting each other.

'Oh, looks like the friend I passed Atlas' gift onto is catching up.'

At the edge of his short-range radar, Avery saw a dot indicating another vessel closing in.

Naturally, the test pilot was less than ecstatic about having been hit by a missile.

Most small craft would have been destroyed or suffered debilitating damage from that one attack, though, the extremely high-quality models being used in this competition were all built to be able to take a couple of heavy hits.

"Honestly, his best play would have been to head to the edge of the designated combat field and try to recycle his shields. No one was going after him, so joining the fight like this because he's angry is foolhardy." Kasandra said scathingly.

"True, but this is better for us. I plan on trying to get him to target Atlas instead of us, and if that doesn't work, we can just take him out."

Truthfully, it was more fortunate for Avery that the test pilot wanted to get back at him and was chasing him down. He needed the fight to become more of a true free-for-all in order to bring Atlas down.

However, for now, Avery did not aim for his main target but focused on Jack instead.

Atlas had been drawn into this fight because his temporary teammate had come under heavy attack, and he needed to intervene.

While normally having additional forces would be helpful and it had initially prevented Avery and Liesel from attacking Atlas two on one, the man's partner was now serving as a shackle holding him back.

Jack Huxley was pretty good, and his piloting skills might have been a bit better than anyone else in the competition, but he was no fighter.

Against one opponent, he could shake them off, which is why Liesel had so much trouble taking him down. But against multiple, he was only able to avoid so many hits and was steadily having his defenses worn down.

'He probably already would have gone down if not for Atlas' support. That guy really is good.' Avery thought as he banked to the right as a spray of laser fire came his way.

Atlas's four laser blasters were each attached to turrets that could rotate around to cover nearly every direction.

He was simultaneously using all of them to constantly put as much pressure as possible on everyone else, while also liberally firing off missiles.

This took an immense amount of skill and showed why he was a man that had been able to become a six star mercenary and led an elite team composed of five and four star mercenaries.

As he approached, Avery made sure to line things up so that the test pilot chasing after him took some hits from Atlas' barrage that was aimed at him.

His goal was to get the two of them to fight it out, so he needed to give the other guy a reason to go after Atlas.

'Now time to make him dance a little.'

So far, Avery had not fired his plasma launchers once.

Their power was impeccable, but their effect range was not great.

Right now though, All Avery wanted to do was have Atlas move as he wanted. He was not actually expecting to hit.

Luckily, his strategy worked. Even with a defense focused vessel, Atlas could not just ignore the balls of burning hot plasma coming his way and was forced to avoid them.

Naturally, this saw Avery becoming the focus of most of the man's fire. Which he happily passed along to the person still pursing him from behind when he could.

"We've got Cerise coming in." Kasandra said.

Not wanting to unilaterally be used and become another pawn in Avery's game, Cerise had stopped darting around and was now charging in his direction.

With her ship's pulse lasers, she opened fire on the Dauntless and the test pilot behind him, who had been a part of the hunters trying to take her down not long ago.

"This isn't exactly what I wanted, but it's time to make our exit."

Avery pulled hard on the controls and whipped the Dauntless around and shot off towards where Liesel was.

He had attracted a bit too much attention and did not want to get pincered between three opponents.

Thankfully, Cerise decided to keep her focus on the test pilot since he had turned around to fight her, and Atlas just did not have the speed to keep up with Avery and was forced to stay and fight in the battle erupting around him while Jack remained in danger.