Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Once the rains had been stopped long enough that the ground started to stabilize and dry out enough for both the Hunters and everything else on the planet to start moving around, the Hunters called for a command meeting.

"We all know why we're here. We need a new plan for how to maintain stability around the Anomaly, and there are far too many options for any single Huntress to make the call on her own.

There are always a number of both offensive and defensive plans kept in reserve, so we can put some of them forward and implement changes to the defence strategy." The Senior Hunter who was making the group announcement declared.

"There is a reason that they were kept in reserve and never implemented. It's because they're crap plans and not worth using if we have any other options at all." One of the other women in the room countered.

Max could already tell that this was going to turn into a giant mess in about two minutes. None of the leaders wanted to admit they had put forth a genuinely bad idea, and none of them wanted fewer of their ideas used than one of their rivals.

That did not lead to cooperative efforts or peaceful negotiation even at the best of times, and this was not the best of times, as they were watching the Myceloid villages rebuilding.

With the unprecedented floods, they had taken heavy casualties, and they hadn't spawned many replacements yet, as far as Max could tell, but their villages were getting much more advanced as the new generation of smarter leaders took over.

"Might I make a suggestion? If the issue is who put the idea forward, we can do a silent vote. Everyone will put forth an idea of their choice. Then, without consulting each other, each leader will judge every idea on its own merits, and the ones with the best ratings will be considered in a second round by the group.

That way, we can get past the initial barriers of pride and reach some sort of consensus on the best way forward." Max suggested.

"And if that leads to a stalemate?" One of the Hunters asked.

"Then the parties with the dispute will solve it like proper and dignified ladies. With a bare-knuckle boxing match to the first fall."

Nico and most of the Hunters smiled at each other and shared a knowing nod.

"He's learning fast for a male. No wonder the human women consider their opinions." Someone in the back joked.

"He even found a truly vicious Champion to throw at problems that needed more than words. Commander Max's logic is rather surprisingly astute." Huntress Khan agreed.

"Maybe I should start trying to teach the male Hunters our ways." Max joked.

"Oh, please do. I really want to see them try." Huntress Khan agreed, sending the whole room into raucous laughter. Their men were half the women's size or even smaller. If they decided to get physical to assert their opinions, the women would just take it as foreplay, and he would end up ignored all over again, but with a much happier partner.

Their culture wasn't well suited to people who didn't stay in their lane.

Huntress Khan raised her voice to cut through the noise. "Alright, everyone, start preparing the idea that you have in mind for the next week. We will do this again later if we need to, but for this week, we will do it as Commander Max suggested. Ignore everything that you have in reserve right now; it will stay there unless you submit it again and it gets picked."

That silenced the laughter pretty quickly as they all got to work coming up with an idea. Nico was working on one as well, and Max was going to, but only after a few minutes when he had time to glean the best parts of everyone else's ideas from their minds and compile them into something of his own.

The ideas would be presented anonymously to the group, so nobody would know at first whose great idea it was. Assuming that they also thought it was a great idea.

The room worked in silence for the next few minutes, and then the Huntresses began to finalize their documents and send them to the data tablet that was being used as central storage.

Once all the submissions were in, Khan randomized the file names to make them harder to identify and then sent them all out to everyone in the room.

"When we average, we will drop the best and worst score from the rankings to eliminate the author and a rival who realized it was their plan." She informed the room, earning herself a few notable glares.

There were definitely plans to zero star the plans that they had heard from rival Huntresses before.

"Alright. Everyone, please check the idea ending in 001. We will rank that one first." Khan directed, taking charge of the meeting.

There was a moment of silence as everyone read through it, and then they all smiled and turned to Nico.

"I like this idea. It's unconventional but very appealing." One of the Huntresses managed through her laughter.

Nico's grand plan was to bring more Hunters and highly skilled Mecha Pilots in, then send a team to challenge every single Myceloid village on the Continent at the same time. Once they won the challenges, they would declare that they were in charge since they were the toughest, smartest and stabbiest ones in the world.

The way that Myceloid culture went, there was a good chance that they could end the whole conflict in a day, and then they would have a neverending string of challenges as the biggest of them decided that maybe their boss wasn't the toughest of them after all.

She had even worked out the logistics and odds for her presentation. Max had to admit it wasn't the dumbest thing that he was likely to hear in the next few hours. Far from it, actually. There were some genuinely bad ideas coming up.