The Mech Touch

Three new expert pilots emerged from the ranks while an existing one lost her expert mech in the previous battle.

This meant that the Larkinson Clan needed to design four new expert mechs in order to meet the needs of all of its expert pilots.

Ves had opted to spend most of his available time preparing for the Dullahan Project and the Ghost Project, which meant that he was not entirely up to date on the other two expert mech projects.

Fortunately, Gloriana had taken charge of them. She finally presented her plans to the Larkinson Journeymen.

She began by projecting the images of the two pilots in question. "Not many of you must have heard of Venerable Kolak Glendale and Venerable Pedro Rodrigo. Both of them joined our clan shortly after our entry into the Red Ocean. While their backgrounds are completely different, they are both talented prospects that quickly bloomed in our ranks. They managed to advance to the rank of expert candidate after they have joined their chosen mech legions and have been preparing to undergo apotheosis ever since."

This explained why Ves had never really heard anything about Venerable Glendale or Venerable Rodrigo. He stopped paying attention to the expert candidates of the clan some time ago because they weren't strong or important enough to merit his time.

Of course, that was no longer the case for Glendale and Rodrigo. The lucky bastards managed to break through just a few years after they had become expert candidates. The speed in which they transcended into demigods indicated that they possessed a lot of talent, perhaps more than everyone else suspected!

Ves believed that this was not the only factor behind their amazing success. He quickly browsed through their records and noted that their performance before their entry into the Larkinson Clan was merely good rather than great.

Something about the Larkinson Clan must have activated their potential. Whether it was living mechs or the close brotherhood among the Larkinsons, Ves was glad to see that his subordinates were doing well in his organization.

After explaining what the two new expert pilots had in common, Gloriana put the spotlight onto the Avatar expert pilot first.

"Venerable Kolak Glendale is a melee mech specialist that has piloted numerous different Avatar mech models over the years. He has spent time in the cockpit of the Bright Warrior, the Redaxe and the Lucid Rage. In the end, he has settled on the Redaxe as his mech of choice. He has already told me that he wishes to pilot an expert axeman mech now that he has broken through."

Gloriana projected a draft design after this. The expert mech depicted in the image shared a lot of resemblances to the Redaxe.

It wasn't wrong to describe it as the expert mech interpretation of the Redaxe design!

"As you can see, the Greenaxe Project shares many elements with our existing axeman mech design. This is by request as Venerable Glendale has already developed a preference for the Redaxe's mech configuration. He wants to pilot an expert mech that is able to wield a large and heavy axe that is good at breaking shields and armor."

This was immediately clear due to the large and imposing weapon in the hands of the Greenaxe Project. The giant axe possessed a green edge in line with its codename, but Ves believed that this would probably disappear in time because it didn't look that good.

"Is there anything special about the Greenaxe Project?" Ves curiously asked. "I don't see any obvious features that make it special."

"The Greenaxe Project doesn't have too many gimmicks, Ves. It is a solid expert mech that features solid performance in as many aspects as possible. It features strong attack power, respectable defensive capabilities and enough mobility to keep up with most of its opponents. The axe is the most important element of this design. It goes without saying that it will be a transphasic weapon, but I am still exploring a number of ideas."

The design of the axe was indeed crucial to the future success of the Greenaxe Project.

There were lots of interesting possibilities available to the Larkinson Clan. While Gloriana could opt to go for a relatively standard transphasic axe, Ves had a feeling that his wife preferred to go for a more advanced system in order to make her work special.

Ves was more interested in the spiritual configuration rather than the physical configuration of the Greenaxe Project, though.

After Gloriana answered a bunch of questions,  Ves brought up the topic that he cared about the most.

"Did you ask Venerable Glendale what style of living mech he prefers for his future machine?"

"I did. He initially wanted to pilot the same sort of living mech as most of our expert pilots, but I managed to change his mind." His wife smugly replied.

"Huh?"

"I simply pointed out that Patriarch Reginald Cross has chosen to go for the second skin style of living mechs. Combined with the success of other expert mechs in this style such as the C-Man and the Blade Chaser Mark II, Venerable Glendale has come to embrace the opportunity to pilot an expert mech that he will be able to control to an unprecedented degree."

"I… see…"

Ves was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to develop another powerful new expert mech, but he didn't linger over this issue.

To be honest, he was curious to see whether Gloriana could get anywhere with her alternative to his classical living mechs. Tracking the growth and development of second skin style living mechs would provide Ves with plenty of understanding of what they were doing right.

Ves already had plans to turn the Dullahan Project and the Ghost Project into powerful living mechs in line with his own principles. There was no urgent need for him to apply his work onto additional expert mech designs.

"Alright." He eventually said. "If Venerable Glendale truly prefers to go for your brand of living mechs, then that is his choice. I just hope he knows what he's missing out on. It is impossible to turn the Greenaxe Project into a classical living mech after it is completed."

"You don't need to worry about that, Ves." She said. "Let's move on to the next and last expert mech design project."

The projections that depicted Venerable Glendale and the draft of the Greenaxe Project disappeared.

"Venerable Pedro Rodrigo is a Flagrant Vandal who hasn't tried out as many mechs as the previous expert pilot. Instead, he settled on the Stingripper as soon as he had the chance."

That was fairly notable. The most popular mech model of the Flagrant Vandals was the Ferocious Piranha. The Mark III version of the light skirmisher model was highly refined and induced a lot of mental pressure onto enemies.

It was a great machine for mech pilots who admired Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson and wanted to dominate the battlefield by relying on a combination of speed, daring and opportunism.

The Stingripper packed a lot less punch in comparison. Instead of diving in to stab a pair of daggers at the weak points of an enemy target, it maintained its distance and pelted its enemies with a luminar crystal submachine gun.

The weapon was designed to be light and easy to use at relatively closer ranges. Though the Design Department had updated the Stingripper mech line with a Mark II version not too long ago, the overall performance characteristics hadn't changed all that much. The submachine gun might be effective against other light mechs, but its caliber and punch were a bit inadequate against armored opponents.

Ves did not believe that this would be any different with an expert mech interpretation of the Stingripper design.

Gloriana confirmed his guess with her words. She activated a projection that displayed her draft for a new expert harasser mech.

"The Bloodripper Project is directly based on our earlier Stingripper design. Just like the mech that Venerable Pedro Rodrigo has piloted in the past, the Bloodripper is designed to defeat its opponents by harassing them from a distance."

Just as with the Stingripper, the Bloodripper Project clearly relied on Kalo, the Ghost Chameleon, to manipulate enemy perception into thinking it was positioned elsewhere, thereby causing a lot of shots fired in its direction to miss.

This sounded similar to the Dark Zephyr's Untouchable resonating ability, but the underlying mechanisms were substantially different.

Ves already looked forward to figuring out how he could best make the Bloodripper Project's misdirection ability effective against hostile expert pilots.

The Bloodripper Project simply wouldn't be a good harasser mech if it did not possess a good solution against enemy ranged attacks.

This was because enemy expert ranged mechs were generally incredibly precise and accurate!

The difficulty of fooling the predictive aim of powerful expert pilots such as Venerable Davia Stark and Venerable Kasia Rezkin was far too high!

The only way for a relatively fragile expert mech like the Bloodripper Project to survive against these kinds of threats was to rely on another solution!

Ves wondered whether it was enough to employ a design spirit or whether he needed to come up with a stronger solution.

In any case, there were plenty of other interesting elements that caused the Bloodripper Project to stand out compared to its parent mech.

"Interesting." He rubbed his smooth-shaven chin as he spotted additional details that were not derived from the original Stingripper design. "I can see that you have added a few additional elements to this expert mech. It is not as simple as it looks."

Gloriana smiled. "That is true. It is fine for the Greenaxe Project to copy the template of the Redaxe design because the large axe and adequate armor system already makes the expert axeman mech useful in battle. It is a different story for the Bloodripper Project. Its weapon will still remain fairly weak, which is not good news when most expert mechs have powerful resonance shields and armor."

"In other words, it will take too long for the Bloodripper Project to defeat any serious opponent because it lacks the punch to wear down defenses quickly." Ves said.

"Mhmm. This is why I have attempted to alter the mech concept and help provide it with additional power without compromising its mobility to a serious degree." Gloriana explained. "It is still crucial for the Bloodripper Project to be able to outrun all but the fastest light mechs. It does not fare well in melee combat at all and its armor is too light to sustain much damage."

Of course, this was just a relative description. Even the lightest expert mechs could still resist a lot more damage than a standard heavy mech.

The Bloodripper Project had little to fear if it was being bombarded by an enemy ranged mech unit. It could rely on its light but adequate armor to resist hits while utilizing its extremely strong evasion characteristics to mitigate the remaining damage.

"So how have you chosen to amplify the attack power of this new Bloodripper Project without slowing it down?" Ves curiously asked. "Don't tell me you plan to equip it with grenades."

"It worked for the Dark Zephyr, did it not? A grenade is the logical answer to increasing the offensive power of the Bloodripper Project. I am already exploring different kinds of powerful transphasic grenades that can be a good fit with Venerable Rodrigo's future expert mech. While I don't plan to equip it with too many grenades, I want to make sure it possesses a powerful finishing option to ensure it is able to take down its targets by itself."

Ves could understand this argument. It was the same one he used to equip the Dark Zephyr with grenades.

There was one big issue, though.

"Grenades make sense for the Dark Zephyr because it generally comes close enough to toss its payloads at enemy positions. The same does not necessarily apply to this Bloodripper Project. What if it is too far away? It will have to get closer in order to make effective use of the grenade, but that makes the expert harasser mech vulnerable to retaliation."

"That is why I intend to equip the Bloodripper Project with a small grenade launcher." Gloriana replied. "I haven't decided how I want to add this weapon module to this design, but it will definitely play an important role once the design is finished."