What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

Logically the series of events made sense. Bolt really didn't want to actually try to decipher it all. It made his head hurt. The stupidity involved was so endemic that he wanted to scream.

"So, you saved these kids on your infiltration job, attempted to run away, and ended up with the local resistance?" Bolt summarized the issue.

"Correct." Venerable Willow confirmed.

The woman had seen far better days. Truthfully Bolt wasn't even sure how she was alive at the moment. Fully half her body was gone. She had a singular functional hand, and had to be hooked up into several devices because she was missing most of what was needed to digest food. Fixing this was possible with their technology, but it'd take months. Months that she didn't seem to have.

"Several radical Hexxer groups have a tendency to kill the male side of the population in various types of purges. They're usually harshly punished for it, but it's far more consistent than the upper echelons like." The woman seemed serene despite her injuries. "Rescuing them was the correct thing to do. It was easy actually. It's one of the larger dividing points between many factions inside the nation."

"But that broke your cover and caused the officials on the Friday side to deny help." Bolt filled in.

"It helped that the result of my escape did this." Willow indicated her body with her one good hand.

He suspected that there were other factors too. Experts were valued. Willow, with her specialty in stealth related actions, was probably one of the most valuable people in their lineup. Her getting cut off like that and forced to rely on local and unreliable help smacked of politics.

"They're good children." The woman commented into the silence. "Keep them safe. Don't blame the theft on them or the others either. Some people thought a mech would make me feel better."

"You've not piloted in awhile." Bolt observed before nodding and getting to his feet as he made a decision. "All right, I'll get the mech ready for you."

Willow gave a soft smile. "Like I told them, that won't help me. I vowed to serve the Friday Coalition. With no use for me, this is not the worst fate."

The designer flicked her forehead. As she stared at him in consternation he did it again. "No. Bad cat."

"Cat?" The expert repeated with bemusement.

"Bad cat." Bolt repeated with a nod. "No curling up in the shadows to die." He pulled out his comm. "Lilly, talk some sense into the woman giving up if you would? I'm getting Cheshire ready for her."

All teasing aside, this was an issue known to the MTA that he wanted to prevent. In the more restricted briefings there was information on various afflictions experts could have. One of them fit here. When experts suffered a severe mental hit related to how they'd ascended they tended to wither and die. If Bolt was right, Willow had devoted her life to the Friday Coalition, and them cutting her off had caused a fatal and poisonous blow. The physical side could be repaired. The mental side couldn't.

Really this was a bad situation all over. Taking the local resistance force, Willow's supporting staff, and the ship crew into custody was a bit of a problem in many respects if it got out. They couldn't cut anyone loose right now either. The resistance force could probably be left once they were ready to leave, but the rest would cause trouble or be in trouble if they left them behind.

Getting Willow up and running was therefore a mix of altruistic and selfish reasons. If they could get her active then her relations with all the involved groups would smooth things over. The word if was holding a lot of weight though. The restricted information didn't really have official ways of helping someone with a broken will. It was a psychological issue that required a quick and precise evaluation and a substitute reason for the expert to pick up. The latter was highly dependent on circumstances, and also had to be done carefully, because experts were not people that responded well to manipulation.

Lilly had an advantage in this case that made him believe they could do it. She could read people and was genuine. Bolt was setting up their other advantage. Cheshire wasn't a combat mech, but she was a very special mech in a spiritual sense. She was serene in a way no other mechs were. The combination of the two should stabilize Willow and get her mending instead of fatalistically dying.

In a way the next few hours resembled someone getting physical therapy. They had to carefully get Willow into the cockpit, and then practically beg her to take control of Cheshire before taking her out. They stepped out into the open fields of one of the many empty areas on the planet and watched as she took a few steps.

"I fail to see the point here." The woman said with good humor as Cheshire moved, if no real enthusiasm.

"Really, you haven't piloted in over a year and you say that?" Lilly asked back with an audible eye roll. Morning Star picked up a rock and threw it her way.

Willow dodged reflexively. "Rocks, really?"

"You're so rusty that I could kill you with anything better." The other woman shot back and threw another rock.

A delicate sniff followed and Cheshire disappeared from sight. Bolt stifled a small chuckle from his observation position. He'd put a few monitoring tools in the mech before doing this just in case, but Lilly didn't have access to them. Not that she really needed them.

"Gentle." That's was Lilly's response as she flapped Morning Star's wings slightly. "I didn't think I'd ever see a gentle expert, but here we are. Yer really soft."

"That sort of description is a first." Willow replied placidly as Cheshire prowled around.

"Yep. Met a lotta experts by now. Naoto thinks of himself as a blade, and he's at peace with that. Pup is a guard dog. You? A quiet ghost. How'd you ascend?"

"I'd rather not speak of it."

Bolt glanced at the battlefield, if you could call it that. Cheshire had been quite before, but as time passed she was getting even quieter. The little mech wasn't an expert mech, but Willow was certainly making it seem like it. It was even making the monitoring tools slightly glitchy.

"Since the goal here is to get you moving I think I'm going to take it up a notch." Lilly had Morning Star manifest a dozen small stars. "These won't do much to anything, but let's play tag with em." She flicked one through the air.

Willow was forced to dodge. Completely invisible, obscured from all the senses, she was still forced to dodge. Bolt truthfully had no idea how Lilly was seeing her at first. After a few movements he figured out that she was watching the ground. No matter how invisible and padded the mech was, there was still going to be a bit of a shift.

That was until there wasn't. Lilly paused when it happened and made a guess. "Using the boosters? That's not gonna last forever."

"Please don't confuse me with an amateur Venerable Silica." Willow responded softly.

"Oh, is that a hint of will?" The other expert immediately said with cheer.

"Professional pride." Willow muttered with a hint of emotion.

Truthfully Bolt was quite impressed. Seeing the trick didn't make it any less impressive. Cheshire was stepping on solid ground and places she'd already flattened to keep her movements from being seen while boosting periodically to get from point to point. It was a cat playing hopscotch invisibly and silently. The little mech had managed to do all of this and approach Lilly.

"Ya don't gotta say it, but I think yer getting a bit back into it." Lilly said after a few seconds.

Willows response was simple. "Tag." Cheshire appeared with a paw on Morning Star's back leg.

"Hah!" Bolt's wife said with a laugh. "Ok, that tears it. Bolt do your magic and Cheshire. Willow's perfect for that."

Bolt exhaled loud enough that the mic probably caught it. "Ya know that'd be a bit pointless if Willow hasn't decided to live yet." He pointed out. "And magic, really?"

"Don't care." Lilly responded. "I want ta see her in something special even if she dies. Someone like this deserves to be remembered at her peak."

"I am still here and on the public channel you know." The woman they were speaking of reminded them.

"Like that matters." Lilly said flippantly.

Bolt really sympathized with Willow's long sigh there. He really did.

 

[Luckless21]

Everyone here got a cat distributed, Willow got the Cheshire and The Rats got Willow.

 

[eersc]

Was she the expert from the arboreal planet? Or was that someone else.

 

[lurkingkraken]

Willow gave a soft smile. "Like I told them, that won't help me. I vowed to serve the Friday Coalition. With no use for me, this is not the worst fate."

Click to shrink...

You can tell how much the rag-tag group of kids she saved loves her that they would dare steal a mech to try and make her feel better.

That's a good sign for her being a good person.

 

[Cybershadowninja2]

Cheshire wasn't a combat mech, but she was a very special mech in a spiritual sense. She was serene in a way no other mechs were. The combination of the two should stabilize Willow and get her mending instead of fatalistically dying.

Click to shrink...

Cheshire is now a therapy cat.

 

[Luckless21]

Cheshire is now a therapy cat.

Click to shrink...

They always have been, so that isn't new.

 

[Jordisk]

Was she the expert from the arboreal planet? Or was that someone else.

Click to shrink...

Completely different person. Willow was a Fridayman plant in the Hexxers.

 

[lost star]

It was all well and good to say they needed to make Cheshire into an expert mech and another to actually do it. The mech was small. The stealth system occupied most of the available space as well. Truthfully Bolt wouldn't have bothered at all had the entire design not really clicked with Willow. Had Willow not shown improvement upon piloting the mech he might had delayed some as well. Might have. There was a distinct possibility that he would have tried anyway. He knew himself well enough to acknowledge that.

Adjusting the mech to make it viable in combat was actually going to require a lot of rather delicate work. If it were anyone else it wouldn't have been possible, Bolt had to acknowledge. The best adjustments he could do to make Cheshire a proper offensive mech was add some armor, add a singular weapon with a little bit of ammo, and resonant material. The latter had to be the main offense. Willow, when using the mech would have to burn willpower to really deal damage. This would be completely non-viable designing conventionally. Only Bolt's skill and the fact that it was a stealth mech made it possible.

The offense would be achieved with a particularly rare, but also relatively cheap exotic that produced an entropic effect. The reason it was both those factors was because the exotic had entropic properties. Properly preserving it was a pain in the ass, and it held very niche uses. Hence relatively cheap and annoyingly rare.

Cheshire would be using it to create 'bad luck.' She'd tap her paw to an enemy and they'd be marked. How bad it would be would be up in the air. Aside from that untested weapon she'd also be able to set small sticky bombs that'd explode on a timer. Getting something high yield enough would be costly, but necessary.

Other than those changes, the mech would get more armor and some tweaks here and there by changing out the salvages parts with more expensive and more efficient parts. Cheshire was going to be a very pricy cat! She'd also hopefully be a decent sapper mech. They'd have to test the bad luck after the changes were done to see how good that was. Ideally no one would even notice the cat was there at all.

Thankfully rushing everything wasn't really needed. Willow would need months to recover enough to properly pilot, assuming she reassembled her willpower. The woman was improving, but it was a slower process. Regular walks with Cheshire in space and on the ground when they could would hopefully fix her. After the changes were done there was a decent chance that the mech spirits hiding in Mechalla would be able to sim the bad-luck for added practice as well.

Also, while she wasn't fully recovered, Willow was up and working well enough to smooth things over somewhat with everyone. The rebel forces were being placated with a lot of scrap. The Hexxer boys and Willow's support staff were being folded in with the Wrench Rats, and the people manning the ship were being cut loose with a repaired ship and would likely find mercenary work doing something a stealth ship would be good for.

At Willow's instance both of the rebels and the shipmen did not know she was actually recovering. In their eyes she was passing on her last wishes. That was a sneaky reason for that. Bolt wasn't particularly enamored or interested enough to care about it. It would probably be useful in the future. Especially if he was discrete with upgrading her mech. Watching for expert parts wouldn't actually tell people what he was doing in this case! Cheshire had never been seen, and upgrading her to an expert mech was particularly insane from a designer perspective.

Subterfuge aside, the salvage was going well, and they were on track to leave. The next destination would be a Friday fortification world. There was a decent one on the list of places they could retreat to, and it'd be a good place to drop off prisoners. They'd dip in, see about any news or updates, and dip out.

--Elsewhere, in a Friday meeting between high level people--

If one had to say what the largest bane of any real organization was, it was one of two items. Corruption or internal politics. Very typically it was both, frequently intertwined. It was human nature to favor the ingroup and dislike the outgroup and corruption favoring you was hardly real corruption wasn't it?

Takaharu was familiar with all the excuses. He'd used more than a few himself. There was a sort of understanding that so long as the main mission of resisting the witches was kept up, people would look the other way. That didn't mean he liked all of it. He frequently felt like he'd sold his soul several times. But the problem was that sometimes that was what was necessary to keep the war moving.

"Projections are that Larkinsons' next mech will be out within a month or two." The intelligence officer gave the last part of his report. "Rumors are that he was inspired recently."

"Inspired." One of the generals noted sourly. "Is that what we're basing our tactics off now? Scuttlebutt about a singular designer halfway across the galaxy?"

"The Witches are finally starting to take meaningful losses. Would a new mental Glow actually do anything to change that?" Someone else asked. Looked like a lower level officer being used as a mouthpiece.

"Reports are that they're tapped on manpower. I'll leave you all to make predictions." The intelligence officer deflected quietly.

Takaharu gave a small grunt. He didn't blame the man for being less than eager to commit. The tension in the meeting was high despite the relative good news.

"Shall we bring up unit distribution in light of that news?"

If there were fighting words at the moment, it was those. It had not escaped people that the Guager forces were still rather fresh. Officially they'd been held back as a last resort due to the dire nature of the war. Unofficially they'd been very happy to let others take the damage and then push back. With the push back happening they were suddenly far less happy at the entire situation.

"How's our special asset?" The question was directed to Takaharu.

"He's alive." The general said. "We'd know if he died. And no he doesn't want to be moved to a secured facility. Anyone who wishes to push the issue would be best advised to read the designer management advice we keep handy."

Very specifically trying to cram designers into environments they weren't happy with usually ended up with rebellion or worse. You literally couldn't force designers to work for you. Even brainwashing techniques weren't valid, and those had been proposed. The MTA would not be happy with people assaulting someone of Bolt's status either. There were lines you could and could not cross.

"There is an official note of him doing a design collaboration with one of our masters." One of the less poisonous officers noted. "Do we have information on that?"

"Master Olson has been quite cooperative, so we can likely send her requests. She should be able to guide the special asset into something more suited for countering Larkinson at the very least. There's a report of him dropping off PoW's soon?"

Takaharu wished he could have covered that one up, but no. Paperwork had to be filed for something that large, and experts were extremely valuable as trading cards at a minimum. "Yes. The area does have facilities suited for rapid prototyping. I'm sure we can get something done quickly there."

"Good. Leak that he's doing it to the enemy." One of the higher generals ordered. "Place forces ready to reinforce the area, but pull back a few garrisons on the world itself."

"We're baiting the Hexxers?" Takaharu asked quietly.

"Yes. Delay the asset there as long as you can. Give him a few bonuses and request that he help with prototyping the new work. If you can, have them have a few ready. With luck the Larkinson and the Assets mech will counter one another and we'll be able to crush whatever forces the Hexxers pull together to attack it." The leading general said.

It was a good plan. It was also a trap in a lot of ways. Takaharu was quite sure that someone at the planet would be discretely ordered to prioritize their forces, not Bolt and his family. If some of their independence was clipped then they'd be able to quietly pressure the Rats into areas more favorable to Friday forces.

Kami help him, he despised politics.

 

[ThirtySecondStep]

I know I'm reading a story with well-written politics when a politician's PoV makes me feel slimy afterwards.

Blech.

 

[Luker number 5]

Yes make the designer feel unsafe in your territory that'll make him stay in a single place in your territory....

 

[Non-responsiveuncle]

Oh he's going to be stuck on a planet with plenty of parts enough people that he wouldn't be overwhelmed and lots of expert's for testing? Shame he doesn't have a stealth expert that can not only keep him ahead of the hexxers but also spy on how his "friends" are planning to use him, honestly hope he uses this to build lil the biggest most expensive heavy teir two mech ever seen

 

[Pollyamorous]

"Yes. Delay the asset there as long as you can. Give him a few bonuses and request that he help with prototyping the new work. If you can, have them have a few ready. With luck the Larkinson and the Assets mech will counter one another and we'll be able to crush whatever forces the Hexxers pull together to attack it." The leading general said.

It was a good plan. It was also a trap in a lot of ways. Takaharu was quite sure that someone at the planet would be discretely ordered to prioritize their forces, not Bolt and his family. If some of their independence was clipped then they'd be able to quietly pressure the Rats into areas more favorable to Friday forces.

Click to shrink...

You know the really gross thing about this plan is that to the Fridays it is actually in Bolt's best interests.

They're looking at Bolt, a nominal ally who's doing good work for them, running around the sector with inadequate guards and directly messing with the Hexxers. Intentionally putting him into a situation where he's at danger, but knowing that both he and his allies have enough bodies to put between them and a specially baited Hexxer attack will keep him alive, is actually the best way to incentivize him to stop poking his head into active warzones.

Is it manipulative with the intention to get their own people killed? Yep. But from a big-picture perspective, it's keeping the guy who's been letting them survive a war against a genocidal tyrannical empire from massacring their population centers from dying.

They're running the numbers, and Bolt's life is simply worth more than many of their own soldiers and Larkinson loyalists combined.

 

[lost star]

A curious effect had emerged on the battlefields recently. It was not uncommon for experts to ascend and keep their mechs. It wasn't uncommon for groups of experts to do this. If one particular model was very popular, you could get hundreds of almost identical expert mechs. The Shining Shrine Maiden was just one amongst many in that regard. It still stood out though, for one particular reason.

"Let evil be cleansed by fire!"

They called it the Wrath of God. When several Expert Maiden pilots worked together their laser attacks magnified one another instead of added together. The similar mindsets, unique mechs, and willpower created something that was more biblical than made by man.

Everything burned. Vast swaths of terrain were fried. Enemy mechs ignited. Some more than others, but all of them took more damage than simple lasers could produce. Even glancing hits would take off limbs as the lasers superheated the armor beyond natural causes. It was utterly apocalyptic on a scale that took divisions of heavy artillery mechs.

It was also a relatively telegraphed attack that couldn't be done often. Good to utterly annihilate an area, bad for everything else. The Hexxer forces had adapted to it quickly out of necessity after they'd been baited into a few attacks. The laser bombardment could get devastatingly precice.

"They've spent themselves, charge forward!" The rallying cry came out from the Hexxers in question and they charged through the blackened and ash strewn terrain. Once the attack came through it took a noticeable amount of time to reload, so a quick charge could frequently disrupt any sort of followup.

Several quiet and unassuming mechs interrupted their momentum. At their forefront was a near skeletal mech with a halo behind his head. Venerable Huang, a Buddhist that had ascended with Bolt's Last Prayer. He had not kept his original mech. The Last Prayer simply couldn't handle being pushed up to a Second Rate mech. His new one had been custom made by a mildly Senior and some minor input from Bolt. It wouldn't have fit him had it not still had the Heart Crystal though, which had convinced him of its importance.

"Namaste to my opponents." He spoke as they ran forward.

His mech had no weapons. It's armor was average. Aside from the halo and prayer beads it was unadorned. Simple, unassuming, non-threatening for a mech. The prayer pose it held as the enemy approached was almost arrogant in this situation. Shots flew at him as he stood still. Not a single one hit.

"Forgive the violence and be assured that no offense is intended." The mech moved and it was as if the battlefield moved to accommodate him rather than anything else. Several Hexxer enemies were destroyed by gentle palm strikes before they could even register the attack.

A Valkyrie Expert moved to attack. "Feel death!" The woman shouted as she charged.

"I do, and I am unafraid." Huang replied simply as he slapped aside the spear and then danced back as the woman used secondary weapons in her attempt to attack.

"Foul man." The expert in the mech snarled and charged forward with all her willpower.

"Be glad that it is I, and not another here." The halo eluminated. "She would find your goddess' gaze offensive."

"You should be glad that it gazes your way at all!" The woman snarled back and maneuvered her spear to slash and thrust at her enemy.

Despite the casual nature of how Huang was moving, he was being pressed. While every shot missed him, and the Glow flowed through him without trouble, he was at a disadvantage in range and power. That was perfectly fine with him. If he died, he died. He accepted the world as it was. This allowed him to bypass the feeling of death. It was also a very odd example of willpower as well, which privately amused him when he allowed it to happen.

Behind his head the halo continued to grow brighter as the systems began to flow with power. After a few seconds the light trickled down to the prayer beads around his mech's neck. Then it traveled more. Liquid gold moved around his mech and formed into an intricate pattern that flowed with willpower. Eventually it hit the hands and mid thrust one of those golden detailed hands grabbed at the spear attempting to attack him.

Reflexively the woman attempted to jerk it free. Her mech's arms whined but there was no response. The golden light spread up the spear and she dropped it before she could discover what it'd do further.

"Corruption?!" She switched to secondary weapons as she backed up. "Another spear!" She called out to a fellow.

"Merely spreading enlightenment." The man pulled a prayer bead off the wire it was held on. "You need not fear me."

"I fear nothing!"

"Ah, but allow me to rephrase that, my apologies for the implication of cowardace." Huang corrected himself. "You should fear someone else."

"BURN!!!" The shout traveled too far to feel natural.

Huang clapped the palms of his mech together as light rained down. Miraculously all of it missed him. None of it missed the charging Hexxers. Those that got hit head on were melted to various degrees. Those that took glancing blows found chunks of their armor melted off. The expert was touched by a singular beam. It shouldn't have a lot of damage. It caused the afflicted part to ignite in flame against all laws of reality.

Huang shifted his stance as the volley ended. "For that to effect you so much..." He mused. "I wonder."

"Spare me your wondering and simply die as the Mother intends." The woman shot back and grabbed a spear from one of her fallen comrades.

"You could simply render yourself deaf if you find me too abrasive." Huang's serene response ended up just enraging the woman still further.

This was far from the only battle of course. Bolt's designs became more and more recognizable as the war continued. Not only were they designed in an iconic and thematic sense, there were a lot of experts using them. This made sense for the most part. The Sand War had resulted in many people ascending with Last Prayers, Shrine Maidens, and other mechs. Most of the new experts had elected to keep with their mechs when they could, and if not get some consulting from Bolt. While Bolt himself couldn't design all their mechs, he could and did put a blanket permission in place for any expert to use his Heart System and would frequently spend an hour or so when he could to help. It ended up spreading his reputation far wider than most people suspected.

Heart Crystals and both Bolt and Ves designs started getting far more scrutiny as this continued. Demand started to rise for both of their mechs despite any implications it might have had, and people began cataloging the unusual effects. One of them was a sort of correlation between certain types of mechs and pilots. If a mech 'felt right' to the pilot, there seemed to be a better chance of an expert happening. This was mostly rumor, but rumors had a way of gathering life on their own.

The MTA's official statement about this was that no harmful effects were noted for using either Ves or Bolt's mechs. This ended up pouring gas on the fire. Which was probably the organization's intention in retrospect.

 

[eersc]

Bruh, this zealot vs zealot battle is like they're on a different radio frequency, shit is hilarious.

 

[lost star]

"This next lesson is gonna be mean." Bolt's voice was rough as always, with a bit of a drawl that he'd never bothered to smooth out.

Sami still had trouble dealing with it truthfully. Every time she heard it some small part of her cringed. No Hexxer male would allow himself to sound so much like a yokel. As a scion she'd never interacted with men outside her nation and the differences were stark. It was only now that they had a few men from her nation on the same ship that she realized how stark. The systematic adjustments men went through in her nation were rather extreme from the outside. They wanted 'boys' and not men. She'd almost forgotten what that meant for them. She still liked the pretty boy look but had to acknowledge that it was not the whole of man and they were lesser for it in the place she called home. (She wasn't alone. The fashion for men in the Hexxer was truthfully not that extreme compared to other places, it was just oppressive and mandatory.)

"No more exercising my head?" The young woman asked as she met her teacher's eyes.

Bolt chuckled and shook his head. "Not really. You could keep it up, but yer consistent enough that it's fine to move onto the next step. Now there's a problem we need ta address before we take that step. I haven't seen a mech from you."

That statement made Sami flush slightly. "I know." She admitted. It had been several months now since they started. She'd failed at anything original. "I did work with Zombie and Ghoul, but nothing really made me eager."

"We'll go over the work." Bolt responded and brought the blueprints up. "Yer gonna be stuck on this ship once we hit that Friday base, and I'll be down on the planet designing so you'll got plenty of time ta review." He rolled his eyes at that. "They requested my personal presence and offered to pay a lot. I swear they couldn't be more transparent if they tried."

That statement made Sami perk up at the thought of some juicy gossip. "Are they trying some sort of nefarious plot?"

"Something like that. It shouldn't be a concern for you. You'll be up here in the carrier being safe. It'll jump away if needed." The designer responded. "And if yer wondering about that decision, I do have reasons fer this. That's getting off topic though. Right now we need ta... Let's call it refine you."

"That sounds needlessly ominous." The woman replied with a half grin.

Bolt's look made that grin die. The next few hours made her want to scream. It was like no other teaching she'd ever gotten. He poked and prodded at everything she did, asking for explanations, forcing her to account for everything, and making her brain hurt horribly as she was forced to think again and again. It was all she hated about mech design. It was also unfortunately sort of part and parcel in making them. Calculations and evaluations were all absolutely necessary for mech design. She gone through this process several times. That Senior she'd been mentored under had specifically had her do this. Sami had really never been pushed this hard, or been forced to explain herself so much, but it was unpleasantly familiar.

Eventually the girl felt herself reaching the end of her abilities and couldn't stop from letting her head rest against the desk in a display that would have gotten her scolded back home. "Uuuug. How are you managing to push me like this? I know you don't have an implant! This isn't mech design. It's math and numbers pretending to be mech design!"

"I can see why you scored average." Bolt responded and chuckled at her scowl his way before turning serious. "Your knowledge is appropriate fer your level. Your designs are average and play it safe. But probably most importantly, your drive towards learning the base parts of mechs is average. This part of mech design doesn't interest you." He indicated the equations, diagrams, and other things necessary to make a mech work that they'd gone over. "If you keep on this path you're maybe gonna be a journeyman in a few decades."

Hearing it so bluntly stated made Sami wince and close her eyes so she wouldn't be seen crying. "Ouch."

"This ain't bad news. It's just an evaluation of your weaknesses. You're not a logical thinker and we've proved that. Now time to prove that you still can design and become more than just the knowledge you got pounded into your head. Draw me a sketch of your perfect mech." Bolt ordered.

"Huh?" The girl breathed into the table.

"Draw yer perfect mech. Hell, draw a mech you think looks good. Don't think about the parts and the base. Just give me the mech." Bolt continued.

Sami snorted as she raised her head and switched to the drawing tools. As fuzzy as her head was, she didn't have trouble sketching out something. It was also very, very silly. A witch. She knew what her people were called, but she'd never found it particularly offensive. Even the ugly witches were powerful. The pretty, sexy ones? They were icons. She had a semi-secret love for the look.

Big floppy witches hat, magic wand, a skirt with floof, even heels, because why not. It was an utterly ridiculous mech. Even one glance at it made her quite certain that it was impossible to build.

Her master chuckled as he looked at it. Then he did something that made Sami gape. He added parts. He shifted internals around and made it all make sense for the shape. Right in front of her eyes the basis for a mech formed and became something real. It became possible. It was a mech in the shape of a witch that would work, and work well, if it was finished.

"Why'd you stop?" Sami whined and knew she did, but she couldn't help it.

"Hmm, why would I finish your design?" Bolt asked back. "This is your mech. I'm just letting you know it's possible. In particular, if ya wanna add magic, it has to be yours. I ain't gonna do it. Channel your passion, feel your emotions. You had a hint of it while watching me. We both know that. Even if it's just whimsy, that's ok. Do the rest."

Grumbling, tired, and barely able to focus, the girl did as ordered. She couldn't say she was happy about it. She was in fact very unhappy. Working with the old outdated Third Rate tech in the game wasn't exactly easy. Nothing really fit, everything was so expensive and primitive. She had to practically jam everything she needed into the mech, and was forced to cut and cut. She felt clumsy as she worked. Like she was working with a hammer when she needed pliers instead.

The only thing she was proud of was the wand. The base weapon created a contained plasma sphere and shot it. With a little bit of her teachers help she was able to adjust it to form the plasma sphere inside the wand, and then you waved it to shoot. It was very silly, with a very slow fire rate, but it was a wand that threw viable ordinance at the tech level she was forced to use. Even that was flawed, but it felt like she'd achieved something with it.

"Good. We have just enough time to build it too." Bolt noted once she was finished.

"Build it?" Sami repeated blankly. "We're not just giving the design to the techs?"

"Sami, no student o' mine is going to know just how to design. You're going to learn how to build mechs by hand, with minimal assistance." The man noted as he got to his feet. "This is non-negotiable." He said very firmly before he paused and looked at the time. "Tomorrow though."

Unfortunately for the girl, having a project like that on the horizon didn't make for good sleep. She had no idea what to expect. She'd never assembled mechs with minimal assistance. She'd barely worked on mechs at all! Even in her overloaded job before this she'd mostly just directed people.

 

[Aires Drake]

That is such a truism of engineering mentorship. Geez, it almost hits a little too close to home with the exhaustion and frustration and anxiety of feeling out of your comfort zone and having to bring your work to the real world instead of theoretical solutions.

 

[I read novels]

Huh, how would it be even able to do magic? I though they can't do that much with psyonics yet. I guess you could just do some regular tech to look like you're casting fireball or something maybe?

 

[Golgotha]

Huh, how would it be even able to do magic? I though they can't do that much with psyonics yet. I guess you could just do some regular tech to look like you're casting fireball or something maybe?

Click to shrink...

I mean, she's done the psychic practice pretty quickly and efficiently and being ran through the whole "Don't think, feel" method of design. It's possible that it's either her strength, or just a better path for low maths skill designers to go straight into spiritual design.

We have also seen the author is not even slightly scared to let people just be average some times. This could be one of those times.

 

[TheDerangedOne]

Huh, how would it be even able to do magic? I though they can't do that much with psyonics yet. I guess you could just do some regular tech to look like you're casting fireball or something maybe?

Click to shrink...

Smoke and mirrors for the early stages are my guess. Not even Ves with the Book of Metal can pull of direct offense attacks powered by spiritual power yet... I think. I fell off somewhere around the invention of Vulkan so I can't really recall.
Ves can do spiritually corruptive and/or manipulative things to others easily enough, but he can't throw fireballs without a napalm launcher last I checked.

Sami might start dipping her toes into actual magic by the time she's a late Journeyman starting to become a Senior, provided she gets that far.

 

[Luckless21]

Huh, how would it be even able to do magic

Click to shrink...

That's what the plasma ball launching "wand" is for. She would just need to give it the ability to either exchange the wand, or give said wand different firing modes somehow.

 

[Thomisannoyed]

Not even Ves with the Book of Metal can pull of direct offense attacks powered by spiritual power yet

Click to shrink...

I don't think he's tried very hard. He's the kind of guy that finds something that works, and keeps doing that until it stops working.
Also Bolt can now Curse people, so clearly it's possible, they just need to push her in that direction.

 

[TheDerangedOne]

I don't think he's tried very hard. He's the kind of guy that finds something that works, and keeps doing that until it stops working.
Also Bolt can now Curse people, so clearly it's possible, they just need to push her in that direction.

Click to shrink...

I'm talking destruction/evocation magic. Flinging literal fireballs and shit. That kinda Direct offense styled magic.
Sympathetic/esoteric voodoo type shit is well within Ves and Bolt's weelhouses, but they're not really combat magic so to speak.
More stuff you do with a ritual and a target, and should get about as close to an actual fight as an expert marksman with a really good sniper rifle and the to the second accurate weather day for the area five miles between them and their target.
... by which I mean, if you're casting that spell in combat, you really should be doing something else instead unless you got no other choice.

 

[Thomisannoyed]

I'm talking destruction/evocation magic. Flinging literal fireballs and shit. That kinda Direct offense styled magic

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure that's what her making a magical wand that shoots plasma balls is leading up to. That's seems like what she's going to be spending all her passion on. Flashy magic attacks and stylish magical girls.

 

[TheDerangedOne]

I'm pretty sure that's what her making a magical wand that shoots plasma balls is leading up to. That's seems like what she's going to be spending all her passion on. Flashy magic attacks and stylish magical girls.

Click to shrink...

Well yeah, but for now she has to use tech instead of actual magic, which will require her to progess to being a Senior or there abouts to really start producing tech jargoned magi-tech stuff if she does at all.
Smoke and mirrors/stylized tech gimmic.

She has a Style in mind, but she can't fully realize it yet is what I'm trying to say.

 

[lost star]

The bay Sami was directed to the next day had a faint smell that was hard to identify at first. It felt different than what she'd expected. It should have been drenched in oil and metal. There was none of that. Just a faint electrical smell and the hum of shipboard life. A few small drones flew through the air to tidy things up here and there, but it felt empty. It emphasized how large mechs were in her eyes.

"Normally I'd just leave ya to it, but I'm guessing that you don't have much experience here." Bolt's voice made her jump as he came in.

He'd switched his normal robe-like look out for a shirt that had no sleeves and clung to his body. Sami was reminded again that his build was very far from typical for a designer upon seeing it. You didn't usually see someone looking like that unless they were infantry-men typically. It made her quite aware that she didn't really have work clothing either for this.

"You'll wanna tie off your hair." Bolt threw a band the woman's way. "That standard Second Rate clothing?" He asked.

"Yes?" Sami looked down at the blouse and pants she'd found before tying back her hair.

"That'll do for this. It's durable enough and nothing in it would be reactive. You're going ta build your first few mechs before you find your footing. It gives you a good feel of your design outside a designer table. Once you've done it enough that I'm satisfied you can avoid it in the future if you want." Bolt instructed the girl. "Now, we're going to start."

Her very first impression minutes in was that she hated everything. She was a modified human yes, but she was not modified for physical labor! In she was a baseline Hexxer woman in that regard. Bolt could life three times her weight! She had to use machine assistance and take multiple trips

Her only real advantage was that small hands made the delicate wiring a lot easier. She ended up doing most of the cockpit herself alone, which gave her a small bit of pride through the misery. The rest of it was pure torment. Adjusting the sensors in the big hat was required her crawling through parts at some points. She was fortunate that there wasn't a lot of oil being used yet or she'd be a complete mess.

"After this you can move up a level of tech." Bolt said about halfway through. "This is full manual." He continued hefting a bar almost as large as him. "Ain't something I do often nowadays either. It's good to show you why we use a lotta the tools though."

"That'd be Second Rate then?" Sami asked hopefully.

"Third Rate." Bolt corrected. "This is if ya don't have tech. Notice how all of the tools are low or no power? You can make all of this with a half-assed fabricator and pedal power." He gestured to the assembled construction aids they had.

Despite herself she felt a mote of interest in that. "Sort of like forging a sword by hand then?" She asked cheekily.

"They still do that, but yes sort of." The man answered with a small laugh before directing her to the break area. "Now hydrate. Also remember that this mech design is pretty safe, but as we go up in complexity some things can get very dangerous. Exotics especially can become lethal depending on positioning." He continued the lesson.

It might have been a lot of torment, but Sami could appreciate seeing her mech come to life. There was something very special about knowing you made a mech and watching it form. The size, the power, the feeling of it. It actually made her glad to get into design for a brief moment before her body reminded her that she wasn't a very physical person.

"Will I be able to add the Heart System for the magic later?" Sami asked.

"Ya don't need that for the spiritual effects." Bolt said as he guided her though the armoring process. "That's just a way ta make it easier. Here's a little trade secret." He lowered his voice dramatically. "Building it like this is part of how you do that magic."

The words broke her brain a bit. "Huh?" She stared down at a screw. "How?"

"Spirit, psionic, magic, chi, whatever. It's all a flow of energy around us. It's pretty thin, but every action we make adds a small layer. If ya focus in design you add a layer. You focus here, you can add another. Remember that push? Do it while we finish up the mech." Bolt ordered. "Think up a good song if you like. We can play music too. Whatever makes you put the emphasis on what you desire."

Sami was silent as she finished off the build. She tried, she really did, but without the computer and the crystal she didn't know if she succeeded. Was that why he'd made the Heart System then? It would make it a lot easier if she could see what she did. A good song for a witch like this? Something from those old magical girl animes maybe. That felt fitting.

"Later we can go over how ta sense it. There seems to be degrees of it, and it's hard ta train up. Didn't want ya to get focused on the wrong thing. You have my permission to use the Heart System too, but that takes some work ta figure out what it's showing." Bolt said while doing a final spray coat to seal up the mech. "This one? This one's going to do a bit of what you want, and it'd be all you. I just helped you guide it."

"Really?" Sami asked.

The two designers stepped back to look at the mech. Sami could already see a thousand flaws. It was a bad mech, even for a Third Rate mech. Yet...

"Good work." Bolt gave her a pat.

Why was she crying now? Sami sniffled and almost missed a new person coming in and getting into the cockpit. "Venerable Lilly!?" She asked as the person registered.

"Hey Hun. Figured I'd help a bit here." Lilly said with a wave as she got in and sealed up the mech. "We're nearby a small planetoid, so I can go ahead and do a few tricks with your first mech."

Sami didn't squeal, but it was close. Having an expert drive her first mech was beyond an honor. She'd never heard of it ever happening. She rushed to the observation deck to observe. A few minutes later she got to see her mech move. It made everything worth it. Everything.

Especially when Lilly fired the magical wand. The plasma-shots curved! There was no physical mechanic that should allow that, yet they curved slightly upon command! It was tiny, but it was magic. She'd finally done something special. The joy from that was unreal.

Admittedly the report from Lilly afterwards really cooled her enthusiasm, as did Bolt's instruction to take the mech apart and find all the stresses and flaws. That lesson had been messy and unpleasantly physical again. It didn't eliminate the joy and newfound enthusiasm, but reviewing her work made her wince. Especially he damage it could take from a single test run.

To her mild despair it seemed to be extremely helpful though. That meant she'd have to do it in the future as she continued with designing. Physically seeing how the mech got stressed by piloting showed so many flaws. A report didn't do it justice, though Lilly had admittedly pushed the mech to the absolute limit too. Bolt had taken pains to emphasize that in his instruction.

(Bolt was sure she'd get the reason for that lesson later. He also made sure to store the reassembled mech away. His first real student's first mech!)

 

[Simonbob]

(Bolt was sure she'd get the reason for that lesson later. He also made sure to store the reassembled mech away. His first real student's first mech!)

Click to shrink...

A former Hexxer, creating a witch mech, with Bolt as her teacher?


I still really want to see what both Hexxers and Friday's are going to feel about that one.

 

[I read novels]

A former Hexxer, creating a witch mech, with Bolt as her teacher?


I still really want to see what both Hexxers and Friday's are going to feel about that one.

Click to shrink...

HERESY, Heresy on wherever you look