What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[Luckless21]

GigaChad-9000

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I feel like it should be the GigChad-6666.

 

[lost star]

To his mild bemusement, Bolt was actually caught up, relatively. He still had that work with that master in the near future, but he had no real large projects now. It was probably time to start planning his next mech.

Before then he checked up on Sami. The girl had not designed any original mechs yet. This wasn't a ding on her. Bolt had been rather bizarre in his designing development. The first real project most young designers did on their own was altering another person's design. That was what Sami had done and was doing. She'd taken the Zombie and made a few variations. None were released yet. The changes were mostly just altering the head and appearance, and in one case giving it a witch hat that also detached and exploded. She was exploring her boundaries and creativity. It was a good first step.

It would still probably be appropriate to speak with her before he got caught up in work though, so he took a small walk to her workstation. There the girl was going through a lot of the backlogged tickets for the Third Rate models. She was actually doing a very good job based on the rate she was flipping through them.

"Hello, ma-er sir." The woman nervously greeted as he entered.

Bolt didn't roll his eyes, but it came close. She'd relax over time. "Having trouble with the work at all?"

"No, I did this when I was at the facility and working for the senior. There's always some sort of question or problem. Third Rate isn't much different." Sami said with a small shrug. "Implant does a lot of the work truthfully."

"Good to know. I let it get too backed up far too often." The senior admitted with a small chuckle. "But I thought I'd talk with you about your personal work. Having fun with it?"

Sami frowned and closed out of a few things on the station. "I've been trying? I don't think I get it truthfully."

"Take your enthusiasm with mechs and go with that. You don't have ta go with my old models." Bolt advised. "Make something wacky."

"I suppose. I was hoping to get an idea of what... Umm. Is it appropriate to even ask? I wanted to know how you do the glow thing." Sami asked while lowering her head and looking away with a wince.

"While I don't mind giving you hints, I think we should talk a bit about how teaching should work for you." Bolt turned around and got a chair to sit down. "Right now you're actually at a really delicate time. Higher level designers are meant ta teach, but we're also supposed to help you develop your own style. I can give you parts of my style to develop, you can use my style to influence yours, you can go on your own path, or you can even attempt to mimic me. How you want to develop will tell me how we should move forward with Glows."

It was an actually extremely complicated and delicate topic actually. Bolt had been given a lot of literature to review for this with his ascension to Senior. The most key thing was to develop the student, not forcefully put your own specialty on them. Trying to suppress a nascent style was the equivalent of shouting until the student went silent. Deliberately overriding someone's emerging specialty was the equivalent of taking a young mind and brainwashing them to your point of view. None of it was illegal, but it was actually fairly offensive to most masters and Star Designers. Bolt had no intention of doing that, and he didn't want to unintentionally do it either.

"I'm guessing you don't want the latter?" Sami asked with a hint of curiosity. "It's not restricted either?"

"What I do is something that I will have ta teach at some point. If you can learn it and do it better that's good. But the last option is typically when you have someone who's dying and wants to pass on their style. Ya want that anyway?" Bolt asked back.

That got the woman to laugh softly. "No thanks. I don't want to be the heir to the archdemon. By the way, the collars on the maids are not helping the sex-slave rumors."

Bolt sighed with sudden weariness. "That's on them. But onto what ya want. Based on your thoughts, you want to specialize in Glows?"

"Yes!" Sami nodded with a hint of eagerness. "The stuff you do is like magic! Ves is all channeling the Mother, and that's nice and all, but really not my thing."

"Heard that before. You want magic?" Bolt smiled slightly at the hidden enthusiasm. "Ain't easy to do. Really don't got a best way to teach you either." He was still working on that book after all.

Actually now that he was a Senior he could technically publish it now according to Bubbles, but that felt like a bad idea. Instead his current plans were to have it accompany the Heart System when it was released. This would really make things better. He could use Sami to really get the kinks worked out.

"You can't teach it?" The woman looked very disappointed.

"I can, it's just that it requires trying several different methods and some strange steps." Bolt gave the girl a pat on the shoulder. "Get up and we'll try the first one."

Bolt had probably underestimated the enthusiasm his student had here. She really wanted to learn this, and it didn't seem like the sort of 'enemy action' thing. It was more she was genuinely enthusiastic about it. Which actually boded well.

Though now that he was thinking about it, he needed to change the lesson plan. His first thought was to get her used to sensing spiritual power, but was that really the best path? Did she needed to sense spiritual power to do something with it? More importantly, did he want to risk her enthusiasm by rolling the dice on sensing? Everyone had different degrees of natural sense and it was very possible that she wouldn't feel it.

Letting none of it show on his face, Bolt shifted his plans immediately. They made their way to Bolt's sort of personal work-room. It had a small fabricator, a few Heart Crystals and was frankly a mess of wires and metal parts. It wasn't a place he'd normally take a student. Sami immediately wrinkled her nose at it before she smoothed her expression out. (No one's personal work-room was tidy, just various degrees of messy that made sense to them.)

"Have a seat." Bolt gestured to a chair and grabbed a Heart Crystal before setting it down in front of her. "You probably recognize this."

"Yeah." Sami nodded. "You put it in all your mechs."

"So, what I'm going to do is this." Bolt set the crystal into a holder and started up the connected computer. "Now I have the data to show something the unseen energy that sort of powers Glows. I call it spiritual power, but the MTA would probably call it psionic power. You could even call it magical power if you want. The name doesn't matter so much as what it does and there's no real official name for this stuff yet."

Bolt added two small metal rods to it and shifted the spiritual power from one side to another. On screen the numbers shifted. It was a relatively easy mental exercise, but it still caused a bit of strain.

"All you have ta do is focus and move it. Very specifically mentally." Bolt ordered.

Sami grabbed at a rod and narrowed her eyes. The computer showed no movement. The pout was rather expected.

"It'll take a bit. It requires mental focus and either emotion or will. Once ya get it down it will be easier, but there's going to be a strain." The senior explained. "If ya get a headache stop immediately. That means your exerting yourself, and pushing through it will result in nosebleeds, bleeding from the eyes, and probably worse." He'd never pushed that hard so he didn't know what the next step was.

"Visualization, visualization." Sami murmured, and there was a slight twitch on the computer. "Yes!" She shouted and then winced. "Ow!"

"Give it ten before you try again." Bolt advised. "It's like a muscle."

"So what's next after this?!" The woman asked with wide eyes.

"You do that fer the next month until you can do it without wincing. Gotta build it up." Bolt advised and almost laughed at her expression.

That'd keep her very busy for awhile by his estimate.

 

[Golgotha]

If that works out it should be mandatory training for literally every pilot and designer.

 

[Sceptic]

Trying to suppress a nauseant style

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If their nascent style is nauseant, perhaps it's better off suppressed.

 

[Jordisk]

If their nascent style is nauseant, perhaps it's better off suppressed.

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I mean, a weapon type that induces nausea in the pilot, even through the spiritual shielding of the Neural Interface and the pilot's Willpower would be a useful and creative Design Philosophy. Not a very broad one, but not all specialties have to be broad. One Star Designer has a specialty consisting of one specific mech that he has iterated on for his whole career.

 

[lost star]

Today's problem was quite unusual. Bolt wanted to design a new mech and flex his abilities. He also did not want to let people know about his advancement to Senior. This meant he couldn't actually push the mech he'd designed into production, because people would notice. So, he had to get creative.

"Ya know, the spacers who supplied us did want you to make a space mech." Lilly mused from her place on the floor next to the couch.

Bolt tried to vary up where he designed and brainstormed. Mostly as a way of keeping things fresh, but sometimes as just a way to spend time with his wife. They were both very busy, so they had to be specific about spending a few minutes around one another just doing things. Right now Lilly was on a very plush rug listening to an audiobook.

And he just realized he'd not actually told her about his advancement. Sure it'd been implied, but he'd never outright said it. Now how should he say that.

"I'll probably do a space mech next maybe." Bolt said. "Can't build it now though. Ya remember that work I did that gave me a headache?"

"Yep." Lilly eyed him. "Yer gonna admit to your poor long-suffering wife that you advanced now?"

"Ah." The man breathed out in mild embarassment.

The woman closed her eyes and flopped onto the rug in a manner that felt more smug than anything else. "I do pay attention hun. Just thought it was some designer thing and you'd say when it was finished."

"Well yes, I did advance, and becoming Senior this soon ain't necessarily the best thing. I almost hit the record that Polymath did. That sorta thing means that people will believe Star Designer ain't off the table." Bolt said.

"You'll owe me a Star-mech then." Lilly replied back with a yawn. "And the kids too, if they pilot."

"That's a given." Bolt responded and sighed as he recalled the latest update from home. "They're both talking a lot now according to Ma and Pa."

"Good. We'll see them in person soon. Just gotta wrap up the war." The expert replied and flipped herself over. "Can't wait to hold them."

"Me either." Bolt said and began to sketch out something.

Since he was going to be waiting on building the mech he decided to just go down a list of mechs he didn't have types for in their lineup. Boiled down to it, he could use a dedicated duelist (Brawler or Fencer), an something with explosive range (Cannoneer or Artillery), something that could handle speedy mechs (Striker), and some utility. There were a lot of gaps in his lineup.

A good artillery mech felt like the best option. Something that could lob explosives downrange was always useful. The thing was his current lineup was actually pretty offensively orientated. Most artillery mechs were pretty slow. He would need to brainstorm on that. Their current lineup was extremely aggressive and a slow mech could make them lose tempo. Perhaps something with long range? There'd be a problem with friendly fire though depending on the weapon.

An idea came to him as he thought on that. He wasn't near the limit of what spiritual construction could do. Hadn't he managed to finagle a small friend-or-foe recognition in the snowflakes? They weren't exactly safe for allies to touch, but they would drift away from them naturally, and that made them useful and precise enough to be used. The Hoarfrost and the Yuki-onna both be very free with their weapons due to that. Bolt could probably create something else using that concept.

He decided he wanted lightning on a whim. This was not an unknown weapon. There were even a few of them on the market. They were all short ranged shot-gun like devices. Hell, Morning Star used a lot of it herself. That was again short range though. Bolt wanted long range. He wanted artillery.

That wasn't physically possible. Even with all their technology past a certain point lightning obeyed physics. Short range electrical weapons got around that through exotics or other factors. It required a fairly high amount of voltage to get past the natural defenses a mech had as well. He still wanted a lightning mech!

Making proper lighting weapons required bending physics into pretzels. There were still ways, technically. You could get a lot of range using some specialized technology involving exotics and lightning-rod analogs. One particularly fun weapon involved using a spike and to provide a conduit for the electricity. Unfortunately that weapon wasn't actually used frequently because if you could hit them with the spike you could use a bullet instead.

Bolt still bought the weapon license and began to take apart the design to get a few ideas. He had a possible workaround. It would need to be a heavy mech due to power needs again. Though the problem was different in this instance.

The weapon, titled Lightning Rod MK U1TRA used capacitors to charge up electricity before it released. More range required more stored power. Scaling it required a lot. A heavy mech was the only thing that would have enough output to charge it quickly.

So, one heavy artillery mech. Not uncommon. The initial design was fairly standard too. Heavy armor, bulky frame. Back mounted weapon in the shape of two large rods, which was the modified U1TRA that would serve as one of the main weapons. It needed some hand weapons too. Something big. Something dangerous.

"You know," Bolt mused as he looked at his plans. "I do owe you a heavy."

"Oh?" Lilly opened one eye.

"Something like this." The designer sketched out the twin gattling guns and added a bit of flare. "Your next expert mech."

"Hey, that's sorta like the Woodpecker." Lilly noted as she opened both eyes to stare at the sketch. "Don't recognize that back weapon though."

"Gonna shoot lightning when I'm done with it, and the range will be variable." Bolt explained. "I figure if I adjust one or two things I can have it use allies as range extenders up to a pretty large distance."

The expert grinned. "Sounds fun! Though it'd be another crowd killer like Morning Star."

"Ah, yeah. Would you prefer a duelist?" Her husband asked as he looked at his sketch with a more serious eye. A duelist would probably be better in retrospect.

"No, this will be fine. Will it have the Woodpecker's space shifting?" Lilly asked curiously.

"I..." Bolt paused and looked over the plans again.

He did have the power budget for it somewhat. If the weapons weren't charging the energy had to go somewhere. Pushing it into the space warping was possible. It'd require some very good cabling and some very delicate energy management. It was also very possible.

Bolt nodded slowly as he talked himself around to it. "I can do that. It'll have to be done after I do my work with Master Olson. I'm going to offer that device as a sort of distraction. We'll work on it together to make a mech, and I can take the lessons to finish this up and make it a real monster."

"Look at you being all sneaky." Lilly said with a small laugh. "What'll you call it?"

"Hmm." Lightning, space, and rather heavy. "Thinking Typhoon, but there's like a hundred other mechs with that name."

"Probably more. We'll just make sure yours is the best." The woman said with a nod before making grabbing motions towards the designing pad. "Now I want him, gimmie gimmie."

"Gotta make him first woman." Bolt muttered back and got another laugh.

 

[Negation]

"What'll you call it?"

"Hmm." Lightning, space, and rather heavy. "Thinking Typhoon, but there's like a hundred other mechs with that name."

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Its a long range artillery mech that throws lightning and you don't call it Zeus or Thor?

 

[I read novels]

Its a long range artillery mech that throws lightning and you don't call it Zeus or Thor?

Click to shrink...

Zappy McZapface

 

[foo-jin]

Zappy McZapface

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The Potential Mech

 

[Waruiko]

"Hmm." Lightning, space, and rather heavy. "Thinking Typhoon, but there's like a hundred other mechs with that name."

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Huh its going to be a space mech... Well that makes grounding out the bolt easer to avoid if nothing else.

 

[Cybershadowninja2]

Huh its going to be a space mech... Well that makes grounding out the bolt easer to avoid if nothing else.

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I forgot about that part. Was going to ask if it would have been better to just make a mech that can generate storms and direct the lightning strikes.

 

[EagleWarLord]

Since heavy artillery usually have multiple weapons, will he also have laser/particle cannons? And since he is using exotic weapons I guess he has given up making Third Rate artillery...

 

[Jordisk]

Since heavy artillery usually have multiple weapons, will he also have laser/particle cannons? And since he is using exotic weapons I guess he has given up making Third Rate artillery...

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Third rate artillery he already made, the Shining Shrine Maiden. He is currently designing his second-rate lineup.

 

[Molder]

Mech Touch for all the crap people give it is a setting with so many interesting ideas. Space based artillery mechs dump heat into their ships, treating them as one giant capacitor allowing them to fire for far longer then they could on a planet or just floating in space, and while they can't be directly hooked into a ships power grid, making their recharge and rearmament as simple as plugging in a new box and replacing the battery's is very much done.

 

[Luksord]

Mech Touch for all the crap people give it is a setting with so many interesting ideas.

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While the setting is amazing, it's mainly Ves scummy personality later in the story and endless filler word-vomit that ruin it for many people

 

[lost star]

As much as Lilly and Bolt wanted to just sort of chill in space and let the war pass them by, they did need to be seen doing things. So, once they were supplied they moved off again. This time to a place closer to an active battle.

Now, it has to be said that the Wrench Rats were not part of the Friday Military. They'd managed to get around the offers / demands of direct recruitment by supplying their own equipment and basically being mercenaries. This had good parts and bad parts. The good was that they chose their missions. The bad was that there was no support from the Friday Nation. This was less of a problem than you'd expect, mostly because the 'standard' contract the Friday people had with experts they recruited was basically just upgrade the mech to Second Rate and throw them at the enemy.

This was very evident in the battlefield they approached. The first thing they found was a rather large pile of mech bodies on one of the moons around the primary planet. Amongst them were over a hundred wrecks of expert mechs. Many of them hadn't even been stripped properly. This was the result of a space battle around the area that had been puttering along since the war started. The number of wrecks in the area was a bit unreal.

"No point in checking for survivors there." Lilly observed from the bridge. "We cleared for low-g salvage?" She asked the main salvage leader.

"Less experienced there, but we'll handle it. That's a lotta expensive stuff they left though." The man commented warily.

"Why does that sound like a bad thing." Miranda asked.

"Because that means there's still fighting. Get to the mechs." Lilly said as she began to move. "Assume we're going to get attacked the second we broadcast our greetings or a bit before."

They'd drilled something like this more than a few times. There were specific elevators designated for pilot transport. She got to the bay within a minute and was in Dowry within another one. There was no particular reason for this choice. Either one of her mechs could function in space and do so well enough to be impactful.

"Venerable Lilly, ready to being the broadcast." The man in the bridge said.

"Do it." The expert ordered and shifted Dowry to standby.

As ordered the carrier began to broadcast on all frequencies. It was a fairly generic statement, Friend or Foe recognition codes and their intent to salvage the battlefield. Lilly closed her eyes and synched with Dowry while she waited.

"Movement." The words she as half expecting came.

A few seconds later she was deploying with her people. The void of space and her fellows were all the surrounded her now. Their Son of War deployed his banner and the Torments shifted into a rough formation.

Space battles were a whole different kettle of fish than land battles. They typically revolved around the ships that carried the mechs rather than anything else. Some clever ships had deployable cover and the like, but here they just had their carrier while the enemy had something else. Their ship was already moving back as her people shifted to oppose the oncoming enemies.

"Valkyries spotted. Enemy shield-ship also on the way." Someone called out. "Brace yourself."

Lilly drifted up and engaged Dowry's stealth. The camouflage would let her choose her targets here. She could almost feel the enemy experts now. There were likely two there based on the movements she was seeing and what she was feeling. One was still on the ship as it approached. Either a riflemen or an artillery. She was leaning towards the latter based on positioning of the mechs involved.

The shield ship was mostly a stack of metal on an engine. Designed to hold artillery mechs in space it was mostly a close range support ship that was meant to get around the fact that warships were very much banned. It was a typical example of the ship type. A lot of metal bunkers designed to hold mechs and little else. Dowry was picking up a singular mech inside one of them. This was unusual enough that she held off on immediately deciding that that was where she should go.

"Going dark to backstab. Naoto, you're up here." Lilly called out and cut her comms.

Beneath her, her people moved as Miranda ordered them. Lilly carefully boosted a few times and watched as the enemy charged forward and smashed against their lines. She could tell when the Valkyrie raked people with it's Glow as they charged. The way some people froze was very obvious to her. One of them even hit her by accident. The feeling was potent. A thick cloying feeling of impending doom. Like seeing an oncoming sword right for her cockpit. Lilly found it bracing but it made Dowry furious.

"Hmm." The expert hummed to herself and continued to drift. "Where are you?" The experts were being careful in positioning. She had the likely targets, but she needed something more for confirmation.

Naoto moved forward as the lines started to clash. His sword swung. There was no concealing his expert status with that swing. The blade slipped through the enemies guard like it was air instead of a blade almost the size of the mech using it. It flowed through the poor target without stopping or even slowing. The mech drifted into two parts and the man almost serenely moved forward to the next target.

An enemy skirmisher moved forward intercept him. That was one of he experts she was looking for confirmed. It was also a relatively even matchup that Lilly didn't feel the need to supervise. She drifted closer and undetected until she could peer into the bunker and confirm the other one visually.

"And what are you..." Lilly focused on the artillery mech already readying its weapons. "Naughty girl."

The enemy Hexxer wasn't targeting the mechs. The woman was targeting the carrier, which was why she'd held her fire. The carrier had naturally moved away to avoid something like that, but they'd obvious underestimated the range if she was drawing a bead on it. This wouldn't do at all. The ship did have defenses, but against an expert like that they wouldn't last long.

Lilly dropped onto the bunker and ripped open the top of it in a second. The woman opposing had only a moment to react, and she did so by blasting her boosters and slamming open the emergency exit. The heavy metal door blew out from the impact as she frantically tried to gain room. This was unfortunately a poor matchup for her. Speedy mechs like Dowry were meant to eat mechs like her alive, and Dowry was very hungry at the moment.

A feeling of death hit Lilly as she began to chase, but she brushed it off even as she acknowledged the enemy movement. The opposing Valkyries had disengaged and were attempting to their allies to the best of their ability. They might have lacked serious long ranged weapons but it was enough to force her to slow slightly. The larger mech used that movement to bring the hand-weapons to bear, two small missile launchers sent out a wide swath of missiles that blanketed the area. Dowry was hit hard enough to force her to expend precious energy trying to get her footing again. The Zero-g was not doing her any favors here at all.

"What's next... Shit." Lilly muttered as her mech sensed another group approaching.

"Friendlies incoming!" Her comms screamed.

Lilly grinned at that call. That was some good fortune for once. All they'd need to do was pin the enemy down here and the reinforcements would finish them off.

She shifted her attention back to the artillery mech even as the enemy Valkyries charged at her in a frantic and last ditch attempt to stop her. The next few seconds were a frantic bit of movement as the Spearwomen tried to skewer her or just give the mech with some very large guns a free shot. Lilly managed a good enough job to keep neither option from happening, and that was obviously not acceptable to the Hexxer women. Mid-dodge the artillery mech simply aimed its heavy weapons in her general direction and fired.

Even braced and ready an expert shot like that was no joke. It caused horrific chaos to everyone. On the positive side the damage was pretty indiscriminate. Several of the mechs trying to aid their expert were shredded. Another feeling of doom hit her and Lilly almost rolled her eyes. It should have been terrifying. Dowry was having none of it, and the building fury let Lilly push past the oppressive aura without a flinch. Around her the remnants of the woman's allies floated away from the slightly molten shield-ship. Everything was clear now.

Her shot would have been useful and valid against any other mech truthfully. A blast like that was what cockpits were practically made to deal with. The pilots of those hit were still fine. Assuming the Hexxers won, the trade would have amounted to a few mechs for her life. Lilly should have been more damaged than she was, but Dowry's absurd regeneration made the trade far too lopsided on her end. The opposing woman obviously hadn't been briefed on Dowry at all.

Willpower fed into Dowry and she flexed and clawed as she grabbed onto the ship and moved with all speed towards the still fleeing enemy. The enemy mech in turn bounced away, picking up another set of hand missile launchers. Lilly hissed even as she tried to egg her mech on, but the woman fired before she could approach again, forcing her to shift and dodge even as she approached. Around her the battle intensified. This was getting extremely irritating. The ship was giving her quick reloads!

Shots hit the ship and it was forced to turn as the reinforcements began to fire upon it. The Hexxers were losing and they all knew it. It was only a matter of time really. The woman could obviously see the same thing and did something desperate instead. She turned her big weapons towards the ship she was on, right between them. A pointblank shot with an expert's willpower at full throttle would cause an explosion that would either throw them both off the ship or kill them. It was a complete tossup as to which would happen, and the woman gambled. Lilly could feel absolutely no hesitation as she fired.

Unfortunately for her, Dowry was a mech both flexible and fast. The moment Lilly noted the intention she was already digging her claws into the ship and shifting her position. The mech dropped down flat to the ground and ducked. Dowry's head was still nearly blown clear off, but the damage was relatively contained thanks to the angles, and it wasn't the first time she'd had the damage. In contrast the enemy expert had been blown back and was now off the ship, drifting slowly away as she tried to recover from the self inflicted damage.

This wasn't the end of the battle, but it was most certainly when victory was assured. As a bonus, Naoto finished about a minute later, outright slicing off each of his opponent's limbs before hacking the body up into neat squares. He hadn't even killed the expert while doing it, which was somehow more terrifying than actually killing her. (Lilly was so proud!)

 

[Non-responsiveuncle]

She turned her big weapons towards the ship she was on

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Ah lily should probably start being a lot more careful from now on. When a enemy starts being willing to kill themselves to injury or kill you is when even the most inexperienced expert becomes dangerous after all self destruction depends on the explosive not the toilets skill

 

[Molder]

Ah lily should probably start being a lot more careful from now on. When a enemy starts being willing to kill themselves to injury or kill you is when even the most inexperienced expert becomes dangerous after all self destruction depends on the explosive not the toilets skill

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Its a thing to watch out from Experts, with their increased firepower, lightning fast reactions, and the literal infinite willpower they have making it a dangerous move for her. Normal pilots are a lot slower and have weaker mechs so their suicides would be a lot easier to deal with.