The Mech Touch

"Yaaay! I'm gonna be a swordsmaster! I'm gonna be a swordsmaster! I'm gonna be a swordsmaster!"

Andraste happily ran around the sparring ring while expressing her delight at the latest development.

Her new teacher had finally agreed to train her in traditional swordsmanship!

Even though Ketis quickly added that the initial years of training will only consist of light and basic foundational exercises, Andraste didn't care about the particulars.

All she cared about was the fact that she was finally beginning her training to become a real warrior, just like Cristine Oxtin of the Terra Guardians!

While the energetic little kid continued to run around in her cute little training suit, her concerned father and her resigned teacher held a more serious discussion.

"What were you thinking about giving companion spirits to infants?!" Ketis hissed. "Don't you realize how much of a danger your daughter poses to herself and others?"

Ves grimaced at the thought. "Andraste should be smart enough to know that Yaika's new spiritual attribute is not a toy. I am also confident that she has developed a resistance towards this energy. She is one of the few people that is fully immune to a death energy wave attack. That is pretty impressive in my book."

"That makes it even worse, Ves! If she plays around with her companion spirit's powers and doesn't perceive any threat from them, she can direct her power towards other children without too much thought."

That indeed sounded like a serious possibility.

"I will do my best to teach her to be more responsible with her companion spirit, but I can't do it alone." Ves said. "I know a lot about harnessing energies for creation, but I am not that good at figuring out efficient methods to kill with them. As much as I want my daughter to grow up without ever needing to kill, she will be better off if she knows how to defend herself."

Ketis nodded in agreement. "I can take care of all of that and more. I was serious about her potential to develop a new sword style. I did it for myself after you gave me Sharpie. She can become an amazing swordmaster or expert pilot one day. Her attitude can use a lot of work, but all of her other parameters are excellent. She is the most talented little girl that I have ever met, and she is pretty much a blank slate with regards to combat. Perhaps starting off her training early is not that big of a deal. She shouldn't train too often, though."

"How frequently will you train her? Will you supervise her training personally or will you leave it to your subordinates?"

"Hm." Ketis thought for a moment. "She can come here twice a week. As you know, I am a busy mech designer, so I won't be able to supervise her training every time. I will make sure to assign a capable Swordmaiden or Heavensworder to do the job in my stead. Your kid will be in good hands, you can make sure of that. I might even bring in Kirian as well. My son isn't as strong as Andraste, but it would be good for both of our children to keep each other company during the sessions."

"That's a good idea."

They settled a few details. Both of them agreed that Andraste needed training, though they weren't entirely sure about the details. Ketis would have to figure out an appropriate training plan later.

When Ves turned his attention back to his daughter, he found that she had approached a woman who had stood quietly at the side all this time.

"Are you sad, auntie Jannzi?"

"No. I am not."

"You lie! You were much happier before!"

Venerable Jannzi sighed. "That is true, but that does not mean I am 'sad'. There are other emotions that are much more difficult to explain to you. My life can be better, but I am content in the fact that I am moving forward again."

"Ohhh…"

Ves walked up to his daughter. "Don't bother an expert pilot when she is in an emotional mood, Andraste. It's rude and may even be dangerous."

"But she's sad, papa."

"I'm not sad!" Jannzi defended herself.

Andraste giggled in response. "Hihihi! You were sad before, but not anymore."

"You naughty girl." Ves ruffled his daughter's hair, causing her to giggle even more.

Jannzi smiled at the sight.

"So, Jannzi. You've decided to train with Ketis as well?"

The expert pilot nodded as she had nothing to hide. "That is correct. I don't have a mech for me to pilot, but that doesn't mean I should stop training entirely. I don't want to pilot any other mech or virtual mech, so the next best alternative is to rebuild my fundamental fighting skills. I have only attended a couple of training sessions so far but I am already beginning to see the benefits. Once you complete my new expert mech, I will be able to fight a lot more effectively than before."

Ves was happy that Jannzi was showing initiative again. He hated it when his assets were going to waste because they were underutilized.

Expert pilots were extremely powerful but also extremely demanding combat assets. They not only needed their own personalized expert mechs to show their value, but also demanded a lot of maintenance as they could easily regress if they no longer exercised their current skills.

"I have a question about the Dullahan Project." Jannzi spoke. "You promised to figure out a way to integrate actual human blood into the design of my future expert mech. How much progress have you made up until this point?"

"I'm almost done with a rough implementation. The design process is still at an early stage, so I can add and remove elements without much consequence. I still need to refine the new circulatory system and test how to best integrate it into the mechanical side of your future expert space knight. I don't want the blood to do nothing except run a circuit around the internal architecture of the machine. I might have to add additional organic components to the design in order to make it worthwhile."

"I do not fully understand why it is even necessary to add this in the first place." Jannzi furrowed her brows. "I kept thinking back on the vague and confusing descriptions you have given me, but I still do not understand how it works."

Ves patted his chest with his palm. "That's my problem, not yours. It is the mech designer's job to puzzle over all of the technical issues. Just trust me when I say that you will not regret this addition. The new Blood Pact that you can form with the successor to your Shield of Samar will bind the two of you together at a level that I can scarcely imagine."

"Uh huh. Will you test this new Blood Pact mechanism on another mech model before you potentially ruin my second expert mech forever?"

"Relax, Jannzi. I am already working on putting together a biomech that will serve as a proof of concept for my new Empowered Blood Sharing System. As long as no one suffers any accidents while piloting my experimental biomechs, I will have all of the confirmation I need to roll this function out to other mech designs."

Venerable Jannzi furrowed her brows. "Huh. Last I heard, you were principally opposed to biomechs. You shouldn't even know how to design a mech made out of flesh and bone in the first place."

"People can change their minds, you know." Ves defended himself. "Besides, designing biomechs is not as difficult as you think. I just had to learn more subjects than usual. This was why it took so long before I became confident enough to design my first proper biomech. I have always known that organic parts work particularly well with my design philosophy. This is just the natural progression of my work."

The female expert pilot did not look convinced. "If the Titan-5 Project is an indicator of what you can accomplish by applying your specialty to organic mechs, then maybe I am better off with piloting a fully metallic machine."

"The Titan-5 Project is not a representative example of my biomechs! It is a deliberate experiment to seek the limits of the amount of primal aggression a living bioconstruct can accumulate. I will make sure to impose strict limits onto my future biomechs so that they will never come close to reaching that level of hostility."

"Mmmhmmm."

Ves sighed. "Even if things go wrong, there are always backup options. The Dullahan Project is not strictly a cyborg mech. At most, it will be 95 percent mechanical and only 5 percent organic. If my implementation of the Empowered Blood Sharing System in your expert mech has become too untenable to fix, then I will simply remove the organic components and fill up the spaces with more conventional parts. Neither iterations of your expert mech will have any wasted space. Does that ease your concerns?"

"That is much better news." Jannzi finally smiled. "By all rights, I shouldn't agree to your decision to insert experimental technology into my expert mech, but… you often find a way to make your crazy ideas work. A part of me is excited to pilot the first expert mech that incorporates this promising new feature."

They talked about a few other properties about her Dullahan Project. Ves had made much more progress on the complicated design than everyone thought, which meant that he had reached a stage in the design process where he needed to gather more input from the end user.

"Will you roll out this new blood system to our other expert mechs if it turns out that it has lived up to its potential with my upcoming expert mech?" Jannzi curiously asked.

"I… am not so sure about that." Ves reluctantly answered.

"Why? Are there any risks or complications to them that you have yet to disclose?"

Ves hesitated a bit longer before he decided to come clean.

"Theoretically, the moment a mech pilot develops a Blood Pact with a mech, the two become bound on a deep and possibly permanent level. The implication here is that the mech pilot will essentially be locked into piloting a single machine for the rest of his life. I'm not sure about any of this, mind you, so don't assume that these are all facts. I am just describing one of the more adverse possibilities here. Even so, a mech pilot will only be able to fight at his best when he is paired with his bound machine. No other mech pilot should be able to control it once it is locked into a Pact, so that is an additional restriction."

Venerable Jannzi clearly wasn't bothered by this restriction. She had bound herself to the Shield of Samar before Ves invented this Blood Pact.

Besides, Ves possessed the capability to reinvent or rebirth an existing mech, so it was not as if Jannzi would lock herself into a mech that could never be altered over time.

"I can see why several of our expert pilots might shy away from this commitment." Jannzi spoke. "The only one who will embrace your Blood Pact without hesitation is Venerable Vincent Ricklin. He's a bit of a fool but his love and adoration to his C-Man is sincere and authentic."

Ves was surprised that she left out a few potential candidates.

"I would think that all of our expert pilots might embrace the benefits of permanently binding themselves to their current expert mechs. My clan and I have always made sure to maintain their development and upgrade them to new and modern specifications whenever the differences have grown big enough. Our pilots don't have to switch over to a new expert mech every generation because the mech designers are too lazy to revisit one of their existing works."

"That is true. It is one of the best parts about working for the Larkinson Clan. The main reason why the other expert pilots are reluctant to follow suit is the possibility that they might lose their machines entirely. Don't forget that I came close to losing my Sammie entirely. If not for the fact that the Skorpion Kommando's acid failed to melt away the head of my expert mech, there would be nothing left for you to embark on the Dullahan Project!"

"That's not strictly true." Ves smirked. "As long as you are able to get to safety with your life intact, then you will most assuredly retain your ejected cockpit. That is one of the most integral parts of your expert mech. It would be a lot harder to design a successor to your Shield of Samar with less intact salvage, but I would still be able to cobble up a decent work. As far as I am concerned, Venerable Joshua and all of our other expert pilots don't need to be afraid. In fact, if my more wilder theories are correct, I don't even need an intact cockpit to reconstruct their bonded machines…"

It was too premature for Ves to make any further claims. His biggest priority at the moment was to complete his revised Blood Knight Project so that he could test his assumptions in reality!

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