The Mech Touch

The Doom Guard design finally reached its final form as far as Ves was concerned.

As soon as Ves employed spiritual counterbalancing to formulate an unusual new way to impart a glow to his design, the mech ascended into something different than the competition.

Pitting Zeigra and Nyxie together with the mech design as their dueling arena was very different from what he had done before.

In previous mech designs, one design spirit was always the top dog. While Ves had blended multiple influences in a single design before, he mostly just added a small amount of foreign influence in order to change the flavor of the glow.

This time was different. By weakening Nyxie to the point where his crippled, purified spiritual fragment could only go even with Zeigra, a lot of tension took place as the two jostled for dominance!

The balance they achieved was deceptively stable. While neither of the two grew weaker, they weren't able to make much progress either.

Regardless, the fight never ceased. As Ves carefully studied the spiritual activity taking place inside the Doom Guard, it was as if the two design spirits never knew peace!

Like two stones grinding against each other, they constantly bumped and pushed against the entity they regarded as their challenger!

While this activity didn't change the balance, it did cause some fluctuations to emerge. The discordant spiritual ripples emanating from the design were very disconcerting, so much so that Ves had to reduce his spiritual sensitivity lest he grew nauseous!

What delighted him however was that these ripples complimented the effects of Zeigra and Nyxie's glows!

Ves chose to involve Zeigra because the former Crown Cat possessed a very predatory and intimidating character.

He chose to add Nyxie to the mix because the ancient alien tyrant possessed a very inexplicable ability to induce existential terror.

Combining these two effects and piling up the body-sickening ripples generated by the conflict between the two design spirits all added up into a very uncomfortable glow!

The eventual outcome was noticeably stronger than he anticipated. He didn't expect the tension arising from the conflict to be this effective!

It didn't take long for Gloriana to grow queasy. "I don't know, Ves.. I think.. you overdid it a little."

She shivered, causing Ves to realize that his resilience was different from hers!

Ves was used to facing uncomfortable spiritual sensations. His strong Spirituality and his frequent interactions with spiritual entities such as Nyxie had not only increased his mental resilience, but also desensitized him to different kinds of spiritual pressure.

The same could not be said for Gloriana. She rarely experienced any unusual spiritual phenomena or did much with them. She never confronted the demons that Ves did on a frequent basis.

When Ves compared his sensitivity to hers, he judged that the general public would likely exhibit the same reaction as hers, thereby causing most of them to grow very uncomfortable, to say the least!

While those effects were all boons to the purpose of their Doom Guard design, the practical difficulties they introduced also made it harder to use them! How could an outfit expect to use a Doom Guard against its opponent when the striker mech already scared their own crew out of their wits?!

What Ves could figure out, so could his collaborator. Gloriana quickly pointed out a very fatal flaw about their completed design.

"I have no doubt our Doom Guard can deter a lot of enemies, particularly the less disciplined ones." She started and pointed at the projected design schematic. "However.. I doubt any outfit wants to keep this mech around in their own mech roster. Since it's a spaceborn mech, it will mostly be stored in carrier vessels. Can you imagine how the Doom Guard will be squeezed into a cramped ship designed to fit as many mechs inside their hulls as possible?"

His face dropped. Gloriana raised a very good point!

While light carriers and combat carriers were fairly large vessels, their internal volume was not as big as most people thought! A lot of space was taken up by ship components and structural elements. Ship designers had to allocate the space inside a vessel as efficiently as possible while still adhering to other priorities such as redundancy and compartmentalization.

As a result, there was hardly any redundant space for mechs. When it came to storing them, the mechs were usually placed in several areas.

If the machines needed to be deployed in an instant, then they would be put in a crowded hangar bay where a lot of mech technicians and mech pilots congregated.

If the mechs didn't need to be deployed at any time, then they were put into very secure mech stables. These were basically mech-sized storage areas which clamped a mech in place so that it wouldn't jostle around or get thrown around in case of accidents.

In any case, no matter where a mech was being put on a ship, there were always a lot of other mechs and people around!

How would they feel if they had to spend an entire work shift in the vicinity of fearsome Doom Guard? While the mech's glow was not as strong if not booted up, it still couldn't be ignored!

There was no way to block the influence of its glow. It went right through solid materials so the people working in the decks below and above the location of the Doom Guard would still experience its terror!

Who would want to incur all of this trouble if it led to these problems?

If the Doom Guard was a landbound mech, then at least the buyer would be able to erect an isolated facility placed away from the main base to store the problematic machines.

Yet this was not an option in space! Regardless if they were stored in carrier vessels or space stations, there wasn't as much room to work with, which meant that the mech would constantly be subjecting the people around it with friendly fire!

"This is indeed a very serious problem!" Ves admitted. He was in a serious dilemma! "I don't want to weaken its glow any further. The fact that it will likely have a strong effect on the crew of a carrier means it will be even more effective against its opponents! I really don't want to weaken this effect because it will directly decrease its battle effectiveness."

As Ves tried to figure out a way to overcome this issue, his girlfriend offered a very simple suggestion.

"Why not add an off switch?"

"Huh?" He stopped his thoughts.

"An off switch." Gloriana reiterated. "When a mech isn't needed, we turn it off to conserve its energy and to preserve its lifespan, among other reasons. Why not add the same functionality to its glow? As long as it's possible, the owners of our product can safely store them in their carriers without negatively affecting the people around them. In fact, since our Doom Guard is so disturbing, its mech pilots can save its glow until it is necessary!"

"That.. why didn't I think of that!?" Ves gasped!

He wanted to bonk his own head for overlooking such a basic but very useful feature!

His previous mech designs all contained supportive glows. Ves never really thought about how unwanted they were because his customers wouldn't buy them if they disliked their effects.

The Doom Guard broke this paradigm. As his first mech with an unquestionably negative glow, the buyers of this product had to subject their own forces to the same harm as they intended to inflict on their opponents!

This self-harm trait of the Doom Guard design was something unprecedented to Ves. For the first time in his career, the ability to deactivate the glow on command was very essential! Without this function, his mech would scare away a lot of customers who would have found its glow to be useful!

"I'll have to patch this function in really quickly." He announced.

Gloriana smiled. "What are you waiting for, then? Even if we finalized our design, it's not as if we have submitted it to the MTA. We can still add some last-minute tweaks to our design. A minor change like this won't require any testing."

She was right. There was no need to ask for approval or file a lengthy submission request because Ves was his own boss!

He proceeded to add several ways to activate and deactivate the glow of his Doom Guard design. While he had never made something like this before, it wasn't a very difficult problem.

He added a physical button in the interior of the cockpit. This was mainly an emergency measure if the mech pilot somehow couldn't flick the virtual switch in the operating system of the Doom Guard through the neural interface.

As an added precaution, Ves also added a multi-step hardware switch just beneath the exterior of mech. This was a switch intended for rescue parties if the mech ever go downed. The last thing Ves wanted to do was to scare an approaching rescue shuttle away when the mech pilot inside the Doom Guard was trapped!

In the design schematic, the switches didn't actually connect to any meaningful physical component. They just activated an electrical pulse that seemingly led to nowhere.

What really happened was that this electrical pulse triggered a command that Ves had to program into the spiritual foundation of the Doom Guard. Upon detecting this specific pulse, the Doom Guard would prevent its aura and the spiritual ripples from leaking outwards.

Just like the Devil Tiger, the mech would instead contain these spiritual overflows into the mech itself, thereby causing it to soak them all in. While Ves never really knew what might result from this process over time, at the very least it wouldn't scare away other people!

Though it was highly irresponsible to publish a mech with an unknown long-term side effect, Ves didn't care at this moment! He just wanted to wrap his mech design up and introduce it to the market as quickly as possible!

"I think this is fine." He declared as he clapped his hands. "Let's proceed with our fabrication session!"

Though Gloriana looked a bit uncertain, she still followed suit.

Once they emerged back into the mech workshop, Ves gathered every assistant and student in a circle.

"What Gloriana and I are about to embark upon is a rare moment for all of us. It will stretch over several days without any rest. Remember, don't look at what we are doing on the surface. Try to feel it instead. Your heart will probably experience a lot of.. unusual sensations, but don't be startled. You have all contributed to the design of the Doom Guard in some fashion or another. Don't be scared of your own work."

The reason why he warned the other mech designers was because Ves intended to fabricate the mech while its glow was unblocked!

This was the best way to build a mech that fully conformed to his vision!

While this was never a detriment when he fabricated a mech with a supportive glow like the Bright Warrior, it was not so simple when it came to the Doom Guard!

Ves had to steel his heart and muster up his Spirituality in order to withstand its terror.

He was confident he could endure the pressure. How could he call himself a mech designer when he wasn't even brave enough to confront his own work?!

However, this decision didn't sit well with Gloriana. Unlike him, she didn't relish spending multiple days around a glow that made her want to flee the mech workshop!

Before she could object any further, Ves provided her with a solution. Two, in fact.

"I have two ways to shield you from the glow of our mech." He raised an empty, thick black lockbox. "You can take my B-stone lockbox and put it over your head. While you won't be able to see out of it, you can use your implant to link up with external sensors to see what you are doing."

His girlfriend did not look amused. "I'm not going to put an ugly box over my head, especially when it's heavy! At least build a proper helmet!"

He coughed and quickly put down the box. "The other choice is to wear the Larkinson Mandate on your body."

"That sounds much better! You should have started with that first!"

Ves passed on the thick book to Gloriana, who placed it on the back of her workshop outfit. The antigrav brace that Ves installed on the heirloom automatically locked onto her clothes, making it seem as if Gloriana was wearing a school backpack of some sorts.

"I already feel better!" She smiled as the warmth of the Golden Cat began to spread around her body.

The direct contact did wonders in allowing her to benefit from the ancestral spirit's protection!

With this solution, both of them were finally to begin fabricating the very first Doom Guard in existence!