The Mech Touch

"We've managed to secure sufficient support to establish the Hall of Heroes. Once we are ready to reorganize, we'll transfer all of the expert pilots and their retinue to the new mech force."

"Who will lead the Hall of Heroes?" Ves asked as he leaned back on his chair.

He attempted to grab Lucky from his desk, but the gem cat quickly jumped away.

"Meow!"

Major Verle's projection paused for a bit. "We are still in the process of determining that, sir. The Hall of Heroes is unlike the other mech forces we've established. It is best to see it as an umbrella organization for expert pilots. We need someone in charge who can command respect from them without coming across as controlling. To emphasize this distinction, the officer in charge will carry the rank of commandant."

"Ideally, the commandant should be a former expert pilot." Ves thought about it. "Since those are hard to come by, we should choose an old and retired mech pilot. The older, the better."

"We still have a number of highly-respected trueblood Larkinson retirees who can fulfill this position." Verle grinned. "We'll just have to pick the least-crotchety among them. The duties of the commandant are fairly light anyway. His main role is to manage the personalities of the expert pilots so that they don't butt heads against each other or towards our clan. The staff can handle the rest."

The two went through a list of candidates and quickly settled on some older Larkinson. While most of the trueblood veterans desired peace and chose to stay with the Larkinson Family, there were several older men and women who opted to follow their younger and much more ambitious children and grandchildren.

"What about Cristoph Larkinson? He served for over forty years. He fought in two wars and reached the rank of mech captain. While he did not distinguish himself through piloting skill or command ability, he possesses the right social traits."

Ves studied Cristoph's profile carefully. The old man was part of his grandpa Benjamin's generation.

According to the record that he had access to, Cristoph was noted to be modest, calm under pressure and easy to chat with. On the other hand, this grandfatherly figure also became a bit more plodding as he grew older.

This was not someone who acted decisively. This was okay to Ves. It was not the commandant's job to direct the expert pilots in battle. That was up to Major Verle or whoever was in charge.

When Ves extended an offer to Cristoph, the old man only hesitated for a brief moment before he accepted.

"I thought I could enjoy my remaining years in peace, but I don't mind holding another desk job." Cristoph's projection remarked. The man resided on Cinach VI with the rest of the retirees. "If you need me to wrangle the new expert pilots, I'm your man. Just don't expect too much from me. I've served alongside their kind before. I know how they can be if they think they have to do the right thing."

"This is exactly why we must establish the Hall of Heroes. I'm hopeful that you'll be able to earn their regard. Don't be afraid to ask for assistance from myself or Major Verle. Keeping our expert pilots happy and occupied is essential. The Military Bureau will help set up your new office and transfer some capable staffers. "

"Understood, sir. I'll get right on it. It is an honor to assume responsibility over our strongest mech pilots."

The newly-appointed commandant saluted to Ves before he began to talk to Major Verle in private. Setting up a special unit centered around expert pilots could not be done in a day.

With these matters taken care of, Ves ended the calls and returned his attention to his other priorities. "It's high time to finalize some of my mech designs."

Several projects were already close to completion. The mech designs were no longer purely theoretical as Gloriana fabricated several prototypes to test their performance in reality.

Backed up by this data, Ves gained a very thorough understanding on how the mechs performed.

"Gloriana has done a good job in my absence."

While he wasn't truly absent in the last month, he spent far less time on the design projects as he wished. He wanted to make up for that now by finishing the spiritual components that only he could take care of. He didn't want to know how badly Gloriana waited for him to address this neglected area.

He waved his hand and called up an overview of all six projects.

"The Cat's Paw Project still needs more work. The Valkyrie Redeemer needs more hardening against the counters introduced by the Friday Coalition. The Chiron needs more finetuning in light of my latest innovations. I'll probably have to adjust my plan for the Ferocious Piranha as well now that Nyxie is no longer alive."

That left out the Sanctuary and the Crystal Lord Mark II.

Of the two third-class mech designs, the Sanctuary was a very simple and boring knight mech design. This meant that Gloriana and the erudites easily achieved their milestones on this project ahead of time.

If not for its exceptional design spirit, they would have finalized it already.

"Well, Lufa is pretty much ready to take on his role." He muttered.

The only question was whether he wished to impart any triggered abilities and other quirks onto the design.

Considering that the mech was designed to offer relief against the glows of his other products, he didn't believe it was necessary to empower it that much. The only alteration it needed was a spiritual construct that regulated what glows it was allowed to impair.

It did not take much effort to specify the list as he had already formed it beforehand.

In general, the Sanctuary was strictly limited to negating the glows of other third-class mechs. It would have been incredibly cheap if it was capable of impairing the glows of superior mechs.

There should be no way for the Fridaymen to employ this model against the Blessed Squire and other Hexer-commissioned mechs!

The final instruction he programmed in the design was that its glow was completely ineffective against any mech piloted by a Larkinson. This rule only became invalid when the Sanctuary was piloted by a Larkinson as well.

"With all of the glows in my clan, I think a mech like this is very necessary to give my men some relief."

That was one of the main reasons he designed the Sanctuary after all. Even he got tired of playing with glows all the time.

Just before he was about to call it a day, he suddenly stopped and remembered something important.

"Wait, I need to take the counters to my glows into account as well!"

While the Sanctuary was designed to counter glows, Ves predicted that the counters developed by his competitors such as mechs leveraging O-K alloy would definitely disrupt this function.

While Ves did not care so much if the Sanctuary was not able to leverage its strength all the time, that did not apply to his other mechs.

What if he published the Valkyrie Redeemer with great fanfare, only for the Fridaymen to develop a method that largely blocked its signature Marked For Death ability?

"It's not just my upcoming mechs that need strengthening. The Blessed Squire is also due for an update!"

He devoted some time to studying the current situation of the Blessed Squire. Gloriana frequently transmitted some internal documents and battle footage to keep him up to date.

So far, more counters have emerged onto the battlefield. Each new model only showed up on a couple of battlefields. This indicated to Ves that the Fridaymen were still in the process of iterating more effective solutions.

"Nonetheless, most of the counters they've come up with work on the same principle."

The Glow Crusher and other comparable mech models each attempted to disturb one energy field with another energy field. It was like crashing a concert by playing a different song over another song.

Ves had considered how to handle this situation for several days. He came up with various solutions, but most of them were rather convoluted and depended on conditions that he could not accomplish.

For example, one of the most direct ways to counter the Glow Crusher's motion energy from overriding glows was to force his mechs to output a stronger aura than usual.

Yet increasing this output could not be done without a price.

His mech needed a source in order to strengthen its glow. So far, he came up with the concept of a reservoir. If Ves found some way for his mech to capture and store some of its own glow, the pilot should be able to release the accumulated glow whenever a Glow Crusher came close.

Ves tried to create the capturing and storing mechanisms without success. He needed to advance his spiritual engineering, and that took time and effort that he couldn't spare at this moment.

"I'll get back to this after the wedding."

Right now, Ves wanted to come up with a faster and more convenient solution. The longer the Glow Crushers oppressed the Blessed Squires, the more likely the Hex Army lowered the priority on his mechs.

This was not what he wanted! He needed to the Hexers to adopt his Hexers mechs wholesale in order to spread the gospel of the Superior Mother.

Fortunately, he had another idea that didn't require so much effort.

"Much like any energy field, glows follow the inverse-square law. The greater the distance, the weaker the glow."

Before the appearance of specific counters, Ves always aimed to maximize the range of the glows of his mechs. There was no threat to them, so why shouldn't he aim for maximizing the coverage?

However, doing so turned the glows into a huge and vulnerable target. It was like comparing an apple and a cheap balloon.

If Ves held a needle and poked the balloon, it would probably pop in an instant.

If he did the same to an apple, then all he accomplished was releasing a small amount of juice.

Though the analogy wasn't accurate, the Glow Crusher pretty much played the role of a needle.

"If this is the case, then I just have to turn the balloon into an apple."

He had to compress the glow of his mech designs. As long as the glows clung a bit together to their mechs, enemies wouldn't be able to collapse them so easily anymore.

It was remarkably easy for Ves to implement this solution. He already possessed a fair amount of experience in manipulating the glow of the Valkyrie Redeemer design.

The only bit of uncertainty was that he hadn't actually tested it out. While he was confident in his theory, he needed to verify it before he was ready to expand it to his entire mech catalog.

"Once counters to my glows become ubiquitous, a defensive function like this is essential!"

The downside to retracting the glow was that it didn't cover as many friendlies and enemies around it. Yet Ves believed it was worth it in order to make his glows tougher and more intense!

He contacted Gloriana after he made some refinements to this solution.

"What is it, Ves? Are you ready to complete some of our designs?"

"Not quite. I need your help. Can you contact DIVA or the Hex Army in order to perform a little trial? I've just come up with a potential stopgap solution that should mitigate the effectiveness of the counters to our mechs."

"I can do that." She replied. "I've established a closer relationship with the Hex Army lately. I can contact some commanders who can provide us with the opportunity to test some updates or variants. Just make sure you've put enough effort. We'll be responsible if anything goes wrong."

"Don't worry, Gloriana. I'm always sure about my work!"