The Mech Touch

When Ves came up with the brilliant idea to dispatch Blinky to one of his masterwork mechs, he immediately thought that it had a high chance of working!

Though Blinky was not a clear offense-oriented companion spirit like Sharpie, the spiritual cat possessed his own unique strengths and abilities.

The only factor that Ves needed to be careful about was whether it was useful and appropriate to dispatch Blinky to one of his masterworks.

The first interfacing attempt between Venerable Orfan and the Riot came to mind. If Ves rashly inserted a strange cat in a mech that was fully occupied with supporting its mech pilot in battle, disruption and disharmony might result!

So before Ves tried to send Blinky out, he first had to make a choice.

"Should I help the Quint or the Amaranto?"

Both had their good and bad points. The Quint was a more developed living mech. It was also a relatively weak mech so that a fixed boost of power would result in a greater amplification of performance.

With regards to compatibility, Ves didn't anticipate too many problems. The Quint was a more idealized version of the Bright Warrior Mark I Version B, both of which were overseen by the Golden Cat.

Blinky's relationship with Goldie was pretty good so the latter shouldn't mind whether her 'little brother' intruded in one of the mechs under her purview.

"Still… what kind of impact will result from allowing Blinky to inhabit the Quint?" Ves wondered.

Although the Quint was a powerful modular mech platform that enjoyed several powerful upgrades since it was made, its foundation was still based on an ordinary Bright Warrior.

If Blinky's was able to increase its strength, how well would it perform? Ves seriously doubted that it would suddenly become as strong as an expert mech.

"It is more realistic to assume that its performance will probably reach the level of a prime mech."

Was an additional prime mech in the Larkinson Army's lineup useful? Yes, but not that much. His Valkyrie Prime and the Shield of Samar might be able to play a greater role in smaller battles, but with tens of thousands of mechs doing their best to smash each other to pieces, the power level of a prime mech was still too inconsequential to make a difference!

Of course, the story would be different if Casella Ingvar broke through. In his brief moment of contact with the Quint, he sensed a lot of strength and will from its mech pilot. The ongoing struggle was slowly polishing the expert candidate's will, bringing her closer and closer to apotheosis.

"Can I give her a little push?"

Ves didn't know. There was a chance that he was able to create an opportunity for Casella Ingvar to break through, but this was just a guess. He never tried anything like this before and was quite reluctant to mess with the mental balance of one of his key personnel.

"It would have been a different story if Imon Ingvar was still piloting the Quint." He muttered.

Imon was just a regular expert candidate who did not play a major role in the Larkinson Army. His sister was another story.

Ever since Casella Ingvar took over the mantle of commander from Magdalena Larkinson, the younger leader went on to become a successful and popular leader of the Living Sentinels.

Many of her subordinates looked up to her so any adverse outcome would have a disastrous effect on the morale of the mech legion.

There was also another reason why Ves was reluctant to perform his new experiment on the Quint.

"I'm not sure whether Commander Casella can handle the power that Blinky can bestow to her and her mech."

Compared to this dubious choice, Ves felt a lot more confident about dispatching Blinky to the Amaranto.

It was his most recent masterwork mech and he still remembered much of its details including how its luminar crystal rifle worked.

The Amaranto was also an expert mech that was expressly designed to channel extraordinary energy and abilities. Its tolerance for them was very high and Ves did not have to worry about exceeding its fault capacity if Blinky got to work.

There were also downsides to this choice. Blinky might not be strong enough to provide a substantial boost to the expert rifleman mech. The Amaranto also had less in common with Blinky. The only shared DNA they possessed was that they were both designed and made by Ves and they also shared a connection with the Illustrious One.

"Oh well, they're on the same side, so they must be able to get along. The future of the Larkinson Clan is at stake!"

Since time was short, he did not doubt his choice any further and began to establish a connection to the Amaranto.

Just like with the Quint, now that he regarded the masterwork expert mech as a living extension of himself, he developed the impression that he was touching another part of himself, though in a very diminished way.

The exact mechanics behind this interaction continued to stimulate his thoughts, but he did his best to suppress his inquisitive desires. This was a time of action, not research!

"You're up now, Blinky. Go out and do something useful!"

Mrow!

Blinky's objections were irrelevant. No matter how much his companion spirit wanted to stay behind and just let the Larkinson soldiers win this battle on their own, Ves just metaphorically picked his cat up by the scruff of his neck and threw the purple spiritual cat into the Amaranto!

At this time, the Amaranto was still engaged in a fight of its life. Its armor was chipped and damaged from getting hit by numerous pieces of debris. Some of the more ugly marks were made by glancing blows from the powerful gauss rifles of the dwarven expert mechs!

"Abominable human mech! Only dwarves are allowed to make masterworks. Your existence must be erased!"

"The Gauss Baron must be avenged!"

Venerable Davia Stark did not let herself get affected by the senseless words of her attackers. The fanatical Slug Ranger expert pilots had been berating her since the start of their attack on her but still hadn't managed to destroy her machine entirely.

She had to work hard to keep her mech in working condition, though. If she just fought against a single dwarven expert mech, she would have been able to defeat it by using the Graveyard as cover.

That wasn't possible now that she was attacked by two expert ranged mechs at the same time!

The cooperation between the Slug Ranger expert mech pilots was good. They maintained a healthy distance from the Amaranto and each other while constantly firing their empowered gauss rounds at their target.

Since the two enemy expert mechs were oriented at different angles from the Amaranto, there were many instances where her cover was made invalid!

Even if the Amaranto was able to block the attacks of one expert rifleman mech huddle behind the hull of a ship, the other enemy machine simply had to go around and gain a clear line of sight of its target's vulnerable sides or rear!

The Amaranto would get in deep trouble if that happened because the defenses of her mech frame simply wasn't good enough to withstand even a single powerful attack from its two opponents.

Venerable Stark was forced to reposition the Amaranto ahead of time in order to avoid exposing its weak sides to one of her current foes. This not only wasted a lot of time, but also constrained the amount of times she was able to fire her rifle.

"I can't support the other Larkinsons in my current state!"

This was exactly what the dwarven expert pilots were trying to do! Even if the Amaranto was acting way too cautiously to expose itself to their sights, it was constantly on the run, giving it no chance to contribute its firepower to the other parts of the battlefield!

The suppression of the two enemy expert mechs also prevented the Amaranto from launching solid attacks on them both. The Slug Rangers obviously weren't new at this and had developed a good method to suppress a powerful ranged threat!

The reason why the dwarven approach worked so well was because the Larkinson expert mech was never designed to withstand hits with its lackluster armor system. The relative fragility of the Amaranto constantly forced it to borrow the hull structure of starships in order to resist attacks in its stead, but that was not an ideal solution.

In fact, the Amaranto had taken advantage of the Graveyard's defenses so much that the defensive salvage vessel could not take any further attacks!

"Venerable Stark, please base your defense on our other starships. The attacks launched by enemy expert mechs are too powerful for the Graveyard's hull to resist! Our capital ship urgently needs more breathing room to perform damage control functions. Please use the following lists of ships as your defensive aids. They're not as resilient as the Graveyard but their loss is more tolerable."

The instructions from high command forced Stark to reposition her Amaranto to other vessels. The sub-capital ships of the Larkinson Clan turned into sacrificial barriers as the Amaranto used their large but flimsy structure to buy more time at the cost of accelerating the destruction of valuable assets.

The dwarven expert pilots had no qualms about tearing apart the starships of their enemy!

"I need more backup." She said as she continually dodged the gauss rounds that were fired in the Amaranto's direction.

It was not as if General Verle attempted to help out. However, the regular mechs that were sent to attack the enemy expert mechs were either shot down by the dwarven expert mechs or attacked by other dwarven elements.

The Shield of Samar which arrived later had helped for a time, but the dwarves quickly found out that the prime mech was little more than a mobile obstacle!

Venerable Jannzi had very little to offer in a battle of this level. Her space knight could easily withstand the attacks of the enemy expert ranged mechs, but she was unable to do anything that could help in defeating the opposition. Venerable Stark was forced to move her expert mech away from the Shield of Samar after a time.

The dwarves were constantly paying attention to this firefight!

General Kebrinore's well-founded fears towards the Amaranto drove him to counter every plan that General Verle attempted to enact in order to free up his strongest individual ranged asset.

Only a powerful external factor could break this stalemate, and Ves hoped that Blinky was strong enough to meet the threshold!

The transition was rather abrupt. In one moment, Blinky was settled nicely inside Ves' head. In the next moment, the spiritual cat had the illusion of being squeezed through a very long and narrow straw before ending up in the spiritual space of the Amaranto!

Mrowww!

Fortunately, the Amaranto did not react violently to the arriving guest. Ves had already warned the living expert mech in advance.

"Hmmm. Strange."

Ves began to see double as he had the impression that he was in two places at once. His perspective from the Amaranto was severely limited, though.

The expert mech was currently filled with power as Venerable Stark actively resonated with the machine in order to keep up its battle performance. Blinky did not feel comfortable after being affected by Stark's powerful and resentment-filled will!

Mrowww.. mrow..

As a stranger to the Amaranto, Blinky seemed to fall out of place. Both the expert mech and the expert pilot were already concentrating fully on keeping themselves alive! How could the intruding cat possibly lend a hand to them under these circumstances?

Ves had an idea.

"Venerable Stark." He said over a priority communication channel. "I may be able to help you break this stalemate, but I will have to do something new and unprecedented. Don't be surprised if your expert mech suddenly gains power. No matter what happens, try your best to roll with the changes and see if you can leverage the added power that I'm trying to bestow. Are you willing?"

"I don't have any other choice." The older woman said as her stress levels continued to rise.

"Then let's begin. I think you can probably feel a cat somewhere in your mech. Try your best to welcome him and avoid hindering him as he tries to help. There's one change you must do, however."

"And that is?"

"Switch the attack phase of your rifle to kinetic beams." 

Though Venerable Stark had many questions, she decided to trust Ves. She switched the attack phase crystal that was currently active from a positron beam crystal to a kinetic beam crystal.

"Done. What else?"

Ves began to grin. "Get ready!"