The Mech Touch

Whenever she was energetic, she just loved to explore anything that caught her attention. Clixie and in particular her tail endlessly fascinated the little designer baby.

While Ves completely tunnel-visioned on the Minerva Project, Aurelia was left to roam around as she wished, within limits.

Though Ves hadn't overhauled his design studio into pastel colors like his wife had done for hers, he made sure to implement sufficient safety precautions.

That along with the watchful cats allowed him to feel assured that his daughter wouldn't bump her head against a cabinet or something.

"Waaaa! Bhwaaa!" Aurelia excitedly cried as her surprisingly swift and vigorous body was gaining on Clixie.

"Miaow~!"

The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat pretended to be tired and slowed down just enough for the little girl to grab her tail.

Soon enough, the two merged into yet another bundle of cute as Aurelia eagerly hugged Clixie as if she was a plushie.

What neither of them noticed was that Aurelia's body briefly glowed. Not only that, but the glow also spilled over into Clixie's body!

The flash of luminance occurred too quickly for anyone to have noticed the anomaly. Even the monitoring system that Ves had specifically programmed to keep close watch on his girl only thought it was an ordinary visual glitch.

While Aurelia and Clixie were bonding with each other, Ves pulled himself out of his design session after his comm sounded an alert.

"I see it's time. C'mon, sweetie. It's time to see what your mother has accomplished these past few days."

"Bwaaaaa…!"

Ves picked up his baby and held her close. Aurelia curiously looked around her as they exited the design lab and walked down the corridors until they reached Gloriana's private workshop.

After passing through a routine security check, they entered the large hall where his wife looked on with a measure of pride.

She finally fabricated Vincent Ricklin's custom mech.

Ves already began to admire it as he walked close to his tired-looking wife. The mech truly looked fitting for an expert candidate. It was not as powerful as an expert mech but could definitely overpower any other ordinary mech.

"Well done, honey."

"Don't celebrate just yet. It's not entirely complete. I still need Vincent to pilot it in order to make the final corrections."

"Mhmm. That doesn't take away the fact that you did a fine job."

"It's not a masterwork mech. Maybe I should have borrowed your hammer."

"Perhaps that would have made a difference, but you wanted this project to be reflective of your true capabilities. Even without borrowing Vulcan's help, you still managed to produce a high-quality mech."

Ves would never be able to design and build a mech that was this refined. Gloriana generally worked best in collaborations, but in instances where she was all by herself, she was fully able to apply her own vision without any compromises.

Compared to her husband, Gloriana's design approach emphasized precision, technical perfection and a high degree of optimization.

Though Ves felt that her approach was too rigid and mechanical at times, he did not doubt its excellence.

The New Man Project was a machine that would definitely perform well in all of the situations that Gloriana wanted it to excel in. On the other hand, Ves doubted it was adaptable enough to cope in situations outside of its comfort zone.

Not that it should matter. The New Man Project was designed to fight in the company of many friendly mechs. It should always have backup on hand.

From all appearances, the mech was designed to operate like a defensive platform. Layers of armor both protected it and weighed it down, but despite the excellent protection, it did not look fat or oversized.

No, under Gloriana's exquisite design, the armor layers rolled off the internal frame like an exquisite sculpture. Like the Adonis Colossus before it, the New Man Project was modeled after VIncent's own trained physique.

Of course, upon the client's request, the curves and lines were a bit more exaggerated than in real life. This mech was supposed to represent an ideal rather than serve as an accurate reflection of reality.

That, or Vincent viewed himself in a much more impressive fashion than warranted.

The thick limbs and thick chest provided excellent all-round protection. If that wasn't enough protection, the shield generator that Gloriana had managed to integrate into the design provided an additional defensive buffer that would allow the New Man Project to withstand a lot of hits but keep fighting.

There was just one little quirk that Ves couldn't quite accept.

"I can't believe you actually listened to Vincent's advice and relocated the shield generator down to the lower waist." He said in a hollow tone.

Gloriana smirked. "Just because he is a layman doesn't mean that all of his words should be discounted. I am an excellent listener. Although it is relatively rare for mechs to incorporate their shield generators in such a low position, it does allow for the torso to become sleeker and less top-heavy. Besides, the shield generator is just as well-protected in that particular location because of the… ‘waist protection layer'."

"You know quite well that the only reason that Vincent made that stupid suggestion was because his codpiece would look bigger as a result."

"At least there is a functional purpose behind it now!"

"I'm not sure it will actually do the job it is supposed to do. It only protects against attacks from the front, not the sides and rear. The thing looks so glaring that it probably acts as an attractive target to enemies. What if they all concentrate their attacks on the codpiece? That expensive miniaturized shield generator module will get blown to bits in no time!"

Gloriana crossed her arms. "At least the life of the mech pilot will be safeguarded in that case. This is a mech that will certainly attract a lot of enemy fire due to its flamboyant appearance and its relative lack of mobility. I can tolerate the mech getting disabled, but I do not want my client to die so soon."

The mech was designed as if the mech pilot was an incompetent child who could not be trusted to pilot a more complicated mech. It not only lacked the more complicated and advanced functions that skilled mech pilots preferred to utility, but also came with a lot of safety layers.

That said, the New Man Project was most definitely not a toy. Gloriana had taken advantage of its generous design budget and stuffed its frame full with multiple weapon systems.

The miniaturized gauss weapons were its main armaments. Four of them were mounted on the arms and the legs respectively. A larger one was mounted in its abdomen area in case Vincent needed a greater punch.

The missile launcher that was discreetly mounted on its back gave the machine additional offensive options while the small laser weapons mounted on the sides of its head gave it a backup option in case it finally ran out of ammunition.

Not that this was likely to happen. The New Man Project came with external ammunition carriers that could be mounted on its sides and back.

Another notable visual trait was that the New Man Project lacked Gloriana's signature look. Upon Vincent's request, she skipped marking her work with a hexagon on the forehead, though Ves wouldn't put it past her to hide one on the inside of her custom mech's codpiece.

Instead, the mech bore a large and prominent white B on its golden chest. The letter stood for Bravo and was meant to give Vincent an additional boost to his confidence.

As Ves kept studying all of the nuances of the finished mech, two people arrived in the workshop.

"My mech! My new mech!"

Vincent Ricklin quickly arrived before his mech and quickly fell in love with it. The stars in his eyes showed that he not only liked his machine, he adored it! With this mech, he could truly start fighting like the champion that he always imagined himself to be. Nothing would stop him from standing out in battle any longer!

Raella approached at a more sedate pace. She took a contemptuous glance at the codpiece of her lover's mech.

"Gloriana, I thought we agreed to keep Vincent's ego in check."

"I already did the best I could. His shield generator isn't that big, but the internal architecture needed to be bigger to accommodate such an energy-hungry component. The codpiece not only serves as protection for all of those important systems, but also functions as an additional heat-venting mechanism."

Raella stared at Gloriana with an odd expression. "Are you telling me the codpiece heats up in battle?"

"Correct. That's why it has those fins. The fact that they add additional… depth to the codpiece is an unintentional side effect. The heat that channels through the codpiece will also make it so that heat-seeking ordnance will generally seek out the lower waist before the chest. This might serve as an additional safety guarantee for Vincent."

"..You're serious, aren't you?"

Ves looked surprised at his wife. Last time he had a good talk about the New Man Project with her, she attempted to minimize the size and girth of the codpiece. How come she changed her mind all of a sudden? Did she give in to Vincent's demands because she had no other choice or was there something else afoot?"

Whatever the case, Vincent looked extremely delighted when he carefully studied the shape of the codpiece.

"Marvelous! It looks so accurate! With a codpiece that big, no one will doubt my manhood when I deploy with this mech!"

Raella scoffed. "Who the hell thinks about the size of your little brother while you're piloting a mech, you dolt?!"

"I do!"

"What? Why?!"

"Because big brothers always beat their little brothers!"

A silly argument ensued which did not interest Ves in the slightest. Once they were done, Raella stood back while Vincent suited up and entered the cockpit of his new mech for the first time.

"Alright, let's bring it out for testing."

For safety reasons, Vincent wasn't allowed to boot up the mech immediately. He had to wait until the dormant machine was moved to the hangar bay before being dragged out into space.

Once the mech was far enough to pose a minimal threat to the fleet, Vincent was finally allowed to activate his mind.

The New Man Project came to life. As energy coursed through its systems, Vincent began to feel as if he had slipped into a much greater and stronger version of his body!

"This… this is amazing!" He gasped. "This new mech fits me so much better than my old Adonis Colossus mech that there is no comparison! I feel like I am truly one with this machine!"

Though Ves was too distant from the New Man Project to study its spiritual interactions, he could guess what was happening by studying Vincent's reactions.

When he studied the mech just before, he saw that Gloriana adopted a different approach to the spiritual design of her work.

She did not seek to turn her mechs into completely independent but also interconnected life forms.

Instead, she sought to leverage her limited means into turning the mechs into a second skin of their pilots.

The result of this approach was that the ego and awareness of the New Man Project was very weak. Yet whatever was alive fit so well with Vincent's mind and nascent force of will that it was as if the mech was truly an extension of the pilot!

"Interesting." Ves whispered as he thought about the implications of this approach.

He could see the advantages of this approach, but the downside was that the New Man Project would never truly be able to become a complete life form, but that was not a big deal.

Not every mech had to turn into the next Quint or Shield of Samar. Piloting a mech that immediately molded with their mech pilots like a second skin was already sufficient for most individuals!