The Mech Touch

What would happen if a kid returned home one day and found out that mommy and daddy brought home an extra sister?

Ves was kind of feeling like he was that kid right now as he confronted the truth that an entirely new design spirit occupied his Valkyrie mech models.

"This isn't supposed to happen!"

Each of his Valkyrie mechs were based on his designs, which he developed with the Superior Mother as their sole design spirit.

While it was possible for his existing mech designs to exchange one design spirit for another, this was only supposed to happen under his conscious direction.

They were his creations and possessions, after all! Not even Gloriana should be able to do this as far as he knew.

The only other possibility was if his design spirits consciously pulled themselves away from a particular mech design. Ves wasn't able to keep them if they truly wanted to disassociate themselves with his work.

None of them had ever taken the initiative to pull out, though. The spiritual feedback they received from doing nothing but extending their presence to a mech design was immensely valuable to them! They hardly had to do anything in order to gain a lot of rewards that were capable of fueling their growth!

Of all of the Hexer mechs that Ves had designed for the Hex Army, the Valkyrie Redeemer and its official variants were by far the most popular and celebrated mechs in use by his clients.

They were pretty much the only offensive Hexer mechs that Ves and Gloriana designed for the Hexer people. The other designs were useful as well, but most of them possessed more auxiliary and supportive functions.

To many Hexers, particularly their militant female population, the Valkyrie line was their most loved collection of living mechs!

The Superior Mother benefited enormously from the Hexadric Hegemony's widespread embrace of the Valkyrie Redeemer and its variants. Its strength, utility and versatility all made for a good combination, but when combined with the Supreme's death phase glow, the mech model truly came together!

For years, the Hexers used it to good effect. If not for the fact that the Friday Coalition were actually competent at diplomacy, the Hexadric Hegemony would have likely been the state that enjoyed the last laugh in the Komodo Star Sector.

Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any reason for the Superior Mother to relinquish her links with the greatest sources of spiritual feedback she had access to! None of the other mech models such as the Blessed Squire, the Cherub, the Bright Boy, the Eternal Redemption and the Devious could provide as much spiritual sustenance to a design spirit.

The Superior Mother had not become the most powerful design spirit in his collection for nothing!

For her to cut herself off to the Valkyrie line was just as devastating as Ves turning his back on the mech market!

It would be a lot more difficult for the Superior Mother to maintain her upkeep in the future! This was dangerous as the Superior Mother was an important source of energy for Cynthia!

Ves needed to design a new Hexer mech in the near future in order to give the Superior Mother another strong source of spiritual feedback.

For now, he needed to address the more immediate changes.

There weren't many reasons why the Superior Mother would vacate a profitable mech design, but giving way to a daughter sounded like a plausible possibility!

As Ves slowly reached out his spiritual senses towards the gathered Valkyrie mechs, he slowly familiarized with the new design spirit in town.

He frowned as he confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that he had not taken part in the new design spirit's creation!

"This is strange!"

Every spiritual product of his own creation possessed certain unique characteristics. He doubted that others would be able to recognize them, but as the creator of many design spirits, he was incredibly familiar with the traces of his own work!

"How is this possible?"

He would know if he had done anything like this in the past! His schedule was fully accounted for. In no way did he ever had a period of time where he could have possibly spent time to create a brand-new design spirit.

"Did I make one in my sleep?" He wondered.

This shouldn't be the case. It required active, conscious manipulation in order to create something as complex as a design spirit.

Ves narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Gloriana?"

"Yes, Ves?"

"Earlier, you told me that the Superior Mother had given 'birth' to a new design spirit, right?"

Gloriana nodded. "I did. Helena is her first and only daughter so far! Congratulations, Ves! You've gained a sister!"

"How do you know all of that?!" Ves puzzled. "Did the new design spirit tell you all of this or did you get this information through another channel?"

He was still dubious about the identity of 'Helena'.

Was there another person aside from Ves who was capable of creating new spiritual products? This was not an entirely unreasonable assumption. Anyone with his particular life domain should be capable of accomplishing similar feats, at least in theory.

He suddenly made an astonishing guess!

What if… a future version of himself traveled in the past for the sole purpose of creating a new design spirit in the form of Helena?

Why would future-Ves do something like that? Had he and other humans fallen victim to a massive calamity in the next years that required a distinct spiritual entity like Helena to save their butts?

If this was the case… then future-Ves sure was a genius!

Not only that, future-Ves gave present-Ves a huge amount of convenience!

A hand suddenly slapped his face!

"Idiot brother!"

Ves backed off a bit. "Who did that?!"

"What is wrong with you, Ves?" Gloriana confusedly turned around. "This is your new sister, you know! Why don't you introduce yourself properly?"

"..Maybe you're onto something."

Ves was lacking a lot of relevant information right now. Rather than speculate based on guesses and assumptions, he might as well gather information straight from the source!

He stepped forward and approached a pair of Valkyrie Brunhilds that radiated more power than any of the other Valkyrie variants in the hangar bay.

They not only stood out due to the fact that their quality and technical performance was far above the other Valkyrie mechs aside from the Valkyrie Prime which no longer existed, the pair of Valkyrie Brunhilds also possessed spiritual foundations that were also much thicker and more developed!

The reason why they had grown so much that they had evolved into new third order living mechs was the mech pilots standing proudly before their respective machines.

"The Handmaidens of Death." Gloriana introduced. "If there is anyone who is most familiar with the Valkyrie line from the perspective of pilots, it's them. They are also the ones who have offered the clearest statement on what has happened."

Ves did not have a strong impression of Venerable Olivia Remis and Venerable Eona Ballentine. They were typical Glory Seekers who possessed a lot of Hexer traits but also mellowed out a lot after spending a lot of time outside of hegemony space.

Aside from that, Ves didn't really pay attention to them seeing as he did not interact with the Glory Seekers on a daily basis. He paid more attention to his own Larkinson mech pilots most of the time.

"Holy Son."

"Holy Son."

"Don't call me that!" Ves protested.

"Why not?" Venerable Olivia looked puzzled. "You are the son and brother to deities."

Ves didn't bother correcting these misconceptions. "Just call me by my title. Now what is going on with your mechs?"

"Your mother has given birth to your sister. As you can no doubt feel, Helena has already assumed her responsibilities as our goddess of death."

Ves took a deep glance at the pair of Valkyrie Brunhilds. He could tell that their new design spirit was paying close attention to what was taking place in the hangar bay.

"Have your close ties with the Superior Mother told you exactly why she has decided to relinquish her place for her daughter?"

"The Supreme is already powerful enough." Venerable Eona explained. "She is known to every Hexer and is worshiped by all. The Daughter of Death has just appeared and still needs to be introduced."

"Daughter of Death? Is that how she goes by?" Ves wondered.

"She's also a better fit for the Valkyrie line." Gloriana remarked. "I can definitely feel these mechs have all grown stronger and more deadlier than before. I wonder how much better they perform in battle now that my little sister-in-law inherited my mother-in-law's position!"

Ves scratched his head. "Why give birth to Helena, though? Has anything happened that necessitated her creation?"

Venerable Olivia Remis looked surprised that Ves didn't know what was going on in his own family.

"We have heard… that a major battle took place in the Nyxian Gap."

The Glory Seeker expert pilots quickly narrated what they learned from their colleagues serving in the Oblivion Empire and what they received from their new but already intimate bonds with the Daughter of Death.

The tale sounded fantastical to the point where he wondered whether the Handmaidens of Death had imagined at least half of the story. Oblivion Empire? Abyssal Empire? New dark gods? The Dark Saint?

All of this sounded like an unreasonable plot for a childish fantasy drama rather than a serious recounting of an actual battle.

Even though Ves knew that battles in the Nyxian Gap tended to be a little weird, this was something else! He found it difficult to accept all of this nonsense about 'gods' and 'heroes' duking it out while a large number of mechs and warships were completely rendered irrelevant!

Yet the truth was that the Superior Mother had truly pulled out of the Valkyrie mechs while Helena took her mother's place.

Just the notion that a spiritual entity had actually given birth to another spiritual entity was new to him! He never knew that spiritual life forms could reproduce in this manner.

Even though he created the Superior Mother around the concept of an ideal mother, he didn't actually mean for her to be able to reproduce in this manner!

Had she evolved to the point of being able to do this herself? This sounded plausible, but extremely difficult to accomplish!

Ves knew exactly how difficult it was to create new spiritual life forms from scratch. It was not just a simple matter of gathering a lot of spiritual energy or cutting it off an existing form of life.

Without the spark of life, there shouldn't be a way of creating an entirely new spiritual life form.

"Wait a second…"

As Ves took a deep look at the new design spirit, he recognized the signs that indicated that he was involved somehow.

He began to develop a clearer guess of what kind of role he played in Helena's birth!

The Superior Mother couldn't have just concentrated a lot of death-attributed spiritual energy and be done with it. She needed to get the spark of life from somewhere, and the only known source of that was…

"Me!"

Ves widened his eyes! Had his mother swiped his spiritual seed without his awareness before using it as the most crucial ingredient to bring Helena to life?

"Doesn't that mean… I'm Helena's…?"

He started to get another headache as he tried to puzzle out his increasingly more convoluted family tree.

The Superior Mother was technically his mother since she was Cynthia's incarnation. At the same time, the Supreme was also his 'daughter' since he brought her to life in the first place.

By these same relations, now that the Superior Mother had given birth to Helena, the latter had become his sister as well as his granddaughter!

Yet technically speaking, he was also Helena's direct father as the Superior Mother had presumably stolen his spiritual seed some time in the past in order to catalyze a new life.

With three different possible family relations, how exactly should he regard the newborn Daughter of Death?

"Are you my new granddaughter, Helena?"

A flare of anger burst out of all of the nearby Valkyrie mechs at once!

A grey arm materialized above Ves' head and gave him a good smack!

"MOTHER WAS RIGHT! YOU ARE AN IDIOT!"