The Mech Touch

Ves and Master Benedict continued to talk about general mech design-related matters until Patriarch Reginald Cross finally attended the meeting.

Both mech designers could clearly sense his approach from a distance. It was hard not to notice the blazing will that radiated from the ace pilot!

Even outside of the cockpit, an ace pilot's domain field was not so easy to ignore. The powerful dominance that Reginald exuded could easily make average people obey his decrees.

It was a power that could easily be abused. Ves already knew of plenty of instances where he had used his new ‘talents' to good effect in various negotiations.

These days, potential business partners knew better than to meet the Cross Patriarch in person!

"Ves." Reginald nodded with genuine respect towards his guest. "Welcome to the Hemmington Cross again. Are you ready for the fight?"

"Always." Ves grinned. "My clan is fully prepared to meet the enemy in combat. We have trained extensively against many different configurations of defensive forces. Our mech legions are strong and versatile enough to deal with any mech divisions and expert mechs that the Gauge Dynasty can whip up in Pima Prime. However, it is not necessarily us that will decide the outcome of the upcoming battle…"

Master Benedict nodded in agreement. "My younger colleague has a point. Over 200,000 mech pilots and even more civilians are relying on you to block the sharpest blade of the Gauge Dynasty."

A combative atmosphere spread from Reginald's body! Just the mention of a duel against a genuine ace pilot was enough to fire up his engines!

Ves winced as he had to put more effort into blocking out the unwanted influence. "Calm down, please. We are still a week or so away from Pima Prime. Please save your energy for the real battle."

"Ah. My apologies. I tend to do that a lot." Reginald said as he put a lot of effort into suppressing his powerful will.

There was no way that Reginald could completely suppress his extraordinary qualities. That was the same as denying himself. The best he could do was to tone it down to the point where he was accumulating for an even greater outburst in the future.

Once he settled down on a seat that was tactfully positioned further away from the mech designers, the meeting finally commenced.

Master Benedict spoke up first.

"Each of us knows what we are here for. There is only one topic on the agenda. How can we best defeat the enemy ace pilot?"

"You mean how I can defeat the enemy ace pilot." Reginald spoke.

"We can't just rely on pure brawn to squeeze out a victory on the battlefield." Ves retorted. "If we can analyze the information we have gathered about the enemy ace pilot and ace mech and formulate our strategies and tactics in advance, then we stand a much better chance of making it out of the Pima Prime System alive. Tell me what you prefer. Do you want to have a 40 percent chance of winning your upcoming duel or would you rather have a 60 percent chance of winning instead?"

Patriarch Reginald frowned. "I don't like the odds that you have chosen. Where did you pull those numbers from? Have so little faith in me and my Mars? You should add at least 40 percent on top of those figures!"

Master Benedict coughed. "Let him speak, Reginald. What we have recently managed to uncover about your future target is well worth hearing out. You can speak your mind after you have heard the latest update."

"Thank you, Benedict. Now if I may continue, let me share what we know. The initial intelligence leaks shared a lot of information about the more common defenses of the core colonies of the Gauge Dynasties. Unfortunately, they did not mention a lot of details about the expert mechs that were stationed over there, and spoke even less about the ace pilot and ace mech. The Gaugers are extremely clear that keeping details about their ultimate trump card as confidential as possible can make a real difference in a conflict. It has been extremely difficult for our spies and the spies of the Hex Federation to gather critical intelligence while at the same time keeping our enemies in the dark."

"Did you get anything worthwhile?" Patriarch Reginald impatiently asked.

Ves smiled again. "Luckily, we did. These additional details came a bit late, but they should be enough to give us a more clear idea what you are about to face. Let us begin with what we know of the ace pilot."

He waved his hand, causing the central projection to light up. The appearance of a powerful and impeccable middle-aged man appeared in view!

At first glance, the man exuded a similar vibe to Patriarch Reginald. His orange-and-black uniform did not do much to his lean muscular form. A sense of superiority strongly emanated from the powerful individual even though this was just a static image!

"We already knew that the Gauge Dynasty had stationed Saint Jeremiah Gauge in Pima Prime." Ves explained. "That is no secret. Publicizing the presence of an ace pilot has done much to make Pima Prime feel a lot safer to its residents and visitors. We also know that he has undergone his second apotheosis fairly recently. He was one of the few lucky high-tier expert pilots that broke through during the later stages of the Komodo War. After that, he disappeared from the frontlines and never showed up in public again."

"It can take a long time to design a proper ace mech for a new ace pilot. The Gauge Dynasty would never risk the life of an ace pilot by prematurely deploying him on the battlefield. Any other ace pilot that has a lot more years until his belt could easily cut off the wings of this freshly-matured chicken. I imagine his last name also has a lot to do with this matter." Master Benedict remarked.

Much like the Hexer dynasties, the Gauge Dynasty was mostly comprised of people who didn't have any family relations with the dominant family lines.

However, those that did often possessed a lot more opportunities in their lives!

For example, Jeremiah Gauge was a designer baby who had already been bred for piloting mechs. By investing in expensive augmentations and excellent training, the privileged mech pilot fully proved his talent in the following century.

Even during times of peace, the Sundered Phalanx still had plenty to do. Occasional border scuffles against the Hex Army along with regular foreign assignments to conflict-ridden places provided enough battle opportunities for Jeremiah Gauge to temper himself in battle.

It was only after he had become a high-tier expert pilot that his growth had stalled.

Just like many talented mech pilots, his progress halted before the difficult bottleneck that barred his way to advancing further.

However, the Komodo War proved to be a blessing in disguise. While many mech pilots met their end on the battlefield, Jeremiah Gauge successfully advanced and fully proved vindicated all of the resources that the Gauge Dynasty invested in his development!

"While we don't know too much about what he is capable of as an ace pilot, we can still extrapolate his abilities by looking at how he has fought when he was still an expert pilot." Ves said as he instructed the central projector to display images of the enemy Saint's past expert mechs. "Jeremiah Gauge is a pure melee mech pilot, and he has always piloted different expert swordsman mechs. What is special about his fighting style is that he has always pursued excellence in skills. He emphasizes skill over power or technology. His expert mechs are always simple in function but extremely solid in performance."

"I can respect that a lot." Patriarch Reginald said in an appreciative tone. "This warrior was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He could have requested much fancier expert mechs that are loaded with much more weapons and other gizmos from his dynasty. Instead, he has stuck to mechs with more austere loadouts. There is only the sword and the body. Nothing else. A pilot has to possess a lot of faith and confidence in himself. Persistence is also crucial."

"What is also important to note is that he is not unfamiliar with traditional swordsmanship." Ves continued. "When he was in his twenties, he decided to go on an exchange and reside in the Heavensword Association for five or so years. He trained in different sword schools over the years before returning home to the Friday Coalition. While he has never exhibited any extraordinary sword styles throughout his career, Ketis has told me that his basic fundamentals in swordsmanship are extremely solid and that he has already developed his own exquisite sword style that is almost entirely centered around dueling strong opponents."

As an expert pilot, Jeremiah Gauge never showed a penchant for mass destruction or crushing his opponents at range.

It looked as if he had inherited the competitive spirit of the Heavensworders during his foreign exchange and became passionate about dueling other opponents.

One of the lessons that the Hex Army learned during the war was that Venerable Jeremiah Gauge often sought out powerful opponents and tried to win by virtue of superior swordsmanship rather than overpowering them by force!

It was a testament of his skill that he managed to defeat so many powerful Hexer expert mechs!

If Venerable Jeremiah Gauge was already that strong during this period in his life, how much stronger would he be now that he has become a Saint?

Ves waved his hand, causing the central projection to show a rather spotty image.

Patriarch Reginald immediately sat up straighter in his seat. He stared intensely at a spotty, grainy image of what appeared to be a powerful swordsman mech!

"Is this…?!"

"Yes. An intelligence operative managed to make a long-ranged image capture of Saint Jeremiah Gauge's ace mech not too long ago. I won't tell you how much effort it took to get into position to make this observation and transmit it securely to us, but there is a 95 percent chance that what we see is the real deal."

None of the people in the room could remain calm and composed when they saw this ace mech.

The lack of fidelity and resolution of the image could not take away from its inherent majesty!

The ace swordsman mech was predominantly coated in orange and black. It still maintained a rather simple humanoid shape, but the difference from the expert mechs that Jeremiah Gauge piloted before was that it actually carried three swords, with more bladed weapons mounted on different parts of its body!

"This is the Neo Amadeus." Ves introduced. "As you can see, it is still a swordsman mech, but presumably it can do much more than swing a sword these days. I am not sure about the reasons why it carries so many weapons all of a sudden, but the Neo Amadeus is not too encumbered by the additional weight and bulk."

There was a streamlined look to the ace mech. Its lines were elegant and conformed closely to the ideal human physique in relation to swordsmanship.

"Based on this single capture, we have managed to identify the classification of at least two of its main swords. The one you see in its hands is a transphasic sword. Another one appears to be a plasma sword. We haven't been able to determine the nature of the third one yet, but it is probably a high-tech contraption that grants the Neo Amadeus a different means of dealing damage."

"What about the daggers?" Patriarch Reginald asked.

"We haven't been able to figure anything out about them other than that they exist." Ves replied. "By my guess, they should all be transphasic, or else it wouldn't be worthwhile to add them to this mech. What is clear is that the design of this ace mech clearly reflects a radical change in Saint Jeremiah Gauge's fighting style. We cannot completely take his prior performance when he was an expert pilot as a model for his current approach to battle. That is what we must figure out during this meeting."