The Mech Touch

Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson resonated with his Dark Zephyr to the utmost as he concentrated on how to overcome his latest challenge.

The expert pilot had been searching for a way to make himself more relevant in battles against warships for a long time.

No matter whether the Dark Zephyr received his long-awaited upgrade or not, a light skirmisher simply did not possess the hard power needed to effectively breach the ubiquitous transphasic energy shields that so many alien warships possessed!

Any other mech at the same level could do a much better job than a machine that primarily wielded a pair of short weapons.

Although Tusa knew that he could make his expert mech a little more suitable for the job by switching to a heavier and more powerful weapon loadout, he instinctively resisted such a shift.

This was not because he disliked making greater contributions for the clan. He just felt that he would be turning his back on his true self if he diverged from the archetype of a light skirmisher.

Expert pilots needed to stay true to themselves. This was why Tusa opted to focus on learning how to defeat alien warships in his own way as opposed to resorting to other solutions that were much less perfect.

The Shadow Dance that he had been obsessed with as of late offered a small amount of hope of being able to bypass the shields.

As long as a practitioner completely immersed himself into shadow, he could theoretically become as insubstantial as one!

However, turning into a literal shadow was far easier said than done. It demanded a lot of training as well as a lot of comprehension of the nature of shadow.

Tusa had thought long and hard about embracing the power of shadow even further in order to gain the qualifications to pull off the most advanced techniques of the Shadow Dance.

However, his latest sparring session against Ketis ultimately caused him to reevaluate his fighting style and his approach towards combat.

The enlightenment fruit gifted by Ves had opened Tusa's perspective on how he could utilize his power a lot better.

However, Ketis was right that the foreign knowledge had also led him to turn away from his original fighting style and methods.

Expert pilots needed to stay true to themselves.

Tusa had often heard this adage from the advice given by older high-ranking pilots, but he had somehow overlooked it in his greed for power.

"No more."

He acknowledged that the shadows had become a part of his life, but that did not mean it represented his best and strongest aspects.

He had always yearned to be free and move without any constraint. During some of his live practice sessions with the Dark Zephyr, he often liked to fly around at high speed until his expert mech started to run low on energy.

Even though he did not get that much done during these extended flight sessions, Tusa still experienced a lot of peace and enjoyment in these times.

"YOU HAVE MADE THE RIGHT DECISION, TUSA." The Dark Zephyr spoke as the expert light skirmisher continued to close in on Stingray 1. "YOU ARE NOTICEABLY MORE PASSIONATE WHEN YOU ARE TRYING SO HARD TO EMBRACE THE SHADOWS."

"I would have thought you would have liked that more considering your name."

"I DID NOT CHOOSE THIS NAME."

The Dark Zephyr had grown alongside Tusa for years. The machine fed off him and evolved to complement his pilot even better than before.

Although the mech recently acquired a touch of the element of shadow, he still retained much of his original character.

Now that Tusa fully returned to his original self, he felt that he was able to resonate with his expert mech considerably better than before.

This encouraged him to commit to this action even more!

As the Dark Zephyr rapidly tried to close in on his target, Stingray 1 already became embroiled in a dance with the Jedda Sandivar.

The ace light skirmisher of the Adelaide Third Fleet had caught up to the maneuvering puelmer heavy cruiser a lot faster than any other machine!

Saint Marissa Lewandowski had already activated her smokey domain field, which readily engulfed the entire alien vessel and drastically reduced her ability to shoot down mechs!

Although the puelmer warship oddly managed to continue with shooting down mechs by relying on targeting data collected through other means, the Jedda Sandivar still played an extensive role in reducing the threat posed by this technologically advanced vessel!

Venerable Tusa was able to charge forward with greater confidence for that reason. Whatever attacks the debilitated warship launched at his Dark Zephyr did not even come close to striking his machine.

As his expert light skirmisher continued to advance, Tusa tried his best to succeed with his next move.

He took a huge risk by deciding to charge towards the enemy vessel at a steep angle!

This not only increased the chance of a painful and damaging collision, but also made it a lot harder to split away at the last second.

Tusa intentionally wanted to corner himself in order to make sure he fully committed to this course of action!

The risk of causing his Dark Zephyr to collide almost straight onto a solid transphasic energy shield like a giant projectile was not light, but it was the only way he could think of to squeeze out the utmost of his potential!

Even though the yurzen raiding fleet had become a lot less dangerous and threatening now that the Spirit of Bentheim had drawn away Stingray 2 and a bunch of lighter alien warships, pilots such as Tusa still had ways to raise the stakes and press themselves to their limits!

"Come on, Blackwing! Let's do this together!"

"Chip chip!"

Tusa's avian companion spirit emerged from his head and began to inhabit the Dark Zephyr's flight system.

This caused the expert mech to move a little more vigorously than before!

"Trisk! Work with me on this. Let's show our entire clan that fast and light mechs can beat these alien warships as well!" "Chirrup!"

One of the two design spirits of the Dark Zephyr began to actively channel a greater proportion of her power into the expert mech.

This not only helped Tusa enter into the right mindset, but also caused the expert mech to move as if it had lost a bit of mass!

With the help of these additional spirits, Tusa and the Dark Zephyr fell into sync and unified their thoughts on only a single purpose.

They wanted to get past the powerful energy barriers that Stingray 1 relied upon to resist all of the attacks that kept the human mechs at bay!

Tusa's willful actions attracted a lot of concern from other Larkinsons, but the expert pilot ignored all incoming transmissions.

He was determined to prove his worth and capabilities!

Just because the much more powerful Saint Marissa Lewandowski and her blazingly fast Jedda Sandivar were incapable of bypassing Stingray 1's energy shields did not necessarily mean that he was subject to the same restrictions.

As the Dark Zephyr was on the verge of colliding against the outermost layer of transphasic energy shields, Tusa came to a sudden realization.

"Freedom has no limits!"

Shortly after that, the expert mech plunged into the Jedda Sandivar's obscuring Saint Kingdom and disappeared from everyone's sight!

Only Saint Marissa Lewandowski knew what happened to the incoming expert light skirmisher. She stayed silent for a few seconds before she took the initiative to withdraw a part of the insubstantial smoke that blocked everyone's vision.

Her ace mech tipped the veil just enough to reveal that Stingray 1 remained in the same condition as before.

The Dark Zephyr had not affected the multi-layered transphasic energy shields in the slightest!

"Where's Tusa? Where is his expert mech?!"

It took only a short time later for the Dark Zephyr to reappear in everyone's sight.

Much to the surprise of many skeptical and doubtful observers, the Dark Zephyr actually appeared on the other side of the energy shields!

The expert light skirmisher did not exhibit any sign that it had smashed through any strong barriers. Its frame remained completely untouched by any collisions or other adverse consequences.

"Tusa... succeeded! He actually did it! He somehow phased through not one, but several transphasic energy shields!"

As the Larkinsons and their allies were just beginning to register the magnitude of Venerable Tusa's accomplishment, the expert pilot himself was trying his best to recover from his earlier exertion while preventing the puelmer homeship's tertiary gun batteries from swatting down his machine.

Despite his worsened condition, joy and jubilation welled up inside his heart.

"We did it, partner! We actually did it! We leapt past all of those energy shields!"

"WE DID. I KNEW WE COULD DO IT. YOU JUST HAD TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART."

Most people thought that the Dark Zephyr had essentially phased through the energy shields similar to how Lucky phased through a wall.

Only Tusa and his partners knew that this was not quite accurate.

He did not pull off a spatial technique per se. He did not borrow any help from the Phase King, but instead aligned himself to Trisk.

As a design spirit, Trisk never attracted as much attention as her more high-profile peers such as Lufa and Helena.

However, Ves originally birthed her out of the spiritual remains of the Inexorable One!

These extraordinary ancient alien roots granted Trisk certain qualities that elevated her own domain and specialties.

It was through Trisk that Tusa was able to deepen his insights on the power of freedom and gain the additional support he needed to perform a true leap through space.

Although Tusa was not a scientist, from his perspective his Dark Zephyr had somehow ignored every wall, barrier or obstacle that could inhibit his passage and went through like they did not exist!

This was a greater form of movement that was not reliant on spatial manipulation or the power of phasewater.

It was a pure expression of transcendent freedom that momentarily liberated Tusa and the Dark Zephyr from any chains that anchored him from not just the material realm, but all of the other realms, which was why not even transphasic barriers could play a useful role!

"STOP BASKING IN YOUR GLORY AND GET TO WORK, TUSA!"

"Ah, yes. I'm on it!" Venerable Tusa quickly shook his head and began to take advantage of his highly advantageous position.

Just like any other warship, Stingray 1 possessed little means to repel small craft that had come close enough to stand on her hull.

The only gun turrets that could reasonably threaten the Dark Zephyr were the tertiary gun batteries, but they were so weak and inadequate that the expert light skirmisher could easily resist any attack that he was unable to avoid for whatever reason!

Instead of trying to knife down all of the gun batteries one by one, the expert mech pulled out the transphasic grenades stored in his bandoliers and started to toss them across the surface of the hull!

Multiple explosions occurred on several sides as the Dark Zephyr's explosive arsenal disabled or heavily damaged dozens of deadly gun batteries!

The expert light skirmisher soon held a pair of knives before beginning to savage the gun turrets that had survived his initial attack.

The unfortunate puelmer vessel launched highly agile missiles and employed several other solutions to shake the Dark Zephyr away, but none of these measures succeeded in taking down an expert light skirmisher that was too fast and too close to properly target!

"Hahaha!" Venerable Tusa laughed with glee as his machine destroyed one important ship module after another. "This is how a light mech should fight! A light skirmisher like mine should be busy with targeting alien warships where they are weak. There's no need for me to waste my power on destroying those annoyingly tough shields!"

Tusa felt as if he had undergone a rebirth. Shadows no longer clouded his will any longer. He had managed to embrace his freedom once again!