The Mech Touch

Shortly after the outbreak of the Supreme Revolution, many heroes and villains emerged from the chaos.

The list of evildoers was depressingly long. Just because Prosperous Hill was tightly run didn't mean that every malcontent and criminal magically disappeared.

They just kept their heads down!

For centuries, they kept their true selves out of sight and did their best to blend in with ordinary citizens.

The Planetary Guard and other law enforcement institutions did not pursue these hidden dangers any further. It was incredibly difficult to root these tumors out. As long as incidents didn't happen, there was no reason to break the status quo.

What the authorities didn't realize was that the cancer hidden in society were able to spread unabated.

Sure, there were some diseases that went too far and revealed their existence, but the controllers of the star system were easily able to excise the diseased cells.

It was the subtler and more clever cancer cells that truly posed a threat to the existing order. These warped and dangerous individuals were also capable of inflicting harm, but their ability to control themselves meant that their destructive potential was much greater!

The civil war presented a lot of opportunities for these darker personalities to express themselves.

Even if the chance was great that the current disorder wouldn't last, the madness of the times still convinced many of them that now was the time for them to stop holding back!

While there were plenty of soldiers that fought for what they thought was best for the Life Research Association, there were also numerous thugs that solely abused their power for selfish reasons!

While these troublemakers initially emerged everywhere, the forces fighting for the political factions quickly concentrated their might on cleaning up the anarchists and criminals that were making a mess out of their own homes.

Neither the conservatives nor the opposition wanted to rule over a pile of ruins!

Yet despite their diligence, these forces could not afford to let their peacekeeping duties distract them from the actual struggle for power!

As a result, every area deemed unimportant by the powers that be continued to be burned and pillaged!

Tree structures shattered apart. Shops and storage sites were being looted. People got killed for no reason. Nothing about these acts furthered a legitimate cause. The Supreme Revolution was too distant for those who lived in the less affluent places of the planet.

"Hahaha! I always hated your guts, old man! You called the cops on us and forced us to abandon this turf. Well, look at us now! Your precious Planetary Guard won't be here to save you now. I'll kill everyone in this block before I squash you with the foot of my biomech!"

A trio of low-quality biomechs were rampaging through an average residential district. The tree houses here did not grow past three stories and the park that was favored by kids was overgrown with weeds.

Despite these shabby conditions, many locals called this quiet place home. Despite falling within the borders of the metropolis, the big city was almost entirely absent from this location. For centuries, this working-class neighborhood maintained a long tradition of serenity.

BOOM!

Until now! The aggressive underboss of a gang called the Pit Snakes started to tear the homes apart!

BOOM!

A biomech armed with a rifle that fired large-caliber explosive shells continued to fire his weapon in random directions. Its mech pilot did not even bother to aim with precision!

BOOM!

The quaint little park that no one had mowed for months got blasted into a crater!

"I always wanted to blow this planet up! Now I finally get my chance!"

"Hear me roar!"

The tiger mech let loose a body-shattering cry in front of another treehouse that caused the family of five to literally shake apart due to the amplific vibrations passing right onto their bodies!

A set of huge jaws wrenched the side of the tree house into pieces for good measure. While tigers weren't known for eating trees, the humongous biomech didn't care that its design was based on a carnivore!

A bit further away, the biomech piloted by the ringleader wielded a giant two-handed bone axe.

Axes were quite useful in the LRA. Not only did they allow biomechs to chop through lots of thick and resilient flesh, they also had a devastating effect against organic structures, as demonstrated by this axe-wielding organic machine!

Crack!

A single powerful chop managed to sink through half the trunk of the entire tree house!

"Hahaha! Whoever is hiding inside, I can tell you're still alive! You can fool my sensors!"

The first axe chop was supposed to slice right through the bodies of the two young girls sheltering in their shared bedrooms, but somehow went askew.

"Who?!"

A flying metallic mech that hovered high in the sky dove downwards faster than the biomech could ready its axe.

In just a blink of an eye, the foreign light skirmisher sunk its daggers into the shoulders of the axe-wielding biomech!

Since the organic machine that got struck was merely a budget model, the force of the blows along with the high precision exhibited by the attacking mech allowed the daggers to cut off both arms!

"Ahhhhhh!"

The criminal mech pilot couldn't even respond with a coherent curse. The pressure exuded by the attacking mech was too great!

"Trash." Venerable Tusa contemptuously spat.

The Piranha Prime easily thrust a dagger through the biomech's exposed c.h.e.s.t, causing the weapon to end the sc.u.mbag's life in an instant.

"I'm sorry, little ladies." Tusa apologized to the damaged tree house. "I had to get close in order to stop him from swinging his axe a second time. Please calm down. All will be right."

Due to its lack of ranged options, Venerable Tusa often found himself exposing the people he rescued to the mental weight of his prime mech.

He had long diale off the Piranha Prime's glow. To be honest, he didn't need its power against all of the opponents he encountered so far. The massive spiritual enhancement that caused everyone except for expert pilots to experience a lot of mental weight was not something the Piranha Prime could get rid of so easily.

It was one of its sources of strength as well as a burden that put Venerable Tusa in difficult situations!

"I have to ask Ves to get rid of this stupid stuff."

Even as he complained, the solitary expert pilot still had a job to do. The Piranha Prime jumped into the air and soared in the direction of the rifleman mech. Its mech pilot realized only now that the newcomer killed his boss!

"Get away from me! I'll blast you out of the sky!"

The Piranha Prime gently shuffled to the left just as an explosive shell whipped past. A higher-quality shell came with proximity fuses as well as limited homing capabilities.

The shells fired by the rifleman mech just happened to be the cheapest of its kind on this planet. Venerable Tusa knew he didn't have to expend additional energy to dodge even further.

Still, that missed shell would likely follow a parabolic arc before impacting some other tree house a lot of kilometers away.

While the biomech in question was about to fire its gun another time, the Piranha Prime threw its dagger, causing it to puncture one of the arms holding the weapon!

Though this did not completely hinder the rifleman mech from firing its weapon, the distraction bought enough time for the Piranha Prime to deliver the coup de grace by stabbing the c.o.c.kpit with its other dagger!

"Two down, one to go."

The mech pilot of the tiger mech was a little smarter than his other two comrades. He recognized the Piranha Prime's design from the design duel that concluded a few days ago. Aside from some different modules, a much greater presence along with a change in coating, the light skirmisher that had descended from the air looked like a copy of the Ferocious Piranha that performed brilliantly in the arena!

"I've got to get out of here! Only my fellow Pit Snakes stand a chance against this monster!"

Though the quadruped biomech was able to traverse a lot of ground, it sadly came without a flight system.

The Piranha Prime easily caught up by virtue of its lower mass and its elevated acceleration.

A few quick slices later, the tiger mech lots control of all four limbs. Even as its maw snarled menacingly, the Piranha Prime efficiently cut through the flesh and punched through the c.o.c.kpit.

After learning an awful lesson, Venerable Tusa no longer showed any mercy to the murderers and pillagers.

The biomechs didn't pose a threat to the people. It was their deranged mech pilots that was the true source of evil.

A slight grimace donned his face as he contemplated his umpteenth kill.

He never thought his first solo adventure in a long time would cause him to turn into a cleanup service.

Normally, the Planetary Guard should have responded to all of these incidents. Unfortunately, the higher ups all decided to pull any of the outlying Planetary Guard units to downtown Veoline.

The mechs that ordinarily presided over security in these unimportant districts were clearly left to fend for themselves!

Yet when he saw the curious and relieved faces of the locals peering out the windows of their tree houses, Venerable Tusa felt it was all worth it. He was not a savior, but he did not mind acting like one. With everyone with power rushing to fulfill their own d.e.s.i.r.es and ambitions, there were too few people like him to pay any regard to the common folk.

The expert pilot checked the readings of his long-ranged sensors and already spotted another hotspot in the distance.

Before he left to check on this potential problem area, his mech broadcasted his words to the surrounding tree houses.

"Does anyone here work in a public security department or biomech production facility?"

Venerable Tusa asked this question several times already, but he rarely received a satisfactory response.

Just as he thought that this would be another dud, a motherly woman stepped outside the doorstep of a scorched tree house.

"I don't work for those places, but I work as a secretary for a wholesaler that supplies feeder stock. Is that good enough?"

"That's fantastic news!" Venerable Tusa smiled. "Please tell me everything you think is important to securing shipments of feeder stock. Oh, can you transfer any security credentials and other relevant doc.u.ments to my mech?"

"Uhm, I shall do my best."

The woman began to provide Venerable Tusa with a font of information. The expert pilot did not dare to tarry. He pressed a button that caused a large and complicated antenna array to unfold from the Piranha Prime's backpack module.

Only when the antenna turned into something that resembled a metallic tree did the prime mech begin to transmit encrypted data across a large distance.

It was very hard to keep the transmissions truly secure this way, but most organizations simply didn't have the resources or interest to decrypt a random transmission.

Venerable Tusa knew that Gentle Lotus Base was getting all of the information that he and his mech received. There was no need for him to hang on to vital intel and wait until he returned to let his clan know about all of the secrets he gathered.

With all of the exploration he had already performed, the Larkinsons should have a detailed understanding of the surrounding areas!

Tusa checked his energy reserves. Even though he managed to scavenge some spare energy cells at a depot, he was still running low.

"Maybe it's time for me to return."