The Mech Touch

Venerable Brutus Wodin did not accomplish his objective when he managed to gain an audience with Commander Casella Ingvar.

He did not let this defeat affect his composure. So what if a woman rejected his proposition? There were thousands of eligible women in the Larkinson Clan. He had many chances to find a suitable life partner and succeed in his plot to foil his mother from binding him to another Hexer lady.

"Don't worry, Brutus. Casella is an expert pilot and a legion commander. It is normal for her to hold different standards." Gloriana soothed him when he called her after his failed meeting. "You are still an attractive man that women would be lucky to have in their lives. You are strong, nice, well-mannered, well-educated and well-bred. Not only that, you are related to me and by extension the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan! If women can overcome their prejudice against people raised in the Hegemony, they will surely recognize the value of becoming your marriage partner."

Venerable Brutus sighed. "I hope you are correct in your assessment. I shall continue to go down the list and hope that one of the candidates is more receptive to my offer."

The response from Commander Casella had humbled him and diminished his confidence a bit. While he was aware that convincing someone as powerful and busy as the Sentinel Commander had always been an uphill battle, he had hoped that his charm and his sincerity would have been enough to sway her mind.

"A pity."

He tried to remove everything about Casella from his mind and focus on developing his liking for the next woman on the list.

After all, it wasn't appropriate for him to be pining for Casella when he was trying to convince another woman!

He sought out and approached Isobel Kotin with renewed hope.

Under the shadow of the Quint, Venerable Brutus waited for the rising expert candidate of the Larkinson Clan to give her reply.

An unexpected source spoke up before Isobel could share her thoughts.

GIVE UP, BRUTUS. HER HEART IS IN A DIFFERENT PLACE. YOUR ATTEMPT TO OVERCOME YOUR OWN PERSONAL CRISIS BY DRAGGING IN A LARKINSON IS SELFISH AND SHAMEFUL. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DISTURB THE PROGRESSION OF MY LATEST STUDENT.

Venerable Brutus turned and frowned at the dormant mech. "While I respect your strength and contributions, it is not your place to intervene in the personal lives of the humans you serve. Please allow Miss Isobel here to make her own decisions."

A source of strength buried deep inside the Quint began to rouse all of a sudden. Both Brutus and Isobel stepped back in shock as the Quint's eyes flashed with power even as the machine spontaneously booted up on its own!

"What?!" Isobel lost her composure. "The cockpit is empty. There shouldn't be anyone in the piloting seat at the moment!"

The Quint did not seem to play by the rules and completed its emergency start-up sequence in a matter of seconds!

More power and fury radiated from the Quint as the living mech brought its strong and formidable fighting intent to bear against the presumptuous Glory Seeker!

The terrain around the site shook and rumbled as the Quint purposely lifted its leg and stomped it down with force!

Then, the Quint quickly shut down its systems and went offline again. If not for the fact that it had remained in a stepping posture, the two expert pilots would have thought that the living mech's autonomous actions were just an illusion!

Both of them fell silent for a time even as nearby mech technicians became alarmed.

"...I think you should go." Isobel eventually said.

"Maybe that is for the best." Venerable Brutus said and nodded. "Good day, miss."

He was not stupid. Even without the Quint's overblown response, Isobel's attitude and response towards him already told him what he needed to know about his chances.

In the next few hours, he sought out several more female Larkinsons.

Since they were not stationed on the surface of Iron Crusher, Venerable Brutus entered his expert mech and flew back to the main fleet where he entered a few vessels and approached his targets.

"I have no interest in helping you avoid an arranged marriage by rushing into one myself." Vivian Tsai responded with a bewildered expression. "I am sure you are nice and all for a male Hexer, but how can I possibly feel comfortable with marrying you after less than a month of dating? This is crazy! My father will kill me if he hears about this! Maybe others will be glad to marry an expert pilot on the spot, but I am not like those women. Please leave. I have ship design projects to work on and they will not get any more complete the longer stay."

Venerable Brutus left as instructed. It was fortunate that he had entered the chief shipwright's department with little expectations to begin with. He already had a hunch that a woman that worked with starships all day would not be enamored with someone involved mechs.

"Let's see if I have better luck with a mech designer."

When he sought out Sara Voiken, the woman did not show any enthusiasm towards him. Her reasons for rejecting him were the same as that of his previous target.

"I am sorry, Venerable Brutus, but this is no way to start a relationship." She said as she crossed her arms. "Besides, I am a Larkinson and you are a Glory Seeker. I do not think either of us will be able to spend enough time together if we are assigned to different ships."

After Brutus walked away with the latest rejection on his mind, he wondered why he got rejected multiple times in a row.

"Is the matchmaking software faulty? Why have none of these women shown any willingness to marry me? Am I that bad of a marriage prospect?"

Venerable Brutus was normally confident in his own qualities, but the way that Commander Casella and all of those other women shot him down caused him to fall into a spiral of doubt.

Was he ugly?

Was being a Hexer that bad?

Were expert pilots too troublesome to marry?

"Maybe it's not my fault. Maybe it's the Larkinsons who are wrong."

Was Brutus barking up the wrong tree? Perhaps he should approach the Crossers instead.

As the Glory Seeker expert pilot contemplated his next moves, a pair of Larkinsons chuckled at what they saw through the footage projected in front of their eyes.

Both Ves and Calabast smirked as they enjoyed the sight of Brutus failing to seduce a single woman on his list.

"This dolt is so dumb." Ves snorted. "He doesn't know how to approach a woman at all. How can he possibly expect them to take a liking to a shotgun marriage?"

Calabast shook her head. "It's not his fault. It's the fault of how the Hexers raise their 'boys'. Brutus grew up in an environment where he had little to no control over all of his major decisions. He was raised to follow orders. Taking initiative is an alien concept to him and he is only beginning to shed his passivity at this time. Back in the Hegemony, the women arranged everything for their boys. Brutus never had to worry about trying to seduce a woman because his mother is expected to match him to a lady."

This confirmed with the Hexer premise that boys were too immature to make their own decisions. There was no way that Brutus could approach a normal woman and receive a positive response when his romantic sensibilities were nonexistent!

Calabast turned to Ves. "As funny as it is to see Brutus fumble, do you want to end this farce and help him succeed?"

"Oh? You actually think you can make Brutus succeed?"

"I do. I haven't remained idle, you know. Even as I formed the list that Gloriana has demanded, I performed my own analysis of the situation. Seeing how Brutus presented his case to his candidates has given me more data that has refined my own model of his 'seduction game'. Most of the women on the list will surely turn him away if he maintains the same approach."

That happened to be his judgment as well. Ves knew quite well from personal experience that those matchmaking algorithms were hardly perfect. The data that could be fed to them were always limited and not always reliable. The formulas used to calculate all of the variables never completely reflected reality either.

It was a lot better to rely on good old common sense, a quality that Hexers such as Gloriana and Brutus both happened to lack!

Not all Hexers possessed glaring blindspots, fortunately. Calabast had worked hard to regain her common sense and was able to analyze this situation from a more objective perspective.

She activated her comm and summoned a different list than the one she handed over to the Wodin siblings. She looked through the names and crossed out many of them until she finally came across a candidate that looked a lot more compelling than the rest.

Her lips curled in anticipation. "I think this one will be more receptive to Brutus' overtures."

Ves leaned in and saw the name that Calabast had marked out. "Her? I admit, this is certainly a bold choice. There is one problem, though. I am pretty sure that this name falls outside of the criteria set by my wife."

"Oh, relax. Her rules do not matter in the face of her brother's happiness. There are few women that can truly handle a man with an upbringing as unnatural as that of Brutus. The name that I have chosen will not be bothered by this. Instead, I think she can do a lot of good to him. He needs a partner who can take the initiative and lead him to a different life than he has experienced before."

Though Ves was not certain whether this potential match would work out for the two, he could see the logic in this choice. She was certainly a firecracker!

As Ves weighed the pros and cons, he eventually decided that tying Brutus down with this particular woman was actually a good idea.

"Do it." He told his spymaster and secret matchmaker. "Push her into Brutus' arms. Make sure you work discreetly."

"Don't worry, Ves. It doesn't take much to nudge her in the right direction."

An hour passed by as Brutus looked at the names that he had already crossed on his list. Though there were plenty of candidates that he could approach, he had a feeling that none of them would react any better.

As Brutus tried to muster up the courage to request a meeting with the next name on the list, a strong and firm hand unexpectedly squeezed his bottom!

"I beg your pardon?!"

An arm suddenly wrapped around his shoulder.

"Heya, hotshot. I heard you were looking for a date. Leave all of those sluts and prudes behind and follow me. I know a place in Twilight City where we can get loose. I can give you a much better time. What do you think?"

Brutus had faintly felt the woman's approach but thought nothing of it at first. He did not expect that he was her target!

"Commander Sendra. Uhm, I still have a mission to perform, so…"

"Your mission is over." The Swordmaiden Commander announced even as she dragged his body towards the hangar bay. "Rumors have spread throughout the fleet of your deeds, you know. Something about how you are desperate to receive a real woman's touch. Well look no further, because I am here to save the day!"

"Commander! This is truly inappropriate." Brutus said as he tried but failed to pry Commander's arm from his body. "My sister will not have good words for you if you persist in accompanying me. She does not approve!"

Sendra snorted when she heard his feeble protest.

"I thought you were trying to get under the skin of your mother. How is letting your sister dictate your love life any better? You should follow me instead. I can teach you how to be a real man…"