The Mech Touch

The battle between the human coalition and the alien pirate forces of the Palace of Shame had reached its hottest stage!

Tens of thousands of mechs collided against an even greater number of alien small craft! Six different pioneering groups adopted significantly different styles of mechs, but no matter what, none of their mech forces were weak!

On the opposite side, strange and exotic-looking combat drones and starfighters danced around mechs as they fought against their opponents with a combination of directed energy weapons, kinetic guns and explosive ordnance.

Since the human coalition deployed their forces to surround the Palace of Shame from six directions, the pirate fleets spread out to confront the humans all at once.

Six different fights broke out that were largely isolated from each other!

The division among the alien races and their respective factions dissuaded them from lending a hand to each other, but the humans weren't as limited.

Though it was a bit too difficult for ordinary mechs to exert any influence at longer ranges, the ranged ace mechs such as the Mars and the Thunderer Mark II increasingly directed their firepower in the distance to suppress the alien warships that threatened the mech forces of the Adelaide Mercenary Company and the Boojay Family.

Slowly, an alarming piece of news filtered through.

"Reinforcements are coming!"

"What reinforcements?"

"I don't know, but whatever is coming is definitely bad news for us. We can't adopt the slow and steady approach anymore. We need to pick up the pace and wipe out as many alien craft as possible if we don't want to get outnumbered and outgunned by an even greater margin!

While the human pioneering groups still retained a lot of selfishness, they no longer kept as much of the good stuff to themselves. Their leaders were all sober enough to know that they needed everyone's help to survive and make it through this battle without getting ruined.

As Ves and his family continued to observe the ongoing battle, the children started to become more and more afraid at what they were seeing.

When Marvaine saw that an alien frigate managed to pulverize several Knight Warriors hailing from the Avatars of Myth, it increasingly dawned upon him that he was not just witnessing the destruction of machines that could be rebuilt.

He was also witnessing the loss of human life!

Though he was still just a couple of years old, now that his companion spirit Denny activated his latent talent towards life, Marvaine was able to perceive the reality around him from a different perspective than before.

Everything around the young boy had a touch of life. This was especially the case within the confines of the Larkinson Clan where his father's influence was the strongest!

Whenever the protections in front of him showed one of the familiar mechs of the Larkinson Clan getting destroyed without giving their mech pilots a chance to eject, Marvaine experienced a much greater sense of loss.

Tears began to well in his eyes as he vaguely sensed the brave Larkinson soldiers that were passing away with each passing second.

Though the Larkinson mech legions all managed to gain the upper hand against their direct adversaries, that did not mean that losses were minimal.

In fact, after General Verle instructed his troops to fight harder in order to wipe out their enemies faster, the Larkinson mechs started to take more risks.

Though the faster pace took a greater toll on the mech legions, the Larkinson mech pilots did not flinch in the slightest. They performed their duty without hesitation and fought as bravely as possible.

Each of them were aware that many other lives were at stake!

With the main fleet of the Larkinson Clan not too far behind, the soldiers all bore an inescapable responsibility to fight at their best and defeat as many enemies as possible.

Marvaine's newly developed sensitivity picked up on these sentiments as well, but always felt a sense of loss whenever any of these brave and noble mech pilots lost their lives in an instant.

At one point, the loss of life and the increasing amount of deaths became too much to the child. He burst into tears as his innocent mind couldn't take it any longer.

"Waaaaahhh! Mama!"

"Meow!"

"Miaow!"

"MARVAINE!"

Gloriana immediately became alarmed. She unstrapped herself from her seat in an instant and moved over to pick up her suited child so that she could lift him in her arms.

"There, there, honey. Mama is here. What is wrong, Marvaine? Has the battle become too much for you? I can bring you back to your room if you like."

It took a minute for Marvaine to regain a semblance of his composure again. Tears still leaked from his eyes as a strong sense of sadness and loss emanated from his spirit.

His suited arm pointed at one of the projections showing a particularly violent clash between human and alien forces.

"Those uncles and aunts… they are no longer alive, right?"

"That… is a bit complicated, my dear."

"I can feel it, mama! They are gone! They are all gone!"

Ves frowned when he heard that. He focused on his son and peered a little deeper. His eyes widened a bit when he finally noticed why his son exhibited such a strong reaction.

"Gloriana, bring him over to me. I know what's wrong with him. He has just inherited my talent, but the knowledge that his new abilities have given him is too much for a boy of his age."

His wife snarled at him. "I am not letting go of my son! He needs a mother's touch!"

"You are not equipped to handle this problem!"

"I'm a mother! It is my job to care for my children!"

"I'm his father! My rights and responsibilities are the same as yours!"

Marvaine began to grow confused, though he still clung to his mother for comfort.

Gloriana eventually sat down on her seat and continued to rock her youngest child as if he was a baby.

That did not stop Ves from speaking to his son, however.

"Marvaine. Can you bring out Denny for a moment? I would like to confirm my guess."

The boy had calmed down enough to respond to his request.

A blond Maine Coon kitten emerged from his head. Though fluffy and adorable companion spirit's mood was just as glum as Marvaine himself, that did not affect the pure and warm concentrations of life that had welled up in his spiritual feline body!

Meuw.

When Ves focused closer, he noticed that Denny's heart and front paws had turned into two different fonts of life.

According to what he recalled about the companion spirit seed that he had implanted into Marvaine's spirituality several years ago, the heart encompassed the creation side of life while the paws embodied the youthful and innocent side of life.

Activating one of these spiritual attributes was already a fantastic development, but for two of them to awaken at the same time was an interesting surprise!

Since Denny was technically another side of Marvaine, this early development meant that the boy effectively obtained a powerful talent and predisposition towards life!

Mrow!

Blinky appeared from Ves' head and flew straight to his spiritual 'son'. Once the purple Star Cat came close, he gently lifted Denny up and dragged him back to where Ves was seated.

Mrow mrow mrow.

Meuw meuw~

"It's okay, Denny." Ves softly whispered as Blinky continued to cuddle and provide warmth to Denny.

Every clansman was obliged to wear protective equipment. Since Ves was wearing his Unending Regalia for the duration of this battle, his entire form aside from his head was encased in metal.

One of the reasons why Gloriana insisted on keeping Marvaine was because she wore a more flexible and form-fitting hazard suit. Perhaps she was truly right to do so as her adorable son was already feeling warm and safe in his mother's embrace.

Though Ves was happy that Marvaine was no longer in tears, he did not want to keep his son and possible heir in ignorance.

Designer babies with activated spiritualities were far smarter than other children at their ages, so Ves did not think it was too early to give Marvaine a lesson.

It was better for Ves to shape his boy's views and ideology early than let Marvaine develop any crooked ideas on his own!

"Denny?"

Meuw…?

"Can you sense this?" Ves asked as he lifted up a hand while channeling his own spiritual energy.

Meuw..!

"That's right. This is life energy. It is an amazing power that only a few people possess. Your grandmother and I both have it and now you have inherited this energy from us both. Doesn't that sound great? You have inherited our family business!"

Meuw! Meuw!

Denny's tail swished as he became excited at this news.

"Now that you have gained this power, you will need to learn how to harness it. Not everything is great about your newfound sensitivity towards life. Can you sense all of the fighting that is taking place out in space?"

The spiritual kitten nodded.

"What you are sensing is not a fantasy. It is reality. Life can be beautiful, but it is also fragile. Can you sense the aliens that our soldiers are fighting against? Can you sense their hatred towards humans such as ourselves?"

Meuw.

"The aliens are alive as well, but that does not mean they are worth keeping around. They are dangerous. They pose a threat to us and every human in the Red Ocean. In order to prevent them from doing too much damage, our forces are stepping up to eliminate them. The aliens are like weeds in a garden. If they keep growing in an uncontrolled manner, they will slowly choke out the pretty flowers and plants that should have been growing in the garden. While our mech pilots are all performing an essential purpose, not all of them will make it back alive. There is nothing we can do about it. Death is common in every battle."

Meuw meuw meuw..!

Ves gave Denny a meaningful smile. "I am doing something about it. Mech designers like myself have already done what they could to help our mech pilots win the battle while staying alive. Don't you see all of those warm and fuzzy mechs out there? I've designed each of them to give our fellow family greater advantages in battle. This is what your father and mother have always done."

Meuw…

"What I can do, you can do as well, Marvaine." Ves affectionately said to Denny as he deliberately aroused his life energy. "You've inherited my talent, my son. As long as you have grown older and made up your mind to inherit my craft, I will teach you how to design mechs like me. At first, I hope you can learn all of my most important techniques and quickly get up to speed on how to design living mechs."

Meuw?

"No. I don't want you to become exactly like me when you grow up." Ves shook his head. "Mech designers can never become good if they keep copying other people's works. They need to go out of their way and create their own inventions, and you are no exception. Once you have developed a solid foundation, I hope that you can go your own way and realize your own vision of mechs. If you don't want our clansmen to lose their lives like what is happening on the battlefield, then you must put in the work and come up with brilliant new ideas that can help the people you care about. That is what mech designers do. We work to equip our soldiers with the best possible mechs so that they can win a battle before it has even started."

Meuw…

Denny looked incredibly thoughtful as he and by extension Marvaine gained a lot of food for thought.

It didn't matter to Ves if his son couldn't completely follow his arguments. There was plenty of time in the future for Ves to reinforce the points he made!