The Mech Touch

Once Venerable Joshua managed to get a grip on the immense destructive power of the Scarlet Ember, he took full advantage of his great might!

Whenever his burning eyes raked across the alien fleet in front of him, he no longer considered them to be serious threats that could kill a lot of mechs and mech pilots with their powerful gun batteries.

Instead, he started to regard them as prey for his hungry plasma sword!

"You're eager to kill, aren't you, Scarlet Ember?" Joshua grinned. "Well, I'm eager to wipe out these aliens as well. Let's do our best to destroy as many of these ships while our energy reserves last!"

The expert pilot was constantly aware of the immense cost of using this weapon. The Scarlet Ember was originally made to be wielded by the Neo Amadeus, and even Saint Jeremiah Gauge felt reluctant to employ it on the battlefield unless he needed its awesome power to land the killing blow.

Though Ketis' attempts to downsize its length and reduce its power setting had tamed much of the ferocity of the repurposed battle trophy, a wolf always remained a wolf no matter how much the new owners wanted to create a dog.

Right now, Venerable Joshua did not encounter the rejection that Ves and Ketis talked about.

He had made so many preparations to handle a rebellious blade that he became a little off-balanced by how little resistance he encountered.

Perhaps that was because Saint Jeremiah hadn't used it often enough to imprint it with any strong sentiments.

Perhaps removing the head of the expert pilot had 'reset' its personality.

Perhaps everyone misjudged the Scarlet Ember as its wants and desires were much simpler than everyone thought.

Whatever the case, Joshua found it remarkably easy to resonate and attune with his weapon. The only issue was that the weapon's burning need to destroy also began to affect his own judgment.

Fortunately, that was exactly what he wanted to do! As long as he was able to direct the Scarlet Ember's incredible power onto the right targets, he was confident that he would be able to maintain control over the enflamed weapon!

"Let's go! There are plenty of ships for us to chop!"

The 1854210 pirate group and its allies brought over a hundred different warships. Though many of them were small and in various states of disrepair, they were still bigger and more powerful than any mech! Even the smallest frigate could destroy a lot of mechs under the right circumstances!

The Everchanger began to grow hotter as the plasma weapon in its hands continued to channel blazing hot plasma.

The expert hero mech seemed to have turned into a hellfire demon as it jumped from the crippled and burning destroyer that had been the first to fall victim to the Scarlet Ember's might.

The flaming comet flew straight towards an adjacent destroyer whose guns were desperately trying to repel the powerful human expert mech!

"Too clumsy!"

Venerable Joshua didn't feel threatened by the alien warships at all. Their absolute firepower may be strong, but their huge hulls and divided control structure worked against them. Their complete lack of grace easily enabled small but powerful mechs to weave through their attacks and prevent many weapons from posing a threat by moving beyond their firing angles!

The alien warships increasingly worked together to cover each other, but the Everchanger was able to avoid most of it through fast and clever maneuvering.

Nothing the aliens possessed could stop the Everchanger from rampaging through their fleet!

Perhaps only a warship as powerful and advanced as the V'gahnt-Zezne could drive an expert mech as fast and potent as the Everchanger away, but the orven battleship was dealing with her own fair share of problems at the moment!

With the Mars dismantling the 1854210 pirate group's light cruisers one by one, the remaining warships that had been hurled in the direction of the Golden Skull Alliance simply did not possess the means to contain the Everchanger, let alone other powerful expert mechs!

One destroyer after another began to get struck by a large and powerful blade of plasma.

In order to get the most out of the Scarlet Ember, Venerable Joshua did not bother to strike his targets more than two times in a row.

His Everchanger only needed to attack once in order to get through the energy shields of an alien warship and attack another time to inflict crippling damage onto the hull of the very same vessel!

The damage incurred by the alien ships in question varied considerably due to their radically different layouts, material compositions and design principles.

However, getting struck by a resonance-empowered plasma sword attack never failed to sink so deep into their hulls that they inevitably became easy prey to follow-up attacks from other mechs!

"Damn, I love this weapon!"

The infatuated expert pilot believed so much in the power of his weapon that he did not bother to target the smallest warships in the enemy fleet.

Since the Scarlet Ember was strong enough to breach the defenses of alien destroyers, Joshua solely set his sights on damaging as many of them as possible!

The more hulls his Everchanger struck, the more Venerable Joshua became familiar with the characteristics of his Scarlet Ember.

The difference between a high-tech plasma sword like the Scarlet Ember and a plain old alloy blade like the Heartsword was too great.

Perhaps a dedicated swordsman mech specialist like Venerable Dise could increase the destructive power of the latter by an order of magnitude, but Venerable Joshua had never been able to develop his swordsmanship to the same degree.

A weapon that straightforwardly relied on advanced technology and lots of energy to exert a huge amount of destructive power was much more to his liking!

A small but profound shift took place in Venerable Joshua's mind. He developed a greater preference for powerful technology and became less enthused about simpler design solutions.

It would be a lot harder for him to fall back to the original Heartsword after this battle.

"Damn, my energy reserves have already dipped below the halfway point."

The Everchanger was rapidly growing hotter as it struggled to supply its plasma sword with copious amounts of energy.

Joshua noticed increasing signs of stress. His expert mech had never been designed to feed such a hungry weapon. If not for its impeccable quality and high base performance parameters, its energy transmission system would have already started to malfunction!

Even so, Joshua didn't know how much longer he could exert so much stress on his expert mech's internals.

"How long can you last, Everchanger?"

"MY SYSTEMS WON'T BREAK IF WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT LIKE THIS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS RUN." The third order living mech boomed in response. "I ADVISE YOU TO LEAVE THE SCARLET EMBER BEHIND ONCE WE RETURN TO REPLENISH MY ENERGY RESERVES. I DO NOT THINK MY SYSTEMS CAN TAKE ANY FURTHER ABUSE AFTER THAT."

"Got it." Venerable Joshua responded.

He was directly connected to his expert mech so he already made the same conclusion.

Seeing that he could not make use of the Scarlet Ember awesome might much longer, Joshua and the Everchanger tried their best to make the most of what little time they had left with the plasma sword!

Many aliens wailed and suffered as the ships that they were serving on turned into half-ruined hulks after getting struck by an unstoppable plasma attack!

Even though the Everchanger briefly interrupted its killing spree in order to help the Penitent Sisters pull off their battle formation attacks, by the time the expert mech's energy reserves had dipped to 10 percent, over a dozen alien destroyers had fallen in its wake!

This was a fantastic killing record even if the Everchanger had to depend on the follow-up attacks from other mechs to finish off the crippled vessels.

As Venerable Joshua regretfully commanded his expert mech to power down the Scarlet Ember and return to the Spirit of Bentheim, he thought about whether he should beg Ves to provide him with another powerful weapon.

"I can get a lot more done with a powerful weapon."

Just as Joshua began to daydream about obtaining a ranged weapon that was just as powerful as the Amaranto's new Instrument of Doom, his battle partner abruptly sent a mental shock through the man-machine connection.

"Ouch! What gives, Everchanger?!"

"HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE WARNING ISSUED BY YOUR WIFE? WHAT DID SHE SAY WHEN SHE HANDED OVER THE SCARLET EMBER?"

Joshua dug through his memories and indeed remembered that she had told him to be careful about using such a powerful weapon.

"She said... that weapons like the Scarlet Embers are too strong for a pilot of my level."

"TO BE MORE SPECIFIC, SHE TRIED TO WARN YOU THAT RELYING TOO MUCH ON IT WOULD MAKE YOU GO ASTRAY. HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN RELYING AS MUCH ON GLOWS, RESONANCE ABILITIES OR PRIME ABILITIES SINCE THIS BATTLE HAS STARTED? THEY FORM THE BASIS OF YOUR FIGHTING STYLE, BUT YOU HAVE RARELY THOUGHT ABOUT THEM SINCE YOU BECAME ENAMOURED WITH YOUR LATEST TOY."

"There isn't anything wrong with using better tech." Joshua frowned. "Mechs need to keep up with the times, or else they will get overtaken by something stronger. We have all started to adopt phasewater technology as soon as it became available."

"THIS IS DIFFERENT, JOSHUA. THE TECH THAT YOU PREVIOUSLY USED MADE YOU STRONGER BUT DID NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU NEEDED TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN CAPABILITIES AS AN EXPERT PILOT IN ORDER TO BE ANY GOOD. THE SCARLET EMBER IS DIFFERENT. IT PRESENTS SUCH A GREAT LEAP IN COMBAT POWER THAT YOU NO LONGER NEED TO PUSH YOUR OWN SKILLS AS A PILOT."

"That... not the case."

"THOSE ARE EMPTY WORDS, JOSHUA. ADMIT IT. LOOK BACK ON YOUR PERFORMANCE. YOU DID NOT WIELD THE PLASMA SWORD. INSTEAD, IT WIELDED YOU. THE SCARLET EMBER USED YOU TO SATISFY ITS OWN SELFISH DESIRES."

"What?! You're exaggerating, Everchanger! You're just jealous that I was thinking about abandoning the Heartsword for the Scarlet Ember. I know the latter wasn't originally made for you, but you can't deny we destroyed a lot more powerful enemies and saved the lives of many more Larkinsons with its help. We shouldn't put it back into the box!"

"WAKE UP, JOSHUA!" The Everchanger roared into the expert pilot's mind! "HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN WHAT A TRUE SOLDIER SHOULD BE? YOUR GROVELING ON BEHALF OF A FOREIGN WEAPON THAT IS TOO POWERFUL FOR YOUR OWN GOOD IS SICKENING TO ME. THE FACT THAT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ALLOWED YOURSELF TO GET USED BY AN INANIMATE SWORD IS AN UNFORGIVABLE MISTAKE."

"Everchanger..."

The cockpit of his expert mech activated a projection that showed a mirror image of his current suited form.

"LOOK AT YOURSELF AND TELL ME THAT YOU ARE STILL AS STRONG AND DETERMINED AS BEFORE. HAS YOUR DRIVE TO BECOME A BETTER GUARDIAN FOR YOUR FAMILY REMAINED INTACT?"

"I..."

"YOUR WILLPOWER HAS GROWN BRITTLE, JOSHUA. YOUR PROGRESS WILL STAGNATE AND YOUR JOURNEY TO BECOME A SAINT WILL COME TO AN END IF YOU CONTINUE TO HOLD ONTO YOUR CURRENT MINDSET. I HAVE MY OWN DIGNITY AS AN EXPERT MECH. I DO NOT WISH TO IMPOSE MY DEMANDS ON YOU, BUT I WILL NOT LEND MY POWER TO AN UNWORTHY BATTLE PARTNER."

The Everchanger conveyed such a strong sense of disappointment to Venerable Joshua that the expert pilot couldn't help but reflect on himself for the remainder of the return journey.

He slowly realized that his living mech might have a point.

It was hard for people to recognize their own shortcomings and mistakes. Their biases and preconceived notions blinded them to their own faults.

If Venerable Joshua didn't have the benefit from a close partner that also possessed an outside perspective, perhaps he would have never become aware that he had begun to fall into a trap that had caused many expert pilots to stagnate in their growth!

"I still need to think about all of this Everchanger, but... thank you for telling me this. I feel that you have given me a lot of help."

"THAT IS WHAT I AM HERE FOR, JOSHUA."