The Mech Touch

Ves appeared in a different location this time. The bulkheads, the bridge stations and the tech around him looked familiar.

It was the modified bridge of his former flagship, a Friday Coalition Stanley Crux-class Standard Mobile Supply Frigate called the Scarlet Rose.

He spent years aboard this ship alongside Gloriana. Though the ship was small by his current standards, she was his first true mobile home.

Ves had plenty of memories of this vessel.

He went on several adventures before his clan received the Spirit of Bentheim.

He designed plenty of mechs back when the Design Department only comprised a handful people.

He imprisoned Cassandra Breyer in a secret chamber within his flagship so that he could gain a constant supply of Breyer alloy.

As Ves reminisced about the past, a voice interrupted his musings.

"You could have thanked me for my gift, you know." A particularly incisive and posh voice called out from behind. "I handed such an excellent ship to you, and you went ahead and executed me before you gave me a chance!"

What was it with the specters and announcing their presence from behind? Ves was getting tired of turning around all of the time.

He sighed and proceeded to turn around.

"Lady Aisling Curver. I had a feeling I would meet with you again."

The blond and not-entirely-sane Journeyman Mech Designer from the Gauge Dynasty directed a brilliant smile towards him. "Did you have fun abusing the remnants of my own power? I don't like getting killed, but I'm grateful that you still saw fit to recycle my remains to make your wonderful intangible puppets. I would like to think a small part of me still lives alongside you in the fragment that you inserted into Blinky and Vulcan. I am also honored to see you using a much larger portion to turn Titania in the way she is. The only issue I have with you is the fact that you put the other larger portion into GLORIANA!"

"Hey, you were already dead, Aisling! You screwed me over, so it is only right that I try to get compensation from what you have left behind!"

"DON'T YOU HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR THE DEAD?! YOU COULD HAVE PRESERVED ME AND BROUGHT ME BACK TO LIFE LIKE YOU DID WITH THOSE OTHER 'DESIGN SPIRITS'!"

"And why would I do that?" Ves looked at her as if she was a fool. "First, I don't even know if that is possible in the case of mech designers. Second, I've had bad experiences with hostile design spirits in the past so I did not look forward to bringing a semblance of you back to life so that you can harass me again."

"..."

"Wow. So you're the lady that wanted to have Ves all to yourself, huh? He most certainly dodged a laser beam."

"What?" Ves uttered as he turned around to see a woman that he never expected to see again. "You… you're Iris Jupiter?!"

Unlike Lady Aisling Curver who looked as old as she was before her capture during the Battle of Reckoning, Iris Jupiter looked radically different.

She came across as a youthful girl the last time Ves had spent time with her during the last Bright-Vesia War, but now she appeared as a more mature and mellow woman.

"You look… beautiful." Ves couldn't help but utter as he couldn't control his attraction towards her matronly appearance. "It looks like you have managed to live a much better life than Lady Aisling. How is the Vesian Revolutionary Front doing these days? Does it still exist?"

Iris, who wore a casual but fairly luxurious dark blue dress with multiple folds, tittered as if he was a child who made a foolish statement.

"You are behind the times, Ves. The VRF disbanded a long time ago. With so many greater calamities taking place in our star sector, our little rebellion was just making life worse for the commoners of my state. Besides, with the expansion of the Vesia Kingdom after the Sand War, the nobles have opened up many more promotion opportunities in order to speed up the colonization effort. I have accepted an amnesty offer and have done well for myself ever since. I married, had kids and advanced to Journeyman along the way. If you had looked me up in the galactic net then you would have known all of that. You haven't been paying any attention to what has happened in your old neighborhood, is that right?"

"Eh… yeah. I don't really like to look back to the past. I would much rather look forward to the future."

"Hm, I don't blame you." Iris said. "It is certainly working out for you. That said, your constant refusal to reflect on the past is making this much longer and riskier than it needed to be, you know. Take it from a neural interface specialist. A well-balanced human individual should always find a way to reconcile with the regrets of his past. This is even more important for a man who wishes to attain greatness. Terrible consequences can happen if broken individuals gain way more power than they can responsibly handle. What you are going through right now is… an entry examination of sorts. Pass the test and you may proceed."

"What if I don't pass the test?" Ves pointedly asked.

"You will get stuck." A different voice spoke up from another direction.

"Hey! Since when has this place turned into a clubhouse?!"

"Don't ask us, Ves." Ketis spoke as her strong and athletic form exuded a sharp and domineering presence. "This is your ordeal, not ours. We are here for your benefit."

Ves turned around and beheld the three ladies. Lady Aisling Curver, Iris Jupiter and Ketis surrounded him in a triangle. That made it difficult for him to keep his attention on all of them at the same time.

"I am picking up a theme here." He stated.

Ketis rolled her eyes. "Duh. You had a crush on all of us, did you not? Each of us could have been your 'Gloriana' if you had chosen differently."

"I wouldn't exactly say that I had a crush on you all." Ves retorted as he pointedly did not look in the direction of Lady Aisling Curver. "By the way, can you act like you are not an inquisition that is in the middle of holding a tribunal about me? It's really annoying for me to turn around all of the time."

Fortunately enough for Ves, the specters accepted his suggestion and no longer made life difficult for him. They stood at the same side this time though they definitely maintained a bit of distance from each other.

There was obvious tension between the three ladies. It was as if they were three different hens trying to exert their dominance over each other.

"Can we get this over with?" Ves said in an annoyed tone. "As much as I'd like to reminisce about the past with a couple of old friends, I don't see why this is necessary. I have already tied the knot with Gloriana. I have three beautiful children with her and we plan to expand our collection in the near future. I have absolutely zero interest in rehashing old relationships."

Neither of the three ladies found him credible.

"We wouldn't be here if you had truly moved on as you have claimed. There is a small part of you that still thinks what it could have been like if you pursued any of us instead." Iris Jupiter explained.

Ves seriously doubted that. "That doesn't make any sense. Why is Aisling here, then?"

The lady in question gave him a brilliant grin. "I may have behaved more excessively towards you than was wise, but you cannot deny that you were attracted to me. There was still a part of you that was thinking about accepting my gracious offer and separating yourself from the banshee that is your current wife. She intruded into your life, you know? Why did she succeed in manipulating your life to the point of severing your ties with Master Carmin Olson and the Friday Coalition while I only received your scorn? Her crimes are worse than mine! I did nothing but attempt to bring you back to where you truly belonged!"

He experienced a mix of emotions as Lady Aisling mixed truth with self-serving claims. Although he wanted to refute her arguments right away, they were too tricky for him to come up with a good counter argument!

"He's hopeless." Ketis rolled her eyes again. "He's stupid and he makes decisions that have no logical basis. I don't know what he is thinking 50 percent of the time, and I have been working under him for many years!"

Ves pinned his former student with a glare. "Why are you here, Ketis?"

"Isn't it obvious? For all your denials about your interest towards me, there was still a chance that we could have been together. Why did you let your stupid rule about not dating your own students get in the way?"

"Because it's unethical!" Ves exclaimed!

"You never let the rules get in the way of your ambitions before!" Ketis forcefully shot back. "The Swordmaidens and I were all pirates back then. None of us cared about the rules! You may have taught me a lot of stuff, but you weren't that much older than me. It would have been totally okay if you acknowledged my hints and reciprocated my affection. Instead of doing the obvious, you turned your back to me and married a Hexer of all people!"

Ves was just about to defend himself until he was interrupted.

"Hello, ladies and gentleman. It appears that I am late to this occasion. Odd." A new voice spoke up at this time.

Ves groaned. He already recognized the voice even though it had clearly aged a bit over time.

"Patricia Schneider. Of course you would show up here. How have you been doing?"

"I go by Patricia Cain, not Schneider, though I would not fault you for your mistake. I only married a Fridayman for expediency, not affection." The calm woman spoke in the familiar flat manner of a rational mech designer.

"Oh. I remember." Ves spoke as Patricia automatically joined the company of the other three women. "How are you doing these days? Did the Komodo War threaten you or anything?"

From the way that Patricia carried herself, she had obviously matured and done well for herself. Her understated but high-quality clothing underneath her lab coat suggested that she had achieved notable success in her professional career.

"Master Null has taught me much." Patricia replied. "The Komodo War may have ruined large parts of the Carnegie Group, but it has also given mech designers such as myself many opportunities to assimilate into the Friday Coalition. I managed to become a Journeyman during the closing days of the war, and accepted many work orders as the great reconstruction effort went underway."

Ves nodded in understanding. "Hm, just like Carlos, then. I'm happy that you are doing well for yourself. I don't really understand why you are here. Of all of the women here, you have the least reason to hold any interest towards me. You are clearly happy with leading your own life."

"Do you truly think that is the case?" Patricia raised her eyebrow.

"Aren't you supposed to be a rational mech designer? People like you suppress your emotions."

"That is not entirely true, Ves." Patricia shook her head. "You misunderstand our kind. As long as we are still human, we still experience emotions as much as everyone else. The difference is that we have trained ourselves to lower our sensitivity towards our feelings. We simply refuse to get affected by our mood swings in order to maintain a more objective outlook towards our work. We do not turn ourselves into unfeeling robots that cannot understand the meaning of love."

"Oh. So what does that mean?"

"I think the answer would be obvious to you." Patricia responded in a tone that possessed a hint of snideness.

Ves didn't know what to do as he faced the four women that… he could have been closer with if he chose differently. This entire scenario felt like a highly uncomfortable school reunion where he became confronted by all of his past lovers at once!