The Mech Touch

"Since when did you become an expert in teleportation technology?" Gloriana suspiciously asked. "Is it due to your recent changes?"

Ves shrugged off her question. "Maybe. That's not important, dear. The point is that there are ways for teleportation technology to work despite a blockade. In fact, whoever was responsible for teleporting us away may have been able to do so despite the presence of active spatial interdiction fields. It is just a lot more troublesome as you need to exert so much effort that you can't pull in as many people."

Both Ketis and Gloriana frowned. The two couldn't really follow him at this point anymore.

"What is your point, Ves?" Gloriana asked. "Are you claiming that you have mastered this frequency? What use is to us if you have figured this out? The only one of us who has a teleportation device is you, and I am highly doubtful that you can do anything if you have managed to make your way out of this cell."

"Hey, isn't it better for me to break out and find a way to free the rest? I am the Swordmaster in this gathering!"

Ves gazed at her for a brief moment of time. "You are a Swordmaster without a sword. I have the Amastendira. Not only that, you don't even have any combat armor on you. A single attack will probably fell you even if you have Sharpie by your side."

"Why don't you pass your gear to me, then?! I am a much better fighter than you will ever be. This is the truth!"

Ves shook his head. "I do not deny that, but out of the two of us, I am much more resourceful among the two of us. I have… some experience in sneaking around and breaking out of prisons."

"This is crazy! You cannot be considering this! You are not a commando, Ves! You are confusing your identity! You are a mech designer! You don't belong in the field!" Gloriana exclaimed.

The other clansmen in the cell soon got involved as well. Hardly anyone among them thought it was a good idea for Ves to be the one to teleport out of this cell and find a way to find a control room that could free them all. Not only would this put the most important member of the Larkinson Clan at great risk, but Ketis was clearly the more superior warrior among their gathering!

After the Larkinsons kept trying to convince Ves in vain, he finally couldn't take it any longer.

"SHUT UP!" He boomed as he amplified the voice transmitted by the speakers of this Unending Regalia. "I am not making an impulsive decision here! There are good reasons why I am the best candidate!"

He banged his fist against his chest plate.

"First, I am clearly the most well-equipped among us, and I know my gear the best. None of you can make good use out of my Unending Regalia because you didn't design and build it by hand."

He spread out an arm and channeled a few design spirits in quick succession.

The Golden Cat briefly showed up again and waved at everyone with her paw.

Nyaaaa.

Lufa appeared and clasped his hands in greeting.

Qilanxo briefly showed up and rear up to release a silent roar.

Helena appeared as well and hovered behind Ves and placed her intangible hands on his armor in a show of support.

"I've got your back, little brother."

The design spirits disappeared shortly afterwards, but the show of power had been enough to stun many of his clansmen into stunned silence.

"I am the only one among you who can do that. Even if the amount of help they can provide is limited, the ability to call them forward at least gives me more unconventional options."

That might not be entirely true. Ves peeked at Marvaine for a second. His son had already shown signs of taking after his father. That meant that the kid might be able to replicate this feat too one day!

In any case, he still had a show to finish.

For his final trick, he prepared to give everyone a glimpse of a recently acquired property that he had been doing his best to hide from everyone.

He slowly lifted the suppression of his own glow.

Soon, everyone in the cell became bathed by a glow.

This was nothing new to the Larkinsons as they frequently fell under the influence of a glow anytime they strayed close to a Larkinson mech.

When Ves had demonstrated his ability to call upon a hint of the design spirits under his sway, the clansmen also experienced familiar sensations.

They had grown familiar with pretty much every glow that Ves had employed in his work. Whether it was the Solemn Guardian or Kalo, every high-ranking member of the clan had to be familiar with what their mechs were capable of in order to lead it properly!

Yet what Ves exuded this time was completely different yet so familiar to all of the gathered clansmen.

This was because Ves exuded a glow that was completely new to them, yet also felt unmistakingly familiar for an unknown reason.

Perhaps the only person among them who did not exhibit any sort of surprise was Ketis.

As a Swordmaster, her intuition and senses were much stronger than anyone else's. She merely nodded as if she made an observation that confirmed her theories.

"I always felt you had grown a lot stronger than before." She said in calm acceptance. "Since this is the case, it is truly reasonable for you to go out instead of me. I don't know what you can do with this glow of yours, but I have the feeling that I have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg."

She was right. Ves indeed hid a lot more surprises that gave him a lot of confidence in his ability to find a way to resolve this crisis.

From his cybernetic leg that possessed a few unexpected surprises to all of the options that were waiting for him in the System Space, there should never be a circumstance where Ves was truly unarmed and unable to extricate himself from a sticky situation!

Before Ves could come close to putting his latest theory into action, his wife and the others forced him to draft a plan and prepare as best as possible.

It was unacceptable to just send Ves out in the middle of an alien complex and leave him without any further directions!

Though the other Larkinsons weren't able to provide him with a lot of substantial help, their varied backgrounds and expertise granted them insights in many areas that Ves might overlook.

"Hey, don't worry too much." He told them all. "We can still remain in contact with each other. We are all Larkinsons, so we are all connected to the Golden Cat. I never had any reason to reveal this capability to you all before, but now that we have ended up in this difficult situation, I might as well unveil this to you so that we can maximize our chances of making it out of here alive."

His closest people such as Gloriana, Ketis and a few other clansmen already possessed varying degrees of awareness of how the Larkinson Network connected them all, but there were many more members of the clan who never realized that they could directly transmit messages to each other!

"Does that mean that you can do more than sense other Larkinsons?!" Chief Minister Novilon looked shocked.

"Yup. We can turn it into a full communication network, though I don't think Goldie will like it if we use it to transmit messages to each other when an ordinary electronic network already suffices."

"Can you connect to the clansmen who are trapped in the other cells?! What about our people back in normal space?!"

"I can connect to both." Ves casually revealed. "In fact, Goldie should have already been feeding information about our circumstances to the people that we have left behind. They are quite worried to say the least."

Though there were many people who wanted to send out messages to the family they left behind, Ves raised his palm and forced everyone to quiet down.

"Stop. Let's not waste more time. We need to figure out a way to get ourselves out of this predicament before whoever kidnapped us is ready to take the next step. I think I am as ready as I can be. If I truly need your help, then we can still remain in touch with the help of the Larkinson Network."

He spent a bit more time to console his worried children before he attempted to teleport himself out of this cell.

"Go kill the bad guys, papa!" Andraste shouted in encouragement.

"Please bring back a present for me!" Marvaine begged. "I want to play with alien toys!"

"Hahaha. I can't promise you anything, but I will certainly try to bring back a souvenir."

Once Ves had mentally prepared himself for his bold and potentially dangerous venture, he turned around and approached the wall that was adjacent to the corridor.

As everyone else in the cell went silent in order to give their patriarch a chance to succeed, Ves closed his eyes and concentrated.

The Phase King descended into his mind once again. A rough map of the facility entered his awareness as the design spirit was able to detect a large quantity of transphasic stone construction in a large radius around his current location.

Ves did not need to know that much. He only wanted to get himself on the other side of this meters-thick wall.

He did not intend to utilize his emergency one-use personal teleporter to do this. He didn't understand how the device worked and how its technical properties interacted with the spatial inhibitions that dominated this entire facility.

Aside from that, the personal teleporter was designed to be operated by people who clearly didn't know how to configure its settings. Aside from setting a few parameters such as distance or a description such as a specific starship, Ves had no way to control its settings at all. There was no way he could apply his theories about matching a specific frequency when this damn automated device didn't give him the possibility to alter its parameters!

Fortunately, Ves did not believe he needed to waste his teleporter. If his theories were correct, then he might be able to pull this off without wasting this precious life-saving trump card!

"Alright, Phase King. We have corresponded about this before. I never dared to test this possibility in reality, but now that we are stuck here, we may as well try."

He did not speak any longer as his connection with the Phase King made that redundant. He exchanged a large amount of thoughts with the alien design spirit.

Prompted by Ves' instructions, the Phase king began to leverage his power and incredible affinity with phasewater to touch and resonate with all of the transphasic objects within reach!

The Unending Regalia began to vibrate and shake as its new transphasic armor plating seemed to come to life in a weird fashion!

Not only that, but the nearest wall began to vibrate in a similar fashion.

The objects in question weren't truly shaking. What was actually happening was that the phaswater integrated in these gears were rippling the immediate fabric of space, giving outsiders the illusion of vibrations.

What was actually happening was that the spaces themselves were fluctuating!

This looked extremely dangerous and could easily kill people if they had no grip on this process, but neither Ves nor the Phase King showed any fear!

The latter had lived alongside many pools of phasewater for over a million years. His knowledge and insight on this substance and some of its applications were extremely deep!

Though Ves did not come close to matching the Phase King's incredible understanding of phasewater, his advantage was that a tiny amount of this dangerous liquid substance was already coursing through his veins!

This massively increased his ability to withstand spatial effects like the one that was gripping his body and his suit of combat armor.

As the immediate surroundings around Ves started to shake more and more, the Phase King finally reached the critical point of the technique that it had performed through Ves!

A strange effect took place that caused the air to pop!

"He… he's gone!"

"How did he do it?! This is impossible!"

No one was standing in the place where Ves' armored form previously stood. Gloriana and the others were still in disbelief!