The Mech Touch

Mechs could take on many different forms, but the humanoid shape was dominant for good reasons.

It was a lot easier for mech pilots to learn how to control a humanoid mechanical form.

By borrowing the existing human brain's ability to control a bipedal humanoid form, mech cadets could easily fast-forward their way through controlling the familiar physical characteristics of mechs and move on to learning more important skills.

That was why the majority of mechs were humanoid in shape that made use of external weaponry.

Mech cadets often learned their weapon skills by practicing equivalent weapons with their human bodies. This was a shortcut that enabled them to transfer their personal combat skills whenever they piloted mechs.

Yet this was not the most ideal way to utilize a mech.

The key advantage of using mechs as combat platforms was that they could do stuff that normal human bodies could not do. They lengthen or shorten their limbs, add additional limbs to their bodies or take on a completely different shape that was much more effective for specific purposes!

The training of first-class mech pilots was often many times harder than that of their lesser counterparts due to this reason. They needed to train how to pilot mechs that deviated a lot more from the baseline human form.

First-class multipurpose mechs occasionally looked like humanoids, but it was more common for them to take on more weirder and abstract forms. As mechs that carried so many miniaturized modules and weapons systems at once, mech designers had to make many difficult design choices in order to maximize their lethality while keeping their volume as limited as possible.

Drone mechs were not comparable to first-class multipurpose mechs, but their piloting challenges were somewhat similar.

In other words, anyone who mastered the art of piloting a drone mech would have a much easier time of piloting a first-class multipurpose mech. It was the same the other way around.

Such a thought doubtlessly entered the minds of at least a portion of the mech pilots among the growing audience.

More and more people had begun to tune into the live broadcast when they heard about the increasingly more compelling properties of the Fey Fianna.

Many more second-raters had begun to develop a genuine interest in acquiring or piloting this unusual new drone mech!

Not only did it embody the Hyper Generation much better than many of the previous mechs that came out in the past half year, but it also promised them a way to improve their skills far beyond what any other mech could accomplish.

The skills that Commander Ikeon Powell learned over the course of piloting the Fey Fianna for the first time were all valuable outside of this specific mech model.

Even if it was clear that the living mech was actively helping Powell along, this was no different from having a personal tutor by his side who constantly provided him with useful guidance.

In that sense, the Fey Fianna also happened to be an excellent teaching mech that could help mech pilots master the art of piloting more complicated drone mechs!

As the current demonstration was about to reach the pre-established time limit, Ves wanted to showcase one more feature that he had yet to unveil.

"I am sure that you are interested in why this mech is called the Fey Fianna and why its spurs are called the fey. I won't bother you with the full story, but let me show you what makes the fey different from other spurs besides the fact that they are alive."

Ves transmitted a hidden signal that caused the Fey Fianna piloted by Commander Powell to unlock an important restriction.

The mech pilot clearly sensed the change and understood what he could do with the new feature. He had already read the relevant instructions from the manual.

A change occurred in the field. The remaining battle bots stopped their hostilities and retreated.

What came in their place was a projection that was so massive that much of the oval-shaped mech arena became filled with visions of metal!

Much of the spectators had to shift their views to the projected screens in order to gain a clear overview of what just appeared.

It was a warship!

The alien warship was not particularly large. She was roughly equivalent to a destroyer and possessed a range of formidable armaments.

Such a warship was beyond the capacity for any standard mech to defeat, just the transphasic energy shields alone made it impossible for a mech such as the Fey Fianna to land damaging attacks onto the hull.

This demonstration was not about proving that the Fey Fianna could single-handedly tear apart an alien destroyer by itself.

It was already enough to show that his new drone mech possessed the capital to survive a bit longer against such a powerful force.

"What you see before you is a projected simulation of an alien destroyer analogue. One of her main gun batteries is about to lock onto the Fey Fianna and attempt to blast it to pieces. Normally, a warship is quite capable in destroying lone mechs by themselves, but the Fey Fianna possess a useful trick that can give it a greater chance to survive against such an onslaught than normal. Commander Powell, you know what to do. Activate the decoys!"

After receiving that instruction, the four living fey stopped what they were doing and released a burst of interfering ECM and other disruptive emissions.

Underneath this momentary interference, the four fey had all disappeared from sight.

In their place were four identical mechs!

Each of them matched the appearance of the original Fey Fianna. The projected appearances were so accurate in their imitation that they even copied the small marks and other unique touches of the real mech.

Not only that, but the mechs also exuded the exact same glow and vibe as the original!

Since the subordinate spirits were all off-shoots of the dominant spirit, they were actually one and the same for the most part. Ves had deliberately designed them so that the former could easily imitate the latter!

While there were many powerful and bizarre means to distinguish the true mech in the midst of the false images, it was a lot harder to do so in a busy battlefield where lots of interference and frequent energy emissions degraded the effectiveness of sensor systems.

Another setting became active. A lot of people felt that their view became fuzzier and a bit more difficult to watch.

The circumstances inside the arena had begun to match a realistic spaceborn battlefield environment!

Subsequently, the projected warship's sensors behaved as if they were being affected by the interference. The vessel no longer had the ability to distinguish the true mech from the decoys.

Commander Powell knew what was coming. There was no way to effectively defend against the firepower of a formidable cannon of a warship.

The only way to preserve his mech and his life was to evade the attack entirely!

The Fey Fianna and the four fey in disguise all began to perform evasive maneuvers while keeping well away from each other!

At this moment, the decoys showed several characteristics that were highly unusual.

First, Commander Powell clearly did not have the ability to control all of his fey on an individual basis, but right now they moved around as if they were truly piloted by humans.

Second, the fey moved further away from the main body. Heavy jamming and other electronic noise usually meant that this was a bad idea, but the fey possessed an alternate means of control that was less susceptible to the current kinds of interference.

HISS!

A bright laser beam struck one of the decoys in an instant!

Although the attack was slightly off the mark, the simulated laser beam fired by the cannon was so big that it would have burned through half of a mech while melting the other half right after!

Naturally, the warship attack did not strike an actual mech at all, but merely destroyed a single disposable fey.

The water energy shield fey should have disappeared entirely if this was an actual battle, but right now it merely made a controlled descent to the ground.

HISS!

The second beam struck another decoy!

The same response happened again. The warship had wasted the power of one of her cannons yet again, just to crush a single fey that could easily be replaced after a battle.

HISS!

HISS!

Whether deliberate or not, it took four powerful attacks in total before the alien destroyer finally struck the authentic Fey Fianna!

With only one decoy left at this point, the alien warship effectively had a 50 percent chance of striking the right target.

Though the Fey Fianna struck by the gigantic laser beam had been 'killed' in an instant, the audience did not feel like the mech performed poorly in this instance.

The mech pilots among them all appreciated how long the Fey Fianna managed to last in this scenario.

Many other mechs would have been vaporized after the warship opened fire for the first time!

While the decoy function of all of the fey had not been tested in actual field conditions, as long as it was at least half as effective as now, it would already have the ability to save many human lives!

That alone made it worthwhile to obtain a batch of Fey Fiannas!

"Thank you for your cooperation, Commander Powell. You may go back now." Ves spoke as he flew back to the original 9 Fey Fiannas before addressing his audience. "What you have just witnessed is one of many possible scenarios where the decoys can play a useful role. One Fey Fianna can produce at least 4 decoys. That does not sound much, but what if there are more Fey Fiannas in a mech unit? Let me show you what that looks like."

The Fey Fiannas that were all piloted by Larkinson mech pilots began to make the same moves.

The fey under their control immediately activated their decoy functions as well.

The entire area occupied by the Fey Fiannas on standby immediately became a lot more crowded as 36 decoy mechs appeared in an instant!

Each decoys looked exactly the same as their principles. They also exuded the same vibes that made them nearly indistinguishable from each other when observed by spiritual senses.

The impact of this impressive display was not small.

If people didn't know any better, they would have thought that a mech squad had suddenly expanded into a mech company!

There was a huge difference between the two. The threat levels and other factors simply weren't in the same dimension.

If enemies noticed the approach of a mech company, they would become much more intimidated and make decisions that would be different than if they knew the truth.

Many mech pilots and mech commanders understood the potential of this decoy function!

They could take advantage of this capability to pull off so many deceptive tactics and maneuvers.

For example, they could make a false flank attack that looked incredibly serious on the surface, but only consisted of a lot of disguised fey.

When the enemy repositioned its forces to defend against this threatening offensive, the attacking side could easily form an actual attack from a more favorable angle!

In another scenario, the fey could get mixed into large mech formations that were closing in on a fleet of alien warships.

This maneuver was always responsible for killing a lot of good mechs and mech pilots. If the massed firepower of alien warships could successfully be diverted onto all of the decoys produced by the fey, then that would most definitely allow mech forces to win their battles with fewer losses than before!

No matter what, a single fey was much cheaper and easier to replace than a full mech paired with a mech pilot!

The addition of this decoy function caused the already considerable value of the Fey Fianna to increase even more!

At this time, the willingness to purchase the Fey Fianna had become so high that the LMC was already starting to receive a torrent of purchase orders!