The Mech Touch

Having worked a lot with the local variety of dwarves, Ves considered himself as something of an expert concerning this subspecies of humanity.

"I may not be an exobiologist or a doctor, but outside of that there is no one among the Flagrant Swordmaidens who is more familiar with the wildlings." He grinned.

Dwarves. Wildlings. Cursed people. All of them referred to the savage heavy gravity variant humans that nomadically roamed the lands that harkened back to humanity’s primal roots.

There was a simplistic charm to their nature. They were wild, uncivilized and devoid of any sophistication, but could you blame them? They lived in an extremely inhospitable planetary environment for baseline humans and managed to survive and thrive without the aid of any sophisticated technology!

While the Flagrant Swordmaidens usually found their tribes to be undesirable nuisances, they had their uses. Not only did they polish their mech pilots through the mental resilience training sessions, they also enabled the Vandals to develop the god crystal generators that powered most of their energy-hungry machines these days!

Ves had observed the ’generators’ in action frequently. Every standard day or so, the Vandals induced the dwarf brains that served as the organic controllers of the generator to call down an energy tornado that filled up its energy reserves.

The Vandals subsequently instructed the brains to discharge the higher-dimensional energies stored within the god crystals into a more usable form of energy to recharge loads of spent batteries and energy cells at a time.

Once they began to operate the generators, the Vandals inadvertently came across some unintended side effects.

"Those energy tornados are visible from a hundred kilometers away."

When a tornado stretched from the astral winds in the skies all the way down to the surface, it pretty much telegraphed the exact position of the ground forces to every wildling tribe, wild god and who knew what in the surrounding area!

There was no way the Flagrant Swordmaidens could hide their presence as they methodically called down energy tornados every standard day.

Up until now, the Vandals hadn’t figured out a way to draw energy from the vault of the gods in a more discreet fashion.

For now, the problem wasn’t so serious, as they weren’t afraid of any wild gods or dwarf tribes.

Yet what about their rivals from human space? They weren’t as backwards in the art of war as the natives. Once they identified the exact position of the ground forces through tracking the immensely tall energy tornados, they could easily prepare an ambush against the Flagrant Swordmaidens!

Still, if the alternative to broadcasting their position every day was to run out of energy, the Flagrant Swordmaidens vastly preferred their current situation.

In any case, the native dwarves were hardy, resilient and possessed a lot of untapped potential. Whoever engineered the wildlings must have been a genius.

Still, right now Ves wanted to adopt a dwarf as the human myth for his upcoming design. However, if he picked a random savage dwarf chieftain as his inspiration, the image would sow chaos among his mech pilots!

Obviously, it was a horrible idea to base his human myth around the current incarnation of the cursed people. They were too savage and uncouth and directly contradicted the other two images!

Fortunately, Ves didn’t have to base his human myth to the existing dwarves.

He decided to invent a smart wildling.

For a moment, he couldn’t get around to this idea. For such a long time, he often dismissed the dwarves as underdeveloped savages. How could he reconcile his impression of the wildlings with his current goal?

To Ves, a smart dwarf sounded like an oxymoron.

Still, he reminded himself that anything was possible in his imagination. A smart dwarf may not exist in reality right now, but he could easily create one in his mind!

He started to form a prodigal dwarf called... Bubal. Each dwarf tribe possessed their own language, but certain savage sounds kept being repeated. Bubal sounded just like what the dwarves might say.

He started imagining the appearance of this atypical dwarf. His skin was a little lighter than the other dwarves, and unlike the rest of his kind he paid a lot more attention to his hygiene.

Bubal took on a much less savage appearance and adopted a veneer of civilization.

He knew he was an oddball among his unenlightened kind.

In fact, his appearance and behavior resembled the blessed people so much his fellow tribesmen even suspected that he was a mixed blood!

Whether this rumor was the truth, Bubal suffered a harsh life among his unenlightened tribesmen. Eventually, the tribe became so hostile to his un-dwarflike behavior that they exiled him from the tribe, leaving him with nothing but some ragged hides to cover up his body!

Bubal wandered the lands alone, managing to survive and keep himself clean through using his developing smarts. He grew more cunning during his time alone in the wilds, and managed to do the impossible by being the first dwarf who managed to survive and thrive without the support of a tribe!

Unsatisfied with spending his time alone, he sought out other dwarves, not to join their tribe but start one of his own!

He picked up strays, survivors and other exiles along the way. He taught them superior hunting and gathering methods and began to form a small tribe of his own. This tribe quickly expanded in size as Bubal started figuring out several methods that enhanced the strength of his tribe!

Over a period of several decades, his tribe grew from a collection of misfits and outcasts into a large dwarf tribe that gathered an unprecedented amount of bonded wild gods underneath his banner. Bubal became the most formidable dwarf chieftain on the planet!

With his power and influence, he could finally embark on the dream he always wanted to fulfill since his youth.

Casting a jealous eye at the ancient cities ruled by snobby blessed people and incredibly hostile sacred gods, Bubal diverged from the more aggressive dwarf chieftains by resisting the urge to invade the ancient cities.

He knew that many tribes attacked these fortified cities over the years. None of their attacks succeeded no matter how many dwarf tribes pooled their strength.

Ves imagined an older, wiser grey-haired Bubal standing atop his bonded wild god, giving out a speech in the guttural language of his dwarf tribe.

"Why must we fight and die for a city that never belongs to us? Let us build our own city, a city built by dwarves and welcome to dwarves! The time is right to end our wandering existence and break the curse of the soil!"

The wildlings listening to the speech didn’t understand half of what Bubal said, but that didn’t diminish their enthusiasm for his lofty goals!

Ves cut the story short at that point. He wanted to take this wise, older dwarf chieftain who was at the highest point of his long and eventual life and adopt him as the human myth for his Enduring Protector design.

"As a slow and methodical frontline mech, the Enduring Protector needs to be piloted with a steady, patient and responsible mindset."

This differed remarkably from his previous original designs and many other mech designs for that matter. The general consensus of the mech industry was that mechs and mech pilots should be employed aggressively and proactively.

However, while the Enduring Protector may be a light mech, it was not as speedy and agile as a light skirmisher. Its actual fighting patterns resembled artillery mechs and marksman-oriented rifleman mechs more than anything.

Ves knew what kind of mech pilots the Vandals assigned to their laser rifleman mechs. They were an eclectic bunch, but mostly rowdy and aggressive. They preferred to fight at medium range and take advantage of the mobility of their mechs to perform coordinated hit-and-run attacks.

Obviously, these mech pilots specialized in piloting rifleman mechs couldn’t employ the same tactics when piloting the Enduring Protectors. For one thing, the mechs simply moved too slow!

Therefore, the Enduring Protectors needed to be piloted by calming, more deliberate mech pilots who considered their actions before enacting them. They could also benefit from Bubal’s experience as a dwarf chieftain. As a leader among his people, he often worked hard to protect his fellow tribesmen.

Ves became satisfied with the three images he formed over the span of a day. While the base model was as boring as he expected, he found it to be an inspired decision to base the totem animal and the human myth off the natives.

"Let’s put them together."

He concentrated his mind and released the separation that kept them from interfering with each other. He corralled the three images in a single space in his mind.

What happened fell partially within his expectation.

Instead of clashing immediately as his strong-willed images tended to do all the time, they studied each other and made their moves!

First, the image of Bubal immediately approached the image of the laser-flinging wild god and attempted to bond with it! As Ves had developed quite a thorough understanding of the organic neural interfaces hidden within the heads of the wildlings and the wild gods, his imagination actively simulated the bonding attempt.

The wild god was a proud and independent creature. While he cared for his godling offspring, it didn’t mean he rolled over for every dwarf that came along his way!

The wild god resisted the mental bonding attempts!

However, Bubal didn’t give up and continued to ply the wild god with his thoughts. He wanted to crack open the gates and enter the wild god’s mind in order to come to an accord.

After dozens of attempts, Bubal finally achieved a breakthrough when he found out how protective the wild god was of its offspring. Bubal offered a partnership where the dwarves and the wild gods collectively took care of each other’s offspring!

A thriving civilization needed to protect its young!

After finding out that Bubal and the wild god had a lot more things in common, the totem animal stopped resisting.

The two images melded together, but did not assimilate into a single entity.

Instead, they superimposed together in a stacking manner, basically combining their forces without losing anything that made them unique!

Ves watched on with interest as Bubal and the wild god formed a single combined image of Bubal as the beast rider sitting atop his bonded wild god!

During the process where Bubal convinced the wild god to combined their forces, the base model hadn’t stepped in at all. It didn’t possess any motivation to fight from the start!

It could have halted the partnership between its rival images by helping the wild god resist Bubal’s persuasion. Yet it did not do so because it didn’t help its mission.

Instead, it patiently waited for the beast rider and bonded wild god image to emerge before stepping up to sacrifice itself to the strengthened combination.

Yes, it voluntarily sacrificed itself!

"That’s surprising."

It shouldn’t be. Ves instilled the base model with a high degree of responsibility and protectiveness. On its own, it didn’t have anyone or anything to protect. Yet somehow the base model recognized these traits in the other two images.

Why not contribute its own strength to help the beast rider and wild god combination protect their loved ones better?

Therefore, the base model of the frontline mech that Ves envisioned didn’t hesitate and allowed the combined image to devour its spiritual essence and strengthen the combination even further.

What emerged was a vastly strengthened beast rider combination with a strong emphasis on both endurance and protectiveness!

Because the base model gave up its essence voluntarily, it was able to exert greater control over what the opposite party inherited!

The confrontation and fusion process had finished. After so much effort in trying to imagine three separate images, Ves finally obtained an image worthy for the Enduring Protector.

He called the combination Beast Rider Bubal!