The Mech Touch

Venerable Brutus Wodin never expected to mingle with the lesser beings of the galaxy.

He looked down on the third-raters not just because they were inferior, but also because they were ignorant.

It was too difficult for him to get used to the sight of boys issuing orders to women, and women deferring to the weaker gender.

Society outside the sacred Hegemony was upside-down! Either people believed that boys were equal to women, or they thought that boys were actually better!

What a travesty!

Nonetheless, his sister ordered him to smile and make nice with the aboriginals.

Since she had been living among the unenlightened beings for years at Centerpoint and in the Bright Republic, she had long become accustomed to their heretical behavior.

She freely shared her methods with him and gave him some tips to keep his disgust bottled up and out of sight.

Right now, regardless of how much he wanted to throttle the necks of the arrogant boys and force them to treat women like princesses, he had to stand aside and pretend there was nothing wrong!

Sometimes, the expert pilot wished he could just hole up in his Serendipity and quietly wait until it was time to return to the familiar embrace of his home state.

Alas, Gloriana wanted him to be out and about, so Brutus had to do what she asked regardless of his preferences.

He soon became more uncomfortable than he had even been in battle!

There had even been a handful of times where precocious women tried to order him around. They possessed a shallow understanding of Hexer culture and thought that men were universally conditioned to follow the instructions of any woman!

Brutus wasn't offended by their attempts to extract favors from him. Instead, he was amused.

"I am sorry, madame, but I am already in the service of the Glory Battalion. I only obey the instructions of my designed superiors."

Just because he was a male Hexer didn't mean that any random woman could boss him around. He was a uniformed soldier, which meant he was already obliged to follow the orders of someone who had the right to command him. Civilians and bystanders only deserved his respect, not his devotion!

Even if he wasn't in active service, he still wouldn't listen to the lesser women. As a boy, Brutus was always in the care of female Hexer.

At home, that would be his mother.

Here, Brutus followed the arrangements of his sister and to a lesser degree his cousin.

If a local woman wanted to gain control over him, then she should ask Gloriana's permission, not his own! He didn't have the right to make this decision!

Fortunately, once he cleared up this misunderstanding, the local women no longer pestered him with inane requests for 'massages' or 'private tutoring sessions.'

Once he gently taught the locals how to address him and what they were allowed to do, Brutus no longer found his daily instruction sessions to be a chore.

Despite their inferior piloting qualifications, their skill level was higher than he expected of third-raters. The Larkinson clan members impressed him the most. Each of them possessed a solid if basic foundation that made it easier for him to teach some of the more advanced piloting concepts.

The Larkinsons were also a bit more well-behaved and disciplined than others. Their military-oriented background and heritage allowed Brutus to communicate with them in a way that was both efficient and curt.

In the week since he started to volunteer his time, he did something he never expected at the start.

He began to develop a closer bond with a couple of aboriginals.

One of the people who earned his acknowledgement was Jannzi Larkinson.

Though Brutus was aware that the Larkinson Clan was an off-shoot of a family that was famous for producing a lot of expert pilots, he never met one in person.

Jannzi came close, though. Some expert pilots like Brutus were capable of picking this up. He instantly became intrigued when she walked by him one day.

Though the Larkinson Clan also had another mech pilot, Brutus completely disregarded the boy in favor of studying the intriguing woman who radiated a similar kind of strength than him. The more he studied her, the more he became intrigued.

He had the feeling they shared something in common with each other!

However, when he approached her on his own accord, Jannzi didn't exhibit as much interest towards him as the other Larkinsons.

"Do you need something, Venerable Brutus?" She crossed her arms as she was standing at the foot of the Shield of Samar.

"Please call me Brutus, madame." He gestured towards her large and hefty mech. "That's a spaceborn mech, right? It's not very maneuverable on land. Pardon me for saying so, but it doesn't seem you are getting much out of practicing with this mech under standard gravity conditions. You are much better served if you practice in space or switch to another like the Paravan."

Jannzi frowned. "I appreciate your advice, but I am content with my training methods. Piloting my personal mech under these conditions isn't as useless as you think. The bonds we share with our mechs is just as important as cultivating our battle skills."

Her answer confused Brutus a bit. Though he adored his Star Dancer a bit more than usual due to his sister's involvement in its design, it was still inevitable for expert pilots to lose or replace their mechs.

"You'll eventually outgrow your mech, you know. In fact, it's already the case. This mech is far too sluggish and weak to express your full skill."

"You're not the first person who said that to me. I don't care. My mech is my partner. I wouldn't give it away for anything! Besides, Ves already promised me that he'll upgrade my mech soon. I trust in his abilities."

The conversation between the expert candidate and the expert pilot proceeded in a much more stilted fashion than Brutus anticipated.

Eventually, Jannzi turned around and started to float up to the cockpit of her personal mech.

"I'm already content with my training." She spoke as she increased the distance between them. "If you want to be of actual use, then I highly suggest you pay a visit to the Friedhold Estate. There is a woman there who's all alone and wallowing in her own misery. None of us Larkinsons managed to rescue her from the abyss. Maybe you might have some better luck in this regard."

The Aurora Titan soon came only and thundered out of the yard with heavy, solid footsteps that rumbled everyone's footing!

The Hexer expert pilot watched the oversized mech go, intrigued by Jannzi's words and the mech's surprisingly comforting glow.

Brutus resisted the urge to request the Avatars to pilot a mech of the same model. He had heard many good things about these so-called glows, but he thought they were only useful for lower-ranked mech pilots.

Experiencing the strong glow of this iconic-looking space knight opened his mind to the specialty of his sister's boyfriend. Though Brutus only caught a glimpse of its glow, he already yearned for more!

"So this is the power of the proto-gods my sister has been talking about." He whispered.

To think that each glow came from an actual divine entity. He started to see why Gloriana became so obsessed with their utility in mech design.

After Brutus finished his daily tutoring session, he decided to follow up on the Larkinson expert candidate's words. He boarded a shuttle and traveled to the Friedhold Estate where Gloriana had been spending some of her time lately.

The Larkinson clan members who lived there greeted him with enthusiasm. He declined their offer to sit with the veterans and talk about old times and asked where he could find the so-called woman who was all alone.

An elderly Larkinson matron quickly jerked her head towards an enclosed courtyard situated in the corner of the estate ground.

"You must be looking for Davia Stark. She's a poor little thing. She fought heroically against the sandmen in the initial stages of the invasion, only to lose all of her comrades, family and state. The losses broke her. Even now, we have tried to introduce some cheer in her life, but it's like she is dead inside."

That sounded ominous. Brutus followed the elder Larkinson woman to the courtyard and found the woman in question resting under the shade of an apple tree.

A desolate atmosphere surrounded her. It was as if all of the cheer and pleasantry was being sucked into a black hole centered around her body.

An instinctive response came out Brutus, yet somehow he failed to get a grip on the woman!

Yet even as Madame Stark looked completely broken, Brutus sensed an inner strength within her that seemed to resonate with him. There was more to this mech pilot than met the eye.

He stepped forward until he came up to her sitting form. It was as if she had collapsed against the tree. Her dull eyes barely noticed his approach and her body was completely devoid of strength.

"Hello." He said in a gentle voice. He completely put aside his Hexer demeanor. "You look like you can use a friend."

"..."

Davia didn't even bother to look up at him. So many people had already tried to engage her in conversation. None succeeded. The Larkinsons only made marginal progress in mending her broken existence.

Though Brutus failed to elicit the reaction he wanted, he did not show any disappointment. Instead, Davia's condition inspired more interest from him. Aside from pitying her condition, his intuition also hinted that she was much closer to his level of existence than she appeared!

He sat down next to her while maintaining a modest distance.

"You are probably unaware of my identity. Let me introduce myself. I am Venerable Brutus Wodin. I am an expert pilot serving in the Glory Battalion. Perhaps you have heard of us already."

"..."

"I've heard a little about your life experiences from the Larkinsons. I'm sorry for your losses. Life and death is inevitable in war. As a Hexer, my state bears some culpability in failing to protect our star sector from the aggression of alien invaders."

Davia finally made a reaction. She minutely shook her head and whispered a response.

"It's not your responsibility. Only I'm at fault."

"That.. you should never think that way. I've heard how many fleets the sandmen threw at the border states. None of your forces could have withstood so many sandmen. Your states were already doomed the moment the sandmen decided to invade. Sure, they might have fared better if your people made more preparations, but even then that will only delay the inevitable."

Being reminded of the failures of the past only caused Davia to sink even deeper.

Brutus noticed his mistake. He placed a hand on her back.

"Look. You survived. That's good. That means that at least one person is able to carry forth and keep the memories of your comrades and people alive. You have a responsibility to prevent their names and deeds from fading. If the records and memories of their existences have truly gone to dust, then you will have lost even more. Don't let them be forgotten. Find a way to make people remember."

He was actually voicing a Hexer principle, though he was mindful enough to strip the hexism aspects from his explanation. He already learned that it was not a good idea to persuade foreigners to the merits of Hexer culture.

He succeeded in getting a reaction out of Davia this time.

"I came from a border state called the Vindmar Republic." Davia cracked her voice, as if she was unused to talking. "It was a weak state, and life was anything but perfect so close to the frontier. It was my home, though. No one remembers Vindmar anymore. It is just a single mention in a long list of fallen states. Fewer people even remember the people who lived there."

"This is why you matter, Davia." He encouragingly said. "You are their legacy. The Vindmar Republic will always live on so long as you preserve your precious memories. You may not be able to bring them back, but you can help them move on by commemorating their existence."

She started to draw herself out of her misery in order to contemplate his suggestion. She paid more and more attention to the mech pilot who visited her. "Who are you?"

The expert pilot offered her a reassuring smile. "I am a protector, just like you."