The Mech Touch

Ves and Gloriana calmly toured the other exhibited mechs in the first hall they entered.

They encountered a variety of covered and uncovered mechs. Sometimes, the latter was covered in skin or hide, but there were also several who showed off their supple flesh that was kept slightly moist.

The first time he saw these mechs up close, Ves felt as if he was watching a monster from a horror show. Pairing the size of a mech with a purely biological appearance made him feel as if he was standing in front of a vastly-superior monster or alien!

Such a terrible being only had to make one quick move to lift his body and shove him into its mouth!

"What are you thinking about, Ves?"

"I just feel like these biomech designers could use some more marketing lessons. What gave them the bright idea to sell mechs that look like grotesque, skinless bodies?"

No matter whether they were bestial or humanoid, Ves felt a bit squeamish about getting close to any of them with their tightly-bonded musculature on display.

Sure, bioengineering aspect looked impressive, but most ordinary people would probably become terrified at the monstrous appearances of these fleshy machines.

Normal mechs looked much more friendly up close. While they were just as deadly as their organic counterparts, their distinctly mechanical appearance made them look like every other war weapon that human civilization used in the past millennia. Every human was already accustomed to living alongside guns, armor, starsh.i.p.s and other dangerous mechanical constructions.

That caused most people's reactions towards biomechs to elicit a distinct degree of disgust.

Ves wasn't the only one who felt this way.

"Meow!"

Lucky couldn't stand the sight, and there were plenty of foreign visitors down on the ground who avoided standing around too long at any of these uncovered biomechs.

The only people who were comfortable around uncovered mechs were Lifers themselves. They had grown up in a society that celebrated every form of biomech. While a foreigner might think of uncovered biomechs as abominations, a local mainly thought of them as noble creations that should have been more ubiquitous.

"The covered biomech exhibits are more popular among foreigners." Gloriana pointed out. "Look at this heavy mech for example."

[BZE Biotech Avarra Tomar Mark III AT-S0001-3400]

Now this was a fierce-looking biomech. The Avarra Tomar was a heavy landbound hybrid mech that was stuffed with weapon systems underneath its heavy bone-covered form.

The sheer amount of bone plating grown by this mech made it look like a knight mech!

What was interesting about this Avarra Tomar was that it carried at least twelve different organic weapon systems. Aside from being able to extend claws from his hands, the humanoid biomech was also able to fire biomissiles from its shoulders, laser beams from its c.h.e.s.t and arms, some kind of entangling nets from the sides of its torso and bone-like projectiles from its c.h.e.s.t!

Each of the weapon ports were ordinarily covered by heavy plates, but they could be moved aside at any time.

Of course, all of this wasn't enough to earn the Avarra Tomar a spot in Prescott Museum.

The Senior who designed this heavy hybrid biomech implemented it with a so-called 'War God Mode'.

While it was not possible for the display copy to demonstrate this potent mode in reality, there were plenty of projections that showed how a single Avarra Tomar turned around a losing battle.

One recording showed an Avarra Tomar surrounded by over twenty other biomechs. While the latter were all lighter and cheaper organic machines, the starring mech was still in a very bad position!

Its heavy bone armor dented and fractured at an alarming rate as the opposing mechs wanted to take down this formidable hybrid mech as fast as possible. The mech pilot must be feeling a huge amount of stress as he desperately tried to prevent his opponents from penetrating deep into the vulnerable portions of his mech.

While the Avarra Tomar tried to counterattack as hard as possible, its various armaments only inflicted moderate damage to a couple of mechs.

It was not powerful enough to fend off twenty opposing mechs!

"If I'm going down, I'll make sure to drag you all down as well!"

At some point, its mech pilot activated the most powerful feature of the Avarra Tomar. The mech stopped firing its weapons at the enemy mechs. Instead, it paused and let a couple of attacks hit its deteriorating form.

After three seconds of preparation, the mech heated up to the point where the surrounding air grew hazy!

"KILL!"

The mech suddenly leaned over and began to thunder forward like a gorilla. The Avarra Tomar somehow moved three times faster as its musculature exerted much more strength than before!

An enemy biomech standing directly in its path had attempted to turn around and run away, but the Avarra Tomar leapt and soared ahead until its four limbs directly crunched on to the back of the running machine!

When a heavy mech pressed its entire weight onto a medium mech, the latter almost never survived!

"Your mechs are too thin!"

This was no different. The two mechs crashed onto the ground with a powerful thud. An ugly squelch sounded out as well as the enemy biomech was literally squashed into a bloody mess!

Highly-enriched blood splattered out of the poor organic machine as it torso was completely ruined by the weight of the burning Avarra Tomar.

This was just the start!

The Avarra Tomar raised its c.h.e.s.t and began to fire numerous energy beams and flaming projectiles at a number of enemy biomechs.

"BURN! BURN! BURN!"

It got so bad for the enemy mechs that their pilots would rather eject prem.a.t.u.r.ely than risk getting killed by a slaughtering mech!

Yet whenever the hard-shelled c.o.c.kpits launched out the backs of the biomechs, the Avarra Tomar responded instantly.

"Don't think of escaping with your lives intact!"

Much of the mech's ranged armament still remained functional.

It fired overloaded laser beams that rapidly burned and heated up the c.o.c.kpits until the mech pilots sheltering inside literally got cooked!

If any of the c.o.c.kpits got hit by a flaming projectile, then they always broke open like eggs. The sheer force of the impact was already enough to kill the mech pilots before their bodies fell to the ground.

"Blood! I need more blood!"

Once the crazed hybrid mech was done with firing a volley, it galloped forward and caught up to one of the mechs it damaged.

The wounded biomech looked exceptionally gruesome as its limbless form. The Avarra Tomar finished it off by tearing into its c.h.e.s.t before running off to intercept the other enemy mechs!

As the massacre continued, the Avarra Tomar slowly shed its overheated bone plating. It gradually turned into an uncovered mech but with a substantially weaker structure.

While the enemy mechs tried to take advantage of the n.a.k.e.d state of the Avarra Tomar, the rampaging biomech gained an even greater burst of speed now that it had removed its c.u.mbersome armor!

The burning biomech rapidly acc.u.mulated more damage, yet it was still functional enough to continue its frantic chase. Its musculate visibly thinned and wilted as the seconds went by, but the power released from these reactions was incredible!

By the time the Avarra Tomar brutalized its eighth victim by pounding its c.h.e.s.t until the mech pilot inside died by getting hit by a flaming fist, the former hybrid mech had lost over half of its body mass!

With the decrease in musculature, it became easier for the surviving opponents to cripple the rampaging mech.

The legs went away first. Yet even after the Avarra Tomar lost its primary means of moving around, it still attempted to close in on another enemy mech by dragging its surviving frame forward with its arms!

Those limbs went away next.

Now left with just a torso and a head, what remained of the Avarra Tomar was no longer able to put up a fight.

The enemy mechs kept their distance but held their fire. Rather than smashing the spent biomech apart, they simply watched as the former hybrid mech continued to burn up at an increasingly rapid pace.

Soon enough, only bones were left as anything fleshy had expended all of its potential energy in a self-destructive manner.

Not even the c.o.c.kpit made it out intact. Its desperate, unhinged mech pilot had interfaced with the mech all the way, causing him to suffer the same burning sensation that ate up his machine.

Ves bent his head in respect for the brave warrior. "That was a noble last stand. The mech pilot of the Avarra Tomar knew he was a goner, but still tried to contribute as much as possible before he died."

Gloriana looked a lot more horrified than him, though she tried her best to put up a brave face.

"You won't see any classical mechs doing something like that anytime soon. It's nearly impossible to burn your own mech in exchange for greater power."

There were ways to overload a mechanical mech, but the power burst was not comparable in might and duration.

This kind of implementation could only be done to a biomech, which consisted of organic components that were packed with lots of potential energy throughout its entire frame!

"Maybe some biomechs do have some unique points that justify their existence." Ves opined.

He quickly read the history of this mech design. While the Avarra Tomar's had proven to be very popular among a modest group of customers, it eventually went into disuse because buyers no longer wanted to obtain this machine.

It was substantially more expensive than biomechs without anything like the War God Mode.

Another reason to avoid the mech was that its mech pilots tended to become too eager to activate this final solution. There were plenty of situations where the Avarra Tomars could have escaped a battle intact by stalling their opponents for a few minutes.

Instead, as soon as their mech pilots thought they were losing, they impulsively activated the War God Mode and traded temporary power for a chance to kill as many enemies as possible!

While the War God Mode indeed led to a lot of enemy casualties, once its properties became known, it became a lot more difficult to accomplish anything meaningful.

No one dared to fight against an Avarra Tomar up close!

Instead, opponents kept a healthy distance and tried to grind it down with a multitude of ranged attacks.

If the Avarra Tomar ever started to heat up, then its enemies would instantly split up and run away from each other!

In case this wasn't possible because the enemy mechs had to defend a fixed position, then they would pour as much firepower towards the legs of the mech as possible.

Taking out the legs always put an end to the Avarra Tomar's killing degree ahead of time!

These developments and more all caused the once-notorious hybrid mech to fall out of popularity. It was an effective biomech in its heyday, but failed to adapt to the changing environment.

Ves discerned a lesson from this story.

"Survival of the fittest. The Avarra Tomar started off strong, but its designer evidently failed to help his work adapt to the countermeasures that its opponents came up with. It seems that biomechs don't inherently possess an advantage in this aspect."

He encountered several more display biomechs that provided him with interesting lessons or ideas. While Ves had no intentions of designing anything like the Avarra Tomar, learning that it was possible to design such a monster already broadened his perspective of biomechs and mechs in general.

The creativity on display in this museum enriched his mind. After seeing some of the best of what the biomech industry had to offer, his perception on biomechs had shifted.

A part of him even wanted to try and design one. He had seen many different organic mechs, yet he had never encountered one that was truly alive.