The Mech Touch

Ves and Vivian Tsai were currently trekking through a tropical forest biome. The simulated ground environment was so realistic that both of them experienced considerable discomfort.

The thick brushes, the humid air, the thick tree cover, the altered gravity, the buzzing mosquitoes and uneven footing all reinforced the impression that they were no longer on a starship.

If the Larkinsons deposited unconscious prisoners into one of the large hunting biomes of the Vivacious Wal, the poor fellows would probably become completely convinced that they had been dumped on an actual planet!

Still, the realism did not provide Ves with a comfortable touring experience. Even though his smart uniform shielded him from many discomforts and his augmented body could endure all of the rigors, he did not particularly feel any nostalgia about experiencing a real planetary environment.

His last visit to a real planet ended with the short but destructive rampage of a massive biojuggernaut, after all. A lot of things seemed to go wrong every time he visited a planet. This only reinforced his desire to stay on a ship, preferably a familiar one like the Spirit of Bentheim.

"As you can see, the biomes are quite large and extensive." Vivian said. "While their vertical height is not that impressive, the ship still offers ample room for landbound mechs and low-flying aerial mechs to fight to their heart's content. The Vivacious Wal's hull is specifically taller than other capital ships in order to accommodate several stacking layers of fighting biomes. And before you ask, each layer is separated by thick metal layers that can endure a lot of punishment. As long as the mechs inside do not focus their fire on any section, it is unlikely that any holes will form between the decks. Any damaged sections can easily be repaired and replaced with any materials that we have on hand."

Though the ceiling depicted a simulated sky that did not give out a hint of a barrier, there was definitely a limit to how high stuff could go. This was the biggest flaw to these simulated environments and imposed heavy limits on aerial mechs looking to make full use of their maneuverability.

The mech training environments of the Discentibus imposed similar limitations. Aerial mech pilots stuck in space still had to undergo extensive simulation training if they wished to get more familiar with how to move their machines in an aerial environment.

Still, something was better than nothing. Even giving aerial mech pilots a small taste of what it was like to fly a real mech under atmospheric conditions would go a long way in preparing them for a real aerial deployment.

Once they ended this short and rather boring tour, Ves and Vivian exited the hunting and training biomes and moved over to a more interesting urban environment.

Much like the artificial city on the eight deck of the Spirit of Bentheim, the Vivacious Wal featured her own city environment. In fact, the capital ship featured two separate cities.

Unlike the bright and modern city on the Joyful Side, the one on the Feral Side deliberately looked grittier and outdated. The lower lighting levels along with the brightly-colored advertisements made it seem as if the visitors had entered a dystopian city that looked as if it came straight out of a contemporary thriller drama!

"The vibe here is completely different from any city that I have ever visited." Ves said. "I like the novelty, though I'm not sure if it is good to expose our own clansmen to this kind of environment."

"Not everyone will feel at home in Dawn City over on the Joyful Side, sir. Twilight City is designed to serve as a deliberate contrast. It looks worse because you have just visited the brighter city a short time ago. On its own, Twilight City is explicitly designed to evoke more primal and baser needs. The level of decay is carefully controlled to manipulate visitors into lowering their inhibitions and unleashing their repressed urges. While you can argue that it is not proper for them to lose control at all, it is better for our clansmen to use the Feral Side of the Vivacious Wal as an outlet of their emotions than anywhere else. Twilight City offers enough bars, casinos, nightclubs and even fighting arenas to make people fully satisfied once they leave."

Since someone decided it was worth it to build an entire capital ship around this notion, there had to be at least some basis to this notion.

As they continued to walk alongside the avenues of Twilight Cities, they saw a shadow of what might become a famed and prosperous city in the future.

Right now, the Larkinsons were still setting everything up. The people who volunteered or had been assigned to work aboard the Vivacious Wal had to do a lot of work to bring the shops and entertainment facilities back to life. Even when all of that was done, these places still wouldn't see much use unless at least tens of thousands of visitors began to visit the Vivacious Wal on a regular basis.

In order to give every Larkinson enough opportunities to enjoy some leisure time aboard the Vivacious Wal, the entire clan had to set up a rotation schedule where those who deserved to enjoy a vacation could visit the leisure ship without leaving their old ships hanging.

The clan would probably have to expand to at least 300,000 or 500,000 members in order for Dawn City and Twilight City to truly come into their own, and that only counted for their most central districts.

It was quite amazing to imagine how a single capital ship could accommodate two large cities at once, but that was what huge vessels were capable of. As long as everyone conveniently forgot about the fact that the tallest structures weren't actually that high, Ves could easily imagine many permanent residents beginning to see the cities as a separate space altogether.

"Let's head somewhere more exciting." Ves suggested.

One of the most interesting places aboard the Vivacious Wal was the dedicated mech arena that was situated in the center of Twilight City.

It was quite obvious that the designers of the city considered the mecha arena to be the heart of the Feral Side of the Vivacious Wal. The thick, imposing structure featured a large and wide center space that offered enough room to hold several smaller duels at once.

If more space was called for, then the barriers between the smaller arenas could be retracted in order to form ample space for group combat or less restrained mech duels.

An ample amount of thick and solid walls along with a plentiful amount of shield generators ensured that none of the attacks of the mechs would hit the spectators of the matches. Ves was quite happy to see that there were several layers of redundancy.

Ves met with a surprising pair of people while he toured the mech arena.

"Oh hey, Ves." Director Raella Larkinson of the Larkinson Mech Games Circuit greeted as she was studying a projection of the arena. "I heard you were stopping by. Do you like what you see?"

"I'm quite impressed, but it is difficult to know how boisterous it will be when everything is fully up and running."

"I'm sure the sights here will not disappoint you. Now that I can finally turn some of my plans into reality, our clan will finally have the dedicated show it needs to keep every mech fanatic in our ranks happy!" Raella grinned.

"I wish I could compete in the arena as well." Her boyfriend sighed as he wistfully looked out into the empty fighting ring. "I'm sure I could have beaten every other Larkinson and claim my trophy if I had the chance to participate."

"You're an expert candidate now! Have some dignity, Vincent!"

It was a long time since Ves last saw Vincent in person. Even though he managed to advance to expert candidate, it didn't appear as if he had gained any professionalism out of it. The only noticeable change in his appearance was the slightly larger bulge between his legs.

Ves tried very hard not to turn his eyes downwards.

"Do you have any requests or feedback about the mech arena, director?" Vivian asked.

Raella looked thoughtful. "Hmmm. I would prefer to have more arenas, but I'm already happy with what we have. The only difficult problem I have right now is finding enough competitors to keep this place busy. Since it is not possible for us to retain a group of full-time professional mech athletes, we have to invite volunteers from the various mech forces. It will be quite a pain to schedule matches and conduct regular league matches around FTL travel and existing commitments."

Even though the Vivacious Wal offered a lot of space, at this stage the Larkinson Clan could not afford to waste any time on useless competition mechs that held little practical value on the battlefield.

The competitive scene had to wait until the Larkinson Clan gained a solid footing in the Red Ocean before it could form a more dedicated and professional array of teams.

None of this was of particular concern to Ves. It was the responsibility of Raella and other people to figure out how to deal with these matters.

Ves did not forget about his original purpose.

"Let's put the safety measures of this arena to the test." He proposed. "I just brought an experimental new weapon that needs to be tested in a safe and solid environment."

They quickly prepared the test run by clearing and prepping the arena. The managers and technicians brought several shield generators to full power in anticipation of blocking a powerful attack.

Since these shield generators were rated to resist crashing mechs, if only momentarily, they should fully be capable of blocking a shot from the vehicle-sized luminar crystal cannon!

Even so, a lot of people began to grow a little nervous once the exotic-looking weapon was mounted to a firing platform placed in the middle of the mech arena.

Vincent loudly whistled once he saw the weapon. "That's an impressive gun! When will you hand out all of this bling to our mechs?"

"Not anytime soon." Ves flatly answered.

He quickly proceeded with the test by pressing the remote fire button.

TZZZT!

A bright flash and a loud zapping noise sounded out as the experimental crystal weapon unleashed a bright light beam that crashed straight into the multiple layers of energy shields that encapsulated the mech arena!

Surprisingly enough, the relatively small cannon managed to pierce through the initial shield layer and inflicted severe damage against the second shield layer!

"Damn, how come this small cannon is so powerful?!"

Though part of the reason why the crystal cannon was able to break a shield so easily was because it concentrated its attack output on a single point, that did not detract from the fact that the weapon managed to inflict a high amount of damage while remaining quite compact!

In fact, Ves could even adapt the current crystal cannon into a long, mech-sized pistol that matched well with light mechs such as the Dark Zephyr.

The only issue with that was that such a luminar crystal pistol would not be able to sustain such a high output of damage for long if the mech wasn't able to supply an abundant amount of energy.

The Sentry Project was designed to accommodate a large quantity of high-capacity energy cells, so it was able to maintain the output of a full-sized rifle for quite some time, but melee mechs such as the Dark Zephyr were much worse off in this regard.

Even though the crystal cannon only fired once, Ves was more than happy with the damage of its full-powered shot. Once he scaled up the crystal weapon one more time, the Sentry Project would probably be able to break through all of the protective layers of the mech arena with a single casual strike!

In fact, if the expert rifleman mech changed the attack phase of its crystal rifle to a disruptor beam, it could shred through even stronger shields and energy barriers!