Mech

Trevor picked up more nearby pequis and threw them against the hot stone.

He did this until he had enough to fill his empty stomach. After all the fruit was partially cooked and peeled, the young man took his lighter back and began to eat.

The familiar taste of the fruit greeted Trevor's mouth, making his stomach quite happy. The inner walls of his stomach danced to the music of his teeth chewing and devouring the cooked pequi.

Despite having eaten more than enough to make him nauseous and want to vomit, Trevor clenched his fists and continued eating. Bites and more bites later, the young man with the green eyes got a full stomach.

'Can we start now?'

'Let's start.'

Aicanhir's drowsiness was swept away, anxiety and happiness filled that hole in his heart. The guara then continued the same acts he had done previously in the House of the Golden Sun of Dawn: he began to shine like the golden light of dawn.

'Are you feeling anything different?'

Trevor didn't respond, but his confident smile said more than a thousand words.

The black-haired young man could no longer be called such, because golden hair started to grow all over his body! In a matter of seconds, what was once a normal man turned into something similar to the human variants!

The teeth turned to fangs.

The nose turned into a muzzle.

The feet turned into black paws.

The spine bones turned into a tail.

The black hair turned into golden hair.

The pinkish-white nails turned to black claws.

Trevor had completely transformed. Of all his former features, only his determined green eyes remained as before. Power filled every part of his cells, Trevor felt he could lift an entire car without breaking a sweat.

His height has also increased considerably, to a full two meters (6' 56'')!

Even the hand he had lost was regenerating!

'What are you feeling?!' Aicanhir's excited voice came full of curiosity.

'This feeling is very strange, it's like I'm controlling a body that isn't mine, but at the same time is also part of me. Even though I feel my hand regenerating, I don't think that's the limit. I also think I can try to grow into something bigger. Much bigger.'

Trevor then retracted his smile.

'What are you doing?' The boy didn't listen to Aicanhir's questions. The first transformed its powerful features back to natural human form. Trevor saw her body shrink, her power ebb, and her heightened senses ebb.

'We haven't even tested anything yet and you've already returned to your normal form!'

'No need to do that, I know what I'm capable of in that form.'

Trevor shook his head sideways, making Aicanhir's muzzle even more contorted in disgust. In sequence, the roar of his stomach spread through the room again, begging for more food.

'We still have the rest of half the day to be able to find some human towns or encampments. In the worst case, we can try to find an animal's den and use it as shelter.'

Trevor looked at the pequi tree behind him, there was no more green fruit ready to be picked: the young man had already eaten it all. All that's left were its pretty yellow flowers and the bark he'd thrown away earlier.

The sun was above Trevor's head, white clouds roamed the skies, and the winds made the plants around them move calmly and gently. Such a beautiful panorama, however, did not catch his eye for no reason.

'So this is the map? What a bad thing. You can't see anything on it.'

'Yes, if you don't have any prior information it will be confusing. However, I'm not that lost. We're probably in the south of the Pequi Republic or something close to the south.'

The map was laid out on the ground like a rug, both of Trevor's legs were stepping on the corners of this map to prevent the wind from lifting it or hindering the young man from analyzing this map in any way.

'And where did you get that? This map is dirtier than you.'

'Before we met, I met a couple of doctors. These doctors are both the reason I'm running so desperately and the reason I've awakened my powers. At the time, I had dinner with them and discussed a few things.'

The edges of the map under Trevor's feet fluttered, but his weight prevented any further movement.

'And did they tell you we're in the southern Pequi Republic?' The left eye of the Golden Sun of Dawn lifted.

'Yes, you can say that.' Trevor lifted his feet off the map, then tucked it inside his pants. The young man then took the lighter from the ground near the pequi tree and began his journey.

'Where are we going this time?'

'We will go to the iron city, Orthref. It is the largest city in the south of Pequi Republic.'

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Inside a dimly lit laboratory that looked like it came straight out of a science fiction book, people dressed in white hazard suits smiled. In front of them, a huge transparent glass tank glowed with blue light.

On the smooth surface of this tank, the vague figures of these people dressed in white were reflected. As for inside this same tank, dipped in a clear blue liquid, an enormous humanoid robot could be seen.

Air bubbles rose and fell within this blue-transparent liquid.

Wires and cables were connected to this humanoid robot.

"It's a success!"

"This is all thanks to Ms. Veronica!"

"Haha, our investment paid off!"

The people who were wearing a white hazard suit smiled. In each of their hands were simple wooden clipboards, with various information about this metal titan in front of them.

"And to think that we would be able to finally gain our independence. We will definitely be promoted after this! Our Pequi Republic might even be able to resist the advances of the damned foreigners from the east!"

"Are you an idiot, Durone? Our enemies are not just foreigners."

The woman with curly black hair next to him, which was barely visible under his white hazard, said in a tone of dissatisfaction.

"What are you trying to say?"

Durone, whose only visible hair was that of his brown beard, replied with a frown. Both had similar heights, around 1.70 meters (5' 56'').

"What Rubrita is saying is that we are not as close as you think, Durone. You were born less than thirty years ago, so it's normal that you don't know what united them all under one banner more than fifty years ago."

The man who spoke was old, his pale skin was full of warts and imperfections brought on by the passage of time.

"At that time, men from the Western Mountain Ranges had united under the military regime of Gustav Chopin. After slaughtering his most important rivals, Chopin used his men and marched east to acquire more resources."

The old man touched his chin while he had a faraway look on his face.

"The war he started dramatically changed our continent. The companies and paramilitary groups of the time were destroyed and looted in sequence. Our luck only changed when we started to actually unite."

Durone nodded at all of this, but the frown on his forehead didn't lessen.

"Look, I know about the history of our Pequi Republic, but what does that have to do with what Rubrita was talking about? We band together and defeat that tyrant."

"It's not that simple, a lot of the records were deleted on purpose. I'll tell you a secret known to some of us at that time, the war Chopin started was for the purpose of consolidating power. He wanted to create enemies like the Pequi Republic."

The dark laboratory was silent for a moment.

"This is bullshit!" Durone's eyebrows danced wildly under this revelation.

"Maybe it is, but the truth is: it's a big possibility. Mainly because the expeditionary army's greatest losses were absorbed by Clan Chopin afterwards. With the defeat, Gustav was arrested and executed by his son. Clan Chopin still reigns in the Western Mountain Ranges."

The dance of dancing eyebrows got bigger and bigger with this old man's revelations.

"Today, the Pequi Republic and other nearby nations have shown signs of internal instability. Clan Dekino is each day with less control over the other two other organizations, even with the many marriages they have done."

The old man's words were like the cellos that set the rhythm of the dance.

"But why are you telling me all this? Shouldn't it be a secret?"

"Yes, Durone, it should be a secret. However, what we've just done here by building this mech makes the internal balance of the Pequi Republic even less stable."

The cello sound stopped for a moment, but returned with a low sound as if announcing the death of someone at a funeral event.

"Once Walden Industries manages to mass produce this thing, Hollow Frontier will lose its main specialty. When that happens, we won't need either Clan Dekino or the Hollow Frontier to keep us going. It will be the end of the Pequi Republic."

The future looked bleak and chaotic to these researchers and engineers.

This was the power of a mech!