Riding Out The Storm

"WELCOME!" Niel gloriously announced, spreading his arms wide in a grand gesture - secretly pressing a button on the remote control he held - causing the lights of the facility to subsequently come about - revealing huge assembly lines with a dozen of half-finished mech exteriors hanging.

"My pride! My joy! My family heirloom!" The landlord delicately wiped with a tissue - tears flowing in bunches from his eyes - his audience, completely amazed by his presentation.

Even Sy was surprised upon realising what the facility was. He quickly noticed its complexity which underlined its efficiency in mass production. He also concluded that if these lesser factions had contributed these mech facilities into their industrial capacity instead of the sole production of mechs - they would prove to be competitive enough for the greater factions to blink an eye.

The first stage of its production line were consisted of outdated replicators with intricate functions followed by automated bots that could distinguish finished parts and then passing it through the assembly line where people and machine would work together in unison.

Niel was planning to upgrade the mech facility into a modern one. As such, he had painstakingly worked under a mech guild for over a decade in order to earn the necessary funds which costed billions of credits. This was one of his gimmick to advertise its opening.

"Just so you know.. I came from a long line of mech designers and engineers. We were even mech pilots and carved our names in the history book." The landlord started as he guided his tenants into a tour, "Now this is not the start of a political campaign in order to become mayor of the city. I'm merely displaying the start of my big project in reopening this mech facility. But if duty calls, I'd gladly take the role of mayor. I'd give each family in the city a free mech!"

His speech only served to dupe the children who were already aspiring for him to become mayor. However, even the adults were fooled by his charisma and believed his words.

Although their legs ached from the lengthy descent, the group faithfully tailed Niel and attentively listened to his incessant boasting.

Sy could only shake his head and chuckle at the back. A moment later, he strayed away from the group to observe the hanging mech exteriors in silence. At first glance, he assessed that these were armour vests, designed to clamped around the chest of mechs and acted as another exterior protection.

He was wrong.

Upon a closer inspection, these supposed exteriors actually had an internal structure. The mechs were built around it.

Caressing his chin with creased brows, Sy muttered in contemplation, "I still am not knowledgeable about mechs.."

Sy's mind strayed to his Straggler S1 variant. It was customized to his own idea, and it came to him that it will confuse a lot of people.

[A few hours earlier]

Pyre, the prime planet and powerhouse of the Union of Pyr, home to the most elite of their society. In one of its most populous cities, Thales yawned in boredom as he looked around his office. He desperately missed working in the Mech's Research Centers - where new mechs were designed and evaluated.

When one of his colleagues resigned, he was immediately transferred into the clutches of office work which tortured him to no end. Being one of the best mech specialist around, his talents should be in the right place.

As he sipped his coffee and fixed a few documents on his table - readying himself for another unfruitful day, the projected screen of his computer beeped, displaying a new message.

This immediately caught his attention.

His wife was starting another naughty session.

Smiling ear to ear, he brushed his dirty blond hair while viewing the image of his wife in an erotic underwear. He hurriedly typed and sent a reply.

[Can't wait to get home. I'll maul you in every corner of the house.]

[Why not now..]

[Babe.. if I lose my job because I rushed back home, it's your fault]

When the conversation ended, Thales gulped the last drop of his coffee and sighed in satisfaction. His eyes caught another message and suspected that his wife wanted more, and he was more than willing to give it. However, he soon found out that it was from a childhood friend - who was a decorated mech pilot.

He enthusiastically read the message.

[I found a new mech in Steel Arena. I don't have enough gold.. planning to buy it with real money. I want you to assess it.]

Curious as to what grabbed his friend's attention, he clicked the link and directly accessed the game with his computer. This particular friend of his had a knack of sniffing out mechs that can outperform others although they were not good on papers.

[Straggler S1-2]

[4th Gen. 1st Tier]

"Why is this junk out of place?"

At first, he thought that some graduate did a few modifications and thought they made a breakthrough and decided to inflate the quality of their work. However, when he inspected it very closely, it only resembled the Straggler S1 when one did not attentively look. Whoever made it was good at making such an illusion.

Thales chuckled at the sight of puny looking guns, installed at the sides of the mech's forehead. In his opinion, which were true, they only served to tickle other mechs. He scoffed at the wastefulness of whoever that made it. If they thought it would make the mech look cooler - yes. But without an effective output, it's only a decoration which served no purpose.

He typed a reply, dissuading his friend from buying the mech. As he was about send it, he chuckled and looked at the mech once more in mockery. This time, however, he noticed the intricate design of its exterior and the ugly looking gun - he could not identify - in its hands which were inexistent from the original version. This mech looked nothing like the Straggler S1. It took him about half an hour before he realized that the exteriors were actually armour plating.

"Don't tell me they managed to make the Straggler S1's bulky and inflexible framework smaller!" He exclaimed, and commanded the game system to disassemble the mech. As he anticipated, an internal structure was displayed to his horror. Although, there were some similarities with the older version's framework, some parts were replaced with brand new designs.

What confused him the most was that the game system did not show any information about its components. Even though without the help of the game system, he was a genius in his field and could easily associate any mech components. He thought that they were newly released, but that did not made any sense. A mech specialist like him who worked with the latest gen of mechs couldn't be that ignorant about new components. If there were new ones, he would have had already been notified.

He decided to search online, but found nothing.

"Huh?" Mouth agape and unable to control his mind process, he muttered to himself, "Does this mech even work?"

Activating the game system's simulation, he watched once again in anticipation. However, the game system showed a complete evaluation that every components and modules were perfectly working.

Thales violently scratched his head, and made a full effort into finding something faulty. He uncorked the helmet donned on the mech's head after removing the puny guns only to find the horror of not knowing anything again. To his comfort, he identified the functions of its eyes. The game system collected the data and formed a very useful feedback.

"Good tiered optics, sensors.. hmm wait, imaging sensors?" He scratched his head again, threatening to unhinge the hair on that part of his head.

"Scratch that! I don't have any clue to what its ears are made of. Base on the data imaging, it's clearly something!"

"ECM, Targeting System..."

Thales slammed his fist on the table as he finally came to a precise conclusion. The components were unlicensed. They were just built too differently for him to realize. He cursed whoever made this mech for torturing him. But a good torture nonetheless compared to his boring life in the office.

He activated his comms and contacted a few of his former colleagues in the Mech's Research Center based on Pyre. Too embarrassed to inquire about the components, he instead sent the data of the ugly gun in the mech's hands to a Weapon-tech Specialist and the reactor to an Energy-tech Specialist, and then waited.

Half an hour later gaping at the mech, Thales realized one thing that shocked him to the core. He was too distracted on the components that he did not paid any attention to the circuitry of the mech. The wirings were almost nonexistent.

"How..?"

He activated the simulation and manually inputted a pilot in the cockpit. He was confident that the mech will not move according to the pilot's commands. When he moved the arms, the mech perfectly responded. He made it walk, run, dance, everything he could think of.

"How..?"

Despair, terrified, the subsequent look on his face could not be identified.

"This is too f*ckin' advance..." Muttering repeatedly to himself, a notification on the projected screen appeared, suggesting a group video call.

Thales accepted the call and hastily asked, "What did you find out?"

The man on the left screen wearing a lab coat, answered first, "I did not understand a thing about your reactor. But since it was you, I decided to try it in the subatomic simulator."

"The simulator readings suggested a Fusion Plant and a convertible energy storage with the addition of a regulator." He further added, "How the f*ck did you come up with this? I don't understand the logic behind it. Please send me the whole data or I'm going to submit this to the director!"

"Calm down, Lim!" Thales comforted the Energy-tech Specialist and turned to the other one. "How about you, Mig?"

"Just like Lim, I barely managed to understand a thing about the data you sent me. It was trash. But according to the simulator, the way it propelled and consumed energy, it showed me a starship's weapon of mass destruction. A fuckin' Railgun!" Mig explained, unable to contain his excitement.

"That makes sense. Much energy would be consumed, and it is unavoidable for excess energy. In order to avoid this, you need a regulator." Lim theorise, carefully thinking.

"You think so?" Mig frown, turning his attention toward Thales. "Now give us the whole data!"

Thales escaped, ending the call in haste. He deleted his former response to his friend and instead, urged him to buy the mech. However, his high intelligence took note of something else. The creation of the Straggler S1-2 did not follow most protocols. The Mech Guilds will soon intervene.

He devised a new approach. By notifying the director of the Mech's Research Center in Pyre, he will get back his former job. They were one of the most dominant mech guilds across the quadrant, after all. And mech was all they were concerned about. Anyone who will buy the Straggler S1-2 will make an enemy of them.

As for his friend, he advised him to buy after the first Straggler S1-2 was sold.

Next, he searched the name of the designer of the Straggler S1-2.

"Vulcan444? What was it again..? A god under a volcano?"