Mech-anics

Sun Xuelin dragged Shew into the place as she pushed the door open,. "Grandpa Qian!" Shouted Xuelin as soon as she stepped in, while her cousin was concealing herself behind. She wiped her face reddened by intense workouts and swiped her hazel fringe dampened by her sweat. Droplets of sweat rolled off like dewdrops in the morning. Her nose glossing in her youth were exhaling heavily. The formerly tight uniform covering her body had lost its formality by then, which the neckline had been unbuttoned while the sleeves had been outrageously raised, revealing arms of fair beauty. Her left hand was holding Shew’s hand while her right was smudged by something.

"Grandpa Qian! We want two bowls of beef noodles! The usual!" She then tugged her cousin all the way to the hand cleaner at the side. Beep! A flow of air slightly warm passed through their fingers. The black patches on her hands slid through the tips of her fingers and fell into the opened doorway to the disposer.

"Xuelin?" Laid his chopsticks, Grandpa Qian stood up and looked at them in anxiety, "What happened to my girls? Looking all flustered…"

Ye Chong in the meantime had already shifted to the kitchen and started cooking.

Xuelin pulled her beloved Cousin Shew to the table and sat down right beside Grandpa Qian, giggled, "Sigh! You won’t believe what had happened! I was getting home with Shewie, all happy and lucky. But then the mech just had to break itself out of a sudden. The worst thing was I actually broke my dimensional keystone too. I tried to fix it on my own but it didn’t work. I got hungry so I decided to come back here for another meal first." Such a bad hair day for the girls. Grandpa Qian thought.

"So is the mech right outside the shop?" He poured them some water as he asked.

"Ugh!" Xuelin gargled angrily, "Yeah! I never expected things could go wrong when it’s just a stone’s throw away from our house! This is depressing… especially when my parents aren’t in too!" And she sighed again but seemed more agitated than depressed.

Grandpa Qian chuckled, "Xuelin, my girl, you sure act like your father. Why aren’t you like your mother even a little? Eh, drink it slower. Do it gently, Xuelin. The drinks are all yours. Be like your cousin, Shew. Look at how gently she made her sip."

Shew while on her sip was embarrassed by the compliments. She blushed and almost choked herself. "It’s… It’s nothing." She placed down her cup, "I mean, Xuelin looks pretty good too, doesn’t she?" Rubbing her hands together while slipping her fingers through as she muttered.

"You are just the shy kind, aren’t you?" Grandpa Qian was delighted. Shew’s blush had gotten worse. "Yeah, she’s the shy kind ever since she was a child!" Stated Xuelin while she laughed.

A moment later, Ye Chong left the kitchen with two bowls of noodles. He placed it in front of the girls, sat down and continued digging in. Courtesy was no longer the best policy for Ye Chong when hunger was concerned. He had consumed too much stamina for the day. Hunger had taken over his mind. Nom. Nom. Nom… Ye Chong was too busy emptying every bowl he got.

Xuelin and Shew held their chopsticks in daze. Is this a human? How many bowls has he eaten ever since we came in? The 7th? Or the 8th? Can a man get this hungry? It was not only because the amount he had eaten, it was also the rate of him finishing the bowls. The noodles appeared as if they were disintegrating rapidly the moment Ye Chong’s lips reached the edge of the bowl. Seconds lapsed and he had already hit the bottom, moving on to the next. Xuelin and Shew looked at each other awkwardly as their eyes went like saucers seeing the "paranormal" before them.

Grandpa Qian on the other hand was tittering as usual. He had gotten used to the speed of Ye Chong engulfing the noodles. He was more bothered the fact that Ye Chong could be real tired for the day, considering it was the 11th bowl he dug into. That was 3 more bowls than his usual routine. His lips wriggled, wanting to tell him to get adequate rest and watch his own health. Nevertheless something struck the old man. His eyes blinked.

"Ye, don’t you know how to fix a mech by yourself?" He remembered the fact that Ye Chong had a broken mech before. He was a complete layperson in this regard. He couldn’t tell the difference between a pilot and a mechanic. But he just felt like asking for the poor little girls in front.

"Hm" Ye Chong chewed on.

Xuelin was shocked by Grandpa Qian's question.

"A little." Ye Chong slurped on.

A hint of disdain flashed in Xuelin’s eyes.

For real? I mean even an actual student from a mechanic school wouldn’t dare to claim themselves so. Any person who could fix a mech on his or her own before 25 has to be a genius.

How could this kitchen food gulping dumbo be one?

"Very well, Ye. I had known Xuelin since she was a child. So would you mind helping the girls out, as an old man’s request? Please."

"Okay." He just murmured his reply. He didn’t lift his head at all and he carried on munching.

Phew! That last bowl should do!

Ye Chong had finished 15 bowls of noodles in total. He did seem a little bit tired since he usually would only need about 7 to 8 bowls to feel all full.

He walked out of the shop straightaway while Xuelin hauled poor Shew off the table, all the way out. Xuelin was expecting to see this novice dumbo embarrass himself as he would be astounded by the complexity of her mech. He would be apologizing for his boastful words.

Learn about talking with brains, not with your big mouth! Hmph!

He circled the SP-II.

I had seen this model before. But that was during the NRS training.

If that was not the first opponent he encountered on the first day of his NRS training, he would have forgotten every single bit about this model of mech. The mech was a craft imprinted in his mind as he learned to fight with it the hard way. Through the fight he mastered the Non-Orderly Wavy Leap, which also happened to be the only advanced technique he knew that time.

Wait, speaking of advanced technique, Mu, that piece of junk, did not teach me any other so-called "advanced techniques" since then! I’ll make sure he teaches me everything else after this…

He actually went daydreaming for a moment… Oh! He came back from his castle in the air he built afterwards. He took a careful inspection of the mech before him.

He was acutely familiar with the structure of mechs. Back at Trash Planet, Winnie had been disassembled on different occasions. He knew everything like the back of his hands. Though Winnie was quite an outdated model compared to the SP-II, both of them surprisingly did not share much difference. For the properties of SP-II, he had learned them back when he hung out at Gudista - all at his fingertips, especially when the ancient elderlies at Aurora taught him both the experience and knowledge!

Kekekekeke. Let’s see what your big mouth can do.

Seeing how Ye Chong seemed to be overwhelmed by her SP-II, she snickered. She truly despised bragging, especially when the person didn’t even have the quality to swagger. She anticipated the moment of truth for her to laugh wholeheartedly at the clown stumbling upon her craft.

At the same time, Shew was staring at Ye in bewilderment.

What he’s doing all standing there? He really doesn’t know how to fix it? Ah! Then he should not come for it! Xuelin is going to laugh her jaws off… sigh...

She showed worries in her eyes, knowing that how stubborn her Cousin Xuelin could get when the pilot field was concerned, no matter how friendly she acted normally…

That was not the case. Ye Chong skillfully lifted the cover of the engine at the mech. And he checked every part of it swiftly. Xuelin was astounded in the end instead.

His instinct told him to diagnose the condition of the engine. Back at Gudista, he had seen posts in the forum on various stories about SP-II, which had superior traveling speed but an inferior protection of the engine. Thus, the constant criticism from people.

So he checked out on the engine first.

The girls were shaking at the side, seeing how Ye Chong just jumped onto the tall SP-II without any aid or safety measure. He could just die from falling down! Xuelin’s mouth enlarged. She could barely lift her jaws. Her eyes flooded with disbelief. Shew by her side was covering her mouth, trying to hold her shriek. She wouldn’t want to scream. What if it made Ye Chong fall?

His intuition was accurate! The problem did lie within the engine! There was a tiny piece of something stuck in one of the major central circuits in the engine for some reason. The piece prevented the engine from working properly, which eventually led to a system failure. Well, this is simple! He simply took it out. After some engine cleaning, he got into the cabin and ran a few tests to make sure the system had been thoroughly repaired. Yup! System’s up! He jumped out of the cabin.

The SP-II was about 10 meters tall while the cabin was about 7 to 8 meters tall at the very least, and Ye Chong just jumped out of the cabin as if jumping off his bed without any form of ladders or ropes. Shew could hold it no longer, she shrieked and shrieked, covering her little mouth quivering. Xuelin was stunned by how Ye Chong got off the mech.

A perfect landing! A perfect pose! As soon as he landed he curved his legs a little to cushion the shock. He looked like a compressed spring, a frog before its leap, passive yet potent.

He got up, "All done!" As he bluntly replied and returned to the shop. He had a lot other work to do. No time to chitchat with the girls.

Xuelin remained dumbfounded. Maybe she was the dumbo after all. The shock before had yet faded in her mind. "Xuelin, what’s wrong?" Shew shook her shoulders, startled by her cousin’s reaction, "Aren’t you going to see if it’s really fixed?"

"Oh!" As if woken up from a dream, Xuelin quickly tossed a rope over and climbed into the cabin. Beep! She activated the self-diagnosis program at the processor and she was in an ambivalence hoping for the result, whether is it positive or negative. 30 seconds passed and Xuelin’s head popped at the cabin entrance, in excitement she shouted, "Shewie! It’s fixed! It’s all fixed! Get up! Quick! We are getting home!"

She somehow hesitated a little. Nonetheless she boarded the mech afterwards. "Xuelin! Didn't you forget something? We haven’t thanked the man!" She ranted right after she got herself seated.

"Hmph!" Xuelin indifferently began setting up commands, "That guy doesn’t seem to care about anything! So why the appreciation? He acted as if I’m in debt to him or something! If you want to thank him, go alone. I’m not going!"

Shew bit her cherry lips, "Isn’t that a little rude? He helped us anyway! I think… I think we should… we should…"

"Fine!" Xuelin grumbled, "We would come and thank him the next time we visit Grandpa Qian’s shop! I never knew he really could fix a mech at all before!" Her fingers rubbed her gleaming chin as she pondered on.

"Oh well, it seems like the only thing we could do!" Sighed Shew.

"Okay, we are getting back home~"

"Oh no! Xuelin! There’s something else we forgot! We forgot to pay! What should we do!"

"Hah! It’s okay Shewie! Grandpa Qian isn’t this kind of person! He wouldn’t mind if we pay him the next visit!"

…

"Mu." Ye Chong summoned his partner right when he entered his room. He tumbled into the cabin, put on the Helmet, "Show me the visual of the white mech we see today!"

"Alright." Mu replied on spot.

The image of the white mech projected before him. He observed in detail. It would be better to research on the enemy, though he had no idea why he became the target in the first place.

"Anyway, Ye." The routine bitter-tongue nag commenced! "Did you know how terrible your performance was today? This is so embarrassing I cannot- ZZZzZZZzzzzZZzzzzZZ ZZzzzzzZZzz"

"Mu?" Out of the blue, Mu’s voice trailed off. His voice was distorted towards the end, as if something was interrupting the transmission. The visual in the Helmet was acting goofy too! "Mu!" The visual disappeared, while a bunch of snow and white noises remained. Mu’s voice was utterly gone! The Helmet went pitch black after that.

"Mu… Mu!" He removed his helmet and spoke in his mind with dismay, "Why aren’t you… Mu! Speak to me Mu! Speak to me!"