The Mech Touch

It was not unusual to see a pair of closely matched ace mechs to end their duels in a draw.

If a lot of interests were at stake and if the survival of the ace mech was deemed essential to a state or organization, then there may be times where the ace pilot voluntarily withdrew from the battle before the worst had happened.

This did not happen today.

Patriarch Reginald Cross had stepped onto the battlefield with the determination to stake everything on this fight.

There was only victory or death in his mind.

His loss would likely doom the Cross Clan and Operation Saturday Market as long as the Neo Amadeus was left standing at the end.

Running away was useless. The Golden Skull Alliance and Task Force Fury had traveled deep into the interior of the Friday Colonies.

The only way the invading forces could deter other parties from dispatching their troops to intercept the fleeing Golden Skullers and Hexers was to ensure it retained the protection of an operational ace mech.

Even if the different coalition partners had stationed their own ace pilots and ace mechs in their key colonies, the benefits did not outweigh the costs. Too much could go wrong to a colony that had lost its most important guardian.

This was why Patriarch Reginald put his all into this mech duel that he had played a large part in enabling!

After risking so much and putting his entire life and future on the line by engaging the Neo Amadeus in a risky duel, he had finally gotten the better of his opponent!

The Mars had struck a decisive blow on the Neo Amadeus!

Though the heavy saber did not cut that deep into the internals of the ace swordsman mech, it nonetheless managed to damage or reduce the performance of a lot of important components!

As the Mars completed its powerful cutting swing, the Neo Amadeus did not sit still, however.

"I'm not out of the fight yet!" Saint Jeremiah claimed as the prospect of a loss caused him to strain his strength and the power of his ace mech even further.

Though their conditions were at their lowest points yet, Jeremiah's proximity to the boundary between life and death activated even greater potential than before!

His resonance strength explosively grew as Jeremiah relied almost completely on his willpower to strengthen and support the functioning of his damaged and failing ace swordsman mech!

Technology had limits, but life possessed no boundaries!

Jeremiah's overwhelming urge to live and protect his people forced him to put up at least one final act of resistance!

The Neo Amadeus somehow managed to conjure up two more phantom arms with the help of this inexplicable outburst!

The limbs quickly unsheathed two more daggers and attempted to stab them forward in a final attempt to cripple the Mars!

"DESTINY STANDS ON THE SIDE OF THE GAUGE DYNASTY!"

However, just as the phantom limbs were about to complete this action, the Mars immediately offered a response.

Patriarch Reginald forced two of the integrated energy weapon modules of the ARCEUS System to fire at the phantom limbs.

Though the weapons weren't supposed to fire so quickly after unleashing a fairly powerful burst, Reginald decisively exceeded their safety limitations and forced them to squeeze out a weaker but still fairly powerful laser beams.

Reginald attached enough true resonance to the pair of beams that they instantly managed to destabilize and dispel the opposing mech's phantom arms!

Two more daggers flung lifelessly into the void as the Neo Amadeus lost its last chance of launching a counterattack.

Jeremiah's final hope of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat had come to nothing!

This time, the ace pilot truly had nothing left to give. His mind and will had run ground to the point where the Neo Amadeus no longer projected any form of domain field.

The ace mech itself also lost so much power due to its intensive exertions and successive battle damage that it could not even muster enough strength to kick at the Mars.

Saint Jeremiah quickly ran through all of his remaining options and found that he could not escape the prospect of defeat.

The only choice he had left was to decide how he wanted to greet this loss.

"It's over." He sighed in his heart that had grown heavy due to falling short of everyone's expectations.

Saint Jeremiah understood that there was no point in staying any further.

He clearly recognized his value as an ace pilot of the Gauge Dynasty. He was a strategic asset to his people and could still offer them protection once again as long as he managed to survive this battle and recover from his loss.

He decisively activated the eject command, which quickly caused the back of his Neo Amadeus to blast open and allow its cockpit to launch into the distance!

This action did not escape Patriarch Reginald at all. He already predicted that Jeremiah would eject as soon as he sensed a profound change in his opponent's aura.

A part of him was willing to let Saint Jeremiah Gauge be. The two of them had fought a glorious and honorable mech duel where both of them relied upon nothing but the strength they had at their disposal to decide the victor.

Though Reginald thought that his opponent was a bit too annoying and sanctimonious when he opened his mouth, Saint Jeremiah was nevertheless exactly the kind of ace pilot that the Cross Patriarch wanted to challenge.

Reginald harvested an unimaginable amount of gains from this mech duel. He accrued a lot of high-level battle experience and stimulated the growth of his resonance strength by putting his life on the line.

He had also attained an unprecedentedly great amount of control over the Mars after truly taking possession of his ace mech.

The fact that he spontaneously completed the first phase of the Mech Body Merger Process was an unexpected bonus as far as he was concerned!

All of these gains and more put Patriarch Reginald in a rather generous mood. To him, it did not particularly matter whether his opponent managed to live or die after this fight.

His Cross Clan was not in danger of getting wiped out by the Neo Amadeus anymore, and that was enough for Reginald. There wasn't much reason for him to possess a lot of killing intent towards his worthy adversary.

Yet moments before the Neo Amadeus ejected its cockpit, he received identical pleas from two different people at once.

"Show no mercy towards your enemy." Master Benedict Cortez urged him. "Avenge the Crossers that have perished at the hands of the Gaugers. Kill their Saint and show the entire new frontier that our clan should never be provoked! Oh, and make sure you don't burn his entire body into ashes. I need you to bring back his skull intact!"

Ves was a lot more desperate to see Saint Jeremiah fall.

"Kill kill kill! Don't let Jeremiah get away alive! He will always have a chance to take revenge against us as long as he is alive. The Gauge Dynasty already gained a new ace pilot, so if Jeremiah successfully manages to escape, we will constantly have to watch our backs!"

Ves absolutely did not want Patriarch Reginald to miss this golden opportunity!

Once Jeremiah got away far enough, it was no longer 'proper' to kill an ace pilot according to the rules and guidelines of the Mech Trade Association.

This meant that even if the Golden Skullers or the Hexers managed to capture Saint Jeremiah, there was no valid reason to kill this powerful asset!

The rules governing the treatment of captive ace pilots were so convoluted and unfavorable that Ves didn't want to bother with all of those complications.

It was better to finish the job while there was still a tiny window of opportunity!

Though there were definitely consequences to killing an ace pilot, Ves had many reasons for him to support this course of action.

Aside from wanting to harvest the spirituality of Saint Jeremiah Gauge, Ves also looked forward to earning another potent reward.

What nobody knew aside from himself was that he had secretly activated the Mech Designer System and entered its idyllic mountaintop environment a day before the crucial battle.

Given all of the fighting that would presumably take place in front of the Kosic Ring, Ves thought that the impending battle would grant him an easy opportunity to complete a few System Missions.

It turned out that the Mission Hall had cycled its offers since his last visit to the System Space. Though most of the missions turned out to be random requests that weren't easy to fulfill, one of the more lucrative ones just happened to be incredibly relevant to current circumstances!

[Saintfall]

Mission: Saintfall

Difficulty: A-Rank

Prerequisites: Must have participated in the design of the challenger mech.

Description

Few mech designers are able to earn credit for the demise of an ace pilot in a mech battle. Accomplishing this feat  indirectly proves the strength of the mech designer that has contributed to the design of winning mech.

Have at least one of the mechs that you have worked on defeat an enemy ace mech and kill its ace pilot in a valid battle.

Reward: 1,000 Ascension Points.

Time limit: 2 standard years.

Penalty for failure: Lower your Spirituality by 4.

Normally, Ves wouldn't have dreamt of accepting this mission. Defeating an ace mech on the battlefield was already a heavy demand. Killing the ace pilot was even harder due to the limited amount of scenarios where this could be done.

None of the ace mechs in the Red Ocean were weak and luring them out was impossible unless the Golden Skull Alliance was willing to do battle against a large and powerful mech force.

Even if the Battle of Pima Prime just happened to draw out Saint Jeremiah Gauge, it was far from certain whether Patriarch Reginald would fulfill the requirements of the System Mission.

Ves already lost one opportunity to complete the Saintfall Mission early when Saint Rebecca Andus managed to retreat from the battlefield under heavy escort.

This time he was determined not to miss this chance a second time!

"Venerable Stark, get ready! Eye of Ylvaine, get ready! Battle Criers, get ready!"

If Patriarch Reginald wasn't willing to finish the job, then Ves wanted to make sure that his own clan would be in a position to complete his System Mission one way or another.

He would get into deep trouble if his Mission was still running once the current battle came to an end.

As the various available Larkinson mechs began to lock onto the Neo Amadeus and anything that it might possibly eject, the Mars had already started to take action.

Though Patriarch Reginald did not really listen to Ves, he was still willing to do a favor for Master Benedict Cortez.

Besides, the man indeed made a couple of good arguments. A lot less people would be willing to mess with the Cross Clan now that it had completely recovered from its past disgraces and claimed the life of a Saint!

Therefore, before the cockpit of the Neo Amadeus was able to get completely loose, the Mars had already swung around and impaled the center of the cockpit with the broken Whale-Cutting Saber!

Though the cockpit of the Neo Amadeus was reinforced with alloys that were just as tough as the exterior of the very same ace mech, all of this was futile as Patriarch Reginald empowered his weapon with enough of his powerful true resonance to punch through inadequate armor!

Blood spilled from within the cockpit as the body of one of the heroes of the Gauge Dynasty was crushed to pieces by the oversized blade!