The Mech Touch

"Did we not explore the possibility of letting me wield this powerful spear before? I already took a good look at it. I distinctly remember that I told you that I am not confident in wielding it at all. The Destroyer weapon is not alive, but it is already nasty and vicious on its own. It may be possible for my Dark Zephyr to hold the spear without suffering an instant backlash in the process, but that is all we can manage. This is not a weapon meant to be wielded for those who are less than confident in their willpower and spearmanship."

It didn't make sense to raise this old proposal again. Still, Ves must have his reasons for bringing it up again.

"When I first explored the possibility of pairing you with the Destroyer spear, you had broken through not too long ago." Ves told Tusa. "More importantly, your Dark Zephyr was still in his Mark III incarnation, which substantially limited your power expression. The circumstances are different this time."

"Not that much time has passed."

"So? You have been very productive during this period. First, you are piloting a much more powerful first-class ace mech now, and have done so for several months. Your resonance strength has grown by at least 50 laveres, reaching a total of 163 laveres last I have checked. You have begun to master your Saint Kingdom and even developed a powerful ability based on your domain. Your mentality has matured after you have toured through the frontlines and received many words of wisdom from your seniors. You have confronted numerous lesser and greater phase lords and made a good showing of yourself, thereby gaining greater confidence in your fighting ability. You have also gained a strong sense of responsibility towards our precarious race and civilization."

When Ves listed all of the changes, Saint Tusa could not bring himself to deny these observations. He personally agreed with all of them. He had truly changed a lot since the time he just broke through to ace pilot or when he had just received his upgraded ace mech.

"Well… I do feel that I have become much stronger compared to before." Tusa conceded. "That doesn't mean that I am qualified to wield this polearm. Those Terrans must have been cooking something suicidal for them to come up with such a ridiculously dangerous weapon system. It is not unusual to hear stories about expert pilots and even ace pilots overestimating themselves and causing half of their precious mechs to disintegrate because they failed to tame their own Destroyer weapons."

"And you think you will join their ranks if you try to make use of the tier 3 Destroyer spear?"

Saint Tusa adopted a more serious demeanor. "I have learned a lot more about how the Terrans treat their Destroyer weapons. There is an entire subculture around their usage. Only the most elite Terran mech pilots are eligible to make use of Destroyer weapons. They specifically train to carry and wield them. Possessing good weapon skills is just the start. What matters just as much is the respect and attitude towards them. The Terran wielders are all trained to respect and fear their Destroyer weapons in equal measure. They treat it as riding a dragon. To become a dragon rider is to gain immense power, but if they are not able to tame and subdue their steeds, they can easily get devoured in turn. The higher the tier, the stronger and crueler the dragon. Does that help to clarify why it is so dangerous to wield such weapons?"

That was a helpful explanation. "I never knew that the Terrans would make such a big deal out of them, but I suppose it makes sense for them to turn everything about Destroyer weapons ceremonial. If these weapons are so extraordinarily dangerous to wield, does Venerable Rosa Orfan stand any chance of taming our Destroyer spear?"

"Oh, she has been working towards this challenge since she first received news about its acquisition." Tusa briefly grinned. "She is not as impulsive and thoughtless as she seems. She has done her research and understands that her Riot cannot just pick up the spear and wield it as easily as any other regular mech weapon. She has been doing her best to train herself in various ways to wield the weapon. Orfan has even begun to practice the silly rituals that the Terrans use to give them more confidence in their ability to tame their unruly Destroyer weapons. I can't guarantee that she will meet all of the requirements once she breaks through and receives a proper ace mech, but her chances should be greater than mine. Her spearmanship easily surpasses my own even though my rank is higher than hers. The love, passion, devotion and dedication she has invested in her spier-wielding skills will help a lot to tame this spear. If you gave me a pair of knives, I would have said the same."

It would have been great if the grand auction presented just a single Destroyer knife, but Ves had no control over what the Terrans decided to put on the list.

He understood that the only reason why the tier 3 Destroyer spear became available for bidding in the first place was to give him a favor and convince him to view the Terrans in a better light. There was no way the Terrans were willing to trade or auction other high-tier Destroyer weapons. They had become finite resources with virtually no hope of replenishing due to the Great Severing cutting off access to the only producers of Destroyer particles.

Ves sighed. "What you said is all valid, but that does not necessarily invalidate my own proposal. We are not working under perfect conditions. The Riot Mark III Project cannot be finished before the start of my business trip. Venerable Rosa Orfan is unlikely to break through in the short term, and even if she does, she will still be stuck with a quasi-first-class high-tier expert mech as opposed to a true powerhouse like the Dark Zephyr. We can only work with the limitations of the present."

"And what are those limitations?"

"Let's list out all of the facts, Tusa. First, I have a strong suspicion that the reinforced Bluejay Fleet will get ambushed by a well-prepared force during the trip to Yernstall or back. I am willing to bet that I am right on this. If I am wrong, then no harm is done, but if my guess is true, then we will be in the fight for our lives. And before you ask, it is not acceptable to cancel or postpone this trip. There is too much at stake. I have also requested all of the reinforcements that the Red Association can dispatch. The additional forces we have received is helpful, but ultimately limited due to the shortage of combat forces in the frontlines."

Tusa frowned. "That is right. The many RA mech pilots don't like it when they are put on babysitting duty."

"Second, our presumed enemies must have done a good job at gathering intelligence and are confident that they can defeat the mechs and warships that they know of. This includes your Dark Zephyr, which has been fighting in public many times in the past few months. There is no way our potential ambushers will go through with their nefarious plan if they are not already confident that their troops can overwhelm our defenses."

"That makes sense."

"Third, our strongest mech weapon is known to our enemies, but it has remained in storage for such a long time that they probably don't think we will bring it out, especially since they are aware of the same challenges surrounding its use as you. They will apply the same logic that you have used and predict that you are too weak, scared and unfamiliar with mech spears to dare make use of it in combat."

"Hey! I am not scared of the Destroyer spear! I am merely treating it with the respect it deserves!"

"Fourth, your Dark Zephyr is famed for lacking in offensive power. Unless you can draw out most of the potential of your Banish resonating ability, you desperately need a stopgap solution that can temporarily make up for your machine's offensive deficiency. Am I wrong about this, Tusa?"

"...Not necessarily. I just hate it that you don't have a better alternative available."

"Fifth, I I do not intend to let you keep the tier 3 Destroyer spear. I only need you to make use of it for the duration of my business trip, so there is no need to make a big deal out of this. It is not necessary for you to be able to wield it as skillfully as Venerable Orfan. You don't even have to make use of it all of the time. Treat it as a specialized tool that you only iintend to bring out in the situations where your regular offensive soltuions can't help you complete your mission. You just need to keep its destructive potential contained and to point the sharp end in your enemy. The weapon is so powerful that it doesn't need anything fancy to overload transphasic energy shields and cut through solid armor like butter."

Framing the usage of the Destroyer spear in this way helped to make the proposal more reasonable to Saint Tusa.

He truly did not look forward to wielding the excessively powerful weapon every time he deployed his Dark Zephyr into the field.

If he only limited the usage of this powerful Terran polearm in situations where he had no other choice, then that would make this option a lot more palatable.

"I get it." Saint Tusa softly said. "You would rather bring the tier 3 Destroyer weapon along in order to present me with an option of last resort. It would be bad if we end up in a criisis as dire as you feared without such a potent mech weapon within reach if we truly need its destructive power."

"I am hoping that the strong necessity and desperation for its awesome properties will help you fortify your control over the Destroyer spear." Ves said. "If we ever get cornered by a greater phase lord or whatever, I think you would rather take the gamble and wield a Destroyer that is not designed to be wielded by your Dark Zephyr than to confront this powerful enemy with nothing but your ace mech's knives, Dark Wind Module and Erlemin at your disposal."

It was not necessarily the case that Saint Tusa lacked the means to defeat greater phase lords one day.

The problem was that it would take too much time and a lot of progress to reach that point.

There were good reasons why the mech community assumed that greater phase lords could only be defeated by senior ace pilots.

Saint Tusa and the Dark Zephyr Mark III Revision 2 were definitely more powerful than other combinations that were just starting out, but the reality was that they needed to undergo at least a decade if not two decades of growth and development before they could put up a respectable fight against the likes of the Diffraction Lord in single combat!

Ves relaxed now that he had managed to convince Tusa to give the tier 3 Destroyer weapon a try.

Despite all of the risks and dangers associated with such a powerful device, the destructive power of such a spear was definitely worth all of the hassle!

Ves was pretty sure that practically no powerful enemy that had designs on his life would be able to cope with the insanely strong offensive capabilities of this Destroyer weapon!

The only way an enemy could reasonably resist this particular weapon was to deploy an ace mech that was clad with Destroyer resistant armor plating originally developed by the Rubarthans.

Not just any Destroyer resistant materials would do. Only the rare and extremely high-quality variations could offer effective resistance against a tier 3 Destroyer weapon.

As far as Ves knew, the only machines that were clad with this kind of hardware were other first-class ace mechs!

There was no way such a human ace pilot would be treacherous and dishonorable enough to target the life of one of red humanity's greatest contributors! Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Even if such an unlikely scenario came true, Destroyer resistant plating was not a truly effective counter. It just forced the wielder of a Destroyer weapon to put in greater effort to inflict the same amount of damage.