The Mech Touch

6070 The Taste of Failure

"This is a mess."

A certain Swordmaster glowered as she stood before an armored cell door.

The corridor of the brig of the Wild Torch was dimly lit, as if to evoke the atmosphere of a dungeon. The lack of lighting and the abundance of shadows made most people who entered this department feel as if they had entered an anachronistic dungeon.

In reality, the main reason why the brig was dimly lit was because it was never used. The Larkinsons were extraordinarily well-behaved, and everyone assigned to Task Force Solus consisted of professional servicemen. There were relatively few civilians who accompanied their family members, and they were not the sort of people who misbehaved on a ship with a ubiquitous monitoring system.

At most, the brig occasionally cinto use when a bunch of drunken hotheads got into a fight, or when a few feuding rivals went a little too far in their sparring matches.

This time, two of the cells had becoccupied again. These were not the normal cages where the security officers stuffed a few delinquents in after they committed a few infractions.

These were the more well-equipped cells. Not only were their security and isolation parameters a lot better, but they were able to provide medical care to those who needed the assistance.

Though Ketis felt it was overkill to transfer the two prisoners in these special cells aboard the Wild Torch shortly after they had received emergency care at Chimera Base, she could not treat these two individuals with common sense.

Too much had happened that defied both common sense and historical patterns. Her mind turned into a mess as she found herself unable to find any answers to her questions.

"How could this mission go so horribly wrong?"

Ketis' expression turned grim as Task Force Solus was still in the process of dealing with the aftermath of the botched sample retrieval mission.

When the Everchanger and the First Sword returned from the confrontation against the Emperor Tree, the rest of the Larkinson Clan quickly found out that a series of terrible events had taken place!

The Zeal was no more. Instead, the First Sword was forced to drag away a damaged cockpit that had clearly been pried off the former heavy artillery mech.

This was a devastating loss to the Larkinson Clan!

The Zeal was one of the few masterwork mechs that Ves had personally fabricated for Taon Melin!

Even though masterwork mechs were gradually becoming more and more common among the Larkinsons, that did not mean that they had lost their value and prestige.

Regardless of the effects of Gloriana's god body method, a masterwork that emerged through gradual evolution was not the sas a masterwork that the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan had personally put together!

The Zeal was an exquisite machine that Ves had invested multiple days into piecing together. He had invested his love, his passion and his very ethos into building up the custom version of the Transcendent Punisher Mark III.

In fact, almost no one among the Larkinson Clan knew that the Zeal was actually a lot more special than was apparent on the surface.

The exterior of the Zeal used to be covered by mysterious prophetic visions painted by Ves and Ylvaine.

It was a pity that the Red Association commanded the images to be removed. If not for this development, the Eye of Ylvaine would have taken a lot more pride in this very special masterwork mech!

Now, it was gone. The damage was utterly total. The First Sword had already cut it to pieces, and the Everchanger's parting shots had detonated all of the explosive shells at once, utterly blowing up the remnant of the Zeal from within!

In fact, the Zeal was already dead as far as Joshua and Dise were concerned. What they had done was nothing more than to cremate the corpse of this once-proud third order living mech.

As for the Elegant Rage…

When the crippled melee mech got shipped back into orbit, Ketis truly did not know what she was looking at. From the moment she glimpsed at the living mech's integration of wood and the spontaneous emergence of thorns, she knew that she was completely unqualified to understand such a machine!

All she knew was that the Elegant Rage had mutated far beyond her previous state. Ketis still recalled the look and feel of the original custom mech. Somehow, Lanie's breakthrough had caused it to mutate into an entirely different machine, one that becfilled with life, but also unrelenting fury!

To be honest, Ketis did not like the Elegant Rage. The machine had unquestionably becmore powerful, but it had becstained with Lanie's darkest impulses. The mutated mech was no longer as upright as before.

The living mech no longer deserved her current name. There was no way Ketis could ever attach the word 'elegant' to the mech with thorns.

Perhaps others might disagree, but to her, Lanie's mech had beccorrupted by malevolent energies. The machine radiated so much menace and threat that even Ketis felt threatened!

For a mech to display such open hostility towards a fellow Larkinson was a sad state of affairs!

"I can't blthe Elegant Rage." Ketis sighed.

The living mech had fundamentally lost her trust in her fellow Larkinsons. Taon and the Zeal had struck at her back in a moment where she and her battle partner had completely dropped their guard against such a surprise attack.

After getting betrayed in such a devastating manner that Lanie and her living mech almost got killed in the process, it should not have been surprising that they lost the ability to feel comfortable in the presence of other Larkinsons!

As Ketis wondered what she should do about this mess, the physical projection of Ves appeared by her side.

"Sorry for the delay, Ketis. This is an unprecedentedly serious incident, so I needed to be extra thorough in starting up the right processes. I have already arranged the follow-up matters for Taon and Lanie. As soon as we have confirmed that their conditions have improved, we will ship them back to the expeditionary fleet where they will have to account for their actions."

Ketis narrowed her eyes. The Larkinson Clan had already set up the protocols for instances where Larkinsons made serious missteps.

Although there were many complications and mitigating factors at the time, these issues should all be explored at the appropriate occasions.

"Will you make it public, or will you try to keep it quiet?" Ketis asked.

"There is no choice but to make it public, Ketis." The physical projection of Ves replied with a stern expression. "We can obscure a few details, but this mission isn't sensitive or important enough to go through the effort of hiding it. Our clansmen deserve answers. Both Taon and Lanie are high- profile expert candidates in the clan. Their breakthroughs should ordinarily be causes for celebration, but if they vanish from the public all of a sudden, our clan will clamor for answers. Besides… too many soldiers over at Chimera Base have already seen what had happened to the mechs or lack thereof. It is unreasonable to force them all into silence."

Ketis' expression softened. "I think you have made the right decision. This is a shameful incident to our clan, but the Larkinsons have a right to know about it. Only by being honest and transparent about our failings will our other clansmen be able to learn from Taon and Lanie's mistakes. It won't be easy for those two, though. No matter the verdict that our clan will reach, the two will most definitely have to carry this burden for the rest of their lives."

"Life is not fair." Ves sighed.

A brief pause ensued as the two continued to think about the tragedies that took place.

"I shouldn't have sent them to the Emperor Tree." Ketis spoke with a self-recriminating expression. "The calamity plant was equivalent to an ace mech in sways, so it shouldn't have been appropriate to expose a pair of expert candidates to this monstrosity. They weren't ready. It is already a small miracle that they cback alive."

Ves surprisingly shook his head. "I don't agree. No mission will proceed smoothly all of the time. As a commander, you must accept the possibility of adverse outcomes. The information that you had at the tmade sense. Yes, we underestimated the danger posed by the Emperor Tree, but it is exactly because we know too little about it that we insisted on collecting samples. In a way, we got what we cfor. We not only collected a lot of interesting biological specimens from the giant tree, but we also learned about its cunning, its intelligence and its combat strategies."

"All of that information isn't worth the loss of a masterwork mech and the tarnishing of two promising Larkinson mech pilots."

"I don't see it that way. Yes, we have suffered losses, but we have made far greater gains than I would have hoped. The breakthroughs of Taon and Lanie are clearly abnormal and unprecedented in our clan. It is very clear that the rules governing pilot breakthroughs have recently changed. The Age of Dawn has opened up a lot of new possibilities. Numerous mechers have toldthat it has beceasier to trigger breakthroughs. Now, I understand a bit better what they mean. Even if the breakthroughs beccrooked due to the presence of negative factors, it is better for Taon and Lanie to becdistorted but retain their lives than to remain pure but also die in the process."

Ketis was not entirely certain whether she believed the current outcwas better. Lanie might still be redeemable, but Taon may be better off dead than… whatever he has turned into. The mere thought of the once-promising Ylvainain expert candidate and legion commander made her snarl.

She pinned the physical projection with a critical stare.

"You sound like you are enjoying the outcome. You like this, don't you? This must all seem like an accidental but fortuitous experiment in your eyes. You love nothing more to collect brand-new empirical data that does not conform to previous data points. You were even willing to sacrifice the Zeal just to witness the birth of two deviant expert pilots that were very different from their normal counterparts. Don't lie to me, Ves. I know your inclinations far too well. We could have intervened through our design spirits. Why did you refuse to take action and orderto do the same?"

Perhaps Ves might try to lie or make excuses in front of everybody else, but he saw little point in doing so in front of his former student.

"I admit that I have more selfish motives in mind, but I am also doing this for the good of the clan." Ves responded without shor guilt. "First, no matter what, all of the mech pilots managed to get out alive. That is the most important part. The death of the Zeal is regrettable, but… do not forget that it is a mech. It is the job of mechs to protect and possibly die for their mech pilots. Second, both expert candidates successfully managed to realize their potential and advanced to expert pilots. Sure, they may have becdistorted, but I think that they have also becconsiderably stronger compared to conventional expert pilots. Even if they will never have a chance to make use of your newfound talents, we can still study them and enrich our internal database."

"Is that all you care about, Ves? Have Taon and Lanie becnothing more than experimental subjects from your perspective?"

"Hardly! You are mistaken if you think I am only paying attention to the two of them. Do you want to know why I did not allow for either of us to intervene directly? I wanted to teach every Larkinson but especially Joshua that actions have consequences. Do you agree?"

Ketis grimaced again. She knew her husband well.

"Joshua has been rather… complacent when it comes to his progression. He is diligent enough in his training, but when it comes to his mentality… he is much further behind in this aspect. I do not see him working on refining his convocation as much as the other ace pilot candidates."

"I think so as well. He lacked a strong impetus to improve his strength. This is not a surprise as his life has been a little too smooth as of late. Now that he has personally tasted the consequences of being too weak to stop a tragedy from unfolding, I think that your husband has gained a renewed sense of urgency. Today, he was stumped by the Emperor Tree. Tomorrow, another unfathomable enemy might cand kill a lot of Larkinsons in front of his eyes. If he continues to remain stuck as a high-tier expert pilot for a decade or so, then he will not be able to keep up with the best of us anymore. I do not want this to happen. His Everchanger is too important to remain shackled to a floundering demigod."

"I… will have a good talk with him after this." Ketis promised.