The Mech Touch

y? ”

Eloise Pelican ’s situation was a lot different than Jannzi Larkinson circumstances.
The former had already fought ten arduous years in the barren Dark Sphere.
The mech pilot constantly obsessed over protecting her comrades and trying to find a way back home to reunite with her child.

In comparison, Jannzi Larkinson was barely into her adulthood.
Fresh out of the advanced mech academy, she hadn ’t yet found a strong conviction to fight for.
Even if some of Ves ’ advice nudged her into the right direction, she was merely at the start of her formative journey into exploring her place in the galaxy!

The Aurora Titan ’s design spirit shouldn ’t have easily been able to infuse spiritual energy into Jannzi ’s errant emotions and thoughts and turn it into a coherent force of will!

”Unless that ’s not the case anymore. ”

If Jannzi followed Ves ’ advice on how to adopt a compatible mindset with her mech, then perhaps that had given the design spirit just enough material to spin into the beginnings of a uniform force of will!

Even as Ves tried to present Jannzi ’s ascension in the best possible light, he continued to question the exact circumstances of this event in his mind.
He really only wanted to make Jannzi enter into her most optimal condition so that she would be able to showcase the Aurora Titan to the best of her ability.
That she would smash through her boundaries came as a surprise even to the ultimate culprit that enabled this situation to occur!

Jannzi Larkinson stole the show in a dramatic fashion! Although her breakthrough while piloting the Aurora Titan would definitely be a great public relations coup for the mech design, a number of headaches quickly resulted as well.

The Mech Corps would probably come knocking at their doors very soon.

In addition, he could already see the conspiracy theories that the Ansel crowd would doubtlessly spread.
An expert candidate could not be faked, so they could not discredit Jannzi herself.

What they could do was to accuse Ves of employing someone who was already an expert candidate to fake a breakthrough during the demonstration.

Ves and Professor Ventag needed to get on top of this situation as soon as possible.
He flitted his eyes towards the front row.
The professor nodded to him before standing up and departing towards the control room.

”I know what to do, Ves. ” The professor said through their private comm chanel.
”While the authenticity of Jannzi ’s breakthrough can be questioned if all of the data comes from us, Bentheim is an incredibly busy star system.
There are thousands of ships and mechs in high orbit.
If their sensors hadn ’t managed to catch the resonance readings, the nearby space stations and defensive installations would have certainly captured something.
I ’ll contact everyone present in the vicinity of this area of space and ask whether they are willing to share their sensor readings and corroborate their testimony in public. ”

”I ’ll leave the matter in your hands, then. ” Ves quietly nodded.

Professor Ventag enjoyed a very high status in the Bright Republic.
There was no doubt that most of the entities he contacted would be eager to do him a favor.

With that matter taken care of, Ves stared at the Shield of Samar whose mech pilot still hadn ’t woken up from her single-minded pursuit.

He patched into her comm channel.
”Jannzi! Stop! The demonstration is over now! You don ’t have to fight anymore! ”

She didn ’t respond! Ves had an inkling that she might have followed his advice too closely and lost her awareness of the greater situation!

None of his mechs carried a killswitch, at least in ordinary circumstances.
The only way to stop the Shield of Samar would be to employ other mechs to bar her path.
Yet that was an exceedingly risky prospect considering the security mechs would have to go against an expert candidate!

Yet was that all Ves could do?

”Perhaps there is another way to shock her out of her immersion. ”

Ves was familiar enough with Jannzi that he believed he could find her presence in the imaginary realm.
Even as it looked as if Ves observed the projection of the Shield of Samar ’s continued pursuit, he had long drawn his concentration inward and focused his senses in the imaginary realm.

He immediately honed in on Jannzi ’s unstable presence close by.
He found a strange convulsing ball that represented Jannzi ’s newly-developed force of will.
It radiated vague concepts of protectiveness, duty, and other values that Jannzi shared with the Aurora Titan ’s design spirit.

Although Ves was not too knowledgeable in spiritual phenomena, the ball looked awfully unstable.
He guessed that Jannzi ’s elevation had come too forcefully and abrupt! It might have strained her mind excessively and put her recently-acquired force of will at risk of blowing up!

Ves needed to do something to calm the roiling force of will.

He decided to do so in the only way he could think of.
He carefully extended a spiritual tentacle and tried to make contact.
Even as various strong thoughts bled through the connection, Jannzi ’s spirituality was not as overwhelmingly strong as the Aurora Titan ’s design spirit.

He conveyed a strong message through the connection.
”Calm down.
It ’s over now.
Stop fighting. ”

The messages immediately took effect.
The force of will stopped churning so much.
Even as it calmed down, Ves drew back his attention from the imaginary realm in order to check if the Shield of Samar reacted as well.

The mech ceased acceleration!

Jannzi finally regained her senses and pulled back her machine!

Ves sighed in relief.
While she likely wasn ’t in the clear yet, at least she had a chance of stabilizing her volatile spirituality before it unraveled.

Aware that the public still needed some direction, Ves turned around and clapped his hands.
”My apologies for the delay.
Jannzi Larkinson is fine.
She will be returning to the Grand Skyward ’s hangar bay as soon as possible.
This concludes the demonstrations of the Aurora Titan.
Please stand by while the Grand Skyward will soon descend back onto the surface of Bentheim! ”

No matter what, if Ves didn ’t take advantage of this rare opportunity to promote the Aurora Titan, he did not deserve to be in charge of his mech company!

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