The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6101

6101 Repressed Fire

Venerable Isobel Kotin was one of the many expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan.

She was not the most prominent among her kind.

She was not a trueblood Larkinson like Venerable Jannzi.

She was not an inspiring hero like Venerable Joshua.

She did not possess any leadership ability like Commander Casella Ingvar.

She also could not connect to ordinary soldiers as well as Venerable Vincent Ricklin.

As an expert rifleman mech pilot, Isobel could not even inspire a lot of other mech pilots with ranged weapon specializations.

Her power application was too weird and unusual for most. Few Larkinson mech pilots expressed an interest to play with fire.

Instead, a lot of rifleman mech pilots preferred to admire the skills and feats of Venerable Davia Stark or Venerable Brutus Wodin.

The two exemplified two different specializations in ranged combat.

Venerable Stark attracted a huge amount of admiration for the precision and power of her individual shots.

The Amaranto might not fire a lot of shots, but each pull of the trigger always produced a dramatic light show that either collapsed a transphasic energy shield or drilled a huge hole in the side of an enemy warship.

Many rifleman mech pilots dreamed of being able to launch attacks that were just a fraction as powerful!

The Star Dancer Mark II may be piloted by Gloriana's brother, but it was the epitome of the most common kind of rifleman mech. Its attacks might not hit as hard, but the machine was so fast that Venerable Brutus was able to outmaneuver every opponent.

His expert mech came close to achieving a perfect balance between firepower and mobility. The Star Dancer Mark II was one of the most self-sufficient ranged expert mechs in the expeditionary fleet. That mattered a lot to mech pilots that wanted to survive in the long run.

As for the Promethea, the expert mech possessed slightly greater firepower, but did not boast any exceptional mobility. The living mech performed rather mediocre in most aspects when compared to her peers.

The only truly special trait about the Promethea was her Ignitron luminar crystal assault rifle, but even this weapon lacked the flair that it used to possess. It was quite powerful when it first came out, but technology advanced so rapidly in the ensuing years that it had become dull and weak, just like the Everchanger's Vitalus luminar crystal rifle.

All of this brought a greater burden on Venerable Isobel Kotin's shoulders. The mech pilots of Task Force Solus all hoped that her outdated and underpowered Promethea would be able to burn an entire calamity plant down.

Did they know how ridiculous this sounded?!

More and more people compared the calamity plant to an ace pilot. The lack of a Saint Kingdom notwithstanding, just the huge amount of vitality and the ability to command an immense quantity of wood energy was too much to bear!

Even though Venerable Isobel was unable to observe the silhouette of the enormous Emperor Tree from the walls of Chimera Base, she studied enough footage and reports to get an instinctual sense of the enormity of her target.

Trying to challenge the Emperor Tree in her current state was like a badger trying to confront an elephant!

The difference in scale was so exaggerated that the larger party simply had to make use of its size advantages to remain impervious.

However, the badger that is expected to defeat the elephant was not an ordinary one. The smaller party just so happened to possess a special power.

"It's funny, Joshua."

"What is funny?" The other expert pilot asked as he continued to keep Isobel company during this relatively tranquil night on an alien planet.

"When I broke through, I never expected to become a fire wielder. I am certain that I never played that much with fire in the past. I was a city girl. I grew up in an urbanized center where no one had any desire to start a campfire. The only real flames I got to see were in the academy and the barbecue restaurants. Even then, I never felt any special attraction towards them. As a mech pilot, I used to think that my greatest strength was my analytical ability. I was good at spotting weak points on enemy mechs. It wasn't until I completed my apotheosis that I suddenly became 'blessed' with control over fire."

"That sounds like a blessing to me." Joshua remarked. "I admire your ability to punch above your weight. You can easily burn down entire alien battleships if you continue to spread your flames. I have to work much harder to tear down those big and hardy ships. The Everchanger's Heartsword is too weak while the Scarlet Ember is too energy hungry. There is no way for me to inflict lots of damage with so little consumption like you. As long as a fight lasts long enough, I have little doubt that every enemy we face will get burnt to ash by your powerful purple flames."

"Gaining fire abilities is not as pleasant as you think, Joshua. There are times when I think it is a curse. I envy your affinity to life. You not only get along well with living mechs, but you can also get much more out of cooperating with so many design spirits. As for me, my only strength is burning things down."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Not if your own clan don't want you to burn their plunder." Isobel shook her head. "Every fight these days constantly centers around profit. Defeating enemy warships and monsters is not the main goal anymore. What we truly want is to plunder resources from them. A relatively intact but disabled capital ship can easily yield millions, tens of million or in rare cases hundreds of millions of MTA credits worth of phasewater, high-grade exotics, intact alien phasewater technology, cultural treasures and databases. Our clan has become so addicted to plundering all of these valuables that people are constantly telling me and ordering me to hold back and cool my flames."

This was not a normal complaint. Venerable Joshua could clearly sense the frustration from his fellow colleague's willpower.

It appeared that Isobel repressed her urges for so long that she couldn't help but vent her feelings tonight!

"I never noticed your distress. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Expert pilots aren't supposed to show weakness, you know. We are demigods. We are larger than life. To be honest, I feel trapped in my role. Becoming a powerful expert pilot is a dream, but when I can never fully unleash my power, it becomes a nightmare. Do you know how badly I want to fight a battle where I can burn to my heart's content? I am not made for restraint. Fire longs to rage without any inhibitions. The more I try to contain it, the more I feel as if I am trying to hold back a fiery explosion."

Venerable Joshua grew more and more concerned about the mental state of his fellow Larkinson expert pilot. Isobel served a vital role in tomorrow's operation. If she was not in the right state of mind when they started their assault on the Emperor Tree, then the upcoming battle could easily go sideways, just like what happened last time!

There was no way that Joshua could tolerate any further accidents. He even started to think about sending an emergency message to Ketis to postpone the assault.

However, Joshua did not want to break Isobel's trust. He felt honored that she chose to share her vulnerabilities to him. The best he could do was to serve as a good listener and allow her to vent her true feelings.

"Do you wish you would have gained a different talent upon your breakthrough?" Joshua asked.

"I… am not entirely sure." Isobel spoke. "There are times where I truly hate that I gained an unwanted affinity for fire. I felt that I was born in the wrong era during the Age of Mechs. It is only recently that I feel better about my power. The Age of Dawn is a new beginning for all of us. We have been fighting against so many alien fleets in the past few years that I always enter into battle with a quota on how many warships I am allowed to burn. The quota is always far too low in my opinion, but at least it is better than nothing."

"You still do not sound satisfied."

"Because I am not. Do you know that I have been thinking about leaving the expeditionary fleet? I don't want to become a source of excessive collateral damage and wipe out everyone's profits. Maybe there is an outfit or an army out there that doesn't care about preserving the wrecks of enemy warships."

Joshua grew alarmed. "Are you truly going to leave?"

"Maybe not. Everyone is afraid or apprehensive about the upcoming alien offensive, but whenever I think about it, I look forward to it. I feel guilty for reacting this way, but I cannot help it. I know that once human space gets flooded by thousands of alien fleets at once, we will become so hard- pressed that people will welcome my flames. The battles won't be about profit anymore. They will center around survival."

She made a reasonable point. It would become a lot harder to stay on the battlefield and salvage all of the wrecks. There may be times where the expeditionary fleet fought a hard battle, only to be forced to evacuate in a hurry, thereby leaving lots of valuables behind.

Few mech forces wanted to fight such a thankless and unprofitable battle.

Fortunately, the Red Two already announced that they would multiply the war merits issues to linefighters that held back the aliens during the upcoming period. That changed the equation just enough to attract more defenders.

"Since you love nothing more than burning as much stuff as possible, shouldn't you look forward to the upcoming assault? The clan is essentially giving you a license to burn down the entire the Emperor Tree."

Venerable Isobel gave Joshua a rueful smile.

"You would be right… if not for the fact that the tree is so strong. This is not a typical alien warship we are talking about here. All of the vessels I burned down in the past were nothing more than large metal tubs. Their transphasic energy shields are annoyingly difficult to break, but once their outer defenses are cracked, their hulls are all vulnerable to my flames. There is little these big but unwieldy ships can do to shake off my fire, especially if I send out my companion spirit."

"The Emperor Tree is made of wood. That is arguably a lot more flammable than those alien hulls."

"You would think that, but when it comes to E energy manipulation, there is no comparison. Warships upgraded with hyper technology are harder for me to burn down, but they are ultimately delaying the inevitable. I do not think the Emperor Tree will succumb so easily. It not only possesses a massive reserve of wood energy, but it is also able to wield it skillfully. I am not sure whether my flames are strong enough to overcome the tree's resistance."

"You don't think your attribute advantage is enough?"

"Who knows." Isobel shrugged. "We can only find out tomorrow. I will do my best to burn the Emperor Tree. I do not want to ruin one of the few opportunities I have to burn my enemies without any restraint from our clan. That said, if the power gap is too great, I will not be able to live up to everyone's expectations."

"No one will blame you for failing, Isobel. You are not the only one who is unable to harm the tree. My weapons can do even less against this outrageous tree. I should feel even more inadequate than you as far as I am concerned."

Why were the Larkinson Clan's enemies becoming so much more powerful and difficult to deal with? It became increasingly harder for their existing mechs to cope against the opposition in this new and brutal age.