Chapter 6056 Elegant Rage "Are you making the rounds, Joshua?" "You noticed, haven't you, Lanie?" "I am not as young as before. You are practically an uncle to me, you know?" The Everchanger approached a mech that seemed remarkably out of place compared to the rest of the strike force. Lanie Larkinson had piloted a variety of different living mech models over the years. More recently, she chose to stick with the relatively niche and unconventional Lucid Rage as her mech of choice. Her breakthrough to expert candidate and her accumulated merits granted her the opportunity to request customization services. The aftermarket modifications and upgrades applied to the custom version of the Lucid Rage did not allow her to become an equal to a custom mech designed by the patriarch such as the Zeal, but Lanie's battle partner still managed to remain competitive, if only reluctantly. This enabled the machine that Lanie had taken to calling the Elegant Rage into a slimmer, lighter and more refined melee mech. Lanie's persistent demands over the years since she began to pilot the Elegant Rage had caused the machine to morph from a masculine to a more feminine silhouette. The reduction in mass and the slimming of parts she deemed unimportant caused the Elegant Rage to become faster and more agile. Of course, this also caused the Elegant Rage to lose a bit of armor protection and become more fragile as a whole. Lanie compensated for these amplified vulnerabilities by relying on a combination of speed and skill to survive on the battlefield. She apparently chose to follow a similar strategy to the Swordmaidens. It was a pity that she loved swordsmanship, but not to the point where she was willing to exclude the use of other weapons. She was similar to Joshua in that regard. However, trying to master too many weapons at the same time was a bit too ambitious for a mere expert candidate. She had consciously stuck to piloting the Elegant Rage, a customized version of a melee mech that stood out for employing a pair of tonfas as its main armaments. To be fair, the Lucid Rage was a good concept at the time it was released. The melee mech offered an alternative to melee mech pilots that sought to hone their fighting skills on the battlefield. The concept of the Lucid Rage centered around combining the glows of Zeigra and Lufa to induce a state of extreme focus where the mech pilot possessed the right mindset to win any duel or bout in front of him. No matter how much the chaos of the battlefield threatened to overwhelm the pilot, the Lucid Rage was always able to keep him focused and bring out the best of his fighting ability. While this worked out great back when the Larkinson Army fought against human mech forces, the Lucid Rage quickly fell into irrelevance after the start of the Red War. There was nothing the mech could do. Times had changed. The abundance of shielded alien warships made brilliant displays of skill irrelevant for the most part. Unless the melee mech pilots had improved their skills to extraordinary levels, it made relatively difference how fancy their mechs swung their weapons! The huge transphasic energy shields that protected every alien warship from damage could not be overcome by brilliant swordplay or clever mind games. The best way to overcome the defenses of big alien warships was by leveraging superior tech and relying on the raw application of lots of damage. The Lucid Rage simply performed worse at this job than many other Larkinson mechs. The tonfas equipped with a low-end version of plasma technology added a bit of punch to the mechs, but were not particularly effective when employed against transphasic energy shields. The niche melee mech tended to rely more on launching a multitude of well-aimed attacks at weak points than to launch heavy strikes that inflicted much greater impacts at a time. Due to these reasons and more, many mech pilots who previously enjoyed a considerable amount of success had switched to other melee mechs such as the modular Bright Warriors or the much more direct Redaxes. There were even mech pilots that chose to pilot the completely different Fey Fiannas just because they wanted to pilot a quasi-first-class mech as soon as possible! The number of Larkinson mech pilots that continued to cling to the living mechs that they had partnered over the years diminished with each passing month. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞 No matter how much of a close relationship these pilots had built with their living machines, the former did not want to doom their careers by sticking to a mech type that was becoming increasingly less relevant in the changing times. It was a difficult decision to make. Other mech pilots would have made the switch as soon as they were offered the choice, but the Larkinsons were different because it was little different from leaving their current spouses for younger and more attractive ones! Even if switching to another mech model was objectively the best choice, the emotional entanglement between a mech pilot and a living mech could not be overcome so easily! Each time a separation happened, the mech pilots often found themselves falling in love with their new machines pretty easily. The superior tech and features of the more up to date Larkinson mech models could seduce any mech pilot. This left the old and largely forgotten Lucid Rages in limbo. They were too functional and old to be scrapped. They were also unsuitable to stick around in the expeditionary fleet because they took up way too much capacity to justify the decision to keep around. The unwanted Lucid Rages had to be shipped back to the various planetary branches of the Larkinson Clan where they could be mothballed in secure storage facilities. Perhaps one day, the Design Department released a powerful new upgrade to the Lucid Rage line that magically made them more relevant again. At that time, it would be more than worthwhile to convert the outdated Lucid Rages into the most modern iteration, thereby allowing their existing growth and development to serve the Larkinson Clan once again! Lanie most certainly received this choice as well, but she had refused it on repeated occasions. Joshua knew that Lanie had already set her mind on her willful decision, but he decided to inquire about it just to make sure she was doing this for the right reasons. "So you have decided to stick to your Elegant Rage? You do know that we are about to launch a dangerous raid on the biggest and most powerful calamity plant on this planet, right?" The woman sitting in the cockpit caressed the surface of her armrest as if it was her lover. "I have piloted numerous different mech types before I settled on the Elegant Rage. Do you know why, Joshua?" "Because you want to hone your weapon skills to a higher level in order to prove your worth as an expert pilot." "That is part of the story." Lanie admitted. "I still yearn to become so skilled with my arms that I can defeat the strong when I am weak, just like what Venerable Dise and other brilliant duelists have managed to accomplish. You do not know how many times I have been tempted by the superior tech and performance of the Fey Fianna and the Storm Swords. I know I can inflict more damage and make a greater impact on the battlefield, but… I don't think it would be me anymore. I am not a drone mech pilot or a swordsman mech pilot." "I am Lanie, a girl who wants to be taken seriously. I don't want to become a copycat, Joshua. I want to forge my own path, just like you and all of the other heroes of the clan. I may have received a few special benefits that have helped me reach this point, but if I want to break through, I need to defeat the beast in front of me by force, not by switching to a completely different mech with a personality of a complete stranger. I have always liked to pilot the Elegant Rage, and even if it is not a great choice to deploy against the Emperor Tree, I refuse to let that limit me. I will prove with my courage and my skill that my battle partner and I can still contribute to this mission!" She sounded confident enough, alright, though that alone might not be enough for her Elegant Rage to turn into an asset when the fighting erupted. The Emperor Tree was just too big and massive to get hurt by a pair of upgraded plasma tonfas. "I am glad to hear that you have got the right spirit." Venerable Joshua said in an encouraging tone. "If you manage to break through, what will you focus on? Will you stick to wielding tonfas, or will you branch out and make use of your other weapon skills?" "I want to branch out." Lanie said with a determined voice. "I want to learn a sword style tailored for my mech from Venerable Dise. I want to learn how to wield spears from Venerable Orfan. I want to become a sharpshooter from Venerable Stark. I even want to learn how to brawl and punch like Venerable Vincent Ricklin." "That… is a big appetite, Lanie. Normally, I would ask if you are trying to bite more than you can chew, but if you successfully become an expert pilot… then it might just be doable. You won't ever be able to catch up to the expert pilots who train and fight with their chosen weapons every day, though." Lanie giggled. "I am completely fine with that. I want to master all of the weapons to an acceptable level. I can think about becoming the best at everything much further down the road. For now, I still need to increase my proficiency in many weapon systems that I have neglected for years. Once I build up a decent repertoire, I can become known as an adaptable fighter like you. Nothing will ever make me feel inadequate like today." That was a good drive, if an unusual one. "Are you aspiring to pilot a first-class multipurpose mech one day?" "I am not sure to be honest. I have heard how great and versatile they are, but they are far from what I am used to piloting. The mech type doesn't really make sense to me. Why try to carry 20 different weapon systems when using 2 or 3 larger and stronger weapons is already enough to do the job? All I can say is that I am willing to keep an open mind. Once I get the opportunity to pilot such a great mech, I will be sure to test it out and see whether it is to my liking." "What if you prefer to pilot a Bright Warrior-style mech that can change its loadout before every fight?" Lanie shrugged. "Then I will stick to that. I am not that picky, Joshua. I think it would be great if my Elegant Rage gets upgraded into a more universal expert mech that can become a rifleman mech or a spearman mech depending on the weapons she holds." "That sounds similar to General Ark's Lionheart, but without the part where you absorb the belief of every soldier to power up your moves." "He is one of my role models." Lanie sighed as her inner fangirl briefly came out. "I do not think I can imitate his unusual command style, and I don't really want to. I want to pursue the pinnacle of weapon skills, both with my body and while piloting my Elegant Rage. Together, my battle partner and I shall one day become known as the premier masters of arms!" Mech pilots were allowed to dream. Joshua personally believed that Lanie had no chance in hell to realize her ambition, but then again god pilots always seemed to turn impossibilities into reality. Whether she had what it took to become a god pilot or not, Venerable Joshua quietly wished her good luck. If she actually managed to succeed one day, then the Larkinson Clan would gain another powerful protector!