The Mech Touch

\"Clothes make the man.\" Gavin said as they waited for their transit ride back up to orbit at Felixia's spaceport. The group had already departed the Asco Continent and returned to the cuddly Eron Continent. \"Though I expected you to make a powerful impression on people with your outfit, I didn't anticipate you'd have that effect on cats as well!\"

After receiving the Pride of Dusk, Ves decided to wear the full ensemble for a day.

The effect of his outfit was incredibly considerable. His previous business attire already made him appear professional, but plenty of people wore similar clothing. He never actually stood out if not for his entourage following him around.

Now, his rust-colored fur tufted ensemble never failed to draw everyone's fascination. The tailor had already done a fantastic job of processing the choicest of materials from Zeigra's remains to fashion the Pride of Dusk.

However, the recent explosive round of publicity surrounding the successful Crown Hunt instantly made the people in the know associate his new outfit to Zeigra's fall.

If they held any doubts about the authenticity of his clothing, then the subtle but unmistakable platinum logo of the Galactic Hunting Club on his garments laid them all to rest!

Anyone registered with the Galactic Hunting Club could scan the logo with their comms. The portal would instantly send an information package containing the details of the hunt. This included its standardized challenge rating as well as his personal contribution to the endeavor.

Those who lacked access to the database of the Club would merely be redirected to a public page containing a very incomplete summary of the hunt.

Apparently, the snobs saw no use in showing off their hunting achievement to commoners. Their vain and wasteful preoccupation might even result in a backlash, which Ves was sure would happen in the Bright Republic!

Therefore, while the average bystanders merely admired his impressive outfit, those of higher standing gave him looks of deep respect and apprehension. They knew that a man who materially participated in a hunt was not to be trifled with! People like Ves ought to be treated with respect no matter his actual identity!

Yet what caused people to look askance at Ves the most was the effect he had on the surrounding cats!

The some of the friendly, playful cats that normally brightened up the spaceport had stopped their usual antics. Instead, they approached and surrounded Ves as if he was a god among cats!

\"Mrow! Mrow!\"

\"Miao. Miao. Miao.\"

\"Mew mew mew!\"

Literally hundreds of cats sat in a circle around Ves, causing him to attract far too much attention than he anticipated. Frankly, the procession of cats was driving him mad!

\"Shoo! Shoo! Go bug someone else for once!\" He vigorously waved his gloved hand.

\"Miao!\"

\"I'm not a Crown Cat, you stupid feline! I'm human!\"

\"Mewwww!\"

Ves instantly pulled off the decorative cat ears from his head. \"These are fake, you see?! I'm human!\"

\"Meow!\"

Lucky angrily hissed at the surrounding cats. Ves belonged to him! All of the other cats had no right to receive his pampering!

Ves and Lucky had to deal with the unwelcome fascination of the cats for quite some time until their large transit shuttle finally took in passengers. As Ves entered the vehicle, the cats bumped into an invisible field that automatically repelled their entry.

\"Miao! Miao! Miao!\"

That didn't stop them from scratching the field in order to follow Ves inside!

\"That's over now.\" Gavin sighed. \"If those cats followed you back to the Barracuda, I don't know how we can get any work done!\"

As Ves and his group slowly made their way back to the Barracuda and the fleet that awaited them in space, they all looked forward to their return to normality.

Felixia may have been a fun and novel destination, but they all had their fill of cats by now!

Ves on the other hand studied his new garments with an intrigued expression. The strange reaction he elicited from the cats of Felixia aroused some strange ideas.

As the group reached the orbital space station, they transferred to another shuttle that brought them back to their ships.

The Ingvars returned to the Ion Tracker in order to resume their training with the Battle Criers.

The rest boarded the Barracuda. Once everyone settled in, the fleet soon transitioned to FTL and traveled to their next destination.

As Ves entered his stateroom, he removed his Pride of Dusk and laid its pieces onto his desk before changing into a plainer outfit. Since he was in public, he felt no need to impress anyone.

\"Let's see if I can do anything with my new acquisition.\" He grinned.

An idea came into mind as he witnessed how much attention the Pride of Dusk attracted. It already carried a powerful effect from its remarkable cut, exceptional materials and impressive story behind its creation.

Could he make his Pride of Dusk more distinct? What if he applied some of the techniques he usually reserved for his mechs and mech designs onto the outfit meant to raise his stature?

Two additional questions emerged shortly after he entertained this radical suggestion.

First, was it even possible?

Second, was it a good idea?

He grinned. \"I have no idea what I'm doing, but I guess I'll find out!\"

Ves first instructed Lucky to activate his ECM before proceeding to his next step. He opened the box that held the first P-stone and retrieved the rock from its container. He studied it for a moment before placing it onto his desk.

\"Do you recognize the pieces of your old self?\"

Evidently, the spiritual entity did indeed sense something intimately familiar to itself, because Zeigra's spirituality frantically tried to escape its prison!

However, no matter how much Zeigra fought against his bonds, the P-stone's cruel suction force firmly kept the spiritual entity in place!

\"Hahaha!\" Ves laughed.

The materials that made up the Pride of Dusk may have gone through extensive processing, but they still retained their affinity for Zeigra's spirituality!

Confirming this interaction meant that his idea had a decent chance of working!

\"What if I'll put you back in a portion of your old body? Hmm? Would you like that, Zeigra?\"

As usual, the angry and furious spiritual entity ignored his words. It simultaneously wanted to lash out at Ves while urgently trying to break through its prison to return to the portions of his old body!

Ves shook his head at the sight. Zeigra had not grown any tamer since his spiritual imprisonment! In fact, he doubted that the unruly Crown Cat could ever be tamed!

This was also why he decided to keep the Devil Tiger as a one-off mech without claiming credit to its design. If Ves attempted to commercialize its design, he would doubtlessly lead a lot of mech pilots to their ruin!

\"It's such an enormous waste to insert my first complete spiritual entity onto a design which will only ever produce a single copy.\"

To be honest, the amount of time, effort, money and favors he expended on his Devil Tiger project exceeded that of his prior five original mech designs!

For a project he once considered as a way to fulfill a pair of Upgrade Missions and an opportunity to experiment, it had ballooned into so much more.

Ves recognized that he was guilty of the cardinal sin of feature creep. During the development of the Devil Tiger, he kept tacking on new expectations and requirements onto his mech design!

\"Yet… even if I'm guilty, so what?\"

Though the scope of his design project vastly exceeded his initial demands, he didn't consider that to be a bad thing in this case. Ves put less stock in completing his Upgrade Missions and more emphasis on the amount of progress he made to his personal development.

\"Already, this project has been worth it when it comes to all of the new spiritual techniques I've developed!\"

Of the techniques he recently came up with, spiritual restoration became his new favorite. Breaking spiritual entities or gathering disjointed pieces of them to bring them back to life by merging them with his own spiritual energy was a very complicated process.

He still didn't know how everything worked!

Yet considering how well his first attempt worked out by creating Vescas, the new technique held a lot of promise. The more he explored this new avenue, the more refined his future spiritual products turned out.

He'd have to delve much deeper into the path of life, though. The creation of life was a very complicated process, and his crude attempts so far exposed him to how much depth this field contained!

\"Well, let's proceed with the next step.\" He muttered.

Ves wasn't stupid enough to take out Zeigra's whole spirituality and dump it all into his new outfit. He expected that Zeigra's spirituality was way to voluminous and powerful to be contained by a bunch of garments.

Perhaps one way to address this issue was to carve out portions of his P-stone and embed them into his clothes.

However, Ves did not expect that to go well, since the suction force the tiny pieces exerted would probably be too miniscule to keep the spiritual entity in place!

No. You don't get to return to your old body entirely. Just a portion of you should be sufficient to my purposes. Get ready, Zeigra, because this will probably hurt!

Instead of trying to infuse the Pride of Dusk with Zeigra's whole spirituality, Ves intended to do so with only a small fragment!

Of course, obtaining this fragment was easier said than done. Ves knew he wouldn't be able to convince Zeigra to part with a portion of his spirituality in any circumstances, so he mustered up his concentration and his free-floating spiritual energy into a blade.

\"Cut!\"

Ves proceeded to attack Zeigra's spirituality with the blade he formed!

No result!

\"Ouch!\"

Both Ves and Zeigra suffered from the collision.

\"Damnit, you're still too tough!\"

Ves realized that he was going at it the wrong way. Instead of trying to cut into Zeigra's spirituality like a skirmisher mech stabbing its knife against the chest plate of a knight mech, he should instead target its weak points!

Due to the repercussions of Zeigra's corporeal death and subsequent deterioration, the Crown Cat's spirituality looked far from okay! Various gaps and wounds still encompassed its entire makeup. Any of these wounds presented an easy opportunity for Ves to cut out a valuable spiritual fragment!

Like a butcher honing his blade in front of a carcass hanging on a hook, Ves clinically studied Zeigra's trapped spirituality to find the best vulnerability to exploit.

He had to take care to cut out the right proportion.

Too much, and Zeigra's spirituality would incur too much damage to the point of spiritually lobotomizing its main consciousness!

Too little, then the effect to his Pride of Dusk would be too subtle, defeating the point of this experiment.

After a bit of consideration, Ves decided to harvest a spiritual fragment that was small enough to encompass his overcoat. He wanted to reduce the effect of Zeigra's spiritual fragment when he removed and hung up his overcoat. Too much of an angry cat wasn't necessarily conducive to all of his business transactions.

\"Well, here goes!\"

It took a bit of fumbling, but he eventually managed to jam his spiritual knife onto one of the medium-sized openings of Zeigra's spirituality. With a healthy application force, he leveraged his spiritual strength onto the trapped and immobile spiritual entity and violently dislodged a jagged portion from the whole!

Zeigra spiritually lashed out in pain and agony at the loss, but Ves paid no mind to the pain he inflicted on the dead cat. Instead, he grabbed the loosened portion and pulled it out, resisting the suction force from the P-stone.

\"It's already deteriorating!\"

Ves quickly squashed and compressed it together in order to form a crude fragment, which stemmed but failed to halt the deterioration process.

\"Well, let's see if this works!\"

He quickly shoved the fragment into his new overcoat and waited with baited breath.

The fragment met hardly any resistance as it settled into the spiritual space of the overcoat of the Pride of Dusk. In fact, it settled in very nice, as if it rightfully belonged in it from the start!

\"Success!\"

His prediction came true. The overcoat did indeed possess the capacity to host a spiritual fragment!