The leader of my clan wasn’t just the veteran of several Clan Wars but he is also the master of a style of mecha martial arts so if anybody could help me break in and discipline my newest and largest mech, I was hoping it would be Tc.
“Sensei, I just bought a Gigus and this is my first time using one. It asked me to name it, says it is a male so I call him Giga Rex. You know huge Mecha, so I figured you’d be the best person to seek advice and training from about it. Also, he keeps urinating (to scent mark) in my hangar. Is that normal behavior for a beast mecha?”
“He is not feeling at home yet, that is why he is still marking his territory. If you would open the hangar doors to let him extend his territory, he will do so. When he is well trained, he will defend his home range including your hangar until death.”
“Hai Sensei. Thank you.”
I did as instructed and Giga Rex seemed noticeably calmer after that but there was still the matter of the chewed up light mecha, so before long I was back at the master’s doorstep with more questions.
“Giga does seem calmer but he’s still not at ease; He won’t… say, get urges and oh, hump my other mecha in the hangar, right?” I asked my clan leader as I explained about the chewed up RedAnts. My hangar’s doors had a gash through their metal in the telltale claw mark arrangement.
“I hope some I-beams welded into a mech shape to sharpen his claws and to adjust his sensors would divert him from looking for other targets. Better not to place these ‘toy targets’ too near the hangar, or you will end up with holes in your reinforced wall.”
“You mean they like to sharpen their claws and practice fight too, like a real predator, huh?! Boy, do I feel noobish about this. So when it comes to food time, what exactly do you feed one? I’ve already had to clean up his “nest” with a forklift!”
I knew admittedly little about true beast mecha and was not even sure what to feed one.
A diet of Snavurm steaks and scrap metal couldn’t be all there was to maintaining a live Gigus.
“An old friend of mine feeds his Gigus with a mixture of ferrite and Shear Thickening Fluid; it is not the cheapest way, but it saves you alot of time cleaning up his processed mess. He told me the usual waste alloys and bioptics that they are fed are not processed as well as his special recipe. It also hardened their armor and give them a nice shine.”
With the new diet in Giga Rex’s regimen and training space for the 80 ton monster to feel less cramped, his temperament seemed drastically improved but still all was not quite well.
“Master, so far your advice has gotten Giga to behave much better but I still have a hard time controlling him on the field. I wonder… would meeting one of your trained Giguses help tame him?” I queried, shrugging. “I know when I first joined Samurai Mecha I was kind of rough around the edges but through your training I became a much more disciplined fighter.”
“A disciplined and strong fighter indeed, you have made a giant leap in your piloting. Yet like every skill and strategy they need to be harnessed every day. Just like the Gigus adjusting his sensors and firing his weapons daily, always prepared.”
I took Tc to my hangar and opened the doors, to show him Giga Rex. Its tyrannosaurid form was sleeping curled in a ball nestled against my Sever.
“G. Rex! Wake up. Show some respect to Sensei!” I was worried he’d refuse to bow for Tc but after taking just long enough for me to freak out about it Giga finally raised up on its haunches, looked us up and down, and gave me a disrespectful snort before doing the faintest bow possible with his enormous head and making it fully evident he was doing it not because I commanded him to but because he felt like it.
“Is there a particular type of training or meditation you would suggest Giga and I do to function better as extensions of one another in a team?”
“A life shared in the trenches always creates a firm bond. You have to share life and death with each other, to be in deep thoughts together during battle. Get into meditation before you go to battle and do battle while you meditate. To find this thin line between life and death, I suggest you go to the dark side of the Jungle Moon.
Some days later after completing our first isolation training I reported back to Tc about Giga’s progress.
“I started teaching Giga Rex the first four katas of our clan’s style. He gets forms 1 and 4 better than 2 and his overall basic competency is good except in form 3 (which we had some balance issues with). Is he ready yet to spar with another Gigus?”
End of Part I.
To be continued in Part II.
Submitted by mycobacter, TcTt #712744, #636624