Turns out he was shipped before I left the ports and was already in the hanger bay when I got back.
"I recognize this one Pilot, he is a tough combatant. I have served with him before." Wocky informed me as I went about doing basic maintenance and upkeep on this new purchase. She had an air of pride in her voice like she approved of what I had just done by attaining him.
"Well Wocky ole girl what can I say? The price was right, we needed the firepower and his teleporting ability sure as hell will come in handy in combat."
She went silent and went back to her self diagnostics with no further comment to be had. I finished up my maintenance checks and headed off to the assembly room. I was just in time as the new clan war was announced and sign ups began. I registered with my clan as available, then happily went to my bunk for the night. A few days went by and not much was happening in The Brotherhood Of The Black Watch, basic drills were preformed, mech maintenance went on, and evaluations of combat readiness and weaknesses were given out. All in all I hadn't given much thought to my new mecha since I bought it as I was pretty wrapped up in the usual day to day activities of the clan. That's when it happened, the techies from the hanger bay paged me.
"Pilot Willis report to hanger area 7, repeat Pilot Willis report to hanger area 7."
"Just great now what is going on?" I thought to myself, as I made my way to the hanger bays. Last time they paged me like that it was to give me a write up for weapons discharge in the confines of the hanger when Wocky went and blew up her old Dilophos body upon transference of her battle A.I. to her new Regis body. That was a hefty fine on top of a hell of a mess to clean up. Took me the better part of a month to get that all squared away.
I had just stepped out of the maintenance lift leading down to the hanger when I was met by a very nervous looking tech, who immediately started filling me in on why I was down here.
"Pilot Willis, we didn't do anything honest!", were the first words out of his mouth. He then went on to inform me. "We hooked up your Nakshi to run diagnostics on him, make sure everything was in working order. We let it run over night no big deal, we do that on all new acquisitions in then hanger. Everything was fine for a couple of days and then we came in this morning to find...well we found this!"
.
We had been walking while he went off rapid fire about the situation at hand, finally we stood in front of the bay that housed my new mecha. Only it wasn't a mecha in the bay. Instead we were looking at a metallic cocoon of some sort. Bio-mechanical in nature, all pulsating lights and ferronite weave. I just stood there slack jawed staring at the thing.
"From the readings we are getting your Nakshi is in there." The tech helpfully chimed in seeing the look on my face. He then looked at me very seriously, leaned in close, and half whispered, "Maybe it's turning into a General Nakshi!"
I had no idea what in the stars he was on about so barely containing myself I yelled in his face, "What the hell is a General Nakshi!?"
He looked at me as if I was simply ignorant and took a deep breath to compose himself before launching into an explanation. "The story goes like this, even mecha have their legends especially when they are living, breathing, thinking beings. There are stories amongst the eldest of Skraigs and Gigus that speak of powerful, dangerous ancient Nakshi they simply refer to as Generals. These mythical creatures were stronger, smarter, packed more firepower and had the collective abilities of their brethren. They had the fierce love of fighting like the Gigus, they could tap into the psychic network of the Skraig, and possessed the capabilities of self-transportation the likes of which has never been seen before, at least not without destabilizing the system they are in at the time.
They were able to operate alone or with a pilot, either way mattered not to these ancient beasts. They commanded thousands of troops and watched entire systems burn. It is said that some of them were forged in the death of countless worlds, but none can prove it today. They are rumors, ghost stories even, that the beast mecha tell each other during down time from missions. They had identifying marks of course such as multiple Harmonic Disruptor s beyond the standard two we see them equipped with today. They also had the Skraig primary weapon of the Ursa Strike embedded in their central core, and were built with customization in mind being proficient with any weapon they cared to install on themselves. In short they were the ultimate beast machine.
No one knows where they may be hiding if in fact any exist today, speculation points towards the Forerunners taking these living engines of destruction with them when they departed from this galaxy. Questioning of the Nakshi we know today reveals nothing, likewise with Skraig, and Gigus. They exist as a story for now within the circles of the living machines we pilot today. We take heed however for any living mechas tales of a bogeyman should be taken most seriously especially for the races of man who may one day accidentally stumble across these ancient and powerful creatures. But you brought home a Nakshi, and now there is a cocoon around it and we can tell by all the readings we have done on it that there is something going on in there!" He was near breathless as he finished his story.
I had no idea how to reply or even what to say to such a wild legend, turns out my response if I had one would be cut short anyways. The Ferronite cocoon started to crack, strange fluids seeped out from the newly made crevices. Eventually there was a huge shudder and the cocoon gave way entirely. My Nakshi stood there in all his glory, looking around and settling his gaze upon me. Without further pause he leaned forward and swallowed me up.
As any know integration with a beast machine is a disorienting process at best. New perspectives to get used to, new senses to adapt, and an ever present rumbling voice in ones head. As I integrated with my mech it was all of the above times about a thousand, I thought I was going to simply come unhinged when a deep voice cut across my consciousness.
"Be at peace Pilot, my transformation is at an end. I had absorbed enough ambient planetary emissions, and cosmic energies to begin my becoming. I am now stable and on line. I heard all your tech had told you while I was mutating and he was correct. I have ascended and become a General. As far as I know the first this galaxy has seen in thousands of cycles. Know you are in no danger, and that I am ready for action."
I hardly knew how to reply, so instead I brought up its weapon load out to see just what I was dealing with. The Nakshi had grown new slug throwers that was apparent by the odd protrusions over his shoulder couplings. All in all it had grown and mutated with three Ursa Strikes in its chest cavity all linked together and set to fire as one large cannon, it had developed on each arm two Harmonic Disruptors leading back to a singular over sized variant of the same slaved into the main arm cannons to provide additional power and fire suppression. It had also grown two perfect Vadhar cannons, an Exacto shot, three Big Berthas, along with two Death's Rage Cannons, and a Fiasco cannon. It also somehow was able to grow two perfect Rupture Shot flame weapons.The Nakshi had developed extra heat syncs to deal with the excess heat generated by all these slug throwers, as well as new ports for cosmic energy collection to make its teleports instantaneous rather than having to wait and build up to pull its disappearing act.
It had access to the Skraig psychic network which I briefly listened in on before logging out of that function as all those voices in my head at one time was threatening to overload my conscious mind. All I could do is sit there in wonder and growing excitement as the deep rumbling voice addressed me again.
"So Pilot where would you like to go first, and what shall we blow up?"
I cracked a smile, and set my new General, Impact the Nakshi on a course to the testing grounds. I wanted to see exactly what this puppy could do now!
Submitted By Pat Willis#224534