The Mech Touch

erished quickly enough, the ones with scales fended off his energy claws with alarming ease.
Lucky had to sneak his claws through their mouths and penetrate their brains from the inside in order to finish the job.

Just as Ves and Lucky exited the middle lab and approached the largest lab, they finally got caught.
Jutland bellowed with rage as he diverted his attention from the AI-controlled mechs.

”My labs! What have you done with my experiments!? ”

Ves cursed Jutland ’s perception but continued to the final lab.
This one had obviously been built to last, as its walls, doors and locks outclassed the other labs in thickness.
Despite their robustness, Lucky only had to swipe a couple more times to destroy the sturdy lock.

”You rat! Get away from that lab! ”

The doctor finally noticed Ves skulking about.
He became so alarmed at the intrusion that he resolutely abandoned the fight and jumped from the Kaius.
While the chimera mech continued to clash against the hunting platoon, the doctor himself employed his full might into closing the distance.

Naturally, Ves became scared at the approaching doom.
Nevertheless, he opened the door of the lab and sneaked inside.
Despite the risks, Ves wanted to see why Jutland cherished this lab.

He came across an unusual sight.
Ves expected to encounter a formidable hexopod, or some other biological horror.
Instead, he came across an incubation chamber which housed a single, resplendent flower in the center.

The flower resembled a white lotus flower in the middle of a pond.
It rested quietly in the middle of an artificial pool that was constantly being fed with nutrients from a reconstructed dispenser.
The size of the containers told him that the radiant flower had a voracious hunger for nutrients.

Where did it all go? Ves couldn ’t figure it out really, but one thing was for sure, the scent it gave off instinctively roused his appetite.
His entire body screamed that if he were to eat this carefully cultivated flower, he ’d receive an unimaginable amount of benefits.

”Time is running out! ” Ves reminded himself while shaking his head.

Though he didn ’t know what purpose the flower served, with Jutland hot on his heels he had to make a swift decision.
Would he listen to his body, which hungered for the flower, or his instincts, which warned him of the danger of eating a completely alien organism?

”Nothing ventured, nothing gained! ”

In the end, Ves couldn ’t resist the temptation.
The flower must be representing Jutland ’s hopes and dreams if he devoted so much effort on this magnificent flower that completely clashed with the local environment.
Ves guessed that Jutland must have grown it from a seed he obtained elsewhere.

With Jutland breathing down his neck, Ves didn ’t hesitate any longer.
Once Lucky swiped open the incubation chamber, Ves ignored the hot gasses escaping the chamber and grabbed hold of the flower.
His skin tingled as he brushed against the beautiful plant by its floating roots.

Ves stuffed the flower in his mouth while grabbing hold of Lucky.
As soon as he completed his actions, he turned on his stealth augment.
Ves disappeared from every kind of view just as Jutland smashed open the front of the lab.

As the lab door bounced beneath his feet, the maddened doctor beheld the damage Ves had wrought just seconds earlier.
He gazed at the broken chamber as well as the dissipating gasses.
His eyes took in every detail before focusing on the very center where a flower used to float.

In the meantime, Ves quietly sneaked way under the cover of his stealth module.
He smoothly bypassed Jutland as he stumbled towards the broken incubation chamber and successfully exited the lab.

Once he passed the broken door, he picked up his pace, wanting to get as far away from Jutland as possible.
The flower already started to disintegrate in his stomach, turning into a strange kind of energy that resembled the one cycling through his body but with much higher potency.

Despite the incredible amount of energy rolling in his stomach, the flower possessed an exceedingly gentle attribute.
It was as if it had been made to be compatible for consumption.

”What is this energy?! ”

After a couple of seconds of accumulation, the energy jumped straight past his internal energy cycle and reached his brain.
The sudden influx of energy momentarily caused him to blank out.
His body suddenly fell mid-stride, causing Lucky to meow in alarm.
Fortunately, the stealth augment remained active.

While Ves dealt with the rash consequences of eating an alien growth, Jutland screamed with indescribable rage and blasted the entire lab to pieces with a single shock wave emanating from his primal body.

”RETURN MY HEAVENLY FLOWER YOU THIEF! THAT ’S THE CULMINATION OF MORE THAN SEVENTY YEARS OF RESEARCH! ”

Jutland continued to bellow his demands while overturning the entire surroundings.
A distressing amount of heat escaped his body as he slowly spun out of control.

He completely disregarded his Kaius, which slowly succumbed under the increasingly competent teamwork of the AI-controlled mechs.

Captain Kaine even broke through the psychic shackles on her mind and body somehow.
She took over from her awkward AI and brought her Cathrec to its full potential.
The spear-wielding elite mech danced around the increasingly burdened Kaius while trying to dig through its scales in order to stop the giant glowing brain buried deep inside its chest.

While the battle turned against the so-called king of the jungle, Ves slowly recovered from his impulse action.
He didn ’t know whether he made a mistake by eating the flower, but much of its energy suddenly flowed inside a hole inside his brain.

”Where did it go? ”

Once the energy disappeared from his body, Ves regained control over his body.
For a moment, he thought the energy would fry his brains into ash.
Never did he expect to see it disappear like water flowing down the drain.
His rudimentary inspection of his body revealed no other changes.

”I can ’t afford to dawdle any longer.
I ’ve got to go! ”

Ves resumed his escape, passing by Melkor ’s immobilized Stanislaw as he neared the exit.
After suffering from several delays, his stealth augment only lasted for another minute.
Ves had to get out of Jutland ’s sight or he ’d have a post-human madman going for his head!

”Damnit, what heavenly flower? All of that energy instantly flushed away into another dimension. ”

He guessed that the flower ’s potency ended up in one of the other dimensions besides the visible ones.
Spacetime only consisted of the three dimensions of space along with time, but scientists have long determined the existence of additional dimensions, mostly through their interaction with exotics.

The flower must be an exceedingly precious growth nurtured with precious exotics then to possess its special characteristics.
Ves therefore speculated that the flower was meant to nurture Jutland ’s supposed soul, but in actual fact it just dumped a huge load of energy inside a higher dimension that, as far as he knew, had nothing to do with the human body.

”Did I just throw away a priceless treasure into the trash? ” He idly wondered.
As long as Jutland didn ’t get his hands on a power-up, Ves had done his job.