Chapter Nine

I’ve been a weeb since I was a wee little thing. This shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise, after all, anime was popular for decades before I was even born. Light novels and manga could be found in any book store, and if you had nerd inclinations, you were bound to have your favorite series.

Fantasy was well and good, I did enjoy it quite a bit, but even if it isn’t your thing, who would not love watching a mech fight? Now I didn’t know what they thought constituted ‘mechs’ here. But let me just say that as I settled into the floaty rowboat balloon thingy, I had high hopes.

I must have looked unusually happy, because Loysa settled in opposite me and cocked her head. “What has you so ecstatic all of a sudden?”

“Mech fight.” I answered. To me that seemed like reason enough. But she rotated her hand, nodded, and asked…

“...And? Is that all?”

“It’s a mech fight. Does there need to be more?” I asked, just saying those two words had my grin growing until I must have looked high or stupid.

But at least it prompted an expression on her face that wasn’t a scowl.

“Why is that such a big deal? They have these every week in the spring and summer.” She replied as if it was absurd to be as happy as I was. Maybe from her perspective, it was pretty trivial.

But for me, all I could be was baffled that she was baffled.

“Mechs exist only in fiction where I came from. I used to love watching the stories of big mech fights, whether they were giant ones the size of buildings, or even the small ones that were more like power suits. Wait, how big are these?” I asked, I wasn’t sure what series I should be imagining, and wanted to get it right.

“Watching stories? Don’t you mean listening? You all don’t waste mana on illusion spells or something, do you?” Loysa asked.

“No. We have these devices that let us project moving pictures all over the world over a worldwide web of interconnected terminal points in our homes or our hands, kind of like your ‘slates’ but all tied together and able to project stories, news, music, and so on.” I wasn’t sure how much of my explanation got through, but the slate analogy seemed to make some sense to her.

She whistled. “Impressive. It must be a great boon from your gods, and a great asset to culture and education.”

All I could say was, “You’d think that. But it turns out that since anyone can use it, that includes stupid people, and they cancel out a lot of the benefits.”

She furrowed her brow and even I could see that she was running down the list of stupid people that she knew and imagining how they would use such a device. “Understood.” She said, and I looked over the side to watch the ground expand below.

The balloon boat thingy I was riding in was much smoother than I expected. It had a small fan in the back with a wooden rudder to steer it, and the person at the head kept his hand on a small wheel that was secured to a rope that ran under the craft to connect ultimately to the rudder itself. The turns were gentle and we were not so far up in the air that we were blown about.

Even if we were shot down, I’m sure we’d have just floated gently to the ground. A person would have to want to die in these things. Or face violence.

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“I’ll explain about the mechs later,” she said and looked over her shoulder, “Hapralee route, if you’re not going that far, drop us off as close as you can.”

The man she spoke to wore goggles on his face and a leather cap on his head, he had a long black handlebar mustache that I could see even though he was facing away from us, and a scarf for good measure. His coat was a bright red, and he had a pair of old fashioned pistols strapped to his belt along with a knife sticking out of his big leather boot.

“You got it, ma’am!” He didn’t look back when he made a kind of mock salute.

“More important,” Loysa focused back on me, “is that you understand that routes like this can go one of two ways. It can go all peaceful like.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Or, you can find out why he’s armed with two magipistols and a knife.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat and stared at the far end of this world’s version of a taxi. “There are gliders who will raid these little airships, or sometimes people come on as passengers to rob the pilots. Or sometimes pilots take their passengers way too high and extort money not to drop them to the ground. That last part’s pretty rare, but-” She paused and looked over her shoulder, “Hey, when was the last time you heard of somebody doing that?!” She shouted.

“Six months ago, m’lady. My cousin Jasper, actually. But he weren’t right in the head, so he accidentally dumped himself too.” The pilot said, and I was less reassured than I think he intended me to be, and that didn’t change when he let out a bark of laughter and tipped his ‘hat’ to us before refocusing on the way ahead.

“Well, that’s… good to know.” I was pretty sure my eyes were bugging out of my head just a little.

My sense of wonder about a whole new world existing for me to explore and adventure in was tempered by the hardnosed realism of my companion.

I really wanted a distraction, I knew there’d be downsides to this world, but similarities to my old one, even if a bit off, didn’t occur to me until now. “So, about those mechs?” I asked.

“Oh, right. Dwarf weapons. They’re about two or three hands taller than their user, you sit in a seat, so it’s usually piloted by gnomes and dwarves, and they use magiguns or other weapons to smash and slash. They have different add ons, and their users are…” She scratched her head as she sought the perfect word.

“Bleeding insane.” She finished and gave a sharp nod. “Buggers are mad for their machine and customize their mechs to an absurd degree. I know a little bit about em because of the guy we’re going to see.” She paused and snapped loudly, “Against my will!”

When I looked at her with a worried expression of wide eyes and pursed lips, she waved it off again, “I was talking to my Goddess again. She’s a slave driver. I swear, of all the Gods and Goddesses out there, I get the only one that just won’t leave me alone. You know when she first appeared, she showed up on my first date. The guy thought I was crazy and dropped me like an overheated mech core.” She exhaled heavily from her nostrils and began drumming her hands on the wooden bench where she sat.

“That’s unfortunate.” I said. I really didn’t know what else to say, and I’d probably waited too long to say it. I’m just not that good socially I guess. Fumbling through this stuff, people don’t make sense to me half the time and the rest of the time, I wished they didn’t.

But even so, from the sound of things, I wouldn’t last without a party.

“I’ll try not to be too much of a burden on you, Loysa. I’m sorry about the thing with the playing card.” I bowed my head, “I just wasn’t sure what else to do.”

She huffed and looked away, off toward the far horizon. It was beautiful out, the weather was good and the wind gently caressed the back of my ears and almost lovingly stroked my tail. “Don’t worry about it. I’d have done the same in your boots. Besides, what else was I going to do but stay there cheating cheaters all day? I don’t have a party now, and building one is tough for both the toothless and the upper ranks. Besides, my Goddess is commanding me to go with you, and as much as I complain about her… she does guide me right.”

“That’s reassuring.” I said, and things died down again between us. I didn’t mind not talking, but I’d gathered that others grew more uncomfortable with long silences.

I tried to think of something to say, only for me to realize that Loysa didn’t really seem to be at all uncomfortable. She’d crossed her legs and put her elbow on her knee and held her chin between thumb and forefinger. She was just watching the world pass by. The clouds, the sky, the distant land I’d never seen nor dreamt of.

Danger or not, I couldn’t help but feel a rising excitement. I knew I’d need to be cautious, I’d keep that in mind. So I imitated her, sort of. I moved to the far side of the craft and watched the world pass by. I tried not to forget her warning. I really did.

But that knowledge did not diminish my excitement as every new inch of ground and sky presented itself to me. And then there was the coming promise of something dreamt of only in some of my favorite shows.

A real live mech fight.