---Mei---

“Deployment is in one hour. Project green rain is a go.”

Finally! Mei perked up as soon as she heard the announcement silently ring in her ear. Across the shop she noticed someone else perk up with a jolt and begin reading something. Same as her or just a coincidence?

Stuffing the rest of her wrap in her mouth she whispered transfer to pay the establishment, then slid past a couple blocking the door.

No one paid her any mind as she bustled down the hall heading towards the secret mech hanger. Open secret - it was hard to hide something that large and information about the project was easy to find for those who cared to look.

“Next Left” a neutral voice whispered to her and Mei turned on autopilot even as she opened and skimmed some low priority notifications before closing them to focus on her steps.

Some liked visual hallucinations for their AI but Mei had always preferred audio. You could listen and walk without a care, but trying to read and do anything physical caused her to walk into things no matter how much mental power she gained.

Moving along Laputa's terrace she headed for the loading docs stepping over a yellow line to indicate a part of the city you needed to stay alert in.

The floating city kept being renamed by popular opinion. “Arc”. “Haven”. “Olympus”. “Beacon”. “Laputa”. As far as Mei was concerned, pick a damned name and stick with it. Names really didn’t matter all that much but consistency was key. Stepping over a red line, Mei entered the hanger and was waved down by a tech. Muhamed she believed his name was? Again, Names didn’t matter.

“You’ll be entering chassis seven” he nodded reading off a mental note before pointing towards a giant metal leg.

Perfect. Second favorite chassis.

Mei had tried all nine at one point or another in their testing, but something about the degree of responsibility and comfort of the leg really spoke to her.

Only thing better than a leg was a shoulder really. Shoulders got to play with the main weapon system.

There were two other leg chassis - three and five with three representing the other leg and five a pelvic coordinator responsible for keeping both three and seven in lockstep. Technically Five was responsible for most of the leg movement while three and seven ran various error correction stages…but Mei hated coordinator roles. Who in their right mind would want to be in charge of sending off messages and interacting with people like some service worker?

No thanks.

Mei shook hands with her two co-pilots then entered her chassis early.

Inside of the inertia dampened sphere, there was an incredibly soft chair surrounded by dozens of little light sockets.

Nothing physical that could be bumped or damaged. Everything was done through AI or connection swapping if you were certified - which Mei was.

Taking her time to get comfortable, Mei began to look about - her eyes focusing on node after node as her free slots began to flick between them. Each lit up as she connected and soon the whole area was flickering with her swaps.

As she ran through some self made exercises, Mei activated a harness and restraints then pricked both arms and watched as two tubes seemed to fuse with her skin.

They felt gross and invasive until she mentally accepted them and then slowly those feelings shifted into ones of warmth and comfort.

Mei shuddered at how fast the feeling changed.

Always creepy. Best not to think about it. It took a while to get warmed up but after a few minutes of swapping in various patterns she was ready.

It was as if every connection she made left a path in the air - Mei imagined a root system spreading out from her and connecting to every single slot. Only five were active currently, but swapping took a fraction of a fraction of a second and her mind could keep up easily.

Focused mind was a hell of a drug.

Soon the rest of the pilots arrived and the marvel of engineering rose around her as if coming alive.

There was some sciency reason for why mechs were stronger when human shaped than something like a tank - Supposedly linked to why aether needed a human mind and body and powerful machines couldn’t just be piloted remotely…something else about blowing up skills meant for humans onto a larger canvas? Something about improved stat resonance as well?

Mei didn’t care about the reasons if she were being honest.

This was the superior shape based on aesthetic factor alone. They were all here for the vibes each and every one of them.

Sinking into a slight trance, Mei felt her perception begin to speed up. Various AI feeds surrounded her, each displaying the results of different cameras. She could glance at them as needed, but by setting up an audio que and letting her AI do some basic image analysis on them all, she could be informed when something important was happening.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Camera 3 looked slightly off. Before she could mention anything, a tech on the outside had already swapped it. Guess someone else beat her to it?

Checks were done and Mei felt slight shifts as her chamber was moved about. Stat reflection began to slowly kick in and Mei started to feel the entire inside of the mech dimly as her small amount of physical stats began to affect the construct around them slowly but surely.

Others were boosting it to a much higher degree.

Finally the hanger door was open and the mech began to slide towards the exit on a line of rails.

Mei focused on her job, marveling at the scenery as she directed power into various storage systems. The mech around her almost glided across the ground as it moved - it felt like mere minutes before they were close enough to see their goal although it was probably closer to twenty.

The nuke storm.

Mushroom clouds churned and flashed with light as explosions rang out from deep within. Black rain fell leaving a trail of death behind it.

Directing the majority of her ‘fresh’ aether up towards the artillery system, Mei watched as first dozens and then thousands of tiny self propelled projectiles were released towards the storm.

This was all something about destabilizing some sort of reaction with sufficient…chemicals? Anti nuke canisters? Mei watched a few of the nearby canisters explode in green smoke that sucked towards the clouds and turned the black rain green.

After nearly five minutes of constant bombardment, the storm itself was visibly less chaotic. It was almost anti climatic - No flashes rang out, no giant face appeared to scream at them. The nuclear carpet bombardment had silently stilled and as the bombardment continued, the clouds began to visibly shrink. As it shrunk, the core began to coalesce.

Soon the cornered core of the storm was fully revealed - a single pitch black cloud swirling in a sort of…it kind of looked like a doughnut being rolled upwards?

Mei unlocked a nest buster and slid it up towards the shoulder crew doing her part.

Soon the giant rod was in place and ready to fire. Mei joined everyone else in charging both the device and launcher - by joining together in this manner the nest buster should hit way above its tier.

Mei returned to watching her screen as her job was mostly done and was just barely able to notice something strange by the core of the storm.

It looked like…a man? A human man standing on a bright white cloud and reaching up towards the black cloud above him like some sort of cultist.

“Eyes on a complication” Mei spoke, passing her message up the chain of command. She got back some muttered swears and was soon prodded to prepare for movement once again.

Mei’s team approached the unknown entity who kept mysteriously vanishing from all visuals.

Corrupted aether?

Smiling down at them as they grew near the man gave them a wave and thumbs up before appearing to breath in and physically suck the core of the storm into himself.

Speakers blared at the man to desist but he ignored them visibly rushing as he sucked inwards. Fifteen seconds of ignored warnings later and the core was almost halfway consumed. A tipping point was reached and the message arrived in Mei’s ear.

Treat as hostile. Was this the so called demon king?

Decisive.

Mei watched as homing missiles began to fire upwards breaking the sound barrier they were moving so fast.

The hostile raised an arm then shot an unnaturally arcing bolt of lightning. Lightning chained between the missiles causing them to explode midair - filling the space between them with shrapnel and an excessive amount of smoke.

Moments later the smoke cleared and revealed the man standing on a black cloud, the core of the storm nowhere to be found.

He no longer seemed to be in a hurry and Mei watched as he licked his lips in a relaxed manner.

His voice boomed like thunder “Thank you for weakening such a tasty slice of nature's fury. It's now resting in capable hands.”

Speakers blared.

“As thanks for the assist, I’ll let you know this was the last piece I needed for my mantle. Soon the god of storms will be reborn.” The man monologue and then frowned when a wave of missiles rushed towards him once again.

“Run along now.” the man boomed and with a wave a single spark formed then rapidly expanded in front of him.

The spark reached the size of an exercise ball and then imploded into a single brilliant point that lit the entire area up as it were a flash bang.

The dot dropped as if in slow motion - accelerating down towards them and then suddenly exploding with nuclear fury.

Mei almost blacked out as the mech was shot backwards with a roar. Dozens of layers of highly specialized armour protected the operators inside, but the point blank shot still melted most of their joints and blew all external sensors.

“Is everyone alright?” Mei heard in her ear and after confirming she was fine she began to fix what she could.

Many repairs would need a more specialized setup but by taking control of a couple protected multi purpose drones and activating some repair modules on the effected components themselves the mech began to get back into a mobile state.

Some of the joints were messed beyond field repair but that was expected.

“Do we pursue or return?” Someone asked in the general comms and everyone began to weigh in. Mei found herself mostly divorced from the conversation as she continued to work on repairs.

It seemed like melted slag had solidified in the ball sockets on each knee. By heating them up and flushing them with heat attuned acid she was mostly able to flush that out. There was now a huge hole loose enough for the bearing to fall out but by spreading easy melt insulation and then a quick drying polymer on top she was able to patch the worst joint back into place.

“What is your vote? We are currently tied”, someone asked her, the message taking several long seconds to register.

“We are mobile but far from an optimal state.” Mei responded. “I’d rate our current combat potential as rank three minus something? Hostile was unscanned but clearly above that. We’ll have to modify the mech to better defend against those attacks to have a real shot of neutralizing him. This mission we didn't expect to actually get hit by the storm after all. I'm sure back at base someone knows some more specialized defenses,”

“Thats what I’m saying,” Someone responded. What was his name again? Filiph? Josh?

“So vote for return?” Someone else asked. “I think that would be best” Mei confirmed adding her vote on the pile.

Picking themselves up the group began to glide back towards the sky city. Hopefully this counted as a partial success but they couldn’t help but worry the threat had only grown.