An old man thinking he was holding a lecture carried on talking boringly about the history of the planets and mechs.

“Pointless war only plagues the human race, when through exploring space humans plague the world and fought many wars against each other that soon the place of birth was no longer the same using other planets and temporary bases turned into homes.

Soon earth was no longer the birthplace of humans anymore, they existed through the galaxy building empires and claiming large amounts of space that always seem to be never-ending. The war fought against each other to claim land and planets with new minerals and exotics.

But with all that happened humans managed to find a gem... One that outlasted all creations of giant war fleets and massive capital ships with orbital lasers and that was mechs. 

Mechs granted the ability of humans to become more than just pilots of metal; it allowed them to become gods. Granting them special abilities when applied with certain exotic metals allows them to fight against giant capital ships.

. These allowed humans to transcend the normal human and become something more, but why would anybody want to become something else only a special few can become these amazing professionals even one in a thousand is too high thinking about the promotion barrier that exists to transcend out of millions one might make it. Billions exist in our solar system yet only one our great God Malakia managed to ascend to become a God mech designer allowing our state to become one of the many rivals.”

The old man coughs up some blood as people pass by ignoring the rambles of an insane man. 

***50 Years later ***

Lights flash as mechs fight and attack each other in space 

“Sir you need to escape, you are the only hope of managing to get away and rebuilding our state back to its glory” An army commander spoke to an old gentleman with grey in his beard.

“It's too late for me General, I can only hope you take my son and escape with him”

Silence filled the area as the army saluted and took the child into their arms and began trying to set up a stealth pod to escape the current situation.

***Five years later***

In the backwaters of tier 5 empire in an old log cabin stood an old grandpa and a five-year-old child staying warm by the fire

“I don't have much time left, kid, old age is going to get me before you fully grow up. I can feel it.” leaning down the old man handed the little kid a medal.

Tears fill the child's eyes as he listens closely to his grandpa before his last moments in this solar system

“Your Father would be proud of the boy you’ve grown into. Too bad he can't see it and I won't see what a fine young man you’ll grow into, remember you’re Rayfield you’re gonna become a great Mech designer...” silence fell on the log cabin as the old man slowly died from his old battle wounds leaving a five year old crying his eyes out.

“This must be the house..” Two adults knocked and then opened the door when nobody answered, seeing the old man and the crying child hugging his cold body next to the roaring fire.

Thick rough hands grab onto the medal that the child was holding before yanking it from him “This should sell for something good. Looks to be a war medal of some sort” 

“GIVE IT BACK!” screamed the kid before getting kicked and becoming quiet this caused the other thug to attempt to stop the bigger one from continuing to kick the kid.

“We should bury the old man and take the kid to the orphanage at least man even if they have nothing.” one thug shouted at the other, the other thug grunted as he seemed to disagree and just left, leaving the man to bury the old man's corpse by himself in the snow.

*Five years later*

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Congrats Cyrus you've passed the aptitude test and you can go to the academy for mech pilots.” said the recruiter among crying children who were left sad that their dreams of becoming a mech pilot were shattered at the orphanage. Only 4% of humans pass the aptitude to pilot mechs and even then that doesn't mean they will amount to anything good. The academy Cyrus will be going to host thousands of people of the lowest quality to some rare high-quality seeds that are becoming mech pilots.

“Congrats kid, soon the gang will have an extra mech pilot when you grow up.” said an older man who seemed to smile while looking over Cyrus, the same rugged man who had helped bury his Grandfather. 

Sir Leo Rio, despite the bad naming sense, was the current leader of the Cynthia gang and is about to become Cyrus's sponsor for mech pilot school allowing him to attend a selected high-tier school thanks to his aptitude which was graded D one above E grade and above the F grade which means neural inept unable to pilot a mech

Not every person with aptitude became a mech pilot but every person with aptitude had to go through mech training until they were sixteen then they could expand and go onto the profession they wanted to. 

Often kids would grow up and realise that becoming a mech pilot was not the dream life that they thought it would be and required rigorous military training even for a ten-year-old.

This training would last six years and then they would be given the offer to join the military to continue training or seek other ways whether it be joining a mech corp, private security, or even joining a clan that travels around space if they arrived at such a low-tier state.

**6 years later**

Blood splats onto the floor as Cyrus slams into the ground from a punch that hits him square on the jaw.

“I don't want you or your gang around my turf ever again.” A large rough kid called Kleo the current ‘gang’ leader of the class and the highest score mech pilot, nothing like Cyrus who’s in the middle of the class. Despite that one of his gang members is the number two in the class only being below Kleo due to her being physically weaker than him despite being more skilled in theoretical

Waiting until the gang of hooligans were all gone Cyrus lifted himself to see his own ‘gang’ members coming towards him at a race speed to help him out and they looked ready to fight… too bad they were already late.

“Too late guys, I already got my ass kicked. Thanks for showing up at least.” he moaned as he spat out blood, some of it landing on the ground getting gang up on by ten people was not something could take on himself, he wasn’t no story protagonist who could take on ten kids the same size of him or bigger maybe one or two but not that many.

“Sorry, sorry that was my fault. I couldn't run so fast.” An out-of-breath fatty spoke up as he was the last to arrive but the loudest out of the five. “Sorry Boss.”

The five of them go by Adam, Cynth, Larry, Staria, and Cooper. They are Cyrus’s ‘gang’ four of them all met at Rogia Mech Pilot Academy or RMPA for short and are in the same class except the fatty Cooper who was a friend from the orphanage where Cyrus grew up, he decided to become a mech designer for the gang, they often visited the arcade at this time which is where Kleo ambushed Cyrus outside the arcade and seemed that Kleo was claiming as his territory now. Kleo belongs to a rival gang that Sir Leo belongs to, making him and Cyrus almost instant enemies once he learned of where Cyrus came from and who his sponsor was.

One surprising thing was everybody but Cooper belonged to the Cynthia gang and the family that ran it the Rio’s. Despite this, he was the Boss as he was considering the little Boss as he was seen as the Leader Leo’s son.

This is why most people shied away from Cyrus due to his belonging to the Cypher gang. But that didn’t scare away his friend; they were willing to join him in the gang… surprisingly.

“Anyway, let's go inside and play with some mechs. Cooper, you made a new knight mech, we all should try it.” They all soon entered the arcade and paid for a few hours of the virtual mech simulator. While these aren't as good as the ones in school they allowed people to make and submit their mechs for testing, allowing people to buy and sell virtual mechs to play in online game modes against other people. The benefit of this was even people who had no chance to pilot a mech in real life due to their aptitude like Cooper could play the game. 

This normally didn’t end well for those who did as they were up against people who had practised mechs for a living during their high school degree barely any proper mech pilots played the game as it was a low skill level for them. 

“We're being ganked by the jungler! Who plays heavy mechs in the jungle that's normally for tanks top.” Complained Cooper as he had been delegated support playing his new knight mech and was sacrificing himself so Adam could get away from the gank, as he had designed a faulty mech making them have an instant losing lane due to its lack of competent components installed the knight mech that was meant to be a tanky support was squishier than a repair mech.

After several losses, Cooper was forced off his new creation and back onto a trusty support mech in the role. Cyrus hated playing the MOBA he would rather pilot a rifleman mech in search and destroy or a skirmish mode so he did while the other five played the Moba game mode. Placed in the mid lane a 1v1 lane due to his training and his piloting skills that focused heavy artillery mechs was Larry, the true carry was their jungle. Cynth, who enjoyed light mechs so often played an assassin mech in the jungle. The swordsman mech used in the top lane was Staria and Adam playing just like Cyrus's rifleman mechs in the bottom lane.

The two highest ranks out of them all were Cyrus and Cynth when it came to solo q due to the roles they played. Cyrus when playing the MOBA played a rifleman mech mid which was nonconventional to the meta but served him well.

Soon several hours passed, and coming close to midnight they all finished up and were kicked out of the local arcade and decided to head home, they all were living in student dorms that were provided by the state for its ‘future’ mech pilots.

Back at the door, Cyrus applied some healing ointment to his face to heal the cuts and bruises hopefully quicker as he began his daily washing and cleaning up before midnight the clocks ticked over to midnight making it his 16th birthday as he wished himself a happy birthday a voice was heard “Delivery.” he opened the door and it Sir Leo with a parcel in his hand. 

“Here you go kid take this. Took me a while to find it and it's not much but I hope you enjoy it.” handing over the parcel to him and quickly dashed off shouting “I better go before you get in trouble not supposed to be here.”

Opening the pack he found an old rusted medal, one he recognized that used to belong to him before the thug that he came to know as “Dagger” took off him as a kid that belonged to his Grandfather. Dagger was the other gang leader in Rogia; they used to be together under a single leader but since the death of that leader, the gang split in two with one side supporting Leo and the other supporting Dagger.

Cyrus began to bite his lip thinking back to the day it happened and swore to get revenge for it, as he did blood dropped down onto the medal and a voice entered his head with a loud bang. 

[Timer reached Zero activating sub-core. Blood registered as Rayfield activating system properties]