The hammer blows rang out in a hypnotic pattern and Elijah allowed his mind to drift off with them as he contemplated the problem in front of him. The Tablet kept in the dashboard of the APC kept shorting out at inopportune moments and the cause wasn’t immediately apparent, not a life or death issue but one persistent enough to annoy everyone that had to deal with it. The hardware all seemed in order so with a reluctant sigh he took a good look out of the slot that passed for the vehicles “window”. The only other person in the makeshift repair bay was Zaza preforming percussive maintenance on an armored panel so he reached out to test the software, not with any sort of device or the myriad tools at his belt but a swell of power and his bare hand laid flat against the screen. He had to be careful not to lose himself to the pulsing warmth that seemed to fill his skull but soon a familiar phrase rose to the forefront of his mind.

[Hello World.]

He took a moment to cycle the tablet with his power, centering himself with a deep breath before carefully sending a message to the machine.

[Hey. Cut that shit out.]

[...] The lack of response from the tablet was telling so he tried a different track.

[Play nice with the APC.] He sent.

[...Acknowledged.] Good enough he thought.

He removed his hand from the screen, cutting the connection. Then firmly pulled his work glove back on. The heat was oppressive in the cramped space but that was to be expected in The Holy Republic of Varalfa. 89 days in the harsh sun dealing with every single glitch and malfunction that cared to rear it’s head had taken it’s toll and Elijah Winter was ready for this whole ordeal to be done with. Just one more day and he would be done with this tour and back home. He absently plugged the tablet into it’s slot in the dashboard and waited for the screen to turn back on. Flipping through the various apps and functions found nothing immediately wrong so he decided to call it good and exited the vehicle.

“Elijah!” The woman with the hammer paused her work long enough to call him over so he quickly jogged in her direction. “You all done with that tablet?”

“Yes’m ended up being a pretty easy fix.” he said with a lopsided grin. While he technically hadn’t stress tested his work yet, he knew his instructions would persist at least a week.

“Well how’d you like to help me out with something a little more complex?” she asked as she leaned the armor plate against a table and slotted the hammer into a loop in her tool belt.

Elijah discreetly checked the time and weighed his interest against his fatigue, as far as he knew there was only one major project left in the repair bay and as soon as he realized what it was he eagerly nodded in acceptance.

“Ha ha, yeah. Thought you’d be interested. Follow me kiddo and we’ll get right on it.” She said, adjusting her work gloves and walking towards the back wall that Solstice Security Solutions had commandeered.

As they headed towards the back of the courtyard turned repair bay Elijah’s excitement grew. Aside from his sister’s Frozen Apollo he had never had the opportunity to see a VG up close let alone work on one, and why would he? To the average soldier, seeing a VG in its element meant certain death. Averaging 5.5 meters and bristling with weapons to scale, they were formidable to say the least.

“You ever lay your eyes on something so damn pretty?” She said with a smile.

As they reached the outer wall that the unit was propped up against Elijah stopped to marvel at it. It was a shade of gray he’d call gun metal with navy blue accents. A large Mono-eye atop a rectangular head that had an antenna to one side stared blankly down at him. Where there should have been chest plating however was a ragged gaping hole that left the seat of what he assumed was the cockpit exposed and upon closer inspection the legs had scorch marks and buckled armor plating where it looked like thrusters had been mounted. Even in a kneeling position it seemed to tower over him, a weapon that defined the current era, a Vain Glory. He gave a low whistle then walked around to it’s side where he saw what he could only describe as a backpack with odd v shaped fins.

“It’s a beauty alright. What sort of audacious name does this thing have? God Slaying Spear, Heaven Drilling Face, Annihilation Aardvark?” He asked, only semi sincerely.

“Hah, good one Chico. Before I go into a whole spiel, how much do you know about these things?”

“Men can’t drive ‘em, and If I’m packing anything lower yield than a Railgun don’t bother taking pot shots.” He easily replied.

“Well, you’re wrong about the first point. Some lucky SOB got outed right before we shipped here, he’s probably down at that fancy Academy drowning in puss.”She said winking at him. “As to your second point yeah, But I was more talking about the people who make these.”

“Vain is a crackpot, beyond that? Nada.”

“Right, listen up. There are three major players as far as Vain Glory units go. First up is Glory, obviously.”

“Obviously.” He replied with a roll of his eyes. “Led by Doctor Gloria Vain I’d imagine?”

“Actually no. Glory’s CEO is a woman named Indira Izz just because the woman is a genius doesn’t mean that she can run a business, and not everyone who owns a company goes and names it after themselves...She says, to someone named Winter, heir to Solstice Security Solutions…”She trailed off.

“Ah… yeah, so VG stuff?” He said awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. The last thing he wanted her to dwell on was his family legacy, it had taken almost the entirety of his tour to get people comfortable with him and he was beginning to think his mother had a point about using an alias.

“Ahem, yes VG stuff, right! As most people know Glory specializes in Custom built VG’s, as far as anyone can tell no two custom Glory units are alike. We’re firmly in the 4th generation of VG units, though I couldn’t tell you what that officially means. Most people just accept that current gen suits outperform their predecessors. Oh, and recently Glory has released two different mass produced units. The Tengu and Oni, a high speed scout and a reportedly devastating close combatant. Rumor has it that Doctor Vain’s wife named the mass produced units, saving them from the fate of Fast Glory and Strong Glory.” She chuckled at the end.

“Second up we have Motion Intelligence. They’re run by Gail Gadsen and unlike Glory they specialize in mass produced suits. They only have two options out so far, the Zephyr and Proximo and both are out performed by Glory. I personally wouldn’t touch the damn things for reasons I’ll explain in a second”

“Lastly we have Crux, led by a man named Robert Becks. Highly decorated veteran and all around Dreamboat. They don’t just specialize in mass produced Vain Glories, to date they have released exactly one unit. The Great Machine which you see a prime specimen of kneeling before you. The Great Machine also has an amazingly versatile set of load out options.”

“Oh, what’s this one’s kit include then?” He asked, head tilted to the side and arms crossed.

“This particular bad boy is what we internally call a command unit. The back is a custom flight module with an expanded radar and comms suite, it’s also got a Railgun with a telescoping barrel and my personal favorite bit, an ax.”

“An ax?”

“An ax.” She smirked. “Back to what I was saying before though. The reason I absolutely adore these things is their safety.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked “Isn’t energy shielding standard on VG’s?”

“Yes but as I’ve hopefully been explaining to you, not all VG’s are created equal. The reason why I’d go with Crux over MI is simple, The Zephyr and Proximo have systems that actively draw on their shielding for various boosts and gimmicks whereas the GM does not. It also has the same secondary pilot safety feature as Glory equipped suits, the coffin.”

“Jeez, what kind of fucked up name is that?”

“Well we’ve pretty much established that Dr. Vain has terrible naming sense right? The coffin system is exactly what it sounds like, a big dumb box with a rescue beacon that deploys then ejects based on suit integrity and pilot vitals. It’s pretty much how the pilot of this one got to walk away completely unharmed.”

“Wait, the thing just yeets you? Whats to stop someone determined to chase you down and end you?” Elijah asked, more than a bit unnerved.

“Well a couple of things I’d think. Firstly any group worth their salt isn’t going to leave behind free materials in the form of an empty mech. Secondly, the coffin is a small target in a usually chaotic battlefield, and lastly I’ve heard that without the proper rescue frequencies they are much more trouble to crack open than they’re worth though no one is really in a rush to test that out firsthand.”

“And this isn’t a mandatory system?”

“Nope.” she said with a brief head shake.

“And that brings us to the subject of today’s repairs! Yay.” She said, flashing a pair of jazz hands for emphasis. “The Chest piece is going to be a bigger project but for now we’re going to be reinstalling the coffin, safety harnesses and maybe bolting some crash webbing to the interior.”

“Hang on, that won’t impede the ejection at all will it?”

“Nah, it’s more for just in case the harness fails. Wouldn’t want the pilot to fall out, yeah? Some vindictive Arena pilots have been known to use their coffins as a projectile, a sort of final fuck you if an opponent forces an eject so a bit of crash webbing won’t impede that.” She began to climb up the cable ladder that extended out from the open chest and motioned for Elijah to follow. Once she settled in the chair and had Elijah situated in the space behind it she turned to face him.

“Ok, cool. First things first, I need to turn this puppy on and get a systems check. Make sure no gremlins started making trouble in the night. You’re not squeamish are you?” She asked as she plugged a tablet into the arm of the pilot seat.

“Not particularly why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason…” As she said this she pulled her hair to one side revealing a port in the base of her skull then reached behind her for a large input and jacked in. Elijah expected a large click or some other kind of noise and was surprised by the relative silence. “You know test pilots had inputs all the way down their spines? Brutal looking stuff.”

“Is that...standard?” He muttered.

“Oh yeah, not painful at all. Surgery was quick and easy too, you could grab the input with both hands and try to yank it out I’d hardly feel it. Not that that’s an invitation mind you.”

Fuck, and Lumi had one of these put in? He thought to himself. As Elijah stared at the back of Zaza’s head he noticed that the input hadn’t gone all the way in and decided to just ask about it rather than stare silently.

“Oh yeah, normally there’s a helmet too s’what the extra length is for. Okay, systems all in order.” She passed the tablet to Elijah and soon the work got underway...

The air turned cool as the sun began to set and the work proceeded smoothly from start to end. As they both carefully moved under the bright orange crash webbing and down the extended cable ladder a call came over the radios at their sides.

“Esperanza, come in.”

“Go for Esperanza, what’s up?”

“We’ve got a delivery at the front gates, Not locals so Babel on got it?”

“Sure thing, is that all?”

“Nope, send Elijah to L6 please.”

“Got it, Esperanza out.”

Shoot, where was L6 again? Probably the east wing of the palace he thought to himself. He hoped whoever wanted to see him didn’t mind the grease and grime he was lightly coated in.

“Great work today, was it everything you hoped and dreamed of?” She turned and asked him.

“All that and more Zaza. Always a pleasure working with you ma’am.” He said and meant it too.

“You do good work, If I don’t see you before you head out I’ll tell your big sister all about the time we spent in close quarters so don’t be a butt, got it?”

“Got it.” He said with a laugh as they went their separate ways.