The Mech Touch

An alien paradise.

That was what Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson thought as his Dark Zephyr flitted from asteroid to asteroid.

Each of the ones he visited were occupied by different numbers of fish-whales. The more desolate ones only contained a few hundred of the beasts while the more populated ones easily held hundreds of thousands if not more of the massive creatures!

The more fish-whales he encountered, the more he wondered how these creatures even kept themselves fed.

Though his Dark Zephyr had spotted plenty of areas that contained alien flora, none of them contained any beasts as far as the sensors could tell him. Even if the fish-whales were herbivores, there were way too many of them for the plants and forests to keep their bellies full!

So far, Tusa had only spotted one of the means the fish-whales sated their hunger.

They grouped up with each other and targeted any of their fellow brethren that looked a little weaker than the rest. As long as the conditions were right, the hungry fish-whales did not hesitate to gang up on their target in order to secure their meals by force!

The disturbing part of this process was that any of the attackers that sustained serious injuries often turned into an extra snack for the fellow victors!

"What a cruel and vicious race!" Tusa sneered.

Though his initial explorations did not leave him with a lot of respect towards this primitive and unintelligent race, that slowly changed as he examined the circumstances on the other asteroids.

The initial ones he explored were all filled with large populations of fish-whales. Many of them tended to cluster at certain locations, though he did not know why at first.

Up to tens of thousands of the fish monsters milled about at certain spots. The elite fish-whales generally kept the stupider and more unruly white fish-whales under control, but with so many aggressive creatures concentrated in specific areas, fights were bound to happen!

Venerable Tusa actually looked forward to these frequent incidents. As long as his Dark Zephyr flew close enough, its passive sensors could record a lot of useful data from the various bouts.

Of course, the ordinary brawls between the grunt fishes weren't worth his nice. The white fish-whales were too ordinary to catch his attention.

What Tusa was keen to observe was the other varieties of elite fish-whales.

He and many other humans had long suspected that the fish-whale race had more subspecies than three different colored variants.

Now, his Dark Zephyr obtained conclusive proof that what the expeditionary forces encountered had only exposed a fraction of the diversity of this race!

He had spotted plenty of new varieties among the crowds of grunt fishes on the most populated asteroids.

The one subspecies that caused him to feel a bit of alarm was when he stumbled upon the fattest fish-whale he had seen so far! The yellow monster looked as big and massive as a heavy mech, but that wasn't all. The new variant also stood out because it possessed more eyes than the other fish-whales!

Twelve big eyes were placed around its body, providing the fat, yellow fish-whale with all-round coverage.

Initially, Venerable Tusa thought he had kept a safe distance from the cluster of fish-whales that he was studying.

The yellow fish-whale soon proved him wrong by locking on to the expert mech with its dark eyes before spitting a powerful jet of liquid straight towards the Dark Zephyr!

"Damnit!"

Venerable Tusa did not expect to encounter a fish-whale with a ranged attack. All of the ones he had seen so far only used their physical bodies to attack their enemies. The yellow fish-whale's actions completely caught him off-guard for a moment, so much so that his Dark Zephyr had to adopt an awkward posture in order to get out of the way of the surprisingly accurate ranged attack!

The fast jet did not soar up forever. Eventually, the low gravity of the asteroid exerted its effect and dragged it down until it hit the empty rock.

The sizzling and other disconcerting reactions showed that the yellow fish-whale attacked by firing a jet of corrosive liquid!

Though Tusa did not think that the corrosive spit could burn through the Unending alloy plating his expert mech all at once, the more vulnerable components could easily be taken out. He would have to end his scouting mission early if all the sensor arrays got taken out at once!

"You can't take me by surprise anymore!"

Now that Tusa became fully aware of the threat posed by the yellow creature that he had taken to calling the spitter fish, it was trivially easy for his expert mech to evade the follow-up attacks.

The Dark Zephyr nimbly weaved and dodged as Tusa sought to test the spitter fish's combat capabilities.

Though Tusa did not dare to go too close and get surrounded by all of the grunt fishes, he did his best to explore the spitter fish's strengths and limitations.

After dodging a few volleys, he gained a good measure of their threat.

"This spitter fish is like a cannoneer mech. It can't spit that fast, but each hit can disable a mech! The accuracy and precision of its attacks aren't bad either."

The biggest constraint of the spitter fish was that its spit could only reach so far. They arced back to the surface of the asteroid after flying a moderate distance.

This meant that ranged mechs could easily eliminate this spitter fish by hovering beyond its maximum range!

However, the spitter fish appeared to be well-geared towards resisting ranged attacks. Their large, meaty bodies were able to absorb a lot of hits.

"Is this all you got?!"

Perhaps the yellow fish-whale took offense at Tusa's impertinence, because it suddenly spat a different glob of spit that happened to be glowing like a green lightbulb!

As soon as this bright green jet launched in the direction of the Dark Zephyr, the hundreds of white grunt fishes that accompanied the spitter fish abruptly left their positions and followed the path of the glowing spit!

"Yikes! It's time to leave!"

The Dark Zephyr was a poor whale-killing mech. It did not carry a long and massive whale-cutting saber like the Bolvos Rage. Though its knives were still deadly enough to carve up the grunt fishes, their killing efficiency was too low against these monsters!

Tusa had no qualms about running from the provoked fish-whales. His job was to scout and collect valuable observation data. Fighting only inhibited his purpose.

After stumbling upon the spitter fish, he encountered several other rare varieties among the clusters milling about on different continents.

He encountered a purple fish-whale that was three times the size of an ordinary mech and possessed a huge maw that it used to the fullest extent.

The biter fish was able to use its strong and huge maw to bite through weaker opponents or grapple onto stronger opponents!

Whenever the latter happened, the victim stuck between its jaws became completely vulnerable to the attacks of other friendly fish-whales!

"Can't let them get close."

Tusa also encountered an even deadlier green fish-whale. He called it the warp fish because of how actively it made use of phasewater to perform a variety of abilities.

The warp fish was able to form a space barrier to block the attacks from a hostile spitter fish.

The warp fish was able to warp the surrounding space so that its allied grunt fishes were able to reach their opponents faster.

The warp fish even exhibited the ability to form a small localized spatial disturbance that inflicted moderate internal damage onto the hostile spitter fish!

As soon as the massive yellow fish-whale got hit by the last attack, it practically lost its ability to spit more attacks.

Unfortunately for the warp fish, the spitter fish got the last laugh. The fat yellow fish self-destructed, spraying whatever corrosive acid it contained onto the surroundings!

Many grunt fishes died a painful death as their bodies upon contact!

The Dark Zephyr managed to capture all of this, causing Tusa to become more and more vigilant towards the fish-whales.

"These elite variants really shouldn't be underestimated."

The scouting mission continued. The Dark Zephyr encountered a few more varieties, but they were too sparse for Tusa to feel concerned.

It was only when his expert mech approached the largest central asteroid that the Dark Zephyr paused.

Tusa did not dare to get any closer. According to the long-ranged sensors of his expert mech, the central asteroid contained over half a million fish-whales, and that was only the ones that were visible from one of its sides!

His instincts screamed as he thought about getting closer.

Though his expert mech also spotted signs of artificial structures and strange terrain features, Tusa did not want to provoke this massive nest. Who knew whether there were stronger fish subspecies on this massive landmass that could pose a threat against expert mechs?

"This must definitely be a key location to the fish-whales!"

The expert pilot did not think he would be able to gain anything further without crossing a dangerous line, so he resolutely pulled out his expert mech and explored a different asteroid instead.

The other ones were much more reasonable in comparison. After exploring enough of them, the sights he encountered suddenly changed.

The asteroids he explored next no longer contained as many fish swarms as before.

It wasn't uncommon for Tusa to encounter tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of fish-whales at the previous locations.

Now, his expert mech hardly spotted concentrations that surpassed a thousand fish-whales!

"What is going on?" Venerable Tusa wondered.

The fish-whales he encountered next were no longer distinguishable by their colors and sizes.

Instead, they became more… individual. They came in different shapes and sizes. Many of them boasted multiple colors, some of which were shaped in patterns.

It was like looking at many different cat breeds at once!

Due to all of the uncertainty, Tusa did not dare to stray too close to these individualistic fish-whales. Who knew what powers they possessed?

In fact, his instinct already told him that numerous perceptive fish-whales already caught sight of his expert mech!

They simply did not bother to take action because the Dark Zephyr maintained a lot of distance from their location.

"I'll go now."

Tusa learned his lesson and made sure his Dark Zephyr stayed further away from the fish-whales.

It wasn't until he explored an adjacent asteroid that he finally encountered a drastic sight.

"These… these are structures!"

Massive structures the size of starships or greater were clustered on various points of the asteroids.

They looked like they were big enough to house phase whales, so Tusa immediately guessed they were created by the same party responsible for making Purgatory.

What reinforced this suspicion was the fact that many of them looked aged and derelict. Many of the structures actually looked like ruins. The fish-whales that claimed these territories basically squatted on them without doing anything further.

The more intact structures were more interesting, though. Tusa spotted plenty of activity from them and the individualistic fish-whales that roamed around them looked healthier and stronger.

As Tusa continued to explore this interesting landmass from a distance, he suddenly encountered a sight that subverted his expectations.

Tens of thousands of mono-colored fish-whales had departed from a nearby asteroid and flew over to the lab asteroid!

It did not seem as if they were paying a friendly visit to their neighbors, and what happened next proved Tusa right!

"They're attacking each other!"

Guided by the glowing spit launched by the yellow fish-whales, hordes of white fish-whales descended upon their individualistic cousins!

The defenders were not caught off-guard and already formulated their own response.

Some of them launched plasma bolts. Others utilized phasewater to slow down and debilitate the attacking fish. A few even launched fleshy bombs that fractured and struck the surrounding grunt fishes with damaging spikes!

Tusa became completely shocked by this instance of fish-on-fish warfare!

"It's… it's a civil war! The fish-whales are divided!"