Chapter 65 - Growing up (1/2)

Princess Bang-Gwi, Chuhan Jwi, and Marquis Mehhnk reached the mech hangar and saw a group of Hegemony pilots and soldiers standing around looking up into one of the gantries while talking excitedly amongst themselves.

"What are they looking at?" The Princess whispered to the Marquis.

"Your mech… it is a thing of beauty!" the Marquis said with envy.

The Princess got excited from this thinking it had to be amazing if all of the other pilots and soldiers were looking at it so much.

Unfortunately as the mech came in to view both the Princess and Chuhan Jwi gasped and blinked a few times to make sure they were actually seeing what they were seeing.

The mech stood tall and proud amongst other mechs as it was approximately one meter taller than the standard military mech. The armor plating was applied liberally and was given enough details etched out on it to make it look like a suit of armor including a helmet. The shoulders were given armor that was molded to make it look like the head of a phoenix looking to the sides, and the feet were even given boots with golden wing decorations on it. As for weapons, per the Princess's request, all guns were removed, but it was bristling with missile launchers and probably had even more weapon hidden inside of it. The mech was painted white and the armor accents were all given a shiny gold finish making it appear like a shiny golden knight, a truly gaudy look for a mech. To top it all off, the wrists each had a large clear gem of sorts on them and a large gem on the chest.

"Why… why so much gold?" asked the princess, when she noticed the missile launchers she got very angry and added "HEY! I said no weapons!"

"No, you said no guns yesterday, and as you requested this mech does not contain a single gun, but it does contain our latest in anti-mech missile weaponry, anti-laser defenses, reactive armor plating, electric whip, and a prototype high energy nuclear reactor." The Marquis said with envy once again.

"You… son of a…" The Princess stamped her feet in frustration, but realized that she did indeed say 'no guns' when she should've said 'no weapons'. "UHGGGG" the Princess finally vented.

While the Princess was venting, Chuhan Jwi asked the Marquis with concern "Doesn't this mech stand out a little too much, won't she be the target of everything seeing as how this mech stands out so much compared to the others?"

"Oh, you're right, and I tried to talk the Queen out of it. We ended up settling on that we can change the color after the last parade. Unfortunately the gold plating is actually a new type of armor so we can only put a layer of paint on it that can be scratched off like any other paint. The natural color of the white painted parts is the standard dark gray so no worries about paint getting destroyed there."

The Princess finally blurted out "Can we at least not make it as shiny?"

After the crowd dispersed around the Princess's mech, the technicians were able to apply an anti-glare coat to reduce how shiny it was. The Princess was satisfied with this and then said to the Marquis "Ok, what now?"

"Now we teach you to use it and train you like everyone else. Prepare to get dirty as it rained recently so our training field is quite muddy!" The Marquis said with a grin.

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The Princess and Chuhan Jwi followed the Marquis out to the training field, already many other pilots and soldiers were mingling around. As soon as they saw the Marquis they immediately lined up in orderly rows and stood at attention as the Marquis came up in front of them.

"Soldiers! Attention!" the Marquis barked loudly.

A unified reply came from all of the soldiers present at the same time. "Sir! Good morning, sir!"

"At ease! Today we have a late comer, I'm sure all of you know who she is." The Marquis gestured towards the Princess.

The Princess started to say "Hello Ever…"

The Marquis quickly interrupted and yelled "Did I give you permission to speak soldier?" while glaring at the Princess. "You may be above even nobility, but out here everyone is the same under my command, now form rank with everyone else!"

The Princess's face flushed red with embarrassment and she looked around at the neatly arranged rows of everyone else and hurriedly joined in an empty spot at the back.

Chuhan Jwi glared at the Marquis and whispered to him "We will talk about this later." then stood behind the Marquis trying to keep sight of the Princess.

"Everyone partner up and stretch! We start the obstacle course in 30 minutes!" The Marquis said then walked off towards the start of an obstacle course.

As soon as the Marquis left, the soldiers and pilots were quiet momentarily and then flocked around the Princess.

"Princess! Pick me!"

"No! Let me!"