Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

Quest: Prove your worth in the Mechaseum (Remote Arms)

Description: If you want to learn the secrets of remote fighting, you must display your mastery of the basics first: Win three Mechaseum fights.

Rewards: Permitted to learn the Remote Arms class

Penalty: None

Difficulty: Variable

Aito read the quest and wanted to fight. However, she was sure that Flora would select Aidan because he controlled the more powerful robot. She wanted to drive the Mover! No, it was fine that Aidan piloted it. Power was bad for her. It was too addicting, and she would misuse it.

When Flora had slept, she had inserted her Jack in the Mover and had tested it out−Only five minutes. Of course, Aidan had noticed it and Droam as well. No, not Droam. She didn't have the right to name the dreamer toaster golem, even though she had adopted Flora's ridiculous naming convention.

So, the Octopussy was fine. It was great, really great. The user made the difference, not the tool. Nonetheless, her subpar performance in the tower grated her. She was last on the contribution list. Even Droam− eh, the Tolly with nocks− was better than her. Sure, she had the weakest device, but that was no excuse!

"So any volunteers for the Arena fights?" Flora asked.

*beep*! Damnation, she sounded too enthusiastic.

"Of course, Milady. I'm ready to fight for you any time." Mr. Perfect said.

"I'm not sure who I should choose. The Mover is weak against metal enemies because the blenders can't damage them efficiently. However, I feel as if I would cheat if I'd sent Aito…"

Aito giggled. Her owner was right, and she appreciated that she still had Flora's trust after her abysmal performance in the tower. However, that woman was way too trusting generally, so she shouldn't overestimate its significance.

Flora took out a coin and tossed it. Head. "Aito, you're up. Do you have any weight class preferences? Forget that I have asked. We'll enquire which category has the shortest waiting time. We have only 20 minutes left."

To nobody's surprise 10 MR/min devices were the most popular. Players started with 10 Magical Regeneration, and the Cradle was the starting world.

Soon, Aito faced her first opponent, a tin can. When it moved its bulky limbs, wires peered out.

Aito's perception of construction errors had been sharpened under Flora's tutelage. While she had read some textbooks about technology, witnessing an experienced creator's little tricks catapulted her Mechanics and Electronics ability to new heights. Additionally, it felt more like rediscovering the abilities than learning them for the first time.

Aito danced to the left. When the tin can's head followed her movement, she targeted the wires that the movement revealed.

Her four simultaneous shots landed exactly where she had planned. They severed the wires. Sparks rained, then smoke billowed. The tin can froze.

"Winner: Flowing Flowers with Aito's Octopussy." A mechanical voice announced.

"Hmm, difficult." Flora transmitted.

Aito didn't know what her owner meant. Wrecking the tin can couldn't be the subject of Flora's musing. That had been easy. She didn't want to ask. She had spoken too much in the last few days. She had to stop. But it was so easy communicating with Flora and Aidan. She had to stop. They had to stop talking about interesting topics! No, it was on her. She had broken her vow of silence.

Nothing bad had happened, but it was a slippery slope. Now, she was interested in what Flora was thinking. The next step would be the desire to influence her owner's thought processes. Then she would start manipulating and politicking, and at the end, everything would turn to shambles, and someone would be dead.

Beeping was okay. Flora understood her thought-feeling laden beeps reasonably well. So there was no need for words. A few beeps couldn't be bad.

*Beep*?

"Never mind, dear. I was thinking about pretending to be less powerful. However, we are on a schedule. Furthermore, such fancy tricks tend to backfire."

Aito's next opponent was a nine-tailed fox drone. The tip of each tail held a laser crystal—what a waste. With the power of 10 MR/min, only two shots per second were possible.

"Don't underestimate them, dear," Flora said. "This is a very nicely constructed drone. Two of the tails are pointing at its body. They could be repairing lasers."

Aito beeped derisively. That woman had read her mind again. Maybe she should heed her warning. Aito would see for herself what the fox is made of.

"Ready…Set…Fight!"

A skill entered Aito's link but winked out before it could fully form. Aito ignored it. Her owner hadn't figured out that "technology only" in the zone description meant she couldn't use any skills. She used her second runtime thread to pop a link in Flora's HUD. Her first focused on the fight.

Aito dodged to the left again. She wanted to establish a pattern so that she had the surprise on her side when she broke it. Simultaneously, she opened fire.

"Does that mean I can't cast any skills? Not even technological skills?" Flora exclaimed. She sat at the controller booth above the arena. The drone pilots enjoyed prime seats overlooking the pit separate from the audience.

The first two shots of the fox hit the arena's floor. The next grazed the Octopussy's knife-carrying tentacle.

"Yes, Milady. However, you may use the built-in skills and features of your technology. While you can work around the metal handicap with metal resistance in the magic-restricted zones and the anti-tech radiation with EMP-shielding and in the technology-restricted zones, there are zones where some skills or gadgets are just canceled. You encountered the skill restriction in the Seven-Master-Dojo before."

The tails were in the same position as before. Instead, the fox rotated itself to follow Aito. She found its weakness or maybe the weakness of the drone pilot.

"Well, I couldn't cast skills there, but my already running links weren't influenced. Here, my runes gave out. Okay, that's a boost and not a skill. I'll keep that in mind for later testing." Flora said. "Aito, the fox moved its entire body to follow you. Maybe the tails have limited movement."

*beep* (I know. I have excellent sensors. No need to humansplain.)

The obvious solution was to flank the fox. Unfortunately, the drone needed less movement to turn than Aito needed to flank it. Additionally, the Octopussy had no movement skills to bridge the gap.

Aito focused her shots on the tail, strafing to the left.

The robot animals traded laser beams. Aito dodged most of them, whereas the damage on the fox grew. When one of the laser tails stopped working, a green glow beamed on the back of the fox. Flora had correctly identified the repair lasers.

<Rapid Fire>

Aito used her opponent's lowered firing rate to inflict a maximum of hurt. This time, she aimed at the healing tails with her tentacle lasers and at the head with her eye-lasers.

The fox charged at the Octopussy. While it still had three functioning forward-lasers, the pilot knew that Aito outclassed him in a ranged fight.

Both robots never stopped shooting or moving. Although Aito dodged most of the beams, some scored. While the Octopussy's padding buffered the two hits on her head, her appendages were only lightly armored. A bad call combined with foxy luck severed one of her laser tentacles.

As soon as Aito's Rapid Fire had destroyed the fox's armament, she switched to its legs. Her beams seared through its front legs, slowing down the fox's charge.

However, the fox was nearly upon her. Its mouth opened, showing sharp teeth and a hole where the throat would be at a real animal. Aito didn't think that the drone used the passage for eating or breathing. Wary, she dodged to the left. Not a second afterward, fire billowed from the fox's mouth.

Aito halted the Octopussy's momentum by stabbing her knife into the fox's torso. Screeching, the knife glanced off the shiny metal plates. Still, the maneuver led to a tighter turn. Now, behind the drone, she targeted its hind legs. Laser and vibro knife sawed at the joints.

"Wow, those joints are great. They soaked up three to five hits each. Get me some high-resolution pictures of them, Aito," Flora said.

Dutifully, Aito moved her camera tentacle to capture them from multiple angles.

Just when she cut off the first hindleg, the fox kicked out. It hit the tentacle with the vibro-knife and pushed it against her camera tentacle, separating the tip.

Humiliation washed over Aito. Getting hit now and then was unavoidable, but severing your own appendages was too embarrassing! If it would happen to anyone else, she would never let them off!

Aito retreated. With only one functioning leg left, the fox was a sitting duck. The urge to humilate the drone was strong, but Aito suppressed it and killed it cleanly.

"Winner: Flowing Flowers with Aito's Octopussy."

Aito limped out of the Arena, and Flora snatched her up.

"My poor dear!" The auntie cooed. She removed Aito's jack from the destroyed Octopussy and inserted it into a new one. Then she fetched two repairing turrets and let them fire on the damaged robot.

Aito colored her new ride in a grey camouflage pattern. Now, she took the challenge seriously! Such a disgrace wouldn't repeat itself.

Smiling, Flora patted the Octopussy's head. "It's alright, Aito. The fox was quite the sophisticated drone. You did well."

*beep beep* Aito dodged Flora's hand. If she could choose a right to have, it would be the right to sulk in peace! Okay, if she could choose two rights to have, the second one would be to sulk in peace. The first one would be to read any book she wanted.

When the third fight started, Aito tore into the poor mobile artillery like a hungry Flora into a toast, only with more lasers involved in the process.

Although her enemy fired high-caliber shells, Aito had no problem dodging them. While it took some time to whittle down the heavy armor, she accelerated the process by activating Rapid Fire from the get-go. When the skill ended, she had reduced the mobile artillery to scrap metal.

Flora clapped and hollered. Jumping down from her booth, she picked up the Octopussy and ran to the Mechaseum's school section. They were cutting it close.

Aito wrapped her tentacles around Flora and rested her head against the auntie's back. They used this mode of transportation regularly, especially when Flora did free-running or other activities the Octopussy had a hard time keeping up with. It was just the most practical configuration and purely coincidental that it resembled a hug. That it felt nice was probably due to the efficiency of that position. Aito had a good view and could deploy her lasers easily.

---

The Remote Arms course was totally different than the other courses Flora had visited. No skills were taught. Instead, they learned about techniques.

The class was primarily for pilots and how to transfer their avatar abilities to their drones. In hindsight, it was logical that doing Jiu-Jitsu and controlling a drone with two joysticks to do Jiu-Jitsu was something different.

The instructor, a grizzled male steel Metaling, described what they could use immediately, like judgment, awareness, move-knowledge, and methodology.

The tricky part came afterward: transferring or transforming muscle memory into remote control.

When Aito piloted a robot, she didn't use a controller. Instead, she inhabited the machine. Adjusting to a robot was like adjusting to a new body. For others, it might be challenging to even walk as an octopus or move and attack with propellors. For her, it came naturally. Sure she needed some minutes to figure out the intricacies, but it was a subconscious routine.

While Aito couldn't use everything the teacher addressed, she profited quite a bit.

With the tutelage of the lecturer, Aito identified what she had been doing all along. The meditation exercise helped her awareness and filled in the holes in her process that she hadn't even known were there. Her already high piloting abilities increased.

Aidan participated intensively. Flora, on the other hand, cultivated her mana and only listened with half an ear. Oh well, Aito vividly remembered the piloting disaster at the Sweeping Blow Aptitude test and hoped her owner had given up on remote controlling tech.

Umbrella Class: Remote Arms

Branch: Technology

Passive: + 1 Training efficiency modifier for Abilities when they are remote controlled

Active: Ability Level Values apply to piloted devices.