mech pilot who got separated from their mecha when their civilisation was domestication and their military got dissolved. despite all attempts to help them, they still have persistent phantom sensation from the limbs that they used to have but no longer do; constantly missing the feeling of a rifle in hands that don't feel the right size, feeling blind and deaf without all of the enhanced feedback from sensors capable of a hundred times greater acuity than their own body
eventually, however, one particular affini reads their medical file and comes up with an idea. she files a notice of intent on the pilot, then swiftly heads over to their hab and whisks them away the next morning. they don't even bother resisting; having long since given up hope that things will get better, and unable to imagine any way they could get worse
the affini takes them home and lays them down on a surgery table, promising them that soon, everything is going to feel right again. they expect nothing, presuming her to be lying to them, but they feel a great weight behind their eyes, and a moment later, they fall closed.
it feels like they've only blinked, but when they reopen them, everything is different. every sense that was missing is suddenly there again. they look down at their arms to find them just the right size; their body no longer one of flesh, but of gleaming white metal plates, pulsating with thin green lines of a material they don't recognise. it takes them a moment to realise what it is: under their metal skin are muscles and tendons made out of vines, their former optical sensors replaced with sight blossoms, and their rifle woven back together from a mixture of bark, chambered with rounds made of amber
most of all, they are no longer alone. they could feel their mech before, but it's different this time; as if the sensation surrounding them isn't quite their own, but a body that is both theirs and not. a faint, slow pulsing that shifts in time with every movement, guiding them to know exactly where to look, and what to do. moments later, they hear a voice whispering- not into their ear, but directly into their mind, just like their onboard AI used to:
"Good morning, my precious little Pilot."
“Why should rich people pay more” because fuck ‘em
“So you are okay for paying more when you have money” I am not excluded from ‘fuck ‘em’ when relevant
having pet stick bugs is fun because every so often i will hear the distinct sound of several stick bug falling and ill go to check on them and find them all in a pile on the ground of their enclosure and i have to figure out if theyve just decided that its floor time now or if they kept mistaking each other for actual sticks again and bundled together the ceiling until gravity got the best of them.
blaze can do this
We are a rather small squad of mercenary Lancers that formed on a planet that Union didn't even give a name, just a number. I am callsign: The Fist. My pronouns are she/they and while I love women, I enjoy fighting a lot more. That's an open invitation to you strong ladies to hit me up by the way. The depressed looking one with blue hair is callsign: Metal_Star. Its pronouns are it/its and it seems to enjoy combat just as much as I do. That girl with fox tails and fox ears working on her mech is callsign: Lunar Fox. Her pronouns are she/her and she is definitely new to this mercenary business. I intend to help her learn the basics, like aiming for the weak points of an enemy mech without being afraid of a stray shot piercing the enemy cockpit.
Mech handler hearing the new pilot instinctively talk about her mech in first person, as if it were "herself," and looking at her with a mix of sorrow and excitement because oh, this one has the talent. The handler has seen this kind of pilot only a few times before, and knows commanding her will be the highest, heaviest honor. Only by becoming one with their mech can a pilot reach the height of their skills, and it comes so naturally to her. She's going to be magnificent, dancing across the battlefield to a song of clashing blades and cannon fire, a presence that graces friend and foe alike by lifting them from the grit and making them, if only for a moment, part of something sublime. And she will never stop, never retire, never refuse a mission, never again know lasting peace, because her art is war and this performance only ends when the dancer is dead.
why do we even have legal genders anyway. maybe we should not have those
the best way to do trans fem sonic is metal transitions and she chooses to stop fighting sonic and live in peace knowing shes truly her own person then a week later by total coincidence sonic also transitions and metal immediately starts trying to kill her again for copying her
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