“Gentlemen. This is Luke Moore and Allen Conrad of Monster Jaegers,” Mrs. Waller said. She turned to Luke and said, “These men will be the ones evaluating your invention and deciding if we wish to proceed with a purchasing agreement. Lieutenant General Castelmore, Vice Admiral Batz, and Director Lupiac.”

  Mrs. Waller was a severe looking older woman, thin with long black hair. She had a perpetual scowl, the type that made you flinch whenever she looked your way. But the three men sitting around the conference table were somehow even more intimidating. The Air Force guy was a grizzled old man, bald with leathery skin. He acted like he was a moment away from leaving in a huff. The Navy guy was tall and wide. He literally looked down his nose at Luke. The guy from SPEAR was short and round. He sniffed at Luke and Allen like they had stepped in dog shit on the way to the conference room.

  Director Lupiac said, “For future reference, young men, it’s common practice to arrive at least fifteen minutes before a meeting so that you don’t waste our valuable time.”

  Luke bit his lip. They were right on time, not late. He said, “I apologize. I should have known from my days in the National Guard that on time is late. Let’s jump right into the presentation so that we can honor your schedule.”

  “If it’s just rehashing the information sent in the packet, we don’t need to waste our time with it,” Lieutenant General Castelmore said. “My people tell me that the performance claims are fantastical, and the material costs suspiciously low. After the disaster that was the previous mech design, I don’t want to get my hopes up. I believe it would be the best use of our time to jump straight to the demonstration. If you can deliver what you are promising, we’ll have a much more in-depth conversation.”

  Vice Admiral Batz said, “My people said something similar, they said it was too good to be true.”

  Director Lupiac nodded along. Luke noticed how each of them were looking at Mrs. Waller, not him. Apparently there were some politics going on in the background that he was unaware of. They all disliked her for some reason. Maybe it had to do with her real position in the government. She reported directly to the Secretary of Defense, but was outside the normal command structure. She claimed to be a civilian military liaison, but no one like that had enough pull to put together a meeting like this.

  Luke found that he didn’t care.

  He wanted this mech design to be spread far and wide. The politics around how that happened were irrelevant. He was going to focus on the demonstration. Afterwards he expected all three men to eat their words and clamor for his designs.

  “I understand, gentlemen,” Luke said calmly. “We have a working model outside, let’s go see it now. I understand you have an obstacle course and shooting range we can use, yes?”

  They turned to Mrs. Waller and she nodded. “Follow me, gentlemen.”

  She led the way and the five men followed her like ducklings in a row. A short walk later they arrived at some grand stands and an obstacle course. It was flimsily built with raw plywood, clearly a last minute addition. Past the obstacle course was a rugged shooting range with a heavily pitted ground.

  Luke walked up to the crate at the bottom of the stairs. It was nailed shut, but with his class buffs from his leg, he simply tore off the sides. The foam padding fell off and revealed the red mech.

  “This, gentlemen and lady, is the LMS model infantry mech. It weighs 1.2 tons and is powered by a single tier one core,” Luke loudly said as the four of them sat down on the bleachers. He slotted the marble sized core into the back of the mech and buttoned it up. “It’s an amazingly versatile combat platform in the hands of someone like me, but I have a class. It’s an unfair advantage that some of your soldiers don’t have. So we’ll start the presentation with Allen piloting the power armor. He’s had less than an hour of practice so I hope you’ll forgive any fumbles.”

  Allen looked nervous, but he would much rather pilot than talk in front of important people. He slipped into the mech and quickly stood up. The officers perked up when Allen started smoothly walking around with his new nine foot tall frame.

  He quickly got used to the armor and enhanced dexterity that came with it. He rolled his shoulders and turned the shield rune on and off. Then he saluted the grandstands and got into position at the beginning of the obstacle course.

  “Do you have a baseline for what a good time in the course is?” Luke asked them. No one seemed to know. “Well, either way, I imagine you’ll be impressed. Go ahead, Allen.”

  Allen burst into action, easily leaping over the first two walls with a single jump. He threaded through staggered walls without touching one of them. The rope net might have been a serious obstacle if he tried to carefully climb up. Instead, he activated the weight reducing flight runes and jumped the twenty feet up to the top. Then he dropped down the other side, landing lightly and running forward again.

  As he ran the course, Luke yelled out, “As you can see, the combination of pistons and dexterity runes allows for incredible power and agility.”

  The oversized tires caused Allen’s first stumble, but he rolled and kept going. Obstacle after obstacle breezed past. Towards the end of the course, he actually sped up. He jumped over the finish line and slid to a stop in the dirt.

  Mrs. Waller started clapping while the men sitting by her stared with jaws wide open.

  Luke chuckled. “Thank you for the encouragement, Mrs. Waller. We’ll see if we can’t get the others to crack a smile by the end of the demonstration.” He pointed towards their left and said, “Allen, I believe those are the two thousand pound blocks we asked for. Go ahead and pick them up.”

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  Two three foot cubes of concrete sat on the ground near the stands, each with a handle made of rebar. Allen walked over to them and slowly picked them up. He held them by his sides and walked back over to stand near Luke.

  “As you can see, the mechs help with logistics as well. That’s four thousand pounds of equipment he is carrying now, and the LMS isn’t even straining,” Luke said. He gave Allen a nod and said, “Go ahead.”

  Allen turned and started running the obstacle course again, this time holding over two tons of concrete by his side. He was naturally slower than the first time, but still faster than an unloaded human could run. He couldn’t do some of the obstacles like the cargo net, but he completed the others all without a single stumble.

  When he returned to the start, Luke loudly said, “If you’ll head over to the observation bunker, I’ll swap out with Allen and we’ll move on to the live fire portion.”

  He walked up to the LMS model mech and gave Allen a high five as he climbed out. Luke adjusted the height slightly and climbed in himself. Allen slowly walked over to the observation bunker, like he was walking to his death. It was his turn to talk to people.

  Luke decided to show off a bit on his way over. He waited until they were watching and then blazed through the obstacle course in less than half the time it took Allen. When he was done, he jumped thirty feet to land at the edge of the range. The Range Master didn’t appreciate the theatrics, but Luke was pretty sure the others did.

  He double checked that he was allowed to destroy the targets and went to town. He casually aimed and fired off the fire based elemental attack. He decided to call it the pyroblast. The spell was enhanced and condensed by the magnetically shielded barrel, so when it hit the fifty yard target, it exploded with full force, charring the entire target.

  The same thing happened to the hundred and two hundred yard targets. He missed the two-fifty target, and tsked to himself. He should have bonded to the armor earlier for the enhanced aim.

  Next he fired off the spellpiercer gauntlet, punching right through the fifty, hundred, and two hundred yard targets. He didn’t risk going farther than that because he didn’t want to miss again.

  Then he hopped over the berm and walked out to the fifty yard target. He hopped out of the armor, activated the mana shield and closed it back up. Keeping the mech active without a pilot had been the hardest part of preparing for this demonstration.

  Luke walked back and asked the Range Master if he had some weapons prepared. He did. To Luke’s surprise, they had only brought along mundane weapons. A M107 sniper rifle and a M320 grenade launcher. He gave the sergeant permission to fire on his mech and walked over to the bunker.

  Shortly after he ducked inside, he heard the crack of a high powered rifle. Even with a silencer, it was loud. He ignored it and walked over to the military men watching the demonstration.

  “Those pea shooters aren’t going to hurt the LMS power armor. You’ll need to use something stronger. I’m sure the US military has mana based weaponry. Can you bring some in? The main reason I designed the LMS model power armor was for use in case the Empire tries to invade again. We need to prepare for the next war, not the last one. It’ll be mana based attacks against mana shields next time, and the LMS will be on the front lines.”

  Luke leaned back against the bunker window as he talked, purposely not looking back. He didn’t flinch as more sniper rounds went off and then the explosions of the grenade launcher followed it. It wasn’t an act, the red paint from the brush artifact was enough to make the mech bulletproof.

  When the dust cleared, the LMS stood there completely unharmed. Lieutenant General Castelmore seemed vaguely upset there weren’t even scratches. Vice Admiral Batz, on the other hand, seemed excited. As soon as the range was declared safe, he hurried outside and arranged for a new weapon to be brought over.

  A small team of navy men and women returned a short while later. They wore a standard uniform with a white labcoat over the top. They all seemed very excited to set everything up. One of them hurried over the bunker with papers for everyone to sign. He got permission from Luke to do some destructive testing.

  After they had signed the very scary NDA, the range master pulled out a huge rifle. It had a large casing around the breach with runes inscribed all along. The magazine was slightly glowing blue. He unfolded a tripod and aimed for the LMS’s left arm. They wanted a comparison between the shielded and unshielded portions of the mech.

  The navy scientists huddled together at the bunker window, excited to see the results. The first shot pierced the forearm and blew the pistons and gears out the backside. A second shot to the upper arm resulted in the same level of damage. The arm was just barely hanging on.

  The scientists were still impressed with the mech’s durability. Apparently, they had expected the arm to be atomized instead. Then the magitec rifle was aimed at the mech’s chest and Luke held his breath. He knew he had a full strength mana shield covering that section, but he also knew that tank rounds could pierce mana shields. If their magitec rounds were as powerful as they looked, they might blow through the shield.

  An echoing crack heralded the next shot. A flash of blue was followed by everyone leaning forward. The mech’s chest was unharmed. A second shot followed the first, and again, the mana shield protected it. Luke breathed a sigh of relief. The testing couldn’t have gone better.

  While the scientists were packing up their experimental weapon, Lieutenant General Castelmore said, “I think we’ll take that powerpoint presentation after all.”

  Luke grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  They walked back to the office building and to the conference room. Allen hooked up his computer and ran the powerpoint while Luke spoke about material costs, rune complexities, and what the supply line and bottlenecks would look like. He wanted them to be as prepared as possible so they could start construction right away.

  After the presentation, Vice Admiral Batz said, “LMS... What does LMS stand for, anyway? Your presentation never mentioned that.”

  Luke smiled. “It stands for Luke’s Mobile Suit. It’s a reference to Mobile Suit Gundam. But you don’t have to keep that name. The military loves three letter acronyms, I’m sure you can come up with something different if you want.”

  Mrs. Waller chuckled and said, “I’m sure we’ll come up with something new.” She looked at the men assembled around the conference table. “I believe it’s safe to say we are interested, but you haven’t mentioned what you’re willing to sell the plans for.”

  Director Lupiac clasped his hands and leaned forward. “Actually, gentleman, I think you’ll have to do this deal with me. I can now reveal that Mr. Moore is a member of SPEAR. He developed this design after training by my men and with my support. That makes it the property of my organization. I’m ordering him to hand the designs over to me for the good of the nation, so you’ll have to go through me to lease the designs.”