Chapter 24: The Legged Ship
One month.
For thirty grueling days, the massive iron doors of the warehouse remained sealed, effectively wiping Nero Argentum and Aria Veil from the face of Oak Haven. If the Vanguard Guild wondered where their newest Iron Ranks had vanished to, they couldn't find us; the ambient GM Particles flooding the drydock completely scrambled any magical tracking attempts.
Inside, it was a beautiful, deafening chaos of creation.
The old Veil Sanctuary carriage didn't survive the first week. We stripped it down to the raw chassis, but the most delicate work fell to Aria. For three straight days, she didn't sleep, her hands glowing with intense silver light as she meticulously peeled the Spatial Domain runes from the old carriage's interior.
"If I tear the arcane matrix, the expanded space collapses," she grunted, her brow beaded with sweat as she transferred the glowing silver arrays onto the massive Soul-Steel ribs I had forged for the new trailers. "But if this holds... the interior of the Archangel will be the size of a guildhall."
While she handled the spatial magic, I handled the heavy metal. I didn't have a formalized System class to guide me yet—that notification was still flashing stubbornly in my peripheral vision—but sheer, stubborn engineering was more than enough.
It was a full team effort. Bee acted as our heavy lifter, hauling massive plates of Laminated Soul-Steel. Azazel proved invaluable in his scythe form; I used his hyper-sharp edge to make precision cuts through the thickest armor plating. Fenris, ever the loyal guard, patrolled the perimeter of the warehouse, making sure nothing slipped past our jamming field.
Above us, Navigator—resting in his green H.A.R.O. chassis—was a terrifyingly efficient assistant. The green sphere bounced along the upper scaffolding, his red optical sensors flashing in rhythmic intervals.
"Armor integrity at ninety-four percent. Calculating structural tolerances," Navigator stated, his voice a flat, synthesized monotone. He dropped from the rafters and hovered beside my ear. "Aria requires the Catapult calibrations. Link requested."
"Tell her I'm sending the magnetic coil specs to the main console now," I replied, sliding out from under the massive front cab.
The launch systems were our most ambitious addition. I built twin electromagnetic launch tubes into the flanks of the carrier's cab to fire compressed cores like railgun slugs. But the real masterpiece was the primary catapult: a seventy-foot-long reinforced electromagnetic track running directly down the dorsal spine of the trailers. It was designed for the day I finally forged a full-sized mobile suit.
The Naming
By the end of the fourth week, the drydock was eerily quiet. The Archangel was a monster. It sat in the center of the room, a seventy-foot-long, double-articulated mobile fortress of white and red Laminated Soul-Steel. The front tractor cab was aggressively armored, flanked by the massive "legs" housing the Lohengrin cannons.
Aria stepped out onto the catwalk circling the cab, leaning over the railing. She looked exhausted, covered in grease and soot, but her smile was blinding.
"The Gottfried turrets are synced," she called down. "The Spatial Domains are stable. The Magnesser field is primed."
"Then let's wake her up," I said.
We walked to the primary boarding ramp. The heavy Soul-Steel hatch hissed, lowering to the floor. We stepped inside, and the sheer scale of the spatial expansion hit me. The corridors had the vaulted, metallic grandeur of a dreadnought. We moved past the reinforced blast doors and stepped onto the main command bridge.
Aria slid into the co-pilot's seat, her hands hovering over the arcane arrays. I sat in the captain's chair, the leather creaking under my weight. A soft metallic click sounded behind my ear as Azazel fluttered in, his silver raven form perching on the back of my seat, his blue optics whirring as he surveyed our new home.
I reached up, giving his metal beak a quick tap, then looked at the empty circular port in the center of the main console.
"Navigator," I commanded. "Dock and initiate."
The green sphere bounced into the room, did a mid-air flip, and slotted perfectly into the console port. His twin red eyes flashed as he hardwired into the massive carrier's nervous system.
"Navigator docked. GM Drive sync stable," the H.A.R.O. unit reported.
Immediately, a secondary, deeper synthesized voice began to emanate from the bridge speakers. It was cold, precise, and devoid of personality—the dormant OS of the ship itself, now processed through the bio-mechanical efficiency of the H.A.R.O. unit.
[ORGANOID CORE INTERFACE V.01 INITIALIZED.]
[AWAITING SYSTEM DESIGNATION...]
Aria looked at the flickering holographic display, then out at the massive white hull visible through the workshop cameras. She reached out, resting a hand on the console.
"We can't just call her a Core Interface," Aria whispered, her silver eyes softening. "This is the Archangel. She's our guardian. We'll call her Angel."
The console chirped, a small green text box appearing on the screen.
[DESIGNATION ACCEPTED: ANGEL]
[MAGNESSER SYSTEM ONLINE. AEGIS FIELD AT STANDBY.]
The entire seventy-foot rig shuddered. A deep, resonant vrrr-wub vibrated through the floorboards. Slowly, smoothly, the Archangel lifted off the concrete floor, hovering three feet in the air on a silent cushion of GM Particles.
The Departure
"Pack it up," I said, gripping the steering controls. "Get Bee and Fenris inside. We're leaving."
Under the cover of midnight, with Navigator and Angel pumping out a thick ECM field to scramble detection, the Archangel glided silently out of the warehouse doors. We passed the massive stone walls of Oak Haven, drawing only a few baffled stares from the night watch before we vanished into the darkness.
We didn't look back. I steered the massive hovering ship straight toward the untamed wilderness of the frontier.
I looked at the glowing System notification that had been waiting patiently for a month. We had the engine. We had the logic units. We had the mobile drydock. We had broken every rule of Alterian magic, and the proof was currently hovering at forty miles per hour over the dirt roads of the frontier.
It was finally time to accept our classes. I pulled up my current status readout.
[SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC READOUT]
Subject Name: Nero Argentum
Power Core: Alpha-Class GM Drive
Level: 10
Class: [UNKNOWN - PENDING CONFIRMATION]
Construct Roster: [PENDING EVOLUTION SEQUENCE]
I took a deep breath, looked over at Aria, and finally pressed the glowing blue prompt.