As he stared at the Skyhunter Mark IV's 3D model, Rennick steepled his fingers, elbows propped on the armrests of his chair. The virtual projection rotated slowly, casting faint blue light onto his dimly lit workspace.
"The fact that it was already one of the cheapest 2-star mechs on the virtual market," he muttered, narrowing his eyes, "and on top of that, heavily discounted… yeah, they're probably trying to dump the license."
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.
"Well, no wonder it flopped," he added. "Hybrids have never been popular with newer potentates."
It was a well-known trend. In both the real mech market and in Iron Spirit, humanoid mechs always dominated the charts. Their anatomy and movement schemes mimicked human form closely enough that fresh pilots—especially new potentates that were still in training or just out of training—could intuitively map their own bodies onto the control feedback.
Bestial and hybrid mechs? Those were different beasts entirely. Their physiology often included multi-joint legs, nonstandard limb placements, and centre-of-mass distributions that made neural interfacing tricky. You couldn't just "walk" or "sprint" with them unless you'd practiced with non-humanoid frames before.
Most pilots simply didn't bother.
"Seriously, what was I thinking?" Rennick groaned, rubbing his face with both hands. "Of all the licenses I could've picked…"
But deep down, he already knew why. It was the only 2-star mech he could afford right now. And when he first saw it—when that strange silhouette caught his eye—he hadn't hesitated. He clicked purchase without overthinking it, driven by some gut instinct.
Still, now that the rush was over, he couldn't help but doubt himself a little.
After grumbling and sulking in silence for a while, he exhaled heavily and dropped his hands from his face. The projection of the Skyhunter Mark IV continued to rotate, casting glints off its mismatched armor segments.
"Well," he said at last, sitting upright again, "what's done is done. I was confident when I bought it. No point chickening out now."
His gaze sharpened as he tapped to bring up the exploded view of the mech's schematics.
The upper body—humanoid arms, composite torso, reinforced chest struts—looked functional. Nothing groundbreaking, but well-balanced for aiming stability. The lower body, however, was where things got interesting.
Digitigrade raptor legs, reverse-jointed, with reinforced actuator rings and aggressive clawed footpads. It wasn't built for stealth, but for burst movement—covering ground in a flash, then locking in place like a predator coiled to strike.
"It's got movement potential," Rennick muttered, dragging one finger along the diagram. "The legs are overengineered for the weapons it's carrying. Maybe it was meant to reposition fast and keep enemy snipers off-balance."
Then his eyes landed on the head unit.
He blinked.
"What the hell…"
The head was, to put it mildly, underwhelming. A single central lens for targeting, surrounded by micro-sensors stuffed into a clunky box that jutted out like someone forgot it entirely until the last second and glued it on.
"It's like someone remembered they needed a head five minutes before deadline."
Functionally, it worked—it had all the minimum sensors a marksman needed—but it didn't inspire confidence. No design cohesion. No spiritual identity. The rest of the mech had a strange but deliberate design language, and the head just… didn't match.
Still, he didn't back away.
Instead, Rennick leaned closer, tapping through the customization options. It might not have been an ideal starting point, but it was his now. If no one else could see the mech's potential… maybe that was all the more reason to fix it.
As he observed the Skyhunter Mark IV's virtual frame, a slow, forming idea began to crystallize in Rennick's mind.
There was a sharpness to its posture—a constant tension in the way the digitigrade legs were coiled, the spring-loaded joints held like a predator about to lunge. Even at rest, the mech gave off a sense of readiness. Its narrow stance and slightly forward-leaning torso conveyed agility. The asymmetrical armor cuts on the chassis added a layer of unpredictability, as if it were baiting an opponent to misread its movements.
"A beast waiting for the kill," Rennick muttered, rotating the 3D model again. "Maybe that's the angle I'm looking for."
If he could amplify that concept—turn the Skyhunter from a clunky hybrid into a lethal, agile combatant with calculated aggression—it might carve out its own niche. Especially in Iron Spirit, where fast mechs were either glass cannons or barely customizable gimmicks.
Still, a good concept wasn't enough. He needed the right components to push the design in the right direction.
Rennick began browsing the virtual market again, filtering for compatible armor modules that wouldn't blow his remaining budget. After a few minutes of scrolling through endless lists of generic plating and overhyped composites, something caught his eye.
Grayson Inc. Flexiplate Alpha Mark III.
He selected the listing and reviewed the specs. Flexiplate Alpha was an experimental flexible composite—an armor system that didn't act like traditional rigid plating. Instead, it behaved more like a dense, thick rubber sheet. It didn't offer the best penetration resistance, but it absorbed kinetic shock exceptionally well.
"Perfect for joint protection," Rennick whispered, his mind already racing. "Especially for a raptor-legged mech. The knee and ankle assemblies need flex and shock resistance."
Flexiplate wasn't cheap, but it had been used in a few competitive variants as reinforcement in highly mobile mechs. While most players avoided the extra design effort it required, Rennick had dealt with complex chassis before. This wasn't new.
But Flexiplate alone couldn't cover the full body.
To complement it, he searched for something lighter and more modular—and his eyes landed on another Grayson product: SquarePlate Mark I.
He nodded as he read the details. It was a modular armor system, consisting of interlocking plates in three standard sizes. Large plates for the chest and back. Medium plates for limbs. Small plates for fingers and awkward angles.
While modular armor systems were often frowned upon by purists, Rennick knew better. He had used similar systems in the past, and he had learned how to mitigate their drawbacks.
"Conventional armor," he murmured, "offers theoretical max protection for the same mass—but that's assuming it stays intact."
When a conventional armor panel took moderate damage across its surface, it still clung to the frame even if its function was compromised. That "dead" armor became deadweight—slowing the mech down, throwing off its balance, and even becoming a liability in the later stages of a battle.
Modular plating like the SquarePlate Mark I worked differently. Each segment was designed to shear off once a critical threshold was reached. The result? As the mech took more hits, it naturally shed armor—reducing mass and maintaining agility.
For a high-speed mech like Skyhunter, this was a tactical advantage.
"It's like trimming fat in combat," Rennick muttered. "The longer the fight drags, the faster the mech becomes. Assuming it survives long enough to capitalize on it."
Of course, the system had its downsides. Fewer shapes meant less flexibility in fitting. Coverage would be imperfect. There were always some sections where you had to sacrifice protection or design efficiency. And, compared to solid plating, modular systems simply couldn't absorb as much punishment.
But Rennick wasn't aiming for a tank. He wanted something that struck fast, danced through the chaos, and punished mistakes. That meant speed over resilience—and synergy between components.
"Modular armor plus kinetic-absorbent joints," he said, building a picture in his mind. "Flexible knees, detachable layers. This could work."
He added both Flexiplate Alpha Mark III and SquarePlate Mark I to his cart.
Total cost: 225,000 Seed Credits.
A sharp pang hit his chest as he looked at the price tag. He had already spent half a million credits on licenses and materials, and he hadn't even begun the actual design phase. But it was the cost of innovation—and he was no stranger to working on tight margins.
With a resigned breath, he finalized the purchase.
Then, Rennick returned to the design suite and pulled up the Skyhunter Mark IV base frame again.
"I can't buy any more modules until I lock in the mech's role," he reminded himself. "No point throwing credits at it before I decide what it is."
He leaned back, rotating the mech's silhouette once more.
That primal tension. Those clawed feet. The reinforced joints. The forward momentum baked into the very posture of the frame…
He had to know more.
Switching tabs, Rennick accessed the galactic net and searched for archived battle footage. The Skyhunter Mark IV was an older and unpopular design, so the available clips were few and low quality—most uploaded by hobbyists or salvaged from obsolete military reviews.
Still, he found a few match highlights from a frontier skirmish simulator and an old bounty hunter trial run. He played them one by one, watching intently.
Despite its flaws, the original mech moved. It didn't jog or trudge—it loped. Each stride was a burst. Each pivot was tight, fast, aggressive. The raptor legs allowed it to jump, claw, and spin in ways no humanoid could easily replicate.
Rennick leaned forward, eyes narrowing. His heart ticked faster.
"If I fix the balance and improve the pilot interface," he muttered, "this thing could hunt."
He smiled. For the first time since buying the license, true inspiration struck.