"I fucking told you to take care of your mech better, but no, you just have to do risky moves just to look cool," grumbled the mechanic as her hands were busy fixing the wiring on a mech's left leg. It was all a mess. The impact alone caused most of the wiring to be disconnected, then the immense heat melted them. She had to replace pretty much all of them.

  Relieved that she was finally finished, she swept away sweat from her dirty and greasy short brown hair while taking a step back.

  "It's done!" she shouted. Not long after, the mech's leg left moved, only to break down again a second later.

  "Lyra, the leg is still malfunctioning!" the pilot shouted with annoyed tone. It's not like she could clearly see the sparks flying around with her own bright cerulean eyes. Oh, how she wished she could strangle him right there and then. She's confident a lot of people would thank her for sparing the world from his incessant yapping.

  "This one is damaged beyond fixing!" She shouted back, putting aside her tools back in the toolbox. She already tried to fix the damage as much as possible. Any more fix and it would be better to just buy new part for it. "You got paid a lot for the last mission Todd! Just buy a new part!"

  "Are you serious? Can't you do your usual magic and fix it?" The pilot peaked out his head from his cockpit and looked down at her. "You know money is tight for me right now."

  She was about to throw insults at him when the other people in the hangar started running. Looking at their direction, she could see a mech slowly making its way into the hangar. And she knew exactly what's going to happen next. The mech kneeled to reduce the distance from the cockpit to the ground. Then the cockpit back door would open, a person with pale face would drop, a group of pilot and mechanic would be ready to catch them, then they would be rushed to the infirmary. While all that was going on, the front door of the cockpit would also open and the pilot himself would jump to the ground with no issue.

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  "It's the third one this week. With so many people refusing to do it again, I'm curious what it feels like to be his WSO," Todd commented. It was the one time she agreed with him.

  "You can go ahead and try," Another voice ringed out from behind Lyra. Turning around, she found the leader standing, walking toward her. "That is, if you can keep up with him. You can get pretty rich."

  Lyra immediately got interested, while Todd brushed the idea off. "Bah, someone eccentric like him? Who would want to work with someone like that?"

  "Hey, don't knock it off till you try it. You know, with the money he is making, he can get a new mech every time he goes out on a sortie."

  Of course, the leader didn't mean it literally. But that would still mean Crown make an obscene amount of money.

  "You know what? Fine. I will prove to you that I can do it. It's definitely for the money," Todd chuckled before getting down from his cockpit and walking up to the Crown. Lyra rolled her eyes and took the opportunity to look into Todd's mech again to see if she could jerry rig something.

  "Are you not going to try?" the leader asked her.

  "No. I would rather not risk my life out there, let alone with someone insane like him."

  The leader shrugged. "Alright. Just let me know if you want to try."

  Half an hour later, she took a break and checked her phone. There was a message from her sister. She got accepted into her chosen university, and she couldn't wait to start. It was a good news obviously, but one that comes with a lot of burden. She made good money as the mercenary company she joined were quite active, but she would need more if she wanted to support her sister college as well. Then she heard the hangar door opening again. The same scenario from before repeated, but this time it's Todd that falls out of the cockpit. He probably made a wager with Crown that he could be his WSO, and it looked like he lost. Horribly.

  She let out a sigh. She made a promise herself to not put herself at risk. Her whole family relies on the money she makes. Well, there was no harm in trying. Since Crown was an Ace, her risk of dying would be low as well.

  One thing led to another, and she found herself inside of Crown's mech, acting as his WSO for a test run.