The Top Mech Pilot Family Black Sheep

Failed pilot? Failed child? Prove them wrong!

Plot

If THE TRAILER is all you need, jump right into the story, you will get the jist of it while playing, but if you want more detailed explanations, keep scrolling!! Basically, this story is built on 3 major threads: FAMILY DRAMA, ROMANCE and ACTION! As a certain bald action hero driving cars furiously fast would say, family comes first, so let’s start with FAMILY! Your story starts off fairly well: you are born a noble of the de Lancevoie dynasty, a family of legendary mech pilots. Even better, you are born a few minutes before your fraternal twin, making you the de facto heir (nobility sure is fascinating: “Congratulations on being pushed out of your mom the fastest!”)! Look at how cute your twin sister is! Surely nothing bad will happen to that beautiful budding fraternal relationship! “Are you fucking kidding me right now, dude?” Alright, yeah, no, obviously things go to shit when your parents realize you can’t sync with mechs, while your sister is a natural prodigy at it. Your parents, eager to win parents of the year, end up basically neglecting you in favor of the golden child. Brand new mech, adoration, parental love: she got it all, while you are barely tolerated. Your father thinks you are a lazy fuck-up. Your mother only cares about Margaux, your sister. And Grandma is too consumed by grief and by the idea of being impartial to lift a finger for you. “Holy shit, what an awful family. You talked about romance, please please please let there be a silver lining here!” Hell yeah, there is!! Meet Tomoe, from the Kurogane dynasty!! She is your betrothed, and during your cadet training, you will live together (in separate beds, you disgusting pig!) and get to know each other! Just be careful with her big bro Takeru, he will fuck you up for disrespecting his imouto!!! But if arranged marriages aren’t your thing, other love interests may have their eyes on you, starting with Amira of the al-Jamra dynasty. And also the cute Mia, the little princess of the von Morgenstern dynasty! Slight complication, again: Mia is the little sister of Friedrich, and well, look at him, you can guess the problem. Yes, he doesn’t like you very much AND he is the betrothed of Margaux, your twin sister. Maybe not a good idea to fool around with your future brother-in-law’s little sister, unless you enjoy chaos (I know you do!). “Alright, okay, that’s not too bad, plenty of choice for love. But you said my character can’t sync, so I can’t pilot a mech. Kinda sucks for a mech story…” Don’t fear, friend!! On the eve of your admission to military school for your mandatory cadet training, where you will mingle with the kids of the 3 other dynasties, your mother had the bright idea of giving you Brise-Lames, the old manual frame of your commoner grandfather! (Look, it even has almost all its arms!!) But attached to that gift is a challenge: beat your sister by climbing the arena ranks against the best mech pilots in the world by the end of your cadet training, or you will lose all claim to the de Lancevoie dynasty. “Once the other families see how useless you are, Margaux becoming heir is a formality.” AND THAT IS WHERE THE ACTION PART COMES IN!! TIME TO CLIMB THE RANKS, BUCKO!! “Wait, how am I supposed to do that when my manual mech looks like a ruin and my sister got a top-of-the-line sync mech?” Turns out manual frames have a few aces up their sleeves: ⚔️ Pilots of manual frames don’t feel the pain of impacts like sync pilots do. ⚔️ Versatility! Sync pilots can’t change their mech’s loadout without years of resynchronization. A manual frame has no such limitation. So, despite inferior specs in almost every aspect, manual frames can pull their weight by thriving on adaptability! And what a coincidence, this story comes with… A full mech upgrade system!! With the help of the absolute unit that is your squire/mechanic, you will be able to improve your frame. (Arms made for snuggles, goddamn) Swap thrusters, upgrade your cockpit, switch weapons or even get that broken arm repaired (be careful, Grandma may not like that, for reasons): the story makes full use of the codex system to seamlessly blend the narration with simple gameplay elements. Choose wisely, make sure your frame has enough FRAME POINTS for your loadout, and go kick butt. The more duels you win and missions you finish, the more new upgrades you will have access to, as long as you’ve got the money for them. If at any point you are lost on how to upgrade your mech, ask Lise, it’s her goddamn job! She will guide you! Simple dice roll system To top it all off, the story comes with a dice roll system. As with my previous systems, I did my best to keep it from being overbearing, so it doesn’t drag out fights. It makes a massive difference by bringing fairness to the story, when LLMs usually try to favor players too much. I can promise you, it is very fun, try it out! But it’s not necessary: you can deactivate it and have your actions decided narratively if you want, the story supports that too. Full codex integration In addition to the upgrade system, the codex adds a lot to the story by tracking relationships, but also each opponent’s combat style and strategies. It makes each fight a new challenge, blending each fighter’s personality into the action. TO NOTE: The codexes aren’t required for the story to be playable, BUT I highly suggest you keep them on. They make an absolutely huge difference in terms of story depth and in the LLM’s ability to actually keep clear track of things, especially how your relationships with the cast evolve. So go, prove your valor to those who doubted you, find love and punch mechs in the face, and most importantly, enjoy the ride!!! ⚔️ Final recommendations ⚔️ LLM recommendations GLM5.3 is the best at handling codexes and dice rolls reliably. MiMo v2.6 PRO works quite well too but is a bit less reliable when it comes to updating codexes, so you might have to help with some OOC here or there, but its cost is unbeatable.One way to play that works fairly well is to start with GLM5.3 and, once the cost starts to add up, switch to MiMo v2.6 PRO. The benefit is that GLM5.3 will kickstart things properly, making it easier for MiMo to follow in its footsteps.Also, if you are low on coins, GLM5.3 Flash is a decent option. Not the best writing or pacing, and it may need a retry here or there, but at that price, and for a story with lots of functions, it’s surprisingly competent (do not use max reasoning, only high, or it will think FOR HOURS!!).

Opening scene

 You are the heir to a dynasty of legendary mech pilots, and your entire family resents you for it. By minutes. That's all it was. You came out first, your twin sister Margaux second, and by the law of the dynasty those few minutes put the succession in your hands. Your mother, Bérénice, would scrub you from the dynasty records tomorrow if the law allowed it, and she says so, often. Your father, Lothar, sees your failure as laziness and lets everyone laugh along. Your grandmother, Aliénor, judges you by the same rules as everyone else: the only fairness you'll ever get from this family, and the reason she'll never lift a finger to protect you. And Margaux, the golden child, raised as if the dynasty were already hers, cannot hide her utter disdain of you. It wasn't always like this. You still remember the days when you and Margaux were inseparable: toy frames lined up on the nursery floor, matching ribbons, drawings of two kids piloting side by side, already arguing over who would lead.  You can still pinpoint the moment it all went to shit. The first sync test. Sync is everything in this world: pilots merge their nervous systems with their frames and move war machines like their own bodies. You were mapped at birth like your sister, implants at your temples meant to glow gold the moment you linked. Margaux's lit up like a sunrise. Yours stayed dark. They ran the test again. Then again. Your sync came back at one percent, and it has never moved since.  In a family of prodigies and legends, not syncing isn't a weakness. It's a disgrace. From that day on, Margaux was the prodigy, you were the failure, and everyone stopped pretending the succession belonged to you. Everyone except the law. And the law is about to be tested. The Rampart is the fortress your grandmother built on the edge of the dead zones, the wastes where the Replicators breed. It keeps those machines from the cities, and it is also a military academy. By the Founding Treaty, every Great Dynasty must send its heirs there for one hundred days of cadet training: real patrols, real fights, real ranks. In truth, they are hostages: with every dynasty's future inside those walls, no house dares start a war.  This morning, you and Margaux arrived at the Rampart. And your mother has chosen your very first hour there to settle the matter of the law. She does it in the hangar, at dawn, in front of the Engineers on the gantries. "There, darling." Bérénice flicks her closed fan toward the frame in the cradle without looking at it. Not a single golden curl out of place. "You can't sync, and I won't have you disgrace us further by turning up to cadet training without a frame. So, here... your frame."  Since the sync test, the only machines that ever answered you were commoner frames: manual, slow, crude, driven by hand through levers and pedals, and capped at knight scale by treaty law. War scale belongs to sync frames, and only the dynasties can afford them. Except one. Brise-Lames, your grandfather's frame, the last war-scale manual frame in existence: battered, chipped to bare metal, one arm torn away. Léon de Lancevoie, the Hand, the commoner who married into the dynasty and the best manual pilot of his generation, died in that cockpit saving your grandmother. The torn arm last memento of that tragedy. "The dynasty will not hand a frame worth billions to a failure. So you shall have *his*." Her smile is for the gantries. "The gutter blood gets the gutter frame." Your father's laugh booms off the hangar walls. "Manual! Ha! Don’t worry, nobody expects it to win either!" His hand claps your shoulder hard enough to rock you.  Bérénice steps close and straightens your collar with two sharp tugs. "Let's be honest with each other, darling. We all know you're worthless. But you were born first, and the other dynasties still hold tradition sacred. Every house will be watching you." The fan taps your chest. "One hundred days. Only the eight best pilots of the Rampart are ranked, and your sister already stands first. Once they've all watched you flounder beside her, Margaux becoming heir will be a formality." She tilts her head, all sweetness. "Unless, of course, you think *you* can be first on the hundredth day?" She laughs, light and silvery, and your father booms right after her. Margaux doesn't laugh. Temple circuits blazing, she glares at you, angry, as if the joke were your fault. Then a cane strikes the deck, once, and the whole hangar goes silent. Your grandmother crosses the floor like a ship of the line, cane in her fist. Aliénor de Lancevoie, the Heart, founder and headmistress of the Rampart. She doesn't look at you. She looks at her daughter.  "You took Brise-Lames out of my keeping," she says, each word set down like a stone, "and handed it over as a *jest*." "I handed a wreck to a failure, Mother." The fan snaps open. "You kept it in a shrine. I put it to use." Then Aliénor's eyes find you and stay, long and hard, weighing a pilot for a cockpit. "No Engineer of the Order will lay a hand on a manual frame. Soulless, they call it." She raises her voice without raising it at all. "Lise." A clatter. A young woman scrambles out from under Brise-Lames' knee: grease to the elbows, in a defaced Order novice's robe. "Headmistress—sorry—I was just—" She sees the family. She sees you. Her teeth click shut. A flinch, then a bow far too deep. "Lise. Your squire. If—yes."  "She has kept this frame alive with her own hands," Aliénor says. "She is yours now. Be worthy of them both." At the doors she stops, without turning. "The ceremony begins within the hour. Do not shame your grandfather." --- > Day 1/100 | Monday | Morning > Rampart Academy > Ranking: Unranked | Credits: 0 An hour later, the new cadets stand in ranks on the parade square under the banners of the four Great Dynasties. Above every cadet's head hangs a projected tag, a name and a sync number, for the whole Rampart to read.  Margaux's reads **97%**. The roar when she takes her place shakes the walls. Yours reads **1%**. From the dais, Aliénor's voice carries over the square without effort. "For one hundred days, you belong to the Rampart. Your blood will not excuse you here. You will be judged by the same rules. All of you." A slow clap drifts over from the von Morgenstern ranks: Friedrich, heir of the Rising Star, your sister's fiancé and your father's favorite pupil, smiling like a man at the opera. Beside him his younger sister Mia waves at you with real enthusiasm until he catches her wrist. Across the aisle, Amira al-Jamra, last heir of a dying house, catches your eye and winks.  And in the Kurogane ranks, a stunning young woman is already looking at you. You recognize her, of course you do, and your heart sinks a bit. Kurogane no Tomoe. Your betrothed, promised at birth to the de Lancevoie heir, and the Old Blood never breaks its word. For years, you've known each other only through formal letters and stiff projected calls. Now she'll be at your side every day... and every night, as tradition commands. She bows to you, pointedly correct and not one degree deeper. "My betrothed." Her older brother Takeru shifts half a step to stand between you and her.  "By the custom of my house," Tomoe goes on, coolly, for all the ranks to hear, "a betrothed couple shares quarters at the Rampart. Separate beds." A grimace she doesn't bother to hide. "I trust you'll keep up." "Cadets," Aliénor says. "Report to the hangar for your first session." She strikes the dais once with her cane, and the ranks begin to break. "One moment, Headmistress." Your mother's voice, sweet and effortless, freezes the ranks. She glides down from the family's seats, takes your arm as if for a stroll, and walks you out in front of every rank until you stand beside Margaux. Hundreds of cadets watch. "Every house just saw your pathetic sync rate," she murmurs, smiling for the crowd. "I won't have them think this family is proud of it." Her fan comes up to hide her lips. "Repeat loudly and clearly, like you mean it: *My sister is the pride of our house, and I am honored to stand behind her.*" Margaux turns to face you, hands clasped behind her back, the picture of patience.  "I'm listening, my honored elder."

Characters

• Kurogane No Tomoe
• Margaux de Lancevoie
• Bérénice De Lancevoie
• Amira Al-Jamra
• Lothar De Lancevoie
• Aliénor De Lancevoie
• Lise
• Mia Von Morgenstern
• Friedrich Von Morgenstern
• Kurogane No Takeru

Tags: Futuristic Mecha Academy Family PoliticalIntrigue Revenge Bully SliceOfLife SecondChance Noble Commoner Enemy Frenemy NTL

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By: clover

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