A weapon for hire.

After some time the hangar was calm and mostly empty again, the elites team was the last to leave beside the princesses, they asked a lot of questions about their gundam and i was happy to see most were about how to care for them.

'good to know ressources and MS shortage taught them to be careful with their équipments, too few pilots do in the anime i watched and while being afraid of being hit is a bad thing being overly sacrificial is even worst in my opinion. Beside char aznable hated being hit even without being dealt any damage and he was one of the best pilote you could find.'

-indeed, char aznable had very high expectation of himself and would never settle for less than perfect result and it showed in its superior proficiency.

Anyway, after the pilot left with handbooks of detail about their MS and a warning to not show it to anyone even each others -to prevent information leaks in case of capture- i was left with the two princesses, they looked at each other before celestia sadly smiled and left.

"Lady kshatriya, I'd like a moment of your time."

"Sure, hacks can keep the nanites in check."

The materials celestia had asked for me were sent and I had started converting them into nanites so I had a mass of grey goo just beside me barely half an equestrian tall and who was 'eating' the material to grow, it gave me the hope to use the grey goo as a weapon against enemies MS but turn out the nanites are like g-bits and rely on MY proceeding power to think, the only thing they know how to do by themselves is 'repair owner', so no grey goo rush.

She turned to the nanites amalgamation with a wary look, "good i suppose, the way this thing seem to melt the materials and grow bigger from it is most unsettling."

she shook her head, "anyway, i have to tell you the detail of your connection to equestria. As the one to have established the first contact i am responsible for you so if you need anything or want to know something contact me and i will do my best to assist you, within reason of course. secondly, it's the part you might not like, you are not registered as a mercenary."

"I am indeed warry, what i am registered as then? Not subject i hope?"

"No of course no, we know you don't like the idea of your kind's technologies spreading and if you were our subject we could theoretically order you to give them to us, and surely the nobles we have left would be trying so immediately which would then strain our budding alliance something celestia and i don't want, but mercenaries are badly seen by our subject and when equestria's allies betrayed us we made it a point of pride to stand by ourselves and not rely on other peoples help, this prevented or at least reduced the feeling of despair born from our allies turning their back and even fangs at us. So recruiting mercenaries is not possible without hope faltering, it would be a show of weakness and desperation."

'this...okay i can see how it make sense but i don't like where this is going, since i can't even deduct where this is going.'

-the only options i can see to bypass those problem are relatively unreliable or would disadvantage the equestrians greatly during negotiation with us.

"In the end my sister and me decide the best way would be to register you as an independent country founded inside ours..."

-they went for both.

"An...enclave? Without land? And made of one person?"my voice was so neutral it mad even me uncomfortable.

She raised her hands with a strained smile,"You actually have a land! The land this hangar was built on and the hangar itself was given to you as an estate and during attacks you are part of you will be rewarded a percentage of the land taken and to spare you to have only spread pieces of land we will instead keep track of how much hectare you should received during each battle and when you want to 'cash' them we will let you pick any lands equestrian own, within reason, some infrastructure are needed and some land don't belong to the crowns."

'what do you think hacks? It doesn't sound bad, it's actually pretty neat.'

-multiple detail are lacking like the percentage and if this become our only payment for participation in attack or a add to our desired per battle rewards.

"It sound good, but~~" i leaned toward luna while holding my chin, "i'd like to discuss the finer details of our deal."

*gulp*

_________________________________________________

*a few hours later.*

Luna's eye was twitching, "y-you are a fierce negotiator kshatriya, do you perhaps have experience in bargaining?"

I grinned internally, i bargained with her for a long time but i got a very good deal, i would get 7% of the land i help get back and trust me it's a lot when talking using city scale, i also will still get a bonus in resources for personal project mostly weapons and repairs, what was truly great was that i received the moon mining right, yep you got that right i own the moon's ore resources legally since the moon belong to luna legally, it was recognized world wide a few millenia back. Off course i still have to sell 25% of the ores found yearly at set price to equestria and i can only use the ores for myself or resell to equestria but its still my right to choose the price i sell them to after the 25% every years. And guess what is only found on the moon? Yep gundanium components. it did cost me that luna can order me to fight battles i don't want to five time, for free.

I mimicked cleaning my claw and looking at them, "when you live for years under the poverty level you get good at those things."

Her eyes widened, "how could one as competent as you in the field of battle have trouble earning money?"

I raised my shoulder, "wasn't always like this princess luna, i was made of flesh and bone and i didn't have the best start in life, but i made do like i could. That's in the past anyway, i don't want to talk about it right now."

She smiled sadly and looked down, "talking about the past, my sister and i believe you should learn about my past early into our alliance, do you remember my passing comment about me being banished?"

I took some time to remember our talk and found the memory, i watched it quickly by using more processing power.

"Yep, you said you'd tell me later."

"Well we are later. *sigh* i will be straightforward, i once turned onto my sister and country in a feat of rage, driven by envy and desperation i lashed out with untamed dark magic and started a civil war."

'...say whaaaaat?!' if i had my old face i would've loved seeing it right now, distorted in utter confusion. Probably hilarious, but i didn't so i was not amused.

"-please repeat, the sensor seem to have misinterpreted your words."

'you bet they did hacks!'

"Word for word, i once turned onto my sister and country in a feat of rage, driven by envy and desperation i lashed out with untamed dark magic and stared a civil war, i willingly fused with a dark entity i instinctively created to absorb my darkest feelings until the point of overflowing and became Nightmare moon. Once the dark entity named the nightmare took me over it led my few followers to a war who lasted half a decade and led to my banishment for a thousand years on the moon and the loss of most of my follower, i came back a few years ago and was freed from my creation the nightmare by the elements of harmony. The rest you know, the loss of the tree and the slaughter of our peoples..."

She was looking down with her arms to her sides, her fists clenched until her knuckles became white and nails biting in her flesh, drawing blood.

I looked down on her, "did you regret?"

She looked at me in anger, "off course! Everyday i did and i still do! Had i been here i could have helped equestria grow stronger and when the tree was lost we wouldn't have lost so much! if i had been here my sister wouldn't have had to lead a-alone, the only immortal with no one to share her burden!"she held her glare straight to my eye.

"Did they forgive you?"

Her eye widened and she looked aside, "...they did, she did...and i thank the heaven everyday for this even if i don't deserve this, if i don't deserve them."

"...then i have no problem working with you moonbutt~~"

"Eh?"

"You regretted and they forgave you right? Then this past event became a teaching, a lesson you learned from and made you better."

"J-just like that? No doubt of my loyalty? Of my trustworthiness?!"

"Nope! At least i don't consider you any less trustworthy than any other people i have know for three day ahahah."

"We...did meet only three day ago, what a strange thing, i feel like i knew you for longer."

"That's kind of my schtick, i was very out of place in the past, i was raised into a foreign country and i had very different features from the locals. I learned to get along easily with peoples quickly to deal with the barrier my look created with others."

she smiled, "your past seem fascinating if it made you what you are today."

"i'm nothing special, their were a lot of peoples like me, everywhere people with trash start in life are doing their best to grow beyond the boundary set to them by circumstance, i just happened to score a good deal."

"will you tell me of your past one day?"

"one day maybe, one day i might share. but not today, not yet."

luna nodded and left, i turned to the grey goo.

'alright hacks, let's build some stuff, the deathscythe weapon aren't gonna make themself and i have to make the blueprint of the gundam for maud, what should we start with?'

before hacks could answer i heard luna talk to me from the entrance of the hangar,

"kshatriya! we decided rainbow would represent your gundams during the friendly battle with lady golden, please have the blueprint of the wing gundam ready for maud tomorrow, she will be the one to create it personally," she grinned, "she is very dedicated so make sure to know your subject to a T."

an image of the clamp armed, muscle sculpted woman with thick armored lizard like like legs prosthesis and stone like stare appeared in my head and i swear i felt a shiver.

"i-i will have everything ready soon!"

"perfect i can't wait to see your completed gundam, it may not seem like it but my sister and i are fierce gambler and i already betted on you, my sister bet is on the daughtress, she owe them this much trust she said! ah! once we win she will have to parade wearing cloths of our choosing for a week to show her defeat publicly!"

she left with a thunderous evil laughter.

"..."

-kshatriya? are you alright?

"this princess is crazy. and i may be even more crazy to actually like it."

-this is probably what they call charisma.

'jeez, been needing one of those for years.'

-you will have the opportunities to develop it along the way kshatriya, it's not something you have from birth, its cultivated and trained through experience, you have charisma but the princess is still more experienced its why hers overpower yours, those seven pilots had it too, but its only budding for them, just like yours.

i looked at the grey goo in thought,

'despite this new body and power, under all this gundanium, i'm still really weak aren't i?'

-complete disagreement, you are strong kshatriya, but you can become stronger.

i clenched my fist.

'and i will, this is my goal, to be someone peoples look up to, someone who's back is the only think people need to see to feel courage spur into their hearts! a person so strong their existence is somewhere in between the historical figures and myth like unicorn and gods, so epic their life story is impossible to differentiate from legend and fairy tale.'

-if i remember correctly the discussions the equestrian had between themselves while you talked with others, unicorn actually exist here and some equestrian actually are unicorn, just like some are pegasus.

my mono eye actually shot down at that as i brought my hand to gently apply it to my face with a *gong*.

"what.the.fuck?"

'alright fuck it, i am getting too confused today, we'll ask about that tomorrow but today i'll just forget it, let's deal with the blueprint and create the deathscythe weapons, we already know we'll win against golden age.

-acknowledged kshatriya.