Mesh inspired me. Some people want to fight Monsters. Some people want to make them perform sick poses. But very few people care enough about how Monsters look. Just think about it: would Volcanosaurus have been the legend it was without someone carefully grooming it? Of course not! Would the Nyoominator have been such a hit with the fans if nobody took the time to polish it? Get out of town.
That's what made Mesh special to me: he took Monsters in and he made them shine. Polished their chrome, buffed their crystals, snipped their fur, and made them look their best. Mesh brought out the best in them, and he committed to that right to the end.
Just look at METROVORE. Whatever you want to say about “Strike” and “Contested Ownership”, Mesh saw a Monster in need of a significant PR facelift and Mesh did his damnedest to achieve that. Mesh was a hero of the Art of Monster Grooming, and I am honoured to today open this Monster Grooming centre on the ashen site of Mesh's former parlour.
Let's keep Bastion looking fabulous!
– excerpt from opening speech of Fleet's Monster Grooming Parlour
Mesh vs Bastion is to this day the most widely-attended legal event in Bastion history. The Arena seated over 8,500 citizens over the course of the three cases brought against Mesh, with an estimate of 100 additional citizens gathered outside to ambush the Monster groomer as he left the stadium.
Furthermore, the event was exceptional in that Mesh, despite standing alone against four plaintiffs (with an additional nineteen individuals absent but represented by infamous Rules Lawyer Yarn), won an astounding two of the three cases. The majority of the arguments offered by Mesh during this battle have been closely guarded for use during mock trials for Bastion law students – an exceptionally difficult challenge, it is reported, which only the brightest students are capable of overcoming.
In the end, despite later forensic evidence confirming that Mesh did indeed attempt to attack plaintiff Strike during the trial, the three charges of murder and two charges of attempted murder brought against him were at the time dropped. If, as many have argued, Mesh was in fact the guilty party all along, this would make his performance during Mesh vs Bastion the greatest act of deception ever carried out in the Arena.
…Not that I would encourage such behaviour, of course.
- Account attributed to Unravel, amateur criminologist
Historians attribute a number of significant legal arguments to the downfall of the UMBA Network, as well as a number of Monster fatalities, but as with everything in Bastion and the Arena, what's on the surface isn't quite what it seemed. In this paper I present shocking new evidence that suggests that the downfall of the Network was not only seeded years prior to Season 36 but that the popular view on Mesh as a nefarious piece of that system is not only brutally inaccurate, but does a disservice to a mastermind that plotted vengeance on the corruption rife in the Network for years before the person we knew as Mesh surfaced.
– abstract from Mesh vs Bastion - The True Story