We took a brief break from this, as this wasn't the novel's time chronologically yet. Of course most of you are probably aware of Hichikarah's accident. She worked hard on this despite how rough her recovery period is. Her vision is going to be worse until she gets her new glasses and her eye has recovered, so please excuse any large number of mistakes that I and No More Cheese Dip have missed.
Roughly five percent of this is Hichikarah's own addition she made to help it flow better. Originally, I objected, but after some time I think it does read better with it, so I have left it in. My main reason for objecting was that this is the biggest chapter of the novel yet, so I felt we didn't need to bloat it. The novel starts before chapter 4 of the manga for maybe the first third, with the middle third being the guntank incident and the final third being set a few days later after chapter 6. Because the manga is treated as higher priority than the novel: we have dictated that this chapter be read after the manga chapters covering the incident, and after the chapter of the aftermath.
Reading order for this series is.
Special chapter
Manga chapter 1
Novel chapter 1
Novel chapter 2
Manga chapter 2
Manga chapter 3
Novel chapter 3
Manga chapter 4
Manga chapter 5
Manga chapter 6
Novel chapter 4 (this one)
Novel chapter 5
Manga chapter 7
Elysia sat in the back of a truck driving through the forest. She stared intently at the dazzling green trees, gazing upon the leaves in the warm July weather. It was a vintage military truck that she rode in, with a canopy stretched over the frame of the roof of the cargo bed. The truck's cargo bed bounced up and down and swayed side to side as they drove along the uneven dirt roads without slowing down. The suspension creaked as the cargo bed swayed side to side like a small dinghy tossed about in rough waves.
The cargo bed swung forward and hit the back of the truck with a loud thud, as the truck bounced for a moment. The smell of mud, like freshly dug soil, rose from beneath them. The occasional screams and groans from the trainees could be heard when the cargo bed swayed or bounced particularly far. Elysia paid them no mind, instead her eyes were transfixed on the view out the back. A scenery of trees stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful, with maple trees spreading their branches out overhead in the view of the northern evergreens. To think that in autumn, the trees would be adorned with vibrant colored leaves that would one by one descend from the sky.
The training period at the academy was only one year long. Next year, it would be Elysia's juniors sitting in the cargo bed of this same truck driving to a training exercise. During this one year that she had, she had to master piloting mobile suits in combat. If she failed, she'd fall behind her peers and have nowhere else to go. Elysia wasn't worried about it, though she feared Asuna Elmarit was on the verge of that crisis.
Asuna was probably in the back and somewhere with another group of trainees ready to participate in training. Elysia speculated that there were three reasons for Asuna's ban from mobile suit training. First was for her safety, obviously. The second was probably to inspire others. She wouldn't put it past Yahagi to make an example of Asuna to show that the school didn't tolerate failure. She wouldn't put it past Yahagi to know Asuna's determination to make up for her mistakes to also inspire the other students to work harder. The third reason had to have been to force a self-imposed admonishment on Asuna. She was still here after all, if she really was a hopeless failure like people here said, she wouldn't still be at the school. Clearly Yahagi hadn't abandoned her, giving her the chance to prove herself with that battle in the simulator. Now Asuna could return to training... But something nagged at Elysia. Was that really all that happened?
If Asuna had lost to Shin on that day, she surely would have been deemed a failure and expelled from the school.
'Yes' Elysia thought, '
For Asuna it really was her last chance'. So now that begged the question; why did she deliberately choose a Zaku? The machine was a year older than the GM Type C, and the specs offered notably inferior performance. Maybe Asuna just had a preference for an older machine with heavier movement and a narrow field of view.
The official make and model was the "MS-06J" or "Zaku II Ground Type". It was the main mobile suit used by the Principality of Zeon during their invasion of Earth. Elysia had initially speculated that Asuna chose the Zaku because
she was from the Principality of Zeon herself, but according to Emile, Asuna actually chose the Zaku because she had an elite and special education in her homeland. This meant Asuna probably was trained on how to pilot a Zaku, but Elysia denied any possibility of this idea being true. Even if Asuna had the opportunity to pilot a mobile suit after the war, how old would she have been? Nine... ten years old? Maybe eleven at the most? Even then, that's stretching the bounds of believability.
Elysia's conclusion was that it just wasn't possible. Even
if Asuna
had piloted a Zaku at
some point, it's unrealistic to think someone as young as her could even have the chance to become familiar with or accustomed to the Zaku. But that brought Elysia back to that same question again: Why did Asuna deliberately choose a Zaku? Maybe it was an act of patriotism on Asuna's part? But now that left a new question; was Asuna really that patriotic, or was Elysia just thinking too much of her?
Elysia turned her gaze towards the front of the truck's cargo bed. Through the window she could barely make out the head of Yahagi in the cab, as he was the one driving the truck. The height difference between the cab and the cargo bed's canopy never stayed the same, not with the constant swaying and bouncing happening over and over again.
Elysia was unsure as she shifted her gaze from the front of the cargo bed to directly in front of her. Sitting in the seat directly across from her was Kelly Signit. For some reason his mouth was agape as he stared silently at the area directly above Elysia's head. Elysia looked around and soon realized all of the students were staring intently at the same place Kelly was. Elysia turned her head to follow Kelly's gaze, feeling an overwhelming sense of surprise with what she saw. A mobile suit of some kind, with its entire body a grayish silver color. The stocky caterpillar tracks that replaced its legs had to be at least ten meters tall. It truly was like a solid block of metal.
"Is that a Guntank?" Kelly muttered from behind Elysia.
Looking at it made Elysia consider a training ground that was 20000 hectares too small if they were going to be fighting something that large. Before they left in the truck, one of the instructors had told the students to memorize the terrain before the training began, and to internalize the distance and perspective of it in a mobile suit. Now, seeing the Guntank with her own eyes, Elysia could see why the instructors thought it might be necessary.
Elysia's training today was to use actual mobile suits in a team exercise. They would form a team with each student using the two-seater GM Cannes. Using the Cannes, they would conduct a simulated battle against the Guntanks, which would function via autopilot. Of course someone like Kelly would flinch at the sight of the massive canons mounted on the shoulders. Even without the context that they would be fighting them, the Guntanks sure had an intimidating presence.
"It's hideous..." Elysia said softly and shook her head. No matter how intimidating its overwhelming size may have seemed, the clunky design failed to impress Elysia. Besides, once she was out of the school, she'd be fighting in actual combat against mobile suits far more sophisticated than this outdated relic of the war. Elysia's gaze turned to the direction that the track was going in. The dense wall of trees lining the forest began thinning as the path sharply turned right. The force of the sharp turn pressed Elysia's waist against the lining of wall of the cargo bed and she winced slightly at the dull pain.
From the moment that the truck returned to the school building and the order disembark was given, Asuna felt so exhausted rom her shoulders to her toes that she might just collapse on the ground at a moment's notice. She figured it would be difficult to get back to training after spending two-weeks banned from the simulator. Though in truth, imagination and reality were two different beasts.
This was a lot to take in. So many giant mobile suits, a mind-bogglingly vast expanse of forest, and a layout so complex it would be hard to even remember it. Asuna's training had stalled into games of aerial tag in the training facilities, and she never even won a game. Though she did manage to score a recent victory in the mobile suit simulators against Shin. However, Asuna knew better than anyone else that she only won thanks to a haphazard tactic.
Asuna let out a big and long sigh, not even having the energy to straighten her back as she trudged along.
"What are you sulking about?" Came a voice from behind Asuna. Asuna didn't even need to look to know that it was the voice Emile Voightlander, who playfully slapped her on the back.
"So how are you doing Asuna?"
"Not well."
"You're finally getting to train again, there's no need to be so over the top."
Emile was cheerful as always. Sometimes she envied Emile's cheerful attitude, other times it only made her sad to encounter it. Right now, it made Asuna feel more like the latter of the two. The fact that what Emile said was right only made it hit harder.
Two weeks ago, instructor Yahagi had banned her from participating in basic combat training. He had gathered all of the students in the Judo dojo on the final day of basic combat training. He told Asuna then and there in front of all of the other students:
"Someone who can't even grasp the basics of mobile suit combat has no need for further training! You are forbidden from using the simulator!" He then told her to go back to the basics of training and start again from square one. Asuna would by lying if she said she didn't consider dropping out when that happened.
She never wanted to attend the school, she only did it out of necessity, for the circumstances that had befallen her family. Though she had come too far in the school to just give up and quit. She had friends here, and she had gotten used to feeling things without the world weary and judgmental gaze of her mother. Asuna never hated her mother, but her mother's unconditional acceptance of her father and his borderline abusive behavior was unacceptable. In Asuna's eyes, her father was a needlessly strict and harsh figure. Her mother never stood up for her or tried to ease the pressure on Asuna or herself, she just blindly believed that doing as he asked and as he said was the right thing to do. So what was Asuna to do?
Asuna loved to paint. She absolutely adored the process of capturing the beautiful aspects of any scene in front of her and recreating them on a canvas. That's why, when she came to earth, she never dared to part with her art supplies. Her backpack, which she had carried with her all the way from side 3, was filled to the brim with clothes and art supplies.
"I just wanted to draw a picture." Asuna said softly. Come to think of it, it had been quite a long time since she had even held a paintbrush. "I was in the process of painting a bird."
"But you don't have time for that, do you?"
"Yeah, no." Asuna chirped obediently. Not only did she not have time for it, but her own training was still in jeopardy. "It's great to finally get back to properly training again, but it'll be tough jumping into live combat in a real mobile suit."
As she spoke, Asuna began to ascend, as her feet started climbing the first steps to the school building's entrance. The building took on a strange atmosphere once Asuna realized there were no students around. Emile kept pace with Asuna as she walked alongside her, a wicked grin plastered on her face at the same time.
"What are you talking about? We're going to be going out to space to pilot mobile suits there in three weeks. You can't just say you can't pilot them in a practical setting!"
"I know..." Asuna said with a weak smile, probably a tenth as big as Emile's smile.
"I understand how you feel, but you have to do your best."
Emile's smile abruptly vanished when she spotted a figure at the top of the stairs. It was Elysia Nocton, the school's model student, who stood in stark contrast to Asuna.
"Asuna" she said, calling Asuna's name in a calm and clear voice.
Her blond hair flowed in the gentle summer breeze. Her beautiful face held a sharp and determined expression. In contrast, Asuna's face held a dumbfounded expression as she looked up towards Elysia. She must have stood there with her mouth agape.
"Asuna, can I have a word with you?"
A faint smile painted Elysia's cheeks as the words escaped her mouth. It was a smile that was strong and sturdy like steel, much different than Emile's smile.
Strangely enough, as she walked up the stairs past Asuna, the image that entered her mind was, of all people, Chandel. For some reason, the image of Chandel had entered her mind. He looked exactly like he did when Elysia first met him that summer long ago in Dhaka. He was wearing cheap jeans, tattered with holes in the knees, complimented by worn out work boots where the soles looked like they would give out at any minute. Elysia could still vividly remember the strange mottled pattern created by the heta on his tattered and worn out T-shirt.
Her brother introduced him as a friend. He stood in the doorway reeking of sweat and the stench of Dhaka's streets, in contrast to her brother who was clean and wearing a nice looking knitted shirt, giving a vague and indistinct look. Her brother always hung around eccentric people, as did many rich people his age. However, Chandel stood out among all the people Leonid would bring home. Not the university professor who wore socks with sandals, not the female musician who hadn't bathed in a year... To young Elysia this wild man in front of her was beyond compare.
Elysia could still remember the first thing Chandel told her when they met
"Ducks are tasty."
The thought of that must have entered his head after seeing the picture book young Elysia had. To the young Elysia, this man who professed a desire to eat the waterfowl from her favorite picture book seemed utterly barbaric. It's fair to say that her first impression of him couldn't have been much worse.
Chandel became her brother's closest friend, and it wasn't long before Elysia found herself spending a lot of time playing with him. They played hopscotch, went fishing together, and on Halloween they sang the "king pumpkin" song together. In that way, he was Elysia's first real friend, and he was quite a bit older than her then, with Chandel being 14 years old at the time.
To Elysia, the concept of a
'friend' was nothing more than a distant memory. At the very least, she could never consider Asuna Elmarit, who was now following four steps behind her, a friend. Asuna was just a pest, someone who bothered Elysia without even trying, bothered her too much to be ignored.
When they went up to the rooftop, they could see the sun setting over the trees, bathing the white walls of the Montreal campus in a brilliant red glow. Elysia squinted at the light that resembled the setting sun, and when she opened her eyes fully again, she saw Asuna standing right beside her. Elysia suddenly wondered if the colonies had sunsets too.
"Um... What did you want me for?"
Asuna was the first to break the silence. She had left Emile Voightlander behind, despite the girl's worries. Elysia thought Emile was a much easier person to understand than Asuna. If Elysia absolutely had to make a friend, she thought for sure she'd pick Emile, not Asuna.
"What..." The words struggled to come out.
Hearing Asuna nervously repeating herself made Elysia turn her whole body to face Asuna. The dazzling brilliance of her golden blonde hair blowing in the breeze cast a shadow over Asuna like an umbrella.
"I think you're doing a great job."
Elysia's words came clearly and strongly, because she was telling the truth. Though upon hearing the words leave her mouth, she realized Asuna wouldn't know how to respond.
Asuna vaguely mumbled something that sounded like "
uh, thanks" and her gaze wandered aimlessly, as if trying to avoid eye contact. Elysia, figuring
she had to be the one to carry the conversation forward, she turned her gaze back to the sunset and asked the question that had been on her mind for a while.
"
Why did you choose a Zaku?"
"Eh?" was all Asuna could muster. She was genuinely surprised by Elysia's question and needed some clarification.
To be honest, Elysia surprised herself with her own words. As she tried to look at Asuna again, she noticed the girl spinning around aimlessly, leaving Elysia to wonder just what in the world that girl was doing.
"The other day, your battle in the simulator. It was a crucial moment for you, determining whether or not you'd be able to return to training. So, why... Why intentionally give yourself a disadvantage by choosing something like the Zaku?"
Asuna looked legitimately nervous when Elysia asked her question.
"Th-That... That's what you wanted to ask me?"
"Don't play dumb!" Elysia snapped sharply
Asuna flinched in response. She didn't hold it against Elysia, but the girl's voice had gotten so harsh all of the sudden, without warning, exuding irritation and attitude. Why was she so irritated? Elysia couldn't take her eyes off of Asuna. Her expression suggested she was deep in thought. Not like she was trying to think hard about what she'd say, but like she had to actually look for the answer herself, as if Elysia's question had never even dawned on her once. Elysia knew there were people who made decisions based on intuition, and then looked for reasons later, but to see this right in front of her eyes for once... It just felt unsettling to her.
"Is that girl even thinking about anything?" Elysia thought to herself, and sure enough, Asuna broke the silence right after Elysa's thoughts drifted there.
"I'm not really comfortable with those 360 degree monitors. It's like... I can see too much."
"huh?"
Asuna's explanation was very unexpected. Was that it? She could see... '
too much'?
"Isn't it normally the other way around?"
In response, Asuna continued her explanation.
"It's quite scary because I'm so high above ground and everything is transparent. I get overwhelmed with all the sights and I just don't know what to do. That's why it's easer for me to use the Zaku, where the only thing in my field of vision is where I direct the monoeye."
"Is that really it?" Elysia asked quietly. She kept repeating Asuna's explanation to herself
in her head, because she couldn't believe it. Did Asuna really take such a reckless gamble for a silly reason like that? Elysia couldn't decide how to feel about that. Overwhelmed with frustration, Elysia turned her back to Asuna.
When Yahagi stepped onto the training grounds, he was greeted by his colleague, who noticed that he had an unusually sullen look on his face. Forma Gardner was a mysterious figure who had served in the military from before the One Year War was even a thing. However, Forma himself never talked about what kind of work he did.
Yahagi had overhead some people say Forma served in the Asian region. Apparently he had been moving between the front lines of Vietnam and India. If that was true then he too had experienced an utterly brutal side of the war firsthand. In the Asian region, The Federation was engaged in brutal combat against guerillas who opposed the existence of a one world government ruling all of the earth, until the war broke out and the Federation's attention turned to protecting those areas from Zeon.
Yahagi never fought with guerillas himself, but he could imagine just how much more brutal that would be in an era before the creation of the mobile suit, where you had to look your enemy in the face when you killed them. No sleep, no rest, no peace, just sleeping with your gun as your only trusted ally against the torment of constant suspicion. Many federation soldiers sent to those areas suffered mental breakdowns.
Yahagi, who spent his original years in the army of Zeon, going to a research lab in side 3, thought his military service was comparatively peaceful. His abilities as a test pilot for the lab's experimental mobile suits led to the development of multiple newtype use mobile weapons like the psychommu Zaku and the Elmeth. Or at least they did, until the war ended.
To Yahagi, war takes on many forms. There are those who execute strategies with weapons, those who are there in the gunsmoke and ash fighting gun in hand, those who revel in the theoretical victories from a safe distance as they wait the news of another successful operation. When Yahagi thinks about war in this way, his thoughts can't help but drift to the trainees.
Does the battlefield really await such young people who still have light in their eyes? He sincerely hoped that they themselves wouldn't have to fight a battle that they themselves object to, but the reality of war was that there it left more unfulfilled desires than fulfilled ones.
"What's up?" Forma called out casually. Compared to the pitch black sky outside, the light of the instructor's room that illuminated the area around Forma was bright.
"It's nothing"
Yahagi leaned back in his chair and looked up at Forma, who was staring at some communications equipment.
"What's with that expression?" asked Forma "You look unusually grumpy."
"It's not that I'm in a bad mood or anything, it's just..."
"Just what?"
Yahagi stroked his goatee with his left hand, eyes fixated on Forma as he did. Forma was still being rather vague, which was expected of him at this point. However Forma didn't meet his gaze, instead pulling out a single sheet from his pocket. It protected a data disk.
"What's that?"
"Lieutenant Colonel Toru gave us new orders. The École Directive Council has chosen Elysia Nocton and Asuna Elmarit as the final candidates for their plan."
This bombshell Forma dropped so casually, shocked Yahagi so much that he had to get out of his chair, making the metal creak and the leather squeak. The École Directive Council, centered around Lieutenant Colonel Toru Uslant from the Titans, was the decision making body of the Montreal Campus. Everything from the training program, to the annual schedule and even the mobile suits used were decided upon by this '
council'.
Neither Yahagi or Forma were members of this council, however Forma has attended multiple meetings. According to Forma, there were multiple members from companies investing in the Montreal Campus, and their opinions had a considerable influence on the school's management.
"Elysia Nocton has the top score, so I understand choosing her, but why Asuna Elmarit?"
Yahagi asked in a low voice as he tried to calm himself. Forma finally sat down to face Yahagi.
"How would I know what the higher-ups in the council are thinking? Asuna's from the Principality of Zeon. My best guess is that members sympathetic to Zeon or favoring their mobile suit designs had high hopes for her in particular, but her training unilaterally stopped. Maybe the higher-ups were at a loss and just narrowed down the two candidates out of desperation."
Forma spoke about this as if it was someone else's problem, and Yahagi
really didn't like that.
"But what about their training?"
"I'm sure tha-"
Yahagi had to hold himself back as to not interrupt and speak his mind, but then the conversation was interrupted anyways when they heard a knock at the door. The two looked at the door awkwardly and Forma spoke up first.
"Who is it?"
"It's Elysia Nocton. May I come in?" came a calm and resolute voice from behind the door.
Forma's usual smirk painted the corners of his lips. He probably found the timing amusing, considering they were just talking about none other than Elysia.
"Isn't that a nice thing to say..." Yahagi whispered to himself.
"Okay, come in."
Forma's tone of voice was casual, as if welcoming a friend. Even his quick glance at Yahagi, almost as if gauging his approval, seemed deliberate.
"Excuse me."
The automatic door then slid open. The blonde girl with a tense expression standing at the entrance was undoubtedly Elysia Nocton.
"What's wrong?"
Yahagi called out to her, but Elysia just remained silent. No... it was like she was looking for the right words to say. Yahagi turned his chair, which was previously facing the monitor, halfway around to face towards Elysia. In this room that smelt of cold machinery, the scent of the young girl in front him hung in the air as an odd counterbalance.
"I have something I'd like to ask of you."
Elysia spoke softly. Her voice quiet, but her words were clear. Surprisingly, there were very few soldiers in the military who spoke like this. She was articulate and spoke very clearly about things, even when it took time for the words to go from her brain to her mouth. The way Elysia spoke was just different. Her voice stimulated the listener's senses first and then slowly seeped into their heart. Whether she was born like this or this was something formed by past experiences growing up with a silver spoon, Yahagi didn't know. All he could say for sure was that, even with training he could never speak like Eylsia, regardless of age or gender differences. He was too much of a solider to even attempt speech like hers.
"What did you want to ask?" Yahagi said in his usual voice, a stern military-like voice. As Elysia took a step forward, the sound of the door quietly closing behind her left a small echo.
"It's about piloting mobile suits..."
"You're asking about piloting?"
Elysia's words surprised Yahagi, so he couldn't help but ask a question in return.
"You must be passionate about their development."
"No that's not it... Is it possible that having too wide a field of view can make it difficult to control the mobile suit?"
Elysia's eyes drifted to Forma as she spoke, perhaps trying to signal that she didn't want the instructors of other squads to hear her. Yahagi pretended not to notice.
"I don't quite understand what you're saying."
"I'm talking about the panoramic monitors." Elysia said, her voice becoming stronger. An audible sign of her frustration no doubt. "The monitors that project your surroundings around you. The ones that give you optimal space awareness between your mobile suit and the surroundings. We were taught in lectures that it's the most optimal interface for piloting mobile suits"
"Yes, that's right."
"However, Asuna Elmarit, in that simulation, managed to pilot an old mobile suit without a panromantic monitor. Not just that, but with a narrow field of view. Is it really possible for her to pilot better by relying on intuition like that and deliberately narrowing her field of view?"
Yahagi was a little surprised by Elysia's words. It wasn't that he found Elysia's perspective particularly impressive. Rather, he found it a coincidence that she had Asuna on her mind and came here to talk about her. Asuna Elmarit and Elysia Nocton... The two candidates the council had set their eyes on.
"Why?" The question that came out of Yahagi's mouth was a simple one.
"Why do you care about Elmarit?"
Elysia lowered her gaze, as if she was searching for the answer, or perhaps hiding some sense of shame.
"I just don't understand why she chose the Zaku. How could she have won with of all things... a Zaku?"
Elysia paused, choosing her words carefully.
"I can't parse any meaning behind her choosing a Zaku. It just seems like something she did unconsciously. It was as if she was unaware of it in a way, but it must have been the best for her... so why? How could she possibly fight at her best in such an outdated and inferior model? I just don't understand."
Yahagi remained silent. If Elysia was saying Asuna Elmarit was a girl with keen intuition, then the council's assessment would be correct. The council had been hoping for a candidate who was very perceptive and with great instincts, and in this case it may have proven them right in choosing Asuna.
Elysia stared intently at Yahagi. She, too, possessed a strong intuition like Asuna, but in a different way. Yahagi himself was known in the Principality of Zeon as an outstanding pilot with great intuition. Because such aptitude had a strong effect on his combat score, he was treated like a guinea pig by the higher-ups in the army. It seems now the same fate could befall these students. If the council had they're way, they'd probably use these two like guinea pigs.
"What do you plan on doing with this information?" asked Forma
"Are you going to become a Zaku pilot too?" Forma had been listening silently, and waited until now to speak.
"If you get upset at your opponent doing something a little different than you, then you still have a long way to go."
"How rude!" Elysia said, glaring at Forma. "I just thought that instructor Yahagi, who piloted older mobile suits would know something about that."
"Just say it. You want to do ask him because he was a Zaku pilot, right?"
"Forma!"
Yahagi harshly called, raising his voice in response to Forma's words. Anything like that was none of Elysia's business.
Elysia's face turned bright red a she glared at Forma. Her eyes weren't those of a trainee looking at an instructor, but instead full of contempt, a look that was uncharacteristically emotional for her.
"I don't appreciate being looked at like that..."
Forma would say standing up. Yahagi thought that Forma's slow and sluggish movements in getting up were enough to show his own contempt. The lights of the instructor room flickered against Elysia as Forma's shadow obscured them and loomed over her.
"Everybody knows you're skilled. You don't need to sweat little things like that."
As Forma said that, he waved his hand at Elysia dismissively and walked slowly in the direction of where Elysia was standing.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to use the bathroom."
Elysia wasn't the only one glaring daggers at Forma as he left the room. Yahagi would sigh at a Forma's rather flippant remark. He wondered just where that man's feelings lie, when everything just seemed like a joke to him. For Yahagi, who could not relax until he had everything clearly defined and figured out, there were too many murky aspects of Forma's being that he couldn't begin to fathom.
When the door closed, Yahagi turned his attention back to Elysia. Her ability to quickly regulate her emotions like this was proof of her own sharp senses and intuition.
"I apologize for my trivial question. I'll take my leave now." and with that, Elysia turned to the door that had just closed, ready to take her leave. As she took her first step towards the door, she added more to what she said. "Instructor... have the teams for tomorrow's live fire training been established yet?"
"No. The initial team composition hasn't been decided on yet. I'm thinking on letting the students pick their own partners and seeing how that goes."
"I see... So, is it possible that Asuna and I could end up on the same team?"
"What?"
The disbelief in Yahagi's voice was nothing more than a preconceived notion to Elysia's ears. To put it simply; the idea of pairing a model student like Elysia, with a failure like Asuna was unheard of. Yahagi had never even considered such a thing. As she stood there in the doorway, she stared at Yahagi silently for about five seconds. She was looking at him over her shoulder with a smile that seemed almost like she was confused by her own words herself.
"I said something unnecessary, please excuse me."
With that, Elysia left. The hydraulic door closed behind her. Yahagi probably felt more relieved than anyone else involved in that conversation, relieved that it was finally over.
"If only the higher-ups knew the hardships that the people on the frontlines experience."
Yahagi spat harshly, but it was followed with a light chuckle. He found it amusing how he was muttering to himself in the empty instructor's room, almost as if he was talking to Forma. If Forma was here, he would probably rebuke with a remark like "Don't say that. We don't know what kind hardships the higher-ups face, right?" and laugh it off. Forma was an elusive man, but Yahagi smiled to himself again, realizing he had gotten used to living with Forma without even knowing it until now.
The three giants cautiously made their way through the evergreen forests. One of them was walking a short distance ahead of the other two. It held a firearm in one hand that looked like it alone could burndown the entire forest. The eyes reflected the sheen of the afternoon sun back onto the ground in front of them.
At a distance there were two shadows. One shadow stood to the left, cautiously looking around. Do giants even get nervous? The hot smokey emissions from the exhaust ducts on its chest were like the rough breathing of a human. It caused the surrounding leaves to tremble, scattering the smell of hot metal scorching in the hot sun. One crouched down and stared straight ahead- no... It would be more accurate to say that it was keeping an eye on everything around it. Sharpness of its gaze suggested that it was determined to not a miss a single thing, even the movements of the small animals that called thee forest home.
The giant was a single entity that relied on three basic components. The right hand attacked, the left hand provided cover and the eyes scanned through everything. That's how Elysia Nocton thought, as she served the role of the eyes.
As she sat in the bottom seat of her cockpit, the cockpit data displayed around her showed the surrounding terrain. There were heat source detections and graphs measuring the approximate paths and distances of the allied mobile suits. A synthetic female voice announced situation updates in real time through the intercom attached to the ears of her training headgear. Elysia then selected the important information from the updates, then reported them to her allies in real time.
"Unit one continue moving forward. Unit two will comb the areas to the left and right for enemies. Unit three will follow behind unit one. We'll be out of the forest soon Asuna, be careful."
Elysia said in a crisp clear voice, before swallowing hard. Yahagi was riding behind Asuna in her mech, Lina was riding behind Kelly in his mech, and just like those two, Forma rode behind Elysia in her mech. She had to tell herself things were going to be okay.
"Aren't you harboring at least a little vein hope for yourselves?"
It was instructor Forma, who was slumped back in a rather sloppy posture into chair behind Elysia. This was a setup unique to the GM Cannes, which had a seat for a trainee and an instructor to both control it.
"We instructors are allowed to give you advice of course, but we're not supposed to help you out."
"Of course. It would defeat the point of training if you helped me with the work."
"That's right" Elysia thought to herself as she activated her intercom and relayed more instructions.
"Don't let your guard down Asuna! Don't mess up, that's going to be bad for all of us."
"Oh look how adorable little Asuna is!"
Forma said jokingly. Elysia just grumbled to herself about how unserious Forma was in contrast to Yahagi. Forma Gardner was always like this, and it got to a point where you could never tell when he was joking or being serious.
"We're in the middle of training right now! Please be serious instructor Gardner!" Elsyia shouted. "She's stressed enough about potentially getting held back! She has a habit of worrying about things too much!"
Elysia's voice became naturally harsher. It was more so an extended sigh instead of an expression of anger.
"I had heard, about your little teaming up with Asuna, and that you specifically requested to be placed in a team with her. You're quite interested in her, aren't you?"
Elysia temporarily halted at Forma's words, expressing that she was surprised at them. Her feelings for Asuna weren't something that could be explained in just one sentence. They spoke about it briefly when a two-tone warning sound blared in the cramped cockpit. Elysia was safe for a moment, or so she thought.
"Unit one! Enemy spotted six-thousand meters ahead to the right!"
Kelly's voice had rang from the intercom.
"Unit two, didn't you see it!?"
Those last few words finally made Elysia realize; this was no time to be thinking about Asuna! Even though it was a simulated battle, there were still enemies out there. In-fact, the area they were in was designated as enemy controlled.
"Oh my god...!"
Elysia spat out in disbelief. In this situation, she was the one who was holding everyone else back. Her expression was followed by a deafening roar picked up by the microphones on the mobile suit's exterior, a roar that sounded as such because it was a sound the microphones couldn't properly pick up. She had initially thought it was her imagination, when the monitor flickered momentarily and then restored to functionality again.
Why was so much smoke arising from Asuna's machine? A pitch black cloud emitted from where it stood, spreading it in a ring of smoke swirling upwards higher and higher, finally tapering into a thin lane into the sky where it faded out. Black spurts occasionally erupted from the shoulder and out of the smoke. The spurts occasionally erupting from the smoke was likely oil from the arm's manipulator. Although the arm was hydraulic, and the fluid was oil, the visual of the arm bleeding black fluid was reminiscent of the kind of gruesome visuals found in an old black and white Kurosawa film.
"Live ammunition?" Elysia cried out and then turned back to Forma sitting in the back seat. "Cancel the exercise! There's been an emergency!"
Elysia's words stopped there. In rapid succession she had two incidents that made her doubt the reliability of her own eyes, something that she had never experienced before. Elysia had always prided herself in her calm observational skills, which let her approach situations with a confidence in how she handled things. But now, her confidence had been shattered and her pride was broken.
"I'm not getting any response from the control room! I can't reach them!"
To Elysia's disbelief, Forma was smiling. He looked down at Elysia with a contemptuous and scornful gaze,
"Emergency situations are an invertibility in combat. Heh, you can't just give up at the first sign of danger."
Elysia's expression clouded over with dread. She had never been so insulted before.
"Who said we'd be so timid about this?"
But Forma didn't hear Elysia's fighting words. Right as she spoke, her words were instantly drowned out by a deafening noise. Asuna's GM Cannes was sprayed in a rain of machinegun fire. This time her eyes shifted. She brought the Guntank into a close-up view on her monitor and mentally processed the series of attacks.
"Asuna! Those last few were just paint rounds! I'm sending you the position data of the active Guntanks!"
Elysia, with her brow furrowed, began operating the console with a great effort. Regardless of if it's paint rounds or live ammunition, it won't make a difference if you don't let yourself get hit. The enemy is just a Guntank, an outdated model of mobile suit.
"Unit two! Can you hear me Elysia!?" Kelly's voice came from the intercom. With a quick movement, Elysia pushed some buttons and his face appeared on the monitor over her knees.
"We'll go after the right Guntank here!" Kelly said with such conviction in his voice. "We're tracking its movements now!"
A video of the Guntank Kelly was referring, footage taken by his mobile suit, appeared in a sub-window on Elysia's monitor. An onscreen update showed the Guntank's estimated distance.
"Are you going to be alright on your own?"
Elysia asked sharply. Kelly responded with a snort.
"You're the only one who can support Asuna! We'll manage on our own, but we have to finish this as quickly as possible!"
"Roger that! We'll go after the one here!"
Elysia responded sternly. Soon after, the expression was replaced with a narrow smile on her lips as she looked straight ahead.
It was Elysia's belief that fighting spirit was not the biggest factor in winning a battle, but instead decisive observation and a calm heart. She believed these were the most import and deciding factors when it came to securing victory.
Elysia had been watching the Guntank intently, playing back the memory of its attack on Asuna's GM Cannes over and over again in her head. The first attack was canon-fire from the shoulder mounted canons, the second attack was from the arm mounted machine gun. Elysia noticed something strange and then thought to herself herself
"is the ammo in the arm-mounted guns just paint rounds?""The cannons are stocked with live rounds, the guns are stocked with paint rounds. In that case, it might not be as dangerous as we thought." Elysia thought as she calmly took aim for one of the sensors attached to the Guntank. Live ammo aside, this was still set-up as a training exercise. If she hit the sensors it should shut down. Elysia wouldn't worry about the attacks from the arms, just stay calm and focus on hitting the target from that distance.
Elysia's own conviction proved to be her biggest miscalculation. With her shield in the GM's left hand, she aimed her beam rifle with the right hand. When she had secured her perfect shot at her target, the Guntank fired live rounds at her from the arms, making the cockpit shake violently. The body of her GM was jolted sharply back and forth. When the shooting stopped, the Mobile Suit was stunned and fell back. Unable to move, Elysia just slammed her fist against the monitor. Elysia was so shocked that the hateful words that she wanted to spit out never even reached her mouth.
Asuna Elmarit was in a completely dark place. She asked herself
"Where am I?", but the answers to that question never came to mind. Lights were scattered and drifting about.
"Yes."
"That one."Asuna thought these things as the lights she followed scattered like fireworks, and disappeared with sparks into the darkness.
"One... Two... Three..."
Each time that the sparks fell, a shadow would rise over Asuna's heart.
"What am I even doing?"The question would enter her head every so often, but disappear just as quickly as it came. Then, a new voice came, calling her name out repeatedly and judging her harshly.
"You should be capable of so much more than this!"
"Who is that?"Asuna asked herself. Was it Yahagi? Her friend Emile? Sullivan, the teacher from her middle school perhaps? Various names came and went until she settled on one.
"That's it. It's my father's voice."She whispered to herself as a small smile appeared on her face.
"Asuna Elmarit!"
A sharp voice snapped her back to reality after a brief moment of unconsciousness. She wasn't out for very long... Did she faint? Asuna looked around after hearing those words, just to make sure she had actually come to. The cockpit was cramped. It was even more claustrophobic than the driver's seat of the electric car that she used to commute to school. The panoramic monitor that surrounded Asuna was flickering and fading on the left half, revealing a grey background that was visible only when it was not in use or non-functional. Asuna them surmised the humid smell of burning and rising heat wasn't her imagination. The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness was hearing someone say that there was live ammunition.
"Instructor Yahagi! What's going on?"
"Don't talk! The enemy is still moving!"
Her stare reached Yahagi, who was sitting behind her in the backseat of the cockpit, then back to scene in front. The trees of the forest and the black smoke obscured her view, but in the narrow passage she could make out a boxy, humanoid looking mobile suit that resembled a tank with how it rested on caterpillar tracks. Quad-barrel machine guns were mounted on each arm, while the shoulders were mounted with 120 centimeter cannons. Asuna could see white smoke billowing from the barrels of the shoulder canons.
"The left shoulder has been hit! Give me a sitrep!"
Yahagi's shouting brought Asuna back to her senses. She quickly looked over the console over her knees, running reports from the scans. She also displayed information sent from unit two, Elysia's unit, on a semi transparent window on the right side of the main monitor.
"The left shoulder is at damage level three! The left side of the monitor appears to be unusable! Guntank approaching up ahead of unit two! What are your orders"
"Take evasive action! You're going to get shot!"
"Get shot?"
Asuna didn't even have the time to fully process her question or what was said to her next. A shock rattled her head right at that moment! Had a pipe burst? There was a sticky transparent oil on Asuna's nose and an unpleasant aroma filled the air of the cockpit.
Asuna had thought she heard Elysia explaining something about paint rounds. When she got her bearings straight, she looked around for unit two but couldn't find her.
"Unit two! Please respond! Unit two!?"
"It's no use!"
Yahagi said, cutting off Asuna's scream. Looking at the information sub-monitor, he saw the marker for unit two, with a red line indicating damage.
"That can't be... Unit two has been immobilized too? "
As Yahagi whispered this to himself, he operated the console and unfolded a new diagram. Elysia had sent this data over to Asuna just before her mobile suit was immobilized. Asuna quickly took the chance to scan the reconnaissance map and the heat signature graph. In addition the Guntank visible to them, there was another one hiding in the forest.
"The training is cancelled! Unit three, get away! Your orders are to retreat!" Yahagi cried desperately. "The safety of the students needs to be our top priority!"
There was no response, which didn't instill confidence in him. No time to worry, only time to act.
"Asuna! Run a diagnostic on each part of the mobile suit!"
Asuna operated the console above her knees, trying to fulfill Yahagi's orders.
"The left arm appears inoperable, the right leg is severely damaged, but still functional."
"Turn the auto-balancer off!"
"S-Sure?"
"Hurry up!"
Asuna didn't see the point in turning off one of the only things keeping them upright, but she knew better than to question Yahagi's orders in a desperate situation like this.
"Yahagi what do you think you're doing?"
That was the voice of Lina Seo, a strong silent-type who had been in unit three with Kelly. Yahagi answered calmly, having a plan already.
"No matter what, these mobile suits were designed for mock battles. If you manage to hit the sensor, it will stop moving."
"Guntank, incoming from the right!"
It wasn't Elysia who screamed that, but Kelly. However his voice was soon drowned out by a deafening noise. The cockpit suddenly shook violently, making the image on the panoramic monitor flicker for the briefest of moments. The microphones on the exterior of the mobile suit were blown out by that explosion as a huge cloud of smoke rose up.
Visibility from the cockpit was almost non-existent. The image on the left third of the monitor was disabled, while the image on the right third was blocked by a cloud of smoke so thick you couldn't even see your hand if you stuck it out that way. Asuna had now understood that this was real combat, with live ammunition aimed at them.
"Keep an eye on what's happening to the right side of the monitor!"
"Understood!"
Asuna responded to Yahagi's words with all her might and followed his orders to the letter. That was all she could do right now. She heard nothing from Elysia, Kelly's voice had recently stopped coming in as well. It was safe to assume they were all alone now. If this was a real battle, the enemy would naturally go for her next. There was no difference here between a simulated training exercise or a real battle, not here and not now. For Asuna, this was a matter of
life or
death.
"Incoming!" Asuna shouted.
Another cannon barrage aimed at them hurled towards the ground. It was only thanks to Yahagi's quick thinking and transfer of control that they survived. Yahagi did a tactical roll until the Cannes was on its stomach and aiming for the Guntank.
"Dead ahead!"
"The right Guntank is almost in position!"
"Stop!"
They fired directly on the sensor and got a perfect hit. The Guntank stopped, eliciting a cheer from Asuna. That cheer was soon replaced with dread when it started moving again.
"The sensor doesn't work!?" Yahagi never got the chance to fully process what happened when another blast came and knocked them back. Asuna screamed in shock as it happened.
"Don't scream! You're gonna bite your tongue doing that!"
As they reoriented themselves, Yahagi reflected on this situation, why it was happening.
"This wasn't just a mere accident" he thought to himself. No time to dwell on that now, he needed to strategize and quickly.
"We'll only have once chance to get closer." Yahagi's thoughts were interrupted by Asuna.
"It's a pincer attack, we're being boxed in!"
For Asuna, it had been quite some time since she felt true fear, but she could never forget the feelings that came with it. It was a difficult feeling to put into words.
"What's the distance between us and the Guntank behind us!?"
"Two-thousand meters! Here it comes!"
"Don't bite your tongue!"
Asuna calmly listened as Yahagi spoke. The next moment, her mobile suit had leapt into the air. Asuna hadn't done anything, rather, Yahagi had transferred control to his seat and it was him piloting the mobile suit now. This wasn't flight, but a jump. It was a different than flying, but to Asuna there was no difference in how it felt. The wind swept scenery displayed on the monitor was undeniably sky-blue, and Asuna felt as though her whole body was ascending to heaven. Did Yahagi make the mobile suit float in the air? Was such a thing even possible?
The next moment, her body shook violently and the surrounding landscape was enveloped in shadow. Asuna then understood what had happened. What she thought of as flight, was Yahagi doing a tactic they discussed in a lecture. Yahagi was minimizing the angle of the jump as much as possible to land directly close enough to the enemy to embrace them. They had been ascending into the air for such a long time that she had thought it was flight. As soon as she realized what was going on, the cockpit spun upside down and the sun flashed into her vision very briefly as the ground loomed over her.
When they landed, Asuna heard a sound that resonated into the very pit of her stomach. That was the sound of a gun firing and the knee joints finally giving out. That was accompanied by a continuous thumping feeling that shook Asuna's seat. Had something short circuited? Asuna couldn't tell. She could however, tell from the ground-shaking explosion that Yahagi had used the weight of the Cannes to push the Guntank's barrel and redirected to hit the other one. The thick black smoke arising from their right side was a sure sign that they had hit their target.
"The right knee has been hit! The leg is collapsing."
"Shit!"
Everything that occurred next was so fast that she didn't have time to process it. Asuna watched the scene before her in disbelief. Could they really do this much with a half destroyed mobile suit not even equipped with live ammunition? How was it even possible? They immobilized the approaching enemy while simultaneously rendering the long range target immobile. Asuna had never imagined something like that was possible.
"Asuna Elmarit" came a sudden voice from behind Asuna, bringing her back to reality. "Are you okay!?"
"Y-Yes sir!"
"Give me a sitrep"
Asuna worked her console and opened an information window on the monitor, but more than half of the screen was black. There was nothing worth seeing on the monitor, because it had been taken out.
"The monitor is too damaged for us to gather any any reliable information from it. I'm unable to confirm if we have destroyed the Guntank. We should be safe from the Guntank in front of us as long we don't move in its line of fire."
Asuna's chaotic report made Yahagi laugh. He must have been nervous too, this was a real battle after all, one they fought at a severe disadvantage.
"Asuna Elmarit, please make your report clear. If you cannot confirm this information on the monitor than use one of the many other methods. Check the instruments."
"Yes sir! Sorry sir!"
"Anyways, we've destroyed both Guntanks."
"Eh?"
Asuna was taken aback by what Yahagi said, then noticed the hilt of the beam saber sticking out of the neck of the Guntank. Even as Yahagi had fallen, he had managed to thrust the Cannes' beam saber into the enemy.
"Amazing..." Asuna whispered unconsciously. When she heard Yahagi sigh through the intercom and other voices on the intercom confirming if she was okay, that she knew, once and for all, that the battle was over.
The giant mass of iron that was the GM Cannes was being hauled a way on a truck driven by one man. Chandel Tadarshi was looking up, his long hair blowing in the wind, with his strong arms crossed over his chest. His feelings were complicated, as he stood in the dimly lit entrance of the underground hangar, a place that was at that moment untouched by the sunlight.
During his occupational training at the headquarters, Chandel has seen many completely wrecked mobile suits. Mobile suits scraped all over. Test machines, barely into the prototype phase, ruined by steel bullets. It was a sight that could bring tears to his eyes. However, seeing the finished product Nocton worked so hard to make evoked a different kind of emotion with how Chandel personified the machines in his mind.
One year ago, in 0084, Nocton Ceramics first the Cannes to the Montreal campus. The person who calibrated the cameras and setup the machines for the very first time was Chandel. The class of 0084 learned to pilot in the machines rather clumsily, and the data gathered from their experiences were used to develop the revised version of the Cannes used by Elysia and her classmates. Chandel helped the mobile suits grow and develop alongside the students at the Montreal Campus. In that way, it would be strange for him not to empathize with the machines.
Elysia's rode in the trailer truck as it descended underground. The truck made distinct roaring sound at Elysia as it drove in. Chandel simply watched it drive by and find its place to park. Repairs had to be done, but by the time they'd be finished, Elysia and her classmates would probably be in space already. He'd by lying if he said he wasn't sad about that. According to some of the staff who were at the training grounds, Elysia was actually piloting one of the wrecked GM Cannes. It wasn't hard for him to imagine the unbearable humiliation Elysia felt seeing her mobile suit like that.
"I hope that, at the very least, this motivates the students to commit themselves to their training."
The truck drove past Chandel as he whispered to himself, with Elysia riding inside. She didn't even look at Chandel, she probably didn't even notice he was there. A small smile curled with his thick lips as he walked inside the underground hanger. The hangar's loading corridor was dimly lit, and the only sound that could be heard was the distant echo of the large trailer truck that had just drove in.
Chandel suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
"Was that the trigger?"
Chandel felt on easy as the words left his lips. Didn't he hear something about a trigger in a context like this before? Yes, he did. He heard instructor Forma talking about creating some kind of opportunity to make Elysia change. Chandel turned around and stared intently at the area where the truck drove by, as if it was still there.
"No way..." He said in denial of his own thoughts, though his unease still remained.
Elysia was on board one of the mobile suits involved in the incident... Though it was purely speculation and there was no evidence. Chandel stopped staring at the empty path and started moving. He knew that regardless of what the truth may be, he had a job to do. He reminded himself of this and began walking deeper into the hangar.
There was a small washroom that connected to the dormitories and the auditorium. The trainee dormitories are in the basement, but there were plenty of people using the washrooms on the first floor. However, that's only during the daytime. During the night, there was hardly a trace of anybody to be found in there. Even so, the sound of running water could still be heard echoing through the washroom. Moreover, the dull sound of flesh hitting something hard could be heard echoing down the hall.
Elysia was standing in the washroom. She had left the faucet running and glared at her reflection in the mirror with a terrifying expression. To be more accurate, the mirror wasn't reflecting Elysia's face. The large cracked fragments of the mirror appeared like a spider-web, with each fragment mirroring a part of her terrifying expression.
carinch.
A sound akin to stepping on gravel could be heard from Elysia's fists as she smashed them against the mirror, twisting them into the exposed wall behind it. Blood trickled from her fists, dripping down to her wrists and gradually swelling into stream flowing into the sink. The drops of blood briefly stained the water, before being consumed by the flow of water and being consumed swirling vortex of the drain.
"I didn't see the Guntank..." Elysia said to herself. "That was my first mistake."
The air was filled with the scent of bleed. It reeked like iron. Elysia pulled her blood-stained fist out of the mirror and wound it back to her shoulder, then unleashing another blow upon the mirror with even more force. It was no longer recognizable as a mirror now. A really unpleasant sound echoed in the room.
"I assumed the guns on the arms could only fire paint rounds..." Elsyia said with a complex mix of anger and regret. "That was my second mistake."
It wasn't her own enemy she couldn't forgive, it was herself for being so careless.
"Why was I so preoccupied with Asuna at the time?"
"Why did I so calmly make such such a careless judgement then?"
"If I had relayed my stupid assumptions to one of my allies, someone might have gotten seriously injured... or something even worse could have happened."
Elysia's stomach churned as these thoughts ran through her head.
"But would not doing so have made it harder? Harder for who? Asuna?"
"This isn't a joke"
"Am I the one getting in the way?"
Elysia blamed herself, because nobody blamed her. She hated herself for making such a mistake and she hated that nobody called her out for it when it was over. It was the first time she had ever blamed herself.
"Hey! What are you doing!?"
A sudden yell brought Elysia back to her senses. She noticed the sink was stained bright red, but it wasn't just the sink. Elysia's palms, the sleeves of her uniform, the surrounding floor... all were covered in fresh blood.
It was Shin Barnack. Elysia frantically tried to hide her hand, when she felt a hand grab her shoulder. She glanced over and saw that the owner of the arm was indeed the man who had kicked Kelly in the dorms a few weeks ago, during an argument about who owes who for staving off Yahagi's wrath.
"Your hand is covered in blood!"
"Don't worry about me!"
"But you're hurting yourself!"
"Leave me alone!"
She swatted Shin's arm away in a fit of rage and stubborn refusal. A single drop of blood splattered onto Shin's face.
"It's easy for you to think like that! You weren't the one who made a mistake out there today!"
"Don't go blaming yourself for this! What happened today was an accident, it could have happened with anybody!"
After Shin spoke, he tried wiping away Elysia's blood from his face, but his expression remained resolute, as if trying to provide some form of meager comfort for her. Elysia felt a sharp pain in her nose, it was a pain she shouldn't have felt. On the day of her brother's funeral, she thought she buried all of the tears she would ever shed in that grave with him.
"Of course you'd say that, that's just how you are... You treat everybody exactly the same..."
Elysia couldn't make more words come out of her mouth. Her heart just couldn't bear to say anymore. She distanced herself from Shin's arms and ran down the stairs. If Shin were to stop the water, Elysia felt as though she may never be able to speak to him again.
A few days had passed since the incident at the mobile suit training grounds, and the trainees were forbidden from setting foot there. Naturally the training had been cancelled, leaving Yahagi and the others to lament that their vacation before beginning training in space had been ruined.
It's not like those three days were devoid of things to do. Some students were diligently training on their own, while others were busy preparing for life in space their whole next semester. Other students were enjoying this as a literal vacation. The top of the school had been transformed into a makeshift volleyball court, where the sound of students cheering at their victories could be heard every day.
Meanwhile, in the underground hanger, one of the mass production Guntanks sat inside. One of its shoulder mounted canons was bent like a straw, making the whole thing face sharply to the right. The entire body was tied in a thick wire, likely to keep it from falling over.
Elysia looked up past the tape denoting it as a restricted area, and up at the Guntank. She felt such intense, painful feelings when she looked up at the half destroyed Guntank. She was likely projecting herself into it. She did this despite the fact that it inflicted such terrible wounds on here. Though she almost felt a sort of kinship with the machine, seeing it in such a battered state.
Elysia felt like a terribly self-serving person, shouldering the brunt of this incident herself. It had been hard to keep lying in the state she was in, words just flowed from her mouth projecting more of her honest feelings than she would dare share on normal occasions.
"I don't want Chandel to see me like this..."She thought to herself, although almost as if on que, she heard footsteps behind her. The high-pitched sound of boots colliding with concrete echoed throughout the hangar as they slowly approached Elysia. All she could offer was a cheerful greeting as her gaze remained fixed. She cleared her throat and spoke in an upbeat voice.
"Don't worry. I just came here so I wouldn't be asked to play volleyball. I'll be back up there soon."
But there was no reply. The footsteps abruptly stopped behind her and the only thing she could hear was a faint, raspy breathing. It was a sound that she had recognized, which only made her more uncomfortable as it crept up behind her. It was a gross sound that almost seemed to mock Elysia and everything she cared about.
Elysia turned around and saw a man standing behind her in a dark blue suit. Thick veins bulged on his brown skin, while his sharp features were complimented by onyx eyes and thick eyebrows suggesting a strong will and strong observation skills. When Elysia looked closer, she saw something familiar hanging from the man's chest. It was a white mask that the man, who suffered from lung ailments, always carried with him. A PVC filter reminiscent of a platypus beak rested on the mask over the wine-red tie.
"Father..."
Elysia said with eyes wide open. Klause Nocton, who had the lower half of his face obscured by his mask, stood there staring at her silently.
"Even though it was an older mobile suit with an autopilot, it was taken down by just one unit..."
That was how he greeted his daughter. They hadn't seen each-other in six months, and their last meeting was just a 10 minute meeting regarding her entry into the Montreal Campus.
Elysia turned back around to look at the Guntank. She had nothing to say to him. More than anything else, she didn't want to look at her father's hideous mask anymore.
"That's unusual... It's rare to see you praise anybody but yourself."
She had said that to smooth things over, but what she said was partially genuine. She'd never forget how he never even attended her brother's funeral, the service held for his own son. No matter how incredible Yahagi's piloting was, when we he took down the enemy, it still took Elysia aback to hear her father praise someone who was a complete stranger to himself.
Elysia never found words like 'ruthless' or 'strict' to be appropriate descriptions of her father, more like words such as 'indifferent' or 'cold'. He managed a large company and relied on a wide network of contacts, but he never bothered with the affairs of others.
"Someone else? I'm talking about the GM Cannes" Klaus replied curtly.
Suddenly the pieces clicked in her head and she now realized why her father felt this way. One of his company's mobile suit took down both tanks on its own.
"Did you receive my letter?"
It only took Elysia four seconds to know exactly what he was talking about. It was the letter that had arrived from the moon a few days ago. It was more like a questionnaire about the mobile suits than a letter.
"Right, that letter. If you were going to write to me about that, you should have sent it to Chandel."
Elysia lowered her head and thought to herself.
"Maybe I empathized with the Guntank, because it was ultimately used like how my father is using me... Maybe I harbor some resentment for the Cannes deep down, because of the institution that created it."
"But it wouldn't make sense to do that."
For a split second, it looked almost like Klaus was smiling with his eyes. Elysia had an uneasy feeling in the put of her stomach as she stared at her father's mouth.
"What do you mean?"
Elysia asked the obvious question and turned her gaze back to Klaus' profile, but Klaus wasn't looking at her, he looked at the Guntank. Then, out of nowhere, he removed his mask. Thick lips similar to her brother's formed a smile on his face.
"Why do you think I even let you join this school in the first place!? It was so you can give me personal feedback regarding the GM Cannes and the GM Canard!"
"But..."
Elysia's words trailed off. Is this how a father thinks of his daughter? The thought brought a stinging to her nose. Perhaps she'd become more emotional since the accident. Suddenly she could somewhat understand why her brother left their father's side and joined the army. Elysia looked to her feet, covered in the leather boots of the training school uniform. She stared at them and continued speaking.
"My brother didn't want to do anything special. I'm sure he found solace in doing ordinary things in the ordinary way. That's just like him."
"But can
you do that?"
Klaus' tone was sharp, but his words trailed off before he finished speaking. This was probably because he put his mask back on, having taken it off to adjust the filter valve's throttle. Elysia understood this was probably the case, but she didn't want to look to confirm it. Klaus' voice seemed closer than before, sending a chill down her spine. The sound of his heavy breathing could be heard right next to her ear. The bubbling sound of his breathing from behind the mask may even indicate that he was laughing.
"You are indeed my child to an unbearable degree. You are proud, arrogant and you readily use those around you for your own ideals. You are nothing like Leonid. Do you understand what I am saying Elysia?"
Klaus' words seemed to resonate directly to Elysia's mind. How this man could be arrogant enough to call himself her father saddened Elysia. She could only imagine just how frustrated her brother must have been. He stuck to his beliefs so hard that he left this world. If Elysia wanted to do the same and carry on what her brother started, she, too, had to stick to her beliefs and boldly declare his justice. A body without a soul can't do anything, because it has nothing of its own to say.
"But father, the only person I'm using
is you."
"That's fine. Using each-other is how a proper parent and child relationship works."
"Don't you dare describe us as '
parent and child'!"
After that outburst, Elysia walked away. Her footsteps in the underground hangar sounded much lighter than Klaus' as she walked away.
Elysia couldn't remember why or how she walked into the Judo dojo, but before she knew it, she was standing in front of the entrance. The light was on and Elysia peeked inside, getting a glimpse of Kelly practicing through a gap in the shoji screen. She wondered just how long he had been practicing and then, against her better judgement, she walked inside anyways. Kelly glared daggers at her, as if to tell her she was getting in his way.
"It's you again." Elysia said coldly. "You must really love Judo."
"I told you, it's a daily routine, didn't I?"
Kelly's voice showed his irritation towards as he continued his seijaku practice. Kelly struck the tatami mat in a sound that made a nice resonance throughout the dojo. The repetitive pounding sound came over and over again, echoing throughout the dojo. Perhaps the simplicity was what made the sound pleasant. For some reason this suddenly made Elysia think of Asuna.
"I don't like you. You always act like you're better than everyone. Then at the first sign of a mistake you get all sulky and act like your life is over. Who do you think you are?"
Kelly's voice was filled with irritation, which ran in stark contrast to the calm stance he was practicing in. Elysia thought even his frustration was preferable to Klaus' intensity. That's why she ended up blurting out her feelings.
"For my brother's sake, I can't allow myself to make mistakes!"
"What do you mean your '
brother'?"
Kelly stopped practicing and looked at Elysia. Once the dam broke and she revealed herself, she couldn't stop the oncoming flood of emotions forcing themselves in an effort to pour out of her mouth.
"My brother was seven years older than me. My father ran a business on the moon, so my brother was the only father-like figure I had looking over me. When Zeon declared war against the Federation, he volunteered for the army. He didn't have to go to war, but he went anyways. Ultimately, he never came back."
Elysia sat on the tatami mat in a way Yahagi had taught her to sit, which he had called
"seiza". She couldn't let Kelly to see her cry, but the more she thought about it, the stronger the pain in the back of her nose became. She had to hold back her tears and the only way to do it was to keep talking. So, keep talking she did.
"My brother taught me that you should never run away, no matter how desperate your situation is... When you stumble, you mustn't runaway. You'll never achieve anything, unless you're sure what you're achieving is right. That you must always move forward, never backwards. He died for those beliefs, so for his sake, I cannot allow myself to fail. I have to keep walking down the path he did. I can't abandon it."
"What are you on about with all this 'big brother', 'big brother' non-sense? You don't get it all."
Kelly knelt down in front of Elysia, with his back straight and posture tall. Elysia was bewildered as he looked directly into her eyes.
"The path your brother walked is fine, but what about you? What's your path? Are you really just going to throw in the towel because you failed once?"
Kelly stood back up, his gaze shifting from Elysia to outside the judo dojo.
"In that case, the 'no good' option is the best one. Come with me. I have something good to show you."
Kelly casually stepped off the Judo mat. His gentle light-footedness was something Elysia definitely lacked.
"Take a look at this first, sir."
Chandel stood in front of Klaus, pointing to the wreckage that once was one of the GM Cannes. The mobile suit was brought back from training half destroyed, so they took it apart and had pieces of it hanging from the ceiling in the underground hangar. It looked like a marionette that was tattered and missing its puppeteer. The only remnant left of its humanoid appearance was the cables, which resembled human nerves connecting the disembodied limbs to the rest of the body in a gruesome display.
"What's this?"
Klaus asked, his voice muffled by the mask trying to block out the elements of the summer heat. It was a sound that Chandel was familiar with. The smell of oil and metal permeated throughout the hanger. Chandel could see Klaus frowning behind his mask occasionally. Chandel had gotten used to the smell after working in this hangar for a year, but even with the PVC filter, Klaus must have gotten some of the smell in the air he breathed.
"I'm sorry sir. I let the Cannes get ruined like this."
"It wasn't any fault of your own."
The resolute words made Chandel realize Klaus wasn't staring at the GM Cannes itself, but the black box next to it that they retrieved from inside it. It was about the size of a small refrigerator. The reason why something so big never seemed that size to Chandel was because he had been comparing it to the Cannes beside it. But even so, Klaus had no interest in the ruined GM Cannes, even though it was a mobile suit that symbolized the future of the company.
"Right, sir. This is the black box that we were talking about. We recovered it from inside the damaged Cannes."
Chandel stated it in a rather business like tone of voice. Removing the control unit was not a job a simple dispatched engineer should normally be doing. The fact that he seemed to remove it with little difficulty should indicate just how damaged the GM Cannes was. If Chandel were to choose his words carefully he'd say that this was is a blessing in disguise.
Klaus stared intently at the monitor screen connected to the control unit. The complex program was ran through a specialized program translation software, then displayed as visual diagrams on the screen. Even so, how much of it can Klaus, who wasn't an expert on this kind of thing, possibly understand? Chandel was now standing behind Klaus and pointed to a section of the screen.
"This is the main system that is normally used. We presume that when certain conditions are met, it switches to another system."
"What system is that?"
"This one here."
Chandel pointed with his hand to a tiny circuit board roughly the size of a business card holder. This too was something he had taken from the cockpit's control interface without permission.
"And this is?"
"It's a device that measures the pilot's condition. This device appears to be standard issue on both the GM Cannes and the GM Canard."
Klaus took the small circuit board from Chandel and leaned closer to get a better look at it. As he looked, he saw something interesting. Chandel continued speaking, while Klaus was unsure of just what this was.
"A line extends from this and connects to the cockpit and the cockpit's seat. It receives signals from sensors that detect the pilot's stress. When the sub-sensors detect a specific state of tension in the pilot, the mobile suit switches to this control system. That's how this works."
"I don't get it. What's the point of something like this?"
"We don't quite know for sure yet, but we'll continue our analysis."
Klaus, seemingly dissatisfied with Chandel's answers, turned around and looked at the Cannes in the corridor. The sight of a man in a vinyl mask looking at a humanoid weapon hanging from the ceiling in an unusual way. What on earth was Klaus thinking as he looked up at the Cannes? Chandel was looking at Klaus from behind. He was his employer and the father of his best friend, yet he couldn't help but think Klaus looked thinner than when he last saw him.
Chandel began to wonder if Klaus would never have started building mobile suits of Leonid hadn't died. No, that's too sentimental a thought for Chanel to humor it. Klaus wasn't the kind of man to let others dictate his decisions and actions, even if they were his own family. He didn't even flinch when he heard his own daughter was in this life threatening accident. That's fine. His heart belonged to himself and himself alone.
"You said you were a little concerned."
Klaus' words finally cut the silence. His back was still turned, but his deep voice bellowing from his mask was unmistakable.
"Yes sir."
"Do you think it's possible that these were put here for experiments? For example, gauging pilots' potential by subjecting them to extreme stress, to monitor their reactions under pressure?"
"I'm sorry sir, I don't really know what you mean..."
"I figured as much. Don't worry about it."
Klaus returned to complete silence after that. To Chandel, the question Klaus asked seemed incredibly strange.
It was no surprise that Forma Gardner, sitting in his chair in the instructors' office, witnessed Chandel's entire conversation from beginning to end. The problem wasn't an absence or presence of security cameras. In the training grounds there were forty security cameras setup throughout the area. There were twenty security cameras set-up inside the school building. In the underground hangar, where a treasure-trove of military secrets were kept, the number of security cameras were incomprehensible. The real problem was that Forma had seen footage of Chandel Tadarshi and Klaus Nocton talking from over a hundred security cameras.
That was undeniably Klaus Nocton on the cameras. Not just because he was an outsider Forma didn't recognize, but because of the kind of contact he made with Chandel Tadarshi, a man Forma had definitely taken a keen interest in. Forma had tried to monitor Chandel's actions and words using Elysia. After all, it'd be a waste not to use a man who said he would do anything for Elysia.
Forma's schemes currently aligned with the desires of lieutenant colonel Toru, who was the person in charge of running École. His goal was the discovery and nurturing of individuals with exceptional talents. There was no doubt that lieutenant colonel Toru was going to use the people they discovered for military purposes, but that also meant this plan had to be carried out in complete secrecy.
Forma suspected Klaus Nocton, this is why he was keeping a close eye on him. They could not allow selection process for candidates to be influenced by ordinary companies, especially when said companies involved a trainee's relatives. At this same time Forma had, in a way, already broken this taboo when he approached Chandel.
He glanced at another monitor and his attention was suddenly grabbed by Asuna Elmarit in her pajamas. It must have been an hour since she had started using the simulator without permission.
"Giving it your all I see..."
Forma had a big grin on his face as he leaned back in his chair, the sound of the metal hinges of his char creaking echoed throughout the dark instructors' office. The simulator data Asuna was working with was based on data collected from the recent incident with the Guntanks. This was the trigger they had prepared for Elysia and Asuna, but to Forma's surprise, Asuna might be the one who reacted to it first.
BEEP BEEP BEEPA small electronic sound from outside the simulator rang out. The monitor automatically switched off and two figures appeared on the screen. Looking at the view on the monitor Forma couldn't help but smile. The two figures' backs were straight and their figures were distinctive. The gait of the woman among the two was so distinctive that even in dimly lit simulator room at night, it would be impossible to mistake it. It was Elysia Nocton, and Forma felt a joy in his heart, as he recognized this as a victory. The boy was Kelly Signit, wearing a judo uniform. Though Forma remembered Kelly for that time Elysia made him foam at the mouth during the simulator battle, where he won through schemes not skill.
Forma switched the speakers to the cameras from the simulator room, but he was unable to hear their conversation. It was understandable that the monitor microphones mounted on the simulators had their limitations. Even so, it wasn't hard to imagine what kind of conversation the two may have been having. If Asuna was the catalyst for Elysia, then Forma could only call that a pleasant surprise.
He next saw Elysia jump into the simulator opposite the one Asuna was using.
"Don't let your guard down Asuna! There's one more enemy, two-thousand meters behind you!"
"Elysia!?"
That was definitely Elysia's voice coming from the speaker. What a quick start! Less than twenty seconds had passed between her activating the simulator pod and supporting Asuna.
"It's brave of you to use the simulator after curfew. If the instructors find-out your going to be grounded, both figuratively and literally."
"So
it really is you!"
"What do you mean '
it really is me'!? Oh dear... Does this mean I've fallen so far that I've actually reached your level"
"And what's that supposed to mean!?"
Forma listened to the conversation with amusement. It didn't matter whether or not they got caught, he could see everything. Of course he wasn't going to bust them for this. It was all just good fun and he was going to watch the show.
"You could say that I came here to look out for you... We can do this together. Wouldn't you like my help?"
There was a silence that hung in the air as Asuna thought about what Elysia said.
"Enemy unit at 4 o'clock! Assume all rounds to be live ammunition!"
"Let's do this!"
"Roger that!"
Forma was pleased with what he heard Elysia say. '
consider all rounds to be live ammunition'. It's true that to the trainees, it shouldn't matter who or what was responsible for swapping out the paint rounds. He next glanced at one of the monitor screens showcasing the underground hangar. Klaus stood in the shadow of the GM Cannes control unit, while Chandel operated the analysis computer alone. What kind of reaction would he have if he were told the whole plan? Forma wondered.
It was the higher-ups after all who asked that the trainees be subjected to the pressures of real danger, but it was none other than Forma who orchestrated the plan to swap out the paint rounds with live ammunition. Chandel had stood there with Forma and watched as the mass production model Guntanks were being carried into the underground hangar. Never did he even guess that something made to bring real harm to Elysia was among them.
On the monitor, during the simulation battle, Asuna and Elysia displayed excellent team-work. It seems as though Forma's dark plan had not only succeeded, but given the two trainees a new opportunity.
"Let's get along."
The words echoed throughout the empty instructor's room. Did he direct that to Elysia and the others or at Chandel in the hangar? The answer was known only to Forma and buried deep in his heart.
Kelly didn't say anything to Elysia. He simply showed her Asuna in the simulator and the battle being displayed on the monitor. Asuna was desperately fighting the mass production model Guntank, while Elysia stood still and watched. Asuna took a step forward and that was all it took to make Elysia spring into action.
As Elysia gave instructions to Asuna, many thoughts were swirling in her mind. Most of them slipped away into the depths of her heart before they could take shape, but the non-verbal images on screen gave Elysia at least one answer.
Asuna's GM overtook Elysia's and pulled ahead. Elysia banked right to assist Asuna's GM, aiming her gun while keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings. Chandel had a partner in Elysia's older brother. When Chandel was lost, her brother must have been there for him to help guide him on his way. When Leonid decided to volunteer for the Earth Federation Military, did he consult Chandel? He probably did. That's what Elysia felt.
Elysia has no partner, she never felt the need for one. Her stance that has still not changed, but here in this moment, Asuna Elmarit was her partner. It wasn't that Elysia had accepted Asuna, nor had she accepted Kelly. It was that Kelly's words, encouraging Elyisa to find her 'own path', that bothered her.
It all started with her brother, for sure. She wanted to follow in his footsteps and always be by his side. It was never her goal to surpass him, but when he died... She was chasing something that was no longer moving. Her only choice was to move forward, move past what she was chasing, with her own two feet. It would be a path that would lead to a different ending than his own, but her goal and pursuit along that path would be the same as his.
"Elysia, to the right!"
Asuna's words snapped Elysia back to reality and she began frantically looking around, only to find nothing. The enemy Asuna was talking about was five-thousand meters away. She calmly lowered the stance of her GM and waited in silence for the enemy to approach Asuna.
"All clear, Asuna. Take caution up ahead."
"Roger that."
Asuna's voice was calm. The first time she had fought, she wasn't even skilled enough to do a successful aerial descent. Come to think of it, didn't Emile Voightlander think highly of Asuna? Perhaps she had a good eye for people. Elysia found it somewhat amusing.
Elysia chuckled to herself as she thought of all the types of people at the training school. Kelly was competitive, Shin was meddlesome yet kind to everyone, Emile was like an older sister and Asuna was...
A warning sound echoed through the cockpit. The enemy Asuna pointed out earlier was now three-thousand meters away. Elysia thought for a moment and then tapped the console. A scope appeared on the monitor display and she entered firing mode. She was too far away to actually shoot the enemy, so she'd have to wait a little longer. Still, Elysia wanted to try and fire at the enemy from a distance. She didn't want to try anything reckless, rather she wanted to try something different to what she had done before.
If she changed herself, even in small ways, would she be able to stay on the right path without wavering?
If she became strong, she'd be able to see so many more things. Perhaps a world her brother hadn't even seen? A world Chandel didn't even know about? If so, then this would be her path. She would stand forward and move ahead with confidence.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPThe scope stopped precisely on top of the Guntank. At the same time, a small window opened and showed a closeup image of the Guntank. The guntank was now facing her direction. There was no way to dodge to the left or the right.
"I can do this" Elysia whispered to herself and squeezed the trigger on her cockpit's grip.
"Elysia!?"
Asuna's voice and the sound of impact overlapped with each-other. The afterglow of the beam lingered like smoke, while in the distance Elysia could see smoke rising. The fragments were recreated in the data, as were the flames around it. The guntank disappeared into a burst of fire as if sinking into water.
"Okay" Elysia thought to herself. If Elysia was to walk the path that lie ahead of her, she couldn't let herself make anymore mistakes. No, she couldn't make anymore mistakes, period. As she looked up she saw Asuna's GM beyond, just over in the forest.
"Come on Asuna! There's Just one more to go!"
