Not much to say here apart from where I'm gonna attempt to make the story more interesting, so onwards with the new chapter.

Cause For Concern

*Dream Sequence*

Well, what was supposed to be a normal wake up for me turned out to be the exact opposite. I was meant to be dreaming away until the morning sun rose up like usual, but a bad dream I was having stopped that. I seemed to be in a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from and it was a little horrifying. All I remember from the dream was that I was running away in a pitch black environment. I couldn't see anything that was in front of me, but what I could see was something...or someone chasing me with a disturbing voice.

"Run all you want, but you will never hide from us!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I yelled back in my sleep. "Why...why can't I wake up?!"

Then the pitch black became a dark red colour and now I could see all around me, I was running down an endless hallway and the hallway was becoming more redder after passing by each door that was showing splats of dry blood. I didn't care to look what was behind me, I just had to keep running like I've done so for a long time. Suddenly, I ran into a wall when I thought the hallway was endless. I had to turn around and it wasn't someone, it was a group that was after me in my dream.

"The game's over, Matthew. Time to pay your due."

They drew out several guns as I looked down and started letting out tears that were colored in red before the guns fired...

*End Of Dream*

"ARRRGGGGHHHH!" I shouted out loud as I suddenly woke up in my bed. "Hah...hah...hah!" I was panting heavily and sweating around the head with my heart beating fast.

Then I heard the door open and someone came rushing in.

"Matthew!" Charlotte called. "What happened?!"

"Charlotte?" I responded whilst in a state of shock.

"My room is next door to yours, so I heard you shout, did you have a bad dream?"

I was still panicking. "This is...my room?"

"Please tell me Matthew, I'm worried for you."

I sat on my bed as Charlotte sat next to me. "It was a nightmare...and it was one I couldn't wake up from..."

She put her arms around me. "It's alright, I'm right here."

"Yeah..." I suddenly let my tears fall, they were clear this time unlike in the dream.

Charlotte placed her hands on my face, making me look at her before she kissed me. I truly appreciated the affectionate gesture, so I responded with my arms around her before resting my head on her right shoulder. The thoughts of the bad dream were slowly fading away and I was able to breathe much easier now.

"Okay, I'm calm now. Thank you, Charlotte." I said as I stood up.

"It's alright, I'm always willing to help." She replied before we shared a close embrace and she left my room with a smile.

After getting changed and cleaning myself up, I walked downstairs and noticed the other girls who were sitting at the table and glancing over the letter...oh crud!

"Matthew...what is this?" Cecilia asked.

Damn, I had to come up with something on the fly. "I wish I knew...maybe it's just a prank."

"Right, there's no way this could be considered a prank." Houki dismissed with her arms folded.

"We wanna know cause we're worried about you." Rin added. "Is there anyone you know who would do this?"

I looked away and huffed.

"Don't try to sweep the issue." Laura said. "We are aware that we must attend the academy, but we will not leave until you give us an explanation."

I suddenly then remembered that these girls are IS pilots and I do not wanna get on their bad side. "Alright...when you lot get back, I'll explain it all to you then."

"Very well, but we will continue this matter by then." Cecilia replied with a concerned look.

"Just please be careful." Houki added before wrapping her arms around me. "I don't ever want you getting hurt."

"I know...I will be safe like always." I assured with my arms around her. "I won't let it bother me whilst working today."

"Good...now we should get going." Laura said as she and Rin left the house with the other two girls following suit.

"Matthew, you don't have to hide it from us." Charlotte said beside me. "We do want to help you."

"Yeah...I get that now." I sighed. "It's just that what happened in the past is the one thing I never ever want to go through again."

"Well you just promised that you would tell us, so please don't break that promise." She kissed me before leaving the house to join with the other girls.

I nodded and smiled a little. "Okay...time to get to work." I muttered as I got myself ready to get back to my job.

The hours flew by and my time at work was done for the day. I was walking my way back home until I felt a sense of uneasiness around me. I looked around quickly and saw nothing strange, except for one a guy that was dressed in a very long coat and a hat covering his face. I suddenly felt a hint of fear, it was just like those guys in my nightmare. The guy looked at me, but I was already out of there as I started walking fast and away from him.

I was halfway back to my house and running along the footpath, I looked behind me to notice that the guy I thought was following me was not there. I was kinda relieved to not be followed, but I wasn't safe just yet. Could that be the person who sent that letter to me or was he just a messenger for someone else who wrote that message?

I got back home safe and locked the front door behind me. Normally, I would have it unlocked for when the girls come back from the academy, but I couldn't risk it. I would just have to remember to listen out for when the door is knocked, good thing I have a peephole to see who it is outside who's knocking the door. I sat by the table and looked at the message again, wondering why this is happening now when I thought this was over and that I could start afresh in this city.

There was a knock on the door, I looked through the peephole on the door and noticed that it was Ichika, I unlocked and opened the door.

"Hey Ichika, I wasn't expecting to see you here." I greeted.

"Yeah, mind if I come in? We need to talk." He replied.

I nodded as he came in and we sat by the table before he noticed the letter.

"Hmm, so that's what the girls were talking about."

"Oh, I guess they said about this to you during the lunch hour, eh?"

"Yeah, I could tell that something wasn't right when I saw those girls looking worried, so I asked them about it." He began to look serious. "Now speaking as from one guy to another, I wanna help you out as well."

"I appreciate it, but I'm not sure if it'll be a good idea for you and the others to get involved with what happened in my past."

"Well, why not?"

"Let's just say that my past may be catching up to me, when I thought I had moved on from it. I don't ever wanna see you all getting hurt because of what I did."

"Yeah, I can understand that, but you need to remember that we're not ordinary students, we're IS pilots and if someone horrible or some group was out to get you, we would be able to handle them without a scratch."

"I know, but there are cases of...'What ifs'. What if this group from my past arrives in far larger numbers, what if they were more powerful than your battle suits...or worst of all, what if they allied themselves with another threat that you and the girls have in common with?"

Ichika pondered over the last one. "Well if that ever happened, then we would have to get involved. Those two enemy pilots are still out there after all."

"Exactly...anyways, how are things on your end?"

"Well I kept in mind what you said at the beach, so I had a very long talk with them all."

I nodded. "Oh I see, how did it go?"

"Well, at first they were all annoyed about my acting, but eventually they calmed down and we all came to a common ground. So we're all just friends now and I think my sister was satisfied with how smart and brave I was...so I'm kinda glad to have gotten that off my chest and now I can just be my real self with them."

"Good job, man." I praised. "See, I knew it would work out well if you tried."

Just then, the door opened and in came the girls who were almost surprised to see Ichika with me.

"Girls...and Ichika, I think it's time you learnt what happened before I came here." I said, taking a deep breath and explaining my true reason for coming here.

*Flashback*

Six Months Earlier...

I was working as a janitor at a mansion one night, but I wasn't paid to do it. This was voluntary work that was almost against my will and the hours made it a bit awkward for me since I was still studying at college at the time. The one major thing however was that the mansion I was doing this free job in was owned by a mob gang, they were considered as outcasts in the city I was once grew up in and that they would only come out at night for reason I had no business in according to their boss.

At first, there was a case of mistrust since I was nothing like what they were, but that soon settled down once I got the hang of working as a mansion janitor. Things were okay for a while then until I found myself getting too familiar with a beautiful looking girl that was around my age. That was the night where it all went wrong for me.

"Say there janitor guy." She said before whispered into my ear. "Meet me in my room in five minutes."

"Uhhh, okay." I replied with concern before she rushed up the stairs. "Was the boss's daughter trying to hit on me?" I shook my head and resumed with my janitor work.

After a few moments passed, my work was done and normally, I would leave the mansion. But that night, I ended up being too curious so after putting away the cleaning stuff in the closet down a hallway, I walked up the stairs and noticed one of the doors opened. I peeked inside to find the girl herself laying on her bed in a classy dress.

"About time you showed up." She teased.

"Well, I did have work to finish off." I replied. "So what did you want to see me for?"

She got off the bed and walked close to me. "Well, I like to see how fast you can run."

"What do you mean?"

"EEEEEEEK!" She suddenly screamed before I heard loud footsteps coming through the door.

There were two bodyguards who drew their guns out at me.

"Step away from the boss's daughter and come quietly!" One of them ordered.

I then realized that it was all a ploy just to get me into serious trouble, I somehow felt like the cat who got too curious. But if I was going to go out, I'd much rather go down swinging. So doing the most stupid thing I could think of, I stood behind her and moved backwards before jumping through the open window and out of the mansion. Thankfully, there was a shed I landed on so the fall wasn't too far and I jumped off that before I started running as fast as my legs could carry, away from the mansion.

When I got back home, I secretly made my way to my bedroom and sneakfully packed my bags. I didn't care about where I could go, I just wanted to get far from that unpaid job and leave that past incident behind me. Since they knew my name and where I lived, it was not safe for me to be here...I just hoped my parents would be alright.

*End Of Flashback*

"And that was when you first moved here, right?" Ichika asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, but it was a very long travel to get here. So along the way, I picked up tips on how to be a better and smarter guy whilst learning to move on from past mistakes and learn from them. However, it seems that many months later, that mob boss and his gang have caught up to me."

"So that explains the message." Laura said.

"And the nightmare that you had too." Charlotte added.

"Oh yeah...about that..." I gave them a brief explanation of what happened when I couldn't wake up and the girls had varied expressions.

"What a horrid dream that must've been." Cecilia said. "But like Charlotte says, we're all here for you and we love you so."

"There's one thing left to mention however." I suddenly got emotional. "When I was at a local cafe on route to this place, I heard the news of a house raid that ended up with two casualties...and...and..." I couldn't finish the sentence, the memory of when I heard about what happened to my parents in the news report was horrible enough.

Everyone else didn't say anything, they already figured it out. I was suddenly comforted in hugs by the girls with Houki kissing me gently.

"That's also why I never spoke about my parents." I said, wiping my tears. "So that's all I can remember, I can't think of anything else from that far back."

"Hmmm, we'll have a think about it with Chifuyu at the academy tomorrow." Ichika pondered. "The idea of them teaming up with those IS pilots that nearly destroyed us bothers me a lot, even though that seems very unlikely."

"But what if it does?" Houki asked. "Let's remember that Matthew can't fight, if that mob gets to him-"

She was cut off when I heard a letter drop through the letterbox. Rin walked over to pick it up and handed it to me, I opened it and laid the letter out on the table.

We're closing in, Matthew, you are next!

It was a short message again, but this time the writing was in red colour, not the normal blue colour like before.

"What the heck? Is this another taunt?" Ichika asked.

I suddenly had that eerie whistle go through my head again and I saw a flashing image of seeing the blooded hallways followed by hearing screams of familiar voices.

"Hah...hah...hah..." I panted heavily before calming down.

"Take deep breaths, Matthew." Laura said who had me look in her red eye.

That seemed to have done the trick as I calmed down after a few seconds.

"Girls..." I said to them with worry. "...I don't know what I do without you all."

"Well, I think I should head back to my house." Ichika said as he got up. "I'm gonna let my sister know about this, if you don't mind."

"No I don't now." I replied. "If I can get any help or protection, I will take it."

"Alright, see you and the girls soon." Ichika smiled and left the house.

I stood up and I hugged the girl closest to me which happened to be Houki. "So uh girls, about that boss's daughter who led me into that trap."

"Don't worry dear, you were just tricked and we do not think of you any less." Cecilia assured who hugged me from behind.

"That's right, in fact, we love you even more now." Rin added who joined in the hug.

Charlotte and Laura joined in, completing the group hug. "Whatever happens, we'll protect you...always."

I found my smile back after that...I thought it would be difficult, but this discussion was a good thing. As long as these girls are here, I shall be safe...

Well there's the reveal of Matthew's past more or less, apologies if it's short or looks rushed, I was running low on ideas at the time.

Next time! Chifuyu reports of surprising bad news that concerns them and the academy.