Angels of Death

by S093

Jackson opened the Gate, Tabanae created the IS, the Universe cursed the Goa'uld for not reducing earth to a smocking ruin when they had the chance, and they were given plenty of chances.

14. Chapter 8-Power and Skill

Chapter Eight, Power and Skill

Earth, Japan, IS Academy, Stadium stands, May 2015

Cassandra Fraiser found the situation in front of her bemusing. The pair, who had less than a week ago been talking nonstop about how cute they found Sasha. Now they were pale white and shivering in the furthest point from the silver-haired girl as they could get. Sasha for her part was completely unaware of the on-goings around her and was instead intently focused on the countdown until the match-ups for the tournament were revealed. Of course with them being a bit early there was still a few minutes until the match-ups were announced.

Nizru and the others had yet to arrive leaving her to deal with what she had believed to be two people fondling a third. What was actually happening given her expectations was quite amusing.

"Twee minutes left." Sasha called out, this was the longest Cassandra had ever seen the silver-haired girl pay attention to anything, and every second she was setting a new record for paying attention to something.

Turning to the pair, "you know I can't see what has you two so scared of her. She's more a danger to herself than anyone else."

"You're wrong, she's a sheep in wolf's clothing..."

The other half corrected, "you mean wolf in sheep's clothing right."

The first half thought about it for a second. "Right, she's a wolf in sheep's clothing. She's a demon wearing human skin, and you feel comfortable sleeping in the same room as her."

"Beyond her short attention span, there is nothing weird about her. Certainly nothing that warrants being deathly afraid of her. Seriously, what happened. A week ago the two of you couldn't get over how cute you thought she was. Now you can't even approach her, it's not like she bites or anything."

"She is a monster, nothing more nothing less."

"Sure," Cassandra rolled her eyes, nothing serious could have happened, could it. Suddenly she wished to remain ignorant of whatever had happened, probably better for her sanity that way. "You do realize how completely ridiculous you two look right now." The pair sat up and looked around to see what had once been an empty stadium was now becoming gradually more crowded. They immediately straighten up and did there best to stop shivering uncontrollably, unfortunately for them in their haste look presentable they forgot where the other one was. The results were quite amusing, pity she didn't think to grab her phone to film it.

It was with the crowd that Nizru and the rest of the group showed up. They all began taking seats with Nizru taking the seat to her right, the girl pushed herself as close to Cassandra as she could manage. Cassandra had to rein in a sigh, why Nizru was hitting on her was a mystery to her, and it hadn't taken her long to figure out that Nizru was. While somewhat faltering, it was really more of an irritation to her, besides she wasn't the least bit interested. But the problem came from how to get that across without hurting Nizru's feelings too much, she didn't want the girl out for vengeance or retribution. That would be troublesome.

Sasha was on her left, nearly coming of the seat with the way she was gravitating towards the overhead screen. One person she wouldn't have to worry about being hit on by, just being hit by. She had came to the conclusion less than a week in to the year that the students here were selected on their ability to use IS units rather than any actual academic ability. She was surrounded by various examples that proved this point, sometimes she questioned earths ability to beat the Goa'uld. Her mind drifted to the various people at the SGC and other facilities in the US and around the world. Okay maybe the current generation can do something, I'm just not so sure about the next generation.

Case in point, Sasha who was now ready to launch out of her seat at the screen overhead. Under her breath, "ancients help her." She really needed help.

"I'd rather they not."

"Huh," she turned to where she thought she heard the reply only to find a very exited Sasha looking up at the screen.

'And twee, two, onee, and there herrrreeeeee." Sashas hands shot up straight in the air startling the poor girl sitting behind her. Her face met the palm of her hand.

"I should start a list of all the mental illnesses I'm going to get while I'm here, I should start with delusional, and maybe insanity."

She looked up at the standings to see how the tournament would play out. Cecilia had mentioned that the exact order wouldn't be determined before hand, but she did say that the first years would be going first followed by the second and then third years. That part at least was there, and it appeared Cecilia wouldn't be going in the first round, instead it was class A against class D.

Her mind went back to the first encounter she had with her room-mate a month ago, Sasha had been brought in by her class representative. Ludmilia Chekov, where had she heard the name Chekov before, definitely Russian, or at the very least eastern European.

She was still trying to figure out where she had heard that name before when the two combatants came out into the arena. General Chekov, that's were she remembered the name from, that would mean Ludmilia, was piloting, something along the lines of her Blitz. Everyone else was about to get beaten, and beaten hard.

Out on the field she could make out some details of the two IS. Ichika's more in line with 'modern' design, colored white and blue with sleek lines and not much bulk. Ludmilia's was almost the exact opposite, grey in color like her Blitz, it sported more hard edges and the thick plating made it look extremely bulky. More bulky to the point that she thought it might even have thicker armor than her Blitz.

Another contrast to Ichka's IS were the very obvious fixed weapon mounts on the wings and shoulders of Ludmilia's IS. Two short barrels extended from the leading edge of the wings, an additional two barrels were mounted on the shoulder, at the moment they were 'upright' and almost doubled the IS's height. Ichika's IS bore some resemblance to the Blitz in that it didn't have any fixed weapons mounted, but the Blitz's frame was more inclined towards Ludmilia's IS.

She took a look up at the screen to see how much time was left until the match started, and discovered another reason as to why Ichika was screwed. While he had six hundred shield points, Ludmilia was sporting twelve hundred, twice as many, not to mention bringing a lot of firepower into play. Ichika had better have some really amazing equalizers or the match would be over quite quickly.

One minute until the match started, well this will either be amazing or short. Either one was fine with her. Truly the universe must have it out for Ichika Orimura to have his first match against something that could easily defeat him. Now that she thought about it, he might actually die if he gets hit by one of the long guns, seeing as his IS has no useful armor.

Ichika Orimura had dreaded the class representative tournament ever since twenty nine hormonal girls had forced him to become their class representative. Personally he suspected it was only to inflate their own egos. Now, now he feared he would not be leaving the arena in one piece, all to satisfy the egos of people he really didn't care that much for in the first place. Damn his classmates for volunteering him and damn his sister for not letting him back out.

And damn his sister again for giving him nothing but a sword on his IS. Sure it was really good sword, but the problem with swords was that you needed to get in close to use it, something he was sure he wouldn't be able to do here. Seriously, four fixed gun mounts on top of whatever weapons could be carried in the arms, whoever had built that IS unit had absolutely no concept of overkill.

He was also pretty sure that the guns on the shoulders of that unit could shred his IS should his shields get to low. At the moment his only plan was Ignition Boost in, without getting shot to pieces, then use Yukihira to take them down, hopefully it's barrier null effect would work against that armor. He really wanted to know who built that unit, first so he could give them a piece of his mind concerning over engineering then to ask them for one. Really, the only thing bad in his mind was the face plate, it could use some work, and who wouldn't want those long barrels.

Chifuyu Orimura looked over the match up Ichika had been placed in and wondered if maybe she should have given him a ranged weapon. Well to late to worry about it now anyways, hopefully he wouldn't completely embarrass himself by forfeiting the match. Good news was, given the match up Tabanae shouldn't have time to interfere, hopefully. The last thing she wanted was to be cleaning up after one of her 'wife's 'social' experiments.

"Ms Chifuyu, maybe you should have given him more than just the Yukihira. He doesn't have any other weapons which leaves him quite predictable."

"Good point, maybe for the next match. Now unless you intend to teach him how to use all of his weapons I suggest you keep your suggestions to yourself."

"But I couldn't possibly take such a responsibility, especially with one of my students." Maya was going into full on freakout complete with a high pitched voice. Chifuyu decided to keep her remaining sanity and not inquire as to what Maya was thinking about.

"Alright start the match."

Snapping out of her hysteria, "but there is still time left."

"I said start the match." Maya didn't move and continued to look at her confused, useless. She moved her hand pass Maya and hit the buzzer to start the match.

"We can start the match whenever, besides it will give our idiot the upper hand seeing as he is prepared."

"What if he's not?"

"Then he'll lose."

He was at the moment contemplating the best way to forfeit the match, at the moment all he had down was use flowery speech. And he had fifteen seconds left. Then the buzzer went off signaling the start of the match.

"Wait I'm going to-" he was cut off as his opponent opened fire. Dropping down he managed to avoid the worst of it, but a few of the rounds found their mark, knocking of almost a hundred shield points. He needed to think of something and fast before his shields fell and he holes punched through him.

He pulled up and back to get out of the way of the oncoming streams of fire and managed to get himself some respite as his opponent readjusted their aim. He used the respite to get a look at his opponent, both shoulder mounted guns had moved into firing position and she had deployed a gun into each arm, that's a lot of firepower there. She won't have much accuracy at range but I have no ranged weapons, he couldn't find a way to win.

He dropped downwards again to avoid the mass of projectiles that went through the space he had just occupied. He then headed to the left to avoid being pinned down, even as he watched his shield point counter slowly fall from stray hits. "I want to forfeit, you can have the match."

"No, I want to shoot something and you're conveniently placed." Well he had to try, he arced upwards to avoid the steady stream of rounds flying at him, he could feel the impacts as some of the kinetic force made it through the shield. If this kept he was going to lose though attrition, he needed to take the offensive and take it now.

In the control room Chifuyu had her hand pressed to her face, that idiot actually tried to forfeit the match, and it had been broadcast to the entire school. Maya had moved as far away from Chifuyu as she could manage.

Ichika ducked underneath another cannon shot, his initial assessment of his opponent dual wielding auto guns had proven inaccurate. One of the weapons being held was a cannon, and one he was fairly sure was going to kill him if it hit. So far his wild maneuvers had prevented him from being hit by the cannon, but his shields were still taking hits from the five auto guns being trained on him. He needed to get in close but his opponent was determined to keep him at a distance, maybe revealing that he didn't have any ranged weapons on him was a bad idea.

So he was stuck dancing around trying to avoid as many rounds as possible that he finally saw his opening. He had just performed a vertical loop and his opponents weapons were pointed away from him, he didn't waste any time and activated Ignition Boost. On his way in he activated Yukihira, the glowing blue beam extending out of the sword base, and he watched as it slowly began to drain his shields. He managed to close the distance quickly enough that Yukihira didn't absorb to much of shields. He brought the blade across in a horizontal strike coming from his left, his aim was dead on the glowing blue blade was going to land right across the IS's midsection.

Less than a meter from hitting the IS the blade struck a shimmering veil of yellow, black and orange, stopping the blade in it's track. That has to be cheating, all of his remaining momentum that was going to go into going past his opponent was absorbed by the veil. Before he had a chance to break away his opponent managed to bring their cannon to bear.

He did his best to move to his right and down even as Yukihira's blade passed through the veil. The cannon fired and Ichika was grateful for Byakushiki's noise dampeners on top of his ears, as even with them the cannon firing caused his ears to ring drowning out all other sound. The cannon's blast sent him spinning away until he came into contact with the ground a few meters below, when had the fight descended so much.

In the stands Cassandra watched as an energy shield appeared in front of Ichika, stopping his attack, well that was unexpected. Ludmilia then used what must have been a three kilogram railgun to blow of Ichika's left wing.

Beside her Sasha bolted up and screamed, "EXPLOSION" at the top of her lungs before preceding to sit back down, a grin was spread across her face. Maybe the pair did have a point in being afraid of Sasha.

He managed to get himself back up, and after a quick check of Byakushiki's readouts learnt that he had lost the match as well as the left wing assembly. What was once the left wing was now scattered all over the ground. And he was silently thankful that it had only been a wing that was hit and not the body, that would most likely have been fatal to him.

A video feed to Ms. Maya appeared on his IS's HUD, while he could see her mouth moving he couldn't hear anything. He was pretty sure his expression looked ridiculous on the other end.

In the control room Chifuyu watched as Maya kept asking Ichika to return to the bay, while the Idiot in question kept on staring back at the screen with a blank look. Moving herself so she was in front of the camera she watched as his eyes darted over to were she would appear on his end. So he could see them at least, she typed out the order to return before sending it to him. The reaction was almost immediate, a slur of what vaguely sounded like an acknowledgment, great now his hearing was out of wack.

"Maya have a medical team standing by in the bay."

"Yes, on it."

Ichika read the order to go to the bay from his IS's HUD and wondered how he was going to manage that with only one wing. And even though the ringing in his ears had stopped he still wasn't able to hear anything, just one more way for the universe to screw him over. Now how to get up to the bay.

He had walked over to the closest point of the arena to the bay and was trying to figure out how he was going to get up there seeing as he couldn't fly the twenty or so meters upwards required to get there. He was still trying to think of a way to get up when suddenly he was airborne, instincts honed over a few weeks of training took over causing him to activate his wing mounted engines. Of which he quickly remembered there was only one of now. The unbalanced application of thrust sent him spinning around, switching the direction of thrust coming from the wing he began to counteract his spin. He had just managed to stop his spin when the floor of the bay was less than a meter from him, without any upward force gravity took over and slammed him down onto the floor.

Picking himself up of the floor he spotted his sister at the other end of the bay with her forehead pressed against the palm of her right hand. Was it really that bad, luck had certainly not been with him today.

Later

Cassandra resisted the urge to yawn as the fight dragged into its second hour. A duel between two snipers was not all that interesting to watch. It had started out interesting, with both units circling the arena firing shots. Cecilia's blue IS deploying several pods that attacked her brown colored opponent from multiple directions. Then the fight had moved out of the arena, while the occasional shot flew overhead nothing much happened.

She was the last one awake at the moment, the pair had fallen asleep in each others arms, Sasha was using her left arm as a headrest while Nizru was using her right shoulder as a pillow. It was a configuration that left her unable to move. Which meant she couldn't get up and get food, food would have been much appreciated right now. She was just thankful her stomach had yet to protest the lack of food yet, that would disturb some people.

Really there should be a time limit on matches to prevent them from dragging on like this. Ironically she wasn't sure who she wanted to win. On one hand she enjoyed the idea of her class winning the tournament, and to do that Cecilia had to win this match. On the other hand the winner of this match had to go up against Ludmilia, and given what happened to Ichika, she wasn't sure Cecilia would come out of it alive.

A blue bolt shot over head, quickly followed by a yellow one heading in the opposite direction. This was going to take a while. On the screen they were fairly evenly matched with both of them having almost the same amount of shield energy left.

After some consideration she decided that the people around her had the best idea, and simply sleep until the end of the match. Besides she wasn't going anywhere without disturbing someone. She let her eyelids fall down and discovered that her body was eager for some sleep.

Later

She had been expecting to wake up to the sound of the buzzer signaling the end of the match, she had not expected to wake up to being in the embrace of the people on either side of her. And at least one of them had wandering hands. She let out a sigh before using her arms to find the faces that were pressed against her arms. A quick push and she was free of the unwanted double embrace. Sasha arms were flaying wildly above her, probably trying to find her again. Nizru looked disappointed, well she had found the owner of the wandering hands, great now she would really have to watch herself around Nizru less she get dragged into a compromising position.

Stretching out her arms while ignoring the drama around her she took a moment to check the screen. It seemed Cecilia had won the match while she had been asleep. Which meant Cecilia was facing off against Ludmilia now.

Cecilia was facing off against Ludmilia right now. Out in the arena the two of them had just taken their places and the countdown to the beginning of the match had already started. She quickly excused herself and made her way to the top of the stadium were it would b easier to get onto the arena.

She made it to the top without drawing more than a few glances her way. She was about to deploy Blitz when the rational part of her mind pointed out that this was a stupid idea. Taking a moment to think he decided that she would only interfere if Cecilia was in danger. Unlike Ichika Cecilia didn't need to stay within range of Ludmilia to attack, she was a long range combatant, and if the last match had proved anything was that Cecilia knew how to fight at range. Maybe Cecilia could win, and if things started to go bad she would jump in.

The timer finished counting down and the buzzer went off signaling the start of the match. She had expected Ludmilia to immediately open fire once the match began, instead she was surprised when Ludmilia charged head on at Cecilia.

Cecilia was obviously surprised as well as she only managed a single panicked shot into Ludmilia's shield before the shimmering yellow shield slammed into Cecilia. The blow took a big chunk out of Cecilia's shield and sent here flying backwards before she could recover. Ludmilia's shield became extraordinaly deformed by the impact but no damage was dealt to the IS shields she was using.

While Cecilia was recovering Ludmilia managed to get a bead on the blue IS. She could almost here the roar of the guns as Ludmilia unleashed shots into Cecilia at a range she couldn't miss at. And from the way Cecilia was jerking she was feeling the blows.

She had to intervene now. Before she had even finished the thought Blitz had appeared around her and she was flying out on to the field. She was going to get Cecilia out of there before Ludmilia killed her.

She barely registered the proximity alert before the blow caught her on the left shoulder, the blow sent her spinning out of control. Rather merely right herself to be caught in her assailants sights, she opted to go with the roll diving before pulling back up and around to come face with her assailant. She needed have bothered with the fancy maneuvering as her attacker hadn't attacked again, rather they were simply floating there facing her.

The IS facing her was similar in design to both the Blitz and the Buster, they were pointing a hammer of all things at her. So the Canadian representative has finally shown herself, but why here and now? Dammit she couldn't waste time like this, she searched around for where Cecilia and Ludmilia were. She thought she caught sight of her goal behind the Canadian, great she would have to fight to get there and she didn't have time.

She made a move to go around. "Do not interfere," deep, commanding and without fear. Well so much for that idea.

"Stand aside." She replied, doing her best to come across frightening or intimidating, she didn't think it worked given that they didn't move. The hard way then. "So you won't move."

"I will not."

"Then I'll force you to move." With that she launched two full boxes of grenades set to proximity at her opponent, before launching straight up. It should have bought her enough time to get around, it didn't. Instead her opponent launched several objects into the cloud of grenades causing them to detonate before she could take advantage of the distraction. She was also heading in the opposite direction that she needed to.

She immediately reversed course only to have her opponent intercept her. Without wasting anytime she called up the three kilogram railcannon and opened fire at what was almost point blank range. Her opponent barely managed to avoid the three kilograms of iron launched at supersonic speeds, but it still missed. But it did force them out of position which was all she needed. She flared her engines pushing herself forwards at high acceleration, quickly gaining speed. She had done it, she had gotten past the other IS.

Her victory was short lived when three rounds impacted her left side, their momentum just enough to force her away from her desired route. Dammit, they just wouldn't give up would they. She broke to the right hard to avoid another trio of shots only to end up getting peppered by auto gun rounds. She proceeded to dive to get out of the line of fire. Several rounds flew past over top of her but she had gotten out of the worst of it.

Spinning around she brought her own cannon to bear lined up her opponent, only to have them swerve out of the way. Frustration building she lined up another shot and simply fired, unsurprisingly it didn't find it's mark. She managed to avoid all but one of the trio of return shots fired at her. Another shot from her cannon went wide, as her opponent went on with random evasive maneuver, countering while she was recharging the cannon. She wanted to scream in rage, why couldn't they simply stay still.

After another missed shot she dismissed the cannon and called up a pair of IS combat knives before charging in at full acceleration. Her opponent tried to accelerate away from her, but without wing mounted weapons cutting into engine space she had more thrust to use and was able to close the gap. They managed to get off a trio of panicked shots, which she ignored, before they dismissed their cannon. "Just fall already." They didn't have time to draw another weapon as she slammed into them, instead they settled for catching her arms.

It dissolved into a contest of strength in which they were evenly matched. Then the wing mounted weapons came around, while they reduced the amount of space available for the engines they were effective if you didn't need to move. A short burst and a kick forced her to back off, her opponent used the opportunity to gain altitude.

She was just about to pursue when a pair of explosions occurred on her chest plate, followed by her shield depletion alarm going of. She had manged to lose over seventy five percent of her shield, when did that happen. "Shit." She was no longer in a favorable position, even if she managed to take out her current opponent there was no guarantee that she could take on Ludmilia. She needed to end this now if she would have any chance against Ludmilia.

She had unfortunately distracted herself for a second which her opponent took full advantage of, their hammer appeared in their hands as they charged Cassandra. She managed to catch the blow on her arms, but it still took of a significant portion of her shield. It also had the side effect of pushing her downwards, the pair of them were quickly loosing altitude.

The impact with the ground knocked out the last remnants of her shield, her HUD informed her of damage to the IS's rear components. She swung her arm at her opponent only to have them catch it and force it across her chest. A quick shove from her legs managed to throw her opponent off of her, they merely backed up slightly and drew a cannon and aimed it at her chest.

"Yield, you have lost."

"We'll see about that." Another roll got her out of the line of fire and enough time to draw a weapon. Only to have a round pass just in front of her helmet.

"You have lost, next time I won't intentionally miss. And at this range your armor won't be enough to stop a cannon round." Dammit, they were right, at this range it her armor simply couldn't provide adequate protection to the head, which was right were they were aiming. "Will you yield."

"No, I have to help Cecilia, tha-"

"In case you haven't noticed that fight was resolved long ago, now will you yield. Or do I have to start punching holes in that armor of yours."

"Fine, I yield. Now are you happy."

"I am content." With that they dismissed their cannon. She then expected them to turn around and begin moving away giving her a chance to strike. Instead they lifted off and while still facing her began flying away, she felt her frustration build until she lashed out at the ground with her fist. They couldn't even give her a proper opening so she could pummel them, preferably to small pieces.

Later

Chifuyu looked across her desk at the blond haired girl standing opposite of her. Frustration, anger, rage, the girl had them in spades. Cassandra Fraiser, the American representative candidate. One of the two students responsible for the mess during the tournament.

"Now I don't think I need to explain why you're here Ms. Fraiser."

"Broke school regulations and all that fun stuff, I've already gotten the lecture a half dozen times now." The message had obviously not gotten through, which seemed to happen with just about every student here, especially the representative candidates. Honestly, just because they got a personal IS does not make them invincible or above the law.

Really it would be easier if they just learned that the easy way, instead of the painful expensive hard way. "Then I see no reason to go over it again. Now you will have to suffer the consequences of your actions, no matter how noble the intentions behind them."

"Cecilia's in the hospital. You really think I shouldn't have done what I did."

"You accomplished nothing. You failed to aid Ms Alcott. And you needed have worried yourself about it in the first place as we have instructors who are trained to deal with exactly that kind of situation."

"All that would have happened was any instructors you sent ending up just like Cecilia. They would have had no idea what they were getting into."

"And you would?"

"Yes." Some people had way to much confidence in themselves.

"Yet you were beat, rather soundly if the replay is anything to go by."

"If they hadn't caught me off guard with that first blow and if I wasn't trying to get to Cecilia I would have won."

"What if, what if. The what if is irrelevant, a thousand things could have gone differently, but the fact remains that you lost this time. Next time might be different, but the fact remains that you were defeated in single combat by your opponent." Taking out a sheet of paper. "These are the details of your punishment, you are expected to follow them. Rest assured I have spoken with the other parties involved in this matter and issued out punishments for them as well, so do not believe you are being singled out." The talk with the Canadian representative candidate had been interesting. "Now I have other duties to attend to as well."

The girl took the paper before storming out. Chifuyu had to let out a sigh, she really wished she could institute some actual punishments rather than the slaps on the wrists she was forced to give out. The threat of expulsion would probably work well enough, unfortunately there was way to much money coming from the students home countries to do something like that.

Doing a quick check of the room to make sure the door was locked and that no one was around, she opened up her desktop. Let's see what Tabanae makes of the tournaments events.

She had just logged in when Tabanae's face appeared in a pop up window on the screen, something caught her eye. "Hello Tabanae, any particular reason I see you on my computer screen."

"I was hopping you could do something er-"

"No."

"Awww, Chi-chans no fun." Tabanae put on a pouty face. "Or did you want me to-"

"NO."

"Awww, no fun. I even had on my spec-"

"I'm here to talk business, unless you are as well I'll leave."

"Pooye, so what did you want to talk about." Tabanae only sounded half interested.

"I'm sure you can figure it out."

"What happened at the tournament, involving the IS's of the American, Russian and Canadian representative candidates. Am I right."

"Yes, I've sent you my preliminary observations, but I want to hear it from you what you make of the situation. And the IS units."

"Well I'll start with the IS units themselves. They have been built with heavy combat in mind, everything else about them stems from this. Feasible armor, from what I observed these three units could fight without their shields against any one not fielding anti armor weapons. Their shield capacity is quiet frankly absurdly massive, again heavy combat units, they must be using extra battery packs to augment their shield energy supply. Then there are their engine units, which at the moment have me completely stumped." Chifuyu blinked, Tabanae was never stumped, frustrated yes, stumped never. "I can't figure out how they managed to get so much power out of their engines. The calculated power to weight ratio is nearly fifty times that of surface to space rockets, before factoring in loads."

"Their weapons loadouts are also out of the ordinary, not one of them has an energy based weapon. Though that could also be them not using one as well. Beyond that the only other thing of note about the IS's themselves would be the Busters second shield, or primary in this case. I have no idea what it is, it is obvious what it is meant to be, as Ichika demonstrated, a disposable shield. Useful for countering one attack, and as demonstrated a nasty surprise for anyone not expecting it. The active inertial canceler would have been a better choice for a brawler unit, though this system being used does protect against surprise attacks."

"More or less what I concluded as well. And despite being from three different countries they all look relatively the same, though I'm not surprised by the American and Canadian units being similar."

"Well until a month ago I wasn't even aware the Canadians were running an IS program, still the Aile could be their take from a joint project. Which would also explain why the Blitz and Aile are near identical. What really surprises me is America and Russia working together, though I have suspected that for a while I would have to say it's confirmed now."

"So we have a potential Russian American block forming."

"Don't forget about Canada, they're part of it too."

"That just makes it worse, if they get china on board to they would have pretty much half of the worlds industry. Though I don't see that happening anytime soon, though I also didn't see Russia and America working together so I suppose anythings possible."

"I'm worried, there's something we're missing here. Something that I believe connects all these anomaly's together." Tabanae was truly scared of this, worst part is she's probably right.

Cassandra looked over the punishment she had been given as she made her way to the infirmary where Cecilia was currently resting. Looks like she would be on classroom cleaning duty for the next two months. She silently hoped that the Canadian representatives candidates punishment was worse than hers for what happened to her and Cecilia.

Entering the near empty infirmary she made her way over to Cecilia's bed past rows of unused beds on either side of her. She had come here to see if she could ask how Cecilia was feeling, but when she arrived Cecilia was already asleep. She stood there for a moment before turning to leave, she stopped when she felt a pressure around her wrist. Turning around she saw Cecilia wide awake and holding onto her.

"I see your awake."

"Yah."

"How you feeling."

"Fine for the most part, just some scrapes and bumps, should be out of her by the end of the week. I'm more worried about you though, you were the one that got slammed into the ground not me."

"I'm fine, really there's no need to worry about me. Just get some rest, the rest of the class will sorely need their class representative back."

"I never did get to thank you for what you tried to do."

"All I ended up doing was getting beaten."

"It's the thought that counts, besides it was kind of sweet of you to go through all that trouble for me. What's that in your hand?"

Hiding the sheet of paper that she had been holding. "Oh this, it's nothing."

"You got in trouble didn't you." Why was she so easy to see through. "Still, you were doing it for me, and it was a sweet gesture."

What was with the sweet, was that some British turn of phrase. "Well it's good do know that your fine."

Later

Cecilia watched Cassandra leave the infirmary. She had thought for the longest time that she would end up with some useless guy or no one at all. That had been the case until she met Cassandra, she had never thought she would fall for a woman. But here she was, besides Cassandra was cute sometimes, but above all she was like a prince to her. Rushing in without head to save the damsel, despite said damsel being fully capable of taking care of herself.

She wondered when it had first been that she had begun to view Cassandra as more than just a friend. Was it after she had removed herself from the pool for class representative, that was a moment she would never forget. Or had it been when she had rushed in to save her at the tournament. In the end it was trivial, it had been when Cassandra had come to visit her that she realized how she felt. Besides it wasn't like Cassandra was hard on the eyes either.

Cassandra would be hers, and nothing would prevent that from happening.