Final Exam
"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?"
"It's just one session to see if you like it," the commander said trying to get me to calm down. "It'll be good for you!" he added, not even trying to dress up the over used expression.
"But he's a fricken full on Zentradi!" I shot back. "He could… flick me and break all my ribs!"
"Judo literally means 'gentle way,'" Mirage said, rolling her eyes at my perceived over reaction. I sighed heavily, not knowing how to really come back from that one.
"I'm guessing this is happening regardless," I finally said.
"Huh," Messer mused, finally speaking for the first time this morning. "I see Mirage has managed to chip away at some of your stubbornness." My eyebrow twitched at the man's statement and I could've swore I heard a low growl from Mirage. But, as usual, Messer remained unaffected by our displays of hostility.
"Captain Ernest will be expecting you in thirty minutes," the commander said before I could think of anything retaliatory to say to Messer to prove him wrong. "Mirage, you've earned yourself some free flight time. Everyone else, carry out the plan of the day." With that, everyone began to leave the room. After lingering in the room, I decided to just get this day over with and made my way to where Chuck said the judo classroom was and found the towering Captain waiting for me.
"You actually showed?" he said, sounding surprised.
"I can't very well refuse the Captains request," I muttered, earning a hearty chuckle and pat on the back that made me stagger slightly.
"You'd be surprised," the man said with a toothy grin. "Since we're a privatized organization, some people tend to be more… liberal with following orders."
"Lucky them," I muttered under my breath.
"Don't worry, Mr. Immelmann," the captain said knowingly. "I may seem like a threat to your health, but being a judo master means that I am not only capable of beating you, but capable of beating you without harming you."
"Huh," I laughed dryly. "'Gentle way,'" I muttered, echoing Mirage from earlier.
"Exactly," captain Ernest said happily, sporting one of his frightening smiles. "Now, go ahead and get changed in the room over there. I'll be waiting out here." I went to go change into the white uniform that had been hanging for me in the changing room. After getting dressed in an admittedly slow fashion, I came back into the main room to find the large man waiting for me.
"So, what do I do, exactly? I hope you don't expect me to be able to throw you around." The Zentradi gave another large smile before closing his eyes.
"'Resisting a more powerful opponent will result in your defeat, whilst adjusting to and evading your opponent's attack will cause him to lose his balance, his power will be reduced and you will defeat him. This can apply whatever the relative values of power, thus making it possible for weaker opponents to beat significantly stronger ones,'" the captain replied, opening his eyes after he finished quoting something. "That is the main theory behind judo. It is not about overwhelming your opponent with strength, but out-adapting him in control." I merely raised my eyebrow at the man in suspicion.
"I do not expect you to win under your own power," the captain finally said plainly. "But I would like for you to try and win using my own against me."
"I'd like that too," I muttered.
"Let us begin," the man said, swiftly moving his feet into a ready position.
"Wait, don't I need to hear the rules or something?" I quickly asked nervously as I tried to mirror his footing.
"I want to see how fast you are at improvising," the man said with a predatory grin that made me hope time would literally fly for the next couple of hours. The first couple of matches were over faster than I could say 'judo,' but each time the captain would put me into a hold or pin, he would do so without putting me into any undue discomfort and explain how I could try and prevent or get out of the holds and pins. On our tenth go around, I was finally able to side-step a grab and follow through with a grab of my own that put the large man off balance for a split moment before one of his hands came back around and pinned me to the soft floor again.
"Impressive!" the captain said in loud boom of clear surprise and pride. "You got me there for a moment!" I couldn't help but share the mans temporary joy as we set up for another go around. Within another ten minutes we were both ready for a break.
"I have to admit, Mr. Immelmann," the captain began as I drank from my can of green tea. "I did not expect you to be doing as well as you are right now."
"Well, I'm just as surprised as you are," I admitted as I stared at my beverage. "I didn't think coming into this I'd be able to leave under my own power, let alone land a couple of grabs."
"Heh," the large man laughed. "While I'm surprised with your quick learning as well, it wasn't exactly what I was speaking about."
"What do you mean?" I asked with a light scowl of confusion.
"It's like I was saying earlier," the man said with a sigh. "We're a private company and people tend to take orders around here as suggestions. With your history of moving around from one job to the next, I honestly didn't think you would stick around and take orders form people when you knew how easy it can be to move on to something new and easier." I realized that the man was right in may aspects. When I hadn't liked something about my job, I was quick to not do whatever it was, weather it be something small like not wear some specific piece of gear, to not doing the job altogether. But here…
"I guess I just realized this is something that I want to do. That I can see myself enjoying for… well, a long time at least."
"… All aspects of it?" the Zentradi asked after a pause.
"Huh?"
"You may not realize it yet because you've been so focused on the basics," the captain began. "But at the end of the day, you're flying a Variable Fighter. You will be expected to protect Walkure, with force when necessary." The judo classroom was silent for a while as captain Ernest's words soaked in.
"I think we've done enough for today," the man finally said after a long pause. "You're free to enjoy your weekend. Be ready to come back on Monday. Do you want to continue these sessions?" the man asked. I knew he was trying to keep it from coming out, but I could detect a small amount of hope in his question.
"Sure," I replied after a long moment to let him sweat it out as a small amount of payback for his last take down that had been a little less 'gentle' than the others.
"Excellent!" the man said, getting up and offering me a hand. Once we were both standing we made a tentative plan to meet back up next week and I was left to go enjoy my weekend.
As soon as I got back, I was ambushed by Chuck's younger siblings. They had been tracking down the mercat that had bested us all at the beginning of the week and had finally spotted it sunbathing at the end of pier. They were about to ambush it when they had spotted me coming back from Elysion. We quickly picked up some swimming gear for myself in case this turned into a water combat zone and proceeded to try and sneak up on the vile vermin. As we were closing in, Chuck spotted us and our intended prey and immediately joined in, coming in from a different angle. Just as we got within two meters however, my allergies acted up and I sneezed, blowing our element of surprise and making the creature start to get away. All four of us began our pursuit and sure enough, the aquatic animal made it's way into the water.
"Come on, Hack! Zack!" I called out to the two young boys following me before sneezing mid stride. "Dammit!" I shouted, cursing my allergies yet again as I ran to the end of the dock and pulled down my respirator. I dove into the water after the brown mercat and quickly spotted it making its way through the schools of fish and jellies in the water. However, just when I thought I'd finally catch the rascal, it turned around suddenly and came at me, throwing me off and slowing me down. It then caused a mid-water collision between Hack and Zack before it turned it's attention back to me and slapped the scuba gear right off my face with a painful tail wack. Keeping my eyes open, I was just able to make out the brown fuzzy spot of the mercat being chased by the significantly larger blob that I assumed to be Chuck. Just when it seemed the two blobs were about to merge, the mercat pulled up sharply and Chuck went speeding past, not expecting the animal to perform a sudden stop. I tisked in annoyance, but had to surface for air. I didn't have gills like my three companions.
The rest of the weekend proved to be largely uneventful, but I liked it that way. I was able to see a lot of Barrette city and tried out a couple of the local foods, even if they did seem… strange. When I came back in on Monday, I was fully rested and recharged. And this week, I was going to need it.
"Today we will be flying in the VF-1EX," Mirage announced during the morning briefing on Monday. The commander raised his eyebrows in mild surprise and for once the stony expression on Messer's face changed to a scowl of mild disapproval that probably indicated a much larger level of disgust than what he showed.
"Way to go Hayate!" Chuck said, the only one to react positively to the news. "Moving up in the world!"
"Is the boy really ready to be in a real plane again?" Messer asked coldly, making Chuck go silent. "You do remember what happened to the last one he tried to pilot?"
"He won't be under fire today," Mirage said quickly before I could retaliate, knowing I would only escalate the situation with my large mouth. "Besides, he's been in plenty of simulations now. I'll take responsibility for any damage he may incur." It felt weird to have support from Mirage, even if it wasn't altruistic in nature.
"I look forward to seeing the results of last week," the commander simply said as he gestured for the rest of the people in the room to clear out and carry on with their day.
"Thank-" I tried to say once the room was cleared out, but Mirage quickly interrupted.
"You will not embarrass me today, vomit boy." She then swiftly left to go get changed into her flight suit. I shook myself out of my temporary stupor and clenched my fists. Yep, she still hated me. I stalked over to the male changing rooms and donned my flight suit. It was a deep shade of blue that I knew had been influenced by the color of my hair. The suit was form fitting and had a few composite parts to it for reinforcement in key areas. I grabbed my helmet from a shelf and headed out to where Mirage was waiting with our training variable fighters.
With some help from flight control, I got permission to take off and Mirage and I began our training in earnest.
"Listen up, rookie!" Mirage shouted once we had flow far enough from Elysion to begin maneuvering. "Let's start form the basics and see how good your memory is. Rightward turn!" Mirage commanded as she began the movements herself. I moved the throttle and stick as I had in the simulator and began the turn myself, but something about the movement felt… off. Delayed maybe? I tried pulling the stick a little harder, thinking it was just some kind of problem with the stick. The result, however, was my plane pulling back far too much and entering a stall.
"Idiot!" Mirage shouted out as my plane tumbled. "Straighten up!" I grunted in frustration and embarrassment as I wrestled the plane to try and get control back. "That's too much!" Mirage continued shouting, her plane flashing in the review mirrors on my canopy. Suddenly, the flight stick seemed to gain a mind of it's own and began to move on it's own bringing my plane back into stable flight.
"Now do you get why classes are important?" Mirage asked in anger. But I felt like the anger was unjustified. I had been paying attention! There was something going on with my plane! Before I could tell her what was going on, she spoke again. "Just get behind me for now!"
"I know!" I replied, reflecting my anger and frustration in my response. I pulled up on the flight stick to get behind Mirage who was above me, but encountered the strange dulled response again. So I pulled harder to try and compensate, but again, the plane stalled out at the sharp movement.
"Dammit!" I shouted in frustration as the plane began to tumble again.
"What the hell are you doing?" Mirage asked, her voice sounding more threatening than a swarm of angry hornets. "You're losing speed!" The flight stick suddenly sprung back out of my hand and auto-maneuvered the plane into stable flight again.
"The AI keeps getting in the way of how I want to fly!" I shouted in frustration as Mirage came along side me.
"If we let you fly the way you wanted, you wouldn't be in the air for long," Mirage replied testily.
"What?!" I replied angrily, realizing that Mirage had put the AI in place.
"Okay, then," Mirage said in the same voice she had used nearly a week ago when she took me for a 'ride' in her plane. Suddenly, a green light flashed off on my flight stick and my plane began to shudder as I was buffeted from the turbulence in the air that had been mitigated by the AI up until that point. I struggled for a few moments as I tried to get used to countering the new interference as Mirage began to speak down to me.
"To increase mobility, fighters sacrifice stability," she began in her haughty teaching voice she would sometimes use with me when I was acting especially stupid in one of her lessons. "Even the best pilots need some form of assistance to help them counter the turbulence in atmosphere. Learn your place."
As I continued to overcompensate for the new turbulence my planes flight progressively lost more control and I soon found myself tumbling out of the sky again. I could hear my breathing in the small space of the helmet and could see my panicked face in the reflection of the glass just inches in front of my eyes. I couldn't stand the suffocating feeling I had while I was in something as large and open as the sky and quickly pulled the annoying headgear from my face. I took a deep breath of the cool air in my canopy and focused on getting control of the plane again.
I grunted as my stomach feel out of me when I pulled sharply on my flight stick and maxed out my throttle simultaneously to cancel out my death spiral. Once I got sufficient lift again for normal control, I eased back the throttle and moved the pane to circle back around to Mirage. Now that the controls were giving me immediate response and feedback, it was easy to put myself in a trail position behind Mirage.
"Wha?" Mirage asked, startled as I came along her plane, my own only shifting around in the air mildly as I actively fought against the rough air generated from our close proximity. I couldn't help but smirk as I saw her turn her head to look back at her terminal to double check if the AI was off. "Humph," she grunted indignantly. "We'll see how long you can keep that up, won't we?" She asked as she suddenly barrel rolled over my plane and shot off towards the sun. I shook around for a moment from the rough air the maneuver had created, but swiftly shot after her myself, not wanting to give her a reason to reactivate the invasive AI.
Mirage continued to grunt in frustration and disbelief as I mirrored her basic flight maneuvers, all without the assistance of the AI. Then she began to pull stunts that we hadn't even practiced in the simulators. I tried my best to mirror her technique, but I ended up stalling out from the moves, forcing me to recover as she taunted me for being 'inadequate.' Eventually, we had to come in and land, my use of fuel exceeding Mirages by a fair margin from my recovery maneuvers.
Once we had landed, Mirage swiftly dismissed me for the day, earlier than she had ever released me before and stormed off before I could ask a question. The next day I showed up unsure of what to expect. When I came into the briefing room for the day, Messer gave me an appraising look that felt more penetrating than it should've, and the commander had an even larger goofy grin than normal. Chuck of course was the first one to speak.
"What kind of crazy human are you!?" the Ragnan asked in awe.
"Huh?" I asked, unsure of where his where his question and tone were coming from.
"That piloting yesterday was exemplary," the commander said simply. "Exactly what I'd expect from someone who trusts the wind as much as you do," he finished with a smirk. Meanwhile, Mirage's face seemed to be spasing out with as much twitching it was doing as she glared at me. Once everyone had been dismissed to carry out their day, Mirage continued to stare at me for a good minute before she took a deep breath with her eyes closed and broke into the lesson.
"We're moving on to combat basics," Mirage said finally. Without waiting for my response, she began to pull up projections and large text files about combat strategy and theory.
I sighed heavily as Mirage began to go over different tactics I would have to use in order to get the upper hand in a dogfight, what she called battles where two or more pilots tried to take each other out.
"Do you want to move right into practical application then?" Mirage said testily in response to my deep sighing. "I'm doing this for your benefit after all, the simulators have a nasty way to telling you your plane is taking damage."
"You know I can't learn this way," I replied, not really believing her about the simulators. I had been in them plenty of times now to know that they weren't able to do anything dangerous to the occupants. If anything, they were kind of a let down now that I knew what real flying really felt like. They didn't simulate the intense forces you would normally feel in a turn or the changing wind patterns that I now knew existed without AI support.
"Fine," Mirage replied in an uncaring tone. At least, that's what it seemed like on the surface. Something about the way her eyes flashed familiarly… told me there was a hidden danger somewhere. We jumped into the simulators and I quickly found out what Mirage had meant by 'nasty'.
Each time the enemy scored a hit on my plane, I would be shocked by something in the cockpit, the object doing the shocking shifting each time so I couldn't predict where it would come from or avoid it. After a couple of minutes of me trying and failing at just trying to avoid the incoming fire, Mirage had enough.
"Hayate, you need to shoot back! They're just going to keep on coming if you don't take them out!"
"I can't focus on chasing them with all these lasers coming at me!" I shouted back, getting frustrated. I'd start chasing one of the enemies but just I got into a position I figured I could shoot from, a shock would come and throw me off track as the other enemies shot at me. "Gah!" I shouted out, finally getting fed up with all the shocks I had been receiving and just letting go of the controls and pressing the escape button on the simulator, stopping the whole thing. I got out of the small enclosure as quickly as I could and stormed out of the simulator room, Mirage hot on my heels.
"What do you think you're doing, cadet?!" Mirage asked, her voice reminding me of a military instructor and irritating me even more.
"I didn't sign up for the military!" I shouted back at her as I continued to storm through the halls. "Why do I have to be treated like I have? Or do things that any normal person wouldn't have to deal with?! All I had wanted to do was fly! Normal pilots don't have to shoot stuff out of the sky!"
"You didn't sign up to be a normal pilot!" Mirage shouted back, still right behind me. Our shouting was bringing everyone who was out in the hallway with us to a stand still. "You signed up to protect the Walkure! And part of that job IS shooting stuff out of the sky! We fly on battlefields!"
"FINE!" I shouted out as I spun around and confronted my angry instructor. "If I've got to shoot stuff down to do my job, then so be it!" I shouted out. "But stop treating me like some kind of military dog!" I yelled petulantly. "You're hardly my senior in any regard, I've seen you mess up so don't even deny it." Mirage was fuming mad, but knew I had spoken at least some truth and remained silent besides her heavy breathing. "I'm done for the day." I finally said after we had a silent staring match. I turned around and stormed out of Elysion, no one stopping me on my way out. I spent my walk home kicking a pebble down the road and almost didn't notice Chuck's siblings when I finally reached Ragnyannyan.
"Hayate!" Hack yelled, finally breaking me from my concentrated death stare at the pavement. "Are you okay?" the kid asked, somewhat startled at the angry face he had seen.
"Yeah, just angry about work," I admitted, doing my best to try and relax a little now that I was away from that demon woman.
"Big bro always goes swimming after a tough day," Zack said as he joined in on the conversation.
"A swim, huh?" I asked, looking out at the cerulean water. "That actually sound pretty nice," I admitted, a small smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. The three of us quickly got changed and began to swim right on the beach next to Ragnyannyan. It wasn't long before Chuck came home and joined in, showing off with his brothers just what being a Ragnan allowed them to do in the water. Once the sun began to set, I pulled myself up onto the beach, too exhausted to continue to swim. Chuck gave himself a momentary reprieve to join me.
"So…" he began awkwardly.
"I don't want to talk about it," I quickly said, not wanting to sour my mood again.
"I was just going to ask about what you planned on doing about our mercat problem," Chuck quickly supplied.
"… Right," I replied skeptically. After a moment, I decided to just go with it. It was better than thinking about work anyways. "That damn mercat," I replied, rubbing my cheek where it had slapped me week ago.
"We were pretty close," Chuck said, referencing yesterdays pursuit. I don't know if it was because I was just too tired to have noticed or if her stalking was just stealthy, but one way or another, the voice of my worst nightmare suddenly came from behind me without warning.
"What was pretty close?" Mirage asked, her voice full of anything but curiosity. Chuck and I both turned around to see the woman looking at us with narrowed eyes. Well, she was more or less looking at me really.
"Uh…" Chuck began, his nervousness showing in the way the edges of his gills shivered. "I hear the jellyfish god calling for me!" he suddenly shouted lamely. "I'll leave the rest to you! Peace!" he shouted as he got up and dove into the water, leaving me alone with the volatile woman.
"That's evil," I muttered under my breath as I watched the man hastily swim away under the red waves the sunset was making. Mirage cleared her through to unnecessarily remind me she was still there.
"What's the matter?" I asked her, not turning or standing to face her. "I'm still going to attend practice."
"That's not enough," Mirage replied instantly. I sighed heavily, upset I couldn't seem to escape this woman's wrath.
"I was told the Delta Platoon's job is to protect Walkure, not fight. There is a difference, you know."
"I'm not ignorant to that difference," Mirage claimed. "But fighting still happens. You were at Al-Shahal. We fly on the battlefield. If you're not ready for that, leave." I could tell Mirage was trying to be as neutral about this as possible, so I decided to return the favor.
"Do you enjoy flying like that?" I asked as I stood up and finally faced her. The setting sun and the ocean's soft breeze were doing amazing things for Mirage's hair, and I nearly didn't catch her reply.
"Enjoy it?" she asked as if my question was silly. "I'm a warrior. I fly to protect. That's all." I sighed sadly. I had hopped she was like me in the sense she got some kind of enjoyment out of flying, but it seemed she was just here to do a job. Maybe that's why we just couldn't get along. We weren't on the same channel.
"I see," I finally replied, failing to keep the disappointment from my voice. "Got it." I began to walk away to head inside for the night. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep once my head hit the pillow that evening.
The next day, I learned that Mirage had decided she had taught me as much as she could and that my final exam, a mock dogfight with her, would be taking place on Thursday, a day away. Since our lessons were now complete, I had no reason to stick around at Elysion, but I still went and used the simulators for a couple of hours, as unrealistic as they were, they still helped hone my general maneuvering skills. After I was done, I went home and spent the rest of the day with Hack and Zack as we tried to chase down the mercat yet again. Our misadventures had us travel all across town as we chased the brown devil around Barrette city. It was sunset when we decided to call off our chase and head back for the day.
"It's so quick at running away," Hack said as we were walking up a hill.
"Yeah," I admitted, rubbing away the last of the snot that had formed up from my allergies. "But I've seen all its moves! Next time, it's done for!" I shouted, trying to sound cool for the two younger males.
"Heck yeah!" Zack yelled enthusiastically.
"OH!" Hack suddenly yelled out, spotting a mercat that looked like our target. "Over there!" he shouted as he began running after the animal. Zack quickly followed his brother, but I could tell from my vantage point that the target mercat was not our perpetrator by it's missing scar. I decided to skip this goose chase and save my nose the trouble.
"Hayate!" Freyja's voice suddenly shouted from up the hill. I looked up to see her waving at me excitedly.
"Hey!" I replied, walking up to meet her.
"It feels like it's been forever since we've seen each other," Freyja said as we walked over to a low wall to watch as Hack and Zack began to lift up and put down the friendly mercats who clearly weren't our evil aquatic feline. Each one they touched seemed to suddenly want all the two boys attention and before long, they were surrounded by the creatures.
"How are your lessons?" I asked as I took a seat on the wall.
"So much fun!" the girl quickly replied, shaking her head more empathetically than was needed. I would've said she replied too quickly, but, this was Freyja. She had a knack for going overboard. "Running so high I can barely stand at the end of the day!" Her face seemed so happy, it made me realize just how few moments I had like that since coming here.
"How I envy you," I admitted, looking back over the water.
"I heard your final exam is coming up," Freyja began, looking up at me with mild concern. "Are you sure you should be here?"
"I can't seem to get the hang of fighting," I replied, pulling out my crystal to fiddle with, a habit that I performed whenever I felt like I wasn't everything I should be. "Back then, when I flew for the first time… when I jumped into the wind… It was a good feeling." I hadn't felt that way in a while now… "Well, I can't just go down here, can I now?" I said, done feeling sorry for my self and jumping up to my feet. "I'm gonna wipe the smirk of my strict instructor's face!" I shouted out to the bay below me. My sudden burst of enthusiasm got Freyja to giggle in her creepy way. "You have a really creepy laugh, you know?" I asked the girl, somewhat seriously. It was just too much fun to mess with her. With anyone really…
"Wh-What about my laugh?!" Freyja suddenly asked, her eyes immediately locking with mine.
"What's so funny anyways?" I replied, deciding to dodge the question for now. I wasn't sure how she'd react to me telling her it sounded like some evil murderers laugh.
"I just though about how hard you're gonna fail!" the girl shot back, seeing and using the golden opportunity to use my own words against me.
"I'm not gonna fail!" I countered a small smirk coming to my face as I mirrored her action and used her own words against her. I made my way back towards my Ragnyannyan. It was going to be a tough day no matter what tomorrow and I needed some sleep.
The next day, the morning brief was relatively short.
"Today will be cadet Hayate and Second Lieutenant Jenius' mock dogfight," the commander began. "Everyone else has the day off and are free to either watch or enjoy liberty. You two," the commander said as he pointed at Mirage and I. "You will be briefed in flight, so suit up and take off. That is all." Mirage and I didn't say a word to each other as we left to go change. In fact, no one said a word to me until I was in the blue VF-1EX.
"You've got five minutes," the commander announced over the radio. "If you can land a hit on Mirage, then you win, Hayate. To give him a chance, Hayate can take any number of hits." That began to get my heart beating. "Messer will be the judge. Start off by turning left and right respectively. The exam begins as soon as you pass each other!"
"Roger!" Mirage and I replied simultaneously. Maintaining our coincidental synchronicity, we broke away from each other to get into our starting positions. Someone else in the flight control room began to count down for us as we circled back around and began to speed towards each other. As Mirage's red plane grew larger and larger, I began to breath more erratically. Despite my reluctance to learn combat, I really enjoyed this job. And if I failed today. I wouldn't be doing it any more.
"3000 meters," the person on the bridge announced. Becoming annoyed with my helmet again, I pulled it off my face and stowed it in a compartment below my seat. I had noticed during my pull away that the AI was still engaged on my plane and quickly found the 'off' switch on my control panel. Beside it, I saw a red override switch and flipped that as well. I didn't expect Mirage to cheat, but… you can never be too safe.
"1000 meters," the flight control continued. I looked back up and saw that Mirage was still headed straight for me. So she wanted to play chicken? I stayed my course and we buzzed each other as the woman who had been counting down shouted out 'start'. My plane was buffeted heavily from our near collision, but I still was able to maintain control, beginning my search for Mirage as soon as I was sure I wasn't about to fall out of the sky.
"What?" I cried out in surprise, finding Mirage already on my tail. I suddenly heard and felt heavy vibrations, as Mirage unleashed a volley of simulation rounds on my plane, giving it a purple paint job. It hadn't even been ten seconds yet and I had already been hit!
"Get good," Mirage taunted as I began to try and pull away from her. However, Mirage had no intent of taking it easy today.
"If we passed someone who's this unskilled," she began, speaking to me over our communication channel as she gave me a new paint job, "they'd just get killed in their first battle. I will not be the one who let an unskilled pilot die!" she shouted as she continued to pelt my plane with paint rounds.
I began to pull harder on my stick, feeling my plane shudder as I neared stall speeds. Luckily, it was enough of a change to get Mirage to lose her shooting position and give me a short reprieve. I needed to turn the tables, but how? Suddenly it dawned on me. Mirage was still flying with the AI engaged. I just needed to force her plane to engage it's own auto maneuvers and then she'd be vulnerable!
Hopefully.
As Mirage's scarlet plane got behind me again, I applied full thrust and pulled up sharply on my flight stick, causing the plane to vibrate like it had never done before.
"What?" Mirage suddenly asked as she flew in a much wider loop, her plane not allowing her to mirror my maneuver in order to stay within 'safe' limits of operation. "Are you nuts?"
"Shut up, you demon woman!" I taunted back as I straightened out at the apex of my loop, waiting for Mirage to get back on my tail again.
"God…!" she uttered in anger as she rocketed after me. I smirked as I suddenly cut the throttle to zero and forced my plane into a stall, Mirage shooting past me with her excess momentum. "What the…! He's entered a stall!" Mirage shouted, sounding concerned. "Cadet Hayate Immelmann, eject immediately!" In reality, I had just enough control with my falling speed to aim my plane for a rock formation.
"Shut up!" I shouted at the woman as she stayed outside an engagement range. Why wasn't she coming after me? I need her to chase if this plan was going to work! "I won't be able to fly if I lose now!" I muttered to myself as I continued to adjust the barely responsive controls towards the rock arches near the water.
"Mirage, eject him." I heard the commander say though the communication channel. Wait, did they really think I was in trouble?
"Roger," Mirage replied. There was a sudden flash or red where I had flipped the override switch earlier. "I can't!" I heard her say as soon as she realized I had turned off her safeties. "He cut off remote control along with the AI!"
"Is he out of his mind?" the commander asked as I continued to fall.
"Firefighters! Ambulance!" I heard the captain call out. Maybe I was taking this a little too far… "We have an emergency!" No… maybe they were. I mean, if I needed to, I could eject myself. It wasn't like I didn't know how. And there was still plenty of ways to go before I hit the water. They were all just over reacting. None of them trusted my skill yet. Well, to be honest, I didn't even trust in my own skill yet…
Prove it to them.
I gasped at the familiar whisper.
Prove it to yourself.
I scowled with renewed dedication and adjusted my grip on the flight stick. I was only a couple thousand feet above and away from the stone arches now and would need to apply full thrust to recover from my stall. I glanced at my timer and nearly choked. I had less than a minute left!
"Hayate!" Mirage of all people suddenly yelled as I closed in towards the arches. Shaking off the strange tone I hadn't heard in her voice before, I applied full throttle to my engines and felt the plane shudder like it hadn't ever before. I had full control plane again, but unless I could position my thrust directly downward to cancel out my fall… I instinctively activated gerwalk mode and skimmed the water as I flew out of the stone arches and back up into the sky. I quickly converted back to flight mode and began to circle back around towards Mirage.
"The exam isn't over yet, instructor!" I shouted out, noticing that Mirage's plane seemed to be just flying a straight course.
"What?!" Mirage asked, genuinely surprised as I shot towards her.
"Here I go!" I yelled excitedly, not being able to help myself as I had finally turned the tables on her. I let my first volley go as she suddenly jumped into action, moving just before my simulation rounds could strike her aircraft. Now a little more prepared, Mirage used her lower speed to pull a tight loop and get behind me once again. But now, I felt energized and ready, the strange whisper I had heard earlier proving to me that I was still in tune with the wind.
"Give up already, Cadet Hayate!" Mirage said as she began to line up for a shot.
"Stop calling me that!" I shouted as I deployed my air break and maxed out my throttle again, all while pulling straight back on my flight stick, violently pulling me out of the path of Mirage as she flew though my jet wash. I smirked as I realized I had just done what the mercat had done to chuck a couple of days ago.
Even with her AI assisting her, Mirage was thrown around as she entered the rough air I had crated from my maneuver. It gave me all the time I needed to quickly switch into gerwalk mode, fly up into the sun a bit to make her lose track of me, and come back down in full battroid mode, nailing her cockpit with simulation rounds.
"That's it!" I shouted out in joy as I danced around the sky in adrenaline assisted joy. I saw the few seconds left on the timer finally drop down to zero and did another flip of victory before changing back into flight mode. "This feels… nice," I finally admitted to myself, finally starting to come down from my high. Suddenly, my plane shook as a simulation round hit me. "Huh?" I said as I looked back over at Mirage's plane which seemed like it still hadn't changed its course from when I had shot it. If she hadn't shot me then-
"How long are you going to keep prancing around?" Messer asked as his plane flashed past mine.
"What was that for? It's not fair!" I shouted out, not understanding why they guy had to take a shit on my parade.
"Such is the battlefield. Gallant one-on-one duels are a fallacy," the man lectured as he closed in on my and easily kept within my vulnerable zone.
"You're flying the newest fighter!" I retorted as I tried to get out side his target zone.
"If you want to survive, learn how to fight." More paint rounds pelted my plane, dark red paint beginning to blend with the purple that already covered a large majority of my plane. I growled in anger as the man continued to pick on his easy prey.
Push back.
The whisper didn't need to urge me twice. I suddenly switched into battroid mode and aimed my gun at Messer who had suddenly stopped firing.
"Get off your high horse!" I shouted as I pulled the trigger. His plane was lighting fast to react, but I still saw one bullet leave a bright blue splotch on the underside of his plane.
"Enough," the commander said firmly over the radio. "Everyone return to base. The simulation is over." I tisked in frustration, but switched back into flight mode and made my way back towards Elysion. Once we had landed, I was quick to get out of my plane and was instantly surrounded by surprised and excited mechanics. Though, there was one, Theodore, who looked like he was about to blow a gasket as he read the stress readings on the air frame of my plane. I saw Messer give me a deep scowl before storming off the flight deck, but Mirage still had yet to come out of her plane. In fact, I hadn't heard her speak once since I had shot her. After prying myself away from the excited ground crew I walked up to her plane and deployed her ladder. Once I was up next to her canopy, I began knocking on the glass.
"Get lost!" her muffled voice said as she angrily turned towards me. For a moment, I felt like responding in kind, but quickly lost the feeling. Despite how much I didn't want to admit it, both Messer and Mirage were right. I needed to get better in combat if I wanted to be a useful member of Delta platoon. My plane was every color but the one it had started off as and in a real battle, that would've meant I died.
"I'm sorry," I finally said. "You were right." I hung my head for a moment, but decided Mirage deserved to see my shame. "Just being able to fly isn't enough." The woman looked shocked to the point of being unresponsive. "But I still don't like the shooting business," I said, in an effort to get some kind of reaction out of her. "So I'll do things my way!" I said with a smile that I hoped she would understand as me trying to joke with her. "I'm looking forward to your classes, instructor Mirage!" I finished, seeing that she probably was going to need a while to process her defeat. "See you!" I shouted as I jumped down from the ladder.
I saw that Freyja had come and joined the rest of the ground crew to celebrate my victory.
"What was that about?" Perry asked as I came and joined them again. "You know how Mirage is about her planes! And turning off the AI?! You scarred the crap outta us!"
"You passed your exam!" Freyja said, clearly happy for me. I smirked at her and couldn't help but give her a reply I'd expect to come from her.
"Easy peasy!"
"Aren't you the lucky one?" she shot right back, trying to mimic my voice and everything. Our goofy exchange earned a couple of hearty laughs from the ground crew around us. I smiled as everyone around laughed and looked up at the glowing sky, it's burnt hues subtly shifting as evening approached.
I grabbed the crystal around my neck and wondered why now, after all these years, it was suddenly… speaking to me.
AN: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I look forward to meeting you all again for the next one!
