Chapter 2; The Grand Raven
After a brief class in which they didn't really learn anything new, the class was dismissed and began to head towards one of the stadiums. In the changing room, Ichika and Simon were both looking at the male version of IS pilot suits. To say they were mortified would have been an understatement.
"They can't honestly expect us to wear these things, can they?" Simon asked. Ichika just stared at his suit. It was a two piece which consisted of a short sleeved top that stopped just above their stomach, pants that stopped at the knees, and a pair of shoes. All of this was compounded by the fact that it was skin tight. "I think they do." said Ichika with a groan as he began to pull his shirt off. Well, this is going to give them plenty to think about later tonight thought Simon. 10 minutes later, they were in separate launch bays receiving their IS and making some final checks. Simon ended up being the last one out since he had to fiddle with his helmet a bit to make sure it sat right. Note to self; check the damned port alignment when this fight is over he thought as he took position on the catapult.
About three seconds later, he was hurled into the arena and took his position opposite the other two. Looking to his right, he saw that Ichika's IS was still in its basic mode, all grey metal and fairly small, and only equipped with a simple sword. Looking to his left, he saw Cecilia's IS was a bit more substantial. Blue and white, it was holding a fairly large sniper rifle and had some rather large wings. While the rifle was the only obvious weapon, Simon made note to be cautious around her, since there was no way it could be her only weapons. His IS must have been a sight in itself, since both of them took a while to size him up. Green and blue, he had a sword sheathed down the right side of his back, parallel with his spine, a large shield on his left arm and what looked to be a smaller shield on his right. His wings weren't as impressive, looking more like bird wings folded in. He also had a helmet on that started at a point over his nose and then sloped back and down to connect with a collar around his neck just behind his jaw. It also flowed back into a point, giving it an aerodynamic look. The four spines on his hip armor, two to a side, must have made them think he favored close combat and that they were other swords. Let's see which of them realizes the mistake with that assumption first he thought as he adjusted his helmet again.
"Well, I'll give you both credit for not running away. If you surrender now and admit I'm superior, I'll let you both off easy." Cecilia boasted from her position. Shooting her a look, Simon let his arm fall and replied simply, "Stuff it." This earned a rather shocked look, followed by another outburst. "H-How dare you! I will make you suffer for that!"
Before any more insults and/or threats could be thrown, the intercom came to life with Chifuyu's voice. "The match will now begin. Your time limit is 30 minutes." At this, Cecilia raised her rifle right as Ichika took off at her brandishing his sword. Smiling sweetly at him, she aimed and fired a bolt right into his face before he could dodge, sending him into the ground. Turning towards Simon, she saw he had made no attempts to move and fired again. That shot was deflected easily by his shield. "If that's all you can manage, girly, this is going to be a short fight." He taunted as he began to advance. "You will regret that! No one insults Blue Tears and gets away with it!" She shouted as she let loose with her rifle. Dodging some and deflecting others, Simon closed to a few meters of Cecilia before four bits detached from her wings and flew at him. Oh, crap he thought as he brought his shield up late. The bits quickly encircled him and got in a few good hits, dropping his shields by 20% before he managed to dodge away. The bits returned to Cecilia's wings and Simon got a good look at her face, beaming with triumph.
"I hope you don't mind my laser bits, little boy." She taunted as she started firing at him again. For some reason, Ichika was nowhere to be seen as Simon began to dodge her bolts again. That is, until Ichika suddenly appeared behind her and took another swing, this time landing a solid blow on her back and propelling her forward. "You dare!" She shouted as she turned, the armor on her thighs shifting and revealing a pair of cannon barrels. They sent a pair of rockets straight into the poor boy's chest, sending him back for a second meeting with the ground. Taking advantage of the lapse in concentration, Simon moved in again. When Cecilia noticed this, she sent her laser bits off to slow him down as she took aim with her rifle.
"Not gonna happen! Fangs, fly!" Simon shouted, causing the four spines on his hips to detach, grow energy blades and rush to meet Cecilia's laser bits. This was enough to stun her as the bits clashed between the two pilots. Lasers flashed and the fang bits came close a few times before one of her bits was finally sliced to pieces. The other three quickly returned to her IS as Simon's bits returned to his. "Y-You use bits? How?!" She demanded. Smiling evilly, Simon pointed at her with his shield and stated simply, "I think it's time to wrap up this fight." Sending a pair of missiles sailing from the launchers hidden on the underside of his shield, he flew straight at her.
"You think I'll fall for that?!" She demanded as she took aim at him, ignoring the two missiles. Which made sense, they were too small to do any significant damage to her IS, and Simon was clearly a more urgent threat. However, this was also a massive mistake. When the missiles closed to within a meter, they fragmented and detonated, releasing a massive smoke cloud around her, blocking her view and disorienting her. "What is th-" was all she managed before Simon's shield connected with her stomach, dropping her shields by about half thanks to his momentum, and sending her flying out of the cloud. Breathing heavily, she glared at the cloud and sent energy bolts into it as fast as her rifle could cycle. Seconds later, Simon's fangs appeared again, one above, one below and one to the right and left of Cecilia. They closed with her faster than she could deploy her own bits and quickly started to take bites out of her shields.
Once they had reduced her shields to about 2%, they stopped their assault and withdrew. Relieved at no longer being battered around by the little pests, she looked up in time to see Simon in front of her, spinning around and landing a kick straight into her stomach, effectively reducing her shields to zero and sending her on a collision course with the stadium wall. Looking ahead of her and seeing the wall closing, she closed her eyes and prepared for the pain of impact, her teeth gritted in anticipation. A second later she did hit something, but it wasn't as hard. It was also warm, and it had wrapped itself under her arms to support her weight. Opening her eyes, she saw Simon's face above her as he lowered her to the ground. The look in his eyes wasn't contempt or hate. Those she would have understood after what had been said. It looked more like pity, and a bit of kindness.
"Are you alright?" He asked as they landed. "I'm f-fine." she said, feeling a bit of heat coming up her neck and to her cheeks. Turning around, he saw Ichika waiting for them, his IS radically different. The dull grey was replaced with pure white and gold trim. His sword had also folded in half, revealing an energy blade. "Are you two done? I was hoping to fight you, Simon." he said as he brought his sword up, ready to charge. Letting out an explosive sigh, Simon squared up with Ichika and said, "There's no point in trying."
At this, Ichika charged, letting out a battle cry. Without moving a muscle, Simon stood there, waiting for Ichika's attack. "Again, there's no point in trying, cause I surrender." He stated matter-of-factly, sending the bluenette stumbling as he tried to slow down, his stance totally thrown off. "Y-you what?" Cecilia stammered from behind him as he let his IS destruct in a flash of light, dropping him to the ground. Turning around to face her, he said simply ,"I surrender. I never said I wanted to be the class rep." "Then why did you accept the challenge?!" she demanded. "Because no true warrior turns down a challenge. That's like spitting on them." he said, shrugging as he walked off to the changing room. "Well, Ichika, looks like you got the position." Leaving the two former opponents gawking at his retreating figure, Simon returned to the changing room and made a bee-line for the showers. After drying off and putting his pants back on, he saw Ichika come into the locker room.
"Hope you're not too pissed with me just dropping that into your lap. I just don't take being the leader well." Simon said as he pulled his shirt on. "It's alright, I just wasn't expecting you to do it. Apparently, neither was Cecilia. She glared at you till you were out of sight, with a red face and everything. She either likes you or is planning to murder you in your sleep." Thinking on that, he did notice a little color on her cheeks when he was lowering her to the ground. Nah, that was probably embarrassment at being carried like that he thought. "Well, either way, at least she's not the rep. Honestly, that was the only reason I took the challenge at all."
"You fixed the match?" Ichika asked as he put his jacket on. "No, I just knew who I didn't want to win. If she ended up taking you out before I could take her out, I probably would have accepted the role." Simon replied as he closed his locker. "Come on, I think they're serving turkey tonight." "Hold up, I'm right behind you!" Ichika shouted as he slammed his locker closed and rushed after Simon. "So, what kind of IS was that you used, anyway?" Thinking about it for a bit, Simon wasn't quite sure how much he could tell him. While he was sure they were becoming friends, there were still certain aspects of his IS design that was personal. Finally, he settled on just covering the generals, since it was clear from class that Ichika barely grasped the simple concepts behind the IS.
"I call it the Grand Raven. It's a custom build based on the Rafale Revive, although I ended up doing so much work on it that you wouldn't be able to tell." "Wait, you built your own IS?" Ichika interrupted, looking absolutely stunned. Undaunted, since this was a conversation he had had before, he continued, "Yeah. Once you understand the engineering behind it, building one isn't that hard. The tricky part is configuring the control systems so you can select the proper weapons in combat. That, and balancing the power distribution. I must have spent a week working on that part of Raven alone before I was satisfied." They continued on to the cafeteria, Simon explaining some of the finer parts of his IS to Ichika.
The next day during lunch, they were both ambushed by their classmates who had set up a party for Ichika. With Houki glaring at them the whole time, both boys were subject to a number of questions by a girl from the Academy newspaper club. They were also unable to escape due to the fact that they were surrounded by the entire class, and maybe one or two more. It was really quite innocent until they started talking about the end of the fight.
"So, Simon, You clearly had an advantage there at the end. What made you decide to throw the match?" the 'reporter' asked. Scratching the back of his head, he replied, "Well, I didn't really want the position in the first place. Although, I couldn't turn down a challenge, so I had no choice in participating." "And what made you target Cecilia? You clearly didn't try to fight Ichika." She continued. At this, several of the other girls got a more intense look in their eyes. Sensing he was on dangerous ground, he thought very carefully before answering. "Her IS was designed for long-range combat. Mine and Ichika's aren't, so if we fought it would end up weakening us both so she could pick us off at range." Technically not a lie, but not the whole truth either.
"We also saw you employ the same kinds of remote weapons. Is there any relation there?" she asked, triggering that intense look again. Damn, is that supposed to be a loaded question? "Well.." he began, before realizing the subtext in that question. They want to know if we have a relationship? Great, it's not even the end of my first week and I'm already caught in the web he thought. Deciding to play dumb, and hoping Ichika wouldn't speak up and call him on it, he answered, "I didn't really design that particular system myself, so I can't really tell you if it's the same or not." This seemed to be what they were looking for, because several of them started to look relieved. "Okay. So, Ichika, how does it…." The questions now aimed away from him, Simon quickly slipped away from the group and sat in a booth by himself, sighing as he heard a slight uproar coming from the group of girls. Hearing someone sit down in the seat across from him, he opened his eyes to see the pony tail girl, Houki, sitting across from him and looking deadly serious.
"So, why did you throw the match, really?" She asked, although the tone of voice implied it was more of a demand. Why can't I have a moment to myself he wondered. "What, did I upset you sensibilities as a samurai by handing the win away?" Simon asked, and noticed how her face got visibly darker at that. "I just don't like have positions of authority shoved onto me, okay? And after the way she acted the other day, I'm not sure I would want Cecilia as class rep. That left Ichika by default." "So, why accept the challenge if you intended to lose?" She continued, undaunted by his answer. Sitting up straight and looking her square in the eye, Simon answered, "I may not be a student of Kendo like you, but I do understand the notion of honor." Ouch, that was a low blow, even for me he thought as he watched her twitch at that. With a "humph" she got up and stalked away, leaving Simon a little concerned that he had just picked a fight with another classmate. Damnit, I need to rein in my temper a bit more next time. Sighing again, he got up and left right as they were starting to take pictures. For some reason, several girls wanted to have their picture taken with Ichika, and Simon was not going to get sucked into such an obvious ploy.
As he left the building and walked back to the classroom, he heard someone come up behind him. Turning his head slightly, he saw it was Cecilia. "I don't believe you when you said you don't know a thing about your bit weapons." She said as she drew level with him. "Well, maybe I know a little. Why, you looking for someone to work on yours?" Simon asked as he kept walking. "Actually, I was thinking that we could train together, since it is a fairly difficult system to use, especially in a fight." She said as she leaned in a bit closer. Taking note of how she was trying to lean in to him, he continued walking and said, "A national representative wants to train with me? I thought you didn't like me. In fact, I was pretty sure that the way I laid you out the other day would earn your ever-lasting fury." Unnoticed by Simon, Cecilia had grown a bit red at his phrasing. "I don't hate you. Actually, I think we could learn a lot from each other, since our IS have such different abilities."
"I'll think about it." Simon said as he walked into the classroom. Again, he didn't notice the red on Cecilia's face, or the look of triumph she had as she walked in behind him, although several of the other girls in class noticed and quickly started up the gossip.
And there ends another chapter. Didn't honestly expect to finish one in a day, but I did say I was going to try and do what I can while I still have a good amount of time. For those of you that are paying close attention, I did add in another teaser to the nature of Simon's IS, the Grand Raven. There is more to come since he didn't really use most of what he has on it. Is there a bit of romance in there? Could be. :)
Feel free to shoot a review and/or follow if you enjoy this. Hope to have a new chapter out sometime between today and Saturday.