there's not much to talk about in this author's note besides the fact that I'm enjoying the Lammergeier set. Also Garage chapter.
As usual, I don't own anything.
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Everyone in the class was silent. They waited for something more, but as soon as Laura finished her short self-introduction her mouth shut like a clam.
The silver lining is that at least everyone knows that she might be the future owner of Original Fantastique.
Though Ichika can't help but mentally facepalm, of course, he saw her somewhere, she always appeared in the cafe either working as a waitress or cashier.
"U-um, is that all?"
"yes."
Ms. Yamada attempted to prompt Laura with a smile but only received a short, abrupt acknowledgment.
The teacher looked like she was about to cry, everyone couldn't help but empathize with Ms. Yamada.
"You! You must be" The new student suddenly walked in the direction of the trio of males two of them wisely hurried away to the side leaving Ichika whose head quickly turned side to side shooting both of his friends a look as Laura walked toward him…
SLAM!
She suddenly slammed her petite hands onto his desk. A full-force palm across the surface of the furniture causing it to shake.
She leaned forward as if a predator assessing its quarry.
"Ichika Orimura, I challenge you to a duel." she declared. "I refuse to accept that you're her brother."
Everyone in the class was looking in their direction even the arena regulars in the class were agape at the declaration
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"Hmph."
Laura left as abruptly as she had walked up to me. She strode to an open seat, sat down, crossed her arms, and closed one eye.
Ichika could feel his eyes twitch in annoyance and partly out of rage, honestly who the hell started self-introducing that violently?! She didn't even bother with hello and that was supposed to be common sense.
"Ah, ahem! Homeroom is over. Get changed and meet up at Field #2. We'll conduct a joint mock combat exercise with Class B. Dismissed!" Chifuyu clapped her hands and Ichika took this as a chance to get changed early with the males of his class, but before he could leave Chifuyu yanked the collar of his uniform. "Not you Orimura, Chatty needs you in the maintenance bay, he had something to tell you about Byakushiki."
"They already repaired my IS?" he sounded hopeful, especially after the incident Byakushiki is still undergoing repairs.
"No, just get going i'll let Chatty explain it all, everyone else head to Field 2!"
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"Chatty, RaD, Nice to meet you." the wheelchair-bound man offered a handshake.
"Oh! Um, Ichika Orimura." the student awkwardly took the hand a gave it a firm shake, first impressions are important after all. "So uh, where is Byakushiki?"
He's a strange man, despite wearing a yellow mechanic suit with green highlights Chatty also uses a rather robust-looking wheelchair painted in bright green and yellow at the same time Ichika can't help but feel…an odd sense of familiarity with the blond-haired mechanic.
"Follow me." without any further words the man turned his wheelchair and wheeled himself deeper into the garage, it was Ichika's first time in this part of the academy, the IS garage by look alone seemed to be separate from the academy because instead fancy technology with floating holograms it's….quite industrial looking with grates, industrial spotlights, a walkway that tower over the people working there and not to mention the many cables on the floor, wall, even ceiling some of them connects to IS that he doesn't even recognize.
"So, uh whose those IS belong to?" Ichika had to duck over a crate being transported. "I don't think anyone in the academy is using Balam or Arquebus IS."
"Empty frames."
"Oh."
For someone who is named Chatty…he sure doesn't talk that much.
"We're here," Chatty said as the pair reached a maintenance bay within the garage and Ichika had to rub his eyes just to make sure he was seeing it right.
It was his IS Byakushiki, stripped of any armor leaving it bare as a skeleton, he could see the internals even from behind the brightly colored warning line, he didn't expect the damage from the incident to be that bad they had to strip the IS down.
"Uh, I didn't break Byakushiki right?" the pilot was positively shaking as he followed the head engineer into the bay, walking around the skeletal frame he could see the exposed IS cores and other intervals to which some were missing.
"No, but your sister did ask if we could smooth out some of its more glaring problems," he explained while passing a tablet. "See for yourself, tourist."
'tourist?'
Taking the tablet from his hand Ichika notices that…both of his hands are mechanical. It's the first time he notices it, he thought the chief mechanic was wearing a glove.
"oh! I'm sorry I didn't mean-" Ichika apologized and quickly took the tablet from Chatty.
"It's fine," the Wheelchair-bound man pulled his sleeves back and flexed his mechanical hands painted in the same color as his wheelchair. "I don't blame you for getting curious."
"so what I'm looking at exactly?" the black-haired teen tilted his head sideways, seeing the blueprints and spec of an IS always made him lightheaded.
There were too many numbers and terms he didn't know the meaning of.
"To put it simply tourist, you won't get Byakushiki back any time soon."
"eh?" but he needs Byakushiki to compete in the interclass tournament….
"Your sister has taken this into account and allowed you to borrow one of the Academy spares IS for the tournament." he took back the tablet and pressed something on the screen before handing it back.
"wait…"
"Take your time tourist, call me when you need help."
With that said Chatty turned around and wheeled himself out from the bay leaving Ichika to stare blankly at the tablet and back to his IS.
"what I'm supposed to do?"
He looked up to his IS not knowing what to do in this situation before looking down at the tablet at hand, he hoped the IS core would give him some answer.
"a spare IS huh…"
Ichika heard from his sister and some of his friends that the academy often gets an IS frame from corporations and governments for testing purposes.
A far cry from the high-end custom units that the personal units are.
Browsing the available list it was tempting just to borrow a Uchigane and call it a day but from what he heard a Uchigane wouldn't be enough for the class tournament especially if he was going to fight fourth-generation machines.
"let's see….I can't pilot the 047AN…same goes with the SOLUH…." those two machines are 4th generations and he lacks the compatibility to pilot those. "this leaves the GAN01-SUNSHINE-L for my option for the fourth generation…."
He still struggles to pilot anything more complicated than Byakushiki or the Uchigane because of his fluctuating aptitude and compatibility, unlike his sister or Hari with their monstrously high one…
"tourist, I have some advice." he hears Chatty saying something contracting him from the thought. "IS generations doesn't mean anything if the pilot isn't worth a damn. That's what my mother said."
"you're an IS pilot?"
"I am."
"your mother must be quite the person chief engineer."
"I suppose she is." wheeling himself into the bay he looked at Byakushiki's inner frame. "While I respect Tabane Shinonono as a fellow engineer, as a person I cannot respect her."
For a moment, Ichika wondered about that seeming jab at Tabane. He almost felt as though he could hear some actual emotion in that barb. Imagine how Houki would react…
Then he ignored it to focus on the more pressing task at hand, namely finding a stopgap to avoid facing another Cecillia situation, only this time, without the skilled backup, if he can't use a fourth-generation IS, then he just needs something that is a perfect fit.
Still, fool he may be, he was self-aware enough to understand he was far too inexperienced to make a proper choice besides the obvious and so decided to take the simple solution and just ask.
"Hey, Chatty uh-chief engineer, what IS model would you say is, er, the most user-friendly?"
The emotionless mechanic looked up, and a smile appeared on his face. "Have you ever heard of the BASHO?"
"the poet Matsuo Bashō?"
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Sorry for the shorter chapter this time around, despite being on vacation my time has been taken up with my personal life, hopefully, the next chapter is going to be much longer not to mention I've been struggling to write.
This chapter is named after the AC 4 Garage theme of the same time.