Waking up, Tsune watched the early morning sun light her room through the open curtains.

A part of her hoped that returning home after an event would send her back to Earth. But her longing for the old world was already faint enough to feel no disappointment.

After the morning routine, she went on a short adventure around the house. She wanted to see if her assistant device was back. And failing to find it, she turned to the only one who could know the answer, her mother.

'Oh, you are up already?'

When Tsune entered the kitchen, Lady Red precariously balanced on top of a chair as she reached for a spot high on the wall. Several of of her resort photos already hanged from below that point, each of them with an unique frame.

'Where's father?'

'In the lab, probably. He was working overtime since...'

Lady Red paused her attempts to find a more stable footing and put a finger to her chin.

'... a week ago. If its about your pilot thing, I wouldn't worry about it not returning. He brings it back every day.'

Smiling, her mother returned to the attempts to put green framed photo above others. And missed her daughter's expression.

"I knew it."

He could've taken it just for extra processing power instead of her personal profile data, but the day Aery's mood became worse was the same as the start of her father's overtime work.

The blonde could only guess whether those two were linked, but he was definitely up to something and that made an old thought resurface.

"Did he try to talk them into being my bodyguards after all?"

Worried about her future in the team, the girl went for her phone.

-The number is not available right now-

But to her dismay, her father's number was out of reach...

-Please do not call this number, me, or Den ever again. Thank you. If you have to contact him about anything team related, I'll ask others to contact you.-

...and Aery's responded with blacklist's personalized voice message.

Putting down the phone, the girl mentally cursed or at least attempted to. She had at least ten days with her future team and plenty of clues to Aery's mood, yet she didn't think to take a number from anyone else. Or at least ask them about their home address.

Den and his girlfriend would refuse for sure, but there shouldn't have been anything weird with asking Hem, or Eider.

As she though about that, Tsune glanced back at her phone and took her complaining down a notch. She did the right thing back then.

If she downplayed her wish to be left out of Eider's matchmaker attempts, or Hem's feelings for her were real, it could backfire. Suddenly learning that she had to respond to a relantionship, or even a love triangle, was almost opposite to how Tsune imagined her senior classes.

And the pretty young woman from her reflection seemed to agree.

-

The outside was a nice sunny day, but the girl didn't feel like taking a walk. And not knowing the city outside of the way to academy was only half of the reason. The other half was a worry that she would miss her father's arrival.

She knew that he would most likely arrive late, but she couldn't help but think that he would bend the work schedule just to meet her as soon as he could.

And so the day rolled by, spent watching the recording of a local tournament. It started when she left for resort so it was close to ending.

But when the sky turned to dusk, Tsune found it harder and harder to keep her attention on the show. All that was left for today was the last bracket tier, but she already couldn't help but impatiently watch the entrance. Her father should've walked through it hours ago.

"Where is he?"

The girl looked at the entrance again, but her father was still nowhere to be seen. Lightly biting her lip, she returned to the screen, but could barely stop herself from glancing back.

It wasn't the fault of the show, or the fighters that were about to enter the arena. On the contrary, she was looking forward to the majin versus remote controlled robots fight. But the anxiety was already hard to control.

-

-On the left side is the fighter from the Three Rivers region. A developer at the Transport Tunnel company, he fights to promote his invention!-

The narrator's voice boomed over the arena and a giant arm tore through a hologram that covered the entrance. Grasping the projected map of the near sea region as if it was cloth, it threw the surface away to reveal a humanoid robot.

Its body was made from thick circles and cylinders that bulged like grotesque muscles. Its hands held two wide rings that you could put a train through. Its outer armor looked like a loose traveler's garb.

When the robot was fully revealed, it crossed the weapons close to its chest as a welcome gesture. Everything was optimized to push the appearance of a monk warrior that was native to the pilot's region.

The girl involuntarily looked down on her phone, but was disappointed yet again. No calls, no new messages and contacts were still unavailable.

-On that side are the fighters from Stairway Mountains. Did this mercenary company get tired of protecting the spaceport? Or are they simply here to test themselves?-

As if to contrast themselves against the theatrical entrance of their opponent, the three smaller vehicles simply waited for the image of a mountain spaceport to fall apart around them.

One of them was an assault helicopter, the other was a hover tank and the final was the tank drone that Tsune saw during her last part shop trip. And recalling the amount of zeroes that thing had, she couldn't help but think it was like bringing an expensive car to a free-for-all street race.

"How rich are these guys? They know they risk permanent destruction, right?"

Tsune caught herself glancing at the door again and decided that some willpower was in order. She would finish watching the show and focus on trying to learn something useful from better pilots.

-

-Battle Start!-

As soon as the signal blared, the mercenaries sprung into action. Heli fired a missile salvo and darted to the side. Covered by the distraction, the tank used his time to deploy supports. Visible lightning sparks arced over its barrel, signaling that it was a siege railgun model.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

-Air Wall!-

The giant responded. The crossed rings, that Tsune thought were just a ceremonial gesture, suddenly moved in front of each other like a makeshift loudspeaker. And the mecha's shout that normally would be simply deafening, turned into a solid wall of air pressure that scattered and smashed the enemy projectiles.

The next ten seconds was spent on choosing the next enemy. And it chose to engage the heli that kept gaining distance on his right. Being ill equipped to deal with far away flying targets, its only way to victory was waiting for the enemy to run out of ammo. But that path could potentially lead to a loss.

Taking a hefty step to turn the torso, it brought the rings to bear. But this time it stretched one of its hands forward, creating an invisible path between the rings.

-Air Cannon!-

With the shout supplying the initial pressure, the first ring sharply drew in air. As it traveled through the transport tunnel, it was further amplified, turning mere air into a directed shot.

The aircraft attempted to dodge, but the distance spread the cannonball into a wider shockwave. There was nowhere for it go.

Watching the first enemy go down in smoke, the crowd exploded. Cheers, yells and shouts, both for and against the players, washed over the hundred thousand spectators in the stadium. The narrators quickly capitalized on the hype spike and a number off commercials related to the transport company took a portion of big screens.

Meanwhile, action continued. The railgun slug shattered the armor on the hip, sending human sized chunks onto  concrete. And as the hover tank circled around and fired its autocannons, the mech did not even attempt to follow it. If the pilot's nerves gave in, the stream of shells would seek to exploit the missing armor, instead of splashing over its back.

Instead, the majin's hand rose to the side, aiming at the siege weapon.

-Rolling Slicer-

The hand moved away, but the disk remained afloat, intangibly connected to its sister weapon. A second later, it darted forward.

The stadium's voice started to rise in anticipation but was suddenly drowned with confused noise. Instead of trying to land a shot into the hole, the stationary tank's cannon inclined to the side and fired at the ground.

The close range blast and recoil broke the support on the opposite side and the whole vehicle rotated several times before it landed on its turret.

Tsune shared the confusion, before she realized its purpose. And when she did, her respect for the remote teams went up a notch. The tank's price wasn't a measure of wealth but the measure of risk the team was willing to take.

And these mercenaries just turned their prized possession into non-combatant. Reaping its high tier benefits without taking a single direct hit.

But even as skilled as they were, all they had was a single vehicle and a single point to exploit. It was a losing battle.

-Rolling Slicer-

The hovertank jumped away and the shells connected to the mech's machinery inside the hole.

-Rolling Prison-

The rolling ring suddenly stopped and the tunnel's' air flow was reversed. The artificial gust of wind sucked the floating enemy into the center of the circle that spun to trap the vehicle within rotating steel.

But to the Tsune's surprise, the cannons simply switched to single shell bursts. The mercenaries refused to back down and the smoke from the hip joint showed that they had hope.

-Rolling Guillotine-

The second ring flew towards the first one. Despite the rotation speed, it easily synchronized and the enemy was now held between them. Then the weapons flew in opposite directions, slicing the hovercraft into three pieces.

-

The girl was so focused on the battle, she all but forgot about her phone. So when the phone suddenly rang on her lap, she almost dropped it to the ground. Fumbling to keep her grip on it, she pressed the loud call button as she was afraid to waste any time.

'Yes, who is it?'

'It's Eider. Aery told me you called.'

'Yeah, I wanted to ask... One second, please.'

Tsune started to answer when she heard a door open. And held back a groan when she saw that the partially open door to her parent's room.

Sliding her finger across the phone screen she was about to turn the loud call into a normal one, but paused.

Lady Red must've already heard his voice, otherwise she wouldn't try to listen in. And putting a veil of secrecy over their reasons could be interpreted in a very wrong way. She would just change the topic for now.

'I wanted to ask her why was she so mad at me.'

'I talked to her. She said that she read a horoscope for her future with Den. And it said that if she let you speak to either of them, it would flag a route she doesn't want. Maybe you can make sense of that.'

"Route flag? Never thought she would be a dating sim fan. Unless she found my game script."

Rubbing her temples to suppress the urge to fetch the papers, and see if Den and Aery were recruitable characters, the blonde answered.

'I didn't get to know Aery well enough. Anyway, can I record your number?'

'Sure. And there's another thing. Den said that our team needs to start the year with a professional attitude, so he scheduled a shopping trip for pilot suits this weekend.'

'See you later then.'

Ending the call, the blonde looked towards her parent's room. There, having lost all shame, her mother openly stood in the door frame while trying to look innocent. And when she saw Tsune look back, she gave her a spirited nod.

'Its not what you think this is, mother. Please stop.'

-

Several days has passed and Tsune's fear of being teased about the call has gradually faded away. Even right before the morning shopping trip, her mother behaved like an angel. But as soon as she took a step outside, the sweet voice reached her from the main hall.

'Have a good day. Don't eat too many desserts, your figure will get rounder again.'

'Mother! I lost that weight a long time ago. And I even skipped on the sweets in the resort.'

'That's good, but you need to be extra careful in summer clothes. Even if they say nothing, boys have sharp eyes.'

Tsune closed the door so fast it almost caught her clothes.