Tsune watched her teammates work from the wide forward window. But when both of them went inside of their mechs, her attention turned to the mecha wolf's control panel.

Looking at the main power switch, the girl nervously rubbed her hands. The world outside wouldn't reset if she accidentally wreaked havoc with several hundred tons of metal. But, like a plane modeler who finally got to pilot the real thing, she could hardly keep her hands off. Even the red light from inactive main power switch seemed to invite experiments.

"And here I thought I was ready. Its worse than before my first public arena match."

First, Tsune carefully moved the movement joystick around, then looked closer at the foundation that was closer to a gel than solid. The stick easily moved through it, and with triggers that switched fine control to limb parts, gave her six axis mobility.

Then her finger ran across the entire console. From the held control, to the buttons right in front of her, to the status screen with the wolf's wireframe model, to second stick with a fire trigger.

"Man, now my training matches seem daredevil. I was even doing them without the assistant device."

As if it heard her thoughts, or saw her through the cloth, Mapo flew up. First it spun the bag, then floated to the controls, making slow wide rings around the joystick hand.

Tsune made Mapo chase her hand, as if it was a pet. These machines learned decision patterns of their owners, followed up and predicted their actions, while filtering erratic commands. Soon, she remembered the diamond shaped stone from the resort hangar. She couldn't remember Hem's words exactly, but he did say it was from the previous generation.

'If you were born earlier, would you look like a huge gem too?'

Instead of an answer, Mapo rubbed the bag's zipper against her hand. But she pushed it to the ground, the first lesson was no time for a device as advanced.

The doors to the training grounds opened and Den's team started leaving for practice. First to move were the tanks piloted by Den and Aery, then Eider's eagle folded its wings and carefully followed them.

The blonde switched the power on and slid the joystick ever so slightly forward. Her wolf raised its paw to take the first step, whose metallic echo reverberated throughout the hangar. To her surprise, the head kept its position relative to the ground and kept her perspective stable.

-

When her mech left the door, a holographic map overlayed the top right of the viewscreen. Top left was taken by a transmission from their new teacher.

-Students! I welcome you to the first day of your senior training. Over the last two years you have gathered knowledge and skills for this moment. Its time for you to start learning how to be a professional pilot.-

-The first step would be getting used to your mech's standard movement. Unlike VR training where some of you have chosen to remain stationary, getting to your battlefield safely is a must have for any pilot.-

When the audio cut off, a glowing line moved through the map. It showed the start position on the mecha scaled running track.

-

An hour later.

Tsune kept her hands relaxed on the controls as the building sized wolf ran straight, alongside several other animal mechs.

"I never imagined I could get bored while doing this."

The only breaks in the monotonous holding control the stick forward, was moving it to the side during turns. But even that came only once per several minutes so she had to remain idle for majority of the time. And since it was too irresponsible to divert her attention from the road, or the controls, the novelty of being a pilot was all but gone.

The girl glanced at the clock, hoping that the last lap somehow made the time move faster. But with her hopes dashed once again, she couldn't help but sigh over having to do this for another hour.

And for the remainder of the week as well.

-

At the end of the day, she carefully lead the wolf into the hangar.

When it stopped in the same place she took it from, the girl was almost glad to leave the joystick and flip the main switch. Seconds later she was out of the cabin and walking to others.

Den took his sweet time finding a perfect angle for the team photo, so Tsune used the extram time to get rid of the stale feeling in her muscles. But when she locked her arms behind her and started to stretch, she heard a question from Hem.

'So, how was the first day?'

'It was so easy it became boring. By the way, is the red button control for combat?'

'Yeah. Are you going home now?'

'Probably not yet. I'll see you tomorrow.'

Several minutes later, Den finally found the angle for their team photo and hurried to them after setting a timer. As he stood between the girls, Tsune wisely chose to keep a neutral expression, while Aery was all smiles.

-

'Wait, please wait!'

With her blonde hair fluttering behind, Tsune managed to catch up with the senior teacher before he left the academy.

When he saw heavy breathing, the older man put down his bag and patiently waited. Soon, the girl wiped the sweat off her forehead and straightened her back with some help from her hands.

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'Teacher, I have a request. One of my teammates helped me with the control system but there's a problem. I sometimes... block the controls right in front of me.'

'And?'

'And I can't ask him directly. It's too embarassing. So I thought you could take a look at it and ask him to change it without bringing me it up.'

Before he answered, the man took out a folder out of his bag and paged through it.

'I'm not sure how well you know the academy regulations, but before asking me for a private favor, you should follow the procedure.'

Taking the offered paper, Tsune saw that it was the list of rules for combiner teams.

'If you are still willing to ask me, you need to write a request. Without it there might be trouble if your team leader sees it as a breach of hierarchy.'

"Write it down? If Aery learns about this, she'll get beyond mad."

Sighing, the girl put the list into her bag and then shook her head.

'I'll deal with it myself then. Thank you for listening,'

-

After the basic training week, the boredom of the running track sessions was wiped out with addition of randomly appearing obstacles. And even after a month, their density continued to grow with almost every day.

"Dodge it, dodge it in time!"

The blonde inclined the joystick forward right, to make the wolf fall on its right legs and slide under a drone that suddenly changed its altitude.

Once past it, the girl moved to unzip the bodysuit's top, but immediately she slammed the jump pedal instead.

While the robot flew over the wall that rose from the ground, she finally let out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Is it even humane to pull such feints against students? My heart almost jumped out!"

Slowing down to let another drone pass across her lane, the girl fully breathed in and out. Even though none of the hindrances could damage mechs, they made the training stressful.

But compared to the first week, this was much closer to the mech piloting she imagined. Especially if she dodged while trying to be faster than other mechs.

And with the training hours now limited by the number of laps and avoided barriers, instead of preset hours, most pilots had no reason to hold back.

-

But the drones and walls weren't the only threat on the track. And Tsune met that problem when she had to decide between evading the next object, or crashing into a nearby mech that made an abrupt and unstable jump.

In the end, her mech smashed through the raised surface.

-Objective failed by Tsune Red-

Hearing the AI put the blame on her without accounting for the situation, the girl couldn't stay quiet.

'What? Why me? Why only me?'

-Object was destroyed-

'But I couldn't move to the side. The other robot had a bad jump.'

-Data is inconclusive-

'Whatever!'

Agitated after that exchange, Tsune twisted the movement control with more force than necessary. After almost grazing two drones that formed a rotating circle, she gave herself a brief moment to look at the map.

It tracked her team positions and the most notable was Hem, who solved the traps as if he played a platformer.

"Man, he's not competitive at all."

-

A couple of hours later, Tsune was done with the entire day's worth. And now she watched the rest of her team from behind the hangar's door.

Hem still had several laps left. Tanks did quick maneuvers on the central field while keeping their turrets aimed at moving targets. And as far as she could understand, the main difficulty came from trying to draw fancy romantic symbols with their tracks at the same time.

But most of her attention was taken by Eider's eagle that soared closer to the ceiling. The giant predator majestically flew alongside the beam drawn 3d track without flapping its wings.

When it reached a corner, it wings sharply moved around to change the center of gravity and the center of invisible propulsion.

"Shucks, makes me almost wish I could choose a team robot. I wonder if Eider was the one who talked Den into giving me the wolf."

Moving her eyes away from the eagle, that was showing off in the sky, the girl picked up her bag and turned to leave.

-

Once outside the academy, Tsune walked deliberately slow. Her nerves were still a little high strung after the failed obstacle, so she decided to walk her stress off first.

And as there were no plans set beforehand, she went to the first place she thought about, the *Z cafe*.

Unfortunately for her, she saw her former classmate inside. Who doubled as her former team manager.

"What is he doing here."

Tsune was about to turn and quietly leave, but the boy waved to her. Given the level of his excitement, faked or otherwise, he would make a scene. So it left her little choice.

'What do you want?'

Rod's expression showed surprise, then indignation.

'I just wanted to talk to a classmate I haven't seen since the exams. You've even blacklisted me for some reason.'

'Then talk. But I have no intention of quitting my team.'

Tsune sat across the boy and put her attention into the menu. After a short silence and a sigh, the boy spoke.

'You do understand the importance of the script. I know it, I've talked to your teammate. You went to the classic pilot to prevent the attack. But...'

Rhodes put both of his elbows on the table to move closer.

'For some reason, you keep going against it. You were lucky with resort, but there's no guarantee that it will repeat in the future.'

'For some reason? You gave me an edited copy.'

'Unless I limit the knowledge, you might not make the decision you should and go out of character. I've limited myself as well, to follow my life as strictly as possible. But I'm not the protagonist. The responsibility for this world's future is yours.'

Lifting her head, the blonde crossed her stare with his.

'Listen, I'd really appreciate if you let me live my life as I choose to. If another problem appears, I'll talk to other people to solve it. Just like I did it on the resort.'

'As you wish.'

With not a shred of excitement left on his face, the boy left the table and then the cafe.