-

Students polished their battlefield awareness and piloting skill in VR over the next four months. Then they received two new tasks that they would work on for the rest of the study year.

First, they were to create their own idea for a control interface. The one they thought of as perfect for their skills and the mech they wanted to pilot. Second, everyone needed to choose a single partner to train together, with the second year exam revealed to be the teamwork test.

As these thoughts ran through her mind, Tsune congratulated herself on waking up earlier than usual. Then her leisure was broken when she realized that her mother wasn't here yet.

But Lady Red, a nickname she gave her mother specifically to annoy her, knew better than this. Anyone late to classes on the assignment day could find themselves without a partner and therefore outside of the proper study process.

Her eyes drifted to the bed cabinet that usually had only a glass of water. Today, the tall glass was almost pushed off by two bright colored packets and a card with printed birthday lines. The latter was from father.

She tip toed to the door to crack it open, but mother wasn't outside either.

"Is she sulking because yesterday photos didn't fill even a single album page?"

-

After the morning routine, came the time to dress up. First was a tight sleeveless shirt that turned the budding mounds into flatness she was familiar with. The tomboyish appearance wouldn't survive for long, but she would take every day possible. Even if her mother learned about it.

Zipping up the uniform to hide the binding, she tuned out the unneeded thoughts and rushed out of the house. The first day of second month of autumn welcomed her with air that bordered on cold, but sun still shone bright.

-

The day has passed about as good as she expected in the morning. Still partnerless, she climbed the stairs to the cafe. The dusk painted the doors in gentle orange light, while robotic voice welcomed her inside.

-Z Cafe is open-

Opening the door she saw that the cafe was full of students of both genders. The cafe was on the street corner, so it showed the big construction site from the window on one side and a street full of various shops from another.

'Hey, isn't that the Boring girl'

A group of girls from her class paused their talk about fashion shops across the street. Their smiles bordered on laughter as they continued.

'No morning greeting, or even a simple *Hi* from her, as usual.'

'She's boring after all.'

'As dry as it can get.'

'I'm sure she's an interesting person, she just doesn't have imagination to turn her feelings into words.'

"As if anyone would greet you with that attitude."

Tsune's cheek twitched in annoyance as she took the nearest chair to carry it away.

She found a place at the other side's window and flicked through the table's menu screen in search of a dessert. Or two.

"Calling me boring just because I don't spend money for mech parts to make it look better. What's wrong with being cost efficient."

Even though mech pilot path was mandated to be approachable, there was a loophole. The students would receive a simple and robust Gunner set of equipment for free. But with highly customized units made into a tradition, peer pressure turned default set users into an exception. At the same time, factories and academies made a deal to release physical packs with a discount code for a single digital part. A random mech part within a selected category.

-

Finishing her chewy berry cakes, she downed the rest of the fruit juice. Its texture was coarse from icy artificial seeds, that popped into different flavours as soon as they melted.

It was an insignificant minigame, but she liked to count the number of fresh tasting seeds versus sour ones as a lucky charm. She even tried to get others into it, but all she got was weird stares. Those stares were also her reward for being on the boy side of the cafe and listening to them interrupt each other.

'Old school controls are the best, Pedals, buttons and levers make dramatic movements easy.'

'You definitely want body motion capture then!'

'Yeah, automatic pattern can't do the cool poses.'

'Then isn't thought control the best? You can still do all the poses with the fake holo buttons,'

'That's too expensive! You are not going to be rich until you are famous.'

'How about taking levers but putting them on a maglev box? The last week's video made the hero look so good when he used it.'

'It takes a fortune to become famous anyway, so I might as well save for that thing first.'

'Who are you even going to show off to? Even if you put cameras on the inside, nobody would watch a beginner.'

Tsune put the glass down with an audible clink. One look at the wall clock showed that it was time for the evening extra class, that would finalize the pairs. But her classmates looked so absorbed in talking over each other that they forgot about it.

'Come on, guys. We are going to be late.'

'Eh?'

'Yes, miss Proper.'

With a mental sigh, the girl resisted the urge to retort. If girls called her boring, then boys made fun of her for staying away from other girls.

-

As the boys walked behind Tsune, still in a tight group, she couldn't help but overhear them again.

'Oh, I've got an idea. Let's ask the catapult boy about his controls and do the opposite.'

'Did he choose already?'

'That guy? Who cares.'

'He went on another speech yesterday.'

'You think he'll ask her out again?'

'That'd be very Interesting.'

Her skin crawled as the chatter turned for the worse. But at least the rumours about her being in a relationship were uniformly discarded after a fit of laughter.

-

She couldn't find a partner. And she was the only victim of the *curse of the first day* in her class. So, she had to wait until either a pair fell apart, or she was assigned a partner from another class.

But for now, the evening teamwork lessons turned into free time. And she spent it at home, designing a special item to show in the future exam.

An expensive holo simulation board square on top of the hall's table. A stack of books on her right and a pile of empty item pack boxes on her left. She had everything one could want to bring their idea into reality. But today was yet another day of no inspiration. She couldn't think of anything worthwhile, that wasn't a bigger gun or a shield.

Her father, a middle aged man with gray hair, sideburns and a short beard, was in his chair across the table. As today was a rare vacation day, he chose to look over the daughter. While mother was in the city, eager to spend the whole day on herself.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She absent mindedly shuffled the icons on the screen with her finger, creating small transparent ripples every time she selected a new one. Every icon was a code for a separate hardware part from the packs. And their colors represented a different quality tier. White were resold mass produced parts, blue were newly made, purple were from specialized sets and shining gold were custom made in limited quantities.

She heard in class that if you are stuck, then you would just build around gold parts. But there was a problem.

Bored of meaningless shuffling, she manually sorted the inventory to form an image. Most of the space was taken by white *sky*, leading into blue *water* with a purple *moon*. Not a single gold *star* to light her way out of this creative block.

All she had to do was to drag the parts with her finger. Out of the screen and into the air as a 3d image. The holo board even allowed any projections or complex cutaways she could've wished for.

"Its useless."

A cheap control system, that was better than the trainee one, was above her after all. But she kept her back straight and, instead of a single thought about defeat, turned to plan B, creating a new weapon.

At least for this task she had her old world designs and the wealth of knowledge about the game's tools of destruction.

Speaking of which, she forgot about one more source of inspiration. There should've been a documentary on, right now.

She turned to the hall TV to switch it on. But her intention was read by her father. With a sigh, he closed his book and pulled the chair closer to the simulation table.

'And here I was waiting for a chance to show off to my precious daughter. But the first person she turns to for help is a TV narrator, not the old professor Red.'

He took several currency chips out of his pocket and offered them to Tsune.

'If you need a weapon as well, buy weapon hardware packs that catch your eye. And while you are away, I'll see what I can do about controls.'

-

"Isn't this a bit too much?"

The girl was honestly surprised at the size of the weapon pack section in the shop. Before she only visited the first floor, which was finely segregated into sections ranging from armor and chassis to internal parts and cosmetics.

However, the weapon section took the entirety of the second floor, with different sections dedicated to different ways to wage war.

"Half of these things are not even what I would call weapons. At least, I have no idea how to use this as one."

She picked up one of the packs that promised a one tenth percent chance of a gold tier gauntlet. According to the animated poster on the side of the rack, it created a small and transparent platform in mid air. That was intangible for any matter, except for the gauntlet itself.

With a shrug, the girl put it back. Then filled her bag with packs from the nearest handheld projectile rack, some throwable, others just firearms.

-

Returning home, the girl saw her father still at work. He looked the same as before, but the atmosphere around him was completely different.

Tens of holo screens floated around the table, each of them a video loop of her exam fight or the videos of her at home.

In several minutes of observing the videos, she noticed that each loop had red lines tracing the movements of her body, face and the mech's actions, from top to bottom. Reaching the bottom, the lines became a part of a numbered meter that, once full, moved into the main screen on the table.

'What are you doing?'

'I couldn't think of a control system either, so I asked the computers at my laboratory to analyze your behaviour patterns and create one automatically.'

He puffed his chest and proclaimed.

'My daughter deserves only the best, I said. And that I wouldn't have it any other way.'

'Isn't this cheating?!'

'The computer I chose for the task is one of the best in the country. It'll analyze you so thoroughly that the result will be indistinguishable from what you would've made yourself. I promise this as an esteemed Professor and as a father!'

'Now, open the packs and give me the chips to make the weapon. Even if all the parts you open are commons without a single rare, it doesn't matter!'

Tsune hid the bag behind her back and took a wide detour around her overly excited father.

'I'll make it myself!'

-

Next morning.

-Master, please wake up-

-Master-

-Master-

Having left the dreams from a robotic voice instead of an alarm sound, Tsune looked at the source in confusion.

The voice came from a smooth football sized metal ball on her cabinet. As soon as its frontal camera saw the human reaction, it clicked and the monotone loop was replaced by a recording from her father.

-Mother stayed overnight at the beauty salon, so it was up to me wake you. And this is the result of the yesterday's analysis. I had the lab's production center make and deliver it while you slept.-

-I'm sorry if I went too far yesterday and tried to take your first invention from you.-

-This device will only help you become a great pilot. But it has the potential to become your assistant if you want. I called it *My Precious Daughter Is Lovely*, but my coworkers used *Macro Dimension Pattern Intelligent Logic*.-

-Recording end. Do you wish to repeat it?-

'No.'

Flat out rejecting the offer, and all too aware of the cold sweat that covered her body, she stared at the device.

The pilot assistance devices were common. From the basic Correcting Algorithm that laid the foundation of the piloting, to Intelligent Algorithms. Full fledged mecha pilots used the latter to string together simple movements, directions and preset attacks into complex attack patterns.

But Intelligent Logic was a step above them and, essentially, it was a co-pilot. A cheat for somebody who was still a student. Or would be one, if it wasn't brand new.

Her father might've had the best intentions, but discovering that he was that detached from her life has annoyed her to no end. And what annoyed her even more, was knowing that she was the one who kept him away.

"Even if this is partially my fault, you still went too far! In fact that's ever farther than just giving me the direct Human-Machine interface. Or that gold gauntlet."

She carefully slipped out of her bed, with plenty of distance between her and the present.

"Now nobody will ever want to partner with me. They'll just feel inadequate, as if dealing with a pampered princess."

A sudden idea struck her as she recalled a tv series from previous Earth.

'I wonder if I can ask the school for this to be my partner instead.'

-

Her request was approved as soon as she messaged the academy.

"He probably pulled some strings, didn't he? ...kinda scary."

-