Tired of being ignored, Tsune started to look for a way to make him talk to her.

Soon they came to the elevator hall and she acted.

She ran ahead and blocked the only path with her outstretched hands. She stared straight at her father, trying to meet his eyes, but he looked anywhere but in her direction.

"Why is this happening? What did you do this time? Or did you do that even before I came here?"

'Why...'

As soon as she spoke, his hand twitched in a weak soothing wave. But his submissive attitude made the girl even madder.

'What were you happy about? And why did everyone ignore me?'

When the only response was another weak pacifying attempt, the blonde felt that if she continued something inside of her would snap.

And letting out a deep sigh, she dropped her hands and let her father quietly pass by.

Looking at his back, the girl balled up the negative emotions inside and removed them with another sigh. If she kept stressing out, she would just make others worry about her health. And she didn't need to add to this disaster.

-

As they drove home, Tsune watched the city pass by. Its colours, turned pastel by the falling snow, contrasted with the sharply glowing power line network and made the entire thing look like a mosaic painting.

"Why am I even getting mad. This is the game world, isn't it?"

She breathed on the window and raised her hand to draw a game company logo in top right corner. Now she could imagine the city view as a cutscene. And sudden plot twists were common in those, especially for a main character.

Thinking that way she could finally calm down, without having to resort to mental discipline. Although she was still slightly bitter.

-

When they arrived home, the girl completely ignored her father as she walked out of the car.

'I'm back.'

Taking off her shoes she went straight to the kitchen, past Lady Red who waited for them in the hall. With the door kept open to hear everything her parents would talk about, she went to the kitchen cabinet.

Taking out a plate of an orange colored sweet paste, the girl was reaching for the box full of thin bread when the conversation finally started.

"Make him see the error of his ways, mother."

But unlike her expectations, the voices remained calm and brief even after the greetings.

'Fired?'

'Just suspended.'

'Did you explain it?'

'I can't.'

'You are incorrigible, you know that? Tsune, come here, I'll tell you what I know.'

Coming out of kitchen with the finished dish, Tsune saw that her mother was alone in the hall. She sat in the father's favorite chair, with her red hair in a freshly ruffled mess.

Setting down with the bread packets, the teen took one of them despite the disapproving look from under the red locks. Moving the plate to the center of the table while holding onto her paste treat, the blonde gave back her best look of indignation.

'Today was exhausting. I need sugar to feel better.'

'That's not what I meant. And I don't blame you for exploring that lab on your own, even though you could get lost.'

Sitting like a proper girl to appease her mother, the blonde noticed a sweet smell. Looking down at her hand, she saw that the bread was changing color.

"Did I use too much? Its already seeping through."

She had to hurry and shift the conversation to the proper topic, otherwise going for another plate would cost their talk the rest of its momentum. And give Lady Red enough time to branch out to how deceptively easy it was to gain extra weight during winter.

'So, about that explanation?'

'Well its not anything he told me directly. But I can second guess a lot because of how I met your father.'

Setting a mood for a monologue, the woman took one of the packets. Treating her gesture as a green light, the girl bit into hers, licking the overflowing paste.

'At first I wanted to become a school teacher. But my parents told me: Set your goals as high as you can, only then will you find out your limits and know where to improve.'

Holding her index finger up and shaking it to punctuate the lecture she once received, Lady Red couldn't help but make her daughter smile.

'So, believe it, or not, I went to learn the hardest job I could imagine. Training the teachers of the combat pilots to do their job better. But I succeeded. And when I was hired by a laboratory, I met your father.'

"Isn't this just your love story?"

Resigning herself for a lengthy romance that was probably aimed to inspire her, Tsune took another packet. She hoped that the filling of this tale was more useful than the sugary abundance she was sinking her teeth in.

'He was a really nosy person, always trying to get ahead by seeing what others were working on. And I tried to catch him entering somebody's room without permission.'

'Even more than that, I thought to make better pilots through teaching them, while he was sure that the best way was with Assistant Device machines alone. We were as compatible as fire and ice.'

'But he still got the unfair advantage he wanted and joined a Venus expedition before others. When he returned, I could see determination burn in his eyes. It was like he was a different person.'

'He asked for my advice and later made a whole research team that included almost everyone around us, even people that made the battleship interplanetary drives.'

Her mother licked her finger from the remaining bread crumbs and momentarily looked towards the parents room.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

'And he turned out to be such an inspiring man that when he asked me for a date, saying that we would change the world together, I couldn't refuse.'

Tsune did her best to keep an interested expression, but on the inside she was getting bored. Perhaps her mother saw through her facade, or the story was shorter than expected, but the monologue came to the part the blonde was waiting for.

'Well, after we saw you on the med screen for the first time, he tried to involve you into his research and I got mad. Since then we stopped talking about work, but knowing him, his project was a super special mech part made for you.'

"Part made for me? Is that why he needed Mapo's help? Was it was one of hexagon plates the Gunner had in the game tutorial?"

The blonde slightly wrinkled her nose in disappointment. All that story did was turn an ocean of possibilities into a sea.

But if nothing else, she now knew that that part was special, if even the Destiny pilot chose to interfere. And if that lab trip was to test her as a suspect, it didn't make her feel good at all.

 -

Next morning, Tsune walked around the training dome to the hangar entrance. The grass, that was usually kept fresh with the heat from underground, has frozen during the vacation time and crunched under her feet. The wind picked up the frost broken off by her steps and surrounded her legs in a tiny blizzard.

Closing the entrance door behind her, the girl paused to brush the snow off. But as soon as she leaned down, she felt a heartburn coming.

"Why did I eat so much of that paste yesterday."

The girl opened her bag to get the remedy. Unfornately for her, Mapo took it as a chance for freedom and dragged the bottle with it as it flew out.

Tsune rushed after her drink, that rolled down the entrance slope, but soon realized that the chase was pointless.

'Why can't you just keep still? You are even more restless than a pet.'

Slowing down, she let the energetic device fly rings around her, completely ignoring her attempt to chide it.

-

Entering the hangar, Tsune saw that the bottle stopped near Eider, who was juggling several wrenches about the length of his forearm.

When he saw her. the boy let the tools fall into his hand and leaned to pick the bottle. But instead of setting it near him, he threw everything he held into air.

The juggling continued, but now one item was excluded after every loop, until all of them stood in a straight line in front of him. Flashing her a smile of smug success, the boy stood up to return the drink.

Taking the bottle, the blonde gave Eider a small round of deserved applause.

'Not a bad show.'

'Thanks. One of Tek Terra's sites said that it helps eye-hand coordination.'

Swallowing the herbal water, the girl put away the bottle and was about to leave to her wolf. But after several steps, she turned around.

'Oh, I forgot. Thank you for not pulling anything in the Snowland.'

'No problem. After all, what was I supposed to do if you two turned out to be incompatible?'

"Stop doing it like I asked, maybe?"

But instead of letting her thoughts be heard, Tsune asked a question she had for a while.

'Does he even like me? He never said anything to me.'

'Hey, did you hear? Give her the present already. Or are you going to keep it like everything else?'

Raising his voice, Eider shouted towards Hem's wolf. To the girl's surprise, the other boy's voice came from behind of its closest leg.

'I don't have anything like that! Give it a rest already.'

And it was so full of denial that she didn't even need to ask for a clarification.

Shrugging, Eider turned back.

'Honestly, after all this time I expected him to at least gift you a flower. But no, he has to do it his way.'

-

The bell rang, but it couldn't save Tsune from the boredom that plagued her for the last half an hour.

Today was the first day of the second to last phase of training. It was learning to combine the five mechs into their main form. The humanoid *Griffon* as Den called it.

But the very same Den, who pushed for others ahead of schedule, was late. And forget just being late, the transformation sequence was something he could finish during the vacation. He even had access to the hangar and academy library if he needed, so there was no excuse for leaving them with a bunch of half baked drafts.

Swiping her finger across the phone screen, she turned the page to the next sequence.

"Well, this one at least had effort put into it."

On the screen, the eagle's wings created a tornado that surrounded the five mechs. The wolves jumped to stand neck to neck, with their heads sliding onto their chests, and their necks turned into connectors. Their fusion reminded her of the animal part of a centaur.

The tanks lost their sides with tracks and turrets before joining together as a vertical torso. And landed on the fused wolves. The turrets flew in to form the shoulders and the first set of tracks made the upper arms, while the second set became forearms.

Finally, the eagle ejected its legs and descended. Its head became the robot's head, its wings came together as a cape and its legs became the claw hands.

As soon as it ended, the girl swiped forward to see the next video.

Some of the videos had the wolves turn into legs, with their legs being feet and heads as knee guards. Or had the tank torso move their pilot sections as a head, making the eagle's head into a hood. Others threw the concept of a main mech out of the window and made separate wolf riders, with the eagle flying on its own.

-

Several hours later, when Tsune was about to make a hard decision of whether to continue looking at the hangar wall or rewatch the videos, she heard somebody running through the hangar entrance.

That person was Den, who waved something in the air. Stopping near his tank, he hunched down to regain his breathing but stood up almost immediately. He was too excited to wait.

Looking over the mechs, and the entrance where Aery took her time to come in, he waved his tablet in the air again.

'I did it! This is our big moment, everyone! Leave to the combination training cranes, I'll upload it and join you all.'

-