Setting the wolf to slowly walk to the central training field, Tsune turned to Mapo.

She could afford turning away her attention as the Academy scheduled these training field hours only for their team. But what she couldn't afford was her Assistant Device breaking anything again.

'I'm not going to put you away, but I don't want you to interfere.'

-Mapo-

Answering the girl in an earnest voice, the metal sphere floated behind the chair headrest. But soon its lens peeked out from the side.

'Okay, let`s see that sequence.'

With a smile born from expectations, the blonde reset the control joysticks to stop the wolf.

-

The cranes, usually nested in the dome's walls, moved out into the open. And their huge frames started to unfold, surrounding the group of mechs with a forest of multijointed arms. But despite their number, the cranes were spaced out enough not to interfere with each other.

When the magnetic anchors grabbed onto the wolf's legs and torso, Tsune barely felt any impact. Looking around, she saw that other robots were securily held as well.

'Combination start!'

Den shouted over the team communication screen and the girl gripped the controls harder. She was ready to execute any maneuver that an actual super robot combination would require. And given how late Den was, they didn't have time to retry. Any mistakes would have to be fixed manually in the process.

Or at least that's how she imagined it, based on games from her memory and what she learned in this world.

-Phase 1-

The first to act were the tanks. The cranes separated the hull from drive side sections and moved away the turrets.

After a safety check, the parts were moved up and stopped at around twenty meters high. Then the first phase begain its final part.

The hulls were turned vertical and moved together. The top of Aery's tank seamlessly connected to the top of Den's.

Soon, the outside light appeared on their team screens, showing that the combined pilot capsules have already moved to the top and emerged as the head on top of the completed torso. Aery held the navigator's place in front, while Den held the elevated command position.

-Phase 2-

-Engage-

When the flashing green message overlayed the wolf's wireframe status, Tsune realized it was her turn.

Hurriedly pressing the button, she straightened her arm for a cool pose and echoed the machine voice. But the words came out as a whisper due to embrassment. 

"This is so fake looking."

Acting out one of her deep seated dreams was much harder than she thought. Despite the completely justified circumstances she couldn't help but hope that nobody saw her do it.

Momentarily caught in the inner turmoil, the girl missed the start of the wolf's transformation. And the wolf being turned vertical caught her off guard..

Rising headfirst, the robot animal's legs left their shoulders and moved down the vertical held body.

Once at the bottom, they compacted into a foot with the tail as a heel bone and the main body as a leg.

Immediately after, the cabin lightly shook and the blonde's view returned to horizontal. It was the wolf's head sliding onto the wolf's former chest, now front and center of a thigh.

And based on what she could see out of the window, the crane arms moved her's and Hem's mechs beneath the combined tanks.

-Phase 3-

A low resonating sound came from the neck of Tsune's mech, when it was less than a couple of meters away from its target, and a cylindrical connector rose from its former neck.

It entered into a short pillar, that descended from the torso, and interlocked with it to create a joint.

To finish the lock procedure, multiple layers of flexible armor slid up from the wolf and down from the torso. They competely covered the newly made *bones*.

Every step was done quickly, precisely and without pilot input. And if Tsune were to give her opinion, that detail flavoured the whole thing with disappointment.

-Phase 4-

She realized the difference between the games, where manual docking was the show of skill or resolution of a dramatic clutch scene, and the reality of this world. But that her resolution to do her best was pointless, still stung.

"Well, maybe its a part of the training process. I mean, if we broke something, we wouldn't be able to repair it."

With that self justification, the blonde let her hands fall off the controls and just watched the show.

The sizeable drive sections, that previously framed the tank hulls, formed into two pairs and connected to their partner. These newly formed handless arms connected to the torso.

Then as a final touch, the turrets bent and took their place as shoulderpads to protect the vulnerable joints. The barrels now extended behind each arm to protect the elbows.

'Griffin ready!'

Unlike Tsune, Eider had no problems shouting the last command.

His eagle descended on the back of the humanoid mech and folded its wings into a cape.

The clawed legs left the predator to become clawed fists while his capsule descended from the eagle to rest behind the robot's head.

With the eagle's hollow head as an armored hood, the combination was completed.

'The sequence is done!`

Den's happy voice came through the speakers as he threw his arms up on the team screen. The rest of the team congratulated him in their own ways. The largest reward came from Aery, who stood up to give him a kiss, and smallest came from Tsune.

Even though her smile was from the bottom of her heart, it was faint. She really expected more from being a part of a real combination sequence. But regardless of her feelings, Tsune gave Den's dedication a round of applause for this success.

If she were the leader and saw that they would have less than five minutes left, she would postpone the session and lose a day. Even if combination was done perfectly,

'Elbows are barely protected.'

'Why am I separate from your part, Den? As a gunner, I want to talk to you directly, not just through screens.'

As if they heard her praise, Hem and Eider began to grill the team leader about his mistakes. And it ended until the cranes return to undo the combination. 

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-

After a successful separation, everyone gathered around Den and his design gadget.

Unlike the table sized device at her home, it was easily portable and had a touch screen instead of a hologram projector. But despite its mass produced nature, Den held it like the most expensive thing in the world. And looked as proud as he could be.

'Team, I've heard the suggestions from Hem and Eider but I want to hear the thoughts of everyone.'

He pointed at Aery and after some hesitation, the brunette pointed at the red metal beak that split down the middle to reinforce the sides of the hood.

'I want a faceplate to protect us better. It could rotate downwards from the top of the head?'

The girl moved to touch the screen to show her thoughts but Den was ahead of her.

A minute later, her idea was a part of the transformation and earned no critique, so it was Tsune's turn. And with barrels that looked like unused sheaths for underarm weapons, she had her idea ready.

'I don't think I like the barrels as armor, they look like they are supposed to be weapons instead.'

Perhaps Den caught onto traces of her disappointment and misinterpreted it as a will to complain. Or maybe her idea connected to Hem's idea and need more work. But instead of trying to put it into the tablet, he wrote it down.

Then he put the tablet away, to signal the end of this meeting, and made several steps back to adress the whole team.

'I didn't have time to bring anything to celebrate with, but if you want we can go to the teacher cafeteria. They should let us in.'

"Well, I probably shouldn't stay."

Amidst of other team members nodding to agree, she shook her head.

'No, I have to go home. Sorry for being a wet blanket.'

-

Tsune was out of the academy, and on the way home, when she suddenly stopped. She completely forgot about about her post training plan for today. And she refused the perfect chance to do so.

"I could've met Destiny today!"

Feeling the urge to facepalm in shame, the blonde turned to look back at the giant dome.

She could return, but if Den or Aery saw her looking through the cafeteria, it would create a scene. Or even worsen their relationship as they wouldn't believe her reason and think that she doesn't care about the team's big day.

"Why didn't I write it down?"

-Mapo?-

Roused by her sudden movement, her Assistant started to move in the bag. But it was quickly pushed it down, because the girl found the outlet for her frustration.

'And you didn't remind me either, so its your fault too.'

-

When she went around the last corner, she saw several people in her academy uniforms near her house. One of them looked her way and pointed straight at her. And almost immediately, the entire group began to argue.

'It must be her, just look at that size.'

Unfortunately for her, Tsune got too close too fast and heard that killer arguement from one of the boys. But it actually ended the bickering, even if one of the girls glared at him, from under her blue winter cap.

'So, what do you want?'

The blonde could think only of three reasons why anyone would meet her at her house. The romantic one was rejected straight away because it was a mixed group. So it left only the damage to the training dome wall and the rumored theft in the academy.

"Ah, good day. Sorry for this interruption. We are students from the same academy as you.'

The girl in the blue cap paused their introduction as if she hesitated to confess something.

'You see, we didn't want to bother you directly, but your friend stopped answering our calls. We understand that he's busy, now that the second half year has started, but that's exactly what makes us seek help even harder.'

'Are you talking about stealing some parts from student inventories?'

'Yes!'

Near simultaneous replies merged into a choir and some of the guests took out paper notepads instead of phones.

"Not trusting electronics is a bit much, isn't it? Or is Mapo portrayed as all mighty in their rumors?"

Releasing the rest of her today's negative feelings with sigh, that momentarily hid the group from her with a vapor cloud, the blonde pushed down on her bag. If Mapo started anything, it would incite unnecessary reactions.

'Okay, we'll talk. But first, tell me why would I steal them?'

'We don't think that you stole them.'

The guys followed the group leader.

'Yes, for someone who ended their combat exam like you did, there's no need to steal parts.'

'What we ask is for your help in finding the stolen parts. We need them before the exams.'

'What? Why would you ask me? Ask academy or law enforcement to give it back.'

"First you suspect me, now you expect me to help. Why me?"

'If you have the ability to hack into academy's servers, you can find how it was done.'

"Is that the looped arguement that Blade talked about? How did he even do this for so long."

Befuddled by the logic, the blonde asked herself if she should've continued this. But her prolonged silence prompted the guests to talk once again.

'Please don't take us for stalkers.'

'Academy only supplies the default Gunner and parts and we can't stand out with them.'

'Can't you trade with other people? Or buy more part packs?'

This time the prolonged silence was on their part. It lasted until the blue cap girl slowly answered. Carefully choosing the words as if she didn't know how to explain something that was obvious to her.

'We cannot trade the digital parts, because they are just codes, only the real ones. And they become real only after you submit the design you are going to use for combat practice and Academy pays for discounts from the pack's rarity.'

Looking closer into Tsune's eyes to see if the blonde followed what was said so far, she continued.

'Official investigation takes so long that we'll be past graduation when its finished. Its rare for a student to afford many packs, so if a rare part was lost, its lost for good. And gold rarity parts are very rare. We here are about a half of everyone in the academy who owned them.'

'I see...'

"Just buy more packs? Why did I say it like that?"

The blonde pushed her collar as high as it could in order to hide her embrassment.

She recalled her trips to the shop, and leisurely throwing tens of packs into her bag, and her cheeks flushed even harder. Despite her efforts it seemed that her father succeded in spoiling his princess.

But even rain clouds come with a silver lining and this situation was no exception. This could give her a legit, if informal, reason to approach the Destiny's pilot.

'I can't promise anything myself, but I know who to talk to about it.'

Adding her hands to cover her red cheeks above the collar, she nodded as a goodbye and resumed walking to her house. To her surprise the group let her through, probably thinking she was cold.

-