-Sun is so warm.-

Her assistant device chirped from her bag as Tsune walked through the academy yard. She ignored the sound, as it was a trick to get out and annoy her by flying around.

But even with her attention focused on the phone, she had to agree. The pleasant warm morning perfectly fit the mood at the academy.

As the absolute majority chose to stay inside of their hangars, adjusting their equipment and team members, the remainder of the last week was yawn inducing. Especially since everyone even skipped practice to keep their secrets.

And even though over the weekend most of pilots had a sudden change of heart, the training fields remained barren.

Or maybe they just decided to force a deadline by joining en masse, so that the top teams and pilots wouldn't have enough time to perfect their line ups.

Regardless of reasons, now she had plenty of the new info to go through. The brackets had no pilot info to prevent easy contacts between opponents, so she had to rely on recognizing the mechs.

"So, Rod already has a victory? Where's Blade? Did he replace his robot? No, that can't be, not him."

Today was the deadline but the Skeleton King still wasn't in. And given what she knew about him, it was a mystery that begged to be solved.

She searched for the boy's number and couldn't help but smile when she saw the note under it.

"Who puts a flamethrower and a chainsaw into a sword?!"

It felt strange that this short annoyed sentence was almost two years old, when she could remember it like yesterday.

'I'm here. What do you want, Red?'

'Why aren't you in the tourney?'

'Because of who organized it.'

Blade's voice became serious at the end and that prompted a new question from her.

'Destiny's pilot? What did he do?'

'Others would misunderstand if I join. Its complicated.'

'What.'

'I'm from Mars.'

He said that so fast that the girl barely understood it. But even that was enough to see what an unpleasant topic it was. So despite being as confused as before, she changed the direction.

'I didn't mean to pry. So, what did you think about our battles?'

'Eh, I never liked how team robots fight. But I guess they are okay. For rookies.'

After a bit of smug laughter, Blade said his goodbye. The blonde was left alone with the question of what the birthplace of mecha ideology had to do with anything.

-

As Tsune walked through Academy's grounds, she made a challenge for herself. To connect robots to faces of their pilots.

And with the recent tour she succeded so often that many probably suspected her for spying. But with the study year in its last third, she found it hard to care about another unwanted rumor.

Although, her memory failed about the most interesting entry. The one they would have to fight today.

The white mech had humanoid shape but everything about it was rounded. Furthermore, small sharp spikes covered its many of its surfaces from arms and legs to its body.

And the simplicity of such a weapon, that looked bolted on rather than welded, raised even more questions. Especially when the top of its head would barely reach Griffin's chest.

"Is it for a spiked ball form that rams? Or beam emitters?"

-

When she gave up on guessing the mecha's secret, she was already in the hangar entrance tunnel. And to her surprise, she heard echoed singing from beneath.

Entering the hangar proper, she saw Aery on a hovering maintenance drone. With hands clasped near her chest, she sang towards Den.

Curious, Tsune sought immediate answers. But without interrupting the two, and with Hem hiding behind his wolf's leg as usual, she had one source of info.

She walked to the eagle and, when she couldn't hear any tools, started to climb onto the wing.

There she saw Eider who sat right on the wing's surface and held a book called *Preparation for entry to airspace pilots training: course 2*. On his crossed legs was a partially filled notebook.

"He's busy too?"

Since he remained oblivious to her presence, the blonde stopped. She wouldn't want to interrupt whatever that was before the battle.

But that meant that her curiousity was left with a single choice. But then she recalled the outbursts from Hem when was asked to reveal his private project and changed her mind. It wasn't worth it.

"I think I'll just enjoy the singing and ask questions after."

-

The bell interrupted Aery's song and Tsune looked at the clock in surprise. She didn't notice how fast the time flew by.

The brunette hopped off the drone platform and brushed off a tear before giving a shallow bow to both of her listeners.

'Come on, dear, its time.'

She took the boy's hand and he stood up, straightening his posture and shoulders. And then walked to his tank alone.

'So, what is is this about?'

Still curious about the answer, Tsune asked the singer herself.

'Oh, he's overthinking the battle. He rambled about *If we didn't have enough speed, we would've lost from the first attack* for the entire weekend. So I promised that I'd sing to him right here if he got a hold of himself.'

Aery's eyes followed Den as he climbed into the tank. A subtle blush became apparent on her cheeks when she looked back to the blonde.

'I didn't expect him to take it so close to heart though. Also, can you sing?'

'I never tried, so probably not.'

The tone of the question made her doubt it was asked out of jealousy, but Tsune chose to refuse. Even if the follow up was as harmless as an offer to sing together for team promotion, she didn't want it.

-

-Griffin versus Bloom!-

The enemy mech entered the training field almost at the same time as them. And it looked exactly as in its bracket profile image.

-Field preparation!-

The swarm of drones once again flew out to transform the training field into a battlefield. But this time, instead of a hill, the blonde saw a forest of rock pillars.

Their height and width varied but all them looked pretty tough. And from Tsune's experience of a mostly ranged fighter, it looked like a maze that forced melee combat. 

It was hard to believe that the arena benefitted only one side. But did it mean their opponent was short ranged as well?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

'Does it really have no ranged weapons?'

Eider's voice echoed Tsune's thoughts. There was no way it had only those short spikes. Even if its rounded shapes hid great strength, they were a poor answer to Griffin's melee arsenal.

'I don't know. He might be one of the pilots that rushed the deadline.'

Den's voice came right after Eider's. But rather than continue theorizing, he gave an order masked as a suggestion.

'Eider, can you fly up? I want you to scout and cover us as I move in.'

"We can do that?" .

That simple idea sounded like a revelation to Tsune. She realized that she always thought of the combined form as final. But without time to think about it, she excused it as a bias caused by Majin training.

Eider's team screen lightly shook as his pilot cabin withdrew back into the eagle above.

The red predator folded its wings and floated up. And the humanoid mech followed it through the maze.

-

For the next ten minutes, the team was in an adrenaline fueled state of attention. But there was no sign of the enemy.

After another ten, Tsune kept glancing at Eider's team screen. But he circled above the pillars in silence.

Finally, Den put the mech's back against a twin pillar, near the other side of the maze, to talk to Eider. But the eagle pilot spoke first.

'Behind you.'

The pillar behind Griffin's right shoulder suddenly deformed and vanished, revealing their enemy. And its glowing fist landed the first strike.

-Thunder Fist!-

Huge impact bent Griffin's shoulder armor and the robot started to topple facefirst. And as she watched the rapidly approaching ground, Tsune gripped the controls to keep her voice from leaking out.

After the crash the girl looked around. Mapo's bag was sent into a wall with a clang, but she wasn't hurt anywhere.  Looking back at the holoscreen showed that the enemy already raised its fist over their prone mech.

The attack's name came and lightning bolts shot from the hand spikes. They arced over the clenched fist, quickly increasing their density.

`Rocket Claws!`

Before the glowing fist could descend, the team heard Eider's attack command. And the eagle shot its clawed legs like missiles.

Forced to redirect his attack for bash away the projectiles, the white mech gave them time. And Den didn't waste it.

The four tank tracks, that formed the robot's arms, came to life to pull Griffin away.

When the mech's intact shoulder hit the next pillar, its arm rotated to land on it. And with a distant whining of the artificial muscles, and tracs climbing up the uneven vertical surface, the mech began to stand.

-Rocket Claws!-

The eagle attempted to buy them enough time to recombine, but the white's mech was ready,

Its armor opened to show forcefield emitters and the guided projectiles hit the normally invisible barrier. They flew in from both sides to spread the shield's focus and for a moment, Tsune thought they got through. The field surface even turned visible, showing that it drew as much energy from the engine as it could.

But soon, the claw failsafes made them disengage and fly back.

'Retreat, Den. We need to combine.'

'If we both retreat, he'll hide again. And if teacher decides on a time limit, we will lose even if you map everything to track him down.'

Griffin brought up the handless arms forward and spun the tracks that covered the forearms.

'He'll need to drop the field to attack. And with so little armor, I can grind him down.'

The combiner mech walked towards his enemy and the mechs clashed.

-Thunder Fist!-

The enemy Majin dropped the barrier, as soon as he was in range, to take the initiative. And even with a rushed charge, the glowing fist rattled the larger mech. The flexible thigh armor plates, above Tsune's pilot cabin, burned and flaked, but the mech remained upright.

The response was a hit across the Majin's extended arm and torso with rotating tracks. They folded the thin white armor and gouged the insides with spikes that stuck between the plates.

When the destruction reached the fragile energy emitters, they short circuited and caused a thermal shock explosion.

-Match end!-

The announcement cut the battle short. The terrain disappeared, leaving only the white Majin, with a mess where its arm used to be, and their combiner. The arm and front armor remained mostly intact but pieces of burning metal covered most of their surface.

-Winner is Griffin!-

-

After the match, the pilots were told to leave their mechs behind. And as she saw during her descend, Den's head was held high as Aery whispered to him. 

Once on the ground, Tsune was met with silence that was unsettling for some reason. And in order to puncture it, she turned to Den.

'So, do we just leave them here?'

'Yes. The support staff wants check their safety.''

And looking at both of the mechs from the ground, Tsune could see why. The white robot's insides still sparkled and Griffin's thigh armor was baked around the connector bone. And its flaked pieces fell right outside her window like a dark snowfall .

Honestly, if she didn't know how pristine her cabin was on the inside, she wouldn't believe it. The whole thigh was just scorched.

As the team walked to exit, she suddenly realized what was the unsettling feeling she sometimes had after piloting.

"I missed a cheering crowd."

She saw students in the windows of junior training hall and that cheered her up.

-

The shoulder damage was fixed overnight. But the white mech and her wolf remained in the field, delaying the future battles. And without armor on, wolf's red aritificial muscle bundles visually clashed with sterile looking chassis and electronics. It looked far more feral that way.

But while nice to look at, it meant that the pilot was left without her mech.

"Maybe I should go read Eider's books."

Her attention was far from focused as she watched the ongoing repairs. And that's was why she noticed that a piece of paper was glued to outside of the hangar doors.

"The only reason I lost was that my part was stolen and you had that thing. You cheater."

The paper had no names but it was easy to understand for whom it was for.

"I knew it would happen."

Reminded of the rumours and the hopeful group that met her at her home weeks ago, she tore down the note. Even if she felt bad for them, asking the planet's top pilot for help was about as much as she could do.

-