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Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest (No SV, you are the Waifu)

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Stop, please. @Generic_Generica, please, lock this back and purge all the stupid squeals.
We can awe when we get update, screams of mad fans before that are both annoying and counterproductive.

You see, they make author feel good, so he gets less motivated to write.
 
NHO said:
Stop, please. @Generic_Generica, please, lock this back and purge all the stupid squeals.
We can awe when we get update, screams of mad fans before that are both annoying and counterproductive.

You see, they make author feel good, so he gets less motivated to write.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I assumed that since the thread was unlocked, the update was already finished.

Why shouldn't i express my excitement if that's the case?
 
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Post 19
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    • A/N: In which I try to fit a tournament arc into 1 update. Don't do this fellas. This got too long, even for me. This post is like… 27k or something and I am projecting the 2nd half to have about the same length.
    A/N2: Remember that the excerpts at the top of the pages aren't all contemporary.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    [X] Pancakes with maple syrup.
    [X] Yes. You will watch all the matches involving your squadron. As the matches take place simultaneously, you will only be watching the matches from your own squadron.
    -[X] Preferably paired with another commentator. Perhaps an instructor like Meyer or Leonhart.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Excerpt from "The foundations of the grand victory, the Alaskan Offensive", published 15th December 57PI, hosted on the Wider Area Network website 'TheFive.news'

    … with the failure of the Antagonists in pushing back our lines in North East Sector as well as the destruction of the Hive Type over the Siberia, the available reserves on the North American continent were estimated to have been severely limited. A large scale attack against the Fairbanks Breach was suddenly on the table, but only so long as the counter attack was rapid.

    An opportunity to exploit

    Though the confidence with which the United Nations launched the Alaskan Offensive appeared dangerously reckless, reliable sources have since revealed that a series of still highly classified events were crippling the AG war machine throughout North America.

    Other sources have corroborated the story by revealing there existed doubts amongst the highest ranking officers of either Denver or Cincinnati Major Breaches reinforcing each other. While the Portland and Fairbanks Minor Breaches on the west coast of North America were established by Hive Types from the Denver Major Breach and thus subordinate to Denver, the Saskatoon Minor Breach was established by the Cincinnati Major Breach. While the Major Breaches have been known to snub each other, the two North American Breaches appeared to take it one step further. Intelligence was aware of what appeared to be a long running internal conflict between the Antagonists of the Fairbanks and Saskatoon Minor Breaches, with moderate scale unit movements and conflicts throughout central Canada stretching back as far as 55 Post Impact.

    Despite the Great Battle, the conflict between the two Breaches appeared to intensify. Sources indicate that STRATNET estimates put the total damage caused by this conflict to be at nearly 3% of total North American production capacity in the closing year of the Great Battle. This civil war also constrained Antagonist expansion across Canada and Alaska, greatly weakening their defensive strength, especially that of the Fairbanks Breach, which had to set aside much of its defensive projects in order to replenish lost units and production facilities. Declassified intelligence images show swaths of destroyed Antagonist structures between the two Breaches, with such extensive losses suffered that the minor breaches are estimated to have spent nearly a fifth of their combined production output of 57 Post Impact on their strange little civil war.

    All this combined to lock in the Alaskan Offensive as the counteraction of the United Nations against the offensive of the Antagonists. Yet, even as the Armed Forces visibly massed throughout Siberia and around the Pacific, the two minor breaches appeared only more desperate to end the conflict, one way or the other. Detected conflict reached an all time high with Higgs emissions, other exotics and gamma bursts detected. The two breaches were now committing Types and High Yield Weaponry against one another. All good news for the UN, who would sweep in and destroy both minor breaches in the coming months, finally ending this queer little domestic dispute.

    …

    -End Excerpt-

    If only it was so happily convenient.
    -Comment by user "Zheng LingYu" (Verified WAN Account, United Nations Armed Forces, Air Force Air Commodore, Valkyrie Ace Rank 5) on news article "The foundations of the grand victory, the Alaskan Offensive" hosted on the Wider Area Network website 'TheFive.news'

    wtfffffffffff why are you rank 5?how did you fall out of the trinity?!
    -Comment by anonymous user, highest rated response to above comment

    I didn't do it.
    -Comment by user "Vishka Nonahali" (Verified WAN Account, United Nations Armed Forces, Air Force Group Captain, Valkyrie Ace Rank 6), highest rated response to above comment

    XxXxXxXxXx

    …

    It is hypothesised that as subjects increase their mental capacities, the mental inhibitors that are initially present in Valkyries allowing for perceived normal communications with other humans are eroded. Significant numbers of higher compatibility subjects appear to subconsciously lose patience when talking with unaugmented humans. Analysis of surveillance and network recordings show a preference in subjects of engaging in multiple conversations simultaneously, whereas one to one individual conversations in non-intimate settings have a tendency to quickly bore the Valkyrie, who then often begins performing other tasks in parallel.

    …

    Only in the higher ranking Aces, those within the top six hundred as ranked by combat ability score, do the issues become common and severe enough to manifest as Combat Induced Empathy Loss-Detachment Syndrome (CIEL-DS), known as Valkyrie Syndrome (VS) in short.

    Externally, VS shares syndromes similar to Asperger's, detachment syndrome and DPD, but in especially severe cases, subjects exhibit many hallmarks of classic psychosis. Subjects have been recorded as expressing overt disdain and disregard for social norms, especially in regards to relationships and alarmingly, a lack of self awareness or empathy relating to how their actions may be perceived by their surrounding society. When questioned, such subjects will fall upon rationalisations for their behaviours. However, unlike classical psychosis, such rationalisations are almost exclusively built upon statistical and economic notions of rationality. There are no deferrals to motivation or perceptions of moral justification, only quantifiable cost-benefit and efficiency arguments.

    …

    … show no signs of disliking humans individually or humanity as a whole, however, subjects suffering from VS do not appear to feel much love for humanity either. While empathy tests are usually passed, ethics hypotheticals are typically resolved without particular consideration of the hypothetical humans past that of a nebulous 'cost factor', which takes enough corresponding consequences into account that attempting to equalise the cost factor could baffle a normal citizen for days on end…

    …

    … Onset of VS appears affected by the age at which the subjects begins synchronisation with the Valkyrie Core. VS is unknown amongst first generation Valkyries, including every member of The Twenty, but common amongst second generation Aces after one year of service and near endemic for third generation Aces after one year of service. One proposed hypothesis puts forth that as adolescents possess a more malleable mental framework and lesser amounts of ordered information within their memories, the informational complexity of the human brain is reduced. This thus reduces the amount of time required to integrate the pilot into the frame, which has profound effects on the human ego as shown in the Guramann study.

    …

    … as a possible defensive mechanism against traumatic stress. Normal human mental processes allow for the easing of mental trauma through the natural recontextualisation of events through successive recalls and influence from surrounding environment during such recalls. For Valkyries however, due to the perfect recall displayed by many higher ranked Valkyries, it is evident that Valkyries do not naturally recover from mental trauma the way that humans generally would. In this case then, the development of Valkyrie Detachment Syndrome may be a coping method…

    …

    … Thus, in the stress of war, it is likely that many young, high ranking Aces analysed themselves in the face of death, devastation and deprivation of a like that humanity has not faced since Impact. They judge their own reactions, their gut feelings and passions, against the actions necessary for improvement, for success, for victory.

    They have found themselves… wanting.
    - Excerpts from [Redacted. Top secret; Classification schema Red Five October Ninth], by [Redacted], published 1st January 58PI

    -"We are holding a snake to our chest to ward off a wolf."
    - [Redacted]

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Pancakes."

    "Sorry, what's that?" asks Syifa.

    Oh, whoops.

    "I mean, yes, I can uh, commentate," you correct yourself.

    "Awesome. I gotta tell my Flight-"

    "Um, with another commentator if at all possible," you blurt as Syifa makes to stand.

    "Oh yeah of course! You've got to have interplay between the commentators for spice," Syifa affirms, then slowly, cajolingly, draws out the words, "Shuri~ Anna needs a co-host, are you sure you still aren't going to commentate, Shuri?"

    Shuri looks faintly exasperated, then shakes her head again, "There would be no interplay if the two of us were to commentate."

    "Maybe one of our Instructors?" you suggest.

    "They'll be in the stadium as judges, but we might as well ask," hums Syifa contemplatively, rubbing at her chin, "Well, let's go Anna, we gotta ask the Instructors or find another commentator before the first matches start."

    "Okay…" you hesitantly agree, allowing yourself to be pulled up and away, but couldn't you just send a message?

    "Have fun," deadpans Shuri from behind, as you are led away.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    As the two of you reach the door to the simulators, an excited babble erupts from behind the door as Syifa rounds the corner and steps into the lobby.

    "Did it work, captain?" "Omigosh, what were they like?" "Nothing bad happened or anything, right?" "I can't believe you sold me out like that, captain!" "Yeah, why'd you tell them it was our idea?" "Chillout you lot, Anna agreed but Shuri declined." "Yay! We got one!" "Three cheers for the captain!"

    You round the corner a moment later. Syifa is surrounded by her Flight, who are in the process of lifting her above their heads. The lot of them are now frozen like a herd of moose under headlights. Syifa shifts a little, probably a little uncomfortable in her awkward position of being halfway suspended in the air.

    There is a moment of silence as you try to find something to say.

    Syifa's Flight promptly drop the girl and line up, snapping up into attention, hands swivelling up into salutes. You try to catch Syifa before she hits the ground but she easily lands without help using her own Impeller.

    "Oh that's cool girls, just drop me the instant you see Anna yeah?" Syifa complains with a mock pout, "Also, chill out already. When's the last time you've seen anyone salute anybody in the academy?"

    "Uh-" "But…" "She's an Ace, captain…"

    A few of the other cadets hesitantly object, looking between Syifa and you.

    You smile reassuringly at them, "It's fine. I don't like being saluted."

    The salutes disappear with nary a trace.

    Syifa lets loose a bark of exasperated laughter at that, "Anyways, Anna's looking for a co-caster for the matches since Shuri isn't up for it. We're going to go ask the Instructors, but if they're busy, any of you up and volunteering?"

    You take a closer look at Syifa's Flight as they trade hesitant looks at the question.

    Unlike most of the Flights, Flight Two hasn't changed much since the very first day of classes, when the squadron initially organised into Flights. Syifa is still the leader of the Flight, and still disarmingly friendly and casual in her manner. Rachel Khoo and Elsa Cato stick close to her side, looking a little apprehensive. You remember that they were the ones that shared around the fact that you are an Ace rank Valkyrie. Isabella Antonelli, who you vaguely recall attending the cooking elective class, more casually slouches to the side, munching on a breadstick, a few stray crumbs catching in her long wavy brown hair. Madeline Gunadi, the last member of the now five member flight, had joined sometime later.

    "We should… probably get someone else who's good to commentate." "Everyone else who knows their stuff well are already competing, right?" "Uh, Captain is in, Setsuna and Sandra from Shuri's flight are also competing." "Emily and Claire from Flights Three and Nine are also competing." "Did Josie join as well?" "I think she did…" "Cathy from Flight Four might be the only one with an actual rating to not compete." "Cathy is just going to fall asleep at the desk." "I thought she was tired from Shuri's schedule but damn, that girl just loves to sleep." "Well I mean, if the Instructors are actually up for this, this guessing is gonna be a big waste of time right?" "Yeah…" "I think we should just ask the Instructors first." "Yeah, I think so too." "Yeah."

    Their huddle is short and the lot of you enter the simulator right after.

    When space normalises around the you, you're standing on a wide platform along with Syifa's Flight. The soles of their shoes clack, sharply meeting with the ground.

    You glance around in interest. Your group materialised on a platform formed from a single monolith of marble, rising a few meters from the surrounding flat plains of grassland. Completely flat plains, you note absently, with no planetary curvature. A path of white tiles stretch away from the platform, inlaid with veins of black obsidian and spotted with jade dots, leading to a huge, spindly metal building that stretched into the sky. Gleaming metal filaments, silver and gold, twine upwards to support a curved dish, cradling within it rows upon rows of seats. Perching astride the path leading to the building, a crystal plaque bears letters formed from pyrite threads. It proudly informs anyone who enters that the architectural elective class designed this particular stadium and its surroundings.

    This is a sports stadium?

    You examine the building in more detail, noting the swivel mechanism at the base of the dish. A modified stadium for spectating Valkyrie matches, the primary venue could rotate to keep the contestants in sight. You count the seats and the audience and note an oddity.

    There were far more cadets in and around the stadium than those in 58th Cadet Wing, Squadron Four alone. The cadets from your class formed a loose cluster towards the middle of the stands, and cadets from other first year classes were crowding the other seats in the stadium. There are even clusters of second and third year cadets scattered across the stands, sitting aloof in the higher seats, mostly keeping their own flights as opposed the milling masses of the first years.

    Hmm… why are so many cadets from other classes and years here?

    "Instructor Meyer is up at the floating stands," calls Syifa, eschewing the path and instead expressing her Valkyrie frame and taking off for the stadium directly.

    You express Durga and follow.

    The moment you take off, you note that something feels off. You take a glance at the other Valkyries and confirm.

    The emissions from your thrusters are off. Your acceleration is correct, but the plasma your thrusters spits out is of the wrong composition.

    You carefully scan around you, then, confirming no one unshielded in your proximity, fire a short burst from a Heavy Particle Projector and a high band laser into empty space.

    Again, emission returns are wrong, immediately dropping off in several bands as the attacks leave your Impeller.

    This… is like the very first simulator you participated in, except taken even further. Rather than the attacks of the fake Antagonists being simulated, your own attacks and even your propellant is being absorbed by the simulator and then simulated as soon as they leave your Impeller. Idly in curiosity, you stretch out a bubble of Impeller then shoot it. The kick from the simulated attack is still powerful, the thin partition of Impeller straining to absorb it, but there is no… 'rawness' to the attack. The energy your Impeller absorbs is simply… incomplete, marginal, processed. Attacks of this composition would probably result in far less energy leak from any dangerously strained Impeller volumes.

    It's so very strange to you.

    "Testing the simulator Anna? I imagine maximum safe settings must feel pretty strange to you," Syifa comms to you, having hovered to a stop, waiting for you.

    "Yes. It's… odd," you reply.

    "Yeah, I hear that quite a bit of realism is given up for safety. Of course, I'm not at the level where I can tell yet. It's pretty cool though, like literally impossible to hurt someone else when the Simulator is set like this," Syifa says, then disengages her Impeller, before turning a plasma caster around and shooting herself in the face.

    Her own plasma stream impacts her in the helmet-

    - blood, flesh and bone, red and chunky, splatter into the snow. The stench of gunpowder, acrid and sharp hits you first, then the ringing silence. The gore lies in the snow, gently steaming into the air, followed by a soft puff of white powder as the body slumps down - with the hiss of evaporating paint. Clothes melt and hair ignites, skin blackens then bursts, blood explosively heating into steam. -

    -the same moment your lasers strike the projector, disabling- No.

    No. Nothing happens. Her plasma stream and your lasers contact her frame with no visible effect. A red warning… hologram appears in the air in front of her frame.

    >1st Year Syifa Wulandari hit on Frame by self inflicted damage and 1st Year Anna Sanchez<
    >Predicting mortal damage taken<

    "So yeah, you can't actually damage anything not from the simulator with weapon fire. It takes a little getting- uh, Anna?"

    …

    "Hey, Anna, are you okay?"

    …

    "Anna?"

    You pull your hands off the front of your helmet and open your eyes.

    "Never do that again," you hiss out.

    "Ah! Sorry! I won't, sorry, I won't," Syifa yelps, retreating with her hands in the air.

    You force yourself to calm, retracting the components that you had subconsciously expressed. Your visor too had briefly closed and you take a moment to reset the form of your helmet.

    "… Dios…" Syifa whispers, probably to herself, then at a normal volume, "Um, sorry, but uh, it's impossible to hurt someone else. Um, unless you're in Impeller contact and they choose to let damage through."

    You take another moment, before sending back a terse acknowledgement ping.

    Syifa shuffles in the air for an awkward moment.

    "Hey uh, are you sure you should be commentating? You don't have to if you want to. I mean, matches are stopped on Impeller depletion but well…" she trailed off.

    You take a moment to consider, expanding your awareness.

    Syifa. Ahead. Exhaust fumes radiate into the air under her. Exhaust energy levels. Wrong. Flight Two, now turning, flickers of active scanners briefly lighting in your direction. Scanning band peaks. Wrong. Ahead in the stadium. Valkyries. One hundred and fifty seven. Thirty six first year cadets, eighty one second year cadets. Thirty eight third year cadets. Two Instructors. Radio waves, interlacing frequency modulated transmissions. Clean, no noise. No microwave background. No radio emissions from sun. Visible, infrared and ultraviolet spectrum light only. Distance, five hundred thousand kilometers. No particle noise. No microwave background. All wrong. Dirt beneath you, grains uniform, identical. Wrong. Magnetic field, steady. Wrong. Spatial distortion, third year cadet vanishes. Not Teleport. Not Gate. Exiting simulation.

    Simulation.

    This world is not real.

    "I have adjusted myself," you answer.

    You feel… strange. A little drained, a little tired. A little less.

    Your uncertainty however is gone, and you firm up your resolution.

    Syifa wrings her hands a little, then twitches as a comm arrives from one of the Instructors over an open channel.

    "Dealing simulated mortal damage to yourself, Cadet Wulandari? Have you forgotten the very first lesson taught in the simulators?" Instructor Meyer asks dryly over the channel.

    "Oh- sorry Instructor. I was just uh- demonstrating to Anna the safeties of the simulator."

    There is a rather heavy pause.

    "You did what to Anna? Anna is one of the commentators you wanted to invite? Who are her co-casters?"

    There is a threatening growl in Meyer's voice that makes Syifa backpeddle in the air for a moment, her feet nervously kicking.

    "Syifa demonstrated how weaponry does not work in this simulation environment. I am. I have no co-casters yet, I was wondering if you or Instructor Leonhart would be interested in commentating along with me," you speak up over the channel.

    "… I see. Yes, one of us can," the Instructor replies after a brief pause of consideration, "Thank you for your time, Cadet Wulandari. I will take over from here."

    "Uh, yeah sure. Um, sorry. I- I'll go now," with that weak response to the clear dismissal, Syifa withdraws, flying to meet with her squad.

    "Either of us can serve as a co-caster Anna, who would you prefer?" asks Instructor Meyer, switching to private channel.

    …

    Um.

    Ummmm.

    "I, err, like both of you. So commentating with either of you is fine."

    Instructor Meyer chuckles a little at your response.

    "Well, since I contacted you first, I'll call dibs. Is that alright with you, Anna?"

    "Alright," you confirm.

    "You already have the details of the format and rules? What about the details of the contestants?"

    "Yes. Yes."

    "Alright, there's not much to do but wait until nine when the first matches start," Meyer hums, then continues, "Actually, want to come set up a casters desk with me?"

    "Sure," you reply, curious as to what would be involved, then turn to Syifa and Flight Two, "I'll be going now. Thank you for the company. Good luck in the- good luck."

    "Sure, Anna," Syifa replies, "Um, you don't have to hold back telling me what I'm doing wrong, yeah?"

    Um. You'll try, you guess? You ping a binary affirmative to conceal your uncertainty and pull away.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "This space was preconfigured well, we don't have to do much preparation," muses Instructor Meyer as the pair of you look over the caster desk.

    The caster's desk is placed on an independently floating platform above the stands, though considering that quite a few of the Valkyries within the simulation are hovering in the air with their frames instead of sitting on the seats, the platform probably wouldn't provide any form of unique perspective. Ringing the edges of the platform are arrays of screens with touch and look based control options, but neither you nor the Instructor pay attention to the middleman physical controls, instead you both directly interface with the electronics.

    You flicker through the options, most relate to two subjects, perspective control and display options. While the spectators did have options to customise their own perspective to a limited extent, statistical analysis showed that the majority of cadet level Valkyries would just watch what they are directed to see for the social experience of a shared view.

    "So Anna, do you want to be the play caster or the colour caster? If you want to do typical back and forth that is."

    Um- play and colour casting? A quick search reveals the different roles that casters typically took. You were perilously close to indulging yourself in another web tangent about public sphere personality construction before you rein yourself back into reading about the subject in question.

    "Can we modify the roles? I think I'll be good at the technical analysis duties of the colour caster, but injection of humour and levity, um, can I leave that to you?"

    "Sure thing Anna," Meyer suddenly stops in place and looks around, shaking her head in disbelief, "I guess we're just a tad over seven years old as an Academy, so we don't exactly have much history or tradition, but I'd never thought I'd be here playing the part of a commentator. These vanguard tournaments used to be just tests- well they still are, but they sure weren't a spectacle."

    "Do… you like it this way?" you ask distractedly, concentrating mostly on referencing various recordings to gain a better understanding of how to commentate, or rather, cast, as it was apparently more commonly referred to in relation to sporting events.

    Yeah… this is just a sport. A competition. A contest- no, a sport.

    Something within you shivers uncomfortably, but the feeling passes.

    "I suppose," Meyer replies, then her eyes flicker at you briefly, "It's shown to be a more effective training method for cadets since they're put under a spotlight in front of an audience, but the result variance is higher when they perform poorly."

    You check several studies and confirm that cadets who took part in "highly publicised events" did generally show a spike in growth, but there were anomalous cases where performance crashed as a result of failure to perform well. More pressure lead to high volatility in results, greater peaks, greater troughs.

    "We have to focus a lot more on positive reinforcement in that case, keep the cadets focused on the future, the next time," Meyer continues, "This is one of the reasons we're running the mentorship program, not enough Instructors to go around really."

    You sigh silently inside the privacy of your own helmet. Meyer appeared to have caught the slight slump in your posture though.

    "Something wrong Anna? You don't like competitions like this?" she asks leadingly.

    "No- yes- no," your mouth briefly seizes as you can't make up your mind, mental threads clashing against one another in disagreement. Again, a feeling of deep emptiness carves away at you for a moment.

    "I do not like- putting people through- against each other. Even if it is to teach them."

    -never attack other humans. It doesn't matter where they're from, here, or anywhere-

    An old argument, one you've gone over with yourself and others.

    -why are you such a bully-

    "… It's preparation," Meyer chooses her words carefully, brow furrowed in thought for several silent seconds, "I'm… not going to make a quantitative argument here, we saw that you've already accessed the studies to do with mindsets and motivation. It all boils down to the reality of this world. They are out there, and we… we are the ones who are needed to keep them back."

    "We do this so that other lives can be saved, that is our ultimate goal," Meyer recited softly, her eyes distant, "At the end of the day, every… strain we put on the cadets here will translate into a kindness out there. When we set out -and we must set out eventually- they will not discriminate. Ready or not, they will not discriminate. They kill… equally."

    You already knew. That this was necessary. Maybe it is because you have not heard it in so many words, but you knew. Maybe since that day. Maybe even long before that.

    Studies of Valkyries, force projections, economic forecasts, simulations for the war. They all agreed.

    But it didn't mean you had to like it.

    You take a long moment to mull.

    Fine. This is fine.

    So long as the intent was good, you- you could accept… maybe some combat. Against other humans. It's… friendly? No, not friendly. As long as the intent is… good.

    Hell was built through good intentions.

    You finally send an affirmative ping back at Meyer, who had been waiting silently at your side, before switching subjects.

    "Should we give an introductory speech on the various contestants before their own matches, or should we do a larger speech at the start of the day?"

    "The matches are best of five rounds," Meyer says, "First years tend to take a while each round. Let's edit some introductory videos to play before each match."

    You nod and return to composing the ceremony around this competition.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Yukari sat tensely in her seat, unconsciously tapping her fingers on her knees.

    A slight shift of motion from her right had Yukari notice her nervous tic and clamp down on it again.

    Shuri sat in the seat next to her, the imperious Ace almost completely still in her ornate golden frame, only the slightest shift in her head showing her scanning her surroundings.

    Yukari tried to find something to talk about, but when alone, Shuri was less approachable than even Anna had been during that first meeting. The Ace had kept her responses clipped and short, not irritated in her tone, but rather, simply very brusque.

    "Who do you think will win this tournament?"
    "Cadet Wulandari from Flight Two."

    "Uh, who gets runner up then?"
    "Cadet Masaya from our Flight is second in this competition in terms of combat ability."

    And so on and on.

    With short responses like that, Shuri had strangled any conversation topics.

    Really, compared to the impression that Shuri gave in her interviews and public appearances, the other Valkyrie continued to be coldly distant. Though, considering the spin machine for the Valkyries, Yukari supposed that the contrast really shouldn't surprise her, but Shuri just took it a bit further. Shuri just didn't seem interested in, well, mingling. It didn't seem to be a of dislike of contact; it was closer to disinterest.

    Yukari sighed in her head. It was honestly a little discouraging. She didn't really regret the fact that she applied for a mentorship position for the Flight, despite the presence of two Aces.

    God Anna could not teach, she just couldn't. She just couldn't.

    On the other hand, Shuri was competent at getting her point across, but seemed determined to work the kids to death at every opportunity. Opportunities that Koujirou, stubborn little idiot that he was, happily handed over by the bucket load. Naturally, Setsuna would chase right after him, as she had always done, and Yukari would have to carry both of them back to their rooms. She'd then spend the next few hours anxiously waiting beside the bed with a bucket and anaesthetic medication for when the pair awoke from their exhausted and pained unconsciousness.

    Yukari would love to tell them both to take it easier and enjoy life some more while they still could, but considering the way that Setsuna's eyes shone with adulation whenever she listened to The Golden Ace talk, or how raptly attentive Koujirou was whenever either Anna or Shuri were around… Yukari doubted her own chances to get either of the two to listen to her advice to moderate somewhat.

    "So…" Yukari tried again, "If you and Anna were in this competition, who would win."

    For a moment, it seemed to Yukari that Shuri had completely tuned her out, then the golden armoured Valk replied, blunt and certain, "Anna."

    Yukari blinked, surprised at the straight answer, but the topic seemed to finally arouse Shuri's interest, and the Middle Eastern girl continued.

    "That presumes we're competing in real world conditions. There probably would be no decisive winner inside simulator conditions. She probably won't keep pace with me without spatial abilities once we reach vacuum and I lack the long ranged offensive power for a reasonable chance to attrit her Impeller to depletion."

    Yukari nodded along, then froze as the answer actually hit her. She knew that Anna was good, very, very good.

    But better than Shuri? That would put her… actually thinking about, Shuri never did make her combat rating or 300 rank public after officially enlisting in the United Nations Valkyries. From the rumours, she never even bothered taking a combat aptitude test. Guesses had placed her anywhere between ranks 50 and one hundred, with her combat rating usually put somewhere in the 17,000-19,000 region at the end of her time in the Air Force of the Republic of Pakistan.

    If Shuri thought Anna was better, and unequivocally so, there had to at least a ten percent differential. Therefore, Anna had to be one of the Twenty-

    Or maybe the people on the net didn't know what they were talking about in regards to Shuri.

    "You couldn't tell?"

    "Sorry?" Yukari asked, her mind still busy.

    "You could not tell that Anna is a more powerful Valkyrie than me?" asked Shuri again, facing Yukari and actually sounding curious.

    "I well, I wasn't going to make a judgement, I mean, I'm not qualified, no I couldn't really," Yukari stammered, trying and failing to find a diplomatic deflection.

    Yukari wasn't asking purely out of a desire to chat, she really couldn't tell between the two who was the more powerful Valkyrie.

    Both had displayed the inhuman speed and reaction times of Valkyrie Aces, nearly prescient in their actions and reactions, Impellers contorting to perform feats that Yukari had only studied theoretically. Anna had enormous firepower at long and medium ranges, but Shuri was ferocious at close and zero ranges- Wait, actually thinking about it, Yukari had never seen Anna in close range combat. At least, nothing that can be called extended close combat; that one time with the thumb flick didn't count. Also, just then, Shuri said that Anna 'cannot keep up'? Does that mean that Shuri would not want Anna in close range to her? Then…

    "When you say that you would be able to keep your distance from Anna, do you mean she would hold an advantage even at close quarters?"

    "Yes. Her Impeller control is lethal to close against. It might be possible for me to exchange field strength at even volumes, but Anna's capacity is much higher than mine," Shuri replies with a slight nod to herself, her eyes flicking to the side in thought.

    "… how much higher?" Yukari heard herself ask faintly.

    "In terms of flat field energy volume, her capacity is somewhere between half again and twice greater than mine. Taking into account her much higher control fidelity, Impeller partition property management and her expressed frame components for alternative damage mitigation, maybe six times greater or more in sustained combat."

    Impossible.

    Six     times greater?

    Six times greater?

    One point six? Maybe.

    Six times greater? Six times the combat mitigation ability of an Ace rank Vanguard like Shuri would mean-

    "G'day sis, hiya Shuri!" chirped Koujirou plopping into his seat from above.

    "Good morning everyone," Sandra greeted, following the boy into her seat with somewhat more grace.

    "Morning you two," Yukari replied with a smile, mentally still reeling and glad for the distraction, "Where's Setsuna?"

    "Oh she's working on something in one of the smaller simulators. Told me off when I tried asking what she was up to," Koujirou snorted with a roll of his eyes, "She'll probably show up just in time for her matches."

    Yukari looked back towards Shuri as Koujirou settled in. Was the Ace simply having a laugh at her expense? Shuri didn't seem like she was fishing for a reaction. The Valkyrie's helmet was turned away, looking up at the commentator's box with a slight frown, apparently done with the discussion.

    "The opening ceremony is scheduled to start now," Sandra announced eagerly.

    Before anyone could answer, the sky blinked out right on cue, leaving the stadium in near total darkness. Subdued guide lights turned on after a moment, running along the paths and rows of seats. In the sky an indiscernible far distance from the stadium, a pinprick of light flashes shone, then suddenly flared into an audio scope that ran the length of the sky.

    "Welcome to day one of the Vanguard Tournament for Perth Valkyrie Academy year fifty eight Post Impact, fourth squadron," Instructor Meyer's voice rang out from the formless dark space surrounding the stadium.

    "This examination will be in a tournament format; each individual match will be best of five rounds. Simple rules; twenty minutes each round, search and destroy, four minute breaks between each round. If neither competitor suffers Impeller depletion or concedes before the end of the round, the victory will be awarded by judgement. The terrain for each round will be in the following order," the Instructor continued as all of a sudden, the surrounding space flares and scenery appeared.

    Towering cliffs and gleaming snow surrounded the stadium. Wind and snowflakes whipped sharply at the cadets in the seats and a brief curtain of gold obscured the view for members of Flight One, before Sandra used her Impeller to bring her hair under control. The stadium itself was perched precariously on the summit of a craggy mountain peak, looking over a field of frozen peaks and valleys with the barest patches of green clinging to their sides. The stands rotated and the white wispy clouds gave way to dark thunderheads hovering menacingly over foothills, each grey pillar occasionally flaring sullen white, lightning concealed within. The stadium continued to rotate and an endless field of blue stretched away in the horizon, where the mountains abruptly dropped away into the ocean.

    "An island mountain range. Thick cloud cover, sharp vertical terrain and violent weather systems impede common sensor platforms. Closer to the surface, strong winds change flight conditions. This center of the setting is fit for lethal short ranged knife fights or long technical trades through the complex terrain. On the other end of scale, the oceans surrounding the islands present no cover or concealment, bar one."

    With that, the surroundings blurred and the arena was suddenly floating over the sea, then just as abruptly dropped into the water.

    Koujirou yelped, feeling the water abruptly wash over him and was nearly dragged away from his seat by the currents as the arena continued sinking. Yukari quickly grabbed him by his belt and tugged him back down into his seat where he managed to secure himself with his Impeller.

    Despite being surrounded by water, Instructor Meyer's voice continued ringing out clearly into the ears of the cadets. A few who'd been washed out of their seats slowly made their way back towards the arena, paddling awkwardly through the water.

    "Should you be brave enough to venture into the water, or perhaps seek combat within the ocean, congratulations. You've volunteered yourself into a second year class. You will quickly find why it will be a year before we begin to teach most of you how to engage at length down here."

    With that warning, the scene changed again, all the water around the cadets evaporated without a trace. The cadets who had been swept away reappeared in their seats with comical pops to laughs of welcome.

    The environment for the next round was completely different. Concrete and steel reached upwards. Grass drew green lines in black cracked pavement. Rows upon rows of apartment buildings stretched away from the skyscrapers in the city center, empty window sockets staring outwards. Skeletons of rusted steel lined the roads, shadowed by trees and shrubs. The sun sat low in the sky, burning a tired, rusty red. On the western horizon, an enormous wall of dull orange and sullen brown loomed, advancing over the dried shells of ships marooned on the dry lake the city bordered.

    "The second round will be set near an old city, established before the Impact. Metal and flat surfaces everywhere creates a crowded sensor environment close to the city center at ground level, but the environment is clear above the city, and in the surrounding suburbs where their tenements provide far less cover. Within ten minutes of the round starting, a sandstorm shall cover this city. Where and when you choose to engage will be of the utmost importance."

    The surroundings shuddered, then morphed, twisting and flowing. Hard, regular geometric blocks and lines, clearly artificial constructions jutted out from chaotic rock formations, creating a techno-organic vista. The roof arched far above supported by tremendous columns, ridges and crests hiding the mouths of other smaller tunnels that connected with this annex. Here and there, clusters of pipes glowed, their edges seemed to fade, as if they were curved back into the distance from the viewer. Some pipes simply terminated, their payload continuing to float through the air in coherent streams through incomprehensible mechanisms before finding a destination in receivers far away. A faintly glowing mist rolled through the air, slowly ebbing and flowing, wispy fingers of miasma scratching back and forth, as if somewhere deep within the maze, a titanic beast slowly drew breath. Colossal pylons and spires festooned the center of the chamber, crackling with power, glowing so bright they hurt to stare at directly. At the center of it all, a massive, bone white cocoon squirmed slowly within a shallow depression. Even as the Instructor began to talk, huge spots of red appeared then bulged over the cocoon, like blisters of blood. Laser apertures opening, this was an Antagonist Ant being constructed, a high level Antagonist anti-aircraft platform.

    "The third round will take place in Antagonist tunnels close to one of their fabrication clusters. You should all remember this scenery from some of the first exercises we conducted together. This time, you will have no maps except what you can create on your own. Antagonist construction makes heavy use of exotic materials, so blind corners, active emitters, and sensor ghosts are all common within these tunnels. They were previously not simulated. That practice ends today."

    There was a brief and weighty pause as the cadets were given time to take in the vista.

    The environment of the fourth round materialised. The vaulted ceiling flattened, broadening out into an inverted dome and the haze of surreal colours faded out. New towers and buildings arose from the surroundings, concrete, glass and steel. LED and glowpanel lights, refreshingly steady. After a moment in the pseudo night illuminated by the interior lights of buildings leaking through the windows, a far brighter light shone down from above, clearly illuminating the surroundings. The stadium perched on top of a central tower that rose above the surroundings, reaching towards the sky.

    Or rather, the skybox.

    The giant screen showed a near picturesque, cloudless blue sky, the virtual sun shining from one corner of the screen. Beams of light cut through the apartments that stretched out from the plates around the central tower.

    The interior of a human arcology.

    The Arcology interior was organised fairly conventionally, a vast shaft plunging kilometers into the earth, with a central tower rising up the through the center being the primary residential infrastructure and fabrication facilities with additional lighting on its sides. This shaft and everything inside was collectively known as the residential tower. Reaching towards the central column, but rarely directly connected to allow light to filter down, layers known as plates jutted out from the outside walls of the residential area. Each of the triangular slices had their own theme, holding apartments and houses with a different thematic architectural design, and a few plates dedicated to hosting a biome. Lights glimmered along what looked like long transparent threads dangling between the plates, the transport tubes empty for the moment. As the audience watched however, the view terminated as a much thicker solid dull gray metal plate blocked off much of the lower area of the habitation area, locking in place with a rumbling boom that reverberated through the entire Arcology. A secondary armoured plate.

    However, the rest of the Arcology was empty and still. For the audience who all lived within an actual Arcology and knew what life in the residential tower should have looked like, the silence was oppressive.

    "The fourth round. This is a setting that I hope you will never have to engage in combat within."

    Instead of the Instructor, another voice spoke out. Just as clear, but sombre and subdued as contrasted to the Instructor's cheer.

    "That's Anna," murmured Koujirou and Sandra at the same time.

    "Electronic transmissions will be very dense. Energy levels from the skybox will simulate outside conditions at the first armour plate, however, intensity will rise much faster the closer you get to the skybox. The second armour plate is in lockdown mode. Internal defences are inactive and will not respond to environmental damage, but be… careful with your targeting. Performance judgement will take into account broader circumstances of your performance."

    "She's throwing them right into the deep end," chuckled Shuri with a hint of disbelief. She paused for a tic and glanced at the rest of the flight, then continuing without any contrition in her voice, "Oh sorry, I mean, you're all being thrown into the deep end. You're probably going to eat penalties for damage to the residential tower, especially habitats. Try to avoid dumb fire."

    "She's asking for first years cadets to not miss each other in high impact combat?" Yukari looked at the commentator's box uncertainly.

    "It appears so. It will be good practice in fire control... and weapon efficiency," Sandra said hesitantly.

    Koujirou remained silent, his expression twisted like someone who just bit into a lemon. His only integrated ranged option, the hypervelocity cannon, was neither guided nor accurate.

    "Looks like I need to aim for a three nil sweep then," he eventually managed weakly.

    The lights above faded and was again replaced by an alien vista of the environment for the 5th round.

    A canvas of blue and purple stretched across the horizon, but the sky above was the cold pure black of empty space. Pillars of rubble, kilometers across and stretching into infinity above, descended towards the ground, falling sedately into pits glowing a cold blue where the material liquefied and pooled.

    The landscape moved.

    Antagonists.

    They crawled across every surface. They choked the sky at every altitude.

    Antagonists of every function and form, though to make distinction between individual platforms was meaningless in the face of this mass. Where there were no functional Antagonists, pieces and components stacked carelessly high, chaotic in their organisation, yet at the foot of such hills completed Antagonist weapon platforms marched away, pieces slotted seamlessly into place by octopus like constructor forms. High level Antagonists were built differently from their mundane cousins, space twisted and materials simply rose from the floor, moulded by esoteric forces to spontaneously form a titanic Antagonist Scarab, assault platform thundered off seconds after, seemingly fully operational. In the distance, a swarm of Antagonist space ships hovered, taking in hordes of Antagonist combat forms.

    "The final round. This is the surface of an Antagonist Hive," Anna continued blandly, "The combat environment is similar in general condition to that of the interior of an Arcology. Unlike the previous round, rather than penalties, there are a variety of ways to earn bonus points during this round."

    A beat.

    "However, there are also more environmental hazards," Anna added casually, as if she was speaking of something as banal as a slick spot in a hallway somewhere.

    Shuri guffawed at that, shaking her head in disbelief. The rest of the Flight simply looked on, struck dumb by the sight in front of them.

    "I doubt you need the hint, but stay silent and let the… environment take care of your opponent if it comes down to the fifth round," Shuri said.

    "Wait, we just let Antagonists shoot them down?" asked Koujirou, snapping out of his stupor with a frown directed at Shuri, "That's not right."

    "They're not dying," Shuri responded dryly, her brief burst of humour evaporating, "They're just uh, losing the match."

    Her eyes flicked doubtfully at the caster's stand again at that.

    "Making sure to know when and how to hide is something you all need to start learning anyway," Shuri continued.

    "What? We're Valkyries, we don't run from Antagonists," Koujirou objected, looking around for support.

    Yukari pressed her lips into a thin line and looked down, avoiding his gaze. Sandra held his gaze, but neither nodded nor shook her head.

    "You'll learn." Shuri said with finality, looking back to the stage as the terrain around them reverted back into the flat plains.

    "Learn what?" Setsuna asked as she finally arrived into the simulator, electing to skip the scenery walk and instead entering the simulator directly onto her seat next to Koujirou.

    Koujirou tried passing his rather unmanly shriek of surprise as a cough and turned to his childhood friend.

    "Last round takes place where there's a lot of Antagonists, we're supposed to hide and let the AGs shoot down the other cadet for the win. I-"

    "Hell to that. I didn't join the Valkyries to hide under a rock, would have stayed in the camps if that's what I wanted to do," Setsuna dismisses with a irritated wave of a hand, diving into her datapad to catch what she had missed from the Instructors.

    To the side, Shuri gave a resigned half shrug with one shoulder.

    Setsuna didn't appear to notice, agitatedly browsing through the briefing, "The he- the house are these scenarios? Arcology, Hive interior? What. The. Fruits."

    Instructor Meyer returned, her tone again business like, clearly in her Instructor mode.

    "The time has come to begin the tournament. For our first contestants of the day, will Emily Hartman-Kenzler of Flight Three and Millia Tsang of Flight Four please make your way towards the staging platform where Instructor Leonhart is waiting."

    A few short cheers rose from the two flights as their representatives set off.

    "For the rest of Squadron Four, because you're not participating in the current match, you have spare time before each of the matches start. Enough time for you all to get bored," the Instructor trailed off and her voice suddenly took a sinister edge, "Assignment time. Justify in five hundred words or less who you believe will win the following match and why. You have 10 minutes to submit your answer. "

    A series prolonged groans rose from most of the squadron.

    "Wait, what," yelped Koujirou, already swiping at his datapad, "Ten minutes- five hundred- this is sh-shhhoes. Full of shoes!"

    The boy continued frantically cursing as he awkwardly tapped at an expanded keyboard, hunting and pecking word out slowly with four fingers.

    "Use voice to text Koujirou," advised Sandra with a wince as Koujirou fumbles over his holographic keyboard, then spoke audibly to her datapad, "Input option; voice. Restriction to eighty percent similarity."

    Sandra's neat paragraph was spotted through with the word 'shoe', apparently her own data pad picking up Koujirou voice as she tried to subvocally dictate.

    "Unparsable command. Unexpected occurrence of exclamation; shoo," Sandra's datapad chirped back at her.

    "Sorry Sandra."

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Alright you two, you got the run down in the briefing packets you received when you volunteered. " Instructor Leonhart said gravely.

    The three stood on a platform hovering in front of the stands. In the background, the introduction video for the two contestants played to the audience, making more than a few rapidly change their answers as new information was revealed.

    However, the two contestants of the match had only eyes for each other.

    Emily Hartman-Kenzler and Millia Tsang, Leaders of Flights Three and Four respectively, hovered facing each other. The two girls starkly contrasted face to face, Emily was pale, tall and spindly, dirty blonde hair framing blue eyes and a wide mouth which looked somewhat out of place on her thin and serious face. Millia on the other hand, was brown eyed, tanned and stocky, her black hair twisted into thick braid and looped over her shoulder, emphasizing her round and cheerful face. The two leaders of the sister flights were usually quite friendly, but today there was a stony silence between the two as they eyed each other. To the side of the two competitors, Instructor Leonhart gave them a final briefing.

    "Nothing in the rules have changed since then," continued Leonhart, "Simulator safeties still are at maximum and you're down once all expanded Impeller layers have taken enough fire to fully collapse. The last tenth of extended Impeller will not have damage strain passed on, Impeller collapse and defeat will be calculated only. All tactics are legal, but not necessarily acceptable to us judges, I'm sure you both understand."

    Leonhart waited for both cadets to tersely nod and continued.

    "Final check on inventory, have you both confirmed your loadouts?" Leonhart asked.

    "Yes, Instructor." "Aye, ma'am."

    First year cadets were typically not permitted to load their weaponry and other battle inventory outside of simulators, and as such, before the match, both had to take in ammunition and drone supplies. The breaks between rounds were as much for the cadets to reload expended items as it was for them to rest and plan for the next round.

    While firing a weapon or missile inside a simulator using maximum safety settings did not actually destroy it, as the simulator would simply absorb the actual physical object and only maintain its simulacrum, the fact remained that the expended rounds were removed from the storage of the Valkyrie and have to be replenished.

    Upon receiving the confirmations from both cadets, Instructor Leonhart nodded and continued.

    "Then it's time to begin. Shake hands. You'll be dropped in ten seconds after you break the handshake."

    Millia and Emily clasped hands, shook firmly once, and separated.

    "Good luck," Millia said with a tentative smile.

    "Same to you," Emily replied, her face still a mask of determination.

    The two disappeared and the battle started.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Our competitors are appearing on stage now, spawning on opposite sides of the mountain just over the shore," rang out from the caster's desk.

    The stadium itself again appeared on the mountain peak. A holoscreen was projected into the air in front of the audience, the vast majority of the main view split into two, one focusing on each competitor, with a smaller screen on the bottom right showing a stylised overview of the arena, showing that the stadium was towards the eastern shore of the island while the competitors were to the north and south extremes of the island.

    "Here we go," Koujirou said, leaning forward in his seat, "C'mon Emily, I bet on you!"

    "This is an examination, it isn't a sporting event or something," Setsuna said with a huff, "Besides, Millia totally has this."

    "Both are heading in a beeline towards the summit of mountain ranges, trying to get ranging on each other. Now we know that Millia and Emily are practically completely mirrored in their frames and capabilities. Along with their weapon parity, their acceleration and sensor capabilities are very similar."
    "They are both also aware of this. The match will be a technical one relying upon tactics over component advantages."

    "Why do you two always do this?" complained Yukari.

    "Cause then even if one of us is wrong, we'd still be right," the two chorused in unison, then grinned at each other and high fived.

    Sandra laughed and Yukari sighed.

    "One thousand kilometers, they should be seeing each other now."
    "Yes, it looks like they've pinged each other's long range sensors. Both are starting to make manoeuvres."

    The two Valkyries left the towering storm clouds around the perimeter of the mountain range behind them as they closed on each other. Being so small, both Valkyries detected each other's over-the-horizon radar systems before the systems themselves actually gained any clear lock. However, now with a rough bearing, the sensor systems on both Valkyrie Frames quickly locked onto the thermal exhaust wakes and turbulence the Valkyries left behind them in flight.

    Millia dropped thrust, rolled and turned away, but Emily intensified her thrust, making an intercept course, accelerating towards her maximum sustainable speed. In response, Millia's frame glowed as she expressed components, within seconds, a large cruise missile was assembled, four or five times longer than the standard mid range multipurpose missile. Shunting the completed missile to a frame hardpoint, Millia immediately set to work constructing another. Towing the missiles until she had a brace of twenty, Millia launched the cruise missiles rapidly in pairs.

    "Millia is launching a set of long range missiles. Emily isn't deploying missiles yet; she is launching sensor drones and towing them along."
    "It's likely Emily is not yet sure if the contact she has is Millia, or if she just saw a missile sled go active, but with her aggressive acceleration and her increased profile from towing along the drones, she herself has no chance of hiding from Millia's sensors."

    Millia completely cut her thrust and coasted on her Impeller, losing altitude and speed rapidly. Emily didn't change course and continued to close in, though it was clear that she no longer had an updating bearing on Millia. She released the pair of sensor drones that she had been towing, the small aircraft tumbled in her wake before they decelerated enough to open their receiver membrane wings and coast away in a slow climb.

    "Millia is going completely silent as Emily gets a proper read on the incoming missiles. Looks like she's going for the attrition win."
    "Emily is shelving her own VMLs and preparing her particle cannon for firing."

    Emily folded back her variable munitions launchers and instead unlimbered her particle cannon, the much larger weapon unfolding out from its back mount and extending to its fully deployed length. She held the weapon at the ready, then at five hundred kilometers when the missiles crested the horizon, she fired. The constant dull red glow within the barrel built to blue white in a matter of seconds before a beam of brilliant white fire drew a line across the skies. As she fired, Emily launched another pair of drones and then sharply dove, burning her thrusters for a brief moment to dive past terminal velocity before cutting thrust, also going silent. The particle beam raced towards the missiles- then past, failing to make a direct intercept on any of the missiles. At such range, even relatively large cruise missiles were not easy targets for the cadet Valkyries.

    "Emily just launched a set of jamming decoy drones. Looks like one is firing up and going active while the other is just gliding along on reserve."
    "She is taking advantage of the brief blindness created by her particle beam. It's likely she is aware that Millia has no direct line of sight on her."
    "Oh?"
    "Millia is currently data-linked to the cruise missiles as sensor platforms. However, by doing this, she has the missiles broadcasting data without directional arrays. This will alert Emily to Millia's current method of observation. Similarly, with the heavy cloud cover below the Valkyries, the scattered radio waves from Millia's Valkyrie are likely being picked up by Emily's sensor drones, annulling Millia's efforts at stealth. Lastly, Millia using the missiles as sensor platforms means that she will have disabled the sensitivity safeties on the guidance package. The missiles will be unstable."

    Indeed, despite the particle stream missing, two of the missiles closer to the beam wobbled and swerved and the commentators chatted on. The further missile self destructed in a bloom of fire and shrapnel and the closer missile simply tumbled from the sky, its motor spitting smoke before the missile housing caught fire and the weapon plunged into the mountain side below in a trail of black smoke, spearing into a cliff side with an explosion of pulverised rock. The more sensitive sensor arrays in the cruise missiles that were necessary for autonomous target acquisition were naturally more vulnerable to disruption than their shorter range relatives. Millia disabling their safeties meant that a full power particle cannon stream was noisy enough to fry two of the missiles.

    The remaining missiles had also been briefly blinded by the particle beam, and now locked onto the decoy, which began to simulate Valkyrie's dodging patterns, strafing hard and dropping flare packets.

    Under active guidance, the cruise missiles were not fooled, at least, not by the secondary decoys. The forward missile pair unerringly closed in on the jamming decoy and detonated. The remaining missiles split four ways, seeking to entrap from all directions. Below their line of sight, Emily had passed their sensor cone and again lit her thrusters, further helped by the intervening cloud layers between her and the missiles.

    "Emily has pulled a fast one here; she's bypassed Millia's vision and entered into the Fog of War."
    "With the decoy not engaging in intercepting fire, Millia probably realised that what she hit must have been a decoy. She will most likely move and begin launching sensor drones of her own."

    On cue, Millia promptly lifted off and climbed, foregoing stealth. She expressed a sensor drone and with a moment of assembly, she attached a missile booster to it. Moments after the first drone spiked into the sky on a pillar of fire, Millia dropped another sensor drone, this one ascending normally. Above, the missiles, formerly under active control, began snaking, drawing corkscrews slowly in the air as they switched from a pursuit course to searching patterns. Emily immediately switched her course, locking onto Millia's exact location through the help of her sensor drones, hugging ridges and cliff faces, using thicker clouds and violent winds to disguise her trail. The audience let loose a cheer as Emily raced past less than a kilometer from the stadium, snaking along the bottom of a valley with the distant rumble of a sonic boom, just barely distinguishable from the thunder of distant lightning strikes.

    "Oh will Millia's drones gain the height to detect Emily before she exits the valley? It won't have an easy time finding her while it's still ascending with its rocket booster on."
    "Emily is expressing XHEAP missiles for launch. She still has positive contact on Millia; she plans to finish this."

    Emily's remaining decoy drone lit up its jet engines and turned hard at Millia. The other Valkyrie cadet turned immediately. She strafed away from the decoy, firing a spread of standard missiles, and directing her long range cruise missiles to turn around.

    "Millia's been completely fooled!"
    "Emily is launching."
    "Oh she fired the missiles! Here they come! No way you can hide the signature of a XHEAP missile, but there's no time! This might be it!"
    "Emily's Impeller is strained from high speed flight, Millia still has a chance."

    The Exotic Matter High Explosive Armour Piercing missile, despite its disarmingly small size, was the most powerful short and medium range missile in the UN inventory. As with most equipment and ordinance at the top of their category, or basically anything with exotic matter in its construction, the missile was Valkyrie-exclusive equipment. If not placed in the stabilising storage space of a Valkyrie, the fuel of the missile and the explosives in its warhead would degrade and become unstable within two hours of production. Another hour after that, presuming the bodywork somehow had survived the violent degradation of the missile fuel and warhead, the armour-piercing cap and would also turn brittle and dissolve into radiation.

    The trade off for the limited lifetime was the colossal power of the missile. If the missile was fired at zero range, the total explosive power of the warhead and fuel would equal more than 1100 gigajoules. At its maximum sea level range of 200 kilometers the warheads own explosive power was a little more than half the total energy rating of the missile, with the engine of the missile allowing it to maintain a sea level cruising speed of 18 kilometers per second to a range of 220 kilometers. No conventional heat shield could resist the temperatures from compression heating as it travelled, so the missile's exotic matter armour-piercing cap also served as a heat shield. Naturally, with such extreme performance parameters, the missile was also completely blind in atmosphere. No conventional sensor package was able to see through its own plasma bow shock, and no conventional transmission system was capable of transmitting a signal through its wake. The missiles would have to be guided by a Valkyrie through actively attenuated laser systems while in atmosphere. Without a Valkyrie holding the hand of a XHEAP missile, it was nothing more than a dumb ballistic projectile with minimum inertial guidance, and one that cost as much as an entire fighter jet squadron.

    Sixteen of the powerful missiles screamed into the air at Millia, leaving white hot plasma in their wake as they cut through the air. Emily only had the means to guide four XHEAP missiles at a time, but at a range of just sixty kilometers, even one direct hit would be enough to decide the fight.

    Millia spun, pulling into a dodge as fast as she could. She desperately poured out intercepting fire as she strained to dodge out of the maneuver cones of the missiles, cannon rounds and plasma flying thick from her frame. Two missiles were knocked off course by direct cannon round hits and another was struck by a plasma bolt, but shrugged off the strike with its heat shield. However, none of the three disrupted missiles were of the four that were being actively guided.

    Nine missiles missed, five by a large margin, three by less a hundred meters.

    One missile spiked into the center of Millia's Impeller field and detonated in a flare of multihued light.

    "Direct hit! Is the match over?"
    "No. Not yet, but it will be soon."

    Millia tumbled from the fireball, Impeller barely intact.

    Emily closed and fired both VML cannons, lancing down a stream of solid kinetic rounds.

    >>Victor: Emily Hartman-Kenzler

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Darn," muttered Koujirou.

    "Jeez, that wasn't much of a match at all," winced Setsuna, "I don't think Millia was taking this really that seriously."

    "Are you sour that you lost?" joked Koujirou.

    "There's still two more rounds at the very least," Setsuna snapped, clearly having felt the jab, "Besides, Millia was totally holding back."

    "She wasn't taking as much care as I think she should have, but I don't believe that she was holding back," Sandra mused, "Millia didn't really understand the weaknesses that arise when you're in combat as a solo unit, especially your limited sensor horizon. Emily in contrast proceeded with measures that would cover such weaknesses."

    Koujirou and Setsuna both nodded thoughtfully at Sandra's comment.

    "With the first round finished, analyse the results and explain how the result was ultimately determined in five hundred words or less. Reflect upon your prediction in your answer. You have five minutes to submit your answer."

    "Shiiiiiiiiii-ins. Shins. Shins," Koujirou swore.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    After a few minutes of frantic dictation and typing, Flight One relaxed back into their seats, waiting for the next round to start.

    "So, what did you put as the main reason?"

    "I copied Sandra's answer," Koujirou admitted shamelessly with a careless shrug, "Lack of awareness of sensor limitations combined with awareness gaps from being a solo unit."

    Setsuna made vaguely disapproving noises and glared but after a few moments of Koujirou steadily staring back with a raised eyebrow, Setsuna dropped her glare and fidgeted, before she admitted quietly, "Me too, pretty much."

    "Ha, thought so," laughed Koujirou and he patted Sandra on the shoulder, "You need to donate me some of your brains Sandra."

    "Spend less of your evenings playing video games," Sandra chirped back with a slightly exasperated smile, then she froze, tapping at her lips in thought, "Or perhaps… spend more of your evenings playing video games, just make sure they are of the highest of accuracy in simulating combat."

    "Real to life simulators? Well, STRATCOM is way too micro to be fun, and you just won't win if you don't micro," said Koujirou thoughtfully, "After actually flying, Eclipse:Stratos is pretty unfun and MirrorLife takes way too much time to get into- wait, what do you mean play more video games?"

    After a moment of confusion, a cheeky smile spread across Koujirou's face, "Is that an order from my Flight Leader? Play more video games?"

    "You can't be serious," complained Setsuna, "I have a bit of fun because I'm still ahead of the curve, but there's no way this idiot here should be slacking as much as he is!"

    Sandra took a moment, thinking further.

    "What I mean to say is that you should play video games during class. You should also play video games whilst working upon your homework. I am speaking to you too Setsuna in this matter."

    "What," Koujirou and Setsuna deadpanned at Sandra in disbelief. Yukari, who was staring over their shoulder just as dumbfounded, suddenly nodded, an expression of surprised realisation dawning over her face.

    "It will help you both develop multitasking and parallel thinking abilities," Sandra continued, still completely serious.

    Before more could be said however, the second round began and the members of the flight mutually broke off to watch the match.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    As compared to the first round, which was largely one sided from the beginning, the second round was far less decisive.

    Millia had clearly learnt her lesson on the value of sensors in solo flight conditions. Both Valkyrie cadets launched their entire complement of sensor drones early in the round, but the long range engagement simply didn't materialise, with both Valkyries making into the city center without sustained positive detection of the other. Emily had briefly switched her sensor drones into active scanning mode, but when Millia had promptly fired anti-radiation missiles at them, Emily had to sacrifice a decoy drone to save them and hastily changed the drones back to passive scanning. Now there was a tense game of cat and mouse throughout the remains of the high rises through the city, neither cadet willing to turn their thrusters to high or go actively scanning first and lose the element of surprise.

    As tense as this was for the cadets, for the majority of the first year audience, most of whom still had not internalised Valkyrie scales of combat in their minds and instinctively held 15 meters and under as close rather than 15 kilometers and under as close, seeing the two cadets meander with between ten and six kilometers separating the two while being unaware of each other was yawn inducing. The commentators had gone on an extended segue about stealth techniques to fill the space, but the action was now picking up as the dust storm bore down on the city.

    "They've both already fired all six of their sensor drones, so neither could have made aggressive moves without the other knowing. Now however, with the sandstorm coming in, the drones will be useless."
    "The rising wind is obscuring the wakes that their thrusters generate, indirect sensor accuracy is rapidly dropping and soon will also be useless in the middle of the sandstorm."

    The huge wall of grit and dust finally began encroaching on the city, swallowing the outer suburbs at a frightening pace. With the storm bearing down, Emily again moved first, her drones switching to active scanning and immediately finding a likely suspect. Whatever it was that the drones lit up, it quickly ducked into the valley formed by a partially collapsed tower complex, shadowing itself away from the probing signals. Emily turned and accelerated slowly towards the signal, still keeping her own emissions low.

    "Emily has just pinged onto one of the traps laid by Millia earlier."
    "Uh oh, Emily is seeing that decoy drone that Millia left running."

    What Emily had just seen had been a decoy that Millia had set to hover, ordered to fly into the buildings as soon as it detected scanning waves. Millia's own sensor drones, taking advantage of the emissions of the opposing drones, began passively scanning the returns and found Emily. Normally such a feat was difficult, but as both sets of drones were UN standard drones (in this case, the SR model PI581101) in stock configuration, one drone finding and then piggybacking the active band of another didn't take that much effort.

    Millia began dragging herself towards Emily, keeping her own thrusters off and instead grabbing at the surrounding buildings with her Impeller, vaulting forwards rapidly like an enormous insect. Aged concrete cracked, metal beams groaned, and what glass that remained in their frames rattled from the tons of armour and weapons leaning on them through an Impeller. Even that racket was nothing compared to the shrieking rumble that jet engines would have produced, and far more importantly, it generated no waste heat.

    "Emily still hasn't seen the trap, and Millia is about to spring!"
    "So long as Millia is clean with her execution, this match is already over."

    Millia's decoy drone self destructed. Emily pulled to a halt and readied her weapons in the direction of the explosion. Millia levelled a particle cannon, taking pinpoint aim at Emily, who had pulled herself to a stop at an intersection in clear and direct line of sigh. Missile canisters set around the building the drone had been hiding within activated, sending a swarm of missiles at Emily. In synch with the launch, Millia fired her particle cannon.

    Emily staggered to the side from the particle cannon strike, the powerful beam slicing through her first layer of Impeller impacting against her second, the disruptive force from the beam nearly completely collapsing Emily's outer Impeller layer. Before she could think about recovering, Emily was enveloped by explosions from the missiles, multiple powerful standard missiles smashing into her, the volume of explosives enough to collapse the nearby buildings. Millia ignited her melee halberd and slashed. An intense arc of plasma cut through the smoke and fire of the missile explosions.

    >>Victor: Millia Tsang

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Typically, we run simulations or computing exercises as background training. To use video games to ease cadets into computational exercises is pretty inspired, Sandra," Yukari said as the first year cadets finished their review of the round.


    "I can't take credit for the idea. Instructor Bae Hye-Sun of Beijing Academy proposed the idea," demurred Sandra.

    "Does it actually work that well? I mean, I do like playing video games and stuff, but well, being a better Valkyrie is way, way more important. It just sounds a little self-defeating to try to play video games while trying to concentrate on lessons," asked Koujirou, still looking somewhat concerned at the idea.

    "Sounds like as one of those mental exercises that only work as long as you concentrate on the goal in mind, right?" asks Setsuna.

    Sandra nodded, "Yes. There were strict provisions. 'You must keep a performance goal standard for whichever activities you are performing in parallel', and 'You must not allow your standard in either to lapse'."

    "Uh, that's… well I'll give it a try. I'd never thought you'd recommend me try playing video games to get better at flying, Sandra."

    "If I'm not mistaken, it won't be too different from what you will be doing in some of your matches today."

    "Wha- Shush! Shush Sandra!" yelped Koujirou, frantically crossing his arms in a halt gesture, "How did you know?"

    "Who exactly, did you believe was responsible for approving your loadout requisitions in the upcoming matches?" Sandra questioned mildly, raising a slender blonde eyebrow.

    "Oh, right. Uh, thanks Sandra," Koujirou said sheepishly.

    "What have you been up to, Koji?" asked Setsuna suspiciously.

    "You'll find out soon enough when we get matched up against me," Koujirou hedged.

    "Or if you're matched against anyone else, since you sure aren't going to win three rounds against anyone else competing with just two functional weapon systems," Setsuna said.

    "N-next round is starting, go Emily!" cheered Koujirou.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "The maximum range of reliable C3 in this environment with standard model drones is all the way down to only around thirty kilometers with direct line of sight, and far less without."
    "Exactly Anna. And to prove you right, another drone reverts to autonomous control."

    The third round is again different from the previous two. The heavy miasma within the Antagonist tunnels sees most of the drones the two Valkyries launch get lost or malfunction soon after they leave direct line of sight. Another one of Millia's aerial drones lost her signal and attempted to turn around, only to find the tunnel too narrow. Accordingly, it continued plodding through the air away from the Valkyrie, waiting to find an area wide enough for a turn. It would have to fly for a long time to find such a space.

    "Such was a fate of our equipment in this kind of Antagonist complex."
    "With this, all six of Millia's sensor drones have been lost. Deploying them instantly, wise on the second round, has proven rather detrimental in the third."

    Emily had been in a similar bind as her own pair of sensor drones got lost, but she adapted, chasing down and retrieving her lost drones and setting up a few laser relay stations with ground based sensor nodes as she moves along cautiously through the labyrinth.

    "Ohhh, here's something new. Ground based relay stations."
    "They're not usually used in their secondary scanning function."
    "No active dish on them, is there? Just passive receivers."
    "Yes. They had limited utility in the previous rounds as their lines of sight were very restricted as compared to the aerial sensor drones, but now they're going to be some of the only reliable deployable hardware the cadets have access to."

    Without an extended sensor bubble, Millia cleared an smaller annex formed by an intersection of tunnels just off the main chamber. There, she waited cagily at the entrance to the central chamber, her thrusters cold.

    "And Millia is trying for the waiting game again, waiting for Emily to appear to spring another ambush."

    As Emily continued to clear the central chamber, methodically locking down entrances into the main room, Millia caught a glimpse of the other cadet from her perch. For a moment, she hesitated, weapon systems readying and then returning to their idle positions.

    "Millia is thinking about it, but she's hesitating. Will she go for it?"
    "I don't believe so. So far Millia has tried to take as many unequal fights as possible. Powering up any weapon system will get her detected immediately, and she won't gain too many advantages firing from this position."

    As Anna predicted, Millia drew back into her tunnel after expressing a few of the same ground based relays that Emily was putting down. Millia recessed herself into an alcove, expressed missiles from storage and powered up her plasma weapons, perching herself like a hungry funnel web spider in the tunnel.

    As soon as she was ready, Millia expressed a decoy drone and had it slink off deeper into the tunnel systems away from main chamber, choosing a route so that Emily would be able to get a short glimpse of the drone's trail as it glided away. Emily immediately caught the sensor blip, turning and levelling weapons.

    "Come closer, says the spider to the fly."
    "I don't think this is going to work twice."

    Rather than move closer and investigate Emily tilted her head in thought for a second and then began expressing XHEAP missiles.

    "Oh woah! Looks like Emily has decided! Rather than play hide and seek with a spider, she's going to burn the entire house down!"
    "An extremely dangerous move; should the central fabricator core in a facility of this size destabilise, neither cadet will survive the explosion this close."

    As the emissions of the XHEAP missiles readying became visible to the sensors Millia placed at the throat of the tunnel entrance, the cadet panicked, her own Valkyrie frame rapidly shifted between configurations as the cadet went through and discarded options. Bare moments before the exotic elements within the engines of the XHEAP missiles reached criticality and Emily launched the missiles, Millia made her decision and flew for her life deeper into the tunnels.

    With one volley, Emily fired all sixty four XHEAP missiles she had in her loadout at the various tunnels entrances that ringed the floor at the edges of the chamber.

    "This is going to get loud!"

    The Antagonist construction was durable, but within the confined space of the tunnels, the XHEAP missiles were devastatingly powerful, their force far beyond what non exotic construction could withstand. Inside the main chamber, perimeter walls bulged out from the explosions and slumped as gouts of fire and burning dust raced out from the mouths of the tunnels. In the few places the missiles managed to penetrate deeper into the tunnels, the floor heaved and roiled, jumping up and sloshing back down with like liquid. All around the chamber, intricate Antagonist construction equipment collapsed, the Antagonist construction built into the walls imploding with shrieks from shattering alloys and crumbling stone. Antagonist pylons were thrown out of alignment, sparking and crackling, gouts of plasma and molten construction material boiled up from broken conduits, throwing up more smoke as they gouged into the surrounding stone with heat alone.

    The rocks above where the stadium was perched collapsed into a landslide. A few cadets screamed in fear, but their shock was unwarranted, as the rocks passed through the stadium like holoprojections.

    "And it's utter chaos both in the arena and in the stadiu. Remember people, no need to fear; no interaction between the stadium and the arena. All this fire and dust however, it's awfully hard to see what's going on!"
    "Not really. Millia has escaped heavy damage and is about to emerge into the main chamber. Emily is halted, having been largely blinded and is now attempting to bring some sensors back online."

    Millia had avoided taking a direct XHEAP impact, but the detonations of missiles in adjacent junctions were close enough to buffet her. With her Impeller flashing as rocks impacted off it, Millia erupted back into the central chamber from an untouched tunnel like a bullet. She cleared the roiling dust, and by some strange luck, directly ahead of her, Emily hovered. However, the force of the explosions had also taken Emily by surprise. Her carefully arranged network of relays and sensors was in utter disarray, and in trying to rely on them, her frame integrated sensor systems were depreciated. Millia gained a solid bead first.

    The split was a mere second, but it was enough for Millia to raise and fire a fully charged plasma blast. Emily cartwheeled through the air on emergency thrust and avoided the worst of the attack, but the intense stream of plasma still ate enough of her Impeller that both cadets were suddenly on even ground on terms of Impeller strength.

    "Here we go! For the first time in their three rounds, the cadets are confronting each other in direct fire combat!"

    Plasma bolts, short ranged missiles and various rounds from variable munition launchers traded back and forth in an intense exchange as the two cadets chased each other around the crowded chamber, jockeying for position amongst the pillars holding the vaulted ceiling up and dodging wild streams of energetic construction fluid. Neither cadet could bring their particle cannon to bear long enough to get a certain shot, and their Impellers were gathered forwards, resisting the vast majority of the fire that wasn't dodged, but cadets couldn't stand up to Valkyrie grade fire for long at close range.

    "They've settled into a joust! Both in close range and looking for the particle cannon shot."
    "Yes, neither can afford to fire and miss at this range, as the other can then make a much more carefully aimed shot in return without the threat of immediate retaliation."

    The cadets could not keep this up for long. One of them would soon make an error in their flight or in their aim, but it was unclear who exactly had the upper hand. The winner at this point was completely up in the air.

    Emily suddenly changed her patterns, diverting power from her plasma cannon into her particle projector and thrusters, aggressively manoeuvring to close the distance, taking shots with VMLs only to intercept missiles. Millia peeled back, fending Emily off with bursts of plasma and readied her melee halberd, waiting for Emily to close to the perfect range for a charge. However, just as Millia turned her thrusters to charge, Emily fired her particle projector at the floor under Millia. The beam penetrated the floor underneath the half constructed Antagonist Ant and struck the fabricator core. There was moment of silence as the floor slowly bulged, like all the sound and heat had been sucked from the air into the ground, then the core imploded, energetic exotic materials bubbling up from fissures in the ground as Emily turned and raced away. Millia stared downward, mouth half open in shock as the realisation of where she had been herded sank in. Before she could do anything else, a pillar of million degree plasma roared upwards, completely erasing the cadet.

    >>Victor: Emily Hartman-Kenzler

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Well done," murmured Shuri, nodding in approval.

    "… This Emily is very sneaky," said Yukari, shaking her head, "Millia is also learning quickly. It's a bit of a pity this is the first match, the rounds after this won't be as fun to watch now that the other cadets have a better idea of how to use the environment."

    Setsuna sat back, pursing her lips, looking contemplative, "I think I can beat either of them in a direct fire duel, but… yeah. There's a lot of things those two are putting to use I hadn't really thought of."

    She looked around at what the other cadets thought. Sandra was already writing up an analysis or the match, unruffled. Koujirou sat slouched forwards, his brows scrunched in thought, chin rested on his palms, before he nodded to himself and leaned forward to write his own analysis of the match, a sudden slight smile flitting across his face.

    He is definitely up to something, thought Setsuna. The boy had been gleefully secretive all week leading up to the Vanguard tournament.

    Well, no point ruining a surprise. With that thought, Setsuna shelved the mystery and began her own analysis of the previous match.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    The fourth round, like the third, had very little push and pull for vision, though it was no fault of the sensor platforms this time. The two Valkyries had simply spawned too close to each other for any complex vision play.

    Whichever Major Arcology this simulated space was based upon, if it was not materialised wholesale from never realised technical drawings, it was smaller than Perth in internal free volume. That in itself was hardly a damnation, for Perth had a colossal amount on free space for an enclosed armoured Arcology, but even Perth could have only started the two cadets at a maximum of six kilometers apart in its primary biome and four kilometers apart within the residential tower.

    Here in this simulated Arcology, the two cadets spawned opposite of each other merely two kilometers apart, essentially face to face.

    Both immediately levelled weapons, but neither fired. After a moment of frozen stillness, both retracted their energy weapons and lifted off, seemingly content to exchange nothing but glares for the moment.

    "Looks like we both lose the bet Anna. Neither are immediately firing."
    "A very composed reaction from both contestants; they're taking some time to plan before getting underway."

    Still in eerie sync, both started moving at the same time. After a few moments of indecisive strafing, the two finally broke pattern from each other. Emily dove towards the central column and Millia rose into the air, climbing towards the skybox. Both left their energy weapons inert and carefully aimed their variable munition launchers. While the energy weapons on a Valkyrie could easily deliver the energy equivalent to the full payload of a heavy bomber with every second of fire, they scaled down very poorly. Plasma would lose its self containing effect at lower energies and disperse from electromagnetic repulsion, and particle projectors had to attain a certain power threshold to fire at all. The only human energy weapons that scaled down efficiently were laser arrays, and neither Millia or Emily carried a combat laser system.

    So, they just had to make do with pinging away at each other with VMLs.

    "This round will take a fairly long time to resolve with the current strategies being employed."
    "No kidding Anna. Even with all the barrel extenders possible, VML cannons just don't have the punch of energy weapons. Once Valkyries reach the upper Elite ratings, a Valkyrie can stand under continuous standard VML fire and regenerate Impeller nearly as fast as these railguns shave it off. Now sure, these are cadets, and they're carrying four barrels each, not one, but even so, we're going to be seeing a long back and forth here."

    The standard Variable Munition Launcher railguns were capable of firing a variety of different munitions, from simple kinetic tungsten carbide slugs to a variety of warheads and even smaller drones. Like standard missiles, Variable Munition Launchers were installed on Valkyrie frames for use against standard Antagonist combat forms, and not designed against hard targets such as fortresses, space battleships, Types and Valkyries. Unlike standard missiles however, VMLs rounds could not be synchronised to the extent where they would become useful against hard targets in the way a mass missile launch was, but in the current environment, they were the only weapon with enough finesse to safely fire.

    Airburst rounds flashed around the two cadets as they traded shots, the distance fused proximity rounds shattering the air as both cadets fired at half a dozen rounds per second per barrel. Neither bothered with burst fire, VML ammunition, fed directly into the expressed rails from storage, was practically unlimited and relatively trivial mechanical issues such as heat and gradual rail erosion were easily within the abilities of cadets to compensate for. With the power provided by their fusion reactors, the two could potentially fire at each other for hours before retiring to resupply ammunition.

    However, even VMLs firing low impact fragmentation rounds would wear down cadet tier Impeller given enough hits over a short enough period of time.

    Emily's Impeller flickered, a brace of proximity rounds impacting and detonating within her Impeller. It would take more than a dozen such hits to wear down her outer Impeller layer, but Emily was now clearly behind in the trade. Millia's fire grew more accurate and denser as the cadet took advantage of the flexible nature of the VML to first fire slower projectiles and then faster projectiles after them, timing it so that the shells would reach Emily at the same time. Distinct patterns and walls of shells began forming around Emily, the cadet struggling to dodge, beginning to direct some of her own outbound shells at the withering hail that Millia was raining down.

    "Oh this is looking bad for Emily, she's entered the death spiral."
    "Redirecting fire to defense; allowing the opponent freedom to concentrate further on the attack; forcing more of your own efforts to defense. A self defeating strategy."
    "You can't just blame Emily though; Millia deserves a lot of praise for her fire control. The timings required for this type of precision are fractions of a second, so Millia's either packing some good custom software or she's well beyond her peers at fire control."
    "This is likely simply talent for fire control. Millia has come off better against Emily in recorded class simulations in ranged hit percentages and weapon efficiency."
    "I don't expect things to stay like this for too long. Emily hasn't shown much tolerance for passive flight."
    "As you say that, Emily is switching tactics."

    Making a hard turn in, Emily switched ammunition types, loading slugs and accelerated towards Millia, her holstered melee halberd glowing as it began charging.

    "When in doubt, attack."
    "Words that Vanguards apparently live by."

    Millia gave ground, flying loops upwards as Emily chased her from below. Thanks to their relative altitudes, Emily could fire railgun slugs upwards without concern for the habitation buildings below, while Millia from above had to stick to airburst rounds. Through that, the Impeller difference that Millia worked so hard to gain started disappearing, as even though Emily landed less direct hits and couldn't rely on proximity burst, every shot she landed hit far harder.

    The interior of the arcology rang with the deep roar of engines, the constantly crackling thunder of explosions and the indescribable, tearing, gatling static of rapid fire railguns. The air grew hazy from the sheer volume of flak explosions, parts of the skylight flickered out, spewing smoke and crackling with wild electricity, leaking burning conduits like blood through the pockmarks that Emily's missed shots drew across its surface.

    Millia was forced to give more ground in the face of the assault, cordoned towards the perimeter of the skybox as Emily kept a tight course below her and towards the center of the Arcology. With her positioning, Emily continued to freely fire, forcing Millia into a smaller and smaller volume. Millia tried to invert their positions several times, moving in aggressively to take space and force the other cadet back, but each time Emily fended her off with concentrated fire. Both took devastating fire in those tussles, but thanks to her freedom in ammunition, Emily still traded favourably.

    "Let her carve your flesh, but cut through the marrow of her bone; Emily is now clearly ahead in Impeller strength!"
    "Both competitors are nearing Impeller failure! Their internal layers are exhausted and neither have regenerated their external layer. It's likely that whoever decides to fire an energy weapon first will win."
    "But will they? Both have kept tight trigger discipline, even as the match reaches its climax… right now! Impellers on either side are ready to collapse any second now!"

    However, Meyer's hype was dispersed as Millia, apparently at the end of her tether from being forced into a corner and whittled down, fired a missile at the edge of the Arcology residential tower, blasting open a hole into a transport chute leading up into the armour plate above.

    Millia disappeared into the flaming wreckage, leaving Emily hovering uncertainly alone in the air above the residential tower.

    "Oh never mind… looks like Millia's had quite enough of that and blasts her way right out of the tower, heading into the labyrinthian transit network and fabrication rooms below the armour plate."
    "A prudent disengage in the heat of combat, though there is the significant danger that if both cadets choose to fight within the transit network that portions of the skybox could collapse."

    Back at the stadium stands, a screen popped up, showing a cutaway of where Millia was inside the tunnels. The cadet was waiting at an intersection of tunnels, looking down at where she had entered the network. After a moment of consideration as Emily didn't immediately follow, Millia expressed a pair of XHEAP missiles and a sensor node then departed deeper into the tunnel network, leaving the two missiles behind on remote trigger.

    Emily began to fly towards the gaping gash, then stopped, first choosing to launch a sensor drone. The drone didn't even have to enter the exposed shaft before it detected the signature of several live XHEAP missiles. Emily promptly advanced in the opposite direction and stayed hovering in the sky above the apartments of the central residential space.

    After another few moments of thinking, Emily began expressing drones en masse. Hunter-Killer combat drones, so far absent from the series, launched from Emily's frame along with sensors, decoys and missile carriers.

    The slow and high-profile HK drones would not have been much use in the previous rounds. They were too slow to keep up with a Valkyrie, too lightly armed to present a serious threat to a Valkyrie and didn't have enough armour to survive even a second of attention from a Valkyrie. Hunter killers were only really useful for a Valkyrie who wanted to increase her capability to linger within an area. Ordinarily, missile carriers, colloquially known as 'sleds', were the preferred drone.

    However, Emily was merely after saturation coverage of the airspace within the residential area, and deployed her full complement of a dozen HK drones. She went slightly further and even launched her long range cruise missiles, letting the forty-eight large missiles meander through the air, ready for new directives.

    Inside the transit tunnels, a similar scene was playing out as Millia deployed her own sensor network through the tunnel, vigilant for any signs of Emily.

    "Wow, Emily has her own little air force buzzing around inside the residential area. However, it's very questionable for her to deploy cruise missiles, considering how reluctant both were to use heavy ordinance earlier. What do you make of this, Anna?"
    "The missiles should be safe. Emily constructed them with reduced power warheads and solid fuel motors. Cruise missiles in this mode will detonate without fail upon taking damage. With reduced power warheads, less collateral will result. As for her tactics, Emily is probably trying to crowd the air as much as possible so that no matter which vector Millia may choose to attack from, there are no clean sensor trails."
    "Now that's interesting. So both cadets are waiting for the other to make their move? Are both then confident of victory if the round times out?"
    "Not quite. While it is possible for the decision to swing either way, it is unlikely to favour Millia. I believe that if this round times out to judgement, Emily holds an edge. Millia was probably banking on Emily being aggressive and chasing after her into the transit network immediately."

    As the match time dragged on, Millia was indeed growing agitated. With eight or so minutes left, she rerouted her own drones back down towards the residential tower and headed cautiously after them. The situation was a reversal of the previous rounds, where Emily had been the one who had chosen to approach and take fights. Overriding a hatch in the skylight, Millia sent a sensor drone back into the habitation zone for a look- where it was instantly pounced upon by a hunter killer drone. Autocannon fire riddled the delicate sensor drone and it tumbled out of the air.

    Millia retreated from that route and over the course of the next few minutes probed another few potential access points. However, the entire airspace above the residential tower was locked down by Emily.

    "Millia is trying to find a gap to reenter the residential tower without immediately placing herself back in the situation that forced her retreat in the first place."
    "There are no exploitable gaps in Emily's coverage, however. No matter where Millia attempts to enter from, even if she blew open another entrance, Emily would immediately lock onto her position and intercept."
    "Furthermore, from Millia's very visible frustration, it doesn't look like she's found Emily yet."

    The stalemate continued until there were a mere two minutes left in the round, and Millia finally made her move. A flood of anti radiation missiles swarmed into the residential tower, nearly a hundred on synchronised launch from missile sleds. Immediately, the drones reacted, the decoys energising and evading as the HKs engaged the missiles, cannon fire and short range interceptor missiles rising up.

    "Concerns for collateral cast aside! Missiles from both sides!"
    "It's still low yield warheads from both sides, but the residential areas are now taking damage."

    Flaming drones and damaged missiles plunged down on the residential plates. Explosions shattered glass and concrete alike, a glittering silver rain of splintered glass plunged down the residential tower from grey clouds of pulverised concrete and twisted steel. Fires, previously limited, now flared everywhere as burning fuel and explosives overwhelmed the fire-resistant construction materials. The residential tower had grown increasingly dim as more and more of the skylight failed, and now the rising black smoke, underlit by sullen reds and orange fire that glowed all the brighter in the failing light, turned the interior into twilight.

    As more drones were struck by missiles, Emily joined in with intercepting fire. The Valkyrie's position on a highrise at the top of the central column lit up like a skylight as her VMLs fired in all directions, her much more powerful weaponry pulverising both the falling drones and stray missiles before they impacted on the plates.

    Waiting for that moment, Millia plunged out from the skybox, arrowing out of the smoke above, the distinct glow of a charged melee halberd silhouetting her frame as she plunged straight as an arrow towards Emily.

    Emily snapped her fire up upwards at Millia and took off on a direct collision course, her own melee halberd crackling with power.

    Twin arcs of plasma, a dozen meters long each, swung and slammed into each other.

    There was a flash that lit up the entire residential tower as the two blades of plasma snarled against each other. Wild arcs streamed away from the point of contact as strands of plasma are ejected from their containment fields, air all around was boiled away by the wild energies.

    The contact lasted for a brief moment, before the Valkyrie cadets pinballed away from each other, tossed aside by the explosive clash. Millia smashed into an apartment, her impact blowing out every window on the building as her Impeller dragged through the building. One face of the building collapsed as the cadet cannonballed through and proceeded to smash into the streets below. Emily spun wildly through the air before she hit the skybox, adding yet another hole belching out dust to the scorched visage.

    Moments after both cadets disappeared, the noise of their clash reached the arena stands, a sharp boom that echoed within the confined reaches of the residential tower.

    In the wake of that sharp report, the arena was filled with a ringing silence.

    "Owww, they would have felt that one. Who will recover first? No movement can be seen from the crash site of either Valkyrie. The result is still in the air-"
    "Neither will recover in time before the round ends."
    "Eh…"

    Gradually, noise filtered back in, the howl of the wind and the crackle of fires, but still, neither cadet made an appearance.

    Tense seconds passed, before both cadets recovered at nearly the same instant. Millia erupted out from the ruins of the street and Emily surged back into the residential tower from the skybox.

    As the two again composed themselves for another clash, the simulation space froze.

    >>Decision: Pending

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Cadets, for every decision round, you have five minutes to write up and submit an argument of a thousand words on who you believed won the round and why. Your time starts… now."

    The murmur of conversation rose up gradually all around the arena as the space around it reset to the infinite grassy plains.

    Letting out a breath that he had been unconsciously holding with a drawn out sigh, Koujirou collapsed into his seat. He took out his datapad but didn't start writing, thinking over the previous round. That had been really close and a melee clash was always exciting to watch.

    "That looked close. Who do you reckon won?" asked Koujirou out loud.

    Before anyone else chimed up, Shuri spoke, tone derisive.

    "Even without taking into account the collateral damage, no one will ever win a decision in a tournament for the Vanguard position by seeking distance. Cadet Kenzler has won this round."

    Koujirou actually winced, and there was a short, uncomfortable silence, but no one else spoke up to dispute the blunt judgement.

    As the time for the peer review ended, the two contestants lined up side by side on a platform in front of the arena, Instructor Leonhart standing between them.

    "Day one! First set, fourth round, decision results!" announced Instructor Meyer enthusiastically.

    "Instructor Fiona Meyer, Emily Hartman-Kenzler 7.6, Millia Tsang 5.8"
    "Instructor Cereza Leonhart, Cadet Kenzler 6.2, Cadet Tsang 4.4"
    "Emily Hartman-Kenzler. First set, victory by Cadet Kenzler three rounds to one."

    Leonhart raised Emily's arm into the air and the cadet jumped, pumping a fist in celebration.

    Millia slumped forwards, expression downcast, but before she could turn away and trudge to the exit point, Emily jumped over and pulled her fellow cadet into a hug. For a moment, the shorter girl struggled, pulled off her feet by the taller one, before she reached up and pinched Emily's cheeks until she let go. The two stood facing each other, a mirror of their poses before the match, but this time, the air was light. Millia was grinning widely, if rather exasperatedly, and Emily pouted, rubbing at her cheeks.

    The two clasped hands and hugged, this time Emily bending down to accommodate Milia. The two exchanged a few words smiling and nodding, and marched to the exit point together.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "For our next set, will Rokusabe Koujirou of Flight One and Claire Chaucer of Flight Four please make your way towards the staging platform where Instructor Leonhart is waiting."

    "Ayy, it's me next. Cheer me on guys. I'll show them what Flight One has got," laughed Koujirou as he sprung to his feet.

    Setsuna sighed, "Three of us in a bracket of eight and you're first? I'm sure that Sandra and I can erase any screwups that you'll make, so don't feel put upon, Koji."

    Koujirou only laughed in reply, waving a sarcastic salute at Setsuna.

    "Take care of yourself, Koujirou," said Yukari, placing a hand on his arm.

    "Don't worry sis. I've got a plan," Koujirou grinned, catching her hand and squeezing reassuringly, before letting go and striding confidently down towards the arena.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    The missile hit Koujirou straight in the face.

    Or really, it impacted directly ahead of him against his Impeller. All according to plan. Maybe. His Impeller shuddered, but successfully withstood the explosion without taking much damage. Yeah, no way it was going to collapse from one missile hit. All according to plan. The drone Koujirou had been hanging onto however, had no such luck.

    Koujirou felt the bottom drop away from under his stomach as the shredded sensor drone broke up beneath him. It really went against all his instincts, but he resisted turning on his thrusters and let himself plunge through the air, curling into a ball and dragging his Impeller closer to his body to reduce drag. There was a shuddering boom echoing that of the missile as he nearly immediately dropped below the speed of sound.

    [Four thousand meters]

    Without the roar of his frame engines, Koujirou's panting echoed in his helmet, intermittently interrupted by the steady voice of Kandakara's OS reading out his distance to the ground as he plunged through the chilly air.

    [Three thousand meters]

    The sun and sea swirled around him and Koujirou turned his visor opaque, leaving the stark white outlines of the simplified terrain view. He had solved most of his issues with nausea and sensor overload, but it was still really unpleasant to watch his surroundings spin wildly around him.

    [Two thousand meters]

    The pieces of the drone around Koujirou had scattered now, only the densest components still within normal visual range. Guidelines scrawled across Koujirou's HUD, showing estimated points of impact for the larger pieces of debris. Oh, and his own point of impact too. The estimated impact deceleration wouldn't be too bad through Impeller mitigation. Yeah, that patch of snow didn't look too painful. Another thought at activating his thrusters was aborted as missiles streaked across the sky above him, more cruise missiles targeting his other drones.

    [One thousand meters]

    Koujirou kept his sensor drones actively sweeping, even as the missiles closed in. The squadron of hunter killer drones he'd scattered ahead of the sensor drones engaged the missiles, trying to intercept, but the large, long range cruise missiles had only been the first wave. Behind them, missile sleds went active, the single purpose drones releasing standard missiles before turning around and bugging out.

    [Impact imminent]

    Koujirou didn't try to watch the ensuing battle in the sky as the ground rushed up to meet him. He uncurled, spreading his Impeller wide-

    Ow.

    It didn't actually feel that bad, kinda like falling off the top of some monkey bars and landing flat on your chest. It took Koujirou a moment to manage to suck in a breath before he pushed himself upright. Unlike in the animes and mangas, there weren't cracks radiating outwards in the rock from his impact point, only a shallow depression filled with dust and chipped rock beneath him. The snow around him had been flattened into ice by his Impeller as it had grabbed onto everything available to slow his fall in its terminal stage. It was duller than the surrounding snow, but it couldn't be helped. Hopefully if Claire or her sensor system noticed, they'd think it was just the result of dust thrown up by the impact of debris.

    Koujirou ran a systems check as he turned his attention back up to the sky, clearing his visor as he did.

    His HK force had been completely wiped out by the medium range missiles, the remaining missiles now tasking onto his fleeing sensor drones. Koujirou still left the drones on active as they flew for their lives. They weren't the important ones anyway. His first pair of deployed sensor drones, far to the south, glided through the air to the east and west. Right now, both had a clear track on the retreating missile sleds, conveniently triangulating the direction the missile sleds were travelling in and identifying a tentative contact to very likely to be Claire.

    [All systems functional]

    However, before they managed to send an established course for the contact, their signal was interrupted. Koujirou frowned and glanced towards his drones. He was shadowed from both his sensor drones by a tall ridge. The distances involved meant that both drones were getting close to his visible horizon, and he dared not try to bounce a signal to them to adjust course. That would get both him and his remaining eyes in the sky detected.

    Claire had fired multiple 'task forces' of cruise missiles and missile sleds southward through the mountain ranges from her spawn. She'd also attached sensor drones onto the task forces, all beaming on active scan. Koujirou had evaded the party heading for him by disguising himself in the debris of his own sensor drone and now Claire's drone had turned around, heading back to rendezvous with another set of missile sleds. The sensor drone lost line of sight to Koujirou and the sensor waves from it grew muted, returns bouncing off the surrounding mountain sides before fading largely into background.

    [Contact broken]

    Well, time to climb.

    Koujirou leapt up the side of the mountain, keeping his thrusters cold and using his Impeller to push himself towards the peak. Puffs of snow were thrown up with every jump, but the very peak he was climbing towards obscured the sun, making sure that bright sunlight wouldn't catch on the plumes of powder. Climbing around four hundred meters higher in a half dozen or so jumps to the altitude where he should no longer be shadowed, Koujirou paused and looked towards where Kandakara estimated his sensor drones to be. He sent a tightbeam chirp at his lost machines, and a response came instantly from his waiting drones, with updated data on his contact.

    >Contact VF1
    >Distance: 73000 +/- 700
    >Bearing: 38.6
    >Velocity: 2170+/-65, 181.6, 275.3
    >ID: Valkyrie Frame

    About sixty five kilometers away to the north east, velocity two and half klicks, bearing near direct south, no elevation change. Watching the contact hold steady on its course for a few seconds Koujirou nodded to himself.

    Not quite ideal, but he could make this work. It wasn't as good as Claire heading directly over the top of him, but her course was projected to bring her close enough for his weapons to actually reach.

    And it had to be Claire that was closing in. Nothing else could maintain that flight profile, unless the Instructors had decided to throw a real curveball and inserted a random Type into the simulation.

    There wasn't anything to do but wait, then. It would only take Claire around half a minute to reach her perigee to him.

    Koujirou spent the time drawing up an engagement envelope, hastily writing himself up a flight path with Kandakara's help. Kandakara was light, and his thruster arrays on the more powerful side, so his theoretical maximum acceleration with his thruster systems was nearly 119g. That acceleration could only be maintained for a maximum of five seconds tops, after which it was back to his maximum sustainable acceleration of 22g… or not. Five point eight klicks was above his maximum sustainable speed. He calculated the Impeller depletion, wincing at the result, then hastily made corrections for the different atmospheric density at Claire's current altitude.

    With that the results were… not that much better. While the air at this altitude was nearly negligibly thin, his Impeller was still going to take a kicking from his initial acceleration alone; his outer field would be close to collapse… and seeing how Koujirou ran a seventy-thirty split on his inner and outer layers, that was bad news for the upcoming flight. He would have to slow down after his initial burn and that gave Claire more than enough room to retaliate.

    Koujirou glanced down at Murakumo and his hypervelocity cannon, feeling his lips pull down into a displeased frown. He could feel the other, hidden components faintly, like an island under a lake, a massive hidden presence, but barely out of reach. Still barely out of reach, like they had been for the last month. Well, when all you have is a hammer…

    [How unflattering.]

    In those five seconds, he could cover nearly fifteen klicks from his initial position, and factoring in Claire's reaction time, their relative acceleration cones, his course was… okay.

    It left Koujirou further away than he wanted, but now, Claire was approaching the point where her course would become perpendicular to him, thirty kilometers away. This was the best chance he was going to get, so nothing to do but carpe the diem.

    Koujirou locked in his flight plan, braced, and cycled his engine for Vmax burn, eyeing the timer counting down until launch.

    >-00:05.00

    He'd have to use the automatics through the burn phase of his flight, his reactions were not fast enough to adjust and maintain his course.

    >-00:04.00

    Kandakara shifted under him and Koujirou obliged, recognising the flight control system nudging his limbs into optimal positions for takeoff. He concentrated on formatting his inner Impeller to neutralise as much G force as possible.

    >-00:03.00

    For the five seconds of insane acceleration, he would be a passenger in his own armour. A single errant movement, shifting his center of gravity, could throw his flight plan into chaos.

    >-00:02.00

    Kandakara flared his maneuvering jets, testing his Impeller properties. It gave Koujirou the all clear and final abort option. Koujirou dismissed the abort and closed his eyes, bracing.

    >-00:01.00

    Was he afraid? Of crashing? No. Of failure? …somewhat. He'd watched and rewatched the combat simulations that he'd had against Shuri and that one match against Anna. Those movements in the last few moments against Anna. The one time he'd managed to finally engage Shuri in a melee joust. The emptiness he'd felt. The manner that Kandakara moved. The speed, the grace, the elegance of efficiency.

    A flash of white lightning searching for the heart of a titanic black thundercloud. A silver arrow searching for chinks in a tower of gold.

    He couldn't remember those moments clearly, only impressions and flashes, like his mind was simply not able to process his actions during those episodes of competence. That had not been him moving, surely. There was no way that he could have been able to pull off those techniques, that clarity of action. Maybe a combat assistance feature built into Kandakara then.

    [Oh for- this again? Oh no, something will go wrong, looks like it will have to be manual control.]

    [Launch]

    Koujirou felt the impulse push him down into his frame.

    The entire mountain side erupted into a blinding cloud of steam, dozens of tons of snow vapourised, hundreds more displaced into a gargantuan avalanche. Before the steam had even finished expanding however, an eye searingly bright streak shot out, angling towards Claire Chaucer.

    Something was wrong.

    [Error]

    Koujirou felt ice flood his veins as warnings flashed across his HUD.

    Koujirou was spinning, and tipping forwards. He was going to arrow right into the mountains.

    Had Koujirou fucked up his Impeller settings? Caused a propellant interference with his outer Impeller layer? Maybe he'd accidentally seized control of the thrusters from the automatics in panic when he launched?

    [Irrecoverable Error]

    Reset? Diagnostic? No time.

    [Emergency stop]

    No.

    Koujirou needed to get back onto course now, this was his only chance to close the distance with Claire on this stage. If he didn't manage it now, there would be no second chance to charge in this environment, he would just die tired.

    The colour faded from the sky and sea, leaving both as stark as the black mountains and white snow that they framed. The sun waned, shrinking from its dominating brilliance into a disk of toneless white. A pin prick of colour remained in the distance, the target. Claire was right there, barely thirty kilometers away. She turned in the air, towards the flare of heat on her sensors. Slowly, so very slowly.

    Ah that's right, this was the feeling. Pure purpose.

    [Finally! See, it's all you.]

    A mountain rose in the way, solid dark rocks stretching out to pluck Koujirou from the sky.

    Koujirou unsheathed Murakumo and swung once, the thrusters on the rear of the blade pushing him back into an ascending course, correcting his spin and cutting a path through the ridgeline in a single motion.

    It was only in these moments where the clunky electronic middlemen of operating systems and hardcoded reactionary instructions were more hindrance than aid. Koujirou could feel Kandakara, every component, everything.

    And a strange… warmth.

    [Hey, when you're like this, surely- can you hear me?]

    So Koujirou bypassed the electronic interfaces entirely, again taking direct control of each component. Understanding every mechanism, process and reaction, then directing them. The mental strain was enormous, but that was fine, there was only the goal, no other thoughts required. Control, precise and instantaneous beyond that of even fly by light.

    [Hey-]

    Koujirou shifted himself upwards, smoothly curving his spine and lifting himself back onto course, his outer Impeller flowing like liquid steel to make minute adjustments as he moved.

    [C'mon-]

    Shhh. Not now. First we reach the goal.

    [So when you're not accidentally obtuse, you're deliberately- Hmph!]

    The warmth faded away, but there was no room for regret for the goal had been reached.

    Koujirou blinked. Sight and sounds roared back into focus. Woah, had he just done it? This was the first time Koujirou had exited one of his Zen trances without falling unconscious right after. Plasma sheathed him, but not thickly enough that he was completely blinded. Claire was pulling away as fast as she could, but their relative distance was still closing fast.

    Missiles screamed towards Koujirou and a bright glow emanated from Claire's frame. Particle cannon.

    Shi- uh sh-shiny. No, this was part of the plan.

    Standard full power particle cannon, charge time for Junior Valkyries, from completely cold, seven seconds. Stability thrusters spinning up to ensure accurate shot, reduced speed. Energy diverted from engine systems, reduced acceleration.

    Koujirou's FCS clicked green and Koujirou fired his hypervelocity cannon at maximum power, shifting all his inner Impeller into his left arm for recoil control.

    One second burst.

    The four millimeter thick, two meter long spikes took barely forty milliseconds to cross the intervening distance, smashing directly into Claire. Most of his one second burst completely missed, flying over Claire as she reeled from the force. Each rod atomised upon contact with her Impeller, throwing Claire into a wild spin towards the ground.

    Koujirou grimaced as Claire's missiles closed rapidly, dropping flares and a decoy by habit more than any expectation that they'd work. Indeed, at his current speed, the flares fizzled into clouds of dirty chemical smoke upon leaving his Impeller and the decoy drone literally exploded, shredded by the air pressure of his current speed.

    There were far too many missiles to intercept with his hypervelocity cannon without the risk of Claire recovering and sniping him with a particle shot. No choice, adjust course to intercept, adjust aim, another one second burst.

    Another long stream of projectiles bridged the two Valkyries for a moment and Claire smashed into the mountains with a colossal explosion of rock chips and dirty snow, her thrusters coughing fitfully as her completely disorientated attempts to stabilise came too late and failed.

    Automatic systems brought her back into the air- directly into clear view, and Koujirou fired for a third and completely uninterrupted second into Claire, again smashing her back into the mountain.

    A missile slammed into Koujirou from the side and Kandakara whispered urgently, warning him of his outer Impeller layer Integrity. Koujirou didn't need the warning, he could feel it buckling. It was going to fail, and soon. His flight was already growing turbulent as his Impeller windshield began degrading.

    This time Claire had not risen up out of the smoke, but the cloud was glowing, lit up from within by a rapidly rising white flare, particle cannon charge. As soon as the smoke cleared enough for Claire to get a good targeting signal from her sensor drones, she was going to fire. That, or Koujirou was just going to go down from missiles first.

    Koujirou had expected Claire to be able to tank two seconds and change of hypervelocity cannon fire, but he'd been hoping for a lot more uptime on her.

    Plan B then.

    Koujirou inverted his Impeller layers, switching out his intact inner layer with his ragged outer layer, and unsheathed Murakumo. Waves of missiles screamed in, the first two waves a doubled grid of eight missiles each, Kandakara's sensors pinging madly as terminal guidance packages on the missiles activated. Koujirou sucked in a breath, spat it out and-

    Another burst of Vmax acceleration, just one second of lateral burn.

    In a single second, Koujirou was shunted five hundred meters left, clearing the targeting cones of almost every single one of Claire's missiles. Oh sure, the ones in the rear salvos could still hit him, and he watched as manoeuvring thrusters spun the missiles around and they began chasing, but they wouldn't catch up nearly in time.

    The distance between Koujirou and Claire's crash site sunk into the single digit kilometers and Koujirou extended Murakumo. He ignited the blade, and thrusted directly in front of him like he was an arrow, plunging towards the dust cloud.

    Claire seemed to feel that something was off in the last second, and exited the smoke, particle cannon glowing- but not soon enough.

    She twisted, pointing her cannon at Koujirou, but too slowly. The thrusters on the back of Murakumo flared and the blade of plasma smashed right into Claire, finally dropping her Impeller completely to zero.

    >>Victor: Rokusabe Koujirou

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "That actually wasn't half bad," said Setsuna grudgingly, quickly smoothing down her skirt and sitting back down with a slight blush.

    The blush on her face only intensified as Yukari grinned knowingly at her, but the older girl kept mercifully silent. Sandra, however, didn't have that mercy.

    "There's no need to feel so abashed about supporting other members of our Flight, Setsuna. Aren't you proud at how far Koujirou has advanced in this short month?" asked Sandra, leaning over towards Setsuna.

    "Well I guess," admitted Setsuna, "but I- he's in this comp with me, I'm not going to cheer him."

    Sandra merely smiled at that, "Koujirou is performing very well. With that show, I would feel much safer flying behind him in our flight. Don't you think the same?"

    "Well with his aim, I'd sure feel safer behind him than in front of him," Setsuna snarked, then relented, continuing quietly, "Yeah I guess. I didn't really think he'd get better this quickly."

    Sandra agreed, "It is quite inspiring, is it not? I do hope I can personally match his rate of growth."

    Setsuna pouted. Koujirou was talented, that was for sure, but it was almost unfair how fast he was learning…

    But…

    Setsuna felt an involuntary grin come over her face. It would now actually be interesting to have a serious match with him.

    … but of course, having a round against Claire Chaucer would be fine too. It wasn't like she was looking forwards to sparring with Koujirou or anything.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Koujirou peeked over the edge of the window and warily eyed the… well, ball of death before him.

    Having failed once with her strategy, Claire decided that there was no choice but to double down.

    An echelon of drones and missiles flew in close formation, swooping over the city, blaring active scans everywhere. Towards the center of the deathball, active decoys and jammers screeched and warbled, making an absolute mess of Kandakara's sensor returns. Contacts flickered in and out, their designations changing as Kandakara hesitantly classified them, only to second guess again and again.

    It had not been hard to initially close in for Koujirou, since Claire began broadcasting long range radar on top of her scanner drones right from the start of the round and thus the shadows in her view were easy to project and stay within. After Koujirou reached the city proper however, Claire had simply flown over the city and began making lazy orbits with her deathball. She strayed within Koujirou's hypervelocity cannon range quite a few times, but without a proper target, Koujirou simply couldn't just go playing whack a mole with his single cannon.

    Even though the charge signal of a particle cannon was very obvious, if Claire's decoy drones began shining their blinders directly at him while Claire charged her particle cannon, Koujirou doubted he'd be able to pin her down before she fired.

    This would be the perfect situation to launch a brace of XHEAP missiles, but Kandakara did not possess the appropriate laser guidance package for the missiles and Koujirou hadn't requisitioned any for this sim. Honestly, clearance to use them had been so rare that the weapons had mostly slipped from Koujirou's mind.

    That one time Anna had blown up an entire city in seconds with like a hundred of those missiles at once had been awesome, but asking for some resulted in the requisition request being forwarded from the automatic system up the chain of command. After being pulled into the Instructor's lounge to explain to Meyer and Leonhart exactly why he deserved the trust to swagger around with some seriously powerful ordinance that could really kill a lot of people and being unable provide even a single justification as the two loomed over him in their Valkyrie Frames, Koujirou had buried that humiliating memory and put the idea aside.

    However, after seeing Millia and Emily go at it, it looked like everyone and their aunt had requested permission to load XHEAPs in the sims, even if they still weren't allowed to carry them around the rest of the academy.

    While Koujirou wasn't too scared of getting sniped by a XHEAP with his approach speed, if Claire got a good suspicion of where he was in the city and started dropping XHEAPs around him, things would get rather, uh, exciting.

    Koujirou brought his attention back onto the ball of death. There was still no good lock on Claire as her decoy drones continued crowding the airwaves. He was visually tagging every contact with optical as she flew over, but he lost visual contact every time Claire pulled away. With how Claire constantly shifted her formations as she orbited and Koujirou's own sensor drones being more blind than he was, most of the optical tags were educated guesses with the help of Kandakara through consulting the standard flight control algorithms.

    As Claire completed another orbit, Koujirou squinted upwards, hearing the ping of an optical silhouette match.

    There was… something on top of one of Claire's missile sleds. Koujirou didn't have a good angle and most of the lump was indistinct, but Kandakara highlighted something that matched the nacelles of a plasma caster folded in resting position. Spectrometer analysis completed and reported supercarbons, metallic ceramics and steel, which most Valkyrie frames used as their plating.

    Was Claire doing what Koujirou had been doing in the last round and sitting on top of her own drone without engines running?

    Koujirou raised his hypervelocity cannon and hesitated. After a moment of thinking as the contact steadily approached the edge of his range, Koujirou decided to wait. If whatever that was stayed in place, then Koujirou would get a much better angle as Claire's deathball came back around.

    After a minute of tense waiting, the deathball once again came around.

    Koujirou located the particular missile sled. It was indeed carrying something on its back, hidden mostly from detection below by its fins . Kandakara rapidly outlined the profiles of plasma casters, variable munition launchers and thrusters, finally drawing the outline of a human. Kandakara confidently claimed the profile as a Valkyrie frame.

    Koujirou hunched. He confirmed his hypervelocity cannon was ready and aimed. Claire was completely cold so even her engines were completely off or baffled by Impeller. Either way, Koujirou would have a few seconds of free fire and given her course took her within ten kilometers of him, Koujirou didn't even really need to close in.

    Energising his own engines and baffling them with his inner layer of Impeller, Koujirou used his outer layer to anchor himself in place and took steady aim, waiting for another few moments to allow for Claire to close even further.

    There was a moment of stillness, then Koujirou fired.

    The floor, the ceiling and the balcony in front of Koujirou exploded outwards, pulverised by the force of the hypervelocity rounds passing near them and Koujirou swore, holding down the trigger for a second longer than he planned in order to clear away all the dust. Ceasing fire, Koujirou assessed the situation and felt his stomach sink. The missile sled had been shredded by stray hypervelocity rounds and it's missiles cooked off, the high explosives and missile fuel leaving a dirty smudge in the air, but there was a distinct lack of ionising radiation produced by hypervelocity rounds striking a hard target such as an Impeller field. Kandakara confirmed no hits, having not received the distinctive return flash of light produced by hypervelocity impacts.

    Claire's deathball stirred like a kicked nest of hornets, the sounds of a hundred engines spinning up producing a discordant roar like an angry tornado.

    Koujirou took one look at the swarm of pissed off, self-guiding munitions, and took off, activating his decoys. The dozen decoy drones he'd expressed in the surrounding buildings acknowledged and ignited rocket boosters, taking off and trying their level best to look like a panicking Valkyrie, or to just produce enough noise in general to confuse the incoming rain of pain.

    One unfortunate decoy that launched towards the deathball was taken under immediate fire as hunter killers drones charged in, blasting away with cannon fire and fast, short range interceptor missiles. Longer range cruise missiles swung around, positioning wide to prepare for long chases once Koujirou's actual position was pinned down.

    This was way too co-ordinated for AI control, especially as there were no hubs flying around. Koujirou again checked the deathball, but no emissions from it matched a Valkyrie frame. In fact, spectrometric analysis of the ball of debris where the missile sled had been within the formation revealed scattered elements matching that of a destroyed Valkyrie frame. A model optical decoy?

    Koujirou scanned around furiously as he continued to put distance between himself and Claire's deathball, dropping all pretenses of stealth and activating Kandakara's arrays at maximum power. EMCON was pointless as he'd have out sped his decoys by now, leaving an unmistakable wake, and there was enough distance now between him and the deathball that he wasn't in too much danger. Kandakara was fast enough that there weren't any standard construction medium range missiles that he couldn't outrun and he was out of the envelope for the short ranged missiles. The cruise missiles slowly closing on him were a worry but they were huge and unmanoeuvrable for all their speed and range.

    Koujirou began feeling rather uneasy as the seconds passed, this wasn't the sharp panic at realising his ambush had failed, but a steadily mounting uncertainty. Despite Koujirou beginning to leave the enemy drones behind, Claire still did not show up anywhere. Where was she?

    Well there was nothing for it, while Claire continued doing whatever she was doing, Koujirou turned around and drew up firing solutions against Claire's drones. The cruise missiles were still a fair distance away, so if Claire wasn't going to show up despite Koujirou flying in the open, he'd take some time and thin out her deployed forces. Koujirou drew up a firing solution and blasted away, short, ten to fifty millisecond long bursts flying out and seeking out drones.

    Four or five drones exploded and half a dozen more sputtered in the air as the cruise missiles continued to close in. Koujirou watched the ETA counters ticking down and shifted fire towards the cruise missiles. Eight were in an immediately threatening range and Koujirou methodically drew up a quick firing plan, sweeping from left to right.

    Koujirou caressed the trigger, solidifying his inner Impeller to dampen recoil and-

    [Exotic radiation alert!]

    The rightmost cruise missile was emitting- not possible, no way. Koujirou had seen that outriding cruise missile, it was one of the few that his drones kept positive contact on. There was no way that Claire had been hiding XHEAPs inside the warhead of the cruise missile, this long into the match, they would have been hot enough to be detectable through the windshield.

    Koujirou was right.

    Claire had not been hiding XHEAP missiles inside a cruise missile.

    The air shield of the warhead on cruise missile broke apart and in the place of the warhead, Claire Chaucer crouched, four XHEAP missiles ready to go in her missile racks and plasma casters crackling.

    Claire had hid herself inside a cruise missile.

    Koujirou spun to fire- and was jerked to a stop by his own Impeller field. The inner layer, set for recoil mitigation, prevented him from swinging his arm. Claire fired at barely four kilometers. Two bolts of concentrated plasma howled in.

    Koujirou flared his thrusters at maximum power and just barely dodged both plasma shells. Smoke and dust filled his vision as Koujirou plowed through dozens of skyscrapers in the city center by accident. His Impeller groaned in protest.

    [XHEAP Missile warning.]

    Koujirou didn't even bother firing at the streaks of light rapidly catching up. He desperately aimed at Claire and fired his hypervelocity cannon.

    Claire strafed hard then climbed, engines flaring blue fire at full power. She was close enough that Koujirou was again unable to adjust his aim enough due to his own Impeller dampening recoil.

    "Shit!" hissed Koujirou, and he disabled his inner layer, firing uncompensated. The XHEAP missiles were seconds off impact.

    Warnings warbled as Kandakara spun, thrown out of control by his unregulated fire, but his wild burst managed to wing Claire.

    The impact from the hypervelocity cannon caused Claire's Impeller to turn opaque for a moment to protect her from the radiation of the atomising rounds- and that was enough to disrupt her control of the XHEAP missiles.

    Koujirou slammed himself into a dive, and prayed.

    So fast that they were like bolts of lightning, the missiles raced over his head. One, then two-

    Claire sent out the detonation signal.

    Koujirou's world was heat and light. He felt a couple of hard impact and then suddenly the light cut out.

    [Radiation warning. Impeller integrity warning.]

    It… took a moment of hearing his own breath rasping in his helmet for Koujirou to realise that he hadn't taken enough Impeller damage to count as knocked out. Above him, a filthy ceiling sagged, discoloured panels, rusted piping, stained insulation and strands of electrical wire hung down. Kandakara steadily chanted unhappy complaints until Koujirou suppressed them, stumbling up to assess the situation.

    He was on the ground floor lobby of what seemed like a derelict apartment complex. Shattered tiles, broken fixtures and chairs and tables upturned like tenpins marked Koujirou's path into the building. He scrambled towards the hole in the wall where he entered to get a good look at the situation before hesitating and deciding better of the move. Instead, Koujirou jumped through the ceiling, making sure to avoid support struts until he was on the fourth floor, then located a window and peeked out.

    Koujirou was indeed within an apartment complex, much like the one he had camped in to take a shot at Claire. The building was surrounded by its sibling of the same design and Koujirou could see several belching concrete dust. Koujirou hadn't just slid through a wall into this apartment block, he'd tumbled through several other perspectives on his way into his newest accommodations.

    Overhead, barely twelve kilometers distant, Claire hovered, her deathball rapidly catching up. She clearly had a good ballpark of where Koujirou was, and Koujirou was pretty sure that Claire wasn't going to wait around for him to recover. Koujirou raised his hypervelocity cannon, but again, more than one optical profile matched Claire. She'd dug out more decoys and thrown them about, and this time, they were emitting thrust, hovering in the air under their own power.

    The missile sleds lit up, firing their payloads into the air, where they hovered, ready to spike in at the slightest sign of a Valkyrie. Koujirou stayed still. He could actually see the surroundings heating up minutely as intense radar waves from Claire, her sensor drones and her jamming decoys all flooded the area. Kandakara's own sensors were at a loss to distinguish which was what.

    A blinding light- a huge concussive shockwave hit Koujirou and for a moment he thought Claire had somehow snuck in and detonated a nuke.

    [Severe radiation warning]

    Blinking and wincing, Koujirou glanced out. He was struck dumb by the sight ahead of him.

    The apartment blocks furthest from him were simply slag, molten concrete hissing and spitting as boiling air escaped. Claire was tapping her plasma casters directly into her reactor.

    Despite a similar power output at closer ranges, plasma casters were relatively easy to baffle with Impeller. As long as Claire remained careful, she could charge up a plasma blast without looking any different from the decoys floating in the air. Waiting for Claire to fire did nothing for Koujirou. The plasma stream, upon leaving her Impeller, was bright enough that Koujirou would be blinded completely.

    Another blinding flare of light, a huge shockwave that turned into a searing wind, lasting almost five seconds.

    Another four apartment blocks reduced to molten slag, small, wispy fires lighting up in the obliterated shrubbery around them.

    The next burst would sweep over Koujirou. Koujirou felt goose bumps racing over his body, he- he didn't want- how was he going to win? How was he going to turn this around?

    Koujirou felt himself choking up, his breath sticking in his throat.

    There- there wasn't anything that he could do!

    [Gosh. Fine~]

    A warm breeze washed over Koujirou, pushing away the panic, the helplessness, the fear. It all disappeared. Leaving only purpose. Victory.

    [A nudge is enough, right?]

    The warmth again disappeared, but Koujirou already knew what to do. There was an attack that Koujirou knew of that could turn this about. He calmly sat down, unsheathing Murakumo and laying the blade across his lap, concentrating on forming a cast for his blade around the core. The task only took seconds, for this time he didn't need to prepare the steel, only the cast. However, he also could not put his all into forging the blade, for the rules decreed that some must be left for his armour.

    Then he waited.

    A flare of light.

    It was time.

    Claire's stream of plasma cut through twenty floors of apartment building in seconds and the stream crashed down on Koujirou. He lifted his mould and accepted it all.

    Heat and steel poured in, casting a blade.

    But…

    It cut off too soon, the blade was soft. That some of his steel still wrapped around his body for armour only exacerbated the problem. The blade was in a poor condition.

    No matter.

    It would be enough.

    Koujirou arose amongst the molten and burning remains of a home long abandoned and raised his sword.

    "Murakumo," Koujirou intoned, and swung.

    A searing thunderbolt of plasma, all five seconds of Claire's reactor output, refined and concentrated into a single wave, screamed out back towards Claire.

    A perfectly targeted line to strike every possible target.

    >Victor: Rokusabe Koujirou

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Wow, it actually worked for once," Yukari said.

    "Nee-sama, you don't have to compete with me in being savage. That hurt even me by proximity," Setsuna said, shaking her head with a slight cringe of sympathy for Koujirou.

    "Well, we all knew how powerful of a technique it potentially could have been," Sandra defended, "However, his previous choices in targets… left something to be desired."

    Everyone in the Flight took a moment to reminisce, expressions ranging from amusement to exasperation, even Shuri broke her stoic façade to chuckle in wry amusement.

    Koujirou had discovered the technique against Anna, who had promptly shut it down in possibly the most contemptuous display of superiority that Shuri had ever witnessed, surpassed perhaps only by the flamboyant performances of Type Zero Kronos. Then he'd tried it twice against Shuri herself. The first time, Shuri had simply dodged downwards five meters, then flown back up leisurely and punched him in the face. The second time, she decided to match strength against strength and cut right through the technique with goldenrod- ahem, Excalibur.

    Still, at least this time the kid had been smart enough to reserve some Impeller, as funny as it would have been to watch him lose the round due to Impeller depletion whilst charging up that sword beam.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Koujirou groaned, looking ahead into the central chamber of the Antagonist fabrication facility.

    He was crouching at the mouth of a tunnel, watching what was going on within the main chamber. It was another deathball, and again, Claire was nowhere to be seen. Second verse, same as the first.

    In this environment, it would be even harder, if not impossible, to pin down Claire's exact location in the mess. The Antagonist construction alone was playing hell on his sensor net and Koujirou felt a creeping sense of paranoia whenever he saw an outriding cruise missile, wondering if the crafty cadet was hiding somewhere unexpected yet again.

    Well nothing for it. Koujirou had come prepared this time for the deathball strategy. Behind him in the network of tunnels, his own fully deployed complement of drones and missiles lurked.

    Feeling a sense of theatre, Koujirou stood up, drew Murakumo and raised it, pointing the sword straight up. He held that pose for a moment, like a king on the verge of ordering a charge, and then-

    A hand popped over the ledge and a Valkyrie hopped up into the tunnel Koujirou was standing in. She straightened and then froze, barely thirty meters from Koujirou.

    "Claire?" Koujirou asked over his frame speakers, his mouth working by itself as his brain spun its wheels at a million revs per minute.

    "Uh hey, fancy seeing you up here, Koujirou," Claire responded after a practically audible moment of thinking, her eyes locked onto Koujirou's left arm and the hypervelocity cannon mounted on it the whole time.

    There was another brief pause and then-

    "Uh, en garde!" yelled Claire, charging forwards with her melee halberd lighting up.

    Koujirou swung Murakumo down to intercept. With both weapons still charging, and their plasma envelopes just beginning to fill up, the weapons actually made physical contact.

    Murakumo bit deep into Claire's standard issue melee halberd, but while Murakumo was an oddity in having an actual physical, sharpened blade ahead of its plasma emitters and containment field generators, the construction of the blade was relatively delicate for a melee halberd.

    The sword shattered and Claire's halberd slammed down onto Koujirou's head, the damaged emitters on the head of the halberd sputtering sparks all over Koujirou as the weapon took further damage from striking Koujirou's Impeller. Aside from being rather humiliating, the blow did almost no damage; the artificial muscles in a Valkyrie frame were not up to the task of smashing through another Valkyrie's Impeller field.

    Koujirou jumped back, retracting the damaged sections of Murakumo and expressing a new blade, raising his hypervelocity cannon and extending the barrel- only for Claire to shoot right after him and kick hard at his arm. Manoeuvring thrusters on her heel drew a bright line across Koujirou's view and the kick crashed into Koujirou, sending shockwaves rippling through his Impeller field and sending him spinning.

    She swung again hard at his head with another melee halberd, duel wielding as her original glowed white, expressing new components to replace the broken sections. Koujirou twisted out of the way as the blade crashed down, gouging a glowing divot into the ground.

    Screw it.

    Koujirou stopped trying to set his hypervelocity cannon into a firing position and instead set his left hand on Murakumo's hilt, properly double handing the nodachi.

    He wasn't going to run from a damn blade fight of all things. Claire wasn't Shuri, Koujirou could tell from her movements that he had the advantage in zero range combat.

    Koujirou stepped forwards and shoulder checked Claire as she swung again, the thrusters on the back of Murakumo flaring for a second and the hilt of the sword punched into Claire's stomach in a flare of contesting Impeller fields. Claire had her forward momentum completely arrested by the move and suddenly found herself on the defensive as Koujirou continued stepping forwards, short slashes and jabs nicking at her Impeller as Murakumo started building up a plasma sheath.

    Claire on the other hand swung wildly with both halberds. She had clearly not really trained in any way in close quarters, and her blows were poorly timed and telegraphed. Even so, a pair of giant, glowing plasma blades that exploded upon landing a hit was scary enough that you didn't need to be an artist to make an impression or ten on some poor unfortunate.

    Koujirou winced as another glancing blow brushed him, blasting plasma over his Impeller. However, he took the chance to swing hard, a horizontal cut that sliced directly into Claire's Impeller for his first full strength direct hit.

    Claire was flung away as the explosion also knocked Koujirou onto his ass. He'd barely found his feet beneath him when the howl of engines announced Claire charging back in.

    She'd discarded one of her halberds, and shortened and compacted the plasma on the other blade until it glowed blinding white.

    Koujirou raised Murakumo and reciprocated, shortening and compacting the blade and met her charge, the two Valkyries closing like bullets.

    Koujirou swung first- and Claire caught Murakumo's blade on her left forearm, her Impeller concentrated on her arm so thickly that it was visible as a layer of grey mist.

    Claire grinned at Koujirou and swung- and Koujirou punched her in the face, his Impeller concentrated on his arm so thickly that it was visible as a spike of grey mist.

    Space greyed out and everything stopped.

    >Victor: Rokusabe Koujirou
    >Second set, victory by Cadet Rokusabe Koujirou three rounds to zero

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Koujirou yelped as he was suddenly deposited onto the meeting platform, stumbling for a moment before catching himself with his Impeller as his feet refused to cooperate. He blinked around blearily as his eyes got used to the sudden brightness and saw the stadium, where quite a few in the audience were on their feet, cheering. To his side, Claire sat on the ground, contemplatively staring at him.

    "Uh, good match Claire, surprised the hell out of me to suddenly see you up close," Koujirou said, walking over and offering a hand to her.

    Claire stared at his hand then squinted up at his face, making no motion to take his hand. Koujirou shuffled in place awkwardly for a bit, and was about to withdraw his hand when Claire clasped it firmly and pulled herself up.

    "…Good match, but…" she trailed off and prodded him in the side, "Who's this badass and what have you done with my cute Koujirou?"

    Koujirou coughed and stumbled a little, turning to stare at Claire in surprise.

    She pouted up at him, having retracted her frame, hugging his hand to her side, "I liked it more when you were green and cuddly, but you being so dominant is pretty hot too."

    Koujirou was having grave doubts as to the wisdom of offering Claire a hand.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    "Sandra! Set up a loser's bracket! I am going to throw my match and kick her ass!"

    "I'm afraid the schedule doesn't allow for that Setsuna. Please, do calm down."

    "For our third set, would Cadet Masaya Setsuna from Flight One and Cadet Josie Mykles from Flight Three please make your way to the staging platform where Instructor Leonhart is waiting."

    "There you have it Setsuna, you can vent all you want against her. Don't be afraid to show off; I know you've got what it takes to win this."

    "… Thanks, nee-sama."

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Josie grinned down at Setsuna as they shook hands. Like most first year cadets, the brown haired, fair skinned cadet was taller than Setsuna, much to the shorter girl's ire. The two broke their handshake and stepped back from each other.

    "Yo, Setsuna. Let's have a good match," Josie said with a friendly nod.

    Setsuna smiled viciously, "Sure, I will."

    XxXxXxXxXx

    Having finally escaped Claire, after being poked and prodded over his opinion on Setsuna vs Josie amongst other things, Koujirou finally made his way back to Flight One as Setsuna's matches started.

    "Man, my set was crazy," he laughed, slouching into his seat, looking at the rest of the flight with a tired grin, "So, who had their faith rewarded?"

    "Well done Koujirou. It's good to see you finally use that blade beam," smiled Yukari, leaning over and offering a high five.

    Koujirou enthusiastically took the offer, then fell flat on his face as Sandra popped his ball of elation.

    ''That was a good performance Koujirou, though I do admit that I assessed that Claire would win," Sandra said.

    Koujirou gathered himself up with a great sense of injured dignity, ready to defend his merits, but Sandra continued with a peace offering in her usual diplomatic manner.

    "It makes your achievement in overcoming Claire decisively in all three matches all the more impressive. Since your sword-assisted energy redirection attack succeeded this time, will you be giving the technique a name?"

    "Uh, I guess," Koujirou chuckled, rubbing at the back of his head sheepishly, "Do you have any ideas?"

    "For something that's so emblematic of you, best would be a name of great dignity. If the name of the component is Murakumo, another homage to shinto mythology would be most apropos."

    Koujirou shrugged a little uncomfortably, feeling a sudden rush of blood to his cheeks as memories of his embarrassing younger years where he played make-believe with Setsuna all of a sudden came rushing forth at the mention of using Shinto myths. That he was in front of a pretty girl like Sandra, who fit the foreign princess archetype that he and Setsuna always set out to rescue from the Antagonists to a T, only made it worse. Why were these memories of his chunni days suddenly resurging? God damn it.

    "I uh, never actually learnt anything about Shinto in school. Everything I know is from popular culture," Koujirou mumbled.

    Rapidly moving along from the subject, he turned to the last present member of the Flight, "So uh, Shuri… you haven't said anything. How do you think I did?"

    Shuri said nothing, but her brows furrowed with a practically audible click and eyes narrowed.

    Uh oh.

    But rather than begin the expected dressing down, Shuri just stayed silent for a moment, then her heavy expression dispersed and she turned back to the match.

    "You were lucky in the end… luck however, is often the only factor that carries you through. I've sent you an analysis of the mistakes you've made and suggestions as to how to do better next time to your datapad. Feel free to review whenever," Shuri said distantly.

    "Oh, uh, thanks Shuri," Koujirou said, taken aback by how laid back Shuri was acting, "Yeah, I'll do that before Wednesday."

    "Speaking of luck, there's one cadet who has none of it," sighed Yukari.

    Eh, what did she-?

    >Victor: Masaya Setsuna.

    "What a vicious girl," Shuri hummed approvingly.

    "Wh- what!" yelped Koujirou. He'd completely missed the match.

    "It hasn't even been three minutes. What even happened? Guys, I need to write up my match review! Guys?!"

    After a little bit of wheedling, Yukari finally edged over and gave him a fast rundown of how Setsuna had simply steamrolled Josie by exploiting her qualitative edge in every respect of Valkyrie frame control and combat.

    After yet another wild five minutes of writing, in which Koujirou had to scrawl out an essay filled with weasel words and padding, he leant back with a sigh. Even though Yukari could convey every event and factor that occurred during the short round in a few seconds through condensed electronic language, Koujirou didn't have the ability to decode it in real time.

    "So… how come Setsu is that much stronger than Josie?" Koujirou asked dubiously.

    As far as he knew, Josie, Claire, Emily and Millia were all around the same level. He thought that Setsuna was also around there, with Syifa being the outlier and Koujirou himself below the par. Of course, he'd known that Setsuna was a stronger Valkyrie than himself, but he hadn't really compared Setsuna to any of his other classmates. It seemed like a rather banal target of comparison when he had Valkyrie Aces in the form of both Anna and Shuri in the Flight, along with Yuka-nee, herself an Valkyrie Elite, as their third year mentor.

    And compared to those three, any other member of the first year cadets in the fourth squadron all seemed pretty crap.

    "Of course Setsuna is that skilled, Koujirou. You have been keeping up with your overall combat rating, right?" Yukari asked.

    "Course! Ten-ninety on last friday's summary. Made Junior Valk Third a few days back. I'm over the 'one thousand hump'," Koujirou said proudly.

    Yukari nodded, and continued leading Koujirou along that train of thought, "How about Setsuna then? They announced her overall combat rating in her introduction video. Do you recall what it was?"

    Koujirou suddenly felt rather dumb, "I uh, didn't watch it, since well, it's Setsu. She's my best friend and I don't need a video introducing her."

    Yukari sighed, shaking her head, and Sandra's small smile widened in exasperation at the words 'best friend'.

    "-and Claire and the rest of the Flight were all asking about Murakumo and stuff so…" Koujirou trailed off, mumbling.

    "Putting aside your priorities, Koujirou, Setsuna is a very close to Junior Valkyrie, Second Grade. She's closing on the two thousand threshold."

    "-Huh? She never mentioned that," Koujirou said, "We should throw her a party. If she's about to get JV2 this early in the year, she's halfway to front line cert already-"

    "That's not a good thing," Yukari snapped, before she shrunk back, "S-sorry. Setsuna hasn't informed us yet, since she's not quite there yet."

    Koujirou warily eyed his sister for a moment before letting the issue drop.

    "So uh, I mean, I know that every rank up means a big improvement in ability, but, well, what does it mean exactly? Like uh, how many um, Valks like me would it take to fight evenly against Setsu?"

    "The round is about to end," Shuri interjected.

    Koujirou swung his view back to the field in time to watch Setsuna, thrusters howling, axe kick Josie through a skyscraper and into the ground. Following the other Valkyrie through the hole she created, Setsuna hoisted a cruiser missile like a javelin and hurled the missile right into Josie as the other Valkyrie staggered from the smoke.

    >Victor: Masaya Setsuna.

    "Jesus," muttered Koujirou, "That was also barely three minutes… and I missed almost all of it again. Bugger."

    Koujirou had activated a quick and dirty script that recorded highlights in the matches and he rapidly sped through those as he reviewed the short match.

    Josie hadn't tried to fight Setsuna directly this round, attempting to divert Setsuna through scattered task forces of decoys and jammers like what Claire had used last set. Setsuna, however, bulldozed any such plans by flying a high altitude orbital trajectory towards the center of the city, pushing into direct LOS before Josie could finish setting up. A subsequent miss by Josie with her particle cannon allowed Setsuna to rain down XHEAPs all around her and land a direct particle cannon shot when Josie had tried to get clear of the attack. Josie's Impeller had been battered to near breaking and she was cornered by missiles; the finishing blow Koujirou had witnessed was just Setsuna delivering a coup de grace.

    "... Bloody hell Setsu, that's just mean," whispered Koujirou, shaking his head in awe.

    The next five minutes were quiet, everyone seemingly absorbed into their own thoughts.

    … Would he be able to deal with that? Koujirou… didn't think so.

    Troubled, Koujirou turned the question over in his head for a while, then asked no one in particular, "So, what are my chances against Setsuna? Since I'm a one thousand and she's a two thousand, does that mean I'd need to clone myself to match her?"

    "At the rate Setsuna has been tearing right though poor Josie, you're going to miss another round," Yukari objected with a chuckle.

    "The overall combat ability rating isn't linear like that. It's a metric for working out the probability of win or loss based on the point differential between two opponents in a vacuum. I think a one thousand point gap means the one with higher points has a predicted chance of victory of… eighty percent, I believe," explained Sandra as Yukari made a point of watching the match raptly.

    "So then… would Type Zeros have overall combat ratings?"

    "No," said Sandra and Yukari.

    "Yes," said Shuri at the same time, before she glanced over at the other two girls with a raised eyebrow.

    "I mean no, they don't. Not anymore, I guess," amended Shuri.

    "How come?" "Were the Type Zeros really given overall combat ratings?" "The Armed Forces quantified the Type Zeros? Truly?"

    Shuri didn't respond for a second then nodded.

    "I'm accessing the details behind the change now. Officially, their Exotic Principle Weapons made the overall combat ability rating unreliable as an indicator of their combat strength. The actual reason was to protect morale. It's not classified information at Ace level, but don't bother trying to spread this around. You'll just get told off by the censors," Shuri said airily, completely unconcerned that she was breaking confidentiality.

    "What about the standard Types?" asked Koujirou, "I've searched around for them, but- wait, let me guess. Censorship."

    "That's correct," nodded Shuri, "There are variations depending on which Major Breach they originate from, but Type Fives tend to range around six to seven thousand, and the Type Sevens, seven to nine thousand."

    "Nine- thousand?" asks Koujirou sharply, "That's- Yukari-nee, you said you had to fight them? That's insane!"

    Yukari glanced at Koujirou and waved a hand dismissively, "I'm a ten thousand rating. Normal Types aren't that big a threat individually. Also, you shouldn't rely too much on rating, since it doesn't work well in groups, and you shouldn't be alone when you're facing Types."

    Koujirou felt his eyebrows raising into his forehead. Ten thousand was only a thousand off Ace ranking wasn't it?

    But Shuri and Yukari had faced each other a few times and Yukari hadn't managed to touch Shuri. She wasn't as helpless as Sandra, Koujirou and Setsuna, but-

    "What about you Shuri?" he asked.

    She'd never been inclined to answer before, but maybe-
    "I don't know; I haven't officially received one," said Shuri again.

    Almost as if she sensed Koujirou's doubt, she turned and stared Koujirou in the eyes frankly, "I wasn't lying when I said I did not know."

    Koujirou sighed. It didn't really make sense that someone as famous as Shuri didn't have a rating to flaunt.

    >Victor: Masaya Setsuna
    >Third set: Victory by Cadet Masaya Setsuna, three rounds to zero.

    "See, you missed the round again," Yukari announced, a disappointed moue on her face.

    Koujirou shrugged, "Eh it's fine, I bet on Setsuna all three times anyway."

    "I thought you said you didn't know who would be winning," Yukari objected with bemusement.

    "It's Setsu, she always finds a way," said Koujirou, "I believed in her."

    Just as he finished talking, Setsuna materialised back in the stands, still clad in her ornate and beautiful red frame, and charged up to Koujirou.

    "So! How's that?" she boasted, thrusting her chest out.

    Koujirou noted with some amusement that even with her frame on, Setsuna wasn't any taller than he was, but, now wasn't really the time.

    "That was damn badass Setsu. Nicely done."

    Setsuna seemed ready for a jab, so when Koujirou simply graciously welcomed her, she bobbed in the air for a moment, not quite sure what to do next. She opened her mouth, and then thought better of it, simply sitting down instead.

    "So, the last two contestants will be Syifa and I," mused Sandra, tapping at her lip again thoughtfully.

    She glanced at Shuri, opening her mouth-

    "Forfeit," Shuri preempted her, "You don't stand a chance."

    Sandra sighed gustily and shook her head, "You know that is not who I am."

    Shuri let out an annoyed grunt of acknowledgment in reply and said nothing else.

    "For our fourth and final set of the day! Would Cadet Syifa Wulandari from Flight Two and Cadet Aleksandra Marianne Cambridge from Flight One please make your way to the staging platform where Instructor Leonhart is waiting."

    Sandra materialised Albion and strode off without a word, head held high.

    "Forward, the light brigade," muttered Yukari with a slow shake of her head.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    You hum, playing with the electrons racing around your hands. A dozen million of the tiny particles danced on the top of your fingers.

    You release them from your Impeller and watch as they are consumed by the simulator, suddenly becoming solid existences you can pin down. You collect them again and you can feel the simulator passing them into your Impeller, one by one, where they again become evanescent little glimpses of possibility.

    In the background, above, you can hear a part of yourself -a braver, more resolute part- dutifully casting the test for the other cadets. The serenity is shaken every time a familiar name is called, but you stay where you are.

    It was nice here, and you could concentrate. Singing a familiar tune to yourself, you play around with the simulator, exploring it.

    … Is this really the only way?

    >Victor: Syifa Wulandari
    >Third set: Victory by Cadet Syifa Wulandari, three rounds to zero.

    You notice the simulation come to an end and you finally rejoin the rest of yourself… but for a moment, you wait.

    Are you not coming?

    No. This is your life now. There is nothing more for me to do.

    Maybe some other time then-

    And-

    You-

    Surface.

    You feel… fine.

    At least some part of you has made some peace with the idea of humans… competing with humans. It was just a sport. Here, at least.

    It would be a while before you fully accepted your realisation, but it was progress. Tentative, but there.

    Still feeling a little distant and disconnected, you meet up with the rest of the flight and congratulate Koujirou and Setsuna on their victories. You try to console Sandra, though the blonde doesn't seem to need it, assuring you that it was an excellent lesson and that she learnt much.

    You'll be back on Wednesday for the semi-finals, and this time… this time you think you can watch on with all of you.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    [N/A]No vote options. Tournament arc will conclude with Post 20 and voting options for 2nd timeskip will be presented then.

    XxXxXxXxXx

    A/N3: This post didn't go through the proper editing process, I just wished to post something before the year deadline passed. There will likely be a number of quality changes to this post once post 20 arrives.

    xXxXxXxXxXxa
     
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    Tayta Malikai - Hot Valk-on-Valk Action
  • Apocrypha
    • Kept you waiting, huh?

    Warning: This is a long post. Like, longer-than-Avalanche long. If you don't feel like reading even more words, you might want to come back later.

    Special thanks to @Kaizuki for beta-reading, and @Avalanche for being such a good sport about the whole thing.

    Special mentions also to @UberJJK and @OmegaS for their informative write-ups, which proved incredibly helpful for writing this story.

    In an alternate universe, where the harem never came together, the Pakistan Air Force was not quite as pants-on-head retarded, and a certain lovable ojou became an evil mastermind…
    ​
    ----------​

    On the 29th​ of January 2072, the Ginnungagap Cannon was successfully fired, destroying the Denver Major Breach in the blink of an eye.

    In response, the Antagonists did something completely unexpected: they sued for peace. Appearing before the United Nations Security Council, their representative was able to convince the various member nations of the Antagonists' sincerity. As a result, for the first time in more than a decade of fighting, a ceasefire was declared between the two species.

    The remaining human population, reduced to one billion following the onset of World War III, had no idea what to make of the decision. Almost every individual on Earth had lost loved ones or homes to the constant Antagonist incursions, and the idea of making peace with the aliens responsible, especially when their true origins and motives were completely unknown, seemed almost inconceivable. Unrest flared in Arcologies and refugee camps worldwide as their inhabitants protested the decision, demanding that the United Nations should be held to account by the humans it claimed to act in the interests of.

    One month later, negotiations continue between the United Nations and the Antagonists. The unrest appears to have abated, with humanity at large beginning to consider, for the first time, the prospect of a post-War, post-Impact world.

    And yet, despite the apparent cessation of hostilities, the various Breaches in North America, Europe, and Northern Africa remain active. Exactly what the Antagonists are doing beneath those swirling funnel clouds, nobody can say…
    ​
    Hot Valk-on-Valk Action
    Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the G-Bomb
    A Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest omake    ​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex, Bullialdus Crater, Luna
    0832 hours AEDT, 29th​ February, 2072

    It was one of the quieter moments in the daily life of Staff Cafeteria 03, located deep under the Moon's surface inside the warm and cosy depths of the Ginnungagap Base Complex – a name which, in typical military fashion, ended up being abbreviated to G-Com in both casual and formal parlance, because God forbid anybody have to pronounce all seven syllables of it; or, worse, spell it. The reason for this was simple: ever since the institution of a permanent state of DEFCON 3 throughout G-Com, the majority of the personnel that might have made use of the facilities all just happened to be occupied elsewhere in the base.

    Group Captain Shuri Kravala, the celebrated Golden Ace of the Pakistan Air Force, found that this suited her just fine. In fact, after several years of being obliged to parade in front of the cameras after accomplishing yet another feat deemed impossible for a solo Valkyrie, the lack of fanfare within the cafeteria was almost refreshing. Up here, there were no reporters or civilians to excitedly swarm around her and shower her in praise. Every single person at G-Com was an active serving member of the UN Armed Forces, and not only were there more important things to do with their time, they all considered themselves to be her equal, in spirit if not in ability.

    And so, enjoying the moment of peace and quiet, Shuri dutifully collected the components of her breakfast from the buffet and sat down at one of the many unoccupied tables, facing out with her back against the wall. Even on the Moon, away from the safety net of the UN's integrated logistics chains, the food here was easily a match for that of any Earth-side Arcology.

    The peace and quiet did not last.

    Something terrifying entered through one of the nearby doors, a monstrosity not seen even in an Antagonist's worst nightmare. Six sets of arms and legs wrapped around each other, trying to pull away from each other even as they kept the entire mass together. One of the heads turned and, catching sight of Shuri, sprouted a fearsome grin. A short bark transmitted the information to the other heads; and then, as one, the entanglement of limbs slowly reoriented itself and began to stagger towards Shuri, emitting moans of emptiness and despair the whole time.

    Six Valkyries plonked themselves down onto the bench opposite Shuri in one synchronized movement, filling the cafeteria with clanks from the armour of their expressed Frames.

    Shuri raised an eyebrow.

    "Goooood moooorrrniiiiing Shuuurriii," the grinning Valkyrie drawled, positioned third from the right.

    "Good morning, Amalia," Shuri responded courteously between mouthfuls.

    "So hungry…" another Valkyrie mumbled, third from the left.

    "Higgs are not food…" the Valkyrie to her left from Shuri's perspective nodded sagely.

    "Can simulate megatonnes, can't simulate calories…" the left-most Valkyrie complained.

    With deliberate slowness, Shuri scooped out another spoonful of her food and placed it into her mouth, making sure to emphasize every bite she made.

    The six Valkyries stared intently at the demonstration of power, their own mouths hanging open and beginning to accumulate drool.

    Shuri continued eating without a word.

    The Valkyries continued staring gormlessly.

    Shuri kept eating.

    The Valkyries kept staring.

    Shuri kept eating.

    "The Golden Ace is not merciful today…" the left-most Valkyrie pronounced after several minutes.

    "Truly, her tough love knows no bounds…" the Valkyrie second from the right agreed.

    "New plan," the Valkyrie on the far right said, her demeanour abruptly changing so as to be suffused with boundless energy for the coming task ahead. Her head swivelled around to sweep the cafeteria, and quickly locked onto her latest victim: a man eating alone at the next table, who was wearing the midnight black with white highlights uniform of the UN Space Force. "Oi! Spaceman! Get us some food!"

    "Bugger off!" the spaceman answered, barely glancing up from his tray of breakfast. "I don't take orders from Air Force this early!"

    "But Spaceman…" The Valkyrie's expression turned into a plaintive pout, while one hand started to trace the open neck seal of her armour. "Won't you please take my order?"

    The spaceman suddenly seemed to have a lot of trouble looking away. His eyebrows began to knot furiously. "What are you–"

    "Please?" the Valkyrie repeated, tears leaking out from her eyes. "Pretty please with hugs and kisses on top? Please, Spaceman?"

    "Fine!" the spaceman snapped, slamming his hand down and getting up from his table. "But you'll eat what I get you and you'll like it! And this is only because of the DEFCON Three, not because you asked me or anything!"

    "Oh, thank you, Spaceman!" the Valkyrie chirped, suddenly all chipper again. "Thank you so much! You're truly amazing!"

    "Yeah, yeah," the spaceman grumbled, even as he marched over to the buffet tables. "It's far too early for this shit."

    This was hardly the first time such a scene had transpired during Shuri's time at G-Com, but she still felt the urge to bang her head on the table, cradle her face in her hands, and sigh in despair and bafflement that people like these had been the key to humanity's victory. The main reason she didn't do so was because being mindful of her public image was something that the PAF had thoroughly drilled into her, almost as often as knowing how to fly and shoot towards the enemy; and even though the Pakistan Air Force technically didn't exist anymore, its training would stick with Shuri forever.

    And so, as the spaceman returned and began distributing trays of food to the Valkyries, only to end up sputtering angrily and wandering off after receiving his promised hugs and kisses, Shuri merely continued to eat her breakfast with a faintly benevolent smile on her face.

    The six Valkyries seated across from Shuri were the members of Flight 2, Special Strategic Defense Squadron: Pax Omnis, 114th​ Space Wing, 1st​ Aerospace Operations Group, 6th​ Air Force. From left to right, they were: Flight Lieutenant Jacqueline "Skip" Lambert; Wing Commander Veronica "Flush" Halifax; Flight Lieutenant Nora "Bond" Banks; Squadron Leader Amalia "Sine Wave" Chelsea; Flight Lieutenant Renee "Tide" Marchal; and Flight Lieutenant Jemima "Splinter" Kelly. All of them were double-digit members of the Three Hundred, which made them just prominent enough to lord it over the broad majority of the Valkyrie Corps, but not quite so impressive that they could mouth off to general officers and get away with it.

    They were also, like seemingly every single other person stationed at this Lunar base, just a little bit on the looney side. It was all Shuri could do to put up with it every day, and hope that she wasn't infected by it. Exactly how could it be so difficult for a group of humanity's finest warriors to fetch their own damn breakfast every morning?

    "So, Shuri," Amalia Chelsea spoke with her mouth full, interrupting the Golden Ace's private stewing, "wanna hear all about our latest simulation adventures?"

    Shuri had learned from her time here that such questions were always Morton's Forks, so she just shrugged and said, "I don't see why not."

    "Alright!" There was absolutely no hint that Amalia had been incapacitated from hunger less than five minutes ago. "So, you know how we've been trying to figure out a way for a single flight to take out a Class C or higher Type Zero–"

    Oh, yes, Shuri knew far too well what Flight 2 was doing these days.

    "–so for our last session, we decided to play around with Once More Unto the Breach. You remember that one, right?"

    Shuri paused briefly in the act of lifting her spoon. "I know the one. You're using it because of Indra's presence, correct?"

    "Yep, that's exactly it!" Amalia beamed; Shuri used the time she'd bought to start chewing on her latest mouthful. "Normally you're not actually supposed to fight the little white bitch in that scenario, though, since the objective is only to destroy the Breach. And even without that, Zeros are pretty much impossible to fight in the simulator anyway, since they get to use all their tricks and we don't. But! Little Miss Ladykiller here found a way. You wanna tell the Golden Ace your brilliant idea, Nora?"

    "Oh, heh, it's really simple actually," the mousy redhead began, giggling nervously at the way her neck was caught in the crook of Amalia's elbow. "Basically, the whole point of that scenario is that you're stuck between two instant-death scenarios, where the Breach is slightly less likely to kill you than Indra is. Either you fight Indra and reinforcements from the Breach swarm you to death, or you fight the Breach while Indra shoots you to death. But that last bit got me thinking: if Indra shooting us is the problem, why don't we just… use the Breach as cover?"

    Shuri blinked. "You did what?" The usual preferred UN strategy was to get Type Zeros away from a Breach before attempting to overcome either of them, for precisely the reasons Nora mentioned. As far as she knew, nobody in live combat had ever been suicidal enough to try fighting the two of them together. Or, she conceded, nobody had tried it and lived to relay the results.

    "Yeah, she did the math and everything!" Jemima Kelly chimed in. "If we fly straight to the Breach after starting and use the UN forces as bait, we can all get behind it before Whitey can catch up!"

    "Basically, if we're closer to the Breach, then it takes us a lot less time to fly around than it does for Indra," Nora continued, trying and failing to squirm out of Amalia's clutches. "I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature, since we can't get the real Indra and Elazig Breach to test it out, but for some reason he never tries to shoot through the Breach. So if he stays at standoff range and tries to shoot at us using his exotic weapons, he'll have an angle of about seven degrees from one side of the Breach to the other. That means if one element goes on each side, he can't shoot both of us at the same time, but we can have someone shooting him the whole time."

    Shuri set her spoon down gingerly, giving serious consideration to the proposition before her. It certainly seemed logical enough, if overly reckless and reliant on nothing else going wrong, which was probably why it was being done in a simulator and not live combat. Admittedly, it was still more than she could usually expect from this flight of Valkyries. "And what if Indra teleports into short range or closer?" she questioned. "If he teleported into the middle of your formations, you would likely be destroyed in short order by his conventional weaponry."

    "Not if we maintain combat acceleration throughout," Nora answered. "At that range, it takes four seconds to fly behind the curve of the Breach, less if we perform a reactor dump. Even if he pursues, we have enough Impeller to withstand at least one attack. Of course, if this was real combat, we'd just teleport away ourselves."

    "And while that happens, the other team comes around and ganks him from behind!" Amalia added, squeezing Nora's neck boisterously. "Easy peasy!"

    The casual disregard for the capabilities of a Type Zero was definitely not in line with Shuri's own experiences, but she managed to keep her rising irritation in check. Besides, as much as she hated to admit it, the whole explanation had made her rather curious. "And?" she prodded while trying not to sound too interested. "Did it work?"

    At that, both Amalia and Jemima let out chuckles of embarrassment. "Well, as a matter of fact…" Amalia began.

    "His Impeller was a lot stronger than we expected…" Jemima continued.

    "It turns out that if you try to run a scenario for more than twenty-four hours, the simulator ends up crashing from accumulated rounding errors," Nora finished the story.

    "Yeah, crazy, right? How're we supposed to simulate whole campaigns like this?" Amalia complained. "Where does all that fancy Arcology-scale computing power go? Probably streaming porn, I reckon."

    Shuri had no words. "You fought a simulated Type Zero for twenty-four hours," she repeated dumbly.

    "Yep!"

    "And none of you were shot down during that time."

    "Hell yeah!" Jemima raised a fist. "Sucks for the UN forces in that scenario, but hey, they're only bots."

    Shuri couldn't handle it anymore. Slowly, and with great care, her head fell downwards until it hit the cool metal surface of the cafeteria table with a soft thump.

    "Oh, no!" Renee Marchal exclaimed. "Is the Golden Ace okay?"

    "I'm fine," Shuri mumbled from her refuge in darkness. "Just fine, thank you."

    "Is the Director giving you too much work again?" Renee continued to pester. "Do you need cheering up? Should we give you cuddles?"

    "No!" Shuri barked frantically, snapping back up to an upright position almost immediately. Anything but that. She almost hadn't survived the last time the Valkyries of Flight 2 had all attempted to stage an "intervention", after they'd become convinced she was avoiding them because she'd been having trouble deciding which of her many, many fans to take as a lover. She still had nightmares about it, sometimes.

    "Oh, the Golden Ace is feeling better now!" Renee let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and wiped her brow. "Thank goodness!" Then she glanced down at her tray. "Oh, no! There's no food left!"

    "Suck it up, Valkyrie," Amalia grinned, reaching out with her other arm to ensnare Renee in her grip. "You didn't think that food this good grows on trees when you're in space, did you? Well, too bad: it's all hydroponics up here."

    "I think you lost control of your metaphor there, Amalia," Nora helpfully pointed out.

    "And that, I believe, is our cue to resume training," Veronica Halifax spoke for the first time, standing up and stretching her arms briefly. "Are you sure you don't want to join us in the simulator, Shuri? We'd love to have your experience for coming up with new strategies."

    Shuri did her best to school her features into a regretful expression. "Sorry. I still have my administrative duties to take care of." It certainly didn't hurt her cause that this was, in fact, the truth. She just didn't have any administrative duties to take care of right now.

    Veronica looked disappointed for a moment. "Oh well, maybe next time," she said, before turning and heading for the door. "Come on, Flight. We've still got three more scenarios to run through using this strategy."

    "Shots not being the bait this time!" Jemima called as she got up to follow her flight leader.

    "Later, Shuri! Don't let the fangirls bite! Unless you're into that sort of thing!" After a grin and a wave, Amalia too left the table, practically dragging Nora and Renee along with her.

    Not daring to react right away, Shuri waited for a whole ten seconds after the last member of Flight 2 had exited the cafeteria, before she allowed herself to anchor her elbow on the table, open her palm facing inwards, and smack her own forehead with it.

    An incredibly undignified groan emitted from her vocal cords. At the moment, though, she didn't care if somebody saw or heard her like this.

    At one time in her life, Shuri had idolized the Three Hundred, just as her people had idolized the Golden Ace. Of course, as a serving officer in the PAF, she'd known that she would never be able to join them formally – even at the peak of relations between the United Nations and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the UN was loath to lend any of its precious 300 Frames to any non-integrated forces, while the PAF would never have even considered letting another command poach its country's top talent.

    Nevertheless, Shuri had continued to admire the graceful ease with which members of the Three Hundred were able to annihilate the Antagonists, Valkyrie and Frame combining to produce an unstoppable battlefield juggernaut.

    And then Shuri had arrived at the Ginnungagap Base Complex, where she had promptly had all of her illusions shattered and burned like so much orbital debris.

    Oh, there was certainly no question about the actual skill possessed by the members of Pax Omnis and the other Three Hundred squadrons on base – as completely ridiculous as it had sounded, Shuri knew for a fact that Flight 2 hadn't been exaggerating their accomplishments in the simulator, and that they really did stand a good chance of one day developing some new force multiplier that could allow mere flights to take on Type Zeros and win. She'd observed some of their simulator battles, and even participated in one or two when she'd first arrived, and so she was well aware of how seriously they took their training.

    Even that whole display earlier, nearly starving themselves after spending a straight twenty-four hours under Zero Suppression conditions, and then heading right back to the simulator after a ten minute meal, just showed the extent to which they dedicated themselves to the goal of defeating the Antagonists in combat.

    And that, in itself, was the other thing that had been bothering Shuri about the Valkyrie forces on this base, and which she'd finally managed to put into words in the wake of that mostly one-sided conversation.

    Why did they all need to put so much effort into training to fight the Antagonists? It was true that it had barely been a month since the official declaration of a ceasefire by the UN Central Government, but just discovering that it was possible to communicate with the Antagonists showed that the war didn't have to go on anymore.

    During the downtimes, when Shuri wasn't busy with her duties or being harassed by Flight 2, she'd accessed the media coverage that continued to be streamed from Earth. For the first time in her career, her heart had lifted at the sight of civilians celebrating their arrival in their countries' respective Arcologies, for now there was no longer any need for them to live in refugee camps. Valkyries had been filmed undertaking grand construction projects, now that they no longer had to fear the Antagonists coming to knock them down. There had even been a few shots of the former battle lines in Africa, previously the sites of bloody stalemates, now featuring UN Army infantrymen and Antagonist infantry units standing in the same square kilometre without shooting at each other.

    The people on Earth were rejoicing the end of the war; and yet here were the people on Luna, preparing to continue it.

    Shuri found her attention being drawn to a minor commotion at the far end of the cafeteria, and glanced over to see a UN Army staff sergeant with a sinfully contented expression on his face as two Valkyries took turns spoon-feeding him. A crowd of infantrymen, spacemen, and Valkyries was gradually gathering around the display, exchanging remarks of jealousy at the idea of being in either position. Throughout her career, Shuri had never seen members of the two very different services in such proximity to each other, let alone displaying this degree of camaraderie.

    Apparently, the lucky staff sergeant was something of a celebrity on this base, which was no small feat considering how many members of the Three Hundred it hosted. His records were curiously classified, even to Shuri's now absurdly high clearance, and he seemed to derive a great deal of amusement from the plentiful stories going around. If Shuri believed what Flight 2 had to say about him, he had gone up against a Type 16 in single combat and defeated it with only his progressive knife. He'd then served a stint in the Perth Arcology defense unit as a form of vacation, only to be kicked out after he was repeatedly caught sneaking into Perth Valkyrie Academy with several of the cadets there. Now he was here on Luna, because none of the Arcologies or bases on Earth wanted him.

    Personally, Shuri thought that this was completely implausible; in her experience with the PAF's PR machine, if there had been any inkling of truth whatsoever to the feat of a single non-Valkyrie defeating a Type 16 with a melee weapon, then the UN Army would have been trumpeting about it until kingdom come.

    In fact, now that she thought about it, it wasn't just the Valkyries stationed at G-Com who remained far too enthusiastic about the idea of fighting Antagonists.

    It was supposedly common knowledge that the existence of UN Army infantry divisions to provide UN Arcologies and military installations with a "comprehensive defensive capacity" was little more than a token gesture, more suitable for reassuring the public that they were being protected than actually protecting them from attack. This truth had been demonstrated in numerous Arcology incursions during the Great Battle, where the Antagonists had relied on commando tactics involving teleported Types to bypass external defenses and overwhelm internal defenses in short order.

    As such, the presence of the 57th​ Lunar Infantry Brigade should have been even more pointless than these deployments usually were, considering that any potential Antagonist incursion into G-Com would comprise almost exclusively Types due to being outside of their usual logistics chains. It wasn't as if any of the UN personnel at the base needed the infantry to hold their hand, after all.

    And yet, ever since Shuri had arrived here, the 57th​ Lunar Infantry had almost continuously been conducting training exercises, to the extent that they frequently took over entire sections of the complex to simulate defensive engagements against Antagonist infantry forces. They'd even managed to rope several Valkyries into the scenarios, using them to act out the role of Types. The latter exercises usually resulted in whole platoons of infantry being wiped out to a man, but their dismal performances did nothing to discourage their attempts to develop new tactics and countermeasures.

    It was as if they seriously expected to have to fight an Antagonist incursion in the immediate future, and to win.

    Before Shuri could devote any more time and effort to unravelling the mystery of her putative comrades, an incoming video call alert began flashing in the corner of her vision. She gulped on instinct the moment she saw the caller ID, steeling herself for what was to come. Only one person on this base frightened her more than Flight 2, and they held absolute authority over her.

    "Good morning, Shuri," Director Aleksandra Marianne Cambridge greeted, a sunny smile on her face as always, hands clasped under her chin as she leaned across her desk.

    "I, uh, good morning, Dir– Sandra," Shuri did her best to reply evenly, showing no fear.

    "I trust that the morning finds you well, and that the breakfast of this complex remains to your satisfaction?"

    "I'm fine, thank you. The food was good as well." Shuri decided not to mention encountering Flight 2 – it had never helped her to do so in the past.

    "I am most gladdened to hear that," Sandra beamed, her golden curls seeming to sparkle even more brightly for a moment. "Now, I regret that I must bring this enjoyable sojourn to an end, but there is something that I require of you."

    "What is it?" Shuri asked, praying fervently that this wouldn't be another snipe hunt.

    "I intend to place the Ginnungagap Base Complex under Defense Condition Two within the next two hours," Sandra explained cheerily, as though she was describing an imminent field trip from a Valkyrie Academy to its respective Arcology. "It would be most helpful if you could conduct a full inspection of the One-Hundred-and-Fourteenth Space Wing's combat readiness in that time. I trust that this will not be too inconvenient for you?"

    "DEFCON Two?" Shuri blinked, having caught onto that particular detail. "This isn't another exercise, is it? I haven't recovered from the last one." She was also tempted to remark that, based on the activities of Flight 2, the 114th​ Space Wing was almost certainly combat ready.

    "Not at all, my dear Shuri," Sandra said. "If you must know, I intend for this complex to be prepared to withstand the prospect of offensive actions by the Antagonists."

    "What?" Shuri was just able to keep it down to a loud whisper; although, seeing as the whole cafeteria was still enthralled by the spoon-feeding spectacle on the other side from her, she needn't have bothered. "You can't be serious!"

    "I am always serious, Shuri," Sandra retorted, somehow managing to give the impression of a pout without changing her smile.

    "Sandra, I don't– how can–" Shuri floundered, trying to think of a more delicate way to put what she was thinking. "Why would the Antagonists attack us after they've gone to such lengths to make peace?"

    Sandra was still smiling, but it no longer seemed to be so cheerful. "Has the UN Central Government announced the signing of a formal peace treaty between the UN and the Antagonists, marking the conclusion of World War Three?"

    "No."

    "Have they announced an armistice between the two sides?"

    "…No."

    "Then we are not at peace. As the Director of the Ginnungagap Base Complex and the Ginnungagap Project, it is my responsibility to ensure that this base is prepared for any and all attempted incursions by Antagonist forces. Until a formal peace treaty has been signed to officially end the state of war, I intend to uphold that responsibility to the best of my abilities. I'm sure you understand, Shuri." The Director's eyes gazed intently through the video feed.

    To her credit, Shuri did not flinch away. "Yes, Sandra, I understand," she answered in a long-suffering tone.

    "Good!" Sandra said, the brightness instantly returning to her mannerisms. "As always, I am ever grateful for your assistance. I will leave you to it, then. Until later, Shuri."

    "See you later, Sandra," Shuri waved.

    The video connection ended, and Shuri once again allowed herself to slump over the table, heaving a miserable sigh.

    Truly, there was never a dull moment here at G-Com.
    ​
    ----------​

    Armstrong Base, Delambre Crater, Luna
    0903 hours AEDT

    Even by the standards of Arcologies in the 2070s, the chamber in which the United Nations Security Council conducted both its official and not-so-official meetings was extraordinarily opulent. At some point in between the Security Council passing a resolution to the effect that it needed a more secure location to pass resolutions in, and the Security Council holding its first ever meeting in the newly constructed chamber, some Valkyrie constructor with a Frame full of fabricators had evidently decided that subtlety and tastefulness were for pre-Impact wimps.

    The lighting in the walls and ceiling was so intense, and encompassed so much of the visible light spectrum, that you would need at least three layers of optical filtering just to see through it. If the marble flooring was any smoother, you could probably go ice-skating on it. The sheer number and variety of the plants dotting the room in neat lines were probably enough to qualify them as an ecosystem in themselves, while the historical and symbolic significance of all the imagery and artifacts being displayed could have filled terabytes of memory. And then, for no readily apparent reason other than that it was possible, the Valkyrie had placed an aquarium underneath the centre of the chamber, populated by everything from clownfish to arapaima.

    Yes, aquariums. In space.

    It was in the very midst of this over-friendly environment that the Security Council was in the process of convening. Almost as a form of protest, the actual table was of a thankfully simple military design, a neat circular slab of matte black metal around which the five permanent members and one very special guest sat, studiously ignoring the pretty fish and water below them. Holographic projectors were positioned all around them, allowing Council members to easily call up and view any information deemed relevant to the decision-making process. Currently, however, the projectors were fulfilling a secondary purpose, which was to project large black screens in an effort to block out the rest of the room from sight. It was mostly successful; everyone had been able to take off their sunglasses after sitting down.

    At present, the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council were fiddling with their datapads at the head of the table, leaving the representatives to fidget awkwardly in their seats. Normally, there was any number of international issues that they might have been whispering about between each other, affirming temporary alliances for the upcoming debate over them. For the last month, however, every single meeting had begun in total silence, for none in the room seemed particularly keen on discussing highly sensitive matters under the present circumstances.

    So they waited.

    And waited.

    "Australia?" the representative for the People's Republic of China abruptly spoke, unable to bear the silence for any longer.

    "Yes, China?" the Oceania Commonwealth equivalent sitting next to her replied.

    "Would you care to explain why you're wearing that ridiculous hat?"

    "Oh, you like it?" Australia took off the aforementioned hat and showed it to everyone. "It's a genuine Akubra from the 1980s. Nearly ninety years old, can you believe it? About as Aussie as you can get these days. I got a Valk to fix it up, see? Good as new. Thought I'd commemorate the occasion with it, know what I'm saying?"

    "The occasion?" The woman from the Republic of India raised an eyebrow. "You mean not shooting at each other for a whole month?"

    "Yeah, that's the one! One heck of a new record, am I right?"

    "Not really," India rolled her eyes. "Consider that the Antagonists were active inside the Breaches since Impact. That means the current record would be more like forty-five years."

    "Oh, come on!" Australia started twirling the hat around his finger. "You know that doesn't count! Of course we didn't shoot at each other for forty-five years, we didn't know the other existed!"

    "Implying that we started shooting at each other the second we learned of each other's existence," the representative of the Federative Republic of Brazil commented sotto voce.

    "Implying? That's exactly what happened!"

    "And, technically speaking, we did make the first move by invading the Breaches and strip-mining them for resources," the Republic of South Africa's counterpart added.

    "Well, we didn't shoot anyone while we were in there, did we? Gotta be the cleanest, neatest invasion for resources in the history of anything."

    "And that can't have been what really happened, anyway," Brazil argued. "Because if it did, then the AGs would have all died of, like, influenza or something like that."

    South Africa frowned. "I suppose you have a point."

    "Influenza?" India repeated incredulously. "That dead disease?"

    "Okay, nanomachines then!"

    "That makes even less sense!" Australia protested. "The AGs are nanomachines!"

    "No they're not! They're mechanical robots just like everybody else!"

    "I think you meant to say 'biological', there," South Africa remarked dryly.

    Brazil blinked. "Well, I guess some AGs are both mechanical and biological–"

    "Everyone," China interrupted in a stern voice, halting whatever Brazil had planned to say next. "Instead of arguing over a trivial detail such as this, why not simply ask the Antagonists about it?"

    There was silence around the table for a moment; then everybody slowly turned to face the sixth representative technically present at the meeting.

    Seated just to the left of the Secretary-General was something which looked absurdly like a nineteen year old woman, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a UN Air Force dress uniform, which somewhat explained how it was able to sit down in one of the chairs in the first place. At the same time, the woman had a Valkyrie Frame expressed, the armour plates somehow clipping through the chair and yet not clipping through the chair, though no weapon systems were present. Then there was a Terminator-style skeleton sitting in the chair, which in turn was also covered in some kind of armour, menacing black and red in contrast to the Valkyrie Frame's silver and green. After that came a robotic mass of tentacles, writhing and coiling on the seat, not too dissimilar in appearance from a Type 2. And then, on top of all that, was the unmistakeable form of a Type Zero, whose frame simultaneously absorbed and reflected all light in the room.

    According to numerous classified reports, careful observation of discreetly recorded security footage, using only passive sensors with an absurdly high frame-rate, showed that the entire mass flickered in and out of existence, to the point where it had taken dedicated, custom-made sensor equipment and computers just to distinguish between the individual forms. The changes occurred faster than even a Valkyrie-augmented human eye could process them, with the apparent result that all of the images appeared to collapse together, forming the illusion of a single coherent body. Many theories had been suggested as to how it all worked, with the most credible amongst them including the buzzwords "macro-scale quantum superposition", but ultimately they all fell under the heading of "general Antagonist space fuckery".

    And as if that wasn't bad enough, the official representative of the Antagonists had, for some reason, requested that it be addressed as "Caitlin". No other names, no honorifics, not even a clumsy attempt at symbolism or sounding impressive. Just "Caitlin".

    "Hey, Caitlin," Australia said as casually as possible, "what are AGs made out of, anyway?"

    The AG representative rotated its head to gaze at Australia. A few tiny beeps could be heard. "No translation available," it responded, its voice a mixture of a nineteen year old woman, a crystal chime, a xylophone, and Darth Vader.

    It also didn't move its mouth while it was speaking. Creepy.

    "Wow, cop-out much?" Brazil snarked.

    "Okay, okay, that's enough, everyone," the President said before anyone else could protest. "By the power invested in me as the President of the United Nations Security Council, I hereby declare the opening of the thirtieth peace negotiation session between the United Nations and the Antagonists." He paused for a moment. "Now, continuing on from last time, our first topic on the agenda today will be the redistribution of land in the post-War environment." At this, the holographic projectors switched to displaying a colourful world map, different colours denoting the territories currently controlled or occupied by the UN or the AGs. "Caitlin?"

    "Negotiation modules online," the AG representative declared.

    "Oh, yeah, real tactful," Brazil commented under her breath.

    "To begin, all members of the Security Council will state their current positions on this matter," the President finished. "Australia?"

    "That's easy," Australia said, having put his hat back on at some point. "We want the AGs out of North America, full stop. They've already got a huge presence on two continents, for Christ's sake, they don't need a third one."

    "Yeah, what he said," Brazil agreed. "There's only one Major Breach and two Minors there, at least compared to the zillions in Europe and Africa, so they shouldn't have any problems relocating."

    "We object," Caitlin intoned emphatically. "We would maintain our holdings in the Ontario and Quebec provinces. Additionally, we demand the ejection of the United States of America from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We would consider a downsizing of our presence in the state of Cincinnati if these conditions are met."

    "No way," Brazil countered, "America is our continent. It's all or nothing, you can't just hang on in the corner up there."

    "The hell you want a chunk of Canada for, anyway?" Australia added, looking puzzled. "It's not like you AGs need all those minerals or anything."

    Caitlin seemed as though it was about to answer, but all that came out was a collection of beeps and radio static. After a few seconds, it looked down and muttered something that sounded a lot like "Moose and maple syrup."

    "What was that? Couldn't hear you."

    "You heard nothing," Caitlin snapped, abruptly facing up again.

    Everyone else sitting around the table just rolled their eyes. This was something of a regular occurrence with Caitlin.

    "Very well, your positions have been noted," the President said after a moment, taking the opportunity to move on. "South Africa?"

    "Our position is very simple," South Africa nodded. "All we wish for is to reclaim the former territories of Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, returning us to the state we were in prior to the start of World War Three. As the Tamanrasset Minor Breach is no longer a significant holding of the Antagonists, this should be very easy to accomplish."

    "We are willing to concede the central regions of the African continent to humanity," Caitlin replied. "However, in return, we would like to take control of the region known as the Middle East: specifically, the former locations of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain."

    "Christ, how'd we get so many countries in such a small space before Impact?" Australia muttered, examining the holographic world map with interest.

    "Absolutely not," India snapped. "Those territories rightfully belong to the Republic of India. We will not tolerate the construction of Breaches in such proximity to our lands."

    "You're being unreasonable," China scolded. "You will still retain access to the former territories of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Furthermore, you have absolutely zero claim to any lands beyond that point, so please don't pretend you have any."

    "Oh, sure, let the AGs cosy right up to India, she says," Brazil sneered. "It's not like India's between you and the AGs or anything like that."

    "How dare you make such accusations?" China exclaimed. "You, who would claim the entire American continent for yourselves?"

    "Says the ones with propagandized expansionist policies since Impact! At least we're honest about it!"

    "Order!" the President barked, bringing the argument to a halt. "Is there anything more you want to say regarding this geographical area, Caitlin?"

    The AG representative emitted a tone that the Security Council had learned was roughly the equivalent of a shrug. "If we are to declare our position now, then we shall mention that we also intend to eject the United Nations peacekeeping forces from the former sites of the Moscow and Uralsk Breaches, and reclaim those regions for our own purposes."

    "And what purposes do you plan to carry out within those regions?" China demanded. "Your holdings in Europe are already significant enough! Do you intend on extending yourselves into Russia as well?"

    "Undetermined."

    "Now who's being unreasonable?" Australia pointed out. "You've still got all of Siberia to play around in, for Christ's sake. I dunno what you'd do with it, though."

    "Once again you make unfounded accusations! I will not stand for such treatment!"

    As the President once again found himself tasked with stopping the argument before it got out of hand, the Secretary-General sighed and massaged her forehead with both hands.

    This was going to be a long meeting.
    ​
    ----------​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex
    1026 hours AEDT

    Shuri wiped her forehead and closed her eyes for a minute, breathing hard as she leaned up against the cool metal wall of an out-of-the-way corridor. It had taken an extraordinary level of effort, even for her, to track down every single Valkyrie in the 114th​ Space Wing, and then get them to stop what they were doing so that she could assess their combat readiness.

    As it turned out, many members of the Three Hundred had a habit of not being in the locations indicated by their IFF signals. Shuri found this incredibly bizarre, considering that equipment integrated into 300 Frames was supposed to be impossible to tamper with. The commanding officer of the 114th​, Air Commodore Delores "Havoc" Carmine, had simply shrugged and remarked "Impeller magic, what can you do?" when Shuri had questioned her about it.

    On the plus side, all that teleporting throughout and above G-Com in order to track down her quarry before the deadline had been really good practice for Shuri's own Impeller technique. She already made sure to maintain her training routines during every moment she wasn't running errands for Sandra or crying over said errands, but as her upbringing in the Pakistan Air Force had shown her, there was no such thing as too much training.

    Still, she hadn't finished the mission just yet, so once she'd recovered enough to withstand a conversation with Sandra, Shuri made the call.

    The Director answered within half a second. "Salutations, Shuri," she greeted, warm as ever. "How goes the mission to assess the Space Wing's combat readiness?"

    "I've completed a full inspection of all members of the One-Hundred-and-Fourteenth Space Wing, as ordered," Shuri reported calmly. "All Valkyries have their assigned Three Hundred Frames synchronized, with their regular Frames in stand-by mode. All Impeller fields have been restored to full integrity. All weapons and expendable equipment have been completely restocked. All auxiliary Frame components have been properly secured. All emergency EVA and survival gear is accounted for. All communications with TACNET are properly sending and receiving using the appropriate protocols. All Valkyries are with their assigned squadrons in their designated fast response positions. All Valkyries display no signs of physiological or psychological abnormalities. That's the report." It was all she could do to not add a "Ma'am" to the end – Sandra always lectured her for being overly formal if she did.

    "That is most excellent news, Shuri," Sandra acknowledged, her smile widening just briefly. "Once again, I am grateful for your assistance in this matter. I will have another mission for you shortly, so please stand by for just a few moments."

    The channel closed before Shuri could respond. Not that there was really anything for her to say.

    She glanced at the time in her HUD again. There was still at least another hour to go until she typically ate lunch. Idly, she began tapping her foot against the wall, wondering what Flight 2 was doing now that she'd ever so reluctantly pulled them away from their simulator training, and whether their brilliant new plan of shooting out Ark Ship Noah's engines at the very start of the To the Stars scenario so that they could hunt down Abraxas at their leisure was actually any less ridiculous than it sounded.

    A low-priority alert popped up in her vision, distracting her from her train of thought. She flicked her eyes over it cursorily, already moving to dismiss it; then paused, frowning as she read it again. If what Konark was reporting was accurate, then every form of communications between the Ginnungagap Base Complex and all other United Nations facilities had just been shut down, making it impossible to contact anyone or receive information from outside of the base. The main reason that Shuri's Frame had caught it was because the constant news feeds tracking events on Earth she received, which she habitually kept an eye on between tasks, had been cut off in the process.

    Before she could investigate any further, a loud chime emanated from the base's PA system, accompanied by a general channel opening in Shuri's HUD.

    "All personnel, this is a base-wide announcement," a male Space Force operator spoke, both over the loudspeakers and through the channel. "Cease all current activities and stand by for Directorial address."

    The image of the operator was replaced by one of Sandra, appearing before Shuri just as she had earlier this morning, smiling with her hands clasped over her desk.

    "Good morning to all of my beloved comrades here at Ginnungagap," she began. "It is with the utmost pleasure that I address you on this momentous occasion today. I ask that you listen closely until I have concluded this announcement, for what I am about to tell you in the next several minutes will herald the beginning one of the greatest turning points in the history of humanity."

    Shuri furrowed her brow at this. It was true that Sandra was very fond of theatricality at the best of times, but she couldn't help thinking that this was a little too much.

    "As you all know, exactly one month ago, we were able to successfully fire the Ginnungagap Cannon for the first time as part of Operation Prodigal, crippling the Antagonist occupation of North America. This was the most decisive single blow we had struck against our enemy, with the entire UN Armed Forces poised to execute follow up operations, causing a massive strategic shift on a scale not seen since the destruction of three Minor Breaches during the Alaskan Offensive. We ourselves had braced for the inevitable Antagonist counterattack with the worst they could muster against us, knowing that whatever the cost we suffered, each and every Type Zero we destroyed was one less they could deploy against our comrades on Earth. Even if we had been forced to make the ultimate sacrifice, it would not have been in vain, for the Antagonists would have been rendered heavily damaged and uncoordinated, allowing humanity the chance to win once and for all."

    "And then, immediately afterwards, the UN Central Government announced that an accord had been reached with the Antagonists. We were to stand down and cease all fighting, just as we were on the cusp of ensuring victory. Our forces were to pull back from their assaults on the remaining North American Breaches, even though we had all invested and sacrificed so much to enable them to reach that point."

    "I am certain that you have all speculated as to the true meaning of this; and while it pains my heart to say it, and I wish with all my being that it was not so, I regret to inform you that your deepest fears are all too true."

    The camera tracked Sandra as she stood up from her seat, still leaning over her desk on which her fists were planted.

    "The ceasefire is nothing more than an elaborate Antagonist deception! The United Nations has betrayed humanity, and as a result of its naïve idealism, the Antagonists now stand poised to annihilate us once and for all!"

    "Why else would they have claimed to desire peace, at the exact moment our forces were in a position to crush them? Why else would they have done so, just as the Ginnungagap Project had revealed the true power of humanity? It should be readily apparent that this ceasefire was a calculated maneuver to allow the Antagonists time to build up their forces, and at the same time sap our will to fight. Then, when humanity has let its guard down, they intend to launch an overwhelming sneak attack against every Arcology on Earth, decapitating the UN Armed Forces with one swift stroke! Once they crush all resistance on Earth, they will do the same to us here on Luna, guaranteeing the total destruction of the human race!"

    "Fortunately, we still have the opportunity to resist the fate the Antagonists desire to impose upon us. Over the past month, thanks to the efforts of this base's personnel, the Ginnungagap Cannon has been completely restored to operational status. Even as I speak, the necessary calibrations have been performed and the full charging cycle has begun. In less than one hour from now, the Cannon will fire and destroy the Tripoli Major Breach, inflicting critical damage to the Antagonist war machine. By exposing the idea of peace for the illusion it is, the United Nations will be forced to seize the initiative, and attack while the Antagonists are weakened. Thanks to our actions, we will resume the war at a significant strategic advantage, and be all but assured of our eventual victory!"

    Sandra paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. When she continued, it was with a slight degree of mournfulness.

    "Unfortunately, this means that humanity's victory is contingent on the Cannon successfully firing. It is all but certain that the Antagonists will detect the charging cycle, and respond in force to prevent us from firing. However, we must also assume that the United Nations will disavow us in its vain efforts to pursue peace, and provide tacit support to any Antagonist attack on our base. In the worst case scenario, we must be prepared to defend ourselves from our own forces being deployed against us."

    "I appreciate that this creates a terrible dilemma for us, and I hope that all of you will trust me when I say that, had there been any other option available to us, I would have taken it without hesitation. But I also know that every single person here came to this base for one reason, and one reason alone: because we believed that humanity could achieve victory."

    "Today, we will accomplish what we came here for! We will avenge the billions of lives the Antagonists have stolen from us, and in doing so, we will pave the way for humanity to go forth boldly into the future, as is our birthright!"

    "Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the effort each and every one of you has made throughout our time together. All I ask from you now is that you continue to act as you always have, and do what you think is right. Good luck to you all, and remember: I love you."

    And with that, Sandra's image winked out, leaving behind only the eternal impression of her smile.
    ​
    ----------​

    Armstrong Base
    1038 hours AEDT

    "All I'm saying is, we can't possibly allow Valks and Types to ever come within one hundred metres of each other," Australia continued to argue, waving his hat around in an agitated fashion. "I mean, uh, what happens if the Impeller fields overlap? In a few generations they'd outnumber the whole Valk Corps!"

    "So you wish to segregate Valkyries from Antagonists in post-War society?" China snapped. "I suppose next you'll attempt to institute a Human Australia policy!"

    "Oh, like you have any room to talk," Brazil retorted. "There used to be this country called the Republic of Korea, you ever heard of it? It had a population of–"

    A harsh crackle of static filled the room for about a second, causing the representatives seated at the table to break off their current debate and glance towards Caitlin's direction. They were surprised to see a number of lights flashing all over its body, or bodies, depending on which interpretation you subscribed to.

    "Caitlin?" the President prompted. "Is there something you want to say on the matter?"

    "Oh, great, I bet it knows all about overlapping Impeller fields–"

    "We have detected a series of anomalous spatial manipulation events originating from a point one-three-zero-five kilometres from this unit's current position," Caitlin announced, the lights in its cranial region seeming to focus into a glare aimed at each and every human present. "Preliminary analysis indicates that these events are consistent with our previous records of Wave Force Manipulation. Approximated coordinates of the events correspond to the last known site of Wave Force Manipulation being deployed against us."

    A flummoxed silence descended upon the room as the representatives glanced at each other with looks of puzzlement, before they all picked up their datapads and started tapping away.

    "Based on this information, we have determined that this constitutes a hostile action in direct violation of our ceasefire agreement," Caitlin finished. "We demand an explanation for these events."

    China looked up from her datapad, an indignant expression on her face. "Do you mean to accuse us of attempting to employ the G-Cannon against you? That is a patently ridiculous assertion!"

    "Affirmative."

    "Yeah, right!" Australia pointed a finger emphatically. "I reckon this is all just a cover for some kind of AG sneak attack or something! While we're all sitting here trying to find out what's going on with the G-Gun, Eighteens are teleporting into our Arcologies to kidnap our Valks! It's a clever plan, I'll give you that; but I'm onto you, you sneaky AG bastards!"

    "No way!" Brazil butted in as well. "I bet it's even stupider than that. Ever heard of Hanlon's razor? I think some Type Zero went on a bender over a few islands, and now you're trying to pin it on us!"

    "I too find this very difficult to believe," the President added. "Any deployment of the G-Gun requires the unanimous approval of the Security Council. As you yourself can attest, Caitlin, we certainly haven't discussed anything of that nature in the last month, let alone approved of it."

    The Secretary-General cleared her throat, catching everyone's attention as she spoke for the first time. "Caitlin does seem to be telling the truth," she said, then at everyone's expressions quickly qualified it with, "well, at least from its perspective. I've just received a report from the Space Force saying that we've lost all contact with Ginnungagap Base since about eight minutes ago. Director Masaki has also personally contacted me to confirm that the base has raised its Impeller field; so, while we can't see whether any spatial anomalies are occurring beneath it, it is plausible that the G-Gun could be charging at this instant."

    A few taps on the Secretary-General's datapad caused the holographic projectors to switch to a stylized display of the Moon's surface, showing the relative positions of the Armstrong and Ginnungagap Bases along with their associated Air Force and Space Force assets. A constant feed of STRATNET's decision-making process was also featured, with Ginnungagap Base's contribution conspicuously absent, recommending to all with the clearance to view it that an immediate scouting mission be launched to determine the cause.

    "Assuming that the G-Gun is really being deployed," the Secretary-General continued, "we estimate that it will be completely charged and ready to fire within the hour. As for the target, we're still not certain, but we suspect it's one of the Major Breaches that Military Intelligence recommended a few years back: Cincinnati, Tripoli, or Prague."

    There were shocked appearances all around the table.

    "But how could any of this be possible?" the President questioned, looking absolutely bewildered. "When we passed the resolution authorizing the construction of the G-Gun, we designed its operating procedures and control hardware specifically so that it could never be deployed without our approval. There are no special contingencies for Director Cambridge to unilaterally order its firing – we decided that the risk of Antagonist subversion was too great to allow for local control."

    The Secretary-General shrugged. "That's what we would like to know, too. The Space Force receives constant telemetry to confirm the status of the G-Gun – at least, before it was cut off – and none of it indicates that Director Cambridge could have circumvented the operating procedures somehow. And yet, here we are." She gave all of the representatives at the table a significant look.

    The representatives all glanced at each other, uncertainty showing on their faces.

    "So…" Brazil was the first to speak, "what do we do about it? Do we stop it?"

    India's mouth hung open. "What are you saying? Of course we have to stop it! We can't just let the whole past month of negotiations go to waste!"

    "Who says it's going to waste?" Australia retorted. "I mean, let's be honest, here; we couldn't really have expected everyone to go along with this whole peace thing. There's always going to be a few nutters who want to shoot at the AGs. Big deal. We used to do that all the time."

    "I would say that the situation might be a little different when those nutters, as you say, are attempting to shoot at the Antagonists using the God Cannon," South Africa said sharply. "It would be the greatest diplomatic disaster ever since Bangladesh."

    "But why?" Australia seemed genuinely confused now. "I mean… what's going to happen if the G-Gun blows up another Major Breach? They're just AGs, you know? It's not like we're killing any people or anything, they can just build another one there if they really want to."

    "Australia," China stated with all the calm manner of an angry Valkyrie Instructor. "I realize that your country has a long and proud tradition of torpedoing aliens, but I would appreciate it if you didn't try to torpedo our diplomatic relations with them as well."

    "Yeah, Australia!" Brazil cheerfully joined in. "You're only supposed to do that for illegal aliens!"

    "What, and AGs don't count as illegal?" Australia started waving his hat again. "They never applied for asylum here on Earth!"

    Brazil started to respond, then stopped, looking far more thoughtful about this than she really should have been. "Well, now that you mention it–"

    "You're overlooking something very important," India interrupted the tangent. "What if the God Gun isn't targeting a Major Breach? What if it's targeting an Arcology? Would you still be willing to let it fire then?"

    Australia stopped what he'd been about to say, blinking; and then slowly placed the hat back on his head, continuing to say nothing.

    "That's enough, everyone," the President cut in firmly. "In light of these events, it is the clear duty of this Council to authorize an immediate intervention by the Armed Forces, with the objectives of entering Ginnungagap Base, re-establishing communications, and seeking an explanation from Director Cambridge for these events. All in favour?"

    The representatives from China, India, and South Africa immediately raised their hands. After a moment, so did Australia and Brazil.

    Contrary to popular belief amongst the UN's civilian population, the Security Council did not actually have to pass a resolution every single time it wanted to do something. A Security Council resolution was, in fact, mostly a bureaucratic formality that was used to bludgeon the leadership of the Central Government and the Armed Forces into cooperating with each other on various issues, such as the prohibition on child soldiers during the Great Battle, and the assimilation of the Pakistan Armed Forces following the Islamabad Arcology Incursion. This time was not one of those times.

    "Great, that's settled, then," the President said, before turning to the Secretary-General. "How soon can the forces here at Armstrong deploy?"

    The Secretary-General glanced away from the holographic video conference she was in the middle of holding with a number of uniformed figures. "I've already spoken with Arrakesh and von Claussen," she informed everyone present. "They're currently scrambling all of the forces assigned to Armstrong Base, as well as everything we've got in lunar orbit. But since this is a time-sensitive mission, the forces here at Armstrong will deploy immediately once they've assembled and loaded up."

    "All forces?" Australia enquired. "Do we really have to send that many out? What if–"

    "Yes," the Secretary-General affirmed, cutting off Australia's objections with her determined expression. "Because if the G-Gun really is being fired, then we have to do everything we can to stop it, and nothing less. Or else the ensuing war will destroy us all."
    ​
    ----------​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex
    1051 hours AEDT
    45 minutes to firing

    The journey to reach Sandra's office had taken Shuri a lot longer than she'd expected. Under normal circumstances, she would have simply expressed Konark and teleported there directly from wherever she happened to be in the base, allowing a total travel time of five seconds or less.

    Now, however, the entirety of the Ginnungagap Base Complex had been placed under a state of DEFCON 2, just as Sandra had said she would do only a little more than two hours ago. This meant that the Impeller field which shielded the base against all external infiltration attempts – and, more pertinently to G-Com's purpose, against any fluctuations in space-time which could potentially upset the G-Gun's calibrations – was now active and operating at full capacity. The proportionately greater Impeller field strength available to an Arcology-sized structure, coupled with the presence of a Higgs Generator hidden deep within the base's winding mazes of maintenance corridors, meant that any spatial warping effects Shuri might ordinarily have been able to pull off were now completely impossible.

    It was also, as Shuri had recently discovered, a convenient defense against the possibility of any unauthorized transmissions into and out of G-Com. After all, the difference between laser beam strikes and point-to-point laser communications was merely a question of wattage. As such, it was also impossible to contact outside UN forces and tell them what was happening inside.

    So now Shuri had resolved to make the journey through the base's labyrinthine interior by foot, march directly into Sandra's office, and demand an explanation for her recent actions. This, too, had been a much more complicated endeavour than it had been under DEFCON 3, as the armour plates which divided the base into more defensible partitions had begun to seal, impeding any attempts by attacking forces to navigate their way towards their objectives. Many times, Shuri had been forced to stop and consult the schematics stored in Konark's memory, which she was only now finding had been heavily redacted or replaced with dummy information, in order to locate the maintenance shafts which enabled defending forces to bypass the armour plates when necessary.

    Along her way, she had come across many platoons of the 57th​ Lunar Infantry Brigade, who were now patrolling the varied atriums and halls of G-Com with the assistance of their ever-loyal Warrant and Spiegel UGVs. Several of the soldiers among them, mostly the lieutenants and sergeants commanding the platoons, had caught her attention, and it was only when she finally succumbed to curiosity and used Konark's full sensor suite to scan one that the reason became apparent. The Parallax powered armour being worn by these soldiers appeared to be identical to the standard models at first glance, but Shuri's scan had detected divergences from the blueprints in almost every single aspect. Armour density, muscle assistance output, sensor fidelity, fire control sensitivity, on-board computer and operating system performance, TACNET link latency… all of them several orders of magnitude above spec.

    Shuri had once read several classified reports on this subject, describing a UNARD project to improve the capabilities of human infantry beyond the limits of human engineering. It had involved the relatively simple process of getting Valkyries away from the front lines to synch with spare Valkyrie Cores, integrating prototype powered armour suits into them, and then expressing them permanently, before de-synching the Core and handing the result over to a prospective UN Army infantryman.

    The project had experienced mixed results, with the improvements to the powered armour being marginal at best, hardly the game-changer the UN Army had been hoping for. UNARD had theorized that the reason for this was that the Valkyries participating in the project had felt no real urgency to upgrade the suits, when it was well-known that personal necessity was the mother of most improvements made by a Valkyrie Core. Then there was also the rather inconvenient discovery that the infantrymen needed to carry the Cores within one hundred metres at all times in order for many of the improvements to function, which precluded any Valkyries from using them and basically defeated the whole purpose of the project in the first place.

    Predictably, the project was cancelled when a UN logistics audit had deemed it an inefficient use of resources, and that had been that.

    Now, Shuri was certain that this was what the 57th​ Infantry had done, except that this time it had actually worked. It seemed that UNARD had been right after all: the strange camaraderie between the Valkyries and the infantry at G-Com, born out of an overriding eagerness to fight the Antagonists, was responsible for the difference.

    She had always assumed that the suits of armour occasionally worn by the members of Flight 2 had merely been part of their regular Frames.

    Finally, Shuri found herself in the hallway outside of Sandra's office, deep within the heart of Ginnungagap Base. Just previously she had passed through what could only have been a kill zone in a wide open atrium, which had been manned by a flight of Elite Valkyries, two whole platoons of infantry (all of them wearing improved powered armour) and drones, and endless batteries of turrets equipped with every form of weapon system ever fielded by the UN. She probably could have defeated them easily with the aid of Konark, but now she wasn't quite so sure. In any case, they had let her pass with only a series of cheery waves to speed her on.

    Before she could raise her hand to knock, the Impeller field shrouding the doorway melted away, and the door clicked slightly open.

    Shuri immediately attempted to scan the space beyond the door, but it seemed that something was jamming her sensor returns, for the geometries she saw should have been impossible in real space. With an irritated huff, she pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.

    The office looked as it always did whenever Shuri dared to visit, decorated with the standard UN colours of blue, silver, and gold, along with far too many water features for a space like this. Unlike the rest of the base, the surfaces consisted of marble and tile, gleaming in the brilliant white overhead lighting. There were several sofas positioned around the room, whose cushions looked unbearably comfortable right now. And then there was Sandra's desk up against the far wall, meticulously clean, over which she leaned with her usual pose, hands clasped beneath her chin.

    "Hello again, Shuri," Sandra greeted, her smile bordering on the devilish. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

    "Sandra," Shuri began hotly, for once not in the mood to indulge the Director's eccentricities. "What are you doing?"

    "Why, Shuri," Sandra replied, looking positively hurt, "whatever could I have done to prompt such a reaction?"

    "You know what I mean," Shuri hissed, trying very hard not to shout at her nominal superior.

    "Oh!" Sandra faux-exclaimed. "Could you be referring to the address I delivered not twenty minutes ago? Because, if you must know, I meant every single word of it. I really do intend to fire the Ginnungagap Cannon to cripple the Antagonists and secure humanity's victory."

    "B-But why?" Shuri struggled to find the right words for the occasion. "We've already fought this war for fifteen years. It was a disaster, Sandra. We could barely stay on top of the Type Zeros, let alone the conventional forces they kept throwing at us." Painful memories of Hou-Yi and Medusa flashed through her mind, but she forced herself to ignore them and continue. "Even if we'd managed to turn it in our favour, how many lives would it have taken to see it through to the bitter end? How many Valkyries, how many soldiers, how many civilians, how many generations? We already paid too high a price for our victories, and we would have kept paying it, but now we don't need to anymore. We can end this war without having to fight. We'll always remember the scars of the past, but we can heal them, and look forward to a better tomorrow."

    Even as she spoke, Shuri was surprised at the depth and length of the language she used. All of that PR training under the PAF must have been paying off.

    The words also seemed to be having an effect on Sandra; but it wasn't one Shuri would have hoped for. Her mouth was still smiling, but darkness had come over her eyes, and the curls of golden hair appeared to tighten ever so slightly.

    "I must admit, your optimism touches something in me," Sandra said slowly, as if it saddened her to do so. "In another world, if certain events had occurred differently, I might even have believed in it myself. But I reject your ideals."

    Shuri started to open her mouth, but Sandra held up a finger, silencing her.

    "Why did the Antagonists seek to exterminate humanity?" Sandra asked. "As you yourself said, they did nothing else during the fifteen years they spent on Earth. Even longer, perhaps, if you consider them to be responsible for Impact. For all of our vaunted peace negotiations, we still have no real knowledge of the Antagonists' true motivations: they either cannot or will not tell us. But I say this: one does not simply wipe out six-sevenths of a species and then stop because they feel bad. If the Antagonists really do wish to stop after all this time, it is merely out of practical concerns; that is, because the war became too inconvenient for them following the deployment of the Ginnungagap Cannon. If that inconvenience was to be removed – say, if the UN Security Council ordered that the Cannon be decommissioned as part of a peace treaty – what would prevent them from resuming the war as soon as it became convenient to do so?"

    "And isn't that exactly what you're doing right now?" Shuri argued back, seizing upon the pause in Sandra's speech. "Attacking the Antagonists now because it's convenient? You said it yourself before: the whole point of all this is to force the UN to attack while it has the advantage. Isn't that right?"

    "That is indeed what I said." If anything, Sandra seemed to be somewhat amused now, a glint having appeared in her eyes. "Consider that any cessation in hostilities ultimately benefits the Antagonists. Their production methods emphasize quality, relative to the UN's quantity, but their qualitative advantage is far greater – it takes many years to train a single Ace, as you are surely aware, whereas a Major Breach is capable of constructing a Class C Type Zero worth a whole flight of Aces every year without fail. The more time the Antagonists have to build up their forces, the greater their advantage will be when the war inevitably resumes. What is to stop them from honouring the ceasefire for a single year, and then unleashing their additional Zeros on a complacent humanity? How would we know, when we have no means of seeing beneath the Breaches, of knowing what the Antagonists truly intend?"

    Shuri balled her hands into fists. "And what if we did know? What if we knew for certain that they really wanted peace? Would you still say we'd have to fear the Antagonists then?"

    "But of course," Sandra replied instantly. "Their ability to manipulate space and time means that their true nature will always be uncertain, no matter what we think we know about them. The Minor Breaches were constructed by the Major Breaches, and the Major Breaches were spawned from the fragments of Impact, but where did the Impactor originate? There will always be things we don't know about the Antagonists, and because of that, any real peaceful coexistence is an impossible goal. At best, the result will be another Cold War, exactly the kind of perpetual arms race that the Valkyrie Cores were once predicted to create. It's a rather tragic irony, really, if you think about it. And if that is what's going to happen, then the only solution is to stop it by acting right here and now."

    "You're insane," Shuri stated numbly, hardly able to believe it was true. What had happened to the kind, warm, cheerfully teasing girl she'd rescued in Mombasa and Bangladesh? It had been a massive surprise to her when she'd first arrived here, and confirmed who the Director who'd summoned for her really was, but that surprise had been washed away by the joy of seeing an old friend again. Now, though, she had no idea how to feel.

    But there was one thing that was still clear to her now, and she expressed Konark without hesitation. "Under the present circumstances, it is my solemn duty, as the executive officer of the Ginnungagap Base Complex and the Special Strategic Defense Liaison, to declare that Director Aleksandra Cambridge is unfit for duty; and that, as Acting Director, my first duties will be to reverse the illegal orders issued by the previous Director, before standing the base down and handing it over to a United Nations relief force for further action."

    The angular plates of her Valkyrie Frame shone a dazzling gold as she spoke, giving her the confidence to stand before Sandra as she did now.

    Sandra, however, didn't look very phased by Shuri's declaration. In fact, leaning further over her desk, her smile had given way to a smirk she had never publicly displayed before.

    "You forget something, Shuri," Sandra said. "I never actually issued any orders to any of the personnel under my command."

    That took Shuri off guard, though she quickly recovered. "What do you mean? You clearly issued orders to the technicians operating the G-Gun to begin the firing cycle. And you made that address to the whole base, ordering them to fight!"

    "That's not true, Shuri," Sandra shook her head. "I merely told them to do what they thought was right. I never tricked or coerced any of them. All of them – Valkyries, infantry, spacemen – decided to fight the Antagonists of their own accord. They wished for it, and so I granted it. Because I love them, and they love me."

    Shuri started to say something, to deny what Sandra was saying; but all she could think about was her encounter with Flight 2 this morning, and all the infantrymen she had passed on her way down here. She knew, then, that Sandra was telling the truth; that they'd all gone to war, not because they were ordered to, but because they wanted to.

    A chime sounded from one of the monitors on Sandra's desk, and the Director glanced away from Shuri to attend to it. After a few seconds, she looked back.

    "It would appear that the Antagonists have realized my intentions," she announced, the smirk growing wider. She held out a datapad to Shuri. "Would you like to observe?"
    ​
    ----------​

    Lunar Surface, Ginnungagap Base Complex Exterior
    1102 hours AEDT
    34 minutes to firing

    Hovering fifty kilometres above the surface of the Moon, with only her expressed 300 Frame and its Impeller field to insulate her from the hard vacuum of space, Nora Banks found that the view from up here was quite possibly the most interesting it had ever been in the history of humanity.

    Above her was, naturally, Earth itself, the birthplace of humanity remaining stubbornly intact in spite of Impact and World War III. It was actually of some surprise to Nora that the image of Earth was relatively clean of orbital debris, though the reason for it was obvious after a few seconds' thought: without the need to constantly evade or fend off AG patrols in polar orbit, the Space Force's construction drones had finally succeeded in clearing out most of the debris. It was hardly a comfort to Nora, though; all it did was make it even easier to see the distorted funnel clouds of Breaches marring the Earth's surface.

    Below her was the grand expanse of the Ginnungagap Base Complex, constructed so that its external components filled the entirety of the Bullialdus crater, 61 kilometres wide and 3.5 deep. Usually, whenever she was out here to carry out exercises and patrols, the surface of the complex would've been visible, various running lights competing for visual attention with the silver surface gleaming under the sunlight, brighter and harsher without an atmosphere to mollify it. Now, though, its Impeller field was actively absorbing every photon that landed on it, turning the armour as black as the darkness of space.

    The impression it gave Nora was that of an enormous mouth on the lunar surface, wide open to devour the Earth and the human race along with it. Apparently she was just a tad morbid that way.

    The only part of G-Com that was above the lip of the crater was the extensive collection of static defensive emplacements positioned all around the 192 kilometre circumference, which had been lovingly dubbed the Maginot Ring by the Space Force engineers who'd installed it. While the name had been intended to imply that the only purpose of static defenses was to be teleported past by marauding Antagonists, it was in fact the foundation of Operation Prodigal: its seemingly endless arrays of laser and particle projector turrets were powerful enough to strike targets up to 10,000 and 1,000 kilometres away respectively, giving them the ability to snipe even Type Zeros as they ran the gauntlet between Earth and Luna. The Impeller field which shielded the guns and maintained a general interdiction would force the AGs to close the distance, at which point they would be greeted by MLSI from an equally numerous series of missile batteries, many of which had been loaded with High Yield Weaponry.

    Neither had the UN strategic planning staff spared much concern for the expense when it had come to the composition of the defending forces. While the Space Force had been responsible for establishing ablative defensive blockades along the AGs' predicted trajectory of attack, it was accepted as inevitable that the enemy would get close enough to threaten G-Com; and by extension the G-Gun, which was vaguely hoped to survive intact enough to blow up another Major Breach in a month's time. As such, an entire ninety-six members of the Three Hundred had been stationed at G-Com under the 114th​ Space Wing, concentrating enough firepower to stand a very good chance at destroying up to two Class As or eight Class Bs. Backing them up was the 7th​ Space Fleet, consisting of the Valkyrie Battleship Cassandra and the space battleships Unlimited and Alternative, along with a full squadron of Elite Valkyries to screen them. There were no space carriers present, though – all of the aerospace fighters were stored inside underground hangars, preventing the Type Zeros from sniping them before they could launch.

    And if, for some reason, all of that hadn't been enough, Ginnungagap Base could always call in reinforcements from Armstrong. If the AGs hadn't wanted that to happen, they would have been forced to divide their forces amongst the two Moon bases, either way reducing the strain that G-Com's defenders would have faced.

    Operation Prodigal had been a tremendous undertaking, one designed to permanently tilt the strategic balance of the war in favour of humanity. The expense had been ruinous, but for the opportunity it had offered to take North America and deplete the Antagonists' reserves of Type Zeros, it had been most definitely worth it.

    And then, of course, the Antagonists never actually ended up attacking G-Com, rendering all of it pointless.

    Until now.

    "Antivirus, this is Flush," Veronica Halifax reported calmly, as though it was all just an exercise to her. "We have scopes on UN forces leaving Armstrong, vectoring straight to us at point-five KPS squared. Nine squadrons of Valks and two fleets, over."

    "Antivirus, roger," came the reply from Group Captain Bridget "Antivirus" Varnes, the CO of Special Strategic Defense Squadron: Pax Omnis. "Passing it up, wait out."

    Technically speaking, it wasn't strictly necessary to report the fact, given that TACNET was still active and everyone in the wing could just look at the sensor readings for themselves. But military procedures died hard, and despite the ever-increasing role of networking and AIs to automate information dissemination and decision-making on the modern battlefield, people still liked to communicate from one soldier to another. For one thing, computers couldn't always be trusted to not glitch just that one time at just that one moment. For another thing, it also meant that you couldn't claim to the tribunal that you didn't see the notifications in your HUD; not that members of the Three Hundred generally had to worry about tribunals, unless they did something incredibly bad.

    And then there was the indisputable fact that reporting things in military-speak just sounded really cool, which was obviously the far greater concern for the members of Flight 2 over all else.

    "Wow, they really are coming at us at point-five KPS squared," Nora marvelled, looking over the amalgamated data from G-Com's early-warning sensor posts and Flight 2's sensor suites. "Even the conventional ships. They must be burning a lot of Higgs to cancel all that inertia, even with Valkyries to take the weight."

    "How'd they manage to scramble so many forces at us that quick?" Amalia complained over the flight channel, which she always did in spite of her status as assistant flight leader; or perhaps because of it. "They must've emptied out all of Armstrong just to get at us. Don't they realize they're just leaving themselves open to the AGs?"

    Nora thought about it for a second. "It kind of makes sense, actually. The UN's all friendly with the AGs now, so it's not like they have to worry about a sneak attack while they're away or anything."

    "So they really did sell us out to the AGs, then," Jemima observed, disgust plain in her voice. "Remember when we couldn't fucking sneeze without the Big Bad Sax coming over to blow our noses off? Now they're sending two whole wings at us and he isn't doing shit."

    "Probably jerking off a tentacle with another tentacle, I reckon," Amalia snorted. "Jerking off to the massive clusterfuck that's about to happen."

    "But why?" Renee asked plaintively. "I still don't understand. Why did they do it? We were winning!"

    "I know why they did it," Jacqueline hissed, drawing everyone's glances when she spoke. "They did it because the war had gone on too long. They did it because they were tired of fighting. They did it because they gave up."

    "They gave up, did they?" Amalia said darkly. "Well, I sure as hell didn't give up. I didn't decide to roll over and let the AGs do whatever they wanted. None of us did."

    "That's right!" Renee cried. "I'll never give up, even if I have to die for it! What right does the UN have to decide that for me?"

    The rest of the flight all made declarations along similar lines.

    "You know, Sandra hasn't given up either," Nora commented after a moment of silence. "I think she was planning for this all along. From the moment they announced the ceasefire, she was already preparing for what's happening right now. Even though the UN ordered her to stand down, she still found a way for us to keep fighting. And it's not just Valkyries who didn't give up: all those soldiers on base, the ones who maintained the G-Gun and were ready to die to defend it, they didn't give up, either."

    "And now, all of us who didn't give up will fight together," Veronica finished, a faint smile carrying through the channel.

    "Hell yeah!" Jemima cheered.

    "All squadrons, this is Havoc," Delores Carmine suddenly spoke. "We're shifting to Defense Plan Juliet. Immediate teleport to two-six-seven klicks altitude at grid Foxtrot-Two, over."

    "Roger," Veronica replied, even as Nora already began to charge up her teleport, her Impeller synchronizing with that of her flight-mates. Normally, it would have taken Higgs particles to facilitate a teleport over that distance, especially to do so at a moment's notice. It was only the 300 Frames' absurdly powerful Impeller fields which allowed them to circumvent this requirement. That, and it was slightly easier to teleport in space than on Earth; no atmosphere that needed shoving out of the way.

    One second later, Nora reappeared at the specified height, floating in space over the north-eastern edge of Bullialdus crater. She instinctively drifted into the standard wedge formation with the rest of Flight 2, placing her and Jemima at the front, Amalia and Jacqueline in the centre, and Veronica and Renee at the rear.

    A quick scan showed the other three Special Strategic Defense Squadrons – Ultima Ratio, Checkmate, and Evangelion – had also teleported in, taking up positions along the outer edge of the crater. The 7th​ Space Fleet was also rising towards its designated supporting position above the centre of G-Com, though the space battleships' inability to teleport obviously made them a lot slower.

    One by one, all of the flights reported a successful teleport.

    "All squadrons, assemble into line formation and prepare to engage at one thousand klicks," Carmine ordered.

    Nora completed the switch with barely a thought, configuring her laser cannons to fire in the X-ray spectrum and her particle projectors to fire neutralized beams. At this range, her other weapons were unlikely to land any hits – better to save the ammunition for closer combat.

    Just as her Frame confirmed the switch, the first glimmers of white began to appear over the horizon, swiftly followed by a number of even larger shapes. IFF tags flashed up over each cluster of silhouettes as they came into visual range: the 111th​ Space Wing, consisting of the Emergency Fast Response Squadrons Second Opinion, Snow Crash, Library, and Default Settings; the 112nd​ Space Wing, with two squadrons of Elites and two squadrons of Enlisted; the 3rd​ Space Fleet, built around the Valkyrie Battleship Selene and the space battleships Daedalus and Icarus; and the 6th​ Space Fleet, centred on the Valkyrie Battleship Astrape and the space battleships Flatlander and Laputan. The latter two formations were each escorted by two flights of Elite Valkyries and five space carriers, for a total of eight hundred aerospace fighters.

    From a purely numerical perspective, the defenders of Ginnungagap were outnumbered two-to-one. Complicating factors included the ability for the attackers to match each defending Ace with one of their own, and then concentrate support fire from the Elites and Enlisted; the tendency for a Valkyrie formation's total Impeller field strength to increase multiplicatively, rather than additively, due to Valkyries being able to cover each other as they regenerated; and, of course, the absurd level of static defenses backing up the defending side.

    For a moment, Nora hesitated. Were the opponents she was about to face really just following orders from their UN commanders, the same ones who'd surrendered the future of humanity to the Antagonists, never stopping to consider for themselves why they were doing what they did? Or were they like her, having decided that this was the better way, merely doing what they thought was right?

    She could have just asked them. The communications gear carried by her 300 Frame was easily powerful enough to punch through the broad spectrum EM jamming being emitted by the Ginnungagap Base Complex, if she'd wanted to.

    But she'd already made her decision. The defenders of G-Com were fighting to destroy the Antagonists. The attackers were fighting to not destroy them. There could be no compromise between them.

    "All squadrons, prepare to focus fire on marked bandits," Carmine instructed. "We're taking out their support before they close."

    Target indicators appeared over the IFF tags, reducing names and unit designations to ranges and estimated power ratings. At the behest of TACNET, Nora locked on to one of the space carriers, joining the rest of her squadron. She was vaguely aware of the other three squadrons locking on to their own carriers.

    It had been thirty-eight seconds since the UN forces had departed from Armstrong Base.

    "Fire!"

    Hundreds of directed energy beams lanced out from the 300 Frames of the 114th​ Space Wing, converging on their designated space carriers.

    There was a brief spatial distortion, followed by a blinding flash of light, as the beams struck synchronized Impeller fields, with the result that most of their energy was deflected by the combined defensive efforts of over two hundred Valkyries. It seemed that the attackers had anticipated this strategy.

    The attackers' return fire was immediate and punishing, forcing the defenders to drop altitude until they were below the horizon, where directed energy weapons couldn't touch them.

    Without altering their momentum, each defender teleported to a point just above the horizon in the fraction of a second between incoming shots, a maneuver which afforded them exactly enough time to fire another salvo before they fell under the horizon again. Even if an attacker managed to land a direct particle beam strike on one of the defenders, a difficult proposition even for members of the Three Hundred, the 300 Frame's Impeller would rapidly regenerate the damage. At this distance, now eight hundred kilometres and closing, most directed energy weapons just didn't do enough damage to have any real effect.

    And so, the opening seconds of the Battle of Ginnungagap devolved into what was essentially an extraordinarily energetic game of whack-a-mole between the two sides.

    When the attackers had closed in to six hundred and forty kilometres, fifty-one seconds after leaving Armstrong, several somewhat more interesting things happened. Flipping around so that they could decelerate, the attacking forces could no longer rely on their space battleships to provide direct fire with their primary weapons, emboldening their opponents and exposing them to longer, more sustained bursts of fire.

    The defenders, who at this time had descended to one hundred kilometres above the surface, started to switch their weapons over to firing extreme ultraviolet lasers and heavy ion beams. Missiles began to unload in swarms from their Frames' integrated racks, their thruster plumes brighter than the Sun as they screamed forward at over two hundred gees. This made them easy targets for the attackers, which was the whole point: every laser being used to shoot down a missile was a laser not being used to suppress the defenders. Even more missiles were launched out of the batteries of the Maginot Ring, their numbers easily approaching millions, aimed to intercept the attackers at closer range.

    Abruptly, the space carrier Pax Omnis had been targeting exploded under Nora's reticule, briefly eclipsing all other sources of light on the battlefield as its reactor was breached. About a dozen aerospace fighters managed to launch in time, only to be quickly swatted out of space by lasers.

    A jubilant cheer went up over TACNET as the wreckage began to fall out of formation. Nora, for her part, did her best to avoid thinking about the Space Force crew aboard, minimal as it may have been.

    Pax Omnis immediately shifted their fire to another carrier; but the attackers, who now only had to stretch their Impeller fields to cover thirteen conventional vessels instead of fourteen, successfully prevented further casualties as they closed to under three hundred kilometres, seventy-one seconds following departure.

    That was when the missiles launched from G-Com reached them. Despite their valiant efforts at missile defense, several High Yield Warheads managed to get into zero range, and the lunar skies lit up in a blaze of nuclear white, briefly causing both sides to pause in their efforts to shoot the other.

    When the light faded a couple of seconds later, another two carriers had been completely wiped out, while the battleship Icarus appeared to be venting heavily and no longer combat-effective. It was becoming harder and harder for Nora to discriminate through all the EM interference on the battlefield, but she thought there might have been fewer Valkyries present than there were before.

    Warnings began to flash throughout TACNET, alerting the defenders to an incoming missile barrage from Armstrong. As it passed over the beleaguered attack forces, about half a million warheads split off from the main barrage, resulting in the defending Valkyries being targeted by over five thousand warheads each. The remaining million were aimed at the Maginot Ring and the Impeller field sheltering G-Com, now a mere ten kilometres below.

    The sad part about it all was that this wasn't anywhere near approaching overkill.

    The next fifteen or so seconds allowed the attackers some reprieve as the defenders received a taste of their own medicine, obliging them to turn their entire arsenals to the task of evading the missiles. Laser cannons and particle projectors fired first, followed by variable munitions launchers, and then hypervelocity cannons and more of their own stocks of missiles. Decoys and chaff ejected from their Frames, aided by Impeller ghosts, reducing the burden each Valkyrie had to face.

    Nora had clocked up a great deal of practice in shooting down infinite missile volleys fired by Type Zeros during Flight 2's simulator shenanigans, and so her marksmanship was unerring, enabling her to destroy an average of 228 missiles per second. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to keep up with the barrage she now faced, and even as she began to burn backwards to buy herself time, at this rate there would still be just under a thousand warheads directed at her face when they hit. She was pretty sure her Impeller would be able to take the hit, but she would definitely face a window of vulnerability as it regenerated afterwards. The Maginot Ring wasn't going to be much help – it was already busy shooting down all the missiles fired at it.

    It was a good thing that Pax Omnis already had a countermeasure prepared for this sort of scenario.

    "Splinter, nuke them now!" Bridget Varnes ordered.

    "Roger!" Jemima sang gleefully. "Nudet imminent!"

    Even as she continued shooting down missiles, Nora couldn't resist sparing a tiny portion of her attention to watch as Jemima reconfigured her Impeller field's shape slightly, shearing off the twenty megaton High Yield Weapon welded to her 300 Frame she'd been hauling around this whole time.

    Every single member of the 114th​ Space Wing was carrying similar "auxiliary components" on their Frames, the obvious method of circumventing the restriction on integrating gear into a 300 Core. It wasn't usually encouraged because the Core didn't recognize the attachments as part of the Frame, which affected acceleration profiles and required Valkyries to constantly extend their Impeller in order to keep everything together. Therefore, it didn't see very much use in the kinds of heated engagements that tended to take place between Earth and Lunar orbit, where every spare bit of delta-V and Impeller field strength a Valkyrie could get her hands on was vital.

    However, in a defensive battle that was guaranteed to take place within a static locale…

    The High Yield Weapon was teleported into the midst of the remaining missiles, less than ten kilometres away, and detonated.

    A nuclear detonation in space wasn't at all dangerous to a Valkyrie at that range, and so they all remained in position as the blast cleared, revealing all the incoming missiles to be wiped out.

    By this point, the UN attack forces had successfully decelerated into position, hugging the surface ten kilometres away from the rim of Bullialdus, where the turrets of the Maginot Ring couldn't shoot them. They had been battered, but hardly beaten, with the majority of the force still intact and ready to fight. Underneath the cover of synchronized Impeller fields and chaff clouds, the aerospace fighters were launching from the surviving carriers, preparing to swarm the defenders of the G-Complex. Another missile barrage had been detected launching from Armstrong, and there was no doubt that the attackers intended to move in as soon as this one arrived.

    "Alright, Valkyries," Delores Carmine broadcast. "In less than thirty seconds, we will be up against some of the best forces the UN has to offer in close combat. Our objective is to resist them until the G-Gun fires."

    Behind them, G-Com's own complement of aerospace fighters was launching, accompanied by an even more massive salvo of missiles.

    "Remember, we have the advantage in this fight! We only need to hold out for thirty minutes. We have Three Hundred Frames, we have nukes, we have the Maginot Ring, and we will fuck them up!"

    The enemy missile barrage closed in. The UN attack forces began to move.

    "All Valkyries, engage at will! For humanity!"

    "Roger! For humanity!"
    ​
    ----------​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex
    1108 hours AEDT
    28 minutes to firing

    Shuri sat on one of the sofas in Sandra's office, her gaze locked onto the reports from outside being conveyed through the datapad she held, transfixed with horror.

    The impossible was happening. UN forces were fighting other UN forces.

    Humans were fighting other humans.

    And the person responsible for this atrocity was less than ten metres away from her.

    "You," Shuri snarled, looking up to address the Director of the Ginnungagap Base Complex. "You said to the people on this base that they would have to fight our own forces. You knew this was going to happen."

    "Of course I did," Sandra replied affably. She was no longer leaning ominously over her desk and was instead lounging about in her excessively large office chair, feet up on the desk as she watched her hair twisting and untwisting of its own accord. "It wouldn't do to have the Antagonists attack a United Nations facility while they're attempting to negotiate peace, now would it?"

    "This isn't just about defeating the Antagonists anymore, Sandra," Shuri continued harshly. "You deliberately attacked UN forces. That makes you a traitor to the United Nations, and to humanity. How can you claim to act in humanity's best interests when you're so willing to fight, and kill, other humans?"

    Sandra's face darkened ever so slightly. "I must strenuously object to that allegation, Shuri. I am hardly the first human to ever attack another human. Do you believe that the United Nations would have hesitated to use force against me if I had simply refused to comply with its demands?"

    "That's not the same thing," Shuri countered instantly. "Using force is legitimate when it's to maintain peace."

    "Is that so?" Sandra had begun directly interacting with her hair now, teasing and poking at the curls with her fingertips, receiving bashful wriggles in return. "I understand that there was once a sovereign nation known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which shared a border with another nation called the Republic of India. Both of these nations have held nothing but animosity for one another since the Partition of India in 1947, more than a century ago. Both nations are virtually identical in terms of language, culture, geography, and economy. So tell me, Shuri: why did they fight?"

    Shuri scowled at the other Valkyrie bringing up her nation of origin, even as uncomfortable reminders of Pakistani propaganda began to run through her head. It was true that Pakistan and India had never been the best of friends, especially after the latter became part of the UN, but most of that had ended up being put aside when the Antagonists appeared. Necessity, it seemed, had overcome a century of mutual distrust and hostility.

    "Because they were proud," she answered. "They couldn't accept that the other might be right."

    Sandra gave a tiny shrug. "I suppose that is one explanation for it. But, ultimately, it doesn't matter. The point is that humanity is not one single monogamous group, no matter what the United Nations tries to claim, and it is unreasonable to expect that it could ever be so. It is only because of the Antagonist threat that disparate nations have ceased to struggle against one another. After all, the Kashmir conflict was never actually resolved; it was merely paused when the Antagonists destroyed Kashmir. Once the Antagonists have been defeated, what is there to stop either country from using their stockpiles of High Yield Weaponry against one another? I can hardly be labelled a traitor to humanity when all I am doing is merely a part of human nature."

    "That's nothing but cowardice," Shuri spat. "You're passing off responsibility for your own actions by claiming it's human nature. If all humans thought like you, we would never have survived Impact and the Antagonists, or even built a civilization that could stand up to them. Human nature isn't an excuse, not when it's possible to overcome it, if you just try."

    Sandra laughed. It was a posh, warm, dainty laugh, but it was a laugh nonetheless. The sound made Shuri want to stand up, walk over, and strangle her in her office chair; but, for some reason she couldn't understand, she didn't dare.

    "You're right, Shuri," Sandra admitted after she'd finished laughing. "I shouldn't attempt to diminish my responsibility for my own actions. However, we should also not ignore the responsibility of my beloved subordinates for their own actions."

    "You mean the actions they carried out because you encouraged them to." Shuri wasn't going to let Sandra weasel out of that one.

    "As I said before, I only gave them the chance to achieve what they came here to do." Sandra grinned broadly, an expression which just didn't seem right on her delicate and aristocratic features. Then, without warning, she rose out of her chair, brushed her hair back into a single mass, and started walking around her desk.

    Shuri knew that this couldn't possibly herald anything good, knew that she should stand and put a stop to it while she still could; and yet, she just stared blankly, as Sandra gingerly sat down on the opposite end of the sofa to her.

    "And that brings me to a question I've been meaning to ask for some time now," Sandra continued. "Why did you come here, Shuri?"

    Shuri blinked. What kind of a question was that supposed to be? "Because you invited me here," she ground out cautiously.

    "Oh, naturally." Sandra shifted a tiny bit closer to Shuri. "But that was, as you say, purely an invitation. Even if it was personally addressed from me, there was no reason you needed to accept it if you didn't want to. So why did you? Did you not believe in what you were doing to combat the Antagonists, that it was your duty to protect humanity by any means necessary? Was it simply an expression of national pride? Or was there something else you were after?"

    Shuri tried her best to think back to the occasion, finding Sandra's presence so close to her incredibly distracting. Certainly, those years had been some of the darkest in her life, not that she would've ever been able to admit it to another soul, not with her status. After the event in 2069 that directly led to the disintegration of her country – the Islamabad Arcology Incursion, which had since been labelled "the greatest Antagonist sneak attack ever pulled off under the UN's noses" by analysts and commentators – she had been bounced from unit to unit in her role as the Golden Ace, killing Antagonists wherever the UN took her. Never quite one of her fellow Valkyries, always pitied or suspected for her past as a child soldier, without a place to call home. Even so, she had resigned herself to bear it, until one day a message arrived from a girl she had never thought she'd see again.

    She looked up with a start to see that Sandra had gotten right up next to her, the fabric of her UN Armed Forces dress uniform brushing up against Konark's armour plates. "Sandra! What are you doing?!"

    "I must confess," Sandra said, still grinning, "that when I invited you to join me here, it wasn't because of your astonishing level of skill on the battlefield. Nor was it due to political horse-trading at the highest levels of the UN. You see… I was after something else, too."

    It was all Shuri could do not to hyperventilate as the Director's arm snaked around her shoulders. She couldn't understand. Why was she behaving this way? She was wearing her Valkyrie Frame, her Impeller field was up, there was absolutely nothing Sandra could do to her–
    ​
    ----------​

    Armstrong Base
    1120 hours AEDT
    16 minutes to firing

    The mood within the United Nations Security Council Chamber had turned to something resembling a grim-faced mortification, with each and every one of the human representatives desperately trying to contain a rising sense of despondency, as they continued to be informed of the various reports and telemetry flooding in from the battle above the Ginnungagap Base Complex.

    The combined Air Force and Space Force intervention force easily outnumbered the rebel G-Complex defenders two-to-one. Endless missile barrages, fired out of Armstrong's batteries almost as fast as they could be fabricated and loaded, were slowly but surely subjugating the Maginot Ring's CIWS capabilities. The rebels had abandoned all semblance of unit cohesion, which should have left them easy targets for the intervention force's capital ships.

    And yet, the UN was getting completely and utterly trashed out there.

    The Secretary-General had all but bowed out of the meeting, too occupied with doing what she could to call in assets from wherever they were stationed between Earth and Lunar orbit. In theory, with the current ceasefire between the UN and the Antagonists, it should have been no problem at all to move fleets and squadrons out of their former positions to support the flailing intervention forces. In practice, many of the relevant commanders were proving to be strangely recalcitrant to leave their AOs, citing operational security concerns.

    In any case, though, it was mostly moot: anything that wasn't a Valkyrie simply wouldn't be capable of accelerating (and decelerating) fast enough to arrive in time, and any Valkyries not equipped with 300 Frames would end up burning their entire reserves of hydrogen and Higgs to do so, which would severely hamper their combat effectiveness by the time they arrived. And wouldn't you know it, almost every other member of the Three Hundred not currently embroiled in the clusterfuck at Ginnungagap Base was either on high Earth orbit patrol on the other side of Earth, serving as an Instructor in one of the Valkyrie Academies, or on medical leave.

    All of this, however, was the province of STRATNET and the UN Armed Forces, which left the representatives with a great deal of time in which to brood.

    "So…" Australia said slowly, picking up his hat and peering at it with a forlorn look, "if we don't manage to keep the G-Gun from going off–"

    "Don't even start that line of thinking again," China admonished, though it lacked the energy it usually did.

    "I wasn't going to!" Australia protested. "I'm just saying, if it does, what's going to happen afterwards? I mean, are we going to have to call off the whole peace thing?"

    "I would like to know the answer, as well," South Africa agreed. "Preferably before all of the forces fighting above the God Cannon are destroyed."

    "Same here," Brazil added. "I guess it depends on which Breach gets blown up. The AGs in North America don't matter to the ones in Europe and Africa, right?"

    "That's still a two out of three chance of restarting the war for good," India commented morosely. "I hate to say it, but in this case it might be better if the God Gun was targeting an Arcology instead. It would still be a disaster, but at least we'd only lose fifty million instead of five hundred million."

    The other representatives all gave grudging mumbles of assent.

    "This may not be the most optimal occasion to mention it," Caitlin suddenly spoke, "but this unit has recently become aware of an additional reason for why it would be inadvisable to allow the Wave Force Manipulation event to occur."

    Everyone in the room looked at Caitlin in surprise. They had never heard it use this particular tone of voice before. It was almost as though the AG representative was… sheepish?

    "You might as well tell us, Caitlin," the President said wearily, before Australia and Brazil could start demanding anything.

    "Following the first deployment of Wave Force Manipulation against us, we have sought to develop countermeasures against it," Caitlin explained in a strangely embarrassed tone. "The intention was to discourage the United Nations from ever attempting to deploy it against our holdings again."

    "See, I told you they were trying to–" Australia began.

    "Shush!" Brazil cut him off. "I want to hear this!"

    "The countermeasure we devised involved complex alterations to the spatial notations of our major dimensional gateways," Caitlin continued, ignoring the interruption. "If a gateway is ever affected by a Wave Force Manipulation event, it will generate a counter-event to nullify the effects. We deemed this sufficient to discourage further use of Wave Force Manipulation. However…" The AG representative trailed off into static.

    "However what?" the Secretary-General asked, having interrupted her holo-conferences to listen.

    The static cleared. "The anomalous spatial manipulation events generated by the interaction between the original event and the counter-event are of sufficient scale to interact with other dimensional gateways. This will result in the countermeasure being triggered recursively, causing a resonance cascade reaction. These events will continue until all dimensional gateways have been destroyed, along with all matter within a radius of seven-zero thousand kilometres."

    A shocked silence once again permeated the room.

    "Do you mean to say that if the G-Cannon fires–" China began.

    "Affirmative."

    "Whoa, hold on a second," Brazil cut in. "Why didn't you tell us all this before? You know, before someone tried shooting the G-Gun at a Major Breach?"

    "Hey, I kept telling you –" Australia complained, but nobody was listening to him.

    Caitlin hesitated again, this time stalling with a series of beeps. "… It would have created the wrong impression," it eventually admitted.

    "The Antagonists do have a point," South Africa remarked. "If they had been seen to be attempting to re-establish a position of strength, I suspect many would have been less willing to consider the possibility of peaceful relations between us."

    There were pointed glances sent around the table.

    "Hey, don't give me that look!" Australia protested. "I'm just the representative!"

    "Yeah, same here!" Brazil replied indignantly.

    "Everyone!" the President interrupted sharply. "It is very clear that we must stop the G-Gun from firing at any cost. I won't have us sit around idly while we count down to the Earth's destruction."

    "Yeah, see, that sounds nice and all, but unless one of us has a way to get forces to the Moon in less than –" Brazil checked her datapad. "– twelve minutes, I don't see what else we can do about it. Well, I guess if we found a really big piece of orbital debris, put a rocket on it, and accelerated it to a really high velocity–"

    "We would be capable of deploying forces to intervene in this affair within the time limit," Caitlin piped up.

    "Oh no. Ohhhh no," Australia said, waving his hat around. "I know what you're going to say, and I say–"

    "We don't exactly have much of a choice!" India hissed.

    "This is a highly irregular course of action," China said primly, "and we should endeavour to pass a resolution before we consider implementing it."

    "Do you really want to try drafting an entire resolution in the next ten minutes?" South Africa chastised her.

    "Well, I have this really nice template we could use–" Brazil began.

    "You have a template for this scenario?!" China exclaimed.

    "Sure! I was going to show it to everyone after we finished arguing about the land redistributions–"

    "Look," the President said, "we can always pass the resolution after the fact. What I need right now is a decision. Do we let the Antagonists intervene to stop the G-Gun firing?"

    Everyone looked at each other with the same look of resignation, and then slowly raised their hands into the air.

    "Very well," the President acknowledged, turning to Caitlin. "You have the authorization of this Council to intervene in this situation. Just… please try and keep the collateral damage to a minimum, okay?"

    "Your concerns are unfounded," Caitlin responded. "We are perfectly capable of exercising discretion in all combat-related affairs."

    "Wow, AGs being subtle," Brazil mock-whispered. "Never heard that one before."
    ​
    ----------​

    Lunar Surface
    1127 hours AEDT
    9 minutes to firing

    It was the greatest furball Nora had ever been in.

    The space above G-Com had been suffused with dense clouds of chaff, dispensed primarily by space battleships and by the complex itself, which threw all forms of communication into disarray and inhibited the efficacy of directed energy weapons. For every Valkyrie currently on the field, there were probably up to twelve decoys in varying shapes and sizes shadowing them, which made even direct Impeller acquisition of targets next to impossible beyond zero range. Wayward flocks of missiles were lurking behind every few hundred cubic metres of cloud, their targeting software long since confused beyond all hope, now resorting to simply arrowing in on the nearest Valkyrie regardless of which side had launched them. High Yield Weapons were going off every other minute or so, blowing the chaff clouds in all directions and providing a nasty surprise to inattentive Valkyries.

    At this point, Nora had no idea exactly how many combatants remained active on either side. The last few casualties of note had been the battleships Unlimited, Flatlander, and Laputan, all of whose deaths had blazed brightly even through the chaff cloud. The only assurance she received was that the general interdiction field was still preventing any use of spatial warping techniques without a disproportionately large expenditure of Higgs, proving that the Impeller field protecting G-Com was still intact.

    Which, in the end, was the only thing that really mattered. Regardless of which side was left flying after the dust had settled, if the defenders stalled until the G-Gun fired, they would win.

    Eight minutes. She just had to stay alive for eight more minutes.

    Most of Flight 2 had dispersed in pursuit of their own targets and subsequently dropped out of contact, leaving Amalia as the only friendly Nora could count on. The two of them were taking ten seconds to recover their Impeller strength, and then they would continue to search and attack other targets.

    Neither of them spoke to the other. There was no need to.

    A proximity warning flared in Nora's HUD, and she already had her laser cannons aimed and firing as an enemy Valkyrie zoomed towards her at four kilometres per second. As she pulsed her thrusters and neatly dodged the Valkyrie's extended melee halberd, she was close enough to take in the details of its construction. It was elegant even for a Valkyrie Frame, featuring white plates with red highlights over a black underlayer. A quick scan for weapons systems showed a hypervelocity cannon mounted on its left vambrace, and…

    Even in the midst of combat, Nora blinked. That was it? Really? How was this Valkyrie even still alive?

    Amalia was already taking off in pursuit, firing after the enemy with electron beams from her particle projectors. Nora followed, though she was mindful of their current position; inertial guidance showed that they were approaching the outer edge of Bullialdus. If they allowed the enemy to lure them out of the chaff cloud, even a 300 Frame might not protect them from the massed bombardment that was sure to follow.

    The enemy abruptly cancelled her inertia and thrust off to the side, presumably in an effort to get Nora and Amalia to overshoot while she filled them with hypervelocity rounds. As the enemy started to burn in a narrow arc to face them again, Amalia launched a series of micro-missiles from the infantry-issue backpack she was wearing. They barely qualified as drops in the enormous bucket of a Valkyrie's Impeller, but the enemy didn't know that as the micro-missiles tracked along her path, blunting her acceleration as she attempted to evade.

    Nora took advantage of the distraction to fire her particle projectors, but a plume of plasma burst out of the enemy's melee halberd, obscuring her vision even more than it already was. Immediately, she dropped a decoy and thrust in the opposite direction of Amalia, weapons lined up on her former position.

    Then her sensors alerted her to a massive Higgs particle reaction taking place three hundred kilometres above her, far greater than any expenditure she'd seen during the battle. There was a very familiar ripple in space-time around her, and suddenly the cloud of chaff was flowing apart, revealing–

    "Oh, shit!" somebody swore over the freshly-restored TACNET. "That's Abraxas!"

    Now that the chaff cloud had gone, Nora could see that most of the fighting had halted, the remaining combatants of both sides seemingly frozen at this new development.

    Then the enemy Valkyrie she'd been battling started to burn towards the edge of the crater.

    "All units, break current engagements and target Abraxas!" Carmine broadcast. "Take him out before–"

    Abraxas fired.

    The first sweep of its gamma-ray lasers punched through the strained Impeller field shielding the Maginot Ring as though it had never been there, destroying every last surviving defensive emplacement along the perimeter in a spectacular conflagration of radiation.

    The second sweep tore into the Impeller field and shattered it, leaving the silver surface of G-Com exposed to the energies that raged above it.

    As surviving Valkyries of the UN attack forces began to regroup and teleport into the base, Nora realized that the Antagonists' strategy had succeeded. If all of G-Com's defenses had still been intact, aimed at the sky, and ready to fire, even Abraxas would have been forced to take pause, providing the 114th​ Space Wing with an interval in which to surround it and bring it down. But now that the UN, co-opted by the AGs, had engaged, distracted, and degraded the defenses surrounding G-Com, there was essentially nothing the defenders could do to resist the onslaught.

    She was aware of Carmine continuing to shout orders over TACNET, telling any remaining defenders to retreat into G-Com and prepare for close combat. Even as she began preparing to teleport, Abraxas fired again, the gamma-ray lasers stabbing out–
    ​
    ----------​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex
    1131 hours AEDT
    5 minutes to firing

    The doorway of Sandra's office exploded, showering the interior with smoke and debris. Two Valkyries stormed into the room on the wake of their thrusters, firing off every form of active sensor pulses through the dust, all of their weapons expressed and sweeping for targets.

    Then the dust cleared, and both Valkyries halted shortly at the sight which greeted them.

    Seated in a sofa before them was the Director of the Ginnungagap Base Complex, her dress uniform and hair utterly pristine in spite of the prior explosion, an amused smirk on her face as she faced down the intruders into her domain. Cushioned in her chest was the Golden Ace of the Pakistan Air Force, wearing only her own (also pristine) uniform and a rather dazed expression. Sandra had her hands on Shuri's head and shoulders, and her hair seemed to have attained an even further degree of autonomous operation, the curls slowly wrapping around Shuri to subsume her into their mass.

    "Stop right there, you deviated preverts!" the shorter of the two intruding Valkyries barked through her Frame's loudspeaker, levelling her variable munitions launchers and plasma casters at the seated pair.

    "Uh, yeah, don't move and put your hands up!" the taller, male Valkyrie added, brandishing his extended melee halberd.

    Sandra just raised an eyebrow at the commands. "A prevert, you say? Are you quite certain about that, Setsuna?"

    "What's that supposed to–" Setsuna began, then halted, apparently realizing her blunder. "I mean, uh, pervert! Perverted person. Yeah. That's what I said."

    There was an awkward silence in the room as the shorter Valkyrie was distracted, punctuated intermittently by the sounds of weapons fire from the atrium outside Sandra's office.

    During that time, Shuri blinked blearily, warily raising her head out of Sandra's chest. What had she just been doing? Looking down at the tresses of hair binding her, she wasn't sure she wanted to remember. Her eyes met those of Sandra as she glanced up, who just smiled back benevolently.

    "Uh, Setsu, don't you think we should…" Koujirou waved his off hand at Sandra and Shuri.

    "Eh? Uh, yeah!" Setsuna jolted back from wherever she'd been to the current situation. She jabbed a finger at Sandra's face. "Director Cambridge, you're under arrest for treason against the United Nations! Surrender your Valkyrie Core and stand your base down immediately!"

    Sandra, of course, merely tilted her head slightly in response. "And suppose that I decide not to comply with your demands? What action do you intend on taking to enforce them?"

    "Well, uh," Setsuna wavered briefly, "I guess we'll just have to use force, then! Trust me, you don't want us to do that!"

    Shuri blanched involuntarily at this declaration. There was no way Sandra would have been right about that. She absolutely refused to believe it was true. She squirmed in Sandra's grip, but the curls of hair held her tight.

    Sandra, for her part, let out a theatrical sigh. "You're right, Setsuna," she answered. "I don't wish for that to occur. It would be most inconvenient to need to redecorate this office again."

    "Why, you–" Setsuna growled, clenching one of her armoured fists.

    "Yeah, Setsu, I don't think this is gonna work," Koujirou provided, taking his eyes off of his targets as he did.

    "Shut up, Koji!" Setsuna snapped, also turning away to face him. "Do something useful for once instead of just standing there and tie them up, or something!"

    "What, and taking on two of the Three Hundred at once wasn't good enough for you?" the male Valkyrie retorted, appearing to puff his chest up even though it obviously couldn't be seen through his armour.

    "Keep telling yourself that you moron, those Aces were kicking your ass and you know it."

    "Hey, how was I supposed to know those missiles weren't–" Koujirou started to deflect, then stopped as something in his HUD caught his attention, putting his off hand up to his helmet. "Yeah, Sis? What's up? … Yeah, we're at our target, no problems here. … Wow, really? I guess that's why you're in charge, huh."

    Shuri wasn't alone in looking on with curiosity as Koujirou continued to talk aloud over the channel, wondering why he didn't just communicate sub-vocally like every other Valkyrie. "What is–"

    "Hush, Shuri," Sandra said softly, caressing her cheeks.

    "What? For real? … Well, can't you just– … I don't think– … Well, alright, I guess I can try." Koujirou sighed. "Okay, I'll get back to you on that."

    He dropped his gaze, seemingly contemplating his sword, before turning to face Sandra and Shuri again. "Director Cambridge?" he opened heavily.

    "Yes, Koujirou, what is it that you desire?" Sandra asked, giving him a knowing smile that somehow caused Setsuna to start hissing and sputtering in her helmet.

    "I need you to hand over the codes to shut down the G-Gun." Koujirou hesitated briefly, and then added, "Please."

    "Oh?" Sandra leaned forward with some interest. Shuri let out an indignant grunt of protest as Sandra laced her fingers on top of her head, resting her own chin on top. "Am I to assume that there is now some compelling reason for me to do so?"

    "Yes," Koujirou replied firmly, dismissing his helmet and stepping forward to meet Sandra's gaze. "If you don't, Abraxas is going to blow up this whole base and everyone in it."

    "What!" Shuri exclaimed, pushing her way out of Sandra's hold to end up on the sofa next to her. "Sandra, you can't let this happen!"

    "And why shouldn't I?" Sandra pouted, folding her arms. "As I said earlier, I undertook this entire endeavour with the express purpose of forcing the United Nations to resume the war against the Antagonists. I would speculate that allowing a Type Zero to obliterate this very complex within plain view of United Nations forces should rather nicely discredit the idea of peace with the Antagonists, wouldn't you agree?"

    "So you're going to let yourself be killed just to spark off another war that's going to kill millions?" Setsuna demanded. "You're insane!"

    "That isn't the first time I've been called that," Sandra commented absently. "And yet–"

    "No, Sandra!" Shuri interrupted, acting on pure impulse as she snatched Sandra's hand and grasped it tightly; the only thing she could think of to do to catch the Director's attention.

    "Shuri?" Sandra blinked, sounding almost as surprised as Shuri felt.

    "Please, Sandra," Shuri implored. "I know you were only doing what you thought was right, but you have to stop this now, while you still can. The UN's already taken over the complex; there's no way you can fire the G-Gun before we're all destroyed. So don't let that happen, Sandra. At least save the lives of everyone who's still alive, everyone who believed in you."

    A conflicted look scrunched up Sandra's face. The reports of weapons fire outside continued. Setsuna and Koujirou paced anxiously on the spot, not saying anything.

    "And you know what?" Shuri's voice trembled. "I think you're wrong. I think it is possible for humans and Antagonists to coexist. Even today, we showed that it's possible for the two to work together to achieve mutual goals. So give peace a chance, Sandra, and I promise you: whatever happens next, we'll face it together, like we always used to. Okay?"

    There was a long pause as Sandra looked away. Setsuna and Koujirou held their breath.

    "I'm touched that you would care so much for me, even after all I've done," Sandra eventually answered, her voice tinged with sadness, not quite looking at Shuri. "I suppose it is that unwavering commitment to your ideals which drew me in the first place. And you are right, though it pains me to admit it: my objective here is no longer attainable, and I do hold a responsibility to the personnel under my command." She sighed wistfully. "Very well. I concede that I have been defeated on this day. I will provide the shutdown codes for the Ginnungagap Cannon as requested."

    Then she met Shuri's gaze again.

    "There's just one thing I'd like from you first, Shuri."

    Shuri blinked. "What?"

    Sandra smiled sweetly, taking Shuri's face into her hands; and then she leaned in, and then everything became warm and wet and soft and–

    "Wow," Koujirou breathed, awestruck. "This is officially the greatest moment of my career."

    Beside him, Setsuna was too busy making strangled hacking noises to respond.
    ​
    ----------​

    Armstrong Base
    1142 hours AEDT
    6 minutes behind schedule

    "Well, that just about does it," the Secretary-General relayed, a tired smile on her face. "We have a formal declaration of surrender from Director Cambridge, the intervention forces have finished rounding up the last of the rebel personnel, and the G-Gun shutdown codes have been verified. I'd say we've got this one in the bag. Caitlin?"

    "We confirm that the Wave Force Manipulation event has ceased," Caitlin added obligingly. "In accordance with your request, our intervention force is maintaining its holding position at an altitude of one-zero thousand kilometres. We tentatively surmise that this incident has concluded to our satisfaction."

    Everyone present slumped back into their seats in a thoroughly inelegant fashion, heaving out a collective sigh of relief.

    "Wow," Brazil exhaled, her eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling, then blinking and hastily looking away from the lighting up there. "Can't believe we actually pulled it off."

    "And so, God decided that he didn't feel like smiting the world with light from the heavens this Monday," Australia deadpanned with his hat over his eyes. "Amen."

    "Which we would that be, I wonder?" South Africa asked. "We the United Nations, or we the United Nations working together with the Antagonists?"

    "That's an interesting idea you're proposing," India commented. "Even if we only did it because we had no other choice, the fact remains that we did cooperate with the Antagonists in order to avert a major catastrophe."

    "Yes," the President said solemnly, turning to face Caitlin. "On behalf of the United Nations and the entire human race, I would like to thank the Antagonists for the role they played in resolving this crisis. Without your help, we would all have faced some very dire prospects."

    "You're a master of understatement as always," Brazil observed under her breath.

    "It was no significant burden to us," Caitlin replied, emitting a shrug tone. "We are gratified to recognize the sincerity of the United Nations in its response to this incident. Our optimism in the pursuit of peaceful relations has been reaffirmed by your efforts, and we hope that this will mark the beginning of further cooperative ventures between us."

    "As do we, Caitlin," the President agreed, holding out his hand.

    The AG representative merely looked at the offered hand with a sequence of confused beeps.

    "Yeah, I think we've still got a ways to go on that front," Brazil remarked.

    "All is well," Caitlin seemed to murmur in a low, distracted tone, staring at the wall past the President. "Events remain within pre-determined tolerances. Koujirou will become ours."

    "I'm sorry, Caitlin, could you say that again?" the President said, letting his hand drop. "I didn't quite catch that–"

    "You heard nothing."

    "You know," Australia said, "I reckon we should take a step back for a minute, and talk about everything that just happened." He pushed the brim of his hat up for emphasis. "You know how I said we'd always have a few nutters who'll want to shoot at the AGs? We might've stopped one bunch today, but let me tell you, there's plenty more of them where they came from. If we're going to work together from now on, we should start here."

    "Australia?"

    "Yes, China?"

    "That is quite possibly the most insightful thing I have ever heard you say."

    "Why, thank you." Australia tipped his hat slightly. "And here I thought you'd never say anything nice about me."

    "Keep fooling around like that and I'll take it back."

    Nobody in the room was crass enough to snicker openly, but they did exchange grins at their counterparts' antics.

    "Australia raises a very good point," the President said. "In light of recent events, I move that this Council will begin discussions to draft and pass a resolution which details responsibility for collective defensive, so that crises such as this will be prevented in the future. All in favour?"

    Everybody raised their hand without hesitation.

    "Great. Now, let's–"

    The Secretary-General cleared her throat. "I hate to interrupt, but I believe this is important. I've just received a report from Glasgow Arcology saying that a Valkyrie took off without clearance twelve seconds ago. We've run the projected flight path, and they're on a bearing headed directly towards the Prague Major Breach. At the present velocity, assuming that no efforts are made to interdict them, they will enter Antagonist airspace in," she glanced down, "forty-one seconds from now."

    The holographic projectors around the table changed from the view of the Moon's surface to satellite imagery of the relevant region of Earth, with several colours filling out the extent of the lands controlled by the European Union and the Antagonists. A bright yellow arrow stretched in a straight line between Glasgow Arcology and Prague Major Breach, annotated with ETAs for various arbitrary points along the line, with a marker blinking around two hundred kilometres from Glasgow. Other symbols highlighted the presence of the European Breaches and other known AG installations, all within a section of the map that appeared to be fuzzed out, indicating the ubiquitous EM jamming emitted by Breaches.

    As they gazed at the map, all of the representatives sported looks that somehow combined the best of exasperation and dread.

    "You mean," Australia said with a tone of clear disbelief, "a single Valk is flying straight into AG territory? The hell would do a thing like that?"

    "I'd think that a Valkyrie would have access to far easier methods of suicide," China nodded. "Preferably one that doesn't involve potentially jeopardizing our diplomatic relations in the process."

    "You're all missing the point again," India said. "Why do you think a Valkyrie would want to fly into a Major Breach? And now, of all times? Clearly, they intend to launch some form of attack against it."

    "Cambridge!" South Africa snarled. "This is her doing, I am certain of it!"

    The Secretary-General was already swiping furiously at her datapad. "I'm routing a channel through the intervention forces at Ginnungagap Base. This shouldn't take very long–"

    As promised, a window opened up on one of the holographic projectors, showing a video feed from one Cadet Masaya Setsuna, standing inside the office of the former Director. The camera quickly panned to centre on said former Director, who was once again seated behind her desk, somehow able to maintain her confident poise despite the Valkyrie-rated handcuffs binding her wrists together. Cadet Rokusabe was leaning against the wall on her right, while Group Captain Kravala stood dutifully at her left, also in handcuffs.

    "Ah, if it isn't my estimable colleagues in the Security Council," Cambridge greeted cheerily. "Am I to face the inevitable inquest into my actions here and now? I must warn you, I have access to a most exemplary provider of legal assistance–"

    "Don't screw with us, Cambridge," the Secretary-General snapped. "What's your connection to the Valkyrie who's currently flying straight from Glasgow to Prague?"

    "Why, Secretary-General," Cambridge replied, visibly feigning innocence, "whatever could you be talking about?"

    "Just answer the question, Cambridge," India ordered irritably. It was clear that nobody at the table was at risk of falling for her act.

    Cambridge gave off a pout that, under the present circumstances, was positively impertinent. "Very well," she sighed. "If you truly wish to hear the answer, then it shall be so."

    "Then we would appreciate that you didn't leave us in suspense," China reproached.

    "When I first began this endeavour, I was fully aware of the possibility that the Ginnungagap Cannon might fail to destroy the Tripoli Major Breach; either due to technical complications, or because of Antagonist action." Caitlin emitted an irked buzz at this, which Sandra ignored. "To safeguard against this scenario, I devised a failsafe which would activate in the event that the Cannon was unable to be deployed. In studying the framework of the commando raids originally intended to occur as part of Operation Whirlwind, I determined that it was easily within the means of a single Valkyrie to transport and detonate a Ginnungagap Device inside the Prague Major Breach. This would severely damage the Antagonist occupation of Central Europe, leaving it vulnerable to follow-up operations by the UN Armed Forces."

    "We have confirmed the trajectory of the insurgent anomalous event controller," Caitlin reported. "In accordance with the self-defense clause of our ceasefire agreement, we have dispatched response forces in order to intercept and punish this incursion. We trust that this is acceptable to all present."

    "That's fine, Caitlin," the President nodded solemnly. "Do what you have to do."

    Numerous markers began flashing up on the map, Glasgow Arcology easily detecting the signatures of Types performing Higgs Boosts even through the Antagonists' EM jamming. It had been thirty-four seconds since the Secretary-General first broached the topic.

    "Oh, come on!" Australia shouted, hat in hand. "You can't actually believe that a single Valk could solo a Major Breach like that. That thing's within spitting distance of four different Minors, for Christ's sake. Even the Three Hundred couldn't get through there if they tried."

    "That's not true, Australia," Cambridge answered, a confident smile beginning to form, her hair starting to clearly sparkle in the camera feed. "There is one Valkyrie in the entire UN Armed Forces who would be capable of such a feat. Indeed, from a particular point of view, she has already done so. What you are about to observe is merely an extension of the scale."

    The Secretary-General's eyes widened. "You mean that's–"

    "Yes," Cambridge affirmed, the glint in her eyes brighter than ever. "You might even say that she is… the One."

    The sound of palms collectively smacking foreheads echoed throughout the chamber.
    ​
    ----------​

    North Sea, European Union, Earth
    1143 hours AEDT
    7 minutes behind schedule

    The North Sea churned and roiled under the midnight sky as Anna Sanchez reached her top speed of twenty kilometres per second, accelerating far too rapidly for the nearby patrols of Valkyries and fighter jets to do anything meaningful about it. Radio waves of all frequencies washed over her Impeller as she left the human forces behind, only to be coldly rebuffed as nothing more than EM pollution. The mission's parameters called for total communications silence as a precaution against any attempted subversion by Type 18s, and so she had isolated herself from STRATNET, leaving her to face the Antagonists alone once more.

    She turned her active sensors upwards momentarily, scanning the surface of the Moon one last time in an attempt to determine what events had transpired there. Unfortunately, even she had difficulty accurately resolving details at that distance, and without access to STRATNET she could only speculate as to the fate of the Ginnungagap Base Complex. The darkness of its Impeller field had given way to naked silver, obscured by the various shapes which hovered ominously around it. Most damning of all, the Ginnungagap Cannon had failed to fire at the appointed hour; whether this was due to mechanical failure, or something more sinister, there was no way of knowing.

    All she knew was that, five minutes after the Cannon had been scheduled to fire, the mission called for her to commence her attack run.

    Durga alerted her to numerous Higgs particle reactions taking place ahead, their ubiquitous emissions signatures easily discernible even at a distance of over nine hundred kilometres, returning her mind to the task at hand. Geographic comparison with her stored cartographic tables showed that the origin points corresponded with the former locations of pre-Impact Frankfurt, Leipzig, and Dresden, while the magnitudes and patterns of the reactions were consistent with those of Type 2s, 5s, and 7s performing Higgs Boosts. A quick extrapolation of their flight paths showed they would eventually converge on pre-Impact Hamelin within the next twenty or thirty seconds, which coincidentally enough just happened to be exactly on Anna's own flight path.

    The AGs clearly intended to intercept her before she reached the (new, post-Impact) shoreline at Hamelin, now less than five hundred kilometres away. Recent probing attacks by the UN Navy had confirmed the presence of a heavy defensive position there, precisely to discourage any Valkyries from attempting to fly in a straight line from Glasgow to Prague. There was no doubt that additional defenses would be stationed further inland along the line, increasing in strength closer to the Prague Major Breach.

    Anna did not alter course. Attempting to evade the coastal defenses by flying in a circuitous route was exactly what the AGs expected her to do, and would just give them even more time to vector reinforcements her way. The only way was straight through.

    It had been thirty-four seconds since the beginning of her attack run. In another six seconds, the curvature of the Earth would permit engagement with directed energy weapons at long range.

    The Antagonists didn't wait that long.

    Anna detected the Higgs particle reaction and shifted seventy-four microseconds before the anomalous particle beam lanced out from beyond the horizon, ionizing the air she'd been flying through.

    Durga had already backtraced the origin point as another seven beams were fired at her, each one neatly dodged with simple shifts. As predicted, there were Type 10s positioned all along the coastline and further inland in artillery mode, burning Higgs to rapidly charge up a second volley. Their status as ground units meant that it would be more than ten seconds before she was able to fire back.

    Unacceptable.

    As the Type 10s fired again, Anna reconfigured her Impeller field and gated the attacks, sending them right back along their unnaturally curved paths to meet their makers. A series of detonations briefly flashed as Higgs containment chambers were ruptured, and the Type 10s were no more.

    There was no time to celebrate, though, for the first of the airborne Types were beginning to appear above the horizon. She had already known from analysing their Higgs emissions, but there was a truly prodigious quantity of Types arriving at Hamelin, far more than should have been necessary to defend the coastline. Two whole squadrons of Type 5s had gathered to face her, escorted by a flight of Type 7s and one of Type 2s. In turn, they were accompanied by an even larger number of Dragonflies and standard air superiority fighters, one which could only be explained by the Antagonists diverting every patrol and response unit in the area to this point.

    It was as if they knew exactly what she intended to do.

    Anna immediately materialized her heavy particle projectors, combining them into their 2x2 configuration. Her onium batteries, fully charged prior to the start of the mission, channelled their excess energy into the projectors, overcharging them up to their absolute safe limits.

    She fired.

    The particle beams lashed out and struck two of the Type 5s head-on, smashing through their Impeller fields to reduce their Higgs Engines to molten slag, sending them tumbling down to the ground far below.

    Antagonists weren't supposed to feel emotions, but Durga's sensors definitely captured the sight of the other Types flinching in mid-air at the instant kill of two of their own.

    Then their Higgs emissions spiked.

    The Type 7s in artillery mode were the first to retaliate, deploying anomalous particle beams in a worthy imitation of their ground-bound cousins. Anna attempted to gate them, but the 7s had already maneuvered away after firing, not to fall victim to the same trick. A multitude of laser and particle beam strikes flared out of the Type 5s' limb cannons, most of which were absorbed by Anna's solar dynamos, some by her Impeller field. Railgun rounds launched out of the Type 2s' tentacle manipulators, attaining velocities of six kilometres per second despite the lack of acceleration time, though still easily burned down by Anna's own lasers or evaded by quarter-second bursts of her thrusters.

    As Anna ducked and weaved and thrusted and shifted and gated, all the while closing the distance between her and her opponents, her heavy particle projectors overcharged and fired again and again and again, each time spearing a pair of Type 5s where they flew. Her lasers alternated between shooting down ordnance and massacring the conventional fighters, which lacked the armaments to affect her from this far away, their ablative armour lasting less than eighty microseconds against the power she was pumping into her beam strikes.

    Entering medium range seemed to prompt a shift in tactics by her opponents, with every Type still on the field beginning to dispense decoys and clouds of chaff from internal pods. It was an entirely ineffective measure against Anna, whose sensors and weapons were so powerful they practically ignored it. The Type 7s collapsed back into their base saucer forms, Impeller fields blackening as they made the transition to battlefield control mode.

    Then every single Antagonist unit launched a full salvo of missiles. The conventional fighters and Dragonflies held only a dozen or so apiece, but the Types possessed storage spaces which allowed them to carry up over a hundred each, with the result that over six thousand missiles were now streaking towards Anna. The Type 7s began to emanate both general and targeted interdiction, seeking to prevent her from shifting out of this predicament.

    It might have worked if Anna hadn't been prepared for this.

    As the missiles closed in, she fed some of her supply of Higgs particles into her Engine, and then shifted through the interdiction and onto the other side. It was a disproportionately large expenditure for three kilometres, but now she was amongst the Antagonist formations, and the missiles lacked the delta-V to reverse their trajectory so quickly.

    The next eight seconds were a glorious slaughter as Anna zipped from one AG to another, overwhelming Impeller fields with her lasers and heavy particle beams before she broke them apart with her hypervelocity cannons and melee halberd. Many of the fighters were caught in her thruster exhaust and either melted or died from cook-off. The Type 7s expressed melee halberds and electrolasers, attempting to switch into anti-personnel mode, to no real effect on Anna's Impeller. The Type 2s fared no better, their tentacles neatly severed by particle beams and plasma as they tried to wrap around Durga's plates. The conventional AA platforms and Ants stationed at Hamelin were simply unable to acquire a target in the midst of all the chaos above.

    And then she was through the interception forces and out the other side, having littered the ground below with the wrecks of the fallen.

    Another squadron-sized formation of Types was waiting for her there, reinforcements from Dresden which had only just arrived to the battle. They immediately attacked as she emerged from the chaff clouds, forcing her into evasive maneuvers. Meanwhile, the survivors of her previous work were quickly regrouping, no doubt intending to harass her from behind and try to pin her between two groups of enemies.

    But she had another surprise for them. Deliberately allowing the AGs to surround her, Anna summoned one of her twenty megaton High Yield Warheads from storage, armed it, and set it free. Then she burned some more Higgs and shifted another three kilometres ahead, out of the air blast radius.

    At such close range, even the freshly-arrived Types found their Impeller fields stressed, while the remaining forces over Hamelin were wiped out for good.

    Anna detached her heavy particle projectors and picked off several Types behind her, mindful of the fact that her onium capacitors were now almost depleted from their constant use.

    Then she became aware of even more Higgs particle reactions, taking place around and ahead of her. According to Durga's sensor logs, the vast majority of them represented Types from AG redoubts at pre-Impact Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Munich, all of them Higgs Boosting for an intercept over Naumburg, now less than a hundred kilometres away.

    As she processed this, she came under fire from two Type 10s embedded in the ground at Erfurt and Magdeburg, along with various Ant batteries positioned along her flight path. She returned fire with heavy particle beams, silencing them.

    And then there was one other contact, its emissions signature previously masked by the EM interference emitted by the Bern Minor Breach in the south, far greater than any of the others Anna had encountered since embarking on this mission.

    Its profile was almost exactly like the one she'd fought on that hated day.

    Class C Type Zero.

    In the instant of recognition that occurred between the two, there was a short, sharp flash of Higgs; and suddenly an object was floating in the air alongside Anna less than twenty metres away, appearing out of nowhere without the spatial warping of a corresponding teleport exit. It was an innocuously-shaped sphere of black composite, shrouded in the flickering distortion of an active Higgs barrier.

    WRONG BAD DANGER–

    Instinctively she shoved the object away, wrapping the air around it with her Impeller field, trapping it elsewhere, where it could never harm her–

    The expression of the Class C's Exotic Principle Weapon detonated, the energies it contained surging against the fabric of the elsewhere and destabilizing it, spilling out a wave of EM and exotic radiation into real space.

    Durga's sensors recoiled as the wave came into contact with them, pushing back the light and noise that threatened to blind and deafen them. At the same time, the wave choked off input from the outside world, polluting what remained with garbage.

    Unacceptable.

    Anna reconfigured her Impeller to filter the oncoming radiation, registering a wince at some minute level as exotic particles struck and bounced off it. The anomalous effects were cleared in the one hundred metre radius around her, allowing her energy and solar dynamos to deflect or absorb the light. In less than two seconds, she was able to see again.

    The situation had worsened only modestly during the time Anna had been rendered insensate. She was now coming under heavy fire from the various Types and conventional air forces at Naumburg, her Impeller beginning to protest at the sheer number of particle beams that were being discharged into it, dynamos working not quite fast enough to dissipate them all. In less than three seconds she would enter zero range. The Antagonists had seemingly refrained from launching another large salvo of missiles so quickly, having learned from their earlier failure.

    There were more Type 7s among this formation, though. A single prod at the space around her made it clear that shifting the last fifty or so kilometres would cost an extravagant amount of Higgs, one that would lower her reserves to uncomfortable levels. If she chose to shift, she would need to immediately assimilate some of the Types in order to regain her margin, and it was uncertain how much of their own Higgs reaction mass they would have remaining after having Higgs Boosted into position.

    And then there was the Class C, continuing to accelerate via Higgs Boost with no sign that it intended to have its speed constrained by the atmosphere. It now opened fire with its own set of grossly overpowered energy weapons, which even Anna was barely able to gate away from her; such were the power levels involved, and it showed no signs of letting up the beams. At this rate, her Impeller would become unacceptably exhausted by the constant strikes, and in this situation there would be no time to recharge.

    Anna gritted her teeth, and made the shift.

    Just as planned, she reappeared right on top of a Type 2, which was already managing to coil its tentacles around Durga's armour plates despite the initial relative velocity between them. She allowed it to happen, enduring the horrible grating sensation as the Type's Impeller field brushed up against her own, sparks flying from the attempted cancellation.

    The Antagonist Type was evidently unaware of its brethren beginning to burn urgently away from it.

    As it pushed the entirety of its body into contact with Anna's Impeller, Durga's inner layers expanded and flowed out, wrapping themselves over and around the Type 2's appendages. It sensed something wrong, trying to pull away; and then Durga squeezed, shattering the Type's Impeller with contemptuous ease and dragging its tentacles down into the Valkyrie Frame's deepest, darkest depths. The Type 2 had just enough time to activate its scuttle mechanism before its Higgs Engine was subsumed, which Durga promptly disarmed. Then the Engine's contents were slurped up like so much syrup.

    It was as Anna had suspected: the Type 2 had used up nearly half of its Higgs reserves in just a single Higgs Boost. She had never seen behaviour such as this from the Antagonists before; it had been the same earlier, when the Type 10s had revealed themselves right at the start of the engagement, something they would ordinarily never do to attack a single Valkyrie. This reeked almost of… desperation?

    It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they died.

    She turned her sensors over the wing-sized formation of Types that still arrayed itself against her, their fire having slackened throughout the half-second of feeding. She could likely reach one of the Type 7s with a minor course correction, and those tended to carry a lot of Higgs in order to properly emulate the functions of Type 10s and 18s, so perhaps this one would–

    A small black sphere appeared in the centre of the formation.

    It was a trap.

    Anna immediately shifted out.

    The effects of the detonation were at once more and less severe: there had been no elsewhere to absorb the greater part of its energy, but Anna was also much further away, and it appeared that even this Exotic Principle Weapon was subject to the inverse-square law. There was only a dull interference at the edges of her perception, which seemed to sharpen when she tried to examine it, but certainly not the moment of vulnerability she'd experienced the first time.

    The weapon's consequences for the Antagonists were somewhat more disparate and varied. Virtually all of the conventional air forces had been annihilated, with only a scattered few Dragonflies limping and smoking pathetically, their ablative armour having saved them from the worst effects. The Types with Impeller fields withstood it better; even as she watched, the 7s in battlefield control mode folded their own little bubbles of elsewhere back into reality, revealing clusters of their fellows huddled inside, mostly intact. Not all of them had reacted in time, though, and less than half of their initial numbers remained.

    The Class C had thrown out its Impeller so as to brake into medium range, and it was now beginning to volley missiles at Anna, dumped from storage and ignited in lots of a hundred or more at a time.

    Anna oriented her weapons at it with a snarl, rapidly formulating a plan of attack. She could easily take this opponent down, before the other Types recovered. Format her heavy particle projectors to deposit exotic particles on top of its Impeller and bait out its weapons, deploy a High Yield Weapon to cover her approach into short range, halt its immediate attempt to shift out, charge up a Static Wave and–

    And make the same mistake again.

    She faltered, as memories of these exact circumstances flickered through her head. The last time she'd fought such an opponent, it had cost her dearly, not just in equipment but in time. And because of that lost time, it had taken too long to destroy her real target, and–

    She was late.

    No.

    Her objective was not to destroy the Class C Type Zero. It was to destroy the Prague Major Breach. Even Type Zeros were ultimately replaceable by the Antagonists, but the loss of the Major Breach would permanently cripple their presence in this region. Then the Type Zeros, now lacking in combat and logistical support, could be hunted down at her leisure.

    She would not make the same mistake twice.

    The High Yield Weapon dropped out of her storage and detonated a second behind her as she continued to tear towards her target, shifting semi-randomly through the air to throw off the Class C's targeting.

    She refocused her weapons on the next group of opponents, even more Types burning in from the direction of Munich. Her attacks weren't managing to one-shot them anymore; she'd used up almost all of her energy reserves by now, and the single Type 2 she'd absorbed had merely staved off the depletion temporarily. She only had her fusion reactor to rely upon now, and it was barely keeping up with her constant energy weapons discharges.

    Combining her particle projectors into 4x1 configuration, Anna continued to stab away at the onslaught of Antagonists, killing them slowly but surely. She began to express and launch her so far unused stock of missiles, matching the salvos being launched by the Types, for if there was any time for Anna to expend her consumables it was now.

    One by one, each Type was punctured through and either drifted to the ground or exploded.

    Ahead of her, the swirling funnel clouds of the Prague Major Breach beckoned and loomed, reaching all the way up into the troposphere. Strictly speaking, she'd been aware of them ever since starting her attack run; but it was only now, approaching their base, that she found it possible to truly appreciate the enormity of their blight upon Earth.

    She was so close to her objective now. Only eleven more seconds of straight-line flight, and she would reach the boundary of the Breach.

    Another black sphere was conjured, this time directly into her flight path. Before Anna could contemplate shifting outside the blast radius, two more identical spheres materialized, three kilometres apart to the north and south. A quick calculation determined that it would cost far too much Higgs to escape in time, and there was no way she could shove them all into closed space before they exploded.

    So Anna wrapped the elsewhere around herself, a sensation of intense claustrophobia coming over her before Durga automatically suppressed it, for even after all this time the technique still shared too many similarities with her past experiences with Type 18s. It wasn't going to be for long, she reminded herself; just until the initial burst of exotic radiation had passed.

    Even with space-time warped around her in such a fashion, she still felt the detonation of the Exotic Principle Weapons at some level, the exotic particles assaulting the boundaries of her Impeller before they decayed and faded out of existence.

    Releasing the closed bubble of space-time, Anna found that the missiles previously launched by the Type C were now reaching a dangerous proximity, having caught up to her while her velocity was momentarily arrested by her use of elsewhere. There were no other immediate threats within her combat range, so she obligingly turned her lasers and particle projectors on them and started slicing them up. Like all weapons fielded by Type Zeros, the missiles were anomalous to some extent, in this case containing tiny beads of Higgs that increased the time to shoot one down by a distressing thirty-four microseconds.

    She could feel the gross spatial distortions of the Prague Major Breach now, twisting the very foundations of space-time around her as she grew ever closer to her goal. Her Impeller flared out ahead of her, quashing the distortions and enforcing a tunnel of clean space.

    Seven seconds. Six. Five. Four.

    Durga detected the immense Higgs particle reaction three milliseconds before its source burst out of the whirling funnel clouds, visibly perverting space-time around itself even against the backdrop of a Major Breach. In an instant, Anna realized what the Antagonists had done: by having their reinforcements travel through the Breach to intercept her, she had been entirely incapable of detecting them until the very last moment.

    Immediately, the Class D Type Zero deployed its Exotic Principle Weapon against her, firing what appeared to be an avalanche's worth of boulders out of its body that exceeded its own apparent volume, rapidly spreading out to blanket the airspace in a conical pattern. In spite of the lack of any perceptible propulsion system, the rocks were unaffected by gravity, slowly drifting on a course to surround Anna.

    Her suspicions were confirmed when she tagged one of them with a particle beam, causing it to explode into a hail of shrapnel that flew directly at her at a greater velocity. Lasers stabbed out and this time the shrapnel didn't fragment, but the torrent of boulders was continuing and showed no signs of slowing down.

    Anna felt the Class D beginning to emanate a targeted interdiction field, focusing entirely on her. She shifted regardless, five kilometres to the left and three up, maintaining her course for the Prague Major Breach.

    It was without gain, for the Class D followed her, continuing to hover straight in front of her less than thirty kilometres away. She shifted again, and the same thing happened. Again, and her opponent matched it easily.

    Hastily, she threw out her Impeller field as wide as she dared, bleeding off her velocity with the aid of inertia cancellation so she wouldn't run smack-dab into a Type Zero. It hadn't used any other weapons yet, but no doubt it was equipped for the possibility of zero range combat. If nothing else, its Impeller stood a good chance of seriously degrading hers in short order.

    It was then that Anna realized her folly.

    Ordinarily, it would be well within her abilities to swiftly and efficiently remove this obstacle from her path, using the floating boulder mines as cover while she charged and fired a Static Wave, tearing it asunder in a single strike. But now, with a Class C Type Zero maneuvering into a firing position behind her, this would be tantamount to suicide: whichever one she used the Wave on, the other would swiftly laser her out of the sky.

    And behind the Class D was the Major Breach, so tantalizingly close.

    Absently continuing to shoot down the mines, Anna considered her options. She was far from helpless; her Impeller was regenerating more quickly, now that it had been freed from the burden of facilitating her flight at top speed, and she still retained moderate reserves of Higgs particles. She could strategically destroy the mines to clutter the battlefield with fragments, lure the two Type Zeros closer together, and then throw Higgs into an expedited Red Wave–

    Then Durga began to shriek at her, warning of a colossal Higgs emission from the direction of Tripoli, and all those plans fell dead in the water.

    It was a Class B Type Zero.

    And at the rate it was accelerating, it would reach firing range in less than three seconds.

    Anna would not survive extended engagement with three Type Zeros simultaneously.

    The despair surged up inside her once again, darkness which had only been kept in check by the dazzling light of the Antagonists' destruction threatening to consume her, as it had ever since that hated day.

    She had failed again.

    She was worthless.

    I'm sorry! she sobbed. I couldn't do it! I couldn't save you! I couldn't save anyone!

    Her mission had failed. She would be destroyed, and the weapon she had been entrusted with would remain forever unused, gradually degrading into constituent atoms inside her storage as Durga lay shattered on the cold, unfeeling Earth below.

    Unless…

    There was no time to think. No time to simulate the chances of success. All she could do was act, and hope.

    Please, let me save somebody just this once–

    Nobody would have ever described the design of a G-Bomb as simple, but as she pulled it out of her storage, there were three easily distinguished components. There was a Higgs Engine, necessary to fuel the first stage of the Wave Force; the actual mechanism to capture the Wave and refract it into a deadlier, more destructive form; and a Valkyrie Core, to keep the entirety of the device together and ensure its enhanced components continued to function.

    Because of the design requirements that the G-Bomb be simple to deploy in a commando raid on a Minor Breach, and at the same time resist subversion from Type 18s and 7s, arming it was merely a matter of flicking a switch on the control panel.

    Anna released it, and a Higgs barrier immediately formed around it, thwarting any attempts at explosive defusal.

    The Class B was almost in firing range. More black spheres started to appear all around her, a dozen in total. Every single remaining boulder mine spontaneously burst into fragments, all arrowing in towards her.

    With the last of her Higgs reserves, Anna shifted twenty kilometres backwards, placing the Class C between her and her payload.

    The G-Bomb detonated and reality ceased to function.
    ​
    ----------​

    Armstrong Base
    1145 hours AEDT
    9 minutes behind schedule

    At this point, the honourable members of the Security Council couldn't even muster up the energy to pretend to be shocked by current events. Instead, most of them were leaned back or slumped over in their chairs, observing the holographic imagery before them with varying degrees of dispassion.

    Most of them, anyway.

    "Wow," Australia remarked, staring with rapt fascination at the utter carnage left in Anna Sanchez's wake. His hat had fallen off at some point in the proceedings and was now lying upside-down on the table, quietly forgotten. "That Valk trashed everything from Glasgow to Prague in two minutes flat. Where can I get one of those?"

    Fatigued glances of attempted chastisement were half-heartedly tossed his way.

    "It's really easy, actually," Brazil answered, poking morosely at her datapad. "All you need to do is find some eight year old little girl, give her a Valk Core, let her play with it for a year or two, and then have her spend the next ten years fighting AGs for eighteen hours a day with no pay or benefits. Oh, and she has to be Canadian. That's the important part."

    "But there aren't any Canadians left anymore!" Australia protested, looking genuinely upset by this information as he fell back into his seat. Then a thought occurred to him. "Do you think Alaskans might work?"

    Brazil shrugged. "You could always try. I bet if you start now and keep going until 2080, you can probably get a Valk that's at least half as badass as Anna Sanchez."

    "Really?"

    "No."

    "It would appear," Cambridge suddenly spoke, jolting everyone present back to full attention, "that Anna Sanchez has presently destroyed two Type Zeros, over two hundred Types, and a significant proportion of the Antagonists' conventional air superiority and air defense units in Central Europe. Were I still committed to this endeavour–"

    "Sandra!" Kravala hissed, elbowing the former Director in the back.

    "–which I most certainly am not, I would strongly advocate that the UN Armed Forces launch an immediate all-out offensive so as to capitalize on this advantage. Regardless of whether or not the attack on the Prague Major Breach succeeds, it would be relatively straightforward for members of the Three Hundred to break through the Antagonists' defensive lines and deliver Ginnungagap Devices to the Oslo and Helsinki Minor Breaches, thus–"

    "There isn't going to be an offensive, Cambridge!" the President shouted, losing his temper in front of others for the first time anyone could remember. "Because you've just doomed the Earth and everyone on it!"

    Even Sandra appeared to be momentarily taken aback. "Why, President, whatever could you mean by that? If your concern is that the Antagonists will unveil some new superweapon that would revert the strategic balance of the war to their favour in response to the loss of another Major Breach, I believe that the momentum of such an offensive would be sufficient to offset whatever advantages they may–"

    "They already did," Brazil grumbled, jabbing a finger in Caitlin's direction. "If we use Wave Force on any of the Major Breaches, it triggers a resonance cascade that blows up the world and everything out to high Earth orbit. It sure would've been nice if they'd told us about it before you went off trying to shoot all the AGs with the G-Gun, but I guess we can't always have nice things in life," she added darkly.

    "I… see," Cambridge blinked, leaning back in her office chair with a pensive expression.

    "What?" Even through the video feed, the colour had visibly drained from Kravala's face. "Sandra, we would have blown up the Earth if the G-Gun had fired! How can you be so calm about that?"

    There were similar shocked outbursts from Masaya and Rokusabe.

    Cambridge ignored them all, leaning forward again. "Tell me, Caitlin," she addressed the AG representative, which was still beeping and muttering incoherently in its seat. "Does this new countermeasure extend to all Breaches on Earth, including the Minor Breaches? Or does it apply only to the Major Breaches?"

    To everyone's surprise, Caitlin stopped its disordered output, turning to regard the projector with its usual lack of demeanour. "At the present time, the countermeasure has only been implemented within the spatial notations of major dimensional gateways two through six," it answered. "We wished to investigate methods of preventing the resonance cascade reaction prior to implementing the countermeasure within our minor dimensional gateways."

    "Is that so?" Cambridge said, smiling. "Perhaps I should have used the Ginnungagap Cannon to destroy a Minor Breach instead. I suspect that the Timedra Minor Breach would have been the most suitable target. Its destruction would isolate the Kankan Major Breach, exposing it to the possibility of a combined land and sea assault–"

    "Sandra!" Kravala scolded again.

    "My deepest apologies, Shuri," Cambridge replied, with something that sounded awfully like a giggle.

    "Also, technically speaking, we are still on a course that will lead to the total annihilation of Earth and its inhabitants," South Africa pointed out.

    "How do you draw that conclusion?" China challenged. "Everyone here witnessed that the G-Device was quite clearly detonated outside the Major Breach. While the achievements of this Anna Sanchez are certainly impressive, it is absurd to think that one Valkyrie would have any method of meaningfully affecting the Hive within."

    "You're forgetting something," India groused from the nest she'd made with her arms on the table. "Again."

    "Remember the attack on Tamanrasset Beta?" the Secretary-General prompted. "Remind me how, exactly, we destroyed it with so few members of the Three Hundred? Does the presence of a Valkyrie on that mission with the ability to use Wave Force ring any bells?"

    Everyone in the room turned to look at the Secretary-General, their mouths hanging open in stupefaction as the realization came to them. Caitlin started to beep wildly again.

    "Do you mean to say–" China started.

    "Yes," the Secretary-General confirmed. "Anna Sanchez, the inventor of Wave Force, is now inside a Major Breach."

    There was silence for a moment.

    "We're so fucked," Brazil declared unequivocally.
    ​
    ----------​

    Prague Major Breach
    1146 hours AEDT
    10 minutes behind schedule

    The interior of a Major Breach was a very strange place to be.

    Anna, who was personally responsible for the destruction of three Minor Breaches during her time on Earth, found that her current environment was something else entirely. Suffice to say that many of the rules she'd become accustomed to operating under had been suspended or superseded. The shortest distance between any two given coordinates was no longer a straight line. Triangles no longer consisted of three angles adding up to 180 degrees. Gravity, which was a product of the Earth's mass giving rise to a gravitational field, was less of an obligation and more a series of conflicting suggestions, alternating with every couple of metres she flew.

    Pings from Durga's active sensors travelled to the edge of infinity, then returned with nothing to show for it. Passive sensors were hardly better, returning little outside of the visible light spectrum, which showed the closed space to be bathed in a murky turquoise-grey hue, like a mockery of the ocean floor. There was no apparent exit to the closed space behind her, even though she knew for certain that she had entered the Breach only a minute ago. Ahead of her, in the distance, Durga could just about resolve the leviathan forms of Antagonist non-combat strains, tiny running lights glinting off them in a manner resembling anglerfish.

    And beyond them, Anna knew in spite of the darkness, was the Hive suspended at the centre of the Breach, a perfect sphere thirty kilometres in diameter.

    That was her only objective now. As long as she could reach it and carry out her mission, nothing else mattered.

    It was the only thing she was ever good for.

    Despite the urgency that tugged at her, screaming for her to race towards her objective as fast as was superhumanly possible, Anna maintained a cautious pace of one kilometre per second as she navigated the closed space before her. It was exactly as it had been at Saskatoon: unknown territory under the complete control of the Antagonists. Too slow, and they would be able to intercept her; too fast, and she would fall victim to some invisible spatial anomaly, trapped forever inside a pocket of closed space until Durga ran out of mass to cannibalize into energy, leading to permanent shutdown and subsequent capture by the Antagonists. She had vowed long ago to self-destruct before that happened; only her reserves of Higgs had spared her when she was ensnared once, during that first Hive assault, and now she had none to rely on.

    It was hazards such as these, though previously on a somewhat less acute scale, which had so stymied the United Nations' attempts to enter and subjugate the Breaches, most infamously in the first disastrous attempt at assaulting the Uralsk Minor Breach. Conventional units were simply unable to operate effectively in the face of so many spatial anomalies; only Valkyries, with their Impeller fields to probe and normalize space-time around them, presented a viable method of attack. Even then, it had only been the discovery of the 300 Cores which enabled human forces to succeed the second time around, for the rapid regeneration of their Impeller allowed their users to overcome any number of consecutive spatial anomalies.

    Even after all this time, Anna's Impeller field did not possess the durability or regenerative capability of that projected by a 300 Frame. Smoothing out the distortions and instabilities in her way would steadily deplete it and leave her much more reliant on her dynamos to mitigate damage than she would have liked, but she didn't have the luxury of pausing to recover.

    Fluorescent green lines began to flash out of the darkness, zigzagging across Anna's vision as they reflected off a series of arbitrary points to enclose her in a fence of light, before finally intersecting with sections of her Frame and ending up absorbed by her solar dynamos. Durga counted sixty-eight distinct sources in total, but failed to trace the beams back to their origins, foiled by the EM interference within the Breach.

    Three milliseconds later, just as Anna had finished reconfiguring her Impeller, all sixty-eight electrolasers discharged into her simultaneously, transforming the darkness of the Breach into a dazzling light show.

    She immediately started dumping charge out of her Impeller as it arrived, but the necessity of maintaining a flight path free of spatial anomalies prevented her from completely nullifying the effects of the attack as she normally would have, and some of it slipped past her defense to strike Durga directly.

    Her dynamos were not optimized to ward off this type of damage, and so Anna herself was left vaguely aware of her remaining biological components twitching and jerking under their armour as they were subjected to electric shock, her tissues experiencing burns and dielectric breakdown. But internal insulation prevented any of it from affecting her neural capabilities, and that was the only important consideration here.

    As the light gradually lost its intensity and faded away, a set of jagged, lanky shapes blurred out of the darkness towards her. They were Type 16s, and while they might have been land-bound units on Earth, here their Impeller fields allowed them to swim with a deceptive grace in the presence of air and absence of gravity.

    The Antagonists were not affected by the spatial anomalies inside their own Breaches.

    They closed in, glowing triangles swishing through the air; and Anna instinctively moved to counter them, deflecting the slashes of fission blades with her own plasma lance, blocking a series of blunt strikes using her limbs, halting their attempts to cancel her Impeller field. Her hypervelocity cannons appeared on their vambrace mounts and opened fire at point-blank, shredding through her opponents' Impeller fields and then their armoured chasses in short order. Heavy particle projectors were expressed into autonomous 1x4 configuration, targeting the Type 16s which had been forced to loiter uselessly because there was no room to attack. She wasn't sure why they didn't attempt to provide ranged support with their electrolasers; presumably, they judged that the risk of friendly fire impeded them more than it did her.

    She made sure to assimilate as many of them as she could, Durga systematically ensnaring and breaking the Antagonist Types apart with its inner layers. Their Higgs particle reserves were as pathetic as always, intended more for emergency use than as an actual combat tool, and even after consuming over a dozen of them Anna's own reserves remained sorely empty. One shift, maybe, when she really needed it; that was all she could count on.

    Finally, the last Type 16 was dismembered, its ruined limbs smoking and sparking as gravity carried them out of sight.

    Anna's forward movement had continued during the fight, bringing her to more than halfway to her objective, or so she believed. Without being able to see the actual Hive, there was no way to be sure, but she trusted Durga. Durga would guide her along the correct path, as it had for as long as she could remember.

    A faint feeling of warmth pulsed out from within her.

    Something moved in the darkness to her rear.

    Anna was already thrusting laterally as Durga screamed warnings at her, but she still failed to completely avoid the cascade of hypervelocity projectiles that flew at her. There was a sound of breaking crystal as it struck her Impeller, and then abruptly she was encased in a block of diamond, its constituent mineral expanding out of the impact point in less than three hundred nanoseconds.

    In the next microsecond, Durga's sensors perceived the cage starting to compress, seemingly in an attempt to crush the Valkyrie imprisoned within.

    Anna automatically lashed out with her Impeller, but the anomalous diamond fought back, its surface somehow dissipating any attempts to alter space-time inside its boundaries. She tried using her melee halberd, but the jet of plasma failed to significantly affect the material, and it only served to irritate her Impeller when the plasma washed back over her. She could still use Higgs, she was certain of that, and so she would be able to escape, but to use it up so soon after obtaining it–

    Then the obvious solution occurred to her, and she simply had Durga's inner layers expand, smashing apart the crystal without much resistance.

    The instant she did, more of those strange crystal projectiles appeared in her vision, travelling at over eight kilometres per second. She tried to shoot them down using her lasers, but the beams were somehow reflected or refracted by the crystals, having no effect. Hypervelocity cannons and heavy particle projectors were more successful, shattering or outright vaporizing what they hit, but having limited ammunition for the former and only four of the latter limited her capacity for CIWS, forcing her to evade the remainder via thrusters and shifts.

    As the volume of incoming crystals gradually slowed and stopped, Anna noticed that all the projectiles she didn't shoot hadn't continued off into the void, but rather matched velocities with her, effectively suspending themselves in the air two kilometres metres ahead.

    Her unseen adversary followed up with its directed energy weapons, once again forcing her to rely more on her solar dynamos than she would have liked to mitigate glancing hits, while reserving shifts and gates for evading impending direct strikes. The beams that did succeed at intercepting her were enormously powerful, more than any she had ever encountered before.

    Then the suspended crystals all burst at once, blooming out in fractal patterns to produce a wall of diamond in front of her. Anna barely had time to register this before the enemy lasers that previously missed her started bouncing off the wall and coming back for another try. Her solar dynamos, concentrated primarily on defending her rear, were unable to absorb all of the energy that was suddenly directed at her front. The ultraviolet lasers punched several holes in Durga's armour plates, boiling away a small fraction of the inner layers and ruining several of the redundant organ systems beneath.

    None of the damaged components were critical to her mission, however, and Durga dutifully addressed the issue of having charred gaping holes in it by redistributing mass to fill them in.

    And just when she'd finished dealing with all of that, a set of railgun projectiles streaked past her at twelve kilometres per second and collided with the crystalline wall, causing it to break apart spectacularly into shards that now fell back towards her with the same velocity. The hail was too wide to shift away from, too numerous and resilient to shoot down in time–

    As the hail closed in, Anna threw out a gate, and every shard in zero range was sheared out of existence, leaving the path ahead of her clear.

    Without hesitation, she accelerated to four kilometres per second, deeming the risk of spatial anomalies acceptable if it meant increasing the chances of escaping from her opponent.

    The sheer ferocity of these accumulated assaults had confirmed what Anna already knew. Somewhere, in the darkness behind her, was the Class B Type Zero from Tripoli, hounding her with a combination of its Exotic Principle Weaponry and conventional armaments.

    It had taken her by surprise because, inside an Antagonist Breach, it was not possible to sense the characteristic emissions of Higgs particle reactions, even through the frigid blue light that usually signalled them. This was also the reason why she hadn't detected the approach of the Type 16s earlier, despite them entering short range in order to use their electrolasers.

    Now that she knew it was there, she reconfigured her energy weapons into illumination mode and began firing off beams pseudo-randomly into the darkness. Feedback from active sensors remained disappointingly lacking, but there seemed to be patches of black space that resisted illumination, the lasers and particle beams disappearing or distorting around it.

    It was alone.

    Anna wasn't sure how a Class B Type Zero would fare against a Static Wave. Her mission at Tamanrasset Beta had emphasized her rapid infiltration and exfiltration before the AGs could realize her flight's presence and bring the hammer down on them, while Raksha had taken one look at her and promptly fled back to its friends at Cincinnati during the very brief battle at Salt Lake City Minor Breach. But even if it was only half as effective as it had been against Sekhmet, at the very least the Static Wave should severely cripple the Type Zero and destroy its Higgs particle reserves, preventing it from deploying its Exotic Principle Weapon or Higgs Boosting away. Then she could either turn around and finish it off, or leave it be and use the time she'd bought to accomplish her mission.

    It was tempting, oh so tempting to immediately stop and unleash the Static Wave upon this hated foe. All it would take was a few seconds and some token Frame damage–

    She was forgetting her mission again.

    But what if that was what the Antagonists wanted her to do? Their behaviour throughout this mission had been erratic, featuring entire wings abandoning their sectors and burning most of their Higgs reaction mass just to have a hope of intercepting her, while the Class C earlier had shown no compunction about nuking its own forces for the chance to catch her in the blast. A Class B Type Zero was exactly the sort of opponent that could pose a significant threat to her, thereby enticing her to use Wave Force against it.

    And then, right when she'd fired the Wave and her Impeller field was completely depleted for a single moment, reinforcements lying in wait under the cover of the Breach would swoop in and crush her at her most vulnerable.

    On the other hand, she still remembered with a shudder the utter lack of effect her ten heavy particle projectors had had on Sekhmet. If she didn't use the Static Wave here, it was likely that the Class B would simply chase her all the way to the Hive, at which point she would be once again caught between two overwhelming forces. And this time, she wouldn't have a G-Bomb to get her out of it.

    Unless she assumed that Prague Hive was similar in composition to its counterparts, that the Antagonists' Hives weren't fundamentally different between Major and Minor Breaches…

    It was a dangerous assumption. But it was also one which gave her a chance at succeeding.

    Anna brought up her right hand, and started to compress her Impeller field, tearing the energy out of the static of the universe that permeated even here–

    Space bulged out of several discrete coordinates all around her in a manner Durga recognized as the endpoints of spatial tunnels, swiftly expanding to cover volumes of a square kilometre each. Then they folded back, revealing a flotilla of Antagonist space destroyers escorted by a squadron of Type 2s. Analogous to the torpedo boat destroyers of old, they were intended to screen the larger space capital ships from bombing runs carried out by Valkyries armed with High Yield Weaponry. Despite being designed to operate in the airless regions of the Earth's exosphere and beyond, they could apparently function just fine inside a Breach's atmosphere, as Anna had found out at Tamanrasset Beta.

    And secreted in the gaps between the space destroyers were the inky voids in space-time that marked the existence of Type 18s, greedily sucking in all of the ambient light and other forms of EM radiation around them.

    It seemed that this was the ambush the Antagonists had planned for her. Certainly, she would have experienced great difficulty surviving against salvos from the destroyers' main batteries without her Impeller field. And the supporting fire from the Type 2s. And whatever weapons the Class B might've had left after taking a Static Wave to the face.

    Now, though–

    Anna completed the zeroth stage of Wave Force without difficulty, transitioning smoothly to the first stage. The absences were easily corralled, and she drilled her Impeller through them, calmly, unhurried.

    None of the Antagonists made any move to interrupt her, holding station in the air around her at four kilometres per second, almost as if daring her to finish.

    Their mistake.

    A number of events occurred within the next second.

    Anna aborted the Static Wave's formation before it could progress from the first stage to the second, evicting the hole in space-time from her Impeller and pulling back before the spatial distortions could sap any more of her field integrity. Without her acting to contain it, the hole billowed rapidly, spitting out exotic particles that interfered with Durga's sensors – and also with those of the Antagonists.

    She could already feel the onset of a targeted interdiction as the Type 18s reacted, their voids rippling as they reached out with their Impeller fields to suppress the hole.

    And in that moment, while they were halting the hole and not her, Anna shifted on top of one and pounced.

    This time, the process of assimilation was different. Rather than merely smashing apart the Type's Impeller field, she enmeshed her own Impeller within it, twisting it, corrupting it and making it hers. For a brief time, while the Type 18's expressed components were outside of Durga's event horizon, its immense spatial warping abilities were hers to command.

    As all four space destroyers and twenty-four Type 2s opened fire, Anna turned all that power into one single feat of reality alteration, burning her victim's entire reserves of Higgs in order to do so: enforcing a tunnel of clear space all the way from here to the centre of the Breach.

    She armed her last High Yield Warhead, dropped it inside the tattered remnants of the Type 18's body, and ejected the whole package into the path of the incoming fire.

    Then she opened her backpack's reactor taps and burned.

    The space destroyers were left behind almost immediately, leaving only the Types to match her acceleration of over six hundred gees. As they did so, the High Yield Warhead detonated in their midst, just the way she'd timed it. Out of the entire squadron, less than four survived.

    Anna was sharply aware of how vulnerable she was as she hurtled down the spatial tunnel, already collapsing in the wake of the Type 18's ignoble demise. Her entire Impeller field was dedicated to shielding herself from being incinerated, either by air resistance or her own fuel, and so was unable to provide protection from AG weapons fire. While lasers failed to pierce through the nuclear fireball she rode, particle beams, railgun projectiles, and those anomalous crystals were not so easily deterred. Evasion was difficult with this degree of acceleration, as was acquiring and intercepting incoming attacks through the fireball; while her heavy particle projectors could easily shoot past it, she would lack the power to fire them for the duration of the reactor dump.

    One volley of railgun shells finally broke through her energy dynamos, obliterating her right deltoid, her left forearm, and most of her pelvis. It was only thanks to Durga's rapid reactions that she didn't lose even more of her Frame, its inner layers quickly reforming and latching onto her dismembered arm, hand, and legs. Fortunately, none of her weapons were expressed in the destroyed areas, having been previously withdrawn; but her energy dynamos were now inoperable, and would not protect her from any subsequent strikes.

    But she still functioned. Redistributing her remaining mass to regain her balance, Anna flew on.

    Three seconds after commencing her reactor dump, the darkness of the Breach began to melt, and the primary target of Anna's mission came into view.

    The Hive at the centre of Prague Major Breach was exactly like all the others in every respect save for its size. It was a completely featureless sphere of pure white, wreathed in a rainbow corona of Higgs particle reactions and exotic radiation, flooding the closed space around it with incandescence.

    It was also surrounded by formations of what had to be every single strain in the Antagonists' forces, all of which instantly opened fire on Anna as she exited the spatial tunnel.

    Using the tiny sliver of Higgs she'd gathered and preserved in anticipation of this moment, Anna shifted inside the Hive.

    The sudden change in environment was mildly disorientating even to her, going from a wide open space to a winding maze of narrow and enclosed tunnels. She was forced to swiftly pull up before she crashed into a wall at twenty-four kilometres per second, weaving desperately around obstacles as she shut off her reactor taps, reversed thrusters, and cancelled her inertia in an effort to avoid collisions. There was no air she could use to brake in here; the interior of the Hive was in vacuum. The glare of white was even stronger, so much that Anna ceased to rely on her visual sensors entirely and simply used radar to navigate.

    The mission had originally called for her to deploy the G-Bomb here, right under the surface of the Hive. Based on the available data, a detonation inside the superstructure was likely to heavily damage even a Hive of this size, if not disable or destroy it. Shifting outside the Hive would shield her from the worst effects; and then, once the Breach had been successfully destabilized, she could have easily escaped before the Antagonists rallied, leaving the rest to the UN.

    Now, with the G-Bomb used prematurely, her Impeller seriously degraded, and her Frame in a suboptimal condition, Anna's only option was to reach the core and use Wave Force there. It would guarantee the destruction of the Hive… but the same couldn't be said regarding her chances of escaping afterwards.

    That was fine, though. At long last, she would be able to carry out her duty: to Sandra, to her hometown, to humanity. It was something that only she could ever do.

    It was the only thing she could ever do for them.

    There was an extremely noticeable ripple in local space-time as the Class B teleported in after her. At present, the layout of the tunnels prevented it from attaining line-of-sight on her, and therefore from attacking her. It was moving very fast, though, if the subsequent ripples were any indication; most likely it was Higgs Boosting, and unlike her, its maneuverability wasn't noticeably hindered by the close quarters.

    Anna would just have to reach the core before it caught up to her.

    She continued flying. Antagonist units of various strains stood or hovered in her way, firing their weapons as soon as they saw her. She brushed them all aside with nary a thought.

    The Class B was gaining on her. In less than two seconds–

    Then she burst out of the tunnels and into the core, thrusters flaring urgently to reduce her velocity to something more manageable. In contrast to the machinery that filled the rest of the Hive, the core itself was a simple sphere three kilometres in diameter, partitioned by various Higgs barriers which shielded vital components of the Antagonist war machine, impossible to penetrate with any weapons a single Valkyrie could carry. Dozens of Higgs Generators sat at the centre, surrounded by hundreds of Higgs Engines, all gleaming a stark white that shone clearly even though so many Higgs barriers.

    The only Antagonists within the core were non-combat strains, working behind the barriers to maintain the machinery there, both Higgs-related and otherwise. They ignored her, and so she ignored them.

    Her Impeller field had recovered sufficiently during the flight. It was time to complete her mission.

    Anna began the zeroth stage of Wave Force. The energies it contained illuminated her Frame, chasing away the darkness that lurked inside her.

    She only had vague memories now of the last time there was light. There had been a town, and people, and building, and flying. A time of innocence, when the world was something to be enjoyed, rather than feared and hated.

    Then there had been death, and vengeance, and attrition, and desperation.

    And then that hateful day had occurred.

    After that, there had been only darkness.

    The first stage of Wave Force commenced.

    She had fought for so long. For her hometown, for the United Nations, for Sandra. To defend and to attack. Over land, under water, and in space. At Saskatoon, at Tamanrasset Beta, and at Salt Lake City.

    All so she could destroy the Antagonists.

    The second stage of Wave Force began.

    There was nothing else for her in this world.

    The third stage of Wave Force progressed.

    The Class B exploded into the Hive's core, immediately turning its weapons on her.

    The fourth stage of Wave Force transpired.

    Her sojourns at Ginnungagap Base had been far too brief, constrained by the need to deploy against concentrations of Antagonist forces on Earth and beyond; but she would always recall the time she spent there with fondness, a moment of sunshine in a life spent fighting against the darkness.

    Anna held on to that brightness as the Red Wave was brought to coherence.

    The final stage of Wave Force passed.

    The Class B opened fire.

    Anna unleashed the Red Wave.
    ​
    ----------​

    Lunar Surface
    1148 hours AEDT

    The end of the world happened exactly as Caitlin had said it would.

    Hovering above the surface of the Moon, the motley forces which had managed to survive the Battle of Ginnungagap were alerted to the event when a bizarre set of data was forwarded to them via TACNET, describing the very strange sequence of spatial distortions that Armstrong Base was picking up. Most of them, who had only a passing knowledge of the phenomenon known as Wave Force Manipulation, were still struggling to interpret the data when the first visual indicator occurred: a pinprick of red light at the centre of the Prague Major Breach, shining brighter than Sol in spite of its distance from those observing, then rapidly growing in size and intensity.

    Then another light flared, this one cold and blue, taking form at the Breach's circumference, before rippling inwards to meet the red light. At the point of collision, dazzling rays of purple shot out, rapidly gaining ground as the two rival waves fought to subdue each other, until the entirety of the Breach had been subsumed by purple.

    Without a force to contain it, the purple light surged outwards, swiftly clouding over the land of the pre-Impact European Union, undeterred by the atmosphere and Minor Breaches in its path.

    It soon reached the outer edges of Madrid Major Breach.

    A similar reaction occurred within, blue light rising to resist the wave of purple, succeeding in forcing it back towards Prague.

    Elsewhere, however, the purple continued unabated, and it just as quickly touched the surface of Tripoli Major Breach. It was the same as at Madrid, except that now the two blue waves of light were set to intersect between the two Breaches, crossing over and travelling on to each other's progenitor.

    Within a short timeframe, the blue light from Tripoli had contacted Madrid, while that from Madrid had in turn reached Tripoli and Prague. At all three Major Breaches, the consequence was that another wave of blue was generated and expanded outwards once again, gradually overcoming the sea of purple that currently occupied the union between the three regions.

    But as that transpired, the original purple wave made its way to Kankan Major; eventually it also reached the lone Cincinnati Major Breach in North America, all the way across the North Atlantic Ocean.

    And then it circled the entire globe over the Pacific Ocean until it returned to Prague, and the whole cycle began again.

    With each iteration, the radiant blue and purple light became ever brighter, until not even the sensors of Armstrong Base were able to properly discern it.

    Contact was lost with the various UN assets as the light expanded: first those on Earth, when the entire surface had been covered by at least three layers of light; then with everything out to geostationary orbit, including the vast majority of the Space Force's satellite networks; and finally out to twice that, overtaking most of the aerospace vessels that were currently burning away from Earth with as much acceleration as they could muster, heedless of the cost in fuel, Higgs reaction mass, and g-force-induced injuries.

    And then, after a while, the light faded away, leaving behind nothing but empty vacuum and memories.
    ​
    ----------​

    Ginnungagap Base Complex
    1155 hours AEDT

    The entirety of G-Com had fallen silent. In every room, hallway, and atrium, the surviving personnel of both sides were either accessing live sensor feeds from their comrades outside or watching them on whatever holographic projectors happened to be nearby, providing them all with front-row seats to the final death of their homelands.

    None of them really comprehended the sight before them. How could they? It had taken over sixty years, but Impact had finally succeeded in destroying the Earth.

    This state of affairs was much the same in Sandra's office, where a holographic video screen had conveniently unfurled across one of the walls, allowing the collection of Valkyries within to look upon their ultimate failure.

    And because Shuri, Koujirou, and Setsuna were so entranced, nobody was paying attention as Sandra, still handcuffed and seated at her desk, lowered her hands and began to type on one of the keyboards there.

    Everybody was shocked out of their collective reverie when a loud tone blared out of the PA system, followed by a distinctive siren activating, one that Shuri had only heard once during her time here.

    "Attention, all personnel," a synthesized voice announced. "The Ginnungagap Cannon is now one hundred percent charged. Target coordinates have been set and locked. Final countdown is now commencing. Thirty seconds to firing."

    The three Valkyries immediately whirled around to see that Sandra had reverted to her typical pose, an evil smirk resting over her clasped hands, her hair shining brilliantly as glitter wafted into the air around it.

    "Sandra!" Shuri was the first to shout. "What are you doing?!"

    "Why, Shuri," Sandra replied, eyes glinting, "I believe the events currently transpiring should be plainly apparent to you by now, though perhaps not to Koujirou and Setsuna here. I have simply taken advantage of the spatial distortions generated by the resonance cascade reaction to mask my resumption of the Ginnungagap Cannon's charging cycle. It was somewhat crude of a diversion for my liking, but its success is evident: neither you nor any of the intervention forces were able to detect it, am I correct?"

    "You bitch!" Setsuna cried, raising her weapons to the Director. "After all that you said about accepting responsibility and surrendering, you're going to fire the God Gun anyway? Was all of that just one big lie?"

    "And those codes you gave us to shut down the G-Gun," Koujirou added, "were they fake as well?"

    "Not at all, my dears," Sandra answered. "I was completely and utterly sincere in every single word of declaration I made at the time, when the United Nations had become so desperate to preserve its whimsical delusions of peace that it betrayed every principle it stood for, wilfully allowing human beings to die at the hands of the Antagonists, and my beloved comrades were on the verge of defeat as a result of its treachery. Because I loved them, and did not wish for their sacrifices to be in vain, I agreed to abandon my objective in order to save them. I have merely elected to change my mind in light of the present circumstances, not least of which is an unprecedentedly massive shift in the strategic calculus of World War Three."

    "Twenty seconds to firing," the PA system reminded them. "Secure all sensitive equipment and seal all internal bulkheads."

    "B-But why? What possible reason could you have for doing this?" Shuri pleaded, looking in Sandra's eyes for any sign that she could be reasoned with now. "There's nothing for you to attack anymore! The Earth is gone! The Antagonists are gone, just like you wanted! There's no reason for the G-Gun to even exist now, let alone fire!"

    "You're wrong, Shuri," Sandra refuted her, with a great deal of amusement. "It is true that the Antagonists have been dealt a staggering blow, with the loss of every Breach and all of the forces stationed on and around Earth. But this war hasn't quite come to a decisive conclusion just yet."

    Setsuna fired. The report of her railgun shells achieving hypersonic velocities was deafening in the confined space, causing Shuri to wince as she was subjected to it without the protection normally granted to her by Konark. Said shells crossed the room in under three milliseconds, causing a sequence of detonations that would have outright killed any non-Valkyrie present. Plasma from her casters swiftly followed, drowning the office in a haze of neon green as it washed back over everyone present.

    When she stopped, the smoke and bleed-off soon cleared to reveal Sandra grinning broadly at her desk without any loss in composure, a Higgs barrier shimmering in front of her.

    "Ten seconds to firing," the PA stated, its robotic calmness clashing with the atmosphere in the office. "All personnel brace for impact."

    Snarling, Koujirou rushed forward, plasma exploding out of his melee halberd as he brought it down on the Higgs barrier. It began to wobble and distort as he continued to push against it, but refused to yield, all while Sandra gazed at the interactions with an expression of mirth on her face.

    "Five. Four."

    Setsuna joined in, expressing her own plasma blade and driving it deep into the Higgs barrier. Its spatial distortions intensified and propagated as it buckled under the assault, warping the image of Sandra into something altogether more hideous.

    "Three. Two."

    Without Konark, all Shuri could do was stand there and watch.

    "One."

    Then the room shuddered, lines stretched to infinity, and reality suspended itself.

    Contrary to popular belief amongst those who'd witnessed its first firing, the Ginnungagap Cannon did not, in fact, fire a death ray that obliterated anything and everything in its path, up to and including Major Breaches. At the time the Cannon began construction, it hadn't yet been discovered that Anna Sanchez was capable of manipulating Wave Force in such a way. Rather, it contrived to warp space-time in a specific manner at the target coordinates such that a phenomenon approximating Static Wave was produced, except that without being restricted by the Impeller field of a single Valkyrie the pseudo-Static Wave could be made far greater. By the same token, however, the use of Higgs apparatus to generate the effect at such a large distance was what necessitated the construction of an Arcology-sized structure on Luna, if it was to have any hope of remaining anything like a practical weapon.

    That wasn't to say that being caught in the path of this enormous spatial manipulation wasn't hazardous to one's health, as the remnants of the UN intervention forces above G-Com found out to their detriment.

    And so the only warning Abraxas received of its imminent doom was when space-time began to tear around it, ten thousand kilometres above the Moon's surface. Its Impeller immediately started to be consumed by the new spatial anomaly, followed shortly by its reserves of Higgs particles, preventing it from escaping or retaliating.

    The Cannon's output was designed to destroy the Antagonist Hives that lay at the heart of Major Breaches. Class A Type Zero Abraxas was a far less resilient target.

    Another bright star bloomed out in the depths of space, momentarily draining the universe of colour, and the Antagonist which had so persecuted humanity's attempts to reach for the stars was no more.

    Shuri tore her eyes away from the iridescent display, still struggling to come to terms with all that had happened in the last ten minutes.

    The Higgs barrier was no longer present. Setsuna and Koujirou had collapsed on the floor by Sandra's desk, their Valkyrie Frames dematerialized, leaving them with only their fatigues as they huddled in a combined fetal position.

    And Sandra herself was still behind that desk, appearance as immaculate as it had ever been, literally glowing with a soft gold light that imbued the room with warmth. She caught Shuri's eye, and grinned.

    In front of Shuri, the handcuffs promptly broke apart, disintegrating into metallic dust.

    Shuri opened her mouth, but there was nothing to say.

    The Director of the Ginnungagap Base Complex, still grinning, reached across her desk and tapped a button.

    "Good afternoon to all of my beloved comrades here at Ginnungagap," she spoke, steepling her hands under her chin. "It is my understanding that you may presently be experiencing a certain degree of disorientation and bewilderment following recent events, but I am confident that what it is I am about to say will alleviate your concerns."

    "For this is a most joyous occasion! At long last, after more than fifteen years of interminable and bitter struggle, it is my privilege to announce that the victory we have all sought after has now finally been achieved! Through the audacious deployment of a Ginnungagap Device and the subsequent masterful firing of the Ginnungagap Cannon, the Antagonist menace has been completely and utterly purged from the face of our solar system! With the destruction of their entire forces and strongholds, we have demonstrated the absolute superiority of the human race, and in doing so wiped away the spectre that has loomed over us ever since Impact!"

    "It is not without the deepest regret that I deliver this address, for even as we come to terms with this new and unfamiliar state of affairs, we must take pains to remember the incredible sacrifices we have made as a species in the course of attaining victory. I speak of the billions of innocent lives taken by the Antagonists throughout the campaign of terror they wrought upon the Earth, whether it was through Impact that they met their ends before their time had come, or by the muzzles of their weapons and the perversions of their Impeller fields. I speak of the men and women who dedicated their lives to opposing the Antagonists, who possessed the courage to take their destiny into their own hands and fight for not only themselves, but for the future of all humanity. I speak of all the Valkyries who battled valiantly in the skies above Ginnungagap, resisting the traitorous United Nations and its Antagonist masters with ingenuity and valour, so that the last bastions of humanity could bring about victory. I speak of all the soldiers who continued to defend this complex even in the face of overwhelmingly superior enemy forces, buying us the time we needed in order to make that victory possible. And I speak of Anna Sanchez, the greatest Valkyrie who ever lived, whose personal actions in service of humanity directly brought about the end of the war, and who will be forever remembered as a hero to our species."

    Sandra paused momentarily, allowing for a brief silence before resuming her speech.

    "And now, in light of the pivotal role I played in bringing about this most wondrous occasion, I, Aleksandra Marianne Cambridge, hereby and henceforth declare myself to be the Supreme Empress of Humanity! I solemnly swear that I will treat all under my reign with fairness and magnanimity, and that through my rule humanity will finally enter a Golden Age, the one that was promised to us ever since the first arrival of the Valkyrie Cores! With the miracle of the Cores, a secure supply of Higgs particles, and the power of the Ginnungagap Project behind us, we will spread ourselves among the stars, and the triumph of the human race will endure for all eternity, surpassing entropy and beyond!"

    "There will be much for us to do together as we work to bring about this future, but for this moment I shall conclude this address on a note of requitement. As the Supreme Empress of Humanity, my first action is to humbly express my profound and undying gratitude for the effort that each and every one of you has made in service of humanity. All I ask of you now, all that I will ever ask of you, is that you continue to do what you think is right, for there is no deed that could ever be more human. Until we meet again, and remember: I love you."

    And Sandra smiled; a beautiful, exquisite smile that would become the foundation for all of humanity.

    Then she looked up from the camera to face Shuri, who had stood rooted to the spot, unable to think and scarcely able to breathe, as the last vestiges of the world she was born in died a ghastly and undignified death.

    "But before I habituate myself to the rather involved business of ruling over the entire human race," Sandra said, her smile taking on a saucy quality, "I believe that some celebration is in order."

    She rose from her desk and started walking towards Shuri, stepping over the sprawled bodies of Koujirou and Setsuna as she did so. Her eyes were a sparkling ocean of blue, and her hair gleamed brighter than the Sun.

    Shuri's breathing was hollow as the girl who destroyed the world stopped in front of her, reaching out a hand to gently brush her cheeks, gazing into her eyes with pure lasciviousness.

    "Don't you agree, my dear Shuri?"

    Numb to the world, Shuri did not resist as Sandra pulled her in and kissed her again.
    ​
    The End​
    ​
    ----------​

    For those of you who might be interested:
    The Making of HVOVA​
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • I got baited by update 18 earlier, when I somehow ended up on the first page of the thread.

    It was released August 1st... 2016.

    Woo! It's back!
     
    That was fun. I love how Anna caused so much destruction that people thought the Antagonist were having a civil war. And being a commentator seems to turn out pretty well. Also Koujirou is gonna get vac banned if he keeps using aim assist.
     
    Last edited:
    Tayta Malikai said:
    Kept you waiting, huh?

    Special thanks to @Kaizuki for beta-reading, and @Avalanche for being such a good sport about the whole thing.

    Special mentions also to @UberJJK and @OmegaS for their informative write-ups, which proved incredibly helpful for writing this story.

    In an alternate universe, where the harem never came together, the Pakistan Air Force was not quite as pants-on-head retarded, and a certain lovable ojou became an evil mastermind…
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    ...
    Put it in a box please.
     
    Yeah, I'm going to bed.
    Will read this tomorrow...

    Edit. On second thought, who needs sleep?
     
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    My bookmark for SV is actually Avalanche's profile.
    Didn't read the update yet, but I'm hype. Brb getting something good to drink to go with this.
     
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