Giorgio lost control of his acceleration, charging straight at Nanami, overtaking the cadets in front of him
"FLAT! FLAT! FLAT!" roared Herbert at Giorgio on the comms, seeing his distance to Nanami on the screen in the base.
"CUT THE ACCELERATOR!!' yelled Herbert. "YOU ARE GOING TO COLLIDE!!"
"CUT!!!!"
Warnings beeped in Nanami's cockpit, she immediately took evasive action, ensuring that she does not collide into other Mechas.
At the last moment Giorigio regained control of his Mecha, just before hitting the threshold for AI autopilot takeover.
"Number 92, is your simulation performing normally?" asked Nanami.
"Yes Ma'am!" replied Giorgio.
"Number 92!" roared Franz through the radio. "I think we f***ing owe you a favour."
"Real kind of you to give us a lung capacity exercise up here 384,400km away from Earth by making us scream at you for your pathetic actions!" yelled Franz sarcastically.
"We are going to turn in formation," instructed Nanami.
"TURN IN FORMATION! DID YOU NOT CATCH THAT NUMBER 39 ?" roared Reza.
"Yes Sir!" replied Albert, flying beside Vera.
He adjusted the controls as much as he could.
"DID NANAMI GIVE HER ORDERS IN ENGLISH OR BETHORIAN?" roared Franz.
"English, Sir!" replied Albert.
"THEN WHY ARE YOU DUMBA** STILL FLYING SO F***ING HIGH?" asked Franz. "DO YOU NEED HER TO GIVE ORDERS IN CANTONESE?!"
"NO SIR!" replied Albert, lowering his flight path, and ensuring he is flying below Vera's T-01 unit as per instructed by the AI on his touch screen.
"You are going to collide, cut!" roared Franz.
Albert immediately cut his accelerator, narrowly avoiding a collision.
"WHAT ARE YOU, A PERVERT?' roared Singh. "WHY ARE YOU FLYING SO CLOSE TO NUMBER 17?! KEEP YOUR DISTANCE FROM HER!"
Sean could not help but to laugh in exasperation at the antics of his friends. He stuck tightly onto AC-3. Carl doing the same.
At another side, Maia and Franz are drilling the hell out of Erika and Eddie.
"MOTHERF***ERS MAINTAIN YOUR SPEED!"
"CHECK YOUR ALTITUDE!"
"DO YOU HAVE NO ACCELERATOR TO CUT?"
"Can," replied Erika with a quiver in her voice. She is really freaked out now. Nothing in her time as a Tier 2 operator in the Assault Pathfinders have prepared her for this level of dissing and stress.
"F***ING DO IT!"
Erika did as he ordered, returning to a correct position.
"THEN WHAT WERE YOU DOING PREVIOUSLY? F***ING RET*RD!" cursed Maia.
Erika is already on the verge of tears and freaking out as the stress got to her.
"Hard?" asked Franz.
"No Sir," replied Erika, trying her best to sound normal and not let the King of Bast*rds figure out that she is on the verge of tears, as she knew that she will get another salvo of insults and scolding from him if he sensed it.
"Number 4, if you cannot do it, I would have accepted it as it is," said Maia. "But you were evidently able to do it but yet still didn't!"
Eddie slowed down, trying his best to remain in formation. Hearing the rapid fire of insults made him extremely cautious, and apprehensive.
"Wah lao, don't want to end up like Erika…"
"Number 74 do you have a malfunction?!" screamed Maia.
"No!" Eddie replied.
"Do you need an AI takeover?!"
"No!"
"Then speed the f*** up! You are going to be thrown off the formation!" she yelled.
"Landing procedures begin," instructed Nanami, and a new set of instructions appeared on the cadet's screens. "Careful to keep your speeds, otherwise you are flying yourselves into the Moon!"
Clara readied the landing procedures, a piece of cake as her latent skills and experience came back. She is already pre-empting herself for the next steps.
"Number 101 my sweet little dragon," Nanami remarked. "A bit too enthusiastic?"
"No such thing, ma'am!" she replied.
"I like my girls all confident and full of themselves~" teased Nanami. "You don't seem to know when to quit?"
"NEVER QUITTING!" she replied. "Ma'am, are you mocking me?"
She flew forward sharply, narrowly hitting Louis in her brazen act.
"Stay in formation!" chided Nanami. Clara complied, slowing down.
(The next day, back on Earth)
Louis ran through the kill-house with Carl and another cadet, all 3 of them with HK-416A5s raised.
A target board appeared as they moved into a room. Carl, who has not been aiming down his optic to prevent tunnel vision made paused briefly to assess whether it is a hostile target, then once he confirmed, he pulled the trigger.
The other cadet and Louis moved behind him. The 3 get ready to breach the next room.
Carl smashed the door open with the built-in battering ram from his Exo-suit. Louis and the other cadet moved. Louis step-centred, and pushed, firing at a target and kept his momentum. In his haste he moved too fast, slipping and falling. Coincidentally, several new targets popped up. The cadet behind Louis panicked, opening fire.
Just then, the simulation stopped. Louis looked up at Nanami and Maia looking down at them from the observation floors.
"Number 7," said Maia coldly. "You are removed from ATC, renounce your number and equipment."
Louis stood up, realising that the cadet shot a hostage target, after the first kill-house, James made it clear that if anyone else shot a hostage, it's an instant disqualification.
"And some of you should learn to grow better legs," sneered Maia. Louis lowered his head, his face burning from embarrassment. Carl gave Louis a cold side glance before moving out of the kill-house.
"This next section is a simple," said Reza, "You 3 run 400m to the outdoor shooting range, then assemble weapons blindfolded, then a quick reaction shooting test."
Louis' expression is still dazed from his latest embarrassment, needing Sean to nudge him to start running.
Him, Sean and Ariel arrived at the outdoor shooting range, where Maia and Santos are waiting at.
The cadets are ushered in front of 3 tables; each table has the field-stripped parts of guns in them.
The 3 put on blindfolds.
"Begin!" yelled Maia, activating her stopwatch. The 3 immediately started to feel around, trying to recognise the guns that use these parts and what part are they specifically. Soon the 3 figured out and started assembling them. Out of the 3, Sean is the slowest due to the decreased familiarity, but he still is keeping up.
Just as Louis is about to assemble the bolt carrier of the HK-416A5 he is assembling, he found it missing. Panicked, he started feeling around for it.
"What the hell? That was the first part I recognised!" he thought. He cannot carry on to the next step without the bolt carrier. Calming himself down, he assembled the Glock 19 pistol that he had recognised too first, only to find to his shock that the recoil spring is now missing too, he hurriedly felt around for it, panicked.
"DONE!" yelled Ariel, finishing her assembly.
"DONE!" yelled Sean, dabbling sweat aside.
Louis further panicked as a result. Just then, he felt something being rolled in front of him, he reached forward, finding the missing bolt carrier and missing recoil spring, quickly grabbing them and assembling the guns.
The 3 pulled off their blindfolds. Louis pulled off his to see Maia standing with her back turned against him in front of his table. His eyes darted to her hands, which showed marks of gun oil used to maintain the guns. He then stared down at his own gun oil-stained hands from the assembly test.
Santos raised his clean hand, directing the cadets to the shooting range. They put down the rubber training props and grabbed their guns from the range officers, which they had used for the morning during kill-house.
"Action!" yelled Maia, and the 3 advanced forward, shooting and moving…
(10pm)
"Numbers 7 and 64 eliminated!" announced Nanami, looking at the list of the 2 cadets that were lost to ATC. Number 7 from shooting a hostage, number 64 from injury when she fell out of a helicopter when quick rappelling, forced to leave the selection on medical grounds.
Louis snuck a peek at the instructors, seeing Maia fuming at the name list. He sighed, understanding that he had again barely scrapped in.
With that, the cadets headed back to their dormitories. Louis entered the shower rooms, only to find to his confusion that the other male cadets inside are showering for long periods, keeping him out.
After finally showering, he dressed up and left for the simulation rooms, wanting to get some extra practice, only to find himself blocked out of the room, Carl, Erika and the other cadets inside refusing to let him in and insisting that they are full, when unused AR gear are clearly visible to Sean. Not wanting to get into trouble for fighting, Louis returned to his dormitory.
Similar events happened the following day, ranging from his food being "accidentally" spilt by the other cadets to cold violence and other acts of exclusion and harm, like a cadet "accidentally" being too strong with her fire punch in a sparring practice which sent Louis to Phineas and the medical team straightaway and ending up getting stiches on his arm.
While Louis had no way of knowing, Carl and Erika's plan at bullying him out is in full swing, not helped by the deliberate closing of one eye by Maia and some of the instructors. Sean, Albert, Eddie, Vera and Ariel stuck by his side, but the 4 of them are no match for the overpowering might of the 11 others. Nanami is also powerless to help him as all of their actions do not constitute punishable offences.
As for Giorgio, he is just really a nice guy who does not want to earn the bad books of Carl even though he still helps Louis out.
Like now, where Louis is crying as he clutched his head in pain, after a battering ram hit him right in the head, Giorgio is carefully bandaging him.
"YOU SON OF A B*TCH!!" roared Sean, pinning the cadet against the wall, his Artemis strength pushing through. A fist landed next to the cadet, shattering the thick concrete wall.
"YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE, I SAW IT!" he yelled.
Clara coldly observed the commotion, not interested to intervene.
"Prove it," sneered the cadet. "And look at you, Mr saint," he said, voice infused with venom. "You think you are better than the rest of us, because you care for a f***ing scraper who is drag the rest of us down?"
Jeers came from the other cadets observing.
Sean's blood boiled, he raised his fist to punch, then out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Maia peeking out, a faint smirk on her face. Evidently, she wants to use a breach of discipline to oust him.
He sighed, dropping the cadet and glared at him, pulling Louis and Giorgio with him.