By: Inuki **Ookami**

 

5

"Care about your teammates. If this was a real battle, and I know that this isn't, and I know that we've been over this a million times, every time we have a simulation like this someone always thinks that they can do everything by themselves, and when they get shot down and loose then they are so upset. This truly is a team effort, so if you loose, and your team wins it's still a good thing, and it's good to show support. Now, Rule three is to think about this as if it were your real life, so you want to go by the rules, but remember that in the real world when you are fighting there are no rules. These basic three rules are just to make you stronger now, they don't all necessarily apply to any of you if you do really become pilots in the real world some day. All ready then? Okay. I want ten of you to go in the simulation booths, the other twenty of you will wait your turn until the simulation ends, when it is over you will rotate to the next group, and finally the last group. When you have finished that I want you to fill out this first sheet explaining what happened and why, and on your second sheet I want you to label the parts of this well known space-robot. That's all for now. I will be monitoring the simulations in the head booth." the instructor of their piloting class went to the head booth, pulled back the red curtains, and entered. The curtains closed behind him. It was about a year after Mitsuhiro had moved into Kaleb's room. Neither boy had either done the simulation with each other, they had only been in piloting classes together in Level Ten, and that was a few years beforehand.

They were each assigned a position and a team. There were two teams of five, and as extraordinary luck would have it Kaleb and Mitsuhiro were the two middle rank captains, everyone else were just low rank pilots. By the end everyone was out except the two captains, a rare thing, as everyone normally targeted the captains first, so games were won quickly. Neither Kaleb not Mitsuhiro were about to be shot down though. Mitsuhiro had amazing defense and attacks, but Kaleb had amazing attacks and speed. One dodged an attack while firing another. The other blocked it, and fought back. Finally Kaleb decided to shoot two blasts at once, he shot a massive but weak blast of energy at Mitsuhiro, head on, then shot a very powerful but small one below him. Mitsuhiro dodged, as his armor was growing weak, but it was too late for him, because he was hit by the tiny blast. His robot's armor cracked, then the entire machine heated up and exploded. Kaleb grinned, but wondered why the simulation hadn't ended yet. He looked on his screen, it didn't say "Enemy Pilot Defeated"! How was it possible? Then out of the smoke and dust a piece of rubble from the robot came flying at Kaleb. Kaleb made the robot he sat in smash the tiny thing away, and it broke into dust. Then there was a flash of light, and suddenly his robot was on fire! He had no other choice but to die in outer-space by jumping out of the robot and loosing all air. It would be less painful than to die from having his ship explode with him in it. Yet, as he jumped out of the robot-ship he found he could breathe!
"That's funny, there must be a glitch in the system, the machine simulates what should happen in real life, and I certainly couldn't survive in outer-space without any air or special suit! I shouldn't be able to talk either. Space is a soundless void." he said. Out of the rubble of the other robot came Mitsuhiro.

"Like that fire?" Mitsuhiro gave a snicker. That stupid Mitsuhiro! He had done it! He must have changed the simulator the night before when everyone was asleep. Their instructor normally left the door locked though, and the building was locked too! There was something oddly familiar between the lightning he had seen and then the fire in that memory, and Mitsuhiro's strange secret programming in this game. Whatever this whole thing was he sure didn't like it. He figured that this was going to be a "duel to the death" type of thing, but how did Mitsuhiro plan on killing him without a weapon? Suddenly Mitsuhiro's hands glowed whitish. Suddenly he began shooting blasts at Kaleb. Kaleb screamed in surprise, springing to his feet he flipped around, hopped over, and overall dodged every energy blast. One neared his skin so much that it burnt his clothes with it's heat. He glared at Mitsuhiro angrily.
"This isn't a video game!" he cried out at Mitsuhiro. This wasn't funny. He knew Mitsuhiro liked to pull pranks, but this simulation was extremely realistic, it was terrible to tamper with it like this. In fact, Mitsuhiro could have even programmed pain into the simulation. He didn't though. It was a good thing that he hadn't.

"You're in my world now" Mitsuhiro laughed crazily. Kaleb's face grew red, and he ran at Mitsuhiro. This boy was a monster as well as being completely crazy! He had to be stopped, and he had to be stopped now! Kaleb grabbed the other boy's wrist and his leg. He ripped his leg into the air, forcing the boy into the ground, but kept him from falling by holding the Mitsuhiro's wrist. The American glared as the other screamed in pain. The pain of defeat, this boy couldn't even win in his own programmed world. Suddenly Mitsuhiro's body became engulfed in flames. He was killing himself! Admitting defeat, or was he? Kaleb dropped the flaming corpse to the ground, if there was a ground, they were just in a void of space. The body fell, and finally dropped out of site. Then Kaleb opened his eyes, and took off the glasses. The other eight student pilots had gathered around the screen as they left the simulation, all of the other twenty had gathered around the watch. The instructor frantically pushed buttons on the head simulator, but found he could do nothing. Mitsuhiro had done something to the system. Never had two so equally skilled and talented students fought each other in the simulator, nor had anyone every walked around in outer-space, even in a simulator! It was unheard of, and unrealistic. Mitsuhiro took off his glasses a moment before Kaleb to find all those students staring at the screen. He was unaware of it during the simulation, but while picking off all the other students, and killing them one by one on the other team he had been biting his lip. It was bleeding, and he tasted the blood in his mouth.

Mitsuhiro had set that up as revenge. He was secretly angry that the ID he had once thought was fake wasn't. In fact it was his own roommates'! He made the system automatically choose his ID and Kaleb's ID to become captains. Then he had changed the settings, making them able to talk and walk in space. He never set it so they could breathe in space. He wanted to test Kaleb. Kaleb had passed. What frustrated him even more was that Kaleb actually spent time doing the work, and that he never even looked at the marks. He just assumed that he always had the highest mark! He wasn't competitive unless it was for his life or for his school mark. He was so quiet, it annoyed Mitsuhiro. Everyone Mitsuhiro knew was either fun to annoy like his old roommate, or his old science teacher, or they enjoyed annoying people, like himself. Kaleb couldn't be classed under either category. He didn't seem to enjoy taunting people, nor was it fun to tease or bother him. Mitsuhiro just left Kaleb alone because of this, and Kaleb left Mitsuhiro alone because he didn't want anymore of those awful memories of pain and hatred and violence.

Go to Chapter 6 of Crossroads of Life
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