[IC] Evolution of Conflict: A Sci-Fi Mecha 1x1 FaithfulMuse and Stern Algorithm

[Stern Algorithm]

As the Mayura launched, Tera started braking fairly early for the sake of safety, so even though she arrived at the meeting spot later than Blythe, she was able to stop smoothly. Sion could be heard trying to coach Israfil to stop his Orpheus from spinning. Sion did stop long enough to congratulate both Tera and Blythe on their successful first launch.

"Alright Claire Rivers, we're next," Maya said.

"Launch sequence initiated, Obsidian prepare for take-off on starboard catapult, Asteria prepare for take-off on port catapult. Lieutenant Encarnacion, Ensign Rivers, you are cleared for take-off, catapult launch in 3...2...1..."

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire took place in her cog and quietly hoped that she would do good. She was more nervous than she had expected herself to be, however. As a result she landed a bit too late, or so she assumed she did, though with not too many trouble. She looked at Israfil for a short moment, feeling sorry for him.

[Stern Algorithm]

By the time Claire and Maya arrived, Sion had managed to help Israfil get Orpheus to stop spinning.

"Not bad, Claire Rivers," Maya said, offering encouragement. "Now we'll start out with simple propulsion training. As each cockpit is designed to best suit your own unique ideal control style, I can't teach all of you how to control your cogs. Most of you will have some sort of throttle lever, or maybe a foot pedal. The only real pointer I can give is to use your intuition. Do what you 'think' will make your cog move in the direction you want, and it should go."

"Maybe you should have told them that before asking them to brake," Sion said. Despite the seeming seriousness of his voice, this was probably the closest thing to jovial banter anyone had heard from him.

"Heh, you're probably right," Maya chuckled, "Braking follows the same principle. In fact, the same principle of intuition applies to pretty much all aspects of controlling your cogs, the main point is to get used to it, and let the cog guide you. So try moving around."

The ensigns started moving their cogs around. Israfil and Tera took it slow, Solomon on the other hand, was attempting challenging aerial maneuvers and doing a decent job at it. He actually started flying an orbit around Orpheus, which was a slow cog by design. "So, Ensign Eihon was it?" Solomon asked, "I'm Lear. Solomon Lear, looks like we'll be comrades from here on out."

"Solomon?" Israfil asked with a bit of incredulity, "M-my name is Israfil...i-it's nice to meet you..." Israfil still remembered with terror Solomon's ability to control other peoples' bodies, yet the Ascended came off much friendlier than he expected. He thought about how nice Mike was too, and blamed himself for jumping to conclusions. Not all Ascendeds were bad, maybe Solomon just had a bad day.

[FaithfulMuse]

Just like Tera and Israfil, Claire and Blythe to start slowly, taking their time to see how to make the cogs move around. It wasn't a too hard thing to do, and as a result things went fairly well for the two sisters. Blythe noticed Solomon flying around with his cog and rolled her eyes, though decided to pay no attention to the show off.

Claire wasn't paying attention to anyone at the moment, and was mostly focused on making sure that everything was going well. Even though it was no huge mistake that she had made, she didn't want to mess up again, wanting to make a good impression.

[Stern Algorithm]

"Blythe Rivers, try moving a little faster," Maya suggested without sounding critical, "from what I saw of the Nix's specifications, it should have pretty impressive maneuverability."

Maya continued, "Our next exercise will be target practice. The incubaotr will first launch some stationary targets. Those of your with ranged weapons, test your aim, those of you with melee weapons, go into fray and try to take some out. Afterwards, the Incubator will launch some moving targets. Again, try your hand at hitting them."

The Incubator launched some pods out that positioned themselves into two groups, one for ranged, and one for melee. They led away from the main group of ships so that any stray shots wouldn't hit any of the other vessels.

"Feel free to familiarize yourself with any additional systems your cog might have," Maya added as a final note.

[FaithfulMuse]

Blythe listened to Maya's suggestion and nodded, though she didn't say anything. If that was the case, than Blythe would simply have to keep in mind that the cog could move fast. Probably faster than she expected, or at least faster than this. Once it was mentioned that they were going to do target practice, she smiled and headed over to the pods that had positioned for practice with long range weapons. She made the cog pull his gun, took a moment to AIM ad then fired, hitting the targets with ease. Sure, controling a cog might be something to get used to, but she had always had a good aim.

Claire listened to what Maya told, and was unsure of what to do for a moment, until she mentioned that they could also try any of the systems their cogs had. It didn't look like Asteria had any kind of damage, but something listed as 'damage scan' caught her attention. She decided to try it, and as a result, the cog started scanning the pod in front of her, one that was still unharmed. As a result, the scan mentioned that it had no damage.

[Stern Algorithm]

Legion sidled up next to Nix. Though he did not express it out loud, Solomon sneered at the Nix's seemingly lackluster weapons loadout. He had done a quick run-through of Legion and was quite impressed with the weaponry. Legion dramatically leveled its right arm towards one of the targets letting all three arm-mounted bits fire 12 beams towards one of the targets, destroying it instantly. Solomon chuckled to himself as Legion leveled both arms, this time, letting all 12 arm-mounted and shoulder mounted bits fire at independent targets, loosing 48 separate beams and flooding the area in front of him with destructive light.

"Impressive," Sion noted after witnessing Legion's demonstration.

Israfil also tried shooting the targets. The cape-like mantle surrounding Orpheus opened up into six shield plates and pointed forward. Slow, powerful beams fired taking out a couple targets.

Tera used her bayonet to shoot at a couple of the closer targets, but soon stopped as she was busy examining the scanning equipment that Mayura had.

[FaithfulMuse]

Blythe watched Legion for a moment and had to admit, much against her liking, that what it did was indeed very impressive. Still, she didn't envy its amount of weapons, much more liking it to keep things simple. Instead of giving it more attention, Blythe focused on the pods again and managed to take out some more of them.

Claire watched the others for a brief moment, unsure of what to do. She soon enough noticed that it took the others little time to destroy a fair amount of pods. She decided to scan one of the damaged pods, after which the results shown the percentage of damage and which parts of the pod were damaged. Having noticed the repairment system, Claire headed over to the pod and tried repairing it.

[Stern Algorithm]

A strange, fluid beam poured out of Asteria's repair nozzle, coating the broken pod in a green glow. The pod regaiend it's original structure and shape, cracks mended, and entire missing chunks reformed. Claire could notice a meter in her HUD slowly decreasing, showing expenditure of the nanomaterial being used to repair the pod.

"That's...amazing..." Maya said, slightly dumbstruck, "I looked over the specifications of Asteria, but I almost didn't believe that something like this could exist."

"Repair technology like this alone would make the the entire Cadmus project worth it, more-so than even the cogs themselves," Sion added. For the most part, the other cogs were simply glorified weapons platforms, and did not really add new technology, they simply had unique ways of using what already existed.

Solomon secretly glared at Asteria for having stolen Legion's thunder. Maya however, soon changed the pods t ochange behavior and start moving so the pilots could start training on hitting moving targets, giving Solomon another chance to show off. "Ha! Feast your eyes on this!" Legion threw its arms outwards as 18 bits detached from it. Each bit flew about independently, circling Legion like a swarm of hornets. He then sic'ed the bits after the moving pods. The bits flew very quickly and fired at a target from multiple angles, making a deadly, inescapable net of beams. Solomon felt a severe strain in his temples as he realized the cog's control system was somehow getting inside his head, which was the only way he could have been able to control all 18 bits simultaneously and with such precision. However as the strain intensified, the bits became increasingly harder to control, but Solomon would never admit that; he was too busy trying to show off.

""That's incredible!" Israfil spoke up. This unfortunately got Solomon's attention, and as he turned his focus on Orpheus, so too did the bits. Without warning, some of the bits started firing on Orpheus, while others simply rammed into it mindlessly. It was all Israfil could do to make Orpheus close its shields around itself, but it had already sustained considerable damage. The bits continued the attack.

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire watched as the pod was being repaired by the help of the fluid beams, being amazed herself as well. She had never seen anything like it before, and it was an interesting thing to see, to say the least. When she was done repairing the pod she turned her cog around and saw what was going on.

Blythe was about to get started on shooting the now moving pods, which she assumed would be much more interesting than the unmoving targets, when she noticed the bits that Solomon was controling were now attacking Israfil's cog. Without a moment of hesitation she started aiming at the bits and shot them one by one to prevent them from causing any more harm.

[Stern Algorithm]

The bits were small, fast and hard to hit, but Blythe managed to take down several. Obsidian dashed towards Legion and punched it in the head, shocking Solomon out of his mental shackling by the cog's targeting system. Orpheus was damaged, but not overly so, however Israfil was silent.

"Rivers! See if you can repair Orpheus!" Maya commanded, a slight amount of trepidation audible in her voice, "Lear, Eihon! Talk to me!"

"Lieutenant?!" came Solomon's voice over the comm link as he came back to his senses, "I-I'm sorry, I don't know what..." then he saw Orpheus on his screen. "Eihon! I'm sorry..."

"I...I'm...okay," Israfil finally said, fighting back sobs of terror.

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire nodded and quickly headed over to Orpheus and tried to repair it, hoping it would work. Sure, she had been able to repair that pod from just a moment ago, but there was a huge difference between a small pod and such a huge cog.

Blythe made Nyx lower its gun again and said nothing, watching as Solomon got back to her senses and her sister repaired the damage done to Orpheus. She was surprised by Israfil, who sounded surprisingly calm for someone who had just unexpectedly been shot at.

[Stern Algorithm]

Asteria's repair beam worked like a charm, fixing the Orpheus good as new save for a few scorch marks that did not constitute as true damage.

"We're gonna have to try that on the ship sometime," Sion said, more and more impressed by Asteria's capabilities.

"L-let's get back to the ship for now," Maya ordered, "RHS, we need to discuss what happened in private."

"Understood," Sion said, putting aside his fascination with Asteria, and adopting a more solemn tone. His Fury was capable of splitting into three separate components, yet he could control all three simultaneously easily enough without losing control, so it had never occurred to him that such a thing could happen. Granted, Solomon was controlling 18 bits in addition to Legion, but a part of Sion wondered if Solomon losing control was due to the fact that he was only human. Sion was a little disappointed that no other Quantums joined the team.

As the group headed back for the ship, Tera suddenly spoke up, "Umm...Eihon?" Mayura turned around. Orpheus hadn't moved. A stifled sob came through the comm link. A quick look at Orpheus' video feed showed that Israfil had brought his legs up in a fetal position and had buried his head in his knees. He was crying.

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire looked at the video screen that showed Israfil, feeling sorry for the boy. "Israfil, is everything okay?" She asked worried, though she figured that was a stupid question. He had just been attacked, of course he didn't feel alright. If she were in his situation, she'd be terrified.

Blythe had noticed the video screen, but didn't say anything. She doubted if he would like to have everyone asking hoe he was feeling right now. He might like to calm down a little bit first.

[Stern Algorithm]

"I-I'll be...fine..." Israfil said, trying to sound stronger than he felt. Still, Orpheus did not move as Israfil still had not grasped his piloting controls. The Fury flew back behind Orpheus and began pushing it along instead.

The group made it back to the Incubator and began docking procedures, which involved entering from one of two bay doors on the sides of the ship and locking the feet of the cogs into the docking platforms, which will move the cogs back into their positions along the walls of the hangar. This way, if some cogs are launching out the front, returning cogs wont get in the way. By the time they got back, Israfil was calm enough to dock himself. Once everyone had docked, Maya assembled everyone together, "Alright so until we reach our destination, everyone has free time, but I want to assign everyone at least five hours of cog training every day. Your cog OS's are installed with training simulators. You just get in your cog, boot up the simulator and start training, using the controls as usual, only instead of moving the cog, it will only send instructions to the program, got it?" When there weren't any questions, Maya continued, "Alright, dismissed. RHS, come with me." Sion followed wordlessly.

Solomon went up to Israfil and said, "So...Eihon...Israfil, was it? I hope you know I didn't mean to do that to you, and I'm sorry for what happened." Solomon just didn't go as far as admitting he had lost control of his cog. "I hope you can forgive me." When he had apologized out in space, he had sounded more sincere, having legitimately panicked at the realization that he was attacking one of his teammates, but it felt that after some time, his apology now sounded more irritated than earlier.

Israfil, who had by now stopped crying though his eyes were still a bit red, "I understand...it was an accident."

"OK, cool then. So...friends?" Solomon said with a slight bit of sarcastic relief in his voice and a smile that bordered on mischievous as he held out his hand, which Israfil took, and the two shook.

Israfil turned to Claire, "A-and thank you for fixing Orpheus for me. I feel a lot safer knowing that I can get repairs in the field. M-my name's Israfil Eihon, I don't know if I've formally introduced myself yet, I-I guess I haven't spent that much time with you guys yet." He directed this last statement to the women in the group.

Solomon looked down his nose with a serious look of distaste at Blythe. He didn't like the fact that she had managed to shoot down a couple of his bits since he was so proud of his cog's ability. However he didn't keep this up long enough for anyone to notice since he was trying not to get in trouble with her again.

[FaithfulMuse]

Blythe hadn't noticed the look Solomon was giving her, and didn't feel very excited to socialise, pretend to like everyone and be 'friends' with them. So without saying a word, she left the group and headed to the barracks, got her drawing pad and left again to find herself a calm spot where she could draw peacefully.

Claire listened to what Israfil had to say and offered him a friendly smile. She was glad that he seemed to have calmed down now, even of his eyes were still. She figured it might take a while before that would be over. "It's nice to meet you, Israfil. My name is Claire Rivers and the girl who just left is my twin, Blythe." Claire introduced herself and Blythe, figuring she night as well introduce her sister, too, seeing as she had left the others again already.

[Stern Algorithm]

Israfil wondered why Blythe left so suddenly and was going to say something, but Tera wordlessly indicated that he should just let it be. "Tera QAZ," she introduced herself. "I think I'll go back in to Mayura, try out the training simulations." With that, Tera headed back to her cog.

"She's got a point," Solomon added, "The amount of time we were out there wasn't very satisfying, at least, I don't think I really got to sink my teeth in." Solomon seemed to be conveniently leaving out the fact that the training was canceled because of him. He looked at Claire, sizing her up. "So, I wanted to apologize for the incident in the shuttle."

Israfil wondered if he should go and train as well, but he didn't want to get back in Orpheus just yet, the fear was still too fresh. But maybe he might see Mike around the hangar. For the time being he hung around Solomon and Claire.

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire looked at Solomon and smiled. "Don't worry, it's okay. I know that Blythe isn't always the friendliest. It won't be the first time she got in trouble with someone." Claire said, knowing how Blythe could be a person that was difficult to like.

[Stern Algorithm]

Solomon looked down at Claire, judging her for a moment. Then he smiled; some might say it was a charming smile, though he hid wickedness behind it. He had expected Claire to take Blythe's side instead of apologizing for her or making excuses for her. Maybe she was dumb, or maybe she didn't like her sister, either way, Solomon was going to take what he could get. "So we totally got off on the wrong foot, let's just put the shuttle incident behind us. We're comrades, right? Let's be friends," Solomon said, leaning in uncomfortably close to Claire.

[FaithfulMuse]

Claire looked at him and nodded, although she took a few steps back si that they weren't that close anymore. He had been a bit top close, even for Claire's liking. "Sure, I think we could be friends." Claire said, at least willing to give him a chance.