MS Combat

"What happened?"

Inside the cockpit, Noer had been focused on controlling his MS when a piercing alarm jolted him awake. Seeing the massive shadow appear on the screen ahead, he hurriedly turned his MS toward it.

"You—"

Boom—

What he saw was a dark green training MS. Before Noer could finish speaking, it charged straight at him.

Amid a terrifying crash and violent shaking, Noer felt the world spin. His mind went completely blank.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three dull metallic impacts rang out in succession.

Noer's MS staggered back three steps before it barely managed to remain standing.

Even he did not know how he had stabilized it. His posture was rather ugly, but at least he had stayed upright.

"What are you—"

Noer shook his throbbing head and fought back the acid churning in his stomach, about to demand an explanation.

Before he could finish, however, a massive dark green MS fist appeared on the screen.

The fist filled the entire display. For an instant, Noer could even make out the steel patterns on its surface.

Danger!

Death!

Fear!

The sudden attack filled Noer's mind with three overwhelming emotions, leaving him with a deep sense of suffocation.

Boom!

"Ah!"

Noer had no chance to react. As the cockpit lurched violently, the MS toppled over.

Faced with the sudden situation, Noer could only grip the handles on both sides of the cockpit tightly to steady himself.

But because he had not fastened his seat belt, his head still slammed into the instrument panel in front of him.

Blood spattered everywhere!

Bang—

Through the haze, something in the mind overwhelmed by panic and fear seemed to snap.

Facing the fallen training MS piloted by Noer.

The C-147E36 training MS walked up to Noer's machine and kept hammering it with clenched fists, sending sparks flying amid rumbling crashes.

The violent shocks made Noer miserable, to the point where he felt as though he might pass out.

He could not even operate the machine, only lie on the ground and take the beating.

If this had not been a training MS with its output limited to safe levels, those few attacks would have been enough to kill Noer.

Even so, the violent vibrations transmitted into the cockpit left Noer dizzy and disoriented.

"Force that MS to stop immediately!"

"Control room! Force-stop training MS C-147E36! Now! Immediately!"

"Are you people useless? Shut down that rampaging MS already!"

Below, the instructors in the control room were scared out of their wits by the scene before them. A trainee-controlled training MS had gone berserk and forcibly entered another MS training area—something the school would never permit!

"Is that all?"

Cruze frowned slightly as he watched Noer get beaten back. This did not match what he had expected.

That was right. Noer had never undergone any genetic optimization or adjustment. That was a fact.

The intelligence Cruze had obtained had indeed confirmed it. But was there really such a thing as a free lunch?

Would such a high-end Coordinator laboratory kindly help an ordinary family artificially conceive a child for free?

Even if the person in charge of that laboratory had truly been a good person who wanted to use his authority to do a good deed.

Why would he choose you?

Saying there were hundreds of millions of couples on Earth unable to conceive normally due to physical issues might have been an exaggeration, but there were certainly tens of millions.

So why had that researcher picked you from among tens of millions? Or rather, why had he picked Noer's parents?

Why help you instead of someone else?

And that had been precisely when the conflict between Coordinators and Naturals had begun to escalate completely.

Under those circumstances, how could the laboratory possibly help you artificially conceive a child free of charge and without conditions?

One or two coincidences could be called chance. But when there were too many coincidences, chance became inevitability.

"Get the hell off me!"

Just as Cruze sank into thought, a furious roar suddenly came from inside Noer's machine.

Bang!

With a violent crash and the tremor of a foot hitting the ground, the MS that had completely suppressed Noer was suddenly sent "flying" into the air before staggering backward.

"Hm?"

"What?"

"How is that possible?"

Everyone present stared in shock at the two MSes slowly rising to their feet.

"Was the output limit removed?" Diakka asked as he looked at the MS that had been knocked back dozens of meters.

It was no wonder he asked. Unless a training MS had its output fully unlocked, it was nearly impossible to "send flying" another MS of the same type.

"Probably not. Look, the other MS hasn't suffered serious damage. Based on what just happened, if the output restriction had really been lifted, the pilot inside would never have been able to stand back up." Nicol Amarfie looked toward the cockpit of the MS that had been sent flying.

Their understanding of MSes far surpassed that of ordinary trainees.

An MS cockpit had strong protection, but that did not mean it could negate the force of external impacts.

If that had truly been a full-power strike from a training MS, even if the cockpit itself had remained intact, the pilot inside would have been knocked unconscious by the impact.

After all, this was only a training machine. To ensure that trainees could effectively withstand combat and become accustomed to the impacts caused by being attacked, the school had not made the training MS cockpit especially resistant to collisions.

It was much like sweating more in training so you bled less in battle.

So if a training MS truly had its output restriction removed, its cockpit would have had a hard time withstanding a full-power blow from another training MS.

Whirr—

Amid the roar of machinery, the machine piloted by Noer slowly rose from the ground, facing the MS ahead.

"Lock onto both MSes and initiate shutdown immediately!"

"What? You can't lock onto training MS C-147E36?!"

"Are you all useless? Do you know what's happening here? Fuck your entire family for eighteen generations..."

The MS Training Instructor below was so anxious that he began cursing. Those two clearly had no intention of stopping. If they kept fighting, then as the instructor responsible for this MS training session, he would at best be expelled from military service.

At worst, he would be court-martialed!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Just as the instructor was about to say something, the trainee vital-sign monitoring system below suddenly sounded a piercing alarm.

"Noel Cassia! Stop the MS immediately!"

"Hey! Can you hear me? Emergency stop the MS at once! You can't continue!"

Seeing that the monitoring system had almost entirely turned red, the MS Training Instructor quickly opened a comm channel and shouted at Noer. Those readings had already exceeded the limit and were even beginning to threaten the trainee's life.

"Pant... pant..."

Yet the only response was harsh, rapid breathing.

"Fuck! Control room! Control room! Stop the MS already! Are you all useless? I'll have you dragged before a military court!"

When Noer did not answer, the MS Training Instructor could only turn to the control room again.

It was no wonder he was so anxious. According to Noer's medical readings, he discovered in horror that the speed of blood flow in Noer's body had increased by over fifty percent, while his blood pressure had already exceeded safe levels.

If this continued, then in less than three minutes, Noer would suffer damage to his heart, lungs, and brain due to excessive blood flow and rapidly rising blood pressure. In severe cases, he could even die suddenly on the spot.

Unlike the frantic MS Training Instructor, Cruze watched Noer's vital signs with great interest.

As Cruze watched the readings suddenly surge past their limits, he muttered in surprise, "These numbers..."

If these readings were real, then Noer was currently...

Thinking of this, Cruze could not help turning his gaze toward the MS piloted by Noer.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

While everyone had different thoughts racing through their minds, the intruding MS in the distance suddenly moved. It lifted a leg, took a stride, and charged toward Noer at high speed.

"Move!"

"No, that's the output level for combat training!"

Athrun and the others' pupils constricted as they watched the suddenly accelerating MS. This was not a speed or thrust level possible in MS piloting training. Judging by that speed, it was clearly operating at combat-training output.

If piloting training operated at thirty percent, then combat training operated at seventy percent.

The two were not even on the same level.

"Noel Cassia! Get out of the way!"

The MS Training Instructor also noticed the abnormality in the other MS at once and hurriedly opened the MS comm channel to warn him.

Any votes...

I wanted to work some original plot into it, but it never felt like it fit. I kept revising it until my head started to hurt.