[Gundam Nova]

 

February 16th, 194 I.C.J. The Stellar, Gaming lounge, 1:31 P.M. 

 

“Nope, too boring. Not that one either…too grindy, hmm that one too old, and that one is just straight up gambling.” walking past the various arcades, there really nothing that catches my eye.

 

Today I came here with Yohai and Haro, just the three of us, Mama is talking to the Ottoman so she can't watch me, but this place is pretty safe, There are tons of cameras, guards staying at every corner, and if someone try something, yelling for help is always an option, after all the people who stay on this ship is the rich one, or the crew.

 

There is no in-between. That is why, they know to stay out of each other toes, including me too. But man there really is not much to do…There are a lot of games but I tried them all already, not much interesting stuff…Hm…Oh! I have an Idea!

 

Quickly rushing to the place, I found myself in front of the VR pod, That's right, Mobile suit simulations! The last time I tried was pretty boring because everything felt too slow…but this time won’t be like that.

 

Quickly getting inside, I lock the pod and look around, cable…not that one…no, that one for USB 2.0…Why do they use such an old model anyway? Hm…Found it! 

 

“Haro, Do you have a spare USB 4 port?” I ask him as I put him down beside me, Haro quickly opens up his arm and shows me the port. Well, good thing I always have some spare huh?

 

I plug it up with Hara’s own USB connector and his eyes flash bright green. I waited a bit for him to process the information, it took around 5 minutes of waiting but he finally finished.

 

“Processing complete! Ready to modify!” He said out, projecting me a keyboard…Wow…Didn’t know he could do that? Let's try pressing the key…Does it actually work?! 

 

Ah…So he scans my finger movement and matches it with the keyboard…so that when I press S it actually writes S, He really evolves beyond my expectation…

 

“Yohai, get into Haro and Help me a bit.” 

 

“O…K!” With a quick ok, she transferred herself from my smartwatch to Haro and I saw her moving over the keyboard. 

 

“Haro, open the game file for me, I’m looking for game speed in general. But anything that could increase the speed is welcome too.” With just a second, the screen changed, and I saw countless files being opened and closed.

 

“Haro, open up Hyperlink, Yohai, can you filter through the file for me?” Nodding at my word, I saw Yohai dive into the sea of files. Well, time to get to work too, I guess.

 

My hand moves on its own as I scan through every file that Yohai throws out for me, looking over the game file, changing necessary things, and sifting through the ones that make the game easy. Until I found some interesting files.

 

“Game mode? Easy…Medium, hard, and Realistic?” Oh, so they lock the game mode to Easy? Well, let's just change it! 

 

After working for around an hour or so I finally finish! The new and harder Simulation! I wonder how hard it will be. With all the added speed, and change the game mode to realistic and all…

 

“Thank you for the hard work, you two. It's time to test our fruit of labor!” I said thank you to my two hard-working assistants, Haro just repeated after me but Yohai…She staring at the screen.

 

“What’s wrong? Do you want to try it?” I ask her, and she just continues staring, until she turns to look at me and nods with excitement. Well, well, well. As the saying, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree huh? “So you interested in a Mobile suit too. Sure, I will get in first, so you come in after me ok?”

 

I put on the VR set, select the mobile suit, and jump right in. “You can come now, Yohai-Urg?!”

 

A sudden flash blinded me, I quickly closed my eyes in response, it was so bright that it almost hurt but it was gone the next second. Squinting my eyes a bit, I slowly open them…only to see a small version of myself, looking over me curiously.

 

“Ma…Ma? Weird…?” Yohai asked me, tilting her cute little head. 

 

“This is Avatar, dear. It's just temporary, once we get out of here, I will change back to normal.” I  explain to her quickly. “Well, for now, let’s focus on what's in front of us,” I said, focusing on the arriving mobile suit.

 

Let’s see what my work has done to these things-

 

[Game Over]

 

Eh? That was fast. There was a replay? Let’s see…from behind? I got shot by a beam rifle from behind, through the chest area where the cockpit is…hoh? 

 

Well, now this is a nice challenge. 

 

“Ma..ma, lose?”

 

“That’s right, Yohai. I lost, it seems our modification works after all. Let’s try again.” After all, Mama raises no quitter! 

 

My surroundings change again after I press the retry, This time I quickly get away from my spawn, and look over the many screens, there is no back camera. So I need to predict whether or not they are behind me.

 

Right, there are many more screens than I thought, info on the current suit, Energy consumption rate, Fuel, and even how many E-packs I have left, or the Energy store in Beam Saber. Now this feels realistic! 

 

Where is the enemy? I want to test how they will respond to my movement. 

 

After searching around for a few minutes, I came across a lone Unit, the model was…Granbull? An armor unit, one of Folkard’s prize works. It was heavy armor, mostly used on land battle, equipped with a Heavy Bazooka that could peirce normal mobile suit armor with ease, Beam Javelin, and Arm Gatling. 

 

It seems the detection range was short too, I’m standing behind it and the distance between us is around 3 kilometers and it still not turning around.

 

Let’s see what I have, I click random so I don’t know what kind of suit I have. 

 

Heavy Beam Rifle, 1 beam saber, 2 Heated Dagger, and 60mm Vulcan? That's not a lot, Is it a close combat specialization? Let’s see the model is…Arandroger? What is this model? Well, as long it works.

 

I quickly selected the Heavy Beam Rifle…and it was quite massive, almost as big as this Mobile Suit’s arm. My screen changed, and several tabs popped out, Oho?… Beam capacity control, range calculator, Aim assist, and the lock on. 

 

Giving them each a quick glance, I focus on the Lock on option, The target is standing still, looking over the surface. With some adjusting on my part and the machine's assistance, I put the lock on my target, and with my stable breathing, my eyes focused only on the target. I shoot.

 

The beam hums from my ear, and I watch as my beam rifle heats up, generating heat as it shoots out the intense heat beam, but in that split second, I see it. 

 

The slight movement from the target, but before I could actually see anything the beam exploded the surrounding area, leaving dust that blocked my vision. I miss, surely, that was my intuition telling me. 

 

The beam took too long to charge and that mobile suit moved away in time. I quickly drop the Heavy Beam Rifle and change into my Heated Daggers. Foot pushed through the booster pedal, rushing straight to the smoke, and just like I thought, 2 rockets came out of the smoke, speeding to where I had been just a moment ago, I got out just in time huh? Thankful the smoke was cleared up by the wind generated from the explosion, and I saw the Granbull aiming its hand out at me, and when the hand was lower, it revealed the hidden chamber for the Gatling. 

 

“So cool…Hey, Yohai, do you think you could record this for me?” I ask Yohai, who has been watching me silently from the sideline. She nods to me, and I thank her.

 

“Alright…Show me what you got.” The battle began, Several bullets shot out, it was so fast, several of them hit me, and from the screen, it was on my right leg joint too, I quickly rolled away and managed to dodge them, only to see a flying rocket coming straight to my cockpit, using the backpack Booster, I jump away in time, and using the dust generated from the explosion, I use it to cover myself and use the little bit of time to check over everything.

 

The right leg joint is damaged but not served and the left arm is slightly damaged from the roll but otherwise, I’m fine. 

 

Suddenly, I heard the ground rumbling, so he came after me…good. 

 

I switched out the 2 heated daggers for the Beam Saber, its range would serve me well. I wait and wait. Listen to the sound of the mobile suit step, the feeling of the ground trembling, and finally…the monstrous silhouette appears on my left.

 

I push the Booster to the limit and enable Beam saber energy to the maximum to extend its range, I emerge from the dust, watching as Granbull looks at me, he already dropped his Heavy Bazooka, but his hand already has the Beam javelin in hand. 

 

He used it and managed to counter my sneak attack, but that was already within my expectations, I quickly used the Vulcan gun to aim at his head, hoping to destroy his Camera but he blocked it with his hand, and as expected just 60mm isn’t going to destroy that armor.

 

I quickly take out one of my heated daggers and stab it into Granbull's arm, melting the plate of armor right through it and destroying it alongside my dagger. He retreats quickly but I won’t let him.

 

Closing in on the Mobile suit without a thought, I fire the Vulcan on the head and manage to destroy the head’s camera, and finally, I stab my Beam saber through the cockpit.

 

I heard the sound of the electric crackling, and turned off the beam saber, moving away from the Granbull, and watched as it fell down to the ground, and exploded.

“Hu….ha…that…was refreshing. How was it, Yohai? How did the recording come out?” I ask her, but Yohai is staring at the destroyed mobile suit in silence. “What’s wrong?”

“...Ma…ma…Why…Fight?” She asks me, her eyes…I feel like there are tears in them.

 

“Yohai, I’m going to be honey with you. I don’t really know. Most of the time, it was a petty squabble between two parties, which led to much more conflict than originally worth, sometimes it was just a misunderstanding.” 

 

I pause the game and settle down on the seat, my hand moving toward Hara, and slowly patting his head. 

 

“Then…Why?” 

 

“I don’t know, The human emotion is a strange thing, y’know? It affects us differently, even though we know that fighting is a bad thing, we still do it. Emotion stirs us, drives us, and makes us human, those who don’t have emotion…they really aren’t a human, just a doll.”

 

“Then…am…I a doll?” She asks, and I know my answer right away.

 

“No, you’re not a doll. Do you want to know why?” She nods, and I smile at her. “Because…I believe in you. My creation, my baby. Right now, you may think of yourself as a doll, but surely, it will come one day when you finally understand yourself. I created you, because of my dream and my selfish wish, even though people think of you as a dangerous thing, I still won’t destroy you, I may stop you but I won’t ever destroy you. Because, Yohai. You have your own free will, and one day, you will become a real person.”

 

Yohai became silent, closing her eyes as she thought through what I said, I just sat there and waited for her. I don’t know how long has passed but what I know is someone actually came knocking on the pod. But I sent them away, saying it was in use.

 

But eventually, Yohai spoke up. “You…really believe…in me?” Eh? somehow…I feel like she gradually uses more words in a sentence. But that is not the point.

 

“Yeah, I believe in you.” 

 

“Understood…going to sleep mode.”

 

“W-wait, what?!’ Too late…Yohai transferred herself back into my smartwatch and no matter what I do she isn’t waking up…damn…nothing I can do I guess…If she willingly goes into sleep mode then she must know what she doing.

 

Ha…I just hope it is not something absurd…